Chapter Text
---
The day began like the universe had personally marked Wu Suo Wei for punishment, or perhaps like the cosmic forces that governed such things had gathered in committee, reviewed his recent life choices, and unanimously voted that today would be the day everything fell spectacularly apart.
His alarm didn't go off. The shower spat ice water halfway through. And his car—a once-white hatchback held together by duct tape, misplaced optimism, and sheer spite—made a sound somewhere between a death rattle and a strangled cat.
By the time he careened into Chi Corporation's underground parking, it was 9:18 AM. The meeting that could save his failing company had started at nine sharp.
He grabbed his scuffed portfolio tube and half-rolled sketches, muttering prayers to any deity willing to listen.
---
Wu Suo Wei used to believe that love was an investment. Not in the cynical, transactional way that some people approached relationships, but in the earnest, hopeful way of someone who genuinely believed that if you poured enough of yourself into another person, they would grow alongside you. Water the relationship with attention, fertilize it with generosity, and watch it bloom into something beautiful and permanent.
Unfortunately, Yue Yue had treated their relationship less like a garden to be cultivated and more like a liquidation sale where everything must go.
He'd poured everything into her—new furniture, designer handbags, weekend trips to places she'd post about but never remember, even a glittering light sculpture she'd insisted would "make the apartment feel more romantic." By the time she left him for someone with a trust fund and better prospects, his bank account looked like a crime scene.
Now his once-promising company, Suo Wei Studios, was circling the drain. Unpaid rent. Half-finished installations gathering dust in his workshop. Suppliers who'd stopped answering his calls. His assistant had quit last month. And Wu Suo Wei, who could design a three-story kinetic chandelier from recycled glass, couldn't design a way out of debt.
So when Chi Corporation, one of the biggest property developers in the city, opened a tender for their new headquarters' lobby installation, he saw it for what it was: salvation.
Win this contract, save the company. Maybe even salvage some dignity.
Lose it, and he'd be back to square one; broke, alone, and the cautionary tale of what happens when you confuse love with charity.
---
"Wu Suo Wei?" The receptionist's voice was aggressively cheerful in that particular way that people in corporate settings cultivated when they wanted to sound welcoming but were actually thinking about their lunch break. She was young, possibly an intern, with perfect makeup and a headset that made her look like she was commanding a space station rather than managing a desk. "Conference Room Three. They're waiting."
The emphasis on "waiting" hit him like a physical blow. Of course they were waiting. He was eighteen minutes late to the most important meeting of his professional life.
He managed a strained smile and speed-walked down the corridor. The glass door hissed open, and every head in the room turned toward him with the kind of synchronized judgment that suggested they'd been mid-conversation about his lateness.
At the head of the table sat a man that was hard to miss.
Chi Cheng, Operations Manager, according to the briefing documents Suo Wei had memorized last night in between panic attacks. But the documents hadn't prepared him for the actual physical presence of the man.
Broad shoulders filled out a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms that suggested he did something more physical than push papers. Dark hair styled with what appeared to be a complete disregard for conventional grooming, as if he'd run his fingers through it repeatedly throughout the morning and decided that was good enough. Sharp jaw that could probably cut glass. Sharper eyes that were currently assessing Suo Wei with the kind of focused intensity usually reserved for specimens under microscopes.
He was, objectively speaking, the kind of man who looked like trouble personified. The kind who could either ruin your life or make it infinitely more interesting, and you wouldn't know which until it was far too late to extract yourself from the situation.
"Traffic," Suo Wei said, dumping his portfolio on the table with significantly less grace than he'd intended. Several papers slid out, and he had to catch them before they scattered across the glossy surface. "Sorry. Really sorry. It was—the bridge was—there was an accident—"
Chi Cheng's gaze lifted slowly, like a predator deciding whether prey was worth the effort of pursuit. His eyes were dark, almost black in the conference room lighting, and completely unreadable. When he spoke, his voice was flat, carrying the kind of dead calm that was somehow more threatening than anger.
"There's always traffic," he said, each word measured and precise. "Professionals account for it."
A few nervous chuckles rippled around the table.
Suo Wei's jaw clenched. He yanked out his laptop and jammed the HDMI cable into the projector. Nothing. The screen stayed stubbornly black. He tried another port. Still nothing.
"It worked five minutes ago," the IT guy whispered helpfully from the corner, his tone apologetic. He was young, wearing the universal uniform of tech support—a polo shirt with the company logo and an expression of professional sympathy.
