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“Boss wants to see you,” Xue Yang says from far too close to Song Lan’s right ear. He leans over to read the edits Song Lan is working through. After a moment, he says, “Your lede sucks. Bring up the sexting dean earlier.”
Song Lan tugs the stack of paper out from underneath Xue Yang’s hand and tidies them without replying.
“You coming or are you going to straighten everything on your desk first?” Xue Yang says. Song Lan takes a moment to line his stapler up with the stand on his monitor and ponder that with all the practice he’s had, he should be better at withstanding Xue Yang’s provocation.
Meng Yao holds one finger up when Song Lan steps into his office and goes back to whatever he was typing. It’s not a very nice office, with the same grey carpet and mismatched furniture that maintenance stopped replacing thirty years ago. For all that their building is grand, and their legacy is long, working at the Sentinel sometimes feels like a step down from an underfunded police station.
There are two chairs opposite Meng Yao’s desk, and Song Lan knows from experience that they’re too low for him to sit in comfortably, so he opts to stand. Xue Yang trots in and shuts the door with a decisive click just as Meng Yao folds his hands and turns to face both of them.
“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the chairs designed, presumably, for children. Xue Yang sits without hesitation, one leg bent and tucked up against the arm of the chair so he can rest a casual elbow on his knee and remind everyone he doesn’t believe in being professional in any context.
Song Lan looks between Xue Yang’s barely repressed fizzing energy and Meng Yao’s performatively pleasant smile and decides to pick his battles. He sits.
“I have an assignment — an opportunity — for you,” Meng Yao says. He slides a piece of white card across his desk and towards Song Lan, tapping it once.
Xue Yang is all but vibrating next to him, so Song Lan is already on edge when he picks it up. It’s an invitation, elegantly designed and very light on details. But Song Lan doesn’t need them because the only important thing is the name of the host.
“Wow,” Xue Yang says. “I didn’t know someone could go so pale that quickly.” He peers at Song Lan in mock concern. “Are you going to faint?”
“No,” Song Lan says. He places the invitation back on Meng Yao’s desk and laces his fingers together. Possibly to stop himself from reaching out to pick it up again, or possibly to stop himself pushing Xue Yang away. “Also,” he looks at Meng Yao, “no.”
Meng Yao smiles again. “I understand your reluctance,” he says, which is terrifying if true. And it likely is. “But this is an opportunity uniquely suited to you.”
“You have an invite, send anyone else.”
“I could,” Meng Yao agrees, inclining his head. His dimples, somehow, deepen. “But in this business, it’s smart to work with connections you already have.”
“What makes you think I have a connection you can use here?” Song Lan asks. Meng Yao looks at him pityingly. Xue Yang snorts, which is enough of a tell. Song Lan turns to look at him. “You hacked my email again, didn’t you?”
The expression of innocence sits ludicrously on Xue Yang’s face. “Someone has to make sure we don’t have any more security breaches.”
“My personal email.”
Xue Yang sniffs. “The distinction isn’t obvious to some people. Anyway, I was researching Tian Shan — that’s the robotics company Xiao Xingchen inherited under contested circumstances—”
“I know,” Song Lan says.
“And you came up.”
“So you hacked my email?”
Xue Yang shakes his head. “I have told you so many times to enable two-factor authentication.”
It’s some consolation that there isn’t anything too personal in Song Lan’s old correspondence with Xingchen, but that’s not the point. “You know that’s illegal, right?” Song Lan says, turning to face his boss.
Meng Yao gives Xue Yang a reproachful look that has no impact.“Granted, he may have overstepped. What’s relevant, however, is that this is an exclusive event with no press and some very influential people on the guest list. And you can use your friendship with the host to get introductions which will feel organic and pay off better in the long run.”
“Plus access to Tian Shan facilities,” Xue Yang says. “They’re doing a tour.” Of course that is what he cares about.
Anyone else would think sending one of the two Chinese reporters on staff to a party hosted by Britain’s most prominent Chinese businessman is too crude. But Meng Yao is ruthless enough to work any angle and careful enough to get away with it.
He’s not wrong. As opportunities go, it’s a good one and what he’s asking isn’t unreasonable. But this is— it’s personal, and even if Song Lan wanted to explain why he is the worst possible choice for this, he wouldn’t know where to start.
Meng Yao scrutinises him, his eyes lingering on Song Lan’s clasped hands. He can probably see the way they’re shaking. “I recognise that networking is not one of your strengths,” he says, “but don’t worry, I’m not sending you alone.”
It’s an awful, lengthy moment as that lands. Song Lan closes his eyes, but not before he catches sight of Xue Yang’s sharp, cocky grin.
“You want me to take the IT guy?” he asks.
“Fuck you,” Xue Yang says, low enough that Meng Yao can pretend not to have heard, but loud enough they all know he did.
“He is your peer and an excellent reporter,” Meng Yao says mildly.
“Because he takes shortcuts and hacks everything, not because he knows how to work a source.”
“Song Lan,” Meng Yao says, polite and ice cold. “I believe that you have complementary skillsets, and between the two of you, you will be able to get further than you would alone. Besides, he’s taking you.” Meng Yao, an expert in silence, lets that hang in the air before continuing. “It was much easier to get him onto the guest list since he has worked with one of the advocacy organisations that Xiao Xingchen regularly donates to.”
Song Lan stands because this is not an argument he can have with his knees pressed to his chest. “Small problem,” he says, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Even with an invitation, if two journalists show up it’s going to look like we’re working.”
“That’s the best part,” Xue Yang says, gleeful again. “You’re my boyfriend for the weekend.”
“No,” Song Lan says immediately.
“Oh yes,” Xue Yang says.
“Definitely not.” Song Lan turns back to Meng Yao. “Are we a tabloid now?”
“We have an opportunity that no one else has, surely you can see that.”
“You’re asking me to lie,” Song Lan says through his teeth.
Eyes on the ceiling, Meng Yao sighs. “Do this, and I’ll let you chase your hunch on those construction projects. Afterwards, you can go back to being the only person in this industry who thinks they can get anywhere with honesty and work ethic alone.”
Xue Yang is watching Song Lan, grin replaced with an impatient press of lips. Wiping his damp palms on his pants, Song Lan turns away from both of them. They know he’s going to say yes. Meng Yao doesn’t ask for anything unless he’s sure he will get what he wants. The construction story is just a ceremonial carrot, something for Song Lan to justify his cooperation.
Everyone in the room knows that the truth is far more straightforward.
After Xue Yang ignores the third request to discuss their trip, Song Lan loses patience.
He doesn’t enjoy going near Xue Yang’s desk. It’s messy and loud, and Song Lan can always hear the music playing through his headphones. Song Lan has to stand in his line of vision for half a minute before Xue Yang pushes one speaker away from his ear and says, “What?” The obnoxious clack of his keys doesn’t slow.
Song Lan waits to see if Xue Yang is going to stop typing. He doesn’t. “What time suits you to prepare for the weekend?”
Xue Yang does look up then. “Whenever,” he says, then tilts his chin up at the look on Song Lan’s face. “Have you been trying to set up a meeting? Seriously? You know you can just talk to me like a regular person, right?”
Song Lan keeps his face smooth as he says, “Is that why you ignored my emails?”
“No, I don’t read emails. Didn’t even notice.”
“Just other people’s emails.”
“That was two times, Song Lan, let it go.” He picks up his mug and peers into it. “We can talk now. I need another coffee anyway.”
“I would rather discuss this in private.”
Xue Yang regards him with an irritated curl to his mouth. “I’m getting a coffee first.”
When Song Lan finally herds him into an empty room, Xue Yang once again demonstrates he doesn’t know how to sit on chairs, while Song Lan flips open his notebook.
“It’s important that we have a consistent story,” he says, setting his pen next to his first bullet point. “The most plausible being that we met at work and have been seeing each other for six months.”
“Sounds serious,” Xue Yang says, leaning forward and slurping his coffee. Song Lan, heroically, ignores him.
“Our first date was dinner, Italian because you like tiramisu.”
“Hold up,” Xue Yang says, dragging Song Lan’s notebook over and flipping through the next few pages. “Have you dot-pointed out six months worth of a fake relationship?”
“Of course not. Only enough detail so we won’t be caught out.”
Xue Yang keeps skimming through the notes. “No-one cares enough to ask all this. People are way more interested in talking about themselves.” He slides it back across the table and moves to the seat next to Song Lan. “But,” he says, resting one arm on the back of Song Lan’s chair. “People will care if you look petrified every time I get near you.” He shuffles closer.
Song Lan calls on every shred of willpower not to lean away. Xue Yang tilts his head and smiles. “You still look like a grumpy sculpture.” He puts one hand on the table, effectively boxing Song Lan in. “Chill the fuck out.”
“What are you doing?” Song Lan asks.
“Practicing,” Xue Yang says. “It doesn’t matter if I memorise every single date on your list if you can’t convincingly look like you want to kiss me.”
“I don’t want to kiss you,” Song Lan says. It feels crucial to point this out. Xue Yang just slides his hand from the back of the chair to Song Lan’s back, hot through the wool of his vest.
“That much is obvious,” Xue Yang says, his mouth close enough that Song Lan can feel his breath. “You’re gonna have to pretend.”
Song Lan shoots out of his chair, knocking it over, and takes two steps back. “I’m not kissing you,” he says, voice as even as he can make it.
It’s unsettling how quickly Xue Yang drops the flirty act. “Fine,” he says, picking up Song Lan’s phone from the table and swiping open the camera. When Song Lan reaches to grab it back, Xue Yang ducks under his arm and presses himself against Song Lan’s chest to take a photo.
He’s gone before Song Lan can push him away. Gripping the wrist of his other hand behind his back, Song Lan closes his eyes and tries to calm his breathing. When he opens his eyes, Xue Yang is watching.
He tosses the phone back, and the lock-screen has changed to the photo Xue Yang just took. It’s not a good photo, Xue Yang looks smug, and Song Lan’s face is half-cropped out, but he has to admit that, from this angle, it does look like an embrace.
“Don’t do that again,” Song Lan says.
“Actually, we should have more photos together. Is that on your little action plan?”
“I meant,” Song Lan says through his teeth because he had not thought of that, “don’t touch me without permission.”
Xue Yang’s face goes still, then he smiles, brittle, like he’s running out of patience. “In the real world, people touch their partners. This is going to fall apart really fast if you can’t at least pretend to have emotions.”
“I will tell you whether it’s okay to touch,” Song Lan says. “It’s best if I touch you first.”
“That’s just going to draw more attention to us.”
Song Lan closes his eyes again and takes three deep breaths through his nose. Why can’t Xue Yang ever do what he’s told? Why must he poke and pry and needle at things until they fray?
“Xingchen knows me well enough that he will notice if you touch me when I am not comfortable with it. We will be lucky if he doesn’t see through it instantly.” Xue Yang couldn’t be further from his type. Song Lan is counting on the intervening years to mask the implausibility of them voluntarily being the same room together, let alone dating.
Xue Yang takes another noisy sip of his coffee and watches the annoyance play out over Song Lan’s face. “Agreed,” he says. “Sure. No touchy. Our love is pure and innocent. Anything else? Or can I go?”
“We should at least cover the major milestones of our relationship,” Song Lan says, without much confidence.
“Just email it to me,” Xue Yang says, draining the last of his coffee and sliding off the table. Then, before Song Lan can say anything else, he’s gone. The slam-safe door swings closed with a sad, deflated hiss that mirrors Song Lan’s hopes that they can pull this off.
The event is to be held at Baoshan Sanren’s house, now Xingchen’s; a remote highland villa that has featured in two documentaries and, according to rumours, no small number of local council meetings. It’s mostly modern, but incorporates the ruins of a poorly constructed 18th century folly that had all but fallen off the hill during the war. It’s an unusual choice of venue, but Tian Shan has never been conventional.
It will take them most of the day to travel there.
Even in the shadow of the station, waiting on the street leaves Song Lan exposed to the vicious wind. No one else is standing around to let it bleed through their winter jackets, but Xue Yang still isn’t here, so Song Lan waits.
With ten minutes left before their scheduled departure, Song Lan is frozen, irritable, and unsympathetic when Xue Yang arrives and gripes, “I can’t believe this is only our first train.”
“This trip was your idea,” Song Lan says, and starts walking towards their platform. Xue Yang keeps pace, but he looks miserable, wrapped in a thick down coat that hangs to his knees and holding a massive travel mug in two gloved hands.
“Have you slept?” Song Lan asks.
