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Shen Yuan must have been very absent minded to start ranting at that hack sell out very loudly and lividly, because Binghe came rushing into the room so in after, looking visibly distressed. Shang Qinghua simultaneously was relieved and also distressed because Luo Binghe and Shen Yuan in the same room would only result in him being bullied three times just as bad when it was one of these menaces separately. He was disparaged enough by Shen Yuan. He doesn't want the crybaby princess to start hurling insults at him too.
"Yuan-ge!" Binghe exclaimed, like a visibly ruffled puppy. "Everything alright?"
Shang Qinghua shakes all his mortal fears off him, snapping to his bro. "He's calling you Yuan-ge now? What's next? Gege?"
"Stop talking," Shen Yuan scowls, eyes equally as harsh as he turns to Binghe. "Everything is fine, Binghe. We'll talk later."
Rip, Shang Qinghua gulps down his cup of sweet tea, we need to have a talk, he went there, he really went there.
Binghe blushed from the tip of his nose to the curve of his ears and shuffles back to the hallway, bowing haphazardly even to Shang Qinghua. Both men stare at him as he tripped his departure away, as Qinghua turns back to face his friend.
"Bro," Hack Writer Man, him, states grievously. "I think you need to work your thing out with Binghe. I felt uncomfortable from watching that."
Shen Yuan scoffs, sipping his tea. "Then don't watch."
Qinghua jeers back. "Haha. Hilarious."
"Isn't it about time you leave anyway? Why are you still here? Go."
Shang Qinghua leaves, but not before lingering at the door and risking a shoe to the face.
"You know, cucumber bro, it won't hurt to treat your boyfriend like a friend sometimes. Doesn't matter if you both started out on unequal footing. Not too late to start now."
Mobei Jun questions the red mark on his face, because he didn't make it and Shang Qinghua hasn't quite got to the level where he can slam his face onto things while actively trying not to. His reassurance was lukewarm at best, but it was enough to divert attention from the Bruise, so at least that counts for something.
He really hopes that relationship changes somewhat when he is yodelled over for another breakdown counselling session.
.
Shen Yuan is panicking because Airplane is sometimes right, but he doesn't get to hear those sometimes amidst the normally wrong bullshit he spouted. Airplane was right this time around because he was treating his relationship like a mentorship still, differentiating the nuances of their change in dynamics in more affection. The way they act around each other is the same, but not quite to a friendliness that he often feels with his other friends, which is silly. A boyfriend is still a friend. A friend you can cuddle with and argue about prices of vegetables at the market section. Perks that come with the title. Insofar they haven't moved past the mentorship stage, where there is an obvious imbalance in place. No! He doesn't want that! He doesn't want his boyfriend who is also his ex-student to feel like he has to defer to Shen Yuan's wisdom at every conversation. They can have discussions. They can negotiate and compromise. There had been no sense of conflict, as if Binghe and Yuan had been forcing themselves to be amenable to one another to avoid conflicts, which doesn't sit right with him.
"Binghe?" He calls, and Binghe appears out of thin air next to him.
"Xuezhang called?" The boy chirps, eager, bright, refreshing as a cold drink on a hot summer day. The title comes automatic on his tongue.
Swallowing his own tongue and not thinking about his boyfriend's, Yuan pats a firm shoulder, squeezing absently.
"We need to talk," he says, like an idiot. At Binghe's immediately teary eyes, he starts flailing, arms coming up to cup the firm jawline to stop his mouth from curling into a pout. Then he'll be KO'd. "I'm not breaking up with you, but we do need to talk about certain...things about our relationship. Hear me out, okay?"
Binghe hangs his head, but also drops his chin onto Yuan's much smaller hands. "Is this junior not satisfactory to xuezhang's tastes?"
He pales. "Why do you talk like you're a Tang dynasty scholar."
Binghe blinks back. "Why is your reference so specific to that one period of history, xuezhang," in about exactly the same tone.
