Work Text:
Gu Xiang fiddled with one of her braids.
She was sitting right outside of the principal’s office, her back perfectly straight and her ankles neatly crossed under her chair. She hated sitting like that, she would prefer stretching her legs forward on the ground, or maybe crossing them on the chair, but Principal Young’s secretary was already staring at her with disapproving eyes, and she probably would have seen that as rude, so Gu Xiang stayed put.
Not that she was afraid of her, or of the principal for that matter.
Sure, her teacher had been really mad, and Principal Young had sighed a really long sigh when he’d been told about the “incident”, and they were probably going to suspend her. But when the secretary had told her that she’d called her legal guardian—they always said it like that, too chicken-shit to utter the word “parent” in front of an orphan—she had been, like, the opposite of scared.
Another kid might have been worried, but Gu Xiang’s “guardian” was her older brother, a man so indifferent to violence that several people had described it as concerning. (Not Gu Xiang, though. Gu Xiang thought her brother was the coolest. And his fiancé secretly found it hot, so it wasn’t really an issue for anybody that mattered.) She knew that he wouldn’t mind that she had punched Caroline Spring in the face, especially when she told him the reason why.
He might put on a bit of a “disappointed father” show for the teachers, if he was in the mood, but she was prepared for that. She preemptively rubbed at her ear, already imagining the way he would pull on it to sell his charade.
Charade. Ha. That was a fun word she’d learned recently. Cao Weining had taught it to her.
Thinking about him, she huffed again and pursed her lips.
Cao Weining had been right next to her when she’d clocked Caroline right on the nose. He was the only reason she hadn’t done more, as he’d immediately stepped forward and pulled Gu Xiang back.
He’d been gentle about it, his stupidly strong hands resting on her shoulders and carefully guiding her back, but his horrified expression had made his feelings on the situation clear. He hadn’t managed to scold her, thankfully, because their teacher had immediately come in to check on what the sudden noise had been.
For the record, it’d been the sound of Caroline Spring yelling out in pain, then stumbling back and gracelessly hitting the ground with her butt.
And Gu Xiang didn’t even get to say, “Serves you right,” because she was too busy glaring at Cao Weining for looking at her like she’d kicked his puppy. She should’ve known he would have been like that, the softhearted idiot that he was. He didn’t even like Caroline, no one fucking liked Caroline, but Cao Weining was one of those people that felt bad whenever any minor inconvenience happened to anyone, even assholes.
He’d looked even sadder when she’d shaken his hands off.
“Whatever,” Gu Xiang thought. She dropped her braid to examine her right hand. Her knuckles were bruised purple. “Cao-dage can think whatever he wants.”
Contrary to popular belief, Gu Xiang wasn’t a savage. When her brother was in a good mood, he would describe her as “a little rough around the edges”, and that might have been true, but it didn’t mean that she was some wild girl from a prehistoric movie. She wasn’t polite, exactly, but she knew how to follow rules, and she wasn’t mean for no reason. She knew right from wrong. She knew that hitting a classmate was not acceptable behavior, which was why she’d held herself back from doing it so many times in the past.
She hadn’t hit that boy that called her stinky and poor that one time.
She hadn’t hit that girl that kept making racist comments about her eyes for months.
She hadn’t even hit that boy that lifted up her skirt as they were climbing the stairs together a few weeks back. (Although, to be fair, she only didn’t hit him because Cao Weining had got to him first, raising him up by the lapels of his shirt and holding him up against the wall, which had been surprisingly hot, and then bringing him to the principal’s office, which had brought Gu Xiang back to reality. What a goody two-shoes.)
And she’d never hit Caroline in the two years she’d known her, even though she was annoying and loud and a bully, because she knew she would get in trouble for it, and she knew people would get mad at her and tell her she was “wrong”.
But she had to hit her today. That bitch had crossed the line.
She deserved it, and Gu Xiang was pretty sure that, privately, everyone agreed. They were just shackled by the notion of “politeness” and “rules”. Except maybe Cao Weining. He was the sort to believe in that shit fully and completely. Idiot.
“Good morning,” said a gruff voice to her right, one that was very clearly not Wen Kexing’s.
Gu Xiang’s blood went a little cold. Oh no.
