Absolutely completely normal June story

You’d been Hu Yetao’s bodyguard for the better part of two months, and in that time he’d made no fewer than twenty-five passes at you.

Twenty-five. You’d started counting after the fifth one, partly out of professional habit and partly because it gave you something to do with the tension that built every time he smiled at you like you were the only person in the room.

Most of them circled the same territory — an invitation for the night, phrased in some new way each time, like he thought the right combination of words would finally unlock you. They never did. Not because you weren’t tempted, which you absolutely were, but because you were serious about this. The job mattered. He mattered, which was exactly why you couldn’t afford to blur those lines.

The first pass had been deceptively innocent.

You’d been rolling your neck between rotations, working out a knot that had been sitting in the same spot for three days, when Yetao appeared at your elbow as he’d materialized out of thin air.

“I give excellent massages,” he said, and the way he said it managed to be both completely sincere and entirely shameless.

You saw through it in about half a second. “I’ll pass.”

“You haven’t even considered it.”

“I considered it and I’ll pass.”

He tried once more — something about tension being bad for reaction time, which was almost an argument — and you declined again, politely, firmly, the way you’d been trained to hold a line. He went away looking like a man who’d dropped his ice cream, and you went back to rolling your neck alone.

Professionalism mattered. That was the whole point.

The twenty-second pass happened the night of the Sakura Festival.

The concert had run long. You’d been on your feet for four hours, the crowd noise was still ringing faintly in your ears, and you were already mentally halfway to the subway when Yetao caught you near the venue’s side exit, still in his stage clothes, makeup catching the light.

“Where are you going?”

You glanced back. “Shift’s over. Heading home.” You paused. “Raizo mentioned an ice cream place nearby. Might stop there.”

Yetao tilted his head the way he did when he was about to say something he’d already decided you couldn’t refuse. “Can I come?”

You looked at him for a moment. Public place. Off the clock. No real reason to say no.

“Sure.”

The smile he gave you was immediate and entirely too satisfied, but you were already walking.

The place Raizo had recommended was small and warmly lit, tucked between a souvenir shop and a flower stall that was still doing business despite the hour. The blossoms were out everywhere — on the trees lining the path, in the hair of people passing by, drifting loose across the pavement in slow pink spirals. The whole city felt like it was in on something.

The line stretched out the door. Yetao fell into step beside you without being asked, close enough that his shoulder kept finding yours in the crowd.

“The blossoms are so pretty,” he said, tilting his face upward.

You looked up too. He wasn’t wrong. “Easy to see why people travel just for this.”

He lowered his gaze to you then — stage makeup still perfect, liner making his eyes deeper than they had any right to be this late at night — and said, “It’s also very romantic.”

You kept your eyes forward. “I’ll cover yours, but this isn’t a date.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It isn’t.”

“It really is though.”

You didn’t answer. He leaned into your arm like the matter was settled, and you let him, because correcting him again felt like more effort than the situation warranted.

The woman at the counter had the warm, unhurried energy of someone who’d seen every kind of couple come through her line.

She looked between the two of you and smiled. “Oh, aren’t you a lovely couple.”

You kept your face neutral. Yetao, without missing a single beat, said, “Thank you, we are,” like he’d been waiting all evening for someone to confirm it.

You paid. He watched you do it with an expression that could only be described as delighted.

“Such a gentleman,” he said.

“Don’t.”

He was already smiling too wide to be discouraged.

You found a bench near the river, where the lanterns reflected off the water. The two of you ate in the kind of quiet that didn’t need filling — the easy kind, which was almost more dangerous than the other sort.

It was Yetao who finally spoke.

“You didn’t correct her.”

“Hm?”

“The lady. She said we were a couple. You didn’t correct her.”

You let a beat pass. “She seemed happy about it. Who am I to argue?”

Yetao turned to look at you, and there it was again — that particular expression he wore when he was being soft on purpose. His hand drifted across the bench, not grabbing, just… arriving near yours.

“So you like me.”

It wasn’t quite a question.

You thought about it longer than was strictly necessary. Long enough that he’d know you were taking it seriously.

“Ask me again when my assignment’s up.”

