Work Text:
Feng Xin currently resides in Apartment 239B, often referred to as Satan’s ass crack, located two blocks away from the Florida State University campus. The nickname stems from the apartment complex’s faulty air conditioning and Florida’s hot-as-balls summers.
It’s not a terrible place to live, given that Feng Xin is a broke college student running on Red Bull and pure spite, and Disney World is only a half hour’s drive away. The apartment is large enough that he doesn’t feel cramped, and there’s a rickety stove that works maybe seventy percent of the time, and the lights only flicker once every other week.
The biggest qualm he has about the apartment, however, is his snobby-ass roommate Mu Qing.
The door to Feng Xin’s room flies open and slams into the wall with a solid thud. Fuck, if Mu Qing put a damn hole through the already-cracked plaster, they’re going to have to pay for that. “Where the hell did you put my conditioner?” Mu Qing demands.
It would be easier to hate Mu Qing if he weren’t so damn pretty—all long lines and glossy black hair and too-pink lips. Nevermind his tendency to strut around in three-inch heels. He’s a part time model, and it’s abundantly clear why.
Feng Xin—still lying prone in bed—checks his phone, groans aloud, and pulls his forest green covers over his head. “It’s 7 AM, Mu Qing.” His voice is muffled by the duvet and his general unending exhaustion.
“So? I have to shower and get to class. Where did you put it?”
And here’s the kicker—Feng Xin never touches any of Mu Qing’s belongings. He wouldn’t dare it; he’d rather keep all of his limbs attached to his body, thank you very much. “Don’t know, don’t care. Can’t you live without your rose-scented Suave shit?”
“It’s Pureology, you uncivilized—”
Feng Xin hurls his pillow at the door, effectively ending the conversation as Mu Qing storms away, snarling something rather uncomplimentary under his breath.
Roommates, right?
-
It was rough, at first. Not that it isn’t rough now, but at least they’re at a point where they can tolerate each other’s presence for more than an hour at a time.
Before, though…
“Do you really have to wake up at ass o’clock every morning and”—Feng Xin bangs two already-dented pots together for emphasis—“try to wake the whole damn complex and the cemetery down the street?”
Mu Qing glowers at him over a parfait in a clear, plastic cup, and Feng Xin is suddenly glad there’s a whole table between them. “Maybe you wouldn’t have a problem with waking up at a decent time if you didn’t stay out partying until 3 AM every night.”
“Every Friday night. And that,” he says stiffly, plopping down in front of a bowl of expired Froot Loops, “is none of your goddamn business.”
Mu Qing rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay. You act like you’re so quiet coming into the building, as if all of Times Square couldn’t hear you choking on your own vomit last night.”
Asshole Roommate: 1
Feng Xin: 0
“Besides,” Mu Qing continues, “I have to do yoga before class. Not that you’d know anything about taking care of your body.” He eyes Feng Xin up and down, judging with narrowed eyes.
“I do crossfit at the gym,” Feng Xin protests through a mouthful of carbs. And I have the muscle definition to prove it, he wants to say, wants to show off; but to his chagrin, a soggy red semi-circle falls from his mouth and splashes into his full-fat milk.
“Crossfit won’t help your rotting liver, sweetheart,” Mu Qing says, dark eyes glinting. He throws the empty parfait cup into the trash and snatches up his backpack. His nude heels click smartly against the tile floor. “You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours.”
“Fine!” Feng Xin shouts just as the apartment door slams shut.
God damn it.
-
They learn to cohabitate rather slowly. Like an infant learning to walk, but the infant trips on thin air and faceplants every other step or so.
Hey, it’s progress.
They eventually go from three noise complaints a week to only five per month, and Mu Qing hasn’t broken Feng Xin’s nose yet, despite numerous threats and vicious glares. Not shabby at all, Feng Xin thinks.
“I’m just saying, it would save time and water if we did our laundry together. Aren’t you always getting onto me about how I should be more environmentally conscious?”
Mu Qing’s left eye twitches violently. “Nothing you say is going to convince me to do your laundry for you.”
Feng Xin sighs. “It was worth a shot.”
(He doesn’t question it when he starts finding random quarters scattered around the apartment. He must’ve dropped his wallet. Multiple times.)
-
Living with a stranger takes some patience. Some communication. So they try to work out some ground rules. At first, they had planned on trading off cooking duties. Mu Qing would cook for a week, and then Feng Xin would take over the next week.
Solid gameplan, right?
“Fuck, no!” Feng Xin spits out a mouthful of what he supposes is meant to be an omelette. “Jesus, no wonder your blood pressure is so damn high.”
Mu Qing points a wooden spatula at him threateningly. “What are you trying to say?”
“It’s like you poured the Dead Sea into the—” Feng Xin spits into another napkin and wipes his mouth. “How did you— How the fuck can an egg be this salty?”
