Capturing My Demon King Costar

MY COSTAR WANTS TO KISS ME

Yao Shen considers taking back his words in the ensuing silence.

Xin Hulei is looking at him evenly, his expression shuttered as always.

"I mean-," Yao Shen starts, ready to backtrack.

"Yes."

The word hits Yao Shen like a punch. Suddenly, he can't look Xin Hulei in the eye, his gaze drifts downwards towards his own knees and his fidgeting hands.

Is that what he wanted to hear?

Why did he ask Xin Hulei that?

Was he just trying to divert attention away from himself? To avoid answering Xin Hulei's intrusive question, by asking one of his own?

Well, now the answer is out there.

The question is: what is Yao Shen going to do about it?

"Don't you love Yan Shuyi?" Yao Shen asks, grasping at anything to help him make sense of the situation.

"Yes," Xin Hulei says again, in the exact same tone. "But Yan Shuyi is dead."

Of course Yao Shen already knew that, but he didn't expect Xin Hulei to admit it so casually.

He didn't expect him to admit it, period.

Before Yao Shen can come up with something appropriate to say, Xin Hulei speaks again:

"I said I wanted to kiss you, but that has nothing to do with love."

Yao Shen freezes.

Right, of course it doesn't.

He's reminded of the drawings Xin Hulei did for that stupid game show segment they recorded together.

Joy and desire meant different things for Xin Hulei.

In fact, lots of people wanted to kiss people they didn't love. There was nothing surprising about that.

Yao Shen himself had kissed plenty of people he didn't love.

And like Xin Hulei said, Yan Shuyi is dead. What is Xin Hulei supposed to do? Pine away forever?

After a drawn out pause for silent deliberation, Yao Shen finally blurts out, "I don't know if I want to kiss you."

Xin Hulei takes it in stride. "Do you want to find out?"

Yao Shen feels his palms sweating. "I don't know if that's a good idea, we're coworkers, I mean..." He trails off, unsure of how to finish his sentence.

Xin Hulei scoots towards him on the sofa, Yao Shen can feel the warmth of his body where they're pressed together.

"Think about it," Xin Hulei says, whispering the words into Yao Shen's neck.

And then he gets up from the sofa, stretching his arms above his head carelessly. His t-shirt rides up and Yao Shen catches a glimpse of a tantalizing strip of bare abdomen.

He averts his eyes quickly but not before Xin Hulei catches him staring.

"Are you sleeping here?" Xin Hulei asks, looking down into Yao Shen's flustered face.

That's probably not a good idea, so Yao Shen doesn't understand why he replies, "Yes."

---

Like before, Xin Hulei is a gracious host, and offers to let Yao Shen shower first, but this time Yao Shen takes him up on it -- desperate to put some distance between them.

During the entire time he's in the shower he can't help wondering about what he would do, if Xin Hulei barged in and got into the stall with him.

He tries to clear his mind of the image of Xin Hulei's taller frame boxing him against the wall, water making their skin stick together.

He feels lightheaded with the mental picture, but at least it forces him to confront something he's been desperately trying to avoid.

He's probably attracted to Xin Hulei. Viscerally so.

There's no point in denying it any longer when his body is reacting so obviously to the mere thought of the two of them together in the same shower stall.

But Xin Hulei said it himself: it doesn't have to mean anything.

Xin Hulei is objectively attractive, as insufferable as Yao Shen finds him, it's not like he can help his body's reaction.

Maybe -- maybe it would be okay to indulge his attraction.

---

Yao Shen leaves the bathroom enveloped in a cloud of steam and anxiety. He averts his eyes while Xin Hulei walks past him and into the narrow bathroom.

There are clothes laid out for him on top of the crisply made bed. Yao Shen puts them on self-consciously. The t-shirt hangs loosely from his narrower frame, and even the boxer shorts feel loose around the thighs. There's no way for him to ignore that he's wearing Xin Hulei's clothes.

Unbearably intimate.

Yao Shen hides his face in his palms with a groan.

From the terrarium by the window, comes a high-pitched screech, "You again? What are you doing here? Master! Master, intruder, intruder!"

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Yao Shen says, rearing up to throw a pillow at Jincan.

Strong fingers warp around his wrist, stilling his arm in midair.

"Jincan is my friend," Xin Hulei says, staring down into Yao Shen's eyes, who lowers the pillow in silent mortification.

Xin Hulei is only wearing a pair of dark boxer-briefs, his bath towel hanging loosely from his shoulders, doing a poor job of catching the water from his dripping hair.

The more he looks at him, the harder it is for Yao Shen to deny just how attractive he finds him.

His mouth is drier than the Gobi.

"I've thought about it," he says, admiring the path of an ambitious water droplet down the valleys of Xin Hulei's stomach.

In a single swift movement, Xin Hulei pulls the towel from around his shoulders and throws it towards Jincan's terrarium. It snags on the overhead lamp and covers his glass enclosure like a curtain.

They can still hear his muffled complaints. "Master? Master, everything has gone dark suddenly."

"Then maybe you should go to sleep," Xin Hulei says, eyes fixed on Yao Shen, still sitting on the bed, clinging to the edge of the mattress with a white-knuckled grip.

"Why did you buy such a small apartment?" Yao Shen asks, apropos of nothing.

He doesn't know what's going to happen, yet, but he's not happy about Jincan being there to witness it, even if he can't see anything.

"I don't like ostentation. This is fine."

He sits down next to Yao Shen on the bed, and before Yao Shen can fill the suffocating silence with another inane question, Xin Hulei wraps one arm around his waist and lifts him up into his lap