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By no means is Fang Runin a procrastinator. In fact, she is very much the opposite, always on top of things and never letting anything slip under her radar. But with the busyness she calls her life as of late, preparations for New Year’s have seriously crept up on her.
Thankfully, she doesn’t have to do it alone.
The sound of a roaring vacuum had effectively been designated as background noise by Rin’s brain about five minutes into Nezha’s vacuuming of their apartment, blocked out as she did some prep work for the four-person dinner they would be cooking that night.
It’s been a while since Rin has really been able to get a peaceful, stress-free moment to herself. Up until her office had closed for New Year’s break, she had been throwing herself into her work without much breathing room. It makes it all the easier to get lost in the repetitive motions of cutting and peeling now that she’s away from it all, finding enjoyment in the menial task.
She pauses in the middle of chopping scallions as she remembers another chore that needs to be completed.
“Nezha, have you put in your laundry to dry yet?” Rin asks, projecting her voice and hoping to be heard over the din of the vacuum.
It takes a moment for Nezha to power off the appliance and respond. “Yeah, I loaded it about twenty minutes ago!” he calls out from their guest bedroom.
Satisfied with the reply, Rin resumes her knifework, and so does Nezha with his vacuuming. She makes a mental note for her own laundry, calculating what time she needs to put in her clothes after Nezha’s are out. Until then, though, she’ll continue on with dinner preparations.
Rin and Nezha had thought long and hard about what they should have this year. They ended up settling on Rin’s spring rolls and Nezha’s shrimp cakes for appetizers; steamed fish and roasted duck for main meat dishes; lo han jai on the side; all served with rice, of course; and Rin’s nian gao for dessert. It’s what is familiar to them all, what speaks of home.
It would certainly be more than enough for Kitay and Venka to each go home with their own containers of leftovers, and leave Rin and Nezha to finish off the rest for the next few days. While that might have sounded like a nightmare to anyone else, but to Rin, it made it feel as though New Year’s was extended, that experience of reunion lingering.
— Δ⛛ —
Rin jolts awake from her impromptu nap in a daze.
She glances around the dark room in an attempt to gauge the time, but it’s of no use. Dark is dark and winter is winter. She waves her hand around the bedside table wildly, fumbling to tap at her phone to look at the time. She finds that it’s four o’clock, meaning the sun had only recently set. She’s almost about to continue her nap when she remembers.
“The laundry!” Rin shouts, scrambling out of her tangle of blankets in a mad dash. She goes sliding out of the bedroom in an almost cartoonish way.
Fuck, how did she set a timer for twenty minutes and then end up sleeping two hours?
Venka and Kitay would be arriving in three, and dinner still had to be put together. That wasn’t the real problem, though, because neither would care if they walked in to find that the food was still being made. No, the real issue was that the one time she lets herself relax is the one time her flow gets so badly disrupted.
Once upon a time—which was really only a few years ago—Rin had been the one of the most disciplined people there was. If she couldn’t bear to keep her eyes open any longer between microsleeps at her desk, in front of her homework, she would allow herself an exactly ten minute nap. She woke up on time every time. Post-graduation life has seriously softened her.
Rin nearly runs head first into Nezha when he suddenly appears before her. When she rushes to ask “Did you take out your clothes yet?” she’s not even sure she’s fully awake yet. The colors of their hallway appear to be darker than they normally are, and everything is fuzzy and swirling, just a bit.
“Yes, I did,” Nezha replies. He gives her a once over, concern in the furrow of his brows, but Rin has no time for it. His response only makes her panic double, if not triple.
“Fuck!” she exclaims, volume increasing to a near yell. An uncontrollable rush of anger fills her system. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“I did, but you just turned over and mumbled into your pillow.”
If Nezha had taken out his clothes already, then hers would be long overdue for drying. They must have been in the machine for hours with how long she accidentally napped, and no doubt still soggy from washing and smelling that awful smell that comes with laundry that’s sat too long. Rin would know, because she had made the mistake once in her life; she was much younger, preoccupied with studying at the time before she remembered her clothes in the washer. After that time, she has made sure it never happened again. Until this time.
