He was going to have to tell Lu Han.

                Yixing lay on the bed in his hotel room and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the grinding and throbbing pain in his hip to ease up a bit. He took nothing for pain anymore except over-the-counter stuff. Which gave him minimal relief, but didn’t cloud his mind the way a prescription medicine would have. Nor did they raise the specter of addiction.

                Although sometimes he wondered why he even cared about that. Life, until just lately, had become something to be endured, not something to be enjoyed. He hadn’t cared whether he lived or died.
                But something was changing. He could feel it inside. Good or bad, he didn’t know, but on some level he’d always known the time would come when he would move on emotionally. He just didn’t know if he was ready to yet.

                Besides, there was a far more important issue: Lu Han.

                God, how was he going to tell him? He probably already thought he was crazy, with his talk about synesthesia. Until recently, even science had thought synesthetes were merely nut jobs. Why had he even brought that up?

                But he knew why. He needed him to know him, so he wouldn’t just totally dismiss him when he told him what was happening. Because he was going to have to tell him. And in order to get him to understand, he was going to have to revisit the tragedy that had put him on the road in the first place.

                He closed his eyes against the sting of tears that invariably still welled up when he thought of his family. The day-long crying jags were gone, as were the mindless rages, but tears still came.

                He swore and tried to roll onto his side without unleashing another danger of pain. He succeeded, and with a sigh of relief opened his eyes again. The lone tear that had managed to escape dripped onto his pillow.

                Nothing interesting to look at, not even the framed Western-themed prints that posed as art on the walls. This was where his journey had brought him. Certainly on the edge of any reality he had ever really known.

He liked the place. Despite being a stranger in a strange city, despite being questioned by an inspector in a way he had never before been questioned. Despite being on some foggy kind of mission that he couldn’t quite bring into focus beyond a few visual images and an overriding compulsion.

                He even liked Kyungsoo’s manner. At Momo’s, he had concluded, you got what you got and, damn, it tasted good. None of the expense of nouvelle cuisine or soy milk for people who couldn’t just give something up, but demanded a substitute.

                So his lawyer hadn’t sold his business to his partners. Well, actually, his partners had probably refused to buy his share. His lawyer was a good one and would have done exactly as instructed, regardless of whether he believed it to be temporary insanity.

                Maybe it had been. After talking with Lu today, he’d started to feel the itch again, a desire to return to his unfinished research. To the equations that painted pictures in his mind of a reality that maybe only someone like Picasso could begin to grasp.

                But now Lu had stopped being afraid of him. Which would have been good, except Lu Han still needed to be afraid. He very much needed to be afraid.

                But how could he tell him? How would he get anyone to believe the truth of why he had come here?

                He believed it only because of experience. Only because the last time he hadn’t believed, he’d paid the dearest price imaginable.

                So he had to figure out how to tell him. How to persuade him. Because if he failed, it could cost Lu Han everything.

                Slowly, he began to turn things around in his mind, examining what he thought he knew from every angle, seeking the key that would get through to Lu Han.

                And then he noticed something he’d never noticed before.

                Popping up from the bed, he pulled on heavy clothing and set out on yet another mission.

After dropping Yixing at the hotel, Lu had taken a drive through the country, soaking up the beauty of the day from the warmth of his car. Then he made a short stop at the grocery to find something he felt like cooking for his dinner. After that he did a little research on synesthesia, decided Yixing was far from nuts and took another walk, a short one because despite the promise of warmer temperatures the next day, today seemed to be growing ever colder.

                Just as another bank of clouds began to move in, darkening the afternoon, he answered his front door to find Yixing standing there with a squirming ball of fur in his arms. “You need a dog,” he said without ado.

“I do?” Lu stared blankly.

“You do.” Yixing held the animal out to him. It appeared to his untutored eyes to be a mutt with golden fur. “Shouldn’t you have asked me first?”

“Probably, but then I’d have to explain.”

“You’re going to have to explain, anyway.”

A rueful smile curved Yixing’s mouth. “Why did I figure that would be your reaction?”

“Maybe because you don’t dump this kind of responsibility on someone without clearing it first.”

