Chapter 34 Straight Guy Sees the Light

Chapter 34: The Straight Man's Epiphany

The food arrived quickly. A waiter pushed a cart over and placed dish after dish on the table.

Meng Lang craned his neck to look and immediately frowned. "Why is everything vegetarian? Where's the meat? I need meat."

He scanned the dishes on the table, his tone full of discontent. "What's this? Stir-fried seasonal vegetables? And this? Tofu? And this—this thing doesn't even have a drop of oil, does it?"

Lin Zaishan ignored him, reaching out to push the stir-fried seasonal vegetables closer to Yuan Che, then moving a bowl of soup over as well.

Could he say that he'd ordered all vegetarian dishes? No. But the truth was, as he flipped through the menu, he'd recalled what Yuan Che usually liked to eat, then picked out the light, meatless options one by one. For no other reason than that this guy hadn't eaten anything all day, and he wanted to at least get him to have a couple of bites.

Meng Lang was still complaining, and Li Ranyu quietly said beside him, "Didn't you say you wanted to lose weight?" which shut Meng Lang up pretty quick.

Yu Yizhou didn't say anything, just picked up his chopsticks, took a piece of tofu, and ate quietly.

Lin Zaishan's attention was entirely on Yuan Che.

He picked up a piece of greens and put it in Yuan Che's bowl. Yuan Che looked down at the bowl but didn't move. Then he ladled half a bowl of soup and carefully pushed it over. Yuan Che did pick it up and take a sip, but just one sip, and then set it down.

Lin Zaishan watched him, feeling anxious, but there were too many people at the table. He couldn't be too obvious, so he just kept occasionally adding something to his bowl, pretending to be casual.

"Eat some of this. It tastes okay." He slid a piece of lotus root over, keeping his tone as casual as possible.

Yuan Che hummed in response, picked it up, took a small bite, and chewed for a long time without seeming to swallow.

Then Meng Lang suddenly spoke up, with a mouthful of tofu, mumbling, "Oh yeah, bro, how's my sister-in-law these days? When are you gonna bring her around to meet us?"

Before he'd even finished, Yuan Che's chopsticks froze in midair.

Lin Zaishan's heart skipped a beat. He looked up at Yuan Che and saw that his expression had darkened. His lips were slightly pressed together, chopsticks held in his hand, unmoving.

"Just eat your food," Lin Zaishan said, lowering his voice and pointing his chopsticks at Meng Lang from across the table. "What's with all the questions?"

Meng Lang was a bit confused by his reaction, but he just shrugged and didn't say anything more.

Lin Zaishan looked away and turned to look at the person beside him. Yuan Che had already put down his chopsticks. The food in his bowl was barely touched—just that half-eaten piece of lotus root resting on the edge of the bowl, looking somewhat pitiful.

Lin Zaishan wanted to say something, but there were still people sitting across from him. He couldn't be too obvious, so he just lowered his voice and said, "Have two more bites."

Yuan Che shook his head without speaking.

"Just two bites," Lin Zaishan said, lowering his voice even more, almost to a whisper. "You haven't eaten all day."

Yuan Che shook his head again.

Lin Zaishan looked at him and suddenly realized, with a sense of helplessness, that he didn't actually know Yuan Che at all.

Before, when they'd argued, Yuan Che said he was so worried he couldn't eat, and Lin Zaishan thought he was just exaggerating. Now it seemed it was true.

Not only that, but that clingy, mushy side of Yuan Che seemed to be visible only to him. In front of others, this guy carried himself as dignified as anyone. He'd thought Yuan Che was easygoing, broad-minded, that nothing got to him—but he never expected this person could be so stubborn, that once he locked onto someone or something, he'd dive in headfirst without a second thought.

As he was thinking, his thoughts suddenly veered. An even more startling idea popped into his head—

When Yuan Che grabbed his wrist earlier, he was keeping *him* there, not Yu Yizhou.

It wasn't "don't let Yu Yizhou leave"; it was "can't we sit together?" Not that he was afraid of the pretty boy sitting with him—he was afraid *I* would leave.

The chopsticks in Lin Zaishan's hand paused.

