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All around, today had been quite…odd for Chongyun. It all started when he was hungry after a few hours of combat training (after all, if he wanted to master the art of thaumaturgy, he would have to practice and practice relentlessly), which caused him to make the decision to stop by the Wanmin Restaurant for a quick meal.
And of course, as she literally worked at the restaurant, Xiangling was there. Sure, she and Chongyun were friends, but he knew better than to fully trust her. Her prankster streak was definitely one to rival Xingqiu’s—the number of times she had managed to trick him into eating a dish that was secretly spicy were uncountable.
He knew that he was taking a risk by deciding to eat at the restaurant in the first place, but Xiangling wouldn’t be that cruel to him, would she? Besides, the liang mian from Wanmin Restaurant was absolutely delectable. The hand-pulled noodles were chewy, the sauce was the perfect ratio of sesame oil to vinegar to soy sauce, the strips of cucumber mixed into the dish were always fresh and crunchy…Chongyun could go on and on.
To put it simply, no other place made liang mian like Wanmin Restaurant. Not even Chongyun himself could whip up a dish of cold noodles that were able to rival the restaurant’s.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem like she was planning to pull any pranks on him today. Chongyun knew Liyue’s rising chef pretty well; as she wore her heart on her sleeve, it was easy to tell what type of emotions she was currently experiencing (and besides, she had never been good at hiding them, anyways).
He didn’t really remember what they talked about whilst he was sitting down, waiting for Xiangling to finish cooking in the kitchen just right behind him. Their conversation was mainly filled with things mundane in nature, nothing particular of note.
That quickly changed when Xiangling had emerged from the kitchen and brought him the liang mian.
With a curious look on her face, she asked, “Hey, why isn’t the bookworm here with you today? Aren’t you two always together?”
“He has some business with the Feiyun Commerce Guild to take care of, an important meeting he needs to attend, if I remember correctly.” For some reason, Chongyun felt his face warm at the mention of Xingqiu. Brushing that aside, he idly watched as he twisted his noodles with the pair of chopsticks in his hands. “I’m meeting him later at Wanwen Bookhouse. There’s a new novel from the Yae Publishing House he’s been dying to get his hands on.”
He secretly wished that Xingqiu was with him. His company was always appreciated (even if he did try pranking Chongyun half of the time, it still made the young exorcist’s days more interesting); it always felt really nice to be able to talk to him (even if most of Xingqiu’s rants about the recent novels had read went over his head, Chongyun was more than happy to listen to his voice). Sure, Xiangling was with him, but hanging out with her was different from hanging out with Xingqiu.
Scowling slightly, he looked back up to meet her gaze. He didn’t like the suspicious tone she had used when speaking of him and his friend. “Xingqiu and I aren’t always together.”
His mind had not been able to wander from what had happened earlier. Chongyun was still able to recall the exact words she had said to him—words that had left him flustered, confused, and absolutely obsessed with finding any inherent meaning behind them.
“That’s a lie! You just said that you’re going to hang out with him later today, hehe! You guys really are like two peas in a pod.” Xiangling said, grinning from ear-to-ear. “You’re always with him because you’re clearly in love with Xingqiu, dummy!”
What did it even mean to fall in love with someone? What did it feel like to fall in love with someone? What did it mean to be in love with Xingqiu, someone who he had always regarded as simply just a friend?
Okay, well, maybe not just a friend…because if he was just a friend, then why did Chongyun harbor all of these strange feelings for him he so desperately wanted to ignore?
Maybe those strange feelings just meant that Chongyun really liked him as a friend. He definitely liked Xingqiu enough to consider him to be a best friend but as someone he loved? Platonically, yes, but Chongyun was pretty sure that Xiangling hadn’t meant what she said in that way.
Then again, maybe she had just been teasing him and maybe, no, definitely he had been overthinking this entire situation.
Ah yes, overthinking—a chronically bad habit Chongyun had.
After that little exchange he had with Xiangling, his face wasn’t just warm anymore; it was burning. If he wasn’t careful enough, he might fall victim to his excessive yang energy. Chongyun quickly realized he needed to get out of there; he slurped up the rest of the noodles on his plate as fast as he could.
He left his Mora on the table and being as polite as he was, sputtered out a “thank you for the meal” before dashing out of Wanmin Restaurant. Chongyun remembered that he could hear Xiangling giggle as he left, as if she knew something that he didn’t.
