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Lu Guang’s night had been doomed from the start. Within the confines of his mind, it had quickly turned into a disaster.
“Excuse me, do you mind if I share this table?” A smooth, steady voice asked.
The source of the question was an eerily familiar man with blonde and black hair, and a set of stunning golden eyes. Although Lu Guang was mostly concerned with finding out answers from him if possible, he took note of his objectively head-turning looks, remembering him from the billboard he had seen plastered in the street earlier.
As it turned out, Xiaoshi had recalled the exact same thing.
“Hey, you’re that guy from the poster!” The man’s voice grew a bit louder, his eyes widening in recognition, “Xia-!”
The model made a shushing motion with his finger, shooting a playful wink in Xiaoshi’s direction.
“Wait,” thought Lu Guang, “A wink?”
Whatever. He must have been seeing things. He had more important matters to focus on, anyway.
The man sat down next to Cheng Xiaoshi, handily pointing out menu items that he knew to be tasty. In turn, Xiaoshi scooted a bit closer to him, nodding along. Xia Fei made some off-handed joke that Lu Guang failed to register, and he heard the soft chiming of Cheng Xiaoshi’s laughter following it.
Something prickled at Lu Guang’s skin. They were just a few minutes into their conversation, and the two were already getting along so well. It was like they had skipped the small talk and moved straight into a warm reception between old friends. That was just the power of extroverts, he supposed. Even if he admittedly missed the warmth of Xiaoshi’s eyes on him, he could settle to take a seat in the background of the conversation.
And, truly, he did have a purpose to serve. The two were eagerly yammering on about things completely unrelated to their objective, and Lu Guang was probably their only hope at staying on track. He tapped his foot at an increasing speed as the words flowed between them, exchanged over drinks and excitable hand gestures to animate their stories.
At a certain point, their talking had turned into complaints about their jobs, with Xia Fei lamenting how hard his boss had been making him work recently. Cheng Xiaoshi nodded along (as if he wasn’t his own boss, in a way), and spoke of his own overwork.
Once again, the conversation shifted, this time to modeling. Cheng Xiaoshi commented on how suited to the job Xia Fei was, as the latter waved off the compliment bashfully.
Lu Guang gritted his teeth.
Cheng Xiaoshi drew even closer to him. With a lean into Xia Fei’s shoulders, and drunken, half-lidded eyes, he emphasized his forward thought. All the while, Lu Guang’s worst nightmare came to pass.
“I never knew a guy could look this handsome!”
The man across the table couldn’t do anything but stare incredulously, a faint twitch in his eyebrows telling nothing of the pit that had just formed in his stomach. He felt as if he had just plummeted from the highest point of a rollercoaster, organs turning inside out as he grew closer to the ground.
Over the years of knowing Cheng Xiaoshi, he had grown used to the compliments the man often tossed at him. In fact, they were so abundant that at a point he had come to expect them. He would be called sweet, pretty, and all sorts of affectionate things that he was always too embarrassed to respond to. On occasion, there had even been a few joking pet names thrown into the mix, emphasizing the possible implications behind them.
A bitter feeling spread across Lu Guang’s tongue, and he gnawed at his lip to hold back bitingly terrible words. He could try to put it in a million infinitely more eloquent ways, but they all boiled down to an equally immature thought.
“Handsome? That’s my word. Why is Cheng Xiaoshi giving it to him?”
He grimaced at his own childishness, and reminded himself to focus on the task at hand. Taking a quick swallow of his drink, and setting it down with a resounding clack against the table, he narrowed his eyes to focus on the useful content of the conversation. Unfortunately for him, there wasn’t much more to gain from it, and his tipsy mind was causing him to space out.
But still, his throat grew tight, and his chest felt like it was filling up with tar. Cheng Xiaoshi was always extroverted, but it had been a while since Lu Guang had seen him get so…
He scowled as Xiaoshi took the hand of Xia Fei in the middle of conversation, placing his own on top of the other’s and smiling brightly as a sign of their comradery.
