Xi Zirui opens the his hotel room door to find both Han Yu and Su Xueyi on the hallway, giving each other odd looks.
Su Xueyi is carrying what looks like a room service tray, and Han Yu an armload of snacks.
"What are you two doing here?" Xi Zirui asks with a sigh.
Su Xueyi's eyes widen when he looks up at him over the platter of food, Han Yu positively leers.
It's then that Xi Zirui realizes that he opened the door in nothing but his underwear.
"Well, I didn't hear room service come up to your room, and it was getting late, so I worried you might go to bed without eating anything," Su Xueyi says, stammering a little and gesturing with the platter in his hands. "So I ordered some food I thought you might like. It's spicy."
He looks a little embarrassed and some of Xi Zirui's annoyance ebbs away. Su Xueyi is always so considerate, he shouldn't take his bad mood out on him.
Han Yu is another matter altogether.
"It's not good for him to have such a heavy meal this late," he says, glaring from the corner of his eye at Su Xueyi. "That's why I only brought some light snacks."
He doesn't wait for Xi Zirui to say anything before making his way past him and into the room, sprawling on the sofa after throwing his pile of snacks on the low table in front of the tv.
That leaves Xi Zirui to take the platter from Han Yu's hands with an awkward smile. "Thank you, that was very kind of you."
Su Xueyi rubs the back of his neck self-consciously and flashes Xi Zirui a dimpled smile. "It's nothing, now I feel a little presumptuous."
It was, a little, but it was also sweet. "It's fine, thank you."
"Well, ah, enjoy your meal. I'll see you tomorrow."
Xi Zirui nods but Su Xueyi stays in place worrying at his bottom lip. "Listen, I'm sorry if I got you in trouble with Han laoshi, that wasn't my intention," he says, lowering his voice so Han Yu can't hear them from inside the room.
Xi Zirui grins, a little manic. "Oh, he's the one who's in trouble."
He doesn't elaborate further before closing the door and turning around to face Han Yu, who has made himself comfortable in Xi Zirui's sofa, eating prawn flavoured chips and flipping through channels at random.
"You shouldn't answer the door in your underwear," he says, crunching down on a chip. "What if it was the photographers? Besides, when did you become so intimate with your bodyguard that he brings you food in the middle of the night?"
Xi Zirui sets down the platter of food on the table and glares at Han Yu. "I don't see how that's your problem, and I don't remember inviting you in."
Han Yu smirks. "It was implied."
Xi Zirui plops down on the sofa next to him with a groan. Han Yu is determined to be the bane of his existence. Xi Zirui is too tired to fight him just now, but he'll definitely pick it up again, tomorrow.
"Give me that," he says, taking the bag of chips out of Han Yu's hands.
"Good right?" Han Yu asks, looking at Xi Zirui expectantly while he eats.
They are good, but Xi Zirui isn't going to give him that satisfaction, so he just shrugs and says, "They're okay."
Han Yu frowns and reaches over the table to pick another bag and throw it to Xi Zirui. "Try these ones. Chilly puffs."
He tears open the bag and tries one of the red coloured puffs. "Not bad."
Han Yu groans and bumps his head against the sofa. "Didi is so hard to please."
Xi Zirui snorts. "You should stop trying, then."
Han Yu turns on his side to face Xi Zirui and smirks. "What would be the fun in that?"
Xi Zirui shoots him an unimpressed look, but it only makes his smirk widen.
It's the first time he's seeing Han Yu out of his costume, his hair is a little wet and fluffy, longer on top than it is on the sides, and falling in front of his forehead. There seems to be a little curl to it. It makes him look younger than his 26 years, almost boyish. Less of a polished, sleek idol, with features that look carved from jade, and more like the kind of cool, handsome guy Xi Zirui could have bumped into in college.
He wonders what he would have thought of Han Yu if they had met under less bizarre circumstances.
"What are you thinking about?" Han Yu asks, after Xi Zirui has been silent for a while.
Xi Zirui throws a chilly puff at his chest. "About how annoying you are."
Han Yu picks up the puff from his chest and pops it into his mouth, it leaves crumbs on his white t-shirt. "Didi is so cruel, when all gege has done is dote on him."
Xi Zirui thinks that's an interesting euphemism for coming on to him shamelessly.
He doesn't dignify Han Yu with an answer and continues to eat his snacks in silence. Once he finishes the bag he licks his fingers clean one by one, smiling a little to himself at Han Yu's wide-eyed look.
"Thank you for the snacks, you can leave the rest here and go back to your room," Xi Zirui says, looking at Han Yu expectantly.
All the air rushes out of his lungs when Han Yu tackles him onto the couch cushions and pins his wrists above his head.
"I didn't come here just to bring you late-night snacks," Han Yu says, lowering his chest over Xi Zirui's.
Of course he didn't. "Of course you didn't," Xi Zirui says, testing Han Yu's grip. "We're not going to have sex."
Han Yu pouts. "Why not? I could make it so good for didi," he says, whispering the words against Xi Zirui's neck.
His breath raises a trail of goosebumps along Xi Zirui's skin, but he refuses to let anything show on his face. "Didn't you hear me earlier? You don't impress me."
Xi Zirui's disinterest only makes the expression on Han Yu's face grow more hungry and heated. "I love that cold look on your face when you say no to me."
