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Chapter Text

“Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it
                                                                                                     Jerusalem.
                               We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not
what we sought, so do it over, give me another version,”

—A Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out by Richard Siken

↻

(v.)

“You’ve been taking a lot of photos lately,” Cheng Xiaoshi interjects.

Lu Guang blinks. It takes a beat before he understands what Cheng Xiaoshi is talking about. Lately it’s been like this; a little lag in his synapses when information is passed from one end to another. Lu Guang is naturally perceived as thoughtful, so his silence before saying anything is often read as contemplative, but he knows what this really is. He takes a while to process things because his mind is slowing down, weighed down by the kind of semi-permanent weariness that can’t ever wane. Everything is comprehensible but fuzzy.

He glances down at the camera in his hands. Cheng Xiaoshi is right. He doesn’t know, suddenly, if this is normal. Perhaps not, given that Cheng Xiaoshi is pointing it out, though Lu Guang finally remembers why he’s been doing it. The more photos, the more times he can dive back. A precautionary measure. He’s known this fact for a while, but not exactly when he decided to carry this strategy out. Perhaps about two timelines ago. The details are somewhat hazy.

“Well, we are a photo studio,” he replies, because that’s what he said last time. Memories roll back in, at last, the progression of events that he’s memorized both from the painstakingly detailed notes he wrote in his notebooks in previous timelines and from living these days out himself. Cheng Xiaoshi would say, not that kind of photo studio. Lu Guang will let Cheng Xiaoshi get distracted by his own exasperation at his non-answers that he forgets to wheedle the truth out of him. Afterwards, Cheng Xiaoshi will get bored and ask Lu Guang to do something about his boredom. Lu Guang will not. Cheng Xiaoshi will resort to wasting the afternoon napping. Lu Guang will spend the time picking up a book he’s already read. He won’t think of the photos, doesn’t even know what they look like; it’s enough that they’re there, just as a backup. He won’t remember when he began seeing pictures as practical more than sentimental.

“You know we’re not really that kind of photo studio,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, sure enough. He makes a face. “I swear, Lu Guang, sometimes you’re so…”

Lu Guang drowns his voice out. He doesn’t remember when he started doing that either, when it became a thing he was even capable of. He always listens to Cheng Xiaoshi, even if he says the same things over and over, even if he says things Lu Guang doesn’t want to hear or doesn’t agree with. Cheng Xiaoshi talks and talks and Lu Guang always wants to drink his voice in. But recently something has shifted. He feels foreign in his own body.

↻

(ii.)

The first time he dives back, the second time Cheng Xiaoshi dies, Lu Guang lingers, even if he immediately contemplates going back. He’d been too impulsive coming back here, with no plan in sight, only desire—to see Cheng Xiaoshi once more, to make sure that he didn’t die that night—and recognized now the consequences of it.

He calls Qiao Ling to tell her. Qiao Ling is so devastated she goes into shock. The police put Lu Guang in a holding cell; they find it suspicious that he had installed security cameras and purchased a gun in the weeks leading up to the Vein’s break-in, as if he knew something would happen. Before he’d been arrested, he left Cheng Xiaoshi in the backroom and went upstairs. His phone was still on the call with Qiao Ling. She hadn’t hung up, though she said nothing. It was alright, Lu Guang thought. For once, he could do the talking for both of them.

“Qiao Ling,” he began. He opened a drawer filled with photos shoved inside. They were pictures Cheng Xiaoshi had taken across the years, though he never had the time to sort through them. Lu Guang remembered some of his own finding themselves wedged in between, a result of giving some photos to Cheng Xiaoshi when he asked for them because they were pretty. Lu Guang could still tap into his power, despite Cheng Xiaoshi transferring his ability to him. He searched for all the ones he took, cataloguing which one was from which time. “I’m sorry.”

Silence.

“I messed up,” he continued. “I wasn’t thinking, I just knew I had to come back, and it—” He let out a shaky breath. His fault. He had his chance to return and he squandered it with a kind of recklessness that was expected of Cheng Xiaoshi rather than him.

He’d been overcome with emotion the whole time he’d been back, a far cry from his usually composed nature. He pushed Cheng Xiaoshi away, unwilling to let him see like this, constantly on the verge of tears, the grief of knowing that Cheng Xiaoshi died clouding his vision, yet he hovered constantly. He yelled at Cheng Xiaoshi for every careless thing he did during a dive. He fought with him, more than he ever had before, and purposely drove Cheng Xiaoshi out of the studio in the hopes that when Vein broke in, he wouldn’t find Cheng Xiaoshi there. But then Cheng Xiaoshi came back, because he could not keep away, because he did not know, because he cared too much, and he died.

The last thing he asked Lu Guang was to not be mad at him anymore. The last thing Lu Guang had ever done for Cheng Xiaoshi was hurt him in his attempt to save him. So many thoughtless decisions on Lu Guang’s end. Now he knew better though, and he had another shot. “It’s going to be okay.”

“...what are you talking about,” Qiao Ling finally said. “Lu Guang, he’s gone. It’s over.”

“No,” Lu Guang said, voice thick. He could hear the cops clamoring by the entrance to the studio. He pocketed a photo. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

In the holding cell they had confiscated everything he owned but hadn’t noticed the photo. Hadn’t noticed the blood dripping from Lu Guang’s side, where skin and muscle used to be, Vein’s parting gift as he told Lu Guang this was what he deserved.

Lu Guang glances out the window, where past the bars he can see the night sky. He will not make it to the morning. He doesn’t want to.

The picture is creased by the edges when he takes it out. It’s an older photo, taken a little over a year ago. Cheng Xiaoshi isn’t smiling in this photo; he hadn’t noticed Lu Guang take it, far more preoccupied picking flowers for Qiao Ling’s birthday, but Lu Guang remembers that he did when his eyes eventually caught Lu Guang’s. He’d always been so unburdened by life, Lu Guang had thought then, in spite of everything he’d gone through, in spite of each life he experienced for every dive, in spite of all his empathy. He was easy to excite, calming to speak to, beautiful to look at. He was not broken down by the guilt of his actions, he was not ashamed of the weight of his emotions. He was everything Lu Guang wanted.

He had to protect that, Lu Guang thought then. He had to keep it alive.

He dives.

↻

(v.)

Lu Guang wakes up, and he feels very, very tired.

“Nightmare?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks, head peeking up to Lu Guang’s top bunk.

Consciousness comes to him in pieces. It’s very cold in the room, he thinks, even though their ceiling fan has been broken for quite a while. “Hmm?”

“You were saying something in your sleep,” Cheng Xiaoshi explains. “I didn’t catch exactly what, but you were whimpering.”

“I see.” He doesn’t have the energy to even feel mortified. Cheng Xiaoshi must notice, because his brows crease in concern. He doesn’t remember what nightmare it had been. He never really does, though it’s not hard to imagine what it might’ve been. “What time…”

“4AM. You’ve been asleep since 6PM. I think that’s the longest I’ve seen you down for the count.” Cheng Xiaoshi places his palm on Lu Guang’s forehead. “Are you—”

“I’m not,” Lu Guang replies. He doesn’t lean into Cheng Xiaoshi’s touch, though he desperately wants to, because Cheng Xiaoshi is warm and familiar and alive. “Just tired.”

“You slept for nearly half the day.” Cheng Xiaoshi sounds faintly amused, and smiles when Lu Guang only wrinkles his nose. Lu Guang waits for Cheng Xiaoshi to jump back down and return to his bunk, but he doesn’t.

“What?”

It’s still dark out. Cheng Xiaoshi hadn’t bothered with turning on a light, but Lu Guang can make out the brightness in Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes, the pensive look on his face. From their proximity, the closest he remembers them to be in quite some time, he notes how long Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyelashes are, how soft the baby strands of hair that fall across his face curl in. Lu Guang takes note of these little things about Cheng Xiaoshi every time, has yet to lose the sense of wonder he feels admiring his features, and he fears the day he will.

He closes his eyes. He needs to stop.

“Mind if I join?” Cheng Xiaoshi whispers.

“Yes. The top bunk will cave in if we’re both on it.”

He can hear the pout in Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice. “But I want to help.”

You always do. He is sick of playing this memory the same way every time. Sick of turning Cheng Xiaoshi away. Sick of sensing Cheng Xiaoshi’s mood drop at yet another failed attempt to reach out. Sick of pretending that he doesn’t want Cheng Xiaoshi to come closer, to lay with him on the bed, to rest his head on Cheng Xiaoshi’s chest and feel his heartbeat, the way he always does for Cheng Xiaoshi when he has a nightmare and needs reassurance that someone is there, that he’s not all alone.

Lu Guang doesn’t even know if doing something different will change anything significant. But he can’t risk it. He knows, even if he has never let it happen, what will transpire if he lets Cheng Xiaoshi in like this. He will understand that this is something more, will understand that Lu Guang is acknowledging that there is something more. Cheng Xiaoshi will ask for more, and Lu Guang will give it. They feel similar to nodes, moments like these, where something between them will fundamentally shift, borderline inevitables Lu Guang is not keen on starting because it means more unpredictable variables, more ways Cheng Xiaoshi can possibly die as if it isn’t always right before September 13, isn’t always at the studio, isn’t always by Vein’s hand.

He wants it to happen. He will not let it.

Lu Guang turns his back on him. It somehow makes it easier. “I’m okay.”

The finality in his tone is enough to dissuade Cheng Xiaoshi, like it does every time. Cheng Xiaoshi sighs, audibly deflating. “Fine,” he mutters. “Could I at least…?”

“At least?”

“...get you hot tea?” Cheng Xiaoshi finishes. “The specialty one Xu Shanshan bought us.”

“Sure,” Lu Guang relents, after a fabricated thoughtful pause. He listens to Cheng Xiaoshi jump off the bunk bed, footsteps thumping against the floor to make him tea, always eager to please.

Where it was once fresh, slightly sweet, a novelty drink meant to be enjoyed on rare occasions, now the tea only tastes nauseating, a product of Lu Guang having consumed it over countless lifetimes. Lu Guang drinks it down anyway.

↻

(iv.)

“Sometimes, I think we’d be better off if we switched abilities,” Cheng Xiaoshi muses. “You’d be more responsible. You wouldn’t mess up as much as I do.”

All Lu Guang does is make mistakes. He feels dizzy when his mind flits back to every time he’s dived back into the past, every time he’s run away from his future. He’s the epitome of irresponsibility. It’s surprising, really, how no one can see through this facade he has managed to build only because he knows the way things will unfold before they even happen.

You won’t believe it, but you’ve always been better than me with this, Lu Guang thinks. “You’d be a terrible guide,” he agrees instead.

↻

(v.)

In the darkroom everything is red.

“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi whispers, horrified. “It hurts, I’m not—”

“It’s okay,” Lu Guang reassures him, catching Cheng Xiaoshi right as he crumples to the floor. “You’re going to be okay. You won’t hurt for long. I’ll fix this.”

“How—” He cuts himself off, wincing. Lu Guang shushes him even though he doesn’t want Cheng Xiaoshi to stop talking, because if he stops talking it means there’s nothing left for either of them to say.

“Don’t,” Lu Guang says, despite himself. He cradles Cheng Xiaoshi against his chest, hands circling around his torso to press into the wound to ease the bleeding even if he knows it won’t work. Vein always hits an organ. There is never a world where he survives this. “Don’t strain yourself.”

“I don’t… want to go,” he trails off. “I don’t want to leave you…”

“Cheng Xiaoshi.” He has said this before. It always hurts, being reminded that Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t want this as much as Lu Guang doesn’t, that he doesn’t want to go the same way Lu Guang doesn’t want him to leave, but for the first time the grief in Lu Guang’s heart is diluted. He has lived this over and over. Devastating each time, but somehow, altered too. He’s gradually getting used to this, he realizes, and it scares him. This isn’t how it should be. “I’m sorry. You won’t. I’ll see you again. Promise.”

The gold flecks in Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes vanish.

↻

(i.)

From the single chair, Cheng Xiaoshi is staring at him. It’s the first time Lu Guang is letting him stay in the same room with him as he traces back the memories of a photograph, so he expects it, but what he doesn’t anticipate is how conscious he suddenly feels about it. No one looks at him the way Cheng Xiaoshi does, as much as he does—as if there’s something about Lu Guang that’s worth looking twice at and more.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Cheng Xiaoshi says immediately. “It’s just—your eyes.”

“What about them?”

“They turn blue when you’re using your ability,” Cheng Xiaoshi comments. “It’s a nice color. You’re very handsome.”

Lu Guang feels the tip of his ears turn red in embarrassment. People call him handsome all the time, and it never stirred any particular reaction from him. And yet, coming from Cheng Xiaoshi, he feels different. “I don’t get why you say these things, sometimes.” This is the first timeline, though Lu Guang doesn’t know it yet. Later on, when they will rehash this conversation, Cheng Xiaoshi will defend himself by saying he’s just messing with Lu Guang, that he likes the way it flusters him, because he’s normally so aloof. Lu Guang has no need to get so worked up; Cheng Xiaoshi is only joking.

But in this one, Cheng Xiaoshi responds, “It’s true. I like looking at you. In fact—” He stands up and dashes upstairs. When he returns, he’s holding an instant camera. Lu Guang reacts slowly, doesn’t realize what Cheng Xiaoshi has planned until he’s already done it, clicking the shutter and letting the lens brightly flash in front of Lu Guang’s eyes. “There!”

Lu Guang flinches, but Cheng Xiaoshi is beaming, satisfied with the polaroid when it slides out. He has a nice smile, Lu Guang observes, right before Cheng Xiaoshi plops himself beside Lu Guang on the couch. “Look.”

Cheng Xiaoshi holds out the polaroid. Lu Guang stares at his own face looking back at him, uncomprehending exactly what Cheng Xiaoshi is getting at. “It’s me.”

“It is,” Cheng Xiaoshi affirms. “It’s a really good shot of you, specifically.”

“Because you’re a good photographer?”

“I am.” Cheng Xiaoshi puffs his chest out in pride. “I mean, it’s true, but it’s not why I did that. This is how I see you. Photography is cool like that, isn’t it? It immortalizes something. It can show other people how the photographer looks at things. What he finds special. What he finds worth looking at. What he wants to keep forever.”

Lu Guang knows this. He knows what Cheng Xiaoshi means. In each photograph there are sets of memories created and felt by people with such distinct lives and Lu Guang sees it all, understands how precious it all is. But Lu Guang thinks Cheng Xiaoshi gives him too much credit. He makes him sound remarkable, yet when Lu Guang looks at the photo, all he sees is himself in all his ordinariness.

Still, he understands this to be an admission of some kind, and understands just as well that Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t know what he’s admitting to. It’s clear in his eyes. They are sincere, yet not self-aware. They are also nice to look at. Lu Guang thinks he could look at Cheng Xiaoshi forever, could immortalize him in his mind and never forget, kept like a treasured memory. This, too, is an admission. One that Lu Guang does not have the courage to voice out. He is different from Cheng Xiaoshi in this way. He always holds back.

“Idiot,” Lu Guang says, though he doesn’t answer Cheng Xiaoshi when he whines asking why he’s an idiot. “Let’s focus. I figured out what this man needs from us.”

“Oh, right!”

They don’t talk about it afterwards. In this timeline, they never get to actually say it. They never say it in the subsequent ones either. Lu Guang will not remember this conversation, but will carry it with him in the next lives, a sense of certainty for how he feels for Cheng Xiaoshi and an understanding that Cheng Xiaoshi reciprocates.

It is not enough to change anything between them. Lu Guang is a coward on every front. He always feels like he has too much to lose, despite repeatedly losing everything.

↻

(iii.)

The rain subsided a few hours ago, troublesome to walk in to buy boba, but dismissable, all things considered, lasting briefly, perhaps half an hour, meaning Lu Guang’s errand had been ill-timed more than anything. He finds Cheng Xiaoshi’s drink half-finished on the counter, likely forgetting about it in the midst of their discussion about the dive he had to take. Over there, years back, it’s a sunny place. Lu Guang places Cheng Xiaoshi’s drink in the refrigerator as his mind goes to where Cheng Xiaoshi is, trying to track Doudou’s last whereabouts before he vanished.