Yuan stares at him, half wanting to scream and half wanting to run. They are doing the Thing. They can argue about differences, but why do they feel so bad about it?
"Look, here is the problem," he begins, gouging out his eyes inside his head. "You and I… we're trying too hard to be something we're not. We're too nice to each other and we don't have a fucking personality besides being a boyfriend."
Binghe huffs, chin tilted away from his grip. Yuan lets him go.
"I like being your boyfriend," the boy pompously declares.
Yuan can feel the eye gouging intensifying.
"Well, I like having a personality," he sighs, ragged and worn. "I like it too when you don't have to force yourself to be someone you're not around me. We're dating, but we agreed to be shackled together because we can stand each other enough despite all the quirks and weird shit we do. I don't know much of who you are and I don't think you know much of who I am either, Binghe, and we can fix that. Make this thing," he gestures between them, "workable and genuine."
A lot of expressions flit through Binghe's perfectly constructed face. It's all natural and everyday Yuan screams a little louder inside his head about how society should also hold men to a higher standard of beauty given that other slobs run about looking like bins on fire and he walks around looking like he does. Binghe going through a myriad of emotions is a rollercoaster ride Yuan doesn't have protection against and he's always thrown off when he sees the camera and the end result is just a blurry photo of him yelling as he comes crashing down.
"Xuezhang will be okay with whatever I do?" Binghe tentatively, tentatively, the face of a child about to paint the entire house yellow, asks, tugging on his shirt sleeve. Yuan can hear his wrist bones rattling.
"If I'm not, I'll start yelling," he shrugs. "Oh. Don't start crying."
Binghe's wail of confusion is staunchly ignored in favour of Yuan wandering to the garden.
It's weird and Yuan doesn't know how to feel.
He knows he can be a bit Karl Marx in enforcing dynamics ruling, because he really just said let's level all playing fields. He told Binghe to be himself, implied heavily that they should be treating each other as equals, and he's seeing the results, but the results are confusing him.
Binghe seems to be even more on edge now than before, when he was under restrictions of politeness and courtesy and chivalry and pretty boy codes to look pretty while being a housekeeper. Shen Yuan doesn't remember a single friend that he had ever been able to put on their nerves in a way that would matter and while it's interesting to see, he's not too keen on scaring Binghe when they can be bonding and play dumb couple games like truth or dare or get ice cream after 9. At night.
Breathing in wrong, and hacking up half a cyclone in the garden, he hears heavy footsteps and a flustered Binghe, in a pink frilly apron, waving a ladle around.
"Xuezhang! Are you dying?" He waves the utensil around, genuinely distressed.
Yuan stares for approximately 6 seconds before he starts coughing and cackling half to death.
Binghe fusses over him even more, but doesn't forgo the laughing in his face moment.
"It's not that funny," Binghe grumbles, even as he shamelessly slips his hand lower, down Yuan's spine.
"And you're not being subtle," he notes, an eyebrow drawn up. "I'm moving away. Do not start crying."
Binghe pouts, but complies, keeping his hands to himself even though that must have taken monumental restraint.
"Xuezhang is so mean," his pretty boy housekeeper whines in an endless operatic performance throughout the day, as he promptly ignores all attempts to trap him against any flat surface or sitting places.
"I thought you knew?" He raises both eyebrows.
Binghe sniffs even louder, nerves all forgone. "Xuezhang!"
They're literally just folding laundry and stepping around each other, where Binghe is touching him constantly and where Yuan had been so familiar with the motions that he doesn't even protest to the touches. They're not the usual hungry pawing that he's subjected to. These brushes and nudges are more perfunctory, meant to serve the purpose of relocating him elsewhere and returning the owner to his tasks. Binghe was very tactile, a restraint which held an adverse effect when concentrated solely on Yuan when they were in that weird period where they weren't dating but they might as well have. Binghe likes being in close proximity with him where he is a hand reach, a shoulder bump, a hip check - away. Close enough to push away but not too far that he won't be able to be pulled back.