It couldn’t be true. He wasn’t in love with Xingqiu.
Chongyun thought of all of the “evidence” that could possibly point to him being in love with the other boy. Surely, that “evidence” pointed in the direction of him just…really liking him as a friend, as he had previously established.
Chongyun could feel his heart begin to leap out of his chest at the sight of his friend’s warm amber eyes. He wasn’t afraid to admit that he found the way Xingqiu could talk hours and hours about the things he was interested in to be an endearing trait. Hearing Xingqiu laugh at one of his stupid little jokes made him feel proud of himself. Every time he felt Xingqiu’s fingers brush against him during a sparring match he felt like he was about to faint, literally.
That sort of stuff was normal for best friends, right? If there was absolutely nothing peculiar at all about these feelings Chongyun often experienced, that meant that there was nothing strange about them. There was no way Xiangling could be right about him being “in love”.
Even if he sometimes wondered what it would be like to walk the streets of Liyue Harbor hand-in-hand with Xingqiu, even if he sometimes wondered how his best friend himself would feel about being more than friends, and even if he (an embarrassing thought, Chongyun had to admit) sometimes wondered what it would feel like to kiss Xingqiu, but that didn’t mean that—
Wait. It did mean that. It did mean that Chongyun was in love…with his best friend.
Oh, Archons. Xiangling was right.
But even after (somewhat) coming to terms with his (very not platonic) feelings towards his beloved friend, Chongyun knew that there was no way that he’d be able to confess. For one, he didn’t even know if Xingqiu liked him in the same way—and a crushing rejection was something Chongyun definitely wanted to avoid at all costs. Especially since that rejection could lead to the very thing Chongyun feared the most: him and Xingqiu no longer being friends.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized: why would Xingqiu like him, anyways?
He didn’t look anything like the dark-haired beauties he often spotted Xingqiu staring longingly at, with their pillowy, petal-soft lips and frost-touched skin. The way Xingqiu often addressed him as “dear” was laced with nothing more than brotherly camaraderie.
There was nothing really special about him (and Chongyun honestly thought he was rather dull as a person; not at all like the dazzling, theatrical personality that was Xingqiu), nothing that made him stand out amongst the sea of people in Liyue. The only thing particularly interesting about Chongyun was his excessive yang energy—and he considered that to be more of a curse than a gift.
Besides making him incopetent at his job as an exorcist by default, his excessive yang energy had made many things quite a hassle to deal with. He wasn’t able to live his life in the same way other people could, indulge in any guilty pleasures, no matter how seemingly harmless they were—lest he wanted to end up making a fool of himself.
So even if there was a small chance that Xingqiu did in fact like him back, Chongyun was sure he’d mess it up in some way; whether that was the fault of the overflowing yang energy he possessed or of his own.
It was basically a lose-lose scenario, hopeless and doomed from the start.
There was really only one option left; Chongyun would have no choice but to bottle up these feelings of his, and make sure that Xingqiu never knew about them. He would make sure that those pesky butterflies in his stomach would never see the light of day.
If he kept things to himself, then he wouldn’t get hurt—he’d never feel the burn of a potential rejection.
“Yun Jin is debuting her brand new opera at Heyu Tea House tonight.” Xingqiu mused. “He Who Wanders Untrammeled, I believe it’s called. It’s about the story of a young boy with dreams of becoming a heroic adventurer, but the stars had a very different fate for him altogether—a much more dark one than he would’ve ever dreamed of. It’s very different from the stories I prefer to read, as the boy doesn’t become a chivalrous champion for the people as he had once hoped to be—quite the opposite, in fact—but I’m sure it’ll be quite the breathtaking performance nonetheless; Miss Yun never fails to impress.”
After a brief pause, Xingqiu looked up from the book he was reading, eyes meeting Chongyun’s. “Would you like to come with me to watch?”
“Sure. It would be my pleasure.”
Xingqiu beamed, smile as bright as the glowing wings of a crystalfly in the darkness of the night. “Alright, that settles it then! Let’s head over there after I pay for these books. Ah, I can’t wait, this is going to be absolutely spectacular…”
And so when Chongyun felt his heart ache against his chest as he smiled and nodded along, like the sun dawning on a forlorn afternoon, it was no one’s business but his own.