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They had always been doing separation exercises.
If two people were together 24 hours a day, like conjoined twins, sharing meals and sleep, there was simply no chance of starting over from another country.
However, for nearly half of last year, that was exactly how they had lived.
This sounded absurdly warm.
Huo Ren lacked trust and a sense of security in this world, feeling palpitations or angina if he was away from Pei Ruye for too long.
He knew it was mostly psychosomatic, and desensitization therapy was the only option.
The tattoo on his left palm allowed him to gradually fall asleep, but breaking the connection could only be achieved through repeated attempts.
“Ten minutes, six hundred seconds.”
Before closing the door, Pei Ruye glanced at the young man sitting by the piano.
“Relax, don’t think about anything.”
The moment the door closed, smooth piano music flowed out, along with a few indistinct hums.
Five hundred eighty-two seconds.
Pei Ruye stood quietly outside in the darkness, listening to the piano music ebb and flow, also slowly adjusting his breathing.
His deity, his lover, had fallen from the pinnacle, now covered in scars, miserable, and desperate.
He was sober and rational, yet unrealistically wished to hide him away.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s scherzo was lively and whimsical, with a sense of swaying through time and space.
Four hundred twelve seconds.
Hide away.
No longer in the raging current, no longer standing at the brightest height, desired and fantasized by countless people.
He loved such a fate for him, yet harbored sorrow from before the story even began.
Like loving the cold light of a blade’s edge, inevitably witnessing all the sharpening and forging.
The piano music gradually became restless, several false notes in the arpeggios.
Two hundred thirty-six seconds.
The rhythm was completely off, eager as if hoping it would end quickly.
Two hundred five seconds.
All sound suddenly stopped.
One hundred eighty-five seconds.
The door was suddenly opened, and the next second, Huo Ren quickly rushed into his embrace, clutching at his clothes as he gasped for breath.
“I’m here,” Pei Ruye said, gently stroking his hair, slowly speaking: “…I’ve always been here.”
“Ren Ren, hide it very well.”
“No one should discover your weakness. When they see you again, you’ll still be strong and composed, untroubled by anything.”
Huo Ren almost immediately escaped from the fear of being beaten and torn apart upon hearing his voice, still habitually gasping for air.
“How long…how long did I last?”
“Eleven minutes.” Pei Ruye symbolically showed him his watch: “Longer than we had planned.”
Huo Ren hadn’t realized how forcefully he was holding onto his teacher.
In this moment, he possessed a contradictory and chaotic allure.
Still having a look that could deeply enchant many.
Still standing tall, with sharpness in his brows and eyes.
Fragile to the extreme, yet resilient, emitting a blade’s light.
“Eleven minutes.” He nodded, sighing in relief: “I can last even longer.”
“I never thought there would come a day,” Pei Ruye said with a self-deprecating laugh, “when I would have to teach you how to leave me.”
Huo Ren’s gaze was fixed, a resigned smile also appearing in his eyes.
“To be honest,” he paused, holding his hand and walking back to the piano room, “you don’t really need to be honest, you’re present at every therapy session.”
“Indeed.” The man said leisurely: “I know many of your secrets.”
“Uh, consider it the rent then.”
Huo Ren and he sat opposite each other, and after brewing for a long time, he slowly began to speak again.
“Teacher, I also feel very guilty when I face you,”
Pei Ruye listened quietly.
“My emotions are sealed off now—even if they weren’t, I probably wouldn’t have the capacity to love.”
There’s so much to do, so many plans that haven’t yet started.
“So when I can’t respond to you, I feel very guilty.”
He looked up at Pei Ruye, continuing in a calm and steady tone.
“Teacher, I’ve had a crush on you for many years.”
“My memory is very good; I still remember every day related to the past.”
“Those vows and likes, they are all true.”
“Even if I can’t respond to you now, those… are all true.”
From beginning to end, I’ve only ever felt this way about you.
You are the most special person to me.
After listening, Pei Ruye got up and handed him a cup of warm water.
“How does it feel to say it out loud?”
“Much better.”
Huo Ren took a sip, speaking softly, “I now feel like a frozen ice sculpture, devoid of any emotion.”
