76 5.22

Once his first movie was produced, Chen Yu discarded the other three scripts he'd prepared—since he'd found his lover, there was no need to make their former lives together public. Instead, much to Sun Ri's dismay, he immersed himself in performing various roles, so that the king gradually tried not to schedule any projects for himself in order to follow along after him with the excuse that he was bored. In fact, he was secretly worried. His doll had become so famous, anyone could see how irresistible and talented and adorable he was now, what if some pest attached itself to him?

Unfortunately, Sun Ri was forced to attend a function eventually, leaving Kai alone. And it was on this day that Chen Yu happened to run into Shui Re Dian in a hallway of Fanxing Entertainment Group's headquarters building. Interested in why the man appeared so strangely embarrassed, Chen Yu agreeably consented to his request for a chat, inviting him into the office room that the 'Little Prince' had been assigned.

Having been directed to the couch, the Shui Re Dian who was nervously half-seated peeked furtively at his cute junior, the little deer in his heart jumping ceaselessly. How should he begin this conversation? But he knew that Kai was busy these days, so he first blurted out, "Did you know that I've signed with Fanxing?"

Chen Yu steadily studied Shui Re Dian, wondering what was wrong with him. They hallway that they'd met in wasn't open to artistes from other companies, so that was a given. Nevertheless, reminding himself of how Shui Re Dian had served to advance his plans, he didn't point this out and merely nodded.

Without realizing his silliness, Shui Re Dian fumbled on. "That...hm, that, the truth is, I was p-persuaded by someone called, em, L-Lawyer K-K-Kuang. Have you heard of h-him?"

When Xiang Kai shortly considered then shook his head, Shui Re Dian twisted his face, mumbling to himself for a while. A few minutes later, however, he seemed to have made up his mind, he directly asked, "Why would someone adopt a full-grown man?"

Chen Yu raised his brows. This was genuinely unexpected. Why was Shui Re Dian curious about such a thing? Moreover, his tone was quite desperate...having made the connection, his lips twitched. So, the man whom Sun Ri had sent to Shui Re Dian had somehow ended up adopting him? Well, that was certainly one way to keep the man from getting close to him again.

Reviewing what he remembered of the chilly man he'd glimpsed at a premiere with Shui Re Dian, Chen Yu's gaze turned sympathetic. Since it seemed there was little hope of escape for him, he bluntly replied, "As a form of gay marriage."

Shui Re Dian had held a seed of suspicion due to the rumors about Sun Ri and Xiang Kai, but he still slumped from the blow like a marionette whose strings had been cut. H-h-his cute junior was married now? No, wait, he, this Shui Re Dian, was married as well? How could that be possible? Who dared to stop this revolving door?! Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he gazed at Kai with tearful eyes and earnestly stuttered, "I-I didn't say yes, no, maybe I accidentally did, but I swear it was just once, I didn't mean to! You have to believe me..."

Just as Chen Yu was dumbfoundedly staring at the man who acted as if he had to make excuses to his wife after having an affair, a crisp knock sounded to wake him up from his confusion. Without caring about his blubbering colleague, he pulled open the door to find the same person they'd been discussing.

Lawyer Kuang icily nodded at the boy's sensible action of stepping aside to let him in, then swept the shocked Shui Re Dian out, wrapping his arm firmly around the man as soon as he started struggling. Although he hadn't been pleased that the actor had searched out that Xiang Kai, at least it seemed that he finally understood what the adoption meant. Thus, the taller man directly drove them to Shui Re Dian's apartment and placed the other on his bed.

Clinging to his dreams, Shui Re Dian anxiously held onto Lawyer Kuang's wrist and pleaded, "Y-you don't have th-that k-k-kind of feeling for m-me, r-r-right?" He had admittedly gotten to rely on this man quite a bit since he forcibly moved himself in and rather enjoyed lounging around with him, but that didn't mean that he was gay! Oh, actually, he corrected silently, he could be gay, it was just that he'd never imagined that he'd be the shou!

