Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.

Rin needs a drink.

Or five.

She wrings her hands nervously, very sure that the sweat accumulated on her lower back is enough to fill three buckets to the brim. In the kitchen, she can hear Auntie Fang murmuring swear words under her breath as she paces brusquely, the sound of pots and pans clanging together as she hastily prepares a meal for a guest she didn’t think existed.

“You look like shit,” Nezha says calmly, making her glare at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this pale before.”

“If you don’t want me to vomit all over you, I suggest you keep your mouth fucking shut.” Rin replies quietly, warily glancing at the doorway to the kitchen, in case Auntie Fang walks in.

“It can’t be that bad.”

“You don’t know my Auntie.”

“Come on, I know she’s trying to marry you off to a stranger but it’s just a dinner—”

“Runin!” Auntie Fang calls sharply, making Rin stand to attention. “Get in here!”

Nezha whistles lowly. “Okay, maybe you’re onto something. She calls you ‘Runin’?”

“Only when she’s pissed off. Which she is.” Rin mutters, wiping the sweat of her palms on her jeans before walking away, calling over her shoulder, “Break anything and she’ll turn both of us into mincemeat pie.”

Once she’s in the kitchen, she’s greeted by Auntie Fang’s glower, arms crossed over her chest, leaning against the kitchen sink countertop. She’s scared many a door-to-door salesman with that scowl, and being on the receiving end of it makes a shudder travel down Rin’s spine.

“So,” she drawls, “that’s the boyfriend you were talking about.”

“Yes,” Rin responds as evenly as she can, her mouth dry as a desert. “That’s him.”

Objectively, Auntie Fang is far from the scariest thing Rin has ever faced; she’d backtalked to her Self-Defense professor, Jun Loran, who’s made multiple grown men cry or piss themselves with his scathing insults and lived to tell the tale. She’d spoken to the shady dealers and smugglers that Auntie Fang hired, whose eyes kept lingering on places on her body that they should not have been without flinching. Hell, she’d looked the Governor of Arlong in the eye in Headmaster Jima’s office after she’d punched his son in the eye on her very first day at Sinegard University and somehow didn’t get kicked out.

That doesn’t make her any less terrified now—because Auntie Fang still has legal authority as her guardian to make her life a living hell. All because some idiot at the Nikan Registry Office fucked something up with her foster home documents, so Rin’s still bound to her by law until that mishap is sorted.

Hence, why she’s suffering right now.

“I certainly didn’t expect him to look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Good-looking.” Auntie Fang spits the word out like an accusation.

Rin tries not to bristle at that.

Of course, Auntie Fang is suspicious, she tells herself. This entire situation has come out of left field. Rin would think something ripped in the fabric of the universe if Auntie Fang didn’t question where this so-called boyfriend of hers came from, just after she tried to set her up with the Tikany’s town manager’s son for black market business opportunities. Even Rin would call bullshit from a mile away.

But there’s also an underlying implication that her tone holds that Rin would’ve never snagged such a beautiful and respectable-looking person as a boyfriend. Like the very notion of it is completely absurd. Who could ever imagine that Fang Runin, the scraggly Southern Sinegard scholar with a foul mouth and an even fouler temper would find anyone that would tolerate her, let alone like her enough to date her?

(If Rin were to describe Yin Nezha, however, ‘respectable’ is not the word she would not use—the word she’d replace it with is something she can’t say out loud without covering Kesegi’s ears.)

Auntie Fang has had no qualms about making what she thinks of Rin known to her face, but Rin’s pride still suffers a blow.

Rin bites her tongue to stop a vulgar reply. No use making this dinner more excruciating than it already is.

“What exactly did you expect?”

Auntie Fang doesn’t respond. Instead, she shoves a stack of plates into Rin’s arms gruffly.

“It’s your guest. You set the table. I am not your house maid,” she snaps.

“You’re the one who asked to meet him here in the first place,” Rin murmurs under her breath, annoyed, moving toward the dinner table.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, Auntie,” she replies through gritted teeth, arranging the plates and utensils on the dinner table.

In her head, she lets loose a litany of curses to whichever deity up there exists for punishing her like this.

Fuck Auntie Fang for trying to set her up with that ugly Tikany town manager’s son for her own illegal business.

Fuck Venka for suggesting this whole thing.

And fuck Nezha and his stupidly pretty face for agreeing to it.

~*~

“Get me another one,” Rin calls out to Venka’s retreating form before resting her head on Kitay’s shoulder. She’s downed three cans of beer in the last 20 minutes and she still feels more irritatingly sober than she wants to be. They’re lazing around at Venka’s apartment—a modestly-priced studio with a wide living room and a decent kitchen area, with cream painted walls and a wooden floor, furnished with the bare minimum of a sofa, a lounge chair and a coffee table, all paid for by the Sring family—after a particularly grueling midterm period, trying to recuperate from the mental beating all their professors put them through. Rin and Kitay are sprawled on the floor, Kitay busy reading some new journal article about aerodynamics on his phone while Rin tries to drown all her problems with alcohol.

“Aren’t you drinking those a little too fast?” Kitay asks, looking at her with a wrinkled brow.

“If anything, I’m drinking it too slow. Times like this makes me wish I hadn’t built up a stupidly high alcohol tolerance in the last three years.”

“Need I remind you of the mess you made at our dorm when you blacked out during our first-year spring break?”

“Must you bring that up now?” Rin grimaces, just as Nezha arrives. He looks at the empty beer cans on the floor with a raised eyebrow, before shrugging, toeing his shoes off, and settling on the lounge chair on their left.

“I spent two days nursing your hangover and a quarter of my vacation allowance for carpet cleaning. Excuse me if I still hold that against you.” Kitay snorts, still scrolling on his phone. Rin smacks his arm, groaning.

“Why are we talking about Rin’s first year atrocity?” Nezha asks, crossing his legs on his chair as Venka comes back with five more cans bundled in her arms. She tosses Nezha one before plopping on the couch, opening her own and sliding the rest over to Rin.

“Rin’s downing beers like the world is going to end tomorrow.”

“When is she not, though?”

“She’s drunk three cans in 20 minutes. She’s going to bankrupt me,” Venka says dryly.

“I see,” Nezha tsks sarcastically, and Rin holds her middle finger up at him.

“For good reason,” she yells, popping her beer can open with a satisfying hiss. “My Auntie’s about to sell me to the highest bidder. I’m celebrating my last few days of freedom: whether it’s because I get tied off to some creep from Tikany or get arrested for murder is yet to be seen.”

“Tied off?” Venka inquires.

“Yep. Tied off. Married. Exchanged for goods and/or services. Take your fucking pick.”

“You’re… gonna have to elaborate on that. What?”

“I’m going to become a damn investment, that’s what,” Rin says curtly, taking another sip of her drink.

“Okay, we’re not getting any good answers from her. Kitay, translate,” Nezha turns his attention to Kitay.

Kitay finally looks up from his phone, sighing. He curls his arm around Rin’s shoulder protectively and pulls her closer, stroking her hair.

“Rin’s foster aunt is trying to set her up with their town manager’s son. She’s demanding Rin come home the second classes are over so she can meet him over our break,” he explains, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“That’s awfully old-fashioned.” Nezha frowns, looking more bothered by it than Rin expected. His eyes train on her, wide and… worried?

No, that can’t be it. She’s seeing things—maybe the alcohol is finally kicking in. That’s good, at least.

Rin takes another drink, swallowing before clarifying.

“Auntie’s not really old-fashioned, just an opportunistic bitch. You know that illegal goods smuggling thing she has going on? She wants to further her reach, but she can’t do that safely unless some people in power look the other way. That’s where I come in, I’m guessing. Legal guardian authority and some other horseshit.”

“Can she do that? You’re already legally an adult.”

Rin groans, hating the reminder of her unfortunate situation.

“Give me another fucking drink.” She snatches another can of beer.

Kitay’s lips twist into a frown. “The foster paperwork disaster is still under investigation. I’ve already called Father about it to hopefully pull some strings, but it’s still gonna take a little while longer.”

“That fucking sucks,” Venka replies. “I can see why your aunt is rushing this whole thing while she still can.”

“How about ratting out your Auntie’s shady business to the cops? That’d solve it pretty quickly,” Nezha suggests, leaning forward. If Rin didn’t know any better, she’d say that he’s eager to contribute a solution to her problem. But she knows he’s probably just doing it so that if he fixes her problem, he can hold it over her head later.

Asshole.

“And force Kesegi into the same foster care system that fucked me over? I won’t get custody over him since we’re not blood relatives, and Auntie and Uncle Fang have never mentioned any other family that could take care of him. I’m not letting that happen,” Rin grits out.

“There has to be some loophole to get you to somehow get custody of your brother, maybe I can get Father to—” Nezha starts, but Rin cuts him off. She doesn’t want to owe Nezha or the Yin family anything—over her dead body.

“Even if I do get custody, I don’t have the money to take care of him. I’m a university scholar, my stipend barely covers my living expenses as it is.”

They all begin to throw out suggestions, each one getting wilder and more complicated after Rin and Kitay shut down the one before it. Then Venka holds her hand up for a pause.

“Hold on a second. You’re all overcomplicating this. The solution is simple: why not just say you’re dating someone?” she asks, crossing her arms.

