Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The night market buzzed with movement—neon lights flashing, the murmur of haggling voices mixing with clinking glass and the occasional shout. Somewhere behind the rows of carts, someone was playing old pop music through a distorted speaker.

Wu Suo Wei kept his head down, cap pulled low over his eyes as he arranged a new batch of sugar figures on the rack. They glinted under the harsh white bulb of his stand—swans, dragons, twisted flowers—delicate, fragile things.

People were moving away from the main street.

He noticed it gradually—the way neighboring stalls were packing up, how voices dropped and eyes flicked toward something behind him. He straightened and glanced to his side. An older vendor with a cart full of skewered candied fruit had already started to roll it back toward the alley. The tension moved like a ripple through the crowd—silent but undeniable.

He turned to the old man beside him, whose cart was still open, still steaming. “What’s going on?”

The man didn’t look up from his folding table. "Management check. Probably the city again. You have your permit?"

Wu Suo Wei frowned. “Do you?”

A smile tugged at the old man’s lips, dry and unimpressed. "Kid, I’ve been doing this longer than you've been alive. I don’t need a slip of paper—Here we have Hei." He gestured with his chin toward a vendor across the street.

That vendor was tall. Broad. His tank top revealed thick arms roped with muscle. He stood in front of his stall like a guard dog.

Wu Suo Wei narrowed his eyes just in time to see three men approaching—two in plain clothes flanking one in a sharp black suit. Tall, straight-backed, untouchable. There was something dangerous in the way he walked. Not loud, not fast. Just... assured. Like someone used to taking what he wanted.

One man approached Hei, saying something Wu Suo Wei couldn't catch. The vendor didn't hesitate—he kicked the speaker square in the chest, sending him stumbling back.

A beat later, an apple flew through the air—clean arc, perfect aim—headed straight for the third man.

This one caught it with one hand, mid-air.

Then he threw it back—hard—straight into the vendor’s chest. It hit with a heavy thump, knocking the breath from the man’s lungs. He staggered, then roared and charged forward.

It should have been a fight.

But it wasn’t.

The punch from Hei missed. But the black-suited man stepped in with a movement so fluid it barely registered—and landed a single blow to Hei’s stomach. The man dropped down, gasping on the pavement.

Wu Suo Wei flinched hard.

His breath caught. His hands clenched around the wooden sticks of his sugar figures. The candy trembled.

It wasn’t the first fight he’d seen—but it was the ease that disturbed him. The cold precision. The indifference. Not even anger—just removal. His shoulders locked up, breath gone shallow like a held-in gasp. His jaw stiffened; a wave of nausea surged in his throat. His stomach tightened, legs weightless, as if the pavement had dropped from under him. The wooden sticks dug into his fingers. His vision blurred at the edges, darkening like a tunnel.

His mind flashed back—
to bruises he hadn’t earned, pain he’d never asked for, and nights when it didn’t stop.

Around him, the world didn’t wait.

One of the vendors pushed his cart away in a hurry. The old man beside him muttered, “Well, that’s my cue,” and did the same—leaving Wu Suo Wei standing alone, heart pounding, the candy in his hands growing stickier by the second.

He didn’t notice right away that he’d moved. One step back. Then another.

Then he turned. Not to run—just to leave. To get out.

And that was the moment the man in black looked up.

Their eyes locked.

Panic surged hot up his throat.

He turned away instantly, head down, cap tugged low like a shield. Maybe if he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, the man would lose interest. Maybe he’d disappear back into the crowd like this had never happened.

“Hey.”

The voice came from just behind him. Quiet. Low. Too close.

Wu Suo Wei froze.

His hands gripped the cart like a lifeline, fingers sticky, slick with sugar and sweat. His heart was too loud—his body too still.

Slowly, like peeling himself out of something tight and wrong, he turned around. Shoulders stiff. Legs unsteady. He kept his eyes low—until something dragged them up. Bit by bit. Like touching a bruise just to know it still hurt.

The man was taller than he remembered. Or maybe just closer. Composed. Watchful. Dangerous in a way that didn’t need words.

Their eyes met again.
Something twisted inside him—sharp, electric, like a nerve struck without warning.
It wasn’t fear of the unknown man.
It was fear of what his body did in response.

He forced a smile. Tight. Not friendly. Not quite anything.

But his pulse was a roar in his ears now. Muscles tense, lungs shallow. Every instinct screamed one thing—get out.

Before the man could speak again, he moved.

His hand shot out, grabbed a fistful of sugar figures and hurled them straight at the man’s face.

They hit with a crack.

One caught him at the temple. Another struck his cheekbone, sharp enough to make him flinch. The third bounced off his shoulder and shattered on the ground, splinters skidding in the wet.

Wu Suo Wei didn’t wait to see what came next, he turned and ran.

Not out of spite. Not to make a point.
Just to get away—
from the shock still ringing through his nerves,
from the memory stitched into his bones,
from the pain that wasn’t his—but felt like it was,
from the fear, sudden and rising,
not of the man—
but of the violence,
and what it might unlock in him.

Past blinking lanterns. Past the scent of fried oil and sweet smoke. Past the stall where he’d sold candy tigers with crooked eyes and sagging sugar dragons. The same streets, the same shadows—but now they closed in like a trap. His feet struck the pavement too loudly. Someone would hear. Someone would follow.

His breath caught in his throat as he reached the small clinic he called home. He yanked the glass door open hard enough to make it rattle and stumbled inside. Cool air hit him like a slap.

Inside, the fluorescent lights buzzed faintly. Jiang Xiao Shuai was standing at his desk. He looked over to his gasping friend.

“Da Wei, what's up? What got you so flustered?”

Wu Suo Wei raised both hands, palms open. “Don’t say anything,” he breathed, his voice still caught in the panic. “If someone comes—tall, black jacket, cold eyes—just say I’m not here.”

Xiao Shuai blinked. Then slowly, he nodded and gestured to the door at the side of the room. “Alright. Go. Quickly.”

Wu Suo Wei didn’t wait. He slipped past him, into the back, into the familiar small storeroom that smelled faintly of herbs and rubbing alcohol. He crouched beside the bunkbed, heart hammering, trying to breathe quietly, trying not to think about the way that man had looked at him. Or how something in his chest had twisted in reply.

Jiang Xiao Shuai’s eyes were still on the curtain that swung faintly from Wu Suo Wei’s rushed escape. His expression didn’t shift—not when the glass door opened again, not even when the sound of polished shoes crossed the threshold. Only when the footsteps slowed did he turn.

A man stepped in—tall, loose-limbed, dressed in a purple-orange shirt that clashed with the pale clinic walls. Not the black clothed man Wu Suo Wei mentioned. But maybe they stuck together somehow. His eyes swept the room with a kind of lazy sharpness—like he expected to be watched, and liked it. He looked out of place, like a man who’d walked into the wrong story on purpose. The kind of self-assurance that filled a room before he even spoke.

Their eyes met.

For a heartbeat, nothing moved.

The man at the door tilted his head slightly, as if surprised to find someone watching back with equal sharpness. And something flickered—curiosity, recognition.

Then the moment passed, smooth as breath, and the doctor spoke first.

Xiao Shuai’s voice stayed calm. “Is something wrong?”

“Looking for someone,” came the reply, smooth and amused.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Looking for you for diagnosis.”

A pause. Then Xiao Shuai gestured toward the plastic chair by the desk. “Alright. Have a seat.”

The stranger obeyed easily, he crossed one leg over the other and stretched an arm casually along the edge of the desk. His fingers brushed a patient file without interest. He leaned back just enough to suggest confidence rather than laziness, every movement measured—performed. He kept his eyes locked on his host the entire time.

Jiang Xiao Shuai sat across from him, picking up a pen again. “Go ahead. Where does it hurt?”

“Take a guess.”

“Gynecology issue,” he said flatly. “Turn left when you leave. Thirty meters. Line two. Straight to the hospital.”

That earned him a low chuckle. The visitor leaned forward across the desk. “You look really pretty.”

Jiang Xiao Shuai mirrored the motion slightly, his smile sharp and fleeting. “If you're cross-eye, just go to Tongren Hospital for treatment.”

The man rose, tilted his head, eyes fixed on the other man's face. “You like men, don't you?”

“Mental illness,” Jiang Xiao Shuai said without blinking. “Go get checked at a psychiatric hospital.”

They stared at each other.
The man reached forward, fingers brushing the ID clipped to the white coat.

“Jiang Xiao... Shuai,” he read slowly. “Small and handsome.”

The doctor didn’t blink. The grin only deepened.

“I’ll remember you.”

With that, he turned and left, the door clicking shut behind him.

For a moment, the clinic felt unnaturally still. The hum of the fluorescent lights returned, steady and cold, as if nothing had happened at all.

Only then did Jiang Xiao Shuai turn toward the swaying curtain and step through.

Wu Suo Wei sat on the lower bunk, back pressed to the wall, knees drawn up, arms wrapped loosely around them. The sheets beneath him were wrinkled, as if he’d crawled into them only halfway. One of his hands was clenched near his shin. The other hung limply, fingertips twitching once in the still air. His hair was damp with sweat that pooled down to his collarbones.

Jiang Xiao Shuai didn’t say anything at first. Just took him in—the uneven breathing, the tremble in his fingers, the strain was still etched into his posture.

He crossed the room slowly and crouched down in front of him, resting a hand lightly on his ankle. He didn’t ask if he was alright.

“What happened?”

