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Shen Yuan took one sip of his soup, set it down, and announced calmly, “We need to leave.”
Yue Qingyuan’s brow furrowed, hesitating as he glanced at the porcelain bowl. Shen Jiu had no such hesitations. As he swallowed a mouthful of soup, his expression became suffused with the particular brand of disdain and rage that only emerged around one person. Shen Yuan stared at him, hoping he’d refute Shen Yuan’s worst fears.
“We need to leave,” Shen Jiu agreed. “Now.”
The Shen twins stood in unison, Shen Jiu pickpocketing Yue Qingyuan’s wallet and tossing enough money to cover their meal on the table. Shen Jiu hustled Shen Yuan towards the entrance, leaving Yue Qingyuan to gather their coats, thank their server, and excuse their hasty departure, promising it had nothing to do with the meal.
But it had everything to do with the meal.
The meal, and the one who had cooked it.
Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu dodged patrons and wait staff, earning outrage that they ignored in their haste to make it out, but it was too late to run.
Shen Yuan halted in the tiny entrance, body cold as he saw Luo Binghe for the first time in three years.
His dark glittering eyes were as vibrant as ever and Shen Yuan couldn’t look away.
So his brother did so for him, stepping between them with chin high, eclipsing those eyes.
Shen Yuan came back to himself with a start.
“ You ,” Shen Jiu greeted with absolute loathing.
“Me,” Luo Binghe agreed, showing his teeth. Then, as though Shen Jiu were of no consequence, he tilted his head and stared past him to Shen Yuan. “Shizun, why are you leaving? Did you not like my cooking? You used to like it so much…” he crooned. “Won’t you stay for a little while?”
Before Shen Yuan could say a word, heart pounding in his chest, Yue Qingyuan stopped at Shen Jiu’s side, an iron wall for all his placid expression. “Luo Binghe,” he greeted. “It’s been some time. I see you’re faring well.”
“Shizun, talk to me,” Luo Binghe demanded.
“Move,” Shen Jiu snapped, and strode forward, catching Luo Binghe’s attention. “We’re leaving.”
“I refuse,” Luo Binghe countered, standing his ground defiantly, and Shen Yuan’s hands fisted, a cold sweat breaking out. Those brilliant eyes couldn’t look away from Shen Yuan for long, and flickered back to him now, leaving him desperate to hide in shame. “Shizun, after everything, don’t you owe me that much?”
“You ungrateful — ”
Yue Qingyuan appeared between them, sheer calm and strength obliterating resistance. “My hearing isn’t what it used to be, but I’m glad to see you’ve risen in the world, Luo Binghe,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll stop by the school. Everyone will be happy to see you. But please excuse our haste. We must be going now.”
A look passed between Yue Qingyuan and Luo Binghe that lasted for an eternity. Then, jaw tight, Luo Binghe stepped aside.
Shen Yuan escaped, all too aware of Luo Binghe’s gaze as he slipped away.
~*~
It took two hours for Shang Qinghua to return to his apartment. Shen Yuan didn’t mind the wait. It gave him time to piece a few things together and stoke his anger. When Shang Qinghua finally dared to poke his head inside, braced for an attack, Shen Yuan snapped, “Sit down, you coward.”
Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan stared at each other, Shang Qinghua debating whether he could make a run for it while Shen Yuan dared him to try. Shang Qinghua calculated the odds and came up short — the risk that Shen Yuan would chase him down and beat him to death before he made it to Mobei-Jun was too high.
So Shang Qinghua went for the next best option: groveling.
“I didn’t have a choice!” he wailed. “Luo Binghe forced me to give Yue Qingyuan that gift card, told me to talk the place up, then swore me to secrecy! Mobei-Jun just did that intense glare thing until I agreed! What was I supposed to do, go against Luo Binghe? Do you know who he is?! Do you know who his father is?!”
“Of course I know,” Shen Yuan answered with cold dignity. “Why do you think I left as soon as I realized?” He didn’t actually have a death wish.
