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blueberry-ash · 2 months

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Writer's Month 2024, Day 2 (‘running’)

TKA Live Action, Mo Fan/Qiao Yifan. (Rated T, and unedited bc it's past my bedtime akdjfls.)

Qiao Yifan is laughing, his face sweat-damp and pink. He lets his weight drop carelessly into Mo Fan’s side, a shock of heat and closeness. Mo Fan’s instinct is to shove him away, but he finds himself looking instead.

Qiao Yifan is often happy, so it’s not as though his laughter is a surprise. And the two of them have been working out—running in the early hours before breakfast—so his sweat and warmth aren’t surprising either.

Still, Mo Fan’s fingers flex helplessly in response.

‘Man, I really needed that,’ Qiao Yifan is saying. He’s pushing his damp hair back from his forehead and grinning at Mo Fan, and Mo Fan’s chest tightens like maybe they’ve run too far, too fast. But then Qiao Yifan is leaning back against the raised wall of the flower beds behind them, and away from Mo Fan, a different smile and a little oh on Qiao Yifan’s lips, like he’s suddenly remembered that Mo Fan doesn’t usually like people in his space.

Mo Fan’s chest tightens again but differently, this time. More like he’s made a misstep. More like he’s lost something.

Mo Fan doesn’t know how to say, Actually, I maybe don’t mind being close with people at all, not if it’s you. Even if Mo Fan could—he still couldn’t.

‘I like it,’ Mo Fan starts, despite that. He looks at the square of sky above the park, a dawn-coloured patch cut out from the buildings on every side. He looks at the pavement. At Qiao Yifan’s running shoes. They don’t run together every morning, but often enough. Mo Fan thinks he could sketch it from memory, if only he knew how—the park, the paths, Qiao Yifan’s shoes. Qiao Yifan’s pink cheeks and brilliant smile.

‘Mm?’ Qiao Yifan says. A listening noise, Mo Fan knows. A prompt for further information, a query shaped around the chewed-wonky straw of Qiao Yifan’s water bottle. It makes Mo Fan itch. It makes him want to answer—to know how normal people answer—to know how they sit and smile and flirt and explain that they want things.

It’s new, that Mo Fan wants it. He used to think it was all scam, all faked, like putting on a name badge at work and pretending to care.

He doesn’t think Qiao Yifan is pretending, and that makes him itch and want more than anything.

In the beginning, Mo Fan had actually thought he’d hate him.

Qiao Yifan is chewing on the straw again.

‘Running,’ Mo Fan manages. ‘Running with you, like this—I really like it.’

It feels like a confession. Heavy, weighty, too much. Like something a normal person might say, except that he’s the one saying it.

Qiao Yifan’s eyes crinkle in another smile. ‘Me too,’ he says, like he’s breathing out the words with pleasure, with joy. And then—because he’s Qiao Yifan, and sometimes he veers into questions that force Mo Fan into corners—he asks, ‘Did you think you wouldn’t like it?’

Mo Fan lifts one shoulder in a shrug. He stands and stretches, one foot against the garden’s lowest brick wall and then the other. He pulls his hoodie from wrapped around his waist and drags it on over tacky warmth and cooling sweat. They’re not usually stopped this soon, but they’d gotten silly, playful, had made it a challenge and then speed, speed, sprinting until laughing and here. Mo Fan isn’t sure whether they’ll go back to jogging. Sometimes they walk, instead. A cooldown, slower, and Qiao Yifan’s knuckles grazing against Mo Fan’s.

Qiao Yifan is still watching him. ‘Wait—did you think you’d hate it?’

Mo Fan shakes his head. Frowns. Nods. ‘No. I’m just bad at it. At sports.’

He isn’t being humble or self-deprecating. It’s a fact he’s been told. He’d suffered at PE. He’d been resented at team sports. Even the martial arts class his parents had eventually signed him up for had made it clear he didn’t fit. Poor attitude. Struggles to follow basic instructions. Does not play well with others.

Qiao Yifan is pulling on his own sweater. He’s staring at Mo Fan as he yanks the collar down past his hair. Qiao Yifan says, ‘Huh?!’

Mo Fan shrugs.

Qiao Yifan looks confused, his brows drawn down and his eyes unhappy. ‘Mo Fan, we played basketball with you. You were great! You made it fun!’

Mo Fan looks away, itchy and glad. You were great makes his skin hum, but You made it fun is what he’d like engraved there.

They walk across the shorter side of the park in silence. They buy breakfast at a place on the other side of the street, and Qiao Yifan has slipped his phone across the QR code before Mo Fan can even think about it. ‘My treat,’ Qiao Yifan says, still pink-cheeked and smiling.

Mo Fan thinks he’d like to shout Qiao Yifan instead. He’s never had the money before, not for things like that, and now he doesn’t have the habit—the custom—the instinct to remember the things people do; treats for treats sake, and not debts to be called in.

Qiao Yifan’s knuckles brush against the back of Mo Fan’s hand as they walk. Mo Fan doesn’t know whether Qiao Yifan has realised, but he’s afraid to mention it in case he hasn’t. Maybe it doesn’t tingle through Qiao Yifan with every glancing touch. Maybe Qiao Yifan will step away, will try harder to give Mo Fan space, if Mo Fan says anything.

Mo Fan focuses on his soy milk. ‘Would you—’ he starts, and then doesn’t. He keeps thinking about Qiao Yifan’s bewildered expression when Mo Fan had explained about being bad at sports; about Qiao Yifan’s insistence that Mo Fan had made basketball fun.

He tries not to think about the community gym they often jog past on their runs. About the sign-ups sign outside, and the classes. He doesn’t do a very good job. He says, ‘Since you thought the basketball was okay—we could—maybe—’

Qiao Yifan glances at Mo Fan as they walk. He stays quiet while Mo Fan fails to talk. He would have said something, before—months back—would have hurried to try and fill Mo Fan’s blanks, would have stumbled over himself wanting to help. It’s been a while since he’s stopped. He must have realised it only makes things worse, only lengthens the spaces in Mo Fan’s mind. Now, Qiao Yifan waits.

Mo Fan finishes his drink in an unsteady rush. He stops by the gym, to throw the cup in the rubbish bin, and maybe not only for that.

Mo Fan is gesturing at the sign-ups sign in the same moment that Qiao Yifan blurts out, ‘I keep thinking it could be fun to take a class like that. Like—like tai chi, maybe? Or—or one of the dance classes? I mean, I know we don’t have a huge amount of free time, but they’re on Wednesdays, and it’d count towards our health and wellbeing, and it’s not like there are a lot of things that’re safely no-contact like that, and I—’

Mo Fan is still pointing uselessly at the sign.

