Captured By The Cold Detective (BL)

He Juan squeezed his shoulder out of exasperation. The stern façade he tried so hard to put on finally cracked and disintegrated into dust, blown away under the terrifying might of Mu Yuze’s tears.

"You silly, silly boy..." he chided softly, yet there was also a hint of distress and heartache in his tone. "I am not disappointed in you, and I never will. Do you hear me? Gege is not disappointed in you, Mu Yuze. So erase that foolish thought out of your mind because it will never happen." He felt like he had to instill this important point first lest Mu Yuze’s thought got ahead of him yet again.

And sure enough, he felt Mu Yuze’s body jerk as though he was waking up from a dream, and he pulled away to peer up at He Juan hesitantly. "You are not...?" His eyes were so full of naked hope, so fragile and vulnerable that He Juan’s heart broke all over again.

"I am not," He Juan said again, firmer this time. "Yes, I am angry with you. I want to teach you a lesson for lying and skipping class as you please, but I am not disappointed, Mu Yuze. I never will. Believe me, okay?"

"Oh..." Mu Yuze blinked, then blinked again as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. He Juan could see himself in those soul-stealing eyes that looked even more dazzling due to the light that reflected off the tears. But no matter how beautiful they were, he was determined to never let Mu Yuze cry like this again.

He Juan clicked his tongue as he reached out to catch a lone tear that dripped off Mu Yuze’s chin. "Little crybaby... I never saw you cry when you were detained in the police station, so how come you’re crying so hard now?" He rubbed the tears between his fingers and brought it to his mouth for a taste. Salty, yet also bitter at the same time. He would remember this taste for the rest of his life for sure.

He Juan’s heart completely melted into a puddle of goo at the silly look Mu Yuze was showing. He held the back of Mu Yuze’s neck and carefully wiped the boy’s face with his sleeves. "Look at how messy your face is right now. Even Kitty didn’t cry as hard as you when Gege brought her to the vet for an injection."

Mu Yuze’s muffled voice was laced with a hiccup, "...But I am not afraid of injection."

He Juan let out a snort. Who’s the one clutching onto his sleeve so tight again when Doctor Jia took his blood for the test? Alas, He Juan sensibly refrained himself from saying anything lest he wounded Mu Yuze’s still fragile emotions.

After making sure that Mu Yuze had stopped crying, He Juan maneuvered him to sit on the couch while he went to the kitchen to boil some hot water for the boy to drink. As he walked back to the living room, the scattered mess on the table caught his attention and he deliberated a while before taking the paper which Mu Yuze had shoved in front of his face.

He Juan had looked at this paper so many times that he could even recite the questions backward. And thus he also knew that the level of difficulty was very normal for the first grader in junior high. But... what did Mu Yuze say earlier? He could not do it and this was the result of him staring at the paper for the whole duration? He... was unable to read it?

"Here," He Juan carefully placed the warm glass into Mu Yuze’s hands. "Drink it first to moisten your throat."

"Mn," he took a sip from the glass, slightly embarrassed. But then when he saw He Juan taking a seat beside him with the paper in hand, he tensed again, knowing that the matter was far from over.

Of course, He Juan noticed the slight changes in Mu Yuze’s behavior. "Xiao Ze..." he tried to word his sentence carefully, afraid that Mu Yuze would burst into tears again if he were to make a slip. "It’s okay, don’t be afraid. Gege just wants to know something, okay? What do you mean by... you couldn’t do it?"

Mu Yuze gripped the glass tighter as though drawing strength from it. He did not meet He Juan’s gaze as he murmured quietly, "Exactly what I mean by that."

"You can’t understand the question or... you can’t even read it? Again, let me tell you that no matter what you say, I will not be disappointed," he hastily added after sensing that Mu Yuze’s body was growing increasingly rigid. His breathing also became rapid as if he was on the verge of a panic attack. He Juan rubbed his back in comforting motions as he said, "I need to know the crux of the problem so we can solve it together, Xiao Ze. If you can’t keep up with your peers, then Gege will seek a tutor for you. It’s okay to learn everything slowly again bit by bit. So what if you can’t read? So what if you fail your class twice? Let me tell you a secret..."

He Juan squinted his eyes in smiles when he saw that he had managed to draw Mu Yuze’s attention. He pointed at himself with a proud harrumph, "This one here is a high school dropout. In the end, am I not richer than 90% of the population in the country?" Even though my means are kinda dishonest, He Juan added inwardly. Of course, not that he would ever tell Mu Yuze anything about it.

Mu Yuze gawked at him with eyes so wide as if they were going to fall out of their sockets. "You’re a– what?!"

He Juan burst out in laughter. "Is it that shocking?"

Mu Yuze nodded again and again like a chicken pecking rice. In his eyes were undisguised curiosity, urging He Juan to share the story with him. He seriously suspected that He Juan was lying to him again in order to coax him. How could this powerful, dignified and filthy rich Alpha be a high school dropout?

Alas, like the mean adult he was, He Juan slyly changed the topic and waved the paper in front of Mu Yuze, causing the boy’s face to sink. "Alright, now is not the time to be talking about me, remember? Gege will tell you another day. Let’s talk about you first."

Mu Yuze shot him a glare, but in the end, his gaze shifted to the paper in He Juan’s hand and he huffed. "When the teacher talked about this in class..."

"Mn–hmm?"

"When the teacher talked about this in class, I felt like I could understand it, but..." he peered up at He Juan and pointed at the paper, his brows furrowing. "But I can’t read this at all. Well, if I concentrate hard, I can make out a word or two, but after that, I will feel dizzy for hours."

He Juan raised a brow. He glanced at the English paper and picked a question, "How do you reply when someone asks you ’how are you today?’"

Much to his surprise, Mu Yuze smoothly replied in clumsily accented English, "’I’m fine, thank you. And you?’"

He Juan’s brows rose higher and higher. It was a question that Mu Yuze had left in blanks. He could not write down the answer, but could immediately answer it when He Juan asked him verbally?

Next, He Juan asked a few more questions, and every single time, Mu Yuze could answer it perfectly. But then, when he placed the paper in front of Mu Yuze, pointed at the question he had just asked earlier and demanded Mu Yuze to answer it, the boy closed his eyes with a pained look and shook his head. "I can’t... the words, they are all jumbled up and make me dizzy."