Chapter Text
The words on the handwritten note stare up at him, mocking.
I'm not playing with you anymore. Bye!
Chen Yi slams his fist onto the table.
The night before started in a haze - bottle after bottle of vodka, all to wipe the boss's look of disappointment from his mind. Rough hands grabbing his face, a blurry figure saying "I'm the only one who's looking at you." Chen Yi leans in, too drunk to recognise who was speaking to him, but the person smells familiar. Safe.
He kisses their neck, and the person gasps with a full body shudder. It's a sound Chen Yi knows he's never heard before from them, but he doesn't understand why. It's a wonderful sound. He wants to hear it again.
Chen Yi lets his whole weight fall forward, pinning the person under him to the bed with his body weight. The sudden change from a vertical to a horizontal position sends a dizzying rush through his head. Chen Yi closes his eyes and hums, nuzzling into the soft hair at the nape of the person's neck. They gasp again, and he smiles. The other person is much smaller than him - their entire body is pinned under his, securely snug against him. Again, it's a familiar feeling. Chen Yi likes how this person feels against his body.
Then suddenly the world spins as he's flipped over, sending another dizzying rush of blood to his head, and he's on his back looking up at them. There aren't many people with the kind of strength to throw him over like that, Chen Yi thinks, as his eyes are drawn to a shock of blonde hair. A name and a face start to niggle at the back of his mind.
But before he can think any further, the blonde mutters "You're the one who's offering yourself to me," and starts stripping them both.
It's easier to go with the motions than to try and remember the name of this faceless-but-familiar person. Chen Yi's just another red blooded male, after all. He likes sex, he likes making out.
He loves making out with this person, who kisses like they're drowning, like they're both drowning, like they're both drowning but he's trying to give Chen Yi all the oxygen in his lungs anyway.
Then the first tear hits his face, and his vision finally, finally clears.
"Ai Di."
Ai Di doesn't say a word, but he offers no resistance when Chen Yi reaches up to pull him down into a kiss, tears continuing to fall freely as they did so.
The table creaks ominously due to Chen Yi's white-knuckled deathgrip on it. Fuck, what has he done?
He still has a raging hangover from the night before, but Chen Yi stands and stumbles out of his room in a hurry. From his note, Ai Di couldn't still be in headquarters, that's for sure, but who knows how far Ai Di could have gone by now. He's gotten up way past noon but no one came to wake him - in the aftermath of Zhang Teng's death, they'd all been ordered to keep their heads down and lie low for the time being. There are only a handful of lackeys playing cards in the common area when Chen Yi enters the room.
"Where the fuck is Ai Di?" He growls. The lackeys jump in surprise, cans of beer scattering their contents all over the table as they scramble to control the damage. Chen Yi doesn't have time for this. "Ai. Di. Did any of you see him leave?"
There's a pregnant silence, which Chen Yi doesn't like at all.
"Xiao Jie!" He snaps. The young member nearly trips over himself to answer him.
"He went to see the boss, then turned himself in to the police early this morning. We just got the news an hour ago." Xiao Jie catches the stricken look on Chen Yi's face. "Yi-ge, you really… didn't know? Ai Di was looking for you last night. We assumed it was because he was going to tell you."
This can't be happening. Chen Yi staggers back, feeling like he's just been dealt a heavy blow to the stomach. Ai Di can't be gone.
He turns, and runs to Ai Di's room.
It's almost like Ai Di never left. The bed is unmade, clothes strewn on the floor, colourful outfits all still hanging in the wardrobe.
A flash of metal on the floor catches his eye. Ai Di's choker, half hidden under the bed, probably discarded there this morning when Ai Di walked out of his bedroom door for good.
That, more than anything, is what finally drives the message home. I'm not playing with you anymore.
I'm not tying myself to you anymore.
The first tear falls before he even realises it. Chen Yi drops to his knees to shuffle forward, reaching under the bed to retrieve the choker. The metal cuts into his fingers when he squeezes his fist around it, but he doesn't register the pain. Chen Yi's certain that nothing could hurt more than this moment, feeling his heart crack into two. A low, keening sound reaches his ears, and Chen Yi realises belatedly that he's the one making it.
"No," he whispers brokenly, bringing his hand to his mouth to stifle the sobs, "No, Ai Di, please."
He swore to protect him. He swore - and he failed. Ai Di's been at his side all along, how had Chen Yi still managed to fuck this up so spectacularly? Yet even as he asks himself this, Chen Yi knows he's the one who helped push Ai Di away. How could he have been so wrong?
He cries like he never has since he was a very young child, on the floor of Ai Di's room clutching his choker to his chest, certain now that he's made the biggest mistake of his life.
Somehow, he has to try and fix this. He doesn't know if he could live with himself if Ai Di's gone for good.
