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Chapter Text

Chapter 1 - Fate doesn’t knocks it barges the door

London, United Kingdom — The sky was low and heavy, the kind that always threatened rain but never followed through.

⸻

Xiao Zhan

The first day of term didn’t feel new to Xiao Zhan. Life, for him, had never really been about novelty—only about purpose. He folded his bed neatly, smoothed down his grey sweater, and tied his hair back from his face before answering the video call that had come, right on schedule, from home.

Mom 💐 – Video Call Incoming…

“Zhanzhan!” his mother’s voice filled the room before her face even appeared. Her smile was as warm as fresh tea. “Let me see you properly! Why is the camera so close? Step back!”

Xiao Zhan obeyed with a sigh and a tiny smile. “Good morning, Mom.”

His father appeared in the frame behind her, wearing glasses and a serious expression despite the small wave he gave. “First day of your master’s. Don’t forget why you’re there.”

“I won’t, Dad.”

His mother leaned closer to the screen. “Did you eat breakfast? Do you need money? Are you sleeping well? The weather there is too cold, I told you—”

“Mom,” he laughed softly, “I’m fine.”

Her tone softened. “I spoke with Yanli last night. She’s still helping at her family shop. She said she misses you.”

At the mention of his long-term girlfriend, Xiao Zhan’s eyes changed—gentler, sincere. “I miss her too.” His hand brushed over the silver ring hanging from a chain around his neck.

His father nodded firmly. “The apartment we bought is waiting. Your life is already set, Zhanzhan. Just focus.”

“No distractions,” he repeated steadily.

“Good boy,” his mom said lovingly. “My hardworking Zhanzhan.”

After the call ended, silence crept back into the room. Xiao Zhan watched a black cab pass outside the window, followed by students with messy hair and steaming coffee cups. Everyone here seemed to be running toward something unknown.

But not him.

He had a promise to keep. A future built step by step. Love already waiting for him at the end.

He grabbed his bag and left.

Wang Yibo

Across London, in a crowded student flat smelling faintly of instant noodles and air freshener, Wang Yibo was trying to find his other shoe.

“Where the hell—ah!” He found it under a skateboard.

His phone rang again. Third time that morning.

Mom – Calling…

He sighed and answered. “Morning.”

“Bobo! Happy birthday! My baby is twenty today!” His mother’s excited voice echoed, full of emotion.

“I’ve been twenty for—” he checked the clock “—eight hours already,” he said dryly.

She ignored him completely. “Did you eat? Do you have a jacket? London is too cold. And stay away from trouble!”

Behind her came the voice of his father: “Tell him we sent birthday money but if he buys another motorbike part with it—”

Yibo rolled his eyes. “I heard that, Dad.”

“We’re proud of you,” his mother continued, her voice softening. “Two years in London already… growing up so fast. Your father still says the house is too quiet without you.”

Yibo rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly quiet. “Yeah, I miss you too.”

“We know you don’t have everything figured out yet,” she added gently. “That’s okay. You’re young. Just live with heart.”

He smiled—small, but real. “I will.”

“And please,” she added, “don’t let those boys drag you into trouble tonight.”

As if on cue, his phone beeped with a message from UNIQ Group Chat:

Seungyoun: BIRTHDAY BLAST TONIGHT!!! 🎉🔥
Wenhan: Club VOID, 10 PM. No excuses.
Yixuan: Already booked VIP.
Sungjoo: Wear something that burns girls
Yibo: 😎

He smirked. “No promises, Mom.”

_______

Night – CLUB VOID

Rain had fallen and dried again, leaving London streets slick under neon reflections. Outside Club VOID, the bass shook the pavement.

“YIBO! Over here!” Seungyoun shouted from the entrance.

There they were—his people. His family away from home. The ones he had met during his first lonely year in London. Music brought them together. Brotherhood kept them that way.

Wenhan threw his arm around Yibo. “The legend turns twenty!”

“Shut up,” Yibo laughed.

“Tonight,” Seungyoun declared, raising a fist, “we say goodbye to teenage Yibo.”

“And welcome the era of chaos,” Sungjoo grinned.

Yixuan pushed them all toward the door. “Inside. Before they give away our table.”

As they disappeared into pulsing lights, the night felt infinite—full of rhythm, laughter, and danger.

 

———-

The night outside Xiao Zhan’s campus was cold, and the quiet pressed against his chest as he walked back toward his room. His mood is heavy after his afternoon call with his long-distance girl friend - Yanli. He told her goodnight, promised he loved her, promised he would hard for them

But tonight… the weight of those promises felt heavier as yanli’s father - a rich business man words are still fresh in his ears - “ Love don’t give you food, Stability is important, Status is imprortant. “, Xiozhan wants to change those words, earn respect from him and don’t want him to be considered only as his daughter’s lover.

He entered his building, heading down the hallway toward his room, when his phone suddenly began to ring.

Ayunga – Calling…

Xiao Zhan answered immediately, expecting the usual teasing or casual late-night chat.

But this time, Ayunga’s voice wasn’t playful. It was rough—panicked.

“Zhanzhan—help me.”

Xiao Zhan stopped walking. “Ayunga? What happened?”

“I—I messed up, okay? I’m at this club—some idiots here picked a fight—look I don’t even know what happened—just—just come. Please.”

Xiao Zhan’s heartbeat quickened. Ayunga almost never asked for help. Hearing fear in his voice didn’t feel real.

“Where are you?”

“Club VOID,” Ayunga said quickly. “In West London. Please, bro. Just come. They won’t let me leave—”

The call cut off.

“Ayunga?” Xiao Zhan tried. “Ayunga!”

No answer.

He didn’t think—he moved.

He grabbed his wallet and keys, shoved on his jacket, and rushed out of the dormitory.

⸻

Outside, the campus was nearly empty, the street glistening faintly from an earlier drizzle. Xiao Zhan waved desperately for a taxi, but none were close. He jogged toward the main road and finally managed to stop one.

“Where to, mate?” the driver asked.

“Club VOID. West London—please hurry.”

As the taxi sped away, Xiao Zhan clenched his jaw. He barely had any cash on him—just enough for the ride, maybe. He didn’t know what kind of trouble Ayunga was in. He didn’t know who was involved. He didn’t care.

Ayunga had been with him since childhood—through storms, through fear, through dreams. If he called for help, Xiao Zhan would run.

Even across oceans.

Even in a strange city.

Even into danger.

London lights passed outside the window—cold, distant, electric. Somewhere in this city, someone he cared about needed him.

He leaned forward in his seat, voice low but firm.

“Please hurry,” he said to the driver. “My friend needs me.”

The driver glanced at him through the mirror, saw the emotion in his eyes—and pressed harder on the accelerator.

——-

Club VOID, West London — 10:42 PM

Bass thumped like a second heartbeat. Strobes cut the dark into hard slices—blue, red, electric white. Wang Yibo slammed the shot glass down as Wenhan whooped, Seungyoun pounded the table, Yixuan grinned like a proud older brother, and Sungjoo tilted his head to shout over the music.

“Twenty looks good on you, birthday boy!”

Yibo’s answering smile was quick, wicked, the kind that promised a good night. The VIP booth they’d booked sat high enough to see the main floor: a pulsing sea of bodies, glittering drinks, the glow of a neon serpent sign curling above the DJ.

“Speech!” Seungyoun yelled.

“Make it short,” Yixuan said, handing him another drink.

Yibo stood on the leather seat, one hand up, the other balancing the glass. “To London,” he said, voice cutting through the noise because life liked him that way. “To brothers. To bad decisions we’ll regret tomorrow.”

The table erupted. “Cheers!”

He downed the drink, scrunching his face with a laugh as the others shoveled confetti from a bucket onto his head. It stuck in his hair, glinting under the lights.

“Dance floor,” Wenhan ordered. “Before you pass out.”

“Me? Never,” Yibo shot back, already sliding down into the crowd.

They flowed as a unit—UNIQ moving through the room like they owned it. Strangers turned to look; it was hard not to. Yibo carried a heat that drew people—reckless, bright, effortless. The kind that could set a room on fire or walk away from the ashes.

“Yibo!” Someone pulled him into a quick hug. “Happy birthday!”

He laughed, spinning her and letting her go. Sweat, perfume, cologne, smoke: the air tasted like a dare.

From the balcony above, security leaned on the rail, bored. Staff threaded the maze with trays. The DJ switched to something heavier; the floor roared.

Yibo caught his breath for a second, hands on his hips, eyes on the crowd. He felt… good. Untouchable.

———

The mood was different on the lower left side, near the long mirrored bar where the light ran colder and the crowd pressed tighter.

Ayunga stood with his jaw tight, shoulders squared, Hao Lin half a step behind him. Two broken shot glasses sweated on the counter, liquor pooling into a sticky shine. Four guys blocked the exit path—older, thicker, the type who came to be seen and to make sure everyone knew it.

A girl in their group had shouted earlier. She wasn’t shouting now. She watched, smiling like a dare.

Ayunga’s hands shook once, then stilled. “We’re not paying your bill.”

The one in front—leather jacket, rings—smirked. “You interrupted my friend’s conversation. You spilled our drinks. You embarrassed us. Compensation.”

“It wasn’t a conversation,” Hao Lin snapped. “It was harassment. She said no.”

Leather Jacket tilted his head. “Which one? The one who ran crying? Or the one who stayed?”

Hao Lin stepped forward. Ayunga caught his arm. “Leave it.”

He’d already sent Ruo Xi home. He’d walked her to the door himself and put her in a black cab, ignoring the lump in his throat when she said, voice shaking, Don’t be a hero. He’d promised he wouldn’t. Then the promise had cracked the minute one of the men grabbed his friend’s wrist again.

Hao Lin hissed, “We should call the police.”

“In a club like this?” Ayunga muttered. “By the time they come, we’ll be outside on the pavement bleeding.”

Leather Jacket leaned closer, breath warm with booze. “That’s one way. Or you pay for our table tonight and we forget your face.”

The tab sheet on the bar was ridiculous: bottles, trays, premium nonsense. Four figures.

Ayunga’s mouth went dry. He had cash for a week’s food, maybe. He’d been careful, counting coins as a habit. Tonight, he’d just wanted a small celebration. A few songs, a few laughs. Safe.

“You picked the wrong people,” one of the men said. His accent curved posh around something ugly. “Pay. Now.”

Before Ayunga could answer, a security guard finally approached, eyes bored, tone neutral. “Everything alright here?”

Leather Jacket smiled at him. “Fine. Just settling a misunderstanding.”

The guard’s gaze flicked over them, landing on Ayunga’s clenched fists, on the sticky bar, on the line of men blocking their path. He hesitated. “Keep it calm.”

He walked away.

Hao Lin shook with anger. “He saw.”

“He saw enough to avoid a mess,” Ayunga said, voice flat. He swallowed, reached for his phone—no signal. His stomach dropped. No, not no signal—someone had killed the network near the back. He looked up; one of the men was playing with a jammer device on his keychain, amused.

“We’re not leaving,” Leather Jacket said. “Until that bill is paid.”

Ayunga exhaled slowly. “Give me ten minutes.”

“For what?” the man asked.

“To get the money.”

Leather Jacket studied him, calculating. “You’ll come back?”

Ayunga’s eyes didn’t flinch. “I will.”

A long beat. Then—“Five minutes,” the man said. “Your friend stays.”

Hao Lin swore. “No way—”

“It’s fine,” Ayunga said, eyes on the man’s. “I’ll be quick.”

He took two steps, and a heavy hand landed on Hao Lin’s shoulder. “Insurance,” the man behind Leather Jacket said with a grin.

Ayunga walked, slow, steady, past the press of bodies, toward the corridor by the bathrooms where the music thinned just enough to breathe. He dialed once. Voicemail. He dialed again.

The third time, Xiao Zhan answered.

⸻

Taxi, West London — 10:53 PM

“I’m five minutes out,” Xiao Zhan told him. His voice was all steel. “Stay where people can see you.”

“They won’t let me leave,” Ayunga said. “They want me to pay their bill. Hao Lin’s still with them.”

Silence for half a heartbeat. “Send me your location pin.”

“It won’t go through. They’re jamming signals at the back bar.”

Xiao Zhan inhaled once, long. “Listen to me. Keep your head down. Don’t escalate. I’m almost there.”

Ayunga swallowed. “Zhan—”

“I’m here,” Xiao Zhan said, already leaning forward to the driver. “Just hold on.”

He hung up and stared out at the streetlights slashing past. He’d grabbed his wallet with everything inside—cash he couldn’t spare, cards he didn’t want to use. He didn’t care. Not tonight.

The driver glanced at him in the mirror. “You alright, mate?”

“My friend isn’t,” Xiao Zhan said.

The driver didn’t ask more. He pressed the accelerator.

_____

Club VOID, main floor — 10:57 PM

Yibo’s laugh crackled under the lights as Seungyoun tried to teach a stranger a hip-hop step and ended up inventing chaos. Sungjoo filmed it, breathless. Wenhan had already made three new friends. Yixuan drifted watchful at the edge, the herd dog making sure they didn’t scatter.

A staff runner approached their booth with a sparkler in a bottle and a tray of shots. “For the birthday!” she shouted.

Yibo clapped, bent double with delight, then sprang up again, cheeks warm, eyes bright. He was dizzy with happiness, with noise, with being twenty—still young enough to believe the night would never ask anything from him except more laughter.

From the balcony, a ripple of motion caught his eye—security moved briskly along the rail, then to the stairs.

“Something’s up,” Yixuan said under his breath.

“Not our circus,” Wenhan replied, but his gaze followed too.

Yibo’s phone buzzed. Mom: Call me if you’re cold. He snorted, typed back: Mum, I’m on fire. He slid the phone away and let the music take him again.

On the far side of the floor, a small knot tightened near the back bar. He didn’t see it. Not yet.

⸻

Back bar — 11:01 PM

Ayunga returned. He moved carefully, palms visible, the way you did when pride took a step back so safety could lead.

Leather Jacket smiled without warmth. “That was quick.”

Ayunga put his wallet on the bar. “I can pay part of it tonight. The rest tomorrow morning.”

The man’s eyebrow rose. “You think we’re a credit union?”

“I think you want to finish your night without crying to a dentist,” Hao Lin muttered, then winced as the hand on his shoulder tightened.

Ayunga shot him a warning look. He pulled out cash—notes worn thin—everything he had. It wasn’t close. He knew it. They all knew it.

Leather Jacket leaned in, lowered his voice. “Here’s another option. You and your friend apologize on your knees to my boys and kiss the floor. Might shave a few hundred off.”

Hao Lin lunged. Two men grabbed him. He twisted, fury bright, and earned a hard jab to the ribs for his trouble. He swallowed the sound, eyes blazing.

Ayunga didn’t move. “You won’t touch him again.”

The man’s smile sharpened. “Then pay.”

Ayunga stared at the money. Ruo Xi’s face flashed behind his eyes—her hand trembling as she tucked hair behind her ear, the way she said please be careful like a prayer she didn’t believe would be answered. Shame burned his chest. He hated this city for a second. Hated himself for bringing them here. Hated that he was about to beg.

“Don’t,” Hao Lin hissed, reading him.

Ayunga lifted his chin. “I’ll pay the full bill.”

Leather Jacket’s grin widened. “Good boy.”

Ayunga added, steady, “As soon as my friend arrives.”

“Friend?” The man’s eyes narrowed.

Ayunga nodded. “He’s five minutes away.”

“Make it two,” the man said, and signaled to a bouncer he clearly knew. The bouncer stepped just close enough to be a threat, just far enough to claim innocence.

Ayunga’s phone buzzed once in his hand. A text sneaked through: Outside. — Zhan

He exhaled. “He’s here.”

“Fetch him,” the man said.

“I’m not leaving my friend alone,” Ayunga replied.

Leather Jacket laughed, then turned to the bouncer. “Bring the friend.”

The bouncer moved.

⸻

Outside Club VOID — 11:05 PM

A queue curled along the rope. The street gleamed, damp. A patrol car idled half a block away, lights off. Xiao Zhan stepped from the taxi, paid with everything in his wallet, and didn’t wait for the change. He scanned the entrance: two doormen, one clipboard host, three smokers arguing softly, a girl fixing her heel on the curb.

He swallowed, squared his shoulders, and walked to the rope.

“Name?” the host asked.

“I’m not on the list,” Xiao Zhan said. “I’m here for my friend. He’s inside. He’s in trouble.”

The doormen traded a long look. “Everyone says that.”

Xiao Zhan kept his voice even. “Someone from the back bar just came to get me.”

As if on cue, the side door cracked open and the big bouncer from inside stuck his head out. He looked Xiao Zhan over, assessing, then jerked his chin. “You. With me.”

The doormen lifted the rope. The host stepped aside.

Xiao Zhan moved.

Behind him, the queue buzzed with annoyance. In front of him, the club swallowed sound and spat out bass and a hundred colors of danger.

He followed the bouncer into the dark.

————

Club VOID swelled like a living thing—bass in the bones, light in sharp flashes, heat rolling off the crowd in waves. From the VIP balcony, the city below looked like it had climbed inside the club and refused to leave: neon, sweat, breath, hunger.

At the center of it, UNIQ sprawled in their booth, gravity bent around their noise.

Seungyoun snapped his fingers, the spark in his eyes catching. “Enough wandering. Bobo turns twenty once. We make a story no one forgets.”

Wenhan drummed out a beat with two shot glasses. “He already is the story.”

Sungjoo tipped his head toward the staircase that fed into the VIP floor. “Then give the story teeth.”

Yixuan popped a bottle and leaned his elbows on the rail, the movement clean, deliberate. “Alright, then. One rule. If Bobo picks dare, he finishes it. No arguments.” A glance slanted to Yibo. “You in?”

Yibo slouched back, that troublemaker smile lazy at the edges. Glitter from the dance floor still dusted his hair. “I was born in.”

“Dare,” Seungyoun announced for him, like a ringmaster rolling out thunder. “Spiciest we’ve got.”

“Spice me,” Yibo said, eyes half-lidded, amused.

Seungyoun stood on the seat for height, held his drink like a mic, and pointed at the glass door to their level. “Before midnight, you will—”

A drumroll of knuckles on the tabletop. The booth leaned toward him.

“—kiss the first person who walks through that door,” he finished, savoring every syllable, “and post a clear photo of the kiss on your Weibo. No filters. No hiding their face.”

The table blew up—shouts, groans, laughter, a chorus of “you’re insane” layered with “do it, do it.”

“Public?” Wenhan cackled. “We’re going to jail.”

“Legendary jail,” Sungjoo said, already sliding his phone out, eyes bright. “I’m ready to document crimes.”

Yixuan didn’t smile. He just watched Yibo, measuring. “Clock’s ticking.”

Yibo’s tongue pushed against his cheek, thoughtful for a heartbeat. Then the grin returned, sharp as a match strike. “You want a hook tonight?” He knocked back his drink and set the empty down without looking. “Watch me.”

“Bobo!” Seungyoun crowed, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “King behavior.”

They shifted, a ripple of anticipation snapping across the booth. The glass door to the VIP floor stood framed in neon, opaque for a breath, then clear, then opaque again as bodies moved beyond it. Down on the main floor, the DJ sent a low snarl through the speakers that felt like a fuse being lit. A staff runner passed with a sparkler bottle; the fire hissed and spit light across the balcony.

Yibo planted himself with a view of the entrance, one hand loose on the rail, pulse steady. It should have been easy; this was VOID. Beautiful girls drifted through that door every minute with glossy smiles and sharp perfumes. The dare was practically a gift wrapped in strobe lights.

“Almost a hour to midnight,” Wenhan lied, grinning.

“Plenty of time,” Yibo murmured.

Sungjoo bumped his shoulder. “Imagine the comments.”

“Imagine the kiss,” Seungyoun said.

“Imagine the lawsuit,” Yixuan added dryly.

Yibo chuckled, then fell quiet, eyes fixed. A shadow slid behind the glass—a figure climbing the last steps. The doorman’s hand reached for the handle. The booth leaned in, breath held, braced for glitter and perfume and an easy story.

The door swung wide.

The music seemed to take a step back.

A man walked in.

Not a giggling pretty thing, not a fan, not a flirt. A man—tall, shoulders squared inside a dark jacket, jaw tight, eyes set forward like a blade. No dazzle, no wobble. He moved like he belonged to a colder room. Serious. Focus razor-narrow. He didn’t even glance at the balcony; he was already striding past the threshold, following a bouncer’s gesture deeper in.

For a split second, the booth forgot how to breathe.

“—oh,” Sungjoo said, voice small with surprise.

“Bro,” Wenhan whispered, half-laughing, half-startled, “your dare just grew teeth.”

Seungyoun clapped a hand over his mouth and then howled. “This is poetry. This is punishment. This is GOD.”

Yixuan didn’t blink. “Clock’s still ticking.”

Yibo’s first reaction was a short, shocked laugh—sharp and delighted at the wrongness of it. The twist. The trouble. He dragged his palm once over his mouth, like he could wipe the grin off and couldn’t.

“Not what you pictured?” Wenhan teased.

Yibo’s eyes never left the man. The seriousness. The speed. The purpose that cut through the haze of the club like clean air.

“Didn’t picture him,” Yibo said, voice low—and then lighter, cocky heat returning. “Guess tonight just got interesting.”

“Back out?” Seungyoun prodded, praying for the no.

Yibo tilted his head, that dangerous calm slotting into place. “A dare is a dare.”

Below them, the crowd shifted, opening and closing like water around a stone. The man—Xiao Zhan—moved through it without touching the surface, a storm kept on a leash, pulled by something urgent the balcony couldn’t see.

“Who walks like that into VOID?” Sungjoo muttered.

“Someone with business,” Yixuan said.

“Someone who won’t kiss back,” Wenhan added.

Seungyoun practically vibrated. “Bobo, I am begging you. Make literature.”

Yibo stepped out of the booth.

The boys went silent as if a wire had been cut. He didn’t rush; he never rushed. He slid into a new lane of light and shadow, shoulders loose, head tipped like a hunter pretending he’d just noticed a deer by accident. The path from the balcony to the interior stairs felt carved for him, the rail warm under his palm, the music folding around his bones.

At the foot of the steps, he paused, eyes tracking the stranger’s route across the upper corridor—past the bar, toward the back rooms, led by a bouncer who kept glancing over his shoulder. The stranger didn’t look up. Didn’t look anywhere but forward.

Yibo smiled to himself, an expression no one down there could see. Not predatory. Not kind. Curious. Thrilled.

He took the first step.

“BOBO,” Seungyoun hissed from above, both horrified and elated. “This is insane.”

Yibo didn’t answer. His pulse didn’t spike. He had lived in London long enough to know when the city was offering a scene and when it was offering a choice. Tonight, it had offered him both.

The corridor lights flickered. Somewhere, a bottle shattered. The DJ punched a beat so low it rattled the railing.

