Gao Zhong had been Wei Qing’s first love.
At least at this point in his life, he should be his only one.
Which is why Yue Fei feels his knees buckle when he sees that two-faced snake slither into the party, smile, and perfectly hone in on them. Fuck, he should have checked the guestlist.
Yue Fei will never believe it’s an accident. Not with Wei Qing and Wei Qiwan in attendance. Not with Project Lagan starting to make the rounds, and that old brilliance of Wei Qing’s shining too brightly for Yue Fei’s hands to cup and keep hidden.
No, this is a warning and an invitation all rolled into one. And Wei Qing has no clue about any of it. He just smiles, bright and open, like he’s seeing a dear friend. Because to him, that’s what Gao Zhong still is. After all, they’d broken up so nicely, Gao Zhong had been so kind…
Gao Zhong, in a perfectly cut suit, hair styled to look effortless yet perfect, one hand loosely shoved into his pocket, body language so open that no one would raise their defenses. As expected. This vicious bitch is acting out his own drama, just like always, because no one involved actually matters to him, not compared to the stories that he constantly constructs around his own cursed existence. His only purpose in life seems to be to push everyone around him to their limits, all the while acting like he’s an auctioneer uncovering brilliance, instead of a lazy, psychopathic coward.
Yue Fei might hate him as much as he hates Yang Wushe.
After all, it was only the cracks left by Gao Zhong that allowed Yang Wushe in. He was the trendsetter for harming Wei Qiwan by fucking (over) Wei Qing. He was the one who set in motion Wei Qing’s ruin, even if Wei Qing never realized it, not even at the end. Hatred. The only thing that makes it a ‘might’ instead of a ‘certainty’ is that with Gao Zhong, they’d gotten revenge. He and Wei Qiwan. It was the darkest thing he’d ever done.
When they’d seen that man at Wei Qing’s grave, calling it ‘a pity’ like a passerby instead of a perpetrator, he’d snapped. They both had. They’d beat him and pulled him into their car. They’d looked at one another and see only darkness left. Later? There was an empty room, perfect for completely emptying out all one’s resentments. They’d tied him into a kneel and brought out Wei Qing’s portrait and let him sit there, let him watch him, let him properly pay his respects. After that? There was no after. The door never opened again.
But that was all in the past.
In the present, he was still a threat, still someone that didn’t deserve to smile and wave and approach Wei Qing like the warm winds of summer. Didn’t deserve to use false sweetness to lure Wei Qing back.
Gao Zhong was the reason Wei Qiwan had done what he had.
He was the bad thing that Wei Qiwan was willing to destroy their own bonds over, to protect his brother from. Yue Fei had only learnt about it all years later, when he left Wei Qing’s side and Wei Qiwan snapped him up. Explained to him, briefly but with enough detail to agonize, why exactly he’d played the villain for so long, and why he’d never confided the truth in Wei Qing.
In retrospect, romantics, even untested romantics like Wei Qiwan, could be… really, really dumb.
He had been unwilling to extinguish that last spark of optimism, willing to play the bad guy to leave Wei Qing something to believe in and to place him under the notice of those who wanted to use him. He’d judged the future and decided that Wei Qing would do better losing one brother than his hope in love, and his ability to be loved without worrying about conspiracies and darkness. For all the good it did any of them.
Even if Yue Fei didn’t kill him in this life, he’d never forgive him.
—
Gao Zhong was Wei Qing’s first love, but Wei Qing wasn’t Gao Zhong’s.
Status was.
Status and absolute dependence.
And even if he was fond of the boyfriend that he’d picked up in university, he wasn’t born to be the husband of some second son. He wanted the first, or nothing, and Wei Qing had just been a temporary waystation while he looked for someone more established, with less stellar competition within their family. To Gao Zhong, Wei Qing was just a sweet person to keep around, and then a nice and convenient fuck, the kind that wouldn’t harm his status after things ended.
A resume-builder of a boyfriend.
But after a year together, Gao Zhong was a little won over. How could he not be, with a cute Mr. Perfect wrapped around his finger and being so sweet? Wei Qing had impressed him with his studies– and he was very, very good-looking. And very quick to learn in bed. He also had the somewhat uncommon benefit of coming from a family that wouldn’t disinherit him for bringing home a boy, even marrying one. There was a lot to like. Plenty that made him a great investment, especially from someone older and more jaded.