"Five minutes ago," Chi Cheng said, leaning back in his chair with the air of a man watching a car crash in slow motion and finding it mildly entertaining, "we hadn't hired someone who apparently can't operate basic technology."
Perfect. Fantastic. This was going great.
Five excruciating minutes later—during which Suo Wei questioned every life decision that had led him to this precise moment, including his choice to become a designer rather than, say, a shepherd in a remote mountain village where presentations and projectors didn't exist—the screen finally flickered to life.
‘Suo Wei Studios | Lobby Art Installation Concept’
He launched into his pitch, voice tight but steady, walking them through his vision of sculptural lighting that would transform the lobby into an immersive experience—
"Stop."
Suo Wei's finger froze over the space bar. "I'm sorry?"
"The color scheme." Chi Cheng tapped one finger against the table's surface; a slow, rhythmic sound that somehow conveyed both impatience and judgment. "It's outdated. We replaced Azure 22B with Deep Slate in February. Didn't anyone tell you?"
Suo Wei felt his stomach drop somewhere into the vicinity of his shoes. He glanced at his laptop screen, then back at the projection, then at the faces around the table. Several people were nodding in that particular way that suggested they'd noticed the discrepancy but had been too polite—or too intimidated—to mention it.
"That's the file your brand team sent me," Suo Wei said, heat creeping up his neck.
"Then you should have confirmed it was current." Cheng's tone was maddeningly reasonable. "Assumptions aren't design, Mr. Wu. Precision is."
That was it.
Sleep deprivation, mounting debt, and the lingering humiliation of being dumped by someone he'd bankrupted himself for, it all crystallized into a single, burning point of rage.
He'd spent the last ten minutes being interrupted, corrected, and publicly humiliated by a man who looked like he'd stepped out of a cologne advertisement and had the interpersonal skills of a sledgehammer wielded with malicious precision.
"With all due respect," Suo Wei heard himself say, voice dangerously calm, "I didn't realize I'd be presenting to an asshole."
The room went dead silent. Not the comfortable silence of people thinking, but the shocked, breathless silence that follows a car accident or a particularly spectacular public meltdown. Somewhere to his left, someone's pen clattered to the table with a sound that seemed deafening in the sudden quiet.
Chi Cheng's eyebrow rose incrementally, the only indication that he'd heard anything remotely interesting in what might have been years. Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, maybe, or perhaps the faintest hint of amusement —before his expression smoothed back into neutrality.
"Mr. Wu," he said, voice carefully even, "despite your unfortunate timing, your questionable preparation, and your ‘creative’ approach to professional conduct—"
Suo Wei's grip on his laptop turned white-knuckled.
"—the core concept is solid," Chi Cheng continued, and Suo Wei's brain stuttered trying to process the word 'solid' in the context of what was clearly supposed to be his termination speech. "The vision is interesting. The execution has potential. Fix the palette to match current brand standards. I expect a revision by end of week."
He stood, gathering his tablet with unhurried precision, sliding it into a leather portfolio that probably cost more than Suo Wei's entire wardrobe.
"Meeting adjourned," he said, his tone suggesting that everything that had just happened was merely a minor deviation from the schedule rather than a spectacular breach of professional conduct. "Let's not waste more time."
Then he walked out like a storm that had decided to move on to more interesting targets.
Suo Wei stared after him, heart hammering. He'd just called his potential client an asshole. To his face. In front of witnesses.
Was he fired? Hired? Both?
The IT guy leaned over. "For what it's worth, nobody's ever said that to his face before. You might've just earned his respect."
"Or a restraining order," Suo Wei muttered.
---
Ten minutes later, Wu Suo Wei was folded into a corner booth at the ground-floor café, clutching the largest coffee they sold like it was a life preserver.
He was halfway through a mental replay of his professional suicide, specifically the part where he'd called a potential client an asshole, which somehow got worse every time he reviewed it in his mind—when a smooth deep voice interrupted his spiral of self-recrimination.
"Rough morning?"
He looked up—and nearly spit out his coffee.
"Chi Cheng?" The name came out strangled, halfway between a question and an accusation. His brain immediately started cycling through panic scenarios: Chi Cheng had followed him to deliver the termination in person, to demand an apology, to escort him from the building, to—
The man smiled faintly. "Close. Chi Yan. Vice President. And judging by that reaction, you've already met my twin."
