The bell above the café door had long since fallen silent, the night crowd dispersed, leaving behind only the faint scent of roasted beans and a few stray crumbs glinting on the counter. Rui wiped them away with slow, methodical strokes, though his mind was far from the cloth in his hand.

He could still hear Chen Hao’s voice, smooth and taunting, lingering in the air like cigarette smoke: No wonder you keep coming back.

Rui’s throat tightened. He had looked at Li Wei then, expecting—no, hoping—for some denial, a sharp rebuttal, anything to cut through the implication. But Li Wei had said nothing. His silence was heavier than words, and now, in the empty quiet, Rui kept circling back to it.

Did it mean something?

Or was it just another thing he was foolishly reading too much into?

Rui sighed, pressing the cloth harder against the wood until the grain blurred beneath his gaze. His chest felt warm and tight at once, like he had swallowed fire and ice together. He didn’t like this—not knowing where to put the weight of his feelings. Customers were supposed to be customers. Strangers who came and went, carried away by the city’s tides. Yet Li Wei… Li Wei stayed.

The door creaked suddenly. Rui’s head snapped up.

“Why so gloomy, ge?”

Xu Min leaned against the frame, sketchpad tucked beneath his arm, his dark hair falling untamed over one eye. The boy looked as though he’d walked straight out of a painting—messy, moody, and entirely too pleased with himself.

“You’re here late,” Rui said, quickly straightening. “Don’t you have classes tomorrow?”

“Skipped already,” Xu Min answered with a careless shrug, padding inside and dropping onto a stool. He set the sketchpad down with a thump, chin propped on his palm as he watched Rui with feline interest. “Besides, I like it here at night. Smells better than the dorms. Less despair.”

Rui frowned. “That’s not something to joke about.”

Xu Min ignored the scolding tone. His sharp eyes flicked toward the counter, then back to Rui, a sly grin tugging at his lips. “So… who was that?”

Rui’s heart gave a sharp, unwelcome jolt. “Who?”

“The man in the suit. Tall, brooding. The one who looks like he hasn’t smiled in a decade. He’s been coming here a lot, hasn’t he?” Xu Min tilted his head. “You talk to him differently.”

Heat rushed to Rui’s ears before he could stop it. “He’s just a customer,” he said firmly, too firmly.

Xu Min’s grin widened. “Sure. A customer you stare at like he’s a painting hanging in the Louvre.”

Rui turned away, busying himself with stacking cups, though his hand wobbled against porcelain. “You’re imagining things.”

But Xu Min wasn’t easily dismissed. He dragged the sketchpad closer, flipping it open with a flourish of paper. “Am I?”

The scratch of pencil marks filled the air as he began to draw, the soft rasp echoing against the hum of the café fridge. Rui tried to ignore it, focusing on his own motions—the careful placing of cups, the wiping of the counter—but his attention kept darting back to the boy hunched over the page, lines flowing from his hand as though pulled from some invisible source.

“Don’t make a mess,” Rui said quietly.

“I won’t,” Xu Min replied without looking up. His voice carried a note of mischief, though, the kind that always spelled trouble.

The café settled into silence again, save for the faint scratching of pencil and Rui’s own restless heartbeat. He tried to tell himself it was nothing—just Xu Min being Xu Min. But something in the boy’s smirk, in the deliberate way he guarded the page, made Rui’s stomach coil with unease.

When Xu Min finally lifted his head, his expression was triumphant. He slid the sketchpad across the counter.

“Tell me I’m imagining things now, ge.”

Rui hesitated, cloth still in hand, then reached for the pad with reluctant fingers.

The sketch was unmistakable.

Lines of graphite, swift yet precise, captured the rigid slope of Li Wei’s shoulders, the severe lines of his jaw, the guarded set of his mouth. Even in black and white, Xu Min had managed to etch the weight of silence into his face—the man looked like he carried entire buildings on his back. And yet… There was something softer, too. The faintest curve at the corner of his lips, a suggestion of warmth Rui had never dared admit he noticed.

Rui’s breath snagged. “You shouldn’t—”

“I knew it,” Xu Min crowed, jabbing a finger at the sketch. “Look at him! This isn’t just some random customer. You’ve memorized him, haven’t you? The way he sits, the way he stares at his coffee like it owes him answers. You’ve been watching him.”

Rui snapped the pad shut, his heart hammering too loud in his chest. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?” Xu Min pressed, eyes glinting with mischief. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’ve got a crush.”

The word hit harder than it should have. Rui stiffened, placing the pad back on the counter with exaggerated care. His fingers lingered on the cardboard cover, unwilling to meet his cousin’s gaze.

“A crush is childish,” Rui muttered. “I don’t have time for that.”

Xu Min leaned back, crossing his arms. “Right. Too busy hiding in your café, working yourself to death, pretending you don’t care that the world is bigger than these four walls.”

The jab landed, though Rui tried not to flinch. “Don’t start,” he warned quietly.

