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They say self love is the most important kind of love.
Not the love that you direct at others with gratitude and warmth. Not the love for inmate objects that you've held dear to your heart for years and years.
No— the most important was the love of yourself. The paradigm of self, if you wanted to put it like that, was one that not only helped shape you into the type of person that you wanted to be in life but would be who exactly you are to the world.
Because after all how could you begin to help others if you didn't help yourself, if you couldn't understand yourself.
All in all, self love was important.
Maybe it was something the number 15th hero could have taken into consideration more often.
Shang Chao didn't mind helping the other man especially if he looked like how he did now, posture stiff and raged, his face drained of almost all his color — or what little color he did have before he had turned a pale ashen color. It was something that they had in common but never this shade of white that Nice was now. Their skin tone was only one of the similarities of why he was allowed to work as Nice's fill.
But it also has to do with the fact that his father is the CEO of Treeman and even if they don't talk as much as they used to after the incident Shang Chao likes to go behind the scenes and figure out any information that could be of importance.
The clicking or the camera draws him away from his thoughts and he blinks and remembers that he's Nice right now and he should be smiling.
Shang Chao tilts his head to the side, shoots the camera his most glorious smile and the action comes out easy, smooth, the perfect replica of the number 15th heroes, a smile that's earned Nice's his ranking and popularity, that Shang Chao has taken as his own for just this second.
Shang Chao finds that being the sub in for such a hero is almost easy.
But he can't bring to imagine the actual burned of what lies on the man's shoulders. Shang Chao has had to fill in more events in this past month that he has the whole year. Whatever the man is doing has no doubt been draining and as Shang Chaos visits get more frequent you would think it's a good thing that he gets a break but even while he's here he's doing something, typing away texts, talking constantly with miss J. Nice doesn't get a break.
Shang Chao wonders when he'll snap.
It wasn't hard for him to put together the truth, that the perfect hero wasn't so perfect after all, that the man's persona was a carefully crafted lie made to deceive the people, to make Nice's trust values raise to enter the tournament.
He knew that want the goal because what else would his father seek to achieve if not the very top.
Nice was just a small piece in a big game and Shang Chao empathized with him. A person could only handle too much until they were snapped thin.
They finished up the photoshoot a while later. Shang Chao has by now been familiar with the simple rustle and bustle of the routine. After he gets changed out of the revealing costume that they had him wear— and really a backless shirt was something he never thought he would wear, he sympathizes with who even has to edit it because Shang Chao knows that he has some small freckles on his back. He remembers how their own team had to edit out the small blemishes of Yang Cheng suit when they had their own photoshoot promoting their tech.
Fixing the blue cardigan that Yang Cheng had given him as a gift he stalks his was towards Miss J. He can't help the question that leaves his mouth when he approaches the women, for the past hour that he's been here Shang Chao has been thinking of what could possibility cause the hero to look so.. distraught.
"What happened to him? He looks like he went through it."
The woman purses her lips into a thin line looking like she's debating what to tell him, for a split second she does look concerned, but whether by almost accidentally telling him something that might be classified or for the actual well-being of her client he does know. She shakes her head probably remembering she can't do that and she was talking to the owner of a Hero Agency.
"Just difficulties in paradise with moon."
He doesn't believe it for a second because one, moon and nice aren't even a thing he knows for sure, he has his information. And two even if they were a couple and were having trouble in paradise, nice doesn't even look like he's focused on his relationship, he looks almost scared, down right terrified.
It causes a surge of protectiveness to grow in him. Sure he might not talk to the man and when he has he's been nothing but prissy and snarky, he is still a human, one who looks like he's on thin ice.
" I'm not an idiot. I know how my father is, " he says to Miss J. " I know him and Moon aren't in a relationship."
She doesn't look as pensive as she did earlier, just shakes her head and mutters under her breath. " That's his kid alright."
He stops down the word he could say to that and instead inquires once again about Nice.
" He's just freaking out over the tournament. You know your father well, you know he's pushing for the best."
" And he's ranked 15th." Shang Chao supplied. " Five ranks underneath the required and in such little time."
The woman nods, "Correct... You can see it's affecting him. And on behalf of mister Shand he thanks you for your assistance in helping him get a break."
Break. The man might be younger than Shang Chao but he looks decades older with how he looks. He is not getting any breaks.
He veers off to the side, ignoring Miss J insisting that he can't talk and makes his way to where Nice is sitting on a chair. He squats down in front of the man, Nice's head is hung low, gaze looking far away and not at all here. He waits, knows that to be startled out of your thoughts could be more disturbing than actually finishing them.
It's a minute before nice blinks owlishly at him, not all there but enough light in his eye makes him believe that they can carry on a short and brief conversation.
"Hey,"
Before he wasn't sure if the man knew his name, he's never said if when they have talked for those brief moments. Now skipping out of the pink chapped lips he mildly surprised. " Shang Chao." Nice greets confused and then something shifts and he goes rigged. Eyes going dark as if he's remembering something unpleasant.
"Hey." He tried again. " You with me Nice?"
A blink, a slow sluggish nod.
"Good. I just wanted to ask you a question. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to simply shake for a no and a nod for a yes will do."
Another nod.
"Are you okay?"
