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Bowen gets Jiyang’s text while he’s at the grocery store. He’s outside my building :[ says everything Bowen needs to know.
It’s nearly spring, and Xue Yang still hasn’t separated from Haoxuan. Bowen isn’t sure who else knows; the Yi City crew worked hard to keep it quiet. But Haoxuan has booked a new costume drama to shoot come fall, not to mention their press tour. Character bleed to this scale is more nervous legend than something people know how to deal with concretely. It can kill a career if word gets out — it’s not just unprofessional, it’s a liability too strange for insurance to cover.
From what little anyone knows, young actors are more prone to it, though there’s no telling whom it’ll affect, if anyone. It’s never discussed officially in drama schools. There were rumors on the A-Ling set, but aren’t there always rumors with xianxia productions? Isn’t an obvious joke about character bleed just a compliment on acting ability, in the end? Mostly the gossip fell on the two leads, which helped the internet and Tencent simply not notice that Wang Haoxuan was just Xue Yang sometimes, without notice and for increasingly stable stretches.
Haoxuan himself has been through the wringer trying to keep Xue Yang in check. Unfortunately, he also cares about the little shit more than anyone has any right to. “If I can’t help him, you guys have to, all right?” he’d slurred to Bowen, Zhuoxuan and Jiyang one night over beers. “Just — take good care of him. He needs it. You guys have no idea.”
Bowen thinks he does have an idea, to be honest. Xue Yang is an impossible menace who loves to talk about himself; the jianghu comes across as very different from what the actors had filmed. Xue Yang, however, is as the viewers will see him. He’s terrifyingly smart, and picked up on the modern world like he’d been born into it. When Bowen gets out of the car that brings him to Jiyang’s high-rise, Xue Yang is playing with Haoxuan’s phone.
It’s the same body, but it’s always perfectly clear when Xue Yang is in it, rather than Haoxuan. There’s a fluidity to Xue Yang that never occurs to Haoxuan, who is sometimes shy, often awkward and always ridiculous about invading personal space. Haoxuan fidgets, while Xue Yang stares. Haoxuan hides nothing about his fundamental sweetness; Xue Yang stalks, lopes, lounges, all predator, actually dangerous. They don’t even look the same, once you’ve seen them both.
Xue Yang signals his presence from a distance too. He loves fashion in ways Haoxuan puts up with but never seeks out. Today he’s wearing a garish jacket with a big black shearling ruff, unzipped so it shows off the colorful print of his button-up. One or both of them might be from the women’s section. He makes a show of noticing Bowen, though Bowen knows he’s been watching him from the moment he opened the car door.
“Bowen-gege! Jiyang isn’t answering his buzzer, though I know he’s home. Where else would he be? I was hoping we’d play video games for a while.” He smiles, dazzling, sardonic, and raps the video doorbell with one knuckle.
Bowen snorts instead, eyeing up his outfit. “I don’t know if it’s better or worse if you paid for all that.”
“Xuan-di doesn’t mind.” He eyes Bowen’s bag. “What’s in that?”
“Snacks,” Bowen says, shooting for aloof but coming out annoyed. “Move over, I’ll get us in.” The monitor flickers as he taps in Jiyang’s apartment number. “Hey, I’m here! Hurry up, it’s windy out.”
The screen resolves into Jiyang’s face, eyeballing the scene. He’s looking mussed and suspicious, like he just woke up. “Is he carrying anything?”
“No knives, daozhang!” Xue Yang leans into sight, always thrilled to see himself on camera. “Just me.”
Jiyang groans and punches a button. The door to the building buzzes, and Xue Yang dances inside. Bowen only just catches it as it closes.
Neither of them talks during the elevator ride up. Bowen has to force himself to relax. He’s good at stage combat, but Xue Yang is intimately familiar with real violence. There’s no Song Lan inside Bowen to call on to keep him in check. As far as they can guess, the bleed comes from feeling a role too deeply for too long. Song Lan was quiet, reserved, physical; a minor foil, and for such a small role, there wasn’t any point in Bowen thinking too hard about him. That leaves him now with just his size and his instincts. Xue Yang has gotten the best of both before.
A-Ling was Haoxuan’s first period piece, and the first time he wasn’t basically playing himself. He was a mess with the sword, but he’d tried, earnestly, to improve. The leap in his abilities deep into the shoot took Bowen pleasantly by surprise. Haoxuan’s footwork got stronger, more confident, and the floppiness vanished from his arms and wrists. Bowen had meant to compliment his progress; instead, he found him hyperventilating behind one of the ruined Yi City storefronts.
All he could see was Haoxuan’s skinny shoulders, rising and falling in the unyielding summer heat, the wig fanning out across the rough-woven robe. Bowen had noticed him vanish while the makeup jiejie retouched his fierce corpse veins. He and Haoxuan had been joking that morning about whether the black contacts were UV-polarized. They were pinpricks in the middle, Bowen’s field of vision practically nothing. When he held out the spare water bottle he’d brought over, Haoxuan moved like a viper.
Bowen found himself flat on his back, his ears ringing, with Haoxuan pinning him down. “You got what you wanted,” he snarled, eyes blazing. “Leave me alone!”
