Fighting Fish (Kris/Tao), Part 3/?

[warmboys]

Fighting Fish (3/?)
Kris/Tao
~7700 words
NC-17
Kris is perpetually confused, and Zitao is the antidote.

For Joie, who is the biggest taoris fan I know and whom I've missed dearly ;;

‹‹

If darkness lent a forgiving shroud to all transgressions in the night, then daylight was its well-meaning but ultimately evil stepsister, casting a glare on everything you wanted hidden, maybe even forgotten in the morning.

Kris groaned, rolled over, and his nose made contact with a bristly strip of skin-the underside of Zitao’s jaw, he realized, winking open an eye. And then, the smallish red smudge on his neck. And then everything else.

He breathed in the musky boy-scent of Zitao, filtered through the stench of beer between them, seeping from their skin pores, and remembered the grinding, Zitao’s fingers folded around his-yeah. It was too early in the morning for this, even though he was already feeling the stirrings of interest down below. He jerked his head back onto his own pillow, and Zitao made a dissenting sound, shifted in Kris’ direction. His hair fell over his eyes as he rolled onto his left, facing Kris, his arm extended straight out beyond the pillow, and Kris moved his thumb over the wayward strands, brushing them back. Fuck, he thought, because he still wanted to kiss him, looking at the stupid indent of his upper lip. Wanted maybe to slip a hand into Zitao’s boxers, tug on his cock until he woke up, and to see the look on his face when he did. He could already imagine Zitao shading, humiliated, and then not being able to control himself, moaning and going with it.

He slid his arm back under the sheets. It was definitely too early for this.

The morning jog was also a bad idea. He regretted it immediately as the wind began to whip craters into his bones. He wasn't wearing the right shoes, either, just a pair of flat walking sneakers that didn’t offer enough support under his heels as they beat against the pavement, again and again. He made a couple laps around the neighborhood, through the courtyard below, waving hi to Ah-Si every time he passed by.

The sweat on the back of his neck congealed as he dragged himself back up the five flights of stairs. When he opened the door, Zitao was standing at the fridge, hand around a milk carton. His hair was wet like he’d just gotten out of the shower, which made sense, Kris thought, noting the change of clothes and the nice crisp scent of detergent.

“Hey,” he said, catching his breath and closing the door behind him.

“Hey,” Zitao said, averting his eyes, and when he turned to put the milk back, Kris had another glance at the bruise on his neck, a dark red spot. “You went for a run?”

“Yeah,” Kris said, ready to make a joke about how out of shape he was, but Zitao had already disappeared into his room.

The rest of Saturday went by like this, until it was dark outside. Zitao had been in his room for hours, and Kris was fiddling with the TV remote, trying to find a program that wasn’t about selling him things he didn’t need. Finally he gave up, settling on a period drama. Half of the dialogue was in archaic, unintelligible Chinese, or at least unintelligible to him. He yawned through it, stretching out on the couch.

When he opened his eyes again, Zitao was leaning over the bookcase in the living room, scanning the titles for something. “Hey,” he said, and Zitao turned around, startled.

“You’re awake?”

“I am now,” Kris said, clearing the hoarseness from his throat. He pulled his legs in and lowered them over the edge of the couch. “We should talk.”

Zitao was in the middle of retrieving a book, but he pushed it back in with two fingers. “Okay,” he said, and walked over until he was looming, his belt buckle inches away from Kris’ face.

Kris looked up. He wasn’t used to it-seeing Zitao from below, the clear view of his unshaven stubble, his clenched jaw. Beneath the calm mask he detected a strain of defiance, like he just needed Kris to say one word, one word to end it.

He opened his mouth, but Zitao spoke first.

“It’s fine if you regret it,” he said, looking down at his jeans. He twisted his fingers in his belt loops, and then stuffed them in his pockets. “You were out of it. I mean, we both were.”

He lifted his chin a little, to make eye contact. It was a hard, purposeful look that Kris didn’t know how to return without-

“Shut up,” Kris said, and pulled him into his lap. Zitao’s stance was unrelenting at first, but then his knees bent and he allowed himself to be coaxed into the warm space between Kris’ thighs, falling forward with his palms pushed into cushy back of the couch. Zitao made a tight, nervous squealing sound, and they both relaxed, finally, as if unwinding the knot of tension that had thickened throughout the day. “Hey,” Kris said, steadying his hands on Zitao’s narrow waist, wanting to close the distance between them. “Who said anything about regret?”

Zitao let out a soft growl as Kris pressed his mouth to the same place where he’d left the mark, and he kneed into Kris’ thigh, bumping against his crotch.

“I thought it was a one-time deal,” Zitao whispered into Kris’ forehead. “One of those accidental bonding things.”

Kris pulled back to huff a laugh. “You’re kidding me.”

Zitao curved his mouth, too, but there was a defensive lilt to his voice when he said, “I don’t know,” leaning in for a wet and dirty kiss, sucking on Kris’ upper lip and pushing in with his tongue, then breaking away-“how straight guys operate.”

