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It was early autumn at Sisheng University, and the gentle orange-ish brown leaves cascaded against the window sills of Mo Ran’s office.
They were slightly cracked in certain areas; little, thin black linings between the leaves, marking the late coming winter of the season.
It was already far too late at night, and the sky had quickly grown dark. Leaving the University doors closed, the halls empty, and the faculty all gone home.
Only Mo Ran’s presence remained outside his office, slipping the key into the lock for one last time.
He’d been told to pack his stuff since it’d been his last day, only bringing with him a few boxes and a small bit of cleaning supplies to wipe the place down for the next engineering professor.
He just hadn’t realized till now how silent it was after hours.
While the moonlight shone on the reflection of his desk, the only sound being a cricket hidden in some corner of the room.
He clicked on a small desk lamp in the corner, illuminating a small corner of the room with a softening, golden light.
It wasn’t much. If anything, it made Mo Ran feel smaller, taking in the emptiness of his office save for the desk drawers. It reminded him why he’d ever wanted to leave in the first place.
Earlier that month, he’d handed in his two weeks’ notice. He’d tried to be nonchalant about it, basking every day with fake smiles, showing off his dimples and the sides of his canines, yet deep down…that was where his heart always stopped.
He hadn’t told any of his students, nor warned anyone during his last class that this would be their last time ever seeing him again. And some part of him should have felt slightly ashamed or solemn, yet he hadn’t.
If anything, he only felt a slight mix of relief and ache when he looked at the only person who ever mattered to him. He felt that ache when he saw his lashes rise to look at Mo Ran when he thought he wasn’t looking. He felt relief when he’d volunteered to help being TA, and they’d spent the past few months only growing ever closer.
His ever-loving student Chu Wanning, whom he’d been in love with since the first time he’d laid eyes on him.
It’d never been easy. Chu Wanning had never been the most…easy…person to deal with. He was difficult at times, his gaze was almost sharp at times, and when he was embarrassed or angry, his tongue had a habit of lashing out.
Yet somewhere beneath that hardened exterior, Mo Ran saw something deeper. Someone who cared too much for those around him, who blushed when Mo Ran praised him or brushed stray hairs behind his ears, and someone who above all else, had a heart.
He was too sweet to have ever been perceived as cold.
And that was why more than anyone else, Mo Ran had to protect him from himself.
When Mo Ran was a child, he and his mother had been too poor to afford housing and shelter. And there’d been one dark, desolate night when he’d slipped into the woods alone, searching for food to bring back.
That was when he’d seen…it.
Features indistinguishable by the pale light of the moon, torn between something deadly and hesitantly beautiful.
He’d heard stories from the locals back then; something of beings that lured in people from the small town villages with their alluring nature, leading them to their inevitable death.
It had dark, enrichening blood slipping from between the cracks of its sharp teeth, and eyes with the faintest sheen of violet as it watched over Mo Ran.
Yet for some reason, Mo Ran was not afraid. He’d never truly been afraid before, and like hell he’d have started now.
He didn’t back away when it leaned closer, slowly watching as it leaned its head over him, towering over him as its silhouette began to blend into the woods.
That was when the blood fell. Like single, sparkling raindrops cascading over the sides of his face, his neck, his lips, into the corners of his eyes.
When he’d returned home, he’d acted as if nothing had ever happened. Washed his face in an old bucket of water and never spoke of it to his mother, hoping to keep her in the dark. Hoping to keep her safe.
Two weeks later, she’d had the same idea of going into the woods to look for food, yet she never came back. The authorities had labeled it as an animal attack.
For years, he’d tried to forget, plaguing himself with nightmares of the stench of blood as he woke with panting breaths and sweat damp against his skin.
He’d convinced himself it’d been a coincidence; some strange sort of nightmare plaguing his dreams, and none of it was ever real.
That was…until he grew older.
Until the dreams began to resurface with heat behind them—his bones beginning to ache in strange places, and he’d wake up gasping for breath with a tent in his sweat pants.
At first, he thought it was just puberty. The fevers, the slow, steady build of sweat. But any normal boy would never dream of blood like this—like a craving. Like a sort of drug he ached for while his hand slipped down his pants, and he’d have to bite his lip hard enough for the slightest taste.
When the first cycle came, it was like something inside of him had snapped, and the past years slowly began to make sense.
He’d been in bed for at least a week, then, rutting into his mattress long enough before he’d gotten up and punched the nearest mirror to lap at his bloody hand.
That was the first time he’d been afraid—afraid of himself. Afraid of what he could do to others if they were close in this state.
Who would ever love him if they knew? Who would ever love him if they knew he was like this?
His head was hanging between his folded arms as he let out a long sigh, gently running the tips of his fingers in circles against his wooden desk.
It didn’t matter anyway. He’d made the mantra ever-clear in his head long, long before he’d even met Chu Wanning. Ever since…then. Never hurt the ones you love.
