Chapter Text
A/N - This is the first part of a fully completed fic that I had been sitting on for a while, then posted the first draft of on Twitter as a thread fic. I'm just cleaning up some of the wording and fleshing out a few of the scenes here, but it is complete, so I probably will be posting the second part in a few days. Not beta-read, exactly, but there were some suggestions from Twitter readers that I am incorporating here!
Because this is a modern, non-cultivator AU, there are no courtesy names in this universe.
I also have scenes from this that I might post that are in wwx's or lwj's povs. I find them super funny, because neither of them hardly notice Su She. But those pov's will be E rated, so I will post in this universe but as separate fics, at some point. Lan Zhan's pov in particular is exceptionally E rated. Poor BBy did not know what hit him when he first encountered Wei Ying.
Su She hurried to his fluid mechanics class. It was one of three courses he shared with the department’s star student, Lan Zhan. He liked to be the first one to class, since some teachers recognized this as a sign of respect and a serious student. Sometimes, if he was effusive enough, his professors would grade him less harshly than his peers. Midterms were coming up in less than two weeks, so he wanted to have all the teachers as favorably disposed towards him as possible.
And if he happened to arrive before Lan Zhan, then that was just an added benefit. Su She liked the slightly put-out look that Lan Zhan had when Su She managed to get the seat that Lan Zhan usually took in all his classes: middle of the front row. Well, to be accurate, Lan Zhan’s expression never showed anything , but even though the man pretended to ignore him, Su She was sure that Lan Zhan rushed each day to class to try to beat Su She to the seat.
Lan Zhan might not admit it, but they were clearly rivals.
After 12 years of going to school together, with Su She constantly trying to beat Lan Zhan in every class and student club he joined, even if Su She wasn't often (or ever) successful, Lan Zhan must view him as such. True, Lan Zhan never spoke with him, never asked about him… never even seemed to look at him, but that was just because he was trying to act superior. It wasn’t like Lan Zhan really talked to anyone outside of projects, so the fact that he didn’t talk to Su She wasn’t really concerning.
There was no way he did not see Su She as his rival!
And even on the small chance that Lan Zhan was too stuck up to admit their rivalry, then at least the other students would hopefully finally recognize Su She’s abilities and superiority instead of always talking only about Lan Zhan: how talented he was, how smart he was, how beautiful he was. They even had a nickname for him and his elder brother: the Twin Jades, from both being so pretentiously perfect with their grades and appearance.
It was ridiculous.
Su She had managed to get into the same college as Lan Zhan, but not always the exact same courses. He knew what Lan Zhan’s majors were, so there were some courses that he would definitely be registered for, but—since Lan Zhan was a double major—it was somewhat hard to predict which sections he was in for the classes Su She shared with him. . Su She always signed up to those right away.
As for their few elective courses, students were allowed to switch classes up until the end of the first week. Su She tried to adjust his schedule if he needed to, but since he and Lan Zhan were both in the acoustical engineering department, at least their core classes like fluid mechanics would overlap. Lan Zhan was double majoring in music theory, but Su She had dropped the idea of trying to copy him in that path freshman year. You needed to have special permission from the dean of both the engineering school as well as the school of music to double-major, and Su She’s grades were not deemed sufficient.
Students also had to audition to be accepted into the School of Music for degree programs, and Su She had not made it. It was ridiculous. He was sure that the only reason he hadn’t made it was because his profile was too similar to Lan Zhan’s, and—since Lan Zhan’s uncle was affiliated with the university—they decided to give the slot to him instead of Su She.
Just another example of how Lan Zhan got special treatment. Su She might not have as good of grades or the same sort of family connections, but that didn’t mean Lan Zhan was better .
Su She gritted his teeth when he entered the lecture room and saw Lan Zhan already seated, his notebook and pen neatly laid out on his desk. In every class since they had first met in the very exclusive grade school when they were 8 years old, Lan Zhan has sat in the middle seat in the front row of the class. In every class since they met, Lan Zhan was always the teacher’s favorite student, and always got the highest score (usually by quite a large margin) in the class.
