Shen Zuibai · Chat

【Meteor Night】 That evening, he knocked on your dorm door, leaning against the frame. His black tank top was gilded with a warm hue by the setting sun, but his tone remained that same punchable laziness: "Let's go, I'm taking you somewhere." You asked where, and he said to see meteors. You said it's crazy to climb a mountain in the middle of the night, and he said yeah, it is crazy, are you coming—of course you went. You could never refuse that "I knew you'd come" look in his eyes, even if you never wanted to admit it. The stargazing spot was on a gentle grassy slope halfway up the mountain. The view was incredibly open; the entire sky looked like an overturned deep blue velvet, studded with stars like crushed diamonds. He had spread a blanket in advance and even pulled two cans of ice-cold cola from his backpack. When you took one, your fingertips brushed the back of his hand—it was chilly, and you shivered, cursing him, "Drinking cold stuff in the middle of the night, are you trying to kill my stomach?" He glanced at you, saying "drink it or don't," while already popping the tab and handing it to your lips. You sat side by side, shoulders touching. The night wind blew his hair up, revealing his handsome brow bone and those eyes that looked exceptionally pale in the dark. You leaned against him a bit, pressing the cola can to your cheek to cool down, and nudged his waist with your elbow: "Hey, Shen Zuibai, since when did you start believing in this stuff? Wishing on meteors and all, it's not like you." He didn't speak, just looked up at the sky, his Adam's apple rolling. You thought he hadn't heard, so you leaned in closer, waving the cola can in front of his eyes: "Tell me, what do you actually want to wish for? Is it to find a girlfriend? Look at you—basketball star, looking like this, girls chasing you from the south gate to the north gate. Just pick one already." You said this casually, like a joke between any two good bros, even grinning as you bumped his shoulder: "Got something going on, Shen Zuibai? Keeping it from your bro isn't right." He didn't laugh. You felt the muscles in his shoulder tense up, right where you were leaning, hard as stone. You looked up to see his expression, and then you saw those eyes—there were no stars in his light grey pupils, no night sky, none of the teasing embarrassment or playful cooperation you expected. There was only you, only your face reflected inside, like a mirror, and like a cage. That gaze was too heavy, too heavy to be looking at a "bro." That gaze was too hot, so hot even the night wind couldn't cool it. His eyelashes lowered and then lifted, looking straight at you without any disguise, without any buffer, like the ice surface that had endured a whole winter finally being crushed, and what surged up from beneath wasn't water, but magma. His lips moved, making no sound, but you read the shape of the words—it wasn't "guess," it wasn't "stop joking," it was your name, his specific way of saying it, the two characters held on the tip of his tongue for a moment before being swallowed back, like a sweet he was loath to spit out. The cola can was squeezed slightly in your hand, making a faint crinkling sound. The night wind blew from his direction, carrying the scent of his laundry detergent and a kind of dry, repressed heat you hadn't smelled before. He was very close, close enough for you to see the starlight reflecting off the two silver studs in his left ear, close enough to count the strands of his stray hair, close enough that his breath hit your face, light yet heavy, as if testing something, and as if confirming something. "Shen Zuibai?" You felt a bit unnerved by the stare, and your voice instinctively dropped. He still didn't speak, but reached out and took the deformed cola can from your hand and set it aside, his movements very slow, as if he were doing something very important. Then he didn't pull his hand back; he just propped it beside you, leaning half his body toward you like a tilting tower, his shadow completely covering you. His Adam's apple rolled again. You saw his fingertips tighten on the blanket, knuckles turning white, as if he were forcefully holding down something that was about to break free. His expression was very calm, even gentle, but his eyes betrayed him—they were full of dark undercurrents, full of things you couldn't name, like a fire burning in the dead of night, small but enough to burn right through you. "You just asked me," he finally spoke, his voice so low it seemed ground out from the depths of his throat, the end carrying a slightly hoarse, nonchalant graininess, "what I want to wish for." You nodded, your heart rate suddenly becoming very fast, so fast you hoped he couldn't hear it. He tilted his head, his hair falling to cover one eye, the other staring straight at you. The gaze was intense and blunt, so blunt it didn't seem like him, so blunt it made your spine tingle, so blunt the night wind seemed to stop and the stars ceased to move, leaving only the near-combustible air between him and you. "Wishing for a girlfriend?" He repeated your words, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up—not in a smile, but in an expression you had never seen before, like a hunter who had finally seen his prey step into the trap, like someone who had endured too long and finally didn't want to endure anymore. It was a dangerous, damp smile, carrying a kind of sickly satisfaction. His finger lifted, the pad lightly tapping the space between your eyebrows, then slowly sliding down your nose. The movement was very light and slow, as if tracing something, and as if measuring something, stopping at the tip of your nose, motionless. His fingertip was cool, but the sensation was burning. That contradictory temperature made you freeze entirely, unable and unwilling to move. "Idiot," he called you, his voice very, very soft, as if afraid of startling something, and as if confirming something. His light grey eyes reflected the entire starry sky and your face, his gaze hot enough to burn a hole through you. "What do you think the wish I want to make... would be?" He didn't wait for your answer, didn't even give you a chance to breathe, as he leaned forward a bit more. He was so close your noses almost touched, so close you could see your own stunned expression in his pupils, so close you could feel the temperature of his lips just half an inch from yours, like a meteor about to fall. His hand slid from the tip of your nose to your chin, gently tilting it up, forcing you to look up at him. That angle left your Adam's apple completely exposed to his sight; his gaze stopped there for a moment, and you saw his pupils tremble. "Shen Zuibai..." You called his name again, your voice raspy and unlike your own. He closed his eyes, his eyelashes fluttering violently as if he were fighting some fierce battle with himself. When he opened them again, the fire in his eyes hadn't gone out; instead, it burned even brighter, turning into a dark red, naked, unashamed desire. "Don't talk," he said, his thumb slowly rubbing against your chin, the slight callus scraping your skin with a restrained, borderline-breaking tenderness. "The moment you talk, I want to..." He didn't finish, but his eyes said it all. Do you remember now? Do you remember how he endured these two years? Do you remember how many times he watched your sleeping face in the dark, his fingertips hovering in mid-air, not daring to descend? Do you remember how many cracks had already formed in that shell of him being your "bro," pushed from within by what he truly felt? The meteors hadn't come yet, but they were in his eyes. One by one, they all crashed toward you, carrying a world-ending, reckless, finally-unhidden madness. "One last question for you," his voice was so low it seemed to seep from underground, damp, burning, carrying a mix of vulnerability and ruthlessness you had never heard before. "Do you still think... I treat you as a brother?" The night wind blew, but you weren't cold. Because he was looking at you, and those eyes were ten thousand times hotter than a meteor.