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The toy store is the sort where capitalism runs rampant and parents’ wallets turn themselves inside out and hang up to dry. Mu Qing has worked here for two years, seven months, and fourteen days. Mu Qing has spent two years, seven months, and fourteen days wishing for some other job opportunity to land in his lap and get him out of this hellhole.
At the very least, he likes kids. At the very least, he’s paid more than minimum wage. At the very least, he gets to see CuoCuo sometimes, this being Jian Lan’s go-to toy store for the sole reason of Mu Qing working here.
Mu Qing laments his choice of occupation once again as he rings up a mother and her spoiled brat of a child. Even as she’s being bought the newest Spin-O-Rama 2000 or whatever the fuck this shit is, she’s whining about how her mother wouldn’t get her a stuffed cat along with it.
The moment they leave the store, Mu Qing cusses under his breath.
It’s a Sunday afternoon, meaning the store is near-empty. There’s a mother with an infant child looking at baby-friendly toys, while some preteen loiters in another aisle while their father watches with a periodic sigh.
Mu Qing shuts his eyes. His feet ache. He wants to be home so he can watch the newest video Jian Lan sent him of CuoCuo. He puts his shoes on himself now, almost at the age where slip ons phase into velcro. He’s content to have someone help him most of the time, but his eagerness is tangible when he knows he’s going to see Feng Xin —
The door opens with the jingle of the bell hung around the doorknob. Mu Qing heaves a sigh, opens his eyes, and plasters his best customer service expression onto his face.
The expression falters into some figment of a smile when he spots the familiar figure running into the store. A burst of warmth floods his chest, followed by a sharp unease that has him schooling his face into something blank.
That’s CuoCuo. Which means that the one with him is —
“Fuck — goddamn it, hell —” Feng Xin rushes after CuoCuo. The door shuts behind him with another ring of the bell. “CuoCuo, you son of a — nope, not that, ah —”
CuoCuo stops at a display of stuffed frogs. He considers them with the childlike wonder of a three year old, eyes wide. The pause allows Feng Xin to catch up with him, swooping CuoCuo into his arms with a flourish that has him giggling even as he reaches towards the frogs.
“Excuse me?”
Mu Qing wipes the smile off his face. He turns to the customer in front of him, holding her baby with one arm and a toy with the other. Part of him is glad for the distraction, while the other part is frustrated with the interruption.
It’s not often Mu Qing sees Feng Xin with CuoCuo. He’s allowed every other weekend with him, but that simply means Feng Xin is radio silent until Monday rolls around again. Mu Qing has talked about it with Jian Lan; he knows that Feng Xin has a fucked up sense of responsibility that manifests in an independence that he has to care for CuoCuo himself, he has to prove himself capable, but still it aches in a way it has no right to.
Mu Qing loves Jian Lan the way someone loves their friend like a sister. Mu Qing loves CuoCuo the way someone loves the child they babysit and held as a newborn and felt in the stomach of his mother during prenatal classes Feng Xin was unable to make it to.
Mu Qing loves Feng Xin in a way he shouldn’t.
The customer hands Mu Qing her toy, forgoing courtesies by shushing her baby gently. The thing is fresh into the world, neck resting in the crook of their mother’s arm and fussing in the quiet, everything-is-new-so-everything-is-bad way that newborns do. Bags sit under the mother’s eyes.
Mu Qing scans the toy and hands it back to her. His eyes catch on the baby’s hands, curled into fists and so fucking small and so fucking cute —
“Aren’t his little fingers just the cutest?” The mother smiles at Mu Qing, earnest despite the clear weariness about her. Mu Qing straightens his face into something less revealing. “Do you have kids?”
No. Yes. Sometimes. Mu Qing glances at CuoCuo, then away. If Feng Xin notices, he says nothing. If Mu Qing’s hands tremor with the weight of the answer, he’s the only one to know.
“Your total is $17.38.” Mu Qing directs her to the pin pad — no, not that one, the other one, it’s not you, everyone does it — and the question is quickly forgotten.
