Work Text:
MB’s uncle informs him that he’s got a roommate in a post-it stuck to the refrigerator and a young man sitting awkwardly at the kitchen island with a battered suitcase, a ratty backpack, and an expression of resigned despair, chanting “Thanks dad thanks dad thanks dad,” as he beats his head on the black marble.
MB reads the post-it. He must be getting desperate for ways to annoy MB: it’s only six months until MB reaches his majority and he can finally kick Linguang out of the house for good.
The stranger realizes someone else is in the room mid-beat and hits his head on the counter much harder than he intended, spills off the stool, tangles in his suitcase, and crashes on the floor.
MB walks around the counter. “My uncle,” he says. With no response but groaning, he nudges the stranger in the shoulder with his foot.
“Fuck,” says the man- barely older than MB is, with that ratty college-student look. “Fuck. I’m not a burglar. Don’t kill me. I’m sorry.”
“Obviously,” says MB. “My uncle.”
“What an asshole,” says the man, which immediately makes MB feel tired. All of the ‘caretakers’ Linguang tries to hire to spy on his nephew are the same: stupid. “I read the note. I uh. I’m sorry. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
MB hears, just as clearly as if he’s hearing it for the first time in kindergarten, Sha Hualing’s voice saying ugh, poors. Since acquiring Luo Binghe as class president, however, her attitude has taken a hundred-and-eighty degree turn.
“That’s fine,” he says, glares. “I don’t need to see you.” It’s a big house, three wings, two garages, one ornamental fish lake. MB migrates between bedrooms according to his mood, leaving the mess to be cleaned by the service that comes once a week. Another service stocks the kitchen and leaves meals in the fridge that MB eats cold, if he eats them at all: once the meals or leftovers have been there for three days, they vanish. He briefly considers explaining all this to this new person, but surely he’ll find out soon enough.
The stranger perks and wilts. “Thank you!” he says. He looks as though he’s going to grovel for a second, so MB backs away. And then walks away. He points to one side of the house. “Mine,” he says. “Don’t come here.” He will, of course, but MB has anything he actually cares about locked away, and the migrating bedroom thing often stymies them long enough that they don’t bother him for a couple of months.
“I won’t!” says the stranger, who looks excited. How much of MB’s money goes to paying his uncle’s spies?
“Two months, tops!” he says. “I won’t get in your way.”
.0.
MB texts a picture of the note to Luo Binghe to save his breath, so out of consideration for MB, Binghe keeps his daily daoshi love-of-my-life bulletin to only half a concentrated hour instead of the usual eight across the course of the entire school day.
Today it’s yet another update on the definitive way Luo Binghe will win the affections of the love of his life: by fake-dating his little sister. An absolutely flawless, foolproof plan.
“Thank you for your support,” Binghe says through the bluetooth earbuds when MB says nothing. “If you want to get that person out of your house, can’t you just make him leave? Rough him up, set his bed on fire, scare him a little… S’not hard.”
“Tiresome,” says MB, who will still have to live in that house afterwards, just like they all still had to go to class with the wall-mounted LCD screen shattered into a kaleidoscope around that substitute’s head. “He’s running out of ideas. Two months, tops.”
MB gets out of the taxi to walk into the school, and Luo Binghe cycles up, just in time. He hops off the deathtrap that still carries him and pushes back his hair and is almost recognizably the school’s idol, best-looking, infallibly kind, helpful, capable, top 1-percentile zhongkao scorer in the country. He’s only a little out of breath: on Mondays he only has one before-school job making deliveries, he doesn’t need to rush to change into his uniform in a reasonably private underpass before he arrives at school. MB doesn’t know how he does it. Once, when MB tried to buy him a new school uniform, he had taken it home, washed, ironed and steam-cleaned it, and then given it back to MB with a bill for laundry services. Instead, MB had to wait three months, snap, “I don’t want this anymore,” throw it at him, and then Luo Binghe accepted it.
