Archive of Our Own ^beta

And is it worth the wait
All this killing time?

The first time he calls, no one picks up.

The second time, the number is out of service.

That doesn't stop him from calling. He calls at odd hours, listening to the automated message tell him: the number you have dialed is no longer in service. The click at the end. The white noise of the dead line. In those early days, he is grateful to have to go to work. To face his colleagues. Grateful to have someone to paint a mask on his face with makeup, so no one has to see that he hasn't been sleeping. They know, though. They must know.

He feels like everyone must know. Like it shows on his face.

Dilireba nudges him. Tries to get him to talk. Holds space open for him. But there's nothing he can say that isn't horribly damning. There are no words for what has just happened. There are no words to speak of it that won't put him in danger, won't make it worse.

Sometimes, when she smiles at him after the end of a take, he wants to cry.

A week, ten days. Sometime later. His assistant hands him a piece of paper. A letter. He reads the letter. Once. Twice. It contains—words that he will not remember. He says, "Can I have a pen?"

"You don't need to sign it, boss."

"No, I want to make an edit."

She gives him the pen because she's known him long enough to know when she's already lost the argument.

He crosses out two characters in the final paragraph and replaces them. The pen shakes as he writes. He hands the paper back.

She reads what he's written and looks up, her mouth a thin line.

"It's a synonym," he says. "It doesn't even change the meaning."

She shakes her head. Folds the paper and puts it away. She does not argue. Probably, she should.

At every large group dinner with the cast and crew of Anle Zhuan, he finds himself a little quieter. A little more held apart. The other version of himself—playful and gregarious and engaged—feels impossible to access. When they ask him questions, he tilts his head. Thinks too long. Gives a measured answer.

Once, when they've all been drinking, when she's clinging to his arm to stay upright in her tottering heels as they wait for a car, Reba whispers into his ear: "I'm so sorry, Gong laoshi."

She never calls him Junjun. He doesn't want her to.

Finally, he works up the nerve to message didi because someone should. Because Zhehan would want him to make sure didi was okay. Sends a dumb meme and asks how he is.

He watches didi start to type and stop. Over and over again.

Eventually, hours later, he gets a message that says: my parents don't want me to talk to you, ge

And there it is. In black and white. He wants to be angry—he's done nothing—but he can't blame the kid's parents. It's the smart choice.

ok

but you need to know

I will always be there for you

The messages are marked as read immediately. No response. He didn't expect one.

One day, when his assistant comes to rouse him from a nap, she takes one look at him, sitting up shirtless and frowsy-eyed, and frowns.

He plasters on a smile. "What's up?"

She looks at him. Sighs. "Boss, you look like shit."

He brushes her off. "Aiyah, it's just the heat."

"You need to eat something," she says, and she sounds—pleading.

"I'm eating, I'm eating," he says.

He isn't eating.

Hasn't been sleeping, hasn't been eating. He's lucky that he doesn't look worse. The costumes cover his gaunt collarbones, and it's easy for the costume laoshis to cinch them in a little at the waist. The weight doesn't start to fall from his face until fall comes in full force and the heat abates and he can cover up his skinny arms with long sleeves.

The day after a particularly long night shoot, already drained, he finds that there's no cushion on his chair on set. He looks, confused, at his assistant, standing a few feet away in conversation with a crew member. Shooting the shit. Like everything is normal.

He waves at her and she hustles over. "Ay, boss, I'm sorry—" she starts, and he feels actual panic well up in him. "It was so late last night that I left it on set by mistake. I have someone bringing it over later today, but it'll take a bit; they have to finish their own shoots."

He nods once. Swallows. "Thank you."

She doesn't say: it's my job. Or: you're welcome. Or even: it's no trouble. It clearly was trouble.

She says, "I knew it would be important to you."

The cushion arrives as they finish shooting, and he sits in the back of the car clutching it the whole ride back to the hotel like a child with a beloved stuffed toy.

When he lies down to try, to struggle really, to fall asleep that night, he can't stop thinking about the way it's all disappearing. How easy it is to erase ten years of a man's life.

He falls asleep, wakes up with one arm outstretched, searching for the other body that isn't in his bed. Not tonight. Not any other night.

After that, he saves what he can. Preserves the evidence, he thinks to himself, with an obsessive fervor. Hoards the proof that Zhehan was real. That he knew him. Saves the voice messages, the videos, the few he hasn't lost entirely to the purge of Zhehan's accounts. Takes stock of the gifts. He keeps them all.

The ring sits where he left it on August 13th, on the nightstand in his hotel room, when he took it off before work and never put it back on again.

By the time he finishes shooting, it's all long over. Even Shan He Ling is gone.

He puts the ring in his carryon bag—because he doesn't have a ring box, why would he have had a ring box?—to deal with never and sits on the longest short flight of his life.

He has an entire vacation booked for after Anle Zhuan wrapped. He was going to Sanya before the GQ event to lie on a beach. To thank Guanyin for granting his wish.

Instead, he curls up in his hotel room, letting the air conditioning dry out his skin, and scrolls endlessly. None of it means anything. He feels ill. He vomits in the toilet. Tells himself it's the water, the food, the heat.

He gets drunk. That doesn't help either. He lies on the bed, maudlin and dramatic, and fiddles with the place where there's no ring on his finger. Cries. Opens up Taobao and buys himself a long gold chain he can hide under his clothes. It'll arrive at his mother's house before he does.

For some reason, that makes him cry harder.

He calls the disconnected phone line and listens to the voice tell him the line is no longer in service. Listens to the static. Probably, if he tried hard enough, he could get in contact. Someone would be stupid enough to take his call, to pass his message on.

He doesn't, though. That's not what Zhehan would want.

When he drags himself out onto the beach, he watches the waves. The blossoming seafoam. He is oddly grateful that this phone doesn't have any of his social media accounts attached to it, personal or professional. He knows he would post something stupid.

It is altogether the worst post-filming vacation he's ever taken and it barely lasts twenty-four hours.

When he comes home, crashing into his mother's house like an enormous cranky child, she takes one look at him and asks who died. He tries to laugh. Her eyes go round and horrified when he instead starts sobbing hysterically against the fist he presses to his mouth.

