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There are screams behind him.
An angry mother who yells and demands and complains about things Xue Yang doesn’t give a fuck about. She can yap all she wants. Xue Yang has heard worse things coming from far more dangerous mouths.
“What will your tutors say?”
“No going to like it, I guess,” he shrugs. “Zichen is going to be mad about this,” Xue Yang adds, trying to wiggle the fingers on his left hand. “He’s teaching me how to properly throw a punch, and I did everything wrong. I think my thumb is broken,” he frowns at the sight of his bloody hand, and Xuanyu is not really sure about whose blood is coating Xue Yang’s fingers. “And then he’s going to kill me. I promised them no more school fights.”
“I’m sorry for getting you in trouble,” Xuanyu’s fingers linger over his face for a moment. “Looks like it’s the only thing I do.”
“I like getting in trouble for you,” he leans against Xuanyu’s hand, welcoming the sting it sends down his spine when his hand presses against fresh bruises. “It’s good, knowing that things are still the same.”
Knowing that they would always be those scrawny little kids fencing for each other.
That Xuanyu, even if taller, can always hide behind Xue Yang as he takes care of the danger.
Knowing that, even with the years they spent apart, it’s easy for them to fall into old habits.
“I’m still sorry,” Xue Yang peels his eyes open, looking at Xuanyu.
“They deserve it,” Xue Yang says, shoving him with his shoulder, trying to cheer him up. “Love kicking assholes asses, it’s pretty entertaining.”
“You got my back,” Xuanyu gives him a soft smile. His arms move to wrap around his legs like he’s trying to shield himself from danger, and Xue Yang misses his touch. “Thank you.”
Xue Yang laughs, one of those ugly snorts that make him sound more like a hyena than a human.
“No thanks needed. I could never pass up the opportunity to beat up some losers.”
They were four on one. Far bigger and bulkier than Xue Yang’s scrawny form, but they hadn’t been ready for him. They knew the new kid was a problem child, but not to what degree. They were high school bullies against a rabid street dog, they had nothing to do once Xue Yang got his leash loose enough to bite.
Xuanyu opens his mouth to say something else when Meng Yao closes the door behind him and stops in front of them, feet tapping against the floorboards and hand going up to pinch the bridge of his nose.
“Again?” It’s all he says, looking at the state of his brother and his friend. “What did he do this time?”
“I’m here, you know it, right? You can ask me,” Xue Yang says, looking at the other man. “Not like I would give you shit, but you could still try.”
“You’re on thin ice, Xue Yang. Shut up,” and he points to his younger brother. “Up, we’re out of here.”
Xue Yang scoffs.
Of course Meng Yao got Xuanyu out without any trouble. There are privileges that go unsaid. When you are friends with the director’s nephew, things go on smoothly. Being Lan Xichen's bestie gets one all they want, and that extends to all those chosen by Meng Yao to share his good grace with.
That doesn’t include Xue Yang, of course, not.
“But—”
“They still need to talk with Xue Yang’s legal guardian, and that may take a while,” Meng Yao says, shoving his hands inside his pockets. “Let’s go.”
Xuanyu looks at him, his big grey eyes wide open, and Xue Yang offers him a sharp, fanged smile.
“Go, I’ll be fine,” he tells him. “Put some ice over that.”
But Xuanyu’s gaze falls over Xue Yang’s hand. Over his face and the blood smeared over it.
“I’ll be fine. A-Yu, go, this is nothing.”
When he still looks conflicted about leaving or not, Xue Yang pinches his arm. It pulls a squeak out of Xuanyu, a laugh out of him.
“Remember that time I broke my arm falling down the stairs?”
Xuanyu remembers a wrist bent in a way a bone shouldn’t be able to bend, and Xue Yang, sitting in the wrong, looking at his hand with a frown on his face. More offended at his bone for bending than scared.
“You were so used to the pain you didn’t even cry,” and that had been scary, for Xuanyu at least.
Because they were seven, and at seven a kid cries when something hurts. Xue Yang had just gotten back to his feet, dusted the dirt from his pants, and kept walking.
“Well, because it didn’t hurt back then, and it doesn’t hurt now, okay?”
Sometimes Xuanyu wonders if Xue Yang has even known a life without pain. Maybe for him it’s just a dull sensation all over his body, one he barely registers by now.
“Okay,” he tells him and gets up to stand next to his brother. “Give me a call when you make it back home.”
“Sure,” Xue Yang says, waving his injured hand as a goodbye. “See you around.”
Xuanyu gives him one last look over his shoulder as Meng Yao drags him away from the director’s office, a worried and sad smile plastered on his pretty face.
Xue Yang rests his head against the wall, a throbbing is starting to pound behind his eyes, but he ignores it and starts to count the tiles from left to right to distract himself.
When footsteps approach, Xue Yang knows that it’s over.
“Xingchen didn’t come?” Xue Yang asks, sinking further into the floor, trying to disappear against the wall. He had faith that he could at least have some leverage if Xiao Xingchen was the one picking him up, but with Song Lan here, he’s fucked.
