Chapter Text
Chapter 1 — First Table Read
Part 1 — Zi Yu
Table reads always feel like awkward first dates—everyone’s pretending not to judge while secretly judging everything.
The conference room smelled of recycled air and instant noodles from someone’s lunch. A dozen scripts lay on the table like folded promises.
Then he arrived.
Tian Xu Ning.
Or, as his ID photo calls him, Tian Lei.
He walked in quietly—no entourage, no fuss. Tall, sharp suit lines, eyes that scanned the room once and decided none of it was worth reacting to. He gave off the kind of calm that made everyone straighten a little. I watched him shake the director’s hand and nod politely to the assistant producer, then sit beside me like fate was running a social experiment.
He didn’t look like an idol or an actor. He looked… deliberate. The kind of person who reads contracts before signing birthday cards.
And, God help me, that was intriguing.
I leaned forward. “You’re Tian Xu Ning, right?”
He looked up from his script, voice even. “Mm.”
“I heard you don’t talk much.”
“You heard right.”
I laughed, because what else could I do? “That’s okay. I talk enough for two.”
He didn’t smile, but there was a twitch—barely there. Challenge accepted.
When the director announced we’d do the “certificate” scene next, you could practically hear everyone stop breathing.
Page 47: bedroom, bare skin, blindfold.
I couldn’t resist leaning closer. “Guess we’re starting strong.”
He blinked slowly, like he was recalibrating his entire career.
We read the scene. He was good—intense but controlled, like he understood restraint better than touch. Our voices started to find rhythm, overlapping in places that made the crew shift in their seats.
Then props raised a hand. “Director, about that bedside lotion…?”
“Something real,” she said. “Maybe anti-inflammatory cream. Details matter.”
Silence, then muffled laughter.
Tian Lei leaned toward me, whispering, “Why would they need that?”
I almost choked. “For soreness.”
He frowned. “From?”
That was it. I cracked. I laughed so hard the director had to call a break. His ears turned pink. He looked at me like he couldn’t decide if I was mocking him or if I’d just short-circuited his upbringing.
Both were probably true.
When we went back to reading, I caught him glancing at me whenever I snorted under my breath. The more he tried to stay composed, the more I wanted to mess with him.
The rest of the table read went smoother than I expected. Once I stopped tripping over nerves, something between us clicked. Tian had this way of grounding the room—steady voice, measured pacing—and the more I read opposite him, the easier it felt to find the rhythm. We started leaning in without meaning to, voices overlapping in a way that made the scene feel alive. For a first day, it was almost too natural.
When the director finally called wrap, everyone exhaled at once—chairs scraping, pages flipping, small talk blooming in pockets around the room. I stretched, neck cracking, and turned toward him.
“You eat yet?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not since noon.”
“Perfect,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “Come on. I know a noodle place nearby. Cheap, but the broth’s legit.”
He hesitated for a moment—like he was weighing the pros and cons of breaking his own routine—but then he nodded. “Alright. Lead the way.”
The shop was a tiny hole-in-the-wall, tucked between a laundromat and a stationery store, the kind of place that always smelled like garlic and steam. The windows were fogged, the light a soft yellow hum. I liked it immediately.
We slid into a corner booth. The waitress didn’t even hand us menus before I said, “Two beef noodles—one spicy, one mild.”
Tian raised a brow. “You just decide for people?”
“Trust me,” I said, grinning. “You look like a beef noodle kind of guy.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah. Serious exterior, soft inside. You can tell a lot from someone’s noodle order.”
He let out a quiet chuckle, small but real. “I’ll take your word for it.”
At first, we stuck to easy topics—filming schedules, travel, the humidity that made every shirt feel like wet paper—but it didn’t take long before the conversation drifted somewhere real. I told him about growing up in a small town, about the first audition I bombed so badly they sent me home before lunch.
“And once,” I said, grinning between bites, “someone on set thought I was a delivery boy. I was carrying takeout for the crew. They tipped me. I didn’t correct them.”
He laughed, a deep, genuine sound that made me want to keep talking just to hear it again. “Practical.”
“Survival,” I said. “You’ve been doing this forever, right?”
“Since university,” he said. “Didn’t plan on it. My professor pushed me into a student short film. It… snowballed.”
I smiled. “And now you’re everyone’s crush.”
