"MiMi…

It was only a whisper, a breath, only meant for Zhou Mi’s ears. Hot. Everything was hot. Zhou Mi, the room, the bed, Henry himself. He couldn’t take it anymore and relaxed himself.

“Hanri…” Zhou Mi bit out, barely leaving time for himself to catch his breath before marking Henry’s neck. “How are you so beautiful?” he asked rhetorically, delicate Chinese sliding off the tongue of the older, his smooth voice murmuring the ancient language.

“Zhou Mi,” Henry said softly, sitting up, Zhou Mi straddling the boy’s thighs.

Zhou Mi frowned at the expression his beloved’s face—sadness, hurt, uncertainty. “What’s wrong,mitang?”

Henry nearly choked hearing the name—mitang… honey. It was affectionate and sweet, but it was so sudden. Snuggling into Zhou Mi’s chest, Henry purred, murmuring, “You’ll never leave me… right?”

Zhou Mi wrapped his arm around Henry’s shoulder. “Of course not, wo de ai.”

The tall Chinese giggled. “Only if you want us to be.”

Henry sighed contently, chubby cheeks pressed firmly against Zhou Mi’s warm chest. “MiMi…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t play my violin publically because it’s too precious to me.”

Zhou Mi froze and glanced down at the Canadian. “What?”

“That’s the reason why I refuse to play in front of anyone,” he said. “I’m afraid of what people will think. I compose my own music, but what if it’s not good enough? What if it’s horrible? What if they don’t understand?”

Zhou Mi’s hold tightened on Henry. “It doesn’t matter,” he reassured him. “As long as you understand and think it’s good, no one else’s opinion matters.”

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” he breathed.

“You can’t disappoint me… Ever, but more importantly, you can’t disappoint me if I’ve never heard you play before.”

Henry paused, contemplating for a moment. “Zhou Mi… Do you want to hear me play?”

The tall Chinese grinned widely. “I’ve been waiting for those words since forever,” he murmured, kissing Henry soundly on the lips before allowing the little one to slip out from under the blankets and pull on some clothes and find his violin.

Smooth, glossy wood underneath his thin, slender fingers, Henry plucked at the strings, tuning the taut strings, listening for the flawlessness. He could hear the small imperfections, and his heart raced at every loud screech, afraid of the opinion of the lanky Chinese who lay comfortably on his stomach on the bed. Henry sighed a final time in relief as he finished tuning his violin.

Placing the smooth wood underneath his chin, Henry bit his lip nervously.

“Don’t force yourself,” Zhou Mi muttered.

Henry shook his head. “I have to do this!” he hissed. Taking a deep breath, he paused for a moment. His violin looked different, as if possessed, glowing with an unrecognizable, discreet eerie glow. Shaking his head again, he just decided that it was a trick of the light or his uneasy mind.

Slow at first to warm up, the threads of the bow the taut strings smoothly. The first note was heavy, a sound of impending doom and destruction. Nothing too slow, Henry thought, his fingers gliding from string to string, his bow sliding quickly across the neck of the violin.

Faster, faster, the pace was picking up. Eyes closed, feeling only the rhythm, Henry barely realized the sound of Zhou Mi’s high pitched squeak during the chorus of the song.

“Hanri…” a strangled squeal from Zhou Mi’s lips reached Henry’s ears through the quick notes.

He stopped abruptly, opening his eyes to see his violin emitting a bright green glow. Glancing at Zhou Mi, weird streams of light in colors of green and yellow surrounding him, up his torso, Henry’s nearly dropped his violin when the door to the room flew open. A pretty man with long disheveled hair flew into the room panting, eyeing Henry. “Don’t you dare stop playing that!” he ordered in Korean.

Henry obeyed instantly, barely understanding the foreign language; he too afraid to object. Watching the pretty man, Henry couldn’t understand what was happening. A jar was taken out of the pretty man’s bag, and he stood over Zhou Mi’s ghostly pale body. A tear slid from Henry’s eyes as he finished the last verse of the song and the pretty man stood up with the jar in his hands, now pulsating with a light red color.

The pretty man eyed Henry as he stowed away his violin. “You don’t know what that thing is, do you?” he asked in horrible Chinese.

“Who are you?” Henry said in Korean, pulling on his jacket.

“Kim Heechul,” he answered in the same language. “What’d you do to Zhou Mi?”

Henry froze. “How—How do you know MiMi?” he asked.

“Choi Siwon,” he said. “Why do you have that instrument?”

“It… My father gave it to me.”

“You are… Henli… Henli Lau?”

Henry nodded slowly. Heechul smiled. “Welcome to the Soul Stealer Society.”

Henry stumbled back a bit. “Wh—The Soul…”

“The Soul Stealer Society. I’ll explain on the way,” Heechul said quickly, shoving the jar back into his bag and dragging Henry out by the wrist.

The Canadian Chinese gazed forlornly at the body of his beloved, paler than the white sheets around his body. A tear escaped from the corner of his eye as he left with this stranger.

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*mitang = honey in Chinese (it’s also Zhou Mi’s fanbase name)
*wo de ai = “my love” in Chinese