Chapter Text
When Zhuo Zhi arrived, Xu Ziping had been waiting for him
He watched, sitting on a courtside bench, as Zhuo Zhi paused at the entrance. Their eyes met. Then Zhuo Zhi made his slow unhurried way down the length of the courts, a smile on his lips. The hour was late. The place was silent, the nets loose and still. For once, they were alone.
For once, Zhuo Zhi brought no racquet with him. It was the first thing Xu Ziping noticed. The dozen or so other times they had met here at these public courts, it had always been to play. He had been coming here for months, running from his old life, restless in his new role. And here, he had found Zhuo Zhi, smiling, standing apart from the rest. He was the boy from the luxury condo across the river. Ziping was the newcomer with no friends to call his own.
They had agreed to play—and that, as the saying goes, was that.
Now Zhuo Zhi stood in front of him, dressed in all white. Under the court’s floodlight, it looked like he almost glowed, his skin so pale it was nearly translucent. It reminded Ziping to this afternoon, when they had faced each other at Yu Qing in that farce of a game—and something in him stirred at the memory. Something he had chained and caged so tightly, now slowly raising its head, watching.
Zhuo Zhi broke their silence first. “Are you alright?” he asked.
Ziping looked down at his clasped hands, a resigned smile on his face. “You already asked me that this afternoon.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“I did. I told you I’m fine.”
“That’s not an answer.” Zhuo Zhi lowered himself to his knees, the action so smooth, so quick and sudden that it caught Ziping off-guard. Their gazes met. “So now I’m asking you again. Xu Ziping, are you alright?”
The lie, the habitual pretense of calm, was there at the tip of his tongue. But Zhuo Zhi was looking at him as if he were the only thing that mattered, as if the rest of the world did not exist. It was a look that could drown cities and topple kingdoms, shred the hardest hearts and coax the darkest secrets.
Xu Ziping swallowed—the lie, the pretense, the entire façade he had carefully constructed in the past year, all crumbling into dust.
“No,” he breathed out.
Zhuo Zhi nodded. “What happened?” he asked, his voice gentle. Which was strange. Zhuo Zhi was never gentle. Inoffensive, perhaps, a sea of indifference masking as nonchalance, hidden under a shine of cheerful politeness. Ziping watched him—his shapely eyes, his elegant nose, his full lips—and could feel that Terrible Thing somewhere inside him, scratching at the cage, pulling at the chains. It was fixated on this boy in front of him.
“I lost control.”
And then Ziping told him. What had happened this afternoon. What had prompted it. What had been his purpose. What could have ensued if Zhuo Zhi’s reflexes had been any less ready, any less honed, any less fast.
“I could have hurt you,” he said out loud, each word dragging a bundle of agony behind it. “In fact, I wanted to.”
“That’s what I thought.” There was no accusation in Zhuo Zhi’s voice or face, only something thoughtful and curious. Ziping stared at him.
“You’re taking this whole thing very calmly.”
Zhuo Zhi turned and sat down on the ground, his upper arm pressed against Ziping’s right leg. “Maybe because I’ve been expecting it,” he admitted. “I’ve always had a hunch that you were holding something back whenever we played.”
Ziping raised an eyebrow. “I could say the same about you.”
Zhuo Zhi offered him a half smile. “Take one to know one?”
Ziping would have smiled back, but the confession had left him raw, exposed. Now everything felt a little too much, even that half smile, and so he looked away, down at his clasped fingers. “I’m sorry. For what happened.”
“Why? It was my behaviour that annoyed you. That was on me.”
“Maybe,” Ziping conceded wryly. “You were... very annoying. We’re supposed to play and you didn’t even try.”
“Exactly.” Zhuo Zhi’s hand was warm, apologetic, resting on Ziping’s knee. “But please believe me when I say that it had nothing to do with you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It was Siyang. I was annoyed at him.”
“Why?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Zhuo Zhi waved it away with a sigh. “Something petty. And I was being petty, except I took it out on you. So, yes, I’m sorry.”
Ziping stared at him in disbelief. “I wanted to hurt you and you’re sorry? Who cares if you did it on purpose? It still didn’t excuse me for losing control.”
