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Mo Ran is running late. Very late.
So late, in fact, he doesn't realize that he’s stepped inside a small shop hidden in between blocks of stores along the student street, instead of the usual place where he buys his morning coffee. By the time he’s firmly zipped up his jacket to hide the shirt he’d thrown on a few minutes earlier in a bout of sleep-induced panic—that godawful, horrendously pink one Xue Meng had gotten for him as a half joke—Mo Ran finds himself standing in the waiting line inside a bubble tea franchise.
Mo Ran doesn’t think he’s ever been here. It’s one of those newer, fancier places more similar to a cafe than a normal tea shop, having quickly risen in popularity in the last few years. Idle curiosity replaces the initial worry of running late to class as he takes in the view around him: tiny square tiles on the walls, light baby blue, and equally square wooden tables lining two sides of the shop. A few people have taken up those seats already, laptops propped open and phones in hand, ready for a long day of work ahead.
Mo Ran sighs. Cloudy day today. Shadows paint the tired faces across the room and Mo Ran stifles a yawn, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He glances at the time on his phone, realizing he’s already 15 minutes late. Oh well. Xue Meng will just have to sit through that boring statistics class all by himself.
The line shuffles forward. The employee’s voice is much too cheery at 9 o’clock in the morning for Mo Ran’s liking. “Morning, Chu Laoshi! The usual, right? Two large bubble milk teas, full sugar, no ice?”
“Yes.”
Mo Ran looks up at the sound of the voice. Deep. Smooth and pleasant, like chocolate. The person standing in front of Mo Ran is nodding curtly to whatever the employee is saying, strands of dark hair brushing the skin of his neck. Clad in complete white, a snowy cardigan drapes across his shoulders.
Full sugar, no ice? Mo Ran stills for a moment, and thinks: this person must be batshit crazy.
“Of course, sir—ah, wait,” the employee turns and converses quietly with someone in the back before looking up and giving the man in white an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Chu Laoshi, we’re still cooking our tapioca, it might take another half an hour…would you like to change your topping?”
The man stiffens slightly before answering, “no, it’s fine. I’ll just have the milk tea plain for now.”
“Y-yes, of course, we’re very sorry for the inconvenience—you must be very busy today, as usual…” the employee stutters out another two ‘sorry’s. Mo Ran raises an eyebrow at the light shiver that runs across her shoulders.
The employee hands the man in white a round beeper and Mo Ran watches as he walks away, feet so light with grace his shadow dances across the floor.
Something about that man. Mo Ran’s gaze follows him as he sits down at the table near the sidewalk window with a habitual turn of his body. Lithe, swift, inexplicably pretty.
And then, without warning, the clouds shift—the sun fades out, and the man’s face comes into full view. Mo Ran’s eyes widen.
His first thought is this: he really should have paid more attention in literature class.
Mo Ran has never been good with words. Poeticism isn't his forte to begin with, being a business major and all, and he’s only ever taken that one elective in his second year of college on Chinese vernacular fiction—or whatever the hell it was called—for the nice balding professor and the easy grade.
He’ll admit, though, that the Chinese language is pretty. It’s soft at times, hard around the edges at others; a few strokes and the world could be placed in the palm of one’s hand: clear waters and evergreen mountains, wars of blood and smoke.
For Mo Ran, however, the language flows from his mouth like simplicity in its truest form, never used as a tool for him to manipulate into something beautiful.
Mo Ran loves with action; he loves with offerings. Never with language.
But right now, standing adjacent to a cold, drawn-in face so beautiful he feels his chest constrict, Mo Ran swears he could write a million songs, weave a million lines of lyrical poetry that could make even Li Bai weep.
He could write odes. He could write eulogies, just on the way the sun opens up and lays itself bare in front of the man, the way light falls in gentle rays across the white of his cardigan; on the thin bone of his fingers, the perfect slant of his nose down to the bow of his lips, tinted pale pink and perfect. He could write entire masterpieces on the contour of the man’s snow-clad shoulders, the way the soft fabric presses into tender collarbones.
