Tian Huan looked out the window at the city passing by, at the buildings and the traffic and the ordinary Thursday morning of a place that had kept moving without him for two years.

"It’s fine," he said quietly. "I made peace with it."

Jae did not entirely believe that. But he knew Tian Huan well enough to know that pushing was not going to get him anywhere, so he filed it away and kept driving.

"We’re throwing you a party," he said instead.

Tian Huan looked at him.

"Welcome home party. Liuxian’s in, Hao Lin’s in, I’m working on Lindong but his wife has him on a tight leash these days so we’ll see." Jae waved a hand. "Good food, good company, no speeches. Just us."

Tian Huan was quiet for a moment.

"You don’t have to do that," he said.

"I know I don’t have to," Jae said. "I want to. We all do." He looked over briefly. "You’ve been gone two years, you almost didn’t come back at all, and you’re home now. That deserves a meal at minimum."

Tian Huan looked at him.

Something behind his eyes did the warm quiet thing again, the thing he never named and never elaborated on but that Jae had learned over the years to simply accept as Tian Huan’s version of saying something he did not have the words for.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay," Jae confirmed. "Now tell me everything. Two years. Go."

Tian Huan looked back out the window.

"Not much to tell," he said.

"Huan. Two years."

"It was the military, Jae. It was not a holiday."

"Still. Something must have happened."

A pause.

"There was a dog," Tian Huan said.

Jae looked at him. "A dog?"

"At the base. Stray. Kept getting into the mess hall." The corner of his mouth moved. "We called him General."

Jae stared at him for a full three seconds.

Then he burst out laughing, loud and genuine, and Tian Huan looked out the window with the expression of a man who was not smiling and was very clearly smiling.

"General.." Jae repeated. "Please tell me he’s still there."

"He’s still there."

"That dog has more rank than half the people I know," Jae said, still laughing. "I love him already."

They drove the rest of the way to the restaurant with Jae asking increasingly detailed questions about General the stray dog and Tian Huan answering in the brief, precise way he answered everything, and by the time they pulled up outside the restaurant the two years of distance had folded back into something that felt considerably shorter.

Jae got out of the car and looked at his friend across the roof.

"It’s good to have you back," he said. Simply, directly, without making a performance of it.

Tian Huan looked at him.

"It’s good to be back," he said.

They went inside and ordered enough food for four people and sat in the easy, unhurried way of two people who had known each other long enough that silence was never something that needed to be filled.

Jae leaned back in his chair, satisfied in the particular way of someone who had eaten well and had good company, and picked up his phone.

He opened the group chat.

Jae: GENTLEMEN. Our boy is home. Tian Huan has officially returned to civilization and he looks good. Skinnier but good. Party planning starts now. Liuxian I know you’re in a meeting or signing something important but read this. Hao Lin clear your weekend. Lindong tell your wife we need you for one evening she can have you back after.

He sent it and set the phone face up on the table.

The replies came in within minutes.

Hao Lin: FINALLY. Welcome home Huan!! When’s the party??

Liuxian: Noted. Zhang Wei is already on the catering, even though I told you to take care of that.

Lindong: I’ll ask.

Jae: Lindong "I’ll ask" is not an answer.

Lindong: I’ll be there.

Jae smiled and set the phone down.

Across the table Tian Huan was reading the messages over his tea with the expression of someone who found all of this mildly excessive and was not going to say so.

"They missed you," Jae said.

"I can see that," Tian Huan said.

His phone buzzed. He looked at it.

A message from Liuxian, separate from the group chat.

Liuxian: Welcome home. We’ll talk properly at the party. I have someone I want you to meet.

Tian Huan read it once. Then again.

He set the phone down and picked up his tea.

"The married someone.." he said.

"The married someone.." Jae confirmed.

The mansion was quiet when Guiying pushed open the front door.

Or rather, almost quiet.

He stopped in the entrance hall and tilted his head.

There was something in the air.

Faint but clear, drifting down from somewhere above.

A melody.

Someone was singing.

Wang Chengli appeared from the corridor.

"Welcome home, Master Xue. How was your morning?"

"What is that?" Guiying said, still listening.

"That would be Young Master Moying. He found the music room about an hour ago." A small pause. "He has been there since."

"There’s a music room?"

"Second floor, east wing." Wang Chengli looked at him warmly. "Would you like me to show you?"

Guiying was already heading for the stairs.

The music room was at the end of a corridor Guiying had not yet explored, behind a door left slightly ajar.

The sound grew clearer as he approached, no longer just a melody but a full voice filling the space with the ease of someone who had been doing this for a long time and loved every second of it.

He stopped outside and looked in through the gap.

The room was beautiful.

A grand piano along one wall, instruments arranged carefully along another, afternoon light coming through two tall windows and pooling on the floor.

And in the middle of it, Moying, sitting at the piano with his back slightly turned, entirely elsewhere.

He was singing.

Guiying recognized the song in the first four bars.

His chest did something immediate and involuntary.

He knew this song the way he knew certain things that had kept him company in the dark.

Not because it was famous but because he had found it at twenty three in his first life, when everything was about to go wrong, and it had sat with him through things he could not name to another person.

He had not heard it in years.

He leaned against the doorframe and listened.

Moying’s voice was genuinely good.

Not the kind that came from years of training, just naturally good, warm and unguarded in the way people only were when they thought nobody was listening.

Guiying did not mean to sing along.

It started as humming, barely audible, his mouth moving almost without his permission.

Then the words came, quietly, following the melody the way his feet followed a familiar path.

The piano stopped.

Moying had turned around on the bench and was looking at him with an expression that moved through surprise and arrived somewhere considerably more open than their previous interactions had produced.

They looked at each other.

"You know this song.." Moying said. Not quite a question.