Work Text:
No one suspected Gao Tu.
To the world—and especially to Shen Wenlang—he was a Beta. Efficient. Detached. Invisible. The perfect secretary: low-maintenance, competent, unremarkable.
And then came that night.
What happened wasn't gentle, wasn't romantic. It wasn’t even coherent. It was desperation and bitterness, poured into skin and sweat and shadows. Shen Wenlang used him like a balm for his own venom,and Gao Tu, so tired of loving in silence, let himself believe just for that moment that he mattered.
Just for that night, he let himself be an Omega.
And for that, he paid the price.
Gao Tu had planned his escape: an abortion appointment booked in another city, his resignation letter folded in his desk drawer, a one-room flat rented in a dusty lane where no one would think to look. He would vanish, as quietly as he had served.
But fate had other plans.
Two men in dark suits came before he could run. No explanations, no chance to fight. They brought him to a velvet-lined study and left him kneeling in front of Shen Yu—the patriarch.
“You’re carrying an heir,” Shen Yu said, his voice like frozen steel. “Your job is over. You’ll marry my son.”
Gao Tu had laughed bitterly. “He doesn’t even want me.”
"I don't care what feelings my son lacks. He's disgraced me long enough. He'll marry you, and this baby will be born into our name."
Then came the final cruelty: Gao Tu’s father, half-drunk, emerged from the shadows—laughing over crisp bills. Bought and sold again.
The man who had gambled away their family home was now gambling away his child.
Gao Tu had no fight left in him.
Maybe, deep down, he still believed Shen Wenlang would step in. Would say no. Would save him.
But Shen Wenlang quietly signed the marriage certificate. No hesitation. No explanation.
He never spoke of the night they shared.
Pregnancy made everything worse.
He didn’t want to carry this child. He hated every second of the growing swell in his body, the nausea, the aching bones. He hated how his hormones betrayed him—how his Omega biology stripped away the Beta mask he had worn like armor.
He hated how Shen Wenlang didn’t even flinch.
The Alpha didn’t touch him once. Not during the medical checkups. Not when he threw up on expensive carpets. Not when Gao Tu cried quietly in the bath, terrified of the future.
And after birth? It was no better.
He was forced into silks and sleep schedules. Given a nursery staff and a diet plan. But nothing—nothing—could make Gao Tu feel less like a prisoner.
He didn’t bond with the baby.
Couldn’t.
The baby looked like Shen Wenlang. Sounded like him when he cried.
Gao Tu never asked why Shen Wenlang agreed to marry him. He no longer cared. Shen was silent, composed, and cold as steel. Never cruel. Never kind. He never once looked at Gao Tu with softness. Just polite indifference.
And Shen Yu—oh, Shen Yu made it worse.
He insisted Gao Tu attend “etiquette refinement” in the west wing. Because if you were a street-bred Omega carrying a legacy child, you had to be scrubbed clean. Trained. Molded.
Each morning began with posture drills, smile correction, and silent walk training.
Each mistake earned him a flick across the knuckles.
Each insult from Shen Yu was scalpel-precise:
“Even now, your scent is cheap. No refinement.”
“That baby might be Alpha-born, but the dirt from your blood might stick.”
“You think being a secretary prepared you to raise my heir?”
That night, Gao Tu sat on the nursery floor, robe sliding off one shoulder as he nursed the child he didn’t know how to love.
He looked beautiful in that tragic way. Styled, soft, tired. His hair curled neatly from the Omega standard grooming, but his eyes were hollow.
He fed in silence. Not from affection—but because it was required. Like brushing teeth or filing taxes.
And Shen Wenlang watched.
Like always.
Like a ghost at the edge of every feeding hour, hovering in the doorway, silent and unreadable.
At first, Gao Tu had ignored it.
But he felt it now.
That gaze didn’t feel neutral anymore.
It drifted—like a hungry tide—from the baby, to the chest pressed under damp cotton, to the collarbone slick with sweat. Lingered too long on the way Gao Tu winced during nursing, the softest hiss of pain escaping his lips.
