After Driver He dropped him off and he’d made a call to poor Huang Fei’er to tell her that he was back and to please get to sleep, he went to Xingyu’s room and knocked on the door. Waited a moment, then lifted his hand to knock again—but Xingyu was already flinging it open and, still in his sleepwear of a ratty pair of pants and a rattier t-shirt. He stared at Xiaokai for a long minute, his eyes wide, and then his arms twitched upward. Xiaokai took a step backward to avoid the hug that was inevitably coming, but Xingyu managed some form of self-control and his arms dropped back to his sides.

“Xiao-Xiao.”

Xiaokai nodded at him.

“Are you—I mean, where have you—” Xingyu seemed to be really struggling to hold back what he really wanted to say. “Will you be okay?”

What a clever wording to the question. “I’ll be fine,” Xiaokai said. “What did you get done while I was gone?” He wasn’t so inconsiderate that he wasn’t going to tell Xingyu that he was still kicking, but he also wasn’t about to waste this conversation by not getting some work done.

“Well, not much.”

Xiaokai sighed.

“But!” added Xingyu hurriedly, jerking forward again like he thought Xiaokai was just going to leave as soon as he determined the conversation to be over, “I’ve been getting more responsibilities from Ba.”

That was it? Xiaokai hadn’t spoken to either of them in a week and a half, and all they’d accomplished was Xingyu got a few more responsibilities from Liu Baiyan? He sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let’s talk next Monday,” he said, and turned to leave.

“Xiao—Xiaokai.”

He stopped, surprised. Turned. “You haven’t called me that…ever.”

“I know. I just…I’m sorry.”

Now? He was apologizing now?

“For everything,” said Xingyu. “I’m sorry.”

Xiaokai looked at him for a minute. “Just keep calling me Xiao-Xiao,” he said. “I’m going to bed.”

ALONE IN HIS room, the events of the last week hit him at last: the cold, the pain, the question—and then Bai Xue, alternating between monstrous and gentle, touching Xiaokai with hands that he never knew would hurt him or comfort him.

He turned his face into the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut.