Flatmate

Chapter 2: Finding Rhymes to a New Life

A loud music blasting from Zhouzhou's smart phone speaker, alarming the sleeping beauty that is his flatmate, Huang Jingyu, to consciousness.

"Can you wake up now?" Zhouzhou's smooth voice filters through Jingyu's ears, luring the sleepyhead to wake. As pleasant as it is, the latter groans and pulls up his comforter higher to cover his face.

"Let me wake up slowly." A hoarse reply comes from behind the bed cover.

"Ck," Zhouzhou makes a displeased sound as he kicks the lump that he guesses is Jingyu's leg. "What do you mean wake up slowly? If you wake up, just wake up at once-woahhh!"

With a calculated move, the cocoon on the bed hatches and becomes alive and swiftly pulls the prey to his lair. The prey, that is Zhouzhou, doesn't have time to react and escape. In the next second, he finds himself wrapped tightly in Jingyu's embrace, his poor phone slips off from his hand and flies somewhere near the edge of the bed.

"Let us sleep for a bit." Jingyu hums
in content as he snugly hugs the younger boy.

Since the first week they knew each other, Zhouzhou learned that Jingyu is a blue belt holder of Brazilian Jiujitsu. Since then, Zhouzhou has become the object of practice for the older.

"Jingyu, you bastard!" Zhouzhou kicks and pushes Jingyu's limbs to release himself from the tight embrace. But to no avail, the grip just wouldn't budge. "Let me go!"

Jingyu smirks with his eyes still closed.

"Don't wanna."

"What the hell?" Zhouzhou throws him a death glare.

"Gimme five more minutes."

Tired from kicking crazily, Zhouzhou finally calms down. To be quite honest, somehow it is nice and warm to be hug like this. He usually still feels cold when sleeping on his own bed because the bed cover takes quite some time to get warm with the air conditioner on. With the natural body heater from Jingyu, Zhouzhou is tempted to fall back to sleep again if not for the fact that his heart is racing faster than normal. Jingyu's no sense of proximity doesn't help for silly thoughts to start flooding in his mind. A steady gust of warm air which tickling his neck doesn't help either. It only reminds him how close their faces are. He curiously turns his head a little to the right and a close up view of Jingyu's handsome bare face welcomes him. His eyes are betraying his rational mind and complicated heart for pinning a stare at the godlike facial features of the older.

It has been two months since he shared the flat with Jingyu. During those two months, without they realize it, they has fallen into routines which are the dynamic combination of their habits and capabilities. Zhouzhou, as the morning riser of the two, becomes Jingyu's personal alarm every morning. Jingyu, as the better cook of the two,  will make breakfast for both of them.

Speaking of breakfast, it is Zhouzhou's first purpose of waking up the older. Ever since he learned that Jingyu can make delicious dishes, he always craves for them. Jingyu's cooking is top notch; the level of the chef in three Michelin stars restaurant. He even shamelessly admits that it is better than his mom's cooking. So, it's such a waste of a talent if Zhouzhou were to make the breakfast himself.

For the longest time, the room is generally quiet. Only the sound of tik tok tik tok from the clock on the drawer next to the bed filling the empty air. The song from Zhouzhou's phone has stopped playing a while ago. Zhouzhou blankly stares on the ceiling while pondering over everything and nothing.