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Given the general course of his life, Mo Xuanyu had imagined a few different scenarios for where he might be at twenty-four. “Dead and gone” was certainly one of them, though regular therapy and a cocktail of medications have made that a more remote possibility. He doesn’t consider himself particularly talented at anything, but he’s always been fond of art. Maybe he’d be a famous artist now, traveling the world and discussing his works with admirers, if he’d have been able to talk his mother into the art classes he’d wanted to take instead of the science camp she ultimately guilt-tripped him into attending. These days, his art discussions are mostly limited to dissecting Drag Race outfits with Nie Huaisang during their weekly hangouts. Science camp hadn’t inspired him to be an engineer or a doctor as his mother had hoped, but it had provided a good-enough base for him to go into biological research. He doesn’t get paid the big money like the surgeon his mother wanted, but he does get to wear a lab coat and look at cool stuff under microscopes all day, so that has to count for something. He’s thought before that he should go to grad school, move up in the world so that he gets to wear the real fancy coats, but that hasn’t happened yet either.

Xue Yang, one of his coworkers and coincidentally the only person from that summer camp he’d kept in touch with, had told him once that he should be “dolled up and shaking your ass for cash” when they were bored on a late shift and discussing life plans. Mo Xuanyu rolled his eyes and changed out the slide under his scope, but he supposed there were worse ways to spend his time. Xue Yang, for his part, said he planned to “live fast, die young, leave a really fucked-up-looking corpse.” Stripping was a better goal.

He's imagined himself in so many different scenarios. Wholeheartedly embracing the flamboyant side that Nie Huaisang keeps trying to pull out of him and living it up in a big city somewhere, loud and proud and dressed to kill. Spending his weekends going to thrift shops to outfit a chic apartment overlooking a park, where he’d sit and read and feed the squirrels. In a committed relationship, even, nervous and thrilled to be moving into a cute little house in the suburbs with the kind of man who only existed in his head and in a very particular kind of Hallmark movie.

In the dozens of situations he’s pictured, in not a single one of them is he a parent.

And yet.

The letter had arrived four days earlier, neatly typed on crisp stationery with the letterhead of one of the area’s most prestigious law firms. “We have been trying to reach you,” it said, bringing to mind the handful of calls from a private number Mo Xuanyu had sent to a voicemail box he hadn’t checked in at least a year.

“I think I’m being sued,” he’d told Huaisang when he opened the letter during a commercial break.

Huaisang, tucked into the corner of Mo Xuanyu’s couch, didn’t even look up from where he was painting his toenails a garish violet color. “I can hook you up with a good lawyer.” A pause, then a curious look. “You still have the evidence, right? She doesn’t like it when the evidence goes missing. Looks more suspicious.”

It was the last thing Mo Xuanyu heard before the buzzing in his head began and the world began to blur and dim at the edges.

~*~

Lan & Associates takes up the top three floors of one of the city’s tallest skyscrapers. Its aesthetic, while not precisely sterile, stretches the definition of “tastefully understated” with its white leather couches, walls lined with traditional artwork and calligraphy, and tall, white vases of—what else—white and pale blue flowers. Live ones, Mo Xuanyu notes as he fidgets with the leaves of one such plant in the waiting area. Of course they wouldn’t use those tacky plastic things from a craft store, the same ones he uses to spruce up his kitchen whenever his mother visits. She only ever comments on how if he’s going to decorate with silk flowers, he should at least dust more often.

He’s staring out one of the massive floor-to-ceiling windows (and trying very hard not to spill his complimentary tea on the pristine white leather of the tufted chair he’s sitting in) when a ridiculously attractive man in a suit that appears to have cost more than Mo Xuanyu’s rent comes out to greet him. He flashes a small but earnest smile while apologizing for running late due to a long meeting with the previous client. All Mo Xuanyu can fixate on is how soft the man’s skin is when he offers a handshake.

Mo Xuanyu tried to dress well for the day in black slacks, a white button-down, and black dress shoes, all of which he only owns because he attended a wedding some months ago. He still feels out of place as he follows the sharply dressed attorney to his office and passes others in tailored suits. Even the paralegals and secretaries are wearing designer labels. He wonders if he could trade his soon-to-be wards for a custom Dior.

They stop outside a door bearing a small, rectangular name plate that reads “Lan Xichen, Esq.” helpful information now that Mo Xuanyu realizes he’d been too distracted by the attorney’s face to hear his introduction. The office is a corner suite—not that Mo Xuanyu expected anything less—with the same breathtaking views of the city far below them. In the distance, the river at the city’s edge glints under the mid-morning sun. On a foggy day—or, he supposes, on days the smog is especially bad—it must be like living in the clouds.

He takes the seat offered to him, mildly surprised to find that Lan Xichen’s office seems to have more personality than the relatively austere halls and common areas outside. Framed diplomas hang on the wall behind the desk, along with newspaper articles about major cases the firm has won. But alongside them are also a vinyl record of what appears to be a jazz album and a professional photo of Lan Xichen holding some sort of wind instrument that Mo Xuanyu can’t quite make out from where he sits. A flute, maybe, or a clarinet. On the desk are framed photos of what Mo Xuanyu assumes are family members: an older photo of an adult with two young boys on either side of him, a more recent one of a young man who resembles Lan Xichen with a rabbit on his lap, and a photo taken at a wedding reception. Lan Xichen stands, beaming, beside the same young man in the photo with the rabbit, along with two other men, one with an ear-to-ear smile and the other decidedly less amused, seemingly captured just moments before snapping at the man next to him mugging for the camera. Groomsmen then, Mo Xuanyu guesses, until he notices the two men in the middle are holding hands, and . . . huh. Interesting.

“There’s been a mistake,” Mo Xuanyu blurts without warning. Lan Xichen, who had evidently been in mid-sentence while Mo Xuanyu was scoping out his office, blinks in surprise. “I’m sorry. I just—I really think you have the wrong person.”

Lan Xichen’s voice is gentle and almost supernaturally patient when he speaks. It does nothing to put Mo Xuanyu’s nerves to rest, no matter how pleasant the tone is. “You are Mo Xuanyu, are you not? Twenty-four years old, employed at the university, son of the late Jin Guangshan, correct? And we spoke on the phone on Friday?” Mo Xuanyu nods and gets a soft smile to match the voice. “Then I have the right person. Sir, I understand this is difficult to process—”

“I don’t know them. I’ve never met them, any of them. My father has never been a part of my life. No one from that side of my family has been. Those kids should go to people who know them.” Who want them, he doesn’t say; he’s not sure why, but he doesn’t want to disappoint the man sitting across from him, who reminds Mo Xuanyu of a puppy for some reason.

Lan Xichen nods, infuriatingly understanding and nonjudgmental in exactly the ways Mo Xuanyu wishes he weren’t. His pen bounces back and forth between his fingers. It looks expensive. It’s even monogrammed. “You are aware of the circumstances of yours siblings’ passing, I assume.” He says it with sympathy that Mo Xuanyu finds entirely misplaced. The two youngest, brightest stars of the massive conglomerate that owned practically the whole city, his elder half-brothers he knew only by name, had been traveling with their wives and entourage to an international conference when their private plane crashed. Bad weather, equipment malfunction, a mountainside shrouded in fog, all very tragic. The story had dominated headlines for the past two weeks, inspiring in Mo Xuanyu an odd kind of melancholy he can’t explain. They are complete strangers to him, nothing more than pictures he sees in the news and names his mother mentions now and then as if to remind him of the world they are so close to yet never part of. It’s the loss of opportunity, perhaps, that saddens him when he lets himself think about it for too long, the knowledge that any hope of connecting with an entire missing side of his family is gone forever now.

The attorney opposite him clears his throat, prompting Mo Xuanyu to nod.

“There are options for the older boy. He has three surviving uncles: one by blood, one by adoption, one by marriage. The latter would actually make him part of my family, in fact.” One hand with long, slender fingers gestures at the wedding photo on his desk. “The younger boy, though . . . He has no other family, and he’s very closely bonded with his cousin. The parents’ wills were very clear that if anything were to happen to one set of parents, the other would be responsible for the child. You are Jin Rusong’s only known living kin. All parties have agreed at this point, in conjunction with the wills, that it’s in the boys’ best interests to keep them together.”

All the parties, that is, except the bastard son that seems to be more of a convenient afterthought than anything else. Mo Xuanyu barely refrains from saying exactly that. “Then place the kids with one of those uncles.” Who clearly don’t care about innocent children they presumably love being handed over to a total stranger. It’s a rehash of the same argument held over the phone days earlier, and Lan Xichen repeats his same points with the same patience he had shown then. Mo Xuanyu wants to punch him in his perfect mouth. Or scream. Or cry. Or both.

