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Lu Yao is an egoist. He’s a selfish man, self proclaimed and honestly so. He takes gifts as offered freely, and rarely considers when or how he should return them. He thinks, maybe, that that’s how he manages to get along so well with Qiao Chusheng. After all, how else would a viciously intelligent but spoilt stock trader fall in with a well-feared mafia lieutenant turned police inspector, than if there was some sort of compatibility. The compatibility, he thinks, lies in Chusheng’s willingness to give. Lu Yao would have to be blind not to see it, considering he’s the oft-beneficiary of such tendencies. For all his viciousness, the brutal streak that speaks to an early and thorough education in violence, Qiao Chusheng is overall, a person who prefers to give to others.
It’s evident in the indulgent, concerned and brotherly way he treats Bai Younning, the way he gives back and gives in to Bai Qili out of some deep-ingrained sense of duty. Sure, he surrounds himself with the trappings of a hedonist mafia lieutenant, expensive watches and girls on his arm, and yet at every turn he is willing to give. He hands the watches over to Lu Yao with barely a token objection, cares for the girls, when one looks a little deeper, spoils them and indulges. (There’s a reason he’s well liked). The first time Lu Yao even sees him covet anything for himself, is the love of Tong Li.
How fitting, that the first thing Lu Yao sees Qiao Chusheng do for himself is to love another person. It suits him, the romance, despite the seemingly ill fit of marriage fantasies on a man like Chusheng. Love suits him, loving people suits him. He’s a man who offers care as freely as he walks and breathes. Lu Yao sees it directed at him, in the gifts, in the ‘are you okay’ moments after Chusheng escapes from being attacked. (Chusheng is always the one who puts his body on the line. Always.) It’s another thing he covets, selfish thing that he is, but those days before they’d known what Tong Li was, he couldn’t possibly begrudge Chusheng that one ounce of selfishness. How could he. He’s egotistical, greedy. He understands wanting. Chusheng had smiled unreservedly and easily, giddily even, and Lu Yao had watched and collected and treasured the look of happiness on that face.
Things had gone wrong though, as he’d wished they wouldn’t. Of course she’d turned out to be the killer, and the victim all in one, and Chusheng’s face had walled up brick by brick and word by word as Lu Yao explained, and Lu Yao had to wish that Chusheng had never fallen in love in the first place. He’d said some cruel things, without thinking. His mouth always moved faster than his mind, so he’d suggested she never loved him. Poked, prodded, antagonized in the hopes of wrenching any reaction from Chusheng’s walled off, solemn face. He hadn’t reacted, not in annoyance or pain. Hadn’t even looked.
He’d wanted to curse, to scream or cry in Chusheng’s place. Or just to seize his shoulders and shake him. ‘Let yourself have this! If you let yourself have the love then why not the pain! Scream dammit!’
He hadn’t said that, of course. He’d finished solving the case, and had watched Chusheng arrest the woman he was in love with. He’d gone home and eaten. And worried. And gone back out, to the quiet, well lit bar Chusheng favors, and he’d sat with him. Waited for the pain then, too. It didn’t come. Chusheng said he didn’t love her, and when Lu Yao insisted, he gave himself the space of three tears, a sob, and a swig of whiskey before that face of his walled over again. Lu Yao stayed the rest of the night anyways, watched Chusheng drink and shove the pain down further and further, watched him refuse to allow himself more than the barest of comfort. He doesn’t understand.
Lu Yao loves Qiao Chusheng, but he doesn’t understand him, he never will. He doesn’t understand wanting to live a life without anything but the most superficial of comforts. He doesn’t understand giving every ounce of your life over to a job, to a man who uses you as a tool of power and influence, to your own sense justice or duty. To people who call on him for help and nothing else. To a woman who shares the same eyes with him, but not the stoic sense of honor and justice. To people like Lu Yao, who just appear and demand gifts and attention and care, and to who he offers it without a second thought. For nothing in return besides company, and perhaps the occasional meal. Lu Yao doesn’t understand, but he’s grateful. Maybe someday he’ll figure out how to say the words.