Chapter Text
Shen Wei wakes up.
Behind his eyes are the images of Kunlun’s death — disappearing into the smoky future as he had in reality, lying motionless in a rain-soaked field of grass beside a lake that had never existed back then. Shen Wei takes a slow breath in, feels the weight of Zhao Yunlan’s arm across his chest, the press of their tangled legs, the regular shift of his chest as he breathes.
He’ll need to tell him about the loop again, today. The same phrase floats up in his mind: This is a time loop, and before we knew it was a loop I kissed you. As if that would be anything but a self-serving confession.
Zhao Yunlan sighs gently against Shen Wei’s neck and Shen Wei carefully, determinedly, slides out from under Zhao Yunlan’s arm and pulls away, out of bed. His duty as the Black Cloak Envoy must come first. If he cannot trust himself to stay focused when having the conversation aloud, the answer is simple: it must not be a conversation held aloud.
Sitting on the edge of the bed for a moment, Shen Wei reaches to the bedside table to put his ring on, and then crosses the room to the desk for a brush and paper.
It takes a while, the room morning-bright by the time he finishes: a plain, factual account of the events of three loops that have passed, with a summarization of the major conclusions at the top: the information of Mr. Liu’s death, the duration of the loop so far, the fact that Zhao Yunlan will wake with no memory of the previous loops. Not a word more than Zhao Yunlan needs to know to help resolve the case. Not a word about — the rest.
Shen Wei addresses it — Zhao Yunlan — at the top, and hesitates for just a moment before he folds it into neat thirds, unsigned. He sets the folded page on the blanket beside Zhao Yunlan, and then pauses, for just a moment.
Without Shen Wei in the bed, Zhao Yunlan is curled up in himself, hands tucked up under his chin. His right hand curled around his left, cradling the ring on his finger almost protectively. He’s so still in sleep, the rise and fall of his chest so slight.
Shen Wei reaches out to tuck the blankets up higher, and Zhao Yunlan doesn’t even stir. He’s real, Shen Wei tells himself firmly, pulling his hand away before he gives in to the urge to touch Zhao Yunlan’s cheek. He's alive. He's breathing. Shen Wei ignores the little tightness in his chest, and goes back to the desk to pretend to grade.
When Zhao Yunlan does wake, later, Shen Wei hears the rustle of blankets a moment before Zhao Yunlan says, sleep-rough and muddled, “Good morning, Shen Wei.”
Something dissolves in Shen Wei’s chest at just the sound of his voice, familiar, just across the room. For a moment before he turns around to say, “Good morning, Zhao Yunlan,” his vision is blurred over. He blinks, and it clears.
Shen Wei watches Zhao Yunlan skim the page, front and back, his face impassive. Zhao Yunlan reads it through again, eyes jump back to a section near the start, and then he looks up and says, “Shen Wei, has it really only been three days for you?”
“Yes.” Shen Wei frowns. “Don’t you have questions about the rest?”
Zhao Yunlan shakes his head. “It’s pretty clear,” he says. As if the only issue was clarity. As though the rest of the information could be taken completely at face value, just because it was Shen Wei who had said it. It makes Shen Wei feel — something, warm and rushing, that he doesn’t have time for right now.
Zhao Yunlan folds the letter back into thirds, sets it aside on the bed. “You’re going to talk to her?”
In fewer than twelve hours, Mr. Liu will die of an unexpected, meaningless accident. Except he won’t, because Mrs. Liu will save him again. As the Black Cloak Envoy, it is Shen Wei’s duty to speak with Mrs. Liu, now that he has the full picture of the situation. He has no clearer idea what to say to her now than he did the previous night. “Yes,” he says, not meeting Zhao Yunlan’s eyes.
Zhao Yunlan makes an impatient sound. “Shen Wei. What is it?”
Mrs. Liu had spent two months traveling through this loop alone, her husband beside her but separated by an uncrossable chasm of knowledge. Shen Wei has lived this day barely three times, and he is already near his wit’s end. To say nothing of what they — what he — had inadvertently forced her into, the previous loop.
Shen Wei says, still to his hands, “I do not want to go to her without some clear offer of assistance.” There’s not a thing I can think of that would help, he can’t quite admit.
“Ah, Hei lao-ge,” Zhao Yunlan says, in something like quiet understanding.
Shen Wei turns his head to look at the slow waving drift of tree branches outside, watches Zhao Yunlan out of the corner of his eyes. Out in the hall, he can hear Ms. Teng and Ms. Peng’s quiet voices, the conversation drifting back into silence as they go downstairs.