Gao Tu’s jaw tensed. He didn’t look up.
Shen Wenlang said nothing. But the air changed.
Pheromones—barely noticeable.
That wasn’t interest.
It was possession.
And that terrified him more than hatred ever could.
The cradle rocked gently by the bay window, catching the early morning sunlight that slipped through the heavy silk curtains. The room was silent except for the soft, wet sounds of a newborn nursing.
Gao Tu sat hunched at the edge of the bed, his silk nightrobe wrinkled and stained with faint patches of milk. His eyes were hollow. Shoulders slumped. Body aching. The child nestled against his chest, tiny fists curling and uncurling while suckling—oblivious to the storm churning inside the body that kept him alive.
His spine flared with pain—the latest punishment from Shen Yu’s brutal “disciple training.” Red stripes marked his back like cruel brushstrokes. The memory of the thin cane lashing against his skin still echoed in every breath.
The milk had come late again this morning. The baby had wailed in hunger, frantic and inconsolable.
Shen Wenlang had walked in. Their eyes met—again.
He stood in the doorway, gaze locked on Gao Tu as he nursed in pain, robe loosened, tears barely dried. There was something in the Alpha’s eyes—hot, sharp, unreadable. But like always, Shen Wenlang said nothing.
Not a word of comfort. Not a glance of apology.
Not even to the baby.
He had never once held him.
Since giving birth, life had only gotten worse.
The baby was healthy, sharp-eyed, loud-lunged. But Gao Tu… Gao Tu didn’t know how to love him. Every cry felt like an alarm bell. Every feeding a punishment. Every lullaby a lie.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He had dreamed once of running away. A cheap apartment. Peace. Quiet. Dignity.
But instead, he was caged in silk. A trophy Omega no one respected. The man he once loved hadn’t touched him since that night—except in glances that lingered too long.
The house never wanted him. Just the heir.
And Gao Tu… hated himself more with each sunrise.
That afternoon, Gao Tu stood in the garden, hoping the wind would cool the fire beneath his skin. He had barely slept. The marks on his back throbbed. The baby’s cries haunted every silence. He hadn’t laughed in months. Hadn’t felt like a person in even longer.
He didn’t hear the door creak open, but he knew who it was. He always did. Shen Wenlang’s footsteps were impossible to forget. They made his stomach twist.
"I'm not doing it anymore," Gao Tu whispered.
"What?" came Shen’s low voice.
Gao Tu turned around—lashes clumped from crying, eyes shining with rage he hadn’t let himself feel in years. “I said I’m done! I’m done, Shen Wenlang!” His voice cracked. “I regret it. Marrying you. Giving birth in this golden cage—every goddamn moment of it!”
Shen Wenlang froze. His jaw clenched.
“I want to go,” Gao Tu said, quieter now. “Let me go. Please. I won’t ask for anything. Just let me disappear.”
For a beat, silence.
Then the Alpha laughed. Cruel. Cold.
“Of course,” he said. “You must miss your shitty little life. What was it? A crumbling apartment and a gambling father? Dressing up in knockoff suits to look professional while borrowing money for your sister’s hospital bills? So noble. So proud.”
Gao Tu’s breath hitched, stunned. The tears came again—but they burned differently this time.
“I lived with dignity,” he spat. “I worked hard. I never used anyone. I never wanted your money. Or your house. ”
He shook, furious and breaking. “You think you’re better than your father. But you’re just like him.”
The words cut deep.
Gao Tu tried to move past him. Shen Wenlang grabbed his wrist.
"Shut up," the Alpha snapped.
"Let go of me!"
“Say it again. Say you regret being mine.”
“I do!” Gao Tu shouted. “I regret it all!”
And then Shen Wenlang snapped.
He shoved him back onto the bed.
The sheets rustled violently as Gao Tu landed, startled. His eyes went wide, body freezing under the sudden force. Shen loomed above him—closer than he’d ever been since the night. Closer than he had a right to be.
