Work Text:
When Xue Meng saw a glimpse of the campus sweetheart’s fair figure nearly shrouded behind the rapidly closing elevator door, he sprinted as if there were springs glued onto the soles of his shoes, running so fast he heard the wind in his ears, sheets of paper flying out of the folder he was hugging close to his chest.
“Wait! Hold the door!”
The beautiful man inside lifted his gaze, and Xue Meng met his eyes just for a second before the door closed. Xue Meng cursed under his heavy breath. He really should’ve checked this month’s horoscope reading—
The door opened.
He wasn’t too late!
Xue Meng strolled quickly into the elevator, the springs under his soles seeming to have morphed into wheels. He greeted him—greeted Shi Mei, trying hard to roll out a coherent ‘thank you’ as he panted, but his lungs gave out before he could utter the first syllable, and he coughed desperately.
Barely a minute had passed, and Xue Meng had made a fool of himself in front of his crush twice.
“Hello, Young Master Xue,” Shi Mei said, a hint of giggle in his breezy voice. “Which floor are you going to?”
Xue Meng didn’t actually need to take the elevator. The stunt he just pulled was impromptu; pointless, yes, but in Xue Meng’s defense, whatever was done almost involuntarily and in the spur of the moment, must’ve been fate dragging him to an unexpected destination. He cleared his throat and glanced at the glowing sixth button, “Sixth floor.”
“Ah, same as me, then.”
“You can just call me ‘Xue Meng’, you know,” Xue Meng puffed up his cheeks a little. Considering his family background, Xue Meng was indeed a young master. But he and Shi Mei had been friends since primary school. With that way of reference, it was like there was some unfamiliar distance between them – honestly, even if Xue Meng didn’t want to admit it, he and Shi Mei had sort of drifted apart ever since they entered university.
Shi Mei giggled for real this time, covering his lips with the back of his hand. “I was just joking. Are you angry?”
Xue Meng rolled his eyes, but his cheeks gained a bright color.
Shi Mei didn’t notice. After all, Xue Meng’s cheeks have been red from running. He asked again, “Where do you want to go on the sixth floor?”
“Uh...the...the chemistry laboratory.”
“Huh? The chemistry lab is on the third floor.”
“...”
“Why do you even need to go to the chemistry lab? You’re a business major.”
“......”
One more tally added onto the ‘Fucking Up In Front of Shi Mei’ board.
“Anyway, it’s too late for third floor,” Shi Mei said as the small monitor above the button panel showed the number ‘5’. Suddenly, he froze.
“What’s wrong?” Xue Meng had been secretly looking over at Shi Mei the entire time, so every minuscule change in his expression and body language wouldn’t go unnoticed. At this moment, Shi Mei looked mortified. Xue Meng could even hear his breath hitching. “Shi Mei, what’s wrong?”
Shi Mei was still shaking when he took in a deep inhale and pressed on the bright yellow emergency button.
“Xue Meng, how could you not feel it?” he knitted his brows. Xue Meng wondered why he was scolded. Before he could find the answer himself, Shi Mei told him, “The elevator just stopped. We’re trapped.”
The realization hit Xue Meng way longer than it should’ve. His head pounded with headache at an instant – two parts the natural frustration of someone trapped inside an elevator, eight parts the natural frustration of someone making a fool of himself in front of his crush for the fourth time in the time span of under five minutes.
To avoid screwing up again, Xue Meng cocked his chin up and maintained his composure like a knight in white protecting a princess. He even made a show of clicking his tongue nonchalantly. “Oh, don’t worry. This is a renowned campus with the best facilities. Something like a stopping elevator is just a tiny hiccup. The technicians will come soon, so don’t worry. My dad has tons of connections with the people in this university. Nothing bad will happen.”
“...”
From that haughty manner of talking, even Shi Mei had to bite his tongue from referring to him as a young master. What could his dad’s tons of connections do at a time like this? Jack the elevator door open with a stack of money?
At least he was right when he said the technicians will come soon...except they didn’t ‘come’ in flesh. A voice rang out from the speaker. Shi Mei explained the situation, and the technician assured him that they were fixing the issue as quickly as possible, that he and anyone else trapped should stay calm, shouldn’t pry the door open, don’t press on random buttons, blahblahblah, Xue Meng reached out to his backpack to grab some aspirin.
“I have a lecture in five minutes. I should contact my professor...” Not even his sentence was finished, and Shi Mei had already sighed. “There is no signal.”
“It’s fine, your professor will understand. Hey, let’s just, uh, chat? Sit down, sit down, I’m tired,” the Young Master Xue from before perished into thin air and turned back to the Xue Meng that’s realized that they likely won’t be out for a while, which very conveniently meant he was going to be together with Shi Mei for quite some time.