He went quiet for a moment. Then, very quietly, like he was tucking it away somewhere: “Okay.”

Not whatever. Just okay.

You looked out at the water. Beside you, Yetao finished his ice cream and didn’t move away.

Neither did you.

The seventeenth pass at you came in the form of a hospital visit and a broken arm.

The anti came out of the crowd fast.

You’d clocked him three seconds before he moved — something off in the way he was holding himself, too still in a space that was all motion — and by the time he raised the bat you were already between him and Yetao.

The crack of it against your forearm was loud enough that the people nearest to you went quiet.

You didn’t. You stepped into him, used the momentum, put him on the ground with two clean strikes, and kept him there until venue security arrived to take over. The whole thing lasted maybe fifteen seconds. Yetao hadn’t been touched.

The pain arrived properly about thirty seconds after that, a deep, grinding thing that told you before the doctor did what had happened to the bone.

Yetao didn’t leave.

You’d told him to go back to the hotel with the rest of the team. He’d looked at you like you’d suggested something genuinely absurd and followed you into the medical bay without another word. He sat in the plastic chair beside the table while the doctor worked, his stage clothes still on, his hands folded in his lap.

He was unusually quiet for most of it.

Then the casting started, and something in him seemed to loosen.

“My hero,” he said.

You glanced at him. “Part of the job.”

He nodded slowly, as if considering that. “My knight in shining armor, then.”

You didn’t argue with that one. The doctor glanced between you both and said nothing, which you respected.

Yetao stayed until they finished. He stayed after that too, walking close enough on the way out that his shoulder kept brushing yours — the good one, carefully, like he’d checked which side to walk on before he’d done it.

You didn’t mention it. Neither did he.

The tour was nearly over when the 25 pass came.

Three cities left. Six days. You’d started feeling it the way you always did toward the end of a long assignment — a specific kind of tiredness that had less to do with the hours and more to do with knowing the clock was running.

Yetao came off stage still lit up from the inside the way he always was after a good show, that particular energy that took about an hour to come down from. He found you in the wing before the sound had even finished echoing and turned to face you fully, slightly breathless, cheeks high with color.

“How did I do?”

He was still in his stage outfit — something loose and layered, the kind of thing that moved with him, that caught the light when he turned. He did turn, slowly, letting you see. There was nothing accidental about it.

You looked. You let yourself look, which was something you’d been more careful about lately.

“As always, Hu Yetao,” you said, “you were exceptional.”

He grinned at that — bright, immediate, genuine rather than performed. “I am exceptional every time.”

“You are,” you said. “Quite enchanting, actually.”

That landed differently than he expected. You watched him recalibrate, the grin softening into something that fit him better in private.

“I didn’t know you had a setting other than stoic guardian,” he said.

“I have several.” You leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. “I just don’t follow every impulse the moment it arrives. That’s more your area.”

Yetao’s eyes went wide. Not offended — interested, the way he got when you gave him something real to work with. “Is it?”

“You’re the one who leads with feeling,” you said. “Every time, no hesitation. It’s one of the things that makes you good at what you do.” A pause. “I’m built differently. But that doesn’t mean the feeling isn’t there.”

He was very still now. The post-show energy had settled into something quieter.

“So there is feeling.”

“Ask me again when my assignment is up.”

He made a sound low in his throat — not quite a groan, not quite a laugh — and tipped his head back against the corridor wall beside you. “You keep saying that.”

“Because I keep meaning it.”

Yetao was quiet for a moment. Then, softer than his usual register: “Six days.”

“Six days,” you confirmed.

He didn’t push further. He just stood there beside you while the crew moved around you both, the noise of the venue filtering through the walls, and for once he seemed content to simply wait.

You stayed there longer than you needed to.

Neither of you moved first.

The final day of your assignment arrived without ceremony.

No threats in the overnight report. No unusual activity flagged at the venue. The weather was mild, the schedule clean — one interview in the late morning, then a straightforward transfer to the company building, and that would be that. Two months, twenty-five passes, one broken arm, and it ended with a Tuesday that felt like any other Tuesday.