Touchy.
It was so stupid. All it took was Cheng Xiaoshi acting like himself around a stranger for Lu Guang to start feeling like a petulant child. What really got under his skin was the way the man was responding to his outgoing nature, matching it with a flirtatious smirk that left him sick to the stomach.
Lu Guang coughed. “Xiaoshi,” He spoke after what he found to be far too many seconds of the pair touching hands, a hint of bitterness to his voice, “Why don’t you ask him about the restaurant?”
“Oh, right!” The man sat straight up, clapping his hands together in remembrance. Lu Guang breathed a sigh of relief as a bit more distance was wedged between him and Xia Fei. “Do you know anything about the name Bahati?”
Something lit up in Xia Fei’s eyes, and he answered accordingly. As he quickly explained, he knew the owner, and could conveniently arrange a meeting with him the next day.
The mission itself had gone by shockingly fast. They had all the information they could get for now, and all that was left was to wait. So, Lu Guang waited, taking a sip of his drink.
Xia Fei laughed at another of Cheng Xiaoshi’s comments, and a basket of fried goodies that Lu Guang lacked a name for was delivered to their table. The former thanked the waiter, before popping one into his mouth, and gesturing for the other two to take some. Next to him, Cheng Xiaoshi crunched down onto one of the more misshapen pieces, a handful of crumbs affixing themselves to his cheek.
“Oh, you have something-“ The model pointed to his own face, “Right there.”
“Here?” He made a motion towards the wrong cheek.
Xia Fei picked up a napkin, chuckling. “No, don’t worry about it, just hold still a sec.”
His hand inched towards the problem area, just seconds away from wiping it away. Cheng Xiaoshi stared at him with unreadable eyes.
Like a pot of water ready to be poured, Lu Guang felt a surge of unpleasant emotions boiling within him. He hesitated to put a name to the feeling, afraid of its implications, but deep down he had been aware of it for a long time. Seeing Cheng Xiaoshi growing so close to another so quickly was leaving a pit in his heart like nothing he’d ever felt before. He was more than smart enough to know why.
He was so, so jealous- and he couldn’t stomach feeling that way anymore.
Lu Guang abruptly stood up, interrupting the two before they made contact, his hands slamming down onto the table with a resounding thump.
“I think we’ve learned everything we can for tonight.” He shot a freezing glare in Xia Fei’s direction, a visible shiver wracking the latter’s spine. “Let’s go, Cheng Xiaoshi.”
He took a stride for the door, and his friend muttered a hurried apology to Xia Fei, along with some money for the food and drinks. Hurrying to catch up with Lu Guang, a bell chimed above Xiaoshi’s head as they left the pub. He had to jog behind him to keep up, the sound of his shoes picking up against the pavement growing louder.
“Hey, wait up!” He made an attempt to connect his fingers with his friend’s, holding him in place.
His touch was rejected. Against his own selfish wishes, Lu Guang batted his hand away, balling his own into a fist and shoving it into his pocket.
“Back off, Xiaoshi.”
“What’s gotten into you…?”
“I’m fine.”
Cheng Xiaoshi walked in front of Lu Guang with his hands on his hips, blocking off the sidewalk behind him.
“I’ve only ever heard you tell me that when you aren’t fine.” He pushed further, “I mean, you practically bit Xia Fei’s head off back there. What’s up?”
Lu Guang continued walking, and Xiaoshi followed beside him.
“I think I was cordial enough.”
Cheng Xiaoshi raised an eyebrow, voice going up with skepticism. “You were staring daggers at him the whole time- and you barely even drank! It was kind of scary…”
“You’re mistaken.”
He wasn’t, but Lu Guang would take that to his grave.
“What, were you worried someone would take your dear partner away?” He smirked.
Taking a few more steps forward, he soon noticed that his friend had stopped in his tracks behind him.
He glanced back. “Lu Guang?”
