Something in Liuxian’s expression shifted.

The tightness around his eyes eased, just slightly.

The grip on Guiying’s hand loosened into something less desperate and more like just holding.

Guiying looked back out the window, still smiling faintly.

The city moved past them.

Buildings and signals and people who had no idea what kind of afternoon it had been and no reason to care.

He thought about the woman’s face when Liuxian said three hundred thousand.

The colour that had left it all at once, like something pulled from underneath. The cashier’s voice breaking. The attendant’s hands that couldn’t stop shaking.

Somewhere in his chest, something unclenched and settled...and he let it.

Then he paused, a small frown crossing his face before he could stop it.

Was he a bad person if their misery made him happy?

Nah, he shook his head.

They deserved what ever happened to them.

The suite was quiet when they got in.

Liuxian set his keys on the console by the door and called the front desk before his jacket was even off, brief, unhurried, first aid kit sent up.

Guiying dropped onto the sofa and tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling and listened to the familiar sounds of Liuxian moving through the suite.

The kit arrived within minutes.

Liuxian brought it over and crouched down in front of him without a word, opening it with the focused efficiency of someone who’d decided this was happening now and nothing else mattered until it did.

He found the ointment, uncapped it, and tilted Guiying’s jaw gently toward the light with two fingers.

Guiying let him.

The ointment was cool against his cheek. Liuxian applied it carefully, his touch lighter than it needed to be, and Guiying watched his face while he worked the set of his mouth, the line between his brows, the way his eyes moved over the mark with an expression that had nothing clinical in it.

He wasn’t angry.

Guiying could see it clearly now, in the way you could only see something once the noise had settled.

The tightness in the car, the grip on his hand, the jaw set against the window, it hadn’t been anger. It had been sitting with something he couldn’t fix after it had already happened, which was its own particular kind of pain for a man like Liuxian.

He was sad.

Sad that it had happened.

Sad that Guiying had been standing on that concourse alone, holding a receipt nobody looked at, in a country whose language he couldn’t fully speak, while a woman decided his face was enough.

Liuxian finished with the ointment.

And then he didn’t move.

He stayed crouched there, and after a moment, slowly, he lowered his head into Guiying’s open palms, the ones resting loose in his lap and just stayed there.

His forehead pressed against Guiying’s hands.

His shoulders carrying something heavy and unspoken.

The suite was very quiet.

Guiying looked down at him.

At the back of his neck, the line of his shoulders, the way he’d folded himself down like that, Liu Liuxian, who filled every room he walked into, who’d named a fine like a weather report and watched a woman go pale without blinking sitting here like this.

Slowly, Guiying’s hands turned over.

His palms curved around Liuxian’s face, warm and unhurried.

Liuxian’s arms came up around his waist, wrapping around him, and he just held on.

Guiying bent down and pressed his lips to the side of Liuxian’s face.

A soft kiss, brief and deliberate.

"Hey," he said quietly. "What’s wrong with you..."

Liuxian didn’t answer.

"I’m not that fragile.." Guiying said. "It doesn’t even hurt anymore, I swear." He tilted Liuxian’s face up slightly, enough to look at him properly. "But I have to say.." a small smile pulled at his mouth "..you being like this is very cute. You’re so cute, Liu Liuxian. Who knew?"

Liuxian looked at him.

"You’re the cute one.." he said, his voice low and even, though something softer lived underneath it now. "That’s exactly why I want to protect you." His arms tightened slightly around Guiying’s waist. "I don’t like seeing you get hurt." A pause. "How dare she lay a hand on you...even I don’t dare to without permission."

Guiying looked at him for a moment.

Then he sighed, the long suffering sigh of someone surrounded by dramatic people and fully resigned to it.

"Ah geez." He leaned back against the sofa cushions. "Alright, if you’re going to be guilty about it then be useful." He straightened up with the air of someone issuing a formal decree. "I’m thirstynget me some water. And after that, come massage my waist and back because it’s been hurting since this morning and I’ve been very patient about it."

He gave Liuxian a pointed look. "A dutiful husband makes up for his shortcomings through dedicated service. That’s just a fact."

Liuxian looked at him for a beat.

Then he stood, pressed a brief kiss to the top of Guiying’s head, and went to get the water.

He was thorough about it.

The water first, then Guiying stretched out on the bed and Liuxian sat beside him and worked through the knots in his lower back with a focus and patience that suggested he was taking the dutiful husband mandate very seriously

Guiying buried his face in the pillow and made no effort whatsoever to muffle his sounds of relief.

"Higher.." he said into the pillow.

Liuxian moved higher.

"Now the left." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Liuxian moved to the left.

At some point Liuxian moved to his feet because the soles of his feet had also been making complaints since the museum and apparently Liuxian had noticed and Guiying turned his head sideways and watched him work through it with the same unhurried thoroughness he brought to everything.

The guilt was still there.

Guiying could see it in the careful way Liuxian’s hands moved, in the extra attention he was giving to something as minor as a foot massage.

He watched him for a moment.

"You’re so obedient today.." he said, amused. "Will you kiss my foot too if I asked?"

He meant it as a joke.

He was not prepared for Liuxian to lower his head and press his lips to the arch of his foot.

Guiying stared at him.

He genuinely hadn’t thought with all of Liuxian’s Alpha pride and the composed unhurried authority the man carried like a second skin that he’d actually do it.

He’d expected a look.

Maybe a raised eyebrow.

Maybe that particular silence that meant ’don’t push it.’

Not this.

He was still processing it when he felt something wet.

He looked down.

Liuxian was licking his foot.