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Chapter Text

Mo Guan Shan slumped into the nearest corner of the He’s family home, which happened to be a corridor annexing a drawing room, first dining room, and an obscenely large entryway. A portrait of some old Indian Maharaja stared down slyly at him from a gilded frame, and the peacock on his shoulder refused to acknowledge him except for its hundred feathered eyes.

Guan Shan scowled. The wealth of the house was stifling. He was used to small gatherings, used to corporate offices, used to heritage events that weren’t owed by any one person or any one family. He wasn’t used to a kind of money that made him feel unseen.

He pushed himself away from the corner. Passing the stairwell, Mr He was casting his gaze around the throng of guests spilling from every room, glasses held aloft, hors d’oeuvres nibbled on daintily by socialites and financiers and politicians and foreign, young royalty. His suit was pitch and his skin fair, and his eyes hard as granite. Guan Shan felt the gaze like being suffocated in an empty grave.

‘You,’ said Mr He, guests parting and pandering in his wake. ‘Have you seen my son?’

Guan Shan bowed slightly, awkward resentment bending his spine. ‘No, sir.’

‘At all?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Cào.’ Mr He’s mouth hardened, and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket. ‘Where the fuck is he? What kind of boy did I raise that won’t even attend his own fucking welcome party?’

Guan Shan shifted at the profanity. It didn’t seem right to have made its way out of the man’s mouth. It didn’t seem right to have been formed on the cultured nuances of his tongue. Guan Shan lowered his eyes.

‘Go through the rooms,’ Mr He ordered. ‘Check that none of the guests have stuck their nose into our collections. And if you find him…’

‘I’ll tell him.’

Mr He jerked his chin, and Guan Shan was dismissed, left to dissolve into the hordes of guests Mr He continued to diligently greet and the house in which Guan Shan was prone to losing his way. He pushed his way through the entryway, through the gallery where portraits of long-dead politicians and royalty stared down at him in their gilded frames. Through the back kitchens, packed with chefs and wait staff and cleaners, the space hot with steam and the smell of aniseed and rice and roasting meats and syrups glistening over hot filo. Guan Shan pilfered an onde-onde kueh from a tray, coconut shavings and liquid palm sugar bursting on his tongue while he slipped out of the kitchen and into the He’s private gardens.

A bamboo grove bordered the lake in the centre of the courtyard, lotus lolling on the surface, mosquitoes lingering around the cast iron lamps, Italian cypresses, monkey pod and Indian-almond trees towering over the water. A pagoda-covered pavilion stretched out into the centre of the water in homage to Hangzhou’s West Lake, small artificial candles lighting up the structure as if it were on fire.

Guan Shan spat onto the paving stones.

Rich fuckers, he cursed in his head, cutting around the edge of the garden and into another of the house’s entrances, and kicking the doors open to unused dining rooms and guest quarters. I’m not their fucking errand boy.

Except tonight, he was. This wasn’t the first time he’d worked at the He’s home in Clementi Park, contracted by a catering agency in Tiong Bahru Market. It wasn't the first ridiculous gathering at which he’d had to carry silver platters of canapes and champagne laced with 24-carat gold flakes. Because if they couldn’t spend their wealth, at least they could eat it.

It was the first time he’d done something other than that. The first time he’d been sent on a mission to find the prodigal He heir Guan Shan had never met, too busy ruining himself across the world that was anywhere but Singapore.

Ruining himself somewhere in his own home, away from a party thrown in his honour.

Whoever he was, Guan Shan didn’t blame him.

He was trudging through the end of the house now, wooden beams crossing high above the rooms’ ceilings, waterfalls cascading silently between glass pillars in the middle of vacant offices and—

Voices.

Soft and murmured, Guan Shan’s ears pricked at the sound as he shut one door behind him and headed towards another. His footsteps were muffled as he tread along a Persian rug set across the cherrywood floors, thread colours aging from use, and rested his hand on the handle of the new door.

The staff did their job well: the door didn’t emit a single groan as it opened.

Blood spilled into Guan Shan’s mouth as he bit down on his tongue.

The room unfolded before him in the darkness: the lacquered bookcases lining the walls, the burnished globe dominating a corner, a chess set carved of ivory in another, the glass wall at the back, Singapore’s skyscrapers staring across with dots of static light like night-still stars, and the two figures illuminated in their dim brightness against the desk.

The photo would have been invaluable—a silvery head of hair, the darkness that loomed towards it. A ringed hand on the slightness of a waist, and eyes making a universe of promises.

Guan Shan stepped back. His foot scuffed on the rug.

A dark head shot up.

Pulse pounding like a freight train in his head, Guan Shan knew exactly who was staring at him.

His feet dragged him away, adrenaline and fight-or-flight a sharp battle that left Guan Shan’s armour clattering on the threshold of the room, and he ran. Whatever Guan Shan had seen, he shouldn’t have. Whoever He Tian had been caught with—he probably shouldn’t have either.

‘Who the fuck was that?’ Guan Shan heard, the voice sharp as a knife blade down the hallway.

‘I don’t know,’ came He Tian’s low voice. ‘But I’ll find out.’

Guan Shan darted through the gardens in a panicked stupor, fists clenching and unclenching as the sounds of the party drew him back and drowned him. His heart ached in his chest while he caught his breath amongst a crowd of guests, shoes treading water and bracken from the gardens through the main foyer, and clean sweat pasted his shirt and waistcoat to his back.

His throat clicked dryly when he swallowed, and he snatched a glass of water from one of the catering tables. His mind was reeling, wrongness shrouding him like the breathlessness of an eclipse, darkness in the day, something unseen seen.

Why was He Tian in that room? Who was the silver-haired man, eyes watching He Tian’s like a wolf? Were they together?

Guan Shan imagined the outrage, the scandal swept discreetly under some million-dollar rug that the He’s wiped their feet onto, hinted at in every international charity gala and Hong Kong church meeting and billionaire-only dinner party. A family that prided itself on traditionalism and a pristine heir ruined by fucking.

Is that why He Tian avoided Singapore like the plague?

‘Well?’

Guan Shan jerked his second glass behind his back. Mr He had found him lingering around a group of investment bankers from CBD, whose watches cost more than Guan Shan would make in a lifetime.

The edge of the glass cut into his palm. He wasn’t a guest. It would have been nice not to give a shit, but he needed the money. They needed the money. The He’s, with their private jets and island resorts off Bali and offices in Kensington and Abu Dhabi—did not.

‘I didn’t see anyone, sir.’

‘What about my son?’

Guan Shan looked at the man, at his cruel mouth and the unyielding lines around his eyes.

‘No, sir,’ he lied. ‘Didn’t see him either.’

Mr He looked back, at Guan Shan’s hair like dying flames and the empty glass at his back.

‘Is that so?’

Instinct: a lip curl, a jerk of his chin. Guan Shan said, ‘You—’

‘Looking for me, Father?’ came a voice, slick as an oil spill in the ocean, and just as ruining.

Mr He hid his shock better than Guan Shan, who had frozen with He Tian now at his side.

Up close, Guan Shan took stock of him: taller than Guan Shan had thought, and well built, his jawline even with the tips of Guan Shan’s shorn hair. Guan Shan could smell sandalwood and khus oil beneath his cigarettes. The dark blue cloth of his suit fell around him like an unshed skin.

In the broken silence, Mr He looked at Guan Shan and, finding nothing, let his gaze snap back to his son’s. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Around,’ He Tian answered evenly.

The answer fell sourly between them.

‘Where is Monique Zhou? The press want to see her on your arm. Her father is due a favour.’

Guan Shan held his breath, a kind of sickness settling in the pit of his stomach. Is he really selling his son for business? He stopped himself short on the thought, remembered where he was—who he was dealing with. Of course that’s what was happening. Mr He would sell himself if he got something good enough in return.

He Tian only rolled his eyes, used to being transactional, a currency. ‘She’s probably rifling through mother’s Dowager Cixi collection, if her shoplifting accusations are anything to go by. Great daughter-in-law material. Really.’

‘Daughter-in-law?’ Mr He echoed contemptuously. ‘I said a favour, not a merger. Henry Zhou could only dream.’

‘I’m sure he does.’

Mr He narrowed his eyes at the dig. ‘You’ve been neglecting your guests.’ Where the fuck have you been? ‘And straighten your tie.’ Fucking some girl in the garden? ‘You’re losing face.’

‘They’re your guests,’ was He Tian’s flat reply. ‘I don’t think anyone’s going to notice if my tie isn’t angled to the correct degree.’

‘Then you’re naive,’ Mr He warned. ‘All of Singapore is here tonight.’

He Tian snorted, rocked back on his heels. Guan Shan could see his derision towards the evening—towards the financiers eager to ask his opinion on the S&P 50, the designers salivating over the sleek cut of his suit—Brioni and Paul Smith—and the sharp undercut of his hair—Ricky Tseung at ModaBeauty on Seymour Terrace.

‘I hardly think all of Singapore has fitted into the house.’

‘The all that matter has.’ Mr He lowered his voice, and took a step closer. He matched his son in height, in looks. He Tian’s English was boarding-school polished, and Mr He’s still tinged with the accent of a native Mandarin speaker. Twenty years younger, and they would have been indistinguishable. ‘They’re watching you, He Tian. You should be watching them too.’

Guan Shan watched Mr He leave. He should’ve moved, continued doing the job he was paid for, but the conversation had pinned him in place. He’d been standing in the eye of a quiet, cultivated storm, beneath the belly of the beasts where they couldn’t see him, couldn’t extend their necks and crush him between veneered molars.

‘Are you watching me too?’

Guan Shan tried not to balk. Threw back the last few dregs from the glass he’d been hiding behind his back. He said, ‘I don’t give a shit about what you do.’

A muscle pulsed in He Tian’s right temple, but then he scoffed. He stuck his tongue into the corner of his cheek, his look supercilious.

‘And how much for you not to?’ he asked, quiet enough for his words to disappear beneath the gentle strings of the orchestra.

It wasn’t the answer Guan Shan had expected, and he was ready to wrinkle his nose—but stopped, thoughts spinning. There would be hundred dollar bills in He Tian’s wallet, crisp and clean as the day they were minted.

Guan Shan had seen the gift bags: the unreleased perfume samples and couture gift cards for Orchard Road and Marina Bay Sands boutiques. The three-day passes to the family’s F1 Turn 3 Grandstand at Sheares and Republic Boulevard. He’d served enough gold-leafed hors-d’oeuvres and finger-bowls of turtle soup to know that if the He’s were willing to pay for something, the price was nearly limitless.

