Chapter Text
Sizhui loves his friends, he thinks warmly as he settles into his beanbag chair and watches Ouyang Zizhen and Jin Ling play an increasingly convoluted version of rock-paper-scissors(-fire-toilet-gun-geneva conventions.) He’s so lucky to have such cool friends who care about him so much and who are the best, funniest, awesomest friends ever.
Sizhui has only had a few sips of the two white claws Jin Ling stole from his parents and snuck in.
But he feels warm and happy and just a little bit looser than normal, which his scientific mind tells him might just be placebo, so he snuggles into his chair with his fuzzy blanket and a cup of cocoa from the tray he just brought in and thinks about how much he loves his friends.
The ensuite door opens, and Jingyi comes strolling out, sipping the rest of the white claw he and Sizhui were ‘sharing’, and scratching at his stomach in a way that makes it ride up and show his bony hip bones above his pajama pants. “Hey, a-Yuan, your baba’s definitely asleep, right?”
Sizhui looked at his phone. 10:37. “Yeah, he’s sound asleep by now.”
“Old man hours,” Jin Ling snorts. “Why is your baba so weird?”
“Why does your a-die make your a-niang kill spiders for him?” Zizhen immediately snipes back.
“Oh, Yanli! Yanli! This one is really big, I swear!” Jingyi jumps in with an entirely inaccurate but completely hilarious impression of Jin-gufu and hops onto the desk chair to get away from the imaginary spider.
“Shut up! My dad is not unreasonably afraid of spiders.”
Jingyi looks like he’s about to start in on Jin Ling’s fear of creepy crawlies, but Sizhui catches his eye and asks, “Why did you want to know if Baba’s asleep.”
“Because,” Jingyi draws out the second syllable as he sits down in the desk chair and gives himself a lazy spin, “I have something super cool to brag about. Remember how I had that magic camp reunion last weekend?”
Jin Ling snorts and Zizhen slaps a hand across the younger boy’s mouth to shut him up. They both nod.
“Well, there was this older kid from a few years ago who came! Mo Xuanyu. And I always thought he was super weird but then he showed me something awesome.”
“I can’t believe you lost your virginity at a magic camp reunion.” Jin Ling was free of Zizhen’s silencing, most likely by licking, if the way the other boy was wiping his palm disgustedly on his pants was anything to go by. “Wait-isn’t Mo Xuanyu the one who’s like…my cousin or something? Did you lose your virginity to my cousin at a magic camp reunion?”
“I think he’s actually your uncle,” Sizhui supplies helpfully with a frown tugging at his mouth. Jingyi wouldn’t-
“I didn’t sleep with him! Oh my god! He showed me his ghost.”
“That’s a weird way to say dick,” Zizhen snorts.
“No, it’s an actual ghost! Like, oooooo, spooky!” Jingyi wobbles his voice up and down and wiggles his fingers in front of him. “Apparently he helped him get his shitty aunt to move out. Actually, Wuxian might be a demon. I’m not sure. It was very unclear.”
Tension Sizhui had not realized he was holding flushed out of him at this explanation. It’s not like it mattered if Jingyi slept with someone. They were eighteen, and Jingyi was cute and anyone would be lucky to…It’s just that he didn’t want to be left behind while his best friend was out there having mature experiences with older boys.
Sizhui just does not want to be left out. He wants to be able to Jingyi about this stuff. Relate to him. That’s all.
“Prove it,” Jin Ling says with a frown. “If you know a ghost. Prove it.”
Jingyi sticks his tongue out at him and declares, “Fine! I will. I’ll get the ghost to come here right now,” as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.
“Are you going to text the ghost?” Jin Ling mocks.
Sizhui catches the look on Jingyi’s face that says he was very much about to text the ghost, and shoves his phone back in his pocket. “No! I was just making sure it was still…good ghost hours. Okay we all have to sit in a circle to summon him.”
Against his better judgment, Sizhui joins the other boys on the floor of his bedroom, sitting crisscrossed with his knees bumping Jingyi’s on one side and Jin Ling on the other. Jingyi reaches out and grabs Sizhui’s hand with his (bigger, very warm, slightly calloused) own.