“You think you can take two months?” Binghe says, falls into step beside him.
“At least this one knows to keep his mouth shut,” says MB. He hasn’t tried to speak to MB, interact with MB, or look at MB. MB is only 5% certain he’s still in the house at all, but he’s 100% certain he does not care. The other thing he hasn’t done is mess with the temperature settings.
“Keep your lawyer on speed dial,” says Luo Binghe, and then a beautiful, patient smile spreads across his face and they sweep into the school building. Back into the fray.
.0.
Two months, nothing. MB is retching into the first living room’s ornamental rock bowl, and he’s dying. He’s just fucking dying. He forgot to check the food, he assumed that it would all be good, he assumed that his uncle wouldn’t do something so obvious, so easily traceable. But maybe this ‘caretaker’ is stupider than all the others. Maybe he’s a patsy.
MB hears swearing, looks up, and sees someone coming for him. Then the world goes black.
.0.
MB is in a clean bed. He last used this bedroom four months ago. His hair is wet, his shirt is clean, he’s not wearing pants. His stomach hurts.
If this is a plot by his uncle, he doesn’t understand it. He should already be dead.
His uncle’s spy hands him a bottle of water and an energy drink. A pair of pants is on the bed, folded, in easy reach.
MB takes the water, but stares at him.
“You had food poisoning,” says the man. Slightly older boy. He looks older without a hoodie on, bony and tired. “Charcoal pills, some vomiting, lots of water, you’ll be fine soon. I’ve thrown out the stuff that was in the fridge. Do you really only eat that? It must have gone bad.”
Gotten rid of the evidence, MB’s mind supplies, but then he remembers that he was sick on this person’s actual hands and the man is still bringing him potable water and jelly energy drinks.
“You’re… not hired by my uncle?” says MB.
“No, I uh. I thought I was coming to spend my break with my dad.” When MB stares blankly, he says, “Your uncle’s um. Boyfriend? Uh. Friend?”
“Sure,” says MB.
“But then I read the note and my dad had called me, he thought I could stay here! And be your caretaker. But I really didn’t know that was what it was when I came here, I didn’t know anything.”
This, MB can believe. He drinks the water. It was sealed. It’s safe.
“At first I thought you were older than me so I was like wtf,” he says frankly, “but then I thought you were you know, pretty adult already, but now I see that as a uh caretaker, not for your uncle, but you are letting me live here, maybe I could help you out a bit! I’m a good cook.” He lowers his voice. “And look, if you were drinking, no shame, no problem, you’re a little young but I won’t stop you. As long as you drink responsibly. You were really sick last night, it was bad.”
MB glares at him.
“Please,” he says, putting his hands together. “Your house is so nice and I am so broke.”
Ugh, poors.
He could be lying. But he could also have let MB choke and die last night. MB nods, slowly.
The man flushes and fidgets, and says, “Also, I’ve- I’ve wanted to ask for a while-”
MB waits.
“What’s the wifi password…?” he says, and a smile breaks over his face in relief when MB snorts at him, and says, in return, “What’s your name?”
Shang Qinghua introduces himself, and then says, smile trembling a little, but bright-eyed and eager, “Do you think you’re up to some breakfast? I’ll make you something hot.”
.0.
“Wow,” says Binghe derisively. “That’s what he’s making you every day? Fried rice?”
“Yes,” says MB. “And instant curry noodles. But with eggs and chopped up kailan.”
Binghe makes a noise as though MB has caused him actual physical pain. He picks up shifts as a cook and moonlights as a private home chef because that gives him leftovers he can take home to eat, so he must be good at cooking, but MB has never had any tangible evidence of this. This is not to say that Luo Binghe hasn’t quoted him a price for private catering, but MB doesn’t have access to that kind of money until he comes of age and the trust winds up - if there’s even going to be anything left after the years his uncle has had charge of it.
“Is that all you called to tell me?” says Binghe. “I’m helping the elderly. You are stealing my time. From the elderly.”
