Drowning Puppy

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[Thanks to @Zhe Hua Ran Mo for the chibi character art~]

"Not going home on New Year's Eve?"

In the dark, freezing stairwell of an old apartment building in the north, nine-year-old Chi Ye curled up and looked up. The man before him was tall and handsome, with broad shoulders and long legs.

"..." Chi Ye's dark eyes held no emotion.

Lu Wenyu asked no more questions. He turned and went home to fetch a box of steaming hot dumplings. "Eat these, then get some sleep."

Chi Ye lowered his head to stare at the dumplings in his hands and whispered, "...What if I have nowhere to sleep?"

Lu Wenyu noticed the child's prominent vertebrae as he bowed his head. After a long pause, he crouched down to meet the child's eyes. A gentle, low chuckle escaped him. "Would you dare sleep at a stranger's house?"

And so Lu Wenyu carried the child home.

*

They were together for only a month, then apart for ten years, but Chi Ye had never been able to forget Lu Wenyu.

They reunited at a police station. The moment Chi Ye had dreamed of day and night arrived in such a miserable fashion, and there was no avoiding it.

Later, Lu Wenyu came to Chi Ye's home: a cramped, gloomy basement room of barely ten square meters.

Chi Ye coughed softly and glanced at Lu Wenyu standing in the doorway. Just then, Lu Wenyu turned his head. The moment their eyes met, Chi Ye's heart hammered and his ears burned. He didn't know whether he was embarrassed by his poverty or shy because he was in love.

"Chi Ye," Lu Wenyu said, unusually stern, his expression complicated. "Come home with me."

"I..."

"I'm not asking, and I'm not taking pity on you." Lu Wenyu clasped Chi Ye's cold hand tightly in his warm, broad palm.

Chi Ye wanted nothing more than to be closer to Lu Wenyu. He would make Lu Wenyu his, whether it took a year, ten years, or a lifetime.

*

At first, Lu Wenyu thought Chi Ye was a strange kid who left him completely baffled.

Chi Ye never dared meet his eyes or allow any physical contact, always keeping up a distant yet polite front.

But he was very good at taking care of others. Lu Wenyu was meticulous at work but hopeless at managing his daily life. Ever since Chi Ye moved in, Lu Wenyu had truly begun to understand what it meant to live.

The living room lit up when he came home at dusk, steaming meals on the table, sunlight falling on freshly washed clothes on a weekend morning...

Lu Wenyu couldn't say when he began to crave it all.

And Chi Ye seemed to carry a whole story within him, constantly stirring Lu Wenyu's curiosity.

So Lu Wenyu secretly spent a day observing Chi Ye.

In the morning, Chi Ye wore a plain white cotton T-shirt as he fried eggs for him. By the afternoon, he had transformed, wearing a hole-ridden old tank top that showed off his firm arm muscles as he leaned over, cold-faced, to tattoo a customer.

No matter how much the customer howled, he said only one thing: "Quiet."

Lu Wenyu was irresistibly drawn to Chi Ye. He abandoned the reason and composure he'd held onto for over thirty years, falling deeper and deeper.

It was like an old house catching fire: once it started, there was no stopping it.

He thought he was the one who had first harbored improper, shameful thoughts, but perhaps... it was the other way around.

*

In the dim light of the bedroom, Chi Ye gazed at Lu Wenyu's handsome face, his voice hoarse. "Lu Wenyu..."

"Does it hurt?" Seeing how hard Chi Ye was crying, Lu Wenyu paused.

"It doesn't hurt. Don't stop." Chi Ye couldn't stop crying. Ten years of unrequited love had been so bitter, and having his dream come true was so sweet. He didn't want Lu Wenyu to leave.

Lu Wenyu laughed at him, then leaned down to kiss him tenderly, soothing the insecure puppy. "You're crying. How could I possibly go on?"

[Unrequited love fulfilled, healing and redemption, older man and younger man, 12-year age gap]

[Gentle, strong professor-lawyer seme teaches puppy to love himself x emotionally tangled, reserved, unexpectedly adorable tattoo artist uke]

Upcoming story

The year Lin He returned to the Lin family, he was eighteen and had finally escaped the life of a beaten-down street kid.

The pampered young master who had once been cherished and held in the palm of everyone's hand had become illiterate, cursed when he spoke, wolfed down his food as if there might never be another meal, and asked "How much?" before doing anything.

No one could bring themselves to scold him. His parents doted on him, his older siblings indulged him, and they practically treated him like a three-year-old.

Then, at a banquet, Lin He drank too much because he'd never had good wine before. A few rich second-generation heirs blocked his way.

Dizzy and lightheaded, Lin He felt the irritation he'd picked up from years on the streets surge through him. He drunkenly raised his hand. "Get lost..."

"Smack!"

He hit the wrong person. Lin He slapped Zhao Lin, the head of the Zhao family, hard across the face.

The entire room fell silent.

People said Zhao Lin was cold and domineering, ruthless in his methods. His immense wealth and power kept everyone at a distance, even as they scrambled to curry favor with him.

The rich heirs stared in shock, then waited gleefully for Lin He to be scolded.

Even Lin He was stunned. Half sobered up, he opened his mouth helplessly. "I-I..."

The man turned his head. A red mark quickly appeared on his cheek, while wine trickled down the line of his jaw and seeped into his black suit, staining a small patch dark.

Zhao Lin hadn't been this disheveled in decades.

Just as everyone expected him to blow up, Zhao Lin lifted a hand and wiped the wine from his cheek with his fingertip. A helpless, indulgent smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, and his voice was low.

"Does your hand hurt?"

*

The next day, before Lin He had even woken up, he was packed off to the Zhao home, bedding and all.

With his hair sticking up in every direction, Lin He stared blankly at Zhao Lin, who was dressed in a suit. "...Huh?"

"I'll be taking care of you for a while."

He called it taking care of him, but really, he was laying down the rules.

No more swearing, no more gambling, and he had to catch up on his studies.

The thing that drove Lin He to despair most was learning to read.

He flopped onto the desk in defeat. "I'm really illiterate. Can't you stop torturing me?"

Zhao Lin turned a page without looking up. "Even illiterate people have to eat."

"..."

"Start by learning to read the menu."

Lin He bristled. "I was doing just fine before!"

Zhao Lin finally looked at him. After a long silence, he said, "Were you really? Then why are you still covered in so many scars?"

*

Zhao Lin hadn't always been the ruthless man who held life and death in his hands. The youthful confidence and pure innocence he'd had as a boy had all ended the day Lin He was kidnapped.

Thirteen years passed before Lin He finally came back.

Zhao Lin gave him everything he had, teaching him to read, teaching him to grow up, and teaching him what it really meant to love someone.

After Zhao Lin had bailed him out several times, Lin He couldn't help calling him, "Uncle."

"Mm?"

"Why are you so good to me? No matter how badly I mess up, you never yell at me or hit me."

Zhao Lin looked at him for a long time.

"My good boy, when you get back what you thought you'd lost, you have to handle it gently."

Theme: Love is about lifting someone up and cherishing them