The air between them tightened like a noose woven from silk and scrutiny. Shu Yao's lips parted, but the words fled his throat like startled birds from a cage rattled too many times.
"S-Sir... this—this isn't necessary... I... I can't—be like this," he stammered, each syllable cracking like glass underfoot, too fragile to carry weight.
But the man before him—Bai Qi's father, the architect of empires stitched from marble and blood—did not flinch. He had already made up his mind. The refusal he'd been handed by his son still lingered on his tongue like ash. Bai Qi, proud and cold, had scoffed at the idea of modeling for his father's legacy collection—grand suits tailored like war armor, sculpted for gods, meant to wear power like perfume.
But now... now this boy stood here, fragile as candlelight in a cathedral draft, and he was perfect.
Shu Yao's beauty was not loud. It whispered. It trembled like something secret and uninvited. His skin was pale with the kind of softness that suggested it bruised easily. His body, slender, just enough to be ruined by the wrong hand. His lips—he didn't even know they were slightly swollen from being bitten earlier disasters, now flushed like rose petals caught in a storm. And his eyes… long-lashed, shadowed, tired, alive—they made the old man remember what longing once tasted like.
He stepped forward.
Shu Yao flinched.
There was no need for violence. Not when admiration itself could pin someone still. Not when desire came dressed in tailored wool and spoke softly, cruelly, with nothing but praise.
"You're beautiful," the older man said with cold finality. "You're better than what I was owed."
His voice was not raised. It didn't need to be. It carried the weight of things that had already been decided.
Shu Yao's heart thudded wildly behind his ribs, but he kept his head low, lashes brushing his cheeks. "I—I'm not who you think I am…"
"You're not," the man agreed, reaching out to adjust the cuff of Shu Yao's shirt like he owned it. "You're better."
His fingers didn't linger, but his gaze did—sliding down Shu Yao's frame like a designer measuring fabric with nothing but his eyes. It felt filthy. Reverent. Inevitable.
A storm was building in Shu Yao's chest. He wanted to run. He wanted to stay. He didn't know which would make him feel less like prey.
"I can't wear anything like that," Shu Yao whispered, barely breathing the words.
"Then wear nothing at all," the older man murmured, turning away with a devil's smirk curling at the edge of his mouth. "But you'll still make them look."
And gods help them both—he wasn't wrong.
Shu Yao stood still—just a sliver of hesitation caught in the doorway, like a page that refused to turn.
Behind him, the office was silent but pulsing, like a cathedral too proud to beg for prayers. The air was still scented with bergamot and leather-bound ambition. Bai Qi's father remained seated, the titan in a throne of understated power, back turned, gaze fixed somewhere that wasn't the room. Somewhere inside himself.
"I don't force," the man said, voice like flint against steel. "I never offer this opportunity to just anyone. But you… you're not exactly interesting, are you?"
The sentence was a sword hidden in silk, and Shu Yao flinched without realizing. Still, no answer came from his trembling lips.
"You're not remarkable," the man continued, eyes on the horizon out the window. "Just another boy with tired eyes and borrowed bones. But somehow, you were seen."
It was meant to dismiss him, but in the bitter drag of those words lived something far crueler—hope. The kind of hope that devours quietly.
Shu Yao's fingers curled against the handle of the door. His mouth opened. No words came. It was like standing before a storm and asking it politely to pass.
He gave a bow. A deep, wordless bow. Then he turned the knob and stepped out, the door clicking shut behind him with a finality that stung like frostbite.
Outside, the hallway welcomed him with sterile light and impersonal silence. Shu Yao leaned his forehead against the cold wall, his breath hitching in a tight cage. He exhaled, as if letting go of something that never belonged to him.
Pose for cameras?
He could barely speak without tripping over syllables. The thought of standing in front of a lens—let alone in the spotlight of something like that—felt impossible. He wasn't made for glamour. He was made for silence, for slipping through life unnoticed, for blending into the backdrop like forgotten wallpaper.
And yet… the memory of those eyes—Bai Qi's father's—watching him like a sculptor stares at a block of marble… it unsettled something in him.
A plan formed, shaky and half-born, but burning.
