Archive of Our Own ^beta

1. Yu Liang

It’s when Yu Liang opens the door, a white turtleneck sweater hugging his frame, that Shi Guang actually feels his brain stall and stutter to a stop. Yu Liang’s sweater looks as soft as feathers, and in it he looks almost like he’s glowing. Shi Guang can feel his mouth drop open at the sight and he’s helpless to stop it. Dimly, he’s aware of Chu Ying hiding behind his fan, probably shielding himself from Shi Guang’s dumbstruck appearance and usually he’d yell at him for being obnoxious, but his eyes are unable to move from where they’re glued to Yu Liang, the thin bridge of his nose, the way his sweater clings to his frame, and his eyes - piercing, as always, staring right at him.

Oh no, he thinks, with growing alarm. Oh shit.

Yu Liang says nothing, standing in the frame of the doorway, but his expression speaks for itself. Unfortunately Shi Guang’s lost the ability for higher brain function and can barely muster up the effort it takes to shut his mouth and wet his lips. “Uh.”

Yu Liang crosses his arms. One bony wrist peeks out from a sleeve, smooth tan skin edged with pale white. Shi Guang’s never really got what art was all cracked up about, but now he sees where they could have been on to something. Now, he might understand what could bring someone to dedicate their life to capturing a physical form in marble, to enshrining the curve of a limb or the arch of a forehead. His hands clench, and something crinkles under his fingers.

Oh. Right. He’s here for a reason. Seemingly without his command, his arm thrusts forward the book -- surely now slightly clammy -- that Chu Ying had insisted he gift to Yu Liang as a show of his gratitude or whatever, not that Yu Liang would even care. Shi Guang’s right, too: the sort of expression Yu Liang’s sporting could at best be called morbid curiosity.

“This is for you. As, uh, thanks, for finding me on the mountain, not that I asked you to or anything--” (Xiao Guang! Chu Ying hisses) “--well, whatever, thanks for not letting us - I mean, me, thanks for not letting me get lost and die, anyway, bye!” As these words are falling out of Shi Guang’s mouth without his permission, Yu Liang’s expression contorts into disbelieving exasperation.

“Excuse me?”

“Bye!” Shi Guang repeats, and runs off. Oh my god oh my god oh my god, he’s yelling internally and maybe a little externally as he dashes back to his room. Oh my god? Oh my god. He feels like the sun’s exploding in his stomach, like he’s about to vibrate out of his own skin. He feels like he does when his opponent puts down a move that completely shifts his understanding of the shapes in front of him on the go board, transforming familiar territory into unknown ground.

He has no idea what to do with these emotions welling up in him that he’s never felt before, so naturally, he shelves them for later contemplation which will hopefully never occur.

The rest of that day, it’s a different spectre in white that haunts him.

2. Shen Yilang

The second time Shi Guang thinks that he might be a little different than other guys, the realization occurs less like a breathless punch to the gut and more like a constant drip of water gently but steadily wearing away at his brick walls of denial.

He’s always been an affectionate guy, never hesitant to swing his arm around a friend’s shoulder or get into mock scrapes. He’s never thought twice about it, and this mentality is only strengthened when he moves into the Yi Jianghu dorms.

One night finds Shen Yilang and Hong He cramming for the class A life-and-death quiz and Shi Guang trying and failing to gain anything more from recreating his latest game for the fifth time. Shi Guang is sprawled on the ground on his belly, Hong He’s sitting on Shen Yilang’s bed, Shen Yilang himself is at his desk, and all of them are surrounded by half-filled qipu and dog-eared paperbacks. Pencils chewed to the graphite and gritty eraser shavings litter the ground.

The shapes on the board in front of Shi Guang are blurring together. He places down another stone.

Xiao Guang, what are you doing? Chu Ying points at the stones with his fan.

“Recreating my game,” he mumbles.

All you’ve done is spell out HELP ME with black, Chu Ying replies disapprovingly.

“That’s it!” Shi Guang exclaims, rolling over several abused sheets of paper and scattering a handful of stones. “I’m done. I’m done for!”

“Please shut up,” Hong He says with gritted teeth.

“This is the third time you’ve said that,” remarks Shen Yilang.

“And this time I mean it! If I study anymore my brain is going to dribble out of my ears.”

“Some of us aren’t exactly eager to get a new one ripped into us by Da-laoshi.”

“Hong He, I know you haven’t turned a page in your book for the last ten minutes!” Shi Guang accuses.

“You - you only know that because you haven’t turned a page in the last twenty minutes!”

“Ha!” Shi Guang says smugly. “I actually haven’t read a single thing all night!”

“That is not something to be proud of!”

“Whatever!”

Shi Guang is itching to yank on the blanket that Hong He’s crushing with his dumb ass, ready to start wrestling right there on the floor, all over Hong He’s precious life-and-death problems when Shen Yilang’s smooth voice pauses their soon-to-be tussle.

“You know…I could do with a break myself.”

Shi Guang and Hong He cheer in unison, immediately forgoing the rising tension between them in favor of something much more important: getting spoiled by a-Lang.

Hours later finds them all sprawled out on the floor. Long forgotten qipu serve as makeshift napkins, soaking up residual grease from the pizza they’ve ordered and devoured. Shi Guang is vaguely aware that Hong He’s laptop is still running an episode from one of those soapy, tear-filled dramas that Shen Yilang casually enjoys and Hong He secretly watches when he thinks no one can hear him sniffling in the top bunk, even though they can all hear the tinny echoes of romantic music leaking from his headphones.

“Turn it off,” Shi Guang mumbles.

“No,” says Hong He with his face buried into a pillow, “this is the best part.”

At some point they’ve pulled their blankets down to create a tangled nest on the ground. Shi Guang is half asleep, and he’s fairly certain Shin Yilang’s light snores started not too long after the episode did. Still, he doesn’t want to get up to shut the laptop. He’s afraid that doing so would break the sleepy, warm atmosphere that’s lulled him to near slumber.

Shi Guang’s always had friends growing up, and it’s not like he can ever be lonely with Chu Ying’s constant presence around. But there’s something different about this, the way he can see Shen Yilang’s broad back in front of him rising and falling in the even rhythm of deep sleep. This casual sharing of sleeping space isn’t something Shi Guang’s ever experienced before. He wishes he could bottle up this contented drowsiness for the next time he finds himself sleeplessly staring up at the ceiling above his bunk. Even Hong He kicking him in the back of his knee as he rolls over, even the sweating that inevitably happens when three teenage boys manfully participate in a cuddle pile, even when he trips over a gangly limb in the middle of the night going to the toilet and nearly simultaneously concusses and pisses himself - he’d keep it all.

Shi Guang rests his forehead on Shen Yilang’s back as he nestles himself further in their pile of bedspreads. Behind him, Hong He grunts and shifts, throwing an arm over Shi Guang. Warmth suffuses his entire body as Shi Guang’s eyelids drift closed for the final time that night.

“Shen Yilang!”

“Yes, yes,” he replies, handing a can of soda to Shi Guang. “I saved you your favorite.”

Shi Guang feels a burst of warmth in his chest as he slides into the booth. “A-Laaaang,” he says, cradling the can like it’s the most precious thing anyone’s ever given him, “this is the most precious thing anyone’s ever given me.”

“Geez, Shi Guang, you’d think no one feeds you.”

This is such an obvious display of jealousy from Hong He that Shi Guang can only feel bad for him. “It’s not my fault a-Lang doesn’t love you as much as me.”

“What?!” Hong He squawks in a pathetic attempt at denying his envy. As he’s a very mature person, Shi Guang simply sticks his tongue out at him instead of lording it over him. Besides, one of them has a hand-picked gift from Shen Yilang. The least he can do is be gracious about it.

He tells himself it’s the fizzle of the soda going down his throat that explains the fluttering in his stomach.

Xiao Guang! Chu Ying is yelling at him as Shi Guang stomps down the hall. Stop running away! Xiao Guang!

He’s not running away. He’s not. Really. He’s merely...hastily beating a tactical retreat, which is totally a valid and uncowardly strategy.

