The next time Guiying opened his eyes it was because his stomach had decided the situation was no longer acceptable.

He sat up slowly, blinking, the cabin dim and quiet around him, most of the other passengers either asleep or staring at their screens with the hollow energy of people who had stopped registering what they were watching hours ago. Liuxian was awake beside him, reading something on his phone, and glanced over when Guiying stirred.

"Food," Guiying said, before anything else.

Liuxian had already pressed the call button.

The flight attendant came and Guiying ordered with the focused efficiency of someone whose body had bypassed polite hunger and gone straight to a more urgent register. When the food arrived he ate steadily and without conversation, working through it with the quiet dedication of someone making up for lost time, and Liuxian ate his own meal beside him and said nothing, which was the correct response.

Guiying finished, pushed the tray aside, and was asleep again within twenty minutes.

He didn’t dream.

The next time he surfaced properly it was to the gentle shift in cabin pressure that meant descent, and the announcement confirming they were approaching Beijing Capital International, local time approximately twelve forty in the morning.

He sat up and stretched as much as the seat allowed and looked out the window at the city coming up through the dark below them, lights spreading out in every direction, familiar and vast, the particular sprawl of Beijing at night that looked completely different from any other city even when you couldn’t have said exactly why.

He was home.

The thought settled quietly, without ceremony.

They were through the terminal and in the car by half past twelve, the city moving past the windows in the particular way it did at this hour, quieter than Beijing ever really got, the roads clear enough that the driver made good time.

Guiying sat in the backseat with his head tipped back and his eyes half closed, not quite asleep, not quite awake, existing in the comfortable in between of someone whose body had decided the hard part was over.

He was still in that state when the car pulled through the gates and up the familiar drive, the mansion coming into view with its lights on in the way Wang Chengli always arranged when they were expected back, warm and steady, like something that had been waiting.

He got out and stood for a moment in the night air, cool and clean, and breathed it in.

Then he picked up his bag and went inside.

Wang Chengli was in the entrance hall, because Wang Chengli was always in the entrance hall when they returned regardless of the hour, and he took their bags with the composed efficiency of someone for whom one in the morning was simply another time of day.

"Welcome back," he said. "There’s warm soup in the kitchen if you’d like it."

"Thank you Uncle Wang," Guiying said, meaning it.

They went upstairs together, and they’d barely reached the corridor when Liuxian spoke.

"Sleep in my room tonight."

Guiying stopped and turned to look at him.

He thought about it honestly for approximately three seconds.

"No," he said.

Liuxian looked at him. "Why not?"

"Because I have work tomorrow," Guiying said, with the patient tone of someone explaining something that should have been obvious, "and I genuinely cannot guarantee that I’ll be able to control myself and not go for another round." He pointed at Liuxian. "And neither can you. So no."

Liuxian was quiet for a moment.

"That’s surprisingly self aware," he said.

"I have my moments," Guiying said, and went into his room and closed the door.

He was asleep before his head had fully settled into the pillow.

Liuxian stood in the corridor for a moment after the door closed.

Then he almost smiled, which he did alone in corridors at one in the morning when there was nobody around to observe it, and went to his own room.

He changed, poured himself a glass of water, and sat on the edge of the bed and picked up his phone.

He’d been thinking about Moying since the plane. Zhang Wei had mentioned the audition earlier in the week and he hadn’t followed up on it, which was, he acknowledged privately, not his best moment as an older brother. He found Moying’s number and called.

It rang four times before Moying picked up, his voice carrying the slightly dazed quality of someone pulled out of sleep but trying to sound like they weren’t.

"Big bro?"

"Did I wake you?"

"No," Moying said, unconvincingly.

"How did the audition go," Liuxian said.

A pause. Then, and the tiredness dropped out of Moying’s voice entirely: "You called at one in the morning to ask about my audition?"

"I just got back from New York," Liuxian said. "How did it go?"

Five days earlier.

The Yang Entertainment building was exactly what you’d expect from one of the biggest agencies in the country, all glass and clean lines and the particular kind of quiet in the lobby that came from everyone inside understanding that what happened here mattered.

Liu Moying stood outside it for considerably longer than was strictly necessary.

He had his brother’s composure when it came to most things but not when it came to this, and this mattered to him more than he had told anyone including himself.

He straightened his jacket and went in.

The audition room was on the fourth floor, a large clean space with a panel of three judges behind a long table and a pianist waiting quietly in the corner. Moying signed in, took a seat with the other candidates and looked around.

There were twelve of them altogether, all young, all attractive, all doing that thing where you pretended you weren’t nervous by sitting very still and looking at your phone.

Moying was nervous and didn’t bother pretending otherwise.

He opened his messages while he waited, debated texting Guiying, decided against it, then opened them again anyway. He was still going back and forth on it when the door at the back of the room opened and a murmur moved through the candidates like a current.

The Chairman had arrived.

Moying looked up.

He was younger than expected, tall, dressed well without appearing to have tried, and he moved through the room with the slightly careful energy of someone still finding their footing in a role that was brand new to them. He took his seat at the end of the panel and looked out at the candidates and for just a moment, before he pulled his expression back into something professional, he looked exactly like what he was.

Someone having their first day.

Moying understood that feeling completely.