Work Text:
Yuan Hong had never considered himself someone who needed other people.
For most of his life, he had learned that solitude was simpler. Safer.
Solitude asked no questions. It demanded no explanations. It imposed no standards and held no expectations. Solitude was never disappointed when you failed to overcome difficulties. It never looked at him with that strange kind of concern he had never quite known how to understand.
Solitude meant having no weaknesses. When you cared about no one, no one could use that person to hurt you. Just as his father's family had once been able to whip his mother because they considered Yuan Hong a stain upon their name.
He was a police officer.
A man who had to make difficult decisions every day—decisions others were too afraid to make. A man who had to remain calm when everyone around him was losing their heads.
That was what people usually saw when they looked at him.
Composure.
Discipline.
Distance.
They assumed that if his face remained calm and unreadable, then everything beneath it must be the same.
No one ever wondered whether there was something more hidden underneath.
No one truly tried to know him.
No one stayed long enough to even have the chance.
At least, that was how things used to be.
Until one unique, impossible person appeared in his life:
Zhao Shaoshang.
+++
At first, Yuan Hong considered him a problem.
It was the simplest definition.
A problem.
A wealthy young master who stuck his nose into places where it did not belong far too often. A man with the infuriating ability to notice things everyone else overlooked, paired with an equally infuriating tendency to throw himself into danger without a second thought.
Zhao Shaoshang was noise.
He was chaos.
He was everything Yuan Hong had spent years teaching himself to avoid.
And yet...
For some reason, he became accustomed to his presence far too quickly.
He became accustomed to having someone just a step behind him, someone he could always talk to—something he had missed terribly during the years he spent at the military academy in England.
+++
The first time Yuan Hong noticed it happened by accident.
Or at least, that was what he believed at the time.
During one investigation, Zhao Shaoshang was standing beside him, sorting through documents. As usual, he talked too much. As usual, he had several theories at once. And as usual, half of them were absurd while the other half were disturbingly accurate. Yuan Hong merely had to wait for Shaoshang to decide for himself which half belonged in which category.
At one point, he leaned closer to point something out on a document.
His shoulder brushed against Yuan Hong's.
Nothing significant.
An accidental touch.
It lasted only a fraction of a second.
To Zhao Shaoshang, it probably meant nothing at all.
But Yuan Hong felt it.
And, to his own surprise, he did not mind.
Shaoshang was warm. The fabric of his clothes left behind a faint, pleasant scent on Yuan Hong's shoulder, one that lingered with him until that evening, when he finally removed his suit jacket and tossed it into the corner of his room.
After that, he began noticing more.
Zhao Shaoshang's hand on his shoulder when he laughed at something Yuan Hong had said.
The light pressure of his fingers whenever they pushed their way through a crowd.
The moment Zhao Shaoshang leaned casually against his side during a long conversation, without even thinking about it.
They were small things.
So small that most people probably would not have noticed them at all.
But Yuan Hong noticed everything.
He had spent his entire life observing.
He observed the members of his family, analyzing whether it was safe for him to speak.
He observed teachers and classmates, studying their behavior and deciding how he should respond.
He analyzed.
He searched for details.
He noticed patterns.
The problem was that for most of his life, he had used that skill during investigations.
He had never expected that one day he would use it to understand himself.
+++
The worst—and perhaps the best—part of it all was that Yuan Hong never put his wants or needs into words.
He never said:
"Stay with me."
He never asked:
"Touch me again."
He never begged:
"Don't leave."
Because Yuan Hong considered such things absurd.
They were unreasonable.
They were weakness.
They were proof of his own guilt.
So he did the only thing he was good at.
He waited.
He analyzed and observed.
He waited for Zhao Shaoshang to approach him on his own. He waited for every accidental touch. For every smile the man offered him. For the moment when that irritating, overly loud person would find himself standing beside him again.
And every time it happened, Yuan Hong acted as if nothing had changed.
As if his heart did not react just a little too strongly.
As if he did not memorize every single gesture, no matter how small.
As if his skin did not tingle after every touch.
Zhao Shaoshang was like a magnet, and Yuan Hong's body—so indestructible and rigid, like metal—turned out to be completely incapable of resisting his pull.
+++
Of course, Zhao Shaoshang noticed.
He noticed everything.
That was one of the most irritating things about him.
Contrary to what people expected, Shaoshang was not simply some ordinary rich young master. He was not someone who only focused on meaningless distractions, filling his time with frivolous activities.
Zhao Shaoshang was focused, observant, and devoted.