Da-laoshi’s scornful words echo in his head as he barrels down the hall. His berating was nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual insults against his intelligence, his parentage, his inability to do anything more complex than tying his shoes, which judging from one of his untied laces he was a failure at that, too. Shi Guang could barely sit still in his chair after Da-laoshi moved on to upbraid the next cringing student, until he completed his round of abuse and left the classroom. Shi Guang burst out as soon as the sound of receding footsteps had faded away, leaving only a rattling chair and bewildered classmates behind.

He doesn’t know why it’s affecting him so badly today, only that, if he stayed behind any longer, he would have started yelling or throwing things. It’s just, after finally, finally climbing his way to Class A, starting back from the bottom has been unenjoyable. Okay, it absolutely sucks, and spending everyday feeling like an idiot sucks, and skidding into classrooms that suddenly fall into the silence that follows when the subject of a good gossiping session arrives especially sucks. Everything sucks, and, worst of all, there’s absolutely, seriously, no way he’s ever quitting. So until the day he’s able to stand on the same ground as Yu Liang, he’ll just have to endure it all.

But right now, Shi Guang has to get out of that damn classroom.

Xiao Guang! Slow down! You’re going to --

Shi Guang’s face abruptly meets a hard surface.

“Shi Guang!” Shen Yilang places two steadying hands on Shi Guang’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

Shi Guang can’t keep his face from crumpling as he dives into a hug, throwing his arms around Shen Yilang. The huff of breath Shen Yilang emits from the impact tickles the top of Shi Guang’s head. He holds a-Lang a little tighter and nudges his breastbone with his nose. Shen Yilang thankfully reads that for the unspoken plea it is and tentatively hugs Shi Guang back, one arm around his shoulders and one hand patting his hair like one might soothe a spooked animal.

“Did he yell at you?” There’s no need to specify who he refers to. Shi Guang doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. Shen Yilang continues to pet his head. Shi Guang still feels very miserable but marginally less so. It’s hard to stay firmly lodged in a cloud of anguish with Shen Yilang’s hand brushing through his hair and his clean cottony scent surrounding him. Shen Yilang probably wasn’t expecting to be accosted the moment he left the bathroom with a distraught Shi Guang, but he’s doing a remarkable job at consoling him nonetheless.

“Don’t take what he says to heart too much, Shi Guang,” comes Shen Yilang’s voice above him. Shi Guang can feel the vibrations through his chest. “He’s tough on you because he has high expectations.”

Shi Guang scoffs. “Please, a-Lang, that’s just you. He genuinely thinks I’m an idiot.”

“Well…”

“You know it’s true.”

He doesn’t reply. For a moment, the weight of expectations, both high ones and nonexistent ones, rest on both of them as they stand in silence. Shi Guang doesn’t envy Shen Yilang at all. He’s seen Da-laoshi lob his most scathing criticisms on the older boy, seen Shen Yilang suppress a flinch when Da-laoshi lunges suddenly at him and slams his fist onto his disk. He should be grateful that that same ire is never directed at him, yet he wonders what it’d be like to have someone who sees potential in him like raw carbon, crystallizing only under pressure. It’s probably fucked up of him to even consider wanting that.

“This is fucked up,” he mumbles.

“Mm,” replies Shen Yilang.

“We’re fucked up”

“I don’t know if you can play this much go and not be, honestly.”

Shi Guang huffs a laugh and takes a bracing breath. He realizes too late that sniffing his close male friend’s chest isn’t what one would call a typical overture of platonic masculine friendship and jumps back.

“Ah! Haha, sorry Shen Yilang. Didn’t mean to, uh.” Shi Guang wisely decides he shouldn’t tell Shen Yilang that he smells like the way his mom did his laundry back home, for multiple reasons. “You should keep going wherever you were going. I gotta, uh, do...something. See you!”

“Wait, Shi Guang.” Shen Yilang’s smiling wryly.

“Yeah?” Shi Guang skids to a halt.

“... study hard,” he says after a pause, looking at Shi Guang with a warmth that makes his fingertips tingle. “I know you can do it.”

He’s unable to stop the grin that spreads across his face. “Duh!” he says, puffing up. “Of course I will!”

He turns and heads towards his dorm with a revitalized vigor, other thoughts fading away.

“Would you like to see a movie after we get lunch?”

“Yes, I’d love to,” Shen Yilang replies, smiling at Bai Xiaoxiao gently. Her whole face lights up. The scene’s something right out of a romantic drama for how unaware they seem to be of the other students and their collective embarrassment at witnessing it.

“Movie! Can I come? Hey, why’s everyone just standing around? Let’s all go! What? Why are you all staring at me? Hong He, what are you trying to say, I can’t hear you. What? Why are you waving your arms like that -- oof!”

“Shi Guang, you are as dense as a rock,” Hong He hisses as he herds Shi Guang away. “Seriously, do you not know what you’re doing?”

“What?” Shi Guang yelps defensively. “What am I doing? And stop pushing me!”

Hong He jabs him one more time in the ribs for good measure. “They’re going on a date! They’re just such a pair of shy maidens that neither of them can call it that. And you’re not helping at all, you colossal third wheel!”

“Wait,” Shi Guang says, trying to process this information, “they like each other?”

Hong He rolls his eyes, which Shi Guang thinks is completely uncalled for and hopes Hong He strains an optic nerve for his efforts. What, like somehow Shi Guang should have picked up telepathically like apparently everyone else did? The fact that everyone else knows while he was off trailing the two of them like a lost puppy makes him feel hot with embarrassment. “Yes, they like each other. They might even like-like each other.”

“But, I…” Shi Guang peters off. Hong He’s look of exasperation transforms into a more sympathetic one, which Shi Guang thinks might be worse, maybe?

“Geez, you really didn’t know. So all those times you invited yourself on their dates…”

“I didn’t mean to!” Shi Guang protests. “I thought they were just, you know, cool, exclusive…three-person hangouts, or something.”

Hong He levels another pitying look at him. “Huh. So I guess you don’t actually have a crush on Bai Xiaoxiao, then.”

At this mind-boggling pronouncement Shi Guang squawks so loudly his voice cracks. “Hong He! Why would you say that!” he wails. “On her?” slips out before he can stop it from escaping his mouth.

“What do you mean, on her!? Bai Xiaoxiao is great! Ahh, you’re so immature. Listen, there’s more to someone than their go ability,” Hong He says, and then adds, “wow, the other guys were really wrong this time.”

Suddenly the ground Shi Guang’s standing on feels shaky, like it could drop away from under his feet at any moment. “Other guys?” he says as casually as he can.

“You know.” Hong He shrugs awkwardly. “They had a bet running for how long it’d take for you to realize you didn’t really have a chance with her.” He looks apologetic at having to deliver this news to Shi Guang, who would maybe care that people were talking behind his back if it weren’t for the relief swooping through him. So they thought the reason behind Shi Guang’s attachment to Shen Yilang was jealousy.

There’s no way he’s admitting that maybe they were right - just not about who he was jealous of.

“Maybe if they spent less time running betting rings about me and more time studying they’d be pros by now,” he scoffs.

Hong He grins and slings an arm over Shi Guang’s shoulders, guilt assuaged by his nonchalant reaction. “Ahh, I should have known. You can’t even see what’s right in front of you."

3. Hong He

After the whole debacle with everyone thinking he was forlornly pining over Bai Xiaoxiao, Shi Guang’s forced to examine some things that he begrudgingly admits are long overdue.

A brief but very terrifying dive into the internet later, Shi Guang slams his laptop closed. Maybe, he thinks with face aflame, it’s fine to never think about this ever again. Maybe he should just join the monastery. A vow of celibacy sounds way easier and less painful to deal with than burgeoning thoughts of guys hot?

Xiao Guang, what’s wrong?

Shi Guang spins around in his chair. “Nothing! Just doing some, um, research.”

Chu Ying perks up at that. On the box with players in it?

“Yes, but - jeez, not everything’s about go!”

Chu Ying just smiles like he does every time Shi Guang says that. Chu Ying’s hierarchy of needs has playing go at the top, then any other go-related activities, then watching daytime TV with Shi Guang’s mom, and then everything else. Despite that, Shi Guang considers him.

Chu Ying looks back inquisitively, smiling placidly stil.

“Chu Ying,” Shi Guang starts.

Yes, Xiao Guang?

“Have you ever,” he tries again.

“Did you…” he attempts once more.

“What does it mean,” he manages to get out before losing his voice.