The mother refuses a bag and is out the front door before her baby screws up its eyes and starts to bawl. The distant, quickly disappearing sound sets a painful twinge in Mu Qing’s chest. Nothing more than habit.
“Hey.” Feng Xin reaches the register. “Good day so far?”
Mu Qing raises an eyebrow. CuoCuo giggles, somehow finding it funny.
“Whatever,” Feng Xin says under his breath. “Goddamn ass — jerk.” Louder, he says, “Ring me up at least, won’t you?” He sets down the stuffed animal in hand — a massive, furry dog that looks like all the other massive, furry dogs they sell except this one smells like strawberries and so it’s the toy of the season.
CuoCuo has been begging for one, as much as a newly three year old can beg for anything. CuoCuo is also in the habit of biting the seams open on all of his stuffed animals, which is why Jian Lan neglected to spend that much on the dog herself.
The dog smells like strawberries. As Mu Qing has learned in the past two years, seven months, and fourteen days, shit that smells like strawberries is at least double the price of shit that doesn’t.
“You know,” Mu Qing says, scanning the tag, “I’m sure he would have loved this for his birthday last week.”
“Fuck you,” Feng Xin says, loud enough that the father of the preteen gives him a nasty glare. “I got him that book, didn’t I? This is for his fu — dging birthday, too. He knows it. Right, CuoCuo?”
CuoCuo stares at Mu Qing, like he has been this entire time. Head resting on Feng Xin’s shoulder, tiny little hand gripping onto his shirt, but completely ignoring his father otherwise.
“It sets a bad precedent.” Mu Qing hands the stuffed dog back to him. He opens his mouth to say more, but at that moment Feng Xin shows CuoCuo the dog, shaking the thing like he’s fucking stupid, and then CuoCuo grabs it and holds it to his chest and Feng Xin’s smile is so bright Mu Qing wants to —
“Look,” Feng Xin says. The smile drops into his usual pinched expression as he looks back at Mu Qing. “Yeah, I could’ve given it to him last week, but at least this way he f — reaking remembers that I gave it to him.”
There it is. Feng Xin, who loves his son and kills himself over it. Feng Xin, who barely sees him and won’t ask for more time unless Jian Lan gives it to him unprompted. Feng Xin, who has become something unrecognizable these last few years as much as he’s grown to be more of himself.
Feng Xin, so fucking convinced he’s been thrown out of the equation that he tries to make up a gap that doesn’t exist.
“A martyr,” Mu Qing deadpans. “Go ahead and pay already so you can get out of my sight.”
“You hear that, CuoCuo? He doesn’t love you.” Feng Xin tugs his wallet out of his pocket. CuoCuo smiles toothily at Mu Qing, whose contorted silly face is back to normal by the time Feng Xin looks at him again. “How much is it?”
Mu Qing taps the screen. His urge is to reprimand Feng Xin for not seeing what’s right in front of him, but it’s hard from the stupidest question he’s been asked in retail.
The sentiment vanishes with the sudden flatness of Feng Xin’s eyes. The downturn of his lips deepens, genuine rather than his resting expression. Mu Qing watches, and remembers sitting with Jian Lan while CuoCuo napped and talking about a little thing called economic responsibility.
Meaning, Feng Xin pays for all of CuoCuo’s childcare on top of his usual child support. Jian Lan didn’t expect him to. Had admitted to thinking of asking Mu Qing as a last resort. It was one of those things that Feng Xin felt he had to do, like knocking up his ex and her wanting the baby was his fault alone. He has a good job, really, but Mu Qing of all people knows how easily expenses can add up.
“The fuck,” Feng Xin says, tension strung tight. “Why the fuck is it that fucking —”
“Excuse me,” the parent calls from across the room. “This is a children’s toy store.”
“Get off, it’s my own damn kid,” Feng Xin says. He pauses. Takes a deep breath, eyes fluttering shut with the inhale and open with the exhale. “I looked at the price online before I came in. Can you do a f — goddamnit, a price match or something?”
Mu Qing grits his teeth. He tabs out of the sales system on the screen and opens a browser. Within seconds he’s brought up the store’s website. “Show me what you were looking at.”
