Zhou Mingkai's eighteenth birthday was no simple party.
It was a spectacle.
A club in the heart of the city, red and violet lights that seemed to pulse with the music, walls that shook under the weight of the bass. Outside, the line of people waiting to get in stretched along the sidewalk, but no one dared to protest when the guards let Mingkai and his group in without even checking their IDs. The Zhou surname was a master key: it opened doors, bought silence, and ensured that no one questioned anything.
Zhiyu didn't want to be there. He had thought of excuses, rehearsed refusals, looked for any way out. But everything fell apart when he received Mingkai's message:
If you don't come, I'll come for you.
The tone left no room for doubt. So, there he was, dragged against his will, with Xu Yining by his side. She had accompanied him more out of obligation than desire, with that big sister expression that promised to watch over him and make sure he came home alive.
Upon entering, the noise was a physical blow. The air smelled of smoke, sweat, and expensive alcohol. The table reserved for Mingkai's group was in an elevated area, lit by bottles with sparklers and surrounded by boys and girls of the same age laughing too loudly. On the table: crystal glasses, ice buckets, bottles of vodka and whiskey lined up like soldiers on parade.
And in the center, him.
Mingkai.
Black button up slightly open, the silver chain resting on his collarbone as if he had been born to wear it. The crooked, dangerous smile that made even the most confident people feel insecure.
He was surrounded by people, but he still seemed alone, as if the whole place revolved around him.
When he saw him, he raised his glass.
"You're here!"
It wasn't a reproach. It wasn't a threat. It was a celebration.
Zhiyu swallowed hard and slumped into the far corner of the table, avoiding his gaze. Yining leaned over to him, whispering "hang in there" in his ear before disappearing into the crowd. She had probably decided it would be less painful to lose herself on the dance floor than to endure the tension at that table.
Time began to run differently. Glasses filled and emptied in seconds, laughter mingled with the screams of music, cigarette smoke drew unstable figures in the air. Mingkai drank without restraint, as if alcohol were just another accompaniment to his euphoria. His cheeks flushed, his eyes glowed with a strange fire.
He leaned toward Zhiyu, too close, so close that his vodka- and cigarette-scented breath brushed against his skin.
"You know what, Zhiyu?" he slurred, with dangerous sincerity. "Today I feel fucking alive."
Zhiyu watched him, surprised. He had never seen him like this before: without his characteristic cold, calculating control. Vulnerable. Human. And, paradoxically, more dangerous than ever.
"Why are you staring at me so much?" Mingkai asked, tilting his head with a smile that seemed like a challenge. "Do you like me?"
Zhiyu's heart skipped a beat. The words hit him like a bolt of lightning.
"Don't be ridiculous," he replied, but his voice cracked, betraying what he wanted to hide.
Mingkai laughed, low and hoarse.
"It wouldn't be the first time someone melted for me."
He leaned back against the sofa, relaxed, but his eyes fixed on Zhiyu. As if he were silently undressing him.
"Do you know what I want right now?" His voice lowered, becoming deep, charged with an almost animalistic intensity. "I want to sleep with someone. I'm horny as hell"
Zhiyu felt his blood boil. His first reaction was rejection. Horror. But the second was worse: a sudden, involuntary desire that ran through his skin like an electric current.
He tried to drown it with alcohol. He took the glass in front of him and drank it in one gulp, feeling the burning sensation go down his throat. But all it did was give him the courage to respond.
"Then find someone to sleep with," he spat, though his tone didn't sound as distant as he wanted it to.
Mingkai raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Someone like you?"
The air became unbreathable. Zhiyu looked away, but that gesture betrayed him more than any words could. It was a silent confession. And Mingkai knew it.
He leaned in again, so close that his lips brushed the edge of his ear.
"You have no idea what you do to me, do you?"
A chill ran through him. His body trembled, not from fear, but from something worse. From something forbidden.
Zhiyu wanted to blame him. He wanted to repeat in his mind the phrase that always saved him:
He's the one who provokes. He's the one who manipulates. But for the first time, he couldn't avoid the truth: I'm asking for it too.
Hours later, when his friends dragged Mingkai onto the dance floor, Zhiyu sat watching. He saw the boy who had pushed him against the walls, who had intimidated him, now spinning under violet lights, his hair tousled, laughing wildly. And he felt fear. Not of danger. But of desire.
When he returned home, the silence of the room enveloped him like a cold blow. He left his coat on the chair, threw himself on the bed with his cell phone in his hand, and without thinking too much about it, opened Xiaohongshu.
Mingkai's profile was a world apart: photos on the beach with the sun tracing his body, pictures with friends where, even distracted, he looked like a professional model. Exotic places, landscapes that looked like they were taken from magazines, everything perfectly organized as if even his chaos was calculated.
Zhiyu swiped his finger over and over, caught up in those images. His heart fluttered every time he paused on one: Mingkai laughing with the sea in the background, Mingkai looking at the camera with his eyes half-closed, Mingkai with a dog that probably wasn't even his.
Without thinking, he liked several photos.
And, before he could stop himself, he followed him.
The impact was immediate: a notification.
Zhou Mingkai has followed you back.
Zhiyu sat up abruptly in bed. His stomach lurched. He felt the urge to undo it, to unfollow him instantly, to erase the evidence of his stupidity. And just as he was about to do so, his phone vibrated.
A direct message.
From Mingkai.
I like your photos ;)
The air stopped. His fingers froze on the screen.
The tension stretched across his chest like a string about to snap.
And Zhiyu realized he had crossed an invisible line from which there was no turning back.