Maybe he couldn't be interesting, but he could be necessary.
A thought flickered across Shu Yao's mind—sharp, sudden, as if a match had been struck in the cavern of his doubt.
What if he spoke to Bai Qi?
What if—for once—Bai Qi listened?
The idea arrived like frost creeping over glass. Not intrusive, just quiet… and cold. His lashes lowered, casting shadows like fallen silk as he stood still, locked in the quiet hall. It was laughable, almost pitiful—how his first instinct wasn't to scream, or flee, or fight.
No. It was to run to him.
His old friend.
The word friend soured as soon as it touched the edge of his thoughts, curdling behind his teeth like spoiled milk. His lips twitched—not in joy, but in something bitter and thin, like the smile of a mourner forced to clap at a wedding.
Friend.
Because Bai Qi never saw him as anything else.
Not with Qing Yue in the room.
Not with her voice like crystal and eyes like a springtime promise.
She was his sister. And Bai Qi… was hers.
That truth had carved itself into Shu Yao's ribs like a cruel inscription—each glance between them, each touch of Bai Qi's hand on her waist, etched deeper and deeper until he bled affection he was never allowed to speak aloud.
He had loved him.
Not suddenly. Not loudly.
But like ivy around old stone—relentless and silent.
And yet—
Another thought came. Bolder. Meaner. Hopeful.
What if Shu Yao made a deal?
What if he asked Bai Qi to do what the old man—the ruthless boss had demanded?
To pose.
To perform.
To Pretend
He wasn't doing this for himself.
God, no.
If he had any shred of selfishness left, he would've run.
Would've grabbed Bai Qi's wrist and pulled him out of that house, that name, that Damn legacy—
and into anything that felt real.
Even if it burned.
But he didn't run.
Instead, Shu Yao stood there, spine straight, voice bleeding in his throat, preparing to say the one thing that would shatter everything he wanted, just to keep things peaceful.
To keep her safe.
To keep him breathing.
"Do the shoot," he whispered, barely above ash. "With Qing Yue."
That was it.
The dagger.
Polished. Painless.
Hidden inside suggestion.
Bai Qi would listen—he always did when Shu Yao spoke like that, soft, empty, like he wasn't already swallowing back a scream.
"Just this one campaign," Shu Yao added. "It'll look good. The press will spin it into gold. It'll calm your father down."
Lie.
Lie.
Lie.
Shu Yao's lungs were made of glass. Every inhale felt like kneeling on broken mirrors.
This wasn't strategy. This wasn't logic. This was survival, dressed up in pretty words and cowardice.
He could already see it—Qing Yue in soft pastel, her eyes wide and trusting, unaware of the storm behind the lens. Bai Qi beside her, sculpted and beautiful, pretending it didn't matter, like the cameras couldn't taste the cold distance in his gaze.
And Shu Yao, just out of frame.
Watching.
Always watching.
Like a dog left at the door.
Because what else could he be?
He wasn't the hero.
Wasn't the rebel.
Wasn't even the tragedy.
He was the footnote.
The one who let it happen.
The one who said yes when every vein in his body screamed no.
"You'll look good beside her," Shu Yao said, his mouth moving like it belonged to someone else. "They'll eat it up."
His hands were shaking.
He hid them behind his back.
Because if Bai Qi saw—if he noticed the tremble, the crack, the guilt that sat in his ribs like a loaded gun—
he might ask why.
He might step back.
He might choose him.
And Shu Yao didn't want that.
Not if it came wrapped in ruin.
So he smiled. Not beautifully. Not even well.
Just enough.
"You'll be perfect together," he said.
And somewhere deep inside, something broke.
Something small.
Something sacred.
But Shu Yao didn't flinch.
Because that's what he did best.
He let it break.
And pretended he was fine.
Shu Yao wasn't speaking to anyone.
Just the air.
The echo of a voice that hadn't yet risen from his throat.
Each step he took toward the lift felt like wading through something unseen—like guilt soaked into the floorboards, like shame fogging up the mirrors.
He rehearsed his lines under his breath, as if the hallway could bless his courage before Bai Qi appeared.
But the lift had already arrived.
A soft ding—too soft for what came next.
