He was completely soaked within minutes. He didn’t lower the camera once.

"Your camera is getting wet," Liuxian said, water running freely down his face.

"It’s waterproof," Guiying said.

"Is it?"

"I checked before I bought it," Guiying said, still shooting. "I’m not an amateur."

When the boat docked they handed back their ponchos. Guiying looked at the state of Liuxian, soaked through, white shirt clinging to him, hair wet and pushed back from his face, and lifted his camera.

Liuxian looked at him. "Really."

"You look good actually," Guiying said, examining the screen. "Annoyingly good."

Liuxian took the camera from him and turned it toward Guiying. His hair was wet and curling slightly at the ends, his cheeks flushed from the cold mist, grinning in the open unguarded way he rarely let himself.

"Give that back," Guiying said.

"After I save it," Liuxian said.

Liuxian saved it and handed the camera back. Guiying looked at the picture and said nothing because there was nothing useful to say about the fact that he looked genuinely happy in it, the kind of happy that was hard to manufacture and harder to hide.

He lowered the camera and became aware that several people nearby were looking at him. Not at the falls. At him.

He looked down.

His cream linen shirt, thoroughly soaked, was transparent. Completely, unambiguously transparent.

Before he could say anything Liuxian had already stepped in front of him, blocking the view, his jaw set.

"We’re getting you new clothes," he said.

"It’s just water," Guiying said.

"We’re getting you new clothes," Liuxian said, in the tone that ended conversations.

He put his jacket around Guiying’s shoulders and steered him away from the railing. Guiying let himself be steered because the alternative was standing there being examined by strangers and he had no interest in that.

They found a gift shop nearby. Liuxian picked up a plain white t shirt with NIAGARA FALLS printed across the chest and held it out.

Guiying stared at it. "No."

"It’s dry," Liuxian said.

"It says Niagara Falls on it in the biggest font I have ever seen."

"You’re at Niagara Falls," Liuxian said simply.

Guiying took the shirt and went to change. He came back out and stood in front of Liuxian.

Liuxian looked at him. The white tourist shirt, the damp beige trousers, the hair still curling at the ends from the mist. He looked nothing like himself and somehow still managed to look good and that was deeply unfair.

"Don’t," Guiying said.

Liuxian took out his phone and took a picture.

"Liu Liuxian—"

"It’s a good picture," Liuxian said, already saving it.

Guiying snatched the phone and looked at it. It was, unfortunately, a good picture. He handed it back without comment and picked up his camera.

"Where next?" he said.

"Journey Behind the Falls," Liuxian said. "We walk through tunnels inside the rock and see the falls from behind."

Guiying was already walking.

"Come on then," he said.

Fang Ye leaned back with the satisfaction of someone who had been given exactly the opening they were looking for.

"A date," he said. "A proper one." He held Zhang Wei’s gaze without flinching. "And if you like how the day goes, you spend a passionate night with me."

The table was quiet for a moment.

Zhang Wei looked at him. Fang Ye looked back, completely unbothered, waiting with the easy patience of someone who had said exactly what he meant and was comfortable letting it sit there.

He was twenty seven years old. He worked sixteen hour days. His last proper date had been sometime in what felt like a previous life.

He was in New York on a free day with nowhere to be and nobody waiting for him and a very attractive Omega sitting across from him making him a very straightforward offer.

He picked up his coffee and drank from it slowly.

"Where did you want to go?" he said.

Fang Ye’s smile broke wide open. "The High Line," he said, already standing. "Trust me, you’ll like it." He looked at Zhang Wei with that same unhurried confidence. "And I promise the company will be better than sitting here alone."

Zhang Wei stood up and followed him. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

He thought that his employer, if he ever found out about this, was going to be completely insufferable about it.

He decided not to think about his employer.

The High Line was exactly what Fang Ye had promised.

An elevated walkway stretching above the streets of the city, lined with wild grass and flowers and the particular quiet of somewhere that existed above the noise rather than inside it.

The views were good, the Hudson visible to the west, the city grid spreading out in every direction below them.

Zhang Wei walked beside Fang Ye and said very little, which was his natural state, and found that Fang Ye didn’t seem to need him to say much.

He talked easily, about the city, about the things he had seen that week, about a gallery he had gone to that had one genuinely good piece and eleven other pieces that had no business being called art.

He had opinions about everything and expressed them without apology and Zhang Wei found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he agreed with most of them.

"You’re very quiet," Fang Ye said at one point, glancing at him sideways.

"I’m listening," Zhang Wei said.

Fang Ye looked at him. "Most people talk more when they’re nervous."

"I’m not nervous," Zhang Wei said.

"I know," Fang Ye said, smiling. "That’s what I like about you."

Zhang Wei looked at him briefly and then looked back at the view.

They walked the full length of the High Line and came down at the far end into the Meatpacking District, where Fang Ye stopped outside a restaurant and looked at Zhang Wei.

"Have you eaten Korean food here?" he said.

"I haven’t eaten anything here except hotel food and diner breakfast," Zhang Wei said.

Fang Ye looked at him with the expression of someone who found this both tragic and fixable. "Come on," he said, and walked in.

The restaurant was small, warm and full, the kind of place that was always full because the food was genuinely good and word had gotten around.

They were seated at a small table near the window.

Fang Ye ordered without looking at the menu for long, rattling off several things in confident English, and looked at Zhang Wei.

"Anything you don’t eat?" he said.

"No, I’m fine with anything.." Zhang Wei said.