Tang Fan is not a simple man, by any means. But, for all his complexities, the way to his heart and centre is an unwinding journey, once opened.

Sui Zhou knows the mood Tang Fan will return home beneath the clouds of, albeit half as much because he knows the man as he does the magistracy. So, come afternoon, he has kept busy, lading his bench with all he needs: chopped onion, cubed gourd, slivered chives. Bamboo shoots, shucked and sliced. Rice, rinsed by hand to the grain. Dished soy sauce and water; pork he did not mind paying what he is sure was too much for at the market. He lights the stove, next, then sets the wok over its low flame, its oiled iron gleaming with a yolky sheen.

Tang Fan returns home, punctual to his expectation. At the signal of the scattering slam of the front gates, Sui Zhou sets the potted rice over the naked flame, then takes his knife back in hand. The pork is a plum blossom cut, lean pink meat marbled by speckled fat, streaky white tendon. He does not venture out to greet Tang Fan, nor does he even so much as look up from his working hands. Watching, instead, the sink of his blade through the suppled flesh, how each petaled slice unfurls outward, dainty and thread-thin.

He can picture how Tang Fan must look, anyway, with long-knowing clarity: from wild-wide eyes and riled red cheeks to the sneer of his mouth around his muttering. The fist of his hands at his sides to the stomp of his boots over stone, skirts lashing at his heels like a river coursing a storm. Afire with an irritation that could bode ruinous, if left to burn unchecked.

Sui Zhou could go to him now; wash his hands, douse the stove. Leave the meat to sit and the rice and oil to set as he trods the well-worn trek to Tang Fan's room. That would be nothing, for him, to do. He knows how he would find Tang Fan there, too: fussing and fumbling with buttons, ties, clasps. Sui Zhou's intrusion, once noticed, would spur his rants to heights befitting their acquisition of an audience. He could slip into Tang Fan's very space, fall in to his step. Brush his hands away from his collar or sash, and take it upon himself to strip him of his robes, slow, indulging in every revelation. Kiss his complaints from his mouth until he's panting around Sui Zhou's tongue, hands trembling weakly at his waist, over his back. His every thought scattered to the moment, the day's vexations forgotten about.

Another time, perhaps. It will keep until then. Sui Zhou layers the pork into the sauce, mixing it with his chopsticks as the oil begins to spit. It is when he has fed the last of the slices into the oil that Tang Fan rounds over the threshold. Whatever exclamation he's parted his mouth around doesn't come, delayed if not allayed by all the sights and smells reminding him of his ever-pressing hunger.

"It will be ready soon," is Sui Zhou's promise, only further affirmed by the crackling hiss of the wok. The fire has body to it, now, and the pork has begun to brown, so Sui Zhou starts to pour the sauce in over it, then the water. Tang Fan makes an approving noise, and soon the kitchen is filled with the percussion of his presence, scuffing footsteps and scraping wood as he drags a chair close to the bench and sets up vigil.

"Good," Tang Fan says, "good." Out from the corner of his eye, Sui Zhou watches Tang Fan fold his arms, elbows propped to the bench, head listing lazily towards his shoulder. Sui Zhou tosses in the onion, then the chives, folding them through as Tang Fan teeters forward in his seat. He sniffs, audibly, then sighs on his exhale.

"The day I've had, Sui Zhou," Tang Fan exclaims. "You would not believe it if I told you."

He then proceeds to do precisely that, while Sui Zhou tips the gourd and bamboo shoots into the wok and gives it all a thorough stir, humming as he does in the right places. It is not as if he is not paying attention — Tang Fan occupies his quite fully, in any passing thought and at any given hour — but this is a rote nuisance, now, owed to this life's meritorious monotony. Tang Fan is an excellent magistrate, with a character as suited to service as it is needed for Ming's auspice, but it is exactly this that sees him in constant friction with his peers. So his days are filled with arguing circles around men who fashion themselves smart, being so swamped with paperwork that he cannot take his meals when and as he wants them, and seeing far too little of Sui Zhou for his liking. Even a man as verbose and lyrical as Tang Fan eventually loses the thread of new words to describe the same thing.

Sui Zhou pinches a splinter of pork in his chopsticks, lifting it to his mouth to blow gently against the curling wisp of steam. When Tang Fan next pauses his tirade to take a breath, Sui Zhou seizes upon it to interject. "Try it," he says, holding it out between them.

Tang Fan cranes for it at once, lips parted, and Sui Zhou slides the pork in to rest it on the flat of his tongue. He feels the click of Tang Fan's teeth around the wood as he withdraws, the tugged beginnings of his swallow. Tang Fan's eyes flutter closed as he moans softly, tilting his chin in a way Sui Zhou knows will chart through the entirety of him, from a shivery arch in his back to a curl of his toes.

"How is it?" Sui Zhou asks, already having his answer.

"So tender," he praises, still chewing. "Shoulder?" He touches his fingers to his lips as he swallows, which does little to hide the work of his throat or how he does not wait for Sui Zhou's response before he presses on. "It's perfect."

"Then here." Sui Zhou plucks out another slice of pork. Tang Fan finds an inch more between them, somehow, to lean forward, his smile broadening. Then, a thought must catch, for his lips purse and his brow furrows.

"You are distracting me," he accuses.

"I wouldn't dare to," says Sui Zhou, furling his hand against Tang Fan's jaw. Tang Fan makes a tight sound, whiny on its trail, before he demurs and opens his mouth. His cheek is warm against the fan of Sui Zhou's fingers, the skin still mottled pink. Sui Zhou doubts, though, that Tang Fan's fluster is still frustration, at least not entirely.

"How much longer?" he asks when he is done, gaze falling just shy of Sui Zhou's own.

"Almost." Sui Zhou lets his hand fall from Tang Fan's face with great reluctance, fingers trailing the column of his neck, the lapel of his collar. "There will be rice, as well." Best to refocus.

"Hm," is all Tang Fan offers back. But he does not himself return to where he last left his regalement, choosing instead to rest his chin against his palm, and his contemplation upon Sui Zhou. Content enough, it seems, to grow into the liminal quiet budding their kitchen.

Tang Fan is not a simple man, by any means. But, for all his complaints, the way to abate his ailments is through the easiest of remedies. Good food, soft touch, companionable talk. Such small asks. Each and all a tenderness Sui Zhou shows him gladly, will give over to excess with his every opportunity. His life's great fortune, that chance. A promise to their future together, long to last.