The boba had been a truce but not a resolution. They have yet to speak about it. Lu Guang knows he should say something, but for some reason, words fail him. He remembers more of their failure of a chase for Doudou and his kidnapper than anything he might have said.

Cheng Xiaoshi is saying something Lu Guang only partially registers, though he responds instinctively as he rummages through the shelves where he had stacked his books when he moved in. He’d taken on the habit of writing down things in notebooks, especially on the restless nights when he can’t sleep but is soothed by the loud snoring coming from Cheng Xiaoshi’s bunk. The notebooks, having grown into thick volumes of never-ending thought, are hidden with book sleeves of titles Cheng Xiaoshi would never touch, a layer of deception Lu Guang only feels marginally guilty about. He writes in painstaking detail about everything he remembers about the past timelines in the hopes of recreating them perfectly here, but there are inevitable patches missing as a result of not giving it much thought previously and the normal limits of the human mind. No matter. If things work out this time, then it doesn’t matter. And if it doesn’t, then he knows what he should do next, what he should’ve paid more attention to. In this timeline, he observes just as much as he copies.

When Cheng Xiaoshi is not with him, Lu Guang spends a lot of his time going through old photos to recall memories. There is not much from his own pile, but plenty from Cheng Xiaoshi, especially from the point on where they met, which is all Lu Guang needs.

It doesn’t feel like the invasion of privacy that it actually is, dipping into his memories, seeing his subjective perception of interactions that Lu Guang was part of and remembers differently. Lu Guang already knows all this about Cheng Xiaoshi.

He flips through the pages, finds what he’s looking for. It’s not much, but it’s enough.

“Do you know why I decided we should still take that earthquake mission?” Lu Guang begins. Cheng Xiaoshi says nothing, but Lu Guang can hear the sudden hitch in his breath, as if he’s standing right beside him. “I knew those words wouldn’t change their fate. But they could comfort the painful memories of the living.”

“Is that all it can ever be?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks, after a pause. “Is that really all we can amount to?”

It's grounding, to an extent, to have these entries. They tell Lu Guang what to say, keep him accountable on what to expect. But there is always slight variation; inevitably, not everything can be perfectly reenacted. He hasn't figured that part out yet.

Lu Guang doesn’t remember this to be part of the script. If it was, he has no recollection of how he replied. He turns to the first page of the notebook. This had not been from any memory in particular he made after meeting Cheng Xiaoshi, or at least one he remembered. Any memories before Cheng Xiaoshi, he had deemed early on, were not worth documenting, because it had nothing to do with keeping him alive. Yet he had written this one down regardless. Perhaps as a reminder.

“Someone once told me to think of life like a story, one that’s already been written down,” Lu Guang answers. “And we have the ability to access the stories in ways no one else can, but it’s not to edit things out. It’s not to change things. We have them so we can read the story, and so we can understand it. So we can help other people make sense of it, and come to terms with it.”

The disbelief in Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice rises like a tide, washing over Lu Guang. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“I don’t,” he says. “But we both know I’m right, so you’re not going to do anything.”

Cheng Xiaoshi clicks his tongue, but he doesn’t protest. Doesn’t say Lu Guang is wrong. “Who told you that anyway?”

“I don’t remember, actually,” Lu Guang says. “But they were wise.”

They looked familiar, he doesn’t say. He has no proof of this. Has no photo to return to. Just his memory, vivid but deceptive, as it always is in one’s own mind. They had your eyes.

↻

(iv.)

There's a pocket of space in between the time of autumn and winter that is Lu Guang’s favorite season. There is a promise of snowfall, but the sky says otherwise, clear as it can be. The air is chilly enough that they can see puffs of their breath when they exhale. Lu Guang has bundled himself up moderately even though he isn’t that bothered by the weather. In contrast, Cheng Xiaoshi is determined to wear as few layers as possible despite being more sensitive to the cold. It restricts his movement, he reasons. That’s why he’s in shorts that barely make it past his knees.

“Especially for what we’re doing,” he insists. “Lu Guang, you can’t expect to go biking if you’re dressed like a snowball.”

“I’m not,” he points out. “And we didn’t have to do this today, you know.”

“But I want to do this today,” Cheng Xiaoshi points out. “I still find it hard to believe that you don’t know how to bike. How come I never noticed this before?”

“We don’t exactly go biking.”

“Hmm. But when we were with Xia Fei—”

“You were the one biking. And you fell too. Are you sure you know how to bike?”

“Of course I do!” Cheng Xiaoshi exclaims, affronted. “Look, I’ll prove it. Watch me!”

Like he always does, Lu Guang listens, compelled to do nothing else. He watches Cheng Xiaoshi hoist himself on the bicycle they rented for the day. Cheng Xiaoshi rubs his hands together, as if to warm himself up, before pedaling down the path of the park they’d been walking along. In his excitement to show off he’d forgotten that the reason they were doing this was for Lu Guang’s sake, to immediately rectify what Cheng Xiaoshi thought to be the serious problem of Lu Guang not knowing how to bike.

“Cheng Xiaoshi,” he calls out, watching Cheng Xiaoshi go farther and farther away than his legs can keep up with. “Don’t go too far.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Cheng Xiaoshi shouts. He turns around, pedaling back to Lu Guang smoothly. He moves confidently. There's a faint redness across his face from the rush of air, perhaps, or the exhilaration of moving fast. “So, impressed yet?”

“You were alright.”

“Good enough,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “I’m sure this will be easy. I bet you even biked before and just forgot about it! And this is the kind of thing you don't ever really unlearn, so you'll be fine.”

In reality, Lu Guang knows how to bike. He’s relived this memory, so the purpose of this endeavor has been rendered pointless, but it’s his favorite memory. It helps, too, that though he knows because he’s done it before, it’s his body’s first time, so his movements are clumsy. He wobbles when he places himself on the bike, and Cheng Xiaoshi, like he always does, steadies him with one hand on his waist and another on his arm. “Okay, now put your feet on the pedals, and your hands on the handbars. Straighten your posture.”

“I know how this works.”

“I thought that it’d be more soothing for you if I walked you through the process step by step,” Cheng Xiaoshi reasons. “I mean, that’s how you are with me and it helps.”

Lu Guang likes the way Cheng Xiaosh’s hand curls around his waist. Even the one gently gripping his arm feels strangely intimate. For all his touchiness, Cheng Xiaoshi rarely holds him like he wants to keep him anchored.

“What will happen is that you need to lean forward and begin pushing the pedals. Keep your grip on the handlebars secure so you won’t end up wobbling. Momentum is the hardest part about biking, I think, so I’ll help you build that and then it’ll be your job to maintain it.”

“So you’ll start something, and I’ll finish it.”

“Well, you don’t need to make it sound like a personal dig at me…” Cheng Xiaoshi grumbles.

Lu Guang is grateful his back is turned to him; it makes it easier to hide his smile.

The first time they do it, Cheng Xiaoshi lets go too early. Lu Guang falters, loses balance, and falls off the bike. It’s always natural, because despite understanding the technique, despite having done this before, his body experiences it anew each and every time, so he needs to get accustomed to the new task, needs to give himself time to adjust. Cheng Xiaoshi rushes to help him. “Should we have gotten you kneepads?”

“Don’t be an idiot. It’s not that bad.” Lu Guang pats his knees for good measure, wiping off the specks of dirt that have clung to his slacks. A part of him wishes he’d worn shorts, despite the impracticality of it given the season. “We should’ve done this in the summer.”

“That’s exactly why we should do this now. So that when summer rolls around, we can all do it together.”

He doesn’t remember exactly how many times it took them to get it right before, but in this life, it takes four tries. Holding the rear carrier, Cheng Xiaoshi pushes Lu Guang forward as Lu Guang begins to pedal, building enough momentum until Lu Guang can confidently keep it while maintaining balance on the bike. Whenever Cheng Xiaoshi lets go, Lu Guang doesn’t bike for long, stopping himself a few seconds later, but Cheng Xiaoshi is encouraging anyway, says to do it in increments, a bit longer each time.

“Is this a confidence thing Or a trust thing? Or are you nervous?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks in quick succession. He doesn't wait for Lu Guang to reply. “Because I’ll be right behind you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Lu Guang doesn’t doubt that. He remembers how he marveled at it the first time they did this; to be able to rely on Cheng Xiaoshi like this in a way he never had before because he never needed it. There was not much Cheng Xiaoshi could do that Lu Guang couldn’t, even if the former was always better at it. He did not really need this either, but Cheng Xiaoshi seemed to—this idea that he could be the supporting pillar for Lu Guang rather than the other way around, and in a rare display, perhaps a moment of weakness, Lu Guang allowed him, and he liked it. There’s a sense of reassurance he feels knowing Cheng Xiaoshi is right beside him, pushing him forward, so when he lets go, Lu Guang finds himself stopping. He doesn’t want to be apart from him for long. But that’s not the point of this exercise. The point is to be able to do it on his own.

He says none of this. “You’re taking this too seriously. It’s just biking.”

Cheng Xiaoshi gives him a funny look. “I feel like you’ve said something like that before.”

“Whatever.” Lu Guang looks away. “Let’s just do this again.”

“Okay, but,” Cheng Xiaoshi begins. “Go far, okay? Don’t think of me.”

Lu Guang doesn’t even grace that with a response. He mounts himself back on the bicycle and says, “Just get on it.”

The path has been cleared for them for the day. Certainly not intentional, but it’s one of those things that don’t change even with the timelines resetting. With other memories, it fluctuates slightly. There would be more people when there used to be less, few people when there used to be many, no one when there was meant to be a plethora. Miniscule changes that don’t affect anything fundamentally, but somehow Lu Guang finds this one striking, the consistency of it. It’s always just them, at the end of the day.

“Go!” Cheng Xiaoshi says, pushing Lu Guang forward the moment he rests his feet on the pedal. Lu Guang immediately moves. Cheng Xiaoshi is faster this time, forcing Lu Guang to pedal harder than he had before. The thoughts that always cloud his mind begin to wash away in lieu of his need to focus on the goal at hand, to take stock of his own body, the wind against his face, the tight grip of his hands on the bars trying to keep him straight, the movement of his legs pedaling forward on instinct rather than effort.

Cheng Xiaoshi lets go, and Lu Guang feels the loss of his presence, but he doesn’t stop. At some point, he stops pedaling so fast and relaxes his hold, and the bicycle continues gliding forward. The loss of control should scare him, but instead he finds himself breathing easier. He suspends himself in this weightless moment of what can only be freedom, if only for a moment, before he can sense that he needs to build the momentum back, and pushes the pedal once again, slower and more purposeful this time.

“Lu Guang! Lu Guang!” Cheng Xiaoshi shouts from afar, overjoyed. “Lu Guang! You did it!” His voice grows louder with each time he calls Lu Guang’s name, and Lu Guang stops, pulling on the brake and setting his foot down. He glances back just in time for Cheng Xiaoshi to come barreling towards him, knocking Lu Guang off the bike and sending both of them tumbling to the ground. The bicycle makes a clattering sound as it falls over.

“Ow,” Lu Guang winces.

“Sorry,” Cheng Xiaoshi replies, but his voice is full of mirth. “I got too excited.”

Lu Guang blinks, resisting the urge to shift with Cheng Xiaoshi’s weight on top of him. The faint scent of cologne Cheng Xiaoshi uses wafts around him, the radiance of his smile and how it reaches his eyes is as clear as the sky. His face is colored in delight. Even through the fabric of their clothes, Lu Guang can feel how cold to the touch Cheng Xiaoshi is from the weather, but Lu Guang is warm all over. He can’t help the way he hears his heart thump tremendously loud in his own ears, the swell of emotion bursting in his gut, overcome with his own affection, his endearment of Cheng Xiaoshi’s entirety.

“That was amazing,” Cheng Xiaoshi whispers in awe. “You didn’t look back once.”

I’m in love with you, Lu Guang thinks.

Cheng Xiaoshi pulls away. Lu Guang’s body doesn’t quite chase him, but it’s a near thing. He sits up as well, watching Cheng Xiaoshi stand up before offering his hand out to Lu Guang.

I’m in love with you, Lu Guang thinks once more, unfailingly, like each and every time before, and each and every time moving forward, as he accepts Cheng Xiaoshi’s hand and lets him pull him up effortlessly.

But he knows, at this very second, as Cheng Xiaoshi lets go of his hand and turns away, something has slipped from his grasp; the sentiment, though unwavering, has lost its stronghold. The feelings, though present, are not as overwhelming as they once were. He understands the way they’ve been tainted by the knowledge of what’s to come, and how it will repeat, and how it never ends, because he changes nothing even though he wants to—wishes he’d grabbed Cheng Xiaoshi in that moment by the collar, wishes he had pulled him to him, wishes he had kissed him.

He doesn’t. He never has. He lets the moment unravel the way it always has. He plays it safe, even if it feels like he’s begun treading in more dangerous water.

Memory is a fragile thing. That’s something Lu Guang has learned from flipping through photos, sifting through memories, living through timelines. He can never perfectly recreate a scene, but he can do something so close it might as well be a replica. And still, the act of revisiting something over and over wears the memory down, like a photo print fading from constantly touching it. Truth will fracture, emotion will numb. If he keeps this up, it won't mean anything anymore.

As Cheng Xiaoshi picks the bicycle back upright, Lu Guang squeezes his own arm tightly, trying to ground himself. He never wants to look at Cheng Xiaoshi and feel nothing.

↻

(i.)

“This is your punishment for changing the past,” Vein told Cheng Xiaoshi once.

↻

(v.)

Lu Guang has always been particular about following things to the letter. Even his rule to Cheng Xiaoshi to let things be, to not change the past when he dives, is to stay true to the history that’s already been written in a timeline only he remembers.

He used to think—and had believed it for so long—that the more loyal he stayed to what occurred in the past, the easier it would be to alter the future. He would keep everything the same as much as he could, except just one thing. Except the end, where Cheng Xiaoshi ends. It was if he was negotiating with the universe; a promise to keep everything intact, in exchange for one thing done differently.

But it occurs to him, at some point—the fifth dive back in time, though he will no longer remember, at this point—the futility of this strategy. The futility of it all. Cheng Xiaoshi’s head rests on his lap, Cheng Xiaoshi’s body cradles against his chest, Cheng Xiaoshi’s hand grips his own, and he’s always in pain, always bloody, always leaving Lu Guang alone with nothing but his power and the memory of being unable to save him every time September 13 approaches.

Everything begins to feel like clockwork. Cheng Xiaoshi gets shot, Cheng Xiaoshi gives Lu Guang his ability, Cheng Xiaoshi dies. Lu Guang finds a photo to dive back into, Lu Guang doesn’t change the past except in all the areas he’s pinpointed to be related to Cheng Xiaoshi’s eventual demise, Lu Guang still fails to save Cheng Xiaoshi. Then it repeats, a cycle.

Factors that he tries to change that have proved pointless: the library photo. Meeting Vein. Emma’s fate. Their police involvement. Cheng Xiaoshi will always find that picture, no matter where Lu Guang tries to hide it. If Lu Guang finds a way to stop Cheng Xiaoshi from going to Bridon, somehow Vein will find them instead. Cheng Xiaoshi will always get to know Emma one way or another, whether in-person or as through the dive, and she’ll always die. The police will always ask for their help, and Cheng Xiaoshi will agree even if it means going behind Lu Guang’s back. Cheng Xiaoshi will always get shot short of September 13. Lu Guang already knows everything.

The knowledge of what would happen next has been a comfort Lu Guang clung onto for so long, but now it’s grown to become a bane. He knows, and it doesn’t change anything. Part of him misses living a life where he didn’t know what would happen next, comforted by the knowledge that whatever it may be, it would not be a bad thing. He wonders if a life like that is still possible.