Zhuo Zhi’s smile was soft but noncommittal. “Do you have a spare racket with you?” he asked instead.
Ziping blinked. It felt like he had missed a turn somewhere in the conversation. “Yes, why?” he said cautiously.
The smile widened. “Let’s play.”
Ziping flinched; he couldn’t help it. “No.”
“Why not? We’re already here.”
“Have you forgotten what happened this afternoon?”
Zhuo Zhi shrugged. “It’ll be fine.”
“No, it won’t,” Ziping heard himself snap. “Don’t underestimate me. I could really hurt you.”
“What I’m saying is you haven’t seen me yet.” Zhuo Zhi’s tone was unchanged, light and casual, but his gaze was cool, assessing. “I will play seriously.”
Ziping breathed in, slow and shaky. Something in him answered to that call. It took his entire willpower to hold it back.
“This is a bad idea,” he said hoarsely.
Zhuo Zhi tilted his head, watching him. “You need to unleash that side of you, right? Then by all means, unleash him. I can handle it.”
Ziping shook his head, his breathing ragged. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The benign smile curved into a smirk. “Less talk, then. Show me.”
Xu Ziping saw red.
–
The haze only receded hours later.
Ziping didn’t remember how many sets they had played, how many scores they had traded off each other. He had stopped counting somewhere around 4-3. Afterwards, the world was a blur of motion and air, in his lungs, on his limbs, sharpened only by the strain in his arm and the burn in his legs.
And across the net, there was Zhuo Zhi, panting, eyes wild; no, not wild—focused. On him. There was a smile on his lips, wide and feral. Xu Ziping took these all in along with a breath that burned his lungs. What a heady feeling it was to have someone like Zhuo Zhi look at him in this way.
He wondered if it was the same for Zhuo Zhi.
It was close to midnight when they limped back to the bench, sinking to the ground next to each other. Ziping focused on breathing. His head rang empty, free of tangles and shadowed weights. Every single muscle in his body ached with exertion. He would pay the price tomorrow—they both would—but it would be worth it. For the first time that day (week, month, year), he felt like he could fit inside his skin once more.
It was Zhuo Zhi who broke the silence first. “So that’s your monster.” He sounded quiet, subdued. “Not bad.”
“Yours is not bad either,” Ziping heard himself answer, relaxed, at ease with the world for once.
“Only because I tried to match you.” He could hear the smile in Zhuo Zhi’s voice. “You’re really something, Captain.”
Ziping would have frowned, but everything about him was loose right now. The thorny knots that made the darker parts of him were eased, harmless for the moment.
He looked at the other boy. “Are you alright?”
The gaze that rose to meet his was unblinking. “Yes.”
“You sure?”
Zhuo Zhi’s response was to take his hand and press the calloused fingers against his own neck. “Do you feel me?”
“Yes.” He almost choked on the word, shock pitching his voice somewhere between strangled and breathless.
“Then you know that I’m fine.”
Xu Ziping stared, his breathing slow and shaky. He could feel Zhuo Zhi’s fluttering pulse under sweat-slicked skin. Something inside his stomach twisted at the sensation, like dread but so much hotter, wilder. Before he knew it, his fingers had shifted, forming a loose cage around the other boy’s neck.
Zhuo Zhi laughed. It was the vibration that snapped Ziping out of his trance. He let go at once, breathing hard, staring at the amusement dancing in Zhuo Zhi’s eyes.
“Next time, maybe don't keep it leashed for too long,” Zhuo Zhi said, too casual, too cheerful for someone who had just escaped the threat of a chokehold. “You’re an aggressive player. You can’t always pretend that you’re not.”
It took Ziping a long moment to manage a coherent enough reply. “I can’t always play like that. It would end badly. For everyone.”
“There’s that risk, of course,” Zhuo Zhi nodded, but the strange light in his eyes remained. “Then I suppose we only have one obvious solution. I should avail myself again next time.”
“No,” Ziping burst out. Comprehension gripped his insides like ice. He couldn’t even let himself think about the offer. It was tempting—a release, a reprieve, a chance for both—but he could already feel that thing, that terrible thing, latching onto the idea of Zhuo Zhi.
