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XIA FEI
Here is a dream that could have come to life:
You wake up and you don’t worry about dead bosses or annoying clients leading you on goose-chases across Bridon in search of answers. (You do worry about making rent, but you’re employed, and other things are relatively easy, so: an objectively better situation.) You get dressed, rummage around your room in search of the headphones you don’t remember where you left during last night’s late gaming sessions, and, once you find it, secure it around your neck and leave.
A short bike ride later, you arrive at the promised meeting spot. The sun bears down on you, sweat dripping down your neck already. Your hair feels mildly damp—you make a face, running a hand through it in an attempt to make it look less limp than it probably does. You sigh. Well, they’ll make fun of you for it, but that’s about expected.
The café is cool, air-conditioned, and there they are.
“You’re late,” Liu Xiao says, waving a menu at you. You make a face at him, earning a laugh, and turn your attention to the one sitting beside him, face lighting up with a beam, a complaint armed on your tongue already.
“Vein,” you start—
Wait—
No, that’s not right, it’s not a right you have been given, it’s stepping over the line—
Rearrange. A fracture running along the world briefly, restructuring itself, until it settles, and everything feels right. No lines crossed, no memories flipped on its head to suit the dreams and desires tucked away in the back of your head, away from your yearning heart—
“Laoban, you won’t believe what I had to endure from this idiot,” you jab a finger at Liu Xiao, “last night! Listen, he was—”
Vein laughs and leans forward, chin in hand, as if listening perfectly to every word you say. There you go—doesn’t that sound better?
/
Dreams are meant to be just that, you think, staring at the dusty ceiling of your room, looking at nothing in particular. Something that creeps into your heart, something that is meant to be torn apart and put back together until it resembles something sane and good and nice. Something achievable. It’s like how your mother used to say that dreams don’t put food on the table; it’s like how she had pride in her smile when you told her you plan to study applied physics.
Better than something that will cause you suffering, she had said. It was this that kept her from completely exploding in fury when she learned of your modeling gig. Not that you could have reasonably kept it from her, anyway; explosive popularity is not what you’d wanted, but it’s what you got, and you are nothing if not grateful for it, grateful for—
Your gaze slides to the alarm clock on your desk. You have four more hours until you’re supposed to be awake, and so you close your eyes and pretend that your dreams come to you in your sleep.
/
Once, Vein had asked you: “Felix, what do you want for a graduation present?”
Startled, not quite processing, “huh?” You look up at him, blinking to clear away the dryness in your eyes. “Graduation? That’s so far away—what are you talking about that for?”
“Isn’t it more convenient to plan ahead?” Vein asks you, as if it’s a completely innocent question. You know Vein well enough at this point to know he’s angling at something, but you can never be quite sure if it’s a legitimate question he’s circling around to trap you before asking, or if he’s simply just messing around.
“Right,” you say, dubious, “but…” absently, you begin twirling the pen in your hand. “I guess getting someone to deliver my birthday presents beforehand is one thing—or, I guess, planning what you’re going to do.”
For your birthday this year, Vein had taken you to the top of a clock tower. You’re still uncertain about the legality of the whole thing, but: every time you pass a clock tower, something in your heart shifts and rattles around.
“But graduation is so far away,” you continue, realizing you’d fallen silent for a moment. Vein’s eyes on you are piercing. “I don’t even know if I’m going to pass this semester, let alone make it to graduation like this.”
Frustrated, you gesture to the pile of papers in your lap. When Vein had invited you inside, when you dropped by the building after classes on an admin’s request to fill out some papers regarding your next gig, you hadn’t really had it in you to deny it. It sounded far more preferable than going back to your place, dealing with a roommate you still don’t know how to talk to. This, then, presents the problem of unfinished homework, one you have to relent and end up doing.
(“Just do it here, Felix, it’s no big deal,” Vein had waved a hand, seated at his desk across the room, opposite the couch you had dropped yourself heavily onto. You hesitated. Something about Vein’s office, despite your comfort within this space, made it seem—too sacrosanct, almost, for something as silly as the woes of an applied physics student who is acutely aware of his own lack of patience for his frustration. Or something like that, you think, resigned, tugging out your papers anyway.)
(The most embarrassing thing had been, somehow, the act of putting your glasses on your face. Perfectly normal, unassuming glasses, thin plastic frames and too-thick lens. “No contacts?” Vein asked. You frowned, face burning. Surely Vein hadn’t not noticed how you’d been squinting at everything? To wear something like this—a different side, one you hadn’t shown to Vein—
“Cute,” Vein had remarked.