Suo Wei blinked. Same face. Same height, same build, same sharp features. But everything else was different in ways that somehow made them opposites despite their identical appearance. Where Chi Cheng was all rumpled intensity and barely contained chaos—sleeves rolled up, hair that looked finger-combed, an energy that crackled around him like static electricity—this man was polished precision personified. Hair neatly styled with what was clearly professional product application. Wire-rimmed glasses that somehow made him look both intellectual and approachable. Suit that probably cost more than Suo Wei's rent. Calm eyes that assessed rather than challenged.
"Twin," Suo Wei repeated weakly. "You're identical?"
"Biologically, yes. Temperamentally?" Yan's smile turned wry. "My brother thrives on chaos. I prefer order. We balance each other out. Sometimes."
He gestured toward the seat across from Suo Wei with a polite, questioning look that was the complete opposite of his brother's commanding presence. "May I?"
Suo Wei nodded, still somewhat shell-shocked, and watched as Chi Yan settled into the booth with the controlled grace that suggested expensive boarding schools and etiquette classes.
He reached for the binder on the table. “Suo Wei Studios—You were the nine AM presentation, correct? The lobby installation concept?"
"That's a diplomatic way of describing what just happened," Suo Wei muttered, then quickly added, "I mean—yes. That was me. Is me. The presentation." He paused, anxiety creeping back in. "Did it—I mean, after what I said, is the project—"
"Didn't go well with my brother, I take it?" Chi Yan's expression was sympathetic rather than judgmental, his tone gentle rather than mocking. "He can be... intense. It's not personal, though it often feels that way. He doesn't mean to intimidate. He just doesn't know how to operate at any volume below overwhelming."
"That's one way to put it," Suo Wei let out a surprised laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing fractionally.
"May I?" Chi Yan gestured to the portfolio tube that Suo Wei had set beside him on the booth's leather seat.
Suo Wei hesitated, then slid it across. Yan pulled out the rolled sketches, spreading them carefully, eyes scanning the designs with practiced efficiency.
"Ambitious," he said after a moment. "Most firms play it safe with corporate installations. Generic sculptures. Forgettable lighting. But this—" He tapped one of the concept drawings. "This builds an experience. There's narrative here."
Compliments were rarer than paying contracts these days. Suo Wei's chest loosened slightly. "Thank you."
"You run your own studio?" Chi Yan's tone was genuinely interested, not patronizing, not skeptical, just... curious. "That's impressive, especially in this market. Most designers your age are still working their way up through agencies, learning the ropes, playing it safe."
"Had my own agency," Suo Wei corrected, unable to keep the bitterness entirely out of his voice. "It's... going through a rough patch."
Chi Yan's expression shifted to something that looked like genuine understanding rather than pity. "Rough patches are temporary," he said, the words somehow not coming across as empty platitudes despite being exactly the kind of thing people said when they didn't know what else to offer. "Talent isn't. And you clearly have the latter in abundance, even if the former is making things difficult right now."
He rolled the sketches back up with the same careful precision he'd used to examine them, treating them like they were valuable artifacts rather than pieces of paper with drawings on them. "Do well with the revisions—fix the color palette issue, maybe polish a few of the technical details—and I'll put in a word with my brother. He respects quality work, even if his delivery is abrasive enough to sand paint off metal. Actually, especially because his delivery is abrasive. He thinks it weeds out people who aren't serious."
"I appreciate that," Suo Wei said, feeling like maybe, possibly, this disaster of a morning might have a silver lining after all. "Really. I wasn't sure if I was hired or fired or somehow both."
"Consider it a second chance," Chi Yan said, standing and adjusting his cuffs "My brother doesn't give those often. The fact that he gave you one at all says more than you might think."
Suo Wei watched him leave, watched the way people in the café seemed to straighten slightly as he passed, the way the barista's smile got a bit brighter, the effortless command of space that came from someone who'd never had to question their place in the world.
Same face as his brother. Completely different soul. Completely different energy. It was like looking at two sides of a coin—both valuable, both necessary, but so fundamentally different that you could barely believe they came from the same source.
Why couldn’t that one have been in the meeting?
His phone buzzed against the table, vibrating insistently enough that his coffee cup wobbled. A text from an unknown number glowed on the screen.
Unknown: Brand guidelines attached. Revised presentation due Friday, 9 AM. Don't be late. – CC
So. Still employed. Somehow. Against all probability and common sense.