Yuan normally doesn't do affection. He's notoriously bad with that. But standing here, together, doing things and stealing hangers from one another and pretending like they haven't, is as close as he can get to affection.
He's convoluted in that he can't even say what he wants to say out loud. He just ends up yelling at people and then hoping they get the message. Binghe is a mind reader. A clairvoyant at reading his thoughts, but not today.
Throwing a sole sock at his boyfriend's back, Yuan crosses his arms and waits.
Binghe probably didn't feel jackshit, but the silence must have told him something was wrong, because he turned, saw the sock, and cut his eyes to him.
"Yes?"
"Did you wear this last week, Binghe?" He features with his chin, tilting his eyes down to the discoloured sock, contempt clear in his frown.
"Xuezhang, I don't wear white socks," Binghe points out, slowly and patiently, like he's speaking to an idiot.
Yuan feels like an idiot, but he’s not stupid enough to not remember which socks he wore. “Well neither do I.”
Binghe bends down, patient and forgiving. “You had to wear white socks to that meeting this week."
Yuan blinks, staring into the void. "Did I."
The ex-student, ex-boyfriend and now enemy pats him, condescendingly and gleefully on one shoulder, face becoming just one shit eating grin.
"It must be hard being old, Shen-laoshi."
Shen Yuan kicks him. Missed.
Being from different environments growing up, they have certain set ways of doing things, and once those ways become habits, they're similarly stubborn into keep on doing them. Yuan is fussy to a fault with Binghe more than happy to indulge in his fits usually, but seeing as how he was the one who passed down the Speak Your Mind campaign, they are now arguing aggressively in the vegetable aisle.
"We have zucchini. We have multiple zucchinis in the fridge. I saw them this morning," Binghe insists, hand pushing away the fucking biggest zucchini the market has to offer that Yuan has his claws on.
Yuan absently corrects him. "It's zucchini, and it's both singular and plural at the same time. No, I did not make up the English language, it is just like this. A lil' shit. And also no, I saw no zucchini, no plural vegetables in the fridge, when I was cleaning it yesterday. Not even a single zucchini. So we're getting this one at least."
A whine starts leaving Binghe's throat, meaning and pitiful. Yuan doesn't buy it.
"It's one too many, xuezhang, and then it'll just rot because you refuse to eat the same vegetables in a week -"
Yuan cuts sharp eyes to him, gaze a razor blade behind his glasses. "That's rich, coming from someone who let us eat all meat meals for three days last month."
Hands have become part of the argument and they're half wrestling, half shuffling away in a singular unit for other market patrons to get through them to access the root vegetable section, not even once paying them any mind. Tired of getting into a fight and knowing that this won't ever stop until one of them accept defeat, he relents his hold on the zucchini, stepping away. "If we don't have any of those long boys at home, I'm going to hold this over you," he threatens, a basket hefted to his hip.
Binghe only snorts. "Even if I'm wrong -" Yuan bristles, fingers poised to jab his side - "We don't have to eat zucchinis this week. You'll live."
He mutters loud enough for Binghe to hear the vindictive tone of it. "Famous last words."
"Being right is very important, Yuan-ge, but not blowing all our budget on vegetables would be nice too," the ex-boyfriend, now constant annoyance pats him in the arm, mollifying and beautiful and annoyingly.
"Oh you say that, but those were on sale, Bingbing," he grumbles, stomping away to get coffee beans.
Binghe calls after him. "Get the ones that are drinkable, Yuan-ge, not your death beans."
Yuan sticks up a rude finger to the boyfriend's direction and stomps away loud enough to convey his disapproval.
Binghe got to a point where he knows being cute won't work anymore because Yuan may be someone weak to cute faces, his love for winning is a greater force, therefore he doesn't let anyone get the final word in. A fussy Yuan-xuezhang is cute, but a xuezhang bent on winning every single argument where he's just as manipulative and clever as Binghe and not below dirty tactics?
Hard. Also kinda hot, but that's besides the point.