“I suspect that the Jiang family will obtain custody eventually, but the citizenship questions are going to take time to resolve. Legally, the children can’t be removed from the country without legal guardianship being established—”

“Then one of them can move here!”

And on it goes, more objections that are easily countered by a man who argues for a living, until Mo Xuanyu finally slumps in his chair. It looks too expensive to be so comfortable. Feeling not unlike a petulant child, he just manages not to fold his arms over his chest and scowl as he watches Lan Xichen refill their cups. A polite host, even, making sure Mo Xuanyu’s cup was poured before his own is.

“I became an uncle in a somewhat similar way,” he begins, face softening. It seems genuine, but how often, Mo Xuanyu wonders, does this trained attorney practice that expression in the mirror? Lan Xichen’s gaze slides to the personal photos on his desk again, this time landing on one of the same guy with the bunny and, apparently, the husband. In this photo, he’s posing with a boy no more than ten years old. The child is holding a piece of paper—a school award of some sort—up to the camera, grinning broadly, while Bunny Guy looks on with the same stoic expression he bears in every other photo, if a touch softer. “My younger brother adopted a child who lost his family. He was very young and scared. Both of them were very young and scared. I don’t think he slept for weeks at first. But I know he wouldn’t change anything now for the world.”

There are no answers in Mo Xuanyu’s teacup, no matter how hard he stares into the depths. He doesn’t even really like tea, but he figures asking for iced coffee in this place will get him immediately marked as a commoner.

“You have a good case worker on your side in this. I know Mr. Wen personally. He’s a close friend of my brother-in-law’s. You would be hard-pressed to find someone kinder.”

Mo Xuanyu wants to argue, wants to maintain some measure of control in this discussion, but finds he can’t. His scheduled call with Wen Ning yesterday went over by an hour, an embarrassing portion of which involved the other man talking him through a burgeoning panic attack, the rest promises to load him up with resources and assistance of every type. There were a lot of acronyms thrown at him, most he hadn’t recognized. Suggestions for books ranging from grief management to child development to advice for new adoptive parents—which Mo Xuanyu is not. He’d repeated that over and over, both during the call and later while completing the online purchase of those books.

“It’s normal to be anxious about this.”

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

There’s that gentle smile again, this time accompanied by Lan Xichen nudging the small trash can beside his desk, pushing it closer to Mo Xuanyu with his foot. “You’re going to be fine. It’s only temporary, most likely—”

“Most likely?”

“—and they’re good kids. I met them last week. Whoever ultimately gets custody of them will be blessed.”

Mo Xuanyu bites his tongue before he can insist that maybe Lan Xichen should consider throwing his hat into the ring that is the developing custody battle. He doesn’t say that. Doesn’t say much of anything as he numbly signs form after form after form. Barely remembers to say goodbye on his way out.

He doesn’t drink often—an unopened bottle of wine has sat on top of his fridge for a year—but he calls out of work, calls in Xue Yang, and spends the rest of the day getting progressively drunker until he eventually passes out on his couch.

These kids are so screwed.

~*~

At noon on a rainy Saturday, Mo Xuanyu meets two nephews he knew nothing about just a week earlier.

Mo Xuanyu sits on the couch in his rented townhouse, one knee bouncing nervously as his eyes sweep over the living room. It’s . . . fine. It could be worse, anyway. He’d recruited Nie Huaisang yesterday to help him clean the place up and make it presentable, only for Huaisang to leave five minutes after arriving when he learned he hadn’t been invited over for snacks and gossip but to actually work. Grudgingly, Mo Xuanyu had called Xue Yang next, who was much more amenable to manual labor as long as Mo Xuanyu promised to feed him. He’d even helped put together the twin beds in the space that, until recently, had been Mo Xuanyu’s studio, and all it had cost was the cheesecake Xue Yang excavated from the back of the freezer.

The house is clean. Ish. Mostly. For a twenty-something bachelor, Mo Xuanyu thinks it looks pretty good. The studio space is cramped and will be until he can find somewhere to put his boxed-up art supplies, but it’s got enough room for two small beds, a dresser, two plastic chairs, and a rug he threw down for . . . kid purposes. Kids like to sit on the floor a lot, don’t they? He’d reasoned as much anyway and spread out the soft rug so that they could . . . sit. Or whatever.

His fridge and cabinets are stocked with kid-friendly items: chips, cakes, cookies, and more macaroni and cheese than seems healthy for any one person to have. There are juice boxes in the fridge, along with pudding cups and a jar of applesauce. Xue Yang produced two chairs from the rolling monstrosity he called his van, saying they were for the kitchen table. Pointing out there was no kitchen table was how Mo Xuanyu found himself trawling alleys in parts of the city where garbage hadn’t yet been collected, then dumpsters behind furniture stores, and then, finally, helping Xue Yang load a scuffed, rickety table into the van to take home. “I can fix it,” Xue Yang had said when they noticed the table wobbled from one leg being slightly shorter than the others; “fixing it,” it turned out, involved shoving a folded-up piece of cardboard beneath it.

He's done all he can do. Wen Ning had visited him the previous evening for a final inspection (“just checking boxes,” he’d said) and reassured him that everything was fine. Or he’d tried to, anyway. He’s doing a good thing and honoring his family’s wishes. Mo Xuanyu very much doubts either of those points. Still, he’s done all he can do to prepare. He’s been reading the books Wen Ning recommended, watching instructional videos, and most importantly, avoiding his phone every time it makes a noise and he sees his mother’s number. He doesn’t know how much she knows about the predicament he’s found himself in, and however much part of him wants to go running to her for advice, he hasn’t told her anything. The last thing he needs is for her to get attached to her newly discovered relatives—Mo Xuanyu guesses there would be some kind of relation there—and spend the rest of time trying to convince or guilt Mo Xuanyu into seeking permanent custody.

His doorbell camera pings and lights up the screen next to the door, drawing his attention to the distorted image of a man walking up. He holds an umbrella with one hand, his other arm tucked under a toddler to support their weight as he carries them. The older of the two children walks beside him, a child-sized umbrella of his own in hand and a deep scowl on his face. It’s incongruent with the brightly colored Pokemon characters hanging over his head.

The doorbell rings moments later. Mo Xuanyu stares at the door, then the screen, then the door again, wondering if it’s too late to back out. The back door jams, but it’s raining hard enough that no one would hear it if he yanked it open and darted to freedom. Xue Yang is out of the question; Mo Xuanyu has been to his apartment exactly one time and sworn to never step foot in that rat trap of a building ever again. It’s not like he even needs it; his boyfriend has a good job and a nice condo in the financial district, so Mo Xuanyu can only assume Xue Yang enjoys slumming it just because doing so fits his dirtbag aesthetic. But Huaisang is loaded and lives in a sprawling family mansion with rooms that haven’t even been discovered yet. Mo Xuanyu can just live in one of the wings of the estate and no one will ever know he’s there.

Another ring, and this time Mo Xuanyu forces himself to his feet, smooths his hands down over his T-shirt to try to make himself look presentable, and walks to the door with all the resignation of a prisoner walking to his execution.

When Mo Xuanyu opens the door, Wen Ning offers him a shy, endearing smile as he collapses his umbrella and props it up next to the door. He steps to the side and gestures for the older boy to enter ahead of him when they’re invited inside, but the child clings more tightly to his umbrella and somehow manages to deepen his frown.

“Um” is the first thing Mo Xuanyu says to his new nephews. The older child, predictably, is not impressed. The younger one shifts a little in Wen Ning’s arms and turns his head, regarding Mo Xuanyu with huge, soft eyes. Like looking at a baby deer, Mo Xuanyu thinks. After some murmured coaxing, the older boy relents and closes his umbrella, but rather than set it against the outside wall, he spears it into a potted plant Mo Xuanyu’s mother had given him as a housewarming gift when he first moved here. A snake plant, he thinks she called it. He winces when he hears one of the tall leaves snap as it takes a direct hit from the tip of the umbrella.

“Jin Rulan—” is the second thing Mo Xuanyu says to his new nephews. Well, one of them, and the child is even less impressed this time. He wrinkles his nose and folds his arms across his chest, even lowers his head to intensify his glare.

“That’s not my name.”

“Oh. Well, I mean, that’s what it says on the paper—”

“That’s not my name, and you’d know that if you knew anything about me!” The boy turns, indignant, toward Wen Ning. “You can’t leave us here! He doesn’t even know my name!”

If he slams the door and locks it, then dashes out the back, he can probably make it to the bus stop before Wen Ning gives up trying to get him to open the door again.