Qiao Yifan trails off, probably because of whatever stupid expression is on Mo Fan’s face. With a crunch of his greaseproof paper, Qiao Yifan tosses it in the rubbish bin and reaches down to worry at the rubber band on his wrist. ‘It’s a silly idea. It’ll be mostly grandparents, won’t it? And I know I kind of got used to that at some of my old dance classes, but that doesn’t mean you’d—’

Mo Fan can’t seem to swallow. He does manage to drop his hands, shoving them deep into his hoodie’s pockets and gripping at the lining there. Still, he’s been struck by the idea of Qiao Yifan at dance class—by the image of Qiao Yifan dancing. He wants to ask what kind of dance. He wants to ask if that’s why Qiao Yifan is the way he is—if having a dancer’s body is what makes him so tactile, so comfortable with touching and being touched. If that’s what it’s like to know limbs and muscle for cleverness and beauty rather than ducking and hiding and protecting your head. He wants to ask how loud the music would be, and whether Qiao Yifan would really want to dance with him.

Qiao Yifan is worrying his lip between his teeth—Mo Fan has been quiet for too long.

Mo Fan says, skin too tight and far too warm, ‘No, I want to. I wanted to! To ask you, I mean. All week. I was going to, with the tai chi. But—but the other is okay, too.’

‘Really?’ Qiao Yifan sounds like he’s stopped chewing on his lip and started smiling. Mo Fan isn’t game to look, for fear he catches Qiao Yifan looking too. They go back to walking, Qiao Yifan’s hand swinging loosely between them. Mo Fan regrets having put his own hands in his pockets.

They’re back home, at the little patch of greenery inside the front gate, when Qiao Yifan stops again. Mo Fan waits, then looks at him when he realises Qiao Yifan isn’t going to start speaking. He can see the warmth of Qiao Yifan’s neck. He can see the tip of Qiao Yifan’s tongue dart between Qiao Yifan’s lips, too, pink and distracting—Qiao Yifan is hesitating.

Qiao Yifan says, all in a rush, ‘Is it—if we sign up for—the tai chi, or the dance, do you—do you want to invite the others?’

Mo Fan’s chest squeezes, but Qiao Yifan is still speaking. Qiao Yifan is saying, ‘Because, of course, you should! If you’d like! I shouldn’t assume you’d want just—me. Just us—not like, I mean, it might feel like a date, and I don’t know if you’d—if you’d like—’

Mo Fan doesn’t dare trust himself to have interpreted Qiao Yifan’s rush of words correctly. What Mo Fan wants Qiao Yifan to be saying—that Qiao Yifan would like it to be just the two of them, that Qiao Yifan might like it to be like a date—seems much, much too perfect to align with Mo Fan’s understanding of the world.

Mo Fan really wants to be right, despite that.

‘I’m okay with inviting them, if you want,’ Mo Fan says slowly. He keeps his eyes fixed on the front door’s wood grain, on the long-fingered swirl he can track from handle to doormat. ‘But just us would be—good.’

He looks up a little. He sees Qiao Yifan’s neck bob around a swallow. He adds, ‘Like a date would be—better.’

Qiao Yifan says, ‘Oh,’ and his neck is really pink now, and his hair is a mess, and when Mo Fan raises his gaze all the way and looks at Qiao Yifan properly, Qiao Yifan has this expression in his eyes that makes Mo Fan’s brain try to shut right down, and Mo Fan can’t—

Mo Fan can’t say what he wants to say, not if he wants to say it well, but he can pull his hands out of his pockets. He can step into Qiao Yifan’s space. So he does. He shifts his weight, and he leans his shoulder against Qiao Yifan’s, and he lets himself stay there, his fingers catching around Qiao Yifan’s wrist just long enough to feel the square edges of Qiao Yifan’s rubber band and the thrum of blood rushing below skin.

‘Definitely better,’ Qiao Yifan agrees in a rough voice when Mo Fan pulls away.

‘We’ll—we’ll pick a class?’ Mo Fan promises, and Qiao Yifan nods and beams, so dazzling and bright that Mo Fan can hardly bear to look at him directly.

Mo Fan keeps the warmth of it tucked inside his chest anyway.

#writer's month #the king's avatar #MoQiao #ash's fic stuff

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ryukoishida · 6 years

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QZGS Secret Santa Fic: In which QYF is a CSI and MF is a lab tech and they go on an adventure to solve murder cases. [CSI AU]

Written for QZGS Secret Santa 2018 For: @synoshian

Title: Evidence of Things Unseen Fandom: Quan Zhi Gao Shou / The King’s Avatar Character(s)/Pairing(s): MoQiao (Mo Fan/Qiao Yifan); featuring other members of Happy Summary: One gentle, talented crime scene investigator + one brooding, uncommunicative lab technician + two murder cases = an unexpected blooming romance?! [CSI AU] Rating: PG13 A/N: A CSI AU that nobody asked for… Also, please excuse any inaccuracies in the science-/mystery-related stuff in this fic. I tried. I regretted only a little. Happy holidays, Lies! I hope you enjoy this mess of a fic :’)

“Yifan, great job on solving the Liang Hailing case. Her mother gave me a call just now; she wanted to thank you especially for being so kind and considerate of her and her family during the investigation,” the graveyard shift supervisor of the Hangzhou Crime Lab, with a lit cigarette dangling from between his middle and ring fingers, complimented the newest member of his team with a proud grin.

On his messy desk was a name tag, scuffed on the surface and crookedly placed, informing the visitors of his office that his name was Ye Xiu.

“T-Thank you, Ye-qianbei,” Qiao Yifan, the twenty-year-old Level II Crime Scene Investigator who’d only recently transferred to the Hangzhou Crime Lab four months ago, bowed slightly, always extra courteous to those of senior ranks. “It wasn’t just me though! The colleagues down in the lab had been very helpful and efficient — especially Mo Fan.”

“Did you say Mo Fan?” Ye Xiu raised an eyebrow, his tone remaining in the same languid, nonchalant manner of his but his piercing stare made Qiao Yifan shrank back a little as if he’d said something wrong.

“Y-Yes, sir,” Qiao Yifan nodded, the volume of his voice turning significantly lower than before, but he knew from working with Ye Xiu for the past few months that the man rarely got upset or furious, if at all, even when the investigations weren’t’t going his way, so Qiao Yifan continued gingerly, “he was the one who suggested to me the possibility of how the suspect used chewing gum to administer traces of cyanide into the victim’s body. If it weren’t for him, I would’ve never thought to check for the amount of xylitol presented in the victim’s oral cavity and connecting that with the suspect’s habit of always chewing gum.”

Ye Xiu took a drag from his cigarette before pressing the glowing tip against the ceramic surface of the ashtray and discarding the bud.

“Remember what I said to you when you first transferred from the Beijing Crime Lab?” Ye Xiu didn’t comment on Qiao Yifan’ compliment on Mo Fan’s part during this investigation, which the young CSI didn’t comprehend, but he replied as politely as he could anyway.

“That… I should be courageous?” Qiao Yifan said, recalling Ye Xiu’s simple words on the first day of his job. Qiao Yifan was a lab analyst at the Beijing Crime Lab, and though he did his job well, he was unable to stand out among the other talents in the lab, including his best friend Gao Yingjie, who, upon recommendation of the crime lab’s leader Wang Jiexi, had quickly promoted from his lab analyst role to a Level I CSI.

From the depth of his heart, Qiao Yifan knew working inside the lab alone wouldn’t make him happy; he could still go further, he could still do more – so much more. And that had ultimately became the significant turning point of his decision to move south to pursuit an opportunity that Ye Xiu and his team was able to provide for him.

