Old Habits Die Hard

[Enigma/Omegaverse, Stockholm Syndrome, Power Couple, Angsty Drama]

[Melancholy Genius Beauty Painter Bottom x Brooding, Ghostlike Campus Heartthrob Top]

Han Suxia is an Omega genius painter who feels no pain and has a gloomy disposition. To complete his competition entry, he sets his sights on Su Qinian, the top-tier Enigma heartthrob recognized by the whole school.

To outsiders, the student council president is flawless, but Han Suxia can smell the stench of decay emanating from deep inside him.

So Han Suxia plans a hunt targeting the apex predator. He drags this untouchable flower down from his pedestal and imprisons him in a gloomy villa. Straddling the bound heartthrob, he dips his fingertips in paint and smears it recklessly across his trembling back, smiling with an innocent yet cruel air. "Senior, be my muse."

All summer, Su Qinian becomes his personal human suppressant and inspirational muse. When clearheaded, Han Suxia paints; during his heat, he begs for him in a daze of desire.

The day the painting is finished, Han Suxia unties the ropes without a trace of reluctance.

Su Qinian's eyes are red, and his voice is hoarse. "Where are you going?"

Han Suxia wipes the paint from his hands, as indifferent and hollow-eyed as if throwing away a used-up paintbrush. "I'm done painting. You can get lost."

He thought their paths would never cross again, and that the other man must hate him to the bone. But he discovers that a pair of eyes is always watching him from the shadows...

Su Qinian regains his freedom, and everyone assumes Han Suxia is as good as dead. But no one knows that the noble young master spends every night desperately searching for the feeling of being tied up.

He realizes Han Suxia has already ruined him. He feels awful if he can't smell his pheromones, and he can't sleep all night if that cool hand doesn't torment him. Like a dog that has been toyed with and learned to crave it, he spies on the heartless painter every night.

What he finds even more unbearable is that Han Suxia is looking for a new muse, gazing at someone else with that same feverish, obsessive adoration.

Now that he has a dog like me, how can he still go and tempt someone else?

A month later, Han Suxia's new muse mysteriously disappears, his art exhibition is shut down, and he is left with nowhere to turn.

Late at night, the studio door suddenly locks from the outside. Su Qinian, impeccably dressed in a suit, pins Han Suxia against a worktable piled high with discarded drafts. He calmly takes off his tie and hands it to Han Suxia.

He leans down and kisses his fingertips with reverence and an unhealthy devotion. "Xiaxia, please tie me up. Don't look for anyone else, okay?"

Blurb written on January 31, 2026. (It may be revised, but the general plot will remain the same. The bottom imprisons the top to paint; the top develops Stockholm syndrome and voluntarily hands the chain to the bottom.)

I want to explain the purpose behind writing this story. Honestly, most angsty stories hurt the bottom in both body and heart: pregnancy, childbirth, losing a child, and a proud darling of heaven falling from grace. After all that abuse, the bottom somehow ends up with Stockholm syndrome. So I wrote this purely to flip that around. It's probably a particularly niche topic, but I won't change the blurb or the premise.

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