Afternoon in the Life Sciences Department at Beijing University. The sunlight filtered through the tall sycamore trees, casting intricate silhouettes onto the frosted glass windows. When Silas Shen pushed open his office door, the crisp fir scent that usually dominated the air seemed to hold an additional, barely perceptible aroma—one that felt dry and warm, like orange peels baked in the sun.
He stood at the threshold, not stepping inside immediately. Instead, his cool, phoenix-like eyes narrowed slightly as his gaze slowly patrolled his territory.
Silas was a man possessed by severe obsessive-compulsive disorder in both his daily life and his experiments. His bookshelves had to be arranged alphabetically by literature, and his pipettes had to be returned to their stands strictly according to their volume range. Yet over the past three days, he noticed that this once-flawless office was undergoing a certain "species invasion."
This invasion possessed a calculated rhythm, carrying a kind of patience and tenderness akin to an animal building a nest.
On the first day, an exceptionally jarring mug appeared in the corner of the laboratory lounge area. It was a ginger-colored ceramic cup printed with a silly Corgi puppy tilting its head and sticking its tongue out. Silas recognized it instantly—it was a matching pair with the one he used at home, or rather, a "freebie" that the boy Hunter Huo had forced into a set.
On the second day, when Silas returned from processing data in the main lab, he discovered a dark blue cashmere hoodie draped over the back of his deep brown office chair.
"What if the Professor gets cold?" Hunter had been sitting on the opposite sofa flipping through reference materials at the time. Sensing Silas's gaze, he flashed a grin that bared a row of white teeth, his tone entirely matter-of-fact. "The heating in the north hasn't turned on yet. With your constitution, it's better to keep yourself protected."
Silas had merely parted his lips without speaking, but he hadn't thrown away the hoodie that still carried the youth's body heat either.
Until today—the third day.
Silas walked closer to his desk, his fingertips sliding across the surface. Next to the pen holder on the corner of the desk sat an opened pack of mints; a black, high-capacity power bank occupied an outlet; and shoved right into the crevices of a folder clamping a stack of full-English literature was a sports magazine flipped halfway through.
This office was no longer his solitary island. It looked as if a high-energy young beast had used its own scent and belongings to construct a warm haven piece by piece.
"Hunter Huo."
Silas set down his thermos, turned around, and looked at the youth who was crouched beside the filing cabinet, busy with God-knows-what.
"Present!" Hunter snapped upright, his hand still pinching a bright, orange-yellow box. He wore a white hoodie today, and his messy blonde hair looked somewhat translucent under the afternoon sun. The entire picture of him looked fuzzy and soft—the spitting image of a large dog busy hiding a bone.
"Are you planning to move your dormitory in here?" Silas extended a finger, gesturing vaguely toward the items on the desk that did not belong to him. His tone carried its usual steady chill, yet it hid a trace of indulgence that even he failed to notice.
"No way," Hunter said as he naturally slid open the topmost drawer of Silas's desk.
"What are you doing?" Silas frowned, wanting to stop him, but it was already too late.
He watched as Hunter carefully tucked that box of orange-flavored throat lozenges into an empty gap within the drawer, even meticulously aligning the box so it sat perfectly straight. Without looking up, he replied, "There's no need to move my dorm stuff here; that's all going to be moved into our home. This place is small, so I'm just leaving a few essentials."
"...This is an office," Silas emphasized. He felt it necessary to restate the solemnity of an academic venue.
"I know."
Hunter finally finished fiddling with the box of mints. He straightened his waist, took a couple of long strides, and closed the distance between himself and Silas in two or three steps.
Silas instinctively wanted to take a step back, but his spine struck the edge of the desk. Hunter didn't lean in carelessly like he used to; instead, he bent his waist slightly, bracing both hands on the edge of the desk to trap Silas halfway within his embrace.
His handsome, aggressively sharp face expanded slowly in Silas's vision, finally halting at a distance of less than ten centimeters.
The proximity was excessive.
Silas could count the arc of Hunter's eyelashes, and he could see his own slightly flustered reflection captured deep within the youth's pupils. The aggressive Alpha pheromones on Hunter had been reined in beautifully, yet the scorching vitality belonging to a young boy burned its way across the air, inch by inch.
"But Professor, this place is filled with nothing but your scent. It's so cold and detached, without a single shred of domestic warmth." Hunter's voice suddenly dropped, carrying a texture like sandpaper scraping against the tip of one's heart. "If I don't leave more of my things here, if I don't mess this place up a little, how will you ever get used to my scent? What if one day I'm not by your side and you forget about me?"
Within those bright eyes, a possessive desire named "Insecurity" was written clear as day.
In a world teeming with glands and compatibility scales, this Alpha was using the most clumsy, primitive method—deploying his personal effects—to try and carve a permanent brand onto his lover's life.
Silas's breath hitched.
He felt his heart gripped tightly by a warm hand, and a sour yet sweet emotion surged through his blood vessels. He wanted to say, "This is a place of work, cut out the fooling around." He wanted to say, "You are severely violating the 5S order of the laboratory." He wanted to say, "Who on earth acts as shamelessly as you, forcing a nest into someone else's territory?"
Even the harsh academic vocabulary had reached the tip of his tongue, but the moment he collided with Hunter's eyes—flooded with anticipation and a hint of a pout—every defensive wall collapsed into ruin.
Silas averted his gaze, staring at the puppy mug on the desk as his Adam's apple bobbed lightly.
"...Put the throat lozenges in the second drawer."
His voice was very soft, carrying the residual warmth of surrender. "Don't put them in the first one. I keep my experimental logbooks there; don't mix them up."
Hunter froze for a full three seconds before his eyes lit up like stars ignited in an instant. He straightened up abruptly, breaking into a brilliant, victorious smile, his fox-like cunning practically overflowing.
"Understood! Professor Shen!"
Moving at lightning speed, he pulled the drawer open again, transferring the lozenge box from the first slot to the second, huming a tune that was entirely out of pitch while he did it.
Silas watched his busy silhouette and let out a silent sigh.
He looked down at his own lab coat and discovered that it, too, seemed to have collected a hint of orange scent. The smell wasn't intrusive; rather, it felt like a secret protection, adding an unspeakable stroke of brightness to his otherwise monotonous, clockwork research life.
In his mind, he silently crossed out a line of experimental records regarding "environmental interference factors," writing instead a conclusion he didn't even dare to look at directly.
Within this gambit of "nesting," Silas discovered that he hadn't just grown used to those small objects—he had actually begun to look forward to the youth who would smile so flamboyantly at him whenever he pushed open the door each morning.