# Jewel in the Shadows
## Chapter 1: The Jewel Bows
**Wang Yibo's POV**
*Six Months Before Xiao Zhan*
*Shanghai - Cross-Border Music Festival, Backstage*
-----
The roar hasn't faded yet.
Yibo stands in the wings, chest heaving, sweat cooling on his skin like a second layer. His dancers are already peeling away—high-fives, water bottles thrust into his hands, voices congratulating him on a performance he can barely remember executing. Muscle memory carried him through the final eight counts. His body knows the choreography better than his mind knows peace.
"Wang Jewel!" Someone shouts from the crowd still filtering out of the venue. The nickname. Always the nickname. *When he enters, everyone bows.* A fan-created myth that his agency loves, that his marketing team plasters across promotional materials, that he wears like armor that's too tight.
The lights. The screams. The way phones lift in unison like a wave of glowing surrender.
He bows. Always bows. Ninety degrees, hold for three seconds, rise with that practiced smile that photographers call "devastating."
But backstage, the smile cracks.
"Incredible work out there."
The voice comes from his left—accented Mandarin with Seoul's polish underneath. Yibo turns, toweling the back of his neck, and finds a man leaning against the equipment cases. Tall. Sharp-featured. A face Yibo recognizes from industry parties and award show green rooms.
Park Ji-hoon. Former member of a mid-tier Korean boy group that disbanded two years ago. Now reinventing himself as an actor in Chinese dramas, the kind with high budgets and low emotional stakes. Yibo's seen his face on subway advertisements—brooding gazes over luxury watch campaigns.
"Thanks," Yibo says, non-committal. He's learned to keep distance from industry seniors, especially the ones who approach with that particular hunger in their eyes. The kind that says *I want to consume your light.*
But Ji-hoon doesn't move with the predatory urgency Yibo expects. He pushes off the cases with lazy grace, hands in the pockets of expensive black trousers, white shirt unbuttoned just enough to suggest casualness that costs a fortune to maintain.
"I'm serious," Ji-hoon continues, closing the distance by exactly three steps. Close enough to speak without shouting over the backstage chaos. Far enough to seem respectful. "That final sequence—the floor work into the aerial lift? I've been in this industry for eight years. I've never seen someone move like that."
Yibo's spine straightens despite himself. Praise from peers always lands differently than praise from fans. Fans bow to the performance. Peers see the work underneath.
"You train in Seoul?" Ji-hoon asks.
"Three years," Yibo confirms. "JYP Entertainment's dance academy. Didn't debut there—came back to China when an opportunity came up."
"Their loss." Ji-hoon's smile tilts, something knowing in it. "I was SM Entertainment's system. Different training style, but I recognize the precision. You still carry it—that edge between control and chaos. It's…" He pauses, eyes tracking over Yibo's form in a way that isn't quite professional but isn't quite crossing a line. "Magnetic."
Yibo's pulse kicks up. Not from arousal—not yet—but from recognition. The way Ji-hoon looks at him feels like standing under stage lights. Exposing. Illuminating.
"You here alone?" Ji-hoon asks.
"My team's around." Yibo gestures vaguely toward the dressing rooms where his manager, stylists, and dancers are likely packing up. "You?"
"Solo mission tonight." Ji-hoon pulls out his phone, taps the screen, then shows Yibo a photo—the two of them at an award show six months ago, standing in adjacent positions during a group photo. "We've been in the same rooms before. Never properly met. Feels like something we should correct."
It's a line. Yibo knows it's a line. But Ji-hoon delivers it with such ease, such lack of desperation, that it doesn't land like the clumsy attempts from fans who slip hotel room numbers into his gift boxes.
"Correction sounds reasonable," Yibo hears himself say.
Ji-hoon's smile widens—small, controlled, victorious. "There's a bar three blocks from here. Quiet. Industry people use it when they want to actually talk instead of performing for cameras. Interested?"
Yibo should say no. He has a 6 AM flight to Beijing. A photoshoot tomorrow afternoon. His manager would have five separate aneurysms if she knew he was considering drinks with a relative stranger the night before a scheduled obligation.
But the adrenaline from the performance is still singing through his veins. His hotel room is empty. His success is hollow. And Park Ji-hoon is looking at him like he's not the Wang Jewel, untouchable and perfect.
He's looking at Yibo like he's a person worth knowing.
"One drink," Yibo says.
-----
The bar is exactly as promised—underground, literally. They descend narrow stairs into a space that smells like aged wood and expensive whiskey. Low lighting. Jazz playing at a volume that suggests ambiance instead of atmosphere. Half the tables are occupied by people Yibo vaguely recognizes: a director whose films always premiere at international festivals, two actors from a popular Republican-era drama, a music producer whose tracks have soundtracked Yibo's own career.