Zhao Yunlan picks the letter back up, turns it over in his hands, rereading. Absently, he folds it, smooths the creases between two fingers, and unfolds it again. “The only problem that she poses is that there are Haixing civilians trapped in the loop, right?”
Shen Wei is no longer willing to break the loop to solve this case. To force Mrs. Liu into losing her husband for some ill-defined greater good is— he would not wish that upon anyone. Shen Wei shakes his head. “It shouldn’t be up to us, when this loop breaks. It is not our— grief.” But that leaves them with nothing.
“No,” Zhao Yunlan agrees quietly. And then, like it’s the next logical consideration, he asks, “Do we have to break the loop?”
Shen Wei’s head snaps up.
Zhao Yunlan is looking at him, steadily. “We got in just by driving through the main entrance. Can’t we leave the same way?”
Shen Wei’s mind whirls. “There is an — interruption in the space of the time loop,” he says slowly, “where we entered.” It hadn’t occurred to him then, to do anything but try breaking the loop altogether. But creating some kind of temporary gap was a different matter.
“You think you can reopen it,” Zhao Yunlan says, watching him, and it’s not a question. Shen Wei meets his eyes and nods, just once. “Hei lao-ge,” Zhao Yunlan says, warm and approving. “Ah, Shen Wei.”
Zhao Yunlan is haloed in the soft morning light, sleep-rumpled, a pillow crease on his cheek. As if he hadn’t just — solved it all, while still barely awake. Shen Wei wants to give him everything it is possible to give another person.
Shen Wei shoves the feeling aside. This is not the time for that. “I will go speak with her.”
When they go down into the dining room, they find Mrs. Liu nursing a cup of tea at the round table, Mr. Liu beside her with his coffee and his paper unfolded to the sports section. She looks tired, worn thin with the events of the previous day and everything else, but she looks up when they walk in, and the look she gives them is — for just an instant — hopeful. “Good morning,” she says, quietly.
“Good morning,” Shen Wei murmurs, hovering in the doorway. There’s a bright streak of relief in him, seeing Mr. Liu alive and going through the mundane behavior of reaching for his coffee behind his paper and missing, watching Mrs. Liu hand him the mug handle-first.
When Mr. Liu takes the coffee, Mrs. Liu stands from the table, reaching to brush a hand over Mr. Liu’s cheek as she does. He sets down his coffee and catches her hand seemingly by instinct, turns his cheek into it for a moment, and then lets her go.
Shen Wei glances at Zhao Yunlan and follows Mrs. Liu into the hall, alone.
Mrs. Liu turns to him in the hallway, and when Shen Wei quietly suggests, Is there somewhere we won’t be disturbed?, she leads the way into the office and closes the door gently behind them both.
In daylight, it’s a gorgeous room — Shen Wei had only seen it before after dark or in the grey pre-rainstorm light. Now, in the morning, the east-facing room is awash with sunlight. Shen Wei can imagine, suddenly, the younger Mr. and Mrs. Liu in this room, in love and just starting out, finding the furniture and decorating this space in which they would slowly bring their dreams to life.
Shen Wei is beyond glad that they hadn’t come downstairs with nothing to offer.
Mrs. Liu pulls a chair out from one of the desks and sits, turned toward the center of the room where Shen Wei still stands. “Mr. Zhao, do you understand now?” she asks, quietly. “I don’t know why you and your husband came here, but I,” her voice trembles, just barely, “I truly mean no harm.”
The sunlight washes across the wall where the imprint of the calendar is, and Shen Wei tears his gaze away. “I understand that now.”
“Would you have believed me, if I had just said what happened?” Her hands are clasped in her lap. “If you hadn’t been there yourself?”
She seems to see his answer on his face even before he shakes his head, and nods in gentle self-reassurance. “I told him too, a few times, at the beginning,” Mrs. Liu says softly. “But nothing changed. And it was — simpler, eventually, not to say anything. To merely do what needed to be done.” She looks up at Shen Wei and says, “Not easier, but it was simpler.” Lonelier, too, she doesn’t say, but something in her posture makes Shen Wei think it.
Shen Wei murmurs an acknowledgement.