She turned around and watched as Zhou Zishu strolled into the waiting room at a leisurely pace. He seemed tired, but not particularly perturbed. He was frowning, sure, but that was just what his face did. In a contest to declare the owner of the best resting bitch face in the world, Zhou Zishu might actually win.
The secretary had never met Zhou Zishu before, so she didn’t know how to read him. All she saw was a tall stranger wearing a face mask, a white dress shirt and expensive black trousers entering her domain with a scowl on his face. She’d probably been expecting Wen Kexing, too, and she was clearly thrown off.
Gu Xiang wondered if his pale complexion and his thin frame were obvious only to her.
“Good morning, sir,” the secretary immediately greeted, standing up from her desk with an impeccable public service job smile on her face, “How can I help you?”
Zhou Zishu blinked at her, then looked down at Gu Xiang, who was looking at him with wide eyes, then back to the secretary.
“I’m here for that one,” he said, casually pointing at Gu Xiang with his thumb, “You called my partner a while ago, but he had an emergency at work, so he asked me to come. Zhou Zishu,” he said, extending a polite hand in greeting, “Nice to meet you.”
“Fuck,” Gu Xiang thought. It’s not that she’d forgotten that Zhou Zishu had become her secondary guardian a few weeks back—they’d had a whole fancy dinner about it, because her brother took any excuse to buy expensive wine—but she still would never have expected him to show up for something like this.
Why, today of all days, did her brother have to have an emergency at his job? And wasn’t her emergency way more important? She was his little sister! Why did he have to send Zhou Zishu? Why couldn’t Zhou Zishu handle his work emergency instead, huh?
The secretary glanced at her, and Gu Xiang gulped down some excess saliva she hadn’t realized had gathered in her mouth before speaking.
“Hi, Zishu-ge,” she said with a nervous smile.
“Hi, little saint,” he said back, giving her a once over.
His hand was still in the air, and the secretary, waking up from her surprised stupor, finally shook it.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Zhou,” she said amiably, “Thank you for coming.”
“Sure,” he said, “Is it a problem if I keep my mask on? It’s for medical reasons.”
The secretary smiled sympathetically. “Of course, it’s no problem at all. Let me warn the principal of your arrival,” she added, taking her hand back.
“Thanks,” Zhou Zishu said with an equally amiable nod of the head.
As soon as the woman turned around, Zhou Zishu frowned again, resting bitch face falling back into place. Without saying anything else, he rummaged through his pockets to fish out a bottle of hand sanitizer and cleaned his hands with it.
His continued silence made Gu Xiang’s skin crawl a little bit. She wasn’t scared of Zhou Zishu any more than she was scared of Wen Kexing, to be honest, but if Wen Kexing had shown up instead, he would have broken the silence immediately, prattling on about his day all throughout the wait and putting her at ease.
All Zhou Zishu did was close the hand sanitizer with a loud “click”.
“So, what did you do?” he asked in Chinese after a long moment of silence.
Gu Xiang pursed her lips. “I punched a girl. In the face.”
Zhou Zishu raised an eyebrow. “Why?” he asked in a tone of mild curiosity, leaning with his hip against the secretary’s desk and crossing his arms. He didn’t sound surprised, but he didn’t sound angry, either.
“For fun,” Gu Xiang said, throwing up her eyebrows in challenge.
“Is that so?” Zhou Zishu asked.
Gu Xiang tried to retort with a sarcastic “Yup!”, but the door of the office opened right at that moment. The secretary stepped out and gestured for them to enter with her open hand.
“Please, Mr. Zhou, Miss Gu.”
Zhou Zishu thanked her in English before going in, nodding at Gu Xiang to follow. Gu Xiang grimaced at him, but she obeyed without protest.
Principal Young’s office looked like a bedroom in an asylum, perfectly square with impeccable white walls and grey floor. The décor was minimal and sad, only a desk with three chairs around it and two extremely boring abstract paintings on the back wall.
“Good morning, Mr. Zhou,” Principal Young said, standing up from his desk much like his secretary had and shaking Zhou Zishu’s hand. “It’s a pleasure.”
“Nice to meet you,” Zhou Zishu said, “Mr…?”
“Young. Dustin Young,” the principal supplied with a stiff smile, before sitting down again.
Zhou Zishu and Gu Xiang followed suit, sitting on the chairs in front of the desk. Gu Xiang hooked her ankles again, while Zhou Zishu sanitized his hands again without breaking eye contact with Principal Young.
