Chapter 39: IF YOU LIKE IT SO MUCH YOU ARE WELCOME TO TOUCH IT

At some point between then and now Liuxian had apparently made a decision about where he was sleeping and had made it without consulting anyone.

He was also, Guiying noted, taking up approximately seventy percent of the bed.

Guiying looked at his own sliver of mattress.

Then at the large, warm, deeply inconvenient person occupying the rest of it.

Then he reached out and poked Liuxian in the chest.

Nothing happened.

He poked him again, harder.

Liuxian’s brow furrowed slightly. He did not wake up.

Guiying stared at him.

"Liu Liuxian," he said.

A sound came from Liuxian that was not quite a word.

"You are in my bed," Guiying said.

Another sound. Still not a word.

Guiying looked at the ceiling, looked at the chest in front of him, and made a decision. He was too comfortable and too warm and his feet still ached and it was too early in the morning for a confrontation about bed boundaries.

He put his head back down.

Liuxian’s arm, apparently operating on its own initiative entirely independent of its owner’s consciousness, found its way around him.

Guiying looked at the wall.

"This," he said, to nobody in particular, "is becoming a habit."

Liuxian slept on, entirely unbothered, the pillow crease still on his cheek and his mouth still slightly open, looking nothing like the man who had delivered the most devastating warning Guiying had ever witnessed on a balcony less than twelve hours ago.

Guiying assessed the situation.

There was not enough space on his side of the bed. That was the objective reality of the situation. Liuxian was a large person who took up a large amount of space and had apparently decided in his sleep that the middle of the bed was also his jurisdiction.

Guiying considered his options.

He could wake him up and ask him to move.

He could get out of bed entirely and sleep somewhere else.

Or.

He hooked his leg over Liuxian’s, shifted his weight, and scooted forward until he had reclaimed a reasonable portion of the mattress and redistributed the warmth situation to something more equitable. He pulled the blanket back up, tucked it around himself, and settled.

Much better.

Liuxian’s arm tightened slightly around him in his sleep, a purely automatic response, and his breathing remained exactly as steady as it had been before.

Guiying lay in the reclaimed space with his leg over Liuxian and his face approximately four inches from that very broad chest and stared at it for a moment.

Then he closed his eyes.

He was going to address the bed boundary situation.

Definitely later.

He woke up to something warm and wet on his neck.

He was still half asleep when he swatted at it, eyes not fully open, brain not fully online.

Then he registered what it was.

His eyes opened completely.

"Why," he said, "are you in my bed?"

Liuxian said nothing. The warm and wet situation on his neck continued.

"You have your own bed," Guiying said, louder. "Your own room. With your own bed in it. That you could be sleeping in right now instead of—" he gestured at the general situation, "this."

He was building momentum. He had several more points to make about personal space and bed boundaries and the fundamental concept of separate sleeping arrangements and he was going to make all of them.

He did not notice, in the middle of making them, that Liuxian had shifted.

He did not notice when the arm around him moved.

He did not notice the gradual, unhurried repositioning that was happening with the calm efficiency of someone who had decided on an outcome and was working toward it without drawing attention to the process.

He was still talking about the seventy percent bed occupation situation when he felt it.

A bite. Clear and deliberate, on his thigh.

He stopped talking.

He looked down.

He looked at Liuxian.

Liuxian looked up at him from his current position, which was a position that Guiying had not authorized and could not entirely explain the logistics of, with the warm, unhurried expression of a man who was exactly where he had intended to be.

"Honey," Liuxian said pleasantly. "Are you not happy sleeping with your husband?"

Guiying opened his mouth.

"You were all over me," Liuxian continued, before he could speak. "Buried your face right here." He indicated his chest with complete composure. "If you like it so much you are welcome to touch it." The smile that appeared was the particular kind that gave Guiying absolutely no ammunition. "That is why I work out."

Guiying stared at him.

He closed his mouth.

He opened it again.

Nothing came out. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Liuxian waited, patient and entirely unbothered, still in that position, still wearing that expression, giving Guiying all the time in the world to formulate a response.

Guiying looked at the ceiling.

He had absolutely nothing.

Guiying’s face was already red when he pushed Liuxian off him, both hands flat against his chest, putting distance between them with the focused energy of someone recovering their dignity.

Liuxian went with the push without resistance, which was somehow worse, and then in the same fluid motion picked Guiying up and repositioned him entirely, settling him onto his lap facing forward, one leg on each side, eye to eye, chest to chest, close enough that there was absolutely nothing ambiguous about the situation or about what was making itself known against Guiying’s thigh.

Guiying looked at him.

His face was fully, completely, unambiguously red.

He could feel everything.

He took a breath and decided, with great internal effort, that he was going to ignore all of it. He was going to ignore the warmth and the closeness and the thing poking him and the fact that Liuxian was looking at him with that expression, and he was going to be a reasonable adult about this.

"Guiying," Liuxian said, his voice dropping to that low, unhurried register that did unfair things to the air. "Kiss me. It is time for my morning kiss."