Chapter 10: Study Session

The bolt on the pavilion door was brand new, and it had a receipt.

Shouyi slid it home with a heavy iron clunk and stood with his forehead against the wood.

"You bought a bolt," said Mian.

"Three coppers. From the smith at the Lower Gate."

"For tonight?"

"For the integrity of the building."

Mian looked at the broth bowl, empty on the table, and the one lamp, and the cot with the dent shaped like himself.

He felt unexpectedly shy.

It was a strange thing to feel in front of a man he had laughed at on a roof.

He crossed the room and stood in front of him with his hands hanging.

"I've never done this before," he said.

"I am aware. Neither have I."

"I'm going to be terrible at it."

"No," said Shouyi, and the corner of his mouth moved. "You will be unpracticed. It is a different thing, and it can be corrected."

He took Mian's face in both his cold hands.

He kissed him slowly, and with great attention, as though the kiss were a form he had decided to master.

Mian leaned into it, and into him, until the backs of his knees hit the cot.

"Sit," said Shouyi.

Mian sat.

Shouyi knelt on the floor between his feet and began to undo the sash of his robe.

"Wait," said Mian. "You don't have to kneel. You're the senior..."

"Hold still."

"Yes, Teacher."

It had been meant as a joke.

It came out of his mouth, and landed in the room, and sat there.

Shouyi's hands stopped.

His whole face went still, and a wash of color came up his neck to the tips of his ears.

"Say that again," he said, very low.

"Yes, Teacher?"

Shouyi shut his eyes.

"I do not believe," he said, "that this is in the rules."

"Check later."

"I shall."

The sash came loose.

The robe slid off Mian's shoulders, and Shouyi's mouth followed it.

It went along the collarbone and over the ribs, slow and thorough and in no hurry.

Mian lay back on the cot with a gasp that startled them both.

He had thought he knew what he would feel.

He had not known it would feel like being learned.

Every inch of him was being gone over by a man who would not stop until he had it right.

Shouyi found a place at the hollow of his hip and lingered.

Mian's hand slapped over his own mouth, and Shouyi looked up, with his eyes dark and his topknot coming apart.