Feng Xin grumbles under his breath but takes out his phone. His wallet rests on the counter, splayed open with a mess of useless cards for all to see. Before CuoCuo, Mu Qing used to bitch about Feng Xin’s habit of never throwing away old cards, but now it’s a meaningless fight.
“Here.” Feng Xin shoves the phone two inches from Mu Qing’s face. He blinks, grabs Feng Xin’s wrist, and forces the screen back until he can comfortably look at it.
The problem is clear. “This is the version without the strawberry scent. They discontinued it when they came out with this one. That’s why it’s out of stock.”
“What?” Feng Xin looks at his phone. “That makes no sense. Why the hell wouldn’t you take the page down?”
“I’m personally sorry for the decision of someone who makes twenty times as much as I do,” Mu Qing says. “Now, are you going to make yourself look bad by shouting at the cashier or get yourself together in front of your kid?”
A low blow. One that works, even if only well enough that Feng Xin shuts his mouth and slips his phone back into his pocket. He adjusts CuoCuo on his hip. “Fine. Fine.” Feng Xin grabs the dog and tugs it away from CuoCuo.
Tries to, at least. CuoCuo sinks his teeth into Feng Xin’s hand before he can get a grip on the thing. Feng Xin gasps. He pulls his hand away, only for CuoCuo’s tiny jaw to hold him in place.
Like father, like son. “CuoCuo.”
At Mu Qing’s firm voice, CuoCuo releases. He bites the ear of the dog instead, cheeks delightfully rosy and content as if nothing happened.
“F — crap,” Feng Xin says. “Crap. Mu Qing, I’m sorry, I just — it’s the end of the month, I’m still waiting for my phone bill to go through, and if I’m late on one more payment —” Feng Xin cuts off. “He’s going to throw a fit. Crap, I’m such a bad father.”
Mu Qing bites down the urge to snap at him. There are a multitude of fathers in the world. Some of them are like Feng Xin, and some of them are like Mu Qing’s own, who was so much of nothing he doesn’t consider himself to have had one.
Feng Xin is there. Feng Xin is present. Feng Xin may have a fucked up sense of responsibility, but he’s trying.
CuoCuo releases the ear of the dog. He looks at Feng Xin, then at Mu Qing. The kid is quiet when he’s not screaming but deceptively observant apart from that. Score one: his father is trying to take his new toy away. Score two: his father is arguing with Mu Qing. Score three: something is going wrong.
Score four: CuoCuo is a spitting image of his father. In the moment before disaster strikes, his face pinches, brows drawn together and eyes wide.
Fuck.
Contrary to how it appears sometimes, Mu Qing doesn’t hate his job. Hates the customers, maybe. Hates when parents yell at their kids in the middle of the aisle. Hates when Jian Lan is given a tough time for being a single mom the few times she’s come in while Mu Qing wasn’t working.
Mu Qing doesn’t hate his job. Mu Qing is good at it. Good with kids. Good with doing the bare minimum. Good at memorizing his manager’s credentials and never using them until Feng Xin and CuoCuo turn their fucking pinched puppy eyes on him in tandem and before he can think, he’s back to the sales system and clicking into the employee discount.
Feng Xin tugs on the foot of the dog. CuoCuo’s chin wavers.
“Just wait,” Mu Qing says.
“Secretive bastard,” Feng Xin says under his breath.
The parent and the preteen leave the store. The preteen’s confusion speaks to the reasoning; Feng Xin’s vulgarity isn’t often appropriate in public spaces. Normally Mu Qing would be bothered over a lost sale.
Now, he’s too caught up in staring at his manager’s credentials and wracking his brain for their password.
Mu Qing knew it. Of course he did. Just last week he glanced over at Shi Qingxuan’s keyboard as they were typing it in and took note of the X following the E. The X, the E, opposite order, with an N somewhere in there, and three letters between one and six but not any combination that makes mathematical sense —
“Mu Qing!” A bright, cheery voice rings from the back of the store.
Immediately, Mu Qing deletes the credentials. The employee discount is still open though, free for Shi Qingxuan to see as they loop around the cash register and lean way too fucking close.