He was being such a fucking tease, Kris realized, now that he knew he could. It lit a fire in him, a hot twinge of desire. “Fuck you,” he said now, cupping a hand around the back of Zitao’s head, another under his jaw, crushing their mouths together again. “You never asked.”

Zitao pushed Kris away for real now, gently but meaningfully. He was breathing hard and his lips were swelled, puffy and red. “What?” He asked, staring wide-eyed at Kris. First at his mouth, wonderingly, and then into his eyes, with intent. “I’m asking now.”

Kris leaned back into the couch, exhausted from the words he hadn’t yet spoken. Words he hadn’t actually spoken to anyone, ever, not even Amber. Or Yixing. Especially not Yixing.

“In high school, there was a senior,” Kris said, shifting as Zitao crawled out of his lap and into the space beside him, leaning into his arm. He stared straight up into the ceiling, unsure. “I couldn’t tell if I wanted… I couldn’t tell what I wanted from him.”

“Maybe it was just a crush,” Zitao said, and Kris hummed a note of agreement, threading his fingers in Zitao’s hair.

“Maybe.” Kris thought of Yunho, the sharp lines of his body charging across the court, the clean arc of his jumper, swishing in without touching the rim. How easy it had been to mistake the warmth that watching him from the sidelines had infused him with for admiration, or was it the other way around. The heat that surged through him from an innocuous pat on the back, a friendly half-hug. He’d written it off as a crush, too, but-“I guess, before that, there was someone else.”

“Yeah?”

Kris nodded, even though the memory of it seemed so far away now, almost ludicrous. “We’d pretty much grown up together, like, you know, stupid little kids who lived next door to each other. That sort of shit. But he had a thing for this girl, forever, I mean years and years. And I never really thought about it, as a kid, like I just felt-it was always easy between us. You didn’t have to think about it. By the time I figured it out, I was already in the States, had been dating Jess for a year, and he was still here.” Kris paused, laughing. “I don’t know, it feels pretty stupid now.”

Zitao was quiet, and Kris thought, maybe he didn’t know what to say. Hell, Kris didn’t know what to say, after that. But then:

“You wanted to blow him?” Zitao asked.

His eyes were shining. Kris bit back another laugh. “Wow. Um. I don’t know. Maybe once upon a time,” he finished, and Zitao grinned, nudging Kris’ knees apart to ease himself in between them.

He circled his arms around Kris’ shoulders and said, with a curious smile, “You wanna blow me?”

Kris sucked back a breath as Zitao pushed into him, hard and heavy below. “Fuck, yeah. I do.”

-

“It smells really,” Orfila began, sniffing around the kitchen. She padded into the living room and sniffed there, too. She still had her gloves on, her suitcase parked by the door. Her hair was tangled from the beanie but the cold had brought some color into her cheeks, and she looked human again, not the congested teary mess from a week ago. Her boyfriend must’ve done his boyfriendly duties, Kris thought.

“-Fresh,” she finished. “Did you guys clean up while I was gone?” She folded her arms and looked from Zitao to Kris. “I’m impressed.”

Zitao flashed her a beatific smile and exaggerated a nod, pulling his chin up and down. “We cleaned everything.”

They did, but not before making a mess of the place, which Kris couldn’t recall without heating up, even if it’d only been hours since Zitao sucked him off in the bathroom, then on the kitchen table, where Kris felt unusually vulnerable spread out over the cold imitation wood, almost clinically hard underneath his back. He pictured Zitao sleeping like this at the monastery, on his stubborn straight back, and then looked down at the Zitao in front of him, the obscene image of his head bobbing up and down between Kris’ thighs while he licked up the length of his cock, traced its slight leftward curve with his tongue. Kris had gripped the side of the table, cursing through the shock of his orgasm, bucking his to ride out the last frantic waves against his own hand after Zitao had pulled off and was licking his mouth clean where some of the come had spurted onto it because Kris had been a second too late in warning him. “I’m sorry, fuck, I’m sorry,” Kris said over and over, but Zitao leaned over the table to press a grin against his lips, prying open Kris’ mouth with the bitter taste of his own spunk.

“How thoughtful,” Orfila said, genuinely touched, peeling off her gloves. She patted Zitao lightly on the cheek and for once he didn’t refuse, preening into it instead.

-

Henry was switching jobs, and he had two weeks to kill before starting at his new company, which promised better benefits, better insurance, free lunch every Wednesday and a $30 dinner allowance for the occasional late night at the office. “That’s including an appetizer, an entrée, and a drink. Sometimes I text my roomie and ask if he wants chicken fingers or something-it depends on the menu, of course.”

Anyway, he said, he wanted to visit Kris. Late March, I’ll send you an Outlook invite for our weeklong date. With a wink and kissy-face into the webcam.

Kris grinned. “I don’t even use Outlook anymore.”

Henry said he sucked, and then, that he was looking forward to catching up with his favorite bro. Besides Amber.

Besides Amber, Kris agreed.