For all that he keeps track of his watch in every dive, he doesn’t let himself think about how long he’s been doing this. Five timelines, lasting from a few months to years. Somehow, it is possible to feel more than a decade older yet remain none the wiser.

And still, there has to be a way, he thinks to himself, pulling a book by the bottom shelf. He can’t climb any higher; can’t even stand. Vein shot his leg twice then left before the police would come, confident that the blood loss would get to Lu Guang before a paramedic would, and Lu Guang could do nothing but drag himself up the stairs to the bedroom, leaving a trail of blood. Vein never kills him outright, Lu Guang notices, but always slowly. He pulls out a picture he knows is there between the pages. There’s at least a couple in each book he brought over to the apartment when he moved in. Contingencies he’s made. He’s done this so many times already. His mind has frayed as a result of it.

It changes nothing, nothing about what he will do next. He will still dive, and he will still try. But he considers, for the first time, he can’t keep on doing this. That maybe, he tries doing it completely differently. Considers risking everything this time. If none of the major factors make a difference, what does it matter if he upends everything instead? What does he have to lose, when he has lost Cheng Xiaoshi so many times already?

He hopes he can cling onto this resolve. He claps his hands together.

↻

(vi.)

He goes back to the court. The ball slams into his face. He falls to the ground.

Footsteps dashing to his side, protest and arguments coming from different voices—it’s all noisy. Lu Guang opens his eyes and the first thing he sees is Cheng Xiaoshi. His face is bruised and his hair is matted with blood and there is red splattered all over with clothes. Lu Guang flinches, blinks again, and the image is gone. Cheng Xiaoshi is two years younger, dressed in their uniform, and is very much alive.

“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

Lu Guang sits up. “I’m fine.”

He touches his nose, remembering the nosebleed he had then and has now. It’s a comfort, despite how it still hurts every time. At least it’s his blood.

“Are you sure?” Cheng Xiaoshi stands up. “I can go to the infirmary—”

“No, don’t.” Lu Guang reaches out and grasps Cheng Xiaoshi’s wrist. “I’m fine.”

Cheng Xiaoshi looks at him, searching for something in Lu Guang’s face. Lu Guang doesn’t know what that is, but reluctantly, he lets him go. “If you’re sure,” Cheng Xiaoshi finally says. He walks to where the camera had been tossed aside and picks it up, brushing off the dirt before returning to Lu Guang. “You’re a new student at Guidu too, aren’t you? I live in Hero Studio nearby. If your camera has issues, just go to me. I’ll fix it.”

They play basketball. When they play as teammates, they’re unstoppable, and when it’s just the two of them, the only ones with enough energy to continue playing when the rest of Cheng Xiaoshi’s friends decide to call it quits for the day, Cheng Xiaoshi beats him easily.

He has never returned to this memory before; it’s too far back. A picture can only be returned once—this doesn’t change even with each instance he dives, as if the photograph remembers things that the rest of the world has forgotten—and he doesn’t have much from this time. He doesn’t even remember why he decided to bring his camera on this day.

It’s just as well. There is something sacred about this moment, more than others, that he doesn’t want to lose by repeatedly revisiting. Their first meeting.

He frowns. The thought, for some reason, doesn’t feel right.

“Hey,” he says. “We’ve never met before, right?”

Lu Guang has never asked this before, and it feels daunting, the knowledge that he has purposefully put himself in a situation that he cannot predict. But this is what he resolved to do before he jumped, he reminds himself.

“Hmm. I don’t think so,” Cheng Xiaoshi replies, sounding more thoughtful than suspicious of the suddenness of Lu Guang’s question. They sit on the bench, cooling down. He wags his half-empty water bottle to Lu Guang. “I would remember someone like you. Though I will admit, I don’t remember a lot about the past, especially when my parents were still around.”

Lu Guang’s hand is cold and wet from the condensation from the iced water bottle he’d been given for his nose. His face is numb. “Were you close with them?”

“Yeah,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “In fact, when they left, I was so angry. They didn’t even tell me why, so I took it so personally. But I missed them so much. Still do, actually. So that makes it all kind of ironic, right? I miss them, and I remember we were close, but that’s about it… I guess I’d remember if they gave me something to work with, but I’ve lived more years without them here than with them, so…” he trails off, suddenly looking sheepish. “Sorry. That was a lot to spring on you.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I get why you’d think if we met before though,” he adds. “You’re kind of easy to talk to. I feel like I can trust you. We had a good game today, didn’t we? I don’t think I’ve ever played with anyone like that before.”

“It was a good game,” Lu Guang agrees, but even with the answer, he feels slightly unsettled. He thought that the indescribable familiarity of Cheng Xiaoshi’s presence was something else, unidentifiable but simpler, coming from a time before their lives had turned out the way they did; not simply a result of everything Lu Guang has lived through, the truth that Lu Guang does know Cheng Xiaoshi, longer than the him in this timeline should. He supposes he wouldn’t know. Lu Guang, to a degree, is the same as Cheng Xiaoshi. He doesn’t remember much of his own past, anything before Cheng Xiaoshi. This, Lu Guang knows for certain, is the product of all the dives. It’s as if his life began the moment Cheng Xiaoshi came into his life.

“Unless,” Cheng Xiaoshi starts. “Was that meant to be a pickup line? Like a ‘did we meet before? Because I swear I’d never forget a face like yours’ kind of thing?”

“I—no,” Lu Guang stammers, caught off guard by Cheng Xiaoshi’s comment. “That’s not—I wasn’t—”

“Oh, I know,” Cheng Xiaoshi replies, grinning, taking pity at the way Lu Guang flounders. He gestures at Lu Guang’s face. “I just said that for the look on your face. It was pretty cute, you know.”

Lu Guang scowls, but the embarrassment hasn’t flushed down from his face yet. “Now who’s the one flirting.”

But Cheng Xiaoshi laughs, and he laughs, and when it grows dark, and they finally part ways, the sound still rings in Lu Guang’s ears like a melody.

↻

He still has nightmares. Those don't subside even with the passage of time. They’re the worst the first few weeks after a dive, but fortunately, in this life, he spends those nights alone in the dorms, waking up to his harsh breathing and the soothing sound of the ceiling fan spinning above him, his single room suddenly a too-large space of emptiness, the windows pulled too tightly closed, the loneliness suffocating. Different from before, where Cheng Xiaoshi would be there for every nightmare, looking at him with concern when he half-climbs to him or snoring soundly below, reminding Lu Guang just by his presence alone that it isn’t real, at least not right now.

When Lu Guang moves in, he takes the top bunk. Nightmares have never been the kind of thing he can map out, despite all his dives, nor have they grown into something he can be numb to. Some things he’s learned that are within his control, at the very least: trashing in his sleep shakes the frame and wakes Cheng Xiaoshi up, so Lu Guang purposefully weans off any caffeine by the afternoon and tires himself out by staying up later than he normally does so his body shuts down when he’s asleep even if his mind is active.

If Cheng Xiaoshi thinks it’s strange that Lu Guang insists on doing things late in the evening despite being clearly tired, he doesn’t mention it. To an extent, Cheng Xiaoshi does understand. When he dives, the memories of the people he’s embodied linger, so he dreams of them, and most are bittersweet. Sometimes Lu Guang wonders if that’s what makes Cheng Xiaoshi so empathetic, and him so selfish—he’s only ever dived into his own body, his own past, and no one else. If he did, he’d have to acknowledge the consequences of his actions, the lives he’s changed every time he dived, and it would make him hesitate. And he can’t. There’s no going back. He doesn’t want to.

His nightmare is new, the way they’re always new and yet still about the same thing: falling into a lake and forced to swim deeper and deeper. Photographs float around him, glimpses of every life he’s lived, every action he’s ever done, every sunset he’s witnessed with Cheng Xiaoshi beside him, every sunrise he never lets himself see because Cheng Xiaoshi is gone. He ignores them all, diving deeper and deeper, looking for something that will change everything. A photograph, the very one. He doesn’t know why, but he feels it, deep in his gut, that the answer is there, and it lies in a memory.

Yet the only memory that awaits him as he reaches the bottom is Cheng Xiaoshi, lying in a pool of his own blood. “Cheng Xiaoshi,” Lu Guang gasps, but then the water rushes into his mouth, filling his throat and lungs and he can’t breathe and his consciousness begins blinking away. He flails, still trying to reach for Cheng Xiaoshi, who is so close, who can still be saved if Lu Guang can reach him, can go back in time, can just hold him—

“Lu Guang,” someone says, and Lu Guang wakes up with a choked gasp. “Lu Guang.”

The voice is gentle despite the violence of his return back to the world. Typical of Cheng Xiaoshi, Lu Guang muses. He always does something unexpected, always catching Lu Guang off guard, right when he thinks he's got him completely figured out.

“Nightmare?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks from the bunk below.

“Yeah,” Lu Guang says, his heart is pounding loud in his ears. He waits for the fearful feeling wrapped around his chest to subside, directs his attention to the ceiling fan above them. Still broken. “What time is it?”

“4AM. You’ve been asleep since 6PM. I think that’s the longest I’ve seen you down for the count. Do you feel sick?”

“Just tired,” Lu Guang admits. He heard rustling from underneath, and then the shift of weight on the frame as Cheng Xiaoshi plants his feet at the edge of his mattress to glance over at Lu Guang. “What?”

“Mind if I join?”

“The top bunk will cave in if we’re both on it.”

“It won't.”

There's something in the finality of Cheng Xiaoshi’s tone that makes Lu Guang decide to pivot. He doesn't want to deny him. “Okay,” he says.

He moves closer to the edge as Cheng Xiaoshi jumps down to climb up with the ladder, setting aside space for him by the wall so there's minimal risk of him falling over. Cheng Xiaoshi crawls inside, flopping carelessly beside him with a thump. The bed creaks. Lu Guang winces. But Cheng Xiaoshi looks awfully pleased, and the sight settles itself well in Lu Guang’s gut. They don't really have moments like this. Lu Guang doesn't let him get close. There’s no script on what to do here, nothing to guide him but this pang of want, familiar with how he’s kept it at bay all this time, finally letting it slip out.

“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, as if reading his mind. “Come here.”

Lu Guang shuffles closer. Cheng Xiaoshi wraps his arms around Lu Guang’s torso and pulls him towards him with a kind of effortless strength Lu Guang will never get used to. Cheng Xiaoshi tucks his head against Lu Guang’s chest, right over his beating heart. “You have a slow heartbeat,” Cheng Xiaoshi comments.

His hair tickles Lu Guang’s chin, but Lu Guang doesn’t move away. He slips one arm under Cheng Xiaoshi and rests his other hand on the back of his neck. “That’s normal.”

Cheng Xiaoshi hums. “Have we ever done this before?” he asks. “It feels like we have.”

Not in this life, no, and not in most lives. But perhaps once, twice, infrequent enough that Lu Guang can count it on one hand, they found themselves like this, curled against each other, unwilling to part. When they were both hospitalized, Lu Guang would sneak over to Cheng Xiaoshi’s room just to remind himself that he was still there, and every time, Cheng Xiaoshi woke up just in time to see him looming over him. Come here, he said. You’re injured also. And in those moments Lu Guang was too tired to protest, so they slotted themselves awkwardly in the single bed, barely grazing each other’s slowly healing injuries, sharing body heat in an already warm room, remembering that what happened had finally passed, and it was just them now.

“You’re probably just imagining things,” he says, because that was in another time. In this one, Cheng Xiaoshi managed to convince the nurses to let them share the same room, and it was much better than walking down the hall to find him, but the three feet distance between their beds felt wider than ever. In this life, Lu Guang could only ever glance at Cheng Xiaoshi’s sleeping frame to remember that they made it through this. He didn’t go any closer. He didn’t think he had any good reason to. “Maybe in a dream.”

“Implying that I dream about you, Lu Guang?” Cheng Xiaoshi teases.

Lu Guang gently combs through Cheng Xiaoshi’s curls. Thick and soft under his touch, slightly damp still, though his shower was likely hours ago. Cheng Xiaoshi sighs into his chest. It would be too easy to kiss him like this, to get away with it; Cheng Xiaoshi probably wouldn’t even feel it. “Your words, not mine.”

“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi starts, with that lilt in his voice that Lu Guang has come to associate with Cheng Xiaoshi, because he’s the only one who says his name like that. Like it’s something delicate. “Do you want to stay in for the day?”

“Why?”

“So you can sleep a bit more, if you’re feeling up for it,” he says. “And also—I kind of like it here. I don’t really want to get up. I don’t remember the last time I’ve been held like this. Maybe when I was a kid.”

In his mind, Lu Guang watches the way the path opens before him. A slightly changed scene, yet leaving him with the room to keep things the same. Say no. Let this end. They are close in every timeline, but never this close. Lu Guang always loves him from a distance, and he’s always believed that is what has let him get this far.

How much does he allow himself to change without creating a new node. How much of it should even matter, when there is just one node he’s here to prevent, and he has never managed to stop it by playing it safe. He wonders if they were doomed to begin with the moment he dived back, wonders if all his efforts before and particularities about the rules were pointless because he was choosing to play a different game in the first place.

“Lu Guang?” Cheng Xiaoshi whispers. “Did you fall asleep?”

“Yes,” Lu Guang answers, fully awake. Cheng Xiaoshi laughs, a softer sound than it usually is, vibrating against Lu Guang’s chest. Without realizing it, Lu Guang’s arms tighten around Cheng Xiaoshi, though his movements are absentmindedly gentle.

Despite it all, Lu Guang doesn’t say anything more. Doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t sleep. He listens to the sound of Cheng Xiaoshi’s steady breathing, the grounding presence of his body wrapped around him, and he doesn’t let himself think, for once.

Chapter Text

(vi.)

Over time, Lu Guang becomes less strict about the jobs they agree to do. He doesn't protest as much when there's a particular request that is too challenging, too emotionally burdensome, especially if Cheng Xiaoshi still wants to do it. Cheng Xiaoshi questions it once, noticing the lack of reluctance in Lu Guang when Qiao Ling comes into the shop and asks if things are possible. Lu Guang’s only response is, “I trust you.”

And he does. He doesn't know why, exactly, he's become so sure of this fact. Can't pinpoint an exact reason, especially not given their circumstances, what had just happened, when Cheng Xiaoshi getting shot has made him feel all the more cagey and protective. It's not like him to rely on a feeling, but here he is anyway.

A client comes to the studio asking if they can go back in time to help her remember the last wishes of her friend before she’d been killed. She died three years ago, and the client finds it hard to move on with her life when she’s plagued by the fact that she hadn’t been able to do the one thing her friend asked her for, too emotional in the moment because of something else she didn’t recall, only that it made her unable to properly listen. It’s one of those cases that Lu Guang is naturally avoidant of—not just for Cheng Xiaoshi’s sake, but even for his own, the way it asks him to confront his decisions and circumstances outside of his point of view, because he’s not the only person to have lost someone; he’s the only person who has the power to do something about it.

But for once, his attention doesn’t drift there. All he can think about is what she would do, if she were in his place. If she could do what he could do. If she would do it differently.

Cheng Xiaoshi dives. He’s more subdued than usual, less chatty and more focused on the job in a way that would alarm Lu Guang, because he isn’t like this for their other jobs, but Lu Guang notices now, the difference between a Cheng Xiaoshi who is quiet because he’s nervous, and a Cheng Xiaoshi who is quiet because he is pensive. Now Cheng Xiaoshi is the latter.

The time the photo was taken is not far from the time their last conversation takes place. Still, Lu Guang is acutely aware of the way the minutes tick by on his watch, as Cheng Xiaoshi goes through the motions of staying in character. It’s the friend’s birthday, and she’d chosen to spend it with just the client, who is her only and dearest friend. The picture had been taken here in the park, after spending lunch and the afternoon shopping. It’s a normal day, by all standards, except that it’s the friend’s birthday, and that later tonight, she will die. Hit and run. An accident.

