“I mean! You’re a virgin, too!”
“………what?”
After dozens of seconds, Lance’s eyebrows raised. Cheung stood up without thinking when he responded, “Well, now that you mention it…” with an embarrassed tone. With a rustle, the blankets fell onto the bed. It didn’t matter what he was saying, even if he was giving Cheung a suspicious look.
“Comrade!”(1)
1. The text said “friend/mate”, but I felt like comrade fit better in this context…
Cheung grabbed Lance by his arms, pulling him up to spin around in a circle. If he had done this on hard ground, his feet would have made a soft noise. However, it was a soft carpet. Their feet didn’t make any noise at all, and Cheung almost fell over after a bit.
“Oh, I’m a bit dizzy…”
Even though Cheung was now leading a healthy life, his semicircular canal still wasn’t that strong. He had gotten a bit carried away and now felt sick. He crouched while holding onto Lance’s hand. Lance, who had been left wide eyed, laughed with shaking shoulders.
“Is that what you’re curious about?”
After returning Cheung to the bed, his face had neither his usual frown or a look of self-deprecation. His eyebrows had smoothed out into a soft expression, and he laughed properly.
“No, that…”
While Cheung was trying to maintain a frown, a beautiful smile like that was bad for his heart. He couldn’t keep looking directly at it, so he looked down.
When he looked down, he saw their joined hands. His heart thumped, and suddenly became very aware of the nerves in his hand.
Lance’s hand was bigger than Cheung’s and often held a sword. It was kind of hot. This hand touched his cheek and lifted his chin with long fingertips, exposing his miserable appearance to his beautiful irises.
Cheung, and that expression he had called him earnestly comes back to mind. It was the first time that he’d been looked at with such lustful eyes, and they had been full of nothing but Cheung. His cheeks flushed. No, not only his cheeks, but also his ears, neck, and even his fingertips. How stupid of himself to hold onto Lance and become conscious of it.
“What is it?”
Lance seemed to be looking at Cheung, whose thoughts were interrupted by his words, but he could neither answer or meet his gaze.
“Ah…”
He must have noticed what Cheung was thinking about. A little bit later, Lance let Cheung’s hand go.
“It’s really alright now. I won’t harm you again.”
What caught Cheung’s eyes was the expression he hated on Lance’s face with a hand on his head. It was certainly sudden, and Lance was technically in the position to be blamed. But Cheung hadn’t hated it. It wasn’t “harm” to him.
Strict quarantine. It wasn’t a word that was usually used. Lance had placed himself in it so he wouldn’t hurt anyone and struggled with that unbearable fever, even though it wasn’t his fault.
“I’ll be back soon, and you can sleep here.”
He stood up and turned his back on Cheung. It felt like he was hiding his expression from Cheung.
“Wait!”
Cheung grabbed him by the hem of his clothes to hold him back. Amber eyes looked at him in deep surprise. Lance hadn’t expected Cheung to try to continue speaking with him, much less stop him. Cheung’s chest felt full.