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1.
Bridon may be old-fashioned, but not to the extent of using physical cheques. Xia Fei only realises he’s been paid for the modelling gig when he checks his bank balance and sees a larger-than-expected figure.
It doesn’t feel as real as paper would – a mere collection of pixels, something that could glitch if he blinked – but Xia Fei stares at it, all the same. A strange feeling swells inside him, warm and unfamiliar. Almost like security.
To make this feel real, he decides, that number has to grow.
He takes another gig. Another. He meets his boss, in less-than-ideal circumstances. His first photoshoot is published; he wouldn’t have realised if Vein hadn’t handed him a copy of the magazine, with a casual Thought you might like a look. An unrecognisable smile, on an impossibly glossy page.
When his mother calls him a few days later, he dutifully delivers the usual white lies: Things are fine, I’m eating well, yes, the weather isn’t too cold. Don’t worry about me.
“I know you’re a hardworking boy,” his mother says. “But don’t work too hard, okay? Are you making friends? People who can take care of you?”
A month or two ago, the question would have seemed ridiculous. Xia Fei isn’t in university to make friends. He makes polite conversation with coursemates and gently fobs off fellow countrymen looking for comrades in a strange land. He goes to lectures and his part-time job, then shuts his dorm room door against the world.
A month or two ago, that is. Something has shifted, since, an aberration in his routine. Phonecalls that he doesn’t hesitate to answer. Meals in restaurants he wouldn’t be able to afford. Someone who reached out, impossibly strong, and pulled him from the depths.
He realises, with a sudden tightness in his throat – hope, or fear, or something harder to name – that he wants to tell her. About his new part-time job, and the magazine page that he cut out to keep, and an eccentric boss who’s unexpectedly kind. Not yet. But eventually. Maybe after his next stretch of exams. Maybe if his face makes it onto a billboard, or more magazines – if his image travels further and further, so far it might even reach her at home.
“Ma,” he starts, faltering; blinks hard, willing his voice not to crack, and says – meaning it for the first time – “I’m doing fine.”
2.
Sharp teeth, a flash of red – another slice disappears into Vein’s mouth. Today it’s grilled meat; not a student-friendly skewers place but somewhere foreign and upmarket, the sort of place Xia Fei would never enter on his own.
Vein chews, swallows, takes a sip of tea. Smiles at Xia Fei across the table. “So. How have you been doing? Has anyone given you any trouble since then?”
Xia Fei reaches for a slice of meat, to buy time. The luxurious flavour spreads in his mouth – but he can’t enjoy it, now that he’s preoccupied by Vein’s question. To complain about his colleagues would be to exhibit weakness, at best; helplessness, at worst. The right answer would be to shake his head, offer some safe platitudes. It hasn’t even been that bad, anyway. No violence. Veiled threats and sneering remarks and behind-his-back whispers, sure, but he can handle that.
He glances up. Vein is no longer smiling, even as he reaches for another slice and adds: “You can tell me anything.”
Xia Fei doesn’t have to lie. More than that: Vein doesn’t want him to lie.
Teeth around yielding flesh. Vein’s watching him, that wine-red gaze cool and steady. Xia Fei swallows – the rich taste of meat still in his throat – and says: “Nothing major. But it... it hasn’t been that great. I mean...”
As he goes on, the slightest smile returns to Vein’s face. Not because he gave the right answer, Xia Fei realises; because he gave a true one.
3.
The model – Xia Fei doesn’t even know his name – crowds him against the wall. There’s a dull thunk as Xia Fei’s shoulder jostles a nearby locker.
“The boss really has a thing for you, huh?” the model sneers. “Maybe he’ll like your pretty face less if it’s bruised.”
“You’re crazy,” Xia Fei says. “You think you can–”
The model laughs. “This shoot’s sponsor is an old friend. If you want a future here, follow my story. Workplace accident. You fell and hurt yourself. Don’t even think about fighting back.”