The stranger reached the end of the passage as the bouncer pushed open another door, light knifing across his face—high cheekbones, set mouth, eyes that did not belong to this noise. He was already half-vanished into whatever waited beyond.

Yibo’s mouth curved. He took another step. And another.

Behind him, UNIQ held their breath.

Across the club, fate quietly loaded the next chamber.

The door at the end of the corridor swung wider.

Xiao Zhan crossed the threshold without a glance.

And every plan, every dare, every line between two strangers drew tight as a tripwire.

The balcony erupted—gasps, laughter, curses—because the first person through the door hadn’t been a glittering girl, a game, an easy story.

It was a man built of purpose.

A storm in a suit jacket.

A direct hit.

Yibo laughed once—bright, disbelieving, delighted. Then his face shuttered into something steadier. “Alright,” he murmured to the music, to the boys, to the dare itself. “Let’s play.”

He stepped into the corridor.

The door fell shut behind Xiao Zhan with a soft, decisive click.

Chapter Text

The music died behind the heavy door, sealed away like another world.
A narrow corridor stretched ahead—white lights flickering awake in motion, one by one, a cold mechanical heartbeat.

Xiao Zhan stepped forward, jaw tight, phone already in hand. The air smelled like metal and low voltage—far from the noise, far from safety.

He hit Ayunga’s name.

The line rang once.

Twice.

Come on, pick up.

A bead of anxiety slid down his spine. He moved deeper into the corridor, past shadows that stretched long against the walls.

A third ring.

A click. Connection.

“Ayunga—where are you?” Xiao Zhan said, voice low, fast. “I’m inside. Talk to me. Where—”

BANG.

A door behind him slammed open.

Xiao Zhan froze. The hairs at the back of his neck lifted.

Footsteps. Heavy. Quick. Too close.

He turned slightly—just enough to sense movement—when a voice behind him cut the air.

“Now.”

He barely had time to register the voice.

A shadow slid into the corridor behind him—fast, fluid, untamed. Another followed, a step behind, camera already raised.

They moved like they owned the dark—like they weren’t entering trouble, but bringing it with them.

Xiao Zhan didn’t turn fully. He didn’t need to. Instinct told him everything—this wasn’t Ayunga. This wasn’t help.

This was something else.

He lifted the phone back to his ear.
“Ayunga—stay where you are, I’m coming to—”

A hand shot forward.

Fingers locked around his arm.

Hard.

Xiao Zhan jerked back, eyes flaring—too late.

His body was yanked off balance.

Spun.

One violent motion—sharp, practiced, brutal—slammed him backward. His shoulders hit the wall. His phone ripped from his hand, clattering across the floor and dying face-first on the tiles.

The world snapped into a framed moment—
• His back to the camera.
• Another body pressed in front of him.
• A face inches from his—wild eyes, sharp jaw, heat and danger rolling off him like a second skin.

Yibo didn’t speak.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t give Xiao Zhan one second to react.

His hand hit Xiao Zhan’s jaw—fingers spreading wide, grip iron-strong, forcing his face up. The other hand crashed against the wall beside his head, caging him in.

Close. Too close. Breath to breath.

Xiao Zhan’s eyes widened—rage loading, muscles tensing to break free—

—too late.

Yibo’s mouth hit his.

No warning. No hesitation. A violent collision.

Xiao Zhan froze from the force of it. It wasn’t a kiss—it was impact. Heat and alcohol and chaos surged in like a firestorm.

He shoved back instantly—hands flat against Yibo’s chest, pushing hard—but Yibo held him like a vice, slamming him harder into the wall.

The camera clicked somewhere behind them—fast, multiple shots. Yibo didn’t look. Didn’t move. Didn’t break.

He deepened the kiss—forcing it—like he was trying to consume, to dominate, to mark. His grip tightened along Xiao Zhan’s jaw, palm spreading until it nearly covered half his face, holding him in place like he belonged there.

Xiao Zhan kept his mouth shut, refusing to let him in, every line of his body locked in defiance. He twisted, using strength and leverage, trying to break free—

Yibo only pressed closer.

Breathing turned hard. Harsh. Violent.

Xiao Zhan tried to turn his head away—Yibo yanked him back by the jaw.

A low sound broke from Yibo’s throat—drunk, reckless, feral.

And then—

Teeth.

Yibo bit his lip.

A sharp, brutal drag of teeth—skin splitting under pressure. Heat. Pain. A taste of blood.

Xiao Zhan snapped in fury, fists clenching.

But Yibo didn’t stop.

The kiss dragged on—relentless—one long minute, then more—a raw, breath-stealing war between resistance and reckless hunger.

Xiao Zhan couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think over the violent rhythm—

Yibo kissing like a man who didn’t know limits.

Xiao Zhan resisting like a man who would never kneel.

Xiao Zhan shoved again—harder this time—fingers digging into Yibo’s jacket, trying to tear him off. Yibo didn’t budge. His body was a wall—hot, unsteady from alcohol but locked with stubborn strength.

One hand braced against Yibo’s shoulder, pushing with full force. The other clawed at his wrist, trying to break the grip crushing his jaw.

Yibo only tightened it.

The air thinned. Heat rose. Veins hammered. The kiss didn’t stop—it punished.

Xiao Zhan twisted his face away—Yibo dragged him back.

He tried to speak—Yibo swallowed the sound.

He tried to breathe—Yibo took that too.

Pulse against pulse. Fury against madness. Xiao Zhan slammed a fist against Yibo’s chest again—Yibo caught his wrist mid-hit, slammed it back against the wall, pinning both his arms now.

Xiao Zhan’s teeth clenched—rage boiling in every muscle—he refused to give a single inch.

But oxygen burned out fast inside a body.

His lungs screamed. Throat tight. The violent kiss kept stealing his air—second after second—long, merciless.

Yibo sucked in a harsh breath and crushed his mouth back down again, biting deeper, pulling a low sound from Xiao Zhan—not surrender, not pain—pure fury.

A smear of red now glistened between them. Xiao Zhan tasted iron, breath cut raw.

Enough.

Power surged through Xiao Zhan—shoulders tensing, body coiling. He broke one wrist loose—then the other—then shoved.

Hard.

Finally—space. A fraction of air. Enough to breathe—enough to kill.

He threw his arm up—Wiped blood from his lip—eyes blazing—

And hit.

His palm cracked across Yibo’s face with a sound that tore through the corridor.

Yibo’s head snapped to the side—stunned. Breath ripped from him. The slap echoed, sharp and final.

Silence.

Even the camera stopped.

Xiao Zhan stood there—chest heaving, blood at his lip, eyes on fire.

“What the—” he snarled—the rest bitten off in rage.

Silence fell like a blade.

They stared at each other across the inches he’d carved back. Xiao Zhan’s chest heaved; blood slicked his lip; swelling already pushed at the cut. The other—young, glitter still in his hair, eyes blown wide—drew a long breath and looked back with something bright and reckless gleaming under the hurt.

A smirk broke across his face. Unhinged. Hungry for more.

He moved in again—

A hand clamped around his wrist and yanked him backward.

Yixuan. Expression stone.

No argument. No words. The grip said enough.

The stranger resisted for one wild heartbeat, eyes never leaving Xiao Zhan’s. Then the door slammed and dragged him out, the stare cut off like a wire.

Silence crushed the corridor.

Xiao Zhan stood still, pulse hammering in his throat. One breath. Another. Control slid back into place like a blade sheathing.

He lifted his fingers to his mouth. Pain answered—sharp, electric. They came away red. The sight hardened something inside him, cooling anger into shape.

He crouched, found his phone near the wall, flipped it over.

Dead. Spiderwebbed glass. Useless.

He swore under his breath and started forward.

SLAM.

The back door infront burst open. Ayunga rushed out—eyes wide, breath ragged.

He ran straight for Xiao Zhan, caught his sleeve, urgent—then stopped when he saw the blood.

A glance at the lip. Fear flickered to anger.

Xiao Zhan wiped his mouth once with the back of his hand. The bruise throbbed. The cut stung. His gaze steadied.

He shook his head—some lunatic—and took Ayunga by the shoulders, scanning him fast for damage. No questions here. Not yet. He moved them both, and the corridor swallowed their footfalls.

He didn’t look back.

But the taste of blood and someone else’s heat stayed on his mouth.

And he hated that feeling by his heart.

Chapter Text

Corridor — Outside the Back Rooms
------

Ayunga’s voice comes out shredded, like he’s been running on nothing for miles.

“They wouldn’t let Ruo Xi leave,” he says, breath hitching. “Tried to hang on to her. I pushed—they shouted—one of them shoved Hao Lin. Then they said we spilled a drink and—Zhan, they want the whole tab. Four digits. I’ve got four hundred. That’s it.” He folds over a laugh that’s almost a sob. “They even killed the signal. A jammer on a keychain. I tried to call you, it kept dropping.”

Xiao Zhan doesn’t blink. He doesn’t let the small, frantic edges of the story push him off balance. Facts line up in his mind like chess pieces: jammer, back bar, men who pick corners and prey on the safe noise. He remembers the patrol car half a block away when he stepped out of the taxi—two men with hands in their pockets, not looking for trouble, looking like a promise of consequences if someone wanted to lean on them. He catalogues exits, doorways, the host at the rope, the thin-faced manager he’d seen on the way in. London is not chaos; it’s a map. He has it in his head.

“Stay behind me,” he says, the sentence small and flat but impossible to ignore.

They push through the heavy door and the bass hits like a second heartbeat. The bar smells like spilled bottles and cheap cologne. The men Ayunga named are there—Leather Jacket at the center, rings on his fingers, a smile made of habit; two backing faces like echoes. A bouncer looms near, hands tidy, interest shallow. Hao Lin’s shoulders are set as if bracing for a storm; Ayunga’s lip trembles. The tab sits on the counter like a demand.

Xiao Zhan steps forward without fanfare. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t pose. He lets the room do the work and watches it bend around him.

Leather Jacket sees a new face and appraises it like currency. “Oh—look who grew a spine,” he says loud enough for the nearest booths. “The little hero arrives.”

Xiao Zhan’s mouth doesn’t form a grin. The slit on his lip stings—an old bruise he’s kept quiet—and it sharpens rather than softens his gaze. “Show me the bill,” he says. “And show me your proof that my friend caused this.”

A ripple of laughter goes around their circle. One of the men—narrow, insolent—leans in. “You want receipts? Pay then. Or—”

Xiao Zhan steps closer, not loud, not hesitant. He closes the space between them without breaking stride. There’s no flourish; he merely moves and the room registers the fact of him being closer, a measured physical presence that doesn’t demand but forbids. His voice drops and the music seems to tilt away. “You touch a woman who said no. You block an exit. That’s not a spat over spilled drinks. That’s assault. If you want money, fine. But you will apologize to her first, here, in front of everyone. Right now. Or we call the police and the manager will see everything on camera.”

Leather Jacket’s smirk tightens. “You don’t come in here and tell us how to run our night.”

Xiao Zhan doesn’t laugh. He looks past Leather Jacket to the bartender—an island of bureaucratic neutrality—and then to the host near the rope, both small pieces of leverage he’s already noticed. He says quietly, the words like the careful placing of a loaded thing: “There’s a patrol car up the street. I saw it when I came in. If this becomes a police matter, your little game becomes a licensing problem for the club and an assault charge for you. Do you want that?”

He doesn’t shout it. He doesn’t need to. He has already shown he noticed the patrol car; he’s already noticed the manager’s distance and the bouncer’s professional disinterest. He lays out the facts as if they’re inevitable conclusions. The men in leather laugh at first, then pause because his calm makes logic out of rumor.

“You’re bluffing,” Leather Jacket says.

“Call them over,” Xiao Zhan answers. “You’ll find the cameras. You’ll find the logs. You’ll find the jammer’s signature on the radio scans if someone bothers to look. If you want this to be about a bill, fine. Pay. But not without public apology.”

Silence thickens. Leather Jacket’s face moves, trying a thousand angles to regain a script. He tests his crowd—no one cheers, the booth senses something new. Confidence is contagious. And then Leather Jacket makes the mistake of focusing on the wrong thing: the theatrics.

“You’ll pay?” he says, voice wobbling for the first time.

“Not from me,” Xiao Zhan says. “You apologize first. Right now. Kneel if you want to keep what’s left of your dignity.”

There is a sound like a held breath across the bar. The bouncer shifts, then raises an eyebrow as if reading a different order of danger. The manager appears because he senses the financial scent of a problem and because men who create problems like to be observed. He’s immaculate, a machine used to people assuming cash makes them safe. He hears the word jammer and the tone in Xiao Zhan’s voice and chooses the side that keeps his license.

“Show me the phones,” the manager says with that carefully irritated tone that’s more threat than suggestion.

The phones are produced grudgingly. The jammer on a keychain—flashy but stupid—clinks into someone’s palm and loses its bravado under the club’s cleaner lights. The manager voids the tab because he prefers risk to actual trouble. Leather Jacket steps back, muttering, and for the first time he looks like someone who knows the arithmetic of a bad night.

When the apology comes, it is not pretty. Leather Jacket clears his throat and says the words like an obligation rather than contrition. “Sorry,” he mutters toward the girl, voice thin. The other men follow in smaller echoes. The room is not healed; it’s merely intact again.

Xiao Zhan lets the apology land. It is not enough—he knows it—but it is a public retraction and it is what matters. He watches the man’s body language shift and files the moment away: they will bristle still, but they will not press. He sees the manager’s hand under the bar, the bouncer’s eyes calculating—there is a margin now. He hasn’t humiliated them with a show. He’s used the city, the rules, and the fact that he won’t be easy to exploit.

Outside, the girl gets into the taxi in a daze and sends the textual confirmation when she’s home. Ayunga collapses a little against the door frame and squeezes a laugh out that tastes like relief and shame mixed. Hao Lin swears softly and then drinks water like water will reset him.

They walk back to the taxi—quiet, whole in the parts that mattered.

-------------

Yixuan’s fingers are quick on Yibo’s wrist. He drags him into a narrow service corridor where the smell of bleach and spilled beer mix. Yibo stands there, jaw smarting where someone’s hand had given him a small, humiliating punctuation. He fits the bruise with a hand because he wants to test that it’s real. The fact of the pain pleases and warns him at once.

“What the hell was that?” Yixuan asks, not loud. The question is older-brother level cutting. “A dare? Personal? Which?”

Yibo tastes metal at the back of his tongue. The memory of Xiao Zhan’s jaw — the set line, the sudden crabbed silence after the slap — keeps surfacing like a wrong coin. He doesn’t feel shamed. He feels…interested, frustrated, sharp. The man who stopped him had an authority that didn’t need shouting. For the first time that night, Yibo is off balance.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like that,” he says. “It was a dare. Then he—” Yibo’s voice goes thin. He swallows the rest. Pride keeps him from saying he pushed me away; he can’t tell them it felt right to be stopped.

Sungjoo huffs in, looking sharp at Yibo, eyes wide. Wenhan tries a joke and it slides off the moment; Seungyoun circles with the buoyant, clownish energy he can’t help. They gather like a flock trying to reassess the kill.

“Was it a kiss or a mugging?” Seungyoun tries, not meeting Yibo’s face.

Yibo wants to be bigger than the bruise. He wants the joke. “Half and half,” he says, and the circle gives a small, nervous laugh.

Yixuan holds up the camera like a contraband confession. “I did take a few pictures. Blur, though—”

the gravity of the night has sobered the edges of their stupid bravery.

Seungyoun pushes a bottle into Yibo’s hand. “Birthday fix,” he says. “One down the hatch.”

Yibo lifts it and drinks, a long line straight down his throat. The burn is clean and alive. He clamps his jaw as the pain in his cheek flares like a bright signal. Instead of disgust, a shape forms in his mind: the man’s back to the camera, shoulders a kind of armor even when surprised, the broken line on his lip when the slap landed. It’s not humiliation that blooms—it's attention, sharp and greedy.

“Ten minutes to midnight,” Wenhan says then, checking his phone like a gambler. The dare still lives like a live wire. The time on the group chat, the beat of the music—these are small rules they all keep even when the night becomes anything but.

Yibo pulls his phone toward him and tells Yixuan to send the shots. The others protest inside the locked circle of logic Yixuan trusts; he finally concedes with a look that says: you’re choosing this.

He scrolls through the frames until one lands like a hot stone in his hand: his face in a reckless arc, the stranger’s back to the camera, the kiss blurred into motion—beautiful in the wrong way. He types a caption without thought and with a kind of fierce ownership:

My wild birthday bash 🎉🔥

He posts. The small act is ridiculous and enormous. It is stake-claiming; it is mess-making; it is theatre. He tastes blood in his mouth and it tastes like victory and loss at the same time.

A laugh—half delirious, half apology—slides out of him. His limbs unlace. He lets the alley’s cold air wrap around him and, with the city tilting odd and clean, he goes black.

-------------

Xiao Zhan’s Room — After

The room is small enough to hold the heat of three people and the cold after of an event too large for it. They drop their bags like exhausted animals. Ayunga sits on the bed and buries his face into his knees. Hao Lin rubs at the bruise forming under his ribs.

Xiao Zhan stands by the window with a mug he doesn’t remember pouring. The cut at his lip hurts like a ledger he refuses to open. He feels the echo of the hallway—someone’s mouth forcing itself on him, his own hands clawing, the slap when he finally pushed back—and the memory is less about physical humiliation than the way helplessness settled inside him like a heavy coat. He had felt it before in smaller scales—insults swallowed, opportunities missed—and it had always tasted like failure. Tonight was different. He had made a choice and that choice was brutal and civil both: show up, make it matter, take the edge off for people who couldn’t fight as clearly as him.

Ayunga murmurs a grateful apology, half-sentenced, half-ashamed. Xiao Zhan hears it and says only, “You did the right thing calling me.”

They sit in a silence that’s thick but not empty. The city softens at the edge of the curtains. Time yawns as it does after a small war.

He looks at his dead phone—spiderwebbed glass, a black mirror—and thinks of morning. It’s already tomorrow at home. His mother’s voice will be there if he picks up. He wants to tell her everything: that he kept his promise, that the world bent when he required it to, that he didn’t break. But when he imagines the conversation, the boxy warmth of her worry, the questions his face can’t answer without telling a stranger lived truth, he realizes he won’t let her worry with the details. He’ll fix the phone in the morning and let his mother keep the myth she needs: that her son is safe.

He lays down, eyes open. The cut hums. The memory of teeth and breath lingers like a photograph he’s not ready to burn. He does not sleep. He lets anger sit beside him like a trained hound — tethered, alert, not unleashed.

Chapter Text

The first thing he felt when he woke was not the hangover. It was the ache where a palm had printed itself on his cheek, like a heat brand that remembered him better than he remembered himself.

Yibo lay still, eyes closed, and replayed the corridor the way he scrubbed through dance videos—frame by frame until the rhythm answered back. Fluorescents flicker. The hum of bad wiring. A breath caught between their mouths. Lips softer than they should’ve been on a stranger. Softer than a dare deserved.

Then the slap.

He grinned at the ceiling before he could stop it.

From the other room, Wenhan cursed the kettle like it had wronged his ancestors. Seungyoun’s laugh ricocheted down the hall. Yixuan’s voice—flat, older-brother stern—cut through everything: “Delete the post.”

Post.

Yibo rolled over and scooped his phone from the floor. The lockscreen was an avalanche of red numbers: messages, tags, DMs from girls who liked his ice when it burned them. He thumbed through the mess. The photo sat there like a lit match—his fingers tangled in a stranger’s hair, the line of a back impossible to mistake: neat shirt, tidy shoulders, something that screamed study hours and early mornings. The caption he’d coughed up last night—“My wild birthday bash 🎉🔥”—looked stupid now, like a child’s dare.

He didn’t delete it.

He zoomed in instead. The edge of a silver chain glinting where the collar gaped. The clean, disciplined cut of hair tied back. The curve of a jaw he’d held in his hand like a question. He could still feel the give of skin under his palm, the way the man’s mouth had refused and then—no, not yielded; he’d fought. That was the part that stuck under Yibo’s ribs. The fight. The eyes when they’d met, seconds after the slap. Not fear. Not even disgust. Rejection as clean as a blade.

“Yo,” Seungyoun called, barging in without knocking. “Breakfast, lover boy. Yixuan’s on a warpath.”

“I’m busy,” Yibo said, and kept zooming. “What club was it?”

“VOID.” Seungyoun leaned on the doorframe, chewing. “You were a whole show, man. Manager wanted to throw us out.”

“Did he?”

The first thing he felt when he woke was not the hangover. It was the ache where a palm had printed itself on his cheek, like a heat brand that remembered him better than he remembered himself.

Yibo lay still, eyes closed, and replayed the corridor the way he scrubbed through dance videos—frame by frame until the rhythm answered back. Fluorescents flicker. The hum of bad wiring. A breath caught between their mouths. Lips softer than they should’ve been on a stranger. Softer than a dare deserved.

Then the slap.

He grinned at the ceiling before he could stop it.

From the other room, Wenhan cursed the kettle like it had wronged his ancestors. Seungyoun’s laugh ricocheted down the hall. Yixuan’s voice—flat, older-brother stern—cut through everything: “Delete the post.”

Post.

Yibo rolled over and scooped his phone from the floor. The lockscreen was an avalanche of red numbers: messages, tags, DMs from girls who liked his ice when it burned them. He thumbed through the mess. The photo sat there like a lit match—his fingers tangled in a stranger’s hair, the line of a back impossible to mistake: neat shirt, tidy shoulders, something that screamed study hours and early mornings. The caption he’d coughed up last night—“My wild birthday bash 🎉🔥”—looked stupid now, like a child’s dare.

He didn’t delete it.

He zoomed in instead. The edge of a silver chain glinting where the collar gaped. The clean, disciplined cut of hair tied back. The curve of a jaw he’d held in his hand like a question. He could still feel the give of skin under his palm, the way the man’s mouth had refused and then—no, not yielded; he’d fought. That was the part that stuck under Yibo’s ribs. The fight. The eyes when they’d met, seconds after the slap. Not fear. Not even disgust. Rejection as clean as a blade.

“Yo,” Seungyoun called, barging in without knocking. “Breakfast, lover boy. Yixuan’s on a warpath.”

“I’m busy,” Yibo said, and kept zooming. “What club was it?”

“VOID.” Seungyoun leaned on the doorframe, chewing. “You were a whole show, man. Manager wanted to throw us out.”

“Did he?”

“Yixuan smoothed it.” He squinted at the phone. “Dude, just take it down. People are—”

“Talking?” Yibo slid off the bed and crossed to the desk where his helmet sat, matte and mean. “They always talk.”

“About your type, now.” Seungyoun made air quotes. “Comments are wild. You don’t want that smoke.”

Yibo’s mouth pulled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I don’t care what they call me.”