“Laoban!” you protested, humiliated that your face burns hotter. You glared, almost certain that Vein had said that to push your buttons. You never know if Vein truly thinks you’re cute, or if he means it, every time, as a compliment to the model-perfect angles of his face. You wish you knew.)
“Well?” Vein asks, a pen of his own spinning between his fingers, as if mirroring the movement. Your eyes catch on the movement, realizing once again that you’re expected to answer. It takes more effort than usual to drag your still-embarrassed gaze back up to Vein’s expectant one, wondering if the lack of sleep is well and truly getting to you. With amused incredulity as flimsy as paper, Vein presses, “no ideas? None at all?”
“I mean,” you say, aiming for deadpan and not quite sticking the landing, “I can think of lots of things I’d like to have?”
“Such as? Don’t be shy, now.”
You take a moment to think of a more ridiculous wish or two you have, sure Vein will flick your forehead for the trouble, and say completely seriously, “a nicer apartment, for one.” Not that you can quite look at Vein when you say it. “Maybe a whole house? A car would be nice, though I think motorcycles are more in fashion these days—”
“It wouldn’t be much trouble to obtain a house,” Vein says, thoughtful. You snort.
“Sure, laoban. In this economy, really?”
“Well, an apartment better than your current living situation, then. Or that motorcycle, much easier to obtain. What color do you want it to be? Any specific model in mind?”
“Hang on—I was joking,” you exclaim hastily, eyes wide. Vein looks at you for a second, mouth quirking, looking at you like you’ve said something particularly amusing. “…you’re not seriously planning on doing that, are you?” you ask after a moment.
“Do you want me to?”
That’s… you gape at him. For a moment, you think—you think it might be true. You think Vein would do this for you if you said yes, but that is the thing, you realize. He likely knows that. Are you meant to pretend that Vein doesn’t look at you and see right through you, how you follow him as a drowned puppy would cling to their savior, how you seek him out, how you want to be in his space, how you look up at him and think that this is the—
Dangerous, dangerous thoughts, Felix, you remind yourself. You look at him, apprehensive, at once hopeful of—something, relieved that this will end exactly the way you know you will, but you can’t help but hope, anyway. Is this what Vein calls your youthful recklessness? He says it often, when you have to rein in your sharp, staccato bursts of anger at the insinuations made about him and yourself.
“Oh, Felix,” he starts laughing, full and deep, as if you had made the joke of the year. You scowl, letting the pen fall onto your lap. Somehow, you’re annoyed, despite having known. He makes it so easy to hope. He makes you believe in… in— “Don’t look so wounded, now, stop pouting at me. It was just a joke. I thought you said you hate when people get the wrong idea about you and I.”
(Aren’t you angry, laoban, you’d asked, and Vein had simply laughed. I couldn’t care less, he’d said.
It could’ve been taken any which way. You choose to believe in the way that suits your childish wishes the best.)
“I—well,” you sputter, straightening in your seat. “You sounded so serious… I don’t expect you to actually do it, but.” But what?
“Awh. So you really do want a graduation present from me.”
“I mean,” you mumble, “it’d be nice… hang on,” you say, louder, “who says I’ll be working here for that long?”
“You mean to leave me?”
The flush that reignites on your face would be less embarrassing in most other circumstances. “I don’t expect myself to maintain relevance for that long, laoban. Models tend to fall off the face of the earth fairly quickly…”
“You don’t trust in my ability to work you as hard as you can?” Vein inquires, completely innocent. You kind of miss when you were afraid of him, but this, you would never trade for anything else.
“You already work me as hard as I can,” you deadpan back at him. He snickers. “I just mean that it isn’t exactly a stable career compared to most others.”
“You’re right, it’s not,” Vein agrees. His nails drum against the polished-glass surface of his desk, and the way he looks at you, like it’s the day you first met and he appraised your worth as a model, makes you want to squirm, but you hold still. “But I believe you’ll do very well in this industry, Felix.”
“I can barely keep up with my rent in between everything else,” you groan, falling back against the couch. “How is that indicative of anything except an early retirement? I’m going to go to the grave too young, laoban, can you believe that? Xia Fei, born 1998, died—”
“Nonsense,” Vein says dismissively.