“Because I’m not? Besides, even if I lie, Auntie Fang already knows Kitay, so having him pose as my boyfriend is out of the question. And I’m pretty sure she’d have a heart attack on the spot if I brought you home as my girlfriend… the South hasn’t exactly accepted that kind of ‘lifestyle’ yet,” Rin says, using her fingers as air quotes with a disgusted look on her face. “On second thought, her having a heart attack may not be so bad.”

“Kesegi.” Kitay says flatly.

“Right. Goddamn it.”

“There’s still another option you haven’t considered,” Venka drawls, a smirk curling on her lips, a glint in her eye that Rin equates with danger. She stiffens in Kitay’s hold.

They pause for a brief moment before looking at each other wildly. Then the realization sets in.

“Nezha?”

“Me?” They all ask loudly at the same time.

“Bingo,” Venka cackles.

“No, no, absolutely fucking not.” Rin sputters out, arms waving around so wildly that beer spills all around them. “Fuck no.”

“Watch it!” Kitay yelps, covering his head.

“I would sooner chew broken glass than pretend to be Nezha’s girlfriend,” Rin shouts, and Nezha gives her a dirty look.

“Oh, fuck off, it’s not like you’re getting the short end of the fucking stick here.”

“I’m pretty sure I am, Nezha. No one wants to be saddled with a jackass like you.”

“That’s fucking rich coming from you—”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it means, you bitch—”

“I’m going to take that beer can and shove it up your—” Rin snarls, clambering over to the lounge chair as Nezha bolts up, but Kitay holds her back, flicking her on the forehead.

“Enough, both of you. Good God, can we not have one day of peace?” Kitay says exasperatedly. Venka just observes them quietly behind her beer, a shit-eating grin still on her face. Rin gives her a glower.

“Rin started it—”

“Are you a fucking child?”

“Quiet!” Kitay orders, glaring at the two of them. They both shut their mouths but keep their sneers glued to their faces. He runs a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots frustratedly. “We’re trying to figure out a solution here, and you have to admit, Venka’s suggestion is the least convoluted option we have on the table right now.”

Rin and Nezha’s jaws drop, giving Kitay equally incredulous looks.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Nezha splutters. “What’s in it for me?”

“Rin owing you a favor,” Venka chimes in. Nezha’s head snaps toward her in interest.

Rin’s eyes widen in horror. She turns to Kitay, giving him a pleading look.

Kitay meets her stare with a shrug, trying for a sheepish grin.

The absolute traitor.

The irritation on Nezha’s face melts away into a smug smile, and he crosses his arms over his chest.

Rin feels like she’s about to throw up all the beer she’s drunk in the last hour.

“I’m in.”

Rin stays silent, stewing in the implications of what was just agreed upon. She feels like doing a deal with the Devil himself would have been less painful than the prospect of this.

Kitay claps his hands together with finality.

“I guess you two better practice being nice to each other if you want this plan to work.”

~*~

Nezha strains to hear Rin and her aunt’s conversation in their kitchen. The tension in the atmosphere has been palpable since they’d arrived, but it only seemed to get thicker the longer Rin speaks with her aunt. The only sounds he hears clearly are the sizzling of oil in a pan and the quiet shuffling of feet, the aroma of spices wafting into the living room. Nezha takes a deep breath and appreciates how good it smells. At least, the food might taste good—one thing to look forward to tonight.

He sits back on the old couch, taking in the layout of the living room. It’s a little cramped, the few decorations mismatched and cluttered; the couch linen is covered with water stains, the wallpaper is yellowed with age, the wooden floorboards have more parts of it that creak than don’t, and the television is a model that he’s pretty sure has been phased out for decades now. His eyes track the barren walls and realizes with a jolt that he’s looking for photos, or any memento that could hold some kind of sentiment: a framed art class project, a medal or academic certificates, even little trinkets from vacations, but he finds none, even for the Fangs’ real child and Rin’s foster brother, Kesegi. Given the way her aunt had spoken to her, however, Nezha isn’t all that surprised. There’s clearly no love lost there.

It's no wonder Rin had toughened up the way that she did at Sinegard. She must’ve had no choice, if this is the life that she had here.

He certainly didn’t make it any easier for her.

A long-buried guilt twinges in Nezha’s stomach.

He can admit to himself that he’d been a bigoted asshole to Rin during their first two years at Sinegard—so much so that he insulted her tutor and her skin to her face and got himself a black eye for it on their first day of classes. She somehow didn’t get expelled over a loophole that even his father couldn’t contest, but he’d made her life a living hell after the fact.

They’d spent such a long time at each other’s throats that Kitay and Venka had to stage an intervention when he stuck gum in her hair at the mess hall that forced her to cut it short, and Rin had almost stabbed him with fabric scissors in retaliation during a group project in their second year. They had begrudgingly called a truce when Kitay and Venka threatened to ignore them until they got their shit together long enough to finish the requirement, and their rocky, volatile friendship had sprung from there.

He'll never admit it because he’s a prideful dick to this very day, but he considers Rin one of his best friends. The number of times they’ve covered for the other and saved their asses cannot be counted, even if it’s under the guise of sarcastic remarks and dirty glares.

Which is why he’s sitting here and stewing right now.

That’s the only reason.

Yeah, right, a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Venka scoffs.

“Oh, shut up,” Nezha mutters, rubbing his face to get ahold of himself.

He’d been making fun of Rin for being so antsy, but if he’s being honest, Nezha’s a little on-edge himself. It’s why he resorted to teasing her, but the fact that she seemed too anxious to snip back at him is a bad sign. Pissing Rin off has always been a natural instinct for him, and she always, always takes the bait, if only to have an excuse to fight him, so seeing her undeterred by his insults is definitely concerning.

His head snaps up when he hears footsteps walking toward the living room, and is greeted by Auntie Fang’s severe face, schooled into a mask of neutrality. Rin is standing behind her, giving Nezha the most alarmed look he’d ever seen on her.

It seems like it’s time to play his part.

Nezha gives the most charming smile he can muster and stands up, holding out a hand for Auntie Fang to shake.

“Hi, my name is Yin Nezha. I’m Rin’s boyfriend,” he says pleasantly, adopting the tone he uses for professors and his father’s colleagues—the most artificial, fabricated amicable voice in the world.

Auntie Fang’s lips curl in disdain for a split-second before faking a smile, taking his hand in hers and shaking it firmly. Nezha immediately takes note of this—this woman likes to keep her contempt private. Whatever’s going on behind closed doors, she hides it well to keep up her image.

Disgust settles in Nezha’s gut. At least, when he was an asshole, he’d never tried to pretend he was a saint. But luckily for him, he’s dealt with plenty of people like that, even from his own family.

“So she said,” she replies. “I apologize for the food we prepared if it might not be to your taste. Rin didn’t call ahead to say she had a visitor.”

Nezha’s eyes flit to Rin’s for a brief moment, and he detects her loosing a barely audible, exasperated sigh.

Another lie, then, to make Rin look like an inconsiderate niece.

“That’s alright. I’m sure anything you prepared would be delicious. Thank you for still receiving me on such short notice.”

“The dining room is over there. Rin, call Kesegi and tell him it’s time for dinner, would you?” Auntie Fang nods briskly, turning around.

Rin’s expression doesn’t change, but a flash of panic makes her tighten her jaw.

“It’ll be fine,” he mouths to Rin behind Auntie Fang’s back.

She grimaces at him, unconvinced, but walks down the cramped hallway at the other end of the house, to where her and Kesegi’s room presumably is. He follows Auntie Fang into the tiny kitchen and dining room, and pulls out a chair right by the end of the table, settling in his seat. Auntie Fang observes his every move with a sharp eye, but Nezha isn’t fazed.

Go on. I’ve spent my whole life being watched; he snorts to himself, laying the prepared napkin neatly on his lap.

“Is anyone else going to be joining us?” he asks, eyeing the extra seat at the other end of the table with no plate nor utensils set in front of it, even though he already knows the answer. Rin had told him about her uncle, who’s high out of his mind more often than not, and how it’s Auntie Fang’s dirty little secret. She’s embarrassed by her husband, and often locks him away when there’s visitors.

Sue Nezha if he wants to make her squirm a little.

As expected, Auntie Fang looks taken aback, eyes glancing involuntarily to the living room as if something might pop up behind it.

“No, it’ll just be me and Kesegi. His father is out for a while,” she says in a clipped voice. Nezha hums.

“Kesegi, I said don’t run!” Rin yells from somewhere in the living room. The heavy footsteps that follow tell Nezha whoever she’s shouting at didn’t listen to her.

“But you’ve never brought guests here before, and now you have a boyfriend?” a boy’s reedy voice replies.

Auntie Fang’s eyebrow twitches in irritation.

“Kesegi!”

A boy that looked no older than fourteen skids to a halt by the doorway, all lanky limbs, tan skin and a wide grin, with Rin in the tow glaring at the back of his head.

“So, you’re Rin’s boyfriend?” he asks eagerly, and Nezha lets out a laugh.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Oh, he’s pretty,” Kesegi elbows Rin teasingly. “Prettier than you.”

Rin’s affronted look is something Nezha wants to photograph and hang in a frame, because none of his jabs have ever made her look as offended as she did right now, but Auntie Fang ruins their fun by clearing her throat and telling them to settle down.