“Well then drink some water,” Mu Qing suggests, as if that somehow solves everything. He’s not even being sarcastic—completely straight-faced and unblinking—that walking kitchen nightmare. Feng Xin’s half-tempted to dial Gordon Ramsey.
After some more bitching, Feng Xin cooks them a proper omelette. And then Feng Xin cooks. Indefinitely.
(Mu Qing, surprisingly, doesn’t throw a fit about it; he even does all of the dishes without complaint. Well, with minimal complaint.)
-
Having a roommate should theoretically force both parties to learn how to compromise. That concept, unfortunately, doesn’t solve every problem.
“It’s too fucking cold in here!” Feng Xin shouts, jabbing at the thermostat near the apartment door.
Mu Qing stalks toward him from the kitchen. “Don’t set it to eighty degrees, you idiot! I’m going to fry in my sleep!”
“Good riddance!”
“Yeah? I’ll haunt you until you die, and then I’ll beat your ass in hell!”
The vein at Mu Qing’s right temple is throbbing, but he hasn’t whacked Feng Xin upside the head with a frying pan yet, so Feng Xin only glares back.
Half an hour and a noise complaint later, the thermostat ends up being set at seventy-five degrees. Feng Xin huddles in a nest of blankets, and his muscles cramp up all night. The next morning, Mu Qing emerges from his room at ten o’clock—incredibly late, by his standards—and the grey neckline of his sleep shirt is soaked with sweat.
The thermostat gets reset to eighty degrees, and Feng Xin is bullied into buying his cold-blooded roommate a fan to keep him from being toasted overnight.
(He absolutely does not buy the most expensive one he can find. Nope, not at all.)
-
Yet another difficulty about having a living partner is the sheer amount of shared pathogens between them. In theory, all Feng Xin would have to do is sneeze in tonight’s pasta dish, and Mu Qing would fall gravely ill, and then he’d die and finally leave Feng Xin in peace.
One can only dream.
Alright, so maybe Feng Xin did sneeze in the pasta dish—completely by accident, of course—and maybe Mu Qing is currently curled up in bed with a raging fever and possibly dying. He’s wheezing, taking his last few breaths.
He’d make a pretty good Darth Vader, actually.
Feng Xin raps his knuckles against the doorframe of Mu Qing’s room, slightly remorseful. Mu Qing had looked pale all morning, but by the afternoon, he felt so weak that he’d climbed into bed and slept for a full five hours. “Knock, knock,” he says cheerfully. “Should I have 911 on speed dial?”
The room is dark, and the blinds in front of the window are shut tight. The air is warm, almost too warm, considering that Mu Qing likes the cold and thrives in it.
“Shut the fuck up,” Mu Qing groans, cracking open one eye to glare at Feng Xin standing in the doorway. “This is all your fault.”
“It is not my fault your immune system is so shitty!” Feng Xin strides into the room and plops down on the bed, jostling his roommate who manages to look even more inconvenienced and disgruntled. “You’re gonna be fine, you drama queen.”
Mu Qing makes a pathetic whining noise that tugs at something in Feng Xin’s chest. God damn it. When he speaks again, Feng Xin can hear how muffled his voice is. Those poor, clogged sinuses. “Your immune system is only so good because you eat expired food off the floor, you heathen. Don’t think I didn’t see you that one time with the stale Hot Pockets.”
Alright, so that wasn’t Feng Xin’s best moment. In his defense, he was hungry, and he wasn’t going to resort to eating whatever vegetable-laden dish Mu Qing had in the fridge. So what if he fumbled the Hot Pockets onto the kitchen floor before satisfying his cravings? Five second rule, baby.
“Yeah, but at least I won’t fall dead because of a puny little germ,” he says pointedly.
Mu Qing hisses. “I don’t think your spray of spit all over the tortellini consisted of one singular germ! At the very least, you could have told me the food was compromised.” Well, he’s not wrong there. “Now leave me alone.” Mu Qing closes his eyes in clear dismissal.
Feng Xin sighs and presses the back of his hand to Mu Qing’s burning forehead. “Jesus, you’re still on fire.” He pauses. “Hey, do you think I could fry an egg on this?”
“GET OUT!”
(A week later, a gift basket—loaded with scented candles, bath bombs, and face masks—mysteriously appears in Mu Qing’s room. Who knows where the fuck it came from.)
-
Sometimes, when he’s really drunk, Feng Xin thinks he might actually like his roommate. Just a little bit. No more than a little bit.
“But seriously,” he drawls to his watery reflection in the toilet bowl, “who the fuck wakes up one morning and decides they want to be a textiles and apparel major?”
Mu Qing tugs on his brown, shoulder-length hair, sending little sparks of pain skittering across his scalp. It steadies him and keeps him from accidentally making out with his toilet-water reflection. The rose scent of Mu Qing’s body wash keeps him grounded, too. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up while you still can. You’re going to wake up one day with your lips sewn shut.”
