TF01 67

Waking up in the morning with a man in your arms was… a bit of a strange feeling.

Shi Yi was actually jolted awake by the intense numbness in his arm. He’d tried to turn over but realized he couldn’t move. The moment he shifted his forearm, a wave of cold sweat broke out all over him.

“Fuck!”

One small movement and the whole body followed.

He hadn’t expected that moving just one arm would set off a chain reaction of pain across his entire body. So, in the end, what woke Ying Ming was that “fuck” right in his ear.

The first thing Ying Ming did when he opened his eyes was instinctively squint them shut again. He glanced to the side, and was immediately met with a contorted grimace.

“First thing in the morning and you’re working on facial expressions?” He hadn’t exactly expected to wake up to anything picturesque, but did the guy have to be making such a twisted face?

“Work your damn face,” Shi Yi snapped, “My arm went numb under your head. Shit…”

Struggling to deal with the tingling that made his scalp prickle, Shi Yi carefully raised the affected arm with his good one. Ying Ming shifted to the side, watching him suck in sharp breaths as he slowly stretched it out.

Ying Ming couldn’t help curling his lips into a smirk. He shifted up against the headboard. “No wonder the pillow felt so hard last night.”

Too busy trying to shake off the numbness, Shi Yi had no energy to argue. He just shot him a glare and growled, “Ungrateful bastard.”

After that, Ying Ming fished out a cigarette from his pants on the floor, lit it, and stuck it between his lips. Then he reached over, took Shi Yi’s arm, and started massaging it, slowly easing the tension out.

No formal training. Just mimicking what he’d seen.

The heavy smell of smoke made Shi Yi frown slightly. Every press of Ying Ming’s fingers made his scalp tighten, and when the man accidentally hit the sorest spot in his arm, Shi Yi let out a low grunt before he could stop himself.

It caught him off guard, and the sound came out almost like one of those legendary gasps from overstimulation.

Ying Ming’s left brow arched high. He turned to glance at Shi Yi, his face full of mischief, and deliberately pressed on that same spot twice more.

“Ugh!”

Even if Shi Yi was trying to hold back, he still couldn’t help it. His voice slipped out through gritted teeth. Before Ying Ming could go for a fourth time, Shi Yi’s patience snapped. He exploded in a string of curses.

“You son of a bitch… fuck! Ying Ming! Are you fucking done or not?!”

Ying Ming made no effort to hide the amusement on his face. Watching Shi Yi’s furious reaction, he lazily tossed out a line of teasing, “Those sounds you’re making now are way better than the ones from last night.”

Shi Yi’s pride had been on full display the night before. Even at the most heated moments, the noises he made were minimal, and even those few had been muffled and restrained, leaving the impression that he was enduring more pain than pleasure.

If it hadn’t been for the fleeting dazed look that crossed his face during moments of arousal, Ying Ming would’ve started doubting whether his technique had degraded that badly.

That comment earned him a response. Shi Yi turned, yanked the cigarette from his mouth, and without caring whether his arm still hurt, shoved Ying Ming down and bit his lip hard. Then he slowly kissed him, deep and unhurried, taking his time until Ying Ming’s lips were visibly swollen. Only then did Shi Yi lift his head, satisfied. “Of course. When it comes to moaning, your voice definitely sounds better.”

He leaned half his body onto Ying Ming, and with his one hand, lazily traced circles on the man’s chest.

Compared to the mood the last time they woke up like this, today was noticeably more relaxed.

Ying Ming let him draw circle after circle, triangle after triangle, square after square, until there was nothing left to draw. Then he gave a long stretch and said lazily, “Come on, Young Master Shi. It’s getting late.”

They had stumbled back to Shi Yi’s place yesterday and messed around until well past four in the morning. Neither of them had a clear memory of exactly how they fell asleep.

Shi Yi glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table and slowly sat up. Beneath the covers, both he and Ying Ming were naked. When the blanket slipped down to his waist, the view from Ying Ming’s side was… quite a sight.

Still, this was the first time Shi Yi had woken up so bare. When he first stirred, the numbness in his arm had overshadowed everything else, but now, with that pain subsiding, he was finally starting to feel the sore, stinging ache below the waist.

Ying Ming got out of bed from the other side, casually pulling on a pair of pants. He couldn’t be bothered with a shirt, so he just stayed bare-chested. As he stepped out of the bedroom, he glanced back at Shi Yi. “So, want me to help you with your shower?”

Shi Yi looked at him. “What part are you planning to help with?”

“That depends on what you want to wash first.”

Shi Yi shut that crude joke down with a glare. Ying Ming scratched his head and disappeared through the bedroom door, leaving Shi Yi space to struggle his way into the bathroom. For someone like Shi Yi, whose pride was worth more than his life, he would never let anyone see him in such a sorry state, not even if it killed him.

Ying Ming knew that perfectly well.

Last night had dragged on so late, and both of them had been so out of it, he hadn’t even gotten a good look at Shi Yi’s place. Now that he wandered through each room, he frowned and shook his head. He wasn’t sure how to evaluate this hotel-style apartment, clearly put together like a model unit.

Still, the base tones matched Shi Yi’s whole vibe.

Black, white, and gray. Sleek and imposing, but inevitably a little soulless. The more delicate design touches clearly weren’t his doing.

Ying Ming walked from the living room into the kitchen and opened the fridge, only to be met with a whole lot of nothing. He let out a small sigh of resignation.

So when Shi Yi finally stepped out of the bathroom, freshly showered and feeling a little more human, toweling off his hair, what he saw was Ying Ming standing by the counter, boiling water on one side and holding a cup of freshly made coffee on the other.

