Work Text:
It’s a simple thing—tender warmth settling gently in Gao Yingjie’s chest as the final piece of an answer she hadn’t realised she’d been missing drops softly into place.
Wang Jiexi has brought tea and sandwiches, and the cool scent of autumn carried in on his coat. Gao Yingjie lifts her gaze from her paperwork and thinks, oh.
That’s her joy unfurling at the sight of him. Those are her feelings lifting, swaying, reaching toward him like the greenery bending to the breeze in the planter outside her office window. This is the familiar sensation of herself in love.
It occurs to her, too, even as she’s flooding with understanding—another oh—that this is what Qiao Yifan has been hinting at. That this is—because of course it is—something Qiao Yifan has gone and put together so much sooner than her. That her feelings for Wang Jiexi, the shape of which seems both so startling and so ordinary, are something her boyfriend must have been reading on Gao Yingjie’s face for…
Gao Yingjie doesn’t even know how long.
She can’t bring herself to mind that he’s figured it out before her; she doesn’t feel bothered or alarmed. She feels warmed, and known, and loved.
She focuses on taking a conscious breath. She makes a point of catching herself before she does something weird, like allowing her sudden realisations to draw her in too close to the windblown disorder of Wang Jiexi’s hair when he passes her tea. He’s let his hair grow a little longer since his retirement, yes, but its enhanced touchability doesn’t mean she ought to touch.
She takes another breath. She makes sure her surprise hasn’t led to any strange miskeys in the document she’s had open. She saves her work, then shuts things down. She closes her laptop, and sets it and her tablet carefully to one side.
She wraps her hands around the cup of tea Wang Jiexi has placed in front of her.
Wang Jiexi meets her gaze from the other side of the table, then glances away, his hands busy with taking off his coat and scarf. It still seems vaguely strange to see him here out of uniform, although Gao Yingjie is perfectly used to it anywhere else.
Still… he’d been standing so quietly in the open doorway when she’d noticed him. She wonders, now, whether he’d been feeling a little strange about it, too. Perhaps she’s supposed to ask him whether he’d prefer they meet somewhere else, now that he’s retired; perhaps she’s supposed to take the way he’d jolted at her gaze as a sign of discomfort. His cheeks are slightly pink—but she thinks that’s probably the weather.
‘I didn’t want to interrupt you,’ Wang Jiexi says, speaking carefully while looking at the sandwiches. ‘I suddenly thought—I’m not really supposed to know what you’re working on, now, so—better to let you finish…’
‘I should have paid attention to how late it’s gotten,’ Gao Yingjie says.
She tries to remember his expression when he’d been waiting—when she’d first noticed him here. Soft, she thinks. Gentle? Slightly startled, or caught, maybe, by the realisation that Gao Yingjie had glanced up and seen him. Glad, though. She’s sure his cheeks had been dusted pink, and his eyes had been glad.
Maybe, she thinks. Maybe we’re the same in this, too. Maybe that’s why Fang Shiqian has often—
Gao Yingjie tucks that train of thought away. She can dwell on it later, can find something in her apartment to scrub while she thinks and overthinks. Right now, she has company. Right now, she’s being rude and distant. And, yes, she knows for sure that Wang Jiexi knows exactly how difficult it can be to shake yourself out of your thoughts and focus on people, and she also knows that there’s no way he’ll ever mind, but—Gao Yingjie minds. She’s worked hard at it. She’s better than this.
Anyway, now isn’t the time to indulge her feelings. She needs time to talk—to think—to buy a ticket to Hangzhou because this is a conversation she’s going to want to have with Qiao Yifan’s arms wrapped around her rather than whispered awkwardly on a phone. She thinks she’s pretty great at putting together Qiao Yifan’s stance on things—at least, once she’s caught up with him—but this isn’t exactly something with any real room for error.
‘Long day?’ Wang Jiexi asks.
Gao Yingjie shakes herself back to the here and now, back to the warmth in Wang Jiexi’s eyes and the slight uncertainty in his expression. He’s concerned about her, she guesses, but… maybe still unsure whether he’s allowed to be, now their roles have changed. Or… maybe he’s simply still caught on whatever he’d been thinking about when she’d looked up and noticed him.
Gao Yingjie never has been able to decide which of them is slower with these things—which is more prone to doubt and self-doubt on their way to ironclad certainty.
