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The Wimbledon match they’re watching in the clubroom is disappointingly boring. Both players are equally skilled in the dullest way possible that despite the neck-to-neck score, Lu Xia has half a mind to change the channel. Or maybe, they can watch an old recording of one of Li Na’s matches instead, or he can just turn off the TV and hit some balls at the court. To do any of that, though, he’d have to reach for the remote, which means he’d have to retract his arm from where it’s resting along the back of the sofa, not quite around Qi Ying’s shoulders. When he’d first put the limb there, she had tensed, but he pretended he wasn’t paying attention to her and soon enough she relaxed, letting her shoulders lean on the back of the sofa and—consequently—on his arm. It’s not cuddling—they’re not, after all, the Golden Partners, shameless with their affection—but it is… something.
It’s always something, with Qi Ying.
The match reaches a tie break. Finally. Lu Xia sits up a little straighter, trying his hardest not to jostle Qi Ying, but she shoots up anyway, hands fisting on her knees as she rocks forward. He glances at her; she, too, is looking at him with wide eyes.
He looks away, and fixes his attention on the more boring sight of the match. His arm stays where it is, waiting for her.
She does not lean back.
1-0. God, even the rallies in this match are boring.
“Lu Xia,” Qi Ying says, very quietly.
“Mm?”
Qi Ying bites her lip. Her back is ramrod straight but her head is ducked ever so slightly down, which is how he knows she's gathering up a lot of courage for whatever it is she's about to say.
“Um,” she starts.
He waits.
“Um, I was wondering…”
He waits, still. A held breath before an opponent’s serve.
“When are you going to ask me out?”
If he isn’t sitting down, he would be stumbling. “What?”
“It’s just that… you’ve been chasing away every boy that tries to ask me out, lately.”
He sits up, pulling his arm to his middle, elbows on his knees. He knows, vaguely, that he should be saying something romantic right about now. He’s watched enough movies to figure that out, at least. But all that escapes from his tongue is a harsh, “Do you want to go out with them?”
“No!” she exclaims, shaking her head fervently. Her hair swishes. It smells like cherry blossoms. He looks away, tucks his chin into the fold of his palm, covers his nose with his hand discreetly.
“Then there’s no issue, is there?” he mutters from behind his fingers, painfully aware how childish and petulant he sounds.
Qi Ying scrunches her eyes tight, her whole body tense and taut. One second. Two seconds. Then, she relaxes. Opens her eyes.
He straightens up. Turns to face her. Waits, again. Still. Forever.
She says, finally, “I don’t want to go out with them, because I want to go out with you. You know that, right?”
He does. He would be an idiot not to notice the way she smiles her little happy smile whenever he chases away yet another boy. “Mm.”
This, apparently, is not enough of a reply, because she doesn’t say anything. She merely waits in turn.
He sighs. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“Going out?”
A grimace tugs on his lips. “And the asking. The…” An English word emerges in his head: courting. An old word, but familiar in its root: court. He knows one type of court. He knows this one has different rules that he doesn’t understand.
He admits, finally, “I’m not good at this, Qi Ying.”
It flays him a little to admit his deficiencies out loud. He has many, he’s aware. It’s easier to count the things he’s actually good at: tennis, English, tennis, talking smack, and tennis. He’s not like Qi Ying, with her perfect grades and great cooking and friendly rapport with everyone. The other day, she asked him what he would do after high school, then told him that it was good that he knew exactly what to pursue in life. She said she was having a difficult time deciding what to do herself. He thinks that that’s only something someone who has a lot of options would say.
Which is all to say that he hasn’t asked her out because he’s not good at any of this, and she deserves better. He only drives all the other boys away because they’re not what he would call better.
Qi Ying, however, only nods slowly at his declaration, as if she knows exactly what he’s thinking. Then, she says, “You can say, ‘Qi Ying, I really like you. Would you like to go see a movie this weekend?”
“I can’t this weekend, I have tennis practice,” Lu Xia says automatically, regretting it as soon as the words leave his mouth.
But she just laughs, a cute little giggle that does funny things to his stomach. “You’re right, nationals are coming up, right?”
He nods.
She taps her chin absently. “What about… food?”
“Food?”
“Well, your training won’t go far if you do it on an empty stomach,” she points out. “You have breakfast first, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Then, what about, ‘Qi Ying, I have training every day for the next…’”
“Three months,” he supplies.
