Chapter Text
Cheng Xiaoshi stared at Lu Guang from his seat on the couch, tapping his leg impatiently.
Lu Guang looked up from his book to stare at the other man sitting next to him. “Do you not have anything better to do?”
“Nah.”
“Go sort out those photos from the shoot then,” Lu Guang said, resuming his reading.
“Lu Guaaaang.”
“Mn.”
“Guang Guaaang.”
Lu Guang sighed. “What?”
“Can you call me gege?”
“What??” Lu Guang asked again, bookmarking his page before closing the book to once again stare at Cheng Xiaoshi.
“Call me gege!” he insisted.
“No.”
“Huh?! Why not?!” Cheng Xiaoshi pulled his best puppy-eye. “Lu Guaaang, pleaaaase?”
“I said no,” Lu Guang closed his eyes. “That’s childish.”
“How come you get to call Qiao Ling jie, but won’t call me gege?!” Cheng Xiaoshi crossed his arms childishly. “This isn’t fair! I’m older than you too!”
“You may be older than Lu Guang, but you sure don’t act like it!” A voice responded from the front desk. Qiao Ling, who was there to pick up some photos to return to a client, approached the two men in the sunroom.
“Qiao Ling!!” Cheng Xiaoshi whined. “You’re just biased! We all know your favoritism for Lu Guang!”
“That’s because he’s simply just better than you in so many ways,” Qiao Ling shrugged. “More responsible, more trustworthy… smarter, too! Do I have to go on?”
Cheng Xiaoshi groaned. “Okay, okay, we get it, Lu Guang has the brains.”
“And you have none.”
“HUH?!”
Lu Guang cleared his throat, catching the attention of the older two before they got to each other’s throat. “Qiao Ling-jie, I think it’s best you get the photos back to the client soon,” he pointed at the envelope in her hands. “The traffic is going to get really bad later if you don’t.”
“Ah! You’re right!” She quickly made her way back towards the front door. “Thanks, Lu Guang!” she waves, before opening the door and leaving the studio.
Cheng Xiaoshi sighed, sprawling his arms at the back of the couch, and invading Lu Guang’s personal space in the process.
“Hands to yourself,” the white-haired man lightly shoved the arm nearly hooking around his own shoulders.
The next few days played out pretty similar: Cheng Xiaoshi randomly asking Lu Guang to call him gege, and him always responding with only a simple “no”.
Though, it seemed like Cheng Xiaoshi eventually decided simply asking wasn’t enough, and so he had to somehow bribe the other man.
First it was “I will do the laundry for a week!”
Lu Guang was not moved. “You’re in charge of it for the week anyway.”
Then, “I’ll make all our meals for a week!”
Still, Lu Guang could not care less. “With your current demands, can I trust you to not somehow tamper with the food?”
“Whaaaat?! Lu Guang, I would never! I always cook, you can’t frame me like this!” Cheng Xiaoshi put on his best puppy-eyed face, which almost, almost moved him.
“Idiot.”
Today, Lu Guang was cleaning parts of the studio when Cheng Xiaoshi decided to test his luck once again.
Cheng Xiaoshi leaning outside the darkroom where Lu Guang was busy sorting… photos from a shoot. The very ones he asked Cheng Xiaoshi to sort a few days ago, which he never ended up doing. “If I buy you 10 cups of milk tea,” he started, “will you call me gege?”
Lu Guang turned his head to momentarily make eye contact with the older man, before looking back at the photos he was organizing. “Out of your own pocket?”
“Yeah!”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll even do all the cleaning for a week!” he quickly added, just in case the milk teas weren’t enough for Lu Guang. “Look at you working so hard with the cleaning right now! Leave it aaaall to me, everything will be spotless!”
“Mn.” He’ll never understand what goes on in Cheng Xiaoshi’s head. He’s been pestering Lu Guang to call him gege for almost a week now. If only Cheng Xiaoshi would spend more of this effort on the studio work, then maybe they would have finished paying back more of their debt to Qiao Ling’s father already.
“Is that a yes?”
Lu Guang sighed. “Whatever you take it as.”
Cheng Xiaoshi snapped his fingers, beaming. “I’ll go buy the milk tea right now!” He ran to the front door, bumping into a few things on his way out.
“A guest has arrived!” The front door chimed open right as Cheng Xiaoshi reached it, but instead of greeting the person who came in the studio, he just continued running right out to the streets.
Qiao Ling stood by the door, confused. “Hey! Cheng Xiaoshi, what are you up to again?!”
“Qiao Ling-jie,” Lu Guang poked his head out the darkroom at her as she walked inwards. “Cheng Xiaoshi went to buy milk tea.”
She sat down on the couch in the sunroom. “Milk tea?” She repeated, then crossed her arms. “Don’t tell me he’s using owed money to buy those drinks!”
“He said he’s buying out of his own pocket.”
“Eh?! His own money?!” Qiao Ling jumped from her place on the couch, and also ran to the door. “Lu Guang— I’ll be right back, bye!” Then, there was a distant shout: “CHENG XIAOSHI, YOU’RE BUYING ME A DRINK, TOO!”
With that, Lu Guang was left alone in the photo studio. He sighed, putting down the photos at hand. As much as he disliked leaving work unfinished, he also disliked staying in the darkroom when unneeded more.
He’ll just ask Cheng Xiaoshi to finish sorting the photos—they were almost done, anyway,—and make up a small excuse.
Probably the same one he said in the other timelines. “Another customer came in and I got busy helping them.”
No, not probably. Definitely.
Way too many new events occurred already, he’d rather not add onto that by changing his words, even if it doesn’t change anything, because what if it does?
If he uses a different excuse, and it just so happens to end up looking suspicious, Cheng Xiaoshi might get all worried.
Then that can lead to him paying more attention to Lu Guang instead of focusing on their normal studio tasks, which would not only diverge from the previous timelines even more than it already is, but if he begins to dig into all the secrets, he might find out about his death node and how much of a hypocrite Lu Guang really is…
And if he does, there would be no doubt that they’ll have a huge argument they couldn’t afford to have. Cheng Xiaoshi would probably never want to talk to him ever again.
He shook his head. There’s no point in thinking so much of it right now. Procrastinating does nothing, he should know better. Besides, that excuse was still half the truth, and of course, tested before. Why was he even thinking so much into it?
He should be cleaning the studio. In the past timelines, he’d finished cleaning a good portion of the studio by the time Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling came back with milk tea.
He took a glance at the watch on his wrist. 5:02. He had a little less than 30 minutes before they came back, but that’s more than enough.
…………
……
…
“A guest has arrived!”
Lu Guang was organizing and cleaning the shared bedroom upstairs when the door opened. Hearing the bell, he left the washcloth in his hands by the desk and went down the stairs.
“Hello, welcome to Time Photo Studio, is there anything you need help—” He greeted, once he reached the last few steps of the staircase. He turned around to face the customer, freezing midway when he recognized the familiar grin. “...with…”
“Long time no see, sweetie.”