Archive of Our Own

The rich boys are back in the cafe again.

A-Qing's already got their order started before they even make it to the front of the line. She talked her way into making drinks again, despite her manager always trying to put her on the cash register. Just because she's good at talking people into buying overpriced drinks and baked goods doesn't mean that she wants to do it all the time, you know?

It's not that she's shy around these boys, who attend the private school around the corner and spend their time in the cafe doing complicated-sounding homework. School is dumb and doesn't teach rich people anything about how to survive in the world. Whatever. It's just that any excuse to avoid putting on a customer service smile is a good one.

Still, the prep school boys aren't bad as far as customers go. They always put tips in the jar. They don't make a big mess. There was also this one time a jerk customer berated a brand new cashier for being slow. The two loud boys started a conversation right behind the jerk about how people who were rude to service industry workers were the absolute worst. Then the nice boy told the cashier that she was doing great, and the shy boy didn't say anything at all, but he blushed and left a little origami butterfly on the counter.

It's possible that the cashier was A-Qing. It's possible that she still has the origami butterfly weeks later. (It lives on her desk, where she can see it while she studies.) But she's not looking for any attachments right now. She has a good thing going after years on the streets, and she's not going to blow it to chase after some rich boy.

A-Qing sets the cups on the counter so that the boys' Sharpie'd names face out. It gives her a little glow of satisfaction to see her own beautiful script. The cups would look even nicer with their names written in proper characters, but she's not going to ask.

(Besides, she's still learning those. Xingchen found her an online Mandarin class focused on teaching native speakers how to read and write the language, like the disgustingly thoughtful person he is. A-Qing barely remembers her mother, but her first language always comes back whenever she talks to another native speaker.)

"Hello!" the nice one, Sizhui, says when he picks up his drink. His smile says the same thing it always does: If you feel like a friendly chat, I'm here for it; if you would rather continue working, that's fine, too. A-Qing never chitchats, but she appreciates it.

The shy one, Zizhen, blushes when he picks up his drink. "Um," he says, the first words A-Qing has ever heard him utter to her face. When she's on cashier duty, Jingyi always orders for him.

A-Qing stops wiping the counter and meets his eyes. "Can I help you?"

The flush on poor Zizhen's face deepens. He blushes all the way down to his fancy prep school uniform collar. "It's nice that, um, you always spell our names right!"

"But you're holding my order!" the youngest rich boy, Jin Ling, hisses.

"Let the man speak to the barista!" Jingyi hisses back at him.

Zizhen frowns at his friends, who are having a brief but intense scuffle. "She's not the barista, she's A-Qing! I mean. Um. If your name tag is correct. But why wouldn't it be? I'll just… Bye."

Three of the four boys flee to the table, Zizhen among them. A-Qing bans the word cute from her consciousness.

Sizhui makes a sympathetic face at A-Qing across the counter. "Please don't mind them. I'm sure Zizhen knows that your name tag is correct."

"Does he?" she asks with a laugh. Everything Zizhen blurted out was--endearing, like watching a puppy somehow wag its tail the wrong way in its eagerness to please. Horrified by the thought, she goes back to wiping the counter.

She spends the rest of her shift eavesdropping on them, though. From a safe distance.

*

A-Qing successfully gets back to the apartment without running into their weird neighbor, who is possibly a stalker and definitely wants to sleep with Xingchen. Who knows why the guy keeps trying when Xingchen and Zichen are so married it makes her teeth hurt? (She knows about teeth hurting, after years of missing the dentist.) They're so married that A-Qing has never, ever seen them fight, even though her behavior always disrupted household harmony in her previous foster homes before she ran away for good.

She takes off her shoes, dumps her purse on the coffee table, and flops facedown on the couch. It was a long shift today, one that dragged on and on after the rich boys went home. Her manager snapped at her for checking her phone, even though she was just writing down the name of the ancient Chinese poem they were arguing about. Zizhen read some out loud and said he thought it was pretty, and it was! All she wanted was to look it up later.

"Hello, A-Qing." She can't see Zichen with her face mashed into the cushions, but she can picture his raised eyebrows in an otherwise stoic expression. She used to think he didn't like her until Xingchen explained that his face was just like that. Resting bastard face, she told Zichen later, and she saw him really laugh for the first time ever.

"Uuuuuuuugggggggghhhhh," is all she has to contribute after a long day of customer service, however.

"Well, I can see I won't need to make dinner for three, since you crave only human flesh."

A-Qing lifts her head at the prospect of food, even though it hurts her neck to do it. "What are you making? Do you need any help?"

"You've been making food and drinks for people all day," Zichen points out. "Nap on the couch if you want. Just use headphones if you want to listen to something."

"Yeah, yeah, I know how you feel about my great background music." A-Qing sticks out her tongue, but Zichen's suggestion is a pretty good one. She summons the energy to pull her headphones out of her bag.

The headphones are nice Bluetooth ones Xingchen and Zichen got her for her birthday, nicer than she probably deserves. They don't have a ton of money, and she doesn't make enough at her job to pay for all the stuff they do for her. But Zichen pointed out that she should have good headphones for listening to online lectures, and it makes Xingchen happy to see her using them. She and Zichen will do a lot to make him happy.

A-Qing opens up her study playlist and hunches over her laptop. (Xingchen, who teaches yoga when he's not volunteering for a million worthy causes, is constantly horrified by her posture.) She fires off some quick discussion board responses for participation credit, then sweats over a math problem set for the better part of half an hour. All the while, she's aware of the steady clack of Zichen's knife on the cutting board, then the smell of oil sizzling in the wok.

