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Bleeding to death from a bullet through the stomach in the back of his Rolls Royce is not the way that Binghe imagined he would go, per se, but it doesn’t feel entirely unexpected, either. Not with the kind of life he’s led the past few years.
Although, to sign away his life already would be doing a disservice to Mobei. There were only a few guys left before Binghe was taken out of commission; it won’t be long before Mobei clears them out and gets back to Binghe. Then, it’s only a matter of beating out the blood loss to get home, and he’s been subjected to Mobei’s driving enough times to know that there’s nothing to worry about there. Still, being shot fucking hurts, and the balled-up suit jacket he’s pressing against the wound really doesn’t help.
He huffs out a sigh, glaring at the roseleaf grey ceiling and wishing Mobei would just hurry up already. He’s hungry. He hadn’t had time to eat dinner before they got the call about these guys throwing his name around without permission, and he’s not too sure what the protocol is for eating with a grievous stomach wound. Do they get KFC before or after the stitches?
The driver’s side door opens, and Binghe hears Mobei slide into his seat, silent as ever. No words are exchanged as he turns the car on and slowly pulls out of the spot, the furthest from the door of a convenience store near the warehouse those goons had been holed up in. The familiarity of the silence is almost comforting. Mobei’s never been one for reassurance or concern, at least not where anyone can see it. Binghe likes that about him. It’s certainly better than the alternative, and gets him to a doctor a lot faster.
Binghe starts to get annoyed when they don’t speed up after they leave the parking lot, but he tells himself that there’s probably just cops or pedestrians around and Mobei doesn’t want to risk anything. But when they drive at a solid 70 km/h for an entire five minutes, his anger wins out, and he groans.
“What the fuck is taking so long?” he asks, turning his head to look at the back of the driver’s seat, only for Mobei to suddenly slam on the breaks. Binghe pushes down on his wound harder from the jostling with a pained hiss. “Mobei?! The fuck are you—”
Binghe cuts himself off when he sees the wide-eyed face peering around the headrest, because that—
That is not Mobei.
That is a man probably only a little older than Binghe himself, wearing glasses framed by a fringe that does wonders for his cheekbones, and wearing the most shocked and horrified expression Binghe has ever seen on a man not being held at gunpoint. A man that Binghe has never seen before in his life.
“What are you doing in my car?” the man asks, voice choked as he takes Binghe in, eyes lingering at the bullet wound in his stomach.
“What are you doing in my car?” Binghe echoes. He pushes himself up onto his elbows to take a quick look around, just to make sure, and—yep, definitely his car. Same lambswool footmats and everything.
The man blinks owlishly at him, and Binghe remembers that they’re fully stopped in the middle of the road right now. He opens his mouth to tell the guy to at least pull over before they get into this—
And that’s when the sirens come on behind them.
Binghe slams his head back onto the seat. Just his fucking luck.
“Listen, buddy. I don’t know who the fuck you are, but if we get pulled over right now, it’s not going to be pretty for either of us.”
The man blinks at him again, making no move to do anything else. The sirens are getting closer. Binghe snarls.
“Fucking drive!” he shouts, and the man finally jolts into action, slamming on the gas before he’s even fully turned around.
They swerve through the city streets, taking random turns and speeding through red lights like they’re nothing but a suggestion. Car horns join the sirens at a worrying rate. Binghe is pretty sure they’re going further into the city center, which is decidedly not good for running from the law, and so he pulls himself up with great effort until he’s leaning against the driver’s seat. He takes a quick glance at their surroundings and formulates a route.
“Turn left up there,” he orders, and the man flinches, but does as asked, narrowly avoiding a sedan driving through the intersection. Binghe wonders if he’s ever committed a crime before. Probably not. Maybe tax evasion, actually, considering the designer clothes he’s wearing, but definitely nothing violent. Nothing that would force him to run for his life or engage in a high-speed chase.
Lucky him.
“Turn right,” Binghe orders, and the car almost lifts up on one side from the speed the man has to turn at to make it around the corner in time. A cop car flies by behind them, and Binghe smirks. The next three successfully turn onto the road after them, but that’s fine. They’ll lose those ones soon enough, too.
“What the fuck is happening,” the man whispers frantically. “What the fuck. I just wanted Pocky. Is that really so much to ask for?”
