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Chapter Text

Maomao: A hobby Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) herbalist, but when you've spent your entire life in an apprenticeship under a world-renowned doctor and TCM practitioner, no wonder she's good as certified. Accountant by profession for practicality's sake, currently using her accountancy knowledge to solve various cases as a forensic accountant under the office of the CEO (and the COO - whoever he is). Has a soft spot for Jinshi, but like hell are you going to hear that out of her.

"Jinshi": So beautiful that the sheer mention of his face makes grown adults cry, but outside of work, so clumsy that it puts baby lambs to shame. As "Jinshi", pretends to be General Assistant to the CEO - he wasn't supposed to be using that name for this long, but since Maomao likes calling him that, he can't find it in him to correct her anymore. Actually the COO and unwilling heir to Ka Corporate Holdings.

You: The charming CEO and president of Ka Corporate Holdings. Has the softest spots in his heart for Jinshi and his fiancée Ahduo, and will go along with anything they ask of him, but you wouldn't think it, with how much of a haughty man's man he appears to be. Has no idea why Jinshi insists they need a forensic accountant for his special team, but trusts his judgment anyway.

Ahduo: An even more charming CEO and president of her own trading company, Obsidian Trading Partners. Despite landing into more 40 under 40 lists than she can possibly count, still thinks of herself as a traveling merchant, does not realize she can sell ice to Antarctica with how efficient (hint hint dazzling) she is. One of her biggest projects is a TCM franchise she works on with a certain Shi Suirei.

Loulan: One of Maomao's friends, a boisterous girl who works in Ka Corporate's mailroom. Actually one of the Shi family's heiresses who ran away from home. Loves binge-reading encyclopedias, illustrating bugs, and building herself up her own little posse.

Rikuson: A handsome, mysterious guy who works under the La Agricultural Group. Enjoys reminding people that he and Maomao were joined at the hip for some years in her childhood, and has yet to fully understand that this was only because he smelled like TCM ingredients back then.

Suirei: One of the chief TCM herbalists under an ongoing Obsidian Trading Partners project, and Loulan's beloved, beleaguered elder sister. Distantly related to the Ka family and ends up being sheltered by their main branch (Jinshi, You, and let's be real, Ahduo), due to circumstances beyond her control.

Xiaolan: One of Maomao's friends, a cheerful girl who works in Ka Corporate's sales department. Sweet and meek, but has a finger on the pulse of every piece of gossip in the company's rumor mill. Met Maomao when she helped her make sense of a contract in English.

Chapter Text

The message wasn't for him in the first place, but he's the one who's there to receive it through the Jade Palace's customer support email:

>>be careful of next shipment

>>new stocks replaced with poison.

Jinshi was not supposed to stay 'Jinshi' for this long, but the boss took this case on as a favor to one of Big Sister Ahduo's junior from college, so here he still is, working as an errand boy under this company's new CEO. Gyokuyou is pretty with a sweet smile but the sharp eyes scrutinizing the anonymous tip in front of them tells Jinshi that there's a reason why she took on the family business, not her brother. So when she turned to him and cheerily asked if he could trace down this mysterious sender for her, what else can he do but say "yes, ma'am"?

Which leads to him now, at an accounting conference, his usual smile shining brightly on his face as he finds her, at last. Jade Palace's anonymous savior, Gyokuyou's potential hire, Jinshi's current target.

"I said, I don't know what the hell you're talking about...sir." The accountant says, holding the conference's complimentary binder to her chest like a shield as she averts her gaze. It's full of paper handouts from the speakers, Jinshi's slides amongst them. It was the startled look on her face as he did his report that let him know that he'd hit jackpot, she was the one he'd been looking for.

She's a slip of a girl, her head barely even past Jinshi's shoulders, but something about the way she looks at him tells him that it would be a mistake to underestimate her now. She and Jinshi may have this empty hallway to themselves, but he shouldn't go with his base urge to just throw her over her shoulder and bring her to Gyokuyou - somehow, he feels she deserves better treatment than that.

So in lieu of outright kidnapping, Jinshi decides he's going to talk his way into this.

"The Jade Palace is indebted to you," he says, giving her a small bow. "They were able to confiscate the stocks before they hit the market, and the supplier had been sued for negligence. The CEO extends their thanks."

There's a split-second of a moment where the accountant's eyes soften into something that could be best called relief, and it's that moment before she blinks back her eyes into a look of cool indifference that gives her completely away, in case Jinshi needed even more proof to implicate her. He smiles wider.

"I...wouldn't know why the Young Lady would do that." The girl says, a flush high on her cheekbones as she tries to evade Jinshi's gaze, the awkward set of her mouth telling him that it's more out of frustration than embarrassment. But her choice of words tells Jinshi one thing: She knows about the CEO change. That was supposed to be a secret until next month, and yet she was able to find out so soon. Jinshi can't help but wonder, what other mysteries can she possibly unearth, if she was given more data to play with?

"I would understand why she would be so grateful...hypothetically speaking." Jinshi takes one step forward. She takes one step back.

Interesting. Not to sound his own horn, but Jinshi had always known that he has a face that makes people want to instinctively move closer to him - and yet she doesn't want to. Is it because he's interrogating her? Is it because she's in an unfamiliar environment? Or is he simply, impossibly, not her type? It's been a while since Jinshi had encountered something this intriguing.

"Hypothetically speaking, huh." She raises an eyebrow at his wording, but there's a curiosity in her gaze that lets Jinshi know she wants to hear the rest of this. "...how?"

"Look at it this way...if someone were to be working for the supplier and notice a sudden big shipment, without the equivalent decrease in stock, at the same time they notice a big, suspicious influx in capital, they would raise some alarms, don't you think? Hypothetically speaking." Jinshi smiles, pretending to rifle through the papers he's holding, before setting them down on the ornate table beside him. "Especially if said supplier has some past history with certain...unsavory types. Types that would not be above bribing a trusted name in the business to make sure they help bring one of their oldest customers down."

"Hypothetically speaking," the girl retorts, her arms crossed right over the binder over her chest, "Such a person would never. A thing like that would be above their pay grade, after all."

"Oh yes, I almost forgot the most important part. This person would have to be working freelance for the supplier. That means they get paid a per-project fee, and their pay would not be dependent on the operations of the company." She's lost in thought so doesn't step back in time to avoid Jinshi's next step forward; he takes the chance to move closer. "That also means that they would not be loyal enough to the company to let them get away with it."

When the girl raises her head in alarm, her eyes widen even more when she sees just how little space remains between her and Jinshi. She freezes in her tracks, like a cat found lounging where it shouldn't, and Jinshi knows Gyokuyou asked for his help to hire their anonymous whistleblower but the more he looked at her so startled like that - like no one had ever crept behind her defenses and surprised her that much - the more he wants to do otherwise.

Such a talent like her, capable of forecasting corporate sabotage with merely a freelancer's access to three separate financial documents, should be given more elaborate puzzles to complete.

And he knows exactly where she can get them.

With a well-practiced flourish, he hands her a business card. "I'm actually from Ka Corporate Holdings. Have you ever thought of becoming a forensic accountant?"

Hopefully she doesn't question the name and title on the card - Ka Zuigetsu, Chief Operating Officer.

Without looking at the card - while looking straight into his eyes - she takes his hand.

In the future, after everything is said and done, this is the moment where they can say that everything about this ever started.

Chapter Text

Jinshi, self-proclaimed General Assistant to the CEO, is honestly really getting on Maomao's nerves.

Yes she blindly followed his lead into Ka Corporate Holdings, because the title of forensic accountant sounded so fucking cool and interesting and the pay is amazing, but no that does not mean this is ever part of her job description.

A few days ago, Maomao had turned to Jinshi in their shared conference room and told him over the towers of documents which one of the executives was most likely part of the conspiracy they were investigating. Jinshi had grinned, told her that guy was holding some fancy party, and that he knew exactly how they were going to get more intel.

This all leads to where they are right now. They're in one fancy sparkly hotel room, barely sparklier than the man in front of her, and Suiren - Jinshi's full-time head maid, part-time costume provider, probably full-time meddling mom - had just stepped away with a smug grin on her face after dolling Maomao up with a fancy dress, heels, and so much makeup it made Big Sister Pairin's shopping hauls look like child's play. Jinshi - usually very sparkly and noisy, but today oddly subdued and quiet - is looking at Maomao with an unreadable expression. She decides not to think about that look so much, and instead focus on getting herself to stand back on her own feet.

She bites her tongue. These damned heels.

Luckily (or not), Jinshi catches her mid-stride before she lands with her face flat on the floor.

It is exactly now that Maomao realizes Suiren had just excused herself from the room.

Wait, sorry, please come back -

"I told you that you can hold onto my arm," he says, placing her clammy hand gingerly down on his surprisingly toned bicep. "I know you don't like heels, but they make the most sense, for your character right now."

"There had to be another way to do this undercover," Maomao seethes, as Jinshi chuckles beside her, fully expecting this complaint. "You could've waltzed in as your dumb stupid sparkly fancy-ass self and I could've pretended to be a waitstaff or your secretary or literally anything else and that would've still served the same purpose. We still could've both gotten in the banquet. My question is why on earth did you see me and think, ah I know what to do, let's make this human stick pretend to be my sparkly, equally fancy-ass date?"

Jinshi's cheeks stain a very suspicious red as he mulls over her question, which immediately tells Maomao she does not want to hear the kneejerk response in that damned brain. So she watches him attempt to collect himself, his hand over hers as he eases out the rest of his words.

"It's easier to move around a rich guy's party if we're both of equal status. Also, this would make it easier for us to share our thoughts in private, since I don't think they'll suspect a pair of...lovers, whispering into each other's ears."

She hates every bit of that shitty explanation, but she does hear Jinshi's voice come out a little choked over the first syllable of "lover", which feels like a little victory. Yes, you should feel awkward about this. Maomao always found it so weirdly satisfying when she got the chance to remind herself that the being in front of her is human, too, and the shadows of a grin begin to show on her face.

"Whatever you say, boss. Damn, sure do hope one of your rich groupies throw a fit tonight and poison my food so at least I'd get something fun out of this." Jinshi's face freezes into somewhere between a scream and a cry, and Maomao laughs in his face. "I'm joking. Boss, you have no chill."

Jinshi's pouting, and Maomao feels she's going to have a roaring headache by the end of this night.

"Not 'boss', remember? I said call me 'honey'--"

Maomao wants to throw up in her mouth, and she lets her usual poker face peel back a little bit to show him exactly that. Now it's Jinshi's turn to laugh. "Don't dole out a joke if you can't take it," he chides, his tone uncharacteristically childish. He laughs brightly even as a distressed sigh comes forth from deep within Maomao's soul. "See, this is all because you didn't want to call me 'Zuigetsu'. Now your only choices are all sappy pet names."

"Who is that guy anyway, and why did you say it was alright for us to use his invite to this meeting?" It's probably some irony that Maomao's eyes are busy watching her hand patting down the sleeve of Jinshi's suit, so she doesn't get to see the sheer panic blooming on her partner's face. "By the way, you said no one would, but...why would anyone not notice that you've taken his place?"

Jinshi's long, dark hair is magically hidden under an unfamiliar short wig, but Suiren - who had exerted efforts to make up Maomao's face to the point of unrecognizability - made no effort to disguise his stupidly pretty face. Doesn't she know how much more deadlier this man is than any concoction Maomao can possibly brew? Doesn't anyone know exactly how deadly this beauty could become, if it were to fall into the wrong hands? Shouldn't everyone be doing a better job of making sure this potency - that stupid look he's shooting her right now - would be kept under lock and key?

"He's related to the CEO."

"Ah. Then I'll take your word for it." Maomao says, turning away, and Jinshi, who seemed like he was about to say something else, keeps his mouth shut.

During their last case, Jinshi had drunkenly asked her to listen to him discuss on how exactly he was related to their CEO - but Maomao did not want to spend her rare boozy night hampered by hearing more shit about rich families again, so she waved him off and said yeah I know you're related, now give me more beer. She did not need to know the things she did not need to know - what if she got dragged into Jinshi's family issues because he told her too much, like in the melodramas Big Sister Meimei watches?

"So, what will the choice be for tonight?" Jinshi smiles at her, his usual sparkle back in his expression. "Will it be honey, or baby, or...?"

Just one night, Maomao. He promised you ox bezoar after. "I'm going with 'baby', because you're a goddamned infant."

"I'll take it," Jinshi murmurs, softly, looking at the mirror in front of them and seeing the reflection of a couple they somehow managed to create. Thanks to those stupid heels, Maomao's body is angled entirely towards Jinshi's, her balance ensured solely through the hand she has on his arm. Jinshi watches her move through the mirror, his eyes impossibly soft as they land on the silver hair stick he had put in her hair earlier. "I knew that was going to look good on you."

"You're just saying that because Suiren made me look like this." she grunts. "This must have been expensive - I'll return it to you after."

"If we fail to close this case, then sure, return it to me." Jinshi grins back, cheerfully poking her cheek. "But knowing us, that won't happen, so you don't have to, right?"

"That's unfair. You're unfair." Maomao says, batting at him with her free hand, but his sudden surge of bravado coaxes a genuine smile on Maomao's face as they make their way to the event.

Chapter Text

Maomao hates exactly one-half of the things she has to say right now.

But she really wants to say that other half, so she has no choice.

So she imagines slapping herself across the face - wake the fuck up, Kan Maomao, Kan Luomen himself didn't raise you to be such a wuss - and tries her best to remember. She has to remember what the charming voice Big Sister Meimei says she has when she tries coaxing herbs out of Gran sounds like. It's fucked up but that's somehow the voice she started putting on, on this quest as Ka Zuigetsu's "date".

"...Baby?" Maomao hears herself say, and Jinshi beside her whips his head around so fast that she worries his wig just might fall off.

"Yes, my darling?" Jinshi murmurs, his lips moving across her skin as he brings their interlocked hands up to his face, to kiss the back of her hand. There might as well be a halo behind his head, with how sparkly he looks like in the garden sunlight, the perfect picture of contentment with his girlfriend by his side. Roughly half the girls in attendance swoon, and the other half begins praying for Maomao('s character's) downfall.

Geez, he's just really way too into his role now, there's no fucking hope for him to recover - but that's not even the problem right now. Maomao blinks. Her vision seems a bit blurry, all of a sudden.

"Baby, you haven't had the soup yet, right?" Maomao says, nudging her shoulder against his, forcing him to meet her eyes. What the fuck, his eyes are way too loving, way too sweet, as they gaze upon her. Is he hallucinating? Surely nobody had plied him with alcohol while she wasn't looking? Her hand is a bit clammy with sweat but she doesn't even have the time to worry about that, she squeezes his hand, once. Their code for 'shit just happened'. "Please tell me, it's important."

At that Jinshi blinks, his gaze firming up into something more solid, more reliable. He looks at her - really looks at her. But then he opens his damned mouth. "No, darling, I've been talking to one of big sister Ahduo's friends, she's been telling me I struck gold with you." Again with those soft, fucking eyes - "And I agree."

Someday, this goddamned man is going to make somebody out there really fucking happy. Maomao hopes and prays she won't be around to see the sapfest happen.

"So sweet of you, baby." Maomao says, fluttering her curled eyelashes as she puts one hand on Jinshi's arm, locking his other hand in place. He gulps. There's a slight smile subconsciously blooming on her face, but she can't help it - it's beginning to kick in. "But I was asking about the soup. Please tell me you didn't have the soup."

Jinshi puts two and two together, and - "Darling...did you have the soup?"

"It was deliciously bitter," Maomao says, with a winsome smile, "And I can taste the faintest hits of oleander."

The last thing Maomao remembers, before everything around her all went to shit, is that she really should have taken a second bite first.

Everything happens in a span of mere moments.

Maomao's smile was so charming that people can't help but look at her, so Jinshi was keeping himself in check by loudly proclaiming to everyone that she was his - who cares if Ka Zuigetsu gets himself a nameless girlfriend in the process, at least people will finally stop bothering him!

But he should've gotten suspicious of that blinding smile early on - there was only two things that made her smile like that.

Herbal medicines and poison research.

Of all the people...

Jinshi has his one arm behind Maomao's back and the other hand under her knees before she can make out another sentence, carrying her in his arms as he stands up to his full height. She's about to protest as she usually does, but remembers the situation they're in and just leans into him, sighing into his chest.

"Basen, call the doctors! People, put down your spoons! The soup was poisoned!" Jinshi says, his voice clear against the indistinct mutters of the crowd. He had to muster every bit of commanding presence that he has in his body - a copy of what his brother subconsciously has, all the time - it appears to have worked, as he can hear the simultaneous sounds of dropping cutlery.

But whether the people in this party stop eating or not, they're not of any importance right now. Not when he has Maomao, in his arms, as he runs back towards the estate. Granted she did say that thanks to quote-unquote 'constant experimentation' it takes longer for her to truly become affected by poison, but with a brain like hers surely she'd have noticed how bitter oleander tastes like?

Unless...

"Darling," Jinshi whispers, just in case anyone else is in earshot, "Don't tell me you didn't tell me quicker because...you were trying to savor the taste?"

Maomao's eyes right now remind him so much of a deer in headlights, or maybe a naughty cat caught scratching something that isn't a scratch post. She says nothing, only clutches at the lapels of his blazer.

"Darling, honey, sweetheart..." Jinshi murmurs, watching intently as Maomao's face pales with every additional pet name. "Spit it out now, my love."

Now that does it - Maomao's head whips right around and spits out the last of the tainted meat, a little bit of leafy vegetable, somewhere between a bush and a small patch of flowers. Jinshi holds her, makes sure she doesn't tip over and fall with her motions, watching the silver hair stick he put in her updo glimmer in the sunlight. It really does look great against her dark hair, even if this is a weird situation to notice it in.

After she's done with that he takes her indoors. With Maomao's status as the Ka heir's plus one, she gets a room to herself, and Jinshi paces to and fro across the room as the doctors attend to her. He has to remind himself that the hair on his head is a wig because if he forgot, he'd surely resort to running his hand through it.

Before the doctors arrived, Jinshi had washed Maomao's mouth out with water and stuck his fingers inside to make sure that no trace of the plant was left. Maomao glared at him as if to communicate that if he continues up this route she was going to bite - and honestly, Jinshi didn't really mind that, either...

"Young Master Ka, you and the young miss did a good job of cleaning the mouth beforehand, this makes our job much easier." The doctor tells them after, when they've already administered a serving of activated charcoal. Apparently they're in the clear because Maomao didn't really consume that much, some exec the other room over had it worse because he actually swallowed the meat. "Had she ingested more, we would have had a bigger problem. As things are, I think we can just monitor her condition for the next 24 hours and...young miss, what are you doing?"

"Treatment program for the other guy," Maomao says, handing the napkin back to the bewildered doctor. From Jinshi's angle, he can see how much she had scribbled on it when no one was looking. "I don't know much about medicine but I know much about poison - and I don't think the charcoal would be enough for a dose that high. Please deprioritize me and focus on bringing him to the hospital, he would need more antidotes specific to lowering his digoxin levels."

The doctors have teary eyes as they take her word for it - Jinshi takes it to confirm that the other patient is truly in a worse state, but she gets priority because, well, she's the guest from the Ka family. As they should, he thinks, sighing, as he sits back down on the chair by her bedside. She's looking at him curiously. "What is it?"

"Master Jin--" he shakes his head. "Ugh. Baby," Maomao says, but in her own tone of voice this time - where did that devastating sweet voice she was using earlier come from? He'll ask her later. "I think my soup was switched with that young girl's, the heiress from that other family. The one in pink? Are they still here, I need to confirm something with them..."

"--ah. Oh? Okay. I'll have Basen fetch her." He nods slightly the other man's direction, and Basen immediately makes a beeline for their door like a bullet.

Of course Maomao is back to work mode, even after getting out of a such a harrowing situation. He really did choose the right person for the job.

But also...

Zui, you poor kiddo, said his elder brother, right after listening through another session of Jinshi fawning over his newest addition to his team. We really do need to do something about your multitasking abilities.

And now, remembering just how much he was focusing on the Maomao is my girlfriend! half of this operation...he's inclined to agree, whoops.

Chapter Text

Maomao said she couldn't go out to dinner with him tonight, she said she had work to do. So when Maomao had glared at Jinshi menacingly over the tops of her glasses, furious like an ancient dragon as she snarled that if he was going do something stupid and predictable like hang back and wait for her instead of having his own well-deserved dinner, she will poison him herself, he steps back and chokes out a thin "yes, ma'am".

But if she did have work to do - and he knew she had, their boss/his brother did often spread his workforce rather thin - then who is this person in front of him, wearing Maomao's hair and face and clothes and shoes, beside that...guy?? Maomao's eyes sparkle like the stars in the sky when she laughs at something, the mischievous grin Jinshi both loves and fears clear as day on her face as she looks up and sees the guy flush beet red. Jinshi wishes that grin was focused on him instead, but he also knows he is bad at giving up on lost causes.

"Don't bore a hole into our accountant, Yue, I kind of like having the one you brought in." His brother all but giggles, a drink in hand. The night has just started, he can't be already this drunk - why is he already this drunk? "Don't look at me like that, kid. No, I'm not drunk. I'm laughing like this because you just look so hilarious sulking like that."

"I'm not sulking," Jinshi pouts, obviously sulking. "It's just..."

"So, then." Jinshi's brother takes his cup, refilling it. "It's just, what?"

Gods above, Jinshi's eyes are watering and he isn't even drunk yet. "I'm - it's just - she didn't have to make excuses to avoid me..." He has his head in his hands now, all pretense of being cool and unaffected thrown to the wayside. But - unfortunately - Jinshi still can't help but watch them, see how Maomao's face perks up when the guy opens the door for her, ushering her into the restaurant. I open the doors for her too, he thinks, but when I do that she always looks at me like trash littered at the side of the street - which I admittedly do enjoy most of the time, but really, that guy gets to see her smile??

As their mother always says, Jinshi is cool and beautiful like the moon like how his elder brother is bright and majestic like the sun, and even though he's definitely not being cool or beautiful right now, Jinshi can't help but agree with the second half of her motherly insistences. His elder brother just has a way about him that ends in his friendly tone of voice and bright brotherly grin coaxing all the truth out of you, each and every damned time. It's why he's too stupid good at leading stuff - everyone finds themselves at his mercy, eventually.

Jinshi both loves and hates this ability of his brother's, but right now, he thinks he just might hate how easily his brother's piercing gaze can read him like a book.

"Yue," his brother coos, softly and gently, like one would some wounded wild animal. "You know you can just tell her, right? I didn't exactly ban office romances, and even if I did...god you're such a kicked puppy in front of the girl, I would gladly make an exception."

His brother might be secure enough in the privacy of their second-floor booth to call him by his childhood nickname, but Jinshi's way too into the Jinshi persona that he can't even dare mutter his real name out loud. But either way, there's something he absolutely has to get through to the chuckling man in front of him, who appears way too pleased with Jinshi's current mental turmoil.

"I have no idea what you mean by that."

"You're obviously jealous. Yue, this is obviously a crush, and you are very obviously jealous. Mom would be proud. You're finally taking notice of people as potential romantic partners."

