Chapter Text
Normalcy can be defined as a carefully-constructed state of mind.
Ren would know. As an artisan who works with his hands, who shapes the pottery clay beneath his palms as painstakingly as he molds the facets of his life, he knows for a fact that it’s possible for normalcy to be created. So long as one’s meticulous attention is used for its crafting, then one’s profession, their living space, their love life (or lack thereof), and personal connections can be shaped to achieve one’s definition of normal satisfaction.
There’s nothing special about the apartment he lives in. He signed the lease knowing there were things that needed fixing (a leaky ceiling, creaking floorboards, among other things) and he didn’t care that his next door neighbor stayed up all night yelling when she was losing at her video games. Ren hadn’t even cared to meet her but didn’t have a choice in the matter.
When the petite girl showed up at his door the next morning after one of her late-night ranting sessions, she snapped her bubblegum loudly and shoved a styrofoam container of food into his hands.
“Kafka told me to say ‘sorry,’” she’d blurted without ceremony. “Said I was probs disturbing you or something.”
“Who’s Kafka?” Ren had asked, not taking the container. He was new to the apartment building, not stupid. His neighbor rolled her eyes.
“My roommate. I’m Silver Wolf.” Silver Wolf yanked at his hand and smacked the container into it. Whether he dropped it or not didn’t matter to her. As soon as the delivery was successfully completed, Silver Wolf turned on her heel and strode back to the door right beside his. “Neither of us cook, so that’s the best you’re getting as an apology. Unless you’re allergic to shellfish or some shit, then you’re better off throwing it away.”
The door slammed closed at the end of those words.
Silver Wolf couldn’t be her real name. But, Ren chose not to ask questions. He didn’t care enough to do so. This would be part of his new ‘normal’ and he is content enough to leave things as they are. The borders of his life are cleanly defined. A simple apartment, flawed as it was, two women living next door who were both nonchalant about his personal affairs, and a part-time teaching job at the local community center, is all he needs to direct his life into something he wants.
It’s easy to mold clay. It’s easy to live life the way he’s determined to do so.
Ren doesn’t have the most personable personality, but that doesn’t really matter to others. He’s attractive to more than one pair of eyes. When he sits at the head of the pottery class, a bandana tied around his hair to keep it away from his face and his attention focused on the piece forming beneath his hands, he is mesmerizing.
There’s specks of wet clay clinging to his forearms and splotches of it splattered across his sensible red apron. He prefers to wear sleeveless shirts and the sight of his bare arms, toned with muscles, as he works with the pottery wheel, sends more than one of his adult students into a tizzy.
Ren loves the feeling of creation in his hands. His students can hear the passion in his lectures as he instructs them from behind his own wheel. His feet tap against the pedal to control the speed of the wheel as the clay is formed between his palms. Ren, as a teacher, speaks with experience and shows it off at the same time. The amazed students watch as clay transforms into a work of art beneath his expert touch.
He’s handsome, the students can’t help but whisper. 'I wonder if he's single,' Ren hears more than once. The sign-up list for his classes never goes empty and because of that, Ren chooses to ignore the rest.
When the boldest of his students approaches him after class, hinting at spending time with him outside of it, Ren is quick to shut her down.
“Does this mean you are dating someone?” the woman asks, her disappointment clear.
Ren’s features remained blank. “I’m spoken for.”
“Married?” Her gaze dips to his left hand but there is nothing there. Not a single piece of jewelry adorns his fingers.
“Unless your question pertains to class discussion, leave.” There’s no compromise in those ruby eyes. Ren dips his hands into the water bowl next to the wheel and washes away the grime that clings to him. Without another word, the woman leaves.
When Ren looks down at his calloused hands, cleansed of the clay but not of the sins that cling invisibly to them, he wishes normalcy wasn’t so hard to maintain. People always longed for more than what they currently had. They were discontent with their lives and craved change. They saw someone good-looking and decided that Ren would be their catalyst into a new life.
When she doesn’t come back to class after that, Ren tells himself not to think too much of it. Rejection is hard on anyone. She won’t be the last to try her luck on him. It’s just human nature to want to retreat after one’s hopes are disappointed.