Said principal visibly chose to ignore that.
“Mr. Zhou,” he said, “Have you been informed as to why we’ve contacted your partner?”
“Yes,” Zhou Zishu nodded, “I have been told there’s been an altercation,” he said in a calm, pleasant and yet firm tone, which Gu Xiang recognized as the voice he used with his clients.
Principal Young nodded, unbothered by the shift in Zhou Zishu’s tone. “Yes,” he said, “Mr. Zhou, I do not wish to waste your time, so I will get straight to the point. Earlier today, Miss Gu attacked one of her classmates, Miss Caroline Spring.” He took a breath, probably for dramatic effect. Gu Xiang rolled her eyes. “Miss Spring has been brought to the ER by her parents. There is a high chance her nose was broken.”
Zhou Zishu didn’t react beyond a simple nod of acknowledgement. Outwardly, at least. Heaven only knew what was going on in his head.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said, still in that diplomatic tone. “That does sound quite serious.” He tilted his head. “But I am a bit surprised to hear this. That doesn’t sound like our Gu Xiang,” he said, like a liar.
Gu Xiang appreciated it, even though she knew it was pointless.
“Mr. Zhou, many of her classmates witnessed the scene. We know for certain that Miss Gu was the one to injure Miss Spring.”
Gu Xiang wondered if Cao Weining was amongst those who had confirmed the events to him. If he was, she’d break his nose, too.
“I see,” is all Zhou Zishu said to that, utterly unperturbed.
It would have been a funny sight if Gu Xiang was watching this from the sidelines, not in the eye of the storm. She loved when Zhou Zishu treated people like they were insignificant.
Principal Young’s eye twitched. “Mr. Zhou,” he began, “Our institution takes matters of violence very seriously. We cannot tolerate an incident like this to go unpunished, especially in the case of an unprovoked attack.”
Before Zhou Zishu could respond with… anything, really, Gu Xiang suddenly stood up.
“What?!” she shrieked, slamming her hands on the principal’s desk, “It was not unprovoked!”
“Miss Gu,” Principal Young said sternly.
“A-Xiang,” Zhou Zishu said at the same time, even more sternly.
Gu Xiang turned on him with a fury.
“It wasn’t!” she insisted. His face remained blank—or his equivalent of blank, i.e., frowning—and she growled at him. “She definitely provoked me!” she said, turning back to Principal Young, “Ask any of your ‘witnesses’! It’s like she wanted to get punched! What else could I do after she said—” she kept ranting, gesturing wildly with her injured hand, pointing at the ceiling to emphasize her righteous fury. Except, right as she shouted the word “said”, she suddenly froze in place, cutting herself off and bringing her hand down to her mouth, covering it like she was a cartoon character.
All of her anger seemed to escape her in one go, and she dropped back into the chair, looking down and to the side. Her hand fell into her lap, and she hid her bruises under her other hand.
Principal Young and Zhou Zishu shared a puzzled look.
“What did she say?” Zhou Zishu asked, turning slightly in his seat to try and catch Gu Xiang’s eye.
She stubbornly looked the other way. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Zhou Zishu put his hand on her shoulder. His fingers were thin, but strong and firm. The tenderness of the gesture didn’t match his serious tone, but then again, his tone was always harsher than his actions.
“A-Xiang,” he said, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
“I don’t want to say it,” she said.
“A-Xiang,” he repeated, the jerk, “What did Miss Spring say to you?”
Gu Xiang squeezed her eyes shut. Ugh. Why couldn’t her brother be here? She wouldn’t have a problem telling him. He would be even more furious than she was, he’d pretend to listen to the principal’s suggestion to discipline her properly at home, and then once they were alone he’d pat her on the head and plot ways to get that bitch expelled like the vindictive asshole that he was.
Zhou Zishu wouldn’t get angry. He’d do something worse.
But he was waiting for an answer, and he would keep waiting for hours if that was what it took. Again: ugh.
