A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 105 – Hangover Cure

I’m So Tiwed.

In the end, Song Sirui swore up to the heavens, garbling, that he did not want to see them until he becomes attached.
Gao Tianyang pointed at him from afar. “Make a more hardcore oath if you dare.”
Song Sirui asked in alert, “Why?”
“Fuzhong will be having a anniversarial celebration this year, you’re a dog if you show up.”
The moment Song Sirui heard that, he added, “The person swearing this oath: Gao Tianyang.”

Everyone, despite their varying levels of drunkenness, all doubled over in laughter. Gao Tianyang swore a “fuck”, grabed the chicken wing bone in front of him, and tossed it over. However, this idiot did not even take a proper shot.
Sheng Wang grabbed the menu with lightning reflexes and blocked it, that was how he avoided the chicken bone from smacking right into his forehead.
“You’re done for,” Sheng Wang grabbed the ice bucket, and Gao Tianyang scuttled away as though he was flying. As he yelled “sorry it’s my fault”, he screamed at Jiang Tian, “Tian-ge, get him under control!”
Jiang Tian leaned against the chair, saying, “Can’t do that.”

There was a slight drawl to his voice; it was apparent that he was a little drunk. His gaze was stuck on the certain someone who was kicking up a fuss.

Gao Tianyang was still hooting about, and weaved around the table in the private room, evading capture. He was originally relying on Tian-ge to open his eyes, and save his life in the nick of time. After going two rounds, he understood at last: a person in love was not a person to count on. He had to shoulder the consequences of the bone he threw.

When Sheng Wang ended up back at his seat, he overheard Carp discussing with him something in her field of work. He actually did give legit answers.

“Aren’t you doing nanotech?” Sheng Wang asked in curiosity as his elbow rested on the back of his chair.
“I’ve taken some classes on clinical science,” Jiang Tian said.
“Which ones?”
“Stuff like the human body, cellular organisms, formation of embryos.”
His gaze swept across Sheng Wang’s resting arm back and forth. When he spoke to Carp again, he reached out and squeezed Sheng Wang’s fingertip. As he answered, he fiddled with it.

Sheng Wang stared at his finger — which was being toyed with — and suddenly felt a little novel. His Ge would rarely fidget around before other people, and moves like this that were filled with intimacy and clinginess were even rarer. Just like the feverish person from those years ago — probably a product of idle nerves and a relaxed mind, not meaning particularly much. A sudden rear of its head, and Sheng Wang would enjoy it very much.

Sometimes, he felt like Jiang Tian was a pandora’s box; he was scared of whatever’s in him would spook him, so he would only open up a tiny crack every time, letting those dense and turbulent things slowly seep out. He would seem more gentle that way.

But the more he acted like that, the more Sheng Wang loved to tease him to the point of flipping up the lid. Just like daily life, when the colder he appeared, the more magnetic he was. Sheng Wang did witness the hidden parts of him before.

If it wasn’t for the concern that too much alcohol is bad for the body, Sheng Wang seriously wanted to trick him into a few more glasses. He wanted to see the extent he would brazenly relax away. Would he simply flip the lid wide open?
……

The group of people managed to chat until it was nearly 11 before they parted on their own ways. Sheng Wang took a bit of a detour, and only drove towards the direction of the school after he sent Song Sirui and the rest back to the hotel. They passed by a supermarket on the way. Sheng Wang glanced over there and asked, “Did that jar of honey of yours already run out?”
A reply was not heard after asking that question. He turned around to check, and discovered that Jiang Tian had fallen asleep at one point. The streetlight landed on the side of his face, drawing out an outline from his forehead to his upper lip. Piercing, but quiet.

Sheng Wang stalled the car by the parking line at the side of the road, left a gap in the car window, and quietly exited the car, entering the supermarket. He kept thinking about how Jiang Tian was still asleep in the car, so he headed straight to the checkout counter after taking a bottle of honey.

