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Feng Xin arrives late to the party because Jian Lan had called him at the end of her rope and all out of both groceries and diapers, so he’d done a full supermarket run for her on his way out of work and only stopped by his place long enough to change his clothes. Showing up irreverently late isn’t anything out of the ordinary for him, but this time, Feng Xin had promised to help Xie Lian set up.

He pounds up the fire escape to save time and lets himself in through the door to the kitchen. “Sorry,” he says, hopping on one foot as he tries to yank off a sneaker tied too tightly in his haste. He looks up with a guilty wince, but Xie Lian has of course already forgiven him. Xie Lian’s smile is affable as he cuts up what looks like a very large, damp lump of steamed dough into finger foods; Hua Cheng, looming behind him with arms crossed, looks no different than usual, which is to say, completely unimpressed with Feng Xin’s general presence.

“Not a problem,” Xie Lian says. “I understand. And anyways, Mu Qing showed up early! He helped me with the food.”

(Not that Feng Xin would ever say it within the man’s earshot, but,) Mu Qing is highly competent, and even so, Feng Xin has doubts about how much “help” Mu Qing could possibly have exerted over Xie Lian’s, er, abilities. Feng Xin wishes he had been there, if only to witness Mu Qing’s misery.

Xie Lian is now shoving adorable, heart-topped plastic picks through the dough bits to keep them together, but the angle and number he’s using will prove a choking hazard to anyone with a mouth smaller than a highway underpass.

Feng Xin finally manages to get off his shoes and straightens up. He lifts up his last remaining shopping bag. “I brought drinks?”

Xie Lian reaches over and peeks inside the plastic bag. “Oh good, thank you! You can put it out on the table with everything else,” he says. Then, “I’ll be right out in a minute. Go have fun.”

Feng Xin wants to protest, offer some kind of help, but the dark look in Hua Cheng’s eye is somehow more menacing than usual, and he quickly decides to leave the two of them alone in the kitchen. But as he tries to step out into the rest of the apartment, someone is already in his way.

Mu Qing leans against the doorway sulkily, hair swinging in its high ponytail and a cup of something luridly green and characteristically nonalcoholic in hand. The shape his silhouette makes up against the doorframe is arresting in more than one sense.

“You’re late,” he says.

“I know,” Feng Xin grits.

It’s stupid unfair that Mu Qing can look so sour and also so pretty at the same time. Those things should cancel out. Inner beauty radiating outwards, et cetera.

“Why did you wear this sweater?” Mu Qing then says, apropos of nothing and once again proving what a little bitch he is. “Surely you must have nicer ones. Look.” He reaches out to poke at a hole near Feng Xin’s waist; Feng Xin slaps his hand away.

“Thanks,” he snipes, “I wore it just for you. Can you get out of my way?”

Mu Qing shifts his weight on his hip, biting down on a corner of his lip as if deliberating on whether to make this difficult.

Joke’s on him, Feng Xin has literally never had a problem getting physical with Mu Qing. He barrels through the doorway, shoving Mu Qing out of his way with his shoulder.

“Hey!” Mu Qing shouts after him as he stumbles back against the doorframe.

Feng Xin gives him a mean half-smile. “Don’t block traffic.”

Mu Qing looks livid, but it’s a good look on him. Getting that kind of rise from Mu Qing gives Feng Xin a funny, shaky feeling in his stomach that feels cousin to an adrenaline rush.

He turns his back on Mu Qing, ignoring him to wander over to the snack table and unpack his half-assed snack offerings.

“You made it!” someone cries from behind him, and then he’s being folded into Shi Qingxuan’s chest. He freezes, eight hundred kinds of discomfited by the proximity of a bosom. Mercifully, the hug lasts only a few moments before she releases him.

He breathes in a deep sigh of relief. “Yeah,” he manages. “Good to see you.”

“I thought you might miss this one. I haven’t seen you for ages,” Shi Qingxuan laments. “You’ve been busy?”

“Yeah. Work, then the baby, then more work,” Feng Xin says, scratching the back of his head. “You know how it is.”

“I certainly don’t,” Shi Qingxuan says, tacitly holding back her strongly implied thank god, which Feng Xin appreciates. “Do you have baby pictures? Oh, do you have dog pictures?!”

“What do you fucking take me for?” Feng Xin already has his phone out.

Three-year-olds and big friendly dogs will turn heads. Feng Xin soon has half the room clustered at his back, cooing over a video of CuoCuo trying to stomp around in a pair of size 47 work boots that swallow up his chubby thighs. He swipes and now they’re laughing over Fu Yao and Nan Yang nipping and wrestling each other so hard that they tumble right off the side of the couch.

“Just like you and Mu Qing,” Shi Qingxuan says, and Feng Xin grimaces at her while everyone else laughs in agreement.

He feels a weight on his neck, invisible but heavy all the same, and turns his head to see Mu Qing glowering at him from across the room. Mu Qing’s face goes steely when Feng Xin notices him, quickly taking a sip of his drink and turning away.

Feng Xin scoffs.

When his photo albums have run dry and Feng Xin is feeling a little steamrollered by all the attention, Shi Qingxuan gamely distracts everyone with some brand-new and complicated-looking card game from up her sleeve. Feng Xin manages to slip aside quietly and fill a paper plate with food that—thanks to the contributions of the other guests—looks edible.

He tries to stop by the kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge, but freezes in the doorway: Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are making out against the counter. Feng Xin turns and leaves sharply before Hua Cheng manages to notice and get a little feral over, like, protecting gege from unworthy eyes or whatever. Feng Xin thought he was overprotective of Xie Lian; Hua Cheng really elevated the art form.

Really, why do they even bother having parties if they’re just going to neck in a corner the whole time?

Maybe that’s the point, Feng Xin thinks grimly, as he grabs a tepid beer from a half-empty case in the living room and settles down in an armchair in the corner of the room, facing the TV on the opposite wall. Maybe it’s their thing, getting off with a crowd just on the other side of the wall. He’d really rather not know.

The television is some ridiculously big flatscreen that Hua Cheng had dropped off for Xie Lian one day without any warning. Xie Lian may insist on staying in this crappy apartment in a shitty district, satisfied with its charm and good memories, but that doesn’t mean Hua Cheng hasn’t done his best to fill it with the most outrageously expensive shit he can find. Xie Lian now alternates between white t-shirts he found abandoned at the laundromat and ¥8,000 white t-shirts by Valentino, without any indication he knows the difference. Feng Xin finds this funny; Mu Qing finds it infuriating.

Right now the oversized TV is playing some muted documentary about deserts, although no one is paying attention to it, and the chair he’s chosen is tucked away enough against the wall that no one is hovering nearby: peace and quiet. Feng Xin gets comfortable in his seat and digs into his plate of snacks with all the hunger of someone who barely managed lunch and fully skipped dinner.

He’s halfway through gorging himself when he takes a break to look up and realizes that the head in front of him, poking out from the back of the sofa, is Mu Qing’s head. That long, elegant neck and the shining dark hair. Tonight he’s used something sparkly to tie it back. Feng Xin doesn’t know the name of the thing: a twist tie? A bobble? It’s silver. Kind of nice.

Next to Mu Qing is some guy Feng Xin doesn’t recognize. His arms are flung out wide over the couch back, brushing close to Mu Qing’s neck.

Feng Xin scowls.

How rude.

They’re not making any effort to speak quietly but it’s a little hard to hear them over the low background music and the chatter from Shi Qingxuan’s game group. Feng Xin leans forward inconspicuously to hear better.

“That’s inane,” Mu Qing is saying, sharp and clipped. “That’s not how that technology works. It’s not even in the realm of possibility.”

“True genius is usually called madness, first. Open your mind up a little,” the guy says, grinning, and reaches over to tap Mu Qing right on the forehead.

Whoa—what a dick.

Mu Qing blinks at that, once, twice, his face pinching in like a cat flicked with water, but then—to Feng Xin’s shock—he doesn’t dress the guy down. Instead he only flinches away from the touch and gives a dirty look.

“Don’t touch my face,” he says, and it’s the least upset Feng Xin has ever heard Mu Qing sound about something that’s actually offensive. And not even one of those fake offences he’s always reading into other people’s words and actions!

“My bad,” says the guy, but the grin is still on his face and Feng Xin hates it. “It’s very pretty, I can see why you need to be protective of it.”

