Xun Jin squatted on the ground, hugging his knees with his head buried in the crook of his arm.
Ethan, who had passed out from excessive blood loss, lay motionless on the ground. His lips were drained of color, and if not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, one might have mistaken him for a corpse.
Most of Ethan’s white shirt was stained crimson, while the other half was smudged with a gray footprint.
If it weren’t for the inconvenience of it, Xun Jin would have loved to stomp on him right then and there.
Rabid dog Ethan.
It wasn’t until Xun Jin finished crying that he finally lifted his head, wiped his damp nose and eyes, and prepared to stand up.
The moment he looked up, however, he spotted Cianus standing across from them.
Cianus had no idea how long he had been standing there, separated from them by nothing more than a single roadway.
Xun Jin’s legs turned to jelly, and he collapsed backward onto the ground.
Pressing his hands against the gravel-strewn pavement, the sudden stinging pain in his palms helped snap him back to reality.
Zelan stood motionless with an expressionless face, his dark gaze locked relentlessly onto Xun Jin. Shadows pooled beneath his eyelashes, blending into the inky blackness of his pupils.
As dusk deepened, the loose white shirt he wore untucked from his waistband fluttered gently in the evening breeze. Zelan stood there looking as paper-thin and fragile as a sheet of paper.
Xun Jin’s hands were growing numb, the sensation steadily fading away where they pressed against the ground.
With virtually zero footstep sounds, Zelan walked over slowly, stepping with extreme lightness.
Stopping just centimeters away from Xun Jin’s legs, Zelan looked down at him from above and said flatly, “Have you had enough of playing around?”
Xun Jin felt the atmospheric pressure around him plummet, making it difficult to breathe.
Though the sun hadn’t completely set yet, an intense chill gripped him.
Biting his lip, Xun Jin didn’t dare answer Zelan directly.
“Get up.”
Keeping his head lowered, Xun Jin kept his peripheral vision split between Zelan’s legs and the strip of white cotton strap protruding from his trouser hem. He shifted his legs slightly, trying to tuck it out of sight.
Zelan caught every single movement Xun Jin made. That scrap of white fabric looked like a needle jabbing directly into his eyes.
Abruptly bending down, Zelan reached out and hauled Xun Jin straight up by the arm.
The undergarment inside threatened to slip down. Turning pale, Xun Jin clamped his legs together and tried to squat back down.
“Don’t move.”
Ignoring Zelan’s warning, Xun Jin tried to wrench his hand free while letting his weight sink downward.
He froze completely the instant Zelan moved faster than him, yanking his trousers straight down.
His mouth agape, Xun Jin stared in sheer horror at Zelan kneeling on one knee before him. His brain felt as though it had taken a heavy blow, stripping him of all capacity to think or resist.
His cousin.
had actually pulled down his pants!
“That fucking idiot.”
Looking at the skin mottled with alternating red and white bruises, Zelan’s voice froze with a chill that felt capable of murder.
“I really underestimated you.”
Incapable of speech, Xun Jin could only stare in dazed shock as Zelan helped him pull his underwear back up. His slender fingers brushed against the white straps with an inexplicable aura of eroticism, scorching Xun Jin’s cheeks until they burned with numbness.
Zelan misjudged his own strength slightly while adjusting it, pinching Xun Jin uncomfortably. Wanting to shift, Xun Jin was paralyzed by Zelan’s menacing threat and didn’t dare twitch a muscle.
“If you dare move again, I’ll make you walk back completely naked so everyone can see you without your pants.”
Xun Jin grew angry too.
He was clearly the one who had been bullied, so why on earth was Zelan talking to him like this?
Once Zelan finished pulling his shorts back up, he looked up to find Xun Jin with a tear-streaked face.
“…”
What was there to cry about? He hadn’t cursed at him or hit him.
Yet Zelan still relented. Reaching out with his own sleeve, he began wiping Xun Jin’s face, though he scrubbed much too hard around the mouth, nearly forcing Xun Jin’s jaws apart to clean the inside as well.
That stray dog’s blood was filthy.
“It hurts!” Pushing against the chest of the person in front of him, Xun Jin tried to shove him away, but to no avail.
Realizing his safety had been restored, he began unsheathing his tiny claws. The feeble resistance felt like nothing more than an itch.
Pinning both of Xun Jin’s lips between his fingers, Zelan forced his mouth shut again.
“Mmph, mmph—” Xun Jin couldn’t spit out a single coherent syllable.
Seeing the little cat on the verge of tears once more, Zelan finally released his grip.
The next second, the hem of Zelan’s shirt was grabbed. Startled, he watched as Xun Jin lunged straight into his arms.
