FO | Chapter 1

Zhou Suiming arrived half an hour late. When he finally reached the restaurant, his boyfriend was visibly annoyed and deliberately turned his head away, pretending not to see him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Knowing he was in the wrong, he went over, slipped an arm around Li Youhe, and lowered his head to kiss the crown of his hair. His young boyfriend always took such good care of himself that he smelled wonderful, and today he had made a special effort with his appearance. Zhou Suiming felt even more guilty.

Li Youhe had spent a long time arranging this date. He wanted to introduce himself to some new friends, but Zhou Suiming had been held up by an impromptu client meeting, making him late and causing Li Youhe to lose face.

“You do this every time!” Li Youhe pouted and dodged his attempts at affection. Helpless, Zhou Suiming ignored the other people present and coaxed him in a low voice. “It’s all my fault. Don’t be mad, okay?”

After a few more words, some of the anger faded from Li Youhe’s face. He nodded reluctantly, signaling that Zhou Suiming could sit down.

Once his boyfriend was appeased, Zhou Suiming finally had time to look at the two people seated across from him. The one on the left was strikingly handsome, with delicate features. Zhou Suiming had seen him several times in photos on his boyfriend’s phone. His name was Han Ke, and he had recently been spending a lot of time with Li Youhe.

The man on the right wore a three-piece suit and was dressed for business. He looked somewhat like Zhou Suiming, and judging by the time, had probably come straight from work as well.

“I’m really sorry to have kept you waiting.”

Zhou Suiming offered his hand first. The delicate-looking young man hesitated, glancing sideways at the boyfriend beside him. The other man’s expression remained unchanged,

After a few seconds, Han Ke brought his hand out from beneath the table and shook Zhou Suiming’s.

His palm was clammy.

The man in the three-piece suit shook Zhou Suiming’s hand next and introduced himself. “Zheng Huaiyou.”

His palm was clammy too.

So they had been holding hands under the table all this time, were they? A couple still deep in the honeymoon phase? They were pretty clingy, Zhou Suiming thought.

A vague, inexplicable envy welled up inside him. He instinctively leaned closer to his boyfriend, only for Li Youhe to complain that he was hot and shove him away without mercy.

“Hey, you didn’t drive here today, did you?”

When Zhou Suiming nodded, Li Youhe jabbed a finger into his chest like a commander issuing an order. “Then your punishment is to buy us a good bottle of wine.”

Of course. An apology was an apology. Zhou Suiming agreed, and Li Youhe’s mood immediately improved. He shot a glance across the table and said, “See? I told you. He listens to me more than anyone.”

Han Ke gave a shy smile. “That’s right. You’re the best.”

Li Youhe grew smug. He opened the wine list and began chattering with Han Ke about which bottle to order. Knowing his boyfriend’s temperament, Zhou Suiming was certain the wine chosen as punishment would cost four figures. All he could do was accept his fate.

Unable to get a word in, and worried that the table might grow quiet, he struck up a conversation with Zheng Huaiyou, who had also been left out.

This was his boyfriend’s friend’s boyfriend, a relationship with two degrees of separation, which made him a complete stranger in every practical sense. Zhou Suiming knew almost nothing about him, so he began with the most obvious question. “What line of work are you in?”

Zheng Huaiyou looked cold and aloof, but the moment he began to speak, his whole face came alive. He said he worked in food and beverage sales for a fast-moving consumer goods group.

“He’s the regional manager for East China, a genuine elite.”

Li Youhe had always had ears everywhere at the dinner table. He added the information for Zhou Suiming at just the right moment, then exposed him anyway. “Not like you, Mr. Sole Proprietor.”

A client, then? At the sound of that, Zhou Suiming’s professional instincts told him to keep the conversation going. He did not mind Li Youhe undercutting him. “I run a small studio that shoots commercials. I’ve worked on one of your group’s ads before, actually. That O-brand functional drink, the one released last year.”

“The one filmed in Kamakura?”

Zheng Huaiyou understood at once. “It turned out very well. We still use that commercial internally as a benchmark. We tell people that if they can’t reach that level, they shouldn’t waste the budget. I often hear the marketing team gathering together and crying over it.”