They're still navigating this mind fuck that people call The Dating Experience, which is getting increasingly less fun now that Serious Feelings are cropping up. There is still an imbalance in place where the two of them, in their own ways, have been chipping away, and it's a work in progress...a lot of work done and questionable progress, but they're getting somewhere. Probably. Maybe.
Binghe is in the process of acting cute so he can take a bath together with Shen Yuan, but they're in the bathroom, bickering about where they should end up in.
"Just take a bath by yourself," Shen Yuan hisses, brandishing his towel like it's a riding crop.
"But I want to scrub xuezhang's back," he whines, a stomp away from breaking into tears.
Shen Yuan only stares at him, flat and unimpressed. He's been doing that a lot lately. Binghe has a feeling that he had used up all the Cute Points and now he's stuck in the Cursed Limbo where he has to actually verbally argue with one of the smartest fuckers alive who doesn't like losing.
"And I want to be clean and not be pruney," xuezhang nags back, a foot wedged in the shower. Binghe has one of his wrist prisoner, but he can hear himself losing the fight. If he, undoubtedly the only person that xuezhang ever bent his wills to, is being denied, there is no hope for anyone else.
"Xuezhang," he whines even harder, shoulders pulled tight into his neck, to look pitiful and puppy-like.
"You can cry all you want but I've made up my mind," Shen Yuan states, finality setting in. Binghe is going to cry for real at this stage, bottom lip quivering. He lets go, forlorn and as if he's sending his husband off to war and he won't know if they'll see each other again, alive and in mostly one piece.
Shen Yuan turns, a fraction of a sharp jawline facing him. "Why do you look like you're sending me off to war."
Binghe sobs. "Because you are!"
Rolling his eyes, Shen Yuan steps away from the shower doors, hand reaching out to his face. Binghe, like a lovesick fool, thought he would get a head pat for this neglect, but no. No. Shen Yuan reaches out for his cheek, pulls on the skin and clicks his tongue, reprimanding him without words. He whines, flailing like a living fish on the chopping board about to meet its end, tears flowing from his eyes freely now. He doesn't think it's very attractive, this constant sobbing fest, but he's doing whatever he can to grab onto his war husband before he goes and kills himself on a battlefield.
Shen Yuan breathes out through his mouth, audibly and stressfully.
"It's 5 minutes. Then I'll come and scrub your back," he grits out. "You won't die."
He doesn't know anything, because Binghe will die. Guaranteed.
"Xuezhang," he sobs, theatrics and slobbery. "Xuezhang."
"Binghe," sighs Shen Yuan, "we're literally dating. Drop the xuezhang. Just call me ge."
Binghe's eyes blink diamonds tears from their sockets. "Gege?"
Shen Yuan goes red all over. Cute.
And because Binghe has a lizard brain, what comes out next is - "So is that your kink?"
Not only does Shen Yuan immediately lose all the red in his face, he somehow manages to be to drop the temperature in the bath to about negative twenty seven degrees Celsius, face flattened out like a Pompeii statue buried under volcanic ash. A bit like The Scream but about 78% more murderous.
"Call me gege when we're fucking and I'll gut you with a metal straw," Yuan-ge threatens, sounding about 97% sure that he'll follow it through.
Binghe's eyes sparkle. "To be killed during sex is one of my biggest fantasies."
"Cool. Have that fantasy on the couch. I'm not going near you until tomorrow."
"Gege ~!"
("Okay I'll bite," Qi Qingqi slams down her keyrings. "When's the wedding so I can pick out my dress?"
"What wedding?" Liu Qingge frowns.
" Whose ?" Wei Qingwei frowns in tandem.
"You're too young. Ten years too young," Shen Jiu slams a hand down onto the table, attempting to climb all over it to bodily harm Luo Binghe. Yue Qi has to hold him back.
"I'm already living with him. Ten years isn't too bad to wait for a wedding," Binghe smiles, all fangs.
