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The box had arrived three days ago, and America had been waiting for the right moment ever since. Not just any moment. The perfect moment, when China was relaxed enough to be smug but not so relaxed that he'd simply walk away. Post-summit China was ideal. Just tired enough to linger, just irritated enough to take the bait.
"You're still here," America said, sliding into the conference room where China sat flipping through his phone. To the other countries had cleared out hours ago. The building was theirs, more or less, the hallways echoing with the particular emptiness of a place built for hundreds and occupied by two. China didn't look up. His short red hair caught the overhead fluorescents, and the gold stars on the left side of his face shifted as his jaw tightened in what America had learned to recognize as preemptive annoyance.
"I'm waiting for my car," China said flatly.
"Great. Perfect. You've got like five minutes then." America dropped the cardboard box onto the conference table with a satisfying thud. The Temu label was still stuck to the side, half-peeled, the tracking number smudged. China glanced at it the way someone glances at a stain on a restaurant tablecloth.
"No."
"You don't even know what it is."
"It's from Temu. I don't need to know what it is to know it's garbage." China set his phone down and fixed America with those yellow eyes, flat and unimpressed. "You spent four dollars on something that will break in your hands, and now you want to show me like a child with a school project. I've seen this before."
"Okay, first of all, it was six dollars, which means it's in the premium tier." America was already tearing the box open, packing peanuts scattering across the polished table like tiny surrendering soldiers. "Second of all, this one is different. This one is going to prove my point."
"You don't have a point. You have a credit card and no impulse control."
America pulled the device free and held it up. It was, objectively, one of the most pathetic objects ever manufactured. Matte purple plastic, roughly the shape and size of a television remote, with a single red LED near the tip and a chrome button that was clearly just glued-on foil. The label on the side read ADVANCED NEURO HYPNO BEAM — POWERFUL MIND CONTROL WAVE — RESULTS GUARANTEED in a font that looked like it had been run through three different translation apps. Below that, a cartoon brain with spiral eyes gave a cheerful thumbs-up.
China stared at it. His expression didn't change, which for China was practically a standing ovation of contempt.
"You bought a mind control device," he said slowly, "from Temu."
"I bought YOUR mind control device from Temu," America corrected, jabbing a finger toward China's chest. "Made in your house. Sold on your platform. If anybody's going to know how to build a working mind control ray, it's going to be the country that invented gunpowder and TikTok's algorithm. You guys are like halfway there already with the social credit thing."
"That is not how any of this works."
"Then you've got nothing to worry about." America grinned. He could feel the momentum swinging his way. This was the part where China was supposed to scoff, say fine, stand still for three seconds while the LED did nothing, and then America could complain about false advertising and they could argue for another twenty minutes. That was the game. That was always the game. He'd get his five minutes of entertainment and China would call him an idiot with that particular tightness around his mouth that meant he was almost, barely, fighting a smile.
China looked at the device. Then at America. Then back at the device. Something shifted behind his eyes, quick and subtle as a card being palmed, and he uncrossed his arms.
"Fine," China said. "Do it."
America blinked. He'd had a whole secondary argument prepared for the refusal. "Wait, really?"
"If it will make you stop ordering garbage and showing it to me, yes. Point your little toy. Get it out of your system."
America fumbled the device, nearly dropped it, caught it against his hip. He straightened up, squared his shoulders, and aimed it at China with both hands like he'd seen in movies. China stood perfectly still, arms at his sides, chin lifted just slightly. The overhead light pooled in the hollows of his collarbones where his red skin met the collar of his shirt. America's thumb found the chrome button.
He pressed it.
The LED flickered. Not a strong, confident beam of mind-altering energy, but a weak, asthmatic little blink, like a firefly with a head cold. The device emitted a faint buzz, somewhere between a mosquito and a dying battery. America held it steady, sweeping it vaguely toward China's face, trying to look authoritative.
China's eyes went glassy. His shoulders dropped. His arms, which had been loose at his sides, went slack in a way that looked almost liquid, like the tension had been poured out of him. His lips parted and his gaze fixed on a point somewhere past America's left ear, vacant and smooth as a lake in dead calm.
America's grip on the device tightened so hard the plastic creaked.
He lowered it slowly. Took a step to the left. China's eyes didn't track him. Took a step to the right. Nothing. He waved his free hand in front of China's face, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin, and China didn't flinch, didn't blink, didn't react at all. The stars on the left side of his face caught the light as America circled him, and his expression remained perfectly, impossibly blank.
"Holy shit," America whispered. Then, louder, testing: "Raise your right hand."
China's right hand drifted upward, smooth and mechanical. His fingers were relaxed, curled just slightly, the motion almost graceful. America's heart was hammering so hard he could feel it in his throat.
"Say... say 'America is the greatest country in the world.'"
"America is the greatest country in the world," China repeated. No inflection. No resistance. Just the words, delivered with the emotional weight of someone reading a grocery list.
