Hu Bai reached up and unbound his hair, pulling free whatever pin or tie had held it in place. It fell like water, dark and heavy, spilling past his waist and spreading across the pool’s surface in slow, drifting strands, like vines suspended beneath clear glass.
Li Yan found himself staring despite every intention not to.
Hu Bai’s face, unguarded for once, struck him properly for the first time. Not pretty the way Li Yan had heard himself described so often, but something sharper, more deliberate, as though carved rather than born, each feature placed with unhurried precision.
His body matched it, broad through the shoulders, every line of muscle beneath wet skin sitting exactly where it belonged.
Li Yan let out a low huff, some small, grudging jealousy curling through his chest. He doubted his own body would ever hold that kind of strength, no matter how much he ate or trained in whatever life remained ahead of him.
He was a Ger. Slender was simply what his body had been shaped for. He already counted himself fortunate to stand taller than most of his kind.
"You are staring." Hu Bai tilted his head slightly, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. "Am I too handsome for you?"
Li Yan scoffed, and whatever admiration had briefly softened his expression vanished at once.
"Why is your hair so long?"
Hu Bai wound a lock of it around one finger, considering the question with more thought than it seemed to deserve.
"It marks rank within my family. The longer the hair, the higher one’s position." He let the strand fall loose again. "Though I confess it becomes a hassle to wash hair this long. Most men in my position keep a wife for such tasks."
"Pfft."
"A shame you do not have one of those."
Hu Bai reached for the soap resting at the pool’s edge and waded closer, stopping only a short distance away.
"Will you help me? It will not take long."
Li Yan stepped back at once, until the stone edge of the pool pressed against his spine.
"I refuse. Wash it yourself. I have finished bathing, and have no wish to touch any more soap tonight."
"Please." Hu Bai’s expression shifted, something almost wounded settling over it. "You have already taken my wealth and left me a pauper, and still you refuse me even this small favor. I did not realize you could be so heartless."
"Giving up your wealth was your own doing, not mine." Li Yan crossed his arms, refusing to be moved by the display. "I only stated a condition. You were the one so eager to prove yourself that you agreed before I had even finished speaking."
"A fair point." Hu Bai’s wounded expression melted back into something closer to amusement, though he did not retreat. "Still, would it truly cost you so much to wash a little hair? I have already given you a bath fit for royalty, a meal built entirely around your cravings, and a room finer than anything you likely knew before tonight. Surely one small favor in return is not such an unreasonable request."
Li Yan considered that, weighing the ledger Hu Bai had so plainly laid out between them. Everything given so far, freely, without demand, and now one small thing asked in return. It grated at him regardless, some old instinct insisting that nothing given freely ever truly came without a price attached, sooner or later.
"Fine." The word came out clipped, reluctant. "But do not expect this to become a habit."
Hu Bai’s smile widened at that, genuine delight breaking through the earlier performance of hurt. He held out the soap, waiting.
Li Yan took it, then hesitated, working out the actual problem in front of him. Hu Bai stood well over a head taller, easily near two meters against Li Yan’s own more modest height, and there was no reaching the crown of anyone’s skull from that kind of distance without effort neither of them had accounted for.
"Bend down." Li Yan gestured impatiently. "I am not climbing you to reach your hair."
Hu Bai laughed, low and genuinely amused, and folded himself down without protest, bending his knees slightly until the two of them stood nearly eye to eye in the water.
It was, Li Yan realized a beat too late, a considerably worse arrangement than the height difference had been.
With them this close, there was nowhere else to look. Hu Bai’s eyes stayed fixed on him the entire time, dark and unblinking, tracking every small movement of Li Yan’s hands as he worked the soap through wet strands. Something was unsettling in how still Hu Bai had gone, none of his usual restless teasing, only quiet, steady attention, as though being tended to had stripped away whatever performance he usually wore like a second skin.
Li Yan’s fingers faltered against his scalp.
"You are staring again." He kept his voice flat, refusing to let the sudden warmth climbing up his neck show in his tone.
"I cannot help it." Hu Bai’s voice had dropped lower, quieter than before, none of its usual playfulness left. "You are gentler than I expected."
Li Yan’s face heated properly this time, and he scrubbed harder than strictly necessary in retaliation.
However, Hu Bai only closed his eyes and let out something dangerously close to a contented sigh, entirely unbothered by the rough treatment, tamed in a way that struck Li Yan as far more alarming than anything he had said or done all evening.
"Stop enjoying this so much." Li Yan muttered it under his breath, mortified and unwilling to examine too closely why his own pulse had picked up its pace.
"I make no promises there either." Hu Bai’s mouth curved, eyes still shut, entirely at peace. "Not when the hands doing the washing belong to you."
Li Yan’s face reddened immediately, his hands on Hu Bai’s hair growing still. He bit his lips, needing a distraction anywhere else, anywhere away from Hu Bai’s face.
He yanked his hands back from Hu Bai’s hair, rinsing the last of the soap off in a rush, and stepped clear of the water before Hu Bai could so much as straighten from his bent posture.
"I am finished." The words came out clipped, faster than intended.