The elevator dings, and the doors slide open. Xue Yang saunters ahead. Bowen picks up his pace — if he doesn’t reach Jiyang’s place first, Xue Yang will ring the doorbell until he gets what he wants. Even after he knocks, Bowen has to swat Xue Yang’s hand away. “Calm down,” he mutters. Xue Yang scoffs, but waits.
Jiyang is in full college student mode, wearing mismatched, voluminous loungewear and giving off a general aura of belligerent undercaffeination. “Your friends are here!” Xue Yang sings, strolling inside past him. Jiyang gives Bowen a long-suffering, puffy-eyed look.
“Take your shoes off!” Jiyang grouses after Xue Yang. He lets Bowen follow him inside. “How long’s he been like this?” he asks quietly, watching Xue Yang poke through his bookshelves.
“I was texting with Haoxuan two days ago.” Bowen shrugs. “Other than that, I don’t know.”
Jiyang frowns. “Is he staying longer?”
“Let’s not worry about that now.”
“I’m worried,” Jiyang grumbles. “I worry a lot.”
“It’s strange for me too, you know,” Xue Yang interjects. He flops onto Jiyang’s couch, looking unconcerned. “But lucky us, here I am.”
Jiyang crosses his arms. “Why do you keep coming back?”
Xue Yang pouts. “I like you. And I like having ten fingers.” He wags both his left hand and his eyebrows. “Were you doing anything else today?”
It’s a Saturday. He has a point.
“Anyway, Xuan-di’s fine,” Xue Yang drawls. “We talk. You shouldn’t worry so much.”
“How?” Jiyang wrinkles his nose. “How do you ‘talk’? How should we believe anything you’re telling us about him?”
“Daozhang, daozhang.” Xue Yang sighs, but his eyes have hardened. “You’d know, if you’d tried a little harder to get my daozhang to come too.”
Bowen snorts. He rifles through his grocery bag and tosses him a packet of wasabi peas, which Xue Yang had lit up for the last time he had them. “Aren’t you here to play video games?”
It had surprised Bowen at first, but Xue Yang doesn’t care for fighting games — he claims they bore him, especially in their wrongness. All his favorites are lushly animated lifestyle RPGs, where the goals involve raising cute magical creatures or outfitting an apartment or solving a mystery at a high school. He’ll spend hours on a mobile game about creating patterns with jewels or fruit. It doesn’t take a psychologist to see through it.
These lazy weekends are normal when he’s Haoxuan. Not every cast sticks together after filming, but the Yi City crew gravitated toward each other well after the show wrapped. Xue Yang had seemed to go dormant in the fall, which left Jiyang to act his age (bratty) as Haoxuan tried to get both of them interested in Premier League football. It felt easy. Bowen wanted to be friends with these two forever.
Then they learned that Xue Yang had been lying in wait, negotiating with Haoxuan for use of the body in whatever liminal space that could hold them both. Bowen and Jiyang had to learn an entirely new way to hang out with him, with each of them. Those days always seem to end with Jiyang, normally so easygoing, simply furious and wound up.
Both Jiyang and Bowen exchange glances throughout, but as the day shades into late afternoon, Xue Yang gives them no reason to kick him out. He chatters about things he’s seen on the street, tells shocking stories from his youth with no hint that they’re outrageous, flirts shamelessly and without rancor. Slowly, Bowen puts it together that he spent most of last night wandering around Gulou, trolling bargoers and breaking into the drum tower.
“No one ever looks up at the roofs,” Xue Yang says with an unconcerned shrug.
“You don’t have a golden core,” Jiyang sputters. “What if something had happened to you?”
Xue Yang hums and doesn’t answer.
Eventually, Jiyang announces he’s going to shower, and would Bowen please keep Xue Yang from being weird about it. Xue Yang huffs, controller still in hand. “He wishes.” Then it’s just Bowen and Xue Yang lounging on the couch, the gentle white noise of the shower filling the otherwise quiet apartment.
Bowen is idly watching the TV screen, where a plump animated piglet is burrowing into a crate full of sweaters, when the avatar goes still. The silence in the living room changes. He glances at the other end of the couch, where Haoxuan is sitting stiff and staring into the middle distance.
“Hey—” Bowen says, at the same moment Haoxuan says, wide-eyed, “Fuck.”
“What day is it?” Haoxuan continues. Bowen tells him, and he sighs. “Wow, okay.” He cracks his knuckles, scoots to the edge of the cushion, surveys the living room. “Has he done anything? Is he hiding from anyone?”
“Hold up, hold up.” Bowen rests a hand on his shoulder. “What do you need right now?”
“Ugh, I need a minute.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Bowen waits. It’s still not entirely clear to him where Haoxuan goes when Xue Yang fronts, or vice versa. Haoxuan can only explain it in convoluted metaphors about untranslatable experiences. To hear him tell it, it’s not quite like being asleep, though he can’t perceive the outside world or tell what Xue Yang is doing. Once he described it as being submerged in unprocessed emotional inputs, buffeted by unfiltered currents. Xue Yang has never answered the question.
“He’s so ragged,” Haoxuan finally sighs. “You have no idea how fucking tired I am.”