“You’d miss my bullshit too much to do that,” Feng Xin says, grinning, before his stomach heaves again, and he ruins his gorgeous visage in the water. A pity, that.
There’s an exasperated sigh, and warm fingers caress the nape of his neck. “At least I’m not a business major,” says his roommate, and Feng Xin can hear Mu Qing’s lips curling up into a reluctant smile.
-
The shenanigans all come to a head at the ultimate, most hyped-up frat party of the year.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Mu Qing insists for what’s probably the fifteenth time. Yes, Mu Qing, he can count to fifteen.
Feng Xin waves his roommate’s concern away with a dismissive hand. “I think it would be a tragedy—”
“Oh, so you can think now?”
“—if you went the entirety of junior year without going to a party. Come on. Let’s just go have some fun, get drunk, and throw up on the sidewalk. It’s a rite of passage! And you can drink your fancy ass detox tea in the morning. Boom. No harm done.”
“Boom, huh?” Mu Qing raises a perfectly manicured brow. He crosses his arms and leans against the kitchen counter. “A public intoxication charge doesn’t sound like a rite of passage,” he says, thoroughly skeptical.
“Eh, semantics.” Feng Xin shrugs. “You’re going to have to show up to the party anyway to haul my drunk ass out of there. You may as well be there in the first place.”
And there it is—Mu Qing’s weak spot. He loves saving time and being efficient, like a well-oiled machine. A really pretty, well-oiled machine.
Feng Xin resolves to stop thinking about that.
Anyway—if Mu Qing attending the party is going to save him both time and effort…
“Fine,” Mu Qing snaps, scowling, and Feng Xin just barely keeps himself from shouting his delight through the window. He’s finally corrupting the infallible, straight-A honor student, Mu fucking Qing.
His victory ends up being short-lived because his brain does a full stop and reboots when Mu Qing, at 9 PM on the dot, walks out of his room wearing a dark blouse paired with a red, pleated skirt and fishnet leggings.
And that’s before he sees the thigh-high, velvet boots.
Feng Xin’s throat goes very, very dry.
“Well?” Mu Qing says, glancing down at his phone to check the time like the control freak he is. It’s oddly attractive. “Are we going?”
Whatever Feng Xin says in reply must be absolute gibberish, but Mu Qing accepts it as confirmation and strides out of the apartment.
Feng Xin is hot on his heels. Literally.
In the end, the party ends up being a blur. It’s like his last brain cell decides to give out on him when he watches Mu Qing pick up a green Solo cup—single and available, it means. He already knew Mu Qing wasn’t seeing anyone, but upon being given a literal green light, Feng Xin’s already low thinking capacity is reduced to practically zero.
He takes steady sips of the spiked punch in his own green cup and observes Mu Qing mingling with the crowd, weaving smoothly between sweaty bodies; but once his blood begins thrumming in time with the bass that rattles the walls of the frat house, he switches to a cup of water.
In the end, he’s not really surprised when Mu Qing circles around and ends up standing right in front of him, just an hour later.
“Having fun?” he asks, taking in the unsmudged sheen of Mu Qing’s red-pink lipstick.
Mu Qing steps closer so they can hear each other over the loud music and abundant chatter. “It’s alright.” He lifts a shoulder and drops it, nonchalant. Feng Xin tries not to stare too hard at his exposed collarbone. “Could be better.”
“Yeah?”
Mu Qing smiles, showing off his perfect teeth. “Yeah.”
It’s both a very long and very short journey to Mu Qing’s bed that smells like roses and has too many pillows.
“This is a pretty bad idea,” Feng Xin admits, letting Mu Qing shove him back on the soft mattress.
Mu Qing laughs and unbuttons his shirt as he straddles Feng Xin’s waist. “You love bad ideas.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, reaching up to unzip Mu Qing’s skirt. “I really do.” And he means it.
Feng Xin’s hands are clammy, but Mu Qing proves that everything is going to be just fine between them when he snarls, sinking his nails into Feng Xin’s forearm warningly, “If you rip my leggings, I’m going to stab you and then force you to patch it up yourself.”
(Feng Xin laughs and arches up to kiss him. It feels a lot like coming home.)
-
At the end of it all, Feng Xin learns that maybe compromise is possible.
“I have to go to my photo shoot!” Mu Qing snaps, his knuckles white around the bathroom door handle. “I’m already late—just let me shower first!” He’s pushing against the door in an effort to keep Feng Xin out.
But Feng Xin doesn’t give an inch, keeping his foot wedged between the door and the frame. “Well, I have to go to my accounting lecture!” He pauses, and then tilts his head, thinking. “I mean. We could always shower together,” he suggests, the beginnings of a smile creeping across his face. “Save us some time and water.”
Mu Qing sighs and, after a long moment of contemplation, relaxes his grip on the door handle.
(One hot shower and toe-curling orgasm later, Feng Xin arrives at his class twenty minutes late, and not even a stern look from his professor can wipe the shameless grin from his face.)