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To be clear, they’re both freshmen in college and nobody cares about chess boxing, but Shen Jiu had been roped into it by Yue Qingyuan during high school and Liu Qingge idolized Yue Qingyuan, so naturally they were star crossed rivals. Or something like that.
A grand total of anywhere between 5 to 30 people usually watched chess box matches, and Liu Qingge and Shen Jiu usually took so long to defeat each other that they were always the last ones to compete; by the time they were done only Yue Qingyuan and Liu Mingyan were still around.
What is chess boxing, you ask? Exactly what it seems – a hybrid sport between chess and boxing in which two people played alternating rounds of boxing and chess, and the first one to achieve either KO or checkmate won.
Liu Qingge was too good at boxing; Shen Jiu was too good at chess. (Yue Qingyuan, unfortunately, was too good at both.)
Everything was going as it should: Shen Jiu practiced against Yue Qingyuan, Liu Qingge practiced against a very reluctant Liu Mingyan and, when he could, Yue Qingyuan.
But then freshman year ended and Yue Qingyuan graduated and suddenly his time was more and more limited as he was interning at Cang Qiong Corp, so,
“We should practice together,” Liu Qingge suddenly said one day, after having creepily waited outside Shen Jiu’s classroom until his last class of the day ended.
“How did you know I was going to be here?” Shen Jiu asked, giving him a sideways glance but otherwise walking past him and away as though Liu Qingge didn’t even exist.
“I memorized your schedule,” Liu Qingge said dismissively. “Who are you practicing against these days?”
The answer was ‘no one’ but Shen Jiu was too proud. “You don’t know them,” he sniffled out, resigning himself to the fact that Liu Qingge was going to be walking with him.
“They’re not as good as I am,” Liu Qingge said, before insisting, “You should start practicing with me.”
Shen Jiu huffed – as if – but two days later he and Liu Qingge had their first practice session. (No one was more relieved than Liu Mingyan, who wanted out of chess boxing asap now that she’d already landed a date with her own ‘rival’.)
What were they competing for? Nobody knew; there were very few official competitions and everybody liked to steer clear of them because they obviously only liked to compete with each other, but they’d been doing it for too long to even consider giving up on it.
Halfway through their second year of university there was an official competition in a neighboring city.
There were about 30 contestants and their ultimate goal was to go through them all so they could compete against each other at the end and finally have the world (read: ~100 people, give or take) know who was best.
Shen Jiu was defeated in his second match. Liu Qingge was defeated in his third match.
Yue Qingyuan hadn’t been able to attend due to a business trip and Liu Mingyan was studying for her high school finals.
Neither of them wanted to admit they were butthurt.
Liu Qingge, who had driven them to the match, asked, “Do you want to get something to eat before we get back?”
Against all odds, Shen Jiu said yes.
They’d never had a meal together in which Yue Qingyuan wasn’t there to mediate between them, not even during the past few months where they’d consistently had training sessions one on one, and they were both surprised to find that- it wasn’t as bad as they’d thought it would be. It wasn’t nice , but it wasn’t that bad.
“I wish I’d gotten to fight against you in the final,” Shen Jiu admitted later that evening, when Liu Qingge had driven them both back to campus and they were splitting up at the dorms, and he pretended not to see the way Liu Qingge’s ears became red.
“Me too,” Liu Qingge had somehow grunted out, only to walk away abruptly. Shen Jiu thought that was a rather interesting development.
From that point onwards, they both had a common goal in mind: practice hard so they could compete against each other in next year’s official competition.
Shen Jiu had a secret second goal which was to make Liu Qingge as flustered as possible in the process.
As it turned out, he didn’t even need to try very hard – Liu Qingge started to become so flustered during their training sessions when one of them ended up on top of the other that Shen Jiu had been able to beat him in boxing several times.
Even more surprising, he found he didn’t really mind it; he wanted to see more and more of it.
