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“Yifan?” Gao Yingjie stares up at the figure in the doorway, thinking he must be hallucinating. Qiao Yifan is supposed to be in City H right now, not here in his room with his arms full of congee and cold medicine.
Gao Yingjie rubs his eyes a few times as Qiao Yifan walks across the room to set everything on his bedside table. He’s still not quite sure if Yifan’s really here or if this is some type of bizarre fever dream.
“Yingjie,” Yifan sits next to him on the bed with a sigh, “I told you if you kept overworking yourself you’d get sick.”
Gao Yingjie doesn’t even need to ask how Qiao Yifan found out he was sick. Like usual, Su Mucheng and Tang Rou had told him after Liu Fei posted something in the girl’s group chat. At this point, probably the entire Alliance knew Tiny Herb’s new captain was sick. How embarrassing... The only reason he hadn’t said anything to Yifan himself is he didn’t want him to worry, but hearing about it from his teammates probably just made him worry even more. After all, Liu Fei was notorious for exaggerating things for the sake of a good story. Who knows what type of illness she’d said he had.
‘I told you.” Yifan whispers again, extending a hand to caress Yingjie’s cheek. Yingjie shivers, his whole face heating up from something he’s certain is not his fever.
“It’s just a cold. You didn’t need to come all the way here, Yifan.”
It’s not that he’s disappointed to see Yifan, not that at all. It’s just... Yifan has his own team to worry about, and he shouldn’t spend his precious time and money visiting when Yingjie’s just caught a common cold. Besides, Yingjie is Tiny Herb’s captain now. He can take care of himself just fine.
“I know, but I wanted to. I really wanted to see you, Yingjie.” Yifan smiles softly, holding Yingjie’s gaze a moment before shifting his eyes to look at the various styrofoam containers on the bedside table.
“Anyway,” Yifan clears his throat and Yingjie swears his cheeks look a bit pinker, but maybe it’s just the lighting. “I got a couple of different flavors of congee since I didn’t know what you’d be in the mood for. This one’s with thousand-year-old egg since I know you like those, and that one’s got ginger which will help soothe your stomach. I’ll eat whichever one you don’t want so it doesn’t go to waste.”
“Ah, sorry to trouble you!” Yingjie says as he picks up the congee with ginger. He doesn’t have a stomachache (it’s a head cold), but he remembers Yifan isn’t particularly fond of ginger.
“Oh, and I got you some pear soup for later. You know, for your throat.” Yifan points to a smaller container on the table. Yingjie doesn’t have a sore throat either, but he accepts the soup graciously.
They open their respective congee containers and eat with the little plastic takeaway spoons that came in the bag. It’s not the same as Yingjie’s mom’s congee, but he thinks it’s almost as good, especially since Yifan’s the one who brought it.
Yifan secretly adds a few pieces of thousand-year-old egg to Yingjie’s bowl when Yingjie isn’t paying attention and Yingjie’s face lights up when he sees it. “Oh, Yifan, you didn’t have to.” He’s talking about the egg of course, but also about the way his friend has gone above and beyond to come check up on him. Yingjie feels the tense knots that have slowly been building up over the past few weeks start to unravel, and he realizes how much he’s needed this.
He really needed this.
“It’s no problem.” Yifan shakes his head. “Just promise me you’ll take better care of yourself, okay? You don’t need to shoulder everything alone just because you’re captain now. You have your entire team behind you. And-”
Face flush, Yifan suddenly stops talking. He absentmindedly stirs his congee with the little plastic spoon, opening and closing his mouth a few times before continuing.
“And me. Even if we’re in different cities and on different teams I’ll always support you.”
A fuzzy warm feeling settles in Yingjie’s chest and he can’t stop himself from smiling. Yifan’s right. He has been in his head a bit fretting over the upcoming season. He could use more talks with his vice-captain and teammates instead of keeping everything bottled up. And, maybe he could call Yifan more too, just to talk, even if it’s not about anything Glory related.
Becoming team captain doesn’t mean he has to go at everything alone. Glory was never meant to be a single-player game anyway.