Rin clumsily maneuvers around him to step towards their laundry room, nearly shoving past him with her angry, but wobbly, movements.
“Rin, wait!”
Nezha’s hand finds purchase around her elbow. The touch is almost grounding, in a way, though she would never admit that to him. It certainly works to make her stop in place, pulling her back from her tunnel vision.
He softly informs her, while looking into her eyes in that way he often does, which always makes her want to back away from the sheer warmth of his gaze, “I did yours too.”
“What?” she snaps harshly in confusion, not quite processing his words.
“Rin, I dried your clothes already.”
“I- Wha—?” She’s unable to form proper words. Finally Nezha’s words set in and she deflates with understanding, all the fight draining out of her. “…Oh.”
“Yeah, all you have to do is take them out now. I saw how tired you were, so I was actually going to go grab them myself.”
“Uh, no, it’s fine,” Rin mumbles, looking away.
She tugs her arm back from his hold and swivels around back to their bedroom to grab a clean laundry basket. She had forgotten to bring it with her in her haste to get to her clothes earlier.
Nezha is no longer in the hallway when Rin comes back out, likely gone off to do something else in their apartment that they have put off for too long.
She walks into the laundry room and up to the washing machine, making a mental note of approval when she peers into it and sees that it is indeed empty. Placing her laundry basket on the ground in front of the dryer, she pops the machine open to dry, still-warm clothes.
A few socks that were pressed against the door of the dryer immediately tumble out and into her basket. Rin has to stifle a slightly hysterical laugh as she stares at the fallen socks and tears begin to well up in her eyes. She brushes her tears aside.
Gods, why is she even crying?
She’s faced so much worse the last few days at work, but for some reason, the sight of her recently-dried clothes has done her in. It’s ridiculous. She can’t hold back the rivers from flowing down her face as she shoves each article of clothing into the basket. Rin does her best to wipe up the tears, in case she encounters Nezha on her way back to their bedroom.
Gods, Nezha.
She feels bad for yelling at him earlier. She’s naturally snappy, yes, but it gets even worse when she’s just woken. Nezha would know better than anyone. It’s a bad time for everyone involved if she has to be woken by something other than an alarm or timer she’s set for herself.
But he’s done so much to help her with New Year’s preparations, which while he already does so every year, he had taken on even more while Rin finished up her work obligations. Throughout the past two weeks, Nezha has been busy cleaning their apartment until it was spotless. Afterwards, he set off on a mission to cover their space in lanterns, paper cut-outs, decorative fu, red and gold couplets, and a beautiful variety of flowers she doesn’t know the names of but Nezha sure does.
It’s times like these where Rin can no longer remember why she had once been so staunchly against allowing herself to depend on someone, against letting someone else help shoulder her burdens. A decade ago she would have laughed in someone’s face if they had told her Yin Nezha would be that person to her.
Rin pushes the guilt to the back of her mind in favor of hauling up the loaded laundry basket.
She begins a slight penguin style toddle towards the hallway. Normally moving her laundry would be done with ease, but recently there’s a very slight, but still noticeable, strain in lifting and carrying the full basket. It makes the lack of her going to the gym as of late more apparent. For the past couple months, Rin hadn’t been able to make time for going to the gym. With the end of the year fast approaching, she had been forced to commit to overtime at the office, leaving all of the spare time she would usually leave for the gym dwindling to nothing beneath stack after stack of paperwork and the like.
This is also one of few times where Rin wishes she and Nezha had a bigger apartment—one with a living space where they could have a nice area for equipment and maybe even sparring. They had talked about moving before, but none of their plans had been concrete. The apartment they currently have is still good enough for the both of them, being comfortably spacious and conveniently situated nearby their respective workplaces. So if Rin had to guess, it would probably be another year or two before they actually upgrade to a better place.