(Not that her absence, nor the rest of the absences that always follow Ren’s rejection, have to mean anything.)
Their mistakes are the beginning of his grief. Weeks later, the trembles that take over his body start from deep within. Ren feels a sharp throbbing form behind his eyes and scrambles for the pill bottle he keeps tucked in his back pocket for emergencies. The anxiety starts in his chest, then reaches his lungs. Ren pants harshly. His vision darkens at the edges as he twists the cap off the bottle violently. He shoves two of the tablets into his mouth, then a third, and chases it down with a deep swig of cheap bottled water.
He can’t come down from it easily. Ren sinks to his knees on the cold tile of the kitchen floor. Back pressed against the cabinets, he folds in on himself and lowers his head between his knees. "Remember to count your breaths," his therapist had told him before. "Inhale, then exhale. Count the seconds in between."
It’s harder than it sounds. The claws of the past rip into the flesh of his memories. It’s not clay on his hands but warm, recently-spilled blood. It’s maniacal laughter in his ears– his own, as he’d stood over a lifeless form.
“Why did you kill him?” his past self speaks, laughing. Ren’s hand grips the handle of a knife that’s clean. It’s innocent. Untouched by violence, unlike him.
He remembers the feeling of a slender hand reaching out for him. Delicate fingers curl around Ren’s nape to tug his head down. He tastes the desire on the other’s lips and the way jade eyes pierce through him with the same wickedness that ended a would-be traitor’s life.
“Why should he breathe?” his lover had whispered. “When I cannot breathe without you?”
Presently, Ren forces himself to count the breaths in between his gasps. He’d hired a specialized therapist for this. He never missed a single weekly appointment, no matter how much Silver Wolf teased him for needing therapy.
“Why don’t you just work it out with games like I do?” she’d asked. “It’s totally free to scream at randos online, y’know.”
Ren had only shaken his head. Kafka flipped a page in her magazine. “I’m sure Ren has his reasons,” she’d said calmly. “Let’s not pry where it isn’t wanted.”
Silver Wolf just shrugged and left it at that.
The panic holds him tight, not relenting its terrifying grasp until the medication finally kicks in. After what feels like hours, his heartbeat gradually begins to calm its frenetic pace. Ren inhales through his nose and exhales through his mouth. It’s inelegant but he needs to hear it: the proof that he’s alive and breathing. He’s not dead, even though it’s probably better if he was.
Unfortunately, not every student who is interested in Ren is confident enough to approach him directly. He comes to anticipate the lingering glances during class and staunchly ignores them. Those who look longer at him than at their own pottery wheels are pushed to the back of his mind.
It’s just normal, he tells himself, for crushes to happen on superiors. He’s a capable man, knowledgeable, and doesn’t mind helping those who genuinely want to improve their skills. Ren is handsome and in his prime. When students ask for one-on-one tutoring sessions, he turns it down, reminding them that “during class” is the best way to reach him.
He doesn’t tell them why he’s so adamant about not being approached outside the community center. It’s for their own good, in the end. Ren doesn’t want them to see the ghosts that cling to his back.
Those who ignore his warnings, as polite as they are given, do so at their own peril.
On his way home from his last class, Ren feels an obsessive gaze on his back. One of his students had taken to him again, a young male who had seemed too shy, in Ren’s estimation, to have signed up to a pottery class on his own. Maybe a friend or a parent had forced him into it, had been Ren’s thought before he’d stopped thinking about it entirely. His students’ personal lives were none of his business. So long as they paid for the class, he couldn’t care less about their reasons for coming.
This student couldn’t be older than twenty. The color of his eyes were hidden by the gleam of his glasses as he stared at Ren from the back of the class. His art was sloppy, throwing out the possibility that he was some artistic genius honing his craft. Short blond hair tickled his ears. The boy was slim. Attractive, by most people’s standards. Not Ren’s.
Never Ren’s. He’d seen beauty. He’d fallen in love with the coldest and the most beautiful person in existence. No red paint he used could compare to the entrancing sight of blood on those seemingly-delicate hands.
The student likes him.