Gao Zhong considered his year of seniority some great gulf between them, instead of piss in a bucket.
And Wei Qing would make a good heir, if he’d just fight for it instead of eagerly following after Wei Qiwan like it was the greatest honor to forever be his subordinate. Who could be happy with that?! No one Gao Zhong was interested in tying his future to. Wei Qing could be perfect. With a little nudge towards viciousness.
Who hadn’t heard of late-blossoming sibling rivalries?
The idea was intriguing enough for Gao Zhong to flip a coin, cause some chaos, and see what was revealed when the dust settled. Either his cute little boyfriend would sharpen his claws and counterattack beautifully, or he’d move on, while getting some leverage on a young CEO, and that was something that could always be monetized nicely. Neither proposition was a losing one.
So what had he done?
On their second anniversary, he’d videotaped them in bed, and sent the entire thing to Wei Qiwan.
He was not artistic in his cinematography.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
This was his idea of testing the mettle of his potential long-term partner.
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He sent the video, started the feud, and whatever he said to Wei Qiwan when they met after, before he went to Switzerland with that cracked jaw of his, managed to pollute their relationship all the way until Wei Qing’s death…
In his last life, Yue Fei had known about the video; had even been sent clips of it, when certain short-lived trash wanted to torment Wei Qiwan. He’d despised every second that polluted his mind, though he quickly developed world-class reflexes in stopping it after only a few frames of violation. When that video was being made, he’d trusted the man. Thought he was a great match for Wei Qing.
He never forgot, and the unfairness of it kept him up at night, over and over again.
One of the only comforts of Yue Fei’s final years was knowing that Wei Qing had died with that love unblemished. Even if Gao Zhong was rotten to the core, Yue Fei had taken hollow comfort in the fact that Wei Qing had not known it. It wasn’t nothing, that Wei Qing had been able to believe that at least one person genuinely loved him, at least for a time. Had a memory that he thought of as untainted, a first love that he could look back on as a sweet dream, instead of the seeds of the nightmare that had completely consumed him.
He’d been grateful, even.
But Yue Fei no longer feels that way. Not with Gao Zhong smiling, and Wei Qing returning it, because why wouldn’t he? Now, he just feels murderous. To continue to play nice would be to repeat Wei Qiwan’s mistake from all those years before.
—
Indeed, Wei Qing has no idea.
Even with the benefit of having already died, it’s not like the secrets of the universe were revealed to him. He hadn’t even seen much of the underworld, curled up under that tree and playing dead! So he smiles and very naturally hugs his college boyfriend, noting how well Gao Zhong has grown, even as he is pleasantly surprised at his own disinterest. Perfect posture, kind eyes, a gentleness that hung around Gao Zhong like a wreath of good karma… And yet-
Yes, my family’s Yue Fei is still better, even if he stays at a distance.
But growing apart after school didn’t mean he and Gao Zhong couldn’t be friends! After all, Yue Fei had always liked Gao-ge. Felt he was a good, upstanding man, and approved of him as a partner for Wei Qing. Nothing like everyone that had come after him. Maybe it would be a good reminder, to chat with him under this happy coincidence?
He could prove to Yue Fei that his eyes hadn’t always been blind, and he really could have genuine feelings for someone good for him. That it wasn’t a fluke, for him to pursue Yue Fei so single-mindedly. He hadn’t always been a dog, alright? Maybe Gao Zhong was exactly what was needed, to finally help Yue Fei see him as a viable romantic option.
He is, but not in the way Wei Qing imagines.
“Gao Zhong, it’s been too long, you look great!” It’s true, he does. Neat and tall, wearing a European suit that speaks to his worldliness, along with his fashionably long hair and his laughing eyes that seem to contain the universe’s secrets.
Gao Zhong very dramatically clutches his heart while returning the friendliness.
“Gao Zhong now? Ah, my heart is pierced, who knew that in going abroad, I would lose my brotherhood and right to be called Gao-ge.”
Wei Qing rolls his eyes and neatly steps out of a too-intimate caress, the kind of thing that you lose the right to when you leave a relationship. He might be happy to see Gao Zhong again after so many years abroad, but he’s not interested in being ambiguous with anyone other than Yue Fei. He’s never felt jealousy was an appropriate appetite stimulant. He wouldn’t want Yue Fei’s commitment to him to be tainted by something so unpleasant.