“No,” says MB, who knows perfectly well that Luo Binghe’s Sunday morning job is tutoring. “I- how much should I give him for groceries? I gave him a couple of thousand yuan for tomorrow and he freaked out. Was that too little?” Shang Qinghua is always watching MB for his responses, eager to facilitate and please, and it’s throwing MB off.
Binghe laughs at him. “You should ask if you can go with him and help him carry stuff. You’re a spoiled rich boy who’s always wanted to see how the common people live and you’ve never been in a supermarket before.”
“But I don’t,” says MB. “And I have been.”
“Try lying,” says Luo Binghe. “You won’t believe how well it works.” Then he hangs up.
Shang Qinghua lights up when MB offers, and then again when MB says he’ll call a car. Five days ago, he barely saw the interloper: in the past week, he’s been carefully nursed every day and cooked hot food and poured hot tea. It’s less annoying than he thought it would be. He’s learned a lot about Shang Qinghua, though he notes, not fully trusting, that the other man refrains from asking MB any questions about himself at all.
“Yeah, I write webnovels,” says Shang Qinghua in the packed meats aisle. “Do you, uh, read any?”
(Sha Hualing, voice of his inner gremlin, watching Luo Binghe being called up to the front of the morning assembly to be commended for scoring higher on the zhongkao and internal exams than was previously thought possible: I can’t believe I want to fuck a nerd!)
“No,” says MB.
“Oh,” says Shang Qinghua, a little deflated, but not much. “I’ve uh. I’ve actually met. One of my longtime readers in this city! Weird coincidence, huh? We’ve been talking back and forth for a long time, but we only met face to face recently.”
“Sure,” says MB. “Not a serial killer?”
Shang Qinghua snickers. “No, actually, he’s the one who thought you-your uncle was a serial killer. But he was wrong! You’re a pretty nice kid.”
“Kid?” says MB, and Shang Qinghua turns around and laughs at him.
No one laughs at him. (One person laughs at him.)
“If you think about it, aren’t you kind of like my younger step-cousin?” he says. “If uh, my dad and your uncle- sorry, I should have asked, do you mind about-”
“No,” MB says, a little too quickly. But Shang Qinghua is relieved enough to take it in stride. “I mean, I don’t like my uncle. But not because of that.”
MB’s rewarded by a flash of real smile, something that lights up Shang Qinghua’s eyes and face. They pay and Shang Qinghua admires MB’s biceps while he’s lifting the shopping, so MB takes on all the bags, and again when the taxi drops them off at his house.
Shang Qinghua cooks and talks and carefully doesn’t mention what, if anything, his writing is about. MB isn’t yet infatuated enough to ask about it, and he hopes he never is.
It's not that he actually is. Infatuated. It’s just that Shang Qinghua is so clearly too naive and trusting to be caught up in… whatever it is this is. All MB has to do is pay him a bit of attention, and he blooms desperately, trying to keep and hold it. MB is getting food and personal service out of this. That's all.
“He says he was only telling me to be careful of serial killers because it sounded so crazy,” says Shang Qinghua, laughing at his phone. “Can I- could I ask him over? If you don’t mind. It can be while you’re at school.”
MB looks at Shang Qinghua’s wrists, emerging from the jacket: thin, white wrists, knobbly at the joints, bone under skin. Just now, he had gone to get something from an upper cabinet, just tall enough to forgo climbing on the cabinets, and his shirt had risen, his waist the same white as his wrists. “Sure,” he says. “I don’t mind.”
.0.
MB doesn’t know what he was expecting.
Well, he does know what he was expecting. Shang Qinghua but in colourswap, maybe a bit pudgier.
But Shen Yuan- sleek and slim, well and expensively dressed, gold-framed glasses, cool, assessing eyes, sitting at the counter watching Shang Qinghua fry rice with an air of expectation- is, at least, a normal person eight. He goes to university in their city and he’s Shang Qinghua’s internet (boy)friend.
