Chapter Text
It was the end of the Spring semester and Xie Lian was busy finishing up grading final reports before the summer break. “Just a couple more…” Xie Lian sighed as he reaches his 50th paper for the day. He’s been grading papers since noon, and it’s now reaching 1630, sun still high and burning brightly in the sky. Taking a moment to stretch himself in his office chair, he raises his arm high to the ceiling and kicks his legs out from under his leg, giving it a good long, stretch. There was a slight spring breeze blowing through the crack of the opened windows behind him and the light airy wind tussled his hair. After the stretch, Xie Lian cracked his knuckles as his hand had gone stiff from the cheap red grading pen, he’s been using to mark up the reports, “Ah, there’s only ten left! I need to power through so we can start our summer already. I wonder if San Lang’s done with practice by now…” Smiling as he looked out the window of his office towards the gymnasium where Taicang University’s basketball team, The Heavenly Ghosts are practicing for the upcoming pre-season tournament in 2 months.
San Lang, more well known as Hua Cheng to others, was the current head coach of their university’s basketball team and has led them to win 2 nationals now in the past two years. Hua Cheng had previously been a player and a captain on the team back when he was a Sports Medicine student at Taicang along with Xie Lian being a Literature student. After Hua Cheng graduated, the previous coach announced that he’s passing the reins to Hua Cheng and that with Hua Cheng’s leadership, the team will taste victory. There were many doubts when Hua Cheng was announced to take over as coach for the team, considering how young he was – But that was no error, as he led the team to victory twice immediately in his two years of coaching. Hua Cheng was just too talented, there wasn’t anything he didn’t excel in.
Xie Lian fiddles with the ring on his hand and beams softly at it. Hua Cheng is also… Xie Lian’s fiancé now. During their national victory last year, Hua Cheng gave his victory speech and publicly proposed to Xie Lian; of course, it would be during then – Hua Cheng never does anything in halves when it concerns Xie Lian.
Xie Lian continued to fiddle with the ring, lined with beautiful rubies along it as he thinks about Hua Cheng. Just thinking about the man brings a blushing smile to his face that he couldn’t believe could stir in him. He brings both his hands to cover his cheeks to cool down the warm blush spreading across. How did he get so lucky meeting such a person with so much love and devotion to him? Throughout his whole life, never once did Xie Lian pay attention to anyone else, but to think – the one person that catches his attention, can so easily stir his emotions just by thinking of him. What spell has San Lang put on him, he wonders as he giggles to himself. As if the man himself could sense Xie Lian’s thoughts of him, light knocks on the door of his office rouses him from his short daydream.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Xie Lian peeked up from his hands and cleared his throat before responding to the knocking, “Come in!”
The door opens and peering through, was a very handsomely tall man, with shoulder length hair tied into a pony tail and he was wearing his signature-colored clothes, a deep maroon jumper set. The man was smiling brightly and crescent eyed as his line of sight locked onto Xie Lian.
“Gege~ This San Lang has come to whisk you away.”
“San Lang!” Xie Lian happily stands up from his desk and rushes halfway across his office to meet the man, who is also lightly striding through with long steps, meeting Xie Lian in the middle. The two falls into a deep, longing embrace, as if they didn’t just see each other this morning before Xie Lian left to proctor his class and Hua Cheng to basketball practice. Hua Cheng’s arms come up to wrap around Xie Lian and held him closely as Xie Lian returns the gesture. Hua Cheng’s arms are strong and athletic, yet when he holds Xie Lian, it’s with so much gentleness and just the right amount of tightness. He fit so perfectly in Hua Cheng’s arms; it was as if his body was made to fit into his and only his arms. “Mmm…” He breathes in Hua Cheng’s scent deeply as he relishes in being held by him.
Hua Cheng lightly showers the top of Xie Lian’s head with light, butterfly kisses, as he rubs circles into Xie Lian’s back softly and Xie Lian just melts into the touch. “Gege… I missed you so much. I thought I was going to die in practice surrounded by those smelly, sweaty trash.”
Xie Lian can’t help but let out a low chuckle from that sentence. “Sang Lang, it’s only been a couple hours and have you forgotten? You use to be one of them once upon a time, too.” The shorter man tilts his head up to meet Hua Cheng’s line of sight and smiles jokingly at him, earning the cutest pout in return from the taller man.
“Gege… Are you saying I was smelly back when we first got together?” Hua Cheng pouts and whines, whilst still smiling adoringly at Xie Lian. Instead of responding back to his fiancé, Xie Lian raises his hand and lightly taps Hua Cheng’s nose lovingly with his index finger. “Even if you were smelly and sweaty back then, it clearly did not repel me, seeing where we are now, am I right? Besides,” Xie Lian tip-toes slightly to reach just right where Hua Cheng’s right ear was as he decides to teases the taller man and whispers soft and low into it, “I quite like a sweaty San Lang from back then. He was very… Hot.”