No one looks up when they enter. This is that kind of place—where fame comes to take off its shoes.
Ji-hoon leads them to a corner booth, signals the bartender with practiced ease, and slides in across from Yibo. Two glasses of whiskey arrive within minutes, the kind that costs more than Yibo's first month's rent when he moved to Beijing.
"To magnetic chaos," Ji-hoon says, raising his glass.
Yibo touches his glass to Ji-hoon's. "To corrections."
The whiskey burns perfectly. Yibo isn't much of a drinker—alcohol interferes with training, with the disciplined machine of his body—but tonight, the burn feels like permission.
"So," Ji-hoon begins, settling back against the leather booth, "Wang Yibo. Twenty-eight. Seoul-trained. Viral sensation via YouTube collaborations. Current status: the idol everyone wants to either be or be with." He pauses. "How close am I?"
"Wikipedia-accurate," Yibo says dryly.
"Then tell me what Wikipedia doesn't know."
It's a dare wrapped in curiosity. Yibo turns the glass in his hands, watching the amber liquid catch the low light. What doesn't Wikipedia know? That he's exhausted. That the nickname "Jewel" feels like a cage made of compliments. That he hasn't had a genuine conversation in months—every interaction filtered through the lens of what Wang Yibo represents instead of who he actually is.
"Wikipedia doesn't know I'm tired," Yibo says finally.
Ji-hoon's expression shifts—something softer entering his eyes. "Tired of what?"
"Bowing." The word comes out before Yibo can stop it. He takes another sip, lets the whiskey loosen the knot in his chest. "Everyone talks about how people bow when I enter a room. But I'm the one who's always bowing. To schedules. To expectations. To the version of myself that exists in other people's heads."
Silence settles between them. Not uncomfortable. Weighted.
"I know that exhaustion," Ji-hoon says quietly. "The kind where you're not sure if you're living your life or performing it."
"Exactly." Yibo looks up, finds Ji-hoon watching him with something that looks like understanding. "You ever feel like… like you're a beautiful object people admire but don't actually see?"
"Every day for eight years," Ji-hoon admits. "Then my group disbanded. Suddenly the pedestal broke. Worst and best thing that ever happened to me."
"Why best?"
"Because I got to choose what came next. Acting wasn't something my company decided—it was something I wanted. For the first time in almost a decade, I made a choice that was mine."
Yibo's chest tightens with something dangerously close to envy. "Must be nice. Having that freedom."
"You have it too," Ji-hoon says. "You just haven't used it yet."
"Easy to say when you're on the other side of the idol machine."
"Then let me show you what the other side looks like." Ji-hoon leans forward, elbows on the table, close enough that Yibo can smell his cologne—something dark and woody, expensive without being ostentatious. "No cameras. No performances. Just two people who understand what it's like to be consumed by their own light."
Yibo's pulse kicks. "And what does that look like?"
Ji-hoon's smile is slow. Deliberate. "Whatever we want it to."
-----
They have three drinks. Yibo loses count of the conversations—flowing from industry horror stories to shared training experiences to the peculiar isolation of being known by millions but understood by none. Ji-hoon talks about his acting classes, the relief of disappearing into characters. Yibo confesses his secret love for motorcycles, the thrill of speed with no choreography to follow.
At some point, Ji-hoon's foot brushes against Yibo's under the table. Accidental, maybe. Or maybe not.
Yibo doesn't move his leg away.
"I should go," Yibo says, checking his phone. 1:47 AM. His flight is in four hours. "Early morning."
"Or," Ji-hoon says, signaling for the check, "you could come back to my hotel. It's close. We can talk more. Or not talk. Whatever feels right."
The invitation is clear. No pretense. No game.
Yibo knows what this is. He's not naive. He's had hookups before—quick, transactional encounters with people whose faces he sometimes forgets by morning. But something about Ji-hoon feels different. The way he looks at Yibo like he's worth more than a photo opportunity. The way he listens like Yibo's words matter.
"Okay," Yibo says.
-----
Ji-hoon's hotel is the kind Yibo stays in for fashion week: floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Shanghai's skyline, a bed large enough to get lost in, furniture that costs more than most people's cars. The door closes behind them with a soft click that sounds like a sealed agreement.
"Drink?" Ji-hoon asks, moving toward the minibar.
"I'm good."
Ji-hoon turns, studies Yibo for a long moment. "Nervous?"
"No." Yes. Maybe. Yibo doesn't know. His body is still vibrating from the performance, from the whiskey, from the way Ji-hoon's eyes track over him like he's reading a map to somewhere sacred.