He gave me a look but didn’t deny it. “It’s a strange kind of attention.”
“You handle it well.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You’ve known me three hours.”
“Long enough,” I said, slurping noodles. “You’re calm. Makes people feel safe.”
That made him pause. His gaze flicked up—steady and unreadable, but not cold. For a second, I wondered if I’d said too much. Then he said quietly, “Maybe it’s you. You talk enough for both of us.”
I laughed—too loud, probably—because I couldn’t think of a better reply. The waitress glanced over, curious. I grinned, wiping my mouth. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
And judging by the small smile that finally crept onto his face, I think he meant it that way.
I’d expected polite small talk. Instead, we ended up talking for nearly an hour.
He told me he grew up in Suzhou. “Family’s… comfortable,” he said, which is rich-boy code for my parents own something with marble floors. But he said it without pride—almost apologetic.
“Do they support what you do?” I asked.
“They worry,” he admitted. “But they let me be.”
I nodded. “Must be nice. My parents think acting’s just another way to get embarrassed on the internet.”
He looked up then—steady, quiet, curious. “You proved them wrong.”
“Not yet,” I said, poking at my rice.
He offered me a slice of braised pork from his lunchbox. “You looked hungry.”
I blinked. “You share food with everyone?”
“Just the noisy ones.”
I grinned. “Then I’ll talk louder.”
He laughed softly—genuine this time—and it hit me like a pulse under my skin.
After a while, the conversation drifted past small talk. I started telling stories—nothing serious at first. About trainee days. How we’d wake at four, sleep maybe at two, and pretend we were living the dream. How I once smuggled instant noodles into the dorm at two a.m. and got caught halfway through slurping them.
“They made me run laps until sunrise,” I said, grinning. “So technically, I earned the carbs.”
Tian’s laugh came quietly, like it slipped out before he could stop it. “That’s brutal.”
“Character building,” I said. “Or trauma. Depends on the day.”
He smiled at that, and for a second it felt easy—like we’d known each other longer than a few hours.
Then I mentioned it without really meaning to. “There was a rough patch after that. You probably saw the headlines.”
He didn’t answer right away, just looked at me, waiting. It made me want to keep talking and hide at the same time.
“Zheng Xingyuan,” I said, voice light, as if the name didn’t sting anymore. “Old group mate. Claimed I stole his shoes once. Whole thing spiralled into some ridiculous scandal.”
His brows drew together. “You were the one accused, right?”
“Mm. Makes for a better story that way.” I tried to shrug it off, toyed with my chopsticks. “Public loves a villain more than a victim.”
For a moment, he didn’t say anything. The hiss of noodles and the clatter of bowls filled the space between us. Then, quietly, he said, “People believe what they want. Doesn’t mean they’re right.”
It wasn’t pity. Just calm, grounded understanding. And somehow that landed deeper.
I blew out a breath, forcing a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m perfectly harmless. Haven’t stolen anyone’s shoes since.”
Tian’s mouth twitched. “Good to know. I’ll keep mine under the table, just in case.”
That broke the tension. I laughed, and he did too—soft, brief, but real. The kind of laugh that made the heaviness feel smaller for a moment.
That night, back in my hotel room, I scrolled through the photos the production assistant had shared in our group chat. In one, Tian Xu Ning was half-turned, listening to the director. The lighting caught the line of his jaw, the concentration in his eyes. Everyone else looked like they were posing; he looked like he was present.
I stared too long.
As I lay down, still tasting the spice of the noodles we’d shared, I thought about the way he’d said, “People believe what they want. Doesn’t mean they’re right.”
People don’t usually say things like that unless they see the cracks.
And maybe—just maybe—he’d seen mine.
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Part 2 — Tian Lei
I’ve never liked table reads. Too many eyes, too many voices, too many emotions pretending to be effortless. Acting is easy once the lens separates you from the world; it’s the waiting that makes me restless—the in-between moments when you don’t know what to do with your hands, or your thoughts.
The meeting room smelled of printer ink and instant coffee, a scent I now associate with new beginnings I’m never ready for. The director was talking about tone—grit with grace, she said—and I was only half-listening until a low, soft laugh broke through the monotone hum of introductions.
That was the first time I looked up.
Zi Yu.
