Work Text:
It’s become tradition after dance practice, to play Bridge together until their stomachs rumble and someone loses the bet – and then, said person has to get dinner from the noodle shop near the dorms. It’s always just the four of them though, which is alright because after all, Bridge is a game meant for four.
Junhui deals the cards and Mingyu becomes all puffed up when he gets his deck.
“Someone obviously has good cards,” he mutters and Mingyu smirks. Which is attractive and unattractive all at the same time.
During bidding, Mingyu wins with 3 Hearts as the strongest suit, and calls out for the Ace of Hearts as his partner. Which means they have to win nine sets.
Minghao dies a little inside.
“Nine sets? Easy kill,” Mingyu bellows, and Minghao scoffs. “We’re going to win.” Strangely enough, Mingyu’s not looking at his partner as he says this, but Minghao assumes it’s because he knows but he doesn’t want to show it.
Mingyu, with his face stuffed with chips, constipated with glee, keeps eating him, eating his spades, eating his aces with the strongest suit. Mingyu thinks he’s doing the right thing, the reasonable thing, which is great because he’s killing him. A beautiful display of team kill.
Minghao thinks yelling a “Fuck you, lizard!” would be appropriate as Mingyu overcomes his Ace of clubs with 2 diamonds, but then, it would be giving them away.
He wonders how long he’s going to keep up with being Mingyu’s stupid partner. Oh look, he threw out a 3 clubs when Wonwoo put King of Clubs, fuck my life. Mingyu thinks Wonwoo is his partner and he’s helping him, which is horridly splendid. This game is one fat, pitiful parody of Minghao’s life.
Because despite being Mingyu’s under-appreciated wingman since high school, picking him up from dates and whooping his ass regularly at FarCry 5, Minghao’s been suppressing the urge to punch Mingyu in the face.
With his lips.
For years.
“It’s your turn, bro,” Mingyu nudges him.
Right. “Bro.”
He doesn’t have many options left. Mingyu’s won four sets and he think’s he’s safe because Wonwoo’s won three. Mingyu thinks Wonwoo has the Ace of Hearts, which surprise bitch, isn’t with Wonwoo at all.
They need nine sets to win because Mingyu’s a fucking genius that called for 3 Hearts at the beginning. Guess what? Minghao only has one set.
Wonwoo has three, and Junhui has one, which means they’re only one more set to winning.
This game is gone. Minghao’s seen it from the beginning.
Wonwoo’s laughing hysterically as Mingyu helps him win once more, and Junhui is eternally confused. Wonwoo points to Minghao rolling his eyes and dying.
“We’ve won, bitch!” Wonwoo hollers, shaking Junhui’s shoulders and Junhui starts chortling till he chokes.
The look of self-satisfaction unfurls into utter perplexion, and then, mortification.
Minghao throws down his cards in a huff, and they all splay out over the floor and on Mingyu’s lap.
Mingyu’s hands shake involuntarily as he picks up the red card that found its way to his thigh, eyes not daring to look into Minghao’s own ones.
“You have the Ace of Hearts?” Minghao thinks he looks a lot like a puppy with the glazed-over eyes and pleading, trembling voice.
Minghao will forgive his stupidity, because he always does. Mingyu is forever unaware, and Minghao knows too much.
They play a few more games, but it all passes in a blur for Minghao. His wins today are meagre compared to his losses, which is strange because he’s probably the best player among them.
Either way, he’s not able to escape the fate of buying dinner for them.
At the noodle shop, he converses easily with the hawker in Mandarin, and as always, asks for more meat in the box of noodles without chilli.
(Mingyu doesn’t take spicy food).
When he returns to the practice room, Mingyu pulls him to the chest and does the most platonic bro-slap, which is alright, really. He’s used to it all. He slaps Mingyu on the back too – harder, his hand lingering on his shoulders for too long to be platonic at all.
Mingyu whines at the pain. Minghao thinks it’s his own means of petty revenge for Mingyu not noticing the feelings of the guy constantly attached to his hip – the scrawny dude with murderous tendencies and a colourful vocabulary.
Whatever.
The steam from the noodle soup is calming – a warm kind of fuzz that blocks out Mingyu’s face, that envelopes Minghao with non-existent arms, that tells him that tomorrow will be just the same, with Mingyu spinning on his own destructive axis, and Minghao on his own, always close enough but never colliding the way he wants them to.
He’ll have all the right cards, and so will Mingyu – one of them will play it wrongly, but the other suffers, too.