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As usual, the entryway to Lan Jingyi and Wen Sizhui's apartment became an absolute pandemonium of shoes and coats as they all un-bundled and grabbed their respective slippers. They were all in high spirits, still thrumming with the energy of the concert. A-Qing danced her way to the kitchen singing Love Killa at top volume, despite Ouyang Zizhen's laughing attempts to shush her. "You think you're I.M. now?" she teased them. "Can't take me down!"
"Can't be! Little Mistress is the maknae in this group," Lan Jingyi teased, spinning out of reach as Jin Ling went to pinch him in the sides. "Sizhui, protect me!" he squawked, attempting to hide behind his partner despite the nearly ten centimeters he had on em.
Jin Ling rolled her eyes and squeezed past them both. "Little Mistress is calling first dibs on the bathroom so she doesn't have to wait through Zizhen's whole twelve-step skincare routine before changing to pajamas," she said.
There was a shouted hey! from the direction of the kitchen, twin cackles from Jingyi and A-Qing, and an amused-sounding, "It is rather involved," from Sizhui as she made her way down the hall. Sure enough, her makeup had run absolutely everywhere; she looked like a glittery raccoon. Jin Ling swiped someone's makeup wipes out of the top drawer and cleaned her face, then hurried through the shower and wrapped up in a big fluffy yellow towel from under the sink.
Jingyi knocked on the door while she was brushing her teeth. "You can come in," Jin Ling said around her mouthful of toothbrush and toothpaste.
Jingyi entered with an armful of cozy sweatpants and t-shirt for her and a smile on his face. "When I heard the shower, I assumed you'd decided to stay after all?" he asked hopefully.
Jin Ling spat out her toothpaste and rinsed her mouth. "You could not pay me to put those shoes back on tonight," she declared. "Thanks for the pajamas." Jingyi grinned and tapped his lips to demand payment before he handed them over. He really was too cute sometimes. "Besides," Jin Ling added, once she'd successfully completed the transaction, "Zizhen promised to cook breakfast for everybody in the morning."
"You know they just keep dumplings and mantou in our freezer, right?" Jingyi asked, stepping back to peel out of his sweaty clothes for his turn in the shower. "They're not, like, cooking from scratch or anything."
Jin Ling hopped up on the counter, making no pretense that she was doing anything besides ogling her boyfriend as he undressed. He waggled his eyebrows at her and cocked his head toward the shower. She laughed and waved him off — regrettably, the other three would definitely riot if they tied up the only bathroom for that long. "Scratch or not, it'll be hot and delicious, and neither of us will have to cook it. Now get clean and come snuggle me before the bed fills up," she demanded.
Jingyi serenaded her with, "ooooh let me be your fantasy," from the shower stall as she finished dressing and slipped out of the bathroom. She hung up her towel on one of the half-dozen hooks in the hallway and made her way to the bedroom to dive into Jingyi and Sizhui's outrageously large and impossibly plush bed. She snuggled into the mountain of pillows and enjoyed a few minutes of relative peace and quiet — or as quiet as it could get with Jingyi still singing in the shower and Sizhui, Zizhen, and A-Qing talking and laughing out in the living room. Jin Ling usually preferred to head home and sleep in her own bed after a group date, but tonight had been loud and exhilarating and absolutely perfect, and she wasn't quite ready for it to end.
Later, she'd get a few moments of private kisses and cuddles with Jingyi before the other three made their way through the shower and piled into the massive bed. Later still, they'd all fall asleep in a haphazard tangle of limbs that was sure to leave someone waking up with pins-and-needles or accidentally elbowing someone else in the face. Right now, she was exactly where she wanted to be.