But Xu Min wasn’t finished. “Come on, ge. Don’t you get it? He comes here for a reason. People like him—guys in suits, money written in every thread—they don’t waste their evenings in cafés like this unless they’re looking for something they can’t buy.”

Rui’s throat tightened. He wanted to argue, to brush it off as nonsense, but the words caught somewhere between truth and fear. Because Xu Min was right. Li Wei wasn’t the kind of man who should find comfort in Rui’s quiet little world. And yet, he kept coming back.

Rui finally exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Even if what you’re saying were true… it doesn’t matter. Men like him don’t… they don’t stay.”

For once, Xu Min’s expression softened. “Maybe. Or maybe you’re just too scared to let someone try.”

The silence that followed was heavy, the kind that pressed against Rui’s chest until he could barely breathe.

He busied himself with cleaning again, but the sketchpad still lay on the counter, its weight impossible to ignore. The image of Li Wei lingered in his mind—sharp, softened, complicated. He could almost hear Chen Hao’s teasing voice again, Li Wei’s silence, the doubt that had flickered through him like a shadow.

And beneath it all, Rui felt something he had been trying so hard to bury.

A pull.

A dangerous, undeniable pull.

The night pressed heavily against the glass of Li Wei’s apartment windows, city lights scattered like fractured constellations. Yet Li Wei sat unmoving in his armchair, the ledger open across his lap, pen idle between his fingers.

The numbers blurred. Columns bled into one another, the ink refusing to hold his attention.

Instead, Rui’s face haunted him.

The way his eyes had flickered in Chen Hao’s presence. There was a slight furrow between his brows when their gazes met across the counter. The silence—thick, unfinished—that had stretched between them until Li Wei had been forced to look away.

Doubt.

He had seen it, clear as glass cracking under pressure. The certainty Rui once held in those brief, unguarded exchanges had fractured. And Li Wei had done nothing to stop it.

He closed the ledger with more force than necessary, the sharp sound echoing through the empty apartment.

Predictability had always been his anchor. Meetings, contracts, strategies—all contained, ordered, manageable. Yet now, the thought of a quiet café barista, apron loose, pen tucked behind his ear, was enough to unravel hours of discipline.

Li Wei set the ledger aside and leaned back, pressing a hand to his brow. “Foolish,” he muttered to himself. “Utterly foolish.”

But still, the memory remained. Rui’s voice, low but steady, recalled his order without hesitation. Strong, no sugar. Right?

As if Rui had been watching him as carefully as Li Wei had been watching in return.

Li Wei’s chest tightened. He told himself it was nothing, a barista’s job to remember details. Efficient service, nothing more. And yet efficiency had never made his pulse stutter, had never made silence feel like a language shared only between two people.

The knock on his door startled him. Sharp, insistent.

Li Wei rose, smoothing his shirt reflexively before opening it.

Chen Hao leaned casually against the doorframe, two bottles of beer dangling from one hand. “Thought I’d check on you. Make sure you haven’t drowned yourself in spreadsheets.”

Li Wei’s eyes narrowed. “It’s nearly midnight.”

“Exactly when you’re most dangerous.” Chen Hao strolled in without waiting for permission, dropping onto the sofa with the ease of someone who had long ago stopped caring about Li Wei’s protests. He held out a bottle. “Drink. Doctor’s orders.”

“I doubt you’re qualified to prescribe anything.”

“Maybe not, but I am qualified to notice when my best friend looks like a man losing sleep over more than quarterly reports.”

Li Wei froze, expression schooled, but Chen Hao’s grin only widened.

“Ah, so I am right.” He twisted his bottle open, the hiss of carbonation punctuating the silence. “It’s him, isn’t it? Your mysterious barista.”

Li Wei’s jaw tightened. “You’re overstepping.”

“Am I?” Chen Hao tilted his head, studying him with sharp amusement. “I’ve never seen you rattled like this. You hide it well, but tonight at the café…” He took a swig, eyes never leaving Li Wei. “You wanted to strangle me for being there.”

The truth of it struck too close. Li Wei turned away, striding toward the window, the beer bottle still untouched in his hand.

“Careful, Li Wei,” Chen Hao said softly now, his tone losing its teasing edge. “If you keep standing still, you’ll lose him before you even admit you want him.”

Li Wei’s grip tightened on the glass, the muscles in his forearm rigid.

For a long moment, he said nothing. The city pulsed beyond the glass, neon lights smearing against the darkness.

Finally, in a voice barely above a whisper, he said: “It isn’t that simple.”

Chen Hao leaned back, expression unreadable for once. “It never is. Doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.”

The words lingered long after Chen Hao left.

Li Wei stood alone again, the unopened bottle of beer on the table, the silence of his apartment closing in like a cage. And beneath it all, he felt it too—

The same pull Rui was trying so hard to bury.

Dangerous.

Undeniable.

Inevitable.