He did care about something else: the way the man had pushed him away like gravity was optional. The way that eyes had said no and then watched him like a problem to solve. Yibo knew problems. He knew how to break them down into beats: where’s the music, where’s the road, where’s the angle. He danced them until they obeyed.

He opened the post’s tag feed. Someone had geotagged the night. A fan had uploaded a blurry hallway video—ten seconds, jittery, sound washed out. But there it was: the white corridor, the swipe of a camera going down, the stranger’s hand snapping up to shove his face away. And at the edge of the frame, the club’s back bar sign flashed for a breath.

“Back bar,” Yibo murmured.

“What?”

He was already pulling on a hoodie. Adrenaline washed the last alcohol out of his blood. “Manager knows him,” he said. “Or the cameras do.”

“Bro.” Seungyoun stepped in his way. “We were drunk. You were out of line. This is… just leave it.”

Yibo stared at him, blank, the way he stared at a bike that wouldn’t start. “Last night was a dare. This is different.”

“Different how?”

“I want him to want me back.”

The words tasted like metal. He didn’t look at Seungyoun when he said them. He looked at the photo again, at the cool line of a neck that had refused him, at the chain like a promise tucked under cotton. He didn’t want to think about what that promise meant. He didn’t want to think about words other people loved throwing around like cages.

He wanted results.

Helmet in hand, he shouldered past. Yixuan tried to snag him at the door, mouth already forming a lecture. Yibo kissed the air next to his cheek just to annoy him and took the stairs two at a time.

Outside, the morning bit clean. He straddled the bike and felt the world narrow to engine, road, objective. The slap still hummed on his cheek like a metronome.

“Find him,” he told the throttle. “Make him ask.”

The bike answered with a roar.

--------------------

Zhan woke late on purpose. Afternoon classes meant a longer run, an extra rinse for his shirts, time to iron clean lines into his day. He made the bed before he brushed his teeth. Order first, everything else after.

He forgot about the corridor.

Only in the bathroom mirror—light catching just right—did the memory rise: a faint split on his lower lip, no more than a comma. He touched it. Heat. A bite that had asked entry and got refused. He remembered the weight of a hand on his jaw, the press, the sour alcohol on a stranger’s breath—then the sound his own palm made when it met a cheek. That sound had satisfied him last night.

Now it just made him tired.

“Lunatic,” he told the reflection, not the bruise. Clubs gathered them like moths to blue light. He didn’t have time for moths.

He looped the silver chain back under his T-shirt, let the ring settle where it always did, and stepped into the hallway.

Ayunga was already in the kitchen, sleeves shoved up, moving a pan like he had a bus to catch—which he did. “Ten minutes,” Ayunga said without turning. “Eat fast. Hao Lin bolted to class already.”

Zhan slid onto the stool. “He alright?”

“Fine. Embarrassed. He says thank you. I say thank you too.” Ayunga pushed a cup toward him. “Drink.”

Zhan smiled with the corners of his mouth, not the split. The tea was sweet and hot. Ayunga squinted. “Wait—hey. Last night I remember… was that blood on your lip? Show me.”

Zhan tilted his face. Ayunga winced. “You got into a fight?”

“Some lunatic kissed me by force.”

Ayunga choked on his tea. “A man?”

“Drunk. Stupid-looking.” Zhan took another sip. “Don’t make a story out of it.”

“How did it taste?” Ayunga waggled his eyebrows, already grinning.

“Do you want to go to university or hospital?” Zhan said, dry. “Childish talk. Leave it. I slapped him. Matter ended.”

“You slapped—oh my god.” Ayunga thumped the counter. “Why didn’t you tell me? We had other problems and you just—”

“The only problem left is my phone,” Zhan said. “It’s dead. I’ll need to spend on that.”

Ayunga calmed, dug in a drawer, and slid a card across. “Small shop by the corner. He’s quick and cheap. If you need a phone for Yanli today, take mine.”

“No.” Zhan shook his head. “I’ll video call from my laptop. She doesn’t complain. I’ll tell her about the phone; she’ll wait.”

“You going to tell her about the kiss?”

“I’m not wasting breath on nonsense,” Zhan said, standing. “She’s got exams. I’ve got class.”

Ayunga grabbed his bag, already half out the door. “Okay, okay. Mister Responsible. Text me if the shop scams you.”

“My phone is broken,” Zhan said, but Ayunga was gone, laughing down the stairwell.

Outside, the street had that late-morning London chill that sneaks up the sleeves. The repair shop was a glass box stacking cases like candy. The man behind the counter didn’t look up from his soldering iron until Zhan set the cracked phone down.

“Water?”

“Floor,” Zhan said. “Then a shoe.”

“Seven p.m.,” the man said. “Thirty-five.”

“Cash,” Zhan confirmed, and left lighter by a problem.

On the bus, he opened his laptop, checked the timetable, the project brief, the budget sheet he kept for himself and for home. Masters of Art—Graphic Design—first year, first term, no late assignments, no missed critiques. He added a line item for the phone repair and another for Yanli’s birthday gift next month. Reliable support had numbers behind it.

In the studio building, he was ten minutes early, as usual. The air smelled like paper and coffee and the faint heat of printers that never slept. He slid into his seat, set out pencils, a metal ruler, the sketch of a logo he’d been pruning for days. Clean geometry, no wasted lines.

He thought again of the corridor only once, when his tongue brushed the bruise by accident. A pulse, then nothing. If that kid ever stood in front of him again, Zhan would make him kneel and apologize, clearly, without drama, the way problems are solved.

He bent over the page. The world narrowed to grid and graphite, to a future he could draft to scale.

------------------

VOID was uglier in daylight. The server kid from last night hovered by the door, cigarette unlit, eyes red.

“I need one thing,” Yibo said.

“Money buys anything,” the kid shot back.

“Money’s not the problem.” Yibo jerked his chin toward the alley.

They slid into the service corridor—bins, bleach, a door wedged with a brick. The kid finally sparked his smoke.

“A guy,” Yibo said. “Tall. Studious. Hair tied back. Came in late.”

The kid snorted. “That’s London, boss. You want a name?”

“Back bar,” Yibo said. “He came with a bouncer. There was a problem.”

“Yeah, manager was barking.” The kid scratched his cheek. “Could’ve been because of a jammer thing—security got pissy.” He shrugged. “No details.”

“Get them.”

“That’s not how it works. CCTV gets dumped every forty-eight unless the boss flags it. He’s not in until—” the kid checked his phone, “—eight tonight. And he hates questions.”

A small, precise throb started under Yibo’s mask where the slap lived. “Then give me a place to start.”

The kid blew smoke, thinking, or pretending to. “Back-bar bouncer yesterday was… maybe Jin? Or Min. They swap. Big guy with a scar, or maybe the bald one. I don’t know.” He opened his palm. “You want me to ask around, I lose skin for you.”

Yibo slid notes across. The kid’s eyes widened; his spine straightened.

“I’ll try,” he said. “No promises. Text me later. If I hear anything, you’ll hear.”

“Text me now,” Yibo said, handing over his phone for the number. The kid typed, then pocketed the cash.

“One more thing,” the kid added, halfway back to the door. “If your guy came in with a bouncer, his name’s not gonna be on any tab. Suits don’t pay at the back.”

The corridor swallowed him.

He hated waiting.

He gunned the bike and let the city blur.

-------------------

The studio smelled like resin and old sweat. Yibo dropped his bag by the speakers, pulled the mask down to his chin, and let the first kick drum hit him square in the chest. No choreo. Just heat. Footwork until the floor remembered him.

Sweat blurred the slap’s sting into something useful. He chased the ghost of the corridor through turns, hit accents harder than the track asked for, rode the crash down into a freeze that trembled, held, broke. Again. Again. Until the beat unclenched his fists.

He stopped only when the mirror fogged. The clock had sprinted. He checked his phone.

UNIQ (8 unread)

Wenhan: delete the post.

Seungyoun: comments are feral 💀 take it down

Yixuan: we talk later. mask up.

Sungjoo: bro u went VIRAL

Screenshots stacked below—DMs, edits, strangers drawing red circles around the line of a back and arguing about labels like they were picking teams.

Yibo wiped his face with his shirt and typed:
Yibo: I don’t care what they call it. He pushed me away. That was the mistake. I’m going to make him ask for it.

Three dots from Yixuan popped up, then vanished. Wenhan sent a single 🙄. Seungyoun replied “ur hopeless” with a heart he didn’t mean.

Yibo killed the thread. Quick shower in the locker room—cold, fast, enough to rinse the salt but not the beat in his ribs. Mask back on, pulled high to cover the bloom on his jaw.

Campus had already made up its mind.

“Is that the boyfriend?” someone whispered as he cut through the quad.

“Came back to class after dropping that post? Daring.”

“He looked like a model. That back? Please.”

“Maybe he’s from our college.”

The corner of Yibo’s mouth tipped up under the mask. Let them talk. He took the long way to the café, ordered without looking up, and palmed the cup as soon as it hit the counter.

In lecture, he slid into his usual seat. Yubin turned around, eyes bright like he’d been waiting.

“You’re a legend,” Yubin said under his breath. “You never told me about your boyfriend.”

“Didn’t ask,” Yibo said, smirking. “I’ll let you meet him one day.”

“Hoooo, secrecy. I love it.” Yubin peered closer. “Why the mask today?”

“Sore throat,” Yibo said easily. “Too much shouting last night.”

Yubin laughed, satisfied. “Serve you right. After class, help me with that footwork note? I can’t catch the count.”

“Text me the track,” Yibo said.

The professor started. Pens hissed. Yibo typed without looking at the board, left hand steady, right thumb skimming the edge of the cup, mind not on counts or notes or the way the room hummed around him. The heat from the dance hadn’t cooled. It had condensed into something cleaner. A line he could follow.

He didn’t back off. He never left things unfinished.

Under the desk, his phone buzzed once. Unknown number.

----------

Unknown: got something. not a name.

He didn’t wait for the next line. Chair scraped. Yubin glanced up, question half-formed; Yibo was already shoving the notebook into his bag.

Mask up. Hallway. Stairs two at a time. The bike answered first try, engine climbing quick as his pulse.

VOID in daylight again. The server kid—same vest, same red eyes—paced by the door like a dog that’d slipped the leash. He spotted Yibo, jerked his head toward the alley. They cut past bins and bleach to the back door where a bouncer waited, arms folded, neck like a tree trunk.

Yibo didn’t waste breath. “Tell me.”

The bouncer blinked once. “I don’t know his name.”

“Start with what you do know.”

The man rolled his shoulder, unimpressed by the cash Yibo wasn’t even showing yet. “My boys came by yesterday. Four of them. Had a little scene with a girl from another group.” He looked past Yibo at the kid, then back. “They asked me to give a guy access. I did. Opened the side, pointed him to back bar, went back to my post.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“You didn’t accompany him.”

“No.”

“You saw him leave?”

“Didn’t see him at all after I opened the door.” He tipped his chin toward the building.

The answer landed like a door closing. The kid shifted, maybe embarrassed for the thinness of it, maybe bored. Yibo stared at the cinderblock wall, made his breathing count to eight and back down.

“Nothing else? No tab? No face? No name on the radio?” he said, each word shaved down.

“Back bar doesn’t run tabs.” The bouncer shrugged. “And I don’t take names. I open doors.”

Yibo let the silence stretch until it hurt. Then he slid money to the kid without looking, more than last time. “You hear anything real, you call. Not guesses. Not stories. Real.”

The kid nodded fast, pocketed it faster. The bouncer didn’t move.

Yibo turned, helmet in hand. The bruise under the mask throbbed with his heartbeat, a small, steady metronome. The corridor’s hum sounded like it had last night.

He’d come for a name. He left with a hallway.

Fine.

He swung onto the bike. If doors wouldn’t talk, he’d make the walls echo. He didn’t back down. He didn’t leave things unfinished.

The engine took the thought and made it loud.

---------------

By seven the shop’s glass box had fogged with breath and solder heat. The man behind the counter slid Zhan’s phone across like a repaired bone.

“New screen,” he said. “Battery’s low.”

Zhan paid cash, tested the haptics, the camera, the SIM. Everything answered. Order, restored.

The phone rang before he’d reached the door.

“Ayunga,” the screen said.

He answered. “I’m on my way home.”

“Emergency,” Ayunga blurted. “Come quick—room—now.”

Zhan pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are hopeless,” he said, mild. “Always panicking me.”

“Just come.”

The line clicked dead.

He cut through the cold, pockets full of fixed problems, and climbed the stairs two at a time. Their door was ajar. The kitchen light was on. Ayunga sat at the counter like a man waiting for a verdict, fingers strangling his phone.

“What happened?” Zhan set his bag down, toeing his shoes into line.

“Phone fixed?” Ayunga asked, too quickly.

“Yes,” Zhan said. “But it’s out of charge. Wait. I’ll plug it in.”

He stepped into his room, set the phone on the nightstand, snake of cable in, red lightning bolt blooming. The ring on his chain clicked once against the casing. He breathed once, even, and went back out.

Ayunga hadn’t moved. Serious in a way that made the air thinner.

“What happened,” Zhan repeated, opening the cabinet for a glass.

“You have the university group chat on your phone?” Ayunga asked.

“No,” Zhan said, reaching for the tap. “Waste of time.”

Ayunga stood in the same motion and thrust his phone into Zhan’s space.

The screen filled with a picture.

His back against a wall.
A hand gripping his jaw.
A stranger’s mouth on his.

His blood turned ice.

The caption:
“My wild birthday bash 🎉🔥” — posted by @yibo_official

Comments flooded under it:
Who is he??🔥
Dominance level 1000
Is this real??
They look hot as hell ngl
Find the mystery man!

Xiao Zhan didn’t breathe.

Someone had posted that moment. That violation. That kiss.

Rage didn’t come fast. It came slow—cold—rising through him like a tide.

He used me.
He made a joke out of me.
He thinks he can do this and walk away?

Zhan’s breath went wrong. Water missed the rim. The glass slipped from his fingers, struck tile, and shattered into a bright, stupid sound that kept on ringing even after it was gone.

Chapter Text

VOID gave him nothing. No name. No face. Just a hallway that still hummed under his skin like bad wiring.

So he goes to the only place that used to fix him.

The track.

The night wind cut sharper on the outskirts of London, where city lights gave up and engines took over.

The abandoned airstrip never appeared on any official map, but every rider in the underground circuit knew the way. Headlights curved through the dark, slicing open the wet asphalt, and the smell of petrol clung to the air like a second skin.

This was supposed to be his cure.

Yibo tightened his gloves and rolled his shoulders once. Noise swelled behind him—voices, laughter, revving engines. Familiar. Easy. A comfort he could slip into like muscle memory.

“Bobo! You’re late,” Kai yelled over the roar of a Ducati.

“Didn’t know you turned into my wife,” Yibo muttered, smirking as he took the helmet tossed at him.

Kai grinned. “Race one’s warming up. Track’s slick tonight—don’t die.”

Yibo lifted the helmet, but didn’t put it on yet. His eyes drifted across the tracks, but he wasn’t really seeing it—the racers, the girls with cameras, the new kids staring at him like a legend. He used to feel something here. Freedom. Velocity. Fire.

Tonight, he felt nothing.

He mounted the bike and throttled once. The engine growled awake, hot and hungry. Good. Something else that didn’t know how to quit.

He launched forward.

The track stretched under him like a dare. Corners blurred. The world tunneled. Breath became wind. For a few seconds—just a few—everything burned clean.

But then it hit again.

A flash—white corridor light.
A jaw caught in his hand like a perfect fit.
A mouth that refused him.
Teeth in anger. Blood. Fire.
And that slap.

That fucking slap.

His grip tightened on the throttle and the bike screamed beneath him. Lap after lap, he pushed harder. But the faster he went, the clearer the memory became—like speed sharpened it instead of erasing it.

No one had ever pushed him away like that. No one had ever burned him without touching him.

That stranger did. And he didn’t even look back.

Yibo braked hard, drifted into a stop, breathing ragged. Helmet off. Cold air. Still not enough.

“Didn’t cool off?” Kai asked, stepping beside him.

Yibo didn’t answer.

He stayed until the runs ended, until the crowd drifted home, until even his closest friends stopped trying to ask what was wrong. It wasn’t a question anyone could answer anyway.

He rode back alone.

---------

Hours later, he lay on his back in his dark room, staring at the ceiling. The kiss replayed again—and it made no sense. He’d kissed too many strangers to count. It was never supposed to feel like anything. It was never supposed to follow him home.

So why couldn’t he stop tasting it?

He dragged his hand over his face.

Enough.

He grabbed his phone. Opened Weibo. Opened the post again.

There it was—the blurred picture. His hand gripping him. That mouth—defiant even in motion. His chest tightened.

Yibo didn’t realize he was staring until the screen dimmed. He tapped it awake again—just to look one more time.

Something in his chest pulled tight. Unsettled. Wanting.

He didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t afraid of it either.

He was addicted to it.

Bzzzt.

A vibration cut through his thoughts. A single notification lit up the screen.

Incoming call.

Unknown Number.

------------------

The picture burned into his eyes long after he threw Ayunga’s phone onto the kitchen counter.

His back against a wall. A stranger’s hand on his jaw. A kiss that wasn’t a kiss. A violation turned into entertainment. Posted online. Liked. Shared. Celebrated.

Rage wasn’t loud inside him. Rage was precise—quiet—surgical.

Ayunga swept glass off the floor, giving him time. He always did. He knew Zhan didn’t break easily. And he knew this—whatever lived in Zhan’s eyes right now—wasn’t normal.

“Zhan…” Ayunga said carefully. “I checked everything. No one knows it’s you. The comments… they’re looking, but they’re clueless. You’re safe.”

Safe.

Xiao Zhan almost laughed. Safe wasn’t the problem. Control was.

“He has done a mistake ,” Zhan said, voice low. “And he walked away.”

Ayunga sighed. “I asked around. He’s… that guy is just noise. Wang Yibo. Second year. Still a Kid not graduated yet, Dance club. Some racer. Campus famous idiot, wanders around with girls. But that’s it—he isn’t dangerous.”

Dangerous?

Dangerous wasn’t the boy in the picture.

Dangerous was the part of Zhan that didn’t want to walk away from this.

“Forget him,” Ayunga said gently. “He'll move on tomorrow. Just report the photo and—"

Crash.

Another glass went flying, exploding against the floor.

Ayunga stared. He had never seen Xiao Zhan lose control—not once—not in twenty years.

“Hey—Zhanzhan,” Ayunga said softly now, voice shaking a little. “Look at me. Why are you—why are you like this right now?”

Zhan finally looked at him.

But there was nothing left to say.

He turned, shoulders tight, expression carved from stone, and walked out of the kitchen.

“Zhan—where are you going?” Ayunga called after him.

No answer.

The bedroom door slammed shut.

The lock clicked.

And the room went silent.

---------------

His thumb hovered, then he swiped to answer.

“Wang Yibo?” the voice chirped—the same thin, hurried waiter tone from VOID.

“Yeah,” Yibo said, impatient. “Any luck?”

“Man—sorry. I asked around, even checked with the manager.” The waiter’s words rushed, breathless. “That guy you described—he was at the back bar last night. Not a customer. Came with a purpose—rescue his group, one girl with them. He confronted the regular problem lot, the ones with jammers and nonsense. Proper warning, loud and sharp. Then—man, he took impact; he didn’t hang around. Rush-out immediate after it was settled. No name. No footage—back bar’s dry the owner already cleared the tapes. And… my colleague? She’s still drooling over him from last night. I’m sorry, that’s all I got.”

Yibo’s hand tightened on the phone. The gravel-throat excitement in the waiter’s voice did what curiosity always did to him—set something boiling. Not a name. Not yet. But confirmation: the man hadn’t been a patron. He’d been there with a purpose. He’d left on purpose.

“Thanks,” Yibo snapped, sharper than he meant. The waiter apologized again like a reflex. Yibo cut the call.

A hundred thin fires sparked up under his skin. Curiosity turned into a hunt. If he wasn’t a customer, if he rushed out—then there were places to look, people who saw him, angles the waiter missed.

He stared at his reflection on the phone’s blank screen—his jaw, the bruise fading to purple—and the thought that had been growing all night hardened into a plan: find him.

----------

The room spun slow and tight after the door shut. He paced the small square of his space with a heat that was not the room’s temperature.

Twenty years. Just a kid—twenty. A kid had humiliated him. A stupid kid had walked into his life, planted a violation like a flag, posted it like a trophy, and gone.

The slap should have been enough. The slap hadn’t been enough.

He could feel the image of that face under his skin. The refusal in that mouth. The way the stranger had not let him go—hadn’t even looked back. That insolence stoked the flame. Zhan could taste it—metal and the thin tang of control—and it made him savage.

“I’ll make him kneel,” he told the empty room, words clean and cold. “I’ll make him apologize. He’s going to delete that post in front of me. I want to see fear in those eyes.”

He forced himself to breathe, to collect facts like weights. He opened Weibo and typed the name—Wang Yibo—because anger is useful when it has a target. There he was: a bright grin as a profile picture, a motorbike, sun hitting teeth. The face was stupidly innocent like a mask. Zhan felt a small, stupid fury at the brightness of it, like a slap that echoed.

He scrolled.

Post after post—dance videos, group shots with UNIQ, motor races, friends leaning close. He paused on one photo: the boy smiling with his parents, their arms folding around him like sunlight. For a quick, disorienting second, something inside Zhan softened—an impossible, unwelcome flicker of pity at the kid in the picture.

It died as quick as it came.

His tongue found the fading bruise on his lip and the memory of prayerless fury returned stiffer, angrier. He threw the phone aside like he could fling the image away.

He sat at the reading table, the lamp cutting a small white square across paper. He laid pencil to paper hard, lines biting graphite into the page, trying to make the world obey geometry where people did not. Drawing steadied him at first—ruler and rule, a life planned by measured strokes.

But the line on the paper blurred into the line of that back-bar corridor until the design felt like a stage for whatever he would make happen.

He stood, paced again, then sat, then moved, then finally stopped with a breath that tasted of resolve.

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow I will shape this into consequence.

He glanced once at the door, then at the silent phone on the desk, and kept going until the house made no sound but his own slow breathing.

---------

The blank screen reflected him back—bruise, desire, a grin he didn’t trust.

“Handsome man with a girl and friends—solved fights?” he murmured aloud, a scoff wrapped around it. The notion that the stranger was gentle with someone else, that he arrived to protect and then left, made something in Yibo click. That wasn’t simple cowardice or casual flirtation. That was purpose. That made him more dangerous than the barroom dares he lived for.

He opened the post again. Scrolled through comments like a hunter checking tracks.

There it was—small, like a footnote, exactly the kind of lead he wanted: a comment thread.

I think he is that handsome guy from MasterOfArts
— reply: Graphics Design stud

Yibo’s mouth went dry. He stood up so fast the chair clattered backward. Master of Arts. Graphics Design. His university.

