Archive of Our Own

Before the filming for the show even begins, weeks before they’re supposed to meet each other, the eight of them are forced into a meeting. Technically, there’s supposed to be nine of them, eight trainees plus one other, but the PD himself arrives with the IQiYi staff members, nearly an hour after everyone else. Ziyi finds himself waiting, sitting at the low wooden table, unable to do anything besides think, nervous and jittery.

“Here is the paperwork that we need you to fill out.” One of the staff members hands each of them a thick packet of paper. “It’s all the general things that you need to know in order to participate in this show.”

Ziyi skims through it quickly. The man is right, it’s all the same standard stuff that he’s seen oh so many times before. It’s his job to keep things hidden, IQiYi isn’t to blame if any of them get found out, any and all rumors are the responsibility of their companies and themselves.

It’s the same standard stuff Ziyi’s seen oh so many times before, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult to read.

Zhang-PD seems to have the same idea, eyes flickering back and forth from page to page before he nods to himself and signs it, pen flashing in the light. Ziyi may have seen this stuff oh so many times before, in his few years of being a trainee, but he’s willing to bet that Zhang-PD probably has the entire script memorized in his head by now.

“Here.” He says, dropping the stack on the table and standing up dramatically. He looks incredibly tired. “I have another meeting to go to.”

“Of course.” The staff mumbles as he exits the room quickly. Ziyi is incredibly jealous, both of the reverence that the rest of the staff seem to have for him despite his status, and the calm way he regarded the other eight of them, never once looking down at his wrist, never once flinching against their sharp and surprised gazes.

Ziyi knows that Zhang-PD’s abruptness has a purpose, of course. When the time comes, the eight of them will have to pretend that they didn’t know he would be one the show, and it’s best that they give themselves someone to get to know during the show rather than before, in this mysterious private meeting that absolutely should not have to exist but does.

There is more shuffling of papers, more whispered words and noises of confusion. Ziyi knows what it’s like, to face this extensive documentation head on over and over again, but he feels bad for those who are only now experiencing it for the first time.

“You’ll have to take responsibility for him.” The staff member says to Han Mubo and Qin Fen, nodding at the frightened boy sitting between them. “Or have someone from your company do it, since he’s not of age yet.”

Qin Fen eyes the man, his gaze clear cut and sharp, wrapping his arm around the shaking boy next to him. The boy, who Ziyi thinks is named Zuo Ye, sinks into his hold and tightens his fists in Qin Fen’s jacket. It’s obvious that this his first time doing anything like this, and he shrinks away from the papers in front of him in something akin to fear.

Ziyi despises it, that someone so young will have so much to fear for the rest of his life.

The three of them had come in together, Zuo Ye sandwiched between the two older ones just like he is now. Han Mubo and Qin Fen themselves had come in with wrists unwrapped and bare, the other’s name shimmering silver in the fluorescent light like an old scar.

“You’ll have to cover those up.” The staff member sits back in his chair, the cheap plastic creaking under his weight as he gestures towards Mubo’s exposed wrist, lying flat on the table. Ziyi can see clearly the characters that make out Qin Fen’s name, and wonders if he can ever be brave enough to expose his wrist to the public the way Mubo and Qin Fen are.

“Don’t worry.” Qin Fen says, voice just as sharp as his eyes. “We will.”

Ziyi finds it comforting to know that he’s not the only one feeling the tension in the room. It’s not just because the eight of them are different, because everyone is different and unique and individual in some way, but it feels uncomfortable to actually be able to see and hear the underlying hatred outsiders have for them in this closed environment, rather than experience it through screens or randomly shouted insults in busy streets.

What Mubo and Qin Fen are doing now, by exposing their wrists, is nothing short of a demonstration. They’re doing this because they can and so they will, even in a world that tells them they shouldn’t.

There is a stigma, now, against soulmates. Some wish that they, too, were born with another’s name on their wrist. Other’s mock those that are, claiming that they can only be loved by the one they are meant to love. There are even those who do not care at all, and disregard those with names burnt onto their skin in favor of living as though the soulmate phenomenon has not happened at all.

You cannot tell anyone, the contract mocks Ziyi in tiny characters and smudged black ink. You and your name are your own responsibility.

Ziyi hates it, that he’s been reduced to nothing but a name on his wrist that isn’t even his.

He signs it anyways.

---

Wang Ziyi is born with a dark brown blotch on the inside of his left wrist. His mother cries when she sees it, fearing the worst for her son. His father holds him close, and promises his son that he will protect him forever, to the best of his ability, both as a father and as someone who loves him.

And so Ziyi grows up soft, loved wholly by his father and protected fully by his mother. They make plans, to have Ziyi live a small and quiet life, out of sight from those who would wish to hurt him or damage him or study the markings on his wrist like scientists would an animal.

This plan is quickly destroyed when five year old Ziyi sees the local performance troupe touring through the cities for the first time. It’s nothing special, a small performance on the small stage in the center of the square, but he sees people singing and he sees them dancing and it lights up something in him that he will never be able to forget.

“Ma.” He says, tugging on his mother’s hand with a wrist marked with fire. “Ma, someday I’m going to be famous.”

His mother looks at the stage and looks down at her son, her son with a burnt wrist and glowing eyes, and picks him up and hugs him close.

She does not want to let him go, but someday she must.

“Someday, that will be me.” Ziyi says into his mother’s ear, holding tightly to her shirt. She does not let herself cry.

“Of course, my son, of course.” She whispers. “But you must listen to your mother first, before you leave me to become a famous star.”

She will protect him while she can, because someday, she must let him go.

Ziyi’s parents pray that his dream will fade away to nothing more than a child’s memory, because that’s what children love to do best. They dream, and then they forget, and Ziyi’s parents go to bed that night and every night after, hoping that their son will forget the way the stage called to him, bright and open and free.

When Ziyi is eight years old, his dark brown blotch turns into a name. It’s three characters, as most chinese names are, and completely unfamiliar to him and the rest of his family.

“What does it mean, Ma?” Ziyi asks his mother every night at dinner. She cannot answer, because answering means she must let him go.

“Ba, what do you think this means?” He asks his father instead.

“It means you will always be loved.” His father tells him, voice calm and reassuring.

“But of course I will always be loved.” Ziyi says the way only a child can, innocent and insolent all at once. “You and Ma love me, after all.”

“Yes, yes we do.” His father replies, nonchalant. “And we always will.”

Ziyi nods impatiently and thrusts the name into his father’s face. “But what does it really mean?”

“It means that someday, someone will love you the way your mother and I cannot. They will give you something we cannot. They will be someone for you that we cannot be.”

Ziyi considers this that night and every night after. He stops asking his mother, and stops pestering his father, and instead thinks about someone who can mean more to him than his parents do.

He doesn’t think it’s possible.

“I still want to dance.” Ziyi tells his mother, when he is eleven. “I know you don’t want me to but I still want to perform.”

He understands soulmates now, and what the mark on his wrist means, and how to hide it and cover it and pretend it’s not there. He understands why his mother still holds him close, why his father forces him to wear long sleeves during the hottest days of summer. He understands the looks he gets from people at school and on the street and understands that he will continue to crave the stage until he finally gets it.

“Is there any chance at all that we will able to stop you?” His mother asks, and Ziyi understands that it is purely out of concern for his safety. “Is there any chance that you will be able to find a different hobby?”

Ziyi thinks about this carefully, about her words and her wishes and the way he hears her cry to his father sometimes when he’s pretending to sleep because someday, she must let him go.

“No.” He says.

---

When Cai Xukun walks into the room, full of swagger and smolder and shy but cheeky laughs, Ziyi knows that it is over. That he has already lost. That he’s gone, too far gone, and this is what his parents meant when they talked about love they couldn't provide.

Cai Xukun walks into the room, and Ziyi feels more than hears the gasps that circulate throughout the rest of the trainees. They are in awe of him. They are in love with him. They sit high in their chairs and look down upon the newcomer, and are completely and unrelentingly jealous.

Ziyi would be, too, but the name on his wrist feels like ice, and he doesn’t dare move, because his company members are two rows below him, and the multitude of cameras circling the trainees freeze him in place.

He wants to check the name, to lift his sleeve and make sure that none of this is a dream, but he cannot. He will not.

Ziyi hears Zuo Ye, young Zuo Ye, innocent Zuo Ye, and how he professes his love moments before Xukun enters the room. He notices, with interest, the look the other OACA members give him. There’s the loud one who leans away into his brother and mocks Zuo Ye’s idolization. There are his protectors, the ones who guarded him on both sides at the meeting all those weeks ago, and they watch the interaction with careful eyes. Ziyi thinks he sees Qin Fen laugh.

