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It had been going on for three weeks now and he had yet to figure out what the issue was. He never had this much trouble the first three years, so why was Liao having so much trouble this year? Zhang Liao’s grades dropped dramatically since he came back from winter break a few months ago. Now it was the middle of their final semester and nothing had improved, he was bound to flunk out if he didn't try to fix it soon. It wasn't like him to neglect his studies, so why the sudden change from an excellent student to a possible drop-out a month before their graduation? This puzzled Lu Bu as he walked down the street, trying to find some reason why his best friend of ten years would neglect his grades. It had to be something important. It was unlike Liao to tarnish his future over something small, especially after working three long years through AP classes and after school tutoring to reach it. He wasn't a straight-A student like Lu Xun or Zhuge Dan but he did good enough that he was in the top ten percentile of their class year, just barely beat by several others including Zhong Hui, Cao Ren, and the salutatorian and valedictorian themselves: Zhou Yu and Sima Yi.
As he approaches the house of his friend, Lu Bu couldn't help but think about everything the two have been through since they met in second grade all those years ago. They started off hating each other from day one and constantly tried to outdo each other throughout the grade year with no clear reasoning until Lu Bu noticed him being bullied by some of their classmates. Even at a young age Lu Bu was a bit more of a diplomat than anything and managed to pull Liao away from the boys and settle him down. That later resulted in a friendship stronger than any other and the two were inseparable since. Even the school system didn't wish to separate the two, keeping them as close as possible even through middle school and didn't even have to try in high school as the two naturally stuck together in any classes they could squeeze into for the sake of the other. Liao was nothing less than a timid young boy with no real idea about himself even throughout middle school but Lu Bu managed to slowly chip away at his shell over the years and eventually yanked him out of it when they started high school.They attended a high-ranked high school in their region and the school itself was a country almost as each cliché was their own kingdom in a sense. The intelligent students that kept high marks in class through the year were the Intellects of Wei; the brutish passionate players that composed a majority of every sports team in the school throughout the years were the Athletes of Wu; and the compassionate sensitive students that excelled in all forms of expression, participated in all
They attended a high-ranked high school in their region and the school itself was a country almost as each cliché was their own kingdom in a sense. The intelligent students that kept high marks in class through the year were the Intellects of Wei; the brutish passionate players that composed a majority of every sports team in the school throughout the years were the Athletes of Wu; and the compassionate sensitive students that excelled in all forms of expression, participated in all clubs, and quite literally ran the school’s theatre and art programs were the Souls of Shu. Then there were the ambiguous ones, the students that dabbled in every cliché but clearly didn't belong to just one select "kingdom". That small group consisted of Lu Bu, Liao, and their close friends: Diao Chan, Sima Yi, Deng Ai, and Zhong Hui, the friends they met their freshman year when they discovered they all didn't fit into just one “kingdom”. Diao Chan was a talented actress with amazing skills in cheerleading and volleyball, Sima Yi was highly intelligent with a knack for set design and building, Deng Ai was an excellent sports player with an intellect unlike any of his teammates, and Zhong Hui was a very bright student with a passion for charcoal drawing. The six became very close friends, supported one another throughout their high school careers, and overall there when life ran one of them into a wall. Zhang Liao and Lu Bu took a while to find their certain talents. Lu Bu became an impressive soccer player with a passion for English literature and Liao was a top mark student that discovered a passion for pottery one day while helping Hui with one of his portfolio pieces their sophomore year in the school's art studio. Things seemed fine within their small group and everyone was having a successful senior year. They were perfectly content with the last year of their high school career, then Liao’s grades started slipping near the end of the second semester. Lu Bu and the others were mildly worried but Liao simply said he was having difficulties with his math, which made sense at the time since Liao wasn't strong in the subject and said he would be back on his game come third semester. When they came back from winter break, Liao wasn't seen around the school until the start of the third semester two weeks later. When asked about what had happened, Liao didn't wish to talk about it. It was left alone until his grades took a drastic drop before the start of the fourth marking period. This worried the others but it worried Lu Bu more than anything. The five even had a discussion on the cause of the situation when Liao missed school one day and each seemed to have a worse worst-case-scenario than the last. Liao’s home situation hadn't been very stable that year according to Lu Bu and they all assumed it had something to do with that, but what? After discussing it over the course of a few days, the group decided someone needed to check-up on Liao. The majority voted for Lu Bu to be the diplomat he always was and check on Liao over the coming weekend.
