Work Text:
She always wore a short skirt, and it bothered the shit out of him.
Yiyang leaned back against the ropes of the boxing square, breathing heavily.
Chen Qingqing might dress like a circus invaded a thrift shop, but at least had the decency to wear pants most of the time.
Chen Qingqing’s friend on the other hand…
He noticed that she wore short skirts, and that bothered the shit out of him too.
He was only vaguely aware of her existence, at first. She was the quiet girl in a different class, only notable for fetching papers for the teachers with Gu Nanxi at her side.
After that, she was the girl holding back Situ Feng’s “fiancée”, casting worried glances around the room as her friend contemplated murder.
After that, she was the first person at school to take his hand when he offered it. That was all there was to it. Defending him to a couple pieces of trash outside the bathroom was what he expected of a girl the teachers trusted with answer sheets and test results. He didn’t need her help — and nothing anyone would say in his defense mattered anyway. He didn’t have to respond.
But she didn’t have to give his hand a tentative shake, either. Or introduce herself in a quiet voice through dampened lips.
Or wear those damn skirts.
He shook his head, standing up straight. It didn’t matter. Situ Feng would soon be taken down by a plagiarism scandal (that had been ridiculously easy to engineer — was anyone paying attention at that company?), and he and Chen Qingqing and the rest of their little gang would fade into the background, licking their wounds.
Including Zhang Fangfang. And her annoying-as-shit skirts.
__________
(Before his Bright Idea, things were a little different.)
__________
He definitely didn’t mean to dream about her.
It was before he’d even needed to think up the scandal, before the thugs, before seeing her at the restaurant —
— but after those two idiots had grabbed her and Chen Qingqing and taken them to the amusement park.
He had been expecting to gloat a bit, throw Chen Qingqing off a bit, and move on to the main event.
He had not expected to see her, knuckles tight on the safety mechanism, squinting up at him with eyes that were mostly fearful and just a little bit accusing.
Maybe that’s why he couldn’t look at her for more than a few seconds, feeling the phantom weight of her fingers in his hand, wondering for a moment if this is what shame tastes like.
He taunted Chen Qingqing a little
— according to plan —
called Situ Feng, implied that the little girlfriend was kinda roughed up
— according to plan —
and sauntered off, glancing one more time
— not according to plan —
at the girl who was definitely not supposed to be there.
The next thing he knew he was standing in front of Hauntedland, clapping sarcastically at the Heroic Efforts of a dumbass who apparently only saved girls in danger when the dumbass felt like it.
Scratch that, he thought, watching Situ Feng saunter off with Chen Qingqing looking like a frizzy-haired backpack. A dumbass who only saved a girl in danger when the dumbass felt like it.
Two girls started the day together. One went home safely. He knew how this story could go.
He told himself that that’s the only reason he charged into the defunct attraction without glancing back.
It still stung when she screamed at the sight (sound?) of him. And when he heard her voice tremble when she asked who was there.
He wasn’t going to bother to think about how it felt when her voice steadied and her shoulders relaxed when she called his name.
She took his hand (— again —) and he helped her walk out, rolling his eyes internally at the difference between Chen Qingqing’s backpack impression and the slow, pained, but constant steps of Zhang Fangfang.
She grasped his arm to lift herself on the bike, and he thought wryly that the only one who seemed off-balance at the end of the day was him.
And then his mouth was moving and words were coming out and she was on his bike, leaning against him, warm and small and unmistakably soft where her chest met his shoulder blades and he desperately (since when had he done anything desperately?) did not think about the fact that if he could hear every small gasp, every sigh, every squeak in her throat, then she could definitely hear his breathing stutter and catch when she squeezed herself against him.
Especially when he took off from a stop a little quicker than he absolutely needed to.
But that still didn’t mean he meant to dream about her — skirt pushed up to her waist, the buttons of her white shirt open, falling behind her shoulders, her thighs open around his, the weight of her in his lap, panting his name, every gasp out of her mouth echoing in his ears, too close to the real thing, too close to what he keeps hearing anytime the room is quiet enough —
No, he definitely didn’t mean to dream about her.
_________
(He didn’t mean to buy another helmet either.)
_________
By the time he scares off the thugs outside his family’s restaurant, it’s starting to feel like a pattern. It’s like she’s orbiting around him, showing up in the unlikeliest of places with her hair moving in the wind, skirt fluttering around her thighs.
Her sigh of relief — and really, when was the last time someone was relieved to see him? — fixes his attention on her, away from the thugs, and he has the stunning, fleeting thought that perhaps it’s him that’s orbiting around her.
She mentions that she works at the restaurant, and he almost smiles at the fact that, patterns be damned, this is starting to feel a lot more like fate.
He’s already given her the day off and told her to go home when he realizes that he’ll have to go back inside and waste a few more hours doing nothing once she’s gone, so instead he does the chivalrous thing and offers her a ride, wondering if chivalry extends to wanting to feel her pressed up against him from chin to waist.
