Maybe in another life

Chapter 4

While one parent was already making wedding plans and the other tried to foil them, the two young men all this chaos was about didn't know about their luck. They haven't even been able to figure out what those feelings of comfort and familiarity were that the other person evoked in them yet. They've felt drawn to one another from the start as if they had simply reawakened a sleeping emotion, but the nature of this emotion is still hidden from them.

Shen Jiu smiled as he noticed how comfortable he felt at the moment. He couldn't even put into words how much he enjoyed that he didn't even have to put effort into feeling calm with this person. It came to him as natural as breathing.

This all was causing him to start suspecting that in some way he must have known this man before. Not in this life, but another. And  known him for a rather long time too. Otherwise Shen Jiu wouldn't have been so quick to trust this person.

Although he was a bit interested in how he could trust so easily and how this whole thing came to be, Shen Jiu wasn't too fixated on finding out. He cared more about finding out new things about this man, so he kept asking him questions while slowly inching closer to the other until their arms were touching subtly.

When their arms made contact, Yue Qi momentarily paused out of surprise, but he soon went back to the conversation, smiling a bit more than before. Though he was sometimes a bit slow with deciphering other people's actions, it didn't take Yue Qi long to figure out that Shen Jiu was feeling increasingly comfortable with him and Yue Qi had never been happier about anything in his life. He noticed too, that Shen Jiu seemed to like listening to him talk too. He was mostly asking questions and after asking them he would just relax into the sofa and listen attentively to whatever Yue Qi had to say.

“You really like listening to my voice, don't you?” Yue Qi asked after a while. After Shen Jiu had said that he liked Yue Qi's voice earlier, he didn't really believe him, or at least he had a hard time accepting it. Now that Shen Jiu was behaving very obvious about it, Yue Qi simply wanted to confirm this. He found that for some reason he cared a lot about the other's answer.

“It is a nice voice, so naturally I do,” Shen Jiu replied outright. Normally he would feel embarrassed and become defensive about stuff he liked or feelings he exposed, but at the moment he was fine sharing such things. “You don't seem too confident about it. Is it that you feel like one shouldn't take a liking in your voice, Your Highness?”

“Please don't…” Yue Qi trailed off and sighed. He had tried multiple times now to get Shen Jiu to stop referring to him using honorifics, but it wasn't working. He was about to wonder whether it may be time to give up and just accept it now. “I just wouldn't know which aspect of my voice could make it special and warrant it being liked.”

“It doesn't have to have anything special,” Shen Jiu said and smiled, “Though yours is a bit special so to speak. It's deep and calming and the way you speak is quite nice. You speak slower and pay attention to what you say before you speak it out. Even when you stutter.”

“I-is that so?” Yue Qi asked, his face starting to become warm again. He had thought that he was over this phase of getting embarrassed, but just like this he was back to stuttering.

“That is so,” Shen Jiu replied and gave a light chuckle, “It is indeed so, Qi-ge.”

The second that nickname left his mouth, Shen Jiu froze. He hadn't intended to say that at all, or rather, he hadn't thought about saying it. That in itself shouldn't be a problem though, but for some reason this name had left an indescribable feeling in his heart that now wouldn't leave and it was so bittersweet that Shen Jiu could barely think straight.

Yue Qi wasn't better off. His eyes were wide open and he stared at Shen Jiu with surprise. His heart twitched slightly as he recalled what the other had just called him. He wasn't really sure how to describe it and if that name felt positive or not. Yue Qi found himself in the rare position of being incapable of saying anything as he continued to look at the other man's confused face.