Work Text:
What is the hardest thing about love?
It was, without a doubt, the amount of stairs they’d had to climb to get to the top of the mountain. Under the hot glare of the sun, Lu Guang felt the back of his shirt stick to his skin like another layer of himself. He supposed it was worth it to see the couple finally embrace after waiting so many years.
Was it worth it for them, though? How long did they have left together, now that they had waited almost too long?
Glancing over, he could see Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi. Under the sun, on this peaceful morning, everything seemed to be where it was supposed to be.
And yet… time passes.
Lu Guang wiped the sweat from his face.
It starts on a day like any other day, a few weeks after that trip to the mountains. Another client had requested that they go through a picture taken by a secretary named Emma.
As far as Lu Guang is concerned, everything seems to be in place. Everything seems to be going well. When Cheng Xiaoshi returns from the photo, Lu Guang sighs and allows himself to relax. Mission accomplished.
That is, until Lu Guang sees the look on his partner’s face.
Later, as they eat instant noodles in the dark, with only the moon to shine light on the room, Lu Guang attempts to subtly glance over at Cheng Xiaoshi every once in a while. There’s nothing blatantly amiss, but Lu Guang could swear that there’s a sort of silent contentment about the way Cheng Xiaoshi picks at the noodles. He observes the way Cheng Xiaoshi, on three occasions already, has looked up at the sky with the smallest of smiles.
“You didn’t do anything stupid, did you?” Lu Guang mutters.
That seems to break Cheng Xiaoshi from his thoughts. He tilts his head to the side and seems to think for a moment. “Nope.”
Lu Guang takes care to not let his expression change, yet Cheng Xiaoshi meets his eyes, and leans towards him.
“What?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks. “You look like you’re thinking of something.” Lu Guang hates the easygoing expression on his face. It almost makes Lu Guang believe him.
“Remember what I said,” Lu Guang says, placing his empty cup of noodles on the table. “No matter what, we shouldn’t—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Cheng Xiaoshi rolls his eyes, getting up to leave. “You worry too much.”
Lu Guang watches him leave the room. And he isn’t exactly surprised when, a moment later, Emma’s face pops up in the news feed. A chill runs through his body. Dead. Had there been any indications that she would suicide? Sometimes Lu Guang resents the way he can only see twelve hours into the future. It isn’t enough to form a sure image of what could possibly go wrong if Cheng Xiaoshi is to mess up something in the past.
He’s about to get up to ask Cheng Xiaoshi again. Possibly (probably) scold him a bit. Something stops him.
He glances over in the direction of the other room. Through the open doorway, he can see glimpses of Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling bustling around the room, laughing and talking about something. He can hear Cheng Xiaoshi complaining about something in that annoying tone of his, and then laughter so bright that it pierces the darkness in which Lu Guang sits.
Suddenly, Cheng Xiaoshi’s head pops into the doorway, wearing that goofy smile that seems to be a permanent feature of his face. “Hey, Qiao Ling bought some snacks. Better hurry up or they’ll all be gone soon!” The light from the other room behind him makes the ends of his dark hair seem to glow faintly.
After he leaves, Lu Guang sits there for a moment.
He swipes out of the news section, pushing it from his mind.
--
That’s not to say that Lu Guang isn’t going to tell Cheng Xiaoshi. After all, Lu Guang is almost a hundred percent certain that his partner, always the fool, did something to Emma and caused this situation to happen. And if anybody asks Lu Guang how he knows, well… he supposes he could have pointed out the oddly satisfied expression on Cheng Xiaoshi’s face as they eat snacks that night, but that won’t mean anything to the casual observer.
And Lu Guang is not a fool. He knows exactly the consequences of messing with the past—
“Lu Guang,” Qiao Ling says. “You seem… preoccupied.”
Lu Guang startles. Glances down at his chopsticks, only to find that the sushi had dropped into the bowl, as he’d been too busy… staring at Cheng Xiaoshi’s face.
Cheng Xiaoshi slurps on his noodles loudly, raising a brow. “You know, if there’s something you want to say, you can just say it. I mean, you’ve been looking at me for, like— well, this entire time—”
Lu Guang mutters something and goes back to eating.