_________
(He’s really, really glad that he bought the extra helmet.)
__________
He’s still not sure why he walks her to the door rather than staying on his motorcycle, but it’s worth it to tease her about her father’s nickname for her.
He’s not sure why hearing her call him her classmate surprises him – it’s true, after all, and it’s not like there’s another name for what he is to her. He’s the guy who gets her out of trouble, who sometimes gets her into trouble, who invents excuses to have her hold herself against him, who’s washed his sheets three times this week because he can’t stop dreaming of her in his bed, under his body, writhing on his —
Classmate is definitely the safest word for what he is to her.
He’s not quite sure why her father bothers to thank him, why her father bothers to invite him in for dinner, why her mother bothers to offer him the first bite of food, or why it kind of makes him want to cry when her mother promises to make his favorite foods for him next time.
He is sure, however, that being here, spending time in a house that smells like her, catching a glimpse of her bedroom on his way out the door, is punishment for moaning her name and fisting his hands in her skirt while he dreams.
_________
(He’s also sure that his jacket is going to smell like her when she returns it, and the thought makes him a little lightheaded.)
_________
When the damned song appears he makes the unilateral decision to go get shitfaced and hang the consequences.
He passes out seeing Xinyu, calling for Xinyu — but wakes up smelling Zhang Fangfang everywhere around him. She draped her sweater over him, drew a smiley face on her note, and the porridge is still hot when he takes a bite.
It tastes a bit like her mother’s cooking, a bit like acceptance, and the stale feeling of grief and guilt eases down his throat at the first swallow.
The longest skirt he’s ever seen Fangfang wear is hanging to her knees when he returns her sweater, and he doesn’t think about what it means when he feels the same swoop of arousal that accompanies the sight of her usual skirts near the top of her thighs.
_________
He doesn’t mean for Chen Qingqing to get hurt.
He yells a little, grabs an arm, takes the necklace, avoids the high kick, and reaches out to catch the falling girl.
That’s all he does.
The look that Fangfang — Zhang Fangfang, he reminds himself, they’re not friends, not after this — gives him from the bottom of the steps somehow feels like the opposite of the stupid little smiley face she drew him.
And that look was nothing compared to the one she gave him when he told her that this was none of her business.
_________
The punching bag is Situ Feng, he reminds himself, as sweat runs down his back and his pulse thrums in his ears. The person he’s mad at — the person he hates — is Situ Feng.
And finally the dumbass in shining armor arrives, angry as hell, and Yiyang feels a smirk curl the corner of his mouth.
If the thought flashes through his mind that Situ Feng isn’t the only dumbass who deserves a beating…well, he ignores it.
Introspection’s never helped him anyway.
_________
He has no idea why she tries to save him. To protect him from a few pieces of broken glass with her tiny frame.
He remembers her fear at the amusement park — a place where she would have been entirely safe had she not followed Chen Qingqing, he reminds himself — and frowns, the cut on the side of his mouth reopening.
He’s positive this time that this is what shame tastes like.
She can’t — she shouldn’t — expect any better from someone like him. He tells himself he’s done his best.
At least he manages to get Xinya out of the same room as Zhang Fangfang.
At least he can use the bathroom to escape being in the same room with her and the deafening silence they share for days on end.
At least he manages to warn her away from him, remind her that they come from two different worlds.
He just hopes that he’ll listen to his own advice. And since he knows he won’t…well, he has a plan for Situ Feng next time, and all it’ll take is a thumb drive and a bit of ingenuity, and Situ Feng and Chen Qingqing and Gu Nanxi and Xinyu and all the rest will finally stop haunting him.
And Zhang Fangfang will never want anything to do with him again.
_________
(He wonders what her mother will cook for her when she gets out of the hospital.)
_________
It works so well that it works before it’s supposed to work.
He wants to go back in time and make sure her arm never gets injured.
He wants to go back in time and never offer her his hand at the side of the swimming pool.
He throws his backpack on the ground instead.
_________
Taking Chen Qingqing out to a meal is showing his hand, he has to admit, but it feels good to be In Control again.
Explaining to Chen Qingqing how love gives you the power over someone’s life — for good or for bad — make him very glad that he’s failing literature, because he doesn’t need to be making any parallels to anyone sitting at a table waiting for her best friend and her — her nothing, he reminds himself — to return.
He didn’t mean for Zhang Fangfang to be there, but it’s almost scary how good it hurts to be the Big Bad Wolf in front of her again.
_________
Situ Feng is burning, and it feels good.
It feels good to watch Gu Nanxi and Chen Qingqing (of course) come storming in with a lot of talk and not one shred of evidence.
This is what he wants — drinking with his two idiots, reveling in their crimes, hating Situ Feng and the world and Situ Feng.
It feels good. This is what he wants.
This has to be all that he wants.
_________
(This is all that he gets.)
_________
“I’m not trying to get close to you.”
Hit.
“I’m just telling you as a regular student.”
Hit.
“You’re not an evil person to begin with —“
Hit.
