Hey guys!

I'd hoped I would have this posted earlier today, but, it's still the eleventh so as far as I'm concerned, mission accomplished.

So this chapter actually takes place hours after the first one ends. Chinese New Year's this year was actually yesterday, and today is Japan's birthday, and I noticed that sometimes the two kind of overlap and wanted to do something silly with that, so here you go!

Really, it's silly, don't let the beginning fool you.

EDIT: Erm, I think I owe you guys an apology - I was more than half-asleep when I typed this up. I fixed everything up. You're welcome. (edit: 2/15/13)

Happy belated Chinese New Year's!

Tears ran down Yao's face.

Accompanied by quaking shoulders, hitched breaths and chocked sobs, tears ran down Yao's face. Cheeks flushed, nose runny and eyes red, tears ran down Yao's face. Seated in a cozy armchair, legs folded on the seat and curled up under a quilt, tears ran down Yao's face.

Kiku was unimpressed.

"If you," Yao broke off with a sob he failed to muffle behind his hand, "if you r-really believe this is for the-" a rough clear of the throat, "t-the best." A whimper, then a short cry, escaped Yao's lips, even as he cried into his hands, before he dabbed at his tears with a rumpled tissue.

"Then," Kiku said, shouldering his duffel as he turned to his suitcase, which he'd left by the front door across the hall, as if all was right with the world, "if there is nothing more-"

"Aiiyah!" Yao exclaimed. His back straightened as he gave up his ruse – eyes no longer tearing, nose no longer running, cheeks wiped dry as well as returned to their peach pallor. His breaths were even and uninterrupted by his fake cries. Kiku didn't have to turn back around to know Yao's brows were furrowed enough to sport a prominent wrinkle in the space between them, just as he didn't have to turn back around to know Yao's lips were minutely puckered, the lower lip protruded further than the upper in what Yao would vehemently deny as a pout – Kiku didn't have to turn, but he did.

"You are a horrible and dishonorable man, aru! Leaving your lover to go out and party, drink, perhaps even take a whore to your bed!" With what Kiku knew to be an exaggerated sniff, Yao continued on with a purposely weak voice. "Do you really hate me so, Kiku, aru?"

"I do not hate you, Yao," Kiku flatly assured, turning towards the hall once more, "And I will not drink." Knowingly, he ducked his head, thus dodging the pillow Yao had thrown at him for the implication, before Yao returned to bemoaning his sorrows.

"Yao, this is not the first time this day has interfered with the a Chinese New Year celebration." Kiku tried, exasperated and pressed for time - at this rate, he would need to rush to the airport to make it to Tokyo.

"Name one time!" Yao challenged, and, in Kiku's opinion, unwisely.

"1959 – I left late the third night, and returned late the fourth night. 1962 – I left late the sixth night, returned late the seventh night. 1967 – I left late the second night, returned late the third. 1975 – I arrived on the second day. 1994 – I left early on the first night and returned late the night following. 2002 – Once again, I arrived the day of. And even then, there was 1986, 1997, 2011."

Rather than impressed, Yao only crossed his arms, turned his head and huffed with the air of a displeased wife who has been proven wrong but would refuse to admit as much.

Wife...

"If you remember that much, you would remember this is the first New Year's we will spend together as a couple, aru!" Yao began, working from a new angle. "We have already celebrated your birthday, once. Or," here, Yao gave Kiku a slow, satisfied smirk, head tilted just-so as his gold, intensive eyes peered up from thick lashes, "did you forget your birthday present already, aru? From what I remember, you enjoyed that particular gift."

Kiku felt his cheeks burn, as if set ablaze. With a polite clear of his throat and wandering eyes, Kiku somehow managed to mutter, "I haven't forgotten."

Kiku looked back, though he knew he didn't need to, to see the spark that lit in Yao's eyes – he could have told from the shift in the air, the easy confidence in Yao's voice as he pressed his advantage.

"I was hoping I could outdo my present to you from last year," Yao remarked casually, pushing the blanket aside as he got to his feet, remarkably graceful even in his matching red silk pajamas – his favorite, if Kiku wasn't mistaken. With exaggerated swings of his undeniably-shapely hips, Yao – Kiku had never been one to exaggerate, and he had no plans to start – strut over to the couch, leaned over and grabbed at the back of it. "Do you really want to leave without opening your gift, or would you prefer it now, aru?"

