Certain Long-Suppressed Thoughts, Like…
The bedroom light was soft, casting a gentle halo on the walls.
Huo Lin tucked the person snugly into the blankets, but his tone was deliberately cold and stern: “Why would I be angry with you?”
“You see, you clearly are angry.” Huo Kairan rubbed his eyes, his voice still thick with sleep. “Normally, you wouldn’t reply like that. You’d say ”
He deliberately lowered his voice, imitating Huo Lin’s usual authoritative tone: “Huo Kairan, you’ve grown quite bold.”
“So you know me that well.” Huo Lin grasped his waist and moved him to lean against the headboard. As he leaned in, his warm breath almost brushed against Huo Kairan’s cheek.
The deep blue of his eyes flickered with light and shadow, unfathomable.
Suddenly, they were extremely close.
Huo Kairan turned his head away somewhat uncomfortably, but then, as if catching a scent, he leaned in like a small animal, sniffing carefully near Huo Lin’s neck.
“You’ve been drinking?” He looked up, then glanced at the phone screen 1:00 a.m. “Brother, you went out drinking in the middle of the night?”
Huo Lin remained silent.
His tall frame was backlit, half-hidden in shadow, his silhouette appearing deeper than usual, and more solitary.
Receiving no response, Huo Kairan looked up and unexpectedly caught a trace of rare vulnerability and distress in Huo Lin’s expression.
He blinked slowly.
For some reason, a dull, tight ache spread through his chest.
An unfamiliar emotion crept into his heart. He didn’t understand where it came from, nor how to dispel it, so he said irritably, “You get angry when I drink, but then you go drink yourself. It’s like the old saying the magistrates are free to burn down houses, while the common people are forbidden even to light lamps!”
Huo Lin: “Sharp tongue.”
Huo Kairan immediately retracted his claws, putting on an obedient act. He tugged gently at Huo Lin’s sleeve, swaying it. “Still not over it? Oh, by the way, today I and Gao.”
“Don’t mention him to me.” Huo Lin suddenly looked up, the turbulent darkness in his eyes nearly out of control.
Huo Kairan looked at his own hand, left hanging in mid-air, and a wave of grievance rose to the corners of his eyes. “You’re being mean to me.”
“Sorry.” Huo Lin closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he had forced his gaze back to calmness. “My emotions got a bit out of control.”
He instinctively reached out to comfort him, but just as his fingertips were about to touch the other’s cheek, he abruptly stopped, withdrawing his hand and instead pressing hard against his own throbbing temples.
Noticing this detail, Huo Kairan immediately leaned closer, trying to please him. “Brother, do you have a headache? Let me massage it for you.”
Before the words “No need” could escape, those slender fingers, carrying a faint sweet fragrance, had already gently settled on his temples.
Huo Lin stiffened slightly but was fixed at this extremely close distance, with no room to retreat.
“Brother, you need to relax a bit.” Huo Kairan half-knelt up, his large eyes clear and focused as he looked at him.
Huo Lin, however, averted his gaze in disarray.
“What did you talk about with that Gao guy?” He finally asked, but as soon as the words left his mouth, a sense of resistance welled up.
Perhaps still afraid of a certain answer, he reached out and grasped that slender wrist that was about to start massaging his shoulders again, gently tucking it back under the covers. “Never mind, sleep first. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Huo Kairan was bundled up like a silkworm cocoon by Huo Lin, squirming and struggling indignantly under the covers. “We didn’t really talk about much. Anyway, I don’t like guys, so we didn’t see eye to eye. In the end I guess we just cut ties.”
Huo Lin, who had been about to stand up, froze abruptly.
Don’t like guys.
His slender fingers curled almost imperceptibly.
Don’t like.
Huo Kairan didn’t notice his unusual reaction. Still wrestling with the blanket, he hummed twice and didn’t elaborate further. “Fine, we’ll talk tomorrow. Anyway, even if I tell you now, you’ll probably forget by tomorrow.”
Huo Lin was once again rooted to the spot by these words. “What do you mean?”
Huo Kairan looked up. “Don’t you do that? When I get drunk, I seem to black out and can’t remember things clearly.”
He finally managed to wriggle out of his cocoon and stood up on the bed, instantly towering over Huo Lin.