And if He Tian wanted to lump Guan Shan with the rest of them, scuttling at his feet for a bone, Guan Shan was going to let him.

‘Five hundred,’ Guan Shan said.

Pocket change.

Without hesitation, He Tian tugged out his wallet from the inside of his jacket, five crisp hundred-dollar bills from the leather, and stuck it in Guan Shan’s top pocket. His gaze fell somewhere past Guan Shan, and Guan Shan knew why.

Guan Shan had become a receptacle for bribery and easy money and paid secrets.

‘Just like the rest of them,’ He Tian muttered. His shoulder pushed harshly against Guan Shan’s as he headed into the crowds, and it was hard for Guan Shan, the new weight in his breast pocket, the hollow nausea in the pit of his stomach, to tell himself otherwise.  

He took the MRT to Lau Pau Sat when his shift finished at the He’s, and it was 3.34am when he finally slumped against the front door to his apartment in AMK.

He had work in four hours on Keong Saik Road, the morning prep shift before rush hour in a district where the city’s red light businesses used to thrive in the 60’s, now gentrified and indie. The ache in his lower back and the money in his pocket made him consider calling in sick.

‘Is that you, Guan Shan?’

Guan Shan pushed away from the door and turned the corner to the kitchen. His mother was pouring iced tea into a glass, still in her uniform.

‘You just finished too?’ he asked.

She handed him the glass and tugged out the pins in her hair. ‘The matron asked me to stay on. Understaffed.’ As usual. ‘How was it? I thought you’d be back hours ago.’

‘Yeah, well. When you’re the richest family on the fuckin’ island you can do what you want.’

His mother sighed, looked him over. ‘They’re still human.’

‘Don’t act like it, though.’

His mother clicked her tongue, and then she saw the plastic bag in his hand. ‘You went to Lau Pau Sat?’

‘Caught them before they closed,’ Guan Shan told her. He put the bag on the counter and ripped it open to reveal the plastic tubs, still hot. His mother huddled close to take a look.

‘Oh, you got the good stuff!’

Guan Shan snorted. ‘You never eat properly at the hospital.’

‘Guilty,’ she said, already grabbing bowls and chopsticks from the cupboards.

Guan Shan cracked open the lids on the containers—garlic noodles, char kway teow, oyster omelette, and a small box of extra spicy rojak—and let his mother take a long sniff.

‘Yuni makes the best rojak,’ she sighed, sneaking a mouthful omelette between her lips. ‘She really should set up her own business.’

Guan Shan shrugged. ‘She’d have more luck back in Indonesia.’

‘Alamak, don’t be unkind.’

‘I’m not,’ Guan Shan said. ‘The people here are the shitty ones.’

His mother didn’t reply, dividing up the food between them and cradling her own bowlful against her stomach, her back pressed against the edge of the counter.

‘So what’s the special occasion?’ she asked lightly. Her eyes flickered. ‘Did the He’s take you on permanently…?’

‘Fuck, no,’ Guan Shan retorted. ‘I’d kill ‘em if I was there all the time.’

‘Guan Shan.’

He ignored her reprimand, and held his chopsticks between his teeth while he smacked the cash down on the counter.

‘From tonight.’

His mother’s eyes went wide, prawns and noodles dropping back into her bowl. ‘Aiyah… Those rich people tip so well.’

‘Not for nothin’.’

His mother looked at him quizzically. ‘What d’you—’

She broke off as the apartment buzzer sounded, and together they glanced towards the hallway. It was approaching 4am. The opposite floor was occupied by a Filipino family, the lower few by Malays who worked the night shifts at the docks, and the whole floor above was rented out by a British expat family who travelled the AH2 to the oil rigs at 5am, Monday to Saturday.

They had no reason to be calling now—none of them did.

The buzzer sounded again.

‘Eat, eat,’ Guan Shan’s mother urged him, stopping him from moving towards the door. ‘I’ll get it.’

He was ready to protest, an imperative hooked on the end of his tongue, but his mother was already rounding the corner to the front door, bowl abandoned on the counter, her slippers smacking against the floorboards.

Guan Shan waited as the door opened, pausing mid-chew to hear the hushed sounds of conversation traded in an apartment entryway.

A few seconds passed, and he ground his teeth together. It was too quiet to listen, but he could hear the tenor of a man’s voice.

Someone here about his father? Or maybe—

Guan Shan went cold. The last time someone had come about his father—

He was kicking away from the counter edge before the thought had manifested, and then he stopped.

His mother—fine, unmarked, unharmed, still standing—had already led the visitor into the kitchen. Her eyes were wide, her hands wringing. ‘Mr He to see you, Guan Shan,’ she said. Her voice was breathy.

Guan Shan stared at him.

Was he drunk? Was that what had led him up to AMK, crowded with HDB towers and hawker food centres and gardens that made a token gesture to the forests and swampland that once reigned?

He Tian’s eyes, lucid enough, were on the stack of hundred-dollar bills on the counter, on the grouting peeling away from the tiles, the stacks of dishes in the sink, the take-out food half-eaten, the space that was smaller than one of the He’s own fucking closets. He eyed the sofa through to the open living area, made up with pillows and a crumpled sheet. The cracked-open bedroom door. Just the one.

The He’s weren’t stupid. Guan Shan watched him do the math quickly, and felt shame rise up around his neck in a rush of red.

‘Introductions, Shan Shan,’ his mother urged.

‘You already know who he is, Mom,’ Guan Shan said stiffly.

She gave him a stern look—gave He Tian a beseeching one. ‘I’m going to take a bath, if you’ll excuse me. Please call me if you need anything .’

‘Thank you, Auntie,’ said He Tian.

Her eyes softened. She would have given him the shirt off her back if he’d asked. Fucker.

Sometimes, not often, he hated his mother’s kindness.

Guan Shan narrowed his eyes as his mother disappeared into her room, as He Tian began wandering about the space as if it were his own. He didn’t have the grace to look uncomfortable—embarrassed by his own wealth, or Guan Shan’s lack of it. Took everything in with a passive acknowledgment that set Guan Shan’s teeth on edge.

He Tian flicked through the pages of a medical journal his mother subscribed to on the coffee table. ‘Where’s your father?’ he asked.

Guan Shan stiffened. ‘Not around. Where’s your mother?’

He Tian exhaled. ‘Touché,’ he said. He put the magazine down, folded his arms. He was still in his jacket; Guan Shan was still in his uniform. The scenario had changed, but they were still the same. ‘Look. I’ve come to explain myself.’

‘It’s four in the mornin’. You don’t owe me a fuckin’ thing.’

‘What you saw wasn’t what you thought you saw.’

‘I don’t give a shit about what I saw.’

‘Really.’

Guan Shan’s fingers clawed over the counter edge. His lip curled. ‘That money covers our rent for the month. Means my mom doesn’t have to take extra shifts instead of sleepin’. Or skippin’ meals.’ He said, ‘You don’t know what it’s like to have fear.’

He Tian nodded slowly. ‘The money. Right.’

‘No, not the money,’ Guan Shan spat. He stalked into the living area, stopped just far enough. Tobacco and sandalwood. For eyes so dark, they had too much light in them. ‘I don’t. Give. A fuck. About who you are. Or who you’re screwin’—or not screwin’. You’re nothin’ to me.’

He Tian’s expression wavered, head tilted to expose the cutting edge of his jaw. His look had taken on a different kind of calibre, and Guan Shan didn’t think he liked it. ‘You don’t know how refreshing that is to hear.’

‘Refreshing.’

‘Frustrating,’ He Tian allowed, ‘but refreshing. Let me buy you lunch tomorrow. Noon?’

What the fuck? Had he missed something? Was this how conversations worked with the rich? Insult leading to profit?

Or was he just a masochist?

Guan Shan paused.

Huh.

He said, ‘I’d ruin your pretty reputation. A poor Mainlander at your table at Raffles?’ He sneered. ‘What would Singapore think?’

‘I don’t care about that. They can think what they want.’

Guan Shan didn’t get it. The bastard had no reservations about being seen with Guan Shan, but plenty that Guan Shan might tell someone—anyone—about the guy from the library? What game was he playing? What the fuck was he doing in Guan Shan’s AMK apartment while the night had probably just started for all his rich friends, sniffing coke off the back seats of Maseratis and trashing hotel suites at the Shangri-La and Mandarin.

Fuck, Guan Shan hated this place. Humid and too-clean and green and fucking expensive. It was too safe, too transparent. It couldn’t cater to Guan Shan’s self-acknowledged rough edges and his bitter tongue and his perpetually empty pockets.

It wasn’t built for someone like him to survive in.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m busy.’

He Tian took the rejection in his stride. He smiled in a way that made Guan Shan hesitate, a ghost-curve of his lips that promised it could be more, if he wanted. ‘I’m persuasively persistent when I want to be.’

‘And I’m busy.’

‘Doing what?’ He Tian asked, a little more sharply.

‘None of your fuckin’ business, that’s what.’

‘I’ll take your number, then.’

‘What? No.’ Horror washed over him at the thought of He Tian having access to him. He already knew where he lived, had already met his mother, stood inside his apartment. ‘Fuckin’ no.’

‘That’s alright. I’ll take it from Father’s staff list.’

‘That’s a breach of privacy, dog shit.’

He Tian looked behind Guan Shan, at the stack of dollars on the counter, and said, ‘Is it.’

Guan Shan gaped. ‘It’s not like I fuckin’ bribed you!’

‘Didn’t you? You caught me in a vulnerable situation, Mo Guan Shan. Five hundred for silence, wasn’t it? That sounds like bribery to me.’

‘You son of bitch…’

The smile shifted, turned wide and wicked. Guan Shan had gotten it wrong—not a masochist at all. Sadism, at its awful, treacle-thick finest. ‘Just give me your number, Guan Shan. It’s lunch. That’s all.’

That’s all.

‘Why? You should’ve hoped you’d seen the fuckin’ last of me.’

‘Why?’ He Tian echoed. ‘Why not? How about because everyone here is fucking insane. Because I’m a marketing ploy exposed to every single gossip-starved person on this godforsaken island without my consent. You know, I can’t even brush my fucking teeth without it ending up on Weibo or QQ.’

‘Sounds painful,’ Guan Shan remarked blandly. He’d picked the rest of his food from Lau Pau Sat, and had dedicated his attention to eating it.

He Tian let himself drop onto the sofa, ran his long fingers over one of Guan Shan’s pillows. Guan Shan watched him pluck a short, red hair from the casing between finger and thumb, and then looked up at him. ‘You don’t care. Because you don’t know what that’s like. Refreshing.’