“We shouldn’t keep our guest waiting, should we?” she says, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “Don’t act so rowdy, Kesegi. Have you no shame?”

Kesegi deflates, expression turning meek, and Rin puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.

Nezha feels a pang in his chest.

It seems like Rin isn’t the only person to suffer in this household. No wonder she’d been so adamant on getting Kesegi out of here.

Nezha and Rin share a look as she reluctantly takes a seat to his left, though now, her anxiety seems to have melted away, resentment taking its place as she watches Kesegi sink dejectedly into his seat.

Nezha resists the urge to glare at Auntie Fang as she removes the lid off the pot at the center of the table, revealing stir-fried noodles, offering it to him with a forced smile.

He returns it.

And so it begins.

~*~

The entire dinner is a held breath.

They all sit eating in silence, with Kesegi occasionally breaking it, asking questions about Rin’s term at Sinegard. Rin gives him short, vague answers, though she gives him a look with a promise of telling him more later. Nezha interjects his own answers, finding out that Kesegi is studying to take the Keju the following year. He offers his own pointers and tells the story of how hard he studied to pass the entrance exam himself.

Auntie Fang’s lips thin in disapproval. She’s made it known from the very start that she doesn’t want Kesegi to follow in Rin’s footsteps to study at an academy, despite Kesegi’s continuing interest in it. Rin’s not surprised, just disgusted—Kesegi studying in a university means one less punching bag for Auntie Fang and the loss of her only source of free labor left. She would do anything to discourage him from taking it.

Over Rin’s dead body.

Eventually, the conversation peters off until they’ve all cleaned their plates, but it doesn’t make Rin any less wary. Auntie Fang has been far too quiet for her liking—which meant she was still figuring Nezha out; trying to see his tells, the chinks in the armor to get him to crack and spill the lie.

When Auntie Fang sets down her chopsticks and threads her fingers together on her lap, the real interrogation begins.

“So, when did the two of you start dating?” Auntie Fang asks.

Rin tenses, looking at Nezha. They’d went over this in the two-hour drive to Tikany—so many times, in fact, that Nezha had said that if she doesn’t shut up, he’s going to put duct tape over her mouth.

Excuse her for being overtly paranoid, but Auntie Fang has the bullshit detector of a bloodhound—if she senses anything slightly off, she pounces and doesn’t let go until she’s caught you in a lie. Rin would be impressed if she wasn’t almost always at the receiving end of it.

“A couple months back. But we met in our first year at Sinegard. All of us had to take the same general elective classes before transitioning to our major subjects for our third to fifth years. That’s when we became friends,” Nezha says, embellishing the story a bit. Rin supposes it wouldn’t look too good if he says he called her Southern trash and she almost broke his face.

Not that she regrets it.

“Rin’s never mentioned you to us before. You would think that if you’re such an important person in her life, she would tell the people who raised her about you,” Auntie Fang presses, impatience seeping into her voice.

“Ah, that’s actually my fault. I asked her to keep it a secret to everyone because of my father. He’s the Governor of Arlong, and he has a lot of expectations. He wouldn’t be too fond of me dating anyone while I’m studying, but…” Nezha shrugs, holding on to that charming smile for dear life, it would seem.

(Rin calls bullshit. Yin Vaisra doesn’t even care to know what course his second son is taking, let alone be interested in his dating life. She’s pretty sure if Nezha drops dead somewhere, Vaisra would hear the news and shrug. Complete and utter asshole, only narrowly beaten by Auntie Fang.)

“Governor of Arlong? You mean Yin Vaisra?”

There’s a certain glimmer of eagerness in Auntie Fang’s eye. Rin catches on. Auntie Fang and her opportunistic tendencies are clear as day now; who needs a town manager when she has a governor on her side? —and Nezha’s leading her somewhere with this.

“Yes, that’s my father.”

“Well, that explains why you seem so well-bred. He’s a reputable man,” Auntie Fang drawls.

“Oh, he is.” Nezha nods coolly. “At times, I think he’s far too uptight with his policies. Enforces them to a T, wants everything done the proper way. He’s sent so many people packing for something as simple as deviating from proper procedure. But it does work—he’s been elected for his third term now, so I guess that speaks for itself?”

Rin could see the look in Auntie Fang’s eye change from that twinkle of opportunity to bitter resentment. Nezha’s made it clear that not only would he not be used as a pawn in her illegal activities, but he might actively screw her over if she makes the wrong move.

Rin could kiss him right now.

She wouldn’t, obviously. But she’s definitely never been this happy with anything he’s done until this moment.

Auntie Fang is clearly trying to recover, veering the topic away from his father. She asks more surface-level questions about their relationship, ones Nezha answers with ease, all the while looking completely calm and collected.

The moment she regains her composure, however, Auntie Fang hums, the sharp glint in her eye making Rin’s stomach turn. Every fiber of her body is screaming danger.

“I’m honestly surprised.”

“How so?”

“I’m not sure what you see in her. It’s just that Rin leaves much to be desired,” Auntie Fang quips back snidely. “Just look at her.”

Rin flinches involuntarily. Leave it to Auntie Fang to deride her in front of her guest—the fact that it’s Nezha only makes it sting even more, knowing what he’d once thought about her.

She takes a sip of water to quench her dry throat. Nezha looks thoughtful, as if figuring out an appropriate response for that.

“Well, you’re certainly not wrong about that.”

Auntie Fang raises her eyebrows. Rin chokes on her drink. Even Kesegi looks up with wide eyes.

What.

The.

Fuck.

He wouldn’t… Nezha wouldn’t throw her under the bus… right?

Nezha continues, undeterred by her glare.

“She’s the most hot-headed person I’ve ever met.”

~*~

“What the fuck did you just say?” Rin screams.

The first-year student looks ready to piss in his pants, his hands trembling as Rin looks inches away from punching the nearest person in the face.

Between him and Nezha, it’s a toss-up, really.

“S-someone, someone has paid for you to be handcuffed with Yin Nezha,” the first-year stammers out, holding out a pair of zip ties for Rin to see.

Nezha bites back a noise of irritation as Rin seethes beside him. She whirls to look at him, shoving an accusing finger in his face.

“Did you do this?!”

“Why would I want to torture myself by paying good money to be stuck with you? I’m no masochist,” Nezha drones, turning back to the terrified boy before Rin rips out a chunk of his hair. “Who paid for this?”

“A girl named Sri-Sring Venka?” he replies, stuttering wildly. Nezha lifts a hand to his temple, feeling the impending headache coming on.

Of course it is.

Who else could it possibly have been?

Only two people in this school aren’t scared shitless of a pissed off Fang Runin, and Kitay is busy manning the escape and destruction room booth for the next hour to do this shit.

“How much do we pay to not get handcuffed?” he asks, crossing his arms.

“We—we actually have a no—no cutting policy, so…”

Rin swears loudly, making the boy flinch. She gives him a glare that screams murder, and Nezha can tell that one sudden movement from Rin would make him bolt and never come back.

“How many hours?”

The boy genuinely looks like he wants to eat sand than to answer that question.

“The whole day package.”

“That fucking bitch!”

“I’m really, really sorry, but I have to do this,” the first year says feebly, and Nezha feels a pang of pity for him. He holds his wrist out and the boy wraps the zip tie around it with trembling hands. Rin looks seconds away from committing bodily harm, so Nezha snakes his hand around her shoulders to hold her in place. Rin tries to shake him away, but he holds her arm firm as the boy clasps the zip tie linking to his around her wrist.

“I’m going to fucking skin you alive.”

The kid scampers away, face pale, apologizing profusely. Rin makes a move to follow him, but Nezha yanks her back, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t take it out on the kid, he’s just doing what he’s told,” he sighs. Rin looks at their joined wrists like she wants to gnaw her own off to get away from him.

“I’m going to burn this university down to the ground,” she says through gritted teeth, glowering at the festive designs adorning the halls of Sinegard. Nezha is inclined to agree.

Sinegard Foundation Day is a yearly event at their college where they celebrate their university’s founding anniversary by putting up student-run booths, food stalls and festivities all throughout campus for everyone to enjoy, all marked by the school-wide rave that begins at nightfall. The booths come in a wide array of choices—there’s a marriage booth for couples to swear their everlasting love or some other sappy bullshit (for the first time, he and Rin hold the same opinion that it is the worst booth out of everything), there’s a jail booth where they call out a certain criterion onstage in the gym and anyone within the vicinity who fits it is chased by jailers and “arrested” and has to “post bail” to the wardens to walk free again (Nezha finds it incredibly childish, but Rin wanted to be a jailer if only to have a reason to tackle random people and drag them to a cramped room), a break-out room and destruction room booth, a karaoke booth, a dedication booth, and of course, the cursed handcuff booth, where people pay to have two or more people handcuffed together for a certain amount of time. It’s absolutely hilarious, they all thought, until he and Rin became the receiving end of it.

Lovely, really.

To pass the time stuck together, Nezha and Rin wander around aimlessly through the campus. He decides to just buy a bunch of food to keep Rin’s agitation to a simmer instead of letting it boil over—she’s not usually one to accept ‘handouts’, as she so politely calls it, but today, she seems to be determined to eat everything he buys them if only to make her suffering of being cuffed to him worthwhile.

After her fourth corndog, Nezha checks his phone and groans to see that only a couple of hours have passed.

“What?” she asks through a mouthful of food. He grimaces.

