Chapter Text
For the past three years, Gong Jun has found Zhang Zhehan writing more and more. It started on scraps of paper, on napkins alongside the food that Gong Jun brought from each of his sets to their rented apartments and hotel rooms. Then, it evolved to notecards, to cheap spiral-bound notebooks and composition books. Every now and then, even the back of Gong Jun’s scripts would find themselves covered in Zhehan’s handwriting.
There was an era when he tried audio notes, but Gong Jun remembers with sadness the days that Zhehan could hardly find the energy to lift his head, much less speak.
Writing was easier, and it still is.
Now, Zhehan writes in journals—bound and pretty things of varying sizes and shapes, some softbacked and crumpled while others are hardback and swollen with pages that have found moisture and bends and ruffles. Most are filled with ink, typically black, but Zhehan writes with whatever he can find. Some of them live in his pocket, while others find their home on the bedside table or in one of the many brand-name bags Gong Jun has gifted Zhehan since the beginning of a particular partnership.
Gong Jun has lost count of how many Zhehan must have now, but the journals come with him everywhere. He’s grown to appreciate the sound of Zhehan’s pen scratching across paper, and Gong Jun can sometimes even tell which brand of notebook Zhehan is writing in by the quality of pen on paper alone. The subtle differences—smooth, scratchy, crunchy, muffled—have become grounding for Gong Jun, who thrives on white noise when music from his earbuds is too overstimulating. Seeing Zhehan work so hard on something and watching the concrete production of Zhehan’s thoughts and feelings and everything that he is…
It’s hope, strong and definitive, the same way that all of the paperwork has been.
For so long now, Gong Jun has delighted in his career’s foundation now strong enough to support a house of contracts he’s built and fought for. Now, the same structure has become a prison, and the contract expiration dates (along with a lack of renewals) can’t come soon enough. More than one he has ended prior to the agreed upon date and incurred the consequences, but no matter.
On September 15, 2024, Gong Jun’s hand curls around a pen as he signs away his lone remaining obligation.
It’s the final piece of the puzzle. Everything else has long been taken care of thanks to Gong Jun’s efficiency and Zhehan’s increasingly nervous energy—an energy that’s all too apparent when Gong Jun exits the elevator into the building’s lobby and finds Zhehan waiting for him on a small sofa. Lufei is in his lap, and his long tongue jiggles as he pants and steadies himself on Zhehan’s nervously bouncing knee. A car waits for them outside the office building where Gong Jun has ended his career, then takes them to the Shanghai airport.
Gong Jun should feel glee, release. Freedom. Instead, he worries. Of course, the rumors began to circulate in earnest at the first inkling of change, though they’re not really rumors now that Gong Jun has confirmed them. He has, of course, given no specifics about the reasoning behind his decisions, though maybe he will someday, but he doesn’t need to specify for his truest fans to know. They’ll be in the airport in droves, and that’s why Gong Jun worries. The experience of ducking his head, waving at waist-level, and scouring the rows of fans for tiny pieces of support for Zhehan are routine now, but that’s not what’s happening. Today, he enters the building as a civilian. There are no bodyguards to guide him and his blandly dressed, sunglasses-laden partner to their terminal. They manage security themselves with hoodies and hats hiding hair, with people screaming around them, and Gong Jun wonders if he’ll find some backwards way to miss it all.
Notebooks, notebooks, notebooks everywhere—not unlike the ones that Gong Jun has watched Zhehan fill. Notepads, scraps of paper, arms, hats, and everything else under the sun are frantically shoved beneath Gong Jun’s nose as the ones who love him hope for a final autograph before Gong Jun disappears to who knows where for who knows how long; Gong Jun sees past all of them and only thinks toward what Zhehan promised him before they left the car:
“Just wait ’til we’re settled, then I’ll show you what I’ve been writing for the past week.”
Gong Jun watches as notebooks make their way to Zhehan, too. There are enough people to love and recognize him that he isn’t forgotten amongst the droves of Gong Jun fans. Many of these people are here for not one of them but both of them.
I hope you’ll support our decision, Gong Jun thinks. He hopes that the sentence spoken only in his mind makes its way to them and prays they’ll find peace the same way that he and Zhehan are trying to.
“I can’t wait,” Gong Jun answers Zhehan. His voice is weak when it leaves his tight throat, and it wavers with his tears.
Thank you, he wants to say out loud when he sees an orange keychain on a fan’s bag. He signs the fan’s photograph—one of him and Zhehan.
“Thank you.” Again, he thinks the words, and this time he says them out loud, too.