“You should stop now.”
He doesn’t offer her a ride home. He doesn’t let himself savor the brief contact of brushing up against her as he walks away.
He knows she looks back as he walks away, waiting to see if he lives up to what she thinks he could be.
(Direct Hit.)
He wants to wish that she was even a little bit afraid of him.
_________
In the end, the only thing he can do is to send his two idiots away and walk directly into the fire.
He hates Situ Feng a little for taking a bit of the heat off of him.
He wishes he could hate him more.
He doesn’t.
It’s enough to make him smile.
So he confesses.
He’s sincere. It’s enough, he dares to think, to make even Zhang Fangfang a little proud of him.
She gives good advice, even when she’s sinking his battleship.
_________
He doesn’t go to the library to find her, but he finds her anyway. He can always find her, no matter how crowded the room.
He made her cry, and he can’t meet her eyes, and he doesn’t ask her if they can be “classmates” again.
But he asks for her help, he apologizes, he gives her a tissue, and he hopes it’s enough of a start that she’ll think of him as a human again.
He’d match Situ Feng’s abysmal math score with a smile if she’d think of him as a human again. If she’d give him that little smile she’d give him when she saw him, rather than crying.
He wants to dream about her again.
He wants to deserve to dream about her.
_________
She tutors him.
He knows he’s not stupid — a dumbass, maybe, but not stupid — but it takes some work, and he’s grateful.
He’s more grateful for the fact that she’s spending time with him voluntarily, but he’s grateful for the help as well.
It somehow doesn’t surprise him that she’s a firm tutor — just like in everything else, she refuses to let him get away with less than his best, and expects him to improve where there’s room to improve.
She sees how observant he is and puts it to good use, showing him how to draw patterns that have his literature marks soaring into the above-100 range.
She’s joking when she tells him that if he gets into the top 100, she’ll tell him what she’s reading, but he takes the bet.
And if he’s already seen enough of a line to find it later…well, she doesn’t need to know exactly how much his English has improved under her tutelage.
(She also doesn’t need to know that, four days into tutoring, he has a dream where she’s wearing the dark blue skirt from that first day in the library and Instructs him exactly how to touch her that makes him wake up gasping.)
_________
Of course the first time he calls her his friend is to his two idiots who are behaving like, well, two idiots.
The thought occurs to him as he runs after her that he probably should call her his friend to her face, rather than shouting it in a school hallway.
At least it wasn’t him that made her cry this time?
And friends hug. Friends hug all the time. Even Yiyang hugs his friends.
He can’t believe he waited till now to hug Fangfang.
If he could spend every day like this — hugging her, teasing her, actually having fun at school — then maybe all of the stupid hard things that have happened really did help him to grow.
Dammit, Situ Feng was right.
_________
They go out for coffee, they meet in the library to study, they eat in the cafeteria.
According to every book he’s ever read — something that’s been happening more and more recently lately — the next step is the movies, so they go to that too.
He tries to tell her how much fun it is being with her, how much he likes her — how much he’s allowing himself to like her, but the thought of saying that to her face makes him take a step back and tell her it’s nothing.
(If someone had told him at the start of the year that a small part of him would be a little afraid of Fangfang, he would have laughed.)
She asks if he liked the female lead and, hand to heart, he doesn’t remember what she looked like, but Fangfang smiles at his answer, and that’s good enough for him.
He’d swear on every holy book in the world that he didn’t mean to see up her skirt, and he wouldn’t even be lying. He just wanted to make sure she didn’t trip on her shoelaces — she seemed to have a habit of getting hurt around him, and he wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.
So no, he really didn’t mean to see anything. It’s, for once, completely not his fault.
_________
(And if his dreams about kneeling in front of her, lifting up her (incredibly short) skirt, and showing her exactly what his mouth can do include the mole on her upper thigh now — and always feature pink panties — well, that’s not his fault either.)
_________
He’s honestly not sure why girls pick on Fangfang — because she’s smarter than them? Because she’s quiet? Because she’s not an heiress? — but he doesn’t really care. He listens, he waits, and then he pounces.
He makes sure all of his threats praise Fangfang somehow — because honestly, she deserves it — and grins when she confirms his ‘special hobby’.
And damn, as much as he loves her miniskirts, he loves it when she plays along with his Big Bad Wolf act even more.
It’s that moment that he decides he’s finally going to just ask her to be his girlfriend.
Even if he’s a little too scared to look her in the eyes when he first does it. He can look at her when admitting his mistakes, when admitting he was wrong about them being from two Irrevocably Separate Worlds, when admitting he wants to be the person she knows he can be, and he can look at her when he asks a second time.
Her smile and nod feel like the kindest punch to the gut he’s ever received, and his breath whooshes out of him as he smiles back.
_________
(The cafe was not his brightest idea, but he consoles himself that it came from his heart.
He also reminds himself that he needs to tamp that shit down because he’s dating a girl with a hell of a brain and a possible kink for him in an apron.
He thinks he can work with that.)