“It’s only been two hours.”

Rin chokes on her food and Nezha has to pat her back roughly.

“No fucking way.”

“What do we do now? We’ve literally tried every food stall here.”

“Find some scissors and get this fucker off?” she says, glaring at their joined wrists.

“We already tried. It won’t work—everyone was instructed not to remove zip ties or bring anything that can cut them or they’ll be forced to pay a fine. Everything is also color-coded, we have the red ones, which is why we can’t get these off until the end of the day. If we don’t show up to have them cut because we cut them ourselves, we get detention—Jima granted that as a punishment on grounds of disrespect of appointed authority, or something.” Nezha states, pinching his hand to the bridge of his nose. He has to commend the handcuff booth facilitators, they’re incredibly thorough, but it’s such a pain.

“We just haven’t threatened them hard enough.”

“Forget it, Rin. We’re stuck like this. Might as well make the most of it.”

Rin raises her free hand to her mouth and bites it, hard, letting out a frustrated, muffled scream.

Nezha sighs.

“Wait.”

Then Rin smacks him in the chest, eyes bright with… something he can’t place.

“I have an idea.”

She stands up and starts dragging him along somewhere. He objects, but she shushes him violently, giving him a nasty glare that promised pain if he tried to stop her. Nezha briefly considers the possibility of Rin finally deciding to kill him, and he wonders if that would really be so bad.

She leads him up two flights of stairs and three hallways before stopping in front of another booth with a line of people waiting on stand-by. The spray-painted sign read, ‘Break-out and Destruction Booth’. Behind the flimsy wooden counter is a familiar, freckled, wiry-haired boy arguing with someone who had just exited the room, before the person turns on their heel and stomps away in frustration.

Rin heads straight for him.

Kitay’s eyes widen when he sees them, then he lets out an amused laugh.

“Venka got to you, huh?”

“She’s in for a world of pain when we drink tonight, that’s for fucking sure.” Rin growls. “Are any of the breakout rooms free? I need to do something to distract myself from… this,” she spits, gesturing vaguely at Nezha. He glowers at her.

“Fuck you.”

Kitay shakes his head, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“All of them are taken now. They take so long to finish them, honestly. People keep complaining that the puzzles are too hard. Not my fault they can’t solve them—who doesn’t know the History of Taxes in Nikan?”

“You’re just a freak,” Nezha interjects. Rin snorts, before frowning again.

“So, there’re no slots for anything?”

Kitay takes out a detailed log book (because of course he does) and checks for the rooms’ availability.

“Nope, nothing. Sorry, Rin.”

Nezha sees Rin’s temper starting to flare again, and does immediate damage control.

“I’ll triple the price if you give us anything,” he rushes to say.

Kitay looks at him, appalled. “There’s a line for a reason! I can’t just let you do that, it’s unethical!”

“Fuck your ethics, this is a life-or-death situation for me. Rin is about two seconds away from strangling me.”

“I’m always two seconds away from strangling you,” Rin bites back. Nezha rolls his eyes.

“Nevertheless, just do us a favor. I’ll let you borrow the telescope model that I bought that I know you’ve been eyeing for the past two weeks.”

“This is bribery,” Kitay complains.

“For a month.”

“Nezha!”

He shrugs. “Are you in?”

Kitay chews on his lips and tugs at his hair, clearly considering it. Then he turns on his heel, whispers to another facilitator who nods and heads to one of the rooms.

“Tell no one about this.”

Rin grins at Kitay, giving him a one-armed hug that he responds to with an exasperatedly fond sigh.

Nezha and Rin are led to a classroom that’s bare save for the usual chairs of a classroom pushed to the walls, a glass cabinet filled with student workbooks, a tiny window, and a giant box half Nezha’s height in the corner filled to the brim with a range of different objects: porcelain plates, glasses, what looked to be old computer monitors and CPUs, then hammers, baseball bats, crowbars, you name it.

Rin looks like a little girl who found presents under the tree on Christmas day.

They were given a destruction room.

No wonder the price was so expensive. They went all out.

Nezha strides to the box and he and Rin carry an old computer monitor. Then, he lifts up a hammer, and hands it to her.

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“You don’t wanna take a crack at it first?”         

“You do the honors. Take the first swing. Just don’t aim it at me.”

Rin gives him a rare smile, eyes shimmering with glee. Something in Nezha’s chest jumps at the sight. She holds the hammer, testing its weight. Then she swings it full-force at the monitor.

The sound of shattering glass has never sounded so sweet.

When they walk out of the room two hours later, the poor person who had to clean their room up wonders how the hell he’s going to explain five broken chairs, a destroyed glass cabinet, and a wrecked window.

In Rin and Nezha’s defense, they should have put up a sign that told them they weren’t allowed to break them.

~*~

Auntie Fang’s brow raises higher, something akin to delight creeping up her face. Like a cat that caught the canary.                                                                        

“I’ve always noticed that about her. Incredibly rude girl.”

Rin clenches the chopsticks in her hands tightly to keep them from trembling.

She hears Nezha agree over the roar of the blood pumping in her ears. Kesegi gapes, looking back and forth between the two of them, half-bewildered and half-indignant on her behalf.

“Definitely. She’s so stubborn. It’s a constant headache.”

~*~

“You’re an idiot.”

“For the love of God, just fuck off,” Rin shouts, though she sounds a thousand times less intimidating with her stuffy nose and darkened cheeks, flushed from fever.

In fact, she looks worse than he’s ever seen her, which is saying a lot, because he has seen Rin go through hell and high water and still come out somewhat put-together, if a little disheveled. This sight of her in the middle of discarded tissues, strewn-about course notes, and a stack of textbooks while she’s wrapped in a blanket with a runny nose, red-rimmed eyes and shot voice is definitely a novel scene for Nezha.

“You’re going to die if you keep this up.”

“Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

“If Kitay finds you dead, he’s going to kill me,” Nezha groans, trying to pry the textbook away from her unsuccessfully. How the fuck does she still have an iron grip when she’s sick?

“Kitay wouldn’t kill you. He’s too nice for that. Venka might kill you in exchange for a new motorcycle, though. I would kill you for a bag of corn chips and a fountain soda,” she rambles, before turning back to the book.

“Wonderful. Now, can you please get your ass up and haul yourself to bed?”

“No.”

“Rin.”

“Fuck you.”

“Rin.”

“I need to study!” she yells, before dissolving into a coughing fit. Nezha rolls his eyes and flicks her on the forehead before handing her a glass of water.

“For what? The Advanced Physics test was three days ago!”

“Yeah, and I got a 97.”

Nezha’s eye twitches, irritation finally catching up to him. He looks up briefly, praying to any deities that exist to give him a tremendous amount of patience.

“That’s an A+. Kitay got a 100. Big whoop.”

“And you got a 98,” she spits out, like the very statement is vile to her.

She’s got to be fucking kidding him.

Nezha gives her an annoyed glare.

“You’re studying to beat me when you have one foot in the grave?”

“You’re being so overdramatic right now.”

“Say that to me without sounding like the Grinch who stole Christmas, then I’ll believe you.”

“You are such an asshole.”

“Oh, fuck this,” Nezha mutters, before lunging for Rin. She screams, both of them tumbling off the sofa and onto the floor. Rin thrashes underneath him, calling him every obscenity under the sun, but they’ve fought many times before and with Rin not having her usual strength, Nezha manages to easily pin her arms and climb over her.

“Nezha!”

“You are going to lay in your bed, choke down Paracetamol and fucking rest, or I will take that tape measure and use it to tie you to your bed frame.”

“Get the fuck off of me!”

Nezha shifts, pressing his weight on her, getting in her face to piss her off even more.

“Say you’ll rest, and I’ll get off of you.”

“Why the fuck do you even care?! I said, get off!”

“No, not until you say you’ll rest.”

“Nezha!”

“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out,” he replies, giving her a smug smile.

“I’m going to beat your ass.”

“Before, or after you escape? Because you can’t seem to do that right now.”

After several minutes of struggling, Rin finally angrily concedes. Nezha gets off of her and helps her gets up, not taking his arms off of her until she’s shuffled to her room and got in bed. Then he stands up to leave the room, when she grabs his wrist. Her skin is hot to the touch, and Nezha’s traitorous worry he’s forced himself to ignore unfurls in his chest.

“Where are you going?”

“To your kitchen.”

“There’s no food there. I hadn’t gotten around to getting groceries yet.”

“If you cared enough to listen instead of telling me to fuck off and wrestling me, I said that I brought soup, I’m just going to heat it up.”

Rin has no rebuttal to that, so she just crosses her arms and scowls at him. Nezha coughs into his hand, disguising a laugh before pausing.

“Wait. You have no food in the pantry? What the fuck have you been eating then?”

She shrugs. Nezha gives her an impatient look.

“You’re not right in the head, Rin. Fuck.”

“You know, jackass, I can take care of myself. I’ve been sick before pre-Kitay and lived off of cup noodles and Benadryl.”

“That’s not… I don’t even want to know.”

Nezha stalks out of the room and heads straight for the kitchen, sighing out of frustration, as he pours the soup into a bowl and slams the microwave shut, setting a timer for two minutes. He has half a mind to do what she wants and just leave her, but he can’t stop the stupid concern gnawing every time he hears her cough from her room.