“You want someone else, is that it?” Shen growled. “Someone to coo at you? Whisper how beautiful you are? Rub your feet and beg for your scent?”
Gao Tu turned his face away. “Don’t—”
“You married me. Bore my child. You’re mine, Gao Tu. And we’re not done until we die.”
The possessiveness made Gao Tu's blood run cold.
Then Shen's gaze dropped—to Gao Tu’s chest.
To the way the robe had slipped slightly open. To the raw, swollen skin where the baby had fed moments ago. The faint scent of postpartum Omega phermones filled the air, intimate and involuntary.
Shen moved without thinking.
His lips closed around Gao Tu’s nipple—hot breath washing over his skin. Teeth grazed, possessive, almost angry.
Gao Tu’s scream caught in his throat.
“Stop! What the fuck are you doing?!”
Then a sound shattered everything—
The baby’s cry from the cradle.
Both men froze.
Reality returned like ice water. Shen pulled back, breath erratic, shame and confusion flickering briefly before he turned cold again. Gao Tu lay still, chest rising and falling in sobs, face wet with tears.
Shen looked at him—looked at what he had done.
Then he left.
No apology. No word.
Just the quiet click of the door behind him.
Gao Tu didn’t move.
Not even as the baby cried again, louder now. He curled into himself, sobbing harder, the shame and despair clashing in waves. Minutes passed. The child’s wails pierced the walls.
Finally, legs shaking, Gao Tu dragged himself up.
He stumbled to the cradle, scooped the child into his arms, and held him close—body wracked with sobs.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this.”
The baby whimpered, then settled slowly, cheek pressed against the hollow of his throat.
And in that moment, Gao Tu understood: he wasn’t living.
He was surviving.
Day by day. Breath by breath. Not for himself—but for the tiny, sleeping weight in his arms.
And outside the door, Shen Wenlang leaned against the wall, jaw clenched.
He didn’t hear the apology.
He only heard the baby’s cry.
And the silence that followed.
Shen Wenlang didn’t knock.
He pushed open the doors to his father’s study like they owed him nothing.
Shen Yu didn’t look up from his desk. “Bold,” he murmured, voice steeped in cold amusement. “Breaking protocol in your own house?”
The door clicked shut behind Wenlang. His steps were measured. Not hesitant—just held back, like he was bracing the leash of something bigger than anger.
“Stop the training.”
Shen Yu finally glanced up, one brow arching. “Is this about discipline, or about the Omega you’re trying too hard not to imprint on?”
“Stop making him come here,” Wenlang said, voice tight. “Stop touching him. Stop parading him like a stray you’ve scrubbed clean to amuse guests. It ends now.”
His father leaned back in his chair, folding his hands. “You’ve grown emotional.”
Wenlang’s jaw worked silently.
“This is precisely why bloodlines like ours never used to mix with household-class Omegas.”
“He’s not household-class anymore.”
“Oh? Because he gave birth to your child?” Shen Yu’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “That makes him dynasty now?”
“I’m not here to debate breeding charts,” Wenlang said coolly. “I’m telling you. He won’t attend another session. Not yours. Not anyone’s.”
Tension stretched between them like glass—thinned and ready to splinter.
“And if he disobeys?” Shen Yueming asked, voice like silk over steel.
Wenlang didn’t blink. “He won’t.”
His father stood slowly. “Let me remind you, Wenlang—sentiment is a luxury we don’t afford in this family. That Omega you’re shielding? He’s an accident you’re already overpaying to fix.”
Wenlang stepped forward, calm and sharp. “Then let me keep paying. But if you ever touch him again—if you so much as raise your voice in his direction—there won’t be a family left to impress.”
Silence followed. Dense. Absolute.
Shen Yu studied him, something dark behind his stare. “You’ll regret raising his worth higher than his role.”
But Wenlang was already turning away.
He left without another word, the door shutting behind him with the soft finality of a choice that could never be undone.
The morning after was unnervingly… quiet.
No footsteps in the hallway. No knock at dawn. No cold summons from the west wing.
