Chapter Text
Somehow, it’s become just another one of those things that they don’t talk about. After dropping a bomb on Shuyi’s heart and sanity, Shide had given him a small, sad smile, and turned away. “Goodnight, Shuyi.”
What? Shuyi had wanted to yell at him. What?! WHAT?! That’s it?! But he knew a dismissal when he heard one, and even if he had stayed he wouldn’t have known what to say. Not really. He’d walked out of Shide’s room and into his own as if in a trance, fallen down on his own bed, still completely dressed but for his shoes, and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. This is what it was like.
But it’s not like it changes anything. So Zhou Shuyi was Gao Shide’s first kiss. So what? Shide has a boyfriend who, by all accounts, he likes and who would do anything for him in return. For Shide, that day at the pool is probably at best a bittersweet memory and at worst an embarrassing reminder of how he stepped out of line with the man who would become his best friend, way back in the days when he was young, and stupid, and infatuated, and—
Stop.
The next morning, Shuyi is up and about well before Shide would be even on a normal day. He makes his tea, drinks it alone in the kitchen with the business section and a plate of rice crackers. He rinses his cup out in the sink, but leaves it there for Shide to wash—early on in their cohabitation he claimed that chore for his own and steadfastly refuses to let Shuyi do it instead. It’s something about Shuyi’s technique being poor? Shide can be such a weirdo sometimes. He’s lucky I love him, Shuyi thinks. Ha.
Shide should have been asleep until well after Shuyi left for the work, but instead he emerges from his room just as Shuyi finishes relocating the French press, certain that Shide will try to caffeinate and show up at the office against doctor’s—well, cousin’s—orders.
“What are you doing?” Shide asks him suspiciously, raking a hand through his hair. He looks like he tossed and turned all night, clothes rumpled and the wrinkled fabric from his pillow tattooed on one cheek.
“Hiding the coffee. Go back to bed.”
Shide scowls at him. “I’m not a child.”
“You’re an adult who passed out at work because he didn’t know when to stop. You’re kind of like a child,” Shuyi shoots back, equal parts relieved that Shide isn’t acting uncomfortable and disappointed that this is apparently something else to be swept under the rug. It’s getting crowded under there.
“If I’m a child, then you’re making me breakfast before you go to work, mum. And I want congee. And coffee.” Shide leans against the counter, putting on a face that he probably thinks looks like cute pouting but is actually an expression that no human over the age of eight should ever adopt.
“Ahh! Fix your face, Gao Shide. Terrifying!” Shuyi scolds him, a smile rising unbidden to his lips. Maybe this will be okay, eventually. “I’ll make you congee but you’re not having coffee. It’s herbal tea, take it or leave it.”
Shide takes it.
Work calms down after Shide’s temporary banishment from the office. When he comes back he’s a better-rested, more-collected person, and the team has done a mountain of work in his absence, powering through out of gratitude for his selfless leadership. If they work through the weekend, Alpha will be ready within a week. It will all be over.
Shuyi, acknowledging that getting along with Hank will only make Shide’s life easier, tries to make an effort to be nicer to him. They still need to ferret out the hacker who stole Alpha in the first place, and while Hank has many irritating qualities, he clearly cares about Shide too much to sabotage him, so Shuyi brings him onto the team.
In the end, it’s Hank who makes them suspect Lin. That alone makes it worth having to sit through hour-long meetings with Hank at Shide’s side, the pair of them smiling at each other, Hank’s arm around the back of Shide’s chair.
It’s really fine. It is. If Shide moved on from loving Shuyi for the entire time they were at school together, Shuyi has no excuse not to move on himself. And he will do. It’s just… it’s just going to take a while. Until then, he’s going to have to get comfortable with the ache in his chest. He can’t strike out every time he feels wounded. Once the project is over, exhaustion won’t be an excuse anymore. He has to grow up.
And then, just like that: the project is over. It’s done. Alpha successfully launched, the traitor successfully outed, and Cheng Yi’s stamp of approval acquired, Shuyi and Shide stand in front of the team and tell them about the party being thrown in their honor at Pei Shouyi’s place. Open bar for all the staff, to say thank you for their hard work these past weeks, months, years. Everyone cheers, except for Yu Zhenxuan, who still looks shyly pleased.
