Work Text:
It was a familiar sentence: Ye Xiu Retired! Only, the name had changed from Ye Qiu to Ye Xiu… It was insignificant, really. But Ye Qiu was the name Sun Xiang grew up hearing. He missed it sometimes, but then he wondered why he should miss a lie. Why he should want a lie.
Sun Xiang tossed his phone down on the couch and flung his forearm over his eyes. Ye Xiu was retiring, and apparently for real this time. He couldn’t believe the audacity of the man. Lead a mostly rookie team to the heights of Glory, win a fourth championship at twenty-eight years old, retire. Perfectly logical sequence of events right there.
But Sun Xiang was no longer in the habit of fooling himself; he knew exactly why he was angry, and it wasn’t because he thought it was a waste (which it was). It was because Ye Xiu had beaten him, beaten him in just about every possible way, and now he was leaving. Just like that. Like it never meant anything.
Why should it, though? Ye Xiu beat a lot of people. Everyone, actually. It wasn’t anything personal, Sun Xiang knew. It wasn’t even especially meaningful, and yet he was personally offended. Disappointed. Pissed off.
“You can’t just leave,” he whispered against his skin. He imagined it was someone else’s skin he was breathing these words onto. But the fantasy only played out in his mind for a brief moment before he forced himself back to reality.
Ye Xiu could leave and nothing Sun Xiang did would ever stop him.
* * *
Sun Xiang never liked feeling irrelevant. Growing up, he had longed for the admiration and praise of others. When he got it, he thrived on it, let it get to his head. His parents raised him to be proud of his accomplishments and so he learned pride a little too well. Everything he did that someone else didn’t was a victory. He compared himself to his siblings, his classmates, even the people he played with online. He wanted to have the better part of his family’s love, the highest grades, the most achievements. Sun Xiang didn’t settle. It wasn’t in him.
Ye Xiu made him settle. Because Sun Xiang could only be as good as he could get, but “as good as he could get” was still not as good as Ye Xiu. The guy broke records like most people stepped on ants: carelessly and without even meaning to. Sun Xiang knew he did mean to, that he worked hard to, but it wasn’t like you could tell just by looking. From a distance, Ye Xiu pulled it off with ease.
It had infuriated him when they first met. Well, actually, that first meeting was downright civilized compared to their following encounters. They collided again and again, and Sun Xiang was always beaten down with little fanfare. Ye Xiu put him in his place effortlessly, sparing him not a word or a glance if he could help it, and when he did, it was just to tell him off. To tell him he was wrong.
Sun Xiang became bitter. Who wouldn’t, in that situation? He was determined to show Ye Xiu that no, he was right, and Ye Xiu was wrong. He wanted to snatch a championship with his own two hands, take One Autumn Leaf and throw him like a wrecking ball at everyone else in the Alliance. He knew he could do it if he worked hard enough, so he worked hard. If he wanted to prove himself, then there was nothing to do but do it, and laugh in Ye Xiu’s face afterward.
Yet, no matter how hard he worked, he still lost in the end. The Challenger League was the final straw. By all means, he should have won…but he didn’t.
Ye Xiu was right from the start: Sun Xiang was wrong.
* * *
Going to Samsara was the first step among many in correcting his mistakes. There, Sun Xiang learned that pride had no place. Even Zhou Zekai wasn’t proud, so how could he swagger into the practice room in the morning and not lose face for it? So he unlearned his pride—not completely, but just enough so that it didn’t get in the way. So he could see the things he’d overlooked in the past.
Next, he stopped his reckless efforts to prove himself at every turn and focused on making his recent growth count. If he’d fucked up so bad so as to lose the Challenger League and Samsara still wanted him, then he’d proven himself already, hadn’t he? He even got to keep One Autumn Leaf. Yes, there were doubts about how well he would fit in, if the team would sink because of him, if he was even worth it. But Jiang Botao made it clear that all they needed from Sun Xiang was hard work and everything would turn out fine.
Sun Xiang was no stranger to hard work. He’d never stopped working hard, not a moment in his life. So he threw his back into it and just—made it all work.
