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Chapter Text

When Xichen wakes again, it is some time during the midmorning, and he opens his eyes to the sight of Raphael sitting up in bed, stretching and showing Xichen his back, the warm light painting an elegant edge of gold along his spine, up the curve of his neck.

Xichen hums, taken by the sight, and Raphael tilts his head to greet him with a lazy smile. “Morning, gorgeous,” he says, and spills his gaze over Xichen in a very palpable way.

“Morning yourself.” Xichen basks in the attention, and takes his own turn to stretch a little, to feel all the places where he's pleasantly sore from last night.

Despite the difficulties at the beginning of their date, the sex had turned out surprisingly good. Good enough to get carried away with it, and good enough to come back for seconds after the nap and the bowl of noodles Xichen ended up fixing them when they woke up voracious around midnight.

It's funny. Xichen had been so adamant, trying to fight his own more lowly impulses and prove that it was better to build an emotional bond without falling back on sex. But there's no denying that it feels different, easier, to be with Raphael, now that they've spent the night together.

As he feels Raphael's eyes glide over his body in a way that his dick is starting to pay attention to, he finds that he wouldn’t be opposed to exploiting the benefits of the new-found rapport between them and dive right into a third round.

However, as it turns out, Raphael isn’t one for lazy morning cuddles, or lazy morning sex, at that. He is on his feet in minutes, moving through Xichen’s living space with a smooth, collected energy, and Xichen feels himself pulled along.

“Wow,” Raphael says, with a somewhat incredulous laugh, as he stretches more elaborately. “I’m actually sore.”

“I’m sorry,” Xichen says, immediately feeling a little guilty. “I suppose you did the majority of the work.”

“Oh,” Raphael says, “Please don’t say sorry for that.” He continues to stretch, interlacing his fingers behind his back. “You did more than enough. And besides, I like it. Like having a souvenir.” 

Xichen smiles, a little abashed, because yes, that’s exactly how he thinks about it too, and it's nice. Everything feels so harmonious. As they brush their teeth side by side by the bathroom sink, Xichen contemplates their reflections in the mirror and deems them a good-looking couple. Then he accepts the first, minty kiss of the day from his smiling boyfriend, and he thinks he detects the hint of a flutter in his belly.

“Hey,” Raphael says, as he picks up his t-shirt from where it was discarded last night. “You fed me so well yesterday. Let me make it up to you.”

“Oh,” Xichen says, almost shocked at the suggestion that the slapdash meal he put together in the middle of the night could come even close to the criteria of feeding someone well. He really owes Raphael a dinner. “I did nothing of the sort. I can make some breakfast for us now, though. Or pop down to the European bakery down at the corner and pick up some pastries …”

“Xichen,” Raphael says, and the gentle authoritativeness of his voice makes Xichen shut up at once. “Just let me take care of it, alright? Bakery sounds nice. What’s your favourite pastry?”

“Anything,” Xichen says, blushing, because he likes Raphael taking care of things rather a lot. “Surprise me. Would you like me to make tea?” He does not offer coffee, because the moka pot is A-Yao’s, and unavailable, having been moved from the counter to the back of the cupboard during Xichen’s cleaning spree yesterday.

“I would love some tea,” Raphael says, and gives Xichen a soft kiss on the mouth.

Twenty minutes later, Raphael returns, vividly flushed from the walk in the cold, bearing a large paper bag filled with smaller bags of pastry. Xichen wonders, as Raphael pulls treat after treat from their almost translucently butter-soaked wrappers, if this is all for his benefit. He would’ve taken Raphael for a savoury breakfast, maybe a fad health food kind of guy, but Raphael grins proudly as he spreads out his bounty. It reminds Xichen of Mingjue, who also always seemed to derive some kind of perverse joy from indulging Xichen’s sweet tooth, and while it’s certainly not a wise choice to start comparing the two, the association does make Xichen feel quite warm inside.

They stuff themselves, and afterwards, sedated by carbs and butter, they lounge on the couch and talk about trivialities. Unlike the times before, the conversation now flows naturally and easefully along its shallow waters, and Xichen ponders, once more, the astounding neurochemical effects of several shared orgasms.

As he listens to Raphael talking in his calming, melodious voice with its geographically unplaceable accent, he is struck by the strange feeling of getting to know him for the first time. After he’d gone on that internet research spree before their first date, deep-diving into Raphael’s lifestyle influencer social media content, he thought he’d gotten a pretty good idea of what Raphael was like as a person, what his life was like. Now, as he listens to Raphael talk, Xichen gets the sense that he had been entirely wrong, even though Raphael reveals nothing of grave importance. He enthuses about the works of a local novelist he has been enjoying, he tells Xichen about this client and that, and the various unconventional art projects that they are invariably involved in. It sounds like his life is laid-back and largely devoid of the trappings of celebrity, even if it is sometimes unusual. He mentions that he has received an astonishing offer from a large cruise line that wants to book him for a month-long gig of meditation classes on a seriously deranged sounding transatlantic enlightenment tour.

