The Swapped Heir Came Home Hungry novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Elbows

Rule three was chopsticks, and Linchuan taught it at five in the morning, before breakfast, on purpose.

Anzhi suspected the second part.

They sat on opposite sides of the stone table in the Lakeside Court.

A bowl of dried beans lay between them, and the lake was still grey behind the willows.

"Two-thirds of the way up," said Linchuan. "The lower stick rests. The upper moves. Pick up a bean."

Anzhi picked up a bean.

He dropped it.

"Again."

He picked up another and held it a moment before it shot across the table and hit Linchuan's sleeve.

Linchuan looked at the bean on his cuff.

"You have been using chopsticks for twenty-two years," he said.

"Yes."

Linchuan did not smile. "With your whole fist."

"They've fed me every day so far."

Linchuan got up, came around the table, and without a word sat down beside him on the bench.

He took Anzhi's right hand in his own and moved the fingers one at a time.

His hands were cool, dry, and very sure.

His thumb pressed the bone behind Anzhi's knuckle, and his forefinger straightened the upper stick, and Anzhi stopped thinking about beans.

"Loosen the wrist," said Linchuan. "You are strangling it."

"I'm not."

"You are."

Their elbows were touching.

Anzhi could smell soap and cold ink on him, and the line of his arm was warm through the sleeve.

He looked up by accident.

Linchuan was looking at the hand, not at him, with the severe attention he gave to ledgers.

His ear was red.

Anzhi noticed it, and decided it was cold. It was five in the morning, by a lake.

Then his stomach, which had been waiting patiently since last night, let out a long loud growl in the quiet.

It echoed off the water.

Linchuan did not let go of his hand.

"That," he said, after a moment, "is not a rule I can teach out of you."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He took his hand back, rather fast, and put his glasses on. "Pick up a bean."

Anzhi picked up a bean.

It stayed.

"Good," said Linchuan, and looked at the lake for a long time.

By the afternoon the kitchen was empty.

His friend came to find him in the archive with a potato knife still in his hand.

"They've sent the cooks on a training retreat," he said in a whisper. "All six. A notice came at noon."

"And there's a team in white jackets from a hotel, with their own pots. They won't let me touch anything."

"Who signed the notice?" asked Anzhi.

"Second Uncle. The Foundation's vice-chair. The butler says it's allowed. The acting head signs the roster, but Second Uncle is allowed to 'recommend'."

"Hm," said Anzhi.

He had spent the day on a decade of school rice orders and the cabinet's scratched lock.

He had told his friend about both, who had offered to sleep across the cellar door.

He had said no.

At seven a tray came to the Pavilion Court.

A maid in a hotel apron set it on the stone table.

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