Bowen furrows his brow. “Really? He’s been — surprisingly chill with us all day.”
Haoxuan looks up at him over his huge hands. “He’s panicking, trust me.”
That doesn’t sound like Xue Yang, who makes a point of never seeming ruffled. Bowen tries to stay cool and supportive. “About what?”
Haoxuan takes a breath. They all used to do character talk, in Hengdian, before anyone knew something was wrong: sitting around late at night in a group, gossiping about their roles like real people and digging into their hypothetical pasts and relationships. It was in Yu Bin’s hotel room, suffocating with smoke, vape pens and baijiu, that Fanxing had said to Jiyang and Haoxuan, both innocently and bluntly, “But you two are fucking, right?”
He’d meant the characters, but Jiyang had totally bluescreened. Haoxuan had grinned and quipped, “Should we tell all, daozhang?” That had been Haoxuan, but there was something sharper in his face that night, now that Bowen thinks about it. The way he understood Xue Yang, even from the beginning, was crystalline, certain and unhesitating.
“He doesn’t feel safe,” Haoxuan says. “He’s all alone in this bizarre new world, and he’s got all these huge feelings about Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan that don’t match up with, well, you guys. He also has no idea how to be friends with someone in a way that’s not…” He wobbles his head, searching for the right word. “Overwhelming. And he can’t do most of the things he’s used to doing to destress.”
“Like mass murder?”
Haoxuan just laughs. “Fair. But listen: Everything he’s feeling is getting all over me. Even when I’m me, I can’t focus on anything — I just feel like he does. And you know I like him, but I don’t… like him.”
It sounds like a nightmare. Bowen thought he’d been watching his friend closely, but apparently not closely enough. “You can’t keep him out?” he says softly.
“Not lately.” He glances at the tropical print on Xue Yang’s shirt, as if he’s just noticing it. “Not right now.”
Bowen looks down at his knees. “I miss you, man.”
“I’m right here, dummy.” The fondness is audible in his voice, as is a strange kind of unconcern. He peers toward the bathroom. “Hey Jiyang!”
The water stops, and a few moments later, Jiyang hurries out, still dripping in his bathrobe.
Haoxuan chuckles. “You can dry off, you know.”
“Is he gone?” Jiyang asks instead, urgent and too hopeful.
Haoxuan shakes his head. “Not for good. But I’m hoping he might go quieter if you guys can, um. Help him with something.”
“Help him how?” Jiyang says flatly. His skepticism isn’t unfounded — once, they took Xue Yang to a wushu gym, where he demolished the instructors, broke every posted rule and was summarily banned from ever coming back, with lots of yelling.
“He likes you guys.” Haoxuan starts wringing his hands. “He does. He just doesn’t understand how to show that, except in some — specific ways. What if you just reassured him that you like him back?”
“I don’t like him.” Jiyang crosses his arms. “He keeps making passes at me. It’s tiresome.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Haoxuan turns to Bowen. His eyes seem more bruised, his shoulders rounded. “Please, I know this is asking a lot. But I think this is why he came here to you guys.”
“You haven’t asked for anything yet,” Jiyang states, increasingly cranky.
“He’s so horny!” Haoxuan blurts out. “He’s so horny, I just — could you make him focus on something outside himself for a while? He is exhausting.”
It takes a minute for Bowen to hear what his friend is saying. He blinks. “Haoxuan. You’re straight.” Haoxuan cants his head. “You’re our token straight,” Bowen continues, a little bemused, more than a little uncertain.
“Eh.” Haoxuan slumps back onto the couch. “I’m not that attached to it.” His bushy eyebrows creep upward, his expression defensive. “Anyway, I know how much castcest was going on during filming. It’s not weird.”
“You’re sure about this?” Bowen says, and Jiyang’s eyes go wide.
“In my flat? Are you serious?”
“You don’t have to do anything,” says Bowen, surprising himself. He hadn’t realized he’d already decided, and so easily.
Jiyang’s jaw drops. “You’re agreeing to this?”
Bowen is an actor and a model. He thinks everybody is beautiful. All his industries involve being professionally hot. He loves fucking, and he loves fucking everybody who’s into it. It would be a lie to say he hadn’t fantasized about his castmates (have you seen his castmates?), but he can keep that separate from the work. And Xue Yang, for all his issues, is less complicated than he thinks himself.
“What are your hard limits?” Bowen says, and Haoxuan lets himself grin, at last.
“Nothing that’ll injure me, and use condoms. Other than that, all I’ll know is if he’s happy.” His smile turns a little apologetic. “Also, I don’t need details, but tell me if it’s good later, okay?”
Jiyang tightens his terrycloth robe. The set of his jaw, of his whole frame, is livid. “I’m supervising,” he announces. “To keep you both safe.”
If Bowen has doubts, it’s about this. Jiyang doesn’t have to confess anything about how he feels about Haoxuan; he gives himself away every time they hang out. If Haoxuan knows, he’s being polite about ignoring it. Bowen wonders what Jiyang thinks he’s going to do, if Xue Yang gets out of hand — what Bowen himself would do.
Haoxuan lifts a fist. “You’ll never walk alone,” he says wryly, in English. He squints. “I don’t know how long I can stay awake. Can I get some water?”