“Psha. Be proper, you should know that that’s not what brotherhood is.” Still, he’s all smiles. He doesn’t want to make things uncomfortable for Gao Zhong. Just wants to remind him where they stand. Their light banter on brotherhood is interrupted by the arrival of Wei Qing’s actual brother.
Who, to put it politely, is having a fit.
Wei Qiwan pulls Wei Qing away and stands just in front of him like he’s a knight protecting a princess. Wei Qing can’t decide between being baffled and offended. It’s honestly an even split. He waits for his brother to explain himself, but instead, Wei Qiwan just ignores the oddness of their position. Like it’s natural to protect him, like he hadn’t lost that right even more roundly than Gao Zhong had.
“Wei Qing. Shouldn’t you go check on your team?” Wei Qiwan doesn’t even look at him. It’s bizarre enough to leave Wei Qing tongue-tied. He’s clearly missing something, but what?
Wei Qiwan had- hadn’t he liked Gao Zhong? Just like Yue Fei?
He’d been the first one they came out to, he’d been the one that had helped Wei Qing prime their parents on the topic of gayness, he was the one who looked the other way and hid the card statement when they booked their first love hotel and included gifts for Gao Zhong at every holiday, proving that he could become part of the Wei family, if he so wished. And yet…
“President Wei, it’s been so long. It’s gratifying to see you being protective of our little A’Qing.” The confusion mounts as Gao Zhong smiles at his brother like sharing a secret. Again, off. He’s definitely missing something, but more importantly- Wei Qing frowns and looks over his shoulder. Sure enough, Yue Fei is only a few steps away, glaring in their direction.
Gao Zhong, I’m begging– don’t say things like ‘our A’Qing,’ you’re going to ruin all my diligent work towards happiness with your unclear phrasing! Yue Fei planned enough of his schedule that he knew the man wouldn’t worry about an affair or anything, but he didn’t want even a hint of intimacy to push Yue Fei away.
Wei Qing turns his body and compliantly returns to Yue Fei’s side, but not before he hears Wei Qiwan’s voice, as cold as he’s ever heard it.
“Well, ‘there are no taels of silver buried here’ is an old and ineffective strategy. I’ve had time to reflect, and feel… It’s probably better to just cut the hands off of thieves directly. So that’s my new strategy. Please look forward to my hospitality.”
Wei Qing is so, very, confused. He pulls at Yue Fei’s arm and whispers in his ear, close enough to smell his cologne.
“Yue Fei, what the fuck is happening?”
Yue Fei pulls him away and into the very same bathroom where they had their last showdown. Wei Qing feels like his life is becoming one of those dramas. He just hopes he’s about to be confessed to, rather than eviscerated. It’s always one of the two, in those plots that he likes watching. And knowing his luck- Bah, at least if he dies, it will be crumpled at the feet of a beauty.
—
Yue Fei prefers not to think on his feet when it comes to serious shit like this, but he doesn’t exactly have an option. He only has the thirty-six steps between their first position and the interior of the bathroom that he commandeers, to figure out exactly what he should say, and how much he should disclose.
All of it?
Did Wei Qing still need the comfort of the lie, if Yue Fei was offering him a newer, better, purer love to replace the rotten one that he was still foolishly looking back on with fondness? But did Yue Fei have any right to take that from him, when he couldn’t promise forever? Did he have the right to hide it from him either? It’s complicated, too complicated to come to any type of consensus on.
Wei Qiwan has really screwed him on this one.
He locks the door and takes two steps away from Wei Qing.
Looks at him.
And just goes on instinct. What else is there?
“Don’t look at him anymore.”
Just look at me. Even if we don’t last, let me be the love you look back on, years from now. The person that you can hold up to the world and yourself as proof that you’re worth loving, even when you’re spoilt and silly and self-deserting. Don’t look at him anymore. Don’t look at anyone like him. Leave me for someone even better, or not at all. Please.
Look at me, for just a little while, look at me.
Yue Fei closes the distance that he’s just created. He sees the wideness in Wei Qing’s intelligent eyes, sees the questions that he’s still debating how to answer, and quiets them with a kiss that starts slow and builds in seriousness, as he tries to convey all that doesn’t know how to say.
Wei Qing is so pliant, hands cautiously snaking up Yue Fei’s arms as he allows himself to be softly walked backward and pressed into the cool marble wall. Yue Fei murmurs his approval between gentle but insistent kisses as one tongue chases another. One hand stays on his waist, massaging where a mermaid line would be, if Wei Qing was less gym-averse, while the other thrums a song of love against his cupped jaw.
