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Honestly, Ling thought, it was surprising that it had taken him seeing the notification pop up on Ed’s phone to understand what was going on with him, because in retrospective he was not being sneaky at all.
“Ah, no, sorry, I can’t hang out this afternoon,” he’d said the fourth Thursday in a row, “I’ve got to meet with my supervisor.”
Which was a rare as hell occurrence, given that Ed hated his PhD supervisor’s guts—allegedly, at least, because Ling had asked many times why he didn’t just ask for a change and he always got a grumble about how Dr Mustang was the only one out of those old fuckers that didn’t underestimate him for being only 20. Still, tsundere appreciation for his supervisor or not, he would usually avoid actual meetings with the man as if going to one too many would send him into an anger-induced coma.
Four meetings in a month should have straight-up sent him to the grave.
“Again?”
“Yeah, you know how I’ve started doing the experiments with the particle accelerator, so I need to check with him semi-regularly. It’s a pain in the ass.”
The next week, Ed had ended up saying, in between exasperated sighs, that the meetings were an actually scheduled weekly thing now, so Thursday afternoons were a no-go now for the time being.
It had been five months since.
To be fair, Ling hadn’t asked him to hang out on a Thursday again after that, and they did see each other plenty either way, being close friends and flatmates and all that, so it had eventually slipped his mind.
But it hadn’t been the only sign.
One time, when they were walking around campus, some girl with dyed hair, at least four layers of vintage clothes on and a Penguin Books tote bag had seen Ed and stopped to say hi for a couple of minutes. Ling had never seen her before, which wasn’t particularly strange even if they both shared the same social circles. And, besides, Ed had tensed like a guitar string the second that she had approached—maybe she was an acquaintance that he didn’t like much. But what had sent him for a massive loop was the fact that she had left with a cheery “see you in class!”
“She goes to your classes?”
Ed had paused for a second. “Yes. Why?”
“She looks our age.”
He was pretty sure that he would have heard by now if there was another prodigy in their university who was doing a PhD at the age that normal people would be an undergrad.
“She’s, uh, actually way older than she seems,” he said, slowly. “It’s because of her style, you know?”
Ling had cocked his head and considered it. “Yeah, I guess. Which, speaking of, what a way to break stereotypes, huh? I would have cocked her for a Humanities student, not STEM.”
Ed had let out a bark of laughter that now Ling, with the benefit of hindsight, realised had sounded so weirdly nervous because she probably had been, in fact, a Humanities student.
Ling thought of himself as a walking lie detector and honestly it was down-right embarrassing that he hadn’t given further thought to Ed’s flimsy excuses other than “that many meetings is a bit weird, but what do I know what PhD students do” and “Ed himself is a metalhead in STEM, you can’t judge someone by their looks.”
Now that he was thinking about it, he had even gotten a glimpse of one of Ed’s writing-practice sheets once, half-hidden under a pile of folders on his desk, when they were watching a movie in his room.
(But in his defence, his brain had probably not fully registered it. For one, he was exhausted after handing in one of the big essays for his International Law module, and secondly—he was too busy trying to play it cool as Ed had ended up falling asleep on his shoulder. Ed wasn’t that skittish with physical touch, but he definitely kept to himself when it came to physical affection, so this instance of near cuddling was a rare enough occurrence that it had Ling’s already poorly contained crush doing somersaults in his chest.)
Still, genuinely, how had he not given a second thought to the fact that Ed was busier than normal and weirdly evasive when asked what he was doing? How the fuck had it been the Duolingo owl the one to finally clue him in?
Ed walked into their kitchen with his backpack ready to burst as Ling had just finished having lunch and was idly scrolling on TikTok. He left phone, keys, and jacket on the counter and started talking about some stuff his supervisor kept pestering him about as he took books upon books out of the backpack—a typical trip back from the library; Ling didn’t even need to ask “what the hell.”
Then, Ed’s phone lit up.
“You got a message.”
Ed was holding a tower of books on his hands. Ling took a moment to appreciate how his flesh arm’s muscles bulged.
“Ah, that must be my brother. He’s coming to visit and he needed me to go pick him up.” He turned towards the living room table to put the books on it. “Read it for me, will you? I’ve got my hands busy.”
Ling was already looking over the phone as he answered, and his “yeah, sure—“ got cut off as his eye caught the second notification on the lock screen, under Alphonse’s text.
“It would be a pity to lose that 93-day streak. Keep practicing Xingese today!”
He blinked and reread it, feeling his view of Edward Elric warp around this revelation. He looked up at Ed, his braid swinging slightly in front of his back as he walked, and his throat suddenly felt parched.
Ed hadn’t said anything. Even though he obviously would have benefitted from one of his closest friends being a native speaker of Xingese, he hadn’t even mentioned that he had been studying the language for at least three months, if his Duolingo streak was to be taken as a metric.
His eyes flickered down to the notification and then back up at Ed, to his profile as he perused the book on the top of the stack and thumbed his lower lip. He probably had kept it a secret for a reason and Ling’s heart burned with the possibility of why.
His lips quirked up and he huffed fondly (maybe a bit lovesick, he would admit). He’d let Ed keep playing at this, then.
“Alphonse says that he’ll be arriving at Central in half an hour,” he said, after actually reading the text notification.
“Ah, cool.” Ed looked up at him and flashed him a smile. This was completely normal, but under new knowledge Ling had to contain a flush. “Thanks.”