He’d given up his perseverance through cleaning, choosing to lie here and slump against the desk instead. He’d go back to it in a minute, he just…needed time.
He’d been about to get up and get back to it, when a sharp knock at his door threw him off guard.
No one should have the key to his office or the halls that led them here, no one unless…no, it couldn’t be.
He hadn’t wanted to confront him. Not now…not like this.
Mo Ran braced himself. He knew the lamp-light was a dead giveaway, so there was no pretending he wasn’t there. He closed his finger around the handle, let out a slow, quiet breath, and pulled it open.
Chu Wanning was leaning against the wall beside the door, a vacant look in his eyes as if he were trying to figure out if he was a bother for coming so late at night.
He looked sleep-deprived, with small dark circles under his eyes from mixing his work and helping grade papers, and his lips slightly pouted like they always did when he was thinking too far.
“lăoshī, I got this paper graded for another one of my classes, and I was wondering if you could look over it—”
His pretty, softened eyes stopped as they fell past Mo Ran, seeing the boxes laid out on Mo Ran’s desk.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m resigning,” Mo Ran said quietly. He couldn’t hide the truth forever.
“Not forever, just….for now.”
Chu Wanning was quiet for a moment, taking in the cold, vacant look in Mo Ran’s eyes, the way he’d never seen him so…so distant.
“You’re…leaving?”
His eyes were glassy when he looked up; a buildup of unshed tears filled the sides of his eyes as he started to slowly back away.
“Let me see your paper, Wanning—”
“No!” his voice grew cold.
“You were planning to leave, and you didn’t—you didn’t bother to tell me?”
“It was a late notice, I’d only decided to—”
“To what? To leave…to leave...”
Chu Wanning’s tears had long since spilled down the sides of his cheeks, as he let out a soft, low hiccup.
Mo Ran felt frozen.
This look on Chu Wanning’s face…it was far too vulnerable. He looked raw, pleading.
“Am I nothing to you?”
Mo Ran’s eyes slightly widened as he took in Chu Wanning’s form; his quivering lips as he attempted to catch his breath and breathe properly, yet he couldn’t stifle a quiet whimper as his voice caught in his throat.
“I’m sorry, I know this is…I…”
“Wanning,” Mo Ran said breathlessly, cupping his cheeks between his hands as he leaned their foreheads against one another.
“You’re not….you’re not nothing.”
He landed ever-so-slightly closer, letting out his breath against Chu Wanning’s forehead for a moment, before he pressed a feather-light kiss against his temple.
He pulled back from Chu Wanning’s forehead, smoothing out his hair from his face with his thumb as he spoke in that low, desolate voice he’d imagined using a hundred times.
“You’re irreplaceable, Wanning. It’s what I admire most about you.”
Chu Wanning’s eyes slightly looked up at that, as a faint blush tinged his cheeks.
His voice was a murmur when he spoke, then, “I’m not like Shi Mei, lăoshī. I’m too cold, I’m not pretty, and I’m not…obedient.”
Mo Ran’s fingers trailed lower from their original place on his cheek, falling over the curve of Chu Wanning’s adam’s apple. I could make you obedient, Wanning.
Chu Wanning’s lashes lowered as he visibly shuddered from Mo Ran’s touch.
“No, you’re not, Wanning,” Mo Ran’s voice deepened into something raw, almost primal as he brushed his lips against the shell of Chu Wanning’s ear.
“That’s why you're my favorite.”
He pressed deep, softening butterfly kisses down the side of Chu Wanning’s ear to his neck, the top of his too-loose shirt where it hung too low.
“Then…stay,” Chu Wanning gasped, tilting his head back as Mo Ran sucked a particularly sensitive mark on the side of his neck.
“If you really….if you really…”
“I can’t,” Mo Ran said between messy kisses, pulling back as he cupped the side of Chu Wanning’s cheek.
“Just not now.”
“Why?”
Mo Ran was at a loss for words. It wasn’t as if he could tell him the truth, and yet he couldn’t find it in his heart to lie to him.
“It’s not you,” he said quietly.
“It has nothing to do with you…it’s…”
Mo Ran released a breath, shaking his head as he gently traced his thumb back and forth against the side of Chu Wanning’s cheek.
“I can’t be the man you deserve, Wanning.”
“You think this is about deserving?”
Mo Ran grew silent. Darkening, violet eyes lowered as he sought to find any sense of comforting words, yet he realized he found none.
“Prove me wrong,” Chu Wanning murmured, bringing up his hands to take Mo Ran’s fingers into his own.
“Tell me this isn’t you punishing yourself for…for—”
Mo Ran kissed him fiercely, then—it was nothing like the short, softened kisses they’d first shared since Mo Ran had driven him home one late, rainy night.
Chu Wanning had barely begun his volunteering as a TA then, helping out around after hours and hiding pretty flushes across his face when Mo Ran brought him lunches.