“I wake up again this morning no matter what I do,” Mrs. Liu says, solemn and elegant, her gaze distant. “No matter if he lives or dies, no matter if I stand at the window to watch him go or not.” She turns to Shen Wei, hesitating for a moment before she says, “After we first came to Haixing, I only could do minor things. Keeping his lunch warm when he was working, keeping flowers fresh in a vase.” Her voice goes quiet, regretful. “I didn’t mean to do this. But I can’t let him go.” She meets Shen Wei’s eyes. “I don’t know how to let him go, Mr. Zhao.”
“I don’t know if you have had an experience like this, Mr. Zhao. I think you must have, as so many people have.” She turns her hands over in her lap, her wedding ring a thin gold band. “If I call him in to cook dinner with me, he lives through the night, and I can fall asleep with him beside me. It’s a miracle that I can have that, and it’s a new devastation every morning.” She lets out a soft, near-silent breath. “It’s impossible to bear. Except then, somehow, you do. Because you must.”
“Indeed,” Shen Wei says, inadequately. The feeling is far too familiar.
A wind breezes through the grounds, stirring the trees and sending a scatter of white petals floating toward the ground, speckled shadows across the floor of the office between them. Shen Wei thinks of watching Kunlun disappear, the nights afterward where he’d wished for just another moment with him. He thinks of the petals in Zhao Yunlan’s hair the first night they arrived, teasing Shen Wei about luggage, right there and somehow alive still, returned to Shen Wei in a way he still isn’t sure he deserves.
“The other guests,” he says gently, “they don’t belong in the middle of all this.”
Mrs. Liu turns to look out the window, across the wide expanse of the grounds. “I know. But I can’t — I can’t break the loop, no matter how much part of me wants to. I can’t even leave, myself.”
The realization takes a moment: recalling the sense of apprehension he’d felt approaching the edge of the loop, understanding that the feeling would be strongest for the person at the core. Shen Wei thinks about the first time he saw her, standing just inside the threshold of the main door. He’d never seen her outside the main house, even once.
“Would you—” he starts, stops, starts again. “Would you be amenable to some assistance, Mrs. Liu? My h— my husband and I could escort the guests out safely, if you would allow us to do this.”
She looks at him then, her voice quiet. “I mean no disrespect, but what would you be able to do, if even I am powerless against this?”
In answer, Shen Wei closes his eyes, puts his hands out open low at his sides. Between one breath and the next he shifts — dark robes, long hair, black mask, hood. The familiar, comforting wash of dark energy. He keeps his blade sheathed, his hands palm-up and empty.
“Black Cloak Envoy,” Mrs Liu breathes, scrambling out of her chair into a bow.
“Please,” Shen Wei says, dropping back into his Haixing guise with a thought and reaching for her to help her back into her chair. “There’s no need for that, Mrs. Liu.”
But she’s still staring at him, the line of her shoulders tense.
“Were I in the same situation as you, Mrs. Liu,” Shen Wei says, steady, eyes on hers, “I would want the same thing. I would wish that I could do as you have done, even with all its consequences.”
She goes wide-eyed. “Lord Envoy—”
He dips his head to indicate that she’d heard him right, chooses his next words carefully. “It must be— complicated, to keep track of everything on the grounds, the guests, to keep the day running as it should.” So she wouldn’t ruin the lives of the rest of them, if one loop the lived-out day finally took. “If the guests could be escorted away,” he suggests again. “Perhaps you would have a few more moments alone with your husband each day, and perhaps you could rest, a little more.”
All they could do, Zhao Yunlan had said, was give her time.
Shen Wei continues, gently, “I would be able to cut a gap in the space of the loop, just enough for a car to leave. There would be no reason that you would need to leave the house or the grounds, and no reason that the loop would need to be broken.”
A wash of feelings sweep across Mrs. Liu’s face, and at the end of it — exhausted relief. She closes her eyes, keeps them closed for a long moment. Her hands clench in her lap. Shen Wei averts his eyes, feeling the moment too private to be observed.
“I would appreciate that assistance, Lord Envoy,” Mrs. Liu says at last. She nods to herself, just once, and raises her gaze to meet Shen Wei’s eyes. “Can you take the guests today, or will you need to wait until next loop? I can— I will explain it all to my husband.”
“Today will not be an issue,” Shen Wei says.
She dips her head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Lord Envoy. This— truly, you will be helping me more than I can convey.”
At the door, he hears her say again, a gentle beckoning, “Lord Envoy.” Shen Wei turns, one hand on the doorknob.
