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It started as a subtle itch on his skin, somewhat like a butterfly kiss on his wrist.
The itching was followed by the darkening of his skin and panic coiled in his gut as he watched, slightly mortified and frozen in place, a black line staining him.
That first line led to another one, chased by another and one more. It was a nonstop motion, he soon realized. A nonstop motion resulting in characters he knew he had seen before, characters similar to those his father sometimes wrote on those important papers of his.
The realization hit him as naturally as the rain watered the flowers or the wind pushed boats forward, it was calming in its own way and made Jiang Cheng giddy with happiness. He had a soulmate and his soulmate was trying to talk to him!
He was sad, however, for his inability to respond as they deserved. Being only five years old came with some inconveniences and one of them was that he had yet to learn how to read.
His mother was working on it with him, he knew, yet he couldn’t stop the disappointment of not being capable of doing something. The frustration, the same one he felt whenever one of the adults told him he was too young to understand something, was too much for his tiny body and it always drained his softest expressions into sour ones, such as the frown some of his aunties liked to giggled about while pointing he was truly similar to his mom.
Jiang Cheng didn’t know the reason his resemblance to his mother was so fun to those people, nor was he interested to find out when there were funnier things for him to do, but it bothered him all the same.
His foolish excitement encouraged him to dash out of his room and look for his mother with a smile so large on his face his cheeks started hurting.
“Ma! Ma!” He yelled along the clomp clomp of his rapid footsteps. Ziyuan took him in her arms with the ease of someone accustomed to her children's outbursts, the curiosity and the amusement adorning her beautiful sharp features as she freed, with a flick of her hand, Jinzhu and Yinzhu of whatever they were doing.
“What’s gotten you so excited today, hm?” She entered her office, gracious as only she could be, and locked the door behind them to give them some sense of privacy.
“My soulmate talked to me!” Jiang Cheng beamed, his dreamy voice carrying his happiness with it and powering it up by his mother’s soft smile at his enthusiasm, and hurried to show his wrist to her.
The smile froze on Ziyuan’s face as she scanned the words written on her son and it slowly disappeared as if it had never existed.
For the first time, she was anything but kind with him. She sat Jiang Cheng on her table, grabbed a pen and wrote on his skin without uttering a single word. They watched, together, the black stain get smudged as if someone was rubbing it off before disappearing completely.
“Listen carefully,” Ziyuan tightened her grip on his arm, tone aggravated. “No matter what this person tells you, don’t answer them. Don’t dare contacting them, do you understand?!”
Jiang Cheng recoiled and nodded as fast as he could, pulling his wrist back and holding it against his chest protectively. He couldn’t understand the dark look on his mama’s face and it made him wonder if his soulmate had said something bad to him. Were they being mean? Was that the reason she was so mad?
Ziyuan slowly let her breath out. She didn’t stop glaring at his wrist when she grabbed the telephone to call Jinzhu and Yinzhu back, nor did she say anything about it when they started taking Jiang Cheng’s measurements.
Later that day, Jiang Cheng was informed he was not to show an inch of skin if he could help it. His face and his hands being the only exception to the rule.
“We can’t have people finding out about this mess,” his mother told him, her tone and face lacking the warmth he always ran to. Her hands, however, betrayed her show of utmost composure as her fingers kept tightening around the material of his clothes.
There wasn’t much he could say under an order, but he still hummed in understanding. “Ok, ma.”
✎
Yanli didn’t have a soulmate.
As far as Jiang Cheng was concerned, at least, she never behaved as if she had one of those. She was always exposing a good amount of skin, albeit not in a depraved way.
Yanli had a fair collection of summer dresses that flowed around her with the gentlest breeze, most of them were sleeveless and when that wasn’t the case, the sleeve was made of such a thin material it was see-through. Even in the colder seasons, when the trickiest clothes were brought out of the closet and the action of covering up was indispensable, she would always wear something a little bit exposing.
It wasn’t something made with the objective of looking seductive (it wouldn’t work if it was, since Yanli was known for being sweet and prim to a fault and no one had ever seen her under any other light). She told him it was made with the objective of making her looks a bit funnier, to make her easier to approach.
That, he could understand.
Their family didn’t look exactly friendly with how they portrayed themselves. From the dark fabric of their clothes to their rigid posture, people wouldn’t find it in them to want to come close to any of them unless it was necessary.
