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It happens when he’s walking across the quad, like some kind of teen movie cliche. One minute he’s just walking along minding his own business, and the next, the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen is asking him to sign a piece of paper.
He’s not Wei Ying, so even with the promise of getting the mysterious stranger to approve of at least one of his actions, Jiang Cheng reads it first.
It’s long, but the basic gist is that the school is building a new sports complex despite having zero titles or championship wins in the past twenty years and they haven’t replaced the lab equipment in just about as long.
The petition manages to both make an intelligent argument and heavily insinuate that the school had somehow put a curse on the sports teams by neglecting to keep the lab equipment updated. It’s awesome.
He signs it.
Not many other people have.
“Thanks,” she says, looking slightly confused. Possibly suspicious.
He opens his mouth to say…well. He’s not entirely sure, but it could have been intelligent. The world will never know because Wei Ying appears out of nowhere, as he is wont to do, and practically tackles her.
Fucking figures.
“What is up my delicate flower, my inimitable partner, the strictly platonic other half to my tragically misunderstood scientific soul?” Wei Ying asks, draping himself over her shoulders. She elbows him hard in the ribs and shrugs him off.
It’s impressive technique; if Jiang Cheng hadn’t been interested before, he would be now.
“If you aren’t going to help, get lost,” she says.
“Of course I’m going to help,” Wei Ying says. “When don’t I help?”
“Where’s last week’s lab report?’ she says.
“Psh,” Wei Ying says. Probably because he has no idea where last week’s lab report is, or what he was doing instead of handing it in. It’s amazing how he manages to just block out anything he isn’t interested in.
Wei Ying notices Jiang Cheng standing in front of him and drapes himself over Jiang Cheng, since the woman has removed herself as an option. Not a big fan of standing on his own, Wei Ying. Loves to lean.
“Here,” he says. “Jiang Cheng will sign, won’t you? Look at me, already providing support.”
“I already got him to sign,” she says. “You provide nothing. Our children wouldn’t starve, but they wouldn’t know you either.”
Love at first sight is bullshit, but Jiang Cheng is finding himself perfectly willing to fall in love over a reasonable time frame. Like, five minutes is reasonable, right? Teen movie cliche rules.
“Wen Qing!” Wei Ying squawks in protest.
So Jiang Cheng has a name to go along with the face. And some stories, if he thinks about it. Wei Ying loves telling stories about his super mean lab partner.
“You can’t steal credit for my brother like that. I have prior claim.”
“Finder’s keepers,” Wen Qing says, and Jiang Cheng hopes that they’re both too distracted by their banter to notice that he’s blushing terribly over Wen Qing theoretically claiming him.
So not cool.
“You couldn’t have waited five minutes?” Wei Ying asks.
“You couldn’t have been on time?” Jiang Cheng says.
“You don’t know that I’m late,” Wei Ying says, even though it’s pretty much a given that Wei Ying will be late.
Unless it’s something involving stalking that kid from one of his humanities requirements from freshman year. The one Wei Ying keeps referring to as his soulmate despite all evidence to the contrary. (Conveniently, that also tends to be the reason why Wei Ying is late to everything else).
“I know that you’re late,” Wen Qing says.
The basketball team walks past and Wen Qing (followed closely by Wei Ying) sets forth to get their signatures. Presumably because, as one of the primary beneficiaries of a new indoor facility, their signatures are seen as particularly desirable.
Jiang Cheng declines to compete for attention when he knows he’s going to lose and heads off to lunch alone.
After about a year of Wei Ying trying to institute regular game/movie nights at the apartment, with Wen Qing in occasional (reluctant) attendance, she almost always recognizes Jiang Cheng when she sees him.
Or. If he waves, she will normally wave back, even if he doesn’t have Wei Ying standing next to him to provide context.
It’s the little things.
So it’s with more anticipation than trepidation that he raises his hand to wave at her at the farmer’s market that’s roughly halfway between the apartment and campus. She is more likely than not to wave back, which seems like enough of a bright spot to be worth the risk.
Yanli’s engagement is back on to that asshole and Jiang Cheng is going to take the wins where he can.
Wen Qing doesn’t wave back.
Instead she walks over, speed walks, really, and wraps her arms around him.
“Uh—“
“So, hopefully you were waving at me,” she says. “But either way, I need you to be my fake boyfriend for the next five minutes.”
He belatedly drops his arm from where he still had it raised to down around her shoulders so he’s at least half returning the hug. He wonders if he should verify that she knows who he is.
