Ficorpio
Chapter 1
“You disgust me.”
“Get out. I never want to see you again.”
The cold, vicious voice sliced through Elliot Bennett like a blade.
Elliot lay with his eyes closed, brow tightly furrowed, dark shadows showing beneath them.
Adrian Sterling reached out and shielded his eyelids with one hand. With the other, he carefully drew Elliot completely into his arms, leaving not even a sliver of space between them.
His hand was large enough to cover most of Elliot’s face. Elliot’s trembling lashes brushed against his palm, raising a faint tickle.
Adrian pinched Elliot’s cheek. It was soft and smooth, like silk—or tofu.
He couldn’t help clicking his tongue.
Whoever had made this little thing had done an impressive job. Small, soft, and unfairly pretty.
His eyes were beautiful.
His ears were beautiful.
His nose was beautiful.
His mouth was even better, soft and glossy like jelly.
Adrian’s hand began to itch with the urge to touch more.
Elliot’s brow drew tighter, and his lashes fluttered without pause.
The hand resting over his waist and back tightened slightly. In a soothing voice, Adrian murmured, “All right, all right. I’m here.”
At the familiar scent, Elliot sank back into a deep sleep.
“So delicate,” Adrian muttered.
“You knew you’d miss me after I was gone for three days.”
“Look at those dark circles. They’re practically falling to the floor.”
“You really couldn’t bear being apart from me, could you?”
“Next time, I’ll take you with me.”
Adrian lowered his voice, the end of each sentence lifting without him realizing it.
Elliot simply couldn’t live without him. Adrian should have taken him along from the beginning.
Yes. That was what he would do.
They should have gone together this time, too. But Elliot had something come up at the last minute, leaving Adrian to make the trip alone.
Adrian was in an excellent mood.
He stayed in that position for an unknown length of time. The sun moved from directly overhead to the right side of the sky, while Adrian remained perfectly still, watching Elliot.
Students passing by exchanged knowing looks. Messages pinged incessantly in their private chats.
[Best friends sleep in the same bed.]
[Best friends drink from the same glass.]
[Best friends think it’s a joke right up until they do it.]
[Best friends put the car in each other’s names.]
[Best friends are just…]
[So this is what city people call brotherhood? I learned something new today.]
[Brotherhood in the modern age. Truly moving.]
Elliot suddenly opened his eyes, his heart racing.
His mind was still foggy. Through a haze of moisture, he stared at Adrian.
Adrian leaned closer until their foreheads touched. “Nightmare?”
His strong, bony hand slid down Elliot’s spine to his waist. “There, there. Stroke the fur, scare the monster away.”
His hand stopped somewhere dangerously low.
Elliot’s entire body went rigid. He avoided Adrian’s gaze and twisted, trying to climb down from Adrian’s lap.
“Let me go.”
Adrian laughed in exasperation. “Little Star, is this how you repay me after crossing the river?”
He cupped Elliot’s face and met his eyes. “You use me and then throw me away?”
Adrian had a high brow and stood nearly six foot three. His height and presence were intensely intimidating.
When he lowered his voice like that, he looked especially threatening.
But Elliot had grown up with him. That trick had no effect—except that Adrian was far too close.
Close enough that Elliot’s mind filled with the dream he’d just had.
It had been absurd, impossible to tell anyone about, and horrifying in its ending.
All Elliot could smell was Adrian. They used the same laundry detergent, but on Adrian the scent seemed sharper and colder.
They were close enough for Elliot to feel the steady beat of Adrian’s heart.
He pushed harder. “Adrian! Put me down.”
His shirt rode up, exposing a stretch of impossibly pale skin at his waist.
Adrian immediately placed a hand over it, shielding him from view.
His sharp gaze swept across the area. When he saw no one watching, his expression softened again as he looked back at Elliot.
“Fine, fine, Your Highness. Your temper gets worse every year. I wonder who spoiled you. Now I can’t even hold you anymore.”
He set Elliot on the ground and casually straightened the hem of his shirt.
“Better now, Your Highness?”
Elliot was in no mood to answer. He turned and headed toward the dormitory.
Adrian caught up in two strides and fell into step beside him, draping an arm around his shoulders.
“Hey, Little Star. We’ve been apart for three days and six hours. You really didn’t miss me even a little?”
Only then did Elliot look up and take a proper look at him.
Adrian was very tall, more than half a head taller than Elliot. At six foot three, he’d been noticed by a coach in middle school and recruited onto the provincial swim team.
After years of training, he had kept himself in excellent shape—broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and sharply defined abs, all paired with a face that hit with almost frightening force.
Even after retiring from competition, he still had an absurd number of fans.
And he was the sole heir to both the Sterling and Ashford families, with a fortune large enough to seem unreal.
The most common comment online was that Adrian Sterling’s future was so bright he must have trouble sleeping. This overseas trip had been for a major acquisition deal.
He had flown there and back in three days. The exhaustion beneath his eyes was impossible to miss.
Elliot’s heart softened. “Go back to the dorm and get some rest first.”
