The final chapter of the secondary CP: the heart-warming foreshadowing and harmony
Late autumn sunlight streamed through the studio's floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a gridded pattern across the floor. Ah Zhe sat on the carpet, sorting through sheet music. His fingertips traced the yellowed pages, stopping at the final draft of "Moonlight Rose." Two crooked signatures lay in the lower right corner, the handwriting he and Yun Heng had used during their training camp. The edges of the pages were curled, stained with coffee, a spill he'd made while singing at a bar three years prior.
Lin Yu approached with two cups of hot cocoa, his steps soft as if he wasn't going to disturb anything. He placed the cups on the coffee table and bent down to pick up the orange wood pick Ah Zhe had dropped. The grain of the wood was clearly visible in the sunlight, its edges polished smooth and warm, the leaf pattern barely discernible.
"What are you thinking about?" Lin Yu sat down next to him, their shoulders gently touching, with the familiar scent of cedar. That was the perfume Ah Zhe had recommended last year, when he had joked that "Lu Shi should have the cool, cold scent of cedar, with a hint of unspoken tenderness."
Ah Zhe looked up and smiled, then handed him the sheet music: "Look at our old handwriting, it was really ugly."
Lin Yu flipped through two pages, his gaze landing on a note about an arrangement: "Add piano here, like moonlight flowing across a wheat field." The handwriting was sloppy yet forceful, its ink thick and thin. It had been written by Ah Zhe, sharing the lower bunk at training camp, using the light of his cell phone's flashlight. He recalled the early morning hours when he first heard Ah Zhe play this melody. The sound of his guitar, mixed with the patter of rain, came through the receiver, like a fine needle, gently piercing the hardened shell of his heart that had been smothered in the thought, "It's just an act."
"Actually," Lin Yu suddenly spoke, his voice a little tense, his fingers gripping the hot cocoa slightly tightening, "I've never asked you why...we've come to this point?"
Azhe's fingertips caressed the pick, and he was silent for a moment. The ginkgo leaves outside the window spun in the wind, reminiscent of the past six months of their entanglement. From the awkward distance on the set, to the deliberate avoidance during the live broadcast, to that revealing incident, and finally, that rain-soaked confession by the river. Every step felt like treading on a knife's edge, yet within the pain grew an inexplicable connection.
"It's probably because of Gu Yanchen and Lu Shi," he said, his voice as light as a feather. "When you were playing Lu Shi, you always said, 'It's too fake, how could two men do that?' But the way you looked at me was more serious than what was written in the script."
Lin Yu's ears turned red. He lowered his head and took a sip of hot cocoa. The warm liquid slid down his throat, but it couldn't suppress the burning sensation in his heart. "I was just... getting into the role," he defended, but his tone lacked confidence.
"I know." Ah Zhe smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes looking especially soft in the sunlight. "Me too. Do you remember the day we filmed the rain scene? It was minus five degrees Celsius, and the script had Gu Yanchen delivering documents to Lu Shi in the rain. Lu Shi stood under the eaves, looking at his soaking wet shoulders, wanting to say something but swallowing it back."
He paused, his fingertip tapping a note on the sheet music. "To get the hang of it, I deliberately caught a cold in the rain three days beforehand. I was shaking all over during filming and couldn't speak my lines coherently. When the director called 'Cut,' I was practically freezing and you suddenly handed me your hand warmer and said, 'Don't force yourself.'"
It was a cartoon-printed hand warmer, a gift from a fan of Lin Yu. He usually dismissed it as "too childish," but at that moment, he stuffed it into Azhe's arms without hesitation. "I held that thing, still warm from your body temperature, and watched your shivering back as you turned around. Suddenly, I felt like Gu Yanchen's pain wasn't an act."
Ah Zhe's voice softened, with a barely perceptible sigh: "At that moment, I was wondering if Lin Yu was also like Lu Shi, hiding his true feelings very deeply?"
That was the first time his heart was moved, hidden in the dizziness of high fever, hidden in the corner of Lin Yu's clothes blown by the wind when he turned around, like a seed falling into the soil, silently, but quietly sprouted in the days that followed.
Lin Yu put down his cup, his fingertips unconsciously scratching the wood grain of the coffee table. There was a shallow dent there, the last time Ah Zhe accidentally knocked it while playing guitar. "I had a moment like that too," he said, his voice so low it seemed like he was talking to himself. "The night you sent me the guitar recording, I had a fever of 39 degrees Celsius. I lay groggy in bed, and fell asleep while listening to it."
He remembered the bright moonlight that day, shining through the slits in the curtains onto the floor like a silver ribbon. When he woke in the middle of the night, his phone was still pressed to his ear, and he could hear his soft breathing through the receiver, even and steady, as if someone was watching over him.
"I was lying in the dark, listening to your breathing, and suddenly I wanted to know if you on the other side of the screen were also awake, and if you were thinking of me too." Lin Yu's Adam's apple rolled, and he turned to look at Azhe, the seriousness in his eyes almost overflowing. "That vague concern was what Lu Shi didn't say out loud, and it was also the sincerity that I couldn't hide."
From that day on, he began to pay attention to Azhe's news. When he saw Azhe's post of sycamore leaves by the river, he would subconsciously wonder, "Is he off filming on location again?" When he saw the production's photos of the two of them, he would stare at Azhe's eyes for a long time, trying to find any signs that they weren't acting. Even when Meng Yao threatened to make the news public, his first reaction wasn't "Will it affect my career?" but "Azhe would be sad if he knew."