He was smaller than I expected, though presence isn’t about size. He had that quicksilver energy some people are born with—nervous, bright, alive. His eyes moved like they were chasing ideas faster than his mouth could catch them. I’d seen his photos before—idol-era perfection, the smile rehearsed—but the real thing was less polished, more human. I liked that difference immediately.
He caught me staring and smiled, easy and unguarded.
“You’re Tian Xu Ning, right?”
“Mm.”
“I heard you don’t talk much.”
I shrugged. “You heard right.”
He grinned, the corners of his mouth tipping upward as if it were second nature. “That’s okay. I talk enough for two.”
It should have annoyed me, but somehow it didn’t.
We took our seats. I sat straight, script perfectly squared with the edge of the table; he folded one leg under himself, pen tapping to an invisible beat. The director called for quiet. Pages rustled, microphones buzzed. He leaned close enough for me to smell faint citrus from his drink.
When it was our turn, he angled his script toward me, whispered, “You start.”
The way he said it—warm, teasing, familiar—lodged somewhere between my ribs.
He read his lines as if he wasn’t reading at all—voice shifting easily from beat to beat, laughter bleeding through the serious bits. I’d spent years mastering restraint, but next to him my control felt artificial. When he looked up during a break, eyes sparkling, I forgot my next line.
“Cut,” the director said—amused, though it wasn’t a take. The room laughed. I smiled too late and too stiffly.
Afterward, while the crew gathered notes, he slid over. “You really look like your character,” he said.
“How so?”
“Serious. But kind underneath.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You got all that from a twenty-page script?”
He smirked. “No. From your eyes. You look like you’d rather be anywhere else, but you’re still paying attention.”
He wasn’t wrong. I was paying attention—to him, mostly.
When the director announced we’d do the certificate scene next, the room went still.
Page 47. Bedroom. Bare skin. Blindfold. Of course.
I’d barely flipped to the page when Zi Yu leaned over, voice low enough that only I could hear. “Guess we’re starting strong.”
I turned my head toward him. He was grinning—entirely too comfortable for a man about to read a sex scene in front of twenty strangers. For a second, I actually forgot how to breathe. Then I managed a slow blink—the kind you do when you’re recalibrating your entire career.
We started reading.
He was good—raw, but not reckless. There was a steadiness in the way he delivered his lines, a kind of honesty that made it hard not to respond in kind. Our voices found rhythm without trying, overlapping in places that made the room shift slightly, like everyone had just remembered they were witnessing something a little too intimate.
Then someone from props raised a hand. “Director, about that bedside lotion…?”
The director didn’t miss a beat. “Something real. Maybe anti-inflammatory cream. Details matter.”
The room fell into stunned silence. Then came the muffled laughter.
I leaned in, whispering, “Why would they need that?”
He bit back a laugh, eyes gleaming. “For soreness.”
I frowned, genuinely confused. “For what?”
I was about to ask from what when I realized—too late.
He completely lost it—full-body laughter that shook the table. The director sighed and called a five-minute break while the rest of the cast tried not to laugh along.
I could feel the heat crawling up my neck. My ears, apparently, had turned traitor. He kept laughing, and I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or if he’d genuinely just short-circuited my ability to remain a dignified adult.
Probably both.
When we resumed, he still had that stupid half-smile tugging at his mouth. Every time I caught him snort under his breath, I pretended not to notice. But I did. And every time I did, I caught myself smiling too—just a little.
The rest of the table read went smoother than I expected. Once I stopped noticing the cameras and the murmurs from the crew, I realized how naturally he read. Zi Yu had this rhythm—bright, unfiltered, alive. It anchored the scene in a strange way, balancing against my restraint.
We started leaning in without realizing it, voices overlapping in places that pulled the dialogue off the page and made it feel real. For a first read, it was too easy. Unsettlingly easy.
When the director finally called wrap, everyone exhaled like they’d been holding their breath the whole time—chairs scraping, papers shuffling, the usual rush of post-rehearsal chatter. Zi Yu stretched, arms overhead, careless grin still in place.
Then he turned to me. “You eat yet?”
I shook my head. “Not since noon.”
“Perfect,” he said, already slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Come on. I know a noodle place nearby. Cheap, but the broth’s legit.”
He said it like a command more than an invitation. Normally, I would’ve found an excuse—something about early call times or dietary balance—but his tone made refusal sound unnecessary.
“Alright,” I said. “Lead the way.”