How easy it would be to be Zuo Ye. Unafraid of love, despite the bandage clearly wrapped around his wrist. Undaunted in the face of rejection, close with his brothers and his friends. He’s gotten braver, Ziyi thinks, and wishes that he had gotten braver too.

Ziyi’s company members are two rows below him. They are spread far and wide throughout the audience, creating pockets of Simply Joy. He knows they do this because they believe in him, because they think that out of the five of them he’ll be the one to succeed, but Ziyi wishes for a moment that they were beside him, filling up the third and fourth and fifth and sixth chair.

“You are an independent trainee.” Ziyi hears the other OACA boy tell Zuo Ye. “We are Awaken the East. Goodbye.”

He pretends to be surprised when Zhang-PD arrives, of course, because the eight of them aren’t supposed to know that a he’s part of the show. Once again, the PD holds himself high. His large sleeves hide the bandage around his wrist, and Ziyi finds himself unrelentingly envious of his composure once more.

Zhang-PD is kind, too, and his comments feel less like a critique and more like a teacher, guiding young disciples and sons. He emphasizes balance to the point where it’s funny, and Ziyi remembers that the reason why the young Zhang Yixing can hold himself so high is because he’s worked himself to the top, step after step after step.

Later, when they have all settle in to the night, Xukun performs, and Ziyi is completely entranced.

He’s no idiot, and neither are the rest of the trainees. Xukun is good looking, perhaps more than the average person. He’s also young, untainted by the world and yet carrying the weight of debut, all at the same time. He’s ideal, sexy and charismatic and nervous and shy, and his bare wrists that bear no sign of any burn or blotch or name pop out from his jacket as he dances.

He sings, and raps, and it’s a performance above all else. “My baby girl.” Xukun sings to the judges in that sultry voice of his, aimed at the dance mentors. His jacket slips off his shoulders, and the mesh shirt hides absolutely nothing, and Ziyi is both angry and enamoured all at the same time.

“You already know.” The lyrics say, and it’s Cai Xukun talking to his fans. The words don’t reach Ziyi, not the way he thinks they should, because they are crass and forward and a too-real version of the stage persona Xukun puts on every time he steps on the stage.

Ziyi considers the implications of this, what it truly means if the Cai Xukun on stage is not the same Cai Xukun off stage, if he’s truly able to switch back and forth between the two of them or if he’s caught somewhere in the middle, in some hybrid form of Cai Xukun that encompasses both the person he wants to be and the person he is.

And then he wonders if this is how it ends.

---

The first time Ziyi sees someone who goes by the same name as the one on his wrist, it is on T.V. It is October fourteenth, in the year two thousand and sixteen, and it is the SWIN debut. Ziyi studies the stage the way he always does now, because one day he hopes to be on it, and his eyes immediately land on a boy in the front who dances and raps like it’s the last time he’ll ever be allowed to do so, full of life and love for the things that he’s doing.

Cai Xukun, the internet tells him. Ziyi looks at his wrist and the three characters burnt onto it before looking back at the screen.

Cai Xukun. He calls his parents.

“Well,” his father says, sighing a deep sigh that rattles the speakers in his phone. “I guess you had better give up your dream of becoming famous.”

It’s meant as a joke. Ziyi knows that. His father doesn’t mean anything by it, and he’s just looking out for his son, but something about that sentence irks Ziyi beyond belief.

“I don’t think I will.” Ziyi tells him. His voice does not shake. His hands do not quiver.

Ziyi continues to practice. He continues to dance, and continues to rap, and decides that someday, if he ever meets Cai Xukun as an equal, he will tell him the truth.

Cai Xukun is his soulmate. Ziyi thinks that life has a funny way of working, since it’s given him a man for a soulmate. He’s not bothered by it, not the way he could be or others would be, but he thinks about it long and hard, the way he’s been thinking about everything since he was young.

He does not listen to SWIN songs, and neither does he track the group’s progress. He’s determined to convince himself that standing on a stage like the one Cai Xukun is standing on is a dream of his own, not something to be taken and morphed by his soulmate. It is, after all, something for himself– a dream he’s had since he was too young to know what the mark on his wrist was even supposed to mean.

Performing belongs to Ziyi, and he convinces himself that he’s incredibly lucky that his soulmate shares the same dream.

So Ziyi practices, and practices, and does his best because now he absolutely has to make his dream come true. It’s his dream, he tells himself, and he’s doing it for himself, but now there’s someone waiting for him at the other end of the tunnel, and it’s not that he’s running towards the light but that the light is there, and when he gets to the end he will be able to see it. It’s not changing his outcome, but simply giving him incentive to keep on going.

He doesn’t think about Cai Xukun, on stage with his group members. He does not think about what it means, that Xukun is up there on stage and on T.V. with a two  bare wrists that shine with sweat under the stage lights. None of that matters.

Ziyi practices, and practices, and practices.

---

Ziyi meets Jeffrey Tung during breakfast two days later, one blue sweater in a sea of others. They sit at the same table but do not talk to one another, and when Ziyi leaves for the practice rooms, he nods once at Jeffrey and the rest of the trainees sitting with them before leaving.

He doesn’t talk to the other trainees much, for various reasons. Ziyi knows that the covered name on his wrist is a huge part of what’s keeping some of the trainees away, because those who are unmarked hate those that are, but he also knows that his demeanor in general can come across as unwelcoming. His parents may have raised him to be loving and soft, but there’s not much he can do about his face.

Ziyi continues to think about Jeffrey, though, and how the older boy seems both frightening and warm at the same time. It might have something to do his jawline, sharp and deadly and possibly strong enough to cut a man in half. Or it could be the dimples, which seem to be permanently etched into Jeffrey’s face along with a shy smile and eyes that sparkle softly.

Ziyi’s not stupid. He notices things, both about the other trainees and about himself. This is a show for young men looking to become idols, and it would be impossible to go through it without noticing that some trainees are, unfairly, more beautiful than others.

The problem is that it’s not that Ziyi sees Jeffrey once and forgets about him, but that he keeps seeing him. When they go to meals, Jeffrey is always in the corner of his peripheral vision, laughing softly at something someone is saying or giggling secretly into his hand. When walking through the dorms, Ziyi sees Jeffrey going into his room, or out of it, and it just doesn’t make sense how every time Ziyi turns the corner, Jeffrey is there.

The two of them don’t even run in the same crowd. Ziyi spends most of his spare time with Xukun and the other A rank trainees, because their practice room is better than they’re fun to be around and it’s Xukun, and Xukun to him is the fire trapped beneath the bandages on his wrist. Jeffrey, on the other hand, runs with the rest of the OACA trainees, sticking to Qin Fen, and by extension Han Mubo, like glue.

Cai Xukun, on the other hand, Ziyi sees every day. They train together, and work together, and eat together, and at some point it becomes harder and harder for Ziyi to remember that Xukun is, in fact, in the dark about the name on his wrist.

He doesn’t treat Ziyi any differently, thankfully, because Ziyi doesn’t think he’d able to handle it if Xukun hated him for being marked. Sometimes, Xukun will grab Ziyi’s hand and look at the bandage on his wrist, but he never unwraps it or asks questions, and Ziyi takes it to mean that he simply doesn’t care for the hidden name so long as it doesn’t affect their success as a group.

He’s not sure whether or not to be thankful for that.

So Ziyi lives and trains, and he spends time with Xukun, and thinks about Jeffrey, and wonders if having a soulmate is supposed to be this easy. Because Cai Xukun feels a little bit like home, almost, in his loud exuberance and the way he leads and inspires and dances.

When he gets back to his dorm room at night, though, his company members are always waiting for him. There is concern in their eyes, sometimes, worry for the member that looks out for them and refuses to be taken care of.

“You can tell us.” They tell him, eyes worried as the wraps his wrist in the dark of night.

“You can tell us.” They beg, when Haoran accidently walks into the bathroom and the first thing Ziyi does is hide his wrist behind his back.

“You can tell us.” They say, but they still knock on the door to the OACA dorm room to ask for extra bandages, for him, when he runs out.

Ziyi considers it, too. There are times when he’s tired of hiding, when he’s tired of being reduced to a name, when he wishes he was as brave as Han Mubo and Qin Fen in their love for each other.

But then he remembers Cai Xukun, and the gummy way he smiles, and the way he dances and raps, like it’s the last time he’ll ever be allowed to do so.

“No.” He says, apologetic and firm all at once. “I can’t.”

---

They give him the chance to call home, and Ziyi spends five minutes staring at the phone’s blank screen before he finally finds the courage to pick it up and dial the number.

“Hello?” His mother answers. Ziyi wishes he could cry.

“Hi, Ma.” He says.

There is a lot of yelling, a lot of screaming, a lot of tears. His parents ask how it is, how the show is treating him, if he’s made any friends. Ziyi tells them that he’s having a lot of fun, that he’s learned a lot from many different people, that there are very pretty boys here that he can’t stop thinking about.