“I was on deadline,” Xue Yang mutters against the rim of his cup.
Song Lan has seen Xue Yang on deadline before, he focuses like there is nothing else in the world beyond his screen, and he disappears for hours at a time. More than once, Song Lan has found him on the roof of their building, scribbling on loose bits of paper, drinking coffee like it’s water and ripping up the packaging of whatever sugary snack he’d brought up there.
The pigeons love him.
Xue Yang is never still, even when he’s focused. Without fail, he fidgets about like an annoying mosquito, but right now he’s hunched in on himself, cold and tired.
“Maybe you should ease up on the caffeine and sleep during the trip,” Song Lan says, even though he had been planning to force Xue Yang to go through their story again while they were stuck on the train and he couldn’t run away.
Xue Yang scoffs. “Oh, I’m going to sleep, don’t worry.”
And he does. As soon as they take their seats, he burrows down into his gigantic coat and closes his eyes. Song Lan stares at him for a few moments, then realises what he’s doing and opens his book instead.
They change trains at a regional station where the only food on offer is from a vending machine and the next carriage they board smells of sawdust. The pattern of the seats looks like melted crayons, and Song Lan can’t tell what is a stain and what is an intentional design choice.
Xue Yang goes back to sleep before they even start moving. Song Lan goes back to his book and spends the next two hours trying to breathe through his mounting apprehension.
The voice that announces the final stop is as dusty and tired as the train itself. Song Lan jostles Xue Yang awake and tries not to be too aware of the way his clothes sit on his skin as he slips his arms into the sleeves of his jacket.
“Are you freaking out? You look like you’re freaking out,” Xue Yang says, looking up from where he’s still pretzeled in his seat.
“No,” Song Lan says, and joins the shuffling queue of people leaving the train. There aren’t many, and Song Lan is grateful no one bumps into him.
The platform Song Lan steps out onto is unremarkable, but the air is clean and crisp. Xue Yang, of course, frowns at his phone. “No service.”
“You’ll manage,” Song Lan says, and heads in the same direction as the rest of the crowd.
There is a coach parked outside the station office, and the bulk of the first class passengers are filing towards it. Song Lan already wants to wash off the grime of travel with an urgency that crawls over his skin, and no matter how impressively shiny that bus looks, being crammed in with twenty other people still seems like a nightmare.
“You are definitely freaking out,” Xue Yang says. Song Lan lengthens his stride, so Xue Yang has to jog to keep up with him.
“Mr Song?” a woman asks, intercepting them before they can cross the road. She’s dressed in a cleanly pressed suit and a pea coat. The effect is effortlessly professional, except for her shoes, which are sensible boots instead of sensible heels.
Song Lan nods.
The woman grins, bright and contagious. “I’m Luo Qingyang, I’m here to pick you up.” Song Lan looks between the woman and the coach. She follows his gaze. “Xingchen mentioned that you get sick on winding roads, so we organised an alternative.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Xue Yang says when Song Lan remains silent. “But before we just believe you completely,” he continues, tilting his head with a calculating smile, “do you have any way to prove that?”
Luo Qingyang slips a lanyard from her pocket and holds out a Tian Shan ID card for inspection. The only suspicious thing about it is that she looks just as beautiful in the photo as she does in real life. Song Lan squints at the tiny writing below her name. Head of Security, it reads.
“Lead the way,” he says, smiling as pleasantly as he can muster.
The car she leads them to could be straight out of a movie, and Luo Qingyang — “Call me Mianmian, please.” — lifts their bags into the boot herself. Song Lan can hear every joke that Xue Yang wants to make about being kidnapped by MI5, but, thankfully, he just climbs into the back without a word.
It’s only ten minutes before they arrive at a cleared patch of land on the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley. There’s a pokey little office building at the base of a raised platform.
“We have to wait for the car to come down, but it shouldn’t be too long,” Mianmian unbuckles her seatbelt and twists around to face them. “I’ll go call it in. You can stay in the car where it’s warm if you want.”
“Screw that,” Xue Yang says, clambering out and running up to the railing to look into the ravine below. Mianmian laughs and climbs out too. Song Lan has to admit that the view is spectacular, even as the freezing wind makes a mess of his hair.
Xue Yang waits until Mianmian is almost at the office before he turns to Song Lan, leaning with his back against the rail. “There’s rich, and then there’s ‘I’ll just call my private cable car down to pick you up’ rich.”
“I don’t get car sick,” Song Lan says. Mianmian unlocks the door and disappears inside.
“So either your ex is confusing you with someone else, or security wanted to keep an eye on us.”
“The latter, I think,” Song Lan says. “Hard to complain, though.” The rocky grey hills roll down into thick forest and the air tastes of pine and mist.
“Yeah,” Xue Yang says, quiet. Song Lan looks back at him and catches his eye unexpectedly. Cheeks and ears pink with the cold, Xue Yang turns back to look out at the valley. “I guess I can see why someone might want to have a party up here. Maybe.” He rubs his hands together and blows on them.
The right thing to do, the thing Song Lan would do for a real partner, is to take those hands and close his own over them. He thinks about the way Xue Yang had tucked himself under Song Lan’s arm so neatly. The idiot left his coat in the car and is shivering so hard it’s visible. Song Lan should pull him close, but before he can force himself to move, the motor above them grinds on and the office door slams closed. Mianmian waves them back to the car.
“The view will be better from up there, trust me,” she says. “No need to freeze to death in the meantime.”
“So is this thing just for private use, or what?” Xue Yang asks.
“Well, anyone who lives at the house can use it. It’s much faster than the roads.”
“That’s just so convenient,” Xue Yang says with a sugary smile. Song Lan tunes them out.
Xingchen never wanted to move back here; he had met Song Lan because he'd left it for the city. To be where people are, he’d said. You can’t change the world from a fortress.
They’d been young, so full of righteous promises and Song Lan had been so sure that Xingchen would change the world.
He’d been right about that.
Xingchen moved through the world with an ease Song Lan envied at first, then simply felt grateful to observe. He laughed unselfconsciously, he loved generously, and he cut through bullshit more capably than anyone Song Lan had ever met.
Suddenly, it seems like a terrible idea to introduce him to Xue Yang.
“Finally,” Mianmian mutters, craning her neck to look through the windshield. After a few moments, they can hear the rattle of metal couplings over the hum on the winch.
The wind is still fiercely cold, even more so when they climb onto the platform to wait for their carriage to trundle down to them. At least Xue Yang is wearing his jacket this time, so he looks less pathetically frozen, even if his cheeks and nose are still wind-bitten red.
The inside of the carriage is small and cramped, and Xue Yang is pressed up against Song Lan’s side, while Mianmian takes the seat opposite them, directing her knees away from where Song Lan’s legs take up most of the floor space.
The afternoon has slipped away, and as they clear the hills and break out into the valley, the sun is just low enough to set the horizon alight. The loch in the distance glows golden, and even Xue Yang forgets to look unimpressed. His lips part slightly as he takes in the view, his hawk sharp eyes are wide with something that on anyone else would be wonder.
Mianmian catches Song Lan watching him and directs her amused look back down at her phone. Song Lan swallows and turns back to his own window. He knows what she’s thinking, and it’s for the best, but the lie already sits heavily in his chest.
It’s true dusk by the time that Mianmian looks over her shoulder and points. “That’s the house,” she says.
House is not a well-chosen word, in Song Lan’s opinion. Estate might be better, or maybe Xingchen was right to call it a fortress. There are high stone walls on the sides not surrounded by the natural slope of the crag, and a few of the more prominent buildings are perched improbably on the edge of cliffs.
It’s imposing and beautiful all at once. Even though he never met her, Song Lan suspects that it suited Baoshan Sanren as perfectly as it never did Xingchen.
The air is noticeably thinner up here. Song Lan’s lungs are shrinking, and every rattle of the car in the wind reverberates around in the space left behind.
Their progress slows as they draw nearer to the house. Song Lan’s heart rate increases in inverse proportion. The jolt as they reach the top and the click and lock of the cable followed by the relative silence as the engine stalls are enough to push Song Lan from discomfort into panic.
Mianmian eyes him then turns to Xue Yang. “I’ll give you a minute.”
If Xue Yang says something back, Song Lan doesn’t hear it, he just stares at the dark windows of the buildings. Xue Yang taps his wrist, over his clothes on the cuff of his jacket.
“I knew you were freaking out,” he says. “Look, I’ll be right here with you.” His tone is consolatory, gentle, and he leans closer. “Telling you to get your shit together.”
Incredibly, this works. A familiar anger pushes aside the fluttering panic enough that Song Lan can take a decent-sized gasp of air.
“All right, are we finished?” Xue Yang asks, swinging his pack onto his shoulder. “Because we have a job to do.” He gives Song Lan one more pointed look and slides the door open to climb down.
At the bottom of the stairs, Mianmian’s eyes settle on Song Lan for a beat too long before she smiles again. “Let’s head in. You have about an hour on most of the guests, but the early birds have already kicked off the revelry.” She mimes swirling a wine glass as she speaks. “I’ll take you to your room first so you can clean up if you like.”
Xue Yang looks back at the cable car as they fall into step behind Mianmian and the tall, nondescript man who comes out to meet her.
“If we have to leave in a hurry,” Xue Yang says under his breath, “we’re fucked.”
“Does that happen to you often?” Song Lan asks.
“Only when I misbehave.” Xue Yang runs the tip of his tongue along the edge of his teeth, grinning up through his eyelashes. Concentrating on keeping his face straight specifically to annoy Xue Yang does wonders for Song Lan’s anxiety.
Mianmian leads them into an atrium, bustling with staff all dressed in modest black clothes. The house is no less impressive from the inside, but it is surprising. While Song Lan hadn’t anticipated opulence, it is simple and modern, humble compared to the striking landscape that surrounds it. It’s mainly wood, with sparse, functional furnishing and floor-to-ceiling windows.
In contrast to the black-clad staff, Xingchen is clearly visible, standing in a wide doorway, the edges of him caught in the light of the room behind, and his face lit by the gentle glow of the sunset.
He is just as impossibly beautiful as he has always been, and for all that he spent the last four years missing him, Song Lan can’t make his feet move.
“Zichen,” Xingchen says. He’s too far away for Song Lan to hear his voice, but he knows the shape of his name in Xingchen’s mouth.
From beside him, Xue Yang hums, and Song Lan turns to look at him. “Try to remember I’m here,” he says silkily.
Song Lan takes a steadying breath, then reaches for Xue Yang’s hand and twines their fingers together. It’s uncomfortable, and Xue Yang raises his eyebrows in surprise, more or less announcing that they’ve never done this before, but Xingchen is halfway across the room, and Song Lan needs something to anchor onto. Reminding himself that Xue Yang, serial menace, bane of Song Lan’s professional life — and far too much of his personal life, frankly — is here seems to be enough to ground him right now.
“You must be Xue Yang,” Xingchen says when he reaches them, stretching out a hand. Xue Yang stares at him for a moment, mouth slack until Song Lan squeezes the hand he’s holding. Xue Yang smiles a slow, dangerous smile as he takes it.
“That’s me,” he says, letting the handshake linger too long. Song Lan grips his hand again in warning. “Thank you so much for getting us out of that awful bus ride.”
Xingchen looks away, and it’s hard to tell in the low light, but his smile is a bit brittle. “I’m just glad you made it safely.” He turns back and looks at Song Lan with his unnervingly honest gaze. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” Song Lan says with a throat full of glass. It’s not untrue. It’s good the same way resetting a broken bone is good.
“Let’s get them settled, then you can catch up,” Mianmian says. Song Lan had forgotten she was there.
Xingchen smiles again and nods. “Of course, I shouldn’t have kept you.” He inclines his head before he leaves, back through the door he came.
The room Mianmian shows them to is small but cleverly appointed. The same tall windows look out over the hills, and the tips of the pine trees below nearly reach their narrow balcony.
“Head back down when you’re ready. There’s food and drink, and if you need anything, just ask.” As soon as she shuts the door, Xue Yang collapses onto the bed.
“Not very subtle, are they. I bet no one else got a special escort from private security.”
“No,” Song Lan says. “But I think Xingchen is uncomfortable with it.”
“That’s promising,” Xue Yang says, nodding. “He seems more trusting than our minder anyway, for all that she was playing nice.”
“Don’t—” Song Lan takes a deep breath. “He’s not a source. He’s my friend.”
“Oh yes, a very good friend. That’s why you spent about seven years staring longingly into each other’s eyes just now.”
Rather than wringing his neck, Song Lan picks up his bag again and barricades himself in the bathroom.
