Whatever distraction he tried giving himself, his mind always ended up going to one of those two things. The first was out of the question, as it just made his head hurt, made everything hurt—he couldn’t even begin to comprehend what Liu Xiaokai was thinking at any moment, and even now he was beginning to doubt that he’d been able to accurately clock him when they first met. And then the next one—

Well, there was a reason he was washing his hands now.

It wasn’t always this bad. In the beginning, when they’d first met each other, he’d only thought Xingyu was interesting—someone he could use his Mandarin with after only speaking English for so many years. And then after some time with him, he’d thought that he was mildly attractive and he wondered how on earth he hadn’t found himself a girlfriend yet, and then he thought he was extremely attractive, and then before he knew it he was jerking off in his college dorm, muffling his moans by biting a t-shirt or his comforter, cleaning up afterward with tissues, avoiding Xingyu’s eyes when they met up in the morning.

And then he eventually realized that maybe his feelings were stronger than just wanting a roll in the hay.

Weiran had long since known that he was attracted to men sometimes, so coming into the realization that he was attracted to Xingyu wasn’t in any way earth-shattering. But usually he would just go with it, drop a few subtle flirtations and then a few more not-so-subtle flirtations, and then that way he could see if the attraction was mutual. With Xingyu, though, he was petrified. If he said something and then lost him—he had no idea what he would do. Xingyu was important to him more than just being a means to an end.

Weiran sighed and hit his hand against the sink.

“Concentrate,” he told his reflection, which just looked back at him with judgment in its eyes. “You’re losing your mind. It’s not the first time you’ve touched him.”

But the stress of that situation, his heart racing at the thought of being caught, the darkness underneath the desk, the heat of Xingyu’s breath—

Damn it. He was hard again.

His reflection looked smug.

He slipped his hand into his pants.

And then he was washing his hands.

A message from Xingyu once he was done: <We need to talk.>

He’d talked to Liu Xiaokai, hadn’t he? Shit. He typed out a reply as he walked back to his bed: <Let’s meet.>

He still had all day before he needed to go back to the gallery, and a couple hours still before Xingyu would be able to meet. Until then, he needed to do research, and the internet at his motel was slow enough to make him consider throwing his computer.

He went to a coffee shop.