Content Warning: Yue Fei discussing Yue Cibai, lots of emotional angst poking out over how he presents it.
(past dub-con/non-con and mentions of suicide (not graphic)).
No one warns you when you start working that it just… goes on forever. Or that the reward for doing a good job is to get more work. Ad infinitum. Until you’re old and your bones hurt.
Sure, if Wei Qing was a regular person or still an asshole, he could fail upward and then just refuse to meet any of his duties. After all, he has several years worth of evidence that he can pull a paycheck without even remembering what floor he’s Vice President of. For many, this would be a tempting prospect, something easy to continue.
But Wei Qing is an overachiever at heart. Always ping-ponging with the other top two students at his school, swapping places and jostling one another in every subject like over-eager racehorses. Always wanting to do his best, to impress his teachers, to make his parents look at him and tell him that they were proud. Always wanting to be recognized by his brother.
To help Wei Qiwan, to be someone he could rely on. That was the dream of his youth: them conquering the world. Even if recent years have cracked that dream, Wei Qing still holds that longing in his heart. Doesn’t want to be distant, especially if they can once again be close without too much hurt.
So when Project Lagan ships without any major problems, and Wei Qiwan nods his head and says that he’s looking forward to his next idea for development, that old excitement bubbles up and Wei Qing doesn’t want to say no. Even if he’s still not willing to give up three (or the occasional four) day weekends, he wants to work. He wants to grab this momentum and make those old, tarnished dreams into a reality so bright that it will make their past estrangement feel like a glitch, a nightmare–
Something small, in the big picture. Not worth remembering or talking about. Not worth hurting over.
In a sense, he’s still running from things. He knows that from his continuing visits with Dr. Maki.
The truth is, he’s too afraid to clearly ask his brother why his feelings underwent such great changes (twice!) because he doesn’t want to overturn this long-awaited raft. Even if getting things out in the open might make their bond stronger and ease his anxiety, he’s unwilling to lose what they have, shaky as it might be.
So he just works harder.
And unwinds. Not just in bed with Yue Fei either. After all, there are limits to the human body, and he doesn’t want to binge on intimacy too early. So there are still plenty of platonic calls on his time– dinners and shows and also, shamelessly spending entirely too much time and money on his mobile games.
What?
Especially with traffic congestion, he really doesn’t have anything better to do! When it comes to the commute, what Wei Qing used to call bad luck is now a run-of-the-mill occurrence. It seems like almost every day the 15-minute drive is a 25+ one, and with Yue Fei still chauffeuring and still determined to not test the limits of car-based escapades while doing so…
There isn’t much to do but pull for characters and clear dungeons and raise up a little noob.
Between the core of the R&D team, the occasional dinner with his brother, chatting with Fang Yichen, and having a little friend in the game, Wei Qing increasingly has the illusion of almost being well-rounded. Even if he (often) wants to throw all that to the side and revolve around Yue Fei, he…
Kind of likes it.
Likes being a normal person, the kind that Yue Fei can take out without worrying. Likes having a chat history with multiple people, likes thinking that there are people that care about him, just because. He remembers all the goodness that comes from a social circle, and wants to share with the world.
However… His slowly improving social life throws into sharp relief Yue Fei’s lack of one. Chewing on the problem, Wei Qing abandons his little phone friend and focuses on Yue Fei instead.
If he had the ability to time travel instead of just rebirthing once, there’s no doubt that the upcoming choices are ones he’d take back. Alas.
Talking while driving is a little stilted, but Wei Qing doesn’t mind Yue Fei’s distraction. He’s rather handsome when he’s multitasking, eyes flitting between serious and indulgent.
“Yue Fei?”
“Mmm?”
“How come I never hear about your friends?” It’s an innocent question.
Yue Fei waits to make a left-hand turn, tanned hands sliding across the leather of the steering wheel. The cadence of the ticking turn signal turns into a metronome between them. Wei Qing doesn’t rush Yue Fei, just watches the corner of him that he can see.
“Probably because I don’t have any.”
Wei Qing looks down and puts his phone fully away. Sure enough, being less self-involved somewhat paradoxically provides lots of opportunities for introspection. It wasn’t that obvious before, but given their schedule… Yue Fei really doesn’t seem to have any time to fit in a social calendar of his own. Wei Qing feels a twinge of regret.
