Ying Qiuman’s fingertips clenched and loosened against the side of the phone. Remembering Xu Shuyuan’s promise that he could refuse, he finally stepped over the psychological barrier in his heart and voiced his first refusal.
“No,” he said. Afraid the other man would press further, he added, “Don’t buy that kind of thing.”
“Buy it,” Xu Shuyuan replied lightly, his tone rising at the end in a soft arc, almost as if he were acting spoiled. “A white one, okay?”
The sweat in Ying Qiuman’s hand made it almost impossible to hold the phone anymore. He had already crossed his inner barrier and said no, yet Xu Shuyuan wouldn’t accept it. Liar.
So when he hung up, he felt no guilt at all.
The redness on his ears not only didn’t fade, it grew even more obvious, making Ying Yelin look at him in confusion and ask, “What’s wrong?”
Ying Qiuman didn’t dare meet her eyes and muttered, “Nothing,” then packed up his things and returned to his workstation.
His thoughts were disturbed and his mood turned restless and uneasy, so he had no choice but to ask his senior brothers for more work and throw all his attention into it.
He was already highly efficient when focused, and now, to leave himself no time to overthink, he finished all the assigned work in one afternoon and even helped his senior brothers push the progress forward.
By the time he got off work the next afternoon, they had actually moved the project ahead by an entire day.
As quitting time approached, Xu Shuyuan hadn’t come to find him since noon the day before, and he had completely calmed down. By now, he even deliberately wanted to go home later.
But when he looked up at his supervising senior, the senior gave him a pained smile, clasped his hands together, and bowed slightly. “Junior brother, stop overworking. Mr. Li gave us plenty of time.”
“……”
Ying Qiuman lowered his head again. The other colleagues around him also started complaining, saying that if they kept rushing like this, they’d even dream of eating their meals with lines of code.
In the end, by everyone’s unanimous agreement, the newly formed R&D team strangely all left work on time that day.
Ying Qiuman slowly packed up his things. Work ended at six, the commute was ten minutes, yet he still dawdled until seven before arriving home.
Mainly it was because he stopped by a convenience store on the way and hesitated for a long time before finally buying something to bring back he was worried Xu Shuyuan hadn’t brought it.
When he reached the door, he had barely even turned the key before it opened. It seemed someone had been waiting for him at the entrance.
“Did you miss me?”
Before he even had time to close the door, he was pulled into a tight embrace.
Ying Qiuman pressed one hand against Xu Shuyuan’s shoulder and used the other to reach back and shut the door firmly. After dodging left and right for a while, he was held in place and kissed deeply at the back of his head for quite some time.
“Why are you avoiding me?” Xu Shuyuan pouted as he looked at him. Ying Qiuman took a few breaths, the tip of his nose filled entirely with the scent of that perfume.
Xu Shuyuan must have dressed up today. He was dressed especially formally, but standing tall and long-legged in this little house, he somehow looked slightly out of place.
Ying Qiuman hadn’t thought the house was shabby before, but seeing it now, it really did feel like they didn’t belong to the same world.
Ying Qiuman didn’t answer Xu Shuyuan’s question. Did he really not know why he was avoiding him?
But if the other man insisted, Ying Qiuman actually couldn’t do anything about ithe might just close his eyes the whole time and treat himself like a doll being handled.
Getting no response, Xu Shuyuan leaned in even closer. Before they even reached the bedroom door, he had already stripped half of Ying Qiuman’s clothes off and tossed both his backpack and phone outside.
Ying Qiuman didn’t know what was waiting for him in the bedroom, so he could only bury his face against Xu Shuyuan’s neck and shoulder. But after the door closed, Xu Shuyuan didn’t keep teasing him. Instead, he sat down on a small sofa at the side with him in his arms, pinching his chin and forcing him to look up.
Xu Shuyuan’s face carried an appraising smile. Ying Qiuman couldn’t avoid it, and in the end he lowered his eyes and stared at the man’s chin.