God, she really is such an idiot. A child wouldn’t have given him this much trouble, that’s for fucking sure—he would know, he’d taken care of Mingzha numerous times before. Then again, Mingzha didn’t hate his guts, so he supposes that made things a little easier.

As he waits for the timer to ding, Nezha grabs his bag and takes out the hand towel he’d brought. He soaks it with the cool tap water at the kitchen sink, wringing it of the excess water. Fever relief pads would have been preferable, but Nezha had rushed over the moment Kitay called, bringing only the things he thought of from the top of his head, and forgot to stop and buy some at the drug store.

Then, Nezha takes out the fever medicine and puts the tablets on a tiny dish.

When the microwave rings, Nezha takes the bowl of soup out and places it on a tray before getting water from the fridge. Rin wasn’t lying when she said there’s no food—there were only a couple of granola bars, one of which was open and half-eaten, and a pitcher of water. He makes a mental note to restock her fridge and pantry while she’s asleep so she doesn’t throw a plate at his head.

Then he pauses, wondering what the fuck is wrong with him. He’s going to go grocery shopping for her now?

“Pull yourself together, idiot.”

Nezha shakes his head, but the thought of it lingers nonetheless. He sighs.

Well, he was overdue to go grocery shopping, anyway. He’s out of… coffee.

(Coffee? Really? That’s the best he can do? He doesn’t even fucking drink coffee.)

He picks up the tray and heads back to Rin’s room, and honestly, he really shouldn’t have been surprised to find Rin sitting up, who somehow managed to get her Advanced Physics textbook from his hiding place.

“Absolutely not,” he says, placing the tray on her bedside drawer and snatching the textbook in one fell swoop.

Surprisingly, Rin doesn’t object, only looking at him with resentful eyes.

“You just don’t want me to beat you.”

“You’re not going to beat me by studying with a cold. Now shut the fuck up and eat this.”

Nezha hands over the bowl and Rin swipes the spoon aggressively, looking half-afraid that he might start spoon-feeding her if she doesn’t.

He smirks, and tucks that idea away for when she’s feeling better to piss her off.

They both sit in silence, neither tense nor comfortable, as Nezha scrolls on his phone for fever remedies. When she’s done, Rin sets aside the bowl and takes the tablets in one quick swallow of water. Nezha shifts in his seat, giving her a raised eyebrow.

“Alright, time to rest.”

“I’m not a fucking child.”

“No, a child would be an easier patient. Mingzha’s not this hard to take care of.”

“The door is right there if you want to fucking leave.”

“Just lie down.”

Giving him one last scowl, Rin lies down and throws the comforter over herself, squirming until she finds the coziest position. Nezha reaches over and takes the damp washcloth. He leans closer, Rin jerks away, eyeing him warily.

“Don’t be a fucking baby.”

Reluctantly, Rin scoots back over. Nezha gently places the cloth on her forehead, brushing her hair away from her face. The tiniest spark of warmth shoots through his fingers, making him pull his arm away quickly.

“I hate you.”

“Yes, you’ve told me a hundred times today,” Nezha says, adjusting her blanket to make her more comfortable. Rin subtly tries to snuggle under the covers more, and Nezha has to bite back a snort of amusement. If she notices, she’ll make herself uncomfortable out of pure spite.

Nezha has never known anyone more fucking stubborn than she is.

“What?”

On a different day, he’d fight her on it, knowing exactly how fiery she truly is, but right now, seeing her like this, so small and vulnerable curled on her bed, he just needs her to get better.

So, he sighs, and lifts a shoulder.

“Just go to sleep, Rin.”

“You suck.”

“Of course I do.”

Nezha simply hums. He doesn’t know what to do—he knows he should probably leave by now, but leaving her all alone like this feels… wrong. He probably wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else, anyway. He might as well wait for Kitay to show up to take care of her.

So he stays, stealing inconspicuous glances at Rin as she slowly dozes off, eyes fluttering closed.

“Thanks, Nezha,” Rin says in a slurred voice, a half-asleep haze before drifting off to sleep.

Nezha’s glad they’re all alone here.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t know how to explain the stupid smile that wouldn’t leave his face.

~*~

“I see,” Auntie Fang says triumphantly. “She’s been a handful since she was a little girl. Always causing a ruckus with the neighbors. I don’t know how I managed.”

Rin feels burning in the back of her eyes, the prickle of wetness she refuses to let fall. Not here, not in front of Nezha, not in front of Kesegi, and certainly not in front of Auntie Fang.

Fuck no.

She’s not going to cry.

Rin forces herself to keep a straight face, eyes trained on the empty plate in front of her.

She’s going to strangle Nezha. This asshole isn’t making it out of Tikany alive.

Nezha shrugs, sparing her a smug look from the corner of his eye before turning to face Auntie Fang with a smile again, and her chest squeezes.

She’s never felt so betrayed before.

She’s going to fucking kill him.

“Rin’s reckless, impulsive, tactless, you name it,” Nezha sighs. “It’s honestly the worst.”

~*~

An 80. A fucking 80.

They spent so many sleepless nights and pots of coffee on this stupid fucking paper. Kitay had almost snapped his neck climbing shelves to get textbooks, Venka’s laptop got a virus and broke down after looking at a shady website for information because of the sheer scarcity of it on their topic, Rin has drunk an obscene amount of caffeine for the human body to handle and should probably be dead by now, and Nezha doesn’t think his neck and back would ever be the same again after sleeping in the library for five nights in a row.

If it weren’t for the fact that Rin might do it first, Nezha might have committed a homicide right then and there.

“I don’t… I don’t get it,” Kitay says quietly from his seat, still staring at the grade on the top-right corner of their paper in angry red ink. “I was sure everything was right. We triple-checked everything, the bibliography is complete, and we even answered that bonus discussion question.”

“I mean, we still got the highest grade in the class,” Venka says, trying to alleviate the tension, but it’s clear her heart isn’t in it. Nezha briefly wonders if she’s even lucid after so many all-nighters, because if she were fully awake, she’d be just as pissed as he and Rin are.

“Yes, but…” Kitay trails off, looking incredibly lost. “I don’t understand.”

Nezha feels for him—the poor guy has never gotten anything but a perfect score his whole life. After the shit they went through trying to finish this paper, they all expected their effort to pay off.

Rin is completely silent, leaning over Kitay, eyes roving over the paper. The look on her face is completely unreadable, which surprises Nezha. Her hand lands on Kitay’s shoulder, giving it a sharp squeeze. Kitay leans his head against Rin’s chest, closing his eyes. Nezha wonders if he’s going to cry with the way his throat is bobbing up and down.

“I guess there’s nothing we can do—” Kitay starts, his voice hoarse.

“Oh, absolutely fucking not.” Rin cuts him off in a low, dangerous voice. “I’m going to kill him.”

Then she snatches the paper out of Kitay’s hand and storms in the direction of the faculty room with a speed that Nezha had never seen before. (Probably because of the caffeine.)

They’ve heard Rin say that many, many times in the past, but Nezha realizes that, this time, she might actually finish the job.

He, Kitay, and Venka exchange a look, before collectively bolting to stop Rin from committing a crime.

“She’s going to get herself kicked out of this fucking place,” Venka pants, rounding a corner before speeding up to catch up with him and Kitay.

“Right now, I just want to stop her from assaulting our new Nikara History professor and getting herself landed in jail,” Kitay replies between short bursts of breath. “Not that he doesn’t deserve it.”

“How does she run so fucking quick?!” Nezha complains. “She’s too tiny to be able to run that fast!”

“Unfiltered rage.”

They stop right in front of the faculty lounge and debate whether they should knock when Rin’s furious voice penetrates the door, making them throw caution to the wind. Not like they’ll get in any less trouble.

They find Rin standing over an insulted Professor Liu Tsung Ho’s desk, shoving the paper in his face forcefully, with all the other professors simply observing them with a passive expression.

To Nezha’s complete surprise, even Jun isn’t intervening, going about his afternoon tea break like Rin isn’t actively harassing a new university professor in their own faculty room.

Then again, Rin has done worse before, so maybe this shouldn’t be as shocking.

“Listen, jackass, I don’t know who you think you fucking are, if you have some fucking doctorate degree on Nikara History because you can shove it up your ass for all I care, but I’ve checked the rubric you’ve given us, and we deserve a higher grade than this shit you’re trying to pull.” Rin slams her hand on the table and gets in Tsung Ho’s face.

“This is absolutely unacceptable behavior, Fang Runin, you watch your mouth—” Tsung Ho replies, barely holding his own.

“Shut the fuck up, you asshole,” Rin seethes. “You gave our class the impossible task of piecing together a detailed timeline of pre-Republic Nikan. We’ve scoured every little nook and cranny of this fucking university to finish that paper, knowing that majority of those documents is in the Nikara Archive Preservation where students aren’t given access to. We even answered that stupid trick question about whether or not The Red Emperor and Speerly Queen Tearza were lovers or enemies, so you better do something about this fucking grade, or I swear to God—”

“I will not tolerate this insolence from a student like you!” Tsung Ho shouts over her, finally standing up and towering over Rin. She meets his intimidating stare with a defiant glare of her own.

Nezha would have admired that if he didn’t think she was so recklessly stupid.

Kitay makes a move to pull Rin back, but she jerks his hand away, not wanting to back down.

“Are you questioning my authority?”