The necessity arrived with their position in the society. The Jiang family was one of the most relevant ones in their country, the most relevant one in their city. They owned a great deal of things and employed an even greater deal of people.
Basically, they were rich enough to be considered important despite how unattainable and untouchable they looked.
Jiang Cheng grew up coexisting with children similar to him. He was polite with them in the get-together their families pulled up and endured all those meetings with secure distance, despite his parents constant nagging for him to befriend them. He agreed with them when they said he needed friends, but disagreed when they pointed to those people and said they would make good ones.
He didn’t need the kind of friends Ziyuan and Fengmian had. He didn’t need friends who would talk about him behind his back or criticize any of his choices whenever he wasn’t there to listen to them.
Perhaps it was for the distance he imposed between him and all his family acquaintances that he was taken by surprise when the Jins arrived in his house and didn’t as much as greet him before heading to his mother’s office alongside his parents.
Zixuan didn’t come with his parents, which was the first thing he noticed. The second was how jittery Yanli was.
“What are they doing here?” Jiang Cheng questioned in a whisper, gaze trailing longer than it should on the office’s door.
He was pulled away from there by his sister, her steps almost imperceptible as she ushered him into her room and closed the door behind them after checking the corridor. It was rather stupid to try to be so secretive in a house in which their walls had ears, but Jiang Cheng appreciated her effort nonetheless, his curiosity taking the best of him.
“They’re here to discuss the engagement,” Yanli finally responded, her posture unguarded now that she could sit on her bed and relax.
“Whose engagement?” He sat near her to lay his head on her shoulder, her hand automatically finding its way to his hair in a gentle caress.
“Mine, apparently,” Yanli chuckled, but it didn’t sound right. She didn’t sound happy. “They want Zixuan and I to agree to a marriage of convenience, but they are already going through the details of the contract on their own. They want an heir that would be able to make the link between our families something unbreakable.”
Yanli told him about it like she had heard it a dozen times before, which he didn’t doubt could be the case. He knew firsthand how persistent his parents could be when they put their heads into something. It still didn’t sound right with her, that kind of fate.
“Isn’t it a little bit old fashioned?” Jiang Cheng frowned, his fingers tracing small circles on his sister’s wrist. A poor attempt of comforting her.
“It is,” she grabbed his hand to stop his movements and slowly intertwined their fingers with a sigh. “There isn’t much we could say about it, though.”
Jiang Cheng glanced at her face in search of something, anything that could sign she would try to stand up by herself. He looked for any bit of anger, of grief or revolt. Anything that would hint a ‘I won’t let you decide my life to this stent, deciding who I will marry is taking your power a little too far’.
He found a defeating acceptance instead, by the lowering of her shoulders and the soft flutter of her eyes, and took it as it was.
✎
A script was given to each of them barely a month after the contract was ready.
They were still too young for an engagement, it pointed out, but weren’t too young to settle things to make it more convincing for when the right time came.
Zixuan was still seventeen, after all, and Yanli had just started college. No one would believe they suddenly fell in love and conveniently decided to tie the knot. People would believe it, however, if they started getting closer. And that’s what the script was for.
Yanli and Zixuan would go out twice a week, the place being of their choice. They had to be seen hanging out and had to at least look like they harbored any kind of romantic feelings for each other, people had to believe they were in love to lessen the gossip their relationship would inevitably bring.
“Jiang Cheng and Xuan zi should be closer as well,” Madam Jin pointed out. “People would notice if they didn’t treat each other as family too.”
Ziyuan hesitated, her gaze heavy with something as she stared at the boys, but conceded with a nod. It was settled they would hang out around school and sometimes out of it too.
“Do whatever the youth do nowadays,” Guangshan teased them, his smile never leaving his face. “Go to an arcade, play games together, show people how much of a brother you are.”
Zixuan shifted uncomfortably in his left and Jiang Cheng grimaced with the poor commentary, there wasn’t a day they acted as close as acquaintances. Telling them to act like brothers was taking it too far.
“The idiot just suggested a date,” Zixuan grumbled, and was lucky none of the adults heard him. It brought a smile to Jiang Cheng’s face nonetheless, the way he could call his father an idiot without thinking twice.
Yanli wasn’t paying them any attention, too occupied with reading her script and highlighting what she deemed important in it. Jiang Cheng took it as a chance to lean closer to Zixuan and tell him in a whisper, “they’re giving us a free pass to spend their money as we like and aren’t even noticing it. It’s our chance to go bankrupt.”
