A CERTAIN SOMEONE ( THE ON1Y ONE )

Chapter 100 - "Wangzai"

“What’s the Name of the Cat?”

The first day of the new year, Sheng Wang’s phone began vibrating at 6am.
Eyes not even opened, a head full of morning grumpiness, he reached out from the quilt and groped around by the side of the pillow. However, instead of touching his phone, the vibration stopped on its own.

A question mark slowly rose over Sheng Wang’s head, still groggy from sleep.

He was still in the momentary post-hangover blackout stage, and did not instantly realise where exactly he was. Neither did he immediately recall what he experienced last night, he was merely robotically going through the motions every morning — the alarm clock’s ringing, he has to turn it off and wake up.

However, he didn’t need to turn it off before the alarm stopped on its own today. And then there was someone who caught his hand — still messily feeling around — and stuffed it back under the quilt.
Enveloped by warmth again, his consciousness began wavering and sinking back down once more. He was dazed for a few seconds as he laid over the pillow, and suddenly realised that something’s wrong — he looked up with a start.

The curtains weren’t open, it was impossible to tell the time of the day. Instead, there was a warm darkness in the house.
Jiang Tian seemed to have just woken up too, and traces of drowsiness could still be found on his countenance. Sheng Wang saw him grab his phone from the bedside cabinet, glance at the screen and say, “6.05am, you have to work?”
The pitch of his voice was rather low, bringing with it the hoarseness that came from the yet to dissipate drowsiness. After he said that, he added on as though he was afraid someone couldn’t tell the days apart, “It’s the New Year today.”

Actually, Jiang Tian also usually got up at this time. He would go for a morning jog if the weather was fair, or head to the laboratory bright and early if it was raining. However, the demonic deep wintry winds of Beijing come in gusts after gusts, and when it gets bad, it could even push tinier girls backwards. So he may be getting up early and all these few days, but he wouldn’t go looking for suffering in the wind.
Today was a rare exception; it wasn’t that he couldn’t get up, he simply wanted to nourish the harmless little habits of a certain someone back, like the sleep-ins on holidays.

Sheng Wang showed a hint of confusion. His eyes were bright in the darkness nonetheless, staring at Jiang Tian unblinkingly; like he was gradually sorting through the events of last night that led to this morning.
A few seconds later, he flopped back onto his pillow, softly answering, “I’m not working.”

To a certain degree, he was honestly a little alike to that cat son of his. The moment they startled awake, they would explode into a ball of fur out of alarm; once they discovered that there was nothing wrong, they would gradually soften up again, and melt back into his den.
He finally realised that he could have a sleep in, and his taut nerves relaxed too, allowing drowsiness to envelop his mind once more.

“I did have something on,” his voice was raspy and slurred, like he was unwilling to move his tongue even a little more. The pauses between every line was rather long, like an aimless, thoughtless casual chit chat while being half-awake. “The client is a monster. I was supposed to be away on a business trip for seven days, taking up the entire new year break.”
Jiang Tian enjoyed the grumbling that he had not heard for a long time very much. He didn’t say “I’ve heard”, only grunting affirmatively, allowing Sheng Wang to continue lazily.

There were gaps in the train of thoughts of a drowsy person, the content was all over the place too. After he finished the “supposed”, his breathing slowed down, like he had already fallen asleep.
A few seconds later, he suddenly said, “That client looks like Big Mouth Xu, y’know? I want to hide my phone whenever I see him.”
Jiang Tian chuckled.