“Didn’t want to bother him about one of your stupid school fights,” Song Lan says, arms crossed in front of his chest. “What did you do now?”
“Your son hasn't gotten into a schoolyard fight, sir,” Lan Qiren says, opening the door. Inside the room, Xue Yang can still hear the crowd of crazy parents screaming bloody murder. Wanting to hang Xue Yang in the square for a fight seems a bit too much, or maybe that’s just how parental love works. Not like Xue Yang knows a thing about that.
Not his son, Xue Yang mumbles under his breath, and Xuanyu shoves an elbow into his ribs to shut him up.
The man clears his throat, eyebrows arched behind his hairline like he’s asking if he can keep going. Xue Yang shrugs, and the man guides Song Lan to the inside of his office.
“He broke a classmate’s arm. There are four kids who are injured."
Their voice disappears behind the door.
A broken arm is nothing.
A year ago, he could have done so much more. A year ago, with Chang Cian's protection and the freedom to be as feral as he wished as long as he got the job done, those four guys could have become his dinner. Beaten to a pulp, a bloody mess for his content.
The idea almost makes Xue Yang’s stomach turn around, because he’s a different person now. He’s no longer Chang Cian's feral errand boy. He’s a normal high schooler, and normal high schoolers don’t grin at the idea of their classmate’s brain splattered over the floor.
It takes thirty minutes for the storm of angry parents to exit the principal’s office and leave toward their poor and injured children, and for Song Lan to stand in front of him.
“You got one chance to explain to me what you have, a two-week ’expulsion?”
“They called Xuanyu a fag,” he tells him with a shrug of his shoulders. He stands up, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. “I told them to shut it before they could regret it. They called me a freak and a junkie. I beat their asses.”
Song Lan’s gaze pierces him to the bone, and it stops Xue Yang from talking back.
“I might have gotten carried away,” he says, eyes darting between the older man and the exit. “Just a little.”
Song Lan looks at him, stalking toward Xue Yang with a snarl.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
Xue Yang doesn’t notice he has flinched until Song Lan freezes on his way to him. His hand is not even up for a strike, but Xue Yang notices it a second too late. Retreating from a furious older man is so ingrained in him, so instinctive that he couldn’t help it. Old habits die hard.
“Xue Yang,” he says, voice going softer. His face goes from fury to almost dangerously blank, and Xue Yang can’t look at him, so he looks at his own shoes instead. “I’m sorry.”
The apology makes Xue Yang flinch again.
They’ve been over this a thousand times already in the year Xue Yang has been living under their roof. He knows, deeply, that they would never raise a hand at him. He knows that Song Lan is all bark and no bite, that he’s softer than he looks.
“Don’t,” he begs him, because he’ll take anger over pity every single time.
Song Lan lets out a long sigh, hands rubbing his temples like he can feel a headache coming.
“What’s the damage?”
Xue Yang looks at his hands and cranks his neck, checking himself over one more time.
“Nothing too bad, I’m fine.”
“Try again,” Song Lan says, and this time Xue Yang looks at him. “The truth, if possible.”
“Took an elbow to the face, it would be purple for a while, but it’s not broken,” he tells him, fingers grazing over his own cheekbone. “I’m going to have a black eye in the morning, don’t be scared when you see it.”
One good thing about his upbringings is that Xue Yang can tell pretty well how he’s going to look in the morning after a beating. Or tell when a bone is broken or just being a bitch.
Song Lan stays silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Nose’s not broken either. It looks bad, but that’s just because of the blood.” If it was Xingchen, he may have had a harder time remaining stoic as Xue Yang goes over his injuries.
The other man is far more apprehensive and empathic with things like this, he doesn’t like Xue Yang talking about pain like he would talk about weather.
“The problem may be my hand,” he says, taking the ice away so Song Lan can see the damage under it. “Not sure.”
Song Lan takes the ice from him and tosses it in the trash. It’s more melted than anything else, really, so it doesn’t have much use. He allows Song Lan to prod around his hand, fingers digging into his flesh.
“Does it hurt?”
Xue Yang contemplates his own hand, almost limp on Song Lan's grasp. The limb is already a mess of jagged scars and badly healing bones, it always hurts. There’s always a weird feeling under the skin that never goes away.
“I don’t know,” Xue Yang's answer, if honest, is not good enough. Song Lan lets out a long sigh and lets go of Xue Yang’s hand.
“I’ll bandage it at home, and if it looks bad tomorrow, we’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Okay,” by the way, his thumb is swelling, there would be for sure a visit to the hospital, like it or not.
“I taught you how to throw a punch, kiddo.”
“I’m not a good student,” Song Lan lets go from his hand, and Xue Yang shoves it inside his pocket. “Already warned you.”
Xue Yang thinks of Song Lan taking him to a local gym a few months ago. To the way he made him sit on one of the benches as he knelt in front of Xue Yang to bandage his hands. When he was done, he had dropped a pair of boxing gloves in Xue Yang’s lap.
Let's get all that rage out of here.
He had said, poking a finger against Xue Yang’s chest, right over his heart.