Mrs. Liu is standing now, silhouetted in golden sunlight. “Forgive me, but your husband, he — he doesn’t seem to be traveling with you.” Shen Wei goes still, and she says, hesitantly, cautiously, “It’s lonely, isn’t it? Even though he’s right there.”
Shen Wei swallows. “Yes,” he admits. Exactly that.
She crosses the room to him, glasses hanging around her neck. Her eyes are piercing as she says, “For what it’s worth. The days I told my husband about the loop were a little more bearable for me.” Not easier, but simpler, she had said earlier, of the days she kept everything to herself.
Shen Wei looks past her shoulder, at the wall with the pale imprint of the calendar. Perhaps she is right. “Thank you.” He bows to her, a slight incline of his upper body. “I appreciate the counsel.”
She looks at him, alarmed. “Lord Envoy—”
“I truly mean it,” Shen Wei says, and some nearly-forgotten instinct makes him reach out to gently grasp her hands. “This is always an impossible thing, Liu Yihan,” he says quietly, “I hope that you find peace.” She smiles at him then, shifts her hands to capture his between them for a moment before he leaves, soft cool skin and comfort.
In the hall, Shen Wei finds Zhao Yunlan pacing back and forth in tiny, aborted circles, and the relief that comes over him is — substantial. Shen Wei goes to him, stumbling slightly, reaches a hand out to Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder to steady himself.
Zhao Yunlan starts, “Shen Wei—”
“Be quiet with me for a moment, Yunlan,” Shen Wei says, just above a whisper, too-honest, and Zhao Yunlan shivers but doesn’t speak. Shen Wei gives himself three breaths, his hand clenched on Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder, before he draws back and says, voice clear again, “She agreed to today. Are things— ready?”
Zhao Yunlan’s eyes are so gentle. His mouth twists, almost a smile. “I’m just driving a car, Hei lao-ge. Hard part’s all yours.”
Shen Wei frowns at that, just a little. “It may— it may be difficult to continue driving, as you approach the edge of the retreat. I may not be able to— make it as easy for you, as I,” he looks away. “As I should be able to.”
Zhao Yunlan nudges him, and Shen Wei watches his mouth crook into a real smile, small and soft. “Don’t worry, Hei lao-ge. As long as you can get yourself out afterward, we’ll make it through alright.” He reaches a hand to Shen Wei’s shoulder. “Be careful.”
“I’ll meet you outside, after,” Shen Wei says. “I’ll find you, Zhao Yunlan.”
Shen Wei goes out to the grounds after that, hides himself in the copse of blossoming trees by the retreat entrance, braces himself against a tree trunk and keeps his eyes on the main house, waiting. It’s nearing noon, the shadows thin on the ground.
In the distance he can see Zhao Yunlan coming out the front steps of the main house, flanked by Ms. Teng and Ms. Peng and followed by the Hes. His red car is already parked out front, and Shen Wei watches Zhao Yunlan herd them into it, his body language loose and jovial, cramming suitcases into the trunk. Mrs. Liu stands at the front door, watching it all. She ducks briefly aside as Zhao Yunlan jogs back the stairs for one last sweep of the rooms, and pulls him aside for a brief conversation when he comes back down with a nearly-forgotten bag that Mr. He claims.
Shen Wei watches Zhao Yunlan swing into the driver’s seat, meets Zhao Yunlan’s eyes through the windshield. Someone, maybe Mrs. He, says, Wait, Mr. Zhao, where’s your husband? Zhao Yunlan says, He’s joining us later, and kicks the car engine to life.
Shen Wei ducks back behind the tree, closes his eyes, and gathers dark energy in his palm, Zhao Yunlan and his car a bright point to his right.
The scar in the fabric of the loop is still there to his left, right over the entry road, the previously-frayed section he’d blasted with energy nearly indistinguishable from the undamaged sections around it. He finds his place and holds it with the first two fingers of one hand pressed together. With his other hand, he grasps for his materializing sword and cuts, careful and deliberate, right through the middle.
The loop doesn’t want to be opened, doesn’t want a blade driven through it, especially from this side. It wants to stay closed to protect the people inside, to hold them and keep them where they’re wanted. Shen Wei clenches his jaw, twists his sword until it pierces through. With a thin, hissed exhale, he lets his sword dematerialize into a ring of dark energy held in place by the outstretched splay of his right hand, forcing the new gap open.