Not that it matters what Jingyi’s hand feels like.
“Okay, everyone hold hands.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really, Jin Ling. Now shush and respect your elders.” Jingyi breathes in shakily as the rest of the boys join hands in the circle. (should Sizhui be scared? No. There’s no way a ghost is actually going to appear in his bedroom.) Then, he closes his eyes, the others follow suit, and says with gravitas, “Wuxian Wuxian….Wuxian!”
For a moment, nothing happens, just like Sizhui expected. There is no puff of smoke or rushing of wind. No demonic laughter. Just the four of them sitting on the ground holding hands with their eyes squeezed shut. Which is good. They’ll laugh about this, Jingyi and Jin Ling will bicker, Jingyi will insist that it’s Jin Ling’s fault and then-
“Jingyi, I told you to just text me. I begged you to just text me.”
Sizhui’s eyes fly open at the new voice in the room, and he finds a young man sitting on his desk. He looks to be a few years older than them, and has long black hair that’s pulled up into a messy ponytail with a red ribbon. His converse clad feet kick back and forth, nudging at the desk chair.
Sizhui is going to be so grounded.
“Wuxian!” Jingyi exclaims, far too excited and happy for someone who just summoned a ghost. “I wanted to summon you the right way! Texting is lame.”
Jin Ling’s mouth is hanging open and he looks two seconds away from shitting himself. Zizhen is looking at the ghost in Sizhui’s bedroom with curiosity.
“Jingyi, summoning is a ritual. There are rules. Which now we have to follow.”
“Oh.”
“So now we have to make a deal. I can’t leave until we make a deal.”
Jingyi pales. Sizhui grips at his hand tighter and he shifts in front of the other boy. He will not let his best friend sell his soul to a ghost-demon-guy. Not today. “What if we don’t want to?”
Wuxian looks at him, unimpressed. “Doesn’t matter. You summoned me, I came, we have to make a deal. So, what do you kids want? Money? Fame? Good grades?”
“Find him a prom date!” Ouyang Zizhen blurts out before anyone else can get a word in edgewise. Sizhui is horrified to find the traitorous finger pointed right at him. Even Zizhen looks surprised by his answer.
“No! I don’t need a prom date! Don’t find me a prom date! I don’t even want to go to prom! Why would you tell him to find me a prom date?”
Wuxian looks delighted. “Oh I love that. We’re doing that. Oh my god, prom date, I love teenagers. Okay in return I want…hm. I want chips.”
“Chips? You don’t want to like…buy our eternal souls?” Jin Ling asks.
Wuxian nods. “You guys are just kids. It would be fucked up to buy your souls. So. Chips. Salt and vinegar pringles. As many as I can eat until I find a prom date for…?”
“Wen Yuan.”
“What?”
“My name. It’s Wen Yuan.”
The other boys look at Sizhui like he’s insane. He hasn’t used his birth name in a long time. He’s gone by Sizhui since they all were old enough. His name isn’t even legally Wen anymore.
But like hell is he going to give a demon his real name.
Oddly, something complicated happens on the ghost’s face and he lets out a sharp, loud laugh that sounds punched out of him. Sizhui wonders if ghosts can have strokes. “Okay…Wen Yuan. You are Wen Yuan. I am going to find a prom date for Wen Yuan.”
Jin Ling has overcome his shock, clearly, because he starts rolling with laughter, absolutely cackling at the situation. Sizhui wonders if he can maintain his reputation as the mom friend and also murder his cousin violently.
Jingyi grips his hand even more tightly and looks panicked as he leans in to say quietly, “Hey, we don’t have to do this. We can find a way out of it. I can totally kick a ghost’s ass.”
As much as Sizhui loves his best friend, he absolutely cannot kick a ghost’s ass. Is Wuxian’s ass even tangible enough to be kicked? He could probably kill them all with a snap of his fingers.
“Wait, what day of the week is it?” Wuxian asks suddenly.
Jin Ling frowns at him. “Uh, saturday?”