“Would that be something you are interested in?” Xichen asks, cautiously. He happens to think that cruise ships are among the most pointlessly wasteful inventions of mankind and should be banned, but he wouldn’t want to step on anybody’s toes.

Raphael Yi tilts his head thoughtfully. “Well, they are offering me a fortune. But …” He chuckles. “It sounds like one of the most horrifying things I can imagine, so I am not seriously considering it.”

Xichen laughs, too. “That’s a relief,” he says, honestly.

Raphael looks at him with a contemplative kind of smile. “You know, I’m actually quite comfortable where I am right now, and I’m in no rush to be going anywhere else for the time being,” he says. “Professionally, I mean. Although your sofa isn't too bad either.”

Xichen is glad to hear it. He stretches and angles his body to lean against Raphael, pleased that they are on the same page, both about cruise ships and being comfortable.

Still, despite Raphael's words, it feels like the date is drawing to its natural close. Any moment now, Raphael is going to start thanking him and prepare to say his farewells and Xichen, with some surprise, finds himself apprehensive of the moment Raphael will leave.

Probing after the feeling, Xichen discovers that his reluctance comes from a strange, guilty place. It’s rather easy to be Raphael’s boyfriend while being right next to him, having him there to talk to and touch. But Xichen doesn’t know what will happen when Raphael goes away.

Don't go yet, some immature part of him wants him to say. It wants him to lure Raphael in with a kiss. Or go down on him, or ride him on the couch until they pass out again. But that would be silly. Even if he were to delay Raphael’s impending departure with sex, it wouldn’t do anything but postpone the problem. Xichen can’t ask Raphael to move in and spend every waking minute with him just so he doesn’t get distracted. Eventually, the weekend will be over and A-Yao will return to the guest room. Xichen will just have to learn to deal with that, like a grown-up.

“I've had a really nice time,” Xichen says, like a grown-up. The kiss he leans in to plant on his boyfriend’s lips is chaste and refrains from any veiled attempts at entrapment. “I hope we can repeat it soon.”

Raphael tilts his head back to look at Xichen. “I’d like that very much. You know, I’m free most of the time that I’m not working, so just tell me when and I’ll be there.” He laughs, but Xichen gets the sense that he’s serious enough.

He nods. Without protest, he lets Raphael rise and walks him to the door. He makes sure the kiss he gives him as a goodbye isn’t too chaste, just so he knows what he’ll be coming back for.

“Whew,” Raphael says, in comment to that. “Well, I’ll text you.”

Xichen grins. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

And then the door falls shut behind Raphael and Xichen is alone.

He wanders up and down his apartment for a while, unsure what to do with the rest of the day by himself. There is a flutter in his belly again, this time a diffuse kind of restlessness. For lack of a better plan, he starts tidying. He rinses the teacups and balls up the paper baggies and throws them in the trash. He shakes out the sofa cushions and makes his bed. He runs a load of laundry and cleans the bathroom, and puts Raphael’s toothbrush into a little case, which he stows in the mirror cabinet. Then he gets out the vacuum cleaner and vacuums up the crumbs and sugar grains that have fallen to the floor around the dining table. One by one, he lets all traces of Raphael’s visit disappear, returning the apartment to the pristine state it had been in before. At last, he finds himself standing in his spotless living room, still waiting for his unease to lift. He can’t help but note that the queasiness in his stomach is still there, joined by the vague feeling that he is sneaking around – although who exactly it is that he is cheating, is hard to tell.

Maybe, Xichen thinks, the strange sense of restlessness is a symptom of not having left the house today, and he concludes that a quick jog around the block might help.

He’s already wearing his running shoes when he remembers that he might as well take down the trash, and he ties up the half-empty garbage bag to carry it downstairs.

He also checks the mailbox on his way outside. It’s empty, but it reminds Xichen of A-Yao’s mail, from Mingjue, which is still waiting on top of the fridge, forgotten since Thursday. Disconcertingly, the queasy feeling in his stomach intensifies.

°°°°

It’s the smell of food and the brightness of what has to be at least noon that eventually pulls A-Yao from his sleep. He is naked, lying on a very wrinkled, still slightly damp towel under a fluffy leopard print blanket on the stack of mattresses in Xue Yang’s squat.

The attic is a bit chilly in spite of the electric heater in the corner. A-Yao wraps himself in the blanket and goes looking for his phone. It’s been plugged in to charge on the floor. A-Yao picks it up and sits on a bean bag. No missed calls, a text from A-Su that he’ll get back to later, some emails, yes, but no emergencies, and it’s not quite as late as he feared.