MB wishes he wasn’t in his uniform.
“Hey!” says Shang Qinghua, introduces the stranger. He’s taken off the omnipresent jacket, dressed in almost-fitting t-shirt, and he says, “Hopeyoudon’tmindbut-” and it’s unclear what, exactly, he’s apologizing for: having invited someone over even though he asked ahead of time, cooking with the ingredients MB’s ordered in, having that person be actually, appallingly, good-looking, the air in the kitchen being over-warm, his car being parked in the garage, the way Shen Yuan eyes Shang Qinghua with supercilious ownership, barely a gleam in his glasses.
“I turned the air-conditioning down,” says Shen Yuan, calmly, over Shang Qinghua sputtering. “It was freezing. You can put it back up if you like.”
MB shrugs. “It’s fine,” he says. The sweat trickling down his back is already cold.
Shang Qinghua watches them both nervously until Shen Yuan says, “The rice,” in a dry voice.
“Right, right,” Shang Qinghua turns back in the nick of time, scraping frantically.
“Good school,” says Shen Yuan, nodding at MB’s uniform. Well-brought-up. “My sister knows someone who goes there.”
MB inclines his head to take in this new information as though it fucking matters to anyone. “You?”
“No,” says Shen Yuan. “I used to go to the International school.”
Shang Qinghua snickers, and Shen Yuan shoots him a sharp look. “Something to add?” he says, standing.
“No, Young Master Shen,” says Shang Qinghua sweetly. “Your snack, Young Master Shen.” He brings the pan around, and two bone-china plates. “Some for you?” he says to MB, who nods, because what other excuse does he have for hanging around here?
Shen Yuan leans next to Shang Qinghua- he’s tall, he’s even fucking tall, a whole head taller than his friend, taller than MB by a handspan- and says, “You’ve overcooked the eggs.”
“I like them crispy,” says Shang Qinghua. He sticks the fork in the plate and turns to feed it to Shen Yuan, who flicks a look over at MB (dying, fucking dying, he wants to die) before leaning over and eating it.
Shang Qinghua blushes. “I meant- take the-” he says. “This plate’s yours.” He puts the utensils back in with a clang and slides it along to Shen Yuan, who picks it up and eats, unconcerned.
“Soft’s better,” he says, with the first actual emotion MB’s seen out of him so far, flicking a teasing look down at the red-faced Shang Qinghua.
Shang Qinghua scrapes out the rest of the fried rice onto the other plate and pushes it to MB.
“None for you?” says Shen Yuan. Once again, his eyes flick over MB, who grits his teeth.
Shang Qinghua hurries to say, “I can make more later-”
Shen Yuan sticks out the fork for Shang Qinghua. “Let’s share,” he says.
Nothing in this world will ever convince MB that the sweat on Shang Qinghua’s face is from the stove. He flushes even deeper, red up his cheeks, on his neck, bites his lip. He eats, dropping his eyes, and Shen Yuan forks up another mouthful for himself. Same fork!
Shang Qinghua finishes chewing, and then he looks straight up into Shen Yuan’s face, and smiles. The fork clatters on their plate; Shen Yuan’s expression solidifies a little, and then he smiles back.
Rather than fling the plate on the floor and stomp away like a baby, MB puts the rice into his mouth. It tastes like nothing. He grimly chews and wonders if this is what it’s like to be Sha Hualing, who always sits where she can stare at Luo Binghe, even when it seems to physically pain her.
“We’ll get out of your way,” says Shen Yuan, taking possession of himself, and in the blink of an eye has ushered Shang Qinghua out of the kitchen, grabbing his car keys and cucumber phone case from the counter. He does all this without seeming to touch the other man, with the strong impression, lodged in MB’s throat, that he’s got his arm around Shang Qinghua’s waist. The last thing he does, as he turns to nod politely to MB, is hit the room controls so that the air conditioner starts up again.
So MB’s alone in a freezing room with cooling rice and a sweaty back, and Shang Qinghua is alone in a whole wing with his internet boyfriend.
