"Additionally," the Chinese boy's mouth curled up, "as a side note, the fat in our bodies is really in the form of liquid in our bloodstream." He lowered the laser pointer, "And that concludes today's biochemistry lecture."
Alfred's hand shot straight towards the ceiling.
"…Yes, Alfred?"
Grinning, Alfred leaned back in his chair, gathering two ample handfuls of his own stomach flab. He started jiggling his folds around, forming squirming, distorted-looking faces with it. "You mean all this," ::jiggle, jiggle:: "this here is all really liquid? I'm a big walking bag of fluid? No way!"
"Sexy!" Feliciano squealed.
"Ugh," Yao said, trying to hide his smile. "Yes Alfred, you are a beauty through and through, from sea to literal shining sea. Any other questions?"
"Take it off," Lovino called out rudely. Arthur perked up.
"Any other questions, specifically ones that pertain to the lecture?" Yao repeated, while Arthur held a choking Lovino in a headlock.
"All right, Yao, that'll be all for today. Thank you," their teacher said. At this point in the semester, he had just about given up any attempt of control over the rowdy class. "Next week, Roderich will be giving his presentation." There was a loud accented groan from the back of the class. "See you then."
Back in Arthur's apartment, the British boy bit his thumbnail as Yao undressed.
"I'm starving," the thin Chinese boy complained, removing his shirt so that he was only wearing a thin tank top and his Shinatty-print boxers.
"We'll order room service if you'd like," Arthur grinned, holding up a coupon for a pizza delivery place and his cell in the other hand.
Frowning, Yao flopped next to Arthur on Arthur's bed, his eyes boring into the ceiling where Arthur had tacked three photos strategically, so that they would be the very first images he'd wake up to every morning: 1) Yao in a fancy yellow sundress with a satin trim, which billowed behind him majestically, 2) Yao in a schoolgirl outfit comprising a cute, apple-red dress with his hair in green-ribbon pigtails, and 3) Yao in a Halloween French maid costume for adult women, complete with a feather duster- and a really trashy garter belt.
"I can't believe you stole these from my Mom." He blushed as he recalled insisting on the pink pumps for his schoolgirl shoot. What was he thinking? A red dress, with pink heels? No one in their right mind would be daring enough to try and pull that off!
"Uhm… what exactly are you doing with my son at your residence?" Yao's father had inquired of Arthur, who stood awkwardly in their living room with his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. Behind the elder Chinese man, Arthur could clearly see Officer Gilbert's taunting smirk.
"Don't be like that," Yao's mother piped up before Arthur could say a word. "I can see you seem like a nice boy," Yao's mother stepped forward and clutched both of Arthur's hands. "Would you like some comics to read, while we wait for Dr. Wang and Officer Gilbert to finish filling out the report?"
"Mom, he's not ten—"
"Be quiet!" Yao's mother unleashed a sharp rebuke. "Xiao huai xiahai!" she turned around and added. Yao shrank back.
While Yao cowered in fear of his mother, Arthur nonchalantly reached out and slipped a couple of photos into his pocket.
"When I close my eyes and imagine what Heaven must be like, I see the interior of your house. Skimpily dressed, naughty pictures of Yao in girls'-clothes taped up everywhere."
"Take those down," Yao said, pointing skyward. "If you ever want to see me naked. Ever again."
"I'm terribly, terribly sorry. Come here," Arthur apologized profusely, his voice gentle now.
Yao only closed his eyes. Arthur rolled onto his side and pounced. They wrestled, and he pinned Yao down into the bed. "I couldn't care less if you want a damn pizza. I want you. Now." Before Yao could say another word, Arthur crushed their lips together.
Feeling Arthur's excitement pressed against him, his body responded and Yao let out a soft moan; Arthur drew in his breath sharply. Light streamed into the window adjacent the bed and Yao's tousled hair, his tilted amber-colored eyes, caught the fire of the sun. The English boy's hands slipped behind his back, over his ass and then under his legs, lifting him up and letting Arthur have more access.
I first met as a very young child, and as fate would have it we spent most of their lives apart since that time.
Yet over the years, my obsession of him only increased in furor, not dwindled. If I had any passing interest in another during that space of time, somehow, perhaps subconsciously, I nearly always ended up comparing them to my memories of him, and nothing ever seemed to changed.
Yes, now that I've finally found him again, Yao belongs to me, in every sense of the word.
Yao felt the tears scorching a trail down his face, as he felt Arthur pushing into him, pushed into the sight and color and sound of his dream, pushed until he thought his blood might boil with it, until he wasn't pushing anymore and Yao was lost in the pulse of their bodies. When he thought he might die of it, Arthur kissed him again and held him close.
"Good evening, Miss Wan."
"Haha," Wan said as she wrapped wontons, " 'Wan-mei' is fine, Kiku. Don't be so formal."
"May I have some of those when they're done, Wan-mei?"
"Only if you touch your toes." Wan folded the edges of an especially plump wonton into small crinkles. "If you're looking for Yao, he's not home yet."
"He's over at the English guy's house, isn't he?"
Wan was silent. The dough squished against her fingers.
"Why is he with that guy?" Kiku said abruptly, pressing further.
"I think they're watching a movie at his place, Yao also said something about taking a picnic to the reservoir—"
"No, I mean. Why is Yao dating him? It makes no sense."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't be an idiot, Wan. As a couple, the two of them have no foreseeable future. They're wasting each other's time."