“You could divide the different emotions in your heart into drawers,” Pei Ruye said with a smile, “allowing some to open and others to remain closed.”
Holding the cup, Huo Ren blinked and looked up at him, “I feel a lot of things are unfair to you.”
The debt is objectively there, but neither of them can change it.
The man pulled his chair closer, placing his palm on Huo Ren’s chest.
“This will melt, and then it will definitely be fair.”
“As for your personal debt, it will be gradually settled once you have the capacity to repay.” He made a flicking gesture as if playing with an abacus, “Maybe with a bit of interest.”
Huo Ren blinked, somehow feeling this was a risqué joke.
Once March arrived, the quarterly reports were in place, and Pei Ruye’s work began to get busier.
Huo Ren could now endure being alone for half an hour; meditation was very beneficial for treatment.
The psychologist did not expect him to recover so quickly after the eruption of cumulative trauma, even specifically asking Pei Ruye if he had used any other methods.
“I’m a businessman, what other methods could I possibly have?”
Managing companies both domestically and internationally meant that overtime and meetings knew no time zone, with twenty-four hours of work never quite finishing.
Abroad, entertaining clients to curry favor wasn’t the norm; Pei Ruye used foreign engagements to block domestic ones, telling difficult partners he had broken his leg and was resting, his excuses rather perfunctory.
Assistant Zhang had visited the seaside villa many times, glad for Huo Ren’s recovery while also thinking the boss had really invested a lot.
Juggling so many businesses and still managing to multitask… Boss Pei is incredible.
To outsiders, everything seemed bright and splendid.
Pei Ruye often woke up in the middle of the night for emergency conference calls, stepping out in a coat to speak while also keeping an eye on a certain white-furred little wolf sleeping in the room.
March nights weren’t cold, but listening too much to other directors’ incessant inquiries and urgings still made one long to go back to sleep as if it were winter.
Pei Ruye half-opened the door, checking on the inside while trying to give concise and calm directives.
However, that old man was purely venting his emotions.
“Now, the young ones in charge domestically—Boss Pei, I’m not saying, but you really should come back and manage—”
“Is there anything unresolved?”
“Ah, just those few projects, Boss Pei, you’re young and capable, although abroad—”
“I have to go, hanging up now.”
He cut off the conversation and went back to the bedroom, coat in hand.
Under the dim nightlight, the quilt was shaking.
Pei Ruye had just put down his phone when he realized something was wrong. Pulling back the quilt, he found Huo Ren’s neck side covered in cold sweat, pain making him curl into the embrace of the pillow.
“Having a nightmare?”
Huo Ren nodded hastily, embracing him before he even settled down, almost burying himself in his arms.
“Teacher… I dreamed that Chi Ji fell right in front of me, so much blood…”
He dreamed he saw Chi Ji fall from a high building, limbs shattered, blood spreading everywhere.
Zhang Wu was standing closest, holding his mother’s collar, who was barely breathing, her abdomen also bleeding profusely.
And many others were wielding scythe-like blades, attacking his friends, Uncle Jiang, and everything he cared about.
No one was there to save him.
In the sky, cameras resembling bats floated, their flashlights like the blinding eyes of countless beings, flickering and swaying, prying and judging.
The ground was collapsing, silently oozing out the pungent smell of green paint.
At this moment, he was nothing.
Not an idol, not a high school student, he had nothing, no one could save him, no one could hold him back.
“It’s a dream. You’ve woken up, I’m here.”
“But—”
“Ren Ren, I am Pei Ruye, I’m here.”
“They’re all bleeding,” Huo Ren suddenly returned to the state of despair he felt at fourteen or fifteen, no longer knowing whose palm he was pinching: “And there’s green paint…”
Pei Ruye wanted to carry him back to bed, but the person in his arms awkwardly and hurriedly clung to his neck.
“Teacher, can I kiss you.”
“Let’s do that thing…” At this moment, he only wanted to flee from this world, to immerse himself in a torrent of **, or into any kind of pain or ecstasy, it didn’t matter.
The fingers with distinct joints were unbuttoning the collar, the hoarse voice had completely lost its reason.
“Teacher… I want to do…”
“Come, do it, kiss me, okay?”
