【Chapter Six: The Tenderness Inside the Golden Cage】

Taipei at night felt like a black veil slowly being lowered — stifling, humid, sticky. A-Yao sat in the back seat of the Mercedes, his fingertip scrolling back and forth across the newly changed iPhone screen; the display lit up and went dark. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to reply — he simply didn’t know how.

This phone had been a gift from Chen Yuanxing. It was the latest model, and he had even set the wallpaper for him: a clean mountain scene, without an ounce of desire. But the more A-Yao looked at that image, the more it felt like a cage.

He couldn’t understand why Chen Yuanxing had changed — why he’d become gentle, why he’d grown forward, why he’d started using money to “buy” his life. He who once gave nothing now even bought his working hours outright, saying, “I’ve booked you for the whole evening.”

That omakase dinner was the first time A-Yao had eaten in a setting where he didn’t have to perform. The glass in his hand wasn’t plain water but plum wine; opposite him wasn’t a client pretending to be a lover but a man who had once said he couldn’t love him, now looking at him with nothing but compensatory tenderness.

“You should get used to places like this,” Chen Yuanxing said, looking at him. “I’ll let you get used to them slowly.”

A-Yao didn’t answer. He only lowered his head and wiped the corner of his mouth. It was a distance like that between lovers yet not quite lovers. They had many ambiguous gestures between them — wiping mouths, handing drinks, whispering softly — but conspicuously lacked someone willing to admit love first.

After dinner, the car felt as hot as a bottle about to explode.

Chen Yuanxing stopped the car and leaned close to his ear. “Do you want to come up and sit for a while?” he asked.

A-Yao stayed silent.

His fingers touched the back of A-Yao’s hand, light as a feather, heavy as lead.

“No need to perform. Tonight you’re not the master, and I’m not the customer.”

That line made A-Yao’s heart miss a beat.

He didn’t go upstairs. He only said, “What you’re giving now is really too late.”

Back at their place, Jason’s expression was darker than the night. He was sitting on the sofa and, the moment he saw A-Yao return, asked coldly, “Did you go see him again?”

A-Yao nodded.

Jason stood, crossed the room, and pinned him against the wall, his tone almost angry. “How long are you going to play this?”

“Do you think I’m playing?” A-Yao shot back, a smile tugging at his lips but none in his eyes.

Jason looked at him, grabbed his collar, pressed his forehead to his, his voice so low it was nearly inaudible: “He can give you a phone, dinner, buy your time…what about me?”

He moved closer, his palm sliding from A-Yao’s side up to his shoulder, his breath hot against his collarbone. “I want all of you.”

The atmosphere exploded. They fell onto the bed like two wolves tearing at each other, passion continually devouring them. It wasn’t love — it was possession, unwillingness, a declaration of ownership.

By dawn they lay heavily on the bed, neither saying a word. A-Yao stared at the ceiling and suddenly said, “He’s booked me for the whole day tomorrow. He’s taking me out of town.”

Jason closed his eyes and answered in a low voice, “Go, then. Go see how valuable you are.”

A-Yao didn’t reply. His heart had already split in two: one half softened and wrapped by Chen Yuanxing’s love and guilt, the other trapped and immobilized by Jason’s strength and passion.

He didn’t know who would ultimately win this contest called love — or if, from the very start, no one could ever win.

To be continued ......

--- Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental ---