The following days felt heavier than usual, as if time had decided to torment Lin Zhiyu. Every minute inside the high school stretched cruelly, becoming endless. Walking through the hallways was like walking through a minefield: every corner could be an ambush, every group of stifled laughter, a mockery against him. No matter how hard he tried to pretend everything was normal, the pressure was constant, invisible, suffocating.
Zhou Mingkai's punches still burned on his body. His abdomen reminded him with sharp pains of the moment he had received that hard punch, and his shoulder hurt even when carrying his backpack. He had learned to hide it under his clothes, but the memory of the contact, of the brutality and power Mingkai had felt when he did it, could not be covered with fabric. It remained under his skin, vibrating in his bones.
During math class, as he tried to focus on the probability exercises, Professor Zhang raised his voice, interrupting his thoughts:
"Zhiyu, have you submitted your registration for the college entrance exam yet? Remember, this is your last year. We don't want you to be late for registration. You're already eighteen."
The sound of the number, eighteen, resonated with a strange weight. Several classmates turned their heads, as if that clarification exposed him even more than he already was. Zhiyu felt a sudden heat rising to his face, unable to hide his discomfort.
"Yes, Professor Zhang," he replied in a barely audible voice.
The man nodded and moved on to the next row, without giving it much thought. But for Zhiyu, those words lingered, sticking like pins in his mind. Eighteen. Legally an adult, but within those walls he was still a child trapped on a chessboard, moved at will by the hands of others. The irony hit him: in theory, he had freedom; in practice, he was in an invisible cage.
At noon, he sat down in the cafeteria next to Xu Yining, at the table they had both made their refuge. She stirred her rice with her chopsticks in annoyance, without taking a bite. Zhiyu watched her silently, recognizing in her gestures that particular moodiness that only appeared when she was about to explode.
Suddenly, Yining stared at him.
"You're not telling me everything," she blurted out, with that piercing sincerity that characterized her.
Zhiyu blinked, faking ignorance.
"What are you talking about?"
"Zhou Mingkai." Her eyes sparkled with that dangerous spark that appeared when she set out to face something without fear. "I know he did something to you. Don't try to deny it."
Zhiyu's heart skipped a beat. He looked away at the tray, staring at a grain of rice as if it were the most important thing in the world. The silence became a confession.
"Look at me," she demanded, placing a hand firmly and protectively on his. "Did he hit you?"
The lump in his throat strangled him. He could barely nod, unable to utter a word.
Yining muttered a curse, her fury as obvious as an unsheathed knife.
"That damn bastard..."
"Don't say anything." Zhiyu looked up suddenly, his eyes pleading, desperate. "Don't do anything. If you confront him, you'll only make it worse for me."
She pressed her lips together, holding back her rage.
"And what am I supposed to do, Zhiyu? Stand by and watch him destroy you?"
Zhiyu closed his eyes. His voice came out weak, trembling.
"Just... stay with me. That's enough."
There was a heavy silence. Yining pulled her hand away, but not coldly: it was more a way of restraining herself, of not losing control.
"I swear, if I could, I would take him out of your life with my own hands," she said at last, her teeth clenched.
The words stabbed Zhiyu in the chest. Part of him wanted to believe that promise, wanted to give himself over to the idea that someone could save him. But another part, the more lucid part, knew that Mingkai was not someone who could be easily removed. He was like a shadow attached to his back: you could turn on all the lights, but he always found a place to hide.
The nightmare took shape again during physical education class.
The teacher organized a quick basketball game in the gym. Zhiyu was assigned to the team opposite Zhou Mingkai's. At first, he tried to stay away, but fate seemed determined to mock him: on the first play, he ended up right in front of him, blocking his path.
Mingkai looked at him and smiled. It wasn't a friendly smile; it was a threat disguised as a casual gesture. At that moment, Zhiyu understood that the game wasn't about basketballs or points: it was about control.
The bump was inevitable. Mingkai pushed him with his shoulder, with calculated force. Zhiyu lost his balance and fell heavily to the floor, his knee scraping against the polished wood.
"Foul!" shouted a teammate, but the teacher pretended not to see anything.
Mingkai leaned toward him, extending a hand as if to help him up. His palm rested on Zhiyu's lower back, pressing with shameless familiarity. So close. Too close.
"Get up, Zhiyu," he whispered, barely audible to him. "Don't cry here."
The murmur slid across his skin like sweet poison. The warmth of that hand made him tremble more than the blood running down his knee. Ashamed, he accepted the help mechanically, even though every fiber of his being screamed for him to pull away.
When he got up, his uniform stained with dust and his knee burning, all he could do was avoid looking at him. But he knew he was there, he knew he was watching him. He felt Mingkai's gaze fixed on him from the court, like an invisible thread that held him and dragged him without permission.
That afternoon, in the empty locker room, Zhiyu sat down on a bench. He took a damp towel out of his backpack and clumsily cleaned the wound. The blood mixed with sweat, leaving an unbearable stinging sensation. But what really made him tremble was not the physical pain.
It was the certainty, increasingly clear and unbearable, that something inside him reacted to Mingkai. That every time he touched him—even if it was to hurt him, even if it was to subdue him—his heart didn't know whether to run away or get closer.
And that, he thought, was the real hell: not being able to tell whether what chained him was fear or the attraction he didn't dare name. An invisible cage, made not of bars, but of contradictions that tore him apart inside.