Samsara made it to the finals, rather unsurprisingly. Sun Xiang’s presence completed Samsara, and they hadn’t exactly been lacking to begin with. Zhou Zekai was easy to coordinate with and easy to talk to, even if he didn’t really talk back. His other teammates were as far away from dead weights as could be, and he came to appreciate them in ways he hadn’t appreciated his teammates in the past.
They were a team. He worked hard and they worked hard and they all got somewhere together.
But Happy. But Ye Xiu. Of course, Ye Xiu. When was it not Ye Xiu?
After he’d gotten over the shock of those 6.5 seconds, Sun Xiang had been furious. Disappointed, despondent, because they’d made it so far and worked so hard and still fallen short at the end. But mostly he was furious.
Why couldn’t he just have one thing? One little thing to hold over Ye Xiu, to have so that Ye Xiu didn’t?
He did everything right, yet still, he lost.
* * *
As if the reality of Ye Xiu wasn’t difficult enough to handle, he also had to haunt Sun Xiang’s dreams. Sometimes Sun Xiang saw him standing atop the stage of the last match of the regular season, the confirmation of his 37-win streak resounding throughout the stadium. Sun Xiang hadn’t even been there, but the picture was so clear in his mind, he wondered if he had seen too many videos of that moment.
Sometimes they were playing Glory. Lord Grim was at Level 70, which he hadn’t been when they’d actually met in-game, but dreams didn’t have to make sense. In these episodes, he and Ye Xiu faced off directly as if no one else was there. Instead of Sun Xiang catching him with a Dragon Raises Its Head, Ye Xiu caught him instead.
He wasn’t even a battle mage. It made no sense, but Sun Xiang always woke up in a cold sweat after those dreams.
The other dreams… They were a little more ambiguous. Sun Xiang would just be having an ordinary dream, and then Ye Xiu would show up and take over. He became the center of events, the center of Sun Xiang’s world. And when Sun Xiang reached out to touch him, an energizing shock would travel up his spine.
Ye Xiu would smile at him and pull him closer. His hand would rise up, fingers lightly skimming Sun Xiang’s throat. For some reason, that made Sun Xiang furious. He wanted to clutch at Ye Xiu’s neck instead, slam him against the nearest flat surface, be the one in control for once—but he was frozen.
Ye Xiu would wrap his hand around Sun Xiang’s throat and squeeze, smiling the whole while.
Sun Xiang would open his eyes to crumpled pillows and cum stains in his underwear.
* * *
Much to his eternal embarrassment, it was Zhou Zekai who was the first to notice. He noticed before Sun Xiang did, even, because Sun Xiang was oblivious and bitter and couldn’t tell the difference between resentment and lust.
They’d just had their first meeting as the Chinese Glory Team, or whatever the hell they were going to be called. Ye Xiu showing up like that had been—more unexpected than it should have been, honestly, because who else was going to lead them? Regardless, he was surprised, shaken to his core just at seeing Ye Xiu’s face. His stupid pale face and uninterested golden eyes and compelling lips—
Needless to say, the meeting had been hell and a half. How much of it he actually absorbed, he didn’t know, but by the end of it, Sun Xiang was left wondering if he should go find the chairman and submit his resignation. This national team stuff was just not for him.
Never in a million years had he allowed himself to imagine, to seriously consider he and Ye Xiu working together. He thought Ye Xiu would join Tyranny before that happened.
Zhou Zekai walked alongside him to the stairway, silent as usual. They’d both refused to wait for the elevators with the others by some unspoken agreement. Sun Xiang didn’t tell him what he was thinking, but Zhou Zekai knew him well enough by now to read his agitation.
It was only when they were waiting for their ride outside the building that Zhou Zekai asked, “Good?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Zhou Zekai’s pale eyes bored into the side of his face. “You’re…”
Sun Xiang crossed his arms and turned away. It was childish, but whatever Zhou Zekai had to say, he was sure he didn’t want to hear it.
“You want him.”
His head snapped around. “What?”
He would have expected Zhou Zekai to be blushing or something, but he just watched Sun Xiang calmly, curiously, a little sadly. He didn’t say anything else.