"Maomao isn't a potential romantic partner. If anything, she's a cat. She's a cat and I'm somehow feeding her. I'm not going to get mad just because someone else is feeding her." Jinshi says, but all of the conviction of his voice is completely offset by the fact that he's still looking at them.

"Denial is always the precursor for young love."

"That's not what this is, sir."

"I keep telling you to not be so formal like that, kiddo you're breaking my heart."

"That's big sister Ahduo's problem, not mine."

"Hey, why's my fiancée 'big sister', but I'm 'Sir'??" The elder sighs as his younger brother smiles behind his drink, finally (begrudgingly) peeling his eyes away from the cat-like girl and puppy-like guy sitting across each other in the establishment across from them and taking a sip.

Then again, Jinshi always did take better to Ahduo than he did to him - he may be Jinshi's elder brother but he knew how to lead and manage young men, not young children, like Jinshi used to be. It makes sense that Jinshi and Ahduo are thick as thieves and Jinshi can't even tell his own flesh-and-blood brother in words that he has a crush.

That's what the boss complains to Ahduo the next day over afternoon break, and the pout he ends up wearing is just as brilliantly childish as Jinshi's that Ahduo can't help but keep on laughing.

The first time Ahduo had seen Jinshi with his newest referral, the very competent forensic accountant, there was a softness in his eyes as he pushed Maomao ever-so-slightly towards 'big sister' and told the young woman to introduce herself, his hand on the small of her back, that told Ahduo that she should expect the girl to grace Ka family dinners like she does, sooner than later.

It is this image - the boss watching on helplessly at Ahduo, clutching at her aching stomach as she laughs and laughs - that Maomao finds herself somehow enthralled by.

"I haven't seen big sister Ahduo laugh that much, ever." Maomao mutters, and looks beside her, frowning when she sees the beautiful man beside her flinch. He's not even supposed to be sitting here - he just keeps hanging around her so much that the boss relented and just let him stay there. Somehow, she wants to yell - he kept complaining that Maomao doesn't engage in small talk with him and now that she's trying he flinches away from her like she just hit him? Gods above, maybe she should actually hit him if he's going to act like that. "What's your deal?"

"Nothing...just. Big headache. Hangover." Jinshi half-lies, nursing his very real hangover, hating the timing of it all. He knows what his big sister and brother are whispering about, and the way both elders' shifty eyes keep trying to pretend they're not looking their direction just makes it more obvious that they are looking their direction. "Boss roped me into another drinking session."

Maomao sighs and starts rummaging around in her drawers for something, for some reason. "I thought you said drinking sessions were non-mandatory? You should tell him no one of these days, yanno."

"Can't. Family friend. This happens." Jinshi presses his forehead to the cool surface of his desk, willing his eyes to close. But behind his eyelids remains the image of Maomao smiling, sitting across that guy from last night, so he wrenches his eyes open again anyway. "Ugh, this sucks."

He's not quite sure what he's referring to, at this point.

Jinshi hears a clink of something being placed really carefully by his keyboard and slowly brings his pounding head up to look at it. It's the cup that usually serves as the lid of Maomao's thermos, in the unobtrusive green she usually prefers. The cup has steam rising from it, wafting through the air the smell of ginseng root and ginger.

"Drink it," Maomao says, her eyes laser-focused on the dried orange peel she has in her zipper-locked plastic bag. "Ginger and honey for your stomach and ginseng root for your headache. I took a sip to make sure there's the ungodly amount of honey you like taking your tea with. I have these orange peels right now but later we can grab some kudzu?"

By 'we' she means she will bring him to her favorite store and he will pay for it, since she's mixing this up for his damned hungover sake after all, but every time Maomao says 'we' as in Maomao-and-Jinshi it lets loose a flood of butterflies down Jinshi's stomach. He turns fully her direction, knowing full well that Maomao will choose to ignore the flush that fully coats his face, but his brother and Ahduo will not. "I- If you say so, then. Thanks for this." he says, drinking down the tea under her cool, watchful gaze.

It's at this point that Maomao has to admit Jinshi really isn't overacting this hangover out, because he doesn't even say stupid shit like "hey, does this mean we're indirectly kissing right now?"

Jinshi sets down the cup and Maomao takes it from the coaster, refills it and motions for him to drink again. It's after five and a half more times of this that Maomao's brow furrows and she finally raises a hand up to press her palm against Jinshi's forehead, wincing at the heat she finds behind his flush.

Probably 50% of this flush is from the hangover, but from the way Jinshi's heart beats in his throat he can't even be sure of that. He prays to god in gratitude that Maomao cannot read his mind.

Maomao takes her palm from his forehead, clicks her tongue, mumbles something to herself, and begins the long and arduous task of clearing away the things on her desk. She stands up and faces their boss - apparently just him, Ahduo had long since excused herself at this point - to speak. "Sir, I'd sent you my reports, I don't think we can continue on with fieldwork today. Would like to ask your permission for us to be excused for the day."

Jinshi can't see where she's going with this - Maomao was always a staunch supporter of paid overtime - until he sees her beginning to clear his own desk, as well. That 'us', Maomao-and-Jinshi, again. The flush on his face burns hot as she swats his hands away when he tries to help her clear his own desk. It grows an even deeper crimson when he realizes Maomao knows exactly how he keeps his pens in the pen drawer.

The boss takes one long look at them and laughs out loud, one big belly laugh, and Jinshi knows at that moment that he will never live this down, ever. "Sure, no problem. These past few weeks, you kids have taken so much overtime chasing down the Western accounts that it won't make any difference if you leave a few hours early today. See, I told Jinshi he can just take the entire day off, but he insisted he had to go to work and see y--"

"THANK YOU VERY MUCH!" Jinshi all but screams, his headache roaring louder in his brain as he stands himself right up to bow profusely at that smug elder brother of his. He can feel Maomao judging him heavily by now, the sideeye mixed in with the faintest look of concern, but that's a problem his brain will overthink about later, when he's in his own bed. "I, I mean, thank you, sir. We'll go home and res -- I mean I!!! I, will get home, and rest..."

The boss' way-too-smiling eyes go over Jinshi's blubbering mess of a self and meet Maomao's gaze, cool and serene as she takes a key from Jinshi's own keychain and locks his drawers with it. "As you may see, little lady, he can barely fend for himself at this point. I would be indebted to you if you can send him home safe and sound."

And home Maomao does send him to, her countenance still cool and unflappable as she hauls Jinshi's burning ass right up to his apartment door, somehow. She watches as Jinshi's usually-graceful hands flounder around trying to put the keycard in, and it's at around his third try, exactly when Maomao's treacherous brain notes that he resembles a cute drunk octopus, when she takes his hand in hers and taps the card until the door unlocks.

Jinshi's fancy apartment is sleek, modern and minimalistic, with just the right touches of red and gold that hint to someone stepping in and installing prosperity charms in his space at the onset of the lunar new year. Maomao can't relate - she lives a few doors down in a similar apartment (company housing, Jinshi had insisted, when she had complained about being in the same floor as him), and during the first few days of moving in she had somehow amassed her usual smogasbord of herbs and traditional medicines. She can't help but wonder where exactly Jinshi, with his many fancy clothes and what appears to be countless trinkets that he "thought the accountant would make better use of", would keep all his damned stuff, when everything looks so...clean.

Meanwhile, Jinshi can't help but wonder how long it would take for Maomao to realize she is still holding his hand.

Maomao sits him down on the edge of his bed, takes a look at his flushed face, turns around and helps herself to his closet, throwing houseclothes at him. "I want to run a bath for you, but I don't want to drag you out of your fancy bathroom when you pass out. Change into this and I'll wipe you down after - don't think about it. Whatever the fuck you're thinking about right now don't think about it."

"I wasn't even thinking about anything, you meanie," Jinshi pouts, clutching the clothes to his chest as he begs his stupid body to please stop blushing so much. So what if he might have imagined Maomao washing his hair in the bath. So what if he might have imagined Maomao lathering his back with soap in the bath...she doesn't need to know that.

He obediently changes into the loose houseclothes, and moments later Maomao returns with a basin of water and a damp towel. She stretches his flushed limbs out on the bedsheets, her poker face unmoved as she works from his shoulders down to his toes. Jinshi continues praying that some higher deity out there has some mercy left in them and will help him keep the non-hangover flush down.

It's surprisingly a comfortable silence between them, considering that ever since they met, Maomao was absolutely sure he was just always talking at her because he wanted to hear the sound of his own voice.

That is, until Maomao really can't keep pretending she doesn't notice how long he's been staring at her like that. "Alright, cough it up now. What is it?"

"Par...don?"

"You look like you have something you wanna tell me. You've been looking like that since we were back at the office. I have at least half an hour until the rice cooker's done with the congee. Have at it."

Jinshi's heart melts all over his chest like thick gooey honey because Maomao knows he likes congee when he's sick and she knows exactly where he keeps the rice cooker he uses for congee, as if it wasn't enough that he was already this helplessly in love with her. But he has to quickly reel it in because there's the instance of the guy from last night and really, what if she's just hurrying up now so she can see him again? How does he ask about this subtly enough that if he's just overthinking this he just doesn't seem weird --

"Who was that guy you were with last night?"

Maomao blinks at him at that, her face uncharacteristically surprised, and Jinshi belatedly remembers that his brain conveniently flies away when he's not feeling well, so now he's doomed.

"Oh, so you saw?" Maomao says, nonchalant as she wrings a second towel she had been keeping separate from the one she had been using to wipe down his body with, laying it down on his forehead. "You should have approached us. I would have introduced you."

Jinshi doesn't know if he should feel flattered that Maomao would introduce him to people she knows, or feel depressed over Maomao feeling she needs to introduce this guy to him.

"Boss and I were on the second floor. And then, well." Jinshi trails off. He doesn't remember how he got home yesterday. Just how much did he drink, exactly? Even more bone-chilling - how much did he say?

Maomao bursts through his overthinking with her next words. "We were having a meeting to discuss his proposal."

"Oh." Jinshi's face falls. He really didn't have a chance, did he? He hates himself for being so excited over Maomao looking after him like this, when she's actually just too secretly nice to leave him to his own devices --

"I mean, it was bad enough that we had to sneak around so big sis Pairin won't notice. He even intentionally would go to restaurants big sis didn't like, just so he would be sure she won't ever be there. Didn't he realize there was a reason she didn't like going there? Their food was just too bland!"

Jinshi does not know how big sister Pairin factors into this situation. Is she not approving of this love? Well that makes two of them then. They could make a club.

"And you know what the worst part of it was." Maomao sighs, pushing errant strands of Jinshi's hair away from his treacherously reddening face. "He would ask me stuff like, what kind of flowers big sis Pairin would like as centerpieces for her proposal dinner. Why me, not big sis Meimei? He's been around me long enough that he should know by now all I care about flowers is how to make them medicine, or maybe poison--"

Oh my god sweet heavenly nymphs up above what did she just say--"Hold on a minute. Who's getting proposed to, now?"

"Big bro Lihaku is proposing to big sis Pairin. I told you about him, my sister's annoying noisy boyfriend? He kind of reminds me of you." She pauses, somehow catching onto a train of thought she didn't expect. "Wait a sec. Who did you think was getting married -- oh, oh, no, no no eew!!"

"I- ow! Sorry, I didn't mean to - hey wait don't throw pillows at the patient!"

"I can when the patient's imagination is imagining stupid shit - wait, ow -"

They're a tangle of limbs now, Maomao's smaller frame somehow fitting exactly into the spaces of Jinshi's damp arms, down to his elbow bent over her hand raised, still holding a pillow aloft. Maomao's eyelashes aren't as long and lush as Jinshi's own, but her eyes really are so beautiful shining on him like that, and Jinshi is trying very hard to ignore the slight sheen of lip gloss on her pursed lips.

"Whatever you're thinking about, don't think about it."

"Do you really think so little of a patient, Maomao?"

A shiver runs down her spine, as it does every time he calls her by name. She decides to ignore it, and hopes he does too. (He doesn't.)

"It's stupid to be jealous of something that doesn't even exist."

"I'm not jealous. You're my cat."

"Yeah, I hate my parents sometimes for giving me this name, too." The pillow falls from her hand, landing somewhere beside Jinshi. He is still cradling her in his arms somehow, so impossibly gently. She hates him when he does this, looking into her eyes like that, and yet she cannot help but feel content in his embrace. It makes no sense, she insists in her brain.

"People can feed my cat, but I'll always know how to feed you the best," Jinshi finds himself cooing, as he tucks his face into the junction between Maomao's neck and shoulder. He's going to use the hangover as an excuse for all of this later, but for now, he's letting himself celebrate Maomao not being proposed to by letting himself say whatever the heck he wants to say, dammit. "Because I know best how to feed my Maomao."

Maomao rolls her eyes, but she doesn't move away, either. "I'm giving you fifteen minutes until you have to let us stand up so you can have your congee. Make sure you eat it well."

Jinshi smiles into her embrace. Hangover, embarrassment, migraine, brotherly nagging, more embarrassment aside, he can get used to this.

Chapter Text

Rikuson watches Maomao as she chews through the big hunk of meat that Jinshi had just lovingly fed her; her cold gaze is obviously no match for the adoring, soft eyes aimed in her direction.

He can easily imagine heart shapes emanating out of the guy's sparkling eyes. Rikuson chuckles to himself, hiding his smirk behind his drink - he hadn't seen Maomao try to look that infuriated since the time when her biological parents tried putting her in girly frills for one of the numerous La family pictures.

While his chuckle may have been successfully hidden, the mirth in his eyes was definitely not hidden enough. That's why Maomao's gaze decides to target him next, her cold eyes seeping into his soul as they convey only one message: don't you even start.

At that, Rikuson puts his drink down so Maomao can see just how amused he is with the situation his dear childhood friend has landed herself in now. She balks as it finally sinks in: with her attention fully on avoiding Jinshi's affections, she hadn't realized she had left Rikuson to his own devices, and truly, he can start anything he damned wants to start.

"You look awfully pleased, Mister Family Friend," Loulan says, eyeing the silent battle of wills in front of her with interest. She's sitting on Jinshi's other side, batting his hands away as she succeeds in reaching over him and handing Maomao the drink she had just poured out. "Is watching our Maomao eat that interesting?"

"Very," Rikuson grins, turning the charm up to eleven, knowing full well that while Maomao had gotten distracted by her drink, it is now Jinshi who is glaring daggers through his skull. He cheerfully decides to pretend he doesn't see that. "It brings me back to when Xiaomao and I were kids - I had to feed her because back then, all she wanted to do with her hands was use them to read through her books about medicine."

Something in between a scream and a shiver wordlessly passes through Maomao's face. Yes, Rikuson grew up with Maomao, but he never really calls her Xiaomao. Well. Not as much as he used to. When she was still a Xiaomao, she was a cutie - or so Rikuson remembers his younger self thinking, as well as his current self, sometimes.

But that's neither here nor there. Right now, Jinshi's hands are balled up into fists under the tablecloth, so regardless of whether it was a lie or not...it was a wise choice.

"I like people who enjoy learning," Jinshi says, making a big show of sounding nonchalant as he tosses his beautiful long hair over his shoulder with a flick of his hand. "I think it's great for people to have something they're passionate about."

"Oh, really now, Mister Jinshi?" Xiaolan perks up suddenly, almost elbowing Suirei beside her in her haste to get the next words out. "Would you say that a passionate learner is your ideal type?" A big smile blooms across her face, as it always does when she gets her hands on something she considers interesting.

Jinshi grins back, clearly pleased that at least someone has been picking up the breadcrumbs he had set down. Maomao rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair, as if she already knows what he'll say next, but she isn't actively moving away from him, either. "Yes. I like passionate learners. I also like people who aren't picky eaters and love their alcohol."

"Aww, that puts me out of the running! I just like sweets and juice." Jinshi smiles kindly as Xiaolan fake-sighs, holding a hand to her head in an imitation of a swoon. "But that's good for you, right, Maomao?"

"How did this go back to me?" Maomao snaps back, but a tad softer that she usually would. After all, she really is a softie when it comes to Xiaolan. Loulan sometimes complains about such blatant favoritism, but when she does Maomao merely pulls her aside and says neither of them should possibly expect dear sweet Xiaolan to keep up with the best of their messes.

"Oh, you know what I mean." Xiaolan says, her sunny smile firmly in place as she leans forward, a woman on a mission. "Remember when that nice Mister invited you out to go to the night markets and you and I had a phone call the entire night before to talk about where you should bring hi--mmph phh hmm?"

"You should eat more meat, you know." Maomao swears up and down that the only reason Xiaolan ever got to say that much is because she was busy loading up her chopsticks with meat. Definitely not because she was committing the look of surprise from the guy beside her to memory. Damn, why does he still look pretty with his flushed cheeks and stupid mouth all wide open like that. "Have some more."

"Xiaomao, easy on the meat, her cheeks are looking very full." Rikuson chides. He keeps putting unnecessary emphasis on the nickname, and Jinshi still looks like he'd swallowed a frog. "Your big brother over here will gladly take the rest of it, though?"

Maomao really, really doesn't want to reach across the table and feed Rikuson, but she doesn't know what else to do with the meat when she doesn't want to eat all of it either. She's about to bring the chopsticks out to reach his side of the table when someone suddenly pulls on her sleeve.

"Hmm?"

"I want that cut; give it to me." Jinshi says, in a tone of voice that brooks no arguments. It's more than enough to make Rikuson smile crookedly and move away.

"Get your own damned meat."

"No, I want that cut, not those cuts."

"Are you a child?"

"You really let her talk to you like that, Mister?" Suirei wonders. For almost the entirety of this meal, she had been quietly listening to their conversation, letting Rikuson and Xiaolan on each side of her pile up on the meat as she diligently sliced bite-sized portions for her little sister, who, like Maomao, was more focused on the drinks than anything.

After a few gestures here and there, it looked like Maomao finally caught on that Jinshi had wanted her to feed him, so she does, begrudgingly. There's a satisfied, contented sparkle in Jinshi's eyes as he licks his lips, holding Maomao's gaze the entire time. Then he turns to Suirei. "I'd obviously let her do anything with me."

"Big words from someone who wouldn't let me feed him cordyceps." Maomao grunts. From the tone of her voice, this seems to be a recurring complaint.

"I was with you the whole way, until you said you'll lock me in with a random other person. Isn't a woman of science supposed to personally observe their data?"

Loulan laughs at that, Rikuson quickly following along, and Xiaolan turns to the woman beside her in sheer confusion. "What's a cordyceps, Suirei-jie? What are they talking about?"

Unfortunately, due to her line of work, Suirei knows exactly how a cordyceps would be used, so she also knows in what purpose this Mister Jinshi is hoping to use it with their seemingly oblivious friend. "Trust me, Xiaolan, you're lucky to not know what they mean."

After the meal is done - which also means, after Jinshi had finally finished making Maomao feed him everything, up to and including half the plate of grilled silkworm that Loulan had ordered on a whim - Suirei tells them something that's been weighing on her for a while now.

"I realized we're going to have a problem on our way back."

Suirei had bought a four-seater sedan, but between all the medicinal herbs she and Maomao had haggled, the cute stuff Xiaolan bought for her new apartment, and Loulan's haul of assorted knickknacks, the back seat might as well not exist for human seating.

Rikuson had bumped into them at the market and went along with them to the restaurant, but he only has a motorcycle with him. He does have an extra helmet, though, so someone could possibly ride with him - not someone taller like Suirei or Jinshi, though.

Jinshi had insisted on bringing Maomao to her meeting place with the other three girls with the intention of just dropping her off and going back home, but when he had seen Maomao recognize Rikuson in the crowd and call out to said family friend with such familiarity, he suddenly didn't want to leave. If only he knew he was going to stay this long, he would have opted for his four-seater as well - now he just has his two-seater sports car.

"I don't see a problem," Maomao says, fully aware of the eyes that are suddenly on her. "Each vehicle can ride two people, and there's six of us. Easily said and done."

"Xiaomao, the helmet still fits on you, so you can ride behind me like you used to." Gods above, Rikuson thinks, behind his smile, Maomao's guy really needs to take a chill pill. But I guess I'm not helping.

"Call me Xiaomao one more time and I'll--" Make sure one of yours becomes small, is how Maomao usually ends this threat. It's a testament to her inner growth, or maybe how tired she is, that instead of completing that sentence, she takes a deep breath and stops herself. She massages her temple, seemingly nursing a headache. "Ugh. You know what? It doesn't matter."

"So that's a yes?"

"I take that more as a no," Loulan murmurs across the table so quietly that Rikuson suspects it's only meant for his ears. Then, louder, she speaks again: "I call dibs on me and Maomao riding jiejie's car home!" Loulan says in her usual bright voice. "I'm a super duper safe driver, and Xiaolan said before that she wanted to ride a motorcycle at least once."

"Uh, I wanted to ride with Maomao too, though?" Xiaolan says, her cheeks slightly flushed. "Just like last time. It was fun to ride behind her on the scooter..." The faint flush on her cheeks may be from the prospect of having to wrap her arms around an unfamiliar young man like Rikuson, but Maomao doesn't know what to do with the troubled look the young woman sends her direction.

"Xiaolan, I don't think we can ride together this time. I don't have a license so I can only ride my scooter, but I didn't bring it today." Come to think of it, that was Jinshi's fault. He smiles beatifically beside her.

"Then it's settled, Xiaolan and Mister Family Friend on the bike, me and Maomao in the car! I wouldn't want to separate her from her herbs after all."

"Little sister, where am I supposed to ride in this scenario, if you've taken my car...?"

"Oh, you and Mister Jinshi are similar heights so I just thought if he can fit in the sports car, you can too, jiejie!"

Suirei and Jinshi exchange looks. Literally the only things they have in common are their heights and a surprisingly soft spot for Maomao - his more prevalent than hers. That doesn't mean I'll automatically give way, she thinks, and chalks that sudden burst of pettiness up to how Jinshi had earlier made it an unspoken competition of who can buy Maomao more interesting medicinal raw materials.

"Wouldn't you have more fun in a fancy sports car with all the bells and whistles, though, meimei? I know you like driving fast." Suirei wonders aloud, a serene smile on her face. "Also, you did tell me before that you like talking to passionate people with clear-cut goals. As a businessman, I would guess Mister Jinshi would fit that description."

What is jiejie talking about? Loulan has met Jinshi for the first time in her life today, but she has heard more than enough of him from Maomao and seen them together around the office enough to know that if that guy has one passion in life...yep, it's probably Maomao herself. But that aside - "Jiejie, I was talking about Maomao back then! I want to talk with her more! Jiejie already hogged all her attention with all the medicine talks you had earlier. I wanted in too! Maomao!"

"Like I said, it doesn't matter to me either way," Maomao says, somehow grasping the fact that she is now the center of this entire conversation, without actually committing enough to listen to any of their debates. "The motorcycle is okay, either of the cars is okay. Just let me know whatever you've decided."

"But Maomao - come on, ride with me, you'll love it!" Loulan...sparkles, there's no other word for it, her eyes are sparkling up at Maomao's nonplussed expression as she shoves Jinshi out of the way to look at her friend better. "Don't you love me enough to share the ride home with me?"