Ye Xiu nodded.

“Yifan, you have the abilities and you work hard, so don’t be afraid to take credit where credit is due, all right?”

“Yes, sir,” Qiao Yifan smiled timidly, but Ye Xiu’s commendation had always been a shot of confidence that he needed.

Someone was knocking on Ye Xiu’s office door, the agitated rhythm signifying the person’s impatience, but the senior CSI ignored the distraction as per his usual habit when he didn’t feel like having any extra visitors.

Before neither man inside the office could react, however, whoever was outside had decided to enter anyway: the young man, dark forelocks haphazardly falling into his grey eyes, donned a pristine white lab coat, which contrasted starkly with the black hoody and skinny jeans that accentuated his willowy figure. Even without speaking, his body language exuded waves of hostility that most would sense and stay far away from. This could most likely explain why the twenty-two-year-old always kept to himself and would rather work alone in the lab, with earbuds on at all times while inspecting specimens under a microscope.

“Mo Fan, what can I help you with?” Ye Xiu eyed the stack of papers in Mo Fan’s hand and could immediately deduced the intention of the lab analyst’s visit.

“Ye-qianbei, I’ll head out first,” Qiao Yifan was about to take his leave. It was clear that Mo Fan wanted some privacy to talk to their supervisor about something important.

“Yifan, you can stay. I still need to go over one of the reports you submitted last week. This will be quick,” Ye Xiu then shifted his gaze towards the lab analyst who only spared a brief glance towards Qiao Yifan before he trudged all the way up to Ye Xiu’s desk and slammed the document down.

Ye Xiu merely lifted one of his eyebrows, and said with an unmoved tone, “again? How many times does this make?”

“You know how many times I’ve applied,” Mo Fan replied coldly, hands stuffed inside the pockets of his lab coat.

“Are you trying to apply for a level one Crime Scene Investigator position?” Qiao Yifan’s curiosity was piqued, and even Ye Xiu thought it rare that the usually quiet and reserve CSI openly expressed his interest in his coworker’s career direction though he chose not to comment on it.

“What is it to you?” Mo Fan turned towards the other man with a hint of coldness in the metallic grey of his irises. His tone never rose above the volume of a mumble but the tenor with which he spoke was enough to coat his words in frost.

“N-nothing, I just thought… I just thought it would be nice to have you on the team is all,” Qiao Yifan murmured, shrinking back a little from Mo Fan’s intimidating manner, but he continued with a nervous smile, “I think you have what it takes to be a good CSI and it’d be a waste of your talent to be constrained in the lab.”

“Hmph.”

Ye Xiu looked between Qiao Yifan, the young and promising newcomer who was gradually coming out of his shell, blooming into an excellent investigator, and becoming an integral part of the night shift team, and Mo Fan, the brooding, aloof lab analyst who might be exceptional at his current position but didn’t understand the importance of communication and cooperation within a team.

“Do you know why I didn’t approve your application the previous two times, despite recognizing that you have the knowledge, skillset, and instinct of a CSI?” Ye Xiu leaned back against his chair, his expression slightly frivolous but his dark eyes were stern.

“I didn’t communicate well,” Mo Fan lowered his head. He knew what his weakness was, but to overcome it, to force himself to make his thoughts known to others was something else entirely. He wasn't good at conveying himself in a socially-acceptable manner and this often made people misunderstood his intentions, and while this could be troublesome, Mo Fan also didn't have the energy or the patience to correct other's views of him.

“You didn’t communicate at all,” Ye Xiu corrected with a sigh before pulling Mo Fan’s application documents towards himself. “Not only does that make the investigation process less efficient, it’ll also endanger your teammates’ lives in certain situations.”

Mo Fan flinched visibly when he mentioned that; he still remembered Fang Rui’s bruised face and broken leg was all a result of his own lack of communication with his partner at the time, that Fang Rui essentially got injured because he was covering his back.

Ye Xiu casually flipped through the pages of Mo Fan’s application, and said, lifting his gaze to look straight at Mo Fan again, “Yifan here was just saying that you’ve helped him out in his latest case.”

“I was just doing my job,” Mo Fan said, his brows dipping into a slight frown as if he was half annoyed and half confused as to why Qiao Yifan would even bother bringing him up in the conversation in the first place.

“Fair enough,” Ye Xiu nodded, “here’s what I propose: for the next case, I’ll assign it to the both of you; you two will work as partners while I observe. Yifan is the most accommodating CSI I’ve ever met so if he has anything negative to say about you, you’re out, got it?”

When Mo Fan forced himself to look directly back at his supervisor, Ye Xiu was surprised and amused to find the subtle determination burning in those usually indifferent grey eyes, and he thought perhaps third time could really be the charm.

When Qiao Yifan arrived at the crime scene, a stretch of deserted dirt road in the more secluded part of Jilongshan Village that led out into forested hills with very few streetlights in between — perfect for a body dump, really — he saw that Mo Fan, who he’d been trying to contact ever since he was called in to work, was already taking photographs of something on the ground.

The CSI approached his partner, the strap of his forensics kit cutting into his shoulder. When Mo Fan still didn’t acknowledge Qiao Yifan’s presence even after the younger man cleared his throat a few times behind his stooping figure, Qiao Yifan started in a soft voice, “Mo Fan, I’ve been texting you for the last half an hour…”

“I know,” Mo Fan murmured, and his camera clicked a few more times. Then about ten seconds later, he said in the same bland tone, “I was busy.”

Qiao Yifan could clearly see that, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he noticed that the assistant coroner had already arrived on scene and was currently inspecting the body. He gently tapped Mo Fan on the shoulder once, which was enough to cause the other man to freeze, and he said apologetically, “I’m sorry. Um… should we head over to the body? It looks like Dr. An is already here.”

Without turning around or establishing any sort of eye contact with Qiao Yifan, Mo Fan quickly pulled himself to his feet and made his way towards the victim. Qiao Yifan followed, his fingers tightening around the strap of his kit.

“When’s the time of death?”

An Wenyi almost lost his grip of the thermometer that was still stuck in the victim’s liver when he heard Mo Fan’s voice directly behind him.

“Hello to you, too,” An Wenyi greeted him warily, though his gaze never swayed away from the body before him, and he sensed the lab analyst settling to the right side of him.

“Only you tonight, Dr. An?” Qiao Yifan stooped across from the coroner and watched as the man continued to inspect the body.

“Hey, Xiao Qiao,” An Wenyi greeted the CSI in a slightly friendlier tone since Qiao Yifan was known to be a likeable and approachable member in the team, and the assistant coroner always enjoyed working with him. “Guan-qianbei has been called to another crime scene. It’s been a busy night.”

“What have we got so far?” Qiao Yifan asked.

“Rigor’s already long set in,” An Wenyi told them, pulling out the thermometer after taking the reading. “Liver temp puts his TOD at about two to four o’clock in the afternoon.”

Qiao Yifan inspected the corpse in a quick survey: for someone who’d been supposedly ran over by a car, there wasn’t a lot of blood on the concrete or on the body itself, and though there were clear tire marks on the victim’s clothes and half-dried muddy tracks on the road, there was a strange lack of headlights or taillights glass shards which was usually associated with deaths involving vehicle collisions.

