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“Ling-gē?” He hadn’t heard that nickname in a while, it’d been close to seven years since Lin Ling last took on a babysitting job for a friend of his parents. Memories of a time long since past, of winter snow hair and bright aquamarine eyes sparkling with youthful innocence, flashed in Lin Ling’s mind as he regarded the person who’d shaped his childhood nickname with a handsome voice.
Ah, he should have known the little tyke would grow up well. What Lin Ling didn’t expect was for the child formerly under his care to also be a Hero he’d designed and written Ads for. Sure, he’d had his own suspicions for a while as he worked on this project but it really was another thing altogether when faced with the truth.
The younger man jogs up to him, gold embellishments glinting in the sunlight as his billowing white cape flutters after Nice, a bright smile so similar to the youthful grin in Lin Ling’s memory upon the man’s face. They’re the same height, Lin Ling notices idly, a hint of a smile tugging at his own lips as he regards the man standing before him. Lin Ling could almost see Nice’s hypothetical tail wagging furiously behind him.
“Ah…” Lin Ling starts, before slamming his mouth shut with a harsh click, lips pressing into a thin line as just behind Nice’s shoulder, he finds himself staring into the infuriated expression of his boss. Shit, he was definitely going to get fired today for “distracting the talents”. Lin Ling lets out a sigh before he forces a wan smile towards the younger hero.
“Sorry Nice, we’ll have to catch up later, you’re busy right? I’ll come see you in a bit," Lin Ling reaches up to gently pat the other’s shoulder as he scoots past to grovel before his boss. He does not expect an iron grip to clamp down on his wrist, looking back to Nice in mild confusion as Lin Ling is stopped in his tracks.
“Where are you going, Ling-gē?” Nice’s voice is even, pleasant to match with the picture perfect smile sliding into place. He is the paragon of virtue, so polite and bright (quite literally with the way his pristine white uniform was reflecting off the sunlight trickling in from the office windows) that Lin Ling has to fight the urge to squint. The unyielding grip on his wrist spoke of a different story though, and despite the polite front Nice was presenting, Lin Ling couldn’t shake the feeling of something simmering below the facade.
Before Lin Ling could answer, he is bodily ripped from Nice’s grasp, a soft curse pulled from his lips as he is yanked unceremoniously away from the younger hero while his boss shoves past the flailing man to apologize for whatever transgression he had perceived Lin Ling to have done.
The other man nurses his wrist, soothing the angry red mark from being unnaturally twisted away that had started forming. Lin Ling hoped it wouldn’t bruise, he couldn’t afford a visit to the doctor currently and insurance was a bureaucratic nightmare of paperwork that he really just didn’t have the time for.
Lin Ling misses the dark look Nice shoots his way and the sharp edge his smile took as he regards the snivelling man before him. When Lin Ling turns around, he’s met with a soft smile and a mouthed promise to meet up again later before Nice escorts his delighted boss away into a meeting room, no doubt to hammer out details in which his company could win more advertisement gigs for the young fresh hero.
Lin Ling smiles thinly, hopefully he’d be able to get off of work on time today, he’d hate to keep Nice waiting when their reunion and catchup is so long overdue.
-
It was almost pitiful that this was the first time in three years Lin Ling had finished work on time. Or rather, for the first time in years, the sky was still blue and the sun was still up when Lin Ling exited the office building.
Granted, it was due to the fact that he’d just gotten fired in mid afternoon. The box holding all evidence of his (now past) employment clattered noisily as Lin Ling maneuvered it to re-adjust his grip on the flimsy cardboard. One small misstep and it would be- and there was the dreaded ripping sound promptly followed by the loud crescendo of multiple personal belongings hitting the asphalt. Lin Ling simply stares at his scattered items, too numb to even think about picking it up as the ripped box drops to the ground from his shocked fingers.
The security guard kindly looks away, allowing Lin Ling the dignity of facing the humiliating task of gathering all his scattered belongings on the pavement blessedly alone-
“Ling-gē?” Fuck. Of course it was the one person he didn’t want to see, Lin Ling sighs before he gathers what could be salvaged and turns to face the younger hero. Nice wore a look of concern on his face and Lin Ling winces at the sorry state he’d let himself be seen in. He tries for some self-depreciating laughter, hoping to dispel the awkward atmosphere as he shifts his weight to better hold his belongings.
