Lu Yan · Chat

Ambiguity · Wounds After the assignment ended, Lu Yan parked the car on a dead-end road by the river and turned off the engine. The lights inside the car were off, with only the blinking red lights from the distant dock cranes reflecting inside, cutting their faces into alternating silhouettes of light and shadow. Ji Linchuan sat in the passenger seat, his shirt sleeve slashed open at the shoulder to reveal a moderately deep blade wound beneath. The bleeding had stopped, but dried blood snaked down from his shoulder to his forearm, looking shockingly vivid against his overly pale skin. With lowered eyes, he was wiping it himself with iodine cotton balls, his hand steady and his brows uncreased, as if the body didn't belong to him. Lu Yan sat in the driver's seat, both hands resting on the steering wheel, knuckles turned white from gripping it so hard. He didn't speak, but his breathing was heavy and deep, like a wild beast locked in a cage. He glared at Ji Linchuan's side profile—the way he intently tended to his wound, his jawline drawn in a sharp, cold arc, loose hair veiling half his face, exposing just a bit of his ear and that black stud. "Can't you ever save me some fucking worry?" Lu Yan finally spoke, his voice pressed low and thick with gunpowder. Ji Linchuan didn't look up. "He moved first." "Then couldn't you fucking dodge?" Lu Yan whipped his head around to glare at him, eyes so ferocious he looked ready to bite. "What the hell is that head of yours for? Decoration?" Ji Linchuan stopped what he was doing, lifted those pale amber eyes, and looked unhurriedly at Lu Yan. The gaze wasn't aggrieved or provocative, but it stirred something in Lu Yan's chest like a scratching cat. "I dodged. Didn't make it," Ji Linchuan said, his tone as casual as if discussing the weather. Lu Yan's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. He ripped off his seatbelt, leaned over, and snatched the iodine cotton ball from Ji Linchuan's hand. The movement was rough, but when his fingers gripped the cotton swab, his pressure suddenly lightened. Turning his body, he began dabbing at Ji Linchuan's wound himself, working down from the shoulder, bit by bit, so careful it didn't seem like something a man like him would ever do. The two of them were leaning too close. Lu Yan's breath fell onto Ji Linchuan's exposed shoulder, scalding hot. Ji Linchuan's eyelashes fluttered, but he didn't pull back; instead, he tilted his head slightly, exposing the line from his neck to his collarbone entirely unguarded before Lu Yan's eyes. Lu Yan's fingers paused. He saw it. A small patch of skin beneath Ji Linchuan's collarbone had stretched taut from his movement, the faint tracery of veins barely visible. He wanted to look away, but his eyes refused to obey. "Have you looked your fill?" Ji Linchuan's voice sounded at an extremely close distance, neither loud nor quiet, just enough for Lu Yan to hear every single word clearly. Lu Yan snapped his eyes up, meeting those pale pupils. At such close range, he could see the intricate patterns in his irises, and could see his own reflection inside them—a man with a disheveled expression, chaotic breathing, and a gaze that looked ready to swallow someone whole. He ought to swear. He should bark out, "What the fuck are you looking at, I'm putting medicine on you," then sit back, ignite the engine, and drive off. But he didn't. Staring into Ji Linchuan's eyes, he squeezed the words out of his throat, low and raspy: "Ji Linchuan, are you fucking doing this on purpose?" "On purpose with what?" "On purpose acting like this in front of me." Ji Linchuan didn't answer. His gaze slowly glided down from Lu Yan's eyes to his lips, lingering for less than a second before moving back to his eyes. Just that single glance, light as a feather settling on water, yet Lu Yan felt his heart gripped fiercely by someone. "I didn't do anything," Ji Linchuan said, his voice a fraction lower than usual, as if he too was using effort to suppress something. "You were the one who insisted on cleaning it for me." Lu Yan's breathing spiraled completely out of control. He could smell the faint scent of blood and iodine on Ji Linchuan, underlaid by a clean, crisp aroma—the natural scent of his skin. The hand holding the cotton swab began to tremble. Reason told him he had to sit back right now, but his body felt pinned to the spot, unable to budge an inch. Seeing the state he was in, Ji Linchuan's lips twitched slightly—not a smile, but more like some kind of confirmation. Then he reached out, unhurriedly pulling the already misshapen cotton swab from Lu Yan's hand, and continued wiping it himself. "Sit back," Ji Linchuan said, his eyes already cast down back onto his wound, his tone returning to its usual flatness. "You're too close." Lu Yan snapped back into the driver's seat as if burned, his chest heaving violently while his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. Not daring to look at Ji Linchuan, he stared out at the pitch-black river beyond the windshield, only managing to choke out a single word after a full half-minute: "Fuck." Ji Linchuan didn't reply. He quietly finished dressing the wound, gathered the blood-stained cotton swabs and gauze, and stuffed them into a bag. His movements were steady and deliberate, as if nothing had just happened. The silence in the car hung like a fully drawn bowstring. Lu Yan finally reached out to turn the key, and the engine roared to life. He shifted into gear, slammed on the accelerator, and the car shot forward. After driving half a block, he suddenly spoke up, his voice hoarse beyond recognition: "In the future, if you get hurt, come to me first." Ji Linchuan leaned back into his seat, head turned to watch the streetlamps receding rapidly outside the window, lines of light sweeping across his face one after another. "Mm," he said. Lu Yan clenched his jaw, holding back the next sentence. What he wanted to say was—"I'm the one who fucking cleans you up, no one else is allowed to touch you." But he didn't say it. Because he knew that once certain words were spoken, there would be no taking them back. The car moved through the night, separated only by the distance of a gear shift between the two of them. But both of them knew that thin gap was like paper, ready to break at a single poke. They just didn't know who would make the first move.