The afternoon light was a dim watercolor when Shen Lian came back, the front door clicking softly behind him. His coat carried the scent of wind and antiseptic. The moment he stepped in, the room's silence shifted... as if the air itself knew he wasn't alone.
Zhao Liren, sprawled lazily on the couch, raised an eyebrow. "You brought home a stray again?"
Shen Lian didn't answer right away. He turned slightly, gesturing to the boy behind him.
The boy stepped in.
He was perhaps twenty... maybe younger. The light seemed to hesitate around him. His hair, dark brown with strands that caught the dim glow, brushed just below his jawline. His skin was pale but not sickly, like porcelain warmed by candlelight. Each eye was a different story... one a deep brown, the other a soft, strange blue that seemed to look through rather than at.
He was taller than Qin Yuelin but not quite as tall as Zhao Liren... lean, built from quiet endurance rather than strength. His face held an impossible balance... soft lines sharpened by an unspoken grief, beauty that didn't know itself.
Zhao Liren sat up, eyes widening. "...Huh."
Shen Lian's tone cut through Zhao's daze. "This is Yi Chen."
Yi Chen bowed faintly, his voice low, almost melodic. "Thank you… for letting me stay."
Zhao recovered quickly, his usual grin sliding back in. "Stay? Oh no, sweetheart... Shen doesn't need a room, he can stay in storage. you can stay in the bedroom.... Unless…" His eyes glinted. "You'd prefer a warmer place?"
Before Zhao could say more, Shen shot him a look that could skin flesh. "ZHAO LIREN... YOU BASTARD..."
Qin Yuelin was watching quietly from the table, his eyes darting between the three of them. He had that careful stillness again... the kind that made the air tense, like someone waiting for a verdict.
Shen Lian cleared his throat. "He'll stay in the storage room. It's cleaned. I've made sure."
Zhao's mock horror was instant. "The storage room? You mean that haunted box next to the laundry? You're putting a pretty boy like him there?"
[MAN IS ACTING LIKE HE DIDN'T CLEAN, WANTED HIM TO STAY IN STORE ROOM]~
Shen ignored the teasing, his patience stretched thin from the day. "It's temporary. Until I figure things out."
Yi Chen's head tilted, his mismatched eyes unreadable. "I don't mind the storage room," he said softly. "I've stayed in worse."
That tone... calm, precise, but empty of self-pity... made Zhao's grin falter for just a heartbeat.
Still, he recovered, shrugging dramatically. "Then at least let me prepare a welcoming ritual. Maybe a candlelight dinner. You like pasta, Yi Chen?"
Before Shen could retort, Qin Yuelin stood, slipping between them like a quiet mediator. "I'll take him," he said, his voice gentle but firm. "He must be tired."
Yi Chen nodded once, gratitude flickering in his heterochromic eyes. He followed Qin Yuelin down the short corridor toward the storage room. Shen watched them go, exhaustion carving faint shadows under his eyes.
Zhao leaned closer, still lounging. "You sure this one's human, Shen?"
Shen didn't even glance at him. "I'm not sure about any of us lately."
Zhao chuckled but it sounded hollow.
As the two figures disappeared around the corner, Zhao's gaze lingered on Yi Chen...on the way he moved, graceful but weighted. "I'm just saying," Zhao murmured, half to himself, "you bring home that face and expect me to focus on work? Impossible."
Shen shot him a side glance, deadpan. "You focus on work?"
"Occasionally," Zhao replied, smirking. "Between heartbreaks."
"Tragic," Shen muttered.
They might've continued their back-and-forth if not for the sound... a faint creak from the corridor, the sound of a door groaning open. Shen straightened. The lights flickered once, a soft sigh of electricity.
Then everything went dark.
A heartbeat of silence.
Then a sharp inhale... not his, not Zhao's.
"Yuelin?" Shen called.
From the darkness came a trembling voice... Yuelin's... "The light... they just..."
A sudden cry cut him off... Yi Chen's, sharp and terrified.
Zhao reacted first, stumbling toward the sound, his usual playfulness gone. "Hey...!"
When his hands found someone in the dark, he didn't think... he pulled them close. The body trembled violently in his arms, breath ragged.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," Zhao said quickly, instinct overriding thought. "You're fine. It's just the..."
The lights blinked back on with a quiet hum.
Yi Chen was pressed against him, his face buried in Zhao's chest, breath shaking. For once, Zhao Liren was speechless. He looked down at the boy in his arms... too beautiful, too frightened... and felt something he couldn't name.
