The Crack
Those three bloody scratches seemed to tear open a crack in the hard, cold shell that covered Zhou Shou.
He still showed up on time every day, picked me up after class, waited for me at the convenience store, and brought me back to his apartment.
But that suffocating sense of control seemed to have subtly weakened.
He no longer threw me over his shoulder when I resisted too much. Instead, he would stand silently nearby, waiting for me to vent my emotions. Sometimes, when I completely broke down, he would whisper an apology—though I could barely hear it—and slowly back away, giving me space to calm down.
The most obvious change came after the night I scratched him. He didn’t treat the wound on his face, just let it stay there, as if it was a reminder of something he couldn’t forget. Even when we were in bed, when I accidentally touched the wound, he pulled away. And this time, he didn’t cruelly punish me for being disobedient.
He held me, tears falling onto my back, whispering over and over near my ear, begging me not to leave him.
A surge of complicated, indescribable feelings rose in my chest.
It was the first time I truly saw something in Zhou Shou beyond his “need for control.”
***
One weekend afternoon, he brought me to his apartment again.
He was handling work emails, brows tightly furrowed, the dark circles under his eyes heavier than usual. I hugged a pillow, curling up in the corner of the sofa, trying to make myself as invisible as possible. The only sounds in the room were his typing and the occasional voice messages he sent.
Suddenly, the phone beside his hand started vibrating. I didn’t know who was calling, but the moment he looked at the screen, his expression became strangely complicated.
Disgust. Indifference. And a hint of pain.
He didn’t answer or hang up, just let it buzz on the table while he forced his expression back to calm and continued working.
The persistent vibration kept echoing in the quiet room. Finally, after it went on and on, Zhou Shou roughly pressed the power button to shut it off, then flipped the phone face-down on the table with a sharp “pa!” sound.
He leaned back, eyes closed, fingers pressing hard against the bridge of his nose. His Adam’s apple rolled once, and a heavy exhaustion seemed to press down on his whole body.
I didn’t know if it was because of overwork or those endless phone calls that had drained him.
I held my breath, not daring to make a sound.
The strong, in-control Zhou Shou was completely gone. Sitting there now was just a lonely man crushed by the weight of something from his past.
It was the first time I so clearly felt the unease beneath his surface.
“Xiao Guai, come here. Let me hold you for a while.”
I walked over and felt his body trembling in weakness.
He pulled me onto his lap, kissed me carefully. When our lips touched, I tasted something salty. That’s when I realized—Zhou Shou was crying again, right in front of me.
I froze, not knowing how to comfort him, so I could only whisper, “I’m here.”
***
Later, there was one time when he got drunk.
He’d just come back from a social gathering, smelling heavily of alcohol, though his eyes were still relatively clear.
He didn’t approach me like usual. Instead, he stumbled a bit toward the kitchen and poured himself a glass of cold water.
I watched him from afar.
His tall figure, turned away from me, looked lonely under the kitchen light.
Zhou Shou took a big gulp of water, then leaned on the counter with his head down, shoulders slumped.
“Ji Chi…” he suddenly called, voice low and a little slurred from the alcohol.
My heart skipped a beat, but I didn’t answer.
He rarely called me by my full name. Only when I “messed up,” he’d use that tone to summon me.
He didn’t wait for my response. He just kept talking to himself, slowly, haltingly.
“Do you know why… I always went to the convenience store to see you?”
Zhou Shou paused for a long time. So long that I thought he wouldn’t continue. So long that I was about to walk over and help him to bed.
“You were standing there, clearly tired, but your eyes were still bright.” He gave a low, bitter laugh. “Even when facing the customers you hated the most—like me—you still smiled. When someone gave you a hard time, you’d just sulk for a bit and then go back to normal like nothing happened.”
He lifted his head, looking straight at me. His gaze was no longer filled with dominance or desire—it was something else. A kind of greedy yearning.
“I really envy you.” His voice grew softer, wrapped in confusion and fragility. “No matter how bad things get, you can still find something to be happy about. No matter how tired you are, you stay positive. When I saw you in the bar, you had your principles. When I saw you in the convenience store, you carried this sense of self-worth.”
He tilted his head back and drained the rest of the cold water.
“Not like me…” The glass hit the counter with a harsh clink. “I’ve been rotten for a long time. Inside and out. Living doesn’t make any difference anymore.”
The deep self-loathing and despair in his words made my hands and feet turn cold.
I finally understood what that crack I tore open revealed.
It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t pain.
It was a heart completely burned out—dead inside.
He wasn’t chasing after me.
He was drowning, and I was just the piece of driftwood he thought might still be alive.