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It starts, as things often did in Tiny Herb, with Liu Xiaobie. Although everyone in Tiny Herb knew that Wang Jiexi would sometimes head out on Wednesday nights for dinner elsewhere, Liu Xiaobie was the first one to actually ask why.
His attempts at asking the captain was met with a dry expression and a "get back to your training if you want to beat Huang Shaotian", which - just watch him, Huang Shaotian was going down this year - was not an answer to his question at all.
Liu Xiaobie decides the next best bet was to just follow his captain the next time. Dressed in his stealthiest clothes - oversized hoodie, sunglasses and baseball cap included - he makes sure to follow the captain at an appropriately far distance so he won't be noticed.
He's a little ashamed to admit that it takes him two blocks to realise he's being followed by Xu Bin and Gao Yingjie. In his defence, he's been too focused on following Captain Wang to pay too much attention to his surroundings. The rest of the main team trails another few steps behind, studiously ignoring Liu Xiaobie.
"What are you two doing?" Liu Xiaobie asks, when the other two are close enough to be able to talk.
"Making sure you aren't doing anything stupid." Xu Bin reaches out and pulls his hood down. "You look way too suspicious. Take off your sunglasses as well."
Alright, so maybe he had gotten some side glances with his get-up, but that was the price to be paid for being stealthy.
"I don't think Captain will be happy to know we're stalking him," Gao Yingjie frets, his fingers tapping anxiously at his side.
Unfortunately it's too late to stop Liu Xiaobie as he spies captain Wang Jiexi stop and enter a hotpot place. It's a fairly common hotpot chain, not too high class but nice enough. Liu Xiaobie waits a minute or two - he does so know how to be stealthy, Xu Bin I can see you trying not to laugh - before entering as well.
It's fairly crowded inside. Luckily they manage to get a table together - and even more luckily, Liu Xiaobie can spy Wang Jiexi's table out the corner of his eye.
It takes a couple of moments until they can get a clear view of who's sitting on the opposite side to the captain, but - "Is that Tian Sen sitting with Wang Jiexi?" asks Xu Bin, only half as an actual question.
Gao Yingjie nods, but looks like he wants to be anywhere but there in the restaurant. "Maybe they're meeting for club business?" he tries. "I’m not sure we should be intruding on their time together either way."
"They're just sitting there. I don't think they're even talking," Liu Xiaobie says. "Maybe they're trying to intimidate each other prior to our next match?"
Xu Bin really doesn't want to get involved. Xu Bin really, really doesn't want to get involved. Xu Bin is smart, and wonders if the Wang Jiexi sitting and relaxing opposite the captain of Royal Style is what Wang Jiexi looked like before he was burdened by becoming captain and having the weight of carrying his team placed on his shoulder.
Liu Xiaobie's guesses get more and more outlandish as they order and eat. At one point his enthusiastic gesturing with his chopsticks almost hits the waiter just walking by. Gao Yingjie's fervent apologies are enough to draw the attention of the surrounding tables.
(Noticing the commotion, Wang Jiexi sighs but there's a helpless smile tugging at his lips more fond than tired.
"Why are my children so troublesome," Wang Jiexi says resignedly.
"Ah, youth." Tian Sen nods sagaciously - as though he isn't around the same age, as though his juniors aren't also attempting to spy on him from four tables away.
Tian Sen checks on the vegetables. Finding them adequately cooked, he fishes some out for Wang Jiexi who nods his thanks. Wang Jiexi refills Tian Sen's tea cup and places some more of Tian Sen's favourite mushrooms into the hot pot.
Once again, a comfortable silence falls over the table.)
"So, Captain, what was with the secret meeting with Tian Sen all about yesterday?" Liu Xiaobie asks before training the next day.
Somehow Wang Jiexi's dry look is even drier than usual. "It was a date. How are you going with beating Huang Shaotian?"
"Huang Shaotian is going down the next time we - what do you mean, it was a date?"
Wang Jiexi wonders wistfully if things are better (quieter) over at Royal Style for Tian Sen as pandemonium erupts in Tiny Herb's training room.