Wuxian snaps his fingers and grins at Sizhui. “Great! I’ll need a day or two to formulate my master plan and then I will be back to help you out, kiddo.”
“Oh-okay?”
“This is going to be great, just you watch.”
Sizhui is going to be so grounded.
-
Nobody mentions Wuxian the next morning at breakfast with Sizhui’s baba, thank the gods, and Sizhui is allowed to eat his cottage cheese and peach in peace while his father watches his friends eat with the same vague horror as always.
(“Jingyi,” Baba starts slowly, watching the boy eat a horrendously large bowl of fruity pebbles. “Did you bring your own cereal from home?”
“Yep! Do you want some, shushu?” Jingyi shakes the brightly colored box towards him and Baba leans back a little.
“No…thank you. I don’t enjoy…pebbles.”)
The rest of the weekend goes by without event, none of his friends even mentioning Wuxian, and by the time he goes to sleep on Sunday, Sizhui has managed to convince himself that it was all a dream. A really weird dream. A dream! He is dreaming about the dream when he wakes to something tickling his nose. He bats it away and rolls over. The tickling returns. Allergy season is annoying as hell and sure, he’s awake, but there is no way he’s waking up before his alarm goes off. He rubs at his nose again, and his fingers tangle in the offending hair. He groans and brushes the long strand away from his face.
Wait. Sizhui has had the same haircut since he was twelve. It has never been long enough to tickle his nose. His eyes fly open and he immediately lets out a scream.
Wuxian’s smile does not budge an inch where it is hovering (attached to the rest of him) about a foot away from Sizhui’s own. “Good morning!”
Okay, it hadn’t been a dream. Realizing he just screamed at the top of his lungs, Sizhui looks panicked toward the door, expecting his father to burst in at any moment and find a ghost in his son’s bedroom. Sizhui is not allowed to have any pets bigger than their bunnies. He is one hundred percent certain that a ghost fits into that category.
He is baffled to find a glowing red…sigil? On his door. Wuxian follows his gaze and flaps a hand to wave away concern. “Oh, don’t worry about that. Just some ghost magic.”
So he’s going to kill Sizhui. He is going to kill him with ghost magic. He woke him up early just to kill him. With ghost magic. How wonderful.
“I’m not going to kill you with ghost magic.”
“Did I say that out loud?”
Wuxian tilts his head back and laughs. “No, you didn’t need to. You had the oh no he’s going to kill me with ghost magic look. The sigil is just to keep any sound from getting out of here.”
Of course that’s a look he’s familiar with. He probably kills people with ghost magic all the time. Sizhui sighs and rolls out of bed. Wuxian moves out of his personal space with a small and clearly sarcastic round of applause. “Yay! You’re up!”
“My alarm won’t go off for fifteen minutes.”
“Well, today you have important work to do! Which means you need to wake up earlier!”
“Important work?”
“Prom date hunting.”
Sizhui considers joining the circus. You don’t need a high school diploma to join the circus (he thinks.) He could go today. Learn to juggle. Swallow some swords. Anything but talk to a ghost about prom. “I’m not going to prom.”
“See that’s where you’re wrong,” Wuxian drawls out while he sprawls out on the bed. “You are going to prom and you are going to have a date. A good date. A good date who you will have a good time with.”
“Couldn’t you just stick me with a mediocre date and then be out of my hair? Zizhen definitely only said date, no qualifiers.”
Wuxian brushes a strand of his long hair away from his face using only his pinky. Ridiculous , says the voice in Sizhui’s head that sounds like his dad. “I could but I won’t. I have decided that I like you and want you to be prom king.”
Sizhui gapes at him. Forces himself to close his mouth. Gapes again. “I am not going to be prom king.”
It is a solid effort on Wuxian’s part to stay straight faced, but a torrent of giggles gives him away. Sizhui checks for the sigil on the door again, and finds it still in place.
“Okay, no prom king, but I do want you to have a good time. Nobody wants a shitty prom date.” Wuxian hops up from the bed and starts pacing around the room. “So, I’m going to go to school with you today and scope out the ‘spects.”