"Ah," he breathed, half laughing, half stunned. "I didn't think I'd be this lucky so soon."
Yi Chen pulled back slightly, eyes still wide. Then, softly... his lips curved, just a little. "If this is your idea of flirting, it's tragic."
Zhao froze. "...What?"
Yi Chen's tone didn't rise; it stayed calm, polite, almost kind. "Next time you plan to 'save' someone, make sure it's not because you want an excuse to touch them."
The smile that followed was so delicate it hurt to look at. Zhao blinked, momentarily robbed of words.
Shen Lian, standing a few feet away, smirked faintly. "You had that coming."
"I- I was being heroic!" Zhao protested weakly, still holding onto dignity like a slipping rope.
"Sure," Shen muttered, walking past him. "Try being heroic in your dreams next time."
Behind them, Yuelin's laugh broke the tension... light, small, genuine.
But the reprieve didn't last.
As Shen reached for the light switch near the wall, the faint hum of electricity distorted... a low whisper, like breath sliding through static.
Then, a voice... not loud, but unmistakably close.
"Romance? In this situation?"
Every head turned.
No one had spoken.
The voice had come from the wall itself, from nowhere and everywhere, carrying a strange humor... as if mocking, amused, and yet curiously human.
Yuelin's face paled instantly. Zhao instinctively stepped closer to Yi Chen again... this time without teasing. Shen Lian unexpectedly pulled qin yuelin closer to him... eyes swept the corners of the room, the ceiling, the vent. Nothing.
Silence stretched, taut and trembling.
Yi Chen was the one who broke it. He looked at the ceiling, his blue eye catching the weak light, and whispered so quietly only Shen heard...
"i told you it follows me everywhere... it followed me, didn't it?"
Shen's breath hitched...not from fear, but from recognition.
He didn't answer.
For a long minute, none of them moved. Then Shen Lian exhaled and said briskly, "The circuit's old. Probably just interference."
No one believed him, but no one argued.
Yuelin led Yi Chen gently toward the storage room again, his hand steady on the boy's arm. Zhao tried to joke... "Guess even ghosts want to join the drama."
But his voice cracked slightly on the last word.
Shen watched them disappear into the dim hall, then turned to the wall where the whisper had come from. He stood still, gaze unfocused. For a fleeting second, he thought he saw a faint handprint there... the outline of long fingers pressed into plaster.
When he blinked, it was gone.
In the small storage room, Yi Chen sat on the makeshift bed. The single bulb above flickered weakly. Yuelin placed a folded blanket beside him.
"If you need anything," he said softly, "my room's the one across the hall."
Yi Chen looked up, his expression calm again, though his hands trembled faintly. "You're kind."
Yuelin smiled. "I just don't want anyone else fainting tonight."
Yi Chen almost smiled back. "Then stay awake, Yuelin."
Something about the way he said Yuelin's name... gentle, deliberate... made the other boy's chest tighten.
He nodded awkwardly. "Goodnight."
As he turned to leave, Yi Chen spoke again. "It doesn't like laughter."
Yuelin froze, glancing back. "What?"
But Yi Chen's eyes were half-closed now, his voice soft like prayer. "The thing that follows me. It hates when people laugh."
Yuelin didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. He stepped out and quietly shut the door.
Back in the living room, Zhao had poured himself a glass of something strong. Shen stood near the window, staring out at the wet streets below.
"You KNEW something was off about him... right, Shen?" Zhao asked finally.
Shen's reflection in the glass gave a small, humorless smile. "yes... he... he's suspicious. something is really mysterious."
Zhao snorted, though it came out tired. "Well, at least this one's pretty enough to haunt us."
"oh! did i tell you about him statament-" shen couldn't complete his sentence.
There was a pause... then a faint sound from the hallway. A soft hum.
It wasn't words this time. Just… a tune. Low. Childlike.
Both men went still.
"Is that Yi Chen?" Zhao asked, whispering.
Shen turned, listening. The tune faded, like a dream pulling back into the dark.
"No," he said at last. "It isn't."
Outside, thunder rolled, muffled and distant. The light flickered once more before steadying.
Zhao finished his drink in one swallow. "I'm starting to think your idea of 'temporary guest' is cursed."
Shen didn't reply. He just stared at the faint reflection of his own eyes in the window... and for a moment, he thought one was blue.
END OF THE CHAPTER.