After dropping off Mikhail and Holland for their ice-skating date, Manager Wei remembered he still had to pick up Shen Dan for his morning shoot. Owing to traffic, P— City’s Bloyd Center Mall was a good half-hour drive from Shen Dan’s house.
Consequently, this gave Manager Wei plenty of time to inwardly repent for his sins.
That Shen Dan would be pulling sixteen-hour filming shifts for the foreseeable future was naturally due to Holland’s scheming. Manager Wei sniffled. Ever since the day Holland had cornered him in their talent agency’s supply closet, he’d been reduced to a play toy for the younger man—and now this schemer had his sights set on that blockhead Mr. Li, who didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of defending himself.
Although this was all part of Holland’s masterplan to take Mikhail to his favorite neighboring municipality (Pound Town), that didn’t mean Manager Wei was off the hook. At a red light, he battered his forehead against the van’s steering wheel, causing it to honk twice.
Forgive me, Shen Dan! I’m an accomplice!
He arrived at the house a quarter past 8:00. Trembling and sweating with guilt, he rang the doorbell.
The door opened, and he was greeted by Shen Dan’s beaming smile. “Good morning, Manager Wei. Shall we head out?”
“Y-yes, yes. Good morning, Shen—”
Manager Wei did a double-take.
Hold on! Beaming smile? Since when did Shen Dan smile at him like this?
Manager Wei inspected Shen Dan’s face more closely. His demeanor was calm, if a little cold; straight nose bridge, long lashes, luscious dark hair, flawless skin, and deep brown phoenix eyes shining like… well, not stars, per se. More like dim street lamps.
The smile widened. “Is there something wrong, Manager Wei?”
Realizing something, Manager Wei facepalmed so hard he nearly OHKO’d himself.
This smiling person who had answered Shen Dan’s door wasn’t Shen Dan at all!
The trickster had replaced himself with his favorite stunt double!
So where the heck was the real Shen Dan?!
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In the wings of the mall’s ice-skating rink, Mikhail and Holland’s faces were getting closer and closer together, as if in slow motion. The customer wearing the black face mask nearby narrowed his eyes, hunching his shoulders like a wildcat preparing to unsheathe its claws. He had steam shooting out of both ears and was obviously seeing red.
He wasn’t the only one pissed off.
As Holland continued to rub Mikhail’s ankle like it was some kind of erogenous zone, Mikhail leaned in. At the point when his forehead was a mere two centimeters away from Holland’s, he lifted the corner of his mouth in a dangerous smile and whispered:
“Bro, there’s a literal blade under my shoe. Unless you want your face sliced open, I suggest you let go.”
Holland, an unapologetic sadomasochist, felt his mood soaring to new heights.
Owing to his acute senses, he knew from the beginning that Shen Dan had stowed-away in the trunk of his sports car, following them to the mall. He was also well aware that the man was now wearing a face mask as a pathetic disguise, watching their every move like a hawk from the sidelines.
Shen-ge, you’re too predictable. But if you want a taste of Mikki, you’ll have to wait your turn~
Holland flashed Mikhail an intoxicated smile.
Then, before Mikhail could retreat, Holland reached out with a hand. Eyelids sinking, he captured the back of Mikhail’s head—and brought their lips together in a kiss.
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The kiss lasted a total of 0.0000001 seconds before Mikhail jerked his head back with the reflexes of a person being bitten by a venomous viper.
Holland was so elated with himself, he looked high on drugs. He waited patiently for Mikhail to cuss him out, wail at him with his fists, scream, kick, etc. But after a minute of nothing happening, he opened his eyes.
Instead of the thrilling outraged expression he was expecting, Mikhail was as pale as a ghost. He had his mouth tightly sealed with both hands.
His eyes were filled with tears.
Holland: “…”
“M-my first k-k-k-kiss… you st-stole…”
Mikhail’s tears began to overflow, snot dripping out of his nose.
Holland: “…”
Screaming “WAHHHHHHHHH” at the top of his lungs, Mikhail sprang to his feet and ran crying to the men’s bathroom.
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Five minutes later, inside one of the bathroom’s stalls, Mikhail sat on the toilet, sniveling and blowing his nose on a wad of toilet paper.
What the fuck! Why am I being so emotional over this! It’s just a dumb kiss… just mouths touching, that’s all… my very first mouth touch… the only first mouth touch I’ll ever have in this lifetime…
Mikhail, choking again on his tears: “Wuwuwuwuwu—”
Suddenly, there came a gentle two knocks on the stall’s door. A pair of black Boxford shoes could be seen under the door.
“Holland, you piece of shit, go die!” Mikhail boomed.
No answer.
“Fuck off! Also, your breath smells like a dog’s butthole!”
No answer.
“You mustard jerk! Do you even brush your teeth? I know for a fact that Shen Dan’s breath smells ten times—no, a hundred-million times better! And his face is ten times—no, a hundred-million times more handsome than yours! If I could give up ten—no, a hundred-million years of my life to have kissed Shen Dan instead of you, you fucking bet I would. And if I could, I’d kiss him right now to cancel out yours—”
His blood having reached 100°C, Mikhail applied a roundhouse kick to the bathroom stall’s door. It flew open, revealing that the person standing there was…
Shen Dan.
