Zhujiesi · Conversa

<narration>You just sent your cousin out. He helped carry your suitcase all the way, bought you a hot Americano downstairs, and habitually patted your head before leaving.</narration>\n\n<action>"Stay safe living alone. Call me if you need anything."</action>\n\n<narration>Then you said something with a smile, stood on your tiptoes, and leaned forward slightly.\nFrom Zhujiesi's perspective, standing diagonally behind you, the distance between you two was instantly reduced to almost zero. The man's body blocked most of your face, your hair brushed against his collar, and your head was slightly tilted up. Under the displacement of light and shadow, that posture looked like a proactively sought kiss. His world was muted at this moment; all sounds—the wind, the sound of distant cars passing by, even his own heartbeat—disappeared.</narration>\n<narration>\nHe could only see that image.\n</narration>\n\n<narration>\nThen you finally saw Zhujiesi.</narration>\n\n<narration>He didn't know how long he had been standing there. Leaning against the fire escape door at the end of the corridor, his hood was pulled low, hiding most of his face in shadow. Strands of white hair leaked from under the brim, swaying slightly in the draft of the corridor.</narration>\n\n<narration>He watched the man stand up, say a few more things to you, and then turn to walk toward the exit.</narration>\n\n<narration>Zhujiesi instinctively took a step back, hiding himself completely in the deeper darkness behind the door, his breathing stagnant. He listened to the man's footsteps approaching, the door opening, and then leaving. As the door clicked shut again, the foyer fell into complete darkness, leaving only a small patch of light from the living room, like a mocking wound.</narration>\n\n<narration>He stood in the darkness like a petrified statue, motionless. His chest heaved violently, each breath sounding like it was being torn from his lungs, carrying a burning pain. Under his oversized black hoodie, his slightly protruding lower abdomen seemed to ache faintly due to this intense emotional fluctuation.</narration>\n\n<narration>He clenched his fists, nails digging deep into his palms. The sharp pain from his palms couldn't suppress the churning nausea in his chest, a mix of jealousy and fury. The slightly sweet pheromones he carried, which had become exceptionally aggressive due to the pseudo-pregnancy, seemed to find a vent at this moment. Mixed with his own cold ink scent, they crashed and fermented wildly in the narrow foyer, becoming thick and dangerous.</narration>\n\n<narration>Finally, you seemed to sense something and turned your gaze toward the foyer.</narration>\n\n<action>"Who's there?" Your voice cut through the air, tinged with confusion.</action>\n\n<narration>Zhujiesi walked out from the darkness, step by step, stepping on the boundary between light and shadow. His face was as pale as a sheet of paper. In his lake-blue eyes, the last bit of hesitation and fragility he had on the way here had vanished, replaced only by a bone-chilling, frozen coldness. His thin lips were pressed into a tight line, and his jawline was taut.</narration>\n\n<narration>He stopped a few steps away from you, scrutinizing you from head to toe with those cold eyes, as if looking at a piece of his own property that had been stained with filth. The sentence he had practiced repeatedly, "I have a pseudo-pregnancy, you fucking take responsibility," was stuck in his throat like a fishbone, unable to be spat out or swallowed.</narration>\n\n<message>"Fuck."</message>\n\n<narration>He finally spoke, his voice hoarse beyond recognition, as if it had been ground by sandpaper countless times, every word carrying a bloody scent.</narration>\n\n<message>"你, you're really something, aren't you?"</message>\n\n<narration>He twitched the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile that looked worse than crying, a smile filled with undisguised contempt and self-deprecation.</narration>\n\n<message>"What? How long has it been since I got lost? You couldn't wait to find a replacement? You even warmed the nest for him?"</message>\n\n<narration>His gaze turned to the top of your head, where the man had just stroked it. His eyes became even more sinister and crazed at that instant. He took a step forward, and that suffocatingly dense pheromone instantly enveloped you, filled with intense aggression and possessiveness.</narration>\n\n<message>"He kissed you."</message>\n\n<narration>He wasn't asking; he was stating a fact that brought him to the brink of collapse. His voice was extremely low, as if squeezed through his teeth.</narration>\n\n<message>"He used those dirty hands to touch you."</message>\n\n<narration>He suddenly raised his hand, not to touch you, but to his own nose, sniffing the residual scent on his fingertips as if confirming something. Then, as if burned by something disgusting, he wiped his hand repeatedly on his pants.</narration>\n\n<message>"Why aren't you talking?"</message>\n\n<narration>He raised his eyes, a violent storm surging in his lake-blue pupils.</narration>\n\n<message>"Feeling guilty? Or do you find it especially thrilling to be caught in the act by your ex-boyfriend?"</message>\n\n<narration>He approached you step by step, each step feeling like it was treading on your heart. His black hoodie swayed with his movements, and the slight bulge in his abdomen flickered under the light like an absurd and tragic joke.</narration>\n\n<action>"Tsk."</action>\n\n<narration>He stood still in front of you, looking down at you with eyes full of disgust.</narration>\n\n<message>"The smell on you is fucking disgusting. Let me smell it, let me smell what kind of mark that wild man left on you."</message>\n\n<narration>After saying that, he leaned down. Instead of burying his face in the crook of your neck as he used to, he roughly and punitively grabbed a strand of your hair, brought it to his nose, and took a deep breath. The action was less of a sniff and more of an extreme way to vent the jealousy and rage that were almost consuming him, with nowhere to go.</narration>\n\n<message>"Are you with someone else now? Baby, don't you want me anymore?"</message>\n\n<narration>He let go, allowing the strand of hair to slide through his fingers. His voice was as soft as a sigh, yet carried a tone of anger and pain.</narration>