“Jin Ling,” Wen Ning says, “we talked about this, remember? Your shushu has a lot to learn and remember about both of you, so it’s going to take a little time.”

“Jiujiu knows my name.”

Wen Ning sighs and turns an apologetic face toward Mo Xuanyu. “Sorry. Every child adjusts in different ways.”

You have a habit of forcing kids into homes they don’t want to be in with people they don’t know? Mo Xuanyu starts to ask, but he clenches his jaw to keep the words in his mind. Working in child services, Wen Ning probably does exactly that fairly regularly. Mo Xuanyu isn’t special, even if the circumstances are.

The trio walk inside, with Jin Ling deliberately rubbing his muddy shoes on the floor as he toes them off. The floor is laminate and the mud will be easy enough to clean off when it dries, but the passive-aggressive rebellion is the same. Wen Ning casts a despairing look at him before he bends to put the younger boy—Jin Rusong, Mo Xuanyu reminds himself, and hopefully the two-year-old isn’t old enough to lecture him about name preferences as well—on his feet. He reaches for Wen Ning’s hand almost immediately, then shoves the other into his mouth, chewing on his fingers as he swivels his head around to take in his new surroundings.

“This house is really small,” Jin Ling complains, interrupting Wen Ning’s questions about if Mo Xuanyu needs anything from him right now and promises to call him first thing Monday morning. “And it smells weird.”

“I burnt a bag of popcorn last night,” Mo Xuanyu mutters, even if it’s a lie. That had been Xue Yang’s doing, but the fewer people who know about their acquaintanceship, the better. “There’s a—the bedrooms are upstairs. The kitchen is over there—”

“I can see it.”

“. . .right. And there’s, uh. There’s a bathroom down the hall there, and the laundry room. Well, it’s more of a little nook than a real room, but—”

“Your TV sucks.”

“Jin Ling,” Wen Ning says in a tone that’s obviously aiming for scolding but that comes across more like pleading. Mo Xuanyu is convinced that Wen Ning has cried at least once after killing a spider; he’d probably have an aneurism if he had to actually discipline a child.

“Look at it! It’s so small.”

It’s . . . a perfectly adequate television as far as Mo Xuanyu can tell. A respectable size, mounted to one of those swivel stands fixed in the wall and everything. He even bought a soundbar for it.

“Is that a PS4?” The amount of disdain the boy packs into a six-year-old’s voice is almost impressive. “You don’t even have a PS5?”

Mo Xuanyu opens his mouth to defend himself—somehow—but Wen Ning beats him to it. “Jin Ling, you’re being rude. You should apologize to your uncle.”

Jin Ling, not missing a beat, replies, “He should apologize for being poor.”

“I’m not—”

Wen Ning silences him with a look before directing his attention to Jin Ling again. “You’re being very rude right now, and the things you’re saying are very hurtful. You need to apologize to him now.”

Jin Ling, head still facing the TV, slides his eyes as far to the side as they can reach so that he doesn’t have to face Mo Xuanyu. It’s a standoff for a few tense seconds before he says “sorry” with a curled lip. Mo Xuanyu is certain he hears “that you’re poor” tacked on at the end under the child’s breath.

The situation does not improve once Wen Ning leaves and Mo Xuanyu is faced with his new reality and at least thirty-seven new fears.

He gives the children the tour of the house. Jin Ling purposefully knocks over a ceramic cat figure on a hall table and shatters it, and produces a crayon from somewhere and leaves a wavering green trail on the wall on one side of the stairs, and overflows the upstairs toilet when he says he needs to use the bathroom. Mo Xuanyu isn’t sure how long it should normally take a six-year-old to use the bathroom, but by the time he begins to suspect it’s been long enough, he hears the toilet gurgling and rushes in to find it plugged with an entire roll of toilet paper. And a shampoo bottle. And the entire contents of his toothpaste, along with the tube itself for good measure.

Jin Rusong, on the other hand, is a virtual angel by comparison, happy to totter along beside them and then go bounce on his new bed when he sees it.

After some near-begging and bribing via pizza delivery, Mo Xuanyu convinces the boys to go back downstairs with him to watch TV, chat, and get to know each other. Jin Ling doesn’t bother pretending to be interested; he instead goes to the backpack he’d left by the door, retrieves a tablet, and settles himself into the recliner. At least Rusong seems excited when Mo Xuanyu finds some kids’ movie with bright colors and funny noises.

The afternoon passes with almost no change, either in the type of movie he’s obliged to watch or in Jin Ling’s refusal to engage in any kind of conversation, until the door camera chimes again. Mo Xuanyu glances up from his phone and squints at the camera screen; he hopes it’s not Xue Yang coming by unannounced. Or Nie Huaisang, for that matter, though he’d probably leave anyway as soon as he realized there were children present. So he doesn’t know who he expects when he opens the door, but it’s not what he’s absolutely certain is the most beautiful man he’s ever seen.

He stares at the man across from him, brain short-circuiting as he tries to remember how to form words or, if that’s impossible, how to at least close his mouth. The stranger looks to be right around his age, with brown-black hair that sweeps fetchingly over his eyes and around his cheeks, just glancing off his shoulders. His glasses bring even more attention to his dark but gentle-seeming eyes. His face is thin—his whole frame is thin, obvious by his bony wrists poking out from under the sleeves of a sweater that’s at least one size too big—but it’s his perfect bow-shaped mouth that catches Mo Xuanyu off-guard. He’s not sure if he’s ever seen lips before that look custom-made for kissing.

He blinks when something is held up in his line of sight—an envelope, he notices when he forces himself to focus. Behind it, the young man smiles and gets upgraded to future husband status.

“Sorry to bother you,” he says, and . . . oh. His voice is deeper than Mo Xuanyu expected. The back of his neck goes warm as he reflexively imagines what that voice would sound like purring sweet nothings into his ear. Or, conversely, saying the nastiest things imaginable, preferably while he’s on his back and the voice’s owner is buried hilt-deep inside him. “I got your mail by accident so I thought I’d bring it over and introduce myself. I just moved in next door. I think you know my friend Xue Yang?”

Mo Xuanyu blinks again and forces himself to swallow. His mind races, trying to figure out what this gorgeous man is talking about, and then it hits him. “Oh! Oh, yeah, um. Xiao Xingchen, right? Yeah, Xue Yang told me you’d be moving in.” That much was true. He’d noticed the “for rent” sign in the yard of the townhouse connected to the right of Mo Xuanyu’s and said he knew someone who was looking for a place in the area, and then he’d said about a week later that this friend had just signed the lease. What he had not mentioned was that he was friends with a model or some kind of walking thirst trap designed in a lab. Mo Xuanyu saw the moving truck parked out front over the last couple of evenings, but given his own life is in the process of being upended, he hadn’t paid it much attention.

Numbly, he accepts the letter held out to him. Electricity bill. Great. He’ll put it in the basket on the counter, next to the fridge. At some point. Whenever he stops staring.

“Hungry,” says a small voice from somewhere at his side. He looks over to find Rusong chewing on his fingertip and staring up at him with those large, imploring eyes. Xiao Xingchen smiles at the interaction and even offers a wave that Mo Xuanyu is surprised to see Rusong return.

“Is that your son? He’s cute.”

“No!” Mo Xuanyu flinches at how eagerly he denies it, hating how Xiao Xingchen looks back at him with a somewhat startled expression. “I mean . . . no. He’s my nephew.” Apparently. “I’m just a neutral party in some custody issues happening right now.” Or so he hopes.

“He stole us,” comes Jin Ling’s voice from the living room, preceding the boy himself dashing over to grab his backpack. “Take us to the police station. They’ll take us home.”

“And that is my other nephew, Jin Ling.”

The boy gives him a truly impressive side-eye. “You didn’t know it before I had to tell you.” He looks back to Xiao Xingchen, chin lifting in the imperious way only someone raised practically as royalty can achieve. “Well? Are we going?”

“Your uncle seems very nice. You don’t really want to leave, do you?”

Jin Ling shoulders his backpack, grabs Rusong’s hand, and pushes past the adults to head out onto the narrow sidewalk leading to the street. “Where’s your car?”

“I don’t have one. I don’t need one, either. I live right next door.”

Jin Ling looks to the connected townhouse as if to confirm the story, then holds out the hand not clinging to Rusong’s. “Give me your phone. I’ll call Jiujiu. He has a car.”

“I’m hungry,” Rusong says, louder this time as if the problem is that he wasn’t heard the first time.

“I’m sorry. It looks like I came over at a bad time.”