Mikhail: (°ロ°)
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“A hundred million years?” Shen Dan asked, quirking a brow. He pinched Mikhail’s blushing cheek, dragging him out of the stall. “If you plan on living that long, I suggest you start remembering to eat breakfast.”
Mikhail’s stomach, which had been neglected all morning, let out a pitiful whimper of agreement.
“B-by the way Shen Dan, that thing I said about k-kissing you was a joke…”
Mikhail spluttered out this weak defense as he was dragged by his cheek towards the exit. He quickly noticed that Holland was in the bathroom, too, lingering beside the paper towel dispenser. The man was pinching his nose with a paper towel. There was blood soaking through the paper towel, as well as a blood stain on the front of his shirt.
Holland glared at Mikhail and Shen Dan out of the corner of his eye. A normal person would have asked for more details about how his bloody nose came to be, but Mikhail’s concussed-goldfish-brain had already connected all the dots.
Shen Dan had definitely beat up that mustard jerk! No explanation needed!
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> Round one! Choose your fighter!
Enemy Holland HP: ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮
Hero Shen Dan HP: ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮
“You think you can beat me? Mikki is mine!!!” ( ง•̀ω•́)ง
“Cretin, you are gravely mistaken. Mikhail belongs to no one but himself.” ୧(•̀_•́ ୧)
> Fight!
*Wham* Holland: -100 HP
*Pow* Holland: -100 HP
*Kick* Holland: -100 HP
*Chop* Holland: -100 HP
*Shove* Holland: -100 HP
*Smack* Holland: -100 HP
> Finish him!
*Slap* Holland: -100 HP ( x ་། x )
> Fatality! Hero Shen Dan wins!
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Even as he was being dragged around by his cheek like a misbehaving toddler, Mikhail laughed giddily.
I’m his PA, not just some random person! Of course! Some ‘shallow reason’ for caring about me?! What the hell are you blabbing about! Isn’t it obvious? He DOES care!!!
“Breakfast, yeah. So, what are we gonna eat?” Mikhail asked sweetly, shaking free his cheek from Shen Dan’s pinching fingers. He cozied up to Shen Dan koala-hug-style. Then, leering over the man’s shoulder at Holland, he stuck out his tongue and tugged at his eyelid to menace him.
In response, Holland bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He wrangled two more paper towel squares from the dispenser and shoved them up both nostrils. His narrowed eyes seemed to offer, “You can eat shit.”
With the cackling Mikhail still suctioned to his chest, Shen Dan patted Holland on the shoulder as if to soothe him. He kicked open the bathroom door.
Flashing a carefree smile over his shoulder, he answered simply:
“Hamburgers.”
Holland let out an aggrieved shriek.
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After bringing Mikhail two hamburgers to wolf down, Shen Dan patiently explained (read: lied) that Holland had interpreted his filming schedule wrong. In actuality, today was his rest day, which left more than enough time for ice-skating. Once Shen Dan had rented his own pair of skates, the two waddled side-by-side towards the rink.
Mikhail didn’t make conversation. He was zoning out, staring at Shen Dan’s profile.
What was actually happening was this:
Due to his overactive imagination being influenced by a childhood of reading manga, a filter had been applied to Mikhail’s vision. Shen Dan’s face was presently shaded in black and white screentones, framed by glowing motes of light and cherry blossoms floating in the breeze. His chin had been exaggerated into a triangle-shaped tortilla chip, and the size of his hands had become unmistakably larger than average…
“Mikhail, be careful, your laces are untied.”
“Huh?”
Thanks to Shen Dan’s crow’s mouth, Mikhail proceeded to distractedly trip over his ice-skate’s undone shoelaces with a yelp—
Only to fall directly into Shen Dan’s arms.
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Shen Dan looked down at him with an amused expression, the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. At that moment, encircled by Shen Dan’s arms, blanketed by Shen Dan’s gaze, Mikhail realized something. Perhaps this person wasn’t a third-rate actor scum, after all. The unfeeling glacier he had pinned Shen Dan as, cold inside and out, had been melting over the course of the last few weeks.
Either that, or Mikhail was gradually learning to see past the surface.
Cheeks flushing hot, Mikhail hid his face in his puffy red sleeve. “Ha-ha-ha, as your personal assistant, it’s a bit inappropriate for me to swoon immediately after seeing you, r-right?”
He felt a pair of lips brush his ear as Shen Dan said, “Not at all.”
Mikhail’s heart: Kyaaaaa, Dandan~
Shen Dan continued, “By the way, the ‘bunny ear method’ of tying shoelaces relies on a false knot. It’s inherently inferior to the square knot, and therefore comes undone more easily. Since you accompany me constantly, I can’t have you putting my career at risk by being a tripping hazard. Sit down, I’ll repeat the correct way for you as many times as you need.”
Mikhail: “…”
Once a third-rate actor scum, always a third-rate actor scum.
The tender mood totally destroyed, Mikhail stomped off, ditching Shen Dan behind to enter the ice-skating rink on his own. Shen Dan must have followed because shortly after, the bingo sheet still in Mikhail’s pocket came to life and checked off the square for “ice-skating.”
But Mikhail was too peeved to celebrate.
What the hell! I know how to tie my goddamn shoes!
And for the record, the person who tied these was that fucking mustard jerk!!!
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