Chapter Text
His boss slams his hands on the table, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“You better listen up Lin Ling! We’ve got a big client today,” he starts. He shoves a screen to Lin Ling’s face, forcing him to lean back to read its contents. “It’s one of the…” he pauses, to find the words, “…trendy, heroes as of late, so I’m assigning this one to you!”
Lin Ling needs a few moments to first process what he’s saying, then another to read the words on the pad. No luck, since there’s still a scowling face right in front of him.
“Uh…thanks?” he mumbles. Lin Ling tries to take the device from his boss, but the man quickly pulls it back.
“Thanks? Get your head out of the clouds, you idiot!” he sweeps his other hand toward the door, gesturing for him to get out. “I’ve already forwarded the request to you, so go read it over already!”
Scrambling, Lin Ling quickly moves his way out of the room, hopefully leaving his screaming boss behind. “Being that fired up all the time should not be good for his health…” he mutters.
Now that he’s actually out of the office though, Lin Ling actually takes a minute to look at what his boss sent him. When he finally finishes reading the specifics, his jaw almost drops.
”Nice?!” he yelps, almost dropping the screen in his hands. His surprise should be obvious. Technically, Nice is not the first client they’ve had who’s a hero. But, it’s the first higher-ranked one. Most’ve the guys his company has had were in the hundreds, with a particular case in the top 100. Nice is the first hero-client who’s in the top 50.
Maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising, given that they just do advertisements. A decent amount of the top heroes also rely on promotional work to get their trust value up. Still though, it’s pretty shocking to be able to work with Nice on…
Lin Ling reads(skims) the thing again.
…A promotional video for the yearly number one hero competition? Strange, considering the last one just ended. Maybe they’re trying to get ahead of the game?
‘Well, more time to finish for me!’ he thinks.
With renewed vigor, he heads back into the office. His boss is still there, sitting at his desk.
“So, you’ve read it all, right?” his boss asks. When Lin Ling nods his head, he hands him a stack of blue folders, all seemingly filled to the brim with papers. “Good, I knew you’d appreciate this opportunity,” he pauses for a moment and continues with, “Now that you’ve seen your end goal, let me give you what you actually need to start on.”
“Wait what,” Lin Ling starts--
--And gets cut off with a wave of his boss’s hand, “Surely you didn’t think that’d be the only thing you’d have, right? Oh Lin Ling, I thought you knew better than that already.” With that horrifying revelation, he takes the folder on the top and opens it for Lin Ling to stare at. A few pictures of Nice are plastered there, as well as another few photos of other things, like a few buildings, and Nice’s girlfriend, Moon. “Now this, this is what you’ll be working on. I got a request just a few days ago about this up-and-coming hero needing a new advertisement campaign. They even proposed a contract with us for multiple types of projects!”
“...Please don’t tell me you’re making me the head of these new ‘projects,’ Lin Ling says.
He waves Ling Ling off again, “Ah, and I said yes of course, because I knew you’d jump at the opportunity. So now, you get to work with this Nice guy all year!” He puts his hands up with a big smile, like Lin Ling should somehow be thankful that he’s going to die from overworking.
“I know how much you love working with heroes after all,” he says. Lin Ling wants to slam his head into the table.
‘Deep breaths, deep breaths,’ he thinks. ‘Okay, maybe I should just punch him.’
What comes out of his mouth is: “Sure, I’ll take it! Where do I start?” Sounds an awfully lot like what he said when first joining the company, come to think of it.
Obviously, like the sunny guy his boss never is, he says, “What did I say earlier?! Go read it you idiot!” With that, Lin Ling finds the doors closed in his face. It’s almost a power in itself, how his boss manages to shove him out the door every time.
To the empty wall, he sighs.
‘It’s going to be a long year, I guess…’
--
“Oh! Uh…hello! It’s nice-I mean, it’s…really great to meet you!” Lin Ling stumbles through an introduction, like usual. The hero in front of him doesn’t even twitch -- though, Lin Ling thinks he smiles just a bit more. “I’m Lin Ling, and ah…you’re well, Nice of course.”
In a blink, the hero flashes him an even brighter smile and winks at him. In a move that could make crowds swoon (though it could be argued that anything he does would do that), he says, “Yes, it’s also nice to meet you. You’re the manager for the project my boss has me in, correct?” When Lin Ling gives a hurried nod, he chuckles. “I’ll be in your good hands, then.”