Rin peeks her head around the corner of the hallway and spots Nezha. He’s sitting on their couch with a look of deep concentration, while practically drowning in papers. There’s envelopes and files strewn across the coffee table. And by the way he’s shuffling through and organizing the mess, it wouldn’t be long until Nezha pulls her into the eye of the storm of taxes.
For now though, she still had laundry to worry about.
Standing beside her and Nezha’s bed, Rin unceremoniously tips upside down the full basket in her arm, unloading it all at once. She gives herself a mental pat on the back for not ramming her toes into the corner of the bed because of the basket blocking her view. She clambers on top of the bed and pulls a shirt from the mound of clothes, beginning the methodical process of folding and stacking.
Rin gets halfway through her laundry by the time Nezha comes by to join her. He doesn’t say anything about their exchange earlier and her guilt eases a bit; they’ve been with each other long enough to be unfazed by these things.
“So, everyone’s favorite New Year’s combo…” says Nezha, announcing his presence. Rin looks up to find him leaning against the doorframe. In his hands is a fraction, but by no means little, of the mess he had been surrounded by earlier: pens, papers, mail, and sticky notes.
Rin grumbles unhappily, folding a towel with more force than necessary. “It’s not like they were in the office doing overtime with me.”
He sits down on their bed across from her and her barricade of folded clothes.
“Neither were they sitting in on my meetings with a bunch of old geezer and giving my presentations for me, but we can’t all have what we want, now can we?”
She heaves a heavy sigh. “Once more, why shouldn’t we just pawn this off to Kitay for him to do?”
“Because he’s got his own to worry about, never mind doing two more?” Nezha rolls his eyes and uncaps his pen.
“He would have a blast and you know it.”
“Well,” Nezha drawls pointedly, “we’ll be having an easier time sooner or later.”
“Just pass me the papers,” Rin acquiesces, holding a hand out.
In exchange for the pile of documents she gets, Rin drops him an unorganized pile of clothes into his lap. Nezha easily takes over for her, folding and putting away her clothing as she pores over a seemingly never ending mess of numbers, lines, and words.
“I finished preparing the fish and shrimp cakes while you napped, by the way,” he informs her, about half an hour into their side-by-side work. “Just up to steaming and frying them now.”
Rin simply hums in reply, looking forward to cooking together.
— Δ⛛ —
The kitchen roars alive with the loud fans of the range hood.
Nezha stands at the stove pushing a couple shrimp cakes around with chopsticks, waiting for them to sear and gain crispy, golden edges. The divine aroma wafting through the air is so, so tempting. Had Rin been a more easily distracted person, her concentration might have broken in favor of stealing herself a piece, perhaps under the guise of taste testing. She has her own very important task, and that is loading dozens of wrappers with delicious meat fillings and folding them for frying. But it doesn’t stop her from trying.
“Nezha,” says Rin, leaning against the counter and angled towards him.
“No.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“No.”
She huffs.
“It won’t be long until we can all eat them,” Nezha tells her. “We have to wait for dinner. It’s tradition.”
“Well fuck tradition! Don’t act like you didn’t sneak one yourself.”
Nezha gasps, affronted, like he couldn’t believe what she was accusing him of. “I did not.”
“Lying to my face now? I know I counted twelve before you started,” Rin raises herself on her toes to get a better view of the tray besides the stove, “I only see seven cooked ones on the tray and four in the pan.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, so you don’t want any spring rolls. Is that what I’m hearing?”
He pauses. “Now that is not what I said.”
“Give me a shrimp cake.”
“But then we’ll only have ten to serve?”
“Should have thought that through before you ate one yourself and didn’t offer one to me,” Rin says sagely. “It’s okay, Kitay and Venka will understand.”
“Fine,” Nezha relents. In a flurry of swift movements, he opens their silverware drawer, pulls out Rin’s favorite pair of chopsticks, and picks up one of the shrimp cakes from the tray using them. “Come here.”