Sun Xiang turned to him fully, planting his feet on the sidewalk like he was expecting a fight. “What do you mean. Who are you talking about.”
“Senior Ye,” Zhou Zekai said, blinking.
Sun Xiang’s mouth dropped open. “I do not want him. I want him to fuck off.”
Now Zhou Zekai was giving him an odd look. “…Rude.”
“I don’t care if it’s rude! It’s the truth. He ruins everything.”
The odd look became understanding. “Because…we lost?”
Sun Xiang gritted his teeth. Because they lost, yes, but because of the past two years as well. Ye Xiu ruined everything Sun Xiang wanted to achieve. Because of Ye Xiu, Sun Xiang always had to settle for less and less and less. He had to lower his head and admit he could never measure up.
He hated that. He hated not being the best, when he knew he could be. If Ye Xiu weren’t here, he could—
But…no. He couldn’t. Ye Xiu wasn’t here, first of all; not really. He was still retired, more or less. He wasn’t going to come back to their regular old Chinese pro scene, now that he’d set his sights on the international stage. But there was still Zhou Zekai. There was still Huang Shaotian. There was still Wang Jiexi, Yu Feng, Zhang Jiale—dozens of players who could one day rise to the top.
Sun Xiang could never be the best, not in the way he used to dream of. And chances were he’d never be able to replicate the accomplishments of all these people. He couldn’t even promise to surpass them. He could only forge his own path, like he’d been doing all along.
Work hard and get somewhere.
He told himself this, but he couldn’t calm down. Because he was angry at Ye Xiu, and he wanted Ye Xiu, and he was only now realizing it.
He’d never wanted what Ye Xiu had. He had accepted that he wouldn’t get it, and anyway, why should he chase after someone else’s shadow, when there was so much else he could do that had never been done before?
No, Sun Xiang wanted him. And he could never have him. He wasn’t good enough.
That pissed him off most of all.
* * *
Still, if even Sun Xiang wasn’t good enough…was there someone who was?
This question haunted him in his sleep. He would lie in bed and flip through his colleagues’ accomplishments like flashcards.
Huang Shaotian won a single championship. He was one of the Golden Generation. He was known as the deadliest opportunist in the scene. His trash-talking was nearly as infuriating as Ye Xiu’s. Although he came across as a bit air-headed, he was actually frighteningly intelligent. He and Ye Xiu got along a little too well despite their bickering.
He was childish and immature. Ye Xiu would probably kill himself on the first date; Sun Xiang knew he would.
Wang Jiexi won two championships. Having debuted in Season 3, he was closer than anyone else on the team to Ye Xiu’s seniority. His Magician play style was famous nationwide and, soon enough, probably worldwide. He was the captain of his team, he was so well-versed in tactics he could qualify as the fifth Master Tactician, and his life was ridiculously put together. Ye Xiu liked to taunt him with “Big-Eyed Wang,” but he didn’t seem to actually care about the eye.
Still, not seeming to care wasn’t the same as not caring. Wang Jiexi was old and would likely retire in a couple of years. What would Ye Xiu want with someone like him?
Su Mucheng and Fang Rui were probably the people Ye Xiu was closest to on a combined professional and personal level. Su Mucheng was one of the Golden Generation, the number one launcher in China. She was pretty, popular, and seemed to have Ye Xiu eating out of the palm of her hand most of the time. Not only that, but she succeeded him as captain of Team Happy.
She was vapid and shallow. She spent more time watching dramas online than actually training, and she ate too much for a girl. If Ye Xiu decided to go for a woman, he definitely wouldn’t go for her.
Fang Rui was well known for his incredible aim and his dirty play style, both things Ye Xiu praised him for. “Golden Right Hand” came across as a bit excessive to Sun Xiang, something he said to Fang Rui’s face once (he was laughed at). He had served as Ye Xiu’s vice-captain, helped stabilize Team Happy over the course of Season 10, and was still one of the most outstanding players out there. He hadn’t made captain, but that didn’t seem to mean anything.
He was irrelevant. Maybe he and Ye Xiu had things in common, but he wasn’t especially handsome and he was pretty much at the height of his career. He could only go downhill from here.