He tore downstairs to the flat where UNIQ were clattering dinner plates and arguing about nothing important. “Boo—where you going in your nightwear?” someone laughed, half-lingering near the door.

Yibo didn’t look at anyone. He sprinted past them, then stopped at the hallway like he’d run into a wall, and then—without thinking—he darted back, slammed his own door, and locked it. The friends froze, startled and a little worried.

A moment later, muffled by wood, a triumphant, ridiculous yell burst out of his room—“Yaaaaaahooooo!”—and then his pacing began: across the floor, back and forth, the room a small prison for an animal that had found its scent.

He walked slow for a second—hands running over his face—the speed of his brain catching up. Master of Arts. Graphics Design. He felt the weight of a target for the first time since the corridor, and it steadied the storm under his skin.

“No name still,” he muttered aloud, and then, softer but loaded with everything the night had been, he said to the photo on the phone, to the bruise on his cheek, to the ceiling he couldn’t sleep under:

“See you tomorrow, Mr. Stud.”

The words weren’t a threat so much as an appointment.

And for the first time that night, something like calm settled in the center of the chaos.

Chapter Text

Sleep didn’t exist. He didn’t remember closing his eyes. Didn’t remember dreaming. He only remembered heat—anger and something worse—curling inside him like a live wire that refused to burn out.

He stripped his shirt off and stepped into the shower, twisting the knob harshly until steam filled the small bathroom. Water hit his skin, but it didn’t soothe him. Nothing would. Not now. Not after him.

His hand slid up the wet tile, fingers braced, head bowed. He exhaled slow. But the moment his eyes shut—

That corridor.

That mouth.

That fight.

He felt again how perfectly that stranger's jaw fit into his palm—as if made for him. He remembered the way his grip tightened, how the man didn’t break, didn’t tremble.

He fought back.

Yibo’s pulse spiked.

He hated people who broke too easily. He hated people who surrendered. That man didn’t. He resisted—violently. He refused Yibo’s tongue with stubborn locked lips and brutal strength, even as he lost air. Even with blood between them.

And that slap—fuck—

Yibo touched his jaw where the fading mark still lived.

A small, twisted smile tugged at his lips.

Mine.

No, he wouldn’t label it. Not yet. But something had started in him the moment that man pushed him away. Something that wouldn’t stop.

He was going to find him. Make him beg—not for mercy, but for more. He wanted to see that controlled face crack.

He wanted him ruined—but only by Yibo.

He stepped out of the shower, dressed fast—dark hoodie, cap, mask. He didn’t even grab breakfast.

He grabbed purpose.

The bike engine roared to life, and as he cut through the streets toward campus, one thought pounded like war drums in his head:

Today, I find him.

And when he does—
he won’t walk away again.

---------------

Morning brought no peace. Just responsibility dressed as routine.

The screen lit up with his mother's face—warm, worried, unchanging.

“Zhanzhan, why do you look tired? You’re not eating well. Didn’t sleep? Are you studying too much again?”

“I’m fine,” he said calmly, masking the storm beneath his voice. Smooth. Controlled. Precise.

“You’re lying,” she scolded with soft affection. “Your eyes are swollen. Look—”

“Mom, I’m fine,” he repeated. Sharper. Enough to end it.

She sighed. “Okay. Just don’t forget—health first. You push yourself too hard.”

She was still talking when his thumb ended the call. He didn't have space for softness today.

Yanli called next.

Her voice was gentle. “It’s been one month already. I miss you.”

He closed his eyes briefly. Guilt tried to edge in, but he shoved it away like useless noise.

“I miss you too,” he said. “Apply for the visitor visa. I’ll book tickets soon.”

She brightened instantly. “Really?”

“En.”

“I can’t wait to see you.”

He swallowed. “Me too.”

He disconnected before she could ask more.

Silence returned. He welcomed it.

Shower. Shirt. Black jacket. Routine—until his hand reached automatically for his hair tie.

He froze.

That cursed photo flashed in his mind—his back to the camera, his hair tied up, that hand on his jaw.

Anger surged up his spine.

He dropped the tie.

Hair down today. Glasses instead of contacts. Mask too. Not to hide—but to hunt on his terms.

He looked at himself once in the mirror and didn’t see a student.

He saw consequence.

That boy—Wang Yibo—thought he could kiss him, humiliate him publicly, and go back to his happy little life.

No.

He will kneel. He will apologize. He will pay.

Xiao Zhan stepped out of his room.

And for the first time in his life,
he didn’t care if something burned.

-----------

He wasn’t used to mornings, but obsession didn’t care about habits.

He ripped across London, parked the bike without even locking it, and walked fast, head down, instinct sharp. His helmet hung from one hand, the other jammed in his hoodie pocket as he scanned buildings until he found it—

MASTER OF ARTS

He stopped.

The building stood quiet, elegant, annoyingly artistic. Glass walls. design posters. Students carrying canvas boards and tubes of paper. They smelled like pencil shavings and ambition. Not his world. He belonged to speed, engines, metal, danger—not paper and frames.

But his prey was here.

He stepped inside.

Warm light. Soft chatter. Wooden floors. Silences that didn’t exist in his world. Men and women bent over giant sheets of paper, discussing colors, layouts, symmetry. Sculptures hung from ceilings. A student was crying over a ruined project in the corner.

It was like walking into another planet. He hated it instantly.

But his eyes—his eyes were hunting.

Every face. Every build. Every man with tied hair. Every step was calculated. He knew the face he was here for—the sharp jaw, the steady eyes, the cold fire under control. He’d seen it only once. Once was enough. His mind had stamped that face into memory like a brand.

He walked through the first hall—nothing.

Down the open corridor—nobody.

Studio 3A—wrong guy.

Hall bench—wrong hair.

Graphic Design lab—wrong shoulders.

Where the fuck are you.

He felt the irritation grow hotter, but it wasn’t anger—it was hunger. His pulse sharpened. His chest tightened. He needed to see him again. He needed proof that last night was real—that someone dared to push him away.

He grabbed a coffee from the small corner café just so he had something to pass time, then took position.

He found a sofa—not too close to draw attention, not too far to miss a face. From there, he had a perfect view of everyone entering the building.

He dropped onto the seat, one arm draped lazily over the backrest, steam from the coffee curling up between his fingers. He looked casual. He wasn’t.

His eyes were a loaded gun.

Fifteen minutes passed—students flowed in. Some alone. Some in pairs. Some laughing too hard like life had been kind to them. He hated their ease.

Then twenty minutes.

Then thirty.

He didn’t move.

He could wait all day.

His foot tapped slow on the floor.

Come out. Come out. Come out.

He sipped his coffee without tasting it. He scanned faces without blinking. He watched the door like a predator watches a clearing.

Someone would walk in eventually.

Someone would bleed information.

He leaned back deeper, eyes never leaving the entrance.

The hunt had officially begun.

--------------

Xiao Zhan stepped off the bus and into the cold morning air with hands buried in his coat pockets, jaw tight behind his mask. He walked fast, long strides, no hesitation.

And like always—heads turned.

Girls paused mid-conversation. A couple of boys did a double take. One girl whispered to her friend and stared until she bumped into a signpost. Even with half his face hidden and glasses dulling the sharpness of his eyes, his presence carved through space like a clean blade. Some people carried attention—Xiao Zhan commanded it.

But today, he didn’t notice. Today, he didn’t care if the world turned to watch him walk past. He was too busy holding back the beast in his chest.

He needed to find that boy—Wang Yibo. He needed to hear him apologize. Kneel if necessary. Look him in the eyes and finally taste fear in them instead of that insane delight he saw last night.

He reached the main courtyard where buildings branched off in every direction. His eyes flicked over the maps mounted on the wall.

He walked up to a janitor sweeping leaves near the path. “Engineering building?” he asked flatly.

“Straight, second left,” the worker replied without looking up.

Zhan nodded once and walked.

His steps were silent but fast. He scanned every face along the way—groups chatting in clusters, students crossing with headphones on, guys leaning against railings talking about weekend plans. His gaze didn’t linger—just sliced through each one like a scanner. He wasn’t hunting randomly—he was tracking.

Engineering building ahead.

He stopped across from the entrance and watched.

No rush. Eyes narrowed. Breathing slow. But inside—rage coiled like a storm waiting to break.

His phone buzzed—class reminder. He checked the time.

10 minutes until class.

He stared at the screen.

Then scoffed.

Fuck it. He comes first.

He turned sharply—and slammed straight into someone.

Books spilled onto the floor. A body swayed off balance.

Zhan reacted before thinking—hand shooting out, fingers wrapping around the stranger’s wrist to stop him from falling.

A pair of wide eyes stared up at him.

Yu Bin.

Yu Bin stood frozen like he’d just witnessed a divine encounter.

“S-sorry,” Yu Bin stammered, cheeks flush with embarrassment. “My fault—shit—sorry, I—uh—thanks—hi—uh—wow—”

Zhan didn’t bother listening. He bent down, picked up the fallen books one by one with calm precision, and handed them back.

“Careful,” he said—voice low, clipped.

Yu Bin took them slowly, still staring like an idiot. “Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Careful. Right.”

Zhan was already gone.

He walked away with purpose, leaving Yu Bin in the hallway still trying to restart his brain.

Art building. Now.

I will find you by end of the day.

And when I do—your world ends before it begins.

------------
His phone buzzed. Then again. Then again.

He didn’t want to look—he was too focused. But the idiot kept spamming, so he flicked open his notifications without really thinking.

Yubin:

Man you need to know this!
Guy ! noooo, most handsome guy ever waiting at our building entrance.

Yubin:

He grabbed my wrist—saved me from falling down—I’m dead bro

Yubin:

Yiboooooooooo where are youuuu

Yubin:

You said you have a boyfriend now—HELP ME get one too, I WANT HIM

Yibo stared at the messages for half a second.

Most handsome guy ever… building entrance… grabbed wrist…

His eyes narrowed. Just a little.

Could be—

He glanced up from his phone.

Gone.

Just students. Noise. Doors. Too late.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket. He wasn’t here to entertain Yubin’s melodrama. He was here to hunt. Eyes back to the entrance. Waiting. Watching.

Minutes became an hour.
An hour became two.
Two became four.

By then, his spine was stiff from sitting on that stupid art building sofa, his back aching, legs numb—but he didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He didn’t give up.

But he also didn’t find him.

Not yet.

Finally, he stood, rolling his neck.

Time for lunch—and then dance practice. Even obsession had to eat.

--------------

Zhan reached the Master of Arts building five minutes late.

He didn’t run. He didn’t rush. He walked in with cold purpose, hands still in his pockets. His eyes flicked across the lobby instantly—scanning faces—hunting for someone with recklessness in his eyes and stupidity in his blood.

As he headed toward the stairs, he passed the sofa.

A guy was sitting there—hoodie, mask, coffee cup—leaning back like he was part of the furniture. Zhan’s eyes slid over him once.

Uninterested.

He didn’t know what kind of storm was sitting right beside him.

And just like that—he walked away.

Up the stairs. To class. Without a second thought.

Five seconds later, Yibo looked up again.

Too late.

He missed him by heartbeats.
-------------

YIBO ate lunch in the arts cafeteria for the first time ever. People noticed—of course they did. Whispers followed him from table to table.

“Is that Wang Yibo?”
“What’s he doing in this building?”
“He never leaves Engineering campus.”
“Is the mystery guy from his post someone from our side?”
“Do you think he’s here looking for him?”

He heard it all.

He ignored it all.

He sat alone, hunched over cheap noodles and bad coffee. Eyes still scanning. Waiting.

His phone buzzed again—this time a call.

He didn’t want to answer. He did anyway.

Dance Club Instructor: “Where the hell are you? I’ve been waiting an hour. Get your ass here now.”

He clenched his jaw.

Bad timing.

“On my way,” he said coldly.

He stood and left the cafeteria.

But his mind stayed behind—still watching faces.

Still hunting.

-------------

Today was a waste.
Zhan didn’t hear a single word in class. Didn’t register group assignments. Didn’t feel the hours pass. He only felt rage—a constant, electric current under his skin.

His watch read 5:03 PM. London already looked like evening.

Students packed up and cleared the halls, laughing, talking about dinner, dates, Netflix.

Zhan stood still in the emptying classroom.

Fuck the post. Fuck that lunatic. Where do I find him now?

He pulled out his phone and opened that cursed post again.

10,000 comments now.

More likes.

More shares.

His blood boiled.

Then—his mind clicked. A thought. A path. A realization.

Dance Club.

If this bastard was really a dancer—and Yibo’s Weibo page showed too many dance videos to be a lie—then he had to be there.

He didn’t hesitate.

He grabbed his bag. Pulled on his mask.

And walked out.

Destination: Dance building.

I’m done waiting. I’m done being calm.

------------

Dance usually fix everything for Yibo, it's his second love after races and bikes.

Music. Movement. Sweat. The mirror. Control.

But not today.

He got through the meeting with the dance club instructor in record time. He didn’t argue. Didn’t joke. Didn’t even smirk. He just signed the new semester forms, approved the practice schedule, and accepted three new members—all in under fifteen minutes.

Then he hit the floor.

Footwork. Isolation drills. Power turns. Air freezes. Hit again. Again. Again. Chest heaving. Muscles burning.

Nothing helped.

He still saw him—that stranger in that corridor. Those eyes, that violence, that refusal.

He ripped through choreography until the mirror fogged from heat and breath. Collapsed on the floor with his back against the mirror, forearm over his forehead. A towel hung around his neck, catching sweat that kept sliding down his throat.

He didn’t want to stop.

He didn’t want to shower.

He wanted to find that man.

Before he disappears.

He grabbed his bag and shoved his shoes in, not even bothering to tie the laces of the ones he had on. Loose black T-shirt. Baggy pants. Sweat dripping down his neck. Hair messed. Mask gone. Hood down.

He didn’t look like university royalty anymore.

He looked like a street fight.

He slung the bag over his shoulder and pushed open the studio door—

A hand grabbed his wrist.

Hard.

Before he could react, his entire body was yanked across the hallway in one violent pull. His back slammed into the concrete wall with a thud that shook the air out of him.

He didn’t see who did it.

But he felt it.

Grip strong. Cold intention.

No hesitation.

No fear.

Whoever this was—wasn’t here to play.

Yibo’s eyes narrowed. Heat punched through his veins.

His lips curved.

Slow.

Hungry.

He lifted his head—

There he is!

Chapter Text

Yibo didn’t even see the hand before it closed around his wrist like a cuff and ripped him sideways.

His back slammed into concrete with a crack that stole his breath. Air punched out of his lungs. Darkness fuzzed the edges of his vision before snapping back into brutal focus—and there he was.

The man from the corridor.
The stranger who had burned into his bloodstream in one night.
Those eyes. That fury. That face.

Before Yibo could straighten, a fist crushed into his tshirt, yanking him forward, then slamming him back into the wall again—harder. Another hand swept up and caught both his wrists, pinning them above his head with one brutal grip. No hesitation. No warning. No restraint.

The stranger stepped in close—shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, breath to breath—violence alive in every line of his body.

His voice dropped like a blade.
“Surprised?”

Yibo’s pulse spiked. Heat flooded through him like gasoline catching fire. A sick, addictive rush climbed up his spine.

The stranger leaned in further, eyes locked on his.

“You waited outside my building,” he said, every word razor-steady. “You were hunting me. Well—” His fingers twisted in Yibo’s shirt. “—here I fucking am.”

Yibo didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. He smiled. Slow. Provoking. Violent.

“Finally,” he breathed.

The stranger’s jaw clenched once. “Delete the post.”

The grip on his wrists tightened until pain lanced up his arms. The stranger wasn’t just strong—he was lethal. A man who used force like language. Precise. Cold. Absolute.

Yibo’s grin widened. “What if I don’t feel like it?”

The stranger didn’t wait.

His forearm slammed across Yibo’s chest and throat, pinning him harder into concrete. The pressure cut off half his oxygen—but Yibo only laughed, broken and hungry.

“You don’t get to say a single fucking word,” the stranger said, voice low and deadly.

Yibo exhaled against the choke, eyes blazing.
“Looks like someone can’t keep their hands off me.”

The change was instant.

The forearm vanished—only for a fist to bury itself under Yibo’s ribs.

The hit was merciless. Sharp. Deep. Perfectly placed.

Pain detonated behind Yibo’s ribs, tearing breath from his body. He doubled forward, teeth clenched—but he didn’t break. He laughed through the pain, clutching his side.

“That all you got?” He breathed raggedly, eyes burning. “Didn’t expect you to be the same guy who didn’t push me off right away last night. What happened, hm?” His smile turned feral. “Still thinking about my mouth?”

The stranger moved so fast it blurred—fist in Yibo’s collar again, hauling him up.

“You filthy little shit,” he growled in his face. “You think this is a game? You’re a kid. That’s the only reason I’m not ending you right here.”

The word hit Yibo like a trigger.

Kid.

Kid.

That broke something loose.

Yibo’s eyes flashed murder, and before logic could exist, his hand snapped up and ripped the mask off the stranger’s face. For the first time, nothing hid that face—razor-cut jaw, sculpted cheekbones, a mouth made for war. And there—a healing split on his lower lip. Yibo reached up and dragged his thumb over it.

“Haaa,” he exhaled, wild satisfaction curling through him. “There it is. My mark. Tried to hide it from me?”

He didn’t get to enjoy it long.

The stranger lunged forward and drove his jaw against Yibo’s—a punishing grind of bone and stubble, violent and dominating. A territorial strike. A message.

“I can see my mark on you too,” he said, voice scraping like gravel. “Right here. On your jaw. Don’t pretend you didn’t try to hide it this morning.”

The rough friction ignited electricity through Yibo’s nerves. His head snapped back against the wall. His pulse fucking roared.

Fuck…

He was gone. Hooked. Finished.

And it had only just begun.

The stranger didn’t step back. Didn’t ease up. Didn’t give space. Dominance wrapped around him like a second skin, and Yibo could feel it in every nerve.

“Now,” the stranger said, voice lethal calm, “you’re going to delete that post.”

He didn’t ask. He commanded.

Yibo looked him dead in the eye.

Even breathing hurt from the rib shot, but he held the stare. Held the pressure. Held the storm.

Then—deliberate—he asked:

“Tell me your name first.”

Something burned in the stranger’s eyes—pure rage at being spoken to like an equal.

He leaned in close. Too close. Dangerous close.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”

His grip on Yibo’s collar tightened, knuckles digging into his throat.

“You think you get to bargain with me?”

Yibo didn’t blink. “I think I just did.”

For a second—just one—the hallway froze.

Then the stranger snapped.

He slammed Yibo against the wall again—harder—the impact cracking through concrete and spine.

“Delete. The. Post.”

His voice dropped, darker now. Rough. Alive with violence.

“Pick up your phone. Right now.”

Yibo’s lips curled. Provocation dripping. “Make me.”

The stranger stared at him—long, murderous—then suddenly released his grip.

For half a heartbeat Yibo thought he’d backed off.

He hadn’t.

The stranger moved—not away—but down. His hand shoved into Yibo’s joggers pocket—searching with no hesitation. Aggressive, invasive. A threat made of touch.

The move dragged his knuckles across Yibo’s lower stomach—then lower—accidentally brushing over his crotch before finding the phone.

Yibo sucked in a breath—sharp and involuntary. A sound escaped him—half groan, half growl.

Fuck—
He hated that reaction. Hated how this stranger made his nerves misfire. Hated how alive this made him feel.

Get a grip, Yibo. Don’t give him shit.

The stranger didn’t react to the accidental contact—didn’t smirk, didn’t acknowledge it. Violence was his only language. He just yanked the phone free and slammed it into Yibo’s chest hard enough to bruise.

“Open it.”

Yibo didn’t move.

The stranger stepped closer again—pressing him against the wall with his body this time—arms braced around him, caging him in.

“I’m not fucking around,” he said. “Unlock your phone. Now.”

Yibo met his stare. Breath steady. Eyes poison.

Then—slow—defiant—he lifted the phone and unlocked it.

One thumb press. Click. Open.

He didn’t break eye contact while he did it.

The stranger watched him like a wolf watches blood.

Yibo swiped Weibo open. Tapped the post.

The photo of that night burned between them like a lit fuse.

The stranger finally spoke—voice low, venom smooth.

“You fucking lunatic. You felt victory humiliating me?”

Yibo’s laugh was quiet. Wrong. Unholy.

He moved fast—fist twisting into the stranger’s collar—dragging him closer until they were nose to nose.

“I haven’t tasted my victory yet,” he said. “But when I do—you’ll be the one begging me for a kiss.”

The punch came like a fucking bullet.

The stranger’s fist exploded against Yibo’s jaw, snapping his head to the side. Skin split. Blood hit his tongue.

He slammed into the wall, grip loosening. The phone nearly slipped from his hand.

The stranger didn’t let him fall.

He seized Yibo again—by the shirt this time—hauling him upright with raw force. His other hand came up and closed around Yibo’s throat—pressing him into the wall with pure dominance.

“Touch me again,” he said, voice carved from rage, “and I’ll fucking END you. DELETE the post. Now—before I stop being nice.”

Yibo’s pulse thundered under fingers crushing his throat. Blood dripped from his lip. His jaw throbbed. He should have been afraid.

Instead he tasted iron and grinned.

God, I want more.

He exhaled, a single defiant breath—and finally, slowly—hit Delete.

The post vanished.

The stranger didn’t move his hand from Yibo’s throat.

Yibo looked at him. Smirked.

“What?” he rasped. “Still don’t want to let go? It’s gone.”

The stranger didn’t blink. Didn’t release him.

“Now,” he said coldly, “post an apology.”

And just like that—

Yibo’s anger returned.

A slow, poisonous smile curved across Yibo’s mouth. “You want to fucking humiliate me now?”

Zhan didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His grip on Yibo’s collar tightened, dragging him closer. Breath to breath. War to war.

“You think I’m asking?” Zhan said. “Post. The apology.”

Yibo held his stare. No flinch. No fear. “Make me.”

Zhan slammed him into the wall so hard the frame shook. Not wild—controlled. Calculated. Punishment, not chaos.

“Don’t test me,” Zhan said.

“Too late,” Yibo shot back.

Zhan grabbed him by the throat—not choking, just claiming control—pressure sharp enough to remind him who was stronger here.

And Yibo—
fucking felt it.
Heat shot through his body like static. His pulse hit too fast. Too loud. Too hungry.

Fuck—why is this—
No. No. Don’t react. Put it down. Bury it.

He forced a laugh, rough and dangerous. “What’s next? You gonna leash me too?”

Zhan didn’t even blink. “If that’s what it takes.”

His voice hit deep, violent. Authority made sound.
Shit. Yibo felt that in his spine. Lower.

Fuck me—what the hell is wrong with me—why am I getting hard from this—

He crushed the thought with rage. Stay dominant. Don’t show weakness.

Zhan leaned in, forcing Yibo back with sheer presence. “Open Weibo.”

Yibo didn’t move.