“Fine,” she sighed, opening her eyes again, “She didn’t say it to me, exactly, but, well, she said it, like, in front of me, and she clearly wanted me to hear it. She said—” She straightened her back, the memory putting her on edge. “I was telling Cao-dage how nice it is that Xing-ge finally proposed because he was driving me nuts with all the planning and the waiting and the stupid insecurities, like you were ever going to say no, he’s such a dork—” Zhou Zishu cleared his throat, and Gu Xiang huffed. “What? He is. Anyway, I was telling Cao-dage about it and then that bi—I mean, Caroline heard me and started laughing and when I asked her what was so funny she just turned to her stupid friend and said…” Her voice started to shake, and her hands clenched into fists in her lap. “She said that my brother was stupid for wanting to marry a guy who will die in a couple of years.”
Someone’s breath hitched. Gu Xiang wished she could go back in time a couple of hours to punch Caroline a second time.
“I hope her nose is fucking broken,” she said.
For a long moment, no one said a word.
Zhou Zishu’s hand was heavy on her shoulder. She really couldn’t bear to look at him with her eyes all watery, so she kept her head turned to the opposite side of the room.
And he did exactly what Gu Xiang had feared he’d do: he sighed wearily, not a hint of a fight in it. Gu Xiang kind of wanted to punch him, too.
“I see,” he said quietly. His hand slid down from her shoulder to her arm, and his grip tightened, only for a second, before he let go. He took a breath and turned to the principal. “I have cancer,” he explained easily, tone carefully neutral, and gestured to his face mask as if to say, “That’s why this thing is here”. Principal Young’s face suddenly turned very, very pale. “I’m handling it,” Zhou Zishu added, before the other man could spit out some generic pleasantry about being sorry and giving condolences.
Zhou Zishu hated that kind of talk, but to be fair, who didn’t?
“I see,” Principal Young parroted after a while, in an attempt to sound unaffected. It wasn’t convincing at all, though. “Miss Gu, I agree that that was… quite inappropriate on Miss Spring’s part, but…”
Gu Xiang narrowed her eyes at him and immediately tuned him out. He talked for five minutes straight, like he was giving a presentation, and she pretended to listen, but actually just stared at his grey hair through most of his speech. She did catch a few words here and there, like an “I understand” and a “the regulations of this school” and a “your ward” that made her roll her eyes (“Just say “sister” or “child”, you weirdo!”), but she wasn’t really interested in the details.
Her eyes a little drier now, she dared to give Zhou Zishu a sidelong glance.
He was listening to Principal Young with seemingly rapt interested, nodding here and there and offering a comment or two, at one point good-naturedly asking for lenience and understanding, and at another casually wondering if “Miss Spring” would get at the very least reprimanded for her inappropriate behavior.
Gu Xiang wasn’t fooled, though. Zhou Zishu’s poker face was frighteningly perfect, as always, and if she didn’t know better, she would have fallen for it, too. She longed for the days when she would have missed the resignation in his eyes, or the way his hand twitched when he waved it airily in the air.
He wanted to punch someone, too, but he would not.
In the end, she left the building with a three-day suspension. Due to the extenuating circumstances, Principal Young had agreed that the incident wouldn’t go on her permanent record, in spite of that being “quite unusual”, because Zhou Zishu was actually a fucking great negotiator, and he was also not afraid to pull the I-Have-Cancer card once the information got out. Caroline would receive a few days of detention and would be encouraged to have at least one meeting with the school counselor, but beyond that, the trip to the hospital was considered a punishment in itself.
When Principal Young suggested that Gu Xiang should also arrange a few meetings with the counselor, she thought, “I’m going to punch you next.”
Out loud, she thanked Principal Young in a stilted voice and promised she’d think about it, before finally leaving the office with Zhou Zishu in tow. She didn’t speak for a while after that, but, to be fair, neither did Zhou Zishu; it was only when they were sitting in his car that she piped up again.
“I’m not sorry,” she said without preamble, leaning with her temple against the window and frowning at Zhou Zishu.
He rolled his eyes. “I know,” he said, then turned the ignition key and started driving without another word. Without an audience, his shoulders had sagged down, and his resting frown had fallen back into place.
“He’s going to get lines on his forehead,” Gu Xiang thought, if only because she’d heard Wen Kexing say it so many times that now it came naturally to her. Annoyingly, Wen Kexing always followed it up with something sappy and gross like, “But I’ll love you forever anyway, A-Xu! No matter how many lines you get!”, so that thought popped into her head, too.
She made a disgusted face and fished her phone out of her pocket to distract herself.
She was greeted by six notifications, five by Cao Weining, and one from Wen Kexing. She wrinkled her nose and opened her brother’s message first.