“Okay. ‘I have training every day for the next three months, but would you like to have breakfast with me this Saturday?’”
“Yes.”
“No, you’re supposed to ask me that, and then I’ll say yes.”
“Why?” Is it because he’s a boy? He read somewhere that boys should do the asking, but then a different article says that that’s a dated advice, and another article entirely says it really depends, actually. None of these articles were any help whatsoever.
“Because you’re the one who’s stopping people from asking me out every time?”
“You can stop people from asking me out,” he says, though no one ever asks him out.
Qi Ying giggles again. “I’ll tell Qiao Chen xuezhang to back off the next time he’s taking you to eat burgers, if you like?”
He grins. “How would you say it?”
She wrinkles her nose, and in what he thinks is supposed to be a stern voice, says, “Xuezhang, you can’t take Lu Xia out for burgers, because he’s taking me out to eat breakfast as soon as he asks me,” then smiles a little proud smile at him.
And his chest, it swells with something warm and thick, like honey, like caramel. It rises up his throat, spills off his mouth in the shape of her name: “Qi Ying—”
“Mm?”
Lu Xia tries to make his mouth form the appropriate sounds, say the words she’s told him to say, but he can’t. There’s a buzzing in his ear, the rush of his own blood, and she’s smiling even wider now, so unrestrainedly happy. It hurts, sometimes, to look at Qi Ying straight in the eye like this. Like squinting at the midday sun. When Lu Xia was a toddler, he’d made a habit of doing that until his father made him wear a cap whenever they were outside. He has long stopped looking straight at the sun, though he keeps the cap. Now, he regrets that he’d taken it off earlier, because all he wants to do is reach up and tip the lid down over his eyes.
But he can’t, and he can’t speak, either. He can only stare at her stupidly as she smiles at him. His fingers twitch, itching for a racket, for a ball, for something to do, to grasp. He has always found the physical easiest, has always found solution in actions rather than words.
And so, Lu Xia does what is easiest: he leans across that one-foot gap between them, pull her into his arms, and presses his lips to hers.
It’s over faster than he thought. The movies always make it seem longer, more involved. He frowns, considers trying it again for the second time, but decides to finally pull away, because Qi Ying is rigid in his arms and he doesn’t know what to do.
“Um,” she says, pink-cheeked and wide-eyed. She still hasn’t moved an inch.
“I did it wrong,” he concludes, because what else could this reaction mean?
“No,” she says, haltingly. “I just didn’t know—I mean—”
“You didn’t like it.”
“No!” she exclaims, then grasps at his sleeve, as if he could just walk away from her at any moment. “It was fine, really, it’s okay.”
“Okay,” he echoes. Not exactly the glowing review he expected for his first kiss. His whole body feels hot and restless, like those few seconds before a match begins, and he can’t stop thinking about the fragrance of her shampoo, and all he wants is to pull him onto his lap and finish the job, whatever that means, but it’s okay.
“No, no, I don’t mean it like that! I mean—you can kiss me, Lu Xia. I don’t mind. I want to kiss you, too.”
“But?” he asks, because he knows a but is coming.
“I just didn’t know,” she says slowly, every word a measured thing, “that you wanted to kiss me.”
He frowns.
She explains, “It just took me by surprise, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Well, I—I guessed that you might like me. I hoped you liked me. But you never said anything, so I couldn’t be sure.”
Is it not obvious? Everyone knows—he’s endured his teammates’ ribbing about her pretty much on a daily basis—and she’s smarter than most everyone, so surely she should know? He’s given her gifts. He has told her things he would never tell anyone else. He has run after her in the rain, shielded her with his own body, stopped suitors from pursuing her.
And yet if she already knew, she wouldn’t have asked him about it in so nervous a tone. She wouldn’t have to ask him anything at all. She would be sure in the knowledge, as she is sure in many things.
All he has to do is to name it for what it is.
And so he does.
“I like you.” This time, the words come to him much more easily. “I like you, Qi Ying.”
Qi Ying beams, and it’s like watching the sun stream through colored glass. “I like you too, Lu Xia.”
“Do you want to have breakfast with me before my training this Saturday?”
“Yes.”
He watches her smile some more, basking in the warmth of it. He doesn’t know what else to say, but she doesn’t say anything else to him. Instead, she shifts closer, leaning her head on his shoulder. Unthinking, he wraps his arm around her shoulders, and together they turn their attention back to the TV.
The next match is already starting.
Love-all.