It was a joke, of course. Zixuan seemed to understand this much as his lips curled up in a small smile and his eyes twinkled with mirth.
“I have always wanted to try out some costly food,” he responded anyway.
“I’m in if you are.”
✎
Showing people they were spending more time together was easy. Jiang Cheng and Zixuan studied at the same schools since they were toddlers, had the same routine for as long as they could remember and liked almost all the same kinds of food, which came to be an useful thing when they decided that lunching together would work as a way to show off their newfound (or maybe just newly established) friendship to their classmates.
Showing they were spending more time together outside school, however, was hell on Earth. Both of them, for the lack of a better word, were painfully awkward and substantially timid about being the one making the invitation, mostly for how akin to a date it sounded when they noticed they would actually have to ask if they were free a particular day and if they would like to hangout then.
For that reason, it was a blessing when Yanli decided to interfere and tell them to watch something on the Jiang’s house. She pointed out people would see them going home together, would notice how long they stayed there and would come to the same conclusion as their classmates: Jiang Cheng and Zixuan were now friends.
It was a good idea. His house was private enough to make them comfortable, they could cook something to munch on while wasting their time together and it would be effective enough to gain their parents approval.
Jiang Cheng only failed to consider the possibility of Zixuan getting too comfortable.
“This show pains me, how the heck is that girl so stupid?!” Zixuan groaned as if in physical pain and stuffed his mouth with the sticky sweet popcorn in his hold, which was simply disgusting for how it glued itself on him. “This guy literally threatened everyone who ever showed interest in her and is super aggressive, how could it sound remotely romantic?!”
Jiang Cheng frowned upon the caramel staining Zixuan’s cheek and brushed it away from him with the pad of his fingers, collecting the offending sweet and licked it off of his own skin. Zixuan blinked at him with wide eyes, his face flushed red in clear embarrassment. He ignored it.
“Netflix suggested it as a romantic movie, but, honestly, I never expect anything good from them,” Jiang Cheng admitted with a shrug of his shoulders and dropped his body back on the sofa. “Their romantic movies are usually problematic or stupid, I just wanted to give you an excuse to eat that thing.”
“I’m sorry?!” Zixuan feigned a gasp. “Are you calling my heavenly popcorn a ‘thing’?!”
Jiang Cheng lifted his head to take a final look at the offending snack, paying double attention to how glued the popcorns were, and nodded, plopping back.
“I am.”
“Jiang Cheng,” Zixuan whined, entering his personal space, completely uninvited, to be in his field of vision. “You can’t treat it like garbage if you never tried it!”
“I can if it looks like that,” he stated, purposefully pointing at how sticky the whole thing was. Jiang Cheng doubted the proper caramel popcorn recipe had so much caramel in it, but he didn’t say it out loud. If there was something he learnt in the growing time he spent with Zixuan, it was that his ‘friend’ was way too sensitive to any kind of criticism and he wasn’t there to add fuel to the fire.
“It’s not about the look, it’s about the taste!” Zixuan insisted, plunking some of it off the container and holding it in front of his mouth. “Say ‘aah’.”
Jiang Cheng should say no and justify it with the fact he didn’t need to eat anything he didn’t want to. He should push the yucky thing away from his face and growl in irritation. He should have done something and anything to avoid the upcoming touch of the food with his lips.
A single glance at Zixuan’s hopeful eyes was everything he needed to stop fighting against it and finally relent, opening his mouth to welcome the sickening sweet snack.
Chewing it was awful, caramel had its own way of sticking to his teeth, but the taste wasn’t actually bad. In truth, it was surprisingly good. Not as sickening as he thought it would be.
“You dirtied your fingers with caramel,” Jiang Cheng mumbled instead of complimenting the popcorn, a tiny pout taking place on his lips. How humiliating it was to acknowledge something he found so disgusting could taste good. “I’ll kill you if you get my furniture dirty too.”
Zixuan didn’t mind it in the slightest, a bright smile adorning his face as he happily put back the space between them. Jiang Cheng wasn’t surprised he could see right through his false annoyance.
“You wouldn’t kill me,” Zixuan laughed, his knowing-it-all expression back. “It would mean you’re breaking a contract your mother came up with and you don’t have a death wish yet.”