She yelps in triumph when she finally solves the last problem, a bright flash of intuition that says if she does this then it will do that. Numbers are simple once she lines them up correctly in her brain. Take that, rich boys!

Zichen hands her a plate, only a slight quirk of his mouth indicating that he's smiling. "You're getting faster."

"I'll be bothering you again soon, just you wait." A-Qing makes a horrible face at him before she digs into her vegetable and tofu stir fry. The first two bites burn her mouth and she forces herself to slow down after that.

She doesn't know much about Zichen's past, or Xingchen's, for that matter. They met on their first day of college, which explains why Zichen knows his GED math. Zichen has never mentioned his family, nor has anyone showed up to the apartment to question why he's living with another man and a seventeen-year-old runaway. He always talks to Xingchen's aunt when she calls, though.

A-Qing still wolfs down her food too fast, but Zichen doesn't comment on it. She still feels hungry despite eating all of her share, so she settles back on the couch with a cup of tea. When she first moved in, she used to eat herself sick until Xingchen taught her the tea trick. Maybe it's all in her head, maybe her body really does need time to realize it's full. Whatever, it works.

To distract herself further, she Googles the name of the poem Zizhen read out loud. It takes a little searching, since there are two different translations of the title. The poem, whether it's "Visiting the Absent Hermit" or "Seeking But Not Finding the Recluse," is only four lines--how could those boys argue so much about such a short poem?

Her jaw tightens as she tries to muddle her way through "only" four lines with her kindergarten-level knowledge of Chinese characters. She remembers Zizhen's recitation, the way the words wrapped around him as though he was the unknown place in the clouds. The secret should be hers as well. Furious, she copies and pastes the characters into a text-to-speech box, then listens to the robot voice recite it with none of the same beauty.

It's too early to go to bed, but A-Qing wants nothing more than to crawl underneath the covers. What was she going to do, go on break and talk about some poem she can't even read? Try to impress some boy and ruin the nice life she finally has?

A-Qing does the dishes as fast as she can, then retreats into sleep.

*

That would be the end of it, except Xingchen happens to pop into her room as she's emailing her Mandarin teacher about the poem. He makes a mild comment about how hard it looks like she's concentrating, and then she's reciting what she remembers of it.

It's completely unsurprising when Xingchen's face lights up and he finishes the poem for her when her memory falters. Apparently it's a famous ancient poet's famous ancient poem or whatever, and there are layers and layers of meaning to it. Xingchen is a smart guy, but he's definitely not a poetry teacher. All the fancy things he learned in college go right over A-Qing's head.

She's ready to stomp out of the apartment in a terrible mood (but not at Xingchen, he's good, he just doesn't know what it's like to be school stupid). Then Xingchen mentions that there's a local concert hall named after the poem.

"There's a family who owns it. I think their name is Lan," he says. "I looked it up when I noticed the connection, but of course it's been some time."

Lan, like Sizhui and Jingyi's last name, A-Qing is willing to bet. A family with its own concert hall can afford to send its boys to fancy private school.

"Do you have an interest in classical poetry?" Xingchen asks. "I sold most of my textbooks, but I might have one lying around somewhere..."

"I was thinking of getting a tutor," A-Qing blurts out before he can do anything like gently, subtly ask whether she'll be able to actually read any of the poems in their original text. "I know the GED is in English, but I'd rather study these! And I can learn about the same kind of stuff, right?"

Xingchen hesitates, a tiny wrinkle appearing between his perfect brows. It has to be about the money. A-Qing pays for as much of her own way as she can, but she's not full-time at the cafe and Xingchen and Zichen insist on paying for more than they should.

Her gaze lands on the little origami butterfly. "By getting a tutor, I mean my friend Zizhen is tutoring me for free! In other stuff, too! He and his school friends come to the cafe almost every day. They're nice and they're smart."

She's achieved her distraction, but at what cost? Xingchen absolutely glows at the information that she's getting extra academics and has friends.

"I look forward to hearing about your progress," he says, and that seals A-Qing's fate. Now she has to at least ask Zizhen to tutor her. Maybe she can convince him that she's doing him a favor, somehow? Anything to save her from further humiliation.

A-Qing has most of her shift to think about how she's going to carry out her ridiculous plan. Mid-morning at the cafe is quiet until lunch rush, and she cons her way into prepping ingredients in the back. Who is she to question the rich people who want to pay five dollars for a tiny plastic cup of sliced fruit? Then there's the price of a sandwich, which she still remembers how to stretch for an entire week--

"Tutoring," she mutters. "Tutoring in classical Chinese poetry, even though it won't be on the GED test. A-Qing, you're supposed to be a good liar!" She plays back her conversation with Xingchen in her head. "Should I tell Zizhen I need to work on my inferencing? Maybe if I talk fast enough..."

The lunch rush distracts A-Qing from her frantic schemes. She pastes on a smile and tries not to wish death on too many customers. She's not made of peace and understanding like Xingchen, plus people respect their barista way less than their yoga teacher.

On a late lunch break, she sits outside and considers, for about the twentieth time, starting to smoke again. That was the only condition Xingchen and Zichen gave her for living with them: no smoking, no drinking, no drugs, nothing that could get them in trouble for harboring a teenage runaway. Other than, you know, harboring a teenage runaway.

