Chapter 3: The House Beside The Lake
"You’ve never done it before," Zhiyi said slowly. The kiss was burning against her skin and she wanted to touch it... but she didn’t.
"I should have," Pei Hanchuan replied. They could both hear the regret in those three words.
But, because this was her and her mind was never silent for long, it tried to open the question and send her down another rabbit hole of questions she didn’t have an answer to.
Why should he have done it? When had he first wanted to? How frequently had he considered it? Did the action change the established parameters of their relationship? Was she expected to respond?
The questions multiplied faster than she could arrange them.
Hanchuan must have felt her body lock because he went back to stroking her forehead. "Don’t process it," he murmured. "It doesn’t have to be that complex."
"I can’t stop," she muttered. She hated when she got like this, but she didn’t know any other way.
"Then do it later."
"There is no later." The words escaped before she could examine them and pull them back. There was that lump in her throat again.
Pei’s hand stilled against her head as the temperature display changed to fifty.
A warning began flashing beneath it, silent because they had disconnected the alarm weeks ago to conserve power.
Zhiyi watched the red light stain the wall.
Her lungs hurt.
The pain had been present for some time, but her brain had categorized it beneath the more immediate problems. Now it demanded recognition. Every breath was too small. Her skin felt both painfully tight and strangely distant, as if it belonged to someone lying beside her instead.
"Hanchuan."
"I’m here."
"The answer is wrong."
"I know."
"We did everything correctly."
"I know."
"We survived the first heat."
"Yes."
"The flood reached the thirty-second floor, and we survived."
"We did."
"We survived the freeze."
"You got us through it," he agreed softly.
"We were supposed to survive this." Her voice went up into a squeak and she could see her vision blurring again. Stupid tears. She shouldn’t be hydrated enough to cry this much.
Hanchuan’s arm tightened around her. The pressure hurt, but Zhiyi only moved closer to his body. She hated being touched, but that never seemed to extend to the man beside her.
"You found me too late," he announced at last. "You should have found me sooner."
She tried to lift her head, but his hand kept her tucked against him. "That isn’t relevant," she grumbled under her breath. How was she supposed to find him sooner when she didn’t even know he existed before that moment seven years ago when she entered his shelter?
"It is to me."
"You would have died in that shelter without food."
"And you would have died outside without shelter."
"That was an equal exchange," she agreed, slowly nodding her head.
"No." His voice had become rougher. Each word emerged with too much space around it. "It stopped being an exchange a long time ago."
Zhiyi’s thoughts moved slowly.
The heat was interfering with neural function. Confusion. Delayed processing. Possible cerebral edema.
She needed water.
The bottle was on the table.
Four meters away.
But Hanchuan wouldn’t let go.
But she didn’t want him to.
"I don’t understand," she whispered.
"I know."
"Explain it."
"Now?"
"Yes."
His chest moved beneath her in a breath that shuddered before it ended.
"All right," he murmured before he pressed another kiss into her hair. "When the heat passes, I’m taking you north."
"We don’t know if it will pass or not," she interrupted.
"There’s a lake there. It used to freeze every winter," he continued like she hadn’t said anything.
"The water may be contaminated."
"You’ll test it."
"We don’t have testing supplies."
"I’ll find some."
His voice had changed.
It was softer now. Unhurried.
Wrong.
Zhiyi knew he was lying.
And Hanchuan never lied to her.
"There’s a house beside the lake," he continued. "Small. No glass walls. You’d hate the kitchen."
"Why?" Zhiyi asked, getting drawn into his words.
"Too many cabinets."
"How many?"
"Twenty."
"That is an unreasonable number of cabinets for a small house."
"I’ll tear twelve of them out."
"Eight would still be too many."
"Then I’ll tear out fifteen."
"What will we use for storage?"
"I’ll build shelves."
"You don’t know how."
"I’ve watched you do it."
"You said my shelves leaned."
"They did."
"Then you shouldn’t replicate the design."
His chest moved again and this time she recognized the sound. A laugh, quiet and broken against the heat.
"I’ll make better ones," he promised.
Zhiyi tried to picture the house.
Her mind supplied dimensions before images. Floor space. Insulation requirements. Distance from the lake. Solar exposure. Soil quality. Possible access routes.
Every path ended at the shelter wall.
There was no lake.
No house.
No later.
This was the end.
And they both knew it.