Nestled in the mist, the island’s inhabitants begin to wind down for the night.
They wash, they head to their own rooms, they huddle around warm amber lamps to whisper, and they curl up and wait for dreams– with timidity or expectation, depending on their sins, and their psychology. Shan Yutian softly sings to his plants, Xi Kuang flips through sepia-washed albums of children long-forgotten.
Not everyone heads home. Some linger, and enjoy the thrill of a curfew soon to be broken.
Zhou Xiwei won’t be sleeping in the dorms. Again.
Finally.
He and Shan Haoyu lay face to face on his new bed, just staring at one another and slowly tracing the lines of the other’s face and body– first with their eyes, then with their hands. Through the window comes a sunset diffused by the endless miss, bathing the room in a romantic light.
The mood is subdued. Like any couple coming together again after a fight, they’re not sure where they’re allowed to touch, or how bold they’re allowed to be. It’s even more awkward, given that they’d just started to heat up their physical relationship when the chilling effect of a corpse came between them.
It’s amazing how much can change in a week.
Then again, given that they’ve barely known one another for a month, perhaps everything will always be bewildering, if they apply a typical schedule to it.
Their situation is unique– They don’t have the history necessary to overcome something as serious as depraved indifference, yet they’re still managing it? Like everything else in this strange relationship that they have yet to name, they carve their own path.
If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be laying here at all.
They haven’t known one another long enough to be as attracted as they are. They don’t know one another well enough to put themselves in the other’s hands like this, especially not as two inexperienced, shy boys. Hell, they only even met because of a one in a million catastrophe at sea, and a one in a billion chance at rescue.
Their entire trajectory is abnormal. But Zhou Xiwei finds wonder in it all the same.
“What are you thinking about?” Shan Haoyu lightly bites down on the fingers that have been tracing his lips. Zhou Xiwei leans forward instinctively, like he’s debating replacing his fingers with his mouth.
The tantalizing threat of a kiss lingers between them as he answers, “How wild it is, that instead of dying, I got to meet you.”
Now Shan Haoyu’s the one moving closer.
Zhou Xiwei talking about death always has that effect on him. They’ve finally been together enough that Zhou Xiwei can put two and two together. He wiggles guiltily and moves forward, kissing apologies up and down Shan Haoyu’s neck, murmuring his approval as the man beside him lifts his jaw and exposes more of himself to his gentle nips and licks.
“Sorry. I just mean that it’s lucky. I’m lucky.” He winds his fingers in his shaggy hair and pulls back for better access.
“Lucky? Here?” Shan Haoyu’s having a hard time stringing words together, as Zhou Xiwei continues to stay above his neckline, yet somehow make the act not seem pure at all. It might be the hair pulling. Shan Haoyu finds he really, really likes that. And when Zhou Xiwei notices the hitch in Shan Haoyu’s heated breathing, it he redoubles his efforts and tugs more firmly. He also holds him still as he continues to worship and constrain him.
Hands, face, neck– and not an inch further. If this is what it means to be a tease, Zhou Xiwei can finally see the appeal. But he’s still sure to be conversational. Which is really another form of teasing, hah.
“Yes. Lucky. Lucky to meet you. Lucky even with everything that’s going on.”
Zhou Xiwei convinces himself, as he twists and hovers over Shan Haoyu, like he’s pinning him to the bed, but how gentle he’s being– can you really call it that? The smallest amount of resistance would see him tumble away in apology, but it doesn’t come. The only complaint, silently telegraphed through Shan Haoyu’s twitching, untouched hips, is a desire for more. Zhou Xiwei gives him more details, instead of more contact.
The sweet torture makes Shan Haoyu’s eyes darken as Zhou Xiwei gives him more details, instead of more contact.
“I thought about it. It’s good, no matter what. You were here no matter what. The island would do this, has done this, anytime people come to visit. Done worse, from what you’ve said. Gained even more victims.” He takes a break to gently kiss Shan Haoyu’s thin lips. “We are lucky, because we can make it better. We can be better. We can be a ‘we.’ Lucky, in more ways than one. Nothing more needs to happen.”
Now he’s tugging and nipping again.
“Zhou-ge, ah-” Shan Haoyu might whimper. Not that he’ll admit it. “-Zhou-ge, you’re really- really have a unique outlook.”
It’s the politest way that Zhou Xiwei has ever been called abnormal. He rises up to a kneel and smiles in a way that his friends would never believe. Confident. Pampering. Even a little seductive? But if normal makes you miserable and lonely, why hold with it?
“It’s because of the beautiful view.”
Turning the color of a fiery sunset, Shan Haoyu curls up like a little shrimp, and Zhou Xiwei dives back in.
—
By the time that they’ve finally found their way towards stripping their shirts off (in this, Shan Haoyu has to take the lead), the sun has well and truly set, and it’s only the slow acclimation to the dark that allows Zhou Xiwei to still see Shan Haoyu. And Shan Haoyu to see him.