She wraps her arms around him and says, "Oh, baobei. He seemed so nice. Was he your—friend?"

It is the closest they have come to discussing it in years.

He nods. She kisses the top of his head and cooks all his favorite dishes and they do not speak about it again.

He drags himself mechanically to one of the few remaining gay bars in Chengdu. Waits for the first man to buy him a drink and tells himself: he's going back to this man's apartment. He sips something sweet and underlaid with rum as the man, a German expat, explains in clumsy Mandarin what it is he does for a living. Something involving computers.

Eventually, the man asks, "So are you single?"

He blinks at him. No one would ever believe this story anyway. "Widowed, actually."

The man stares at him. "Uh. I'm sorry. Was it—recent?"

"Ninety four days ago." He doesn't have to think about it. He enjoys the look of panic in the man's eyes, the way he squirms. He drinks it up.

"Wow."

"So," he says smoothly, "you wanna take me back to your place?" It's the worst pickup line he's ever attempted. Laughably bad.

"Uh." The man is panicking now. "You seem really nice, but I think that's—uh—"

He throws back his head and laughs. Like it's a good joke. Like it's a joke at all. "Yeah, me neither. Thanks for the drink, though." He leaves it, mostly full, and walks most of the way back to his mother's house. Gets home late enough that she scolds him in the morning for making her worry.

He doesn't go back to the bar.

Soon enough, he is back at work, smiling at cameras. Being funny, being clever. Trying not to think for too long when he’s answering stupid questions on livestreams.

He tells his manager he needs a year off costume dramas. Tells her it's because he doesn't want to get pegged as a costume drama actor, because he's tired of the heavy robes and the awkward and unmanageable lines. He opens his mouth to say something about the heat, and he realizes that they aren't his words, even though they're coming out of his mouth.

Into his sudden pause, his manager says, "Don't worry: you don't have to be Wen Kexing forever."

Afterward, he sits at the office, detached and floating far away, her words ringing in his ears.

He would happily be Wen Kexing forever. He will never be Wen Kexing again.

He walks into the supply closet and cries silently into his clasped hands. Two BL dramas is already two too many for one man's career. He will never act opposite another male lead again without a woman standing in between them.

(He will never fall in love again.)

He gives his entire staff a raise when none of them mention him walking out of a closet with red rimmed eyes and a snotty nose into their afternoon meeting.

Eventually, he stops counting the days when he can’t keep track in his head anymore.

The press tour for Anle Zhuan is overwhelming in its pageantry. He is still terrible at the games, still terrible at the witty answers in interviews. But now he knows what his face should look like while he does it. When he looks at Reba, he pretends to see someone else's face. And he smiles. Ducks his head. Looks up through his lashes.

It goes so well that his studio ends up having to deny rumors. It goes so well that he thinks about wearing the ring again in public. It goes so well that Reba looks at him one day, when they're sitting off set after filming a variety show and he's collapsed back in on himself, and says, "Are you okay?"

It means: how much is this costing you? It means: I see you. It means: I know.

He shakes his head.

She sighs. "Let's eat."

They sit side by side in her hotel room on an uncomfortable couch, picking at noodles. Some days, he can taste them. Not today.

"You know, there aren't a lot of men in the industry I would invite into my hotel room alone," she says like it's a joke. It's not a joke.

He looks at her, eyes serious, mouth set. "I would never—"

"I know. Eat your noodles."

Part of him wishes that he were the sort of man women didn't let in their hotel rooms. It would be easier.

He eats his noodles. When she finishes her bowl, she leans over and steals a piece of beef out of his bowl. He makes an aggrieved noise, but doesn't stop her.

He says, trying to sound lighthearted, "Should I let someone catch me leaving your hotel room?"

Reba looks at him, calculating. "I don't think your fans would like that."

"Would yours?"

She hums. "We don't do everything for them."

No. No, they don't. But—he used to have things he wanted. Goals. He used to have more in his life than fresh success and the knowledge that, one day, his parents would be able to retire comfortably. Now, that has to be enough.

Later, when he leaves her hotel room, the hallways are empty. It feels like relief.

A full year has gone by when he ends up at an industry event with Huang Youming. He doesn’t know if he should pretend not to know him. It still feels touch-and-go most days. No one knows if it will spread—to them (to him). If it will spread as if it were a plague. A real pandemic raging around the world, and this is what they’re worried about: maintaining their reputations. He smiles at the waiter with dead eyes, plucks a passed appetizer off a platter, and tells himself that he isn’t going to speak to Huang laoshi.

Which is, of course, what summons Huang laoshi to his elbow. “You look like shit, kid,” Huang laoshi says.

“Thank you,” he says.

They stare at each other for a solid minute. He’ll be damned if he breaks first.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“It’s an open bar.”

Huang laoshi snorts. “After.”

“I have an early flight.” The lie comes easily to him now. He spends so much of his time lying these days.

“One drink.”

And he agrees, even though he shouldn't. He agrees like a fool because he likes the idea of talking to someone who remembers, who won’t pretend it didn’t happen. He agrees because he hasn’t said Zhehan's name out loud in so long that just the idea of saying it is too tantalizing to pass up.

It’s not just one drink.

“Huang laoshi, you’re trying to get me drunk,” he says drunkenly, shaking a finger at him.

Huang Youming looks at him, skeptical. “Trying implies that you didn’t jump at the chance.”

“Mean.”

"Always," he says. "It keeps me alive."

"I don't feel like I'm alive anymore."

"Maybe," Huang Youming says, "you should be meaner."

He can't help it: he laughs. "I feel like I'm mourning a death, but no one's died."

"For the person you thought he was?"

"For the person I know he is," he says, sharp and savage.

To his surprise, Huang Youming smiles at him. "Good." He squeezes his hand.

The swoop of his stomach, the sickening crunch of reality. It feels like losing him all over again. "You—"

"We all knew him. We knew what he was like." Huang laoshi cups his face in his hands. Looks him straight in the eyes. It is not a platitude.

He nods once, curt. Sniffles. "Sorry, I'm going to—" The sounds are small, punched out of him, still too loud for the hand clamped over his mouth to hold back.