“Then you get it,” Shang Qinghua protested. “After what you did — ”
Shen Yuan felt his heart freeze. “We’re not discussing this.”
They locked gazes again. Shang Qinghua flinched first, holding his hands up. Shen Yuan narrowed his eyes, annoyed, as Shang Qinghua’s instinct to yield and survive kept Shen Yuan from getting the fight he so badly wanted.
“Look, Bro, I get that it was complicated,” Shang Qinghua said. “And I don’t blame you. But...I get why Luo Binghe would want to talk with you too, that’s all.” There was enough sympathy in his face that Shen Yuan was reminded why they were friends. Luo Binghe had always been a stubborn student and Shen Yuan had no reason to believe he’d gotten less stubborn in the intervening three years. If Shang Qinghua hadn’t yielded, someone who wouldn’t have told Shen Yuan the truth would have.
Shen Yuan pushed up his glasses, sighing. “To force a meeting like that and then demand we speak… He wants me dead.”
Shang Qinghua inched tentatively closer and patted Shen Yuan’s shoulder. “I mean, I don’t know about that , dude. His father is Tianlang-Jun. If he wanted to have you killed, he wouldn’t have to try to get my help.”
“You didn’t see his face. When I left, Binghe stared at me like I’d thrust a sword into his chest.”
They sat in heavy silence for a long moment.
“You know,” Shang Qinghua said too brightly, “I really should be writing this down. It would be great for my next webnovel, the older teacher tortured by his past with his hot young student and — not the face! Not the face! Mobei-Jun, help! Help !”
~*~
Shen Yuan closed his eyes as he laid in bed, body aching from relentless tension.
He hadn’t had a choice, he’d told Shang Qinghua.
But didn’t everyone have a choice? It was still a choice to make such a choice, a choice to say there was no choice at all.
And Shen Yuan had erred twice — in the same moment, he’d both committed to the choice he hadn’t wanted to make, and taken away one of Luo Binghe’s.
He pressed his palms to his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. Whatever he’d been expecting after three years apart, it hadn’t been seeing Luo Binghe like this. Then again, perhaps he shouldn’t have had any expectations at all. He’d lost that right.
Even so, he couldn’t help but note how Luo Binghe had changed from the innocent child that Shen Yuan had once known. There was an air of intimidating, unyielding determination around him now. It suited him, just as the sharpness of his cheekbones, the breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his voice suited him.
With his lids closed though, Shen Yuan could still see the young man who’d dogged his heels, asking about this or that resource, brow furrowed as he tore apart his essays to craft something better, determined to work with Shen-Laoshi — Shizun, Luo Binghe insisted, to differentiate him from the other professors — as a graduate student, too. That mental image was superimposed with the new Luo Binghe, taller even than Shen Yuan, turning away from him in an imagined rage, discarding the history texts and notes that had once been his life’s blood. Discarding Shen Yuan too.
And then a third image erased both the previous ones, as Shen Yuan had seen Luo Binghe last: head bowed, sobbing and pleading with Shen Yuan, only to go white-faced and blank when Shen Yuan’s signature joined Yue Qingyuan’s and the Dean’s.
Fingers trembling, Shen Yuan opened his eyes.
~*~
Luo Binghe became Shen Yuan’s shadow.
He stood outside the hall of Shen Yuan’s classroom and tried to grab hold of Shen Yuan when he left. He delivered mysterious, prettily wrapped gifts that Shen Yuan threw away. One evening, Shen Yuan even spotted him hovering near his apartment complex, walking back and forth with a cardboard box in his hands for two hours, muttering to himself, until he saw the police approaching and disappeared.
Shen Yuan wondered who’d called the police. It hadn’t been him. He’d been glued to his window, staring down, wondering what he’d do if Luo Binghe gazed back up at him.
After two weeks his brother had had enough, and as usual, dragged Yue Qingyuan into matters.
“Here.” Shen Jiu slapped the file in front of Shen Yuan, startling him. He’d been staring blankly at his computer, fingers tapping his desk as he wondered whether he’d see Luo Binghe today.