Zhan’s eyes went colder. “Do it.”

Every part of Yibo screamed to fight—but his hand moved anyway. Not surrender. Strategy. He unlocked the phone again.

“Now type,” Zhan said.

Yibo didn’t look down. Eyes locked on Zhan. Defiance alive. “Beg for it.”

Zhan’s lip curled—not amused. Predatory. “You want me to hurt you that fucking bad?”

He shoved Yibo harder. Their chests collided. Control. Heat. Pressure.

Shit—don’t react, don’t fucking react—

“TYPE.”

Yibo typed.

I posted a picture without someone’s consent.

“Next line,” Zhan ordered. Voice low. Command absolute.

I apologize for that.

“Post it.”

Yibo didn’t move. He stared at Zhan instead—with hate and need twisted together. His thumb hovered dangerously.

“Post it.”

Yibo hit POST.

The apology went live.

Zhan didn’t step back. Didn’t give space.

Yibo growled. “It’s done. Now take your fucking hand off me.”

Zhan leaned in—deadly, close, unblinking.

“Look at me,” he said.

Yibo did.

“This isn’t over,” Zhan said. “This is where it starts.”

Yibo grinned—wild, reckless. “Good.”

He stepped forward into Zhan’s hold—wanting more.

“Make me sorry.”

Zhan’s eyes flickered—rage sharpening to pure threat.

“Oh,” he said softly, “I will.”

Zhan didn’t move. Didn’t loosen his grip. Didn’t look away.
He stared at Yibo like he was a problem that needed to be corrected, not understood.

“You talk too much,” Zhan said, voice low enough to hurt. “You think this is noise. A game. Attention. It isn’t.”

He shoved Yibo back again—flat against the wall—never breaking eye contact.

“This is a fucking consequence.”

Yibo laughed—too loud, too wild, like something inside him already snapped and he liked the sound it made. “You keep talking about consequences like you’re God.”

“No,” Zhan said. “God forgives.”

His knuckles twisted deeper into Yibo’s shirt.

“I don’t.”

Fuck. Beautiful. That rage. That face. That control.
Something ugly and electric pulled inside Yibo and dragged his body closer again, like gravity. He hated how his blood moved for this man—how it obeyed him before his mind did.

Fuck—stop. Why does this feel—why the fuck is my body reacting—

He forced out another laugh, venom-coated. “All this because of one post? One little picture? You that scared of me?”

Zhan stepped in even closer, pinning him harder. “You’re not dangerous,” he said. “You’re fucking stupid.”

Yibo’s grin sharpened. “You sure? Because you’re still here.”

For the first time—Zhan’s eyes flashed—that dangerous shift, a sign he was this close to destroying something.

Good. Good. Give me more.

“You want to know what I am?” Zhan said. “I’m the thing you shouldn’t have touched.”

“Oh, I’m not done touching,” Yibo shot back.

Zhan grabbed him by the throat again—tight this time—holding him still.

Yibo didn’t resist. He leaned INTO it. Chest heaving. Eyes wild. Blood high.
Zhan’s dominance hit him again—hot, brutal, unstoppable.

And fuck—
fuck—
his body responded again. Heat punched low. Sharp. Hard.

No. Fuck no. Not now. Not him—

He masked it with a smile so violent it shook. “Go on. Hurt me.”

Zhan’s voice dropped to lethal quiet. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Do it,” Yibo whispered.

Zhan’s eyes locked on his—cold and merciless.
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

That not yet hit deeper than a punch.
That wasn’t mercy. That was a promise.

It made something inside Yibo twist—hate, need, obsession—all at once.

He leaned forward, voice low and sick with adrenaline. “You’re not walking away from me.”

Zhan didn’t even blink. “Watch me.”

He shoved Yibo one last time—rage-controlled, brutal—then released him. Just let go. Let gravity take him.

Cold. Finished. Dangerous.

Yibo didn’t fall—but his blood erupted.

“THIS ISN’T OVER!” he growled after him.

Zhan stopped. Turned. Met his eyes.

“It is,” he said, voice lethal. “Unless you come find me again.”

He didn’t smile. Didn’t threaten.
He just left the bomb right there.

“Hey,” Yibo called after him, voice rough but steady. “You gonna leave without telling me your name?”

Zhan stopped mid-step. Turned just enough to look over his shoulder. His stare landed like a gun barrel.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he said. “You think you get to know anything about me?”

Yibo’s smile came slow—dangerous and reckless. “I already do.”

Zhan didn’t move. Didn’t ask. Didn’t give him anything.

Yibo licked the blood from his lip and dragged out the match.

“I fucking loved how you tasted that night.”

That did it.

Zhan snapped.

He was on Yibo again in an instant—fist in his collar, slamming him into the wall HARD—hard enough that Yibo’s skull cracked the plaster. Before breath even came back into his lungs—

—Zhan PUNCHED him. Right across the jaw. Brutal. Final. Unforgiving.

Yibo’s head snapped sideways, blood hitting the wall. He groaned—and fucking laughed through it. The bastard laughed.

Zhan grabbed him again and shoved him higher against the wall—forearm crushing his chest.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Zhan growled, voice carved out of violence. “Don’t come near me. Don’t breathe near me. I see you again—I break you.”

His grip tightened, eyes burning into him, dead serious.

“This is your last warning. Stay the fuck away from me.”

He released him—violently—and stepped back. This time, he didn’t wait for a reply. He turned—done—and started walking away again.

Yibo wiped the blood from his mouth with his thumb. Smiled. Called after him—

“By morning, I’ll know your name, mister!”

Zhan didn’t stop walking.

Yibo raised his voice.

“Get ready to beg for that kiss!”

Zhan didn’t even turn his head. Didn’t react. Didn’t waste breath.

He just lifted one hand—middle finger up—and kept walking.

Cold. Unbothered. Alpha exit.

Yibo laughed—breathless, wrecked, obsessed.

Chapter Text

Yibo didn’t move at first.

He just stood there in the empty hallway, pulse still crashing, blood on his lip, jaw burning where that man hit him. He should’ve walked away. He didn’t. Something held him there—something he refused to name.

He dragged in a slow breath.

That man.

That fucking man.

The only person who ever slammed him back and made it stick. The only one who didn’t flinch when Yibo pushed. The only one who looked him in the eye and didn’t bend.

His mouth twitched—not a smile. Something more dangerous.

He touched his jaw again. Felt the pain. Liked it.

He replayed the moment—the grip on his collar, the rage in his eyes, the way their breaths collided—too close. Too charged. Like violence and heat and something worse hiding under it.

He should hate him.

Instead, every nerve in Yibo’s body was awake.

He didn’t know his name. That was a problem. That made Yibo furious.

He needed that name.

Needed the man who gave him blood and humiliation and a reason to feel this alive.

He wiped his mouth, tasted iron, and whispered—calm, certain:

“I’m not done with you.”

———

Seungyoun: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST POST???
Wenhan: Bro answer the chat right now.
Yixuan: Where are you.
Sungjoo: Why the hell did you APOLOGIZE???? To WHO??
Seungyoun: Tell me this is a joke.
Wenhan: Tell me you’re drunk.
Yixuan: Answer. Now.

Yibo read it while walking. Hood up. Hands in his pockets. Blood drying on his lip.

He typed one word.

Yibo: Home

Sungjoo: What happened??
Wenhan: Who did you fight?
Seungyoun: WHO MADE YOU APOLOGIZE
Yixuan: Talk when you get here.

He locked his phone and kept walking. He didn’t owe explanations. Not to them. Not to anyone.

His jaw throbbed. Every pulse reminded him of that moment—skin against skin, violent, close. He hated how his body kept replaying it.

He reached the apartment building. Four floors up. He didn’t bother with the elevator.

When he opened the door to the living room, UNIQ froze mid-conversation.

Their eyes went straight to his face.

The split lip. The blood. The bruise.

Silence detonated.

“What. The fuck. Happened?” Wenhan said first.

Yibo dropped his keys in the bowl and kicked his shoes off. “Nothing.”

Seungyoun stood. “Don’t play—who hit you?”

“No one.”

Sungjoo swore. “Don’t lie. Somebody touched you.”

Yibo went to the kitchen, opened a bottle of water, drank. Calm.

Yixuan stepped closer, watching him like studying a bomb. “…You’re bleeding.”

“And now I’m not thirsty,” Yibo said and turned away.

Click.

His bedroom door locked.

———-
The lock clicked and the world outside stopped existing.

He didn’t turn on the lights. He didn’t need them.

He leaned back against the door, breathing once, slow. The pain in his jaw. The sting on his lip. The phantom pressure of fingers gripping his collar. He still felt him. That was wrong. That was the problem.

He crossed the room, dropped onto the bed and let his head fall back.

Why him?
The question hit hard—fast—violent.
Who the fuck was that man to crawl under his skin like this?

He didn’t know his name. Didn’t know anything about him.
And yet—he could still feel him. That body against his. That rage. That control.

It wasn’t attraction. Attraction he could handle.

This was invasion.

His teeth clenched. He hated that his pulse changed when he remembered that moment—when they were so close breath mixed, when Zhan shoved him and didn’t care who he was. Didn’t fear him. Didn’t want him.

And that—that was what made something in him snap.

Nobody rejects Wang Yibo. Nobody walks away from him.

His muscles tightened. He ran a hand over his face. Laughed once—dark, humorless.

This wasn’t over.

He stood and walked to the mirror in the dark, staring at the blood on his lip. He dragged his thumb over it and tasted iron again.

Good.

He needed more of this. More of him. More of whatever that was.

He turned on the shower.

Ice-cold.

Water slammed into him—freezing, ruthless. He didn’t flinch.

He pressed a palm to the tile and bowed his head under the water, letting it run down his face, over the cut on his lip, across bruised skin. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted to feel something real enough to drown out him.

But nothing drowned him out.

The memory hit again—too clear.

The weight of that man’s body forcing him back—
The grip on his jaw—
The heat between them when they were inches apart—

He exhaled hard, furious at himself—because he shouldn’t feel this. Not over him. Not over a stranger who dared to touch him. Who made him post a fucking apology. Who walked away like he wasn’t worth a second look.

Something tightened low in his stomach. Dangerous. Physical. He slammed his fist against the wall to kill it—but it didn’t die.

“This isn’t desire,” he told himself through his teeth. “It’s war.”

He let the water run colder. Breath slower. Eyes burning.

He wanted him.
He wanted to destroy him.
He wanted—something else he didn’t have a name for yet.

And he would get it. All of it.

He lifted his head.

“I’m going to find you,” he said to the empty air. “And when I do—you won’t walk away from me again.”

———-

Xiao Zhan didn’t look back.

He walked out of that hallway, fixed his jacket, and straightened his collar like nothing had happened. Because nothing did. Not to him. He was in control. He ended it.

zhan got what he deserved—an apology.

Zhan didn’t lose sleep over trash.

But few words wouldn’t leave him alone:

“I like how you tasted that day.”
“I will find your name by morning—then I’ll make you beg for the same kiss.”

Tch.

Beg?

He almost laughed.

What kind of delusional bastard spoke like that?

He didn’t know Yibo’s face anymore. Didn’t care to remember it. But those lines echoed—not because they meant anything—just because they were so insulting.

A kiss wasn’t something Zhan begged for.

Respect wasn’t something he gave for free.

And men like Yibo weren’t a threat.

They were a waste of time.

He locked his door, washed his face, wiped the blood from his lip, and shut the night out without hesitation.

He was done.

———-

Back in Yibo Apartment

 

The door locked behind Yibo and the apartment went silent. Not calm—dangerous.

Seungyoun paced. “He’s lying. Something happened.”

“No shit,” Sungjoo muttered. “He looked like he walked out of a street fight.”

Yixuan didn’t speak. He was staring at Yibo’s closed door—calculating. Thinking.

Wenhan sat forward slowly, elbows on his knees. The oldest didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. When Wenhan got quiet, everyone listened.

“Open his profile,” he said.

Seungyoun grabbed his phone. “Already did. His story’s empty.”

“Check his posts.”

Scroll. Tap. Freeze.

“…The kiss post is gone,” Seungyoun said.

“What?” Sungjoo leaned over.

“Refresh it,” Wenhan said.

Seungyoun did. Face changed. “The apology too. Deleted.”

They all went still.

That wasn’t normal. That wasn’t small. That was intentional.

Yixuan finally spoke. “He didn’t delete that for no reason.”

Sungjoo snapped, “Who the hell even makes Wang Yibo apologize?”

Nobody answered.

Because they all knew—no one had that power over him.

Except—
Seungyoun’s eyes widened. “The guy from the picture.”

Yixuan nodded once. “Has to be.”

“Wait,” Sungjoo said. “You think that guy—what? Showed up? Made him delete it?”

“Look at him,” Wenhan said. “He walked in bleeding. And he didn’t give us a name. That means something.”

Yixuan’s jaw tightened. “Someone came after him.”

Seungyoun swore. “That fucker—he slapped Yibo on that as well. Now he made him post an apology? Forced him to delete everything?”

Sungjoo stood. “We’re not letting this slide.”

Wenhan rose too—calm, controlled, final. Leader mode.
“We get the truth. Now.”

They moved.

Four shadows walked down the hall together.

Wenhan stepped forward first and pounded once—heavy—on Yibo’s door.

BOOM.

“Yibo.”
No shouting. No weakness.
“Open the door.”

Yibo didn’t answer at first.

Another knock hit the door—harder this time.

“Yibo,” Wenhan said, voice low, controlled. “Open it.”

Silence.

Then—the lock turned.

The door opened only halfway. Yibo stood there, hair wet, jaw bruised, hoodie thrown back on. Water still clung to his neck. He looked colder now. More dangerous.

“Say whatever you want to say,” he said. “And make it fast.”

Seungyoun stepped forward first—angry. “You think we’re just gonna sit there after what we saw?”

“Go sit then,” Yibo said and moved to close the door.

Wenhan stopped it with his hand.

“Don’t,” Yibo warned.

Wenhan didn’t move his hand. “Somebody came after you.”

“My problem,” Yibo said. “I’ll deal with it.”

“When?” Seungyoun snapped. “After he jumps you again?”

Yibo’s eyes narrowed. “No one jumps me.”

Sungjoo scoffed. “Then what’s that?” He pointed at the bruise. “Decorative lighting?”

Yibo didn’t react.

Yixuan’s voice cut through. Sharp. Precise. “It’s about the guy from the post.”

The silence that followed had teeth.

Yibo didn’t confirm it—but he didn’t deny it either.

Wenhan watched him carefully. “You went after him tonight.”

“So what?”

“So where is he now?” Wenhan asked. “Did he do that to you?”

Yibo stared at him. No answer. Which was an answer.

Yixuan folded his arms. “Fine. Don’t tell us what happened. Keep your secrets. But answer one thing.”

Yibo didn’t blink.

“Do you even know his name?”

The hallway tightened. Yibo’s jaw flexed once.

“No,” he said.

That single word wasn’t weak. It was lethal humiliation spoken like a promise.

Seungyoun exhaled. “Then you’re not stopping us.”

Yibo’s eyes sharpened. “What?”

Wenhan stepped forward. “We’re not asking to get involved. You want to handle him yourself? Fine. Do it. But if you don’t even know his name—you’re not finding shit.”

Yixuan nodded. “So we help you. Just that. No one touches him. No one moves without you. But we get you his name.”

Yibo stared at them. A long, tense beat.

He wanted to tell them to fuck off. He wanted to slam the door.

But he needed the name.

He needed it more than sleep. More than breath. More than pride.

His fingers tightened on the edge of the door.

“…Fine.”

Wenhan nodded once. Deal made.

“But listen,” Yibo said, voice low, dangerous. “He’s mine. No one touches him. No one talks to him. No one interferes. You get me his name—and then you stay out of my way.”

Wenhan didn’t look away. “Done.”

Seungyoun cracked his neck. “Good. Because when we find this guy—”

Yibo cut him off, eyes dark.

“I’ll handle him.”

————

The deal was made.

They didn’t shake hands—UNIQ didn’t do ceremonies—but the silence after Yibo’s words was an agreement carved in stone.

Find his name. Stay out of Yibo’s way after that.

Yibo shut the door on them, and the four of them went back to the living room.

Seungyoun broke it first. “So how the fuck do we find a guy with no name?”

“We’re not starting blind,” Yixuan said. “We know three things—he’s male, Asian, and he was with Yibo last night at VOID for that kiss.”

“We don’t even know if he’s from our university,” Sungjoo argued.

“He is,” Wenhan said immediately.

“How do you know?”

“Because if he wasn’t, Yibo wouldn’t care this much.”

That landed.

Wenhan looked at Yixuan. “Pull up the picture.”

Yixuan had saved it before it got deleted. He opened it. The picture Yibo posted. The one he was forced to put up.

A blurred kiss.

 

“This guy made Yibo bleed,” Seungyoun said. “I want his fucking spine.”

“No,” Wenhan said. “Yibo said no one touches him. We don’t cross that.”

“Yet,” Seungyoun muttered.

“We find his name first,” Wenhan said. “And we start now.”

“How?” Sungjoo asked.

Yixuan already had the answer. “We go back to VOID.”

All eyes turned.

“It happened there. Someone saw them. Security, bartender, someone. People always talk. And people who talk—sell information.”

Seungyoun smirked. “Now we’re working.”

Wenhan stood. “Grab your coats.”

 

VOID – 1:40 AM

A lone bouncer was smoking outside the club. He didn’t even get a chance to speak before Wenhan pressed money into his palm.

“We need one answer,” he said. “This guy. Seen him?”

He showed him the blurred kiss photo.

The bouncer froze. Then his eyes sharpened.

“Why is everyone looking for this guy?”

“Everyone?” Yixuan repeated.

“Yeah,” the bouncer said. “Yesterday some guy already came asking about him. Looked pissed. Split lip, wild eyes. Didn’t give a name. Just left a hole in the wall back there.”

That was Yibo.

Good.

“He have a name?” Wenhan asked.

“No idea. Never seen him before that night,” the bouncer said. “Came from the back bar. Didn’t stay long. Don’t know shit else.”

“His friends?” Seungyoun pushed.

The bouncer shrugged. “Didn’t see any—”

“He wasn’t alone.”

A voice cut in behind them. A waitress stood there, tying her hair.

“That guy came with someone,” she said. “A friend of his. Tall. Cute smile. Name’s… Ayunga, I think.”

They all looked at each other.

Lead found.

“Thanks,” Wenhan said, already turning away.

⸻

Back at the apartment – 2:12 AM

Yibo hadn’t slept. Didn’t move when they walked back in. Just lifted his eyes slowly, waiting.

Wenhan didn’t waste breath. “We have a name.”

“Say it,” Yibo said.

“Not his. His friend’s,” Yixuan said. “Ayunga.”

Yibo was already opening his laptop. Campus site. Student union registry. Search bar. Ayunga. Click. Found.

He pulled up socials. Music club posts. Late-night bar pictures. Motorbike videos.

Then—there it was.

A tagged photo.

Ayunga’s arm around a man’s shoulders. That man. White shirt. Half-tied hair. Laughing—bright, real, unguarded.

Caption:

Some friends are better than brothers. @XiaoZhan 肖战 daytoy

Yibo zoomed in.

His heartbeat didn’t speed up—it locked in.

“Xiao Zhan,” he said quietly.

The name tasted right in his mouth. Dangerous.

He took a screenshot. Saved it.

Wenhan exhaled and clapped his shoulder once. “There. You have him now.”

Yibo didn’t look away from the screen. “Thanks. Now stay out of it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Seungyoun said. “Love you too, psycho.”

They left him alone.

⸻

Yibo – Alone

He stared at Xiao Zhan’s face in the photo.

Something twisted inside him—not soft. Violent curiosity. A pull.

That smile didn’t belong to the same man who had slammed him against a wall. That smile was too bright. Too clean. Too fucking pure. It pissed him off instantly.

He touched the screen.

“I want to see that break,” he whispered.

His jaw clenched. His pulse answered.

“Xiao Zhan,” he repeated, slower. “You’re mine now and you are going to kneel ans beg for my attention soon”

Chapter Text

Mom 💐 — Video Call Incoming…

The screen filled with warmth and urgency. “Zhanzhan! Why are you still in bed? It’s late!”

He shot upright. Clock. Late.
That never happened to him. Not him.

“I must’ve—” He kicked free of the sheet, jaw locking. “I’m getting up.”

His father’s voice cut from the background, cool steel. “Never deviate from what builds you. One crack becomes many.”

“I know,” Zhan said, throat dry. “It won’t happen again.”

Mom softened, quick to pour honey over iron. “Yanli is trying for a visitor visa. Maybe next month? If it works. You’ll show her your campus, hmm?”

His hand brushed the ring on the chain without thinking. The click against the phone was tiny and loud. “I’ll take her everywhere,” he said. “I miss her.”

They did the small things—weather, groceries, eat more, sleep more. He promised another call tonight. He meant it.

The call ended. The room cooled.

He pressed a palm over his face. One breath. Two. Enough.

He stepped into the shower and let the water go hot—punishing hot—then colder. He focused on lists: lecture, budget, printer errors, deadlines. Control.

A voice cut the steam.

”I liked how you tasted that night”.

The memory struck like a hand—the corridor, the jaw-grip, the bite. Heat punched low and treacherous, a reflex he hated. For half a heartbeat his body obeyed the wrong command.

“No,” he said, out loud.

The word hit tile and came back as steel. He barked a laugh with no humor in it. “Fucking bastard.”

He turned the water colder, until it bit. Until the picture of that mouth blurred and the body’s betrayal went quiet. He killed the tap like a verdict, towel snapped, chain tucked, collar clean.

Kitchen. Light on. Toast smell.

“Ayunga,” he said.

“Zhanzhan!” Ayunga beamed, already at the counter, already sliding a plate. “Toast, tea—king treatment. Don’t say I never loved you.”

“When did you come back?” Zhan took the stool, posture neat even as his pulse still argued with the morning.

Ayunga tried for casual, failed into a blush. “Sorry—didn’t text. I, uh… stayed the night at my girlfriend’s. Ruo Xi. She kind of insisted.” He grinned like a kid who’d gotten away with something small and beautiful.

Zhan let a corner of his mouth lift. “You’re lucky she’s here.” He bit the toast. “I’m asking Yanli to visit. I miss her.”

“Good,” Ayunga said, pleased—then his eyes snagged on his phone. He stopped, tea halfway to his mouth. “Oh. Oh, hey. I forgot—big thing. That guy—Wang Yibo— He deleted the kiss pic and last night there was an apology post too. Blink-and-gone. He yanked it before it got heat.”

The toast turned to ash. The morning narrowed.

Ayunga, oblivious or brave, kept going. “But his exes had screenshots, like hawks. Uni group chat is a circus. People are saying—” He blinked, leaned in, eyes bright with gossip. “You made him do that, didn’t you?”

The air shifted.