Huang laoshi doesn't give him a pitying look. He puts a hand on his shoulder. He says, "Oh, laogong," and that makes him cry harder.

He whispers the words, "你不配. You aren't worthy." But what he means is: we aren't. We never were.

(I wasn't.)

"Okay, now, I'm cutting you off," Huang laoshi says, reaching for jovial.

He looks up at Huang laoshi with big betrayed eyes, softening his mouth a little. Hopes the real tears lingering in the corners of his eyes will help sell it.

"Fuck off, that's not going to work on me."

"Dage." He sucks his lower lip in. Bites down on it. "One more drink?"

Huang laoshi rolls his eyes. "I'm not going back to your hotel room, and I'm not going to fuck you, so put it away." But he flags the waiter down anyway.

The ceiling spins a little as he lies in bed that night—alone, always alone—thinking about Shan He Ling. About the people they were that summer. Wen Kexing feels unreal to him now in a way that would have seemed impossible then: to ever lose the vitality of him. And yet—he can still find it in himself to be jealous. Wen Kexing got to keep Zhou Zishu forever, but he didn't even get three years.

Just fourteen scant months to last him a lifetime.

He wakes up, hung over and faintly ashamed. Messages Huang laoshi an apology. He doesn't hear back right away. When he does, it's all brusk platitudes, the occasional joke, but he can't help feeling—that he exposed too much. As if something slipped out that wasn't meant to be seen.

Somehow, impossibly, the world moves on. Time—simply keeps going. His staff changes. New faces. People who didn't work for him when he filmed Shan He Ling. And suddenly it's been longer since that day than they ever had together.

So he moves on.

Well.

He tries to.

On a hot day in June, his scalp itching, back aching, he fires the new assistant who forgets the cushion on set and can’t find it the next day. He feels bad about it about two minutes later, but he doesn’t—actually rehire him. He doesn’t want to see the man’s face ever again. He knows he should—his studio begs him to—but he can’t bring himself to care. Is the man going to sell his story? Who is going to make the connection? No one else does.

So he hires someone else. The man does not sell his story. He gets a good reference from his former boss. Probably he goes on to have a profitable career in the industry. It figures.

On a flying trip to Beijing, his ring slips off its chain as he takes it off to shower. He panics, trying to grab it out of the air, but fumbles it and watches it go sailing into the toilet. He has to laugh at himself, scrabbling elbow-deep in toilet water as he fingers the U bend, desperate not to let the ring slip down the plumbing.

When he fishes it out, he sets it down carefully on the sink vanity. Hooks it back onto the chain, still filthy, for safekeeping.

After his shower, when he feels halfway human, he calls room service and has them send up a glass of vodka. He drops the ring in, still on the chain, and watches it sit there for ten minutes that he doesn't properly have. Pulling it out afterward, he realizes that the ring looks bright and new, but the coating on the chain is flaking unhappily away, discolored in places. He puts it back on, anyway.

He gets a reputation. Or maybe he always had one? He can’t tell if it’s different from how it was before. That he’s snide, mean, withholding in interviews. Generous with gifts for the crew but—silent. Impatient.

Once, during a meeting about possibly getting a lead role in a show that might actually be broadcast offline, his manager tells him to put his dead eyes away and look at her like he isn’t considering how to cut her up for dinner.

He smiles at her. Like it’s a joke.

She tells him that’s worse.

He gets the role anyway. That's the trouble, isn't it, with success? He keeps being successful. He keeps going. He sends beautiful gifts home to his parents and never sees them. He doesn't feel any different inside, only—drier. Like something inside him is withering away.

When he sees Zhou Ye at an event, both of them swathed in designer clothing, he smiles at her and she tells him that it doesn't meet his eyes. He doesn't feel like he knows her anymore. She can still smile with her eyes. They're different that way.

As summer dies that year, he pays off his mortgage. When he tells his mother, she is so proud of him. He finds that there's no one else he wants to tell. It feels shameful to have so much money and nothing to show for it besides a house. A life should have people in it.

The message comes on a dreary November day while he's sitting in an airport lounge, scrolling mindlessly through Weibo. Not thinking about anything at all.

hey

Typing. Then nothing. More typing. He decides to put didi out of his misery.

hi hi :>

Gong laoshi!! I started uni
I know it's been a while but if you're ever in Shanghai, look me up ^___^

It's classic didi: too polite to ask to get dinner. It's sweet, really, because maybe someone else wouldn't want to speak to him again. Someone else who was less desperate.

I'll take you to dinner
not good for you to be eating all that instant crap

He wishes absurdly that he could cook for didi. It would make him feel better. Like it made up for the fact that he would never again cook for—

"Uh, boss?"

"Ahhh, I've just got a bit of something in my eye. Thank you." He dabs at his cheeks. Blinks hard and fast. If he isn't careful, his nose will run. So unflattering.

The next time he's in Shanghai, they arrange to get dinner. He wants to take didi out somewhere nice, but he is who he is, so instead he ends up sending his assistant to get takeout for them and asking didi to meet him at his hotel. It feels faintly sleazy, but he doesn't want anyone to see didi in public with him, even now. He doesn't want them to think about why they know each other.

The knock on the door comes, and he's surprised by it. The elevators need a key after all. Didi must have blagged his way in. The boy really has grown up. When he opens the door, didi is nearly his height and gangly, no longer the baby-faced boy of fifteen he once knew. He opens his mouth to tell him, to say how tall and handsome he is, to go full auntie, but before he can say anything—

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, ge."

It's not what he expected. Maybe he should have. He opens his arms and lets the boy fling himself into them. Oh, didi.

"Please don't be mad at me."

"I was never mad at you." Because it's true: of all the people involved, of everyone who walked away, he never once was mad at didi. Never blamed him. "Come inside."

He shuffles the boy in over the doorstep. Closes the door behind him. It's a suite tonight, big enough that he doesn't have to feel like he's bringing didi into his bedroom. He pours the kid a soda and sits him on the couch.

