“Then kiss me.”
On the way home, Huo Kairan was unusually quiet, burying his entire face in Huo Lin’s embrace without moving a muscle.
Huo Lin thought he had fallen asleep. It wasn’t until they got out of the car, and he carried the boy back to the bedroom, bending down to lay him on the bed, that he noticed a large wet patch had soaked through the front of his suit jacket.
His movements froze.
The person on the bed drowsily opened his eyes just then.
His skin was pale, the flush of drunkenness completely faded, yet the corners of his eyes were stained a deep crimson. His lashes were damp with tears, a few teardrops clinging precariously, about to fall.
Quiet and still, like a glass doll displayed in a shop window.
Beautiful, and fragile.
“What are you crying for?” Huo Lin’s voice lowered, his calloused thumb wiping away the wet traces beneath the boy’s eyes. “Who are you crying for?”
Huo Kairan simply gazed at him quietly, his pupils unfocused, saying nothing.
Having never touched alcohol before, the delayed effects had left his mind utterly muddled, like a pot of boiling porridge bubbling with chaos.
He blinked, and another tear rolled down.
Huo Kairan reached out, clutching the sleeve of the person wiping his tears. Tilting his head, he tried hard to recognize him. “You… who are you?”
“I’m your brother.”
Huo Kairan stared at him fixedly for a moment, then shook his head firmly. “You’re not Huo Lin. Huo Lin would scold me.”
A strangely familiar conversation.
Huo Lin couldn’t help but reach out and pinch the boy’s pale cheek, not too lightly, not too heavily.
Immediately, a distinct red fingerprint bloomed on the snow-white skin.
“Really drunk or pretending?”
Huo Kairan shook his head, his tone stubborn. “I’m not drunk.”
“Then who am I?” Huo Lin leaned down, closing in on him. “Look clearly.”
Huo Kairan actually propped himself up slightly, squinting as he examined him seriously.
After looking for a long while, he suddenly seemed to realize something, a hint of cautious delight in his voice as he whispered, “Are you… Xiao Bai turned into a human?”
“…”
Huo Lin took a deep breath, straightened up, and went to make a cup of honey water. Returning to the bedside, he pressed the rim of the cup to the boy’s lips. “Drink it.”
Huo Kairan took a small sip from his hand, his brows immediately furrowing as he turned his face away in distaste. “Don’t want this. I want more wine.”
Huo Lin’s voice was cold. “No.”
“I hate you.” Huo Kairan pushed him away weakly, the gesture more like a sulk.
Huo Lin fell silent for a moment, his voice stiff. “Then hate me.”
But Huo Kairan seemed stung by those words. He reached out again, wrapping his arms around Huo Lin’s waist, burying his face back against him, mumbling a correction, “But I don’t want to hate you.”
Huo Lin looked down at the fluffy head of hair nestled against him, the cold severity in his expression finally softening a little.
But the accounts to be settled couldn’t be overlooked.
“Why did you sneak out today?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why,” he paused, each word seeming ground out between his teeth, “did you let that guy surnamed Gao pick you up?”
“Questions, questions, questions.” Huo Kairan covered his ears, shrinking into the blanket. “You’re so annoying.”
Huo Lin grasped his wrist, his grip unyielding, pulling the blanket away, his gaze locking onto the boy’s eyes. “Answer.”
“I won’t.” Huo Kairan struggled, the alcohol making his temper worse. “What right do you have to control me!”
“Because I’m your brother.”
“Then can you control me for a lifetime?!he almost shouted, with a note of feeling wronged and panic he himself didn’t realize.
Huo Lin: “I can.”
Huo Kairan lifted his face, staring blankly at him. Through the haze of drunkenness, the man’s deep and familiar features finally came into sharp focus.
He recognized him.
Tears surged without warning once more.
“You lied…”
“All of you lied to me!”
The pent-up emotions burst through the dam.
He suddenly raised his hands and shoved the person before him, his fists landing haphazardly on the other’s solid chest like a desperate, furious young animal.
