Chapter 20: Aftermath

The nightmare clung like sweat-soaked silk. I jolted upright, Mickey Mouse pajamas twisted around my legs, to find myself in an unfamiliar bedroom. Dawn leaked through blackout curtains, revealing Zhongjing's curled form beside me. Memory flooded back - the penthouse, the police station, *him*.

In the living room, Shangguan Zhi slept like fallen royalty on the sofa. Morning light carved his stubbled jawline, undone shirt revealing a sliver of chest that made my throat tighten. I draped a throw over him, fingers brushing warm skin. A mistake.

His hand snapped around my wrist. Before I could protest, I was pinned beneath him, the leather couch groaning. His kiss tasted of sleep and desperation, a language I didn't know how to speak. When his teeth grazed my lower lip, reality crashed through - *this wasn't how first kisses happened*. I shoved him off, fleeing to find my pajama buttons mysteriously undone.

"Morning." His voice followed me into the shower where a rubber duck mocked my naiveté. Through the steam, I heard Zhongjing's note - *"He'll protect you"* - and wanted to scream. Protection required proximity, and proximity bred... this.

At the police station, the two-way mirror showed my attacker picking his nose. Shangguan's brother Akira steadied me as I confirmed the ID. "Standard procedure," the detective said, unaware my knees were liquefying. 

The grocery store proved worse. Between ¥10,000 Wagyu cuts and old ladies cooing over Shangguan's jawline, I nearly snapped. When a toddler grabbed my finger, its sticky warmth almost broke me. Shangguan watched, calculating. "You want children." A statement, not a question.

Dinner became warfare. I flayed vegetables while he pretended not to stare. "Your exes never cooked?" The words escaped like gas from a shaken soda can.

His chopsticks paused. "They preferred teaching me restaurant etiquette." The subtext hung between us - *You're not them*. 

As he devoured my mapo tofu, I realized the true danger wasn't stalkers or lawsuits, but this: the way his thumb brushed mine reaching for pepper flakes, the shared silence louder than any declaration. When he murmured "This tastes like home," I fled to scrub already-clean pans.

Night fell. Through the guest room wall, I heard his shower running. The rubber duck's grin widened in the steam. Somewhere between terror and want, I pressed my palm to the warm wall and wondered which would drown me first - his world, or my traitorous heart.