Something along Zhan’s spine lit like a wire, clean and vicious. The corridor returned; the alley returned; the voice in his ear returned.

“Fucking bastard,” he said. Soft. Precise. “Stupid, feral—”

He cut himself off. The tea cup met the counter with surgical care. His face didn’t lift, but the temperature of the room fell.

Ayunga grinned, delighted. “Oooh, Zhanzhan. You never talk like that. I’ve known you for years.” He nudged his shoulder. “This Yibo guy—he’s special. He made you more human.”

Zhan looked at him.

Not up. Not down. At him—like measuring a nail before the hammer.

“Ayunga,” he said, voice level, something dangerous humming under it. “Say his name again and we’re done speaking for the day.”

Ayunga laughed, didn’t hear the wire. “Come on. I’m just saying—”

“Enough.” The word didn’t rise in volume. It arrived like a door shutting. “I’m not wasting breath on filth.”

A beat of silence. The kettle clicked itself off. Outside, a siren stitched the morning and moved on.

Ayunga’s smile wavered, then rallied. He lifted the plate, over-bright. “Eat, king. You’ll scare your lecturers with your murder face.”

Zhan’s gaze held him one second longer than comfort allowed. Then he stood. Smoothed a sleeve. Straightened a line that didn’t need straightening. The chain touched bone, cool as judgment.

He picked up his bag.

“Lock up,” he said, already moving. “And tell Ruo Xi she has terrible taste. You, I mean.” The ghost of a smirk. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“Rude,” Ayunga laughed, relieved to find familiar ground. “I’ll text you later—”

“Don’t,” Zhan said.

He didn’t slam the door. He closed it with care.

In the stairwell, the morning breathed cold against his mouth. For a second, the steam of the shower tried to come back—the heat, the wrong reflex, the voice.

He crushed it.

Control. Order. The map.

He took the steps two at a time and made the day obey.

_______

Pain woke Yibo before the light did.

His jaw throbbed deep—slow, electric—like a signature burned under his skin. His back hurt too from hitting the wall, but he ignored it. Pain didn’t bother him. He’d been broken in bike crashes, wiped out on concrete, slammed on studio floors until his ribs screamed. Pain was part of movement, part of life.

But this pain—this one was different. It meant something.

He dragged his tongue along the inside of his cheek and felt the dull cut from Xiao Zhan’s punch. A low laugh escaped him.

That fucking man.

He lay still in bed for a moment, staring at the ceiling, replaying it again—Zhan’s forearm crushing his chest, the violence in his eyes, the pulse between them when rage became heat. And that line that replayed in Yibo’s skull like a drug:

Don’t come near me. I see you again—I break you.

His cock twitched under the sheets—unwanted, instant. He closed his eyes slowly and let the memory hit him harder.

The way Zhan shoved him up the wall.
The way he took control.
The way he made Yibo submit publicly—forcing him to type out an apology word by word, voice calm and lethal while pinning him in place.

Fuck.

He hissed out a breath through his teeth. His own body was betraying him again—same as last night. No one had ever made him feel like this. No one had ever slammed him hard enough to make him want more.

Xiao Zhan.

He finally had a name now. And that name felt like something sharp in his mouth. He repeated it under his breath.

“Xiao Zhan.”

His phone started buzzing.

Mom calling.

He let it ring.

He didn’t have space today for softness. Or noise. Or anyone who wasn’t him.

He got up. Shower. Fast. Freezing water. He didn’t want anything calming. He wanted control. Black clothes. Hoodie. Mask up. Skateboard under his arm. Door shut.

No breakfast. No greetings. No replying to UNIQ’s messages. No music.

Today wasn’t about fun.

It was about trajectory.

It was purpose.

By 9AM he was already cutting across campus. Students parted when they saw him coming—not out of fear, but because he walked like momentum, like something you didn’t want to block. He didn’t look at anyone. He didn’t go to the dance studio. He didn’t even glance at it.

Today, there was no rhythm except him and the hunt.

He skated straight to the Arts Building.

Inside, he dropped the board and rolled down the quiet hallway, wheels humming low against the polished floor. He stopped at the Department Office and flicked the board up into his hand in one move.

A young Asian woman sat inside, sipping instant coffee and scrolling her phone. She didn’t even look up when he knocked.

“Yeah, come in—what do you need?”

He leaned on the counter, mask still on, voice low and warm—like velvet with teeth.

“I need student records. Just for a minute.”

She finally looked up—and blinked. Then blinked again. His eyes did that—pulled people in before they knew they were falling.

“Uh… records?” she echoed, already flustered. “All records are digital now. Student data is private.”

He tilted his head slightly, amused. “Come on. I just need to look. One name.” His voice dipped deeper—lazy, smooth, lethal charm. “Help me, yeah?”

Her cheeks warmed. She tucked hair behind her ear and tried to look stern. Failed. “Sorry… I can’t give that kind of information…”

He leaned a little closer, elbows resting on the counter—casual, predatory. “Not even if I say please?”

Her lips parted slightly. Breath caught.

He didn’t smile. Just watched her. Watched how fast she melted.

She gave up first. “I—I mean, we don’t have physical records… but… I have student club registration forms from this term. They’re… semi-official…”

“That works,” he said.

She brought a stack from the back—thick, stapled, handwritten forms. He slid them toward himself and flipped through fast.

Names. Majors. Faces.

Not him. Not him. Not—

There.

Xiao Zhan.
25 years. Chongqing, China.
Master of Arts – Graphic Design.
University clubs: Branding Design Society, Singing Club.
Classroom: 32C.

Yibo stilled. He touched the ink like it was proof of gravity.

Found you.

He took a picture of the page with his phone before she could notice.

“Did you find who you’re looking f—”

“Yeah,” he said, already stacking the papers and sliding them back. He pushed the board under his arm again. “Thanks.”

“Oh—wait,” she called as he turned. “What name were you looking for?”

He looked at her, a shadow of a smirk in his eyes.

“Mine,” he said, and left.

—

He didn’t rush. He didn’t need to. Predators didn’t sprint before the strike.

By the time he reached classroom 32C, the first lecture hadn’t started yet. Students passed by with coffee and sketchbooks and portfolios. He didn’t see faces. Just motion. Noise.

None of it mattered.

He sat on the bench across from the classroom door and set his board down. He held a cup of black coffee in one hand but didn’t drink it. Didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

He waited.

_______

Xiao Zhan stalked through campus with a storm behind his ribs. Late already. Day ruined before it even began. He didn’t break routine—not him. But this morning had been wrong from the start, and London felt like it knew it.

He cut through the main hallway toward his lecture, ignoring the noise, ignoring faces—until something stopped him.

A skateboard.

Leaning against the steps in a narrow side corridor.

His steps halted. Breath locked.

The kind of object that didn’t belong here. Didn’t belong near him. Didn’t fucking belong inside his campus.

His jaw clenched so hard it hurt. He scanned fast—left, right, shadows, corners.

No mask. No hoodie. No Yibo.

Good. He walked on.

He entered class. The professor wasn’t even teaching yet—still fighting with the projector. Students looked up. And there it was—heat behind their eyes, whispers under their smiles. He ignored all of it and headed to his usual seat.

Then he stopped.

There was a coffee cup sitting on his desk.

And a note.

His blood burned before he even opened it. He didn’t need to. He already knew.

He opened it anyway.

Good morning, Xiao Zhan.
I Kept my promise, it’s your Turn.

— Yibo

Everything inside him went very, very still.

He didn’t touch the coffee.

He folded the note once. Slid it into his pocket. Picked up his bag.

He didn’t ask permission to leave. Didn’t look at the professor. Didn’t give a single fuck about anyone watching him walk out.

He moved fast. The door hit the wall behind him.

The hallway waited.

He headed straight for the steps corridor where he saw the skateboard.

Chapter Text

Doors snapped shut down the corridor like jaws, swallowing students back into routine. Silence gathered in the stairwell—broken only by the thin metallic roll of a skateboard tapping the wall.

Xiao Zhan stopped. His molars clicked.

That fucking skateboard.

He took the stairs two at a time, measured and merciless. Pulse even. Breath steady. Weight in every step like a verdict. The rooftop door hung ajar; wind worried the hinge.

Of course.

Concrete. Sky. Empty.

Three seconds of nothing—

“Xiao Zhan.”

The voice slid in behind him—lazy, soaked in nerve.

He turned before it finished.

“Bàobei.”

Wang Yibo lounged against the far parapet, hood up, mask off, hands tucked in his hoodie like recess. Morning light washed his face clean, almost gentle. His eyes ruined the lie—bright, sharp, unhinged with discipline. The bruise on his cheek—Xiao Zhan’s mark—sat there like a dare.

Xiao Zhan crossed the roof in three strides, fisted fabric, ripped Yibo off the wall and slammed him back into it.

THUD.

Yibo’s breath folded and came back as a grin, teeth pinked at the corner. “Fuck—good morning to you too.”

Xiao Zhan kept his fist in the hoodie. His other hand rose and closed over Yibo’s throat—one-handed, firm. Not chaos. Claim.

“You were warned,” Xiao Zhan said, quiet as a blade.

“About what?” Yibo’s mouth curved. “Skateboarding indoors?”

“I told you not to walk into my space again.”

“Yeah,” Yibo nodded, like agreeing with weather. “I heard you. I just didn’t care.”

Xiao Zhan’s grip tightened. “I will break you.”

Yibo’s lashes lowered like he was savoring it. “You already tried. Do it right this time.”

He turned his head and dragged his tongue across Xiao Zhan’s palm.

Slow. Deliberate. A sin performed like prayer.

Xiao Zhan didn’t flinch; his thumb pressed the pulse until it stuttered.

“You’re disgusting,” Xiao Zhan said, flat.

“You’re transparent.” Yibo’s voice roughed up with pleasure. “Your hand knows me better than your mouth admits.”

“I came to end this,” Xiao Zhan said. “Before I have to bury you.”

“Oh?” Yibo tipped his head, bruise catching light like spilled wine. “So violent. Tell me you hate me while you hold me like that.”

Xiao Zhan slammed him again, shoulder-first. Stone shivered.

THUD.

Yibo grunted—and laughed through it, delighted and wrecked. “Careful, honor student. You keep throwing me and people will think you like how I land.”

Xiao Zhan stole the air between them, step closer, chest to chest. “Listen carefully, kid—”

“Oh, lecture me,” Yibo whispered, eyes bright. “I’ll listen if you keep your hand where it is.”

“You crossed a line.” Xiao Zhan’s jaw cut tight. “Come near me again and I’ll break your bones and leave you where I find you.”

“Big threat.” Yibo’s grin sharpened. “Short memory.”

Xiao Zhan’s hand slid from throat to jaw—iron, precise—forcing Yibo’s face up by the hinge of bone. “Test me.”

Yibo didn’t blink. He looked starved in the most honest way. “You want the worst part?”

Silence, wire-taut.

“You’re not doing this because you’re angry,” Yibo murmured, voice falling into heat. “You’re doing this because you want to.”

Xiao Zhan leaned in a fraction. “Want to what.”

“Touch me,” Yibo said—open, raw, shameless. “Harder. Longer. Until you find out I don’t break the way you need me to.”

Xiao Zhan’s fingers tightened, flirting with bruise. “You really want to die.”

“You really want to enjoy this.” Yibo’s pupils were blown. “Stop lying to me with your mouth when your body tells the truth.”

Xiao Zhan punched the wall beside his ear. Dust shook loose like ash, sifting into Yibo’s hair.

“This is your last warning—stay out of my way.”

“No.” Yibo’s breath slid over Xiao Zhan’s knuckles. “Make me stay away.”

The palm at Yibo’s jaw held him exactly where Xiao Zhan wanted him, the ridge brushing the hollow under his Adam’s apple—pressure promising damage. Wind tugged their clothes. The world narrowed to concrete scrape and miscounted heartbeats.

Sun cut across Yibo’s bruise. Two images slammed together in Xiao Zhan’s head: Yibo with a board and a laugh; the same mouth split by a dark line. Something raw flared—not pity—instinct he refused to name.

His hold eased a fraction.

Yibo felt it and smiled like a cardinal sin. “There you are.”

Winter answered. Xiao Zhan let go, seized Yibo’s hoodie at the chest—threw.

Concrete took Yibo’s back. Air punched out of him.

Xiao Zhan didn’t speak. He turned and headed for the door.

“Coward,” Yibo called, voice rough with joy. “That your move? Pin me, breathe me, and run?”

Xiao Zhan’s steps didn’t break.

“Come on, honor student,” Yibo coaxed, sweet as poison. “You gonna leave me on the floor you put me on?”

Nothing.

“Bàobei,” Yibo said, low and lethal, savoring the trigger, “don’t turn your back unless you want me under you.”

Xiao Zhan stopped.

Turned.

Whatever lived in Xiao Zhan’s eyes sent most men backward. Yibo stepped into it like heat.

“Good,” Yibo whispered, a small lethal grin. “Come teach me.”

Xiao Zhan reached him in three strides—hands raised to end this—but Yibo cut low, shoulder to ribs, surged up and reversed the angle. The wall took Xiao Zhan’s spine. Concrete kissed bone. Yibo caged him—forearm across chest, hips pinning hips. He snatched Xiao Zhan’s wrists and shoved them high above his head, grip white-knuckled with need.

“Don’t,” Yibo said, voice shaking from adrenaline he didn’t hide, mouth brushing Xiao Zhan’s cheek. “Fucking leave me on the ground and walk away from me.”

Xiao Zhan’s laugh landed like a blade.

“Then make me stay,” Xiao Zhan said—and moved.

He twisted his wrists—not escape, leverage—and pain striped Yibo’s forearm. Yibo’s throat hummed with it. Xiao Zhan turned his shoulder, dropped weight, cut his stance—merciless—and broke Yibo’s hold. In the same breath he caught Yibo’s wrist, wrenched it behind his back, and drove him forward until Yibo’s chest hit the low service rail.

Yibo hissed—more heat than hurt—and arched into it like a lesson he’d begged for.

“You feel that?” Xiao Zhan’s mouth grazed Yibo’s ear, voice winter-flat and close enough to taste. “That’s pain. Remember it.”

His free hand slid up Yibo’s spine and fisted the hood, dragging Yibo’s head back until breath stuttered. Yibo’s lips parted on a sound that wasn’t a laugh, wasn’t a groan—something worshipful and ruined.

“Careful,” Yibo rasped, smiling into the metal. “You keep teaching me your rhythm, I’ll use it to make you lose yours.”

Xiao Zhan wrenched the caught wrist higher—sparked fireworks in both elbows. “You don’t learn. You provoke.”

“Same syllabus,” Yibo grinned, eyes closing on the bite. “Different teacher.”

A hook at the ankle, pivot, ruthless shift in balance—Yibo went down. Concrete took shoulder and pride; air left and clawed back. In the same motion, Xiao Zhan flipped him and settled heavy—straddling hips, pinning both wrists with one hand, the other planted iron-flat over Yibo’s sternum. Yibo’s chest climbed against that palm like it had been waiting its whole life.

“You fucking kid,” Xiao Zhan said—breath steady, eyes murder-calm. “I don’t play with kids. Last warning—don’t come in front of me again. If I see you next time, it won’t be a warning.”

Heat bloomed under Xiao Zhan’s hand. Yibo’s smile bared teeth.

“You can’t avoid me, Xiao Zhan,” Yibo said, voice wrecked with honesty. “I’ll make you kneel and beg for my kiss.”

The change in Xiao Zhan was instant—door slamming in a storm. Off, then on again, faster, harder, crueler.

The wall took Yibo whole.

Xiao Zhan pinned him high—forearm under collarbones, hips crowding close, weight exact and unforgiving. Fingers buried in Yibo’s hair and wrenched, dragging his face up to his own—nose to nose, breath to breath, nowhere to go.

“Shh,” Xiao Zhan said—almost gentle, which made it worse. “I beg for your kiss?”

He hauled harder, held Yibo’s mouth a hair from his—held him on the edge like a drop about to fall, a blade for a line. Yibo’s eyes lit with hunger that didn’t know shame.

“Climb out of your delusion,” Xiao Zhan whispered, lethal and soft. “That will never happen.”

He loosened enough to see the blaze in Yibo’s gaze, then threw him back into stone and stepped off like nothing inside had moved.

Yibo slid an inch, breath burning, pulse miscounting. He laughed, quiet and wrecked. “You taste like restraint,” he said. “I’m going to ruin that.”

Xiao Zhan turned for the door.

“Run,” Yibo called, delighted and destroyed in the same line. “I’ll still find you.”

Steel swallowed Xiao Zhan. Dust breathed.

The stairwell smelled like concrete and time. Xiao Zhan dragged a hand over his mouth and felt the faultline there—the slice he’d sworn wasn’t a memory anymore. The ring on his chain tapped against his chest like a metronome counting something down. Fury pulsed in him, violent and alive, trying to speak in a language he refused to learn.

End it.

He took the next step harder.

—————

After some time, Wang Yibo bent and palmed the skateboard up, rolling it forward and back, wheels whispering over grit. The echo of Xiao Zhan’s hands—on his throat, his wrists, in his hair—dragged through Yibo’s bloodstream and settled deep, where addiction is born.

He smiled—slow, feral, unstoppable.

“Run then, bàobei,” Yibo murmured to the empty sky. “You’re going to walk straight into my arms soon.”

Chapter Text

Zhan takes the stairs.No pause to breathe, walked into Classroom.

The classroom is empty. A cup still on his desk.

”Babobei❤️”

scrawled like a smug finger. A stupid heart.

Rage crawls his spine. He rips it and throws it.

The lid pops. The cup slams the bin, bounces, cracks the wall. Coffee spits across paint like someone spat in his face.

Good. Fucking good.

Bag on. Out. Down the stairwell. Steps count under his boots. Motion keeps the pressure from exploding.

Halfway, knuckles catch rail. Skin splits. Blood beads hot and thin. He looks at his knickles. The cut is a clean line — the wall where he hit behind that fucking Kid’s ear.

The roof cleaves into him: throat in his palm. Hair in his fist. That laugh — raw, stupid, daring. The words land like shrapnel. Zhan clamps his hand on the rail until metal bites.

“Coward.”

The word punches the gut. Rage flares — quick, white, savage. Not simmering. Immediate. Teeth grind until the jaw hurts.

”I like how you tasted that night.”

That line burrows. Not sweetness. Iron. Power. The memory is surgical: the pressure, the pulse under skin, the exact angle that makes a man stop pretending he’s got options. He drops onto a step. Bag thuds. He stares at his hand until light goes flat. No guilt. No soft bullshit. Only the burn under his ribs and an ugly clarity.

You broke your rules. You make rules and you fucking break them. Rage answers: Good. It wants the work. It wants results. It wants that grin wiped off a face that thinks it can flirt with danger and walk away. Yibo is loud in his head — bright, reckless, a problem with a grin. Problems get removed.

”Make me sorry,” Yibo dared. Like a kid flicking a live wire. The dare sits under Zhan’s sternum and hums.

He can taste it. He can feel the exact press of his palm against a throat, the way breath stutters and then obeys. He remembers because he practiced precision. He remembers because it worked. He breathes hard once, a tool to stop roaring.

If Yibo steps in front of me again — I will hurt him again. No flourish. No show. A fact. Filed. Signed. Done.

He wipes the blood into his jacket until the smear looks like nothing. He fixes his face — blank, sharp, unreadable — and stands.

Up the stairs. Top floor. Studio door under his palm. If Yibo crosses his path — corridor, class, stairwell — Zhan will not talk. He will not bargain. He will finish the job he started.

He steps through without a backward glance.

———
The studio is alive when Yibo steps in. Lights low, bass heavy, air thick with sweat. People yell his name the second they see him—energy pulls to him like magnets snap to steel.

He drops his board, kicks it aside, pulls off his jacket. Mask stays on. The bruise under it is still fresh—Zhan’s fingerprints living in his skin like a brand. Good.

“YIBO!”
Yubin crashes into him with a hug. Yibo lets him. For a second.

“Where the hell have you been, bro? I’ve been trying to reach you for two days!”

Yibo doesn’t answer. Doesn’t care. “Music. Now.”

And just like that—he owns the room.

The track drops, and Yibo burns. He moves like the music is pouring out of him instead of into him, like he wants to tear the beat apart and swallow it. The way his body rolls, snaps, locks—filthy. The way his hips drive into movement—explicit. The way he drags his hand over his throat, down his chest—reckless. He doesn’t dance clean—he dances hungry.

Heat builds. Every muscle is tight. Every nerve wired. His body responds before thought—cock thickening against his pants, breath dragging low. He lets it. Lets the music become a fight—lets the memory of hands slamming him into a rooftop wall fuel the rhythm. Breath against his jaw. Fingers in his hair. A palm around his throat commanding him to stay still. Fuck yes. He moves harder until the crowd stops moving and watches.

When the track ends, he lies down on the floor next to Yubin like nothing happened. Sweat sticks his shirt to his stomach. He doesn’t bother hiding the way he exhales like he just got off.

Yubin laughs breathlessly beside him. “Bro—you were on fucking fire today. You high?”

Yibo grins behind his mask. “Something like that.”

Yubin nudges him. “Hey, I need your help. With a guy.”

“What guy?”

“The guy I messaged you about that morning.”

Yibo pulls out his phone and scrolls Yubin’s messages lazily. Missed calls. Paragraphs. Then he sees it:

– “This guy was waiting outside our building. He looked intense as fuck. Think he was looking for someone.”

Yibo stops scrolling.

His body shifts. Shoulders roll back. Chin lifts. Pulse slows. Something changes in his face—danger settling into amusement. A slow smirk forms under the mask.

Yubin notices instantly. “What? Why are you smiling like that?”

Yibo keeps scrolling.

“Bro he’s fucking hot.”

Yibo’s jaw moves once, tight. He looks at the timestamp again. While I was waiting for him. He was looking for me.

And just like that—his world feels right.

Yubin squints at him. “What the hell is wrong with you today? Why are you wearing a mask inside? Let me see.”

Yubin reaches for it—fingers moving toward Yibo’s face.

Yibo doesn’t let him.

He shoves his phone into his pocket and his free hand snaps up and clamps around Yubin’s wrist mid-air—stopping him cold. The grip isn’t friendly. It’s a warning.

Yubin blinks. “Woah—what the fu—”

He tries to pull back. He can’t.

“He grabbed my wrist too,” Yubin says with a weird laugh, trying to lighten it. “Just like this.”

Wrong answer.

Yibo’s grip tightens cruelly, tendons standing out in his hand. His voice drops—cold and lethal:

“Why the fuck did he touch you?”

Yubin recoils. “Touched?! Man—what the fuck are you talking about—he just stopped me from FALLING—”

Yibo’s fingers dig deeper—pain sharp enough to make Yubin flinch.

“Why,” Yibo repeats, voice now a soft threat, “did he touch you?”