Your cast had come off two days prior. You’d flexed your hand in the elevator on the way up and thought about how Yetao had watched them remove it with the same focused attention he gave everything he actually cared about.

You didn’t dwell on that. You had a job to finish.

The interview was held in a bright, simply furnished studio — the kind of neutral space designed to center the subject. Yetao sat across from the host looking exactly as he always did in these settings: present, warm, slightly magnetic in a way that read effortlessly natural even though you’d watched him prepare for it.

The questions were mostly about the tour. The host wanted highlights, memorable moments, and what had surprised him.

Yetao talked about the locations first — the architecture in one city, the light in another. He talked about the fans the way he always did, with genuine feeling, specific details, the kind of gratitude that didn’t sound rehearsed because it wasn’t.

Then the host asked what he’d carry with him.

Yetao smiled at the ceiling for a moment, like he was sorting through something private.

“There was an ice cream place,” he said. “During the Sakura Festival. Very busy, very small. We waited in a long line and it was — the blossoms were coming down while we waited and it was one of those moments that just —” he paused, searching. “You can’t plan that. You can’t manufacture it. It just happens if you’re present enough to receive it.”

You kept your face neutral from your position near the door. You were fairly certain you failed at that.

“And the walks,” he continued. “After concerts. In some cities we’d walk for an hour, just talking. I think —” another pause, more careful this time, “— I think long tours can feel isolating if you let them. But this one didn’t. This one felt like it was always offering something.”

He didn’t say your name. He didn’t look at you directly. But every time the host moved on to the next question, Yetao’s eyes found you for just a second — quick, light, a private thing folded into a public conversation.

This tour and the people were so magical, he said. Twice. The second time, the glance lasted a beat longer.

You smirked. You couldn’t help it.

He pressed his lips together to keep from smiling too widely and looked back at the host.

The interviewer didn’t notice. You both knew she hadn’t.

The transfer to the company building was clean. Traffic was light. Yetao sat beside you in the back seat and was, for once, not talking — just watching the city go by with his chin resting in his hand, the afternoon light going gold across his face.

You didn’t fill the silence.

You were composing something in your head that you’d actually been composing for about three weeks, adjusting it the way you adjusted everything — carefully, without rushing.

You walked him to the building entrance. His team was already inside. This was, technically, the handoff point — the moment your responsibility formally ended, the threshold between assignment and whatever came after.

Yetao turned to face you.

“So,” he said. “End of assignment.”

“End of assignment,” you confirmed.

“And?”

You reached into your jacket pocket and took out the folded piece of paper. You’d written it down because you’d wanted to get it right, and you’d wanted to get it right because he deserved that. You held it out.

He took it with both hands, carefully, like it might mean something. He unfolded it and read.

Hu Yetao. You are a sweet and remarkable person, and I would very much like to take you out — properly, on purpose, with no professional caveats. I hope you’ll accept.

He was quiet for a moment.

“Short,” he said finally. “Sweet. To the point.”

“I’m not a man of excess.”

He looked up. “Is that what you really think of me? Sweet and remarkable?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“No,” he agreed softly, “you really don’t.” He folded the paper back along its original creases, precisely, the way you’d done it, and held it against his chest. “Absolutely yes. Obviously yes. I’ve been saying yes for two months.”

“I know. I needed to say it in my own time.”

“And was it worth waiting?”

You stepped forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead — unhurried, deliberate, the same way you did everything.

Yetao went very still.

A full three seconds passed.

“—How bold of you,” he managed.

“You’ve been calling me a knight for two months,” you said. “Knights are bold.”

He laughed — a real one, surprised out of him, the kind that reached his eyes. “I thought you were a stoic warrior.”

“I’m a lover and a fighter,” you said. “Flexible range.”

He was still holding the note against his chest. He looked at you for a long moment — all of it in his face, none of it hidden — and then he smiled, slower and warmer than the ones he gave on stage.

“My knight,” he said.

“Your knight,” you agreed.

He reached out and took your newly healed hand, testing it lightly like he was checking if it still worked. You let him. His fingers settled between yours and stayed there, easy and certain, like they’d been planning to do exactly that for a while.

Neither of you moved toward the door just yet.

There was no particular reason to rush.