Work Text:
Zhou Zishu was crouched down on the staff room floor as a small child sobbed against his chest. He awkwardly patted him on the back, and wondered how he went from eliminating evidence and people indiscriminately for the most powerful political party, to consoling a kid on the sticky floor of an amusement park’s haunted house exhibition.
Who let an eight year old wander into the haunted house alone anyway?
“It’s just plastic, it’s not real. Do you want to hold it?” Zhou Zishu asked, cautiously showing the kid the plastic knife he had been holding when he jump scared him from around the corner. Actually, it wasn’t really a part of the event, Zhou Zishu had just been leaving to grab a coffee on his break, but he didn’t bother changing out of his tacky outfit and ugly mask. He didn’t really care if strolling through the maze on his break would ruin the experience for anyone. Monsters were also entitled to basic workers rights. Nonetheless, the kid was so frightened running into him that he nearly passed out on the spot.
The boy tentatively took the knife, wobbling it in the air, and letting out a small, wet laugh. Zhou Zishu sighed in relief.
“See? Good boy. What’s your name?”
“Zhang Chengling,” the small boy obediently answered, still tucked away in Zhou Zishu’s chest. His knees were starting to ache a little from the position, he realized with a delayed horror. He was seriously too old to be dressing up in cheap costumes to scare teenagers.
He put his arms around the kid to lift him into the air, standing up while Chengling wrapped his arms and legs around him tightly. It didn’t make any sense, wasn’t Zhou Zishu the one that scared him out of his mind? Why was he clinging to him like he was his protector? He had admittedly taken off his monster mask, but Zhou Zishu had actually been told he was scarier without it. When he applied for the job, they said if he glared at someone without the mask on, the event might not end up family friendly.
“Did you come here with anyone? Where are your parents?” Zhou Zishu asked, bouncing him a little on his hip as he pried open the curtains and left through the back. Chengling hiccupped, burying his head a little further into his shoulder.
Children were stupid. Shouldn’t he be a little more cautious than this? What happened to stranger danger? Zhou Zishu could drop him off outside and tell him where the lost child desk was, but he might just get himself kidnapped by someone with worse intentions. Zhou Zishu’s hands were tied.
“Mm… Gege was with me, but then, I think I got lost, and I couldn’t find him inside…” The boy mumbled. Zhou Zishu knew that no one inside the haunted house was his brother. There was only a couple who kept making out loudly against the walls, and they were both women anyway. Chengling’s small face frowned as he tried to remember more. “Baba was getting fairy floss? I think…”
The amusement park was bustling with the midday crowd, and Zhou Zishu remembered the reason he wanted such a low profile job in the first place. He slipped the mask back on over his face, and predictably, the kids eyes welled up with tears.
“Ah, stop it. Don’t cry, you’re a man. There’ll be much scarier things in life, you need to grow up strong,” Zhou Zishu scolded harshly, unprepared for more tears. He had a total of three strategies for when children started crying, and he already used them all back when he first found Chengling. The boy made a valiant effort to hold them back, nodding vigorously.
“Yes, shushu ! I won’t cry!” Chengling bravely said through tears. Zhou Zishu stopped looking at him, and scanned the crowd for any distressed parents, while Chengling stared at his face with a serious expression. He seemed to be trying to toughen himself up by looking at the mask, surprisingly having taken Zhou Zishu’s probably dubious advice onboard. The intense stare so close to him was actually getting a little uncomfortable.
He continued to wander around the distance between the haunted house and the fairy floss stall, when he found an older man with two older boys with him, calling out for ‘A-Ling’.
“Is that your baba?” Zhou Zishu asked, pointing him out. Chengling lit up, and waved at the man with his entire arm.
“Baba!” He shouted. His father did a double take when he saw Zhou Zishu, in (fake) bloodied rags and with an ugly-looking monster mask over his face. Yeah. Exactly. Teach your damn kid to be wary of strangers, especially those who look as blatantly suspicious as he did.
“A-Ling, your ge played a nasty trick on you, are you alright?” His father worriedly asked as he quickly made his way over. Zhou Zishu made a motion to let Chengling down, but the boy fiercely gripped onto his neck with a strength that made him wince.