Even Shouyi can’t be irritated by Cheng Yi Group picking up the tab for an open bar for fifty-something people. Walking down the riverfront Shuyi sees signs posted for a private party, “all others buzz off.” The man really has the charm and marketing panache of concrete wall. Shuyi still can’t see how he and Shide could possibly be related.
Shide, who is walking at his side, grins as they pass another one of the crudely drawn notices. Okay, so maybe there’s some family resemblance there.
On Shide’s other side, Hank has got an arm around him, hand on his waist, guiding him along. Shuyi, who is in the process of becoming a kinder, better person, has swallowed down every comment that he’s wanted to make about how Shide has been walking without assistance for nigh-on three decades and surely can do it now, too. After all, if Shuyi is being honest, he would probably do the same thing in Hank’s position.
There’s that sting again, right in the center of his chest. It feels like hearing Yuxin confess to Zhengwen in their senior year of university, like coming home to Shide kissing another man. Every time. Just remember, Zhou Shuyi. It will get better. It has to.
Right?
They close the bar. Well, Shouyi kicks them out because he’s made enough money for the night and he’s sick of them. Zhenxuan hangs back, and Shouyi seems amenable to allowing it, which is extremely surprising, and Shuyi is tipsy enough to tell him so.
“Mind your own damn business, di xi,” Shouyi says, and then he yanks the shutters closed on them. So rude! So, so rude!
Shide is giggling into his shoulder, like he wasn’t also just insulted by his awful cousin. “Did you hear what he called me?!” Shuyi asks him, reaching around and poking him in the ribs in admonishment, which has the delightful effect of making Shide howl and fall further into Shuyi’s side. Shuyi leaves his hand there. Why not? They’re drunk. Everything is fine. Everything is the most fine that it has ever, ever been.
“Hey!” Shuyi says, tipping his head down so he’s talking pretty much right into Shide’s shiny hair, all mussed from the way he’d begun to run his hands through it around the third drink. “It’s not funny, Gao Shide! That asshole just said I’m your wife!”
That just sets off another round a giggles. Shuyi cuffs him around the ear with his free hand. At least then Shide looks up at him for a moment. He examines his face, and then bursts out laughing again. “My wife!”
“It’s not funny!” Except it is, kinda. Imagine him as Shide’s housewife: he’d be totally useless. Every dish would be rewashed. Every piece of clothing refolded. Every sheet patiently removed, straightened, and replaced on the bed. Shide’d probably insist on carrying their children, too, just to make sure it was done right.
Oh, hell. The mental image of him pregnant is just too much. Now Shuyi is laughing, too.
It’s easy like this. It’s so easy, being alone with him without the pressure of work and friends and other stupid life things. Hank had bowed out earlier in the evening with profuse apologies, some excuse about needing to take his bicycle to the vet or his mother to the repair shop or whatever. He’d kissed Shide at the corner of his mouth before leaving and Shuyi’s heart had twinged even under the dulling effects of the alcohol. But joke’s on fucking Hank now, because Shuyi’s got Shide tucked inside one arm and laughing into the hollow of his throat and if life has ever been better, Shuyi’s memory doesn’t go back that far.
“Oh! Oh, God,” Shide mutters, the most raucous laughter dying off. “We’d better get going or he’s going to come out here and chase us off.”
Shuyi isn’t feeling particularly motivated to move at the moment. Their chairs at the bar are comfortable, and the weather is nice and warm, and the road where the taxis stop is so, sooo far away. But there are thumping noises behind the shutters and that’s either bad news for them or very bad news for them, or maybe good news for Zhenxuan, which Shuyi is not in a position to wrap his head around right now, so probably they should get a move on.
“Come on,” Shide says, and suddenly he’s unacceptably far away, standing up more-or-less steadily, his hand reaching out for Shuyi to take. Obviously Shuyi has to accept it. Obviously. And happily, once he does, he’s the one snuggled under a warm arm, Shide’s hand splayed across his waist to balance him. To keep him from falling over. Of course. Of course. But still.
