Help! I'm the Plot Device: Just Here to Save the Heroes

Mission Failed: We Fell in Love Instead

Dreamer's Notes:

This chapter contains suspiciously close romantic moments.
If your heart is fragile, proceed with snacks. I'll be back, later. 🤐

🧶🐱🧶

Yichen's Quarters

The night pressed in around them-thick, breathless, bruised with danger.

Yan had pulled Jerry sharply into his chest, one arm banded tight around his waist, the other hand covering Jerry's mouth before he could even gasp.

Yan's head tilted, eyes narrowing. His entire posture shifted: shoulders low, breath held, muscles coiled with instinct. In the dimness, with the candle light casting pale gold along his cheekbones, he looked less like a young man and more like a predator interrupted mid-hunt.

Jerry swallowed carefully under Yan's palm.

Outside, chaos rippled through the night. Boots thundered. A shout sliced through the stillness:

"Check the roofs! Quick!"

Yan's grip tightened-not rough, not gentle either, just... protective. Grounded. Certain.

Jerry felt the weight of his hand against his mouth. The warmth of his palm. The quiet certainty in the way Yan shielded him with his body. A lantern swung past outside the window, shadows stuttering over the floor.

Minutes felt like an eternity stretched thin.

Only when the footsteps reversed-moving away, scattering toward the far courtyard-did Yan slowly, carefully lower his hand.

Jerry tried to stand.

Yan's hand stopped him with feather-light pressure.
"Wait."

The word wasn't a command. It was a quiet instinct wrapped in concern.

Another distant clatter echoed from outside-far away this time, somewhere beyond the west wing. Jerry followed the sound with his eyes, but Yan was already assessing it, head tilted like he could hear the precise angle, distance, intent.

"It's not near," Yan murmured.

Yan released him fully then, stepping back into the dark, almost unbothered by the tension thick in the air-as if this kind of danger was something he was built from.

🧶

Jerry paced toward the window while Yan lingered half-hidden near the shadows, every movement graceful and instinctive.

Jerry peeked through the lattice-the courtyard below was chaos. Guards scrambling, lanterns swaying, metal brushing against armor as they searched frantically.

He shut the window softly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yan already preparing to leave.

"I'll go check," Yan said quietly.

Jerry turned so fast Yan actually blinked.

"You're not going anywhere."

He stepped to the door and locked it with a decisive click, positioning himself between it and Yan.

Yan stared. "...Yichen?"

"It's dangerous outside," Jerry said.

Yan walked toward him slowly, movements deliberate, like he was approaching a frightened animal he didn't want to spook.
"No one will notice me. They won't even know I was here."

"That's not what I'm worried about."

Yan paused.

The sentence hung between them-thick, warm, unguarded.