‘Glad I could be of service to you,’ Guan Shan said, finishing up his oyster omelette. He pointed his chopsticks in He Tian’s direction. ‘Now do me a favour and get the fuck out of my home.’

He called in sick to work, and dragged himself to Chijmes on seven hours of stilted sleep. His mother was gone by the time he woke up, filling a part-time role for data entry at the hospital that paid double on weekends, and leaving him with a stream of texts Guan Shan wasn’t sure how to answer yet.

The nineteenth-century convent-turned-entertainment complex was still recovering from an afternoon storm, skies clearing, petrichor lingering in the atmosphere, awnings swollen with rainwater already drying on the courtyard paving stones.

He Tian had already ordered by the time he’d arrived—a small, dimly lit Japanese place with shoji-style walls, where bento boxes were the norm for lunch and a large pot of hot sake curled steam towards the amber ceiling lights. There were no tables, only a single bar that stretched across the room, behind which the itamae stood slicing fish and vegetables, and barely acknowledged Guan Shan with a nod.

He Tian sat on the central stool, and it wasn’t until Guan Shan fell into the seat beside him and downed his second cup of sake that he realised they were alone.

‘Seriously?’ he asked, greeting delayed. ‘You closed the whole fuckin’ place?’

He Tian—blue silk shirt, grey slacks, a silver watch winking on his wrist—looked nonplussed. ‘How do you know it isn’t just quiet?’

‘Because that’s the kind of shit you people pull.’

He Tian’s mouth tugged up at the corner, and he gestured towards the bento box in front of Guan Shan for him to eat. No denial.

‘There’s another reason I asked you to lunch yesterday.’

Guan Shan chewed on a tempura prawn, nudged at a piece of sushi. He was grateful, almost. He Tian didn’t waste time cutting through his own bullshit.

‘I shouldn’t’ve expected anythin’ else,’ he said. ‘You probably learned to lie as fuckin’ quick as you learned to spend your daddy’s money.’

He Tian ignored the jibe. He hadn’t touched his own food—was another cup of sake deep. ‘I need you to do something for me.’

‘No.’

‘Only the same as last night. Listening into conversations you shouldn’t with compensation. You know how to do that, don’t you?’

Guan Shan wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin and threw it onto the table. The fucker could’ve waited for Guan Shan to finish before forcing him to leave by default of arrogant entitlement.

‘No, I don’t,’ he muttered in He Tian’s ear, getting up, his hand on the back of He Tian’s chair. ‘And I’m not agreein’ to this. I’m not your bitch. And unless you’re gonna blackmail me—’

He Tian leaned back, exposed his throat to Guan Shan’s lips. ‘I could,’ he said softly. ‘If I wanted to. I could do worse than that. My family has done worse than that.’

Guan Shan clenched his jaw.

‘But I won’t. Because unlike my family, I don’t need to use violence to get people to do something.’

‘You just need money.’

‘Five thousand, and you won’t hear from me again.’

Guan Shan’s mind stalled on the protest.

Five thousand.

It was nothing to someone like He Tian, who’d had bigger bar tabs than that. But Guan Shan could wipe out some of his mother’s debt left in his father’s wake. Clear out some of the accounts, settle her credit score. They could get a loan for a place that was theirs, stop paying inflated rent that the landlord decided from month to month, or overcharged bills they couldn’t protest.

Leaving China had been a mistake. His mother’s need to get out and get away from the mess their life had been reduced to, brick and mortar pulled down to rubble and shards of ceramic—it had been understandable. Bewildering, as a kid, who didn’t understand the gravity of anything, just knew that things had changed. That they weren’t going back.

It’s going to be different now, Shan Shan. Just you and me.

With five thousand, maybe they could go back.

Guan Shan sat back down. ‘Tell me what this is for. Tell me why.’

‘My father wants me to ally myself with the Li’s.’ The name wasn’t familiar to Guan Shan, and He Tian acknowledged his frown. ‘They work in logistics. And by work I mean own half of Singapore’s industry.’

‘They’re like you,’ said Guan Shan, in the tone of voice that carried everything else with it he didn’t need to say. They’re rich like you. Talk fancy like you. Treat people like you.

‘We’re drawing up a business contract that splits half the company with theirs,’ He Tian explained. He’d withdrawn an engraved lighter from the back pocket of his trousers, and now it spun in a blur between his fingers. ‘We outsource materials for our oil extraction. With the contract in place, we’d always use their resources, and they’d have half of our profit.’

‘You’re merging.’

A fourth cup of sake. The lighter clattered on the table. ‘I want to know what I’m getting myself in for. The Li’s are going to meet with their stakeholders next week at some point during their party. The details of that meeting won’t be divulged to the public, or to me, and I want them to be.’

‘That’s why you’re back in Singapore?’ Guan Shan asked. ‘’Cause of the Li’s?’

He Tian grimaced. ‘My father’s making me oversee the merger. To test me. My brother’s too busy handling shit in Shanghai and Hong Kong to do it himself, and I want to know I’m not jumping into shit before I even start.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘The He’s don’t handle failure well.’

‘And if you are jumpin’ into it? How’re you gonna prove anythin’? You’ll tell ‘em it was me?’

‘I’ll find something more diplomatic than that. The Li’s and the He’s have enough dirt on each other to use it whenever we want to call out.’ The weight of his gaze set Guan Shan in his seat. ‘Have I got your cooperation?’

‘Five thousand’s nothin’ to you.’

He Tian regarded him. ‘Name your price.’

Guan Shan looked down at his half-eaten bento box. He reached for the pot of sake , nearly empty, and poured the dregs of it into his cup. He Tian made day-drinking seem normal—necessary to get through the rest of it.

‘I’ll do it,’ he muttered, taking a sip, and putting the cup on the bar. ‘Five thousand. And I don’t hear from you again.’

He Tian’s expression didn’t change, but Guan Shan saw a slight looseness fall around his shoulders like a too-tight lace had been pulled free.

‘You have my word,’ said He Tian. He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Whatever that’s worth.’

Chapter Text

The package arrived for him the next morning at work, while he prepped lobsters and cut too many onions until his eyes burned and shovelled rice into cookers.

It was unlabelled, a wicker hamper woven together by a strip of silk and delivered by a courier who wore a black suit and leather gloves and held a motorbike helmet in the crook of his elbow.

‘I didn’t order anythin’,’ Guan Shan told him, propping open the fire door to the street with a crate of Tiger beer.

‘Sign here, please,’ said the courier.

Guan Shan cleared cutting boards and tupperware containers from the steel island counter, and the hamper smacked loudly onto the surface where he dropped it.

Inside: a box of gold-coloured perfume, something French scribbled on the glass, a small, rectangular shaped watch with a burgundy leather strap, three paisley shirts folded and wrapped in ribbon bows like Christmas presents, too soft to the touch. There was more—a selection of jams, a box of chocolates, two bottles of Laurent-Perrier champagne, cheese wrapped in waxy paper and a stamped seal, biscuits from Scotland. And a note.

Just a little thank-you.

HT.

Guan Shan dropped the note card like it had burned him, the card of quality stock, the ink fountain-pen scrawled.

He glowered at the hamper, and slammed the lid shut. What kind of small-dick fucker needed to overcompensate this much? Was He Tian trying to sweeten him up? Guan Shan had already agreed, already had $2.5k deposited neatly and swiftly into his account.

He yanked his phone from his back pocket, ready to send something brutal, but there was already a message waiting for him on the screen, and a screenshot of a delivery confirmation.

From: He Tian [14:32:10]

Did you like it?

From: You [14:37:20]

the chicken dick is all this??? what the fuck am i supposed to with PERFUME?!

From: He Tian [14:38:00]

It’s Lumiére Noire. For your Ah Ma. I thought she’d like it.

From: You [14:38:35]

she doesnt need your rich ppl perfume

or your stupid shirts

From: He Tian [14:39:12]

The shirts are for you. And of course she doesn’t need it. Women don’t need half the things the market sells them. It doesn’t mean they don’t want them. ;)

From: You [14:41:09]

im throw get all this out

*trying

fuck

From: He Tian [14:42:58]

Throwing? :)

From: You [14:43:05]

FUCK OFF!!!!!

‘He bought your mother perfume?’

‘And got me a stupid fuckin’ watch.’

‘I’m not really seeing what’s so bad about this?’

Guan Shan screwed his face up as he nudged sizzling, garlicky pork ribs in the pan in his apartment kitchen. He could hear Jian Yi’s amusement down the end of the phone, could see him kicking his feet up on some surface and bobbing back and forth in a chair, a Chupa Chup dissolving between his teeth.

Jian Yi didn’t get it. He didn’t come from money, but he hadn’t spent his youth like Guan Shan had.

You don’t know what it’s like to have fear.

‘’Cause then I owe the fucker all this shit that I’m never gonna afford to give him back.’ Guan Shan cranked the gas off, and dropped the ribs into the pot of spiced broth boiling on the stove with a pair of tongs. ‘That’s what’s bad. The fuck are people gonna think if I wear this kinda shit?’

On the other end, Jian Yi made an exasperated sound. ‘Do you wanna eat shit your whole life? They’re just gifts. Take them. Damn, wish I had a sugar daddy who’d buy me a Cartier watch…’

Guan Shan sputtered. ‘He’s—It’s not—Fuck off, dogshit. That’s not what this is. And don’t fuckin’ act like Zhan Zhengxi doesn’t wait on you every time you call him.’

Jian Yi sniffed. ‘Whatever. What are you doing now?’

‘Makin’ food.’

‘For your Ah Ma?’

‘When she gets home from work. And me.’

‘Enough for three?’ Jian Yi asked lightly.

Guan Shan narrowed his eyes, adding a pinch of salt and rock sugar to the bak kut teh . ‘If you want to eat here, bring your own fuckin’ food.’ He stuck his finger into the broth, and sucked off the liquid with his tongue. More salt.

‘Yeesh. So rude. You know I’m shit at cooking…’ When Guan Shan didn’t yield, he sighed. ‘Be ready in an hour. I’m coming to pick you up.’

‘I’m busy.’

‘Being a miserable gū hán guǐ?’

‘Fuck off, that’s—’

‘Exactly right. Come on, Redhead. We’ll hang out at Clarke Quay. Shoot some pool. A couple Slings or Tiger beers and some karaoke and you’ll be golden.’

