It is not Yue Fei’s first time meeting Wei Qiwan, of course. He’d met him hundreds of times when Wei Qing was in high school and college. Met him sporadically since. But in the cold war that had spanned the last three years, there had been the solidarity of silence.
Wei Qiwan made overtures, once. Yue Fei ignored them.
In his last life, it was only after a particularly bad scandal that Yue Fei wised up. There had been a party, with too much playing around and too little security, and an entire video of Wei Qing being debauched had been leaked. Yue Fei had been unable to contain it– couldn’t afford the kill fee. Had cracked a molar with fury– at Wei Qing’s choice of confidants, at his own inability to save him, at what the world was about to see play out across internet browsers and cell phone screens. At the thought that soon, everyone would have that coked-out mess as their lasting image of Wei Qing.
And then, the video disappeared. Bought out, the kill fee paid, extra for silence on the purchaser.
But Yue Fei had a feeling, which he chased, and sure enough-
That had been the start of them working together. To save Wei Qing, for all the good it did him. But maybe starting earlier, or better yet, handing off the job entirely to Wei Qiwan…
Maybe he could finally make a difference, knowing all he now did.
—
“President Wei will see you now.” The receptionist’s voice is crisp, her smile as blandly professional as her attire. In the president’s office, the walls are frosted glass– enough for privacy, not enough for anything shocking to happen behind them.
Wei Qiwan always knew how to avoid even the whiff of scandal. He just never managed to pass that down to his brother.
Yue Fei walks in with the confidence of someone that had spent years plotting in this suite, even if in this lifetime, it had yet to happen. From behind a massive mahogany desk, Wei Qiwan watches him with false indifference. But underneath, Yue Fei knows he’s clenching his hands against his fine-suited thighs. Knows how afraid Wei Qiwan must be that something dreadful is happening with Wei Qing, and that only for this reason is Yue Fei here to beg for assistance, mercy. It is not his place, but Yue Fei pities him.
It must be so tiring, to hide one’s concern so completely.
“President Wei.” He bows his head, respectful, but not groveling.
Wei Qiwan relaxes imperceptibly at the show of spine. Probably, only Yue Fei knows him well enough to catch and correctly interpret it. Yes, you know your brother can’t be truly at risk if I’m not starting by begging. All the man’s tells are bare before him. Including the next one, where he acts cold to hide just what a fucking bro-con he really is. This false nonchalance, this blustering, try-to-hard arrogance– how exactly did any of them believe it for as long as they did?
“Assistant Yue. I noticed my brother has at long last returned to his duties.” Sure enough the scorn there is as plastic (and transparent) as cellophane. Yue Fei still frowns at it. Unnecessary, really unnecessary, now he’s convinced. None of this cheap theater is helping anyone. He wants to hurry up and move on.
“He was very hurt by what you did.” His tone is mild, but the words are blunt. Yue Fei is old and tired and interested in cutting through the bullshit.
“Do you have a comment on how I run my business? And family-?” This time, the anger is genuine. The threat, implicit. Yue Fei continues on with the unique confidence of someone who has already died once and recovered from it.
“Respectful comments.” A sip of water, from a bottle he has taken without permission. Perhaps he is holding a grudge after all, or maybe he’s just out of practice at playing nice. “I know Wei Qing. Better than maybe even you, at this point.” It’s a bold claim, but Yue Fei thinks he can back it up. “Protect him by hurting him– all you’ll do is encourage him to hurt himself. Haven’t the last three years convinced you?”
The desk creaks. Ah, right now, Wei Qiwan definitely thinks of him as an enemy. He can read it in the tension of his shoulders and the way he taps his pen with military cadence.
“How nice of Assistant Yue to come all the way up here, just to grant me his opinion.”
Ah… Yue Fei softens and shakes his head. After all, he doesn’t hate the man. Doesn’t hate either of them. Even when they’re being self-destructive asses, he just wants to help them. That’s the whole problem. Not being able to hate these two has been the great tragedy of his short existence! His rebukes turn into requests, and his cold counting of wrongs turns to coaxing, though his voice never manages to fall to the level it does when babying Wei Qing.
“President Wei, take it as me begging then. Please, don’t make him feel worthless. Because if you do, he’ll act like he is.”
Wei Qing will live up (or down) to whatever estimation his brother has of him. Because at the end of the day, deep down, he’ll believe it. That is the truth that even Wei Qing doesn’t acknowledge. The truth that ended him. As dependent as he’s been acting towards Yue Fei for the last few weeks, at the end of the day, his sense of self really revolves around Wei Qiwan. The brother who practically raised him, the one he modeled all his studies after, his most important person, from small to grown.