Ge 😈
How was it? 11:43 AM
Me
You would know if you were here. 12:16 AM
Ge 😈
Aw, does my little fiend miss me? 12:17 AM
Me
Stop. I’m actually mad at you. 12:19 AM
Ge 😈
Why? 12:20 AM
Did A-Xu fight with Mr. Young and get you a worse punishment? 12:20 AM
Me
Nope 12:21 AM
He’s actually a much better haggler than you 12:21 AM
Ge 😈
How dare you 12:22 AM
He’s better at so many other things, don’t take haggling away from me 12:23 AM
Gu Xiang rolled her eyes. Wen Kexing sent her a couple more texts, but she ignored them, closing the chat. She took a breath and opened Cao Weining’s messages instead.
Weining
A-Xiang!! 11:12 AM
Are you okay? Did they call Wen-xiansheng? 11:14 AM
Right, I guess you wouldn’t check your phone in the office… 11:25 AM
Text me when you can!! 11:27 AM
Or call me, whichever you prefer!! 11:29 AM
Gu Xiang scowled, tempted to close the app and put the phone back in her pocket. But, as it turned out, she was too much of a sucker to ghost him.
Me
Now you care about how I am? 12:24 AM
Also just call him Wen-ge, why so formal 12:26 AM
Weining
What do you mean, “now”? 12:29 AM
A-Xiang, I always care about you!! 12:30 AM
I can’t call him Ge. He’d kill me. 12:30 AM
Me
Maybe that’s why I want you to do it 12:31 AM
Weining
A-Xiang, please don’t joke like that… 12:33 AM
“Who’s joking?” Gu Xiang thought stubbornly.
Weining
Did you get punished? 12:34 AM
Me
Obviously. I’m suspended 12:35 AM
Weining
I’m so sorry, A-Xiang!! 12:37 AM
Me
Whatever 12:38 AM
Weining
A-Xiang… 12:44 AM
Are you angry with me? 12:45 AM
Me
You took that bitch’s side. So yeah, a little 12:47 AM
Cao Weining called her. Her phone was on silent, so thankfully the car was not filled with her ringtone, but she still jumped in her seat, causing Zhou Zishu to shoot her a look.
“It’s nothing,” she mumbled as she smashed the “refuse call” button.
Me
Warn me before you do that! 12:47 AM
I can’t talk right now. I’m in the car 12:48 AM
Weining
A-Xiang, I would never take Caroline’s side!! What she said was awful!! 12:50 AM
I just didn’t want you to get in even more trouble, that’s why I stopped you!! 12:51 AM
Besides, I was afraid that if you beat her up and she got really hurt, you’d feel bad later… 12:51 AM
Gu Xiang frowned again. How did this boy write such long texts in such quick succession? Did he have them prepared, or something?
She ignored the warm feeling in her stomach. She was probably just hungry.
Me
I wouldn’t feel bad, she deserves it 12:53 AM
Weining
Yes, you would. 12:53 AM
He answered so quickly and so matter-of-factly that Gu Xiang found it hard to disagree with him again, even though she wanted to. She elected not to write anything, and Cao Weining kept going.
Weining
I promise, A-Xiang!! 12:55 AM
I was only thinking of you!! 12:56 PM
Me
Fine 12:57 PM
I forgive you 12:57 PM
Only if you buy me a donut when I come back to school 12:58 PM
No. TWO donuts 12:59 PM
Weining
I’ll buy you three! 01:01 PM
Gu Xiang giggled. Then, remembering her present company, she swallowed her smile and finally put the phone back in her pocket.
When she looked up again and through the windshield, she realized something.
“Hey, this isn’t the way home.”
In fact, if they’d been going home, they would have gotten there already. She hadn’t noticed, distracted as she was by her text conversations, but Zhou Zishu must have taken a different road than the one he usually did.
“No, it isn’t,” Zhou Zishu said with a nod, and took a left without further explanation.
It was five minutes later that they reached their destination: a small Chinese takeaway restaurant tucked between a movie theater and a pizza place. Even from the car, it was obvious that the place was really small, with only one door and barely enough space for five people to wait inside in front of the counter. If Zhou Zishu hadn’t pointed it out to her, she might have missed it entirely.
“We’re eating here?” Gu Xiang asked as Zhou Zishu parked the car on the opposite side of the road.