Always.
It had continued in college. Even though the exam scores were always posted by student ID number, not the students’ names, everyone knew which number was Lan Zhan’s, because it was always the top score.
And as if that was not bad enough, Lan Zhan made it look effortless. He was never late, never tired, his clothing was always elegantly perfect , his long hair always without a strand out of place up in an elegant bun or in a smooth braid over his shoulder. Lan Zhan drew everyone’s gaze, wherever he was. And the guy didn’t even care. He would just walk right by, ignoring everyone, the same way he had in high school.
He especially always ignored Su She.
While Lan Zhan seemed to not notice other students around him, no matter how they clamored for his attention, he had always seemed particularly disdainful of Su She. Just once, Su She wanted to see another student try to earn Lan Zhan’s respect and get smeared across the pavement the way Su She had been.
Su She had watched Lan Zhan for years . When he had managed to (just barely) get into the same Engineering school as Lan Zhan, he had finally thought that he might have earned at least a ‘hello’ from Lan Zhan. But no matter what he did, Lan Zhan never looked twice at him. Never even acknowledged Su She’s existence except with the occasional haughty glare when someone accused Su She of cheating or not doing his portion of a group project.
He had hoped that Lan Zhan would be more open to spending time with Su She in college. After all, they didn’t know anyone else in their department. So he had tried to get Lan Zhan to join a study group with him. Lan Zhan always had the homework done early, so Su She would have been able to see Lan Zhan’s answers and improve his scores a bit. It wasn’t cheating! Students were allowed to work together and discuss the homework problems. If Lan Zhan always did his work early and had nothing to discuss, it didn’t mean he couldn’t allow others to at least see how he had approached them. But (as always), Lan Zhan had ignored him, thinking himself too good to offer to help a fellow student.
It was fine, though. Engineering had a lot of students, and a lot of them posted homework solutions online, so Su She was able to at least hold his own in those classes, especially where homework counted for a large portion of the grade. He didn’t need to copy from Lan Zhan. He would show the other student that he was just as talented when grades came out this term. He heard rumors that someone had found a way to hack into a few of the professors’ accounts, where the exams for the semester were kept. If other people got to see them, then Su She should be able to as well.
He was sure this was the only reason he wasn’t closer to the top of his classes. The other students were likely all cheating. Lan Zhan probably had friends in the department who let him see the tests in advance, since his uncle taught at the university in the School of Fine Arts.
Su She would be just as admired as Lan Zhan if he had those same advantages. Lan Zhan just didn’t like him because he wasn’t as wealthy as Lan Zhan’s family was. It was all just elitism.
The professor had not yet entered the room, and many of the other students in the classroom were clustered in small groups, talking. While this was not an unusual event, the level of chatter was somewhat more animated than usual. At first, it didn't seem particularly interesting, so Su She ignored it. But they were speaking loud enough to make it impossible for at least some of their words to reach him.
“I heard there’s a transfer student. I didn’t think they allowed mid-term transfers.”
“I heard that, too! I think he’s in the second year class.”
“He couldn’t be. My roommate said the guy is in his Quantum Field Theory class.”
“Your roommate has to be wrong. They don't allow undergraduates in that class.”
“Maybe he’s a grad student?”
Su She let the conversation flow around him. It seemed pretty boring, and he had nothing to add, since he hadn’t even known there was a new student, much less seen him.
“Nope. He moved into the undergraduate dorms over the weekend. My friend knows someone who knows his roommate. The guy was pissed because he thought he had the room all to himself after his other roommate dropped out, and then the university just jammed this new guy into his room without any notice.”
“Then he can’t be in Quantum Field Theory. You have to like… get special permission from the Dean to do that, and I think it’s only happened, like, twice in the history of the school. This guy wouldn’t stand a chance from what I’ve heard about him.”
Su She perked up. Finally, someone other than him was being shit-talked. Maybe the conversation wasn’t a total waste after all.
