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【開場白】
Before Universe League, Chihen didn’t allow himself the luxury of desire. He wanted things in abstract—to debut, home-cooked meals, more than four consecutive hours of sleep. But this changes. The shape of his fickle hunger mutates under pressure and Chihen mutates along with it.
【正文】
“It’s literally just heartbreak anthems and unrequited love songs,” Shuaibo says, glancing up from his phone. “You okay?”
“Sorry.” Humiliation crawls across Chihen’s neck. “The playlist gets more hype, promise.”
Shuaibo lies folded and creature-like with his head on Chihen’s lap. These days, it’s hard to keep track of whose bed is whose, everyone cycling between hushed rehearsals and midnight debriefs after they return from Blue Square. Staff are lenient, but only Jeongwoo can break curfew outright and get away with it (the noonas find his delinquency endearing).
Despite, or because of, the hotel’s nightly mayhem, Shuaibo and Chihen often gravitate toward each other. Chihen can feel Shuaibo’s exhales on his thigh, heat penetrating cotton and sticking to his skin—an invisible brand.
“I enjoy Eric Chou.” Shuaibo curls closer and tucks the duvet around himself. “Just wondering what you’re planning to do about your giant crush on Heejun.”
“Hyung,” Chihen reflexively corrects. “Heejun-hyung. Also, I don’t know what you mean.”
The eyeroll Shuaibo aims at him would be funny in any other situation. “We have less than two weeks left. Let’s not waste time deluding ourselves.”
Chihen is at the point in his adolescence where it’s easy to pretend—he’s grown, mature, capable of pining after a man five years older and walking out unscathed. Ultimately, Heejun is both somebody he adores and something he’s desperate to perfect. He’ll run the track of liking men until it feels natural, practice the routine of pushing down every emotion until a hardened diamond sits beneath his ribs, beautified by repression.
Shuaibo smiles at him.
(He’s going to reach his long fingers out, pluck that jewel from Chihen’s chest, and crush it between his molars.)
“Well,” Chihen plows on. “I’m not with Heejun-hyung right now, am I?”
“You’re wearing his beanie and sweater,” Shuaibo says. “In my bed.”
“I like his fashion.”
“That’s not all you like.”
Fair enough.
Recently, Shuaibo has gotten into the habit of winding Chihen up. Click. Clatter. Buzz. He finds himself withholding information around him because—because what? Chihen isn’t a natural liar. It’s addictive to be known like Shuaibo knows him, to be half-trusted and never misunderstood.
He puts his whole left hand in Shuaibo’s hair, running his fingers through coarse bangs before reaching scalp. There’s the distinctive feel of freshly conditioned roots, dry and tacky.
“Should I keep it? The black?” Shuaibo asks.
“I think I preferred your brown hair. It was, like, softer. Pretty.”
Shuaibo doesn’t remove Chihen’s hand. “Doll—” he says, with the objective tone of somebody who has evaluated their own face hundreds of times and is therefore comfortable evaluating others’.
Again, Chihen gives ground. “Don’t call me that.”
He lightly pinches the tip of Shuaibo’s nose.
“Be gentle,” Shuaibo yelps. “Or else I’ll post that you were trying to damage my assets.”
“We’re spending too much time together. You sound almost Taiwanese.” Tenderness is blooming in Chihen’s chest. Shuaibo used to parrot back his island drawl and nasal syllables when they argued, but now it’s less mockery and more a permanent part of Shuaibo’s accent.
Shuaibo laughs, fingers encircling Chihen’s wrist. “Bet you love that. Freak.”
(能相擁而泣 也想不離不棄
但終究 止步於 被認定)
“What are you going to do when he doesn’t debut with us?” Shuaibo asks, not giving Chihen any chance to defend himself. “Universe League is my third survival show, Chihen. Got to be my last.”
“I know.”
“You’re being quite reckless. Flaunting Heejun all over TikTok and reposting ship edits.”
Chihen had, in fact, been scrolling through the ‘chijun’ hashtag just a few minutes ago. How much of his crush is genuine and how much of it is fascination with the narrative people have constructed, the one he’s actively shaping? A compulsive need to stretch beyond his body.
Look from the outside.
He wrote a fantasy and he’s been unintentionally starring in it, something he won’t be able to shed now that they’re entrenched. Retroactive romanticization—the adrenaline of touching Heejun, knowing he’ll watch the moment via fancams later and assign emotion to his past self.
“It’s not that serious,” Chihen mumbles. (They both know he’s lying.) “What, are you jealous?”
Shuaibo rolls over onto his stomach, face pressed against the bony juncture where Chihen’s thigh meets his hip. It can’t be comfortable. “I’m looking out for us,” he says, voice faint.
Delicately, Chihen extricates his hand from Shuaibo’s grip and rests it on the back of Shuaibo’s neck. Funny how Shuaibo never mentions the four years separating them, even to make a point. Chihen imagines crawling on top of him and crushing the air from his lungs. It’s not about inflicting pain. He wants to have tangible power over Shuaibo, wants him to experience the same sick, roiling panic Chihen feels every time they make prolonged eye contact and Shuaibo sees right through his defenses.
Yearning for equal measure. They’ve been unbalanced lately, out-of-sync.
“Mmghh.”
“Oh, sorry,” Chihen apologizes. “Didn’t realize how hard I was squeezing.”
There’s a red flush burned across Shuaibo’s cheeks and Chihen can’t help it, he giggles, cupping Shuaibo’s face and swiping his thumbs under his accusatory eyes.
“I’m going to debut,” Shuaibo says, flopping back onto Chihen’s lap.
“What about me?”
“I don’t like making promises I can’t keep.”
The thinly veiled rejection stings. He pictures Shuaibo's body—not as it appears before him, taut, but as it was earlier, wide open and tempting.
Shuaibo hesitates. “I just don’t know if I trust myself to be responsible.” (Implied: responsible for you.)
“I’ve never asked that of you,” Chihen says.
“Okay. Well, we’re on the same team. So it’s together or nothing anyway.”
Okay?
“Steven might come to run lines and go over today’s dance practice video.” Already, Shuaibo is moving on. “Wake me up if he knocks.”
Chihen blinks. Slow and careful. “Let’s—”
“Let’s talk after Friday,” Shuaibo interjects.
He doesn’t ask why, because it’s not important. He’ll be there.
【收場白】
Chihen wants the years of training to carry him beyond survival show purgatory, Taipei’s familiar skyline, and Hakka restaurants where people sit elbow to elbow. Just one breath. One more. With startling clarity, he thinks, I crave his undivided attention I’m so hungry I want—