The noodle shop was small, tucked between a laundromat and a stationery store. The kind of place you’d walk past without noticing unless you were looking for it. Inside, the air was warm and heavy with garlic and sesame. Steam fogged the windows.
He chose a corner booth and slid into it like he’d been here a hundred times. Before the waitress could hand over menus, he said, “Two beef noodles—one spicy, one mild.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You just decide for people?”
He grinned. “Trust me. You look like a beef noodle kind of guy.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah. Serious exterior, soft inside. You can tell a lot from someone’s noodle order.”
I let out a quiet chuckle before I could stop it. “I’ll take your word for it.”
The conversation started easy—talk of filming schedules, weather complaints, the kind of filler that keeps strangers from drifting into silence. But somewhere between spoonfuls of soup and the second round of tea, it shifted.
He talked about growing up in a small town. About his first audition disaster. About the time someone mistook him for a delivery boy on set.
“I was carrying takeout for everyone,” he said, laughing. “They tipped me. I didn’t correct them.”
His laugh was contagious. It pulled one out of me before I could think. “Practical.”
“Survival,” he said simply. “You’ve been doing this forever, right?”
“Since university,” I said. “Didn’t plan on it. My professor made me audition for a student film. It snowballed.”
He smiled, leaning on one hand. “And now you’re everyone’s crush.”
I looked up at him. “That’s one way to put it.”
“It’s a compliment,” he said, slurping his noodles.
“It’s… a strange kind of attention,” I said.
“You handle it well.”
“You’ve known me three hours.”
“Long enough,” he said with that grin—bright, careless, and strangely disarming. “You’re calm. Makes people feel safe.”
That caught me off guard. No one ever said things like that. For a moment, I didn’t know whether to deflect or thank him. Instead, I said, “Maybe it’s you. You talk enough for both of us.”
He laughed—loud enough that a waitress turned. His laughter filled the tiny shop, and I felt something loosen in my chest.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said.
“It was,” I replied, before I could decide if I meant it aloud.
We kept talking. He told me he’d trained for years—grueling days, sleepless nights, ramen smuggled into dorm rooms.
“They made me run laps until sunrise,” he said, smiling through the memory. “Character building, right?”
“Or punishment disguised as life lessons,” I said.
“Same thing,” he replied, waving his chopsticks. “At least I got my midnight snack first.”
He laughed again, and I did too. But underneath his jokes, I could feel the weight of it—the quiet survival mechanism that turns hurt into humor. I knew that language well.
Then, between stories, he said, “There was a rough patch after that. You probably saw the headlines.”
I didn’t answer. Just waited.
“Zheng Xingyuan,” he continued, his tone lighter than the name deserved. “Old group mate. Claimed I stole his shoes once. Whole thing spiralled into some ridiculous scandal.”
I remembered the name, vaguely. The noise, the memes, the pile-on that followed. I’d scrolled past it at the time.
“You were the one accused, right?” I asked.
He nodded. “Makes for a better headline that way. Public loves a villain more than a victim.”
He said it like it didn’t matter, but I heard what was beneath it. The tiredness. The learned distance.
“People believe what they want,” I said quietly. “Doesn’t mean they’re right.”
He blinked, surprised. For a moment, the mask slipped, and something softer showed through. Then he smiled again. “Don’t worry, I’m harmless. Haven’t stolen anyone’s shoes since.”
“Good to know,” I said. “I’ll keep mine under the table, just in case.”
He laughed again—loud, unrestrained, shoulders shaking. The waitress turned; I couldn’t help smiling, too.
It wasn’t sympathy I felt. It was something quieter, more dangerous. The urge to keep him talking. To stay a little longer. To listen, even when he wasn’t saying anything.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
The hotel AC hummed like a heartbeat. I stared at the ceiling and thought about his laughter, the way he’d told those stories like they were jokes to keep himself from breaking.
In this industry, people wear masks to survive. Zi Yu’s mask wasn’t arrogance or charm—it was light. He used brightness like armor.
I understood that too well.
My manager texted at midnight: How was the read?
I typed back: Fine.
Then deleted it. Wrote again: Good chemistry.
Deleted that too. Finally sent: Fine.
But what I really wanted to say was—He laughs like sunlight breaking through fog.
And for the first time in a long while, I wondered if maybe this story we were about to tell could become something dangerously real.
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