【Chapter Two: Unspeakable Desire】

The heat was maddening. Ah-Yao lay on the hotel's white sheets, shirtless, still feeling the warmth those hands had left on his skin.
The water in the bathroom was still running; Chen Yuanxing was taking a shower inside.
His movements were always slow, just like the man himself — restrained, steady, always keeping his emotions neatly tucked away.

Ah-Yao turned his head and looked at the stack of bills on the table.
"A strange man," he thought. "He pays every time, but unlike the other clients he doesn't only want the body."

The water stopped. Chen Yuanxing stepped out wrapped in a towel; his stubble hadn't been fully shaved, and his gaze landed on Ah-Yao's back.
It was the way a young body should be — firm, full, carrying desire and the charming uncertainty of the future.
And he was fifty, carrying a marriage, a family, his parents' expectations.

"Staring at me like that — are you thinking about me again?" Ah-Yao said with a smile, his eyes playful.

Chen Yuanxing smiled bitterly, came closer, and lightly traced Ah-Yao's spine, as if feeling for a youth he'd long lost.

"If I were thirty and single, I'd hide you away and never let anyone see you," he said. His voice was low and hoarse, tinged with suppressed emotion.

"You could still do that now, if you wanted," Ah-Yao propped himself up and looked straight at him. "You like men, don't you?"

That question was like a stone thrown into water, setting off a thousand ripples.

Chen Yuanxing was silent for a moment, then said:

"I've known since I was a child that I was different. But I'm the eldest son of the Chen family. My father told me, 'A man must take responsibility, get married, have children — we can't let people mock our family for having no descendants.' I've never come out; I've never had a relationship publicly. You are the first… the first person who made me realize that maybe I could really love someone."

Ah-Yao heard that and felt a jolt inside. He had met rich men before — clients older than him. But none had shown such genuine feeling; only this one had been so open.
"So I'm just an outlet for years of suppression?"
"No, it's just… I can't love you."

The atmosphere suddenly froze. Ah-Yao stood up and moved close, naked.
"You want me, you touch me, you kiss me — and yet you say you can't love me? You have a wife, a career, everything. I only have my body, only this path. And now you want me to give even that up?"
"Ah-Yao, I only want you to have a better life..."
Ah-Yao sneered. "You want me to be a 'normal person', and you'll go on being your closeted boss, right?"

That night they did not OOO.

There were only two naked souls, colliding with unavoidable truth and fragility.

When the door closed, Chen Yuanxing watched Ah-Yao leave and seemed to see the youth he had once tried to escape but couldn't.

To be continued ......

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