‘Long week,’ Gao Yingjie answers him, which is the truth. She’s had too many interviews, too many photoshoots, too many people asking her the same questions in slightly different ways. She hates having to decide whether she’s allowed to just repeat herself.
Wang Jiexi settles properly into his chair. He nods in understanding. ‘You’ll be through the worst of the media circus soon,’ he says—which is something Gao Yingjie already clearly knows, but which she still appreciates hearing.
‘They’re putting me on the cover,’ Gao Yingjie admits unhappily. ‘In eSports Home. I’m not going to be able to show my face in the supermarket. The dress they put me in—’
Wang Jiexi’s face does something Gao Yingjie doesn’t trust herself to interpret. She’s being overly swayed, Gao Yingjie thinks, by these sudden realisations; she’s being fooled by her wishful thinking. Wang Jiexi clears his throat. ‘I’m sure you’ll look—’ He hesitates, then clears his throat a second time. ‘I’m sure you’ll look lovely. You always look— Well, and the PR department knows what they’re doing, even if I couldn’t always wrap my head around it.’
He’s looking at the sandwiches again.
Maybe Gao Yingjie really has been misled by her sudden awareness of her feelings—maybe Wang Jiexi is being a little more awkward than usual because he’d walked into her office and found her looking silly again. Maybe she has highlighter ink on her nose again, or perhaps there are remnants of her canteen lunch in her hair. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Gao Yingjie huffs in mild amusement, rubbing at her face reflexively even though she knows there’s probably nothing there. She puts down her tea and pats her workday hairdo—the simple bun she’s been finding it easiest to keep her now-long hair in, while still hopefully looking a bit more like someone’s captain.
She’s checking to make sure it hasn’t reached a worse state of messy than it usually has this late in the day and… it’s fine, probably. She gives in to the urge to tug the pins out swiftly and let it down, despite that; she can put it in a quick braid before she heads home and, anyway, the rookies ought to have left for their dorms by now. It’s not as though the rest of her teammates haven’t seen her looking worse, and Wang Jiexi—
Gao Yingjie brushes her hair away from her face, then pauses in the act of reaching for a sandwich.
Wang Jiexi doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.
Across the table, Wang Jiexi is toying with his cup. Maybe there’s a part of him fighting the urge to reach for her work tablet; he would have done so by now, any other time they’ve sat here. Maybe there’s a part of him feeling awkward at the knowledge that this is the first time he’s been in this room with a visitor’s pass hanging crookedly around his neck.
Of course, Gao Yingjie’s only guessing. She probably shouldn’t be—it’s not as though she’s the best at it. She picks up a sandwich and tells herself to focus on appreciating the meal.
Wang Jiexi runs his thumb along the edge of the table. He straightens up the container of sandwiches. The soft, evening sunshine plays against his hands, and—
Gao Yingjie forgets to eat.
It… isn’t the first time Gao Yingjie’s attention has been caught by the sight of Wang Jiexi’s hands in motion—or at peace, for that matter. Gao Yingjie knows she likes to look. Honestly, she remembers being distracted by his hands’ cleverness back in her training camp days, but… it hits rather differently, now. It draws the slight heat of a blush up and into her ears—this rush of awareness that she’s looking at Wang Jiexi’s hands much the same way as she looks at Qiao Yifan’s.
Gao Yingjie isn’t sure which idea is weightier—the realisation that she’s tracking Wang Jiexi’s hands with a hungry curiosity, with an interest… or the sinking suspicion that there’s a good chance she’s been sitting around ogling him for years. Is this a thing that other people have noticed? People who are not Qiao Yifan? Had she made a habit of zoning out in front of her teammates, openly distracted by her interest in the Captain’s hands??
Gao Yingjie hates having to think about what she’s been broadcasting unconsciously. She doesn’t mind with Qiao Yifan—with Qiao Yifan it’s cute, and sweet, and funny. But with anyone else… ugh. The realisation that other people have been aware of her doing silly things—things she’s been unaware of—is the kind of unhelpfulness that her brain thrives on reminding her about when it doesn’t feel like sleeping. Like—like social faux pas from her school days. Or the many and various mistakes she’s made when talking to journalists.
Or admiring someone before she’s properly realised she’s interested.
Gao Yingjie sips her tea with immense care.
After an uncomfortable moment, though, she gives in and lets herself imagine—with no intention of doing, but because it’s far better than fretting—reaching out and touching. She lets herself contemplate brushing her fingertips across the sunshine dappling Wang Jiexi’s knuckles, the back of his hand, the rounded bump of the bone at his wrist. The thought makes her thighs tingle with interest.