Xiao Shiqin, Yu Wenzhou, and Zhang Xinjie were Master Tacticians just like Ye Xiu. The four of them, with some input from Wang Jiexi, spent more time together than anyone else on the team. Sun Xiang had overheard their conversations before and understood maybe thirty-four percent of them.
Yu Wenzhou was a captain despite his underwhelming hand speed, he was almost as put-together as Wang Jiexi, and he could control Huang Shaotian. Perhaps Wang Jiexi had been Ye Xiu’s first pick for captain of the national team, but Yu Wenzhou wore his status well.
He was slow and soft and generally a pushover. Controlling Huang Shaotian was one thing; controlling Ye Xiu was another. Ye Xiu would want someone stronger, more capable, right?
Zhang Xinjie…yeah, Sun Xiang couldn’t see much there. Same went for Xiao Shiqin, honestly. They were smart and good at playing Glory, big whoop. Sun Xiang couldn’t be bothered to be threatened.
(Sometimes Sun Xiang caught his former teammate eying Ye Xiu in a terribly, achingly familiar manner. It sent a jolt of anger and indignation searing through Sun Xiang’s body every time he noticed. Maybe because Sun Xiang knew he was no better; maybe because Xiao Shiqin had almost as much reason to feel this way as Sun Xiang did.)
Zhang Jiale and Chu Yunxiu seemed to be decent friends with Ye Xiu. Zhang Jiale had plenty of status, but not much to back it up, what with his string of second place finishes. Ye Xiu took great joy in poking at that sore spot now and then, and the resulting explosions were always a sight to see.
Chu Yunxiu…was even less impressive than Zhang Jiale. Like Su Mucheng, she seemed content to treat all this as a joke.
Sun Xiang couldn’t imagine these two people, who always faltered at the last stage, attracting Ye Xiu in any way, shape, or form. They were weak, that was it.
Tang Hao and Li Xuan didn’t appear to interest Ye Xiu beyond their abilities as players. Li Xuan was the best phantom demon in the country and Tang Hao the best brawler. They were captains and All-Stars and little else. Sun Xiang didn’t concern himself with them.
In reality, the person who should threaten Sun Xiang the most was Zhou Zekai. Gorgeous, popular, the best of his class, captain of a two-time champion team, gentle, kind, intelligent. Maybe Ye Xiu had trumped him, too, but with Ye Xiu out of the picture from a national perspective, Zhou Zekai was free to reign in China. And he was directly above Sun Xiang in Samsara.
From what he’d observed, though, Zhou Zekai had never taken that kind of liking to anyone, ever. And…he knew what was going on with Sun Xiang, so he wouldn’t make a move, would he? Even if he wanted to, how would he even manage, being that close-mouthed?
Sun Xiang couldn’t figure out who he should hate the most out of everyone on this list. Huang Shaotian, Wang Jiexi, Yu Wenzhou, Su Mucheng, and Fang Rui appeared the most incriminating from both an objective standpoint and a subjective one. As a result, Sun Xiang focused the full force of his anger and irritation on them.
It was downright infantile, it could easily create problems within the team, but it was better than focusing on Ye Xiu.
* * *
“Look, you little shit, I don’t know what the hell your game is but you better stop it right the fuck now. Who the hell has time to deal with your bullshit? Nobody, that’s fucking who. Get yourself together for god’s sake, we’re tired of you and it’s barely been a month.”
Sun Xiang gazed up at Huang Shaotian with a furrowed brow. “Excuse me?”
Huang Shaotian stared down his nose at him. “You fucking heard me, punk. I know you’re obsessed with Ye Xiu and all, but what the fuck does that have to do with any of us? You’re here to play in the name of this country and that’s it, can’t you manage even that?”
“The hell do you think I’ve been doing—”
“Wasting our fucking time, that’s what,” Huang Shaotian retorted with narrowed eyes. “And—”
“And who the fuck said I’m obsessed with that bastard?”