“What is it?”
Shen Jiu dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the desk, arms crossed. Yue Qingyuan remained standing, hands tucked behind his back. “Things you’d already know, if you bothered to keep yourself appraised of what’s going on in the city,” Shen Jiu said snidely.
Which was to say, information he’d gathered from the less-than-legal contacts he’d maintained long after Shen Yuan and Yue Qingyuan had dropped them.
Shen Yuan flipped the file open. Shen Jiu was never anything but thorough. Not only did it include information on Luo Binghe, but Tianlang-Jun, his deceased birth mother Su Xiyan, and even — even his cousin, Zhuzhi Lang.
Shen Yuan stared at that name for a heartbeat longer than the others, remembering an earnest, awkward young man whose sense of gratitude was as absolute as his desire to repay it.
Swallowing down his thoughts, Shen Yuan skimmed the text beneath.
— Zhuzhi Lang discovered the identity of his cousin —
— Tianlang-Jun a fuerdai —
— to become a vital resource to his father’s company —
— a restaurant near his undergraduate campus --
— ties to Shen Yuan-Laoshi —
“I can have him killed if you want,” Shen Jiu commented, glancing at his younger brother through his lashes.
“Xiao Jiu!” Yue Qingyuan scolded. “Don’t say such things! You cannot end a life so casually!” Like Shen Jiu, however, he regarded Shen Yuan intently and offered, “But I am happy to speak with him, to make him understand that it is desired he leave you alone.”
“Ge, Qi-Ge,” Shen Yuan sighed, holding up his hand. “No one is killing anyone.” The you idiots went unvoiced, but not unheard.
“Yet,” Shen Jiu muttered. “Just make sure it’s the beast that dies, and not you.”
“Thanks,” Shen Yuan drawled.
“Perhaps it would be best if you were accompanied at all times until you have come to a decision as to how to address this,” Yue Qingyuan offered, smiling faintly. “Surely that’s a reasonable compromise.”
Shen Yuan’s gaze flickered between the two of them. So that’s what they’d come here for. “This isn’t really a negotiation, is it?”
Shen Jiu smiled, baring all of his teeth. “No.”
“Then let’s get going. I have class in twenty minutes.”
~*~
Shen Yuan had no idea how he’d managed to lose Liu Qingge — or who had forcibly ensured Liu Qingge was lost. A moment ago, he’d been cutting a swath through a crowd of students. A moment later he’d vanished, leaving Shen Yuan cold in the open. His spine reflexively straightened, the tension that never truly left him these days coming back in full force.
“Shizun.”
He couldn’t even fully turn before Luo Binghe had him trapped against a stone wall. Luo Binghe inhaled deeply, nose brushing the fine hairs at the back of Shen Yuan’s neck while Shen Yuan yelped, putting his hands to Luo Binghe’s chest, trying to shove him away. “Binghe, stop!”
“Do you hate me that much, even now?” Luo Binghe demanded, gripping Shen Yuan’s arms.
Shen Yuan’s head jerked up, nearly hitting Luo Binghe. There were a scant two centimeters between them. This close, Shen Yuan was hyper aware of the way he had to look up into Luo Binghe’s eyes, and how brightly they blazed. His body was searing hot. His skin smelled faintly of coconut and mango, like he’d just taken a bath in a bowl of sago. Shen Yuan’s pulse thrummed and he was all too aware that Luo Binghe’s pulse raced too.
“No matter what I do, you treat me like I’m scum,” Luo Binghe continued, ragged. “Did I disappoint you? Is that why you drove me out? Give me answers , Shizun!”
“I — I — ” Shen Yuan stammered. He’d thought of a thousand different things to tell Luo Binghe, if it came to this, but now that Luo Binghe stood in front of him, all he could think of was that sticky student of his, so vulnerable that he couldn’t quite breathe. Every defense he’d tried to muster failed him.
“Shizun, Shizun please . Whatever I did — whatever I did…”
Luo Binghe bowed his head, forehead nearly resting on Shen Yuan’s shoulder.