Smoking isn't not worth it, not even to work off a little stress. A-Qing squares her shoulders and heads back in. She'll get her tutor, and maybe it will guarantee she'll pass the GED test on her first try, and then someday she won't have to work in this stupid cafe, anyway.

*

A-Qing takes a few minutes to freshen up in the bathroom after her shift ends. She can't do anything about the lingering smells of coffee (obviously) and butter (breakfast pastries), but she runs a hairbrush through her hair and swipes on some lip gloss. She blots at the mysterious splotch on her shirt before giving up and tying the ends of her shirt with a hair elastic. Do private school boys even know about street fashion? Whatever.

She waves at the boys as she approaches the table. Sizhui smiles, Jingyi waves back, Jin Ling looks confused, and Zizhen... blushes. It's not cute, A-Qing reminds herself. Boys don't get to be cute and rich! At least not rich boys who are sitting right in front of her, available but completely unavailable.

"I'm looking for a tutor," she announces. "I thought one of you might be one. You study enough."

"We're not--" Jin Ling starts to say, but he yelps like someone just kicked him under the table.

"Zizhen is a very good tutor," Sizhui says with a serene smile. "Literature, languages, and history are his specialties."

Zizhen makes a strangled sound, but manages an awkward nod in A-Qing's direction.

"Trust nothing he says about pre-calc," Jingyi says in a loud whisper. "He put all his smart points in the humanities."

"Because there's no soul in pre-calc!" Evidently, Zizhen's shyness wears off when confronted with the horrors of super smart math.

"How do you think bridges happen? Magic?!"

A-Qing rolls her eyes, but on the inside. On the outside, her face hurts from her customer service smile. "Thanks, but I don't need a math tutor. Literature would be great, maybe some writing, too." The calculations go through her head lightning quick, and A-Qing sticks out her lower lip as she adds, "I can't pay you much, but I'll give you what I can…"

"You don't have to pay me at all!" Zizhen cries, then goes bright red. "Because we're all… students of life…"

A-Qing should feel guilty about conning Zizhen into working for free, but it's all for a good cause. She ignores Jingyi mouthing students of life and holds out her hand. "Give me your phone and I'll put in my number."

She ignores the loud whispering that breaks out. (She also ignores the way her heartbeat leaps in her throat when Zizhen's fingers brush hers.) His phone background must be a family photo: Zizhen, a smiling mother and father, and three older-looking sisters crowded around a big cake. Of course the rich boy has a big family who loves him. Of course.

A-Qing texts her own number from Zizhen's phone, then saves the contact as A-Qing Wang. Not her actual last name, but on the off chance the great state of New York is still looking for her, she doesn't want to be found. Zichen even got her a fake ID with that name so she can take the GED test.

"So um. I have to go now, but I'll text you my schedule." A-Qing hands back the phone, all of a sudden wanting to be anywhere else. These boys think they know something about her now, or at least Jingyi does from the smirk on his face. Zizhen's face is still an alarming shade of red.

Once outside, she scrubs off her lip gloss with the back of her hand. She's preserved her lie to Xingchen and she got herself a free tutor, so at least there's that. She'll make it a condition that they have to sit far enough away from Zizhen's friends that she can't hear them whisper.

On the bus home, she gets a text: Hi, it's Zizhen! Sorry I didn't say anything. I was surprised.

A second later, she gets: Good surprised! Usually people ask Sizhui for homework help. He's good at everything.

A-Qing texts back, Can you tell me about that poem you were reading? The cloudy mountain one? (She's never felt so grateful for autocorrect. Her spelling is awful but so, she maintains, are the impenetrable rules of the English language.)

The bus ride home is just long enough for Zizhen to compose her an entire essay in her text messages. He starts with the original text of the poem, then the translation in his textbook, then another translation, and then a billion facts about the Tang dynasty and classical forms of poetry. He ends it with a question: But how does it make you feel?

She's still thinking about it as she heads up to the apartment, smiling.

"Funny animal video?"

Ugh, it's her weird neighbor who's totally obsessed with Xingchen. A-Qing sticks her tongue out at him. "None of your business! Why do you care, anyway?"

He smirks, dark eyes dancing wickedly. "Because it's new. You're still new. Do your two dads plan to adopt every stray they find, or are you special somehow?"

"They're just good people!" Fear nips at A-Qing's insides. She's willing to bet their weird neighbor has broken more laws than he follows, but he has leverage over them and he knows it. One call to the authorities before she turns eighteen and her perfect living arrangements will fall apart.

He leans against the wall, laughing merrily. "Ah, don't look so scared. I'm in a good mood today. Your Xingchen teaches a good yoga lesson. Have you ever taken one with him?"

"Still none of your business," A-Qing snaps, and slams the door behind her.

Zichen looks up from the couch, eyebrows raised. "Xue Yang again?"

"He's the worst! I hate him."

"Me too," Zichen replies, but with a strange gleam in his eye.

Ugh! They're all so weird. A-Qing is surrounded by absolute weirdos. She flees to the safety of her bedroom, where she rereads all of Zizhen's text messages. He types like he talks: like he loves what he studies, and he wants other people to love it, too. It's an outstretched hand instead of a door slammed in the face of people like her, struggling to stay afloat in GED test prep.

Finally, she types back, The poem makes me feel at peace.

