Let our shadows stay together

Wind

On the other side of the panoramic windows, raindrops are flowing down in tangled paths. The wind, which had recently been freely playing with hair, braiding in it, bringing a real downpour, gaining more and more strength with each of its gusts.

Xiè Lián presses his bright face against the cool glass. He sighs. And he closes his eyes: another half hour of waiting ... again half an hour — in an embrace to internal fractures ... and who knows how much further in separation.

A long-fingered palm will gently touch the drooping shoulder.

Huā Chéng...

His elusive love. Shining statuesque beauty on the world's catwalks. The one who turned his flaw into something that gives him a special charm, which, of course, no camera and no glossy cover is able to convey. Demonically brilliant and refined beauty, so desired by many, but belonging — even for a short moment of rare meetings — to one patient and submissively waiting for him Xiè Lián.

"You're sad again, gēge."

Not asking, but stating. Huā Chéng understands everything himself. And he's infinitely grateful to him for understanding. But there is no way to change anything yet.

"No," Xiè Lián diligently pulls a smile to the surface of his lips and in a fit of misty tenderness leans his cheek against a neck as hard as a stone. "I missed you... so much. You know that yourself."

"I know," they stroke his hair, and Xiè Lián feels as if Huā Chéng is letting the wind get lost in the strands between his long fingers, "but there's nothing we can do about it, dear gēge. At least — for now."

Xiè Lián nods, running the tip of his neat nose over the skin stretched around the neck muscles, but says nothing more. Spending precious moments of their "together" is a wasteful and unacceptable luxury. Huā Chéng understands everything. The hands slide along the waist, the fingertips meet under the protruding shoulder blades.

His gentle, fragile and with all his demonic heart beloved Xiè Lián.

Huā Chéng suddenly feels Xiè Lián's entire body begin to tremble in his embrace. Soon the thrill turns into a real tremor. He understands: the matter is in the wind that penetrated into the airport building, which created cold drafts. Then Huā Chéng opens his white coat embroidered with crimson maple leaves and wraps this desperately tender creature in it, with all his longing heart instantly clinging to his hard, like a marble statue, chest.

Xiè Lián hears his breathing, adjusts to the same warm wave with him and slowly, thinking that it is imperceptible at all, begins to scatter pearls of kisses on the opening of the collarbones. Huā Chéng is both happy and tickled at the same time. But he does not dare to interfere with his beloved — the moments of heartfelt intimacy are too short and rare to deprive them both.

And then there will be a splash of hands, a sad "oh, is it time already?" and Xiè Lián's clumsily disguised sob. A long kiss goodbye, the obligatory "see you soon, don't be sad, gēge" by Huā Chéng and completely cooled down gusts of wind covering both.

And yet Xiè Lián believes. Every time he believes that they will meet, no matter how much their planes fly to different sides of the world. For not believing Huā Chéng, the love of his long life, is an unforgivable crime.

Someday I won't need to see you off... you'll just take my hand and lead me to get on one flight. And where — it doesn't matter. For someone who has learned to appreciate moments for an eternity, it doesn't matter anymore.