Binghe’s eyes flicker over to the 7-Eleven bag in the passenger’s seat, surrounded by a few boxes of strawberry Pocky that presumably spilled out of it in the mayhem of the police chase.
“Turn here,” Binghe says even though they don’t need to, using the momentum to grab a box of Pocky when it slides just a little closer to him. The extra spurt of blood from his side is worth it.
“What are you doing?” the man asks. He sounds like he’s about to have a panic attack.
“Eating,” Binghe says, ripping open the box and shoving a few sticks in his mouth. “Left.”
The man turns. Binghe eats more Pocky.
“Should you be eating right now?” The man seems almost genuinely concerned for his well-being. “Your stomach is bleeding.”
Binghe snorts. “Who knows? Haven’t exactly been shot there before. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”
The man doesn’t ask any more questions after that.
It takes twenty minutes to make it out of the city, and another ten for them to lose the last of the cops. Binghe finishes all three boxes of Pocky in the meantime. He feels incredibly worse, but that’s probably got more to do with the reckless driving and moving around than the snack food. Probably.
“Alright, pull over,” Binghe says. “I’m making a phone call.”
The man is shaking as he pulls the car to a stop on the side of the dirt road Binghe led them to. Binghe doesn’t have it in him to care.
His fingers feel numb when he fishes out his phone, but he successfully clicks on a missed call notification from Mobei after a few tries and holds the phone up to his ear. It doesn’t even ring once before he gets an answer.
“Where are you?” Mobei demands the moment the call connects.
“We’re on a dirt road halfway to Wenshang county.” Binghe adjusts his jacket with a wince. Fuck, he’s really feeling the blood loss now. “Not sure which one.”
“I’ll track you,” Mobei says, then, “Who’s ‘we?’”
“Some guy. I don’t know him. Said this was his car, didn’t even notice me in the back until the cops showed up.”
“…So you were kidnapped.” A pause. “He doesn’t know you?”
Binghe looks over at the man, who’s now staring very intently at his white-knuckled hands on the steering wheel.
“Hey,” he calls, but the man doesn’t respond. He puts down the phone to free up a hand, then snaps his fingers next to the man’s ear, making him jump and turn around.
“What?” he croaks out, and Binghe winces. He sounds like shit.
“Do you know who I am?”
The man stares blankly at him for a few seconds in the dim light before asking, “Should I?”
Binghe shrugs, ignoring the way it pulls at his stomach. The man continues to stare. Binghe picks up the phone again.
“He says no,” he informs Mobei, not breaking eye contact. Mobei sighs.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Don’t die.”
With that, his bodyguard hangs up, and Binghe tosses his phone to the side to press both hands against his jacket again.
“So,” Binghe starts, feeling a bit awkward now that there’s no cops or phone calls to diffuse the tension. “You stole my car.”
That’s…not entirely what he wanted to say, but whatever. It works.
“And kidnapped me, technically.” Binghe tilts his head to the side. “Kinda rude.”
“Why do I feel like I’m the one being kidnapped?” the man mutters, before saying, louder, “And what do you mean ‘your car?’ This is my car.”
Binghe arches an eyebrow at him, but he’s resolute. Binghe looks around the interior again, taking in the small details, triple-checking, but this is most definitely his car.
“You sure about that?” he asks.
There’s a pinch between the man’s eyebrows as he replies, “Unless you just happened to pick out the same interior, clock, floormats, and stitching color as I did, then yeah, I’m pretty sure this is my car.”
Binghe didn’t take this man for a mugello red guy. The more you know.
“Then what about this?” Binghe pulls out his car keys from his back pocket and pushes the ‘unlock’ button. The doors make an obliging clicking noise.
The man reaches into his own pocket and pulls out an identical set of keys, the same phoenix red as Binghe’s. He pushes a button, frowning when nothing happens, then pushes it a few more times for good measure. He blinks at them, then the dashboard, and then his keys again. He pushes the button one last time.
“What the fuck,” he mumbles with feeling. Binghe feels that.
“So we have identical custom cars,” Binghe sums up, “And we just happened to park them both outside the same 7-Eleven at the worst possible time.”
The man leans forward until his head is resting on the steering wheel. “What the fuck,” he says again.