“Fuck’s sake! Please tell me you’re not working!” Xue Yang’s head emerges from the hole with the ladder. He places a tray on the floor and comes climbing up.

He hands A-Yao a bowl and a pair of chopsticks. Then takes the tortoise out of the pouch of his hoodie and sits it down in its enclosure, where he drops a cucumber end and a lettuce leaf on the laid out newspapers and hay. He switches on the heat lamp there, which A-Yao thinks he could have done sooner, given that there’s no way Xue Yang is paying the bill for the electricity up here, anyway.

The bowl contains what looks to be chunks of blood sausage, and now A-Yao remembers the blood stains on the clothes Xue Yang had been wearing when A-Yao finally arrived here some long time past midnight, after having been ghosted for hours and having repeatedly nodded off in the glaring lights of the hospital hallway.

“So this is why you didn’t text me back last night?” A-Yao holds up a bite of sausage.

“I mean, partially. I was on a tight schedule since, may I remind you, I spent half the night running errands for you.”

“One errand, as far as I recall,” A-Yao says and cocks an eyebrow.

Xue Yang shrugs. “One thing led to another.”

A-Yao is actually kind of afraid to find out what that might mean. “It led to blood sausage?”

“No silly, that one I’d been planning for a long time. Ancient recipe. Hella health benefits. All ingredients ethically sourced.” Xue Yang sits down on the floor opposite of A-Yao, grinning.

“Out of your mouth, I have no idea what ‘ethically sourced’ could possibly mean.” But A-Yao digs in. He’s very hungry and doesn’t care either way. He would eat his own arm if someone were to serve it to him.

“Aw,” Xue Yang says, watching him fondly like a proud grandmother. It’s unbearable and if A-Yao wasn’t currently stuffing his face, he’d be threatening Xue Yang, telling him that if he ever leaves him hanging again, there’ll be dire consequences. But as it is A-Yao settles for glaring, while shovelling with the feral appetite of the wet stray that he is.

“So do you have the keys?” A-Yao asks, having swallowed down just enough of his food to be able to form words.

Xue Yang reaches into his pocket and fishes out Xichen’s spare keys. “Depends,” he says, dangling the keys in front of him like a cat toy, “Are you going to tell me whose home I broke into for you?”

“I’ll just pretend you said mailbox just now,” A-Yao says sternly.

“Whose mailbox, gege? Who is he to you?”

“Keys.”

“I thought you were staying with your brother. That wasn’t your brother’s house last night, was it? What’s the tea?”

“Keys or immediate termination of friendship,” A-Yao snaps.

Xue Yang scoffs, then tosses them over. A-Yao catches them, suppressing the urge to hold them in his palm wistfully. He’d stuff them in his pocket, safe and out of sight, but he’s only wearing a blanket so he puts them on the floor in front of him and then returns to his bowl of rice and sausages, ignoring Xue Yang.

“It’s very mean that you’re being so withholding,” Xue Yang complains. “When I’m being so nice to you. I’ve put you up, I’ve fed you. I’ve washed your clothes.” 

“I was hoping that’s where they’d gone,” A-Yao says, picking up the last few morsels of rice. Xue Yang stands up and walks over to his wall of shelves. A-Yao nods when he holds up a pair of bleach-stained grey-ish sweatpants for him to borrow.

“You got into bed naked all by yourself. And you left the shower on. I didn’t do anything you get to castrate me for.” He shows A-Yao a yellow t-shirt, which he likewise accepts.

“I can get my own clothes back after the weekend,” A-Yao says.

Xue Yang’s eyes drift towards Xichen’s house keys, pointedly.

“I suppose it could be your brother’s house,” he says, like a dog with a bone. “Guy’s a billionaire as far as we know, he probably owns multiple buildings. Or maybe the guy who lives there is another one of your brothers, we all know that’s far more likely than –”

“Xue Yang,” A-Yao cuts in.

Xue Yang smiles at him sweetly.

“He’s not my brother.” That it even needs saying is proof that the world is a horrible place. “And no, I’m not staying with Zixuan any longer. That has become something of a non-option, of late. Technically I’m homeless.”

“Gege! You offend me! My home is your home! You can stay as long as you like. The only rule is not to let Xuanwu run around up here. They’ll fall down the hole.”

A-Yao sighs, wearily. “Thanks, Yang-yang.”

“Yeah, I’m a saint. But at some point I’m still going to need the whole, entire tale, gege. Or what friendship is there to terminate if we cannot talk about boys?” He stands behind A-Yao, places his hands on his shoulders and squeezes. A-Yao tries to wriggle away from his diabolic grip. “You’re so fucking tense. I’d give you a shot for that but right now I’m worried those knots are the only thing keeping you upright at all. You look destroyed, you know that?”