Cleaning the dust and grit of travel from his skin seems more important than fighting whatever petty battle Xue Yang has in mind.
After changing and composing himself, Song Lan emerges into an empty room and does his best not to panic. The thought of Xue Yang alone in this house is objectively terrifying.
It isn’t difficult to find where people are since they’re not quiet. Also, the food smells incredible. The atrium opens out into a generous sitting room, sunken and warmed by an enormous stone fireplace. Along the perimeter of the room, up against the windows, are built-in benches, lined with pillows and bulky knitted blankets.
The light is low, and Song Lan can’t see anyone he recognises, so he descends the few stairs and crosses out into the courtyard. A waiter offers him a glass of wine; Song Lan takes it if only to feel less obviously out of place.
It’s not as cold outside as Song Lan expects, and he realises that canvas wind-breaks flank the garden and there are concealed gas heaters interspersed with the tables. Strings of gently swaying lanterns complete the effect. It’s polished and professional and whispers of wealth.
Xingchen stands out, his bright white blazer and bright clear laughter turn heads, but to Song Lan, it’s more conspicuous how he fits in.
As soon as he sees Song Lan, he waves.
Xue Yang is next to him, sitting on a stone wall at the edge of a garden bed, his feet dangling just off the ground. He has changed out of his ripped jeans and athletic zip up to fitted black slacks and a black shirt, a black tie sloppily securing his collar closed. With his long hair pulled back into a braid, the entire effect is transformative.
As Song Lan nears them, Xue Yang holds out a napkin with some small round hor d'oeuvres and a dangerous smile. “I got you some food,” he says, “darling.”
Song Lan takes too long to respond, he knows he does, and Xue Yang’s satisfied expression goes some way to nudging him back into irritated instead of off balance. “Thank you,” he says, taking the napkin. Xue Yang is careful not to let their fingers brush, and from the corner of his eye, Song Lan sees Xingchen’s head tilt minutely.
“Pumpkin and feta,” Xue Yang says. “You’ll like them.”
Xingchen’s head tilts further. Song Lan keeps his face carefully blank and puts his glass down next to Xue Yang so he can eat. The first bite he takes is cautious because Xue Yang has never cared for plausibility, but the pastries are excellent, and Song Lan sternly tells his heart rate to stop spiking for no reason.
“Trying to find places we both want to eat is a nightmare,” Xue Yang says. “But he does love to take me out, so we make it work.” He plasters on an infatuated look that wouldn’t convince a blind monk.
“I see,” Xingchen says, while Song Lan apologises to his heart who was right all along and wracks his brain for something to say to unfuck this situation. But Xingchen just smiles at Song Lan. “I’m glad to see you so comfortable.”
“It’s been a journey,” Xue Yang says, apparently ignorant of the way he’s trampling on the very concept of subtlety. “Getting him to eat lunch with me was such a triumph in the beginning. He’s just so determined to be on his own.”
Xingchen’s mouth tightens, and he looks at the ground. Song Lan seethes. “You wore me down, sweetheart,” he says, picking up his wine glass and sipping it. He props himself against the wall next to Xue Yang so that he’s within discreet elbowing distance.
Xue Yang leans into him, not touching, but close enough to be uncomfortable. “I deserve a lot of credit,” he says with an earnest nod. “It took so long, since you’re as stubborn as a boulder.”
“Lucky you’re as persistent as an avalanche,” Song Lan says, meeting Xue Yang’s eyes steadily.
Xue Yang’s smile shifts and he looks like he’s about to say something unwise, but Xingchen’s gentle laugh draws his attention away.
“I have to admit, I didn’t see it at first,” Xingchen says. “I understand now.” He looks between them, charmed. For a moment, Song Lan feels the echo of how much that should hurt, but it doesn’t. Maybe simply being close to Xingchen again is enough to smooth over the sharp edges of Song Lan’s regret. Maybe he’s finally grown enough that just thinking about what he’d lost doesn’t leave his chest aching.
“We’re a delight,” Xue Yang says, toasting Xingchen with his bright orange drink.
Song Lan stares, trying to decide if the small floating things are gummy bears. “What is that?”
“Some cocktail, I don’t know what’s in it, but it’s delicious. Want to try?” He angles the straw at Song Lan’s mouth with a challenge in his eyes. Song Lan doesn’t break eye contact as he wraps his lips around it and sucks. The drink is disgusting, but the way Xue Yang’s eyes widen slightly and the way his throat works as he swallows is worth the way the sugar sticks to Song Lan’s teeth.
“I have to go,” Xingchen says, “greet people, mingle.” He scrunches up his nose just like he had when he used to talk about his least favourite economics professor. “But I—” he pauses, looking at Song Lan searchingly. It’s the kind of look that would pin anyone down. “I would like to catch up properly later, if that’s all right with you?”
“He would love that,” Xue Yang says, too loudly. “He’s been looking forward to it, haven’t you, hot stuff?”
Song Lan briefly considers what would happen if he pushed Xue Yang into the garden bed. “Yes,” he says instead. “I would love that.”
Xingchen smiles again, looking between them, then disappears back inside.
“Well,” Xue Yang says, slurping the dregs of his drink through the melting ice.
Song Lan doesn’t say anything, he just leans back against the wall and listens to the unobtrusive music and the chatter of guests.
Since he can’t tolerate silence, Xue Yang doesn't last a minute before he says, “I can see why you’re so hung up on him, I guess. He’s stupidly hot.”
“He’s not—”
“Chill out, I’m just stating the obvious.” He digs a half-dissolved gummy blob from the glass with his straw and sucks on it thoughtfully. “It better not get in the way of what we’re here to achieve.” He looks at Song Lan. “You do remember why we’re here, right?”
“Yes,” Song Lan says. It would be impossible to lose sight of it since Xue Yang has hung such a giant lantern on their relationship.
“Good,” Xue Yang says, crunching on an ice cube with his mouth open in a grin. “Time to get to work then.”
Song Lan nods and looks out at the assembled guests, trying to spot someone who looks bored. His eyes instead linger on the way Xingchen, visible through the windows, rests a casual hand on the shoulder of some faceless guest.
“Look,” Xue Yang says, setting his glass down with a clink, “after Sunday, you and I can have a messy, public breakup and you can go mope after him all you want. But this weekend, you are mine, and I need you to fucking rein it in. Can you manage that?” His mouth twists in a perverse, angry smile.
“I can manage,” Song Lan says, “if you can keep from lying outrageously and undermining it all.”
Xue Yang blinks. “When did I lie?”
“The eating out thing,” Song Lan says. “Xingchen knows I hate that.”
“Song Lan, we eat out at least once a week.”
“For work,” Song Lan points out.
“Right,” Xue Yang says, slipping off the wall. “For work.” He gives Song Lan one more scathing look and then stalks into the crowd.
Except for a couple of young engineers who are refreshingly discerning, Song Lan spends the next two hours in the most out-of-touch conversations of his life. Even the tasteful piano is starting to wear down his nerves. He thinks he might shove one of the shiny black prototype phones down the throat of the next CEO who just can’t wait to tell him about their diversity programs.
Fortunately for Song Lan, and also the man who looks to be no older than twelve but apparently still owns a successful geocaching startup, Xingchen appears and smoothly extracts him before he snaps.
“You look like you need a break,” he says, mischief tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Where’s your partner?”
Song Lan searches the room and finds Xue Yang tucked in the corner, speaking to a young woman dressed casually compared to everyone else. “Found someone to argue copyright law with, probably.”
Xingchen smiles. “Let me show you around, since he can spare you.” He leads Song Lan back out through the courtyard and further down one of the paths. The brisk wind is welcome after the sheer volume of hot air inside.
“I’m guessing that was getting a bit much for you?” Xingchen asks once they’re far enough away that the sounds of people are faint.
Song Lan hums and tries to push down his smile. “It’s not too bad,” he says after a pause.
“I have to admit, even after I saw your name on the RSVP, I didn’t think you would come.”
Song Lan studies the shadows of the trees that flank them and settles on honesty. “I wanted to see you.”
Xingchen is watching him. Even in the dark, he’s visible, and Song Lan has a costly degree that taught him that the simplest words are the most powerful. But Xingchen is otherworldly, untouchable. He’s poetry, and he’s beyond anything that any language can capture. The night seems to bend around him like even darkness is reluctant to obscure his features.
“So you came back here?” Song Lan asks.
Xingchen takes a breath and nods. “It has its graces after all. It turns out that when you are catapulted into fame and fortune, it's nice to have somewhere very remote to retreat to.”
“I'm sorry,” Song Lan says, “for your loss. I never got to say.” There are so many things he never apologised for, and this, perhaps, is the least of them. Song Lan wonders if Xingchen can hear the echoes of the rest as loudly as he can.
— I’m sorry I left.
I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a reason.
I’m sorry that I didn’t even try. —
“Thank you.” Xingchen smiles, small, but sincere.
They walk through the garden until it runs out and they stand on the edge of the cliff, looking out into the dark valley. Everything is crisp in the way it only is when it’s this cold, and the rustle of the trees is louder than any sound from the house. It feels like they’re alone. Beneath them, almost hidden by the forest is the sprawling compound where Baoshan Sanren made her name and her money.
Xingchen follows Song Lan’s gaze. “It’s a lot more impressive up close, and we’re doing some amazing things, Zichen.”
“Do you work down there?” Song Lan asks.
“Sometimes, but I mostly stay on the research side of research and development.”
Song Lan nods. Xingchen always had more ideas than he could practically see through and it had captivated Song Lan, his conviction. When he talked about the future, he did it with serene confidence threaded with steel. Song Lan’s memory might be rose coloured, but he doesn’t think he is imagining the difference now.
Xingchen tells him about the projects they’re working on with a nervous energy that’s unsettling and removed from the ease he has presented all night. He rambles on about assistive devices and high-speed eye tracking, and Song Lan doesn’t take in a word of it because all he can think is how wrong this feels.
He can’t bring himself to ask the question that’s burning its way through his tongue, so instead, he says, “It must be freeing, to have the resources to do everything you always wanted.”
Xingchen smiles, small and sad, and it hurts because it’s far more honest than the one he wore only a few minutes ago. “You used to want it too.” His voice is quiet, nearly swallowed up by the wind. “We were so determined to change the world.”
Song Lan runs his fingertips along the metal railing of the balcony. It’s cold enough to bite. “The world still needs changing.”
Xingchen searches Song Lan’s face for a moment, then nods. “We should get back,” he says.
By the time he makes it back to the house, it occurs to Song Lan to hope Xue Yang has had more luck making friends because it’s late and the guests that remain are… messier. But after three circuits of the room and the courtyard, he’s nowhere to be found.
Song Lan’s phone still has no service, and following a waiter down a hallway turns up nothing but two chefs smoking by the back door. They tell him they haven’t seen anyone else come this way.
The only other direction leads to a different wing, distinct from where the guests are staying. Going further would be inappropriate, a violation of privacy. It’s likely Xue Yang went this way.
Song Lan doesn’t get far before he’s grabbed by the sleeve and yanked into a room full of bookshelves and beanbags. Xue Yang peers up the hallway, then pulls Song Lan further into the gloom.
“What are you doing?” Song Lan whispers.
“Looking for a modem or an ethernet port. Something that will let me get on the private network.”
“What?” Song Lan grabs his shoulder to stop him from moving away. “Why?”
“Did you notice the type of people who are here? Banks, big tech, lobbyists, pharmaceuticals. You know, the kind that hikes the price of insulin.”
“It’s a business event, what were you expecting?”
Xue Yang shakes Song Lan’s hand off his shoulder. “Do you know anything about this company? They’re self-funded, allegedly, and they have three distinct charity arms, which,” he pokes a finger at Song Lan’s chest, “your ex expanded from one small grant.” He laughs viciously. “I knew he was too good to be true.”
The part of Song Lan’s brain that is always looking for inconsistencies is alert enough to disrupt his automatic defensiveness. He wants to write it off because he knows the kind of person Xingchen is, but this has felt wrong since they got off the train.
Xue Yang keeps muttering. “I overheard enough conversations tonight to know they’re building tech for a bunch of people that aren’t on their public list of clients.”
Song Lan loosens his tie. He needs time to think, to examine what they know, but Xue Yang is feeling around the skirting board in the dark. He reaches for what he thinks might be Xue Yang’s collar to haul him up. “Whatever you think is going on, I’m not letting you hack their network.”
Xue Yang wriggles free of Song Lan’s hold and straightens his shirt. “I don’t need your permission, darling. You might have forgotten that we’re here to do a job, but I haven’t.”