Gao Tu blinked against the pale sunlight slipping through gauzy curtains. The baby slept peacefully beside him, tiny chest rising and falling in a cradle he still felt unworthy of.
He sat up. Still no noise.
Worried, he opened the door and found a passing maid. “Did they forget?” he asked, quietly.
She looked surprised. “Master Shen Wenlang informed the elder master this morning: there will be no more training. You’re not to be disturbed anymore.”
Gao Tu stared.
“Oh. I... see.”
“Would you like breakfast in the garden today?” she asked.
He hesitated, disoriented—but nodded.
Maybe Shen Yu was busy. Maybe they’d simply tired of correcting a thing they still wouldn’t call human.
But it didn’t matter.
For the first time in what felt like years, he wasn’t being dragged.
No knuckle-slaps for posture. No lessons on how to sit like porcelain, speak like glass.
So he breathed.
He took his breakfast slowly, savoring it like a man who hadn’t been allowed to chew in peace. Toast with warm butter. Soft soy milk. His baby on his lap, chubby arms waving lazily under morning sun.
He even napped that afternoon—with the baby curled beside him like something safe and soft.
By evening, he brewed his own tea.
The terrace was cool. The leaves in the garden rustled with life, not tension. On a borrowed tablet, he played a silly comedy show he remembered from his student days. Laughter—his own—escaped without warning.
The baby cooed. Gao Tu giggled back, exaggerating the voices for fun.
That’s when Shen Wenlang returned.
He froze on the stairwell. The sound stopped him cold.
Laughter. Real. Light. Free.
His throat tightened.
By the time he reached the lounge, the tablet had been shut and Gao Tu sat up, wary, rigid.
“You’re home early,” he said, voice careful.
Shen Wenlang swallowed the urge to say Don’t stop laughing because I walked in. Instead: “Go take a bath. We’re going out.”
Suspicion flickered in Gao Tu’s eyes—but he obeyed.
The restaurant was too elegant. No menus, just murmured dishes, linen like silk. But Gao Tu barely touched the food.
“You don’t like it?” Wenlang asked.
“It’s fine.”
“What do you want?”
Gao Tu hesitated, embarrassed. “There’s a stall near my old place. Fried buns. Spicy noodles. I used to go after night shifts... It wasn’t fancy, but it felt warm.”
Shen stood. “Let’s go.”
“What?”
“We’re going.”
The car ride was quiet, but not tense.
Gao Tu leaned against the window. And when they arrived—when Shen Wenlang stood beside him, chopsticks in hand, eating street food under neon light with barely-disguised effort—something softened in his chest.
Back home, the baby was asleep.
Gao Tu moved to check the crib, but Wenlang touched his wrist gently. “He’s fine.”
Gao Tu flinched. Wenlang stepped back.
“Did you like today?”
“…Yes.”
“You’ll have more.”
He started to turn, but Gao Tu’s voice stopped him. “Why?”
Wenlang turned his head slightly. “Why what?”
“Why are you being... like this?”
There were a thousand practiced answers.
But none felt true.
So Wenlang murmured, “Because I don’t want to be someone you cry around anymore.”
He left before the silence could answer.
Gao Tu stood in the quiet nursery, looking at his son’s sleeping face. Then knelt beside the crib, pulled out a small bag of leftover rice cakes, and held them in his lap.
Tears slipped down his cheeks. But this time, they didn’t sting.
They just… fell.
Gao Tu woke the next morning unsure if he’d dreamed the night before.
The laughter, the noodles, the gentle wrist touch.
Even Shen Wenlang’s voice saying “I don’t want to be someone you cry around anymore.”
It lingered like steam in winter—warm, fleeting, suspicious.
His instinct was to retreat. To chalk it all up to Shen Wenlang's momentary guilt. He had learned long ago that kindness often carried a shadow. That men like Shen Wenlang didn’t stay kind.
Still… the softness of yesterday pressed against his ribs like the ghost of a different life.