Somehow, Lin Ling doesn’t faint on the spot from embarrassment. “Yeah of course!” he replies.
To some extent, that’s the worst of it. The whole stuttering and making-bad-jokes-in-front-of-Nice that is. The embarrassing moments still don’t stop, even when they’re not directly speaking somehow.
The ad needed to be filmed this time isn’t too bad; there are only a few lines Nice needs to say in total. However, since adjustments are needed frequently, it means that Lin Ling is the one directing everything around (considering he made most of it, ahem), which also means that Lin Ling needs to direct Nice around. This mainly consists of him coming close and showing an admittedly bad example of what Nice needs to copy. Thankfully, Nice does live up to his fame as perfection in human form, and copies him in all the ways that matter. Still though, the issue remains that his and Nice are way too close sometimes. Exhibit A:
“Hm…how about placing your hand like this?” Lin Ling tries to play an example, but he feels like he’s only making himself look like an idiot in the process.
“This?” Nice asks, shifting to a similar position.
“Er-gimme a sec--” without thinking, Lin Ling reaches a hand towards Nice’s own, and maneuvers it to how he was imagining it. He does need to brush back a strand of white hair that had gotten in the way, but stepping back and examining Nice, he’s satisfied with the result. “That should do it.”
It’s in that moment when he notices Nice staring blankly at where he had just moved back from. Lin Ling likens it to a computer bluescreening.
“Oh crap, I-I’m so sorry! I wasn’t really thinking, I swear!” Quickly, he raises his palms, like he’s going to have to soothe an animal that’ll probably punch him into the next three buildings over. “Uh, Mr. Nice..?”
A second later, the hero seems to snap out of whatever trance he was in. With a bright smile popping up again, he laughs, “Ah…I’m alright. Sorry, I was just thinking that--” he pauses, takes a breath in, and lowers his voice a bit. Like a secret he’s confessing. Even his eyes flick downwards as he says, “--you have nice hands.”
In Lin Ling’s state of confusion and slight fear, he manages to spit out a small “Thank you..?”
Inwardly he groans, ‘Oh, even I know that’s horrible.’
Mentally facepalming himself, he tries to speed right past the second embarrassing moment of the day. “Uhm…well, let’s take it from the top!”
‘Maybe by pretending that nothing happened, nothing will continue to happen,’ he hopes.
To an extent, it sort of works. Nothing substantial happens after that. They’re able to go through filming without any other…incidents, and Lin Ling manages to survive with his dignity intact (though damaged).
Before he leaves, Nice approaches him.
“Thank you for today, Lin Ling. I apologize for earlier especially,” he starts. “I had no intention of making you uncomfortable.”
“No, no! I’m okay,” Lin Ling replies. He can’t help but look down and fidget for a moment though, when he decides to ask a following question. “Why do you uh…like my erm, hands?”
“Oh,” Nice has that frozen look again, like Lin Ling had just accidentally triggered the emergency shutdown button in his head.
“They're, ah…they’re quite nice,” he says after a few seconds. It looks like the recovery from the bluescreen was faster this time. Slowly he blinks, and a smile graces his lips once more.
“They’re very nice,” he repeats.
To that, Lin Ling can only feel his face flood with another wave of embarrassment, and do another set of (shaky) nods. It looks like his horrible social skills have somehow infected a top hero -- which is becoming an increasingly worse power by the second.
‘Should I thank him again? But I’ve already said thank you like a billion times today…wait, did he use the word ‘nice’ there on purpose? Oh craaap…’
“Uh, thank you! Really, I uh…I’ve never been complimented on my hands before…” Nice is still looking at him with that pretty smile, and Lin Ling chooses to flee in the face of his growing fight or flight instinct. “...so, um-thanks-and-bye!”
Lin Ling can’t run faster out the door. Thankfully he doesn’t run into it.
He spends the whole night in his bed, screaming into a pillow. He hopes his neighbors don’t call the cops on him. It’d only be a bit more embarrassing than the day’s earlier events though.
It almost makes him want to take back everything he agreed to, no matter how painful it may be to trudge back to the office in the morning and probably get fired by his boss. Because this? This is on a whole new level of embarrassment, even for him.
‘But Nice smiled at me…’
Reluctantly, he rolls over to his laptop to draft up the next set of advertisements. Apparently the next one is a hair commercial?
