Let Me Ruffle Your Fur a Little

Chapter 87.1

Extra 3: The Last Few Candies

12

Mu Mu’er has caught a cold during the last legs of winter.

More precisely, after he built snowmen for a whole afternoon out in the snowed in garden, Bai Yao has called him to go back inside for warmth. However, he felt that it was a shame to leave a small part of snow there on the ground without being snowmen. He delayed entering until he got all the snow everywhere into snowmen.

The next morning, he woke up sneezing four times, and definitely had a nasal congestion when he said he felt uncomfortable. Bai Yao first tried feeling his forehead to the little guy’s, and it was hot. A thermometre later and it turns out the little guy’s already at 39.1°C, his brain is going to boil over.

Bai Yao is deeply concerned and regretful seeing him dizzily lie back onto the bed. He asks if he wants to eat anything, prepared to offer him the prerogative all patients enjoy, but Mu Mu’er didn’t feel like eating at all.

So Bai Yao goes to cook up a simple congee with bok choy, plus extra pieces of ginger. While the congee is cooling, he also grabs some Chinese cold medicine, and also does something extra before going back inside the bedroom with everything.

He touches Mu Mu’er’s forehead again, and it’s still hot enough to sizzle eggs. Bai Yao hands the bowl over, “eat the medicine first.”

The sick little sea otter is even clingier than usual. All he can do is lie in bed, after all.

Mu Mu’er shrinks a little inside the quilt, leaving only his eyes out, “tasty?”
“What is this?” He says, his voice still quite nasal, and his eyes droopy. Poor little guy.

Bai Yao is also a little angry that the sea otter just stayed outside like that in barely enough clothing all afternoon, and says, a little tersely, “medicine.”

Mu Mu’er asks with hope still in his eyes, “tasty?”

Bai Yao smiles, “sweet.”

The little foodie of a sea otter seems to have some kind of supernatural instinct when it comes to food, though, or he might have picked up something from Bai Yao’s eyes. He concludes, “Yaoyao is lying.”

“It’s really sweet. Yaoyao never lies to Mu’er. It is sweet after you drink.”

Mu Mu’er is suspicious of the bowl Bai Yao is handing to him still, and tries to smell it – not that he can smell a thing with his nose blocked. After thinking, he still takes the bowl and makes a big gulp.

As soon as his lips touch the medicine black as ink, his eyes turn into narrow slits from the bitterness. He also shakes and tries shrinking back into the quilt.

Bai Yao, amused, continues supporting the bowl from the bottom, “drink it all, and it will become sweet.”

Mu Mu’er takes a whole minute to finally finish the whole thing. He sounds like he’s going to cry when he finally puts it down, “Yaoyao lied. It’s bitter… so bitter.”

Bai Yao doesn’t say anything, but smiles and lifts Mu Mu’er’s chin a little, to plant a kiss on him.

With his tongue, he deftly opens up Mu Mu’er’s teeth, in order to push the blueberry candy he had in his mouth over into the boy’s. He’ll taste the bitterness and sweetness together with him.

He’s held it in his mouth before he entered the room, in order to give this to him as soon as Mu Mu’er finishes his medicine.

The kiss lasts until the two of them can no longer taste any more medicine.

“See? It’s sweet,” Bai Yao wipes Mu Mu’er’s mouth for him, while smacking his own lips, “Yaoyao never lies to Mu’er.”

13

The couple is bathing together at night.

The bathroom is quite foggy with the steam rising up. With the eucalyptus essential oil in the water, the whole room smells a little like a forest right after the spring thaw.

However, Mu Mu’er is not a big fan of the smell. He doesn’t like it as much as the fruity smells. That said, Bai Yao would refuse to bathe together in his strawberry body wash together, because, he said, he’d rather not ‘be seen as a sentient strawberry cheesecake strutting ’bout the next day.’

Mu Mu’er has his little basket of collection next to the tub, and is currently playing with some bubbles. Bai Yao is sitting behind him, holding him by the waist.

“Warm?” Bai Yao says, squeezing his soft tummy.

Mu Mu’er goes ‘mmhm.’

This should be really romantic, but Mu Mu’er hasn’t seemed to realise at all what Bai Yao’s intentions are. His attention is too focused on the body wash in front of him, thinking about how strawberry bubbles and apple bubbles would be able to make strawberry apples together! He’s had a strawberry-apple flavoured yoghurt that afternoon.

Bai Yao tries flirting with the little guy some more, and attempts to rub him on the front.

Mu Mu’er simply vagues his way out, “uh-huh.”

Bai Yao becomes annoyed at Mu Mu’er’s clear disinterest in his very important ‘business.’ He wonders what his little brain could be going on at the moment.

Thus he decides to blow air onto Mu Mu’er’s nape mischievously.

Mu Mu’er is making more bubbles when he suddenly fells the breeze on the back of his neck and shudders; his dollop of body wash falls straight into the bathtub and sinks.

Mu Mu’er does not look back at all as he’s rushing to the rescue of the dollop of body wash – unfortunately, he fails to breach the water surface with his pawing before Bai Yao has already taken him away.

“Yaoyao is speaking.”

Mu Mu’er is still wondering if apple-scented bubbles and lemon-scented bubbles would smell sour or sweet when mixed together, so he takes a few seconds to finally respond, “ok. Yaoyao is speaking. Mu’er is listening.”

“… Never mind. You probably won’t get it even if I spoke some more.”