And they talk. About everything. About nothing. The world is very simple when you are eighteen, easy to make sense of, easy to be angry at. He makes didi tell him about all his classes, the people he's met at university, the mutual friends of theirs he's seen. Zhou Ye says hello. She and didi have kept in touch.

He watches didi wolf down the dishes his assistant brought, urging him on to eat more, putting the best bits in his bowl. He watches the boy steel himself to ask, but it still bowls him over when didi says: "Is dage okay?"

And he has to answer the only way he knows how. With the horrible truth of it: "I don't know."

Didi stares at him, eyes wide with shock, face slack. As if it had never occurred to him. That even his ge didn't know. Didi opens his mouth. Closes it. Bites down hard enough on his lower lip that it goes white.

He waits for didi to say something.

Didi's face crumples inwards after a minute of silence. "I thought—"

He shakes his head.

Didi sniffles, and suddenly he can see the boy he knew in Hengdian again, four summers ago.

"No."

"He's alone, ge. He's all—" Didi is shaking with tears, with grief stored up for when he’s allowed to have it. Allowed to share it.

He sits down on the couch next to didi and wraps his arms around him. He isn't usually good with tears. With comforting people. Normally it makes him awkward, all elbows. But if there is one kind of grief he knows, it's this. "He has his people with him. His family."

Didi raises his blotchy face and glares at him.

He doesn't have to ask. He knows.

(They were his family too, and they abandoned him.)

When didi leaves, he feels heavy with it: longing and memory. He lies in bed a long time, remembering a summer that never seemed to end. The weight of a man in his arms. Catching him as he fell. When it mattered, he couldn't catch him and had to watch as he crumpled to the earth.

That winter, he gets to work with Reba again. Not a costume drama this time but a modern one. His hair is terribly short and his scalp feels exposed. He's playing the villain, or at least they've told him he's playing the villain. He has told the director—who mostly listens, silent and amused—again and again that he is an antihero. To make the show viable, he should seem human. Likable. The viewers should want him to make different choices, should feel for him.

Playing a villain for a change was supposed to be enjoyable. A lark. Instead, he sits in Reba's trailer and bitches about how flat the new pages make his character seem as he makes her noodles.

When he starts eating, she hesitates. Pushes the noodles around in her bowl. She says, "I don't have any roles lined up for next year yet."

"It's March," he says, dismissive.

"I'll be thirty-one this June."

"It's not so bad once you get used to it," he says, shoving noodles in his mouth.

She doesn't start to eat.

Eventually, he sets his chopsticks down. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

When they go back to set, her noodles remain untouched.

He can't watch the show when it airs. He doesn't want to see either of them like that.

Of course, it is a great commercial success. Everyone extols how human he made the villain. He wants to tell them: every villain is a human in his own story. But mostly he just smiles and nods, thanks them for their kind words.

When it comes, the message doesn't come to him. It comes through the same channels as any endorsement or photoshoot offer, to one of his studio employees. Tentative. Thoughtful. Bland words. He gets lucky, though, and she's someone who's worked for him for longer than most of the others. She catches him after a meeting and says to him: "You're in Shanghai next month. Someone wants to see you."

And his mouth goes dry.

"It's only meant to be a single day. I'm not even meant to stay overnight."

She doesn't look at him as she says, "Should I rebook your return flight?"

His voice breaks as he says yes.

It could be someone else. She never actually says his name, but if it were anyone else, she would have.

So he finds himself counting days again—but down this time, not up. It feels like someone has tuned a radio just slightly off channel, the signal fuzzy, coming in and out. Binoculars out of focus, trying to spot a rare bird in a far-off tree. He has to be prompted more often, fed lines, reminded who he's meeting and what he's meant to be promoting.

His assistant seems worried. He can't find it in himself to care.

He lands in Shanghai as the dawn breaks, sun stealing under his eyemask. He stares out the window at the airport runway, the sense of deja vu creeping into him. Memories of past flights—not so long ago—bringing him to Shanghai like slender dreams out of another lifetime. He walks off the plane. He goes to work. For the first time ever, he counts zero days.

Dinner is somehow, impossibly, at a restaurant. He wears a mask, sunglasses, a cap. Feels absurd as he ducks in. Like some secret agent on his way to a clandestine rendezvous with a local contact. The hostess shows him to a private dining room. It's empty.

His heart sinks.

He sits in one of the eight chairs circling the table and takes his mask off. And waits. Their server comes and nervously takes his drink order. He suspects she recognizes him. That's no good. He can only hope she'll be discreet.

In the end, he hears him before he sees him, the soft chatter of him talking up the hostess as she walks him over. Putting her at ease. Does she know who he is? Probably not. He isn't anyone to remember anymore.

When the door slides open, he stares. Watches him brush the hostess off—to give them a bit before sending someone to take their orders, no, he doesn't need anything to drink but the tea that's already on the table—and waits hungrily for the moment when she leaves.

And Zhehan turns to face him. He isn't wearing a mask. He looks—the same. Just like Zhehan does in his memories but a little softer somehow around the edges. No longer dressed in fashionable streetwear. A little careworn. Still horribly beautiful.

Zhehan's face breaks into a grin. "Hey, I think they brought me to the wrong dining room, but can I get an autograph for my girlfriend?"

He opens his mouth to make a joke in response. Tries to, really. All that comes out is: "Dage." He wants to stand up and hug him, but he's not sure his knees will hold. "Dage."

Something crumples in Zhehan's face, the way Zhehan always looks when he's in pain. He'd forgotten about that look over the years. God, how much else has he forgotten—

"Oh, fuck, Junjun, don't cry. Please don't cry."

Junjun shakes his head, opens his mouth to say he's not crying, brings out only a little sob.

Zhehan wraps his arms around Junjun’s shoulders and lets him bury his face in Zhehan's belly. Hide away there. "Haven't I made you cry enough already?"

"Don't say you shouldn't have come."

"What?"

"I just—" He hiccups a little. "I waited so long."

"I know, baobei."

"I didn't think I was waiting for anything, though. Just waiting. Forever." Junjun shudders, breathing in the smell of laundry detergent and cologne and, under it all, the basic skin smell of Zhehan. Then, he lets himself say it: "I never thought I'd see you again."