In the nursery, the baby gurgled awake. Gao Tu lifted him gently and kissed his forehead, murmuring a lullaby that had no tune, only rhythm—a sound he had made up just to soothe his son. The little one cooed and pressed his hand to Gao Tu’s jaw, milk breath warm between them.
That should’ve been enough.
But his mind wandered. Will today be the same? Or will they send me back to etiquette drills like it never happened?
When the butler came to deliver breakfast, he didn’t mention any training. Just bowed and informed him softly, “Master Shen Wenlang said you may use the garden today if you wish. Weather is gentle.”
Gao Tu nodded, murmured a thanks. But the confusion curled tighter in his chest.
In a quiet clinic far from the Shen estate, under a pseudonym, Shen Wenlang sat across from a therapist.
The room was spare. Wood panels. No legacy breathing down his collar.
“Start wherever you need,” the woman said.
Wenlang stared at his hands. “I… don’t really talk like this.”
“Then don’t talk. Just be.”
Silence.
Then—like a stuck gear loosening—he exhaled. “I think I hurt someone I love.”
She nodded, gently. “Your partner?”
A pause. “My… spouse. Yes.”
“What did you do?”
Wenlang looked up slowly. “I let him live in a house that resented him. I let my father discipline him. I let him cry in silence because I didn’t know how to reach him. I didn’t think I was allowed to care.”
The therapist’s gaze was steady, but warm. “And now?”
“Now it’s too late. Every time I try to be kind, he flinches. Like I’m about to snap again.” Wenlang’s voice cracked at the edges. “He asked to leave. Begged. I said cruel things. I pushed him. And when he cried, I wanted to disappear.”
“And your child?”
“I’ve never held him.”
A beat.
She leaned forward. “Maybe don’t try to fix everything at once. Start with one thing. One honest thing. Pick up your son.”
Wenlang didn’t speak. But something shifted in his posture.
Gao Tu curled on the window bench, baby asleep in his arms, eyes watching the faint stars appear behind glass. The silence in the house felt different. Not heavy. Just… unfamiliar.
The door creaked open.
Shen Wenlang stepped in, slower than usual.
Gao Tu looked up, instinct bracing for command—but none came.
“May I?” Wenlang asked, nodding toward the baby.
Gao Tu blinked. “You…?”
“I want to hold him.”
Carefully, Gao Tu stood and passed the small bundle over. Their fingers touched briefly.
The baby stirred but didn’t cry.
Shen Wenlang froze with the tiny weight in his arms. He held him like something sacred and terrifying. Like he might shatter it just by breathing wrong.
“He’s warm,” he said softly, as if surprised. “His hands are small.”
“They always curl like that when he sleeps,” Gao Tu murmured.
A pause.
“I never knew what to say to him,” Wenlang admitted. “Or to you.”
“You didn’t have to say anything,” Gao Tu said, quietly. “But you did. And it always hurt.”
Wenlang looked up. “I know. I’m sorry.”
The apology was so sudden, so unguarded, that Gao Tu didn’t know where to place it. It didn’t sound like a line. It sounded like truth, cracked and stitched and held together by effort.
He didn’t respond. Couldn’t.
But he didn’t leave the room either.
They sat like that—an Alpha, an Omega, and the child who never asked for a throne—bathed in starlight, the tension between them gentling into something tentative.
Not trust.
But maybe the beginning of something that could hold it.
The first time Gao Tu woke up and found the crib already empty, his heart plummeted.
He sat up, frantic. The sun hadn’t even risen yet, and dread pooled in his chest like poison. The baby never woke without crying—never slept without his scent nearby.
But then he heard it.
A faint murmur from the hallway. Low, unfamiliar.
He slipped quietly to the nursery door, holding his breath. What he saw made his fingers tighten against the frame.
Shen Wenlang stood with the baby in his arms, shirt rumpled, hair slightly mussed, whispering nonsense in a voice that didn’t sound like it belonged to him. He bounced slowly, awkwardly, like someone learning a dance step from memory.
“You like pacing, don’t you?” Shen murmured, his tone so soft it barely reached Gao Tu’s ears. “Figured out your tricks already.”