Rin walks over like he asks, and pointedly waits. She certainly couldn’t take hold of the shrimp cake herself with her hands contaminated with raw spring roll filling. Nezha cups a hand below the shrimp cake and brings it to her mouth. When the savory flavors hit her tongue, it’s a hundredfold better than simply smelling them cooking.
Rin doesn’t know what kind of expression she has on her face, but it makes Nezha soften with affection.
Just as they’re about to finish all the cooking, the doorbell rings.
Rin lifts her head from where she had been taking care of both frying her spring rolls in a deep pan and stirring the lo han jai in a wok.
“Shit,” Nezha says, setting the plate of fish in his hands back down. He wipes his hands on a hand towel and makes for the door.
Since the big pot for steaming the fish is empty now, Rin puts in her nian gao.
Venka announces herself with loud clinking bottles and the heavy thump of a basket being placed on the counter. “Guess what I’ve brought,” she says, cheerily.
Rin doesn’t have to turn around to know. “Let me guess, baijiu and a fruit basket?”
“Am I that predictable?” Venka questions. She makes herself at home and begins to rummage through the kitchen without asking permission, no doubt looking for a bottle opener.
“Drawer to the left of the silverware.”
“Thanks,” says Venka automatically, fishing the bottle opener out of the drawer, before stopping in her tracks.
“Yeah, you are,” Nezha answers for Rin, stepping besides her. As Rin begins to pull her first batch of spring rolls out from the frying oil, he pours his sauce of light soy sauce and aromatics over the steamed fish. “Is Kitay on his way now?”
“No, not yet. He texted the group chat to say he would be a bit late. Apparently he’s being held up by something.”
Rin frowns. “That’s not like him.”
Venka must have shrugged, because she didn't say anything. Rin hears the clink of a ceramic plate being set down and metallic shuffling to draw out a knife.
The three of them fall into a harmonious rhythm, moving around each other with ease as they go about their own tasks: Nezha moving in and out of the kitchen to set the table with silverware and finished dishes; Rin transferring a takeout container of roasted duck onto a plate as discreetly as she can while a distracted Venka is in the room; and Venka peeling and slicing the varieties of fruits she brought along with her.
Kitay arrives right as Venka sets down the last of her liquor at the center of the dining table. He rings the doorbell just once, and Rin is at the door in an instant.
“Kitay!” she exclaims, giving him a slightly concerned once-over. There isn’t anything that sticks out immediately as wrong to Rin. Kitay is still very much Kitay, only he’s holding a large paper bag in his left hand. She steps back to let him inside. “What kept you so long?”
He grins shyly, lifting the bag to eye-level. “I was busy attempting something new.”
Kitay is an experimentalist at heart and naturally good at many things, but Rin has a suspicion of what it could be that he’s done and she has no idea how it will go.
She raises a curious brow at him. “Let’s get it plated then.”
Kitay takes himself and his mystery dish to the dining area while Rin quickly grabs a plate from the kitchen before making her way over.
Nezha and Venka have seated themselves at the table already, chattering away about market prospects and statistics that Rin never could get herself to care for in the few business classes she had taken during college. Kitay remains standing, removing several items from the bag he brought. First, a dark bottle of fruit wine. Second, a tin of Rin’s favorite tea leaves. And lastly, a glass container of what must have been his culinary experiment.
“So here was the thought process when I started this: ‘no harm in trying something new, right?’” Kitay begins, popping the lid off the container.
Nezha nods. Venka crosses her arms expectantly. And Rin simply waits.
Kitay places a couple of squares onto the plate. “I watched a couple of videos, read a few recipes. I decided on trying to make turnip cakes.”
“Yeah, I’m going to need a shot before this,” declares Venka, already reaching across to where her baijiu stood at the center of the table. She promptly unscrews the bottle and pours into the dragon-engraved shot glass in front of her. “Anyone else?”
Rin sits down and slides her glass over. “No offense, Kitay.”