"Oh." Zhehan's voice is small and fragile. He runs his fingers through Junjun's hair. "You're going to make me cry too."

"Not so fun now, is it," Junjun grumbles.

Zhehan slips a hand under the back of Junjun's collar to rub at his neck. His fingers must catch on the chain there because he pulls it out, dragging it from where it hangs against the front of Junjun's shirt.

Zhehan stares at the ring.

"Did you wear this special, or—"

"No," Junjun says into Zhehan's belly.

"You—”

"I wear it most days. It's, uh, easier to wear it on a chain than on my hand. Fewer questions."

"Oh."

"Why, did you get rid of yours?" Junjun can hear himself fail to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"Of course not," Zhehan says, "but I didn't have anything left to lose."

He doesn't say what he wants to say, which is: neither did I, dage. They both know it's not true.

"Can I sit next to you?" Zhehan asks, a non sequitur.

"You can sit wherever you want," Junjun says. Every one of the chairs at the table has a place setting in front of it. For some reason, he expected Zhehan to choose to sit across from him. To keep his distance.

"I want to sit next to you."

And so he does. He sits next to Junjun and he orders too much food, richer and more extravagant dishes than he ever used to order, now that he doesn't have a diet to follow. He orders baijiu—in honor of our worse halves—and half the menu and Junjun doesn't know how he will walk away from this dinner. How he will ever survive again without this stupid man.

After their server pours the baijiu and leaves, Zhehan sneaks his hand under the table and finds Junjun's.

He stares at their joined hands. "What do you want me to sign for your girlfriend?" Junjun asks.

Zhehan gives him a confused look. "—Oh! Well, I mean, I'm sure my ex would be thrilled to get your autograph, but uh—"

Junjun pulls out the permanent marker he keeps on him with his free right hand and pushes the sleeve of Zhehan's sweater up. "No, no, here, in case you see her anytime soon…" He signs his own name, enormous and showy, on Zhehan's bare forearm. Adds a little note.

"What's that?" Zhehan says, voice faint.

"My number."

"Oh."

"In case you need to remember that you still have something left to lose."

Zhehan stares at it. Tugs his sleeve down. Then, he says, "Why didn't you call?"

Junjun stares at him. "What?"

"You never called. Afterward." From someone else, the words would be accusatory. From Zhehan, they are open, genuine. He wants—maybe needs—to know. Is this the question that has haunted him for the last three years?

"I thought you wouldn't want me to."

Wrong answer. He sees it in every line of Zhehan's face, his facade splintering. "Why would you think that?"

And Junjun doesn't have an answer for that. "You disconnected your number. You deleted all your social media—"

"I didn't choose to do those things. I had to."

Junjun bites into the meat of his lower lip, willing himself to keep it together. "I kept calling."

"What?"

"Your old number. I kept calling."

Zhehan stares at him, incredulous. "Why didn't you just message Xiaoyu?"

Junjun can't meet his eyes. "I was scared. I thought you'd be angry with me."

"For what?"

"I don't know." It's a lie. "For staying. For surviving."

"I wouldn't have been angry. Well, not then anyway." And Zhehan smiles at him, a little wry. "But I'm not dead, Junjun."

"No. You're not."

They talk about ordinary things over the meal. Zhehan spills out years of family events, neighborhood gossip, Xiaoyu's wedding, and Gong Jun counters with little industry stories, some of the funny ones about the people they both used to know. He tells Zhehan that their didi is at university now—Zhehan's alma mater, even—and Zhehan smiles.

"He always was a good kid."

Junjun smiles back at him. "I'll tell him you said that."

"Tell him to do another hour of acting exercises too," Zhehan says, making a Zhou Zishu face that hits Junjun like a punch to the stomach. "Did I say something?"

"No, it's just—I—" Junjun tries for words, then just reaches out, cups Zhehan's jaw. He watches the flicker of Zhehan's gaze to his mouth and back up. It's a bad idea. He kisses Zhehan anyway.

It's not a particularly good kiss, not like the kisses that Junjun remembers, but Zhehan is half frozen against him, soft lips unmoving. Junjun pulls himself back as quickly as he darted forward, but Zhehan leans in a little, chasing after him, until he remembers himself.

They stare at each other for a moment, silence undercut by their loud breathing.

"We're in public," Zhehan says, sounding scandalized.

Junjun smacks his arm. "You once stuck your hand down my pants on set. Besides, this is a private dining room."

Zhehan grins at him. "I did do that, didn't I?"

"Ugh."

"You liked it."

"I did not!"

"No, you did. I remember quite clearly because—"

"Zhang Zhehan, don't you dare tell me a dirty story about myself at the dinner table."

Zhehan sighs. "I'm not used to such refined company as you, my lady."

Junjun pinches him. "Fuck off."

He watches Zhehan pop a dumpling into his mouth, looking smugly pleased with himself. He chews. Swallows. Junjun doesn't ever want to look away. There is nothing particularly enthralling about Zhehan eating, but it's all the details that he'd forgotten—the particular cant of his hands, the sipping of tea between bites, the exact shape of the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. If he never sees Zhehan again, he can't let himself forget.

"I thought you'd be married by now," Junjun blurts out.

"Me too." Zhehan drinks some of the wine, obviously weighing his words. "Dated a few girls. Didn't work out. Tried dating a man again. Didn't work out." He shrugs. "What about you?"

Junjun shakes his head.

"What, no one?" Zhehan scoffs. "My Junjun is so handsome. I can't believe it."

And Junjun doesn't know how to explain it: he was busy. He had his career to think of. He was scared. He never met anyone.

"No one else." He touches the place on his chest where the ring has settled again. Looks fixedly at his plate. He feels oddly stupid. Like a fool.

Zhehan must be waiting for him to speak. It takes a long time.

"I should have called."

"Yes," Zhehan says, "you should have."

When the server brings the bill, they tussle over it. It nearly descends to blows—and then the waitstaff really will have a story to sell—but Junjun manages to smack his phone against the point of service machine first. Their server doesn't comment on the argument, thanks them politely for their patronage, and leaves.

And that's that. The evening is over. They part ways here.

Junjun hesitates before saying, "I have a hotel room."