“Who’s staying in that bedroom over there?” Xu Shuyuan suddenly asked after studying him for a while.
It had been empty last time he came, but this time the bed had clearly been made up, as if someone was living there. After thinking it over, Xu Shuyuan decided it didn’t look like Ying Qiuman was setting up a “dry-wet separation” arrangement either.
Hearing this, Ying Qiuman, drawing on his previous experience, could already sense a hint of jealousy in it. Just as he was about to explain, for some reason his mind went blank and he turned his face away, refusing to speak.
From his repeated observations, Xu Shuyuan concluded that this must mean Ying Qiuman was angry. Although it was only a very small movement, for Ying Qiuman it probably already counted as quite angry.
Xu Shuyuan was a little baffled. He had come in jealous, so how had he ended up being the one to offend the other person?
“Sorry, I was wrong.”
When in doubt, apologize first at least that way there would always be a way to climb back down.
Ying Qiuman froze at his words and turned his face to look at him, as if confused, or perhaps simply caught off guard by Xu Shuyuan’s rapid apology, not sure how to respond.
“That thing,” he bit his lip and spoke rather awkwardly, “I don’t need it.”
His tone was quite firm, as if hoping Xu Shuyuan would remember what he had promised earlier.
“Hm? What thing?” Xu Shuyuan pretended not to understand and tilted his head to look into his eyes.
At this point Ying Qiuman really should have gotten angry. He stood up without another word, but his waist was firmly held, and one of his wrists was caught and slowly guided toward the other man’s pocket.
Ying Qiuman’s neck was already turning red. He was about to give up on himself entirely and just play blind, when his fingertips suddenly touched something hard inside the pocket.
His back stiffened. He immediately knew it wasn’t something worn on the body. As for what else it could be, his limited knowledge couldn’t work it out, and he instinctively felt a bit resistant.
Seeing his reaction, Xu Shuyuan found it more and more amusing. In the end, after teasing him until he was completely flushed red even feeling a little like he’d gone too far he held Ying Qiuman’s fingers and drew the object out of the pocket.
It was a phone.
“Isn’t white nice?” Xu Shuyuan teased again. Once Ying Qiuman saw what it was, he both sighed in relief and felt his anger rise. He looked at Xu Shuyuan with deep resentment.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, forgive me, I won’t dare again.” After handing the phone to Ying Qiuman, Xu Shuyuan doubled down, burying his face in Ying Qiuman’s chest and rubbing against his collarbone through the fabric of his clothes.
Do something bad first, then act pitiful afterward he knew Ying Qiuman’s soft-hearted nature perfectly, and he’d wear him down until he had no temper left, and next time it would be the same routine all over again.
Annoying!
Ying Qiuman cursed inwardly. The redness on his neck and ears gradually faded as he let Xu Shuyuan keep rubbing against him.
“Just tell me directly next time.”
He had already been planning to change phones. Last time, he’d thought Ying Kangcheng had only installed a tracking device, but not long after, Ying Kangcheng had personally come to add him as a contact again. It was hard not to think the man had only been toying with him before.
But since he hadn’t yet figured out the other party’s intentions, and he himself had no confidential matters anyway, he had simply kept putting it off like this.
Xu Shuyuan’s nose brushed against the side of his neck. He sniffed at the gland and let out a muffled “mm.”
The movement was too familiar. Ying Qiuman tilted his head away slightly, exposing his neck more fully to Xu Shuyuan.
Seeing this, Xu Shuyuan let out a soft laugh. He shifted from using his nose to lightly baring his sharp teeth, continuing to “inspect” the gland, but still did not bite down.
Seeing that the other man was in no hurry, Ying Qiuman simply settled into a more comfortable position and leaned in. His movements were gentle. In the past he had thought Xu Shuyuan wouldn’t notice, now he felt that even if he was noticed, it didn’t matterXu Shuyuan would even play along with him.