He rubs his nose and offers, even though a small, selfish part of him doesn’t want to:
“That’s… It’s okay to take time for yourself. As an assistant, as a boyfriend… I can even feed myself now.”
Wei Qing’s not speaking empty words– his culinary level has successfully risen to the that of a first-year high school student living alone, and he can make a variety of simple but passable meals. Yue Fei is an excellent carrot, and his own regrets are an effective stick.
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.
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Rare, but not nonexistent.
Wei Qing picks up on the carefulness of Yue Fei’s language and the oddity of his tone. This is the special awareness that comes when you want to know everything you can about your lover. But asking is slightly more difficult than intuiting.
After all, Yue Fei knows everything meaningful about him, but that doesn’t mean Wei Qing has the right to such information. Asymmetry isn’t always ugly. God knows he has some places that he wishes Yue Fei wasn’t so familiar with. Still, Dr. Maki says it’s okay to ask, just like it’s okay to say no or be told no. Boundaries aren’t always rejections.
“Rare? Then… Can you tell me about it? If you want?”
Wei Qing can’t see Yue Fei’s eyes from his seat in the back. He can’t take in how his eyelashes tremble, or his jaw clenches. Can’t feel the way his pulse speeds up or the way his muscles tense. Misses the void that starts to spread out as Yue Fei controls himself, like a man ascending the gallows.
He just hears Yue Fei softly agree, as their car pulls into the garage of their home.
—
Yue Fei makes dinner like a very well-behaved ghost. Kisses Wei Qing almost perfunctorily. He knows he’s dragging things out, knows that Wei Qing is looking at him, more and more bewildered. But the question of ‘Yue Fei wanting to be close to people’ is one that cannot lead anywhere good.
Yue Fei long swore that he wouldn’t hide anything from Wei Qing. He wouldn’t manipulate his emotions or whitewash his own history in order to keep Wei Qing tied to him. Otherwise, he’d be taking the same steps as those he despised. He promised himself, when all this started, that if Wei Qing asked, he’d have to tell.
But it’s a very scary thing, to sit in the first real home you’ve ever known, with the first person who’s loved you back, and feel it about to slip from your hands. To realize that the mistakes you made before you ever met one another might yet take back everything you hadn’t dared to hope for. He wishes he’d had more time to show his good side. He wishes that he was able to lie, but once he hides it, it will be a million times worse when it comes out.
Once he lies, he won’t be the boyfriend that he’d sworn he’d be. He’d just be another asshole. Another person that hid what they wanted and showed what they wanted, to get what they wished from Wei Qing. He doesn’t believe his second chance is meant for such a thing.
But…
Yue Fei doesn’t think Wei Qing will have much patience for rapists.
Not even when it’s him.
So he treats the meal like their last, and pays attention to all the wonderful, small parts of Wei Qing. The warmth of his hands and the soft smile that’s always hanging on his lips lately. The way he constantly stubs his toes, but never seems to slow down or be more careful, like a soft cannonball richocheting around their apartment. He… really loves him. Truly. Deeply. It probably won’t be enough.
As Wei Qing worriedly finishes his dinner, Yue Fei sits perfectly straight, closes his eyes, and catalogs his belongings. Estimates how quickly he can disappear from Wei Qing’s sight, how quickly his replacement can appear, a half-dozen things to organize in the face of their likely future estrangement.
Like Wei Qing, Yue Fei catastrophizes as a way of venting his emotions. As long as he’s already planned for the worst possible outcome, he can find a cousin of courage to force his mouth open.
Wei Qing finally picks up on his mood, and the smile Yue Fei loves so much finally dims.
Yue Fei regrets it. But, since it’s already started… When it comes to ruining things, there’s no time like the present. Yue Fei speaks as if he’s reciting data from a security report, as if he’s the same soulless teen that had first turned himself into the authorities. Wanting punishment to stop the shaking.
“When I was still living with my parents, I fell in love with someone that didn’t love me back. I forced him, and he died as a way of escaping me. That’s my wanting to be close. That’s my dating history, other than you, the only person I’ve ever… chosen.”
The sound insulation of their penthouse can be a curse.
It turns the entire place into a mausoleum, in heavy pauses like this. Yue Fei’s eyes are as empty as his voice had just been, as he shuts his mouth and looks out the window and wonders if it’s possible to die from the tension you’re holding in time with your breath.