Hearing the joke, Zhou Suiming relaxed. “I’m sorry, that was my fault. I should have made it worse. No wonder I never got any more business from your company afterward.”

“Collective punishment?” Zheng Huaiyou lifted his brows slightly. “My reach doesn’t extend to the marketing department.”

When the subject turned to work, Zheng Huaiyou responded quickly and never let his tone grow dull. Their conversation gradually became more involved, while Li Youhe and Han Ke were simultaneously left out and had no choice but to talk about everyday matters instead.

The four of them reshuffled into new pairings. During a lull in the small talk, Zhou Suiming asked how Zheng Huaiyou wrote his name. He made an “oh” of understanding, then asked curiously, “You have two hearts?”

“What do you mean, two hearts?” Li Youhe inserted himself into the conversation.

“The first character has a heart radical on the left, and the second has a heart at the bottom. Doesn’t that add up to two hearts?”

It took Li Youhe a few seconds to get it. Then he said, somewhat speechlessly, “You have such strange things on your mind.”

A gaze came from across the table, gathering tightly around Zhou Suiming. When he tried to catch it, it scattered in an instant. All he saw was Zheng Huaiyou curling the corners of his mouth. “You pay close attention.”

“Of course he does. He’s a producer. Everything, big or small, on set depends on him. How could he not pay attention? But he only uses his brain at work. Once he gets home, he becomes completely useless, and I have to worry about everything for him.”

At last, Li Youhe managed to get a word in. He rattled off a string of complaints that sounded more like boasting, implying that no matter how capable Zhou Suiming was outside, Li Youhe was the one who truly ran the relationship.

Zhou Suiming thought of how utterly lazy Li Youhe was at home, but did not expose him. He let him carry on and said, “That’s right, that’s right. You work so hard. Without you, I wouldn’t even be able to look after myself.”

He had long grown accustomed to speaking this way. By lowering his stance and delivering those three familiar lines, he could always buy himself a brief moment of breathing room in his relationship with his boyfriend.

Most bystanders would laugh it off and take Zhou Suiming for someone with no backbone. But from across the table, no timely joke came to smooth things over. Instead, Han Ke suddenly let out a soft sound and raised his brows, as though something had been pinched painfully.

Zhou Suiming froze, and the napkin on his lap fell. Coming back to himself, he bent down to pick it up. The dark red tablecloth did not hang all the way to the floor, leaving roughly a quarter of the table legs faintly visible and offering a glimpse of what lay beneath the table.

The two men opposite him kept their shoulders apart above the table, but beneath it they were pressed together. Han Ke could not bring his knees together because one trouser leg had wedged itself between them, holding them firmly apart.

Zhou Suiming’s fingers brushed the napkin, but he did not pick it up right away. As his gaze lingered, the still trouser leg suddenly came alive. Its line tightened slightly, and the toe of the shoe tapped the floor.

It seemed to be asking a question. Zhou Suiming curled his fingers, snatched up the napkin, and stood to gesture to a server. “Could you bring me another one, please?”

He did not look directly at the two men across from him, but from the corner of his eye he saw Han Ke lower his head, clearly flustered. As for the friend with two hearts, he was drinking, calmly taking a sip with no sign that anything was amiss.

Zhou Suiming pretended not to have noticed. Once he had replaced the napkin, he changed the subject. This time, most of what they discussed was ordinary conversation all four of them could contribute to, and he stopped treating Zheng Huaiyou as a special conversational partner. The atmosphere at the table warmed again.

During the intermission halfway through dinner, Zhou Suiming had a couple more drinks and went to the restroom. On the way, he also took a call from his business partner.

The woman on the other end was furious. Her voice was shrill as she shouted, “Zhou Suiming, if you leave me alone with the client for a screening meeting again, I’m going to kill you when I get back!”

Zhou Suiming leaned against the washbasin, pressing his temples. Then he brought out his three standard weapons of apology. “All right, all right, I deserve to die. But I made plans with Youhe today. I couldn’t exactly stand him up.”

