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There are so many important people in Xie Lian's life, and absolutely none of them would be proud of him right now. His family and friends weren't exactly chipper and encouraging when he decided to move from Hangzhou to Beijing for greater opportunities, and they sure as hell aren't proud about the "greater opportunity" he's managed to snag this time.
Xie Lian can't say he's too proud either.
Moving to Beijing wasn't the worst idea in the world. Compared to willingly drinking spoiled milk for a week to save him money, resorting to a used sleeping bag instead of a bed for a month, and countless other bad ideas he's had, Beijing took the crown and honored the golden throne. He has a...decent apartment, to say the least. Once the seasons change, he'll have to contact somebody about the lack of hot water, but the cusp of a sweltering summer will rise past the horizon tomorrow and Xie Lian won't have to worry about it for a few months. He's at the heart of the city, constantly surrounded by crowds and entertainment, and the atmosphere alone, no matter what time of day, makes him feel more alive than he has been in years. Xie Lian hasn't lived here for long—three weeks if he's counted right—but he already knows in his heart he wouldn't leave even if forced.
KFC though? He'd leave that in a heartbeat.
It is day two on the job.
The job which, quite frankly, he wasn't expecting to be hired for.
There's this thing—no, there's this concept Xie Lian likes to heavily depend on called "half-truths." It's exactly what it sounds like, akin to seeing the cup half full rather than half empty (re: "half-lies"). KFC is just down the street from his run-down apartment and not too far a trek from university, so while the job isn't ideal, its location is. When Xie Lian applied, he was too desperate to go looking into the specifics of each role, he simply needed work. And when he was called in for an interview, he rejoiced! He didn't remember what he applied for but it was probably just working the register or placing chicken breasts into paper buckets.
Things never turned out to be that easy for Xie Lian though. He always had to suffer the consequences of his inattentiveness somehow.
Here, he had to suffer it in the form of being a delivery man.
In the interview, Xie Lian was asked if he knew Beijing well. Of course he didn't know Beijing well! He knew it as well as any other person who lived here for three weeks, but he wasn't going to voice that, so he said he knew Beijing like the back of his hand.
Fool. Fool, fool, fool!
That wasn't even the half-truth he told. He was asked if he knew how to ride a motorcycle and he said, full of confidence, "I have a driver's license." Which is right! He does have a driver's license!
To drive a car!
Thankfully, he wasn't barging into the streets completely empty-headed. He has indeed driven a motorcycle before but he wasn't quite confident in his skills nor did he like the feel of it. A car was safer and he liked safer.
But he needed a job, and he needed a motorcycle's license, so he got the job first then he got the motorcycle's license. The driving instructor was annoyingly lenient and Xie Lian felt he didn’t deserve it, but whatever. He tends to throw caution to the wind anyway.
KFC needs its delivery drivers the most from early evening to past midnight. Late-night cravings often include fried chicken and their restaurant is only one of two that are open past midnight, so the place can get quite busy depending on the day. Xie Lian is also only one of two delivery people KFC managed to hire.
Tonight, he's the only one.
Thankfully, there's no one inside the establishment at the moment, so Xie Lian is helping wipe down some tables before his shift ends at three in the morning. He's still got two hours to go. He isn't very close with any of the workers and he wants to be, even if he does plan on quitting this job and finding a greater opportunity soon.
It doesn’t seem like anybody plans on speaking with him though. The girl who's also cleaning up has earphones deafening everything out, the kitchen staff is loitering in the breakroom, and Xie Lian is the odd one out.
In the back of his mind, he thinks it might be better this way. No attachments, no grievances. He'll move on without missing anything and maybe that's for the best.
"New guy!"
Yeah. It's likely he doesn't want to miss this place.
Xie Lian looks toward the direction of the voice and finds the manager hanging up a phone.
"You've got a delivery to make."
Yesterday, he made one delivery. It was three blocks away, took less than fifteen minutes to deliver, and for the rest of the night, he swept the floors. Xie Lian didn’t get lost, he discovered three new streets in the city, and he went home. Yesterday was nice, even if it cemented the fact that he didn’t want to work here long.
“Um,” Xie Lian starts as he looks at the map on his phone, “this looks kind of far.”
According to the app, it will take him almost an hour to and from the final location. The food will likely lose its warmth, he’ll probably be at the receiving end of a complaint, and he will get lost. Going between looking at the directions and keeping his eyes on the road isn’t exactly Xie Lian’s wrong suit.
“Too bad,” the manager says and thrusts a bag of food into his hands. “See you later.”
Xie Lian smiles though he truly feels like mocking his tone, saying “too bad” with an air of arrogance he normally despises, then heads out the door into the night.