Binghe closes his eyes. What a night this turned out to be. Sha Hualing’s gonna get a kick out of this one. Then kick him. Probably multiple times. Hopefully, she’ll at least wait until after she stitches him up, but knowing her, she’ll probably kick him right in the bullet wound. He has such a nice personal doctor.
“At least you’re not the one who’s gonna have to get all this blood out of the leather,” Binghe says, and the man hunches even further in on himself.
“I just wanted Pocky,” he moans. Binghe feels a little bad about eating all of it now, even though he’s pretty sure that’s not really what the man’s upset about.
“I’ll get you some more Pocky tomorrow,” he offers anyway, despite knowing that, for this man, there probably won’t be a tomorrow. It just feels like the right thing to do.
The man slowly peels himself off of the steering wheel to look back at Binghe. “No offense, but after tonight, I really don’t want to see you ever again.”
Binghe shrugs. That’s fair. Not that he really has a choice, but still.
“What’s your name?” Binghe asks, not really expecting an answer, but not just wanting to think of him as ‘the man,’ either.
“…Yuan.”
Binghe’s eyebrows raise.
“Is that your real name?” Surely not. Surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to—
The man squirms uncomfortably, and Binghe knows he was telling the truth. Didn’t his mom ever teach him about stranger danger?
He sighs. Whatever. Mobei’s probably going to kill him the moment he gets here, anyway. It doesn’t really matter at this point.
“I’m Luo Binghe,” he offers in return. ‘Yuan’ at least deserves to know who he’s dying for.
Yuan nods, gaze distant. “Nice to meet you.”
Binghe snorts. “It is?”
Yuan doesn’t reply.
They sit together in silence until Mobei arrives ten minutes later. Yuan looks like he’s trying to process everything. It doesn’t look like it’s going well. Binghe continues to try very hard not to bleed out. It’s going only slightly better. It’s been just over an hour since he was shot, and he’s feeling every minute of that blood loss.
The lights of Mobei’s motorcycle fill up the rear view mirror, and Binghe relaxes despite himself. He’s ready for this night to be over already.
“That your friend?” Yuan asks, head back on the starting wheel.
“Yeah.” Binghe squirms a little uncomfortably, knowing what’s about to happen now. “I’m…sorry you got wrapped up in all this.”
Yuan laughs hollowly, and Binghe feels a pit open up in his stomach. Why does he feel so bad about this? It’s not like he hasn’t killed people for less before. But still…
Yuan didn’t ask to be involved. All he wanted was some Pocky.
A tapping sound at the window draws his attention before Shang Qinghua opens the door. He hears Mobei’s bike idling behind him, and figures his bodyguard must be hanging back to let Shang Qinghua handle the messy business, as always.
“Hey, buddy,” Shang Qinghua says, a fake smile spread wide across his face, gun not even partially hidden in his hand. “I’m gonna need you to step out of the car.”
Yuan stiffens at the wheel, and Binghe looks away, not wanting to see the confrontation he’s sure is coming. But before anything else can happen, he hears Yuan ask, sounding stunned, “Airplane?”
Binghe blinks, confused at the nonsensical word. Airplane? What is he talking about? Is he having a breakdown?
He looks back to find Shang Qinghua’s smile replaced by a look of…horrified shock? What?
“Cucumber-bro??” he asks, which makes even less sense, but before he can try to ask what the fuck is going on, Yuan does it for him.
“What the fuck is going on?” Yuan has pulled himself away from the steering wheel, expression hidden as he stares at Shang Qinghua. “You… What?”
Shang Qinghua, looking for all the world like he’s the one who’s just had a gun pulled on him, just blinks at Yuan in disbelief.
“Do you two…know each other?” Binghe asks when it becomes clear that the two of them aren’t about to say anything else.
Shang Qinghua laughs, a sharp, hysterical sound. “Do we?? Of course we do!” He looks behind himself, probably at Mobei, then back at Yuan, then at Binghe, then down at the gun in his hand. There’s a look of indecision on his face. For someone who Binghe’s seen shoot his boyfriend of two years with no hesitation at all, it’s more than a little odd. He looks back up at Binghe.
“Hey, uh…so I know this is, like, kind of my job and all. But, uh…I don’t think I can kill this guy.”
Yuan splutters, and Binghe catches the side of his face as he jerks back, perfectly manicured eyebrows scrunched together above an angry flush, illuminated by the light of Mobei’s motorcycle almost ethereally. It’s not even a quarter of his face, but it still makes Binghe’s heart skip a beat.