Shide abruptly thinks to order an Uber before they get to the main road, and he goes about trying to do so with one hand, either unwilling or unable to let go of Shuyi without toppling over. It takes him twice as long as it should with all the typos he commits and it is hilarious. Then they stagger as a lopsided unit down the stairs—carefully, carefully!—along the riverwalk and up some more stairs—carefully!—to the road.
The Uber’s not there yet. Shuyi throws his head back dramatically and stares at the sky. It’s so big, so clear. There’s not a cloud in sight. Even with the light pollution from the city there are hundreds of thousands of stars to be seen up there.
Shide squeezes his side, and Shuyi’s heart sings. He glances down to look at Shide inquiringly.
“What’cha doing?” Shide asks, grinning at him. Shuyi grins back and sets a hand against his jaw, tips his head back.
“Look!” he whispers in Japanese, leaning close to Shide’s ear, “isn’t it pretty?”
“Yeah,” Shide replies, also in Japanese, tilting his head toward Shuyi. “I love it.”
The Uber driver eyes them warily when she spots how drunk they are. They get a short lecture on The Consequences of Throwing-Up in the Car and, having promised that they understand, they are allowed into the backseat.
Shide keeps his arm around Shuyi’s waist for the whole ride. Shuyi leans his head onto Shide’s shoulder and breathes him in. It’s fine. It’s fine. Shide started it, so it’s safe.
The stairs up to the front door of the house are fuckin’ treacherous. So steep! So many corners! Who would design stairs like this?! What kind of monster?! It is only after some very deliberate and careful maneuvering that they are both falling inside in a tangled mess of limbs. And then they lie there, giggling hysterically, flat on their backs in the entryway with the door wide open and the air-conditioning escaping into the night.
“Eh, close the door, Shuyi!” Shide orders, elbowing him in the side—insofar as it’s possible to elbow someone in the side whilst lying down and weak with laughter.
“Why me?! You do it!” Shuyi protests, exchanging Shide a half-hearted shove.
“You’re closer.”
“I am not. You’re taller!”
“Pff. Barely. What’s that got to do with it?”
“Just… like, I don’t know! Kick it shut or something?”
“Kick it shut? From way over here?!”
“Way over there? You’re so dramatic!”
“I’m dramatic?!” Shide drops his head to the side and contorts his expression into one of total shock. “Zhou Shuyi! Hey! Have you forgotten that I’ve known you for twenty years? Is that the pot calling the kettle black, or what?”
Twenty years… God. When he puts it that way, it’s no wonder that he eventually moved on from Shuyi. Twenty years is a long time to love someone without any hope of having it returned. Shuyi hopes it won’t take him twenty years to get over Shide.
That thought would sober anyone up a bit. He reaches over and pinches Shide’s nose, just to watch him screw his face up in annoyance, and then he heaves himself to his hands and knees and crawls the single meter to the door, which he shoves shut.
“There,” he says, leaning back against it. “Happy now?”
Shide props himself up on his elbows. He’s smiling and his eyes are so warm. This is how Shuyi likes him best. Comfortable, content, all of his attention focused on Shuyi. As it should be.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier,” he says.
Shuyi tries to hide the way that makes him want to glow with joy. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, scoffing playfully. “What would Hank think if he heard you say that?” A second later he’s annoyed with himself. Hank isn’t here. Rightfully, Hank is very, very far away from here. He doesn’t belong here. Why on earth did Shuyi bring him into the conversation?
“Hank’s not here,” Shide says, as though reading his mind. He pauses, and then he says, “Did you—”
“I think we need some water,” Shuyi interrupts, climbing shakily to his feet. He has a distinct feeling that he doesn’t want to know where that question was headed.
Shide is also upright by the time Shuyi has grabbed a couple bottles of water from the fridge, leaning against the far side of the kitchen island. Shuyi slides a bottle across to him and then cracks his own open, taking a long, cool sip. Hopefully this will clear his head, if not his heart.
The other bottle remains unopened. Shide has picked it up and is passing it from hand to hand, watching as it flips between his palms. It’s silent. Shuyi again regrets having brought Hank up earlier. They were having such a good time. Everything was fine until he reminded Shide that Shuyi isn’t the most important person in his life anymore. Fuck.