"Oh?"

"Would you like to, um, come back to it?"

Zhehan is smirking at him. "What kind of girl do you think I am, Gong laoshi?"

"The kind who kisses and tells."

Zhehan laughs and laughs and laughs. "Is this why you insisted on paying for my dinner? Are you trying to make me feel indebted, so I'll spread my legs for you?"

"Yes, that's exactly why."

"Call us a cab then."

"I—have a car waiting, actually."

Zhehan blinks at him. "I'm sorry, I forgot I was speaking with famous actor Gong Jun. Your car. Of course. Have your driver bring it round."

Junjun blushes because it all feels horribly ostentatious standing next to his bare-faced dage, even though Zhehan knows the score. But Junjun asks his driver to come round. Puts his disguise back on and steers Zhehan toward the back entrance of the restaurant, practically through the kitchen. He keeps his hand in the small of Zhehan's back as they linger on the pavement, as he helps him into the car. He doesn't want to stop touching him.

In the car, they sit carefully apart, not talking to each other, the driver's presence a palpable thing between them. Zhehan makes idle chitchat with him, asking about his family, his kids, how long has he lived in Shanghai. Junjun watches him do it like he's casting a spell. By the time they pull up to the hotel, Zhehan has cooed over at least three different but virtually identical round grandchildren and tells their driver that he's sure his son will do well on the gaokao because he's such a good boy and he's studying so hard.

Junjun's hotel keycard whisks them into an elevator that only services a few particular floors, and then they are alone together, surrounded by mirrors, and Junjun is staring at their reflections on every surrounding surface. After being invisible for so long, Zhehan is suddenly inescapable.

There are only five rooms accessible from the elevator on Junjun's floor. Their hands brush together on the short walk. He can feel the heat radiating off Zhehan. Junjun whispers, "I want to touch you."

"So open the damn door," Zhehan says at full volume.

Junjun splutters, but does as he's told. As soon as he gets it open, Zhehan hustles him in, pushing him up against the wall next to the door and bracketing his body. There's a moment, hung in the balance, where he can see all of Zhehan's freckles, the moles dotted across his face, and he is struck by how real Zhehan is, here, with him.

This time, when he kisses Zhehan, Zhehan kisses him back. No hesitation. Almost frantic with it as if he'll think better of it if he hesitates. The hot slide of their mouths against each other. Junjun knows—can hear himself—making embarrassing little noises against Zhehan's mouth. He tugs Zhehan flush against him, needing to be closer, needing to touch. He wraps his hands tight around Zhehan's waist, feeling the tension spill out of him, loose and lax in Junjun's grip. He slings his arms around Junjun's bent neck, letting him take Zhehan's weight.

They're panting a little when they break apart. It feels just like it used to—at least for a moment, splintered across a dozen different hotel rooms. He slides his hand up under Zhehan's shirt, palming the hot skin of his belly.

"Feeling my beer belly?"

"You've never had a beer belly a day in your life," Junjun grouses, biting Zhehan's ear, licking at the shell of it. "Missed you."

Zhehan squirms against him, laughs. "That tickles."

Junjun bites down on the lobe of Zhehan's ear, making him gasp, his fingers scrabbling against the nape of Junjun's neck. He tugs on the soft skin in his mouth, and Zhehan grinds against his hip, obviously hard. Junjun should bother to get them both naked, he should, but just having his hands on Zhehan feels too good to want to stop. Eventually, as he's sucking a bruise into the crook of Zhehan's neck, Zhehan says, "Well, at least get my pants open."

Pulling back, Junjun looks at him, abashed, all big puppy eyes. "Sorry, dage."

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?" Junjun says, dipping his head and looking down through his lashes.

Zhehan flicks him on the forehead. "You know what you look like."

Junjun smiles up at him, unbuttoning Zhehan's shirt and pushing it off his shoulders. Zhehan obligingly raises his arms to help Junjun remove his undershirt, and then Junjun gets to drink him in, admire the tenderness of his belly. It speaks to comfort, the enjoyment of sport for its own sake, long walks with Lufei.

"Don't stare."

"Sorry, I can't help it." Junjun dips his head and nips at one of Zhehan's pecs, so Zhehan will swat him playfully away. "You look so good, dage."

"You've seen me looking better."

Junjun shakes his head. He slides down to his knees and unbuttons Zhehan's jeans, tugging them down off his hips. He's half hard in his boxer briefs, and Junjun nuzzles the shape of him through the fabric. He can smell the musk of him, and it makes his mouth water. Junjun pulls him out, licking up the length of him, flicking his tongue into the slit.

Zhehan makes a surprised noise, fisting a hand in Junjun's hair. He looks up at Zhehan as he takes him in his mouth, holding him there. It feels good—right—to have Zhehan inside of him again. Tucked away where no one can hurt him. Junjun sucks him to full hardness, slow and gentle, until Zhehan tugs on his hair.

"I'm going to come if you keep on like that."

Junjun tilts his head. "I know. I want you to."

Zhehan swallows, throat working. "What about what I want?"

"Whatever you want," Junjun says. "Just—after. Please, ge."

"Okay, okay." Zhehan sighs, petting Junjun's hair.

Junjun sinks down on him, taking him into his throat, showing off a little. See? He's so good, ge. It's so good inside of him. He holds him there for a moment before pulling back till only the head is left in his mouth, lapping at him. The taste of him, salty-sour, fills his mouth. It's vile and it's home. Junjun groans, wrapping his hands around Zhehan's ass, bracing himself. He's still so soft there, enough to fill both Junjun's hands, plush and warm, and Junjun can't help thinking about getting his mouth on Zhehan's ass, biting into him like a ripe fruit. He sucks hard, bobbing his head, desperate for Zhehan to take over, to fuck his mouth.

Zhehan doesn't, though. Just lets Junjun keep going as he pets his hair, hips carefully still. He thumbs Junjun's bottom lip where it's stretched around his dick, slick with spit, and rubs it down Junjun's chin. Junjun whimpers and sinks all the way down on him again, nose buried against his skin. He tries to swallow, gagging a little, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

"Oh, Junjun." Zhehan's fingers graze over his cheek.

