"Manageable," Guiying said.

"That means yes," Liuxian said.

"It means manageable, that I’m barely alive," Guiying said.

Liuxian looked at him for a moment. "I should have been more careful," he said.

Guiying opened one eye and looked at him. "Don’t apologize for last night. I thought your back would give out. Are you pretending to have back pain?"

-_-

"I’m not apologizing," Liuxian said. "I’m observing that I should have been more careful. And I do have back pain, but my waist works perfectly fine."

"There is no version of last night that required more care," Guiying said, closing his eye again. "I told you what I wanted. You gave me what I wanted. If I could rewind time, I’d make sure we went on longer."

Liuxian was quiet for a moment and then smiled.

"You’re such a tease. So what’s the review? How was sex with your handsome husband?" he said.

Guiying was quiet for a long moment, the water warm around him, the ache in his body present but manageable, the morning light coming through the frosted bathroom window.

"Five stars," he said. "It was amazing. I’ve never felt pleasure like that... never."

Liuxian laughed, genuine and quiet, the real one, and Guiying lay in the bath and listened to it and felt something in his chest that he was going to need considerably more time to find the right word for.

He was going to find it though.

He had time now.

Guiying stayed in the bath until the water started cooling, then let Liuxian help him out without making it a whole thing, which he considered personal growth.

Liuxian had laid out fresh clothes on the bathroom counter.

Simple, comfortable, the kind that required no effort.

Guiying changed slowly, his lower back voicing its opinions at every movement, and came out to find the small dining table in the suite set with food that had clearly been ordered while he was in the bath.

He stood in the doorway and looked at it.

Congee.

Soft-boiled eggs.

Toast.

Orange juice.

And a small pot of tea.

"You ordered congee?" he said.

"Your stomach needs something gentle first," Liuxian said, already sitting and pouring tea.

Guiying sat down carefully and looked at the spread.

His stomach, now that food was in front of it, had very strong feelings about wanting all of it immediately.

He picked up his spoon.

They ate in the easy quiet that had become their natural state at meal times, Liuxian working through his own food, Guiying going through the congee with the focused appreciation of someone whose body was asking for exactly this.

Halfway through the congee he looked up.

"What time is it?" he said.

"Almost eleven," Liuxian said.

Guiying stared at him in shock.

"It’s so late!"

"You needed the sleep," Liuxian said simply.

"We’ve wasted half the day," Guiying said.

"We haven’t wasted anything," Liuxian said. He picked up his tea. "We have the whole afternoon. And three more days."

Guiying looked at him. "And then we have to go back."

"And then we go back," Liuxian confirmed.

Guiying looked at his congee.

He didn’t particularly miss home, but he had things he needed to finish.

He hoped that after this, he and Liuxian would have the time to travel more.

But for now, he had a life waiting for him.

A complicated, layered, dangerous life that he had built carefully and was still building.

But right now, he was at peace.

He looked at Liuxian across the table.

"Tell me what it means," he said.

Liuxian looked at him. "What?"

"Mon étoile," Guiying said. "You’ve been saying it for weeks. Tell me what it means."

Liuxian looked at him for a long moment, that quiet, warm expression that gave nothing away and somehow communicated everything.

"Finish your congee, then I’ll tell you," he said.

-_-

Guiying pointed his spoon at him. "Liu Liuxian, do you think I’m a kid? I’m not that gullible."

"Your food is getting cold," Liuxian said pleasantly.

Guiying stared at him.

Liuxian stared back with the composed patience of a man who had decided something and was not going to be moved from it by a spoon.

Guiying went back to his congee.

He was going to find out eventually. He had decided this.

He ate his soft-boiled egg and thought about how he could learn these languages in secret so Liuxian wouldn’t have an edge over him.

After breakfast, Liuxian cleared the table, which Guiying watched with mild surprise because he had not once seen Liuxian clear a table in the mansion, and came to sit beside him on the suite sofa.

Outside, the New York afternoon was bright and busy, the city doing what it always did, indifferent and enormous and completely unconcerned with anyone’s business but its own.

Guiying leaned back against the cushions and stretched his legs out carefully, favoring his lower back, and picked up his camera from the coffee table. He scrolled through yesterday’s pictures slowly.

The falls, the mist, the matching blue ponchos, the tunnels, the observation deck in the golden light, the two of them with the falls behind them.

He stopped on that one.

They looked good in it.

Not posed or performed, just two people standing in front of something enormous and beautiful with their shoulders touching and their faces open in a way that didn’t happen when you were thinking about how you looked.

He showed it to Liuxian without saying anything.

Liuxian looked at it.

Something moved briefly in his expression.

"Send that to me," he said.

Guiying airdropped it across. Liuxian set it as his wallpaper immediately, replacing the one from the jet, and set his phone down.

Guiying looked at his own phone.

He set the same picture as his wallpaper and put his phone in his pocket.

They sat in the comfortable quiet of the afternoon, and Guiying thought about tomorrow.

He had a list in his head: Disneyland, Vegas if Liuxian could be talked out of the Russian roulette suggestion, good food, more pictures.

He wanted to see as much as possible before they got on the plane and went back to their real lives.

"What do you want to do today?" Liuxian said, as though reading the direction of his thoughts.