“What…?”
Heart fluttering, Zelan wrapped his arms around Xun Jin by reflex.
The moment a thoroughly mood-killing sound of sniffling echoed through the air, whatever tender sentiment Zelan had just felt vanished into thin air.
Grabbing the back of Xun Jin’s collar with an expressionless face, he yanked him back off.
Glancing down at his thoroughly ruined clothes before looking at Xun Jin who was frantically trying to fake an expression of utter innocence Zelan found himself entirely at a loss for words.
Back home.
“You don’t need to go to school tomorrow. I’ve already taken two days off for you.”
Today was Wednesday. Taking Thursday and Friday off meant missing four consecutive days of school.
Crumpled beneath the blankets with his hands curled into fists gripping the duvet right up to his eyes, Xun Jin kept his grip locked tight as he watched Zelan lingering stubbornly by the bedside without leaving.
“Got any objections?”
Xun Jin shook his head.
Freshly bathed, a lingering veil of mist still clung to his skin, heating his eyes until they felt feverish.
Watching Xun Jin with only the top half of his head visible over the covers, Zelan thought he looked more like a small animal than ever.
“Then go on outside…”
Urging him along, Xun Jin glared at Zelan, who showed no sign of leaving.
The moment he stepped through the front door earlier, Zelan had shoved him straight into the bathroom, insisting on giving him a bath himself. Xun Jin had stubbornly insisted on washing up alone, though Zelan had stood guard outside the door the entire time.
Under the guise of “supervision.”
Xun Jin hadn’t even grabbed a change of clothes; his original outfit was stained with dirt and blood.
Zelan had refused to fetch his pajamas for him either. After a protracted standoff, Xun Jin had finally wrapped a towel around himself, burst through the door, shoved past Zelan, and bolted.
With no time to grab clothes, he had dived straight into bed and pulled the blankets over himself.
So at that moment, Xun Jin was still completely bare underneath, praying fervently for this cheap cousin of his to clear out so he could finally change.
“Sleeping without clothes?” Zelan asked knowingly.
“How am I supposed to change with you standing right here…” Xun Jin grumbled. His muffled voice filtered through the thick layer of blankets, sounding softer than ever.
Zelan shifted slightly, as if wrestling with his own internal thoughts, before giving Xun Jin one final, lingering look and turning to walk out.
Exhausted to the bone and severely low on blood, Xun Jin abandoned his plan to get up and dress. Overcome by bone-deep fatigue, he drifted off into a heavy sleep right then and there.
As he dozed, he felt a chilling body press up against him, tickling his neck as it nuzzled close.
Too utterly sleepy to care, Xun Jin gave a lazy scratch and plunged right back into slumber.
Xun Jin squatted in the small courtyard of the villa, gazing at a miniature mountain of pebbles piled up before him. Picking up a fresh stone, he balanced it carefully on the very top.
[You were supposed to feed on blood today, but since you drank yesterday and your cousin didn’t take any from you, you can skip it.]
[Find a way to gather today’s malice value instead.]
Stuck at home instead of going to school, Xun Jin had no way to interact with people outside, leaving him entirely cut off from earning malice points.
Did he really have no choice but to wait for Zelan to come home from school and harvest malice from him?
“Hah.”
He placed it successfully.
Fingering a smaller pebble from the paved ground, Xun Jin aimed it toward the apex of the rock pile.
“Hey.”
A sudden breath blown against his ear startled Xun Jin so badly he lurched forward, toppling the entire pile of stones.
All that hard work stacking them.
Turning around, Xun Jin wanted to see who was bored enough to pull such a prank.
“Cianus?” Xun Jin remained sprawled on the ground, prompting Cianus’s gaze to instinctively drift downward toward Xun Jin’s waist.
The dip at his lower back was accentuated as the oversized, long-sleeved pajamas hung loosely, making his frame look feather-thin.
“Don’t you eat?” Cianus hauled Xun Jin up, testing his weight in his hands.
Far too light, yet somehow not quite as emaciated as he had imagined.
Xun Jin’s tummy still possessed a layer of soft flesh, feeling rather like hugging a marshmallow when he supported him.
Standing steadily, Xun Jin brushed off his clothes, swatted Cianus’s hand away from his waist, looked around guiltily to ensure the coast was clear, and whispered, “Come upstairs first.”
“Is this an invitation to your room?” Cianus felt a sudden urge to tease him.
Regrettably, Xun Jin missed the subtext entirely and nodded with utter earnestness. “Mhm.”
That response left Cianus feeling rather embarrassed instead.