It didn’t take long for Zitao to fully realize where he was, to truly recognize what he was doing. He paused for a moment, feeling his heart drop to his stomach as his toes curled in worry. ‘Sehun wouldn’t go through all the trouble of hiding this part of his life if it wasn’t important, right?’ He argued with himself as he sat quietly in his lover’s office yet again.

Reclining slightly in the black chair, he began rubbing his forehead, a momentary thought of showering flickering through his mind as he felt the grease rub onto his palm. He had been too consumed in his thoughts this morning, immediately snooping through Sehun’s things the moment he had left. The only thing he had done properly this morning was take care of MeiLien, completely disregarding his own needs. His obsession over curiosity had grown so strong that he wasn’t sure if he needed to know, or if he just desperately wanted to know.

‘I love you.’ A voice from memories long ago whispered, Zitao dropping his hands from his face to listen to them with closed eyes. He remembered that day, it was quiet and peaceful, a day where everything still made sense and nothing had gone wrong. He was home, in China, out in the garden with his precious prince. They simply sat, enjoying the warm sunlight and tickling breeze, the fringe trees singing to the wind as they displayed their snowy white flowers. The fragrance from the hanging tendrils of flowers brought him peace, curled safely in Sehun’s arms as he watched the lotus pond; it was still and quiet, but Zitao knew that life thrived underneath its delicate surface.

‘I love you too, Tao. Always.’ Sehun whispering voice merged with the gentle wind, the faintest sound of wind chimes in the distance joining the symphony of peace. He couldn’t help but to smile as he let his fingers trail across the vibrantly green grass, letting the blades tickle his palm and run through his fingers. This was right, this was safe, this was how things were supposed to be. But when Zitao opened his eyes, he lost the smell of the fringe trees and the delicate sounds of nature, only to be left sitting in the deadly quiet office. Looking at the hand that was held out over air, he rubbed his palm slowly, missing the feeling of grass and safety.

It was an odd memory to so vividly present itself at a time like this; so odd, that he could not decipher what it meant. However, his eyes traveled guilty to the laptop. his bottom lip into his mouth, he bit down gently before scooting the chair closer to the desk. He loved Sehun, he truly did, with everything he had, but he could not shake this feeling of danger and betrayal that constantly lurked over his shoulder. It breathed onto his neck, sending shivers down his spine and worries into his mind.

“I need to know, I need to know that we are safe.” Zitao spoke in a cooing tone, attempting to reassure himself that he was doing no real wrong. Taking a deep breath, he flipped open Sehun’s laptop and was met with a forgotten obstacle. The lock screen now stared at him, blank and unforgiving. He knew that the information he was seeking had to be on the laptop; it was the only thing locked in the entirety of the office. Leaning forward, he let his chin rest on his hands as he commenced a long staring contest with the screen.

He had already tried the usual and more obvious things, birthdays, adopt days, anniversaries, family names, everything. The password seemed impossible to crack, especially with a huge part of Sehun’s life that Zitao knew nothing about. Who knows, for all Zitao’s paranoid mind knew, he could have a whole other family listed as his password. However, he dismissed that thought with a grain of salt.

“What the hell is it.” Zitao sighed, letting his head hang as his hands fell to the keyboard, tapping absently at their smooth surfaces as his mind processed possible options. For the life of him, he could not think of what the password could be, Zitao picking up his head to try random things. However, it soon became a useless task, every word and phrase failing to pass the test. His hands found his face again and he groaned as he laid his head down to meet the cold surface of the desk.

‘You know what I dream about?’ His memories whispered again, the soothing sounds of rain washing over his mind. They sat in the gazebo, the rain having trapped them out in the garden; though, they did not worry. The isolation was nice and the air was still warm as the heavy scent of the blossoms still clung to their noses.

‘What?’ Sehun’s voice laughed, calling Zitao’s attention away from the rain. He was a force of beauty that could put this magnificent garden to shame; his blonde hair hovering just above his coffee colored eyes, his cheeks pronounced through his warm smile.

‘Flying,’ he called, gently slapping Sehun’s arm when he laughed at his cliché dteam, ‘it’s true! I really wish I could fly, I dream about it all the time!’ He whined with a smile, looking towards the darkened sky. Despite the dense clouds and heavy rain that often took the sky, he wished that he could join anything in the sky, the clouds, the birds, everything. Often he dreamed of flying closer to the sun, enjoying its warmth as his body defied the laws of the human abilities.

‘You want to know what I dream about?’ Sehun suddenly spoke seriously, casting his warm gaze towards Zitao. He couldn’t help but to smile in return, turning his whole body towards him. ‘I dream about this, I dream about just staying like this forever. I don’t want to ever have to leave or attend to business, I just want to stay here and look at the lotuses.’

‘You dream about raining days, trapped in a gazebo?’ It was Zitao’s turn to laugh, Sehun simply rolling his eyes in reply.