Chu Ying’s patiently waiting for him to pick up any of his dropped sentences, but Shi Guang’s head is so full he can’t think through all the buzzing.

I think I might like guys. Did you have that back when you were alive? Like, gay people? Can ghosts be gay? Have you ever looked at another person with a fraction of the passion that you feel towards go, or is it sacrilegious to even compare the two?

Never mind. Shi Guang can’t do this, it feels wrong. Despite Chu Ying being well over a thousand years old, Shi Guang somehow still feels like he’s showing porn to a younger brother. It’s like he’s tricking his pet dog (Chu Ying) into going on a walk (talking about go) when they’re actually going to the vet (Shi Guang’s sexuality crisis).

“Forget it,” he grouses, and hunches back over his laptop.

Some more furtive baidu scrolling eventually leads him down some genuinely helpful message boards, so it’s a couple hours and mentally scarring images later that he lays down some ground rules for himself.

1. Don’t let anyone find out

This is the priority. Shi Guang’s not ready to fully confront whatever he’s got going on; he can’t deal with anyone else getting the wrong idea. Or the right idea. Or any idea at all. He’s plenty used to keeping secrets by now - this shouldn’t be too hard. Which leads to rules number 2 through 4.

2. Keep a distance

This one’s going to be hard, but Shi Guang’s determined. He doesn’t want to feel the way he did when he thought Hong He was hinting that he knew about Shi Guang’s -- attachment -- crush -- thing for Shen Yilang ever again. And to prevent that from happening, he’s just going to have to tone down the physical affection for his friends. Easy.

3. No tagging along on dates

Shi Guang still thinks someone could have pulled him aside the second time he followed a-Lang and Bai Xiaoxiao on what he thought was a group hang that everyone else bailed on. Maybe he should have realized something was up when the three of them spent a cycle on the ferris wheel in complete silence, but he thought they were just spectacularly sad about being ditched, okay. At least now he knows that when a guy and girl want to do things by themselves, it usually means something of a romantic nature is going on.

4. Yeah, he’s drawing a blank on this one

It’s fine, Shi Guang’s always been one for improvisation anyway (making it up as he goes along, Chu Ying would grumble). Anyway, he’s fine. He’s got, like, boundaries now. He can totally do this not-letting-anyone-figure-out-he’s-maybe-gay thing.

The pro exam comes and, after the terrible match with Shen Yilang, naturally their friendship’s cooled a bit. They’re still friends, but no matter how sincerely they both agreed to go back to the way things were - it’s just not possible to completely get over the hurdle of awkwardness that’s sprung up. It’s clear in the strain in Hong He’s smile, the way Shen Yilang will get quiet and stare off, and the clumsiness in Shi Guang’s own limbs and words: something’s splintered between the three of them.

Shi Guang passes the exam. Shen Yilang doesn’t. And then he’s gone and all Shi Guang has left is a promise and two rubber wristbands shoved in a pocket somewhere. Every time Shi Guang remembers this he has to take a break from being incredibly, overwhelmingly ecstatic to mope for a little.

Soon, though, he gets so busy with moving out of the dorms and back home, buying thank you gifts for Da-laoshi and Ban-laoshi, and letting everyone in his life know that he’s a pro now, that he doesn’t even have the time to be sad. And now that he’s home dealing with his mom’s hovering again, he really just kind of forgets about the whole maybe-gay thing.

So when Hong He invites him to be his roommate, brimming with excitement, Shi Guang agrees easily. People are going to pay him to play go, Fang Xu himself scouted him for Weida GC, Yu Liang’s so close he’s in reach now - he can handle living with his best friend.

“I can’t handle this,” he moans, sinking to the ground.

Not even an hour into living together and he’s already in hot water. All Hong He needed to do was offer him the larger room of their new apartment and Shi Guang had practically lept on top of him and kissed him. He glares at the wooden floorboards. Maybe Hong He just thinks he gets overly excited by spacious real estate and the only outlet for his emotions is spontaneous PDA.

He’s not even attracted to Hong He, outside of idle wondering (Fugui - would. Yue Zhi - over his dead body), but it doesn’t stop him from worrying that he might give off the impression that he is. Shi Guang’s never been so hyper-aware of his own actions or lack thereof, and the implications of both.

Jesus, is this how girls feel? He feels a sudden pang of sympathy.

Shi Guang tries to behave as normally as he can, which, for the most part, isn’t too difficult to do. He returns Hong He’s fraternal slaps on the back with his own, doesn’t shy away from sitting thigh-to-thigh on their groaning sofa while they’re binging TV, and unhesitatingly eats instant ramen out of the same pot; he’s careful not to reciprocate more than what’s being set as the standard.

When Hong He and Li Cancan finally get sick of shyly fumbling around their mutual interest and officially get together, Shi Guang doesn’t once accidentally invite himself on one of their dates. He relays this achievement to Chu Ying who seems less than impressed for some reason. Whatever, his rules are working, so that’s Shi Guang: 1, horribly pessimistic internet forums: 0.

The first time that Hong He grabs Shi Guang by his face, he barely has the time to form the first vowel of a protest before there’s a wet smack on his cheek.

“You genius!” Hong He is shouting in Shi Guang’s ear as he’s trying to process what just happened. There’s a damp spot on his face where Hong He’s lips just were. Did a bee sting him, or did his best friend just kiss him? Shi Guang honestly can’t tell for how extremely conscious he is of the lingering sensation on his skin.

Hong He’s still ranting about his super cool move, which Shi Guang would feel gratified by if he weren’t completely numb at the moment. He nods vaguely along as Hong He rambles on, trying to blink the shock away. Then all of a sudden Hong He is advancing upon him again. “Hey, what are you --” is all he gets out before Hong He yanks his head forward and plants another wet one on him.

“Oh my god, stop kissing me!” A perfectly reasonable request that Hong He better abide by or Shi Guang’s pounding heart is going to leap out of his throat.

“God bless your weird little genius brain,” says Hong He with utmost sincerity, shaking a finger at him before slumping back in front of the go board. The sound of incoherent muttering and stones clacking fills the air as Shi Guang somehow finds it in himself to stagger to his room.

“What the fuck,” he says to himself.

Hong He doesn’t act any differently at all the next day, which Shi Guang takes as a cue to play it cool. So what if their friendship involves more impromptu kissing than most others do. He can roll with it. Rule #2 is less and less applicable by the day, but, well, what can you do.

(His internet search last night of What to do when your guy best friend kisses you not on the mouth but like definitely a kiss on purpose and you’re also a guy and maybe gay but not gay for your best friend what does it mean? mysteriously turned up zero results. “What? Come on,” he had whined. Not even a single paranoid doomsayer warning him to change his name, move to another city at least 100 kilometers away, and delete all his WeChat contacts before he got chased out of town with pitchforks for having the audacity spreading his gay cooties around? Geez, he’d almost take bad advice over nothing at all. Guess he’s on his own for this one.)

When Shi Guang texts Hong He about his victory over Mu Qingchun in the A league, all he receives in return is a series of exclamation marks. He waits for another text so he can finally crow about Mu Qingchun’s constipated losing face to someone who’d actually appreciate it, but his phone stays silent. Annoyed, he chucks it across the hotel bed and rolls around to clutch at a pillow instead.

Chu Ying’s been weird and moody lately, and his attitude did not improve with Shi Guang’s game. Even though he won! He’d defended himself after Mu Qingchun had accused him of being nothing more than a poor copycat of Bai Ziqiu. Shi Guang thought Chu Ying would have at least been proud of him for that, even if he was displeased by the game itself.

Exuberant pounding on the door jolts him out of the funk he’s been stewing in.

“You did it!” Hong He sweeps Shi Guang up in a tight hug when he opens the door, holding his face in his hands and shaking him like his head’s a magic 8-ball.

“Stop, I’m going to throw up on you,” he says, laughing in delighted surprise.

“So ungrateful. That’s how you thank me for taking you out to celebrate your first win? Ah, I must have the wrong guy. Someone else, who doesn’t say hello to their very good friend by threatening vomit on them -- “

Shi Guang smacks him. “Hey! No take-backs!”

He jams his sneakers on and grabs a jacket, and then ducks back in when he realizes his room key’s in his other jeans. “I’m going out!” he calls out. Chu Ying doesn’t respond, merely shooting him a wounded expression. “Fine, be that way!”