Lu Bu climbs onto the front step of Liao’s home and knocks, all the assumptions of his friends running through his mind. Liao’s parents had a slight falling out over the summer before their senior year and the more he thought about it, the more be feared that the wild guesses might be true. Though each prediction had a different approach, they all came to a similar conclusion: Liao’s dad had walked out at some point during winter break and it was causing Liao's stress to peak. Despite how crazy some of the guesses were like Zhong Hui’s assumption that Liao’s mom chased his dad out of the house with the dao they always saw mounted above the TV in the living room or Diao Chan’s wild idea that Liao’s mom was cheating on his father with dozens of men, some of the other ones seemed reasonable. Sima Yi suggested that money was an issue as while Liao’s parents weren't the poorest couple in their hometown, they weren't luxuriously rich like Zhong Hui’s parents either. Deng Ai’s prediction, which strangely seemed the most reasonable of them all, was that love was love and if it wasn't there anymore then why force it. Liao’s parents had been married five years before they had Liao and twenty years was a long time for anyone to stand one another, so to fall out because they simply didn't love each other anymore was a bit more reasonable. Though hurt, Lu Bu had to accept the factual assumptions since Liao’s parents were almost like parents to him. He never knew who his father was and his mother had given him up when he was barely four because of financial issues. He bounced around from family to family most of his early childhood and only ended up in a stable home by the end of the first grade. He was raised by the same woman for almost eleven years along with three other foster siblings. Despite how nice his foster mom had been, he never truly felt like he had true parents until he met Liao’s mom and dad the summer of their fifth grade year. Liao’s mom was a beautiful and sweet young woman and Lu Bu could hardly believe she was in her late thirties when he met her. She was always so kind and treated Lu Bu like a second son, always offering Lu Bu to stay over on weekends during the school year and during certain weeks over the summer. Liao’s father was stern but very loving, always pushing for Liao to focus on his work before anything else but allowing him to enjoy life when he needed a break. He was very much like a father to Lu Bu and was the reason he found his talent in soccer after nonchalantly pegging him in the head with a soccer ball one day and scoring a goal with the ricochet. Despite all the chaos the two would cause as a combined force, the two parents still treated them equally as though they were brothers. He had grown a bit distant from the two since he and Liao started their high school careers in order to focus on his studies but they didn't seem too worried since Liao always delivered messages from his mom every now and again asking how he was doing.
Lu Bu moves to knock again but the door cracks open and someone peeks out from behind the door. He simply smiles when he recognizes the bright hazel eye of his friend. “It’s alright, Liao, I’m not going to eat you or anything.”
“Bu?” Liao gasps. “Shouldn’t you be at soccer practice?”
“Yes.” Lu Bu sighs. “Now let me in. I need to talk to you.”
“About?”
“Just let me in.” Liao only sighs in defeat then opens the door, stepping aside to allow Lu Bu inside.
Truthfully, Lu Bu was supposed to be at soccer practice right now as was apparent from his soccer uniform he was wearing, a stark white jersey with golden yellow accents on the sleeves and back where the numbers "02" stand out, a pair of golden yellow shorts with white accent tubing along the sides, and stark white socks with yellow stripe accents on the top with matching cleats They had a big game coming up next week and practice was extremely important since their first state game was less than a month away. As captain of the team, Lu Bu was required to be at every practice to make sure the team was ready for their next match but his worry for Zhang Liao was greater than any anxiety he had over the result of his team’s game. He could risk a team victory to help his best friend not flunk out of school completely.
“Is there any particular reason you’re skipping soccer practice today?” Liao asks as he closes the door behind Lu Bu. “I thought you had a big game coming up.”
“We do but I’m more worried about other things than whether or not our team, that’s won all our games so far, will make it to the state finals,” Lu Bu explains as he slips his cleats off beside the door. “The team won’t be mad if I miss one practice and my coach will understand.”
“Okay, as long as you won't get into any trouble.” Liao sighs, reluctantly following Lu Bu as he coaxes him upstairs.
