Chapter Text
Xu Haiqiao sat there alone in the bubble tea store, blankly staring at the drink in front of him. With resting his head on one hand, he used the other hand to mix the bubble tea with the straw, hearing the ice cubes mix in the drink with the pearls swirling around at the bottom. He stared at the sight of the brown sugar syrup slowly dissolving in the drink with his tired eyes.
It has been a few weeks since he got into a controversy and not even a cup of less ice less sugar classic brown sugar pearl milk tea could cheer him up. Bringing the straw to his lips, he took quite a bit of effort to take a sip of the drink he would usually like. Now, the flavours of the drink were incorporated with a tone of bitterness to it, and the pearls he previously loved the texture of felt harder to chew.
A frown replaced his previous blank expression, his mind going over the events he had gone through the previous weeks. About the harsh comments of his appearance in his friend, singer Qing Lian’s live. The comments he had made during the live.
He put his hands to his head in stress, just thinking about the situation again, attempting to not hit the drink in front of him. He didn’t understand the controversy himself, no matter how many times he tried to understand. It just didn’t make sense.
And now Xu Haiqiao had to go into seclusion in his own house to avoid being seen by the media. It was surprising that he had the courage to go outside today to get his favourite cup of bubble tea.
He took another sip of the drink before placing the cup back down onto the table, the coldness from the ice lingering on Xu Haiqiao’s fingerprints. As he tasted the slightly unusually bitter drink, he came across a foreign texture.
A confused complexion appeared on his face, as he further continued to taste the drink. Bringing up the drink to inspect the contents inside, he mixed it further with his straw, seeing a few stray pieces of bitter black jelly.
What in the fish?
Xu Haiqiao couldn’t be overwhelmed even more. After weeks of stress, reading through hate comments and accusations about him in Qing Lian’s live, his favourite place who knew him too well got his order wrong… He knew that he shouldn’t be this offended by the simplicity of putting something bitter in his just right drink, but he was.
Adding bitterness to his already bitter life. He scoffed thinking about it. The person who made this drink probably did this on purpose, which is what Xu Haiqiao wouldn’t think on a normal day. But he was feeling a bit unreasonable today.
Standing up from his seat with the slightly cool drink in his hand, he made his way to the counter of the store, before harshly placing it down on the counter. Placing both his hands on the marble counter, he slowly lifted his head to give the person standing there an intimidating stare.
But before he could say anything about the drink, his glare had ended up switching up instantly at the sight of the worker that stood before him with a confused look. Xu Haiqiao’s eyes slightly widened at the other, before quickly straightening his posture.
In front of him was a regular worker, wearing the work uniform for the bubble tea store. A handsome one in fact.
He took a few moments to analyse the others features, seeing the pretty eyes of the other, with a slight sparkle in them. The perfection of how each strands of hair peeked out from under the dark purple cap of the work uniform that complemented the features of this stunning man well.
“Do you need anything?”
The voice startled Xu Haiqiao, unfocusing from the analysis of the male in front of him. Quickly grabbing the drink out of awkwardness, he looked up at the handsome male, at the drink, then back up at the worker. Bringing his other hand to scratch the back of his neck in awkwardness, he started to speak.
“Uhhh… who made this drink…?” Xu Haiqiao brought the drink forward to show the worker, swirling it around in his hand. He felt the condensation of the cup cool his hand, however he felt his temperature rising within himself.
The other gave a small smile, before answering “It was me, what do you need?”
After hearing this news, Xu Haiqiao nearly gave a cough, before bringing his hand up to his mouth. He could still taste the bitterness that came with the jelly, but a sweetness surfaced with it. “You gave me the wrong order. I asked for a less sugar less ice classic brown sugar pearl milk tea, and you added black jelly to it.”
The worker behind the counter gave a slight laugh, making Xu Haiqiao’s heart die a little bit from that one action. “Your order is so specific and long, who knows whether you added any other toppings into that mix?” He took the cup out of Xu Haiqiao’s hand, before taking a look at the drink, which was less than half filled. Inspecting it closely, he had in fact seen that there were little pieces of black jelly in there. His eyes widened slightly in realisation.
“Ah, I’m so sorry, I think I might have accidentally swapped your drink. I made myself a drink to have right before I left work early.” After placing Xu Haiqiao’s cup down, he walked to the side, retrieving another drink with condensation running down the sides. He brought it to the counter, and placed it in front of Xu Haiqiao. “This one should be yours, I apologise.”
Xu Haiqiao watched with an unnoticeable glimmer behind his eyes, as the worker swiftly grabbed the usual purple straw with the white layered tissue, and handed the drink to Xu Haiqiao. With a smile, he took back the bitter drink, keeping it to himself. “I’ll take this one.”
His eyes watched as the half full cup was swished around in his hand. Xu Haiqiao spoke up. “Hey, I’ve already drank half of it… and you’re giving me my original drink for free?”
The handsome male shrugged, before looking at the other. “I was the one who made the mistake.” He then pushed the drink more forward, urging Xu Haiqiao to take it, before taking a sip out of the cup Xu Haiqiao originally had. He slowly turned around and walked away, adding a comment of ‘it tastes good’. Hr could swear that he had given a wink under the shadows of his cap.