“Dude, Xu Hou isn’t there. I saw him in the lobby heckling Fang Xu,” Hong He says as he ushers him out.

“I know that. Why do you think I’m up here? I got tired of waiting for Fang Xu to snap and start trying to kill him. Come on, move your slow ass, let’s go.”

Several beers later finds them hunched over a low table as Shi Guang, using several cocktail napkins, depicts his awesome mid-game trap Mu Qingchun fell for, which severely fucked up his established territory and paved the way for Shi Guang’s unexpected but very cool come-from-behind victory.

“And then I went there to attack his floating stones here, and then he tried to cap from below, which was just such a stupid move, like, really? Like, do you even want to win?” Shi Guang gesticulates. He almost stabs Hong He in the eye with the sharpie he’s brandishing, which, oops.

“I see, I see.” Hong He nods, oblivious to his close brush with ocular injury. “Your wisdom, really is exceedingly - incredibly - wow.”

“I know right,” he says, satisfied. He reaches for his glass only to find it empty. “Hey, I’m going to get another - want anything?”

“No, I’ve got a tutoring job tomorrow,” groans Hong He. “If I drink anymore they’re definitely going to throw me out when they see me tomorrow.”

“Sucks to be you.” Shi Guang sticks his tongue out before making his way back to the hotel bar. The bartender’s busy with someone else, so he rests his elbows on the bar while he waits, giving a quick smile to the suited guy next to him when their eyes meet.

“Ah… Fangyuan’s third board, right?”

It takes a while for Shi Guang to process the words and realize the guy’s talking about him. “Yep, that’s me,” he replies, “and you...are…”

“Xiao Jingrui, Guizhou’s second board.”

“I was just about to say that,” he lies, and pleasure bursts warmly in his stomach when the other guy laughs. Jingrui has a nice smile and a light, giggling laugh that makes Shi Guang want to hear it again.

“I saw your game against Weida GC today. That was a nice trap you set.”

“Wasn’t it! He didn’t see it coming at all. His face once I captured those stones --”

“Oh my god, I know, he looked like he was going to get up and attack you!”

Shi Guang loses track of time as he regales his win to Jingrui. They talk about what Jingrui’s doing at the matches since he wasn’t playing -- turns out, his team’s doing some information gathering on the competition, which is the coolest thing he could have said.

“Wow. You were trying to get intel on me!” The mixture of awe and flattery Shi Guang feels is more intoxicating than anything available on the bar’s menu.

“We do this to all the teams who have games in the area,” Jingrui says, amused.

“Wow,” Shi Guang repeats, still marveling at the fact he’s the kind of person that others do recon on now. “Cool.”

“Yes, you were,” he teases. Shi Guang blushes, leaning back a little as he realizes how close they’ve gotten. When did that happen? Not that Shi Guang really minds. Jingrui has a sharp prettiness to his features that’s at odds with his soft voice, a juxtaposition that Shi Guang doesn’t dislike at all. Jingrui’s eyes dart to Shi Guang’s mouth; reflexively, he swallows. Seeing Jingrui’s eyes track the bob of his Adam’s apple ignites something in him, and suddenly he’s filled with a nervous, anticipatory energy.

“I was wondering,” Jingrui says, meeting his gaze with eyes that have become flinty and hot, “if you’re busy tomorrow night?”

“I, um.” He fumbles for words. His hands might be shaking a little.

“Shi Guang, what’s taking you so long - oh.”

A cold wave of terror splashes Shi Guang, instantly putting out the twin fires of inebriation and attraction he’d been feeling. Sinking dread immediately replaces the fluttering joy he had been feeling at being flirted with and successfully flirting back.

Stomach churning, he chances a look in Hong He’s direction. He doesn’t seem revolted, Shi Guang notes distractedly, but he does look pissed. Is that better? Maybe it’s worse? He doesn’t seem to be headed for Shi Guang, however.

“Hey!” Hong He marches over, waving a napkin bearing illegible smudges like he’s trying to physically scare off Jingrui. “He’s way too young for you, shixiong!”

Jingrui recoils. “Excuse me? I’m 24!” he says, offended.

“Oh my god?” slips out of Shi Guang. “I’m 17!”

Jingrui slowly closes his eyes. Wordlessly, he finishes off his neglected drink in one swig, gets up, and heads for the exit. They can hear him muttering something about crazy pubescent go geniuses who’re going to land him out of a job and into jail as he leaves.

“Hey man, you good?” Hong He asks, patting Shi Guang on the arm sympathetically. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

“Um. Yeah.”

He could get away with it, if Hong He is under the impression that Shi Guang had been an unwilling recipient of Jingrui’s advances. All he has to do is laugh it off, thank Hong He for rescuing him, and no one would be any wiser.

Nausea builds in his gut. He’s teetering on the edge of something, and it’s either retreat or take the leap. “I mean, I didn’t mind it,” he spits out in a rush, unable to hold it back any longer.

“...What?”

“I need some air,” Shi Guang announces, nearly bowling Hong He over as he strides towards the door. He can hear steps behind him following him out.

The cold night air acts as a sobering agent, not that there’s much of a buzz left in him after being put through the emotional wringer just now. Shi Guang breathes out, watching gray plumes rise to the sky and dissipate. He doesn’t look at Hong He, though he can feel his presence next to him so acutely it itches.

“Are you okay?” Hong He sounds hesitant, like he wants to say something else -- but he falls silent, waiting.

Shi Guang feels a rush of fondness for his best friend, who for all his flaws has never shown him anything but unwavering support. This is the guy who dragged him across town to perform free manual labour, but then gave up his first game with Lin Li to help Shi Guang with his own insecurities.

“Yeah, I mean, I was fine with it.” He gestures towards the hotel they just evacuated. “Before I learned that he was an old man, anyway,” he says, pulling a face.

“Oh,” says Hong He.

The biting crispness of the evening wind, the darkness enveloping them. It loosens his tongue, makes it easier for the truth to flow.

Shen Yilang’s in Japan; neither of them will see him for months. He might as well.

“I had a crush on a-Lang,” he admits.

Hong He laughs.

“Hey!” Shi Guang protests, indignant and a little hurt.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just - Shi Guang, everyone has a crush on Shen Yilang at some point. I’m pretty sure there was a support group for it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Hong He shuffles a little, transferring his weight to his other foot. “So, you like guys.”

Shi Guang shivers. Hearing it out loud -- even if he wasn’t the one who said it -- makes it so much more real, more real than it’s ever been. He nods. “I think so, yeah.”

“Cool.”

“Cool?” he echoes incredulously.

Hong He throws up his arms. “What do you want me to say? Congrats, I guess?”

“Something better than ‘cool’! Here I am, pouring my soul out to you, and you can’t even manage more than one syllable in reply.” Falling into the easy rhythm of teasing relaxes him, tension bleeding out of his shoulders.

“Well,” says Hong He, bumping shoulders with Shi Guang, “thanks for telling me. Man, what am I, your designated secret keeper?”

“Come off it!” Shi Guang laughs, bumping Hong He back with considerably more strength, making them both stumble. Hong He nearly eats pavement, but his iron grip on Shi Guang’s sleeve means he nearly takes him down with him. “Hey, what was that back there? Were you trying to protect my virtue or something? Ooohh, Hong He, so cool, so brave, I’m swooning,” Shi Guang croons in Hong He’s ear as he pulls him back up.

He turns red. “Shut up!” Their slap-fight continues until the hotel doorman comes to break them up.

“Sorry, sorry,” says Hong He.

“Please leave,” the doorman says firmly.

Shi Guang returns to his room, grinning so hard his face aches.

“Hi.” He flops onto his bed.

Xiao Guang, take your shoes off before you go to bed! Chu Ying scolds, fretting over his prone body. Shi Guang kicks off his sneakers, but he’s too lazy to properly shed his clothes. The adrenalin of his unplanned coming out has worn off, leaving him pleasantly bone-tired.

At least get under the covers. You’re going to catch a cold if you sleep like that, Chu Ying pouts.

