Chen Muyang had a reputation as the ultimate social butterfly, the kind who could be so outgoing he didn't care whether anyone else survived.
So when he said he wanted to visit his aunt in Finland and catch the northern lights while he was there, his whole family felt perfectly at ease.
Then his aunt stood him up, and overnight he was sent off to the Lapland wilderness to stay with the son of one of her friends.
Kian Lind, a 195-centimeter-tall, stone-faced Nordic hunk, looked as if his features had been carved from ice.
At their first meeting, Chen Muyang's heart skipped a beat. What was this unattainable beauty?
It didn't take him long to discover the truth.
The man was a full-blown introvert. He wasn't aloof; he genuinely had no idea how to interact with people.
Chen Muyang: Hehe.
A social butterfly's introvert is a toy. Even the heavens are helping him out.
*
Things took a turn one night.
The heating broke. Chen Muyang slipped into Kian's bed and deliberately draped a leg over his waist.
Kian's whole body stiffened. The next second, he flipped over and pinned Chen Muyang beneath him. His gray-blue eyes were dark as an abyss in the night, and his ragged breath brushed against Chen Muyang's face.
"You asked for this."
Their lips collided, bringing the chill of a Nordic winter night and the heat of passion repressed for far too long.
Chen Muyang was dizzy from the kiss, his fingers gripping Kian's back.
He tried to say something between breaths, but Kian kissed him again. Kian's thumb rubbed against him with enough force to leave a mark.
Oh no. He'd really taken things too far this time.
But Chen Muyang smiled and wrapped an arm around Kian's neck.
Still, he kind of wanted to keep playing.
Bonus scene:
On the eve of his return to China, Chen Muyang opened the sketchbook Kian was supposed to have locked away in a drawer.
The first few pages were fine. They showed him laughing, fooling around, and drooling in his sleep, all drawn with tender detail.
He turned the pages with a smile, then his hands suddenly froze.
Every drawing after that had the same subject: he was chained inside the wooden cabin, his eyes vacant, a collar around his neck. Beside him, the words "Stay forever."
One drawing, two... more than a dozen.
Every line was so precise it made his scalp tingle.
A chill ran down Chen Muyang's back, and his fingers began to tremble.
He tried to put the sketchbook away when a warm body suddenly pressed against him from behind.
He hadn't noticed Kian standing behind him. Kian rested his chin in the hollow of Chen Muyang's shoulder, his voice low as if it came from underground.
"...You saw?"
Chen Muyang spun around and met a pair of shadowy gray-blue eyes, their possessiveness so intense it was almost pathological.
"So stay... or take me with you."
Now he was really done for.
[Reading Guide]
1. Sunny, outgoing, athletic shou x utterly laid-back, introverted, secretly sultry gong
2. One-on-one, both virgins, sweet with just a hint of bittersweetness
Theme: Love gives people the courage to grow