Wu Suo Wei didn’t answer at first. Just sat there, breathing unevenly. When he finally looked up, his voice was hoarse. “They fought. Right in front of me. He just... wouldn’t stop.”

His face twitched, something flashing behind his eyes. “I thought I could handle it. I just didn’t expect—”

He broke off, jaw clenching. His body twitched once, then again.

“You’re not being followed,” he said. “He’s gone.”

Another pause. Wu Suo Wei gave a short nod, eyes still unfocused.

For a moment, there was only the low hum of the lights and the faint tick of the wall clock outside.

Then he muttered, almost like it wasn’t meant to be heard, “As if watching that shit wasn’t enough… now there’s that damn resonance pain again.”

Jiang Xiao Shuai’s brow furrowed. He glanced down at the way Wu Suo Wei was holding himself. “It’s been a while.”

“I hoped it was over,” he said hoarsely. “Guess not.” Wu Suo Wei let his head fall back against the wall.

He winced and shifted, bringing his right hand up to his temple for a moment. The motion sent a sharp sting through his knuckles, and his fingers curled instinctively before he let the hand drop to his knee. “It’s not that bad. Just caught me off guard.”

“You’ve had worse,” Jiang Xiao Shuai said, tone easy, almost casual—but the worry didn’t leave his eyes.

“Yeah that's true,” a shaky exhale. Wu Suo Wei flexed his right hand once, then winced. “Fuck. My knuckles.”

He looked down at them as if only now remembering what it felt like to throw a punch.

Jiang Xiao Shuai followed his gaze. “Want me to take a look?”

“Later.” Wu Suo Wei wiped his palm on the side of his pants, then drew his knees in tighter. “Did he see me?”

“No. I didn’t let him.”

The tension hadn’t left his shoulders—but his voice had lost some of the earlier edge. He breathed out, slowly.
“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Wu Suo Wei added, more to himself than anyone else: “Having a sadist on your ass is exhausting.”

His friend raised a brow. “Is that the official diagnosis?”

“Just a working theory.”

A pause. Then:

“I’m not doing that street shit anymore,” Wu Suo Wei said, eyes still fixed on the far wall. “It’s not worth it.”

Jiang Xiao Shuai didn’t say I told you so. He didn’t need to. Wu Suo Wei already looked like someone who’d heard it too many times.

The smaller man rubbed at his knuckles again, the sting still alive under the skin. A hollow exhaustion pressed behind his eyes, dulling the edges of everything else.

Having a soulmate was hell.

Chapter Text

Wu Suo Wei knew better than anyone—having a soulmate wasn’t some gift. It was hell. Years of pain and confusion had made that clear.

Since he was thirteen, hardly a week had passed without pain or pleasure—or a confusing mix of sensations both so tightly knotted he could never quite separate them.

Not that he had known what they meant back then.
The first time, he’d been sitting in class—head propped on one hand, half-listening to the droning voice at the front—when the ache bloomed sharp and sudden low in his stomach. It was so real he’d sucked in a breath, and knocked his chair back in shock, earning a dozen startled looks. By the time the school nurse had pressed a cool hand to his forehead and asked him where it hurt, the pain had already ebbed, leaving only a cold sweat on his neck and the uneasy sense that something, somewhere, had gone very wrong.

It never came the same way twice. Sometimes it was a bruise that seemed to bloom out of nowhere, skin tender to the touch though he’d never fallen. Sometimes it was a sharp throb deep in his crotch, the kind that made him shift in his seat without reason. Other times it was stranger—heat crawling up his spine, making him hard, the inside of his lip sore or bleeding, a shallow scrape on his back that he couldn’t remember earning.

The pain always hit at full force, but whatever it left behind was softer, blurred at the edges—a bruise instead of something worse, tenderness where there should have been real damage.

At first, he told himself it was nothing—growth spurts, bruises from playing too rough, even the headaches his mother swore came from spending too much time out in the sun. Even when he just woke up in the morning.

But those explanations didn’t hold when the sensations refused to follow any pattern—shifting without warning from ribs to jaw, from legs to fingertips.

It didn’t get truly bad until he was fourteen—when the pain finally drove him to the hospital for the first time. It had started in the middle of the night, sharp and unrelenting low in his side, building until every breath felt like it might split something open. He’d doubled over on the edge of his bed, sweat cooling on his skin, convinced something inside had torn.

The emergency room was bright, sterile, and far too cold. Nurses and Doctors pressed on his stomach, asked about injuries, ran tests that came back clean. No internal bleeding. No fractures. No explanation. Just the lingering ache and the strange, sinking certainty that whatever was wrong wasn’t something they could find.

It didn’t stop there. Over the next months, the episodes came back—sudden, intense, often in public. Once during grocery shopping. Once in the middle of the street. A teacher called an ambulance when he collapsed in the schoolyard. Another time, neighbors called the police after finding him doubled over on the front steps, barely able to speak. There was even a home visit from child services, their questions circling the same unspoken suspicion:
Who’s hurting you?

The psychiatric evaluation had been worse—hours of being watched, questioned, weighed and measured against invisible standards. He’d sat there, answering in clipped, polite tones, while inside his mind raced in circles. None of them understood. None of them could. How should they? When he couldn't either.

After that, he stopped looking for help. Every visit ended the same—shrugs, vague advice, and a bottle of painkillers. Years later, what unsettled him most wasn’t the pain itself, but the thought that no one had ever gotten close to the truth. If he’d been able to piece it together with a hours of searching online, surely the adults should have seen it first.

Before it even crossed his mind that the pain might not be his, it was already too late. The damage had sunk in—not on his skin, not in scars or bruises, but somewhere no one could see. His mind recoiled from things it once ignored; a scene in a film, a shouted insult on the street, the snap of bone in a book. Anything laced with violence or pain could send him spiraling—breath caught, chest locked, vision tunneling—until he was right back in it, feeling every blow as if it were his own.

It was the same cycle every time, and the same questions clawed at him after: What’s wrong with me? Why won’t it stop? The need for answers had driven him into countless late nights like this one.

He’d done this before — sitting hunched over the glow of the monitor long after the house had gone quiet, scrolling through page after page of half-baked theories and medical advice that never fit. Unexplained bruises. Idiopathic pain. Psychosomatic symptoms. Each term only led him deeper into the same cycle: doctor blogs, health forums, threads full of strangers asking questions no one could answer.

Tonight was no different. He clicked from one link to the next, skimming lists of rare disorders, reading about nerve damage, autoimmune flare-ups, even the possibility of hallucinated pain. Nothing matched. Nothing explained why the location of the ache changed without warning — from his ribs to his jaw to the base of his spine — or why sometimes it came with heat, almost like…

He stopped on a forum he didn’t remember opening. The thread title was simple, almost dismissive: “How pain can connect two people.”

It should have been another throwaway. Maybe he’d seen something like that before and ignored it, filed it away with the rest of the internet’s nonsense. But this time, he clicked.

The post wasn’t poetic. It read like someone logging symptoms: bruises appearing without cause, burns that fade in hours, phantom aches in sync with someone else’s injuries. The blog called it a soulmate bond — the kind you read about in fiction. In the comments some swore it was real. Others mocked the idea.

He didn’t care which side was right. All he could think was how perfectly the description fit. Too perfect. So much that for a moment, he had to sit back from the desk, hands idle in his lap, pulse loud in his ears.

Once the words were there — Soulmate, Bond — it was like a switch had flipped. He stopped skimming and started digging. Not the lazy, unhopeful, kind of browsing he’d done before, but the kind that kept his fingers moving over the keys, opening tabs faster than he could read them.

Articles, half-fiction blogs, personal accounts buried in comment sections — he devoured them all. He learned about the supposed “rules” of the bond, the way sensations could cross from one body to another. Most spoke of warmth, comfort, flashes of shared pleasure. A lucky few described an emotional pull, a sense of safety. Some claimed it was rare. Others swore it was ancient, older than any written record.

The deeper he went, the more the patterns lined up with his own life. The unexplained bruises. The heat that wasn’t fever. The moments that stole his breath for no reason. Keeping him awake for hours.

The kind he had — the kind built on pain — came up very rarely, almost as a warning. A handful of accounts, scattered and grim, each describing the same thing: injuries mirrored in perfect detail, bruises without cause, body reaction to the heat deep in his gut. And always, the same point repeated: the bond wasn’t random. A call. Destiny.

What Bullshit.

By the time he stopped, the first traces of dawn were slipping through the window. His eyes burned from the screen’s glow. And in the pit of his stomach, that strange, cold certainty had settled in — the one that said there was someone out there whose life was bleeding into his own. Every fight they started, every wound they took, every flash of heat or surge of fury leaving its mark on him. And no matter how far he ran, the connection never let go.

At first, he’d assumed the worst — that the person on the other end was being hurt. Someone trapped in something violent, maybe abused, maybe desperate. He felt for them. Made excuses on their behalf. Told himself they were a boxer, an athlete, a soldier — anything that could explain the bruises, the heat, the way pain bloomed in his body with no clear cause. But over time, the pattern sharpened. The injuries were too consistent, too targeted. The heat didn’t follow fear — it flared with rage, with enjoyment. And then he realized: those weren’t the wounds of someone getting beaten.
They were the kind you earned by hitting first. Earning pleasure through it.

You didn’t get to choose who it tied you to.

It made him sick sometimes — not just because of what it meant about them, his other part, but because of what it said about him. What kind of person shared a bond like that? What did it mean, to be tied to someone who lived through violence, who carried it like instinct? Who had a body that knew how to throw pain, not just feel it?