Well. Maybe not that last part.

“And Cai Xukun?” Ziyi’s mother sounds afraid. Afraid of the answer Ziyi has for her, afraid of the truth, he doesn’t know “He’s there too, isn’t he?”

Ziyi’s voice is dry. “Yeah.” He replies.

Ziyi does not listen to SWIN songs or follow their progress, so it took him an incredibly long time to learn what had happened to Cai Xukun, and why he’s on the show with the rest of the trainees instead of back out there, on stage with his brothers and doing what he loves best.

“There’s going to be a lawsuit.” His father tells him, voice unnaturally blank. “His members are supporting him still, even now.”

Ziyi is thankful, because if Xukun was in this all alone Ziyi doesn't know what he would do. It also kind of sucks, though, because that brings Xukun just one more step farther away from him, making it that one bit harder for him to catch up and become an equal.

He’ll have to keep working hard.

“Come home.” His mother begs. Ziyi feels awful. “Come home and leave all of this behind.”

“You can’t promise me another chance.” Ziyi would, if she could. If he was promised another try, without the distraction of soulmates and sly distasteful looks at his wrist and cute boys with sharp jaws, he would leave and come back later, maybe. If he was sure that he would be given another chance to stand on stage, Ziyi thinks he would go home and not come back until his heart is calm and his mind is clear.

But that’s not the case here. This could very well be his last chance to see the stage, last chance to see his soulmate. It’s an opportunity unlike all else, and he’s doing well, and he can’t bring himself to agree.

“No.” He tells his mother.

“Take care of yourself.” His father tells him. Ziyi hears his mother crying in the background over the phone. He still wishes he could cry.

“I will.” Ziyi says, because he has no other choice. His father hangs up after that, nothing left to say, and Ziyi listens to the dial tone for a moment before putting down the phone.

“Will you air that part?” He asks the camera man behind the lens. He hopes he doesn’t have to explain just which part he doesn’t want to be aired. It might even be kind of obvious.

The man does something to the camera for a moment, coughs a little bit, and then leans away from the device to face Ziyi. “No.” He says. “I don’t think we will.”

Ziyi smiles, relieved and pained all at once. “That’s good.” He says, and does not think about how he hides more than just a three character name under the white sleeve of his sweater.

“You’ve worked hard.” He tells the staff bowing. They nod back, and he leaves the room with his heart sinking back into his chest.

---

“Do you think he’s found his soulmate?” Jeffrey asks Ziyi.

“What?” Ziyi shakes his head, confused.

The question is decidedly unexpected, asked when the trainees are filling up the dining hall with chatter and everyone is relaxing into their meal. The food isn’t great here, a little too bland and tasteless in an attempt to cater to the preferences of every single person, but after a long day of practice, any food at all is heaven to them.

“I mean,” Jeffrey leans in closer, most likely to be heard over the noise. “Zhang-PD. Do you think he’s found his soulmate?”

That’s the weird thing about Jeffrey. Ziyi doesn’t know if it’s because he grew up in Taiwan, where things are probably more lax, or if it’s because he spends all his time with Mubo and Qin Fen and their covered wrists, or if it’s just because he doesn’t care, but Jeffrey talks about soulmates like they’re a regular everyday thing, rather than a secret taboo that should never be mentioned nor shown in public.

“I don't know.” Ziyi replies, because Zhang-PD has always been incredibly good at keeping his wrist hidden from both the cameras and the curious eyes of the other trainees. “Probably not.”

“Huh. That makes sense. He’s probably too busy with his career to think about finding his soulmate anyways.” Jeffrey nods to himself, before smiling shyly at Ziyi. “Unless his soulmate is an EXO member.”

Or, Jeffrey is just open to everything. Open to talking about soulmates when he himself has two blank wrists, open to having whispered conversations with people he hardly knows in crowded dining halls, open to speaking about love between two men as though it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Ziyi wishes he was that brave.

“As long as it’s not one of the members that left, he should be fine.” Ziyi jokes, because it’s better to go along with this conversation than to deny it. He hasn’t ever talked about love before with someone who wasn’t his parents, everyone else too afraid of offending the boy with the burn on his wrist.

“I thought we can’t talk about things like that.” Jeffrey laughs, and Ziyi laughs too, because of all things to be concerned about, it’s a little bit stupid that the ex-EXO members rank number one on Jeffrey’s list.

It takes a little bit of getting used to, though, the idea that Jeffrey wants to talk about Zhang-PD’s soulmate not because he wants to mock him, but because he’s genuinely curious. He tries not to listen, but Ziyi has heard the trainees whispering behind his back and the backs of the other seven trainees, talking of how the eight of them are doomed to lose because the name scarred onto their arm will be the singular thing that sends them home.

“I hope he ends up happy.” Ziyi tells Jeffrey, tone serious. Trainees are starting to leave the dining hall now, back to the practice rooms and the dorms, but the two of them don’t move a muscle. Ziyi’s not sure who he’s talking about now, whether it’s the fierce Zhang-PD that’s guiding them, or the two men who showed up like parents with their arms wrapped around their son, or the other trainees who fiddle with their bandages and have their heart set on the stage, or himself– entirely terrified of what is to come.

“I hope so too.” Jeffrey smiles another smile at Ziyi, cute and soft and shy, and it burns a hole into Ziyi where his heart lies thumping against his ribs.

“Wouldn’t it be lovely if we all ended up happy?”

---

The PPAP performance sends Ziyi’s world crashing down around him.

There is a lot that leads up to this point of course. There’s his demotion to B rank, which hurts more than it should. Ziyi remembers vividly choosing the second seat at the top of the pyramid, looking down as the other trainees stumbled into the room, eyes bright with wonder, his heart filled with confidence. He wonders what has changed since then, whether it was something in his head or just the plain and honest fact that compared to the people, here, he may not be good enough.

He doesn’t like to think about that last part.

Xukun seems to think he’s good enough, though, because he chooses Ziyi to do PPAP with him. Ziyi is honored and frightened, all at once, because Xukun choosing him makes them closer to becoming equals, but doing a performance with Xukun might just be more than he can handle.

Ziyi is strong, though, and knows what he needs to do. He practices and practices and practices, because that’s what he’s always done, and maintains a relationship of a healthy distance with Xukun, all too aware of the cameras that circle throughout the practice rooms and the way his body naturally turns in Xukun’s direction when he walks into the room. He can’t control himself, not really, not with his soulmate this close, so he pretends like it’s okay and plays it off as friendship and hopes that no one is any the wiser.

But the performance comes, and as it does, Ziyi’s world comes crashing down around him.

“That’s hot.” Zhengting says, studying the screen intensely as the half-beast human teams do their performance. Ziyi wonders if he’s talking about a specific person, or just the concept in general, before realizing that it doesn’t really matter either way.

“Don’t you think?” Zhenting is asking Xukun, poking his sharp fingers into the fleshy parts of Xukun’s side. “Aren’t they so cool?”

Xukun shrugs, and takes Zhengting’s hand in his own. Ziyi does his best not to feel jealous.

“I don’t know.” Xukun says, uncaring and dull. “If you’re into that kind of thing, then I guess so.”

Zhengting leans back and takes his hand back out of Xukun’s grasp. “What?” He gasps, louder and more dramatic than he needs to. Ziyi shrinks into his chair when the other groups turn to look at them.

“You mean you’ve been here, trapped in a building with only other guys for company on a daily basis, and you’ve never even considered something like that?” Ziyi had thought Zhengting was innocent before all this, cute even in a song like PPAP, but it’s clear now that he was very wrong in that assumption.

He still hates it, though, the way that even Zhengting, even through his obvious advocacy for the subject, cannot bring himself to actually explain it by name. He thinks of Jeffrey, who talks so casually about everything, and wishes just for a moment that it were Jeffrey sitting with them instead, talking of how feeling attraction towards other trainees isn’t something to necessarily be confused by or afraid of.

“No.” Xukun says, and he sounds confused. “Why would I?”

Why would I, the questions that Ziyi forces himself to think about. Why would the Cai Xukun himself ever consider anything like this, after all, when he has his Ikuns chasing him from corner to corner? Why would he even think to choose any of them, when even the most beautiful trainees are no match for the screams that echo throughout the hall whenever he steps on stage?

Why would I, why would he, when his wrists are clear and he knows nothing about the scar that burns into Ziyi’s skin, the scar that will never turn silver the way Han Mubo’s and Qin Fen’s have, because his soulmate will never recognize him back.

And Xukun would have no reason to, either, not when he has so much going for him. He isn’t tied down and hiding like Ziyi is, forced into isolation because he was born with an unformed name. Xukun has the chance to grow and succeed and do well, and Ziyi thinks it might even be selfish to be the person that holds his soulmate back and prevents him from chasing his dreams.