“None taken,” he replies, taking his seat and sending a shot glass to Venka as well.
Nezha, watching the whole exchange, reluctantly lets Venka pour him a glass.
“Cheers,” Venka says, raising her glass in the air. They all follow suit and clink their glasses together before downing them.
Nezha stares at his glass with a frown. “I seriously don’t understand why any of you think that was good.”
Shots taken, they each reach out to pick up a square of turnip cake between their chopsticks, but not without a bit of apprehension.
“Kitay, I love you,“ Rin coughs out after her first bite, “but I think you did something wrong.”
“I was afraid of this,” Kitay sighs, setting down his bitten turnip cake with a slight grimace. He pokes at it on his plate. “I might have been a bit heavy handed with the rice flour? Or maybe it was the turnips themselves? I tried picking the best turnips I could, but I’m a bit inexperienced there. Or, well, in all of this.”
“This is why I stick with the easy stuff, like fruit,” Venka says with a difficult swallow of turnip cake. She immediately reaches for a cut of cantaloupe and relishes in the cold sweetness of the fresh fruit.
“Duly noted.”
With that, their dinner really begins.
— Δ⛛ —
No matter how many times the four of them get together with drinks, Venka always ends up the most drunk. Depending on what kind of day she’s had, Rin is often a close second. Then comes Kitay.
But Nezha? He hardly ever touches a glass.
He makes himself the sober one of the bunch and designated driver every time. There’s practicality in the decision, because obviously they all need to get home safely (especially after Rin once attempted to drive Kitay and Venka home after a night out—she still swears she hadn’t been that drunk—and Nezha had to come pick them all up after Kitay sent him a message without Rin knowing), but it’s also a necessity, in Nezha’s words. Because of course Yin Nezha always has to be the world’s most contradictory person ever.
It hadn’t made sense to Rin at first, years ago when they had only begun to be amicable with one another. But it’s been a long time since then, and she now knows exactly why he abstains.
In other words, it’s a rare occasion to see Nezha drinking, and even rarer to see him well and truly drunk.
“Rin,” Nezha drawls, setting down his shot glass on the table. He makes himself comfortable on the couch before he tucks his head into the crook of her neck and practically drapes himself on her. He lazily tugs a finger through her necklace, fiddling with the ring attached to the chain.
Rin knows he’s probably been counting his drinks himself, but she can’t help but wonder how many shots he’s had. Three? Four? Had he drunk the baijiu or the sweet, fruity wine? Had he indulged himself in having both? She had been a bit preoccupied in her challenge against Venka to pay attention.
“Nezha,” Rin echoes back. She gently pulls his hand away from the small sapphire on her ring he had been lightly caressing under his thumb. But not without protest, because Nezha, honest to god, whines. “Are you trying to polish it or something? It’s not going to get much shinier than it already is.”
Nezha shakes his head, his soft hair brushing against Rin’s neck. Her hand twitches at her side, itching to touch his hair. But the presence of their friends in the room, no matter how inebriated, deters her from doing so.
“No, jus’ looks so pretty on you. ‘m so glad you like it,” he mumbles into her neck. He plants a soft kiss against her jugular. “Do you know… how long it took to… to find someone who could make it?”
Rin didn’t, actually. But she had guessed so.
She gets reminded of it every time she feels the thin gold chain around her neck and its ring against her sternum. It feels like she carries a piece of Nezha around with her, a warm reminder that she has him, always.
“‘m so lucky to have you,” Nezha says with a dopey smile. If Rin hadn’t long fallen for him, she might as well have again just then. “And ‘m so happy we’re all entering a new year together.”
“Yeah, tell that to those guys.” She laughs and jabs a thumb in Kitay and Venka’s direction, where both are passed out on their living room floor—Venka from drinking too much, and Kitay from simply being a lightweight.
“Hmm,” he hums distractedly, “‘guess it’s good I prepared the guest room for two. ‘Knew this would happen.”
