The week went on like a rope stretched to its limit; each day added a new knot that Zhiyu did not know how to untie. The hours seemed to stretch into a void where his every gesture was observed, measured, and often judged by a presence that did not need to raise its voice to mark its territory. Zhou Mingkai's dominance was not expressed through constant blows—although there had been some, and that memory still burned on his skin—it was more subtle, more poisonous: midnight messages that arrived as disguised orders, glances that followed him down the hallways like someone hunting a wounded animal, jokes thrown into the air with the precision of a dagger.
His cell phone vibrated when he least expected it, always from the same person, always with the same invisible pressure.
Zhou Mingkai:
Are you eating?
Zhou Mingkai:
Don't hide from me in the hallways.
Zhou Mingkai:
I saw you with Xu Yining. She spends too much time with you. Do you rather be with her than answer me?
Each notification was another knot added to the rope tangled around his neck. Zhiyu turned off the sound, turned away from the screen, forced himself to concentrate on his notes, but the inner vibration did not subside. The irrational, piercing feeling that something was pulling him from outside and inside simultaneously robbed him of himself week after week.
He tried to take refuge in his routine. In class, he took notes with one hand and held the pen so tightly with the other that his knuckles turned white. In the library, he looked for the hardest passages in the texts just to force his brain to stay busy. But Mingkai's pressure had a tenacity that no book could absorb; at the end of the day, the invisible thread was there again, tightening.
"Again?" Yining asked one afternoon, sitting down next to him and sliding her tray until it touched his.
Zhiyu looked up with effort. There was something in Yining's expression that wasn't just curiosity: it was vigilance, loyalty, and a kind of contained violence that she passed off as humor.
"What?" he replied, his voice dry.
"You're in another world. And it's not the first time this week."
He sighed, not out of intellectual exhaustion but because of the weight he carried on his shoulders, invisible but constant.
"I don't know how... I don't know how to get out of this."
"Out of Mingkai?" she asked bluntly, as if naming things could diminish their size.
Zhiyu pressed his lips together and didn't answer right away. It wasn't just Mingkai; it was everything Mingkai represented: imposition, power, the dangerous attraction of someone who dominates because he can.
Yining touched his hand gently, as if securing a loose rope so it wouldn't break.
"Look, I'm not going to lie to you. That guy is dangerous, and you can't keep carrying everything on your own. But..." She paused, looking him straight in the eye. "I'm not going to let you fall. Understood?"
A lump formed in his throat, and for the first time in several days, he felt the possibility of taking a deeper breath.
"You're the only one who says that."
"Because I'm the only one with balls around here." She smiled dryly, as if putting on armor.
"Believe me, if I could, I'd bring him to his knees."
Zhiyu let out a short, bitter laugh, full of gratitude. Yining's presence was an iron bar in the middle of the slippery terrain Zhiyu was moving in; her words were an anchor. For a moment, he allowed himself to feel that all was not lost.
The library, with its silence and windows that let in the afternoon light, was a small refuge until he had to leave. That's when the thread tightened again.
Zhou Mingkai was at the entrance, as if he had known that Zhiyu's departure would be scheduled in his timetable. He wore his uniform jacket slung over one shoulder, his T-shirt slightly lopsided, his hair messy as if he just came back from running. Around him, a group of girls turned to look at him, whispers and laughter, the restless energy of a king in his court.
But Mingkai wasn't looking at the crowd. His eyes were focused solely on Zhiyu, and his gaze was like a rope that took their breath away.
"I've been waiting for you," he said, his voice not raising in tone but carrying a threat.
Zhiyu stood still, his heart pounding in his chest, feeling as if reality itself were closing in around him.
"I have nothing to say to you."
Mingkai took a step toward him, closing the distance as if marking his territory. That approach had the coldness of an insinuation and the clear intention to subdue.
"That's not for you to decide."
His calmness was more dangerous than any shout. He leaned close enough to speak into his ear, his breath brushing his skin.
