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It all happened so quickly, Yibo didn’t really know how to react.
He was leaving a venue, already buckled in and ready for a quick nap on the drive to the next location. The heavily tinted windows let very little light in. He had comfortable clothes on and his headphones ready to play quiet songs and block out the noise of wind and tires on the road. That was when the door started opening, brightening up the back of the van.
At first, he assumed it was merely a mistake on Yanyan’s behalf; maybe he pressed a button on the control panel by accident. He also thought it could’ve been one of his team members that got left behind. But both were unlikely scenarios and his van already had all the people that needed to be inside it—only the innermost members of his personal team which were Lai-jie, Yanyan, and Lele.
He only realized what was happening when he met the eyes of an unfamiliar face, wide and excited. The kind of eyes he’d only seen when he performed magic or done a cool dance move. But in the moment, it didn’t make him feel smug or proud; it only served to make him extremely unsettled.
“Who are you?!” He found himself bellowing, curling back as far away from the open door as he could in case she got any more ideas. He ended up pressed against the far door and window, feeling like he was a fish in an aquarium under her gaze.
Lai-jie in the seat next to the open door immediately threw her arms up like some parody of the Great Wall of China to prevent the girl from coming any closer—and for that, Wang Yibo was grateful.
“Finally. There you are,” the girl said, and it sent shivers down Wang Yibo’s spine, even more so when she attempted to enter the car and bypass Lai-jie’s barrier, eyes solely on Yibo’s and not even paying attention to anyone else.
He felt pinned down. Trapped. Helpless.
She was pulled away from the van by Lele and a couple of his other team members in the succeeding van and Lai-jie shut the door as soon as she could, plunging them into darkness once more.
There was silence in the van for a good few moments, except for the noises of a scuffle still taking place outside: the girl screaming to be released, Lele giving orders right outside the van door, other members of his team requesting help from security, various fans scattered around the area for his departure hurling nasty words at the girl. Yibo took a deep breath and attempted to relax his posture which, in the time it had taken for the door to first open and finally shut once more, had curled up into a tense posture like a snake coiled and ready to strike.
“Are you alright?” Lai-jie asked quietly.
“Yes,” he said. He didn’t know if it was 100% true, but it was true enough at the moment. He wasn’t dying, he wasn’t mortally wounded, he could carry on with his day, he didn’t urgently need anything. By definition, he was ‘alright’.
She peeked out through the tinted window, monitoring the scene. He was looking outside, too. Except he scanned the whole perimeter, keeping eyes out for any other people who might jump out from the bushes or from behind a parked car to get to him now that most of his team was occupied.
“Security is here and they’ve got her in custody. I think we’ll be moving pretty soon.”
“Good.”
She raised a hand as if to pat him on the knee or shoulder—the kind of easy, friendly contact they had all gotten used to over the years—but he flinched reflexively and she brought her hand back to her lap.
“Get some sleep, Yibo. It’s forty-five minutes to the next location and you’ll need to go straight into hair and wardrobe.”
He nodded and fixed his cap over his face. He heard Lele get back into the car, heard the locks click (a noise he didn’t realize he had been anxiously waiting for), heard the parking break disconnect and the car shift into drive, felt the car lurch forward onto the road and then the highway, all in their quest to safely deliver him to his next location like some prized piece of artwork or an animal on display.
He didn’t sleep a wink en route.
Antsy and fidgety, Yibo didn’t really know what to do with himself. Thankfully, the next thing on his schedule was a photoshoot and those tended to be pretty fast-paced and required him to be constantly changing positions. No one noticed if he couldn’t keep still.
(If it was a CF filming and he had to pretend to be happy and use whatever product he was endorsing, he might just lose it.)
He shivered every time the hair and makeup artists touched him longer than necessary. He rubbed his hands and shoved them under his thighs to warm them up when they went ice-cold. He took his breaks in his private dressing room instead of playing on his skateboard or speaking to the production assistants.
He felt… off. There wasn’t anything groundbreaking or appallingly wrong with him, he just felt a little off-balance.
“Are you alright?” Yidou asked him when he came over to help Yibo out of his final outfit for the shoot. “Your posture has been unnerving and you’ve been awfully quiet.”
“I’m still a little shaken up, I think,” he said, keeping a close eye on Yidou’s right hand as he brought it up to the fabric on Yibo’s left side, where three safety pins held the ruffles of his outfit up in voluminous billows. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What happened earlier was scary. It’s normal to feel a little troubled.”
He sighed and shook his head.
“Nothing even happened, though.”