“You and Liu Qingge spend a lot of time together nowadays, don’t you?” Yue Qingyuan asked one day, when he went to meet up with him after work so they could get some dinner.
“Why would you say that?” Shen Jiu asked, not as affronted as he would usually be.
“You train together 3 times a week,” Yue Qingyuan pointed out. “And isn’t that his sweater you’re wearing?”
Shen Jiu shrugged. “It was cold out after we had dinner last night,” and he couldn’t help but feel a little smug.
(Yue Qingyuan wanted to throttle Liu Qingge, but instead he settled for giving him ‘the shovel talk’, resulting in Liu Qingge becoming so flustered he tried to avoid Shen Jiu for 4 days straight. It didn’t work.)
“Liu Qingge,” Shen Jiu greeted coldly, having managed to corner him outside his dorm room one night. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“I live here,” he said dumbly.
Shen Jiu narrowed his eyes, seeing the way Liu Qingge’s eyes rapidly darted to his dorm room’s door, quickly wanting to escape.
“Why are you avoiding me?” he demanded.
“I’m not,” Liu Qingge lied, averting his gaze. The tips of his ears were red.
“Don’t lie, you brute,” he snapped. “What is it? Am I not good enough for you to train with anymore? Found a better partner so now you toss me aside, is that it?”
“W-What, no, I–“ Liu Qingge managed to stutter out, but Shen Jiu thought the fact he didn’t even try to be honest was answer enough, so,
“Save it,” he said, before brushing past him to leave.
He was halfway down the corridor when Liu Qingge yelled out, “Yue Qingyuan threatened me!”
It was such a preposterous thing to say that, against his better judgment, Shen Jiu had to stop and turn around. “What?”
“He– okay maybe not really threatened, but we had a chat and he told me we seemed to be really close, and he would hurt me if I hurt you and–“
“He didn’t,” Shen Jiu said, nothing short of horrified. Qi-ge was ruining everything! His whole plan!
“He did,” Liu Qingge confirmed, and “he’s right, I’ve been too close to you, taking advantage of our practice sessions, and it’s shameful and disgusting and-“
Liu Qingge had been resolutely looking down at the floor, clearly embarrassed, but when he looked up it was to find Shen Jiu standing right in front of him, looking annoyed.
"Shut up," he said, before he leaned up and pressed his lips against Liu Qingge's.
Predictably, Liu Qingge was frozen in shock. Shen Jiu smirked – his goal of flustering Liu Qingge at every turn very close to completion – before turning around and walking away once again.
Liu Qingge practically ran inside his dorm room as soon as he was able to regain his motor functions, and proceeded to avoid Shen Jiu for 3 more days.
On the 4th day, at the time they usually met to practice, he walked up to Shen Jiu, with an oddly determined look on his face, and– and–
"What are you doing?" Shen Jiu asked, noticing he looked much weirder than usual. "Are you sick?" Liu Qingge was, unfortunately, too flustered to reply. "Ew, you are, aren't you? What are you doing, are you trying to get me si–"
"Shut up," Liu Qingge grunted out, before practically mashing his face against Shen Jiu's in what was probably supposed to be a kiss.
"And what was that supposed to be?" Shen Jiu asked, completely unfazed, even though his heart was racing inside his chest.
"Well– you– you did it first!" Liu Qingge exclaimed, even though no one had accused him of anything in the first place.
"Ah," Shen Jiu said, smirking in the way that always made Liu Qingge's blood boil – he just wasn't sure it was quite the same way as before, "if you wanted another kiss you could have just said so."
And before Liu Qingge could protest, he kissed him again. But better.
He wasn't a brute, after all.
(They started dating without really dating after that – everybody knew but they both liked to say it wasn't like that, even though it was. In the end, they used their practice sessions to hook up so many times they were forbidden from using their college's practice rooms ever again, so they decided to just 'practice' in their dorm rooms.
They dropped out of chess boxing after losing in next year's official competition... again. They kept practicing, though 😇)