He saved the contact as 'Chi Cheng (Asshole)' and immediately felt childish about it—felt like he was back in middle school, renaming people in his phone based on petty grievances and momentary frustrations.
Then he decided he didn't care. If he was going to be working with someone who'd publicly humiliated him in a conference room, he could at least have his small, private rebellions.
---
In his office, Chi Cheng leaned back in his chair, jaw tight, and hit a contact on his phone.
The line connected after barely one ring. "Finally," Guo Chengyu's voice drawled through the speaker with the particular tone of someone who'd been waiting for this call. "Heard you traumatized another designer today. Word travels fast when someone actually stands up to you."
"I didn't traumatize him." Cheng swiveled his chair to face the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. "He traumatized himself with his lack of preparation."
"By showing up late with the wrong color palette?" Chengyu's voice was rich with barely suppressed laughter. "Or by calling you an asshole in front of your entire team? Because I'm getting conflicting reports on which part constitutes the actual trauma, and I need the full story for posterity."
"Both, probably," Cheng admitted, something that might have been the ghost of amusement flickering across his features before being ruthlessly suppressed.
Chengyu's laugh was sharp and delighted. "And you hired him anyway. That's new. That's very new. You usually eat people like that for breakfast and spit out the bones before lunch."
"His work's good," Cheng said flatly. "The concept is solid. Innovative. There's actual vision there, not just safe corporate mediocrity. I'm giving him a chance to prove he's not completely useless beyond the initial disaster of a first impression."
"Uh huh." The skepticism in Chengyu's voice was so thick you could cut it with a knife. "Nothing to do with the fact that he's the first person in three years to tell you to your face what everyone thinks behind your back?"
"His appearance is irrelevant to his professional capabilities—" Cheng started, then stopped, realizing his mistake even as the words left his mouth.
"I didn't mention his appearance," Chengyu interrupted smoothly, and Cheng could practically hear the knowing smile in his voice. "But interesting that you went there immediately. Very interesting. Telling, even. So he's memorable in multiple ways, is he?"
Cheng's fingers drummed against the armrest "He's aggravating," he said, the words coming out clipped and tight. "Disorganized. Late. Mouthy. The kind of person who probably makes terrible life decisions on a regular basis and then wonders why his life is a mess."
"And apparently memorable enough that you're calling me about him instead of just moving on with your day," Chengyu pointed out with the smug satisfaction of someone who knew they'd hit a nerve and was prepared to press on it.
Before Chi Cheng could respond, his door opened without a knock.
Chi Yan stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, expression pleasant and entirely too knowing.
"I need to go," Cheng said into the phone, already knowing he was about to trade one uncomfortable conversation for another potentially worse one.
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Chengyu called through the speaker before the line went dead, his laughter still audible until the very last second, echoing in the suddenly quiet office like a parting shot.
Yan stepped inside, closing the door with a soft click. "Interesting hire today," he said conversationally, moving toward the chair across from Cheng's desk with unhurried purpose.
"Is there a reason you're here?"
"I saw the proposal. It's good." Yan settled into the chair across from Cheng's desk, crossing one ankle over his knee. "Rough around the edges, but there's real vision there. Not the usual corporate safe-play garbage."
Cheng said nothing.
"Funny," Yan continued, tone light. "You're usually merciless with first impressions. The smallest mistake and they're out. But this one shows up late, uses outdated materials, insults you in front of staff—and you give him a second chance." He tilted his head slightly. “The last time you were this lenient—”
Cheng's eyes narrowed dangerously, his jaw tightening in a way that suggested Yan was approaching conversational territory that was firmly off-limits. "What are you implying?"
"Nothing." Yan's smile was perfectly calibrated between innocent and knowing. "Just... curious about your suddenly flexible standards."
"My standards are the same as always," Cheng said firmly, each word measured and controlled, his jaw working in a way that suggested he was grinding his teeth. "Results matter. Quality matters. The ability to deliver on vision matters. Everything else is noise. If Wu Suo Wei can deliver quality work despite his catastrophic first impression, then he's useful to this company. If he can't, then he's gone. Simple business logic. Nothing more complicated than that."
"Of course." Yan stood, adjusting his watch—a gesture Cheng recognized as his brother's version of a tactical retreat.
After Yan left, Cheng stared at the closed door, jaw working. He pulled up the revised project file, found Wu Suo Wei's contact information, and stared at it longer than necessary before saving it with a simple designation:
‘Wu Suo Wei – Designer’
Then he closed his laptop and tried to focus on the seventeen other things demanding his attention.