Liao was anything but ignorant, he knew why Lu Bu was here and the last person he wanted to talk to about this was him. He would have preferred if it was Diao Chan or Deng Ai, even Zhong Hui, just anyone but is him. He assumed their friends had spoken about their worries for Liao because of his slipping grades and sudden withdrawal from social interaction and “volunteered” Lu Bu check on him because the two were such close friends. How had he come to this conclusion so quickly? It's habit of Lu Bu to speak with Liao in his bedroom when conversations are too sensitive for the casual ears. He knows he could've simply closed the door and not let him in but something in the back of his mind told him to talk to Lu Bu for some reason beyond his understanding. Whatever it was Liao has no clue but there's no changing any of this since they're halfway to his room by now. Lu Bu enters first, allowing Liao to shuffle across the room before shutting the door. Looking around the bedroom he hasn't seen in months, he notices that nothing has changed too much. The walls are still a clean deep blue, the work desk in the corner is only slightly out of order with several papers spread across the workspace, and the room overall looks very organized but the bed is a complete mess like it has been used many times and Liao never bothered to fix it. Liao plops onto the bed with a sigh, hoping this will be over quickly so that he can be alone again before his parents return home but doubt nibbles at the back of his mind. Lu Bu isn't going to leave until he gets a straight answer about the whole situation even if he has to force it out of Liao. He was always so stubborn under such circumstances. Lu Bu crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed, contemplating his first few words to prevent the expected wall Liao would put up. Even after pulling him out of his introvert shell their freshman year, Liao still had a tendency to stonewall any sort of social interaction when he wishes not to speak. He has done it at times when he was either ill or stressed and Lu Bu personally knows the technique too well. Liao would simply talk around the subject and if it was addressed directly, he would simply cease speaking until the other became uninterested. It worked most of the time but the one it was least effective on was Lu Bu, who was as stubborn as he was loyal. It would eventually work because Lu Bu would understand his friend’s need to concentrate on other issues and leave him alone but this situation seemed important to him, so the stonewalling wouldn't work well this time.
“Liao,” Lu Bu sighs “I know you aren’t the most oblivious person in our group of friends, so you know the reason I’m here but let me at least argue my side before you try to stonewall me like you always tend to do.” Liao simply huffs through his nose. “The others have been worrying about you these past few months because of your entire situation and none of us really have a good explanation for it, not even me and htey pretty much picked my brain for answers. They’ve all made their own wild assumptions and it’s scaring me that some of them may be true. I’m simply here to put my own worries to rest and hopefully the worries of the others. You don’t need to explain anything if you don’t want to but you have to at least confirm or deny some of these stories so no one starts gossiping about the subject. Okay?” Liao huffs again, trying to focus on anything else but the one sitting beside him. “I’ll take that as an acceptance.” Lu Bu sighs, letting his hair down from the ponytail he always keeps it in. The long night locks always irritated him when they blew into his face and Liao questioned why his friend would grow his hair out if he despised having it so long, not that he minded. He liked long hair but would never wear it himself. He grew his hair out once during middle school but it made him look so girly that others began picking on him because of it and he has kept it short since then. It was funny to think of the day he finally had it cut, mostly because of Lu Bu’s reaction. He was surprised by Liao's short lock and said that he looked nicer with it long and should've kept it despite what others said. Those little comments from the younger, more innocent Lu Bu always made Liao fluster when he thought about them. The two were almost like brothers at a young age but Liao always felt there was something more to it. He would always correct himself as they both were only kids at the time, so he never truly took the words from their younger years to heart.
“I’ll get straight to the point and simply settle the more serious of the stories.” Lu Bu states. “Yi assumed that it might be monetary issues that are stressing you out. He argued his reasons, as typical of Yi, and it seems like one of the more believable of the guesses that were made. I’m simply going to ask, is Yi’s assumption right or wrong?” Liao shakes his head. “Okay, another of the problems we assumed is that your parents have some issues going on, varying from one thing to another, some being wild while others were more reasonable but they all break down to the same question. We know your parents had a small falling out over winter break, so I’m wondering if your parents have...separated.”
“No,” Liao sighs “quite the opposite actually. They made up on New Year’s Eve. They hit a rough patch and managed to work around it. They’re fine now.” He explains coldly. “And to set things straight, my parents have nothing to do with any of this, so don’t bother probing further questions involving them.”
“Fine by me, I only have one more question and I won’t speak anymore unless you want me to.” Lu Bu shifts to lie on his stomach beside Liao, staring at one of the Chinese scrolls hanging on the wall above the bed. “You know we’ve been friends for almost eleven years now and you can tell me about anything that’s bothering you. I need to ask you this and I want you to give me an honest answer: Is there something personal going on that you’re having trouble with or that you can’t talk to anyone else about?” Liao tenses up and Lu Bu glances towards him, feeling the anxious energy broadcasting off of his friend. “If something is bothering you so much that it’s about to cause you to flunk out, you have to talk to someone about it. I’m your best friend, you can trust me. I just don’t want to walk across that stage without you there because of something you feel you can’t control.” Liao remains silent and tries to turn away but stops when he feels Lu Bu grab his shoulder mid-turn. “Please, Liao, I want to help you. Don’t stonewall me now because I’m not leaving until you tell me.” Liao tries to turn away again and Lu Bu forces him onto his back and sits up, holding him down with his one hand. Liao tries to pull the hand off, only to be grabbed by the other. The two struggle for a bit until Liao finds himself pinned under Lu Bu, his hands pinned by the wrists as the larger man sits on him, causing him to fluster. “Get off of me, Bu.”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
“Does it really matter that much?”