Hua Cheng swears he could die and just ascended from that line alone.
Hua Cheng can never get used to these rare moments Xie Lian decides to tease him; the smaller man has definitely been corrupted by Hua Cheng’s insistent teasing over the years. The comment itself, made heat rise from his core, quickly to his ears and for the couple of seconds of surprise he was feeling, he inadvertently loosened his grip. As if Xie Lian found that he accomplished such a feat to make Hua Cheng blush, he escaped Hua Cheng’s embrace, after quickly stealing a kiss from his lips and skipped back to his desk, lightly laughing – a sound that Hua Cheng nonetheless loved hearing from his beloved.
Early in their relationship, it’s always been just Hua Cheng playfully teasing Xie Lian any chance he got to earn himself the most beautiful blushes from the man. Overtime, Xie Lian being the quick learner he was, slowly picked up on the ability to return teases back to Hua Cheng, very much welcomed of course.
Trying to play off the moment of weakness caused by his beloved Gege, Hua Cheng chuckles in the handsome tone that Xie Lian also enjoyed and followed Xie Lian to his desk and sat lightly against it and glanced down. He took notice of the pile of unmarked papers on Xie Lian’s desk and frowned.
“Gege, practice was too long. Please pray tell this San Lang good news that his Gege is done grading the reports so we can get out of here and go home already?” Hua Cheng glanced at said Gege with a small frown plastered onto his face.
“Ah… ha… ha… You see San Lang,” Xie Lian picks up a pile of ungraded papers and covers half his face and he guiltily smiles with his eyes peeking above the stack of papers in his hands, “I have about 10 papers left. ONLY TEN. I will be done very quickly, I promise!”
Hua Cheng grimaced and groaned in discontentment as he reached out to grab a couple reports from Xie Lian’s hands, and with his other hand, he takes a red pen from the pencil cup on Xie Lian’s desk. “Well,” Hua Cheng uncaps the marker quickly, “This San Lang will help Gege out so he can be whisked away much quicker!” And with a singular motion as his hand holding the pen is about to reach the paper, all the reports disappear from the desk under Hua Cheng and the pen jams right into the desk. Smirking mischievously, Hua Cheng tilts his head up to meet a frowning Xie Lian, hugging the papers back in his hands.
“San Lang!” Xie Lian pouted at Hua Cheng. “The last time you said you would help me grade papers, you just wrote ZEROS on all of them!”
“Gege. If I could give them all negative marks, I would. None of them are deserving of good marks from Gege especially if their reports are keeping him from spending any less time with this San Lang.” Hua Cheng bluntly speaks with no remorse in his voice as he spins the pen in his hand.
Xie Lian takes the pile of papers in his hand and slightly taps the top of Hua Cheng’s head lightly and then sits back down at his desk, clearing his throat. He decides this fiancé of his needs an incentive to be patient, so he can focus on getting these papers graded or else he’d be here all evening.
“San Lang…” Hua Cheng perks up at the trembling tone of Xie Lian’s voice. “If you – If you are quiet and patient until all these papers are completed,” Xie Lian points to the stack in front of him and then at himself. “This Gege,” Xie Lian knows he will regret this method of negotiations with Hua Cheng, but it’s the only thing he can think of right now that is a surefire way of giving him his space to finish grading the papers. “This Gege will… will reward you tonight with whatever it is that San Lang wants to do…” Xie Lian says quickly in one breath as he blushes profusely as he tries to ignore the fact that he made quite the deal with Hua Cheng. The statement earns the most devilish smirk and darkening gaze from Hua Cheng. He avoided the gaze from Hua Cheng and went back to staring at the remaining reports below him.
How is that his Gege can go from teasing him, to returning to an embarrassing mess in just mere seconds? This was one of the many thousands of favorite things about Xie Lian that Hua Cheng loved.
“Gege,” Hua Cheng says breathily, as he sits up and leans down towards Xie Lian’s ear. “A good man doesn’t go back on his words, okay?” After saying so, he teasingly blows a puff of breath into Xie Lian’s ears and earns himself the prettiest blush from Xie Lian. Hua Cheng skips over to the empty sofa to the side of Xie Lian’s office and slides out his cellphone and begins to keep himself busy.
Really… How will Xie Lian survive the daily teasing from Hua Cheng for the rest of his life?! Shaking his head out of the thoughts of the contents of what Hua Cheng might want to do tonight, Xie Lian went back to refocus himself to try and get the remainder of the reports completed. Summer is just around the corner and it’s about time the two of them had some off time together with how busy the Spring semesters been. Xie Lian hums as he grades through the reports, every once in a while, stealing a glance at his beloved fiancé sprawled on the sofa, tapping his feet, clearly holding in his impatience all for a reward offered by Xie Lian.