Sizhui stares at him, waiting for Wuxian to crack and admit that he is joking, of course he will not be coming to school with him. Of course Sizhui won’t have to explain to everyone why he has a 20-something year old guy with red eyes hanging around him. The admission never comes. Sizhui begs the universe for a laugh and it never comes because everything about his life is a nightmare. “How am I supposed to bring you to school? You’re not very inconspicuous”
Wuxian waves a hand and grins. He crosses his legs at the ankle in a way that does not seem as cool as Sizhui thinks he thinks it does. “Don’t worry, kid. Ghost magic.”
“Ghost magic?”
“Yeah, I can just make it so only you guys can see me. Nobody will know you have a super handsome demon hanging around.” He leans over to check his hair in Sizhui’s desk mirror while he says this, and Sizhui briefly wonders at the fact that he has a reflection.
Guess that’s just vampires.
The fact that nobody will be able to see Wuxian is comforting, but still, Sizhui does not necessarily want him hanging around at school all day. He seems like a chatty kind of ghost, and Sizhui does not want to be distracted from his classes. No matter what Zizhen and Jingyi say, he does not believe in slacking off even in his last semester of high school.
Senioritis is not a thing. Baba told him so.
“Do you have to come?”
Wuxian frowns at his reflection and continues messing with his bangs. “Of course I do! I need to see the teens! Get a feel for their vibe! Figure out who’s secretly harboring a deep and undying love for you!”
Surely all ghosts were not like this. “Nobody is harboring a deep and undying love for me! They just want to copy my homework!”
Wuxian rolls his eyes and groans, looking for a moment like he is asking a higher power for help. “A-Yuan. You’re a cute kid! I bet you’ve got a legion of admirers. Now, get ready for school.”
Sizhui starts pulling out clothes to change into before he realizes a problem. “Uh, I don’t want to change in front of you.”
“No problem!” Wuxian slaps a hand over his eyes and disappears.
“How can I be sure that you’re not just, like, looking through your invisible fingers and still watching me?”
Wuxian reappears, does not look impressed and does not remove the hand from his face as he retorts, “I’m not watching you change, kid. I'm creepy, not a creep.”
“Can you like, go in there?” Sizhui points to his small walk-in closet. “Please?”
Wuxian takes his hand away from his face to follow the point. Rolls his eyes. Disappears again. A few moments of silence, and then the closet door closes. Sizhui goes over and waves his arms around to see if he comes into contact with any invisible people, does not get laughed at for it, and decides he’s safe. He changes quickly and calls out, “Okay! You can come out now.”
“Speaking of,” Wuxian says as he strolls out of the closet, “Do you need to?”
“Need to what?”
“Come out? What are my options here? Boys? Girls? Neither? Both? Who are you into?”
“Yes! I mean, I don’t know! I’ve never really had a crush on anyone but I guess I’m…not…picky?”
“Epic.” Wuxian pauses then, seems to take in Sizhui’s outfit and hems and haws at him, walking in a circle around him and making noises at what he finds. “This outfit, however, is not.”
“I like this outfit!” Sizhui had picked out one of his go-to’s: dark wash jeans, a light blue polo, and a cream cardigan with brown elbow patches. He looked good in it. Crisp. Clean. Smart. “My outfit is fine!”
“No, your outfit is neat. You need to look cool if you want to be prom king.”
“I do not want to be prom king!”
Wuxian harrumphs and pulls a black plastic bag out of seemingly nowhere. He thrusts it out to Sizhui and shakes it a little. “Prom king or not, you should wear this. You’ll look cool."
And as much as he does not want to look for a prom date with a ghost/crossroads demon, Sizhui can admit that he is a pretty sharp dresser. His seemingly ever-present dark red leather jacket and black chinos make him look much slicker than Sizhui has ever hoped to. He takes the bag from him and rubs a hand over his face. “Fine. Okay. What could it hurt?”
-
Lan Zhan is having a stroke.
That is the only possible explanation for why when his son comes out of his room for breakfast, Lan Zhan wonders briefly if he has gone back in time and woken up on the morning of a high school sleepover. There is no way that his son, his sweet A-Yuan, is wearing that.