"What makes you so sure of that?" Wan said blandly.
"Come now, can't you see it? They have nothing real in common—nothing in the way of background, goals, politics, faith, language, hobbies, interests... Perhaps they're both interested in teas, but that's not enough to hold a relationship together! This affair is obviously based only on lust."
"Yes, they may be very different, personality wise, but there's a certain chemistry there. You can't deny it."
Kiku stared at her as though she'd grown two heads. "Call him. Tell him to come home."
Wan sighed and leaned forward on her elbows. The dangling ends of her hair had flour in them. "He seems pretty happy, Kiku."
"That British isn't right for him. It's only holding him back from finding that someone who is perfect for him."
Wan stopped in mid-wrap. "Maybe. They are very different. But it doesn't matter. My theory is that when Yao does meet that someone who is right for him," here, she was suddenly serious, "he won't want him."
Kiku wasn't a fool. Slowly but surely, it was becoming clearer and clearer that things were no longer the same between him and Yao. Yao had stopped coming to Kiku with his thoughts and feelings, and it was obvious now that Yao no longer belonged to Kiku as he once had.
At that moment, Kiku looked straight ahead, not bothering to meet Wan's gaze.
"He won't love him back," Wan explained.
Wan dropped the final wonton on the plate, turning on the stove. "Let the relationship run its course, Kiku. Anyway, Arthur seemed quite courteous to me and Mom and Dad when Officer Gilbert brought Yao back home."
"Did you like him?" Kiku asked.
"I didn't hate him."
Kiku watched her drop the little wontons neatly into the pot; they were like Chinese Olympic divers; there was not a single splash. "You know," he said suddenly, "since it's a holiday weekend they're bound to have a lot of decent sales at the mall. Would you like to go to there tomorrow?"
Wan let go of a wad of dumplings into the pot and there was a huge, loud KERPLUNK. "Oh my gosh! Yes! Will you take me? Oh thank you Kiku! I'll ask Xiang Gang if he wants to go too!"
The door opened and a backpack flopped onto the floor. "Anyone home? Oh, I smell dumplings," Yao exclaimed.
Kiku immediately walked towards him and beckoned him with a crooked finger into the living room. Puzzled, Yao followed. The two of them sat on the couch. "Ni-ni, Wan wants to go shopping tomorrow with me and Xiang. Would you like to accompany us?"
"Uhm…" Of all possible long-drawn-out errands, Yao wasn't sure why Kiku was offering to go shopping. The last time Wan forced them to accompany her to the mall; Kiku actually fell asleep in one of the chairs across from the dressing rooms as Wan tried on three different pairs of jeans, six skirts, and five summer tops, as Hong Kong (who was reluctantly carrying Wan's purse) stared emotionlessly at him from the opposite chair.
Then again, perhaps there was a blowout sale of PS3 games. "Sure, why not?"
"It'll be fun."
"Yes. Probably."
"Kind of like a double date."
"…"
"What is it?"
"Kiku, we've already gone over this."
Kiku was silent. Yao knew him too well to brush it off as the benign kind of silence. Cautiously, with his small hand, he reached out and enveloped Kiku's fingers.
"Look, you're my number two man. Recently our gang owes just about everything to you…"
Kiku stared ahead placidly as Yao kept chattering. "Like I told you at that concert last month, you're like my little brother. Just like Yong—"
"Where were you last night?" Kiku asked him abruptly.
"Last night? I was just out," Yao said, a bit too quickly. Kiku blinked.
"With the leader of our biggest rivals, am I correct? You stayed over at his place?"
Kiku leveled his innocuously blank look into Yao. Then, unexpectedly, he lowered his head and smirked.
"What is it?" Yao asked. He twitched ever so slightly as Kiku came around behind him, seemingly taking his time. After a pregnant pause, Kiku lifted his head, seemingly staring straight out the window. Yao followed his gaze towards a half-hidden patch in the garden, where the tender shoots of a chrysanthemum and peony were beginning to poke their little heads, side-by-side, from the surface of the soil.
"Look at that," Yao said, trying too obviously to change the subject. "Spring must be coming soon."
"When did you first plant those?"
Yao beamed. "Oh, long, long ago… it must have been back in…"
"First grade?"
"Has it been that long? I suppose—"
"First grade. Remember , back then, those mornings when you couldn't even bring yourself to leave the bus…"
"What? The bus?"
"The school bus. Because as soon as they saw you all the other kids would try to push you into the girls' restroom 'where you belonged.' And when you cried for them to stop, nobody, not even the teachers did a thing."
Yao opened his mouth, and snapped it shut as long-repressed memories stormed the floodgates of his mind. He sat motionlessly, looking straight ahead.
"Remember how you cried on my shoulder for three days straight, after the biggest kid in sixth grade asked you out, and then beat you up after school once they noticed you had the wrong body parts?"
Kiku had come up behind him, putting his lips right by the whorls of his ear while placing his sleek hands on Yao's skinny shoulders.
"You were always there," Yao finally said. His voice was hollow.
"Whoever this Arthur fellow really is," Kiku murmured, "he's just having fun for now. Just like when that Russian character stepped in your life a few months ago, and suddenly out the moment he found that easy Lithuanian boy. But I've always been there. Like you said."
Although the room was warm, Yao couldn't help but shiver as Kiku glided his lips down Yao's slender nape, while the hands slid towards his thighs. The fine hairs on the back of Yao's neck stood on end.
"And I always will."