Feng Xin’s eyes nearly bug out and he drops a chopstick to the ground. No way—is this guy hitting on Mu Qing?

Man. Grave fucking mistake. Feng Xin takes a swig of his beer in sympathy.

Mu Qing only answers that compliment with a huff. “You’re stupider than you look if you think sentient, rogue AI, of all things, is a viable threat to humanity in the near future,” he says, crossing his arms. His shoulders shift under the drape of his thin sweater—not a large man by any means, slender and tall, but Mu Qing was a nationally ranked fencer, and it shows in the lean cut of his muscle under his clothes.

“I’ve been researching it a lot, actually,” says the guy, and holy shit, how smug can someone sound? “It’s amazing what you can find when you dig through the actual evidence. It takes some scientific literacy but it’s so worth it.”

Feng Xin can’t listen anymore. How awful; and yet, only Mu Qing would deserve this kind of torture. With grim, sedate content at knowing Mu Qing will be unpleasantly occupied for the rest of the evening, he packs up his plate and is standing up to flee to the other side of the room, when he overhears:

“You look cold.”

Mu Qing does not look cold. His loose, expensive-looking black sweater seems more than adequate for the lukewarm temperature. Regardless, the stranger leans in and lets his arm drop from the back of the sofa to directly on top of Mu Qing’s shoulders, until he’s tugging Mu Qing to his side and closing the few inches between their thighs.

Feng Xin freezes in place, smile twitching on his lips. Oh shit. He’s about to watch someone get pummelled. A flash of something weirdly close to jealousy streaks through him at the idea of Mu Qing punching someone other than himself, but is quickly superseded by how on-board Feng Xin is to watch this dumbass get his comeuppance.

But then…nothing.

Mu Qing stiffens under the man’s arm, mouth pinching as if swallowing a lemon, but to Feng Xin’s great concern, Mu Qing takes a deep breath and then softens, settling an almost imperceptible fraction against the guy’s shoulder.

Something inside Feng Xin has been under strain all day, rushing out the door late this morning and fielding shit at work and getting that panicked call from Jian Lan—and now Mu Qing, leaning against a stranger. Accepting another’s touch.

That’s fine. People do that. People do that all the time.

Not Mu Qing, though.

Then Feng Xin finds himself walking around the couch and plopping down in the armchair beside it, spreading his legs wide as he finds a place for his beer on the crowded coffee table.

“Hey,” he greets shortly.

Mu Qing stiffens, quickly putting a little space between him and the guy beside him. In turn, a vague pissed-off expression passes over the stranger’s face, but he’s polite enough to push it aside.

“I’m Feng Xin.” He reaches out a hand and, after a moment, the guy takes it.

“Du Zhuoran,” he says, shaking Feng Xin’s hand a little too tightly. He sits back comfortably, arm still around Mu Qing, although not as cozy as before. Mu Qing’s left eye seems to be twitching.

“How do you know Xie Lian?” Feng Xin asks, digging right back into his food like he isn’t perfectly aware he’s barged in and interrupted them.

“I don’t, actually,” Du Zhuoran says. “Mu Qing invited me.” He jostles Mu Qing’s shoulders amicably.

Mu Qing makes a tiny nod, looking pained. The fingers of his left hand are digging into his knee as if maybe he’s holding back from curling them into a fist.

Feng Xin’s brow furrows. Invited him? Feng Xin’s never known Mu Qing to suffer the company of idiots. Well, more so than their usual company.

Feng Xin smiles at the two of them in a way that he’s been told is kind of intimidating. People have told him as much. “How nice,” he says. “Way to go, Mu Qing.”

“Shut up,” Mu Qing snaps, finally. “What are you doing? Go bother someone else.”

“Hey, don’t mind me. I’m just gonna eat my dinner.” He shoves a bite of noodles in his mouth in demonstration.

Mu Qing puts a hand over his eyes in quiet, overwhelmed exasperation, a gesture Feng Xin is familiar with eliciting, and which brings him some pleasure.

“Ignore him,” Mu Qing tells Du Zhuoran, turning his body away from Feng Xin. “He’s a dick. You were saying?”

Du Zhuoran eyebrows raise a little, but he’s sitting comfortably at Mu Qing’s side and that seems to be enough for him.

Really, Du Zhuoran’s letting his knees fall open exceedingly wide. Feng Xin is uncomfortable with how much of a crotch-front view he’s getting.

“I was just saying that you have to think outside the box, babe,” Du Zhuoran says lazily, taking advantage of the hand on Mu Qing’s shoulder to twist a piece of Mu Qing’s long hair around his finger.

Since Du Zhuoran’s head it turned to look at Mu Qing, Feng Xin gets away with making an over exaggerated expression of disgust at Mu Qing and mouthing, “Babe?”

Mu Qing, a placid expression on his face even as his eyes shoot daggers at Feng Xin over Du Zhuoran’s shoulder, flips him off with one hand, low where Du Zhuoran won’t notice.

Feng Xin manages one more smarmy look before wiping his face clear as Du Zhuoran turns back to face him.

“If you keep your mind too open, flies will get in,” Mu Qing snaps, hand batting away Du Zhouran’s from his hair.

Du Zhuoran laughs at that, like Mu Qing is adorably funny instead of a mean little asshole, and Feng Xin is faced head-on with the knowledge that this guy isn’t just hitting with Mu Qing in mistake or out of boredom, he genuinely wants in Mu Qing’s pants. Big time.

“Mm, that’s how all the good ideas get inside, too,” Du Zhuoran says, unconcerned, turning again to smile privately at Mu Qing. Feng Xin rolls his eyes so hard.

All Mu Qing comments is: “Gross.” Unbelievably, Feng Xin thinks he catches a small smile on the corner on Mu Qing’s lips. It’s enough to make Feng Xin feel like the floor has been pulled out from under him.

Du Zhuoran slaps a hand over Mu Qing’s knee amicably. “I need a refill. You need another drink?”

“The same soda,” Mu Qing says shortly.

“You got it.”

Du Zhuoran heads out and over to the kitchen, and Mu Qing immediately turns on Feng Xin.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses. Feng Xin’s stomach roils contentedly at the reaction.

“What are you doing? That guy’s an asshole.”

“You don’t have any room to talk,” Mu Qing snaps, voice still low, as if it might carry over the music and into the kitchen. Feng Xin doubts it. “Are you trying to ruin this for me? It won’t fucking work.”

“I’m not trying to do anything,” Feng Xin says, which is truthful because he has no idea what it is he’s doing. (Why can’t he ever leave Mu Qing alone? Who knows, but he’s not about to stop.) “I mean, I could—“

Mu Qing glares at him.

“—tell him about that crush you had on Xie Lian for like, a fucking decade—“

“I did not.”

“—or how high maintenance you are about your gazillion-step skincare routine—“

“Feng Xin.” He sounds tired.

“—or how you’ve never dated anyone before—“

“Shut your mouth!”

Feng Xin laughs lazily. He leans back in his chair, letting his legs stretch out under the coffee table. “Fine, I won’t. It wouldn’t matter anyway. He seems like he really wants to fuck you.”

Mu Qing is red. “And? So?”

Feng Xin scoffs. “Nothing. Just surprised.”

“Surprised,” Mu Qing repeats scathingly, almost to himself. “Well—be surprised somewhere else.”

“No, no, I should be polite. I’m getting to know your your new boyfriend.”

“He’s not my—“ Mu Qing starts, but then Du Zhuoran is weaving his way back over to the couch with a drink in one hand and two beers tucked under his armpit.

Du Zhuoran hands the drink to Mu Qing with a smile, and Mu Qing in turn accepts it with the weirdest little fake smile Feng Xin has ever seen him paste on for someone else.

Feng Xin has absolutely no idea what’s going on between these two. Does Mu Qing really want this guy??

“Beer, man?” Du Zhuoran says, offering Feng Xin a second bottle.

Feng Xin is surprised. “Yeah,” he says. “Thanks.” The bottle is wet with condensation, crisp straight from the fridge. Xie Lian and Hua Cheng must have either finished making out or finally moved themselves to the bedroom.

“So how do two know each other?” Du Zhuoran asks, and if he knows he’s kicking a hornets nest, it doesn’t show.

“Shared best friend,” Feng Xin grunts at the same time as Mu Qing says, “We grew up together.”

