???

?

Nie Huaisang seems to think that should be an easy question to answer but it's not, actually.

"I don't know? How can I tell?"

"You could try kissing me more and see if you like it? Or if there's something you didn't like about it you can change that?"

"Is there a spell to make it less...wet? We can try again but I think it would still be wet."

"How's this?"

Nie Huaisang is going to place very carefully closed-mouth kisses on his mouth and his cheeks and his nose and his forehead, and then say "you're very pretty."

That's- better. It still doesn't feel like kisses are supposed to, he thinks. Tomonori isn't sure if he should say that, though; Nie Huaisang is being very nice.

"Thank you. You're very pretty," he parrots. It is nice leaning into him, maybe he can do more of that.

Nie Huaisang glows when he's complimented.

Oh, okay! That's a much better way for this to go. Maybe Tomonori can just compliment Nie Huaisang and nuzzle him, that's easy.

"You draw so beautifully", and "You're so generous with your time", and "You're such a good listener" and "You have a lovely, home "room".

--okay one thing that Nie Huaisang had not realized is that being complimented by people you have a crush on is distractingly horny-making.

Tomonori should have more closed-mouth kisses on his neck and his ears, that is what Nie Huaisang thinks. And then he says, "does your objection to wetness work both ways?"

(Tomonori makes a face while thinking about how annoying human bodies are, especially while kissing, which seems like a major flaw in letting a runaway process like evolution- no, that's a distraction- kissing...)

"No..."

"Well, you could kiss my neck," he says. "In a wetter way."

He can do this. It's just kissing, not something confusing and awkward, like a conversation about kissing. Tomonori does not have much skill, but he can follow instruction; kissing Nie Huaisang's neck is within his power. He stops the compliments in order to focus on kissing.

Judging by his face and the noises he's making, Nie Huaisang seems to be getting the expected reaction from kissing.

Oh good. Maybe after this they can focus on revising for Intro to Lab.

Tomonori will continue kissing and throwing in a compliment every...two minutes? He aims for two minutes, though he doesn't have a perfect sense of time.

Something something "artistic spirit", something something "beautiful smile", something something..."distinctive-smelling room"? Tomonori will need to prepare a list for their next revision.

"--uh I really thought I would go slower than this but I've never done this before and it turns out that going slower is much much more difficult than expected can I please suck your dick."

"No thank you," he says automatically, before wondering if that's awful to say. That really does sound like a post-Scholomance sort of thing, though. "Sorry. That sounds very different than this?"

"No, it's okay, we're both guys."

"-I don't understand."

His parents always taught him to always admit he didn't understand- the only times it costs more to admit that are in the Scholomance when dealing with people who might want to make a graduation alliance, which- this isn't? He thinks? Probably Shanghai will never consider him for an alliance because he's not brave enough and doesn't have a good affinity and also Lan Zhang and Jiang Cheng don't like him. So this can't hurt his chances.

"Why does that make it different?"

"Well, if one of us was a girl, we might have babies, and that would be bad. But we're both guys so it's just fun."

"Oh. Okay. Um, do you really want to, even though it's wet and gross?"

"Yes, I really really really want to." Wow, he really thought he'd have to fake his desire more than this.

"Okay. That seems fine then."

This is- safe because they're both boys, and probably not going to ruin his life? It has that going for it.

"--uh, I think probably your attitude towards receiving a blowjob should be more enthusiastic than 'that's fine then'?"

"Oh. How did you change your attitude about it?"

...wow Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian really distorted his view of how interested people are in sex. Fucking his way to graduation is going to be harder than he thought.

"Uh, I turned twelve and then suddenly the concept of boys putting their mouth on my penis was very very interesting."

"...oh. I don't have that? Sorry?"