He hears Wei Qing’s disbelieving, disordered breathing. Hears him start a half-dozen sentences, asking if he’s joking, if this is- always stopping, because of course he wouldn’t joke about something so grim. The truth is bitter, but Yue Fei can’t do anything to soften it.
He can’t look at him, but he can hear all manner of horror in the sound. It makes sense. He did indeed just tell a horror story. One that he should have told before fell into bed or even a relationship with Wei Qing. It was his own selfishness, that made him give in before clearly warning Wei Qing of what type of person he was, had been, would always be, no matter how much he tried to atone for it. There are things you can’t take back, sins that even rebirth won’t wash out.
He’s a dirty thing. Another villain, even if he hadn’t meant to be. Even if he’d tricked himself into believing it could stay behind them.
There’s a crash–
Wei Qing’s chair falling to the ground.
Yue Fei knows communication is important. Lu-laoshi told him enough times. But he can’t– There’s no way to make this truth better, no right to walk up to Wei Qing and wrap him up and hug and comfort him when it’s his own history that’s so discomforting and ugly. It’s not the kind of thing that can be excused by things like youth or brainwashing. He can’t give Wei Qing an excuse for his actions, not even the ones Lu-laoshi was always making, because he doesn’t want to excuse himself. He can’t say what he doesn’t believe. He can’t elaborate at all.
Yue Fei stands up and feels his heart crack at the flinching he catches from the corner of his eyes, which still dare not look directly at Wei Qing. “I can resign if-”
“Just-” Wei Qing cuts him off and steps back, further, so far that his back is almost up against the wall. Like he’s guarding against attack. “Stop. Stay. I- I’m going- walking.”
Just like that, Wei Qing leaves with wobbling steps. Yue Fei stays standing in the living room, still long enough that the smart lights turn off one by one. In the once warm room, his silhouette is filled with loneliness.
—
Wei Qing doesn’t know how he ends up at his brother’s place.
Before tonight, if asked, he wouldn’t even be confident that he even knew the way still. Yet, when his blood is thundering and his mind is stalling out, his feet and his desperation bring him to the foot of Wei Qiwan’s penthouse in a building slightly nicer than his. His long-unused permissions are enough for the doorman to swipe him in and call up to notify the resident.
A series of automatic actions on behalf of someone who currently can’t make sense of anything.
It’s like a fever dream. The whole night is.
Almost as soon as Wei Qing enters the foyer, he’s confronted by Wei Qiwan, who hasn’t yet even managed to get all his suit off and is still wearing a slightly crumpled button-down.
“What happened?” Wei Qiwan looks him up and down, looking for injury or blood or a ransom demand.
Wei Qing bites his cheeks hard enough to bleed, and instead of using his words or letting out the confusion that’s throbbing through his temples and the wrongness that’s souring his heart, he bum-rushes his brother instead. Forces his way into the hug that he doesn’t know how to ask for and begs whatever force that sent him back to be kind, because if Wei Qiwan rejects him, he really doesn’t know where else to go to process this.
The heavens listen– Wei Qiwan doesn’t kick him out.
He also gives up on asking him what’s wrong, especially after he moves to call Yue Fei and Wei Qing interrupts and forbids it, bursting into shaking, silent tears like someone hypothermic. For the second time in the long night that is stretching out, Wei Qing finds himself sitting in a penthouse, silently staring at someone familiar and strange.
He-
He doesn’t know how to respond to any of this.
The idea that Yue Fei- It’s impossible.
He knows it in his bones. Yue Fei isn’t the type to do such a thing, not in a million years, Wei Qing would bet his life on it. He has an easier time imagining himself doing such a thing than the man that had been so gentle and careful in every step of loving him. But it’s equally impossible that Yue Fei would lie about such a thing. He’s not sick. He’s not-
So-
Is it the truth then?
And if so-
Wei Qing’s psyche is a mess. He responds like an ancient being thrown in a spaceship, a person who is shipwrecked and discovers they can walk on water, someone looking up and seeing the sky crack and a giant eye spying down on him. Nothing that’s happening is possible, it’s all outside the laws of physics. And yet.
So where does that leave him? What comes next when the spin of the world reverses? When the world is hollow and everything hurts and the one person you trust above all is telling you a truth that can’t be, in the same voice that’s never lied to you before?
