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“The Rainy Day Club?” Huaisang tries to mask his distaste, because he is a mature adult who can do nice things for children, especially on their birthday, but Jiang Cheng knows him too well. He puts some more strawberries on Huaisang’s plate and tops up his coffee.
“Based on a book series that is apparently all the rage among the under tens,” Jiang Cheng says. He pours a bit of cream into his coffee and holds it up for Huaisang, who waves it away. “Well, it’s Sizhui’s favorite series right now. Jingyi and Jin Ling are still working through Xichen’s Calvin and Hobbes collection, and Zizhen has informed me that he will only be reading poetry from now on.”
Huaisang cocks an eyebrow. “Really?”
“‘I have a soul, Mister Uncle Jiang,’” Jiang Cheng says, clutching his hands over his heart.
Huaisang has to admit, Jiang Cheng’s impression of young Ouyang Zizhen is spot on. He puts another steamed pork bun on Jiang Cheng’s plate and eats some of his strawberries. “But why are we taking the sprouts to a movie?”
Jiang Cheng sighs. “Because I foolishly swore an oath to my dear nephew Sizhui that I would take him out on a special excursion for his birthday.” He gives Huaisang a sheepish grin. “I was expecting the science museum and ice cream. I should have been more suspicious when Wei Ying was so gleeful as he set this up.”
“And I’m going because?”
“You love me?”
“Someday, that’s not going to work, A-Cheng.”
“Lies,” Jiang Cheng says as reaches for Huaisang’s hand to kiss. “It will always work.”
“It will.” Huaisang permits himself to be kissed. “But I expect recompense.” He stands and begins to clear away the breakfast dishes, but Jiang Cheng catches him around the waist and pulls Huaisang into his lap.
Jiang Cheng kisses Huaisang’s forehead. “Of course, my darling, dearest, favorite husband. Whatever you wish. I keep my promises.”
“Fiiiiiine.” Huaisang extracts himself from Jiang Cheng’s embrace and tugs his shirt back into place. “When are we going?”
Jiang Cheng rubs the back of his neck. “This afternoon?”
“A-Cheng!” Huaisang whacks Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. “You owe me so much. Mark your words.”
“They’re marked, they’re marked!” he says, dodging Huaisang. He catches Huaisang’s hand and kisses it again. “I promise, tonight I will make up for whatever indignities you endure this afternoon.”
It takes some wrangling, but they buy snacks for the boys — kiddie combo trays with a small soda, popcorn, and some sort of candy — and find seats. Jingyi and Jin Ling want to sit right up front, Jiang Cheng insists on the back row, and Sizhui, the best of them all, Huaisang thinks fondly, convinces them to sit in the center.
The movie isn’t as terrible as Huaisang feared. The story centers on a group of four pre-teens who live in a town where it rains, inexplicably, every Saturday and only Saturday, so they meet up at the crumbling Victorian house where Hazel, one of the youths, lives, and hang out in her attic, discussing the improbably numerous mysteries that crop up in their seaside down. Huaisang thinks the whole set up would work better as a proper gothic horror story, but the kiddos seem to be enjoying themselves. Jin Ling and Jingyi have only fought over their shared armrest once. Zizhen is smitten with the young actor playing Eglantine, the tomboyish leader and snack provider of the group.
And Jiang Cheng bought Huaisang the largest tub of popcorn available. Movie theater popcorn, with extra butter flavor, is one of Huaisang’s greatest vices. He would sit through just about any film if he could shovel popcorn in his mouth and lick the savory, salty flavor from his fingers.
So of course, something goes wrong.
The matinee crowd is thin, but there are a good twenty other patrons in the theater. The action on screen has slowed as Hazel and her father sit at their kitchen table, drinking cocoa and talking about Hazel’s deceased mother — always with the deceased mothers! — when Zizhen, who is sitting to Huaisang’s right, yelps as though he’s been bitten.
Jiang Cheng hisses a warning to be quiet, but Huaisang can see Zizhen rub his cheek.
“What’s wrong?” Huaisang whispers.
“My tooth!” Zizhen wails. Several more people shush him, but Zizhen pays them no heed.
Huaisang reaches around to pull Zizhen in closer. “Your tooth?”
Zizhen nods. “It broke!”