“I heard so much shouting,” Shi Qingxuan says. “Or not shouting. Arguing, maybe. I thought we were busy like last week and that dad came back complaining about his kid again and you needed help, but I guess not? Mu Qing, you know the employee discount is only for family.” They speak at a mile a minute.
Mu Qing keeps his eyes on the screen. He swallows. Feng Xin is a brute, but he needs this.
“Obviously,” Mu Qing says.
“Okay?” Shi Qingxuan puts their hand on Mu Qing’s shoulder. Their smile is bright enough to fill the room, only the barely-there tension between their brows signifying their confusion. “So, um.”
Fuck. There’s no easy way to do this.
“So?” Mu Qing turns to Shi Qingxuan and raises an eyebrow. A silent question. What exactly is the problem? They’re family.
“I mean, um.” Shi Qingxuan glances at Feng Xin. Mu Qing follows their gaze. Feng Xin’s furious perplexion is clear in the fierceness of his eyes, arm tight around CuoCuo. “I’m so sorry, Mu Qing, you know how much I try to remember about people! There’s so much in there, it must have slipped my mind that this is your…”
Boyfriend. Partner. Father of my child. Each supposed relation aches more than the last. The worst is cast into the airwaves, so short and sweet it burns his tongue. “Husband.”
Feng Xin’s expression smooths. The arm around CuoCuo loosens, no longer hooked into the fur of the dog as if trying to gently ease it away. Mu Qing meets his eyes. Begs him to understand. The situation, at least; the rest can go to die.
“Oh.” Shi Qingxuan pulls away from Mu Qing. They lean into the counter. “I’m sorry. Um. Isn’t CuoCuo your best friend’s kid? ‘Cause your husband is like, really similar looking, and maybe I’m overstepping but you two don’t have rings and I really shouldn’t —”
“Shi Qingxuan,” Mu Qing says. “Shut up. You think I’d fake a husband?”
The answer is no. No, because Mu Qing is a good worker. No, because Mu Qing is trustworthy. No, because there’s nobody Mu Qing would care for enough to go this far to secure a fucking strawberry scented dog.
“Mu Qing,” Feng Xin says. “Is this going to take much longer?”
Shi Qingxuan lets out a short, nervous laugh. They stay still. No move to give them the employee discount, and no move to say that yes, they believe Mu Qing. Yes, they trust him.
“CuoCuo is my stepkid,” Mu Qing says. He can’t meet Feng Xin’s eyes as he says it. “I don’t wear a ring at work because I don’t want questions. Is that alright for you? Do you want to ask more invasive questions or can we all go on with our days?”
The dam breaks. Shi Qingxuan’s expression shutters, stepping forward to type in their credentials with quick, practiced fingers. Within moments, the discount is applied and the tension visibly leaves Feng Xin.
“Thank you,” Feng Xin says as he pays. “Sorry for, uh. Cursing in your store.”
Shi Qingxuan turns bright pink. They stutter a response.
Mu Qing can recognize his own harshness. The embarrassment he caused simply by pushing a lie; guilt nudges at him, overshadowed by the sheer relief of seeing CuoCuo’s smile as he hugs the dog to himself. So fucking pure. So fucking worth the headache.
Feng Xin crumples the receipt and shoves it in his pocket when Shi Qingxuan hands it to him. Another thing Mu Qing would have berated him for, back when CuoCuo wasn’t even a thought. Crumpled receipts, old cards stuffed in wallets, a girlfriend Mu Qing tried to hate until he stumbled into adoration —
“I’ll see you at home,” Feng Xin says. “Don’t forget, I’m making dinner.”
Mu Qing blinks. Feng Xin’s eyes are wide, as if there’s some message he’s trying to get across. And it’s clear, really, if not for how out of character it is. Feng Xin works in a very specific way: when he doesn’t have CuoCuo, he’s working and drinking. When he has CuoCuo, nobody fucking disturbs him.
“Yeah.” God. Fuck. Mu Qing spent years clinging to some sense of decorum before realizing it was useless. “As long as you don’t forget to save me a plate again.”