It was almost as if…

“He was lying down when the car ran over him,” Mo Fan murmured.

“He was already dead when he was brought out here," Qiao Yifan concluded.

“Can you tell us what the COD is?” Qiao Yifan asked while taking more detailed shots of the body.

"I can tell you that the car did a lot of damage to this guy's body: broken bones, ruptured organs, the works. But like you said, it's very likely that he'd been long dead before the car ran him over so at least he didn't have to suffer," An Wenyi said, his gloved fingers carefully sifting through the blood-matted hair to reveal a much gorier wound on the side of the head. "Serious head trauma is probably what did him in — looks like he was hit by a blunt object — but I'll confirm once Guan-qianbei does a more detailed postmortem."

"Thanks, Dr. An," Qiao Yifan smiled gratefully at the medical examiner and continued to take detailed photos of the victim's wounds. He paused when he got to the fingers — they were rigid and dirty but the blue tint in the fingernails was unmistakable.

"The lips, too," Mo Fan said as if he was reading his partner's mind.

"Cyanosis caused by underlying disease?" Qiao Yifan tried to zoom in using the lens of his camera before taking a few shots.

"Unlikely."

“Then… poison?” Qiao Yifan tried.

The corner of Mo Fan’s mouth twitched slightly.

“Hey boys, looks like we‘ve got an ID,” a woman’s voice chimed in.

"Mucheng-jie," Qiao Yifan lifted his head up to greet the police detective, who looked especially elegant and sharp in a crisp white shirt, leather gun strap curving over her shoulders, charcoal grey dress pants and black ankle boots that emphasized the length and strength of her legs. She had a notepad in one hand and a pen in another.

“Evening, Xiao Qiao,” Detective Su Mucheng sent the CSI a bright, friendly grin before shifting her attention towards the other man, who turned his head abruptly away as soon as he detected the woman’s amused gaze. “And Mo Fan, what a rarity! What finally drag you out of the lab?”

Mo Fan didn’t even reply to the playful teasing before he turned at his heels and stalked away.

“Wait, Mo Fan, w-where are you going?” Qiao Yifan was a patient man, if not slightly soft-spoken, and Mo Fan was precisely the kind of person that made it really hard for Qiao Yifan to reach out to… Not that he wasn’t willing to try, because he was genuine when he said that Mo Fan would make an excellent CSI, but there was a limitation to what he could do at his own end.

“Tire tracks,” Mo Fan only said, his voice barely audible over the scarf he was wearing over the bottom half of his face.

Qiao Yifan could only assume he meant he’d be inspecting and taking photos of tire tracks of nearby ground to determine the possible models of the car involved.

“Charming as usual,” Su Mucheng commented with a smirk, and tucked her pen inside her pocket before continuing, “I heard what Ye Xiu’s planning for him, but at this rate, the possibility of him passing the review is slim to none.”

“I want to help him,” Qiao Yifan sighed, his gentle gaze following Mo Fan’s figure in the distance, “but I don’t know how when he doesn’t allow anyone to get close to him.”

“You really care about him, huh?”

“W-what do you mean?” Something in the knowing way Su Mucheng smiled at him made Qiao Yifan paused, and his cheeks tainted pink with uncomfortable heat once he realized the detective’s underlying meaning of her question. “M-Mucheng-jie, don’t joke about something like that, please!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Su Mucheng laughed good-naturedly, patting Qiao Yifan’s shoulder like an older sibling would consoling her younger brother after a good tease, “you two just make it so easy for me. Anyway, as I was saying, victim’s name is Liu Gen, 40 years of age. His work ID says he’s an employee of Shanhu Machinery’s purchasing department. No previous criminal records, but his wife, Li Fangjing…”

Su Mucheng chuckled coldly.

“What about his wife?”

“Let’s just say his wife’s quite another story,” Su Mucheng said, shaking her head, “officers have already located her and are in the process of bringing her in to the station for questioning.”

“I’ll be there after the autopsy,” Qiao Yifan said.

“Why don’t you send Mo Fan over instead?” Su Mucheng suggested. “Being a CSI also required you to question suspects based on the evidence you guys found, right? It’d be good practice for him.”

“…sure, I’ll let him know,” Qiao Yifan felt anything but sure at this point, but he knew Su Mucheng was right.

Under the pale white lights of the examination room, coroner Guan Rongfei was cutting open his latest corpse, a white-collar worker by the name of Liu Gen. He was weighing the body’s organs when Qiao Yifan came in.

“Dr. Guan, I got your message. You mentioned you have something for me?”

Without a word or being diverted by Qiao Yifan’s arrival, Guan Rongfei merely angled his chin towards the metal cart to his left, where several labelled items were arranged neatly on the surface. The medical examiner wasted no time and began to report his findings to the CSI.

“COD is blunt force trauma to the head, which shattered the left temporal and parietal bones; the bone shards pierced into the brain and he bled out in minutes. No sign of defense wounds, most likely meant that the victim was already unaware of what’s happening around him or was immobilized through other means. There’s some black, sticky substance around the head wound; the sample’s on the table,” Guan Rongfei recited the information, not even cognisant to Qiao Yifan scribbling away in his notebook. “Broken bones and ruptured organs are consistent with being run over by a heavy vehicle while victim was lying flat on his back, but the event took place post-mortem. Also found some epithelial cells under his fingernails. And speaking of fingernails…”

Guan Rongfei finally lifted his head up from the scale after weighting the last organ, and turned to Qiao Yifan with a grin.

“Cyanosis — but no history of any chronic medical issue that could explain its presence,” Guan Rongfei analyzed, “so poison it must be.”

“Any clue as to what sort of poison?”

Guan Rongfei shrugged and returned to his dissection of Liu Gen’s body.

“Waiting on the tox report; I believe your partner’s working on it as we speak. After all, Mo Fan is the best toxicology specialist we have.”

“So, everybody knows…” Qiao Yifan sighed, collecting his samples and putting them into a small cardboard box for easy carrying.

“Ye Xiu believes in transparency within the team, if you can believe in that man’s bullshit,” Guan Rongfei said, his lips tucked into an amused grin.

“Thanks, Dr. Guan,” Qiao Yifan only said, heading towards the door to return to the lab to join Mo Fan.

“Anytime. Now get out of here so I can dissect this man in peace.”

Mo Fan’s phone was buzzing incessantly on the table when Qiao Yifan stepped into the lab, but the owner of said phone paid no heed.

“What’s… all this?”

After dropping off the sample of the sticky black substance to Trace, Qiao Yifan returned to his own workspace in the lab, where he was about to run DNA analysis on the epithelial cells Guan Rongfei had found in the victim’s fingernails, but instead he found boxes and boxes of what looked to be everyday household items stacked all over any available desk surfaces.

“Stuff I’ve picked up at Li Fangjing’s residence,” Mo Fan replied from his position at the counter, where he was administering some chemicals into vials of the victim’s blood samples.

“When did you—” Qiao Yifan was about to ask him when he had the time to go over to Li Fangjing’s place, but then he realized Mo Fan must had rushed over right after they were done processing the crime scene without notifying him. Again. “Never mind.”