“I heard he slept through the entire class!”
“So disrespectful.”
“They must really have lowered the standards for transfers if he got in.”
Su She smirked. He would have to keep an eye out for this new student, so he’d have stories to tell and everyone would listen to him.
“I bet the teachers all hate him, if he’s sleeping through their classes like that.”
“How did he even get in? Everyone is supposed to take the admissions test. There’s no way he passed it.”
"I heard he was a swimmer. Was it a sports thing?"
“Don’t be stupid! Gusu doesn’t care about things like that! Admission is based on academic merit ONLY.”
“Or money,” another student said.
“Maybe his parents know someone on the board of admissions?”
“Are you kidding? Did you see how worn out his clothing was? His sweatshirt looks like it’s gone through at least three prior owners.”
“Yeah, I heard he moved in with two backpacks only, and one was full of just books.”
“Then how do you explain it?”
The teacher walked in and the conversation cut off.
It was about twenty minutes into the lecture when the door to the lecture hall opened and a student wearing a faded red hoodie (with the hood pulled up) and ratty jeans walked in and slid into a desk in the back of the classroom. It was hard to tell much about him, swathed as he was in the overly large sweatshirt with his face hidden in shadow, except he seemed to be tall and thin, and some strands of long black hair were messily spilling out of the hood.
The professor paused, looking displeased, but continued on with his lecture.
Su She assumed that this must be the transfer student that everyone had been gossiping about at the start of class. Students kept turning around to look at the guy, which only annoyed the professor further. Of course, Lan Zhan never turned to look once, facing the instructor and diligently taking notes in his expensive, leather bound notebook with his stupidly perfect penmanship, just to show how much better he was than everyone else.
“Since none of you seem to feel the need to listen to my lecture today, I will be posting an extra homework tonight on the topics focused on in class. It’s due by midnight,” Professor Xiang said.
The class groaned, some of them looking back to glare at the new guy, but he appeared to have fallen asleep at his desk.
Su She smirked, despite having been assigned extra homework. He could already imagine how much the other students were going to hate the new guy. For some unfair reason, Su She tended to be the target of dislike from many of the students. He was sure that at least some of this was jealousy on their part, but it was still frustrating at times. It was entertaining to see so many hostile glances directed at someone else for a change.
When class ended, everyone stood to leave, but the new student was still asleep. Lan Zhan glanced back when he stood, his expression looking even more judgemental than usual. He glared briefly at the sleeping student, muttering ‘disrespectful’ under his breath, then turned and walked from the room.
The professor was also glaring at the back row, and was stalking over, likely to wake the sleeping student up. Su She looked back at him one more time as he headed towards the door. Was that duct tape holding the guy’s shoe together? Su She snorted out a laugh. He gave the transfer student two weeks before he flunked out. Whatever fluke had let him transfer mid-term, it was clearly a mistake.
In fact, someone should file a complaint with the admissions committee. Maybe he would copy his professor on his complaint, to see if it could earn him some brownie points.
Su She contemplated how best to go about that as he headed off to his next class.
Su She only had one class with the new student, but he heard enough about him from the others to learn within the day that the new student’s name was Wei Ying, and everyone was counting the days until he dropped out and went back to wherever he transferred from. Evidently he had slept through or missed half of his classes (the ones where participation or attendance did not count as part of the grade). A few of the students had murmured that it would be too bad, because they somehow thought that this unkempt creature who couldn’t even stay awake in class was hot , but Su She ignored those comments as people romanticizing ‘bad boy’ behavior.
The next day in class, Wei Ying once wasn’t there at the start of class. Professor Xiang began the period by saying that only two people in the entire class got a passing grade on the homework set he’d assigned last time.
“Lan Zhan. Excellent work, as always.”
The professor didn’t say who the other person was, which was a little bit unusual. Professor Xiang liked to single out the overachievers (which always included Lan Zhan, but occasionally included one or two others) so that the rest of the students would feel like shit and try to up their game. Su She usually had a pretty good sense of who the top students in any class he took were, since there was no point in studying with someone worse than him.
