The art room was silent except for the soft scrape of pencil on paper. Zhao Rui sat alone, sunlight pooling across the table, dust glittering in the air like suspended stars.
He drew slowly—his lines careful, distant. A boy standing in the rain. The sketch was blurred around the edges, shadows melting into the downpour. Above it, he etched stars, almost absentmindedly. He didn't even know why he added them. Maybe he just liked the way light broke through darkness.
A footstep behind him.
Then a voice—too close, too casual.
"Is that me?"
Rui froze. His pencil halted mid-stroke.
Li Chen's voice held its usual careless edge, like he was always seconds away from either mocking or devouring you. He leaned over Rui's shoulder, eyes flicking over the paper.
"You drew me in the rain," he said, tilting his head. "That some kind of poetic threat?"
Rui didn't look up. "You wish."
Li stepped closer, so close Rui could feel the faint heat of his breath.
And then—
His fingers brushed lightly across the back of Rui's neck.
Rui stiffened. It wasn't a casual touch. It was deliberate, slow. His fingertips grazed the mole just below Rui's hairline, featherlight but sharp with meaning.
"Don't touch there," Rui said, voice tight.
Li's grin was slow, unrepentant. "Then don't keep leaving it out for me."
Rui slapped the sketchbook shut, hard enough to make the pencil roll off the table.
"Let's just work," he muttered.
Li finally sat beside him, far too relaxed for someone who'd just crossed a boundary.
The tension clung to the air like static, neither of them moving, speaking, breathing too loudly. Rui didn't sketch again. He just watched the light flicker on the floor and tried not to think about the heat still lingering on his skin.
---
At the campus café later, Rui sat with his friends, nursing a barely-touched iced tea. The group was animated, laughter echoing around their table beneath the hanging vines and soft jazz music.
Xia Zhi twirled her straw. "So when's our mysterious Rui gonna let us see his sketchbook, hmm?"
Tang Wei grinned. "Bet there's a page just for Li Chen. Shirtless. Brooding. Rain optional."
"There's not," Rui said flatly.
Lin Qi gave him a sidelong look. "That was fast. Almost suspiciously fast."
Gao Yuan looked up from his notebook, eyes narrowed. "You've been off lately, Rui."
Rui shrugged. "Just busy."
He didn't explain.
They didn't know he was tutoring at night.
Didn't know he was watching Li Chen for something more than art class.
Didn't know he wasn't supposed to let any of this become personal.
---
Meanwhile, Li Chen lounged across a worn leather couch in the dorm lounge, red bean pastry in hand. His legs were stretched out like he owned the room. Han Zheng sat on the floor, flipping a bottle cap. Lu Kai sprawled beside him, throwing peanuts into his mouth.
"You always talk like you don't care about anyone," Han said, "but suddenly you're showing up to class on time. That's... new."
Lu raised a brow. "Because of Rui?"
Li didn't answer at first. Just took another bite of pastry.
Then, faintly: "He's hard to read. I like puzzles."
Han snorted. "He hates being touched. That's your favorite thing."
Li licked a bit of red bean paste from his thumb. "Exactly."
---
Later that evening, Rui stood in a narrow prep center classroom, explaining quadratic equations to a quiet high school boy. His tone was calm. Patient. Kind. The opposite of how he was in class, with friends, with Li.
Afterward, he walked home under a navy-blue sky that tasted like quiet.
His phone buzzed.
Li Chen:
> "Are you avoiding me?"
"Because I'll just find you anyway."
Rui stared at the screen for a long moment. Then locked the phone without replying.
---
That night, Rui climbed to the rooftop garden above the dorms, sketchbook in hand. The stars looked dull through the haze, but he drew them anyway. It helped. It always helped.
He didn't notice the sound of footsteps until it was too late.
"You always hide here?"
Rui didn't look up. "Apparently not well enough."
Li Chen sat beside him on the ledge, too close again, as usual.
"You scared of me?" Li asked after a while.
"I just don't like being followed."
"You could've said no to this project."
Rui paused, pencil stilling over the paper. His voice was lower when he finally replied.
"Some things… you can't say no to."
Li looked at him. Really looked. And there was a shift—an almost flicker of something less cruel, more curious.
"You talk like you're hiding something," Li murmured.
Rui's pencil resumed. "You talk like you're not."
The silence between them crackled.
Then, just as Rui turned the page, Li moved again.
His fingers brushed the same place—soft, slow, maddeningly familiar. The mole beneath Rui's hair.
This time, Rui jerked away, the motion sudden and angry.
"I told you not to."
Li's smile didn't fade. "Then stop making me want to."
He stood up and left without waiting for a reply.
Rui didn't move for a long time. His hands were clenched in his lap. His heart loud.
---
Over the weekend, Li visited home for the first time in a while.
His fifteen-year-old sister, all spark and curiosity, tackled him at the door with a hug.
But when she spotted Rui's photo sticking out of Li's notebook, her smile turned sly.
"Ooooh, who's this?"
Li yanked the notebook from her hands. "Don't touch it."
"He's cute! Is he your—"
"You're not allowed to talk about him."
His sister pouted. "Are you jealous of your own sister?"
Li scowled. She laughed all the way upstairs.
---
That night, Rui lay in bed, sketchbook resting on his chest like a weight.
He flipped to a page he should've torn out by now.
Li's silhouette.
He stared at it. Then drew a thick X over the mouth. One across the eyes. One across the throat.
His phone buzzed on the pillow.
Li Chen:
> "See you tomorrow, partner."
Rui stared at the message.
He deleted it.
He wasn't supposed to get close.
He was supposed to observe. Investigate.
Find out what happened to Tian.
And walk away clean.
But Li kept touching that place.
That spot Rui never let anyone touch.
That spot Tian used to kiss before whispering things Rui never told anyone.
So why did he keep touching it?
And why did Rui let him?