So Ziyi sits quietly in his chair and does not look down at his wrist. He laughs at the things Yanchen and Zhou Rui and Xukun and Zhengting say, and does not look down at his wrist. The five of them perform, and it’s a beautiful stage, and Ziyi does not look down at his wrist.

I’m heartbroken, he wants to scream to the audience. I’ve lost before I could even start the fight, he resists the urge to whisper in Zhang-PD’s ear as they leave the stage. He would understand, right? Of all people in the world, surely a man whose career is spent hiding his name from people in a hundred countries all across the world, surely he would understand?

“Are you alright?” Kind Yanchen, sunny Yanchen, soulful Yanchen asks him.

Ziyi’s not sure how to answer. “I’ll be fine.” He says, instead of telling the truth, because the last thing he wants right now is to be honest.

---

He’s not sure how it happens, really. Maybe Ziyi was too thirsty that night, craving something besides the sickly sweet water IQiYi provides them with. Maybe Jeffrey was hungry, too hungry, desperate for real food because his roommates had taken and eaten all their snacks. Maybe it’s coincidence. Maybe it’s fate.

“Why do you still cover your wrist?” Jeffrey asks him, half a banana stuffed in his mouth like a squirrel getting ready for hibernation. Ziyi thinks it’s cute.

“What do you mean?” he replies, because of course he covers his wrist. He’d be dead if he were caught and his wrist was uncovered.

Jeffrey shrugs, and swallows his banana. Ziyi’s impressed he even managed to fit that much in his mouth in the first place. “It’s night time and no one is awake. Surely it wouldn’t kill you to unwrap it, if just for a little bit.”

Ziyi would, only he’s spent too long being scared of his roommates to even try. He would, but Jeffrey is here and he’s a stranger and it says in the contract that he and his company are responsible for anyone that finds out, and he doesn’t want to put that pressure on Simply Joy, not after everything they’ve done for him. He would, but the sight of Cai Xukun’s name on his arm still makes him sick, even after all this time, and Ziyi doesn’t want to look at it any more than he already has to.

“Would it?” Ziyi aims for an air of mysteriousness, but Jeffrey takes another bite of his banana and laughs, and the mood is lost.

“I’m just saying.” Jeffrey shrugs again. “I don’t think it should matter whether or not you keep it covered.”

Ziyi frowns. “Of course it matters.” He says, because they’ve all heard of those famous idols and actors and models who have gotten destroyed once they exposed the name on their wrist.

“Yes, but I don’t think it should.” Jeffrey is painfully earnest in a way that Ziyi does not understand, naive and introspective all at the same time.

“Have you ever seen someone’s name before?” He asks, suddenly curious. Surely Jeffrey’s interest in the subject has a point of origin.

“Of course.” Jeffrey laughs quietly, and it feels like less of a hidden whisper and more of a don’t wake the others whisper. “My parents are soulmates.”

“Really?” Ziyi asks, because soulmates are rare but people that actually end up finding their soulmates and living happily together are even rarer.

Jeffrey smiles and tosses his banana peel at the trashcan ten feet away. It goes in perfectly, and Ziyi resists the urge to whistle in appreciation.

“Yup.” Jeffrey says. “Plus, Bo-ge and Fen-ge also showed me theirs.”

Ziyi is less surprised by this. “Did you ask to see it, or did they just show you?” He wonders, because the intricacies of how to bring up soulmates in a conversation is still lost on him to this day.

Jeffrey shrugs mindlessly. “I don’t know.” He twists his fingers together and looks directly into Ziyi’s eyes, the dim light causing them to sparkle unnaturally. “They aren’t exactly ashamed of their scars, you know.”

Ziyi wonders if he’s ashamed, if this is all just part of the fear that comes with pursuing a dream that should, by all means, be unreachable for someone like him. Growing up loved and protected by his parents his entire life had made him blind to how everyone else would see him, and for the first time in a long time Ziyi looks down at his covered wrist and considers everything that could potentially go wrong.

Jeffrey is almost a complete stranger, yes, but doesn’t that make him a better person to open up to? It’s safer, almost anonymous, and the weight of the name on Ziyi’s wrist has been weighing him down for weeks and months and years. He thinks he’d like to be free of it.

“If I show you my name…” He drifts off, fingers picking at the edges of the bandage. Jeffrey nods silently in support, eyes completely serious.

“If I show you my name, will you promise not to tell anyone?”

“Of course.” The reply comes immediately, as though Jeffrey didn’t even need to think about it, and Ziyi is glad that Jeffrey is the type of person to not care about things like this, because he might actually explode if it was turned into a big deal.

Ziyi unwraps his wrist. Jeffrey reaches out and turns it so that he can clearly read the dark letters, unafraid of touching him– unafraid of touching the burns. Ziyi doesn’t know how it feels to Jeffrey, but the tips of Jeffrey’s fingers are ice and fire at the same time against the sensitive skin of his inner arm, and it takes all of his self control not to jerk back from the intrusion.

It is, after all, the first time anyone has touched that part of his wrist since the brown blotch solidified into a name.

“How come yours is dark when everyone else’s I’ve seen is white?” Jeffrey asks. Ziyi is surprised by the question, even though he thinks he shouldn’t be, because of course Jeffrey cares more about how the names work rather than the actual name itself.

“When you meet your soulmate, and the two of you recognize each other as your soulmate, the mark turns from black to silver.” Ziyi says, and tries to make it as clinical and unfeeling as he can. “I’ve met my soulmate– obviously, but since he won’t recognize me back, it’s still dark.”

Jeffrey hums and nods, and twists Ziyi’s wrist a little bit more into the dim light. “Can he recognize you even if he doesn’t have a name? Does he have to have a name in order to recognize his soulmate back?” His questions are ridiculous and stupid, and Ziyi is oddly thankful for the normalcy that it provides.

He shrugs. “I think there will always be that little bit of doubt there, even if I tell him.” Ziyi doesn’t actually know, because most everything he does know came from online searches in the dead of night, fearful of his roommates and company members finding him out.

“Plus–” Ziyi coughs. “Plus, he would never.”

Jeffrey looks up from Ziyi’s wrist sharply, eyes shining once more. “What do you mean?” Everything about him seems sharper in this moment, from his jaw to his hair, as though he is more in focus and less in his own head.

“Xukun told Zhengting that he would never consider being with another trainee.” Which is a gross oversimplification, but the same idea nonetheless. Xukun would never, because of course he would never.

Jeffrey leans back against the sink counter considering. “And you think that even if you tell him, he won’t change his mind.” Ziyi hates how Jeffrey makes it sound so subjective, as though the truth would end up different than the outcome Ziyi knows will happen and has already planned in his head.

“Yes.” He says instead, and does not elaborate further.

Jeffrey nods. “I’m sorry.” He sounds genuinely apologetic too, which reminds Ziyi of the thousands of steps he’s taken away from becoming his soulmate’s equal.

It reminds Ziyi of the thousands of steps he’s taken away from having a soulmate at all.

---

“I kind of hate my team.” Jeffrey tells Ziyi in secret, only it’s not really in secret, because Han Mubo is sitting on Jeffrey’s other side lets out a sharp laugh as Jeffrey speaks.

“Why do you say that?” Ziyi is curious, just a little bit, because Jeffrey seems like the type of person who hates few and loves all.

Jeffrey shrugs. “I don’t know.” He laughs. “I think it’s just because I don’t know any of them that well yet.”

“Would you rather be in a team where you know everyone?” Ziyi asks. He might just understand where Jeffrey is coming from right now, maybe, because the other three members of the Love You team are scattered across the cafeteria, eating their lunch with their separate companies and their brothers and their friends.

Jeffrey nods once. “It’d just be easier to get along with everyone, you know?” He nudges Han Mubo next to him, and the man turns to look at them with quiet eyes. “It was great being in the Can’t Stop group with my parents.”

The three of them laugh quietly to themselves, Han Mubo punching Jeffrey’s arm lightly. “I am not your mother.” He says, but Ziyi can tell he only half means it.

Ziyi thinks about it for a moment. “Wait.” He grabs Jeffrey’s other arm. “Does this mean both of your parents are soulmates?”

Jeffrey laughs out loud, a sharp bark that gets the attention of the people around them. Jeffrey had grabbed Ziyi’s arm the moment he entered the room, forcing him to sit next to him instead of with the rest of his group in the Yuehua section of the room, but Xukun looks up at them anyways, attracted by the loud noise and the commotion. Ziyi averts his gaze.

“Yeah, it does.” Jeffrey says, leaning into Ziyi’s arm. Jeffrey is warm, a solid weight against Ziyi’s side, and he tries to ignore the piercing look Han Mubo gives him in favor of poking Jeffrey in the side.

“Get off of me.” He laughs again. “You’re heavy.”

