On the second day of her period, Lin Wan woke up crying.

It wasn’t the soundless kind, not the dignified kind, where tears slipped out and she could pretend that something got into her eyes, it was the full, embarrassing, cheat heaving brawl.

She lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, tears running sideways into her hair.

’Why,’ she thought. ’Why am I crying.’

No answers came, cause deep down she knew it was just her hormones getting to her, it wasn’t like she never experienced this, it just felt as if it was double, no triple the fluctuations.

’Weiwei,’ she thought. ’why am I feeling like.this.’

[Host is experiencing hormonal fluctuation consistent with the second day of her cycle. This is normal.]

’It doesn’t feel normal.’

[Yes it isn’t a normal reaction, as host has been through a lot, right now host body is telling host that it’s stressed and needs to rest]

Lin Wan wiped her face with the back of her hand. More tears replaced what she wiped away immediately.

She gave up and just lay there.

She heard Wang shift behind her. He had been awake, she realised. Probably had been for a while. His hand moved to her back slowly, the way you’d approach something you weren’t entirely sure about.

"Wan’er."

"I’m fine," Lin Wan said. Her voice came out thick and completely unconvincing.

Wang was quiet for a moment. "You’re crying."

"I know."

"Why are you crying?."

"I don’t know."

Another pause. Longer this time.

Wang sat up carefully. Lin Wan heard him move to the door, open it, exchange a few quiet words with someone outside, and come back. He sat beside her on the bed and said nothing, which was, she had to admit, exactly the right thing to do at this moment, her emotions were all jumbled up, and it was embarrassing.

The door opened again a few minutes later. Qin Mo.

Lin Wan heard him stop just inside the doorway.

"She’s crying," Wang said, in the tone of someone delivering a situation report.

"I can see that," Qin Mo said.

"And she doesn’t know why she’s crying."

A beat of silence.

"Is she in pain?" Qin Mo asked.

"I’m right here," Lin Wan said into the pillow she had pulled over her face. "I can hear both of you."

Neither of them said anything to that.

Lin Wan pulled the pillow off her face and looked at the ceiling again. Her eyes felt puffy already. She could feel it. She probably looked terrible.

But she didn’t care.

Actually, she cared a little. That made her eyes well up again for no reason, which was so stupid that she almost laughed, except the laugh got tangled up with something else on the way out and came out as more crying instead.

Wang and Qin Mo both went very still.

It was Qin Mo who spoke first, his voice careful in the way it got when he was genuinely uncertain. " Do you want anything?."

Lin Wan sniffled.

And then, from somewhere deep in the part of her brain that apparently never stopped working even when the rest of her was a hormonal disaster, a very clear and specific thought arrived.

"I want red braised pork belly," she said.

Silence.

"Now?" Wang said.

"Yes, now." Lin Wan sat up. Her eyes were puffy, her hair was a disaster, and she was clutching the blanket with both hands. "I want it braised until the fat is soft and it falls apart when you touch it. I want it sweet and savoury at the same time. I want it so tender that I don’t even have to chew."

Wang and Qin Mo looked at her.

Then at each other.

"Tell us how to make it for you," Qin Mo said.

Lin Wan blinked. Then she pulled the blanket tighter and sniffled once more.

"Fine," she said. "Get the pork belly first. The thick cut pieces, with the fat layers still on. Don’t trim the fat, I need the fat." She pointed at Wang. "You go."

Wang went.

Qin Mo stayed. He pulled the low stool near the door and sat on it, arms resting on his knees, looking at her with that focused attention she recognised as him preparing to memorise everything she was about to say.

"You need a pot," Lin Wan said. "The deep one. Fill it halfway with water and bring it to a boil."

"For what."

"We blanch the meat first. It cleans it. Gets rid of anything we don’t want in the final dish. You put the pork in while the water is boiling, let it sit for a few minutes, then pull it out."

Qin Mo nodded once. Getting up, he went to start the fire and set the water.

Wang came back with the pork belly, cut into generous chunks the way Lin Wan had shown him weeks ago when she first started cooking for them. He looked at her face, registered that the tears had slowed but her eyes were still red, and set the meat down without a word.

"Blanch it," Lin Wan said, chin pointing at the pot.

They blanched the meat. Lin Wan watched from the bed, still wrapped in her blanket, directing with the authority of someone who was absolutely not going to get up but was going to supervise every single step.

"Pull it out now. All of it. Set it aside."

They pulled it out.

"Now dry the pot and put it back on the fire. You’re going to sear the meat next, each piece, until the outside is golden. Don’t crowd the pot. Do it in rounds."

Qin Mo took over the pot without discussion. Wang passed him the pieces one at a time. The sound of pork fat hitting the hot clay surface was immediate and violent and deeply satisfying even from where Lin Wan was sitting.

The smell hit next.