On impulse, Rin pulls out Nezha’s necklace from where it was tucked underneath his shirt.
“I didn’t get the chance to thank you for that yet,” Rin realizes. She stares at the small inlaid fire opal of his silver band, observing how it looks between her index and thumb. “And for the laundry, too.”
“Thank me for what? Of course I would. I will. This time… next time… every time,” Nezha rambles, “Always.”
At that, she finally gives in to the urge to run her hand through his hair. She positions her arm around his head to do so, firmly tucking his head against her. It doesn’t take long for Nezha to really slump onto her, dozing off to dreamland with Rin’s hand in his hair.
With neither of them being big on PDA, especially in front of their friends, none of what just happened in the last few minutes would ever normally happen. Of course, alcohol being included in the equation changes everything. Like Kitay and Venka being too out of it to notice her and Nezha basically cuddling right in front of them, which is why Rin let it happen to begin with.
Suddenly, Venka speaks from where she’s been laying on the floor. “Oh my god, you two make me sick.”
Tiger’s tits, Rin had spoken too soon. She hadn’t even known Venka was still awake, so sure the other had drunken herself into a stupor that would end up with her sleeping over. Clearly Rin was wrong.
Venka rises easily, like she hadn’t just been passed out drunk on the hardwood floors mere seconds ago, and nudges at the sleeping body beside her.
“Kitay. Kitay, get up. You have got to see this.”
It doesn’t take much for Kitay to be nudged awake. He directs an expression of sleepy confusion at the perpetrator of his waking before his eyes drift and sees exactly why he’s been woken.
Rin shushes them as forcefully as she can without disturbing Nezha who’s still asleep against her. “If you guys wake him I’ll kill you both.”
“Sure, you do that,” says Kitay, unfazed by her threat.
“Aww, look at you coming to Nezha’s rescue,” Venka attempts to patronize, but fails as she’s unable to cover the wide grin spread on her face.
Left with no other way to defend herself (and Nezha, as Venka put it), Rin merely glares at the two of them. All that manages to accomplish, though, is sending them both into a fit of laughter that only quietens when Nezha begins to snuggle himself further against Rin. She fights the blush that threatens to warm her face while she tightens her hold around him.
“I’m happy for you. For the both of you,” Kitay says. It puts a small smile on Rin’s face, though the words aren’t anything new. He’s said them many times over, in different ways, more times without words than with.
She replies quietly. “Yeah, me too.”
“Even more than that, I’m so glad we’re all here. Together. Happy. Could any of us have imagined this years ago?” Kitay says, his voice soft and nostalgic. And a bit more sober than moments before.
Venka elbows Kitay since he’s the one sitting closest to her. “Saps, all of you.”
“Who knows what the fuck the future will look like, though,” says Rin, petting Nezha’s hair again, this time uncaring about her friends seeing.
Nezha suddenly raises his head. “Doesn’t matter, as long as we’re all together, right?” he declares sleepily.
“Have you been awake the whole time?” Rin asks, dropping her hand. Her gaze flits down to him.
“Maybe,” he says, rubbing his eye before pulling himself off of her and sitting upright. Nezha cards a hand through his sleep-mussed hair in an attempt to make it neat again. He seems to have sobered up a bit from his brief nap.
“Get a room,” Venka boos, sticking her tongue out at them.
“And who’s hosting your wasted ass when you inevitably chug a few more bottles tonight?”
“God, I hate it when you’re right,” Venka mutters. She only further proves Nezha’s point when she begins to pour herself another glass. At least it’s fruit wine and not more baijiu this time. But she doesn’t stop at just her own, pouring for the rest of them too. “C’mon, let’s toast to the new year.”
Though they have all definitely drunk more than they should that night, the three of them oblige Venka anyway. As the group clink their glasses together and the clock strikes twelve, fireworks erupt in the distance. They all turn to the apartment’s tall windows to watch the colorful bursts light up the night sky.
At that moment, Rin knows that there truly is nowhere else she would want to be.