Kris picked him up at Taoxian Int’l two weeks later, and nothing about Henry had changed, from his letterman jacket to the spiked-up ‘do he’d worn religiously every day since the fifth grade. Somewhere in his early twenties, right out of college, gaunt from the dreariness of his six-month unemployment, he’d lost some weight, but all that was back now, plus more, Kris noted, in the slight roll of his belly and fullness of his cheeks.

“You know what they say about happiness,” Kris joked, with a light jab to his stomach, and Henry punched him in the arm, then hugged him, saying, “I missed you, man.”

Half a year had gone by, and Kris hadn’t been properly sightseeing yet, so he used Henry as an excuse to hit up all the list of places Yixing had emailed him back in August. “Oh yeah? How’s that guy doing?” Henry asked while they strolled down a busy underground shopping mall, storefronts packed tightly adjacent to one another. Henry picked up a string of bangles adapted from earrings and asked in his Saturday school mando how much it was.

“For you, pretty boy, I’ll make an exception,” said the ah-yi. Kris made a signal behind her, pushing the heel of his palm down to mean she was probably ripping him off.

“He’s doing pretty well,” Kris said. “I saw his latest song broke into the Billboard top 100, something crazy like that.”

“Oh snap, that was him?” Henry raised his eyebrows and slammed his hand against Kris’ arm. “Hold up. My coworkers were telling me about some Chinese dude making waves in the house/trance scene but I didn’t know he went by ‘Lay.’ That’s… that’s sick.”

“I know, right,” Kris said. “Good for him, man.”

“Yeah, seriously. Wow.”

They stopped in front of another shop, filled with scarves and gloves and other assorted knitwear. Henry pulled a mouse-eared aviator hat over his head, turned to Kris, and asked, “Hey, remember the beanie Amber made me that one Christmas? Before you left?”

For half a decade, Henry had been the reason for Amber’s sexual crisis. She’d had crushes on girls, but then there’d been Henry, always a friendly punch and comforting bear hug away. A gray area. “I don’t knowww,” she’d wailed into the phone with Kris for years, even after his move to Beijing. “It’s all so confusing.” It was, Kris thought then. It was still now. “Tell him what I said, and I’ll kill you,” she’d warned. Kris had never told.

“Yeah, that thing was an insult to, like, knitters everywhere,” Kris said, laughing. “I’m still kind of hurt she only got me this lotion from Bath and Body Works. C’mon, what am I? Your leftovers? I swear, the shit even glittered.”

“She knew the well-moisturized clean freak you’d become,” Henry said sagely, and narrowly dodged the fist in transit to his face. “Of course, Kris Wu has more of a natural sparkle to him,” he added before breaking into a panicked run.

Kris was faster. He’d always been faster. “Fuck you,” Henry said, fondly, hunched over his knees and catching his breath.

He was staying at a fancy hotel downtown, with a decked out vestibule and staff that bowed ninety-degrees to them every time they emerged from the shiny mirrored elevator. Kris crashed for half the week, sending texts to Zitao while Henry was in the shower. We ate here, we saw this today. He took photos of random things, like a scroll painting of a man and a giant peach at one of the restaurants they’d visited, or a balloon printed with a panda face that he’d spotted a little blond girl holding, delicately with the string tied to her thumb. Zitao responded with feelings and hearts, separated by miles of ellipses, and sometimes a photo of himself, biting down on his lip, tugging at his collar. A massive embarrassment to receive while anyone else was in the room, but alone Kris allowed himself to be filled with the same heady affection that was rapidly becoming Zitao’s theme song, their fucking sonata.

He stuffed his phone back into his pocket when Henry came out of the bathroom saying, “Oops. Probably used up all the hot water just now.”

They stayed up every night drinking and talking, sometimes trash-talking, stupid stuff he hadn’t done in a while. It was weird, a different kind of comfort, speaking in English to someone who wasn’t thirteen years old and a native Chinese. He heard how stilted his words came out sometimes, even if Henry didn’t call him out for them.

“You happy? You look happy,” Henry said while they were waiting in line behind a crowd of tourists for Manchurian food. It was supposed to be the best in the area-Yixing said so.

Kris blew out a breath of air against his hands, warming them. “Yeah, I’m doing alright. Why, you can tell?”

Henry laughed. “I’ve known you since you were a wee lad.” His voice went up as “wee,” took on a poor imitation of an Irish accent. It was seriously terrible. “Lemme guess… you’re seeing someone.”

“I,” Kris paused, “guess you can say that.”

“Why the uncertainty? Does she have a little,” Henry made a jumbled hand gesture, “something something on the side?”

“No! Nothing like that. I don’t know, it’s weird. I mean.” He thought of Zitao, curled up against him on the couch when Orfila wasn’t watching, the way his arm fit around him, the hard squeeze of his bicep under Kris’ hand. The fuzz of hair on his stomach leading lower, gathering there. He cleared his throat. “She’s younger.”

Henry looked surprised. “Really? I thought you were gonna chase after jiejies your whole life.”

“Alright, it sounds gross when you put it that way.”

“What, ‘jiejie’? That’s what she was, right? Two years older?”