*

There's a bookstore with its own cafe around the corner from where A-Qing works, so she arranges to meet Zizhen there. The coffee isn't as good, but crucially, it's coffee she has not had to make, nor has she ever had to clean any of the espresso machines.

A-Qing makes sure that she gets there first. She thumbs her way through the GED study guide Xingchen found at a used bookstore. It's more of a good luck charm than a useful guide: although Xingchen tried to erase all the answers the previous owner circled, some of the circles are in pen. But test prep materials are expensive, and looking at those smudged eraser marks makes her feel--well, she doesn't want to put a name on it, not even in her own head.

Her eyes meet Zizhen's while he's still standing outside the bookstore window. Her heart jumps again, like a silly little dog. He smiles when he sees her, and the half-wave he does, as though unsure about whether she's glad to see him, is stupidly adorable.

"Hi!" he says once he's inside. "It's good to see you! I've never seen you out of your uniform. I mean, um, you look nice!"

A-Qing hides a laugh in her coffee cup. It's been too long since she's worn her favorite sundress, black with tiny yellow polka dots. "I always see you in your uniform, too," she teases back just to watch his blush deepen. It's after school, so he's still in his jacket and tie.

Still blushing, Zizhen asks, "So, do you want to start with literature first, or…?"

Right. She's here to study, not get tangled up with rich boys. A-Qing turns her laptop around, where she's pulled up a hated essay prompt. "Maybe save the fun part for after you tell me what this question even wants from me," she says, a hint of a sulk already in her voice. She's never been able to figure out what teachers and test writers expect.

"Okay, sure!" Zizhen scans the question, nodding to himself. "So, this one wants you to choose which of these two articles makes the strongest argument. So here's what I would do..."

A-Qing drinks her coffee and listens to Zizhen explain his process. Of all the amazing luck, she's conned her way into a free tutor who's actually kind of great at it? Zizhen likes all this essay writing crap, she can tell, but he doesn't talk over her head or move too fast. She scribbles down notes while he talks through how he would answer that prompt, and then another one.

"Wait," she says after he finishes the second one. "So to answer the next one, I would…"

Zizhen's smile gets wider and wider as she outlines her plans, and her stupid tiny dog heart rolls over for him. "Yes, exactly! Are you sure you need a tutor?"

"Well, yeah," A-Qing says, although her cheeks warm at his praise. "Why didn't anyone ever tell me that there's a formula for essay writing? Is that what your prep school teaches you?"

"It teaches us too much of that stuff." Zizhen makes a face. "The formula will help you pass the test, don't get me wrong, but it's not…" He holds his hand out and then curls his fingers toward his palm, as though trying to catch the right words as they swim past. "It's not… creative? No, that's not right. It's just… writing what people expect, in the way they expect, all the time."

A-Qing shrugs. "Works for me."

"But wouldn't you rather write about something you care about?" His eyes are too bright, his expression too earnest. An easy mark, A-Qing's old instincts scream. "Something you love?"

"Nope!" A-Qing replies with forced cheer. She doesn't want the word "love" anywhere near these tutoring sessions, thank you very much. "We can move on to literature now. Do you have any more Chinese poetry?"

The redirection is successful, but halfway through Zizhen's enthusiastic poetry reading, A-Qing wonders if she's made a mistake. There are actual tears in Zizhen's eyes, he's so moved by these tiny poems about nature, and it shouldn't be endearing but it is.

And the more he talks about poetry, the more she thinks she knows what Zizhen means about following a formula for credit instead of writing about something you love.

"The poems have all these rules, but they're so…" Now she's the one who can't catch the right words. "I can see them in my head. Even though my Mandarin isn't so good."

"Yes! I mean, not about your Mandarin." Zizhen's beet red again. "We speak Mandarin and English at home, but my parents are always telling me to improve. What about your parents?"

Ah. The reason that it doesn't matter if Zizhen is kind, if he likes A-Qing, if A-Qing likes him even a little. They can't get any closer than tutor and student.

A-Qing pretends to check her messages. "Ah! That's my cousin, actually. I need to go home. Talk to you later! Thanks!"

She leaves in a whirlwind of empty chatter, nothing like the beautiful words that colored the air between them.

*

Zizhen is perceptive, which A-Qing never expected. He sends her a text the next day that says, Sorry, I know family can be a touchy subject. Some of my friends have that going on, too. Tutoring tomorrow?

So A-Qing schedules her next tutoring session, and then another, until they work out a comfortable schedule of two or three times a week, depending on their other responsibilities. Mostly they manage to keep to their own space, but sometimes A-Qing joins the boys at their table. Jin Ling is younger than the others, young enough that she can correct his math homework, which brings her no end of delight. Jingyi is fun to egg on, and Sizhui is just so nice.

Mostly, though, it's Zizhen's company she looks forward to: his easy and generous smiles, his enthusiasm for all things beautiful, and the way his shyness still pops out in unexpected places, like when she teasingly asks him if he's ever had a girlfriend. He doesn't even go for the obvious Have you ever had a boyfriend? counter, which makes her like him all the more.

So yes, A-Qing likes him. That doesn't mean she has to do anything about it. This is all too good to change. She's never gotten better marks on her papers, and her Mandarin teacher is full of compliments about her progress. Zichen and Xingchen have both commented, with a certain wistfulness on Xingchen's part, that she doesn't really need their help anymore. (She tells them that they're not getting off that easy, and they all laugh, and everything is so good right now. Why should she ask for anything to change?)