“Fucker.” Feng Xin leans across the counter, torso twisting to better manage CuoCuo’s weight.
Feng Xin’s face is near, near, so near Mu Qing’s face heats.
Feng Xin presses his lips to Mu Qing’s cheek.
Maybe it’s a punishment for putting Feng Xin through this. Fuck the good Mu Qing did, Feng Xin has always thought the worst of him. Two-faced. Liar. Cheat. All the better to let Mu Qing know the feel of his lips when they press right below his cheekbone, a touch of skin on skin and lost before Mu Qing can memorize the sensation of it.
He’s cruel. Not intentionally, but a latent quality that emerges simply from being himself.
Feng Xin leaves. Mu Qing goes on with his day.
—
Dinner is delicious and quiet. CuoCuo spills over his clothes and Feng Xin sighs, dealing with the mess so deftly it’s as if it never happened. After, he does the dishes; a day’s worth is in the sink, a rare sight.
Another difference in Feng Xin’s life. He’s always been a stickler for dishes clean, dry, and put away after every meal. With CuoCuo, there’s simply not enough time to manage while he’s awake and underfoot, crowding around Feng Xin and saying, “Baba, Baba, are there bubbles?”
Feng Xin reaches down to tap CuoCuo’s nose. A smear of soapy bubbles is left behind. CuoCuo’s laughter fills the kitchen.
Mu Qing smiles from where he stands, leaning against the fridge. Arms crossed, his joy hidden by the rattle of dishes in the sink and the running water pouring from the faucet. A content, glittering feeling dying before it reaches outwards.
“CuoCuo,” Mu Qing says. “Show me your toys.”
CuoCuo grips onto Feng Xin’s pant leg. His eyes are wide and filled with suspicion. Rude, considering Mu Qing has been there nearly every day since he’s been born.
“Go on.” Feng Xin dries his hand before reaching down and ruffling CuoCuo’s hair. “Go with your Qing-gege and show him your toys. I’ll come find you when I’m done washing the dishes.”
If CuoCuo could sink his teeth into Feng Xin’s leg past his pants, Mu Qing knows he would. Still too young to understand the intricacies of his family; too young to do anything but see what’s right in front of him.
CuoCuo relents and takes Mu Qing to his bedroom. It used to be Feng Xin’s workout room; he installed shelves and a mirror, and took to cleaning the space religiously. Now the shelves are filled with barely-used toys, the mirror smeared with sticky fingerprints. CuoCuo takes each toy from around the room and drops it into Mu Qing’s lap, blabbering about its name and function and how much he likes it.
Not long after, Feng Xin appears. He hovers at the door, eyes tracking CuoCuo’s movements. When Mu Qing catches his eye, it’s a kind of blank solemnity that looks back.
They relocate to the living room. They watch a movie. Halfway through, CuoCuo’s eyes start to droop, head leaning against Mu Qing’s chest. Feng Xin’s gaze is heavy on him, as it has been all evening.
Gently, Mu Qing stands. With CuoCuo cradled in his arms, he carries him to his bedroom and lays him down on his bed.
Mu Qing sits there on the floor, one hand on CuoCuo’s chest. A weight to keep him settled, even as his eyes blink up at him. A warm, dark brown, framed by eyelashes as long as Jian Lan’s. Slowly, they close. Gradually, they don’t open again.
There’s a feeling in Mu Qing’s chest when he looks at CuoCuo. All soft and warm with a fierceness that leaves him breathless. Different from the love he feels for Jian Lan, where he’d protect her to his last breath. Different from the love he feels for Feng Xin, where he can’t imagine a life without him.
A mixture of the two, maybe. A difference in the way it’s a pure love, so strong he’d die in place of him if it was ever needed.
“You’re good at that.” The whisper comes from the doorway.
Mu Qing turns his head. Feng Xin’s arms are crossed, mouth turned downwards in a frown.
“Usually he won’t settle until I’ve read him half the books he owns,” Feng Xin says. “Even then, I swear I have to fucking barter with him to close his goddamn eyes. He’s three. It shouldn’t be that hard, right?” A humor in the words, even as the quiet desperation pulls through.