A midnight shower drenched the streets, pavement glistening between the musty yellows of streetlights and flickering neon signs on every storefront. The air was still musty, but it could have been worse if traffic was heavy and crowds were out, both of which seem to have disappeared during the rain. Xie Lian considers this a little victory—perhaps he'll be able to cut his journey down by a couple of minutes and get back before his shift ends.
Despite being asked if he knew how to drive a motorcycle, KFC only has electric scooters on deck. Each bike is a snazzy red from front to back with a delivery box in the back compartment. Not all of those compartments do a good job of keeping the food warm—it depends on how lucky you are when choosing which bike to take out, and Xie Lian is never lucky, so today's food will run cold.
Throwing on a light jacket, embroidered with an enormous Colonel Sanders patch on the back, Xie Lian stuffs the large order in the compartment of the bike, slides on his helmet, and slowly rolls out into the street. In his two days here, Xie Lian has managed to create a sticky contraption that guards his phone between the handles so he can look at his map when needed. The gas tank is full, the night is empty, and his day is almost over.
He heads south. Everything looks new about ten minutes into his delivery, where a line of street vendors across the river finish packing up for the evening. Xie Lian slows down to take everything in—the way the trees are a bit taller over here, branches arching over the edge of the road, the excess rainwater streaming downhill into drains, the shine of the pale moon cracking through the misty clouds, shining over the river. Xie Lian even parks near the river bank, if only for one minute, and slides his face shield up.
"You sure you should be parked on the job?"
Xie Lian jolts. He looks over his shoulder, afraid that for whatever reason, some other KFC worker is preparing to snitch on him, or worst, someone is preparing to rob the food he's carrying.
A sleek black motorcycle rolls up beside him. The slender masked driver takes off his leather black gloves to reveal equally slender fingers, nails painted black. Xie Lian can't help but follow their movement up to his helmet, pulling it up and off his head.
As obsidian hair cascades out of the helmet and elegantly falls over his shoulder, Xie Lian's thoughts go from a complete stand-still to a communications deck wrapped in mayhem, red lights blaring as sirens get louder and louder in his head until a short circuit zaps it all off and empties out his brain.
There aren't any words in any language, in anyone's vocabulary, much less his vocabulary, to describe him.
Maybe it's just the hour. Past midnight, running on little sleep, wearing a jacket with Colonel Sanders on it—honestly, everything has the power to distract him . Maybe in the daylight, he won't be so alluring.
In the night, though, he's impossibly attractive.
"I don't imagine your delivery route includes staring at the city," he says, leaning forward on his handles, "or the river."
"It doesn't," Xie Lian says as he clears his throat. "Do you work for KFC?"
The stranger eyes him then, up and down, the grins as he shakes his head.
"Do you plan on filing a complaint?"
The stranger shakes his head again. "I can't help my curiosity."
"Curiosity," Xie Lian repeats, looking back out into the city. "Can't help mine either."
"My guess is you're curious about...water?"
The stranger straightens his back to get a better view of the river water.
Xie Lian smiles slightly at him. Against the moonlight, very sharp edge of his face softens as its caressed by the evening, and the glimmer of water ripples brightens him up as well. He's alluring—and a stranger, Xie Lian reminds himself, a nice, alluring stranger. No matter his mysticism, he's a stranger first and foremost, and perhaps a bit of a comedian.
"Curious about the city," Xie Lian corrects. "I've only lived here for a few weeks and the scenery keeps changing every corner. Which isn't bad! I'm just worried I'll get a little lost looking at it all instead of delivering food, so I'm taking a bit of time to memorize it before I get going."
The stranger huffs a laugh and holds his chin up with his hand, slight smirk over his lips, and Xie Lian tries to look somewhere else, wants to, but can't draw away from his magnetism. He's supposed to be looking at Beijing, for fuck's sake, not some rando.
"How about I show you around?" he offers, and somehow the city goes quiet at his words. "I know the streets pretty well. I can lead you to your destination taking the scenic route so you don't have to keep your eyes glued to that."
He nods at the phone stuck to his mo-ped and Xie Lian inwardly cringes. He depends heavily on the device, especially in such a new, big city, but he wants to be at the point where he only have to glance every few streets or better yet, not even look at it at all. That'll take time, of course, and trying to rush something like this when he hardly has time for himself is pointless and stress-inducing. If he had someone to show him around, maybe it would be easier.
Someone who wasn't a stranger though! These are the people his mother would warn him about, just without the odd personality or twisted voice or sickly figure. This stranger is insanely attractive, flattered by all the tones of the night, moreso in the day perhaps, and his knowledge is only barely masked by his humor, and above all, he's inviting.
Three weeks in Beijing and he's the first person to be inviting.
