Wild Creatures

Chapter 75

They're holding hands and slowly climbing up the stairs to the first floor. Wei Ying asked for a short tour of this level, before they have to get ready to leave.

It's past four o'clock and they have to leave in a couple of hours, so this tour is going to be the shortest in the history of tours, and yet Wei Ying feels it's necessary. To give Lan Zhan a non-emotional break between what he just had to go through, and the next thing they have to do.

In hindsight, perhaps they should have waited until tomorrow, or any other day when they were freer, to fully process what must be a tornado of feelings.

But Wei Ying knew better than anyone else how much the curiosity and yearning to find out what one's mother wanted to tell them was like. He cannot blame either of the Lan brothers for listening to the recordings as soon as possible.

And Wei Ying tries not to think about his own red book, lying on the table in his bedroom, back at their apartment.

He feels like he's rushing it, by reading each message quickly, and he wants to savour each one because he won't have that first-time-reading-it feeling again. Like reading a really great book, or watching the best film ever, and then wanting to erase the memory of it so that whatever you felt that first time around can be felt again, fresh and new.

There are four bedrooms on this floor.

"You say that, but each one is a suite," Wei Ying corrects Lan Zhan with a small smile.

"This is my bedroom. Our bedroom, now." Lan Zhan replies smiling, which for him is the slightest tilting of his lips, because Wei Ying blushes in the prettiest way.

They've glanced through three other similar looking rooms with the same adjacent bathroom; the size of which is closer to Wei Ying's living room than any ordinary bathroom could be. Even here, the quiet luxury echoed from the marble fittings and porcelain sink and bathtub. Even the fittings were either silver or gold, matching the shining flecks within the marble tiles.

Lan Zhan's bedroom was all neutral shades of cream, beige and the palest blue. His bedroom door opened into a luxurious living room with cream leather sofas and an armchair, cream fluffy cushions that were hiding two pink ears reminding Wei Ying of the bunnies they were supposed to be.

There was a white marble fireplace, sparklingly clean, suggesting that no one had lit a fire in its hearth for quite some time. One cream door with golden clouds around the frame led to another ostentatious bathroom, this one in the same pale colours and with an added jacuzzi, and a complicated showering section with multiple jets. The bedroom was another example of understated luxury, with two more fluffy white pillows, both with pink ears.

Lan Zhan's face was priceless as he waited for Wei Ying's reactions, but his boyfriend squealed with so much enthusiasm, saying Lan Zhan was the cutest person ever, before throwing himself onto the pale blue comforter.

Even in that starfish sprawl, his lean body extended in all directions still wasn't long enough to take up space, to reach the corners and their bag of clothing and Wei Ying's makeup still sat at the bottom of the bed, undisturbed.

Lan Zhan felt a frisson of excitement, a warmth steadily growing as he watched Wei Ying make himself more and more comfortable. It felt good in a possessive kind of way, to see Wei Ying in his space, and be able to think of sleeping there, wrapped up in each other. Lan Zhan did not sleep anymore, anyway, and besides, there was so much to be done in bed other than simply sleeping...

Wei Ying rolled onto his side with a coquettish grin, resting his head on the palm of his right hand, triangulating his arm so he was comfortably able to watch Lan Zhan through his lashes.