“Nothing has to happen for it to fluster you.” Yidou slowly brought his hands up into Yibo’s view, then placed them on his shoulders while projecting his every move. His hands were warm and his touch felt grounding in ways that most others’ hadn’t been that whole day. “If I’m being honest, I’m disturbed by the fact that it even could happen. What if it was someone bigger, someone that Lai-jie and Lele would have trouble fighting off? What if it was someone with bad intentions, or someone with a weapon? Those thoughts scare me. And I was all the way in the other van; I barely saw a thing.”
Yibo repressed a shiver.
“You’re not helping, Ge.”
“Sorry,” he said with a tiny chuckle. “But I just want you to know that your fears aren’t irrational. You’re going to feel off for a while and it’s normal. You’re not even the only one feeling that way. Just know you have a team around you for a reason. We’re going to do better next time.”
The hoped there wouldn’t be a next time, but he understood the sentiment.
Yibo sent him a small, shy smile. “Thank you.”
He was back in the van in less than an hour, en route to a hotel in the area where he would be spending the night. He had a relatively early night, which he was thankful for. It wasn’t often that his schedules ended before midnight, yet here he was with a full fourteen hours until he had to be back on the road. (He would get a good, long rest tonight.)
“Yanyan, lock the doors please,” he said once he stepped foot in the van. He attempted it as a joke, but his voice refused to obey him and it sounded too meek to be anything more than a plead.
There was no one around, none of his fans knew the location of the photoshoot, they were in a private carpark where only those who had reason to be in the building were present. Why did Yibo feel so insecure? He didn’t know.
“Of course, Laoban,” came the reply. There was no judgment, no question, not even a mild inflection to signal that Yanyan gave the request any passing thought. Still, Yibo felt like he was asking the world.
The automatic door shut, the locks clicked, and the van was off.
Yibo startled awake at one A.M. with the horrible afterimage of grotesque-looking eldritch creatures winding around his ankles and dragging him out of his van and into a void. He placed a hand over his chest, feeling his heavy breathing and pounding heart.
It didn’t help that he was in an unfamiliar hotel, an unfamiliar bed with unfamiliar sheets. When he went to a city, he typically stayed at the same hotels and got used to the location after a few stays. This new hotel gave him the creeps—though that was probably just the anxiety speaking. He sat up slowly with waves of nausea rolling through him like a fierce and stormy ocean.
The TV was still on, a quiet mumble of noise accompanying him in the silence. The bathroom light was on, with the door creaked a couple centimeters open. Everything was as it should be, yet he couldn’t even manage to lay his head back down.
So much for a long rest.
He reached for his water bottle on the nightstand, taking a sip of water to soothe his parched throat before grabbing his phone and sending off a quick Weixin to Xiao Zhan.
<< U awake?
>> Yes, I just got home. Why are you awake?
<< Had a nightmare.
Immediately, his phone started ringing. With an exasperated grunt, he answered it.
“Zhan-ge, it’s so late, you don’t need to—”
“I saw what happened. How did they handle the incident? What happened to the girl? How is Yuehua going to respond?”
“So many questions, Lao Xiao, slow down.”
“Don’t try and deflect, Wang Yibo. How are you feeling?”
“Ge, I’m fine.”
“Yeah, no you’re not. Your voice is shaking, Yibo.”
Shit. Xiao Zhan knew him way too well, it was almost scary sometimes.
He sighed.
“...no, I’m not fine.”
“Well… can you tell me what’s wrong?”
That would be a challenge, to put it lightly. Yibo’s not exactly known for being the most articulate or most outspoken about his feelings. He’s always been the type to bottle up his feelings until he explodes or Xiao Zhan comes along and smacks it out of him. But he’d already tried bottling it up and he just felt terrible, and Xiao Zhan wasn't going to be around for another few weeks and he really didn't think this could wait until then.
He opened his mouth and tried to give utterance to his complex emotions.
“For my whole career, the van has always been a checkpoint. I could walk through the craziest crowds and get screamed at and touched by hundreds of people but once I got inside, I was safe.”
“Haven’t there been incidents before, though? People crowding around the van, someone putting a tracker on it?”
He grunted and ran a hand through his hair. He felt the barest hints of sweat; the lingering aftereffects of his nightmare and the ever-present stress clinging to his nervous system like a tumor or something equally as tormenting.
“But they never got inside the van. I don’t know, it’s just… different. The car door slid open and she was standing there and I just felt so helpless. It was like she caught me changing or something.”
“I’m sure if you were naked in there, we would have a completely different problem on our hands.”
“Ge!” Yibo protested but he was powerless to prevent the tiny little chuckles from escaping his lips.
