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Ajax sighs. “Here.”
Zhongli looks up from his history notes. Ajax looks the same as he usually does, but there’s a bruise on his collarbone. Then again, Zhongli can only see it because Ajax never wears the school uniform correctly, forgoing the blazer and the tie for the sweater with the summer shirt all year long.
He’s holding out an envelope, with a disgruntled look on his face. It’s a rare expression, at least for him.
Zhongli takes the envelope and on the front, it’s written in neat print, To Zhongli, the Student Council President. Zhongli frowns. So it’s not from Ajax.
He flips it over and takes the letter out.
After reading through the contents carefully, it seems a girl from a grade below him wishes to talk to him privately, as she admires him greatly. Zhongli looks up at Ajax, whose arms are crossed, looking out the window.
“Ajax, did she give you this… to give to me?”
Ajax sighs again, rolling his eyes. “What do you think? Yeah, she did. What’s your reply?”
Ajax is the last person he expected to become some sort of errand boy. Most girls at their school are too intimidated to even approach him.
Hmm.
Zhongli doesn’t really want to go. He has an inkling of what the girl was attempting to say, and he has no desire of answering positively, but it would be terribly rude to not go at all.
Zhongli watches Ajax carefully as he says, “I’ll meet her.”
Ajax nods, completely unaffected. “Okay. I’ll tell her that.”
Ajax leaves, even though class should start in five minutes. Zhongli folds up the letter neatly, putting it back into the envelope and into his bookbag. He sighs, thinking about Ajax’s lackluster reaction. He shakes his head slightly.
No matter. He’ll speak with the admirer, and then he’ll talk to Ajax afterward.
The girl tries to confess to him. Zhongli lets her down gently, assuring her that he is far too busy studying, and as a third-year, he has far less free time than she does, and he doesn’t wish to be an unfulfilling partner. She flushes and accepts the rejection smoothly, and then it’s over.
Zhongli leaves the area of the footlockers and strides to the back of the school.
Ajax is waiting, of course.
“Hey,” he says, putting away his phone into his pocket.
Zhongli sets his bookbag down onto the table Ajax is leaning against, next to Ajax’s one, blue with funny little charms.
“I rejected her,” Zhongli says.
“Hmm. Did you find her cute?”
Zhongli thinks. She had small ladybug earrings and styled her hair into pigtails. She was shorter than he was, with a pink jacket over her school uniform. “In a way.”
“So, no.”
“In a way,” Zhongli repeats. “She wasn't my type.”
Ajax raises an eyebrow. “So you have a type.”
“Yes.” Zhongli doesn’t elaborate. He checks his watch. It’s 3:52 P.M., and they get kicked out at 6. He looks back at Ajax, who tilts his head at him.
Zhongli purses his lips. “Did you think she was cute?”
Ajax nods. “Yeah. I mean, she looked kinda like… a hamster. Reminded me of someone I should… protect? I get what you’re saying though. Not my type.”
Zhongli has nothing wrong with the fact that Ajax thinks the girl was cute, just that he now thinks Ajax should never speak to the girl ever again. He clears his throat. “What's your type?”
Ajax huffs a dry laugh. “I dunno. Someone who can take a punch.”
Zhongli looks at him. Ajax looks back.
The eye contact is weighty. Zhongli has an intense stare, he knows, and Ajax’s eyes pool an ice-covered lake.
“Punch me,” Zhongli breathes.
It comes like fire. Ajax socks him in the stomach before Zhongli can brace himself, but he doesn’t fall. Instead, he presses his hands against his abdomen, forcing himself to breathe steadily.
“I didn’t aim for your face,” Ajax says smoothly, “because I thought that poor girl would like to stare some more in the future.”
Zhongli is calm, especially for a teenager.
He wouldn’t say he’s angry when he charges at Ajax.
No, what’s screaming in his ears, what’s boiling his veins is something different. It’s not the red-hot scalding burn of rage. It’s not even pure adrenaline.
Zhongli tackles Ajax, barreling them both to the floor. Ajax responds quickly, and soon they’re sort-of wrestling, sort-of fighting.
At some point, Zhongli bleeds.
When he comes back to his senses, he’s bleeding from his tongue (did he bite it by accident, or was it from a punch?), and Ajax is below him, sprawled against the grass, trying to push him off. Zhongli, in response, straddles him and shoves his face against the dirt.
For a moment, they breathe, and they stare.
When they kiss, Zhongli wonders if Ajax can taste his blood. He must, he must, Zhongli forces his tongue in and Ajax sucks on it like he’s desperate. Ajax tastes like spit and fire and ice-cold pools, he kisses like an unrefined ore. Zhongli pries and pries, he needs to see the core, glittering back at him.
Ajax pushes him away, finally.
Zhongli belatedly realizes what he was feeling, before.
Ajax wipes at his mouth with his wrist. He says, voice hoarse, but jokingly, “gonna stick a gun down my throat?”
Zhongli blinks at him. “Do you want me to?”
Ajax shrugs. “Hey. There was a girl, we punched each other, isn’t this the part where we try to kill each other?”
Zhongli pauses. He understands that he must be missing something. In this case, a gun in Ajax’s mouth would be incredibly dangerous, but Ajax must know Zhongli doesn’t have a gun at all.
The cogs of his mind work relentlessly. A gun could be symbolic of something. Violence? They just fought. Perhaps it’s more surface-level than that. Other than what a gun can do, what is its overall ability?
The size… the shape…
Ah. It clicks.
Zhongli nods. “I understand.” He begins to fiddle with his zipper.
Ajax yelps and grabs Zhongli’s wrists. “Wh-what are you doing?!”
Zhongli pauses. “I… am going to put… my gun in your mouth,” he says.
Ajax stares and Zhongli blinks, and then Ajax bursts out laughing. “No, that’s not- oh my god, Zhongli!” He shakes his head, and Zhongli watches. Ajax isn’t bleeding, like him, but he’s blushing, and he still has that bruise on his collarbone. “No, no, I’m referencing Fight Club. There’s a scene where Brad Pitt has a gun stuck into this guy’s throat and-” he goes quiet very quickly.
Zhongli tilts his head.
“Actually, now that I think about it, it was pretty gay,” Ajax muses. “Sorry. Your tongue is bleeding.”
Zhongli is having a bit of trouble following, but he shakes his head anyway. “Ajax,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“Ajax.”
“What?”
“Ajax.”
“What?”
Zhongli kisses him, and he knows, he knows that he just wants Ajax to touch him, to look at him, to want him, even if it means he has to bleed.