He didn’t want to know the answer. But the longer it went on, the harder it was to pretend he wasn’t part of it too.

It had been years since that night at the desk, the glow of the monitor burning into his eyes. Years since the word soulmate had stopped being fiction and started living like a splinter under his skin. It had given him answers, yes—but not the kind that eased anything. Knowing what it was hadn’t brought relief. If anything, it made the weight of it harder. Knowing that only death could end the connection.

On the worst days, the thought had brushed the edge of his mind — unwelcome, and gone before he could hold onto it. He never let it stay. But there all the same. But it left its mark, a shadow he carried even when the pain wasn’t there.

He was twenty-three now, and for the past few weeks the bond had been silent. No sudden heat, no sharp ache, no restless nights with pain thrumming under his skin. At first, he’d called it luck. Then he started to wonder if it had burned itself out. Or if the person on the other end…

A small movement at the edge of his vision pulled him back into the present.
Jiang Xiao Shuai sat cross-legged on the bed, still talking, his fingers idly tracing over the back of Wu Suo Wei’s hand. The touch pulled his attention to it—and to the dull throb that lingered there. It wasn’t as sharp as it should have been, not after what had happened earlier. His gaze dropped to the spot: no blood, no split skin, just the faint burn left over from too much force. Like always.

“…are you even listening?” Jiang Xiao Shuai’s voice cut through the fog. Wu Suo Wei blinked, pulling his hand back.

Wu Suo Wei muttered something noncommittal, hoping it passed for an answer. Jiang Xiao Shuai gave him a look—the kind that said he wasn’t buying it—but didn’t push. His voice filled the space between them, steady and unbothered, but Wu Suo Wei caught only fragments. His focus kept slipping back to the dull throb in his hand, to the memory of what had put it there, and to the uneasy thought of how long the quiet between attacks was going to last.

“You’re somewhere else again,” Jiang Xiao Shuai said, shifting a little closer. “What’s going on with you lately?”

Wu Suo Wei forced a shrug. “Nothing.”

“That’s not nothing.”

He didn’t answer. The truth was harder to pin down than the question made it sound—harder still to say out loud. The quiet weeks had felt like a gift, but now, sitting here with the echo still in his hand, he couldn’t deny the truth now, that it was only a pause for a short time. Not an end like he’d secretly hoped.

Jiang Xiao Shuai studied him for a moment, something shifting in his expression. “There’s something else, not just the pain, isn’t there?”

Wu Suo Wei nodded once, slow. “Yeah. And I don’t… I don’t get it.”

“What?”

He exhaled, eyes fixed on a point somewhere past Jiang Xiao Shuai’s shoulder. “I thought he was… interesting.”

“Interesting? Who?”

He let out a slow breath. “The guy from earlier. The one in the fight.”

That earned him a look of pure disbelief. “You? Finding someone interesting?And someone like that in particular?”

Wu Suo Wei gave a small, humorless laugh. “Exactly. I don’t notice people. Not like that. Not anymore.” He shifted, restless, his hand curling loosely in his lap. “And you know the way I react to violence. But this time…” He trailed off, shaking his head as if the rest of it might make sense if he kept it there a moment longer. “He wasn’t just throwing punches. He was… defending himself. Doesn’t make it any better. Still… It feels different.”

The other man’s brows drew together, but he didn’t argue. “And that’s… bothering you?”

He gave a small shrug, gaze fixed somewhere beyond the room. “More than it should.” His tone was flat, almost dismissive, but the way his fingers tightened in his lap betrayed him.

For a moment, his friend simply watched him. “You’ve never said that about anyone before.”

A breath escaped—half laugh, half sigh. “Because it’s never happened before.” He looked away as soon as the words left him, unsure why admitting it felt like stepping over a line.

Jiang Xiao Shuai watched him for a beat longer but didn’t press, leaning back without another word. The quiet that followed sat easily with him, while for Wu Suo Wei it was not. He shifted on the mattress, gaze fixed on the dark edge of the curtain.

Whatever pull there’d been toward the man from earlier, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to see him again, and that was exactly how it should stay.

Never seeing him again lasted exactly five days.

Chapter Text

After giving up the sugar figurine stall, like he’d sworn to himself weeks ago, Wu Suo Wei had started looking for steadier work.

He got the job through Jiang Xiao Shuai. One of his friends was looking for a driver at the storehouse he worked for—just hauling mechanical parts from A to B.

It wasn’t glamorous, but it was honest, and for the first time in weeks, Wu Suo Wei felt almost optimistic. A job meant money, and money meant he could breathe—if only for a little while.

The storehouse yard was already busy, forklifts humming between stacks of crates. Wu Suo Wei stood by the truck as the warehouse manager came over with a clipboard.

The man barely looked up from his clipboard as he laid out the rules: the cargo was important, the kind you didn’t touch without written permission from the chairman himself. Probably a misfired joke but Wu Suo Wei gave a short nod.

Don’t worry. I won’t open this for anyone.
He meant it. A promise was a promise, and this one was tied directly to his pay.

He passed the delivery slip to the guard and reached for the truck door. A figure stepped in; the door sealed again under an strong hand.
No shove, no snap—just control. His body did the rest on its own: breath clipped, muscles braced, that old stillness before impact… except nothing hit.

The grip wasn’t painful, but it was absolute—like the man had already decided he wasn’t going anywhere.

“You’re not leaving,” the stranger said, voice calm enough to make the words heavier. His eyes flicked past Wu Suo Wei to the men behind him. “Open the back.”

“Who the hell are you? Why should I listen to you?” Wu Suo Wei yanked at the door, but the hold didn’t loosen. “No one opens it except the chairman. That’s the rule. I promised—”

“You promised them. Not me.” The faint curve at his mouth didn’t match the steel in his hand.

The others were already moving, metal latches clanking.

“Don’t!” Wu Suo Wei twisted to break free, tension knotting in his shoulders, the heat of the man’s presence too close, too controlled. The pressure at his side didn’t shift—not even when his muscles locked.

A call from the back cut through the rain. “Boss—just mechanical parts.”

The hand fell away. Surprise flickered over the face of his capturer, gone in the next breath as he turned sharply to his men. “Next time, be sure before you call me.”

Wu Suo Wei rubbed at his wrist without thinking, then fixed his glare on the group. “If I don’t get my wages—”

He caught the man by the jacket, ready to shove him aside—only to actually see his face. Something about the face pulled at him, familiar in a way he couldn’t place. An itch at the back of his mind, too sharp to ignore.

“Compensate me.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred yuan.”

A look to the underling. “Give him five thousand.”

Wu Suo Wei blinked, confused. Five thousand? He’d asked for five hundred.

The man lit a cigarette, exhaling slow. “Consider the rest payment,” he said, voice smooth, “for the sugar figures.”

And there it was. Recognition crashed in like a blow under his ribs. The cigarette, the smirk, the eyes he’d only seen from behind a stall.

It hit him all at once — and with it, a flare of heat under his skin, sharp and disorienting. Not fear. Not anger. Not exactly.

What the hell. No way he…

The cash was pushed in his palm faster then he could spell his own name. Wu Suo Wei didn’t count it. Didn’t thank them. He just stood there while the man smoked like nothing had happened.

“You didn’t recognize me, did you.”
The voice came quiet, amused — too smooth for someone who’d just slammed a door in his face.

Wu Suo Wei should’ve walked away. Should’ve climbed into the truck and driven off like he had something better to do.
But something in him stalled. Pride, maybe. Or spite.

He turned just enough to look at him.

“Didn’t think you’d still be wearing that smug face,” he said, sharp and low.

There was a pause. Then a laugh — soft, real, and somehow worse than a threat.

“You’ve got some nerve.”

“No,” Wu Suo Wei replied, fingers tightening slightly around the money. “Just bad luck.”

A few feet behind them, the other men were still talking. One of them laughed too loud. The sound hit wrong — quick, hard, like a snap of cold rubber. Wu Suo Wei’s shoulders tensed before he could stop them, his body remembering things he hadn’t given it permission to.

No one moved toward him. No one said his name.
Still, his gaze flicked sideways — calculating distance, escape, options. Just in case.

He wasn’t brave. Not like that. He didn’t pick fights with men like this.
Didn’t provoke people with backup and nothing to lose.

And yet here he was, mouthing off to the one who’d grabbed him.

What the hell was wrong with him?

The man shifted a little closer — not much, but enough for the air between them to vanish.

Heat pricked under Wu Suo Wei’s skin, sudden and disorienting. His pulse stuttered. For a second, his body reacted faster than his brain — like something old had been set off, or something new didn’t know how to land. Not fear. Not quite.

“Guess your luck’s not that bad,” came it low, almost amused from the strange guy.

Wu Suo Wei blinked, heat still crawling under his skin. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You got to see me again, didn’t you?”

There was something in the way he said it—dry, a little mocking, but not entirely impersonal. Wu Suo Wei opened his mouth, found nothing appropriate to say, and closed it again.

Then he scoffed. “If that’s your idea of luck, I hope I’m cursed.”

He turned before there was an answer. Walked toward the truck. His pulse still raced, something sharp twisting low in his stomach. Maybe it was annoyance. Maybe not.

He didn’t look back.

The man didn’t follow. But his voice carried, easy and low across the lot:

"You call it cursed now — let’s see what you call it when I’m the one on top of you."

Wu Suo Wei stiffed mid-step.

What the actual fuck.