There was no answer. He watched the man furrow his eyebrows, the bridge of his nose scrunching up as his face reddened. If that was the extent of it, it would have been excruciatingly cute, but something was wrong.
Were Lu Guang’s eyes watering?
Oh. Oh, no.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s smile dropped, his hands reflexively moving to the other’s shoulders.
“Lu, what’s wrong? Did I say something stupid?”
The other blinked back his unspoken feelings, steadying himself with a heavy sigh.
“You’re free to pursue whoever you want.”
“Pursue?” Cheng Xiaoshi raised an eyebrow, his hands leaving Lu Guang, “Wait… did you think I was starting to like Xia Fei?!”
A pause hung for a moment too long over them. Lu Guang’s eyes widened, mouth agape at his surprise, before playing it off into a cough.
“You seemed to be interested. You know- you were flirting with him, and all that.”
A beat passed, and Cheng Xiaoshi erupted into laughter.
“No way! He’s a good-looking guy, but he’s not my type.”
“He… he isn’t?”
“Pfft… No way! If I fell for any man, it’d totally be you.”
…What?
Lu Guang’s mind was suddenly buffering, leaving him with a loss for words. His headspace was doing a 180°, now completely unable to focus on anything but the confession.
“Honestly, I thought you were sick of me reminding you.” A smile creeped up onto Cheng Xiaoshi’s lips, “Xia Fei is nice, but you’re the most handsome guy I know, Lu Guang.”
The man went quiet in response, heartbeat quickening. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, eyes darting anywhere to avoid the pair staring intently back at him.
“I mean it!” Xiaoshi pressed on, “You’re beautiful! Your hair is like… silky smooth, and whatever skincare you do clearly works.” He nodded, affirming himself as he rambled. “I mean, for as prickly as you act sometimes, you really are soft.” Xiaoshi patted Lu Guang’s cheek lightly for emphasis, to which he responded by turning away. His face hidden from view, Xiaoshi circled around to figure out what he was so adamant in concealing.
Lu Guang had carefully covered his mouth with his hand, leaving that part a mystery. His eyes however, were downcast, trailing back up to his friend as he finally mustered up a hushed response.
“You think I’m beautiful…?”
“Who doesn’t?! I swear we couldn’t go anywhere after we posted those pictures of you to the shop’s account. I kinda feel bad for all the girls you had to shoot down, though.”
“You shouldn’t.” Lu Guang replied flatly.
“Have a heart, Guang-Guang!”
He outwardly scowled at the nickname, but felt his heart thrum against his chest in a way it hadn’t before. Earlier he had felt heavy, weighted in place by the distress of Cheng Xiaoshi’s closeness with another, but in just a few minutes his feet had begun to pick up faster. His friend’s brazenly affectionate phrases were doing wonders for his health, somehow.
His mind drifted back to the way tears had welled up uncontrollably in his eyes. That certainly wasn’t a normal reaction to the situation at hand- normally his emotions remained controlled. Lu Guang had the unique ability to keep a straight face in many situations, with little more than a set of furrowed eyebrows or a small smile being the key to sensing his emotions. Tonight, however, his feelings had burst forth with no warning, digging into his heart and tearing apart whatever they could find.
“Does it make you feel any particular way?” Lu Guang asked tentatively, slowing down to a stop. Cheng Xiaoshi planted his feet next to him.
“Huh..?”
“That I didn’t date any of them- or that I could have dated them, if I had wanted to.”
A stupid question. If Lu Guang were even slightly more sober, he would’ve kept his mouth shut.
Cheng Xiaoshi bit his lip in thought, “I don’t know. I guess after so many rejections I just assumed you’d never accept their feelings, but…”
Suddenly, the man looked like he’d just bitten into a fresh lemon.
“Thinking about you acting all boyfriend-y with someone… that feels weird to me.”
He paused, fists tightening at his sides. His friend turned to face him, Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes pointed unwaveringly to the ground.
“Hey, Lu Guang?”
“Yeah?”
“Since you always say no… What would make you go on a date with someone?”