‘I haven’t got the money....’ Guan Shan started, thinking about the new balance in his bank account, the wad of cash Guan Shan’s mother had forced him to hide away in the cupboard between packets of ramen and bottles of sesame oil and shaoxing wine. If the landlord saw it…

‘Zhengxi’s back from London. Plus a friend we haven’t seen in a long time. I guarantee you won’t have to pay for a single fucking drink.’

Guan Shan threw a towel over his shoulder. ‘Callin’ me a miser in the same breath as telling me to filch off other people? Nice.’

‘Aw, come on. You know I didn’t mean it.’

Guan Shan huffed. That was the thing about Jian Yi—he never did. Even since Jian Yi had taken pity on him as a Mainland middle school kid. Every joke, every quiet dig—it never carried the kind of malice that it should have. Everything was idle humour and honest, innocent fun, too-easily forgiven. Jian Yi could’ve killed a man and someone would defend him in court with a well, he never really meant it, your honour.

Sometimes, Guan Shan wasn’t sure why Jian Yi put up with him, his effervescence spoiled and flattened by Guan Shan’s coarseness and blunt tongue. He knew he was difficult to be around. He knew he didn’t inspire kindness, and he knew his happiness was rare and a struggle to earn.

Someone like Jian Yi should have given up on him years ago.

‘Fine,’ he said, flipping the switch on the extractor fan. ‘Whatever. An hour and a half. I’m making bak kut teh. ’

‘Save me s—!’

Guan Shan hung up.

An hour later, freshly showered, pork and tofu and herbed broth lining his stomach, Guan Shan stared down at the watch in his hands. It was light, the metal smooth to the touch, the leather stiff from its newness. The minutes ticked by.

He knew he should sell it, or pawn it. He’d looked it up online: a Cartier Tank Solo; another four thousand, at least, that would line his pockets.

He’d learned it growing up—that objects meant nothing. That materialisms didn’t end an aching stomach, or iron out the creases around his mother’s eyes. It wouldn’t bring him anything but bragging rights, and it wouldn’t tell someone anything other than that he was a snitch who would do anything for money. They wouldn’t know it meant anything for his mother.

The watch would refute that plainly. Why, penniless some days—some weeks—should he get to keep something like that?

He put the watch on, and it fit well, the metal cool, only slightly loose, a comfortable weight.

He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, wearing one of the shirts, cream with flecks of gold the same colour as light hitting his irises. The watch glinting as he adjusted his cufflinks.

Was that what it was like to be rich? To have money falling off your skin?

‘Shan Shan! Jian Yi’s downstairs!’

Guan Shan looked around.

Shit.

No time to change. He dragged a towel over his head, slightly damp from the shower, and headed to the door, moving too fast for his mother to see him.

He’d sell the watch tomorrow. He could have this for a night.

It was getting ready to storm again as Guan Shan left the foyer to his apartment, and the passenger door to Zhan Zhengxi’s R8 was open and waiting for him as he stepped outside. Guan Shan had ridden it before, crammed in with Jian Yi wriggling in his lap as they went bar-hopping around Circular Road. He wasn’t looking forward to a repeat.

There were a few kids lingering around, leaning up against the linked fence of the basketball court, whistling lowly and trading remarks about the car, and Guan Shan quickened his pace.

He reached the passenger side, and paused. The seat was already empty.

He rapped his knuckles on the roof, leaned down.

‘Long time no see, asshole.’

Zhan Zhengxi rolled his eyes. ‘Get in.’

‘Where’s Jian Yi?’ Guan Shan asked, clambering into the low seat, the vertical doors sliding down and locking them into the small space.

‘In that car,’ said Zhengxi, pointing ahead of them at the black car Guan Shan hadn’t seen earlier. Some kind of Lamborghini? Guan Shan frowned. Maybe it was the default of the Lion City, but how many rich kids was Jian Yi really friends with? ‘They’re—put your seatbelt on, please—meeting us there.’

‘Huh,’ Guan Shan muttered.

‘Flashy, right?’

Guan Shan scoffed. ‘And this isn’t.’

Zhengxi shrugged, neither modest nor arrogant, and Guan Shan took the time to consider him.

It had been Christmas since Guan Shan last saw him, home for festivities that would be better celebrated in London. He wasn’t much different, his hair cut a little shorter, his jaw only slightly more defined. He still carried himself quietly, still drove with a carefulness that was almost an insult to the engine he was steering through Singapore’s lit-up streets. He inspired a placid calmness that Guan Shan, unpressured, felt comfortable in.

The other car had disappeared by the time they hit the CTE, and Zhengxi said the other guy drove like he wanted the crash.

‘Who is he?’ Guan Shan asked.

‘Someone you’re going to hate,’ Zhengxi replied. ‘Someone who I didn’t expect to see back here, to be honest. Singapore isn’t right for some people, no matter where they came from or who their family is.’

‘Don’t I know it.’

Zhengxi paused. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Sure.’

They rode in silence the rest of the way. The drive to Clarke Quay was twenty minutes in a fast car with quiet roads, but traffic tolls and Saturday night life choked the roads with taxis and chauffeurs and fast food deliveries. Zhengxi shuffled sporadically through lo-fi and acoustic pop-punk on his phone, particular with music the way Guan Shan was about cooking: fleeting, flighty, always changing in his tastes.  

‘The Fullerton?’ Guan Shan asked as Zhengxi eased over Cavenagh Bridge, Singapore River glittering beneath them with reflected lights like small flames and exploding stars. ‘I thought we were goin’ to Clarke Quay.’

‘We are,’ said Zhengxi. ‘We’re having brunch tomorrow here. You in?’

Champagne, quails eggs, and a thousand-dollar bill? Fuck no. ‘I’ll think about it.’

Zhengxi wasn’t listening. ‘Where the fuck is he?’ he murmured, angling his head and squinting through the darkness. He punched a few touch-buttons on the screen of his dash, and then the music cut out, dial tone pulsing through the speakers.

Jian Yi’s name flashed up on the screen as the call connected.

‘Yep?’ came Jian Yi’s voice, muffled by heavy bass and loud laughter.

‘Where the hell did you go?’ Zhengxi asked, eyes scanning the roads as he pulled up to the hotel.

‘We got a valet. We’re outside.’

‘Lazy fucks,’ Zhengxi remarked.

Jian Yi laughed. ‘First round’s on us.’

‘I take it back.’

They parked up in the Fullerton, key fob handed to the valet waiting at the door and Zhengxi’s name signed away on a presented iPad, and then began the walk towards Flint Street and along the walkway that bordered the Raffles Hotel complex, colonial pillars and terracotta tiles lit up in amber streetlights, Anderson Bridge busy with pedestrians. The night was humid and on the cusp of a perpetual storm, electricity and ozone hanging in the air. Guan Shan already felt warm in his clothes, grateful for the breeze, the canopies of palm trees and Rain Trees swaying over the path, orioles and starlings whistling in the boughs.

‘Nice night,’ Zhengxi said as they headed along North Boat Quay, stray fragments of stone crunching under his polished shoes. ‘Nice shirt, too.’

Guan Shan grunted, self-conscious. ‘It’s new.’

‘Looks it. Different for you.’ Zhengxi angled the phrase like a question, and he was looking at the watch on Guan Shan’s wrist.

Guan Shan shoved his hands into his pockets. He knew he was always the odd one out: loose vest and ripped jeans and a pair of boots he’d scrounged from an overstuffed closet in the apartment. Sometimes, Jian Yi mirrored Guan Shan when he wasn’t pretending to be rich in his discount Takashimaya suits, but his blond hair gave him a popular, rockstar quality where Guan Shan only looked dangerous.  

Not that he minded.

Tonight, only the black plugs in his ears and the shorn length of his red hair would be the giveaway. Tonight, he might be mistaken for one of them.

He glanced at Zhengxi, walking with ease, ignorant of the long looks passed his way by night-goers, marking his blue eyes, swimmer’s physique, the cut of his blue shirt, the gloss of his shoes. His wealth was quiet, never made obvious, never talked about in front of Guan Shan. Guan Shan wondered if it was because he was used to hiding it around Jian Yi, lunches and evenings out and weekend trips charged to a card that went unseen. He was different than He Tian, who was overt and extravagant and aching in a way that hurt, like walking outside in a Xinjiang winter and breathing in ice.

In some ways, Zhengxi’s wealth scared him more. He wore it like the lining of a coat Guan Shan could only catch in glimpses, just enough to remind him it was there.

He Tian’s was a kind he couldn’t forget.

They reached the first bar, walking through to the back where a tropic paradise had been set up beneath an awning: wicker chairs and a floor covered in monkey nut shells and half-litre cocktails served in the flesh of coconuts. Glowing light washed everyone’s faces in pinks and yellows, and music pulsed through the speakers hanging from palm trees.

‘Where the fuck are they?’ Zhengxi said when they hit the bar, handing Guan Shan a beer.

Guan Shan scanned the faces in the crowds, looking for a bright head of hair. ‘I don’t see him.’

‘That’s because I’m right behind you.’

Guan Shan lurched. A flash of blond, and Jian Yi’s impish smile—but Guan Shan wasn’t looking at him. The taste of beer on his tongue had turned bitter and acrid. The man at Jian Yi’s side was eying the watch on Guan Shan’s wrist with pleasure, and Guan Shan glowered.

‘He Tian.’

They were four rounds deep before Guan Shan tugged Jian Yi to the side, a pot boiling over, the poison ready to spew and burn through flesh. The reality of the situation fell on him like a brick from a forty-storey tower, crushing and terminal, and letting him feel it.

It wasn’t that He Tian was here, or that Zhengxi footed the bill for every round.

It was that Jian Yi had lied.

Guan Shan had spent half the evening thinking about ripping the shirt from his back and throwing it into the Quay, and the other half thinking about dropping the watch into the nearest jug of Pimm’s while he sulked in bar corners.

Jian Yi staggered into Guan Shan’s grip; his drunkenness made him loose-limbed and bleary-eyed, slipping between tiredness and a keyed-up frenzy. Right now, Guan Shan’s just made him angrier.

‘You know the He’s?’ Guan Shan demanded from the edge of a secluded booth. They were in a lounge now, the music quieter, the lighting darker, all glossed surfaces and sultry drink names and red-painted lips. In different clothes, Guan Shan would never have been let through the door. How many concessions had Jian Yi made for him over the years?

‘I mean,’ said Jian Yi. He stumbled a little, laughed awkwardly. Could never handle his liquor. ‘Everyone knows them, Guan Shan. Should’ve known that’s who you were talking about before…’

‘But you know them. Like— know know them.’ Guan Shan’s voice turned bitter. ‘You’re one of ‘em.’