A-Yao does want the shot but he also wants to stay upright. He has a half-baked plan that needs refining.

“You’ll never guess who I ran into yesterday,” A-Yao says, and it’s only partially a diversion tactic.

“Hm. Let me see. Hm.” Xue Yang makes a big show of thinking. “Was it Su She?”

“The fuck?” A-Yao almost pulls a muscle turning to look at Xue Yang’s face. He’s laughing like it’s the most hilarious joke in the world.

“Calm down, gege. He texted me. He works for me. With me. Depends on who you ask.”

“That’s so weird, Xue Yang.”

“Why weird? Not for me. To me he’s just a guy. I haven’t been inside him!” Xue Yang giggles, ostentatiously pleased with himself about that. Until apparently he realizes that A-Yao isn’t going to be cheered up by their old-times-sake banter. “Alright. Not the time for jokes.”

“No. Besides, I’m mentioning Su-Laoshi for a reason.”

“Right, because normally you never have an agenda.” Xue Yang winks.

“Let’s say, hypothetically, I applied for that burn-out job at Jinlin Tai …”

“Why would we say that?”

“The situation with my current employer has deteriorated somewhat, and, as previously mentioned, I’m homeless. I could use the pay raise.”

“I told you, you can stay as long as you like. It’s not a problem. I do like the company. Speaking of, I gotta get downstairs. I have a tits thing now.” Xue Yang takes a hanger with a bright white, neat-looking, possibly even starched shirt from the clothes rail. “An hour. Tops. After that I can do yours, if you’re still interested.”

A-Yao is too tired and done to take the bait and just sighs.

“Whatever, gege. It’s your wonky tit!” Xue Yang has tucked the shirt into his tight grey jeans. His hair is kept out of the way in a thick french braid that he must have had the whole time. Suddenly he looks professional, sanitary, yet not without an edge. “You play with your spreadsheets while Daddy gets the bread, alright?”

He climbs down the ladder and A-Yao finds himself alone.

His gaze catches on the exposed concrete, the naked pipes. Xue Yang does get off on finding secret places like this, hidden passages, above and beyond legality like he’s outsmarting everyone. But A-Yao disagrees, always has. It cannot be considered a win to live off of the wastefulness and negligences of others, like a rat. It’s not enough. Not if you can’t rub it in their faces. There’s no triumph.

A-Yao washes up, changes into the awful clothes Xue Yang is lending him and gets to work. His actual, current job, not the audacious stab at getting a different one that he’s been thinking about.

During the next hour he finds out that the manufacturer of the VR equipment still hasn’t reacted to any of his emails, nor talked to any news outlets about the incident. Perhaps they are truly out of office on the weekends, or they’re playing dead. As far as A-Yao can tell, Ka-Jing thankfully hasn’t made it onto any of the bigger nor the more topical news sites and the two very dramatic but also artistically enigmatic videos the Ouyang kid posted yesterday evening have been deleted, as A-Yao had instructed him to do.

Wen Ruohan, too, has been uncharacteristically quiet. A-Yao would have expected some acknowledgement of his strenuous efforts, after all the dramatic threats voiced to get him to come in. He isn’t sure if he is expected to call with an update or whether the boss would prefer to be left alone on a Sunday morning, either. As he begins to draft a concise summary email of everything that went down over the weekend, he goes down a rabbit hole and rereads the entirety of his Nevernight email inbox. He decides that replying to emails with phone calls must be one of the worst habits a person can have. Previously A-Yao shrugged it off as an annoying but mostly harmless quirk of Wen Ruohan’s, but now that he sees the gaps in the documentation of the project created by it all in a row, it almost seems like a calculated move.

A-Yao’s mounting indignance and suspicion is eventually interrupted, by a text from Zixuan.

Of course, his brother and Jiang Yanli think that A-Yao is staying with Xichen, still. Again. Zixuan’s apology obviously concerns his mother’s behaviour – which he’d never actually spell out and which he must have expected or heard about from her end, because A-Yao certainly has not spoken to a soul about the humiliating encounter. 

A-Yao really should have texted first thing in the morning to ask how Jiang Yanli is doing. Now Zixuan probably thinks he’s upset with him or worse, out only for himself and really deserving of every bad name Zixuan’s mother called him yesterday.

The brightest sunshine is coming in through the skylights now, warming up the room. A-Yao looks up at the blinding blue sky, leaning back in his bean bag.