Feng Xin makes a face. “We didn’t ‘grow up’ together,” he protests.

“It just means we’ve known each other since we were kids. Nothing more,” Mu Qing says acerbically. Before they can fight over the semantics more—a time-honoured pastime—Du Zhuoran says, pleasantly, “How nice! It’s great when a friendship lasts a long time.”

“Sure,” says Feng Xin generously. Calling their streak of petty disputes, physical fights, and cold silences a “friendship” seems kind of sad, but Feng Xin will take what he can get. And what Mu Qing will give Feng Xin, Mu Qing has proven time and time again, is small, cold, and generally bitter.

“Mm,” Mu Qing hums, not meeting Feng Xin’s eyes, and that’s how Feng Xin finally knows that Mu Qing wants into Du Zhuoran’s pants, too, because Mu Qing never tries to hide how little he likes Feng Xin.

Mu Qing is playing pretty. Mu Qing is playing…nice.

It’s a feeling not unlike being hit upside the skull. Floaty, kind of painless, but filled with dread.

Feng Xin feels himself draw up. What a load of shit. That’s not like Mu Qing at all; why the fuck is Mu Qing toning himself down for some jackass?

“So we’ve known each other nine years, give or take,” Feng Xin says, leaning forward. “How long have you two known each other?”

Du Zhuoran looks at Mu Qing. “Two months, maybe? We met at Pei Ming’s place.”

“Pei Ming’s place?” Feng Xin says, not bothering to hide his judgement. “You know him, then?”

“Yeah, he’s great,” Du Zhuoran says.

Feng Xin scoffs outright. He feels his body temperature rise, thinking of Mu Qing going home with some guy who “thinks Pei Ming is great.” What the fuck, actually. “He’s a dick. Why were you even over at his place, Mu Qing?”

“He’s a friend,” Mu Qing says, stiffly.

“The hell he is,” Feng Xin says, knowing full well that Mu Qing and Pei Ming have a sour, simmering relationship. He knows because sometimes it puts him on edge, until he distracts Mu Qing a little and is able to egg him into an indecorous and explosive reaction that Pei Ming could never.

“He said he’d introduce me to some people,” Mu Qing says, trying for casual, but it’s a wildly loaded statement, and he only halfway succeeds. Feng Xin’s eyebrows soar.

Mu Qing has never dated anyone, and Feng Xin has never seen him go home with anyone. It’s alarming to know that he apparently goes out looking for dick, same as much anyone else.

Horrible taste, Feng Xin thinks, as he watches Du Zhuoran manspread lazily and slip his arm once again over Mu Qing’s shoulders.

“And we had a good time, yeah?” Du Zhuoran says, taking a sip of beer. “Crazy night. So glad I ran into this guy, though. Look at him.” He squeezes Mu Qing’s arm. “You’ve known him forever, Feng Xin—was he always this pretty?”

Feng Xin grunts. “He’s always looked the same.”

The blush on Mu Qing’s cheeks is sudden and very red. It makes Feng Xin feel hungry, and has nothing to do with his abandoned dinner.

“Knew it,” says Du Zhuoran, pleased. “Naturally gorgeous.”

Mu Qing looks away with a tch, hair sliding to cover his face.

“Don’t embarrass him,” Feng Xin snaps, feeling something start to flare on the tinder that’s been building up.

“Woah! I’m only saying the truth.”

“Don’t you think he knows that already? You’re hardly the first person to tell him.”

Du Zhuoran blinks at him; the face Mu Qing is making at him is entirely incomprehensible.

“Well, sure,” Du Zhuoran says, bemused. “I’m sure you get a ton of compliments, don’t you, babe?”

Babe. Feng Xin rolls his eyes again, not nothing to hide it now. They’ve known each other two months.

“Of course not. That’s stupid,” Mu Qing says, scowling. “Feng—“

“What kind of question is that?” Feng Xin interrupts, scoffing. “Haven’t you noticed that Mu Qing is very suspicious? He won’t accept a compliment the first time, the second time, even a dozen times—he always thinks someone is lying to him. People must compliment him day and night but he’ll never believe they mean it. That’s why you shouldn’t just call him beautiful, here, in public, at a party; he’s only going to worry that you’re putting on a performance or toying with him. Isn’t it obvious?”

“I,” says Du Zhuoran. “What?”

“Don’t you pay attention?”

“Feng Xin,” Mu Qing hisses.

“Oh, shut up,” Feng Xin says, losing the last of his cool. “What, are you embarrassed? It’s fine. This is how you are. Even if he’s only known you two months, he should know better.”

“He doesn’t need to know better!” Mu Qing says, exasperated. “Go away if you’re just going to insult me.”

“I’m not insulting you!” Feng Xin insists. “I’m giving advice.”

“Who the hell are you to give him advice?” Mu Qing hisses.

“Don’t I know you?” Feng Xin says, hotly, boring holes into Mu Qing with his glare. Somehow, he’s starting leaning in and so has Mu Qing. “Shitty friend or not, don’t I understand what you’re like? What you want?”

“You don’t know shit about what I want,” Mu Qing snarls.

“Fine! You’re right, I don’t know!” Feng Xin snaps. “But only because you’re so suspicious. You could just tell me, you know!”

“Why would I tell you anything?”

“Oh? Why the fuck not? Tell me, tell me to my face.”

“Mu Qing?” Du Zhuoran looks between the both of them, alarmed. Their voices have been rising. Feng Xin notices that Shi Qinxuan and her party are staring.

“Whatever,” Feng Xin says, feeling dizzy, feeling hot. He looks away. “What do I care.”

But Mu Qing doesn’t give it up. “Why are you always like this?” he says, leaping upright. Du Zhuoran’s arm falls from his shoulders unceremoniously. “You can’t ever leave me alone, not for a second.”

“Of course I can. I do. All the time,” Feng Xin blusters. He feels his anger receding, replaced by something far more alien, the unfamiliar twist and shape far more frightening.

Mu Qing scowls at him, deep and very nearly ugly. “Bullshit, Feng Xin! I’m the only one you pick on like this.”

“Pick on!” Feng Xin is offended to his core. It makes him sound like a bully, and not—like whatever he and Mu Qing do. Volley rockets at each other, with equal brutality.

“Yes! And I didn’t even do anything to you tonight! You just came over and…you just can’t stand to watch me here with another guy!”

Feng Xin stares, arrested by his overwhelming confusion. “What the fuck. What—why would I care—another guy?” The heat inside him flares high. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Mu Qing—“ Du Zhuoran starts again.

“Du Zhuoran, you know what—if you can excuse us for a fucking minute,” Mu Qing near growls, seizing Feng Xin by the shirt collar and dragging him to his feet.

“Hey!” Feng Xin protests, but he stumbles and follows as he’s dragged behind Mu Qing, charging into the little hallway nearby.

“Mu Qing,” he hisses into the dark, when they’ve made it far enough along that the sound of tittering partygoers is halfway muted.

Mu Qing slams him up against the wall. A nearby hanging calligraphy scroll clatters loudly.

Feng Xin breathes in through his mouth, feeling more dizzy than he has any right to be from so relatively gentle a tap.

“What the fuck was that out there?” Mu Qing growls at him, nose so close to Feng Xin’s own in the dark. “Do you think it’s cute? Do you think you’re always going to get away with being the worst person in the room?” He shoves at Feng Xin’s chest again for good measure, never releasing the tight grip he has on Feng Xin’s shirtfront. The fabric is twisted tight in his hand; it’s going to leave wrinkles for the rest of the night.

“Fuck off,” Feng Xin huffs angrily, shoving back but not making a lot of space between them. “So dramatic. ‘Worst person in the room.’ I was just being friendly. Not something you’d know anything about.”

“That was not,” Mu Qing hisses, “being friendly.”

Feng Xin rolls his eyes and stomps his foot. “He’s an asshole, Mu Qing, why did you bring him?”

“Same reason anyone brings someone to a party, what’s it to you?” Mu Qing snaps, cheeks flushing.

“You’re wasting your time. He doesn’t deserve you,” Feng Xin huffs, trying to elbow his way out of Mu Qing’s hold. Mu Qing wrestles back, and finally shoves him back against the wall. The scroll clatters again, this time louder.

