Chapter 24 You Ask, I Come

Chapter 24: If You Ask, I'll Come

Xie Fengshi leaned back in the seat, streetlights outside the window flickering past one by one, light and shadow alternating across his face.

He had eaten to his heart's content at the restaurant, and the short walk afterward, the wind actually made him drowsier. Xie Fengshi lightly pinched his palm, trying to clear his mind.

But the seat was too comfortable—the cushion was perfectly soft, the temperature inside the car just right, and Kaelen's driving style just right too. He couldn't help but start drifting off.

First, he remembered the sound of the caramel pudding's brittle shell cracking at the restaurant, then the coins in the fountain pool, sinking to the bottom, bathed in moonlight, shimmering. After that, somehow his thoughts wandered to the hand Kaelen had used to hand him that coin.

Such a nice hand, Xie Fengshi thought hazily in his drowsiness, and then his head dropped to the side.

Kaelen stopped at a red light and saw in his peripheral vision Xie Fengshi's head drooping and snapping back up. Just before it would fall completely, Xie Fengshi would jerk himself awake and sit up, blinking blearily at his surroundings before closing his eyes and starting the nodding cycle all over again.

Kaelen silently turned up the car's heat. As he waited for the light to change, he reached over, grabbed his jacket and spread it open with one hand, and gently draped it over Xie Fengshi.

Xie Fengshi muttered something under his breath, nuzzling into the collar of the jacket. Kaelen tapped his fingers twice on the steering wheel, and the light turned green.

In the back seat, it was quiet. Isaac had fallen asleep at some point too. The tall teenager had curled himself into a corner, and his usually cold face, when asleep, revealed a hint of youthful innocence.

On the familiar street, the buildings on both sides reverted to their old, worn appearance, and the streetlights thinned out. Kaelen deliberately slowed down, partly to avoid bumps, and partly because he didn't want to rush through this stretch of road.

When the car finally came to a stop, Kaelen didn't hurry to wake anyone up.

Isaac was fast asleep, his hood having slipped off, his blond hair in a mess, his whole body slumped into the seat in a posture that didn't look comfortable at all. If he stayed like that much longer, his neck would definitely be stiff in the morning.

Kaelen shifted his gaze and landed on Xie Fengshi. Xie Fengshi's sleeping posture was much more proper than Isaac's—knees together, slightly curled, with just the tips of his fingers peeking out from under the jacket, resting on the edge of the seatbelt. Because the jacket was too big, the collar was bunched up around his chin, hiding half of his face, leaving only the tip of his nose visible.

The light inside the car was dim, with only faint glimmers from the distant streetlights, just enough for Kaelen to make out Xie Fengshi's silhouette.

The low light was just right. Anything brighter would have shattered the stillness of the moment and the unguarded relaxation on Xie Fengshi's face.

Kaelen remembered the first time he had seen Xie Fengshi—on that dim lane, the young man standing in the glow of the car headlights, surrounded by five people, without the slightest flinch. When he looked over, those eyes carried vigilance, confusion, and couldn't hide his curiosity.

Given his position, Kaelen was never short of people from all walks of life—ambitious, calculating, those who knew how to advance and retreat, those who understood boundaries. They approached him openly or in secret, every interaction carefully calculated.

Xie Fengshi was different. Xie Fengshi didn't do calculations. When he was kind to others, it was simply kind—no expectation of return, no weighing of gains and losses. He just did things without thinking twice; he didn't even think he was doing anything special.

In Kaelen's line of sight, Xie Fengshi stirred in his sleep, burrowing deeper into the jacket, leaving only the tip of his ear, pink, exposed.

Back then, Kaelen hadn't answered Isaac's question—not that he didn't want to, but he hadn't figured out how to answer. For him, it was no longer a question of "whether" but of "how much."

Kaelen had never felt this way about anyone before. It wasn't impulse, nor possession, nor the urgency of needing an immediate response. He couldn't quite describe it himself. If he had to put it into words, it was like the moon over Charles Bridge that night—silently falling onto the river, it just hung there, not needing anything back.

He wanted to take this person out of that cramped little room, to let him know there were so many beautiful sights in the world. He wanted to see Xie Fengshi's eyes squint slightly when he ate something delicious, to hear his occasional strange metaphors when he talked, and more than anything, to tap on his shell when he shrank into it, to tell him that the outside was safe.