There’s really nothing we can do to save her, right? Cheng Xiaoshi asks Lu Guang, and Lu Guang is not used to this—the ache of resignation in Cheng Xiaoshi’s tone rather than impulsive resolve.

“No,” Lu Guang says, closing his eyes. “Besides.”

Besides what? Cheng Xiaoshi asks. I get why our client doesn’t remember much from this conversation. She has so much… anger in her.

Lu Guang doesn’t speak for a bit. He lets the conversation the two girls have wash over him; the friend trying to talk about something, the client far too distracted by her annoyance at the different little things that have happened throughout the day to really listen, inconveniences that ruined what was meant to be a perfect birthday celebration—her credit card declining, accidentally buying the wrong color of lipstick, her newly bought and worn heels breaking midway through their walk, her phone falling to the ground and breaking the battery. Initially, he only cared about paying close attention to the friend because that was the goal of this job, but now he’s noticing other nuances too in the way she speaks. Patient and soft-spoken, listening attentively to the rehearsed ranting Cheng Xiaoshi does to keep things consistent with the original memory, but she is—she is sad.

“Cheng Xiaoshi,” Lu Guang says. “That should be good. Let her pick up the conversation. It’s almost time for you two to part.”

The friend speaks. She thanks the client for a lovely day. She says she’ll always remember this. She thinks this was probably the best birthday she could’ve ever asked for. She asks the client for a favor.

In the client’s body, Cheng Xiaoshi has a hard time processing the words when it’s loud in her head, mostly frustrated and half-distracted by her earlier grievances, incapable of piecing out the oddity of her friend’s tone and how final it seems. It’s fine, because Lu Guang got the message.

So that’s it? Cheng Xiaoshi asks, as he waves goodbye to the client’s friend.

“That’s it,” Lu Guang confirms quietly.

Cheng Xiaoshi lets the client watch her friend depart, headed to the park’s exit to journey home. Though Lu Guang can’t personally feel the client’s emotions, he does feel Cheng Xiaoshi’s, the unmistakable pull of sympathy he feels for what they are letting happen. This is the last time she’ll see her like this. See her walk. See her alive.

“Cheng Xiaoshi,” he says. “You can come back now. There’s no need for you to linger, especially for what happens next.”

Next?

“She sees it. The moment her friend gets hit.”

It’s deathly quiet in Lu Guang’s mind. He braces for a protest, an insistence to stay to at least look away to spare the client that pain, or to still look because it’s like he said, this is the last time she can see her, or to break out in a run, chasing after her, saving her life, but none of these things happen. He feels the thread of connection between them snap, and when Lu Guang opens his eyes, Cheng Xiaoshi is back in the studio. His face is, for once, impassive.

“Mission accomplished?” he does ask.

Lu Guang nods. “Mission accomplished,” he says. “How are you?”

Cheng Xiaoshi sits beside him on the couch. “What did she ask for?” he says instead of answering.

“To pray for her,” Lu Guang replies. “So that her life will be a bit easier to bear. That’s all.”

“I see.” His voice is slightly shaky. His head is bowed down between his knees. His fists are clenched. “I know—I know we have our third rule and that’s to not ask about what happened next, or what happened before, or what would’ve happened if we did change things, but—”

“We couldn’t have done anything,” Lu Guang interrupts him. “Even if we did save her from the car crash.”

He never says this. What he always tells Cheng Xiaoshi is to not ask. But there are layers upon layers of things he keeps secret from Cheng Xiaoshi because Lu Guang doesn’t think he can handle it, and there will always be things Lu Guang can never tell him, for as long as he can, but this, at least, is one secret he can share. One thing he can actually be honest about, if it would help ease Cheng Xiaoshi’s mind.

Cheng Xiaoshi lifts his head. “Why do you say that?”

“She was…” Lu Guang finds himself nearly faltering, but he catches himself, searches for the words. He can hear the way Cheng Xiaoshi holds his breath, anticipating. “She was sad. It was an accident, no one is disputing that, but—she expected it to happen. She wanted it. Everything about her life was too much for her to bear.”

“How do you know that? Is that from our client’s memories? I didn’t—I didn’t catch it when I was there in her body.”

It’s not that Lu Guang would do the same. In spite of every time he’s been defeated, in spite of every time he’s been rendered hopeless, he has never considered quitting. Giving up is unfathomable. But he understands, at the same time, how if he were another person, put in this place, put through this unique sense of hell of living this life he’s chosen, he would want it to be over. It would be too much. He would want permanent relief. He doesn’t know what exactly makes him different from her. Perhaps his own arrogance, that he can still change their future, that there is still hope, and he’s capable of doing it.

“There were signs,” is all he can offer.

Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t say anything, still doesn’t lift his head, still doesn’t look at him. Lu Guang leans back on the couch. He glances at the ceiling, takes in the pleasant weather outside despite the gloom in the studio. The client lost her friend three years ago, thirty-six months ago, over a thousand days ago, yet the ache in her voice makes the wound sound fresh. Until now, Lu Guang doesn’t know if he will ever comprehend it, the strange way that time stretches.

“You know,” Cheng Xiaoshi starts. “When I thought Li Tianchen killed you, I almost went back. I had a photo I could use. Two years past, but—” His fingers, laced together, tighten. He takes a deep breath. “When you told me she saw her friend get run over, so I had to get back here, I… was kind of relieved. Does that make me a bad person? I didn’t want to stick around and witness that. I didn’t want to feel whatever she might’ve felt at that moment. It’s too… real. I didn’t want to know what she might’ve thought at that moment, if she would’ve immediately thought that if she could stop things, if she could’ve done things differently between them, she would. And I think I was more scared of the possibility that she wouldn’t, even if she cared about her a lot. And the only reason I can afford to think that way is because I do have this power. I can actually change things.”

What a mess it would be, Lu Guang thinks, if Cheng Xiaoshi did dive back when Lu Guang was still alive, and they became two people displaced in time trying to futilely save each other. Yet even then, if Lu Guang did die, but it would’ve ensured that Cheng Xiaoshi would live, as if in exchange for breaking one node, another one would step in its place, wouldn’t that have been perfect? Wouldn’t that have been enough? But in truth, Lu Guang does not want to die. It’s not the same as being willing to, if it comes to it, but his selfishness is a bottomless pit. He doesn’t want to exist in a world without Cheng Xiaoshi, nor does he want Cheng Xiaoshi to exist in a world without him.

“I can’t imagine it,” Lu Guang admits truthfully. What a mess it would be, yes, but despite everything, it is also implausible.

Cheng Xiaoshi startles. He glances up at Lu Guang, eyes wide in surprise. “Why?”

“You are not a bad person, Cheng Xiaoshi,” he says. “Even if sometimes, you make mistakes and it makes you feel like you are, you aren’t. You’re better than that. You always have been. You know when to let things go.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

After all, Cheng Xiaoshi isn’t the one reliving this life over and over.

↻

(iii.)

“Why him?” Lu Guang asks Vein once. “I'm the one who changed it. Why are you punishing him?”

“This is your punishment,” Vein replies. “No action is met without consequence.”

Lu Guang slumps against the wall, feeling blood crawl up to his throat. He already knows that.

Vein turns, and then pauses. “It has nothing to do with him anymore,” he finally says. “He was punished long ago.”

↻

(vi.)

Autumn is a busy season for the studio and their day-to-day work, more so than their under-the-table dive requests. Lots of customers come in to put in orders and pick up their photographs, which Lu Guang has eventually gotten used to the rhythm of but not Cheng Xiaoshi. Despite his extroversion, he handles the sudden influx of people clumsily. Lu Guang hypothesizes it's because the studio has grown to be a space where few people occupy at a time, and frequently people Cheng Xiaoshi takes the time, if he can, to know them personally, so the volume now is jarring for him. Too many people in what is considered, by all accounts, his own home. They also tend to finish development in batches, so everyone's pickup dates tend to be the same.

Qiao Ling proposes setting up a delivery service. It would be easier for a lot of their customers, and they wouldn't mind paying for a fee when their own lives are too busy to wheedle in time to stop by their humble studio to get their orders. It's not something they have to offer to everyone; just to the clients who they know live far away, or who have physical limitations going all the way here. If the system works, they can also open their studio to taking orders strictly online too, rather than needing a customer to come in-person.

Lu Guang cleans the windows from outside as Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling loudly debate the pros and cons of the setup inside the studio. He takes the lead in their dives, but studio operations are Cheng Xiaoshi’s turf. When it comes to working at the studio proper, it's easier to just follow directions. There's a sense of normalcy he's being given.

“It's a flexible schedule!” Qiao Ling exclaims as Lu Guang returns inside. “No need to do it when you don't want to. Just on the slower days. And besides, you need to start practicing how to drive again! You can’t fail the license exam a third time!”

“Why are you bringing that up? You know that’s a sensitive topic for me!”

Lu Guang sorts through the receipts left behind haphazardly on the counter. He doesn’t remember the last time he was in a car with Cheng Xiaoshi at the steering wheel. In their first timeline, maybe. He no longer remembers if Cheng Xiaoshi is actually a bad driver, or if he just can’t focus enough when taking the exam. Maybe he should encourage Cheng Xiaoshi to practice, if only so he can verify it. It doesn’t sit well with him, that diving back into memories and reliving them has made him forget other ones—inconsequential things, maybe, but still relevant, because they’re about Cheng Xiaoshi.

They’re earning enough that they can splurge a little, so Lu Guang prepares to make hongshao rou. Cheng Xiaoshi putters around the kitchen searching for his misplaced bag of tea while Lu Guang gets the pork belly, a cutting board, and a knife, which is duller than he remembers it to be. “We need to sharpen this,” Lu Guang says, “Or otherwise get a new one.”

“Mhm,” Cheng Xiaoshi mutters distractedly. “Hey, what do you think about getting a motorbike instead of a car? Seems more sensible if we end up offering a delivery service.”

Lu Guang begins slicing the pork belly into little bits. “You just don’t want to drive a car.”

“Cars are overrated,” Cheng Xiaoshi argues. “We don’t even have parking space for a car!”

Outside he can hear a faint drizzle. Lu Guang glances at the windows, how the raindrops splatter and drip down the glasses he had painstakingly wiped this morning. The hot kettle whines as Cheng Xiaoshi heats up water. The meat slices easily under the dull knife. Lu Guang knows he should pay better attention to what he’s doing. Last time he did this, he cut himself, though he doesn’t recall what he’d been distracted by.

“I don’t know how to bike,” Lu Guang informs him.

Cheng Xiaoshi nearly splashes the hot water he’s pouring into his mug over his hand. He turns, expression baffled as he marches over to Lu Guang. “You don’t?” He leans in close, almost enough that Lu Guang feels the need to move away, except he can’t because he’s still cutting the pork, and Cheng Xiaoshi stares and searches Lu Guang’s face like he’s looking for a reason to doubt him. He can’t, because Lu Guang isn’t lying. “We need to change that,” Cheng Xiaoshi decides then and there. “So your parents never taught you?”

“No.” He doesn’t want Cheng Xiaoshi to chase this train of thought, not when Lu Guang doesn’t have anything else to say. “Will you teach me?”

He asks it without thinking. He has lived this memory before, after all, and Cheng Xiaoshi always teaches him. But he has never directly asked until now, and he watches the way Cheng Xiaoshi’s expression shifts from bewildered to overjoyed, and looking at him, Lu Guang thinks, always, without fail, is magic that reminds him of the first fall of snow, dipping his toes into warm water, the smell of a new book. Little things he can never get sick of. Little things that remind him that life is worth living.

“Of course I will,” Cheng Xiaoshi replies, with a softness to his voice that makes Lu Guang nearly light-headed because this is new except it isn’t. Cheng Xiaoshi always speaks to him this way, and yet this time is different. Something has shifted. Then, before Lu Guang realizes it, Cheng Xiaoshi grabs his wrist. Lu Guang nearly flinches, but he manages to stop himself in time, staying still. “You almost cut yourself.”

“Oh.” He glances down to where Cheng Xiaoshi holds him; it’s the arm holding the knife, angled to the remaining slab of pork belly to continue cutting it into chunks, but his other hand is too close to the blade, enough that he would’ve nicked a bit of skin from his thumb, if Cheng Xiaoshi hadn’t stopped him. “Thanks.”

Cheng Xiaoshi smiles. “Be careful, Lu Guang,” he teases, releasing Lu Guang. “I don’t think hongshao rou tastes that good if you include your blood in the ingredients. I’m expecting this to be really good, you know!”

“It will be,” Lu Guang promises, returning to his job faithfully. Cheng Xiaoshi moves out of his space, returning to his tea, and Lu Guang tries not to think, come back, come back, come back, in the off chance that somehow, Cheng Xiaoshi would hear it.

They will go biking in two weeks from this point in time. Lu Guang imagines a future, fearless version of him kissing Cheng Xiaoshi when the latter inevitably tackles him to the ground. He won’t actually do it. He can’t. He is still a coward.

↻

They don’t get a motorcycle, but they do get a bicycle, a secondhand that Qiao Ling kindly donates because she wants to declutter her house. The studio is closed for the day, Cheng Xiaoshi dedicating it to doing deliveries while Lu Guang has a day off. It had been Cheng Xiaoshi’s idea, because Lu Guang would never suggest giving himself downtime while Cheng Xiaoshi worked.

“You haven’t been sleeping well,” Cheng Xiaoshi pointed out, poking Lu Guang’s cheek accusingly. “So you’ve been spending a lot of your nights doing overtime. This is me just trying to even out the scales so we’re working the same amount.”

Lu Guang took Cheng Xiaoshi’s finger and lowered it. His nightmares as of late have been about falling, so sleeping in the top bunk has left him slightly paranoid. A couple of times Cheng Xiaoshi caught him trying to nap by the desk, which is why there’s been a slight crick in his neck that hasn’t vanished. “That’s not how that works.”

“Don’t be so nitpicky,” huffed Cheng Xiaoshi. They were still touching. “Relax. Go have a spa today or something.”

“I don’t really—”

“Or something! Buy a book. I know you’re rereading the ones we have at home. You finished them a while back, didn’t you?”

It’s a striking thing for Cheng Xiaoshi to say, if only because Lu Guang hadn’t realized it was so obvious. The only thing he’s lenient with changing constantly in his dives are the books he would read, maximizing his extensive collection of stories he once thought he would never have the time to read but bought still for a peace of mind that at least it was within reach, if ever managed to get to it. Now it’s all finished. He doesn’t dwell on what that says about him and how long he’s been doing this, that he actually needs to buy a new book.

Qiao Ling goes with him to the bookstore, deciding that she’s going to get Cheng Xiaoshi into the habit of reading in the hopes that it would teach him patience. Lu Guang lets her drag him along to look through the shelves even though they initially came here for him, distracted by how new everything seems even though he knows this store hasn’t changed since his first ever visit in university.

“How about—no, he wouldn’t read that. A comic, maybe?” Qiao Ling muses, pulling out books to appraise their premise before deciding that it’s not Cheng Xiaoshi’s style. “Does he like fantasy? Science fiction? Romance? He just plays games all the time… Lu Guang, what else does he play besides 1v1? Lu Guang?”

Lu Guang doesn’t hear her. He wandered off to the other side in search of something interesting, and stopped when another visitor hastily discarded a book on top of a pile of magazines. He picks it up, simply intending to return it to the shelf it was originally in, only to pause when he gets a glimpse of the title.

“Lu Guang?” Qiao Ling has finally caught up to him, and she looks at the book in his hand curiously. “Interested in reading this?”

“It’s not that,” Lu Guang says. He tucks the book into the empty space between two others on the shelf. “I used to own a copy of this. I just don’t know what happened to it.”

“The Once and Future King,” she reads from the spine. “Oh, I know this book. Cheng Xiaoshi has a copy of it.”

“He does?” The only books in the apartment that belong to Cheng Xiaoshi are their university textbooks, and even those are sparse, barely touched.