He didn't turn around. But the words lodged under his skin, hot and impossible to ignore.
On top of you.
What kind of person said that to a stranger? What kind of person said it like they meant it — not as a joke, but as a promise?

His ears were burning now. Jaw tight. He climbed into the truck and slammed the door harder than necessary.
Drive. Don’t give him space in your head. Just go. The heat under his skin hadn’t faded — if anything, it had sunk deeper, now tangled with something else.

Cocky bastard.

Whatever that had been — the heat, the second of stillness — it was nothing. Just adrenaline. Just another asshole trying to get under his skin.

What a fucking joke.

He should’ve gone straight home after his shift, but Jiang Xiao Shuai’s voice was still in his ear from a few minutes ago. One of his regular patients had left his supply cart out in the street and couldn’t manage to get it back on their own.
“You’re closer,” Jiang Xiao Shuai had said, like that settled it.
And of course, Wu Suo Wei had said yes.
Which was how he ended up in the dark, in the rain, with his shoulders already aching before he’d even touched the damn thing.

The cart was heavier than it looked. Old iron wheels, a bent axle, and way too much weight packed into one flimsy box on legs. It wasn’t the street — asphalt, solid but slick underfoot — it was the damn thing itself. Too many repairs. Too little sense.

Wu Suo Wei gritted his teeth, both hands braced against the handle as he pushed with everything he had.
Headlights flared behind him. A horn blared — long and impatient.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m trying,” he muttered without looking back. His shoulders were already soaked, hair plastered to his neck. Another few inches. Just get it off the road.

The horn blared again.

He glanced over his shoulder, squinting into the flood of headlights. The car wasn’t moving. Just idling there, engine too quiet to hear over the rain. He could barely see the shape inside. Probably some rich asshole who thought his time was worth more than other people’s backs.

Wu Suo Wei leaned harder into the cart. One good shove—

“You again.”

The voice cut through the rain — low, dry, like it wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

Wu Suo Wei froze. Looked up.

The man from earlier was standing on the other side of the cart — the on-top-of-you guy.
Tall, composed, holding a black umbrella like the rain had to ask for permission before touching him.

Wu Suo Wei’s hands didn’t leave the cart, but his fingers twitched. His mouth opened, closed. He hadn’t seen the man. Hadn’t heard a door. Or footsteps over the rain.

“The fuck do you want?” he said then, louder than he meant to.

The other man didn’t answer at first. Just walked closer under a wide umbrella, bone-dry and steady. His eyes moved from cart to soaked jacket to Wu Suo Wei’s clenched jaw.

“You can't do anything right,” he said, voice smooth, faintly amused. “How do you still live so comfortably?”

Wu Suo Wei gritted his teeth. “Comfortably? You think this is comfortable?”

One more push. The cart didn’t budge. His fingers slipped.

Then—unexpectely the man simply handed him the umbrella — and then, without waiting for a reply, leaned forward and began to push. Black suit now blotched with water.

For a second, Wu Suo Wei just stared, didn’t move.. He just stood there, umbrella limp in his grip, watching this stranger—this strange man—push the cart without a word.

It rolled easier now. The worst resistance was broken.

Wu Suo Wei stepped back in, one hand settled on the damp metal bar. Together, in silence, they guided the cart toward the side of the road. The wheels scraped and bumped, but it moved, and the headlights behind them finally cut off.

Only the rain remained. And the sound of their shoes against wet concrete.

He glanced sideways.

The man’s suit jacket was clinging to his back now, dark and heavy with water. His hair had begun to curl at the edges, soaked through, but he didn’t seem to care. His focus stayed on the cart, on the work.

No complaints. No command. Just quiet action.

It unsettled something in Wu Suo Wei—not fear, not quite gratitude, but something that pulled him out of himself. This kind of help wasn’t normal. Not from someone like him.

They reached the curb. The cart bumped up over the gutter and settled just out of the road, angled neatly beneath a flickering streetlamp. For a moment, neither of them moved.

Wu Suo Wei let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. The ache in his arms was catching up with him now, sharp and familiar.

The other man stepped back.

He didn’t immediately turn to go. Just stood there, silent, rain sliding down his sleeves, eyes still steady.

“Was it broken?” the man asked, voice low, conversational.

Wu Suo Wei blinked. “No. Just heavy.”

A pause.

“You shouldn't be doing this alone,” the man said.

Wu Suo Wei scoffed softly, more reflex than answer. “Not like I had a choice.”

Silence again. The rain filled it.

Then, awkwardly—but honest: “…Thanks.”

The word came out rough, but it stayed. Not tossed off. Not swallowed.

The man didn’t smile. Just looked at him for a second—long enough to register it—before turning away.

“Don’t get used to it,” he said, already moving back toward the car.

Wu Suo Wei didn’t move. His hands were still tight around the umbrella, shoulders still drawn in from the cold.

He hadn’t expected that. Not after the truck. Not after the voice, the smirk, the way he’d looked at him like a game.

Maybe people weren’t always what they seemed at first glance.

Maybe that was the worst part.

Maybe the best.

The cart was out of the road. The headlights were off him. The rain was easing.

And for once, something warm lingered in the space he’d left behind.

He didn’t know who the guy was.
Jiang Xiao Shuai probably would.
Should he ask?
Or leave it the hell alone?

Chapter Text

Chi Cheng ended the call with a hard press on decline. The phone hit the table, and smoke was already in his lungs before it settled. One drag did more to steady him than the conversation ever could. Orders dressed as requests. Pressure disguised as duty. Always the same.

Across from him, Guo Cheng Yu leaned back in his chair, ankle hooked over his knee, unreadable as ever. “Your old man still thinks the world runs on his schedule,” he said, voice smooth but edged just enough to cut. “One day he’ll learn you’re not one of his subordinates.”

Chi Cheng exhaled through his nose. The corner of his mouth twitched—not a smile. Not even close. Guo Cheng Yu wasn’t trying to fix anything; he never did. He just sat there, the way he always had, cutting through the noise without demanding explanations. In a life built on orders and expectations, that kind of steady presence was rare. Too rare.

He wasn’t sure how he would’ve made it through his childhood without him.

They’d known each other a long time, long enough that memory blurred into habit. Long enough for him to remember what it was like before either of them had learned to wear their faces like armour.

The house had been big. Quiet. Cold—but not from the air. His father was always there and somehow never present. Orders carried more weight than conversation. His mother played her part in public, all smiles and gestures, then vanished at home. Affection rationed out like a rare commodity. It didn’t take long to learn that love could be performed without ever being felt.

He grew up standing straight, speaking when spoken to, keeping answers short. Mistakes were noticed before successes. The walls carried voices too well; closed doors meant nothing. He never gave them more than they asked for.

That was his world—until Guo Cheng Yu walked into it.

He couldn’t remember the exact moment they met. One day the boy was simply there, dark-eyed and watchful at the edge of a family gathering. His father’s introduction had been a formality: this is your uncle’s son, I am his godfather, you will get along. Somehow, they did.

Guo Cheng Yu wasn’t soft, but he was different. He could turn formality into mischief with half a look. He noticed when Chi Cheng went too quiet, when his gaze slid to the window while adults talked politics. He was the first to speak to him like a person instead of an heir in training.

From then on, the dinners, the ceremonies, the rigid weekends weren’t as suffocating. GCY slipped him comments under his breath that almost made him laugh, or pulled him into games that broke the weight of his father’s lectures. They didn’t need to talk about family politics to understand each other. It was enough to share the silence. Enough to know the other was just as bored, just as restless.

Years blurred like that, and in their own way they became constants. Even when they fought. Even when they didn’t see each other for weeks. There was always the certainty they’d end up back in the same room. His Brother in everything but blood.

That certainty made it easy to believe some connections were meant to last.

It also made it harder when he started to think about the kind of connection he didn’t have.

By the time they were old enough to throw real punches, they already knew how to get into trouble and walk away from it. Chi Cheng picked his moments, but once a fight started, he finished it. And Guo Cheng Yu was there, always. Quick, decisive, bloody if it had to be. Loyalty, not in words but in movement. They had each other’s backs in a way that made the rest of the world feel distant, almost irrelevant.

So when Guo Cheng Yu turned eighteen and the bond hit, Chi Cheng felt it almost like a win for himself. He saw the change—subtle, but real. A steadiness in him, like some anchor had settled inside without asking.

Guo Cheng Yu didn’t hide it from him—he shared the weight of the pull, the strange certainty that somewhere out there was someone who belonged to him. He spoke of it in quiet moments, light and honest, without trying to make it sound like magic.

It left a mark. Chi Cheng wanted the same thing. Not curiosity. Not envy. Need. Someone tied to him so tightly they couldn’t turn away. No conditions. No disguise. Just a bond that held, no matter what. The more he listened, the more he watched the Bond steady his brother, the higher that need grew, until it felt less like hope and more like something the world owed him.

When his eighteenth birthday came, he expected it. Needed it. Not fireworks. Not miracles. Just a shift. A flicker. Proof he wasn’t meant to be alone. For months the hunger had been building—restless, unbearable. Watching Guo Cheng Yu glowing under his bond had only driven it deeper. Chi Cheng wanted the same. Wanted it like breath, like blood. Someone bound to him so tightly they couldn’t leave. Someone who had no choice but to stay.

But nothing came.

The day passed like any other—polite words from relatives, expensive gifts chosen by assistants, not by anyone who mattered. He kept his face blank, but inside the silence was a wound.

