Chapter 140: LOVE WITHOUT ACTION IS FEELING

Moying said nothing, looking at the coffee table.

"Moying." Limo tipped his chin up with two fingers, turning his face toward the light. "You’re an Alpha. You’re not a small man. There were three of them." He reached for the antiseptic. "Why didn’t you fight back?" 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"My brother would kill me," Moying said.

Limo looked at him.

"They’re actors," Moying said. "All of them. They need their faces. If I fight back the way I actually fight back, they won’t have faces left. And I’m a trainee, I don’t want to cause trouble before I’ve even debuted."

Limo pressed the antiseptic to the cut. Moying hissed but didn’t move.

"So instead," Limo said, "you’ve got the chairman of the company cleaning you up in his penthouse."

"When you put it like that..."

"That’s exactly what it is." Limo pulled back and looked at Moying’s face properly, unhurried. "You have a really good face." He tilted his head slightly. "Actually no, you’re genuinely handsome. The kind that makes people insecure." He reached up and brushed his thumb carefully along Moying’s uninjured cheekbone, light and deliberate.

"You shouldn’t be letting people who look worse than you hit it. If they’re worried about their faces they shouldn’t start fights."

Moying’s heart did something loud and inconvenient.

He kept his eyes very still.

"You’re saying I should have hit them," he said.

"I’m saying," Limo said, leaning slightly closer to check the cut, close enough that Moying could smell his cologne, "that next time someone raises a hand at you, you raise yours back. Your brother will survive. And if he has a problem with it...." he met Moying’s eyes from that distance, unhurried, unbothered, "...tell him to come to me."

Moying looked at him.

Limo looked back.

Neither of them moved for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.

"Okay," Moying said, very quietly.

Then,

"Is it only my face you fancy?" Moying said after a while. "What about the rest of me? And if my brother has a problem with it..." the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, "....can I come to you instead?"

Limo laughed, genuinely, leaning back and crossing his legs. He looked at Moying for a moment, considering him openly.

"I don’t think I’ve ever fancied an Alpha before," he said. "You’re certainly eye candy, I won’t argue that." He tilted his head slightly. "But two Alphas could never work. I owe my father grandchildren, I want children of my own, and..." something moved briefly in his expression, "...I’m not over an unrequited love. So let’s keep work and playtime separate."

Moying looked at him.

"Unrequited?" he said.

"Unrequited," Limo confirmed, pleasantly.

"Who?" Moying said.

"None of your business," Limo said, reaching for the gauze.

"How long?"

"Moying."

"Is it someone I know?"

"Hold still," Limo said, pressing the gauze firmly to his cheek.

Moying held still, but his mind was clearly elsewhere, turning something over, and Limo could see it happening and chose not to acknowledge it.

"You said unrequited," Moying said, from under the gauze. "That means they don’t know."

"It means it’s complicated," Limo said. "And none of your business. Stop talking, you’re moving your face."

Moying stopped talking.

For approximately four seconds.

"Is it a man or...."

"Moying," Limo said.

"I’m just asking."

Limo looked at him. Moying looked back, patient and unbothered, with all the time in the world.

Limo sighed and went back to work.

"Why do you want children?" Moying said. "And would you want to have them with this person? The unrequited one?"

Limo was quiet for a moment, the gauze still in his hand. He laughed, but it came out slow, the kind that bought time while the person laughing decided how honest they were going to be.

"I would love to," he said finally. "But I don’t have the right to want that anymore. I let them go." He set the gauze down and leaned back. "They’re happy with who they chose and I’ve come to terms with it. I love them enough to have let them go." He paused. "As for children, I’ve always wanted them. To me children are an extension of love. The most honest one."

Moying was quiet, turning that over.

He didn’t entirely agree. To him the truest expressions of love were action and poetry — what you did and what you felt brave enough to say.

Anyone could have children.

Not everyone had the courage to act or to speak. But he understood what Limo meant, that for some people a child was love made physical, love that continued beyond the moment, and he couldn’t say Limo was wrong for feeling that.

"The most honest one.." Moying repeated quietly, more to himself than to Limo.

Limo looked at him. "What do you think love is?"

Moying thought about it for a moment, turning the question over properly before he answered.

"Action," he said. "And poetry. What you do and what you’re brave enough to say out loud." He looked at Limo. "Anyone can have children. Not everyone has the courage to act on what they feel or say it directly to the person who needs to hear it."

Limo looked at him.

"So to you I failed on both counts," he said.

"I didn’t say that," Moying said.

"You implied it."

"I said anyone can have children," Moying said. "I didn’t say your definition was wrong. For some people a child is the most honest thing they can give. I understand that." He paused. "I just think love without action is just feeling. And feeling without courage is just waiting."

Limo was quiet for a moment, looking at him with an expression Moying couldn’t fully read.

"You’re quite something for a trainee who just got beaten up," he said finally.

"I contain multitudes," Moying said.

Limo laughed, short and genuine, shaking his head, and reached for the last piece of gauze. "Hold still," he said, and Moying held still, and the penthouse was quiet around them, and neither of them said anything else for a while, which was its own kind of conversation.

"Can I kiss you?" Moying said.

Limo looked up from the gauze and laughed, easy and unbothered, the way he laughed at things that caught him off guard but didn’t threaten him. "You’re funny," he said, reaching for the medical tape.

Moying didn’t laugh.

Limo glanced at him.

Moying was looking at him with an expression that had none of the lightness of the question behind it. Open, direct and completely serious, and Limo who held the medical tape felt something he hadn’t anticipated arrive in the space between them.

He looked away first.

"You’re an Alpha," he said, which was the most sensible thing he could think to say, keeping his eyes on the gauze and the tape and the logistics of what his hands were doing. "I’m an Alpha. We’re not supposed to.." he stopped. Started again. "It doesn’t work like that between two Alphas."