Can You Hold Me?

A silly, beautiful shou x a scheming gong who dotes on his spouse

When Yun Nian was seven, his mother was punished, and he was confined to a dilapidated palace. There, he suffered from hunger and cold and nearly died. Half-asleep, he dreamed that someone held him. The person's embrace was so comfortable, warmer than the midday sun. When he woke, Yun Nian felt a deep sense of loss. He wished that person would hold him again.

Later, he found that person: his Crown Prince brother. Facing the noble and pampered Crown Prince, Yun Nian didn't dare ask for a hug. He only hid in a corner and timidly called him Second Brother. The Crown Prince looked at him coldly for a long moment, then casually gave him a box of pastries.

After that, Yun Nian often hid along the Crown Prince's usual route. Every time he worked up the courage to ask for a hug, though, the other's distant manner frightened him off. He never got his hug, but he did eat quite a lot of pastries.

Then one day, Yun Nian's mother was sentenced to death, and he was proven to be a "bastard." Before dying, however, his mother laid a curse, declaring that Yun Nian and the Crown Prince shared one life: if Yun Nian were executed, the Crown Prince would die too. The Emperor feared the words of the "demon consort" and spared Yun Nian, but he resented the boy's status as a "bastard" and ultimately decided to make him the lowliest of palace servants.

Yun Nian drank his medicine and lay on a small bed in the Palace Servants' Office. His whole body felt cold, as if he had fallen into an ice cave. He couldn't help thinking of that warm embrace and murmured, "Second Brother, could you hold me?" Before the words had even left his mouth, he fell into someone's arms.

Everyone knew that the noble Crown Prince had been cursed by the "demon consort" to share his life with that "bastard." Surely the Crown Prince hated that mother and son so much that he had begged the Emperor to let him keep the "bastard" in the Eastern Palace, where he could torment him day after day.

Ten years later, the Emperor died and the Crown Prince ascended the throne. Everyone assumed the "bastard" had long since been tormented beyond recognition. Instead, at the coronation ceremony, they saw him standing beside the Crown Prince, clad in white like snow, with an ethereal bearing, like an immortal stepping out of a painting.

The first thing the new Emperor did after taking the throne was free Yun Nian from his status as a servant and appoint him Imperial Preceptor. He declared, "Since Yun Nian shares my life, he should share in this flourishing age with me."

The world had no idea how tender and loving the stern, ruthless new ruler they knew could be in private...

Bonus scene:

Even after becoming Imperial Preceptor, Yun Nian never outgrew the habit he'd had since childhood: at night, he liked being held. Lately, though, he had been troubled, because the hugs he wanted and the ones a certain someone gave him were never quite the same.

Yun Nian: Can we just hug, without doing anything else?

Xiao Chengluo: Of course!

A little while later, Yun Nian, his voice trembling with tears: Why did you lie?

Xiao Chengluo: I'm bad, Yun Nian is good. Let me hold you again, okay?

Yun Nian: (looking terribly aggrieved.jpg)

Reader's note: Childhood sweethearts; they fall in love as adults; they are not related by blood; the shou has not been castrated.

[The original premise has changed. If that bothers you, feel free to remove it from your collection. My apologies.]

[Blurb archived April 2024]

Theme: Work hard and live toward the light