“Whatever I did, I’ll take it back.”
“Luo Binghe!”
Both of them jerked back, as though they’d been caught in an incriminating scene. Shen Yuan’s cheeks felt scorching hot. Luo Binghe’s ears were pink. He offered one last long, tortured glance at Shen Yuan, then strode off.
Shen Yuan slid down the wall and put his head in his hands as Liu Qingge and Yue Qingyuan ran to his side, talking over one another as they demanded to know if he was alright.
Shen Yuan ignored them both, thinking only of Luo Binghe’s raw desperation that had nothing to do with anger, and everything to do with loss.
“Well, fuck.”
~*~
Zhuzhi Lang bowed deeply as Shen Yuan opened the door. “My apologies for disturbing you, Shen-Laoshi. May I speak with you?”
Shen Yuan stared at him for a long time, the same surprise and betrayal burgeoning in his chest now as had appeared when he’d first seen Zhuzhi Lang’s name. Then he stepped back, allowing Zhuzhi Lang inside.
Relief was clear on Zhuzhi Lang’s face, and Shen Yuan politely waited until he was settled to ask, “Did you know you were Luo Binghe’s cousin when you took my class? Is that why you were so determined to prove yourself to me?”
Zhuzhi Lang bowed his head again, shame-faced. “Yes, Shen-Laoshi. But please understand, at that time, my interests in history were genuine, as they are now. I hope that you recall I finished my schooling in history with honors. Were it not for your instruction, and your determination to open a new path forward for me, I would not have been able to support Tianlang-Jun or Cousin as I do now. I owe you a great debt, just as I owe my cousin a debt, and so I find myself here, hoping that I may repay some small portion of that debt to you both by acting as a mediator.”
“Not all of it?” Shen Yuan asked, surprised.
Zhuzhi Lang seemed horrified. “Of course not! I couldn’t dream of pretending so small a service as this would discharge what I owe. I will be in debt to you, my cousin, and my uncle for all my days.” He spoke serenely of the burden, as though he viewed it as a gift.
Skeptically, Shen Yuan said, “And what do you hope to accomplish here?”
“Telling you the truth about Cousin’s feelings, of course,” Zhuzhi Lang replied like it was obvious. “After he saw your last, it was clear that his presence upset you deeply, and that hurt him more than I have ever seen Luo-Xiong suffer. No one but you can wound his heart with nothing more than a touch, or a word.” His dark eyes were steady and kind. “He loves you, Shen-Laoshi. But I suspect that you already knew that. The question is whether you can accept that you have long loved him in return.”
And just like that, Shen Yuan couldn’t ignore the past anymore.
~*~
Luo Binghe’s adopted mother had died halfway through Luo Binghe’s third year, after she’d scolded him into going to school instead of worrying about her. It was just a cough. Just a little shortness of breath.
He came back to her body.
Shen Yuan didn’t see him for a week. Despite what he’d hoped, Luo Binghe hadn’t come to him. Instead, Shen Yuan had done what would have been unthinkable for him to do to anyone but his brother or Shang Qinghua, and intruded upon Luo Binghe to check on him and to pay his respects to Luo Binghe’s beloved mother.
Luo Binghe hadn’t been well.
And he’d continued to not be well.
His grades hadn’t slipped an iota, and he’d tirelessly worked to make up for the time he’d lost. No one else had been concerned, instead praising Luo Binghe’s strength, that he had buried his mother with such honor and love, and ceaselessly upheld his studies in her name.
Only Shen Yuan had seemed to be aware that Luo Binghe was growing pale. That his eyes burned fever bright. That he was stretching himself thinner and thinner, to avoid even having to mention his mother’s name. That he was teetering on an edge that no one, not even Shen Yuan, could coax him to back down from.
And Shen Yuan, who had loved Luo Binghe so deeply even then, had seen no other way to save him except to force a leave of absence.
A leave of absence that Luo Binghe had begged — begged — him not to sign. He’d promised all sorts of things in a haze of desperation.