“Please?” she says, sounding unsure for the first time since he’s met her.
“No, yeah. Of course,” he says. “I just—what?”
Nothing like sounding suave and intelligent in front of the love of your life…her.
“Less than five minutes, if you walk fast. The asshole in the green sweatshirt won’t leave me alone and I don’t want to turn it into a whole thing, I just want to get to class on time and not be convinced that he’ll be waiting outside the building when it’s time to leave.”
He tucks her in against his side, she fits under his arm perfectly. and starts walking. He doesn’t know her exact schedule, but he does know Wei Ying’s schedule, and it’s almost time for their shared lab.
(She always complains about Wei Ying’s work/study habits, but keeps signing up for labs at the same time as him and accepts him as her partner. She claims that they’re the only ones that fit in her schedule and she doesn’t want to bother meeting anyone else, but no one believes her anymore.)
“Wait, am I ruining your plans? Did you have something you desperately needed to get and they’re going to sell out before you can go back? Were you meeting someone?”
“I was leaving anyway,” he says, swinging the bag in his hand currently not occupied with Wen Qing’s shoulder. Apple cider and cider donuts. Wei Ying likes to call Jiang Cheng a basic bitch, but sometimes it’s fucking worth it.
Also: no one should allow Wei Ying to have opinions on food. Boy is a disaster.
Once they leave the farmer’s market, Wen Qing doesn’t shrug his arm off, or withdraw her own arm from around his waist, so he doesn’t pull away either.
They make it all the way back to campus, almost to the door of the science building, before she stops walking and starts swearing.
“I was supposed to get something to eat first,” she says.
Jiang Cheng holds a brief debate with himself, but gives in pretty quickly. He holds out his bag to her.
“I don’t know what’s in there, but I’m not taking your food,” she says.
It feels a little like trading with insider information, but it’s not his fault that Wen Qing has very little free time. Meaning that if she’s hanging out at his and Wei Ying’s apartment, hang-out time is doubling as mealtime.
Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng have a similar problem in that they plan to eat according to nutritional guidelines, but are easily foiled by baked goods.
He drops one handle of the bag and tips it so Wen Qing can see inside.
“Oh, fuck me,” she says.
Please, Jiang Cheng thinks.
“I hate owing people,” she says.
“You hate being hungry more,” Jiang Cheng says. “Honestly, if I let you walk away from me without a food source and then you murder my brother because you’re hangry, it’s going to be at least partially my fault. I won’t be able to live with the guilt.”
“Hmm,” Wen Qing says, and takes a donut when Jiang Cheng opens the package.
“Hangry or not, he’d deserve it,” she says.
“Probably,” Jiang Cheng agrees. “But he’s still my brother.”
She concedes the point. And absconds with Jiang Cheng’s reusable shopping bag of treats.
Well.
Maybe she’ll remember that Wei Ying is not to be trusted and she’ll give it back in person. Maybe she’ll remember to give it back.
If a bag and some snacks are what it took for Jiang Cheng to walk around with Wen Qing, alone for once, it was worth it.
Wei Ying wants to have a party.
It’s a Monday and Wei Ying has been assigned partners with Lan Zhan on some project for some class he shouldn’t even be taking, so of course, they all need to celebrate.
It’s a fucking miracle Lan Zhan hasn’t gotten a restraining order.
Jiang Cheng should be mad about it, but the idea of someone else being there to listen to Wei Ying yap on about his group project (giving Jiang Cheng a break from being Wei Ying’s sole focus of attention) is, honestly, the pinnacle of Jiang Cheng’s dreams right now.
So they’re having a party.
Well, Wei Ying calls it a party. It’s really just a handful of people, some drinks, and snacks. That the other people are hopefully bringing.
When Wei Ying hosts a potluck, he thinks providing the space is his contribution. Jiang Cheng drags Wei Ying to the grocery store and makes him buy all the name brand chips he can carry at once.
Then he steals Wei Ying’s credit card and buys ingredients for about five different kinds of dips. It’s just one of those days. Snack foods can totally be a meal if you’re dedicated enough.
All told, it’s maybe ten people at any given time (and at least two of them are forced to listen to Wei Ying’s Plans for the world’s most boring sounding group project).
Yanli forces Zixuan to carry a vat of soup to their third story walk-up, which is hilarious and inspires Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng to agree that they should always live in walk-ups.
