More importantly, and to the point: it turns out that there’s no seamless way to go about asking for what you want. There’s really not. Especially and definitely if you're trying for sexy. And Kuan-hung has tried for sexy, he has tried very hard, and very determinedly, for sexy, in all the dress rehearsals he’s run through in his head. But no dice. He's not living in a webnovel.

Maybe it’s that aligning constellation of vulnerabilities that drives him to be that bit more honest, to give that bit more over of something he’s not even sure as to the whole shape of, let alone its potential; its consequence. “You could keep going. If I fall asleep again. You know?”

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.

And this is the thing: Kuan-hung's not busy, and he's sure enough to think that they both know it without his saying so. But he gives a little rolling shrug of his shoulders, anyway, with his limited range of motion, and answers, "I'm not," because he can. And, "Can't you take care of yourself?"

"If you have a choice in not having a choice about coming,” Fu Meng-po says, eyebrows cocked out from behind the frame of his sunglasses, “then it's not a kidnapping."

“You’re not fun,” Kuan-hung complains. “At all.”