Chapter 2
None of this was Adrian’s fault. If anyone was to blame, it was Elliot himself.
He had no right to take his anger out on Adrian. It wasn’t fair to him.
The smile on Adrian’s face immediately widened. He pulled Elliot tightly against his side.
“I knew my Little Star still cared about me.”
“I brought you a gift. I had my assistant leave it at Willowmere Estate. When are we going back?”
“In a couple of days. I have something to take care of first.”
Elliot sighed silently.
Adrian knew Elliot’s class schedule by heart. “You don’t have class the afternoon after next. Should we go then?”
“It’s close to Harborport, too. You said last time that you wanted to try the roast duck there. I’ll make a reservation.”
“You haven’t been eating properly while I was gone, have you? You’ve lost at least two pounds.”
Adrian frowned as though Elliot had suffered some grave injustice and pinched his cheek.
He continued to mutter under his breath.
Elliot had almost forgotten the offhand comment he’d made. Adrian, however, remembered it perfectly.
Elliot lowered his eyes, a dull ache settling over his heart.
He watched Adrian for several seconds. Adrian’s features belonged to the sharp-edged variety—an intimidating, aloof, untouchable bad-boy king with a poisonous tongue.
He carried far too many labels.
Some people seemed born to enjoy everything the world had to offer. Adrian was one of them.
A child of generations of wealth. A genuine golden heir. After coming of age, he inherited half of each parent’s assets. There were too many zeros in his bank accounts to count. He was a graduate of one of the world’s top universities. He had taken up swimming almost casually and still fought his way into international competitions.
And as if that weren’t enough, God had given him a face built to perfection.
His model-like bone structure and flawless skin came together in perfect balance. His body formed an ideal inverted triangle, his muscles smooth and powerful. The media had called him a cheetah in the water.
To put it bluntly, if not for his face and body, at least two-thirds of his current fans would have abandoned him by now.
Adrian noticed Elliot watching him. Deliberately, he moved closer and tugged at his collar, exposing his throat and collarbone.
The performance was so obvious it was almost embarrassing.
Elliot rolled his eyes and looked away.
Adrian was dissatisfied. He caught Elliot’s face in both hands, forcibly turned him back, and pressed him against the hollow of his collarbone.
“If you want to look, then look. I never said you couldn’t.”
Their skin touched. The heat of it burned across Elliot’s nerves, and he shoved Adrian away.
Elliot’s skin was so delicate that even that brief contact left a faint red mark on his cheek.
Adrian raised an eyebrow. “It’s not as if you haven’t seen it before. Why are you so worked up? Back when you first—”
“Adrian!”
Elliot’s eyes shone with tears, and his entire face had turned pink.
Adrian’s fingers began to itch again, but he forced himself to hold back.
Elliot hurried several steps ahead. Adrian followed, took his hand, and kept leaning his head toward Elliot as though trying to rub against him.
Elliot tried several times to pull free, but couldn’t. In the end, he let Adrian do as he pleased.
Adrian behaved himself for less than a minute before he began asking about Elliot’s past few days again.
Elliot had checked in by phone, but Adrian was never reassured when he wasn’t physically beside him.
He wanted every detail: which route Elliot took to class, who sat beside him, whom he worked with in the lab, and exactly how many words he had exchanged with everyone.
Elliot had grown used to it over the years and answered slowly.
Then Adrian heard a familiar name.
“Milo Hart?”
“He came looking for you again?”
“We happened to run into each other.”
“Don’t spend time with him. He’s disgusting.”
Adrian’s expression suggested that he’d just encountered something filthy.
Elliot didn’t understand. “Milo’s all right, isn’t he? You hate him?”
Adrian’s irritation was written all over his face. He didn’t want to curse someone in front of Elliot, so he clamped his mouth shut.
Elliot knew exactly how to handle him. He turned around and reached for his phone, intending to contact Milo.
“You have his contact information?” Adrian spotted it instantly. His entire expression seemed to explode.
He snatched Elliot’s phone away and deleted Milo’s number.
Even then, Adrian wasn’t satisfied. He stared down at the phone, apparently considering whether he could smash it and replace it with a new one for Elliot.
Elliot said, “Milo and I have a shared elective class tomorrow. We’ll be attending it together.”
If Adrian refused to say anything, Elliot would simply ask Milo himself. There was always a way.
Adrian might have had a vicious tongue, but he rarely described someone as disgusting behind their back.
Adrian said reluctantly, “He likes men.”
“Disgusting.”
“He even broke into my changing room.”
Elliot’s heart dropped. A chill swept through him.
Still uneasy, Adrian took Elliot’s phone and checked it from one end to the other. Only after confirming there was nothing else out of the ordinary did he slip it into his own pocket.
Then he reached for Elliot’s hand. It was cold, so he tucked it into his pocket as well.
“People like that are the worst. They hide around you, pretend to be your friend, and then try to get with you.”
“Anyone like that, I’m blocking them the moment I meet them.”
People like that always went after someone like Elliot.