“Breaking the law is not part of our job!” Song Lan says, then winces at the way his voice carries. “We’re not here to dig up dirt on people,” he hisses.
Xue Yang looks at him like he’s stupid. “It’s why I’m here, Song Lan. You didn’t buy that bullshit about networking?”
“Meng Yao did not tell you to do this.”
“He didn’t have to! God, you’re infuriating.” He swipes at the hair that’s escaped from his braid and fallen into his eyes. “Stop and think for a fucking second. Do you honestly believe he cashed in a favour this big to get us all the way up here, just so we could make friends with a bunch of bankers?”
Xue Yang is breathing hard and looking up at Song Lan, nothing on his face but honest frustration. It’s a new experience, that honesty. The layers of sarcasm and flirting and insincerity stripped away, leaving only a raw intensity Song Lan has never seen on him before.
“That doesn’t give you the right to break into—no, listen.” Song Lan intercepts Xue Yang’s attempt to walk away again, blocking his way with an arm braced against the wall. “If something is going on, there is a right and a wrong way of investigating it. This is the wrong way.”
“There is an effective way, and a stupid way,” Xue Yang says. “Guess which one yours is.”
Before Song Lan can argue, Xue Yang’s eyes dart to the door behind Song Lan and his expression shifts from livid to alarmed.
“Someone’s coming,” Xue Yang whispers. Song Lan hears it too, and he realises too late that they will be visible from the hall, and there’s nowhere to hide. When Xue Yang looks back, his eyes dip to Song Lan’s mouth. “Now would be a good time to get over yourself and kiss me.”
“Be serious,” Song Lan says.
“I am serious, someone is coming, and we need an excuse to be here.”
Telegraphing his movement, Xue Yang lifts his hand to rest against Song Lan’s cheek.
Song Lan isn’t sure what makes him do it, whether it’s the way Xue Yang’s breath shallows when Song Lan licks his lips, or if it’s the adrenaline mixing with the alcohol, or if it’s just because he’s wrung out from an evening of relentlessly confronting conversations. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because when it happens, Song Lan stops thinking almost immediately. What matters is the way Xue Yang’s mouth is hot and surprised against Song Lan’s, as if he somehow didn’t expect it. What matters is the way his arms wind around Song Lan’s neck and the way he pushes up into the kiss like he’s hungry for it.
What should matter is the sound of footsteps and indistinct conversation. But Song Lan can’t think past the small gasp Xue Yang makes when Song Lan bites his lip. He tries to focus on the world around him, but everything that isn’t Xue Yang’s hands or his mouth or the skin of his neck seem secondary.
Someone clears their throat, and Xue Yang removes his lips from the underside of Song Lan’s jaw long enough to say, “Busy,” then latches back on.
Song Lan tries to scrape his brain off the floor and untangle their limbs enough so that he can turn around. Two of the unmemorable staff are standing awkwardly a few metres away, eyes directed everywhere except the two men pressed against the wall.
Xue Yang looks like he’s been thoroughly manhandled, his hair is messy, his clothes are twisted, and his mouth is incriminatingly swollen. Song Lan wants to shield him from view, then kicks himself for how stupid that is. How contrary to the point, and how completely out of line it would be. Xue Yang is not his to protect or hide.
“Sorry,” Song Lan says. “We were on our way back to our room.”
One of the men smirks, the other keeps a suspiciously straight face. “You went the wrong way,” he says and points back towards the kitchens. “Other wing.”
“Told you,” Xue Yang whines, and leans around Song Lan to address the guards. “He’s so useless with direction.” He takes Song Lan’s hand and drags him up the hall as if he’s impatient to get back to their room.
As soon as they’re out of sight, Xue Yang drops Song Lan’s hand and the urgency. They don’t speak on the way back, and when Song Lan closes their door, Xue Yang says, faintly, “Shit.”
It says a lot about how much is going on in Song Lan’s head that he’s not sure whether that’s about the kiss, the near-miss, or the fact that, now he’s looking at it, the bed Xue Yang just collapsed on seems oppressively small.
He hadn’t been looking forward to it, but the idea of sleeping in the same bed as Xue Yang had been less daunting before Song Lan had kissed him. Before Xue Yang had kissed him back. Hungrily. Deciding he doesn’t have the equilibrium to face up to it right now, Song Lan slips into the bathroom and leans his forehead against the closed door.
Time to be rational. Think through this without emotions making his brain sluggish.
First, Xingchen.
Hope is a painful thing, Song Lan knows. It carves out a place for itself in your chest and the more uncertainty there is, the more stubbornly it lingers. The part of Song Lan’s ribcage dedicated to missing Xingchen, in defiance of all reason, has never wanted to accept that they wouldn’t find their way back to each other.
He tries to focus on the memory of Xingchen smiling into his glass, of the way his hair brushed along his collar and settled on his shoulders, longer than it ever had been when they were together. He’s changed in so many small ways, and he isn't the person Song Lan knew.
It hurts Song Lan in a vital, necessary place to realise he’s not sure. He wants to be sure, but he isn’t. It takes several minutes of breathing through that to decide he is calm enough to listen to Xue Yang now.
Or not, he thinks as his pulse picks up again. He can still feel the echo of Xue Yang’s fingers in his hair and the way he’d pulled at Song Lan, kissing like he genuinely wanted to.
Song Lan bangs his forehead lightly against the door. “Shit,” he says, because, whatever he’d meant, Xue Yang was right.
But revelations of being attracted to your colleague don’t come with a free ride out of the subsequent awkward situation, and if Song Lan hits his head against the door any more, he’s going to end up with a bruise and some uncomfortable questions in the morning.
So he brushes his teeth, timing himself for two minutes, and only hesitates a few extra seconds before returning to the bedroom. Xue Yang looks up and snaps his laptop closed.
“I was right. I’ll need physical access to get into their network. They keep their firmware updated.” He says it like he’s offended.
Song Lan closes his eyes and sighs. “Or,” he says, “you could investigate legally.”
Xue Yang rolls his eyes and shoves his computer back in his pack, then wanders into the bathroom.
Just as Song Lan is deliberating over which side of the bed to take, Xue Yang reappears and leans against the doorway with his toothbrush in his mouth.
“Since you haven’t jumped to pretty-boy’s defence, I assume you also think something is weird.”
Song Lan decides to take his usual side. “Xingchen doesn’t seem happy here,” he says carefully. “It doesn’t surprise me. He never wanted to be tied down.”
Xue Yang makes a thoughtful sound. “That explains some things. In the one interview he did, he said he didn’t want anything to do with the business, and accidentally tanked a bunch of stocks. Now he’s sipping Clicquot with the treasurer of HSBC.”
“People do things they don’t want to do.” It’s a little on the nose, but Xue Yang doesn’t seem to pick up on it.
“People shouldn’t sell themselves as ethical and progressive if they’re just the same as all of the disingenuous, profit-hungry fuckers who run every other company.”
“You said yourself that Xingchen had expanded the charity efforts,” Song Lan points out while Xue Yang rinses his mouth.
“Yeah, and they rely on their reputation to get donations. It’s all a lie.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
Xue Yang looks at him like he’s stupid again. “I’m not going to spend my night trying to convince you. I don’t care.”
He turns the lights out and strips out of his clothes in a stony silence.
When the bed dips and the blankets move, Song Lan’s skin prickles in anticipation. Xue Yang won’t touch him, probably. He’s been careful so far, respectful in that one regard. Whether that’s because Song Lan asked him to, or because Xue Yang decided it was important for their cover, Song Lan isn’t sure.
He would have been sure yesterday. Xue Yang has been ignoring Song Lan’s boundaries since they met. That’s not true, a voice says, from somewhere around Song Lan’s sternum. Xue Yang is loud and brash and irreverent, but he hasn’t ever pushed harder than Song Lan can withstand.
He hadn’t questioned it when Meng Yao said they work well together because they do. Song Lan always wants to tear his hair out, and maybe slap a hand over Xue Yang’s mouth most of the time —there it is, the voice whispers — but that isn’t the point. The point is that Xue Yang, for all of his faults, is a passionate reporter. He has no moral or ethical standing, but he genuinely believes in what he does. It’s the same thing that drives Song Lan, and it’s uncommon; the industry has a way of eroding integrity.
Xue Yang doesn’t touch Song Lan. He just turns away, shifting around until he finds a comfortable position.
They’re both lying so still the tension hurts Song Lan’s teeth. “I believe you,” he says. “This isn’t me agreeing to hack anyone, but I agree that something is off.”
There is a long moment where the darkness swallows the words, and the silence that follows is louder than the heart beating in Song Lan’s throat.
“Good,” Xue Yang says eventually. “That’s— good.”
“We’ll figure it out. If it is what you think it is, then we’ll get to the bottom of it. Together.”
Xue Yang turns over to look at Song Lan. “Oh my god, are you trying to give me an inspirational speech?”
“No, I’m trying to convince you not to do something that’s going to get you arrested.”
“You’re adorable. Compromise, I won’t break into their network if you play lookout while I poke around on the tour of the labs tomorrow.”
“What good will that do? You can’t use anything that you find in there.”
“I can see what they’re making and who it’s for. It’ll give us a place to start looking for evidence we can use.”
It’s a flimsy argument, but warring with Song Lan’s respect for journalistic integrity is a deeper need to find the truth.
Xue Yang must see the moment Song Lan decides to help him because he grins. Then, as he had on the train, he closes his eyes and falls asleep. It takes Song Lan far longer.
When he wakes, Song Lan is uncomfortably warm, and his arm is numb underneath him. Xue Yang is still asleep, curled towards Song Lan, hair spread out on the pillow behind him where it came loose in the night.
It’s been a long time since Song Lan slept in the same bed as another person; he prefers to avoid the conversation about unwanted touches. But here, even in his sleep, Xue Yang keeps a distance between them.
Still, he’s close enough now that Song Lan can feel the warmth of his skin. His sleep-smooth face is relaxed and untroubled. He looks too innocent, and Song Lan has the sudden urge to wake him just to see him animate back into the man he knows.
Instead, he climbs gingerly out of bed and goes to wash his face.
When Song Lan emerges from the bathroom, Xue Yang is awake and disinclined to talk. They’re both dressed and ready when, with a guarded expression, Xue Yang says, “Have you changed your mind?”
Song Lan shakes his head. “As long as you don’t break any laws, I’ll help you look.”
Xue Yang smiles, toothy and pleased. “Didn’t think you had it in you,” he says, pocketing his phone and disappearing out the door.
Not everyone lines up to take the steep, crumbling stairs down for the tour of Tian Shan. Some are driving down, and others are slumped at the breakfast table in sunglasses and hugging their coffee cups.
It takes about ten minutes to descend, and only that long because the people at the front keep stopping to point at the view. Xue Yang looks as impatient as the young woman directing them.
Once they reach the bottom, the woman presses a keycard against the lock and hauls open one of the heavy glass doors, waving the shambling crowd inside.
The reception area is stark and uninviting, and visible beyond is a series of workshops. Everyone files through, but Xue Yang catches Song Lan’s eye, taking a right down a different hall and up a stairway that leads to another security door — that Xue Yang somehow unlocks with his phone — which opens onto an office space. There are three unlabelled doors to rooms with frosted glass walls. Xue Yang deliberates before picking the one on the left, and slips inside.
Song Lan positions himself so that he can see back the way they came and keep an eye on Xue Yang.
After about five minutes, he hears the squeak of rubber boots on the concrete floor, followed by the thud of them on the steel stairs. Heart racing, he steps into the office and closes the door as discreetly as he can.
“Company,” he mouths at Xue Yang who is flipping through a filing cabinet.
"Faster than I thought," he says, and extracts a few folders, letting the drawer slide closed. He’s not moving fast enough, so Song Lan crosses the room and yanks him down behind the desk by his shirt. It’s large, easily taking up most of the office, but the space beneath it is still cramped for two adult men.
They’re both holding their breath when the door opens. Song Lan can tell because Xue Yang’s unmoving chest is pressed against him. Footsteps muffled by the carpet move around the room for a few moments, then the door closes again. Xue Yang exhales and slumps.
“We should wait for a bit,” he whispers. Song Lan nods. Now that they’re breathing again, Song Lan is very aware of it, aware of how Xue Yang has one hand pressed against the wood behind Song Lan’s head, of how there is so little space between them, of how Song Lan’s fingers are still closed around a fold of Xue Yang’s shirt.