Fuck.
.0.
MB takes a walk and calls Binghe.
He wants a smoke, but he hasn’t smoked since the day that Binghe gently took MB’s face in his hands, got right up close in there and said do you understand do you fucking understand the shorter your life is the faster he wins do you fucking understand and then Binghe had taken away MB’s smokes, sold them to some kids behind the 711 for triple the price and paid for his lunches that week like that, and now MB doesn’t have any in the house. If he leaves, he won’t know when Shen Yuan leaves, or if Shang Qinghua goes with him: he doesn’t want to know what they’ll do if they think they’re alone.
"Oh, now you have time to talk to me?" says Binghe.
“I want to throw up and then kill someone,” says MB. This is calm, isn’t it? He’s calm. Very calm.
“You’ve already thrown up on him,” says Binghe, heartless. “Anyway, what is this new guy? A nine?” Shang Qinghua’s internet friend is an eight, maybe an eight point five if someone grants him elegantly slim instead of too tall and lanky. That’s adjusted for normal people: MB’s mental scale has himself as a twelve and Luo Binghe as a fourteen, and Shang Qinghua, who doesn’t go out, eats badly, sleeps worse, needs a haircut, and lives in discount nightmarket athleisure, is a five.
“Eight you can work with,” says Binghe, who is saving himself for daoshi, hates being touched, and has had a fake girlfriend as long as MB has known him. “He’s only a couple of years older than you, that’s not such a big gap.” His voice turns sigh-heavy. “Like Yuan-gege…”
MB closes his eyes.
Binghe makes his ‘I am your friend and you are having an uncle-assassination level problem right now, but I am reminded I am having a daoshi crisis you haven't yet heard about and I am in pain’ noise.
MB sighs and says, “What.”
“He changed his phone case!” explodes out of Luo Binghe. “It looks so weird, it doesn’t suit him at all. Yingying said he’s been using it for a week now, where did he get it? It’s some knockoff goods, too, and every time he looks at it, he smiles!”
“Wow,” says MB. Shang Qinghua grins into his phone, most days, laughs as he types into it. “Smiles.”
“You don’t have any room to talk,” says Luo Binghe sullenly. “Anyway I finally saw it this morning, it’s not a watermelon like Yingying thought, it’s a cucumber. Why a cucumber? But I couldn’t get that good a look at it, he was on his way out-”
“Cucumber phone case?” says MB. He walks around to the garage, checks inside.
And MB says slowly, “Drives a white Audi? License plate-”
.0.
Luo Binghe doesn’t even bother ringing the bell: He scales the gate and crawls in the kitchen window and is jammed with MB on the loveseat in the loft window, using the zoom magnification on his phone.
“They’re just talking,” says MB. If he didn’t want to be here, he could walk out. He could be in the screening room, the bar, the third living room, the conservatory, the kitchen, so that they could come back out and find him exactly where they left him, alone and miserable.
“About. What.” says Binghe, two hours into this endeavor and approaching absolutely deranged. He’s gone monosyllabic, which is never a good sign.
MB says, “His novel,” certain that it was an excuse.
“‘Novel’,” says Binghe, tone poisonous.
Shen Yuan is on the floor (long legs stretched out in front of him) with his back to the bed: Shang Qinghua has been moving the whole time, alternatively pacing, lying on the bed, sitting next to Shen Yuan and lying on the floor. Right at this moment he’s lying on the bed, head angled to look at the screen right above Shen Yuan’s shoulder: not touching, Binghe has determined, but just barely. They’ve finished the fried rice and broken out the cup noodles. MB doesn’t remember those cup noodles. Did they go and buy them together?
“He writes,” says MB.
Shen Yuan must be saying something cutting, because he has that kind of look on his face, just a little too pleased with himself; Shang Qinghua rolls away with a grimace and buries his face in a pillow.
“Yuan-gege only reads classics and modern literature!” says Binghe indignantly. “He reads them in English, too! He’s got great taste!”