Instead of returning to his email draft and that one particularly patchy thread with legal, he pulls up the listing for the PA vacancy at his father’s company again. The stated salary is just a smidge higher than his current one. The qualification profile fits. And Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan’s continuous feud might just be incentive enough for his father to hire him, if only for petty reasons.

And if it isn’t – given that A-Yao actually decides to go through with it – he still has that favour to call in from Su She.

The idea refuses to allow A-Yao to focus on anything else, so he opens a fresh doc and begins to type.

When Xue Yang’s head finally pops up from the hole once more, he is just putting the finishing touches to a rather convincing application letter, addressed to the Jinlintai media and telecommunications conglomerate.

“Look, Yang-Yang.” He beckons him over and turns his laptop a little. Xue Yang squats down next to him, wide eyed.

“Huh, you’re actually serious about this,” Xue Yang says, then side-eyes him curiously. “What’s your angle? I know you’re not a volatile agent of chaos like me, you must have one.”

Xue Yang is right, of course, in assuming it’s not a random move, but his actual aim is a complicated thing.

“Just considering different options,” A-Yao says evasively. “By the way, I’d been meaning to ask you something before you derailed our previous conversation.”

Dangling his outstretched arms in front of him, Xue Yang looks up at A-Yao with interest.

“Well.” A-Yao continues. “Don’t know if you’ve heard all about that too, but Su She offered me to hack someone yesterday…”

“I haven’t! He did? Who?” Xue Yang pulls the tie off of his braid and shakes his hair loose.

“No one specific. It sounded like a carte blanche offer, bafflingly. And I was just wondering … Do you think he can really do that type of thing? He was talking about side projects. Is Su-Laoshi some sort of cyber terrorist nowadays?”

“Pff. In his dreams.” Xue Yang laughs. “Thing is, he is good or I wouldn’t be working with him. But you know him, all he does with his skill is be pathetic in new, unexpected ways.” Then Xue Yang snorts. “But don’t worry. It’s not your dick’s fault.”

A-Yao elects to ignore the last statement. “So, hypothetically, Su-Laoshi would be capable of, for example, accessing a given company’s internal data network from the outside?

“A hypothetical company?“ Xue Yang gives A-Yao a meaningful glance. “Sure, sounds plausible. And if he isn’t yet, I’m sure for you he’ll teach himself over the damn weekend. He’s probably waiting by his phone thinking it was fate that sent you his way so you can finally behold and praise his genius. You should have seen his face when I told him about how you showed up in my office.”

“Patient confidentiality! God! You probably told him about my thing and now he thinks I’m flawed, like, so human, in a charming way!”

“Human!” Xue Yang laughs. “No, it’s more like he thinks you’re just perfect exactly the way you are.” Xue Yang goes to fetch his pet. “Seriously he’ll do whatever you tell him to do. Hack your dad. Kidnap your boss.”

He lies down on the floor, with Xuanwu on his chest, to bask in the sunbeam. The tortoise sticks its long neck out, stretching towards the warm light.

“I’m not. The way I am. Or whatever he thinks. And we’re not kidnapping people!” A-Yao grumbles.

Xue Yang opens his mouth to protest but A-Yao’s been poked in a sore spot and is faster.

“You know, I really hate that phrase. As if they ever even know who you are and what you’re like. What’s so romantic about loving someone under the delusion that you know them, when you’ve barely scraped the surface of even the bits that they would willingly show you, let alone all the ugliness they’d rather hide forever? Let alone the stuff they aren’t even yet aware of themselves!. Everyone, Xue Yang, everyone will stoop lower than you’d think. Everyone has those buttons that if you push them enough, they might shock you. People aren’t these completely transparent, mapped-out and stagnant things that you can love ‘just the way they are’. They’re messy, and rarely self-aware enough to know it. ‘I love you just the way you are!’ Be fucking realistic! You don’t know you’ll still love me in a week with any more certainty than I know who I’ll be in a week! And then I’m the disappointment, the deceitful one, the fraud. ‘Just the way you are…’ It’s so presumptuous and dumb. Self-centered as fuck, if you think about it, too.” 

“Okay, gege. Cool down. It’s not that deep. And for the record, what I like most about you is your potential for escalation. The way you grapple with it. See, that allows for some personal development, right?” Xue Yang makes a fingerheart and a kissy face in A-Yao’s direction. “Also, precisely because you never know what you’re capable of, I wouldn’t completely rule out the kidnapping.”

A-Yao scoffs. “I’m ruling out the kidnapping.” He takes a deep breath to collect himself. “I have a better idea. But first I have to get my suit.”

“No good idea has ever involved office apparel, gege!” Xue Yang replies.

Suddenly, there is a noise. An electric chime like they’re common on shop entrances. 