Adrian warned him again and again. “Absolutely, under no circumstances, have anything to do with people like that. Star, do you understand?”
Chapter 3
“What if it’s a friend you’ve known for more than ten years?” Elliot asked. “A really good friend. Would you cut ties with him too?”
There was a note of urgency in his voice. He needed an answer.
Adrian’s expression said everything.
He looked awful.
“Who did you find out about? Noah Carter? Julian Mercer? Marcus Reed?”
“It must be Noah. I always thought there was something off about that kid. He’s messaging you every other day. What could you possibly have to talk about? I’ll block him right now.”
“No. Better yet, he can stay overseas and never come back.”
Elliot caught Adrian’s hand as he reached for the phone. His lips had gone pale. “There’s no one. I was just saying it.”
Adrian stared at him suspiciously. Elliot forced his expression to settle.
“Really. There’s no one. What could any of them have to do with this?”
“Don’t joke about something like that again.”
The coldness in Adrian’s eyes barely faded. He truly hated anyone who stuck close to Star.
One cheap mutt after another, all coveting what belonged to someone else.
Adrian took both of Elliot’s hands in his. “Why are your hands still so cold?”
He immediately shrugged off his coat and draped it over Elliot’s shoulders.
After that, Elliot couldn’t remember what Adrian said. The chill had spread through his entire body. He pulled the coat tighter around himself, trying to hold off the cold for a little longer.
When they returned to the dorm, voices drifted faintly through the closed door.
Adrian only caught the words “brother” and “friend.”
The moment they opened the door, the dorm, which had been so noisy a second earlier, fell completely silent.
It was a four-person room. Besides Elliot and Adrian, there were two others: Leo Brooks and Mason Turner.
The two of them had somehow managed to make enough noise for ten people.
“Cough, cough. Adrian, you’re back. Did your trip overseas go smoothly?” Leo tucked his phone behind his back.
Mason added awkwardly, “Yeah. How was it?”
Adrian pulled out Elliot’s chair and let him sit. “It was fine. Pretty simple. It just took a little longer than expected.”
His roommates knew something about the reason for Adrian’s trip. Hearing him say that, they looked at him with open admiration.
“I wish I could pull off something that impressive just once.”
“God didn’t just close one door on me. He welded the window shut too.”
They traded lines, steering the conversation somewhere else.
Elliot had been silent ever since they left. Adrian assumed Milo Hart had shaken him badly.
His disgust for Milo deepened. As he lowered his eyes, he considered several ways to remove Milo from Elliot’s side without making a sound.
He was very experienced at that sort of thing.
Adrian fussed over Elliot from start to finish, adjusting the water to the right temperature and arranging the toiletries where Elliot could reach them easily.
His pajamas, underwear, and bath towel were folded neatly on the shelf.
After checking the water one more time, he called, “Star, you can shower now.”
He followed closely behind Elliot, his voice soft and coaxing. “I can help you wash.”
Elliot was in no mood for it. Right in front of Adrian, he slammed the bathroom door shut.
The dorm seemed to go quiet all at once.
Adrian sat down in Elliot’s chair and pulled out Elliot’s phone, scrolling through it casually.
He couldn’t afford to overlook a single corner.
Adrian was talkative only around Elliot. When he wasn’t smiling, his eyes and brows carried an instinctive sharpness and distance.
Even after living with him for two or three years, Leo and Mason only dared to joke around with Adrian when Elliot was there.
Now both roommates fell silent, their fingers flying over their screens.
【happy: I won. Send me five bucks.】
【三金: I’m impressed. Adrian really is made of steel. He flew back overnight as soon as it was over.】
【Five-dollar transfer.】
【happy: See that? Star’s wearing Adrian’s clothes.】
【happy: He’s like a wild wolf. The second he got back, he covered Star in his scent. If he could, he’d probably cover every inch of him, inside and out. ❤️JPG】
【三金: This isn’t an uninhabited island. Pull your pants back up. And don’t say things like that in front of Adrian and Star. You know what Adrian’s like. You were talking so loudly just now—you almost got caught.】
【happy: I bet a hundred bucks Adrian climbs into his bed tonight. Before eleven, at the latest.】
When they had first discovered the secret, they had been so excited they’d looked like a goose choking on its own fate.
After Adrian started climbing into Elliot’s bed more and more often, they had gradually gotten used to it.
【三金: Why are you still betting? Can’t you see Adrian is gathering his things?】
Leo abruptly looked toward Adrian.
Adrian was holding a pillow, placing it beside Elliot’s, and tidying Elliot’s belongings with the practiced care of a homemaker.
Leo’s sudden movement drew Adrian’s attention.
Adrian raised his eyes and looked at him.
?
Leo quickly shut his mouth, hiding his front teeth and forcing his face into an expression of pain. “I accidentally kicked the bed frame.”
Adrian said nothing. They all knew he had no interest in other people’s business.
And “other people” meant everyone except Elliot.
【三金: …You’re dead if Adrian finds out.】
【happy: Want to read “Bro, How Did You Get in Here?”】
【三金: …Fine.】