“Well, look at you. Didn’t know you could make coffee.”

That machine had come with the apartment when he first moved in, but he’d never used it once.

For Shi Yi, coffee was just something to help him stay awake or look cool. As far as waking him up went, a cigarette worked better than caffeine. As for looking cool, there was no need to do that at home. So he’d bought all this stuff just in case, only to realize afterward that it was completely useless.

Ying Ming casually grabbed another cup, poured one for Shi Yi, and handed it over. “Your fridge is cleaner than a refugee’s pantry. Back when I was broke, even I could manage a couple bottles of beer. But this thing? This is a proper vacuum seal.”

It looked like it had just come straight from the showroom.

Shi Yi stepped forward and took the cup. He gave it a sniff, nodded approvingly, and took a sip.

In response to Ying Ming’s complaint, he pulled out a chair, sat down, and kept toweling off his hair. “To tell you the truth, last night was the first time in nearly a month I actually slept in my own bed. I haven’t even been home. You think I had time to worry about what’s in the fridge?”

Most likely the cleaning lady had tossed whatever spoiled groceries were left. These past few weeks, he’d been either crashing at the office or out all night. The fridge hadn’t crossed his mind at all.

Shi Yi said it casually, just an offhand comment. Across from him, Ying Ming sipped his coffee and narrowed his eyes slightly. He had a pretty good idea why Shi Yi hadn’t been home much lately.

By the time he finished the cup, Shi Yi seemed fully awake at last. He stood up and opened the fridge himself to take a look. Sure enough, Ying Ming hadn’t been exaggerating when he said it was completely empty.

Shi Yi turned around and looked at him. “So what now? I don’t have a single grain of rice in this place.”

“Let’s eat out. Or we could go to mine.”

“You mean downstairs from your place?”

He deliberately emphasized the word “downstairs,” and as he spoke, his gaze dropped to Ying Ming’s waistband. Ying Ming raised an eyebrow. At this point, he was completely numb to Shi Yi’s brand of verbal provocation.

Honestly, given what he’d done to Shi Yi the night before, he’d expected the man to be dragging his feet this morning. But no, he looked perfectly alert. Ying Ming thought back to last night, the way they’d gone at it in bed like lunatics until they were both too exhausted to move. He remembered Shi Yi clinging to him, repeating again and again into his ear, “Ying Ming, I like you. I fucking like you.” Maybe it was just heat-of-the-moment pillow talk, but even now, remembering it made Ying Ming’s expression unconsciously soften.

Shi Yi caught that subtle shift across the table. He raised an eyebrow, then casually reached for the chain hanging around Ying Ming’s neck.

The two military tags swayed against his chest, bright and unmistakably visible.

Ying Ming snapped back to attention and saw Shi Yi smiling as he held the military tags. That reminded him of something he had meant to ask. “If you had a pair made, why’d you give me both?”

The two tags were engraved on both sides and had exactly the same content.

Shi Yi undid the clasp, removed one, and finally let go. Holding the tag in his hand, he gave a faint smile. “I knew if I gave you two, you’d wear them both. I wanted the one you’d worn.”

In truth, what he feared more was that Ying Ming wouldn’t wear it at all.

He stared at the tag in his hand, turning it over and over. That glaring 2401 was like a silent incantation, some private confession of love. There was something almost ineffable about it.

This was something only the two of them could understand.

Military tags like these had originally been standard issue for American soldiers. Commonly known as dog tags, they were meant to identify the body in the event of death on the battlefield. Shi Yi had picked this design to engrave on not for sentimentality, but out of a kind of madness. If one day, the only way he and Ying Ming could be identified was through these tags, then at the very least, the words on them were something only the other would understand.

Ying Ming watched Shi Yi staring at the military tag with a half-smile. After a long pause, he looked up. “How about I just move in with you?”

“What, looking to be my kept man?” Ying Ming raised an eyebrow, a little surprised that Shi Yi would suggest it himself.

Shi Yi nodded. “Well, who else knows how to feed me down there like you do?”

Somehow, the topic had twisted itself in a strange direction again. Ying Ming frowned and fell silent for a moment. He didn’t agree right away, but he didn’t refuse either. The air between them stayed quiet, but not tense. Only when the water finished boiling and the kettle let out a soft chime did he glance at Shi Yi and say, “My place is fine for a short stay. Long-term’s another story. You sure about this?”

Shi Yi answered by stepping forward, placing one hand against the wall behind Ying Ming, and pressing a light kiss to his lips. No tricks, no teasing, just a simple press of lips against lips.

It was the kind of chaste, almost childlike kiss that had no place between two men their age.

But Shi Yi didn’t care. The corners of his mouth even curved up slightly in a faint smile. His eyes stayed open, and in his pupils, Ying Ming could see his own reflection, lit with something soft, and unusually warm.

He tilted his head back slightly. Shi Yi’s breath tickled his face. With a wicked look in his eyes, Ying Ming opened his mouth and flicked his tongue against Shi Yi’s teeth. The moment Shi Yi hooked a hand around the back of his neck, Ying Ming wrapped an arm around his shoulder and deepened the kiss.

They both knew what this was a high-stakes gamble.

Whether they would win, lose, or get cleaned out by the dealer in the end, neither of them could say.

But if there was no other path left to take, then this seemed to be their only choice.

People often ask, when faced with a decision: Will I regret this someday?

Ying Ming couldn’t answer that now.

He only knew that, compared to everything he and Shi Yi had gone through in these past days, to merely feel regret would probably already count as a kind of happiness.

-END OF PART 1-