The date of her GED test creeps closer, no longer a comfortable two months away. A-Qing does everything she can to keep her mind occupied: picking up extra shifts at work, arranging extra tutoring sessions with Zizhen, staying up late on her own. Part of her knows that she can always retake the test if she fails the first time. The other, louder part of her is tired of making contingency plans and running through what if scenarios. She wants to pass. She wants it more than anything.

And then, five days before her test, it all blows up in her face.

A-Qing's day starts with a miserable shift at work. The espresso machine breaks at six in the morning, gets valiantly duct taped together by seven, and then breaks beyond hope at eight. They run out of the one pastry that all the grumpy customers want. A-Qing burns the ring finger of her dominant hand, then has to work the cash register. Every time she has to smile at a customer, she's chanting, Die die die die die die! in her head.

Ten minutes before the end of her shift, and fifteen minutes before Zizhen is meeting her here, A-Qing's weirdo neighbor walks in.

"What do you want?" she hisses across the counter, when she's sure her manager can't hear. "We're out of basically all the pastries, so don't ask."

Xue Yang points to the sign taped to the counter, which reads ESPRESSO MACHINE BROKEN. "So no lattes?"

A-Qing says, grudgingly, "The repairman just finished." Why couldn't the espresso machine break now, with no morning rush and one extremely annoying neighbor here?

"There are so many ways to satisfy a sweet tooth." His grin is a too-wide slash in his face, like a shark's.

"This isn't Starbucks," A-Qing says, which is a mistake.

Her troublemaking neighbor orders a monstrous sugar concoction that makes A-Qing's teeth hurt just to make. She likes sweets, too. But maybe this will give him a sugar crash so bad that he'll fall asleep for a hundred years, and never bother her household again.

(It's possible that she's hit delirium at the end of her shift. It happens.)

A-Qing leaves the drink on the counter without bothering to call his name. He saunters over, takes the drink with a smirk… and settles down at a table.

"My shift's done!" she calls to her manager, and throws off her apron without bothering to listen for a reply.

Maybe she can move her study da--tutoring session to the bookstore, or something. A-Qing had promised Zizhen free afternoon coffee, since they're both a little low on money right now. (Zizhen, it turns out, is not nearly as rich as his other rich boy friends.) She has twenty dollars on her, though, so maybe...

No. This is her place of work, damn it, and she will not be chased out of it because of some demon drinking a chocolate-caramel-cinnamon-sugary-hell latte, with whipped cream on top.

"Hi!" Zizhen's cheeks are pink from cold, but his color deepens when he sees her. "How are… did you have a long day?"

A-Qing pats her hair, belatedly realizing she hasn't seen herself in a mirror since ten in the morning. Her hair is definitely sticking out in all directions, and she probably has at least a teaspoon of flavored syrup in it. "Do I really look that bad?"

"Just tired! But not bad tired, tired like you should be off your feet!" And then Zizhen pulls out a chair for her, because he is literally too good to be true. "Also, my sisters made too many brownies. Please have one, we've been eating them all week and they're still not gone."

A-Qing says, "Let me fill the coffees first," but she breaks off a piece of brownie for strength. As she walks by Xue Yang's table, she sticks out her tongue and then pops her snack into her mouth. Serves him right!

For a solid hour, A-Qing thinks that her day might be redeemed after all. She and Zizhen sip coffee and run through each other's flashcards. Then she shows him the essay she drafted in her notebook, which he calls "fantastic." Weeks and weeks of hard work, and she's impressed a prep school senior.

"I, um, I have something for you." Zizhen, his entire face bright red, slides a small red paper bag across the table. The handles are tied together with a pink ribbon.

"I love gifts!" A-Qing says, untroubled that her response is not at all the proper one. She unknots the ribbon as fast as possible. Underneath the tissue is a package of bright red Number Two pencils, her name printed on them in shiny gold paint. She roots around in the tissue paper and pulls out two adorable pencil toppers: one, a grinning cat, and the other, a sleepy turtle.

Zizhen rubs the back of his neck. "I thought it would be nice for you to have for your test! Even though most of it is on the computer, I know they let you write on scratch paper."

A-Qing has already torn open the pencil package and stuck one of the pencil toppers on a pencil. "I love them!" she cries. "You're the best, Zizhen, I mean it."

He smiles at her. She smiles back.

Maybe if I… A-Qing is just starting to think, and then a voice says behind her: "What a cute date."

A-Qing whips around to glare at the worst neighbor in the world. "It's not a date! Are you stalking me along with Xingchen now?"

Xue Yang's eyes flash, even though his smile never falters. "You looked awfully cozy, that's all. Are you sure you know what a date is?"

"As if I'd be interested in that! We're just friends, so get your mind out of the gutter!" Instinct stops A-Qing before she can throw one of her precious pencils at him, but oh, she wants to launch something at his smug face. "Mind your own business!"

His lip curls. "Don't come crying to me when Preppy decides that you're not rich enough for his blood."

White noise fills A-Qing's ears. "I won't come crying to you at all!"

"Just saying that it's bound to happen. Take it from a street kid who grew up." Xue Yang backs away, his hands in the air but his face as smug as a cat that's just knocked a full glass off the table.

A-Qing keeps her glare trained on Xue Yang until the cafe doors swing shut. "Sorry about my bizarro neighbor," she says as she turns around. "He's obsessed with my, um, cousin. And maybe my cousin's boyfriend? It's a whole weird situation."