Suirei realizes, belatedly, that here is where the other shoe drops, because Jinshi finally tears his gaze away from Maomao long enough to consider the situation in front of him. Her, with the capacity to occupy Maomao's thoughts with their shared love for medicinal herbs. Loulan and Xiaolan, who Maomao doesn't fully realize she has the softest spots for. Rikuson, who shared a childhood with Maomao and has had her ride his motorcycle before. If you look at it in the way only a lovesick, jealous guy like him would: he is in enemy territory.

What will he do now?

Maomao sighs and hangs her bag across her torso, readying herself to leave with her coat tucked into her arm. "We should go, then. If Rikuson and Xiaolan are taking the motorcycle, I think we should leave for the city before it gets dark out there."

Jinshi still appears lost in the train of thought he'd hitched a ride on, long enough that Maomao takes one good, long look at him and drapes his overcoat over his shoulders, unclipping his car keys from his belt loop and putting it snugly in his clasped hands for good measure.

They really do work well together, Xiaolan thinks. Too bad that for all their shared intelligence it appears like they cannot even fathom that when it comes to this, they're on the exact same page.

Jinshi blinks back to life when they're out of the restaurant, Loulan happily twirling Suirei's keys around her index finger as she herds Maomao towards her sister's sedan. "...wait."

Neither Maomao nor Loulan manage to get a word in before Jinshi catches up to them on his long, long legs and clasps his hand around Maomao's wrist. No pulling. He just holds her. "We live in the same floor of the same apartment building, I'll drive her home."

This is apparently news to Rikuson, who looks at Xiaolan in curiosity. She gives him back a timid smile that probably says, yeah, that surprised us, too.

"I live in the same apartment building as you two, boss." Loulan smirks back, her arm wrapping around Maomao's free arm. Suirei makes an astute observation that the picture they make almost resembles the tug of war scenes in the dramas Loulan loves to make her watch. This is, considering her dramatic little sister, probably done on purpose. "Maomao gave me the okay. Also, I called dibs first."

"Maomao and I had plans after this, the original idea was that I drop her off and come back for her when you're done." In spite of the confidence in his tone, there's something in the way Jinshi says Maomao's name that tells Loulan he doesn't really call her by that as often as he wants to. "Since we're already together, it only makes sense for us to go to the next location together."

"Jiejie, Xiaolan, Maomao and I are going to have a sleepover in my unit. In the same apartment building you're going home to. We are literally going to go to the same next location." The first vestiges of any pulling are coming from Loulan's side - Maomao winces, sometimes the girl really does not comprehend just how much upper body strength she actually does have. "The only one who's actually going somewhere else is Mister Family Friend over there, but he isn't complaining over Maomao not riding with him."

"Actually," Rikuson smiles curiously. "Uncle Luomen's staying over at Xiaomao's unit for the night and we're heading back home tomorrow, so I'm crashing on her couch for tonight too. We're all going to the same place."

Maomao blinks in confusion. "Ah. That was today? I thought that was tomorrow?"

"There was a mishap at the ticketing office and we got compensatory tickets for tomorrow morning. Lahan-ge's work, as expected."

Maomao shrugs, or as much as she could with one girl clinging to her arm and one guy holding her hand. "That's fine. I'll bring out the blankets for you, if you really don't mind the couch."

Hey Xiaomao, what about we share your bed like old times - is what Rikuson would probably say, if only the guy in front of him with an obvious burning crush on Maomao hadn't been riled up enough already. He keeps that little tidbit in the back pocket for future reference, instead. Nobody has to know that the only reason younger Maomao clung on to younger him back then was because she was dreaming and mistook his arm for a ginseng root, of all things.

"Maomaooooo." Loulan just about whines, her eyes sparkling as she tugs onto Maomao another time, attempting to pull her away from her coworker just enough so that she can run with Maomao into the sunset. "Come on, it's cold out and we have to go!"

At this point, Maomao can't budge, not even if she had wanted to, because Jinshi's hand has since moved down to interlock his fingers with hers. It's not exactly a position Maomao wants to be caught dead in, but his hand is warm and his fingers slot perfectly in between hers and Maomao can't quite understand why but she feels something quite like contentment settle deep into her chest. She will never tell the man in front of her that, of course. His pretty head is already filled with hot air as it is; she's not gonna add to that.

Maomao looks up at the guy in question, most probably to tell him to let her go so Loulan can stop sulking and actually drive, but the expression that greets her on that celestial beauty's face makes her stop dead in her tracks. His eyes, usually guarded behind his public smile or clear and open to match his real childish huffiness, are now glossy with unshed tears. His lips, glossy with a distracting sheen that Maomao knows full well came from all the meat she was feeding him earlier, are trembling. And his hand, the only part of his that tethered him to her, clasps even tighter against her fingers.

"I'll get you anything you want, Maomao, just please ride with me." Jinshi blurts out, his voice a complete 180 from the cool, calm, collected voice he was using when talking to everyone earlier. He sounds more desperate, more raw - it's the same tone of voice that convinces Maomao to do stuff she normally doesn't like gently tend to his wounds or let him cling to her as he sobbed and told her about his poor excuse of a father. And she's hearing it again now, all because these naughty kids she unfortunately calls friends have made a good game out of messing with him, somehow.

Xiaolan can't help but wish she had enough popcorn to pair with all this cheese, and shares an amused side glance with Rikuson beside her. He grins with her, in solidarity, because guess who's going to go home and tell Big Brother Lahan all about their littlest sister's budding workplace romance?

As Loulan pulls her closer, crushing her arm against her sizable bosom, Maomao shoots her a warning glance - that her friend, of course, gleefully ignores. "Bribery isn't fair, Mister Jinshi." Loulan chides, her words at a complete odds against her resplendent smile. "Maomao's coming with me and you can talk to her later!"

In response to that, Jinshi sniffles, which tells Maomao that he's about to blubber out more nonsense, stuff like "don't leave me behind!" or "will you abandon me like this!?" Maomao is (unfortunately) the number one protector of Jinshi when he's in such a delicate state, which means she has to bring Jinshi back to his usual state fast. So she decides to throw him a bone, for once.

"Wait a sec, Loulan, let's let him talk. What do you mean when you say anything?"

"As expected from our Maomao," Loulan coos, leaning her head against Maomao's shoulder. "You're just too nice!"

"When I mean anything I mean anything." Jinshi says, staring Maomao and Loulan down with a renewed confidence. "Just tell me what it is, and it's yours."

Maomao balks at that. "I don't think that having my boring ass in the passenger seat for a two-hour car ride is worth that much, actually, so don't be that vague -"

"You said before that you needed more cordyceps for your experiment. I can get a couple more, and throw in some saffron and rosy periwinkle for good measure."

Loulan knows exactly when she lost Maomao because she gets that shine in her eye that only appears when rare herbs are concerned. So she lets go of the arm she had been clinging to, and watches her walk away with interest. "I'll write up an IOU to hold you on that when we get home," Maomao tells Jinshi, doing nothing about her hand still interlaced with his as they walk back to his car.

"I'll gladly sign any paper that Maomao wants me to sign," Jinshi says, the fondness clear as day in his tone as he happily opens his passenger car door for Maomao. Wow, that's enough sparkles to drown Maomao in, probably. Still a better option than letting him break down and sob in front of everyone - Maomao knows how to deal with this annoying guy's handsomeness by now. She does not want to watch him cry again.

"Well, that's that on that, change of plans. Mister Family Friend, I'm going with you." Loulan says, matter-of-factly, taking the extra helmet from Xiaolan's arms and exchanging it with her sister's keys. "Jiejie, I can entrust our sweet Xiaolan in your hands."

There's a look on the young woman's face that tells Rikuson she's not doing this out of affinity with him - she had, in fact, been sizing both him and Jinshi up with matching glares whenever she thought Maomao was not looking. But nevertheless, Rikuson still thinks there's no harm in asking her what she's planning to do. "Miss Loulan, right? How can I help you?"

"You could've helped if only you rode with the boss," Loulan mutters under her breath, before turning to Rikuson with a blinding grin on her face. "How fast can you go on your bike?"

He still doesn't quite know where she's going with this. "Fast enough...within legal limits."

"That's good enough. Let's go and get close enough to ruin any romantic mood that settles in between them."

"Suirei-jie," Xiaolan whispers, as the odd pair makes their way to where Rikuson is parked, "I thought Loulan likes Maomao and Mister Jinshi's romance?"

"I don't know, Xiaolan," Suirei sighs, a hand behind Xiaolan's shoulders as she leads her to their ride. "Your guess is as good as mine." 

Chapter Text

Jinshi just came back from his home town, which might explain the nice red wicker basket of oranges sitting pretty on Maomao's desk, right in front of her empty tea thermoses.

He's focused on peeling an orange when Maomao arrives and throws her blazer over the backrest of her chair, the faint mix of whatever medicine she was compounding that morning tickling Jinshi's nose with its presence.

"Uh. That's a lot." Maomao murmurs, nodding in recognition when he looks up at her. "This from you?"

"We went orange picking. Mom said I had to get you a lucky number of fruit. Lean down a little for me," Jinshi reaches one hand out her direction, pushing a wedge of fruit past her lips. There's a faint flush high on his cheeks as he does this, but Maomao is way too busy savoring the refreshing tangy orange slice to give him a second glance. 

This would go great with dad's chicken, Maomao finds herself thinking, licking her lips. It's not exactly traditional but since her old man studied abroad he would sometimes tell her about the West and their orange chicken, and somehow when it was him he always made it work. Even after counting out how many he would need for that, she has enough that she could fill up her orange peel stocks with, and have it every day with her tea...

Maomao blinks once, twice. Jinshi with the reddened cheekbones is still looking right at her, but now that she meets his gaze he looks away in what she assumes to be panic. "Something the matter?"

"Mm...nothing." Jinshi is still looking at his hand, his cheeks flushed red as he appears to consider something, sniffing a little before squeezing his eyes shut and licking orange juice off his fingers.

Wow, he is just so red today, as always.

Maomao should probably care that he gets like this so often, because Xiaolan told her that apparently friends worry about things like this, and Xiaolan is usually right when it comes to how to correctly deal with people. So she sits down on her rolling chair besides his and scoots ever so closer, her cool eyes considering him in front of her with interest.

Jinshi's face burns a brighter red, which is apparently possible.

"Are you sick? Did you get sick? Do you have the sniffles too? Have you been sweating incessantly lately? Want some Gui Zhi Tang?"

"Wha - uh, no, no Maomao, no medicine needed, but thank you as always," his eyes fall on his hands again, which is a shame because Maomao had been getting used to using those stupidly soft eyes to pinpoint how her self-proclaimed work partner was feeling. If he shuts her off like that, she cannot see anything to work with. "It's just...have you seen the other thing in the basket yet?"

It's a deceptively realistic rendering of an orange half with a chain to attach it to a handle of a locker or the strap of a bag and if Maomao's hands didn't come away dry after touching it she would have swore up and down that it was the real thing, just a whole lot smaller than the real plump oranges Jinshi appears to have picked out for her.

Was this painstakingly made out of clay?

Was it cast from a real orange and injected with resin?

Why does the sight of her holding the item up in confirmation only make Jinshi's flush electric?

"An orange half? I haven't seen that before, but it looks legit...no seriously Master Jinshi why are you looking at me like that?"

"Nothing, I..." Jinshi turns away from her suddenly, as if the random email in front of him suddenly became a lot more interesting, before murmuring, "I just thought you'd hate it when I tell you it's a set with mine."

True enough, there is the same orange half dangling from his locker key, still haphazardly shoved into the lock of his pedestal.

"Eh. Don't you always match my stuff with yours, though? I don't mind."

Jinshi finally turns back to her, something familiar and yet unintelligible to Maomao glimmering faint in his eyes. "You don't mind? Didn't you say you hate it when I match your clothes with mine?"

She didn't tell him that, not exactly. But Maomao knows exactly what brought this up, now. "That's because we were supposed to be undercover separately but our cardigans were even the same color code of yarn - too obvious." Maomao hums, considering where to hang the cute little charm up on her herb organization boards at home. Maybe somewhere beside the dried citrus peels. "I didn't mind the cloak, or the hairpins, or the nice comb. You have such nice taste in picking gifts out that sometimes I really wonder if I can just accept them."

If Maomao had to give a definite answer, her favorite out of Jinshi's weird assortment of presents would have to be the silk sachets of herbs he would give her sometimes. She just won't tell him this because the last time she told him she liked something, he gave her so much mead that she eventually grew so sick of it.

Jinshi's flush could probably be seen from outer space at this point. But at least he's looking back at her now, with that marshmallow-soft warm gaze on his eyes that makes the entire sales department want to strangle Maomao, sometimes. "Of course you can accept them. They're yours."

Gods above, that smile is so unfairly pretty. Not that Maomao would make that damned big head bigger by saying it to his face right now, of course.

When Maomao had - begrudgingly - raised the topic of her office seatmate and their excessive gift giving, Suirei had looked at Maomao and told her maybe the person just didn't have friends and therefore did not know how to deal with them. Loulan had responded to that by laughing a little bit too loud, which probably had everything to do with how she went over to submit paperwork one day and saw Jinshi cooing at her with the nice fuzzy winter cloak he had bought her.

This was the mental reason Maomao gives herself as to why she had elbowed Loulan so fast. Not the fact that she actually didn't mind it when Jinshi dolled her up in random clothes. Not the smirk on Loulan's face when she said that Maomao isn't the kind of person who would 'let the love interest so brazenly give her the happy-ever-after makeover'.

"Half an orange, though." Maomao says, hoping this is the correct use of small talk, completely missing how Jinshi freezes into his seat. "I remember you said the boss was a family friend - I saw him and big sister Ahduo using the same keychains earlier. Was it cheaper to buy everything in bulk?" You know I love gifts better when I know you got a great deal out of it, she thinks.

"Mmm...yeah." Jinshi says, carefully, putting his hands to work as he peels the pith off another orange wedge. "Yeah. Boss and I bought a package of keychains to share."

"Maybe I should get a matching one with my old man if we ever go." Maomao thinks fondly. Luomen may have that leg, but he would enjoy going through a field of oranges with her. But Jinshi did say it was a popular vacation activity for families, which would mean...she shivers.

"Hopefully the rest of our family members won't go along because I would rather die than match anything with that other guy. Or Rahan. Rikuson would probably be okay."

Jinshi's cheeks puff up, just like they always appear to do whenever Maomao mentions Rikuson. She doesn't really remember when they ever first met - why does he always look so pissed off? He pouts.

"I can come along to help you and Uncle Luomen instead. Think of it as free manpower."

"I would never do that to you on your off day."

"I insist. It's never a bother when it's for you."

Maomao rolls her eyes. "You say that to everybody."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Jinshi shrugs.

He hands her another orange wedge and presses it past her lips, and gulps loudly when she closes her lips around it, barely missing the tips of his fingers.

"...so, uh, yeah." Jinshi's cheeks are still pink. So, so pink.

In what is probably an effort to hide his cheeks from her view, Jinshi turns back to his own workstation and clicks aimlessly, accidentally deleting an email that he wasn't supposed to delete, and then Maomao spends the better part of the next ten minutes talking him into recovering it. They have to go straight to work right after that because Gaoshun comes in with a few boxes of support documents for both of them to rifle through, but Maomao still can't help but wonder - if gift-giving makes Jinshi that embarrassed, then why the hell does he keep giving her gifts?

Big sister Ahduo sends a picture to Maomao's inbox that night. top secret, the first notification whispers in lowercase, do not open at work.

She's already polishing off the scraps of a very successful orange chicken so she opens the notification this time and almost falls off her chair laughing - it's Jinshi and the boss, wearing matching round glasses, each lens frame in the shape of an orange. The boss' hand is around Jinshi's shoulder and behind them is a woman who looks way too young to have birthed any of them, but looks way too similar to the grinning young men in the picture to be anything other than Jinshi's mom, and at least related to the boss.

"What's so funny over there?" the old man asks her, just as the electric kettle sings its song to tell them the hot water's done. Luomen is about to stand up before Maomao leaves her phone on the table to get it in his place.

"You cooked the dinner already, Dad, let me at least do this for you." Maomao takes a couple of the tea resins from her stash and pours hot water over them, watching as they melt. She takes the steaming mugs over to their table and sets Luomen's one right in front of him, and then whirls right around to get then both some salted rice crackers.

"On second thought, Maomao, get us some more of those oranges. You need to have more fruit in your body and ever since you've moved out I can see you eating too much salt."

"Gehh." Maomao balks, but otherwise does not argue, going back to the center island to get the basket of oranges. So that's the reason why her old man got unusually interested in her dinners lately. She could never think more than five steps ahead of him.

Luomen takes an orange from her and sinks his hands into it, peeling bright orange skin back to reveal plump wedges underneath. "I'd rather you have more but let's split one even for now and start from there. What was so funny earlier?"

"Ah, right, that one." Maomao takes her phone and turns the screen his way so he can see the picture Ahduo had sent. "My boss' fiancé sent me a picture from their trip. They're the ones who gave us the oranges."

He takes the phone from her hands and squints, grinning. "Ah. So this is the infamous 'Jinshi'."

"Not you too, Dad." Maomao sighs, taking a sip of scalding tea to nurse the incoming headache. "Big sister Meimei already gives me so much sh...crap about him. I can't have you like this too."

"Oh? But I haven't said anything yet, though?" There's a twinkle in his eye that Maomao only sees when she insists up and down that she's honestly really not anything like her biological father perish the thought, but she files that carelessly away in the large, large box of things Maomao will not choose to unpack in this lifetime. "Oranges though, huh. This reminds me of something I had read during my studies overseas. Here, take my half."

Maomao takes the peeled half of her orange and gets to work, tossing a wedge in her awaiting mouth without even peeling away any of the pith. She nods and sits back, fully expecting Luomen to tell her stuff about the medicinal properties of foreign oranges.

"There's an old myth about how people used to have two heads, four arms, and four legs, until some god got mad and struck them in half for being too cocky. So now people look for their 'other half' - you know this turn of phrase right? Someone referring to their partner as their better half?"

"...yeah." Maomao shudders at the phrase, quickly remembering it's how that guy would refer to his wife all the time. She really doesn't like thinking of them so much, not when she can focus on her old man's story instead, even if she doesn't quite know where he's going with this.

"Spanish speakers say mi media naranja. No two oranges are the same." Here he peels a second orange and splits it in half, tries to slot it together against the half of an orange he's already holding. "Each half-orange only has one perfect match, and it's the other half of their exact orange. They say that's what you call a soulmate."

The first thing in Maomao's head is he can't be talking about the keychain, he hasn't even seen my herb organization board yet, and the second thing tumbling through is but Jinshi's family bought it in bulk, so that can't be what it means. She shakes her head.

"Why that reaction, did it remind you of something else?"

"Never mind, Dad, gimme that other half."

If she was going to split oranges, she would rather split them with her old man, after all.

At the souvenir shop, a few days ago -

The half-orange keychains only come in pairs.

They were cast to match only each other, so they only come in pairs.

When the boss sees Jinshi, he has probably already been staring at the couple keychain set for a good few minutes, the intent of his gaze evident even behind the dark orange-themed sunglasses their mom had had them both wear. He grins. "Little brother, if you already have somebody in mind, you can just take it, yanno."

Jinshi shivers like he would rather be out of his own skin at that very moment. "I - I don't have anybody in mind."

Yeah, right. "Does the kid not like fruit?" Not like that's ever stopped you, of course - you already told mom you were picking oranges for someone!

"No, it's just. I think she would rather I give her herbs over fruit." Jinshi thinks, completely shattering all pretenses of not having anybody in mind. "Also...it's a pair."

"Yeah it's a pair, think of it as a buy one get one deal. Your big sister and I are of course matching cute orange halves, but in your case it's completely platonic since you're just work partners-in-crime, right?" He nudges the younger man, taking one of the keychain pairs from the shelf and gingerly placing it in his hands. "Riiiiiight?"

Jinshi shakes his head and puts the keychains back on the shelf, which made his brother a bit sad, but then he goes back and rifles through all the keychains, seemingly looking for something.

"I would rather she eat some more, so I'll look for an orange half that would give her more fruit."

Ahh, young love, the elder brother thinks, rejoicing deep in his heart. I'm so telling Mom about this.

Chapter Text

"So, Zui. How are you and your little assistant getting on?"

Even if you ask Zuigetsu something this specific, he doesn't know what the hell he's supposed to say, either.

So he goes with the obvious: this is a work setting, within work hours, so the boss is definitely asking about their work. "About as well as you'd expect. She's moping because apparently you scheduled our 'business trip' on a weekend she was supposed to be hiking for herbs. She's still doing steady progress on preparing for the trip, though she keeps asking why there's a lot of softshell turtle on the menu..."

You has to stifle a giggle lest his dear little brother cotton on to what exactly he's been up to with this. 'Why so much turtle', indeed.

"Won't it be fun? Ahduo told me her apprentice Sui says there are many, shall we say, medicinal benefits to turtle meat."

Wink wink, nudge nudge.

He smirks at flustered little Zui as the flush spreads through his entire face. These kids really are so cute.

Oh, what he would give to be a fly on the wall once they see the surprise he has in store for them. But for now, he's going to have to be content with the second-hand awkwardness that just might ensue.

This probably has to be the most tortuous part of this entire trip.

Not that the rest of it was any less important, mind - they were following a lead that led them right smack into the Shi family's annual hunting trip, and when Jinshi excused himself for "some air", Maomao quickly followed, and now...this is where they're at.

Jumping off of a boat, barely missing the shore. It's the exact kind of reckless that would have him subject to Suiren's good old scolding when they get back. But in his defense, when he saw the red laser sight inch dangerously towards Maomao's heart, all he could do is stop thinking, start moving.

He's still rubbing comforting circles on Maomao's back as she coughs the water out of her system, glowering at him in between every cough. "Why did you think of - cough! - jumping into the water anyway? Cough! - we should've just went back and given them the surprise of their - cough! - lives!"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry, okay?" Jinshi flushes pink, suddenly sure in his resolve to never tell Maomao what made him run off in a huff. It's not anything important, to be quite honest. But seriously, where does Shi Shishou get the gall to offer his own daughters to him when said estranged daughters already sat him down and said 'this is what happens to you if you hurt our Maomao,' while dramatically cracking (hopefully fake) bones and showing off vials of (hopefully fake) poison? "I wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind back then. But hey, at least we're alive?"

Jinshi focuses on wrapping his arm around her tiny, shivering body, making sure he kneads warmth back into her frame, and pointedly does not notice how her cold, chapped lips had felt against his. That was CPR, Jinshi. That was not a kiss, Jinshi. He has to convince himself of this now before he thinks too much into it and finds himself adding this into his dreams for this evening because of course he dreams about Maomao, as if he wasn't embarrassing enough.

"I don't think I want to know whatever the heck it is you're thinking about," Maomao deadpans, moving away from him just enough so she has the space to wring the water out of her long hair. "Now can you please move? I need to strip."

Wait, what. Jinshi's brain screeches to a dizzying halt. Then he hears nothing but alarm bells, drowning out whatever reasonable, practical things Maomao had to say right after saying she was going to take her clothes off. Blood rushes to Jinshi's head (the one on his shoulders...of course) and if he were a poor, besotted cartoon character, there would be steam coming out of his ears right about now.