He's out of practice, not good at this anymore, cheeks damp as his fucks his mouth on Zhehan's dick, hard and fast enough that he'll feel it after, like a memory caught in his throat. He wants to taste, wants Zhehan to come in him, wants to keep him—

When Zhehan does come, he tightens his fingers at the back of Junjun's head and pulls him back, so he's coming in Junjun's mouth. "Don't swallow."

Junjun looks up at him, teary eyed, desperate, hoping Zhehan will take mercy on him. He wants to swallow so bad. But Zhehan's eyes are closed, head tipped back, a long way away as he spills onto Junjun's tongue.

Junjun doesn't swallow.

Even when Zhehan gently pushes him away, too sensitive, he holds the cum in his mouth. Careful. He can be good.

After half a minute, Zhehan, panting a little, says, "Show me."

And Junjun's belly goes hot as he sticks out his tongue to show off his prize. Zhehan slips his thumb into Junjun's mouth, pressing down on his tongue, and Junjun closes his lips around him automatically, sucking on his finger.

Zhehan strokes his tongue. "Good boy. You can swallow now."

He does. Savors the taste, the salt of it. Zhehan's thumb is still in his mouth. That's good. That way he's not empty. He stays on his knees in front of Zhehan for what feels like a long time, but maybe it's only a few minutes.

Eventually, Zhehan pulls his thumb away and tugs on Junjun's shoulder. "Up, up. Kiss me."

Junjun stands, surging up against him, wrapping his hands around Zhehan and pulling him close. He slips his tongue into Zhehan's mouth, letting him taste himself on Junjun's tongue. Between them, Zhehan fumbles to get Junjun's shirt off, but he doesn't make any move to help, content to just enjoy the heat of Zhehan's mouth against his. Zhehan palms him through his trousers, where he's uncomfortably hard, leaking a little, and Junjun moans into his mouth, pressing closer.

Zhehan snorts. "How am I supposed to get you naked like this?"

"Don't care," Junjun says, leaning in to press their mouths together again.

Dodging, Zhehan says, "I want to see you too, you know."

It sends a curl of satisfaction through him. He's used to being looked at, appraised, but it's always nice to get naked for Zhehan, to watch the way Zhehan unwraps him like a present, as if he hasn't seen it all before. As if he hadn't seen Junjun in various states of undress long before they ever slept together.

"Okay."

"Good." Zhehan lets go of him, shimmying out of his underwear and half-undone pants before heading over to the bed to sprawl out, unselfconscious. He settles one hand on his stomach as if he's thinking about touching himself, toying with the idea, even though he must be so sensitive. Junjun can't stop looking at his fingers, a shade darker than his belly, splayed out across his skin. "Gong Jun," Zhehan says, "clothes off."

Junjun strips quickly, unromantic about it. He doesn't have a lot of feelings about revealing his body, isn't sentimental about it. He knows what he looks like. He leaves the ring on. When he turns, Zhehan makes a soft, bitten off noise between a sigh and a moan, and Junjun looks up at him. Zhehan is blushing a little, a pleased little smile curling at his mouth.

"Oh?"

Zhehan throws his head back, laughs. "I forgot how big you were."

Junjun restrains the impulse to cover himself. "Dage!"

"Don't you dage me. Come here." Zhehan pats the spot on the bed next to him.

Junjun climbs onto the bed and crawls over, awkward, all over-long limbs, under Zhehan's watchful gaze. He presses himself against Zhehan's side, slinging his leg over Zhehan's and wrapping an arm around his waist. Keeping him close.

Zhehan smiles at him, lazy, eyes heavy lidded. "Were you always this clingy?" He strokes Junjun's hair with the arm that has his phone number scrawled down it.

"I want you to fuck me," Junjun says, burying his face in the crook of Zhehan's neck. "I want to feel you."

Zhehan hmms. "I don't have anything."

"I don't care." He finds that he means it.

"I care." Zhehan brushes a lock of hair off Junjun's forehead. Presses a kiss there. "You have work tomorrow."

"Please." He's begging. He can hear the way it makes his voice sound. Pathetic, high and whiny. "You'll only hurt me a little."

Zhehan's eyes are flat and dark when Junjun looks up at him. "Gong Jun. I've hurt you enough."

Junjun shakes his head. Zhehan has never hurt him. (Not on purpose, anyway.) "Please. Han-ge. Just this once."

"No. Don't ask me again."

Junjun swallows a whimper. It's stupid that he wants it this bad. He's being stupid. He knows that. But he wants to keep Zhehan with him a little bit longer, shifting under his skin.

Zhehan rolls onto his side and pulls Junjun against his chest, letting him hide there. Holding him close. He pets Junjun, warm hands gentle on his back, his arm, the tender nape of his neck. Junjun shouldn't be forcing Zhehan to comfort him, not when—not after everything that's happened. Zhehan murmurs, "Will you leave a mark for me?", and this, Junjun can do.

He bites down on Zhehan's pec, on the spot his mouth is already pressed up against, hard enough to bruise. He feels Zhehan's sharp intake of breath, the stutter of his ribcage, more than hears it. Feels his cock twitch where it's pressed up against Junjun's belly. He looks up as he sucks on a patch of skin. Zhehan is watching him, eyes dark. Junjun bites him again, not looking away as Zhehan throws his head back, arching his neck. Stowing away the sharp tug of Zhehan's fingers in his hair for later, when he's alone again.

When Zhehan yanks him away, there's already a blossoming purplish mark on his chest. Junjun grumbles, "I wasn't finished."

"Get on your hands and knees," Zhehan says, voice ragged.

Junjun scrambles to comply, facing the headboard. The bed shifts under him. Zhehan's hands come to rest on his hips. He knows Zhehan is looking at him. Feels his hands spread him open. He expects—he doesn't know what he expects. Not the damp warmth of Zhehan's breath against his hole. The rumbling sigh as Zhehan nuzzles into him and licks at his rim.

He tries to muffle the sharp noise that's startled out of him in the pillows, but doesn't manage it. He can feel Zhehan lingering over him, his breath a palpable thing, and he tries to be patient.

But Junjun has been waiting a long time.