Judging that Wei Qiwan will need time to explosively decompress, Yue Fei excuses himself before this quick trip can be discovered by his charge.
He’s halfway out the door when he hears it:
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.
“Why do you care? The pay isn’t that generous.”
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—
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“Maybe start smaller?”
Wei Qing thunks his head against the desk, then swears when it proves more solid than he remembered. Then inhales, when Yue Fei lifts his forehead and places a leather-bound notebook under him. Skin to skin contact! Again! He thinks he feels Yue Fei ruffle his hair, before withdrawing his hand.
“Now Master Wei may assault the desk with confidence.”
He’s fucking with him! Somehow, Yue Fei, this person who is sometimes an iceberg taskmaster and sometimes a pushover (though not lately…?) is… definitely fucking with him. He’s confused, but the brat in Wei Qing loves it and takes full advantage. He rolls his head to the side and looks up at Yue Fei, even batting his eyelashes like concubine number four in the royal gardens.
“Yue Fei! My pain, you don’t take it seriously at all, I’m wounded and yet the desk is your main concern.”
“It is not the desk.”
Yue Fei sighs and disappears to the expensive espresso machine, giving Wei Qing the chance to recover from the force of such a simple statement. Of course, Yue Fei didn’t care about his desk. But the way he said he didn’t–
Wei Qing spends longer than he should, dreamily staring at that charcoal-tweeded back.
—
Wei Qing bites into a Red Vine as his tie comes off and his collar is popped open. He looks every bit a prep school young master, age and authority sliding off him with every loosened bit of corporatewear.
“Do you think I’m high enough level to beat those templars yet?”
“No.” Yue Fei doesn’t take his eyes off the road.
“But the guide says that you can start at level 19, and I’m already at 23!”
“You chose to play Nightmare, and you’re not very good at it. You will end up dragon kibble.” Again.
“…You could soften your mouth a little bit.”
“I am just looking out for Master Inquisitor’s welfare.”
“Doubt.” Wei Qing lazily flips his phone in the back of the car. “But fine, maybe I’m still a little bad at combat, or whatever… I’ll just grind more this weekend and then, you’ll see.”
“You have the yacht this weekend.”
“I- what?”
“The yacht. Remember? You heard a rumor that your brother wanted it, so you booked it first. I believe you were planning an orgy or something.” The fun and easiness they’ve been dancing around all day is replaced with cold disapproval in record time. Wei Qing actually shivers, in between pulses of indignation. He also chokes a bit on the candy when Yue Fei continues, voice damn near Artic, “Do arrangements need to be made for guests?”
“No!”
He’s not… not mad at Yue Fei– But he is furious at his past self, the self that would 100% do such a thing and even brag about it. Ugh, he’d probably had a shortlist of companions and everything, because he really had no sense back in the day. The day which was now… the present. For some reason that he still can’t figure out, though he’s grateful as shit for it. So many wrongs to right, if only Yue Fei wouldn’t have such a clear memory of all his bad decisions.
Still, this is just… another opportunity to prove that he is on the straight and narrow! The self-help sites said it was all about framing and positive expectations! All the affirmations in the world wouldn’t do shit about his newfound issues with gravity, they could maybe help with this. He sits up properly, swallows the last of the candy, and speaks righteously:
“Well, obviously, that’s not happening. I already said I wouldn’t.”
Praise me, look at me, see me, differently, stay forever.
Yue Fei sighs, his grip on the steering wheel noticeably softening. When he speaks, his voice has a ray of warmth in it.
“Should I release it to Wei Qiwan then?”
“No! Fuck him- well, not actual- Listen, don’t talk to him at all! Obviously, I’m using it! Just… alone.” Based on the smirk he thinks he sees from the rearview, Wei Qing is pretty sure that Yue Fei is judging him. Possibly thinking that he’s a grumpy hamster again, which apparently, is the association Yue Fei made every time Wei Qing got jealous of something. The things you learn about people’s real opinions when you’re trying to steal the last takoyaki, honestly. He tries to act imperious, but he can see the ‘hamster’ label still sticking. “Not alone! With you! We’re gaming on a boat this weekend, and that’s final.”
Yue Fei rolls his eyes, but the smirk turns to a real smile.
At least, Wei Qing thinks it’s a smile? Hard to tell when it comes and goes so fast, but yeah… He’s going to take the win! Even if it’s probably just self-hypnosis. It’s the little lies that get one through the day, after all.