“My life is a bad time,” Mo Xuanyu grumbles as he walks out to herd the boys back inside. “Let’s go back inside and finish our pizza, okay?” He looks up—and up, damn, his future husband is pleasantly tall—at Xiao Xingchen when he reaches the door again. “I’m so sorry about all this. It’s my first day with them, and everything’s really weird for all of us, and . . .” He trails off and narrowly avoids hanging his head in defeat.

“No, it’s alright. I get it. I teach first grade. It’s great seeing kids really starting to develop their own personalities, but it’s . . . it can be a lot.”

Mo Xuanyu checks to make sure Jin Ling is out of earshot. “What if that new personality sucks?” He regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth. His future husband is going to be a future nothing now that Mo Xuanyu has outed himself as a child-hating monster to an actual saint. Surprisingly, though, Xiao Xingchen smiles again.

“Then you try to correct the worst of it and hope that they’ll grow out of the rest.”

Mo Xuanyu deeply hopes he’s right.

~*~

By the grace of whatever deity is out there, Mo Xuanyu and his new wards survive the night. The next morning, while they’re gathered around the new kitchen table (which Jin Ling points out is ugly and uneven) finishing breakfast, a box truck pulls up outside and two men in blue jumpsuits show up at the door. Wen Ning had said that arrangements were being made to transport some of the boys’ belongings—clothes and toys, mostly—but Mo Xuanyu had hoped he’d get more time to actually make room for the influx of new stuff. Jin Ling becomes a tiny dictator, following the movers around and demanding that this toy be place there. Rusong, on the other hand, is delighted to receive a stuffed elephant nearly as large as he is. He holds it upside down and mouths at its tail, in the same worn-out spot that makes it clear he does this often. And fine, Mo Xuanyu isn’t heartless. Even he has to admit that it’s kind of cute, especially because the toddler is still in his footed gray pajamas with cartoonish images of dinosaurs all over them.

As he does every Sunday, Mo Xuanyu loads up the washing machine, though it takes him a bit longer this time. Anything to avoid dealing with Jin Ling, who’s set up on the couch with his own newly connected PS5 and, from the sounds of it, being attacked by a Creeper. Mo Xuanyu can . . . kind of understand, he supposes. He’s never lost someone close to him, but he can imagine how much it hurts. But losing both parents at such a young age? Along with a cherished uncle and aunt? All at once? He can’t blame the kid for being standoffish. He doesn’t know how he would respond to such a tragedy, but neither does he know how to help. The books don’t cover these exact circumstances, so maybe it’s best to let the boy vent as he needs to and come to him when he’s ready. If he’s ever ready. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet and Mo Xuanyu is already keenly aware of how poorly he stacks up against Jin Ling’s real uncle.

Nothing like Rusong, thankfully. The toddler is openly affectionate, almost to the point of making Mo Xuanyu anxious. The only other child he’s ever really been around is his younger cousin, but Mo Ziyuan was a terror who’s only grown worse with age. He knows how to deal with a kid who throws rocks at him and hits him with sticks. He doesn’t know how to deal with a child who wants to cling to him like a shaggy-haired koala.

Rusong sits on top of the dryer now, swinging his legs over the side and rolling a toy car around. Despite being told to stay on the couch with Jin Ling, he’d followed Mo Xuanyu into the laundry area and asked nonstop questions, most of which were garbled baby talk Mo Xuanyu couldn’t understand. Frustrated, the boy had eventually put his arms in the air and squeezed his hands open and shut repeatedly, giggling when Mo Xuanyu finally took the hint, hoisted him into the air, and sat him down atop the dryer.

“You know, a-Song, sometimes I wish I were still a baby myself,” Mo Xuanyu says while measuring out a capful of detergent. “Everything’s so much easier. You don’t have to go to work every day, you don’t have to pay bills, no one expects anything from you except being cute, you don’t have to worry every time the phone rings that it’s your mom calling to nag about . . .” He trails off at that, mentally slapping himself. Rusong doesn’t seem to notice the slip—doesn’t seem to be listening at all, really—but Mo Xuanyu winces nonetheless. “Shit. I’m sorry, I wasn’t think—I shouldn’t be swearing in front of you either. God, I’m not cut out for this.”

That, at least, gets Rusong’s attention, as he looks up with a gap-toothed grin and says “bad word!”

“Yeah, that was a bad word. Please don’t repeat it.”

Rusong nods solemnly and goes back to rolling the toy car across the top of the dryer. Mo Xuanyu, meanwhile, goes back to plotting an escape, plans that get interrupted when the doorbell rings. He’s heard it more in the past few days than he has in the two years he’s lived here, and he’s really starting to consider disconnecting it.

“The police are here,” Jin Ling yells from the living room, and Mo Xuanyu forces himself not to reflexively yell at a child to shut the fuck up. Instead, he closes the lid to start the washer, picks Rusong up, and then heads to the front door. With any luck, it really is the police. He could use an all-expenses-paid vacation.

It turns out to be even better than that. The most beautiful man on the planet is once again on his doorstep. In one hand is the toolkit he’d borrowed the previous evening, and in the other is a Tupperware container of some kind of food.

“You didn’t have to bring this back already,” Mo Xuanyu points out, shifting Rusong on his hip so he can take the toolkit held out to him.

“Oh, I know, but I wanted to get it back to you as soon as I could. And before I lost it.” Xiao Xingchen smiles as if completely unaware of how deadly he is when he does that. “I also wanted to return the favor.” Holding up the container, he adds, “I made cupcakes. I didn’t know if you had any dietary restrictions or allergies or anything, so I used a vegan recipe. No nuts.”

Mo Xuanyu isn’t vegan by any stretch; he likes eggs and cheese too much for that, and a quality steak now and then. Regardless, he appreciates the gesture. It’s nice to know his future husband is so considerate.

“You didn’t need to go to all that trouble.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I like baking.”

This man isn’t real. Mo Xuanyu is sure of it. He’s hallucinating all of this. But if it is a dream and he’s aware of it, then he can take control of the situation. He opens the door wider and steps aside. “Would you mind bringing them in? I’ve got my hands full.”

“I can see that,” Xiao Xingchen says with another smile that makes something funny light up in Mo Xuanyu’s stomach. Or maybe lower, but he’s going to try his best to ignore that. “Sure, of course. The layout is the same in this unit, right?”

“Right. Kitchen is straight ahead.” And the bedroom is upstairs, but Mo Xuanyu keeps that part to himself.

He closes the door and locks it out of habit—not because he’s trying to trap a gorgeous man in his house—and sets Rusong down on the floor. The boy steadies himself and then takes off for the couch, barreling into his cousin and making Jin Ling whine about almost falling into lava while he holds the controller over his head. Mo Xuanyu leaves them to it and walks into the kitchen to find Xiao Xingchen staring at a print of “Saturn Devouring His Son” on the wall overlooking the table.

“Does this imply anything about your eating habits?” Xiao Xingchen asks when he notices Mo Xuanyu watching him. A wry grin follows, then, “I guess I didn’t need to use that vegan recipe, did I?”

Cheeks flushing, Mo Xuanyu says, “No. Uh, to both questions. I like cheese.”

I like cheese? God. He can’t wait to text Huaisang about this later, presuming he doesn’t memory-hole it out of the very real threat of dying of humiliation if he ever recalls it.

“I mean . . . It’s always been one of my favorite paintings, and I thought it would be kind of funny to put it in the kitchen. Maybe not, though.”

Xiao Xingchen shakes his head. “No, I like it. It’s a little weird, but I like weird. Weird is interesting.”

Mo Xuanyu feels his cheeks go even hotter, a revelation he tries to hide by slipping around his guest to grab several small plates from a cabinet. “I’ve always thought so too. Too bad no one else who ever looks at my own art thinks the same way.”

“Oh, you’re an artist?”

Mo Xuanyu shrugs as he returns to the table. “I’ve never been paid for it, so I don’t know if I’d call myself an artist.”

Xiao Xingchen removes the lid from the container, revealing a dozen cupcakes tucked into neat rows, brown ones with chocolate frosting and white ones with pink frosting that Mo Xuanyu hopes is strawberry. Each one is covered in sprinkles shaped like snowflakes, a bit out of place in October but appealing anyway. “I’ve never been paid for this either, but I still think of myself as a baker.” He smiles, seemingly to himself, as he begins to place two cupcakes of each flavor onto the plates. “It’s either that or admit that I should never be allowed into a kitchen. I’ve been told I can’t cook ‘real’ food to save my life.”

“You’re fine,” Mo Xuanyu blurts out, and oh, Huaisang is going to love this. “The cooking, I mean. I’m sure it’s fine.”

There’s more than one reason why he’s been single for a while, and he’s evidently determined to reveal all of them right now.