"...Jinshi? Mister Jinshi?" Maomao is waving her hand in front of him, trying to get his attention, and for someone who had been close to drowning just a few harrowing moments ago, damn, Jinshi's throat sure is dry. He's still stick still, trying to make sense of the sirens going off in his head, and Maomao groans. "Yeah, yeah, I know I'm nothing worth looking at, but that's not my problem - you're gonna catch a cold if you keep those damp clothes on, come on now. Or do you want me to take those off of you--"

"I...I'll do it myself, thanks." Jinshi croaks - actually croaks, his voice hasn't cracked that bad since puberty first struck - and forces himself to turn his entire body around, glaring at the poor, innocent tree in front of them. Better he divert his attention to his poor suit jacket than he open his stupid mouth and tell Maomao exactly what he thinks about the sight of her with her sodden cocktail dress in her hands. Better he whip off those matching pants and quickly wring them dry, than he continue to ogle the black lace borders of her...undergarments, stark against her pale skin as she judged his flushed face with those all-knowing eyes.

Good heavens, the boss had been joking around with the room service menu, does he know that Maomao talked his ear off about the creative ways her sisters...had their fun with people who feasted on softshelled turtle? Does he even know that when it comes to his unlikely companion, Jinshi doesn't need any of that to become like this every time?

Deep, shallow breaths. True, unsexy thoughts. Hard to think about any (oh, pun definitely intended) when this damned brain of Jinshi's has thus decreed that the crazed, terrifying grin Maomao sported when they laid their eyes on some kind of mushroom is the sexiest thing he has ever seen in his life, but he manages, just enough to dry and tame and redress himself when he turns back to her. It's with the blessings of all the heavenly deities that Maomao's already back in her dress when he looks back, her green shawl hanging around her shoulders, and if he doesn't notice how that wrinkled dress still sticks to her skin, they just might live through this.

Jinshi squints somewhere above Maomao's shoulder, trying to make out the lights shining overhead. "As luck may have it, we're actually closer to the hotel than we could be to the boat. You didn't leave anything on board, did you?"

Maomao's face is pinched as she shows him her poor waterlogged burner cellphone, but that face of hers shows absolute pain when she unwraps a perfect little ball of foraged herbs, now completely drenched and possibly unusable. "I don't know if this is better or worse."

"It's okay, we have extras in the hotel room anyway." Jinshi holds his hand out for her to take. Can't have her stumbling around in the dark, after all. "Shall we?"

She looks at his hand and looks as if she's actually considering taking it, only to shake her head and walk away. "Yeah, we should go."

Jinshi pouts, but follows after her anyway.

Then, in what has to be the most dreadfully, painfully ironic twist of fate, she trips over something (a stone? a root? a frog?) a few moments later, and Jinshi rushes to her side, arms outstretched in an attempt to catch her...only to fall down right on his ass in the dark, barely cushioning her fall with his body.

"...ow." Maomao says, breaking the silence between them. Her forehead had collided against his in their tumble; there's a faint red mark on her forehead, probably matching his own. Jinshi can feel her breath on his skin and her torso pressed against his, one slim arm of hers clutching at the side of his waist, and down, ever closer, her thighs pressed against either side of his hips --

If there were sirens ringing through Jinshi's head earlier, now there is nothing but a clear, deafening silence.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time he's been in such a position. It's definitely one of the few actually accidental times that someone has made their way onto his lap. Jinshi is a healthy young man with completely natural instincts and urges, but in all of those harrowing times, at least his body doesn't feel the need to...well, respond. He's had his own fun at his own time, but somewhere along the road it actually came to the point where Jinshi had seriously considered that maybe there's nothing working down there anymore.

Now, though.

Now, though.

This, this is Maomao. It's Maomao. This is the most intelligent girl he's ever known, the medicinal plant hoarder who always smells good, the undercover asset who slapped a target's henchwoman into the next decade, the forensic accountant who's just as good with numbers as she is with poison. This is the person who rushed into a boardroom to save a nameless exec, taking a bullet and stabbing a clan matriarch and shushing Jinshi as he cried, insisting that she didn't do it because of him so he could just fall asleep.

Is it really that surprising for him to fall in love? For him to see her, every part of her, and want her so much that sometimes it feels like he's legitimately jumping out of his skin?

...anyway, all those words just to say that certain parts of him are poking into the direction of certain parts of her right now, and he's trying very, very hard not to keep it that way.

If any heavenly deities are out there right now, listening to Jinshi's silent pleas, he can muster up the strength to carry them both up and on their feet before Maomao realizes exactly what's happening right now.

Unfortunately, as Jinshi's about to find out, it doesn't seem like any of them have heard him.

"Hm?" Maomao grunts, moving ever so closer into Jinshi's personal space. Something moves, and - and lo and behold, it appears that her other hand has somehow found itself wedged in between them both. "What's this thing?"

"Ngh--!?" Jinshi's heart leaps in his chest and he prays, oh he prays, that the sound he just made doesn't tick her off. She's looking up at him with those cold, questioning eyes, her curious little hand still twisting this way and that to map out the curves of the unfortunate, impeccable tent that decided to pitch in his pants.

"That's not a very good answer." she says, as her hand continues to move. "Are you hurt? Were you hit? I don't see any other reason why you would swell this much."

He has to say something.

The demon in his head is grinning and telling him to let her continue, but that's not what the Jinshi Maomao knows would do, he has to say something. "I...urgh...can you move...that hand? Yeah. There's...it's being a bit...oh god please don't squeeze it to make a point --"

Jinshi's head is leaning on Maomao's shoulder now and his breaths run ragged as her hand stills against him. Has she realized? Please realize, Jinshi can feel it twitch in her hand because of course that part is enjoying this. As soon as they get back from this Jinshi has to lock himself in the bathroom and take a long cold shower as penance. He can't even remember that they're supposed to be on the run right now.

"Oh." Maomao's hand snags on the zipper of Jinshi's slacks, and she jolts her hand away, as if burned, scooting away as far as she could with her wobbly legs still on either side of him. Jinshi catches her with his arms before she backs up fast enough to topple headfirst onto the hard ground below them. "What the fuck."

What the fuck, indeed.

"...why...why would it be that...like that?" With great horror sinking onto those usually-confident eyes, Maomao raises up her hand, staring at how far apart her fingers had been splayed against him. "How is that even...?"

"Maomao, I...surely you shouldn't be that surprised? I mean, you know that, for you, I..." I love you, he wishes to say; on a scale from 1-10 of perfect love confessions "right after poking them with mini Jinshi" is closer to negative 10000 on the scale than anything, but that would be way better than Maomao just assuming he gets it up for just anyone. "I...!"

"Sir and Madam, are you lost? Are you hurt? The guests have been looking for you -- ah I'm sorry please forget I asked have a nice day!"

"Ah, wait a moment, we need help." Maomao says, leaning away just as much as she can, pointedly ignoring Jinshi and how he's still staring at her face. She wholly focuses on the poor hotel staff who was tasked to look for a certain lost couple. "We took a tumble and I don't know if we can walk easy right now. Can you light the way back for us?"

If Jinshi stands up right now, that thing would still be moving towards the direction of Maomao's voice. Think unsexy thoughts. Please think unsexy thoughts. Jinshi winces. "I can walk. I can still carry you in my arms if we need to."

Maomao stares at him then, and she continues watching him as he pushes himself up and on their feet. Then she takes that shawl of hers by the ends, yanks it off her neck, and wraps it around his waist. In a somber tone of voice, she says, "We can't have anyone knowing a frog went all over your nice pants and caused a stain."

Jinshi's head perks up at that. "What do you mean a frog? Darling, that was my --"

"That was a frog. It was a slippery, slimy frog. I'm glad it didn't bite you." Maomao says, looking straight ahead, her hand wiping against the side of her dress. "My hand was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It stuck to me, too. Please, let's get inside before it sticks to us again."

"Frogs aren't that big." Jinshi sulks. It's a dangerous train of thought, but it feels sad of her to compare him to one, somehow.

"Then I would say you haven't seen enough in the wilderness yet." Maomao deadpans. Her hand is at the small of his back, pushing him forward, goading him into walking towards the nice hotel staff's lighted path. "Come on."

Jinshi winces at her choice of words, but he puts one foot in front of the other anyway. After all, at least he has all night tonight to process this, in his own room.

Apparently, that was asking for too much.

"He must be joking." Jinshi says, simply, because he watched the boss book this room and knows what kind of room he had asked for. Two adjoining rooms, with a door in between that they could lock. Jinshi was going to lock that door, have a cold shower, and be left alone with his thoughts the entire night. He has a goal of getting himself back to his senses before he catches up with Maomao at the breakfast buffet. But, if things are like this...

One room, one bath, one huge bed. There are goddamned rose petals on the bed.

Maomao's right in front of him, cheeks flushed from the shower, drying her hair with a towel. Jinshi got his cold shower, at least. Maomao had pushed him into the bathroom to go first, tossing his pajamas in with him. But all of his hard work might as well be for naught; she just looks so soft and warm and perfect, and...Jinshi just wants to cry.

"He obviously isn't, because we're obviously here." There's what seems to be a hefty meal for two spread out on the dining table, and Maomao takes a sip out of her soup spoon. "Hm. It's been a while since I had turtle." She turns to him, gesturing to the other bowl of soup. "You want any?"

Jinshi flushes a deep, dark pink. "No, I'm good. You know why I shouldn't." She knows what people eat turtles for, right? Didn't she just tell him herself, earlier today? Pairin-jie had some of those when her boyfriend was around, and we didn't hear from them for almost a week.

"No, I don't." Maomao deadpans, hanging the damp towel on the back of her seat before sitting down. "And whatever you're thinking about right now, stop thinking about it. Come here and eat your damned food."

He carefully sits himself down onto the chair across her, trying very hard not to think. But gods above, she was a perfect fit for the circle between his arms. Jinshi, stop thinking. "What do you mean? I'm not thinking about anything."

"That stupid grin on your face begs to differ." Maomao's eyes narrow as she eyes him with disgust, like someone normally would eye a worm on the side of the street. She pushes the steaming bowl of soup his direction, and watches as he brings his own spoonful of soup up to his lips. "I thought they said you had ED?"

It's a small favor from the universe that Jinshi whips his head around just in time so when the soup finds its way out of his mouth, he doesn't hit Maomao in the face with it.

"Oh...here, tissue."

"You - cough - you can't just ask these things - cough cough cough!!"

Maomao takes a sip of her drink, the picture of nonchalance as Jinshi continues choking in front of her. Her bland gaze falls somewhere below his ribs. "Maybe it's a kidney yin-yang deficiency, or something to do with your liver. Either way, if you want to start using that again, I'll fix up some tea for you when we get back. Make sure you prep your partner properly before using that monster, okay?"

"You're such a meanie," If I was gonna use this with anybody, it would just be you - Jinshi's naughtly little mind continues, so it's just as well that his coughing fit dissolves into a series of hiccups. She would take the earlier assassin's gun herself and shoot him in the crotch if she ever heard that out loud. He keeps coughing.

Jinshi, what the hell, stop thinking she would be super hot angry, Jinshi thinks angrily as Maomao hands him more tissues.

"So it's the turtle, isn't it? This soup smells like what you last ate earlier." Shit, she was close enough to smell the food on his breath. Oh no, little Jinshi, please tuck in for the night, please fall asleep now. Maomao, oblivious to his inner turmoil, moves the steaming bowl of soup farther away from him. She nudges a different bowl - one full of steamed egg and shrimps - his direction. "Here, have this instead. It's a milder flavor so it should go easier on your stomach."

"Thank you." Jinshi says, and is about to dig in, until he sees Maomao take a little bowl of green bits and upend it on top of his bowl of eggs. "And this would be?"

"Chives. I think they go with the eggs? They don't taste like they go with the soup. In any case, this is flavorful enough, I can taste more than enough ginseng." Maomao takes another sip, chews on a chunk of meat. Then she turns those eyes right back on him, watches him as he shoves a few spoonfuls of egg into his mouth. "What do you think they were expecting us to do in this room? These all look like one of my jiejie's honeymoon feast. Don't spit that out, don't waste food." She says, without even missing a beat.

Hesitantly but obediently, Jinshi swallows his food down. He can hear his heartbeat thrum in his ears. He can feel his vision spin, like he was on an office chair being spun around by his heart. He has to say something, anything -

"Don't say it like that. You know I'm barely holding myself back."

- okay, maybe not anything.

Maomao rolls her eyes. "That's the turtle speaking. Or the frog. I don't really know which."

"Please stop calling it a frog."

"You're right, that's a disservice to the frog. Some of them are poisonous, but I wish to get my hands on a venomous one someday. Do you know there are two species of venomous frogs? They're both in Brazil, and apparently they inject their venom through headbutting their opponent. Wait, that reminds me of you, though."

Jinshi wants to throw his hands up in surrender. "I give up. No, darling, I am not getting you venomous Brazilian frogs to experiment with."

"Eh, it was worth a shot."

"When you're not comfortable with what's currently being talked about, you roll your eyes and say something outrageous so I have no choice but to respond in turn. Then you use the opportunity to go and talk about something else. Have you noticed that you do that?" From anyone else, the words sound accusing, but between Jinshi's soft, adoring tone and the way his head gently nestles in his hands, there's no other reading for this that isn't fond. "I love how you always find something new to talk about, even if the last time you did that you talked about finger regrowth for a full half an hour."

"Lo...ehrm. You always use that word with me. I don't think that's the correct word to use." Maomao says, thoughtfully chewing on another chunk of turtle meat. Surely she can't miss how intently Jinshi looks on, how he doesn't dare miss a single word she says. "Isn't it possible you're just misunderstanding your curiosity with affection? Someone told me it may be because you have no friends."

"I think this someone you're talking about is...hmm, biased." Jinshi winces. Namely, it's one of the Shi sisters, the one who broke (probably) fake bones. "Also, no. I think I know myself well enough to know when I'm in love. Didn't I tell you the first time?"

Maomao looks away, suddenly so interested in whatever sight there is outside their window, her cheekbones dusted the barest shade of pink. Jinshi wouldn't know what it is, not when he can't find it in himself to look anywhere other than her direction, his eyes taking on a dreamy look as he slumps forward with a broad smile on his face...

She clears her throat, shocking him out of his reverie. "You did. You do. I can't say I approve."

"Then that's that then! You know me. I don't take back my word." Jinshi rests his cheek against the cool wood of the table, spoon forgotten completely in his hands. "I say enough lies to know I shouldn't screw up when it comes to the truth. Hey, darling, why do you still call me Jinshi?"

"Because that's your name. Didn't you introduce yourself with that name when we first met?" Maomao says, bringing another spoonful of soup to her lips, looking very much like she wishes he can let her leave it at that.

There's a brilliant pout on Jinshi's face now, the childishness of the expression completely at odds with his normal charming demeanor and the solid, manly planes of his well developed body. It's that pout he turns on her with great effect as he twists and turns on his seat. "But you know who I am, though. I'd guess you knew before the boss even told you. You know my name and I wish you can use it when you refer to me."

"Eat your food, it's getting cold." Maomao scolds, and pointedly does not say anything until that pouting guy gobbles up a few big mouthfuls of egg. He looks a little bit...floaty...more than usual, at least. Maomao takes note of that, then continues. "Also, of all people, I'm not expecting this talk from you. You never call me by name, either."

"But you are my darling, baby, kitten." Jinshi wavers, swaying ever-so-gently from side to side. There's something that's off about this picture, but also, he always talks like this. "And you always look my way, so doesn't that work?"

Maomao doesn't dignify that with a response, but she does nudge a glass of water his direction. "That aside. You think you know why the boss threw us in here?"

Jinshi doesn't seem like he ever plans on stopping his pouting. He huffs, ignoring the proffered drink. "That's mean. Meanie mean mean, kitten. I'm out here pouring out my heart to you - amongst other body parts - and you're really gonna keep ignoring me?" His voice seems a bit high for Maomao's liking.

"First of all: ew. Second of all..." Maomao's eyes soften minutely, the barest bit, but with Jinshi's pretty little head smack dab on the table, it doesn't seem like he'll see those anytime soon. "If I say anything, that's that, isn't it? No going back. I barely even know how to be your friend."

"..."

"What if I say yes to you this time, on a whim, or because I think I might as well, and we figure out that it just won't work? So I'd rather not say anything."

"..."

"...Mister Jinshi, say something. Hey, Jinshi? Uh. Zuigetsu? You in there?"

As it turns out, Jinshi has fallen asleep.

A few things Jinshi would have heard, if only he'd been capable of staying awake for a few more moments:

"Ugh, it's the chives. It's the damned chives. Why did they douse the chives in gin, and why did it take only that little for this guy to pass out?" Maomao grunts, as she hefts Jinshi's larger body onto the bed. "Someone has to keep an eye on you, what would have happened if you were like this outside?"

She shudders. That would be a nightmare on so many fronts. She would have to beat people away with a stick.

(Why does she not think about how the role of "Jinshi's protector" has to be her?)

"You always gotta have the last word in, huh? Trying to coax out some confession from me, only to fall right asleep. Who's the mean one now?" With Jinshi softly snoring away, Maomao flicks him softly on the sharp tip of his beautiful nose, an annoyed expression on her face. "You dummy. I guess you'll forget this in the morning."

Maomao tucks the sheets in around him before climbing into the other side of the bed, because Maomao is many things, but she is not someone who would waste such valuable bed space just because the drunk guy in her room keeps confessing to her. That's what she tells herself, this is her trying to get (the boss') reservation's worth, totally not because she wants to touch his stupid long hair as he sleeps, anyway.

"Good night, Zuigetsu."

The name doesn't quite roll off her tongue the same way "Jinshi" does, but at least, she tried. Maomao shrugs, and follows him into sleep.

Chapter Text

Jiejie told her they're starting a new life now. Jiejie told her that if she really wanted to work, there are a gazillion other conglomerates she can apply for. Surely she can sort out mail at a conglomerate that isn't owned by the same family that was so hated by that one who calls herself Loulan's mothe--

Don't say that, jiejie, Loulan had said, as she hugged her sister in response. Ever since that woman tried to kill her jiejie for real, and maybe even long before that, she had stopped thinking of that woman as family. Jiejie is her family and that's all that matters - ahh, the beauty of going no contact. Who cares if she doesn't like the Ka family? We aren't her children anymore, and we don't have to inherit her grudges, so it shouldn't matter.

They're Suirei and Loulan now - not two children whose 'mother' stupidly kept insisting should play tug-of-war over the name Shisui.

Besides, Loulan chuckled, they pay me very well over there, at Ka Corporate.

But now, looking at their boss, that man, that family's son, draping over Maomao like he has every right to - and he probably does, Maomao thinks she can hide her feelings but Loulan isn't blind - she kinds of understands how it feels.

To hold a grudge.

Maybe she's actually more like her mother than she thought she would be.

Ugh, this sucks. She shakes her head in an attempt to drive those bad bad thoughts away, and steps forward, making sure to put her best blinding smile on her face.

"Maomao! You're here!"

"Oh, Loulan." Maomao's since successfully shoved Jinshi off of her, her brisk steps closing the distance between her and Loulan faster than they should. Loulan can't help but flash a toothy grin as she envelops her friend in a crushing hug. "Oof. I keep telling you, your upper body strength --"

"Aww, it's not even as strong as the other day's hug!"

Maomao stares at her, her voice deadpan. "But if you keep suffocating me with those damned melons, you'll have to help deal with my funeral."

"Ah-ha~ oopsie?" She grins, twice - a bashful, innocent one towards Maomao, snug in her arms, maybe-purposefully nestled right in her bosom, and a thinner, sharper one towards the man, behind her. Know your place, bossman - "By the way. Maomao. Is that your Mister Jinshi, why is he still here?"

"Well, I --"

"He was about to leave," Maomao says, interrupting the rest of his sentence. She has since pried her way out of Loulan's embrace, but lets her friend dangle all over her arm, very much like Jinshi had done. "You have to wait for big sister Ahduo to arrive, right, Mister Jinshi?"

Jinshi opens his mouth, as if to speak, only to close it again, a fond peal of laughter passing through his lips. "Yeah, you're right. Have fun and stay safe out there, you two!"

"Of course we will!" Loulan chimes, grinning so wide that Jinshi chalks up what he saw earlier to maybe a hallucination due to lack of sleep. Loulan is Maomao's best friend, a sweet girl who fawns over insects and enjoys her sweet treats - surely he just imagined the sharpness he saw in that one moment? "Our Maomao will always be safe when she's with me!"

The other day, Loulan had asked Xiaolan what people usually do on dates. Xiaolan had perked up, immediately assumed she had finally said yes to one of her many suitors, and drew up an entire date plan for her. She feels a bit bad for lying to her best friend in the world, but she can't really feel all that bad, not when both her arms are wrapped around one of Maomao's, her cheek leaning against her shoulder.

"I...don't think we're the correct heights for this?" Maomao wonders out loud, and Loulan pouts. Yeah, so she's the taller one, but she wants her cuddles, goddamnit!

"We're going to be sitting in a while so we'll be the right heights for cuddling then! Our Maomao only has to bear with my tallness a little bit more!"

There's a weary smile forming on Maomao's lips right now, the fond one she wears when she swears up and down that she wants no part of Loulan and Xiaolan's shenanigans but joins along anyway. "Not that, silly. I just think it might hurt for you to keep bending like that."

Maomao really is a sweetie, and it makes everything about this even worse. Loulan frowns and shakes that thought away and takes Maomao all the way to the cashier with a smile and all the audacity in her heart. "Excuse me, we have a reservation under Shi Loulan?"

They get led to what is...well, essentially...no, that's what it's called on the ticket itself: a loveseat. Two reclining cinema seats with no center armrest in between - Loulan was specifically gunning for this, but now that it's here for real, she can't help but feel her cheeks burn. Hopefully the cinema lights are dim enough that Maomao won't notice.

"Ah," Maomao says, her hand over both of Loulan's, calling her attention. "If the only armrests we have are at each side, where will you put the popcorn?" The last time they were at the movies - the two of them, jiejie, Xiaolan - she had insisted they share a big bucket of popcorn. Granted Loulan had gone through a good three-fourths of the way down - Maomao eats like a baby bird, and that's compared to jiejie of all people! But still, the sharing is the point.

"You're quick to notice. We have this thing that slots into the cupholders, we can put the popcorn over here on my side!" Loulan's eyes narrow a little, and she leans ever closer to her, a naughty little thought making its way through her brain. "Oh, but that means Maomao is going to lean over me to have her popcorn? Or I can feed you? I will let you have it your way, either way --"

Maomao sighs, but her eyes are fond. "Loulan's the one who likes popcorn the most. Let's cross that bridge when we get there." She backs up one step, two steps, letting Loulan lead her down onto their seats. "This really is a soft chair, though. Did you like this movie enough to reserve seats like this?"

Actually...Loulan's not pretty sure what the movie is. She tears herself away from Maomao's arm for the moment and spares their ticket a glance - when she and Xiaolan were looking at the movie times, she only looked for something that started long after the time Maomao and Mister Jinshi usually get back from their rare half day of...hmm, "field work", and something that had a run time of maaaaaybe at least three hours. So she wants to extend the time she has to cuddle with Maomao in these plush seats, sue her. But her formal answer when asked is that, in a cruel joke of fate or bureaucracy, there were none of the action movies both of them usually like, so Loulan had wanted to watch a romance, but she also feels Maomao would judge her every step of the way, so she picked this long, long movie instead. From the title, it looks to be some kind of family period drama.

