Red Light

Happy

Song Lan stretched enormously, grunting in the process. Beside him, Xingchen was still fast asleep.

Leaning on his elbow, he watched his love sleep. Noticed his soft skin. His well formed brow. His lips that begged for kisses. Last night had been... Wonderful? Delightful? Amazing? Was there a word that meant all those things and more? He hoped so. He put it on his mental 'To Reasearch' list.

He was in fifth grade when he first saw Xiao Xingchen. He was the embarrassed new kid being introduced in front of the class. Short, skinny and wearing glasses.

Song Lan had seen stars.

It had taken him two days to get up the courage to say 'Hi!'.

After that neither of them seemed to be able to shut up. They discovered they both loved baseball. Together they had played in the youth leagues and loved it.

Song Lan had thrown his first punch over his Star. It was eighth grade. Xingchen was playing shortstop. The runner had taken off from second base. Xingchen had fielded a bouncing grounder. As he turned to tag the runner out, the kid had hit Xingchen with a forearm in the chest then yanked it up and smashed into Xingchen's jaw. Song Lan had watched as he crumpled.

The kid had laughed and run straight to third baseman Song Lan who punched the kid dead in the face. He didn't even wait to watch the kid as he fell sprawled in the dirt. He was already running for his Star.

Bruised ribs and a purple chin had been the results of the runner's attack. The adults had spazzed as adults often do. The runner was appropriately benched for six games and would be evicted from the league if it happened again.

They had made Song Lan shake the kid's hand and apologize. Song Lan had stared the kid in the now blackened eye.

"I apologize." The adults patted his shoulder proud of him until he opened his mouth again.

"If you ever touch Xiao Xingchen again, I won't stop at one punch." It was a matter-of-fact statement.

Between the punch and the 'threat', the coach had benched him for three games. Song Lan didn't care. It wasn't a threat. It was a promise. He went to all three games and yelled from the stands for Xingchen.

It was a year later they shared their first kiss. They were piled in on the sofa together watching The Conjouring**. Huddled together because it was a scary movie and, most importantly,  they could snuggle.

Neither had made a move past being best friends. Both were too terrified of losing the other and too inexperienced to see the tell tale signs**.

It was the scene with the toys. For some reason, it really bothered Song Lan. He had buried his head into Xingchen's shoulder. When he looked back up, Xingchen was looking right at him. Their noses no more than an inch apart. They looked into each other's eyes and it was too much.

The kiss was awkward and perfect. The rest of the movie disappeared for them as they had kissed until their lips were bruised.  They couldn't quit smiling at each other, relieved to know they wanted the same thing.

After that, they knew they had to hide what was really going on between them under the cloak of being best friends. It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.

They had been roommates in college. The only problem was keeping the noise down during sex. They had become lovers in high school so, by college, they felt free to explore. It was amazing the places they found to hide the ropes, leathers and sex toys.

They gloried in the freedom.

They were so careful the few who did guess slowly convinced themselves they were wrong.