Revising with Nie Huaisang has, so far, been much pleasanter than eating dinner with Nie Huaisang. The former comes with good conversation and pretty drawings, and the latter with dangerous magical items. Tomonori still doesn't know why Jiang Cheng hates him, but that's alright; the rest of Shanghai won't bother them. There's no one else there to watch or judge, either. As long as Tomonori is careful of any sneaky mals, this will be one of the most relaxing social situations he's ever been in. Nie Huaisang always draws something beautiful and wants to talk to him about all of the interesting things there are to talk about.

For once, he's not worried that he might do it wrong.

He knocks: rap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Nie Huaisang smooths out his clothes, checks his hair, remembers he's bald, swallows the gum, and opens the door.

"Hello!"

"Hello. Thank you for inviting me to your home," he recites.

"Thank you for coming!" He looks up at Tomonori, his eyes half-lidded with the you're-the-most-fascinating-and-wonderful-person-in-the-world-and-I-adore-you facial expression. "We can sit on the bed? There's only one chair."

"Okay. I'm sorry you only have one chair."

It's genuinely inconvenient for this circumstance, but it probably doesn't cause any actual issues for him. Still, it's probably nice to say something sympathetic about it. People like to vent and have their concerns listened to. Tomonori will get on the bed and start taking out his notes.

"What should we revise first?"

He's sorry that Nie Huaisang has one chair??? Is this a message??? Does Tomonori not want to study with him on the bed after all??? Is he being rejected??? 

Nie Huaisang says, "I was thinking maybe I'd get a head start on my first class on Monday, Romantic Poetry."

"Oh! There must be so many good spells in that class! And it must teach you how to write them, too!"

Tomonori will get very close to Nie Huaisang so they can look at the drawings notes together!

"I hope it's not just love spells but other sorts of romantic spells." 

Excellent. That was not a crushing rejection. Nie Huaisang presses his leg against Tomonori's and puts his head on Tomonori's shoulder.

Sure, that’s fine. It barely registers; that’s just how Nie Huaisang is.

”What other kinds of romantic spells would there be?”

"Well, I don't know. Maybe you'd want a way to find out if a peach is particularly sweet before you give it to your lover."

“That sounds nice, if your lover likes peaches. Do you like peaches?”

Hmm…which class to focus on first? Lab seems more important; Nie Huaisang got excited enough about golden ratios on his own.

He bites his lip and looks down. "I love peaches."

“That’s nice.

So do you remember the steps from our first lab assignment? I thought we should review how we did it.”

IS HE BEING HORRIBLY REJECTED OR NOT

"We could take a break before we start on lab."

-the philosophers' salt (true salt) can be extracted from the air- a break? From revising, which is why they're here?

"Hmm? What do you want to do?"

"This," Nie Huaisang says, and kisses him.

???

Tomonori doesn't know how kissing works- is this right?- no that's bad, he's clearly missing his mouth-

Everything is very wet. Is kissing supposed to be this wet? Why does anyone do it if it's wet!

It's warm, that's nice? But everything else is distracting- like his shirt, his shirt is distracting again, usually he can ignore it but now he can't focus on anything but the texture of it against his skin-

He pulls back.

"Um."

"...did I misread everything?"

"I didn't know we were kissing friends! Is that why we came to your room?"

"...yes...? I've been draped all over you for days!"

"-oh. Okay. I didn't know."

Tomonori still isn't sure if the kiss felt good. It was...warm? And wet. Those do seem to be the dominant features in his mind, still. So maybe it wasn't good? Or maybe that is what a kiss is like if you've never done it before- he knows you're supposed to get married before kissing anyone, so maybe that makes it better.

"I don't think you misread, I'm just- I misread. I'm bad at - reading."

"Well, do you want to kiss me?"