“I’m okay! The nice shushu helped me!” He brightly told him. Well. ‘Nice’ wasn’t the adjective Zhou Zishu would personally go for, but each to their own. “I was really scared at first, because I was lost, and it was dark, and then he was waiting around a corner, but then he took me to a secret room and he showed me his knife, and I got to hold it, and then-!” He excitedly babbled on, bopping his head from side to side. His father looked extremely alarmed.
“I work in the haunted house,” Zhou Zishu deadpanned, cutting him off. “It was dark because of the special effects. I took him to the staff room to calm down. The knife was plastic.”
The older man relaxed, loudly laughing and ruffling his son's head, “Of course. Boys, am I right?” Zhou Zishu nodded, having no real idea what he was talking about. He had never been like that. Jiuxiao had been, but he never grew out of his annoying babbling phase, so he assumed it was a personality thing. He tried to put Chengling down again, while the boy pouted unhappily and clung harder.
“Chengling. Down,” he ordered. Chengling huffed, but did as he said and slid down to the ground, sullenly trudging back to his fathers side. He realized that might not have been appropriate in front of his father, and apologized.
“Ahhh no need for that! I just can’t believe he listened to you. He’s a good boy, but he can be a bit of a stubborn handful at times. Thank you for bringing him back and looking after him, you’re a good lad,” his father said, clapping him on the shoulder. A… good lad? He probably wouldn’t allow Zhou Zishu within 5 feet of his child if he knew what he once did.
“You’re welcome,” Zhou Zishu uncomfortably accepted, bowing his head and making to leave. As it turned out, before he could go, Chengling had to latch onto his leg and say goodbye while his father needled him for his name. When he was finally free, his break was almost over. He grabbed a quick coffee and skulled it down first, starting to make his way back until he noticed a certain man’s eyes trained on him.
He was by the roller coaster with a teenage boy and girl by his side, standing out from the crowd in both his height and his ridiculously expensive-looking fitted slacks and silky red button-up. He was so overdressed for a shitty theme park that it almost rivalled how dumb Zhou Zishu looked in his tacky, bloody costume.
Zhou Zishu was never one to back down from a challenge, and raised an eyebrow at him from under the mask, staring right back. If anything, he seemed to grow more intrigued.
“I’ve decided, we’re going to try the haunted house next,” the man shamelessly declared to his companions, not once looking away from Zhou Zishu. They were a fair distance away, and any normal person without Zhou Zishu’s skills would have never heard it over the noise of the crowd, but the man looked like he knew he would hear it.
Suspicion laced over his tied tongue, but he didn’t get a chance to examine it, because he was already running late. Zhou Zishu swiftly headed back to the haunted house, and took over from his coworker, Gao Xiaolian.
“Ahh… Yu Tianjie just left, too. Will you be okay on your own? Should I stay back?” She guiltily asked, half-way through taking off the pale white foundation and the blood red rim around her eyes, still wearing her ripped up and bloody white dress. Zhou Zishu had done her makeup himself when she came in minutes before her shift in a panic, because she hadn’t been given enough time to rush there from cram school.
Similarly to his glare being too scary for the haunted house, his makeup skills were also too realistic. Yu Tianjie once found him napping on the back couch in makeup and was convinced he was dead (and, accordingly, tried to go through his pockets for cash, instead of calling the police.)
Most of the employees, like Xiaolian and Tianjie, were teenagers trying to make some extra cash over the holiday. Perhaps it was a little humiliating to be there as a grown adult, but the grown men who screeched the place down and nearly wet their pants over an incredibly stupid jump scare were probably feeling worse.
Also, Tianjie was definitely stealing. Zhou Zishu just didn’t care for as long as it didn’t impact his paycheck.
“I’ll be fine, go home,” he waved her off and swiped up the plastic knife from the bench.
“I’ll tell the front desk that you’re on your own, so they don’t let many groups through at once,” she gratefully promised. “Thank you, Zhou- shu. ”
His first appearance was near the very beginning, when the group would pass through the dark halls only lit by the dim, flickering candles… and the bright green emergency exit sign. Also, the candles were fake. They were supposed to suddenly sweep out, but sometimes they accidentally started switching between the available colours like it was a disco instead. He waited behind a black veil that blended in with the walls for his cue, and stepped out behind the group in the dark.