‘No, I dream about being with you like this. It doesn’t matter if it is raining or snowing, if you're rich or poor, I just want to be out here with you. It’s peaceful and kind, nothing ever comes to bother us.’ He sighed peacefully, his eyes carefully watching the pond.

‘Then why don’t you stay?’ Zitao whispered, feeling his eyes widen with a small plea.

‘I can’t, Tao, you know that.’ The answer was simple, as always.

‘I wish you could..’

Lifting his head, he attempted to shake his mind free of the seemingly ominous feelings and memories that flooded him. It was strange to remember events from so long ago now, their meanings lost to him. Perhaps it was just guilt, his mind reminding him a beautiful moments between the two, preventing him from further snooping. However, he pulled the laptop closer and twisted his lips in thought, ignoring the implications of guilt on his mind.

After a few more failed attempts such as ‘flying’ and ‘dreams’, he typed in the word ‘lotus’ and was surprised to find success in his actions. It was such a simple password, so simple that Zitao let out a condescending laugh. Any hacker could figure out a password such as that with as mere flourish of their fingers against a keyboard. Then again, if there were anything truly important on the laptop, Zitao failed to find a reason as to why it was so easy for him to obtain access.

Nonetheless, his snooping process begun, his eyes meeting a dull and dark background with a single logo he did not recognize. Raising an eyebrow, his eyes roamed to the only folder present to him. Irrationally, he had a few amusing thoughts of it being y trapped, a jet of ink spurting at him or something of similar nature. But with a small chuckle, he clicked the folder and was met with a single document, a mere few pages.

His amusement immediately was extinguished, his frustration rising from the ashes. He refused to believe this to be the only thing available to him, disbelief pouring through him as he shifted through the empty void that the laptop was. Nothing existed beyond that single document, nothing in his downloads, nothing in his home folders, not even an internet browser was available. The entirety of the laptop seemed to be wiped, excluding the one mysterious document.

Shaking his head in overwhelming frustration and loss, he knew that he would not find anything of importance as he opened the few pages. He thought that perhaps it was a document, laughing at him for his efforts, but none the less, would present him as the fool for thinking anything valuable could be found; however, he was quickly proven wrong.

Zitao could do nothing but to shake his head in utter mystification, his eyes straining in effort as he stared at the text, looking for some sort of hidden meaning, code, message, anything to relax the rapid beating of his heart. The new information that had begun to present itself to him lay heavy in his chest, suffocating and spreading like a wildfire. It took over every other sense he had, his ears no longer straining for signs of Sehun, his eyes no longer flicking up to the door, his sense of feeling draining away from his limbs. ‘This can not be happening. This is nothing more than lies... Please.’

Zitao pushed himself away from the laptop, his hands clutching at his chest as he doubled over, gasping for air. He suddenly felt violently ill, his stomach threatening to revolt as his lungs seemingly died in an instant. But the most pain, the pain that screamed through his whole being came from his heart. The feeling as if it had stopped beating, losing its will for life, spread up his neck and throughout his body. He was numb at one instance, then in another, was left blazing with the agony of his pain. He could not even begin to comprehend what it was that he was reading. He could not understand what this person was trying to tell them, what proof they had to support these allegations, or even who they were.

Moving his trembling hands from his chest upwards to support his head against his knees, he let out a small yet shrill wail, his shoulders heaving in a few sobs as he contemplated the words of the letter further. ‘You helped me figure out my feelings for the man I have long since debated what to do with, and yet, this is all that I am able to do for you.’ The words rang again through his mind and he fell out of the chair, scrambling along on his knees to the small wastebin besides the desk. He could not help but to think of the blonde haired man with the black silk shirt that had entered their home a while ago.

His gut proceeded to go through with its feelings of illness, emptying the contents of his stomach as he vomited into the wastebin. His vision bobbed and weaved in a swaying motion as he crouched on hands and knees, his world had just come crashing down. He could not help but to think about the man, their conversations over what he must do and the letter, unable to help another wave of sickness that overtook him. That man was going to kill another man, Zitao just knew it, unable but to also consider how close he had been to MeiLien. He could have hurt her at any moment, he could have killed either of them.

Gasping as he hacked up whatever his stomach still had the energy left to get rid of, he shakily pushed himself up and crawled back to the chair. Scooting forward with more hesitation and reluctance than he has ever felt before, he forced himself to continue reading the letter. Though his hands still shook and his stomach still clenched as his tongue sweated, threatening to be sick once again, he continued forward.

He had to resist running to MeiLien’s side immediately, snatching her up with a few belongings and leaving that very moment, but still he sat, motionless in the chair. He could only look at the last two letters of the message, staring at them with such intensity, that he thought they might change under his gaze. There was technically no proof to support these claims being thrown at Sehun, there was nothing that solidified his guilty; however, Zitao could not help but to start connecting the pieces. Sehun’s father, their ‘family’ business, his constant disappearances, his anger when the black silk shirted man was found in his home, everything. It all began to click together.