“When are you—” “What did you—”
They both stop and blink at each other. “Sorry,” Shide offers, gesturing with the bottle, a small, wry smile on his lips. “After you.”
“No, no,” Shuyi says. “It was nothing.” And it was. He had just been trying to fill the dead air. When are you moving your things over to the Cheng Yi office? He knew already, anyway. He’s been looking forward to having Shide just around the corner, with Hank safely two floors down and on the opposite end of the building to boot.
“Hmm.” Shide looks back down at the bottle, twists it around in his hands a few times without saying anything, like maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment thing and the moment has passed. But then: “You said that you trust me.”
Shuyi is not prepared to have this conversation again, but perhaps he should've been. If history is any guide, Shide is most likely to get emotionally vulnerable when he’s tired or drunk, and right now he’s both.
“I do trust you,” Shuyi says, and lets the dread wash over him.
Shide nods abruptly, still looking at the bottle and not at Shuyi. “I’m going to ask you a question.”
Shuyi’s stomach twists viciously. “Okay.”
He pauses. And then: “What did you think when I told you about the pool?”
Oh. It’s bad. How can he tell the truth without giving away his heart? “I was surprised.”
“Were you uncomfortable?”
Not for the reasons you think, but: “A little bit.”
Shide blinks, and then dips his head, a sad little smile twisting his mouth. “I thought so.”
“It’s not like that!”
“Not like what?”
“Like… like…” Oh, fuck. This is why you should think before you speak. “It’s not that—I wasn’t uncomfortable because of. Of me.” Shide is raising an eyebrow at him. Oh fuck, oh fuck. Shuyi took second place in Chinese language all throughout school, but of course he has no words for this, when they’re the most important. “I just—I mean, I don’t think that was really a kiss! You shouldn’t put so much stock into something meaningless.”
So this is what it feels like to stab yourself in the back. Nice going, Zhou Shuyi.
“It wasn’t meaningless to me.” Shide fixes his eyes over Shuyi’s shoulder, staring into the middle distance like he’s seeing something else. “It’s not your fault, Shuyi. I don’t expect you to see it the same way I do. But I was in love with you back then.” He flicks his gaze to Shuyi, tilts his head as if to apologize. “I know it was stupid, but it meant something to me.”
Shuyi chokes. I was in love with you back then. I was in love with you back then. In any other conversation that would be the revelation to turn on—Shide has never admitted that to Shuyi face-to-face. But the circumstances are so strange… Shuyi shakes his head fiercely, trying to clear his mind as much as to indicate: “Whatever. You still deserve for your first kiss to be better than that.”
“That’s my decision. Not yours.”
He’s impossible.
“What if…” Shuyi can’t even believe he’s thinking it. It’s too dangerous on every level. He could ruin their friendship and finally chip the last corner off his damaged heart in the process. But the impulse is running away with him: “...What if we tried again?”
“Again?”
“If I… I could. I mean. We could pretend that we were back there again, and make it better. You could think of… you could think of that as. Your first. You know.”
“You want to kiss me?” Disbelief colors Shide's tone as much as it does his expression: eyebrows knit together, mouth a flat line.
“Gao Shide!” He's more right than he knows, and it stings to hear it made transparent like that. But still. “I just… If you insist on thinking that it was me, I don’t want you to have a bad impression.” He doesn’t actually expect to be taken up on it. Shide has Hank, after all. He doesn’t need to be kissing his best friend in order to fix something that’s past the point where its being broken matters in the least.
But: “Okay.”
Gao Shide has never been good at backing down from what he perceives as a challenge.
Neither has Zhou Shuyi.
The thing is… The thing is: in the pool, back at university? That really didn’t count. Because back then, Shuyi didn’t have a chance to be overwhelmed by Shide’s proximity. Didn’t have a chance to be hyper-aware of every line of both their bodies. Of the sound of their breathing. Of the way Shide’s heartbeat is visible outside his chest, the collar of his shirt shaking gently with each pulse. Of the way he smells like mango daiquiris, coconut hair gel, expensive cologne and just a touch of sweat.