Then, he undid the top two buttons of his pajamas and pointed to the side of his neck. “Look, I have no idea when I got this allergic reaction yesterday.”
On the side of his neck, two overlapping reddish-purple marks, one above the other, stood out starkly against his fair skin.
After a day, instead of fading, they had become even more distinct, carrying a certain ambiguous imprint.
Huo Lin’s Adam’s apple bobbed heavily. His voice was slightly hoarse, tinged with a hint of relief. “You don’t remember?”
“You know?” Huo Kairan immediately leaned closer, curious and pressing for answers. “How did I get this? Did I bump into a door or something?”
Huo Lin averted his gaze, turned to open the nearby first-aid kit, and changed the subject. “Let me apply some ointment for you.”
Huo Kairan persisted. “Is it an allergy or a bruise? Just tell me. Did I go crazy from drinking?”
Huo Lin picked up the ointment and a cotton swab, silently lowered his head, and began carefully applying the cool ointment to the two particularly severe marks.
Seeing that Huo Lin clearly knew but refused to admit it, Huo Kairan’s gaze fell on the tube in his hand it was for promoting blood circulation and dispersing bruises.
He sighed, too lazy to probe further. “Shiwei even made a wild guess, saying it looked like a hickey.”
Huo Lin’s hand, applying the ointment, suddenly stilled.
“I said it was just me and my brother at home yesterday, so it couldn’t have been my brother.”
Huo Lin’s breath hitched.
“who beat me up, right?” Huo Kairan tilted his face up, his big eyes studying him. “Brother, what’s that expression? You really did hit me!”
Huo Lin forced himself to stay calm. “Don’t talk nonsense.”
In those few short sentences, he had plummeted into an icy abyss only to be pulled back to reality he had misunderstood.
His younger brother had nothing to do with that guy surnamed Gao, yet he himself, driven by ridiculous jealousy and possessiveness.
His gaze uncontrollably returned to those lips.
The Cupid’s bow was still slightly swollen, glistening with moisture, appearing utterly tempting under the light.
He had committed an unforgivable transgression.
But if it had nothing to do with that guy surnamed Gao, then for whom had Ranran been crying and begging for his help last night?
Huo Lin steadied himself, his voice returning to its usual low tone but carrying a barely noticeable tension. “Then what exactly did you mean yesterday when you asked me to help you?”
“Huh? I asked you for help?” Huo Kairan’s gaze instinctively drifted, his voice dropping half a tone, the tail end carrying a faint, almost imperceptible waver.
Huo Lin’s scrutinizing gaze locked onto him firmly. “You said you couldn’t bear to leave, that you didn’t want to go, and begged me to help you, saying you’d do anything.”
Huo Kairan’s heart skipped a beat.
Had he been exposed?
No, if he had truly been exposed, Huo Lin would have long since grown tired of dealing with him and would never have shown such an attitude.
He closed his eyes, deciding to take a gamble. Clumsily, he threw himself into the arms of the person before him and said softly:
“Of course it’s because I can’t bear to part with you, because I can’t live without you.”
“Brother, you have to spend more time with me.”
This was going to be the death of him.
Huo Lin returned to his own room, collapsing heavily onto the bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
His father’s warning still echoed in his ears.
But even until three in the morning, the sensation of that delicate skin seemed to linger on his fingertips.
The scent of bitter medicine mixed with a faint sweetness still lingered at the tip of his nose.
And in his ears, the soft, dependent whispers still echoed.
Every part of him was relentlessly tormented.
Huo Lin’s Adam’s apple bobbed heavily. Perhaps… it was the lingering effects of the alcohol that had ignited that sinful spark.
He reached for his phone on the bedside table, unlocking it with his fingerprint.
The screen lit up, displaying a wallpaper photo of Huo Kairan in the snow
The young man was wrapped in a sky-blue scarf, smiling brightly at an ugly yet endearing snowman.
His eyes curved into crescents, beautiful, cunning, and lively, as if gathering all the light in the world.
Huo Lin’s breathing grew heavier.
In the darkness, certain long-suppressed thoughts broke through the soil like vines, growing wildly.
As the sky began to lighten, a low, stifled groan escaped in the silent room.