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exams just ended and dinghao wishes that he was in bed catching up on anime but instead he was standing in a house with intoxicated college students. the only upside to the entire situation was that yanjun was wearing a snapback that showed off his forehead. his childhood friend was wearing his adidas track pants as usual and a white shirt, his go to outfit. yanjun was the type of guy with such a nice face that it didn’t matter what he wore, he always looked good, and this outfit just proved dinghao’s point.
“are zhangjing and the rest of them here already?” dinghao asks yanjun, clearly uncomfortable with all the drunk strangers around them.
“nah, but they should show up soon. just stick by me and wait until they come.” yanjun says while flashing smiles to random girls who they were walking by.
even though they came just the two of them, waiting for their other friends to arrive, soon enough a flock of people were surrounding them, correction, surrounding yanjun. a bunch of girls crowded them and quickly dinghao found himself outside of the circle that engulfed yanjun. with a sigh he takes his leave, seeing as yanjun was already preoccupied, and heads towards the kitchen. stick by me my ass, thinks dinghao.
since he was waiting for the rest of their friends, he might as well start eating some food before it all gets devoured by zhangjing when he arrives. he grabs a slice of pizza and a brownie with god knows what inside and starts eating while staring off into space. and soon enough zhangjing arrives with honglin, routian, and chaoze. they all say hi before the later three ventured off to find the alcohol and zhangjing scavenges the kitchen.
“what’s with the kicked puppy face?” zhangjing asks while stacking three pizzas on his plate. dinghao doesn’t even know why he asks, he must’ve seen the huge crowd of girls surrounding yanjun when he first entered the house. “is it yanjun?” zhangjing asks again.
to that dinghao could only nod slowly, already losing his appetite. “why did i have to fall in love with the biggest fuckboy on campus?” he asks wryly, setting his half eaten food aside.
“hey, you know the best that yanjun isn’t like that. he might seem like an asshole on the outside but he cares a lot about his friends and he’s way too invested into football to fuck around.”
dinghao nods slowly in agreement and lets out a noise in discontent. it was because yanjun was more than what meets the eye that got dinghao hooked. even though he was such a tough looking guy with the angriest eyebrows, yanjun was always the one to crack jokes to lighten up the mood and reassure dinghao when he was feeling insecure about himself. even though he grumbled when dinghao called him at 4am and woke him up, he still stayed on the phone and listened attentively to his rambles. yanjun was softer on the inside than he let on and because of that dinghao felt safe enough to come out to him and zhangjing when he was in high school and they haven’t even once made him feel uncomfortable about it.
“hey” zhangjing taps his shoulder and breaks him out of his thoughts, “even though you are madly in love with yanjun, exams are over and i think you deserve a break so let loose and have some fun tonight.” zhangjing says with expectant eyes. “hes enjoying himself and i don’t see why you cant enjoy yourself with a handsome stranger.” he finishes with an eyebrow wiggle and dinghao laughs out loud and slaps him across the shoulder.
dinghao thinks about it and agrees, exams were stressful and thinking about yanjun only added to that stress. he deserves to relax and maybe put yanjun in the backseat of his brain for once. he thanks zhangjing for clearing his head and leaves the kitchen to where everyone was dancing. as he enters the living room he bumps straight into someone, the strong smell of cologne and alcohol radiating off the person.
“dinghao! heeyyyy nice to see you here, where’s the scary dragon?” fan chengcheng drawls out while strolling over to dinghao, drink sloshing around in his cup. dinghao laughs, seeing the other male was clearly drunk and checking him out without much subtlety. dinghao’s a little puzzled to why the football player was talking to him since after all these years he has never really talked to anyone of them despite yanjun being on the team since freshman year. but he thinks back to what zhangjing said and he’s not going to let his bad mood because of yanjun impede him from having a good time.
“fancy seeing you chengcheng. how come this party was the first time you decided to make conversation?” dinghao plays along and flirts while placing his hand on chengcheng’s forearm. chengcheng takes in the skinship lavishly and dinghao’s not afraid to give more, hes done with thinking about yanjun for the night, hes going to finally have fun and take the break he deserves.
chengcheng chuckles, “no one on the team even has the balls to look in your direction. lin yanjun is a scary man.” even though dinghao’s annoyed from the mention of the man, he’s curious to what chengcheng is saying.