We’re going to come here every week. I'm going to teach you how to fight. You’re going to get all that attitude of yours here. Not with other people. Scream, cry, do what you need. But from now on, anger stays in this place. Your rage stays here.
Easier said than done.
Xue Yang appreciated the idea, but managing his anger had always been difficult, his fuse short and his buttons easy to push. It takes so little to make him snap, and there was nothing Xue Yang could do against it.
“Let’s go, we still have to pick up A-Qing before heading home.”
Home.
That means Song Lan is not dropping him in the middle of the road or kicking him out.
“And Xiao Xingchen?”
“You tell him what you did,” Song Lan says, opening the door for him. “I’m not fixing your messes.”
Xue Yang drops against the passenger seat of the car like a death weight.
Nice.
He can deal with Song Lan’s anger just fine, but Xiao Xingchen's disappointment? Well, he’s not so sure about that one.
Three days later there’s a knock on Xue Yang’s door, and Xiao Xingchen’s head appears behind it.
“You got a visit.”
“I thought I was under house arrest.”
“You’re expelled for two weeks,” he says. “You arrested yourself into your room.”
Well, he didn’t feel like spending two weeks alone with Xiao Xingchen. Not like the man is bad company, but he wouldn’t even know where to start. Since Xiao Xingchen works from home, that would be way too many hours alone with him, and Xue Yang has always managed better on his own.
So solitary confinement it is.
“Whatever, what is it?”
But Xiao Xingchen is already gone, and in his place stands Xuanyu, who offers him a small wave.
“Hi,” he says, closing the door behind him as he walks inside the room. “How’s your hand?”
Today, he’s wearing Xue Yang’s Green Day shirt. The one he borrowed from him after a storm caught them in the middle of the street and never returned. His grey eyes are framed with enough eyeliner to kill a man, and his lips are tinted red.
He makes a good sight, and Xue Yang can’t help but smile as he sits up on his bed.
“Broken,” he says, raising the cast to Xuanyu’s eyes. “Lucky for us, I’m right-handed.”
Xuanyu scoffs as he sits by his side on the bed, gently reaching for the broken hand.
They both know that that’s a lie.
That Xue Yang was left-handed until Chang Cian decided he wasn’t.
But they push the thought to the back of their heads, next to all the horrors they faced when they still lived in that shitty building under Chang Cian’s and the Mo’s roofs.
“I’m sorry,” Xuanyu says again, fingers tracing lines over the cast. “That’s my fault.”
“Nothing is,” never is, never will.
Xuanyu knows it.
That no matter what, Xue Yang would be three to take care of him, because that’s how they work, that’s how it always was and always will be.
Guard dog and safe space, that’s what they are to each other.
They face each other, and Xuanyu’s free hand takes hold of Xue Yang’s chin, turning his head around to check the damage done to his face. A split lip and a black eye are nothing compared to what he did to the other four guys.
And, even if he feels guilty, Xuanyu can’t help the grin and the glint of pride in his eyes.
My boy walked out of it in better shape, it seems to say.
“Purple suits you,” Xuanyu says with a laugh. “Maybe next time we can try it with eyeshadow instead of a bruise.”
“Whatever you say,” and he pulls Xuanyu in for a kiss.
It’s chaste and slow, but Xuanyu smiles against it, his hand moving to cup his face.
“We’re not beating those idiot’s allegations,” he says against Xue Yang’s mouth, lips curled in a smile.
“No shit,” Xue Yang’s eyebrows disappear behind his bangs, and he gives Xuanyu one of his stupid smirks. “Can’t believe those pea-brain-sized fuckers are right about something.”
Xuanyu kisses him again, this time cupping his face with both hands.
He leaves a second kiss over Xue Yang’s closed eyelids, a better kiss that brushes the lingering pain away.
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Xuanyu’s thumbs trace circles over Xue Yang's skin, and he leans in to kiss his forehead. “Now get out of bed. I’m here to bring you your homework.”
He lets go of Xue Yang’s face, and he falls back in bed with a groan.
Xuanyu laughs and throws him an English book, Xue Yang’s worst subject.
“Xingchen said that if you catch up with what you’re missing, I can sneak you out for an ice cream dinner date,” Xuanyu says, leaning over him. “What do you say?”
He looks at him.
At the messy makeup and the curls that frame his pretty face and that soft smile.
He looks at Xuanyu, who, unlike him, reminds gentle after all the pain he endured.
At Xuanyu, who is still by his side even after all the wrongs Xue Yang carries with him.
He guesses he can indulge him from time to time, even if he’s not the one for affections.
“I guess I can take you on a date,” he says with a shrug. “But you’ll need to fix my face.”
Xuanyu crouches down to fetch something from his bag, maybe more homework for Xue Yang to catch up with. But instead, Xue Yang recognizes his portable makeup bag.
“I came prepared,” he says, giving the bag a shake.
Of course he has.
Xue Yang pushes himself into a sitting position again and pulls Xuanyu in for a short kiss. He laughs against him, and his good hand stays on the back of Xuanyu’s neck.
“What would I do without you?”
“What would we do without each other?” He volleys back.
And, to be honest, Xue Yang hopes he never has to find the answer to that one.