Shen Yuan puts the laptop aside, leans over, and kisses Shang Qinghua. He does this with great deliberation, as though he's been planning it, as though it's possible to look at Shang Qinghua laugh and not want to kiss him.
Yes. Very good taste.
Binghe doesn’t make a sound.
Shang Qinghua, pinned upside-down, moves his arms to grab hold of Shen Yuan. It’s awkward. It’s awkward? MB feels like his spine is on fire. It was bad enough to watch Shang Qinghua tip his head up to this person, like he wanted to be kissed. It’s worse that this, this, is Luo Binghe’s precious, storied daoshi.
“Alright,” says Luo Binghe, in a flat, dead voice. “The first thing we do is. The first thing we do is, break the ornamental fish lake.”
“What?” says MB. He can’t look away from their forms outlined in yellow light.
“We break it, and then when the contractors come in, they have to break up the concrete and stuff to get to the pipes to fix it.”
“What are you talking about,” says MB.
“So overnight, there’s going to be a lot of disturbed earth,” continues Luo Binghe, still staring straight ahead. “Ground works, digging, all of that.”
“Get to the point.”
“And that,” says Luo Binghe, the light reflecting red into his eyes as he stared at the bedroom across the garden and down a level, where Shen Yuan was sighing and smiling into his boyfriend’s mouth, glasses askew. “That’s where we bury Shang Qinghua’s body.”
“Oi.”
“You can keep him there forever,” says Binghe, as though this is supposed to appeal to him. “You know he’ll never leave you, never reject you, never suck face with anyone else.”
“Are you crying,” says MB.
“Of course I’m crying!” bawls Luo Binghe, beautiful face the picture of misery. “The love of my life is kissing some stupid little gremlin and you won’t even help me murder him!”
“He’s not a stupid little gremlin,” says MB. “He’s- nice.” But not a little stupid, admittedly. MB can’t see what a complete mess like Shang Qinghua is doing with Luo Binghe’s perfect, poised Yuan-gege, with his cold eyes and his cold demeanour and-
Below, Shang Qinghua has crawled into Shen Yuan’s lap.
Binghe makes a choked, horrified sound and buries his face in MB’s arm. MB extricates his arm with alacrity and replaces it firmly with a pillow but pats Binghe on the back.
Binghe shakes in agony and climbs on top of MB with the pillow and really, really, MB would rather not be watching, but Shen Yuan slips his hand- so big on that slim back- up the back of Shang Qinghua’s t-shirt, uses it to pull him close-
MB hits the shutter button to darken the window. Binghe rolls off, just a little way off, and says, “No,” like a lost, small child.
.0.
“I have to know everything,” says Binghe. “When did they get together? How did I miss this?”
MB shrugs.
“Yuan-gege’s type is- his type is refined beauties! He likes classy, beautiful, well-educated, smart-”
What’s Shang Qinghua’s type. That’s going to be a fun conversation to have. MB has only seen him interact with two people. It seems probable, if not possible, that Shang Qinghua has only ever interacted with two people.
“-I thought Liu Qingge transferring to train for the Olympic team was who he was texting with! I thought I’d gotten rid of him-”
In about an hour, it will be perfectly reasonable for MB to knock on the door, lean in, and ask what’s going to happen about dinner, and maybe they won’t even be naked then. Maybe they’ll have already gone out, and Shang Qinghua has left a post-it on the refrigerator door.
“He was smiling,” says Binghe, miserable. “He was smiling.”
Then the door opens, and Binghe jerks, reflexively, into MB’s space, driving all the breath out of him as MB receives seventy kilos of muscle and sadness directly to the chest.
It’s the two they’ve been spying on. They are not naked.
Shen Yuan hisses, face as cold and proud as a prince of hell, “So you’re the asshole whom Luo Binghe has been cheating on my sister with.”
.0.