A year and a half, but they weren’t splitting hairs here. “Yeah, but you sound like a little kid. Jiejie.” Kris shuddered, and then grinned. It wasn’t fair to be taking digs at Henry’s Chinese but he couldn’t help it. He had missed this. Not being the one to suck the most, for once.

Henry made a face. “But is it an issue? Her being young.”

Kris cringed. “Younger. ’93. Not like, young.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. Oh my god, stop being so dramatic,” Henry laughed, hopping from one foot to the other. He was tragically underdressed for the weather. They were moving up the line, at least.

Kris laughed, too, because it was true. Three years meant less the older you were. Hardly noticeable at thirty and thirty-three; barely anything if you got to be in your forties, fifties, seventies. But that rode heavily on the if.

“The thing is, how do you feel when you’re with her? How does she make you feel?”

Henry, the love guru. Kris bit back a grin, remembering. He’d always wanted to help, always the most dependable, which had surprised them all. Just like when he’d traded in his acoustic guitar for his current accounting gig-no, it was a whole divergence from his childhood life plan, trees they’d mapped out on the back of their geometry worksheets. They were supposed to be rockstars. But instead Henry had cut off his Youtube account, all fifty thousand followers. Someone made a spinoff of the Justin Timberlake, Make Music Again PSA, turned it into a Henry Lau, You Fucking Canadian, I Even Miss Your Justin Bieber Covers PSA. Seven hundred some-odd likes. But he’d shrugged them off, like it was the easiest thing-Gotta be someone my family can depend on. You know? And in it Kris had heard, even if it wasn’t implied, the echo of his own negligence.

“Pretty amazing, actually,” Kris said, trying for earnest, for once, and also because it was one of the few things he knew at the moment to be true.

-

By the time Kris returned from the airport it was already past one in the morning, and he tiptoed into the apartment, trying not to wake either of its inhabitants. Zitao’s light was off, he noted with a dim sinking feeling, but it was late and they had work tomorrow. He'd just been hoping.

It was possible he’d gotten attached.

He brushed his teeth, washed his face, went through the nightly regimen of eye creams and skin moisturizers and had been lying in bed for a few minutes with his eyes closed, not thinking of anything in particular, when the door opened with a low creak, a set of feet padded into the room, and the bed dipped with a familiar weight. Familiar hands coming around him from behind, threading under his arms, hugging him around the belly.

Zitao buried his nose into Kris’ shoulder and mumbled, “I missed you.” He smelled like he’d been wearing the same set of pajamas for a week; it was thick with his musk, casing both of them like a snug cocoon. But his hair carried the light scent of shampoo, and Kris twisted his head a little, breathing into it. He slipped his hand over Zitao’s, entangling their fingers together, pressing them close to his chest.

“Mm,” he said, already falling asleep. “‘Night, big spoon.”

-

The next time Yixing called, it was already April. Too early for flowers but little buds were emerging, green and full of promise. He saw them from the living room window, littering the heads of trees below. Kris was beginning to go out for regular jogs, having lost all his stamina in the past half year-more than that, since he’d given up his gym membership even earlier. Zitao had teased him about the stomach roll, nudging it with his nose, licking at it. “Good?” he’d asked, mockingly, and Kris would’ve grabbed him by the hair if his balls hadn’t been dangerously cupped in Zitao’s hand.

Yixing was starting to make enemies. “That’s how you know you’ve made it,” Kris said. “Who is this guy anyway?”

“Some dude named Deadr4t or something, I don’t know,” Yixing said, but he looked distressed. “I heard he hasn’t been relevant since 2012?” He moved out of the frame, clacking away at his keyboard. A link appeared in the chatbox next to Yixing’s Skype handle.

“‘Deadr4t Accuses Newcomer Lay of Boring Button-pushing’?” Kris scanned the title of the article. “What does this even mean?”

Yixing moved back into the webcam. “Not creative enough. Not original enough. I don’t know. He’s calling me the Chinese David Ghetto of 2016. Hey, at least David Ghetto’s still producing.”

“Also,” Kris added, because this was the one name he recognized. He’d definitely jammed to some of his stuff in the club. “He’s a multimillionaire who dates Playboy bunnies on the regular.”

“And that,” Yixing said. “Different strokes, but yeah.”

“Right,” Kris said. “Fuck this Deadr4t guy. Who does he even think he is? He’s probably, like, a bitter old dude in front of his laptop by now.”

“He’s thirty-five, I think. But yeah, fuck him.” Cursing seemed to help, as Yixing brightened and began talking about shooting his first music video. There was going to be a lot of strippers in the background, so many of them that you didn’t even notice them anymore, just a sea of legs and tits in tiny bikinis. "You could get meta about it, if you wanted to."

“What about your muse? Your singer guy? He’s gonna be in it too, right?”

“Nah,” Yixing said. “I don’t think so. Neither of us are too keen on being in front of the camera. He’s kind of awkward when it’s more than just a few of us recording in the same room.”

That was interesting coming from Yixing, who generally mistook people’s chins for their eyes, zoning in on your neck as he engaged you in thoughtful conversation. “I was looking forward to seeing what he looked like,” Kris said. “You’ve been really mysterious about this guy.”