Even as he chuckled at the cute man who was tugging at him in denial, Lawyer Kuang twisted out of his grip and reversed it, so that he was grasping both of Shui Re Dian's wrists in his hand. Taking advantage of the fact that he was now well-acquainted with the other's every quirk, especially his weakness to pleasure, he deliberately bore down on the slim body and whispered in his ear. "What kind of feeling?" Teasingly licking the reddened lobe and grinding their hips together, he breathed, "This kind?"

And as he'd predicted, Shui Re Dian reacted from that small stimulation despite cursing in his heart. Damn it, this was only because he hadn't had a chance to use his hotel room since the day he met Lawyer Kuang! It definitely wasn't because he liked such a big, heavy man in that way...QAQ

Back in his office room, Chen Yu sighed, roughly guessing what Shui Re Dian was going through. He probably wouldn't be able to walk tomorrow...

That thought, however, prompted pity for his own circumstances. If Lawyer Kuang was a large vinegar jar, his lover was an entire vinegar tank, along with a dose of perverted tendencies. For instance, the list of regulations he'd wanted to impose on him included not only seemingly protective instructions to keep a tracker on him at all times 'in case he got lost,' cover himself up when going outside 'to prevent exposure to the sunlight,' and live together with Sun Ri 'for aid in emergencies,' but also directives with obvious ulterior motives such as staying bare inside the house 'so that his skin could breathe naturally,' installing a monitoring device in his shower 'to respond promptly if he fainted,' and exercising diligently every day on the bed 'in order to prevent pressuring his joints.'

Rubbing his temples, Chen Yu was sighing at his lover's ability to devise such ridiculous guises for his perverted nature when Sun Ri suddenly rushed in and hugged him rigidly. Chen Yu, who had been chewing over the various ploys the man had attempted to carry out, placed his hand on the other's shoulder, intending to push him away, but he paused once he noticed how the other's whole body was trembling. The arms around him were also tightened enough to crush him, the clasp far stronger than the man's usual embrace, which was as cautious as if he was touching fragile porcelain.

At the boy's protesting touch, Sun Ri realized how roughly he was clutching at him and loosened his hold the slightest bit, panting in relief and lingering fear. A few breaths passed in this way, until Kai's reassuring warmth and the heartbeats he could feel through the lips he'd buried on his neck soothed Sun Ri enough that he could speak. But the only thing he repeated over and over was the youth's name. "Xiang Kai, Xiang Kai, Xiang Kai..."

Hearing Chen Yu murmur "En" every time he called, Sun Ri at last raised his head and pressed their foreheads together. With his face still blanched from terror, he begged in a hoarse voice, "Don't do that again, I can't bear it."

By this point, Chen Yu could fathom what had upset his lover so much—the schedule he'd completed prior to his conversation with Shui Re Dian had been a live competition between actors, and his prompt had been to play out a scene in which he died. Presumably, the man had reviewed the recording of the performance while driving back to Fanxing and had panicked. Feeling that he had perhaps triggered a memory of their past life together, Chen Yu gently nodded, pacifying Sun Ri by kissing his chin. With that, Sun Ri promptly carried the boy out of the office in order to examine every inch of him personally.

In this way, the days passed pleasantly, the Little Prince and the king became the recognized leading couple of the industry. As for Chen Yu's last niggling question on how the original Xiang Kai had met the heiress he'd married in his first life, it was solved one day when he, out of the blue, received a huge donation from a wealthy fan with a formal request that he marry her. Upon investigation, the woman was being pushed into marriage by her family and had decided on Xiang Kai due to her preference for young-looking men. While he was clicking his tongue and shaking his head over the power of this wooden face, Sun Ri, who had been holding onto him from the back, plucked his phone away and typed his own version of a refusal, then used the next few hours in bed emphasizing the fact that he was taken.

Besides such small incidents and the excessive concern Sun Ri held over his secretly resolved lupus, Chen Yu otherwise spent the rest of his life happily with his lover, reigning over the entertainment circle for several decades then withdrawing to simply travel wherever their impulses led them. In the end, they left the world at almost the same time.