Huaisang brings a cake with a very fancy “Get it” written in that weird gel icing you can buy in tiny tubes at the supermarket.
Eventually everyone has heard Wei Ying’s spiel and even he’s tired of hearing about it, so everyone sits in a circle and they play Never Have I Ever because apparently, they’re all about twelve years old. In the fucking nineties. (It was Yanli’s idea.)
Wen Qing got a seat on the couch, because of course she did and for once, things work out in Jiang Cheng’s favor, so he ends up on the floor in front of her, using the cushion she’s sitting on as a backrest.
He can feel it whenever she moves, and every time Wei Ying (off to the left) does something particularly egregious, Wen Qing has to lean over Jiang Cheng to swat at Wei Ying with a pillow.
He never wants the game to end, even if Jiang Cheng has to own up to all of his most embarrassing secrets in front of Wen Qing (if you argue that Jiang Cheng could lie, you have obviously never played Never Have I Ever with a sibling only days apart in age from you).
It does, of course.
End.
People drop out of the game, because no one plans their Tuesday classes around Monday debauchery or they get too drunk to focus because they plan All their classes around debauchery.
After Yanli and Zixuan leave, Wen Qing ends up with the whole couch to herself and she lays down, with her head on the cushion Jiang Cheng is leaning against. His stomach jumps every time he turns his head to the side and realizes how close she is.
“Never have I ever…” Wen Qing flexes her fingers and then frowns at her hands. “Shit. Do you have to start over if you forget how many fingers you were down?”
“Yes,” Jiang Cheng says, because the game Jiang Cheng is playing is actually called Spending As Much Time As Possible With Wen Qing. Everyone else has either wandered away or fallen asleep. It’s like a slumber party in here.
“Hmm,” Wen Qing says, like she thinks he’s lying. She doesn’t press the issue. “Never Have I Ever…wanted brownies this badly.”
“That’s not how you play,” Jiang Cheng says.
“I know, I just want brownies,” Wen Qing says. Jiang Cheng turns his head to the side so he can raise an eyebrow at her. She boops him on the nose.
“I’ve met your sister,” she says.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t know if this is meant as a threat (as in, “I will tattle on you to your sister if you’re mean to me/are a bad host”) or if the natural state of a relative of Yanli is owning the ingredients necessary to make brownies at a moment’s notice.
He boops her nose back to try and buy himself some time.
“There might be a very old mix available,” Jiang Cheng says. “If we look in the back of the cupboards. Are you sure I can’t interest you in some cake instead?”
She shakes her head and smiles and that is how Jiang Cheng finds himself sitting on the floor in his tiny kitchen, watching brownies bake through the oven window, next to Wen Qing at two in the morning.
“This is so sad, I’m going to fall asleep before they’re ready,” she says.
“Alexa, play Despacito,” Jiang Cheng says. She snorts a laugh before elbowing him.
“Why is your energy so old?” she asks. “That’s not even a joke anymore.”
“You’re one to talk,” Jiang Cheng says. “How are you supposed to make it through med school if you’re falling asleep while baking brownies?”
“I’m storing up,” she says, leaning against his shoulder. “Sleep now. Study later.”
He feels the moment when she actually falls asleep, letting go of that little extra bit of weight she’d been holding back on. Unfortunately, it’s only about two minutes before the timer goes off so he has to wake her up almost immediately.
She doesn’t make any sounds of protest, she just folds in on herself, now fully committed to sleeping while she can. Jiang Cheng has to get up and drag her out of range of the oven door before he can get the brownies out.
He sets them up on a cooling rack, puts a note on them that they belong to Wen Qing, and bullies Wen Qing into standing up. He tries walking her back to the couch. He has to actually take hold of her hips and push to get her to move.
Someone Jiang Cheng doesn’t know has taken advantage of their absence and set up camp on the couch. Asshole. Doesn’t matter. Huaisang’s woken back up and if Jiang Cheng knows anything about Huaisang, it’s that once he wakes up he tries to make a second party happen.
No one who’s sleeping in the living room is going to be allowed to sleep for much longer.
He redirects her down the hallway.
“I swear, if you don’t stop moving me—“ she says.
“I know, I know, last time,” he says. And has to actively try not to die at the disgruntled squeak she makes when she almost walks into the door before Jiang Cheng can reach around her and open it.
One of the established rules of having parties is that no one goes into Jiang Cheng’s fucking bedroom, on pain of death. Or, you know, Wei Ying never being allowed to host parties again. And chaos incarnate though he may be, Wei Ying does realize hard limits. Sometimes.