Rich, deep, the fat beginning to render at the edges, the outside of each piece catching colour. Lin Wan’s stomach made a sound she chose to ignore.

"Good," she said. "When all the pieces are done, put them all back in together. Add the garlic, crushed, not chopped. All of it. Don’t be shy with the garlic."

"How much," Wang asked.

"All of it," Lin Wan repeated.

Wang looked at the garlic. Then he crushed all of it.

"Salt. The good amount, not too careful. Add water until the meat is just covered, not swimming. Then, if there’s any of that wild honey left from last week, add a small spoonful. Just one."

Qin Mo looked up at that. "Honey."

"Trust me."

He added the honey without further argument.

"Now put the lid on and leave it alone," Lin Wan said. "Low heat. It needs time. You can’t rush it or the fat won’t render properly and the meat will be tough. It needs at least until the sun moves past that point." She gestured vaguely at the light coming through the gap in the wall. "Maybe longer."

Qin Mo adjusted the fire until it was low and steady. Then he put the lid on.

The smell that began to build after that was something else entirely.

It started quietly, just the deep base of braising meat and garlic warming through, and then the honey began to melt into it, the aroma crept through the wooden house slowly, filling every room, drifting out through the gaps in the walls and into the open caldera air.

Lin Wan had dozed off somewhere in the middle of the waiting.

She woke up to Qin Mo opening the door and saying, simply, "It’s done."

Lin Wan was upright before she had fully processed the words.

She grabbed her bowl from the table beside the bed. She was still in her sleeping clothes. Her hair was still a disaster. She did not care about either of these things.

She walked out into the main room.

The pot was sitting on the low cooking platform, lid off, steam rising in slow curls. The colour of the braising liquid had gone deep and dark, a rich reddish brown that coated every piece of pork in a glossy layer. The fat on each piece had rendered down completely, soft and yielding, the meat beneath it pulling apart at the edges just from the weight of itself.

Lin Wan held out her bowl.

Qin Mo served her without comment.

She took the bowl to the table, sat down, picked up her spoon, and ate.

The first bite made her close her eyes.

The fat dissolved the moment it hit her tongue. The meat came apart with no resistance at all, just like she had asked for, and the flavour was everything, deep and savoury from the long braise, the garlic completely transformed into something mellow and rich, and underneath all of it that thread of sweetness from the honey that made the whole thing feel like it had been made by someone who actually knew what they were doing.

Lin Wan opened her eyes.

She looked at the pot.

Then at Qin Mo, who was standing to the side watching her with his arms folded and an expression that gave nothing away.

Then back at the pot.

She took another bite.

It was better than hers.

It wasn’t close. It wasn’t a matter of a small improvement or a lucky batch. It was genuinely, measurably, undeniably better than anything she had produced in this kitchen, and she was the one who had taught him every single thing he knew about cooking.

Lin Wan kept her face completely neutral.

She took another bite.

Wang, who had served himself and was sitting across from her, watched her face with the careful attention of a male who had learned to read it fairly well over the past weeks. She saw the exact moment he understood what she was thinking because his mouth pressed together.

"It’s good," Lin Wan said as a matter of fact.

"Mn," Wang said.

Qin Mo said nothing. The corner of his mouth lifting ever slightly.

Lin Wan looked back down at her bowl.

She had taught him how to season. She had taught him how to tend the heat. She had explained the balance of salt and fat and sweetness more than once while standing right next to him. And somehow, inexplicably, he had taken all of that information and produced something that made her want to tip the entire pot into her bowl and not share it with anyone.

She took another bite.

Then another.

From outside came the sound of Da Jun’s voice, calling through the wall asking if the food was ready, and Keal telling him to wait. A moment later both of them appeared at the door, bowls in hand, drawn by the same smell that had dragged Lin Wan out of sleep.

Qin Mo served them both.

Da Jun ate two bites and looked genuinely emotional about it. Keal finished his bowl faster than Lin Wan had ever seen him eat anything and then looked at the pot with the expression of a male trying to decide if asking for more was acceptable.

Wang had already gotten himself more.

Lin Wan looked at her own empty bowl.

She got up, went to the pot, and served herself a second portion.

She sat back down.

She was not going to say anything about how good it was. She was absolutely not going to compliment the man who had waltzed into her kitchen and immediately become better at it than her. She had to preserve some dignity.

She took a bite.

She looked up and found Qin Mo watching her from across the room with an amused expression as she stuffed herself full.

Lin Wan pointed her spoon at him.

"Don’t," she said.

Qin Mo looked away.

Wang made the sound that was not quite a laugh and became a cough, it didn’t convince anyone.

Lin Wan finished her second bowl in silence.

Outside, the caldera was warm and bright and smelled like braised pork and garlic

She was going to need to find something she was better at than Qin Mo.

Urgently.