"Come here," Ji-hoon says softly.
Yibo crosses the space. Stands close enough to feel the heat radiating off Ji-hoon's body. Looks up—Ji-hoon has maybe two inches on him—and finds dark eyes that seem to see through the Jewel facade to whatever raw thing exists underneath.
"You're beautiful," Ji-hoon murmurs. "But you already know that."
"Hear it all the time," Yibo agrees.
"Then let me tell you what they don't say." Ji-hoon's hand comes up, fingers tracing the line of Yibo's jaw with devastating gentleness. "You're beautiful when you stop performing. When your face does that thing where the mask slips and something real shows through. That's the beauty that matters."
Yibo's breath catches. No one has ever said that. No one has ever looked beneath the surface and wanted what they found there.
"Can I kiss you?" Ji-hoon asks.
Yibo nods. Can't find words. Doesn't need them.
The kiss is slow. Exploratory. Ji-hoon's lips are soft against his, tongue slipping in with confidence that doesn't demand but invites. Yibo's hands find Ji-hoon's waist, fisting in the expensive fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. The kiss deepens—heat building, breath shortening, bodies aligning with the kind of chemistry that can't be manufactured.
Ji-hoon's hands map Yibo's body with a dancer's precision. Over his shoulders, down his spine, gripping his hips with just enough pressure to feel possessive without being rough. "Tell me what you want," Ji-hoon breathes against Yibo's mouth.
"This," Yibo gasps. "You. Something real."
"Then let me give you real."
They move to the bed in a tangle of limbs and shedding clothes. Yibo's shirt hits the floor. Ji-hoon's fingers trace the lines of muscle earned through years of training, tongue following the path from collarbone to navel. Yibo arches into the touch, a whimper escaping before he can stop it.
"Perfect," Ji-hoon murmurs. "Let me hear you."
What follows is electric. Ji-hoon's hands know exactly where to touch—finding sensitive spots Yibo didn't know existed. His mouth works over Yibo's skin with reverent intensity, teeth grazing nipples, tongue soothing the sting. When Ji-hoon's fingers finally wrap around Yibo's cock, the sound that tears from Yibo's throat is desperate and uncontrolled.
"That's it," Ji-hoon encourages. "No performance. Just this."
Yibo's world narrows to sensation. Ji-hoon's mouth taking him in, the obscene wet sounds, the pressure building at the base of his spine. He threads his fingers through Ji-hoon's hair, hips bucking involuntarily, chasing the heat.
"Want you," Yibo manages. "Inside. Please."
Ji-hoon pulls off with a wet pop, eyes dark with lust. "You sure?"
"Yes. Fuck. Yes."
The preparation is thorough. Ji-hoon takes his time, fingers slick with lube working Yibo open with patience that borders on torture. By the time he finally pushes inside, Yibo is a writhing mess of need, body stretched and aching for more.
"Look at me," Ji-hoon commands, voice rough.
Yibo's eyes snap open, find Ji-hoon's face above him—beautiful and feral and focused entirely on Yibo. The first thrust punches a gasp from his lungs. The second makes his back arch. By the third, they've found a rhythm that feels like choreography—bodies syncing, breath matching, pleasure building in synchronized waves.
Ji-hoon fucks like he talks: confident, measured, devastating. Each thrust hits deep, angle perfect, pace relentless. Yibo's hands claw at Ji-hoon's back, legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him impossibly closer.
"So perfect," Ji-hoon pants. "So fucking perfect for me."
The words hit something in Yibo's chest. *For me.* Like he belongs to someone. Like he's chosen instead of admired.
"Close," Yibo gasps. "I'm—fuck—close."
"Come for me, Yibo. Let me see you fall apart."
Permission granted, Yibo shatters. His orgasm tears through him with the force of a stage dive—free fall and trust and the certainty of being caught. He comes between their bodies, painting stripes across his stomach, Ji-hoon's name spilling from his lips like a prayer.
Ji-hoon follows moments later, burying himself deep, groaning into Yibo's neck as he fills him with wet heat.
They collapse together, breathing hard, skin slick with sweat and satisfaction.
"Stay," Ji-hoon murmurs into Yibo's hair.
Yibo knows he shouldn't. Knows his flight is in two hours. Knows his manager will lose her mind.
But Ji-hoon's arms feel like safety. Like being seen and held simultaneously.
"Okay," Yibo whispers.
He doesn't notice the phone on the nightstand. Doesn't see the angle. Doesn't realize that something real just became something recorded.
The Jewel bows to the feeling of being wanted.
And the trap begins to close.
-----
**End of Chapter 1**
*Next: Chapter 2 - Xiao Zhan's POV - "The Observer's Distance"*