“He’s never read it though,” clarifies Qiao Ling. “When he was really young, about seven, I think, he and his parents went on a summer trip to the countryside. When they came back, they brought a bunch of new things with them, and one of them was that book. I remember it because it was so big. He said he didn’t even know how to read it, but it was about King Arthur, so it was cool. He even planned to dress up as a knight for Halloween, but that was before his parents left. Still, it’s funny to imagine, right? Such a scrawny kid, lugging around this big book. We did end up using the book for other things. Non-reading related things.” Qiao Ling giggles. “We were so childish back then.”

He can imagine it: a younger Cheng Xiaoshi and a younger Qiao Ling, yelling at each other the way they do now. He thinks of the stories they tell him about, video games they grew up with, restaurants they enjoyed, songs that were played on loop when they initially came out. He can imagine how Cheng Xiaoshi might've used the book as a stepping stool to reach the cupboard, or Qiao Ling lifting it with all her might to whack Cheng Xiaoshi in the head when he was being obnoxious. Childish. Apt, yet he thinks of the word with measured fondness. That they are lucky to have found each other at such a young age.

It’s also peculiar, he thinks, that of all the books Cheng Xiaoshi could’ve owned, it was also a book Lu Guang knew of. It’s a small thing, yet it makes Lu Guang feel even more connected to him.

“Can I borrow the book?” he asks.

“It was surprisingly in good condition, so we donated it to the library,” Qiao Ling says. “We can go there and check if they still have it.”

The library is a bit farther downtown, closer to Guidu University than the studio. As they walk down the streets, Lu Guang wonders if they’ll see Cheng Xiaoshi zipping by on his bicycle, wonders if he’ll decide halfway that the work is too tedious, or he’ll hurry to finish early, just so he can catch up to them. But Cheng Xiaoshi in this timeline has more solemnity to him that wasn’t there before. He’s more dutiful. Still has his moments of abrasiveness, but every now and then he entertains a strategy or two before diving headfirst into something. Lu Guang, in contrast, is more affectionate. He grumbles at most, but it’s never a protest; he lets Cheng Xiaoshi crawl into his bedspace during bad nights, doesn’t pull away when Cheng Xiaoshi seeks to touch some part of him. He wonders if they've switched roles, or if they've simply become a product of their proximity over the course of time.

It’s a slow day in the library, with little people milling about, looking through shelves or occupying the tables to read and study. They make their way to the circulation desk, manned by a single old lady who Lu Guang doesn’t recognize, but still greets them warmly.

“Hello there,” Qiao Ling greets, leaning over the desk, “This might be a long shot, but we wanted to ask about a book we donated about... thirteen years ago? Would you happen to have any record for that kind of thing?”

“I can check with the acquisition section, but we do have logs that date back to even fifty years ago, so this shouldn’t be a problem. Let me check if I can access it here, since it hasn’t been that long ago,” the lady politely answers. She types something on the keyboard and pulls up tables on the screen before her. “What the book? Under whose name did you donate it?”

“The Once and Future King by T.H. White, and it should be under Cheng Xiaoshi’s name. Though there might be a note saying someone else too—that would just be my dad.”

“Oh! It’s still here,” the librarian says happily. “Just one copy, but not a lot of people borrow it. Here you go.” She writes something down on the notepad on her table before handing it over to Qiao Ling. It's a series of numbers and letters. “Just go to the English works section, then the fantasy shelf. I’d take you personally, but it’s a bit far.”

Flashes of memory flit past Lu Guang’s eyes as they make their way there, Qiao Ling taking the lead. He sees a table full of students half-asleep as they’re buried in their school papers and he remembers how he used to go here with their classmates to study when most of them ended up napping. In between the towering shelves are stepping stools that Lu Guang remembers hiding in if he wanted to read undisturbed. To the far end of the library is a floor to ceiling window that lets the sunlight illuminate the room, and he recalls having taken a picture of Cheng Xiaoshi against that backdrop once, when he hadn’t been looking. For all his diving, these are memories he didn’t let himself relive, or at least stop to appreciate.

“Here it is.” Qiao Ling’s voice snaps him back into reality. She pulls out a thick book from the shelf. It’s been covered in plastic to maintain its quality, but its age is evident still; slightly yellowed pages and a dent to the cover, as if someone had stepped on it. Lu Guang holds the book in his hands and it feels strange, because it feels familiar.

He leafs through the pages, and he takes a sharp inhale, understanding why. This is his copy, the one he had as a child that he lost and couldn’t remember why.

“So,” Qiao Ling starts. “Thinking of borrowing it?”

“Maybe,” Lu Guang says absentmindedly, fingers tracing the pages for smudges he knows he left by accident. “I kind of want to read it here, actually.”

“Oh, that’s fine. It is your day off, after all.” She jerks her thumb to the other side of the library. “Since we’re here, I might as well go look for some books my dad asked me to borrow for him. You’ll probably want to be here for a while, so I’ll just text if I need to go.”

“Thank you.”

Qiao Ling smiles. “Of course.” She turns around, waving a hand. “Enjoy reading.”

There’s no one in this section of the library, so he sits on the floor. The story itself comes to him in bits and pieces, and he turns through the pages for the scenes he could recall, the lines he liked from what he understood. He never read it properly; at seven, his mother guided him. Right before they would go to bed, she would ask that he sit beside her as they read aloud the passages. Lu Guang had no particular skills, no particular talents, but he knew to read early. This was the first proper book he ever read. It catches him off guard, how he’d forgotten about this until now. She used to explain to him why some of the phrases were clunky, a translation issue. It was the only time he ever felt close to her.

But despite the nostalgia that comes with the memory, there’s also the more unexpected realization—that Cheng Xiaoshi had it when Lu Guang thought it was lost. Lu Guang recalls Qiao Ling’s words, how Cheng Xiaoshi spent a summer in the countryside. It was probably Lu Guang’s town. They had probably met. They knew each other then, as children, and though Lu Guang can’t remember it—and how ironic it is, for his gift of memory, for all he lives in his memories, this is one he cannot grasp—this doesn’t feel like a theory. It feels like a fact. A reality that already unfolded, rather than a hypothetical possibility.

No wonder it feels like Lu Guang has known him forever. He has. He wonders if he mentioned it to Cheng Xiaoshi, he would remember, but he probably won’t, and that’s alright. It’s not as if Lu Guang remembers it himself, especially not now, when the past is something he’s made nearly malleable. It doesn’t matter. This book is tangible proof that it happened, almost like a photograph. He has a fleeting thought of the existence of one somewhere, which he can either dive back into or at least sift through its memories, but he stops himself. Not everything needs to be tainted by the use of his ability. This is enough. It’s nice, in its own way, to try to keep remnants of the past the same way everyone else does.

At the last page there’s a faint scribble to the side, tiny enough that it can easily go unnoticed, but Lu Guang is blindly operating on feeling, and he had a sense that there was something like this in the book—a clumsy drawing of two swords and below it, Lu Guang’s name. Slightly newer, written in a different colored ink is Cheng Xiaoshi’s name, as if it was a later addition. It’s in Lu Guang’s handwriting, borderline indecipherable but recognizable still, if only because it's their names, and if there’s one thing Lu Guang will always recognize, it’s Cheng Xiaoshi.

He thumbs over his old, childlike handwriting slowly. He wonders if even back then, he loved him.

↻

(ii.)

“What do you like about reading?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks.

“The experience of it.”

Cheng Xiaoshi waits for more, but Lu Guang simply turns to the next page of the book in his hands. “That’s it?”

Lu Guang shrugs. “There’s no one answer.”

“Okay, but if you had to give one.”

He pauses. “I guess the ending. Knowing how it ends.”

“Does that mean when you read you skip to the last pages?”

“Sometimes. Or I theorize, based on the clues and build up the author puts in the story.”

Cheng Xiaoshi scrunches up his nose. He's cute, Lu Guang’s thoughts betray him. He hastily returns to his book. “Why?”

“It reminds me that the future is set in stone,” Lu Guang says. “No matter what I want to happen while I’m reading the story, or what I think should happen, what will happen is already pre-determined. It’s just waiting for me to get there.”

↻

(vi.)

Despite the changes in this timeline, the node remains untouched:

Vein arrives. Cheng Xiaoshi is shot. Lu Guang holds him.

“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi gasps, “He’s still—”

“I know,” Lu Guang interrupts. Vein bangs against the door and it echoes around the room, but Lu Guang doesn’t care. Cheng Xiaoshi groans when Lu Guang’s hands press against the bullet wound. “I’m sorry. I know it hurts.”

Cheng Xiaoshi pants. “You need… to run…”

“I’ll be okay.” Lu Guang’s eyes have welled up with tears. He blinks them away. “But you—”

“Stop.” Cheng Xiaoshi finds the strength to push Lu Guang’s hands away, only to grasp onto one, holding it loosely, too loosely for Lu Guang’s comfort. “Don’t be an idiot…. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

“Shut up.” Lu Guang squeezes his hand. He stares at the blood between them, sticking to his skin, spreading all over the floor. Cheng Xiaoshi is breathing hard. “You’re talking too much.”

“Ha!” Lu Guang watches in horror as blood spills from Cheng Xiaoshi’s mouth and he coughs. He wants to beg Cheng Xiaoshi to stop talking, but he can’t. A naive part of him thinks this is good, because for the first time, Cheng Xiaoshi can say so much, when all the times before he struggled to say anything. He wants to think it means the wound isn’t that bad, but he can’t kid himself. This one is just killing him slower. “Your eyes are gold.”

No, Lu Guang thinks, even as he can feel it, the shift in the air as Cheng Xiaoshi’s power crawls its way to Lu Guang to survive. “No—”

“Calling me a liar?” Cheng Xiaoshi laughs wetly. “It looks… nice. On you. I like looking at you. I wanna keep…” His breathing slows. “...looking. Lu Guang, don’t—I don’t wanna… close my eyes.” He blinks heavily. “I don’t want to not see you anymore. Please. Promise me.”

It’s not an I love you, but it’s an admission, the closest thing. A confession that Lu Guang understands, because he knows Cheng Xiaoshi. But for all Cheng Xiaoshi knows about Lu Guang, what he doesn’t know is how much Lu Guang loves him back. And he’s dying, and Lu Guang can’t save him, so he won’t know. Lu Guang doesn’t want to tell him when it’s already too late, when Cheng Xiaoshi can’t do anything with the knowledge of his love. The only thing he can offer is—

“Okay,” Lu Guang says. It’s not an I love you, but: “Yes. I will. You’ll see me again. I’ll see you again. I promise.”

↻

(i.)

When Lu Guang is seven there is a strange woman who begins walking around parts of their town. She doesn’t live here, simply stopping by with her family. Lu Guang’s father urges him to stay away from her, but he doesn’t pay this much mind. She asks him, one day, as he’s out in the streets collecting rocks, to help her bring her bags to her house. Her hands are trembling, you see, but Lu Guang finds it peculiar that this doesn’t bother her as much as it should.

“Okay,” he says, even if his own mother doesn’t let him carry much. His parents don’t ask or rely on him much for anything, generally.

She talks a lot. Says he has interesting eyes. Questions what they see, as if they see something else that no one else can.

“Okay,” he says. She’s the first person aside from his father to make that observation. The only other person to know something is not right about him.

She comments that he’s not much of a talker, isn’t he? Not like her own boy. He talks too much. But she loves him dearly. He’s so much like his father.

“Okay,” he says. Lu Guang himself doesn’t resemble his parents. They are not particularly close, though they are not indifferent. He cannot imagine being described by his father as someone who has much to say.

She thinks he’s amusing. She thinks him restrained, yet unrelenting as well. He may be young, but it shows. She can tell. He is dangerous.

“Okay,” he says.

They reach her house, a dilapidated rented bungalow. Vines weave around the porch, the wood creaks when they step on it. He almost questions if anyone actually lives here, but he only quietly sets her bags down. He glances at the streets. They’re unfamiliar. He doesn’t know the way back home.

Instead of saying thank you, she cups his cheeks with her cold hands less with affection and more with consideration. Her hands are steady.

“Careful, boy,” she tells him. “Don’t let love make you into an ugly little violent thing.”

It sounds like a warning he has already not heeded.

↻

(vii.)

By the time they get back home, it’s already late at night, a few hours just before sunrise. Qiao Ling, despite her threats on the phone, doesn't personally pick them up at the airport when they back from Bridon because it’s too late and she’d rather see them at a reasonable hour. When they set their luggages down by the sunroom, Lu Guang thinks Cheng Xiaoshi is going to hurry upstairs to pass out, but instead, he’s heading back out. “The timezone and the plane ride has messed up my sleep schedule,” is the only thing he says in explanation, before the door closes. Lu Guang runs a hand through his face, debating on whether he should give into his exhaustion or not, and then decides to follow after him.

They end up back on the bridge. The roads are empty, and the lights are dimmer than they were the last time they were here and it got dark. Even with his back turned to him, Cheng Xiaoshi’s posture is tense, his side profile troubled. Lu Guang can’t begin to imagine what Cheng Xiaoshi is thinking. They hadn’t spoken much after parting ways with Xia Fei and returning home aside from things related to their flight. It hadn’t been bad silence, but Lu Guang felt unnerved nonetheless, because that had been new. This moment as well.

“I don’t know what I expected to find, honestly,” Cheng Xiaoshi confesses, as Lu Guang stands beside him. “Maybe I thought they'd just be there, that they were there all this time, and they were waiting for me. Which is stupid, when I think about it now. If they wanted to come back, they would've.”

“Did something happen?”

“Sort of,” Cheng Xiaoshi replies. “But I’m not ready to talk about it. Is that okay?”

He looks at Lu Guang with slight worry, a hint of fear, when he asks. As if he would buckle if Lu Guang said otherwise. But as much as it alarms him that there’s this unknown variable now, something he didn’t know and had never known before because he didn’t think there was anything to know, and still, he won’t know it, because Cheng Xiaoshi won’t tell him—it’s okay. He wants to know now, but he won’t push. There are more important things to address. He doesn’t want Cheng Xiaoshi to be afraid. He wants to brush his fingers against Cheng Xiaoshi’s cheek and soothe the worry lines on his face away. “Of course.”

Cheng Xiaoshi lets out a shaky breath, relieved. “Thank you,” he says. He moves closer to nudge his hip against Lu Guang’s. “Thank you for trusting me. For coming with me, even if you got sick, and we just caught up in stuff I can’t even begin to explain to Qiao Ling, and even then, the whole search turned out to be pretty pointless."

“Don’t worry about it,” Lu Guang says. “I made a promise, didn’t I?”

Cheng Xiaoshi’s mouth quirks up. “You did,” he agrees. “Does that mean I can ask for anything and you’ll do it because you promised?”

“Don’t be an idiot. That’s not how this works,” says Lu Guang, but Cheng Xiaoshi tugs his arm, and Lu Guang gives him a look. “What?”

“Nothing,” Cheng Xiaoshi immediately responds, but he looks distracted. “Hey, Lu Guang,” he says. “Did anyone ever tell you how nice your eyes are?”

Lu Guang frowns. Their faces are only inches apart, and it’s easy to notice the way Cheng Xiaoshi’s gaze flickers from his eyes to his mouth. “Is that supposed to be a pickup line?”

“Depends,” he replies vaguely. “Is it working?”

“No,” Lu Guang says, but before Cheng Xiaoshi can say anything else, Lu Guang leans forward and presses his mouth against his. For a split second, there’s nothing, Cheng Xiaoshi completely immobile in shock, but the moment passes, and he pushes back, reciprocates the kiss just as gently.

Lu Guang breaks the kiss first. He expects Cheng Xiaoshi to complain, to look betrayed by their parting, but instead, he’s staring at Lu Guang curiously.

“What?” Lu Guang asks. His voice comes out more breathless than he expects, like he had been winded by what just happened even if he was the one who started it. “What are you thinking?”

“Two things,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, clearing his throat. “One, I kind of thought until now you were too much of a coward to do anything.”