“Enough with the theatrics?” you guess, tilting your head downwards to look at him.
“Yes, and your homework isn’t going to get itself done,” he says, like he isn’t the one who distracted you. You say as much, and the look you get makes you certain that if he’d been standing any closer, you’d have received a flick on the forehead for your comment. Unrepentantly, you make a face at your papers and set your pencil on the surface again.
It starts raining outside, background noise to the hum of the A/C unit and Vein’s soft, habitual humming. You catch yourself wondering if, for your graduation, Vein would really give you a present. If, for your graduation, he really would do something ridiculous like that.
You’re my boss, you want to say, you don’t have to do any of that. But you are not known for particularly wise decisions, and you find yourself hoping that he does. That the next few years will be spent on planning something, and it’ll be a day when orbiting his space will feel more like this—comfortable and easy instead of aware and barrelling ahead anyway, a joy to be taken in ruining the sanctity of a space like his office.
/
That’s why, in your dreams, you conjure up a scene like this:
“Laoban,” you say, suddenly shy and embarrassed, hand shaking slightly when you pass him a black envelope embossed in gold, “Will you attend?”
“Oh?” Vein raises his brow, looking curiously at it. His sharp nails break open the adhesive seal easily, removing a white paper with gold borders and cursive lettering scrawled across it in black and gray. “Ah, your graduation ceremony is next week?”
“Yeah” you say, almost not daring to hope. Maybe he’ll say he’s too busy; maybe he’ll have other business. He often does, but he’s never failed to show up when you ask. “Will you come?”
Liu Xiao leans forward to glance over at the words and asks, “won’t you invite me?” with one of those looks directed at you over the top of his glasses. You stare back at him.
“You’ll be there anyway, you’re part of the student council—what are you asking me for?” you retort. He smiles all sunny at you, a clear front to the even-sharper retort no doubt resting at the tip of his tongue already. “Don’t act cute with me. It’s weird.”
“Alright,” Vein cuts in, “I’ll go, Felix. I would have gone even if you didn’t invite me, you know.”
“Oh,” you say, momentarily unbalanced; it’s like, even though you had known Vein would agree, you hadn’t quite dared to hope for it to go so well. You blink, and then blink again, and then you beam. “You’re the best, laoban!”
“Right, right,” Vein says fondly, reaching forward to flick his forehead; it’s not quite as rough as it used to be, and you don’t want to tell him that you somewhat miss the sting of it.
/
Your graduation goes as well as it could. You ask one of your classmates to record you as you climb up the stairs and go through the motions; it’s not quite an out-of-body moment as you’d expected it would be, despite a night of little to no—and restless—sleep. Your mother had been unable to fly into Bridon. (It’s at once a disappointment that she cannot witness your big moment and relief that she won’t be here to witness all that you’ve gotten up to.)
Liu Xiao waves at you from the crowd. You can’t really find it in yourself to begrudge this, only grateful that at least someone else is here, even if not for you. You open your mouth to speak at the podium, and—
Red, in your periphery. A familiar, familiar red. You whip your head around to scan the far ends of the auditorium, certain you’re going mad, because of course, what are you hallucinating Vein’s presence here and now for?
Dead men do not rise. Dead men most certainly do not attend the graduations of their former employees who hadn’t known how to express everything they meant to him, either.
In the crowd, Liu Xiao smiles at him, tilting his head quizzically as if to ask, what’s the matter? You consider, briefly, telling Liu Xiao: I thought I saw laoban. Liu Xiao wouldn’t laugh at you, you think—or maybe he would, or maybe he would look at you as if to say, aren’t you over this by now, but then, if you were, you wouldn’t be so desperately looking for answers, would you?
You remind yourself: dreams are just dreams, and nothing more.
VEIN
A truth: your body is a weapon, a blade honed to the finest, sharpest edge, a gun locked, loaded, and aimed with its safety trigger discarded. This is the way you built yourself up, cut off and discarded the parts you’ve deemed unnecessary, blades and threads dragging along your skin, knives and teeth tearing into all that stands in your way, until the you in the mirror looks like someone you can abide by.
This is how you come to take control of Chinatown—with a ruthlessness far rivaling the merciless blades with which you’d stabbed through the throats of your brothers, a casual cruelty you had learned at their feet before stepping foot in the halls of an overseas boarding school.
