Chapter 55: I THOUGHT A MAN LIKE HIM WOULD BE TRADITIONAL TO THE BONE

They were in the car and moving before either of them spoke.

Liuxian kept his eyes on the road.

Guiying kept his eyes on his phone, watching the navigation, his knee bouncing once before he caught it and made it stop.

"So who is this friend?" Liuxian asked.

"Yang Limo." Guiying said. "We grew up together. He’s the only one who gives a shit about me. He’s been in the States for three years." He paused. "He just got back and now.."

Liuxian was quiet for a moment. He had gone through everything available on Xue Guiying’s background and the picture it painted was of someone who had existed in complete social isolation.

No close connections.

No documented friendships.

No one who had consistently shown up across the years.

So where did this Yang Limo appear from?

"I didn’t know you had a friend," he said.

"There’s a lot you don’t know about me," Guiying said, without heat. He was still watching the navigation.

Liuxian said nothing and drove faster.

Laobao Hospital was a fairly sized private facility tucked between two larger buildings on a quiet street in the central district.

Liuxian pulled up to the entrance and Guiying was out of the car before it had fully stopped, bear slippers and all, moving through the sliding doors with the focused efficiency of someone who had a destination and intended to reach it.

Liuxian parked and followed at a more reasonable pace.

Ward three, room seven.

Guiying pushed the door open.

Yang Limo was sitting up in the hospital bed looking perfectly fine, which was to say he looked exactly the way he always looked, which was like someone who had just woken up from a very comfortable sleep and was mildly annoyed at the world for existing.

He had a small bandage on his forearm and a cup of something warm on the tray beside him and his phone in his hand and the particular expression of a man who was deeply unbothered by his own hospitalisation.

He looked up when the door opened.

His face broke into a grin.

"Baby!"

Guiying crossed the room in four steps and hugged him.

It was not a careful hug.

It was the kind that happened when the body took over before the mind could compose itself, arms going around him hard and fast, face pressing into his shoulder, and the thing that Guiying had been holding since he saw the date on the notebook page finally came loose all at once.

He cried.

He hadn’t planned to.

He didn’t know it was coming.

But it was there, it was real and it came out in the particular way of grief that had been sitting somewhere for a long time without a proper place to land, because in his first life he had not cried for Yang Limo, had not been able to cry for Yang Limo, had not even known Limo was gone until five months after the fact when a mutual acquaintance had mentioned it in passing.

Limo, to his credit, did not panic. He patted Guiying’s back with the easy patience of someone who had known him long enough to understand that something significant was happening and that questions could wait.

After a while he said, quietly, "Baby. I wasn’t even injured. They just kept me for observation, for the shock. I’m fine."

Guiying did not immediately stop crying.

"I’m serious," Limo said. "I’m perfectly okay. I’d be more convincing if you’d look at me but you know." He kept patting his back. "I was honestly quite lucky. The driver was a second late making the turn. One second earlier and." He paused. "Well. Anyway. He wasn’t."

Guiying pulled back and looked at him.

Limo looked back, soft and a little curious and entirely alive, and smiled.

"There you are," he said, wiping his tears.

Then he looked at Guiying properly, the way he always had, with the particular attention of someone who actually saw the person in front of them. His head tilted slightly. "You look so much better than the last time I saw you. Like, actually better. Your skin, your eyes." He sniffed. "And you absolutely reek of Alpha pheromones." His eyes widened slightly. "Do you have a boyfriend? Did you finally run away from home?"

Guiying wiped his face with the back of his hand.

"It’s a long story," he said.

"Baby I have been in this bed since four in the morning with nothing to do," Limo said. "I have nothing but time."

A sound came from the doorway.

Both of them looked up.

Liuxian was standing just inside the room, briefcase in hand, having apparently followed at his own pace and arrived to find his husband crying into a stranger’s shoulder while the stranger patted his back and talked about being lucky.

He looked at Guiying, he wasn’t particularly happy to see Guiying hug another man.

Guiying looked at him.

Limo looked at Liuxian.

Then Limo looked at Guiying.

Then he looked back at Liuxian with the slow, dawning expression of someone putting several things together at once.

"Oh," he said.

He looked at Guiying again. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Oh," he said again, with considerably more weight.

Guiying pressed his lips together.

"Limo," he said. "This is Liu Liuxian."

Limo stared at him.

"Liu Liuxian," he repeated.

"Yes."

"The Liu Liuxian?"

"There is only one."

Limo looked at Liuxian.

Then at Guiying.

Then at the ring on Liuxian’s finger.

Then at Guiying again.

"Baby." he said, very carefully, "what exactly did I miss in three years?"

Guiying scratched his head.

"Nothing much, you know how my family is. I guess there’s no hiding it. Liuxian is my boyfriend..."

-_-

"You’re actually dating the old man? And he even lets you call him by his name? I thought a man like him would be traditional to the bone"

-_-

Guiying cleared his throat, what was wrong with calling Liuxian by his name and it wasn’t like he complained either.

"Well that’s the gist. Are you really okay?"

Limo smiled and pinched his cheeks. "I’m okay.."