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.
Which is exactly why they’re stripping. It’s the little fibs that get one through the day.
They can both see one another, but they can also both lie to themselves that maybe the other can’t see as well as they can, and that they don’t need to be shy or self-conscious. Well, not as shy.
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They can pretend, and in pretending, they can drink one another’s perfection down instead of being tainted by their own insecurities. Delusion is the greatest gift that humans can give themselves.
—
Zhou-ge is so beautiful.
Shan Haoyu surges forward, only to very gingerly bite the very nipple that Zhou Xiwei is so self-conscious of. Zhou Xiwei’s gasp and the way his hands pull Shan Haoyu close, instead of holding him away? That sees Shan Haoyu move onto the other one, just as inexperienced but more confident. And dedicated.
While he attacks, Zhou Xiwei’s hover turns to a full-on straddle, and he holds Shan Haoyu’s hips, thumb sweetly brushing against one of the jagged scars that Shan Haoyu’s so worried about. He hums and he gasps and Shan Haoyu can feel how attracted he feels. Just like how Zhou-ge can surely feel his passion, just beneath him. The way he rolls his hips–
Ah, he must be able to feel it, and must like it, a good bit?
Shan Haoyu wiggles in pleasure, and Zhou Xiwei has to hold him tighter. “Yu’er- don’t- ah- calm down a little, otherwise I’ll-”
Shan Haoyu is very obedient at the start of the sentence. And very disobedient by the time it tapers off. He uses his lithe muscles and work-roughened hands to roll them over, so that he’s the one on top of his Zhou-ge, able to grind against him ‘accidentally,’ and reassure himself that Zhou Xiwei doesn’t want him to stop at all.
Zhou-ge is hard. Zhou-ge is hard, just from kissing and pressing against him. He did that with his body. No matter how tainted it is, Zhou-ge likes touching him.
Between them, for once losing control is something beautiful, instead of a machine of disaster and desperation. Shan Haoyu could get addicted to this. He kisses and licks more confidently, sliding slowly off the edge of the bed and dropping to his knees the way he’d seen in the pornography that used to secretly circulate in the dorms. It was hazy and juvenile, but he thinks he picked up the main points of those inked beauties.
He wants to try to make Zhou-ge shake and shiver and spew beautiful profanities into the air.
He tugs at the waistband of the borrowed pants that are a little too big on Zhou-ge, grateful for once that the island’s castoff generosity isn’t tailored to perfection. It means that with one tug, the linen is already pooling on the floor, and he can almost see Zhou-ge’s-
He’s held it before, even brought him to climax with his hand, but he had been too shy to look down. This is his first time being able to see such a sacred, private part of his lover.
Zhou Xiwei twitches through the thin fabric. He simultaneously tries to scoot away. Shan Haoyu pauses, but he keeps his hands on Zhou Xiwei’s warm thighs. After all, from the quick reading that he’d been doing after that first kiss on the porch, consent is important, but running away at every pause is a great way to never advance.
And given their time constraints–
He really wants to use every moment he can, to carve out beautiful memories and make Zhou-ge happy. It makes him daring enough to look up. And find Zhou-ge contemplating the moon with scarlet stained cheeks. Makes him want to eat him up, in every possible way.
“I- I haven’t ever, you know, and you don’t have to, of course, but if you do, I probably won’t- um-” Zhou Xiwei hides his face in his hands, muffling the final words to nigh-unintelligibility, “-probably won’t last, and might not even be able to warn you? Fuck, sorry, not romantic!”
Shan Haoyu blinks. Runs his hands up and down Zhou Xiwei’s thighs. Warn???
Never before?
Shan Haoyu feels filled with pink bubbles, at the idea that he can be someone unforgettable, to Zhou Xiwei. The first person to satisfy him in this way? The one that he’ll always think back to, when asked about his first time? Someone that he’s so attracted to that he’s worried he won’t be able to control it?
There’s nothing in that ‘warning’ that Shan Haoyu doesn’t find wonderful. He beams, and he kisses the inside of his Zhou-ge’s thigh, which he’s been a little too fixated on since that first night in the short dress and stockings.
If he’s being honest. And speaking of honesty…
“Me too. The same. You- you know how quickly I shot when we-” Shan Haoyu coughs lightly and decides that it’s better to kiss than to talk. They both know perfectly well that he managed to ruin not one, not two, but three shirts, when Zhou-ge took him in hand and he unexpectedly reached climax over a laundry pile.
Black history, ah. At least this time, he’s checked to make sure there’s no textiles beneath him on the floor.
“I’m honored, if Zhou-ge is willing.”
“Willing, willing, just- wanted to warn.”
Polite even in this. Very Zhou-ge.