Xia Fei tenses, ready to do just that. His eyes prickle with tears – not fear but anger.
The doorknob rattles against the chair propped under it. The model glances at his barricade, then turns back to Xia Fei, unconcerned. “Old building. The doors jam easily. Don’t forget that bit of the story, yeah?”
“I’m not going to–”
The chair screeches against the floor, falls, the door swinging violently open. Xia Fei’s heart leaps at the sight of the figure in the doorway.
“Boss!”
The knife-flash of a smile. “Am I interrupting?”
4.
Vein lifts Xia Fei’s chin, the way he always does: detached, appraising. Inspecting a facade for defects. Until–
“You do look delicious.” The gesture transforms: fingers cradling his face, curling in his hair, behind his jaw. The light in Vein’s eyes shifts. “I’d quite like a taste.”
“Boss?” Fear quickens Xia Fei’s pulse, his breathing – no, not just fear. “We shouldn’t...”
“What matters isn’t what you should or shouldn’t do,” Vein says lazily. “What matters is what you want.”
A movement of his wrist. Xia Fei lets Vein turn his head, baring the line of his throat. Vein leans close, breath warm against Xia Fei’s ear, hair silken against Xia Fei’s skin.
“So tell me.” An order; a challenge. “If you don’t want this, say so.”
Xia Fei should. He should pull away, restore the distance. Vein would let him; his touch is light, careless rather than insistent. This is what Vein has been teaching him, again and again. How to speak up for himself. How to draw his own lines. He should say that he doesn’t–
But he does.
He wants this, this and so much more. A hunger he’s just beginning to learn. Heat courses through him, raw and terrifying, wild as his pulse against Vein’s fingertips.
Vein’s waiting. Vein’s always waiting for him.
Xia Fei draws a shaky breath–
– and wakes before he can give an answer.
5.
“Can I ask something?” Cheng Xiaoshi says abruptly, in the middle of their photoshoot. They’re standing under a tree, watching as the photographer tries to coax a natural-seeming smile from Lu Guang. A long-suffering assistant stands by with a basket of leaves, waiting to scatter them.
Despite the afternoon’s warmth, a chill grips Xia Fei. It’s just paranoia, he tells himself. His guilty conscience. Cheng Xiaoshi has no reason to suspect anything.
“Sure,” he replies, hoping it sounds casual.
“I know it’s none of my business,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, rushed, “and it’s not like– I mean, it’s totally fine if– um, I mean, I just wondered... Are you and him, you know... Together?”
The question startles a laugh out of Xia Fei. From anyone else, the insinuation would have stung, salt in an old yet tender wound. But Cheng Xiaoshi is Cheng Xiaoshi; Xia Fei knows he isn’t being malicious.
Besides, there are worse questions that Cheng Xiaoshi could ask; questions that would force Xia Fei to craft more lies to cover those he’s told, furthering the deception upon which this is premised. This question is easy. Weightless. It shouldn’t hurt.
(Even if Xia Fei’s asked a version of it to himself, shifting the tense from fact to possibility. Even if he’s wished, in secret and selfish moments, that the answer could be different.)
“We’re not,” he replies – light, dry, like the leaves falling around Lu Guang as Xia Fei watches, not turning towards Cheng Xiaoshi. “There’s nothing between us.”
+1
Cheng Xiaoshi keeps messaging him, weeks after their return to Guidu. He seems genuinely worried about how Xia Fei’s doing.
It would be comforting, if Xia Fei could find it within himself to feel anything so warm. Grief has soaked deep into him, cold and numbing as Bridon’s endless rain. The disbelief that drives him burns not like fire, but fever.
Another notification. Cheng Xiaoshi’s icon, a string of words: how’s it going? busy? haven’t seen your updates lately
Xia Fei scrolls through his sticker collection, chooses an appropriate face to present. Replies: Don’t worry about me. I’m doing fine.