The baby cooed. Shen smiled. It wasn’t practiced. It wasn’t cold.
Gao Tu retreated without a sound, returning to bed, his thoughts scattered like ash.
When Shen returned twenty minutes later and gently tucked the baby back into the crib, Gao Tu pretended to be asleep.
But he didn’t miss the way Shen paused by the bed.
Didn’t miss the ghost of a hand hovering near his hair—and pulling away just before it made contact.
The small changes didn’t stop.
At first, Gao Tu convinced that Wenlang had grown bored of apathy and was now experimenting with slow kindness just to see how long it would take to unravel him again.
But days passed.
Then a week.
No training. No corrections. No verbal slaps disguised as status reminders.
Instead, there were quieter things.
“I’m afraid I’ll break him.”
Shen Wenlang’s voice didn’t tremble. But the admission was raw—grated out like metal bent past its will.
The therapist glanced up from her notes, expression still, patient. “Break him… emotionally? Or physically?”
Shen hesitated.
“…Both.”
She said nothing at first. Just let the silence settle in the room like dust on an untouched shelf.
He exhaled, fingers clasped tightly together, knuckles pale.
“I’ve wanted him for years,” he said. “Even when I thought he was a Beta. Maybe especially then. He never flinched when I barked orders. Never lowered his eyes like the others. He was just… there. Constant. Quiet. Steady.”
His voice dipped lower.
“Then that night happened. I touched him without thinking. I wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t even conscious. But he let me.” His throat bobbed. “And now I can’t stop thinking about it. About him. And the things I want to do to him—”
He stopped himself. Rubbed a hand across his mouth.
“I think about how he smells after nursing. The way his throat tightens when he cries but tries not to. I think about touching him every time I pass his room. Every time he bends to pick up our son. I think about bending him over the silk sheets he sleeps on alone.”
The words felt filthy.
But she didn’t flinch. She simply asked, “And when you do think of that, what do you feel?”
Shen Wenlang didn’t answer immediately.
He stared at the floor. Then said, quietly, “Shame.”
“Because you want him?”
“Because I don’t know how to want him without… taking.”
The words ached. They scraped up the throat like rusted nails.
“I’m not good with softness,” he admitted. “I can’t… speak it. I can’t ask. So I act. But with him, every instinct I have feels wrong. Like I’m always on the edge of hurting what I want to protect.”
He looked up.
“When I held him down on the bed… that day… and I said those things—I told myself it was dominance. A reminder that I was in control. But the truth?”
He closed his eyes for a moment.
“The truth is I panicked. I was scared he’d leave. I didn’t know how to stop him without… making him stay the only way I knew how. I became my father.”
The therapist’s voice was soft now. “Do you believe you love him?”
Shen let out a bitter half-laugh. “What the hell does that mean to someone like me?”
Shen Wenlang looked away.
The therapist set down her pen.
Then, very softly, he asked, “And when I’m ready to touch him again… properly?”
“You’ll know,” she said. “Because he’ll look at you—and not flinch.”
the breeze was kind. The sun was warm. And his son’s tiny body had finally stopped fussing long enough to surrender to nap.
He didn’t hear Shen Wenlang approach until a quiet blanket was draped over his shoulders.
Gao Tu didn’t flinch anymore.
He looked up, eyes still a little tired, and whispered, “Thanks.”
Wenlang sat beside him, just far enough not to intrude. His sleeves brushed Gao Tu’s only slightly when he moved.
No heat. No hunger. Just… quiet presence.
Neither said anything for a while.
Lele shifted in his sleep, soft baby sounds escaping from parted lips. Gao Tu adjusted him automatically, one hand rubbing small, absentminded circles on his back.
“You’ve changed,” Gao Tu said suddenly.
Wenlang glanced at him, but didn’t interrupt.
Gao Tu’s voice was calmer now. “You leave breakfast for me even when you’re gone. You walk slower. You speak less.” He smiled, a bit dryly. “You even knock.”
Wenlang looked down at his hands. “I’m trying.”