This is real. It’s real. Real and Shuyi cannot fuck it up. He’s only ever going to get this chance once, and even this will inevitably end with a “thank you,” and tomorrow morning Shide will apologize for what he said when he was drunk and ask that Shuyi keep it between the two of them. They don’t have to worry Hank with something that doesn’t matter. “It was the alcohol,” he’ll say. “Water under the bridge, right? Let’s forget it.”
That’s tomorrow, though. Let tomorrow’s Shuyi deal with that. Right now:
He has to do it or he’ll lose his nerve.
A hand at the back of Shide’s neck to guide him in. I can’t believe and god, I want.
And then—
Everything is warm. From the pit of his stomach to the tips of his ears, Shuyi feels like he’s been left out in the sun. Every brush of lips. Every imprint of Shide’s fingers against his back, the pressure of his palm against Shuyi’s shoulder blade, pulling with one hand, pushing with the other, urging him closer.
He’s so familiar. It’s strange. Shuyi has only ever kissed this one man and while he’d let it cross his mind occasionally—the hopeless "what-if"—it wasn’t enough to prepare him for the full experience. For the scratch of stubble he’d expected, but not been able to imagine. For how Shide fits perfectly under his hands—sturdier, less forgiving than a girl, unbending—the wide shoulders that Shuyi has flung an arm over or punched too many times to count now solid under the flex of his fingertips. But it’s good. It’s so good.
It was supposed to be just a short kiss, slightly more intimate than that static press of lips from senior year. It was never supposed to go this far, but Shide tastes like alcohol and fruit and something all his own, and Shuyi can’t help but clutch at him. He licks over Shide’s bottom lip and loses what was left of his breath into his mouth in a desperate sound he hadn’t realized he was capable of making. He expects Shide to freeze and push him off and back and say, “Enough. Thank you. That’s enough.”
But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t.
One of Shide’s hands is against his jaw, brushing over his ear, threading into his hair. The other is still pressed to his side, roaming, tender against his waist. His fingers twist and pull at the nape of Shuyi’s neck, and heat bursts over and over again like fireworks under Shuyi’s ribs when Shide licks into his mouth in turn, tongue dipping inside easily, breath harsh.
Shuyi loves him, loves him, loves him. Can’t ever imagine taking his hands off him. Can’t fathom a world where they aren't this close, tasting, touching, breathing each other.
It’s not just one kiss any more. It’s five. It’s eight. It’s twenty. Who’s counting? Their lips part and come back together like it’s a law of nature.
There’s heat in his face, too. In his cheeks. And maybe they’re wet. Is he crying? Is Shide crying?
This is going to have to end. But it can’t end. It can’t. Shuyi loves him too much to let him go. He should have never done this. He’s had a taste and now…
I love you, I love you, I love you, “I love you.”
Barely voiced. But heard.
Suddenly there’s space. Look at his eyes. They’re dark. God, they’re so dark. And red at the edges. He has been crying.
Shit. No. Look at what you’ve done, Zhou Shuyi. You’ve fucked it up. He was never supposed to know. You went too far. You took more than you were offered. And now it's over.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks, finding the words hesitant to fall from lips swollen with use, wet with the taste of his best friend’s breath. Shame and mortification rise up like bile, threatening to choke him. He closes his eyes again. “Forget that I—”
“No.” Eyes open. Fingers against his cheeks form creek beds for tears. “Don’t apologize.”
He shakes his head. He can’t take sympathy right now, as kindly as its being offered. Not from this man.
“Shuyi.” Lips against his temple, his cheekbone, his jaw, his…
Shuyi finds himself gasping for breath again when Shide’s lips find his throat. An open kiss against his pulse. Slow. Another one just below it. Another. And,
“I love you,” whispered against each kiss, cold against his skin. Shocking. He can’t help but let out a sob.
“St…” But he can't say it. He doesn’t want it to stop. He wants Shide to keep doing this forever. To keep kissing him forever. To keep lying to him forever. To keep his hands against Shuyi’s waist and neck, holding him still. It feels like a claim, and he doesn’t deserve it. Shide is too good for him, too kind to let him suffer the way Shuyi made him suffer all those years. Shide has a boyfriend he loves, he doesn’t need to be pretending otherwise for the sake of Shuyi’s—
Shide kisses his mouth again. Catches him in the middle of a whimper and swallows it. Shuyi kisses him back, helpless. He’ll never be able to be the one to end this. He wants it too much. Shide is pressing closer and closer and suddenly Shuyi’s back has hit the wall and he’s caged in. The option of escape cut off, he’s never felt more free.