"Ah...not really? But my coworkers told me it was good, so I decided, well, let's give it a shot!" Maomao raises her eyebrow at that, and Loulan giggles. "Well, at the very least, if it's a crappy movie, at least we have good seats, right?"

A good hour later, it does turn out to be a crappy movie. Loulan's entire body is curled around Maomao's side at this point, and Maomao got so concerned that she begun rubbing comforting circles on Loulan's back. "...if you're not feeling well, we can leave early."

Hell no. Not when Loulan finally scrounged up a plan to monopolize her time like this. So what if the shitty mom onscreen kind of looks like her own mo...someone she used to know? She totally isn't projecting on the main character's childhood and heartaches at all. "There's nothing wrong, I'm just cold and want Maomao to warm me up!" She snuggles closer, chasing her warmth - that Mister Jinshi really is a meanie for hogging her very best friend all to himself. So what if he's in love with her, so what if he met her first? He should be a magnanimous boss and share this blessing with the world - wait, no, not the world, at least share with her and Xiaolan...

Maomao doesn't know the half of it - Loulan only told her the version of the story that she and jiejie decided fit to explain why they're just two sisters in a house, with big sister Ahduo the only other person they let inside - but even when her big investigative brain is beginning to put two and two together, Maomao doesn't look at her with pity. Those cool, clear eyes are unwavering, her hand steady as as it moves up to tuck Loulan's hair behind her ear.

"If you say so. But are you really going to leave the popcorn alone like that?"

Loulan doesn't have enough time to process before she realizes Maomao leaning all the way across her her body, practically pressing them shoulder to shoulder as she reaches for the popcorn. Now she's back, with the bucket of popcorn in her lap, munching on autopilot as she tips a handful into Loulan's open palms. "...you really do like this flavor, huh."

It's caramel sesame popcorn, with a crackly sugar shell like Loulan's favorite tanghulu. Maomao likes the savory and spicy flavors better but she never complains when Xiaolan and Loulan drag her into their sweets binges, never opts out of trying some new thing they rave about. Maomao isn't the showiest, warmest person, but her affection seeps through in the little things she does, just like molten caramel in between the cracks of each popcorn kernel, and maybe that's why Loulan ended up here, if she really thinks about it.

"Yeah," Loulan murmurs, leaning back into Maomao's shoulder. "I really do like it a lot."

Both of them are enjoying the outside seating at the cafe Xiaolan said was at her top three ranking for a nice cafe date, laughing over how the movie cinema workers had to wake them up because they'd both dozed off in the loveseat, curled around each other like a pair of little kittens. Loulan says it's too bad they didn't have a picture. Maomao says she thanks her lucky stars there aren't any.

Now here's the thing: Jiejie always told Loulan, especially when they're outside the house or outside Ka Corporate, she should always be on guard. There's a reason why they live near big sister Ahduo, and a reason why in spite of jiejie's grumblings, Ka Corporate is actually the perfect place to be. But Loulan must have been drunk on the warmth of the sunshine, her latte, the stories Maomao tells her about interesting plants that Loulan could probably feed her interesting insects.

It's a good day, and it's probably why when she hadn't noticed earlier.

Slap.

"You unfilial child!"

Oh no.

Maomao whips her head around to look at who caused the red handprint on her friend's face, but Loulan doesn't need to see that face to know who it is. There's a little child inside of her brain screaming, clawing through, awakened by the memory of that sting and that voice, but Loulan pushes her back in because she's with Maomao and they're outside and really the universe should cut me some damned slack, for a change -

"Good to see you, too."

"After all that I've done for you!" So she's still stuck on the same spiel, even after a good four, five years of going no-contact. "After all I've done for you, after all the good I've done raising you! You...! You run out of my house in the dead of the night, like a thief! Like a criminal! That woman's child really is a bad influence on you!"

Nevermind that it was Loulan who hatched the plan to run away, the same day she came of age, and also Loulan who confronted their father to tell him what will happen, and how he can no longer do anything to stop it - no matter how much time Loulan will waste explaining how she wanted this and jiejie had merely followed, to this woman, everything was always Suirei's fault.

"Jiejie did nothing to deserve what you did to her." Loulan says, louder now. She knows that people's eyes are on them, watching them in the sunlight like they watched that crappy movie. But with Maomao's hand holding hers under the table, keeping her grounded back onto earth, she doesn't waver. "I knew how she can leave, so I wanted to leave with her. Shouldn't you be grateful to me? Now you have no children you have to pretend to raise."

Maomao hasn't heard Loulan's voice be this cold. Not now, not ever. She decides she hates it. Maomao squeezes her hand, working warmth back into her frozen fingers.

"No, that's a lie."

"It's the truth. Take it or leave it, I don't really care." Loulan says, and suddenly remembers the restraining order big sister Ahduo had them file as soon as they had left the house - she only has to wait, really, for the police officer 'round the corner to go notice this commotion. "Your children left because they no longer want to be your children anymore. Wake up and accept the consequences of your actions."

"My dear Shisui would never do that to me." The woman steps ever closer, eyeing their hands under the table with distressing interest. "My dearest girl would never talk to me that way, would never walk out on her dearest Mama and debase herself to gallivant around with some...stupid girl!"

Woman, I wish we were in the situation you're imagining, Loulan almost blurts out, before the hilarity in that assumption gets drowned out by the implications of her words. Loulan doesn't care what this woman says about her anymore, but she does care if she talks about jiejie, and does care if she talks about Maomao --

"Say that again."

"Oh, so the rat speaks. Tell me, what lies did you whisper to my little girl to make her believe she was better off with you? What drug did you get her drunk on to make her stay?"

"Don't talk to her like that!" Loulan says, leaning forward, as if that would be enough to hide Maomao from those disgusting eyes. "I don't want you here, you don't like how I live, end of story! Now leave!"

"Shisui, my daughter, you should know by now that I know best -" the woman says, reaching forward to pull her by the arm, like she always does...

...but Maomao, of all people, beats her to it.

"Hands off her, you fucking hag!"

Maomao pulls those hands away from Loulan with a strength that surprises her - this is the same Maomao that says maybe Mister Baryou can crush her like an egg? The same Maomao who huffs and puffs when big sister Ahduo asks her to go jogging with them? Anyway, this same exact Maomao takes the hand that the woman had intended to hurt her, long sharp acrylics and all, and uses the same hand, the same force, to slap her across the face, sending her to the ground.

Loulan just has enough of her wits about her to take their bags so they won't left behind, because everything else is a blur when Maomao grabs her by the hand and makes a run for it before the woman can get back to her feet. Of all the moments in the world, this is when that curious, subconscious thing - that little piece of warm fluffiness bubbling up and threatening to make an explosive out of her chest - decides to remind her that she isn't getting out of this easily.

With her fingers interlaced with Maomao's own, Loulan runs, and thinks. It was the work of a moment to write off that woman who goes about calling Loulan her daughter, but somehow harder for her to come to terms with this feeling?

Maybe Xiaolan was right. I haven't seen you this serious about a date before, she had said, watching Loulan pore over the checklist of things to remember for that day. You must really love them!

Fuck.

In the heat of the moment, Loulan's hair had gone loose, and now she's one hair stick short. Maomao thinks they should just go and retrace their steps. Loulan stops her - they don't have to, it's just something she got for very cheap online anyway. But her other hair sticks are more precious - of course she put in all her shiny things for a day with Maomao - so she's tucking them back into her bag, brushing out her curls with her fingers.

Maomao takes out a thermos from her bag and pours some mystery beverage into its cup. "Hong zao cha, for warmth. It is a bit cold out." Loulan takes the offered cup and has a nice, long sip - it tastes heavily of ginger, and between the mushy date halves and the sweetness of the blend she can guess pretty much how long this has been steeping for.

Red dates, black dates, longan, goji berries. For...warmth and immunity? Yeah, that's the explanation she remembers. Maomao has a great many herbal teas, like jiejie, and gives them out sparingly, also like jiejie. She's also carefully moving around Loulan and her tea cup to put ointment on her cheek.

"Hey," Loulan puts her cup down to look Maomao in the eyes, wondering if the other girl can feel the sheer gratitude flowing through the tone of her voice. "Thanks for doing that. Earlier. That was a big help."

"No, not really." Maomao demurrs, her tone of voice as flat as always. "It's your fight, I know you can fight it. You've been fighting it for far longer than I know. I just said what I wanted to say."

Swoon. Stay very still, Loulan's poor overstimulated heart. She chuckles awkwardly. "I always wanted to curse at her for what she did to jiejie, but I kept telling myself I won't let her blood take over me, so I didn't. So when I heard you -" Loulan shakes her head. "- I don't know. It didn't feel like stooping to her level. It just felt like saying the truth."

"Because it is. Suirei raised her little sister preciously, and you love her a lot too, and that's all that matters." Maomao has a way of speaking things into absolutes. The sun will rise and set and Suirei and Loulan are the only members from that family they need. Big sister Ahduo, too, but she would say that she just did what was right for her cute college underclassman. "Whatever people like those say doesn't matter."

Loulan tucks herself into Maomao's one-armed embrace, the sunset lighting everything around them with an orange glow. "Hey, Maomao."

"Mm?"

"Well..." She has to get this out of her before she loses her mind. But instead of what she was supposed to say, she says something else.

"...what do you think of Mister Jinshi?"

Maomao's hand pauses mid-stroke down Loulan's unbound hair, and suddenly it feels like the world stops around them. "What do you mean?"

"It means what it means. Don't tell me you haven't caught on to how he feels for you?"

With a deep, long sigh, Maomao closes her eyes. "We're not going to speculate about this. Wasn't Suirei-jie the one who said maybe he was just like this because he has no friends?"

"Yeah, but..." That was before jiejie saw him, Loulan continues in her mind. And before I saw that look in Maomao's eyes - the one that tells me she just doesn't want to admit that herself.

"What answer do you want to hear?"

"The real one. You know I'm your friend." Loulan brings a hand up to touch Maomao's cheek. "You know it's the least I can do for you, after everything."

"He's...a good guy. It's frustrating 'cuz I know I shouldn't feel bad asking all these herbs from him, but I do, sometimes. I know I'm doing a job that I should get paid for, and he makes sure that I do, but the fact that he goes above and beyond to look for all this stuff..." She sighs, again. "He's going to make someone very happy someday. But I don't think it should be me. I don't even know if I can feel an emotion like that."

There it is. One of the reasons why Loulan cannot dare say what she means to say in words that Maomao can hear. But, also, the exact same reason why Loulan selfishly just can't find it in herself to give up just yet. Because what if Maomao learns to feel like this, someday, and what if, maybe, there was more than a pinprick of a chance that it could be for her? 

But even if it weren't for me, Loulan thinks, I would still happily support her. She's my very best friend in the world, and her love, her friendship, is more than enough. She doesn't need to love me the way I love her. Loulan leans her forehead against Maomao's, lets the other woman wrap her arms around her hair, taking it up and wrapping it around itself. She can feel the sensation of a hair stick being stuck into her updo, but Maomao doesn't wear hair sticks - what is this?

"This look okay to you?" Maomao says, holding up her phone so Loulan can see herself from the front camera. It's a tiny pinprick of silver in the middle of her dark hair, and Loulan realizes - it's the same hair stick she sees Maomao wear around the office sometimes, when she wears a hair stick at all. The figure of what Loulan assumes to be a bird peeks from the back of her head.

"Maomao, this is your hair stick."

"Yeah, but it feels like it would hold more hair than your pretty hair sticks will." She shakes her head with a wry smile, as if just remembering something. "God knows the person who gave me this has more hair than sense."

Oh, so he's on the hair stick-giving stage now? Loulan laughs. She really does her work cut out for her. But that's okay - they have all the time in the world.

"Next time, let's go and get matching hairpins with Xiaolan. We can be cute little ladybugs!"

The next morning, when Loulan purposefully goes to Maomao's office to return her silver hair stick back, Mister Jinshi has a puzzled but somehow distraught look on his face. That lasts for a handful of seconds until he schools it back into a more laid-back expression, but from what Loulan sees of it she can read what he really wants to say pretty well, herself: why am I not surprised?

Loulan chuckles to herself all the way back to her post. That makes two of them, then.

Chapter Text

End notes:

• i made the executive decision to make loulan call suirei "jiejie" for this au...it's cute. since in japanese she calls her 姉さま, she should be a bit more polite? but since there's only two of em you dont need to specify she's the firstborn thru dajie? so we go back to jiejie ha
• stray kids-wise!!! i need to point out this song. these are two songs written by their member changbin: because [i like you] (the one i used for maomao tug of war), and sorry i love you, which is. yeah look at that duality.

• so yeah we were supposed to be more in the gloomy introspective dramatic state (and i guess we are because hahaha why bump into the family member you dont want on a day like this???) because look at this. look at that.
• but then i saw this lyric a while after writing the...third scene of this fic, and thought, wait i know what to do with the second scene now. they can go to the movies!! thank u lyrics!!

• china apparently sells sweet popcorn more than savory (anecdotal, i cannot prove this with data evidence) but i am personally intrigued by sesame caramel popcorn, hence that being their order here. basically caramel popcorn mixed with sesame during the popping process?
• back to the lyrics of this song, this is a more heart-rending version of the translation - idk much of korean to know if this is more/less correct but it just hurts, why is this my favorite song off this album again?
• have to go back to work now so i'll skip ahead a bit. hong zao cha (红枣茶), jujube/red date tea. a warming tea for immunity and calming the spirit, among other things. a fun fact i saw during research was that people who lose blood/give birth/undergo surgery are also given this

• more 红枣茶 references!!! i keep writing tea into my knh fic, dont mind me shhh (as someone whose core memories are mostly in binondo i keep looking these up)
• https://www.travelchinaguide.com/chinese-herbal-tea.htm
• https://elan.house/pages/herbal-tea-rdt-cooking-instructions
• https://wendyinkk.blogspot.com/2009/01/red-date-tea.html?m=1
• https://omnivorescookbook.com/jujube-tea/
• spoilers ofc for LN 4 and the GX manga equivalent (i keep saying this) but there were two things in canon that drove me to do this: maomao called shenmei くそばば (”damned/shitty old woman/hag”, refer to the attached pic)

• THE SILVER HAIR STICK. I WANT TO CRY
• "why on my collar, not my hair?"
• "you'll be too pretty if i do that"
• AAAAAH. SCREAMING. CRYING. 
• so yeah i just wanted the office/modern au to have a version where maomao does get the hair stick back i am still sobbing
• when i saw this line in the LN/manga in particular i slowly shifted it from a bittersweet end to an open one because LOOK, LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS HERE??? 華美????????

so anyway yeah maolan. i want them to be happy. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Chapter Text

Sometimes it's moments like this that really pulls everything into perspective, and Jinshi hates that he has to learn this from personal experience.

"Everybody, take cover!" shouts a very familiar voice. Without waiting for a reaction, the owner of said voice then reaches for the man at the head of the table, pushing him away so fiercely and quickly that his security can't even respond. The young man's laser pointer clatters uselessly to the floor. He's about to reach for it, purely on impulse, before she screams into his ear again, louder, this time: "You, don't move!"

Her voice is so, so familiar. He could bet good money that he has heard this voice in his dreams.

So this could only be--!

Suddenly, everything happens, all at once: glass shatters, the person holding him leaps forward, as if pushed from behind, and fresh, hot blood spills all over the young man's freshly-pressed suit. He looks up and sees his vision shielded by a very familiar beaded tendril of hair - followed quickly by the rest of his savior's long hair, suddenly freed from what might have been an updo, falling around the both of them like a curtain.

He hears a soft metallic clink as something falls from somewhere along the top of her head, down to the ground beside him - the silver hair stick he had given her, the one he insisted she use today.

No, no--

Jinshi doesn't know how Maomao burst into this secret board meeting with the speed of Nezha's wheels and the fury of Xuannu, but what matters now is that she's here, melting like honey in his arms, and there is so, so much blood.

"What is this," Jinshi hears himself murmur, as the world erupts into chaos around them. "Why is this...why is it you?"

The floor-to-ceiling glass window behind him has cracks surrounding a singular, perfect bullet hole. If Jinshi was paying enough attention, he would have noticed that it was supposed to go through his heart. With the wind and the strength at which Maomao had pushed him by the shoulders and held tight, they're lucky it went through her arm instead. He holds her closer to him, in spite of everyone screaming at him to let go.

"Why are you here?"

"That's...ugh...my line." She winces. Jinshi thinks that wince means she finally noticed the blood, but - in a complete 360 to how she had always acted around him - she raises her trembling hand up to softly cup his cheek, as if she could never imagine seeing him here. Her eyes, usually cold as ice with a cutting glare slicing through his defenses, are softer than he's ever seen them. In any other situation, her hand on him like this would have made him swoon. In this exact moment, all Jinshi wants to do is cry. "I didn't know it was you, either."

Between the cuts blooming scarlet on her cheek and the blood dripping from her nose, Jinshi can bet a pretty penny that this is the "minor altercation" he heard from outside, the one he had heard from hushed whispers was caused by some woman scorned. But that can't be, he thinks, now that Maomao's in his arms - he couldn't think of anyone in this board meeting that she could want to curse out (the La Agricultural Group's eccentric patriarch isn't here...or is he? Jinshi swears he heard his voice outside for a moment), and...if it was something to do with him, she wasn't supposed to know he's here in the first place - not when the plaque in front of his seat, before she pushed him away, has his real name and position clearly engraved on it. He can't help but wonder if she would have come to his defense like this, even after knowing it was his cross to bear.

Maomao is bleeding. There is so much blood. Weaving in and out of consciousness, she swears up and down that she came here prepared, she has enough strength left in her to fish out the bullet from her own wound, this will only take a little while, promise. Jinshi's not even the one who's been shot, but he feels so nauseous, so sick to his stomach, listening to everyone around him - reasonable, practical voices, he's sure - telling him to set her down, leave her to the doctors, and make a run for it. Keeps feeling so nauseous as he shakes his head no, because he can't just leave her here.

He was the one who started all of this, after all. He was the one who brought Maomao out from her freelancing, plunging her head-first into all these complicated cases and assorted messes that Ka Holdings - correction, that he and his CEO - always ended up involved with eventually. He was the one who used her razor-sharp wit and scathing commentary like his sword, always there for his defense as he cut through all the bullshit. So it only makes sense that right now she's his shield too, broken and injured protecting him.

Protecting him. Him, as if her life was any less important than hers.

His CEO, their boss, his elder brother who was way too much of a smartass for anyone's good - he had joked that Yue, you probably shouldn't get way too attached to this one. Because "you know how you get, when you're in one of your moods", and "be honest with me, do you think a kid like that would ever stay here for long?", and other stuff that sounded like that. Jinshi had laughed it off and said that his brother was getting ridiculous in his old age. He insisted that the traditional medicine enjoyer was just a helper, just a pawn, just a talent he swiped right under one of their client's nose. One of his people. One of his pawns.

Surely there isn't much of a difference.

It's a good thing, then, that that guy, stupid future-telling big brother, isn't here to see this.

Jinshi stands up with saltwater in his eyes and Maomao bleeding in his arms, has to ask someone to lead him to the medics because he can't see past the blur of tears but he'll be damned before he lets anyone take Maomao away from him. When the nurses ask her questions she blearily murmurs something about Jinshi owing her the stupid expensive herbal medicine for sealing this case shut and it's the look of straight-up devastation on Jinshi's pretty face that has the nurses think better against trying to pry her from his arms.

"She's my person, take care of her." Jinshi sobs, when the stretchers arrive and they have to beg him to set her down. "My person. Don't forget it."

My person, no longer just one of his "people".

Later tonight, holding Maomao's hand in her hospital room, Jinshi will realize exactly how much real estate Maomao has taken up in his heart. But right now, he's just running alongside her stretcher, praying to every deity he knows to please keep her alive, because he does not want to imagine living life without her. 

She lingers in Maomao's hospital room, leaning on a far wall. He's by her bedside holding her hand.

Jinshi sighs. "So it's her, still?"

"You know she won't stop until she gets to you," Loulan says, coming closer to sit at the other side of Maomao's bed. There's a tight grin on her face, almost akin to a wince, but nothing but pure sadness behind her eyes. "Something about the Ka family having to be put down a peg sometimes, et cetera. I learned to block out most of what I used to hear her say, but something like this sounds like what she's good at. Dad was at your meeting, wasn't he?"

By her father, she only means one person - the CEO of Shi Pharmaceuticals. The exact same guy she's running from. Big sister Ahduo told him all about this, when she first asked him to help the sisters move into the apartment unit next to hers. "So should we have taken him in custody?"

"Nahh, it's not as if that woman would have told Dad anything about it anyway." Loulan reaches for Maomao, tucks the stray strands of hair behind her ear. "It's just that she knows where you are thanks to Dad's schedules - you don't really go out in your COO position a lot, do you? I mean, I totally get it, why go to boring-ass exec meetings when you can go exploring with Maomao instead, I would do the same, our Maomao is super cute --"

"Hey," Jinshi snaps, only for his pretend-angry face to break into a sigh when Loulan gives him a raised eyebrow. He groans. "Never mind. Anyway, that's not what you're here to talk to me about."

"I mean, it could be, it should be, too." Loulan says, a pinprick of anger behind her flippant tone. "They shot her in the arm. She's gonna hate that so much. Jiejie always tells me you need two arms to grind medicinal herbs the traditional way."

"Yeah, she's gonna hate that so much." Maomao murmurs something unintelligible in her sleep, something about an ox bezoar. Jinshi's eyes crinkle up around the edges as he smiles down at her. "I'll get her a spice grinder as a get-well-soon present."

"See, that's why she likes hanging around you. You always spoil our Maomao like this, you're making her have more expensive tastes, and it's all your fault."

Unfortunately, Jinshi, hyped up on caffeine and fresh off an assassination attempt, can only hear one word out of that sentence. There are suddenly tears falling from those clear crystal eyes, making their home on Jinshi and Maomao's entwined fingers.

"She...likes...me?"

"Likes hanging out with you. Crap. I shouldn't have told you that." Loulan says, taking Maomao's other hand in both of hers and using it to hit her own forehead softly. "Sorry, Meow-meow, I told him your secret. I'm treating you to dinner as soon as we get out of here." She spares Jinshi a glance. "That is. If you're going to let her out of your reach as soon as we get out of here --"

"What, no, of course she can go out to dinner with you." Jinshi ponders that thought around his brain a little bit, and then decides: "I'll just be coming along."

"And make life easier for that woman? Put the guy she wants to murder and the kids she wants to kidnap in one place? No sir-ee. Anyway, check if the bullet shell they fished out of Maomao's arm is a match for the sniper rifle they'll probably find at the building your security team was scouring earlier. She usually disposes of the people she hires after they fail, but she leaves their weapons behind."

Jinshi frowns. Wouldn't she at least dispose of the people alongside the weapons? What kind of power play is this woman doing, really? "That doesn't seem fair."

"She originally wanted to get jiejie to assassinate you, of course she doesn't seem fair. Be grateful she wasn't the one who did this. If it was up to jiejie..." Loulan sighs, before continuing fondly: "But why do I feel like, even if it was jiejie plotting for your death, our little cat will still be here to protect you?"