Jiang Cheng opened his mouth to come up with a retort, but closed it again as he silently admitted his companion wasn’t wrong. For all his jokes about jumping off his fence, he didn’t really want to die, so he did what he did the best: he looked straight up at Zixuan, rolled his eyes and said:
“Fuck you.”
✎
“I’m not doing this anymore, you’re a bad loser.”
“That’s because you’re clearly cheating,” Zixuan complained, hands still on the joystick as if his persistence would change anything and make him the winner. “You’re making your car faster with cheats!”
“That’s Mario’s special effects, I’m not the one to blame if you don’t know how to activate yours.”
“It wasn’t in the guide at the beginning!”
“Yes, it was. You just said ‘that’s not important, let’s skip it’, like the dumbass you are.”
“Well, I want to watch it now.”
“Too bad for you, I don’t want to play this game anymore,” Jiang Cheng shrugged and looked around in search of something else to play, anything that would stop Zixuan from whining like a spoiled child he, for sure, was. “What about the dancing machines? You’re better than me at dancing.”
“If both of us know I’m better than you at dancing, it makes it unfair if I win.” Zixuan pouted stubbornly and crossed his arms before his chest, finally letting go of the arcade’s control panel. “It won’t be fun to win if I have too much advantage.”
Jiang Cheng took a deep breath and groaned with fond exasperation, his brain cells working hard to come up with something to make it at least resemble fairness. For someone so competitive, Zixuan deserved praise for always desiring his wins to be clear and fair. It was a shamefully attractive trait.
“We can dance to a song I already know.” He wiggled the coin between his fingers and pointed it to the dancing machine, he felt like a fucking genius. “Guide the way, oh grand loser!”
“You’re going to see who’s the loser, jackass,” Zixuan grumbled in feigned annoyance, the grin on his face betraying his not so careful act as he grabbed Jiang Cheng’s wrist and excitedly pulled him to the next machine. “That’s gonna be incredible, remember these words!”
It was, indeed, incredible.
Jiang Cheng wasn’t one of those people who loved to dance. He wasn’t one of those who found it fun or found it a way to express themselves to the world, to make their bodies move fluidly and beautifully. He didn’t even have the coordination to make it look alright.
With Zixuan laughing and guiding him through the songs, however, he had fun. Heck, he had so much fun that late in the night his cheeks were still hurting with how much he smiled, his muscles, too, were aching wonderfully and he couldn’t be happier.
He wasn’t surprised that Zixuan was a funny person to have around. It was obvious for the amount of people floating around him whenever they found a chance to do so, it was obvious for how flustered they would get just for receiving his attention for a short period of time.
Jiang Cheng was surprised with how sympathetic he could be. He was surprised with how patient Zixuan was, with how kindly he taught him to dance this or that song and how he tried, albeit useless, to encourage him. He was surprised with how he seemed to be having fun teaching him, too.
His opinions weren’t ones to change easily. Jiang Cheng still found tuna disgusting, still thought crayons were better than paint for coloring and still insisted his comforter was the best blanket he had ever had. So it pained him to change Zixuan’s customary label from ‘annoying spoiled brat’ to ‘actually nice person I might like’.
It was too bad for him that he couldn’t control his real opinions on anyone, but it was good he found a friend in someone he would never have expected to be so. It made his chest warm with fondness and his mind fuzzy with his foolish giddiness.
Zixuan was a good person to have around, Jiang Cheng just wished he was someone he could keep close for longer than a contract asked him to.
✎
“This feels weird,” Zixuan admitted with flushed cheeks and eyes trained down on their table. Knowing he wasn’t the only one feeling nervous, Jiang Cheng finally let his breath out.
It was the third time they hung out together, but it didn’t feel as comfortable or simple as the previous ones did. Perhaps it was because of the mood surrounding them, since neither his home nor the arcade resembled the environment of something romantic, but an expensive restaurant? One that even demanded classic attires? That was a sign of romance nobody could just brush off.
“I know, right?” Jiang Cheng barely glanced at him, shifting in his seat. “I feel rather stupid for suggesting it… It sounded funnier when I thought about our parents' faces when they saw the bill and all.”
The silence stretched for a bit longer, they were both tense and embarrassed as if they were on a first date instead of a planned scene to appease their families and the media. Jiang Cheng kept glaring at his glass of water, wondering when did he get so stupid to suggest something like that and if he had already ruined a friendship he didn’t even notice that was so important to him. Was it too late to apologize?