Qiao Yifan began to set up his work station for DNA testing.

“How’s the tox report coming along?” Qiao Yifan asked instead, his tone slightly more strained than his usual milder manner. He carefully snipped off the tip of the cotton swap with the epithelial cells and placed it into a test tube, adding a few drops of clear solution into the vial before placing the mixture into the Thermal Cycler to amplify the segments of DNA he had on hand.

“Already did the basic screen,” Mo Fan said, his attention never straying from his task, his hands always steady and careful as he handled the specimens and placing them into the ultracentrifuge. “Nothing out of the usual.”

"Hey, Mo Fan," Qiao Yifan had nothing to do but wait for the result of the DNA analysis, so he attempted to initiate another conversation, "that must have been really heavy, to carry all that by yourself. Why didn't you tell me you were going to Li Fangjing's?"

"There was no need. I was fine," Mo Fan replied flatly, his body continued to move fluidly between putting blood samples into vials and putting them into the humming machine that analyzed and distinguished between the different toxins.

"But Ye-qianbei—"

"I know what Ye Xiu said," Mo Fan snapped.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to overstep," Qiao Yifan apologized, instinctively shrinking back.

"That's why I can't stand people like you, Qiao Yifan..." Mo Fan muttered, his knuckles turning white as he tightened his grip around a glass vial with so much pressure the other man was afraid he would break it. "Why are you apologizing when you did nothing wrong? Why are you being so nice to me when..."

Qiao Yifan couldn't hear the remaining of Mo Fan's question, for his voice became softer and softer until it seemed like he was refusing to let any more words out of his mouth.

Mo Fan sighed, a hint of frustration in his exhale, and retrieved the toxicological report that the machine was sprouting out. He quickly scanned through the numbers and lines of text, his eyes narrowing slightly in concentration.

"Found our cause of cyanosis," Mo Fan stated, handing the sheet over to Qiao Yifan without meeting the other man's eye.

"Tetrahydrolozine… Isn’t that a vasoconstrictor? And that much of it too? No wonder Liu Gen didn't have any sort of defence wounds on him; he was already incapacitated when they attack him," Qiao Yifan shook his head, placing the sheet down.

"Eyedrops..." Mo Fan suddenly said, turning his eyes sharply towards the boxes of items that belonged to the victim and his widow.

"What about the eyedrops?" Qiao Yifan asked, curiosity obvioius in his voice.

"There were many emptied Visine bottles in their bathroom — way more than the suggested healthy dosage for two people — and I found more unopened bottles hidden in the storage room."

"So, you're saying the wife poisoned the victim with eyedrops, hit him over the head when the poison hindered his body’s movements, and then run him over with a car to make it look like an accident?" Qiao Yifan tried to understand Mo Fan's logic.

Mo Fan didn't reply him but he looked thoughtfully at the eyedrop bottles that he’d collected from Liu Gen’s apartment.

“Maybe not all of it… but the woman definitely poisoned him,” Mo Fan murmured, and gestured to the stack of files piled up on one side of his desk. “Previous cases involving Li Fangjing’s two late husbands; this woman is trouble.”

Mo Fan’s phone buzzed again for the fifth time since Qiao Yifan came in, and Mo Fan finally decided to pick up, but all he said was several ‘mm’ and ‘okay’ before he hung up again, his expression darkening just a little. He took off his lab coat and headed for the glass door without another word.

Qiao Yifan couldn’t help but ask, “where are you off to now?”

He wasn’t demanding an answer, but there was a hint of desperation laced in that question, as if the CSI wanted nothing more than for Mo Fan to include him or to tell him what was going through his mind. He half expected the quiet lab technician to ignore him again, so when Mo Fan paused by the door, a hand already reaching for the handle, and said that he needed to head down to the police station where Su Mucheng was about to question their prime suspect Li Fangjing, Qiao Yifan could feel himself smiling a little as he bade him goodbye.

Down at the police station located only a few blocks away from the crime lab, Su Mucheng and Mo Fan were sitting at the table in one of the many interrogation rooms across from a well-dressed woman in her late twenties.

Li Fangjing seemed at ease despite being notified that her husband had been found dead — possibly murdered — at the side of a deserted road more than half way across the centre of the city where he lived.

“Ms. Li, where were you yesterday afternoon from two to four o’clock?” Su Mucheng asked politely.

“I don’t understand,” Li Fangjing tucked a piece of hair behind the curve of her ear and crossed her arms, her eyebrows raised in annoyance. “I thought I’m here to help with the investigation of my husband’s death, but you cops make it sound like I’m the suspect here.”

“You are,” Mo Fan said without skipping a beat.

“Excuse me?” the woman’s tenor raised an octave higher.

“You are our prime suspect,” Mo Fan said, his expression remaining neutral and cold.

Li Fangjing laughed, the sound shrill and unpleasant, making Mo Fan wrinkled his nose in mild disgust.

“You’re serious?”

“We found extremely high levels of Tetrahydrolozine in Liu Gen’s system — enough to cause blurred vision, breathing problems, and coma,” Mo Fan said.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“The CSIs found many emptied bottles of eyedrops in the bathroom, as well as cases of unopened ones in storage,” Su Mucheng told the other woman, who still appeared to be nonchalant, so the detective continued with a smile, “and in case you don’t know, Ms. Li, tetrahydrolozine is the active ingredient in eyedrops, and we found your fingerprints all over those used bottles.”

“We both suffer from dry eyes,” Li Fangjing explained, rolling her eyes, her thick fake lashes trembling with the exaggerated movement. “I didn’t realize that was a crime, Detective.”

Both Su Mucheng and Mo Fan knew it was a weak excuse, but they had stronger evidence against her anyway, so they let it pass for now.

“No, dry eyes is not a crime, but let’s not forget Chen Guanghai and Tian Jing, hmm?” Su Mucheng flipped through a case file, and placed two photos down on the table — headshots of the deceased men who used to be closely related to Li Fangjing — and the detective continued, “Ms. Li, you were married to Chen Guanghai in 2015, and then he passed away due to a drowning accident in his own bathtub about half a year later. In 2017, you got married to Tian Jing, but he then also happened to pass away from accidentally slipping and falling head-first to the ground nine months after the marriage. And now, we have Liu Gen, your third husband to die within the span of four years. You are either very cursed, or you are an active participant in each and every one of these deaths.”

“What? Is marrying three men who died prematurely also a crime these days?” Li Fangjing chuckled, “goodness me, you law-enforcers just keep getting more and more hilarious by the second.”

“A person convicted of insurance fraud can be imprisoned for up to ten years,” Mo Fan added helpfully.

“According to previous investigations, Chen Guanghai and Tian Jing had purchased life insurances and the beneficiary was always you,” Su Mucheng flipped to another page, which displayed copies of insurance contracts signed by the two victims, “so don’t tell me you don’t have the motive to make their deaths look like accidents in order to collect the life insurance payments.”

“If you cops had found enough evidence, you would’ve locked me up a long time ago instead of wasting my time here,” Li Fangjing lifted up one of her manicured hands to inspect her nails, painted bright red though slightly chipped at the tips, which Mo Fan immediately noticed as soon as his eyes settled on her gesture.