He blinks twice. The outfit remains, from the black skinny jeans to the worn My Chemical Romance tee to the purple flannel overtop. His outfit is far darker, far more relaxed, far more scene than anything Lan Zhan has ever seen him wear. His hair is even messily tousled. He looks like someone else’s son. He looks like-
No. Lan Zhan slams the lid on that mental box and puts it back on the shelf where it belongs.
A-Yuan looks like he is trying a new style today. He is eighteen years old. It is completely normal to want to experiment with one's style in one's teenage years. “These are not your clothes.”
A-Yuan cringes a little and pulls the flannel closer to himself self consciously. “No-ah-Zizhen lent them to me.”
A raised eyebrow as Lan Zhan takes a slow sip of his tea. “A-Zhen is five inches taller than you.”
A-Yuan flushes crimson. “Uh…yeah! They’re old. From a few years ago.”
“Mn. The vampire phase. I remember.” Ouyang Zizhen had spent approximately six months of their freshman year obsessed with Twilight, something that baffles Lan Zhan to this day.
“Exactly!”
“And now you are wearing this.”
“Haha-yup! Wanted to…try something new! Shake it up! Live on the wild side. Have some fun.”
Live on the wild side. The stroke theory comes to mind again. A-Yuan has never expressed an interest in living on the wild side. Or shaking things up. They, as a family, never shake things up. Routine is something they’ve always enjoyed.
Or maybe A-Yuan hasn’t. Maybe he has been longing for more excitement, for more fun, and Lan Zhan has not noticed. Maybe Lan Zhan has been too consumed with how he likes to live his life to notice that his son is different from him, wants different things.
This won’t do. Lan Zhan has long considered himself a good parent because he pays attention. He cares. He does not want A-Yuan to feel like he cannot express himself in his home, the way Lan Zhan had as a child.
He will fix this. He will be fun.
-
“Lan Wangji? Is everything okay?”
Lan Zhan twirls his pen between his fingers and taps it twice on his desk. “Mn. Everything is fine. I have a question for you. As a friend.”
“Okay…what’s up…bud?”
“What is your advice on how to be a fun dad?”
“A fun dad?”
“Mn.”
There is a long pause on the other side of the phone, during which Lan Zhan can hear something that resembles a choking sound. It resolves quickly, so he is not alarmed. “Lan Wangji am I a fun dad? Am I fun?”
This is an excellent question, which Lan Zhan knows he is not qualified to answer. In his mind, only one person has ever truly been fun, but Zixuan has friends, many people who enjoy spending time around him. He often spends time with the Jiang siblings. “I think you are likely more fun than me. Jin Ling is far more…effusive than my own son. Surely, this is in part due to your parenting. Fun parenting.”
“I don’t know if that’s me. Jin Ling is…he’s like a tiny Jiang Cheng.”
Lan Zhan does not want to ask Jiang Cheng for parenting advice. “I do not want to ask Jiang Cheng for parenting advice.”
“That’s incredibly fair. Okay, well, what did you do for fun when you were a kid?”
Images flash across Lan Zhan’s mind of climbing scaffolding, terrified for his best friend’s life as he scrambled up far too quickly, trying wine for the first time, falling asleep on the roof of the public library, shoulders pressed together and warm breath across his cheek. “I did what Wei Ying wanted.”
The pause that follows is not unexpected. He avoids bringing up his best friend and high school sweetheart for this very reason. All it does is bring shadows across the faces of the ones he holds dear. But in this case, it is the truth; what he did for fun in high school was whatever impulsive idea Wei Ying could manage to drag him into.
“Well maybe,” Jin Zixuan actually lets out a chuckle, “maybe we shouldn’t encourage our sons to do what Wei Ying would have done.”
“Mn. We do not want them emulating the time he punched his sister’s rude boyfriend.”
“Hey! We made up after that! I apologized!” Jin Zixuan protests. Another pause and then, “But yes, that is the sort of thing I was thinking about. Well, that, and climbing government buildings to stargaze.”
