"Tang Fan," she starts carefully.
Tang Fan has no such concern. "Sui Zhou," is her counter. She dumps their bag at her feet, where its gaped mouth is swiftly fed her belt and chopsticks. "Your poor delicate Qing'er," she complains. "I will find a man and his wife to show me the pity here that you won't."
After— after. When Tang Fan is home, and safe, Sui Zhou sees to it that he is comfortable, then moves to take leave of his imposition.
Just as it is apt for Sui Zhou to invite him, he has grown adept at telling what it is that he is inviting. This Tang Fan is real, tonight, and so Sui Zhou goes with him all the way into waking.
Surely in a world so vast there lie yet stones unturned— slippery things smalled for his spindling fingers to unearth.
With their house's liveliness lapsed to quiet, and the looming summer rain hanging heavy in the air, Tang Fan seizes upon a temptingly rare proposition of opportunity.
Tang Fan is not a simple man, by any means.
It feels too honest, somehow. Too desperate. Kuan-hung's too thinned out by the hour, exposed in the liminal space between his dream and now that's still folding closed, scarring over. He rubs his cheek against his pillow, ducking his head down lower, as if he can creep closer to Fu Meng-po's voice. As if there's a body nearby to press himself into, if he just reaches far enough for it.
Given such a tender gift, how can Seimei not tease him?
It makes little sense for Tang Fan to continue to take his suppressants, after everything, so of course he stops doing that.
"Do you still need to be told?" he teases, reaching up between them to path his finger across the pattering pulse in Sui Zhou's throat. "I thought I had you taught."
"No," Sui Zhou assures him. He does not.