Jiyang strides stiff-legged into his bedroom. After a moment, Bowen fetches a glass from the kitchenette, fills it and hands it off to Haoxuan. “I’m changing,” Jiyang announces when he follows him into the bedroom, but he doesn’t chase Bowen out. He also tosses a block of clean sheets at the bed; Bowen dutifully starts stripping it.
“Where’s your—?” he starts, but Jiyang just gives him a disdainful look before pointing at the bedside table. There’s not much in the drawer: a selection of plugs, one surrealist dildo and three half-used bottles of lube. Bowen nods. “Thanks.” He pauses. “Is this going to be too weird for you?”
Jiyang doesn’t turn around as he steps into a fresh pair of sweatpants. “I just want Haoxuan to be okay.”
“Will it make things weird between us?” Bowen clarifies.
“No,” Jiyang says, slipping on a t-shirt, still sour. “Just be careful.”
Bowen can’t help but smile in self-defense. “Break out your daozhang voice if you want to short-circuit him.”
Jiyang curls his lip as he unfolds the fitted sheet. “Ugh, no, he’ll like that too much.”
Haoxuan is dozing when they both emerge again, his limbs spilling easily off the sides of the couch. Bowen removes the glass of water, half-drunk, from his hand and sets it aside. “Hey, Xuanxuan,” he murmurs. “Come on, get up.” Jiyang helps peel Haoxuan off the couch, while Bowen guides him to the bedroom. Haoxuan unspools easily onto the mattress; he’s an expansive sleeper, happy wherever you drop him. Bowen takes up a spot at the edge of the bed. He knows what to watch for: Xue Yang sleeps curled tight on his side.
Jiyang’s entire apartment isn’t big, and his bedroom doesn’t leave a lot of space for much beyond the bed. Jiyang drags one of his wooden dining chairs into the doorway. He sits precariously, one leg propped against the doorframe, a little surly, a little mad. He doesn’t look away from his phone, his thumbs moving expertly across the screen, as their friend shifts in his sleep, smaller, inward.
“You passed out, A-Yang,” Bowen says eventually. “I’m honored by your trust.”
Xue Yang rolls onto his back, his mouth curling. He watches Bowen through his long lashes, but his eyes dart toward Jiyang too. “Bowen-ge, why would I ever have to worry about you?” He starts to sit up, but Bowen plants an open palm on his chest. Xue Yang doesn’t back down. “Bowen-ge,” he says again; his eyes flash as he smiles.
“You’re wound tight,” Bowen says. “So says Haoxuan, anyway.”
“Hmm. Fascinating.” Xue Yang twists his neck, so he’s looking only at Jiyang.
“He’s not part of this,” Bowen says calmly. “Look back at me.” Xue Yang, who devotes himself piously to being a little shit, keeps his eyes on Jiyang, who ignores him. Bowen reaches; Xue Yang’s whole jaw can fit into one of his hands. “Hey, focus on me. I’m right here.”
Xue Yang doesn’t jerk away, but his eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”
“A favor, for a friend.”
“Are we friends?” Xue Yang whips out his index finger and thumb to frame his chin, like he’s posing for a sardonic selfie. Their wrists brush. “Or did you mean him?”
Bowen smiles. He’s aiming for nonconfrontational. “Why won’t you just take the attention?”
He squirms, pointedly. “Maybe I’m not in the mood.”
From the doorway, Jiyang snorts. Xue Yang grins, canines and all. He juts his chin toward the door. “If Song-daozhang’s not in the mood, I don’t want to be in the mood.”
“You’ll be waiting a long time.” Bowen pulls back from cupping Xue Yang’s jaw, but Xue Yang grabs his wrist with a frown. His grip is tight.
“Who said you could stop that?”
Bowen scoffs, unimpressed. “And what mood is this?”
“I have never, in my entire life, accepted a pity fuck.” The old malice flares at the back of Xue Yang’s eyes. Bowen can feel Jiyang’s tension crackling behind him, the worry that Xue Yang will throw them both into some deep end of his choosing without any recourse.
Not every fight is about blocking a blow, Bowen reminds himself, and so he lets some hesitation flicker over his face.
Xue Yang lets his mouth open, just enough to show off his bottom teeth. “Oh,” he says, and chuckles. “You want this, do you? And Xuan-di doesn’t fuck men.” Bowen looks away, lets his cheeks flush a little. Xue Yang releases his hold and falls back onto the blankets, laughing. “I don’t do pity fucks either, Bowen-ge. Unless our audience has anything to say about it.”
After a moment, Jiyang lifts his attention from his screen to the bed. His expression holds nothing but contempt. Bowen can’t tell, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Xue Yang was getting a little hard. (To Bowen’s surprise, he is.) Finally, Jiyang hmphs and turns back to his phone.
Xue Yang laughs. “All right, why not?” He grabs the front of Bowen’s shirt. “I confess, I always was a little curious about you.” He bites his own lip, his gaze assessing. “My Song-daozhang was just a horrible dead thing for most of our acquaintance. What would have been the point?”
