If Sheng Wang has to make a list of his favorites, well, it would be a lot of things strung together like lopsided Christmas lights, blinking merrily in intervals. All of them, one way or another, related to the person who just finished kissing him for the thirty-fourth time, their mini-tradition of one kiss for each year of their life continuing on.

If he has to pick something to be permanently rooted in the number one spot, it would be this: watching Jiang Tian’s face scrunch, turn to stone, and then helplessly crack with fondness and resignation. It’s something that he’s wanted ever since those days of their youth. The cold, untouchable glacier, thawing with helplessness on how to deal with him and his antics.

It’s a sight that never gets old. It’s pretty nice too, the way that even through everything, even though Jiang Tian is polishing up his barbed words and comebacks, he still has these moments. Things change, both of them know that best, but that tiny core of permanence, unmoved by the tides of time and fate, remains the same for them.

And so, he waits, playing up an obedient, docile look even though his stomach’s starting to cramp from holding in his laughter. Jiang Tian rubs his hair hard as if to completely do away with whatever part of his brain managed to cook up his 34th birthday wish.

“You’re sure you really want it?” It’s spoken with the kind of seriousness that has seriously made Sheng Wang wonder, many, many times, just how his husband has managed to avoid getting beaten up for being so… Jiang Tian.

“You’re pretty good at writing scripts, right,” he says with played-up coquettishness, even copying their cat son’s tricks of rubbing his entire body against Jiang Tian’s side. “It’s your turn to…” He thinks it over for a bit, laughing now as he sifts through memories of that training camp, of the teachers passionately enthusing about how his scores for spoken English would improve, if he just learned how to emote more. “…to show your emotions, Ge.”

Jiang Tian’s eyes glitter with light, before he purses his lips and agrees with a “hm”. He then kisses him against the sofa, and that’s the end of the topic for the night.

When he wakes up in the morning, he’s bundled up in blankets like a particularly naughty fresh spring roll. His hands have a tendency to wander during the night, hanging off the side of the bed, curling around Jiang Tian’s neck—and so he’s always tucked in like this, the airconditioning always set to just-right whenever they’re indoors.

It’s strange to see Jiang Tian still in bed beside him. The other’s routine is pretty much set, but today, he’s on his side of the bed, one hand playing with his hair and another writing something on a thick, leatherbound notebook. He’s wearing glasses, which makes him look ten times more appealing, especially when coupled with his icy aura.

Sheng Wang rolls a bit and rubs his cheek against the other’s thigh. “Ge,” he calls out, voice hoarse both from their last night’s tumble and from his usual dry throat come early morning. “I thought there’s no work for you today?”

Jiang Tian shifts his gaze from the notebook. His glasses glint in the morning light. He takes his hand away from his hair and says, coolly, “Student Sheng Wang, a deduction of 10 discipline points for sleeping in.”

They’re both really smart people, but it still takes him several seconds to process his husband’s words. He’s always been pale-skinned, his blushes too easy to spot. His face and his ears grow red at a rapid pace, something like happiness and excitement coursing through him. “Mm, Ge, say that again.”

“5 discipline points for insubordination.” It’s still uttered with that infuriatingly handsome coldness.

In his youth, Sheng Wang has been described as someone who only looks reliable and obedient because of his face, but is actually a mischievous rebel. It has tapered off, over the years of being separated, him growing temperance as though to fuse a part of Jiang Tian into his own personality, as if he could keep the other in what little way he could.

In the years that they’ve reunited, his impish streak makes a comeback. And so, it’s with the kind of sly attitude that’s asking for a beating that he stretches up and paws at the notebook.

“15 discipline points for blatant attempted theft,” Jiang Tian tells him with his poker face, looking very much like the abstinent Doctor Jiang that everyone at his work admires.

“I’m attempting to steal your heart, Teacher Jiang,” he says with full seriousness.

Jiang Tian’s lips twitch and his gaze drops down to his notebook. Of course, he also follows, and then he wheezes for breath. He’s suspected it, but his husband really, seriously, wrote down a whole, detailed script to satisfy his birthday request of a nice roleplay. Less about the need to spice things up in their bedroom, but more because the greatest gift he could receive is Jiang Tian pampering him in his awkward but earnest manner.

—and in that script that’s written down, there is that line, about a certain someone attempting to steal one’s heart. The line after that is about how Jiang Tian pushes him down and brings him to reenact ‘horror movies’.

It really is too much.

“You really are quite the pervert,” Sheng Wang tells him fondly, and cooperatively joins the morning horror movie show.

Later on, Wangzai yowls out, horrified at his empty food bowl, and life is very good indeed.