Lan Zhan is very glad that this is a phone conversation so Jin Zixuan cannot see the way his ears flush. Wei Ying had somehow managed to hide the fact that Lan Zhan often joined him on those excursions, claiming he didn’t want to get between Lan Zhan and his “ivy league destiny.”
Jin Zixuan pushes on, “Okay, I’m looking up fun dad and son activities. Fishing?”
“No.”
“Shooting range, gunna say a firm no to that one.”
“Mn.”
“Oo! We could go to my tailor and pick out fabrics for custom suits. That’s always fun!”
Lan Zhan wonders if he should call Jiang Wanyin. “I do not think that will achieve the desired effect.”
He can hear Zixuan’s cringe. “You’re probably right. Oh! Lazer tag!”
“Laser tag?”
“Laser tag! We should take the boys to lazer tag! We can get ice cream and stuff too. Nachos. Fun food!”
Ice cream and nachos are certainly fun. “Taking the boys to lazer tag is a good idea. I will contact Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen’s parents.”
“Totally. I’ll add you to the gcal event. Hey, look at us! Fun dads!”
“Mn. Please send me your tailor’s information as well.”
-
Sizhui’s favorite smoothie costs a whopping seven dollars, but when Jingyi sees the other boy walk into school on Monday morning, he can hardly miss the cash. Sizhui deserves this smoothie. Sizhui is hopefully going to take this smoothie and remember that they have been best friends for ten years and Jingyi messed up but it’s really not a big deal that he now has a ghost shadowing him!
Said ghost must have dressed Sizhui, because the outfit he is in is nothing like him. His pants are so tight and they accentuate his legs in a way that Jingyi has never thought his friend would enjoy. His shirt is rumpled and his hair looks like he just rolled out of bed and there’s a flannel straining at his shoulders as it was clearly meant for someone a little scrawnier than Sizhui and-
Is that mascara?
“A-zhui! I got you a smoothie!” Jingyi bounces up to the other boy, definitively not looking at the man who’s walking a few steps behind his friend and looking around the school with half of a smile. He thrusts the drink out to his best friend, a little bit of it spilling through the straw hole as he does. “It’s your favorite!”
Sizhui’s face is its normal calm half-smile but there are shadows of elevens between his brows and his arms are crossed over his chest, which means he is reciting sutras in his head to keep himself from slapping someone. After a few seconds, Jingyi sees the hard shell crack and his friend sighs as he reaches from the smoothie. “Thanks, Jingyi. I didn’t eat breakfast.”
“What? You always eat breakfast!”
“Yeah, my dad was pretty bugged out about my whole,” Sizhui gestures to himself, “So I just wanted to get out of there.”
Wuxian turns his attention back to the two boys. “Oh, I’m sorry, dude! I didn’t mean to make you miss breakfast. But you do look cool. Doesn’t he look cool, Jingyi?”
“He looks like Mo Xuanyu.”
Wei Wuxian gives a ‘fair enough’ frown and shrugs while Sizhui’s mouth drops open and he pulls the shirt even tighter. “I don’t want to look like some scene kid from magic camp!”
“Why is everyone so mean about magic camp?” Jingyi protests. Seriously, every time he talks about it, it’s like he’s telling his friends he streaked at an old folk’s home. Magic camp was fun! He likes going to magic camp! They’re all just jealous that he always gets the right card.
“Magic camp sounds cool.” Wuxian supplies, and Jingyi isn’t sure if that actually helped or not, because every time Sizhui is reminded of the ghost’s existence, he looks like he is reconsidering murdering Jingyi.
“Why are you here? Won’t people think it’s weird that Sizhui has an adult shadow trailing him around?”
Sizhui frowns and glares at Wuxian. Wuxian grins and holds up his hands. “Nobody can see me but you guys! Just the four of you. So, maybe try not to make it too obvious that you’re talking to someone else. People might start to think you’ve lost it.”
“Ah,” Jingyi flicks his eyes back to Sizhui even as he keeps responding to Wuxian, “okay. Makes sense.”