“Doesn’t deserve?” Mu Qing repeats incredulously. “What, like sleeping with me is some monumental fucking chore that only—“

“I meant the other way around, dammit, ” Feng Xin interrupts. God, he can’t stand him. “Seriously, he’s so fucking annoying. How do you pick these guys? Do you really just go for the biggest dick you can find, personality doesn’t factor in at all?”

“By those criteria you would be at the top of my list,” Mu Qing snarls.

(Feng Xin regrets high school gym. Ju Yang is not a reputation he’ll ever escape.)

He looks into Mu Qing’s eyes, dark and shining in the dim light from the hall. Their breaths sound loud, this close together. Suddenly, Feng Xin wants so badly to understand. To know, what the fuck it was that landed Du Zhuoran on that couch, in arms reach, making Mu Qing smile and fake-laugh. What made Du Zhuoran so special?

“Oka-ay,” Feng Xin answers, suddenly feeling his mouth very dry and his cheeks very hot. His brain is like soup, thoughts uncoordinated and distant. “So. Then. What do you look for? In a guy.”

Mu Qing’s lips part. He stares. Feng Xin instantly feels foolish, down to the soles of his feet.

Then Mu Qing swallows, the bob of his throat mesmerizingly pale in the dark. “Apparently, those are my fucking criteria,” he says, sounding hoarse, sounding so extremely pissed off, and then he shoves Feng Xin one more time into the wall, so hard the scroll beside him finally clatters to the ground. He surges in and kisses him like he’s trying to break his face.

Feng Xin freezes. It’s incomprehensible: Feng Xin is suddenly thrown from his body, stuck on the pure fantasy image of Mu Qing’s mouth meeting his, fundamentally impossible according to all known laws of the universe; but then only a moment later the warm touch of lips against his own hauls him straight back into his skin. Mu Qing covers him, body pressing him hard against the wall, hands gripping tight enough to scrape at his chest. Feng Xin’s never been kissed with so much anger…and it’s not a turn off.

Feng Xin exhales, gets with the program: threads his arms all around Mu Qing and eagerly kisses back.

Mu Qing’s hands move to Feng Xin’s back, scrambling and tight, and Feng Xin holds as firmly onto him as he knows how, pressing Mu Qing’s head back from the force of their kisses. When Mu Qing parts Feng Xin’s lips with his tongue, Feng Xin groans, unable to feel anything but that slight, wet contact point, and opens his mouth for Mu Qing to do whatever he wants to him.

His mind is a roar of noise, impossible to parse. Raw emotion, nameless but senselessly strong, rushes through his blood. Holy shit. Mu Qing is kissing him.

Mu Qing is kissing him and it’s so fucking good.

Feng Xin must make a sound, something close to a heartfelt groan, because Mu Qing lets out a mirrored whimper of his own before quickly sliding a hand up to Feng Xin’s jaw, dipping a thumb into Feng Xin’s mouth as he pulls his own face away.

“We can’t do this here,” he hisses, jerking his head towards the party at the other end of the hallway.

Feng Xin is kind of stuck on the feeling of Mu Qing’s thumb in his mouth, light but unfamiliar on his tongue, parting his lips.

“OK,” he mumbles around the thumb, because that makes sense. They shouldn’t do this at their friend’s party. They shouldn’t do this at their friend’s apartment, either; they probably shouldn’t do this at all.

Feng Xin isn’t listening to that voice. Instead, he leans over and tries the doorknob beside him.

The bedroom is locked.

“Damn.” Suddenly he feels less guilty about getting it on at Xie Lian’s place, if Xie Lian has already fucked off in the middle of his own party.

“Bathroom,” Mu Qing says shortly. His face is flushed, his hand still fisted in Feng Xin’s shirt, and he uses that to drag Feng Xin, stumbling behind him, down the hall.

Feng Xin’s eyebrows have flown up into his hair. His cheeks feel hot. “Bathroom?” The Mu Qing he knows is fucking fastidious, would never do something so lacking in class.

Mu Qing shoves open the door as if it had insulted his mother and shoves Feng Xin in ahead of him. “Complaints?” he barks.

“No,” says Feng Xin, catching himself with a hand against the sink. “Nope.”

He hopes no one saw them come in here; the door is kind of visible from one angle of the living room.

Mu Qing elbows the door shut behind him and then stops, staring at Feng Xin. Feng Xin feels himself growing hot under his gaze, like Mu Qing is setting him to boil over a stove. His hands fist against the sink counter.

This is awkward. This is crazy.

“What are you staring at?” Mu Qing snaps. His collar is already askew, revealing a bare strip of shoulder.

Feng Xin licks his lips. “What are we doing?” His voice comes out quieter than he’d like, softer than he would normally use with Mu Qing. He feels weirdly vulnerable, back to the mirror and Mu Qing looking at him with bewilderment and messed-up hair.

“You tell me, asshole,” Mu Qing gripes, but then he’s stepping up into Feng Xin’s space, between Feng Xin’s legs, and Feng Xin breathes in hard. Mu Qing’s thighs are warm, pressed against his, and so is the gentle press of his chest. He smells good. He’s never felt Mu Qing so close.

Without thinking about it, he cards his hand through Mu Qing’s hair.

Mu Qing’s eyes close. He very nearly seems to lean in to the touch. Feng Xin’s heart shudders with having made Mu Qing look like that. He’s starting to really hope Mu Qing kisses him again, and he has no idea why.

When he opens his eyes again, Mu Qing looks angry at his own reaction to the touch. “I shouldn’t be rewarding you,” he growls, shoving Feng Xin yet another time. It’s light, though, a joke of a shove, maybe because Mu Qing is being considerate of the hard counter digging into Feng Xin’s back right now. “Not when you’ve been so fucking rude all night.”

Feng Xin rolls his eyes. “Oh, is this a reward? You insult me every day, Mu Qing. That isn’t special.”

“I’m sick of hearing you speak,” Mu Qing says, then ruins the harshness of his words by cupping Feng Xin’s neck in his hands and surging in to kiss him again.

This is more like it. Feng Xin presses into the kiss, goes a little dizzy at the rush of getting his hands back on Mu Qing. The room seems to spin as Feng Xin pulls at Mu Qing’s lower lip, parts his mouth to meet Mu Qing’s tongue one more time. Something like elation is buzzing in his stomach, restless and stirring, and Feng Xin finds himself wrapping Mu Qing so tight in his arms, leaning him back, that Mu Qing is swaying from it, halfway to a dip.

He pulls away with a gasp to breath, but hardly wastes a moment before going for Mu Qing’s throat, pale and bared to him. The sound Mu Qing makes when Feng Xin first begins to suck a mark underneath his chin is rough, breathy and honest. Good, Feng Xin thinks, digging nails into one of Mu Qing’s thighs as he burrows into his neck.

When he lifts his mouth and meets Mu Qing’s eyes, he feels a little bleary and Mu Qing’s eyes look glossy, mouth open in an emotion Feng Xin can’t read. There’s a weird surge running through him, an energy that feels dangerous and yet very welcome, and suddenly he’s spinning Mu Qing around and swapping their places, grinding Mu Qing firmly against the cold of the countertop.

Mu Qing groans, seizing onto Feng Xin’s biceps as if to push him away, but he fails to follow through.

“Yeah?” Feng Xin asks, unclear if he means it as a taunt or to check in, mindless as he grinds a leg between Mu Qing’s parted thighs and laves his tongue over one of the bites on Mu Qing’s shoulder. Mu Qing is so—so—fucking visibly turned on, it’s making Feng Xin feel crazy. The racing pulse in Mu Qing’s throat, the wide shine of his dilated pupils, white knuckles against the counter and lips shiny with spit. He’s going to have to be careful, or this is going to get out of hand, fast.

Mu Qing whines, low and trapped behind his teeth, but a moan all the same, panting where Feng Xin has him pinned and even grinding up a bit against his thigh.

“That’s it,” Feng Xin says, barely noticing himself saying it, hands going to Mu Qing’s hips and urging them to move against his. They grind, hardly a whisper of air between them, panting in the same air; staring wildly at each other. Every flicker in Mu Qing’s expression, every time his eyelashes brush his cheeks as he closes his eyes from all the sensations, or he bites the side of his lip and his head tilts a little back—Feng Xin doesn’t know how he ended up here, but he’s addicted.

Who knew Mu Qing could be like this, flushed and eager, not pushing away but pushing back, eager to press close to Feng Xin? Chasing his thigh?