Zhou Zishu silently noted the red shirt, and the long hair pulled half-up in a bun. So, they actually came. No one noticed his presence until he was right behind the girl at the back in the sleeveless purple hoodie. He blew a gust of air on the back of her neck and tapped her with the tip of his plastic knife, just like in the script. She almost jumped out of her skin in fright, and rapidly turned around with one knee pulled up to kick him where the sun doesn’t shine.
Zhou Zishu was… extremely lucky, for his reflexes.
He swiftly dodged out of the way, and, still screaming, she immediately followed it up with an attempt to punch his face. Zhou Zishu considered just letting it hit him, to avoid the legal consequences if he were to accidentally grab her too hard and hurt her, when someone else suddenly struck out like a viper and held onto her by the wrist. Though the man in red showed no visible strain or effort, his grip was dead-locked.
He smiled politely, slowly pushing the girl's arm back to her chest.
“A-Xiang,” he coldly said, the scolding evident enough in his tone. The girl, A-Xiang, looked appropriately shamed, looking down at her shoes and scuffling them against the floor with a pout. How violent, she went straight for that place… “Apologize to this young man.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, while Zhou Zishu slipped behind another curtain and out of sight in the blink of an eye. “But it wasn’t my fault, he scared me first- Ge , where’d he go?”
The man hummed in interest, examining the spot he just vacated. It made Zhou Zishu’s hair stand on end. He couldn’t possibly know where Zhou Zishu was hiding, but when his eyes sweeped the room, they seemed to linger on exactly where he was. His look was predatory. Zhou Zishu sarcastically thought that he should just leave him in a corner as a scary prop to reduce some of his workload. The serious atmosphere disappeared a second later, replaced by a light-hearted sigh. He clicked his tongue at the girl.
“Of course he scared you, that’s his job, you silly girl. Who taught you to be so fierce, ah?” He chastised, fondly knocking the top of her head.
“ You did. You told me that if a strange man ever touches me, to kick his dic-”
“A-Xiang!”
Zhou Zishu muffled a snicker as he left. Ah, well. So long as Zhou Zishu wasn’t the victim, it was probably better that the wrong guy ended up with sore balls, than a weirdo got away with touching her. The next few scares were automatic until the massacre room, which looked more like a preschooler’s failed art project. It was the sort of thing you saw and went ‘Oh, that’s amazing sweetie! …What is it?’
He waited in the corner of the room. There was nothing in particular hiding him from sight, but it was rare that anyone noticed him before he wanted them to. Even the overly anxious ones who immediately scanned the entire room tended to glance right over him. It was a part of the script, but Zhou Zishu was pretty sure he was the only employee there who actually managed to pull it off. Who knew that spying skills would overlap so much with casual work at the seasonal haunted house?
When the group entered, the man in red found him in seconds. Zhou Zishu blinked in surprise. What’s more, he didn’t say a word, simply looking away and pretending he hadn’t seen a thing, all the while subtly nudging the teenage boy Zhou Zishu’s direction. He was stammering out apologies to him for something or other, and seemed more terrified of that man than he was of the actual haunted house.
“I, that’s, sorry-”
“Cao Weining. Don’t act like a fool in front of me, I don’t want to see it.”
Zhou Zishu shrugged it off, and went back to his job. He pounced on the young man with an unenthusiastic and fake attempt at a roar, but the motion was sudden and intense enough that he froze on the spot and blurted out an apology in fright.
He flushed red in embarrassment after, and A-Xiang giggled.
“Cao da-ge , why are you apologizing to the monster dude?”
“A-Xiang, please don’t tease me…” He sullenly responded.
An odd pair, but still nothing out of his expectations. Freezing up and apologizing on instinct, or acting in self-defence, was actually fairly standard. Everyone reacted to shock in different ways, and over the course of his two careers, Zhou Zishu had pretty much seen it all.
Or at least, he thought he had, until that ‘Mr. Wen’ opened his mouth.