The bright point shifts across the center of his vision, moving forward. Shen Wei squeezes his eyes shut, feels for the ring of dark energy and drags his left hand up to brace it. The familiar sound of Zhao Yunlan’s car engine roaring makes Shen Wei squint one eye open as the car wheels spin on the road a meter from the exit, stalling as the car meets the invisible force of the edge of the loop.
Shen Wei is close enough to see Zhao Yunlan’s hands tighten on the wheel, to strain his own hands in sympathy. Through the driver’s side window, Zhao Yunlan turns a blazing look in Shen Wei's direction. The car rumbles for another moment, and then, like Zhao Yunlan had stomped down on the gas, shoves through the gap and roars down the mountain.
Shen Wei’s hands drop, nearly at once. With a shaky exhale, he folds in half and braces his hands against his knees to catch his breath, vision grounding on the silver band of his ring. When he can lift his head again, Zhao Yunlan’s car is a red speck among green mountain trees, moving quickly out of view.
He straightens, looks back at the house one last time.
Mrs. Liu is still standing on the front porch, Mr. Liu now beside her. Shen Wei turns back to speak with them, but before he’s taken more than a step Mrs. Liu waves, urging him on. Instead, Shen Wei lifts a hand in acknowledgement and farewell, a gesture that both of the Lius return, then turns and jogs down the road.
At the retreat entrance, he pulls his sword out to pry the gap open long enough for him to step through, landing right beside the Welcome to Liulian Retreat sign.
The air on the mountain outside the loop is warm, late spring air, a surprise after the cool air of the loop. Shen Wei takes a deep slow breath of it, pulls his suit jacket off, and gets to work.
It’s a slow, delicate process to close the gap in the loopback up again, lining the edges up carefully. Shen Wei pulls a tendril of dark energy to sew the edges back together, tidier than how the pocket had been able to heal itself before, bracing each section with bursts of energy. It’s soothing, rhythmic work, and Shen Wei sinks into the task and resurfaces in early afternoon, something settled in him.
He gathers another handful of dark energy and feels for the bright spark that is Zhao Yunlan at the base of the mountain. He opens a doorway into the space between worlds with a twist of his hand, and steps forward.
The purple cosmic blur of the between-space, and then Shen Wei is stepping forward again into Haixing, onto asphalt beside Zhao Yunlan’s car parked outside a train station, the doorway closing behind him as Zhao Yunlan turns.
“I’m here, Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei says, just to say his name.
“Shen Wei,” Zhao Yunlan says. He looks at him, for a long breathless moment, and then drags his gaze away and says, “Let’s go back.”
Zhao Yunlan catches Shen Wei up on what he’d missed on the drive back to Dragon City.
He and Mrs. Liu had come up with a whole story about emergency repairs, and Mr. Liu had talked the other guests into accepting refunds for their tickets. I made them keep our payment, though. Zhao Yunlan had driven the four guests to the nearest train station, seen them off toward Dragon City, and that was when Shen Wei had appeared in the station’s parking lot.
Zhao Yunlan’s voice goes a little somber as he explains: Mrs. Liu probably wouldn’t keep running the retreat alone, with neither the finances or the energy to handle it alone. But she had been glad, to not have the burden of keeping up appearances for the guests any longer. She had been glad, to be given time. Shen Wei listens quietly, a mix of relief and exhaustion seeping into him.
Zhao Yunlan calls the SID offices after that, his phone barely ringing once before the line connects and Da Qing’s concerned voice demands, “Lao Zhao, what have you been doing? It’s been four days, what happened to your promise of a weekend of recon?” A flurry of other voices on the other line, and then Da Qing again: “Actually, don’t tell me what you’ve been doing with Professor Shen. I don’t want to know!”
Shen Wei watches Zhao Yunlan scowl at the phone and say, sounding nearly embarrassed, “We were consummate professionals, I will have you know.” Shen Wei’s stomach twists and he turns to look out the window as Zhao Yunlan continues, “All we did was our jobs. Shut up, you damn cat, and let me talk.”
The days I told my husband about the loop were a little more bearable, Mrs. Liu had said, but Shen Wei decides then: it wouldn’t be fair, to tell Zhao Yunlan about the kiss.
It was a different situation between him and Zhao Yunlan than it was between Mr. and Mrs. Liu. They weren’t childhood sweethearts. They weren’t married, not in reality. Within the streets of Dragon City, the most formal claim Shen Wei had on Zhao Yunlan was as his work colleague.
Even if Zhao Yunlan would believe him, Zhao Yunlan had just been doing his job well. It was Shen Wei alone who’d gotten carried away.