Jeffrey’s wish comes true, after a while, because two days later he is nothing but smiles.

“We’re all really close now.” He tells Ziyi and Qin Fen, who Ziyi supposes is exchangeable for Han Mubo anyways. “We did a really stupid bonding exercise and now we’re all really close.”

“How stupid?” Qin Fen asks, like it matters and is an important question, and Ziyi learns quickly that Qin Fen is the type of person to integrate himself deeply into every conversation he is a part of.

“Very.” Jeffrey tells him, half with regret, and Qin Fen snorts in laughter.

He’s not wrong. Whatever their bonding exercise was, it seems to have done its job. Jeffrey spends less time eating with Ziyi and more time with his team, getting to know the other Banana Culture members and Yuehua members and Ziyi does his best not to but he still feels a little left out.

Sometimes he and Xukun and Bu Fan will also eat with Yuehua, Justin wanting to be close to his brothers, and Ziyi and Jeffrey will share a small smile over the table but that’s it. It’s almost like their relationship has gone backwards, back to the time when they were strangers and Jeffrey didn’t know what Ziyi’s wrist said and Ziyi didn’t know Jeffrey at all.

“You’ve gotten pretty close with Lin Yanjun, lately.” Ziyi whispers to him when they finally have some time alone.

“Huh. I suppose I have.” Jeffrey replies. “It only makes sense, though. We’re both from Taiwan, and we were both born in the same year, and I guess we just remind each other of home a little bit.”

He sounds a little bit like he’s trying to justify his relationship to Ziyi. He doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“You don’t have to make excuses.” Ziyi tells Jeffrey, chuckling a little bit. “I’m glad you have friends here.”

Jeffrey laughs too, but it’s muted and restrained. Ziyi wishes he could ask why.

“I’ve always been jealous of the brotherhood all people from big companies seem to have.” He says, like it’s some big secret that no one is supposed to know. “And now I have it for myself, and I can’t get enough.”

Ziyi thinks of all the time Jeffrey spends with the different companies, from the OACA trainees to the Banana Culture trainees to even Yuehua sometimes. He understands jealousy, and maybe even wanting to fit in, but his stomach twists and turns and his head aches.

“Don’t worry, though.” Jeffrey says, earnest and serious all at once, eyes twinkling. “I won’t replace you.” He’s teasing now, and Ziyi finds comfort in the normalcy of it.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Ziyi says back. The feeling disappears.

---

“I kind of hate my team too.” Ziyi tells Jeffrey in secret, later, before the performance, because apparently all of his newfound revelations are happening right before he has to go on stage, the one place where he’s happiest.

“Well. Yes. I was wondering when you would bring that up.” Jeffrey doesn’t seem particularly surprised, which in itself isn’t particularly surprising either.

Ziyi groans and puts his head in his hands. “It’s hard, being on the same team as him.” His words are muffled, but he doesn’t have to say who he’s referring to. “It’s hard being friends with him.”

Jeffrey laughs drily. “I can imagine.” Only he can’t, not really, because he doesn’t have a stupid name on his wrist telling him who he’s meant to love.

“It’s hard trying to figure out where my dream ends and his begins.” Ziyi says, because that’s been his problem from the beginning. No matter how many times he tried to tell himself that he was doing all of this for himself, there is a part of him so desperate to become Xukun’s equal that it’s taken over nearly the entirety of his who he has become.

“So why are you here then?” Jeffrey asks, not to mock him or accuse him, but because he’s a genuinely curious person who is genuinely curious about his friend’s wellbeing. Ziyi wonders if Jeffrey has felt a single negative emotion his entire life beside the small hatred he had for himself and his team at the very beginning of this challenge.

Ziyi shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“I could have been center.” The words feel awful in his mouth, their bitter taste making his tongue dry. “I let Justin take it though.”

Jeffrey hums in agreement and leans on Ziyi’s arm again. This time, Ziyi does not push him away. “Do you regret that decision?”

Ziyi wants to cry. “I don’t know.” He repeats. He knows why he did it, because he needed to prove that he could do well more to himself than the audience, than to Cai Xukun. He needed to find something for himself, and if that meant turning down the center position and giving it to Justin, then so be it. It made him look like a good person in the eyes of his teammates and probably the Citizen Producers as well, but Ziyi wonders if any of them noticed how ridiculously selfish the decision was.

Ziyi knows why he made the decision he made, but he doesn’t know if he regrets or not, not yet. The part of him that sat in the number two chair during their first filming says yes, he does regret it, but the part that hates the name on his wrist and everyone it means and represents doesn’t.

“Would you regret it if you were me?” He asks Jeffrey instead, because he’s tired of being introspective and brooding.

Jeffrey shrugs. “Would I even have made that same choice in the first place?” He asks, but Ziyi had never really considered that to be a question. To him, Jeffrey has always been some sort of angel, descended from heaven, full of kind words and a fighting spirit and someone who would put the good of everyone else before himself because that’s what he’s been doing for Ziyi.

“Would you?” Now he’s curious.

But Jeffrey just laughs, as though the answer should be obvious only it isn’t, because Jeffrey isn’t selfish, not like the rest of them are. He’s just a boy, older than Ziyi sure but still just a boy, just a boy who likes to sing and dance and act and eat eggs.

“I try to live my life such that I regret none of the decisions that I ever make.” Jeffrey says, and although he’s smiling, Ziyi can tell that he’s completely serious. The light in the backstage is reflecting off his eyes again, and Ziyi hates how disappointingly dramatic everything is starting to become, in both his relationship with Cai Xukun and his relationship with Jeffrey.

“Add oil.” Jeffrey cheers when Ziyi leaves for the stage. Despite everything, he’s not nervous, too excited to pay attention to the nerves that run beneath his skin and in his veins.

This is an opportunity above all others, he reminds himself.

Don’t do this for anyone but yourself.

---

Somehow, Ziyi ends up rooming with Jeffrey, and their side conversations in the dining hall and the kitchen and backstage turns into long elaborate ones while the two of them lie on their separate beds, staring at the ceiling and eating eggs. It’s weird, to leave the realm of strangers and acquaintances for something closer to friendship and tolerance. Ziyi thinks he can relate to Yanjun, in this, because Jeffrey is a little bit like the home that left Ziyi during the first round of elimination.

“Where are you going?” He asks Jeffrey, who, for some reason, is dressed and leaving the dorms.

There’s nothing wrong with leaving, of course, because they aren’t prisoners, but Ziyi doesn’t quite understand why Jeffrey is sneaking out of their room at three in the morning, dressed in street clothes and a cloth mask covering his face.

“You’re awake?” Jeffrey asks, obviously surprised. He stops in the middle of pulling on one of his shoes, and the laces dangle uselessly like a pendulum.

Ziyi rolls his eyes, even though it’s too dark for Jeffrey to see. “Duh. Where are you going?”

Jeffrey shifts from foot to foot. “Uhm.” He says, and very clearly does not answer Ziyi’s question. “Do you wanna come with?”

“Come with?” Ziyi stares blankly, sitting up and pulling his blanket up over his bare chest. “As in come with you outside?” It’s too late at night to practice, and too early in the morning to do anything else, and all Ziyi wants to do is go back to bed and sleep for another twelve hours even though he knows he can’t.

“Where are you even going?” He asks again, and reaches for a shirt anyways.

“Uhm.” Jeffrey says again, looking to the side. “The convenience store?” He phrases it like a question, as though he’s just come up with that answer on the spot, and Ziyi isn’t sure whether or not to says yes.

But his shirt is on, and he’s gotten out of bed, so he decides to go anyways, if only to make sure Jeffrey doesn’t get lost of kidnapped on his way out.

Sneaking out is disappointedly easy. They aren’t confined in the building, of course, because for the most part all the trainees are adults who can make adult decisions, but Ziyi finds it odd that no one really notices. Not a single person peeks their head out of their door to see what’s going on, and even though it shouldn’t feel wrong it does, leaving their rooms and the building while everyone else is sleeping.

The winter air is crisp and cold outside, and Ziyi regrets not grabbing a jacket. Jeffrey is seemingly unaffected, however, and grabs Ziyi’s hand to keep him from falling behind.

“Come on.” He giggles, tugging on Ziyi’s marked arm like a child.

Ziyi groans, half because of the cold and half because he doesn’t have it in him to move faster. He’s just woken up, for goodness sake, and it’s too dark to be excited.

“What’s the rush?” He asks, forcing his feet into a faster speed walk that allows him to keep up with Jeffrey’s skipping. Jeffrey continues to yank on Ziyi’s arm, but the pain brings warmth into his shoulder, so he can’t really complain.

Instead of answering, Jeffrey looks up at the sky and stops. “Isn’t it beautiful?” He marvels, staring at the expanse of black space above them. Jeffrey hasn’t been answering very many questions tonight, Ziyi notices, instead choosing to sidestep each inquiry with practiced ease.