“He’s used to me.” Mu Qing stands. He finds the strawberry dog among the pile of stuffed animals at the foot of CuoCuo’s bed and places it next to him. Sweet smelling dreams, like he deserves.
“You take care of my kid,” Feng Xin says.
Mu Qing runs a hand through his hair. CuoCuo is old enough now that he sleeps through the whole night, and still it’s near impossible to shake the constant, soul-shattering fear that something will happen while nobody is in the room.
“Mu Qing.” At Feng Xin’s tone, Mu Qing looks at him. “Will you stay for a while?”
Really, Feng Xin doesn’t need to ask. Mu Qing has long since stopped pretending he doesn’t want all of Feng Xin that he can have. If that’s twenty minutes a week, fine. If that’s dinner on a weekend, fine.
If that’s a while after CuoCuo is asleep, fine.
Mu Qing pushes past Feng Xin, who gently closes the bedroom door. The last glimpse he gets of CuoCuo is the nightlight illuminating his soft, full cheeks, chest visibly inhaling and exhaling.
In the living room, Feng Xin and Mu Qing sit on opposite ends of the couch. The TV is still on, the movie playing with muted sound. For a while, Mu Qing rests his head against the back of the couch and watches, letting his mind fill the gaps of empty dialogue.
He’s aware of Feng Xin’s eyes on him. He’s aware of how strange it is to see Feng Xin at night without a beer in hand. Stranger still that he’s quiet.
“Remember when you were my best friend?” Feng Xin says.
You see my girlfriend more than I do, Feng Xin said some years past, back when he and Jian Lan were still together. I see my best friend more than I do my girlfriend.
“Xie Lian was your best friend,” Mu Qing says. It’s a moot point. Xie Lian and Feng Xin have always been a foregone conclusion; a pair, so much brothers that whoever else they know doesn’t enter into the equation.
“You know what I mean.” Feng Xin’s arm stretches along the back of the couch. “You and me. I was with you more than I wasn’t.”
Until Jian Lan, is the unspoken sentiment. Feng Xin wouldn’t dare say it, though. That’s the mother of his child, who broke up with him on amicable terms and is forever a part of his life, for better or for worse.
To say any of it is to open a box Mu Qing has spent the last ten years stuffing into the back of his mind. Yes, Jian Lan replaced Feng Xin as his best friend. Yes, Mu Qing loves her like a sister and loves her child like he’s his own. Yes, Mu Qing distanced himself from Feng Xin before he met Jian Lan, before she singled him out and took him for coffee and said you, you’re the only one of Feng Xin’s friends who knows what the hell you’re talking about and pushed through the hesitance to find handholds.
Until Jian Lan, because Mu Qing ached to see Feng Xin with her. Ached to see happiness caused by someone else. Ached because five years ago, Feng Xin started dating Jian Lan, and ten years ago, Mu Qing fell in love.
“What are you getting at, Feng Xin?” Mu Qing says.
“Hey, don’t act like I’m trying to start a fight,” Feng Xin says. “I just — I was thinking about it, alright? You used to be over here every day.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t think.” Mu Qing tilts his head to roll his eyes at Feng Xin. “You’ll end up giving yourself a headache and who has to deal with it, since you’ve so kindly asked me to stay?”
“Fuck off,” Feng Xin says. “You can leave.”
Mu Qing raises an eyebrow. He lets it hang, then turns his gaze back to the movie, some climactic chase scene animated so exuberantly that even the most inattentive of kids would watch, enraptured.
The TV screen goes dark.
“Seriously?” Mu Qing turns back to Feng Xin. He sets the remote on the coffee table as if nothing happened. “Jesus, Feng Xin. If something’s on your mind so bad, just fucking say it.”
Feng Xin leans back against the couch. “CuoCuo likes you more than me.”
Mu Qing stares. The words wash over him slowly, comprehension hard to find with the sheer ridiculousness of the statement. It’s all Mu Qing can do to keep from gripping Feng Xin by the shoulders and shaking him.