Yubin nearly shouts, “I JUST TOLD YOU WHY! He grabbed me before I cracked my skull so FUCKING LET GO!”

Yibo holds his stare. Then, just as fast as he grabbed him, he releases—but not gently. He throws Yubin’s arm away like it offends him.

Yubin grabs his wrist, stunned. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Yibo stands over him. Calm again. Dangerous-calm.

“Good. Don’t fucking breathe around him again.”

Yubin freezes. Silent. Shocked.

Yibo pats his shoulder like nothing happened. Smirk back. Mask on.

“Come,” he says casually. “I’ll buy you lunch.”

Yubin nods, slow, confused. “Uh—yeah. Okay…”

They leave together.

Only one of them knows the storm just started.

———-

Zhan didn’t eat lunch. He couldn’t. Food would’ve tasted like metal the way his jaw had been locked since morning. So he sat in the library instead—group project spread across the table—trying to force order back into his body.

It wasn’t working.

“Zhan, can you check this layout—”
“Do it again,” Zhan said without looking.
His teammate blinked. “I haven’t even shown—”
“It’s wrong. Fix it.”

Cold. Sharp. Uncompromising. Nobody argued, not when his eyes looked like that—steady, silent, dangerous. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t show anger the way normal people did.

The clock hit 1:14 PM. Someone yawned. Someone typed slower. A pencil rolled.

Zhan’s phone buzzed.

He ignored it.

His screen lit up again. And again.

He checked it only because repetition irritated him.

Yanli 💛
You didn’t call during lunch.
Are you skipping meals again?
Zhan?

His fingers froze. Jaw tightened once. Control cracked—not visibly, not publicly—but inside where the ground shifted.

He stood abruptly. “I’ll be back.”

No one stopped him.

He stepped into an empty hallway and called her.

She picked up on the first ring. “Hey. There you are. Did you eat?”

He lied. “Yes.”

“You’re overworking again,” she sighed, gentle and soft in a way the world didn’t deserve. “I can hear you breaking your teeth on your jaw.”

He didn’t respond. Rage didn’t leave him, but guilt tried to get in the door behind it. He didn’t let either show. He controlled his breathing. Even. Flat.

“Zhan?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

He closed his eyes briefly. He couldn’t afford softness right now. Not hers. Not anyone’s. “I’ll send you a picture later.”

“Of what?”

“Dinner.”

“That’s not dinner. That’s proof.” She laughed. Warm. Familiar. Home. “Take care of yourself, hm?”

He swallowed. Restrained. “I will.”

He ended the call and stared at his own reflection in the black screen.

His face was calm. But his hand still hurt. The skin still burned. Memory still poisoned the edges of his control.

He put the phone away and walked back toward the table. Controlled. Efficient. Silent.

Yanli didn’t help.

Nothing silenced the fire.

And Yibo was still under his skin like a curse.

———-

Later that night The shower didn’t help Xiao Zhan.

Hot water slammed down his back like punishment, but it didn’t put out the fire sitting under his ribs. It only made the bathroom fill with steam—thick, suffocating, like his own skin was too tight.

He brushed his teeth hard enough that his gums stung, eyes on his reflection. Calm face. Straight shoulders. Nothing out of place.

Lie.

He spat, wiped his mouth, and tied his hair back again just to untie it. Restless. Controlled fury in motion.

He opened the cabinet. Closed it. Opened it again. His mind wasn’t here. His body wasn’t here. Everything replayed like a loop:

“Beg for my kiss.”
“Coward—“
“Make me—“

He grabbed the edge of the sink until the porcelain groaned.

Then it hit—the one memory that burned the deepest.

Yibo leaning in. Thumb lifting to Zhan’s mouth—slow, obscene, claiming.

“There it is. My mark.”

The words detonated inside him.

His fist slammed the counter before he meant to move. The mirror shook. A bottle fell sideways. Rage went through him like flame through dry forest—fast, uncontrollable, total.

He stood there breathing like a man holding back murder.

Zhan thoughts marke “I should have made that fucking shit cry with pain, I should have broke his ribs, I didn’t hit him hard enough. I didn’t make him regret touching me. I will.”

Zhan turned the faucet and splashed scalding water on his face. Again. Again. Again. Burn over burn just to feel something that wasn’t him.

He looked into the mirror again.

Jaw clenched. Eyes burning. Violence coiled under skin.

Yibo’s voice was still in him, crawling.

“My mark.”

Zhan slammed the tap off.

Enough.

He dried his face, tied his hair back with brutal precision, and walked out of the bathroom like a man leaving execution.

He didn’t sleep. He closed his eyes, but he didn’t sleep.

———

Yibo whistled as he walked into the apartment, grinning like sin itself.

Good mood? Understatement.
He was thriving.

Outside his building that morning: Xiao Zhan.
Not passing by. Not coincidence. Waiting.

For him.

Zhan didn’t even speak—just hunted him to the rooftop like a hitman with a code.
And that expression on his face?

Perfect.

Yibo kicked off his boots and stepped into their usual battlefield:
Sofas like crime scenes. Screaming football match. Seungyoun and Sungjoo arguing with no shirts on. Wenhan yelling at the ref like he knew him personally.

“Try not to cry,” Yibo called. “I’m home.”

Nobody looked up.

“Bro, you left the fridge open for five hours yesterday,” Sungjoo muttered.

“Yeah, we all got salmonella now,” Seungyoun added.

Yibo grinned, unfazed, and headed into the kitchen. He opened the fridge, grabbed water, and chugged half of it. When he turned around, Wenhan was right there—arms folded, one eyebrow cocked, and a folded paper in his hand like it was Exhibit A.

Yibo groaned. “Oh god. Is this another lecture? can i pee first?”

Wenhan didn’t move. Just held out the paper.
“When were you planning to tell us?”

Yibo blinked. “Tell you what?”

“You’re. Moving. Out.”

Yibo shrugged. “Oh. That. Slipped my mind.”

“Slipped your mind?! You’re moving tomorrow, you lunatic.”

Yibo waved a hand. “Ge, please. I’m not dying. I’m just upgrading.”

“Upgrading to what?” Seungyoun called. “A fuckpad?”

“Are you finally planning to start a cult?” Sungjoo asked. “Do we get jackets?”

“Be honest,” Wenhan said, voice deadly serious. “Did you get someone pregnant?”

Yibo smirked. “If I did, I hope it’s you.”

Sungjoo choked. Seungyoun fake swooned onto the couch.
“Wait,” Yixuan called from the hallway. “Are you finally going to start seducing girls for sport?”

Yibo leaned on the fridge, flicked water at them. “Yes Baby. Hahaha”

Yibo just took another drink. Calm. Cool. Maskless. Menace-free on the outside.

Everyone screamed like fans at a concert.Sungjoo yelled “Kinky rights!”

Yibo clapped once. “Alright, shut up. I’m taking you all out.”

“For what?” Wenhan narrowed his eyes.

“Burgers. Beers. A funeral for your boyhood.”

“You’re twenty,” Yixuan muttered. “Still in emotional diapers.”

“Exactly,” Yibo said. “Time to crawl into my den and become a man.”

Seungyoun saluted. “To the fuck-den!”

Sungjoo threw on a jacket. “I want extra cheese and zero details.”

Yibo grabbed his keys. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”

They all filed out behind him, still yelling.

The door slammed behind them, laughter echoing in the hallway.

—

Later that night

Yibo fell into his bed like a man dropping into his throne.
The sheets were cold, but his blood was warm.

He didn’t replay the jokes. He didn’t care about the burgers.
What he cared about was this:
Zhan standing in front of his building.Zhan storming toward him without a word.Zhan’s fury—a straight shot to the throat.

He turned on his side, grinning in the dark.
“He’s reacting.”

He didn’t need a love story.

He needed Zhan on his knees.

“I’m going to make him beg for me,” Yibo whispered.

Then, like the devil after a good day’s work,
he slept like a baby.

Chapter Text

Weekends weren’t for rest.
They were for control.

Xiao Zhan stripped his room down to obedience. Surfaces wiped to silence. Glass without fingerprints. Corners without softness. Sheets pulled tight, unforgiving. Books aligned by height. Pens by weight. Order wasn’t preference—it was law.

He reset the world inside four walls because outside them, chaos waited to be invited. He had no intention of letting it in again.

The kettle clicked. He poured without spilling a drop. Video-called his parents like clockwork. Gave answers prepared long before the questions came. He was fine. Classes were fine. London was cold. He was careful.

Routine. Precision. Zero wasted motion.

Yanli called next. Duty came in many forms—she was one of them. She talked. He listened. He gave promises that could not break. Effort. Future. Discipline. The ring at his neck hung under his shirt—weightless, but unignored. Important things didn’t need to be seen to be real.

When the call ended, he didn’t sigh. He didn’t think. He simply set the phone face-down and let silence return, clean and absolute.

He did not think about that night.
Not the corridor.
Not the hands that had grabbed him.
Not the stolen kiss still ghosted at the edge of his pulse.
Not the stranger who would have learned what fear tasted like if they had been alone five seconds longer.

He had buried that moment. Deep. Ruthlessly. He would not dig it up.

He opened his laptop and hunted, working until the air thinned.

He didn’t browse job boards—he hunted targets. Clients worth his time. Money that could move him forward. He moved fast—efficient, surgical. No hesitation. A café with identity decay. A gym with branding that insulted the word design. A theater one bad season from death. He didn’t apply. He claimed. Sharp proposals. Clean proof. No pointless friendliness.

“We should register a name,” Ayunga said from the floor, half inside a spreadsheet, half inside a bag of biscuits.

“We don’t register a name,” Zhan said without looking up. “We build one they remember.”

By night, Ayunga was asleep on the couch. Zhan wasn’t. Control didn’t sleep. He worked until the air thinned, until the silence was carved into something solid.

He never once looked toward the door. He refused to expect a shadow there.

He refused to think about him at all.

-----------

Monday started with a warning.

A paper cup sat at Xiao Zhan’s desk before class—his order. Perfect temperature. Condensation sliding down the sides. No note. No need for one.

Xiao Zhan picked it up, walked it to the bin, and dropped it in without a pause. No reaction. No curiosity. No acknowledgment.

He sat. Opened his notebook. Class began.

The room understood the message.
He delivered his answer in silence.

After that, it didn’t stop. It spread.

Not loud. Not messy. Precise.

Someone followed him—but never beside him. That was too obvious. No, this was calculated. A shadow placed just outside reach. Always behind him. Always there.

Footsteps matched his pace down a hall—but never close enough to confront.
Light reflected in a window—but lingered one second too long behind him.
A stare pressed between his shoulder blades—but vanished when he turned.

Xiao Zhan didn’t chase shadows. He sharpened his edges instead.

Tuesday. Library. 1 PM.

Xiao Zhan approached his usual table—the one he always used. Order mattered. Routine mattered.

A laminated card was taped dead center:

STUDY SPACE RESERVED FOR XIAO ZHAN – 1 PM TO 7 PM

Xiao Zhan stared at it. Emotionless.

He peeled the tape. Sat. Pulled a cutter from his bag and sliced the laminate into clean, perfect strips. Precision. Control. No wasted motion.

Then he cut the strips again. Smaller. Thinner. Exact.

He studied for six hours. When he finally left, all that remained of the sign was plastic dust.

Wednesday. Studio.

Xiao Zhan reached for the studio door.

It opened before he touched it.

A girl stood there—too straight, too prepared. “They told me you were on your way,” she said, voice bright but nervous. “I was asked to—”

Xiao Zhan looked at her once.

That was enough.

Her voice collapsed. She stepped aside. “Sorry.”

Inside, his workspace had been touched.

Not messed with. Worse—arranged. Tools aligned. Papers squared. Pencils sharpened and lined up by length.

Intimacy disguised as order.

Xiao Zhan stared at the pencils.

Picked one up.

Snap.

Another. Snap.
Third. Snap.
Fourth. Snap.

He ground the splinters in his palm until they dug into skin. Then he brushed them aside and opened his laptop.

Order restored.

Thursday. Cafeteria.

He reached the food counter.

His tray was already waiting. His usual meal. Fresh. Hot. No mistakes.

The server wouldn’t meet his eyes when she said, “Someone wants to take care of you.”

Xiao Zhan lifted the tray.

Walked to the bin.

Tipped the entire meal inside.

Left with empty hands.

No one spoke.

He felt it now.
A presence. Pressure. Intent.

Following. Studying. Waiting.

Xiao Zhan did not run from it. He did not respond to it. He did not give it power.

He let it follow.

Let it watch.

Let it believe it was getting closer.

It wasn’t.

------------

Friday. 09:30 PM.

The studio building slept. The city outside had gone cold. Inside—one light still burned. Xiao Zhan’s.

He is working alone, shoulders steady, jaw locked, movements precise. He wasn't just meeting a deadline—he was erasing everything that dared to distract him. The world narrowed to lines, grids, control.

Then—click.

The door opened behind him.

Xiao Zhan didn’t look up, but something in the air shifted—weight entering the room. Footsteps moved inside. Not cautious. Not hesitant. Predatory, patient. Coming straight to him.

A cold bottle slid into Xiao Zhan’s hand. Fingers brushed his knuckles—hot skin against chilled plastic. Intimate. Wrong. Deliberate. The touch didn’t ask permission. It learned him.

Xiao Zhan didn’t turn. Didn’t look. Didn’t breathe.

“Move.”

The bottle didn’t move. Instead, the grip tightened—a slow push back, like a hand testing a boundary it intended to cross.

Then a voice came from behind him—close enough that Xiao Zhan could feel the breath of it along his skin.

“Like this?” Low. Controlled. Almost amused. Danger wrapped in silk.
“See, I followed your order.”

Xiao Zhan stood.

Not fast. Certain. Like a weapon being drawn.

He turned, grabbed Yibo by the collar, and slammed him into the wall so hard the air punched out of the room.

THUD.

And Yibo—smiled.

Wang Yibo hit the wall hard enough to make the metal legs of the nearest table chatter against the floor. A T-square rattled, skittered, and fell. He exhaled a sound that landed wrong—half grunt, half laugh—like he’d finally found the violence he’d been hunting.

Xiao Zhan didn’t watch him enjoy it. Zhan closed in—not quick, just inevitable—until his body erased distance and owned the space Yibo was trying to breathe. One hand stayed knotted in Yibo’s collar, dragging him higher; the other slid down to his waist and fisted fabric like a promise he intended to keep. Heat stacked on heat. The wall took their weight and complained.

The room pulled tight. Air thinned.

Zhan didn’t speak. He let proximity do the first cut—shoulder kissing Yibo’s chest, breath skating along his cheek, the shadow of his mouth close enough to register as a threat in the skin. The pressure wasn’t wild; it was applied. Calculated. The kind that teaches.

Yibo’s pulse jumped once at his throat. He set his jaw to hide it. Failed.

Zhan dragged his grip a fraction lower along hoodie and rib, not gentle—examining. Testing where Yibo braced, where he gave. He set a knee into position and took the ground from under him—pinning hips with quiet, ugly efficiency so Yibo had nowhere to go that wasn’t through Zhan.

Metal creaked. A pencil rolled and dropped. Neither of them looked.

Zhan tipped Yibo’s chin with two fingers—no caress, just control—forcing eye contact like it was a rule.

“That eager to follow my orders? Hmmm ?”

The "HMM" line landed dead-center. Not loud. Worse: certain.

Yibo didn’t blink. The answer happened in his body before his mouth could find it—breath hitching, heat crawling up his neck, knuckles flexing at his sides like he was choosing between grabbing Zhan or breaking the wall behind him. He did neither. He held. He burned.

Zhan’s mouth hovered at the hinge of Yibo’s jaw—near, not on—and tracked a slow, territorial path along bone to the edge of his ear. Breath, not lips. Threat, not mercy. The kind of closeness that steals steadiness more than any touch.

Zhan’s hand slid back to the waist and hauled Yibo flush—hip to hip, chest to chest, ownership disguised as alignment. The table beside them scraped an inch from the shift of weight.

Yibo breathed out through his nose, sharp. He was not soft. He was ready.

Zhan pressed his thumb beneath Yibo’s jaw, finding that precise notch of compliance that isn’t consent so much as a fact. He lifted, just enough to bare the line of throat to the air between them. The message was cruel and simple: look at me.

When Zhan finally spoke again, it came quiet and clean, a blade laid flat against skin.

“That eager to have my hands on you?”

The lights hummed. Something in the ceiling clicked. Yibo’s laugh answered—low, wrong, delighted at the danger—his eyes bright with a dare that said he wasn’t going to break first.

Zhan’s grip tightened. The studio waited. The week exhaled.

Zhan didn’t wait for an answer—he made one.

His hand snapped from Yibo’s jaw to his throat—not choking, not squeezing—owning. A grip that said stay exactly where I put you. The kind of hold that didn’t need force to dominate—it used certainty.

Yibo’s breath dragged in, sharp. Not fear. Recognition.

Zhan dragged him forward off the wall just to slam him back into it again—a violent punctuation mark. The impact vibrated up the concrete, into their bones. Yibo’s fingers twitched—like he might grab Zhan, like he might hit him, like he might pull him in and burn with him. He did none of it.

Zhan’s other hand drove into his waist, fingers locking deep, claiming ground that wasn’t offered. He pressed in until Yibo had no space, no air that didn’t come through him first.

He leaned in—mouth near, not touching—and let his words cut skin.

“Look at you.”

Disgust. Precision. Something darker underneath.

His thumb dragged along the side of Yibo’s throat—slow, humiliating, territorial.

“Filthy shit.”

The words hit harder than any punch. Yibo took them, eyes locked on Zhan like he couldn’t look away if he wanted to. He looked wrecked and hungry and dangerous.

Zhan’s grip hardened.

“Loose.” The insult was quiet. Surgical. A kill shot disguised as a whisper.

Yibo’s jaw flexed. His breathing was uneven now—betraying him. Something ugly and beautiful flared in his gaze.

Zhan leaned in until their foreheads almost touched and sneered, voice death-soft:

“I don’t play with easy shit.”

He let that line hang. Heavy. Final.

Then he threw Yibo sideways again—this time not just to hurt him—to remind him exactly who was in control.

Yibo hit the table edge with a brutal thud, metal legs squealing across the floor. Supplies crashed. Boards scattered. The room shook.

Yibo pushed up off the wrecked table, wrist braced, shoulders rolling like he was shaking the week out of his bones. A laugh tore thin and wicked out of him.

“Easy?”

The studio hummed. A pencil on the floor finished its slow roll and clicked to a stop.

Xiao Zhan didn’t turn. He set his laptop square, as if the room wasn’t tilting toward violence.

Yibo didn’t walk; he came for him—quiet, straight, a decision with feet. He caught Zhan’s collar from behind and ripped him off the desk. The laptop skidded; Zhan caught it, set it down, and—

SLAM.
Wall. Plaster shiver. Breath stolen.

Yibo pinned Zhan with wrist to concrete, the other hand braced hard on his shoulder. Body lined to body. Pressure where it counted. Stillness enforced.

He leaned in, voice serrated at Zhan’s ear.

“Easy?” The word scraped. “Say that again.”

Zhan didn’t fight; Zhan tested—shoulders rolling once, slow, predatory. Yibo held him, chest locked to Zhan’s back, weight applied.

“You got a problem with my hands on you?” Yibo’s breath slid along Zhan’s jaw—heat without mercy. “Funny. Didn’t seem that way when you were grinding on me.”

Zhan’s jaw locked. The wall hummed with their pulse.

Yibo pressed closer, hip to hip, sealing the hold until it felt less like a pin and more like a warning.

“You think I’m into You?” Lips near, not touching. “You think I want your attention?”

A low, vicious laugh.

“I’m not chasing shit. I’m training you.”

Silence thinned. The room waited.

Yibo’s mouth hovered by Zhan’s ear, voice dropping to something colder.

“And you are reacting the way I want just like fucking PET.”

The word "PET" detonated.

Xiao Zhan went still—not frozen; loaded.

War recognized war.

Zhan turned just enough for Yibo to see his eyes—dead calm storm.

“You think I’m trained?” Zhan’s voice cut clean. “You think I follow?” A single lethal exhale. “You think you’re holding me?”

He moved.

Fast. Sharp. Surgical. Zhan ripped his pinned arm free, shoulder twisting into open space; his elbow snapped back and drove into Yibo’s ribs. Yibo caught the pain with a half-grunt, half-laugh, staggered half a step—

Enough.

Zhan spun, fisted Yibo’s shirt high at the collarbone, stole his balance, and threw.

Metal screamed. A table folded under impact; boards fanned across the floor.

Zhan was already there. He caught Yibo by the front of his shirt and lifted.

Off. The. Ground.

Bicep locked. Wrist steady. Yibo hung in Zhan’s fist, breath rough, heat burning up his neck. He tried a glare; it broke under what Zhan was doing to his body.

Zhan hauled him closer—chest to chest—no room for lies. His other hand clamped Yibo’s jaw, forcing his eyes up, enforcing attention.

He spoke near Yibo’s mouth—breath shared, contact denied.

“What was that you were saying?” The tone slid low, filthy, dangerous. “You’re not into me?”

A quiet, broken laugh—cold as winter—escaped Zhan. He leaned in, jaw to jaw, voice a slow cut.

“Look at you.”
“You’re burning.”

Zhan’s fist ground into Yibo’s waist—pressure exact, humiliating in its accuracy, reading every tremor.

“I hear your heartbeat,” Zhan murmured, head tilting with dark amusement. “With my bare ears.”
A thin blade of a smile. “Your body gave you up, pathetic.”

Yibo tried to answer. Zhan’s grip at his jaw tightened; the words died before they were born.

The studio felt too small to hold what was happening.

For a breath, nothing moved.

Then Zhan made his verdict.

“Go find an easy target,” Xiao Zhan said, voice like a final sentence. Cold. Merciless. “Not me.”

He threw Yibo.

Not a drop. A discard. Yibo hit the floor and slid, palms burning, pain spiking bright; his eyes locked on Zhan—wild, ravenous, ruined and refusing to fold.

Xiao Zhan didn’t look back.

He closed the laptop. Set it under his arm. Walked past Yibo like he was furniture someone forgot to move.

No glance. No word.

Just dismissal—deeper than any bruise.

He reached the door.
Opened it.
Walked out.

Left Wang Yibo on the floor—burning.

Chapter Text

Wang Yibo’s fists clenched as Xiao Zhan walked away.
The silence hit harder than any blow.

Used. Rejected. Again.

The humiliation burned through him, molten and sharp, until he couldn’t tell if he was angry or just bleeding somewhere no one could see. His breath came ragged; his chest ached, air catching like broken glass in his throat.

The water bottle glinted on the floor which was thrown away by zhan earlier. He snatched it up before thought could stop him. The cap twisted off, and he dumped the water down his neck. Cold slammed into hot skin, dripping along his collar, spine, chest. He wanted it to freeze the fingerprints off him, to wash away control.
It didn’t.
It made everything worse.