“I saw your bicycle outside,” says Shen Yuan. “Binghe.“
Luo Binghe scrambles to vacate the loveseat and instead entangles himself in MB’s legs, tripping, and it just looks more compromising than ever. “I can explain,” he says. Then he has to take several deep breaths to keep from crying. Then he has nothing to say, no excuses, because he’s still hyperventilating.
Shen Yuan just looks at Binghe, as though he’s an insect, as though he’s an animal. “I don’t even want to look at you right now,” he says coldly. “I’m very disappointed in you. Please leave.”
This is my house, MB doesn’t say, mostly because Luo Binghe has crushed his goddamn ribs. Luo Binghe obeys, blindly, while Shang Qinghua leans around the doorframe, wide-eyed and still just a little mussed, mouth open. Mouth red.
Shen Yuan eyes MB, who, yes, was lying intertwined with the continent’s most beautiful man on a sofa in the dark whispering and patting his back, but whenever MB opens his mouth to say how badly they’ve got this all wrong, he remembers the way Shen Yuan put his hand up the back of Shang Qinghua’s shirt to pull him closer, and the words die in his throat.
“I don’t know you,” says Shen Yuan, with a spine-chilling look of pure disdain. MB has punched people for looking at him wrong. He doesn’t have to take this from the person whom Luo Binghe will someday stuff and preserve to use as a body pillow. “Sorry for making a scene in your house.”
.0.
When Shang Qinghua comes back, he looks all over the house to find MB in the fourth living room, his least favourite one, sitting in the dark with his knees up before him, staring straight ahead.
“Hey,” says Shang Qinghua.
“We aren’t together,” MB says. He’s sweating. He hates this. “We’re not. I mean. He has a girlfriend. He has someone he’s in love with. He just does that sort of thing. I’m not-“ i was spying on you and your boyfriend plotting how to break you two up sounds like something a deranged stalker (Binghe) would say, and MB drops his face between his knees. “It’s not real. Nothing happened.”
Shang Qinghua’s face softens, or least arranges itself into a pudding-soft look of melting compassion. “Hey, it’s. It’s ok. I mean, he’s your friend, right?”
“No,” says MB with feeling. Luo Binghe is the reason he’s in this mess, and that asshole hadn’t even looked back: the second Shen Yuan was in the room, it was like no one else existed.
For three years, every time Binghe talks about Shen Yuan, it’s been like no one else existed.
“I’ve heard about him from Shen Yuan, he’s… he’s kind of a player? Good-looking guy, really popular?”
Binghe, who uses his looks to manipulate people like he breathes? Who thinks he can get anything out of MB by whining like a baby and commanding like a king? Sure. Nod.
“I don’t want to,” says Shang Qinghua. “Tell me if I’m going out of line. But just now. When he uh. Found you two. I know you weren’t doing anything. But you looked really. Your face kind of. And he was waiting outside the gate, he kind of. Well he was scared too. But he didn’t. I heard what he said about um. You two.”
MB closes his eyes. If Binghe has ratted him out, they are not friends anymore.
Shang Qinghua took a deep breath. “You don’t need to be scared of your feelings for him. If he’s leading you on, that’s one thing, but you know, you’re a great guy too! You don’t need to settle for being his uh. Platonic side piece. You can be with someone who’s proud of you and would love to show you off.”
MB raises his head, very slowly. “I need,” he says. “To value myself more.”
Shang Qinghua nods encouragingly. He scoots closer and grabs MB’s elbows, bracingly. “I know you said it was okay,” he says. “That People are. That I’m. Well. But is it- are you okay with you?”
.0.
When Luo Binghe finally calls, he’s in such a state that MB can’t even bring himself to say I told you so. Instead, he listens to Binghe cry a little, and recount that Yingying says Yuan-gege started to suspect a while ago, when Binghe tried to probe his former tutor with a few questions about dating men, about having a crush on someone he shouldn’t, that Yingying’s tried to tell her brother he’s got it wrong, her and Binghe are mostly good friends, just like Binghe and MB are, that Yingying thinks when Yuan-gege calms down, Binghe will be able to tell him the truth.