(A transition, of sorts, before you’d walked through the halls with matches and blades hidden up your sleeves. Bloody and fiery, both those incidents, leaving behind the taste of fresh meat and soot clinging to the back of the throat. Tasting like victory. Viciousness and ambition given form.)
This presents the question: what does it say that it is only the truth that there is a favorite employee, and that this favorite employee looks at you as if all the danger you have stitched onto your frame is negligible, as if a gun aimed between his eyes will never fire?
These are not things that you are unaware of about yourself. Perhaps they’re all the more damning for the awareness of it all.
/
Having to bail Xia Fei out of trouble when he gets drunk and into trouble is no surprising occurrence after this long. What is surprising is your willingness to deal with it, your willingness to haul him out of whichever mess he’s wound up in this time and drive him back to wherever is more convenient.
The two times you take him to your apartment are notable in that the first time, he sat quietly on the couch except to whine at you, tucked into the corner like he was afraid to move—the second, he was a mess, yapping away, flopped all over the couch—making comments about your furniture.
Why do you put up with this mess? You wonder. Xia Fei sits in the passenger’s seat, face pressed against the window. His expression is forlorn and even a bit annoyed, though whether that’s at you or himself, you can’t tell, and really, you don’t care, either. You don’t remember the child that he was sulking in this way.
“I don’t think I’m making it to graduation,” he suddenly says.
You glance at him sideways. “Not acting like this, you aren’t. Or achieving a stable career, for that matter. Are you going to call me when you get knifed in an alley next time?”
“That already happened,” he mumbles. “Except you stopped them from actually stabbing me.”
“Felix.” Your forehead throbs. “Don’t play smart with me right now. I’ve warned you enough times how dangerous it is to go off and get drunk surrounded by complete strangers. You don’t even know how to hold your alcohol.”
“I do,” he protests.
“Doesn’t look like it to me.” Your words are sharp, sharp in a way you mean and refuse to take back. “I am going to drop you off at your apartment, and you are going to drink more than enough water, and you will show up at work tomorrow sober. Do you hear me?”
“But I’ll be so hungover,” he whines.
“Then deal with it,” you shrug.
“Don’t you always?” This version of Xia Fei—loose-tongued more so than usual, uninhibited, forgetting how your usual dance is executed—is enough to give you a headache. But.
“I—” you bite your tongue. It’s not incorrect. “Continue on like this and you’ll simply end up dying in a completely avoidable accident on the day I’m not there to bail you out of trouble.”
Xia Fei spilling his heart onto your lap is hardly anything new. He has done this since the moment he recognized that he didn’t have to (or want to, truth be told) tiptoe around you. Surprise that he is so sincere? You should’ve ceased being surprised over a year ago at this point.
“Are you going to leave me, laoban?” Xia Fei asks. That’s the part he latches onto out of everything you said? Really?
You can’t even say you didn’t expect that—not from Xia Fei, especially a drunk Xia Fei who appears he might hurl up everything in his stomach if you drive any faster than this. Xia Fei, who looks at you as if you hung the stars and moon up in the sky; Xia Fei, who looks at you as if a single glance would be enough to dispel the danger that cloaks you.
“Stupid boy,” you tsk. It’s bad enough that he’s the living memory of smoke and ashes you haven’t considered in years, and doesn’t remember it. “What was that earlier about not making it to graduation?”
“I’m going to fail my classes,” he sniffles, as if waiting to be told he could cry about it, “my grades aren’t looking great, the midterms are hell, my face is everywhere but I don’t even make enough money for all the trouble that having my privacy constantly taken away is worth, I’m barely making enough for rent on top of everything else, and—”
He carries on and on like this for a good two or three more minutes, well and truly working himself into semi-hysterics until he realizes you aren’t saying anything in response to his breakdown. “Laoban,” he sniffles again, “am I being too much?”
Yes, you want to say, but something in you resists the idea of seeing him torn open at that. It’s not even really true. Xia Fei is often many things, difficult to handle, impossible to teach a lesson to, but too much is—edging on the side of lying. You know this much about yourself, at least.
“No, you’re just,” you start, falter, and then continue, “being too loud. So much whining—I said I believe you would make it in this industry, didn’t I?”
“But how, laoban?” he near-wails. “I’m—”
“No one said it’d be easy, Felix,” you cut in. “You think you’re not doing enough work? Fine, I’ll find you more work then. I hired you to be the face of the agency, and you’re going to continue working like you are.”
“My grades—!”