Lu Guang decides to not grace that with a response. He doesn’t let himself wonder if it’s always been obvious, or how long Cheng Xiaoshi has thought this. It’s a dangerous rabbit hole to dive into, because it’ll make him wonder if it’s only the Cheng Xiaoshi now who is so hyper-aware of his affections, his feelings, or if Cheng Xiaoshi in every time has always known, and has always waited. He doesn't want to think about that now. He wants to ground himself in this moment, all that he’s wanted to do for so long and finally found the courage to.

“And the other thing?” he asks, lifting his hand to cradle Cheng Xiaoshi’s face.

Cheng Xiaoshi leans into his hand. He closes his eyes briefly, like he’s savoring the warmth of his palm. Emotions swirl in Lu Guang; so much fondness, so much greed, so much love. “You kiss like you’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”

He sounds impossibly pleased. Lu Guang wants to drink it in, wants to be the reason Cheng Xiaoshi is always this way. He should’ve done this sooner, he realizes now. He’d been too terrified of the weight of his own greed, but Cheng Xiaoshi is greedy too, and Lu Guang is overcome by this desire to give him everything.

“What would you do if I said that I have?” he says.

“I’d say.” Cheng Xiaoshi licks his lips. “You should do it again.”

This time, he kisses Cheng Xiaoshi a little harsher, a little more firmly. Cheng Xiaoshi lets out a sound and clutches the front of Lu Guang’s shirt, deepening the kiss.

Lu Guang wraps his arm around Cheng Xiaoshi’s waist, fits himself there like he always belonged, and thinks—Cheng Xiaoshi is wrong. Maybe it’s not courage. Perhaps the real cowardice is the inability to let this go. That Lu Guang keeps coming back and taking and taking and taking, because he knows Cheng Xiaoshi loves him, and he would let him.

↻

They don’t even make it to the bedroom. When they return to the studio, Cheng Xiaoshi drags him to the sunroom, pushes him onto the couch, and continues kissing him like he wants to devour him. He shudders when Lu Guang’s hand sneaks underneath his shirt, fingers tracing his body until it rests on his heartbeat.

“Cold,” he hisses, but he presses into Lu Guang's touch rather than shy away from it. Lu Guang can't help the smile he makes, and Cheng Xiaoshi feels it against his mouth. He pulls away. “You’re not kissing me back as much,” he pouts.

“Sorry,” Lu Guang says, pecking his lips before resting his head back on the armrest. He blinks slowly. Understanding starts to dawn on Cheng Xiaoshi’s face.

“Aw, tired already?”

“Idiot,” Lu Guang sighs. “We just got back from another country. Of course I’m tired.”

“Okay.” Cheng Xiaoshi shuffles, rearranging their positions so that his legs slot between Lu Guang’s, resting his weight comfortably on top of him. Cheng Xiaoshi curls into him, head pressed against Lu Guang’s chest. Lu Guang can feel the swell of Cheng Xiaoshi’s hard-on poking his thigh, though Cheng Xiaoshi’s body is lax above him. Lu Guang’s hand is still under Cheng Xiaoshi’s shirt, rubbing circles on his hip. He is tired; it wasn’t a lie. Even so, he drifts his hand lower, cupping Cheng Xiaoshi’s crotch.

“Lu Guang.” Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice comes out strained, questioning.

His pants are garter. It would be easy to tug them off until they’re at least pooled around his thighs and to touch Cheng Xiaoshi, stroking him slowly. He imagines the sounds Cheng Xiaoshi would make, the way he would squirm, the things he would beg—for Lu Guang to go faster, to give him more, to let him cum. Lu Guang is tired, but never too tired for Cheng Xiaoshi.

“Cheng Xiaoshi,” Lu Guang says. “Look at me.”

Cheng Xiaoshi glances up and Lu Guang breeches the short distance between them, brushing his lips against his. “I want to take care of you,” he says. “Will you let me?”

“Okay,” says Cheng Xiaoshi, sounding tiny, trusting.

It’s addicting to touch him, now that Lu Guang has. Cheng Xiaoshi’s cock is a heavy, wet thing in his hand, and he strokes it languidly, intent on memorizing the feel of it, the movements that make Cheng Xiaoshi exhale sharply in arousal, taking his time in working him up. Cheng Xiaoshi adjusts himself so that his head rests beside Lu Guang’s, panting into his ear, while he twists his hips so that he can more easily thrust into Lu Guang’s hand.

“Wish I could see you,” Lu Guang murmurs, but when Cheng Xiaoshi makes a move to pull away, eager to please, Lu Guang squeezes his cockhead warningly, and Cheng Xiaoshi stills. “No. Don’t move. I like you like this.” Cheng Xiaoshi feels small even though he’s objectively larger than Lu Guang, tucked against Lu Guang in a way that makes Lu Guang want to swallow him whole to keep him away from the rest of the world. “But I’m imagining it. A mirror, right on the ceiling, where I can see how your pretty cock fits in my hand. Do you like that?” Instead of answering, Lu Guang feels it; the bead of precum leaking at the tip. He gathers it in his fingers and drifts lower, only brushing against his balls in acknowledgement before dipping into the space between Cheng Xiaoshi’s cheeks, rubbing at the rim with curiosity but no intention. “How about here?”

“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi whispers, his voice a little cracked. “Please. Stop teasing.”

He says please so prettily, so openly, that Lu Guang is helpless to deny him. His hand returns to where Cheng Xiaoshi is aching for touch the most, moving up and down with the same relaxed pace as before even if he knows that Cheng Xiaoshi needs something more to be able to get tipped off the edge. In the end, Cheng Xiaoshi’s orgasm still comes, and he bucks into Lu Guang’s hand one last time before spilling over their bodies. “Good boy,” Lu Guang says, as Cheng Xiaoshi sags into him. He whimpers but says nothing else, trembling from the aftermath of his release.

“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi eventually says, now sounding mollified. Back to normal. “This is gross.”

Lu Guang lifts his hand, feeling the sticky texture of Cheng Xiaoshi’s release. Ordinarily, it would make him grimace, but he’s too drowsy to think much about it. “Do you want to get up and get tissues?”

“No—hey!” Cheng Xiaoshi jolts when Lu Guang proceeds to wipe the cum off using the hem of Cheng Xiaoshi’s shirt. “Actually, that’s fine. You’re in charge of laundry this month anyway.”

“Mm,” Lu Guang hums, barely suppressing a yawn.

“You’re hard.”

“I’m sleepy.”

“But—”

“Next time,” Lu Guang says like a promise, and it’s enough to end any protest from Cheng Xiaoshi’s end.

His physical strength doesn’t hold a dime to Cheng Xiaoshi, but Cheng Xiaoshi lets Lu Guang move him to the side, pressing him further into the couch while Lu Guang stays by the edge.

“You always do that when we share a bed,” Cheng Xiaoshi notes. Before Lu Guang can unnecessarily point out that they aren’t in a bed, Cheng Xiaoshi adds, “It’s like you think I’ll accidentally hurt myself. Or you want to keep me from falling.”

Lu Guang doesn’t acknowledge his comment. His hands wander Cheng Xiaoshi’s legs until they find his pants, tugging them as a signal to Cheng Xiaoshi to put them back on. Cheng Xiaoshi acquiesces. “When you’re like this,” he muses. “It’s like you spoil me.”

Lu Guang doesn’t say anything to that either, but Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t seem to mind. Exhaustion weighs on him, a need to sleep that he doesn’t want to fight off anymore, so he lets Cheng Xiaoshi pull him in, chin resting atop Lu Guang’s head, his arms snaking around Lu Guang’s waist. He holds him a bit too tightly, but Lu Guang’s ear is pressed to Cheng Xiaoshi’s heartbeat, beating steadily, and he can’t find it in him to complain.

He dreams of falling. For the first time, he’s not afraid.

Chapter Text

(vii.)

They don’t really play basketball anymore, far too busy with the studio and their dives, so Cheng Xiaoshi has taken a great liking to biking around the city for their client deliveries as a way to burn off his energy. He doesn’t exactly ask, but after the comment, Lu Guang makes a mental note to himself that one day he should take Cheng Xiaoshi out just to play. It would make him happy.

On one of the days when Cheng Xiaoshi is out, an innocuous morning by all means, the alarm chimes that a guest has arrived.

“Welcome,” Lu Guang greets without much thought, crouched behind the counter and frustratedly trying to arrange the boxes in proper order. Cheng Xiaoshi had left it there in his rush to begin doing deliveries.

“Oh! I do feel welcome. This place is very cozy.”

Lu Guang nearly bangs his head on the bottom of the table as he looks over the counter to the familiar voice. Blonde hair, sharp eyes, handsome, fair features; Lu Guang knows him. “Xia Fei?”

Xia Fei’s piercings glint under the light. He gives Lu Guang a cheery wave. “Long time no see! Is Cheng Xiaoshi here?”

“He’s out right now.” Lu Guang stands up. “I didn’t know you were in China.”

“Well, I did tell Cheng Xiaoshi, and he invited me to stay over for a few days or so…” he trails off, catching the expression on Lu Guang’s face. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”

“He didn’t.” He’s not happy about it, but Xia Fei is already here, and he’s not here uninvited, even if Lu Guang hadn’t been aware of it. Cheng Xiaoshi had probably been too excited by the prospect of seeing Xia Fei that he forgot he never told Lu Guang, or he’d been too distracted. “It’s fine,” Lu Guang adds, seeing the worried expression on Xia Fei’s at the notion of intruding. He looks good. He looks almost the same as he did those years ago when they first met, untouched by time. “We don’t really have a guest room, but you can rest in the sunroom. You can leave your stuff there and also rest, if you’re feeling jetlagged.”

“I love the sound of a sunroom,” Xia Fei says, sounding excited. He wheels his luggage in as Lu Guang directs him on where to go. “By the way, do you need any help with anything? I know you guys run a studio and I’m not really experienced with that side of photography, but I can provide an extra pair of hands for things.”

“It’s alright,” Lu Guang says. “It’s a slow day anyway. I’ll just text Cheng Xiaoshi that you’re here, though he might get back later.” He stops, trying to remember what it’s like to be a good host. They’ve never really had people over here, now that he thinks about it. Not even Qiao Ling would stay the night. “Do you want anything? Tea?”

“Tea would be great.” Xia Fei sits on the chair. “Thank you.”

Lu Guang makes his way to the kitchen, pulling out a mug, a tea bag, and the freshly heated kettle he put on a few minutes ago. “So what brings you here?”

“Some rumors,” Xia Fei says vaguely, and then, as if he seems to think better of it: “It’s my boss. Vein, if you remember? People are saying he’s here.”

Even if Lu Guang expects it, it doesn’t stop him from freezing, just for a moment, at the mere mention of his name, at the fact that Xia Fei has just confirmed what Lu Guang only wanted to entertain, until now, as a possibility.

Xia Fei notices. His eyes narrow. “Do you know anything about it?”

“Not really,” Lu Guang admits, and it’s not a lie. “Just that the police were looking for him. Even if he’s supposed to be dead.”

Xia Fei purses his lips. “Yeah,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair, agitated. “I don’t actually know if it’s legitimate or if people are just trying to stir things up since the Boss still has a reputation, but… I figured it was still worth a shot, you know? It’s been hard this past couple of years without him.”

Lu Guang doesn’t know what to say. Vein is always alive, because he always gets Cheng Xiaoshi, but this is the first time Xia Fei has reappeared in their lives since their time in Bridon. He ponders on what triggered this change, except it could’ve been so many things that he can’t even track it. Despite the changes he’s made in this timeline, for the most part, things have stayed the same. It’s just this. This is the one thing that’s different. Lu Guang doesn’t know if that’s a good thing.

“Do you still work in his agency?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah… he did take care of that, even though he wasn’t around,” says Xia Fei distractedly. Lu Guang sets the tea down in front of Xia Fei. “Lu Guang, do you think this was a waste of time? Sorry if that’s a heavy question, I just…”

Xia Fei reminds him of Cheng Xiaoshi, sometimes. He has walls, yet he’s expressive. Cheeky yet constantly doubtful. He has unpredictable bouts of honesty, the kind he wants to share with someone like Lu Guang, even if Lu Guang doesn't think he's done much to deserve it. He wonders if there's something about him that just draws on these types of people. But at the end of the road, it's only ever Cheng Xiaoshi, little parts of his distinct habits, traits, way of being. He is all Lu Guang ever sees.

“It’s okay,” Lu Guang replies. Somehow, he can tell Xia Fei hasn't told anyone about this, not even Cheng Xiaoshi. If he did, Cheng Xiaoshi would’ve gone to Lu Guang by now, insisting they help. And though Xia Fei is an unknown variable, he’s more than that too. He’s a friend. Lu Guang meant what he said, even if it was years ago. “I don’t know what the right answer is.” Xia Fei deflates. “But I hope whatever you find, it’ll give you the closure you need. And—” He hesitates for a moment, unsure if he should say it, but he does mean it, and that matters more than whether he can keep it. “If you need it, after everything, you can come back here. Cheng Xiaoshi and I will be here.”

It doesn’t feel like words that can monumentally shift the node. He knows Xia Fei holds no power to make that change, unlike the rest of them. It’s just a promise he can’t keep, yet he wants to believe it anyway. Hope—and it is hope, what Xia Fei is clinging to, what Lu Guang wants, fundamentally, with every timeline he’s dived into—is a painful, thorn-like thing.

↻

He dreams of Vein all the more now because Xia Fei is around, and is forced to consider the terrifying idea that Xia Fei’s presence in their studio has no other significance than to serve as an opportunity for Vein to show up. September is only a few months away. There are strings tightly woven around the mechanisms of the clock that hold all time together, a Frankenstein creation of Lu Guang’s own actions. Possibilities he has lived through, theories he has yet to test, puzzle pieces he’s trying to understand. He doesn’t know where to place this. Where Xia Fei fits into this. If he even does.

But Xia Fei is… Xia Fei. He’s not there for most of the day, disappearing to do whatever he came for, chasing whatever leads he has on Vein, but he always returns in the evening, just in time for when they close shop, and Cheng Xiaoshi is ecstatic for his company. Xia Fei fits in well with them. Cheng Xiaoshi cajoles Xia Fei into playing video games with him, and Xia Fei is also surprisingly well-read, so when Cheng Xiaoshi is busy, he and Lu Guang talk about some of the collections on the shelves. They don’t really ask about Xia Fei’s progress, and Xia Fei isn’t inclined to disclose it, though Cheng Xiaoshi hypothesizes it’s because it isn’t anything good.

“Should we help him look for Vein? If he really is alive?” Cheng Xiaoshi asked him once.

“No.” It was the fastest Lu Guang had ever shut him down, and it was obvious, from the way Cheng Xiaoshi recoiled. Immediately, Lu Guang felt guilty, but it was not enough to sway him. “Don't meddle. Anything but that, Cheng Xiaoshi. Please.”

The worst change to the timeline would be that Vein came after them earlier. Lu Guang wasn't about to test that theory.

“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi says now, voice a playful drawl. “What's for dinner? Xia Fei is here! We should cook something good!”

“You've been saying that for the past three nights,” Lu Guang points out, but he pulls out the pork belly from the fridge anyway. Cheng Xiaoshi beams when he realizes what Lu Guang is planning to do

“You'll really like this,” Cheng Xiaoshi tells Xia Fei confidently. “Lu Guang makes really good hongshao rou.”

“He is a really good cook,” Xia Fei says graciously, which isn't true to any regard except in comparison to Cheng Xiaoshi, who is actually a good cook, but gave Xia Fei the worst first impression of his abilities when he burned noodles by accident. Xia Fei had still eaten it happily anyway

Cheng Xiaoshi excuses himself from the kitchen, slipping on his headphones and making his way to the darkroom because he has some photos that still need hanging up. Rather than continue idly scrolling on his phone or continuing Cheng Xiaoshi’s video game, he stares at Lu Guang, who pretends like he doesn’t notice. “Is there something going on between you and Cheng Xiaoshi?”

