Guiying looked at him for a long moment.
Then he looked at the ceiling.
Then he picked up the laptop, went to the first episode, and pressed play.
He was not going to win this one.
He did not know when he had fallen asleep.
One moment the baby on screen was doing something that made Liuxian laugh quietly beside him, and then there was nothing.
When he stirred, the first thing he registered was warmth. Solid and surrounding, the kind that made his body refuse to move. He shifted instinctively toward it, pulling closer, burying his face in something soft.
He could feel a heartbeat against his cheek. Steady and unhurried.
And then the pheromones hit him properly.
Clean and deep, like a forest after rain, like sunlight through trees. Nothing sharp or aggressive about them. Nothing that made his instincts curl inward defensively. They simply settled around him like something that had always been there and meant no harm.
He pressed closer and hugged tighter.
"You must be in a good mood this morning."
Guiying went completely still.
"You are hugging me quite tightly." A brief pause. "Your pheromones smell nice by the way. Sweet. Like vanilla."
He was still pressed against Liuxian's chest with both arms wrapped around him and his face tucked against his collarbone.
He released the shirt slowly. Leaned back. Fixed his gaze somewhere past Liuxian's left shoulder and arranged his expression into something that he hoped communicated total composure.
"I was cold," he said.
"Mm," Liuxian said.
"It was a reflex."
"Mm."
"I was asleep."
"You were," Liuxian agreed, in a tone that confirmed none of those explanations changed anything about what had happened.
Guiying ran out of excuses.
He finally looked at Liuxian directly, hoping that meeting his gaze head on would somehow convey dignity and composure.
It did not help. Liuxian was looking back at him, morning soft, hair messier than the night before, wearing the expression of a man who was privately delighted and had just enough self control not to show all of it. There was nothing in his face that was unkind. That somehow made it worse.
His ears were burning.
"Good morning, wifey," Liuxian said.
There was nothing Guiying could say to that. There was no response that would recover the situation. He pulled the blanket over his head, because at least under the blanket nobody could see his face.
Liuxian's quiet laugh followed him under there anyway.
Liuxian could not linger. He had a full day ahead and had already spent more time in Guiying's room than his schedule strictly permitted. He got out of bed, straightened his shirt, and left without making a production of it, pulling the door shut behind him.
The room was quiet again.
Guiying stayed under the blanket for exactly three more seconds, then sat up.
He reached for his old phone from the nightstand and looked at the screen.
Twenty three missed calls.
His father. His half brothers. The calls were stacked on top of each other, coming in waves, starting from late last night and continuing into the early morning. They had noticed. It had taken them longer than he expected, which told him they had assumed for a good while that he was simply somewhere else in the house.
Now they knew he was gone.
He did not call any of them back. He opened his contacts and blocked every number one by one, working through the list with the calm efficiency of someone crossing items off a task. When he was done he removed his sim card, set it on the nightstand, and put the old phone face down beside it.
His goal was simple. He needed to be untraceable. No calls, no location, no thread they could follow back to him. He was also going to need an informant, someone inside the Xue household or close enough to it that he could stay three steps ahead of whatever they were planning. He could not move blind. He needed information.
He filed it away and got out of bed.
The bathroom first. He grabbed his new electric toothbrush, the sleek black one he had ordered yesterday, loaded it with toothpaste, and switched it on. Then, because his laptop needed to boot up and he was already moving, he walked out of the bathroom with the toothbrush running in his mouth and padded across to the desk.
He pressed the power button on the laptop and stood waiting for it to boot, brushing absently, and reached down to scratch his stomach where his shirt had ridden up in the night. His hair was going in several directions at once. The new sleepwear was soft but thoroughly slept in.
He caught his reflection in the dark laptop screen.
Pretty, objectively. Also an absolute mess.
He looked like a pretty hobo.
The door opened.
Liuxian stood in the doorway, fully dressed, suit pressed, briefcase in hand, every inch of him composed and put together in a way that made the contrast between them almost comedic. He looked at Guiying, standing at the desk in slept in clothes with a running toothbrush in his mouth and one hand still scratching his stomach, and his expression did something that was trying very hard not to become a full smile.
He chuckled.
"I came for my morning kiss," he said, setting his briefcase down just inside the door. "But since you are occupied, I will give you one instead."
He crossed the room before Guiying could react, one hand finding his waist and pulling him in with easy, unhurried confidence. At 6'4 he had to bend down considerably to reach Guiying, who at 5'9 suddenly felt every one of those seven inches acutely.
He pressed a quick, warm kiss to Guiying's cheek.
Then he straightened, picked up his briefcase, and walked past Guiying toward the door. As he passed, he held his phone over Guiying's old device for a brief second, a soft sound confirming the transfer.
"Save my number," he said, without turning around. "Call me if you need anything."
The door clicked shut behind him.
Guiying stood at the desk with a running toothbrush in his mouth and a warm cheek and stared at the closed door.
He raised his free hand and touched the spot where Liuxian had kissed him.
Then he turned back to his laptop, which had finished booting, and decided that Liu Liuxian was a problem he was going to need considerably more time to figure out.