Don’t look at any of them anymore. Choose us. Choose me. I might not be much, but I’ll never use you. I’ll understand the preciousness of who I’m holding, as long as you’ll have me, and even beyond it.
Yue Fei is bad at judging these things, so after the first wave of desperation, his entire experience of the kiss becomes a careful monitoring of Wei Qing’s reactions. His senses become pinpointed on those of Wei Qing, on the small shudders that wrack him and the way Wei Qing’s fingers flutter up to his neck and ears, only to nervously scuttle back to the safe harbor of his biceps, on the little hiccups that build in his throat, when Yue Fei accidentally (and then on purpose) nips at his lower lip. Enjoys the smell of him, so close and clean and sweet, his natural perfection highlighted instead of hidden by the light cologne that is settled just behind the shells of his ears.
The only sense that he neglects is sight– he cannot force his eyes open, not when they so naturally close with rightness at the reality of kissing Wei Qing and being wholly accepted in the action.
It’s more than he expected, more than he hoped for, yet it’s simultaneously nothing at all. Just a natural progression of the intimacy that they’d spent the better part of a year slowly sliding towards with glorious inevitability.
Only when he feels his lower body react does Yue Fei break away.
He’s not interested in their first time being in a company bathroom, at the behest of Gao Fucking Zhong, thank you very much.
Yue Fei’s eyelids beat themselves open after Wei Qing’s; it sends a wash of nervousness over him, wondering how long his beautiful boy had been watching him be dazed by the taste of him. But Wei Qing’s face is so openly wondrous that Yue Fei finds himself smiling back, shyer than he’s been since the guru had first called him a man and sent him to become a ‘full member.’
He feels like he’s getting a second chance at his first real kiss, finally with exactly the right person. And without a fucking audience of lecherous seniors with unclean intentions.
“Okay.”
“What?” Kissing has made Yue Fei stupid. He’s really enjoying it. Wei Qing laughs lightly and clarifies.
“Okay. I won’t look at him.”
Just like that?
“Don’t you want to know why?” Yue Fei knows Wei Qing listens to him, but surely there are limits. He expected this request to be one of them. Is flat-footed when it isn’t.
“Do you want to tell me?” Wei Qing shrugs, like this is the most natural thing in the world. “I trust your judgment. If you want to tell me, I’ll listen; If you don’t want to, I’ll accept it all the same.”
Yue Fei is as grateful as he is concerned. Is Wei Qing really so easy to coax once you kiss him a bit? If so, it explains quite a lot about why Yang Wushe had been able to so easily manipulate him. Yue Fei wonders if they make some sort of chastity device for mouths that he can have fitted on his little master to keep him from quickly agreeing to things he shouldn’t.
“Hey, what weird things are you thinking?” Wei Qing skims his thumb over Yue Fei’s slightly open lips before taking his hand back like he’s worried he’s taking liberties. Yue Fei brings the hand back up and kisses his palm and the pad of each finger, full of reassurance.
“I’m thinking that you shouldn’t make yourself so easy to control.” Sure, this time he is the beneficiary, but some things shouldn’t be encouraged, regardless of the short-term gains. He doesn’t want to become Wei Qing’s next weakness.
Wei Qing shrugs again, leaning against the wall and blowing a bit of hair out of his eyes. He really needs a haircut. Just a bit of kissing and he already feels so debauched.
“Yue Fei, I’m not quite as stupid as I’ve acted. Gao Zhong– I really liked him at the time, obviously. But I can count days the same as anyone else. He stayed with me as I entered the company, and a little bit through being useless, but– I’m really not dumb. Gao Zhong only likes me when I’m successful. I don’t need that kind of fickleness in my life.”
Well, Wei Qing has the cause and effect a little backward, but at least he’d realized there was a problem with his first love, even if the sins he ascribes aren’t nearly as bad as those that actually hang on that bastard’s shoulders.
Yue Fei kisses him again, not as deeply, but even more sweetly than before, feathering the lightest of touches against all the places he’d bitten and licked against right after pleading with him.
“Doesn’t it make you sad? That he was so willing to-?” Yue Fei gives up on words and recommits to the kiss. Wei Qing demonstrates his approval, trying to deepen it and laughing when Yue Fei resists him and keeps from anything bruising enough to create problems when they have to walk out of this little pocket-dimension. Always so diligent, always thinking a step ahead.
