“Why did you come downstairs?” Lu Heyang took the backpack from the passenger seat and closed the car door. “You could’ve waited for me at home. It’s not safe outside.”
Xu Ze temporarily lost the ability to speak. He could only nod.
It was as though there were invisible strings attached to Lu Heyang’s face, firmly pulling Xu Ze’s gaze toward him.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
Lu Heyang naturally raised a hand behind Xu Ze, but halfway through the motion, he paused. In the end, he merely gave Xu Ze two light pats on the back.
The trip upstairs was quiet. Xu Ze’s hand hung at his side, occasionally brushing against the back of Lu Heyang’s hand. Xu Ze felt as though all his senses had concentrated on that one hand touching Lu Heyang’s. There was nothing left inside him except a heart that wouldn’t stop beating.
There were no lights in the stairwell, and the area by the door was pitch-black. Normally, Xu Ze could unlock the door without any trouble even in the dark, but today, he tried for ages and still couldn’t line the key up with the keyhole.
Lu Heyang stood beside him and silently watched for about half a minute. In the end, he turned on his phone’s flashlight, shone it toward the lock, and took Xu Ze’s hand, guiding the key into the keyhole.
“Don’t be nervous.” Lu Heyang’s voice sounded almost amused. “I’m not a bad guy.”
“…”
Xu Ze silently pushed the door open. He intended to hold it and let Lu Heyang enter first, but Lu Heyang pressed a hand against his shoulder and ushered him inside. Then he reached back and pulled the door shut himself.
As he closed the door, Lu Heyang raised a hand to remove his cap. At the same time, Xu Ze turned around, stepped half a pace closer to him, and wrapped his arms around him.
It was at that moment that Xu Ze suddenly understood completely what it meant to make a relationship official.
It meant being able to give and ask for a hug without reservations or hesitation. It meant being able to take the initiative openly and without fear.
And Xu Ze had always been someone who lacked precisely that kind of courage.
Lu Heyang froze for half a second. Then he closed the door, took off his cap with one hand and tossed it onto the cabinet nearby, while resting the other hand against the side of Xu Ze’s neck. He pressed his thumb against Xu Ze’s chin and lifted his head, then kissed the corner of his lips.
He looked at Xu Ze without saying a word.
Under that gaze, Xu Ze’s throat tightened. He held his breath and leaned forward a little, kissing Lu Heyang’s lower lip. It was still the same light kiss, lacking any real skill or technique.
Lu Heyang parted his lips slightly and immediately brushed against the tip of Xu Ze’s tongue. He could feel Xu Ze’s breath tremble, and Xu Ze’s arms tightened around him.
Xu Ze hadn’t said a single word since they met, yet every movement he made seemed to say everything.
“Can I borrow your bathroom to take a shower?” Xu Ze had unconsciously been gripping the hem of Lu Heyang’s shirt, pulling the collar up until it was almost choking him. Lu Heyang moved away from Xu Ze slightly and tugged his collar back into place. “I only took a quick shower after training before getting on the plane. I want to wash again.”
Their kiss had been a little too brief. Xu Ze licked the corner of his mouth and nodded. After a moment, he added, “You got a haircut.”
The living room lights weren’t on, and Lu Heyang had no idea how Xu Ze had noticed, since he’d only had his hair trimmed a little.
“Mm.” He chuckled. “That’s why I was wearing a hat.”
Xu Ze wanted to tell him that his hair looked good short, too, but he only thought it to himself. He let go and went to the bathroom to turn on the light.
Lu Heyang took a change of clothes out of his backpack and followed him in, casually asking, “Have you showered already?”
“Yes.”
As though afraid Lu Heyang might bump into something or hurt himself, Xu Ze switched on the brightest light. He stood beside the washbasin to make room for him, using every precious second under the bright light to trace Lu Heyang’s features with his eyes.
“Are you planning to watch me shower?” Lu Heyang put his clothes down and turned his head to look at Xu Ze.
There was something different in his gaze now, a sharpness like the muzzle of a gun trained on its target after professional training. Xu Ze felt like a shooting target, struck dead center.