"What happened next was like a play that got out of control." Ah Zhe picked up a ginkgo leaf that had drifted onto his lap. The edges of the leaf had already turned yellow. "When Meng Yao posted that long article, I really hated you. I felt like you were using me as a stepping stone, that you didn't care about my efforts at all."
He recalled that day on the high-speed train, watching Meng Yao's "victim" demeanor on his phone screen and the insults he received in the comments section. It felt like a knife stabbing his heart. At that time, he even thought, "Let it go. There's nothing worth staying in this circle anyway."
"But seeing you at a loss in the face of Su Man's revelations, and seeing you crying 'Don't leave me' with red eyes by the river, I felt that all that hatred wasn't that important anymore." Azhe's fingertips brushed the back of Lin Yu's hand, leaving a slightly cool touch. "I suddenly realized that my concern for you has long surpassed the anger of being betrayed."
Lin Yu held his hand, their palms touching, a comforting warmth. His fingers were longer than Azhe's, their pads covered with calluses from years of filming. Rubbing them against the back of Azhe's hand brought a subtle shiver. "I used to be afraid, afraid that others would know I treated you differently, afraid that this difference would ruin my career."
He recalled that when he first debuted, his agent repeatedly reminded him "no scandals, especially with the same sex"; he recalled that when he was filming a gay drama, the team repeatedly told him "you can do business, but you must keep your distance"; he recalled that when Meng Yao threatened him with his secret, his first reaction was "don't let others know how I feel about Azhe."
"It wasn't until that day when you stood in front of me and asked me, 'Do you have no feelings for me?' that I realized that compared to losing you, all those fears were nothing." Lin Yu's voice was a little choked. "I looked into your eyes, and there was disappointment, mockery, and a little bit of grievance that I couldn't understand. At that moment, I thought, it's over, I think I really lost you."
That's why he desperately grabbed Azhe's wrist when he turned around; that's why his first reaction when he saw the hand-holding photo was exposed was not "I'm going to be forgotten", but "Will he think I'm using him again"; that's why when the whole network was in an uproar, he said to the team for the first time, "I like him, you guys can do whatever you want."
They were all once trapped in roles, using Gu Yanchen's forbearance and Lu Shi's evasion to carefully hide their true feelings. It wasn't until the storm triggered by Su Man, like a key opening a lock, that they dared to admit: the entanglement in the play had long taken root in reality.
"Yunheng said that grandma missed us." Ah Zhe leaned on Lin Yu's shoulder, his voice lazy and nasal, "Let's go pick oranges this weekend? The last time we went, grandma said there was a tree that had the sweetest oranges, and she saved them for us."
"Okay," Lin Yu agreed, looking down at him. The sunlight fell on Azhe's eyelashes, casting a light shadow, like a quiet painting. He remembered Azhe helping to cultivate the soil in Yunheng's vegetable garden, his rolled-up trouser legs stained with mud, but his smile brighter than the sun; he remembered the time when his grandmother stuffed oranges into Azhe's pocket, and he blushed and said, "Enough, enough," like a spoiled child.
Those moments away from the spotlight moved him more than any script.
"In fact, Gu Yanchen and Lu Shi should have a happy ending." Azhe suddenly said, drawing circles on the back of Lin Yu's hand with his fingers.
Lin Yu smiled, the vibration of his chest transmitted through his shoulders, carrying a steady strength: "They already have it. It's on us."
The studio door was open, and the wind blew ginkgo leaves in, landing on the sheet music. The melody of "Moonlight Rose" seemed to flow in the air, mixed with the aroma of hot cocoa and the steady breathing of the two people, like an unfinished song.
Their story, while not a grand one, is one of steady, enduring confidence. They'd go to Yunheng's house together to pick oranges, Lin Yu clumsily climbing the ladder while Azhe supported him from below, muttering, "Be careful!" They'd spend late nights in the studio, one writing songs while the other read, occasionally glancing at each other before lowering their heads and smiling. When photographed together, they'd naturally lean in close, Lin Yu wrapping his scarf twice more around Azhe's neck, and Azhe offering a hot drink to Lin Yu's lips.
Sister Zhang would occasionally send fan messages, saying things like, "I'm relieved to see you two together," or, "Gu Yanchen and Lu Shi finally had a happy ending." Ah Zhe would always smile and forward them to Lin Yu, who would reply with an "OK," then put his phone away and continue helping him sort through his scattered sheet music.
Just like now, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing, and the people around him are all right. Ah Zhe picked up his guitar, plucked the strings with his fingertips, and played the prelude to "Moonlight Rose." He changed the piano's tone to that of the guitar, making it less cold and more warm. Lin Yu leaned back on the sofa, closing his eyes and humming along. His voice was a little off-tune, but more beautiful than any harmony.
Those heartbeats hidden in and out of the play, those balances found in the loss of control, those persistences that were misunderstood and hurt but still refused to let go, all eventually fell into the ordinary days. Like the orange tree in Yunheng's yard, it will always bear sweet fruit after weathering wind and rain.
Azhe's fingertips danced on the strings, his eyes fell on Lin Yu's quiet profile, and he suddenly felt that perhaps the best ending was never some earth-shaking oath, but like this - I am playing, you are listening, the sun is there, and we are here too.
The sound of the guitar echoed in the studio, mixed with the sound of the wind outside the window, as if saying: The story is still long, let's take it slowly.
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