Li Fangjing lifted her gaze just in time to see the young lab technician staring at her hands, and a slow, teasing smile began to appear on her glossy lips.

“But if all cops are as adorable as this one here,” Li Fangjing nodded appreciatively at Mo Fan with a flirtatious smile and a knowing look, and said, “I’d love to come down to the station to chit-chat more often.”

Just then, he received a text from Qiao Yifan.

Found DNA match to epithelials under Liu Gen’s fingernails; it’s Li Fangjing’s.

“I don’t see why I have to stay here being interrogated like a criminal any longer,” Li Fangjing pulled herself up gracefully, her heels clicking against hardwood floor as she turned for the door. “We’re done here.”

“We found skin cells of another contributor beneath Liu Gen’s fingernails,” Mo Fan’s words halted Li Fangjing’s movement, “they belong to you. Did he scratch you as he fought for his life after being poisoned? Did you hit him over the head when he fought back?”

Li Fangjing turned around sharply, a sly grin making her almost serpentine.

“My husband and I always enjoyed rough sex; he was a scratcher when he got… passionate. Would you like me to strip down and show you where he left his marks on me the last time we did it?”

As if she’d caught a whiff of Mo Fan’s discomfort oozing out from his body language and the grimace on his face, Li Fangjing was striding towards Mo Fan with a leering grin.

“You—” Mo Fan took a small step back — an entirely instinctual reaction when he sensed someone wanting to invade his personal space — and he hated himself for it, hated how weak he was presenting himself to be. Despite his best effort, heat pooled around his cheeks as a mixture of repulsion at the woman and frustration at himself simmered and burned like a violent chemical reaction.

“Thank you for offering, Ms. Li,” Su Mucheng smiled, stepping in front of Mo Fan to shield him; her manner remained pleasant but now there was a rigid, cold light to her eyes as well, “but that won’t be necessary.”

“Suit yourself,” Li Fangjing threw another knowing smile towards Mo Fan before she exited the interrogation room.

“Mo Fan…” Su Mucheng began, the ice in her eyes melted and was replaced with genuine concern, yet before she could even get a word out, Mo Fan was already bolting out of the door.

Mo Fan’s cell phone had been buzzing in his back pocket for the past hour.

Trace got back to me with the sticky black substance in victim’s head wound. Main components are pine soot, egg white, fish skin, white sandalwood, and pearl dust. I’m guessing: high quality calligraphy ink.

Found a jade paperweight amongst the things you collected at victim’s residence. Got traces of blood and ink on it. Will run blood DNA against both victim’s and suspect’s reference samples.

Also found a few workable prints on the paperweight. Will run them through AFIS to see if we have a hit.

Call me when you’re done down at the station please?

Mo Fan, Mucheng-jie told me what happened with Li Fangjing. Where are you?

He placed his phone screen facing down on the table.

The black coffee sitting untouched before him had turned grossly cold a long while ago, but he only ordered the beverage just so he could have an excuse to sit in the cafeteria, which had become rather quiet once lunch rush had ended. Currently only a few stray employees of the lab who’d worked past their lunch time were seen eating their late meals and chatting unobtrusively amongst themselves.

They knew not to approach Mo Fan from all the rumors they’d heard, and so he was left alone to his own thoughts, though not for long.

“You’re hard to find,” Qiao Yifan slipped into the seat across from Mo Fan, his tone quiet but kind, “I was worried.”

“Why?” Mo Fan grunted, lowering his gaze to concentrate his attention on the minute scratches on the back of his phone. They looked particularly irritating at this very moment, for some reason.

“Well, I mean, you’re my partner,” Qiao Yifan explained, his laughter taut and nervous, “of course I’d be worried. I heard what happened during Li Fangjing’s interrogation.”

“I fucked up. She got to me,” Mo Fan admitted in a low, frustrated growl, fingers gathering into a tight fist on the table, “I shouldn’t have let her, but I did anyway.”

“Interrogation is another set of skills all together,” Qiao Yifan tried to comfort his partner, “you get better at it the more you do it and get used to dealing with different types of people.”

“I bet you were good at it when you first started,” Mo Fan murmured. That was another trait that Mo Fan admired about the younger CSI, though he would never admit this to anyone; he had the kind of easy-going personality and agreeable manner that almost everyone felt connected to right from the start.

“Me?” Qiao Yifan chuckled, but it wasn’t the kind of warm, lighthearted sound that Mo Fan found comforting, and it made his heart clenched tight; it had a hint of self-deprecation in it that Mo Fan wasn’t used to hearing from the usually mild-mannered man. “Oh, no. I was terrible at interrogating suspects when I first started my job — couldn’t maintain eye contact to save my life, and the number of times I’d stuttered from nervousness? Don’t even get me started. My team supervisor from Beijing could attest to that.”

“Huh,” Mo Fan only made a small noise of acknowledgement. He never knew that part of Qiao Yifan; he’d always just assumed the man was a natural, but he supposed that assumptions without evidence were always too dangerous and led to inaccurate interpretations — just as the case with murder investigations and relationships between people.

“Come on, let’s head back to the lab and see if we’ve got a hit on the print from the paperweight,” Qiao Yifan stood up and waited with a soft, encouraging smile.

“Mo Fan, Yifan, care to explain to me what all this is about?”

On Ye Xiu’s desk was a new case file showing photos of a very familiar face — a face that Mo Fan had just seen in the police station the day before — but now looking very much pale and lifeless.

Autopsy photos of Li Fangjing.

“She was found dead in her own home early this morning with a bullet in her chest and traces of clear liquid around her mouth. Day shift had already processed most of the evidence and had recorded their findings, but this is our case and I want us to handle it in the best way possible.”

Ye Xiu glanced over at the lab technician, who stared back at him blatantly with his usual indifferent expression.

“Mo Fan, there are eyewitnesses who said that they’d seen a man with your physical descriptions talking to Li Fangjing outside her apartment complex last night and that the man seemed especially agitated during the conversation,” Ye Xiu’s tone remained disinterested, merely stating what the reports had told him, but the look in his eyes was critical and sharp. “Did you meet up with Li Fangjing by yourself yesterday after you and Detective Su finished interrogating her at the police station?”

“I did,” Mo Fan didn’t even try to deny it. He knew it was useless; besides, he had no intention to hide it either; he was prepared for the repercussions when he initially decided to do this.

“You are aware that you are never supposed to approach any suspects or eyewitnesses without the presence of a police officer, correct?”

“Ye-qianbei, please, there must be some kind of misunderstanding—” Qiao Yifan’s voice was tinged with panic when he realized what was about to happen.

“Leave it, Qiao Yifan,” Mo Fan murmured, “I don’t need you to defend me.”

To Ye Xiu, Mo Fan said, “yes, I’m aware. I will take responsibility for my own actions.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Ye Xiu sighed in disappointment despite his words, and he continued with a frown on his brows, “Mo Fan, you will be taken off from this case. I’ll assign Wei Chen to take your place, so Yifan, from this point on, you are no longer to report any case-related details to Mo Fan, is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the two men replied quietly.

