Perhaps he'd just been hoping for the possibility of it being literally anyone else.

Because the conclusion he comes to makes his blood run cold.

Kujen...?

Eiffel is not a man of particularly defensive mental faculties. He's only human, after all. But now he's throwing every bit of effort he can find into shoving against the parts of himself he can feel out of his control, trying to claim something back.

Don't you even think about touching a hair on Shen Wei's goddamn head or I swear-!!