"You still need to propose, because I want to be in the frame," Yuan murmurs, eyes on the chess game he's in the middle of with Mu Qingfang, not even caring about his surroundings. "It has to be extra as fuck. I want that shit to be Instagram-worthy."
Binghe nods, actually listening and not pretending to listen so that later on he'll weasel cuddles out of Yuan. It's a cuter look.
"I haven't given my permission yet!" Shen Jiu roars, kept down by Qi Qingqi and a strategically placed jab to his pressure point.
"Too late I'm too old to be asking for your permission hey, ge?" Yuan looks up at his brother, head tilted to the side. "You're invited by the way."
Shen Jiu roars loud enough for all the birds to start scattering.
The actual proposal itself wasn't grand or extravagant, but it sure is extra.
They're at a Cang Qiong Corps dinner gala, Binghe and Yuan as each other's plus ones, brilliantly dressed beyond the nines, even to the grudging acknowledgement of Jiu-ge, hanging off each other's arms. They haven't yet approached the need to introduce themselves to anyone yet, but it's cropping up soon.
An acquaintance of Qi-ge from Overlook approaches them, and Yuan shakes her hand, greeting her professionally and courteously.
"My apologies, young master," she nods to the man next to him. "I'm afraid we haven't been introduced."
"Luo Binghe," Binghe offers a hand, charming smile on point. "Shen Yuan's ex boyfriend."
The silence is so heavy it'll weigh down three entire Solar Systems and still be heavier. Jiu-ge is cutting them a lot of looks from across the room and asking even more questions with his glare, details Yuan can't be bothered with addressing.
"Ah," the poor lady falters. "My apologies. I did not mean to offend -"
Yuan elbows Binghe aside, sighing loudly. "He's being a child. Binghe, come -"
The ex-boyfriend, technically, drops to a single knee. Somewhere, he can hear three cameras already in motion. Binghe draws a ring box from inside his suit jacket, beaming brilliantly at him.
"I can't be your boyfriend any longer, Yuan-ge," he declares, loudly and obviously. Some people in the far off corners must be thinking that this is a public break up. How far from the truth they are.
"Binghe," he sighs, but doesn't put up much of a fight. Ever tried stopping a cyclone before? You can't. He can't stop a Binghe-induced cyclone. It's literally impossible.
"I can't be your boyfriend anymore, because I would love to be your husband. Yuan-ge, have the ring?"
He takes the ring, and bends down to murmur to the ex-boyfriend's ear - "You're only allowed to say ex-boyfriend three more times before I put a muzzle on you. Don't doubt me. I have it in my breast pocket."
Showing the flashy sterling silver band with intricate engravings to the cameras, he makes a shooing motion, dispersing the interested crowd, half of them his family and friends, as they gawk at the new addition to the Cang Qiong Corps. Luo Binghe. As if he wasn't already in all ways but common law married to Shen Yuan.
"Hi," Yuan turns back to his guest. "Excuse the spectacle. My Binghe is gay, so he loves attention. This is Binghe, my ex-boyfriend. He's my fiance now. I hope you'll have a nice night.")
Married life is...pretty much the same, just pettier. And they can now be as mean as they want to one another because they signed a civil union certificate, linked bank accounts and bought a house together, got a mortgage, nobody's going anywhere. They're chained by the paperwork and frankly, Yuan is too tired to start the training cycle all over again on a different husband. Binghe likewise would have to start the manipulation chain again on some other poor sod, which may or may not work because they're not a pushover like Yuan and they're both too old for tolerating other people besides each other. They'll have to settle by one another for now.
For the most part, the house is...liveable. It needs a bit more maintenance, sure, but their bedroom isn't rained in and leaking when winter hits so he counts that as a plus.
Fixing the kitchen and the roof is an entire story entirely. The damage plus the maintenance is too much work for it to amount to anything successful or positive about the entire experience.
"Binghe, we can't just -" he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose and holding his scream at the tip of his fingers. "That sink is too expensive."
Binghe blinks at him. "We can afford it."