“How can I be sad, when it led to this?”
What a good answer.
Lovely even.
—
Of course, neat little summaries are never the full story.
Wei Qing’s zenness concerning Gao Zhong is relatively recent, definitely the result of time, distance, and finding someone even better to polish his eyes with.
At the time? Of course he’d been sad, devastated, even. The first person he’d ever loved had left him because he wasn’t good enough. True, his spiral had been set off by his brother, but it had been turned cancerous by his lover also abandoning him, breaking up with him four weeks after moving to Switzerland for some fucking internship, citing the tragedy of the distance and bemoaning the timing as something inevitable, the universe telling them that they weren’t mature enough for each other yet.
Wei Qing had never admitted what he knew:
He had seen Gao Zhong’s application for that position. Dated a month after his brother had called him trash and frozen him out of any real power at Wei Securities. He was sad and deflated, but not stupid. Gao Zhong was looking for a way to leave. He was just polite enough to come up with a face-saving pretext.
Everyone but Yue Fei had left him as he barrelled towards rock bottom. The lack of resistance just sped up his descent. And hey, he could forgive it. It was hard to stay aboard a sinking ship. But he didn’t forget it, just like he didn’t forget that Yue Fei was with him the longest, holding out his hand from the liferaft until he allowed himself to be completely swept under.
But some histories don’t need to be rehashed.
What matters now is their future, not the people that they’d left behind with good reason, ages ago. Although… it does make him curious… He taps his foot against the door that Yue Fei is unlocking, having already tidied up to ensure that any gossip caused by their reappearance will be kept to a minimum.
“Yue Fei, what about you? Do you have any Gao Zhongs for me to worry about you falling back in with?”
Yue Fei coughs, his ears going scarlet once again.
“My relationship with you is the closest I’ve ever had. As for casual acquaintances… ask me again once we’re at home and tucked in.”
Wei Qing blinks delightedly. Is he Yue Fei’s first boyfriend?! What an honor! What responsibility! He needs to plan so many more dates! He needs– ah, he needs a second assistant, to help him arrange a proper courtship! Schoolyard, karaoke, family introductions… he can’t let his man miss out on even a little bit of it.
—
They exit the bathroom, gratified by the complete absence of people outside. Wei Qiwan is probably to thank, though it helps that this party, like every launch, is being held at Wei Securities, and the security team are so protective of this new-and-improved Wei Qing, who doesn’t fuck in their stairwells or vomit Dom into their rare orchids.
Yue Fei makes their apologies, Wei Qiwan nods and attempts something that is almost a side-hug, though he doesn’t manage to say anything brotherly or even clarifying. Typical.
Gao Zhong? Nowhere to be seen.
Author’s Corner: (Extra chapter because I finished some editing ahead of schedule).
Wei Qiwan is ready to choose violence, which I happen to think is a big improvement.
Even with rebirth, no one knows everything.
Yue Fei knows about the tape, but not what Gao Zhong said in that private tete-a-tete to lead Wei Qiwan to such extremes (or that there’s an entire third person involved that Wei Qiwan never brought up to him). Wei Qing knows that Gao Zhong planned to leave him, but not the rest of it. And Wei Qiwan…? Knows the most about the truth of what happened that year, but nothing about Yang Wushe other than to stay away from him and his family.
On the plus side, there’s half of a confessionnnnnnnnnnnnn.
Thank you for the chapter!
Every time I read a new chapter, my heart bleeds for Wei Qing’s past even more 💔
Excellent timing! I had to force myself to learn some boring stuff that I would never presume to use on someone else’s work and I needed a reward. I didn’t expect it to be so soon or this exciting! Oh my gosh their sweet together even when they’re hot enough to melt the marble countertops.
Thanks for the chapter…
Confesionnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!
Aaaaaaaah (which is pretty my brain’s reaction each time I read one of your chapter) so exciting ! A confession ! (Now, how to explain than your couple got created in bathrooms to your kids is a whole other problem) too many cool things happened what a roller coaster thank youuu ~
OOOOO so THAT’S what the catalyst was!!! Though it seems there’s more to the story, which I figured would be the case. Who’s this mysterious third party?? 👀 Could it be… TYY ANTAGONIST ARC?!?!? (/jk, probably)
That kiss though!!!! So close to the full admittance of both their feelings in an official way!! And Wei Qiwan choosing violence!! 😀