—
In the end, Yue Fei convinces him not to bring his gaming rig along. Apparently, there’s only a strong enough connection near land, and there’s ‘no reason to take out that inefficient of a vessel if you’re staying on the dock.’
Sometimes, Wei Qing gets the sense that Yue Fei has a streak of ‘Eat the Rich’ hidden (not so) deep within. Despite being born rich and getting richer without trying… Wei Qing likes it. He is fully on board with the idea of Yue Fei eating him. He is willing to make that sacrifice. To appease the proletariat, Comrade Yue can eat him until there’s nothing left. He volunteers, please start whenever is most convenient.
He laughs weakly at his own ridiculousness as they embark on the family yacht, slipping off his shoes and feeling the glorious scorch of sun-beaten wood on his soles and the joy of the breeze on his arms and neck. Ah, life is really nice as a salted fish. He can’t tell if this new love affair with Vitamin D is the rekindling of an instinct that he’d lost in that blur of late nights and morning hangovers or the result of being stuck in sunless Diyu for what felt like ages.
Whatever the reason, he adores being able to splay out on the white cushions and do his best impression of baked cod. He is going to stay here all day, melt into the bench on the sundeck, and live his very best photophilic life. He’s basically a sweet pea absent a trellis. But if Yue Fei volunteers, of course, he’ll happily climb him~
He has twenty minutes of glorious broiling, and then a stubborn cloud gets in the way. Wei Qing peels open an eye and finds Yue Fei looking down at him. Ha, he knows they didn’t bring that much luggage, but Yue Fei is still awfully efficient, to already be done and ready to stand over him and make him feel things.
Like that the sun isn’t nearly as delicious.
“Master Wei will get burnt.” Yue Fei holds out a can of laughably high SPS sunscreen, and Wei Qing (naturally) sits up, suddenly compliant, and ready to take advantage of the situation. It’s hot out here, right? Not just him?
“Of course, of course, can’t have that.” As someone that didn’t live long enough to worry about melanoma, Wei Qing doesn’t care at all, but what he does care about is, “Will Yue Fei help me rub it in? I always miss spots.” Is it too much, too fast, if he bats his eyelashes?
He tries it out, just in case.
“It is a spray.” Yue Fei depresses the plunger and demonstrates. Wei Qing wilts.
Stupid advancements in sunscreen deployment, getting in the way of his dramatic and cliched attempts at seduction. Concubine Bai never had to deal with this! “…Will you spray my back, at least?”
“…Yes”
Wei Qing strips out of his shirt with the air of a man with entirely too much practice undressing in public. Not that Yue Fei and the unseen yacht crew count as public, exactly. Chest, arms, neck, back, his swim trunks slung so low on his hips that it’s almost pornographic. Not that Yue Fei notices.
(He notices).
A pool sprayed into Wei Qing’s cupped hand, so he can rub it into his face without weaponized sun protection entering his eyes. Those same trunks, the legs rolled up to a level that can be called dangerous. You know, just in case the sun learns how to bounce and bend on this excursion. For what it’s worth, Wei Qing thinks his thighs are pretty nice? Especially since it’s been long enough that all traces of any human contact have faded away and they’re just soft expanses of untouched skin. Not that Yue Fei notices.
(He notices).
—
Yes, Yue Fei very much notices, very much against his will. Notices and disappears through the smoked glass of the stateroom, the minute Wei Qing is (mostly) sun protected. Fleeing is a good survival strategy, supported by millennia of practice. Anyway, he unpacked, but he should re-check the toiletries and such in the stateroom, just in case the crew were out of practice or had left something of Wei Qiwan’s behind for his master to have a meltdown after finding. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to hide away something that pointed to this being a family yacht, instead of a nameless rental.
And Yue Fei would really like to have a nice, spite-free day if possible.
Fully believing that an idle mind is the devil’s plaything, Yue Fei micromanages the entirety of Wei Qing’s stateroom, up to and including re-polishing the already-gleaming bathroom fixtures. An hour later, he is back to baseline indifference. Sure enough, it’s just sequelae from those photos and videos that he had to see while insulating Wei Qiwan, and Wei Qing. Speaking of protection… He heads back up to make sure Wei Qing hasn’t managed to fall overboard or be seduced by a particularly attractive porpoise or whatever other insanity his unfortunately eye-catching charge is capable of getting swept up in when he’s not around.
Perhaps the heavens pity him– when he steps onto the too-hot deck, Wei Qing’s thighs are mercifully covered and he’s dozing, his copy of some strange self-help book having turned itself into a tent over his face. Yue Fei doesn’t really understand the sudden fascination with self-improvement, but he certainly doesn’t object. Even if it’s all garbage, it’s not illegal or salacious, and Yue Fei calls that a win. And with Wei Qing sleeping through chapter whatever of ‘Chakras for the Modern Man,’ Yue Fei has a chance to investigate his own feelings.