Huang Shaotian snorted. “Nobody has to say it, it’s so goddamn obvious. Listen here, you idiotic baby—fix your issues, take a breather, talk to Ye Xiu, I don’t know, but either do something about this bullshit or quit. You’re good with a battle mage, I’ll give you that, but there are other good battle mages out there, including Ye Xiu himself, so get off your high horse and be professional. You’re going to drag this team right the fuck down.”
Sun Xiang closed his mouth.
“Personally, if I were you, I would talk to Ye Xiu. Not that I’m giving you advice or anything,” Huang Shaotian called over his shoulder as he turned to leave the training room, “I don’t care about your dumb ass that much, but at this rate you’re going to have to talk whether you like it or not. He’s not exactly happy with you, to absolutely nobody’s surprise.”
After Huang Shaotian was gone, Sun Xiang stayed in his seat, frozen. Everyone had already left; since he was too aggravated a lot of the time to focus properly on training, he trained in his free time, too. Practice had been cut short today for some official reason or other, so he thought he would have the training room to himself.
He should have known better. Huang Shaotian was nothing if not an opportunist, and he was especially easy to annoy. Sun Xiang didn’t find it strange that he’d been the first to snap.
But—everyone knew about his “obsession”? Everyone saw the way he looked at Ye Xiu? Everyone was just…aware of it? And they’d endured his attitude all this time without even having to wonder—
Fuck. Fuck.
“You’re really determined to ruin my life, aren’t you,” Sun Xiang whispered to someone who wasn’t there.
He knew the truth, though. He was the one ruining his own life. All he was obligated to do was show up, practice, cooperate, listen. And he couldn’t manage even half of that.
Sun Xiang really was going to drag this team down.
But what could he do? It was all Ye Xiu’s fault. It was the others’ fault for having parts of him that Sun Xiang could never have. Maybe if Sun Xiang could have something of Ye Xiu’s to himself—if he could just be properly acknowledged, if he could do something to prove that he was better, or at the very least worthy—
Ye Xiu always took some time to praise the others personally, even Tang Hao, who was as contentious as Sun Xiang on a good day. But all Sun Xiang ever got was a generic “Good job” or “Nicely done.” He did everything right, every little thing, and that was all Ye Xiu thought he owed him.
Would he ever be good enough? He didn’t even have to measure up to Ye Xiu himself, but couldn’t he at least meet his standards?
The more time Sun Xiang spent practicing with the Chinese Glory Team, the more he thought that, no, he never could.
* * *
Why did Sun Xiang want to meet the bastard’s expectations, anyway? Just to impress him? What the fuck else did he have to do to impress him? Sun Xiang was impressive enough, wasn’t he? Maybe he had to win a championship, or maybe he had to beat him in a 1v1.
Maybe he had to prove to Ye Xiu that he wouldn’t stand to be ignored or set aside like he’d been since he’d arrived here.
Huang Shaotian had been correct, in the end: Ye Xiu did come to talk to him.
It would be just a rational discussion, he thought as he watched Ye Xiu sit down next to him out of the corner of his eye. It would be professional and objective because that was all Ye Xiu ever was with him and Sun Xiang was fully capable of following along. It would be fine, he would say what he would have to say to appease him, promise to treat the other members of the team like regular human beings, focus harder during their scheduled training sessions… He would tell Ye Xiu he’d continue to do everything right, just like he’d been doing all along.
“Sun Xiang,” Ye Xiu said. His voice—Sun Xiang’s name in his voice—sent a shiver down Sun Xiang’s spine. He was furious with himself for that, but Ye Xiu had such a nice voice. Mellow, a bit deep, not quite raspy but not quite smooth, either.
“Yes?” Sun Xiang got himself under control and turned to Ye Xiu with a blank face.
“I don’t think I need to tell you what I’m here for. You’ve been distant, snappish. There are some who think you don’t really want to be here, on this team. Is that true?”
Sun Xiang took a deep breath. “No. I want to be here.”
Ye Xiu considered him. “You haven’t acted like it. Why’s that? If there’s something you—”
“Personal reasons,” Sun Xiang said coldly. He met Ye Xiu’s eyes.
They stared at each other. Ye Xiu was as maddeningly unreadable as ever.