Give me to you.
Give you my body and soul.
As long as you can dispel all my fears and pains.
I trust only you.
In this world, I trust only you.
So please take me away from reality, even if just to escape in ** for one night…
The muddled scent of hormones at this moment flared up to its peak, burning against burning, touching in a repeated confirmation.
More physical contact is the medicine to save him.
“Huo Ren.”
Pei Ruye held him down, his voice deepening.
“Be quiet.”
“Listen here.”
Huo Ren suddenly came to his senses from his panic, his ear against a steady and powerful heartbeat.
Ba-dump.
Ba-dump.
He sat quietly in his arms for a few seconds, finally being pulled back to reality.
But he was not let go.
“Huo Ren.” Pei Ruye maintained the restraining pose, slowly starting to speak with his head lowered.
“What have I told you before?”
Huo Ren’s mind was buzzing, like the headache after a hangover, repeating, “What?”
The sound of the heartbeat became the only guide.
The man placed his hand on his own chest, no longer speaking.
Memory suddenly flashed back again, to the night they kissed in the darkness.
A few hundred meters away, workers were dismantling scaffolding, clinking and clanking with hammers, the sound dispersed by the night wind and not very clear.
He was held tightly, just like tonight.
“I’m sorry… I’m still too dependent on you.”
The hand that was about to let go was instead held even tighter.
“If you’re willing to believe,”
The heartbeat continued steadily and powerfully.
The voice from the old times echoed back and forth in the silence.
“Here… belongs only to you.”
“…As long as it beats, I will always belong to you.”
My heartbeat, an eternal promise to you.
The sound of the heartbeat, ba-dump, ba-dump, as if it would never stop.
Huo Ren sat in his arms for a long time, suddenly feeling something melting and wrapping around his heart, as if his soul was once again being freed from its shackles.
At this moment, he especially wanted to cry.
“You’re too tired…” Pei Ruye bowed his head and kissed the corner of his eye.
“You’re too exhausted to have the energy to love someone else.”
“Pei Ruye.”
“Mm.”
“I really am in a sorry state.” At this moment, Huo Ren could hardly raise his head to look at him.
“Full of old wounds, incapable of taking care of myself, without identity or occupation, I don’t even have a high school diploma.”
His voice was hoarse, yet it was full of trust, sharing all his fears with him.
“Since I was fifteen, I’ve been continuously, continuously causing you trouble and creating problems.”
“But why would you love me?”
Is it because of the crown?
Is it because of those awards?
Or is it because I was once that idol adored and desired by countless people?
The man wrapped him back in the blanket, patting it gently to coax him to sleep.
“…Because you are Huo Ren.”
“The only, the best, Huo Ren.”
The bedroom returned to silence once again.
When Huo Ren heard these words, it was as if warm blood surged into his heart again, slowly warming his whole body.
He calmed down and lay in the man’s arms for a few minutes.
The breathing behind his ear was steady and soothing, very comforting.
“Teacher, have you fallen asleep?”
“I’m here.”
“Did I… make a fool of myself just now?”
Just a few minutes after regaining consciousness, it was already too late to take back those nonsensical words.
He quickly realized what nonsense he had said, and now his face was burning with embarrassment.
“Yes.” The man relaxed, finally yawning.
“It was quite embarrassing.”
Huo Ren slept with an unprecedented sense of shame.
When he woke up the next day, he was still in a vindictive state, more accurately, holding a grudge against himself.
It was just a nightmare—was it really necessary?!
Even if there was that impulse, it shouldn’t have—
So embarrassing!!!
He moved and realized there was no one by the bed, feeling a bit panicked but also very relieved.
It would be best not to see Pei Ruye at all today.
Having a nightmare and then clinging like an octopus, even asking if he wanted to do that sort of thing…
Then the door opened, and a man in a white suit walked in.
Dressed impeccably, very handsome.
“Woke up? Get dressed, let’s go out.”
Huo Ren’s face heated up, trying to keep his voice steady.
“Okay… Where to?”
“To get engaged.”
The author has something to say:
Listening to the prelude of A Midsummer Night’s Dream made this chapter super fast to write
This chapter’s Ren Ren is too delicious, had to update early x