That is to say, all along, the one Yuan Che actually cared about was *him*?

All his previous logic—the competition, making the pretty boy look bad, proving himself in front of a rival—was built on a single premise: Yuan Che liked Yu Yizhou, and he was competing for Yuan Che's attention.

But now that premise had been yanked out from under him.

If the person in Yuan Che's heart wasn't Yu Yizhou, then who had he been competing with all this time? And what was he even trying to win? Hadn't he already won?

Logically, being liked by a man shouldn't be a pleasant thing. But oddly enough, when he applied that thought to Yuan Che, it didn't seem all that off-putting.

After all, just because a gay guy likes you doesn't mean you're gay. Gay guys are allowed to like straight guys, after all, and especially so for a top-tier straight guy like himself—rich, handsome, and with everything going for him. If the guy liked him, that was the guy's own business. He hadn't done anything out of line, so what was there to be uneasy about?

With that thought, he put down his chopsticks and glanced again at Yuan Che out of the corner of his eye. The guy was still staring blankly at the food on the table, looking completely deflated.

*Sigh.* He let out a breath, and the smug feeling inside him suddenly dissipated.

What was there to be smug about? So what if the guy's heart was all his? Look at him now—listless, unable to eat, like a whipped dog. Even if he was pining after him, what good did that do? Could he make him happy?

As for helping with Yuan Simiao's situation, he admitted he couldn't do anything about that. But he should at least be able to do something about Yuan Che not eating, right? The problem was, what should he do? With so many people around, he couldn't hug him, couldn't hold him, couldn't comfort him like he did when they were alone. All he could do was put food in his bowl, pour him soup, and say a few casual words like "have two more bites."

But none of that was working.

*Fine.* Lin Zaishan made up his mind. Without hesitating much longer, he reached under the table and took Yuan Che's hand.

The moment their hands touched, Yuan Che's body stiffened noticeably, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he turned his head a little awkwardly to look straight at him. Sensing Yuan Che's gaze, Lin Zaishan didn't meet it. Instead, he used his other hand to pick up his chopsticks and put a few more greens onto Yuan Che's plate.

"Eat a bit more," he said, turning his head slightly to glance casually at the person beside him. "I think the food here is pretty good."

With that, he looked away, took a bite of the vegetables, and ate it. But under the table, the hand holding Yuan Che's slowly tightened until the cold hand was completely enclosed in his palm.

Yuan Che blinked, as if finally coming to his senses. His fingers slowly relaxed in Lin Zaishan's palm, and then he gently squeezed back.

Lin Zaishan didn't look at him again. He picked up his water glass with his other hand and took a sip, acting as if nothing had happened. But he didn't let go of his hand, and his thumb rubbed lightly across Yuan Che's knuckles, once, then again.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuan Che finally picked up his chopsticks and started eating again. It was more like he was tossing food into his mouth than eating—piece after piece, faster and faster. His hand under the table was also being squeezed tighter and tighter. Lin Zaishan lowered his eyes and struggled to suppress the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Slow down," he said quietly to Yuan Che.

After the meal, Meng Lang led Li Ranyu and Yu Yizhou to a bar and tried to drag Lin Zaishan along, but he made up an excuse and declined.

Lin Zaishan took Yuan Che back toward the suite. As soon as they got in the elevator, Yuan Che couldn't resist and took his hand again. Lin Zaishan didn't pull away. Not until they got to the room and the door was closed did he tease, "Are you going to hold on forever?"

Yuan Che's face flushed, and he quickly let go.

Lin Zaishan smiled without saying anything, took out a change of clothes from his luggage, and got ready to shower. When he opened the bag, he noticed his clothes had been neatly folded—the shirt collars facing up, sleeves folded behind, crisp and neat. His everyday items had been carefully packed into separate pouches, and the charging cable was rolled into neat little loops tucked into the side pocket. Opening the inside zipper compartment, he found his usual medications, and even a pair of earplugs he used occasionally—he had no idea when Yuan Che had noticed those.

Lin Zaishan crouched by the suitcase, his fingers brushing over the earplugs. A feeling close to guilt surged up inside him.