America pressed both hands to the sides of his own head, the device jutting out from his fist at a ridiculous angle. He paced. He stopped. He paced again. His brain was doing something that felt like a computer trying to open forty tabs at once, every thought loading at the same speed and none of them fully rendering. The device worked. The six-dollar Temu mind control beam actually worked. Which meant several things, most of them terrifying and geopolitically significant, but the loudest thought in America's skull, the one elbowing past national security implications and basic ethics alike, was simply: I can make him do anything.
He looked at China. Really looked at him, in the way he only let himself look when China was distracted by his phone or turned away during a meeting. The sharp line of his jaw. The way his red skin looked warm even under fluorescent lighting, like there was a furnace banked somewhere beneath the surface. His throat, exposed and still where the pulse should have been visible. His yellow eyes, blank now but usually so sharp they felt like being frisked. He was shorter than America by a few centimeters, more compact, built efficient and dense where America ran long and broad.
America's mouth had gone dry. He licked his lips without thinking about it.
I'm just testing the parameters, he told himself. Scientifically. For science. This is a controlled experiment about Temu product reliability and I'm going to write a very detailed review afterward.
"Step closer," he said. His voice came out rougher than he intended.
China stepped forward. One step, then another, until he was close enough that America could smell him, something clean and faintly sharp, like tea and cedar and whatever expensive soap he used that he'd never tell America the name of. Their chests were nearly touching. China's blank face tilted up toward his, and even empty of expression those yellow eyes were doing something to the pit of America's stomach that he absolutely refused to examine.
"Say..." America swallowed. "'I think about you constantly.'"
A pause. Barely there, just a half-beat of silence that could have been processing time, could have been lag, could have been anything.
"I think about you," China said, "constantly."
The word landed heavy. America felt it settle into the air between them like a dropped stone, the ripples spreading outward into parts of his brain he kept locked and dark and deliberately unvisited. He was hard. He was already hard, had been getting hard since China's eyes went glassy, and that fact sat in his chest like a swallowed coal, burning and undeniable.
He won't remember any of this. The box said results guaranteed. That probably includes a built-in memory wipe. It would be irresponsible NOT to do a full stress test.
"Kneel," America said.
China lowered himself. Not a collapse, not a puppet-drop, but a smooth controlled descent, one knee and then the other, settling onto the carpet with his back straight and his hands resting on his thighs and his blank face level with America's belt buckle. It was graceful. Practiced, almost. America's brain skipped over that observation like a stone over water, bouncing once and sinking without a trace.
He reached down with hands that were not quite steady and unbuckled his belt, unzipped, pushed his boxers down enough to pull himself free. He was thick and flushed dark, fully hard now, curving slightly to the left the way it always did when he was this worked up. The cool air of the conference room hit his skin and he hissed through his teeth.
China's blank gaze dropped to his cock. His pupils dilated. It was subtle, a widening of the black against yellow that could have been a trick of the light, but America saw it and felt a surge of something hot and possessive claw through his gut. China's lips parted another fraction of an inch, his lower lip glistening faintly where his tongue had swept across it so quickly America almost missed it.
Physiological response, America told himself firmly. The body reacts even when the mind is offline. I read that somewhere. Probably.
"Suck it," he said, and was distantly embarrassed by how wrecked he already sounded.
China leaned forward and took him in, and whatever America had been expecting, it wasn't this. Not the wet heat that engulfed him, not the immediate sure pressure of China's tongue running the flat length of the underside, not the way China's mouth seemed to know exactly how much to take and at what angle. America's hips jerked involuntarily and China adjusted, one hand coming up to grip America's thigh, fingers pressing into the muscle through his slacks with a firmness that felt intentional, deliberate, hungry. The other hand followed, settling on America's opposite hip, and America didn't think about why a mind-controlled person would use their hands without being told. He didn't think about anything. China hollowed his cheeks and took him deeper and America's thoughts shorted out like a fuse box in a storm.
"Fffu... nnnh, fuck," America breathed, and his hand found the back of China's head, fingers threading through that short red hair. It was softer than he'd imagined. Than he'd expected. He hadn't imagined it. He gripped and China made a sound, low and humming, a vibration that traveled straight up America's cock and into the base of his spine. Not a grunt of compliance. A pleased, almost satisfied hum, the sound of someone enjoying their work. America's knees nearly buckled.
He looked down because he couldn't not look down, and the image almost ended him right there. China on his knees, lips stretched around America's cock, the red of his skin flushed darker across his cheeks, those gold stars shifting with the movement of his jaw. His yellow eyes were half-lidded, still technically blank but somehow, from this angle, looking almost... focused. Content. And between his thighs, visible even through his trousers, the unmistakable hard line of his own erection straining against the fabric.
America stared at it. China was average, he could tell even through cloth, nothing like the heavy thickness currently buried in China's throat, and some petty territorial part of America's hindbrain preened at that, smugly and absurdly satisfied. Even mind-controlled, his body knows what's superior. It was not America's most rational thought. It was, however, incredibly effective at pushing him closer to the edge.