“We’re picking something up,” he said, turning around to make sure he didn’t hit the car parked behind them, “But there’s no space, so I figure we can eat in the park nearby.”
“Isn’t Xing-ge going to expect us at home?” Gu Xiang blinked.
Zhou Zishu shook his head without looking at her. “I told him we’d be eating out. He’s still stuck at work anyway, so don’t worry about it.”
Gu Xiang nodded.
Not long after that, they were sitting on a park bench with three takeaway boxes in between them and one on each of their laps. Gu Xiang had raised an eyebrow when Zhou Zishu—who had lost about 60% of his appetite in the last couple of weeks—had ordered so much stuff, but he’d just shrugged and said, “We’ll bring some of it home.”
He’d bought a beer, too, because of course he did.
Well, now that they’d bought all of this, they might as well eat. Not waiting even for Zhou Zishu to take his mask off, Gu Xiang took a big bite of duck and literally straightened up in pleasant surprise.
“Hey! This is actually good!”
“Yeah,” Zhou Zishu said, hanging the mask around his neck, “I found this place a while back with Chengling. It is pretty good, and the food’s not that expensive,” he added, taking a bite of rice out of his own box.
Gu Xiang’s mouth was still full, so she acknowledged the explanation with a “mmm” noise.
Zhang Chengling liked exploring the city, and that extended to wanting to try as many different restaurants and cafés as possible. And, of course, his beloved Zhou-shu was his main adventure partner. She wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them had already tried more than half of all the Chinese restaurants in town. Sometimes, Wen Kexing would join them, but usually it was just the two of them. It was something special that they did together.
“A little father-son bonding time,” Wen Kexing had called it once.
Zhang Chengling had smiled that million-watt smile of his that made him look like a puppy, while Zhou Zishu had thrown a shoe at him. He was also one of those people that said “guardian” instead of “parent”, but it wasn’t because he was chicken-shit like Gu Xiang’s professors: he was just in denial.
Their family was weird, and not only because they all had different last names.
Gu Xiang sighed contentedly, taking another bite. Zhou Zishu and Zhang Chengling hadn’t gone on one of their little expeditions in a while, mostly because Zhou Zishu had a lot less stamina these days, but the next time they went, she might join them, if only to get a good meal out of it.
“So,” Zhou Zishu suddenly said as he twisted his beer open, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Gu Xiang swallowed her food a little too fast.
“No,” she said honestly, and a little wheezily. Zhou Zishu silently handed her the water bottle they’d bought.
“Let me rephrase,” he said as she drank half of it in large gulps, “We have to talk about it.”
With a grimace, Gu Xiang dried off some water from her lips with the back of her uninjured hand. “I don’t need to hear it.”
“Yes, you do,” Zhou Zishu said after taking a long sip of beer.
“I do not.”
“The sooner you let me say it, the sooner we can be done with it.”
Gu Xiang huffed. “Fine.”
Zhou Zishu leaned against the back of the bench. “Look at me.” She did, very reluctantly. When she met his gaze, his eyes were half-lidded, and though he still looked tired, he also looked surprisingly serene. “I’m not going to die.”
Gu Xiang looked down at the food in her lap with a pout.
The thing was, she knew that. Really. She believed every word her brother and Zhou Zishu had said when they’d told her, at separate times and then together, that Zhou Zishu would be fine.
They’d told her so when Gu Xiang and Zhang Chengling had first found out that Zhou Zishu was sick, before he’d even started treatment, because the doctors weren’t sure how they wanted to proceed. Then they’d told her when the treatment started, a moment in time when a lot of their conversations were filled with statistics and sometimes real, sometimes fake optimism. And, recently, when the chemotherapy started to take a physical toll on him, Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing had sat her down again to explain that it was completely normal for Zhou Zishu to look very weak and tired for a while.
He'd spent a lot of time in the hospital recently, and he didn’t get out of the house as much as he used to, and he worked from home now, but that was all a normal part of the process.
He was fine.
He was going to be fine.
He and Wen Kexing would get married soon, and then Wen Kexing would officially adopt Zhang Chengling like Zhou Zishu had adopted Gu Xiang, and the four of them would live together until Gu Xiang went away for college and it would all be totally fine forever, and no one was going to die until they were old and grey and tired of living.
