Guiying looked at the velvet box on the nightstand.
Liuxian picked it up and opened it without ceremony.
Two rings, simple and elegant, catching the warm light of the bedside lamp. He reached over and took Guiying's left hand with the same natural ease with which he had opened the car door that morning, as though the gesture required no deliberation whatsoever, and slid the ring onto his finger.
He did not make a production of it. He simply did it, the way someone did something that was obvious and right and needed no announcement.
Guiying looked down at his hand.
He had been married for five years in another life.
Five years, and Shen Zihao had never once put a ring on his finger.
Not on the wedding day, not after. He had not been a husband. He had been an acquisition, and acquisitions did not get rings.
He looked at the ring sitting on his finger now and said nothing.
Liuxian had not let go of his hand. He turned it slightly, examining the effect with the considering eye of someone assessing whether his instinct had been correct.
"I thought they would suit you," he said. His thumb moved once, lightly, across Guiying's knuckles. "I was right. You made it prettier."
Guiying felt the back of his neck get warm.
He retrieved his hand with as much composure as he could manage and directed his attention back at his laptop screen, where the baby was still being unreasonably cute and making no demands on him whatsoever.
Liuxian did not leave.
He sat on the edge of the bed with the unhurried ease of someone who had nowhere else to be and no particular intention of going there, and the silence between them was comfortable in a way that Guiying was not entirely sure what to do with. He kept waiting for the shift, the moment the atmosphere changed into something that required navigating. It did not come.
He reached into the chip bag. He watched the baby on screen. He was aware, in his peripheral vision, that Liuxian was still there.
He did not know how to ask him to leave. It seemed rude. It also seemed unnecessary given that Liuxian appeared perfectly content simply existing in the room, which was its own kind of confusing.
He shifted slightly on the bed and leaned back against the headboard, pulling the laptop closer.
Liuxian moved at the same time.
Suddenly there were arms on either side of him, and Liuxian's weight was pressing him gently but firmly into the headboard, caging him in with the calm confidence of someone who had decided to do a thing and saw no reason to be subtle about it.
"Ack!" Guiying's hands flew up instinctively. "You are so heavy! What do you want?!"
Liuxian looked down at him.
Up close, in the soft light of the bedroom, with his hair still slightly messy from the towel and his expression carrying that quiet, unhurried warmth that he wore so effortlessly, he was unreasonably attractive. His voice, when he spoke, dropped to something low and unhurried that seemed to settle in the chest before the brain had finished processing the words.
"A kiss," he said simply. "It is our wedding night. The least you can give your husband is a kiss, dear wifey."
Guiying stared up at him.
The words were simple. The delivery was not. There was something in his voice, in the way his gaze held steady and warm and entirely certain, that bypassed every rational thought Guiying had and went somewhere considerably less composed. Something that made the air in the room feel slightly different than it had a moment ago.
He swallowed.
"You said you were not planning on sleeping with me," he managed.
"I said that," Liuxian agreed. "I said nothing about kisses."
He thought about Shen Zihao, who had never asked for anything. Who had simply taken.
He looked at Liuxian.
Then he leaned up and pressed a quick, firm kiss to the corner of his mouth, pulled back immediately, and said, "There. Now get off, you are crushing my legs."
Liuxian did not move.
He looked at the corner of his mouth. Then at Guiying. Then back at the corner of his mouth, with the expression of a man conducting a serious and considered assessment.
"That," he said, "was not a kiss."
"It was a kiss."
"It was an insult dressed as a kiss."
"Liuxian—"
"My grandmother kisses her houseplants with more conviction than that."
Guiying stared at him. "Your grandmother kisses her houseplants?"
"That is not the point." Liuxian looked down at him, warm and immovable, his hand still resting with complete innocence at Guiying's waist. "Try again."
Guiying looked at the ceiling. He looked at the laptop screen where the baby was being unreasonably cute and unhelpful.
He looked back at Liuxian's face, close and patient and entirely certain that it was going to get what it wanted.
He grabbed Liuxian's collar, pulled him down, and kissed him properly.
It lasted exactly as long as Guiying decided it would last, which was longer than he intended, because Liuxian kissed the way he did everything else, unhurried, warm, and with complete and devastating attention.
Guiying released his collar and lay back against the pillow.
His ears were red.
Liuxian straightened up. The almost smile was back, settled and quiet at the corner of his mouth.
"Good boy.."
He did not move toward the door.
Instead he turned, walked around to the other side of the bed, lifted the edge of the blanket with the calm entitlement of a man in his own home, and lay down.
Guiying turned his head and watched this happen in real time.
Liuxian pulled the blanket up, adjusted the pillow to his satisfaction, and settled onto his back with the deeply comfortable exhale of someone who had made a decision and was at peace with it.
"What," Guiying said, "are you doing?"
"Getting comfortable," Liuxian said.
"This is my room."
"Our room," Liuxian said pleasantly, his eyes already on the laptop screen. "Is this the show with the baby? Put it on from the beginning."