After that, the puzzle pieces fell into place. Ling looked it up, and their university offered Xingese classes from 4 PM to 6 PM on Thursdays. The new course for beginners had started at the start of winter term and it was now May, meaning that Ed had probably been studying Xingese for around five months—those frequent meetings with Dr Mustang had been a farce, he’d known that Ed hadn’t complained enough about it.
Although it was unlikely that Edward would be fluent enough already to understand conversation speed, he did start taking care of what he said when he called his family in front of him. Or, rather, when he called Lan Fan, because he had gushed about Ed to her more than once with him present. While it wasn’t like he didn’t flirt with him on a regular basis—he’d called him the most gorgeous man to walk this Earth several times—he was pretty sure that despite his blushing, Ed took it as friendly joke. Ling didn’t want his actual feelings to get discovered on accident because he had underestimated Ed’s Xingese level.
So when he called Lan Fan to finally let it out, he did so when Ed was in lab.
“Oh, I knew that,” she said when he finished telling her.
“… You knew?”
“He asked me to teach him a bit a few weeks before I left for my internship.” She hesitated for a second before continuing, sounding apologetic, “He made me promise not to tell you because he wanted to surprise you with it. I would’ve told you anyway but he insisted he didn’t have any bad intentions. He even mentioned something about your birthday.”
Ling’s blood roared in his veins. He wanted to get out of their flat, find Ed wherever in campus he was at the moment, and kiss him senseless. “Lan Fan, be honest. Do you think this is a platonic thing?”
She took a couple of seconds to respond. “It could be. But I don’t understand why he would keep something like this a secret for this long if it was just a friend thing.”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t feel his cheeks from how hard he was grinning. “I thought so too.”
When Ed got back that evening, he asked Ling what he was so smiley about while he set to make dinner for the both of them.
“No reason,” he answered in a sing-song voice, but he could tell that Ed knew that he was up to something.
Ling checked the time on his phone for the tenth time. It was only seven minutes past six, but he had half a mind to climb the tree that he was leaning on to get to the Xingese classroom on the second floor and see what was taking so long. A trickle of anxiety down his spine had him worried that he had gotten the wrong building, but he had triple-checked the uni website. He couldn’t be mistaken.
Around the ten-minute mark, people started coming out of the entrance. He recognised the probably-an-undergrad-Humanities-student walking out. So that was another theory confirmed.
Not too long after, Ed came out, absentmindedly adjusting his back pack on the one shoulder it was hanging from while his eyes were buried in his phone. Ling felt a thrill of excitement at the fact that he hadn’t been noticed yet.
He approached Edward carefully and silently until he was right behind him. He didn’t dare do what he wished (lower his head until it was level with Ed’s ear), because he knew that Ed’s reflexes would react faster than he’d notice that it was Ling and he’d get metal-punched in the face—he’d sparred enough times with him at the Martial Arts club to fear that.
So, he contented himself with walking a meter from him and enunciating, slowly and clearly, in Xingese, “How was your class?”
Ed turned around so fast that that his ponytail sliced the air like a whip.
His eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets and his mouth fell open as he became rooted to the spot.
“Ling, where did you come fr—what are you—” he stammered for a few seconds, before a look of comprehension sunk into his face and he scrunched his eyes shut. “Motherfucker,” he cursed with feeling.
Ling laughed.
“Did you honestly think that you were going to keep it a secret forever?”
“Not forever, no. Just until August,” Ed sulked. Ling laughed again and he rubbed his face. “God-fucking-dammit. Did Lan Fan tell you?”
“No. It was… what was the name of the Duolingo owl again?”
Ed stared at him, pocketed his phone that still was in his hand and sighed. “Shit. Well. That’s what I get for using a fucking app for this shit.”
Ling hummed. “Well, you managed to hide it for five months, so that’s pretty impressive.”
“Eleven.”
He blinked. “Eleven?”
“I started last summer. Self-taught, though, so I didn’t get that far.” He shrugged. “The initial idea was to wish you a happy birthday in Xingese last year, but my pronunciation was absolute crap and I decided to study it for longer before, y’know.”
Nearly a year. Ling thought that he might have died.
“How far would you say that you’ve gotten now?”
Ed raised an eyebrow, some of his usual cockiness returning. “Pretty far. I scored the highest on the last test.”
Of course he had.
“So, do you think that you would understand this?”
With his heart in his throat, he pronounced the next string of Xingese words slowly and carefully. Ed frowned in confusion for a second before understanding entered his eyes and he started to flush beet red.
“I—” he started, and then huffed. He averted his eyes. “Yes,” he answered, and he didn’t get the tone quite right, but his accent was adorable nonetheless.
A laugh of joy threatened to bubble up Ling’s throat. He took the hand that was clutching the backpack strap, placed his other hand at Ed’s waist and crouched slightly to let his forehead touch against Ed’s.
This was a marvel of a moment and he wanted to savour it. His heart was beating so loud in his ears that he almost didn’t hear Ed snort as he likewise put an arm around him.
“You know, if I’d known it was this easy to get you to ask me out, I would’ve told you that I was studying Xingese ages ago.”
Ling laughed again (to tell the truth, giggled) and nuzzled his nose against Ed’s. He didn’t notice that he had closed his eyes until he heard his—now boyfriend—hum with the intention to speak and he opened them again.
“So, uh—“ He took a breath. “Can I… kiss you?”
God, yes, Ling was going to die.
“Did they teach you to say that in your university classes?”
“No, shut up,” Ed said, and he cut off Ling’s laughter with his lips.