Kaelen took a deep breath, then slowly let it out.

Inside the car, it was quiet. Two sets of breaths mingled—one light, one heavy; one shallow, one deep.

When Kaelen was a child, he had asked his mother why the moon was sometimes round and sometimes crescent-shaped. His mother said the moon was always round; it's just that sometimes the earth's shadow blocked part of it, so we see less of it. But the moon itself never changes—it's always there, whole.

He felt that Xie Fengshi was the same. This person had experienced some things, and those things were like a shadow blocking part of him. He curled up in his shell, afraid to think too far ahead, afraid to want too much, thinking it was already good enough just to stay steady.

But underneath that shell, that person was whole—he just didn't know it.

The wind picked up outside. Kaelen glanced at the time—almost eleven. He couldn't wait any longer. If he did, these two would end up sleeping in the car for the night.

Still, he couldn't help looking for two more seconds. Just two seconds, really.

"Feng Shi."

Xie Fengshi didn't move. Kaelen called again, "Feng Shi."

Xie Fengshi's eyelashes fluttered. He opened his eyes groggily, his eyes unfocused, landing vaguely on Kaelen's face. "Are we there?"

"We're here," Kaelen said.

Xie Fengshi blinked and finally focused. He saw Kaelen's face close to his, those blue eyes holding an expression he couldn't read. He realized a beat later the jacket draped over him wasn't his.

Xie Fengshi straightened up. The jacket slipped off his shoulders, and he quickly reached out to catch it. "Your jacket?"

"Mm."

"I fell asleep again. Why didn't you wake me?"

"You were sleeping soundly."

Xie Fengshi clutched the jacket, the fabric slipping through his fingers, still carrying Kaelen's usual woody cologne—just the faintest lingering note.

"Thanks," Xie Fengshi said, handing the jacket back.

Kaelen took it, and their fingers inevitably brushed, a light touch.

Xie Fengshi glanced at Isaac, who was fast asleep. "What about him?"

Isaac was still asleep, his posture having gone from curled up to half-reclining. Kaelen got out, walked around to the back door, and opened it. He patted his brother on the shoulder. "Isaac, we're here."

Isaac mumbled something without opening his eyes. "Five more minutes."

"You've been asleep for half an hour."

"Five more minutes."

Kaelen sighed, leaned in, and hauled his brother out of the seat. Isaac lurched forward, his head bumping against Kaelen's shoulder. He pried his eyes open a crack. "Are we there?"

"We're here."

"Oh." Isaac rubbed his eyes and climbed out of the car.

Xie Fengshi also pushed open the door and stepped out. The night breeze hit him, and the last of his sleepiness melted away.

He walked around to the back of the car and saw Isaac hanging off Kaelen bonelessly like a koala, his blond hair a mess, eyes half-open, still mumbling indistinctly.

Xie Fengshi asked, "Can he walk?"

Kaelen glanced at his brother, who was clinging to him like a koala. "He can. He's just being lazy."

At this, Isaac lifted his head from Kaelen's shoulder, forcing his eyes open a slit. "I'm tired."

"No kidding."

"Then stop nagging."

Kaelen let go, and Isaac wobbled for a moment before steadying himself. He shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket and strode toward the apartment building with his long legs. After a few steps, probably realizing no one was following, he looked back: "You two have anything else to say?"

Xie Fengshi tried to keep his voice steady: "What's there to say? It's late. Go upstairs and get some sleep."

Kaelen, under Isaac's gaze, cleared his throat lightly: "You go up first."

Isaac was too sleepy to care—his brother was fine here anyway. He went straight upstairs, and soon a door slammed shut.

Xie Fengshi leaned against the car door, making no move to leave. Kaelen didn't rush him either. They stood half an arm's length apart, neither speaking. A distant car passed, its headlights sweeping over them before fading, stretching their shadows, then swallowing them up.

Kaelen said, "You should head up."

"Mm." Xie Fengshi acknowledged but didn't move. His peripheral vision caught Kaelen's hand hanging at his side—the same hand that had shielded him from the car door frame earlier.

"Kaelen." Xie Fengshi turned his head and saw the streetlamp light falling from an angle, cutting a clear line of light and shadow across Kaelen's face. His blue eyes looked exceptionally dark in the dimness. "Back in the car—how long were you looking at me?"

Kaelen froze for a moment, but wasn't flustered at being caught: "You noticed."