He’s not qualified for any of this. And his own fear means he can’t even ask the person involved, because if there are details– if it’s true– Wei Qing can’t bear it.
Yue Fei is perfect and tender and the gentlest lover that he’s ever met. He’s constructed his whole rebirth around being worthy of him, of being able to reflect a fraction of his goodness. But by his own admission, he’s also the kind of person that forced someone to death. Someone that-
Someone like Yang Wushe.
He’s chosen badly again.
Wei Qing shakes the thoughts from his head. Rejects them, even as they form. Even his own self-loathing and belief in his ability to attract bad things is not enough to taint Yue Fei.
He doesn’t believe it, doesn’t want to believe it, but there’s a tiny part of him that once held similar awe for Yang Wushe. That self now whiningly insists that this wouldn’t be the first time he took a monster into his heart and his bed.
He doesn’t believe it, but he’s afraid nonetheless. Afraid of the truth, afraid of the lie.
Wei Qiwan wraps his hands around a glass of something that smells like jet fuel. Tips it into his mouth and forces him to sip like it’s medicine instead of alcohol. Which hurts like a bitch, given that Wei Qing had bitten his inner cheeks bloody on the way over. Still, Wei Qing prefers this kind of pain. Feeling the jagged edges of wounds is better than the bewilderment and panic that it overtakes with each swish and swallow.
He doesn’t want to stick his fingers into the bullet holes in his soul. He isn’t ready to fish out lead, even if it’s good for his treatment. So after making Wei Qiwan promise not to call anyone and refusing to leave, or talk, Wei Qing spends his first night since rebirth away from Yue Fei.
Red-eyed and drunk out of his mind, curled up like a wounded animal on his big brother’s sofa.
—
Wei Qiwan is not the type of person to carry someone to bed and put them in pajamas.
The fact that he manages to take off Wei Qing’s outerwear and find him a blanket and pillow is already peak caretaking. After all, little brothers are pretty indestructible. Even if you spent an inordinate amount of your teenage and adult years taking care of them, without adult supervision, you would forget the common sense that most parents or trained support staff would have.
His care is very honest, and very lacking compared to Yue Fei’s.
That’s what Wei Qing thinks, when he wakes up curled up like a shrimp, a crick in his neck and the early morning light burning his eyes from the shades that Wei Qiwan hadn’t thought to draw. Yue Fei would definitely have brought him to bed and blocked all light and left painkillers and water within easy reach.
Yue Fei…
Wei Qing shambles up and just manages to make it to a wastebasket before bile and the remnants of whatever he’d drunk the night before make their way up at the memories that crash into his uncomfortable body.
Unfortunately, it’s a woven trash can meant for napkins and paper rather than liquid so… Wei Qing’s good intentions still end up leaking into the carpet. At least unlike him, Wei Qiwan has a daily cleaning service.
Which brings his mind back to his own home and the person that he keeps it tidy with.
Wei Qing looks for a shower instead of for his workaholic brother, letting himself into one of the three unused guest rooms that Wei Qiwan keeps empty–
Empty–
Wei Qing’s tender eyes widen, a little. He really didn’t have expectations. After all, he’d never lived here full time with Wei Qiwan. Other than a few times that their parents would unexpectedly show up and he would hurry over to brush up his sense of existence and coax his mom, he couldn’t have been here more than a half-dozen times since his occasional holiday leaves in college. And yet-
The room that he’s chosen at random (he told himself), the one farthest from the foyer because it has the best study environment, the one that he’d stayed overnight in when their relationship was still good–
Wei Qiwan has been updating it, all this time.
And not updating it to dismantle Wei Qing’s traces, but to… grow with him? The bed, with fresh pillows that are his preferred firmness, the small wine fridge that has replaced the old liquor cart, stocked with his new preferences, the closet that he shakily opens, only to find exactly one set of pajamas, casual wear, and formal wear, in his size, with shoes to match.
Wei Qing softly closes it and steps back.
Reaches into his pocket and fishes out the phone that is (remarkably) not quite dead yet despite going through a night without charging. He sends a single text before flinging it away, stripping down, and forcing himself into the bathroom before he can recall the message or add to it or get into feelings that he’s not ready for.
He needs time, needs to process, needs answers.
But-
Wei Qiwan having this room for him doesn’t feel like a recent event. There’s no ‘new’ feel to any of it, no showroom quality. It makes Wei Qing wonder if his brother was always preparing for him to come back, even as he pushed him away. In this life, and maybe… maybe in others as well.