"She's not doing this because it's me." Jinshi says, one hand interlocked with Maomao's, his other hand feeling for her pulse, reminding himself that she's still alive. "If it was any other person in my place, and she felt that there was some sort of injustice going on - she would still throw herself in harm's way for them. That's just the way she is."

"We're screwed." Loulan says. Jinshi looks up at her in alarm - but she makes no other explanation, only looks at him meaningfully. There's a faint thread of understanding coloring her expression now, but Jinshi can't quite understand what it's supposed to be there for. "We're so screwed, aren't we? That's why that woman won't stop here. She knows how to get to us now. Do you know she interrupted me and Maomao's lovely movie date?"

"...no, she didn't tell me anything about that. Did you tell Ahduo-jie?"

"Of course I had to - jiejie heard us so I got lectured within an edge of my life, too." Loulan sighs. "I mean, I get it. But it still sucks. Do any of your people know that you're spending the night in Maomao's hospital room?"

"Just the usual. Boss, Gaoshun, Suiren." Jinshi's eyes widen in shock, in realization. "Some of the other security people know, too. Do you mean..."

"I mean you have to be careful, Ka clan boy." Loulan stands up from her chair, fondly fixes Maomao's hair before stepping away.

"...thanks. I'll..." Jinshi gulps. Remembers what he had told Maomao before, during that garden party gone wrong. Gods, it feels like eons ago, now.  "...she's my priority."

"She better be."

"She'll always be." Jinshi says, insistent.

Loulan rolls her eyes, then chuckles. "I guess I can accept this if you take care of her."

Jinshi can't quite process what Loulan says what she means by 'this', but for some reason he feels like he just got a good thing.

Chapter Text

His little accountant would have balked if she knew just how much she was loved. Earlier, before she left, Loulan asked if he wanted if he wanted to change shifts with her or her sister. Big Sister Ahduo had said the same too, when she came by with his brother and Suiren to drop off some fruit baskets and his change of clothes - he was still wearing the suit with her blood splattered on it. Hell, Jinshi doesn't even want to know how the La clan got a hold of his personal phone, but Lahan and Lakan were ringing him every other minute for the past few hours.

Jinshi puts the damned phone on silent. He saw the look on her face when he asked if she ever wanted to see her dad when he came to disturb them at work. Maybe that's something he has to ease his way into understanding, but oh well.

His gaze drops down onto her face again, uncharacteristically unguarded and peaceful in sleep. They've shared a room before - as previously noted his damned matchmaking brother keeps assigning them into rooms with just one bed - but he doesn't think he's ever been asleep where she isn't. He brushes the curl of a bang that clings to her forehead and winces when he sees just how many bandages they had to wrap around her head in the aftermath. The bullet had gone through her arm, and her head took most of the shrapnel - but the alternative was Jinshi's heart. The clan elders say she made the right decision. Jinshi begs to disagree.

"You always do exceed my expectations," Jinshi says, sure in the volume of his words in the stillness of the night. "And I have the rest of my life to thank you for that."

Subconsciously, her eyebrows furrow, like they always do when Jinshi says something that she thinks "should be saved up for your special someone, Mister Jinshi." He chuckles softly at the thought, massaging warmth back into her still fingers. Even with or without her own noble parentage, they've reached the point where if people ever dragged Jinshi back into the damned marriage talks again, he would only ever say yes for her. His one and only special someone. He finds himself selfishly wishing and hoping she would come to understand, in time.

Suddenly, out of the blue, Jinshi hears somebody scoff.

"Really? Waiting at that rat's bedside, like a cliche lover? Of all the places you could have been, this was not what I expected."

"I'm exactly where I need to be," Jinshi says, raising her head to meet hers. He may have fallen asleep with his head by Maomao's bedside, and there may be an embarrassing crease or two on his cheek right now, but there's no shame in it - he tightens his hold on her hand. "I can't say the same about you, Madam Shi."

"Preposterous. I'd say an exterminator should always be where the rodents are."

"The only rodent I can see here is you." Jinshi says, with as much disgust as he can muster.

He remembers that one throwaway line Loulan had tossed him earlier, like a clue - they had met Madam Shi, and the day after, Loulan had returned Maomao's hair stick, the silver one he had given her. The only one she wears. Something had happened in between, he was sure - but why that hair stick? Was there some message in this that Jinshi was supposed to read into?

"That's not so polite of you, boy." Madam Shi Shenmei chides, as if she wasn't the one who sent a sniper to aim right at Ka Zuigetsu's heart earlier. "I guess it is true what they said about broken families creating subpar children."

In any other situation, Jinshi would have jumped across the room and choked this woman with his bare hand for the affront to his mother. But he has to bide his time because after pressing the panic button, it will take ten minutes for Gaoshun and the rest of his security to get here, and Jinshi still doesn't want to let go of Maomao's hand. Jinshi takes a deep breath, instead. He can always volley her words back to her. "That's not so polite of you either, madam. But I guess it is also true what they say about psychopath mothers breaking their own children."

The woman's eyes widen, as if she didn't expect him to whip that out. If Shenmei - 1, well, now Jinshi - 1 too. They're at an impasse.

"I don't know what my darling Shisui has been telling you," Shenmei says, her voice now so artificially high and sugar-sweet, "But children lie when they're embarrassed, do they not?"

Jinshi laughs, and he still sounds like bells, but there is none of his usual warmth behind the noise. "Madam, I knew you thought yourself youthful, but surely there has to be a threshold: I don't think you should count yourself in as a child."

It's low-hanging fruit, Jinshi knows, but he will consider the startled step backward she makes as a win. Shenmei - 1, Jinshi - 2.

"I never liked you." Shenmei says, simply, all the heavenly beauty of her name diminished by the ugly sneer she has as she considers Jinshi. "From the time your lowly mother bore you, and ruined my life...I always wished you were dead."

"Oh, really? You won't be the first one, madam. I would suggest you all meet up and form a club. Might be a more productive event than this." Jinshi meets her sneer with eyes cold as ice. "Since you're so aware of our board meetings, you do know that for the bullet to reach me from our original positions, it had to go through your husband first, right? Would my death have been worth it then?"

"That man is a coward who stood by and let your grandmother arrange a marriage between your father and me, he is no husband of mine."

Ah, right, this family drama - Jinshi's parents bore his elder brother out of wedlock, and his growth into a formidable man cemented his status as the Ka clan heir. His grandmother, may her soul never reincarnate, did not approve of Jinshi's mother, Anshi specifically, so she devised a scheme to get Jinshi's dad married off to Shenmei instead. Jinshi never knew Shenmei didn't like that either, because from what he'd heard, she'd taken great joy and pleasure in being the new lady of the Ka house. But that farce of a marriage went to shit too, didn't it...

Jinshi doesn't like his dad. Never did, never will. But maybe, just maybe, the actions he did to return Shenmei back to the Shi and have his marriage with Anshi reinstated - the fact that Jinshi himself was conceived shortly after - maybe that was the closest thing to love he could have given her. Even if it was just to secure his heir and spare as full brothers. Even if he did go back to his philandering ways soon after. Even if Jinshi really, really wishes he can claw that man out of the hole he'd dug himself in and make him take responsibility for all his crimes.

It doesn't matter now, though. Between Big Brother and myself, we can protect Mom all by ourselves.

"Your husband - he had waited for you, I hear. Waited for you to return all this time." Jinshi says, carefully. Well, there was the curious case of Suirei - but who would have expected that Shenmei would be returned? "Does that not count for anything?"

"No. It does not count when he was obviously waiting in that lowly bitch's insides." Shenmei's fan is in her hands now, her long, sharp golden acrylics clear as day against the wood of the fan. Jinshi knows from prior encounters that it usually means something when she holds it, which means someone out there is watching them. 

From the way they're arranged, Jinshi is the one sitting with his back to the window, hiding Maomao on her bed from view. He will not let Maomao use herself as a meat shield for him again. Gaoshun hated it so much, though.

"You're still holding that hand." Shenmei chides, disgust plain as day on her face. "If you're not going to claim the birthright your godforsaken family provides, at least don't sully it with that. Haven't the ladies I've provided you been enough?"

His blood runs cold. The ladies I've provided you. Oh, was that such a...pretty way to phrase it.

Jinshi had unfortunately always had this face. It would not be a stretch to say that when people saw something as beautiful as that, they always wanted to have their hands on it, to claim it for themselves. It didn't matter that the face belonged on a kid who was barely twelve, seven, heck, even five years of age. He could not count how many of those willful lads and lasses hid themselves in his sheets and baths and bushes, in the hopes that today is a day that they can catch him unguarded and alone. How many days had he had to hold his undone clothes to his body as Gaoshun made quick work of his would-be assaulters, how many scantily-clad women had Suiren had to drag out of his chambers?

Jinshi still has mixed feelings about being part of the Ka clan, but he does know he has their security people to thank for these mostly unsuccessful hidden "admirers". As he grew up, he had been inundated with martial arts drilled into his subconscious, been taught to not trust anyone implicitly. And he grew to know that while most of these people were working out of their own evil plots, a good chunk of them had connections that traced all the way back to one Shi Shenmei.

After all, the worst she could do to the family that ruined her value would be to tarnish their brightest jewel.

"Maybe it was wrong for me to leave such important work in the hands of those amateurs." Shenmei muses, pure, sick amusement flickering to life in her eyes. Eyes that would have been beautiful, if only she hadn't been as cruel to the world as it had been to her. The heels of her shoes click ominously as she makes her way to the center of the room, the rich fabric of her blouse pressed flush against the cold metal of Maomao's hospital bed. But she has no eyes for the young woman she had shot - her golden eyes lock onto Jinshi's somber ones. "I can make a good plaything of you, still."

One beat passes, and then another. Shenmei reaches forward to put her hands on Jinshi's face. Jinshi murmurs a last number under his breath.

Two things happen, all at once.

Jinshi's security team bursts into the scene, with Basen at the helm.

And suddenly, something finds itself lodged into someone's shoulder.

Shenmei falls to the ground, screaming. The Ka clan's security have barricades against the open window, just in time to catch the bullets crashing into them, but even they look surprised. Basen has Shenmei's injured arm behind her back before anyone can bat an eyelash.

"Young Master, are you okay?"

Their Young Master - Jinshi himself - isn't keen on replying, not when his gaze is single-mindedly focused on the woman in front of him. Maomao, sitting up, her breath labored as she winces, noticing how she had bled through her bandage. The arm she used to stab Shenmei with her hair stick is the same arm that had been shot, earlier.

But more importantly, she's awake, and she's squeezing his hand back.

"Maomao..." Jinshi says, and trails off. How is that sentence supposed to end, anyway? Maomao what a nice save? Maomao thanks for saving me from death twice? Maomao you look so hot when you're furious? Maomao do you want me to hold her down while you make a pin cushion out of her?

"I knew I should have done more than slap her, when I had the chance." Maomao fumes, righteous anger thumming through her veins as she stares down at the woman on the floor, and the blood pooling around Maomao's silver hair stick. She's squeezing Jinshi's hand, an unintended act that would normally imply her giving him comfort, but his heart stops at the thought of being the target of her fury.

No, Maomao, don't waste that sexy anger on her, use it on me instead - bad Jinshi. Down, Jinshi. Not the right time, Jinshi. He licks his lips.

Suddenly, as fast as that thought arrived, it leaves, and is quickly replaced by something else entirely. The silver hairstick Maomao lent Loulan, that she returned. The same one Jinshi gave her, something from his mother, sharpened at the tip for a better fit in her hair. It was in Maomao's hair when she was shot, put in her hand by Loulan when she had come to visit.

The security people have whisked Shenmei away to...somewhere. Jinshi could care any less. He turns his attention to Maomao, as he always does. "How long have you been awake?"

Back to its usual poker face, Maomao's expression belies nothing about how she actually feels. "I didn't hear anything I shouldn't need to know." she says simply. But she doesn't pry her hand from his, either. Her pulse is steady under his skin, and her breaths come naturally to her - the only evidence remaining of the rage Jinshi had felt and seen moments earlier being Shenmei's stab wound. "This doesn't have anything to do with anything she could have said. I just think she deserves it."

Jinshi lets go of her hand, freeing it for the first time in...quite a long time. Maomao takes her hand up to her face, stretching the joints experimentally, and is about to think nothing of it, if not for Jinshi taking this moment to wrap his arms around her shoulders, pulling her close to him.

"Mister Jinshi," Maomao grunts, not really knowing how to feel about the man snuggling close, his perfect, high nose bumping into the junction between her neck and shoulder. "Mister Jinshi. If you could do me a favor, please, let go --"

Just then, she feels something drop onto her skin, something dampening his long eyelashes. That wakes her the heck up. Jinshi's lips move against the fabric of her hospital gown as he speaks. "Please, give me just this moment...you're warm." Suddenly, he chuckles, the movement of his body resounding through hers from how closely they're pressed together. "Thank the gods...you're warm. I'm grateful."

They stay like that for a good half of an hour before a Ka clan nurse comes in and berates both patient and visitor for still being awake.

Chapter Text

It's a Saturday, and Maomao's here at Jinshi's childhood home.

It's a Saturday, and she's sitting with the side of her thigh flush against his, pressed together so they can both work against the smaller table in the greenhouse.

But most of all, it's a Saturday, and Maomao is here, with him, her hair braided up and away as those smaller hands of hers under Jinshi's mom's gardening gloves snip-snip-snip away.

Anyway, Jinshi is so excited at the prospect of helping Maomao with her roses that he thinks she's actually been checking every half-hour to see if he's fallen ill.

That's kind of rude, but Jinshi is kind of in love with her, so he lets her be.

"Why do we need all these roses, anyway?" Maomao asks, pruning the leaves from their biggest blooms before handing them to Jinshi, for him to place in the vases. "And why do they all have to be blue? Surely someone as smart as that geezer should know they don't exist like that."

With the vitriol laced through her usual no-nonsense tone, you wouldn't think she was thinking about her biological father, but Jinshi loves this woman's mental health and inner peace well enough to not point that out. "I don't know why he's so insistent on the blue either. But da-ge says that this uncle has had a penchant for blue roses since way back, when he still used to work for Ka Corporate."

"If he's so insistent on the blue, then he should source his damned roses all by his damned self. I swear to god, he always finds some way to push his work off onto others. That pisses me off." Maomao grumbles, the steel of her gardening shears glinting menacingly in the sunshine. She sets it down and reaches down onto the crate for a another batch of roses. "It's too bad Ahduo-jie's shipment of blue roses didn't pull through. At least you have all these white roses...? Hey, is it really fine with them that we cut all of these out?"

"Mom likes planting flowers. She says that the roses will always bloom back in the spring so we can take as much as we want." Jinshi says, cheeks red as Maomao's gloved fingers collide minutely with his own. Thank all the gods above, she's too focused on the leaves to look at him. "Thanks for coming with me, by the way. You really didn't have to."

"I had to." Maomao grumbles. "You asked me."

Jinshi flushes a deeper red, which was apparently possible. "I...I mean I did ask you to help! But I just thought you had an idea I could try out, I mean, well, it's your day off...?"

"It all works out in the end. I mean. Your mom really does have a great greenhouse," Maomao says, shrugging. "She even asked me what I think she should plant next, but I'm so sorry I'm not really a flowers girl - all I could think of was honeysuckle. Great for staving off the heat, usually used to improve blood circulation. Your mom was grinning as she listed that down, so I think she was fine with that?"

"Yeah...yeah she probably was." Jinshi coughs, and looks away, the flush burning its way through his skin.

He will never let her know that the reason why they ended up here is because Ahduo-jie and da-ge, those scheming lovebirds, conspired this entire thing with the "shipment" so da-ge could have him and Maomao put their heads together like this, and guess who has the white roses they would need? Their mother, award-winning hobby gardener Ka Anshi, of course.

Of all people, those lovebirds had talked her into going with it - apparently Jinshi wasn't moving fast enough for their liking, and since he had already met most of Maomao's family it was time for her to meet his, and of course his mom would go along with anything Ahduo-jie says in that tone of voice. It's just unfair.

Jinshi still flushes at the thought, equal parts embarrassment and excitement invigorating the butterflies in his belly. He flushes even more when he remembers that the last person his mom had asked for flower bed recommendations was Ahduo-jie, when she and da-ge first visited home after they started dating.

Maomao clicks her tongue. "See, I keep saying you can just go inside and let me finish this. Look, your face is burning." The skin of her bare palm is cool on Jinshi's poor forehead as she checks for his temperature, and it takes all of Jinshi's restraint and self-respect to jolt away from her touch. "Are you sure you aren't sick?"

The only sick I feel is lovesickness, so no. Jinshi clears his throat as an excuse to turn away from that observant gaze. "A-absolutely." He busies his hands with arranging the flowers in their vases. "Anyway, uhh...we got to have these before the party tonight, right? You can't do all of this yourself."

"I can. I could. Surely you have something more interesting to do than dye flowers with me? It doesn't seem like you go home a lot. Your mom was complaining about that over lunch."

"Mom exaggerates. She tells da-ge that, too."

"Hm, okay. If you say so."

Maomao quickly turns a rose around in her hands, but doesn't hand this one over to Jinshi - just as quickly as she picked it up, she sets it down beside her, in a smaller vase Jinshi hadn't even noticed her set aside. Maybe some experiment...he'll ask about it later.

She continues pruning the other roses. "You've already helped with preparing the dye, dividing the water into the vases, picking the flowers, and now you're helping me with the arrangements. Don't you have anything better to do?"

Jinshi makes sure to maintain eye contact when he says his next words. "Oh, but there's nothing better than spending time with you, though?"

A beat passes, then two -

Maomao gives him the most impressive scowl, one he hasn't seen from her in a long time. "Ugh. I did not miss hearing you say shit like that."

Jinshi leans towards her, keeping the smile high on his face. For better or worse, he'd gotten used to flirting his nerves away. "Aww, but you do miss me. That's enough to make my spirits soar, my darling."

"Why do you always do this? I hate it when you go and do that." Maomao grumbles, shoving the roses into Jinshi's awaiting, outstretched hands. Jinshi hums as he puts them into the prepared vases, blue water inside clear glass. Maomao clicks her tongue. "Sometimes I swear it feels like you've turned pissing me off into your damned hobby."

"Hobbies, huh." Jinshi murmurs, looking at the spread in front of them. Over there, the first batch of their roses from a few hours ago has already turned into more of a sky blue color. Maomao says they would only turn a deeper blue as the day goes on, and if that still doesn't work, she'll mix up another vat of dyed water to drown them all in. "Must be nice. Was traditional medicine always your hobby?"

"Eh, I grew up around my old man's work, so it's more of a vocation to me than anything. I got accepted on full scholarship for the accounting program though, so had to pursue that line of work instead." She pouts, her fuller bottom lip pushing out. "Even if it feels like I haven't been using much of that recently, either. Eh, an audit's still an audit."

"You know I hired you on the basis of how damned smart you are, right? So quick on your feet, too. It doesn't matter which skill set you pull from, as long as you have skill in the first place." Jinshi's eyes are fond and soft when he gazes upon the accountant next to him, who in turn hisses at him. He chuckles; he's gotten way too used to letting her get away with that. "But a hobby...that has to be something you do for fun, right? Basen told me that reading books in the library doesn't count."

Jinshi - no, Zuigetsu. For as long as he remembered, Zuigetsu always read books in the library and rode horses and practiced his martial arts. Zuigetsu, who always had to do so many things, but not because they were fun - even when that Zuigetsu found somebody who would finally associate him with something other than the succession of Ka Corporate. What is fun, really? Would he ever find it in himself to find out?

"You know, I'm not one to talk, but even I find that kinda sad." Maomao tidies up the spot of table in front of her, pushes all those clippings back into the empty crate beside them. Jinshi hadn't even noticed they've gone through all those roses already. "Traditional medicine is my vocation, but medicine research - poison research...I'd say that's something that lights a fire in me. You don't have anything that makes you feel the same way?"

It's you, Jinshi finds his mind answering for him, and he swallows that truth all the way down into his soul. From this angle - light streams into the greenhouse through the glass panels overhead, and Maomao's skin might as well glow, all healthy, honey-warm from the sunshine. Those knowing eyes in that no-nonsense face - with how she looks at him like he's a specimen spread apart for her dissection, has she managed to look into his heart and see how much of it she occupies?

Gods, Jinshi, this is why it's important that you take a moment and think before you speak. Jinshi had always been told that his decisions can impact way more than the people around him. From the way he dresses to the way he talks - from the way he hides behind the façade of Jinshi, even when Maomao knows his mom is the same as their boss's. But if she's going to look at him like that, ask him if there was ever anything that was just his --

"No. No, I don't think I have anything like that." Jinshi says, looking away. The roses they'd dyed during the start of this project, early in the morning, are over there, in the far corner, a deeper blue than the sky-blue of the roses from an hour ago. The water of their vase is a blue that's almost black, almost the brighter shades of Maomao's eyes when the light hits them just the right way. "Everything I do was always in the service of something I had to do in the first place. I don't think I've ever had the time to think of anything other than that."

"No wonder you were back to work bright and early right after...that thing that happened." When you sobbed into my arms like a baby, Maomao thinks but does not say. Jinshi can feel it in her tone of voice, anyway. "So it's just been studying and work for you? Damn."

"I know I have it better than many people -" Yeah, understatement of the year, Jinshi. "- but that means that the closest thing I have to a hobby is reading, maybe. Even if all I read is for work, anyway."

"Well, at least your pretty little head remembers quite a lot," Maomao murmurs, almost to herself, as if nobody was meant to hear it.

Jinshi perks up. The thing about having a debilitating crush is that you become insanely sensitive to the mere whisper of their voice. "Did you...say anything?"

"Nope." Maomao says, but her hands go snip-snip with the shears and, in the space between one breath and another, her gloved fingers tuck a little something behind Jinshi's ear. She stands up then, eyes cool as ice as she takes in his wide eyes, his flushed cheeks. "I'm gonna take your mom up on that offer. Drinks. You want luo han guo? Aloe vera, maybe?"

Jinshi swallows, hoping she can't hear his heart galloping in his chest. He can still feel her touch against his ear. "A-aloe vera, yeah, great."

He waits for her to turn away and leave the greenhouse before he can even dare to pluck the flower - the rose - away from his ear. It's a tinier thing than the blue roses they've been dying in the background, but the color is nothing like theirs. A soft, pastel lavender with the tips of the petals a deeper, darker purple, like the clothes Jinshi often wears to work. Jinshi's read enough to know there's a meaning to this, maybe, like how there's a reason in Kan Lakan dedicating all these blue roses to his "impossible" wife, but he also knows his cat well enough to know that if there is a meaning behind this, she probably won't know of it.

He...he wants to plant poppies for her, he thinks. Red like how his cheeks flush when he thinks of her, red like the rouge her sisters put on her eyelids and lips on "just a day out!" with him, red like the beads she sometimes keeps in her hair and the thermoses she fills with tea to share with him. But red poppies mean what they mean, so Jinshi sits there, in his mother's greenhouse, flushed red in the middle of all these cool-toned roses, burning in his emotions until Maomao returns.

He'll say it's just the heat getting to him, later, when she gives him his juice.

And she'll figure out he's lying, but she'll let him lie to her, again.

Maybe he'll tell her the truth someday, but it won't be today.