Huo Lin stood motionless, letting him vent.
He had indeed deceived him too many times there was no denying it.
Only when Huo Kairan was exhausted, trembling faintly against his chest, did Huo Lin speak in a low voice, returning to the original question:
“Why did you suddenly sneak out? Why did you drink? You never used to do this.”
“I’m hurting.” Huo Kairan’s tear-soaked eyes were blurred. He grabbed Huo Lin’s hand and pressed it against his own chest. “Here it hurts so much.”
Huo Lin’s expression instantly turned extremely grim.
A near-violent gloom enveloped him.
He almost gritted his teeth as he asked, word by word:
“Who are you hurting for?”
Too many.
His parents leaving without a word.
Huo Lin’s ambiguous attitude toward him.
How much more did he have to try? To stay.
The unease weighing on his heart, the fear of losing everything, the loneliness of being surrounded by the truth.
All the emotions he had forcibly suppressed while sober erupted completely under the influence of alcohol, wrapping and crushing him without a breath of air.
His world was collapsing, and he couldn’t handle it.
His heart ached as if it were about to burst.
The relentless questioning continued in his ears, pressing and aggressive.
But Huo Kairan couldn’t give a clear answer.
There were too many things, too many people, piled messily before him, threatening to drown him.
He was about to be abandoned by the Huo family, about to lose everything. Why was this person still hypocritically asking these questions? Was he mocking him?!
“Why can’t I hurt?!” He shoved Huo Lin’s hand away again, his reddened eyes scanning the surroundings the luxurious, warm mansion he had lived in for years, soon to no longer belong to him.
The family he had spent twenty years with, soon to no longer belong to him.
“All these years all these years of feelings don’t I deserve to have feelings?! Can’t I hurt!”
In the elegant, opulent bedroom, the man and the youth stared at each other, locked in a standoff, each completely immersed in their own emotions, oblivious to what the other was truly saying, yet somehow miraculously matching the conversation.
Huo Lin watched the person before him breaking down in tears. His self-proclaimed unshakable restraint was cracking inch by inch.
Jealousy coiled around his heart like a poisonous vine, tightening until it was hard to breathe.
“All these years…” His voice was terrifyingly hoarse. “Do you really like him that much?”
Huo Kairan struggled to open his tear-blurred eyes wide, looking at the person before him, but unable to make out his expression.
Alcohol amplified and scattered every sensation.
The words echoed dully in his ears, circling several times before he sluggishly caught the word “like.”
Like?
Yes, he liked.
He liked this family, liked everything he had now, and he also liked.
As if grasping at a lifeline, he suddenly clutched Huo Lin’s sleeve, pleading instinctively:
“I like. I really like it, I can’t bear to leav, I don’t want to go… Brother, please, help me.”
Huo Lin’s breath abruptly stilled.
He slowly lowered his head, looking at the hand gripping the corner of his clothes, its knuckles white from the force.
“Huo Kairan,” he called his full name, his voice laced with a chilling coldness, “You’re begging me for another man.”
The lingering effects of the fruit wine had fully taken hold. Huo Kairan’s consciousness was scattered, only vaguely aware that the person before him was his sole lifeline.
And this lifeline before him kept buzzing in his ear with complicated words, like this one, which he couldn’t understand at all. He could only nod instinctively, repeating his plea:
“After all the effort I’ve put into pleasing you these past few days, please help me. As long as you help me. I’ll do anything.”
Huo Lin’s fingertips dug sharply into his palm, a stinging pain spreading as his knuckles turned pale and tense.
After a few seconds of dead silence and tense standoff, that taut force slowly, almost imperceptibly, began to loosen.
Huo Lin suddenly let out a faint, almost inaudible laugh, though there was no trace of amusement in his eyes.
He leaned in, his rationality completely shattered, his warm breath nearly brushing against the other’s damp eyelashes, his voice low and deliberate:
“Alright.”
“Then kiss me.”