Xiao Zhan laughed. His voice was light and airy and the sound lifted Yibo’s mood immensely. He wondered how Xiao Zhan had such a grip on his soul—that even the sound of his laughter, tinkling like bells through a phone’s shitty speaker, could make him feel so much in so little time. It was unfair, really, the sort of impact he had on people. The sort of impact he had on Yibo.
“You know, I was furious when I saw the videos. Liu-jie said I looked like I wanted to flip a table.”
This piqued Yibo’s interest. Xiao Zhan was a relatively easygoing person. He tended to keep a neutral smile plastered on his face 24/7 and never let things get under his skin. Except, of course, Yibo and his teasing.
To hear that Xiao Zhan nearly lost his cool was… surprising to say the least. Though Yibo knew he would feel the exact same (or worse) if this happened to Xiao Zhan instead of him. He might’ve actually flipped a table.
“Oh? You don’t sound it.”
“Because I have faith in your team, Laogong,” Xiao Zhan’s voice was gentle and warm. He had a certain tone he only used when he wanted to coax Yibo into doing exactly what he wanted; he knew how to use it to his advantage. “The only people that could rival me, your mother, and Han-ge for our protectiveness of you is your team. They’re never going to let anything bad happen to you. They’ll make mistakes and there’ll be mishaps like what happened today, but they always have your best interests at heart.”
It was an understatement of the highest degree.
Lele and Yanyan were like his fathers; when Yibo went home to Luoyang, Lele was always invited into his parents’ house for at least one meal. Yidou’s been with him since Produce 101 and knows Yibo like the back of his hand. Lai-jie hasn’t been on his team nearly as long as the rest of them—she only joined when his previous manager resigned—but she quickly gained Yibo’s trust and became the driving force and fundamental core of Yibo’s personal entourage.
He knew these people weren’t just employees or coworkers. They were his family.
“I know that, I— I’ve always known that,” he said, so incredibly frustrated with himself and his irrational brain that he could feel tears welling up in his eyes, pooling into hot puddles of lava that stung his eyes. “But I can’t help but feel worried. Every time I hear a noise, I feel like someone is watching me, or my door is about to burst open and twenty fans will be behind it. I asked Yanyan to lock the doors before we left the photoshoot location today and we were underground in a private parking garage.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Yibo,” Xiao Zhan said after a short pause. He spoke candidly, simply. “I don’t think I can really say anything to fix this or make it better. You just need to know that your team is going to do everything they can to keep you safe. Whether that’s in the van or outside of it. Whether you’re in a hotel room or at home or walking down the streets of downtown Beijing without a mask or hat on.”
Yibo let out a petulant huff of air.
“That would just be stupid.”
He knew if they were in the same room, he would reach out and smack Xiao Zhan in the shoulder or across the arm. Then they would descend into a round of slap-fights, in which Yibo would be edging out the win until Xiao Zhan plays dirty and starts tickling him. Then they would collapse on the nearest soft surface, tired, and talk until the next round of bickering and slaps started up again.
Yibo really wished Xiao Zhan was here.
“My point still stands. You’re safe, Wang Yibo. Trust in your team.”
“I do trust them. I don’t trust everyone else.”
Xiao Zhan sighed.
“Then you’re just a sane person.”
Yibo laid his head back down on the pillow, pulling the covers up to his chin and shuffling around until he felt comfortable enough to sleep. Now what the anxiety had worn off, he could feel the last few days of sleep deprivation catching up on him, as well as his exhaustion from being hypervigilant the whole day.
“Don’t feel it,” he mumbled.
“No,” Xiao Zhan chuckled. “Sanity is a rare trait nowadays, it seems. You and I are lucky to be blessed with it. But also unfortunate to meet so many people per day that we meet those who don’t have it often. Yibo? You still there?”
“Mn,” he yawned. The nausea boiling away in his stomach cooled to a gentle simmer, enough to be a discomfort but not enough to stop the sleepiness from creeping up on him. “Keep talking, y’re makin’ me fall ‘sleep.”
“Wow, Wang Yibo, am I really that boring to listen to? So much so that you get sleepy just hearing me speak. Aiyowei, my Laogong is so rude to me, truly, he never listens to a thing I say.”
“You have a really nice voice.”
“My point has been proven further. Am I just a device for you to fall asleep to? Am I no more to you than an audiobook or a three-hour loop of rain noises?”
“...hmm.”
“I see, I see,” Xiao Zhan chuckled. “Sleep well, Baobei. I hope you’ll feel better tomorrow.”