That was…until that night. And Mo Ran had carried an umbrella and helped Chu Wanning to the door of his measly apartment, and before Chu Wanning had gone inside, he’d looked at him. Really looked at him.
Showed a softened, vulnerable look in his eyes like no one else had in Mo Ran’s life, not since he was a child.
It’d been in fate’s hands, since then—a slow, unraveling flower as every petal revealed a new form of Chu Wanning’s vulnerability, patience, and ever-loving doting.
They’d shared their first kiss on Chu Wanning’s doorstep that day.
In the present, as Mo Ran looked down at the pliant, breathless Chu Wanning in his arms whose thighs had just hit the edge of Mo Ran’s desk, he could only think of how far they’d come. How far he’d hopelessly let himself fall.
“Please,” Chu Wanning moaned breathlessly like Mo Ran had strung up the stars in the very sky above him.
Mo Ran single-handedly eased up the front of Chu Wanning’s shirt, spinning him around before he slammed him chest-down into the desk.
“Ah—!” He sharply gasped, reeling back as his bare nipples brushed against the cold metal desk.
Mo Ran’s hand splayed against the muscles on Chu Wanning’s back, shoving him downward as he groaned against the shell of his ear.
“Who’s your daddy, baobei?”
Chu Wanning whimpered against the metal desk, tilting his face to the side so he could see Mo Ran better.
His eyes were slightly red with unshed tears and lust, and it was then that Mo Ran knew he’d been too tender. If he didn’t make this painful now, it’d only hurt them both in the end.
Mo Ran’s hand snaked under the drawer that’d been half open before, pulling out a long, wooden ruler.
He traced the edge of it against Chu Wanning’s inner thigh, articulating his point as he brushed it against Chu Wanning’s hole.
“You want it?” he said far too softly.
“You want it, baobei?”
He struck the ruler against Chu Wanning’s behind with a loud smack, earning him a sharp, needy moan.
“Then say it.”
“You….you are…”
The next smack landed harder than the first, and Chu Wanning’s eyes rolled back in pleasure; his nimble fingers once more tightening against the edge of the desk.
“You’re so needy, Wanning…”
Another smack.
“Whining like a whore like this….what would anyone have to say if they saw you like this?”
He traced the ruler lower, lower. Brushing it against Chu Wanning’s pink, twitching hole as he released a low, shuddering gasp.
“I—I think I’m gonna…”
“You’re gonna what?”
“I don’t know—” he let out a ragged sob, clutching his nails deeper into the desk till there were faint scratch marks.
“I’ve never…never…”
Mo Ran had been in the midst of pushing the edge of the ruler even deeper—breaching an inch or two past Chu Wanning’s rim.
It was barely anything, but it was enough to make Chu Wanning hiccup on another sob. Enough to make his pale, lean thighs quiver with utter need as his pink, twitching rim caught on the ruler’s length.
Chu Wanning whined loudly as he spread his thighs further apart, as if he were subconsciously begging to be fucked and filled. His rim fluttered around the tip of the ruler; hugging it so tightly it sank another inch deeper without resistance.
Mo Ran swore under his breath, taking ahold of the end as he pulled it out with a loud, obscene pop.
Mo Ran brought the ruler to his mouth without breaking eye contact, parting his lips as he let a thick, long string of saliva coat its base.
“Fuck, look at you, Wanning.”
He lowered the ruler once more—sliding it further into Chu Wanning’s hole with a slow, steady squelch.
“Taking it like a little bitch in heat.”
“D—daddy….I want it, I need it…”
His voice was slurred—almost desperate as he whined Mo Ran’s ear off with filth.
“Please, daddy—I’ll be good, I’ll be so good, just don’t stop—please, fill me up—”
His rim once more fluttered around the ruler, swallowing the spit-slickened wood as it made its way further inside of him. Like he’d take more if Mo Ran let him. Like it wasn’t enough.
That was when it hit Mo Ran like a semi-truck: what the fuck was he doing?
His own voice echoed back at him—Taking it like a little bitch in heat—then Chu Wanning’s—I’ve never…never…
Mo Ran’s stomach twisted as an awful sense of clarity approached him. What had he been thinking?
He let go of the ruler as if it’d been burned, stumbling backward.
Chu Wanning whimpered once he felt the shift; turning back his soft, teary doe-eyes as he took in Mo Ran’s resisting form.
“Don’t…don’t go…Mo Ran…”
As Mo Ran’s fingers closed around the doorknob, he fought his own inner turmoil. He knew he couldn’t stay. Couldn’t risk letting himself lose control around Wanning.
If he stayed, he’d ruin him eventually. He could already feel the steady buzz beneath his skin; always hot, always simmering not-too-far beneath the surface as it ached and ached to arise.
The door clicked closed behind him, and he kept walking. Ignoring the flare of heat stirring within his chest, ignoring the far, far cry of his name beyond a hidden door, and slipping away into the deep, hidden dark.