And his eyes. God, his eyes. The shape of them, exquisitely pretty and phoenix-like, curved sharp like the faultless tip of a sword.
He thinks, he thinks—
Mo Ran thinks he could create love itself.
“ …Sir. Sir?”
Mo Ran blinks. He turns back and his eyes meet the face of the very confused employee.
“Sorry. Uh, I’ll have an iced americano, please,” Mo Ran says distractedly. His eyes drift back to the man again.
“…Yes, sir,” the employee shoots Mo Ran a look that clearly says she thinks he’s insane—after all, what sane person enters a bubble tea shop and buys, of all things, an americano?
Mo Ran, apparently.
“By the way,” Mo Ran taps the counter to grab the employee’s attention. “Does that man come often?”
The employee glances over. “You mean Chu Laoshi? Ah, yes, he’s one of our regulars; he says he loves our tapioca pearls,” the short flash of pride in her eyes slipping back into one of unease. “But as you probably heard, we don’t have our pearls ready just yet. He’s probably quite angry. Gosh, he’s scary when he’s angry…”
The last part ends in a tiny mutter, filled with fear.
And then, as what occasionally happens for the rare yet incredible genius that he is, Mo Ran has an idea.
“Hey, sorry, but can I also get a large bubble milk tea, full sugar, no ice?”
“…I apologize, sir, but our pearls really won’t be cooked in another 30 minutes—”
“That’s fine,” Mo Ran cuts her off and shoots her a radiant grin. “I’ll pay first. Can you beep me when it’s done? Please?”
The employee falters, a dark blush rising along her cheeks. Mo Ran knows, despite the faded circles under his eyes from long nights of gaming and a rather unkempt bed of hair, he still looks good enough to soften the pretty employee’s heart.
And hopefully, Mo Ran thinks, with a long glance at the beautiful man in white—hopefully, he looks good enough to soften him, too.
☼
Chu Wanning is having a bad morning. A very bad morning.
So bad, in fact, he can’t seem to concentrate on the work in front of him without the usual intake of sugary calories in his system, the lack of tapioca pearls per sip irritating him to no end. The employee had said something about inventory miscalculations. The syrup in the milk tea sticks to his teeth.
Chu Wanning knows he’s being unreasonable. If he could just wait another half an hour, he’d have his favorite drink right in front of him, full sugar, no ice, and everything would be fine. But with work piling up in front of him and the hours counting down to the submission deadline of his latest research paper to the publishing house, he doesn’t want to waste another second on anything else.
The first ten minutes pass by painfully slow. If it wasn’t for his own absurd tendency to only crave the tapioca from this specific shop every morning, maybe Chu Wanning’s life would be a little easier.
Leaning back against the soft cushion on his chair, he is in the midst of a stare-off contest with the perilously empty Baidu page on his screen when a sudden patch of darkness envelops him, causing him to start in his seat. Next to him, a looming figure eclipses the square of sunlight falling from the window, shadowing him completely—and before he can react, a tall cup is placed, gently, carefully, next to his whirring laptop.
Chu Wanning hears him first before he sees him.
“Good morning, Chu Laoshi.”
The words sound like early summer, warm like the shade underneath a haitang tree.
Chu Wanning looks up at the source of the voice. In front of the soft streams of light stands a young man, early twenties, a pair of clear eyes staring straight into Chu Wanning’s own. The sun surrounds the contour of the man in a full-ringed halo; his oversized jacket an inky shade of blue, absorbing all light pouring in from the window.
“Large bubble milk tea, full sugar, no ice?” There’s a faint hint of laughter in his voice.
Chu Wanning blinks, slightly taken aback. “And you are…?”
“I’m Mo Ran,” the man’s smile widens. Chu Wanning catches a glimpse of a dimple in the corner of his mouth.