So, despite the fact that there are several people sleeping on the floor in the living room, there’s no one in Jiang Cheng’s room.
Wen Qing climbs into the bed and under the covers on her own, pulling them all the way up over her head. Seems excessive, but whatever. Jiang Cheng grabs a pillow and the throw blanket he’s always told Yanli was unnecessary and sets up on the floor.
He tries very hard not to listen to Wen Qing shifting around in the bed.
“Wait,” she says, sounding slightly accusatory. “You’re nice?”
“No, I’m not,” he says, and she reaches a hand down and swings it around until he reaches up and catches it. She squeezes his hand and shakes him off, reaching over to pat his cheek twice before withdrawing.
“Fucking nice,” she says, but fainter, like she’s not talking to him anymore.
When he wakes up the next morning Wen Qing is gone, but there’s a post it note with a smiley face drawn on it stuck to his face, and there’s a second post it smiley face in place of half of the brownies in the kitchen.
“He’s not here!” Jiang Cheng yells at the door, on his way to open it. Wei Ying has definitely, definitely been dating Lan Zhan for about a month now and Jiang Cheng is getting used to people showing up looking for Wei Ying when there’s no Wei Ying to be found.
It’s not that Wei Ying is a shitty friend, it’s that he has his priorities and that’s really just the one, and the one is Lan Zhan. So maybe he is a shitty friend.
Jiang Cheng is giving it another month, and then he’s staging a fucking intervention. At the very least, Wei Ying could bother to remember when he has plans with someone else and fucking cancel.
Lan Zhan, for his part, shows no sign of being annoyed or bothered by Wei Ying’s single-minded devotion so a break-up is probably too much to hope for.
“I’m going to murder him,” Wen Qing says, when Jiang Cheng opens the door.
“Any particular reason why?”
“Is he really not here?”
Jiang Cheng shakes his head and moves to the side so Wen Qing can inspect the apartment for herself. She collapses onto the couch.
“Ugh. He’s the one who wanted to get dinner and catch up, and then re-scheduled. Twice.”
So maybe Wei Ying is making an effort to cancel plans with people.
Sometimes.
“Yeah, he keeps doing that,” Jiang Cheng says. Wen Qing rolls her eyes to the side, like that’s already been covered and she doesn’t need his input. Which. That’s how conversations work. So.
Jiang Cheng thinks about his own plans for the night, and dismisses them as boring.
“I could eat,” he says. She raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re here to have dinner and hang out with Wei Ying? I could…have dinner with you. Can’t really help on the Wei Ying front.”
“I—” she says.
“As friends!” Jiang Cheng practically yells at her before she can tell him that it would be weird to go on a date with him. He doesn’t need to know that yet, he’s perfectly happy living in his little delusional corner.
“I knew you liked playing my fake boyfriend,” she says. “Alright. Feed me.”
They walk over to the main street that’s full of little family restaurants and settle on the diner because neither of them will commit to what food they want, except that Wen Qing absolutely refuses to go to the dumpling place and won’t explain why.
The diner is full, as per usual given how close they are to campus and the price of their food, so Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing claim stools at the counter, where they proceed to run their elbows into each other every few minutes.
He keeps waiting for the moment when he says something that she doesn’t think is funny, or is too mean, or just…whatever it is that Jiang Cheng normally does that people take offense to because he’s truly abysmal at putting together words that say what he means.
That moment doesn’t come.
She never looks over at him like she’s just remembered why she is more Wei Ying’s friend than his, or checks the time, or comes up with a reason to leave.
Instead she times her more scathing observations for the time most likely to cause a choking hazard (which he’s taking as further evidence of her twisted sense of humor, not a murder attempt, she’s more up front than that), and keeps trying to steal his fries even though she ordered a breakfast special and has hash browns.
He starts taking forkfuls of food off of her plate for every fry he catches her stealing and after about five minutes of That somehow finds that she’s managed to completely switch their plates.
She’s laughing against his shoulder at the look on his face and then she’s gone, walking across the diner to Wei Ying and Lan Zhan, looking like she’s never laughed a day in her life.
“Asshole!” she says. “I’m never making plans with you again.”
Wei Ying laughs from behind Lan Zhan, high-pitched and anxious.
“What’s today, again?” Wei Ying says.