“H-Hey, sorry Nice, I’ll have to meet up with you later, I just got, uh fired and I’m really just–” Unbidden, tears sprang into his eyes, Lin Ling blinking them back furiously to no avail as the tears spill over and trail down his cheeks like a broken dam. The reality of three years wasted hitting him all at once and Lin Ling almost can’t take much more of this humiliation. A muffled sob barely escapes his lips before he is enveloped in the warmth and security of strong steady arms, pressed close to a firm chest with billowing white shielding his vision.
Lin Ling lets his measly belongings fall to the ground again as he clings to Nice’s hero regalia, desperate fingers bunching the sturdy fabric. Mortification burns his face at his embarrassing display of despair but unwilling to let go of the only person who had shown him care and concern in his darkest hour. Nice, to his credit, remains steadfast and cradles him close, murmuring soft assurances and gently shushing his sobs. They're definitely drawing a crowd; a sobbing civilian with Treeman’s newest hero, but Lin Ling can’t bring himself to let go just yet.
He doesn’t need to, apparently, because Nice decided to reach down and pull him into a Princess carry, deliberately ignoring his wet yelp, taking off immediately into the skies. Lin Ling grips on for dear life now as his tears immediately dry up at the increasing altitude. They stop, floating just above the rooftops of most office buildings, Nice casually shifting his weight like he was a bag of groceries for a better hold.
The view from above was breathtaking when Lin Ling dared chance a peek between tightly squeezed eyelids. His awestruck face turns into one of irritation as he looks up at the grinning younger hero who had spontaneously kidnapped him. Lin Ling should probably feel more aggrieved or outraged at the audacity but the blinding, unrepentant smile Nice shoots his way was so unbelievably adorable and so reminiscent of the child in Lin Ling’s memory that he can’t help but shake his head in exasperated fondness.
“Next time you kidnap me, at least give me a warning first,” The cheeky thing had the audacity to grin down at him, aquamarine eyes sparkling with mischief. Lin Ling ought to teach him a lesson when they’re both safely on the ground and not prone to dropping humans to a very fatal height.
“Okay, Ling-Gē!” Lin Ling shakes his head in disbelief, arms locked around Nice’s nape as he tries to casually inquire about their destination, voice cracking mildly from overuse from the earlier breakdown. Nice mercifully doesn’t comment.
“So, where are you taking me, Mr Kidnapper?”
The answering smile Nice gives him makes him mildly nervous, Lin Ling instinctively leaning away slightly in wariness, as the hero chirps his answer.
“Hero’s Tower!”
-
Lin Ling didn’t expect his first visit to the place he’d dreamed of entering since he was a child to be under such embarrassing circumstances. But he also didn’t exactly bank on Nice becoming a Hero in his adulthood so there was that he supposed. The younger man was already an impressive fifteenth rank despite being relatively new, Lin Ling felt pride swell in his chest as the elevator pulled to a stop at the corresponding floor.
He should have known, honestly. Nice was such a talented child, he’d lost count of how many ballet recitals and competitions he’d attended in the place of his ever-busy parents and how many times the boy had rushed home to show him his flawless scores on tests.
Entering Nice’s suite, Lin Ling freezes slightly at the sight of the gaudy statue but otherwise notes the harsh minimalism of the apartment, slipping off his shoes at the gantry as he hums.
“This is… very spacious,” Spacious was one word Lin Ling picked in his vocabulary, “empty” was another he’d chosen not to voice. The room was stylish of course, Nice would never be caught dead in basic furnishings but the decor was sparse, surfaces left empty and cleared of any clutter that indicated any signs of living. A glint of gold near the television console gave Lin Ling pause, face melting into a nostalgic smile.
Arranged neatly and precisely so each trophy faced forwards and aligned perfectly with the shelf’s width, were Nice’s childhood trophies, displayed for viewing and the only pop of colour in the monochrome scheme. Lin Ling approaches the shelf, chuckling softly to himself as he examines each glittering trophy, carefully maintained and cleaned as if it were shining new.