Ziyi watches Jeffrey for a while, the way he spins and takes deep lungfuls of icy air and smiles, steps light like a fairy.

“You didn’t come out here to go to the store, did you?” Because Ziyi had his doubts before, and watching Jeffrey here, in this strange dance of want, only confirms his earlier disbelief.

“I thought it’d be more obvious.” Jeffrey says, turning to face Ziyi head on. If Ziyi had thought before that Jeffrey’s were bright with the reflection of the sun the moon, he was completely wrong. Instead, they seem to glow on their own now, unnatural and strange.

It’s a bit of a comfort.

Jeffrey’s eyes look like stars, only when Ziyi looks up, he sees nothing but the small half crescent moon glaring down upon them. There are in China, after all, and Ziyi knows he’ll never be able to see the stars with the air like this, but looking into Jeffrey’s eyes makes him feel like he doesn’t quite need to.

“Tell me a secret.” Jeffrey says, and his eyes reflect his words with light and stardust. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone ever before.”

Jeffrey is a stranger, only he’s not, not anymore, and this is like unwrapping his wrist in the dim kitchen again only so much worse, because now he’ll still have to see Jeffrey every day and talk to him and they’ll still be together, day in and day out.

“Tell me something first.” Ziyi says, voice dry, because he’s terrified.

Jeffrey regards him carefully, before turning away and taking a few steps. Ziyi wants to rush forward, to lean on Jeffrey the way Jeffrey leans on him sometimes, only he doesn’t know if it’s appropriate or not.

“I wish I could go home.” Jeffrey says, and his voice echoes in the darkness. “Not that I’m not incredibly happy to be here, but I wish I could go home and see my family.”

Ziyi can’t see Jeffrey’s face, but he thinks of Lin Yanjun and the way Jeffrey called him a reminder of home, oh so long ago, and he hates that Jeffrey is sad but he thinks he might understand it.

“Sometimes I come outside to look at the moon.” They both turn their heads up. “Because as cliche as it sounds, it’s still the same moon that my family is seeing back home.”

Jeffrey turns back around, and his eyes are dry but they shimmer more than they did before, wet with unshed tears. Ziyi thinks the stars are especially beautiful in this moment, right now. “It’s still the same fucking moon.” He repeats, and he sounds so desperately sad that it jars Ziyi back into reality.

The curse sounds wrong in Jeffrey’s mouth, and Ziyi doesn’t even bother resisting the urge to reach out and envelop Jeffrey in a hug. The two of them stand, halfway between the convenience store and the dorms, and Ziyi looks up at the moon and wonders if Jeffrey’s parents are listening to their son cry.

“I wish I could fall in love.” Ziyi whispers. “I feel like I’ve been marked like cattle, set aside for one person, but I wish I could choose someone who didn’t make my heart hurt the way it does when I see him on the stage.”

Jeffrey burrows deeper into Ziyi’s hold, anchoring the both of them to reality, and Ziyi takes a deep breath. Jeffrey smells clean, like the earth and the sky and a little bit like fire. It’s a good kind of clean, not the sterile hospital clean that makes everyone sick, and Ziyi breathes in a little bit more in an attempt to try and memorize the scent.

He’s not so cold anymore.

“You can say no.” Jeffrey whispers back, his lips warm against Ziyi’s shirt. “You can always say no, even to your soulmate. Even to fate and the universe, if you so desired.”

Ziyi wonders what kind of brave Jeffrey has to be in order to say something like that, coming from a background of soulmate parents who love each other and love him. He wonders what kind of upbringing Jeffrey had, what kind of friends he made in Taiwan, the kinds of things he ate, the person he would have become if he had not become an actor and a singer.

Ziyi wants to know everything, even the things that don’t matter, and that terrifies him.

“I can’t.” Ziyi says. “I don’t know how.”

Jeffrey pulls back finally, and although they still sparkle, Ziyi can tell that his eyes are less wet and more determined. “Let me show you.” Jeffrey says.

And then he kisses him.

---

Life is a series of choices.

Sometimes, these choices are hard, such as choosing to ask them to spin the bottle again, and then a second time, so that Qin Fen can be on the team that suits him best. Sometimes they involve leaving his soulmate because someone else wants that spot, and sacrificing the streak that they’ve had going, of constantly performing by each other’s side. As friends.

Other times, these choices are less difficult. Being on a team with a group of talented vocalists is, in fact, very not-hard, because they teach him the things he needs to learn and helps him develop his vocal chords in an opportunity he would not have found anywhere else. Being on a team that is led is a man with a covered wrist and someone else's name means that no one is afraid of them, because the only fear they feel is the fear of disappointing their leader. Being on a team with Jeffrey is wonderful, and Ziyi finds that spending time together is, in fact, very easy.

They don’t talk about the kiss they shared, though. Ziyi doesn’t quite know how to bring it up, whether to refer to it is a kiss in the late night or the kiss in the early morning or the kiss in the distant dream that they shared together.

Ziyi likes the song. It’s soft and sweet and brings with it a plethora of experiences that can be experienced only on this show, with these people. It’s the kind of song he could fall asleep to, a stage that’s like a dream, reminiscent of everything he’s been chasing after since he was five years old and saw that performance troupe for the first time.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Jeffrey asks, half joking and half serious, because the two of them have developed a casual rapport that allows them to actually communicate with one another without any offense.

“I think so.” Ziyi croaks out, voice tired and strained. The two of them laugh.

Now, sometimes, Jeffrey will crawl into Ziyi’s bed at night and lean his head against Ziyi’s chest, exhausted and sleepy, and their late night conversations will turn into even later night whispers. Jeffrey is the type of person who craves human contact, whether male or female, and everyone in their shared room knows that. Sometimes Ruibin will watch them with eyes that question their actions, but he will turn away soon enough. It’s none of his business, after all.

“I do it because I can’t sleep.” Jeffrey tells him, in secret. It’s actually a secret, this time, because their dorm room is asleep, and so are the other rooms, and the night is dark but the stars in Jeffrey’s eyes shine bright. “I guess instead of leaving now, I can just come here.”

“Good.” Ziyi says, and wraps his arms around Jeffrey’s shoulders and does not think about what it means. “You’d probably get more sleep this way, too, instead of wandering around the city at night.”

Sometimes, Jeffrey will whisper words against Ziyi’s unclothed chest. They don’t talk about anything important, but sometimes Jeffrey will tell him stories of his soulmate parents, or Ziyi will share his own stories of his childhood. Other times, they mouth the lyrics to I Will Always Remember together, Jeffrey’s breath hot against his skin.

They still don’t talk about the kiss. They talk about everything under the sun, instead, and spend hours together quietly thinking, both still awake, but they never talk about the kiss. Jeffrey will rest his head right above Ziyi’s heart, and Ziyi wonders if Jeffrey can hear the proof of his life that beats steadily and sings him to sleep.

Sometimes, Jeffrey will look up into Ziyi’s eyes and ask, “Is this okay?” And Ziyi will nod and whisper a quiet yes back in return, and the world will turn properly once more.

He doesn’t mind. After all, on these nights, the stars seem especially beautiful.

---

Life is a series of choices.

Wang Ziyi made the choice, when he was five, to pursue a dream he may never accomplish. He did it because he saw something that he loved, and decided that pursuing love comes in many forms.

When Wang Ziyi was nine, he made the choice to love his soulmate. He didn’t understand it then, what he was doing or the consequence of his actions, but that choice would forever be the thing that changed his future. His choice to love his soulmate kept him pursuing his unreachable dream, and kept him hoping for a chance to be equal, and kept him wary of every single person in the world who could get in his way.

Wang Ziyi as infinitely different as a twenty one year old than he was when he was nine and when he was five. He’s less afraid of people now, and more open to the opportunities that come with forming relationships with others. He’s more aware of himself, and finally understands why he’s so insistent on chasing after every opportunity to perform.

He is no longer in love with his soulmate, because why would he? If his soulmate is someone who will not love him back, why should he dedicate his entire life to loving and chasing after someone who will not recognize the bond they share?

“We need to talk.” Ziyi tells Jeffrey, whispers in the dead of night as their roommates sleep in the next bunk.

Jeffrey shifts against the sheets. “About what?” He asks, looking up to make eye contact with Ziyi. This time, Ziyi is not afraid, and stares back into the vast galaxy that exists within Jeffrey’s eyes.

He hasn’t been afraid for a while.

“I think you know.” Ziyi whispers, and Jeffrey looks down in understanding.

“Ah.” He replies. They are both quiet.

“I’m not afraid.” Ziyi says, after a suitable amount of time has passed. “I used to be afraid, of love and of Xukun and of you, but I don’t think I am anymore.”