“Whatever day you were supposed to meet Wen Qing, clearly,” Lan Zhan says. “We apologize.” (This directed at Wen Qing, like he speaks for Wei Ying now. Which…he basically does, but it’s still fucking weird.)
“Have dinner with us,” Wei Ying suggests, brightly, like he’s just had the Best Idea Ever.
“Too late,” Wen Qing says. “We’ve already finished.” Which Jiang Cheng takes as his cue to get the check and pay.
Wei Ying sputters when he sees Jiang Cheng there, like he’s the least likely person to find at the diner with Wen Qing. Like, he’s not completely wrong, Jiang Cheng is still a little confused about being here too, but Wei Ying doesn’t have to show it like that.
“Why are you here with my little brother?” Wei Ying finally gets out.
“We’re the same age,” Jiang Cheng says.
“Because he’s a better fake boyfriend than you are a friend, apparently,” Wen Qing says, tucking herself under Jiang Cheng’s arm the same way she did back at the farmer’s market.
“Don’t use my brother because you’re mad at me,” Wei Ying says, suddenly looking very serious.
For once in his life, Jiang Cheng doesn’t feel like getting into a full-on fight with Wei Ying over something. He makes eye contact with Lan Zhan and Lan Zhan gives a barely perceptible nod towards the door.
“So nice of you to assume I can’t make friends,” Jiang Cheng says, on his way towards the door. Because he can’t quite help himself. But it’s not the down and out brawl it could have been so, progress.
He should point that out to Yanli when she’s brokering the peace deal between them.
“I can’t believe you left that many fries on the plate,” Wen Qing says when they get outside, still tucked under his arm, against all odds.
“I can’t believe you said we were done eating,” Jiang Cheng says back. She nods.
“So we’re both bad at fighting,” she says.
“It would appear so.”
“I’m not—I’m sorry if it feels like I’m using you to get back at your brother,” Wen Qing says.
“I suggested dinner,” he says.
She doesn’t say anything back and they keep walking in silence, retracing their steps to the apartment because Jiang Cheng doesn’t actually know where Wen Qing lives. Nearby, presumably.
Maybe he should ask?
She pulls him to a stop outside of the dumpling place.
“Change your mind?” he asks.
“Ugh, no,” she says, but she pulls him inside.
“Who’s this?” the old woman who runs the place says. Jiang Cheng opens his mouth to answer, but Wen Qing beats him to it.
“Hmm,” the woman Wen Qing calls Granny says. “Isn’t he Wei Ying’s brother?”
Jiang Cheng stumbles over telling the woman that it’s nice to meet her because technically Wen Qing hasn’t introduced him and technically, they’ve met. Many times.
Not as many times as Wei Ying apparently, although it suddenly makes more sense why every time they come here Wei Ying gets handed food that isn’t on the menu before he even sits down. But this is still a spot they both regularly come to.
He can’t believe he never knew.
That’s embarrassing.
Wen Qing holds some sort of furious, but silent, communication with Granny and pulls Jiang Cheng towards the back when Granny starts laughing.
Wen Qing sticks her head into the kitchen for a minute and then she leads him up a back staircase to an apartment.
Her apartment.
Her apartment containing her little brother, some type of toddler sized cousin, and a veritable feast of the shop’s offerings from downstairs.
“We’re only supposed to eat the rejects during business hours, but A-Ning and A-Yuan are wicked talented at getting everything they want. They’re going to run us out of business,” she explains.
Jiang Cheng accepts the plate that A-Yuan hands him containing three mystery dumplings and a mystery bao. A-Yuan makes Wen Qing a plate as well and Wen Qing starts eating from it, so Jiang Cheng decides to stop worrying about where A-Yuan’s hands have been and eats his assigned second dinner as well.
Once Wen Ning distracts A-Yuan with his screen time, the conversation flows as easily as it did at the diner before Wei Ying showed up, even when Wen Ning comes back over and re-inserts himself into the conversation.
So it’s not all some ridiculous story Jiang Cheng is telling himself, he really is capable of hanging out with Wen Qing like a human.
Jiang Cheng could happily spend the rest of his life sitting on the floor of Wen Qing’s apartment (A-Yuan’s version of the family restaurant is picnic style), but after an hour Wen Qing is actively ignoring her phone and throwing nervous glances towards the door, so Jiang Cheng decides to make his excuses.
Wen Qing walks him all the way out, pushing him past Granny too fast to say a proper goodbye. But then, he had never quite managed to say a proper hello.
“I…had fun?” Jiang Cheng says, totally not putting off leaving once they’re safely on the sidewalk.