“Your authority has as much credibility as Professor Jiang’s drug trip ramblings, so pardon me if I fucking—”

“What is going on here?”

All eyes whirl around to an angry Headmaster Jima standing in the doorway, hands clasped tightly behind her back.

Immediately, Tsung Ho throws Rin under the bus, ranting and raving about her disrespect (fair enough), entitlement (not in Nezha’s opinion), and incompetence as a student (a straight-up fucking lie), as Jima tries to piece together the information.

“Enough. We will settle this civilly, in my office, right this second.” Jima says, jerking her head as a motion for them to follow. She holds up a hand to stop the rest of them from following, though, gesturing to the bench right outside her office. With one last panicked look at Rin, the door to Headmaster Jima’s office shuts in front of their faces.

They all sink to the seat, feeling the prickling stares of their professors.

For a while, they’re just silent. But something slamming from the inside of the office triggers Kitay’s unhealthy habit of rambling when he’s nervous.

“Great, just great. Not only did we get an 80 for an impossible project, but one of our members and my best friend is going to get kicked out of the university because she tried to assault a professor. This is just fantastic, absolutely peachy, magnificent, remarkable, astoni—”

“Kitay, if you don’t shut up right now, I swear—”

“I can’t help it! Maybe I should go in there and help Rin plead her case for just a suspension—” Kitay says, standing up, but Nezha pulls him back down sternly.

“No.”

“But—”

“If you do that, it’ll only piss Jima off more. You know that. Rin can handle her own as long as she doesn’t throw anything.” Venka adds. Kitay deflates, then stands up again. Nezha moves to haul him out of the room, if need be, but Kitay just starts pacing back and forth.

“I wish Professor Yim was still here.” he says, carding his hand through his hair, another nervous habit of his.

Professor Yim had been their previous Nikara History II professor that had retired last semester. His courses were grueling and demanding, but Nezha found that he always graded fairly as long as you put in the effort. He specifically never gave them Pre-Republic Nikara assignments, opting to discuss them himself, given the inaccessibility issues those particular topics have.

Then Jima replaced him with Tsung Ho, and Nezha swears the maniac thrives off of his students’ tears, giving them mountains of workload and gloating about his PhD in History like an ass the whole semester. The four of them have managed to get good grades after hours of back-breaking research, but this Pre-Republic final project is their final straw.

The more Nezha thinks about it, the more that he’s surprised Rin hadn’t beaten him up earlier. It’s been a long time coming.

He just hopes she doesn’t get kicked out for her sheer lack of foresight.

After what seems like hours of suspense, the door to Jima’s office swings open, and the three of them exit. Nezha has no idea what transpired in there with the current blank expressions on their faces. He doesn’t know why, but anxiety is pounding through him, making his hands shake and stealing his breath.

Jima clasps her hands together, and it feels as if even the entirety of the staff was waiting for the verdict.

“Fang Runin will be on latrine duty for three months for her blatant disrespect and misconduct against a member of the faculty of Sinegard University.”

Kitay’s relief is palpable. Nezha knows it’s taking every ounce of his self-control not to launch himself at Rin and give her a tight hug and admonish her all at once. He’ll never admit it, but he can say the same for himself—he can’t really imagine Sinegard without Rin gunning for his ass every single day.

Jima holds her hand up for them to stay quiet.

“As for the matter of the final project, I’ve found that Ms. Fang’s complaint is within reason. The Nikara Archive Preservation is restricted to professors and approved staff only due to the fragile nature of the remaining available documents that have been untouched by Hesperia, which restricts their ability to conduct proper research,” Jima’s mouth twitches irritatedly, giving Tsung Ho a side-eye, “and as I’ve examined the final paper and several other student records, I found that Professor Tsung Ho’s grading system is skewed to the disadvantage of the students. Because of this, all of the students’ previous work in the class, including the final paper, are subject to be regraded according to former Professor Yim’s grading system. Fang Runin and her groupmates will get a grade of 100 for this particular project.”

Nezha’s jaw drops. Rin’s lips twitches into a hint of a smug smile, and he can practically feel her gloating right this second. Tsung Ho looks absolutely enraged beside her.

“No fucking way,” Venka whispers under her breath, stunned.

Jima continues, “Sinegard University does not tolerate anything but excellence, but we uphold the value of fairness and hard work. That is all. You may go.”

The walk back to their dorms is a haze of disbelief, though Kitay holds Rin’s hand so tightly his knuckles are turning white, as if she might slip away and do something that might really get her kicked out of the university. She lets him.

Finally, Nezha breaks the quiet.

“I can’t fucking believe you did that. How did you—how were you even—what the fuck, Rin?”

He can’t even put into words what he feels about her right now. Nezha has never known anyone else like her—and he can’t decide whether that’s a good or bad thing. All he knows is that what he feels is dangerous… for himself.

All the bitch does is gives him a smug look, and shrugs.

“You’re welcome.”

~*~

Rin has had enough.

She doesn’t have to fucking take this.

She won’t sit here and be degraded by someone she thought was her friend with her brother watching, while the person she despised most in the world just basks in her victory. She knew she should have never fucking trusted that stupid, pretty face of his to do anything but fuck her over—

Then something, and she isn’t sure what, shifts.

Nezha reaches over, gently pries her hand off of her deathly grip on her chopsticks and laces their fingers together. He gives her the softest smile she’s ever seen on his face.

“But that’s what makes her Rin. I don’t think I would have liked her if she were any different.”

What.

The.

Fuck.

Rin’s head snaps toward him, no doubt matching the stunned expression Auntie Fang is clearly wearing. A glint of amusement passes Nezha’s expression, there and gone in a second.

“Besides, there’s a lot to like about her.” Nezha grins, giving her a sly smirk. “She’s incredibly intelligent, for one thing.”

~*~

“I give up. This is hopeless. Jiang’s a fucking nutcase, that’s what he is.” Nezha says, slumping on his chair. He gives the jar of peanut butter on their desk a glare that would befit the world’s most heinous criminals.

Professor Jiang is their professor in Alternative Thinking for this semester.

He’s not even sure if that’s a real subject, and that Jiang had somehow managed to coerce Jima into giving him a job. And Alternative Thinking is one way of fucking calling it.

Nezha just thinks he’s unhinged to his very core.

They’re doing one of his exercises: another one of his stupid puzzles to get them to ‘think outside the box’. He’s just glad Rin is his partner—for some reason, Rin seems to understand Jiang’s certain brand of madness the most out of everyone. Still, she doesn’t get him all the time, and this was one of those times.

“What were his conditions again?”

“Get the peanut butter out of the jar without touching the glass. That’s all this card says,” Rin says, rolling her eyes at the card and tossing it back on the desk.

“Him and his fucking peanut butter.”

Nezha’s tried to think of every possible solution. They tried to pry the lid open with a metal ruler, but there wasn’t enough weight as leverage for it to pop off. They tried use the tweezers and clay they found lying around the room. They tried to heat the damn thing on the laboratory alcohol lamps. Nothing.

Rin stares at the peanut butter jar so intensely Nezha thinks that might be enough to scare the jar into opening by itself. But it stays stubbornly closed.

Meanwhile, Jiang is eyeing them at the front of the room with that stupid, placid smile on his face that makes Nezha want to gouge his eyes out.

Rubbing his temples frustratedly, Nezha slumps his head over the desk and buries his face in his arms. “Wake me up when this class isn’t fucking useless anymore.”

Rin grunts and he takes that as permission to nap.

But it only takes a few minutes of him barely falling asleep when Rin smacks his arm painfully.

“What is your fucking problem?” he growls, bolting up to smack her back when she squeezes his bicep tightly, eyes bright with giddy realization.

Nezha ignores the way his heart races at the sight. It’s probably just adrenaline from being woken up so violently.

“You’re fucking kidding me. We’re idiots.”

“What? What is it?”

“Jiang! Get your ass over here!” she hollers. She’s the only student who’s allowed to call Jiang solely by his last name, which Nezha doesn’t even want to know.

“Rin! We only have two chances at this! At least tell me what your fucking solution is.”

That’s one of Jiang’s rules—they can take as much time as they want to figure the puzzle out, but when they call him over, they only get two shots to propose a solution to it. If they get it both wrong, they get a zero. If they don’t use all their turns but don’t solve it, they get a 75—a barely passing grade. Most students don’t use up their chances, the risk seemingly too high to sacrifice their grades for.

She ignores him.

Jiang strides to their desk, crossing his arms as he looks Rin up and down. Rin smirks at him.

“You have a solution for me, Runin?”

“I have two.”

“Really?” Jiang asks, amused. “Well, get on with it, then.”

Nezha tenses as Rin turns to him with her palm out.

“What?”

“Strip.”

“Fucking what?”

Rin rolls her eyes, but he can see the slightest twitch of her lips. He fights the similar urge to smile.

“Give me your jacket, dumbass. Come on.”

Nezha reluctantly removes his jacket and gives it to Rin. Immediately, she drapes it over the jar of peanut butter, and grabs it over the cloth. Nezha’s eyes widen in realization.

Get the peanut butter out of the jar without touching the glass.

Rin was right. They were fucking idiots. This is the simplest puzzle of Jiang’s yet.

In a single twist, he hears the telltale pop of the lid.

Rin simply raises her eyebrow at Jiang. Jiang shrugs.