There would always be those couple of racks by the counter that would stock some age-restricted things as though they are putting it on exhibition. Sheng Wang did know about it, it was just that he never found himself caring before. Perhaps he was affected by the footage he watched a few days ago, but his eyes couldn’t help but to drift over to it multiple times.

The hand of a human is naturally born to betray themself. His head was clearly thinking that “Horror Educational Films” cause nothing but suffering, but by the time he came back to himself, there were already two more items on the checkout counter.

He hesitated for a moment, and just as he was about to put back those items, he heard the supermarket doors chime with a “welcome”. Jiang Tian, who was previously sleeping in the car, had woken up for some reason. His eyes swept across the supermarket through the automatic opening doors, and landed at the checkout area.
Sheng Wang instantly turned to say to the cashier, “I’m checking out, thank you.”

He asked for a plastic bag, messily swept everything inside, and especially left it in the backseat after he got onthe car.
“Why did you wake up?” Sheng Wang thought Jiang Tian had gotten over the headiness of the alcohol, but unexpectedly, he merely buckled his seatbelt with his head lowered, let out a grunt, and turned to look at the white plastic bag in the backseat.
A wave of apprehension hit Sheng Wang.

“What did you buy?” Jiang Tian asked.
“Honey.” Sheng Wang answered, as resolute as iron.

The first thing he did after entering the house was to settle Jiang Tian on the living room sofa, and then hurriedly enter the kitchen with the plastic bag in his hand. He untied the knot, watching the two additional thingies inside of it, and thought to himself, the trauma from the blackhole isn’t even gone yet, why did I buy this again? For scientific research?
He pulled out a random rarely used drawer, stuffed the things inside, and then obediently started boiling water.

The electric kettle was quietly working away. Sheng Wang tore the cellophane seal off the bottle of honey and dumped it into the trash bin. Just as he turned around to go retrieve a glass from the glass cabinet, he saw Jiang Tian leaning against the kitchen door, quietly looking in his direction. Who knew when exactly he came over.

He couldn’t remain quite still after drinking, and was always looking for someone. But after he found him, he didn’t make himself known, merely standing at a distance that was neither too near nor too far. The light in the kitchen tilted onto the top of his head, but it could not light his eyes up. His gaze seemed both dark and heavy.

“Ge?” Sheng Wang called out to him with the mug in his hand.
“Mn,” Jiang Tian’s eyelid briefly lifted. The shadows casted by his eyelashes became an elongated line. He stared at Sheng Wang for a few seconds, walked over, and wrapped his arms around him from behind.
For an instant, Sheng Wang could feel the muscles on his shoulder blades tense up. Quite a while later, he then gradually relaxed, his gaze downcasted as his chin pressed down on the crook of Sheng Wang’s shoulders.
“Wang-zai,” Jiang Tian called out softly.
“Hm?” Sheng Wang replied.

Yet he didn’t speak — like he simply wanted to just say that.

Before, Sheng Wang always said he wanted to see the way Jiang Tian acted when he is drunk, even slightly tipsy will do. Now that he truly saw it, all he felt was the edge of his heart being pinched by someone, crumbling away into a sour ache.

The cat in the living room had woken up at some point in time, and trotted in, going around the two’s legs, rubbing against the material of the long pants with its head. It stretched, and ran away; like it simply came over to say hello after hearing its name called out.

Sheng Wang stilled for a second, and suddenly understood why Jiang Tian couldn’t be still on his own, and would wake up after falling asleep too. He knew why he was always looking for him, and he also knew why Jiang Tian had given the cat such a name.
Perhaps, when he’s living all by himself in a foriegn land, he hoped that the moment he called out this name, he could at least get a response in the house.

Sheng Wang allowed him to hug him for a while, and caressed the side of his cheek. “I’m making honey water for you, it’s to negate the effects of the alcohol.”
“I saw,” Jiang Tian replied in a low voice.
He continued to press down on the curve in Sheng Wang’s shoulder; the pitch of his voice was nearly gravel, bringing with it waning intoxication.