Ren is terrified by the prospect. Anxiety tastes like ash in his mouth as he hastens down the crowded street. This boy was exactly the type of person Dan Heng hated the most. His beautiful lover (ex-lover, he reminds himself) hated anyone who could attempt to compare to him. Except no one compared to Dan Heng. Who possibly could?
It didn’t matter. Reasoning with the insane, with the too far gone, is impossible.
Ren tries to lose himself in the crowd. The student proves relentless. A quick glance over Ren’s shoulder reveals that his pursuer is intent on the chase. It had been like this for days. No matter what time Ren left the center, he’d always feel eyes on his back. Watching and waiting for the perfect time to make a move.
If only the boy had come up and received his rejection directly. If only he’d done that, he might have a chance. Despite what anyone said, especially those who knew who Ren used to be, he did actually care about others. He didn’t want to see life in this boy’s face the same day he watched it fade.
Please leave me be, Ren silently begs. He tightens his grip around the strap of his messenger bag. A gift from Kafka, who got tired of seeing him lugging his crafting supplies in his arms on the way home from work.
“Someone’s gonna rob you someday,” she’d huffed, slapping the bag in his arms. “Don’t be stupid.”
Ren wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. If only she knew the way he’d taken lives before for much less reason than this. She wouldn’t worry about him at all.
He could go elsewhere, even take the train to the next city over, but he’d promised Silver Wolf he’d game with her at the apartment. After canceling on her a dozen times before now, Ren finally felt guilty enough at her pouting to relent. He didn’t want to disappoint one of the two people in his life who’d come close to resembling a friend. He had to go home.
Dread sinks like a stone in his gut. He leaves the safety of the crowd and takes to the alleyway that leads to his apartment building.
The lack of population here is isolating; if his pursuer didn’t want to be noticed, they would choose not to take this path forward. There would be no way Ren wouldn’t notice them, as narrow as the alley is.
The student is foolish.
He spins on his heel and faces the boy head-on. Taken aback, the student comes to a halt. Several feet apart, the two men stare at each other: one, full of rising anxiety, and the other, full of hope. “Did you sense me?” the boy asks, a smile appearing on his face.
This is the closest Ren has ever seen him. His eyes are brown.
A nice, warm brown that reminds Ren of the hot cocoa that his older brother liked to drink. It was the last beverage he’d shared with Yingxing, on that night that Ren had told his gege of his plans to leave them. He remembered the way Yingxing had gripped the mug at the news.
He recalled the dread in his brother’s eyes as the implication sank in. He was leaving Dan Heng, too.
“I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you,” the boy continues cheerfully. The student, whose name Ren doesn’t recall, a name he’d never bothered to learn, wrings his hands nervously. He’s smiling, his cheeks pink, as he shyly looks at Ren. “You’re always leaving so soon after class–”
“Leave,” Ren commands. Hysteria rises like bile in his throat. It burns.
The boy’s smile falters. “I just want to talk–”
“I don’t want to talk to you.” Rejection is the safest; it leaves no room for misunderstanding. Ren’s hand trembles as he curls his fingers tightly around the strap across his chest. “Leave,” he repeats. It takes every bit of his effort not to resort to pleading.
Some habits die hard. Ren never wants someone to hear him beg.
“I don’t know why you’re being so unreasonable.” Anger punctuates the boy’s clipped words. “I just want you to listen to me!”
Time is running out. At any moment, he will come. Ren forces himself to inhale, then exhale. Count the seconds in between. His therapist is a god-send, always so patient to listen when Ren arrives at the office every single week. He’s never missed an appointment. He’s never been a single second late.
“Are you being serious right now? Look, I didn’t want to confess to you like this, but you just– you drive me crazy, okay? I can’t concentrate in class when you’re there–”
Stop. Please, stop.
“–I wasn’t even going to sign up for it but my sister begged me to. Said you were the best in the field and I could learn from you.” The boy laughs and combs a hand through his hair, messing it up. “I had no idea how fucking hot you are.”
“Stop,” Ren whispers, but the order goes unheard. Over the boy’s shoulder, he spots the shadow. How long had he been following them? It didn’t matter. Not a thick crowd, nor the dim lights of the alley would have prevented him from finding Ren.