There’s something about today. Perhaps Lu Guang is just tired— though, that isn’t exactly out of the ordinary. He’s gotten used to the permanent bags under his eyes, the way he moves through life as if in a fog, a yawn always on his lips. But even as he tries to go to sleep, on top of their shared bunk bed, he finds himself twisting and turning. And it’s not just because Cheng Xiaoshi is humming an aggravating commercial tune as he fusses around the room.
Beneath Lu Guang’s eyes, he can only see Emma. Her face in the news. One moment alive in the photo and the next, dead. Life seemingly yanked out from beneath her feet, and if only it could have been prevented—
But it cannot, for it is death. The ever impassible node of time.
Something clenches at his chest. Lu Guang squirms under his covers, and snaps his eyes open to find that the room is now dark.
“Cheng—” he starts to whisper, only to be stopped by loud snoring from the bunk below him.
Cheng Xiaoshi rarely falls asleep so early. Maybe he should be allowed this moment of peace.
At least, that’s what Lu Guang tells himself, as he stays quiet through the night, staring up at the ceiling.
--
The second time it happens, Lu Guang is sitting on the couch, staring at his hand.
“C’mon, Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi pleads with an annoying grin. “Just one time.”
Before he knows it, Cheng Xiaoshi is sidled up against him like a poor imitation of a cat. The touch is like being dunked in cold water and burned at the same time. Lu Guang flinches, raising a hand to shove him away. Before he can though, Cheng Xiaoshi’s laugh rings out one last time before he disappears back into the photo.
Lu Guang can feel his patience wearing thin. Fool . His partner shouldn’t get used to entering photos whenever he wants. It creates bad habits. It’s bad form.
It’s also probably bad form for Lu Guang to sit there, feeling the heat rise in his face. Unconsciously, he rubs at the spot where Cheng Xiaoshi so haplessly intruded into his personal space like it was nothing.
“Hey, Lu Guang.”
Lu Guang pauses. “What?”
He can already hear the smirk in Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice. “I bet you wish you were here with me.”
Maybe. Lu Guang scoffs. “Idiot.” Although, he can’t muster up his usual amount of blatant disapproval in his tone.
Lu Guang places a hand on his forehead. Maybe he’s overworked himself this time. Maybe his lack of sleep has finally caught up to him, because he’s smiling when Cheng Xiaoshi rants to him about how great the noodles are, instead of scolding him.
He should probably be scolding him. But all things must have their proper timing. Lu Guang wonders if he can allow himself to a selfish moment, of sitting in content silence with a small, stupid smile that no one else can see as his fool of a friend gorges on noodles from the past.
Later, Lu Guang’s rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when Cheng Xiaoshi presents him with two bowls of noodles (or, rather, just one now). They stare at each other over the noodles.
Lu Guang observes the noodles. “Boy’s Dormitory, huh?”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s wearing that look again, staring down at the noodles. There’s a trace of a smile on his lips, but it's devoid of its usual inappropriate amusement, replaced by something quiet. After a moment, he grabs a noodle with his chopsticks. Holds it up to Lu Guang’s face.
He smiles slyly. “Say ah.”
Lu Guang gives him an exasperated look, and grabs the chopsticks from him. He tastes the noodles.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s looking at him expectantly. “Well?”
Lu Guang shuts his eyes, chewing. “It’s… alright,” he finally says.
“Just alright?” Cheng Xiaoshi pouts. “I made it just like they did! Thought you’d be dying to try some yourself.”
“You know…” Lu Guang hates to bring it up now, especially since Cheng Xiaoshi looks so utterly proud of his noodles. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be so quick to enter photos any time I want.”
This time, to Lu Guang’s surprise, Cheng Xiaoshi stills and looks away slightly. “Yeah, I know.”
Lu Guang raises a brow.
“But there wasn’t any harm to it this time,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “And besides, I wanted to experience it again, one more time.”
Lu Guang frowns. He wants to laugh, but keeps a straight face. “You really love those noodles, huh?”