Xiao Xingchen’s bright-as-the-sun smile turns on him full-force. “I’d love to see it sometime. Your art, I mean,” he adds, and Mo Xuanyu would think that’s the faintest hint of a smirk edging into his smile if he didn’t think this man was some sort of celestial being. “If you’d like to show me, of course.”

“I—”

Mo Xuanyu is spared whatever embarrassing flub is about to come out of his mouth by a piercing wail behind him. Startled, he rushes into the living room and sees Rusong crying, an impressive amount of snot already on his face given the tears have just started. Jin Ling pouts next to him, stubbornly jabbing at the buttons on his controllers, though Mo Xuanyu does catch him sneaking sidelong glances that almost seem guilty.

“What happened?”

Jin Ling doesn’t respond, which for some reason makes Rusong cry even harder.

“Jin Ling. What happened?”

“Why do you think I did something? Cause you hate me?”

“What? Of course I don’t hate you.” Whether he likes the kid is still an open question, but since he doesn’t think that would help anything, he keeps quiet about that one.

“Gege!” Rusong whines, reaching for the controller and crying harder still when Jin Ling shoves him away.

“Hey, hey, no pushing each other.”

“He started it!”

“He’s two.”

“See? I knew you hated me. You’ll always take his side, won’t you? Jiujiu wouldn’t do that to me.”

Xiao Xingchen must see the helpless look on Mo Xuanyu’s face because he offers a sympathetic look and then, quietly, “Do you mind if I help?” Mo Xuanyu gives an equally helpless wave of his hand, only then remembering the plate and barely managing to not fling the cupcakes to the ground. Xiao Xingchen walks toward the couch and asks if he can join them, and when Jin Ling just shrugs, he sits down.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Those are some big feelings you’re having, but you’re very small. Why don’t you tell us about them so that you feel better?”

Mo Xuanyu has no idea if Rusong actually understands everything Xiao Xingchen says or if he merely sees the opportunity to tattle on his cousin. Either way, he slams a chubby hand onto his leg in frustration. “Gege won’t let me play!”

“You don’t know how. You’re a baby.”

“I wanna play!”

“You’ll mess up my game!”

Rusong’s face screws up into an ugly snarl a moment before he smacks his hand against Jin Ling’s wrist, making him drop the controller and, in turn, leaving him unable to stop his pixelated character from being killed by what Mo Xuanyu thinks is some kind of pig . . . creature.

“See?” Jin Ling howls, despairing. “Look what you did, you dumb baby!”

“Boys,” Xiao Xingchen pipes up, a stern note entering his voice this time. It’s enough to make even Jin Ling pay attention. “We don’t hit each other. We use our words, not our fists. And we use nicer words,” he adds with a pointed look at Jin Ling, who . . . almost looks contrite? Mo Xuanyu doesn’t try to close his mouth. “You boys love each other, right?” Rusong is too distraught to reply, but Jin Ling, after a few seconds, mutters “yeah” and folds his arms over his chest. “Then you need to treat each other like it. Sometimes we get mad at the people we love, and we might even say mean things to them, but we should never, ever hit them. Do you understand?”

Rusong sniffles and wipes his sleeve across his nose. Mo Xuanyu laments yet another piece of laundry to add to the pile. “Gege yelled at me.”

“He did, and that was wrong too. But no matter what, you shouldn’t hit him, just like no one should hit you either. If he hurts your feelings and makes you feel sad or mad or anything like that, then you need to tell him how you feel and tell him to stop. And if that doesn’t work, then you need to tell a grownup. Okay?” When he gets a nod, he directs his attention to Jin Ling. “How long have you been playing this game?”

“About an hour,” Mo Xuanyu answers for him when Jin Ling stares blankly back at Xiao Xingchen. Like children have any concept of time.

“That’s a long time to go without a break. How about this: Why don’t you let Rusong play for a little while—we’ll start a new file just for him—and you can try one of the cupcakes I made. Do you like chocolate? Or vanilla?”

Jin Ling mulls it over for a second. “Chocolate.”

“Me too. You’re in luck. I brought plenty of chocolate cupcakes for everyone. But you know, I could really use a second opinion on the vanilla ones. Would you mind trying one of those too and letting me know what you think?”

Turning to peer over the back of the couch, Jin Ling eyes the cupcakes on the plate still in Mo Xuanyu’s hand, then looks up at his face as if seeking permission. Mo Xuanyu nods, encouraging, prompting Jin Ling to turn back around and look at Xiao Xingchen again.

“Okay.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate your help with that. And maybe while you’re doing that you can tell me how to beat the Ender Dragon. Have you ever done that before?”

Mo Xuanyu watches, amazed, as Jin Ling’s entire stature changes, his eyes going wide while he sits up straighter against the couch in excitement. “You know about that?”

“Of course! Grownups play games too, you know.”

Jin Ling seems to consider this mind-blowing revelation before letting himself smile, the first Mo Xuanyu has seen so far. “Okay! I’ve never killed the Ender Dragon either, though. It’s really hard.”

“It is. I bet there are videos online that could teach us how to do it. Would you like to watch some while Rusong plays?”

“Yeah!”

“Great, then we’ll do that, but on one condition: you boys need to apologize to each other. Then we’ll have cupcakes. Does that sound fair?”

Mo Xuanyu is still frozen in awe to see the children hug and tell each other they’re sorry for being mean—but he feels his heart melt a little when Xiao Xingchen looks back at him with a smile and a thumbs-up gesture. He can’t wait to tell everyone that he’s found his perfect Hallmark movie man.

~*~

For some reason, maybe because his mind was trying to spare him, Mo Xuanyu hadn’t given full consideration to what his weekday mornings would become with two young children in his care. It’s how he finds himself waking now at some ungodly hour to get the boys up, dressed, fed, and out the door. Then he spends a lifetime in traffic driving across town because he’s been asked to keep Jin Ling and Rusong in the same primary school and daycare, respectively. Then he drives to the other side of town again to go to work, then back to pick the boys up and spend another small eternity in rush hour traffic on the way home.

He doesn’t know how single parents cope. Or any parents, really. He’s already tired by the time he opens his front door, but now he has to prepare dinner—something more substantial than ramen, though he firmly believes both children would happily eat nothing else if given the opportunity—and bathe them before finally, finally being allowed to rest. At least he’s finally gotten the hang of not getting shampoo into Rusong’s eyes. It only took a couple of exaggerated screaming fits.

Every night after he gets the toddler to bed, he tries to offer Jin Ling help with his homework, whatever that might entail for a first-grader. Jin Ling refuses every time and says he’s not a baby and he doesn’t need Mo Xuanyu’s help. That should be fine, really, except that one time he asks (orders) Mo Xuanyu to call his jiujiu. His assignment is to read a story to an adult, and then that adult is to fill out a questionnaire about how it went. That Jin Ling goes out of his way to dodge the adult in the room in favor of starting a Zoom call with one hundreds of miles away is more hurtful than Mo Xuanyu feels it should be. That hurt bleeds into irritation when Mo Xuanyu has to first deal with that uncle—Jiang Cheng, he recalls somewhere from the mountains of paperwork—glaring at him during the entire call and then fill out the survey as Jiang Cheng’s proxy. The man is . . . not very generous in his assessment, commenting on everything from how Jin Ling tripped over the word “zebra” four times (and why was he counting?) to how some of his tones weren’t great. It’s a work performance review from a stickler boss, Mo Xuanyu thinks. He even feels a bit sorry for Jin Ling when the call ends and the kid pokes at the tablet, mindlessly flipping from one screen to another.

He shouldn’t be doing this, undermining the boy’s favorite (and as far as that kid is concerned, only) uncle and all, but Mo Xuanyu sets the paper down on the table and says, “I think you did a good job.”

“Jiujiu didn’t.”

Probably not, but there’s no use kicking a child when he’s already down. “I think he’s just a strict teacher and wants to push you to do your very best. As long as you try, that’s enough.” Jin Ling still doesn’t respond, so Mo Xuanyu sighs and awkwardly pats his back. “Come on. I’ll get your bath going.”

For once, the boy doesn’t argue with him. Just shoves the completed questionnaire into his backpack hanging off the chair and trudges dutifully upstairs. Mo Xuanyu debates calling Jiang Cheng back and either asking him to be nicer or yelling at him. When he decides neither option is likely to accomplish much, he picks up the tablet and carries it upstairs. With any luck, maybe he can talk Jin Ling into reading for him and actually get some positive feedback.

~*~

It's the end of that first harrowing week that sees him running into Xiao Xingchen again, this time while supervising the boys playing in the small plot of land that’s supposed to be a yard. Autumn has truly settled in now with a cold front that’s blown most of the leaves off the trees and dropped the temperature to a pleasant chill. The large maple tree in the front yard has been stripped bare and left its offerings strewn around its base, and the boys are happy to help “clean up” by picking up armfuls of leaves and dumping them on each other.