“Okay, mom.” He wiggles under the blankets, flipping over to look at Chu Ying, moonlight streaming through him. I’ll tell him soon, he decides. He feels guilty for keeping secrets, but he has no idea how to approach it. And lately, he’s been catching Chu Ying looking at him like he’s searching for something that Shi Guang lacks, which already makes him feel bad; he wouldn’t know what to do if that gaze turned derisive.

There’s no hurry.

“We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.” He mimes steering handlebars.

Really? Chu Ying perks up. Shi Guang snorts, smiling, into the bedsheets. He can’t believe the promise of tandem bike rides is the thing that finally cheers Chu Ying up.

As he’s on the edge of unconsciousness, the rules he had set up for himself before rooming with Hong He drift into his mind. He laughs at himself -- so much for those. Mentally, he throws them out. He’s never been good at following them anyway.

4. Gu Yu

After Chu Ying leaves, Shi Guang stops thinking. He doesn’t have the energy or desire to worry about any of the stupid stuff he’d been so preoccupied with that he didn’t even notice Chu Ying was about to disappear. God, he’s so selfish, narrow-minded, inconsiderate; he’d accept all these pejoratives if it’d mean he could travel back to the past and fix whatever it was that he fucked up.

Days, months go by. He waits for the return of a ghost. He mourns for someone who no one else knew existed.

Hong He, Yu Liang: they all make their requisite appearances, pleading for him to come back, to play go again. Shi Guang would be embarrassed that they’re seeing him in such a miserable state, but he doesn’t care anymore. Maybe if Chu Ying can see how pathetic he is from heaven or wherever he’s vanished off to, he’d take pity on him and come back just to rebuke him. He even misses Chu Ying at his most naggy and annoying, how sad is that?

Jiang Xueming and the rest of the go club treat him at times like nothing’s changed, and at other times like he’s made of glass and the wrong word will shatter him into pieces. None of them dare mention go, like Shi Guang is under the impression that they meet in the astronomy room to play shogi now or something.

Well, none but Gu Yu, who has treated him cooly ever since he re-enrolled in school. He needles Shi Guang in his typical roundabout way, never directly bringing up the subject of his quitting, but never letting Shi Guang pretend he didn’t dedicate a year of his life to the game. Despite that, his presence is the least awkward and painful to be around.

They settle into an uneasy pattern, not really friends again but coexisting in relative peace.

The fury that leaps up in Shi Guang when they present him with their proposal for renaming the go club overwhelms him. Their smiling and cheering faces blur in his vision as he chokes on his anger, demanding to know who’s responsible for this idea. He’s vaguely aware of him yelling, slamming the chalkboard, voice shaking as he forbids them from changing the name, ever.

Jiang Xueming looks scared of him.

I’m sorry, he can't bring himself to say. I’m sorry but you can’t do this. There’s only so many pieces of Chu Ying left in this world. I can’t let you erase this one, he thinks as he furiously scrubs at the board. Fear and outrage tangle up in him as he spits out “I don’t care!” when someone points out that there’s no fourth musketeer.

His whole body is shaking as he runs out, running as hard as he can until the burning in his legs can distract him from the stinging in his eyes.

He’s contemplating how he’s going to face any of his friends tomorrow when he hears the creaking of Gu Yu’s bike. Shi Guang sighs. He’d figured that Gu Yu wasn’t going to let him get away with the fit he threw.

“When are you going to leave?” Gu Yu says calmly, and it’s all downhill from there. Shi Guang really doesn’t get why his mere existence bothers Gu Yu so much -- what’s he ever done to him?

“I started playing go when I was five,” Gu Yu replies when he says as much. Oh god, Shi Guang thinks. He can’t deal with Gu Yu unloading his tragic backstory on him right now.

“This has nothing to do with me.” Shi Guang turns to leave when he’s violently yanked back.

“It has everything to do with you!” Gu Yu is yelling at him. His face is flushed and he looks like he’s about to cry, as he clenches his fists and screams at Shi Guang.

Stop, he wants to say, stop wasting your energy on me. Everyone needs to stop wasting their time on me and leave me alone. But the words don’t come. The water hasn’t left his lungs since he lept into the lake that He Jia Jia pulled him out of, the one where he and Chu Ying reunited two years ago and where he found nothing but inky darkness the second time.

Gu Yu grabs him again. He feels pinpricks of pain where Gu Yu’s fingers are digging into his arms.

“The stones shine in your eyes, and you left go like it means nothing,” says Gu Yu raggedly. “I hate you.” The venom in his voice could strip bark from trees. Anger flashes in his eyes and he draws an arm back; Shi Guang closes his eyes, flinching, preparing for a punch that never comes --

Instead, there’s a bruising pressure against his lips. Shi Guang’s eyes fly open. Gu Yu’s nose presses uncomfortably against his own. He’s so close Shi Guang can count the individual eyelashes that fringe Gu Yu’s scrunched shut eyes.

Gu Yu releases him, out of breath. A lightning bolt has struck Shi Guang. He feels rawer and realer than he has in a long time, like the novacaine’s worn off and suddenly he has access to all his senses again.

“I hate you so much,” Gu Yu says, like he’s trying to convince himself more than anyone else. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“Gu Yu,” he says, tongue leaden in his mouth. He wants to tell Gu Yu to stop caring about him, but evidently the gamut of his feelings runs deeper than Shi Guang could have ever imagined. Anything he could say would fall flat, dismissed by Gu Yu immediately. “I’m sorry,” he finishes lamely, taking an unsteady step back. His heel hits the back of the stairs, and he turns to run.

“I knew you were an oblivious, stubborn, careless idiot,” Gu Yu shouts at his back. “But I never took you for a coward!”

5. Yu Liang

Shi Guang knows he wouldn’t be where he is today without the people around him. Without Chu Ying’s once constant companionship, Yu Liang’s passion, Shen Yilang’s guidance, Hong He’s camaraderie, Wu Di, He Jiajia -- the list goes on.

All these people, his beloved friends and family, helped push him onto the path he’s walking down now. He knows that sometimes paths diverge, people leave, and there’s nothing he can do. As much as he wishes, he can’t force other people to change their minds; he can’t turn back time and hit the undo button.

All he can do is carve his own way. People may have helped set up the game, but he’s the one who must play it.

Still, as much as he’s grateful for the opportunity that’s required so many sacrifices from others, it’s kind of...lonely.

When he confesses this to Yu Liang as they’re readying to pose for the cameras, he’s not sure what he’s expecting in response. Certainly not for Yu Liang to casually, steadily say You have me.

Thank god Yu Liang’s looking at the photographer. Shi Guang’s definitely making some kind of disgustingly besotted face that no one needs to see, much less China’s entire go-playing population. He’s barely recovered from seeing Yu Liang in a white suit and now he says that?

“Jesus, you’re bad for the heart,” he mutters, smiling helplessly. “Nothing, nevermind,” he says when Yu Liang looks back at him curiously. “Stop frowning, you’re going to get wrinkles and then nobody will want to put you on a magazine cover again.”

Shi Guang figured that Yu Liang was well off from his general aura of prissiness and his carefully curated wardrobe that’s never seen a wrinkle before, but it’s a long way to go from knowing that your friend’s a little rich boy to stepping into his parents’ estate.

“Holy shit, Yu Liang,” he says, taking in the dark honeyed wooden accents and traditional yet modern artwork decorating the entrance room. “Or should I call you young master?”

Yu Liang merely rolls his eyes at him as he sets Shi Guang’s duffle bag down. “Here’s the guest room you’ll be staying in.”

“This is the guest room?” The guest room at Shi Guang’s apartment is the couch with a blanket thrown over it to cover the stains.

“Well, one of them. Sorry, the larger one’s being used for storage right now,” says Yu Liang without a hint of self-consciousness.

“You have more than one?” Shi Guang’s voice climbs even higher.

Yu Liang looks irritated. “Of course. We’re not savages.”

“Oh my god.”

After Shi Guang is done giving Yu Liang grief about being the kind of rich that doesn’t even realize how rich he is and is left alone in the second-best guest room, the silence starts to get to him. The house is huge, easily dwarfing Shi Guang and his mom’s two-bedroom several times over. Never has Shi Guang lived in a place not engulfed by the background noise of the city -- he’d never thought he’d miss the cacophonous orchestra of cars honking, buses roaring by, and his elderly neighbors chatting about their snotty grandchildren waking him up way too early on the weekends.