Mu Qing makes a frustrated noise, sharp like his anger, and seems to finally lose his patience, shoving the hem of Feng Xin’s sweater up so that he can mouth at Feng Xin’s chest as the same time as his other hand tears furiously at Feng Xin’s belt.

Feng Xin shudders, swallowing around his own spit at the two sensations. His stomach feels chilly in the small room, exposed like this, but Mu Qing bites over his nipple and then drags the flat of his tongue over it with a dull, intent pressure that has Feng Xin breathing raggedly. When he looks down, Mu Qing’s eyes are straight on his, tongue out and expression impenetrable. Feng Xin wants to scream.

He doesn’t: he ruts furiously against Mu Qing’s hip and starts helping Mu Qing tear apart his belt, shoving his jeans open just enough for Mu Qing to slip his hand inside his underwear and take him firm in hand. Feng Xin hisses, hips stuttering into Mu Qing’s touch, and he can barely breath as Mu Qing starts to stroke him up and down, dry, overheated, sensitive like he hasn’t felt in years. Not since before CuoCuo.

“Mu Qing,” he gasps, falling forward with his palms caging Mu Qing in on either side of the counter. His hair has begun to escape his bun and trail in front of his eyes, only further hazing his view of Mu Qing’s hungry expression as he looks down at Feng Xin’s cock.

“You’re obscene,” Mu Qing says, a laugh at the back of his throat. “How can you walk around with this all day? And it’s even so much bigger when you’re hard.”

Feng Xin flushes and looks away. Despite everyone in the world, apparently, talking up how much they love big dicks, Feng Xin’s never found it particularly sexy. It’s uncomfortable to be salivated over for something he didn’t choose, something so personal and private and ultimately meaningless about his person. But when Mu Qing looks at him like that—eyes gleaming, cheeks flushed, a smile on his usually haughty face as if he’s only barely holding himself together—Feng Xin finally feels a stirring of arousal in his gut, hot with the knowledge Mu Qing really, really likes this about him.

He twitches in Mu Qing’s palm. “I manage alright,” he says. “What’re you going to do about it, Mu Qing?” The taunt feels right in his mouth, even as it comes out breathless from the way Mu Qing is working him over, pleasure filling him with warmth down to his toes. He can hardly stop rocking into Mu Qing’s hand, overeager and hungry for it, except to tug at the hem of Mu Qing’s sweater insistently.

Mu Qing’s hand is dry as it stripes his cock, thumb pressing down so that it catches under the edge of the head every time. He’s really fucking good at it, even if it’s starting to smart.

“Ugh.” He pulls his hand away just long enough to pull his sweater over his head and throw it in a corner, and Feng Xin uses the chance to strip out of his shirt as well. When he dives back in, he gets his hands on Mu Qing’s bare waist, his mouth on Mu Qing’s ear, their naked chests pressed against each other and holy fucking shit, it’s a lot. It’s everything.

“Mu Qing,” he repeats, reverently, into his skin.

“Stop that,” Mu Qing hisses, out of breath. His eyes are so damn bright in the shitty lighting, and he looks at Feng Xin in a way Feng Xin can barely believe is focused on him. “You—don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?” Feng Xin mumbles, uninterested, trying to get into Mu Qing’s pants now. He’s not wearing a belt, but his jeans are predictably fancy and they have some kind of inner-facing button to them that is evading even his nimble fingers. “I’ve got to call you something, baby. Come on, help me out—“

Mu Qing’s throat seems to work against a silent knot and his eyes go wider than Feng Xin has ever seen. Mu Qing rips the button open for Feng Xin like it’s wronged him personally. Instead of questioning it, like Feng Xin knows will lead to trouble, Feng Xin dips both thumbs into the waistband of Mu Qing’s underwear and pulls it all down.

He grabs onto Mu Qing’s bare ass without hesitation and drags their bare cocks cocks together. Both let out a groan at the same time, Mu Qing’s head falling back and Feng Xin’s falling forward into his shoulder.

“Ah,” Feng Xin pants, hips twitching, kneading Mu Qing’s ass like he can hardly believe how soft it is under his fingers.

Mu Qing whimpers back, almost as incomprehensible, nosing back into Feng Xin’s space and capturing his mouth in a furious kiss.

Feng Xin kisses back with uncurbed enthusiasm, tongues brushing, hair tight in Mu Qing’s grip. “Fuck,” he mumbles against Mu Qing’s mouth. “Fuck, shit—“

“I can’t believe I’m about to come like this—“ Mu Qing curses, furious but not stopping, both chasing down that electric, inevitable feeling. Feng Xin’s nails are sinking into the delicate skin of Mu Qing’s ass and Mu Qing arms around Feng Xin’s back are tight as a vice.

Feng Xin head butts him without any real power behind it. “You don’t have to,” he challenges, minutely dragging his hips to the side and pushing lazily at his thigh instead.

“Oh my fucking god Feng Xin!” Mu Qing nearly yells at the loss of contact, sounding so familiar Feng Xin’s heart throbs with it.

“I got you, I got you,” he says back, suddenly feeling sort of tender. He leans around Mu Qing to scrabble at the countertop, pushing aside toothpaste and handsoap until—yes. He pumps lotion into his hand before reaching back between them, making sure to look right into Mu Qing’s eyes as he slicks them up.

Mu Qing bites his lips and whines with it, leg bouncing at his side, and Feng Xin laughs and then moans and then kisses Mu Qing again, helpless to do anything else.

“You sound so good,” he says. “Fuck,” he bites his earlobe, “you taste so good.”

“Shut up,” Mu Qing moans, “kiss me.”

“I will,” Feng Xin says into his mouth. “I am, I will, I just—have to tell you—how gorgeous you are—“

His hand is slick and tight over the both of them, inelegant but blood-boiling.

“Feng Xin,” Mu Qing hisses, and it’s not clear if it’s in disapproval or reverence.

“You are,” Feng Xin pants, still clumsily half-kissing him. Mu Qing is so hot against him, where their skin seems to be melting against each other. The sink is shaking a little, rattling the mirror, and Feng Xin doesn’t care. “You’re so fucking gorgeous, Mu Qing, it makes me so mad, you shouldn’t be allowed to be smart and mean and so good looking you could hurt someone just by sighing at them—“

“Feng Xin.” And this time it’s so clearly a moan, appreciative, overwhelmed and desperate. It sounds beautiful in Mu Qing’s mouth. Feng Xin wants to hear it again and again and again; he bites down at Mu Qing’s throat and comes, splashing over his fist, slicking their bellies, filling his mouth with a groan that’s too loud, much too loud.

“Feng Xin.” A whisper. Hands clinging to his shoulders so tight Feng Xin can feel nail-shaped marks being bitten into the skin. He sways on his feet, knocked back from the force of it, and sets his come-wet hand on the counter.

Feng Xin sets his clean hand in Mu Qing’s hair, then, and kisses him so hard Mu Qing’s head reels back and nearly hits the mirror. Mu Qing kisses back just as hard, for a minute, lost in it alongside him, but then he shoves Feng Xin back.

“Get me off,” Mu Qing orders.

“Oh, I will,” Feng Xin says, and sinks down to his knees.

The sound Mu Qing lets out when Feng Xin sets his is mouth over him—even with Mu Qing’s fist pressed to his lips, it rips from his throat, loud and hoarse. Feng Xin smiles into his cock, through the plastic taste of the lotion and the bitterness of his own come, and, hands curling around Mu Qing’s thighs, sinks down deep.

Mu Qing is already so close, balls tight, legs trembling, cock straining and weeping in Feng Xin’s hand and now his mouth. He jerks erratically into Feng Xin’s mouth, hips out of his control, and Feng Xin presses him back firmly, locking him down with a forearm over his narrow hips, which only seems to make Mu Qing’s gasps louder.

Mu Qing’s cock is down my throat, Feng Xin thinks, almost out-of-body. As if writing it down for later. It is, he acknowledges back to himself. Why didn’t I think of this before?

But that’s all the thinking he has in him before he’s swirling his tongue around Mu Qing, hollowing his cheeks and rolling Mu Qing’s balls and looking up, into Mu Qing’s astonished, red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes.

Mu Qing reaches out and knits a hand into Feng Xin’s hair, the last of his bun falling out around his shoulders. He looks undone, out of his mind, mouth open and panting and unable to look away from Feng Xin. Good, his inner voice rumbles. Don’t ever look away again.