“Whoops! I gotta go!” Xue Yang jumps up, hands A-Yao the tortoise and leaps through the hole. A-Yao could swear he saw a slight blush on his cheeks, and decides to follow him, begrudgingly intrigued.

He finds Xue Yang pressed up against the window of his office and joins him there.

“Ah. Of course. The hippie is out.” Down on the browned greenery, A-Yao can see the waifish, white silhouette of Xue Yang’s crush. He’s stretching and bending his body in the morning sun. “What was that noise?”

“Motion sensor. I had to put one on his door.”

“You had to?”

“Oh yes. Xiao Xingchen is incredibly hard to stalk. Like, he has no routine, no reliable rhythm. It’s fascinating. Completely unfathomable. Which kinda supports your rant about the unpredictability of people just now, funnily enough. He’s a marvel. You’d have to look at the footage to really get it, though.”

“Footage. Wow. Are you in love, Xue Yang?”

At least, A-Yao thinks, as he counts the holes in Xiao Xingchen’s cardigan, his taste in men, as tragically inconvenient and nerve-wracking as it may be, isn't this. All that poverty chic, the unkempt hipster pseudo-individuality – A-Yao is honestly surprised Xue Yang would fall for it, and fall so hard. But then A-Yao has never understood why anyone would voluntarily wear something that looks like it's been partially eaten by rats, and think it “cool”. He simply can’t abide people who make a whole identity of advertising their own non-conformity to the world when he knows how the world treats those who really don’t conform. Xiao Xingchen, he thinks, most certainly has never gotten the shit kicked out of him for holding the wrong brand of juicebox, or else he wouldn’t be trying so desperately to stand out.

“I want him to demolish me,” Xue Yang groans, his hands gripping the edge of the windowsill.

“Ah. So, no progress there?” A-Yao says conversationally, as Xiao Xingchen lifts his leg dangerously high, likely gracing the neighbours from across the yard – if they’re unfortunate enough to be watching – with a good view of his bits. Even from where A-Yao is standing it’s glaringly obvious that Xiao Xingchen is not wearing underwear.

“No. Because. Fucking Song Lan.” Xue Yang grumbles. “Turn around, please. Lemme see.” He whines at the figure on the lawn, biting his lip as if in grave anguish.

“Song Lan?” A-Yao asks, just to make sure he’s heard right.

“His husband. He’s fucked off and Xiao Xingchen says it’s because we flirted on New Year’s and that Song Lan won’t come back if we do anything. Haven’t I told you this already?”

Down in the street a police moped is pulling up.

“Gege, get my gun,” Xue Yang says, baring his teeth.

“What the…” For a second, A-Yao is alarmed, but then he remembers that the only thing more powerful than Xue Yang’s love for crime is his love for messing with people. He rolls his eyes.

“I said, give me your phone,” Xue Yang urges, but then immediately grabs it from A-Yao’s pocket himself. When he starts filming Xiao Xingchen being reprimanded by a beefy cop for flashing the whole block, it is with the fondest expression on his face.

At last, Wen Ruohan’s ringtone interrupts Xue Yang’s video.

“Give it back! Fuck.”

A-Yao reclaims his phone just in time to rush into the other room and answer the call.

Wen Ruohan looks livid, despite currently being on a boat, in the middle of what appears to be a scuba diving excursion. A-Yao had anticipated trouble, but not from this direction: The newest crisis that has emerged amidst the existing chaos is that Jinzhu and Yinzhu, the directors, have quit the project, and rather than getting in touch with A-Yao about it, they decided to simply ask Wen Chao, of all people, to pass on the message when they bumped into him at some super exclusive cocktail party. And evidently, this is all A-Yao’s fault.

“You did not check in with them enough. You should have called them more, bought them lunch or something,” Wen Ruohan yells into the video call.

When? A-Yao thinks. When should he have wine-and-dined Jinzhu and Yinzhu? Other than treating them to unseasoned mush from the hospital canteen, A-Yao can’t see how he could have taken their directors to lunch. Overrated and overpaid directors, too. He takes a deep breath.

“Respectfully, I don’t think we absolutely need them. The writers’ room I’ve assembled…”

“Nonsense,” Wen Ruohan interrupts, because of course he’s not actually interested in any of A-Yao’s ideas for how the situation could be improved. He just wants someone to yell at.

“Meng Yao, this is the second strike. The second time you’ve disappointed my high hopes for you.”

Meng Yao internally scoffs at ‘high hopes‘. “I got the demo back and made the VR goggles trouble go away, as you asked me to,” he says out loud. He hates having to justify himself when he has done nothing wrong. Hates how slimy and weak his voice sounds. He’d like to explode all over Wen Ruohan, tell him exactly what he thinks, but of course, he’s not an all-powerful tech mogul living in a world with no consequences.