He wanders the building the next morning, socked feet skating along the pristinely polished floor. The urge to shout down the empty hallway to hear if it would echo comes upon him, but he resists; his mom’s lecture on behaving like a proper guest is still ringing in his ears.

Eventually, he finds himself standing in the doorway of a small room. It resembles an office with its stately mahogany furnishings and floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, but what draws Shi Guang’s attention is the go board resting on the top of the desk. It’s beautiful, almost shining in the morning sunlight filtering through the window. There’s a single black stone at 4-4.

It could be from any game. Maybe Yu Liang’s father did a sloppy job of cleaning up after recreating a match, but Shi Guang knows that’s not true, just as he knows with a bone-deep certainty that the stone lying at the top right star point is the opening move from Chu Ying’s last game on the internet.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring at Yu Xiaoyang’s forever to be unanswered invitation.

“There you are.”

Shi Guang jumps a foot in the air. “You seriously are going to kill me,” he says, wheeling around while clutching at his beating heart.

Yu Liang raises an unimpressed, impeccably groomed eyebrow. “Did you get lost?”

“What? No,” he lies, glancing back at the desk with its empty chair and go board. A hesitant touch to his arm takes him out of losing himself in reverie again.

Yu Liang is looking at him funnily. “You --”

“I’m hungry!” he interrupts, pivoting away from Yu Liang and making his way to the kitchen. He’s really not ready for whatever Yu Liang was about to say.

“So you’re hoping to find breakfast…in the linen closet?”

Shi Guang releases the handle of the door he’d been about to open. Yu Liang sighs. “Well, come on then.”

Shi Guang feels a little bad and a lot surprised that Yu Liang accepts his extremely obvious change in topic that easily. He is, in fact, aware of how unbalanced their current relationship feels, how he’s paying back Yu Liang’s patience and hospitality with half-truths and white lies.

It’s not much, but all he has to offer is the game he plays; he hopes that’s enough, for now.

Days pass and Shi Guang settles in. Living with Yu Liang at times feels bizarrely natural and at others absolutely infuriating. Shi Guang quickly discovers that, outside of their mutual obsession with go and each other, they’re very different people with very different lifestyles.

“Shi Guang, can you let the delivery guy into the foyer?”

“The guy has a foyer,” he mutters in disgust as he opens the door.

One night finds Shi Guang overcome with a craving for char siu fried rice. It’s too late to order delivery and besides, “How hard can it be?” Shi Guang says over Yu Liang’s protests. They have all the ingredients, including some leftover pork, and it’s just fried rice. This fails to convince Yu Liang, who continues to eye Shi Guang handling the expensive cookware the same way Shi Guang’s science teacher did whenever he strolled in for chemistry lab.

He lasts about fifteen minutes before setting off the smoke alarm.

“Eggs, Shi Guang,” Yu Liang yells at him as he slams open windows. “How did you manage to burn eggs.”

Shi Guang is busy scraping said eggs off the smouldering pan and into the garbage. Charred shavings flake off into his face. “I don’t know! Your pans are weird and stupidly heavy.”

Yu Liang rolls his eyes. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you with the cast iron.”

“How am I supposed to know what that means? My house doesn’t even have matching towels!”

He spends the rest of the night sullenly eating rice crackers.

Later, when Shi Guang’s still sulking about being banned from the kitchen (Yu Liang’s developed a twitch whenever Shi Guang drifts too closely to the fridge, and Shi Guang doesn’t really want to test him), he finds himself in a part of the house that he hasn’t ventured into yet. For a moment he wonders if maybe he should head back to the living room but dismisses that thought near instantly. You’re basically required to snoop around when you’re invited to a friend’s for the first time, and Shi Guang has a duty to fulfill.

Yu Liang’s room is as clean and neat as the rest of the house is, all muted colors and 90 degree angles. The one surprise he’s stumbled upon is that his rival apparently collects intricate, 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles of impressionist paintings. The image of Yu Liang completing a mosaiced version of the Mona Lisa with his typical laser focus is upsettingly endearing.

He’s poking around Yu Liang’s music collection when he sees it. Maksim Mrvica CD #1, Maksim Mrvica CD #2, Maksim Mrvica CD #3…

“Oh my god,” he whispers out loud to himself, grinning.

He slides into the living room where Yu Liang is aimlessly annihilating some poor dope on weida, brandishing his laptop over his head like a boombox.

“What -- Shi Guang, what are you doing, haven’t you heard of headphones --”

“And I was like, why are you so obsessed with me?” Shi Guang sings in mangled English over Mariah Carey’s dulcet tones. As he continues to butcher the song, Yu Liang turns red, lets out a garbled screech, and, caught between throwing a pillow at Shi Guang and hiding, settles for falling off the couch.

“Why are you so obsessed with me?” he muses. Boy, I wanna know, Mariah Carey croons. He’s still laughing when Yu Liang recovers from the indignity of Shi Guang’s impromptu serenade and fixes a death glare on him.

“You,” Yu Liang growls. I’m going to beat you to death with this tastefully patterned throw pillow, is what Shi Guang hears.

“You can’t kill me! You need me for Korea!” Shi Guang starts backpedaling.

“I’ll prop your corpse up and puppet you,” is what he thinks Yu Liang says, but Shi Guang’s too busy running to be sure.

They do eventually get around to actually playing a game. That’s when Shi Guang experiences what must pass for nirvana on the earthly realm: provoking Yu Liang to the point where he discards politeness and propriety in favor of hollering at Shi Guang at the top of his lungs.

“You can’t possibly be stupid enough to think that will work.”

“Who are you calling stupid?!”

“The pro exam proctors, if their intellect is failing so badly that they let you pass.”

It’s the intensity of when Shi Guang challenged him during the go bootcamp, but without the disparaging condescension Yu Liang had directed towards him then. Now they’re equals (“as if,” Yu Liang scoffs, “you could call yourself my equal after playing that harebrained move at 3-17”). Slinging insults at each other before, after, and sometimes during their games -- it’s fun, Shi Guang has to admit. Playing Yu Liang is electrifying. It feels right, the way a compass must feel when it’s pointing north.

“Another game.”

“I’m amazed you’re even up for another after that slaughter.”

“Please, that was just a ploy to get you to let your guard down. This time I’ll beat you by ten mu.”

Yu Liang grins. The predatory hint in his eyes sends a shiver down his spine. “I’d like to see you try.”

So, yeah, living together is going great. Yu Liang can act as annoyed as he wants -- the house is too empty for just him, and it feels much less foreboding and lonely as Shi Guang fills the rooms with noise and clutter. The way Yu Liang keeps everything as tidy as a showroom, like he’s afraid to leave evidence that someone lives there, doesn’t sit right with Shi Guang. So he drapes his (obnoxiously yellow, according to Yu Liang) hoodies on the back of the spotless white leather couch. He pins take-out menus with their favorite dishes circled onto the fridge with novelty magnets picked up from their frequent convenience store runs. He does his best to mess up the too-straight gridded lines of Yu Liang’s life, because while they might play a game with strict rules and defined edges, that’s no way to live.

He thinks Yu Liang likes it too, the way they’ve learned to share space with each other. He catches him smiling when he thinks Shi Guang isn’t looking, and it blossoms a deep contentment in him that he’s never felt before.

After the display that is their game against Bai-laoshi and Fang Xu, Shi Guang knows - loathe he is to admit it first - that, despite the years of history and tacit understand between them, he and Yu Liang have a long way to go before they can call themselves true pair go partners. They may have settled into a groove when it comes to cohabitation, but there’s still a mountain of things they need to tackle.

Apparently, Yu Liang thinks they can rectify their issues by sharing a bed.

“You want to what.” He has to be hallucinating, right? He didn’t just hear Yu Liang calmly say that they should sleep together, right?

“What? Bai-laoshi and shixiong slept in the same bed when they were training. I think it could help.”

Shi Guang doesn’t know how to break it to Yu Liang that he really, really doubts that those two were chastely sleeping together to improve their platonic bond in the pursuit of some sort of nebulous “training.” He’s sure that they were very busy finding a different kind of hand of god.

“What is wrong with you,” Yu Liang accuses as Shi Guang flails about, attempting to disperse the mental images that have popped into his head. “Take this seriously.”