Mu Qing comes with a cry that echoes off the tiles of the nearby shower, cock pulsing so strong down Feng Xin’s throat that he nearly gags from it.

He swallows it down, of course he does, always a little bit insane for any way to be closer to Mu Qing; and he pets Mu Qing’s sides, soothingly as he knows how, as Mu Qing comes down from his climax.

Maybe he keeps Mu Qing’s cock in his mouth for a little longer than necessary. He drags off lazily, letting the head linger on his bottom lip, and he looks up at Mu Qing without any shame at all.

Mu Qing looks done for. Flushed all the way down his pale chest and shaking with exertion.

Feng Xin kisses Mu Qing’s wrists, one and then the other, because he wants to, and because doing what he wants without thinking about it has worked for the last thirty minutes or so. Mu Qing watches him silently, disbelieving but not pulling away.

When Feng Xin finally gets back to his feet—carefully, he really dropped down onto the cold tile too fast, Xie Lian should really get a bath math in here—he sinks back into Mu Qing, arms loose around his body and face pressed into the side of his neck.

Mu Qing’s pulse beats next to his. Feng Xin counts his breaths, knowing Mu Qing will push him away any second now.

It takes a surprising long while. Mu Qing’s hands go lightly to his arms and he seems to sink back into Feng Xin as much as Feng Xin is leaning on him. The bathroom suddenly feels very small, very warm; Feng Xin rubs his forehead against Mu Qing’s cheek and gets to hear a sharp little intake of breath once more.

Finally, Mu Qing croaks: “We need to clean up.”

Feng Xin pulls away reluctantly and tears them both off bits of toilet paper to wipe themselves down with. When he’s done, he pitches his piece over Mu Qing’s shoulder and into the bin like a basketball star.

Mu Qing rolls his eyes at him and turns around to face the mirror, hands going to up fix his hair, but the moment he sees his reflection, his eyes go wide and a strangled sound comes from his throat.

“What did you do to me?” Mu Qing hisses.

Feng Xin raises his eyebrows. His hand comes up to the side of Mu Qing’s neck, and he presses a thumb into one of the blood-fresh bruises there with great satisfaction. “You were there. You don’t like it?”

Mu Qing scowls, leaning in close to poke at them for himself. He’s not a mess, but the bruises are coming in luridly bright, mostly on his shoulders but some obvious and splotchy on his throat and jaw. The bite mark from when Feng Xin came is the worst of all.

“This is too much!” Mu Qing says. “I can’t go out there like this.”

Ah, right. That is a bit of a complication.

Feng Xin has been so absorbed in Mu Qing that he had pretty much forgotten there was a party outside, much less friends on the other side of the door and Mu Qing’s date-to-be waiting on the couch, if he’s still waiting at all. He wonders how much noise they made—almost certainly more than they should’ve.

The thought doesn’t bother him, for now. The payoff was too great.

He grabs their tops from the ground and slides on his shirt as he lets out a laugh.

“Of course you’d find this funny!” Mu Qing is right back to being angry, forehead still damp with sweat. He rips his sweater from Feng Xin’s hands, jerking away from him to shove it over his head. “You’re such an asshole.” As he tugs at the collar and tries to rearrange his hair, Feng Xin senses Mu Qing’s panic building. There’s no hope for it: his collar is low and stretched-out, and even if he takes his hair down, the mark of Feng Xin’s teeth are front and center.

“Hey,” Feng Xin says, regretfully. “Take mine.” His is a stocky sweatshirt, bulky enough to cover up some of the neck and big enough that there’ll be extra fabric on Mu Qing’s frame. He pushes into into Mu Qing’s hands.

The laugh Mu Qing lets out is pained and sharp. “Walking out wearing your clothes isn’t actually any more subtle than wearing a collar of hickies.” He scrubs his hands through his hair. “Fuck, this was so stupid.”

He’s not wrong, exactly. Sourness is swirling at the bottom of Feng Xin’s stomach, and some of his brain is staring to come back online, reallocated from the horny grid: Mu Qing is angry at him and embarrassed by him and it seems like he’s going to walk out of this bathroom exactly as upset as when they first walked in. It’s like having sex didn’t even matter.

And it does matter, to him at least—it matters tremendously to Feng Xin. His palms still feel sweaty, the air in his lungs euphoric with the aftermath of pleasure. Feng Xin just got Mu Qing off in Xie Lian’s shitty little bathroom, and Mu Qing had liked it. Mu Qing had clung to him and kissed him and egged him on with little panting noises and, fuck. He’s wanted Mu Qing undivided attention for so long, it’s intimidating to have been target of all of it so suddenly. And to have it ripped away just as soon…

That’s some shit.

Feng Xin’s chest feels a little scrubbed-out, a little sore. He shifts his weight and watches Mu Qing clutch Feng Xin’s sweater up against his chest, undecided and visibly stressed, the set of his shoulders tight and high for someone who a moment ago had hung boneless and sated in Feng Xin’s arms.

Sheepishly, Feng Xin scratches the back of his head. “Want to sneak out of here?”

Mu Qing’s eyes meet his own in the mirror. “What?”

“You want to avoid Du Zhuoran, right?”

“And everyone else.” Mu Qing is red. Fingers clutched very tight in the sweatshirt. “You know they’re going to…talk.”

Privately, Feng Xin thinks Mu Qing doesn’t need to worry about that too much. Their friends will rib them, maybe laugh a little at their expense, but at the end of the day they all mean well and aren’t about to torment them. (Well—maybe Pei Ming. But Feng Xin can handle him.) Of course, Mu Qing is always so sensitive to these kinds of things. He probably will think their gentle mocking means he’s been branded whore and pariah by his entire social group.

Convincing Mu Qing that people like him and don’t have bad intentions, though, is too steep a mountain to climb right now. “Xie Lian won’t care, and who else matters, right?” Feng Xin tries instead.

“Mm,” Mu Qing hums. Then, “En.” Nods his head.

“But I still can’t go out there like this.” He waves at his chewed-up neck, his tangled hair, and thought he may not realize it, a very distinctly fucked-out air, like someone has let some air out through a little valve at the back of his neck and now he’s visibly less pressurized.

“OK. Follow me.”

Feng Xin pushes the door open, feeling oddly reluctant to leave. This little bathroom has become a strange place, where the laws of the universe are different, and Mu Qing kisses him instead of shoving him away.

But, well—it was going to end sooner or later. He’s surprised it lasted as long as it did.

Out in the hall, he turns his back to the living room so Mu Qing can be mostly blocked from view as he shuffles out, then waves Mu Qing to keep walking in the other direction. At the end of the hall is a window and Feng Xin slides it open.

It doesn’t open directly onto the fire escape, but it’s pretty close. It won’t be a problem for someone of Mu Qing’s strength and considerable agility to reach over, grab the railing, and haul himself over.

Mu Qing’s eyes are wide on Feng Xin, though. “I don’t have my shoes,” he hisses. “Or—or my jacket, or my phone—“

“I’ll grab them for you, okay?” Feng Xin placates. “You get out there, I’ll meet you outside.”

Mu Qing seems to consider this, and Feng Xin knows that most of his deliberation is to whether he can trust Feng Xin not to fuck him over. Feng Xin fucking hopes that Mu Qing thinks better of him than to strand a guy without his shoes in the middle of the night on a fourth-story fire escape after exchanging hand jobs, but these sorts of things are never straightforward with Mu Qing. Feng Xin is starting to think that maybe half the awful things Mu Qing does to him are never meant to be offensive.

“Okay,” Mu Qing finally decides. He straddles the windowsill and holds onto the side of the frame as he reaches for the railing. Something wriggles in Feng Xin’s gut, and his hand flies out to hold the side of Mu Qing’s waist.

The look Mu Qing shoots him is only half the glare he expected.

“If you fall now, everyone will think I pushed you,” Feng Xin jokes, to which Mu Qing only huffs and swings himself over.

It only takes one push of effort, and then Mu Qing has his bare feet hooked into the balcony and is climbing over carefully. Feng Xin lets out a breath didn’t know he was holding and nods to Mu Qing through the window.

“See you in five,” he says.

Mu Qing nods back, knuckles white on the railing.