‘Aw, come one, Guan Shan. Don’t say it like that! That hurts my feelings.’

No denial? Feel mine. ‘Did you take a shower every time you rode the fuckin’ MRT? Stick your fingers down your throat every time we ate out at Maxwell Road?’

Jian Yi’s face fell. This wasn’t something he could play his way out of. This was serious. He held his drink loose enough at his side that it threatened to fall.

‘That’s not fair,’ he said, and shrugged himself out of Guan Shan’s grip.

Guan Shan clicked his tongue. ‘What’s not fuckin’ fair is you not tellin’ me you’re some rich fucker who hasn’t worked a day in his life.’

‘Guan Shan—’

‘You made me think you were like me. You treated me like a charity case.’

Jian Yi sharpened. ‘And you made me think you weren’t so fucking prideful that if I had money or not it wouldn’t matter.’

‘You knew it mattered.’ Guan Shan bit down on his tongue. ‘You know what it’s like for me.’

Jian Yi just looked at the watch on his wrist, and shook his head. Guan Shan should never have worn it. ‘You know what?’ Jian Yi asked. ‘I’m starting to think you like how fucked up everything is for you. At least it gives you something to be bitter about.’

Fuck. Guan Shan felt like he’d been slapped. ‘Fuck you.’

‘Whatever,’ Jian Yi muttered, shouldering past him. ‘Fuck you too.’

Guan Shan let him go. He stared into the groups of people milling about in the lounge—high heels and black suits and short dresses and words whispered into ears. Lipstick on a shirt collar. Perfume. Jian Yi had disappeared among it all—probably to find another drink. Probably to get smashed and cry on Zhengxi’s shoulder. Zhengxi was gonna hate him for this.

Guan Shan slumped into the booth, leather creaking. He hung his head.

The sting was still there, the needle of a wasp he couldn’t pull out, and he didn’t try to.

He deserved this, because he knew Jian Yi was right. He couldn’t make apologies for himself; what else was there to do but build a castle of resentment out of the mortar that was other people? What else was there but the anger?

A shot glass slammed down on the table in front of him.

Vodka sloshed over the sides of the glass and onto the table, and the smell of it made Guan Shan want to gag.

He Tian slid into the seat across from him. ‘A peace offering.’

Guan Shan pulled a face. He’d seen He Tian around: leaning on the edge of the bar, flirting with the bartender, with the women around him. The men, too. Pretended not to notice when He Tian caught his sullen gaze. He should’ve left the moment he arrived.

Guan Shan ignored the shot and said, ‘Why’s he friends with a piece of dogshit like you?’

‘Fuck, you don’t hang about, do you?’ He Tian slumped down slightly, knees parted, the heels of his shoes threatening to touch Guan Shan’s. He was amused, and shrugged. ‘Our families know each other. Run in the same circles. Our paths crossed occasionally and…’ He Tian spread his hands apart. ‘Here we are.’

‘I’m sure whatever his inheritance is had nothin’ to do with it,’ Guan Shan countered, except he didn’t really know what Jian Yi’s inheritance was. If he had one. Who is family was. He’d seen the small confines of Jian Yi’s apartment, IKEA-furnished, half-empty and lifeless, and a closet of clothes Jian Yi recycled on a weekly basis. Whatever money Jian Yi had—it wasn’t obvious.

He Tian jerked back the shot glass, and winced. ‘Fuck. That chip in your shoulder’s the size of a fucking crater.’

‘Fuck off. You’re all the same.’

‘Are we?’ He Tian said, rolling the glass across the table, hand to hand like a ping pong match. ‘Can you say that now that you know what kind of person Jian Yi is?’ The glass stopped. ‘Do you know what I think?’

‘I don’t give a fuck what you—’

He Tian ignored him. ‘I think you need to get your shit together and your priorities straight, Mo Guan Shan. I think you’re just the same as the people who wipe their shit-stained dollar notes in other people’s faces. You piss on people for being rich and make them feel guilty for being part of a privilege they were born into and didn't choose. But your problem is that you’re worse than a lot of them. Because they don’t look down on you. Jian Yi never looked down on you, and neither did Zhengxi. But you spend a fucking hell of a lot of time looking down on them.’

Guan Shan leaned forward. ‘You finished?’

He Tian frowned. ‘What?’

‘Are. You. Finished,’ Guan Shan said slowly. ‘You think I’m gonna feel bad for shitting on the one percent while people like me and my family get spat on and pissed on by fuckers like you, just like you and your father did at your stupid fuckin’ party? Fuck.’ Guan Shan leaned forward, met He Tian’s eyes. ‘There ain’t the kind of money in the world that’s gonna make me change my mind about that. Yeah, I think you’re all the same. Because so are we. Tired of being fucked over by a small group of people who think they’re invincible and that I’m disposable.’

In the wake of it, He Tian held his gaze. His mouth, so slightly, was parted, and Guan Shan felt like his clothes had been peeled away from his skin with the way He Tian was looking at him.

His stomach jolted. Does trash-talking get this fucker off?

‘He Tian? My God, is that you?’

Guan Shan looked up. A guy their age wearing a camel-coloured bomber jacket and white silk sweatpants was beelining towards their booth. His black hair was parted with a immaculate evenness across the center of his skull, flopping down either side of his temples like some greasy 90’s kid.

‘Theo?’ He Tian asked, getting to his feet. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘I could ask you the same!’ Theo cried, clasping He Tian on the shoulders, careful not to spill his martini. He nudged a pair of tortoise-framed oval glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘Bloody hell, I haven’t seen you since Harrow, man. Last I heard you were gallivanting through the Czech Republic. Did you really hire out Karlstejn Castle for a weekend?’

‘Not quite. Chateau Český Krumlov.’

Theo scoffed. ‘Not quite, he says. Fucky fuck, if I didn’t know your family, I’d be horrendously jealous of your life.’

‘So would I,’ He Tian said dryly.

Theo laughed at this, and then took his time to spare a glance at Guan Shan, who could see the cogs turning. Which family? Which school? Which social division did he belong to, and how could a man like Theo work that in his favour?

He Tian did the work for him. ‘This is my friend, Mo Guan Shan.’

Guan Shan stood reluctantly and offered a hand, and Theo considered him with surprise as he shook it. ‘Gosh. How Chinese. Are you related to Elaine Mo from Xi’an? The designer? No? Charles Mok?’

‘Who the fuck are they?’ Guan Shan objected, my friend on a ticker tape in his head that soured his tongue like a bad night’s sleep.

‘Apparently not,’ Theo remarked. ‘Your accent really is quite…’

‘Guan Shan wasn’t educated in London,’ He Tian said.

‘Hong Kong, then?’ Theo pressed, with a sense of urgency. ‘Shanghai?’

‘Guangxi,’ said Guan Shan.

And that was it. In a second, Guan Shan was forgotten. Guangxi, and his reputation would get Theo nowhere.

He watched Theo turn to He Tian, watched him eye the watch on He Tian’s wrist, the sharp jawline of good breeding, his broad shoulders and long frame that seemed to tower over everyone. Guan Shan was invisible in comparison. He had disappeared, his name a senseless collection of syllables. Embarrassment brought blood to his cheeks, and he could feel He Tian’s gaze on him.

D’you get it now?

‘So, are you still dating Felicity, man?’

He Tian looked back at Theo. ‘Felicity Leung?’ he asked. ‘We were never exclusive.’

‘She likes to think so. She’s still hinting at Sotheby jewellery auctions on her Instagram.’

‘Not for me,’ He Tian said dismissively. ‘I haven’t spoken to her in months.’

‘That’s not what I heard,’ Theo said slyly, taking a sip from his martini.

He Tian’s tone turned sharp, his casual charm eroded. Guan Shan watched him like a fuse had been blown, lights out. The change was austere, and frightening. ‘You don’t know me, Theo,’ he said coldly. ‘So what you’ve heard doesn’t matter.’

Theo’s laugh was stunned and awkward. ‘Ouch, Tian. Go for the balls, is it? We shared a dorm! We—’ He looked around furtively. ‘You know.’

He Tian narrowed his eyes. ‘Fuck off, Theo. You sucked my cock while I pulled your hair. I didn’t exactly invite you to dinner with the family.’

Theo flushed. He Tian’s tone was hard, and would have carried. Theo staggered forward and breathed heavy onto He Tian’s face. ‘Do people know that?’ he seethed.  Have you told them?

‘What would I gain? Your name’s already in the shitter after your father defrauded PWC’s accounts and slept with the auditor. Auditors, actually. Did they fire you at Deloitte or did you have to suck theirs too?’

‘God,’ said Theo, laughing in angered, breathless disbelief. Guan Shan knew how he felt. ‘You’ve become a bit of a cunt, haven’t you?’

‘Well,’ said He Tian. He plucked the olive from Theo’s martini and crushed it between his teeth. ‘You know my family.’

They watched Theo leave, tugging a drunk, leggy girl along with him from the bar and out the main door, and Guan Shan cast He Tian a glance from the corner of his eye.

‘That was fuckin’ brutal,’ he commented. He’d watched a decimation of billionaire standards: insult the family, discredit the funds, dig up past, buried horrors that money couldn’t put back in the ground. Not when you, apparently, didn’t have any. Not compared to He Tian. But then, maybe no one had that kind of wealth.

‘He’s always been like that,’ He Tian replied, watching Theo leave. ‘I left because of people like him.’

Guan Shan raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean you didn’t surround yourself with people like that when you bought out Prague?’

‘Don’t you start on that bullshit,’ He Tian warned. ‘It’s in bad taste.’

‘Whatever. I need a smoke.’

He Tian patted his pockets. ‘I’ll join you—’

‘No.’ Guan Shan paused. He didn’t do it for you, asshole, he told himself. ‘I need some air. Alone.’

He Tian’s expression went blank. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll wire you the second payment in a few days. Karmen Yu will be managing the catering at the Li’s. She’ll be in touch. If you’re still on it.’

Guan Shan hesitated. He tried to figure out the reason for the change in He Tian’s demeanour, and chalked it up to it being the kind of person he was—mercurial, willful, eager to do what he wanted when he wanted and fuck the consequences. He didn’t have to be anything to anyone but himself. He could afford to be anyone he wanted.

The low music had turned into an interlude of heavy breathing and uncertain techno moans. What should have been sultry was rendered crude and uncomfortable in Guan Shan’s ears. The atmosphere had turned into something strange. He thought about He Tian’s steady gaze and parted lips.

