Chapter Text
“Ready to go?”
Lu Guang looked up from tying his shoes, unimpressed. “Do I have to?”
Qiao Ling raised an eyebrow. “You already have your shoes on. There’s no going back, now.”
“I can always take them off,” he griped, then sighed as he stood. Qiao Ling ignored him, swinging open the door.
“C’mon, you’re gonna make us late!” She called without turning back.
Lu Guang gave their quiet, empty apartment one last, longing look before he stepped out, closing the door behind him. This was not his idea of a fun Friday night. He would much rather be curled up in bed, reading something where someone else was the one going out and doing things. Not him.
Qiao Ling was talking to him, saying something about her friend who managed the team and somehow had a nerd boyfriend and not a basketball boyfriend. Lu Guang wasn’t sure that logic checked out, but what did he know. He had never managed a basketball team. Maybe it was a requirement to date one of your team members. He doubted it.
“Let’s sit here,” Qiao Ling said loudly enough to be heard over the crowd. Lu Guang hated this already. ‘Here’ was too far into the bleachers to easily sneak out, and possibly too close to the court itself if a ball were to head their direction.
“Fine,” he agreed once they were already sitting down, since he didn’t think Qiao Ling would’ve been able to hear him earlier and he hadn’t wanted to scream to talk to her. She looked unimpressed with him, lips ticked slightly downward.
“It’s good to get out sometimes, Lu Guang,” she told him, as if that made any of this better.
He frowned right back. “‘Sometimes’ does not have to be ‘now.’”
She sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to come with me next time.”
Lu Guang hummed, watching the handful of muscular idiots shove each other on the court. Their shoes squeaked obnoxiously, preventing him from the luxury of losing himself in his thoughts so he didn’t have to mentally be here. This was going to be awful.
The referee or whatever stepped into the middle of the court, and Qiao Ling began to try and explain the game to him. He knew what the rules were, mostly. Get the ball in the basket. Don’t let the other team get the ball in the other basket.
He watched, already feeling drained, as the guys on the court ran back and forth, chasing the ball and each other. The people around him screamed and cheered. He wanted to cover his ears.
Instead, he stared directly in front of him. A handful of players (from his college’s team, judging from the jersey colors) sat benched on the other side of the court. It shouldn’t have been more entertaining than the game itself, but it was. One of them shifted anxiously any time someone new got the ball, cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling, pumping his fist in the air and grinning wider than Lu Guang had previously thought should be possible.
He must suck, Lu Guang figured. They probably kept him around because he was good moral support. He had a handsome enough smile to be good for public image, probably. Lu Guang watched him pass a water bottle to a teammate, clapping them on the back and saying something that he couldn’t make out from all the way over there.
There must have been a time-out called or something. Qiao Ling was explaining to him again. “If he can’t get his act together, they’re going to have to swap him out. Shanshan said they were saving their best players for the next game, since it’s more important. It’s going to throw the whole team off!”
Lu Guang really only caught one line out of all of that. “There’s a ‘next game?’ Tonight?”
Qiao Ling turned her head to face him, the look on her face complicated. He couldn’t tell if she wanted to yell at him or pat him on the head. It was an uncomfortable look to be on the receiving end of. “I promised I’d be here when the games are over. I can walk home with you after this one, but…”
But then she’d be coming back by herself. At night. Lu Guang stared out at the court, where they were still at a standstill. “That’s fine.” He could be a good roommate. “I’ll stay.”
He could feel Qiao Ling’s gaze on the side of his face. “Tell me if you change your mind,” she told him, because she actually was a good roommate.
“I will,” Lu Guang replied right as Benchwarmer stood up, walking out onto the court. It was going to be a nuisance trying to keep track of him as he ran back and forth, but Lu Guang didn’t want to pick another benchwarmer to look at. He had already invested too much time into this one.
Benchwarmer, #4, swung his arms back and forth, stretching. It was obvious that he had a lot of muscle, which was admirable. His shirt rode up when he raised his hands above his head, and Lu Guang pretended not to see it. He wasn’t sure if watching a bad player against a bunch of good players would be more or less entertaining than watching all good players.
The whistle blew, and he started running. It looked pretty slow, but they all looked pretty slow from the stands. No one passed him the ball. They made it to the end of the court, and the other team snatched it away at the last moment. They turned around. Lu Guang could not possibly be more unenthralled.
And then the ball was flying towards his team’s hoop, and #4 was jumping, twisting, smacking the ball out of the air and away from the basket.
Was that… legal?
Qiao Ling was whooping in his ear, and the game went on. Lu Guang narrowed his eyes. #4 ran the ball to the other end of the court, jumping up as he tossed it into the hoop. The stripe of skin above his waistband became visible again, and Lu Guang swallowed.
He understood now what Qiao Ling meant about the manager’s non-basketball boyfriend.
Every exaggerated movement, every flex, every cheeky grin at a point won, Lu Guang’s heart stuttered. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a more attractive person, at least not in real life. He was so caught up in watching that he hardly noticed the time passing until everyone was on their feet, screeching, and he lost his line of sight.
He looked up at Qiao Ling, hoping that the stupid longing he felt did not show on his face. She glanced back down at him, giving him an apologetic smile. “Ready to go?”