Xue Yang’s chest rises and falls, quick, to match Song Lan’s own agitation. He turns his face away, listening. Without permission, Song Lan’s hand slips from Xue Yang’s shoulder to the arch of his neck, and Xue Yang’s head whips back around, eyes wide and startled.
He’s beautiful when he’s surprised. It slips away as his expression moves from shocked to assessing and Song Lan lets his thumb trace the hinge of his jaw just to see what happens. Xue Yang’s eyes close, and he looks almost pained, holding himself so still. It’s captivating.
When he opens his eyes again, he looks at Song Lan like a plea. The curiosity in Song Lan’s gut turns to heat, and he’s poised in indecision when the distant click of the security door lock re-engaging breaches the moment. Xue Yang sits back, not meeting Song Lan’s eyes.
They clamber inelegantly out from under the desk, and Xue Yang, still not looking at Song Lan, goes back to the stack of manilla folders he’d extricated.
They’d both assumed that the door lock had meant the guard had left, but Mianmian opens the door and says, in a tired voice, “You know, I’m mainly just disappointed.”
Xue Yang looks at her briefly and then returns to reading. She unclips the radio at her belt and says, “Backup to VP’s office. Bring restraints.” The radio crackles and someone answers affirmatively. “Put them down,” she says to Xue Yang.
He ignores her, so Song Lan says, “Jig is up,” in his ear and takes the folders from him, laying them on the desk. Xue Yang doesn’t resist, but he scowls.
“Let’s go then,” Mianmian says, gesturing out of the door.
“You promised restraints,” Xue Yang says with a crooked smile.
The smirk is long-gone by the time he’s zip-tied to the same metal bench as Song Lan, the strips of plastic securing each of them threaded through the other so that if they move too much, it hurts both of them.
“Surprisingly vindictive,” Xue Yang says, grimacing.
“Here,” Song Lan says, and takes hold of Xue Yang’s hands, allowing them to rest at a more comfortable angle, rather than twisting away to avoid touching.
Xue Yang eyes him, unconvinced.
“It’s fine,” Song Lan says. “Did you find anything?”
“In the paperwork? No, it was all just boring stuff, contracts, patent applications. Nothing new.”
“Maybe it’s not what you think,” Song Lan says cautiously. Xue Yang still bristles, and Song Lan squeezes his hand. “It’s a possibility we should be open to,” he says.
Xue Yang sighs and deflates, resting his head against Song Lan’s chest. It’s such a casual thing, a quiet acknowledgement of his frustration, and it sticks like a thorn in Song Lan’s throat. Xue Yang grins through pain, flirts through trouble, never admits he doesn’t have the upper hand, and yet here he is, resigned.
With a jarring creek, the door to the narrow room they’re in opens and Xingchen walks in, face blank. He turns to look at Mianmian behind him. “You can unbind them,” he says. There’s another woman, too; the one who had led the tours. There’s no trace of her customer service smile now, and she is looking at Xue Yang like she’d readily stab him.
Mianmian snips their zip ties and Xue Yang meets Song Lan’s eyes once and then turns to face Xingchen, rubbing at the red marks on his wrists.
Xingchen looks at them both, face still neutral. Mianmian looks between the three of them, her frustration evident in the clench of her jaw. “We know who you work for,” she says tightly. “And we know that you lied about the nature of your relationship to come here.”
“Scum,” the other woman says.
Song Lan can’t say anything, can’t defend himself because it’s true. He let his stupid broken heart make all the decisions from the very beginning, and it’s unforgivable.
He forces himself to look at Xingchen, to meet his gaze and hold it. He expects hurt, betrayal, confusion. But Xingchen has always been better than that. Instead, he sees a familiar, gentle sadness. Song Lan has hurt him countless times, and he still chooses compassion over anger.
“Actually,” Xue Yang says, far more cheerfully than is appropriate. “You don’t know much at all.”
Everyone in the room looks at him. He leans back on his arms, looking delighted at the attention. “Enlighten us,” Mianmian says, eyes narrowed.
“I came here for work, I’ll admit that. I brought him because I thought I could use his history with your boss to get me closer. I abused his trust, not yours.”
“Xue Yang—” Song Lan starts.
“No, Song Lan, you were right. We have to come clean.” He looks between Song Lan and Xingchen. “Try and preserve your dignity.”
“I’m not—” Xue Yang puts a hand over his mouth. Song Lan freezes immediately.
“Stop embarrassing yourself,” he says. “I used you, do you get it? It was fun, babe, but this was more important.” He turns away and faces Xingchen.
Song Lan has to blink rapidly as his throat burns and eyes get damp. He doesn’t know what hurts more, the words which feel far too real, or that he knows Xue Yang is throwing himself under a bus for Song Lan. Which is pointless in the end because it’s just another lie.
Xue Yang doesn’t give Song Lan time to deliberate. “I know for a fact that you’re working with Hyocin Pharmaceutical even though you claimed to cut ties with them. You’ve built this company on a scam. I will find proof, and I will expose you.”
The short woman takes a step closer. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re just an idiot fumbling around like—”
“A-Qing that’s enough,” Xingchen says. She closes her mouth with an almost audible snap. Xingchen walks over to Song Lan and slowly, checking for a reaction, reaches for Song Lan’s wrist. He smooths a thumb over the red welts from the zip ties. “I can’t be mad at you for wanting the truth,” he looks up, eyes sombre, “but if you pursue this, it will cause a lot of harm.”
“Is it true?” Song Lan asks. “Are you working with them?”
“I cannot discuss confidential contacts,” Xingchen says.
“So that’s a yes,” Xue Yang says. Xingchen turns a cold look on him, but Xue Yang keeps talking. “What I don’t understand is why. Why bother with the activism and the persona if it’s all bullshit. It’s not like it would harm your bottom line at all.”
“How dare you—” Xingchen holds up a hand, and A-Qing looks mutinous but stays silent.
“Simply put, it’s not bullshit. But there are… limitations we work within.”
“Like what?” Song Lan asks. Four sets of eyes settle on him, but he keeps his own on Xingchen. “You were never afraid before. Xingchen, what’s going on?”
Xingchen looks away, studying the floor to the left of Song Lan’s shoes. A-Qing and Mianmian share a concerned look. Even Xue Yang stays still and quiet.
“I tried,” Xingchen says softly. “I really tried, and it almost destroyed the company. They don’t care about the law, and they don’t care about people’s lives. It’s not just them. If I want to transact, I need to keep the banks happy, and from there it’s a spidering mess.” He takes a deep breath and straightens his shoulders, looking at Xue Yang. “Did you know that I employ nearly twelve-hundred people? Whatever you may think of me for it, I will protect them.”
And there is the steel Song Lan had missed, buried beneath the guilt and the helplessness. Song Lan wants to reach for him, to shield him from this awful responsibility.
“What if we help?” He says it without thinking, but as soon as he does, the desire hardens into determination.
Xingchen turns to him, frowning. “How?”
“We expose them,” Xue Yang says, nodding.
Xingchen shakes his head. “That just makes you a target.”
“Part of the job.”
Xingchen looks between the two of them. “What would you need?”
“A source,” Xue Yang says. “Can be anonymous. Any proof you can hand over.”
“And what happens when they come after you?”
“We take that risk,” Song Lan says.
“What if I don’t agree?” Xingchen says. “You’ll expose Tian Shan too?”
“I’m not letting this go,” Xue Yang says. Song Lan sends him an annoyed look.
“It’ll be easier if you help us. But we’ll follow the story.”
Xingchen gnaws on his lip and paces. Song Lan wraps his fingers around Xue Yang’s wrist to keep him quiet. Xingchen’s eyes catch on it, and he stops walking. “Okay,” he says.
“Sir—” Mianmian and A-Qing say in unison, but Xingchen shakes his head.
“I have some conditions. But I’ll give you what I know.”
Since Mianmian is adamant that no one else sees them, they stay locked in the security office for the rest of the morning.
Xue Yang uses the time to scribble down notes, then transfer them to his laptop once one of the grunts returns their belongings.
Before they leave, Xingchen intercepts Song Lan at the gates. “I’m sorry,” Song Lan says in a rush. “I did that all wrong. I should have just asked you.”
Xingchen laughs, a humourless huff, and looks away. “More than anything else, Zichen, I was afraid of what you’d think of me. I don’t know if I would have answered you honestly.”
Reflexively, Song Lan looks over at where Xue Yang is waiting, out of earshot but watching them blatantly.
“I’m sorry too,” Xingchen says. “I hope you two can work it out.”
“Yeah,” Song Lan says. “I d—” He closes his eyes and tries not to force the words. “We’ll be fine.”
“I want to hug you,” Xingchen says. “Is that inappropriate?” Song Lan doesn’t care, he really doesn’t, so he steps forward and wraps himself around Xingchen like he’s wanted to since he first saw him again. Xingchen’s arms slip around his waist, and he tucks his head against Song Lan’s shoulder. He smells of pine and clean mountain air, and Song Lan lets one hand rest against the back of his neck, over his hair.
Xue Yang doesn’t say anything when Song Lan joins him next to the same sleek car they’d driven in yesterday. He doesn’t say anything while they sit in the back seat and wait for their driver.
“Thank you,” Song Lan says when the silence becomes too much. Xue Yang nods but keeps looking out the window. “Xue Yang,” Song Lan says.
Xue Yang turns and grins. “Pretty clever, right? You and I can have a messy breakup, and Xiao Xingchen can swoop in and pick up all your pieces. I broke a story and fixed your sad love life.”
“Xue Yang,” Song Lan says again.
“I’m gonna sleep, don’t puke on me.” He hoists his jacket over his shoulder and turns away, curling in on himself and lying still enough that Song Lan is certain he isn’t sleeping.
He does the same thing on the train, and the next one, and by the time they’re back in London, they’ve said all of five words to each other. Song Lan hates it.
They part ways at the underground, and Song Lan hates that too. He gets a text message while he’s waiting on his platform.
stop moping so loud, I can hear you from here
Song Lan replies with the only thing he can think of to say.
Are you okay?
Read 10:34pm
On Monday, Xue Yang arrives at work before Song Lan. It’s not unheard of, but it typically happens when he’s been up all night. This morning, he looks his usual, over-caffeinated self.
Meng Yao is standing at his desk, reading over his shoulder and nodding.
“I told you that you make a good team,” he says, a touch smug, when Song Lan joins them. “This far exceeds my expectations.”
“It was mostly him,” Song Lan says since there have been enough lies.
Xue Yang leans back in his chair. “Don’t undersell yourself, you were a very convincing betrayed lover.”
“Well you better kiss and make up because I want you both on this story,” Meng Yao says. And with a benevolent smile, he slips back into his office.
Xue Yang takes that to heart, working on it to the exclusion of anything else. Song Lan has words and edits to finish on two other projects before he can join full time. In the intervening week, Xue Yang compiles a staggering amount of research material, establishes a timeline with Xingchen, and puts a considerable dent in the office Nescafé supply.
“I have more tax records for you to read,” he says when Song Lan approaches his desk one evening. It’s already dark, and Song Lan would have left hours ago, but he wanted to see how late Xue Yang would stay.
“You need a break,” he says, and grabs Xue Yang’s wrist when it twitches towards his cup. “No, not coffee, you need dinner and sleep.”
Xue Yang looks at him, nose scrunched in scepticism. “Are you paying?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“Fine. I want dessert, though.”
Song Lan just nods and herds him out the door.
It’s been raining, and the air is damp and freezing, the kind of cold that creeps through every layer you’re wearing to make friends with your bones. Xue Yang, who plainly hasn’t slept sufficiently in several days shivers, even in his oversized coat.
Song Lan unwraps his scarf and loops it around Xue Yang’s neck, tucking the ends into his collar. Xue Yang raises his eyebrows.
“What a good boyfriend move,” he says. “You should have used that up in Scotland.”
“Come on,” Song Lan says, turning Xue Yang by the shoulder and directing him up the street. Their usual lunch restaurant is set up differently in the evening, with low lighting and little candles on the table. The music that plays is gentler, and the murmur of the crowd is more subdued.
Song Lan reminds himself that this is normal, and not the universe laughing at him openly. Xue Yang, however, is laughing at him openly.
“Romantic,” he says, raising only one eyebrow this time, eye teeth pressing into his lip as he grins.
Throughout dinner, Xue Yang fills Song Lan in on his progress.
“As well as all the extortion, they’re breaking antitrust laws. I’m sure of it,” he says, with a mouth full of buttered green beans. “I haven’t found proof yet, but there’s this guy who is literally married to the COO of one of the banks.”
