As Kiem shut himself in the shower, Jainan occupied himself with

undressing. In the heat of the palace his outdoor layers felt grimy and unpleasant. He hung them up in the wardrobe’s cleanser and turned toward the bathroom, debating whether or not to get Kiem’s clothes. The door was shut, but the light indicated it wasn’t locked. It might be an invasion of privacy.

The dilemma was solved for him by an abrupt crash from inside. Jainan opened the bathroom door without thinking. “Kiem?”

“Meant to do that,” Kiem said from the floor. He had managed to get his trousers off but was now sitting in a corner—if being half collapsed against the wall could be called sitting. One look at his face and Jainan realized Kiem had somehow been managing to hide the extent of his exhaustion.

Jainan took his wrist—Kiem didn’t resist—and attempted to help him to his feet. “Kiem,” he said. “You’re not in a state to wash. Go to bed.”

“I’m showering,” Kiem said to the towels. “I’m getting in the shower.”

“You don’t need—” Jainan broke off. It wasn’t as if he didn’t understand the feeling. He considered whether or not he could take a liberty and decided that he probably could. “Very well. In that case.” He pulled Kiem the rest of the way to his feet and let go of him—Kiem propped himself up against the towel rail—and stripped the rest of his own clothes off. He turned the shower on and the sensors lit up. “At least this way we don’t have to fight over who gets to go first.”

“Right! Right.” Kiem caught on to what they were doing and yanked his shirt over his head, nearly losing his balance again. Jainan steadied him. “More tired than I thought,” Kiem said, in what might have been an apology. He stumbled into the shower, keeping himself stable with a hand on Jainan’s arm. The way his eyes tracked to Jainan’s exposed chest was gratifying even though neither of them were in much of a state to do anything about it.

The sensors beeped in confusion when they registered two people. Showers were highly personalized things, and Jainan hadn’t been using this one long enough to get to know it, but he managed to wrestle one of the jets into manual mode. Kiem sighed when the water hit him, as if all his breath was running out of him. He dropped his face into the curve between Jainan’s neck and shoulder and stood there as the water coursed down his back, his weight against Jainan.

“Kiem,” Jainan said. “Really.” It felt good in a low-key way, even through Jainan’s own fatigue, and though it was thoroughly inconvenient, he couldn’t quite bring himself to move Kiem’s head.

“Mrh,” Kiem said. “You have so much hair.” He brought up one hand and ran it through Jainan’s rapidly soaking hair—or tried and stopped, because by this point Jainan’s hair was badly knotted. Kiem made another wordless noise and