And there it is. Cheng Xiaoshi’s squirming again, eyes darting about. “Eh. Yeah, I guess. What I meant was… when I could see through that woman’s eyes, I could really relate to her feelings— about the noodles. And her… friend.”
Lu Guang’s chopsticks pause over the bowl. He lifts his eyes to meet Cheng Xiaoshi’s.
“Do you think—” Cheng Xiaoshi blurts out, “We could be like that?”
Lu Guang stares at him. He finds himself fidgeting with the chopsticks in his hand, before setting them down on top of the bowl. “I mean… I guess we’re already sort of like that. We run a business together.” Unless he means starting a noodle business together. He hopes that Cheng Xiaoshi remembers the time that Lu Guang nearly set the place on fire trying to boil water.
“Oh.” Cheng Xiaoshi fumbles with the chopsticks. “I meant…” He meets Lu Guang’s eyes again, before they dart back to the noodles. “Nevermind.”
They eat in silence for a while. The noodles are quite good. Maybe if Cheng Xiaoshi did all the cooking, Lu Guang could just do all the other work, and they’d fulfill Cheng Xiaoshi’s noodle business dreams.
“I mean,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, quieter now. “Do you think we can be friends for that long?”
Lu Guang looks away, down at the counter where his hand rests. The one that felt like it was burning earlier.
The ticking of the clock from the other room is suddenly loud.
Do you think we can be friends for that long? Some people are meant to be tied together by the string of time; but time, more often, has a way of tearing people apart. Especially considering the fragility of time, of all the hundreds of factors that had to be ever-so specific to result in their current situation, there are many, many ways that time could force them to part.
But Lu Guang can’t say that. So he lies. He swallows down his real words and looks up. “Of course.” He puts on a small smile. “Don’t be silly.”
He thinks a little white lie can’t be that bad if it brings such a wide smile to his partner’s face.
--
Lu Guang knows too much.
It’s one of the drawbacks from sharing a room with someone. Or, well, someone as shameless as Cheng Xiaoshi.
Thanks to his friend, Lu Guang now, unwillingly, knows all the lyrics to more than ten different songs of Cheng Xiaoshi’s favorite rock artist (thanks for not being able to keep your mouth shut, even as we try to spend some time in silence). Lu Guang also knows the scent of Cheng Xiaoshi’s cologne better than he’d recognize his own cologne, from just how much Cheng Xiaoshi sprays excessively in the morning. Lu Guang can name every action figurine on Cheng Xiaoshi’s nightstand, from listening to his friend chatter about them, much to his dismay.
Lu Guang wonders if his friend would find it creepy that Lu Guang knows some of the stuff he knows. Like the fact that there’s this one weirdly shaped mole on Cheng Xiaoshi’s upper back. Or that Cheng Xiaoshi likes to sing this corny, greasy song as he takes his shirt off before going to sleep (he’s probably doing that for the sole purpose of annoying Lu Guang as Lu Guang hopelessly tries to fall asleep. Man, does Lu Guang hate that song).
Or, maybe Cheng Xiaoshi can also read Lu Guang like a book, and, in his true shameless fashion, refuses to acknowledge that there’s something weird about it.
Or is it?
Is it weird?
Lu Guang supposes that he’s gone beyond weird already. He not only knows too much; he does too much.
Like how he knows when Cheng Xiaoshi has a nightmare. Lu Guang is often awake already at that point, or, if not, somehow wakes up right before. Right before he hears the slight, stilted change in breath from the bunk below, followed by quiet, shaky sobs and sharp intakes of breath. Lu Guang always flinches at the sound, sitting up so fast that his vision blurs.
“Lu Guang,” comes Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice, small. Lu Guang’s already down the ladder, and soon wraps his arms around Cheng Xiaoshi as he lies in the bunk.
The bunk is barely large enough for two of them, but Lu Guang somehow makes it work. He holds Cheng Xiaoshi, his back to Lu Guang’s chest, and shifts them closer to the wall (so he won’t accidentally fall off the bed, of course). Lu Guang can feel Cheng Xiaoshi’s body trembling, can hear his failed attempts at holding back his choked gasps.
