The sofa tipped over without warning.
Yan Qingdu broke Ye Yizhou's fall.
Ye Yizhou lifted his head from Yan Qingdu's body, and the two exchanged a silent look.
Awkwardness hung in the air.
"Are you okay?" Ye Yizhou asked, both embarrassed and worried.
Yan Qingdu shook his head. "I'm fine. You?"
Ye Yizhou shook his head too, glancing at the overturned sofa. "It might not be."
Yan Qingdu followed Ye Yizhou's gaze. He could say that again.
"A textbook example of how not to flirt. Let this be a lesson, Young Master Yan."
Bracing one hand against the floor, Ye Yizhou rose to one knee and got up, then held a hand out to Yan Qingdu, not forgetting to tease him.
Yan Qingdu took Ye Yizhou's hand and used it to pull himself up off the floor.
"All right. Let's both learn from it, little young master," Yan Qingdu said with a solemn nod.
Bang, bang, bang.
A burst of urgent knocking came from the bedroom door.
"What happened? What happened? Zhouzhou? Yan Qingdu! Talk things out. Don't actually start fighting!"
Qin Yunzhi's anxious voice came from outside.
Qin Yunzhi had heard a loud crash downstairs and gotten a fright. She had hurried up to check, only to find their bedroom door tightly shut, which made her heart clench even harder.
"We're not fighting," Ye Yizhou called back.
"I'll get the door."
Yan Qingdu walked over as he spoke. Opening the door to see his mother standing outside with worry written all over her face, he reassured her softly, "We weren't fighting. Just playing around."
Ye Yizhou followed behind Yan Qingdu and echoed him. "We really weren't fighting."
Qin Yunzhi's gaze swept back and forth between them. Neither showed any obvious signs of a fight, but that loud crash