Bowen plants both arms on either side of Xue Yang’s shoulders. For a fraction of a second, Xue Yang’s face cracks open: the flush in his cheeks, the way his hair falls back from his temples, the long eyelashes framing the brown irises, the whites of his eyes. This is the thing about Xue Yang, when he catches you with the full force of his attention — there’s no chance of escape, or desire for it.
“I’m not Song Lan,” Bowen retorts, “you ceaseless brat.”
He’s on his back suddenly, Xue Yang perching above him, one lean thigh between Bowen’s. “I suppose,” he says lazily. “Now, what do I want?” Xue Yang reaches under Bowen’s shirt, both hands exploring his torso. The thing is, Haoxuan’s touched him there before, as an insistent gremlin cuddler, in costume and out. But the intent now is unmistakable. Xue Yang is tracing the lines of Bowen’s musculature with his thumbs, kneading into his flesh.
Bowen fumbles for the buttons on Xue Yang’s loud shirt; Xue Yang lets him, smirking. Bowen has seen Haoxuan’s body, of course: wiry, narrow, unexpectedly defined. What’s there is solid muscle — he’s heavier than he looks. Xue Yang shrugs out of the shirt and tosses it aside. “You haven’t touched me yet,” he notes. “If you’re thinking about him, don’t.” Mockingly, he adds, “Just deal with me, Bowen-ge.”
Xue Yang swats away Bowen’s hands and peels open the fly on Bowen’s jeans. One grope of his hardening cock through his briefs and Xue Yang’s face goes greedy. “You’re going to give this to me,” he purrs.
“Whatever you want,” Bowen says, a little strangled.
His t-shirt is gone moments later, Xue Yang’s mouth hot beneath Bowen’s collarbone. His breath hitches, embarrassingly, at a stab of pain against his chest, before he realizes it’s Xue Yang’s canine tooth dragging along his skin. Bowen thinks he can hold himself together as Xue Yang’s huge hand slides beneath his briefs, fingers raking through his pubic hair and curling over his dick. He kneads the covers, then his own hair.
It’s almost humiliating, how riled up he’s gotten so fast. Xue Yang seems to smell it on him; he catches Bowen’s eye just as he swipes the flat of his tongue lazily over Bowen’s nipple. His palm closes around Bowen’s cock. Bowen hisses, involuntary, and Xue Yang’s laugh radiates from his eyes.
“Get your hands on me,” Xue Yang murmurs. Bowen’s limbs leap to obey. He unzips Xue Yang’s pants, fills his hands with Xue Yang’s ass, as Xue Yang bites at his shoulder, beneath his jaw, at the nape of his neck. He’ll be marked all over, well after Haoxuan is back. He has photoshoots in a few days, when the bruises will still be dark. He doesn’t care. He spreads Xue Yang beneath his pants, just enough to feel for his rim. Xue Yang hums and licks along the shell of Bowen’s ear.
He’s good at this. He’s attentive and challenging and responsive, always showing Bowen how he feels. Xue Yang could have been selfish, or domineering, or vicious. Instead, this feels like a game in which Bowen is a respected rival.
Of course flashes across the parts of Bowen’s brain that are still verbal. He was fucking Xiao Xingchen for three years, wasn’t he?
His attention darts to Jiyang. He’s still slouched in the doorway, one knee against his chest. His thumbs aren’t tapping over his touchscreen anymore; instead, the phone is steady, horizontal. He’s focusing on the screen, his jaw tight.
“Are you recording?” Bowen says, startled.
Jiyang shakes his head. “Only if things get bad,” he says darkly.
Xue Yang turns. “There’s room for three in almost any bed,” he sing-songs, smug. Jiyang glares back at both of them over the phone. Bowen has to intervene, to redirect this, but Xue Yang beats him to the punch.
He puts his mouth to Bowen’s for the first time, forceful, determined to put on a show. Xue Yang tastes like flat soda and gummy bears. So close to his skin, Bowen can smell something smoky and sharp, like leather and saffron. Xue Yang’s teeth close around Bowen’s bottom lip, a tease and a warning.
“Shame about the tongue,” he says, eyes gleaming, once he pulls back.
A shiver crazes the back of Bowen’s neck. “Shut up,” he grunts, as it drops along his spine. This, the head games, was to be expected. He yanks at Xue Yang’s unforgiving black skinny jeans and the pattern-print boxer briefs beneath them. Xue Yang’s cock spills out of his underwear, fully hard against a thatch of fine, thick hair. How many big hands, big feet jokes has Haoxuan endured since puberty? The jokes were on point; Bowen feels his stomach drop with want.
Xue Yang chuckles, and pulls back to shuck off the pants entirely. “I know what you’re thinking. ‘What took me so long?’ Bowen-ge, I’ve been telling you both all along.”
“You—!”
But Xue Yang wraps one hand around the base of Bowen’s cock. He takes a slow, deliberate look at it, blood-flush and leaking. “You want me to shut up,” he continues, with a coquettish tilt of his head. “I can do that.”
“Xue Yang,” Bowen says, trying to stay in charge of himself, but Xue Yang takes his cock in his mouth and Bowen’s brain slips sideways.