Zixuan cursing under his breath and holding the glass he almost threw on the floor was what they needed to loosen up, their laughter successfully suppressed under tight smiles and tinted cheeks.
“The waiter must be wondering if we have a functional brain,” Zixuan whispered over his glass, a discreet smile tugging on his lips. “He looked weird at us when he noticed we ordered by the price tag instead of by the content of the dishes, you know?”
Jiang Cheng curled his lips in a devilish smile of his own, fingers trailing around his glass in a bad act of arrogance. “Poor waiter, I wonder how he would react if he found out we would have ordered their finest wine if we were at age just so our vengeance would taste sweeter.”
“We could try the nonalcoholic drinks, though,” his companion proposed, his whole face lighting up for the prospect of seeing his parents uncomfortable. “Sometimes they deserve to taste their own medicine.”
“Sometimes?”
“Most of the time, but you already know that.” He laughed. “Let’s order this tea here,–” Zixuan points to a section of the menu.– “it’s the one who sounds overpriced.”
“Our parents will want our heads on a silver plate.”
“So that’s the perfect choice, isn’t it? I’ll order it right now,” he laughed and unlocked his phone to do as he said.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Zixuan twisted the napkin between his fingers and straightened it repetitively. “It’s one you’re gonna probably be offended by.”
“Uh?! Why would you want to tell me something that would offend me?”
“I don’t know, it seems to be weighing me down.”
Jiang Cheng frowned and searched for any hint of playfulness in his expression, only to find hesitance and something akin to fear. Which, of course, wasn’t really an option because Zixuan was one of the most fearless people he had ever known. It was stupid to even consider the possibility.
“It can’t be that bad,” Jiang Cheng started tentatively, trying to convince his friend to raise his head and look at him. “Tell me what’s been bothering you lately.”
Zixuan remained quiet for a bit longer, but eventually mustered enough courage to open his mouth and spill what was in his head.
“I don’t really want to marry your sister.”
Jiang Cheng blinked and tried to imagine how it was to not want to marry someone as incredible as Yanli. He tried again and again, but failed to understand what was wrong with Zixuan to wish he would marry someone else. Was his sister not kind enough for him? Was she not gracious enough? Rich enough?
“I–” he cleared his throat– “I’m sorry but what?”
“Don’t misunderstand me.” Zixuan almost glared at him, eyes sharp with something he couldn’t read. “I don’t feel like marrying someone I don’t love, and, honestly, do you think Yanli deserves to marry someone she doesn’t love either?”
“No, but–” Jiang Cheng frowned and reached out for a napkin to pierce apart, anything to calm his nerves– “but you know the only way to break the contract is if one of you finds your soulmate, right? I think Yanli doesn’t have one, so would yours be willing to help?”
Zixuan scoffed at the idea and shook his head.
“No chance, they hate me.”
“I’m sure that’s a lie,” Jiang Cheng reassured him and patted his hand on the table, a fleeting touch that didn’t last more than a second. “You’re a nice person, why wouldn’t they want you?”
“Do you think I know?” He laughed, though the humor didn’t reach his voice nor did it reach his eyes. “The first time I wrote to them, I said ‘Hi, I’m your soulmate! My name is Jin Zixuan, what’s yours?’ like a dumbass, and I got a colorful ‘Fuck off’ as a response. I guess they’re too old to like a child being their soulmate, yet… They could’ve been nicer, right?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s just like winning the lottery in the end: some people win, some people lose. I was unlucky enough to be a loser.”
“It’s not the end of the world,” Jiang Cheng mumbled, slightly more sympathetic. “I couldn’t even read when my soulmate first wrote me something and they cursed me so bad my mom went from this–” he forced a bright expression– “To this.” He feigned pure anger.
“Woah!” Zixuan gasped. “I can’t believe aunt Yu knows how to smile!”
Jiang Cheng gaped at him before processing the words and bursting into laughter, Zixuan had no fear for his life if he could not only mumble offenses about his own father, but also offenses about Yu Ziyuan out of anybody.
“If she heard you, you’d be the target of her bloody glares, sir.”
“In that case, aren’t we lucky she isn’t hanging out with us?”
“I guess.”
The humor subdued slowly and Zixuan smiled at him again, this time much more kind and understanding.