On the way back to their office, neither men said anything to each other until they each settled into their own work desk, where Mo Fan was staring blankly at his computer screen and Qiao Yifan was fiddling with a pen restlessly.

“If you’ve got something to say, just say it,” Mo Fan heaved a small irritated sigh, spinning his chair around to face the CSI.

“You didn’t do it,” Qiao Yifan started, his gaze steady as he looked at the other man with firmly pressed lips, “I know you didn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Mo Fan said, chuckling coldly as he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, “Ye Xiu took me off the case, which means I’ve failed the review.”

Which meant he’d lost another opportunity to be promoted into the CSI position he’d been striving for, Qiao Yifan realized without the man admitting it out loud.

He hated how defeated Mo Fan looked at that moment, the mask of indifference and composure showing cracks and crevices and threatening to break, and Qiao Yifan wished he could do more.

“Xiao Qiao, did you receive Li Fangjing’s autopsy report from Dr. Guan?” a man with a gruff, grainy voice stemmed from too many years of smoking asked the moment he entered the lab and threw himself onto the closest chair.

“Wei-qianbei, you’re back,” Qiao Yifan greeted the Level III CSI with a polite smile before turning his attention back to his original task of processing the new DNA samples and replied, “yeah, I have. COD was the gunshot to the heart, but so far, no matching weapon has been retrieved from the crime scene; the bullet has been sent to ballistics for further analysis. The clear liquid around her mouth is tetrahydrolozine, and there’s some traces of it found in her system as well, though not as much as in her husband’s body. Dr. Guan also found bits of flesh in between her teeth, which he believed was left behind by the assailant when she was biting whoever was attacking her. I’m processing the DNA now.”

“Good, good,” Wei Chen nodded appreciatively before heaving a heavy sigh. “Now that our only suspect’s dead, it’s back to square one for us.”

“Well… Maybe not entirely,” Qiao Yifan quickly sifted through pages of documents and located the one he was looking for, and he showed it to Wei Chen.

“You got something from the prints you dusted off from the paperweight?” Wei Chen was impressed with the young CSI’s efficiency, and he glanced down at the contents of the file.

“Yeah, but it’s strange,” Qiao Yifan replied with a slight frown, “I ran the prints through AFIS and it came back to this man here, Sun Xiuying. He was imprisoned for several accounts of identity theft, as well as weapon and drug possession back in 2003; he was released in 2009.”

The mugshot in the file showed a young man in his early twenties who’d experienced a harsh life on the street; his face was ruggedly handsome but it was marred by old scars and new bruises, and his eyes had the kind of haunted light to them that made people’s spines shiver and their instincts to scream for them to keep away.

“There was no trace of Sun Xiuying when the police searched through his last known address though,” Qiao Yifan said, “so I guess that’s a dead end.”

“Actually, you know what else has been bothering me?”

“Hmm?” Qiao Yifan wandered over to where Wei Chen was poring over a stack of documents, which turned out to be bank statements of Li Fangjing and her two late husbands.

“Check this out, this line here,” Wei Chen pointed to the one particular line on Li Fangjing’s bank statement that he’d highlighted in neon green. “This deposit was made one day after Li Fangjing had received payments from the insurance company. That amount was almost three-quarters of the total payment she got. The account number traced back to a guy named Zhao Yanglei. Li Fangjing claimed that he was a close childhood friend of hers who was experiencing financial difficulties at the time, so she sent him money to lend him a hand. But honestly?”

Wei Chen slammed the file close dramatically, the sudden loud sound startling Qiao Yifan, “I call bullshit. I mean, just look at these photos taken from security footage and the eyewitness accounts, and then try to convince me there isn’t anything even slightly romantic going on between those two.”

From the grainy photos captured by elevator security cameras, the man and the woman featured in the footage were clearly more intimate than mere childhood friends: the woman, a younger and more scantily-dressed Li Fangjing, was practically draping herself all over the man, her face buried within the crook of the man’s neck as they laughed about something only the two of them knew.

Li Fangjing and this Zhao Yanglei were at least sexually — if not romantically — involved while Li Fangjing was still married to Chen Guanghai and Tian Jing.

Upon closer inspection, Qiao Yifan thought the man’s face looked vaguely similar in that jaggedly charming way and the fox-like artfulness in his eyes was reminiscent of the man in the mugshot both CSIs had just seen — that of Sun Xiuying.

But before Qiao Yifan had a chance to voice out his observation, a series of beeping from the computer announced that the program had found a match to the DNA sequence that Qiao Yifan had input into the system half an hour ago. Qiao Yifan jogged over to his work station to check the results.

“Any luck with the skin DNA found in between Li Fangjing’s teeth?” Wei Chen asked.

Qiao Yifan’s eyebrows raised higher and higher in incredulity as he read the outcomes from his computer screen.

“Wei-qianbei, you’re going to love this,” he waved the older CSI over.

“Well, well, if it isn’t our long-lost friend Sun Xiuying,” Wei Chen whistled, clearly amused.

“Who’s also under the identity of Zhao Yanglei,” Qiao Yifan added.

“Now then,” Wei Chen got up from his chair and cracked his knuckles, “shall we go arrest ourselves a murderer?”

“Hey, so what’s up between you and that Mo Fan kid anyway?”

“Wei-qianbei! What even… How…” Qiao Yifan babbled nonsensically, which only made the older CSI chortled in glee.

“So, there is something going on between you two young things!”

“I’m here, too, you know,” Mo Fan decided to make himself known in this conversation from the backseat of the Jeep that Wei Chen was currently driving.

“Wei-qianbei, please, can we just… concentrate on the task at hand?” Qiao Yifan begged, and then glancing briefly at Mo Fan through the rear-view mirror, he said in a slightly exasperated tone, “and Mo Fan, what are you even doing here? If Ye-qianbei finds out, you’ll be in so much trouble.”

“Never knew you had it in you, young Mo Fan,” Wei Chen, who was senior to both of his colleagues and so presumably to be the most responsible out of the three, was having the time of his life as he watched everything unfold. “Sticking it to Lao Ye, huh? Good for you, kid, good for you.”

“I can’t let you go into this by yourself, Qiao Yifan, I—” Mo Fan paused, his lips pursed as if he was forcing words back down into his throat.

“Wait, wait, there he is, I see him,” Wei Chen lowered his voice though there was no need to do so, but the other two men instantly perked up, “that’s him walking out from building 7025, right? The man in the hideous blue suit?”

“How long is it going to take backup to arrive?” Qiao Yifan asked, his gaze following the movement of their prime suspect.

“About ten minutes,” Wei Chen replied, and then he looked over at Qiao Yifan, who was already opening the car door and stepping out into the street, “Xiao Qiao, what the fuck are you doing?”

“We can’t let him get away, not like this,” Qiao Yifan muttered. “I’ll just stall him until backup gets here.”

“Qiao Yifan, are you insane?” Mo Fan tried to reach across the seats, but his fingers only caught empty air as the young CSI slammed the door close behind him without a backward glance.

Wei Chen and Mo Fan could only stare, flabbergasted, as Qiao Yifan crossed the street and calmly approached their target. The man seemed startled by Qiao Yifan’s appearance but so far, nothing out of the usual was happening.