“Then save them, Felix, no one said it’d be easy.”
You turn onto the road that leads to your apartment, a distance away from Xia Fei’s. You know he can tell that that’s where you’re going. You’ve taken this road twice before and you don’t doubt that that’s enough for it to be burned into the kid’s memory.
“But, laoban,” Xia Fei eventually speaks up, small, “you’re taking me back to your place right now, aren’t you?”
“I could always turn around,” you say.
“I—I guess so, but. You always come when I call.” You look at him, momentarily, with a frown. “You’re always—there,” Xia Fei says, halting. A kind of honesty you’re more than familiar with, colored differently under the influence of alcohol. How much has he even had to drink? “Without wanting—”
You heave a sigh. “Stupid boy,” you say again, softer. Unintentional. It rakes at all the common sense left in you, most of which have apparently decided to take leave of your body. “How have you been in university this long and made no friends at all?”
“I mean,” he frowns, petulant, “I have friends, just… who else would be willing to…” he gestures at himself in wide motions. It’s as pathetic as it’s cute.
“You…” you click your tongue. What a nuisance, truly. “This world is going to eat you alive, Felix, if you insist on being this childish and sheltered. What if I refuse to save you, when the time comes?”
“You will,” Xia Fei insists.
“Really,” you ask dryly. “Such confidence.”
“You always do!” he exclaims. “Why would I think otherwise? Besides, you promised you’d get me a graduation present, and there’s no way you’d leave me without getting me one. So.”
Your mouth curls upwards, amused, fond, even. Xia Fei has—such a tendency to bare his heart like this, say with complete honesty what he would not have said in the first week after you had pulled him out of water. The concept of leaving behind Xia Fei to his own devices, his own path in life, is of course something you’ve considered, turning it over and over, again and again, in the back of your mind. All birds must leave the cage to learn how to fly.
The problem is, Xia Fei appears to be entirely too willing to be caged by you. Never mind that you can very well sink your teeth into the soft flesh of his throat; never mind that it’d take a simple, decisive movement to snap his wings off and toss him aside. It should be the easiest thing in the world—it is the easiest, you’ve taken countless lives just like that, nearly taken his life, in the fire, without knowing or caring, except.
“I promised no such thing,” you say instead of anything else that comes to mind.
Xia Fei blinks at him. “You didn’t?” Helpless little lamb that he is, he asks this with complete sincerity.
“I said I might,” which is also not what you said, but you doubt Xia Fei will remember that. “You were wailing on and on about not passing this semester just now, let alone graduation, and even then, you think about getting a gift from me. Presumptuous of you, isn’t it?”
“If you’re going to do it,” Xia Fei says, completely earnest, “then maybe I might find enough motivation to make it to the end. I think.”
“You think,” you say, incredulous. Xia Fei nods, as if he had said something perfectly normal. This kid will be the death of you, you truly think so. “Well, feel free to take it as motivation, then, if it’ll stop you from getting into messes you have no business to be wandering into. You are no lost deer in the woods to be this clueless.”
“Yes, laoban,” he chirps back, all traces of moodiness vanishing in an instant, just like that. You give him a look in the rear-view mirror, but it just as quickly dissolves into laughter, and, well.
The audacity of this boy. It’s almost funny.
/
Xia Fei tells you a secret, once: “I don’t even like doing this job,” petulant, tired, poking aimlessly at his food—that you had brought him to eat after he had whined about missing his snacks and being hungry. It slips out of his mouth all at once, so suddenly that not a second later, he snaps upright in his seat, eyes wide with horror. “I…” he starts, “I didn’t… laoban—”
You lean back in your seat, teeth closing around mostly-raw meat, and raise your eyebrows at him quizzically. “Was that supposed to be a secret?” you laugh.
“Uh…” he stares back, mouth parted. “I… well..?”
“Oh, Felix,” you say, the amusement evident in your tone as you regard this helpless little foal. “Did you think you weren’t so obvious? No one complains about it as much as you do.”
“Well—everyone complains about their job,” his protests sound weak even to his own ears, evidently, because he tears his gaze away from you and looks down at his food, ears red with embarrassment. Humiliation.
“As much as you do? I doubt it,” you say. It’s a bit cruel to press, to make a game out of his humiliation in a public restaurant, but it’s rewarding enough when Xia Fei raises his head to glare at you, expression pinched. Sulking, really. A disobedient little puppy is what he is—it’d be harder not to egg him on. Is this the version of the solemn little boy that Liu Xiao had witnessed? “Felix, tell me one good thing about your job, then.”