He told himself lies to keep standing. Maybe his soulmate wasn’t eighteen yet. Maybe they were younger, out there, a thread not yet pulled tight. It was the only excuse that didn’t sound like damnation. So he clung to it. A year. No more. He could wait that long. He had to.

And in the meantime—despite that hope, or maybe because of it—he didn’t hold back. Fights. Drinks. Bodies. Nothing in him knew how to wait.

When he looked at Guo Cheng Yu—grounded in a way he’d never seen before—he could almost believe in it. His friend carried his bond, quiet but certain. It was all good things for him: certainties, weight, a thread that never slipped. Watching that only sharpened the edge inside Chi Cheng. His own hunger didn’t settle. It burned hotter.

The months crawled. Each one carried the same silence. No shift. No flicker. Nothing.

Restless nights bled into restless days. He chased the rush wherever he could find it—on the street, in the bedroom. The same instincts drove both: impact, control, the sharp line where pain turned into something else. Most partners didn’t last. The ones who stayed long enough learned he didn’t draw lines where most people did.

He told himself to wait—his soulmate was younger, that was all. He clung to it through the months, fed it like a fire that kept the dark at bay. But the closer his nineteenth birthday crept, the thinner it wore. Hope turned brittle, jagged at the edges. It didn’t ground him; it hollowed him. Nights dragged. Days blurred. Every silence pressed heavier, as if the universe was already answering him and he refused to hear it.

His nineteenth birthday came with no more warning than the one before. No pull. No bond. No one.

The waiting ended the same way it had begun—in silence. But this time it didn’t leave room for excuses. There was no younger soulmate out there, no thread just waiting to be tied. The universe had made its choice, and it hadn’t been him.

Polite words, a dinner arranged by others, the same empty rituals. He let them pass over him like smoke, face unreadable. Inside, something closed. Whatever he’d hoped for, whatever he’d clung to, burned out.

He stopped waiting. If permanence existed, it wasn’t meant for him. What was left was simpler: fights to end, beds to leave, bottles to drain. Things that didn’t last, things that couldn’t touch him.

It didn’t stop him from wanting. That part never went away. He told himself he was done, but the hunger didn’t die—it only changed shape. By the time Wang Shuo walked into his life, Chi Cheng wasn’t looking for permanence anymore. He wasn’t looking at all.

Wang Shuo wasn’t part of his father’s world. He didn’t care about names, status, or appearances. He was sharp, reckless, quick to laugh, and for the first time, someone looked at Chi Cheng without seeing a surname first. No bond. No destiny. Just choice.

For three years, it was enough.

Nights spent in each other’s space, sometimes talking until dawn, sometimes not talking at all. Wang Shuo didn’t flinch at the fights, the bruises, the sharp edges. He stayed. He chose him. And for Chi Cheng, that felt closer to a soulmate than the silence had ever given him.

If this wasn’t love, then nothing was.

It lasted until it didn’t. The cracks showed slowly—arguments that started too sharp, silences that dragged too long. Chi Cheng ignored them at first. He’d fought worse battles than cold shoulders and biting words. But there was a difference between fists in the street and the weight of someone turning away.

The end came like a blade slipped between ribs: clean, merciless, no warning he wanted to see. Wang Shuo hadn’t just left—he’d chosen someone else first. Not by accident. Not by weakness. A choice.

By the time Chi Cheng confronted him, it was already finished. No apology, no reason that mattered. Just betrayal, and a door closing behind it. Within weeks, Wang Shuo was gone completely—out of the city, out of reach, out of his life.

It burned deeper than the silence of his nineteenth birthday ever had. The bond had failed him before it even began; this was worse. This was someone he had trusted, someone who had chosen him—and then proven that choice could break as easily as a promise.

Something in him froze solid. Whatever softness had survived burned out with it. After that, love wasn’t part of the equation. He kept the same vices—violence, sex—but stripped of any meaning. Just motion. Just noise.

The fights didn’t stop. If anything, they got worse—uglier, more calculated. Sometimes the knife stayed in his pocket. Sometimes it didn’t. He picked his battles the same way he always had: to win, to end them fast, to make sure no one tried twice.

Through it all, he stayed the son his father could count on—at least in the ways that mattered. He showed up where he was told, carried out what was handed to him. Duty over choice, image over truth.

He knew the day would come when his parents arranged a marriage—status over compatibility, contract over connection. A match without love, just another piece of duty dressed as family.

And by then, he doubted he’d even notice the difference.

Smoke curled upward, sharp and thin, dragging him back into the room. Across from him, Guo Cheng Yu watched in silence—the faintest curve at his mouth, like he already knew where Chi Cheng’s thoughts had gone but wouldn’t ask. He never needed details to recognize when something was running deep.

Chi Cheng tapped the ash into the tray, slow, measured. The past had its place, and it wasn’t here. Another drag, another exhale—smoke cutting the air until nothing was left between them.

“Let’s go,” he said finally.

Guo Cheng Yu didn’t ask where. He just got up, like he always did.

The routine should’ve been simple—one of their clubs, a few drinks—but the fights were gone. His father had made it clear: no more bad press, nothing that could hint at a lack of control.

His snakes were taken. Not sold—he checked that—just locked away where only his father could reach them. A clean move, calculated. Strip away what mattered, leave the cages empty, remind him whose leash he was on.

The order was absolute. Stay clean. Obey.

So he had.

Weeks of it. Weeks burning under his skin, no fights to bleed it out, no sex rough enough to hide behind, no snakes in their tanks. Just restless drive and dead ends—chasing shadows, leaning on contacts, every lead cut off sharper than the last.

The city was quieter with him leashed. Quieter, until the night market.

One clean hit dropped the fruit vendor—hardly worth remembering—then his eyes caught on someone else. Lean frame, cap pulled low, hands locked white around a cart’s handle like it was the only thing holding him up. He froze, turned his back as soon as their eyes met, shoulders stiff as if distance could erase presence.

Chi Cheng closed the distance until the man turned and looked up to him.

Big eyes that didn’t look away fast enough. A lean body he could picture under him without effort. Lines cut fine, a mouth that made him think about fucking instead of talking. Heat surged low and fast, and he didn’t bother giving it a name beyond want.

Then the candy cracked against his temple.

He hadn’t expected that.

He didn’t follow. Too surprised that anyone was bold—or stupid—enough to throw. But the image stuck, and so did the spark in his gut. Most people slipped out of his head the second they turned away. This one didn’t.

Five days later his men swore they’d found his snakes in a delivery truck. He went himself, pinned the driver to the door while the seals were cracked. Nothing inside. Just useless parts.

He let go, ready to walk—then saw the face. Same eyes. Same tension strung through him. Same pull, refusing to fade.

The man held his ground—jaw set, breath steady, not a trace of plea. Defiance in every line, as if silence itself was a shield. It made Chi Cheng want to push—just to see where, or if, he’d break.

The words slipped out before thought, meant to needle, meant to promise.
“You call it cursed now—let’s see what you call it when I’m the one on top of you.” He meant every word. Just a matter of time.

The man didn’t turn, just climbed into the truck with his back stiff and shoulders locked. No break in him. Chi Cheng wanted him—wanted the body, the jaw set too tight, the fight wound through every line of his stance. That much was obvious.

The man didn’t answer, just climbed into the truck with his back rigid. No falter. No weakness. Amusing. Unusual.
What stayed wasn’t anger. It was the fact that the image refused to leave him, heavier than it should have been.

He walked away with a grin he didn’t shake.

The night brought him back.

Not in another fight. Not with words thrown like knives. But bent over a cart that wouldn’t move, rain soaking through every thread, shoulders squared against weight and weather alike. The same jaw locked, the same refusal to yield—only this time it wasn’t aimed at him.

He could have made it harder. Should have, by his own rules. Push until they snap—that was how it always went. Break them first. Always.

But he didn’t.

The umbrella ended up in the stranger’s hand instead. Not kindness. Never that. A test, quieter than fists, sharper in its own way.

He’d watched his prey take it without a word. No plea. No collapse. Just that same silence, holding its ground.

And what lingered wasn’t the rain, or even the man’s defiance. It was the break in his own pattern—choosing not to force, not to crush the moment. Leaving it standing.

That choice stayed with him more than any victory ever had.

Walking away, Chi Cheng caught himself grinning—already certain he’d see him again. Hoping.

And he should be right.

Chapter Text

The ball hit the court with a steady rhythm, each bounce echoing through the empty hall. Basketball was the only game that didn’t feel like a fight—no fists, no bodies slamming into him just to prove something. Just the shot, clean or not.

He caught the rebound, turned, and froze.

The man from the truck. The same from the rain. Standing at the edge of the court, hands in his pockets, watching.

Wu Suo Wei spun the ball once more. He hadn’t expected to see him again—not here, not like this.

“You again.” His grip tightened on the ball. “What is it this time—ar you following me? There’s no truck here for you to steal from.”

The man ignored the jab. He stepped forward, slow. “One-on-one.”

“No.” Wu Suo Wei bounced the ball once, hard. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood?” The man’s mouth curved faintly. “Just say you’re scared to lose. Happens to everyone.”

The words landed where they shouldn’t. Irritation crawled under Wu Suo Wei’s skin, the same as it had in the truck yard. He should have walked. Instead, his voice came out clipped, too fast: “Fine then.”

The ball hit the ground between them, and the game began. Shoes screeched against the floor, quick bursts of movement, the thud of the ball striking clean. Wu Suo Wei told himself to keep it simple—just play, burn through the heat, walk away when it was done.