Xu Haiqiao mentally died on the spot, watching the worker disappear into the workplace. This stunning beautiful man had just taken a sip out of a straw he used, and stated it was good. That was definitely done on purpose.
Replaced his clouding mind of comments and hate was replaced with the view of this man, who he never got the name of, and Xu Haiqiao returned to his seat with a full cup of his perfect bubble tea and a slight smile on his face, as his eyes lingered over the counter whenever a certain someone had worked there.
~~
‘caelan, you’re so talented!’
‘who’s this beautiful male beside you?’
‘kindly introduce him to us, please’
‘isn’t he the xu haiqiao? It was rumoured they were going to have a collaboration together’
‘he looks so much like caelan’s father 🥹’
‘庆怜，你可以说中文吗？‘
Qing Lian, who was currently holding the phone in front of him, smiled, as he looked up to the significantly taller male beside to the right of him. He watched as Xu Haiqiao scanned carefully over the comments of the live, seeing the praise of Qing Lian, people recognising Xu Haiqiao and just people being weird.
“Hi everyone, we’ll wait until there's 500K+ viewers then we’ll say what we want to say.” Qing Lian gave a smile, which was followed by Xu Haiqiao’s slight one.
The two watched the live comments rapidly pass by the screen, as they walked down the hallways of Qing Lian’s workplace, heading to a location they’d reveal once they hit the right amount of viewers. With Qing Lian’s youthfulness complementing the charm of Xu Haiqiao well, the viewer count shot up, as more and more people joined the live, curious of what this unexpected duo were going to say.
As Qing Lian was rambling on with some fillers during the break of waiting, like people who ran their lives usually, Xu Haiqiao was just walking beside the youngster, worrying about whether he could fit on the screen of the phone, without being too close to the younger. He gave an awkward smile, while turning down a corner. He was an actor and didn’t usually go on a lot of lives like the one he was on now, so he was a bit nervous.
But when walking down the hallway, Xu Haiqiao unfocused his eyes from the phone, as his eyes trailed off somewhere else. In the hallway, there was someone else walking down casually, with a black mask covering their mouth, while they were looking down at their phone.
As he blocked Qing Lian’s professional way of droning on to the audience, his eyes were stuck on this male, especially his eyes.
He had never seen someone’s eyes shine like that before.
With his left arm lightly nudging Qing Lian, he managed to get the attention of the younger. He paused on his rambling to pay attention to Xu Haiqiao, who had his hand pointed at the male who was already walking past down the hallway.
“Who is that man? He’s kinda pretty…” Xu Haiqiao whispered with a genuine smile on his face, making Qing Lian laugh at him a little bit, before responding.
“Do you think I’ll recognise the backs of every worker at this company?” He laughed along with that comment, in which Xu Haiqiao laughed with him heartedly. ‘You thought she was pretty?”
“Uhh… yeah he was pretty.” Xu Haiqiao said with a slight shy smile, while bringing an awkward hand to scratch the back of his neck. Qing Lian saw this and couldn’t help but laugh at his idol, internally raising an eyebrow at the purposeful change from the she he had originally said to the he.
But when Xu Haiqiao’s face turned back to see the live, and went back to reading comments like he did before, but with a smile, his mood dropped instantly, followed by Qing Lian, who nearly stopped in his steps. The comments were not what either of them were expecting.
‘what in the fish’
‘did i hear that right’
‘you all heard that, right?
‘focus on our baby instead of someone else random, could you be respectful?’
‘If you want to pop up in a live unannounced, at least keep your eyes away from other people’
‘focus on our lian lian, or at least attend to your fans, do you want to feed on qing lian’s fame like this or not?’
After skimming through some of the comments, Xu Haiqiao suddenly felt a bit sick in the stomach, feeling an urgency to get out of there as quickly as possible.
‘Did he just say ‘he’? Does he not understand what he’s putting himself to?’
‘please don’t taint his reputation like this if you want to feed off his fame like this, be normal and not call other men pretty’
‘我不明白，可不可以说中文吗？没有礼貌。。。’
‘excuse me, the only pretty person here is me and qing lian, don’t start hitting on other men please’
Xu Haiqiao’s eyes flickered to the view count in the corner, seeing that it had already exceeded a number of 700K. He didn’t even process that. He just gave Qing Lian a bow, and quickly rushed out of his company without warning, tears welling up in his eyes.
~~
That night, Xu Haiqiao had returned once again to the bubble tea shop, where a few people were hanging out, having a treat after their dinner. It was really rare that he would go out after that incident, he spent his whole time at home going over to try and make some sense out of it (but failing), but twice in a day he went out? That was surprising even to Xu Haiqiao.
Taking a seat opposite from the seat he had sat earlier in the day, which gave him a better view of the counter, he rested his head on both his hands, resting his elbows on the small, circle table.
He didn’t return to this place to have another bubble tea, he had enough sugar for one day, one and a half cups of his usual order (plus some added black jelly).
Instead, his eyes lingered around the counter, hoping for a familiar male with his purple cap would show up again, and give a smile to him. Hoping that one smile could make his day better like it already did.
~~