“what does that even mean, is yanjun the dragon?” dinghao says before he downs the rest of chengcheng’s alcohol and pulls him to the center of all the dancing. dinghao pulls chengcheng closer by the shoulders and the other male rests his hands on dinghao’s hips.
“hes a great captain, but man is he possessive. if he catches anyone looking at you for more than three seconds, he gives them a ‘talk’ and extra warm up time. we compare him to a dragon guarding his gold.” chengcheng blabbles, suddenly not feeling scared of his cold captain because of the liquid courage.
dinghao’s intrigued by all this new information that he’s never heard before. he thought the football team guys never made eye contact with him when he visited their practices and sat in on their games because they thought of him as a loser, but this turn of events is pleasing to say the least. dinghao knows yanjun is a possessive bastard but didn’t know that he felt the need to protect his friends against this own teammates.
“then why are you here dancing with me right now? mustered up some of that courage?” dinghao says, leaning in closer to the taller male, their chests almost touching. “do you find me attractive enough to defy your captain?”
chengcheng leans down a bit more so he can whisper in dinghao’s ear, “you’re so attractive, im pretty sure at least half the team wanted to talk to you before. good thing yanjun’s not around so i can finally do this.” he finishes before leaning down more, slowly closing in on dinghao’s face.
dinghao didn’t want to take it this far with chengcheng especially since he’s an underclassman, he just wanted to play around a bit and feel like attractive for once. but between the strong liquor he downed from the cup earlier, the heat of the bodies around them, and how he drinks up the compliments from chengcheng, he decides going a little further wont hurt anyone. he moves in closer and goes to meet chengcheng half-way.
but before their lips touch, chengcheng is suddenly ripped away and he feels a strong tug on his own bicep. yanjun had pushed all the people surrounding them and separated them before they could actually kiss. he looked absolutely livid, jaw clenched, and eyes set with a dark fire, staring directly at chengcheng.
yanjun steps in between the two and uses his body to block dinghao, who was still in shock, from chengcheng. “you fuck. what did i tell you about even looking in his direction?” yanjun seethes and shoves chengcheng back, causing everyone around them to stare at the commotion. chengcheng is still pretty drunk so he sways on his feet, trying to look at dinghao for help, but the smaller male was completely obscured by yanjun.
“where are you looking? are you even listening to me?” yanjun takes a step forward and jabs chengcheng’s shoulder. this is when dinghao finally snaps out of his daze and pulls yanjun back by his shirt. “yanjun stop, chengcheng and i were just fooling around he did nothing wrong. i was the one that pulled him to dance.”
but his words only fell on deaf ears as yanjun was fuming. dinghao tries his best to restrict his movement but yanjun takes another step forward and raises his fist, ready to throw a punch at chengcheng who was still very disoriented.
this was when dinghao finally had enough, “LIN YANJUN stop this at once!” he yelled the same time as when zhengting and xukun entered the fray. zhengting had a solid grip on the arm yanjun had raised and xukun had quickly stepped in between him and chengcheng with his arms outstretched, causing the younger boy to stumble back and fall on his behind.
“that’s enough cap, don’t you think?” xukun says as he looks yanjun in the eyes and zhengting’s grip still strong while dinghao’s arms are in a vice grip around yanjun’s middle, the four of them quickly sobering up.
justin quickly runs over and kneels at his best friend’s side, helping the boy up while never breaking his glare at yanjun.
“cap why don’t you go outside and take a walk?” zhengting says as yanjun shakes his hand off from his arm. dinghao can sense everyone around them staring and whispering, eyes on them. he nods thank you at zhengting and xukun before letting go of yanjun and instead grabs his wrist, pulling him away from the awkward situation.
yanjun gives in pretty easily and calms down while dinghao pulls him through the crowd never stopping till they reach outside on the porch. dinghao ignores all the fingers and whispers, knowing most of the bad stuff is probably said about him. theres no way any of the girls are bad mouthing their ‘sweetheart’ yanjun. even coming outside to relax turned into a battlefield with yanjun around.