“Mr. Zhao Yanglei?” Qiao Yifan asked.

“Yeah,” the man looked him up and down unabashedly, his dark eyes narrowing in suspicion when he asked, “who the hell are you?”

“Crime Scene Investigator Qiao Yifan,” he introduced himself formally, his signature friendly smile firmly in place. “I’d like to ask you a few questions pertaining to Li Fangjing’s murder. You are, after all, acquainted with the victim, correct?”

“That’s right,” Zhao Yanglei nodded slowly, his previous cautious expression turning into that of a mourning lover. “Anything I can do to help capture whoever killed Fangjing.”

“Great,” Qiao Yifan sounded relieved, “on behalf of my team, I’d like to thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Zhao.”

“Of course. Mr. Qiao, if you don’t mind, I’d rather us do this in the comfort of my own home. Is that all right?”

Qiao Yifan only hesitated for half a second before he assented. The gun strapped to his hip felt heavier than before.

“Wait, where’s he going with the bastard? What is he doing?” Wei Chen was pressing his face against the car window as he watched his younger colleague follow their murder suspect into the apartment building that Zhao Yanglei was just getting out from minutes ago. And then he heard the back door opened and closed, and Mo Fan, dressed in his usual black jeans and hoodie, was seen following the two into the building after he clumsily showed his badge to the doorman.

“Oh, for fuck’s sakes, don’t they know my elderly heart can’t take any of this hot-blooded excitement anymore? Damn.” Wei Chen radioed for backup again.

When Mo Fan got to the front door of Zhao Yanglei’s unit, the door left slightly ajar, he stopped dead. He realized belatedly that he was probably making a big mistake — a mistake that might even cost him his life — but he was already here, and even though he wasn’t armed with a gun or anything that could even act as some sort of weapon, Mo Fan was fuelled by the need to protect the man with the kindest, most dedicated heart and the sweetest, most genuine smile.

Mo Fan pushed the door further apart and stepped in. For a long second, he couldn’t hear anything, but then Qiao Yifan’s voice — muffled by the wall of being in another room — floated down the hall towards him, pulling Mo Fan closer to where Qiao Yifan must be.

“How could you do that to her?” Qiao Yifan sounded raspy, almost like he was struggling to breathe, and Mo Fan hurried his pace. “She was clearly in love with you, so much so that she was willing to commit crimes to please you, but in the end, all you gave her was a bullet to her heart.”

A dull thud of metal against flesh. An uttered groan of pain in response.

“Ha, you think she loved me? Is that it?” Zhao Yanglei’s voice was growing louder and more irritated the closer Mo Fan was getting. “Little boy, you don’t know anything, do you? I don’t need a woman who blabbed her mouth to any attractive man that bitch sets her eyes on; she’s a liability. Look where she got me. But this ends here.”

Another solid blow. Another groan of stifled agony, and then the sound of a body hitting the ground.

And this was what Mo Fan saw when he finally found them: Qiao Yifan lying limply on the floor, face turned sideways and his eyes tightly shut, with bruises blooming on his cheeks and blood trickling from his temple, and Zhao Yanglei towering over him as he aimed his gun at Qiao Yifan, a crazed glint in his eyes while he unlocked the trigger safety.

Somehow, Mo Fan was able to force his legs to move despite the buzzing in his ears and the conflicting thoughts of knocking down Zhao Yanglei first to dislodge the gun from his hands and rushing over to Qiao Yifan to make sure he was all right clashing messily in his mind.

He only remembered a loud boom that exploded by his ears, like thunder or fireworks bursting directly above his head — too much and too close — and then everything turned into a blur.

His head felt heavy like he’d been asleep for a decade, and his bones were aching from staying upright in the same position for too long. As he gradually become more aware of his surroundings, he could sense the humming of the medical equipment, the quiet murmuring of the nurses and patients, and the sharp tang of antiseptic in the air. He was in a hospital.

And then he heard an all too familiar voice, but he wasn’t talking to him.

“Yifan, if backup hadn’t arrived on time, do you know what could have happened?”

“I’m sorry, Ye-qian bei,” Qiao Yifan murmured.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you. I never saw you as the type to rush into a situation so recklessly like this,” Ye Xiu continued, but then he glanced over at the still asleep Mo Fan before shifting his gaze back to his subordinate, his expression one of sudden comprehension.

“I’m sorry,” Qiao Yifan said again.

Ye Xiu sighed.

“You do realize that you’ll be expected to write an introspection report once you’re released from the hospital.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I should demote you,” Ye Xiu muttered, mostly to himself, “the higher-ups would want me to do that, but fuck them. You played a significant role in solving the two cases and apprehending the killer. And Mo Fan, when are you going to open your eyes? It’s incredibly rude to eavesdrop on other people’s conversation.”

“Tsk,” Mo Fan blinked his eyes open, the white florescent lights overhead momentarily blinding him until he made out the shape of Ye Xiu standing by the bed and Qiao Yifan leaning against two pillows on said bed. The bruises hadn’t had time to fade away yet, but he had bandages wrapped around his head, which made his short hair curled in adorable messy swirls that Mo Fan had a sudden urge to touch.

He nipped the buds of those strange thoughts as soon as they rose up in his mind.

“And I suppose congratulations are in order, Mo Fan. Once you pass your gun licensing exam, you’ll be officially promoted to being a Level I CSI.”

Mo Fan blinked again.

“Wait… what?”

“You heard me,” Ye Xiu said, grinning.

“But… you kicked me out of the investigation,” Mo Fan was still muddled.

“Young people these days sure are forgetful,” Ye Xiu shook his head in mock disappointment. “I said you would not be considered only if Yifan has anything negative to say about you. Well, Yifan hasn’t said anything to me, and you two caught the murderer. That’s all that matters in the end, isn’t it? So, there you have it.”

Ye Xiu was about to head out through the door when he turned back to Mo Fan and said, “you also owe me an introspection report, so get on that as soon as you get back to the lab. I’ll be leaving for today.”

Mo Fan sank further back into the chair, and Qiao Yifan chuckled at the dumbfounded expression on the usually aloof man’s face.

“Congratulations, Mo Fan,” Qiao Yifan said, a warm smile lighting up his face and even through the cuts and bruises, Mo Fan thought the other man looked beautiful.

There went another strange thought.

“Thanks,” Mo Fan murmured, cheeks heating up slightly. “I owe it to you, I guess.”

“I should be the one to thank you,” Qiao Yifan said, scratching the back of his neck self-consciously, “I don’t know what I was thinking, going along with the suspect like that. If you hadn’t been there…”

“Yeah, you definitely weren’t thinking then,” Mo Fan said, his lip curling up into a smirk. “Just don’t do it again. You might not be that lucky next time.”

“I’d trust you to always have my back though,” Qiao Yifan admitted, and then perhaps realizing he was revealing too much, he turned his head away in silence.

“Thanks, Qiao Yifan, for trusting me,” Mo Fan said, his voice losing that cold apathy that usually drenched like ice water in his words, and Qiao Yifan turned towards him to see the other man smiling — truly smiling for the first time since they met, a timid, little curve like the gentle arc of the crescent moon.

“I will never let you down.”

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