Zizhen is staring down at the table, pale and withdrawn instead of flushed and smiling. "Um, I need to get going," he says quietly.

"I… okay?" A-Qing's brow wrinkles. Is Xue Yang really that upsetting to the average person? "Thanks for my present! It's super nice. I'll see you later?"

"Yeah," is all Zizhen says as he gathers up his things.

And just like that, A-Qing's day is terrible again.

*

A-Qing notices that Zizhen's text messages are few and far between, but she also has the GED test to pass. She tells herself she'll fix everything later. For now, she loses herself in a haze of cramming that everyone tells her is a bad idea--hell, that she herself knows is a bad idea--but she can't stop thinking what if, what if. What if she fails? What if she's stuck in a job she hates for the rest of her life? What if this is it?

"I can do this," she mutters every night, bent over her books after a long day of work at the cafe. "I can do this."

The day of the test dawns. She has all four parts of the test scheduled for the same day, based on the idea that she'll chicken out if she tries to spread it out too much. A-Qing takes her lucky pencils and her erasers to the exam center, along with well wishes from Xingchen and Zichen. (They offer to walk her there, but she refuses.)

This is something she'll do on her own.

In front of the computer, A-Qing loses all sense of the outside world. It's just the test and her, a timer ticking down, her pencil scratching along her scrap paper. She finishes each section with enough time to check over the answers she flagged, double and sometimes triple checking before she's satisfied with her final answer. She doesn't feel nervous. She's in pure survival mode. There were days when nothing mattered but the next meal, the next place to sleep. Now nothing matters but the next question, the next subtest.

It's still daylight when she finally emerges from the testing center. A-Qing slides on her sunglasses, abruptly too drained to walk the short distance home. She hops on the bus and sinks into a seat, exhausted. It's done. It's done. She'll know in a few hours, twenty-four at most.

Except A-Qing collapses into her bed when she gets home and sleeps straight through the night. When she wakes up, her eyes feel glued together and her throat aches.

"I am not sick!" she tries to protest, but her words emerge as a miserable croak.

A-Qing shuffles into the kitchen, where Xingchen and Zichen have a rare morning off together. Xingchen is cutting watermelon for a fruit salad, his knife a blur, while Zichen flips pancakes on the stove.

"Good morning," Xingchen says. He frowns and gives her a closer look. "A-Qing, are you feeling all right? I'll make you some tea."

A-Qing intends to check her GED scores, but first she needs to grab a plate of pancakes in case Xingchen decides that a sugary Western breakfast will make her sicker. She serves herself a stack of pancakes and pours an enormous helping of maple syrup all over them. Doesn't matter that she can hardly taste it, or that every swallow is painful. It's the principle of the thing.

"So how did you do on your exams?" Zichen asks, taking a seat at the table.

"Let her drink some tea first," Xingchen replies. "Maybe now no more cram sessions, A-Qing? And more sleep?"

A-Qing stuffs another bite of pancake into her mouth, but relents and chases it with tea. Ugh, pancakes and peppermint don't mix well. She's listened to just enough of Xingchen's traditional Chinese medicine lectures to know that she must look awful if he's skipped straight to cooling foods.

Everything in her stomach churns when A-Qing opens her email. She clicks on the link to the GED website and types in her username and password with trembling fingers.

And then she shuts her laptop with an audible snap.

"I passed!" she shouts through her hands, which are pressed over her mouth. "I passed--it says college ready! All of my scores are college ready!"

Excitement carries her through five minutes of dancing around the apartment and shouting with Xingchen and Zichen. (Well, neither of them shout, although they tell her over and over how proud they are.) Then A-Qing doubles over in a coughing fit.

"I'm going back to bed," she says. "But when I feel better, we're going out to eat!"

A-Qing texts her exciting news to Zizhen before she falls asleep again. She spends the rest of the morning drifting in and out of sleep, alternating between over-the-counter cold medicine and Xingchen's arsenal of medicinal teas.

Eventually, she gets back the following message: Congratulations! I knew you could do it. I guess you don't need a tutor anymore, right?

The words swim in front of her. A-Qing has to blink several times before they make sense. She's talked to Zizhen before about how much he's helped her with her Mandarin class, since he's been reading the language for twelve years. Why would he suggest that she doesn't need him anymore? And why has he been so out of touch for the past few days?

"Don't come crying to me when Preppy decides that you're not rich enough for his blood."

"I won't come crying to you at all!"

She never even defended Zizhen, she was so upset by Xue Yang nosing his way into her personal business.

"I messed up," A-Qing realizes. But before she can make amends (and set fire to Xue Yang's doormat for his part in all this), she needs to sleep for a hundred years.

The cold takes her down for the entire week post-test. Her manager at the cafe is pissed, but she sounds so terrible he tells her that he'll figure out how to cover her shifts. Xingchen and Zichen take turns watching over her. They even call out of work a few times, which they almost never do.

A-Qing protests that all this fuss isn't necessary, but she secretly loves the attention. Her fake cousin and his real boyfriend, fussing over her! Fluffing her pillows, bringing her food and drinks, making sure that she has enough blankets. She can't remember the last time anyone pampered her this much.

Plus, the longer she's sick, the longer she can put off apologizing to Zizhen.

A-Qing pushes her luck just a hair too far when she fake-coughs her way out of helping with the dinner dishes. Her acting isn't enough to bring back the nasty wet cough that she was dealing with earlier.