“lin yanjun are you crazy? you are really a goddamn bastard. why cant i even have some fun at a party with you around?” dinghao finally lets out his frustrations.
yanjun’s eyes darken again and he yells back, “i was just trying to protect you from him, why cant you just be thankful.”
from that dinghao explodes. “protect me? are you kidding me? the one who needed protection was fan chengcheng, from you. he looked like a little puppy being kicked around by you, he’s so young and such a sweet kid. and who are you to dictate who i hang out with, i am so thankful you told your entire football team to avoid me.” dinghao says with much sarcasm. yanjun’s eyes widen in surprise before narrowing into a glare once again.
“you know what yanjun? ill take you home right now but after that stay away from me for a while, im seriously mad at you.” dinghao says and turns around to pull out his phone to check bus times, ignoring how yanjun’s getting angrier by the second.
one second dinghao was checking bus routes and the next he was pinned against the side of the house, yanjun’s lips pressing into his own. yanjun kissed exactly how he looked, harsh and brash, if it wasn’t for his hand which was cradling dinghao’s face so tenderly, he’d think yanjun was seriously mad at him. dinghao froze in shock, brain not quite processing what was going on, why was lin yanjun kissing him? after getting no reaction from dinghao, yanjun quickly pulls away, regret clearly written all over his face.
“dinghao, i-im sorry. i didn’t mean to-“
“didn’t mean to kiss me?” dinghao lets out a scoff, he cant even bear to make eye-contact with yanjun now. he’s one hundred percent sure that if he looks at yanjun he will burst into tears and turn it into an even more awkward situation, as if their friendship wasn’t already ruined enough. “yeah i got it lets get you home, you’re drunk.” dinghao brushes past yanjun and walks towards the nearby bus stop.
yanjun can only walk behind him in shame, unable to explain himself after looking at dinghao’s downcast expression, he really fucked it up this time.
“when are you guys going to stop tie-toing around each other? its making the entire house awkward.” zhangjing says one afternoon to yanjun as they were eating lunch.
yanjun sighs and puts down his chopsticks. its not like he wants to engage in this cold stand-off either but it wasn’t like he had a choice, he really fucked up at the party and now dinghao hates him and his entire team is also on rocky waters. he apologized to fan chengcheng after the whole fiasco the next day but now the younger player still looks at him with bambi eyes and yanjun is pretty sure he scarred the poor kid for life. also justin wont even look at him and he’s sure that he lost the respect of many players on the team, at least zhengting and xukun still try to act normal around him but the tension around the team is undeniable.
and there was dinghao. dinghao was a complete different sitation. first of all they all live together and you’d think they would have to face what happened sooner or later but somehow yanjun thinks he’s seen glimpses of the other man around 3 times this entire week. every time yanjun enters a room, either dinghao leaves at the speed of light or he’s just not home to begin with. he started going to jeffrey’s house way more often, to yanjun’s distaste, and even sleeps over on some days. yanjun cant find a way to properly apologize and the words just sit on his tongue. every night he practices it and makes slight changes, trying to word it so it placates dinghao, but he just hasn’t had the chance to actually tell dinghao how sorry he is.
“yeah i fucked up real bad at the party.” yanjun says with his head on the table, between his elbows.
“so i’ve heard.” zhangjing replies, stealing a piece of meat from yanjun’s bowl.
yanjun suddenly shoots up and whines, “don’t just say that, help me fix this mess, you know im bad with feelings.”
“hmmm, well are you going to pay me for my services?” zhangjing jokes and yanjun whines more. “im joking, aren’t you glad you have a friend like me?” and to which yanjun can only look at him with earnest eyes and nod vigorously.
“well after what happened on saturday, it seems to me that you know exactly how you feel. no one in their right mind would try to cockblock their friend to that extent and cause a scene in the middle of the party. i heard that you looked downright scary during the encounter, don’t try to fool yourself yanjun.” zhangjing says, dropping air quotations as he says ‘friend.’
yanjun’s head drops back onto the table and zhangjing smiles gleefully, knowing that he is never wrong and steals another piece of meat, considering it payment for his knowledge. “zhangjing, you’re right. i do like him. i like him a lot and i really messed up. i just want to apologize and tell him how i truly feel, even if he doesn’t feel the same way.” yanjun stands up with a new resolve, he’s going to talk to dinghao today no matter what.
zhangjing facepalms and marvels at how there were so many stupid people living under one roof. he watches as yanjun shrugs on his jacket and put on his shoes before rushing out the door. only to return five seconds later with a confused look on his face. “he went to go bother xingjie.” yanjun’s face lights up with realization and slams the door before sprinting off again. “how do i even put up with any of them.” zhangjing sighs.
ruotian walks out of his bedroom and yawns, “what the hell just happened?” he says while scratching his stomach, his hair a mess from just waking up.