Shen Wei falls asleep, gently heartsick, to the blur of passing trees and the sound of Zhao Yunlan on the phone. He hears Zhao Yunlan’s voice go quieter as he’s starting to doze off and tries to say, “It’s fine, keep going,” but he’s not sure he manages to say anything at all before he’s asleep.
Shen Wei drifts, dreamless, and at one point, near waking, he hears Zhao Yunlan’s voice again. It’s surprisingly soft, nearly wistful. Three days I don’t remember, he thinks he hears, and suddenly you’re coming to me for comfort, suddenly you call me Yunlan in private, and the rest of the time you’re as unfathomable as ever. The rumble of the car engine, the dream-familiar sound of fingers tapping restlessly against the steering wheel. Shen Wei, I wish you’d tell me what happened, that letter wasn’t nearly detailed enough. But before he can determine if it’s real or wishful thinking, Shen Wei is asleep again.
Shen Wei wakes up.
It’s just past nightfall, and he’s in the familiar passenger seat of Zhao Yunlan’s car. The tall bulk of their apartment building looms before him, the waning moon hanging in the sky behind it. Around him are the familiar nighttime sounds of Dragon City — traffic, chatter, the distant sound of nightlife. Beside him, Zhao Yunlan pulls the key out of the ignition.
“We’re here,” Zhao Yunlan says quietly. The light comes on inside the car and Shen Wei looks over and sees Zhao Yunlan still wearing his ring. He looks away again.
The walk up to their apartments is quiet, and when Shen Wei unlocks his door, part of him is waiting for Zhao Yunlan to break their routine, to turn to his own door rather than following Shen Wei inside.
But Zhao Yunlan follows him in, parks his suitcase beside Shen Wei’s in the front hall, and toes his shoes off beside Shen Wei’s. He beelines to flop on Shen Wei’s couch with a long sigh.
“Jasmine?” Shen Wei asks, even though Zhao Yunlan always says yes to whatever tea he suggests. From the couch, Zhao Yunlan waves an unwrapped lollipop in the air. Whatever you'd like, that means.
He can still have this, Shen Wei reminds himself. Everything else from the retreat will be gone come morning, but this — they had this even before they went to Liulian Retreat, this routine of having tea in Shen Wei’s apartment after a case. Even if he can keep nothing else — the rings and his letter will be confiscated as SID evidence — Shen Wei will still be allowed to have this: the reality of Zhao Yunlan on his couch, eating a lollipop, waiting while he makes them both tea.
He brings the tea tray over, pours a cup for Zhao Yunlan.
Zhao Yunlan carefully lays his half-eaten lollipop on its wrapper on the coffee table and accepts it. “I called Dr. Cheng on the drive back about the two couples,” he says, meaning while you were sleeping. Shen Wei glances at him. “She said she can refer some specialists to help them adjust to the missed time. It’ll be treated as a standard amnesia case.”
“That’s good,” Shen Wei says, for lack of anything better to say. He takes a sip of his own tea. His ring clicks against the ceramic, and he sees Zhao Yunlan notice it. “Did you ask about yourself?” he asks, to cover the way his hands twitch. “You lost several days as well.”
Zhao Yunlan sets his tea down and looks at Shen Wei. “That’s no different than getting a little too drunk sometimes,” he says, the words light but his tone serious. “But I am curious about that. Is there anything else I should know about, from the days I missed during the case?”
His voice saying, That letter wasn’t nearly detailed enough floats up in Shen Wei’s memory. Maybe that had been real, after all. The sound of Zhao Yunlan saying, I wish you’d tell me what happened.
Shen Wei bites his tongue, and burns under Zhao Yunlan’s gaze for a long moment until Zhao Yunlan picks his tea back up with a sigh.
None of the rest had been real, Shen Wei reminds himself — it’d all been an act. It’d all been for the case. The way Zhao Yunlan was — anything was believable, coming from him. Shen Wei just — wanted it too badly, couldn’t seem to let it go when he should.
Better to remember to satisfy himself with what he could still have. Better to stop turning over his memories of the last few days, memories that, after all, had never really happened, however real they felt to him.