And he couldn’t let it. Not when it was a relic of his past and all its ugliness. To this day, he could still feel the force of his father’s fist, across his cheekbones, against the softness of his belly. He still remembered nights spent curled on one side, unable to move because moving only meant agony.
Now they had escaped, protected by law and family both. Now he was bigger, stronger, but it didn’t mean that the scars were gone.It didn’t mean that his rage was eased. It festered, instead, nursing itself into a slow-burning inferno until it finally burst. Until it found other targets, through the vicious aim of his racket and the destructive trajectory of a ball.
“You don’t understand,” he tried to explain, his voice harsh. “This afternoon, I really wanted to hurt you. I can’t... That’s not going to happen.”
Zhuo Zhi said nothing for some time. His silence pressed, less like a pause, more like judgment, but then: “Do you know the Hulk?”
Ziping looked at him, nonplussed. “What?”
“You’re like the Hulk,” Zhuo Zhi continued, all solemn serenity. “Living with something violent inside you. And that side is you is not going to disappear. So maybe it’s best to learn how to be friends with it.”
Ziping wanted to shake his head; wanted to tell him that it was impossible. Even the mere idea was abhorrent—abhorrent, and yet it made a strange kind of sense. Just like everything Zhuo Zhi did, strange, with a kind of sense, even logic, behind it.
“Are you speaking from experience?” he asked instead.
“It’s different for me,” Zhuo Zhi told him, matter-of-fact. “My enemy is apathy. Less troublesome than yours, perhaps, but debilitating all the same.” He paused, catching Ziping’s gaze. “That’s why I’d like to play you again. Like this. You got me out of that fog. So don’t think this is only for your sake.”
Couched in those terms, spoken in that tone, it almost sounded reasonable. Ziping hadn’t realized how badly he wanted to believe it until he looked down and saw the way his hands were clutching at each other.
But he couldn’t.
“No.” He pushed the word out of his mouth. “It’s too dangerous. We can’t… I can’t risk it.”
“Why not?”
“If I hurt you–”
Zhuo Zhi sighed, loud and exaggerated. “Do I look like a prey to you?”
Xu Ziping wanted to say yes. A very beautiful, very dangerous prey, but a prey nonetheless.
He settled for honesty. “I wouldn’t be able to bear it if I hurt you.”
There was a moment of startled pause, and then Zhuo Zhi smiled, soft and fond. “You are so sweet, Captain.” Then he leaned in and brushed a kiss on the corner of Ziping’s lips.
Ziping froze, shock keeping him prisoner. Before he could even begin to think of a response, reaction, anything, Zhuo Zhi had withdrawn.
“But see, that just proves my point,” he continued steadily, arguments ready and arrayed like battle troops—as if the world hadn’t tilted off its axis, as if he hadn’t just kissed Xu Ziping. “If you insist on ignoring that side of you, it will harm you in the long run. And it will definitely shackle the way you play. You will never be able to give it your all. Isn’t that your promise? To give it your all and bring Yu Feng to the National–”
Ziping didn’t realise that he had reached for Zhuo Zhi until his fingers curled behind Zhuo Zhi’s neck, their lips pressed together. He felt, more than heard, Zhuo Zhi’s gasp, followed by tiny bursts of laughter, fluttering against his lips.
Xu Ziping growled. When he deepened the kiss, it was with intent to wreck, even hurt. Neither of them were surprised when Zhuo Zhi responded in kind. He kissed like something mad, vicious and feral. Ziping found himself delighting in it, and he too was left smiling at the end of it, between gasps, heady and free.
“Well, that is one way to unleash the monster too,” Zhuo Zhi spoke first, grinning like the mad thing he was.
Ziping watched him, still breathless, and wondered if he might be in love.
“This still isn’t a good idea,” he declared, but it was half-hearted and it fooled neither of them.
Zhuo Zhi arched an eyebrow. “Which one? Though I must say I don’t mind either. In fact, I prefer both. On and off court.”
Ziping choked on a laugh. “Be afraid of me just a little, will you?”
“Sorry,” Zhuo Zhi smiled, wide and sweet and utterly fearless.
Ziping pulled him into another kiss.
–