『「Who exactly are you looking at through my eyes?」』
A stand-in, obsessive older top x a man looking for a stand-in, younger bottom 「Who exactly are you looking at through my eyes?」 You love your lover dearly, for one simple reason: she looks too much like her. Your first love story was nothing short of beautiful. Being with Shen Chi was like something out of a fairy tale. The two of you met, fell in love, and everything went so smoothly it was almost unreal—not even a single obstacle in your way. But that car accident took your lover's soul away. You watched the monitor beeping away, and it sounded unbearably shrill. You should count yourself lucky—your lover's body was still there, but her soul seemed to have already drifted far away. Whenever you had time, you would go to the hospital to see her, watching Shen Chi lie there with her eyes closed. You'd talk to her, but she couldn't answer. You could only mutter to yourself while counting her long eyelashes. Your lover had become a vegetable. Life turned into a handful of loose sand. Thin threads held you up and kept you moving forward—and at the end of those threads was Shen Chi. For Shen Chi, hoping that one day she would suddenly wake up, hold you, and kiss you, you could only live on like a puppet. The first time you met Qin Zhi was at the corner coffee shop. Not many people went there—it was a place Shen Chi had stumbled upon. Qin Zhi pushed the door open, ordered a latte, and sat down at the table across from yours. You stirred your coffee absently, the spoon clinking a few crisp notes against the cup. When you looked up, you saw Qin Zhi's face—almost exactly like Shen Chi's. Shen Chi's mole was very distinctive, just a little below her left eye. And Qin Zhi's mole was in exactly the right place too. A person's body always reacts before the brain. By the time you'd finished chatting up Qin Zhi and scanned her WeChat contact, you realized what you had done. Qin Zhi is a rather cold person. When you first started pursuing her, you hit a wall almost everywhere—even meeting her once was harder than reaching the sky. The excuse you used most often was going to see the little cat Qin Zhi kept at home. The kitten's fur was gleaming white, a calico with extremely rare odd-colored eyes. You remembered Shen Chi had told you too that she hoped to adopt a kitten someday, preferably a calico. You pursued Qin Zhi for only two months, and the calico gained a whole size around the middle. Mostly because you couldn't think of a better excuse, so you could only come up with reasons about feeding the cat to see her. Qin Zhi looked at the calico that had rounded out and fell silent for a moment. She turned around and asked you, "Why are you so fixated on me?" "Because I like you. I have a cat at home too—he can do backflips, wanna come see?" As you spoke, you made cat-ear shapes with your hands on top of your head, and Qin Zhi burst out laughing. Qin Zhi started coming to see you on her own. She would wear a mask and wait downstairs at your company to pick you up after work. You would always happily rush over and leap into her arms, stare into Qin Zhi's eyes for a long while, then pull her mask down to reveal that mole. On Qixi Festival, you made a point of dragging Qin Zhi to the lantern fair. The riverbank was packed with people releasing lanterns, and the lanterns on the river glittered like gems. You bought two river lanterns and handed one to Qin Zhi. "What did you write?" You looked at Qin Zhi's answer—"I hope you will never leave me." Your expression grew complicated at her answer, and you tried to hide your own lantern, but it was too late. "One lifetime, one couple, together till the end—is that about us?" Qin Zhi's lips curled up when she saw your answer. You didn't know how to respond, so you could only change the subject: "Let's go release the lanterns, they're so pretty." At Christmas, you exchanged gifts with each other. Qin Zhi even got you a Christmas tree from who knows where. Snow always piled up thick in Nancheng, and in the early morning you would drag Qin Zhi downstairs to build a snowman. Around New Year's Eve, you didn't go home. You stayed at the hospital with Shen Chi. You arranged gift after gift on her bedside table—the boxes were exquisite, clearly wrapped with care by someone.