“The peanut butter is still in the jar.”

“So I’ll dip the jacket and use it to scoop the peanut butter out.”

“No, you’re fucking not, hey, that’s expensive shit—” Nezha protests, snatching the jacket back.

“I wasn’t actually going to do it, it’s just to prove my point, moron.”

Jiang clears his throat.

“I’ll allow it. You get a 100 for today. But you said you had two solutions. What was the other one?”

Rin tightens the lid back on the jar, eyeing it ruefully.

There’s a number of possibilities that flit through Nezha’s mind in that split second—he’s learned not to underestimate her, and he’s honestly really curious to see what she’s come up with.

None of those possibilities involved her grabbing the jar by the lid, careful not to touch the glass edges, then chucking it at the wall where it breaks into a million little peanut-butter covered shards.

Nezha’s jaw drops, eyes glued to the mess. Every single eye turns to them, observing Professor Jiang’s reaction. Would he yell at Rin? Kick her out of the class? She may very well be his favorite, but none of her stunts have ever been this reckless.

But Jiang claps his hand on Rin’s shoulder, walks over to the mess and swipes the peanut butter splattered on the wall with his finger, licking it clean.

“Good job, Runin. You’re all dismissed.”

Nezha can only stare at them, stunned.

~*~

Nezha squeezes her hand, giving her a fond look. He presses his lips together, trying to contain a laugh. Rin can’t blame him. Her head is still reeling from the complete 180 he did that she can’t even enjoy Auntie Fang’s similar reactions.

He gives her a subtle wink, and her traitorous stomach swoops. He adjusts his hand in hers, and his thumb rubs circles on her wrist, pausing at her pulse point, and the way his grin widens makes it known to her that he’s noticed how hard her heart is hammering.

This motherfucker.

He’s been planning this thing the whole time, hasn’t he?

“She’s determined to see through everything she puts her mind to.”

~*~

Fang Runin does not belong in Sinegard Academy.

This, Nezha is sure of.

Everything about her screams her unworthiness of walking in this campus’ hallowed halls—her skin, her accent, her gait—nothing about her fits.

Nezha’s lip couldn’t help but curl in disgust as he watches her fumble her way through campus, looking like a baby deer who’s only beginning to learn how to walk.

So, he didn’t hold back. He told her to her face exactly what he thought of her.

And it got him a black eye, a bruised ego, and a newfound, bloodthirsty rivalry.

And what a rivalry it is.

Nezha’s hatred for her grows, simmers, and comes to a boil every time Rin silently challenges him and wins—in exam scores, in project results, in the professors’ begrudging admiration and respect. But she does, over and over again, and even if she doesn’t, she comes far too close to him for fucking comfort.

It’s fucking impossible.

He’s sure she’s cheating—there’s absolutely no fucking way this ragged scholarship bitch who had the audacity to oppose him is doing this by any fair means.

But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to find any evidence of it.

He does, however, get some semblance of an explanation.

In the middle of their second semester in their first year, a typhoon ravages through Sinegard. Strong winds and floods wreak havoc through campus, making it damn near impossible to go outside without getting swept away.

But of course, Sinegard students never rest, and so, they all huddle in the library, heads bent over books as the torrential rain pours out their window—Nezha being one of them.

The campus lights shut off all of a sudden, leaving the students studying in a pitch-black library. But what usually took five minutes of repairs goes on for hours, the generator room that powers Sinegard University getting flooded by rainwater. The students use alternative means to try and study like using their phones as flashlights on their textbooks while it’s still light out, but when night slowly falls, the students give up and slowly trickle out of the library to chance the pouring rain, though it doesn’t close until 1 AM.

Nezha is packing his stuff and bracing himself to be drenched outside when he notices a familiar, fury inducing girl trek her way to the librarian’s desk. He’s surprised to find her alone—usually, Kitay is stuck to her side like a leech, and that fact alone makes Nezha’s irritation double—they’d grown up together, and Nezha thought Kitay was smart enough to know the company he should keep should be worth more.

He slowly puts his things down, straining his ears to listen. This could be his chance to prove his hunch once and for all.

“Do you have some candles back there?” Rin asks.

“Candles?”

“For reading.”

The librarian asks, frowning. “Don’t you have a flashlight on your phone, dear?”

She doesn’t answer.

Nezha bites back a snort. Of course, in addition to everything, she’s dirt-poor. He adds that to the mental tally of reasons of why she doesn’t belong here.

Rin keeps a steady gaze trained on the librarian until she finally relents, reaching under her desk and sliding a pack of wax candles toward Rin.

“Haven’t seen a student study by candlelight for years now. Keep it away from the books. If they get damaged, you’re liable to pay for them.”

Rin nods, thanking them before walking back to her spot in the farthest corner of the library.

Nezha skulks behind the shelves, peeking through the empty spaces between books to see what she’s doing.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, just watching Rin with a concentrated scowl on her face as she diligently writes notes from the textbooks by candlelight. As time passes, he gets more and more irritated as none of the things he’s looking for to incriminate her doesn’t surface.

Just when he’s about to give up when Rin looks like she’s on the verge of nodding off, she jerks her head up abruptly, eyes flying open.

Then she does something that shakes him.

She swipes the candle off the table, tilts it over the exposed skin of her arm, and drips the melted hot wax on it.

Rin hisses in pain, eyes watering unconsciously, but she keeps going until she’s wide awake. Then she starts picking the pieces of dried wax off her skin, leaving angry red marks in their wake.

It’s then that Nezha notices the other scars dotting her arms, discolored and rough, old and new.

Rin pays them no mind, and goes back to reading her textbook with a renewed vigor.

Something in his gut tells Nezha that he’s seen enough. He walks back to his table, gets his shit and leaves the library without turning back, thoughts still racing through his head.

What the fuck is wrong with her?

His mind can’t wrap around what he’s just seen.

She’s burning herself to stay awake to keep studying. By the looks of it, this is far from her first time, too. That’s how she normally studies.

He can’t fucking comprehend it, can’t concede that this notion of Fang Runin being the lazy, entitled, stupid, cheating Southerner he’d built in his head is wrong.

But for the first time, a seed of a doubt plants itself in Nezha’s mind.

~*~

“She’s certainly brave to the point of stupidity,” Nezha snorts, reaching over to flick her nose. Rin recoils, batting his hand away. “She’s resilient, loyal and dependable.”

Then he does something that makes Rin vow to skin him alive later.

He darts closer and gives her a quick peck on the cheek, before turning back to a shell-shocked Auntie Fang staring at them. The place where his lips brushed tingles in a way that makes Rin want to tear her hair out.

“And Rin shows how much she cares for us in her own way. That’s what I really love about her.”

~*~

There are shades to Nezha’s moods.

He’s usually good at not letting things get to him—being born in such a prominent family has subject him to almost every kind of criticism imaginable, most of which come from the people closest to him. He’d grown thick skin and an arrogant, self-assured mask, making sure he never falters or doubts himself. He is a Yin, and that title bears weight.

There are many days where Nezha can manage to make it roll off of his skin like beads of morning dew on blades of grass, where he walks away unfazed, simply because he didn’t deem the person who said it worth his time.

There are moments where he gets caught off-guard and has to take a second to recuperate. A flash of irritation here, a sneer and a roll of his eyes there, a venomous retort at the ready. Rin has a special talent for that, and it both infuriates and endears her to him in vast and equal measures.

But there are times when Jinzha manages to throw out just the right barb, Father gives him a far too disappointed look and tells him something with just the right condescending tone, where it stings too much to ignore. The jab sticks and festers just beneath his skin, igniting a ticking time bomb that would explode without warning.

Rin catches him on one of those days.

It was stupid, he can admit that much.

She was making a thoughtless joke about his father being an asshole again—nothing new, since Rin had never hidden the contempt she holds for his family and his notion of duty. She wouldn’t understand—she’s only ever had herself and Kesegi to worry about; no reputation to uphold or family to appease or image to preserve. He didn’t like it, but he’d made his peace with that, and so he takes the dumb jabs and fires back with his own.

But he’d just gotten off the phone with his father, and he knew he wasn’t happy with Nezha’s performance, recently. He never was, but something inside Nezha still aches every time he’s reminded of it, and he was far too exhausted from their finals review to somehow rein in his emotions.

So he screamed at Rin in the middle of the campus courtyard, called her a worthless bitch, and stalked away to blow some steam off.

He knows he should apologize. Rin had given him nothing but dirty looks when he stopped by Venka’s apartment, but he saw the genuine hurt flitting across her face before she managed to school her expression into cold indifference. What really gave it away, though, was that she didn’t say a single word to him. Rin never misses an opportunity to insult him, so her silence weighed heavily on him.

“You have the emotional processing skills of a five-year-old,” Kitay had sighed when Nezha asked him about it. “You better fix this, Nezha.”

He nodded toward the balcony and tossed Nezha a six-pack of beer.

Nezha finds Rin leaning against the balcony railing, the cool night air blowing through her hair. The city lights below reflect on her face, casting her in an almost ethereal glow. The expression on her face is an unfamiliar one—it’s nothing she’s ever directed at him before; pensive, a little sad, something he never thought he’d see on her.

Something in his chest pinches at the notion that he was the one who put it there.

He doesn’t really know what to say—he only stares at her until she turns to him abruptly, schooling her face into a blank look and a raised eyebrow.