“I’m glad this whole mess is happening in spite of my lack of desire to marry,” he told him in a whisper. “I wouldn’t choose anyone else but you to befriend me in a situation like this. It’s good to have someone who understands me, thank you, xiao Cheng.”
Jiang Cheng beamed with his chest full of warmth, knowing he wasn’t the only one to appreciate the unlikely outcome of the contract was more than wonderful.
The nickname registered fast, however, and his smile rapidly turned into a scowl.
“You! I’m not small by any means!”
Zixuan’s laugh echoed through the restaurant, loud and joyful.
✎
Zixuan’s speech didn’t leave Jiang Cheng’s mind for even a second. He wondered if Yanli could eventually be happy with their arrangement whenever his path crossed with hers, wondered if she didn’t have a soulmate either for real or if her soulmate, too, was a jerk or if she simply decided they weren’t worth the try, like what his own did.
His curiosity grew according to the passing of the minutes and his worry grew twice faster, infesting his days as nothing else could. Jiang Cheng was starting to wonder if he would need a new set of pencils for how much he chewed on the ones he had, worrying apparently had the power to activate someone’s mouth fixation.
Accepting he would have to use his poor communication skills, however, showed to be a rather simple task as he called Yanli over to his room and successfully separated her from the rest of their family without any trouble.
Yanli was obviously confused, but being too kind to refuse an invitation was one of her flaws and Jiang Cheng may or may not have taken advantage of it. She followed him in silence, curiously glancing around his room in search of anything different or anything worthy calling her over.
“Jiejie,” Jiang Cheng called her attention back to him as soon as he locked the door, no one needed to know he checked the corridor to see if someone had followed them. “I’m sorry I invited you over out of the blue, but I wanted to ask you something.”
Yanli didn’t sit on his bed until he had not only sat down, but also patted the space beside him and despite it being a show of politeness, he still felt like shaking her and screaming that she could’ve sat wherever she wanted and whenever she wanted. She was free to do what made her comfortable around him and he hoped she knew it. Instead of verbally responding, she simply gestured for him to go on.
“I would like a real permission, jie.” Jiang Cheng smiled tightly, his sister only deserved smiles even if they sometimes came out wrong or ugly. “The question is really personal.”
“Is that so?” Yanli paused to look at him, curiosity shining on her smile as she gestured again. “Go on, you can ask what you want.”
“I–” he intertwined his fingers, resting his hand on his lap, and lowered his eyes there to avoid seeing any twist on her expression– “I was wondering if you had a soulmate or if you had ever talked with them? Ma and I know my soulmate doesn’t really like me, but I couldn’t help the curiosity about how your soulmate felt about you.”
Yanli tilted his face up with a gentle push with the tip of her fingers, worry flashing on her face before it settled for one of her kind-but-neutral smiley ones.
“What do you mean when you say your soulmate doesn’t like you?” She asked slowly, eyes roaming through his as if to find any crack that would show her the truth.
“That’s not what I asked,” Jiang Cheng grumbled.
“Oh, you’re right.” She giggled. “Ma taught me not to reach out for them and told me they would reach out for me if they ever felt the need to, she said women shouldn’t be the ones doing ‘the chasing’.”
“That’s stupid.”
“I know, right?” A rare real smile bloomed on her face this time, the one that made crinkles appear around her eyes and shaped them like a waning moon. “I don’t know why I ever followed what she told me, but it never occured to me not to.”
Jiang Cheng barely hesitated before grabbing a pen on his bedside drawer, one they could easily clean off her skin (and the same one he bought in hope he would ever muster the courage to talk with the person he shared a soul with) and offered it to her.
“Try it out if you want,” he said.
Yanli hesitated for way longer than he did, but eventually took the pen from his hand and breathed slowly. She smiled at him as if to reassure him instead of herself and wrote hi on her arm with careful movements, going as far as adding a small smiley face to it.
They held their breath together, both anxiously waiting for a response. Jiang Cheng, surprising even himself, was the one to sigh louder when a that’s a pretty smile you have there took shape on her arm, soon accompanied by a hello.
Yanli laughed, relief clear for the ones who knew where to look for it, and happily started writing again.
✎
It took only a month for the engagement to be called off.
Yanli’s soulmate wasn’t only someone they knew, but also someone pretty much everyone had a crush on or have had a crush on at some point in their lives. Jiang Cheng mostly knew him as his sexual awakening, but other people (such as Zixuan and probably everyone else in their school) just called him Nie Mingjue.