“What?” Lu Guang is so caught off guard by the question that his hand slips. The knife’s blade, newly sharpened, misses the meat, sliding across his finger instead. He hisses and drops the knife. It’s not a deep cut, but he grips onto his injured hand and watches blood welling up on a newly formed thin line on his thumb. “Shit.”

“Lu Guang?” Cheng Xiaoshi pokes his head out of the dark room, headphones now resting on his shoulders. “Did something happen?”

“I’m fine,” Lu Guang says, just as Xia Fei asks, “Are you alright? How bad is the cut?”

“Cut?” Cheng Xiaoshi dashes over to them, immediately taking hold of Lu Guang’s hands, assessing the damage. “I told you those knives were too sharp…”

“That’s not the problem here,” Lu Guang says. “I’m fine. It’s just a tiny cut.”

“Still.” Xia Fei grimaces at the blood smeared on Lu Guang’s finger. “I’m sorry. Was it something I said?”

“What were you saying?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks.

“It wasn’t,” Lu Guang answers, before Xia Fei can tell Cheng Xiaoshi. “My mind was just elsewhere.”

Cheng Xiaoshi fusses over him, like Lu Guang’s sustained a life-threatening injury rather than a miniscule forgettable one. He sprays disinfectant, apologizes when Lu Guang grimaces, and sifts through their first-aid kit for the newest baidaid batch they have to give Lu Guang. Xia Fei looks at them funny the entire time. Lu Guang reluctantly puts up with Cheng Xiaoshi’s pampering, if only because he doesn’t like the crease between the other’s brows, a kind of concern that can manifest so badly it becomes a migraine, but he puts his foot down when Cheng Xiaoshi tells him that he can make the hongshao rou instead.

“No,” Lu Guang says firmly. “Just go back to work. Those are due in the morning already. I’ll really be more careful. Promise.” Cheng Xiaoshi eyes him suspiciously, and Lu Guang sighs. “Would it help if I said Xia Fei is here to oversee me?”

“Okay,” Cheng Xiaoshi relents, though the look on his face means he’s still not satisfied. Lu Guang doesn’t know what else to say, and he doesn’t want to pry, feeling strangely conscious about the entire thing. “I’ll head back. That hongshao rou better not taste like you!”

This time, it’s quiet as Lu Guang cooks. He chops the pork belly into chunks without fanfare before pouring it into the cooking pan and turning on the stove. Xia Fei takes charge of stirring the pork while he retrieves the rest of the ingredients for the marinade, and spends the rest of the time watching Lu Guang work when he returns. It’s not unpleasant silence by any means; Lu Guang almost forgets that Xia Fei is there, which speaks of a level of comfort he doesn't have with anyone but Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling.

“Hey, Lu Guang,” Xia Fei begins cautiously, as if he’s afraid to startle Lu Guang again. “Let me know if I’m overstepping here, but about earlier…”

Xia Fei trails off, but he doesn’t need to clarify. Lu Guang knows what he’s asking. He sprinkles in the sugar, the ginger, followed by the star anise and bay leaves to the frying pork. “No,” he finally answers his question. “Nothing going on. Not really.”

They’re not together. They could’ve been, perhaps, especially with what had happened two years ago, when they arrived back home, but the morning after, the reality of what they’d done dawned on Lu Guang, accompanied by the fear that in doing so, he created a node, adding a variable he could neither predict nor control. What was he doing, taking these kinds of risks, when he couldn’t guarantee Cheng Xiaoshi’s safety at all, when he was still fumbling in the dark with how to save him, and that was supposed to be the priority here.

In the weeks after Cheng Xiaoshi tried to get them to talk about it, but Lu Guang didn’t know what to say except to grasp at the straws for all the reasons that made sense practically but in truth couldn’t care less for—that they couldn’t do it again, because it would make any conflicts they had too personal. If they got together, then broke things off, what would happen? They lived together, they did business together, they had the same circle of friends. Too complicated even in just the simple things, what more in the grander scheme. And Cheng Xiaoshi understood. It mattered to him, more than anything, to keep Lu Guang in his life. So long as he didn’t lose him, Cheng Xiaoshi was okay with anything.

Six months after the awkwardness had dissipated. Qiao Ling never even found out. Their relationship resumed to how it was for every timeline. Cheng Xiaoshi was still affectionate. Lu Guang still hovered. They knew there was something there; they just weren’t going to do anything about it. Lu Guang rationalized to himself that it was for the best. That it wasn’t fair for him to want more, not when he was already taking so much as it was and had nothing to show for it.

(And yet—sometimes he wondered if it was already too late anyway. If the node was actualized the moment he did it, and it couldn’t be taken back. If his decisions were just his return to his cowardly ways. Cheng Xiaoshi never accused him of it since that first time, and he meant it with no malice, but Lu Guang still thought—at least once, Cheng Xiaoshi must have thought that of him.)

“Oh,” Xia Fei says, as if it’s not the answer he’d been expecting.

The hongshao rou turns out well. They’re behind on dish-cleaning, so they give Xia Fei a plate for himself and split the only other one for their food. Cheng Xiaoshi tells Xia Fei rather animatedly about all the times Lu Guang has gotten mad at him for eating his food, but Lu Guang doesn’t say anything when Cheng Xiaoshi accidentally takes from his pile even with the imaginary line Lu Guang had drawn down the middle of their plate to show which food was strictly his and strictly Cheng Xiaoshi’s. Xia Fei continues to look at them with nothing short of disbelief, and Lu Guang wants to entertain the normalcy of all this, the sheer enjoyment of spending time with Cheng Xiaoshi and someone so uncaught in the minefield they stand on, but even that feels false.

There’s a reason Xia Fei is here, and Lu Guang needs to figure out why. How he fits into all this. He feels like he’s on the brink of something; he just doesn’t know what. The strings that he once securely tied together feel loose under his hold, one tug away from unraveling the way it should, and something tells him that this is how it should be. He needs to do something different. He needs to find out what string it is.

↻

The day after, Xia Fei doesn’t go out, but his phone rings incessantly all day. Lu Guang catches sight of Xia Fei’s phone screen when it rings once more before he answers it, but the contact name is displayed as “demanding client”. It doesn’t mean anything, but Lu Guang has a sinking feeling in his stomach regardless.

That night, Xia Fei tells them that he’ll be leaving the next day. He has urgent things he needs to do, things he hasn’t really been on top of, and it’s causing problems. That night, Lu Guang dreams of Vein. Dreams that they’re both after the same photograph, only when Lu Guang gets ahold of it first, he finds it blank.

The afternoon Xia Fei needs to leave, he waits outside the studio for a cab to pick him up with his things. Cheng Xiaoshi is inside, scrambling to look for this thing he apparently wanted to give Xia Fei before he left. Lu Guang doesn’t know what that is, so he stays outside with Xia Fei. The frequency of the calls have lessened since yesterday, but they still come and go. Sometimes Xia Fei ignores it, and then he gets a text, which he can’t ignore.

The sun sets over the horizon, casting an orange glow around the city. It’s the same sun as the sun that set after they finished their model shoot two years ago. Lu Guang doesn’t know why he’s suddenly remembering this. It’s the same sun every time, anyway, regardless of day, regardless of time, regardless of life.

He glances at Xia Fei, who is typing away something on his phone. He backspaces, types some more, and then stops entirely. He sighs, then digs around for his pockets to pull out a piece of paper. He unfolds it, showing only a series of numbers that mean nothing to Lu Guang, but below it is a symbol in gray that Lu Guang does recognize, because it’s the same one by Liu Xiao’s collarbone.

Liu Xiao is not someone Lu Guang lets himself dwell on. He understands, objectively, that he’s the dangerous one here, more so than Vein, who simply works with Liu Xiao, if not for him, but his priorities are skewed. His capabilities are limited. Liu Xiao is likely the problem, but dealing with him isn’t the solution to saving Cheng Xiaoshi, and it’s all Lu Guang can afford to care about. He remembers a time, perhaps in the third dive, where he thought to himself that whatever Liu Xiao was up to had to be dealt with, but only when he had all this sorted, only when Cheng Xiaoshi was safe. At the time, he had been beaten down by grief but not yet defeat. He hasn’t thought of Liu Xiao since. He’s not a constant in every timeline, not like Vein is, but the reality of his existence in the background always remains.

Lu Guang doesn’t believe Liu Xiao is the new factor, the new puzzle piece that Lu Guang needs to slot in to make sense of things in a way he never has before. Still, there’s always been one thing he’s wondered about, the only thing about Liu Xiao that Lu Guang has been curious about, and there’s only one person who knows the answer to it. He’s standing beside him.

“Xia Fei,” Lu Guang starts. “There’s always something I wanted to ask you. I could never figure it out.”

“Oh? Okay.” Xia Fei says, pocketing his phone and the paper with a scowl. “What is it?”

“I know that Liu Xiao asked you to keep an eye on Cheng Xiaoshi, when we first met.”

Xia Fei blanches, before looking mortified. “Was it that obvious?”

Lu Guang ignores his question. The clock ticks. “Why?”

Xia Fei glances at him, uncertainty written over his face as he appraises Lu Guang. Lu Guang doesn’t know what he’s looking for, what goes on in his mind, but eventually Xia Fei sighs, and his expression turns somber, a shift so sudden it makes Lu Guang tense. He seems like a different person, all of a sudden. “Cheng Xiaoshi did something he shouldn’t have.”

“Shouldn’t have?” Lu Guang can’t help but echo, uncomprehending. He doesn’t understand. Cheng Xiaoshi did not have his ability when they first arrived at Bridon. “It’s Cheng Xiaoshi. If he did something, he would mention it. He would be sorry. Whatever thing Liu Xiao is holding him responsible for, he probably doesn’t remember it.”

“Even then,” says Xia Fei tiredly. “Not remembering doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It doesn’t change anything. No action is met without consequence.”

Lu Guang frowns. Vein said the same thing once. There is always something to his words, the way he speaks, as if he expects everyone to understand. Lu Guang doesn’t, but he feels like he should. He turns over the words, the same ones that haunt him every night, as if this time he can see it in a different light, with the clarity he’s been missing all this time. No action is met without consequence, Vein said. This is your punishment for changing the past, he said. Always directed at Lu Guang, because somehow he knows, in every timeline, that Lu Guang goes back to change things, but—

Cheng Xiaoshi did something he shouldn’t have, Xia Fei says now.

Lu Guang tugs on the string and it gives way, spelling out one thing.

It wasn’t always him. It wasn’t him that very first time, the night that changed the trajectory of his life and decisions forever, when he didn’t have Cheng Xiaoshi’s ability, when he could not fathom this outcome in which he lost everything in the world that mattered to him, and still, Vein said that.

It started that first time, and it didn’t start with Lu Guang. It started with Cheng Xiaoshi.

“Whatever he did,” Xia Fei continues. “I don’t know what it was, but it was for you. That’s why nothing can be done about it. Because even if Cheng Xiaoshi knew, he would still do it all over again.”

He probably saved him, Lu Guang concludes dazedly. Whatever Cheng Xiaoshi might’ve changed for him, it was probably to save him. It’s the only reason Xia Fei would say something like that; that he believes, wholeheartedly, even if Cheng Xiaoshi found out about what he had done, whatever it was, he wouldn’t have regretted it, that he still would’ve made that same decision.

Lu Guang wonders what it is. He knows every interaction they’ve had since meeting in the basketball court, every moment he has found himself in near danger, every time he has worried Cheng Xiaoshi, and none of it aligns to what Xia Fei is implying. Whatever Cheng Xiaoshi did, it’s in a past far beyond Lu Guang has ever reached; a past neither of them remember clearly, a past where they knew each other as children. When he realized this the first time, it was an idea met with fondness; there was only innocence. Now, it causes something heavy to settle uneasily in his gut. It was naivety. Nothing about the world is ever purely coincidental.

He closes his eyes, feeling inexplicably weary. But there's something else too, a burst of emotion he hasn't felt in so long, and he is grateful to have it.

“Why are you telling me all this?” he asks.

“Because we’re friends,” Xia Fei answers, and suddenly he’s the Xia Fei Lu Guang knows. “That’s what friends do, don’t they?”

Xia Fei is a good person. He’s just caught up in all the wrong things. Despite his loyalty, Lu Guang holds no resentment for Xia Fei. In spite of what his presence reminds him of, the dreaded inevitability of Vein, he’s the only person who isn’t Cheng Xiaoshi or Qiao Ling that Lu Guang cares enough about that he wants him to be well. To be happy.

“If I stop it,” he says, instead of voicing anything else in his mind. “Will it fix things?”

He’s turned over this question in his mind so many times that the words have begun to lose their meaning. He has looked over countless photos countless times and asked the void with the same frustrated patience the same thing over and over, and always left to dive back without waiting for an answer because it would not be given. But circumstances have changed now. This time is different. He’s not asking for answers. He’s asking for confirmation.

“It won’t just fix things,” Xia Fei replies after a pause, like he understands, somehow, that Lu Guang needs this—for someone to respond, for someone to hear him, for someone to know that this is where he is, where he’s been stuck at for god knows how long. “It’ll change everything.”

From the corner of his eye, Lu Guang spots the shape of Cheng Xiaoshi’s shadow, standing behind the slightly parted door of the studio.

↻

Xia Fei’s departure is bittersweet but enlightening. Cheng Xiaoshi makes Xia Fei promise that he’ll visit again soon, even if Lu Guang has a feeling that they’ll never see each other again. It’s just as well. If things have to end, they need to end on the best note they can manage. Lu Guang would know.

For a change, Lu Guang is in a relatively better mood than Cheng Xiaoshi, certainly calmer despite the storm he knows awaiting him the moment they step inside the studio. Sure enough, when they return inside, Cheng’s cheery front vanishes. Lu Guang is acutely aware of the tension in the air.

“What were you talking about over there?” he demands. He has a wild look in his eyes when he looks at Lu Guang. “‘Change everything’? ‘Fix things’? What’s broken?”

Lu Guang averts his gaze. “It’s nothing.”

“The hell it’s not,” Cheng Xiaoshi snaps. “Why are you hiding it from me?”

“You don’t need to know.”

Cheng Xiaoshi shakes his head. “Don’t pull that with me. I didn’t hear everything, but I heard enough. I know it relates to me. You don’t think I have the right to know about it?” Lu Guang is silent. Cheng Xiaoshi lets out a frustrated sound. “Look at me.”

For all his planning, he has never accounted for this; the idea of Cheng Xiaoshi finding out. There is no timeline where Lu Guang thinks about telling him the truth. Knowledge is a burden, and it helps that Cheng Xiaoshi has never come close to figuring things out. Until now. It’s all different.

How many times has Lu Guang gone back and forth wondering if different was bad or if it was essential. If it should be avoided or sought. How many times has Lu Guang decided the latter, only to backtrack into believing the former. He wants so desperately to be in control, but he can barely even control himself. And still—

And still. This is different. It is actually all different, because he knows what he needs to do. He doesn’t remember the last time he has felt this much clarity; the adrenaline rush that reminds him of every time he’s done a dive with Cheng Xiaoshi and things have gone perfectly because he mapped everything up with nothing left unanswered; the satisfaction of reaching the last pages of a book and realizing how it all adds up. He doesn’t remember the last time he has felt relief from knowing how this ends.

Knowledge is a gift. He remembers when he used to believe that. He believes it now.

Lu Guang looks at Cheng Xiaoshi. “The timeline is.”

“What?”

“The timeline,” he repeats. “Is what’s broken. Has been for some time.”

Cheng Xiaoshi’s face twists in confusion. “Is it something I did during a dive? Like with Emma?”

“No. It was something I did.”

He still does not understand. “You? But your ability—it isn’t—”

“I know,” Lu Guang says. “But I have yours too. You gave it to me…” He finds himself stopping without meaning to, the words caught in his throat. It occurs to him that he’s never had to say it aloud before, but all he does is take a measured breath. “Before you died. The first time you died.”

“The first time?” Cheng Xiaoshi echoes incredulously. He begins pacing restlessly around the studio. “Why did you—?”

“Why else? To prevent your death.”