Outside. Now.

‘Yeah,’ Guan Shan said eventually. Backing out on the job hadn’t even crossed his mind. ‘I’ll do it.’

He Tian nodded stiffly. ‘Good. Have a good evening, Mo Guan Shan.’

Guan Shan frowned at him. ‘Guess it can’t get any worse.’

Clarke Quay was still alive and pulsing with warm bodies by midnight. The humidity was almost comfortable, but the heat made Guan Shan want to tilt forward until his body smacked against the surface of the water, stripped with colour like water spilled across a paint pallet of candy pinks and mellow oranges and neon blues. He’d wandered over Read Bridge to the opposite side of the quay, cigarette smoke trailing in his wake, and set himself down on the walkway on the other side of the river, feet dangling over the edge.

He tried not to smoke much usually, succeeded with a pack of cigarettes stretched out for a week or two. He’d seen how He Tian had ducked out of the bars every few minutes to drag smoke into his lungs. Wanted to tell him to just stay outside if he was so fucking addicted and—

Fuck. Too many beers and spirits to try and recover from a shitshow of a night, and he was still thinking about He Tian.

He stubbed his cigarette out on the ground beside him.

‘You need a lift back?’

Guan Shan looked down at the dress shoes beside him, and then up.

Guan Shan set his jaw and gaze across the river. ‘I’ll get the train,’ he said. He didn’t want the conversation, but mostly—he didn’t want the guilt.

‘We’ll split a Grab,’ said Zhengxi, sinking down beside him. ‘The trains’ll stop running soon.’

Guan Shan sighed. ‘Whatever.’

‘Still brooding?’

‘About?’

‘You know what. Jian Yi told me what happened earlier. Pretty shitty, to be honest.’

Guan Shan furrowed his brow, pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth. ‘I’m not here to listen to a lecture.’

‘I wasn’t gonna give one.’

Fuck him, Zhan Zhengxi was making him light another cigarette. He dragged in the smoke faster than he should have, choked out the tendrils that almost slipped down his throat.

‘Why didn’t he tell me?’

‘Because you’re his friend. Because money doesn’t matter to him in the way it does to other people. Because he knows what it means to you.’

‘He lied to me.’

‘Sure about that?’ Zhengxi asked. He cupped the flame of a lighter near to his face, lit up with flickering orange. ‘Can you honestly say you’d be friends with him if you knew how much his family was worth? Who’s the liar now.’

‘We’re friends.’

‘No, we’re not.’

Guan Shan’s chest tightened. He understood: they were friends by default. Jian Yi was their conduit when Zhengxi was home from LSE. He bound them into a relationship of mutual decency.

He could feel himself slipping into it again, the kind of thing that made him want to put liquor in his body and stay awake if he couldn’t erase himself. Take something to wean the pain that was the realisation of being who he was, of where his life was going—where it wasn’t.

‘Give it to me, then,’ he said. ‘How much.’

Zhengxi blew out a mouthful of smoke, and a sudden breeze, warm and swift from a coming storm, carried it upwards. ‘His father’s the fourth richest man in China. So says The Heron Wealth Report and Fortune Asia. He’s planning to run next year.’

‘Run as in—’

‘Yeah. The whole fucking thing.’

Guan Shan went silent. It was an easy thing to say; an easy thing to hear. That didn’t make it easy to understand. The words ricocheted off him like a flat pebble on still water. Plink, plink, plink.

And down.

Guan Shan sank with the realisation.

‘Why didn’t I know about all this shit?’ he asked. Wouldn’t he have seen something on TV? In newspapers? Wouldn’t there have been something about Jian Yi’s connection to a man like that? A hint on social media that wormed its way into Guan Shan’s radar?

‘’Cause he doesn’t brag,’ Zhengxi explained. ‘I told you. He’s not interested. Doesn’t run in the circles his father probably wishes he would. Besides, he barely knew the guy until he got to high school. He was raised by nannies and caretakers and neighbours.’

‘But his mum—’

‘Wasn’t in the picture much, usually. I spent a lot of time with him as a kid…’

‘I remember.’ Guan Shan worked his jaw. A way off to the north, a shard of lightning suddenly cut through the sky, a sheet of electric lilac burned onto Guan Shan’s retinas, and the quay slipped into quietness as it waited for the thunder that came booming and shaking in its wake. The rain would follow soon.

Goosebumps prickled along Guan Shan’s skin and, helplessly, he asked, ‘What about He Tian?’

Zhengxi shrugged out of his jacket, and laid it across his thighs. ‘I didn’t meet him ‘til I was older. He’s stayed out of the city for as long as I can remember. Swiss Alps or Bondi or Shanghai. A brief stay in the States, apparently. I saw pictures of his condo in Miami.’

‘Burning through Daddy’s money like fuckin’ fertiliser.’

‘No. I mean, yeah. But his family… They’re something else. He doesn’t do it because he’s flashy, even though he is. He just does it ‘cause… I dunno. I wouldn’t want them for all the Miami condos in the world. I don’t blame him for getting away when he could.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I mean they’re complete psychos. Most of them are military or Special Forces. They’ve had a hand in weapons tech since the Second World War. Government and private. Fuck knows what they’ve sold to the Koreans and Russians lately.’

Guan Shan was confused. ‘I thought they were in oil.’

‘Mostly. That’s the side of the business they like to publicise anyway.’

‘And the merge with the Li’s?’ Guan Shan pressed.

Zhengxi opened his mouth, closed it. How do you know about that? He shrugged it off. ‘It’s a fucking trainwreck. It’s about the oil, but what the Li’s really want are the weapons. I heard rumours they’ve got links with terrorists, but enough people attend their fucking insane parties every year that it can’t be true. Either that or they’re just too scared to say no.’

‘He Tian knows this,’ Guan Shan said, more statement than question.

Zhengxi snorted indignantly. ‘He Tian knows everything. He’s not as in-the-dark as he likes to make people think. He watches, and he watches real fucking closely.’

Guan Shan knew this already. He Tian wasn’t like Theo. He wasn’t like Jian Yi, who pretended—pretended to live a different life, pretended to be penniless and carefree because he wanted to be. He Tian didn’t want to be himself, either—but he used it to an advantage.

Guan Shan realised it like the slow, widening crack of an ice sheet that would split him down the middle: none of them wanted what they had.

What did they want?

What did He Tian want?

‘He’s asked you to do something, hasn’t he?’ Zhengxi asked, sounding serious.

‘Why’d you ask that?’

Zhengxi sighed. ‘You knew him already. And the Cartier. Didn’t seem like your style.’

Or budget.

Guan Shan mulled this over. That’s what He Tian wanted to know: if the rumours were true; if he was throwing the company further into the black market than they probably already were. And throwing Guan Shan in the deep end along with it.

He knew he should say no—back out now with the new knowledge understood—with the new risk. But He Tian could afford to give a few thousand in compensation. It would be the easiest money Guan Shan had ever earned.

Guan Shan pushed himself up from the edge of the path. ‘We should go,’ he said. ‘It’s gonna storm soon.’

Chapter Text

Guan Shan checked his phone for the fifth time as he stood in the server’s corridor.

How long had it been since he saw He Tian in the Li’s garden? The minutes were ticking away, and someone would notice his absence soon enough, a red-haired skull that hadn’t appeared in the kitchens for a while.

Kitchens. Server’s corridor. Fuck, Guan Shan thought. The estate matched the He’s in opulence, and perhaps it was bigger, but there was an arrogance to the gilded staircases, the mile-long driveway, the Rolls-Royce convoy that transported guests to the entrance of the house, the ball gowns women wore in honour of the evening like it was a coronation.

Guan Shan felt like he was choking in the place, and he tugged again at the tightness of his collar in an attempt to loosen it, but the shirt was starched and stiff on his frame.

Guan Shan swiped his phone open impatiently, and breathed out through his mouth.

From: He Tian [19:34:16]

Sorry. Had to make introductions.

From: You [19:35:00]

u couldnt just talk to me while i spoonfed u caviar?

From: He Tian [19:36:03]

Why would I talk to the staff when I could talk to the CEO of Tencent?

From: You [19:36:09]

ur a pos

From: He Tian [19:36:23]

And yet you still talk to me.

From: You [19:36:41]

fuck off

when am i supposed to go in?

From: He Tian [19:37:05]

Wait for it. They'll line you up and give you a bottle or a plate to take in. I’ve made arrangements; stay where you are.

From: You [19:38:01]

how do they know someone outside the room isnt gonna pay me to do what ur doing?

From: He Tian [19:39:21]

Because it isn't about money tonight, it's about blood.

From: You [19:39:47]

and if i bleed?

From: He Tian [19:40:08]

I’ll provide compensation.

From: You [19:40:37]

idk about this

From: He Tian [19:41:11]

There are easier jobs, but they won’t pay what this will.

Decide quickly.

Guan Shan didn’t have time to decide. The head of catering, Karmen Yung, was rounding the corner. She spotted Guan Shan instantly, harried and relieved at once, pinched features growing tighter. Guan Shan pushed away from the wall, and slid his phone into the inside of his pocket as the small woman headed towards him.

Guan Shan made an attempt: ‘I was just—’

‘Shut up and follow me,’ Karmen snapped, without stopping. ‘I need you on hand now if you want to keep your balls.’

‘What for?’ Guan Shan made the mistake of asking, and followed her anyway.

Her tone was disparaging. ‘One of my staff is throwing up in the bathroom. I need you in one of the rooms. He Tian sent me to find you.’

He Tian? Was Karmen in his pocket too?

Guan Shan followed. He kept stride easily with the woman’s short, jerky movements down the hallway, a slight limp forced in by her right leg. They passed back rooms of girls in aprons and flour up to their elbows, and another of nannies and au pairs tugging down the petticoats of little girls in dresses and bow ties of toddlers in tuxedos with ice cream around their mouths. Wherever Guan Shan looked, staff were working quickly and frantically behind the scenes.

Karmen was still talking. ‘Don’t talk, don’t listen, don’t do anything but pour Montrachet and serve abalone. The room I want you in—you don’t exist in there, understand?’

‘But—’

‘What did I just say?’

Guan Shan swallowed down acid. I don’t exist in this world.

He didn’t have a place here, and if the caterer could see it, so could someone like He Tian.