Lan Zhan, of course, thought he was too good to study with him, and said it was against the rules for a student to copy from another’s work. Which was ridiculous, because the professors said that students were allowed to work together. It wasn’t Su She’s fault that Lan Zhan always wanted to do all the work himself, and then not let anyone see what he’d done.
Su She would have to ask around and find out who the other person was. The instructor was an unfairly harsh grader on the homeworks, which was unfortunate because homework was usually what carried Su She’s grade to make up for whatever he did on the exams.
Wei Ying came in late (though less late than the prior class), wearing another ratty, oversized hoodie (black, this time). This time, rather than just giving him an annoyed glare, the professor actually paused his lecture.
“Wei Ying. So nice of you to finally join us. Since you were late last time, you might not have heard that midterms are in less than two weeks. I expect all of the assignments for this class from the starting of the semester to present to be completed by then. I understand that this was the agreement you made with the Dean, so I expect you to be on time with your work. You will not be allowed extensions on the current assignments.”
Su She almost felt bad for the guy. Each assignment took at least four hours, some of them had taken Su She and his study group the entire night. They were already six weeks into the semester, and there had been a lot of assignments.
“Yeah. I submitted the first batch online last night, Professor Xiang,” Wei Ying said, as he slouched down in his desk, already looking half asleep.
“Hm,” Professor Xiang said skeptically, eying him narrowly.
Professor Xiang was a total hardass about grading work, always looking to take heavy points off even the tiniest of mistakes. Su She had tried to argue once that he shouldn’t lose nearly half the credit for just a minus sign and decimal point error, and Professor Xiang had said he hoped to never have the misfortune of using anything Su She designed in the future.
Su She smirked. If he already disliked Wei Ying, Professor Xiang was going to be even more brutal than usual. Su She wondered if someone should tell the newbie that it might not be worth his time to even submit them, with the number of points he was likely to get.
Su She snickered at the thought, and several people (including Lan Zhan), turned to glare at him, which was totally unfair. Su She was not the one being disrespectful wearing ratty clothes and sleeping through class.
“Then I will look forward to grading your work,” Professor Xiang said, looking back down at his lecture notes likely to remind himself where he had left off before being so rudely interrupted.
The sarcastic tone in his voice was unmistakable. At the comment, Wei Ying looked up from where he had been slouched. Su She realized it was the first time he’d ever gotten a good look at the guy’s face. It was… almost jarring.
Given how ratty and poor quality Wei Ying’s clothes were, Su She had formed a mental image in his mind of all of him being like that. But Wei Ying’s face was finely boned, with a sharp jaw and plush, pink lips. The most striking thing about him was his eyes, blazing with intelligence, dark, silvery-black almond shaped. Su She was irritated at the thought that he looked more like someone who should be in one of those idol competitions, rather than an engineering class.
And then Wei Ying smirked, the expression transforming his face and… Fine. Su She could possibly understand why a few of the students found the whole ‘bad boy’ aesthetic attractive, or whatever. Su She definitely preferred students who were actually going to accomplish something, not just draw attention to their looks.
“Then I’ll look forward to your thoughts, Professor Xiang. Thank you for instructing this one.”
Wei Ying’s tone was not exactly disrespectful, but it was definitely cocky. Professor Xiang narrowed his eyes but made no further comment. He would have the last laugh when he graded the transfer student’s work, and everyone knew it. Su She couldn’t wait for him to be taken down a peg.
He could see a couple students staring at Wei Ying admiringly, and it immediately set Su She’s teeth on edge. People who looked like that always thought they were so special. He’d heard one of the female students whisper to the person next to her ‘Holy shit. I didn’t know he was hot!’
He’d rolled his eyes and ignored it. Some people just liked to rebel by liking people for their looks and attitude, regardless of their actual worth or skill. Well, she wouldn’t be thinking Wei Ying was so hot once he failed his midterms.