His knees drop open, the fabric of his pants too rough, too much now, too close. Haoxuan can be a bit of a bro, but he blushes easily and insists he respects women too much to ever share details of any sexploits. Xue Yang is a bard of pussy; he will go off in raptures if you let him. He is an enthusiast of the body, yet as much as he loves burying his face in a cunt, Xue Yang has also clearly — clearly — sucked a lot of dicks.
Bowen would absolutely tell this story in the future if it weren’t so fucking weird, how Xue Yang surrounds him with the whole flat of his tongue, his cheeks hollowing while his eyebrows knit and waver. Xue Yang blows Bowen with utter focus and absolute expressiveness. Bowen keeps pretty cool in most circumstances; he spouts utter garbage the more Xue Yang works him. He can’t even look at Jiyang, his face is so hot. It’s a good blowjob, and it’s going to get better, as Xue Yang’s eyes slip shut and his jaw goes slack and Bowen’s cock inches deeper down his mouth. They all know where this is going. Bowen promises to apologize for Haoxuan’s wrecked throat later.
Except Xue Yang gags on him.
His eyes shoot open as he pulls off abruptly to cough. His face is so furious, so betrayed, that once Bowen recovers from the sudden loss of mouth on cock, he’s already laughing. He catches Jiyang looking, startled, then relaxing, just a little. Of course; Haoxuan’s never done this before. Xue Yang glares with streaming eyes, first at Bowen’s aching balls and then at Bowen, whose shoulders shake as he covers his mouth with a hand.
“I’m sorry, but — oh shit, you’re so mad. No, don’t try again, it’s okay, don’t—”
His breath rushes out of him. Bowen is gasping again in short order. Xue Yang may not be able to deep-throat him, but he’s determined to wring him out however he can. Bowen swears and rakes his fingers over Xue Yang’s scalp, gripping the cowlicks with decreasing dexterity.
“Are you gonna — fuck, Xue Yang, fuck, I’m—”
Xue Yang swallows, aggressively. Bowen can’t remember the last time he came that hard from a blowjob. He falls back onto Jiyang’s sheets, his vision hazy at the edges. Xue Yang doesn’t say anything, just begins tugging off Bowen’s pants.
“Aren’t you done?” says Jiyang, with some small amount of distress.
“How dare you be so impatient.” Xue Yang grins and licks the corner of his mouth. “Feel free to join in anytime.”
“Quit it. I’m just here to watch.” He seems to realize what he’s said at the same moment Xue Yang does. Even Bowen has to chuckle. He does sort of wish Jiyang would come over. He could really do with some lazy kissing, and Jiyang’s mouth is objectively, obscenely gorgeous.
Xue Yang tosses aside the pants and underwear. “Bowen-ge, I see you daydreaming.” Bowen makes a low, affirmative noise. He’s smiling, with his eyes closed. Fuck, he loves being naked in company, each limb stretched out long and so close to another person’s heat. Xue Yang climbs back onto the bed; Bowen feels the mattress dip, then his left hand cradling his balls, exploring his taint. It’s too soon, he’s so spent and warm. Bowen lifts his own thumb to his mouth, feeling how full and thick his lips have gotten.
Xue Yang teases at Bowen’s nipple with his tongue again, nipping and licking over the outlines of his pecs. “Bowen-ge,” he rumbles. “Turn over.”
Bowen opens his eyes, perhaps wider than he’d meant to. (“Cursed with that face,” one hookup had once sighed, “and that monster dong.”) They hadn’t discussed this — they hadn’t discussed anything, really, but Bowen supposes this was coming as soon as Xue Yang put his mouth around his cock. His eyes track down Xue Yang’s torso, down his happy trail to his impressive erection. “Fuck,” he murmurs, and obediently rolls sideways, onto his hands and knees. His brain catches up with the rest of him. “Condom,” he says, slurring a little.
“What?” says Xue Yang, too innocently.
“He said to use a condom,” Jiyang snarls. “Haoxuan said that too.”
“Song Jiyang,” says Xue Yang, his mouth curling, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Bowen mutters, and Xue Yang’s eyes go wide.
“I mean it! Who needs a barrier when you’ve got a golden core to burn away anything you don’t want inside you?”
Bowen groans and pats around on the mattress, reaching for the bedside table. “They’re in there, in the drawer. Little silvery packets. Open one, roll it on—”
“Fine,” Xue Yang sighs. He leaves Bowen there, dizzy and exposed, while he rifles through Jiyang’s bedside table. He holds up the outlandish dildo, his expression (what Bowen can see of it, behind the harsh curves of his quarter-profile) assessing. Xue Yang clucks his tongue. “Song-daozhang,” he says over Bowen’s head, not addressing him, his voice velvety-mocking. “We should talk later.”
“Forget it,” is all Jiyang says in response, his tone both angry and miserable. Bowen presses his mouth to his own shoulder as he twists to glance back at Jiyang. The phone is gone, slipped into Jiyang’s pocket or somewhere else out of sight. Now he’s simply watching, taut, invested, complicit. His knees are pressed together, one foot high on the doorframe.
“Li Bowen,” Xue Yang says. Bowen hears the click of the cap on the lube. “You talk while you’re being fucked, don’t you.” Xue Yang’s hand comes softly to rest on his ass. Bowen braces for a handful, but instead, Xue Yang caresses. “Talk as much as you want,” he continues, “but only to him. You talk only to Jiyang, not me.” His thumb slides downward, right onto Bowen’s rim. “Tell him everything, all right?”
