#✶ ━━ guo jianhao.

[parallelwcrlds]

╰ ♡ laying until the sun down, it feels like a dream           character exploration of Qiang Muhai’s relationship with Guo Jianhao ( @chokiiwas​ ) pt.1

There have been a total of three times in his life where Muhai thought he was in love. And once when he was.

The first was when he was days away from turning sixteen years old and one of the new house cleaners that his mother hired caught his attention. She had been four years older than himself, but he hadn’t cared. She was pretty, black hair cut to her chin with bright eyes and a loud laugh that Muhai remembered always trying his hardest to wring out of her when he could get away with it. He liked her smile too, liked how he was able to imagine getting lost in her eyes, or how soft her lips were. The last time he remembers seeing her was the day before he left for a trip to Yufuin Onsen in Japan. When he came back after a week, she was gone and his mother had reprimanded him for asking too many questions about things that didn’t matter. He supposed she had been right. Muhai still remembers thinking about her laugh for two months after he had gotten back.

The second time was when he was eighteen, having found a handsome man that was taller than he was and seven years his senior, with dark tattoos against golden skin, sharp eyes and a toothy smirk that Muhai liked having pressed against his neck as he was fucked. The man, Zexian, was the key to a forbidden world that Muhai had been raised to stay away from. There were a lot of firsts with him. First time going to dark clubs from the ‘wrong side of the city’ (as his mother called it), first time getting drunk enough for him to need help to even sit up straight. The first time he had thought about getting a tattoo, just to fit in better with Zexian and Zexian’s friends. The first time Muhai had felt his heart being ripped out of his chest.  

He had come home from a trip early and went to surprise Zexian at his apartment, knocking at the door with a bright smile on his face. Only... the dark haired boy who answered the door in his boxers hadn’t been his boyfriend. The voice who called asking ‘baobei, who is it?’ was his boyfriend. What happened after that was still mostly a blur, but Muhai remembers yelling and crying, and definitely remembers breaking something before he made his way back home.

The third time, Muhai was months shy of turning twenty-one. He had been in a familiar club, enough alcohol in his system to make him feel bubbly and light, the music reverberating within his bones. The boy that had caught his attention had been slightly shorter, dark hair and even darker eyes, nearly looking out of place in the crowd. Muhai knew from that very moment that he had to have him. And that night, Muhai had wondered if the scars on Jianhao’s exposed skin were his own personal map to a treasure that he couldn’t quite name yet. That night, as he felt bruises being pressed into his hips and bruises bitten onto his neck, Muhai would have sworn he was in love.

And stranger yet, their second and fifth and tenth night meeting had been just as good and exhilarating as that first night had been. Even without the alcohol in his system, Muhai still  had found himself seeking out Jianhao, wanting to chase the addictive taste of his mouth, wanting to feel his hands bruising his hips. It was unusual to Muhai. Most of his life, no girl or boy had managed to hold his attention for this long, because there was always someone else prettier, more exhilarating. But with Jianhao in his sights, the other jewels sitting in his treasure box had slowly revealed themselves to only be chunks of pyrite.

Jianhao was intoxicating, and Muhai slowly found himself never wanting to be sober for longer than a day or two. It had been alarming at first, but Muhai soon found himself favoring deep red rubies more than he ever did favor gold. 

It was a handful of months after Muhai realized he preferred Jianhao’s company compared to other’s that he first felt the stirring in the center of his chest. It had happened after a conversation with his parents on how he was to be married by the end of the year, to some girl that was the daughter of a family that his father wanted a business alliance with. (Muhai also knew it was also his parent’s way of keeping his behavior in line. They didn’t find his indulgent ways fitting for someone of their family name). He hadn’t been happy about it, felt like the truth was hard to swallow, especially when he had allowed his mind to point out that it meant having to break things off with Jianhao. 

The Smithsonian had the Hope Diamond, Mouaward had the L'Incomparable diamond necklace. Muhai thought it had been unfair that he wasn’t allowed to have Jianhao.

It was a few weeks after talking to his parents, he had turned over onto his side, moving carefully enough as to not disturb Jianhao enough to wake him. The soft moonlight that was filtering in through the window was playing games on Jianhao’s exposed skin as he laid there, making Jianhao look like he was something akin to a god or an angel. Muhai thought that it had fit him well. 

He brought his hand up to Jianhao’s abused cheek, gingerly caressing the skin, fingers dancing over the purpled skin as he let out a small sigh. It seemed unfair, having to give this up. He didn’t like having to think about weeks that grew into months without getting to see Jianhao, without getting to see his eyes light up, without getting to hear him whisper a curse when something felt particularly good. When Jianhao muttered nonsense amidst a dream, Muhai grinned in endearment for a moment. It was jarring to realize these things, and even more jarring because of the next thought that crossed his mind. He almost whispered it out loud to the sleeping boy next to him with the moon as his only witness.

And for the first time in his life, Muhai knew that he was in love.

[blackpecrls]

❀‿❀   tag drop part two