“You have a problem with me, why not just say it?”
Sun Xiang allowed himself to lean back against his chair in order to cover up how he’d suddenly stiffened. How stupid of him. If others had noticed his thing with Ye Xiu—his very one-sided thing—then why wouldn’t the man himself?
“I don’t have a problem with you,” was his brilliant response.
“Sure you don’t. Stop lying, kid, you suck at it.”
“I don’t have a problem with you that needs to be addressed,” he amended. “Don’t worry about it.”
“How can I not worry about it when it’s caused this much trouble?” Ye Xiu demanded, exasperated.
“It’s personal, goddamn. Get off my dick, okay? I’ll do better from now—” Sun Xiang paused. He wasn’t supposed to say he’d do better. He wouldn’t do better; this was already his best. He’d been doing it all right and Ye Xiu just hadn’t fucking deigned to notice.
Sun Xiang wasn’t the unworthy one here, okay? Ye Xiu was. Ye Xiu was unworthy of Sun Xiang’s “better.”
(Sun Xiang didn’t have “better.”)
“Sun Xiang,” Ye Xiu said quietly, “can you just—”
But he was no longer listening. There was a roaring in his ears like a tsunami crashing against the shore, and every last line of rational thought was just debris caught up in the current, swiftly carried away.
He surged forward, hand circling Ye Xiu’s neck. Their mouths slammed together.
Ye Xiu let slip a muffled sound of mingled alarm and surprise and tore his face away with a faint gasp. His arms were suddenly in the space between them, palms pushing against Sun Xiang’s chest. The force of it was greater than Sun Xiang would have expected, and he was successfully fended off.
“What the fuck,” Ye Xiu said, standing. His chest was moving up and down with the motion of his breathing. Sun Xiang thought he could spy the flutter of a racing pulse against his neck.
They were a match, then. For once.
After several moments of Sun Xiang’s silence, Ye Xiu snarled, “Sun Xiang! What the fuck was that?”
Sun Xiang pursed his lips, then raised trembling fingers to his forehead. He carefully brushed his hair back and tried to wipe away his sweat.
This was supposed to be a rational discussion.
“It’s you,” Sun Xiang blurted. “It’s you, it’s you who’s doing this to me. I didn’t want to, but why don’t you ever fucking care? I’m the best I can be and it doesn’t even matter to you. Maybe your best is better than mine but why the fuck can’t you appreciate what I already am? Why do you have such lofty fucking standards?”
Ye Xiu stared at him, golden eyes widening for a moment before they suddenly narrowed again. “Me? You just attack me and it’s my fault? You act like a brat for weeks and it’s my fault?”
“Yes!”
“You…” Ye Xiu laughed incredulously, but not like he found any of it funny. “You…nevermind. Don’t touch me again.”
And then he was gone.
Sun Xiang kicked his chair to death.
* * *
It would have been completely understandable if Sun Xiang received a notice asking him to pack his things and leave. He waited with bated breath for days. Every time one of the employees passed him in the halls of the Glory Alliance headquarters, he thought: This is it. The chairman is looking for me. I’m going to be kicked off the team.
I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.
But though it would certainly have been better for him (and his struggling sanity) if he’d never set foot in this place, Sun Xiang couldn’t regret it entirely. For a few weeks, at least, he got to be close to Ye Xiu. He got the opportunity to show him another side of himself, show him how much he’d grown. Ye Xiu had bowed out of the national Glory scene but he was still out there, not too far from Sun Xiang. They would have the chance to compete on the international stage together.
Well, not anymore, maybe. Sun Xiang had likely thrown away all his chances by now.
Amazingly enough, though, the incident went unremarked upon. Sun Xiang called in sick the day after, but when he came into practice the next morning, Ye Xiu didn’t treat him any differently. He just gave Sun Xiang a long look, said a casual greeting, and told him to sit down.
Sun Xiang was giddy with relief and excitement. He did something bad and got away with it. Ye Xiu was letting him get away with it.