“That looks like fun, doesn’t it?”

Mo Xuanyu jumps at the unexpected voice to his right, then relaxes when he sees it’s just his future husband standing on his stoop. He’s as disgustingly radiant as ever, this time in a roomy, cream-colored sweater and black sweatpants. The top layer of his hair is pulled back into a small tail to create an artfully messy half-up look. He’s wearing different glasses this time, dark blue frames that contrast nicely with his skin. And Mo Xuanyu is still very much in lust, so much so that he almost misses when Xiao Xingchen tips his head to the side and lifts an eyebrow, like he knows Mo Xuanyu is staring, is amused by it, but is too polite to say anything about it.

“Yeah, I—I guess so.”

Xiao Xingchen takes a sip from the mug in his hand, half-obscured by the overflowing cuff of his sleeve. Mo Xuanyu can spot whimsical drawings of cats on it. “Mind if I join you?”

Considering Mo Xuanyu has been trying to come up with excuses to “accidentally” bump into him for several days, his answer is never in question. “Come on over.”

It takes a minute or two, but Xiao Xingchen at last emerges from his house and rounds the end of the fence dividing their spaces, then walks toward where Mo Xuanyu is sitting on the doorstep. He’s holding two mugs now; the new one is a silly novelty mug shaped like a cow. It even has udders that Mo Xuanyu unconsciously pokes when the mug is handed to him.

“Hot chocolate,” Xiao Xingchen says. “Homemade. I found a slow cooker recipe and wanted to try it.”

Mo Xuanyu cups his hands around the mug and abruptly realizes how cold the weather is. The ceramic, warmed by the liquid inside it, is a welcome relief to his fingers. “Thank you. I love hot chocolate.”

“I remembered that you said you liked chocolate before, so I thought it was a safe bet.”

Mo Xuanyu is going to melt and be embedded on this stoop forever. The landlord can send the bill to his gravesite. He takes a sip to keep from saying something to that effect, smiling to himself when the rich cocoa flavor hits his tongue. “Oh, that’s really good. The only thing that could make it better would be—”

“Marshmallows?” Xiao Xingchen reaches into the kangaroo pocket at the front of his sweater and pulls from it a half-empty bag of mini marshmallows, and that’s—

This man is not real. Mo Xuanyu refuses to believe it, because then he’ll have to accept the fact that he is not married to him. Or engaged. Or dating him. Or even more than a friendly neighbor.

The stoop is narrow, but that’s a convenient bonus when it means they have to squeeze in close together to share it. Hip to hip, knee to knee. Mo Xuanyu is grateful that he can blame any pinkness in his cheeks on the cold air.

Xiao Xingchen smiles behind his silly cat mug and waves when the boys stop trying to bury each other in leaves long enough to notice him.

“I feel like I should be annoyed with you,” Mo Xuanyu says while watching the steam rise from his cocoa.

“Why’s that?”

Because you’re perfect. “Because Jin Ling feels the need to tell me about every little thing that happens in that Minecraft server you two made. He’ll barely talk to me at all except to boss me around otherwise.”

“Ah. You should join us sometime. We’re working on building a sky fortress.” He sips at his mug again, being very distracting with how he scoops up a partially melted marshmallow with his tongue and drags it into his mouth. “I’m glad he’s enjoying it. I’m sure it’s very hard for him and Rusong right now, considering.”

Shoulders tightening, Mo Xuanyu looks over to find Xiao Xingchen is not looking at him, but rather at a wooly caterpillar inching its way across the sidewalk. “So . . . you found out, huh?”

“The crash has been in the news for a while now. It wasn’t hard to piece things together once you said their names,” he replies, voice soft as he leans down to set his cup on the ground and then offer his hand to the insect. It dutifully crawls into his palm because even nature can’t deny his perfection. “I’m very sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine losing so many loved ones at once like that. It’s terrible.”

Mo Xuanyu takes a second or two to watch the caterpillar explore Xiao Xingchen’s palm, the back of his hand, his wrist, before deciding to return to the ground and carry on with its journey toward the grass. “It is, but I don’t know if I feel worse about it than anyone else does. I didn’t know them. I never met them. I knew we were related through my father, but that’s it.” And if the rumors are anything to go by, he bets he has several other siblings he knows nothing about.

“And you still got custody of their children?”

Mo Xuanyu sputters out a half-hearted laugh. “I know. It doesn’t make sense to me either. I think Jin Ling’s uncle is working through some kind of red tape to get them. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.”

“They seem like good kids.”

“They’re ruining my life,” Mo Xuanyu says with a more earnest laugh this time. “No, they’re . . . they’re fine, I guess. I don’t have anything to compare them to. They could be a lot worse. Well, Rusong could be. Jin Ling . . . well, that, Xiao Xingchen, is why I’m glad you’re around. You can handle him.”

“You can call me Xingchen, if you’d like.”

Yeah. It’s definitely just the cold turning Mo Xuanyu’s cheeks red. He tries—and probably fails—to hide that by gently tapping his mug against Xingchen’s. “Only if you call me Xuanyu.”

Xingchen smiles again, probably blinding some pilot flying by thousands of miles overhead, and returns the toast. “Deal.”

They lapse into comfortable silence for a while—well, comfortable as long as Mo Xuanyu doesn’t let himself dwell on how his right arm brushes against Xingchen’s left one now and then when he lifts his mug—before Mo Xuanyu decides to speak again. “You said you’re a teacher, right? Is that why you’re so good with kids?”

“Hmm. Maybe? I think it might be the other way around, though.” He looks out over the yard, chuckling when Rusong takes a running leap into the massive pile of leaves the boys have gathered. “I did a lot of the work in raising my little sister when our parents died. Car accident,” he says in response to the question Mo Xuanyu doesn’t have time to ask. “I was a little bit older than Jin Ling. A-Qing was still just a baby. We went to live with our great-aunt, but she was . . . she was a bit odd,” he admits with an almost shy twist of his lips. “Not in a bad way, exactly, just . . . it’s hard to explain. Anyway, I became a little bit of a parent to a-Qing, and my favorite part about it was always helping her learn how to spell and how to read, how to count, how to do math even though I’m terrible at it. So when it was time for me to go to college and figure out what I wanted to do with my life, it was a pretty easy decision.”

So Mo Xuanyu’s future husband is also an orphan and a saint. He’s not surprised, but he is really starting to wonder about his theory that Xingchen is an escaped lab experiment.

“I’m so sorry about your parents. That’s . . . yeah. I see why you relate to the boys so much now.” He pauses for a moment, lips pursing in thought as he watches Rusong trip into the leaves, take a moment to determine whether he’s going to cry, then burst into giggles. “Does it get easier?”

“Eventually. It still hurts, of course. It always will. But I try to live a life that would make them proud and to see that a-Qing is taken care of. It’s the best way I can think of to honor them.”

“I think they’d be proud of you.”

For the first time, Mo Xuanyu catches Xingchen looking slightly flustered. It’s just the faintest hint of color rising in his cheeks, but it’s enough. “Thank you. I hope you’re right.”

Mo Xuanyu, quite honestly, can’t imagine someone not liking his future husband.

~*~

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] I need you to tell me everything you know about xiao xingchen

[sms: Xue Yang] lol

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] Starting with why you didn’t tell me he’s hot

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] And nice

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] And a baker??

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] And so good with kids

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] And HOT

[sms: Xue Yang] damn your a thirsty bitch

[sms: Xue Yang] thought it’d be fun to let you find out on your own

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] Asshole

[sms: Xue Yang] 😊

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] Seriously tho is he single? How old is he exactly? Is he secretly an axe murderer?

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] Wait. Is he even into guys? Please tell me he’s into guys.

[sms: Xue Yang] afaik. 25? and not that I know of but that would be pretty funny

[sms: Xue Yang] he has a skincare routine that takes him like half an hour to get through every night. what do you think

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] How do you know that?

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] Oh god he’s not your ex is he

[sms: Xue Yang] i wish. no we were roommates for a while

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] You made him live in that roach motel you call an apartment? Monster.

[sms: Xue Yang] hey you know what fuck you

[sms: Xue Yang] it’s a rent controlled roach motel

[sms: Xue Yang] and the utilities are paid

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] Aren’t you stealing someone’s cable? And wifi?

[sms: Xue Yang] * most utilities

[sms: Xue Yang] and not my fault theyre too dumb to stop me

[sms: Xue Yang] u still there

[sms: Xue Yang] ?