Sheng Wang’s ears were already sensitive to touch, and hearing him speak so close to the base of his ear was basically a covert form of excitement. The waves and waves of softness in his heart were instantly replaced by something numb and prickling.
He tilted his head ever so slightly, and heard Jiang Tian speak once more, “What did you buy in the supermarket?”
“……Nothing much.”
“Really?”

Sheng Wang’s tongue darted out to wet the drying edge of his lip lightly. He resisted for a while — failed — and said, “Don’t talk right next to my ear.”
Jiang Tian didn’t move, who knew if it was on purpose or something else. “Why?”
Sheng Wang closed his eyes, and thought to himself, are you for real, what else could it be. But the moment he opened his mouth, he felt Jiang Tian lower his head, slightling brushing it against the side of his neck for a while, and then biting down.

Sheng Wang already had a weak resolve; with his Ge doing this to him, any noise soon ceased to come out of him. He didn’t know if he should move his hand down to grab his, or to grip the edge of the glass counter.

His head tilted up. A while later, he turned around to kiss Jiang Tian back, grasping the other person instantly, his fingers disappearing within his hair. He briefly heard Jiang Tian pull the drawer open, and take out the items he hid away inbetween the intervals of their kissing. His voice was hoarse as he said, “Found it.”

Sheng Wang’s brain was instantly set on fire with a boom.
“Do you really want to try it?” Jiang Tian asked.

Of course, he did know what Sheng Wang meant by the other method. After all, he did chance upon it before, and it became a personal trauma to him for a long period of time. That made up his complete understanding of the state of disgrace in his childhood and his youth, because even Ji Huanyu himself had treated those instances as shameful things that cannot be mentioned any more than strictly necessary.

He once thought he would be quite repulsed by this sort of thing — until he fell for someone, until he started to be unable to help himself, until he had urges and desires. He loved to see the way Sheng Wang was when he’s lost to those feelings; his skin very white, the edges of his eyes very red. In heated moments, his brows liked to crinkle slightly, a thin layer of mist would curtain his pupils; a sun sunken in the ocean waters, the light and waves interweaving to form a dense fog.

But for certain things, wanting to do them from actually doing them was rather different. So every time, he would stop at a degree that could be accepted in a normal state. He was worried that if he truly went all the way, Sheng Wang would think that it was a disgraceful state every time he thought back about it.

However, he was weak against someone’s repeated teasing, intentional or not. Therefore, he asked Sheng Wang in all seriousness once: Do you really want to try it?

Sheng Wang did for a split second want to beat the drums for retreat, wanting to say “I was buying it for fun”. But he couldn’t find himself caring about anything at all after kisses and kisses coming from Jiang Tian. Maybe, in his bones, he was still the person he was at seventeen, who would throw all caution to the wind and give in to impulse after kissing with his boyfriend for a bit.

……
How they came out of the kitchen, how they fumbled their way into showering, and how they even ended up on the bed, Sheng Wang could no longer clearly recall.

// He sprawled across the pillow, and a wave of red gradually crept up on his back. His forehead rested against the back of his hand. In a certain moment of flustered daze, he turned around to take a look — he saw Jiang Tian’s lidded eyes, his dark pupils and his thin white wrist.

He was being explored.

The awareness of this fact caused the frames of his eyes to flame red. He rapidly blinked and turned back around. Next, he heard Jiang Tian say, “Wang-zai, you’re a little too warm.”
He buried himself even deeper within the pillow, the flush seeping up to the roots of his ears.

Shortly after this, his waist twitched, and a single leg curled up, his knee cap tightened. He reached out to hit the person behind him, and managed to grab the person’s wrist that he’s using to support himself up at the side in the midst of delirium.
Due to the lubricant of sweat, his fingers ended up slipping into the gaps between the fingers of the other person’s hand.

“Ge,” his voice was extremely hoarse as he breathed out, “you can start now……”
Soon, his eyes narrowed in the midst of the entering action, letting out a few quick pants escape his lips. A layer of water covered his eyes and lashes. //

TO BE CONTINUED.