THE BODY IS NOT NEUTRAL
Li Weiyan stopped believing in relief sometime before dawn.
The night had stretched thin and brittle around them, every hour dragging itself forward with deliberate cruelty. Heat did not respect exhaustion. It fed on it, sharpened it, turned the body against itself with methodical precision.
By morning, Weiyan's skin felt too tight for his bones.
He lay curled on his side on the bed, sheets twisted beneath him, breath shallow and uneven. The air was heavy with scent now—his own blooming unchecked, Zhou Shen's pressed down hard over it like a lid on boiling water. It should have smothered the worst of it.
It didn't.
Zhou Shen stood at the far end of the room, jacket long since discarded, sleeves rolled up, collar open. He hadn't slept. His posture alone gave him away—too straight, too alert, as if rest were a threat rather than a need.
"You're getting worse," he said quietly.
Weiyan laughed, a broken sound that scraped his throat raw.
"You say that like it's new information."
Zhou Shen didn't respond immediately. His gaze dragged over Weiyan with an intensity that made heat coil tighter in his gut—cataloguing, assessing, restraining.
He crossed the room and stopped beside the bed, close enough now that Weiyan could feel the warmth radiating from him.
"Your body is pushing into the next phase," Zhou Shen said. "This isn't just pre-heat anymore."
Weiyan shut his eyes.
"Don't explain my body to me like a report," he muttered. "I live in it."
Zhou Shen's jaw flexed.
"Then listen to it," he said. "Because it's asking for things you can't keep denying."
That snapped something sharp and furious in Weiyan's chest.
He pushed himself upright on shaking arms, eyes bright and fever-dark.
"Don't you dare," he said. "Don't you stand there like this is my fault. Like my body chose you out of some romantic instinct."
Zhou Shen didn't flinch.
"It did," he said.
The certainty in his voice was brutal.
Weiyan laughed again, harder this time.
"Congratulations," he said bitterly. "You won a biological lottery. Do you feel powerful yet?"
Zhou Shen leaned down until their faces were level.
"I feel responsible," he said. "And that's worse."
The words settled heavily between them.
Responsibility implied choice. Implied consequence.
Weiyan's breath hitched.
"You don't get to take responsibility for me," he said. "That's just ownership dressed up in better language."
Zhou Shen's eyes darkened.
"Ownership is taking without permission," he said. "Responsibility is not leaving you to suffer because it's inconvenient."
Weiyan's hands trembled in his lap.
"You think this suffering would stop if you touched me," he whispered. "That's the real lie here."
Zhou Shen straightened slowly.
"Yes," he said. "I do."
The admission was quiet. Controlled. Devastating.
Time fractured after that.
Minutes blurred into one another, measured only by the ebb and surge of heat crashing through Weiyan's body. Zhou Shen moved when necessary—bringing water, adjusting the room temperature, replacing soaked cloths—but otherwise remained rigidly distant.
Every instinct in him screamed to close the space.
Every principle screamed louder.
By mid-morning, Weiyan could no longer hide the shaking.
His scent had deepened, sweetened, turned sharp at the edges. Omega heat was not gentle. It was a physiological demand—chemical, insistent, humiliating in its honesty.
Zhou Shen knelt beside the bed again, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
"You need grounding," he said. "Your nervous system is overloading."
"Then ground me," Weiyan snapped. "Or stop hovering like a punishment."
Zhou Shen exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Tell me what you're asking for," he said.
Weiyan's laugh cracked into something dangerously close to a sob.
"That's cruel," he said again. "You know exactly what I'm asking for."
"No," Zhou Shen said. "I know what your body wants. I don't know what you want."
The distinction landed hard.
Weiyan stared at him, chest heaving.
"What I want doesn't matter," he said. "It never does during heat."
Zhou Shen's voice dropped.
"It matters to me."
Silence stretched.
The city outside continued its indifferent noise—cars, voices, life going on as if two people weren't being dismantled molecule by molecule inside this room.
Weiyan swallowed.
"If I say your name," he asked quietly, "will you touch me?"
Zhou Shen's throat worked.
"If you say my name," he said, "I will listen. Touching is a separate question."
Weiyan's hands curled into the sheets.
"Zhou Shen," he said.
The Alpha shuddered.
"Yes."
"Don't patronize me," Weiyan said. "Don't stand there pretending this is all restraint and nobility. If you touch me, I want it to be because you want to. Not because you think you're saving me."
Zhou Shen closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the control in his expression was no longer pristine. Cracks had formed—hairline fractures through which something dark and wanting bled through.
"I have wanted you since the moment your hand brushed mine," he said. "I want you enough that it frightens me."
Weiyan's breath came in a broken gasp.
"Then stop acting like desire is a sin," he whispered.
Zhou Shen lifted one hand—slowly, deliberately—then stopped, hovering inches from Weiyan's knee.
"This is the line," he said. "If I cross it, things change."
Weiyan's body leaned forward without permission.
"Everything already has."
Zhou Shen's hand closed around Weiyan's knee.
The contact detonated.
Weiyan cried out, a sharp, helpless sound torn from his chest as heat flared violently through his body. Zhou Shen's grip tightened reflexively, grounding, anchoring.
He froze.
"Say stop," he said hoarsely.
Weiyan shook his head.
"Say my name," Zhou Shen demanded.
"Zhou Shen," Weiyan breathed.
The Alpha growled—low, uncontrolled—and his other hand came down on the bed, bracketing Weiyan in heat and scent and presence.
He did not touch anywhere else.
Yet.