Throughout the week, he noticed the way Ye Xiu’s eyes lingered on him more than the others and reveled in it. The others seemed to be staring at him a lot, too, especially when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. Su Mucheng was the only one brazen enough to be outright hostile with her words, her glances, her actions, but he felt the displeasure of the whole team weigh down on him.
Yet that was so insignificant compared to the headiness of Ye Xiu’s attention. Sure, outwardly their relationship appeared exactly the same as before the incident, but Sun Xiang could be certain of one thing: he’d proved something to Ye Xiu. And Ye Xiu definitely got the message.
Would he be staring at Sun Xiang so often otherwise?
It was at the end of their summer training program that Sun Xiang finally found the courage to approach Ye Xiu. He had suffered no consequences for what he’d done; even if Ye Xiu spurned him now—and he probably would, honestly—it couldn’t hurt Sun Xiang to try.
He thought he saw something in Ye Xiu’s eyes these past couple of weeks, something like calculation, like weighing and evaluating. It made Sun Xiang’s skin crawl, but it also excited him. What was Ye Xiu plotting?
Their oh-so-grand leader was sitting in one of the smaller training rooms. The window was cracked open and he was seated right beneath it, leisurely smoking a cigarette. His posture was relaxed, casual; in contrast, his expression was a bit tight.
“Bad thoughts?” Sun Xiang asked from the doorway.
Golden eyes flicked to him. Lit up by the faint sunlight from outside, Ye Xiu seemed infinitely more human, but somehow that only made Sun Xiang want him more.
He waited, but Ye Xiu didn’t answer, just gazed at him steadily for a few moments more before turning his head, as if to pretend he wasn’t there.
Sun Xiang huffed, amused despite himself, and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He was nothing if not spiteful.
Ye Xiu was watching him again, his expression changed from tight to expertly neutral. Sun Xiang circled around behind him and placed his hands gently on his shoulders.
Beneath his touch, Ye Xiu was anything but neutral.
“Let me help you,” Sun Xiang said, and began to massage tense muscles.
Ye Xiu didn’t say anything, but neither did he move. It felt like a victory to Sun Xiang, and he wanted to be pleased about it—he was pleased, to a certain extent—but he also knew that Ye Xiu was allowing this. Ye Xiu was allowing him to stay. Ye Xiu could say the word and Sun Xiang would be out of here, off the team, and far away from him.
But that was just how far Sun Xiang had fallen, he supposed. He wasn’t good enough, he didn’t measure up, he knew all that—why couldn’t he just cling onto this illusion of power? Why couldn’t he have this one little thing of Ye Xiu’s to himself?
He had endured so much. It was his due.
“Sun Xiang,” Ye Xiu said suddenly, “let’s make a deal.”
Sun Xiang, pulled out of his thoughts, frowned at the wall. “A deal?”
Ye Xiu pulled away from him, standing up. He turned to face Sun Xiang. “You want me, don’t you?”
Sun Xiang glared.
“This will be easier if you’re honest with me.”
“Yes, I want you. Fuck.”
Ye Xiu sighed softly, like he’d been hoping for a different answer but knew better than to expect it. “And you won’t settle for anyone else?”
That made Sun Xiang bristle. He had settled enough, hadn’t he? “No.”
“Then…” Ye Xiu placed his knee on the seat of the chair, closing the distance between them. “Then if I give you a little taste, will you behave? Hmm?”
What the… “A taste?”
A faint smirk tugged at Ye Xiu’s lips. It wasn’t seductive exactly, but it was inviting, knowing. His stare, however, was firm. Focused and a little disconcerting.
Who was the predator here? Sun Xiang had to ask himself. Who had the upper hand?
(Ye Xiu. It had always been Ye Xiu.)
“A taste of what you want. I’m generous, and I want you on this team.” Ye Xiu leaned a tiny bit closer.
Sun Xiang’s breath caught in his throat. “You…want me on the team?”
“Yes.”
His heart was beating so fast, it was about to punch a hole right through his chest. Past the white noise flooding his brain, he could hear his soft panting.
Without hesitation, he tangled his hand maliciously in Ye Xiu’s hair and pulled him forward.
“Give me a taste,” Sun Xiang whispered, and smiled wide.