He whines at the back of his throat, frustrated and demanding, and Zhehan laughs and pulls his cheeks farther apart and laps at him carelessly. Junjun groans, letting himself collapse face down into the pillows. He missed this, missed Zhehan, missed knowing there was someone who would lavish care on even the worst parts of him.

Zhehan's tongue feels thick and sloppy on him, messy in the best possible way, and he lets his head loll into the blankets. Lets himself relax, boneless, under his care. Zhehan's nails are sharp little crescents where they dig into his skin as he's held open, keeping him in balance when Zhehan's mouth threatens to bowl him over.

Zhehan traces circles around his entrance, mouth soft and lazy, and Junjun shoves down the desire to push back against him, rut against his face. He must make a noise because Zhehan is petting his flank and shushing him and kissing the small of his back. Junjun groans, choking on a gasp. It's not what he wants. Doesn't want to be soothed, to be asked to feel better. He wants to burn the last three years out of himself. Replace them with something clean and new.

"Don't stop. Please don't stop."

Making a little pacifying noise, Zhehan slides down, burying his mouth in Junjun again. Little swipes of tongue, enough to make Junjun shiver. When Zhehan finally, finally pushes his tongue against Junjun's entrance, pushes in, he bites down on the pillow to hide the noise. It's not enough, though, because he hears an answering moan from Zhehan. Feels Zhehan's thumb pressing on his rim, holding him open enough for Zhehan to fuck him a little with his tongue. Junjun can tell he's making horrible broken noises, but can't quite bring himself to stop. Fuck his dignity. He rubs down against the bed to try to get off because it feels so good, but it isn't enough. Shoving his hand under him, he tugs on his cock, indelicate, needing to come, needing to stop feeling it.

Zhehan slips two fingertips in, stretching him a little. Sliding his tongue in between, so he's full and held open, and then Junjun is coming, loud and helpless into the sheets, and Zhehan keeps fucking him with his tongue until Junjun bats his head away with one hand, too tired to roll over. Pulling back, Zhehan mutters, "Fuck," and moves to straddle him. Zhehan drapes himself across Junjun's back, cock pressed against his ass. "Fuck, fuck."

Junjun pushes back against him with his hips, and Zhehan hisses, and oh—Like this then, Zhehan holding him down against the sheets, getting off against him, heavy on top of him. The sheets hurt against his over-sensitive skin and he wants Zhehan to shove inside him, tear him open, and he maybe he's saying that aloud because Zhehan is swearing softly against his ear, hips bunny rabbit quick, and then Junjun can feel the pulse of hot liquid across his skin, the way Zhehan shudders and goes still, letting Junjun take his weight.

He drifts gently in the moment, not thinking, until Zhehan stirs. Rolls over. Glances at him. "You're a mess."

Junjun pouts at him, and Zhehan laughs, ruffling Junjun's hair. They lie next to each other, breathing slowing back to normal. He's sleepy. Will Zhehan stay the night?

"Do you want to get up, or should I grab a washcloth?"

Junjun just frowns at him.

Zhehan ruffles his hair. Rolls over and gets up and fusses in the bathroom where Junjun can't see him. When he doesn't come back quickly enough, Junjun calls out, "Han-ge?"

"Just a minute."

He tries—really, he does—not to feel nervous. Not to wonder if Zhehan is going to walk out of the hotel room. Junjun would deserve it in a way. To be left with nothing but his own thoughts for company.

But Zhehan does come back, warm washcloth in hand, and wipes the drying come and spit off Junjun's ass. He lets Junjun clean his own belly up. When he finishes, Zhehan reaches out and takes the dirty washcloth from him to return it to the bathroom. Comes back with a glass of water than Junjun gratefully accepts.

"Stay the night," he says, wrapping a hand around Zhehan's before he can pull back. "Please."

He sees the flicker of fear on Zhehan's face. He wishes he didn't. Zhehan says, "Okay."

Junjun can't help beaming at him as Zhehan makes himself at home, washing up with Junjun's own toiletries. He should bother to get up, to brush his teeth, but—he just can’t get up. Can’t will himself to do it. “Han-ge, will you bring me my toothbrush?”

Zhehan pokes his head out of the bathroom, wearing one of Junjun’s face masks. “Should I brush your teeth for you too?”

“Dage.”

It is to Junjun’s absolute mortification that Zhehan walks back over with Junjun’s toothbrush, already loaded with toothpaste, and then actually tries to stick it in his mouth.

“No, oh God, I can do it myself.”

“But you told me—”

He snatches the toothbrush out of Zhehan’s hand and glares at him while he brushes his teeth.

When he finishes, Zhehan holds out a hand under his chin. “Spit.”

Junjun makes a horrified noise and scrambles up, lumbering into the bathroom to spit into the sink. When his mouth is empty and rinsed clean, he says, “What is wrong with you?”, and Zhehan just giggles at him, the corners of his eyes scrunching up behind his mask.

He presses his clean minty mouth against Zhehan’s, careful not to catch the fabric of the mask. It’s a chaste kiss, more of a peck on the lips. Zhehan looks up at him. He looks lost. Junjun presses their foreheads together, and Zhehan squawks at him about the face mask, but doesn’t move. Stays leaned up against Junjun.

“Please stay.”

“I said I would.”

Junjun presses his thumb to the corner of Zhehan’s lips, the shadow there. “Not just till tomorrow.”

“How long do you have the hotel room for?” he says, tone forcefully jovial.

Junjun pulls away. “I’m sure I can get a late checkout.” He takes himself back to bed, where he can hide in the covers. After a little while, Zhehan turns out the lights, one by one, and then crawls in next to him. Careful not to touch.

So it’s Junjun who rolls over and wraps himself around Zhehan, who used to cling to him like an octopus. He buries his face in the crook of Zhehan’s neck. “Can I see you again?”

Zhehan stiffens. Hesitates. Then, he says, “If you want to.”

“I do.” Junjun presses a kiss to Zhehan’s neck and listens to his soft breathing. Feels the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Zhehan is alive and safe and here with him—at least for now. Junjun falls asleep easily.

In the morning, Zhehan is still there.