Hands In The Stars

33. Delayed Birthday

No matter how much he tried, he just couldn't fall back asleep. He hugged the smaller body in his arms, carefully, fragile like glass. Gradually, he opened his eyes and his irritation from lack of sleep quickly faded as he looked at his friend sleeping peacefully. Datui tried to squirm his way out of Ai's hold around him without disturbing the other . By some miraculous power he managed to get up from the bed while Ai was still fast asleep. Ai had fallen asleep so early that night, unsurprisingly, and the two of them had been braided together for hours. Datui hastily put on a pair of fuzzy socks before putting his feet down onto the cold wooden floor. He threw on his jeans and a black dress shirt, then made his way over to the kitchen. The first thing he did was to start boiling some coffee, then took out two bowls. He started cooking up some congee, with eggs and shrimps. The worse part of living alone was always having to buy things in small amounts, else it went bad. Especially fresh food. He wished he'd have some vegetables to be able to serve Ai as well, though those were out of store for the moment, and very expensive. He wasn't low on money but he still knew he couldn't have certain things at all times, else he'd definitely run low very soon. Datui looked out of the window for a while, merely taking in the view of the landscape. It looked like the city was being portrayed in grayscale. 

Turning right on his heels, he made his way back to the bedroom door. Datui peeked in at the sleeping boy. It seemed like as soon as Datui had let go of him, Ai had spread himself out over the enormous bed as much as possible, with one leg out of the blanket. He couldn't help but smile at the sight.
"Come on Ai, wake up now. Do you want coffee, tea or juice?" He asked in a silken voice as he leaned against the doorframe. Ai laid still for a second, then slowly moves his hand up to his forehead and groaned softly. He rubbed his eyes and squinted over towards Datui, looking rather puzzled.
"Mmh... You, huh? Ah, uh, tea?" He finally mumbled out, processing the question in his tired state and he pushed himself to sit up onto the bed. "What time is it? It's so cold."
"It's eight o'clock, almost." Datui answered simple, as if it was the most obvious time to get up in the morning after having stayed awake more than all night long. "I can't sleep, put on some warm clothes, breakfast is ready. You can just take whatever you find most comfortable." He continued and left Ai in the room to wake up. He hurried to prepare Ai's tea, then poured up the warm coffee into his own cup, taking a sip and sitting down at the table.

"Later we can do whatever you want! Just tell me if you need anything!" Datui yelled out across the apartment, waiting for Ai to join him. He sat there in silence for a few minutes, just anxiously staring out over the cold road below the other side of his kitchen window. He sipped the warm cup of coffee resting in his slim hands. His attention only came back to reality as he heard the soft sound of footsteps coming to a stop at the doorway to the kitchen and he turned back around again to see Ai standing there in just a big red t-shirt.

"Hi." Ai greeted him in a raspy morning voice, stretching and hearing the sound of his joints cracking. "How are you doing?"
"Well I'm fine, the question is how are you doing? Aren't you cold?" Datui asked instead, motioning for Ai to sit down on the chair in front of him, the table already set. Ai silently walked over and seated himself. The two of them stared each other up and down for a long moment, until Datui finally broke the tense silence.
"You look like you haven't had a proper meal in weeks, how did you even afford all those piercings?" He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms in front of him.
"I just- Well I just used all the money I had on me." Ai answered after a moment of hesitation. He ran his cold fingers through his messy hair for a moment. Datui didn't seem to want to say anything more. Nervously, Ai picked up the cup of tea and sipped some, almost burning himself in the process. "Cao insisted for so long, I just went along with it. It wasn't really that expensive, actually, I think I got it a bit cheaper though since Cao seemed to know the person who did the job. Uh, then, we kind of just survived on the rest of the money I had. We didn't really spend it on food so, that's probably why... Or, well, Cao didn't, he handled us, though. There were more than just me after all, so I couldn't be the only one who got things, it wasn't all bad." Ai paused for a moment, feeling Datui's gaze almost burning into his skin and he looked down at the tea in his hands. "Uh, Cao had to pay for other stuff as well, such as some... White stuff? That we all shared, he said if one person had anything like food or money we all had to share, that's the only way to survive. We were a group after all so... And I'm fine."