That impression strengthens, as Shan Haoyu once more calls on those dimly remembered illustrations of harem girls kneeling in front of their emperor and pulls Zhou Xiwei from his boxers. It looks bigger, this close up, and Shan Haoyu preens in the knowledge that he and Zhou-ge are sharing something special.
Something just between the two of them.
He leans forward and takes it in with more confidence than is warranted– he almost immediately has to retreat. Start slower. Learn his limits. But unlike the emperor in those etchings, Zhou Xiwei isn’t calm at being served, or demanding in pulling his jaw into the right configuration.
No, Zhou Xiwei just gasps and babbles up to the rafters about how beautiful he is.
Zhou-ge just reaches forward and touches the sides of his face and his too-long hair– not to pull him deeper or faster, but to- to caress his cheekbones. To twine his hair between his fingers, far gentler than before. He watches him, with heavy-lidded awe and devotion that very nearly makes Shan Haoyu come undone on the floor.
Zhou-ge makes him feel safe.
“Yu-er-”
Zhou-ge makes him feel treasured.
“Yu-er, so- so good-”
Zhou-ge makes him feel determined to do wonderfully. And to savor the moments.
“Yu’er, I’m going-”
Shan Haoyu wants to taste Zhou-ge spilling down his throat, and he wants to hold onto the memory forever. He doesn’t pull away, even when Zhou-ge’s fingers tap a spasming warning against his cheekbones.
He won’t cast away anything of Zhou-ge’s. Including this. Even if it’s a little- a little not what he expects, because really, it’s not like anything that he can remember tasting- it’s still proof that he pleasured someone that he adores. Pleasured him so well that he couldn’t hold back from spilling down his throat.
That’s powerful. Heady. He does his best to lick Zhou-ge clean, ready to curl up to sleep, or if he’s lucky, to experience another embarrassingly quick orgasm in Zhou-ge’s hand.
But Zhou-ge stares him down, gaze growing hotter and hotter as awareness returns to him. When he tries to finish himself off, he’s stopped. He’s pulled. He’s kissed. And then somehow, Zhou-ge is the one on the floor, his knees in exactly the same place as where he’d just- Oh?
Oh! He’s sure the emperor never did that!
Fuck, he’s going to come the minute Zhou-ge so much as breathes on him.
—
Shan Haoyu is correct.
Zhou Xiwei’s first attempt at giving a blowjob is over before he can so much as settle on a technique (from his much, much larger mental library of illicit images, thanks Internet!).
He is able to pull down Shan Haoyu’s pants and his underwear in one motion, which looks cooler and more purposeful than he meant. He is able to verify, again, that Shan Haoyu is significantly larger than he is in that area– (And no, it’s not just the thinness of his frame). It’s genuinely impressive, the kind of thing that would have gotten him a lot of ‘no homo but damn’ in the locker room if he’d gone to the same kinds of schools as Zhou Xiwei attended.
He does get to see the slight curve to the left, like it’s shy and looking away. He is able to touch and feel the unexpected softness, after becoming so well-acquainted with Shan Haoyu’s rough fingers and salt-scrubbed skin.
He has the privilege of kissing the tip, licking the underside, and taking his first four shallow attempts at properly seating Shan Haoyu inside his mouth. (Throat is really, truly out of the question).
But then Shan Haoyu is calling out Zhou-ge and hiding his eyes behind his forearm. And coming.
Just like that.
At least he lasted until it was inside and kept it from becoming Zhou Xiwei’s first facial?
Zhou Xiwei makes the unfortunate choice to laugh at his own little internal joke. He feels Shan Haoyu stiffen beneath him and- Oh no! First rule of sex! Don’t laugh where your partner can misunderstand!
Fuck, no wonder he’s a virgin. Fuckity fuck fuck! He scrambles up on the bed, bare ass against Shan Haoyu as he climbs on top of him and tries for eye-contact, so Shan Haoyu can see how earnest he is. “Sorry! I wasn’t! Not laughing at you! I swear! I was just thinking it was lucky that it wasn’t across my face. I- no complaints. Really and truly, I’m happy. Happy now, happy to do it again-”
Shan Haoyu groans and hides his face behind a second arm. He looks like someone trying to steal a nap laid out across the plastic benches at a terminal, only he’s still naked down to his ankles, his deflating dick still pretty impressive as it twitches against Zhou Xiwei’s flushed skin.
He groans, “I don’t know why I’m so bad at this.”
“You’re not. Or, if you are, I am too.” Zhou Xiwei takes advantage of the shyness to trace Shan Haoyu’s ribs with his fingers and to nestle him at the cleft of his ass– uh, not because– just because he’s curious, and it feels good, and he can tell that Shan Haoyu’s breathing changes to something more lovely as he does it.