When something caught his interest, he gave it his complete attention, dedicating all his energy, focus, and genuine interest to it.
When they returned to Yuan Hong's house once again, late in the evening, after the long hours they had spent running around the city searching for more clues that would allow them to understand the motives and decipher the evidence related to yet another investigation that had fallen into their hands...
Yuan Hong collapsed tiredly into a chair in the garden, his eyes closed as he listened to the sounds of chopping and sizzling coming from his kitchen.
The kitchen that Shaoshang had completely taken over and declared his own.
And Yuan Hong had never been able to find enough energy or strength to throw him out.
The smell of dinner reached his nose soon after, intensifying the hunger that had been accompanying him for a long time.
"Enjoy."
Shaoshang said as he placed a bowl full of delicious-smelling noodles in front of him, decorated with fresh vegetables and covered in sauce.
Yuan Hong nodded in thanks before lifting his chopsticks and quickly, almost greedily, burying himself in the steaming dish.
It was another thing he could not understand.
Shaoshang cooked for him, and even if the meal was cold, Yuan Hong felt a warmth spreading inside him that he could not explain.
That day, he had felt truly awful.
The case that had led them to the brothel.
The discovery of information about girls who had been forced to sell their bodies.
The realization of how many of them had no other choice, how many had been kidnapped and tortured until they finally broke.
It made Yuan Hong's stomach feel heavy and his heart tighten.
But Shaoshang's noodles were...
They were kind.
They were warm.
And for just a moment, they allowed him to forget the past.
When the bowl was empty, Yuan Hong placed it on the table with a quiet clink.
He lifted his gaze from his hands and looked toward the other chair, the one where Shaoshang always rested.
The man was there, exactly as Yuan Hong expected.
What he did not expect was that Shaoshang would be looking at him.
"Finished?" Shaoshang asked after a moment of silence during which their gazes remained locked.
"Yes."
Yuan Hong agreed, lacking both the energy and the idea of how he could possibly lie to him.
For a moment, a possibility he had never allowed himself to consider before crossed his mind.
Now that they had finished eating, Shaoshang would stand up and leave, and Yuan Hong would once again be alone.
He wanted...
He wanted very badly for Shaoshang to stay.
But he did not say anything.
He did not ask him to stay.
He did not have the courage to do so.
He did not have the strength to hear a refusal.
"Come here."
Shaoshang said, and Yuan Hong caught himself standing up without hesitation and walking toward his chair.
The younger man stretched his arms toward Yuan Hong, almost as if he expected help getting up from the chair.
Yuan Hong was about to joke that Shaoshang should stop eating so much or he would gain weight, but he remained silent.
Instead, he leaned toward him, ready to serve as a ladder for Shaoshang to climb back onto his feet.
To his surprise, however, that was not what Shaoshang meant.
His arms wrapped around Yuan Hong's neck, pulling him downward until the police officer ended up kneeling beside his chair.
"Mmm, this is comfortable."
Shaoshang murmured, wrapping his arms around Yuan Hong even tighter, pulling his head in and placing it comfortably against his shoulder.
One of Shaoshang's hands moved upward, brushing against the back of Yuan Hong's head. His fingers scratched gently against his scalp until Yuan Hong released a quiet sigh.
Yuan Hong collapsed helplessly into his arms, his weight pressing against Shaoshang, but the younger man did not even flinch because of it.
The police officer breathed deeply, trying to remain calm as the warmth of Shaoshang's body seeped through his clothes, warming his cold skin and reaching all the way down to heat his heart that had long since turned to stone.
He sighed softly, feeling the tears he had refused to let fall for years gathering beneath his eyelids.
He breathed steadily, trying to calm himself and lock his emotions away once again.
But Shaoshang's hands running through his hair did nothing to help him regain control.
Maybe they were only friends.
Maybe they still did not know how to call it something else.
But Zhao Shaoshang was patient.
And Yuan Hong was slowly learning that not every need had to be a weakness.
Some things simply existed, waiting for you to reach out and take them.
Just like the hand of the man who had walked beside Yuan Hong day after day, waiting for him to finally extend his own hand in return.
Like an embrace offered without words.
An embrace that could even be forced upon him when Yuan Hong was not ready to consciously accept it, regardless of how desperately his heart needed it.
Shaoshang might have been exactly what Yuan Hong had needed from the very beginning.
The only problem was that he had been afraid to ask for it.
Luckily, Shaoshang had the softest heart and the sharpest mouth.
He fit to Yuan Hong perfectly.