"I think you can go back to work soon," Zichen says drily. "Since you're sounding so much better. I'm sure your coworkers have been working double shifts, too."

"Yeah, well." A-Qing scuffs her sock-clad foot along the floor. "I might need a little bit of… personal advice before I go back there."

"Ah, this is about your nice Zizhen." Xingchen towels the last cup dry and tucks it into the cabinet.

"How do you know about that?!"

"Oh, I talk with Xue Yang sometimes," Xingchen says airily, which is so distracting that A-Qing forgets to deny what he said. "He made me a fake ID for you to take the GED, free of charge."

"But he's the absolute worst!" she cries.

"The worst," Zichen says, but with that strange gleam in his eyes again.

A-Qing never, ever wants to know what's up with the three of them. Better to worry about herself and how she accidentally hurt Zizhen. "So you sort of know that I yelled that I wasn't interested in Zizhen like that. Um, in public. And now he's really sad!"

"Well, are you interested in him?" Xingchen asks. "If you're not, it seems like he's doing the right thing and letting you have your space."

"If you are interested," Zichen says, with a slight smile for Xingchen, "you have to let him know."

"You make it sound so simple!" A-Qing complains. "I don't want to do any of that. I just want things to be like they were!"

Xingchen tilts his head at her. "Do you?"

"Yes," A-Qing says, with less of the proud defiance she intends and more of the little kid desperation she tries to keep bottled up. Before would certainly be better, with text exchanges about movies and books, and laughing over coffee, and feeling just as good as any rich kid prep school student. Or--or just feeling good, like the differences between them aren't barriers.

A-Qing thinks about going on a real date with Zizhen. How it would feel to hold his hand, if just brushing fingertips made her feel that much. How she's seventeen and has never been kissed, but Zizhen's mouth always looks soft.

She groans as her face sinks into her cupped palms. "But what do I do now?"

*

Like with most things, A-Qing has to forge this path mostly alone. Xingchen and Zichen try to help her, but apparently they got together in college after successfully lobbying for some kind of local fair housing thing. A-Qing stops listening after Xingchen says, "And then Zichen said, 'I've wanted to do this for months,' and dipped me back like they do in old movies--"

Zizhen is a romantic, though, so that gives her an angle to work. A-Qing is pretty sure that romantics don't get over their crushes just like that.

(For a brief, crazed second, she contemplates asking her terrible neighbor for help. Then she realizes Xue Yang might give her bad advice just for the fun of seeing whether she follows it.)

The night before her first shift back at work, she sends Zizhen a selfie of herself in pajamas, pouting over a steaming cup of tea. Sorry for ignoring you! I got sick from all the stress. This was me.

(She has no selfies taken while actually sick. She's trying to win Zizhen back, not send him screaming from the monster with a red nose and bags under its eyes.)

Sorry to hear that, he texts back. Then he sends a picture of his laptop, with a million tabs open. Final papers and projects forever. Send help.

Okay. A-Qing can do this. She texts, Hang out after work tomorrow? We need to catch up!!!

All she gets back is a smiley face and a thumbs up emoji, but she can't blame him after seeing just how many tabs he has open for school. A-Qing settles back against her pillows. It's fine that she phrased her offer so casually, right? Someone like Zizhen would rather be asked on a date to his face so he can remember the moment forever. It has nothing to do with her dry mouth and hammering pulse.

Work is marginally more tolerable now that A-Qing has her GED and a chance of escaping customer service someday. It's also a welcome distraction from her nerves. She drinks too much coffee and has to deal with the jitters all day.

And at the end of her shift, in come her prep school boys.

Sizhui and Jingyi are in the front, with Jin Ling close behind and Zizhen trailing behind. A-Qing starts their usual order before they even start talking to the barista on register.

"We heard your news! Congratulations," Sizhui says, because he is still the nicest person ever. "Ah, most of us are actually taking our orders to go, if you don't mind!"

"We're just here to drop off Zizhen." Jingyi grins at her over the counter. "But man, A-Qing, I knew you could do it! You actually get math, unlike the rest of these clowns."

"Sizhui has better grades than you," Jin Ling mutters.

"Only because sometimes I forget to turn in work until after it's due! Does that make me a poor student?"

A-Qing places four drinks on the counter, absurdly pleased to have these boys--these friends--back in her life. "My tutor told me that good students follow their deadlines," she offers with a grin.

She put an extra shot of vanilla in Zizhen's latte. She wonders if he'll notice. She wishes he would stop lurking behind all of his friends, like… maybe he doesn't want to talk to her after all. Her stomach drops, and she hardly notices the others laughing, Jingyi included.

"Thank you! We'll have to talk soon!" Sizhui waves. Is it just her imagination, or is he herding his other two friends out the door?

Leaving Zizhen holding a latte and… a small cactus wrapped in clear plastic gift wrap, tied together with a big red bow. He goes as red as the ribbon when she sees the gift.

"I, um, this seemed like a good idea? But now that I'm thinking about it, you'll have to take this home on the bus. But! It's an I'm sorry cactus!"

"Because you were a prick?" A-Qing asks before her brain can catch up with her mouth.

Zizhen nods miserably. "You sent me your good news, and then I let, um, some stuff get in the way of properly congratulating you. And then you were sick and I didn't know and I'm really really sorry I was such a jerk!"

"I was a jerk, too," A-Qing says, and then realizes that there are two customers waiting for their drinks politely (for once). Right, she's still on shift. "Um, let me get these drinks and then I'm done with work?"