Just he, Shi Mei, and maybe also the ghosts living inside the elevator walls. He found it amusing that he wasn’t even worried about being the main character in lift incident urban legends shared around in family group chats anymore.
They both sat down facing each other. Today, Shi Mei was wearing an oversized grey cardigan. He looked so small in it...even if he was taller than Xue Meng. The knitted texture of the cardigan seemed very fluffy, perfect to be cuddled against. If only they weren’t just friends, Xue Meng would’ve easily turned this into an endless cuddling session.
As Shi Mei opened his laptop, he laughed.
“This reminds me of the time we went swimming together and got locked inside the pool bathroom.”
Xue Meng’s heart clamored for no reason.
“Heh, yeah. That pool venue was horrendous. I remember there was a cockroach crawling out from the drain. How old were we again? Eight?”
“Eight. Young Master Xue, you were so frightened you started to bang your fists on the door.”
“You—! You were the one scared shitless, hiding behind me as I watered the fucking roach back inside the drain.”
In truth, just like other ordinary eight-year-olds, moreso for the sheltered and spoiled eight-year-old Xue Meng, he was so disgusted he wanted to cry and throw up.
But even then, he had already liked Shi Mei and wanted to protect him.
The face of the scared little Shi Mei from over a decade ago overlapped his mature face for a split second. Like a bud blossoming into a beautiful flower, Shi Mei had grown up to be this extraordinary beauty, unparalleled in all universes; growing up, he’s gained admiration and crushes from boys and girls alike, to the point where Xue Meng had to beat some people up for bothering Shi Mei too much.
Shi Mei had never accepted any of the countless love confessions, though, let alone confessing to someone else. Each time Xue Meng asked if he liked anyone, Shi Mei would just ambiguously say that it was a secret.
“Well, I’m glad you were there,” his laughter burst Xue Meng’s daydream. “I was so afraid of bugs...I can’t imagine if I was alone.”
Something about the softness in Shi Mei’s words struck a chord with Xue Meng. He shook his head with an awkward laugh and said, “We were really close back then. You were never alone.”
Shi Mei smiled at him, fresh and lovely like spring.
And they really were. At least close enough to be comfortable showering together. Of course, they grew up a bit more, and then it was no longer appropriate to do that. Sometime in the flush of puberty, Xue Meng thought that the only time in the future it’d be appropriate again was when they became adults, and, uh, lovers.
This time, it was the click-clack of Shi Mei’s fingers on the keyboard that woke Xue Meng up.
“What are you doing?”
“Finishing my assignment.”
As expected from the hard-working Shi Mei. Xue Meng wasn’t even surprised. Not wanting to disappoint—or rather, wanting to impress the model student, he muttered that he should also do the same, and combed through his folder to look for something to be done.
Alas...
...All of his homework had flown out when he ran, scattered around somewhere in the first floor.
“Never mind,” Xue Meng said, defeated. “I’m not doing it.”
“Eh?”
The ‘story’ was as short as the time taken for an elevator door to close, and yet Xue Meng answered, “It’s a long story.”
Xue Meng bumped his head against the metal wall. As he’d said, the campus had the best facilities, so the elevator was equipped with an air conditioner. Under normal circumstances, it was great to be in a cool elevator for a few seconds. Under special circumstances like this, where they had to be inside for much more than just a few seconds, it’s gotten very chilly. Better than being baked alive inside an elevator without AC, but it was still not pleasant.
“Xue Meng, wear this,” Shi Mei said having seen him shiver, swiftly taking off his cardigan. Underneath was a black turtleneck.
Xue Meng’s body temperature rose to its boiling point.
“No, you have it. I’m not that weak.”
“Don’t be shy. You used to borrow my PE clothes in ninth grade.”
“That was different.”
“Looking back, ninth grade was the only time we ended up in different classes. Your mother forgot to tell the teacher to put us together, didn’t she?”
“...What?”
“She told me,” Xue Meng was caught off-guard, and the downy neck of the cardigan closed around his head. “Your mother told me that from year to year, you’d want to have us in the same class together.”
Xue Meng wore the cardigan, albeit with obvious begrudge on his face. The wool smelled like Shi Mei. Nice and sweet.
“How dare she...”
His complaint trailed off when Shi Mei gathered and moved his stuff, and claimed the spot next to Xue Meng. He was sitting near enough for their shoulders to brush against one another and for Xue Meng to read the tiny words on Shi Mei’s laptop screen.
“She dared. You’re right, we were really close back then...hm, aren’t we still?” Shi Mei turned his head to face him, his shoulder-length hair waving like pom-poms.
“Yeah, we still are,” Xue Meng gulped his own spit with difficulty. They hadn’t been close recently. At least, not as close as they were when they were still in school. They’d grown up, and even if they enrolled in the same university, they had been in different faculties, chasing their dreams in separate pathways. “But I feel like not as much as before.”