But just as he was waiting for the pain of flesh being pierced and the rush of pheromones, the sharp teeth kept grazing him. The tension had already completely turned into a tingling itch, eventually becoming somewhat urgent.
He was about to lift his head to see what was going on when any movement was immediately pinned down.
Those sharp teeth moved up along the side of his neck, pausing briefly at his earlobe. Warm breath slipped into his ear, carrying a low, seductive voice, as if interrogating him: “You still haven’t told me who’s staying in that bedroom over there?”
At that moment, the old air conditioner let out a burst of air, and the temperature rose between the two of them. The tension in Ying Qiuman’s chest dissolved all at once, and he honestly explained: “It’s Ye Li.”
Although Xu Shuyuan had already guessed it wasn’t prepared for him, hearing the answer he still felt a brief flicker of disappointment. He kissed Ying Qiuman’s gland and ran his hands over him thoroughly before finally remembering the main point.
“I bought a cake.”
Ying Qiuman had already bought longevity noodles. Although he couldn’t cook, boiling noodles was still fine and if anything needed to be added, Xu Shuyuan could do it himself.
Ying Qiuman didn’t like cake. In his understanding, cake fell into the category of snacks, but also into the category of “higher-quality living.”
The cake Xu Shuyuan had bought wasn’t largesimple, but clearly refined. Ying Qiuman suddenly realized that what seemed valuable to him might just be a standard birthday item for Xu Shuyuan.
He recalled how others celebrated birthdays and, as Xu Shuyuan picked up a knife, asked, “Aren’t you going to light the candles?”
Light the candles, then when Xu Shuyuan closed his eyes to make a wish, he would take out his own giftnot very valuable, and not particularly thoughtful either. But it seemed the other man was planning to skip this step.
Xu Shuyuan paused. His blinking seemed to quicken slightly. He slowly turned his face away, looking at Ying Qiuman with a somewhat aggrieved expression.
“Let’s not light them, okay?”
After this birthday, he would be thirty-oneeight years, four months, and twenty-five days older than Ying Qiuman.
He had never had age anxiety, even when his family nagged him about it every day. But when he met someone who, by his own reckoning, was more than eight years younger, Xu Shuyuan had forced himself to meet him and the other party had turned out to be far less immature than he’d imagined.
On the contrary, his pheromones were drawn to Ying Qiuman, so after that susceptibility period he had unexpectedly taken out a calendar and counted for a long time, actually developing a bit of age anxiety.
“Oh.” Ying Qiuman didn’t know what he was thinking. He only felt that a birthday was something each person could celebrate however they wanted, and he had only asked out of curiosity.
Xu Shuyuan heard his voice but didn’t look away. His hands also stopped moving, and instead he pulled Ying Qiuman into his arms and began kissing him.
He should have long since gotten used to kissing Xu Shuyuan, but weren’t they just about to cut the cake a moment ago? Why was he suddenly kissing him?
And this kiss was not gentle at all, it was too aggressive, almost predatory. Ying Qiuman’s first thought was that he must have said something wrong. Could it be that even lighting candles had violated some taboo of Xu Shuyuan’s?
His thoughts kept circling, unable to find an answer, so he gave up and let Xu Shuyuan take over completely.
By the time he was kissed into fragmented rationality, his gaze blurred and hazy, his whole appearance a mess, Xu Shuyuan pulled back slightly and looked at him with obvious satisfaction.
“?”
He couldn’t understand what Xu Shuyuan was trying to do.
Ying Qiuman simply stopped thinking about it and lowered his eyes, refusing to look at him. But in the next second, Xu Shuyuan moved, took a bit of cream on his fingertip, and smeared it across his lips and cheek. Before he could react, it was all taken away again, licked off and kissed away.
His brain short-circuited for a moment. Looking at the cake now missing a piece, Xu Shuyuan reached out again. Ying Qiuman hurriedly grabbed his arm and said blankly, “Don’t waste it.”