The man goes still and Shang Chao would think that no one really asks how he's feeling as he sees the beginning of his eyes staring to water. Panic slowly settles in him but before he can say anything Nice's low and quiet voice cuts through the air.
"No one asked me that in a long time. Actually Wreck had asked me that but I stopped responding a while back... I miss him."
Wreck, a familiar name if your kept up with the news and Shang Chao has. Wreck, Nice's rival ever since his debut, the two were always fighting and crashing. Another thing he had expected his father would pull, theatrics and scripts it was almost pitiful how his father had fallen. Wreck was a powerful opponent the level of distastes that he's caused was large, Small buildings torn to shreds, larger ones knocked down. Again he had caught the pattern, the smaller picture in a bigger frame. All of those buildings were ones that treemans real estate was seeking.
Shang Chao was always taught to figure out things quickly when he was a child, a trait his father had taught him and one he inherited.
"Wreck, he's your nemesis right?"
Fear flashes across, cracking the somewhat small smile that he has gained at the thought of Wreck. Nice looks alarmingly to where miss J is as of expecting a verbal chiding for his slip up.
"It's okay. I figured it out a long time ago my father isn't as discreet as he likes to think he is. Or not to me, that is, I have eyes and ears everywhere." Shang Chao winks at him. " But that's a secret between me and you okay?"
Nice's shoulder seem to relax from where they we're tensed up. " That's good... Ma— Mr Shand would have hated to know I said something."
Shang Chao furrows his brows at the slip up and decides for now to ignore it. " I wanted to ask you something. Nice, if you don't find me asking, seeing as I am an owner of an opposing agency."
Even while he looked drained, Nice attempted to shoot his signature thumbs up trying to not look as spooked. He was probably trying to gain back some type of authority to make himself feel better. " Go ahead, I don't mind."
It's not the original question that he wanted to ask but as his slow approach to the man he switched it to this.
"I just wanted to ask — are you happy?"
It seems Shang Chao's question wasn't one that he had expected, his face seemed to shutter going through a series of emotions until just falling into a blank face.
"I'm I happy? You ask really strange questions you know? " A deflection, he has been getting better at spotting those from Yang Cheng, when he had to get Xia Qing to help him make Yang Cheng do something for his own good. " You not like your father."
Shang Chao laughed. " You treeman people keep saying that, but no, I'm not like my father. I'm my own person who just has a burning curiosity and decides to extend a helping hand to those who need it. So I'll ask you again. Nice. Are you happy?"
Nice looked around his shoulders.
"Miss J and her bodyguard left earlier. You can tell me the truth."
"I'm...I—"
The loud sound of Shang Chao's phone rang, he fumbled with it once he saw the caller ID. " Sorry just gimme a second Nice— Xia Qing what's wrong? Yang Cheng? What happened to him? Ah shit. Yeah yeah I'll be there in a bit. Just don't tell him I'm here, you know how he gets. Okay, bye, love you."
Shang Chao sighed looking down at his phone. "That idiot."
Nice who had been openly eavesdropping had perked up once Shang Chao had mentioned Yang Cheng. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, just a simple suit malfunction, nothing the people at HQ can't fix but Ya— E-Soul needs me there."
" He was hurt?"
"No nothing like that, he just gets antsy after a fight like that. Nothing to worry about, he's fine."
Nice nods and like how he was when Shang Chao appeared right in front of him his face was blank, stoic– it caused goosebumps to form on his skin. Torn between the need to see Yang hang to physically verify that he was unharmed, that he was still breathing and here in this world and the need to check on Nice to see exactly how far his father had planted his roots into the hero's head. He landed on staying a few more extra minutes, Xia Qing, he knew, was fully capable of dealing with Yang Chang, simmering down his restless energy into something more lax and calm.
Looking at nice was a little scary somedays not because of their resemblance, one that only grew with an appearance of a white wig atop his head but rather the way the man seemed to carry himself while he wasn't in the limelight. Like a husk of a human trying desperately to will himself to move. The facade of being perfect ran deep and Shang Chao could only guess how far Nice had been ensnared.
"Shoot, I'm so sorry. Nice " Shang Chao pockets the phone." You were saying..."
His smile seems more forced, lips pulled taunt into this thing that is supposed to be a smile but looks more like a pleading cry for help. "I'm happy. I'm fine."
Liar.
He's not fine.
Shang Chao now feels like the media poking and prodding at the bear that doesn't want to be poked at all, he knows that now he's here on borrowed time, sees the gentle oozing annoyance that had slowly been built up. A facade that ran deep that became true, and nobody wanted to see their own truth staring right back at them.
He lets out a hearty sigh. Knows that this was something that he failed but he promised to himself that if he could do anything in his power to get Nice out of this toxic and unstable environment that he would, preferably another day when he's pondered it and discussed rigorously with Yang Cheng and Xia Qing, maybe they'll save the man a spot in the agency once he out. The thought sits heavy in his stomach. He fished out his wallet, extending his card.
"I know there are things that you don't want to talk about, just, if you ever do, know that I'm here not as an enemy but as a friend. I hope you believe that."
He spared one more look at Nice and thinks I'll help you if you call and steps out of the stuffy place that holds dream captives and young men by a leash of their goals and ambitions.