God, he wanted to go back to China, to the crowded urban spaces he knew well, to the countryside he spent summers in, visiting his grandma, rustic and green. Not the clean artificiality that remained foreign to him, the wealth that was dangerous. He’d seen the people coming into the city in the mornings—the Filipinos, the Malays, the Indonesians, piled into the sunken beds of trucks in their overalls. How they slinked out at night, their contribution to skyscrapers and malls and parks unrecognised and reclaimed, the cultivators of a city whose parents were paid no thanks, and not paid enough.

But things, here and now, were happening quickly. Guan Shan had followed Karmen to the end of the servant’s hallway, a corridor that stretched through the house like a spine, swerving through other waiters and chauffeurs on cigarette breaks and guests sneaking their way through the thick throng of guests that had turned up to the Li’s party.

They stopped before a door, no more distinguishable than the rest, and Guan Shan felt a coldness well in the pit of him. A line of waiters stood outside of it, three chrome trolleys wheeled against the wall towering with dishes of rice and roasted meats, powdered sweets and bottles of chilled champagne.

Guan Shan cast Karmen a wary glance. ‘In here?’ he asked.

‘The meeting’s started,’ was all she said, and shooed Guan Shan into line before standing stationary on the other side of the doorway.

Minutes passed, and Guan Shan cast the other servers a wary look as a girl came out of the room empty-handed. Guan Shan could hear the dull murmur of voices from inside before the waiter at the head of the line slipped inside, a bottle of Cristal in his hands, and the door closed.

A bead of sweat ran down the back of Guan Shan’s neck.

This was it.

The door opened, one out, two in, and Guan Shan was next.

He could hear his breathing, wondered if everyone else could too, or see the way his waistcoat vibrated over the surface of his chest where his heart beat hard enough to hurt.

Suddenly, Karmen grabbed a long platter of bak chor mee from one of the trolleys, and thrust it into Guan Shan’s hands. When the door next opened, Karmen gave him a severe nod, and he went in.

The door shut behind him, and Guan Shan stared. No one but the servant at the door seemed to notice his stillness. The men were seated around a circular zitan-wood dining table that would have seated twenty people at full capacity, and the surface was already filled with dishes of bak kut teh and Hainanese chicken rice, plums sitting dried and salted in their ivory dishes, and Bird’s Tongue Longjing tea stewing in zisha teapots by Gu Jingzhou. Above, the ceiling was domed like a cathedral, light flooding through alcoves into the room, and Qing Dynasty silk scrolls hung from ceiling to floor.

A glass one-way wall stretched behind the table, offering a view of the garden below. Fairy lights spread through the grounds, connecting canopied awnings together and rendering the Li's garden into a wonderland of boutique food vendors and couture, Bottega Veneta, Robert Marc and Christian Lacroix, and a jewellery auction sponsored by JAR and L'Orient. Guan Shan had heard someone was selling a new line of Bugattis down there, too.

How much money’s gonna change hands here tonight? Guan Shan wondered. How many credit cards and business cards and names reverently whispered? Guan Shan missed the regularity of the He’s. At least he knew what to expect.

Guan Shan wandered over to the table, put the tray down where he could, and stilled.

‘—and what about Beom Seok?’ one of the men was saying, tanned, yellow-eyed, silver-haired. ‘He’s been a thorn in our side for months. His relationship with the He’s is precarious.’

That’s him, Guan Shan realised. That’s the fucker from the library.

He couldn’t have been older than Guan Shan. Another lifetime, and Guan Shan might have sat there in a grey suit on a stockpile of wealth and vicious privilege. Mindlessly, he gathered empty plates from the table while the men talked, and his head spun. Was He Tian in bed with the Li’s? Had sex failed, and infiltration of another standard was in order? How well had He Tian been taking his father’s advice? Was He Tian trying to erase himself, too?

‘He’s our biggest client for AR-15’s,’ another man was saying, black hair lined with grey, serious lines etched into leathery skin. ‘Our relationship will withstand.’

‘And once He Tian is aware of our clientele, Henry?’ She Li questioned.

‘You don’t believe he isn’t already, She Li?’ the man countered. ‘The He’s know what they’re doing. They’re winning from this.’

She Li’s stare was ruthless. ‘What are they winning, exactly?’

Someone around the table cleared their throat. Henry adjusted his glasses. ‘Their profits fall two percent short of our own. They’ll earn more from this deal than we will from them.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said She Li. ‘We earn the reputation the He’s have cultivated. That’s something we couldn’t earn. Not for years. Not with our service.’

Your service, Guan Shan thought, careful not to spill the last bottle of Montrachet as he poured it into half-empty glasses. Giving armed weapons to militants and militias and dictators. Fuck, He Tian…

He knew he had to leave. He was stalling and he should have come and gone before anyone noticed his freckles or red hair or his contempt. But this was euphemism and conjecture, and Guan Shan didn’t understand.

He carried the stack of empty plates back through the door, put them down on the trolley in the hall, and grabbed the Clicquot from the next-in-line.

‘I’ll give you the tip,’ he muttered when the girl started to protest, and pushed his way back through. Karmen, waiting at the door, didn’t stop him.

The meeting hadn’t paused; Guan Shan was an invisible interloper, unquestioned and unseen. It was the first time he was grateful for his insignificance, and at the path of the men’s conversation, Guan Shan felt cold.

‘In the event that anything should happen to the senior He, what becomes of their company?’

She Li smiled, pleased by the question. ‘It passes onto his sons. His will, I expect, is water-tight.’

‘And from his sons?’ one of the stakeholders asked, younger than the rest, and fresh-faced. He chewed on the flesh from a crab claw, and dipped his fingers into a lemon water bowl, surveying the rest of the dishes on the table. Guan Shan watched as he plucked a mantous from a tray and dipped it in the leftover chilli sauce. ‘Is a fourth-in-line appointed? Will it go to someone else in the company?’

Henry answered for She Li, evenly and efficiently. ‘Should anything happen, Kevin, He Group will be subsumed by the Li’s.’

‘And the He’s have agreed to this?’ Kevin asked, frowning. ‘Has this been approved by Mr Li?’

She Li leaned back. ‘Does it need to be? The merger was appointed to me. My father’s approval over trivial matters is irrelevant.’

Kevin looked like he wanted to say something, looked like he’d lost his appetite, but She Li’s serpentine gaze had stilled his tongue. Kevin must have been another son—another child sent in place of his parents. Too eager for participation; too naive to understand the consequences.

A siren was sounding in Guan Shan’s head. He had no love for He Tian’s father. No appreciation for his company—or his family. No respect for his son. But what was this? A genocide of billionaires? A coup aimed at ownership, not partnership? It couldn’t be that easy. Couldn’t be as easy as a private jet failure. A car crash before a family event.

Too much champagne. A driver under pressure.

Fuck.

‘... we’ll lose Tobi and his men.’ Guan Shan zoned back in on She Li’s voice while he supplied clean sets of cutlery, eager for anything to keep his hands busy and his mind sharp. ‘The process will take months he can’t afford.’

‘That matter has been handled,’ said Henry, sipping at his tea. ‘We’ve given him fifty in compensation.’

She Li tapped his fingers against his jaw. ‘And Adnan Faur?’

Around a mouthful of rice, another man said, ‘Ten. And a safe house for his family.’

They weren’t talking about dollar figures. They were talking about millions. Billions. A country’s-worth of weaponry, and men whose names Guan Shan recognised. From TV, and the newspapers. Hong Kong and Shanghai gangs his father used to serve in the restaurant. Naively. Desperately. No one else paid so freely. No one else set such a high price.

There were other names, too. Arabs and Russians. Middle-eastern and African, from countries and communities ripping themselves to shreds with corruption. Guan Shan didn’t know them, but he could remember them the same way he could remember a drink’s order for a group of Singaporean socialites.

‘Are the terms changing for the refinement project in Kazakhstan?’ asked Henry, the conversation moving on. The meeting was a delegation of bullet-points being marked swiftly off a checklist. ‘That deal took years of planning.’

An American, who She Li referred to as Peter, piped up. ‘We’ll act as contracted suppliers, not co-directors. It will be our last project without a direct hand in the operations.’

‘And what about—’

‘Where’s your lanyard?’

The question was so exact, so specific, that Guan Shan looked up.

She Li was looking at him. The champagne stems in Guan Shan’s hands threatened to snap.

She Li said, ‘I recognise you. Where’s your lanyard?’

Someone stood.

‘I must’ve lost it somewhere,’ Guan Shan said, his tongue woollen and thick. The noise in his head had gone blank, and there was a quiet fog inside his skull that he couldn’t pull through.

Cigarette, he thought. Every pair of eyes was on him. I want a cigarette.

‘Is he a spy?’ someone muttered.

‘No one would dare.’

‘We know who would.’

Shit.

‘Who hired you?’ She Li demanded.

Guan Shan swallowed. ‘Karmen Lu, Mr Li. The Catering Manager.’

She Li narrowed his eyes. ‘She wasn’t in charge of the attendants for this meeting. My assistant Arthur Song was.’

‘I—’

Behind Guan Shan, the door opened.

A severe-looking man in a three-piece suit rushed into the room, broad and all-muscle. Arthur. He leaned in to whisper something in She Li’s ear, and the whole room caught the words urgent and situation. The tension remained the same, but the attention was diverted. No one was watching Guan Shan.

He ran.

The door was still open from Arthur’s entrance, and Guan Shan smacked the bottle into Karmen’s hands as he sprinted through it. He’d only made a few strides before he heard She Li shout, ‘Someone get him!’

Guan Shan didn’t stop. A trio of waitresses exclaimed in shock as he dashed through the space between them, barely avoiding sending the full trays of food they were carrying to the floor, and he flung the apron around his waist onto the floor. His feet smacked hardwood beneath him as he rounded a corner. He had to get out of the corridor. Footsteps were pounding close behind him.

He launched himself at the next doorway, desperate for an escape. Jerked the door handle.

Locked.

Swearing to himself, Guan Shan pushed himself further down the corridor.

Another door—locked.

‘Fuck!’ he shouted desperately.

Locked, and locked, and locked, and then—

The sixth door gave way.

Guan Shan’s breath caught as he collided with another body behind the door, strong hands gripping his biceps to still his momentum. He barely had time to right himself before he was struggling away, the grip too much, panic worming its way into his chest like a jar of shaken fireflies, and he realised that the body was talking to him.

‘It’s me. Hey. Stop fucking struggling, would you? Fucking hell.’

Guan Shan sucked in a breath. ‘He Tian.’

He Tian rolled his eyes, tugged Guan Shan closer, and reached around to swing the door shut.