And yet, somehow, he did not feel sick again, he did not feel as though he would collapse and fall to pieces right then and there. He simply sat, unable to process or consider what he had just figured out. He simply froze, an eerie stillness taking over his body as he stared unblinking at the screen.

He did not know for how long he sat there, for how long he stared at the unchanging screen, but at the sound of approaching footsteps, he found himself looking up. Sehun stood in the now opened doorway, dropping his bag down onto the floor as he narrowed his eyes at Zitao. He did not feel scared, though, he did not feel guilty either. With an odd tranquil feeling, he slowly spun around the laptop to face Sehun and stood.

“Tao… What are you doing in here?” Sehun asked quietly, only his eyes revealing his anxiety. Walking forward, he paced a hand on the desk as he bent over to look at the laptop. For a moment, there was a look of relief that flicked across his face when he closed the document and found the rest of the computer to be empty, but it was quickly followed but confusion to also realize his laptop was empty. Flashing an unreadable look to Zitao, he clicked the document open again, he nearly jumped away from the screen after reading it, looking to Zitao with wild eyes.

“Would you like to explain this to me, Sehun? Before I jump to anymore conclusions?” He whispered, walking around the desk to stand next to the dazed man. Placing a hand on the desk, he glanced back to the laptop, suddenly a sense of sorrow swallowing him when Sehun met his eyes. The look his lover gave him was one of sadness and defeat, his shoulders slumping as he shook his head.

“Tao,” He paused, carrying himself around the desk to fall into his chair, his head hanging as he shook it, “you first have to believe me when I say that I would never in my life hurt you or MeiLien.” He whispered.

“But you do not argue with the other points made? Hiring a hitman? Living a dangerous life? What is it, are you a hitman yourself? A murder? What is it?” Zitao’s questions came out like bullets, no time given inbetween them to answer. Though, Sehun did not seem put off by the questioning, Zitao’s sorrow deepening when Sehun did not deny any of his allegations.

“Have you ever heard of the StreetKings..?” Sehun suddenly spoke after a long silence, the both of them having sunk down into a deepened state of sadness. When Zitao shook his head, Sehun released a long sigh. “Long story short without a sugar coat, the StreetKings are a.. Well, mafia.” He spoke quickly, standing up to run his hands through his hair as if he suddenly couldn’t stand to be in his own body.

“So, you’re a member of this mafia then?” Zitao’s heart lurched, awakening from its hibernating state as he listened to Sehun. The man was giving him all of the answers he had always craved, and yet, now that he was hearing them, they somehow seemed too real to handle. He had always imagined what man Sehun was when he was away from the family, but this had never once crossed his imaginations; he felt stunned and more so, betrayed.

“No, I’m the head- er, well, leader.” He dropped his hands, his eyes following any path to any object that was not Zitao. His words were staggering and correcting themselves, as if he somehow wouldn’t know what Sehun meant. He did, his heart lurching once again as he shook his head, repeatedly biting his lip in thought.

“I won't ask why you never told me, as I can understand why,” he paused to push himself away from the desk and begin a light pace around the room, “but I will ask this. How dare you be this man, be this kind of person, and agree to start a family with me.” Zitao was suddenly angry, whirling around to look at Sehun, who sat looking shameful.

“I know you probably won't believe me when I say this, but I love you, Tao. I love you to the moon and back again, and if I could give up my title, I would in a heartbeat. But I was never given a choice, I was never given an option about my future. I was born into this.” Sehun pleaded, the anxiety spiking in his voice as if he were suddenly feeling Zitao’s thoughts. He would probably end up leaving his love.

“It isn’t safe for us, MeiLien… She cannot grow up with a mafia boss as her father.” Zitao spoke softly, taking a small step back when Sehun jogged around the desk to stand before him, his eyes wide with panic. He shook his head as Zitao took another step back, his hands outstretched. His look, his eyes, his pleading, it was almost enough to get Zitao to change his mind.

“I love you so much, Sehun. More than you could ever even imagine. But this, what you do and what you are? It can’t involve me.” He whispered, feeling the tears pool up rapidly in his eyes, spilling over in salty trails down his cheeks. Sehun let out his own sob before straightening himself out, his shoulders quivering as he nodded.

“At least let me protect you two, if he sent that message to you,” he trailed off, dragging the back of his hand across his tear streaked cheeks, he looked like a small child, “that means he knows about you two, and everyone else probably does as well. You’ve become a target, let me take you somewhere safe.”

“Sehun, we can’t be near you.”

“I know. But can’t you at least let me protect you two?”

“No.”

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I’m sorry for my hiatus, you guys. I’ve just been having a lot of trouble lately. It’s been bad. But, I’m back! And I already have the next chapter half way done! The mysteries are starting to reveal themselves and the cliffhangers are starting to all make sense haha. Well, at least I hope they are. Can you all guess where this is going? Wish I could insert a bunch of dramatic and horror music. Cuz uh, woo.

Well, until next time, I hope you enjoy this chapter! See you soon, lovelies.

~SnobbyCoffeeAsian