Huaisang winces sympathetically. He’s nearly cracked a tooth on an unpopped kernel before. “Are you sure it broke, or does it just hurt?”
Zizhen holds out his hand and spits, and a small white thing lands on his palm and then falls to the floor. “Oh no!” Zizhen drops his snack tray and scrambles out of his seat to crawl around on the floor. “Oh no, oh no!”
“Zizhen! Get up off the floor! It’s filthy!” Huaisang’s horrified whisper carries over to Jiang Cheng, but Huaisang waves him off. “Come on, kiddo. Get up.”
“I need my tooth!” Zizhen holds up something. “Is this it?”
Huaisang squints in the dim light cast from the screen. “That’s popcorn.”
“Oh no!” Zizhen ducks back down and comes up with another white thing. “What about this?”
“Still popcorn. Zizhen, come on—“
“Oh noooo, ohnononono!” Zizhen, on hands and knees, retrieves four more bits of popcorn and a green M&M. “I need my tooth, Mister Uncle, I need it!”
“Gimme a sec!”
“Zizhen lost a tooth?” Jingyi peers around Jiang Cheng. “I’ll help!”
“No, Jingyi—“ Jiang Cheng sputters as Jingyi shoves his snack tray into Jiang Cheng’s hands and falls to the floor to join the hunt.
“Hey!” Jin Ling draws his legs up and spills some of his popcorn. “Watch it!”
Sizhui frowns and leans forward to concentrate on the movie.
“Huaisang, what the f—udge is going on?” Jiang Cheng looks back at a fussy patron a few rows behind them. “Oh, relax!” he says.
The man quails and fixes his gaze on the screen after catching Jiang Cheng’s glare.
Huaisang shoves his popcorn into Jiang Cheng’s hand and hauls Zizhen up by the arm. “Come on.”
“My toooooooth!” Zizhen wails.
“We’ll be back,” Huaisang tells Jiang Cheng, who is busy grabbing Jingyi and pulling him off the floor. Huaisang tugs Zizhen, but the boy digs in his heels, so he picks him up. Sure, Zizhen is almost as tall as he is, even at nine years old, but Huaisang is deceptively strong, and Zizhen’s shock at being picked up like a misbehaving puppy silences him until they are in the hall outside the theater.
Huaisang sets Zizhen down and takes his arm to prevent him from dashing back in.
“Zizhen,” he says, voice pitched low, “kiddo, hey, look at me.”
Zizhen gulps a breath and looks at Huaisang. Tears flow freely, and Huaisang loosens his grip slightly when he realizes something is really wrong.
“Okay, deep breath. Can you breathe with me?”
Zizhen nods, and they take four deep, slow breaths together. Huaisang looks him over and grimaces as he sees bits of popcorn and trash stuck to Zizhen’s hands and knees.
“Okay, good. Let’s go get you cleaned up in the bathroom.”
“But my tooth?” Zizhen’s voice wobbles.
“It’s probably gone, buddy, but, um, I can write a note? For the tooth fairy?” Huaisang is starting to freak out a bit himself when Zizhen wails again. He takes Zizhen’s hand and leads him to the restrooms. He remembers losing a tooth at school, and losing the tooth in the grass, when he was a kid, and Mingjue tricked him with a note for the tooth fairy. “It’s gonna be okay,” Huaisang says as Zizhen sobs. “I promise. I’m sure we—“
“Tooth fairies aren’t real!” Zizhen cries. “It’s the puppet!”
“The pup—? Okay, okay, let’s get you cleaned up and calmed down, and then we’ll figure out what we need to do.”
Zizhen continues to cry, but he allows Huaisang to take him into the bathroom and stands still while Huaisang wets some paper towels and starts to clean him up. He gets Zizhen to open his mouth to check the tooth — maybe a broken piece is hurting him? But no, there’s a gap on the upper right where his canine used to be. The gap looks clean, so it’s likely the kernel he crunched knocked the already-loose tooth out.
“Does your mouth hurt?” Huaisang asks.
Zizhen shakes his head. “I need to find my tooth!”
“Why? You don’t believe in tooth fairies. Why do you need a gross old tooth?”
“Nainai said that demonic cultivators will take a little piece of you, like a fingernail or a tooth and use it to turn you into a puppet!” Zizhen draws a gulping breath and wails “I don’t wanna be a puppet!”