“You decide what matters more, work or love. Do it again and we’re dissolving the partnership!”

It was all said in anger, just anger. Zhou Suiming hurried to placate her, promising that if they did dissolve the partnership, he would divide everything fairly. Then he added, half joking and half serious, “If we really split up, I’ll give you half of my assistant Xiao Zhang too, okay?”

She gave an irritated scoff and finally calmed down, though she did not forget to throw a couple of vicious curses at him before hanging up.

The restroom fell silent again. Zhou Suiming hooked a finger beneath his tie and loosened it. He was tired. Looking in the mirror, he saw a faint darkness beneath his eyes. Fortunately, it was not too bad. This proper-looking face in its early thirties still had enough flesh on it, and with a little tidying up, it remained in keeping with current standards of attractiveness.

It was just that this face should have been livelier, wilder, like a javelin flashing through the rain forest. Unfortunately, the sharpest edge of its point had long since been worn smooth by work and life, dulled so quietly that no one had noticed.

Zhou Suiming exhaled and was about to wash his hands when another face suddenly appeared in the mirror. Not a horror movie, just someone coming in.

The lighting in the dining room had been so warm that it softened people’s features without bringing them into sharp focus. Under the restroom’s cold white light, a patch of shadow appeared across the newcomer’s face, revealing the structure and direction of every bone.

After spending twelve hours a day with a camera, Zhou Suiming knew the structure of light and shadow by heart. Studying him now, he saw that Zheng Huaiyou had a long, narrow face and high cheekbones that flared slightly outward before suddenly drawing tight at the cheeks, dipping shallowly inward and narrowing downward into a V.

Their eyes met, and neither spoke. But silence in a restroom was lethal, so Zhou Suiming reacted first, giving Zheng Huaiyou a small nod in greeting.

He continued washing his hands. The faucet’s pressure was a little high, sending water rushing down and splashing droplets onto Zhou Suiming’s wrists, where they prickled against his skin. He could not help taking a deep breath, and then he caught a faint, elusive scent.

The restroom fragrance was a light white-floral note, like standing in a hotel lobby, clean and harmless. But the intruder named Zheng Huaiyou carried a watery scent of his own, like seawater pounding against rocks and eating away at the shore.

It was hazy and impossible to make out clearly, so Zhou Suiming let his sense of smell hunt freely. After washing his hands, he used the hand dryer, then suddenly heard Zheng Huaiyou say something.

“Were you talking to me just now?”

After asking, Zhou Suiming moved his hand away. The dryer continued running for another second before stopping, and at the same moment Zheng Huaiyou raised his eyes. Their gazes collided.

In theory, it was a face with somewhat sharp features. Fortunately, Zheng Huaiyou’s eyes drooped slightly at the outer corners, softening the effect. When his gaze lifted, he did not look fierce.

“I said, you and your boyfriend seem to have a very good relationship.”

The sentence pulled Zhou Suiming straight back into the dinner. After a brief pause, he answered, “We’ve been together for three years. Youhe told me you and Han Ke have been dating for three months?”

“Not quite. A little over two months.”

They must get along well, then. Otherwise, he would not have brought his boyfriend into his social circle so quickly. Zhou Suiming nodded and said frankly, “Youhe didn’t introduce me to his friends until we’d been together for six months.”

“Weren’t you angry?”

A question mark appeared above Zhou Suiming’s head. “What would I be angry about?”

“If he didn’t introduce me for six months, I don’t think I could accept it.”

“Maybe I’m just slow.”

Zhou Suiming found it amusing and did not take the remark to heart. “Besides, it meant he was seriously evaluating me. I was willing to cooperate.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the water vapor around them seemed to thicken. Of the row of washbasins, Zheng Huaiyou chose the one closest to Zhou Suiming.

“Do you like being controlled?”

A delayed joke? Zhou Suiming assumed Zheng Huaiyou had finally found the chance to tease him for constantly giving way at the table. He did not mind being laughed at by other people. Li Youhe was very beautiful, having come from a dance background, with an almost elfin beauty. They had met while working on a shoot, and Zhou Suiming had been thoroughly bewitched by that quality in him for a while. Pursuing him had been quite difficult.