“You here to call me a bitch again or have you reached your daily quota for today?”

“Rin—”

“Just shut up, Nezha. Get back in there.”

“No.”

Rin huffs, facing the Sinegard skyline again. Nezha moves toward her, placing the pack of beers by her feet. He hands her one, and she reluctantly takes it from him, popping it open.

He takes his place by her side, eyes not leaving her face.

“Listen, Rin—”

“Don’t.”

“But—”

“Don’t ruin this peaceful night for me, Nezha. I’m gonna push you off this balcony.”

“Will that get you to forgive me?”

Rin gives him a dirty look, and he winces.

“Look—”

“I get it, more than you think I do,” Rin says, cutting him off and taking a swig from her can.

“No, you don’t,” Nezha says quietly.

She gives him an unusually serious look.

“Your father to you is the rest of the world to me. What it takes and demands from me, the poor Southern girl with a bad attitude, it’s the same that your father demands of you. And we fulfill them, only to get paid jackshit in return. The only thing is, you do it for approval, and I do it for survival. But the worlds we live in will eat us alive and spit out our bones if we falter, and that’s why we don’t. But it doesn’t fucking suck any less.”

Nezha only watches her. He can’t seem to look away.

“Did I get that right?”

He doesn’t answer her.

He doesn’t need to. She knows, and he knows she knows.

“The only thing that makes things slightly more bearable are you shitheads. No matter how fucking stupid you all are, sometimes. I know it’s the same for you, so you would do well not to insult us to our fucking faces. But then again, I do the same to you, so who am I to talk?”

He feels her watching his reaction, so he forces himself to keep a stoic face, despite warmth spreading through his body.

She sees right through him, of course.

He finds that he doesn’t mind.

Instead of calling him out on it, however, she gives him a dry, humorless laugh.

“Your father’s still an asshole.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s true.”

“Well, it’s true that you’re a bitch, too, you know.” Nezha replies mildly, testing what seems to be their unsteady truce.

Rin snorts, and Nezha feels a weight lift off his chest that he didn’t realize he had at the sound.

“I’m aware.”

Nezha supposes they’ll be okay. As okay as he and Rin ever are.

“At least I’m upfront about it. I’m not like your father who tries to act all squeaky clean but is a cunt in reality.”

“Stop calling my father that,” Nezha sighs.

“Nah. Your father’s a cunt. Your whole family is a bunch of stuck-up dicks with the exception of Mingzha.”

“You say that because Mingzha’s the only one of them who likes you.”

“But,” Rin presses on, shoving him hard, “if you say that shit to me again, I’m ripping your tongue out through your teeth.”

“Noted.”

They clink their cans together, and Nezha finally lets himself smile.

It only widens when Rin gives him an unimpressed look and throws her empty beer can at his head.

~*~

“I ought to fucking slap you for that,” Rin hisses at Nezha, pinching his arm so hard he suppresses a cry of pain behind his teeth.

Auntie Fang excuses herself from the table a few minutes later, appalled at their display. She drags Kesegi with her, even after he protests. Rin keeps the fakest smile plastered on her face until she hears the door to Auntie Fang’s room slam shut.

She walks Nezha out the front door to his car, feeling Auntie Fang’s glare from her window. Rin has an inkling that she didn’t completely buy it, but Nezha had provided such an airtight and disgusting display of affection that Auntie Fang couldn’t stomach it for long.

“Bitch. No ‘thank you, you’re the best person I’ve ever met, Nezha’? No ‘I owe you my life, Nezha’? I was a fucking fantastic actor, and you know it,” Nezha gloats, giving her a shit-eating grin.

“Was giving me a heart attack part of the fucking plan?”

“No, that was just me having fun. It’s so hilarious seeing you sweat. The great and terrible Fang Runin, terror of Sinegard, gets subdued by one angry aunt.”

Rin bares her teeth at him, sneaking a glance behind her. “I hope you burn in hell.”

Nezha hums, “I’ll be seeing you there.”

He takes out his car keys and unlocks his car, before leaning on the door, giving her a raised eyebrow and a smile that spelled danger.

Rin’s heart skips a beat, and that pisses her off, so she crosses her arms and discreetly gives him the middle finger.

His responding laugh only makes it harder to keep her anger burning.

“What? Aren’t you leaving yet?”

“You’re forgetting something, Rin.” Nezha smirks, leaning closer to get in her face. She suppresses the urge to flinch back, staring him down, taken aback as she is.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I'm leaning in for a goodnight kiss. You know. Like what boyfriends and girlfriends do?” Nezha asks, grinning smugly, and Rin has half a mind to break his nose just to get rid of that expression.

“Never in a million years.”

“I can see your Auntie watching us from the window with the most-pissed off look on her face. You sure you wanna chance that?”

Rin hates him and the fact that he's right. Auntie Fang will exploit any and every doubt she has, and if they don't portray the picturesque perfect couple that Rin and Nezha had claimed them to be, Auntie Fang will book for a church wedding for her by spring.

But then… she has to kiss Nezha.

“Come on, kissing me isn't that bad, right?” he goads, raising a brow at her.

If there's any gods that exist, Rin knows they're laughing their asses off at her.

Because all things considered, looking at that beautiful, intricately sculpted face of his, Rin can admit, extremely grudgingly, kissing Nezha is probably not terrible. Not by a long shot. His pale, gossamer skin, his flawlessly-carved nose, his pink, bow-shaped lips all form a picture of a boy that seems far too perfect to be real, like an artist’s estimation of the loveliest person in the world. The moonlight softens his features, casting his face with a pleasant glow, and Rin briefly wonders what it would be like to be that beautiful.

She shakes her head.

What the fuck is she even thinking?

After a momentary internal struggle, Rin grunts her reluctant assent.

“Fine. But you tease me once about this, and I'm breaking your pretty face.”

Nezha coos. “Aww, you think I'm pretty.”

“Fuck you.”

Sighing, Rin closes her eyes and puckers her lips, bracing herself. She hears Nezha chuckle, and lean in closer. Her heart thunders in her chest as his warm breath fans her lips.

“Don't look so glum, Rin. I'll make this worth your while.”

He closes the space between them and presses his lips to hers.

All the breath is stolen from Rin’s lungs, her hands hovering awkwardly in the gap between his chest and hers. Then she feels Nezha’s hand snake around her waist, and she melts into his touch against her will.

Her heart is pounding, eyes fluttering shut, and beneath her palms, Nezha’s heart is racing like hers. Something about that makes alarm bells blare in her head, but it’s drowned out by the shiver travelling up her spine when Nezha’s hand squeezes her waist, feeling his warmth as he pulls her even closer.

His lips are as soft as they look, silken and pillowy, and his touch on her cheek is featherlight, delicate, as if cradling a treasure he’d longed to find for so long. It was too sweet, so unlike what she expected from kissing Nezha—she expected rough, passionate, almost brutal in a way that she knows him to be, but this is unrecognizable. Like he’s deliberately revealing this side of him to her… like he’s always wanted to if only she’d let him.

This kiss is a message that she doesn’t know how to decipher, and he’s begging her to let him help her make sense of it. It’s a plea for her to let him do the same to her—to see her.

She hates how much she wants to relent.

This is dangerous, Rin thinks to herself, cutting through the haziness of the kiss, this is so fucking dangerous.

But she can’t bring herself to stop.

When their lips part, it felt as though the kiss was both too short and far too long for Rin’s liking.

Something has shifted.

She’s not a fucking idiot—something changed with that fucking kiss, and the way Nezha is looking at her right now, wide-eyed and dazed, his eyes reflecting something akin to disbelieving wonder. The way that gaze makes her heart constrict sends something plummeting in her stomach—she isn’t in control here, and that fucking terrifies her.

That makes her push herself back and step away.

She forces herself to tear her gaze away from him, pretending to check if Auntie Fang is still spying on them from the window. She can’t bear to look at Nezha right now, so when she turns back to him, she focuses on a spot right above his shoulder.

“Looks like she’s gone. I guess you really are a good actor,” Rin says, though her voice holds none of her usual condescension.

“Thanks,” he replies, voice still breathless, sending a traitorous shudder up Rin’s back.

They stand there in silence, regarding each other, neither wanting to break this fragile moment of uncertainty between them.

Then, Rin clears her throat and nods at his car.

“You should get going. It’s dangerous to drive at night.”

Nezha swallows. Opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, then thinks better of it. He wordlessly gets into his car, starts the engine, and starts backing up onto the road.

For a moment, Rin thinks he’s going to leave without saying goodbye. She refuses to admit to herself that it would hurt if he didn’t.

But then Nezha rolls down his window, and gives her a look far too raw than what she’s comfortable with. For the first time, Yin Nezha is letting her see everything.

She doesn’t know how to feel about that at all.

“I enjoyed tonight, Rin,” he says. His words are simple, but the implications are heavy. “Good night.”

“Drive safe.”

He nods, takes one last shuddering breath, and speeds away.

Rin stands there long after Nezha’s car has disappeared on the road.

She wonders if he’s thinking about the kiss like she is right now.

She wonders how the fuck she’s going to face him the next time she sees him.

She wonders how they could have possibly managed to screw this shit up so badly—not in the way either of them expected, but still. A kiss. A fucking kiss, of all things.

She wonders what it says about her that she doesn’t regret it.