Gao Tu nodded. “I know.”
The wind picked up for a moment, carrying with it the faint scent of magnolia.
Wenlang’s voice, when it came again, was softer. “I never knew how to be gentle. Not with anyone. I only knew what control felt like. And when you were thrown into my world like something I didn’t earn—I was cruel. Because I didn’t know how to care without hurting.”
Silence.
“I’m still learning,” he said. “But I want to learn with you. Only if you’ll let me.”
Gao Tu looked at him, long and quiet.
The lines on his face were softer these days. Less carved by anger. More by effort.
He didn’t say I forgive you.
He didn’t say I love you.
But he leaned his head, slowly, cautiously, until it rested on Shen Wenlang’s shoulder.
And that was enough.
Lele let out a sigh in his sleep, one tiny fist curling in the blanket.
The sun filtered through the blossoms above them, and in the stillness of that moment, surrounded by past bruises and present breath, something fragile and whole began to bloom between them.
Not a perfect love.
But a growing one.
One that didn’t grip too tightly.
One that learned to stay.
Lele was three and a half now.
He ran through the courtyard barefoot, ribbons tied around his wrists like wings. Somewhere near the koi pond, he giggled loud enough to rattle the birds from the trees. Gao Tu could hear him through the window, the small voice that always made his heart twist with both fear and awe.
It was a perfect day.
Which made what happened next all the more cruel.
Gao Tu stood hunched over the bathroom sink, trembling.
The stick in his hand shook.
Two pink lines.
He vomited again, stomach clenching, body folding into itself like it remembered too well.
The bruises he no longer wore on his back were phantom pains now. The sting of being strapped into silk while bleeding. The ache of feeding a child with cracked nipples and no comfort. The shame, the loneliness, the coldness of that sterile delivery room—
Alone.
He washed his face slowly.
Then walked straight to Shen Wenlang’s study room.
The Alpha looked up from his desk when the door opened.
He stood the moment he saw Gao Tu’s face.
But Gao Tu didn’t let him speak.
“I’m pregnant,” he said, voice raw, as if the truth had scraped up his throat on its way out.
Shen Wenlang blinked. A beat of silence. Then—he took a step forward, cautiously.
“I—”
“No.” Gao Tu held up a hand, shoulders taut. “Let me ask you this time.”
His eyes were wet. His knuckles white around the test.
“Will you ignore it again?” he asked. “Will you be polite and quiet and cold while I throw up for weeks? While I cry alone in that same bed and pray I don’t die again? Will you act like it’s all happening to someone else?”
Wenlang’s face crumpled ever so slightly—but Gao Tu’s voice only grew louder, brittle with hurt:
“Will you wait in the hall while I scream in labor? Or will you come in just to sign something and leave again? Because if you’re going to do it like last time—just say it now. Let me know what I’m walking into.”
The pain had been buried for years. But it never went away.
Wenlang stepped closer, very slowly, like any sudden move might shatter what little trust they’d built.
“No,” he said hoarsely. “God—no, Tu.”
He reached for the test gently, fingers brushing Gao Tu’s. “I didn’t know how to be there. I didn’t even know how to love you then. But I do now.”
Gao Tu looked up, expression unreadable.
Shen Wenlang dropped to his knees before him—not out of drama, but as if the weight of his guilt finally pulled him down.
“I’ll be there for everything,” he said. “From the nausea to the appointments. You won’t go to the hospital without me. I’ll hold your hand every time you cry. I’ll be the one to massage your ankles and rub your back and sleep on the floor if your body hurts too much. I won’t vanish again.”
He pressed his forehead to Gao Tu’s stomach. “You’re not alone. You never will be again.”
For a long time, Gao Tu didn’t move.
Then slowly—hesitantly—his hand reached out and tangled in Wenlang’s hair.
It was not forgiveness. Not yet.
But it was something.
When Lele came inside minutes later, looking for a snack and blinking at the strange scene in the room, he found both his parents curled together on the floor—one still shaking, the other silent, holding him close like a promise.