As he drinks his tea, Shen Wei folds each one away in his mind: The feeling of waking up in bed together, the look of Zhao Yunlan’s face when Shen Wei called him Yunlan , and the sound of Zhao Yunlan’s voice calling him husband. The joy of their long, sun-drenched walks, Zhao Yunlan saying, It’s nice, isn’t it? and his teasing on the rowboat, saying, Don’t tell me all the love has gone out of our marriage already? And then, last, careful and reluctant — the kiss. The way Zhao Yunlan’s breath had huffed out of him when his back hit the wall, the way he’d gone pliant under Shen Wei’s hands, the sound he’d made when Shen Wei bit him, like he couldn’t get enough of it.
Shen Wei’s hands tremble when he lifts his cup for another sip of tea. His cup is empty. Zhao Yunlan’s cup, across the table, is empty as well.
Shen Wei takes a slow breath; it’s time to let this go, properly. “It’s getting late,” he says quietly, even though it’s been late this whole time, and Zhao Yunlan stands without a fuss.
In the entry hall, Zhao Yunlan turns, one hand on his luggage, and gives Shen Wei a long, searching look. “Thank you for the tea,” he says, like he’s saying something else.
“Yes,” Shen Wei says. The ring is a damning weight on his finger. If he just didn’t say anything — he could return it later, he could pretend to have forgotten about it. But that would be wrong. That would be holding on after he’d told himself he wouldn’t. He lifts his hand, shows the ring to Zhao Yunlan. “I’m sure you need to return this,” he makes himself say, to stall actually taking it off.
Zhao Yunlan doesn’t move to take it. “I told you I bought them,” he says, with an air of finality. His mouth twists in something like disappointed resignation. “Are you really going to play it like this, Shen Wei?”
Shen Wei draws his hand back, swallows so he can say, voice nearly clear, almost believably uncertain, “Like what?”
Zhao Yunlan gives a short, sharp sigh. “I know you didn’t put everything in the letter, Shen Wei. I know how you get when you’re hiding something. You go all,” he waves a hand, “formal and distant. Reading that letter was like reading an ancient text.”
Shen Wei turns his head so Zhao Yunlan can’t see and presses his lips together for a long, gathering moment. “All of the facts were in the letter, Yunlan,” he says. It’s not exactly a lie.
“Yunlan,” Zhao Yunlan echoes pointedly, voice going flat. “I know you have your secrets, Shen Wei. There are things you’re involved in that are completely beyond my understanding, that I won’t ever know. I accept that. But this—” his eyes flash “— this was just between us. I don’t know what you think I can’t handle knowing, but you’re wrong.”
Shen Wei doesn’t speak. He doesn’t know how to admit to it, even now, that from nearly the moment he’d put the ring on, he’d — stopped pretending, stopped holding back. He’d known from the start it would end, it was just that he couldn’t make himself accept it, now.
Zhao Yunlan’s face shutters, and he claps a hand against Shen Wei’s shoulder. “Suit yourself, Hei lao-ge.”
Shen Wei can feel the chasm opening between them. Everything he’d packed away over tea lurches back up in his chest. If Zhao Yunlan will pull back either way —
Shen Wei’s hand comes up to grasp Zhao Yunlan’s wrist and he says, damning and irreversible, “I kissed you, the first night.”
Like picking a flower, or dropping a glass, or making a single misstep on the edge of a roof. One action, and the world changes in a way that cannot be undone.
Zhao Yunlan is silent for a moment, and then he pulls his hand out of Shen Wei’s grip. “That’s a hell of a lie to pick, Shen Wei.” But he’s watching Shen Wei, eyes dark, almost — intrigued.
Mrs. Liu’s words echo in Shen Wei’s head: Would you have believed me, if I had just said what happened? If you hadn’t been there yourself?
“I certainly find that a little hard to believe,” Zhao Yunlan says, leaning over and coming back up with his boots dangling from one hand. “But. If that’s somehow actually true, then I think you owe me again, don’t you?” He's looking at Shen Wei again, piercing.
Shen Wei doesn’t have to pretend uncertainty at all, this time. “Owe you?”
“You said you kissed me, and I don’t even remember it. That’s no fair.” Zhao Yunlan’s eyes are luminous, his mouth a pleased smirk. “You should kiss me again, to make it fair,” Zhao Yunlan says, a pink tease of tongue behind his teeth. “And then I’ll drop it.”
Shen Wei’s heart clenches. This— here, in his own apartment, at Zhao Yunlan's request. This wouldn’t be pretending anymore. This wouldn’t be an act. Zhao Yunlan looks at him, steadily. Like he knows exactly what he’s asking for.
Shen Wei raises his eyebrows and watches a shiver run through Zhao Yunlan’s entire body. He can feel his own voice gone gravelly. “If I kissed you again, you’d drop it?”
