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It's become a daily occurrence for Hua Cheng to awake before Xie Lian every morning. Without fail, he’ll blink himself awake at least an hour before his love does. Can you blame him? He wants Xie Lian to be the first thing he sees waking up, and before falling asleep. He wants to be there to kiss his forehead and whisper a good morning into his ear as he holds him close.The morning air is cold, and he can feel the draft in the room. Not that he minds it too much himself. All he has to do to stay warm is wrap his arms around his sleeping lover and pull him close. He hadn’t predicted how warm holding his world in his arms would feel. He’d press his nose into silky chestnut locks, breathing in the comforting scent of cherry blossoms on a rainy spring day.Time never changed his love, it’d been the only constant in his life. He carried a heavy heart, weighed down by unspoken words and unfulfilled dreams. For hundreds of years those words were on the tip of his tongue, those dreams shining in his eye. Now, he whispers them to Xie Lian as he rests, tracing the shapes of little hearts onto his back.“Sorrow will never come,” he laments, “for we will never part.”Truely, he means it. Xie Lian is the reason he’s still going, the wind in his hair, the kiss of the summer sun, a warm bath after a long day. His heart swells with gratitude. For every person who viewed him as a monster, Xie Lian saw every soft nook and cranny of his soul, every aspiration, all the tender care he’d held silently for years.In the dimly lit room, he squeezes his beloved closer, relishing in the way he snuggles against his chest, how his warm breath tickles his neck, and his heartbeat reverberating against his ribcage. All signs that this is real, not another fantasy, or a cold stone statue in his arms. He’d succeeded in whisking his prince away from the world, shielding him from the noise of the heavens. He has all of Hua Cheng's mind, body, and soul to himself. He would listen to every rant, indulge every want, spoil him as much as he wished. Xie Lian was something permanent, a fixture in his life to give it a steady meaning as predictable as the melting of snow and blossoming of spring.Maybe that’s why he wakes early every morning without fail. To tenderly reflect on his luck, on how sweet Xie Lian is. He doesn’t have to pinch himself, for he isn’t dreaming. Does the moon ever catch a glimpse of the sun and think to itself, “I wish to shine like that”? Xie Lian is the sun, and if he wished for the stars, Hua Cheng would reach up and steal the brightest constellation from the sky to appease him.Do you want to know a secret? Xie Lian will never be able to fully grasp how much Hua Cheng really loves him, how much he cares. He can whisper it into his ear in these misty mornings, asking him to promise he’ll never tell. Three words his heart sings every time that Xie Lian so much as looks at him. When he smiles, Hua Cheng might just melt.“Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Come closer, let me whisper in your ear. You’ll never know how much I love you, how much I really care. Let me speak the words I long to say: I’m in love with you.”