“What a coincidence, I believe I just saw you outside!” He exclaimed in an act of delight, making his way over to Zhou Zishu with a gleam of fascination in his eye. “And what wonderful form you have, this must be fate.”
“I work here,” Zhou Zishu incredulously reminded him, breaking character in his surprise.
“So, do you come here often? It’s personally my first time, so I hope you’ll be gentle with me,” he shamelessly continued, leaning into his personal space. Did he come here often -
“I work here. ”
“Ah, truly?” He said, as if it were genuinely a shock. Behind him, A-Xiang made a series of gagging motions, while Cao Weining looked like he was waiting for the earth to swallow him up. Zhou Zishu was inclined to agree. “What a waste of your beauty. To hide it like this, it’s really an act against the heavens.”
“My…” Zhou Zishu considered himself intelligent. He couldn’t remember the last time he was left dumbfounded and speechless. “This beautiful face? Mr. Wen, you flatter me,” He dryly mocked, leaning in to meet him in the middle. The mask was uglier up close, and Zhou Zishu knew it looked like it had been shoved in the back of a supply closet and not washed for three years. He was pretty sure the spots of mold over the outer fur were fake, but he wouldn’t bet money on it.
The man couldn’t hold back a grimace, Zhou Zishu smugly noted. “Underneath it, I’m sure. I knew it the second I laid eyes on you, with those stunning shoulder blades, you would have to be someone really beautiful…”
“I’m working,” Zhou Zishu continued to remind him, rolling his eyes and stepping away. This was ridiculous. He shouldn’t even be entertaining it.
“Ah, yes, of course! Give me a name to match your beautiful face, I’ll wait for you. My name is Wen, Wen Kexing. But you can call me-”
“ Ge , enough! You’re so gross!” A-Xiang shouted, stomping her foot on the ground. “I can’t watch it anymore!”
“You rude, unfilial girl-”
Zhou Zishu stepped away in the distraction, and flipped a switch on the wall to sound out a loud crashing noise and make fake skeletons drop from the ceiling (that had caused one too many insurance liabilities to be considered safe, but were somehow still around in multiple rooms). Though Wen Kexing may have been the strangest person he’d ever met, his flirting felt truthful. Perhaps not genuine, but truthful. He was a fucking creep, but he wasn’t trying to expose Zhou Zishu or sell out his hiding place.
Brushing it off, he ducked around the secret pathways to the next intervention. There was a slower group ahead of Wen Kexing’s, and he just managed to get there in time to slip his hand under the flap and grab at someone's ankles. The teenagers screamed and bolted for the exit, and Zhou Zishu removed his hand just in time to avoid being trampled. Small wins.
He heard their group approaching again by Wen Kexing’s chatter, going on about the audacity of Cao Weining to try and hold A-Xiang’s hand while it was dark, he hadn’t even asked for her hand in marriage yet, was he planning to use her and then run off with someone younger in the future? Zhou Zishu was vaguely amused by the following sounds of mortification. He couldn’t see where they were, so he blindly stuck his hand out the mid-height flap to scare them.
He didn’t expect his wrist to be suddenly grabbed. Wen Kexing intertwined their fingers, and happily leaned against the wall Zhou Zishu was behind.
“We meet again!” He cheerfully said, faking surprise. “Surely, we must be soulmates. Dinner tonight, on me?”
“Are you quite insane?” Zhou Zishu responded, and Wen Kexing brightly laughed.
“Perhaps! Are you?”
Zhou Zishu considered the question for a second. He dropped the fake, bendy knife and slipped out his real dagger from his boot. He stabbed the real knife through the thin, temporary wall as his answer, and heard Cao Weining yelp in surprise.
“I always thought the fake blood was tacky. Are you volunteering to provide the real thing?” He politely threatened.
“Maybe. Will you kiss me under the emergency exit sign first? Then, I could die in peace.”
Zhou Zishu could hear Wen Kexing’s breath through the wall, but before he could reply, a small red light blinked on from the ground. Another group entered. Zhou Zishu slipped the knife back down into his boot and picked up the plastic one, heading around to the front again.
He silently stalked behind the incoming group, breathed and tapped one of the girls on the back. She jolted slightly in genuine surprise, but then immediately let out a loud cry that was closer to a moan, obnoxiously latching around the other girl.