It wasn’t a surprise for him, who was there the first time they talked and even presented his sister with his (beloved) pen. It was, however, a surprise to everyone else. Everyone else but Zixuan, since he wouldn’t really keep it a secret from him. His friend deserved to know at least one of his wishes could come true (and actually did).
Ziyuan wasn’t happy with the news, Fei Hong, Zixuan’s mother, neither, yet they learnt to cope with it. It wasn’t like they had a choice, anyway.
Despite the end of the contract, Zixuan and Jiang Cheng decided to keep their friendship (something Guangshan and Fei Hong expressed some delight to), and it became a habit to spend some time in each other’s house after school. Sometimes they would study, sometimes they would watch a bad show just so they could complain about it afterwards and sometimes they would focus on talking about whatever came to their minds.
It was one of the days they were wasting by talking when Zixuan suggested they should try to contact their soulmates too and Jiang Cheng strongly refused to.
“It’s been years, xiao Cheng!” Zixuan prodded Jiang Cheng on his ribs with his fingers. “Perhaps they changed their minds, uh? Didn’t Yanli’s case give you any hope?”
“No,” he deadpanned.
“C’mon!” His friend kept prodding on him. “A tiny smiley face or a dot will already do the work, let’s just do something!”
“No,” Jiang Cheng futilely tried to push his hands away from his ribs. “This kind of shit never works out.”
“Well, we will never know if we keep acting like pussies, will we?”
“In case you can’t remember, this term you just used is very sexist and you are probably offending at least-”
“Stoooop,” Zixuan whined like a damned spoiled child again (Jiang Cheng revoked his ‘nice person’ title the moment he began prodding on him). “Please?”
“Sometimes I can’t believe you’re older than me.”
“I can, I seem to be the only one with guts here, that’s clearly a mature trace,” he retorted easily. “C’mon, it’s just a smiley face, you said Yanli did something like that, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, but she’s Yanli.”
“Are you saying I have no chance compared to your sister?!”
“No, I’m saying I don’t hold a candle to her. Stop getting so easily offended by everything, dumbass.”
“You can’t be serious right now, you’re literally the hottest person I know,” Zixuan frowned at him, dismissing his words as a joke and reached out for his pen. “But fuck you, coward, I’ll show you what courage could do to you.”
“You sound confident for someone whose soulmate’s first words were a bright ‘fuck off’,” Jiang Cheng mocked, but leaned closer anyway. He wouldn’t admit out loud how curious he was.
“Watch and learn.”
Zixuan was surprisingly careful with the pen on his skin. He didn’t write a message nor did he draw a smiley face as he suggested before, he drew a cute puppy sticking its tongue out and wrote a ‘woof’ beside it’s mouth to indicate his bark.
It was strangely cute and well drawn for someone whose handwriting looked so mechanical, yet no response came. Zixuan could barely hide his disappointment and Jiang Cheng was ready to say his famous ‘I told you so’ when he spotted something very funny on his own arm and started laughing hysterically instead.
“Hey, it’s not that funny,” Zixuan mumbled, honestly upset, and Jiang Cheng wondered how the fuck did he not only get comfortable enough around that idiot to stop wearing long sleaves around him, but also was enough of a fool to consider the possibility of his soulmate simply not being someone his mother would like him with. How could he ever forget he couldn’t produce any heirs if he dated a man?
“Fucking idiot,” he cursed himself with tears gathered in his eyes, perhaps also cursed Zixuan on the process because he, too, deserved it.
“Ayo!” Zixuan prodded him on the ribs again.
“Fucking idiot,” Jiang Cheng repeated with purpose, holding his arm on his field of view this time.
“Oh.” Zixuan stared at the puppy on his arm, identical to the one on his own, and blinked slowly. “We should’ve known,” he mumbled in the end, when the realization finally sinked in.
“We should.” Jiang Cheng nodded.
“Would it be weird if I said I kind of want to kiss you now?”
“Not really, do you?”
“Yes.”
“You can.”
“Thank God,” Zixuan sighed happily and practically jumped forward.
“Fucking idiot,” Jiang Cheng laughed at Zixuan’s guilty face as their lips all but clacked against each other and brushed the fringe away from his lover’s eyes with fond exasperation before guiding his head with care and kissing him right.
It wasn’t a real surprise that he’d be the brain of their relationship, after all.