Without second thought, Xie Lian unstraps his phone from its contraption and shows the map to the stranger.
"Do you know how to get here?" he asks.
The stranger's eye widens a bit, then he laughs and hands back the phone. "I sure do."
At that, excitement begins to pump into Xie Lian's blood, heart now beating in his ears, and he smiles so wide, it's the first time he feels Beijing's summer night breeze against his teeth.
And so it begins.
The drive is silent. Half of Xie Lian wishes it wasn't—he wants to know more about this person, ask questions he might have the answer to—and the other half appreciates the silence. This way, he gets a better feeling of the place in all its glory, from sight to sound to touch. The sound of the river beside them changes melody every so often, the leaves rustle at different paces in everh neighborhood, and the smell turns sweet and savory in some odd corners, dingy and ghastly at others.
The people who've lived here their whole lives are used to this. It's nothing new and they wouldn't understand Xie Lian's attention to detail or fascination even if they wanted to. If someone were to boast about the beauty of his hometown, Xie Lian wouldn't understand what they see either. People grow accustomed to their surroundings, therefore dulled to the beauties of it, and only the significant changes draw attention.
Xie Lian doesn't have those barriers here. Everything is being witnessed with brand new eyes, no preconceptions filtering his vision. It may not be in the most ideal form, since he is in his KFC attire with his KFC mo-ped and KFC chicken in the back compartment, but it's convenient and efficient.
There's only one distraction.
Throughout the drive, the stranger is either driving ahead or driving beside Xie Lian. Xie Lian doesn't mind but sometimes his eyes wander. Sometimes he'll find himself lost in the black expanse of the stranger's back, hunched but strong as he roams ahead. Sometimes he'll feel like he's being looked at and Xie Lian will get stuck in a loop of his own thoughts instead of taking in the city he doesn't know. And other times, he'll meet this stranger's eye, and the stranger will smile at him with a striking sincerity that drives an arrow into Xie Lian's heart, and Xie Lian will smile back for a split second before he scours the sky for Cupid.
The worst part about not knowing his directions is not realizing his time is coming to an end. As soon as the turn onto a residential street, filled with luxurious apartment complexes, Xie Lian notices how the stranger slows down, and so does the thrump beating in his chest.
"Right here," the stranger says as he parks, turning off his engine and taking off his helmet. It's real captivating, Xie Lian will admit. "I can take up the order, if you'd like."
"No need," Xie Lian answers as he also parks. "Then I wouldn't be doing my job, right?"
"Not necessarily. The order is for He Xuan?"
Xie Lian blinks and checks the bucket of chicken in his compartment. A little receipt taped to the lid reads "HE XUAN."
"How did you know?" Xie Lian asks, then scrutinizes him. "Are you He Xuan?"
"God, no," the stranger laughs. "Not in a past life, not in this one, and not in the next one hundred. I am his roommate though."
"Oh." Xie Lian supposes it'll save him some time. He's bound to get lost on the way back, so the quicker he leaves, the quicker he'll get back to work. "Then here you go."
Xie Lian passes him the food and he takes it with a frown.
"He really shouldn't be ordering out," he says. "He's really broke."
Xie Lian takes a quick glance at the expensive apartment complex before him, then back at the stranger. "I see."
The stranger nods and the awkwardness bloats overs. Xie Lian doesn't know how to say thank you in a way that he means, in a way that convey so much more than those two words, and he doesn't know if this is going to stay as a chance encounter. Meeting him was like his first walk through Beijing—it felt good. It cemented a want into reality and it felt deserved. And the bike ride felt fantastic, it transformed another want into reality, and yeah, Xie Lian did deserve it. He knows he did.
"I'll get going," the stranger says, and Xie Lian's words come up empty. He doesn't manage to thank him before his back is turned to him. He doesn't tell him he likes his smile. He doesn't tell him anything as the entrance door opens.
"Wait!" Xie Lian calls for him before the door closes, scrambling off his mo-ped and tripping over his own feet going down the walkway. The stranger still holds the door open and it only proves Xie Lian's theory correct—he really is a work of art no matter what the lighting is.
"Yeah?" he responds equally breathless somehow, as if holding in an earthquake of emotions.
"Do you know of He Xuan's roommate has a, um, name?" Xie Lian asks and, duh, of course he has a name, but he can't take back the stupidity of his words now. "And a number? And maybe free time to show me around Beijing some more?" He scratches his head. "Does he like KFC?"
The stranger's smile grows into a grin, paired with an eager nod of his head.
"Hua Cheng," he says, "but you can call me San Lang. And I have a number, and lots of free time, and I like KFC."
Cupid strikes him again, and Xie Lian hopes the arrow pierces the both of them this time.