Silence. A shaky inhale could be heard, and then a soft, grounded exhale.
“If they were you.” He thought.
He chose his words a bit more carefully. “I would want them to be close to me, I suppose.”
“Like a friend?”
“Sort of.”
Cheng Xiaoshi chuckled, “So you’d say yes to me?”
More silence, but this time no response followed. Instead, Lu Guang’s face flushed a deep red, his embarrassment on full display. By complete accident, he’d hit the nail on the head, but in typical Xiaoshi fashion, he’d failed to realize it.
The man did a double take, sputtering out a response. “You- you would?!”.
Lu Guang bit his lip, trying to shield his expression by tilting his head. “Maybe. Don’t be ridiculous.”
The last part had clearly been tacked on to change the subject, in an attempt to spare Lu Guang of his own feelings, but Cheng Xiaoshi didn’t take the bait.
Lu Guang liked to think that Cheng Xiaoshi was easy to predict. He enjoyed being able to calculate his responses. Tonight, he wasn’t quite sure what he had been expecting. Maybe it was a joking deflection, or perhaps a playfully offended tone. Something unserious, full of laughter, and so painfully friendly.
Tonight, Lu Guang’s calculations were way off.
“It is ridiculous, isn’t it…?” His voice came out with a crackle, and a forced laugh that sucked all the air out of his lungs, “You. Going out with me.”
He’d mentioned himself as if he was just an extra part of the equation, like the very idea of being chosen was laughable. No matter what he said out loud, or what face he put on, though, Lu Guang could count on one thing. As the night went on, Cheng Xiaoshi inevitably became more obvious about his feelings. His words would remain reassuring, doing his best to put up an unbothered front, but his eyes betrayed him. Lu Guang couldn’t help but notice the way that his lips had just drooped into a frown, and that his nose had crinkled under the crease of his eyebrows.
Despite his sour face, he laughed. “It’s a shame.” He glanced up at Lu Guang, a placating smile failing to reach his eyes, “I’m gonna be jealous of whoever gets to have a handsome guy like you, that’s for sure.”
Maybe it was the drinks thinking for him, but Lu Guang abhorred that idea. The idea that Cheng Xiaoshi was anything less than incredible, and that there was even a single world in which Lu Guang had any resistance to being hopelessly in love with him.
“Stop it, Cheng Xiaoshi.”
Had he already given up? Was that why Lu Guang hadn’t realized his feelings could be reciprocated for such a long time?
The man in question blinked a few times, prompting Lu Guang to continue. Cheng Xiaoshi had cheered him up on countless occasions, whether or not he knew it, with chilled milk tea and a warm smile on his face. It was his turn to be cheered up in return.
“I never rejected you. You’re just assuming I would.” He sharply inhaled, “Do you really think there’s no chance I’d say yes?”
He hoped his embarrassment was concealed beneath his neutral expression, but the pink color that was flooding his cheeks was a dead giveaway. For as good as Cheng Xiaoshi was at reading people, his emotional intelligence seemed to falter whenever anyone started to admire him. Namely, for both better and worse, Lu Guang. Even as the man’s face practically screamed, “I have a big fat crush on you, idiot!”, he couldn’t muster any response but to stare back at him blankly.
“You always act like you’re so much less than you are, Cheng Xiaoshi. I detest it.”
The man blinked in response, eyes widening to prompt further explanation. Words, however, were proving to be slow at making a point.
He took a steadying breath, closing his eyes and letting his shoulders hang low. Tonight, for once in his life, he opted to act before he could let himself worry about it for too long. If he had to hit his friend over the head with his feelings to make him understand them, so be it.
Lu Guang’s hand moved to cup his chin, and suddenly, Cheng Xiaoshi felt a soft pressure against his cheek, so quick that he could barely register the touch. He turned to his left, a flushed Lu Guang averting his eyes and covering his mouth with his hand. Too stunned to speak, the other raised his fingers up to his face, gently brushing against the spot where he’d just felt a pair of smooth lips make contact.
