Work Text:
Xiao Xingchen meets his sister by complete accident. If it were up to Song Zichen, they wouldn’t interact for the approximate duration of forever.
(“But what if you get married?” Ah-Yun croons a few years down the road. “Ma would have your head if you brought a boy home without telling me first!”
“It was a joke,” Song Zichen replies nervously, hand sneaking into his pocket. The box is there, of course, silky soft against his fingers. At this rate the velvet will be rubbed off flat if Zichen keeps touching it so often, but he can’t help himself.
“The ring is there, stop checking every five minutes,” Ah-Yun steals the last of his cake and Song Zichen lets her, only because she’s old (‘old er ’, ‘that basically means that you are old, jie’) and not because she caught him unaware. “Oh, and show me.”
“I hate you, get your hands away from me,” Song Zichen says, avoiding her grabby sticky fingers. “I literally hate you, if you tell a word to him, I’ll—”
“Bold of you to think your boyfriend hasn’t found the ring already,” Ah-Yun snickers.
“He hasn’t,” Song Zichen says. “He hasn’t, right, jie? Jie? He hasn’t said anything, right?”
Ah-Yun laughs, clearly enjoying his misery.
“I love seeing you like this,” she says, as if her enjoyment isn’t evident.
“Seeing who like what?” Xiao Xingchen comes back with the drinks, settling the glasses on the coffee table and himself by Zichen’s side. Xiao Xingchen turns to him, affection so clear in the upturn of his lips, Song Zichen is still unsure why he deserves such adoration, especially coming from someone like Xingchen.
Song Zichen kicks Ah-Yun under the table for almost ratting him out.
“Seeing Zichen being happy,” she replies, easily avoiding his foot with over twenty years of practice under her belt. “He’s more tolerable to be around like this.”
“Are you?” Xiao Xingchen asks, not even teasing, just genuine, marvelling wonder. “Happy, I mean?”
And Song Zichen can’t imagine being anything else, when with him.)
But that is still a few years away. Right now, Song Zichen is busy pilfering his own cigarette from his sister’s hand. Naturally, Ah-Yun takes a long drag and shoves a half-finished pack at him he catches. Xiao Xingchen has gone to bed, leaving the siblings to catch up. Or most likely, overwhelmed by his sister’s… his sister’s general existence. Jie talked about Song Zichen’s mortifying childhood with relish in excruciating details, leaving Zichen stew in his shame. Next morning Xingchen will tell him that Ah-Yun reminds him of one of his mothers, and Song Zichen will realise just how much trouble he is in.
They smoke in comfortable silence, passing the ashtray back and forth. There’s something about smoking, how time stands still around. They can be in now, or six years back when Ma caught them leaning out of the fire escape and Ah-Yun took the brunt of the blame, or five years down the road, when the future is unclear, all except him and his jie smoking together in the middle of the night.
“I like him,” Ah-Yun says brightly when their cigarettes are smoked to stubs. Then her smile turns mischievous as she elbows him slightly, “but not as much as you like him.”
“Jie,” Song Zichen complains, not beneath shoving her back as she falls, swaying back with the motion and cresting back to smother him. “We are just friends,” he explains himself under the merciless attack of her small body but strong and vicious sneaky fingers. “We are just friends, ah, would you stop this, Xingchen is sleeping ?”
Ah-Yun draws back a little to sprawl herself against his side. He nudges her off just for her to nudge back and settle more comfortably, her back against his shoulder, legs dangling off the armrest. Song Zichen cannot believe she is older and blood-related to him.
“Ah, didi, don’t be mad,” she laughs, and Song Zichen isn’t, just exasperated, embarrassment flushing hot at the back of his neck. “It suits you.”
“What?”
“It suits you,” she repeats, “being in love.”