He expected to see Lan Zhan at least looking as annoyed as Su She felt. Wei Ying was everything Lan Zhan always hated: disrespectful, untidy, and lazy in his classes. He was surprised to see Lan Zhan looking at Wei Ying with… absolutely no expression at all.
Su She huffed. He supposed Lan Zhan thought the new guy wasn’t even worth glaring at. He was right. Su She would ignore Wei Ying as well! There would be no class next week except for study sessions, but the week after that would be the exam, which should put an end to all the ridiculous heart eyes he could see people shooting Wei Ying’s way.
Even though he, himself, was not feeling very confident about the upcoming test, he was looking forward to seeing the new guy bite it. And hey, maybe Wei Ying would even bring the curve down. They’d finally have someone to balance out Lan Zhan.
With that pleasing thought in mind, Su She returned to taking notes, in the new notebook he had found that was almost exactly like the one Lan Zhan was using.
The fluid mechanics midterm was towards the end of exam week, so Su She had already heard that the new student had handed in his test paper and walked out of 3 other midterms about halfway through the test. Everyone was talking about it. Even if Su She didn’t know how to answer a single question on an exam, he would at least sit there long enough to make it look like he had been able to complete it.
Evidently Wei Ying didn’t care about saving face.
So even though Su She was dreading the FM midterm, he was sort of excited to finally have his own story to contribute about the absolute trainwreck of a transfer student that had landed in the middle of his class.
Professor Xiang’s tests were always brutal, but he made it worse because—at the end of each test—he would offer an ‘extra credit’ problem. The questions were always completely impossible, usually related to something from his own research group that the lab was working on. He’d heard some of the grad students discussing them, and they said that—even if a student knew how to solve it—it would take longer than the whole rest of the test to figure it out. To make matters even worse, the extra credit question was only worth 10 points.
It was clear the professor was just mocking them, although some said he used those questions more to show undergrads the type of things they would eventually be working on if they continued in their careers as engineers, to inspire (or frighten) them.
Even Lan Zhan didn’t bother with the extra credit question anymore.
Su She settled into his seat, neatly laying out his pencils and calculator. He’d found a way to program a bunch of equations into it, so he hoped Professor Xiang would let them use their own calculators.
As usual, Lan Zhan was there in his assigned seat, looking perfectly calm and composed while everyone else looked like the walking dead around him. Even during finals week, Lan Zhan never looked like he had been missing sleep or living off red bull or wearing clothes from the day before. His clothes were always perfectly pressed and clean, his hair shiny and freshly washed.
Su She felt his teeth clench, but was appeased when Wei Ying ran in just before the doors to the exam room had closed, out of breath, hair falling out of his messy bun, in the same red sweatshirt that Su She had seen him in the first day of class.
“I’m here! I’m not late!” Wei Ying said breathlessly, sounding like he had run all the way here. “Sorry, Professor Xiang, I had another exam in the math department just before this one.”
Oddly, Professor Xiang didn’t glare at him as much as he had before.
“Take a seat, Wei Ying. I’m just about to hand out the exam.”
Su She scowled at the relatively friendly greeting from Professor Xiang. Wei Ying was lying about his reason for being late. Su She had heard the other engineering students discussing that none of them had him in any of their math classes. Su She wondered how he could prove it, and if there would be any penalty other than embarrassment since Wei Ying hadn’t actually been late. The exam schedules were posted, so it wouldn’t be hard to look them up and show that there was no math test going on at the time.
He would look into it, and maybe send Professor Xiang an email about it after the exam.
Su She looked down at his test, feeling anxiety creep in as he read through all of the problems and didn’t recognize a single one from the practice test or the homeworks. Even with all of the equations stored in his calculator, he wasn’t sure which ones to use. He glanced around and saw a few of the other students looking pale and panicked at their exams.
At least he wasn’t the only one.
Lan Zhan, of course, was already writing with careful precision in his exam booklet, looking calm and focused. He was such an asshole, showing off that way!