“Point taken.” His smile vanished. “Trust me, you need a dog. This guy was abandoned at the vet’s by someone who couldn’t pay a bill. He’s in perfect health, he’s had all his shots, doesn’t have worms, and I even paid for day care for him in advance so you don’t have to worry about what he might get up to while you’re at work.”

How was it that he was making him feel ungracious by not taking the dog?

Just as irritation began to replace shock, those big brown eyes turned toward Lu Han, and he received the full impact of floppy ears and an imploring gaze.

“You’re so unfair,” Lu said, whether to Yixing or the dog he didn’t know. He reached out, took the dog in his arms and instantly fell in love. Which was every dog’s stock-in-trade, of course. Instant love. When he Lu’s cheek tentatively, the deal was sealed.

“He’s adorable,” he admitted.

“Small, but not too small, if you know what I mean. The vet says he’s not much of a barker unless something makes him uneasy. Good watchdog.”

Watchdog. Why would Yixing think he needed a watchdog? The back of his scalp began to prickle uneasily. He looked from the dog to Yixing. “I think we need to have another talk. Come on in.”

Yixing hesitated. “About what?”

                “About why you think I need a watchdog.”

                “Poor choice of word, maybe.”

                “Somehow you don’t strike me as the type who chooses his words properly.”

                As Lu watched Yixing, he seemed to go away to some distant place again. Finally, he spoke. “Look, it’s hard to explain. I bought stuff for the little guy, so let me just get it.”

                He looked past Yixing’s shoulders and saw that he seemed to have arrived in one of the few cars available for rental in town. “Uh, no,” Lu said. “He can survive with a bowl of water for a little while, and I can provide that. You’re not going to escape so easily.”

                He sighed, seemed to check some inner barometer, then nodded and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Lu led the way to his kitchen, where he filled a soup bowl with water for the dog. He seemed grateful for it and lapped happily at it.

                “How old is he, and what’s his name?”

                “Vet says he’s about a year old. Housebroken, although you might have to remind him the rules haven’t changed just because his house has. As for his name…I didn’t ask because I figured you’d want to name him.”

                “How thoughtful.” Lu couldn’t quite keep the tiniest edge of sarcasm out of his voice. But he waved Yixing to a seat at the table and poured coffee for them both.

                Yixing thanked him as Lu took a seat across from him.

                “So let’s get back to this watchdog thing,” Lu said, refusing to skirt the issue. “Why did you say that?”

                “It’s…just a feeling I have.”

                “Must be a pretty strong feeling.”

                Again a moment of hesitation, then, “Yeah, it is. Very strong.”

                “Enough to make you dump a dog on me.”

                Yixing returned his stare squarely. “Most definitely.”

                “And I’m supposed to believe your feeling?”

                “You don’t have to believe it. I’m the only one who has to believe it. Although it might help if you’d at least try it on for size.”

                Lu had been leaning forward on his elbows, but now he leaned back and straightened a bit. “Yixing, do you have even the foggiest idea how weird you sound sometimes?”

                “Oh, believe me, I do. I sound weird to myself, even after what I’ve experienced.”

                The dog, still nameless, had begun to sniff around Lu’s ankles, learning something about him. The inevitable resulted: he reached down to gently scratch some very soft fur around some very soft ears. “Maybe you need to stop being so enigmatic and start telling me straight out what you think is going on here.”

                “I’d like to. And I will, once I figure out how.”

                “What is so hard about it?”

                “You won’t believe me.”

                They sat there, staring at one another. Lu honestly didn’t know what to say. Worse, even in the face of frustration and annoyance, he was feeling that inexorable tug toward him. That unmistakable yearning that wanted to pool between his legs. How was it possible to feel desire and impatience at the same time? Both a longing to take Yixing into his bed and throw him out?
 

                But that’s what he was feeling, and his breath caught as he saw a spark flare in his eyes, as if he felt it, too. And then he saw the same shock he had felt, the awareness that this was not something he wanted to feel.

                “I’ll go get the dog stuff,” Yixing said abruptly. With a grimace, he pushed out of his chair and limped back to the front door.

                “What the hell?” Lu said to the empty room. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought the universe was laughing at his confusion.

                For the first time in a long time, the atmosphere seemed pregnant with possibilities.

                “God, no.” He put his forehead in hi