He had, and Kris could tell he knew it, by the way he was staring dumbly into his keyboard now. “Yeah, someday you guys will meet. It’s just weird. I feel… don’t laugh, okay?”

“Okay. I won’t laugh.”

“Alright.” Yixing took in a deep breath. “I feel…uh. I think…”

Kris leaned in. “You think…”

Yixing tried again. “I think…”

“Dude, just say it. I’m not going to laugh. What’s going on?”

“I think I’m in love.”

Yixing leaned back, as if an enormous weight had been lifted off his chest. He said it again. “I think I’m in love.” This time with wonder.

Kris wasn’t laughing, but he kind of wanted to. The first time Yixing admitted this had been in grade school; the last time was half a decade ago and still about the same girl, but with a twisting note in his voice, sad and resigned. “That’s it? I mean, congrats. Wait. You mean, with...”

Yixing looked directly into the webcam, and it was scary, having the full weight of Yixing’s gaze on him. “I’m not sure, though. I might just be in love with… his soul, or something.”

Now Kris was laughing.

“Shut up,” Yixing said miserably. “You haven’t heard him sing.”

He did, later. Yixing caved and finally sent him a video, a homemade low-res one the guy had posted on his own channel, before getting scouted by Yixing. The guy wasn’t the best singer, although he was good. Decent, better than the average, no doubt. He had the face of someone impossibly younger, an eerie Rip Van Winkle, and a clear, guileless voice. From the video itself Kris could tell he was probably a nice guy. Fun to hang out with. Not a douchebag. Kris understood how Yixing could’ve seen something in him, how he could’ve been affected to this degree. Sometimes you just had no way of knowing.

-

Zitao found him in his free lunch hour, mulling over whether to deduct one point or two off one student’s paper for her repeated misspelling of “bulbous.” But the fact that she had dared to use the word at all, despite its not having been in any of their assigned readings, had impressed him, so he felt inclined to be lenient with her-or was that the definition of partiality? He frowned, unsure. Through the small window of the door Zitao was waving wildly at him, and then he’d stormed in, grabbing Kris by the sleeve, saying, “Let’s go somewhere.”

Kris had hardly caught his dark, needy expression before they were out the door, rushing down the stairs, and Zitao was pushing him into an empty classroom on the third floor, kissing him and pinning him up against the blackboard.

“Whoa,” Kris got out, dizzy from the last minute of his life, and there would’ve been an ending to that sentence had Zitao’s hands not been roaming, pulling out his shirttails from where they were tucked into his pants, deftly undoing the buttons until he felt the cool air settle over his bare chest, his neck.

Through the window of the door Kris made out the top of Haitao’s head approaching from down the hall, and Zitao, following his line of vision, dragged them both to the floor, Kris’ back hitting the tiles with a thud he knew he’d feel later. “Shh,” Zitao hushed him, holding up a finger to the devilish turn of his mouth, and Kris was already having difficulty not imagining his cock there, Zitao’s lips stretched around it and his brow furrowed in concentration, the inversion of his cheeks as he sucked on it-hard and choking a little. With a light click Zitao had locked the door, but when Kris made to get up, he was pushed down again, Zitao’s grinning face slowly coming into view as he kneeled over, encasing Kris’ waist between his legs.

“I want you,” Zitao said, in a low growl, a rumble sliding up Kris’ chest, and tenderly licked into his mouth, teasing with his tongue, “to put it in.”

Kris’ eyes widened, because they hadn’t done this yet, he wasn’t sure they were ready, but he felt his cock stiffen at the suggestion, straining up against his pants. “Easy,” Zitao laughed, feeling it too, and he groped it through the layers of material, running his palm in a circular motion over the head until Kris gritted his teeth and said, “Don’t play around, Huang Zitao.”

“Make me stop, Wu Yifan,” Zitao dared, his voice suddenly raised a pitch.

Kris stared at him and understood, suddenly, how badly Zitao needed to be fucked. Needed Kris to do it. And how badly he wanted to help.

Fuck, did he want to help.

“Alright,” he said, nervously licking his lips, and Zitao watched, equally tense. He was new to this-all the other stuff had been kiddie play, he knew from messing around in college, the occasional townie in a bar after an exceptionally stressful week-that had been how he’d unwind, back in the day, before Jess-but never with classmates, never anyone he had a chance of meeting again, and never-actually putting it in. Putting his dick in someone’s mouth was alright, because it allowed him some level of self-delusion, like if he closed his eyes it wasn’t really happening, even if it felt fucking incredible and he just wanted to do it forever.

But it was different with Zitao. He always wanted to see Zitao, watch his face as he went down on him, or watch his face as they switched, Kris taking him in nervously, licking over the dark cockhead just experimentally at first while Zitao made encouraging moans and breathy, “Oh yeah”s, “That’s it, fuck,” later hitching his hips to fuck up into Kris’ mouth as he struggled to keep up.