[sms: Xue Yang] well have fun getting plowed i guess

[sms: Xue Yang] ive seen his dick before and its nice

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] Why would you tell me that

[sms: Xue Yang] motivation

[sms: Xue Yang] go suck it and let me know if he tastes like rainbows and sunshine like i think he does

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] 🙄

~*~

Mo Xuanyu is going to hell. He doesn’t even believe in any kind of afterlife or reincarnation or anything of the sort, but if some form of eternal punishment exists, he’s got a spot reserved. He’s sure of it. It’s the only logical outcome when he deliberately tricks someone into a date.

Well, okay, it’s only a “date” in the sense that it involves dinner and a movie. And okay, the dinner isn’t that impressive, just a modest hotpot setup he puts together, and the movie is something involving far too much singing and too many animated characters. The point stands. He invited Xingchen over with an ulterior motive.

Not that Xingchen himself seems to mind. He sits cross-legged on the couch, closer to Mo Xuanyu than he needs to be. His socks have sickeningly adorable rabbit heads on them, and Mo Xuanyu can’t stop looking at them. It seems safer than looking anywhere else, like Xingchen’s long, thin fingers curled around a mug of tea, or his unfairly perfect profile. Or, most dangerous of all, the small, contented smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Mo Xuanyu had tried to get both kids to join them—the couch is certainly large enough—but only Rusong took him up on the offer. He now sits tucked against Mo Xuanyu’s other side, chewing the tail of his stuffed elephant and watching the movie with deep focus. Mo Xuanyu is under no delusions that he understands what he’s seeing, but the catchy songs and bright colors are more than enough to keep him entertained.

Conversely, Jin Ling is once again in the recliner, sprawled sideways across it with his head on one arm of the chair and his feet dangling over the other side. He’d said he didn’t want to watch the “baby movie” and would just play on his tablet instead; he must think he’s out of sight, as he now has the tablet resting on his chest while his attention is on the TV.

The kids are distracted. There’s nothing keeping Mo Xuanyu from taking advantage of how close he and Xingchen are. He could very casually rest his hand on Xingchen’s knee, or lean harder against him, or maybe just be a normal person and suggest they do this again sometime, but with a babysitter lined up. The problem, of course, is that Mo Xuanyu is not normal, so he remains frozen in place and stews in unresolved pining, where he’ll stay forever.

“Do you know what sounds nice?” Xingchen says abruptly. Several potential answers flit through Mo Xuanyu’s brain, each more graphic than the last. “Cookies. We should make some.”

Rusong lets the elephant tail drop from his mouth so that he can smile at them. “Cookies!”

Mo Xuanyu, suddenly feeling guilty, wrinkles his nose slightly. “I don’t think I have the right ingredients. Or any.”

“I’m sure I do. I can go grab some and bring them over, if that’s okay.”

This man really is going to be the death of him.

Mo Xuanyu chews on the inside of his jaw and checks his phone. It’s getting close to the time he normally ushers the kids into the bath and then to bed. But it’s also a Friday night, so it wouldn’t hurt anything to let the boys stay up a bit later than usual. On a more selfish level, it would also give him more time with Xingchen—maybe even time alone once the kids are asleep.

“Shushu.” Rusong drags the word out into a whine, even going so far as to stand on his knees and balance himself with one tiny hand against Mo Xuanyu’s shoulder. “I want a cookie.”

Xingchen doesn’t look the least bit apologetic as he shifts forward enough to see around Mo Xuanyu and get a better view of Rusong. “What’s your favorite kind?”

Rusong stares at him for a few seconds as if not comprehending the question. It’s a valid answer, Mo Xuanyu thinks; he’s a grown adult and a cookie is still a cookie to him, and therefore any kind is good. A two-year-old is likely to be even less discerning. Then the toddler bounces a little on his knees, giggling when Mo Xuanyu has to grab him around the waist to keep him from flinging himself onto the floor. “Chocket chip!” He’s still working on learning his L sounds, but it’s close enough to make Xingchen nod in understanding.

“I really like chocolate chip too, especially right out of the oven, when they’re all warm and gooey. Jin Ling? What about you?”

The older boy is watching the three of them, but when he’s called on to speak, he turns his head back toward the TV and shrugs. Xingchen’s face falls, just a little, before he meets Mo Xuanyu’s gaze.

“Okay, a-Yu. What’s your favorite?”

Mo Xuanyu lights up from the inside at the unexpected nickname, so much so that it takes him a while to realize he was asked a question. He’s lucky to even remember what cookies are. “Um. All of them, I think, but maybe those kinds with everything in them? The ones that have an entire day’s worth of calories.”

“Indulgent,” Xingchen says, and Mo Xuanyu really hopes he isn’t mistaking the teasing lilt to his words. “Would you like to tell us what your favorite is now, Jin Ling?”

Mo Xuanyu thinks at first that either Jin Ling didn’t hear or isn’t going to answer, so he’s surprised when the boy speaks up—and even more surprised by the quiet, almost vulnerable quality to his voice. It’s been three weeks, and so far he’s only seen Jin Ling be argumentative, bratty, demanding, or at best, indifferent. On only a handful of occasions, usually while playing with Rusong, he’s seen the kid express joy. But not once has he seen Jin Ling look uncertain or scared; seeing it now makes him uncomfortable.

“Almond cookies. A-Niang made the best ones, even when it wasn’t New Year’s.”

Well, that’s just fantastic. Now Mo Xuanyu feels like even more of a useless failure of a guardian.

“Oh, I love those. I have almonds and chocolate chips in my kitchen. Maybe we could make a batch of each? Or even almond cookies with chocolate chips?”

Jin Ling looks skeptical, but the nervous uncertainty in his eyes prompts Mo Xuanyu to agree. “That sounds like a plan. I have milk and butter. Salt. Eggs. I don’t know what else goes into making them, but . . .”

Xingchen is already scrolling on his phone, scanning for recipes. “That’s okay. I’ll figure out what we need, check to see what you’ve got, then go and get everything else from my kitchen and bring it over.”

And true to his word, within fifteen minutes, the four of them are in Mo Xuanyu’s kitchen, even though it’s a bit of a tight fit now with the new table. Somehow, all of them have flour on them in different places; there’s a smidge on Xingchen’s cheek from where he swiped the back of his hand over his face to scratch an itch, and Mo Xuanyu has to remind himself he’s not actually in a movie and can’t just brush it away. Well, he could, but not without trying to turn it into a spectacle wholly unsuited for young eyes.

Xingchen involves everyone in the process, even Mo Xuanyu, insisting that baking is a science, sure, but it’s also supposed to be fun. He puts Rusong on a stepstool so he can reach the counter and lets him help drop ingredients into the bowl. Jin Ling is charged with mixing everything together until the dough gets too thick for him to manage. Mo Xuanyu doesn’t own a hand mixer and Xingchen doesn’t want to go get his, so Mo Xuanyu gets the next task of mixing the dough with a wooden spoon that he didn’t even know he owned before now. It’s more strenuous than he anticipates.

The dough gets scooped out and dropped onto the baking sheet, and then the boys take turns finishing off the remains clinging to the sides of the mixing bowl.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to eat raw cookie dough?” Mo Xuanyu asks. Xingchen looks up at him, the tip of his index finger covered after being run along the edge of the bowl, and then pops it into his mouth. And smirks.

“I haven’t died from it yet.”

Maybe not, but it’s going to kill Mo Xuanyu indirectly.

He has to admit that it’s not a bad way to spend an evening. Xingchen gets roped into a game of what Mo Xuanyu can only call “will it cookie?” that the kids spring on him in the form of asking about increasingly odd ingredients and whether he thinks they could be included in a functional recipe. The kids seem to be enjoying themselves, though Jin Ling remains in a bit of a funk. Xingchen seems happy to play along with them and indulge their most fanciful ideas (but he draws the line at adding orange juice or hot chilis). And Mo Xuanyu . . . he might have even more of a crush, one that’s getting more difficult to hide. Rusong even comments on the pink tinge of his cheeks at one point. Mo Xuanyu passes it off as the kitchen being too warm—and it is warm with the oven going and so many people crammed into a small space—but he’s not sure Xingchen buys it. Not with the wry look he’s given, anyway.

The whole house smells like a bakery, and he’s not mad about it. It feels homey in a way it hasn’t before, no matter how much he likes his and Huaisang’s weekly hangouts. He’s also never had the opportunity or desire to check out Huaisang’s ass when he’s bent over to pull something out of the oven, so that’s a nice plus.

It’s warm and cozy and nice, the four of them at the table with freshly baked cookies and milk, which is precisely why Mo Xuanyu is so surprised when it all goes wrong.