Out in the main room, all eyes swing to him. Feng Xin couldn’t care less, but he braces for a wave of brutal questioning. As he dives for the jackets by the front door, Shi Qingxuan lets out an ear-splitting wolf-whistle.

“Shut up,” he growls, fervently. He finds Mu Qing’s jacket quickly and grabs a pair of familiar-looking boots as well.

“I can’t believe you,” she says, delighted, following him as he digs for Mu Qing’s phone. “Really! Here? With all of us?” She’s barely bothering to keep her voice down, and interested parties are clearly trying to pretend to be busy as they listen in.

Feng Xin ignores her pointedly.

“Hey, I’m not judging! It needed to happen sometime, right?”

“What?” Mu Qing’s phone isn’t in his jacket pocket, and it’s not anywhere on the shelves or the table.

“Did you talk things through? Are you taking him home? Are you together now?”

“Huh?” Feng Xin casts his gaze over the room and realizes Mu Qing’s phone is on the coffee table near the couch. Du Zhuoran is nowhere to be found; good fucking riddance. Feng Xin looks back at Shi Qingxuan. “What are you talking about?”

The look she gives him is of such scorn that he scowls and flinches back, reaching around the couch to grab Mu Qing’s phone.

“Don’t make that face,” he says. “What do you mean by that face?”

“I think that if your relationship gets any worse, one of you may end up in jail,” she says. “And fucking without talking about it is going to make things way worse. You do understand that, right?”

“Shut up,” Feng Xin grumbles, but considerably subdued. She’s not wrong. His stomach curdles with dread.

“So go talk to him! Now!” she insists. “Before it’s too late!!”

“It’s not like he’s running away.”

“No, but he’s thinking!”

Feng Xin groans. “Oh, fuck, he is, isn’t he.”

“Go!”

He grabs the rest of his stuff and dips into the kitchen. Several other people catcall him, and some try to talk to him, but he manages to slide in next to the fridge and grab two sodas before fleeing out the back door without so much as a goodbye. He is not, in fact, impervious to embarrassment, and knows it’s going to come crashing down on in him in an hour or so—sex in Xie Lian’s bathroom? Really??—but for now, he has an urgent mission.

Outside is cold, and at first glance, Mu Qing’s is nowhere to be found.

“Mu Qing?” he calls, fearing that Mu Qing has really thought everything through, come to eight or nine deeply unflattering conclusions, and now has made a break for it.

“Here.”

Feng Xin looks down and sees Mu Qing sitting one landing down, arms around his knees from the cold.

The metal stairs ring out hollowly as Feng Xin stomps down to Mu Qing’s side. Something pangs in his heart when he realizes Mu Qing has finally put Feng Xin’s sweatshirt on, and it’s exactly as baggy as he imagined it being on him. The sleeves are pulled down over his hands and he looks…well. It’s very good.

While Mu Qing laces up his boots, Feng Xin sits down by his side on the step.

Mu Qing side eyes him. “Do you want something?”

“Uh, to ask if you want one of these?” He tilts a bottle towards him. “This kind is your favourite, right?”

The label of the bottle is yellow and peels under Mu Qing’s thumb as he scratches it, a funny look in his eye. “Yeah.” He lets go of it for Feng Xin to open. It comes off with a crack and a quiet sight under the pressure of Feng Xin’s ring, and as Feng Xin passes it back, Mu Qing’s eyes feel like the brightest thing in this darkness.

“So,” says Feng Xin, not sure where he’s going but almost certain that every direction leads downhill. “Uh.” He really does have to say something, but what the hell is there to say? Sorry I sucked your dick won’t do, because he isn’t sorry in the least; sorry we can’t have a civil conversation is better, but feels terribly weak, given the circumstance.

He shivers in the second aftermath of the night—first the fight, now after they’ve fucked. Each more disorienting than the last, the way they can tip over into these extremes of aggression and somehow limp out the other side. Their relationship always seems to be in tatters but it’s never once been severed.

“Are you mad at me?” Feng Xin says.

Mu Qing’s face darkens immediately. His brow wrinkles and he spits back a familiar, “What? Are you stupid?”

The fabric of Feng Xin’s jeans is scratchy as he tries not to make his hands into fists. “Well, you always that say I am,” he says back, bitterly. “So I guess that answers it. You are angry.”

“I’m not.” Mu Qing’s tone is not convincing. There are little shreds of paper falling through the grating, now, from picking at his bottle’s label.

“Is it because of Du Zhuoran? I think he left. Maybe…” Maybe you can still call him dies in Feng Xin’s mouth, because he wants no such thing to happen.

You just can’t stand to watch me here with another man, Mu Qing had said, earlier tonight, and Feng Xin couldn’t understand the words, not in that order, but now he understands and it’s so abrupt it’s like the jolt of an earthquake. No, Feng Xin can’t stand it. Feels bile in the back of his throat at the idea Mu Qing might leave here tonight and ring up Pei Ming for another man’s name and number—might try his luck again.

Mu Qing’s eyes flash angrily in the dark, licking his lips and looking up to the sky as if supplicating for answers from what few stars are managing to cut through the light pollution. “I don’t care,” he says. “Don’t talk about him.”

“Good,” Feng Xin agrees, a little too emphatically. Mu Qing shoots him a sideways look that just about slices through his midsection.

“Is that all?” Mu Qing says. “Rest easy, lapdog A-Xin. I won’t bring ever bring this up again if you don’t.”

The suggestion staggers him. “Why?” Feng Xin asks, reeling.

Forget this night…how could he? Feng Xin is vibrating on a knife-edge, now that he knows how good it feels to be good to Mu Qing. Soon he’ll fall over into one extreme or another, and none will be dignified.

Is Mu Qing really so cold that none of this mattered to him? Not even a little?

Mu Qing glares at him. “Are you happy with this?” he demands. “Are you proud? No? Then let’s forget this. You idiot.” Feng Xin watches his fists clench inside the front pocket of his sweater, and fights off a curl of shame in his gut.

“Was it that bad?” he asks, instead.

Mu Qing looks away.

When Mu Qing doesn’t answer, Feng Xin kicks at the lower steps and squints into the horizon, far away from the consequences of his actions. “It wasn’t so bad. You seemed to like it,” he decides, vaguely. “We could do it again.”

Mu Qing basically chokes on his drink. Feng Xin watches, enthralled, as he has to quickly put his bottle down and wipe at his wet mouth with the cuff of Feng Xin’s sweater. “What?”

Feng Xin tries to shrug casually. His skin itches, deep where he’ll never reach. “I’m tired of fighting with you,” he says, “but we’re always going to piss each other off. Maybe we should just…”

Mu Qing stares. It’s almost painful. “Am I hearing right? Next time you get the urge to bash my face in, you want us to fuck it out instead?” The words have the impact of bullets as he spits them out into the night.

Feng Xin’s hand goes to the hot nape of his neck. Even without his sweater, he’s not cold, not  anymore. “I mean,” he tries. “Not exactly. But kind of, yes.”

“That’s…that’s depraved.”

“It wouldn’t have to be so, ah, public every time,” Feng Xin says. “Or ever again, I hope. You could come over to my place. When I don’t have CuoCuo, of course. Or, I dunno if you’d ever want to have me over.” Feng Xin is rapidly losing control over any part of this conversation.

There’s a quiet moment while Mu Qing is stunned by the breadth and depth of Feng Xin’s audacity, and then suddenly Mu Qing pitches forward, head into his hands, a laugh ringing out of him almost erratically—cusping on unhinged. Feng Xin watches his shoulders heave. “Great, just great,” Mu Qing breathes, almost as if to himself. “So now that you know that I’m willing, you’ll be sure to call me up when you need your dick wet. Of course, Feng Xin. Truly more generous than I would ever have expected of you.”

Feng Xin feels his stomach lurch, and he clenches his fists against the sudden pressure in his ears. It’s not surprising to hear his words twisted through Mu Qing’s mouth, seized and contorted to find the least flattering and most cruel interpretation—but it still hurts like a wound, and now, when the subject is so delicate, it makes panic grow like a tiny candle in the forefront of his mind.

“No, dammit. You know that’s not what I meant. Mu Qing, I—” But it’s not as if he knows the words to express what he did mean.

“Go on,” Mu Qing says, composure regained, his voice very cool indeed. He rises to his feet and shifts to stand in front of Feng Xin, hand in his hoodie pocket, looking down. “Make it clear, Feng Xin, how you feel about me.”