Shen Yuan had signed the paperwork anyway, and Luo Binghe had disappeared before Shen Yuan could speak with him.
Every drop of shame Shen Yuan had felt, even knowing he’d tried to do the right thing, even though he’d tried to do it for the right reasons — perhaps it had all been muddled by his own affection. Perhaps he’d twisted his rationalization to suit what he’d already decided must be. Perhaps — perhaps — perhaps Shen Yuan had simply done a terrible thing, to an already vulnerable person.
So surely Luo Binghe could only blame Shen Yuan, as much as Shen Yuan already blamed himself.
Surely he desired revenge against Shen Yuan for pushing him off the bright path he’d walked so determinedly.
Surely…
Shen Yuan bowed his head, curling in on himself. For once, his brother had no clever or cutting witticisms. He was just a warm, solid body next to Shen Yuan’s own, protecting him.
If Luo Binghe didn’t hate him, if Shen Yuan couldn’t use that as an armor against a past that had haunted him at every step. He couldn’t pretend he was keeping himself away from Luo Binghe for Luo Binghe’s own good. His only option was to admit that all he had ever wanted was Luo Binghe’s happiness, even if Shen Yuan didn’t deserve to be a part of it.
“Did I do the wrong thing?” Shen Yuan murmured.
“You did it,” Shen Jiu answered brusquely, but not unkindly. “It’s done. Either speak with the beast or don’t, but I’m not going to listen to you wallow.”
Shen Yuan closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.
There was only one choice, in the end, so Shen Yuan made it.
~*~
Shen Yuan stood in front of Luo Binghe’s restaurant, his hands tucked behind his back to hide their shaking, and tried to make himself knock. Luo Binghe threw open the door before Shen Yuan gained the courage, and stole his breath in the process. Without fear clouding his eyes, Luo Binghe still looked all too much like the gentle child Shen Yuan had once known so well, and his heart ached in his chest. This evening, not only did Luo Binghe look even more handsome than ever, but he glowed with happiness, with hope, and his voice was shy as he ushered Shen Yuan in with a soft, “Hello, Shizun.”
“Hello, Binghe,” Shen Yuan greeted.
The restaurant was empty and quiet, but Luo Binghe still led Shen Yuan to a private corner where a single table was prepared and urged his former teacher to make himself comfortable before vanishing off into the kitchen.
Awkwardly, Shen Yuan checked his phone while he waited. He found a dozen texts from Shen Jiu, Liu Qingge, and Yue Qingyuan, all promising death to Luo Binghe if he hurt Shen Yuan.
Somehow, that settled Shen Yuan’s heart more than anything else. He would protect Luo Binghe, even when no one else would.
A moment later, Luo Binghe emerged with enough food to feed an army. Chief among the dishes was sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves, stir-fried prawns with lotus root, ginger, and garlic, a clear soup, and a bowl of spiced nuts, including lotus seeds.
As their eyes met, Shen Yuan knew the same proverb flashed through both their minds.
The lotus root may be severed, but its fibrous threads are still connected .
Luo Binghe set the dishes nervously in front of Shen Yuan and smiled, still a little shy. Shen Yuan found it impossible to fear him. His brother was right. What was done was done, and if Luo Binghe had forgiven him, however undeserving he was, it would only hurt Luo Binghe further to abandon him again.
“You were right, Shizun,” Luo Binghe admitted, voice cracking. “I couldn’t stay. But I didn’t want to leave. I hated that you were making me. I had to leave, because it was — and I — I thought...I thought if I had been stronger — ”
“Binghe has always been strong enough, brave enough, good enough,” Shen Yuan interrupted. “I just couldn’t — couldn’t see him suffer.” He huffed a breath. “Sit down, Binghe. Perhaps you could...tell me what you have done, while you were gone. I’ve missed you.”
In the end, all the stars in the sky couldn’t outshine Luo Binghe’s eyes. He shyly tangled their fingers together, threads once more entwining.
“Of course, Shizun!”