Song Lan nods and shifts a few plates closer to him so he’ll keep eating. He does; he eats like he hasn’t had a decent meal for as long as he hasn’t slept. Song Lan listens to his preliminary conclusions and loathes the bruised skin under his eyes.
After dinner — and dessert — Xue Yang tries to walk back in the direction of the office until Song Lan grabs him by the hood of his coat.
“Song Lan, I have work to do,” he whines.
“You need to sleep. I’ll take you home if I have to.”
“Promises promises,” Xue Yang says. Song Lan ignores him. With one hand around Xue Yang’s shoulders, Song Lan steers him across the road Xue Yang grumbles but focuses on typing into his phone. “If I lose this thread because you’re being boring, I’ll never forgive you.”
It’s only ten minutes until the next bus is due, and Xue Yang yawns as he slouches on the bench.
“What are you doing?” he asks when Song Lan stands next to him, waiting for the doors to open.
“Taking you home,” Song Lan says.
“You keep using that phrase,” Xue Yang mutters and stomps up the stairs, digging in his pockets for his Oyster card.
The wind is even more piercing when they get off the bus. Song Lan lifts his collar against it. It’s miserable enough that Xue Yang doesn’t protest further, just tucks his hands in his pockets and stalks out onto the footpath.
He lives in a small flat above a grocer that smells like week-old cabbage. The rickety stairs are icy. Xue Yang looks at Song Lan like he’s expecting commentary, but they’re both too cold to argue.
Inside isn’t much warmer, and even when Xue Yang flicks on the lights, it’s still gloomy.
“Satisfied?” Xue Yang asks.
“Do you promise to sleep?”
“How will you know if I’m lying?”
“Because you’ll end up in the hospital otherwise.”
“You’re so dramatic.” Xue Yang slips off his coat and throws it in the direction of the couch, then bundles up Song Lan’s scarf and hands it to him. “Thanks for caring I guess, but you don’t have to do this.”
“I want to,” Song Lan says.
Xue Yang makes a dismissive noise and turns away, kicking off his shoes.
“Why are you here, Song Lan?” Xue Yang asks. “Seriously, what are you doing?” Song Lan doesn’t have an answer for that, because he should leave. Nothing about Xue Yang’s behaviour since they got back suggests that he thinks about the kiss. It’s all uncannily normal. Like nothing happened.
If Xue Yang wants to write it off as an embarrassing work story, or if it meant nothing to him at all, Song Lan should respect that.
“Good night,” he says and leaves.
One unremarkable Thursday, when Song Lan returns from a meeting, Xingchen is sitting next to Xue Yang’s desk. He’s wearing a bucket hat and facing away, but Song Lan recognises him by his posture, by the way he stills when he’s listening but animates when he’s speaking. The elegance of his gestures, and the way he closes his eyes when he smiles.
From the tension in Xue Yang’s jaw, Song Lan guesses that this visit is unexpected. When Song Lan approaches, Xue Yang looks up and smiles like a signal flare. “You’re finally here,” he says.
Song Lan raises his eyebrows in a question, but Xue Yang just tugs on his sleeve to pull him closer. “Xingchen came all this way to bring us a list of people and companies to focus our research on, isn’t that just so helpful?”
“Yes,” Song Lan says, “thank you.”
“I prefer working on paper,” Xingchen says apologetically, waving the wad of scribbled notes he’s holding.
“That’s fine, I do too,” Song Lan says.
Xingchen nods, his eyelashes sweeping against his cheeks. “I remember.”
“Lots to get through,” Xue Yang says, enthusiastically. “We should get started.”
They spend the next three hours cataloguing Xingchen’s notes, and the printed emails he has. Song Lan takes a stack of them to the copy room to scan with Xue Yang trailing after him.
“He actually thinks putting on that ugly hat is a good disguise,” Xue Yang says. “I’m worried he’s never looked in a mirror.” Song Lan smiles at the control pad of the photocopier as he punches in the instructions. “Anyway, I had no idea he was coming today,” Xue Yang whispers, leaning on the paper tray.
“That’s fragile,” Song Lan says, pulling him by the elbow.
Xue Yang comes without a fight and moves calmly into Song Lan’s space. “He thinks we’re still together, what did you tell him?”
“Nothing. You’re the one who convinced him it was real.” Xue Yang narrows his eyes.
“Then I guess we’re still dating,” he says, wary.
Song Lan meets his gaze, heart beating recklessly in his throat. “Guess so.”
After a beat too long, Xue Yang turns around and folds his arms, leaning back against the photocopier again. “I don’t trust him. No one is that selfless.”
Xingchen is, Song Lan thinks. Instead, he says, “You don’t have to.” Xue Yang mutters something unflattering about Song Lan’s intellect and stomps back to his desk.
After that, Xingchen returns to Tian Shan for the rest of the week but promises to spend weekends in the city working with them. They fall into a rhythm of research and fact-checking, even if things are a little strained.
When the volume of paperwork they assemble outgrows both Song Lan and Xue Yang's desks, Xingchen — or more likely, A-Qing — rents a small, dusty disused space for them to move into. It has the added benefit of keeping Xingchen from visiting the Sentinel too often and raising suspicions.
It’s a relief to have room to organise everything.
“Where are the emails from last April?” Xue Yang asks, digging around in Song Lan’s neat piles of documents.
“Still at the office,” Song Lan says from where he’s pinning summary cards to the cork board. “I’ll bring them here tomorrow.”
“You can just read them on here,” Xingchen says and pushes his laptop bag in Xue Yang’s direction. Xue Yang stares at him, looks at Song Lan, then turns back to Xingchen. “The passwo—”
“Don’t tell me the password!” Xue Yang yells. Xingchen blinks and frowns. Song Lan just shrugs when Xue Yang looks at him for answers. Finally, he runs a hand through his hair and says, “Are you sure you want to let me at your computer?”
Xingchen deliberately unzips the bag. “You need the emails, right? They’re on here.” Xue Yang watches him unlock the laptop with wide eyes and accepts it numbly.
“Do you often hand your unsecured devices off to other people?” he asks.
“No,” Xingchen says with a confused smile. “Why would I need to?”
“Oh my god,” Xue Yang says and sits next to him on the couch, legs tucked up and crossed. “Xingchen,” he says after a few minutes, “you need to fire whoever is in charge of your operational security because this is a mess.”
“Really? How so?” Xingchen leans over his shoulder, and Song Lan watches, fascinated, as a flush creeps over Xue Yang’s cheeks.
“Well to start with, I’m going to configure your firewall properly.”
Song Lan goes back to pinning cards and waits for the jealousy to hit. It doesn’t manifest, and instead, he has to fight a smile as Xue Yang gets progressively more flustered by Xingchen’s nonchalance about how many versions behind his operating system is.
After the Laptop Incident, as Xue Yang takes to calling it — “Seriously, he owns a company building some of the most cutting edge technology in the world, and he didn’t even know what an ad-blocker was.” — the tension eases, which is fortunate considering how much time they’re spending together, often working into the night.
They are a well-matched set, Xingchen with his uncanny insight, Xue Yang with his quick mind, and Song Lan to catalogue their sources so they can publish something eventually.
A few months in, Xingchen brings A-Qing, armed with binders of information. Song Lan is glad to get some much-needed reinforcement from someone with sensible views on filing systems, even if she glares when she hands them over.
Xingchen doesn’t seem bothered by her cold demeanour, so Song Lan ignores it for the most part, unless he needs to break up a fight between her and Xue Yang. They tend to snipe at each other when they’re tired.
The four of them spend far too many evenings sitting on the floor of their makeshift office, every surface covered in paper, trying to piece something coherent together.
Weekends bleed over into Monday, then Tuesday, and eventually, Xingchen brings his work with him and stays in London for weeks at a time. “We have offices here, I might as well use them,” he says breezily.
Occasionally, when he has time, Xingchen joins them during the day, curling up in the brightest corner with a stack of their latest research and a cup of tea that fogs up his glasses every time he takes a sip.
Xue Yang watches him sometimes, particularly when Xingchen is lost in what he’s reading. It’s understandable, because Xingchen in a patch of winter sunlight, his hair tucked behind his ear, is breathtaking. Song Lan’s chest aches for the look on Xue Yang’s face.
When Xue Yang realises that Song Lan caught him looking, he gets flustered and defensive.
“You never told me what happened between you two,” he says after Xingchen leaves for an appointment. “Why did he break up with you?”
“He didn’t,” Song Lan says.
Xue Yang drops the pen he’s spinning through his fingers. “You did? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“But you’re—” he waves a hand weakly in Song Lan’s direction, “still all stupid over him.”
“It wasn’t the right decision,” Song Lan says, then swallows through the tightness in his throat. “In retrospect.”
Xue Yang sits back in his chair with a look of disbelief. “That’s a fucking understatement. Why, though? You two are disgustingly perfect for each other.”
“Clearly not,” Song Lan says, standing quickly enough that his chair rolls back and hits the wall with a thud.
In the silence that follows, he tries not to think about the way everyone said that. Perfect isn’t something Song Lan could live up to, in the end.
And there were excuses, good excuses. Xingchen had been there, holding Song Lan through the worst of it, and sitting nearby when he couldn’t stand to be touched. Xingchen had stayed when the loss subsided and left anger to froth in Song Lan’s marrow, when he took months and months to put his life back together and even then he couldn’t be the man that Xingchen deserved.
He'd been so patient. And Song Lan had been so sure it was the best thing to do. Xingchen, whose dreams were only outpaced by his faith in them, shouldn’t be held down by something as mundane as grief.
So Song Lan had left, and until this year, his last memory of Xingchen was him standing, crestfallen, and so hurt, but with no blame in his eyes.
Xue Yang watches Song Lan from his desk, his jaw working like he’s thinking. He’s always been too smart, too shrewd, and Song Lan can’t help but feel like he’s on display.
Pausing only to unhook his coat, Song Lan stalks out into the freezing drizzle to compose himself. When he gets back fifteen minutes later, soaked, but calm, Xue Yang looks up but doesn’t say anything.
Slowly, the story takes shape. They have the heart of it, really, even if it seems like there are hundreds more threads to pull on. It’s satisfying, after months, to watch the gaps close one after another as they piece everything together. But it’s also uncomfortable.
It’s fragile, this world where Xingchen is here most days, and where Xue Yang makes a point of leaning against Song Lan when he’s tired. The end of this story means the end of this. Song Lan isn’t ready for whatever comes next.
It’s late enough that both Xingchen and Xue Yang have gotten silly after too much sugar and not enough sleep, giggling in the corner over cat videos. Song Lan watches them more than he reads through the annual report for one of the interchangeable hedge funds.
A-Qing sidles up to him and hands him a cup of tea. “That’s not the way people normally look when their boyfriend is draped all over someone else,” she says, just as he’s taking a sip.
“How am I supposed to look?” Song Lan asks once he’s finished coughing.
A-Qing searches his face for a moment. “We’ve risked a lot to be here. If either of you fuck it up because things get messy, I will personally end both of your careers.”
“Noted,” Song Lan says, and sips his tea. It’s a convenient way to hide his smile. A-Qing is a formidable woman. One day he’ll ask how she ended up so loyal, but for now, he’s just grateful Xingchen has someone this resourceful on his side.
She leaves not long after that, but Xingchen stays because Song Lan found a promising thread in stock disclosures that catches his interest too. Xue Yang doesn’t even try to stay awake, he just curls up on the couch with his head on Song Lan’s thigh.
Song Lan tries very hard to look like this is not out of the ordinary. And it is more common now, since Xue Yang has figured out how to navigate Song Lan’s need for advanced warning with touch, but that doesn’t stop Song Lan’s treacherous heart from leaping around like it’s the first time.
It’s been a long night, and Xue Yang’s ponytail is loose. Song Lan brushes back the rogue strands of hair from his face, smoothing it back into place. It’s the kind of thing he wishes he could do when Xue Yang is awake.
“He is remarkable,” Xingchen says quietly, startling Song Lan. He has both elbows propped on the arm of his chair, chin resting in his hands, watching the two of them fondly.
Song Lan tries to inhale enough air to speak. “Yeah,” he says. “He works hard, even if he hasn’t met an ethical standard that he couldn’t dismiss.”
Xingchen presses his lips together, amused. “You have that in common, I think.”
Xue Yang stirs, and Song Lan realises he must have squeezed his shoulder. He runs his hand down Xue Yang’s arm and waits until he settles before asking, “What?”