He pulled back, dragging his cock free of China's mouth with a slick, obscene pop, and China's lips chased him for a fraction of a second before going still. A thin thread of saliva connected them, catching the light, and China's mouth stayed open, wet and swollen and slightly red. His tongue rested behind his lower teeth. He looked, for all the world, like he was waiting.
"Bend over the table," America managed, his voice shot through with gravel.
China rose with the same controlled grace, turned to the conference table, and leaned forward onto his forearms. He settled into position like he'd done it before, his back arching just enough to push his hips out, his legs spread at exactly the right width. The observation grazed the surface of America's consciousness and slid off, repelled by the wall of arousal that had replaced his frontal lobe.
America pulled China's trousers and briefs down in one motion, and there it was, red skin giving way to the curve of his ass, compact and firm and faintly trembling. His cock hung between his thighs, hard and leaking, the foreskin pulled back to expose the flushed head, and America's hands were on him before he'd consciously decided to touch, gripping his hips, thumbs pressing into the small of his back. He glanced over at the Temu device on the table, its LED still blinking its weak little heartbeat. It absolved him. It was doing this, not him. He was just the beneficiary of shoddy Chinese manufacturing producing something accidentally brilliant.
He spat into his palm, which wasn't ideal but was all he had, and pressed a slicked finger against China. China's breath hitched. Not a blank, controlled response. A sharp, real intake of air, his shoulders tightening, his fingers curling against the polished wood. America added a second finger and China's head dropped between his arms and he made a sound like "hhh" that could have been anything, could have been nothing, could have been the start of a name.
America lined himself up and pushed in, slow at first because even through the fog of it he knew he was big and this was tight, tighter than he'd thought possible, clenching around him like a fist. China gasped, and the gasp cracked open at the end into something raw and guttural that sounded nothing like a mind-controlled person and everything like a man getting what he'd wanted. His hands gripped the edge of the table hard enough to whiten his knuckles. America bottomed out and held there, breathing through his teeth, his vision swimming.
Then he moved.
He set a pace that was hard from the start, because he figured a mind-controlled partner wouldn't feel it, wouldn't care, would just take whatever he gave. And China took it, took every thrust, but he didn't just take it. He matched it, rolling his hips back to meet America's each time, angling himself so that America hit something deep inside him that made his whole body jolt. The sound of skin against skin filled the conference room, obscene and rhythmic, punctuated by the wet sounds of their joining and America's ragged breathing and the small, bitten-off moans China kept making, each one less controlled than the last.
"Ahhn... nnh, hahh..." China's voice broke on a sound that might have been a word. Might have been "America," muffled against his own forearm, too strangled to parse. America grabbed a fistful of that red hair and pulled, arching China's back, and China keened, his whole body clamping down around America's cock in a way that dragged a groan from somewhere deep in America's chest.
China came first. Untouched, his cock pulsing between his legs, spilling onto the conference room carpet in thick ropes, his body seizing around America with a desperate, shuddering clench. The sound he made was ragged and wrecked and absolutely, unmistakably real, and America followed him over the edge seconds later, burying himself to the hilt and coming inside with a broken "fffuck, fuck, China" that he would absolutely never admit to later.
They stayed like that for a long, trembling moment. America's forehead pressed between China's shoulder blades, his breath coming in harsh bursts against red skin. Beneath him, China was still, his breathing evening out with suspicious speed, his body relaxed and pliant in a way that felt less like emptiness and more like satisfaction.
America pulled out slowly. He tucked himself away with clumsy hands, zipped up, buckled his belt with fingers that fumbled twice. He grabbed the Temu device off the table, aimed it at China, and clicked the button again.
China blinked. Straightened up. Rolled his shoulders, tugged his trousers back into place with efficient, unhurried movements. He looked around the room with a faint crease between his brows, the perfect portrait of mild confusion.
"What happened?" he asked. "Why do I feel..." He trailed off, pressing a hand to his lower back with a wince that was just theatrical enough.
"The device worked," America said quickly, guilt and triumph fighting for territory in his voice. "I mean, it worked in the sense that it proved Temu can make quality products. You were out for a while but nothing major happened. Nothing worth mentioning."
China looked at him. Those yellow eyes, sharp again, bright again, scanned America's face with an intensity that should have been terrifying and instead made something warm and dangerous stir in America's gut. Then China reached past him and picked up the device, turning it over in his fingers, examining it with calm curiosity.
"So this worked on me," he said, his voice perfectly neutral. He slipped it into his pocket.
"Hey, that's mine, I paid six dollars for—"
"I'm keeping it." China smoothed his shirt, ran a hand through his hair, and walked toward the door. He moved easily, no stiffness, no disorientation, no residual confusion. He walked like someone leaving a restaurant after a good meal.
At the door, he paused. Looked back over his shoulder. His expression was flat, unreadable, except for something at the very corners of his mouth that could have been nothing.
"Same time next week, then," he said. Not a question.
The door clicked shut behind him. America stood alone in the conference room, heart still hammering, the ghost of heat still clinging to his skin. He looked at the Temu box on the table. He looked at the carpet.
He pulled out his phone and ordered three more.