It didn't work.
---
"You called Chi Cheng an asshole?" Jiang Xiaoshuai's voice rose above the ambient noise of the noodle shop. "To his face? In a professional meeting with witnesses? And you're still alive? Still employed? Not currently in hiding or witness protection?"
Suo Wei stabbed his noodles with unnecessary force. "Apparently I'm indestructible." he said, fishing out a piece of beef and examining it with more attention than it deserved. "Or possibly insane. The jury's still out on which one."
"You're definitely insane," Xiaoshuai leaned across the table, eyes wide. "Do you know who Chi Cheng is? He's the reason interns cry in bathroom stalls. He's the reason people practice presentations in front of mirrors for hours before meetings with him. He once rejected an entire marketing campaign, a campaign that twenty people had worked on for three months, pulling late nights and weekends, because the logo wasn't 'assertive enough.' Whatever that means. Nobody knows what it means. People are still trying to figure out what would have been assertive enough. Some say it's become a philosophical question in the marketing department."
"I've met his version of assertive," Suo Wei muttered. "He's lucky I didn't throw the projector at him. I was this close." He held up his fingers with barely a centimeter of space between them. "This close to committing felony assault with office equipment."
"Da Wei. Please." Xiaoshuai's expression shifted to genuine concern. "Your company's one missed payment from bankruptcy. You can't afford to antagonize clients. Especially not clients like Chi Corporation."
"That's exactly why I can't grovel." Suo Wei met his friend's eyes. "If I start, I'll never stop. I've already spent the last two years making myself smaller for someone who left anyway. I'm done with that."
Xiaoshuai's expression softened, the concern giving way to understanding—the look of someone who'd been there through the entire Yue Yue disaster, who'd watched his friend systematically dismantle his own life trying to make someone happy who was fundamentally unsatisfiable, who'd held him together through the aftermath of that spectacular implosion. "Fair," he said quietly, his voice carrying a weight of shared history and unspoken sympathy. "That's fair. I get it. I do. But—" He paused, seeming to wrestle with how to phrase what came next. "You also met the other twin, right? Chi Yan? The Vice President? Tell me you didn't call him an asshole too. Please tell me you managed to not insult both of them in the span of an hour."
"No, he was..." Suo Wei paused, searching for the word. "Nice. Helpful, even. Completely different from his brother."
"Nice," Xiaoshuai repeated, his tone shifting to something cautious. He set down his chopsticks, expression serious. "Da Wei, listen carefully. Chi Yan is the type who plays five-dimensional chess while the rest of us are still figuring out regular chess. Chi Cheng might be overwhelming and abrasive, but at least you know where you stand with him. He's direct. Brutal, but direct."
He picked up his tea cup, choosing his words carefully. "But Yan? He's the one you really need to watch. He's subtle. Strategic. He makes you feel like you're being helped while he's actually several moves ahead of you, setting up scenarios you won't see coming until it's too late.”
Suo Wei gave him a skeptical look, one eyebrow raised in the universal expression of you're being dramatic and I don't appreciate it. "You're being dramatic."
“I work there. I've seen things. They're like—" He gestured vaguely, searching for the right metaphor. "They're like volcano and glacier. Both can bury you, both are forces of nature, just in completely different ways. And right now, you're standing between both of them."
"I'm a designer, not a geological phenomenon."
"Just—" Xiaoshuai reached across the table and grabbed his wrist, the gesture urgent enough to make Suo Wei look up from his noodles and actually meet his eyes. "Be careful. Please. Promise me you'll be careful. Watch what you say, watch what you do, and for the love of everything holy, try not to insult anyone else to their face. Can you do that?"
"I promise I'll try not to call anyone else an asshole," Suo Wei said, attempting levity despite the growing unease settling in his stomach like a stone. "Unless they really, really deserve it. Then all bets are off. I have standards."
"That's not what I— you know what, never mind." Xiaoshuai released his wrist and sat back, shaking his head with the resigned air of someone who knew they weren't going to win this argument but had at least tried their best. "I'm buying you dumplings. You look like you need dumplings. You have that hollow-eyed, haven't-eaten-a-real-meal-in-days look that makes me worry about your survival instincts and your ability to take care of yourself."
"No, I need a time machine and better life choices."
"Dumplings first. Time machine later."
---