And in his last life, Wei Qiwan trusted and poached Yue Fei.
Even if Wei Qing is afraid to trust his own judgment, the kind of Wei Qiwan who would curse at him while preparing these things isn’t the type who would passively watch a monster approach. Even in his last life, for all the bitterness and abandonment, Wei Qiwan had sent him files on Yang Wushe. Files that he called a trick and refused to read, but that the new him can more or less imagine.
If Yue Fei was such a person, and Wei Qiwan was more willing to shield him this life–
Then Wei Qing doesn’t believe he wouldn’t warn him. Wei Qiwan would have warned him.
So there must be a problem. But he delays knowing for sure. He’s afraid that it’s just his own wishful thinking. He’s afraid he can’t bear it if this is just another lapse in his judgment.
Author’s Corner:
I am so sorry that this is the Sunday update. But they have to talk about it.
Yue Fei’s ‘explanation’ leaves a lot to be desired, but I also feel for him here. He believes he is guilty, so how can he possibly think to soften the blow? All the things we wish he’d say– talking about his age at the time, talking about their relationship and his naive trust that Yue Cibai liked him back, because he never said ‘no’, even the lead-up to his death– to Yue Fei, all those details are just ways of wiggling out of responsibility, and although it hurts less now, he still ultimately feels responsible and isn’t willing to give himself an out. Not even to make Wei Qing feel better.
Yue Fei feels like a good person, no matter how inexperienced, should have been able to intuit the truth. He’s looking at his child-self with an adult’s eyes and judging his choices.
In his mind, he’s a predator that’s sworn to be better, to never make those mistakes again. But fundamentally, a predator nonetheless. If he hadn’t been stimulated by other, worse predators, he probably wouldn’t ever have dared to be with Wei Qing, not even with all the precautions he’s taken and how enthusiastically Wei Qing has consented.
He doesn’t realize that he’s been equally victimized, because he thinks that his actions cancel out all the actions taken against him– the world is black and white, and even if it was unknowing, in his mind he crossed an uncrossable line and will always be tainted. This has some parallels to Wei Qing’s feelings of ‘dirtiness’ from his time playing around and his inability to fully get over it, even with Yue Fei’s best efforts.
As far as Wei Qing’s reactions and weirdness of Wei Qiwan having clothes for him being the thing that calms him down– sometimes, when everything has a sense of unreality, random and seemingly unconnected things are the most grounding. Wei Qing can’t deal with Yue Fei telling the truth (or lying) about such a thing, but Wei Qiwan’s dumbass approach to being a brother is a universal constant, so he can use that as a (relatively) emotionally safe starting point for investigating.
If it helps at all, this is the second-to-last of the big trauma hours in this story, and for me at least, this event is the saddest part other than the prologue.
My heart breaks for them 😭 but I hope and trust that it is a further step towards healing.
Second to last… so there will be one more? 🥲
thanks for the chapter <3
My heart is breaking. Thanks for the chapter!
I kinda want to scream at Yue Fei that he was as much as a victim here (because ha has no other view of the world, he couldn’t know and they were several of them, he was pressured too) but yeah guilt tends to make you worse than you really are. And guilt is probably what’s make you not a monster btw.
I hope the Wei bros will talk about it uwu
Thank you for the chapter even with angst 🍰
Sad chapter. I tried so hard not to cry but the pain they both went through in this hurt so bad. Both of them are so similarly their inanity to forgive themselves. Thankfully theres big brother and his awkwardness to ground them.
Yue Fei doesn’t know Wei Qing remembers the Yang Wushe timeline, and yet he phrased his explanation as if he’s the same. He knows he’ll treat Wei Qing better because he genuinely loves him but he doesn’t seem to think he’s any better than that. Or he’s having a relapse and forgetting any progress he made in putting it where it belongs. Aching for them both.
Sheesh I forgot that it’s Qiwan who knows abt Yu Fei’s past and not Wei Qing.
Yue Fei must still be loathing himself a lot..but he was 14!!! Only 14, and Yue Ciban was 19 when YC took his own life! It’s not like Yue Fei is a rapist, for God’s sake; he did not even realize YC was not into him that much! I’m so heartbroken…but I really wish Wei Qing heard the whole truth. What he knows now just distorts it 😭😭💔