The game burned more than it should have. Shoes screeched against the floor, every shot contested, every drive cut off. The man was taller, stronger. Wu Suo Wei was faster, sharper, angrier. For every ball taken, he stole one back. His lungs dragged fire, sweat stung his eyes, but he didn’t stop.

It wasn’t simple. Every brush of shoulders, every press of space sparked something low in his nerves—a prickle he shoved down as pace, as heat, nothing else.

By the last shot, his breath was raw in his throat. What unsettled him wasn’t the loss. It was how alive he felt.

He dropped onto the floor, chest heaving. The ball rolled away. He hated how easily the game had slipped out of his hands.

A shadow fell across him. “Not bad,” the man said, faint curve at his mouth. “For someone who lost.”
The smirk sharpened. “Though I can think of better places for you to be out of breath.”

Wu Suo Wei shot him a glare, too drained to sharpen it. “Keep dreaming.”

A hand came down without hesitation. He thought of refusing. Yet despite the stupid line, his fingers closed around the offered hand—and heat jolted through him, not just in his arm but sharp and low, a pulse that hit deeper than it should. His breath stuttered, chest tight, a rush he didn’t have a name for. Too much like want. Too much like danger.

He yanked back too fast, pulse ragged.

The man only straightened, unreadable. “See you around. In my dreams.”

Wu Suo Wei grabbed the ball, turned away, left without answering. The ghost of that touch still burned in his palm, spreading restless through his nerves, crawling under his skin until it left him raw. He caught himself wondering if the stranger had felt it too—but the man’s face had given nothing away.

The clinic lights were still on when Wu Suo Wei pushed the door open, the ball tucked under his arm. Sweat clung to his shirt, his pulse hadn’t steadied, and the quiet hum of the fluorescent tubes only made the rush in his chest feel louder—like it didn’t belong to him alone.

Jiang Xiao Shuai looked up from his desk, pen paused in his hand. His eyes swept once over him—sweaty, uneven breath, the restless way his shoulders wouldn’t settle. “Basketball this late?”

Wu Suo Wei dropped the ball in the corner, reached for the towel on the counter. He dragged it over his face, as if he could wipe away the heat still crawling under his skin. “Better than drinking.”

A low sound came from the desk—half agreement, half silence that left no space to hide in. Years of knowing him made even the quiet sharp.

The towel moved over his neck, down to his collar, but it didn’t take the ghost of that touch with it. He could still feel the weight of that hand pulling him up from the floor, the spark that had jolted through his skin like something alive. Static, he told himself. Overexertion. Nothing else.

“So.” Xiao Shuai’s tone was even, but it cut through the air without effort. “Who did you meet?”

The towel stilled in his grip. “What makes you think I met anyone?”

“Because normally you don’t look like this after a game.”

The fabric hit the counter, sharper than he’d meant. “It was just a game.”

“Right.” He leaned back, the movement unhurried, eyes steady on him all the same. Not pressing. Not demanding. Just waiting, like he always did—knowing silence had its own weight.

Wu Suo Wei sank into the chair opposite, arms folded tight across his chest. He hadn’t meant to say anything. The words left anyway, jagged, like something pushed them out.
“It’s that guy again. From the truck. From the rain.”

Xiao Shuai didn’t blink. “And?”

“And nothing.” The reply was too sharp, too fast. “He shows up, acts like he owns the place, pushes until you can’t walk away. I don’t even know his name. He just—he gets under my skin. Why is he always where I am? He’s a fighter. Someone like that shouldn’t be anywhere near me.”

The words hung between them, too quick, edged, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

Xiao Shuai lifted his cup, took a slow sip, then set it back down. His voice stayed calm. “Do you want him gone because you think he’s a fighter… or because he stirs something in you?”

The silence stretched. Heavy. Wu Suo Wei felt it press against his chest until he couldn’t sit still. He shoved the chair back, muttered something under his breath, and moved toward the narrow bed in the corner. The towel dropped onto the table, damp and heavy with sweat.

He washed up without another word, shoulders still locked tight.

As he pulled the curtain halfway across the room, Jiang Xiao Shuai’s voice followed him—calm, unhurried, but too precise to ignore.
“Do you want me to find out who he is?”

Wu Suo Wei stilled for a heartbeat, back turned. His jaw locked.
“No, not necessary.”
Then he yanked the curtain the rest of the way and let the darkness swallow him.

When the lights went out and he lay flat on the thin mattress, the quiet didn’t bring rest. Though he had rejected the offer, his mind kept circling back to the stranger with questions he couldn’t silence.

Who was he? Why had that touch felt like it carried more than sweat and effort? Strangers weren’t supposed to leave sparks under his skin.

He told himself he’d learned to live with it. Years of shocks that weren’t his, aches that came from nowhere, heat crawling until it left him raw. At first he fought it, raged at every jolt, tried to explain it away. Later he buried it—counting breaths, biting down, pretending stillness could hold it back. None of it worked. The bond always broke through. All he could do was wait it out, endure until it burned itself empty.

That had been survival. Endure, forget.

But this spark wasn’t the same. It hadn’t bled through the bond like always. It felt like his own—his nerves, his skin, answering to someone right in front of him.

The bond had forced sex on him before he even knew the word. Secondhand, through someone else’s violence, through pleasure that turned his body against him. Desire warped into something rotten. It stripped him bare until all that was left was disgust.

What did sex mean, when his first taste of it was stolen—delivered through pain, through want that wasn’t his?

It killed whatever want he might have had. Left him hollow. Left him flinching from touch. People blurred past, faceless, meaningless. Attraction was foreign. Desire impossible.

He pressed his arm over his eyes, shoving the memories down.

So why now? Why had a spark on the court dug in deep enough to shake him?

He turned onto his side, jaw tight. The hum of the clinic lights carried faint through the wall. He dragged the blanket higher, as if weight alone could pin it down.

Sleep didn’t come. Only the same question, circling like it knew he wouldn’t answer.

What would he do if it happened again?

Chapter Text

The sound cracked sharper than it should have. A single open palm, clean across his cheek.

For a moment, silence.

No one touched him like that. Not in years. Not ever.

And yet Jiang Xiao Shuai had.

Guo Cheng Yu didn’t move. The sting lingered warm on his skin, but what ran deeper wasn’t pain. He turned his face slightly away, shoulders drawn, not because he couldn’t take it—but because the weight of it had struck somewhere else entirely.

Across from him, Jiang Xiao Shuai’s expression didn’t waver. Cool, unimpressed, faintly annoyed.
“I’m especially good at treating shamelessness,.”

The words landed as sharp as the hand had.

“Is everything okay now?”

Guo Cheng Yu’s gaze slid back at last, finding the other man’s eyes. He didn’t answer at once. Just stared, searching, holding that gaze of defiance like it was the only thing in the room.

Then, without breaking eye contact, he pushed the wall hanging into Jiang Xiao Shuai’s arms.
“Everything is fine.”

His steps as he left the clinic were measured, shoulders lowered—not defeat, not humiliation. Just the weight of something that had cut clean beneath the surface.

The car door closed with a muted thud, sunlight thick through the tinted glass. Wang Li’s glance caught his in the mirror for half a breath, then dropped—habit carved from years. Silence was safer.

Guo Cheng Yu sank into the leather, cheek still warm where the strike had landed. The sting was nothing. What stayed was deeper, low and certain, like a thread pulled tight under his ribs. He drew a slow breath and let it hold, steadying what didn’t need to.

The phone was already in his hand. He didn’t weigh words, didn’t dress them—just pressed record. His voice came quieter than usual, stripped of the usual tilt he wore like a second skin.

“Something happened.” A pause, breath dragging sharper than he liked. “I need to see you. Right away. Now. Usual place.”

Outside, the city moved bright and careless under the sun, but the car felt closed, heavy, waiting. He turned the phone once in his palm, eyes catching on his own reflection in the black screen—cheek still burning, mouth curved in the faintest line.

The cigarette burned low between his fingers, smoke curling into the air as Guo Cheng Yu sat slouched on the battered sofa. One ankle rested over his knee, the posture easy, but the sharpness in his gaze betrayed the weight pacing beneath his skin. The warehouse smelled of dust and sunlight, posters clinging torn to the walls, the dartboard hanging crooked in its corner.

He drew once more, exhaled slow, and crushed the ash into the tray. For a moment he stayed still. Then came the sound—measured steps crossing the concrete, unhurried but certain.

By the time the door opened, Guo Cheng Yu was on his feet. The cigarette still smoldered between his fingers, his free hand pushing back through his hair as if even the weight of stillness had become too much. He took two steps across the room, stopped, turned—restless, almost impatient.

“Finally,” he said, voice low but edged with something sharper than annoyance. “Took you long enough.”

Chi Cheng shut the door behind him, eyes steady on him. The faint smirk didn’t hide the way he was studying him—head tilted, gaze cutting through. “What’s got into you? I haven’t seen you wound this tight in years.”

The words hung between them, heavy, as Guo Cheng Yu’s hand lowered the cigarette, ash falling sharp to the concrete. His pulse ran quicker than he liked, but the weight in his chest was clear, undeniable.

He met Chi Cheng’s eyes directly.
“I found him.”

“You found who?” Chi Cheng’s voice was calm, but the slight narrowing of his eyes betrayed how much weight the words carried.

Guo Cheng Yu flicked the cigarette away, the ember scattering on the concrete. His chest rose once, breath sharper than usual. “My soulmate.” The words came unshaken, certain, as if they’d always been waiting in his mouth.