He stares back, gaze flat. "Not with all the money going into the granite bench top, you big lump of stupid boy face."
"It's gold and shiny though," his ex-boyfriend, now husband whines. "Please, gege?"
"Calling me gege won't get you the nice gold sink, Binghe, I wash the dishes most nights, I call the shots," he huffs, even as he is considering it. "Our income and bank account are suffering. Think of our future."
Because they are shackled by a mortgage now, they have to actually consider it before making any extravagant, out of honeymoon-ish feelings. Shen Yuan grew up with a minimalistic approach to life because he had enough to go by while Binghe was from a considerably lower income background, which was why he hasn't said much about the excessive curtain trimmings and portraits everywhere, though he draws the line at the sink. They don't need a golden plated sink for any reason other than aesthetics, and frankly enough, married life is about compromise, so no, Binghe isn't getting that sink.
His husband forlornly gazes at the sink like it cuddles him to bed at night and washes his dishes, which Shen Yuan does. He's the finance safeguard in this marriage, he has to peel his husband away from the sink, or else he'll grow mold on the faucet.
"You don't indulge me anymore," Binghe sniffs, like a big mastiff trying its hardest to look pitiful and failing miserably. "Can this be? Is the honeymoon over?"
Shen Yuan examines a light bulb, holding it out for him to read. "It's been over for about 4 years, Binghe. That or this?"
Binghe dutifully picks up the bulb and squints at the label box. "Get a stronger one. Your eyes are going to get worse if it's this low. What about those granite sinks, to match with the bench top?" The husband asks, because he refuses to lose.
Yuan considers it, but he has already made up his mind. "I would, but I made up my mind already, so no. Hold my basket."
The husband trails after him, wailing an operatic rendition of Why won't my spouse love me with his own accompanying Gregorian choir.
Married life is about compromise. Married life is also about winning.
For two smart, competent assholes like the two of them, every fight turns into the amateur version of the MMA - Married Martial Arts. They have full blown war declarations. There are terms and conditions of surrender. There are sieges and guerrilla warfare and hostage taking and targeting civilians who aren't involved. They have full on fights with each other on the phone, in the same house, through a screen, through emails and even when they're three continents apart. If one of them wants a fight, then they shall have a fight.
Shang Qinghua comes into the house and almost got a vase shattered over his head, where Shen Yuan is perched on top of the dinner table and wielding a stack of paper.
"Do the taxes!" He screams at his husband.
"I paid the bills! You do it!" Luo Binghe yells back from the kitchen, holding a frying pan and three cloves of garlic. "Do you want shallots in this too or just garlic?"
Shen Yuan waves the stack of paper harder. "Don't distract me! I paid the bills, you asshole. And yea, shallots, go to town on the fucker."
Shang Qinghua clears his throat, announcing his presence. "Are you two okay?"
Cucumber bro starts whaling again. "I don't want a tax debt!"
"Then you do it!" His husband screams back, washing the fish. "Hi Shang Qinghua. Don't mind us. Have a seat. I'll bring tea out."
Qinghua hasn’t seen something so entertaining since Madame Meiyin and Qi Qingqi trying to recreate the entire dance sequel of the Tango Cell Box from Chicago with heels and cocktail dresses on, so he sits down and blatantly reports everything down to the Cang Qiong fam group chat.
Everyone is reading, even righteous Liu Qingge.
"Bro, doing the taxes take like, five minutes," he tells his friend, who is still yelling at his husband. "Stop yelling."
"Don't take his side!" Roars Shen Yuan, dignity all gone out the front door.
Binghe fumes back. "He's just agreeing to good sense. You do it!"
they'll make up in like, 2 minutes, trust - Qi Qingqi tells the group chat.
At this point, Shang Qinghua doesn't have the energy to bet anymore. He just sends a mood meme and sits back in the midst of carnage and sips the jasmine tea, relaxing in the dulcet background tones of cucumber bro having a marital throw down with his equally stubborn spouse.
Ah, peace.