Lu Guang gently shifts Cheng Xiaoshi around, so that his head rests against Lu Guang’s chest (so Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t hit his face on the cold wall, of course). He can feel Cheng Xiaoshi’s tears and hot breath on his chest.
Lu Guang also knows that it takes a few minutes for Cheng Xiaoshi to get a grip on his surroundings again as he struggles through bouts of the nightmare in waves. He also knows that the nightmare ends quicker when Lu Guang is carefully stroking Cheng Xiaoshi’s hair.
By the time Cheng Xiaoshi has stilled quite a bit, Lu Guang knows that his shirt needs to be washed in the morning from the way his friend has the front of it balled in his tear-streaked hand.
“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi whispers.
Lu Guang closes his eyes. He cards through Cheng Xiaoshi’s hair again, bringing him closer slightly.
Lu Guang can feel the shaky sigh that leaves Cheng Xiaoshi’s body. “Don’t leave.” It comes out in a whisper that can barely be heard.
So Lu Guang stays.
--
Usually, they never mention the nightmares the next day. But this afternoon, Lu Guang can feel Cheng Xiaoshi watching him as he holds up his tear-stained shirt, examining it for places where it looks a bit worn-looking.
“Sorry,” Cheng Xiaoshi says from behind him. “I got a bit… carried away.”
Lu Guang freezes.
Maybe he should just pretend like he doesn’t know what Cheng Xiaoshi is talking about. Then again, Lu Guang’s never the type to run from uncomfortable situations. But why is he uncomfortable? Maybe it’s the way Cheng Xiaoshi is bringing it up now, in the afternoon, where Lu Guang has no choice but to acknowledge that he has, in fact, done too much.
Lu Guang forces his shoulders to relax, tossing the shirt into the laundry hamper. “Don’t worry about it. I have more shirts.”
He’s surprised when he turns around to find his friend still looking at him. Standing there.
Cheng Xiaoshi has an odd look on his face. “You don’t have to do it,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “If you don’t want to.”
Lu Guang’s tempted to ask do what? But he stays silent. If Cheng Xiaoshi is finally growing a sense of guilt, maybe Lu Guang could direct it towards more important, time-traveling, rule-breaking matters. But is he really worried that much about Lu Guang’s shirt? Lu Guang buys all his clothes from the cheapest department store near them.
Lu Guang scoffs. “I said,” he says, making for the door, “Don’t worry about it.” He pauses at the doorway. Something stops him.
“I want to.” The words fall out of Lu Guang’s mouth before he can stop himself.
He doesn’t stay to see Cheng Xiaoshi’s reaction.
--
“What’s gotten into him today?” Qiao Ling mutters over her cup of tea.
Lu Guang and Qiao Ling are sitting in the kitchen an hour later that day. Peacefully relaxing on a lazy afternoon as the washing machine works away in the room below. Or, should he say, was relaxing peacefully.
Now, they’re both far too busy watching the what-in-the-world-is-that-idiot-doing-now show.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s handling a customer at the nearby counter, a man who looks around their age, tall and dressed in athletic clothes (from the looks of it, a well-built athlete). It would take a real fool to not notice the way Cheng Xiaoshi seems to be floating on something as he bustles around. He leans too far over the counter, too close to the customer, when he’s asked to inspect the photos. He’s smiling too much as he points at various informational spots on the hand-made poster they have behind the counter.
Lu Guang notes how the customer, before leaving, slides something over the counter. He notes how Cheng Xiaoshi freezes when he reads it, then laughs breathlessly while waving goodbye; his hand falls to the back of his head, tangling in his hair.
“I’m… not sure,” Lu Guang responds.
Come to think of it, Cheng Xiaoshi had entered the room in a state of barely stifled energy an hour ago too.
Qiao Ling hops off the stool, making her way to the counter, where Cheng Xiaoshi is still sorting through some files in the crates with an energy that seems way too out of character, even for a hyperactive fool such as himself.
Qiao Ling leans against the counter. “Happy about something? Or do you just really like doing customer service today?”
Cheng Xiaoshi hums to himself. “Why can’t I just be happy? Is that not allowed?”