“rise and shine pineapple boy, something spicy is about to happen.”
yanjun raps on the door to xingjie’s nice apartment, feeling awkward in the high-class complex in a shirt he has been wearing for three days straight and some ripped jeans. he didn’t really have time to change, he wanted to see dinghao as soon as possible and clear up everything that had happened between them. yanjun wasn’t used to dinghao giving him the cold shoulder like this. they had been friends for a long time and not hearing dinghao’s voice for a few days made yanjun realise just how much he missed the other boy. he misses how dinghao always hangs off his shoulders and bothers him at night about dumb things and eats his food. he even misses his loud obnoxious laughter and how he pokes him in the side whenever yanjun is holding something. fuck, yanjun is completely whipped for dinghao, and he doesn’t even care, he just wants to hug him and make things right.
a pissed off xingjie opens the door but his eyes light up as soon as he sees yanjun.
“hey xingjie is dinghao here?” yanjun asks while scratching his neck. he wasn’t close with xingjie at all and to be honest the older man kind of scared yanjun, a lot.
“i thought you’d never come.” xingjie responds and then turns his head and yells into his apartment, “hey lover boy, your prince is here! now go solve your problems and stop sulking at my place.”
yanjun chuckles as he hears dinghao yell that he doesn’t need no prince and he will provide for himself, before slowly shuffling to the door. yanjun notes how dinghao has eyebags and realizes that dinghao was probably just as stressed about the situation as he was, but he was still refusing to make eye-contact.
dinghao tries to plead with xingjie using his puppy dog eyes but xingjie just rolls his eyes and pushes him outside of his apartment. “good luck guys, please solve whatever mess you guys got into and leave me out of it.” he says before he slams the door shut.
dinghao walks ahead and yanjun follows closely behind, trying to gauge dinghao’s expressions to see if he should get on his knees to apologize or not. dinghao just kept his eyes on the ground and kicked pebbles as he walked, yanjun knew that dinghao only did that when he had a lot going on in his mind.
they walk and eventually end up at the park they used to visit when they were younger. dinghao sits down on one of the swings and yanjun sits on the one beside him. they swing in silence, both looking towards the clear sky.
“i don’t think we’ve ever not spoken to each other for this long.” yanjun starts, looking over at dinghao who was still staring at the sky. “remember when we were kids and you tripped getting out of that sandbox and scrapped your knee?” dinghao turns his attention to the little sandbox by the pavement where yanjun was pointing at. he remembers how much it hurt and how hard he was trying to hold in his tears, but yanjun didn’t laugh at him once. instead he commented how brave dinghao was and then carried him all the way home on his back.
“and then i carried your heavy ass back to your house and from then on, your mom liked me the most out of all our friends.” yanjun boasted, chuckling a bit to himself. dinghao couldn’t help but crack a smile as well. yanjun was huffing and puffing when they reached dinghaos home, dinghao volunteered to walk by himself multiple times but yanjun was firm on his decision to carry the other boy home. dinghao’s mom didn’t like yanjun much back then because he was the most rowdy of the bunch and preferred dinghao to stick to quieter and more reserved boys like zhangjing. but after that incident when she saw yanjun carry dinghao to their door and then exclaim proudly that he would protect dinghao always, yanjun was the one who was invited to his house most often. his mom said, “i really trust yanjun, he’s a good boy and you should be glad you have such a dependable friend.”
dinghao lets out a sigh and looks at yanjun. he was just trying to protect dinghao from chengcheng like he promised dinghao’s mom all the way back then. although he took it too far, yanjun was just doing what he thought was the best for dinghao.
“im sorry for yelling at you at the night of the party, and i forgive you for being a huge asshole and stealing my first real kiss.” dinghao says as he makes eye-contact with yanjun.
yanjun looks panicked and quickly replies, “why are you apologizing i had this entire speech planned out. don’t apologize let me apologize.” dinghao only laughs, yanjun is usually very calm and reserved but it’s nice to see him act like this once in a while.
