Chapter 6: Worst Question

"Worst question," said Shen. "Go."

They were in the back of the car, forty minutes from the hotel.

Tang had his phone propped on his knee with the voice memo running.

"Why are we doing this?" asked Tang.

"The fan meeting is in three weeks," said Shen. "Someone will ask you something ugly with a microphone in front of three thousand people."

"Tonight you practise."

"I can handle three thousand people," said Tang.

"You can handle them smiling," said Shen. "I want to hear what you do when you can't."

Tang sighed, cleared his throat, and put on a high, breathless voice.

"Tang Mo-ge. Is Shen Yichen really that cold? Do you ever wonder if he's just using you?"

He dropped back into his own voice, bright and quick.

"He's a block of wood, and I'd do anything for the vote. Anything. I'd marry a chair."

He grinned.

"No," said Shen.

"It's funny," said Tang.

"It's cruel and it's false. The fans will repeat the first half and forget the second."

Shen's expression did not change.

"Good. Now answer it again as yourself."

Tang looked at his own phone.

He had never answered anything as himself in front of an audience.

There was nothing to practise with.

He tried, slowly.

"He's not wood. He's careful. And I'd lose the vote before I'd use him for it."

The car was quiet.

"That's better," said Shen, a little roughly, and looked out of the window.

Tang stopped the recording, and the phone chimed, and he did not notice what it said.

In the hotel suite on the thirty-third floor the lights were low and the curtains were open on the river.

Tang took off his jacket, hung it over a chair, and turned.

"Lesson. Stand there."

Shen stood in the middle of the carpet with his hands at his sides.

"A camera doesn't want a kiss," said Tang.

"It wants the second before. Someone reaches for you, you shift your weight a little toward them. Not a lot. A lean. Like this."

He stepped up, put a hand lightly at Shen's waist, and waited.

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