“Um…” his brow furrows as he considers it. “I don’t have to do paperwork?” he offers.
“Nice try.”
“Laoban,” he complains, dragging it out like a whine. You raise a brow at him expectantly, smiling merrily. “Well, obviously it’s the money. I don’t know why anyone else would put up with it if it weren’t for the money.” His expression pinches again, but he doesn’t add anything else to the admission.
“You work hard for good money,” you conclude, picking up another piece of meat. Xia Fei hums in assent. “Yet you complain so much.”
“Ugh.” He scowls, resting his cheek on his hand. His unfocused gaze goes past Vein, staring out the window behind him without seeing. You observe his features, note the exhaustion lingering under his eyes and in the slant of his mouth. A pretty face, more worn down by the tide of life’s harbor now than before to match the fire in his eyes. “What’s not to complain about… my mother still hasn’t gotten around to accepting that this is how I’m staying afloat.”
“You did lie to her about it.”
“What else could I have done?” he groans, scrubbing both hands over his face.
“There are few models I employ that are as successful as you are,” you muse, setting your chopsticks down. “That surely counts for something. This city means to eat you alive at every turn, but somehow you’ve survived this long without becoming anyone’s prey.”
“I have you to thank for that,” he doesn’t deny it, the memory of near-drowning still fresh on his mind, no doubt. “But… I don’t know, I guess it’s just tiring. I only really tried it out on a whim, anyway… I was just lucky enough to run into you.”
The genuine sincerity in his tone, so at odds with his complaints and whines, has you considering him again for a second. Xia Fei is not someone who needs much reassessing; yet you find yourself taking in all that he is again and again, keeping a catalogue of his reactions, his habits, his routine. The honest, naked truths he cannot hide from you.
“It doesn’t help that people think… never mind,” he stops, voice going off-pitch for a second.
“Every model has to deal with such salacious rumors, Felix,” you say with a delighted grin. There it is again—the near-sulk he wears when he glares at you, the innocent, wronged-animal look making its way back onto his face. “You needn’t be so embarrassed of them. They mean nothing.”
“But—!” he leans forward, almost distressed. “Doesn’t it bother you, laoban?”
“Bother me?” you snort. “I couldn’t care less. They say far worse about me than mere accusations of sleeping with some kid I picked up off the street.”
He blinks at you. His face has gone a sort of pink, mouth slightly agape.
“Haven’t you heard, Felix? I ate everyone when I took over Chinatown.” At this, he makes a face, heaving a tired sigh; you carry on, heedless. “It’s remarkably easy to sink your teeth into the throats of those who simply refuse to listen and wag your tongues. Cow them into submission.”
“Laoban,” Xia Fei says, still scrambling to recover his composure, “those weird metaphors of yours just keep getting worse.”
“Would you like to hear the story of how I came into ownership of the very agency you work for, then?” you offer instead of telling him that it was no metaphor when you discovered how easy to peel a human trachea out of the throat when you were younger than Xia Fei is.
“Sure,” he agrees, settling back into his seat and picking up his chopsticks. “Maybe it’ll be good advice for when I graduate and have to really rely only on myself.”
You hum, not acknowledging the sentence directly, searching for a good place to start the bloody tale of his expansion into further business ventures. Not that Xia Fei needs to know everything about what had been, by all rights, an affair messier than it should’ve been.
(There will come a time when the caged little sparrow breaks free and flies out and away through the window.)
/
When the graduation itself comes, Liu Xiao throws an invitation at you and says, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, are you interested? to which you respond, after a moment, with a grin, if xiao-shaoye requires my help, then he’s most welcome to it. Liu Xiao rolls his eyes and lets you tag along to the ceremony, your hair tucked away and hidden beneath a cap and face concealed behind a mask. Liu Xiao says even this much is too conspicuous; you wave him off.
There’s a hollow kind of pride in your chest when you watch Xia Fei go up on the stage, lurking at the edges of the room, far too aware of the inherent wrongness in your body. There is a different kind of thirst thrumming under your skin, one with your existence after years of being not-dead, and seeing Xia Fei serves as a reminder.
You remember, distantly, that you had not gotten a chance to find a proper graduation present after all. He looks tired.
His head turns, and—
You slip away. Walk down the corridor, humming to yourself.