“Xue Yang,” snaps Jiyang sternly.
He laughs. “Not quite my daozhang,” he purrs. “But close.”
“Jiyang, it’s okay.” Bowen swallows; he has to look away, toward the headboard, or he’ll pull a muscle. “It’s okay. Don’t mind him, he’s just trying t— oh fuck.”
There’s Xue Yang’s mouth on his asshole, his tongue scalding, insistent. Bowen slumps onto his forearms, eyes huge, unable to close his mouth. “Shit, you—oh.” Xue Yang digs his nails into Bowen’s hip, but holds him too steady to flinch away. There’s the game. Bowen grits his teeth. “Jiyang,” he pants, but can’t come up with any follow-through.
“Don’t,” Jiyang says tightly. “I’m not participating in this.”
Bowen whines; he can’t stop himself. Xue Yang is working fast, eating him out like he’s going cold. It’s making Bowen helplessly hard again, so full, too sensitive to be pleasurable on its own. Xue Yang’s mouth roves around his rim; he bites, not entirely gently, at the meat of Bowen’s ass. Bowen cries out when his fingers slip in, spit-wet only.
He hears Xue Yang as if from a distance: “I don’t suppose you’d reconsider, daozhang?”
“What?” Bowen’s own moan cuts him off. Xue Yang yanks back his fingers, leaving Bowen gaping, empty. His hips push back on nothing. He hears the rip of the wrapper, Xue Yang’s long exhalation.
“Back on your back,” he says. “I want you looking at me.”
“Fuck,” Bowen gasps as his shoulders hit the sheets. Xue Yang looms over him, holding his own cock, smirking. Bowen has to grasp onto something; he claws at his sweat-slick chest, at his hair. “Yes, please, don’t leave me hanging like this.”
Xue Yang hums, leaning in. “I know you’re not talking to me.” He slings one of Bowen’s knees over his shoulder, not coming any closer.
Bowen groans. He shouldn’t play along, he shouldn’t do this to Jiyang, but they have to get Xue Yang to the end of this. Bowen has to make it through. “Jiyang, Jiyang. Tell him I’m — tell him to—”
Xue Yang laughs. “You should see our vinegar king, Bowen-ge. The looks he’s giving us!” His nails dig into Bowen’s thigh.
“I’m,” he tries. He looks to Jiyang, knowing how he looks, wrecked and begging and fully at Xue Yang’s mercy. It’s worth it, he thinks at Jiyang. Jiyang’s eyes are boring holes in him, his jaw clenched so very tight.
Xue Yang descends on him, his mouth claiming Bowen’s. The taste of himself tilts him off the edge; he can’t think outside the present moment at all. He reaches for the dip of Xue Yang’s spine to bring him closer, closer. The slide of his cock inside is like the closing of a circuit. However coherent Bowen had managed to be until now, it’s all steamed away, leaving nothing but sensation. Xue Yang rolls his hips with improbable strength, like he’ll ruck Bowen all the way up to the wall if he wants.
Bowen opens his eyes. Xue Yang is holding himself over him now, not close enough to kiss. His eyes are dark and fully aflame. All his attention is solely on Bowen, on the slap of their bodies and the gasps he’s punching out of him. The angle is plowing into Bowen’s prostate; heat gushes through his whole body, which feels less and less in his own power. His vision starts to gray out at the edge. No one has ever fucked him like this before. Something essential to him might be ruined tonight, beyond his own asshole. Haoxuan might be sorry he asked, if Bowen can’t come back from knowing this.
But Xue Yang doesn’t look like Haoxuan. It’s not just in his face or his poise, but in some quiet place in his core, Bowen thinks he can see scars on Xue Yang that he knows Haoxuan doesn’t have. He furrows his brow, his eye wandering to Xue Yang’s left hand. His vision flickers; he can’t hold onto it. A curtain of hair spills over Xue Yang’s shoulders — until it doesn’t — until it does again. Xue Yang even tosses his head back, flicking it out of the way. He catches Bowen watching and he grins.
“Song-daozhang,” he says, and Bowen thinks, dimly, I’m not—, but he wonders. Could he be? “Daozhang,” Xue Yang repeats, and turns his head toward Jiyang. He keeps up his merciless rhythm. Keening, wordlessly, Bowen wonders how long he can possibly go like this.
Jiyang’s feet come clattering off the doorframe. He’s clenching his fists, and Bowen hasn’t seen him so toweringly angry since filming, when he was pretending. He stalks toward the bed, and there’s no hiding the tent in his sweatpants. Xue Yang’s eyes flash. His hips stutter, but it’s not because his attention has drifted. Bowen watches the two of them stare at each other: Xue Yang eager, vulnerable at last, Jiyang cold and rigid and breathing hard through his nose.