“Yes,” Zhao Yunlan breathes, eyes on Shen Wei’s mouth.
Shen Wei closes the space between them in two steps.
Zhao Yunlan’s mouth opens under his with a gasp, and Shen Wei surges forward, kissing him hot and fiercely intent.
He gets one hand fisted in the front of Zhao Yunlan’s jacket and the other clenched in his hair. When Shen Wei pins Zhao Yunlan against the apartment door with the weight of his whole body behind it, it’s his own knuckles that hit the door first. Distantly, he hears the thud-thud of boots falling from Zhao Yunlan’s grasp.
Zhao Yunlan’s eyes are closed, and his hands clench in Shen Wei’s waistcoat, a flash of heady sense-memory that dizzies him. The plush drag of Zhao Yunlan’s lower lip against his own. Shen Wei nips at it and Zhao Yunlan groans, low in his throat, and practically melts against him.
When Shen Wei finally has to pull back for air, his blood is humming through him like after a good fight. His chest is heaving, and he feels alight, fire-bright, and beneath him, Zhao Yunlan—
Zhao Yunlan looks wrecked — his mouth slick red where Shen Wei bit him, his eyes so dark they look black in the light. He’s slumped between the door and Shen Wei’s hands like he doesn’t remember how to hold himself up, breathing hard. “Shen Wei,” Zhao Yunlan rasps, eyes intent on him. “It’s killing me that I don’t remember the first time, fuck. Wow.”
When Shen Wei’s hand pulls out from Zhao Yunlan’s hair, Zhao Yunlan makes a wordless, involuntary sound, and tilts forward to chase him for just a breath. Shen Wei, relenting, strokes a hand down his cheek and reaches out to touch Zhao Yunlan’s mouth. “Was that fair enough for you?”
Zhao Yunlan nods. “That was fair enough,” he says, his lips moving against Shen Wei’s fingertips, lipping against his ring. “More than fair enough.”
He’s too handsome like this, in the close reality of Shen Wei’s apartment, his hair mussed to an unbelievable degree. Shen Wei finds Zhao Yunlan’s eyes and feels something spark through him.
“I will be dreaming about that kiss,” Zhao Yunlan promises, low.
Shen Wei swallows. So will he.
“You really should go home now, Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei says instead, drawing his hand away. His ring bright for a moment against his finger. “It’s been a long few days, and you still have work in the morning.” Part of him remembers, unhappily, his stack of grading left completely undone. To cheer himself up, he says, “I’ll bring over breakfast in the morning.”
“And wake me up with a kiss?” Zhao Yunlan bargains. He grinning now, asking just to rile Shen Wei up. At Shen Wei’s mock glare, his hands come up and he says, “I’m joking. I really will drop it.”
“Just breakfast,” Shen Wei says, trying for stern and landing somewhere near too-fond. “Don’t make this out to be something it isn’t, yet.” But he knows Zhao Yunlan is noticing how his voice goes soft on Yunlan, how he hadn't been able to help himself from saying yet, right then.
Part of him is betting on the fact that Zhao Yunlan has never been able to let go of something once he gets his teeth sunk in it. Part of him knows, already, that he’ll tell Zhao Yunlan about all the rest of it someday, all the parts that Zhao Yunlan hasn’t already guessed with that mind of his.
“Go sleep, Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei says, just to say his name again, smiling. He hands Zhao Yunlan his boots. “It really is very late now.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” Zhao Yunlan asks, boots on, door open. He’s got one hand on his suitcase but most of him is still turned toward Shen Wei.
Shen Wei tugs on Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder to turn him around, and gives him a little push out into the hall, hand between his shoulder blades. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Zhao Yunlan smiles at him, sun-bright. He lifts his left hand in a wave.
When the door closes again, Shen Wei turns his hand over, looks at his ring again. I told you I bought them, Zhao Yunlan had said. He’d purchased actual wedding rings, for a case that was supposed to last two days. He’d still been wearing his own ring, when Shen Wei made him leave.
Shen Wei reaches back to unclasp his necklace and then slips the ring off his hand, slides it carefully onto the leather cord. The sound of the ring tapping against his pendant sounds like nothing less than a promise.
这不是件容易的事 / This isn’t an easy thing
我们却都没有哭泣 / But we didn’t shed tears
让它淡淡的来 / Let it softly come
让它好好的去 / Let it fully go