Ah, so is that what this is about? Someone like Han Yu...Xi Zirui doubts he has been told 'no' often.
Xi Zirui is going to have a lot of fun with him.
He cranes his neck so he can whisper directly into Han Yu's ear, his voice sweet and mellow ,"You're not attractive at all, I'm not into you, and I'll die before I let you fuck me."
Only one of those things is true, and it's more in the vein of: "I'll die if I let you fuck me", or so Xi Zirui understands Ni Ni's frankly arbitrary restriction.
Not that Han Yu needs to know any of that.
Han Yu's reaction is as immediate and as entertaining as Xi Zirui hoped. A shiver runs through his body and he closes his eyes, biting down hard on his lower lip.
"Fuck that's so hot..." he whispers, grinding down against Xi Zirui's hips.
Xi Zirui lets out a laugh, squirming under Han Yu's hold. "What's so hot about being rejected?"
Han Yu opens his eyes, and they're all pupil, an inkspill of desire, it makes Xi Zirui look away. Han Yu noses along Xi Zirui's neck, taking deep breaths of his clean skin, almost scenting him. "Thinking about you screaming my name, and taking all those words back, when I finally fuck you."
Xi Zirui sucks in a shuddering breath. He should have given Han Yu more credit, the mental image his words conjure is tantalizing, but unlike the internet seems to believe Xi Zirui isn't some virgin who goes week-kneed when someone talks dirty to him.
Besides, he can give just as good as he gets.
He squirms in place and raises his chest, pushing his nipples against Han Yu's chest and fluttering his long eyelashes. "I don't think that's what would happen at all. I think gege would probably cry. I think gege would cry and thank me for the privilege of letting him fuck me."
Han Yu lets out a harsh breath through his nose, and Xi Zirui's innocent smile widens.
"Let's see who's crying by the time I'm done with you," Han Yu says, bringing his face an hairsbreadth away from Xi Zirui's.
Xi Zirui thinks he's going to kiss him, he's already anticipating biting his soft lips.
He doesn't realize he closed his eyes in anticipation until he feels a weight lift off from his chest. Han Yu lets go off his wrists, sits back on his heels and then flicks Xi Zirui's nose with a smirk.
He leaps over the back of the couch and makes his way to the door with easy, feline, grace.
Stopping at the door, he throws one last look at Xi Zirui over his shoulder. "Sweet dreams, didi"
And then he's gone.
That more than anything Han Yu did today, surprises Xi Zirui.
He goes to bed feeling out of sorts, and cursing Han Yu for keeping him up so late.
The food Su Xueyi brought him goes cold in the living room table, untouched.
---
The next day on set Xi Zirui is shooting fighting scenes, which means wire work, and lots, lots of repetition.
He's already in a bad mood after spending hours getting his wig applied, and now he has to get a contraption with metal wires strapped around his waist so he can do improbable acrobatics, all the while looking elegant and beautiful.
"Effortless, it needs to look effortless," Liao Min, the director says, looking into the camera's screens. Her sharp features pinched and haughty as ever.
Xi Zirui would like to see her try to do a somersault in midair while wearing a ten thousand li wig. It's not fucking effortless, if he doesn't focus all the hair will flip directly into his mouth.
Su Xueyi has the undignified job of catching him when he comes down from the jump, steadying him with his hands around his waist, so that the wires don't get tangled.
"Don't worry, Zirui, you're doing great," he says, the next time Xi Zirui lands ungracefully on the mark.
Xi Zirui wishes he hadn't told him to call him just 'Zirui' it always startles him when he hears Su Xueyi say his name like that.
Finally, Liao Min concedes that whatever Xi Zirui is doing is good enough for her exacting standards, and calls the scene.
He can't wait to get her that date with Li Siqi, maybe if she becomes a pain in his manager's ass, she'll stop being a pain in his!
The next scene isn't any better, he has to do fly by shot with his sword in hand, starting from a still position and then being lifted through the air by the wires as if he's soaring.
Again it's Su Xueyi's job to catch him outside of the frame.
Xi Zirui lands so often against his chest, that he thinks he can count all of his muscles. And there are a lot of them.
"I bet you didn't expect this to be part of the job description, uh?" Xi Zirui says, an offhand comment after the twentieth time they run through the scene.
Su Xueyi's smile dimples his smooth cheeks. "It's one of the perks for sure."
Xi Zirui has to do a double take at that. Is Su Xueyi flirting with him? Is his mind so addled by Han Yu's blatant come ons that he can't tell anymore when someone is flirting with him like a normal person?
Su Xueyi isn't deterred by Xi Zirui's lack of reaction and adds, "Was the meal good last night? I hope you liked it."
Xi Zirui is saved from answering, and having to lie to Su Xueyi's face with lavish descriptions of how good the food was, by the appearance of Li Siqi, clutching her trusty tablet to her chest.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," she says, despite the fact that she isn't interrupting anything as the crew is readying equipment for the next take. "I just want to remind Xi laoshi that after this scene he and Han laoshi will have to do a few interviews with traditional and web media outlets. Everything is ready in the crew recreation room."
On second thought, maybe the wirework isn't so bad after all, maybe if he puts on his best smile Xi Zirui can talk Liao Min into shooting a few more hundred takes.