While Xu Ze was still dazed, Lu Heyang raised his hands to take off his clothes.
“Then keep me company while I shower.”
In the mirror, Lu Heyang saw that the backs of Xu Ze’s ears were red. By the time he had taken off his shirt, Xu Ze had already hurried to the door and swiftly closed it behind him.
Lu Heyang smiled, turned off the power-hungry light, and switched on a dimmer one.
He reached for the shampoo on the counter. It seemed to be the kind Xu Ze always used, in a soft plastic bottle. When opened, it gave off a cheap fragrance. Strangely enough, though, when that scent was on Xu Ze, it somehow smelled pleasant, probably because it blended with his pheromones.
Xu Ze actually stood outside the bathroom for quite a while, completely motionless. The doorknob seemed to have grown a rope that stretched out and wound around his neck, waiting for Lu Heyang to open the door and untie the knot.
Only after finally realizing how perverted he was acting did Xu Ze return to his room.
The draft paper was spread out on his desk. Since Xu Ze had expected Lu Heyang to call that evening, he had kept the four questions in front of him at all times.
Xu Ze sat down and began memorizing them.
Whenever he memorized key concepts or passages from his textbooks, he was always quick and fluent. Yet these four short questions had him stumbling over every other word. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember them properly.
Xu Ze’s attention was clearly scattered to an extreme degree, but he was stubbornly determined to memorize every word exactly as written.
When Lu Heyang came in, Xu Ze was still struggling to regain control of his attention. Hearing the door open, he immediately dragged a stack of exam papers over the draft sheet to cover it, then stood up.
“What are you looking at?” Lu Heyang asked, walking over while drying his hair with a towel. He sat down in the chair.
“…Exam papers.”
“Exam papers.” Lu Heyang repeated Xu Ze’s answer. Then he rested one hand on the stack of papers.
Xu Ze’s shoulders tensed. He was already prepared to give up resisting, but Lu Heyang didn’t lift the papers. Instead, he asked, “How can you lie to me?”
“Looks like you’re going to get a spanking.” He looked up at Xu Ze. “Hold out your hand.”
Without resisting, Xu Ze held out his palm in front of Lu Heyang. His heart began beating faster—not from nervousness, but from a strange, inexplicable anticipation.
But Lu Heyang merely gave his palm a light, symbolic smack. Then he took Xu Ze’s hand and pulled him onto his lap.
“Didn’t I tell you before? If there’s anything you want to know, just ask me. I’ll answer all your questions.”
Lu Heyang ran his fingers through the hair at the back of Xu Ze’s head. It seemed to have just been washed, too. It was cool and soft, flowing through his fingers like water.
The cheapest shampoo had produced the best hair. This alpha really was easy to take care of.
“Number one.” Xu Ze hesitated for a moment before reciting the questions from the draft paper. “You said he wasn’t the target. Then who was?”
“A bodyguard. Tang Feiyi had a conflict with him before, so he sent people to abduct that alpha from your side, hoping to draw him out.”
Xu Ze thought it over. The nursing home where his grandmother stayed already had a large security team and strict access controls, so going after someone through him had been the easiest option. Tang Feiyi had indeed succeeded.
“Anything else?” Lu Heyang asked.
“Number two.” Xu Ze recited it in the same stiff, textbook-like manner. “Are the bodyguards assigned to Grandma and me very expensive? Can you tell me how much they cost…?”
As he recited the question, Xu Ze realized something was wrong. The original wording had been, Can you tell me how much they cost? with the question phrased differently. He’d gotten it wrong.
So after finishing the sentence, he paused and uncertainly added the original question particle.
“…Could you?”
“Have you only just learned how to talk?” Lu Heyang’s fingertips slid down the back of Xu Ze’s neck and pressed gently along his spine and lower back. “Where’s the button for restoring your speech function?”
Xu Ze grabbed his hand and turned his head to hide his embarrassment. Even so, he stubbornly asked again, “Could you tell me?”