“Yeah,” Wen Qing says, almost smiling. “We should not-date again sometime.” Jiang Cheng nods, and gives a dorky fucking wave before heading out.
Not dating is definitely what he wants to keep doing.
Wei Ying makes more of an effort to be around, but he spends a lot of it staring at Jiang Cheng like he’s trying to fix something and Jiang Cheng doesn’t like that at all. If one of the two of them needs to be fixed it’s Wei Ying, Jiang Cheng is pretty sure.
Either way, Yanli’s wedding is fast approaching and Jiang Cheng throws himself into being helpful for that. Like, both families are throwing a lot of money at it, so there’s nothing he can physically do that they aren’t already paying someone else to do.
But he can go to the planning meetings and listen to Yanli complain about their parents and her future in-laws after. And if that lets him spend more time with Yanli And avoid Wei Ying’s concerned frowns (a seriously unnatural expression on him), than all the better.
In what feels like no time at all, the spring semester is wrapping up and Yanli’s wedding is upon them, on what feels like the least convenient weekend for a college student. Yanli insists that it’s going to be her only wedding so like, whatever.
There was a whole thing about a year ago where Yanli and Zixuan almost broke up over the actual wedding planning process which resulted in them going traditional with a very small, private, family only ceremony, followed by a reception for what feels like the entire fucking city.
Like, there’s your typical family and family friends. Then Yanli and Zixuan’s friends. Then distant relatives. Then every business contact of either the Jin or Jiang families (a lot of them are actually the same people, which is when Yanli said fuck it and stopped keeping track of how many people each side was inviting).
Actually. Yanli said fuck it and started inviting more neutral people, which is how Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying have ended up with a table of friends to sit with at the reception. Mom was pissed about it, but she didn’t find out until after Yanli had handed over a stack of blank invitations and she couldn’t very well un-invite people.
Anyway.
Wei Ying is off being distracted by Lan Zhan in a suit, like Lan Zhan doesn’t spend most of his time dressed like a middle-aged professor, but Jiang Cheng is grateful in this instance because it allows him to panic over seeing Wen Qing in a dress for the first time in fucking peace.
It’s not even a particularly interesting dress. It’s fairly simple and utilitarian, and she’s paired it with a pair of combat boots like she’s anticipating the need to kick someone in the kidney or make a run for it before the night is over.
He still wants to spend the entire night staring at her.
Alas, he keeps getting pulled into doing things. Mostly so Wei Ying doesn’t get pulled into doing things. Somehow, mom finds a way to blame everything she doesn’t like about this wedding on Wei Ying even though Wei Ying kept himself conspicuously absent for the entire planning process.
Ridiculous.
He doesn’t get a chance to just be until the dinner happens, and he’s across the table from Wen Qing, which is entirely too far away to get to talk to her. He’s got Wei Ying on one side and Huaisang on the other though, so it could be worse.
The DJ starts the stupid wedding games, like anyone in the history of ever has been genuinely entertained by them, and then Yanli disappears for an outfit change. No American wedding is complete without a fluffy white dress, apparently.
(“If they’re going to get into a spending war with the Jins and give me headaches over seating charts for years, I get to have multiple dresses,” Yanli says, when Jiang Cheng asks why she’s going dress shopping Again. She settled on three. One for the ceremony, one for the reception, and one for leaving. Except then she had to wear the ceremony one to the reception too so everyone could see it. Jiang Cheng hates weddings. So much.)
When Yanli comes back in, the dancing starts. First dance, father-daughter dance, all of the special themed ones. They go down the list until there’s only one left before it’s time for the DJ to just play music and leave everyone alone.
Which means, it’s time for the bouquet toss. Which Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have any feelings about, except they’ve decided to go all the way with all of the worst of American wedding traditions, so the bouquet toss will be followed directly by a garter toss.
Has Jiang Cheng mentioned that he hates weddings?
Get married, let everyone know you love each other, fine.
Stick your hand up your new wife’s skirt (in front of everyone) in order to grab and fling what is, in theory, part of her lingerie, at all of the male guests in the audience? And then said guest has to wear it around his arm for the rest of the reception? Fucking weird.
Wei Ying is, predictably, hyped.
He drags Wen Qing out with him, trying to convince her that she should be helping him get the bouquet, so that Lan Zhan can catch the garter, and then they can have a gay dance in front of all of the most conservative members of their community and no one will be able to stop it.