“None of this makes sense!” Sizhui blurts out and Jingyi feels bad. Getting mad, bursting out, glaring, none of these are the kind of thing Sizhui normally does. He is always the one with a smile and an optimistic take on something, always the one encouraging his friends to follow the rules and persevere. He hates being rude, hates breaking rules, hates raising his voice.
Jingyi should have just texted Wuxian. Better yet, he should have known better than to try and show off that he knows a ghost.
“I’m sorry,” Sizhui cuts through his thoughts with a smile. “I’m just stressed out. You didn’t…you didn’t mean to stick me with him. And…he’s not that bad.” He turns and offers a kind smile to Wuxian, who clutches at his chest.
“Oh no, you kids are so adorable. Not that bad? Really? That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about me in a while.”
Jingyi and Sizhui both hit Wuxian with sad looks and he waves them off, looking distinctly uncomfortable with their pity. Jingyi trains his face back into something more neutral but Sizhui, of course, does not, instead furrowing his brow further like he wants to figure out how exactly to fix this now. “You’re not bad, Wuxian. You’re…enthusiastic, and louder than I am, you chew with your mouth open, but so does Jingyi. And I wouldn’t trade Jingyi for anything. You didn’t even want to steal our souls! How could you be bad?”
“Aiyoh! Too nice for your own good! You need to watch out for yourself or someone is going to trick you into just giving them your soul because they said please.”
Sizhui is about to retort when a voice breaks through, sudden and loud and right behind Jingyi’s right ear. “When I was! A young boy!”
“Jesus, Zizhen!”
“My father! Took me into the city!” Zizhen is punctuating each phrase with a punch of his fist in the air now, and flipping his bangs like a true emo sensation. “To see the marching band!”
Wuxian is thrilled. He holds his hand out for a high five and Zizhen moves to return it but Jingyi thinks fast and throws his hand between theirs to intercept the congratulations. The My Chemical Romance fans look extremely affronted.
“Zizhen can’t look like he’s high-fiving thin air,” he explains, to looks of sudden realization.
“Smart,” Wuxian says with a snap and a finger gun.
“Nobody else can see him? That’s so cool. Hey, Sizhui, can I borrow him for AP lit?”
“You are not going to cheat on the midterm by using a ghost!”
“But-”
“Maybe if you had actually read the notes I already lent you, you would not need to borrow my ghost. Ridiculous!”
Jingyi watches Wuxian watch the two of them bicker, and watches as his expression changes from one of amusement to looking like someone just smacked him upside the head with a bag of bricks, and not in the way that Jingyi sometimes feels when Sizhui gets particularly fussy and worked up. Wuxian shakes his head and snaps out of it before Sizhui or Zizhen notice.
The fifteen minute bell rings and students start getting up from cafeteria tables and heading off to lockers and classes. The three seniors automatically start toward their own lockers, as usual, and Wuxian follows, starting to spout off questions.
“What class do you guys have first?”
“Zizhen and Jingyi are going to stats. I have AP music theory,” Sizhui answers.
“You’re in AP music theory? Do you play an instrument?”
Zizhen takes this one. “We all do! Used to all be trumpet players in band before we got to high school and these two switched to orchestra and abandoned me. But it’s okay. I adopted baby Ling-ling last year.”
“Ling-ling? Jin Ling plays trumpet? Wait, why are your lockers right next to each other?” Wuxian looks between Jingyi and Sizhui suspiciously.
For a moment Jingyi is confused before he remembers that Sizhui introduced himself as Wen Yuan. For lack of a good answer, he decides on distraction. “Ling-er is first chair trumpet! He’s like a weird little brass prodigy. Gets all the solos. Wen Yuan and I are so proud.” Jingyi wraps an arm around his best friend, resting his head on his shoulder and wiping away a fake tear, “Xiao didi works so hard to make his parents proud.”
“Stop calling me that or I’ll break your legs! You’re not my parents. I’m not even related to you. ” Jin Ling appears right on schedule, music theory workbook in his arms and ever-present scowl on his face. Wuxian looks devastated again. “Why did you bring that thing to school?”