“And you neglected everything else while at it!” Wen Ruohan rants on, because he is, and he's never not saying exactly what he feels like in any given situation. “I cannot remind you of every little thing. Are you a child who cannot think for himself? I put my trust in you to do your whole job, not half of it, not a third of it, Meng Yao.”

Every new word is a missile chipping at the wall of willpower Meng Yao has built up around his rage. “Can I …”

“I don’t care how you get them back. Dig up some dirt to hold over them, if you must. I gave you a chance and you disappointed me again. At least admit that you’ve fucked up first, suck it up and correct your mistake. And don't call again before you've fixed it. You’ll have to if you want to keep this job, you hear me? I don't run a charity for Jin Guangshan’s useless bastards.”

And in that moment, the wall breaks and A-Yao is done.

“Do you understand, Meng Yao?”

A-Yao nods, mechanically. He watches Wen Ruohan pull on his diving mask. Before the video shuts down, just for a moment, A-Yao catches a glimpse of the dark, cold ocean. But behind his eyes, what he sees is the entirety of this man’s empire going up in flames.

°°°°

Xichen's jog hasn't done much to alleviate his restlessness, and after it he still finds himself with quite a daunting stretch of his Sunday ahead of him. He is at a loss until, with an almost embarrassing amount of relief, he remembers that he could work, as in, do his job, and prepare for the appointment that awaits him practically first thing tomorrow morning.

Finding suitable staff has been a struggle ever since Xichen can remember, but it appears to be getting worse with each year. This time, the application period for a teacher’s maternity leave cover has gone by without turning up more than a total of five applications – three of which could be disqualified on sight. Of the two that warranted an interview, one wrote in late on Friday to cancel the appointment so that Xichen is now left with one applicant, who he will meet tomorrow and hopefully find suitable for the job. Otherwise, with a third teacher having just announced her pregnancy, Xichen may soon find himself so understaffed he may have to close groups – or cover for the girls by taking on teaching duties himself.

Sitting down with his laptop and the printed out CV and cover letter that his colleague Patricia has left some notes on, Xichen looks over the application of his only candidate with increased attention. It’s a man, still enough of a rarity in the profession to be noteworthy. The photo he has attached to his CV shows the handsome face of a Chinese guy in what looks to be his forties and it immediately caught Xichen’s eye due to the fact that he is wearing an expression so stern and dispassionate that it is actually somewhat alarming. Using her signature glittery gel pen, Patricia has circled the entire photo and drawn a loopy arrow to connect it to a note starting with a large plus sign that says “social media!!!” followed by a minus sign and a hand-drawn >:( face and several question marks.

Xichen has to smile. It’s not surprising that Patricia, who semi-officially runs the kindergarten’s web and social media presence, would comment on an applicant’s photogenicity. Currently, she is in the habit of bullying Xichen into joining all photoshoots with the children because apparently his face “gets them the most engagement”. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if she had another victim for jobs like that in the future. On the other hand, Xichen shares her concern about the facial expression, which is certainly a curious choice in an application for a job like this. Xichen can only hope the guy doesn’t look quite so surly when interacting with children.

There is another thing that keeps tugging at Xichen’s mind as he studies the candidate’s angular features, and it is a vague sense of familiarity. The list of former employments on the CV is eclectic, but there are none that help jog Xichen’s memory as to where he might know him from. Meekly, and with a sense of mild shame, he acknowledges that this man is somebody that he would match with on Pairer, but he is also pretty sure that he would remember if they had hooked up. Xichen sighs. Having his own promiscuousness bite him in the ass like that by forcing him to turn down the only suitable candidate because of a past personal entanglement would be amusingly poetic, but still the last thing that Xichen needs.

No, he tells himself. That won’t happen. He decides what he actually knows Zhao Zhuliu from must be one of the smallish acting engagements that are likewise listed in the CV and he ventures to trust his luck enough to do without trying to verify that with the help of a search engine. He will think twice before engaging in overzealous online research before meeting a person again.

Instead, Xichen carefully rereads Zhao Zhuliu’s cover letter and writes out a number of questions that he wants to ask. The most important litmus test, of course, will be how he deals with the kids, and Xichen optimistically schedules a trial day at the end of the week, hoping – no – manifesting that the interview will go well.

As he is putting the finishing touches to his preparatory notes and is about to send the file to his printer, his computer chimes with the sound of an incoming email.

Dear Xichen, it reads.

I hope this email finds you well. Regrettably I have to inform you that due to certain developments in my personal life, I will not be returning from Iceland in the foreseeable future. If you wish to continue seeing a therapist, which I would advise, I have attached the contacts of two colleagues of mine, whom I highly recommend and, to be honest, find more suitably trained for your specific issues than myself.