With Zitao he wanted to know, to document everything, just like now-Zitao’s hand shakily reaching into his back pocket, pulling out a strip of condoms and then, a small inconspicuous bottle. They were going to do this, and Kris hoped to god he could keep it up long enough, that he wouldn’t embarrass himself from being too excited. Because that was what he was right now, practically trembling, heart thudding from the idea-imagining Zitao stretched open around him, hot and suffocating, impossibly tight.

“It’s okay,” Zitao said as though he understood, shaken with new resolve. “I can, um-“ and he stripped off his button-down shirt, pulling it over his head after loosening the first couple buttons, and Kris leaned back on his palms, watching him then unbuckle his jeans, pull them down from his legs, one at a time, and then tugging off his boxers too, where his cock was already peeking out from under the waistband, swollen against the slit. Zitao’s body was solid, lithe, and Kris couldn’t remember ever seeing it like this, totally unobscured as daylight streamed down past the ridges of his abdominals, illuminated how fucking beautiful and perfect he actually was. He wanted to touch him, but Zitao was caught up in his own performance, slicking his fingers and then, lifting his hips, sliding one in, sliding it back out, repeating.

This was new, this was definitely new, but it wasn’t new to Zitao, who added another finger, falling back on it with a grunt, bending backwards a little while balanced on his knees. He closed his eyes, and Kris slid over, steadying a hand over his hip. “You look so good like this,” Kris said, the words coming out thick and stupid, but he didn’t care. He rounded his hand over Zitao’s half-hard cock and stroked it slowly, following the rhythm of Zitao fingering himself. Zitao added a third finger, and Kris bent down to lower his mouth over his cock, deep-throating it like he’d been practicing, and listened in heated pleasure as Zitao made a choking sound and his hand found purchase in Kris’ hair, grabbing a fistful.

Then, “Ready,” opening his eyes and flashing them at Kris, expectantly. “Okay,” Kris murmured, scrambling to tug down his own pants and peel away the boxers, letting his cock finally spring up from the heavy sequesters of fabric, clumsily rolling on a condom. Zitao made to turn and get on all fours, but Kris pulled his hand, accidentally linking fingers. “I want to see you,” he said hoarsely, and Zitao nodded, smiled, small and surprised.

“Lie down,” he said, and then lowered himself onto Kris’ cock.

The heat was instant and incredible, and how tight Zitao wrapped around him, how immediately he clenched, and claustrophobic and perfect, Kris thought, words becoming incomprehensible as he thrusted up slowly, his hands cupping Zitao’s buttocks. Zitao was panting softly through his mouth, he couldn’t tell how good it was because of the precarious position, with Zitao’s body bent into a broken bridge, his palms rooted against the floor as he rode Kris, sliding up and down his cock. But they worked at it, finding a good pace for the both of them, letting it build, until,

“Fuck, I’m tired,” Zitao said, and turned ever so slowly, Kris still inside him, maneuvering so that he was now on his elbows and knees and Kris was kneeling behind him, pushing in that way. From here he could count all the knobs in Zitao’s spine, and in one particular long thrust he leaned over, licked at the topmost, most jutting one, and felt Zitao tremble beneath him and begin to stroke himself. And it got better like this, Kris closing his eyes now as he pumped harder, his hips moving mindlessly, with the roaring of blood in his ears and Zitao gasping, Yes, then Kris, and the slapping sound of skin against sweaty sticky skin. Zitao buckled first, the force of his orgasm weakening his knees, and Kris pushed in close behind, fucking the furious last few strokes before collapsing over the cool skin of Zitao’s back.

They lay breathing heavy against the floor for some time, and then Kris rolled him over, he wanted to see him, like he’d said. Zitao still had his eyes shut, but his mouth was curled in contented exhaustion, and he looked so utterly spent and young that Kris couldn’t help it, had to kiss him, roll their tongues together, smiling.

“Gross,” Zitao said when he finally caught his breath, and Kris said, “Yeah. Gross,” the laughter between them a warm and contagious current, their bodies the only mandatory conduit.

-

His ex, the only person Zitao paid attention to for the first two years of high school, had sent him an email during lunch. I still think about us, Zitao dictated aloud. That time we-and he broke off, stuffing the phone under his pillow. “It’s not important,” he said but sounded like something had gotten caught in his throat. “I’m done with him.”

Kris said he wanted to know, if that was okay.

They’d met the first year of high school, and the boy was a year older, taller and toward the graceless end of lanky. A natural bully, always shoving around the smaller kids in the hallway, pushing the limits of a good-natured joke, and they’d still gravitate towards him, in the way of flowers to the sun. The rumor was he’d been a chubby kid, made fun of throughout his earlier formative years, and the memory of it had embittered him, sending him down a vicious karmic cycle.

“But he wasn’t like a bad bad person. Just a real douche, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t have been so…obsessed, I guess. If he weren't.”

“Obsessed,” Kris said, rolling it around in his head, and Zitao sighed, “Yeah.”