“The amount of times I’ve thought about blowing you right there in class–”
The student never sees it, but Ren does: the metal glint of a gun as it’s removed from the man’s belt. He hears the hammer slide back and then, as the loud noise echoes in the alley, only then is when the boy realizes they’re no longer alone.
“On your knees,” the silky voice commands.
Cold as ice. Beautiful.
“Who the hell are you–”
Ren has always thought human courage to be an incredible thing. Bravado in the face of death is the body’s instinct for survival. The student doesn’t hesitate, even when seeing the gun pointed directly between his eyes. If Dan Heng were anyone else, a low-life criminal instead of the younger brother to Luofu’s deadliest kingpin, the boy might have even stood a chance with his pocket-knife.
Except Ren knows who Dan Heng is. He’s known the loveliness and icy nature of those jade eyes for years. When they’d first met– him, a wild brute of a teen and Dan Heng, a quiet boy of twelve– they’d absolutely clashed in personality. Ren wanted nothing to do with the snobby brat. He’d wanted to spend his youthful nights brawling with the other boys, not babysit a spoiled prince.
Dan Feng would have none of it. He had ordered Ren to teach Dan Heng how to survive as the future heir to their family. Ren wanted to refuse but, as his gege fondly reminded him, no one says no to Dan Feng.
Against his will, Ren taught Dan Heng how to fight with knives. He taught him how to kill someone with a single cut to the right vein on the body. He’d taught Dan Heng how to hold a gun in those soft hands. He’d held Dan Heng in his arms the night the younger killed someone for the first time. He’d even held back Dan Heng’s hair as the latter threw up, unable to reconcile with being the one to cause death, instead of preventing it.
In return, Dan Heng had taught Ren what it meant to fall in love. He taught Ren jealousy, as the older hated the way Dan Heng caught the attention of others around him. He’d claimed Dan Heng’s heart, and later, his body, as they swore to be faithful only to each other.
Ren learned how devotion could turn into obsession, and how passion was a dangerous prelude into insanity. Danger was part of their lives; Ren had the murder of hundreds on his hands, and Dan Heng only half that. They were both loyal to the Family, to Dan Feng and Yingxing, his beloved second-in-command, and most of all, to each other.
When Ren thinks back to when the house of cards began to fall, he knows it began with him. When the nightmares of the sins he’d committed took over and Ren would wake up screaming as he felt the phantom pain of a knife in his chest. For the first time, in over thirty years, he’d felt afraid of the future. Dan Feng’s grip over Luofu’s underground was iron-clad for now, but how long would it last once he was gone?
He didn’t want this life with Dan Heng forever. He did not want his lover to become like Dan Feng, cold and unemotional as he ordered that lives be taken with just a snap of fingers. There were politics involved, favors always needing to be exchanged. Dan Feng did not make his decisions lightly, nor without reason, but Ren didn’t want Dan Heng to have to make those decisions at all.
At first, he suggested they run away. Dan Heng hadn’t understood that plan at first. This was their way of life. They knew nothing else.
He’d scoffed at Ren. “If you’re going to make an escape plan, don’t half-ass it, at least,” his boyfriend scolded. “You need money. A place to live. A method of travel that you can keep up indefinitely.”
Dan Heng was the smartest person Ren knew. Dan Feng was cunning but his brother was resourceful. He’d learned it from Ren’s scrappy way of doing things. Dan Feng was proper; a lover of following traditional protocol of getting things done. Dan Heng didn’t mind resorting to underhanded methods to get what he wanted.
“I only need you,” Ren had told him. He always liked to see the way his bold confession flustered Dan Heng. “We’ll improvise the rest.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
He’d meant it. He wanted to leave and intended to, no matter the consequences. Ren could never fully atone for the crimes he committed, especially the ones he’d actually enjoyed committing, but he at least wanted the chance to try.
He wanted to break the line of succession for Dan Heng’s sake.
When Ren told him of his wishes, Dan Heng didn’t laugh. He stared at Ren blankly, saying nothing. When Ren had pleaded for him to escape with him and leave the rest of it behind, Dan Heng had only shaken his head.
“If you want to leave, then leave,” the beautiful male had told him. “I will arrange it with Dan Feng.”