~~~~~~
Some of Dong Yang's bodyguards stand when Chen Yi approaches, but the gang leader waves them away with a loose hand, looking like he fully expected Chen Yi's presence.
“I assume you're here because of Ai Di.” Dong Yang says, casually as if he wasn't the cause of Chen Yi's entire world turning upside down.
“Why did you let him do it?” It was all Chen Yi could do to keep his voice neutral, even as anger swirls like a tornado inside of him, tempting him to abandon all reason and just punch his adoptive father.
Dong Yang raises an eyebrow. "Ai Di wanted out, and I needed someone to protect Bai Zongyi in case the Fan family gets to him. He agreed to do this as his last act of service to the organisation."
Chen Yi sees red.
He makes an aborted movement, raising his arm midway - he doesn't know if he wants to punch, or shake, or scream at his boss - but the motion twists the leather of his jacket sleeve, pressing the metal of Ai Di's choker into his wrist. Chen Yi stills. He wears the choker like a bracelet now, just a little too uncomfortably tight, a reminder of how badly he's wronged Ai Di digging constantly into his skin. He knows he'll be wearing it until the day he sees Ai Di again.
This isn't how he can fix things. Chen Yi lowers his arm slowly, barely-restrained anger causing him to exhale harshly through his nose, willing the roaring in his ears to subside. To his left and right, he notices Dong Yang's bodyguards tense and poised to strike, and a grim smile creeps across his face. Good. That means they still saw him as a threat.
Even Dong Yang is watching him carefully. “I didn't abandon him. Ai Di wanted out of Yiyun Meng, but I promised him that the bar will still be his after he's released.”
That wasn't any consolation in the slightest. Ai Di was still gone. “How long?”
Dong Yang closes his eyes briefly. “Four years. I made sure his sentence would only last as long as Bai Zongyi's.”
Ai Di's rap sheet - and his own - would have put them in for much longer, Chen Yi knows. A small mercy that Chen Dong Yang had the influence to grant - and that Chen Yi was helpless to do anything about. Anger simmering under his skin again, Chen Yi turns brusquely to leave, feeling the violent urge to hit or throw something. He'll never show it in front of Dong Yang, but shame suffuses his chest as well - at the absolute powerlessness he has here, when he's tricked himself into believing otherwise.
“You are both still my sons, Chen Yi.” Dong Yang calls after him. “I've never forsaken that.”
The nerve of him, to call them his sons. Every second more he spends in their boss's presence, Chen Yi realises one thing - he's never been in love with this man. He admired him, respected him, but never loved him. Not in the way he thought he did. “Then did it ever occur to you that you've just sentenced your son to four years in jail, knowing that a rival family will use any means possible to get through him to his cellmate?” Chen Yi spits, temper flaring. He's furious; at Chen Dong Yang for letting Ai Di go to jail, at himself for not being able to stop it, and for not realising what he should have understood years ago.
When now it might already be too late.
“Ai Di knew what he was asking for. And don't forget that he’s going in for a mistake you made, whelp.” The benevolent father figure disappears in an instant, cold ice entering Dong Yang's tone.
Chen Yi flinches despite himself. He knows he's already overstepped; any other member rushing in to accuse Chen Dong Yang like this would have received a bullet between their eyes in an instant. Despite everything, it's a privilege that only Chen Yi and Ai Di have.
So he leaves, instead. Frustration and determination pull his shoulders taut and his back straight as he stalks out of the room. With how things are now, Chen Yi realises that he's always been helpless, here - powerless to protect Ai Di when it really mattered.
He has four years to change things. To make sure that when Ai Di returns, he'll be safe. That he'll never have to choose between loyalty and love ever again.
He eventually ends up in Ai Di's bar, brooding. It's a place he hasn't frequented often, and usually when he's there it's to talk business or to grab Ai Di and drag him somewhere else. When he looks around, he realises there's traces of Ai Di everywhere - in the yellow wall that's painted with streaks of neon pink, the brightly coloured patterns on the upholstery and tablecloths, the masks that are available for any customer who wished to be anonymous.
Chen Yi never really wondered about the masks before, although it did occur to him once that it was a strange thing for Ai Di to allow given how paranoid he usually is. He realises now that Ai Di was probably more familiar with wearing masks than Chen Yi ever thought he would be.
The bar is empty save for himself since it was only mid-afternoon. Chen Yi sits himself down at the bar counter, lost in thought, deep in his guilt over losing Ai Di. He’s certain he'll be spending most of his time here from now on - this was Ai Di’s space, and now it's Chen Yi’s to protect until he returns.
The bartender, clearly recognising Chen Yi (how could he not, after he's watched Chen Yi stomp into this very place to wrestle Ai Di away for years) approaches him to ask if he'd like a drink.
Chen Yi doesn't drink - not anymore. He's already made that mistake once with Ai Di.