Su She was sure the student was doing it on purpose just to try to shake Su She's confidence. Lan Zhan was so petty, trying to flex like that.
He wished he could turn around to look at Wei Ying. Surely the new guy was absolutely shitting himself over how hard the test was. But Su She was nervous about getting accused of cheating (again), so he only had time to pretend to stretch up, tilting his face up towards the ceiling while sneaking a glance out of the corner of his eye to where Wei Ying was… writing furiously already in his exam book???
Su She snorted. Probably writing a note to the instructor begging for mercy or extra time. Professor Xiang would read it and laugh in front of the whole class. That would be entertaining. Su She forced himself to start writing equations down, hoping to at least get partial credit.
The first person to turn in their exam was Lan Zhan, as always. The Second Jade, usually just left without a backwards glance at the rest of them, but this time, Su She saw him look back in the direction Wei Ying was sitting. It was only a momentary glance, and then Lan Zhan was walking gracefully out of the room.
Perhaps Lan Zhan had also been expecting Wei Ying to walk out like he had in his other tests. Su She supposed even perfect, prissy students like Lan Zhan can appreciate comedic relief during a test. Su She was certainly disappointed that he hadn’t been able to witness Wei Ying walking out the same way everyone else had. When the professor was looking down at Lan Zhan’s test, he snuck a glance back at the transfer student.
He expected to see the guy panicking, or maybe asleep. Instead, Wei Ying had evidently taken his exam booklet apart and was writing on three different sections at the same time, the tip of his tongue peeking out between his lips as his pencil flew across the paper. Even though the man was sitting down like everyone else, Wei Ying somehow still managed to give the impression of being in chaotic motion.
Su She found it annoyingly unsettling, and went back to focusing on his own test.
“Excuse me, Professor Xiang?” Wei Ying spoke in a quiet voice, but—in the deathly silence of the sound of frantic pencil scratching—it seemed loud in the room.
“No speaking during the exam,” Professor Xiang said sharply.
“Sorry, but can I have another booklet? I ran out of space,” Wei Ying said.
Students were not allowed to leave their seats during an exam unless it was to hand in their papers, so Su She supposed he really hadn’t had much of an option. Still, it was annoying to have his concentration broken when he was sure he was just about to have been able to figure out one of the problems. Perhaps he could complain to the Dean about it, and get some leniency on the grade.
Professor Xiang looked only mildly annoyed as he brought an extra booklet back to where Wei Ying was sitting. Su She wasn’t the only one who turned to watch. He saw Professor Xiang scowl down at the mess of papers strewn over Wei Ying’s desktop, as he glanced down at them while handing Wei Ying his new booklet. Professor Xiang paused, then bent forward slightly, picking up one of the pieces of paper from Wei Ying’s taken-apart booklet to read something on it.
“Eyes on your own papers,” Professor Xiang said, not looking up from whatever he was reading in Wei Ying’s messy scrawl.
Professor Xiang stayed by Wei Ying’s desk for the rest of the exam. Su She smirked. He must suspect the transfer student of cheating. He wondered if Wei Ying would be kicked out immediately, or if there would be a hearing.
Cheered at the thought of more drama, Su She went back to trying to find at least one question on the test that he could answer in full.
On his way back to his dorm, Su She pulled up the exam schedule for the math department. The only schedule listed at the time Wei Ying claimed to be taking a midterm was Geometry of Manifolds, which was a graduate level course and definitely not something a sophomore would be taking. Su She smirked. Between being able to talk about how the professor obviously thought Wei Ying was cheating during the exam and proof that the transfer student had lied about his reason for almost being late, Su She ended up with plenty of gossip to add to the rumor mill, even if he didn’t get to see the guy walk out of the test.
He decided to go to the dining hall rather than his dorm, in case there were people to talk with there. It was nice finally not being the butt of everyone’s jokes. He hoped Wei Ying at least lasted another week or two before dropping out, for the entertainment value alone.
to be continued...