Chapter Text

Jinshi shudders. Who could possibly be looking at him? He whips his head around to try and see, but nobody looks amiss.

Lunch time, the Ka Corporate office's fancy cafeteria. Basen is gobbling up a lunch tray and a half, completely oblivious to Jinshi. Jinshi, lost in thought, staring at the braised beef slices on his rice, as if they could magically come to life and answer his questions.

It wouldn't be the first time that Jinshi had people's eyes set on him. Actually, it would be weirder if no one had their eyes on him. The thing about having a face like that is that you're pretty much doomed to have zero privacy. He turns back to his own tray, pushing the greenery around his tray as he hems and haws about it.

Should he ignore them?

Should he confront them?

Should he dig Basen's head out of the dent he's made in his fifth serving of rice before he drowns in it?

Before Jinshi could consider doing one of these options, Loulan takes a seat in front of him, then nods minutely to the taller woman beside her - Suirei, now he remembers, Maomao's apothecary friend. It's Suirei who reaches out and taps Basen on the shoulder, calling for his attention, but it's Loulan brightly grinning as she says her piece.

"Ma Basen, right? Nice to meet you. I'm one of Maomao's friends." Loulan gleefully ignores the shudder of trauma that elicits in response, and carries on. "On our way here we saw poor A-Shu having trouble with the omelette machine - could you give her a hand?"

Jinshi watches the sight before him with equal parts confusion and amusement. True enough, Lishu from Finance over there is struggling with what seems to be a robot arm that won't give her her plate. However: Loulan's arms, and especially Suirei's, are long enough to wrangle it out, so why didn't they help the poor girl themselves?

But also: Basen's face right now is so very red as he coughs and makes his way hesitantly her direction.

"Get it, bro!" Loulan whoops, eyes crinkled in a satisfied grin as the red-cheeked couple reunites.

Gods, Basen's crush is so visible you could see it from space.

...Jinshi doesn't think he's one to talk, though.

"Loulan, mei, weren't you the one who was going to talk to him?" Suirei says, fingers twirling around her visitor's pass lanyard as she tries to discreetly look Jinshi's way. Something about how the elder Shi sister doesn't really want to talk to Jinshi kind of unnerves him, even if Ahduo-jie keeps insisting her assistant is really just that shy.

"Oh! Oh, right." Loulan turns back around, immaculate grin still in place when she takes a drumstick of fried chicken from her lunch tray, using it to point at Jinshi like an accusing mother-in-law's finger. "Mister Jinshi. You remember me, right?"

Where is she going with this?

"Of course I do. Miss Loulan, my darling's friend. Miss Suirei, your sister and Ahduo-jie's assistant." Also, the runaway young ladies of the Shi clan, one of Ka Corporate's business partners. Only the boss, Ahduo-jie, and Jinshi himself know what led to them being under Ka clan protection, but from recent events Jinshi believes Maomao has begun to pick up on the clues, too. She's just that smart.

Loulan puts the drumstick on top of Jinshi's braised beef, which feels like some sort of achievement; what exactly he's achieved, he doesn't quite know.

"Great! I mean, it's not really a surprise that you remember - our Meow-meow did introduce us to you, after all. It's definitely less impressive than that childhood friend of hers who remembers everybody, but --"

"Loulan," Suirei lets out, behind gritted teeth, "Play nice."

It's only now that Jinshi's brain catches up to the rest of him and he realizes she was comparing him to that Rikuson, of all people. Jinshi has to fight to keep his polite smile up lest these sisters see the bitterness that bubbles up within him when he remembers that guy and how he had whirled Maomao around the dance floor that one Christmas party ago. Sure Maomao had glared at him like she glared anyone who tried to ask her for a dance,  but she had let Rikuson take her there - with the amount of Ahduo-jie's drunken retellings of how bad Jinshi was apparently glaring at the dude, surely her charges have to know about that.

And with that knowing, chilling expression spreading across Loulan's stoic face, Jinshi freezes into place.

She does know about that.

"Lookie here, Mister Jinshi. Can I keep calling you that? Our favorite kitten loves calling you that, but you didn't hear that from me. Or since I'm being serious, should I address you more seriously? Should you be Mister Zuigetsu? Young Master Ka?"

Somehow, the way that Loulan emphasizes that last one gives Jinshi the chills. He almost misses how she says Maomao 'loves' calling him Jinshi instead (but just almost).

"Ah...Jinshi would be fine...what do you want to talk about?"

"Alright, alright. I'll cut to the chase." Loulan takes the second piece of chicken off her lunch tray, bites off a mouthful of leg meat, and chews as she points the rest of the drumstick right back at Jinshi. "What are your intentions for our Maomao?"

Dating with the intention of marriage, Jinshi's hyperactive brain answers for him, but thankfully, none of those words dare escape his lips, which he feels trembling underneath his touch as he raises his one hand to hide his flush. "What...intentions..." he hears himself murmur, instead.

"I told you I was going to accept this if you take care of her. Now I think it's high time you tell me what this is." Loulan says, before biting off another chunk of chicken.

Suirei huffs, reaching out to dab at the corners of her sister's mouth with paper napkin, but Loulan is just too wound up, moving around as she talks. "Meimei, mind your manners. No chewing while you talk."

"I'll treat him with manners when he gives us manners!" Loulan seethes. Her voice has gone a little high, but thankfully just a few people around them have begun to notice - especially considering her next words. "Don't you know what your no-labels intimacy has led us to? Do you know what they call our cat when you're not around? Your mistress, apparently - golddigger and seducer extraordinaire! All because this one won't just man up and freaking ask her out!"

From somewhere over Loulan's shoulder, Jinshi locks eyes with one of the few people who seems to have noticed what was going on, moving his direction - he looks at Gaoshun and shakes his head. He hadn't known about the rumors. Sure, maybe he should've paid more attention to what went on around him, but there were always more pressing matters to deal with - life and death matters - so if this belated, long-simmering explosion is how he's going to hear of any of this, so be it.

Loulan is currently catching her breath, drinking down the glass of water her sister is pressing to her lips, but that angry golden gaze is still locked into place, honing onto Jinshi like an intercontinental ballistic missile. Jinshi meets that gaze with one of his own, a thin, faint smile on his face. "Are you done?"

Suirei, in a panic, sets down the glass of water before Loulan can do something like fling it dramatically Jinshi's direction. "Sir, I don't think you should encourage her on this --"

"Jiejie, show him the vial." Loulan says, coolly, interrupting her sister's train of thought. Suirei follows suit, putting a clear vial of...something, on the table, eyes wary as Loulan pushes it closer to Jinshi's side of the table.

"What is this?" Jinshi asks, picking the vial up with his fingertips. Suirei is an herbalist like Maomao is, but this thing is smaller than any concoction Maomao had ever made, with the height of the vial barely the distance between Jinshi's index finger and thumb.

"No color, no smell, no taste, no immediate effects. That's what's going to find its way into your food if you don't fix this any time soon." Loulan deadpans, as Suirei covers her face (presumably in embarrassment?). Thank goodness Jinshi's hands aren't slippery right now, because he wouldn't want this to drop on his food by the likes of it. "And this is what happens to you if even that wouldn't work," Loulan says, holding up the mostly-eaten drumstick in her hand - breaking it clear through the middle, the crack of bone audible to all who would pay attention. "Do you understand?"

"Yes. I understand." Jinshi gulps and sets the vial back down onto the table. He pushes it back their direction, and Suirei takes it in a flash, tucking it into her bag, as if it should not stay under the bright lights any longer. "A question, though - why didn't you just let that woman kill me?"

"That woman just wanted you dead because she hates your family. I don't think that's fair. I think that you should be hated for things that you yourself do." Loulan says, dropping both halves of chicken bone down onto her lunch tray.

"Oh, thank the gods." Jinshi says, leaning back onto his chair, all pretense of tension and...fear...melted away by the rush of his relief. "Miss Loulan, I can't say how grateful I am to hear that."

Loulan blinks, once, twice. She doesn't speak, but Jinshi can guess what she wants to say: I just threatened your life and you're grateful? What is going on here? Totally valid thoughts, he thinks.

"What..what do you mean?"

"If you were threatening me because of that former matriarch, I didn't want to be the one explaining it to our cat. You know how much she adores you." Jinshi says, still leaning back, his dark eyes staring into the fluorescent lights of the cafeteria. "I would much rather hear you threaten me because you believe our cat deserves protecting, because she does, even if my darling doesn't believe it. Yes, I do like her a lot. No, I didn't know there were rumors, even if I should have. I guess I just hoped the news of her saving my stupid life would have been enough to smooth things over, if there were any."

"How was that news going to get out? You know what your Board of Directors thinks, they can't have their armor dented - can't have people knowing you need someone else to protect you. I think it's stupid, by the way, since you already have the Ma clan protecting you all the time." Loulan huffs, looking at least a little bit embarrassed as Suirei wipes her chicken-greasy hand with wet wipes. "Everyone just thinks Meowy is the girl you sometimes disappear with in the middle of the workday, and they've seen her on your Zuigetsu outings sometimes, but she doesn't say anything and neither do you. So they've somehow gotten it in their heads that she's using you for the money and the makeovers, never mind that we both know she hates it every time we take her fake freckles off."

Jinshi winces. "So it's gotten that bad?"

"Not really - it almost did - but you know, gossip doesn't trickle down, it's a game of telephone. So as long as you intercept it just enough, you can twist a lie back into the truth." Loulan grins, all of a sudden. "So thank your lucky stars that we're on the same page. Gossip is Xiaolan's specialty, and she's told the people enough of the truth for them to twist it into her favor. All we need now is your cooperation. So I'll repeat my question again: what are your intentions? Maomao won't ever ask first, so things like this have to come from you."

It kind of feels like it's unfair, that he has to put his feelings into words somewhere where Maomao isn't, but this bone-cracking poison-holding sister wants honesty, so... "I like her. I think it's kind of obvious. I don't know how to go through with it because I don't think she believes in these feelings, or that she deserves to have it be felt for her. But I lo...I like her, a lot, and if I can't be with her it's...fine, I guess. But I don't think I can feel this way for anyone else. Does that suffice?"

"Yeah, I mean, I get it." Loulan mutters, mostly to herself, but Jinshi still catches it, so Jinshi wonders.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing!" Loulan says, brightening up with another grin. "See? You can say it. Thank you for clearing that up. Because of that, I'll give you something really nice. Come grab some ice cream with us later after work. You're paying of course, some of us don't have black cards to buy ice cream with."

Jinshi raises an eyebrow at that. "If I'm being given something nice, then why do I have to pay for it?"

"Look, man, do you wanna see our cat after office hours, or not? Think wisely, the clock is ticking."

"Meimei," Suirei speaks up, finally. She had been throwing worrying looks at her tablemates' directions the entire time, but with how she's clutching at her purse, Jinshi thinks it's most likely she really doesn't wanna be in public with...whatever the hell was in that vial. "If you and Mister Ka are going to go at it for a while longer, I have to leave first. Miss Ahduo's waiting for me."

"No problem, Miss Loulan was just leaving, too. Please tell Ahduo-jie I said hi! I'll be there later."

Loulan huffs as Suirei pushes her up and away from her seat, but she still has it in her to point at the broken chicken leg bone on the plate, then point right at Jinshi's face. Suirei's eyes widen, and she makes a hurried bow while pushing her sister's head down so she bows Jinshi's way, as well.

Jinshi watches and thinks that maybe Suirei really does deserve a long, long vacation. Paid, because Ahduo is a good employer.

"What was that about?" Basen says, a suspicious flush still high on his face as he settles down onto the chair beside Jinshi. Jinshi will ask how that conversation with Lishu went...later. Damn, for all that people joke about Basen not being the sharpest in the shed, he sure is insistent about wanting to know what the Shi sisters wanted to say. "What just happened? What did they say?"

Jinshi sighs. "I don't know. But I have to admit, she's right about one thing."

He does want to see Maomao after office hours, after all.

Chapter Text

The first thing that Jinshi blurts out is "Did I do anything wrong?", and it makes Maomao feel a little bit guilty.

She doesn't think he did.

But why are they here?

So, a few hours ago, they were in one of their meeting rooms, briefing each other about the project that their boss just tossed right into Jinshi's lap over a few drinks last night. There was something that their special little team had to infiltrate, some rich conglomerate owner's factory that wasn't always open to the public. As luck would have it, they're opening one of their humongous multi-purpose halls to the public next week, but...

"Ugh." Maomao's voice is soft as it ever could be, and she's hidden her mouth behind her hands, so nobody's heard the sheer disgust she'd just blurted out, right? "No, not that."

"Is there something wrong?" Jinshi says, that unfairly handsome face snapping quickly up to look at her. So it seems she hadn't hidden her reaction well enough, or he's just way too sensitive to the sound of her voice. Maomao doesn't know which of the two is a more mortifying truth.

"A...board game tournament," Yao says, reading the text on the screen when it becomes evident that Maomao would not dignify Jinshi's question with a response. "So you called us over to help with this? It's not what I expect from you guys."

Xiaolan sets a paper cup of tea down by Maomao's side and nudges her to take a sip. Maomao follows, obediently, as Xiaolan turns to beam at Yao with that mega-watt smile of hers. "I know, right? Maomao and Mister Jinshi are always so busy with their super complicated secret projects and I keep thinking they only handle life-and-death situations, but sometimes they take on stuff like this too. They had me help out with a rose gardening project before!"

Maomao decides to take another sip of her tea instead of think about how the way that Xiaolan says "Maomao and Mister Jinshi" makes something tighten up somewhere in the approximate vicinity of her lungs. Meanwhile, at the head of the table, a contented smile finds its way onto Jinshi's lips.

It's those lips that just can't help but sneak a flush onto Yao's cheeks. "O-oh? That's intriguing. But it makes sense. I'd never thought our Maomao to be the kind of person to make flowers bloom."

"Excuse you, I know how to make flowers bloom, and I did a pretty damned amazing job of it." Maomao says, narrowing her eyes at Yao, who just shrugs. "I totally pulled it off, I know how to use a greenhouse. You tell her!"

Maomao watches the flush spread through that fair face and turns away, realizing that her first instinct was to turn towards Jinshi. Those pretty cheeks burn a tantalizing pink and so Maomao clears her throat and promptly drinks down the rest of her tea.

She is totally not thinking about it.

...she is. She is thinking about that beautiful face, made even prettier by the warm tone of his blush. En'en, sitting at Yao's other side, is currently judging Maomao with all the judginess she usually reserves for men who approach Yao, but it's not as if Maomao can even notice that.

"This guy looks familiar," En'en says, picking up the flyer Maomao had been trying to ignore with a scowl. "Is he related to the La clan guy that Miss Yao ran into before?"

A flicker of familiarity awakens in Yao's eyes, and Maomao decides to carry on with her current goal of sinking further into her seat. "Yeah, kind of? His glasses were different, and this guy's clearly older, but something about the eyes...he seems familiar. Maomao, sit up straight." Yao interjects that last bit, not even looking beside her.

"No...carry on...don't mind me." Maomao does not want to look at that face. No no no. Let her be.

Jinshi has a hand on the back of Maomao's chair so she doesn't roll back and slip fully out of it as she descends further down the backrest. "That guy is the current head of the La Agricultural Group...well, in name, at least. Everyone knows it's his nephews and wife running the business by now, but they still let him keep the title since he's become very good at throwing his weight around." Way too good - Jinshi unfortunately has personal experience with that. Obviously, the man does not approve of his daughter going on these dangerous missions of hers, no matter how much she wants them, too. "He's a retired veteran who's very good at board games. No wonder he's the main draw for this event."

"I know...some board games. Had to be taught before. Mostly weiqi, a little bit of xiangqi...but I don't think I can battle at this level, if he's a master player?" Yao questions. "But I don't think that's what you called me here for. How exactly can I help?"

"...for various reasons, I can't exactly assign our darling accountant into that hall." Jinshi says. Anyone who was listening intently would have picked up on the hint of worry behind the lightness of his tone, but also Maomao's entire body is currently under the table by now, so he could just be worrying about that. "That's why I would need someone else to stand in and assist me. I was wondering if any of you can fit the bill."

"Oh, that sounds so exciting!" Xiaolan squeals, settling into her seat beside Gaoshun, who is currently also worrying for the state of under-the-table Maomao. Jinshi's hand is still on her backrest, holding her steady. "But I don't think I'm very good at working under pressure. Could I be assigned where you're assigning Maomao?"

The smile on Jinshi's face is so bright that it could rival the sun streaming into the window behind him. "Yes, of course. I'm thinking of having you two in the getaway car, doing recon through our cameras. Gaoshun will be at the driver's seat, so you'll be all safe."

"So would that mean you'll be going in with Miss Yao?" En'en blurts out, her gaze steely as she considers Jinshi in front of her. "That's dangerous! It's her first time working for you, and you're already putting her in such an insane position?"

"That's actually where I was hoping you could help," Gaoshun says. En'en's glare whips around to meet him, only for her gaze to soften when she sees just how...tired the older man is with this plan. "I'm going to be watching over Xiaomao and Miss Xiaolan, so I won't be there to watch the Young Master. You're trained in martial arts, right?"

"I was taught bajiquan as a kid, then I took up muay thai when I grew older. I can also shoot a gun or use a blade if you can let me carry one."

"That's it, then." Gaoshun says, with a serene smile on his face. He turns to Jinshi, then. "Young Master, you can have Miss En'en pretend to be your bodyguard. Then we can have Miss Yao pretend to be your partner."

Maomao doesn't think she hears much of the conversation after that, but she does space out long enough for a beet-red Yao to haul her up on her chair. Is she red from the exertion or from the idea of having to play that hottie's girlfriend? Who knows.

Whatever, Maomao groans in her mind, as she slips down the backrest of her chair again. That's not my problem at all.

It wasn't her problem at all, but now Maomao has been thinking about it for the better half of the past four hours. Loulan had to resort to spoonfeeding her the rest of her claypot pork bowl, she was spacing out that much. (Maomao had felt someone's eyes on her back then, but was also too lost in her thoughts to look back at who that could have been.)

She doesn't know why she's thinking about, or why Jinshi had complained so much when Gaoshun had plotted out the rest of their cover stories. Logically, Yao would be way better at playing the part of rich girlfriend than Maomao. Maomao had been out shopping with Yao and En'en before - she dresses like a Young Lady, and has the black credit cards to match. The way she holds herself is impeccable, and she can walk on those torture devices Suiren calls "stilettos", too. It just makes sense.

They look so good together too, and it would be a moment's work to have them make you believe they were a couple. Yao has such a resplendent flush high on her pretty face when Jinshi so much as stands close to her, and Jinshi is...well, Jinshi. It just makes better sense for them to stand by each other's side, like they belonged there, and any awkwardness between them would be better off explained by things like arranged engagements or long-distance relationships or some other configuration of awkward romance those rich people have. But them standing together just looks right, even without the entire prompt of pretending to be partners. A healthy couple with bright smiles and shared noble countenances.

...maybe a little bit too healthy. Yao has that very voluptous body of hers, so Maomao can just take note of those lusty geezers through the pin camera and look into them as needed. So many benefits already, and that's not even counting how carelessly En'en had flung out during the meeting that she was willing to commit cold blooded murder to keep her lady (and, by extension, Jinshi himself) safe.

Maomao can't do that. And Maomao especially can't do that, not when it's that guy's event - the same guy she unfortunately shares her blood with.

Kan Maomao is Kan Luomen's daughter in all the ways that matter, but technically she's the La Group matriarch Kan Fengxian's only girl. Kan Fengxian is married to Kan Lakan, the same guy with the fox eyes on the event poster they had been projecting onscreen earlier. La Agricultural Group's patriarch. Maomao's...

"Ugh." Maomao grunts, pressing her forehead to the cold metal of a filing cabinet. Sure, it's not exactly that geezer's fault that Maomao shivers away from his presence, and it's probably not completely his wife's fault, either: they were just dealt completely shitty hands of cards by life, and used them absolutely poorly.

Fengxian didn't tell Lakan of their child's birth and early existence, instead preferring to raise the child alone, without the help of his clan that didn't approve of their engagement and subsequent child out of wedlock. Maomao knows, logically, that she did her best. But that doesn't make her feel better about the nightmares she still has, sometimes, of the knife glinting against her hand. Still doesn't make her feel better about how, the first time she saw Lakan, he was a bloody pulp after Gran was done with him, and she still sees him like that sometimes, when she closes her eyes.

All this is probably something they probably have to unpack in family therapy one day, someday, when Maomao can finally afford it (never mind how the La clan absolutely can, especially after that geezer went back and kicked out everyone who didn't approve of his wife and child). But for now, even from within the folds of Ka Corporate, nestled behind the overbearing weight of that Young Master who calls himself Jinshi, it seems that Maomao just can't free herself from that past, and it unnerves her.

Jinshi...

"Why, what's the matter?" Jinshi asks from somewhere behind her. Maomao freezes, slowly turning around, clutching the papers in her hands like a lifeline.

She clears her throat. "Mm, nothing. There's nothing. It's nothing. How may I help you?" Maomao tacks on that last part, because he's always needing her help somehow, when he pops up just like this.

Jinshi has a perfect eyebrow raised, but there's still that glint of worry shining behind his pretty eyes. "You were the one calling for me. I just followed the sound of your voice, darling, so here I am."

Maomao narrows her eyes, deciding to ignore that affectionate tone of his voice. "I am in the print room. You are telling me you heard me from outside. You damned pervert."

"Finally, you're back." Jinshi says, crossing the distance between them on those long legs of his, one hand outstretched to pat her head. Weirdly, Maomao can't find it in herself to move away like she always does. She finds herself leaning into his damned touch. "You were all spaced out over lunch. Your friends somehow got it into their heads that it's my fault, so they asked me - threatened me, rather - to look out for you. Then I heard you call for me from outside. What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on. Like I said, you're a damned pervert." Maomao clears her throat, taking her papers with her. She walks straight on ahead, ignoring Jinshi and his concerned gaze beside her as he walks her all the way to her desk, right beside his. He isn't even supposed to sit there, he has his own table over there, inside his own room, but it just sits there unused because his laptop and all his shit makes their way to the empty cubicle beside Maomao's, for some reason.

Maomao might as well have blinders on her head, with how focused she is on scrutinizing their next mark's financials, with how earnestly she keeps convincing herself she doesn't see how Jinshi's expression shifts from worried to curious beside her. And they might as well stay that way, not until someone clears her throat beside them.

"Ehrm. Mister Jinshi?" It's Yao, Maomao recognizes from her voice, if the vague silhouette of curvy fuschia office wear wasn't an indication enough. She only barely registers Jinshi begrudgingly tearing his gaze off her to regard their coworker, because of course she totally isn't paying attention to him. Isn't paying attention to this.

"Yes, Miss Yao?"

"Miss Suiren said we should go have our outfits fitted for the occasion. Should we go separately, or together?"

"I'll go with you. It's your first time meeting her, right? I'll introduce you." Jinshi says, taking his phone from its charging dock and slipping it into his pocket. "Did she tell you what we had to be fitted for?"

"Her email said a suit for you, and a cocktail dress for me. She also suggested we match your pocket square to my dress so we, cough, can match? Like a date? That's what she said?"

Jinshi sighs. "Okay, lead the way then - oh?"