Ugh. More horny lesbians. Not again.
“Wahhhh! I’m so scared, you’ll protect me, won’t you?” She fakely cried out, shifting her leg higher up around the other girl’s waist. Her already short skirt was pushed higher up her thighs, showing off a scorpion tattoo.
“Tch. You’re shameless,” the other gruffly said as if she were impressed, looking her up and down appraisingly, and was that a switchblade ?
Zhou Zishu booked it out of there. If he avoided them in particular, and skipped half of their intervention points, he couldn’t be blamed. He was just so busy on his own, after all. He went into the final area for Wen Kexing’s group with a newfound appreciation for them. He climbed up a dodgy ladder into the ceiling area, sitting atop a metal bar with a collapsing flap below it. None of the other employees were made to do this part, his boss was clearly shamelessly taking advantage of Zhou Zishu’s core strength, but Zhou Zishu was also clearly shamelessly faking his legal documents and resume, so fair was fair.
This time, when Wen Kexing’s voice warned him of their approach, it was strangely… approving? A-Xiang was still groaning in shame, though.
“I expect you’ll keep to that promise. You’re not off the hook yet, boy, don’t think you’ve passed.”
“Of course not, Mr. Wen! I’ll do my best to be worthy of her!”
“What’s her second favourite crystal?”
“Bloodstone, sir! Her favourite are amethysts!”
“Good.”
What on earth happened in the time he was gone? Why was he keeping up with their relationship developments anyway? Zhou Zishu waited until they were close, and then opened the flap and dropped down from it upside down. His knees were bent over the silver bar, and he clenched his abs to hold himself suspended in the air just in front of Wen Kexing’s face. His shirt was tucked in around the back, but gravity made part of the front ruck up over his stomach.
Wen Kexing, for the first time in the whole event, looked surprised. Zhou Zishu preened internally. He lifted up one arm to push his monster mask off the side of his face, showing off a grin.
“Boo.”
“Have I mentioned I like men?” Wen Kexing blurted out, eyes dark and intense.
“I made a wild guess,” Zhou Zishu answered, rolling his eyes. The blood was starting to rush to his head, still hanging upside down from the bar, and that was his only excuse for what he said next. “My name is Zhou Zishu, and my shift ends at five. If you want to know more than that, you’ll have to work for it.”
He slipped the mask back over his face and pulled himself up to the roof again, shutting the flap without leaving a trace behind.
“Are we really going to wait outside until five ? That’s really pathetic, ge . What if someone from school sees me? I can never show my face here again,” A-Xiang whined. Wen Kexing whistled lowly, completely ignoring her.
“I think I’m in love.”
Ridiculous.
Zhou Zishu flipped the skeleton switch again to make the plastic props suddenly drop from the ceiling while Wen Kexing was distracted, because he was an asshole. They were badly set up, so the strings broke and they were freely dumped down. Wen Kexing instinctively caught one in a bridal style, probably expecting it to be Zhou Zishu, and then dropped the plastic bones with a grossed out noise of surprise.
Zhou Zishu didn’t make an effort to hide his deep laugh from above them.
“Don’t leave me waiting tonight, A-Shu,” Wen Kexing flirtily called out, quickly recovering.
“Why? You aren’t going anywhere, are you? I’ll take my time, and you’ll wait.”
“When you put it that way, I’ll be sure to make it worth your while-” Wen Kexing lecherously began, cut off by a sharp hiss. “A-Xiang!”
“What? You have that gross look in your eye again!”
“You stomped on my foot you wild girl! Were you raised in a barn?”
“Ow, ow, stop pulling my ear! Ow!”
Zhou Zishu fondly huffed, his smile hid behind that stupid, cheap mask as he slipped away. Who was stupid enough to try and pick up a date in a haunted house, anyway? Probably someone just as stupid as the kind of person who would accept. How ridiculous .
Wen Kexing ended up making Zhou Zishu pay for their date after his shift, the awful amusement park food made Wen Kexing nauseous, and they were only kicked out of the bathrooms when the park closed for the night. Zhou Zishu added his number into his phone anyway.