“We can stay,” he found himself saying, standing up as well. #4 was hugging his teammates, the lot of them swaying dangerously as they clumped together and broke apart. They looked… wet. It should’ve been disgusting, but Lu Guang still couldn’t pull his eyes away.
Qiao Ling watched him skeptically. “You don’t have to stay just for me,” she informed him, and he shrugged.
“Tell me about the players.” Specifically #4, he didn’t add. He hoped he sounded resigned enough that she wouldn’t pick up that he was interested, but also still sounded interested enough that she didn’t feel bad. Qiao Ling smiled at him again, more genuine this time, and began pointing people out in numerical order.
Lu Guang pretended to care, nodding along until she got to #4. “That’s Cheng Xiaoshi. He’s incredibly dumb, but he’s one of the best players they have.”
“You know him?” Lu Guang found himself asking, even though it had kind of sounded like she knew all of them so far from what little attention he’d paid to their taglines.
She scoffed, but it was fond. “We grew up together.”
That sounded like the worst possible scenario in Lu Guang’s mind, second only to Cheng Xiaoshi being her boyfriend or something, maybe. He hoped it was just one of those ‘saw each other around growing up’ and not ‘we have baby pictures in the same bathtub’ grew-up-together situations. He had just spent far too long staring creepily at the guy; he didn’t want there to ever be a chance of Cheng Xiaoshi showing up at their apartment.
He hummed like he did not care.
Qiao Ling went on to introduce everyone else, and then the next game was starting. Cheng Xiaoshi was just as impressive this time around as he had been before, if a little sweatier. His hair stuck to his forehead, his shirt stuck to his chest. Lu Guang’s eyes stuck to his whole being.
He got benched again, somewhere in the middle of it all. He pulled his shirt up to wipe at his face, exposing far too much skin. Some girls beside Lu Guang giggled, and his face flushed. What was he doing? This was so childish and inappropriate and probably rude. Cheng Xiaoshi was just doing his job (was this considered a job? Lu Guang had no idea) and he didn’t deserve to be creepily ogled. By him or anyone else.
Lu Guang ended up averting his eyes, trying his hardest to get absorbed back into the game. It wasn’t the same, and he was almost ashamed of himself. He was never like this, so why was he struggling so hard tonight? Why was he trying so hard to justify to himself that it was just some harmless admiration? He glanced around, the feeling of his frazzled nerves settling back into his conscience now that he wasn’t distracting himself.
Maybe it was better to stare, if it kept him from feeling this way. It didn’t have to be weird if he didn’t make it weird.
Cheng Xiaoshi was drinking from his water bottle, now, shirt properly covering as much of his skin as it was supposed to. He exchanged some words with his other benched teammates, eyes never leaving the court or the ball. There was a spark in his eye that made him seem anything but dumb, as Qiao Ling had suggested. Something more than an attractive figure to dehumanize just to distract himself with.
Everyone was standing and cheering again, and Lu Guang wobbled uncertainly to his feet. More sweaty group hugs. People shoving and screeching. Eyes roving over the crowd, full of exhilaration instead of exhaustion.
Unbelievable. Lu Guang was exhausted, and all he’d done was stare at sweaty, attractive men for a few hours.
“Do you need to talk to Shanshan?” He found himself asking, finally tearing his eyes away.
“Yeah,” Qiao Ling agreed, beaming like she was the one who won. That was something Lu Guang had never understood. “Did you want to come with? It will be quick.”
“No, I’ll wait outside,” he shook his head, already anticipating the cool air and quiet waiting for him beyond the doors of this wretched place.
Qiao Ling nodded at him, weaving through the throngs of people and parting the crowd for them until they had to split up. He was grateful, and as much as he hated the idea of being around anyone right now, he would miss her presence in front of him. “I’ll come find you in a bit,” she promised, and he tipped his head in acknowledgement, knowing better than to believe her.
The sea of people pushed him out the doors, and he loitered by the exit, reveling in the sharpness of the night air. It cut through the buzzing headache he hadn’t even realized had started in the back of his head.
Sighing, he relaxed against the wall. He could still hear the babble of people from inside, the occasional burst of noise and warmth as another group pushed their way through the doors. How they could still be so excited, he didn’t understand. He wasn’t even sure it had been a good game, only that they’d won.
He hoped Qiao Ling didn’t try to talk to him about any of it, because he could remember nothing more than the bright glow of Cheng Xiaoshi’s smile. He closed his eyes to the image, the uncomfortable frenzied static of the crowd fading again amidst the warmth the thought kindled.
He was grateful Cheng Xiaoshi had been there, too, even through the guilt that he’d used a stranger— stared at a stranger— to anchor him.
Another burst of air, and Qiao Ling was by his side. “Thanks for coming with me,” she met him with.
“No problem,” he responded, kicking off of the wall to fall into step beside her.
She shook her head, letting out a puff of breath that was warm enough to be visible. “I know it’s not your scene.”
“It was… okay,” Lu Guang said. Because it had been, oddly. It had been awful and grating and exhausting and okay.
Qiao Ling smiled. “I hope that means you’ll come with me to the next one,” she teased, but he could see in her eyes that it was a genuine invitation.
He really didn’t want to. He wanted his warm bed and his solitude and to not have an excuse to awkwardly stare at someone he’d never met again. “Sure,” he agreed, feeling the weight of it press down on his shoulders.
He hoped that Qiao Ling’s obvious joy was worth it.