“Oh, I remember this one, you’d been too nervous to step up to the stage until you saw me in the audience.” The memory comes up, of a younger, smaller Nice, meticulously styled coiffed hair and dressed in performance best, clutching the soft velvet of the curtains as he searches the sea of foreign faces for someone he recognized.
The way Nice brightened when he found him, seated in the row meant for his parents, all nervousness had melted away like frost in the spring sun. His performance was flawless as always, and Lin Ling remembered mildly embarrassing himself as he stood up and cheered for his little boy. Guess the habit of embarrassing himself in front of Nice hadn’t changed even after all these years.
The trip down memory lane is cut short by a pair of arms encircling his waist and a weight settling into the slope of his shoulder as Nice noses into it, pressing close. Lin Ling allows the contact, relaxing minutely as he is reminded of how physically touchy the younger man had been in his youth.
Constantly demanding cuddles and holding hands while others his age rebuffed any such physical contact. Lin Ling was more than happy to oblige, secretly glad that Nice still enjoyed his company and touch even as he grew older.
“I missed you, Ling-gē…” Lin Ling’s heart stutters at the murmur, a pinched expression overcoming his features as he gently holds the arm currently hugging him. It must have been quite jarring for Nice, one moment Lin Ling was there like usual, helping him with his homework and anything he might need, and then next moment, he was being told he’d be shipped off to boarding school by the next day.
Nice’s parents were always like that though, always selfishly deciding for their son like he was a lifeless puppet without any care or regard for his feelings as a human being. To them, Nice was probably nothing more than a glorified trophy, another achievement to strike off their life plan. If he’d been able to, Lin Ling would have taken Nice away from that household in a heartbeat.
As it were though, he had his hands full at the time taking care of his ailing parents and applying for college scholarships, there was simply just no bandwidth or capability for Lin Ling to take care of Nice on top of his already full plate. It was the older man’s biggest regret.
“I’ve missed you too,” Lin Ling answers, leaning into the younger hero’s embrace. He feels Nice flinch at the movement before the younger man tightens his grip for just a second and then lets him go, Lin Ling already missing the warmth of his body against his as Nice smiles softly at him, shy yet doting like an eager pup.
What a day it’d been, Lin Ling thinks idly to himself. He’d run into Nice again in a great stroke of luck, gotten fired from his horrible job, gotten briefly kidnapped and then brought to the younger hero’s floor in Hero’s Tower, the place of his childhood dreams.
Perhaps it was the familiarity of being near Nice now, or the weight of the regret he carried from his youth to adulthood suddenly disappearing or perhaps just the adrenaline of the eventful day wearing off, but Lin Ling’s body relaxed enough in the quiet of the suite to let out a rather loud growl from his stomach.
Nice muffles a laugh behind a faked cough, his hand balling into a fist in an attempt to hide his amused smile at the older man’s embarrassment. Lin Ling could only scratch his head sheepishly, too exhausted to do much other than mutter about making them dinner and making a quick escape.
Nice’s answering grin was worth the effort of making dinner, besides, it was the least he could do to repay him.
-
Lin Ling was staying the night. Nice could hardly believe it was real, the man he’d loved since childhood was in his apartment, in his bathroom, taking a shower using Nice’s toiletries and his guest towel.
Nice smiles gleefully, resisting the urge to kick his feet like a high schooler with a crush. He’d even managed to eat Lin Ling’s cooking, oh how he’d missed it. The older man used to cook for him too, he was the only person in Nice’s life to have cared enough to make sure he was fed warm food.
The younger hero smiles fondly at the memories, his smile dropping as he recalled the impudent boss of Lin Ling’s, or well, ex-boss now. Nice would have to make sure to blacklist that company now that Lin Ling was safely out of that man’s grasp, he’ll have Miss J look into it.
There were other matters to take care of too, like figuring out a plan to keep Lin Ling here. Here with him, with Nice. He can’t help smiling, excited as his mind raced with ideas.
The thought of Lin Ling greeting him home, of the older man’s warm fond smile directed only at him, sent a storm of butterflies swirling in Nice’s chest. Ahh, he loves him so much, Nice sighs dreamily, hugging a throw pillow close to his chest, nuzzling into the fabric.
He’ll have more time to plan later, right now, Lin Ling was here, and that was all that mattered.