“Protecting you and your grandmother is actually one of the least dangerous assignments for the bodyguards. They get paid even when there’s nothing for them to do, so there won’t be any additional expenses. You don’t need to worry about that.”
Seeing that Xu Ze still had his brows slightly furrowed, Lu Heyang changed the subject.
“What else?”
“Oh… Number three.”
Xu Ze paused—not because he couldn’t remember the question, but because he wasn’t sure whether he could ask it.
“Go ahead and ask. After that, we’re going to sleep. I’m a little tired.”
Lu Heyang rested his forehead against Xu Ze’s shoulder.
Xu Ze turned around and slipped one arm around Lu Heyang’s waist. He caught the same scent on Lu Heyang’s hair as on his own, and for some reason, it made him feel a little more at ease.
He asked, “He Wei said you don’t remember anything from when you were a child. Why is that?”
“Because I don’t remember.” Lu Heyang lifted his head. He wasn’t particularly surprised by He Wei’s tendency to broadcast everything to everyone. “I know it sounds like a pointless answer, but I really don’t remember. I’ve looked into it, but I haven’t found any clues.”
“Mm.” Xu Ze nodded.
The last question had been, How much longer until you come back? Obviously, there was no need to ask that anymore.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
After looking into Lu Heyang’s eyes for two brief seconds, Xu Ze looked away. Then he suddenly noticed what seemed to be a bruise on Lu Heyang’s shoulder, just beneath the collar.
He immediately leaned closer, gently tugged the collar aside, and asked worriedly, “How did you get hurt?”
“Didn’t you say you had no more questions?” It was only a small bruise. Compared with the injuries Xu Ze had sustained from boxing in the past, it wasn’t worth mentioning at all. Lu Heyang pulled Xu Ze’s hand down. “You’re bound to get a few injuries during training.”
Xu Ze said nothing, seemingly unconvinced by that explanation. He then began looking all over Lu Heyang’s body, trying to see if there were any other injuries.
“They’re probably hidden under my clothes.” Lu Heyang’s smile was faint, and he seemed unusually languid, as though he were tired.
—Of course, Xu Ze interpreted this as Lu Heyang is tired, rather than there seems to be some other implication here.
“Where?” Xu Ze looked serious, and there was even a coaxing note in his voice. “Let me have a look. I’ll put some medicine on it, and then we can go to sleep once it’s taken care of.”
“Stop looking.” Lu Heyang leaned back in the chair and tried to persuade him.
The more he said that, the more worried Xu Ze became.
“I want to look.”
Somehow, Xu Ze ended up looking on the bed instead, and he was the one who had his clothes taken off first.
Lu Heyang raised one of Xu Ze’s legs and slowly ran his hand from the inside of his thigh down to his calf. Finally, he held Xu Ze by the ankle and kissed it.
“Why are your legs so long?”
Xu Ze lay back against the pillow, panting. His hand clutched the hem of Lu Heyang’s T-shirt, and he was still preoccupied with checking Lu Heyang for injuries.
“There aren’t any other injuries. I’m not lying to you, so don’t be nervous.” Lu Heyang reassured him.
One hand rested over Xu Ze’s heart, which was beating rapidly. His slightly defined pectoral muscles rose and fell with each breath, their movements both supple and powerful.
“…”
Xu Ze parted his lips but couldn’t make a sound. He took Lu Heyang’s hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed the tips of his fingers.
Lu Heyang rubbed Xu Ze’s lips with his fingers before spreading his hand and wrapping it around Xu Ze’s neck.
He barely used any force, yet Xu Ze’s breathing suddenly grew rapid. His eyes were half-closed, as though tears were about to spill from them. He stared at Lu Heyang unfocusedly, his gaze unfixed and hazy. The tip of his tongue peeked slightly between his lips, and a flush spread from his ears down to his chest.
It was an expression he normally only wore when he climaxed.
Lu Heyang lowered his head and studied Xu Ze’s face for several seconds. His gaze was calm and deep. In the end, he pronounced his verdict.
“You’ve learned some bad habits.”