Jeffrey is still quiet. “Are you afraid?” Ziyi whispers. Please don’t be, he wants to say, but he has nothing to reassure Jeffrey that he won’t hurt him, so the words stay hidden and held back.

“Yeah.” Jeffrey seems small, in this moment, one man against a world of feelings and emotions.

Ziyi hums. He wonders if Jeffrey can feel it. “How long have you been in love with me?”

Jeffrey laughs, but it is not a humorous laugh. It’s the laugh of a man on death row, ready to say goodbye to his loved ones and die for something that should not be a crime.

“I don't know.” Jeffrey says. “Days? Weeks? Months?” He does not know.

It would be useless to ask why Jeffrey didn’t tell him earlier, because Ziyi knows that the name on his wrist is the type of thing that stops conversations about love before they even happen.

“Why did you kiss me?” He asks instead, because it’s a safer question.

Jeffrey shrugs, and the movement rubs across Ziyi’s stomach. “You were sad.” Jeffrey sounds sad himself, now. “We were both sad, and I thought that if me being less sad would make you less sad, then maybe the both of us being sad wouldn’t be that terrible after all.”

Ziyi thinks about it for a moment. “Are you still sad?” He wonders.

“No.” Jeffrey says, confident, and calm. “Not here.” Ziyi’s heart speeds up at those words, and Jeffrey makes a quiet noise of amazement as the pulse beneath his head speeds up.

“I don’t think you should be afraid anymore either.” Ziyi says, because Jeffrey is in love with him. Jeffrey loves him, and Ziyi has made the choice to stop loving his soulmate, and maybe perhaps this turn of events means that Ziyi can choose, maybe, to learn to love someone else.

Jeffrey sits up fully then, and stares curiously at Ziyi. Ziyi stares back, because he was brave before and he can continue to be brave now. Neither of them are wearing a shirt, and Ziyi had never been more aware of the rise and fall of Jeffrey’s chest, the way he breathes in and out, his sharp jawline and dimples– the very two things that attracted him to Jeffrey in the first place.

“Be less sad with me.” Jeffrey says, and it’s not the most conventional of questions, but it’s the one that makes the most sense in the moment.

Ziyi thinks about life for a moment, and the choices he’s made to get to this point. He thinks of all the times he’s said no– to his parents when they asked him to pursue a different goal, to his teammates when they asked him to open up to them, to his parents again when they asked him to come home, to Cai Xukun when he asked Ziyi to stay with him. He thinks about it, and considers everything, and decides that if he were to say yes to one thing– to one person, then it would be here, to Jeffrey, right now.

“Alright.” He says, and the words taste sweet on his lips and do not numb his tongue. “Let’s be less less sad together, then.”

Jeffrey kisses him again, and the sweetness does not go away.

---

Life is a series of choices.

I Will Always Remember is fun. It’s interesting, and inspiring, and Ziyi gets distracted sometimes when Jeffrey is in the same room as him sometimes but that’s okay. It’s strange, to no longer fear the way Jeffrey makes him feel, to no longer be afraid of Jeffrey’s beauty and never ending well of love, but above all else I Will Always Remember is a good stage. A calm one.

It’s the kind of stage that would be the perfect last stage if Ziyi were to go home.

But he doesn’t, because before the next round of eliminations, Mask happens.

And for Wang Ziyi, Mask is, essentially, everything good in the world and everything bad in the world combined into one performance. Practicing and being on the same stage with Zhang-PD himself is amazing, and the number of them who have names comes close to outnumbering the number of those that don’t. Ziyi finds himself oddly proud of that.

The bad part is that Xukun is on the team with them. It is the first time in a very long time in which Ziyi has prolonged exposure to the fiery spirit that is Cai Xukun, and he’s surprised at how different it feels. He’s not afraid, not anymore, not of him, even though the distance between them now makes their relationship strained and separated where it was amicable and brotherly before.

What makes it worse is that Xukun doesn’t try to fix the gap between them. It’s obvious that he notices it, ever so often glancing in Ziyi’s direction, but he allows the separation between the two of them to remain, and it’s just another reminder that Xukun can never, because why would he?

Ziyi finds himself, throughout the rehearsals, sticking to Han Mubo’s side instead. It’s weird, to not be in the same group as Jeffrey anymore, but Han Mubo is a constant that protects him from Xukun, whether he realizes it or not.

Ziyi finds out that Han Mubo does, in fact, realize the fact that he’s being used as a shield.

“Jeffrey’s not your name, is it?” Mubo asks him during dinner one night, and out of context, the question would make absolutely no sense. Ziyi understands it, though, what Han Mubo is trying to ask him, and immediately reaches for his wrist to makes sure it’s still covered. He’s starting to hate the cafeteria and all the emotional conversations it produces under the chatter of other trainees and exhausted groans of those who have practiced too hard and for too long.

“No.” Ziyi says, because he has no reason to hide anything from Han Mubo. Ziyi would probably trust Jeffrey with his life by now, and if Jeffrey trusts the parents of the OACA company, then so will he.

Han Mubo laughs. “I didn’t think so.” He doesn’t continue the conversation, and Ziyi doesn’t offer more information, so the two of them eat quickly in silence.

Qin Fen walks in a while later, and slumps into the chair next to Han Mubo with a pained sigh.

“‘Sup.” He says, when he notices Ziyi sitting with his soulmate. Ziyi nods back in return.

They sit for a while, together, none of them saying much. Ziyi wouldn’t claim to be close with the OACA members, not by a long shot, but he thinks he’s spent enough time with them to understand, very basically, how they must work.

“Does it bother you that Jeffrey isn’t my soulmate?” Ziyi asks. Neither Qin Fen nor Han Mubo look particularly surprised by the question.

Qin Fen laughs, and just as Ziyi thought, Han Mubo lets him take over the conversation. “Should it?” His tone is light and playful, but Ziyi can tell how serious he is. “Do you love him?”

“No.” Ziyi says, and the forcefulness of his own reply shocks him. “No.” He repeats, softer. “But I think I could, given enough time.”

Qin Fen nods, as though he expected that answer, and Ziyi hates how easily Qin Fen can read him. Read everyone. “Do you love your soulmate?”

“I don’t.” Ziyi replies, and his words are just as forceful as they were before– only this time, he doesn’t bother to fix them. “Not anymore.”

It’s the kind of interrogation that Ziyi would expect from actual parents looking out for their kid, and it’s surprisingly comforting to realize that Jeffrey has somehow managed to accumulate an entire set of parents in addition to the ones he already has.

“Why not?” Qin Fen leans forward in his chair, across Han Mubo’s body, and Ziyi can see their matching earrings dangle right in front of him. “If they’re your soulmate, shouldn’t you love them?”

Ziyi considers this for a moment. He had never before thought about why he should or shouldn't love his soulmate. To him, Cai Xukun had always been part of the goal– someone meant for a better him in a more successful future. Loving Cai Xukun had been like loving his future self, but falling in love with Jeffrey now means loving the person he is in this moment, right here and right now.

“He’s still a person.” Ziyi states, and notices how neither Qin Fen nor Han Mubo seem surprised by his use of pronoun. “If he hasn’t given me a reason to love him, I won’t.”

They both smile, and Ziyi thinks he did something right. Passed a test, maybe, or proved something to people who perhaps already believed in him from the beginning.

“And you’ll love Jeffrey someday, right?” Han Mubo asks him, possibly as a confirmation.

Ziyi thinks of  dreams and of the stage, with the lights that shine hot and the audience that turns him into a summer sky that reminds him of the night he saw the stars in Jeffrey’s eyes.

“Yes.” He says, proudly, because someday he will be a man in love. “I think I will.”

That night, under the cover of the blanket and the stars, Jeffrey unwraps Ziyi’s wrist. He likes doing it, says it’s comforting, and Ziyi likes Jeffrey’s hands on his bare skin, so for the most part it all works out.

“Does it bother you that it’s not your name?” Ziyi asks as Jeffrey traces the lines burned into his skin reverently. His fingers spark electricity in Ziyi’s bones, ice and fire, something unseeable and without name, but he might just die if Jeffrey stops touching him, so he says nothing.

“Should it?” Jeffrey muses, and places a wet kiss on the marks. Ziyi shudders.

“I don’t think it should.” Jeffrey says calmly, when Ziyi doesn’t answer. “I love you, and someday you’ll love me too, and it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s me on your wrist or not, because the universe cannot tell you who to love.”

Ziyi loves the stage. He loves performing, and he loves music, and he loves dancing. He wants to spend the rest of his life doing what he loves, and if that’s all part of the universe’s plan, then that’s okay.

Sometimes, though, despite the name on his wrist, Ziyi thinks that the universe gave him Jeffrey too.

“You should still stop covering it up, though.” Jeffrey chides. “It’s beautiful, and covering up your wrist all the time can’t be good for your health.”