After they got together, he had worked especially hard to look after the young master. At gatherings with friends, people would laugh at the way he waited on Li Youhe hand and foot and call him henpecked. He would simply answer, “What’s wrong with that? I like being controlled by him.”

, Had kneeling on a washboard so often made him fall in love with aching knees? Zhou Suiming, you must be a masochist by nature.

“If he controls me, it means he cares about me. If he started taking it easy on me, I’d worry that he didn’t want me anymore.”

Zhou Suiming sighed. As soon as the words left his mouth, Zheng Huaiyou turned off the faucet beside him.

“Then you’re very good at enduring things.”

Was that a compliment? If someone wanted to praise him, they would usually use words like tolerant or magnanimous. But Zheng Huaiyou had said endure.

It was not exactly insulting, but it sounded strange. The thought passed through Zhou Suiming’s mind, and he did not dwell on it. The next second, that water-soaked scent drifted to the tip of his nose again, sinking into his body and making him draw a deeper breath without realizing it.

The movement did not escape Zheng Huaiyou’s notice. He turned sideways and said, “Wanderer of the Wasteland.”

Zhou Suiming did not understand.

“That’s the cologne I’m wearing. You seem to have been smelling it this whole time.”

“……It’s a pretty unusual scent.”

“A lot of people say that.”

Zheng Huaiyou gave a quiet hum. “They also say smelling it for too long makes them dizzy.”

Who? Zhou Suiming unconsciously furrowed his brows. “Really? I’m fine.”

Zheng Huaiyou studied him for a moment, then smiled. “You’ve only been smelling it for a few minutes.

Zhou Suiming vaguely sensed a barb hidden in the remark, but Zheng Huaiyou appeared perfectly calm and unruffled. After washing his hands, he did not linger. The two of them returned to their seats one after the other.

Once they sat down, the group became four again. Zhou Suiming saw Han Ke bite his lip and guessed that Zheng Huaiyou had started pinching his hand or leg beneath the table again.

The second half of the dinner left a bad taste in Zhou Suiming’s mouth. He found an opportunity to pay the bill early, and the four-figure bottle of red wine stood out prominently on the receipt.

The four of them said goodbye downstairs. Zheng Huaiyou thanked Zhou Suiming for the meal and politely said, “I’ll get the next one.” Then he called a private car to pick them up. As he helped Han Ke into the car, one hand remained pressed against the small of the young man’s back and never left.

The car turned the corner. After it disappeared completely, Zhou Suiming suddenly felt thirsty. He wanted a cigarette and reached into his pocket for the pack, only to find it empty.

“Your friend’s husband is pretty controlling.”

The remark came out of nowhere. Li Youhe, who had been playing with his phone, looked confused. He glanced at Zhou Suiming and guessed that meeting Zheng Huaiyou had triggered some subtle sense of rivalry, creating a delicate feeling of crisis. Delighted, he thought of the expensive wine on the bill and coaxed him along the easiest path.

“He is. Han Ke told me before that Zheng Huaiyou is perfect in every way except that he’s always watching him. He checks in on him every day, and if Han Ke gets home even a little late, he’s terrified. Tsk, tsk. If it were me, I wouldn’t want that.”

As he spoke, he leaned against Zhou Suiming’s shoulder and sighed. “You’re still the best. You’re willing to let me control you.”

Zhou Suiming was silent for two seconds, then put an arm around him. “That’s right. I’m afraid of my wife.”

Good, at least he knew his place. His boyfriend gave a hum, then wrinkled his nose and waved a hand in front of his face in disgust. “What’s that weird smell? It’s sticky and cloying. It makes me feel dizzy just smelling it.”

Could someone really pick up a stranger’s scent so quickly after only a few minutes in the restroom? Zhou Suiming deliberately refused to think too deeply about it, and he did not answer. He only felt that something was dizzying, and it was clearly not that scent.

It smelled so good.