“…Why did you buy me this? How come you know my order?”
Chu Wanning’s voice comes out harsher than he’d intended. But the young man doesn’t seem fazed. Quite the opposite, the dimpled smile widens, a deepening crevice in suntanned skin.
“Just happened to overhear it; you also looked like you needed your dose of sugar,” the young man—Mo Ran, is it?—says with a small laugh. “Plus,” he pauses for a moment, eyeing the blank Baidu search page on Chu Wanning’s screen before sliding down into the chair next to him, “I always help out beautiful people in need.”
Chu Wanning narrows his eyes. “I do not need your help. In any way whatsoever.”
“Regardless,” the man responds with a mild tap on the cup of bubble tea. “I wanted to buy you something, just to make your morning better.”
Chu Wanning stares at the cup of bubble tea standing tall and silent at the edge of his table, watches as clear droplets of water roll down the side of the plastic. He's always liked the color scheme of this franchise: a nice shade of white and indigo. It's always managed to calm him down, somehow.
In retrospect, maybe it was because Chu Wanning was having a bad day. A bad day that was worse than usual, the ability to concentrate on his work draining from his body in the warm 9 a.m. air. Maybe that’s why he hesitated only for a short while, spent a shorter amount of time than necessary as he carded through the various potential motives behind the young man’s actions.
Or maybe he just thought the young man’s smile was more brilliant than anything he’s ever seen; the way his eyes, unlike the fear-ridden glances he receives on a daily basis, were gentle and unyielding, and it unnerved Chu Wanning deeply—how softly the man looked at him, how soft he felt himself become under his gaze.
Maybe, maybe.
Mo Ran rests his chin on the palm of his hand and watches as Chu Wanning reaches out and warily takes the bubble tea in his hands. With a twist of his fingers, he pulls the plastic off the straw and pops it through the translucent film. The alarmingly late flash of what if this is poisoned crosses his mind only for a few seconds before he takes a small sip.
“How's the taste?”
A deep chuckle rings in his ears, cutting through his thoughts. Chu Wanning shifts in his seat.
“…Good.” Chu Wanning answers, pressing his lips into a thin line. He isn't sure, in the singular instant of an almost immediate sugar rush in his system, why this strange young man beside him looks so dazzling in his eyes.
“I'm glad,” Mo Ran says slowly, easily, as though he has all the time in the world. All the time in the world, just for Chu Wanning.
Dark eyes burn into the side of Chu Wanning’s face and with a subconscious raise of his hand, Chu Wanning brings his fingers to his cheek, as if to hide himself away. The motion, quick and terribly awkward, has the young man smiling wider than ever before.
With another chuckle, Mo Ran stands from his seat, the quirk in his mouth a little boyish, a little mischievous. Chu Wanning feels a light tickle in his stomach at the sight as his teeth cuts through tapioca, the milk tea sweet on his tongue.
“I have to go now, but I'll see you around, Chu Laoshi.”
Chu Wanning barely hears the sound of wind chimes, dangling freely in air, as Mo Ran disappears from behind a set of wooden doors. He reappears again in front of the window by the sidewalk, shooting Chu Wanning one last brilliant smile that has him feeling lightheaded under the daylight.
Through the shimmer of polished glass, Chu Wanning stares at the dirty asphalt glazed with rain from the night before. The sky above Mo Ran is a shade of pearl blue, the sun parting the last vestiges of cloud.
And Chu Wanning thinks, with a slight twinge of suspicion in his gut, that this won’t be the last he’ll see of the young man, now but a fading figure in the foggy morning crowd. Neither will it be the last time he’ll ever hear that sunny slide of tone, that deep shadow of timbre—a voice that sounds like a dimpled smile. A voice that feels all-encompassing, like the glow of early spring.
In his heart, Chu Wanning returns the smile. It’s faint, but it’s there.
And it sticks to him, like sweetener.