“You never let anything stop you from doing the right thing, either.” Mischief creeps into Xingchen’s smile. “Isn’t that why my head of security found you both hiding under a desk?” Xingchen catches Song Lan’s discomfort because he says, “It’s okay. I understand why you did it. He’s very compelling when he sets his mind to something.”
Song Lan thinks about Xue Yang’s campaign to convince Xingchen to turn off Bluetooth on his phone. How, by the end, he was so worked up he had admitted to already cloning Xingchen’s keycard, and gone red and defensive. Xingchen had watched him with gentle eyes, charmed. Then asked stupid questions so Xue Yang could get back to ranting.
“And he was right,” Xingchen says, intruding on Song Lan’s thoughts.
“Not entirely. He thought the worst of you.”
“Did you?”
“I didn’t want to believe it,” Song Lan says.
Xingchen nods to himself, shifting so that he’s leaning over the edge of his chair to peer down at Xue Yang. “And what do you want now?” His eyes are dark and searching in the low light. Song Lan has always been helpless against him. If there was ever a doubt that he loves Xingchen, it couldn’t withstand the weight of his eyes right now. But Song Lan’s hand is in Xue Yang’s hair, and he’s a steady, unexpected warmth beside him.
“I don’t know,” Song Lan says, and it’s barely a whisper.
“I think you do,” Xingchen replies, and his eyes dip to where Xue Yang is sleeping in the crook of Song Lan’s hip, then he reaches to brush a finger over Song Lan’s brow. “I think it’s yours if you want it, too. I’ll be here when you figure it out.” The words hang in the air, and Song Lan can’t move.
He wants to believe it’s true. Or that it could be true. It’s simmering there, between all three of them, unspoken but tangible.
But the lie that Song Lan has been ignoring for months now suddenly comes into sharp focus. There’s no moving past the fact that none of this is real, just stolen time.
Xingchen’s eyes are patient, and he waits while Song Lan wrestles with what to say. When the silence stretches too long, he sighs, quiet, and collects the tea cups to take back to the kitchen.
The next afternoon a draft lands on Song Lan’s desk that’s too many pages, and Xue Yang is twitchy like he’s skipped from coffee to energy drinks.
“Did you stay up all night writing this?” Song Lan asks.
Xue Yang chews on his nail. “We have everything we need, and I’m bored of waiting.”
“Investigations take time, you have to—”
“You know as well as I do that our information is solid. Just read it.”
Song Lan skims the first page. It’s a mess. “Meng Yao will personally decapitate us if we put this on his desk.”
Xue Yang yawns and slouches against Song Lan’s desk. “He would never get his own hands dirty like that. Anyway, it’s just a draft, it’s fine.”
Three pages in, Song Lan hasn’t found a paragraph without a mistake. “I know you have a copy of the style guide, I am begging you to read it,” he says, picking up a pen.
“You can beg all you want.” Xue Yang taps the page Song Lan is marking up. “I’ve already sent it to Meng Yao. This is just for your paper collection since I know how much you like quality time with your stapler.”
Song Lan closes his mouth around the observation that even his stapler couldn’t manage this many pages and takes another look at Xue Yang. He is exhausted, but there’s something else, a sulky set to his jaw and a hunch to his shoulders.
Before he can ask what’s wrong, Meng Yao materialises behind Song Lan to tell them they have a feature two weeks from Sunday and an actual deadline.
“You will need to verify everything,” he says. “You can take extra eyes, whoever is free. We have to be sure.”
“We will be,” Song Lan says. It’s a tight timeline, but Xue Yang is right: their information is reliable.
“Good,” Meng Yao says. He looks directly at Song Lan. “Make sure the next draft I see is clean.” Xue Yang smirks until another yawn wipes it off his face.
Xingchen insists they go out to celebrate, and fortunately for Song Lan, it’s a Tuesday and not unbearable. Less fortunately, Xue Yang is still acting like a sullen teenager.
“What’s with you?” Song Lan asks.
“Nothing,” Xue Yang says. “Just glad this will be over soon.” It sounds like a lie, and Song Lan wonders when he started to recognise them.
Checking that Xingchen is still at the bar, Song Lan puts a hand on Xue Yang’s wrist. His skin is warm, an echo of the warmth of the room. “Something’s wrong.”
Xue Yang swallows, and his eyes flicker to Xingchen and back. “What are you going to do when we’re finished?” he asks.
“The article? Meng Yao said I could—”
“No, I mean us, when we’re finished. Are you going to date him?”
Song Lan lets his wrist go and sits back. Xue Yang’s posture is stiff and closed. “That’s not exclusively up to me,” Song Lan says.
“Please,” Xue Yang says and rolls his eyes. He tips his drink back and finishes the rest in two gulps.
Xingchen eyes them both when he gets back, but holds up his glass in a toast. “Here’s to honesty, even when it’s difficult,” he says, voice raised over the commotion.
Xue Yang laughs at the same time Song Lan winces.
“You know us,” Xue Yang croons, clinking his glass to Xingchen’s. “Truth at all costs.”
Song Lan raises his drink mechanically, then takes a sip for something to do. Xingchen looks between them. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Xue Yang says, “of course not. We’re celebrating.” He downs the rest of his rum, coughs, and stalks to the bar for another.
It’s a wretched evening. Xue Yang hardly talks to either of them; instead, he folds himself over other people. When he does look at Song Lan, it’s while he’s whispering in someone else’s ear.
“Go talk to him,” Xingchen says after Song Lan misses one too many conversational cues.
Song Lan puts down his glass because he’s increasingly tempted to throw it at someone. “He won’t listen when he’s like this.”
Xingchen shakes his head, the tightness of his mouth betraying a hint of frustration. “Go talk to him. Or I will.”
If Song Lan had been less distracted, less focussed on the hurt that he doesn’t even want, he might have thought it was a strange threat. But all he thinks is that they have to keep up appearances, so he walks on stiff knees to where Xue Yang is leaning against a table of rowdy lawyer-types.
“Let’s talk,” Song Lan says as he pulls Xue Yang away to the tune of snickers and unoriginal catcalls.
When they’re alone, Song Lan turns to Xue Yang and asks, “What the hell?”
“I’m celebrat—”
“Stop,” Song Lan interrupts. “You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong if you don’t want to, but Xingchen is watching.” Xue Yang turns his head slowly from where he’d been staring determinedly over Song Lan’s shoulder. He smiles, sharp and cruel.
“Why don’t we put on a show then,” he says, placing his hands on Song Lan’s chest and sliding them up to skate along his collarbones and grip his nape. He pushes himself up on his toes, and Song Lan automatically wraps a steadying arm around his waist. “Make it convincing,” Xue Yang says, waiting like he knows Song Lan will kiss him, knows the way the need burns underneath Song Lan’s skin.
And when Song Lan does kiss him, Xue Yang kisses back like he’s burning too.
He shudders under Song Lan’s hands, pressing himself flush and opening his mouth, and Song Lan wants to kiss him until he can’t stand up. He doesn’t want to stop, he wants to stay here, shrouded in the rush of snapping tension. But he loosens his arms instead, rests his forehead against Xue Yang’s temple, and keeps his eyes closed until he can trust himself not to say it out loud and ruin everything.
“Five stars,” Xue Yang says, quiet enough that Song Lan can only hear him because they’re still pressed together. Reluctantly, Song Lan releases him. Xue Yang doesn’t look angry now, but there’s still something pinched in his posture.
Xingchen is waiting with their coats when they pick their way back to the table. “It’s getting late, and we all have to work tomorrow,” he says with a playful smile. “I’ll walk you home.”
They have done this numerous times, since Song Lan lives closest to the office, but never when Song Lan’s face is tingling from the scrape of Xue Yang’s stubble, or when he has had to wrack his brain to remember if they held hands previously.
Song Lan is so tired, so thoroughly done with guessing and adapting and pretending. He wants to know his own mind again. He wants to go back to when he was heartbroken in a simple, rational way when he ruined his chance with the love of his life and learned to live with that.
Xingchen serenely carries the conversation the two blocks to Song Lan’s building, and bids them a cheerful goodnight, waiting until they’re both through the sliding doors before pulling out his phone to call a taxi.
Xue Yang blows out a breath and stomps over to the stairs. “He’s fucking doing this on purpose, I’m sure of it.” Song Lan lets him get ahead before following, not wanting to be within snarling distance. Once they’re inside Song Lan’s apartment, Xue Yang doesn’t even take his shoes off, he just sits on the arm of the couch and taps his foot, jacket bunched up under his crossed arms.
“I’ll make you cocoa while you wait,” Song Lan says. “No coffee,” he adds preemptively. But Xue Yang just scowls at the door.
“Why?” he asks as Song Lan turns to walk to the kitchen. “He’s not here, you don’t have to do shit.”
Song Lan places his hand palm down on the cool benchtop, digging his fingertips into the nicks and scratches in the surface. Self-preservation wars with exhaustion, and Song Lan just wants to stop lying.
When Song Lan doesn’t answer, Xue Yang continues. “Was the boyfriend experience not complete enough? Did you not get your money’s worth?”
That gets under Song Lan’s skin, and he wheels around. Xue Yang is watching him, head tilted back with a satisfied, arrogant, unconvincing smirk.
“Don’t be stupid,” Song Lan says, and then immediately discards his own advice.
This time, when Song Lan kisses him, Xue Yang goes still, his pulse fluttering against Song Lan’s fingers. Xue Yang’s skin is still cold from the night air. Song Lan strokes his thumb across his cheek and fits their mouths together, slower and more deliberate than before. It feels like too much, this gentle, shaking pressure, and Xue Yang makes a broken sound, tearing his mouth away.
He looks ragged. “Fuck you,” he says. “Fuck you so much.” Then he stands and kisses Song Lan hard, pulling their bodies close and pushing Song Lan’s coat off his shoulders. Song Lan threads his fingers through Xue Yang’s hair, and tilts his face up at a better angle, holding him still with a firm hand on the back of his neck.
By the time they’ve stumbled into the bedroom, Xue Yang has half of Song Lan’s buttons undone and is swearing at the other half. Song Lan catches Xue Yang’s hands and pulls his own shirt over his head. “Finally being helpful,” Xue Yang says, and starts on Song Lan’s belt.
With some experimentation, Song Lan finds that if he breathes on the skin just behind the hinge of Xue Yang’s jaw, he stills, and if Song Lan kisses him there, he inhales in little hitching breaths, and if Song Lan scrapes his teeth—Xue Yang pushes him roughly down onto the bed and climbs on after him. He braces one arm against the mattress and fumbles open Song Lan’s pants with the other.
It’s clumsy and fast and hard and so good. Through the haze of arousal, Song Lan thinks he wants to take his time, but Xue Yang has his hand around Song Lan’s dick, and that makes it difficult to argue.
“Do you know how much I hate it when you do this?” Xue Yang says when Song Lan tips his head back. “Do you have any idea?” His free hand traces the cord of muscle to the hollow of Song Lan’s throat, following it with kisses, with bites, hard enough to leave a mark. Song Lan hasn’t even got his pants all the way off, and he’s close to coming into Xue Yang’s hand, crying out from the sting of teeth on his neck.
It’s not what — how — he wants it, frantic like this. When he can get his fingers to cooperate, Song Lan grips Xue Yang by the wrist to stop him. Xue Yang sits back quickly, his chest rising and falling, and his expression closed.
Watching his face, Song Lan brings Xue Yang's hand to his lips, kissing the pad of his thumb, the warm skin on the inside of his wrist. He tries to pull away, but Song Lan uses the momentum to twist him around and reverse their positions. From here it's easy to push Xue Yang's t-shirt up and replace it with his mouth, to sketch the line of his hipbone with his tongue, to let the scrape of his stubble wring gasps from Xue Yang's throat.
“Do you need a fucking map?” Xue Yang growls, but he’s panting and twisting his hand in Song Lan’s hair. Song Lan wants to drag it out, but Xue Yang is a mess, lips bitten red and swollen. He’s beautiful, and Song Lan wants him so much. He strips Xue Yang of his jeans and boxers, observes the way he twitches when Song Lan runs his hands up his thighs. Xue Yang glares, flushed and impatient. When he looks like he’s about to start snarling, Song Lan swallows his cock down, breathing in the smell of him, letting it mingle with the salt on his tongue.
“Fuck,” Xue Yang says on an exhale, and Song Lan sucks him deeper until he’s not saying words at all. He clutches alternately at the bedding and Song Lan, hips bucking against where Song Lan holds him down. With regret, Song Lan pulls off when Xue Yang’s writhing gets too wild and crawls up his body, pins him down, takes him in hand. It doesn’t take more than a few strokes before Xue Yang comes, breath stuttering, and face turned into Song Lan’s shoulder.