The doors parted like a curtain unveiling a scene he wasn't ready for.
It wasn't Bai Qi.
It was George.
serene and youthful as always, the quiet shadow of someone younger from his boss's world.
That expression—so full of worry it stung—shocked Shu Yao more than the man himself.
He instinctively took a step back.
George noticed.
Of course he noticed. But he said nothing. Didn't press.
Didn't reach out like last time. Didn't repeat that foolish mistake.
Instead, George stood there, gazing at him with a sorrow that Shu Yao couldn't bear to accept.
Not because it was cruel.
But because it was kind.
And Shu Yao wasn't ready to be cradled by kindness. Not yet.
"You should be resting," George finally said, voice gentle, too gentle.
Shu Yao kept his eyes down, locked to the cold marble beneath him, as if the veins in the stone might swallow him whole. He didn't want pity.
He didn't ask for sympathy.
Or maybe—just maybe—he had.
But not from George.
Not from this man who still felt like a stranger, even if he'd held him when his pride shattered like porcelain.
Yes, he had sought warmth.
But not that night's kind embrace from a stranger.
No, he had wanted the heat from Bai Qi's hands—the unbearable, unfair desire to matter.
To matter more than a body played like an instrument, more than a performance in rotten streets.
That hope—foolish and festering—still clung to him like an open wound.
Bai Qi had mocked him like he played a girl in his bed.
Like it had been a game.
Like the curve of his back and the sound of his breath had been rehearsed, expected, disposable.
And so Shu Yao bit down—on reality, on pain, on the inside of his lip—until the metallic taste of regret filled his mouth.
George didn't catch it at first.
But when Shu Yao finally lifted his head—his eyes were rimmed in red, bloodshot like a man dragging memories behind his lashes.
His lip was crimson from biting too hard.
His face—too pale.
His eyes—too wide.
As if some unspeakable, disgusting memory had clawed its way up his spine again, dragging nails along every vertebra.
George saw all of it. And still—he didn't speak again. He didn't press. He only watched Shu Yao with that same gentle concern, as if to say I'm here, but I won't touch what isn't mine to hold.
Then, with a smile too soft for this building of suits and wolves, he turned—and left.
Without another word.
The elevator doors closed with a hush like a secret being sealed—cool metal gliding shut to swallow him whole. Shu Yao stood trembling inside, the sterile light above him painting his skin with the pale shimmer of something ghostly, something almost no longer real.
The silence was unbearable. So loud it screamed.
He took a step back—barely a shuffle—and leaned his forehead against the cold steel wall. It met him without mercy, indifferent to the fever beneath his skin or the way his breath fogged against its unfeeling surface.
The chill kissed his temples, his eyelids. As if it could freeze the memories still burning through his veins.
He wanted to forget.
God, he needed to forget.
But memory is not kind—it's not a drawer you can close. It's a rot that climbs vines inside the chest, blooming cruel flowers in places meant for love.
He remembered the laughter. That awful sound.
Bai Qi's voice—sharp, boyish, venom-laced
"Playing ladies behind my back?"
As if femininity were a sin. As if gentleness were a mask. As if he—
as if Shu Yao—
were nothing but a joke in a costume that didn't fit.
His throat tightened. His hands trembled at his sides.
How could Bai Qi say that?
When Shu Yao had never even looked at a girl—not with want, not with wonder.
Not because he couldn't. But because he didn't need to.
Because from the beginning, there had only ever been him.
Bai Qi.
The boy with the hurricane heart and fists like commandments. The one whose touch scorched him even when it bruised. The one whose voice echoed in Shu Yao's ribs like an anthem he couldn't unlearn.
And still—
Even now—
Even if Bai Qi's eyes followed Qing Yue like a vow written in glass—
Shu Yao wanted him.
Not in softness.
Not in safety.
But in the raw, breathless way that ruined quiet boys like him.
He buried his face into the steel now, trying to will the tears back. They didn't fall. He'd already shed too many in places no one saw.
The elevator began to hum, descending into the belly of the building. A coffin made of chrome and quiet.
And Shu Yao, with all his trembles and unsaid things, stood inside it like a boy trying not to drown in his own reflection.