“Do you really think that?” she heard herself ask. Zhou Zishu’s eyes widened a fraction, and Gu Xiang reflexively slapped her mouth a couple of times. “Sorry. That was stupid.”
Zhou Zishu leaned forward and grabbed her wrist, stopping her from slapping herself again. One of the takeaway boxes tipped dangerously under his weight.
Gu Xiang thought, for no real reason, that she’d never held his hand before.
“It wasn’t,” he said, quietly. He tenderly let go of her hand… and then he flicked her forehead.
“Ow!” she said, bringing a hand up to her head and pursing her lips at him, “Zishu-ge!”
He ignored her protest.
“A-Xiang,” he said instead, gentle and firm at the same time, in a better, warmer, dad-er version of his working-voice, “It’s not stupid to worry. And it’s not stupid to get angry when people make stupid jokes about it. Although it is a little stupid to punch those people in the middle of your classroom.” When she only kept frowning at him for ten solid seconds, he sighed. “I know it’s hard, little saint. I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” she said on reflex, and then winced. “No, that’s not… I didn’t mean that,” she said, reaching for his wrist.
Zhou Zishu smiled and let her take it. “I know,” he said again. Then, with another little sigh, he added, “To answer your question, yes, I do really think that. I will not die, A-Xiang.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I promise.”
She grimaced. Then she turned away from him, leaning back properly on the bench, but without letting go of his hand. Then she straightened up again, so quickly that the takeaway box closest to her almost fell off of the bench. Luckily, Zhou Zishu caught it with his free hand and put it on his lap. Gu Xiang ignored it all and turned sideways on the bench to look at him properly.
“Do you remember when I told you that I’d never seen Xing-ge as happy as he was when he was with you?” she asked, rubbing circles on his wrist with her bruised fingers. He had a bruise on his hand, too. His was from a medical needle.
Zhou Zishu nodded, smiling fondly at the memory. It had happened around one month into his relationship with Wen Kexing. They’d had a big fight—Gu Xiang didn’t even remember what about, and they probably didn’t, either—and, after watching her brother mope around their apartment for two days, she’d gone to look for Zhou Zishu so she could force them to make up… only to find him moping just as much around his apartment.
It had been kind of pathetic, honestly.
She had sat him down in his kitchen, made him lunch, and then she’d told him that he must be very fucking stupid if he thought that Wen Kexing was ever going to break up with him of his own volition, let alone after one idiotic fight. And then she’d told him that he should go find her brother and apologize, because her brother was sad, and he hadn’t been that sad in a while. Not since meeting Zhou Zishu.
It had been a shovel talk and a blessing all in one. Gu Xiang had been pretty proud of herself.
“Yes,” Zhou Zishu said.
“Well,” Gu Xiang started, then stopped. She wrinkled her nose and shook his wrist up and down. “Well,” she repeated, “I’m also… You see… Ugh, how do I say this!” she groaned, slapping her forehead lightly with her free hand. After a second or two, she shook her head and shoulders frantically, like she was trying to wake herself up, and looked at him again. Zhou Zishu waited patiently for the words to come to her. “When my brother is happy, I’m happy,” she said, staring determinately at him, “You know what I mean?”
Zhou Zishu used his free hand to ruffle her hair, messing up her braids.
“I do,” he said with that same small fond smile.
Gu Xiang squawked and let go of his hand to fix her hair, kicking at Zhou Zishu’s leg when she heard him chuckle.
“You’re so annoying!”
“I know that too,” Zhou Zishu agreed, sounding the opposite of sorry. He went back to his lunch without acknowledging Gu Xiang’s glare.
“If you die, I’ll come find you in the netherworld and kill you again.”
“That’s fair.”
“And I’m going to keep punching people that say shit like that about you.”
Zhou Zishu rolled his eyes. “Alright,” he said after a moment, “But do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Punch them after school. And make sure there are no witnesses, I don’t want to come visit you in juvie.”
Gu Xiang smiled happily and picked up her chopsticks again.
“No promises.”
(When Wen Kexing heard the story, he patted her on the head just like she’d predicted, and he even praised her for doing a good job. And he did it without messing up her hair, thank you very much.)
(Zhou Zishu scolded him for encouraging her, which was very hypocritical. Wen Kexing told him as much and then they kissed, and Gu Xiang promptly left the room.
Her parents were so gross.)