GBROTAH CH73

Chapter 73: The Water Bed

The thin room card was picked up, feeling both light and heavy.

The large hand took it and clenched it tight, the hard edges digging painfully into the palm.

There was no smile on Shen Bianye’s face. Xie Yuanxing seemed to sense something, and the faint blush on his face slowly faded. His blinks slowed, and he became unconsciously nervous.

“What’s wrong?”

Shen Bianye didn’t know how to begin. The thin room card felt like it would break in his hand. “There’s something I’ve been hiding from you.”

“I…”

Xie Yuanxing didn’t interrupt or anxiously press for an answer. Instead, he quietly looked at Shen Bianye. With the black tear mole under his eye, his silence had a kind of world-weary, decadent languor.

If Shen Bianye was approaching death, Xie Yuanxing seemed like death itself.

A strong wave of reluctance surged in Shen Bianye’s heart, a desire to knead this person before him into his own bones and blood.

He gave a bitter smile and finally spoke, “My illness… it’s just that the frequent susceptible periods have stopped for now.”

“The doctor said the previous susceptible periods overdrafted my life, and I might still not live past thirty.”

It wasn’t the first time Xie Yuanxing had heard this, but hearing it from Shen Bianye’s lips, his heart still felt as if it were being squeezed. There was a shallow sense of suffocation, but mostly… a sense of calm acceptance.

He nodded and said softly, “I know.”

Shen Bianye looked at him, his brow slowly knitting together, his gaze filled with surprise. “When did you find out?”

Xie Yuanxing pursed his lips, his mood low. “The day you got hurt, I ran into Doctor Li at the hospital.”

No further explanation was needed. Shen Bianye understood everything.

No wonder from that moment on, Xie Yuanxing no longer rejected him, no longer gave him the cold shoulder.

He had thought it was because he got hurt for Xie Yuanxing, and Xie Yuanxing felt guilty and pained. But it was more than that.

What came before guilt and pain was cherishing.

Shen Bianye’s heart suddenly ached with a sour feeling. He spoke in a hoarse voice, “Baby, I’m sorry.”

Xie Yuanxing blinked, his eyes inexplicably turning red. “What’s wrong?”

“You tell me not to apologize, but why have you started apologizing all the time?”

Xie Yuanxing was suddenly pulled into Shen Bianye’s arms. The arms around his back were strong and powerful. The embrace was warm, so tight it was almost painful.

His eyelashes trembled. The first thing he felt, the hot dampness, was on the skin of his shoulder and neck.

“I’m sorry,” Shen Bianye’s low, hoarse voice sounded by his ear. Xie Yuanxing couldn’t see his face. He slowly raised his arms and hugged the tall figure back.

Shen Bianye closed his eyes, hiding the pain and bitterness in them. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“I can’t be with you forever.”

He said sorry three times, and Xie Yuanxing faintly sensed that each “sorry” was different.

But he didn’t press, nor did he voice the guess in his heart.

Instead, he revealed his own heart’s voice.

Xie Yuanxing’s face gently rubbed against Shen Bianye’s shoulder as he said softly, “It’s okay. I’ll be with you.”

“You live, I live. You die, I die.”

“As long as you choose me, I will never abandon you. Remember? This is a promise.”

He also hugged Shen Bianye tightly, like a gloomy mushroom rooting itself in decaying wood, its root system firmly bound to the other, to live and die together.

But Shen Bianye suddenly pushed him away. His large hands gripped Xie Yuanxing’s shoulders, and he stared intently at the person before him, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked almost savage, his eyes full of struggle.

He shook his head at Xie Yuanxing, slowly and firmly. “No, baby. What you said is not okay.”

“Baby, you have a long life ahead of you. I’ll only occupy a few years of it. You’ll meet many people in the future.”

Xie Yuanxing blinked, and a large teardrop rolled down his cheek, but his voice was still calm. “And then forget you and live a good life?”

A twisted look of unwillingness appeared on Shen Bianye’s face. His pheromones began to twist and spread uncontrollably, crazily surging towards Xie Yuanxing, wanting to mark him with his scent.

He couldn’t accept Xie Yuanxing forgetting him. Just thinking about the possibility was enough to nearly drown Shen Bianye’s heart in his own unwillingness.

He wanted Xie Yuanxing to live a good life, but he couldn’t be so magnanimous as to say hypocritical words like “forget me.”

He was not a magnanimous person. He was petty, selfish, and wished Xie Yuanxing could only see him.

He wanted to get married, so that in the future, every piece of Xie Yuanxing’s official records would mention him as a former spouse. He wanted everyone around Xie Yuanxing in the future to know of his existence as an ex-husband.

His name would follow like a shadow, entwined with the latter half of Xie Yuanxing’s life.

Just enduring this thought was incredibly difficult for Shen Bianye. How could he possibly allow Xie Yuanxing to forget him?

Shen Bianye gritted his teeth and said, word by word, “You can’t forget me, baby. Remember me, and then live a good life.”

Xie Yuanxing’s eyes burned and grew sore, tears falling uncontrollably. His lips trembled, and his expression was a little pitiful. “Shen Bianye.”

He called out softly, his voice almost a whisper.

“I’ve lost my parents, my friends, I have no home. Do I have to lose my lover too?”

“I have nothing left to lose.”

The black tear mole under Xie Yuanxing’s eye looked like an eye that was forever weeping. “I’m very fragile too. I can’t bear it.”

Shen Bianye looked at him, reaching out to touch the tear mole, but instead caught a falling tear.