I wish you and your family all the best.

Dr. Blue

PS: It appears my former office has been broken into and although it seems like nothing went missing, there unfortunately is a possibility that someone has had access to your case file. I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused by this.

A week ago, or on the day of his last scheduled therapy session, when he had had an entire box of egg tarts and that hookup, this news would have caused Xichen a considerable amount of distress. But now that he has taken the first steps to reclaim control over himself, and is in a much more positive, optimistic headspace, he remains calm and manages to see the upside of not having a therapist anymore. For one, it leaves him more time that he can spend working on his romantic bond with Raphael. Also, Xichen will never have to tell Raphael that he is seeing a therapist and what for, if he isn’t any more. He does register, in turn, that this avoidant impulse points towards some unresolved problems in his own attitude to mental health care, so to make up for it, he goes through the list of Doctor Blue’s recommendations, looks them up, and saves their contacts in his phone. Then, he types out a reply to Dr. Blue where he wishes her well and lets her know how much he appreciates everything she has done for him, and while the finality of it makes him feel a little melancholy, what it mostly leaves him with, as soon as he hits send, is a sense of accomplishment and pride at having handled a complicated situation with real maturity and not just the pretence of it.

Satisfied with himself, he flips his laptop shut and checks his watch. It’s just about dinnertime, so Xichen has successfully filled the whole day with productive tasks. As a reward, he decides to run himself a bath. It’s not a pastime that he indulges in often, but somehow it seems like a good way to end the day, based on his current mood. It seems like an appropriate type of treat for a person with a normal romantic relationship, normal professional responsibilities, and normal means of finding gratification.

He dims the lights before he steps into the tub, leaves his phone in the bedroom to avoid being disturbed. It is a nice thing to do, he thinks, as he leans back into the hot water and stretches out his legs as far as they go in the tub. It’s relaxing. Could even be called romantic. As the heat of the water melts away the slight soreness in his muscles, he thinks back to the weekend he’s had. He lets his fingers trail slowly through the hot water, shifting piles of foam around his body and watches suds slowly run down from the exposed peaks of his knees into the narrow channel between his legs.

If this were any other day, he thinks, he’d probably end up masturbating sooner or later. Today, that idea seems to him puerile and excessive; unnecessary. Of course, it’s not a surprise that the bath put him in mind of sex, sensual as it is. Bathtub sex is a thing people have. Maybe a thing that he should be having. He ponders the possibilities, now that Raphael is in the picture. His imagination stumbles, however, over the logistics of the thing. It’s tough to imagine how Raphael and he would fit into this tub together, spacious though it be, let alone find room to make love in it.

Not to mention the fact that Xichen is still sharing this room with A-Yao.

A-Yao, who will return to the apartment tomorrow, and who still doesn’t really know about Raphael.

A-Yao is suddenly dancing before Xichen’s mind’s eye once more, just like he did in his weird vision yesterday, folded up tiny, squatting by his plant, wearing that stern, disapproving facial expression that would be enough to make Xichen lose his nerve, if it was ever directed at him in real life.

Jerkily, he shakes his head, to clear it of nonsense.

He has to stop being so silly.

Sooner or later, he will have to talk to A-Yao about Raphael. They will have to face up to the fact that the circumstances of their cohabitation have changed. He knows it will be very difficult to preempt A-Yao’s deep-seated compulsion not to inconvenience anyone, and convince him that it won’t be a problem for him to stay, even under the changed circumstances. Xichen hopes that it won’t be a problem. He still can’t quite wrap his head around the technicalites of negotiating shared room sex arrangements, but what he does know is that withdrawing his hospitality from A-Yao is completely out of the question.

He stares at the ceiling. Maybe it’s just as well if he and Raphael stick to sex in places that won’t have to be pre-approved, for now. And maybe bathtubs are a bit overrated, after all. At least it feels like after almost no time, he’s already getting a bit chilly.

He decides he is done here. He has come to the conclusion that it’s best to rip off the bandaid sooner rather than later. Tomorrow, when A-Yao comes back, he will sit him down and talk to him about Raphael. Because it’s the normal, mature thing to do.

As he lifts himself out of the tub and reaches for a terrycloth robe, his eyes catch on the line of tiles just below the window. One of them, he sees, has a tiny but noticeable crack running right down the middle of it.

Involuntarily, he shudders, and quickly wraps himself in the robe to nip that incipient shiver in the bud. When he pads back to his bedroom to put on pyjamas and preserve the last of the satisfying warmth and relaxation of the bath by having an extra early night, he sees that the message notification light of his phone is pulsating.

He shuffles over to have a look.

Xichen replies, promptly.

Carefully, he places the phone back on the nightstand, and climbs into bed.
Like a normal and mature person would.