"Don't ignore my messages again." A whisper, filled with menace. "Or do you want everyone here to know how easy it is to make you cry?"
The world receded into a moment Zhiyu knew all too well: the memory of the blow in the empty classroom came back to him vividly, as if Mingkai's fingers were still imprinted on his cheek. His body trembled, not from cold but from the mixture of fear and shame that took hold of his chest.
Mingkai tilted his head, his lips dangerously close to his ear; his voice, now almost a secret, dropped several tones.
"Obey and there will be no trouble."
The closeness produced other reactions that Zhiyu did not know how to interpret. There was an electric current running through the air, a touch that was not necessarily physical but intimate, and for a moment Zhiyu felt that part of him wanted the distance to disappear. He hated himself for that thought. He hated himself for the way his body betrayed his mind.
Mingkai stepped back slightly, but enough to leave a trace of his presence: a smile that didn't reach his eyes, a gesture that to anyone else might seem trivial, friendly. For Zhiyu, it was a burn.
Before the tension could turn into something more harmful—or more incomprehensible—a voice cut him off.
"Zhiyu!"
It was Yining, appearing in the hallway as if she had sensed a feather falling from miles away.
She walked quickly, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her gaze bright as a flag in the wind.
The glass of tension shattered with the crash of her arrival. Mingkai allowed himself a mocking smile, like someone who enjoys interrupting someone else's scene. He patted Zhiyu gently on the shoulder—a public, seemingly friendly gesture—and said goodbye with a theatrical flourish.
"Your bodyguard again. See you later."
He walked away waving, with the composure of someone who had left no trace, but his mark remained: Zhiyu felt the phantom heat on his skin where Mingkai had touched him, and his blood turned to lead.
Yining stood in front of Zhiyu with his arms crossed. There was no direct reproach, just a simple fact of what she had seen.
"He's following you, isn't he?"
He lowered his head. The truth was like a metal bowl in his throat: heavy, difficult to swallow.
"Yes."
"And?"
Zhiyu closed his eyes. Outwardly, he tried to maintain his composure, but inside, the pieces were a puzzle that didn't fit together. He didn't want to admit that, even though he hated himself for it, sometimes there was something that attracted him to Mingkai. He didn't want to say that the chains also had a shine that left him with doubts.
"I don't know how much longer I can take it," he murmured.
Yining took a deep breath. Her hands, which minutes before had been resting on the tray, now closed in a determined embrace. She wrapped her arms around him, not caring who was watching; the library is witness to discreet gestures and others that break silences.
"Then hold on with me." Her voice was an oath, a sharp promise. "If he wants chains, I'll break them one by one."
Zhiyu let himself go. He hid his face on her shoulder and a tear, almost without warning, slid down his cheek. It wasn't just the physical pain or the humiliation; there was a deeper fear: the fear of discovering himself, of admitting that what made him vulnerable was also what, in his own confusion, he called desire. That idea was a violation of his own integrity and, at the same time, a forbidden curiosity.
As they hugged each other, the hallway returned to its usual rhythm; everyday life, uncomfortable and relentless, continued. But at the back of Zhiyu's neck, the invisible thread had not been completely broken. It had only loosened slightly, like a breath after a dive. And somewhere, in that fluctuating tension between domination and fascination, something began to brew: the possibility that the thread that bound him did not come only from Mingkai, but also from an internal knot that Zhiyu would have to learn to untie or, if not, to endure forever.
When they parted, Yining looked at him with gentle severity.
"Come on. I'll walk you home."
They walked in silence, each step marking a rhythm between anger and tenderness. Zhiyu knew the storm was not over; Mingkai was not an obstacle that could be resolved with promises or hugs. But for the first time since the rope began to tighten around his neck, he felt that he had friendly hands capable of pulling in the opposite direction.
The invisible thread was still there—thinner, more dangerous, closer—and Zhiyu, his heart beating in his throat, knew that the next decisions would not only be about how to escape, but about how to understand what that thread meant in the depths of his own being.