Cheng Xiaoshi goes still. Lu Guang can’t imagine what’s going on in his head, what he’s fixated on. The fact that he will die, or that he already has, or that Lu Guang has been diving back to try and stop it. And the fact that he’s here means he hasn’t yet succeeded. “Death is an unchangeable node.”

“I know.”

“You’re breaking the rules. You have been for—how many times?”

Lu Guang doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t know either; he’s lost track of that a long time ago. “I know.”

Cheng Xiaoshi isn’t done. “Do you? How about this then: ‘each life is a story that’s already been told,’” he says through gritted teeth. Not reciting something said before, but recalled. Reminded. “‘Our abilities to see through memories, to go back in time—they’re not to change what’s already been written, but to understand it. To help people come to terms with it. That’s all we can do. We can’t rewrite it.’ You said that. You’re the one who—”

“I know.” Lu Guang doesn’t wince when he notices the livid expression on Cheng Xiaoshi’s face at being interrupted, but it’s a close thing. “I know what I said,” he continues calmly. “But I want a different story.”

For a while, Cheng Xiaoshi says nothing. The words hang in the air, heavy, but Lu Guang clings onto its weight, because it’s his resolve. He realizes, as Cheng Xiaoshi looks at him, searching, that this is the most selfish thing he’s ever said to him, in any timeline.

“You—” Cheng Xiaoshi starts. Lu Guang wonders if he’ll punch him. It’s certainly not past him. But then Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice only wobbles, and he doesn’t finish. He rubs at his face. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

“Cheng Xiaoshi—” Lu Guang takes a step forward, but Cheng Xiaoshi holds a hand up.

“Don’t,” he says, and Lu Guang is taken aback by the stab of hurt he feels in his gut by this; Cheng Xiaoshi’s rejection of him, not allowing him to get closer. “I—I need…”

Lu Guang wonders if he’s going to ask for space to clear his mind. If he’s going to leave and work out his overwhelming feelings of betrayal, of anger, from his best friend. If he’s going to tell Lu Guang to not follow. Lu Guang’s insides twist at the thought, a flood of panic rising in his mind. Too many lifetimes has built something in him that’s more than a habit, more than instinct. He does not know how to not chase after Cheng Xiaoshi, how to not follow him. He has not learned how to let him go, and he refuses to.

But Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t say that. Instead, he deflates, and collapses on the stairs, head buried in his hands. “Who knows what I need,” is all he can muster.

Cautiously, Lu Guang walks over to him. He doesn’t get close, not like how he normally would when he knows Cheng Xiaoshi is distraught, but he sits on the floor in front of him, just so he’s within Cheng Xiaoshi’s view.

“I’m sorry,” Lu Guang says.

That gets a laugh out of Cheng Xiaoshi, but it’s wet, without any humor to it. “No, you aren’t.”

“I’m not,” Lu Guang agrees, and that, this time, gets a hint of a smile on Cheng Xiaoshi’s face, even with his face mostly covered. “I finally figured it out, after all. I know how I can save you.”

“Any chance that you’ll tell me?”

“No.”

Cheng Xiaoshi lifts his head, glaring at him accusingly. “That’s unfair.”

“Sorry,” Lu Guang says, only half–meaning it. “If you know, you won’t let me do it.”

Lu Guang braces for an explosion of fury, but it doesn’t come. Cheng Xiaoshi only bites his bottom lip, like he’s just considered something. “Are you going to die in exchange for me living?”

“No.”

He’s not lying. Cheng Xiaoshi understands this, after a moment of silence. “I guess it’s fine then,” he allows. “Even if I'm not happy about that you won’t tell me. You’ve always been the smarter one, even if…”

“Even if you think I’m the biggest idiot you know now?” Lu Guang offers lightly.

“Well…” Cheng Xiaoshi pretends to mull over it, and purposefully doesn’t continue that train of thought. The atmosphere has already shifted. It’s a bit easier to breathe now. Cheng Xiaoshi isn’t that mad at him anymore. Lu Guang wonders if this is something Cheng Xiaoshi is aware of; for all Qiao Ling says that Lu Guang indulges in him, Cheng Xiaoshi makes so many exceptions for Lu Guang too. “So long as you live, and I live, it’s fine.” The words are parsed reluctantly, but Lu Guang knows he believes it. Cheng Xiaoshi looks at his hands, clenching and unclenching them mechanically. They’re slightly trembling still. Lu Guang doesn’t want Cheng Xiaoshi to be scared. “I just… I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you either,” Lu Guang says quietly.

For a few moments, neither of them say anything. Lu Guang wants to know what Cheng Xiaoshi is thinking, but he doesn’t feel like he has the right.

“Will you fix things?” Cheng Xiaoshi eventually asks. “In the next timeline?”

Lu Guang lets out a deep exhale. “I should.”

“Would—” Cheng Xiaoshi falters, “Is it bad if I don’t want it to happen yet?”

“What do you mean?”

Cheng Xiaoshi hesitates. “I know whatever you’ll fix, it probably won’t let things go back to the way they were before. But we’ll both live, and that’s more than enough for me,” he says. “I know I won’t make it to this… timeline, or remember it afterwards. And I don’t remember anything before either. But, Lu Guang, were we ever happy? Like, together?”

Together can mean so many things, and despite the endings, there were good times, always good times, because they faced them together. So long as Cheng Xiaoshi was by his side, Lu Guang could never not be happy. But Lu Guang understands what Cheng Xiaoshi is asking; he’s asking it in one way, a different way.

Lu Guang lowers his eyes. “We were never together,” he answers. “This life… was the closest we ever got.”

“Oh,” is all Cheng Xiaoshi says, and Lu Guang aches at the sound of his voice. Disappointed, not by his own end, Lu Guang’s inability to save him, but the inability of Lu Guang to give him this, what both of them want. Lu Guang feels terribly ashamed, but Cheng Xiaoshi speaks before he finds himself spiraling from the feeling. “Then can you promise me something? Can you make the next timeline as happy as it can be? Can you…”

He doesn’t finish, but Lu Guang doesn’t need him to. He understands what Cheng Xiaoshi is asking of him. Can you make me happy in the next life?

“Yes,” Lu Guang says. Night has fallen, shrouding the room in darkness. They can reach for the light switch, but neither of them move. “I promise.”

“Okay,” Cheng Xiaoshi says softly. Then, “Lu Guang.”

“Cheng Xiaoshi.”

“I’m scared of dying,” he blurts out.

“Me too,” Lu Guang admits. “But I’ll be with you. I’m always with you.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he says. “And you have to remember, it’s not the end. Not really.” It doesn’t end, not until Lu Guang saves him.

In the darkness, Lu Guang reaches for Cheng Xiaoshi. Cheng Xiaoshi finds his hand and interlaces their fingers together.

↻

Lu Guang thinks about saying sorry again, later that night, except it would be pointless. He already said sorry, and Cheng Xiaoshi knew he did not mean it. But Lu Guang is sorry for something, and it’s the fact that he isn’t, really.

“Hey,” Cheng Xiaoshi says from his bed. “How long are you going to sit on the floor looking at me?”

“Depends.” He wants to pretend like the floor is comfortable, that’s why he’s sitting here, but it would be a lie. His back is aching slightly. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been at this stalemate, unable to sleep, unable to really speak given the weight of everything they have realized. Lu Guang cannot predict what the consequences of this revelation will be, and it terrifies him, but he can’t afford to dwell on it. Cheng Xiaoshi is terrified too, and that’s Lu Guang’s fault. He’s responsible for this. He slipped up, but he also found the solution. Still, it's hard to feel gratified when it feels like it has come at this cost. “How long are you planning to look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Scared.”

Cheng Xiaoshi’s gaze is pointedly directed at the mattress above him. He doesn’t say anything. Lu Guang wonders if he overstepped. He wonders if he can fix this.

“Cheng Xiaoshi.”

“Can we be close?” Cheng Xiaoshi finally asks, voice awfully small. “I just… I want to feel close to you.”

It’s the least Lu Guang owes him, in every timeline, and there has never been a timeline where Lu Guang has never wanted it either. Instead of responding, he stands up and slides into Cheng Xiaoshi’s bed. He meets Cheng Xiaoshi’s open, waiting hand, intertwining their fingers. After a thoughtful moment, Lu Guang brings Cheng Xiaoshi’s hand towards him, kissing his knuckles gently. Cheng Xiaoshi’s breath hitches. “Like this?”

“Yes,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “Can you kiss me?”

So much has changed that the thought of refusing doesn't cross his mind. Lu Guang kisses him slowly, doesn’t know how else not to, sliding his mouth against Cheng Xiaoshi’s like he is a precious thing, so easily breakable, so tender to the touch. But Cheng Xiaoshi is impatient, trembling in a way that begs for more, so Lu Guang pulls him flush against him, feeling Cheng Xiaoshi’s erection dig into his hipbone. “Xiaoshi. You’re hard already.”

Cheng Xiaoshi huffs when he catches the amusement in Lu Guang’s tone. “You’re here,” is all he says. “How could I not be?”

It has never been a secret, really, that Cheng Xiaoshi loves him. Has loved him. Never something Lu Guang didn’t know, that Cheng Xiaoshi wanted him. But he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to it, tangible proof that he means it, and that Lu Guang can have it.

He doesn’t know if, for all that Cheng Xiaoshi knows him, he knows this part, but he supposes it doesn’t matter. He wants him anyway.

In one smooth movement he rolls on top of Cheng Xiaoshi, pulling off his pants and hiking up his shirt. Cheng Xiaoshi gasps when Lu Guang’s hands hold onto the back of his thighs for no other reason but to feel their weight against the palm of his hands, to know that only he can touch them, and Lu Guang begins feeling fire hot all over.

He leans down; Cheng Xiaoshi is warm under him, already flushed, but he reaches for him like a cooling balm, tongue tracing the visible muscle on his body before moving up, stopping right when he reaches a nipple. Cheng Xiaoshi jerks when he licks around it.

“You have stuff here, right,” Lu Guang says against his skin.

“What?” Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice is airy. Lu Guang knows he heard him, and he doesn’t want to waste his breath repeating himself, far more interested in exploring Cheng Xiaoshi’s body, tongue tasting every inch of him, circling Cheng Xiaoshi’s other nipple before drifting down along his happy trail. Eventually, Cheng Xiaoshi seems to understand, because there are rustling movements before a bottle of petroleum lands beside Lu Guang.

“Good boy,” Lu Guang praises, and Cheng Xiaoshi bites his lip, trying to fight back a sound. Lu Guang squeezes his thighs one last time before moving his hands away to get the bottle. “Keep these open. Put your hands on the rail.”

The instruction makes Cheng Xiaoshi whimper, but he listens. Spread out like this, he is both sinful and a miracle. Lu Guang wants him so badly that his cock aches, but he’s used to denying himself, not Cheng Xiaoshi. “Please.”

“I’m here,” Lu Guang promises. With one hand, he cups one of Cheng Xiaoshi’s cheeks to spread him a little wider until he can see his entrance. It makes Cheng Xiaoshi squirm, turning even more red, but Lu Guang wants to see the way his fingers, smeared with liquid, press into Cheng Xiaoshi’s rim like a reminder. So tiny. So tempting. He sinks a finger in. Cheng Xiaoshi moans, and it's the loudest sound he’s let out so far. “I’ll take care of you.”

“A-Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi wails as Lu Guang starts moving, feeling how velvet-smooth and hot Cheng Xiaoshi is around him. Lu Guang expects discomfort, but Cheng Xiaoshi’s cock is rock hard against his stomach and his eyes are cloudy, drifting off to somewhere that he doesn’t want to escape from. Lu Guang gently twists around, feeling the way Cheng Xiaoshi’s insides soften before pulling back to slip two fingers this time. It’s fascinating, to have Cheng Xiaoshi so pliant in his touch, thighs spread despite how they shake, hands gripping the rail above him, depriving his cock of relief so he can fully feel whatever Lu Guang will give to him.

His fingers suddenly brush against something that has Cheng Xiaoshi keening. “Fuck,” Cheng Xiaoshi swears, and Lu Guang returns to that spot one more time for good measure, noting that Cheng Xiaoshi reacts the same way, gasping. “Lu Guang, there. Hn.”

“What do you want?”

“My—here, my cock,” Cheng Xiaoshi stumbles over his words. “I need—”

“You’ll come on my fingers,” Lu Guang tells him, and Cheng Xiaoshi lets out a choked groan at his tone, the finality of it. Still, despite his words, Cheng Xiaoshi’s cock twitches against his abdomen, neglected, and Lu Guang’s resolve weakens, just a bit. “But you’ve been really good, haven’t you?”

Cheng Xiaoshi nods frantically. Lu Guang wants to kiss him silly. “Yes, ah—for you.”

Lu Guang lowers himself, still keeping his fingers inside Cheng Xiaoshi, thrusting steadily to feel the way they open up underneath his touch, until his nose brushes alongside Cheng Xiaoshi’s balls. Cheng Xiaoshi squirms, but Lu Guang hooks his fingers inside him, warningly, and that breaks out a whiney sound from Cheng Xiaoshi’s lips. “If you’re good, I’ll keep this warm. Do you want that?”

“Please.”

Lu Guang takes him into his mouth without another word, without warning. He means what he says, even if the feel of Cheng Xiaoshi’s cock in his mouth makes Lu Guang want to do more. Cheng Xiaoshi’s hips twitch, wanting to fuck into Lu Guang’s mouth, but he visibly restrains himself, and Lu Guang rewards him with a tongue lazily lapping the underside of his member, tracing veins, extra skin, humming with approval that has Cheng Xiaoshi even more stimulated.

Eventually, Lu Guang glances up and he meets Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes, his half-lidded, hazy gaze and the little moans falling from his lips as Lu Guang continues thrusting his fingers into him. His body is impossibly flushed, sheen with sweat, and Lu Guang is reminded of how dangerous all this is, every time they’ve done this so far, because it makes him want to keep Cheng Xiaoshi like this, bare and desperate and far away from the horror and grief that awaits him. Safe and aroused. Always wanting. Always feeling good. He paints such a debauched vision underneath Lu Guang. He almost wishes he had a camera, so he could capture this, return to this moment, live it over and over, but he doesn’t dwell on that thought. The present is what matters. Lu Guang wants Cheng Xiaoshi happy.

“A-Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi cries, when Lu Guang finally teases a third finger in. “Can you—come here, kiss me. Please.”

Lu Guang is helpless when Cheng Xiaoshi begs. The moment he pulls his mouth off Cheng Xiaoshi, the latter grabs him, dragging him up until they’re at level to kiss filthily. Cheng Xiaoshi parts his lips when Lu Guang prods with his tongue, asking for entrance, and the former makes another sound at the taste of himself. When they pull apart, Lu Guang catches the look on Cheng Xiaoshi’s face, the look of wonder as he stares at him. Lu Guang shifts his hips to grind against Cheng Xiaoshi’s thigh. He’s still clothed, and he doesn’t have the impatience to take it off, far too aroused. “Cheng Xiaoshi. You’re beautiful.”

Cheng Xiaoshi is breathing heavily. His mouth moves but nothing comes out. Lu Guang kisses his cheek before lowering to his neck. The fire in his stomach grows hotter when Cheng Xiaoshi lets out a broken sound from the scrape of his teeth on his skin.

“What do you want,” Lu Guang asks, rutting against Cheng Xiaoshi in tandem with his fingers rubbing unrelentingly at the bundle of nerves inside him. “Tell me, so I can give it to you.”

“Can you take me like this, next time?” Cheng Xiaoshi pleads, and inside Lu Guang can only feel a burning, a threat to tear everything down because of the boy beneath him. For him. “Can you want me the way you want me now?”

“I will,” Lu Guang promises. Cheng Xiaoshi shudders, letting go with a cry. Lu Guang doesn't stop his movements, milking the most out of the aftershocks of Cheng Xiaoshi's release. Of course Lu Guang will. Of course he’ll take him like this, want him like this. Lu Guang doesn’t know how not to. “Always. Every time.”