Or maybe that’s the bullet wound. He kind of forgot about that. Fuck.
“Kill me?? Bro, you couldn’t even kill the spider that got into your apartment last week! You made me come over at 2 AM to kill it for you!” Yuan leans back towards the door, blocking Binghe’s view of his face once more. “Is this a prank? Are you fucking with me right now? Because I just ran from the fucking cops, and I am not in the mood for this.”
Ah, right. That had happened, hadn’t it? The world is starting to spin a little. Binghe pushes the jacket harder against his wound, not knowing when his grip on it had slipped. Fuck, he’s running out of time.
“Look. Kill him or don’t, at this point, I really don’t care.” Would prefer he doesn’t, actually, but he can’t just say that. Binghe takes a deep breath, and Shang Qinghua really looks at him for the first time since he arrived. His subordinate’s face immediately goes pale. “I still need a doctor, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Fuck, right, okay.” Shang Qinghua shuffles a little in place awkwardly, fiddling with the gun in his hands like it’s a stress toy and not a deadly weapon. “Uh, bro, I really do need you to get out of the car. Or like, at least sit in the back? I think Mobei will actually kill me if I let our boss die right now, and then how will I finish that one-shot?”
For a long moment, Yuan doesn’t respond, but then he sighs grievously. “Fine, yeah, sure. Whatever. Not like this night can get any weirder, right?”
Then he unbuckles himself and twists around to climb over the console and into the back seat, giving Binghe his second clear view of the man’s face.
Damn, those cheekbones really are something else.
He barely registers Shang Qinghua settling himself into the driver’s seat and starting to drive, too dazed to focus on much of anything anymore. Instead, he looks at Yuan, who he only belatedly realizes is watching him right back.
“So,” Binghe starts, words beginning to slur. “You come here often?”
Yuan gapes at him while Shang Qinghua laughs in front of them. Binghe winks at him. He continues to gape.
“What the fuck,” Yuan asks, once again, “Is happening?”
“Bro, this is just like that mafia AU I sent you to proofread for me last month!” Shang Qinghua continues to laugh. “Oh, I am never letting you live this down. ‘Unrealistic, trite garbage,’ huh? The only thing different here is he’s still got his shirt on!”
There’s barely any light in the car anymore, just what little of the headlights’ manages to bounce itself around back to them, but Binghe is still pretty sure he sees Yuan blush.
“See if I ever beta read for you again,” he mumbles, and the car jerks to the side slightly.
“Bro! Don’t even joke about that! How would I live without my beta reader? I’d be fucked!”
“Is that why you didn’t shoot me?” Yuan snarks, and Shang Qinghua…doesn’t reply. Yuan leans forward to wrap his hands around the driver’s seat, leaning over Binghe in the process and bathing him in the scent of mint and florals. He subtly takes a deep breath. “Airplane. Bro. Qinghua. Did you only not shoot me because you’d lose your beta reader?”
Binghe isn’t really sure what a beta reader is, but judging from Shang Qinghua’s suspicious silence and Yuan’s disbelief, it isn’t usually such a coveted position.
Binghe wants Yuan to be his beta reader anyway. He thinks he’d like that.
Yuan is still leaning over him. It’s intoxicating.
Binghe thinks he might be about to die, and not only from the hole in his side.
“We’re here!” Shang Qinghua cries suddenly, pulling the car to a stop at what must be their safe house in the area. Binghe can’t bring himself to check. “Time to go get the boss some blood!”
Binghe’s consciousness is rapidly fading, but before he slips into that sweet darkness, Yuan turns to look at him again. The lights inside the car are on, so he has another perfect view of those cheekbones.
“I…” Yuan stops, clearing his throat, before quickly continuing, “I think I might want that Pocky after all.”
Binghe’s eyes widen. Shang Qinghua is grabbing his arms, trying to pull him out of the car, but he resists just long enough to send Yuan a beaming smile.
“Okay,” he says. “Yeah. Anything you want, A-Yuan.”
This time, he definitely sees a blush on Yuan’s cheeks. It’s even more delicious than that Pocky was.
If this is the sight I go out on, Binghe thinks, finally passing out, I think I’d be alright with that.
And if not… Well, then, he’s got himself a date, doesn’t he?