The backhand takes all three of them by surprise. Xue Yang lurches out of alignment, catching himself on his hands. He’s only half into Bowen when he comes, a sharp cry followed by a long silence. Bowen jolts awake, ready for — he doesn’t know. He props himself up on his elbows, but Jiyang’s face hardens and Xue Yang seems to collapse in on himself. He presses his face against Bowen’s chest, laughing softly. Aftershocks wrack him; he pushes a little deeper, but not much. Bowen frowns and looks back to Jiyang, who huffs. He turns sharply and marches toward the bathroom, slamming the door.
Now it’s just the two of them, Xue Yang’s eyes fluttering, his stomach pressing against Bowen’s full cock. He makes no move toward it, just smiles, punch-drunk, without pulling out. The adrenaline starts to chill and settle inside Bowen. His head clears a little, enough that he knows they’ve reached the aftercare portions of the night. “A-Yang?” he murmurs, and Xue Yang sighs.
Bowen slides off him, carefully. He also pulls off the condom and disposes of it in Jiyang’s tiny bedside bin. They’re both going to need showers, but for now, he just lies there, stroking Xue Yang’s short hair, watching the angry red handprint on his cheek fade.
That’s how Jiyang finds them when he skulks back into his own bedroom. He takes one look at Xue Yang, fully asleep now, and then eyes Bowen’s erection. Jiyang pushes back the sleeves on his sweater. Bowen opens his mouth to protest, but Jiyang takes a seat on the edge of the mattress. Carefully, Bowen deposits Xue Yang on one side of the bed and scoots closer.
Jiyang’s palms are moisturizer-soft. However much Bowen had started to flag, he jumps to attention again under Jiyang’s hands. “You took one for the team,” he says brusquely, and Bowen laughs.
“Song Jiyang, a sports metaphor?”
He groans. “Be quiet.” It’s not the most perfunctory handjob Bowen’s ever gotten, but he shudders and spills quick enough. Jiyang wipes his hand on the sheets, clearly moping about the load of laundry he’ll have to do. “Bathroom’s yours,” he says. “If you want to borrow any clothes, I don’t know if mine will fit you.”
“We’ll make it work,” Bowen says, wryly. He leaves Jiyang with Xue Yang, amazed his knees can hold him up.
Jiyang’s shower is hot, with good water pressure — he really lucked out with this high-rise. It’s far from enough to keep Bowen’s mind from racing, though. He’s never had sex that felt like that before, with anyone, in any position or of any gender. There was a current of something cycling through him, something crackling and almost tangible. He tries to call up that vision of Xue Yang’s hair again, the way he’d interacted with it. He thinks about Xue Yang’s night in Gulou, and his casual praise for rooftops.
It’s stupid. It’s more than stupid. Character bleed, Bowen gets — that can all feasibly take place in the brain. There’s no such thing as cultivation, though. He’s still wrestling with it when he steps back into Jiyang’s room, a towel tied around his waist, to collect the clothes he’d shed there.
That’s Haoxuan in bed, tucked under some blankets and scrubbing at one eye. He inhales deeply. “Wow, it sure smells like sex in here.”
Both Jiyang and Bowen watch as Haoxuan frowns and touches his throat. His face goes on a journey. “Why is my voice—?” He raises both eyebrows. “I asked for no details, didn’t I.” He blinks up at Bowen and smiles, all himself, a little grin in a soft face. “Was it good?”
Bowen lets himself chuckle as he bends to pick up his discarded pants and shirt. “Welcome back, Xuanxuan.”
“How’re you feeling?” says Jiyang, his knees tucked under him on the bed. “Is he gone?”
Haoxuan pushes himself upright. He examines his bare chest, before his eyes dart onto the marks on Bowen’s. “He’s quiet,” he says after a moment, and his smile broadens. “Thank you, guys. Wow. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”
Bowen slips into his wrinkled t-shirt, then takes a seat next to Haoxuan. “Will you do something for me?” he asks, looking straight into Haoxuan’s eyes. Haoxuan nods, of course, an easy, innocent answer, and Bowen folds his hand: index and middle finger pointing up, last two folded beneath his thumb. “Point this at my forehead.”
Haoxuan arranges his right hand and does so without question. “Am I supposed to be doing anything else?” he says lightly. Bowen tries to relax. He can feel Jiyang’s eyes on him, wary. He thinks about every boring meditation class he’s sat through, and what he knows he felt tonight.
It surges into him, a concentrated stream of alive alive alive, racing under his skin through his circulatory system — through his meridians. Bowen and Haoxuan jerk away from each other at the same moment. “What the hell!” Haoxuan yelps.
Jiyang jumps. “What? What happened?”
Haoxuan knits his brow. He repeats the gesture, more slowly, with focus. Bowen feels this too, a wash of health and calm and vigor. He knows he won’t be sore in the morning. The air between Haoxuan’s fingers and Bowen’s forehead glows blue.
Jiyang’s face drains. “Absolutely not,” he insists, but something in Bowen’s face must trouble him too much. He reaches for Haoxuan’s belly, pushing down the blankets. Haoxuan makes an aborted attempt to fend him off, but then Jiyang’s hand is there, pressing against Haoxuan’s bare skin.
Their faces hide nothing as the world cracks open a little. The three of them sit there in Jiyang’s bedroom, in his small and ordinary flat, while the furnace in Haoxuan’s lower dantian roils with cultivator qi.