Ziyi laughs. “Maybe.” He says, but he knows that with Jeffrey, he has nothing to worry about.

He has nothing to fear with Jeffrey by his side. Besides, Jeffrey wouldn’t let him spend the rest of his life hiding, anyways.

---

Here’s the thing about soulmates.

The concept, in general, is simple. Some time ago, in some country, somewhere, two people were born with blackened burns on their wrist that developed into someone else’s given name upon reaching a mature age. There was no science behind it. Neither of them knew the person named on their wrist.

Years later, the world’s very first pair of soulmates found each other while on vacation in France. They spent time together, and immediately fell in love with each other, and spent the rest of their life together, happy, because they had found someone made just for them.

Ziyi tells this story to Jeffrey the night before the Mask performance, both of them too worked up to sleep.

“I know this story.” Jeffrey laughs. “My parents told it to me when I was young.”

The story of soulmates is beautiful, and inspiring, and the very thing that made the unmarked incredibly jealous of those who were.

The problem is that as a child, Ziyi had heard hundreds of stories of soulmates who didn’t work out. There were those who never found each other, those who’s soulmate was unmarked (like him), and those who worked so well with their soulmate that they somehow managed to destroy each other and tear their own lives apart even as they fell in love.

Ziyi tells these stories to Jeffrey, too, because he needs Jeffrey to know the whole truth, not just the pretty side of it.

“I know these stories, too.” Jeffrey says, quiet and sad. “My parents told me of them when I was older.”

“Why do you think it is?” Ziyi asks that same night, half asleep and dreaming. “Why do you think the universe told me to love Cai Xukun when it’s you that I’ve almost completely fallen for.”

Jeffrey might be sleeping, Ziyi doesn’t know. The measured breaths send Ziyi closer and closer to slumber, and it’s just when he starts to drift away that he hears Jeffrey speak.

“I think that soulmates are telling you who will be really easy for you to love.” Jeffrey whispers, lips unmoving. “Soulmates aren’t the only person you’ll ever fall in love with, if that’s what you choose, but they’re just someone you can work well with who will also be easy to love.”

Ziyi considers this, considers Cai Xukun and his smile and considers the easy way Han Mubo and Qin Fen work together. He considers Zhang-PD, who has probably never shown his wrist to anyone, not even his bandmates, and thinks of what an awful life it must be to confine yourself to one single name. He considers Jeffrey and how easy it is to love him, and thinks that perhaps Jeffrey might be wrong, in this, because loving Jeffrey is probably the easiest thing he’s done ever.

“Call me selfish, but I rather like that you’ve chosen me.” Jeffrey says, and his eyes crinkle and smile and laugh.

Ziyi tries his best, but he cannot resist it. “Hey you hey you hey pick me, ei ei.” He sings under his breath, to the tune of the old song they’ve nearly forgotten. Jeffrey laughs out loud, louder than he should, and Ziyi listens as the sheets on the bed next to them rustle and move.

“Will you two shut up and go to sleep?” Ruibin groans. It’s not the first time he’s expressed complaints about their relationship, ranging from “is that allowed?” to “get a room you two” (to which they reply “yes” and “we are in our room” respectively), but Ziyi knows that he is secretly happy for them.

“Alright.” Jeffrey laughs. “Sorry.”

So they sleep.

I’m glad I’ve chosen you too, Ziyi thinks, and whether or not he actually says it outloud or not is for him to know only.

---

“Hey.” Xukun approaches him after rehearsal, while other trainees are getting their makeup and hair done. “Can we talk?”

Ziyi would be scared, because those words are terrifying words in themselves, but he’s long ago stopped fearing Cai Xukun and his name on Ziyi’s wrist.

“Sure.” He replies instead, and leads Xukun into the hallways, where it’s quieter.

It’s clear that Xukun doesn’t quite know what to say, most likely only choosing to approach Ziyi on a whim. He shuffles from foot to foot, unsure and strangely quiet, and Ziyi isn’t quite sure how to prompt him into speaking. He could bring up how uncomfortable things between them are, but after a few minutes of soul searching, Ziyi realizes that it doesn’t quite matter to him whether or not Xukun resolves the fight in his head because Ziyi has already solved things in his own.

“Is everything alright with you?” Is the question Xukun ends up landing on, and it’s not the most specific question, but it’s a start. “You’ve been acting different for a while.”

If by different he means Ziyi is no longer hanging onto his every move and every word, Ziyi would have to agree.

“Things are fine with me.” Ziyi says, and watches the way Xukun’s eyes scrunch together, even more confused than he was previously. Ziyi gets a sick sort of satisfaction from this before remembering that he probably still owes to to explain to Xukun what exactly has been happening, even if he doesn’t share the whole story.

“Things weren’t fine before,” He clarifies, “But they’re better now.”

Xukun laughs, and he sounds almost a little bit angry. “Are you going to tell me what was wrong, then?”

“No.” Ziyi says, and he doesn’t feel bad about it. “I don’t think so.”

Xukun looks at him, shocked, clearly not expecting that reply. “Why not?” He almost whines. “I would tell you if something happened to me.”

And he would, Ziyi knows that. He knows that Xukun trusts him, and he trusts Xukun too, but he’s not sure if he trusts him enough to share this particular secret with him. Ziyi knows that there’s a difference between telling Jeffrey what’s on his wrist and telling Xukun what’s hidden beneath his sleeve.

Sometimes, Ziyi takes the bandages off and relies on a long sleeved sweater to hide the name. It’s a stupid thing to do, he knows that, but on those days Jeffrey will stick his hands under Ziyi’s sleeves and trace the smoothness of his exposed wrist, which kind of makes it all worth it.

But today they have a performance, and that means the bandage is tight around Cai Xukun’s name.

“It’s not really my story to tell.” Ziyi says instead, because it’s his story yeah but it’s also Jeffrey’s story too, and maybe even Zhang-PD’s and Han Mubo’s and Qin Fen’s as well.

Xukun huffs, the Ziyi feels the air hot against his face. “Will you tell me someday in the future, then?” He asks, and Ziyi’s mind immediately travels to a future where the two of them are still in touch, in a relationship that has somehow stood the test of time and the weight of being an idol.

Ziyi thinks about it, yes, but he thinks of a friendship with Cai Xukun that is more brotherly than anything, where the two of them work well together not because they’re meant to be in love but because they’re just really good people who are chasing the same dream and find it easy to get along with one another.

“No.” Ziyi says again, because he’s realized something very important during his time on this show. It’s something that the mentors didn’t teach him but helped him figure out for himself, something Han Mubo and Qin Fen and their matching burn marks shed some light on, something that Jeffrey whispered to him in his dreams and in the stars.

All this time, all these years, Ziyi has dreamed of one day being equal with his soulmate, of being at the point where the two of them can stand side by side and be treated the exact same way. He’s hoped for the opportunity to tell him then, to tell him the truth and show him his wrist and say “see, here is your name” because perhaps if they were equal Cai Xukun would be more inclined to accept it.

The problem is that they are not equal. And to Ziyi, they will never be equal.

It’s like this. Ziyi is chasing an impossible dream, one that only exists in his imagination. And, he will always be the most important person in his own life.

Wang Ziyi will always be the most important person in Wang Ziyi’s life, and that means that Cai Xukun will never be his equal, because Wang Ziyi will always think of Wang Ziyi first. He will consider others, of course, consider their aspirations and their own dreams, and perhaps sacrifice positions and opportunities to better those around him, but in the stuff that really truly matters, Wang Ziyi will take care of Wang Ziyi. Wang Ziyi will let himself be taken care of.

Love yourself, Jeffrey had implied, through his love and his affection and all the little things he's done for Ziyi. Don’t hide behind the name that isn’t yours.

Don’t let him define you.

“We’re cool, though.” Ziyi says to Xukun. He looks slightly mollified by this, and maybe even a little bit confused still, but Xukun is above all else a good person who understands that sometimes, the most important things are not meant to be shared.

“Cool bro.” Xukun says, and they both laugh.

Ziyi does not know where they will be, in the years to come. His friendship with Xukun might fail, as with many of the other trainees, and there will always be that chance that his relationship with Jeffrey will dissolve into nothing over time and distance.

Still, there is no point thinking about the negatives. Things will always go wrong, such as the eliminations to come, or the eventual debut of the top nine, but those doesn’t matter in this moment. Not when they have a show to put on.

Ziyi and Xukun go backstage together, arms linked and talking about something or the other, both of them laughing. Xukun’s arm brushes against the burn on Ziyi’s wrist, the one that turned from a blotch to a name to a curse and back into nothing, and it doesn’t hurt at all.

Jeffrey is already there, and when he sees the way Ziyi clings to Xukun and Xukun clings to Ziyi, he smiles. Ziyi makes eye contact with him, thinks of the stars, and smiles back.

~fin~