For the briefest beat, Chi Cheng’s composure cracked. Not much—just a flicker in the line of his mouth, the faintest twitch at the corner of his eye. But Guo Cheng Yu caught it. He always did. He knew what lived behind that restraint: the birthdays passed in silence, the bond that never came, the hollow certainty that it never would.

He should have slowed. Should have given space. But his own pulse ran too fast, the fire under his ribs too fierce. “It hit the moment he touched me. No warning, no buildup—” he tapped his chest once, “—like a blade. His smile flickered, quick, unsteady, more wonder than pride. “And you should have seen him, Chi Cheng. He wasn’t just sharp—he was… radiant. He stood there, every movement clean, precise, like he belonged in control of the whole room. Those glasses only made it worse—made his eyes brighter, clearer, like he could cut right through me with a single look. And his face, so calm, like marble you wanted to break just to see if warmth was hidden underneath.”

Chi Cheng’s brows drew faintly, but his tone stayed even. “And?”

“And he slapped me.”

That earned the smallest break in the mask—Chi Cheng’s mouth tugged at one corner, not amusement exactly, but something close. “I can see why that would stay with you.”

“You don’t understand.” GCY’s voice cut harsher, more urgent than he meant. He pulled in a measured breath, but the edge didn’t leave. “No one lays a hand on me. And yet the moment he did, I knew.” His shoulders rose, then fell in a rough exhale. “I’d been waiting too long for half-answers. When it hit, I knew. Simple as that. The kind of bond you don’t mistake, not even once in a lifetime. I swear, the moment he hit me, it was like the rest of the world just… blurred.”

Chi Cheng watched him a moment longer, the air between them taut. “Who is he?”

Guo Cheng Yu’s mouth curved, though there was nothing of humor in it. “A doctor. Jiang Xiao Shuai.”

The silence that followed stretched heavy, until Chi Cheng finally moved, crossing toward the low table. He sank into the couch, leaning back like the weight of it didn’t touch him—though his gaze never left his friend.

“You remember that night, don’t you?” Guo Cheng Yu’s voice came fast, restless. He didn’t stay still—one step, then another, cigarette forgotten between his fingers. “When it hit me on my birthday, Chi Cheng—I thought my chest would burst. One second I was drifting, the next—” he snapped his fingers, sharp in the quiet, “—everything locked in. Solid. Certain. You saw it in me, I didn’t even have to say much.”

He laughed under his breath, quick and raw, shaking his head as if the memory still ran hot through him. “And now it’s here again. No warning, no doubt. The moment he touched me—fuck—it was fire under my skin. It lit me up from the inside out. There’s no mistaking that. Not once. Not ever.”

His grin flashed then, unguarded, the kind that didn’t ask for permission. “This is it, Chi Cheng. The real thing. I’ve been waiting too long to mistake it for anything else.”

He finally lowered onto the edge of the couch, elbows braced on his knees, hands loose between them. His voice was quick, charged, still running on the high of it. “It was fire and calm at the same time—like every nerve was alive, and yet my chest had finally gone still. That rush… I’d never felt anything close.”

Only then did his tone shift, quieter now, weight pressing in. “But it doesn’t stay that way only. You know what came after. The nights it wasn’t warmth but when I… when he—”

“I know,” Chi Cheng cut in, the words low but firm. Their eyes locked, unblinking. “You don’t need to say it.”

The silence pressed in, heavy between them.

Guo Cheng Yu’s fingers curled once against his knee, restless, before he leaned back, letting the weight of the unsaid hang there. His eyes fixed on the posters peeling along the far wall, though he barely saw them. His mind had slipped elsewhere—back into shadows he’d rather not name, the pain of things he hadn’t spoken aloud in years.

Chi Cheng’s voice cut through, steady and grounding. “You said he hit you.” A pause, deliberate. “Not the best start, is it?”

Guo Cheng Yu let out a dry breath, not quite a laugh. “No. But it was enough.”

Chi Cheng’s gaze narrowed. “And him? How did he react?”

Guo Cheng Yu’s jaw tightened. His eyes slipped to the side, caught on nothing. “That’s just it. I don’t think he felt it the way I did. If he had…” He shook his head once. “The last years make sense now—the bond is always there, but blurred, muffled, like only half of it could reach me. If it never touched him fully, like mine did.”

For the first time, Chi Cheng’s composure shifted. A shadow cut across his features, something sharp in the set of his jaw. “A bond doesn’t work halfway,” he said flatly. “It takes both ways. Always.”

Guo Cheng Yu leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, eyes steady on him. “Then tell me why he didn’t recognize me. Why the first thing I felt from him today was rejection. There’s only one explanation—he doesn’t feel it like I do. Not fully. Otherwise he would have known.” His voice dropped, edged with certainty. “And I know exactly why.”

Chi Cheng nodded, just enough to betray acknowledgement—then silence stretched between them again.

Finally he spoke, voice edged with dry amusement. “So let me get this straight. You’ve got a soulmate who doesn’t recognize you, who you can’t tell because he wouldn’t believe you, who can’t stand you—and who actually slapped you to get rid of you.” A low laugh slipped out. “I’m curious how you think you’ll pull that off.”

Guo Cheng Yu leaned back, the faintest grin curving his mouth as he lit another cigarette. Smoke curled upward as he exhaled slow. He let the heaviness slip off with the smoke, past and scars fading into the background where they belonged. What stayed was lighter—the bond, the certainty, and what waited ahead. His posture eased, almost lazy again. “After all these years, Chi Cheng… you should know better than to underestimate me.” His gaze sharpened, glinting through the haze. “I already have a plan in mind.”

He smiled into the smoke, certain already—because sooner or later, his Soulmate would be at his side.

The only question was how long Jiang Xiao Shuai could resist.

Chapter Text

The door shut behind Guo Cheng Yu with a muted thud.

Jiang Xiao Shuai let his shoulders drop, the sting still warm in his palm. He flexed his fingers once.

Men like that - smooth face, practiced charm, the kind who thought the world bent to them. Pretty face over arrogance. They pushed because they could, smiled because they knew it worked, convinced nothing and no one would ever push back. The type who dressed up hunger as charm, who thought every glance or smile was his to take. All gloss, no substance. The type who believed a smile could hide the rot underneath.

Such an asshole.

A sound pulled him back. He turned, catching sight of Wu Suo Wei half-shadowed in the corner. The younger man’s eyes were wide, his posture tight, as if he’d been frozen mid-breath - caught between moving forward and bolting.

The air still hummed with the echo of the strike, and Wu Suo Wei stood in it like he had absorbed the sound into his bones. The boy’s hands were curled tight at his sides, chest rising too fast, the sharp noise having struck deeper than it should have.

He crossed the room, slower than instinct urged, and placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “Sorry you had to see that, Da Wei,” he said, voice even. “It’s over now.”

Wu Suo Wei swallowed, tension still in every line. “Who… Who was he?”

“No one,” Jiang Xiao Shuai replied without hesitation. His hand gave the faintest squeeze. “Just someone who doesn’t know where the line is.”

That didn’t erase the tension, but it gave the boy something to hold onto. Jiang Xiao Shuai guided him toward the back, into his room. Only when the younger man finally sank onto the edge of the bed did he step back.

“You’re safe here,” he said, tone softer now. “Rest a little.”

Wu Suo Wei gave a short nod, eyes slipping away. He muttered something about being fine, but the tightness in his jaw betrayed him.

Jiang Xiao Shuai didn’t press. He moved back to the doorway, though his gaze lingered on the faint tremor in those fingers before the curtain hid him from view. His chest drew taut.

The clinic was quiet again, only the faint hum of the lights above. Jiang Xiao Shuai stayed where he was, arms loose at his sides, the silence pressing closer now that Wu Suo Wei was out of sight.

The boy carried too much weight already. Even before today. Even without this strange pain that came and went like a shadow across his skin. Whatever this bond was - it had carved into him until half his life was spent bracing against things no one else could see.

His jaw tightened. Thank God it’s not me.

He couldn’t imagine living tied to someone else’s bruises, someone else’s heat stitched into his body without choice. Someone's feelings that weren't his own.

Not only because of what it would take from him - but because of what it would give. If his own nights, his own shadows, ever spilled into another person…

He cut the thought off hard. The memory pressed close anyway - Meng Tao’s smile, sharp as a hook, sweet on the surface and rotten underneath. The way he had dressed control up as love, twisting it until the word itself felt poisoned.

Even now, years later, the thought of it made bile rise at the back of his throat. He forced it down, the revulsion sharp as the slap he’d just given. He didn’t need to remember the details. He refused to. Some doors stayed shut for a reason - and if they cracked open, what leaked out was nothing but filth.

He dragged in a slow breath, fighting the weight at his chest.

Soulmates. Bonds. Whatever name people gave it - it wasn’t salvation. Not for someone like him. He could help Da Wei as best as he could. He’d been doing it for years already.

He remembered the night he first found Wu Suo Wei - crumpled on the pavement outside the clinic, winter air biting cold. The boy’s arms were wrapped tight around his stomach as if he could hold himself together by force. His skin was pale, drenched in sweat, lips parting soundlessly in the dark. No wound to be seen, and yet pain etched into every line of him.

Jiang Xiao Shuai had crouched without hesitation, steadying a shoulder that wouldn’t stop shaking. The first touch drew a flinch, then a shudder, and still no words. Only a choked breath, raw, and fingers clutching blindly at his sleeve as though that alone might keep him tethered.

