Chapter Text
As the mist rose from the canal’s dark surface, glowing in the faint predawn, there was no sound but the quiet lap of oars dipping into the water.
The rower’s pace was meditative, slow. Form perfect. Just as the gentle wake marred the water’s surface, his face was serene but for the furrow of his brow.
Behind him, the sound of boisterous laughter echoed off the water. As he passed below the footbridge, it bounced from the curved arch above, momentarily surrounding him.
Wangji glanced up to see a pair of undergraduates draped across the bridge, still in evening attire. They were leaning forward, gawking and giggling.
The one on the right had hair like summer straw—golden brown and sticking up at all angles. It caught in the light as the sun rose. The boy leaning against him had the most outlandish hair, pulled forward over his shoulder and streaming over the edge of the bridge. As the early morning breeze toyed with the thick black ribbons of hair, he looked like a storybook picture of Rapunzel.
He fixed Wangji with a bold stare. A mischievous smile spread across his face as he plucked the flower from his button-hole and tossed it into the boat.
His friend held up his hands and clapped as the token met its mark. His forearms cradled a stuffed bear against his narrow chest, but Wangji’s attention was held by the boy who’d thrown the flower. He adopted a pose of coyness, subtle as a pantomime as he waggled his fingers coquettishly.
Wangji shook his head and leaned back into the oars. Foolish young drunks. He doubted either one would remember their antics.
Still, when he pulled the rowboat into the boathouse, he paused and looked down at the flower on the wooden deck. An English country rose, dusky pink petals fully blown, revealing a dull golden center. It was small and scraggly, not an oversized lapel ornament befitting a dandy. This flower had come from some wild-growing vine, not a cultivated and cared-for rosebush. There was something forlorn about the way it lay there. An emblem of the passing summer.
He delicately grasped it between his fingers and carried it up to his rooms.
Inside, he fell into an easy crouch and excavated from the back of a cabinet a sake flask he’d never used before.
It was a gift from a colleague who hadn’t understood that he was teetotal—or that there were distinctions between Japanese and Chinese cultures. But it had a long, narrow neck that supported the delicate stem.
It was still fragrant. The sweet scent of rose mingled with sandalwood.
Wangji forgot all about it until he returned to his rooms that evening.
At some point after midnight, he woke to the click of the window latch.
He watched with an air of unreality as the boy from the bridge climbed in his window. Wangji wondered if he was dreaming. As his white evening clothes glowed in the light of the half-moon, the young man seemed to be a spirit summoned by the scent of the rose.
Wangji broke the spell.
“May I help you?”
The boy turned to him, blinking languidly. “Oh, it’s you. What are you doing in my room?”
American accent. That explained the boldness. The sons of the British aristocracy and nouveau-riche were enough of a handful, but this young man was of a different stripe.
“This is housing for faculty, not first-years.”
He ignored him and walked up to the bedside. “So sweet of you, to pay me a visit.” The scamp pulled back the covers.
Wangji’s jaw set in consternation.
He knew there was a hazard to sleeping in rooms on the ground floor. Countless stories of drunken students climbing into the wrong beds, or simply sticking their heads through the windows to be sick.
In all his years at Oxford, he’d never heard of a drunkard climbing through the windows of the third floor.
“Will you—” Wangji tried to get a solid grip on his hips to drag him out of bed, but the young man flopped bonelessly against his chest and mumbled, “Not tonight, darling, I’m tired.”
Wangji was speechless with incandescent fury. As a Buddhist and a gentleman, he didn’t put stock in resorting to physical altercations, but the sole reason he didn’t turn this churlish youth out on his ear was his staggering inebriation.
Wangji wondered who on earth his parents were, and if he should send them a letter.
The young man nuzzled against his chest like some abandoned pet that had finally found refuge.
Wangji sighed in defeat.
At least starting tomorrow, the fool would have lectures to attend. It was unlikely their paths would cross again.