He’d been a stupid, gullible kid, he said. Too quick to anger, and simultaneously, too easily awed. Zitao laughed sourly at the memory. Something about Canlie had wrung out the worst of it in him, hanging up the pathetic zealousness for all to see. When Canlie pushed him around, slamming him against a row of lockers, he pushed back. Fisting in his shirt. He couldn’t help it. He always wanted more, to see how far he could get.

One day Canlie had said, “Follow me,” and stalked into the boy’s bathroom, ducking his head to check for feet under the stalls. Zitao was rubbing his shoulder from where it’d been bruised earlier, and then Canlie said, “Lock the door. Fuck, I said, lock it.” He cursed when Zitao was too slow and shocked to respond, running over to turn the latch himself, thundering back red-faced and angry. Zitao couldn’t even remember why or how they got here, only that he’d been talking to a friend about a fantasy epic he’d been reading, and that Canlie, passing by, had shunted in between them, made a snide remark about Zitao’s hobbies, condescendingly patting his jaw. Zitao could’ve let it go, but he didn’t want to-“I couldn’t”-and swatted the hand away, eyes blazing into Canlie’s. Then the usual shoving, feeble punches from both sides-Zitao not wanting to hurt, Canlie not knowing how.

“You little fucker,” Canlie growled, when he had Zitao backed up against the wall, and decked him in the mouth.

He felt his lip split in the center, the raw sensation of pain burning up his jaw. Zitao knew he could’ve easily retaliated-broken Canlie, twisting his arms behind him until they bent the wrong way-but he’d discovered a sick delight in the waiting, and a sickness in himself. Anticipating Canlie’s next move, he shut his eyes and licked over the bloody lip. Before him came a lower growl, a hot breath on his cheek, murmuring, “Jesus Christ,” and then Canlie was on him, sucking on his lower lip, gripping the base of his neck and fucking his tongue into his mouth.

“He was my first,” Zitao said. “God, I was so embarrassing. This went on for two years. Can you imagine?”

He was his first, and his second, and his third, and after a certain point Zitao stopped counting, just allowed himself to be slowly pried apart, brilliantly undone and then forcibly pulled back into reality as Canlie shuffled to his feet, buttoning his student uniform with his back to him, not saying a word. They did it everywhere. Canlie had a bewildering exhibitionist streak, wanting to fuck in stairwells, fitting rooms, anywhere he could get his hand down Zitao’s pants and then, Zitao on his dick, his dick inside Zitao.

“I was really-just a dumb kid. Like so, so dumb. I told him I loved him, and for a second I thought he was going to punch me again, like that time in the bathroom, but instead he laughed-crazy-laughed,” Zitao said, and Kris understood how that was worse.

They broke it off when Canlie got a girlfriend his senior year, a cheerleader and former ballet dancer, to add insult to injury, as if he’d finally found the female version of Zitao. He’d recounted the way she could raise her leg beyond her head, how tight she was, before turning to Zitao with an ugly intentional sneer, saying, “So let’s end it here, alright?”

It had taken all of Zitao’s practiced restraint, years of martial discipline to calm the edges of his anger and reply with an even, “I understand.” He pulled up his trousers, tucked in his shirt, and never looked at Canlie again. Never had to, because in a few months he’d be graduating, anyway.

Second most difficult thing, Kris remembered him saying.

“Is that when you went to become a monk?” He joked.

Zitao shoved him to the other side of the bed. “Yeah. You know me so well already,” he said, after a moment, and pulled Kris back in, craning up for a kiss.

“You were frustrated today,” Kris said softly into his mouth. “So you found me.”

“Don’t put it that way,” Zitao complained, which meant Yes.

He broke the kiss, nuzzling his head into the crook of Kris’ neck, breathing deeply there. “I just didn’t want my last memory of fucking in a school to be of him,” he mumbled, and Kris shouted out a laugh, ramming his fist into Zitao’s hair, messing it up in pretend anger.

What kind of man would drink at noon and start drunk-texting his high school fucktoy, Zitao wondered aloud a sleepy moment later, and Kris said, The kind of man that let you go, grazing his thumb against Zitao’s cheek. It earned him a swift kick under the sheets before Zitao glanced over and caught the expression on his face, the way Kris had intended it.

Oh, he said then, and then smiled, privately, before burrowing his head into the comforter.

-

Principal He called him into his office. The first thing Kris thought was that he and Zitao had been caught on tape, on secret cameras planted in that classroom, their desperation immortalized in the film. But no, Principal He wanted to talk about opportunities for growth, about Kris’ future.

“You’re young,” said He Jiong. “I wouldn’t want you to feel pigeon-holed in this place when there are greater opportunities elsewhere.”

“I don’t feel that way,” Kris said. It had occurred to him, but he’d pushed away the thought each time. He was in a good spot right now. He didn’t want to ruin it.

Principal He nodded with understanding. He remembered being that age, he said, and how it’d felt constantly trying to stay afloat while maintaining the luster of youth. “A battle against time,” he concluded, adding with a grin, “but it’s infinitely easier if you stop battling altogether.”

