At thirty thousand feet, the air inside the cabin was thin and dry, carrying the faint, sterile scent of airline meal boxes and the mechanical hum of the constant-temperature air conditioning.
Silas Shen sat in the window seat, an esoteric academic journal spread open in his hands. He hadn't turned a single page in half an hour. Outside the window, a boundless sea of clouds stretched into the distance, reflecting the sunlight in a pristine, almost illusory white. However, his mind was nowhere near the clouds; it was entirely anchored to the young man sitting beside him, whose presence was far too intense to ignore.
"Professor, for you."
At some point, Hunter had flagged down a flight attendant. He handed Silas a dark blue blanket sealed in a plastic bag.
Silas blinked, his fingertips brushing against the cool packaging. His habitual instinct was to refuse. "I'm not cold."
"I am." Hunter spoke with total conviction as he tore open a blanket for himself, wrapping his body up until he looked like a giant silkworm cocoon. Only his dark, misty eyes were visible, looking exceptionally innocent. "It might be hot in Haicheng, but this plane's AC is cold enough to turn a person into a biological specimen. If you catch a cold, who's going to lead me into the conference venue once we land?"
Silas didn't reply. He pursed his lips and, in the end, silently unwrapped the blanket and draped it over his knees.
The sensation of the soft fabric covering him allowed his tightly wound nerves to relax slightly. He redirected his focus to the journal, attempting to submerge himself in the world of complex chemical bonds and signaling pathways.
However, Hunter Huo's "performance" had only just begun.
About twenty minutes after takeoff, the aircraft entered the cruising phase, and the cabin lights dimmed into a soft, hypnotic glow. Silas was staring at a paragraph concerning synaptic transmission mechanisms when he felt his right shoulder suddenly grow heavy.
His entire body stiffened, like a precision instrument that had suffered a sudden power failure.
Hunter's head had—without warning, yet with terrifying naturalness—tilted over, inch by inch.
At first, he merely grazed Silas's shoulder. But as the plane hit a patch of light turbulence, the tousled, fluffy head seemed to find its magnetic north, finally settling firmly and heavily against Silas's shoulder.
Silas held his breath.
Through the cashmere cardigan and the thin fabric of his white shirt, he could clearly feel the body heat radiating from the young Alpha. It wasn't the sterile, cold temperature of a laboratory; it was a burgeoning vitality, scorching like a summer afternoon under direct sunlight. Even worse, the spicy yet sweet scent of oranges, at such close proximity, seemed to materialize into physical threads. With every breath Silas took, they wound themselves inch by inch around his heart and lungs.
"Hunter Huo," he whispered, his voice carrying a tremor he didn't even notice.
There was no response.
Silas turned his head, his gaze falling on the face mere inches away.
From this angle, Hunter's handsome face—usually so sharp and roguish—actually looked somewhat obedient in sleep. His eyelashes were exceptionally long, casting a fine golden luster under the intense high-altitude sun, fluttering slightly with his steady breathing. His nose was straight, his jawline as sharp as if carved by a blade, yet the slight pout of his lips betrayed a hint of boyishness unique to his age.
Is he actually asleep? Or is he faking?
Silas's hands, which were usually steady enough to hold a scalpel without a single tremor, hovered in the air a few centimeters above Hunter's shoulder.
He should have pushed him away.
According to Professor Shen's lifelong code of conduct, any boundary-crossing social behavior should be corrected immediately. But looking at that sleep-slackened face marked with exhaustion, Silas's fingers seemed frozen in mid-air.
An emotion called "soft-heartedness"—one he had never experienced in the lab, behind a lectern, or at a high-profile summit—washed over the dam of his logic like a tidal wave.
He smelled Hunter's aggressive pheromones, which had become gentle and dependent in sleep, much like a large predator retracting its claws to expose its belly in a show of vulnerability.
Ultimately, the hovering hand did not fall to push him away. Instead, it moved.
Silas leaned over slightly, his movements so subtle they barely stirred the air. He reached across and pulled down the window shade on Hunter's side.
With a soft click, the piercing sunlight was blocked. The corner of the cabin dimmed, and a shadow fell over Hunter's face, causing his slightly furrowed brow to relax. He even nuzzled into Silas's shoulder, seeking a more comfortable angle.
Silas sat back up, but the text in his journal had long since become a blur.
His shoulder was stiff; after years of hunching over lab benches, it wasn't a particularly comfortable pillow. Yet, he instinctively adjusted his posture, straightening his spine and bracing himself, trying his best to make the young man leaning on him sleep more soundly.
An unprecedented atmosphere of ambiguity drifted twenty thousand feet in the air. Silas stared at the closed shade, feeling the heavy, unreserved trust resting on his shoulder. In the quiet cabin, the sound of his own heartbeat actually began to drown out the drone of the engines.
He told himself that perhaps it was the altitude or the thinning oxygen that was causing this illogical hallucination.
After an unknown amount of time, the captain's steady voice came over the intercom: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts..."
Silas snapped out of his reverie as if struck by lightning. He was about to wake Hunter when he realized the youth beside him was already stirring.
Hunter opened his dark, bright eyes, a hint of post-sleep daze still lingering within them. He maintained his position against Silas's shoulder, tilting his head up slightly so that his nose almost brushed against Silas's cold neckline.
"...Professor?" His voice was devastatingly raspy, carrying an alarming magnetism.
Silas shoved him away abruptly, the force nearly sending Hunter into the armrest.
"Now that you're awake, sit up properly. We're landing," Silas said, turning his head away. His voice was cold as usual, but the hand hidden inside his cardigan sleeve was white-knuckled, gripping the edge of his journal.
Hunter felt the lingering warmth on his shoulder and glanced at the lowered window shade.
He hadn't been asleep. From the second his head touched that shoulder, his senses had been dialed to the absolute maximum. He had felt Silas's stiffness, his hesitation, and most importantly, the tenderness in that cold hand after it hesitated in the air.
He lowered his gaze, masking the near-manic, triumphant smile in his eyes.
So, it turns out this block of ice isn't truly impossible to melt.
The silhouette of Haicheng flickered beneath the clouds. The air already seemed to hold that southern quality—humid, restless, and heavy with anticipation.
Silas looked at the shrinking horizon outside the window, the secret unease in his heart rising once more. He had a feeling that this trip to Haicheng was hurtling toward a destination entirely beyond his control.