It happens quickly, but in hindsight, he knows he’ll kick himself for not having seen it coming. Everyone is enjoying their desserts but Jin Ling, who stares forlornly at his plate, shoulders curled in and head down. It’s an uncharacteristically timid posture for a kid Mo Xuanyu is used to bossing him around like a little emperor. When he finally takes a bite of one of his cookies at everyone else’s insistence, his lower lip quivers. That’s when the dam bursts.

“I hate it. I hate it! It’s not the same!”

“A-Ling—” But Mo Xuanyu doesn’t get to finish before Jin Ling is pushing back from the table so quickly his chair nearly topples over.

“Don’t call me that! You’re not my dad! And you’re not my mom!” He aims this last at Xingchen just as the tears welling in his eyes overflow. “I hate it! I wanna go home. I want—”

He doesn’t let himself finish. Rather, he turns and dashes out of the room, thundering up the stairs. Moments later, a door slams hard enough to startle Rusong and make him whimper until Mo Xuanyu sets a hand on his back.

“I should . . . probably go talk to him. Can you . . .?” He glances at Rusong, who’s back to chewing through his second cookie.

“Of course. We’ll be fine here. Good luck,” Xingchen adds with an encouraging half-smile. As Mo Xuanyu leaves the kitchen, he hears Xingchen asking Rusong about how daycare had gone and if he’d learned anything new. Still doing nothing to convince Mo Xuanyu that he isn’t falling for an alien.

The trek up the stairs to the kids’ room is a long one that tortures Mo Xuanyu with visions of Jin Ling hurling shoes at him as soon as he appears, along with toys and anything else he can lift. The walk is also, somehow, entirely too short, because he realizes once he gets to the room that he has no idea what to say. Xingchen is the one logically suited to this, both in terms of his history and temperament. Mo Xuanyu’s always been given to emotional outbursts, but he’s always had the impression that they embarrass his much more stoic and reserved mother, so he doesn’t know the first thing about comforting a child in distress.

He takes a deep breath and turns the doorknob, grateful for the incident last week when, during a tantrum, Jin Ling locked himself and Rusong into the room and left Mo Xuanyu in a panic and one step away from breaking the door down. Thankfully, Xingchen had been there and was able to coax Jin Ling into unlocking the door, and then talk Mo Xuanyu out of removing the door anyway. He had, however, agreed that Mo Xuanyu should probably replace the doorknob with one that didn’t lock. Just in case.

He expects fury and insults like he usually gets from Jin Ling’s fits. He’s not sure what to think when he walks into the room and sees the boy curled into a tiny ball on his bed, back to the wall, clinging to a stuffed bear and half-burying his face against the top of its head. Trying to muffle himself, Mo Xuanyu realizes after a moment, knowledge that unexpectedly makes his heart ache just a little.

Moving slowly to avoid making the situation worse, Mo Xuanyu walks over to join him. “Is it okay if I sit down?” He’s not surprised by the lack of response, but it’s good enough anyway for him to sit down on the edge of the bed. All the books he’s been reading, and yet he can’t think of a single lesson to take away from any of them in the moment. He thinks suddenly of how similar a position Xingchen would have been in as a young boy, and how much he hopes some adult in his life had cared enough to comfort him. “Do you want to talk?”

Jin Ling shakes his head no, probably out of reflexive stubbornness, but then blubbers, “I wanna go home. I want a-Niang and a-Die, and shushu, and shenshen, and I—I want them back. I want them back!”

“I know. I wish I could bring them back. I’m so sorry that I can’t.” He hesitates, wondering if his next thought is too much to voice for a kid who’s almost, but not quite, only seven years old. “It’s good that you’re letting it out, though, a-Ling. I know you’ve been keeping this bottled up for a while, maybe because it’s what you think you’re supposed to do or because you’re trying to be tough for Rusong, but that’s a lot of weight to carry for someone so young. You don’t have to be any stronger than you feel like being. Let the grownups worry about that. You just worry about feeling how you need to feel, okay?”

Jin Ling pries his face out of the bear’s head and looks at him with watery eyes gone puffy and red-tinged. It might be rather uncharitable, but Mo Xuanyu still wonders if the boy is about to scream at him. Instead, Jin Ling sniffles and seems to visibly weigh his options before plowing ahead in a show of trust that, later, Mo Xuanyu will get a bit emotional about. “I don’t want to forget them. What if—what if I grow up and forget about them?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mo Xuanyu murmurs, unconsciously borrowing from Xingchen’s vocabulary. He smooths a hand over the back of Jin Ling’s head, pushing a lock of hair from his face in the process. “You won’t. You’ll have your own memories, and I’m sure there are lots of pictures and videos to help you remember even more. Your jiujiu will have stories and help you remember too. And . . . you know what will help you remember even better? When you feel up to it, would you mind telling me about them? I don’t—” He cuts himself off, surprised by the sudden lump in his throat. “I never got to meet them. Maybe you could tell me what they were like, or even write it down so that we both have it.”

Jin Ling considers this for several tense moments before finally nodding and then—much to Mo Xuanyu’s astonishment—sitting up and crawling into his lap, flinging his bony arms around his uncle’s neck. Awkward as ever, Mo Xuanyu slowly wraps his arms around the boy. It’s the first hug between them, and he’s surprised to realize that he hopes it’s not the last.

“A-Niang would like you. She liked everyone.”

Mo Xuanyu lets a tiny laugh bubble out at the less than ringing endorsement. He’s sure Jin Ling doesn’t mean it in such a backhanded way, but still. “I think I would have liked her too. She seems like she was really nice, from everything I’ve seen and heard.”

Both of them startle when a frenetic ball of energy crashes into the room and flings itself into the impromptu cuddle pile. Rusong all but shoves Mo Xuanyu out of the way to monopolize the hug from his cousin, and Jin Ling seems happy enough to see him that he lets it happen. Mo Xuanyu looks up and finds Xingchen standing just outside the door, a somewhat guilty look on his face.

“Sorry,” he says. “Rusong was worried about Jin Ling and wanted to help. I told him we weren’t going to interfere, but clearly, he had other plans.”

Mo Xuanyu shakes his head, inexplicably fond, as he leaves the boys to it and steps out of the room and into the hall. “It’s okay. He was getting snot on my shirt anyway.”

“It’s a good look on you.”

“Oh, yeah. Very sexy.”

“You are.”

Mo Xuanyu stares, mouth agape, and then lets out a nervous laugh because he doesn’t know what else to do. “So, uh. How—how much of that did you see? Or hear?”

Xingchen leans against the wall, grinning lazily. “Enough to know that you’re better at this than you think you are. They’re lucky to have you.”

“I don’t know about any of that, but—”

Before Mo Xuanyu can finish, Xingchen grabs him by the wrist, pulls him closer—conveniently out of view of the children—and kisses him. His lips are every bit as soft as Mo Xuanyu had imagined, which does absolutely nothing to stop Mo Xuanyu’s brain from short-circuiting.

Frustratingly, he’s smiling when they part for air. “I’m going to keep flattering you until you admit that you’re better than you give yourself credit for. And maybe until you agree to let me take you to dinner.”

Mo Xuanyu blinks, head spinning all the while. “I—uh, yeah. Sure. I mean, yes. Yes, I’d—I’d love to, yeah.”

Xingchen’s smile broadens even further. “Good. I was afraid I was going to have to learn how to actually cook and ambush you while the kids were at school.”

The nervous laughter in the hall sounds odd, especially when Mo Xuanyu realizes it’s coming from his own mouth. He clears his throat, self-conscious, and lets Xingchen kiss him again. “Lets,” as if he hasn’t been fantasizing about this for weeks.

“Ewww, kissing,” comes a tiny voice nearby, making them jump apart. Rusong stands right outside the door, watching them with a wrinkled nose but also a grin. “Cookies?”

Mo Xuanyu and Xingchen share a look and a laugh before Mo Xuanyu nods. “Good idea. We still have plenty of cookies. A-Ling?”

“I’m coming,” he calls moments before appearing in the hallway next to his cousin, holding a notebook and a box of crayons. He seems almost shy when he meets Mo Xuanyu’s gaze. “I want to write that story now.”

“Sounds good. I want to hear it.”

Behind him, safely hidden from the boys’ view, Xingchen squeezes his hand.

Their story will be a fun one to write one day too.

~*~

[two weeks later]

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] Rainbows and sunshine.

[sms: Xue Yang] ?

[sms: Xue Yang] oh wait

[sms: Xue Yang] 😂

[sms: Xue Yang] 👍

[sms: Xue Yang] if im not the best man at the wedding im going to crash it and burn down the venue

[sms: Xue Yang] or at least empty the bar and cause a scene

[sms: Mo Xuanyu] I expect nothing less