The chill mapped where Zhan’s hands had been, tracing each nerve awake. His skin remembered too well—the pressure at his waist, the whisper of breath, that voice that cut through every defense. The cold didn’t cleanse; it branded.

“Fuck…” The word came out rough, half growl, half confession. He dragged a hand through his hair, but the ache stayed. His body still hummed with the echo of Zhan’s touch, the ghost of heat that refused to die.
Pathetic.

Why did I fold like that under him?
Why can’t I ever hold my ground?

He’d trained for control—lived by it—but one look, one move from Zhan, and it all shattered like glass under pressure.

He paced the studio, boots scuffing against the concrete. Every step stoked the fire instead of killing it. He slammed his fist into the wall; pain flashed bright, grounding him for a second. Plaster dust drifted down. His knuckles pulsed with heat.

Why can’t I get a hold of him?
Why does he always see through me?

He hated that Zhan could pull reactions from him like strings, hated how easily his body betrayed him.

Then the anger cooled, condensed into something cleaner. The heat didn’t fade—it forged itself into resolve.

“Fine,” he muttered, voice steady now. “You win tonight.”

He yanked on his jacket and shoved the door open. Night air rushed in—sharp, metallic, alive. It bit at his skin, made him shiver.

The parking lot gleamed under the lights, wet with reflected neon. His bike waited—black, sleek, faithful. He swung a leg over, started the engine. The growl of it vibrated through his bones, a promise.

He gunned the throttle. The city blurred into silver streaks. The wind tore at his jacket, stung his face, stripped the studio’s scent off him. Still, Zhan’s voice replayed—cool, certain, absolute.

Rejection. Domination. Control.

Then thought I am not going back from this ! 

Fine. Let him have his turn.

Yibo’s lips twisted into something close to a smile.
“When it’s mine,” he muttered into the wind, “he’ll be the one on his knees seeking my attention”

The engine roared louder, answering his vow.
The night swallowed the sound.

The bike rolled to a stop at the curb.
Yibo cut the engine, pulled off his helmet, and let out a breath that fogged in the cold.

A few steps ahead, four familiar figures waited under a streetlight.

Seungyoun spoke first.
“About time, man. We thought you’d disappeared.”

Yixuan rubbed his hands together. “No texts, no calls—we figured you froze somewhere.”

Wenhan smirked. “Or moved in with someone and forgot we exist.”

“Or died,” Seungyoun added. “Always a opossibility.”

Yibo stopped in front of them, helmet dangling from one hand.
“Disappointed?”

“Relieved,” Yixuan said. “Though we had your funeral playlist ready.”

Yibo snorted. “Touching.”

“You could at least reply once,” Wenhan said. “You vanish a week and make us sound needy.”

“I was busy.”

Seungyoun raised a brow. “Doing what? Practicing dramatic silence?”

“Existing,” Yibo said. The corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile.
“Come on. It’s freezing. I’m not talking out here.”

“Still bossy,” Seungyoun muttered.

“Still loud,” Yibo shot back.

Their laughter trailed after him as they fell into step—the kind of easy noise that only came from old habits.

He walked to the door, and they followed, still talking over each other—too much noise for the hour, too much life for the street. None of them noticed the way he exhaled before the key turned, or how tightly he gripped it, like he needed the small metal weight to keep himself from coming apart.

The living room still smelled of paint and cardboard. Half-unpacked boxes leaned against the wall, and the only real furniture was a couch and a low table buried under take-out cartons and empty bottles.

They’d been talking for hours—stories, gossip, half-truths—the kind of noise that used to fill every night when they lived together.
For a while it almost felt the same.
Almost.

Wenhan stretched, lazy and warm from the beer. “Yibo, you’re quiet again. Everything okay?”

Yibo leaned back, one arm draped along the couch, eyes on the city lights through the window. A small smirk curved his mouth.
“More than fine,” he said. “Nothing can touch me.”

The line landed light, like a joke, but his tone didn’t quite match the smile. No one called him on it.

Yuxin flicked a chopstick at him. “Good. Then when do we start rehearsals?”

Yibo blinked, as if the word had come from another world. “Rehearsals?”

Yuxin groaned, dropping forward onto his elbows. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

Yibo tilted his head, lazy. “Forgot what?”

Seungyoun threw up both hands. “Within ten days, we’ve got that performance—your uni’s cultural fest. Don’t say it slipped your mind.”

Wenhan jabbed a finger at him. “You promised the lyrics, man!”

“Lyrics,” Yibo echoed, slow.

“Yeah, lyrics!” Yuxin said. “You were all, ‘I’ll handle it, trust me,’ and then vanished for a week.”

Seungyoun groaned. “And guess what? We already took the payment.”

Yixuan leaned back, sighing like an old man. “And already spent it.”

That earned a round of weak laughter that didn’t reach anyone’s eyes.

Yibo dragged a hand through his hair, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Unbelievable. You clowns couldn’t hold it for one emergency?”

Seungyoun grinned. “We’re artists, not accountants.”

Yibo’s laugh was low, more breath than sound. “Great. So we owe a show and a refund.”

Yixuan looked over. “You think you can still pull it off?”

The question hung in the air—half challenge, half plea.

Yibo’s smile sharpened, a hint of the old spark surfacing. “I never said I couldn’t.”

The room went still for a beat. Empty bottles clinked as Wenhan set his down; the hum of the fridge filled the space.

Then Yibo leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes moving from one face to the next. The tired smirk softened into something steadier.
“Relax. We’ll nail it. Starting tomorrow.”

Seungyoun blinked. “You’re serious?”

Yibo nodded once. “You think I’d let us crash in front of a uni crowd? Ten days is plenty. We’ll fix the set, clean the moves, and I’ll finish the lyrics tonight.”

Yuxin grinned, relief spilling into a laugh. “There’s the Yibo we know.”

Wenhan clapped him on the shoulder. “I was starting to think London had eaten you.”

“London can try,” Yibo said—and for the first time in days, the grin almost reached his eyes.
“Now eat the rest of that takeout before it mutates. We start at nine.”

They groaned in unison, but the energy shifted—lighter, alive again. Plans spilled out: beats, hooks, half-jokes cutting through the fatigue. For a few minutes, it felt like the old nights—noise, laughter, rhythm, a team that still believed they could own the stage.

Yibo let the sound wash over him, quiet in the middle of it all. Outside, the rain kept falling, but inside the small apartment the air finally felt warm.

———

The door clicked open, quiet except for the soft scrape of keys on wood.
Ayunga looked up from the couch, laptop half-closed.

“I was about to call you,” he said. “Where have you been?”

Xiao Zhan didn’t answer.
He stepped inside, dropped his bag beside the couch, and crossed to the kitchen.
The tap hissed; water filled a glass.
His face stayed unreadable—too calm, too serious, the kind of stillness that hides what it means.

Ayunga watched him for a moment, waiting for a word, a sigh, anything.
Nothing.

He stood, walked closer.
“Zhan?”
No response.

“Zhan.”
Still nothing.

“Zhan!”
The fourth call was louder, almost a shout.
“ZHAN!”

The fifth hit like a crack in the air.

Xiao Zhan blinked, the glass frozen halfway to his mouth.
He looked like he’d just remembered where he was.
Water sloshed over the rim; the glass slipped from his hand and hit the floor, shattering into a burst of cold.

Ayunga jumped.
“Zhanzhan, what’s wrong with you?”
He grabbed a mop from the corner, crouched down, wiping at the spill before it reached the rug.

Zhan stood there a second longer, eyes fixed on the wet floor, jaw tight.
Then, quietly: “Sorry. I was just thinking about the deadline for our client.”

Ayunga sighed, still on his knees. “Yeah, I was calling you for that. They said they want the draft design by hand. I’ll set up a meeting—no need to rush—”

“Okay,” Zhan said, cutting him off.
He was already walking toward his room before Ayunga finished the sentence.
The door closed behind him, lock clicking once, soft but final.

Ayunga stared at the empty hallway, mop still in hand.
“What the fuck?” he muttered.
“What’s wrong with him now?”

——-

 

Xiao Zhan stood before the mirror, water droplets clinging to his skin as he studied his reflection. He lifted his hands, examining them with a curious detachment, as if they belonged to someone else. The sensation of fresh, clean skin was a novelty he hadn't experienced in a while.

As he touched his face, his fingers trailing down his throat, a sudden jolt of heat electrified his palm. It was a memory—a flash of what it had felt like to hold Wang Yibo's waist, the lean warmth of him pressed against Zhan's body. The recollection sent a shiver through Zhan, making him pause, breath caught in his throat.

He let his hands wander, skating across his cheeks and jawline, then dipping lower to caress the sensitive skin of his neck. His mind filled with the sound of Yibo's ragged breaths, the way he'd squirmed and strained beneath Zhan's dominating grip.

Zhan's fingers stilled on his lips, and his eyes fluttered shut as he remembered the desperate yearning in Yibo's eyes, the way he'd pleaded for more even as he was being used. That raw, unbridled desire had been intoxicating, a heady elixir that had left Zhan craving more.

He imagined exploring every inch of Yibo's body, mapping the contours of his flesh with greedy hands, watching him writhe and gasp and beg for release. The thought of breaking Yibo completely, of reducing him to a needy, pliant thing, sent a dark thrill through Zhan's veins.

Xiao Zhan closed his eyes as his hands slid down his chest, fingers skimming over his abs before settling at the growing bulge . The towel wrapped around his hips strained against his hardening cock, the pressure only making him ache more. A low groan escaped him as he pressed his palm firmly against himself, rubbing through the thin material. It struggled and fell on damp floor.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Wang Yibo—naked and kneeling before him, lips parted, eyes glazing over with desperate need. The fantasy sent a jolt of pleasure through Zhan, and he moved his hand to cup his cock — then

Zhan’s eyes flew open.
The mirror glared back at him—his own face, flushed, disordered. For a heartbeat he didn’t recognize the person staring. Then the realization hit, and disgust followed, guilt hit hard behind it.

“What the hell are you doing?” he hissed at himself. “Snap out of it.”

He turned on the tap and threw water over his face again and again until the shock burned the shame out of his skin. Droplets splashed across the counter, sliding down the glass. He gripped the sink so tightly his knuckles whitened.

“Pathetic,” he muttered. “You’re losing it.”

Another breath. Then another—harsh, uneven, desperate to steady.
“Breathe. Just—breathe.”
But the thoughts kept circling, mocking him.

“Get out of my head, you bastard!” The shout ripped out of him, echoing off tile and glass until the room went still.

He grabbed the towel from the floor, wiped his face hard enough to sting, and slammed the door behind him. The sound cracked through the apartment, final and angry.

With a rush of tangled thoughts flooding his mind, Zhan dressed in a hurry and grabbed his phone.
A string of missed calls. Dozens of unread messages.
He stared at the screen, then set it face down on the nightstand. He didn’t want to talk to anyone—not now.

All he wanted was silence. A mind without Wang Yibo.
But he didn’t know how to get there.

With a low sigh and a flicker of disappointment, he lay back, eyes shutting against the noise inside his head, and let exhaustion drag him down into uneasy sleep.

Chapter Text

Next Day Late Afternoon
-----
The sky outside had turned the color of metal left too long in the rain.
Xiao Zhan lay tangled in the sheets, sleep a shallow lie that never reached his bones. His mind kept fighting itself — flashes, half-memories, noise. Every time he closed his eyes, his reflection in mirror last night pressed against the inside of his skull.

Then — bang.

The door shook. Another knock. Hard. Rhythmic.
Ayunga’s voice bled through the wood.
“Zhan? You alive in there?”

Zhan blinked into the dim light, pulse stumbling once. The air felt heavy, used.
He pushed upright, feet dragging across the cold floor. “What is it?” The words came out rough, scraped raw by exhaustion.

He opened the door a crack. Ayunga stood there, half-worried, half-annoyed.
The moment their eyes met, Ayunga froze.eyes widening the second he saw him.

“Zhanzhan—what happened to you? You look awful. Are you sick?”

Zhan’s expression didn’t move. “You were hammering my door just to ask that? Don’t piss me off.” He started to close it.

Ayunga caught the edge before it shut. “Hey—no, wait. It’s Yanli. She’s been calling me for the last one hour. Says your phone’s dead.”
He held up the device, the screen lit with missed calls.

The name hit harder than he expected.
Yanli.

Zhan’s stomach tightened. The guilt from last night’s thoughts—everything he’d tried to bury under sleep—came roaring back like a storm.

He took a slow breath. “Tell her… wait ten minutes. I’ll call her back.”
Then he closed the door, softer this time.

He picked up his phone from the nightstand. Dead.
He plugged it in, watched the black screen flicker to life, then looked away before the reflection in it could catch his face.

The mirror by the wardrobe waited, but he didn’t glance at it. Not today.
He walked straight to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stepped under the water before it had even warmed.

The chill cleared nothing, but at least it filled the air with sound.

Ten minutes later, he was dressed, hair still damp, phone warm in his hand. The charge had just reached enough for one call.

He scrolled to her name.
Paused once.
Then pressed call.

The screen lit up with Yanli’s face.
Xiao Zhan hesitated once, then answered.

“Hi!” Her voice came bright, sunlight through the speaker—until the image of his face stopped her mid-sentence. “Zhanzhan… are you okay? You look tired. You’ve been sleeping half the day?”

“Mm,” he said. “Had a late night. Work. Clients.”

“I know it’s a lot,” she said, “but two whole days without a call? That’s not like you.”
She tried a pout. The sound of it felt heavy in his ears.

He managed a small, careful smile. “I’m doing it for us. You know that.”

Her smile came back instantly—relief more than affection. “See? You always say the sweetest things. Anyway—Daddy wants to talk to you.”

Zhan’s brow creased. “Now? Why? Did something happen?”

“I don’t know.” She turned the camera as she walked. “He just said he needed a word with you. That’s why I told Ayunga to wake you up.”

The sound of footsteps, a door opening.

Zhan rubbed at his temple, jaw tightening. He wasn’t ready for this. Not now.
But the image kept moving, feet on marble, voices in another room.

Then a man’s voice: “Hello, Xiao Zhan.”

He straightened automatically. “Hello, Uncle. How are you?”

“I’m well. And you?” A polite pause that came with weight. “How’s college? Work?”
Another pause, drier. “Finding your rhythm—or still warming up?”

The words had teeth, but they were smiling ones.

Zhan answered carefully. “Things are steady. Yanli said you wanted to speak with me.”

“Yes.” The man leaned closer to the camera. “About that studio of your plans. I’ve found you a place—in Shanghai.”

Zhan’s fingers stilled. “Shanghai?”

He breathed once before replying. “Uncle!, but my plans are for Chongqing and I want to handle it by my --" Yanli's father cut him off in middle with small laugh, crisp, dismissive.
“Yes, your father mentioned that. But a design studio here?”
A beat. “You planning to design or sell groceries?”

Zhan’s shoulders locked. He said nothing. The silence stretched until it almost cracked.
Then: “Think bigger, Xiao Zhan. You went all the way to London—don’t come back to hide in a small town. I’ll speak to your parents. We’ll handle the arrangements.”

The sound of a chair scraping; the phone changed hands.

Yanli reappeared, still smiling. “He’s amazing, right?” she said softly, ducking into her room like she was sharing a secret. “Always thinking ahead for you. He really cares.”

Zhan’s voice dropped. “Yanli.”

She blinked. “Hmm?”

“You told him to call me? You know that I have my own Plans and I want to do it on my own and my own money"

Yanli without realsing the seriousness in his word proceed to say “He’s been at it for weeks, calling people, trying to find the right place. You should be happy!”

“You’re telling me this now?”

The smile slipped from her face. “Nothing’s set in stone. Let’s just listen to him this time, okay? He knows how these things work. Oh—Mom’s calling for dinner. Eat something, baboie. Bye!”

The screen went dark.

For a long second the room stayed filled with the echo of her voice. Then Zhan’s hand moved once—sharp, controlled—and the phone hit the bed with a dull thud.

The room was so quiet he could hear the slow tick of the clock, the faint echo of a voice that hadn’t cared to wait for his answer or cared to listen his thoughts.

------

All his thoughts disturbed by another knock on the door—hard, deliberate.

Zhan’s head snapped up.

Not again.

The sound burrowed into his skull, breaking the fragile quiet he’d built around himself. Fury rose fast this time—hot, sharp, impossible to swallow.

He threw the blanket aside and stood, jaw tight, every motion quick, deliberate. The floor was cold beneath his feet as he crossed the room and yanked the door open.

Ayunga stood there, arms full of plastic bags of food containers that steamed in the hall light. The rich scent of food hit first—oil, spice, something sweet underneath.

Zhan’s voice came out clipped, cutting. “What now? What do you want?”

Ayunga blinked, almost taken aback. “These were just delivered—for you.”
He lifted the bags higher, grinning through the tension. “Smells amazing, doesn’t it? You ordered enough for an army. You planning to share or—?”

Zhan frowned. “What are you talking about? I didn’t order anything.”

Ayunga’s brow furrowed. “Then who did? Your name’s on every box. Look-"

He didn’t finish.

Zhan’s hand shot out, grabbing the nearest container—not the food, but the slip taped to it. A folded note peeked from beneath the label.

Ayunga leaned closer. “Hey—there’s a note in there—”

Zhan snatched it before he could touch it, shoving the containers hard against Ayunga’s chest. The impact sent sauce containers clattering inside.

“Do whatever you want with those, And don’t knock on my door again.”

The door slammed with a sound that made the walls wince.

Zhan stood with his back to the door, note in hand, pulse trying not to stutter. He didn’t need to open it. He knew the handwriting already—knew the arrogance that would live inside every curve of the letters.

Still, he looked.

Baboei! Thanks for all the attention last night. Here’s my gift.

The handwriting was casual, confident, a signature disguised as a joke.

Zhan’s stomach turned cold. The words blurred once, then sharpened again, like they were carved into his mind instead of written.

He crushed the paper in his fist. The sound was too loud in the quiet room.
He wanted to burn it, throw it, erase it—but his hand wouldn’t let go.

He knew exactly who had sent it.
He’d warned him.
And now he is doing it again.

Zhan’s voice tore out before he knew it.
“WANG YIBO!”

The name hit the walls and came back empty.

He crossed the room fast, pulled the curtains aside, and stared down at the street.
Nothing. No bike. No movement. Just a road pretending to be innocent.

The breath he took came out as a growl. He shut the window hard enough to shake the frame, yanked the curtains closed again, and stood there breathing through his teeth.

“Come in front of me again,” he muttered, low and cold. “I swear I’ll finish it this time.”

His jaw locked. The muscles jumped once, twice.

He closed his eyes so tight the lids ached. The image he’d been trying to bury surged up anyway—Yibo’s face from last night’s imagination came back raw and fresh. Anger flared, hot and useless. It wasn’t clean control anymore; it was ragged, raw. He clenched his fists until his nails bit the palms of his hands.

For the first time since he’d started policing his life, Zhan didn’t know how to compose himself. Control had become a brittle thing, and the edges were cutting him. He let out a sound that was almost a laugh, almost a sob, and in that half-broken noise there was a truth he couldn’t swallow: he had been invaded, and the defenses he’d built were failing from the inside.

-------------
Next Day late at night
----
The building was quiet when Wang Yibo came in.
He tossed his keys on the counter, kicked off his shoes, and let the silence close around him.
Every muscle in his body ached from dance rehearsal and the full half day practice hours at the race track. The shower barely helped; heat slipped from him too quickly, leaving only the heaviness.

He thumbed through his gallery out of habit more than curiosity.

Photos of sets, bikes, half-written lyrics—then the folder with 🔥 symbol

Xiao Zhan

Screenshots from tagged posts, blurred pictures from across classrooms, still frames stolen from project videos. Some were off-angle, messy. Others were perfect by accident—Zhan bent over a drafting board, profile carved by white light.

Yibo kept moving through them, thumb steady, pulse not.

It had started as proof. A map of the man he planned to break, frame by frame.
Each image used to be a trophy—evidence that he could reach Zhan without ever being seen.

Screenshots. Candid frames. Xiao Zhan caught mid-motion: sleeves rolled, eyes down, face half-lit by a monitor. Some blurred, some almost perfect. Every one of them his.

He kept scrolling.

The more he looked, the warmer the air felt.
A laugh tried to rise, small and stupid. His cheeks hurt. It took him a second to realise he was smiling.

“Seriously?” he muttered, rubbing at his face.

The warmth on his skin deepened.

“What the hell is wrong with me,” he said, voice low, half-amused, half-uneasy.
“Am I actually blushing?”

The word sounded ridiculous in the empty room, but it hung there all the same.

Each image used to be a trophy—evidence that he could reach Zhan without ever being seen.

Now it felt different.

He stopped on one photo: Zhan in the studio corridor, sleeves pushed up, eyes unfocused, mouth caught mid-breath. The kind of image that shouldn’t make the room feel smaller but did.

“Did you get my gift?” he murmured under his breath, a hint of a grin curling at his mouth. “Thrown it in the bin, as usual?”

The idea almost amused him. Almost.

He imagined Zhan’s face when he saw the note—how his jaw must have tightened, how he would’ve tried to keep the anger neat, contained.
Yibo smiled wider, the kind that belonged to a man who thought he knew the game.

But the longer he stared, the less that smile held.
Something else moved under his ribs—slow, quiet, wrong.

It wasn’t the thrill of control anymore. It was heavier, messier.
His fingers traced the edge of Zhan’s image on the screen.

What are you doing to me? You know that You are super hot, right? and continued to touch the zhan face on image.

"Fuck," Yibo muttered under his breath, his thumb freezing mid-scroll on his phone screen. The photo of Zhan in the studio corridor—sleeves pushed up, lost in thought, that damn half-smile—had his stomach doing a fucking flip.

His pulse jacked up instantly, blood rushing south before he could even think straight. That was new. That was unexpected. And it pissed him off.

He wasn't supposed to be reacting like this. This wasn't part of the plan. He was supposed to make Zhan beg for his attention. Not getting... turned on... from a goddamn picture. Yibo swallowed hard, jaw tightening as he stared at the blurred image. Zhan didn't even know he was being watched, that his casual look of concentration had Yibo's dick half-hard and his mind racing with scenarios that had nothing to do with control and everything to do with possession.

"This is bullshit," he whispered, shaking his head slightly. But his eyes didn't leave the screen. If anything, he zoomed in closer, tracing the line of Zhan's profile with his thumb, feeling an unfamiliar heat spreading through his chest and lower.

This was supposed to be a game, a way to get back at Zhan for ignoring him, for pushing him away. It wasn't supposed to feel like this—like his body was betraying him, like his obsession had morphed into something deeper and more dangerous.

Yibo slammed his phone face-down on the bed, frustration boiling over. “I need to get laid, My body just needs SEX” Yibo muttered with a little laugh, desperation thick in his voice. "Yes, it's time to get control of my body."