Xie Fengshi brushed the windblown hair from his eyes, the gesture impatient, but his tone wasn't: "I woke up at the first sound of your voice."

"Then why didn't you open your eyes?"

Xie Fengshi answered honestly: "I don't know. Maybe I wanted to see what you'd do."

Kaelen stepped half a pace closer, closing the distance. Xie Fengshi could even feel the warmth radiating from Kaelen's body. Kaelen lowered his head, his voice coming from above: "And what did I do?"

Xie Fengshi tilted his face up—the angle fully exposed the line of his neck to Kaelen's view, his Adam's apple moving slightly as he spoke: "You didn't do anything."

"Did you want me to do something?" The question was so direct that Xie Fengshi's ears began to burn. Kaelen's gaze moved from his eyes to the tip of his nose, then to his lips, and finally back to his eyes. The process was slow—so slow that Xie Fengshi felt every inch of his skin could sense the warmth of that gaze.

"You..." "I..." They both spoke at the same time and stopped.

"You first," Xie Fengshi said.

"When you made your wish earlier, was one of them about me?"

Xie Fengshi stood still, feeling like even his heartbeat was audible to Kaelen: "Yes."

Kaelen's breath hitched for half a beat. Xie Fengshi looked up, the light from the streetlamp shattering the light in his eyes into tiny fragments: "My wish was that from now on, I'd always have someone to eat with."

Hearing this, Kaelen couldn't help but laugh. The mask of aristocratic aloofness fell away completely, revealing the genuine softness beneath. When he laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly, and faint lines appeared at the sides of his nose. He had stepped off a magazine cover to become an ordinary person laughing with his eyes curved because of a single sentence.

He couldn't help asking, "What kind of wish is that?"

Xie Fengshi replied earnestly, "A very important one. Eating alone makes it really easy to just grab something quick, but when someone's with you, it's different. You'll at least eat a bit more."

The amusement in Kaelen's eyes deepened: "Are you saying you want to eat with me?"

Xie Fengshi was a bit annoyed at having the question turned back on him: "I'm saying you should eat proper meals. You always..."

Xie Fengshi's unfinished words were cut off by Kaelen's action.

Kaelen's movement was actually very slow—slow enough that Xie Fengshi had plenty of time to dodge. But he didn't. He let Kaelen's hand land on the top of his head, gently brushing away the tousled hair. His fingertips glided from his temple to his ear, finally settling behind it. His slightly cool palm pressed against Xie Fengshi's cheek.

Kaelen's palm was bigger than Xie Fengshi had imagined. When his fingers closed, they could cover most of his face. He was as gentle as if holding something fragile, his thumb rubbing across his cheekbone—a tenderness impossible to hide.

"Feng Shi, I heard your wish."

Something snapped in Xie Fengshi's mind.

He took half a step back. Kaelen's hand slid from his face, falling to his side. Xie Fengshi lowered his head, his bangs hiding half his face, leaving only his red ears and tightly pressed lips visible: "I'm going up first."

"Okay."

Xie Fengshi turned and took two steps, then stopped. He looked back to see Kaelen still standing there: "Are you coming next week?"

"Do you want me to come?"

"I'm asking you."

"If you ask me to, I'll come."

Xie Fengshi shot him a glare—one that carried little menace, the warmth still lingering at the corners of his eyes, making it look more like playful reproach: "Then come."

With that, he strode quickly into the stairwell.

Kaelen stood there for a long time before finally putting his hands into his pockets. The warmth of Xie Fengshi's cheek still lingered in his palm.

---

The next morning, Xie Fengshi woke up before his alarm did.

Outside, the sky was still dim. Xie Fengshi lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a while before sitting up to wash his face.

He looked fine in the mirror—he was in good spirits. He had tossed and turned until late last night, but luckily there were no signs of sleep deprivation on his face, just a slight redness in the corners of his eyes, probably because he hadn't slept enough.

Xie Fengshi spat out the foam from his mouth and stared at himself in the mirror for two seconds. Suddenly, he remembered: last night, when Kaelen's hand touched his cheek, he unconsciously leaned his head slightly into Kaelen's palm. Though the movement was tiny—so tiny that he only realized it now.

He wasn't sure if Kaelen had felt it.

Given Kaelen's powers of observation, he definitely had. That man could even remember the dishes he took two extra bites of—how could he not feel that slight tilt and brush against his palm?