Chapter 17: Chapter 17

Sun Fang decided that it was time for him to be proactive, and not just sit around waiting for Mo Cheng to make all the decisions regarding their dating. It wasn’t fair, to always expect the other man to take the first step. So he found a botanical garden not that far away that had good ratings and amazing pictures on their website, and contacted Mo Cheng.

Mo Cheng answered the phone with a calm, ”Yes?” He sounded distracted, and Sun Fang wondered if he had interrupted something important.

”It’s Sun Fang,” he said, his fingers fiddling with his nails. He was sitting outside on the huge balcony today, the outdoor furniture all natural wood-colors. A pair of sunglasses was slowly slipping down his nose because he couldn’t be bothered to push them back up for the fifth time in twelve minutes. ”I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

”No, no,” Mo Cheng said. There was a voice in the background Sun Fang could only vaguely make out. A rustling noise came from Mo Cheng’s end before the man started speaking again, ”It’s fine. What do you want?”

Sun Fang rose an eyebrow. ”Awfully direct, aren’t you?”

”Sorry,” Mo Cheng said, something impacting the ground loudly in the background. ”I don’t mean anything bad by it, I just—shit, is that on fire?!” 

”Fire?” Sun Fang snapped out and sat up straight on the beach chair. No response came, Mo Cheng busy yelling at people. He could hear clatter in the background, somebody talking too fast for him to make out the words, the sound of flickering flames as Mo Cheng presumably approached the fire.  The call was voice only, so he couldn’t see what was happening. 

Biting down on his thumb, Sun Fang’s foot tapped irritably on the ground. He waited with bated breath for Mo Cheng to tell him everything was okay; fire was scary, okay? And he couldn’t even see how big it was or what was being done about it.

Did they need firefighters? Should he call emergency services? 

Finally, after several heart-stopping moments, Mo Cheng said, "The fire is out.”

”Everything okay?” Sun Fang, anxiety making his stomach ache.

”Yes,” Mo Cheng said. The man breathed a sigh into the phone and continued, ”One of the pans caught fire, but we got it out. It’s fine now, I promise.”

Exhaling, Sun Fang flopped back against the chair. He curled up with his legs drawn up to his chest and said weakly, ”Good, good. That’s good.”

”It is,” Mo Cheng agreed. 

They fell into silence. Sun Fang needed a moment to collect himself from the shock he’d just been subjected to—really, to think something caught on fire just as he called. As irrational as it might be, he hoped Mo Cheng wouldn’t hold it against him. It was just… really bad timing, apparently.

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”I had a reason, for calling,” he finally said. He twisted on the chair so he was lying on his back, staring up at the bright sky through his sunglasses. His heartbeat had finally started to slow down, and so he took carefully controlled deep breaths to keep it in check. Everything was fine. Mo Cheng had said so himself.

It was fine.

”I figured,” Mo Cheng said. Despite the harsh words, his voice was soft and soothing. 

Sun Fang nodded, even knowing the other man couldn’t see him. ”What do you think of a date at a botanical garden?”

”That sounds great,” Mo Cheng answered. 

It didn’t sound like he was lying, so Sun Fang decided to take that at face value. He nodded again, one of his hands playing with his long hair and curling it around his fingers, making a complete mess of it. He shook his shoulders, letting a shudder work its way through him, and smiled, ”How about this Thursday? At, say, six in the evening? Your work should have ended by then, right?”

”Yeah, that’s good,” the other man agreed. They didn’t spend a lot more time talking after that; Mo Cheng still needed to make sure that the fire was a one-time thing and that the perpetuator was scolded, and he couldn’t do that properly with Sun Fang on the line.

When they’d hung up, Sun Fang stood from the chair and started pacing. The wooden flooring under his bare feet was comfortable and familiar, as was the view from so high up. He walked up to the railing and placed his hands squarely on it, letting it bear his weight. He exhaled, closing his eyes as he breathed in deeply again. It was all fine, so he needed to take all this useless worry and throw it away.

It was just that fire scared him. Even though he knew that it was unreasonable, that the fire safety was topnotch on this planet (at least at a first class city like this one) and there were several high-quality androids built for the express purpose of fighting fires, this fear still wouldn’t leave him. He blamed his childhood on this, on waking up in the middle of the night to find himself surrounded by fire. To this day, he still didn’t know how that had happened and he’d long since stopped caring.

There had been fire and heat and smoke so thick that he couldn’t breathe. Everything had been hazy and his recollection of it had only gotten vaguer and stranger as time passed. But that had been decades ago and in the end, he’d been fine.

”Everything alright, Young Master?” his butler asked.

Sun Fang took a deep breath, plastered a smile on his face and spun around. He propped his hip against the railing and said, ”Yep! In fact, I have a new date planned with Mo Cheng.”

His butler walked closer and said, ”I’m sure you’ll have fun.”

Sun Fang hummed. He bobbed his head slightly and smiled brighter, forcing all those old feelings to the back of his mind. His butler had saved him back then. And so obviously, everything had been fine in the end. Even if it’d scared the crap out of him.

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