Warm, scalding, it burned Shen Bianye’s fingers with an intense pain.

He thought, I really am the worst person in the world.

Shen Bianye gently pulled Xie Yuanxing back into his arms, like holding a fragile, beautiful glass bottle. Their chests pressed tightly together, heartbeats side by side, as if giving each other strength.

“Baby, do you remember during the winter break, the first time I bit you?”

“It was a very ordinary day. You cooked a very simple bowl of noodles, which I ended up eating.”

“Then I bit you. It was sweet, baby. So sweet. You were happy, baby.”

When Shen Bianye spoke of this, he no longer had the shock, anger, and unwillingness of that time. He wanted Xie Yuanxing to understand. “There was no me then, and nothing special happened.”

Xie Yuanxing suddenly spoke, interrupting him, “But there was X.”

He looked up from Shen Bianye’s embrace. “There will never be another person in this world who would wait for me after work on a snowy winter night, holding a hot roasted sweet potato.”

“His head was covered in snow, his hands were icy cold. I don’t know how long he waited, and he still had to say, ‘What a coincidence, what are you doing here?'”

Xie Yuanxing pursed his lips and smiled faintly. The tear mole shone, and the black teardrop seemed to be crying again. “I don’t think I ever told you what the sweet potato tasted like that night.”

“It was very sweet.”

“Fragrant and soft.”

He leaned up and gently kissed the corner of Shen Bianye’s lips. For the first time in a long while, he spoke to Shen Bianye in a pleading tone:

“Let’s neither of us abandon the other, okay?”

Shen Bianye looked at him, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and said “okay” in a hoarse voice.

He had thought Xie Yuanxing would be happy even if he were alone, because that one time, on a very ordinary day, he had tasted Xie Yuanxing’s happiness.

But Xie Yuanxing said it was because of X.

It was because of him.

This also made Shen Bianye suddenly understand why, during the days he had disappeared, Xie Yuanxing would cry in front of an ordinary bakery sign.

He had disappeared, and X had disappeared too. For Xie Yuanxing, everything had disappeared.

A love that wasn’t intense enough couldn’t move Xie Yuanxing. And in this world, no one would love Xie Yuanxing more than he did.

They were meant to be buried together, their ashes mixed, their flesh and blood merged.

Even if their roles were reversed, and Xie Yuanxing was the one with a short lifespan, Shen Bianye would make the same choice.

Because they had both promised not to abandon the other.

This was a promise, and a promise does not change.

It’s not clear who started it, or perhaps they were both moving closer. They embraced each other inextricably, kissing and holding each other with their eyes closed.

A soft click broke the indulgent atmosphere in the room.

The room card had fallen to the floor without them noticing, drawing the attention of both.

Shen Bianye reached down to pick it up. His well-defined fingers held the card. Perhaps it was the burning intensity of his gaze as he looked at Xie Yuanxing that made the simple action inexplicably sensual.

“Baby.”

“There are only two hours until midnight.”

“Can we go now? I don’t want to miss a single minute.”

“I love birthdays so much, baby.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

The sad atmosphere was swept away. Xie Yuanxing blinked, his heart filled with a complicated feeling. “This is not how I imagined it.”

Shen Bianye asked, “What did you imagine, baby?”

Xie Yuanxing replied, “A home-cooked dinner, watching a movie, a walk, and finally… the room card.”

In short, something very warm, not this reversed order.

Shen Bianye picked Xie Yuanxing up and, half-coaxing, half-tricking, carried him towards the door. “Baby, it’s my birthday. Baby already fulfilled X’s wish and even booked the water bed. Can’t you fulfill my wish too?”

“Baby is so biased.”

“I just want to cherish every minute of my birthday. Baby, let’s go?”

As for what the baby imagined, he had recently been learning to cook. When the baby’s birthday came in a couple of days, maybe he could try to cook a meal. He hoped the baby wouldn’t mind.

…

The summer heat didn’t diminish at all at night. The hotel room’s air conditioning was on. The water bed swayed, cool and icy, a very comfortable feeling.

But soon, Xie Yuanxing came to loathe this bed.

Soft, slippery, with no leverage points. The water, as a liquid filling the bed, made even the slightest movement cause a violent rocking.

Every thrust from Shen Bianye drove deep. Xie Yuanxing cried hard, his whole body trembling.

The water bed was cold; they were hot.

Everything X had said, the scenes he had described, were perfectly recreated tonight.

Xie Yuanxing thought the order of the birthday celebration was just reversed, but he didn’t expect that they would do nothing else, staying in the hotel for the entire day, starting from midnight.

Xie Yuanxing cried too hard on the water bed, so Shen Bianye carried him to the bathroom. As he walked, Xie Yuanxing’s tears fell like rain. He trembled in Shen Bianye’s arms, clenching tightly.

Every corner of the hotel room was filled with the thick scent of dying embers. Xie Yuanxing’s senses were overloaded, the pleasure was too overwhelming, and even being immersed in this scent no longer felt suffocating.

He didn’t cough, he just couldn’t stop crying.

He cried pitifully. Shen Bianye coaxed him, but refused to let him go.

Once on the water bed, once in the bathroom, once in front of the glass mirror. As the sky began to lighten, Xie Yuanxing fell into an exhausted sleep.

His lips were pursed, his expression pitiful even in sleep. He didn’t yet know that Shen Bianye was not yet satisfied, nor did he know how many more rounds awaited him when he woke up.

If he knew, Xie Yuanxing’s expression would probably be even more pitiful.

Support me on Ko-fi