“It matters because you’re my best friend and I don’t want this getting any worse.”
“You’re already making it worse!” Liao screeches, forcing himself to sit up and pushing Lu Bu off of him and onto the floor. Lu Bu is surprised by Liao’s sudden strength and simply stares at the other, who he then notices is a bright red. “To be honest, you’re the last person I wanted to talk to about this. I’ve been trying to figure it out all this time so I would know how to tell you this, not our friends, not our classmates, not even my own parents, you.” He holds his face as he begins shaking. “I’ve been trying to figure this out for years, she told me it was just a phase but I still can’t get over it.” He sniffles. “I’ve tried so hard but I just can’t change anything.”
“What are you talking about?” Lu Bu asks.
Liao looks up, a single tear leaking out from the corner of his eye. “Lu Bu, I…I’m gay.” He rubs his eye as he glances away. “I’ve known since middle school. I told my parents but my mom said it was just a phase, that I would grow out of it eventually but I haven’t. I know they would never have a problem if I was or our friends and I simply don’t care what our classmates would say. I only really cared about how you’d react. I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now but I wasn’t sure how to tell you without simply putting it out there and letting you figure it out. I just can’t stand hiding it from you anymore.”
Lu Bu only stares as Liao shifts his gaze back to him, unsure of what to say. He always had a curious assumption that his best friend was into guys, if only slightly, but he never imagined that it would bother his friend so much that it terrified him to even confess it to him. What could he say that wouldn't sound cliché or cold to the other? Everything he thought to say is immediately ejected in fear of a volatile reaction. A soft sob interrupts his thoughts as he looks up, seeing his friend curled up in his spot on the bed, crying into his knees. He immediately tosses away everything he knew about dealing with a situation like this and relies on his instincts. He stumbles to the bed and embraces the other, not letting go as Liao buries his face into his neck. Minutes feel like hours as the sobs echo through the house and soon calm into faint weeping and hot tears. The two friends remain this way, wrapped in the arms of the other in the middle of the plush black bed in dead silence for almost ten minutes.
“I guess it’s too late to say I saw this coming.” Lu Bu murmurs as he nuzzles into Liao’s dark brown hair. “I always knew you had feelings for guys but I didn’t want to say anything because we were both kids and I knew better than to state something that might be personal. I wish I had said something sooner so this wouldn’t have hurt you as much as it has.” He pulls away and forces the younger to look at him, wiping away the stray tears from his pale cheeks. “I envy your courage to admit something so sensitive. Not many are brave enough to confess something like this to anyone, even me.”
Liao is surprised by a pair of lips that suddenly meld with his own but doesn't hesitate to return the affection welling inside him. His arms latch around Lu Bu’s neck as the other pulls the smaller boy flush against him, allowing Liao to wrap his legs around his waist. The larger male teases Liao’s lip, beckoning for entrance and is granted it with a soft moan. A passionate battle of tongues ignites only for Lu Bu to quickly dominate the smaller man’s mouth. He gently guides Liao to lie on the bed as he explores the other’s cavern with such vigor that he soon needs to pull away for air. Chocolate brown stares into a pair of hooded hazels for a few moments before Lu Bu plants a gentle kiss between them.
“And how long has that been your little secret?” Liao asks with a chuckle.
“Longer than I wished it to be.”
The two chuckle as Lu Bu lies down beside Liao, pulling him closer once the other turns to face him and burying his nose into the wild brown locks of his friend. “Bu,” the other simply hums in response to his name “what wild assumptions did the others have about my situation?”
“There were quite a few.” Lu Bu chuckles. “I could tell you but it might take a few hours to list them all.”
“I don’t mind one bit as long as we stay like this.”
“Alright." Lu Bu chuckles. “I guess to start, Hui suggested that your mom tried to kill your dad with his own dao in a fit of rage.” Liao chuckles lightly from that as Lu Bu does. “I know your mother, she has a temper but she isn’t violent in the least. It would be quite the sight though, seeing your mom chase your dad down the street and swinging that antique like a psychotic killer chasing one of those girls in a bad horror movie.” The chuckles become more of a soft laughter.
“He certainly has a wild imagination.” Liao comments as he nuzzles into Lu Bu’s chest.
“Wait until you hear the rest especially Chan’s stories.”