“I admit I’ve been very swamped with schoolwork,” Shi Mei’s smile was like a dream that pierced through Xue Meng’s heart; this smile that he used to see nearly every day, was now limited to only a few times a week. He had missed it, missed him so much, that he fell into a trance, not feeling his own fingers that had curled around Shi Mei’s hair. “I want to hang out with you sometime. But the life of a medical student is not that easy, you see.”
Xue Meng’s brain was the equivalent of a static television.
He smartly took the opportunity to reply, “So busy that you can’t even get a haircut.”
“I’m trying to grow out my hair. I wonder if long hair suits me, though...”
“It suits you. Very pretty,” Xue Meng didn’t know what he was saying until all the words slipped out.
“Is it pretty? Do you think this length is fine, or should I grow it out even more?”
“Well, it’s up to you, I guess. I don’t really care.”
Shi Mei chuckled. “I’ll hear your opinion.”
“Uh...you can grow it longer,” the sentence ‘let’s shop for bandanas and hair ties together’ drowned in his throat.
To Xue Meng, Shi Mei was an unreachable mirage, a childhood dream he couldn’t attain, yet couldn’t bear to let go. He’d once thought that now that they’ve somewhat lost their closeness, he would move on and end his lifetime crush. In the end, Xue Meng found himself falling deeper.
How much yearning can someone suffer from to be happy to be trapped in an elevator, just like this?
“All right,” Shi Mei spoke as he typed. Xue Meng saw a few lines being typed, then Shi Mei lifted one hand to massage the back of his neck.
“Goodness, you medical students’ first patients would be yourselves. If your neck hurts, rest for a bit and lean back.You can also...lean to the...side.”
One side next to Shi Mei was Xue Meng’s shoulder and the other one was empty air. Xue Meng didn’t know if he was seeing things, or he had really seen a small, coy smile on Shi Mei’s lips before he placed his head on Xue Meng’s shoulder, his hair brushing his neck.
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah.”
More than fine. Xue Meng was ecstatic.
“Young Master Xue, you used to be a scrawny kid, but your shoulders have gone this broad. I heard girls like guys with broad shoulders,” judging from Shi Mei’s tone, he was not teasing. Xue Meng wished the elevator ghosts would just strangle some sensibility into him.
“I don’t give a damn what girls like,” Xue Meng scoffed. “You said that with such confidence – how did you even know?”
“I overheard some girls in class talk about it. It’s not like I like any girl or have a girlfriend. What are you tensing up for? Mengmeng, ah. You know that I’m not interested in women. I won’t steal your crush.”
Shi Mei...can be a whole fucking dense dumbass sometimes.
He heard Shi Mei sigh. A mellow, tender sigh. Xue Meng’s arm hovered above Shi Mei’s back, calculating if he should wrap it around his shoulder.
“I don’t have a crush on any girl. Shi Mei, you’re spouting too much bullshit today,” and Shi Mei replied with another brief laugh, fleeting as the jolt in Xue Meng’s chest, soft as the touch of his cupped palm on Shi Mei’s shoulder. “The person I like is not a girl.”
This time, Shi Mei didn’t reply with anything at all.
So Xue Meng continued, “But I won’t tell you who he is. Since we were little, you’ve also always kept your crush a secret from me.”
Shi Mei lifted his head up in an abrupt movement, almost startling Xue Meng. The light in his smiling peach-blossom eyes shone of gentle longing. “Then I’ll tell you right now. He—“
The two of them lost their balance and gasped when the elevator moved up again without warning. Shi Mei, probably dizzy, held onto Xue Meng’s body; Xue Meng didn’t have time to react or refill his blank mind, and the elevator made a ‘ding’ sound, the door opening to a bunch of people witnessing their strange position.
Xue Meng, “...”
Shi Mei, “...”
The technicians and everyone else who got nosy after hearing there were students trapped inside the malfunctioning elevator, “...”
At long last, they were freed. A supposedly joyous occasion where Xue Meng grumbled in his heart and showed a sour face, confusing one of the professors present on-scene into offering him medicine.
“I don’t have class after this. I’m going home,” Xue Meng said stiffly.
“Didn’t you want to go to the chemistry laboratory?”
“...No. You—you still got class?”
“I don’t feel like attending when I’m already this late,” Shi Mei shrugged. He didn’t breathe a word about his crush anymore, much to Xue Meng’s dismay and annoyance. “I’ve finished my assignment. If you are free, how about we have some coffee together?”
Xue Meng’s eyes lit up.
“Sure. Then we, uh, we can go shop for bandanas and hair ties.”
“Mm. I also want to look for cute hairpins. You have to help me choose.”
“I don’t know anything about hairpins! Do you think I’m—”
“And if your choices match my taste,” Shi Mei interrupted and flashed him a grin, a smile peerless to the stars, “I’ll tell you about the person I like.”