“Sure!” Shi Guang gives up. “Fine! Fine, yeah, let’s do this,” he says, hysteria inching into his voice, diving into the covers to hide his burning face.

Late that night, when Shi Guang is about to doze off, having almost recovered from the duo roller coasters of Yu Liang’s proximity to his and the conversation they had before turning off the lights, Yu Liang breaks the quiet.

“I know I lectured you about trust,” he says. Shi Guang shifts. He flips onto his other side. Yu Liang’s staring at the ceiling, hands folded on his chest on top of the covers. He looks contemplative, a little dreamy due to the late hour. “But I won’t push you to -- to talk about anything you’re not ready yet,” he says carefully, and Shi Guang’s heart constricts. “I’ll prove to you that you can trust me, too.”

Shi Guang waits for a moment, unsure if Yu Liang’s finished speaking, unsure of what to say in reply. Thank you feels trite and Yu Liang’s sure to not care for I’m sorry. In the end, he doesn’t say anything, and falls asleep with Yu Liang’s moonlit profile being the last thing he sees.

Shi Guang wakes up first. Usually, he returns to the world of the living like he’s fist-fighting consciousness, but today it feels like blinking: one moment asleep, the next awake. As he lies there, he thinks about Yu Liang’s words to him last night.

The gulf of things he’s hiding from Yu Liang feels insurmountable. But living with Yu Liang is healing a wound he didn’t know was still festering. Thoughts swirling, he gets out of bed.

He opens a window to get some air. The faint, pale visage of the moon is still visible in the sky.

“Chu Ying,” he whispers. “Is it okay, if I tell just him?”

Sheets shift behind him. Oops. “Sorry, did I wake you?” he asks, getting only a groggy grunt in return. Outside, the wind rustles through the tree branches.

The Beitou Cup approaches. They play game after game after game. It’s starting to be difficult for Shi Guang to remember what it was like not living with Yu Liang.

“You looked like you were really enjoying your juice, I just wanted to try it!” he protests, ineffectually grabbing at Yu Liang, who’s holding his drink above his head.

“Order your own!” Yu Liang retorts.

“No, Yu Liang’s tastes better,” he says decisively, and makes a swipe for the coveted glass while Yu Liang’s not looking.

He really should nip his habit of stealing Yu Liang’s drinks in the bud, but Yu Liang’s turned him into a shoujo manga character with his stupid heart fluttering over indirect kisses. What he needs to is get a hold of himself before Yu Liang catches on, but somehow he’s incapable of anything but escalation.

As if it’s his fault. Like, when they’re doing the dishes and Yu Liang looks like a mother-in-law’s wet dream with his little apron and a water droplet making its way down the smooth plane of his cheek -- what else is Shi Guang supposed to do? He has to stop his domestic fantasies from running amok somehow, and if flicking soapy water at him is what does it, then so be it. There, now he looks more like an affronted housewife. A much less rousing picture for sure.

Then there’s the time where Yu Liang, having declared that they need to “go outside,” drags Shi Guang on a walk around the neighborhood. After Shi Guang’s eyes adjust to the blinding light of the external world, he admits that it’s pretty nice out. He’s about to relay as much to Yu Liang when he spots the pond in the backyard and is struck with an amazing idea.

“What are you doing?”

“I just figured out how we can play go and be outside at the same time,” Shi Guang says excitedly, scampering to gather some of the rounded rocks ringing the pool. “Here, we can use these lighter rocks for white and these ones for black. I can draw the board.” He finishes demarcating the 19 by 19 grid in the sand and looks up at Yu Liang, who’s smiling too.

“Come on, let’s play!”

“Okay, okay.”

Shi Guang plops to the ground while Yu Liang gingerly lowers himself into a cross-legged position. He holds out a fistful of pebbles. “Guess.”

“Shi Guang,” Yu Liang says evenly as they approach mid-game. “I never offer this to my opponents, but I legitimately think it would be cruel not to ask if you’d like to take that move back.”

“What are you talking about? Are you saying that because you want me to let you take back your last move? Because that’s not going to work.”

“What? No. Are you seriously telling me you meant to put your entire top left cluster into atari?”

Shi Guang boggles at him. “Uh, no, you’re the one whose stones are going to be dead once I move here, here, and then here.” He points at the trio of points on the board.

“Are you blind, or just crazy? You can’t move there!”

“Just because you’re embarrassed that you’re about to lose doesn’t mean I can’t move there.” Shi Guang rolls his eyes.

“You can’t move there because it would be illegal! Look, my stones surround that spot.”

Shi Guang examines the board dubiously. “Um, those are my stones.”

Yu Liang looks close to tearing out his hair. “Those are black’s stones.”

“No,” Shi Guang says, pityingly. It’s really unlike Yu Liang to be such a sore loser. “They’re white. They’re clearly lighter. Next you’ll be saying that I haven’t killed your territory in the center.”

Yu Liang stares at him.

“...I’m getting the feeling that maybe we’ve been playing two different games all along.”

“This is stupid.” Yu Liang springs to his feet. “They’re rocks. They’re all GRAY -- ah!” An errant stone embedded in the sand trips up Yu Liang, and Shi Guang watches the whole scene in slow motion as he tips backward, ass first, into the pond.

For a moment Shi Guang can only stare in disbelief as water trickles through Yu Liang’s hair and down his shirt.

“That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” he wheezes. He succumbs to the laughter building in him, nearly buckling over as he stumbles to where Yu Liang is sitting shell-shocked. “Do -- do you need a hand?” he asks, breathless.

“If you could please,” Yu Liang says acidically.

Shi Guang readies himself, but right when he’s about to pull him out, Yu Liang yanks forward with a vicious smile. He pinwheels his arms in the air for a futile moment before gravity takes his hold on him.

“I can’t believe you!” Shi Guang gasps as he surfaces, spitting out duckweed. He’s stunned and secretly a little pleased that Yu Liang pulled that over him. As he wipes his bangs from where they’re plastered over his eyes, he’s greeted to a front row view of Yu Liang laughing so hard he’s almost hiccuping. Water has made his shirt translucent in areas, and he’s flushed from the sun and exertion. Shi Guang’s mouth goes dry.

Yu Liang’s laughter trails off as he realizes that Shi Guang’s gone unresponsive. For the world’s longest second, they stare at each other. Shi Guang feels like he’s boiling inside despite being soaking wet.

Yu Liang coughs, red-faced, and picks himself up. “So…call it a draw?” he offers, not looking him in the face.

Shi Guang nods, or something, and they head inside silently. He attempts to exorcise the image of a beaming, dripping wet Yu Liang from his mind with go, then video games, and then, desperately, go one more time, but each endeavor is in vain. That night Shi Guang finds himself pleading to whatever gods that may exist that he doesn’t humiliate himself overnight as Yu Liang lies a scant foot away.

And here’s the kicker. He’s leaning on the windowsill of their shared room, idly updating any lingering spirits that might be present about the ever-impending Beitou Cup, when Yu Liang walks in. Somehow, it doesn’t feel awkward at all even though Shi Guang’s been caught talking to himself. He doesn’t feel like he has to explain himself, or hide away, or pretend like he was on a call (the one time he tried this, Yu Liang just looked at his cell phone lying inert several feet away and walked out).

Instead, he just makes his way to the go board and quietly starts recreating a game. The truth crystallizes suddenly: Shi Guang trusts Yu Liang with his go, his life, and his secrets.

The stones go pachi, pachi in a steady rhythm as Shi Guang picks up from where he left off.

“I’m really excited,” he says, words lost on the wind. “I wish you could see us. I think you’d be proud.” Chu Ying, I think I’m in love.

After the ceremony is over and the last photos have been taken commemorating 13th High School’s victory, Shi Guang catches Gu Yu loitering at the edge of their circle of friends.

“Hi,” he says. “Um.”

“I see you’re doing pretty well for yourself,” Gu Yu finally says after an excruciating pause, nodding at the flag pinned to Shi Guang’s suit.

“Heh. We’re definitely going to win all our games!” He’s unable to not puff up with pride.

Gu Yu rolls his eyes, not without a hint of fondness. “Yeah, yeah.”

