And, well. If Cui-mama wanted her number to stay decorative, she wouldn't have plugged it into Jin San's phone the moment she decided they had earned the dubious honour of being one of Huanyi's chosen regulars. Nor would she have constructed a reputation as ostentatious nightlife host-cum-den mother for every cracking egg hitting Changping's pavement.

Tang Fan is susceptible to long jaunts into his own self-preoccupation at the very best of times, as is needless to say, but waiting brings out the worst of his whiling.

"You would not hurt me," is what he says, careful, caged in. "You could never hurt me."

This, they have argued to a stalemate of irreconcilable disagreement; could so continue to press in unwinnability until the Heavens broke open overhead and the mountains crashed down astride them. But Sui Zhou serves to live as much as a man as he does a blade, and in that he is long intimated with the lay of blame for a tool in the wield of a hand.

"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.

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.

"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.

It is a hurt, but it is one Sui Zhou asked for — a want he put into words and left in Tang Fan's hands to make what he willed of it.

Tang Fan has only grown wilder for and weaker to Sui Zhou in the years since they first met, when he made a home of this house and then the very man within it.

"Tang da-ge," she presses, trying to reel him back for a final snatch of constructive conversation before he sets off into the wilderness of his own head again, "who was that handsome gentleman?"

"So familiar." Tang Fan's preening at her address persists as far as them both toeing over the threshold before the smug smile falls flat from his face. Then, "Wait," he starts, craning so far to toss a look over his shoulder that he ends up twisting himself around in a circle. "What— what handsome gentleman?"