That night he carried him inside, body too light in his arms, every step marked by tremors that refused to ease. He had laid him out on a clinic bed, adjusted the blanket over him, and stayed close until the worst of it ebbed. Instinct pushed him toward the tools he knew - IV lines, painkillers, sedatives - but nothing fit when there was no wound, no fever, nothing his training could name. In the end, all he could do was stay.

Wu Suo Wei hadn’t spoken much - couldn’t - but his body had said enough. Every shallow rise of his chest, every tremor in his hands had been a story all its own.

He’d heard the tales about soulmates - bonds built on feelings, sometimes even thoughts.

But back then he hadn’t known what carved through Wu Suo Wei that night. No reason he could see, no poison he could name. For a moment he’d even wondered if it was drugs, or worse - a failed attempt to end it.

Only later, after weeks of pressing and a fragile trust forming between them, had Wu Suo Wei given him the truth. A bond in another way. Not salvation, but pain, raw and merciless. A thread that didn’t steady him, only tore through in waves he couldn’t fight.

In the following years, it hadn’t stayed only about easing pain. Somewhere along the way, they had built something steadier - shared meals, quiet talks, laughter that broke through when it was least expected, the kind of trust that came from showing up again and again. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was real. A friendship that had grown slowly, strong enough to hold even when the Soulmate bond pressed hardest.

Wu Suo Wei carried pain like a shadow that never let go. Heavy, silent, carved into him until it shaped the way he breathed.

Others wore their weight differently. Not as scars, but as masks.

Guo Cheng Yu was the opposite - too smooth, too loud, hiding whatever he didn’t want others to see under arrogance and practiced charm. The kind of man who thought good looks excused anything. Men like him didn’t bend. They bent others. It showed in the way he pushed, forced, turned touch into something wielded like a weapon.

Not with me. Not ever.

His jaw set. He’d been used once before, and never again. The thought of his past pressed close, uninvited. He forced it back where it belonged, behind walls he refused to let crack.

Wu Suo Wei was different. The boy had been forced to carry what no one should, yet somewhere inside that weight he still had the capacity to feel - tentative, clumsy, but real. Tonight had shaken him again, yes, but Jiang Xiao Shuai had seen it a few days ago: the spark of something unfamiliar. Interest.

It startled him, how much he wanted that spark to take root. How much he wanted his friend to know what it felt like to want on his own terms, not because some bond twisted his body into it.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it would break before it began. But if it steadied him - if it gave him even a fraction of peace - then it was worth hoping for.

Still, he couldn’t ignore the shadow standing behind it all. Whoever had caught Wu Suo Wei’s attention was no stranger to fists. That much was obvious. Da Wei told him about the Night Market and how the stranger put someone else to the ground. Fighters like that left marks whether they meant to or not.

His gaze flicked once to the curtain, to the stillness behind it. If Da Wei was opening himself at last, he deserved more than another storm waiting to fall on him.

Jiang Xiao Shuai drew a breath. He would find out who that man was. For Wu Suo Wei’s sake, he had no choice.

Maybe it would make all the difference.

Chapter Text

Voices carried sharp against the high ceiling, shoes cutting fast across the floor, the hollow sound of balls striking the boards in steady rhythm. Groups played in bursts, loud and careless, the kind of noise that filled space without meaning much.

But it wasn’t the noise that caught him.

He stood apart from the others, not hidden, but not part of the crowd either—the same boy from the truck yard, from the rain. At the edge of the court, he moved through his own rhythm—dribble, pivot, shot. The ball arced clean, clipped the rim, dropped. Not perfect, but intent was in every line. His shoulders weren’t locked tight, his jaw not clenched as hard as usual. For once, there was something unguarded in the way he carried himself.

Chi Cheng leaned back against the wall, arms folded, and let the rest of the gym blur. He didn’t need to hear the others, didn’t care what game they thought they were playing. His focus stayed fixed where it always did, though he had no reason for it that made sense.

The last time he’d seen him like this, the kid had been on the ground—breath ragged, chest heaving, a mess of sweat and defiance. He had reached out, steady grip pulling him up, and for one reckless beat want had hit low and sharp, fast enough that he’d had to school his face before it showed. And yet, even now, the memory clung—sharper than it should, heavier than simple lust.

Guo Cheng Yu’s words came back too easily—I found him. The look in his eyes when he said it, the weight of certainty. After all the years, after all the talk, he had what Chi Cheng had stopped expecting.

He told himself it didn’t matter. He had let go of waiting long ago. But with Guo Cheng Yu’s certainty still echoing, the thought wouldn’t fade. His brother had found what he himself had stopped expecting—and maybe that was why he didn’t shove this aside either. It wasn't the usual chase, wasn’t the usual burn that faded once sated. This stayed.

Something pulled at him, sharp and restless. Every time he looked at the smaller one, it pressed deeper than the usual want. It didn’t burn out when the moment passed. It stayed, stubborn, dragging him back. Curiosity, fire—whatever it was, it wasn’t simple.

Maybe that was why his eyes kept finding him. Why he couldn’t just let it fade like he did with everyone else.

Not just to take. But to see what else might be there.

The gym wasn’t empty yet—two men gathered their things near the far wall, voices echoing as they left. The court fell quieter, the sound of a single ball striking against polished wood carrying sharper through the space.

He caught it on the rebound, spun it in his hand, then let it roll slow towards his puzzle. “What’s the excuse this time? Still sore from losing last time?”

The other stiffened, glare quick. “I didn’t lose.”

The curve at Chi Cheng’s mouth deepened. “No? Could have fooled me. Wanna prove it, kiddo?”

The ball stopped at his shoes. For a moment, he looked ready to walk past it—past him. But pride was its own hook. He bent, scooped it up, and the game was on.

They didn’t play long rounds this time. No race to twenty-one. Just one-on-one drives, quick bursts, each point its own fight. The other moved sharper tonight, more focused. He scored once, twice, the ball cutting clean through the net.

Chi Cheng didn’t stop him. Not really. He wanted to see how he moved when he wasn’t bracing for impact.

And then it came—a shot from the 3-Point line, high and certain. The ball dropped through, and his opponent let out a sudden laugh, unguarded, his face breaking open with a smile. For once there was no tension locked in his jaw, no fight in his eyes. Just simple, unfiltered joy.

He froze. The burst of joy landed harder than any shove. That sound, that light—alive in a way the boy had never shown him. It hit different—not a body to conquer, but something he couldn’t name.

He stepped closer without meaning to, but the smile dropped at once, his shoulders locking tight again. The wall slammed back up, eyes sharp again.

The contrast struck harder than the shot. And he disliked it. He wanted the other version. Not the one baring his teeth like a cornered dog. The one who’d laughed like no one was watching. He wanted more of it.

He spun the ball in his palm, tone casual. “So. You’ve got a name, or should I keep calling you kid?”

Eyes narrowed. “Wu Suo Wei.”

The syllables sat sharp between them. Chi Cheng’s smirk tilted, quick. “Figures. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ right? Stubborn down to the bones.”

Heat flared in Wu Suo Wei’s expression. “You’ve got a problem with it?”

“Not at all,” Chi Cheng said, watching the fire catch. “Suits you.”

Predictable—his eyes narrowed even more, posture snapping defensive. Irritation rising quick, the spark of defiance he couldn’t hide.

It was adorable.

Wu Suo Wei muttered something sharp enough to cut, snatching the ball back. Chi Cheng let him, still amused—because even bristling, even snapping back, he was brighter than before.

And he found himself wanting to see that light fully again.

He tilted his head, watching him steady the ball. “Don’t you even want to know my name?”

The kid shot him a look, half defiant, half dismissive. “Why bother? I’ll just call you Hu Dayao.”(***see in notes)

The corners of Chi Cheng’s mouth curved, a laugh breaking loose—low, genuine. No one had ever thrown something that absurd at him. Not to his face.

But the amusement didn’t cover the flicker underneath. If his little puzzle didn’t know who he was, then the walls he kept so high weren’t about reputation. Not about fear of a name. They were his own. And that—more than the joke—made him want to know more, to see what else was buried under that front.

He stepped closer, just a little more, enough for the smaller man’s grip on the ball to tighten, shoulders pulling back. The shift was instant—the easy spark gone, replaced by the old tension. He caught it, let his smile linger anyway.

He liked the fire in him, the quick bite of words, but he liked that glimpse of light more. And he wanted to know how to make it last.

“My name—”

A ringtone cut through the air—loud, jarring. Wu Suo Wei flinched faintly; Chi Cheng didn’t. He pulled the phone out like it was nothing, screen lighting up with a name: Li Gang.

He answered without stepping back. “What.”

The voice on the other end was quick, urgent. A lead. His snakes—finally.

His eyes narrowed, the amusement stripped clean. By the time he hung up, decision was already set.

He slid the phone back into his pocket, gaze returning to the boy still clutching the ball like it was armor.

“Not bad,” he said at last, voice even. “We’ll finish this another time.”

A pause—just long enough to be felt. Then his mouth curved, faint and certain.

“You’ll see me again.”

And with that, he left the echo of the ringtone hanging between them.

The locker room was all dust and sweat. He changed fast, motions clipped, the call still pounding in his chest. A lead, finally. He should have been thinking routes. Payback. Names.

But the court stayed with him. That laugh—sharp, unguarded. Gone the moment he stepped closer.

In the car, smoke coiled out the window, cold air cutting through. His jaw locked.

The snakes should have had his mind.
Instead, it was a smile that wasn’t his—
and the certainty he wasn’t done.