3000 word chapter coming at you!

Chapter 3: Sense is Boring

Getting comfortable started that day with Zitao and Kris playing a game of twenty questions. Kris informed Zitao that he did in fact speak Korean, as well as Cantonese and English. His kind had many nationalities and he had been born to a Chinese clan an undetermined number of years ago. His clan had moved around a lot since his childhood, and his last residence had been in Canada. He didn’t eat a lot because he didn’t need to, animals stayed away from him because he was so mixed-blood that they couldn’t identify what he smelled like and it freaked them out, his wings were very high maintenance and he was currently molting (he even ran a hand through his feathers and pulled out a handful as an example).

Zitao told Kris about how he’d been offered a scholarship to a well-known school because of his skills in Wushu, he’d lived in Korea for almost two years, he was seventeen and he lived with a cat in a small apartment at the edge of Seoul. He talked about growing up in China and how much he missed his parents, but how proud they were of him for being able to attend such a prestigious academy. He told Kris about the boys in his class, about how Krystal had kicked their collective one month into his first year at school because she’d been the victim of their taunts as well when she’d moved to Korea from America. Zitao talked about meeting Minji and Suzy and how the four of them were best friends and the girls were always looking out for him, even though they were a year younger than he was. He got lost in his stories and before he knew it, it was 6:00 and time for him to go home, but he promised to come back soon.

In fact, Zitao wound up going to the Hotel every day for almost three months after that. After school he’d go directly over and work on his homework while Kris hovered near him and read over his shoulder. At first the hovering had irked Zitao, but he soon found out that Kris knew a lot, despite having never attended school himself, and he would often help with his work. On the weekends Zitao would go early and stay late, and those were the best days since they had all day to just be with each other. Zitao loved talking to Kris—he would always focus intently, his eyes never leaving Zitao’s face and he would have a small smile on his face.

One day Kris was checking Zitao’s math problems and Zitao was taking time to actually look around the room. Kris had basically started living there and had moved all his worldly possessions (not that he had many to begin with) into the room. He had a small collection of various bird feathers, some interesting looking rocks, a page of dragon stickers and an English book called “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Zitao Was flipping through the book when he came across a scrap of loose paper wedged between the pages. He pulled it out and found a bunch of disjointed sentences scrawled in Chinese.

Likes to walk on the beach. Prefers green tea over black tea. Face literally lights up when he talks about his family. Speaks very highly of his friends. He picks at his nails when he’s thinking very hard. Also twirls pencils when stuck on homework problems.

There were more pages, dozens of them, all with notes about himself. Kris looked up from Zitao’s homework and saw what he was looking at. He gasped and launched himself at Zitao, grabbing the book away.

“I’m sorry,” Zitao said right away, “I wasn’t meaning to pry or anything…I just saw the pieces of paper and…well, they are about me, aren’t they?”

Kris swallowed and cleared his throat. His mind seemed to be working at warp speed, searching for something to say. Finally he looked away and nodded. It looked like he was blushing a little.

“Why though? I mean, you didn’t have to…I don’t expect you to know everything about me.”

“I know,” Kris mumbled. “It wasn’t because I felt like I had to, it’s just…there are things about you that I never want to forget, and there are some things that about you I think are so wonderful I should never forget. Sometimes I find the perfect word to describe something about you—the way you act or talk, and it’s so sudden that I just have to write it down.”

Kris looked up sheepishly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t meant to be sneaky and it wasn’t meant to make you feel strange.”

Zitao shook his head. “No, no it doesn’t bother me. Can I…can I read the other things you wrote?”

Kris hesitated.

“You don’t have to show me,” Zitao assured. “I understand if some of its personal.”

But Kris turned the book over and shook out the rest of the papers on to the bed. Zitao sat down and started to read them.

His smile always starts in his eyes.

Sometimes he stares off into space and sighs. Not like he’s worried or depressed, more like his mind has been running at light speed and he’s just realized that he needs to breathe.

Sometimes I forget that he’s human. He’s like a lightning bolt—swift and brilliant, jagged and powerful…I never know where he’s going to strike, what he’s going to say next.

It’s amazing to just be able to sit and watch his mind work, or to watch his face when he talks. His every thought shows up in his body, like he thinks with every piece of his being.

Zitao read each bit of paper, and with each one he felt like he was either going to float away or break down. He had never been in this kind of position, where he had someone who was so devoted to him, who cared enough to take the time to not only observe him like this but to think about it and write it down. How much time did Kris spend doing this? How long did it take him to find the words and to write what he wanted to say? Zitao could see erasures and cross outs, like Kris had tried to say something man, many times before he finally got it right. The most amazing thing was that nobody had asked Kris to do this. He wasn’t trying to show off to Zitao, to say ‘Look at how much I care about you,’ this was all his own idea, for no reason other than he just wanted to.