“So, um,” Shi Guang starts after it’s clear Gu Yu isn’t going to broach the obvious elephant in the room. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t know --”

“It’s fine,” Gu Yu cuts him off with a pained expression. “Really. Please don’t worry about it. Or bring it up ever again. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t know you’ve always been otherwise preoccupied.” He slants his gaze towards Yu Liang, who’s hovering awkwardly in the stands.

Shi Guang splutters. “It’s not like that. Really!” he insists at Gu Yu’s dubious expression.

“...Not yet, anyway,” he mumbles. Gu Yu snorts. “Hey! I thought -- what about you and Jiang Xueming?” Oh god, is Shi Guang a homewrecker?

Gu Yu sighs explosively, which, hey, Shi Guang thought that had been a perfectly reasonable question. “Don’t think about it too hard. I wouldn’t want your head to explode,” he says sympathetically.

“What the hell!”

“Go home, your boyfriend’s waiting for you.”

“He is not - ugh, whatever, Gu Yu!”

He stomps off. “Are you ready to go?” Yu Liang smiles softly at him, looking up at him through his fringe. It makes Shi Guang want to run his hand through his bangs and maybe pull a little bit, exposing Yu Liang’s neck and then maybe leaning down and biting --

“ARGH,” he says expressively and whirls around for the exit.

For a moment, Shi Guang thinks Yu Liang is about to ask him something, but then he shakes his head and leans back in his chair.

Shi Guang is mostly relieved, but to his own surprise a tiny bit of him is disappointed. Perhaps he’s readier than he thought, to share some of what he’s been hiding.

Yu Liang looks utterly relaxed and the mood is contagious. He understands why Yu Liang took them here, to the parlor where it all started. Here is where Yu Liang started to chase Chu Ying, and he started to chase Yu Liang. If either of their young selves could see them now...

“Thank you for playing go with me,” Yu Liang says, breaking Shi Guang’s introspection.

“For which time?”

“For all this time,” Yu Liang replies.

And then he smiles. An eye-crinkling, cheek-dimpling, breath-stealing sort of smile.

Shi Guang thinks he might be having a heart attack. That can only be the explanation for the palpitations that have been induced by Yu Liang’s full force smile. It’s a good thing that Yu Liang’s expression only ever ranged from serious to scowling when he questioned or demanded things of Shi Guang in the past; if Yu Liang had ever utilized that smile, it would have been more potent than truth serum

He almost, almost leans over and kisses him right then and there, but Yu Liang’s closed his eyes again and the moment is lost.

The night before their flight, he’s lying in bed trying to gear up the courage to say -- say something, anything.

“Yu Liang,” he gets out before a hand covers his mouth. “Mppth?” he tries.

“It’s okay,” comes Yu Liang’s voice from the dark. “Really. I don’t want you to tell me -- tell me whatever it is you want to tell me because you feel like you have to. I trust you, and I know you trust me, and I don’t need to know all of your secrets as proof. And this is just me being selfish, but...I don’t want to have this conversation while I can’t see you.”

The tremble in Yu Liang’s last sentence makes his chest ache. It leaves him with no choice but to reach up and slide his hand under Yu Liang’s, pulling it from his face and interlacing their fingers.

He falls asleep like that, with Yu Liang’s heartbeat pulsing under his hand.

After all the bragging Shi Guang’s done and reassurances he’s given that no, he’s not going to lose a single time and no, he won’t be ditching anymore, seriously, you don’t need to put a chip in me, he’s not going to run away and join the Korean circus -- it’d be really mortifying if he didn’t make good on his promises.

He almost loses his first match against the Chinese second board. The plane ride’s left him with residual nausea and he barely slept the night before; he’s tense and it shows in his atypically tentative game. He’s getting pushed around the board, and his adversary seems almost confused at some of Shi Guang’s more uninspired hands.

Shi Guang is clenching his jaw, refusing to release the words of surrender, when Yu Liang slams a stone down on his own game with uncharacteristic ferocity, not looking at Shi Guang but intensely radiating get your shit together at him.

Okay. Deep breath, focus. He can do this. Yu Liang’s right there; Shi Guang can’t let him down. He mentally revises that statement: there’s no way he’s letting Yu Liang show him up like everyone expects him to.

They win. They win all their games.

It’s the best go he’s ever played in his life. Oh, sure, his individual matches were great, he’s honored to play against Korea and Japan’s best and brightest, but the pair go games -- the pair games were in a realm of their own. The way their stones built on each other, layering and intertwining as they read each other’s unspoken intentions: Shi Guang has never felt known as intimately and deeply as he did then.

They walk away from the competition hall, but it still doesn’t feel real. The elation of their sweeping victory has yet to hit him; he’s still coasting on the exhilaration of the games themselves. Every breath he takes is sharper. Every swallow of his throat a drumbeat in his ears.

To his side, Yu Liang looks thoughtful.

“Chu Ying.” He’s evidently come to some sort of conclusion. The adrenaline-fueled vibrations skimming up and down Shi Guang’s skin intensify. “I see Chu Ying in your go,” Yu Liang continues. “And Bai Ziqui, as well. They’re ingrained in you as deep as...as deep as my father’s is in mine. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is you, and the go you play. As long as I have that,” he says, and then takes a deep breath. “As long as I have you, that’s enough. Because when I’m with you, I feel like I can’t lose. I hope...I hope to walk this eternal path with you until we reach the hand of god,” Yu Liang finishes, looking both satisfied at having said his piece and nervous at how Shi Guang will receive it.

How is that even fair. The blood in Shi Guang’s veins is thrumming, singing a litany of Yes. Yes. Yes. It’s you. It will always be you.

“You bastard,” he says helplessly, “you beat me to it.”

In another marvel of synchronicity, they meet like mirror images. Yu Liang’s lips are a little dry and taste like the green tea that was served during their games. Shi Guang wraps his clammy hands around Yu Liang’s wrists, holding on for dear life.

Lips part. They kiss for seconds, minutes, eons. At long last, Shi Guang can run his hands through Yu Liang’s feathery soft hair. He cups the back of Yu Liang’s head, tilting it a bit. Suddenly the angle they’re at gets a whole lot smoother and wetter. Yu Liang gasps into his mouth, and Shi Guang seizes that opportunity to experimentally run his tongue along Yu Liang’s bottom lip. Yu Liang’s hand spasms where he’s holding it against Shi Guang’s back, who immediately resolves to get him to repeat that action as many times as he physically can.

They must part for breath at some point, but like magnets they fall back into each other. In unison, they stumble out of the hallway and into the closest bathroom, relinquishing each other only for the briefest moments they can bear.

Once inside, Yu Liang twists around and slams Shi Guang against the door. He kisses him with a renewed fervor, spurred on by their newfound relative privacy. A hand is inching enticingly closer and closer towards the bottom hem of Shi Guang’s shirt when someone clears their throat behind them.

Yu Liang jumps off him. Shi Guang mourns his escaping warmth for a moment before blanching at their audience on the other side of the sinks, where a guy with -- bicolor hair? Is entangled with another guy in a similar manner to the way Shi Guang and Yu Liang just were. The one with blond bangs is yelling at them in Japanese, while the other man emits waves of embarrassment. Both of them seem to want them to leave.

“Who knew bathrooms were so popular, haha.” Outside, Shi Guang kills the sad remains of the mood, if there was any left. He ducks his head, glancing over to see the corner of Yu Liang’s mouth curving upwards in a smile. They probably should be grateful for the interruption, as they were getting precariously close to defiling the Hankuk Kiwon, but Shi Guang just feels a tug of impatience as he takes in Yu Liang’s disheveled hair and shirt.

“Hey,” he says into Yu Liang’s ear, making him shiver. “If we run to the hotel I bet we’ll have thirty minutes before Xu Hou gets back.”

“You are the pinnacle of romance,” Yu Liang replies. Then he takes another step into Shi Guang’s space and pitches his voice lower. “Besides, you’d better have at least an hour in you if you’re looking for a repeat performance.”

It’s Shi Guang’s turn to shudder, at that. “Well, what are you waiting for?” He grins. “Race you!”

They tumble into the hotel’s revolving doorway, out of breath from the sprint and the laughter that spontaneously erupts whenever they look at each other. In the elevator, Shi Guang catches Yu Liang’s drifting hand in his own, sweaty palm against sweaty palm.

Hand-in-hand, they step out together to meet the future that’s growing ever brighter.