I don’t have a choice, he tells himself as he slides his hands under Shide’s jacket and grabs fistfuls of his shirt, hanging on for dear life. I don’t have a choice, as Shide’s fingers drag down his chest, over his waistcoat, picking the buttons. I don’t have a choice, letting his head fall back against the wall when Shide’s mouth finds its way back to his neck, lips wet, and then back to his ear, biting gently, murmuring, “I love you. How do I make you believe me?”
And then the kissing has stopped, and Shide’s standing there, a scant centimeter away, watching him carefully, waiting for an answer. Shuyi’s waistcoat is open at the front now and Shide’s palm is pressed flat to his chest. Shuyi reaches out, places his own trembling fingers in their mirror image: a closed circuit, pulse from hand to heart to hand to heart to hand to heart to hand…
I do trust you.
“Gao Shide…”
Hank doesn’t disappear completely, much to Shuyi’s annoyance, but the fact that the marketing department couldn’t be further away from the executive suites does something to mitigate his jealously. Not that he needs to be jealous anymore. What can he say? Old habits die hard.
Shide doesn’t offer details of what happened between them, and Shuyi doesn’t ask. But there’s no drama. One day Shide is with Hank, the next day he’s not. The week after that, Yuxin comes to pick Shuyi up for lunch and catches Shide kissing him goodbye just inside his office door. She shrieks: first with glee and then with outrage at Shuyi for not telling her the instant that it happened. They leave Shide with a tiny bruise forming on his arm from Yuxin’s fist and Shuyi spends all of lunch trying to eat with a permanent grin stuck to his face.
They can’t tell anyone at work. Shuyi is still fighting his way up the ladder to the chairmanship and even in this modern age the company is run by old men who have no love for people whose lives don’t look identical to theirs. They can’t tell Shuyi’s father, either. Not yet.
But they do tell Shouyi, and his immediate reaction is to roll his eyes so hard that it looks like he might sprain them. Then he pulls his phone out of his pocket and fiddles around with it. Seconds later, Shide’s phone beeps with the notification that Pei Shouyi has sent him two thousand dollars. “Fine,” he says. “You win. Welcome to the family, di xi.”
Shide shoves him. Shuyi grins.
They tell Shide’s mum, too, of course, alight with nerves that are completely unfounded. Her smile could power the entire island when they show up to the FaceTime together, Shide’s arm around Shuyi’s shoulders.
“Xiao-Yi!” she exclaims, beaming. And then, calling off screen in English, “Brandon! Brandon! Shide is with his boyfriend! Come here to meet him!”
They stare at her with equally wide eyes as she turns back to the camera, mischievous smirk in place. “What?” she asks, mocking. “Are you not?”
“Mum…” Shide groans, looking equally pleased and mortified.
“A mother always knows!” she informs them chirpily. “I’m so pleased, xiao-Yi! Now I have three sons!"
After they get off the video chat, promise to visit soon duly extracted, Shide slumps against Shuyi’s side, pressing his face into his neck and letting out a long breath. “Sorry about her,” he mutters.
“I like her a lot,” Shuyi says cheerfully. He can’t stop smiling. “You have to meet the whole family!” Auntie had said. “This is your stepfather, Brandon. And this is your brother, Oscar! Say hi, Oscar! And Ashley is at work right now but, Brandon, show him a picture on your phone. See? That’s your stepsister, Ashley!”
“She’s going to be insufferable when we get married,” Shide grouches, and then he peeks up at Shuyi’s face to see what response that gets.
“When we get married, huh?” Shuyi says, stupid smile still in place, trying to smother the butterflies in his stomach. “That’s very presumptuous of you, Gao Shide.”
Shide grins—he looks just like his mother sometimes—and leans up to leave a lingering kiss on Shuyi’s cheek. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve always been lucky.”