It’s not the worst plan Wei Ying has ever come up with, but he seems to have forgotten his plan to not rock the boat until he’s successfully avoided any and all student loans.
The toss happens, people cheer, and Jiang Cheng makes plans to disappear. But Huaisang has chosen violence today and grabs hold of Jiang Cheng. If it was just Huaisang, Jiang Cheng might have won, but Wen Ning suddenly decides to get in on the action and helps drag Jiang Cheng over to the new huddle forming for the garter toss.
Front and center.
Right where Jiang Cheng doesn’t want to be.
Yanli sees him and smiles, then looks past him, tilting her head to the side. She leans forward to whisper in Zixuan’s ear where he’s kneeling in front of her.
It’s really an image Jiang Cheng had never felt the need to see.
Zixuan turns and slingshots the garter directly at Jiang Cheng’s chest. Wen Ning and Huaisang high five behind Jiang Cheng’s back. What the actual fuck?
Wei Ying hurls himself at Jiang Cheng.
“Never fear, big brother is here,” he says, holding out a hand.
Huaisang pushes Wei Ying away, shoves the garter up around Jiang Cheng’s arm, and then he and Wen Ning push Jiang Cheng off towards the center of the dance floor where the other sacrifice is waiting.
It’s…it’s Wen Qing.
Jiang Cheng regains his balance from being shoved and twists around to look back. Wei Ying is trying to mime something, an escape plan maybe, and Huaisang has raised both his eyebrows like he doesn’t understand what Jiang Cheng could possibly be upset about.
Which like…okay. If he Has to dance with someone, it would be Wen Qing. And it’s not like there’s any other scenario in which it might happen.
So he should just be grateful.
But then there’s Wen Ning, behind the other two, giving a double thumbs up like this was all some kind of plan and Jiang Cheng hates being manipulated. He turns back to Wen Qing.
“Wow. Okay. Don’t dance with me then,” she says.
“Oh,” Jiang Cheng says. Whether or not there’s a plan, he’s benefitting. Wen Qing raises both eyebrows at him and he steps closer, steps within reaching distance. Holds out his hand. “I mean—I could dance.”
“Hmm.”
“Well,” Jiang Cheng amends. “I’m fully willing to dance with you, even though it’ll be a humiliating experience. For you! I’m not—I can’t really…”
Jiang Cheng is saved by the fact that the DJ starts up some godawful song that he’s going to have to have good memories attached to now, and Wen Qing condescends to take his hand. She steps up all close and personal and waits.
“Oh, you mean you like, really don’t know how to dance,” she says, when he just stands there.
There’s twitters out in the audience as they continue to not dance and Jiang Cheng can feel his face heating up.
“Okay, okay,” Wen Qing says, pulling his free hand onto her waist and placing her own on his shoulder. “They’re not expecting a dance number. We can go all middle-school on this song’s ass. Just sway with me. And now we think about taking a couple steps…”
Jiang Cheng hates just about everything about this. He hates weddings, he hates being in front of people, and he really hates being unprepared. But Wen Qing is holding his hand, and even though they’re slow, they’re moving in a way that doesn’t feel like it looks like an uncoordinated mess.
And the whole time, Wen Qing is smirking up at him, that one corner of her mouth somehow inviting him in on an inside joke they’re sharing apart from everyone else in the room, rather than admitting that they are the butt of someone else’s joke.
Someone takes pity on them and joins them on the dance floor and slowly, other couples filter in, filling the space around them, so they aren’t such a focus of attention anymore.
“Sorry, you were stuck with me,” he says, and she rolls her eyes.
“What, you think I want to dance with a stranger? I don’t even want to talk with a stranger. I hate people I don’t know,” she says. And then decides to outright murder him by changing her hold on their joined hands, the better to lean her head against his shoulder, tucking up against his neck.
It feels like it would be the most natural thing in the world, to drop a kiss on her temple, or to nuzzle into her hair.
He doesn’t do either, but he almost feels like he’d get away with it if he did.
“Not so bad, is it?” she says, when their time is almost up. And Jiang Cheng has to agree.
Two weeks after the wedding and they’ve entered that hazy time where classes and finals are done and internships and summer jobs haven’t quite picked up. Jiang Cheng has the apartment to himself, as is starting to feel normal, when there’s a knock on the door.
He doesn’t know why he’s expecting it to be her, but he’s not surprised when he opens the door to find Wen Qing.