He says it like he’s carelessly bracing for Feng Xin to spell out each syllable of his disdain for him, but—Oh.

Well. The question has been posed directly. Feng Xin mouth goes dry even before he meets Mu Qing’s eyes.

Mu Qing really is so beautiful. He’s pale and luminous in the moonlight, the sharp angles of his face complimented by the shadow, and the hard set of his face is unforgiving as Feng Xin struggles not to falter.

He won’t, though. He’s never been known for his intelligence, but they’ve always praised him for his courage.

Feng Xin’s voice is hoarse and raw when he manages to say, helplessly: “I just want you.”

Has wanted to fight him and brawl with him and make him angry for so long; has wished he could play with him and laugh with him and make him happy, too, for as long as he can remember. Has tried to use one to make up for the other for the cavernous shape of his hunger, to only partial success. And now, as of tonight, he knows he also wants to throw Mu Qing into his bed and make him come until he’s crying from it. Hasn’t tried it yet, but suspects he’d like to take his time kissing Mu Qing the next morning, too: make tea just the way Mu Qing likes it and spend the day arguing meaninglessly in bed.

A shiver passes through him. It comes to him, suddenly, what he truly wants: to belong to one another. He is Mu Qing’s, and it hurts like a wound that Mu Qing isn’t already his. His to fight, to argue with, to fuck and to praise and to cherish.

How stupid, when Mu Qing has every day made it clear how little he wants to be in Feng Xin’s company. How laughably tragic.

Quieter still, he asks—“Don’t you want me, even a little?”

Mu Qing goes stiff. His face closes off. Feng Xin’s heart hurts.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Mu Qing demands. “What do you mean, want me? To fuck me? To make me your bitch?”

Feng Xin straight-up snarls at him, losing the last of his patience. “Keep your dirty fucking words out of my mouth!” he yells. “That isn’t what I said! I said I want you.”

“What about me?” Mu Qing yells back, face colouring, hands still in fists. “What could you…in what world do you…”

He’s done his best with words, as poor as it was. Now Feng Xin steps forward, and Mu Qing flinches but doesn’t step back, glaring at him with challenge in his eyes.

Slowly, giving Mu Qing plenty of time to jerk away, Feng Xin tugs Mu Qing’s hands out of his pocket and threads their fingers together. He’s surprised at the lack of resistance, and Mu Qing seems just as startled.

With words failing him, Feng Xin instead kisses the backs of Mu Qing’s hands, one and then the other. Fear trembles inside him, mocking and unforgiving.

Mu Qing looks at him as if he’s gone crazy, and Feng Xin agrees that he probably has, but it doesn’t trouble him. Now he kisses the inside of Mu Qing’s wrists.

“Don’t bring any other men to a party,” he whispers.

“What,” Mu Qing says.

Feng Xin manoeuvres Mu Qing’s hands to drape around his neck and moves on to cupping Mu Qing’s head. He kisses the corner of his jaw.

“Don’t ask Pei Ming to introduce you to anyone.”

“Feng Xin.”

He trails kisses down Mu Qing’s jaw, soft and dry, no intent of seduction. His pulse rings in his ears. Being this close to Mu Qing in this way is addicting, so much better than when they fight. He barely had a taste in the bathroom and now he wants so much more.

“Please?” he asks.

“Why should I?” Mu Qing whispers back. Feng Xin can’t look at his face.

“I…really, really want you to say yes.” It’s not an argument. It’s nothing worthy. Feng Xin doesn’t expect it to be accepted, but he has nothing else.

“Yes,” says Mu Qing, as if from far away.

Feng Xin stills. His breath hitches. His lips are still pressed to the edge of Mu Qing’s chin. Slowly, he lifts his face up, and finally looks into Mu Qing’s eyes.

Now Mu Qing won’t look at him.

He doesn’t force it. Instead he kisses Mu Qing’s brow, now, along his hairline, and works slowly and methodically across his forehead.

“Good,” he says, still hushed. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“How?”

Feng Xin can’t keep his hands from gripping tight onto Mu Qing’s waist, thumbs hard over the soft skin. “Tell me what you want.”

This close, Feng Xin can feel the tremor that runs through Mu Qing’s chest. “Take me home,” Mu Qing murmurs.

Feng Xin catches his groan before it escapes his lips, pushing his nose into Mu Qing’s hair and breathing hard. Oh, fuck.

“Let me do more than that,” he begs, on the edge of ragged. “Fuck you—“ still speaking in a whisper ”—let me take you out.”

“Like on a date?” Suddenly using a normal volume, Mu Qing’s incredulous voice shatters the nighttime quiet.

Startled, Feng Xin pulls back from where he was nuzzling into Mu Qing’s crown and shifts on his feet, his grip on Mu Qing’s waist slackening.

“Don’t—don’t be so surprised,” he says defensively. “It’s not that weird!”

Mu Qing laughs at him, eyes huge. “Of course it’s weird!”

Feng Xin seizes his waist tighter, brows furrowing. “No it’s not. It’s only weird because we got off first. You’re only supposed to do that after the date.”

The sound Mu Qing makes is basically a guffaw.

“Don’t make fun,” Feng Xin says, exasperated. “I’ll still do whatever you want if you say no.”

“You’re the one making fun,” Mu Qing hurls.

“How? Of what?”

“Of—of—of me.”

Feng Xin becomes aware that Mu Qing’s arms are still around his neck, exactly where Feng Xin had placed them. It makes him feel exceedingly warm.

“I’m not teasing you,” Feng Xin murmurs. “I’m—I’m worried you’ll tease me, actually.”

“Why?”

“Because I like you like this!”

“Like ‘this’?”

Feng Xin wants to turn away. Wants to escape. Instead, he just averts his eyes and nods his head, feeling pink.

“Oh,” says Mu Qing, strangely. A little strangled.

What a night it’s been. Feng Xin just needs to grapple through to the end, it seems.

Then—Mu Qing kisses him.

Like last time, Mu Qing comes at him too fast. One moment Feng Xin is bereft and dejected, the next Mu Qing’s mouth is on his, seeking and warm, and Feng Xin has to push through his shock to accept him. He straightens up, gasping, and backs them up straight against the railing, gripping the metal with one hand so he doesn’t scratch Mu Qing’s back to pieces.

Mu Qing is perfect. Achingly familiar, unerringly alien. Feng Xin’s thoughts are shot to pieces as Mu Qing holds him fast.

When Mu Qing lets him breathe, Feng Xin is tired. Heart sore from all its pacing. “Well!” he snaps. His fingers are still fisted in the back of Mu Qing’s sweater, unwilling to let him go. “Are we dating or not?”

Mu Qing looks up at him with glassy eyes. His lips are red and bruised. “Don’t make me regret it,” he says stubbornly.

“I promise,” Feng Xin vows wildly. “I’ll be good.”

“No you fucking won’t,” Mu Qing says, without any scorn, and closes in on him again.

They kiss until they’re both shivering, entwined together in the dark. Feng Xin can hardly think through the euphoria in his blood, thrumming with the way Mu Qing clings to him without a shred of doubt, they way that he whispers into Mu Qing’s ear—“I can be the best fucking boyfriend, I promise, I promise”—and Mu Qing chokes on a groan, shoving his tongue into Feng Xin’s mouth to distract him from how shaky it makes him. Hands scrape underneath his shirt and Feng Xin smiles into his mouth, breathless, tracing his thumbs over the marks on Mu Qing’s throat with mindless bliss.

Finally Mu Qing notices Feng Xin’s goosebumps, coatless in the cold, and that’s when he bullies Feng Xin into wearing Mu Qing’s jacket.

“Just give me mine back,” Feng Xin says, slipping on the well-tailored jacket with some disdain.

Mu Qing digs his hands comfortably back into the hoodie pocket. “No.”

Feng Xin raises an eyebrow. “Just a little while ago you said it was old—“

“And you said you’d take me home.” Mu Qing’s eyes are very dark, and Feng Xin feels his skin tingle. He instantly forgets anything else.

Feng Xin slips his arm around Mu Qing’s waist and tugs him forward. He feels a flash of white-hot joy when Mu Qing comes easily, as if he likes it, as if leaning into Feng Xin’s side is what he wants. “Alright,” he breathes. “Let’s go.”