Wuxian claps a hand to his chest and leans against the lockers in mock hurt. “ That?”
Jin Ling ignores him. “Why is the ghost at school? Did your dad see him? Did it teleport the two of you here? Did you drive? Oh god, you’re not stupid enough to have let the ghost drive, right? Why is everyone just fine with this?”
Sizhui starts ticking questions off on his fingers. “He said he needs to go date hunting for me. Baba did not see him, which is why I’m still alive. No. Yes. Of course not. Nobody but us can see him. Are you ready for class?”
Maybe Jingyi just has adhd but it’s very impressive how he managed to remember all those questions. Which is why Jingyi is staring at Sizhui. He’s impressed. His best friend is impressive and it’s fun to watch him be impressive with his memory and his eyelashes.
Wait-
“Yeah I’m ready. Let’s go before Shuzu makes us sight read in front of the class again. Fucking embarrassing.”
“I just can’t believe that you didn’t realize it was the entertainer.”
“Oh my god! I’m going to wear all of your socks. With sweaty feet. My sweaty feet in all of your socks.”
Jingyi smiles to himself as he watches the cousins walk away. The line of Sizhui’s shoulder relaxes while they bicker, and Jingyi can feel his own shoulders relaxing. He’s so caught up in their argument that he forgets that they should also have a Wuxian trailing behind them. He only remembers when he turns to find said man still leaning against the locker and jumps in surprise.
“Boo,” Wuxian deadpans.
The ten minute bell rings and the hall empties further. Zizhen is laughing at Jingyi and slowly starting to walk toward their classroom. “Come on, Jingle Bells! Let’s go to class!”
Wuxian is staring at him thoughtfully, looking very much like he wants to have a chat, so Jingyi waves him off. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a second.”
Once they’re alone (relatively), Wuxian turns and kicks a foot up against the locker, arms crossed against his chest. He talks to Jingyi while keeping his eyes on the crowded hallway. “I know you’re worried about him.”
“Me? Worried? Why would you think that?”
Wuxian raises an eyebrow at him and Jingyi flushes. He scratches the back of his neck and stares at his shoes. He feels caught in the act, though he knows there’s nothing wrong with worrying about his best friend. They’ve been best friends and locker neighbors since they were little kids. He knows Sizhui better than anyone, and Sizhui knows him. He has seen him get hurt before and knows that the other will do anything to avoid showing it.
Most of the time, people do not notice that they’ve hurt Sizhui. That’s why Jingyi has to work so hard to make sure he’s happy.
“I just want Si- Wen Yuan to have fun. He never lets himself have fun anymore.”
Wuxian snorts and nods like he is all too familiar with the habits of the Lan. “That’s why I’m actually trying here. I don’t want him to have a shitty prom and smile through it. He’s a good kid.”
If Sizhui has to be stuck with any ghost, Jingyi is glad that it’s Wuxian.
-
During lunch, Jingyi decides he would rather Sizhui be stuck with any other ghost than Wuxian.
“Alright, so, we need to discuss date options.
“How about Ming Lu? She got the best grade on your physics test. And she’s really pretty.”
Jingyi frowns. “Ming Lu dated Jin Chan for a while.”
“So?”
“Bad taste,” Jin Ling supplies. “But she is cute.”
“Okay, how about Matt Wilson?” Wuxian has an honest-to-god list in front of him, and he’s ticking names off.
“He made fun of me for eating tofu in fifth grade.” Honestly, why is Wuxian so bad at this? Why is he even trying so hard?
Any other ghost would just create a prom date without caring about how good the date was. They would not care if Sizhui liked the person. They wouldn’t be matchmaking for Sizhui.
And maybe it’s over protective of him, but Jingyi does not want his friend to feel pressured to have chemistry with someone! Wuxian is pushing too far! None of his suggestions have been even a little bit close to good enough for Sizhui. None of them know him well enough to know when he’s feeling overwhelmed. None of them care about the things Sizhui cares about. None of them are willing to pull the boy out of his comfort zone without pushing him too far.
None of them get him like Jingyi does.
That feeling of being on the brink of solving a puzzle is back.