He really had gotten better. Or maybe they both had. Xiaokai didn’t feel fear when he looked at his older brother. He didn’t even feel sick at the thought that they were related. There were moments every now and then, too, where Xiaokai would look over at him and he would remember not that day where Xingyu stood over Xiaokai as he felt the life drain out of him, but instead those sweeter moments of their childhood. And Xingyu—sometimes his smiles did seem genuine, and when he spoke to Weiran and Xiaokai it was often difficult to find any other kind of malicious motive. They’d both defined their lives around the List, be it becoming the perfect heir for it or running away from it; now that the List was gone, they were both softening, both learning how to be human. And, between them, Weiran: the idiot Xingyu had dragged over from the States who felt so much and showed all of it, who loved both of them, who somehow hadn’t been stained from everything that had happened like Xiaokai and Xingyu had, who unknowingly taught them how not to be monsters.

Xiaokai smiled. “I love you too,” he said, and Xingyu got this stricken look on his face, almost like he’d been shot, and Xiaokai said, “Now get out of here already. I have a boyfriend who’s waiting for me to fuck him unconscious.”

Xingyu let out a shocked sound, and then a laugh, and then he doubled over, and Xiaokai left him there in the hallway to go find Weiran again.

3

“NEVER THOUGHT I’D see that face again,” Khun said, and when Daichi didn’t immediately respond he elbowed his side and pointed. “Isn’t that Liu Xingyu?”

Daichi turned, scanned the crowd.

“Right there, in the corner. He’s standing next to the guy he came with last time.”

“That’s not Liu Xingyu.”

“What?”

“Maybe you need to get your eyes checked.”

“I’m wearing my glasses!”

“Maybe you need to check the prescription on them.”

“That’s Liu Xingyu.”

“No it isn’t.”

“What, so it’s just a guy who looks exactly like Liu Xingyu with someone who looks exactly like the guy who was with Liu Xingyu?”

Daichi smiled at him. “The one he’s with is the same person, but he doesn’t exactly look like Liu Xingyu. His hair’s different—”

“People can change their hair.”

“What about their height? This one’s shorter.”

Khun looked again and damn it if Daichi wasn’t right. “Oh,” he said, “his dongsaeng.29”

“I’m guessing so.”

“Should we go say hello?”

That smile on Daichi’s face turned darker, feral. “I think saying hello would piss Liu Xingyu off, wherever he is.”

“Then let’s go say hello.”