“ok go on then, you are the most emotionally constipated person i’ve ever met so ill try not to interrupt you. recite the speech you probably practiced for a week.”
yanjun gives dinghao a dirty look for being so cheeky, but dinghao was right and saw right through him. he did practice the speech the entire week, that’s what happens when you’re friends with someone for well over a decade.
“ok then here goes. dinghao im sorry for what happened last weekend at the party, i shouldn’t have acted up like that and it was wrong of me to cause a scene and make you uncomfortable. i will practice sobriety and not drink alcohol until you give me the ok once again. it was wrong of me to kiss you out of nowhere without your permission and i’m sorry. i hope you can forgive me because you are still my best friend and i want to still be your friend ten years down the road.” yanjun lets out in one go.
dinghao is taken back by the amount of sorrys yanjun had said to him in the span on five minutes, yanjun almost never apologizes out loud. if he was sorry he usually made it up to dinghao through his actions since he was very prideful. dinghao feels the need to reassure him that he understands and that he does forgive yanjun. “its ok yanjun, you were just trying to protect me, friends do that for each other.”
“no i was wrong, friends don’t do that to each other, i shouldn’t have came between you and chengcheng at the party. i thought about it and the only reason why i did that was because i was angry, i was beyond furious. i was angry because i like you dinghao. i didn’t want to see you with chengcheng because i want you to be with me. i don’t only want to be your friend ten years down the road, i want to hear you complain to me at five o’clock in the morning and I want to wake up to your nasty bed hair, and i want to be the one that you can always rely on. even if you don’t feel the same way, just know that i have and i always will have your back.” yanjun finishes and he stares right at dinghao with such fond eyes, and dinghao thinks he must’ve been blind because yanjun has been looking at him with those eyes since they were kids. dinghao was so caught up in the moment that at first he didn’t say anything, just processing the fact that the boy he has loved for so many years just confessed to him.
“it’s ok if you don’t feel the same way dinghao, i just wanted to apologize and give a reason for my actions because i don’t want you to think that i don’t treasure you.” yanjun says with a soft smile.
dinghao quickly pulls his swing closer to yanjuns, they sit with their knees touching and facing each other. “no no no no yanjun you dummy i think i have always liked you. probably as early on as when you carried me home on your back. i was just content with staying as your friend but look at you being selfish and confessing like that.”
a wide smile spreads across yanjuns face and he grabs dinghaos swing closer to his own and rests their foreheads together. “you aren’t joking with me right, lu dinghao? this is real right?”
dinghao feels tears stinging the corner of his eyes, threatening to spill. “i’ve liked you ever since you had those ugly glow in the dark braces you dumbass, there’s no way this is a drill.”
“good because this isn’t either.” yanjuns says as he leans forwards and dinghao meets him half-way.
zhangjing makes a grossed-out face has he glances at his two childhood friends splayed on the couch, dinghao on top of yanjun as they cuddle. dinghao was playing around with yanjuns fingers while yanjun’s other hand was running up and down his back.
“we wasted so much time just pining over each other, can you imagine if we dated in high school?” yanjun says as he looks fondly over at dinghao. zhangjing thinks he puked in his own mouth.
“yuck are you kidding me? i wouldn’t date you in high school. you had that weird silver hair and a ton of piercings, like a delinquent.” dinghao replies before sticking his tongue out.
“you take that back! tell me i was handsome in high school.” yanjun retaliates before suddenly flipping their positions, dinghao underneath him. yanjun starts to tickle the other boy into submission. “tell me i was handsome!” zhangjing only watches as yanjun tortures his boyfriend and dinghao wheezes.
he opens his laptop and enters in the search bar, ‘housing near XXX campus’ before scrolling down the columns of houses that came up.
ruotian gasps loudly over his coffee when he sees zhangjing’s laptop screen. “zhangjing! you cant leave me alone with these lovebirds.” he quickly runs over and slams zhangjing’s laptop shut.
“zhangjing! you can never escape us, besides you weren’t the one suffering all these years, let us have some fun.” dinghao says as he pushes yanjun off of him, the other boy landing on his butt. he lets out a loud yelp before quickly hopping back on his feet and continues to torment dinghao.
a vein on zhangjing’s forehead bulges as he thinks back to all those years as when he watched his two best friends crush on each other but not do anything about it. when he had to put up with their bullshit and feelings. yeah, he didn’t suffer. not at all.
hes going to murder yanjun and dinghao in their sleep tonight.