Shan Haoyu takes a break from being embarrassed to be wondrously confused by the fact that Zhou Xiwei is naked atop of him, in a very suggestive position. While still smiling hungrily and wearing his scent. Don’t blame Zhou Xiwei, the sight beneath him is really intoxicating and exotic:
His person. His person, still mottled and gasping because of him.
“Yu’er~” He wants to kiss, but kissing without brushing after something- feels like something they should talk about? Probably? So Zhou Xiwei restrains himself to slowly rolling his hips while playing with Shan Haoyu’s encouragingly sensitive chest. “Yu’er, lets wash up and then come back and talk about how we can help one another get better at this?”
Shan Haoyu perks right up. In more than one place, heh.
“You can get better at it?”
“Of course.” Zhou Xiwei pulls him up and kisses his cheek before whispering, “Haven’t you ever heard? Practice makes perfect.”
Shan Haoyu goes mute and beautifully pink, all the way from his bedroom to the staff bathroom that he, A-Tian, and Director Xi use as their shared washroom. So cute. And such a good match. If it were anyone else, Zhou Xiwei would be the one catatonic from shyness and embarrassment at his own inexperience.
But when it’s with Shan Haoyu? It’s just… Cute. Cute and just what he needs to overcome his own issues. To make him feel manly, in ways that he’s always struggled with. Manly enough to not even care about the details, but to just do what makes them both feel good. Being with Shan Haoyu makes him stand a little taller. At least until he hears a creak from Shan Yutian’s room and faces the existential dread of:
Did his little brother just hear what we did?!
—
Yeah. He did. Thanks for asking!
It’s times like this that Shan Yutian wishes that the island had electricity. Or at least batteries and an old walkman or something. Even if it’s religious music or a ‘Learn By CD’ language tape, he’d take it. As it is, when his brother is finally happy, all he can do is play dead and hold a pillow over his head.
It’s fine.
It’s a better thing to have disturbing your sleep than death and wailing. Better than the sounds of an angry mob throwing firebombs and rattling oars.
They’ve got that going for them.
—
They wash up, Shan Haoyu puffing up a little in pride when Zhou Xiwei doesn’t question the fourth set of toiletries that have appeared in the neatly-ordered bathroom. All his favorites. A robe in a navy color that he looks really handsome in. You belong here, if you’re willing.
They kiss against the cool tile of the wall, minty fresh.
He adores the way Zhou-ge goes from so handsome and cool to shy and hiding behind him like a kid, when his brother quietly enters the bathroom and brushes his own teeth, refusing to make eye contact with either of them and directing his ‘sweet dreams’ to the grouted floor tiles.
It’s everything that Shan Haoyu didn’t know to want. But oh, how he wants it!
Everything sweet and domestic, all the wonderful awkwardness and bumping noses, its a perfection that he didn’t know he was allowed to hope for. As they set the bathroom’s gas lantern to the lowest setting– just an ember really– and blindly walk hand-in-hand back to Shan Haoyu’s room, he wishes that they could be like this forever.
That the ship will never come, that Zhou-ge will be happy here, that they can be a family.
Be in love.
For the first time in a long time, wrapped around his Zhou-ge, Shan Haoyu dreams of beauty, instead of despair. He dreams of taking walks together, of sharing meals with A-Tian, of the birds returning to the island, and the four of them being able to watch them build their nests or rest their wings and tell one another stories of where they came from and where they’re going, like they all did here when they were kids.
He smiles, and snuggles, and sleeps through the night, more at peace than he’s been since before the first calamity descended. Zhou-ge must sense his joy, because his body responds with soft reassurances, and sweet dreams of his own. Though based on the unconscious little thrusts, at some point, sweet turns spicy.
It feels like they were made to fit together like this.
Author’s Corner:
Finally, some NSFW that isn’t related to injury or death, ah.
If I’m being honest, I’ve learned a lot writing this story, but I think it will be my first and only long-form mystery (at least until I evolve). It’s probably more fitting to call this a slice-of-life that happens to have a horror-typical setting and some supernatural questions attached? 
It’s been easier to write and revise since I accepted that, but I should probably change the novel description haha.
I don’t know about where you are, but here it’s Mardi Gras, so the whole city is in that exuberant mood. If you live in a place that celebrates carnival, please stay safe and have fun.
(Also if do those things if you don’t, ah).
i dread for the day the boat come and destroy what they have right now
Thanks for the chapter !
Wait, it’s already Mardi gras ?! 0o0
(ฅฅ*)♡
(,,ฅω･ฅ,,)♡
Uto should feel like it’s outside of our world and its rules.I haven’t felt like our world has those rules any more since quarantine, murder bees, and a webtoon drowning and CPR scene triggering “he didn’t consent to that” comments. Slice of life is probably the most accurate but it feels much sweeter than that with these two.
Read up to here so far and it’s so cute!
Ever played the game Oxenfree? The island gives me that vibe.