She knows, knows, that she's blushing as she makes the last drinks of her shift. One of the customers says, "I think you two are very sweet together," and once again A-Qing is done with customer service forever.

Zichen waits for her at a table. He's placed the gift cactus in the dead center of the table, and he has both hands cupped around the plastic-wrapped pot as if to protect it from stray elbows. There's no one nearby, but it's endearing anyway.

"I'm really glad we're friends," he blurts out as soon as A-Qing sits down. "You're--you're so smart and funny and nice. And you're a little mean, but in a good way." He looks down and fiddles with the plastic wrap enough to make it crinkle. "You stopped needing a tutor a while ago, but I like hanging out with you."

Two lumps rise in A-Qing's throat. One, because he believed her when she said they were just friends, and he's here to make sure they stay friends. Two, because when he listed what he likes about her, he started with "smart." She swallows, and the motion squeezes the lumps in her throat all the way up into her eyes. Gross.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry for ignoring you!" Zizhen reaches forward to make some kind of reassuring gesture, upsetting his coffee in the process. The dregs of his latte splatter everywhere: the table, the plastic wrap, A-Qing's shirt, Zizhen's entire right sleeve.

A-Qing laughs as she wipes her eyes, and laughs more when new tears fill them anyway. "So much for changing after work."

"Aaaaahhhhhh!" is all Zizhen can say, on the verge of tears himself. He gets up, heading towards the napkin dispenser a few feet away.

A-Qing catches him by his coffee-logged sleeve. "Wait," she says, now that she's regained enough self-possession to speak. "Just--stay here for a minute. I have some things I want to say."

Zizhen sits back down so quickly that it jostles the gift cactus.

"I like you," A-Qing says, because maybe the direct approach is the best way after all.

Zizhen's eyes go huge, but to his credit, he stays quiet.

A-Qing balls her hands into fists under the table. "When I said we were just friends, I was panicking. I'm not so good with feelings. But I… I'd like it if we could… try the other thing. I wish we were on a real date right now, no matter how much coffee you spill."

There. Her real feelings are out there in the world. But the world can't take away her GED, and in two months, no one will be able to take her away from Xingchen and Zichen. Maybe she'll get to keep this good thing, too.

Zizhen's smile unfolds like a flower in one of the poems he loves, many-petaled and beautiful. "I wish we were on a real date right now, too. Even though there's coffee dripping on my pants. Um. Do you have tissues or anything in your purse?"

"For our first date, you get the whole travel pack." A-Qing brushes Zizhen's hand on purpose when she gives him the tissues, and oh, it makes her whole heart sing. If these fleeting touches make her so happy, what will happen when they hold hands?

As he blots his unfortunate prep school khakis, Zizhen laughs softly. "I can't believe for our first date, I took you to where you work."

"Uh, who invited who?" A-Qing grins. "Technically, I invited you and then you gave me a plant covered in spikes. The symbolism, Zizhen!"

"I thought I was proving my friendship, not my potential boyfriendship!" He blushes. "That is, um, if you want a second date after this. I promise we can go somewhere normal, like the movies."

"Mm, I'll think about it." A-Qing hooks one of her feet around his ankle, like she's seen in a million stupid movies about starry-eyed teenagers. When he squeaks in surprise, she giggles. "Maybe tell me some more about how great I am."

"Your eyes are like space crystals," Zizhen says solemnly, which A-Qing knows is a quote from a comedy routine, but it makes her laugh anyway.

They talk about everything and nothing on their hangout turned slightly disastrous first date. A-Qing gives him the full rundown of her GED test experience, then does a tragic reenactment of her miserable head cold. Zizhen updates her on what he and his friends have been doing (studying forever, mostly) and admits that he asked all of his sisters for advice on how to stay friends with someone you really like-like.

"I hope I get to meet them someday." A-Qing's entire heart clenches up in fear when she admits this, but Zizhen's delight makes it all worthwhile. "I know my cousin and his boyfriend would like to meet you. He's not my cousin, technically? But he's my family."

Zizhen says, "I'd love to, even though I'm terrified."

A-Qing says, "I know what you mean."

They keep talking for two hours more, until Zizhen's phone rings. There's a woman on the other end, either his mother or one of his sisters, and his face is bright red by the time he hangs up.

"Is 'I have to go home for dinner' a romantic way to end our first date?" he asks with a groan. "Sorry, A-Qing."

"I'll walk you to the bus stop!" A-Qing is floating, flying, as happy as when she got her passing test scores. Maybe even happier, since she's not currently coming down with a horrible cold. "Then it's romantic."

The bus is already pulling around the corner when they get there, because why would the world's worst first date let them linger in the bus shelter?

A-Qing pulls Zizhen toward her at the same time he leans down. The gift wrap crunches in protest as A-Qing barely maneuvers it out of the way in time. Then they're kissing, a sweet meeting of mouths as the bus grinds to a stop.

"Let's move it, lovebirds! I got a schedule!"

A-Qing gives Zizhen a gentle push. "Go, before the bus driver runs you over."

"I'll call you after dinner!" he promises.

"If I don't call you first!" A-Qing fires back.

The bus pulls away. A-Qing's lips still tingle from her first kiss. She could count their next date as a first date, she supposes, but the certainty that everything will get better from here--that's a poem in itself, shield and salve for her not so cynical heart.

A-Qing lifts her arm and waves, grinning so hard her face hurts.