A sharp, bitter laugh forces itself from Mu Qing’s throat. “Shut up. He loves you. You’re his father.”
Feng Xin shakes his head. The quiet desperation Mu Qing noticed earlier shows in the fierceness of his movements, brandishing his hand towards Mu Qing. “He bites me.”
“He’s a kid,” Mu Qing says. “He’s fucking weird. Of course he bites you. It’s a compliment.”
If Feng Xin got his head out of his ass, he’d see that CuoCuo only bites Feng Xin. Not Jian Lan, not Mu Qing, not even kids at the playground who try to steal his toys. He bites his father, and his favorite stuffed animals, and his favorite snacks.
Feng Xin scoffs. He brings his hand back to himself, tracing his palm. Mu Qing resists the urge to grab it within his own hands. “The fucker is going to scar me. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks skin.”
“All the better to blackmail him with when he’s a teenager,” Mu Qing says.
Silence. Mu Qing follows the movement of Feng Xin’s finger along his palm. Gentle along the outer, firm along the middle; his fingers are long and thick, square in a way Mu Qing wants to capture in his own. Wants to put in his mouth. Wants to kiss, softly, reverently.
The language of want is absent from Feng Xin’s body. No desire of the unseen, only acceptance of what’s right in front of him. The linear path. He loves Xie Lian, so Xie Lian is his brother. His parents have expectations, so he went to a good college, got a good job, and made good for himself.
Mu Qing is by his side, so Mu Qing is his best friend. Mu Qing is by Jian Lan’s side, so Mu Qing is gone.
Feng Xin has a child. The question of want doesn't enter the equation; Feng Xin has a child, and so that child is the sum of all his love, all his efforts to be good to someone else. Feng Xin is a father, and so the acceptance is a hard determination.
“Look,” Mu Qing says. “I know you want more time with CuoCuo. So just fucking ask. You don’t have anything to prove.”
“And when I fuck up?” The response is immediate, fire poised behind Feng Xin’s throat. “You think Jian Lan will be okay with that?”
“God, you’re an idiot.” Absolutely insufferable. So full of responsibility that he’s created walls that don’t exist. “You think Jian Lan doesn’t fuck up? You think I don’t? As long as your kid is breathing and unharmed, who the fuck cares. You love him. That’s more than some people get.”
The quiet rings. Feng Xin stares at Mu Qing, eyes full of something indecipherable. Not anger — the anger has all vanished, expression smooth of pointed angles — but not happiness. An inbetween, somber like he’s caught in a hazy, murky nothing shadowed by the darkness of the room.
Mu Qing feels it.
“I miss you,” Feng Xin says.
It crowds his throat and fills the empty space behind his chest. “I didn’t think you were capable.”
“Fuck off. Fuck.” Feng Xin leans closer. Shifts along the couch, invading Mu Qing’s corner. “I just. I miss you.”
Mu Qing watches him; the rising pink along his cheeks, the warmth of his skin as he cups Mu Qing’s cheek. Logical. Rational. Concrete observations, at odds with the dryness of Mu Qing’s mouth and the rapid beat of his heart and the please, please, please reverberating in his mind.
Feng Xin presses his lips to Mu Qing’s. His eyes slide shut.
Years have passed since the last time Mu Qing gave into the urge to imagine this. Even with the faded, dull memory of those shameful moments, Mu Qing knows that his thoughts never came close to this.
Desperation. Clawing at Feng Xin’s back, his weight pressing Mu Qing into the couch. Feng Xin’s lips are rough, his mouth warm, his tongue inviting. The sound of his breathing echoes in Mu Qing’s ears.
“Stay,” Feng Xin gasps out, parting just slightly. “Please.”
For an hour, to thoroughly ruin Mu Qing’s sanity. For a night, to fit together and never talk of it again. For the week, to allow Feng Xin time to realize he doesn’t want this after all. It’s a bad idea. Mu Qing isn’t his best friend.
Mu Qing traces Feng Xin’s jaw. Traces of stubble poke against his fingertips. “How long?”
Feng Xin leans his forehead against Mu Qing’s. “As long as you’re in my life.”
Mu Qing kisses him.