To trace the lines of that body that he’d tried too hard to protect, and ask why, at the most inopportune times, he was suddenly noticing it. Noticing it in a way he never had, when he was cleaning up all those messes. Noticing how much nicer Wei Qing looked, without fingerprint bruises petaled across his hips and thighs, without someone else’s scratches along the stomach that he was never quite dedicated enough to convert into abs. Yue Fei finds no clarity. The longer he looks, the more muddled his feelings get. The protectiveness is still there, but there’s something else, slowly shifting beneath it.
It’s simpler when he takes himself out of it and just focuses on Wei Qing. Which is distressingly easy.
Yue Fei thinks he should be like this, always. Under the sun, relaxed and stretched out– enjoying all that comes from his family, for once, instead of being unwittingly injured by it. Wei Qing was born to be this bright, light person. To focus on himself, instead of giving away pieces to others until there was nothing left. Even if productivity is a virtue, Yue Fei cannot see anything but rightness in the sin of laziness, when Wei Qing is the avatar of it. Yue Fei hopes he always stays like this.
And with every week that passes, without random men kneeling before him on the floor, without drink tabs that never end and calls to friends that are just gold-plated drug dealers–
Yue Fei finds himself closer to belief.
To giving in. He feels himself being swept back into staying in this position that he’d found so untenable. But only if this good behavior lasts. And that means– what, exactly? Being harsher with him? After all, since he was reborn, the only difference had been in the openness of his judgment, when he felt Wei Qing was poised to misstep. And yet, look at how much Wei Qing had corrected, from that small adjustment? How good and loveable he was acting.
Taking care of himself, finally, and all it took were some eye-rolls, unimpressed sighs, and boundaries.
It’s as welcome as it is baffling, for someone that spent years bent over backward without making a dent, a lifetime ago. Probably, Yue Fei would be annoyed, if he wasn’t so grateful. And all those warring feelings… might explain the rest of it, no? After all, Wei Qing’s body (and how he used it) had been inextricably tied both to Yue Fei’s duties and Wei Qing’s untimely death. To hyperfixate on it while trying to prevent catastrophe… was not such a stretch?
It did not mean he wanted him. Not like those other people did.
Protectiveness does not require possession. And Yue Fei has always had few worldly desires. It’s why he is suited to a job that can be as codependent as this one. He likes how he is. He likes taking care of his own needs, on his own schedule, within his own boundaries. He doesn’t need or want the kind of complications that Wei Qing couldn’t seem to live without, even as they killed him. By the time he died, Yue Fei was so wound up that he was functionally asexual. And even if he’s alive again… He is not looking to suddenly branch out. Certainly not with his emotionally fragile employer.
Not at all. That would be ridiculous.
—
Wei Qing is gently shaken awake after three hours of napping (and hopefully learning about chakras through forehead osmosis), if not reading. The sun is lower, and Yue Fei is standing over him. This time, sunscreen is replaced with water and a bowl of grapes. Wei Qing naturally reaches out, only to have them lifted away.
Evidently, his assistant isn’t willing to share. And Wei Qing is living for it, even as he playfully pouts. After all, that has to mean something, right? A normal assistant wouldn’t dream of keeping his grapes away from his master. Yue Fei refusing to indulge him made them more equal, didn’t it? Wei Qing is going to go with yes.
“Lunch, and hydration. Unless you want to shrivel up.”
The tint on Wei Qing’s rose-colored glasses grows even stronger.
Author’s Corner:
Yue Fei: He’s being so good and so different, but I don’t feel that I’ve changed much? Are my small actions really so powerful? *Glances at own hands in confusion*
Wei Qing (not listening, just leering): Sure, yes, now please come educate me on the plight of the proletariat!
Yue Fei: …I will fetch the library card.
I love these two 🤧
i can’t wait until yue fei stops denying his feelings~
Ahah i love their interactions ! Thanks for the chapter :heart:
It doesn’t look like it will hurt Wei Qing to keep trying for the little rewards from Yue Fei. The yacht sounds nice! Good call making it just to two of them.
Oh yue fei ~ protect ur heart as long as u can ~
He notices 😂😂🍾
I just started reading this and I am LOVING it! I laughed so hard out loud at “batting his eyelashes like concubine number four in the royal gardens.” I love your writing and look forward to reading this and whatever else you’ve written!