He zipped the bag shut and said nothing.

After the lights were out, they lay on the bed as usual, their hands linked under the covers, but both lost in their own thoughts. Yuan Che had become very quiet—so quiet that Lin Zaishan could only hear his uneven breathing in the dark.

Lin Zaishan closed his eyes but was on edge. He tried to gauge Yuan Che's mood from the rhythm of his breathing—but it was empty, giving him nothing. All the frameworks he usually used to read people, when applied to Yuan Che, failed completely. He couldn't tell if he was sad or calm, whether he was thinking about something or nothing at all.

In the silence, he once again felt the helpless realization: he knew absolutely nothing about Yuan Che.

His moods, his likes and dislikes, whether he cried or fell silent when hurt—he was completely in the dark about all of it. He hated this feeling of being powerless. And he couldn't just stand by and watch Yuan Che suffer—though he wasn't even sure if Yuan Che was in pain right now. But that feeling of being shut out was more unsettling than the pain itself.

If he thought about it, the reason he had only now realized that Yuan Che had always liked *him* wasn't that he was emotionally dense. It was that he had never put Yuan Che on an equal footing in their relationship. From the very first day he met Yuan Che, he had looked down on him condescendingly, measured him by his own standards, treated him like a fool, a child, a "little fag." And yet Yuan Che, who seemed so silly and slow, had, in hindsight, never lied to him about anything. All along, the thing that had kept him from understanding the other person was not the wall between them—it was himself. The arrogance of being present in the relationship yet keeping himself detached from it all.

He got more and more worked up.

Though he was not gay and could not reciprocate Yuan Che’s feelings, as a man, he had to take responsibility. Especially now—Yuan Che was alone in an unfamiliar city, with no family, no friends. Besides him, who else could Yuan Che rely on?

At that moment, watching Yuan Che cling tightly to his side, carefully holding his hand, following him like a big, loyal animal that would never abandon him, he felt something gently knock against his chest. The guilt of having deceived and toyed with him all along surged up like a tide, filling him with self-reproach.

He opened his eyes, sat up, and reached for his phone on the nightstand.

The moment his hands separated, the person who had been lying quietly with his eyes closed also sat up. As Lin Zaishan had expected, Yuan Che hadn’t been asleep at all—now he was propping himself up with one hand on the bed, his eyes glued to Lin Zaishan’s every move, as if afraid he might run away.

After grabbing his phone, Lin Zaishan quickly returned to the bed and, before Yuan Che could react, pulled him into an embrace and lay back down.

Yuan Che clearly hadn’t expected this sudden intimacy. His whole body stiffened in Lin Zaishan’s arms, at a loss for what to do. Sensing his unease, Lin Zaishan said nothing but tightened his arms around him. Then he lit up the phone screen, scrolled to Yuan Simiao’s number, and held the phone in front of Yuan Che.

The faint glow of the screen illuminated half of Yuan Che’s face in the darkness. His eyes were wide open, blinking rapidly at the screen.

“This is your sister’s number, right?”

Yuan Che stared blankly at the phone suddenly held in front of him, momentarily forgetting to answer.

“Say something.” Lin Zaishan lowered his head, nudging the shoulder Yuan Che was resting on, urging him softly.

“Yes… yes,” Yuan Che replied, then lifted his head to look at him with a confused expression. “How do you have my sister’s number?”

“Of course I have it.” Lin Zaishan was deliberately teasing him, a slight smile quirking at the corner of his mouth. “Back then, I was supposed to marry your sister.”

The moment the words were spoken, Yuan Che lowered his eyes and fell silent again.

Reading his expression, Lin Zaishan realized he had made an inappropriate joke. He dropped his smile and held the phone closer to Yuan Che, his tone turning serious.

“Haven’t you been pestering to call your sister? Go ahead, call her.”

Yuan Che looked at the bright screen in front of him, then at Lin Zaishan’s face, an expression of disbelief. “Didn’t you say… we can’t use phones during the vacation?”

“That was before.” Lin Zaishan shoved the phone into Yuan Che’s hand, his movements brisk. “Now you can.”