“I can’t tell him the truth,” says Binghe. “He’ll never-” accept me, MB completes, having heard this part before, once before. The Luo Binghe who’s on the student council and has eight scholarships isn’t the Luo Binghe who punches teachers and steals smartphones for plausibly-deniable blackmail plots. Isn’t the Luo Binghe who daydreams elaborate wedding and murder fantasies and of emigrating with Yuan-gege to Canada to cope with his five jobs and eight scholarships and a hopeless, enduring love.
Binghe makes a noise between a sob and a snarl, the cry of a wounded animal. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I have to go now, but I’ll call you back in five and a half hours. With a plan. They think we’re together, right? I can use that. We can use that.”
“Can’t.”
“What do you mean, can’t?” says Luo Binghe, terror of the after-school duty roster.
“He’s taking me out,” says MB. “To get over you. I decided our will-we-won’t-we relationship wasn’t worth it and I had to value myself and my confused sexuality more. So I dumped you. We’re going to karaoke to scream about you being an asshole.”
“What confused sexuality,” says Luo Binghe. “You’ve been out since eighth grade. Do you not remember me fucking up that substitute teacher?”
MB does remember. It’s the day he and Luo Binghe became friends. Binghe has never not stopped bringing it up as the only ‘bad’ thing he’s ever done on school grounds, and he’s never held it against MB, despite how close he came to getting kicked out, to losing his scholarship, to losing, though MB was too young and stupid to understand at the time, everything. Despite all the years MB has had a front row seat to Binghe being in love with someone else.
“I’m very confused,” says MB. “I need alcohol and ice cream and long intense eye contact pep talks and my hand held.”
Silence.
“I’ll. Remember. This,” says Luo Binghe, each word an awful promise, and hangs up.
Shang Qinghua comes down the stairs with wallet and keys and look of righteous, caring indignation. MB is mentally calculating exactly how much Luo Binghe can destroy his life in five and a half hours and doesn’t notice until Shang Qinghua puts a hand on his wrist.
“I did it,” says MB. “Broke up with him,” he clarifies. He thinks about it. “But we’re still friends.”
Shang Qinghua gives him a hug. He smells of cheap shampoo and curry cup noodles and his hug is so awkward, and so warm, and so fierce. “That’s good,” he says. “That’s great! I’m proud of you. You deserve better. You’ll get over him in no time.”
“Yes,” says MB. He puts one hand up to return the hug, spreading his fingers over the clothed small of Shang Qinghua’s back.
.0.
“You know,” says Shang Qinghua later. They’re pressed hip to thigh on what they’ve agreed is the booth’s most comfortable loveseat and Shang Qinghua is slumped from screaming anime songs off-key. “I feel sorry for Luo Binghe. It’s pretty obvious from Cucumber-bro’s stories that the kid’s always had kind of a crush on him.”
MB definitely doesn’t want to ever know the origin of Shang Qinghua’s nickname for his boyfriend (‘s penis?), but he says, “Really?” in a credible imitation of surprise.
“That doesn’t excuse how he treats you!” says Shang Qinghua hastily. “But you know. I think he’s just as confused as you are. As uh. Everyone is. And Cucumber-bro, well. We never would have gotten together without Luo Binghe.”
“Really,” says MB, and settles in for more of Shang Qinghua’s frank, uninhibited oversharing, how MB’s somehow been inducted even further into Shang Qinghua’s personal space bubble, and possibly adopted into his care. He’s going to need something to bribe his way back into Luo Binghe’s good graces, after all.
CODA
“Is it okay with you, if I come back next break?” says Shang Qinghua. “Cucu- Shen’s here, and- if you don’t mind-”
“Sure,” says MB, calmly. This lying thing is really working out for him. Binghe is texting him chengyu from the thirty-six stratagems, each more ominous than the last. “Come back, any time.”
END