Song Lan gives Xue Yang a minute to recover, moving his hand to Xue Yang’s hip and letting his thumb slip into the hollow there. Xue Yang evidently doesn’t need a break, because he swears and pushes at Song Lan’s pants until they’re tangled at his knees. He digs his fingers into the meat of Song Lan’s ass and wraps a leg around him for good measure, pulling him down into the mess on his stomach. It’s slippery and filthy, and Song Lan’s cock is fine with all of this.
Xue Yang is muttering, “Come on, god, you’re so—” into his neck, and that’s it. Song Lan’s hips jerk and his orgasm crashes through him, leaving his arms too shaky to hold himself up and his skin prickly and oversensitive. Even the sheets feel like sandpaper. He collapses to the bed, with just enough presence of mind to roll aside to avoid crushing Xue Yang.
He can feel Xue Yang moving around next to him, and when he turns, Xue Yang is wiping himself down with Song Lan’s shirt. Song Lan is about to suggest a shower instead, but then Xue Yang is wriggling back into his jeans, and Song Lan feels like his chest is freezing over.
“I bet he’s gone,” Xue Yang says, glancing back, face neutral. He pulls his t-shirt on and scoops up his sweater then struts out of the room.
Song Lan stumbles inelegantly out of the bed and tries not to trip over his own pants. Xue Yang already has his jacket and shoes on by the time Song Lan is decent enough to walk. He gathers the mess of his hair over one shoulder, and when he meets Song Lan’s eyes, he sighs like his bones are tired. “Don’t make this something it isn’t.”
As the door snicks closed, Song Lan wonders how he could be so fucking stupid.
Song Lan is packing up tax file records when Xingchen wanders into their makeshift office the next day. They’re missing September; he thinks Xue Yang might have taken it home with him last week.
“Oh,” Xingchen says, frowning. “Oh dear.” Song Lan reaches for another box to unfold. Xingchen kneels next to him and hands him stacks of folders, creases of worry carved into his brow.
“I need to tell you something,” Song Lan says, every word scraping against his throat.
“Okay,” Xingchen says. He unwraps his scarf and settles more comfortably on the floor. He waits, open and kind and so patient. Song Lan’s chest is too full of things he has no words for.
“We lied,” he says, after too long. “Xue Yang and I were never dating. It was a lie.”
Xingchen nods. “I know.” He looks expectant, like there’s something else to say.
Song Lan freezes. “Wait, you know?”
“Of course I know. I know you, Zichen.” Xingchen slips off his coat and drapes it over the nearest chair, kindly giving Song Lan time to recover. “Why are you telling me this now?” he asks.
“I’m tired of pretending.”
Xingchen looks at him a little sadly. “Have you been pretending? Really?” Song Lan tries to say yes, but it sticks in his mouth. Xingchen lays a careful hand on his arm and squeezes firmly. “At first, I didn’t know why you were doing it, so I played along. Then I realised that you truly cared for each other. His feelings were obvious, yours, well, as I said, I know you.”
“I thought— he doesn’t. You’re wrong. He doesn’t feel that.”
“Did you ask him?”
“I didn’t have to. He said—” Song Lan has to swallow down the distress that keeps crawling up his throat. “He said not to make it into something it isn’t.”
Xingchen sighs, wearing his most patient face. “Did you tell him how you feel, in explicit terms?”
“No, we uh—” Song Lan gestures pitifully.
“I am very interested in what you did, believe me,” Xingchen says. “But what I want to know right now is, did you use words? He needs words.”
Song Lan shakes his head. It had felt obvious at the time, like his feelings were spilling out of him. It’s a mistake he’s made before. Xingchen closes his eyes, and Song Lan knows he’s thinking of the same thing.
“I don’t know him as well as you, but I am very sure he cares. And that he’s afraid of it.” Xingchen squeezes Song Lan’s arm again, then cups his cheek and rests his forehead against Song Lan’s. “It’s time to tell the truth. All of us.”
“I never stopped loving you,” Song Lan says. His voice sounds bruised.
“I figured that out,” Xingchen says. “I wish you had told me sooner.”
Song Lan can’t help leaning mutely into him. He should speak. They have so much more to say. Instead, he lets his hands slip around Xingchen’s waist to pull him closer. Xingchen trails his fingers down Song Lan’s neck, pausing on a tender spot that Song Lan knows is a red, bruised crescent. Xingchen caresses it with his thumb and gazes at Song Lan’s mouth as he gasps.
Xingchen smiles as he kisses him. It’s sweet and slow and years in the making. “I have wanted to do that for so long,” Xingchen whispers. Song Lan brushes his thumb across the curve of Xingchen’s lower lip and presses another kiss to the corner of his smile.
A door slams. “Oh no,” Xingchen breathes. A tray of takeaway coffees sits off-kilter on the edge of the desk nearest the door. “I think you’d better find those words.”
They don’t catch Xue Yang before he leaves the building. When Song Lan calls, his phone goes straight to voicemail, and he doesn’t read any of Song Lan’s messages. No one at the Sentinel offices has seen him today. Meng Yao’s eyes linger on Song Lan’s neck, but he doesn’t comment.
On the bus ride to Xue Yang’s apartment, several people give Song Lan dirty looks for nervously tapping the plastic between the seats. Xingchen smiles at them until they look away.
Even when they knock for long enough that someone yells out a window to shut up, Xue Yang doesn’t answer his door.
Song Lan checks his phone again. Nothing. Just the unflattering photo Xue Yang took of the two of them months ago.
Xingchen leans against the safety rail and crosses his arms. It’s an unnatural gesture on him, and he only does it when he’s trying not to reach out. He is familiar enough with Song Lan to know that any physical contact right now would be unwelcome, but it’s what he needs. It’s a cruel reminder of how open he’d been with Xue Yang, the way they’d settled into a comfortable familiarity that is so alien to Song Lan. He thinks of the way Xue Yang would bat Xingchen’s hand away when he tried to steal snacks, or how Xingchen would pull the hood of Xue Yang’s coat over his head to shut him up.
Worst of all, Song Lan thinks of how this is what he’d wanted: Xue Yang gone and Xingchen beside him.
He leans against the door, tipping his head back, helpless and disgusted with himself.
The windows on the second story of this building look like they haven’t been cleaned in a few decades, and the joints in the wood cladding are swollen, distorted from where water has seeped in. There is a ladder propped on the first-story roof of the shop, tarnished metal conspicuous against the whitewash, and some stacked pallets just below that look sturdy enough to hold the weight of a person.
Xingchen follows his gaze and straightens up. “Worth a try,” he says. “I’ll wait here, just in case. You two should talk first.”
Song Lan’s heart batters against his ribcage like a frightened hare, but he forces his feet to move.
Climbing up leaves a rusty residue on his hands where he grips the eaves for leverage, but it isn’t otherwise challenging. The ladder is unsecured and precarious, but any concern is burned away by the relief of seeing Xue Yang sitting cross-legged on the roof.
“Fuck off,” he says when Song Lan walks carefully over to him, the tin thudding under his feet.
Song Lan sits next to him and tries to calm his breathing enough that he can speak. “No,” he manages eventually.
With a frustrated huff, Xue Yang twists as if to stand, but Song Lan reaches for him. “Please,” he says. Xue Yang looks away, mouth twisted in anger, but he sits back down. Song Lan spends his life listening, observing, recording. He is painfully out of practice expressing himself without a pen in his hand.
But Xue Yang looks like he’s going to bolt right off the edge of the roof, so Song Lan has to speak.
“I want to make it something it isn’t,” he says nonsensically. “Real. I want it to be real. I want—you.”
Xue Yang swallows and turns away. “What about Xingchen? You still love him.”
“Yes,” Song Lan says.
Pressing his lips together in a parody of a smile, Xue Yang tugs his hand out of Song Lan’s grasp. “I don’t feel like being someone’s second choice, sorry.”
Song Lan catches his wrist and holds it, a simmering heat displacing the misery in his stomach. It’s something he associates with Xue Yang, something that’s frustration and intensity and attraction. He thinks that maybe it’s always been there, maybe he’s always wanted this.
Xue Yang doesn’t struggle against the grip on his wrist, just stares out at the empty car park below them.
“I’m not choosing, I’m asking,” Song Lan says. “Xingchen isn’t making me choose, and I don’t want to. I don’t think you do either.”
After a long, aching moment, Xue Yang looks at him. There’s a vulnerability to corners of his mouth. “What does that mean, Song Lan?”
The heat bubbles over, and for once, the words come easily. “It means I love you too.”
Surprise is a good look on Xue Yang. But there’s more to say, and Song Lan wants to get it right this time, no lies, no deflections. “This is new for me, but I want to try.” He brings Xue Yang’s hand to his mouth and presses a chaste kiss to his knuckles
Xue Yang tucks his face into Song Lan’s shoulder, but not before Song Lan sees a smile tug at his lips. When Song Lan pulls him closer, this time Xue Yang doesn’t resist, instead he climbs into Song Lan’s lap and cups his face.
“You are the worst,” he says, breath a warm counterpoint to his cold hands. “But fine. We’ll try.”
It’s not often Xue Yang misses his cramped, mouldy flat, since, obviously, there isn’t much to miss. But today he longs for the creeping damp, the windows that are painted closed, the sweet promise of an inevitable death by spore asphyxiation.
It’s been eighteen months, and these days, Xue Yang’s first instinct isn’t to leave when things get uncomfortable. But right now, it seems like a good option.
“For fuck’s sake, sit down,” he yells when it gets to be too much. Xingchen freezes in his pacing, and Song Lan looks up from where he’s elbow deep in soapy water, scrubbing the oven trays even though it’s not the first weekend of the month. “Please,” Xue Yang adds.
Xingchen takes a deep breath and wrings his hands once more, then collapses onto the couch, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.
“Babe,” Xue Yang says, prying his hands away from his face, and brushing his hair back behind his ear. “You don’t need to freak out. Why am I the only one being sensible? That is not my role here.” Xingchen’s lip curls up slightly, and he leans into Xue Yang’s hand. Song Lan joins them, and takes a seat on the ottoman, running a pruney hand over the back of his neck as he stretches.
Xue Yang wants to pull him onto the couch too, but he’s twitchy, so Xue Yang settles for pressing his socked foot up against the ottoman without touching.
“He’s right,” Song Lan says. “The interview is scheduled to run for another hour. A-Qing will call when it’s finished.”
Xingchen fidgets with the hem of his t-shirt. “I should have gone with her, I should not have left her alone in that pit of vipers.”
Song Lan raises his eyebrows. “Xingchen, you’re overreacting.”
“Oh, don’t give me that, you’re just as worried as I am,” he snaps back.
Xue Yang looks between them. “Do I have to remind you both that she’s giving evidence to the prosecutor? The one you spent months convincing me to hand our research over to because, and I quote, ‘they’re the good guys.’”
Whatever Song Lan thinks, Xue Yang can actually read a room, so he doesn’t point out that they wouldn’t be in this position if his otherwise supportive boyfriends hadn’t shot down the plan to install spyware on government computers.
In the end, Xue Yang had agreed that making sure the Crown didn’t fuck up the case wasn’t a good enough reason to risk prison. Besides, software surveillance wasn’t necessary since one of the idiot lawyers connected to a public wireless hotspot during one of their meetings and gave Xue Yang time to poke around anyway. But neither Song Lan or Xingchen know that, and Meng Yao won’t tell anyone.
“You’re right, I’m sorry.” Xingchen draws his knees up and hugs them. “She’ll probably do better than I did.”
“Probably,” Xue Yang agrees. Xingchen swipes at his shoulder, and Xue Yang doesn’t try to dodge. “What? She’s fearless.” Xingchen just laughs and tugs Xue Yang against his side.
It still catches him by surprise that this thing between the three of them works. It’s not always easy, and after the first real fight they’d had, Xue Yang was sure he’d fucked up beyond repair. But it didn’t end. And they fought some more, and it didn’t end then either. Every time he braces himself to be left behind, it just doesn’t happen.
Sometimes his skin still itches and there are terrible moments when he wonders if he shouldn’t cut and run before it inevitably turns bad. But it’s hard to sympathise with his worst impulses when Xingchen is curled against him, nails scraping gently through his hair.
Song Lan smiles, watching them, his sleeves still rolled up and his arms braced on his knees.
Actually, Xue Yang thinks, fuck mould. This is good.