Gao Yingjie puts her tea down. She brings her gaze carefully back up to Wang Jiexi’s face and, embarrassingly, finds him watching her closely. Her ears heat even more. ‘How’re you finding your classes?’ she asks quickly, then picks up her sandwich.
Wang Jiexi jolts as though he’s the one who’s been caught staring. He lifts his cup swiftly, half-hiding his expression as he drinks, then coughs. ‘Good,’ he says, once he’s set the cup back down and composed himself. ‘Still somewhat… strange. Good, though.’
He tells her about the lecturer who’d recognised him at the start of the week—but who had, Wang Jiexi recounts gratefully, had the decency not to mention it (or ask for an autograph) until after class. He’s been glad—Wang Jiexi continues—that not too many others have recognised him; he’s always been glad, he adds, that he’s too plain-looking to have ever drawn much attention outside the uniform.
Gao Yingjie doesn’t quite trust herself to debate that statement the way she would like. Not today, at any rate.
Anyway, Wang Jiexi is grinning when he admits he’s joined the university’s Glory Club.
‘Ah?’ Gao Yingjie says, swallowing her mouthful of sandwich uncomfortably quickly in her desire to react. ‘Surely they’ve all recognised you?’
Wang Jiexi’s grin widens. His fingers gather into a happy little steeple, like his hands are eager to deliver the punchline of one of his dorkier jokes. ‘But my account’s only a few weeks old,’ he says. ‘And I’m just a baby-level Thief. What is there to recognise?’
‘Oooh, Thief,’ Gao Yingjie echoes, intrigued. She’s played against a few Thieves, of course, but there aren’t currently any left in the pro scene at all. It’s never been the most common of classes, not even in the regular game. ‘You have to PK me.’
Wang Jiexi snorts. ‘Give me a few weeks, Yingjie. When I say “baby-level”, I mean it.’
Gao Yingjie laughs. ‘A few weeks, then. Gosh, anyone’d think you have—I don’t know—a whole bunch of other things to be focusing on right now, rather than only Glory. What a concept.’
‘What a concept,’ Wang Jiexi agrees dryly. And then, smiling, ‘A few weeks, though… yeah, alright. It’s a date.’
And it isn’t a date—at least, not in the sense that Gao Yingjie’s newly comprehending heart might like to imagine—but it is good. It is wonderful. To have Wang Jiexi here with her, and tea, and laughter, and enough common ground to hold them together despite how much has changed—and even despite how awkward they both can be.
‘A date,’ Gao Yingjie confirms.
She’s waving goodbye to Wang Jiexi—his smile so warm she can see it even from down on the street—when Qiao Yifan calls.
‘Still at the office?’ Qiao Yifan asks by way of greeting, because Gao Yingjie had forgotten herself for a second and begun answering as though it were a work call. ‘Please tell me you at least got distracted by your regularly scheduled doting Captain, and not some stack of paperwork you know you should have pushed off on Xiaobie.’
This time, it’s not only Gao Yingjie’s ears that warm and blush. ‘Not my Captain anymore,’ she says automatically, and then—when Qiao Yifan’s laughing uh-huh sounds so glad and fond and knowing—when Qiao Yifan’s teasing seems so suddenly, wildly obvious—Gao Yingjie glances back down to the street, searching for Wang Jiexi by the green of his scarf. She finds him waiting at the nearest bus stop, and her heart pounds a little faster.
Gao Yingjie looks at him, then says, ‘Yifan… I know it’s the worst timing, but… do you think you might be free some evening soon? I was thinking I could fly in, spend the night, fly out?’
Qiao Yifan would be entirely justified to question what’s so urgent that Gao Yingjie can’t wait a fortnight to see him when their teams are already scheduled to compete. There’s a fair chance Gao Yingjie might ask that if she were the one in his position. But he’s Qiao Yifan, and so he simply says, ‘This coming Tuesday’s currently empty? I can’t guarantee it’ll stay that way, but I’m up for the gamble if you are. Any excuse to have you for the night.’ And then, far more gently, ‘Good news or bad news…?’
Gao Yingjie doesn’t need to hesitate. ‘Good news,’ she says. ‘I think—definitely good news, yes.’
She swears she can hear Qiao Yifan smile.