Huaisang crouches down and places his hands firmly on Zizhen’s shoulders. “Hey. Hey! Young Master Ouyang! Look at me!”
Zizhen swallows down his cries and sniffles.
“That’s better.” Huaisang squeezes Zizhen’s shoulders gently. “First of all, your nainai is right, but do you think Jiang Cheng or I would take you kids to a place frequented by demonic cultivators?”
Zizhen shakes his head. “N-no, but Nainai said demonic cultivators are crafty.”
“That’s also true. But Zizhen, my little duckling, we are solidly in Lan territory. Who — besides Wei Wuxian,” Huaisang says, cutting off Zizhen’s too-shrewd observation, “would dare attempt to even read about demonic cultivation when both Zewu-jun and Hanguang-jun are around? Not to mention Grand Master Lan, and Sandu Sengshou? And,” Huaisang adds, preening a bit, “me? Who survived the bite of a measuring snake when I was a kid? Huh? Who’s going to take us on?”
“No one?”
“Damn right, no one.” Huaisang takes a clean handkerchief from his jacket pocket and hands it to Zizhen. “Now, let’s go and wash your face, rinse out your mouth, and then we’ll go back and watch the rest of the movie. And after the movie is done, we’ll ask the theater manager to turn the lights on so we can find your tooth. I promise, neither Jiang Cheng nor I will let anyone turn you into a puppet, okay?”
Zizhen nods vigorously and throws his arms around Huaisang’s neck. “Thank you, Mister Uncle Huaisang.”
“You’re welcome,” Huaisang says, patting the boy’s back. “Now, come on. Let's get cleaned up and go back in.”
Huaisang hates to admit it, but he’s a little sad that he had to take Zizhen out because they apparently missed some important plot point, but when they sit back down, Zizhen curls up against him and clings to his hand as he looks over his shoulder every two seconds, certain that demonic cultivators are lurking despite Huaisang’s reassurance, so it takes the rest of Huaisang’s concentration to eat the rest of his popcorn.
Lan Jingyi, canny little gremlin that he is, finds Zizhen’s tooth within minutes of the theater lights coming on, and he presents the trophy to his friend with a flourish. They tie it up in Huaisang’s handkerchief, and Zizhen clutches it tightly the entire ride home.
Surprisingly, Jiang Cheng doesn’t laugh as Huaisang recounts the story that night as they prepare for bed.
“We should teach the nuggets to be more careful,” he says. He looks at his hairbrush and the long black strands caught up in its bristles.
“A-Cheng, are you kidding me?” Huaisang presses against Jiang Cheng’s back and wraps his arms around his waist. “Next thing you know, we’ll all be burning our hair and nail clippings.”
Jiang Cheng turns and leans against the sink, settling Huaisang more comfortably in his arms. “Maybe we should?”
Huaisang looks up at Jiang Cheng and is surprised to see his husband’s expression is serious. “Come on,” he says, poking Jiang Cheng lightly in the stomach, “da-ge is the most cautious of us all, and even he would think you’re being a worry-wart.”
“Probably,” Jiang Cheng admits, but his expression doesn’t clear.
“What is it?”
Jiang Cheng shrugs and kisses the top of Huaisang’s head. “Likely nothing.”
“But you’re worried.”
“Not worried,” Jiang Cheng says, “not about anything specific. I don’t know.” He hugs Huaisang tightly. “I’ve had a weird feeling lately, when we’re out on night hunts.” He kisses Huaisang again. “I’m sure it’s nothing. But it got me thinking about how we protect ourselves. Like maybe we could be doing more?”
“A-Cheng.”
Jiang Cheng sighs. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“But—“
“But I owe you,” Jiang Cheng interrupts. He’s smiling now, and there’s only a hint of shadow in his eyes. “Thank you for helping. Zizhen’s mother texted. Apparently Zizhen went on and on about how smart and brave you are and how he wants to be just like you when he grows up.”
“Lies and flattery,” Huaisang says, accepting Jiang Cheng’s deflection for now. He takes Jiang Cheng’s hand and pulls him into the bedroom. “But I’d like to hear more about my bravery and intelligence and just generally all my amazing qualities.”
Jiang Cheng picks Huaisang up and tosses him, laughing, onto the bed. “Mark your words.”