Jinshi and Yao look down to that hand on Jinshi's arm, the one that stopped him in his tracks. Their gazes follow that hand up a slender arm, up to Maomao's face, partially hidden in shadow as she keeps her head bowed, looking somewhere in the vicinity of Jinshi's slacks and dress shoes.

"Come with me, for a moment." Maomao hears herself say, and Jinshi is so shocked he lets her push him past an equally-shocked Yao, into his own actual office.

She locks the door behind them.

Maomao somehow looks at Jinshi without really looking at him, and one way or another, corners him with her body so he's got nowhere else to go. Jinshi's back is pressed to the wall, and he looks at her in unabashed surprise. He gulps.

The first thing that Jinshi blurts out is "Did I do anything wrong?", and it makes Maomao feel a little bit guilty. She doesn't think he did, but she felt like she had to say something. Do something. Whatever that something is, she doesn't know either.

But all that passed through her mind then was that she felt like she had to do what she had to do, and if it meant dragging Jinshi into his office and slamming her hand into the spot of wall beside him, then so be it. But she still doesn't know what she went this far to say, doesn't even know why she has to block him from potential escape, when she should obviously see how unwilling he seems to remove himself from the circle of her arms. Even though those eyes of his have a thousand questions flipping through his mind, and she has yet to say anything, he doesn't seem annoyed with his current situation at all.

The silence hangs over them as Maomao leans further into him. He smells like sandalwood. Maomao cannot remember when she'd started to associate that scent with him.

"...Maomao, I know I try my best to understand, but sometimes...hey, can you look at me?" She shakes her head. She can't look at Jinshi like this. Every time he calls her name like that his voice goes so soft, totally unlike the sticky honey it usually feels like when he convinces her to do things. Maomao's been around that cloying sweetness long enough to know what to do with it, but she doesn't know how to deal with him when he talks like that. "Please? It would really be helpful if you tell me what's on your mind. I want to understand what's going on, Maomao."

It's evil of him to use that tone of voice with her when she doesn't even know what this is about, herself. All she knew was that she had to get him alone. She doesn't know why, but something had seized up in her chest and squeezed it hard, somehow, so hard that she can barely breathe. Her cheeks feel so hot and her limbs feel so awkwardly heavy as she stands in front of him. Maomao had checked all these symptoms and unfortunately hasn't found a link to poison, yet.

Jinshi talks, instead. "I'm sorry for involving you in a plot related to them. I know you want as much distance from them as you can, and I should have thought about it better. Maybe there's a way to get into the factory without involving this event. Let's think about it together, okay?"

And it's...unfair of him to sound so apologetic like that. Yes, unfair. Maomao uses that word knowing pretty damned well he doesn't owe her any apologies. It would be the work of a moment to step away and say something like how she noticed he smelled weird and had to check, never mind how she knows he smells the same, infuriatingly good as always. He would let her get away with that, has already let her get away with more than that. Heck, he even made sure that she would spend as much time away from that family of hers as is possible. She could even thank him and get away with being this antsy about it.

But neither of those are the words she lets slip out of her lips. Instead, she hears herself say something completely different.

"You," She says, almost choking the words out with how desperately that sense of something winds around her chest. "You're making this hard for me."

It's the wrong thing to say and she knows it. She knows it from the way those puppy dog eyes of his get all glassy and sad as he looks at her. But bless his soul, why is he just so patient with her? "What are we talking about? And making things hard...how? Is there anything I can do to help? Maomao, please -"

"Am I supposed to watch you with someone else?"

Maomao only realizes she's said these words when she's said them out loud. She only realizes she's said them out loud when Jinshi makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a hiccup, and now her cheeks are burning.

"Maomao, I..." Jinshi starts, and stops, and flushes a deep red. Maomao knows this, because he'd taken matters into his own hands and tilted her head up to look at him. He's trying his utmost best not to smile, and normally Maomao would say something about wanting to smack that grin off his face, but really, what did she just tell him? "...it's not like that. You know it's not like that. I've confessed to you so many times already."

And heaven help him, he has. So many times, that Maomao has long since forgotten how to count. Maomao has never told him yes, instead preferring to dance around the subject or ignore it entirely, but - what is this, why is this?

"Darling, can you tell me, what was the last thing you saw before you took my hand? I won't laugh. Just tell me."

"I, ehrm, I saw you. You were talking with Yao. Something about clothes."

The smile that bursts through Jinshi's poor excuse of composure threatens to illuminate the entire room with how bright it's shining. Maomao doesn't completely hate how she currently has no choice but to face that head-on. "Matching clothes with me like a date. Like hell I would agree to that. Suiren was trying to get a rise out of me, she knows I don't like being paired off with just anybody. Hey, don't pretend you're not listening! Look at me!"

Maomao frowns. She is looking at him. Dilated pupils, free hand smoothing back his hair, rapid blinking, heartbeat so loud she can hear it. She can't understand why on earth he would be so giddy about something as stupid as her clearly misunderstanding shit. If she was made of lesser stuff she might have died of embarrassment.

He's openly smiling now when she next opens her mouth to speak. "Stop grinning like that. Go away."

"The only place for me is right beside you." Jinshi grins, and the most annoying thing about it is that he's not even using his fake charming voice when he says it. "So if I'm not allowed there, where am I supposed to go?"

"Ugh." Maomao groans, again. But she doesn't have the heart to deny him that, either. Instead, she braces herself with her hands at either side of him, and leans forward.

The door unlocks and they emerge from the room, then. Jinshi has one of Maomao's hands in his and his other hand pressed hard against what appears to be a big stupid grin on his beautiful face. The little sliver of Jinshi's cheeks that can be seen over his hand is stained a red so hot it must be burning.

"Ch, change of plans." Jinshi says, absolutely refusing to look any of them in the eye. His flush grows deeper as he talks, and Maomao's eyes are staring straight ahead, her mouth in a thin line, as if she's said enough and refuses to continue. "Maomao's going to be my partner for the event. Miss Yao, Miss En'en, you can recon and drive right? Right. I'm sure you can. Anyway, taking her to Suiren now. Yeah. Bye!"

He drags her off then, and her belated complaint of "hey, that wasn't what I meant!!" is the last thing they hear before the door closes behind them.

Chapter Text

Maomao is doing her utmost best to not look at the people in front of her right now.

"Your...fiancé." The woman in front of them says, her chilly gaze artfully hiding her amusement over this entire situation. "Did I hear that right, Young Master Ka?"

"Yes." Jinshi says, clutching Maomao's hand under the table like a lifeline. "Yes, you heard that right."

It won't be the first time Suiren has made her up like a doll, and it definitely won't be the last. Maomao doesn't know if she'll ever get used to this.

"You really do have the same build as my little girl used to," Suiren coos. "I did so well in digging this up, you'll look perfect beside the Young Master."

How did she know that Jinshi wasn't going to bring Yao along? Maomao thinks, but does not say. Suiren has a knack for conjuring up the disguises, and she'd been told Yao's measurements in advance. But this isn't a cocktail dress that Yao and her bountiful melons could fit into, it's closer to the size of the dress Suiren had scrounged up for her the first time they went about this undercover thing.

Maomao wasn't even supposed to be fitting for this until half an hour ago - gods, why did I do that, and why on earth did Jinshi let me do that - so why does Suiren know to expect her instead of Yao?

"Mother's intuition," Suiren says, a twinkle in her eye as she answers a question Maomao didn't even want to ask. Maomao is so freaking terrified for her life right now, if that makes any sense at all.

She can't even voice this concern out loud right now because he is already here, changed into his suit in record time so he can catch the tail end of her fitting. Maomao can see him in her reflection, over her shoulder - Jinshi's wearing the wig he has for his Zuigetsu "disguise" and a pretty damning flush dusting his cheekbones better than Suiren's make up ever could. Should she feel sorry for him? Or would that make that godforsaken ego of his blow up into a hot air balloon?

Maomao only realizes she's been staring too long when Jinshi's eyes in the mirror lock onto hers. She tries not to flinch as she watches the pure warmth of that smile spread throughout that beautiful face, tries to focus her attention on literally anything else.

It's only when he's directly behind her that Maomao realizes she's done a pretty abysmal job of tuning him out because how did she not notice Suiren leaving the room?

"Liking what you see?" Jinshi murmurs, his lips dangerously close to her earlobe.

Instead of answering that, Maomao squints at him in her reflection and whirls around. "Don't move around so much. Your tie's crooked." She grumbles, her hands reaching up to fix it. There's a weirdly familiar voice in Maomao's head warning her that the flush burning the smugness off Jinshi's face has something to do with how domestic a picture they paint right now.

Maomao doesn't really understand why this guy looks like he wants to jump out of his own skin when she reaches up to brush the wig's hair out of those brilliant eyes. It breaks the illusion somehow, calls to attention how that otherworldly beauty is a living breathing human being under her touch. She personally...prefers seeing him like that, but like hell is she ever going to admit it.

"It-it's just a fitting anyway. No sense in fixing myself up when we're just changing back into our work clothes after...but enough about me." Those eyes of Jinshi's look upon her again, those lips opening and closing as he appears to be caught at a loss for words. "You...you look great."

She narrows her eyes, looking down at her clothes, considering how she looks like. It's a more muted affair than the last dress Suiren had her wear, the black more of a comfort to her instead of the unfamiliar pink she had been made to wear as "Ka Zuigetsu's girlfriend". The strappy dress left something to be desired - Maomao isn't used to wearing sleeveless dresses like this - but Suiren had pointed out the red shawl on the table, for Maomao to throw on if it got too chilly. A pair of long black gloves sits beside it.

"Uh-huh. Is the event black tie?"

"God, no. It's a Weiqi tournament. Anyone can enter as long as they pay the price - apparently it's to celebrate the La Group patriarch's wedding anniversary. Hey," Jinshi's voice shifts into something softer, gentler, more earnest, as he takes Maomao's hands in his and leans down to look her in the eye. "Are you really going to be okay with this?"

Maomao knows what he's asking about. Maomao also wishes she did not already know what he means. "Depends on what damned torture devices Suiren's planning on making me teeter on this time."

"I'll be there, obviously, so tell me if there's anything I need to know. Or if you just want to leave. At any point during this, we can just leave, okay?"

"But we have work to do. I'll do my best to not get in the way of the -"

"Maomao. When we walk in, no amount of makeup is going to hide who you are from the clan head and his wife. I'm asking if you're going to be okay with that."

The puzzle pieces suddenly slot into place. "Is that why you asked Yao and En'en to come with?"

"Would I let myself be dragged along by anyone otherwise? Selfishly, I always want you by my side. You know exactly what I mean." He taps one long finger against her bottom lip, and grins. "Or was that kiss not enough? You know as well as I do that there's more where that came from, darling."

Maomao's inner monologue is somewhere in between a banshee scream and a plethora of curse words - yes, she had leant in and backed him up against the wall, but he had been the one to close the space between them, those damned lips of his pressing against hers. Not much time had passed since then and she can still feel how his hands had gone behind her head and pushed her, closer...

But wait, that's not what they're talking about. Maomao bats his hand away, even when he pouts. "Stop thinking about that. So that's why you and Mister Gaoshun had the idea to have Yao stand in as your date?"

"As my secretary, maybe. Why should I have her along as my date? You know 'Ka Zuigetsu' only has one date." That smug smile makes its way back to that unfathomable face of his, and those sneaky arms of his find their way back around her waist. "A certain little lady who said she 'doesn't want to watch me with anyone else'."

Maomao sighs and lets him press a chaste kiss on the top of her head. "Even if you hold that over me, no one's going to believe you. You know that, right?"

"Oh, I know." Jinshi says, his lips moving across Maomao's hair. "But I also know someone who will."

The plan goes like this:

Jinshi and now, Maomao, are to be their walking cameras, and they're supposed to capture as many angles of the multi-purpose hall as they can. They need enough information to pass over to Basen and the rest of the Ka family's hush-hush security team, because he'll eventually be the one who needs to figure out how to sneak in from there to the factory grounds.

Why does he need to sneak into the factory, instead of just asking nicely and being let in through the front door? Maomao's pretty sure she was told, but it feels like something way beyond her pay grade, so she just shrugs noncomittally when Jinshi asks her if she remembers what they're going for with this.

Yao, En'en, and Xiaolan would be hidden away in the getaway vehicle, making sure that their cameras' video and audio were working. Gaoshun would be with them, performing both the roles of driver and security at once.

Or at least, that was what they were supposed to do...until a cetain Kan Lahan got involved in the whole mess.

"Why did you tell him?"

"I didn't tell him. He somehow just knew." Jinshi had insisted on being the one to put Maomao's necklace on, a pendant with a pin camera hidden away in between its jewels. He's locked the clasp into place around her neck, but he's also willfully using this as an excuse for his hands to linger against the bare skin of her shoulders. Even Maomao glowering at him through their reflection on the mirror does nothing to stop him.

"Do you know that that patriarch and his wife has security set aside for you?" Jinshi says. He never spoke the La clan head's name in front of her. Since when did he know her so well? "When they found out you're coming, they insisted that we all come on in."

"En'en's going to love it. She could not shut up about how annoying it was that she came all the way to a Weiqi tournament and can't watch a single match." Maomao says, deciding to ignore the question that had been flung her way, judging it to be a rhetorical one.

After all - he knows her so well. Maybe a little bit too well. Jinshi always seemed to let her get away with it, when it came to talking about the people who birthed her. She thinks she should be a little bit thankful for that, but also he still has those blasted hands on her, so she thinks they're pretty much even, with how long he's taken to put on a few accessories.

"Can we stand up now?" Maomao huffs.

But Jinshi, this ungodly unfair, beautiful piece of possessive-ass shit, actually leans in, and she can feel him shaking his head against her shoulder. "We have some more time. I need to recharge."

'Recharge', he calls it - basically what happpens here is that he's somehow gotten a taste for holding her, touching her, pressing little kisses to her skin, and he insists that he feels better just by doing that. It's not medically or logically sensical, so Maomao chalks it up to the fact that by going for her instead of any other plausible mate, this guy clearly has very bad taste.

"Stop doing that." Jinshi pouts.

"I'm not saying anything."

"You have that look on your face when you're thinking about something you think is impossible. You had that look when you pushed me into my office, too." Jinshi fiddles with the silver hairstick in her hair, tugging it this way and that, to catch the light. There's a second hairstick joining the first, a silver poppy blooming underneath a gilded moon.

He had put it in her half updo without any introduction, and Maomao had asked if it had a camera in it like the pendant. Jinshi had just said that he had it especially made for her to use, his cheeks suddenly red and his eyes suddenly shifty...and Maomao doesn't want to think about the implications behind that.

"All you have to do for today is stay beside me and tell me if there's anything weird you notice." Jinshi says, as if it was really that simple. "They have their own personnel so I doubt you'd need to think about odd jobs like administering medicine."

When they arrive at the scene, Maomao has no choice but to admit that he's right. It's a La Group project after all - well-staffed, overstaffed even, with more than enough snacks and drinks for everyone who participated. She can see her old man Luomen's impact in how there were makeshift medical wings to deal with the people getting heatstroke with lining up inside, and her profit addict cousin Lahan's impact with how everyone who wanted a way in could pay their way in.

Before she could think about it too much, Jinshi pushes a rice cracker through her lips, grinning beatifically as she glares at him. The rice crackers weren't in the event menu - he had snuck a few packets in his pocket and seemed to relish feeding her.

Maomao wanted to bite those perfect fingertips, hard.

Jinshi's smirk (she didn't say that out loud, did she?) gets wiped off his face when he turns to the person who suddenly dropped down onto the seat in front of him, with his usual polite grin...but then Maomao sees that particular shade of panic suddenly blossom in his eyes, and she suddenly really doesn't want to look in front of her.

"Our little tangyuan, Baba is here!" croons the older guy in front of them, a stupid grin on his pleased face as he cradles that dumb bearded chin on his arms. There may as well be fucking hearts shooting out of his eyes. He turns to the slender woman beside him, who's staring down at him as if she were watching a rat scurry down a sewer. "My darling, look, Lahan was right! Our xiaobaobei arrived!"

The woman settles into her seat beside him, seemingly nonplussed by her husband's gushing, or by the people around them gawking at their table. Her eyes are cold as ice, cold as her voice as she addresses Maomao sitting across her. "Child, I know you don't want to spend time with us, but the least you can do is let us know yourself when you'll be coming. You must understand how much...arrangements we had to do to support your little venture."

So here's the thing: Maomao had just about enough therapy to know that somehow the woman that birthed her only lets her emotions be known by how much they disdain her. Maomao knows how that feels, but something about the way she says it doesn't stick right with her, somehow.

"You shouldn't have bothered." Maomao replies. "I didn't come here for you."

"Now, now, my flower, don't be too rough with our little kitten...you know you're both too alike with your words, or lack thereof." Lakan shamelessly leans into his wife's personal space, and Fengxian sits back and lets him. It's a painfully familiar sight, but Maomao would rather eat a non-poisonous snake alive than admit that the picture they paint together reminds her of the clingy guy sitting beside her. "If not Baba and Mama, who did you come here for, my xiaobao? Is it our dabao Lahan? Heavens, don't say it's Rikuson --"

All of a sudden, Jinshi holds his hand out for the man to shake.

"Ka Zuigetsu. Glad to finally meet you."

It's obvious that Lakan doesn't want to shake his hand, but his wife must have tread on his toes or something, because he begrudgingly does, wincing all the while. The brilliant smile on Jinshi's face does not wane a single bit, not even when Lakan squeezes his hand a little bit too tightly.

"The pleasure is all mine, for sure." Jinshi says, filling the silence.

"So you're finally using your own damned name?" Lakan sneers. The first time Maomao had seen these two meet, she kept calling Jinshi "Jinshi", in spite of already figuring out why the heck he always seemed to be ready to imitate "Ka Zuigetsu". Lakan did not seem to appreciate that, but she hadn't thought that was going to bite her in the ass, too. "Finally not hiding behind your mask, are you?"

"I never did deny that I wasn't who I am. It's just that my darling prefers to call me Jinshi." As if the stupid petname wasn't enough, his other hand reaches down to hold Maomao's under the table. Lakan lets go of Jinshi's hand, as if he'd been burned. "You should know as well as I do that a happy wife is needed for a happy life?"

Fengxian has those piercing eyes on Maomao, who looks away. Maomao, after all, is busy magnanimously pretending she didn't just hear that. On the other hand...Jinshi has taken to tapping his fingers against her hand, as he does when he's nervous. But why should he be? She takes that hand and wraps hers around it, hearing his hushed, surprised intake of breath.

"You must have baited our dearest daughter into this, somehow. I think you're not above doing that." Lakan says, his hands for once not anywhere near the weiqi board between then. "You must have lured her in with some of those expensive herbs she adores. Xiaobaobei, Baba can afford those too!"

Maomao's about to say something to refute that, because whether she likes it or not she's on Jinshi's side and has to speak up for him somehow, but then that stupidly pretty idiot opens that damned mouth of his.

"I didn't have to, yufue. My Maomao was the one who said she didn't want to see me with anyone else."

Suddenly, silence.

He really did say all that, when he can't even call her by name without flushing too red. Interesting. Maomao wants, so badly, to take her other hand back and plug her ears properly, because she's pretty sure someone's going to be screaming in three, two, one--

"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?"

Ah, fuck, now everyone's looking at them. Maomao's face is blank. Jinshi's still grinning like the cat that caught the canary. Fengxian pulls her husband down, back onto his chair with one strong yank.

"Behave, or I'm torching your favorite xiangqi board." Fengxian threatens, and so Lakan has no choice but to seeth at Jinshi sitting down, which he does. Jinshi is still fucking smiling, and Maomao hates that she understands that dude, yeah, she would wanna punch the grin off Jinshi's pretty face, too. That thought of hers has to come to a halt, however, when Fengxian turns her attention back on her. "Child, you never told us you were engaged."

Yeah, I didn't know I was since a few minutes ago, either, Maomao scoffs, in her head. It would be the work of a moment to let them know this was a part of her disguise, as they already know why Jinshi and the rest of the team are here. But Maomao has a bad habit of tuning out Jinshi's voice - she had been doing that again while those grabby hands of his "helped" her get dressed, so she doesn't exactly know how much leeway she's allowed. She shrugs instead. "Like I said. Nothing to do with you."

"Baobei, not this guy! Not any other guy! Baba won't allow it! Our tangyuan is only allowed to get married when she turns 100!"

"Yufue," Jinshi grins, again with those sparkles, it feels like Maomao is drowning in them, "I don't like sharing such intimate details, but it's my darling kitten who made this happen. I was going to bide my time otherwise, let our relationship go at its own pace. In the face of what she wants, I wouldn't need your blessing...but out of politeness, I think you should know."

Maomao turns to look at him, her face blank of emotion. Her eyes are steady as they gaze upon him, contemplating what the hell kind of story he's just thrust upon them.

Does this beautiful idiot know that people are listening? Does he understand that as soon as they leave this place, or maybe right now as they speak, word of their "engagement" will spread like wildfire? How are they supposed to explain to the boss that their little excursion ended up with his little brother getting engaged? Did they tell their mom about this play, at the very least?

Will Loulan shake her soul out of her shoulders for going along with this and making her lose the office poll of, "when will they get together?" ...wait, no, that isn't even Maomao's problem. Why were they betting on this anyway.

"Oho. I guess this generation really does move fast. Maybe we should have taken a page out of their book, husband. Don't you think, child? How did this happen?" Fengxian says, deadpan with an icy gaze that tells Maomao: explain yourself. But somewhere between Fengxian asking her for things she cannot promise and stubbornly never calling her the silly name they chose for her, Maomao has had enough.

Jinshi wants to play fiancés? Sure, fine, whatever. It's "Ka Zuigetsu's" name that'll get dragged through hell, not hers.

Let's make this his problem.

"I don't think you should be asking me that." Maomao says, giving out one of her well-worn smirks, her eyes narrowed. "Why don't you ask that fiancé over there how he was able to convince me?"

Jinshi is frozen stiff, wide eyes gazing upon her like they usually do when she calls him something other than Mister Jinshi. Maomao is just seeing that because she's doing her utmost best to not look at the people in front of her right now. It's not like she actually enjoys seeing that face outside of its usual smugness, anyway...

"Your...fiancé." Fengxian murmurs, her chilly gaze artfully hiding her amusement over this entire situation. "Did I hear that right, Young Master Ka?"

Something about hearing his name breaks the spell Jinshi seemed to have been under, because Maomao can see those eyes go alert again, still so embarrassingly soft as they look at her. "Yes." Jinshi says, clutching Maomao's hand under the table like a lifeline. "Yes, you heard that right."

Later that night, the team debriefs and figures out that they'd amassed enough footage of the hall to turn over to Basen's team. They decide not to talk about why a good chunk of three people's camerawork has to be cut out of his evidence packet, only that the cut has to be done somehow, who can volunteer for paid overtime?

One small hand shoots up almost immediately. Of course Xiaolan can handle scouring through her, Maomao's and Mister Jinshi's cameras to see what he can use. It almost feels criminal for her to be paid to do this, she says, that glimmer in her eyes telling everyone she totally means it.

Maomao takes one good look at her best friend, sighs, and settles into the seat beside Xiaolan, resigning herself to her fate. That guy over there is spending his evening secretly searching for engagement rings after all - she'll leave him to it, for now.