Kris no longer knew what they were talking about. Principal He cleared his throat and continued where he’d left off. There was another branch of his Academy, a sister school in Beijing, which was run by his good friend and longtime colleague Principal Han. They needed to tighten up their faculty, bring in some fresh blood. They were looking for English teachers, but they were also thinking, he said, cocking his head at Kris, of starting a basketball team.

“Zhang Yixing told me you used to play? And well.”

“I was center,” Kris said. “Not that great, though.”

“You did a good job at Spirit Day,” the principal insisted.

“That was all Zhou Mi,” Kris said, although they had spent afternoons brainstorming, Kris fighting him on some of the plays.

The principal waved his hand, and then said that he’d referred him to Principal Han. It wasn’t an obligation, of course, just a suggestion, but he thought Kris could benefit from a change of scenery-“A wider view, perhaps,” he added. “It’s up to you. I like to look out for my faculty, encourage them to move on when the opportunity presents itself. Sometimes I may overstep my boundaries-“

“No, no, not at all. I-thank you,” Kris said. “I appreciate it. Really. I just-would like some time to think it over.”

“Of course,” said Principal He. He paused, and added, with a bemused smile. “Yixing would be there, too.”

He would. But Kris was thinking of someone else, the heavy head on his shoulder he woke up to some mornings, the cold feet pressed up against his calves at night. Of the forced discretion and lust-lust that ripped out of him sometimes when he caught the nape of Zitao's neck bent at an angle, nose dipping into his cereal bowl-and something else he wasn’t ready to admit, more slippery and dangerous. He could imagine missing it, all of it. He was already missing it.

The air pulled unexpectedly out of his lungs, and he suddenly found himself choked up, coughing, having to cut the conversation short so that he could excuse himself, escaping to the bathroom, splashing water onto his face and watching it run down, repeating to himself in the mirror, “It’s alright. You’re still here. You’re alright.”

-

Zitao was antsy the whole day and made his best efforts to hide it, but it seeped into the way he danced from foot to foot while washing the dishes over the sink, the cloying sweetness with which he complimented Orfila’s hair over dinner, and some of his nerves transferred to Kris in kind, but mostly they skated over him, left him with the same clawing fondness that turned again and again in his chest.

“We’re heading out,” Kris said, heaving a large knapsack over his shoulder. Orfila waved absentmindedly from the sofa where she was engrossed in her favorite reality TV show. “Wait, when are you coming back?” He heard her yell a moment later, but by then they had already turned the corner, speeding down the stairs two steps at a time.

“Don’t expect anything,” Kris said, guiding Zitao through the last door up onto the roof of the academy. He unfolded a lawn chair and gently lowered Zitao into it. Zitao was grinning stupidly the entire time, asking every five minutes, “Can I take it off now?” but now that he’d untied the blindfold, he just stared at the clutter of stars above, not saying anything.

“Happy birthday,” Kris said, pressing a kiss to his forehead, and dragging it down the bridge of his nose, meeting his lips.

He pulled out a blanket and smoothed it over the concrete flooring, while Zitao tried to read the French label on the wine bottle, plucking at the cork. It was early May. The ground still hadn’t warmed up from the winter, but the air was cool and light against their skin, and the alcohol massaged into their stomachs. Lying down, Zitao tilted his head and leaned in for sticky making out under the unclogged sky, a rarity as though reserved for just this occasion.

When they broke apart, Zitao folded his arms behind his head, grinning his deliciously ravished mouth toward the stars.

Kris turned into his side, propping up on an elbow. His mouth was numb with the taste of Zitao, the bitterness of the wine they shared. “Hey, what’d you write in my evaluation?”

“Hm?” Zitao said. “Oh. I’m not telling you.”

“C’mon.” Kris nudged him with his arm. “I wanna knowww. Tell me how to improve.”

“Well, if you insist.” Zitao rolled onto his side, too. His eyes were dark with mischief. “You could start by pulling your lips over your teeth so I don’t have to worry about getting defiled by your canines every time.”

Kris tackled him, and they wrestled until he had him pinned against the blanket, hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay,” Zitao cried, laughing. “I cave.” He struck a seductive damsel in distress pose. “You can collect your prize now.”

Kris swallowed. “Actually, I got something for you.”

He pulled out the small gift box, watched as Zitao opened it, examined between his fingers the metal cuff earring, shaped as a wing. “It’s dumb, I know, I really couldn’t think of what to get you, but in high school they called me… like, on the basketball team, they called me the Black Angel, as a joke, you know, but it got to be a thing, kinda caught on-“

He stopped, because Zitao had leapt on top of him, hugging around his waist and digging his nose into his neck. “Stop explaining, you loser,” he whispered, sounding like he might cry. “I love it.”

Kris put it on for him, carefully removing a stud that had been in the way. It looked ridiculous, tacky as hell, but Zitao could pull it off with that delirious grin, he could pull off anything if he believed in it.

so confession: i haven't actually been able to work on this wip since that one week. this is exactly how much of it i'd written when posting part2 >_<;; this part was supposed to be about 2-3k longer, but as it is FF might turn into 5 parts orz BUT IT WILL BE FINISHED GDI IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO also my sincere apologies to joel zimmerman & david guetta