moonlight / in the shade — yan & feng

There's no point in doing the monthly inventory in the morning, least of all on a Saturday and Cao demands an accurate count, down to how many fingers are left in an open bottle. Though the actors might say otherwise, it isn't their performances that keep people filtering in through the doors night after night but the taps on the bar and the exquisite cocktails you and your kind craft with expertise. Cao demands revenue, it's you who demands perfection from the other bartenders.

But then it's also you stuck here long after the rest of the day staff has left, working a double shift on a busy Saturday.

You don't mind it so much like this though, with the hall empty but for you and the flickering lamps. The building creaks around you in the wind and you hear the faint sound of footsteps every now and then from the actor's quarters behind the stage but that's always been more comforting than alarming. When you leave for your house in the early hours of the morning, you always feel the emptiness more.

You're standing on the bar top, counting the wine bottles stored above when you catch movement out of the corner of your eye. You only pause briefly in your count, turning your head slightly to study the threat before deeming it unworthy. It's just a few of the younger actors watching you from the wings again. This happens often and you assume they're just spies from Cao to ensure you're doing a good job.

It hasn't ever occurred to you that you might be considered handsome. Your mother used to say you were but that's what mothers do. Your grandmother Weng said you looked like your father and that always felt more like an insult than a compliment to you.

But the truth is, you are. You've grown into your looks and that serious expression you've always carried since you were a baby. Years of hard work have broadened your shoulders but there's a stubborn gentleness to you that most men lose when they're much younger than your eighteen years. In a place like this, that alone is attractive.

And even without all that, a boy who carries pain as well as you do is undeniably irresistible to some.

"Oh, you're still here."

You look over your shoulder to see a figure standing on the stage, just on he very edge of the dim lighting from your bar top. But you know that voice, you've heard it near every night for two years now. The lamp flickers and you can see a dismissive expression on his face, tinged with annoyance. It isn't rare for you to be here this late, back when you were more security than bar man you were often here much later into the morning. You know everyone by name at this point but you strongly doubt that Yan knows yours.

Why would a first Dan deign to learn the bartender's name, though?

"Yup," you answer, and look back at the wine bottles. There's a bottle of merlot missing from your ledger and far too many boys in the complex that know how to pick a lock.

"Cao won't pay you overtime, you know."

"Yup," you answer again. It doesn't matter what Cao will or will not pay you, it's you who has first access to the earnings from the alcohol sales and you'll simply take what you're owed for your labour. If one day he finds out and fires you for it, it will be his funeral. People crawl in from all over Nine for one of your cocktails and you both know it.

You say nothing else but when you finish counting the bottles up top and jump back down behind the bar, Yan is still standing there.

"You're still here," you echo him, and then you just stand there, staring silently.

"Do you need something?" you ask finally, a hand resting on your clipboard. You don't mind it when the actors ask you to fix something for them in their rooms, you like the satisfaction a small job like that brings, but it's been a long day, images of your bed keep flashing through your head.

And you have to let the chickens out.