--
Realistically speaking, it’s not uncommon for the average person to come across heroes. And although that chance may be a bit lower for Lin Ling due to his chronically indoor lifestyle, the overall chances aren’t so bad for him to meet a hero occasionally.
It still comes as a surprise when Lin Ling steps out of the convenience store to see Nice, in all of his perfect glory, duking it out with some random villain across the street. He blinks, almost drops his bag of groceries, and blinks again. With a simple punch, Nice sends the villain crashing towards Lin Ling’s left, skidding across the road. Thankfully, the guy stops before he hits the store itself.
Lin Ling takes a second to stare at the beat-up villain next to him. Tentatively he asks, “...You good?”
The guy gives him a thumbs up.
“Uh, alright,” he says because what else should he say, and then ‘oh crap Nice is here again what should I do--’
“Lin Ling! It’s great to see you again. What a coincidence, right?” the hero chirps. He seems especially cheerful, probably because the authorities had just finished detaining the villain. It was kind of funny, seeing them slog the guy onto a stretcher. They’re still cleaning the scene up, keeping civilians far away. It provides an ample opportunity for him and Nice to chat without interruption.
Lin Ling manages to stumble out, “Um yeah! It’s…also great to see you.” Maybe a little too soon, though. “I uh, didn’t expect I’d see you so quickly.”
With an ever-growing grin, the hero lets out a few haha’s. “Well, I suppose that just means fortune is on our side today,” he says. Nice takes a moment to scan nearby for any other people, and when he finds none he turns back to Lin Ling. “Speaking of which, I wanted to ask, you’re going to be there at the next shooting, right?”
What he’s referring to is another promotional video coming up, which Lin Ling had much less involvement in. Apparently, Nice’s manager is a bit more picky about how videos directly related to Nice’s hero work goes. Still though, Lin Ling feels bad about disappointing him.
“Ah, uh… that one I’m not really needed there, I’m afraid,” he mumbles. The corners of Nice’s eyes seem to drop down a bit, and his smile becomes slightly less pronounced. “Not that I don’t want to! I’d totally be there if I could! It’s just that…my boss doesn’t really like me taking the more hero-ish side of things. Er, besides the heroes themselves,” he adds.
There’s a question in Nice’s eyes, even if the man doesn’t say anything. Lin Ling lets out a totally-not-sigh, and looks to a nearby wall instead. “...He thinks my ideas are too naive at times,” he coughs. Trying to play it off he adds, “Stupid, right?”
When there’s no response from Nice, he looks back up. It almost scares him, to see the hero without a blinding smile on his face. He looks…thoughtful, if Lin Ling had to guess. After a moment, he smiles at Lin Ling. Less bright, but more…human.
“Yes, it’s stupid. You’re…far from naive,” he says. Clearing his throat, the hero continues, “If I may ask, what were the ideas?”
“Oh it’s um,” Lin Ling chokes. “Um.”
‘He’s so gonna think I’m an idiot after this,’ he panics. ‘Actually, he probably already does.’
With a deep breath he goes, “Well…I believe that anyone can become a hero. That someone as ordinary as me can become like, well, you.”
The hero stares at Lin Ling. One, two seconds, then three. Ten.
He smiles, “I was right after all.” Pausing, he reaches a hand up to brush a stray piece of dirt off of Lin Ling’s shoulder. They lock eyes. “...I think it would be better if more people shared the same ideas as you,” he finishes.
“T-Thank you,” Lin Ling stutters out. Really, if all of Lin Ling’s interactions with Nice are like this, then he’s going to blow up into tiny little pieces really soon.
They stand there, with only a tad bit of awkward silence. Lin Ling honestly sees it as a reprieve for his flushed face.
‘He better not see me as a bigger dork now,’ he laments.
In the distance, the cheers of people suddenly grow louder. It seems like a crowd of nearby onlookers has finally formed.
Turning to them, Nice nods at him. Lin Ling tries to flash a smile, but ends up with a sort of grimace instead. Moment ruined, it seems.
“I believe this is my cue to leave,” Nice says. Like a switch flipping, he straightens up, and the familiar bright smile stretches across his face. It feels remarkably shallow compared to the expressions Lin Ling had seen earlier.
He floats up, cape flapping gracefully around him. Before zooming into the sky, he pauses and says, “Goodbye Lin Ling! I’ll see you soon!”
Lin Ling waves back. He continues to stare up at the sky, long after the hero has faded into a distant dot.
‘See you soon,’ he thinks.