Over his shoulder, Guan Shan could see the inside of the room: a living room, about the size of Guan Shan’s apartment, finely furnished like an English home from the eighteenth century: pink and gold threads and gilded mirrors. Floral drapery and vases spilling with white carnations. A single tasseled lamp had been lit on a side table, a dome of gold light chasing away shadows, and moonlight spilled through the window overlooking the driveway. In the corner, a grandfather clock ticked away the seconds, and the silence was profound.

They were the only ones in the room.

Guan Shan looked at He Tian, looked away when his gaze met. He pressed himself back against the door, his ear to the wood, and he could hear voices raised in anger and growing closer. He heard door handles rattled and abandoned, and realised they were making their way down every door.

‘Lock it,’ Guan Shan hissed, looking back.

He Tian shrugged. ‘Don’t have the key.’

Guan Shan gritted his teeth. ‘Lock. It.’

Another rattle, closer this time. Guan Shan’s stomach swooped, and he whipped his head back to face He Tian, who only shrugged.

He was lying. The piece of dogshit was going to get them both caught.

‘I can distract them,’ said He Tian. ‘If you want.’

‘How?’ Guan Shan demanded. There was nowhere to hide, no connecting doorways or alcoves or cabinet big enough for Guan Shan to fold his wiry frame into. The door was going to open, and She Li’s men would find him, and no amount of money in the world was going to piece Guan Shan’s severed flesh back together.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall…

‘I could kiss you.’

Humpty Dumpty had a great—

‘What?’

He Tian looked at him. One door left. ‘You heard me.’

‘That’s—You—’ Guan Shan couldn’t breathe. The footsteps were seconds away. A hand on the door handle. Guan Shan’s hand wrapped around a fistful of He Tian’s jacket, and he tugged.

The door opened.

For a few seconds, nothing—only tobacco and mint julep and Indian sandalwood, and Guan Shan breathed it all down while He Tian’s lips pressed against his, while He Tian pressed a hand to the small of his back and hooked a thumb under Guan Shan’s jaw line and hid him from sight.  

‘Sorry…’ the intruder mumbled, breathing heavy, and Guan Shan heard the squeak of their shoes against the floorboards as they took a step back, and the door clicked shut.

Guan Shan kept his eyes shut. He let his mouth part. He Tian, crowding himself against Guan Shan, breathed him down.

‘Loyalty runs deeper than money ever can,’ He Tian told him while he drove. ‘Karmen. Arthur. Their families have worked with mine for more years than She Li’s given them paychecks.’

‘They made the distraction,’ Guan Shan said, pushing himself back into the heated seats of He Tian’s car. The night wasn’t cooler than any other, but he felt cold beneath his skin, and his hands were trembling.

‘Karmen said you were taking too long.’

Guan Shan swallowed this. He Tian hadn’t thrown him in like he’d thought; there had been forethought. Consideration. He Tian wasn’t going to let him drown.

Loyalty runs deeper than money.

Guan Shan ran his teeth over his low lip, and his heartbeat hitched at the taste. The kiss was still lingering. The ghost of He Tian’s hands on his skin, on the back of his neck, the palm on his stomach—it was still there.

He glanced at He Tian through the corner of his eye, street lights coasting past in a technicolour blur like a sunset on fast-forward.

‘Have you eaten?’ He Tian had asked earlier, swinging the loop of his car keys around his finger, gravel crunching under their feet as they snuck down the Li’s driveway towards his car. ‘Usually the staff can grab a few of the hors d'oeuvres.’

Guan Shan, dryly, had said, ‘I was a bit preoccupied for that.’

He Tian brought him to Holland Village, where He Tian ordered the menu from a quiet Lebanese place and smoked too many cigarettes, and now let Guan Shan direct him to a 24-hour bakery not far from Sentosa.

He Tian pulled up his Maserati in an open bay, late enough that the car park was mostly deserted, and Guan Shan trudged his way down a narrow walkway lit with string lights. He’d changed out of his clothes in the car, shrugged off the waiting suit for a pair of ripped jeans, loose t-shirt, and a pair of AF1s He Tian had produced from a paper bag in the back seat. Guan Shan had taken the clothes with a curse.

The bakery was manned by Hu Na when they arrived, a lanky, tired-looking teenager wearing a red velour pantsuit. Her parents were filling orders in the kitchen out back for all-night deliveries and international couriers and talking loudly in Hokkien through the doors, fast enough that Guan Shan could only pick out a scant few words.

‘What’s this place?’

Guan Shan glanced back at He Tian. He was staring at the glass counters with a wary curiosity, rows of rainbow-coloured biscuits and cakes on display beneath a fluorescent light, tortoise cake and rainbow lapis, almond cookies, coconut cake and bangkit cookies.

Guan Shan snorted, stepping up to the counter. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never had kueh,’ he remarked, and reeled off an order to Hu Na, who wrapped each dessert carefully in a layered box.

‘Make sure you save some for your Ah Ma,’ Hu Na told him diligently, familiar with his mother’s Sunday morning trips to the bakery before church.

‘Always do,’ Guan Shan said. He jerked his head towards the doors behind her. ‘They’ve still got you slavin’ here?’

Hu Na rolled her eyes and gave Guan Shan a receipt. ‘They pay me in CoCo bubble tea after school.’

‘Seems like a fair trade,’ He Tian remarked, handing over a few crisp bills.

Hu Na considered him, plucking out change from the till. ‘Haven’t seen you before.’

‘He’s not from around here,’ Guan Shan told her. He’s not like us.

Hu Na tightened the red bandana in her hair. ‘Hmph.’ Looks like it.

‘Do you take tips?’ He Tian asked smoothly, weighing the change in his hand, looking for a jar.

Hu Na put a hand on her hip. ‘Put it this way. The more you buy, the more I have a university fund.’

He Tian swept his gaze along the counter. ‘Do you take AmEx?’

‘I haven’t eaten some of this stuff before,’ He Tian admitted, after they’d stacked the boxes in the cramped spaces of his sportscar and found a jetty to dangle their legs over. The wires of the cable car criss-crossed over their heads towards the island, which was lit up like a carnival across the water, the Merlion a spec of purple neon light in the distance.

‘That’s hard to believe,’ Guan Shan said, breaking off a chunk of coconut cake. ‘You didn’t have this at New Year?’

He Tian shrugged. ‘I wasn’t allowed, or I wasn’t around for the holidays.’

Guan Shan frowned. ‘Why not?’ He knew about He Tian’s frequent absences from the city—knew how much he tried to break away from it if he could. Other than Zhan Zhengxi’s mention of He Tian’s family, he didn’t know why.

‘Things changed when my mother died,’ He Tian said. He inspected a piece of rainbow kueh lapis, and peeled the cake apart layer by layer. ‘Not that they were great anyway, but…’ He Tian snorted. ‘Anything was better than being home.’

‘Anything?’

‘Skiing, getting drunk, buying out a resort.’ He Tian rolled his eyes; the derision in his voice was all at him. ‘The Rockefeller or Paris or the Hamburg Markets. That was my Christmas. Buying out shit because I could. My father would try to get me to come home but usually he didn’t bother. He doesn’t care enough.’

Guan Shan realised what He Tian was saying: He Tian couldn’t spend enough money. He could have fucking burned it and his father wouldn’t have cared.

He Tian reached for an almond cookie. ‘These are good.’

Guan Shan scowled. ‘They’re my favourites. Don’t fuckin’ eat them all.’

‘I’ll buy you more next time.’

Guan Shan paused. ‘Next time?’ he asked, voice rough and wary. ‘I thought—’

‘That once you got the job done you’d be done and wouldn’t matter anymore?’

‘Like I even mattered in the first place.’

He Tian scoffed. ‘You’re really fucking stupid sometimes,’ he said. ‘Not that I’m not grateful for what you’ve done for me but… It’s not about the Li thing anymore.’

Guan Shan swallowed, wiped the crumbs on his fingers across his jeans. ‘You know they want you gone, right? They’re gonna wipe you out and take over the company.’

‘I know.’

‘And they’re gonna use your money to fund—’

‘I know.’

Guan Shan stared at him. ‘You know and you’re just gonna fuckin’—’

‘I don’t know,’ He Tian admitted. He dragged his nails along the back of his neck, hooked his palm over the top of his spine. ‘I need to make a case that’s convincing enough for my father to believe.’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’

‘Because I’ve tried to break away from the company since I was a kid. He’s got no reason to think I want what’s best for it now.’

‘And do you?’

‘Hardly. But I don’t want it to fall into the hands of the Li’s, either. It’s a mess.’ Around a mouthful of ang ku kueh, he said, ‘I’ve always been jealous of someone like Jian Yi. The idiot’s never had to follow the same conventions. Never had his life laid out for him. And Zhengxi, who always seems to know how to manage it.’ He Tian looked at Guan Shan. ‘I’m jealous of you, too.’

Guan Shan’s face screwed up. ‘Fuck off with that bullshit.’

He Tian shook his head, his smile faint. ‘You know… You know about small things. What they mean. You’ve got a family. You’re stronger than most people I know.’

Stronger? Guan Shan thought. He wore his vulnerability like a skin for everyone to see. The anger—that was all weakness.

‘There’s no pride in bein’ poor,’ Guan Shan told him, thinking about what Jian Yi had said before. About him liking it. Wanting it for the satisfaction of being able to wear hardship around his shoulders. Maybe he’d been right, but Guan Shan was right now, too. There wasn’t pride. But he wasn’t going to wear his shame either.

‘There’s no pride in being rich,’ said He Tian. ‘What’s prideful about having something so many people can’t?’

‘That’s the point. You can have anythin’ you want.’

‘Not everything,’ He Tian told him, looking at him.

Guan Shan shifted. The lights ahead of them seemed softer. Something was squirming inside his stomach, cold like breath mints and fast as the wind on a cliff edge. Uncertainty pulled his features into a frown, pinched and aching.

He didn’t like being looked at like that—he wasn’t what He Tian was seeing. He was a vanitas, those old Dutch paintings his mother used to drag him to see at museum exhibitions, the spec of rot on orange peel, the glimpse of mould spreading through a grape bunch. He Tian was walking past him too fast, seeing a full picture and no detail.

Guan Shan wanted him to run.

‘The things you can’t have,’ he said. ‘You think they’re worth workin’ for?’

He Tian put up the facade of considering this. ‘I think so. Maybe I’m not sure I’m worth them.’

Guan Shan shrugged, and looked away. Breath mints, coast wind, and a set of strings around his heart, corset-tight. ‘Guess you could try,’ he said.

He Tian’s eyes crinkled at the edges. ‘Guess I could.’