Ren’s heart shattered at those words. Yingxing had tried to warn him. Dan Heng had his pride and so did Dan Feng. As much as they loved each other, a sacrifice would have to be made.
In exchange for Ren’s freedom, Dan Heng would submit to his brother’s power. Imprisoned by family expectations, Dan Heng would learn the ropes from Dan Feng and someday, take over the business when he was ready. Dan Heng would stay and by doing so, Ren would be allowed to leave.
“I’ll ensure you get to live normally,” Dan Heng had promised him, a whisper spoken against chapped lips. He’d framed Ren’s face with his hands and smiled. An angelic expression that reached his forlorn eyes. “I’ll make sure no one ever follows you or harms you.”
He’d kept to that promise for over two years, for better and for worse.
Ren does not close his eyes as Dan Heng’s fingers move over the gun’s trigger. A single shot rings out, confident and uncompromising, as it finds its target.
Blood splatters on the alley walls. It splashes onto Ren’s hands as he stands there, completely silent. Every atom inside him is frozen solid. The student whose name he didn’t know falls lifelessly to his knees. Then the body keels over, falling over onto the dirty ground. Blood pools fast: so dark a color that it appears more black than the red it truly is.
The gun is clipped back onto Dan Heng’s belt.
The roaring starts in Ren’s ears and does not stop. He says nothing, knowing that no words would come out of his parched throat even if he tried.
Disgust. Despair. It’s all the same messy concoction in his stomach in the end.
A cool hand reaches for him. It’s an old-fashioned handkerchief that Dan Heng uses to wipe the blood off of Ren’s quivering hand. He’s meticulous about it: making sure that not a single drop of the blood is left behind.
So young. So foolish. Ruby eyes settle on the boy that once was. Ren had tried to warn him. He’d tried to warn the others who ended up with the same fate, time and time again.
He wonders if the students who never returned to class were also victims of this ill fate.
Ren doesn’t look up. The air is leached from his lungs as he struggles to breathe. Fear, sharp and pungent, sinks its teeth into his chest. It’s that he’s the most familiar with– a prelude to the panic attacks he’s learned to live with. Freedom always had consequences. He couldn’t run from his demons.
He gasps for breath and Dan Heng’s cold hand settles soothingly over Ren’s nape. “I’ll have it taken care of,” the younger tells him, his dispassionate voice conveying not a single hint of remorse over his actions.
Of course he would. He’d probably put in a call to Jing Yuan and have him remove the body. The alley would be cleaned of blood. No evidence of a cold murder would remain behind.
“Did you miss me?” Dan Heng cups Ren’s cheek and forces Ren to look at him. The playful lilt in Dan Heng’s voice matches the insanity in his eyes. The loveliest eyes Ren had ever seen.
The coldest eyes he’d dreamed about for years.
When Ren doesn’t answer, Dan Heng frowns. “You’re shaking. Let’s go home and get you taken care of first."
Terror, cold and piercing, rips through Ren’s chest. Silver Wolf is waiting for him. If Dan Heng caught wind of her– that there was someone Ren felt even an inkling of care for–
“You’re always so obvious.” Cool lips press against Ren’s. Dan Heng tastes the same as before– sweet, addictive– and exhales the oxygen into Ren’s lungs that the artisan so desperately needs. “Trust me, if your noisy neighbor was a threat to me, she’d already be dead.”
With Dan Heng near, the sickness intensifies. Ren fumbles for the pill bottle in his back pocket. The ringing in his ears is growing louder and his hands shake violently as he tries to unscrew the white lid. He hears Dan Heng sigh deeply. Ren feels the other's hands take the bottle out of his trembling hold. Dan Heng shakes two of the pills out and brings them to Ren’s lips, one by one.
Ren swallows them dry, gratefully.
The one disadvantage of a ‘normal’ life, Ren thinks miserably, is the impossibility of catching every crack in its layers. He could build a flawless foundation for it. He could erect the strongest, immovable walls for it. But when a crack is found, and when a single event shatters the one vulnerable gap he’d missed, normalcy reveals its truest form: ‘normal’ is just an illusion.
And Ren? He’d deluded himself for as long as he could.