Kiku's resolve was weakening, rapidly, a futile opponent to Yao's lilting voice, the deliberate and easy grace with which he moved, his intense and beckoning eyes. Without meaning to, Kiku licked his lips, took a step closer to Yao, hung on to Yao's every move – the flicker of his mischievous eyes, the shift as he put more weight on his right leg, the drum of his long, slender fingers against the back of the couch – just as enraptured at Yao's mesmerizing beauty as ever.

Yao's expression, then – head tilted up, back tastefully arched, lips open in a teasing, tempting smile – was nothing more and nothing less than coy and beseeching.

The duffel fell from Kiku's shoulder with a faint thud, and Kiku's hands settled atop Yao's. Yao, of course, only smiled wider at this victory he had over Kiku, and lifted his knees to the couch's cushions, the distance between his face and Kiku's marginally decreased.

With a low, enticing whisper, Yao asked, "Would you like to unwrap me, aru?"

Before Kiku could stop himself, he leaned forward and caught Yao's lips in his. Yao's pleased hum sent vibrations from his lips to Kiku's, and Kiku found his hands wrapped around Yao's wrists, tight and unwilling to let go. The moment Yao's lips parted and his tongue licked at the Kiku, inviting Kiku's all too-eager tongue in, Kiku knew he'd lost, but at the same time knew he didn't mind so much.

Yao had somehow managed to help Kiku over the back of the couch and onto the cushions beside him, and then beneath him as Yao seemed to take it upon himself to settle atop Kiku's thighs in an authoritative straddle. Slowly, without haste or mind for company – their four pseudo-siblings, or pseudo-children as they now referred to themselves as, had left for reasons unexplained with hardly a word of returning soon, or at all – Yao removed his ribbon, combed his fingers through his hair over his shoulders before he smoothly removed the scarlet silk of his shirt, eyes locked onto Kiku's all the while. When Yao had done away with his shirt, Kiku tucked some hair behind Yao's left ear, kissed a path from the lobe to the jaw to the arched neck. Yao's needy whimper left Kiku anxious for more, encouraged Kiku to bite gently down at Yao's impossibly smooth skin.

Kiku mouthed at the junction between Yao's neck and shoulder, licking and sucking, nibbling and biting, while Yao only pressed his head closer there with bewitching moans, eagerly rocked his hips against Kiku. And, just as Yao's other hand began to sneak into Kiku's kimono–

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIKU!"

–they were... rudely interrupted.

For a long, endless second, Yao and Kiku only stared at one another, as if waiting for the other to confirm that, no, Yao's front door had not just been slammed in and too-familiar voices had not just greeted Kiku with "happy birthday" when midnight was still hours away.

"WHOA! I guess Korea really wasn't kidding about you guys, huh?! HAHAHAHA!"

"Al..." A barely audible voice scolded, just as Yao hurriedly pulled his shirt back on and clumsily knotted it shut.

"What is the matter with you, aru?!" Yao shouted, ignoring the hair that still framed his face, which grew red with a flurry of anger and embarrassment, as several guests walked through the hallway and to the living room. "Are you incapable of knocking on a door, aru?!"

Alfred, of course, took the insult in stride as he continued on further in to the living room. Yao and Kiku's siblings followed, and, unsurprisingly, it was Im Yong Soo who stepped forward, almost proudly, admitted that he didn't want Kiku to have to take more than one trip in a plane. "See, the party's came to you! We didn't tell you beforehand only because we thought you might not have let us in had you known..."

With a simultaneous glance at one another, Yao and Kiku leaned over the couch and hit Im Yong Soo over the head.

That ought to shut him up. At least, for a minute or two.

"Next time," Yao muttered from the corner of his mouth, "we go to one of your places. On one of the tinier, widely-unknown islands," and, Kiku, as he reluctantly chocked down his first and hopefully last slice of cake with frosting colored a suspicious blue, only nodded and wished he and Yao would have the foresight to plan for those situations. Next time, they would.

In the meantime, Kiku supposed, he and Yao would just have to sneak out when everyone else was distracted.

He still had a gift to unwrap, after all.

Hope you guys enjoyed!

If you has any questions, comments, concerns, constructive criticism, etc., please review or send a message and I'll get back to you when I can!

Ja Ne =D!