“He’s not here,” she says, when she sees Jiang Cheng, but not like she’s mad about it. More like it’s a simple fact of the universe. He pushes the door open wider and Wen Qing slides in under his arm, off to claim the couch, as she is prone to doing.
She switches on the console and Jiang Cheng settles next to her, accepting a controller. They trash talk their way through three rounds of Mario Kart before Wei Ying answers Jiang Cheng’s text with a question mark.
A part of Jiang Cheng wants to call Wei Ying to yell about being a shitty friend to people, but more of him wants to hang out with Wen Qing. So instead of trying to explain to Wei Ying what it’s like to be continually cleaning up his messes for him, Jiang Cheng taunts Wen Qing into another round.
Good thing he does, because it’s the round he finally wins. Jiang Cheng throws his arms up to celebrate, turns to smile at Wen Qing, and finds Wei Ying and Lan Zhan standing there, looking bemused.
“Why are you…here?” Wei Ying says.
“Oh,” Wen Qing says. Reactions flit across Wei Ying’s face and he settles on confused. He crosses his arms and cocks his head at her.
“She’s here to hang out with you or whatever it is that you’re always planning on then standing her up for,” Jiang Cheng says, throwing one of the decorative (not for throwing) throw pillows at him.
Wei Ying bats the pillow away and holds up his phone for evidence.
“We had no plans,” Wei Ying says. He turns to Lan Zhan for support and Lan Zhan agrees. At some point Wei Ying must have started handing over his social calendar to Lan Zhan for safekeeping.
“Oh,” Wen Qing says, again. “My bad.”
She tosses her controller on the coffee table and gets up like she’s going to leave. Jiang Cheng has to fight the urge to literally fucking whine. Like an abandoned puppy.
“Your bad?” Wei Ying says. “You don’t have time to make up plans. Like, unless—no. You promised.”
Wei Ying shakes a finger at Wen Qing and, shockingly, instead of telling Wei Ying to fuck off, she blushes.
Jiang Cheng stands up because everyone else is and tries to get a better look at Wen Qing’s face. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her embarrassed about anything before. It has to be assumed that Lan Zhan knows everything Wei Ying is talking about. Leaving Jiang Cheng as the only one in the dark.
Great.
“What is he talking about?” Jiang Cheng says.
“Nothing,” Wen Qing says.
“She promised—” Lan Zhan starts.
“I’m not,” Wen Qing says, interrupting him.
“Then what are you doing?” Wei Ying says.
Wen Qing presses her lips together and glares at Wei Ying. It’s not a weak effort, but Wei Ying has been shrugging off Jiang Cheng’s glares for years. He’s immune to all visual forms of disapproval.
“Wen Qing?” Jiang Cheng says.
“Fine,” she says. “I want to kiss your face and go on not-not-dates with you, okay? Happy?”
Wei Ying starts squawking, but that fades into the background.
Jiang Cheng darts a glance at the hall and then back at Wen Qing. When Wei Ying turns to focus on Lan Zhan, getting his support on whatever ill-founded opinion he’s busy having, Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing make a run for it.
Wei Ying is quick on the uptake so Jiang Cheng only just gets the door closed behind him and himself braced against it, before Wei Ying runs into it, full tilt.
“You’re going to give yourself a fucking concussion!” Jiang Cheng yells through the door, but Wei Ying keeps hammering away. Jiang Cheng tries to roll his eyes at Wen Qing, but she’s busy looking anywhere but him.
“So…” Jiang Cheng says. “Care to elaborate on that kissing my face bit?”
Wen Qing punches his shoulder, but follows it up with stepping in and kissing his cheek, lingering until he gets up the nerve to turn to the side and kiss her full on the mouth.
Outside, Lan Zhan must be pulling Wei Ying away, because the door is no longer under attack. Then again, Wei Ying could be doing a full reenactment of The Shining and Jiang Cheng wouldn’t really care, or notice, at this point.
Like, he can die happy now. Whatever.
Eventually Wen Qing pulls away and brings over his desk chair to wedge against the door just in case and they do this whole awkward dance around the fact that the only place left in the room to sit is his bed.
“So…” Jiang Cheng says, as he gives in to the inevitable and sits. Wen Qing catapults herself towards the other side of the room (not terribly far, to be honest). “A not-not-date is a date, right?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come here,” he says. She makes a face at him and looks like she’s about to tell him to fuck all the way off. Then she pushes him back onto the bed and climbs on top.
Not what he meant, but sure.
He can go with it.