“You’re handsome, you know. Beautiful, too.” Lu Guang spoke quieter than before, turning his head away, “I’ve always thought so.”
It was so uncharacteristic for the man. Stoic, straight-man Lu Guang acting like an infatuated teenager was something the other had never thought to be possible. Over him no less.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s mouth was left agape, and he could feel the heat beginning to pool in his cheeks. For as smooth in moments like these as he pretended to be, his embarrassment simply caused his reply to lag far behind what had just happened, taking a moment of stillness to process.
He had flirted with people before, and he found himself to have some level of confidence when it came to talking to those that interested him. However, swapping out ‘people’ for ‘Lu Guang’ was suddenly making his stomach do somersaults.
“You- Lu Guang… huh…?” He finally began to put the pieces together, disjointed and stilted as the words left him. “You like me?!”
He nodded, and Cheng Xiaoshi could hear his heart beating in his ears. A weak “Huh…” was all he could muster in reply.
Meanwhile, his head was plunging into a world filled with Lu Guang, little moments of their time together flashing past him. Getting to share meals together, watching movies late at night under the covers, and their bunk beds, so close that they were practically sleeping next to each other every night.
He remembered one time in particular; a night where he’d been so overworked during the day that he didn’t have the energy to drag himself from the couch. He had laid there with his eyes shut, just lucid enough to hear Lu Guang’s footsteps approach him. The man hadn’t bemoaned his carelessness, but had instead draped a fluffy blanket over him, carefully tucking it up to his shoulders and smoothing it over.
“Sleep well, Cheng Xiaoshi.” He’d said, and that alone had been enough to send the man into the sweetest dreams he’d seen in months.
Now that he thought about it, that didn’t have many platonic explanations. He could picture himself defending the gesture as such to Qiao Ling, and losing by a long shot.
He wasn’t sure what to say about that, as Lu Guang stared at the sidewalk with bated breath. However, if there was one thing Cheng Xiaoshi knew how to do, it was speaking before he thought.
“I don’t know how to word it, Lu Guang,” He explained, “But I want to be with you. We already live together, and eat together… I mean, hell, we share a bedroom!” He chuckled, “I don’t ever want that to change. Trying to do more is scary, but all the same…”
Cheng Xiaoshi smiled wide, meeting Lu Guang’s eyes with newfound confidence.
“I think I want to try it. I want to be your boyfriend.”
A few comfortable seconds passed, and then, he heard a soft huff from Lu Guang.
“Ask me out properly sometime, idiot.”
His words were abrasive, but Lu Guang was smiling- big, genuine, and beautiful in ways beyond Cheng Xiaoshi’s lexicon. He couldn’t help but grin cheekily along with him.
“Anything for you, babe!”
Lu Guang’s cheeks practically glowed red.
“…Stop talking.”
And so, he did. As the two picked up speed into a leisurely walk, a comfortable silence enveloped them. Cheng Xiaoshi’s skin was burning to wrap Lu Guang into the biggest hug they’d ever shared, and to shower him with affection that had long gone without a name. That being said, he didn’t want to overwhelm the man all at once, especially so soon into… whatever their relationship had become that night.
So, he allowed his pinky finger to leave his side, gently curling around Lu Guang’s. After a moment of hesitation, and an audible swallow, he received a reciprocating touch.
A minute later, Lu Guang was pulling Cheng Xiaoshi even closer, one fingertip at a time. He continued to wrap his hand around the other’s cautiously, rubbing his thumb gently over each new bit of calloused skin he was able to touch. Cheng Xiaoshi gave his palm a soft squeeze, and watched as a smile gradually rose to the man’s face, rosy pink cheeks illuminated underneath golden streetlights.
That night, as everything faded out of view, the world became just the two of them.
“Me and Lu Guang…” Cheng Xiaoshi thought, “I could definitely get used to this.”
He couldn’t help but let a grin of his own tug at his lips, sticking to his face the whole way back.