He's smiley too. 

Whenever they touch it takes him a few seconds to pull away. 

At the end of the afternoon, Ben says, "Do you want to do this again?"

"I do! Day after tomorrow?" 

"I'll be looking forward to it!"

Maybe... a goodbye hug?

Definitely a goodbye hug. 

The goodbye hug goes... maybe a bit longer than goodbye hugs generally do. 

That's totally fine!

Eventually he is going to have to let go, as little as he would like to. "I'll see you the day after tomorrow, then." 

"Yeah."

That night he puts clothespins on his skin and pretends Chen was possessed by an evil spirit and put them there and is about to torture him. 

He curls up and puts a pillow between his knees and pretends it's another person he's holding, and whatever he dreams he doesn't remember it. 

Studying with Chen quickly becomes the highlight of his day. He does tourney and thinks about Chen. Goes to cabinet meetings and thinks about Chen. Attends class and thinks about Chen. Talks to Fairy Godmother about the nature of a true king, and thinks about Chen. Cooks with Asher, and thinks about Chen. Has long loving phone calls with Tiana and Naveen and thinks about Chen. Has stilted boring dinners with his family and thinks about Chen.

At night he has lurid fantasies of Chen being possessed and torturing him, Chen being forced by a villain to hurt him, Chen having to torture him to save all of Auradon, and then Chen holding him and crying and saying he'd never want to hurt him never never.

Studying with Ben was already the highlight of his day. He goes to tourney and thinks about Ben even more than he did before, practices his archery and thinks about Ben, attends classes and thinks about Ben, does his homework and thinks about Ben, talks to his sister and thinks about Ben, writes letters to his parents and stops himself from filling them up with news about Ben. 

And at night he holds a pillow against his chest and curls up under two heavy blankets and dreams about things he forgets in the morning, or things he'd rather forget in the morning; draws his fingernails across the skin of his stomach, bites down on his own arm, and thinks about what Ben's fingernails or Ben's teeth would feel like. 

Chen has another friend. Of course Chen has another friend, he's handsome and popular and likeable and good at sports, it would be silly to think Kaleva would be as important to him as he is to Kaleva. Chen has another friend and it's the prince and the prince is always so nice to Kaleva and it's fine. It's fine.

(He wants to die.)

He doesn't stop talking to Kaleva, doesn't stop studying with him, doesn't stop glaring at Chad Charming when he gets too close. 

But — it's not the highlight of his day, now. 

(He'd apologize but he doesn't know what, specifically, to apologize for.) 

And one day at 9pm there's a knock on Chen's door.

He opens the door and takes one look at Ben's face and hugs him. 

"Can Kaleva be-- not here."

Fine. This is fine.

"I'll go to the library."

He does his best to smile at Kaleva, and then once he's gone says "c'mere, sit down — what's going on —" 

"My dad's abdicating."

"What — why —" 

"He and mom think ruling the world is stressful, they want to take a vacation-- can I cry on you--"

"Yes absolutely cry on me all you want — ruling the world is stressful for him so he's putting it on you —" 

"He says I'll do fine-- all I have to do is listen to my advisors--"

Ben puts his face on Chen's shoulder and wraps his arms around his chest.

"I'm sure you will do fine, that's not the point, if ruling the world is too stressful for you you don't put that weight on your child so you can take a vacation." 

He holds Ben very tightly and lets his thumb rub circles into Ben's back. 

"Well, I'll have to do it someday anyway but-- I haven't finished high school. I thought I'd go to college, maybe spend a year traveling around Auradon, gradually take over jobs from my dad--"