How was Zitao to respond to this? How was he supposed to match up to it?

“Please say something,” Kris mumbled. He was twisting his fingers nervously in his lap and biting his lip.

Zitao grabbed Kris and hauled him to his feet so he could hug him properly.

“I thought you’d be upset,” Kris gasped.

“How could I possibly be upset?” Zitao laughed. “This is possibly the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Kris hugged him tightly and lowered his face into Zitao’s shoulder. They stayed like that for a minute and when Zitao made to let go Kris clung to him even tighter.

“Little longer,” he pleaded quietly. “I haven’t been hugged in…a long time. Too long.”

Zitao felt his heart melt a little and he relaxed into Kris’ hold, one hand going up to his hair.

“We’re really affectionate, Pets,” Kris explained. “We grow up with all kind of physical contact, we’re basically carried everywhere for the first few years of our life. When we go without touch—hugging, hand holding, anything—for long periods of time…well, it’s not pleasant.”

“You can hug me,” Zitao said at once. “I don’t mind, I know what it feels like. I live alone, too.”

It was a turning point in their relationship. After that moment Zitao felt like he was more open to Kris and found himself growing more and more fond of him, to the point where Zitao sometimes wondered if he was falling in love.

He mentioned it in passing to Kris and he laughed. “Of course you’re falling in love with me,” Kris said. “That’s how mating works.”

“But I’ve never thought of being with another man before…” Zitao muttered. “It never even occurred to me…”

Kris went very still. “I see,” he said stiffly. Zitao felt a bit unsettled when he left that afternoon. He had a test in two days and wasn’t going to be able to see Kris the next day. He thought it would be best to go back as soon as his test was over and explain that he meant it only as an example of how surprised he was at himself, nothing else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zitao got quite a shock when he arrived back at the Hotel on Monday afternoon and Kris wasn’t waiting for him near the door, as he’d taken to doing. Zitao made his way to their usual room with his heart racing, wondering if something had happened to Kris. When he opened the door he saw Kris curled up on the bed with his back facing him, and when he made to step in the room Kris screamed at him.

“Go away! Leave me alone!”

Zitao leapt back with his hands over his chest, barely able to stop the door from closing all the way in time.

“What? Why?” He demanded breathlessly.

Kris curled up tighter. “Just go home.”

Zitao swallowed and stepped back in the room only to back away when Kris screamed again.

“Stop it! You’re hurting me!”

“How?” Zitao yelled back. “What am I doing?”

Kris was breathing heavily and Zitao kicked the door stopper down so he could keep an eye on Kris and backed away until he hit the opposite wall. It seemed to work and after a few seconds Kris had calmed down enough to talk.

“I told you that Pets are very physically affectionate, right? Well, there’s a reason for that. We take in energy from other beings, and we do it through physical contact.”

“Take in energy?” Zitao repeated disbelievingly.

“Okay, maybe energy was the wrong word…Qi,” Kris said suddenly. “I’m sure you know what that is.”

“You…need Qi?”

Kris growled in frustration. “Have you ever had one of those days when you’re so tired you can feel it in your bones? Where sleep just isn’t enough anymore and you need something else just to be able to even think?”

Zitao didn’t even need to think about it. “Yes, I have.”

Kris shifted on the bed, uncurling slightly. “We have those days too. It’s not easy to be mixed with so many breeds of creatures, it takes a lot just for our bodies to function at a rate that will keep us alive. When we’re young we can get by with Qi from our clan mates, but as we get older it’s not enough. That’s when we start to look for our soul mate.”

“But you said you’ve been alone for a while,” Zitao protested. “Why didn’t you react like this before?”

“Well I’ve been under a lot of stress recently,” Kris spat. “It tends to do things to a person.”

Zitao’s mind raced to catch up with the situation. “So how am I hurting you then?”

Kris was quiet for a little bit and Zitao wondered if he wasn’t going to answer. “Because I need my mate and you’re not…you don’t…”

He struggled for the words for a second before seemingly giving up. “And the fact that you are here but you aren’t here in the way that I need you to be is just taking a really big toll on me so if you could just leave…”

Zitao scoffed. “Leave you like this? No way, what do you need?”

Kris turned over so he could glare at Zitao. His face was pale and he had dark circles under his eyes, which were red from tears. “Well you’re my mate,” he said. “Figure it out.”

Zitao caught onto his meaning and his brain fizzled to a halt.

“There has to be another way,” he said immediately.

“It’s the most effective way,” Kris informed him. “But only if you have feelings for me.”

Zitao had never felt so helpless in his life. “I’m just not ready for that,” he said desperately. “It’s not that I don’t care at all, I just need more time!”

Kris sighed. “I would never ask you to do something that you didn’t want to do,” he reminded Zitao.

The way Kris said it made Zitao want to comfort him, even to just be near him. He pushed off from the door and marched into the room. Kris shrank into the mattress and dug his nails into his arm, as Zitao got closer he could hear Kris breathing through his teeth. Zitao laid down and curled himself around Kris’ body, pressing his chest Kris’ back.

“I can’t leave you alone,” Zitao told him. “Not like this. I may not be able to have se—to mate with you but I want to help you.”

Kris had tensed up but with each word he relaxed, so Zitao pressed on. “You said you needed your mate and so I’m going to be here for you. I do have feelings for you, Kris. I…like you. A lot. More than I thought I would.”

He could have gone on but Kris flipped around and grabbed Zitao’s shoulders, pulling him even closer.

“Say that again,” he demanded. They were so close their foreheads were touching.

“I’m your mate…” Zitao started, but Kris shook his head.

“That you like me,” he clarified, his voice breaking. He lowered his head until his next words were spoken into Zitao’s chest. “I need to hear you say it again.”

Zitao wrapped his arms around Kris’ back and ducked his head down. He wished he could see Kris’ face but he contented himself with the top of Kris’ head.

“I like you. I want to be with you.”

Kris inhaled shakily, like he was about to cry. “I thought you didn’t…I thought you didn’t even want me.”

“Why would you think that?” Zitao asked, but as soon as he said it he remembered why he’d rushed over. “When I said that I had never thought I’d like men.”

Kris nodded. “I thought you’d never want me.”

Now Zitao thought he’d cry. “I never wanted to make you feel like that, and I’m so sorry I did. I was more surprised than anything but I know it sounded wrong. I had really limited myself in the past, I never thought about how relationships worked and that relationships weren’t limited to men and women. You don’t get a lot of opportunities to see relationships like that where we are, at least not in person. But ever since I met you I’ve been talking to people who have relationships with the opposite . It wasn’t easy, a lot of the people I found spoke other languages, but I found a girl who spoke Korean and who was willing to talk to me about her relationship with her girlfriend.”

Zitao hadn’t even planned on telling Kris about this, but he figured that Kris deserved and explanation. “I did have a kind of ual identity crisis in the beginning and this girl really helped me through it. She told me that for her it was more about seeing a person, not a gender, and that if she woke up one morning and her girlfriend was suddenly a man she wouldn’t love her any less, and that was when I really started to think differently. I realized that if I could accept you as not being fully human it was kind of silly to be put off by your gender. It just took a little while for me to come to that realization and then right after that it was like I started to fall in love with you, and I thought maybe I was falling too fast and I was afraid of jumping into things…” Zitao paused for a deep breath. “But I don’t feel as nervous now. I’m not fully prepared for everything yet but I think I’m ready to fall in love.”

Kris finally looked up and Zitao was taken aback. He looked less tired, his skin wasn’t as pale and his eyes were brighter. “I’m really, really glad you feel that way,” he said. “Because I’m ready to fall in love too.”

Zitao gaped at Kris. “What happened?” He asked. “How did you…you look so much better now!”

Kris beamed at him. “Qi swap,” he said happily.

“But…but you said…”

“I know!” Kris cried. “This kind of thing usually only happens with couples that have been together for a really long time or who love each other a lot.”

“But how did I give you my Qi?” Zitao wondered. “I didn’t feel it.”

Kris frowned. “I guess…you can give but not receive. That can happen too, usually when there’s still a block. I guess you’re still blocked, but when you told me that you liked me I opened up and it allowed your Qi to mingle with mine.”

“How is that even possible?” Zitao muttered. “I though Qi was just a bunch of hocus pocus.”

Kris shrugged. “That you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. You wanted to help me, so you did. That’s all you really needed to do, I guess.”

Zitao shut his eyes and fell backwards, his head hanging off the edge of the bed.

“Help me, my life has stopped making all kinds of sense,” he begged the ceiling. Kris flung himself down next to Zitao and snuggled into his side.

“Sense is boring,” he said cheerfully. Zitao hit him on the shoulder but didn’t push him away.

Thanks again to carebearassassin (http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/137091) for the poster :DDD Love you dearie <3