Qiao Ling raises a brow, before snatching up the slip of paper from the counter. Her eyes dart over it, before her face melts into a smirk. “Flirting with customers? Didn’t know you were into beefy jocks.”
“No, I’m not—”
They laugh together then. Lu Guang’s mind has just caught up to the present.
“You’re… into guys?” Lu Guang chokes out. For some reason, that’s the part that seems to burrow itself into his mind, not unlike those godawful commercial jingles that Cheng Xiaoshi planted in his mind like a parasite.
They stop and turn to look at him.
“Um, yeah,” Qiao Ling says, “You didn’t know?” She turns to Cheng Xiaoshi. “Wait, Lu Guang doesn’t know? Didn’t you ever tell him about that one ex that—”
“Well— ah—” Cheng Xiaoshi meets Lu Guang’s eyes. “ — I mean, I don’t really—”
“Wait,” Qiao Ling says, “Come to think of it, I haven’t heard of you going on a date in a long time.”
Cheng Xiaoshi opens his mouth to say something. He closes it, then gapes like a fish, before shutting it once more.
The amusement wanes from Qiao Ling’s eyes a bit. “You don’t have a problem with that, right… Lu Guang?”
“No,” Lu Guang blurts out. It comes out a bit too fast. Neither of them seem to know what to make of his reaction. To be honest, Lu Guang doesn’t know either.
“Good.” Qiao Ling relaxes. She makes to slide the paper back to Cheng Xiaoshi.
Cheng Xiaoshi pushes it away. “I don’t want it.” He nearly runs into the backroom with how fast he goes.
“What? ” Qiao Ling places her hands on her hips. “But you looked so cozy with that guy just a moment ago!” She sighs. “You’re gonna be single forever, Cheng Xiaoshi.” She rolls her eyes with a smile, looking at Lu Guang as if to say see what I mean?
Lu Guang slowly nods. Once. Twice.
Qiao Ling gives him a thoughtful look.
He turns and retreats to the other room.
Hey, Cheng Xiaoshi... are you really into beefy jo— No, shut up and get back to sorting those photos.
--
The third time it happens, on that same day, Lu Guang really thinks he’s going insane from either overworking himself, or sleep deprivation.
“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi said, nearly scaring the life out of Lu Guang, who had been sitting in the darkness of the living room. Cheng Xiaoshi moved into the room, flicking the light on. “What are you doing here, sitting all alone in the dark?”
Lu Guang tried to look somewhere else. The table. The table was nice. It was, well, nicely-edged. And a nice color—
Suddenly, Cheng Xiaoshi was all up in his personal space again, standing in front of him and blocking his view of the table. Lu Guang had no choice but to look up and, oh, was it a bad idea, because Cheng XIaoshi still looked like he’d drank too much coffee. His dark hair was all over the place, matching the slightly lopsided grin on his face.
“Let’s go to the store, Lu Guang.” He moved closer. “I wanna buy some things.”
Why can’t you go by yourself?
“Sure,” Lu Guang says immediately, like an idiot.
Lu Guang is a good friend (at least, he thinks so). So Lu Guang tries really, really hard not to ruin Cheng Xiaoshi’s unusually good mood. He keeps a straight face, and doesn’t squirm, even as his friend seems insistent on pushing the shopping cart with him, and breathing down his neck every time he leans over to chat away as he looks at groceries.
They go shopping every week anyway. Does Cheng Xiaoshi always push the cart beside him? Maybe Lu Guang just hadn’t noticed.
“Ooh, we definitely need some of these,” Cheng Xiaoshi leans over past him to grab at some bottle of seasoning or something. Lu Guang can smell his cologne and it’s disgusting.
Lu Guang leans away a bit. “So why are we here?”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s looking between two different jars of seasoning with a furrow to his brows. “To get groceries.”
“But we’ve already gone shopping this week.”
His friend flashes him a smile. “It’s a surprise.” Lu Guang doesn’t have time to reply before Cheng Xiaoshi makes his way down the aisle with the cart again.
Lu Guang sighs, following behind at a distance as he watches Cheng Xiaoshi. He seems to be very enthusiastic about something, that’s for sure. Lu Guang can tell from the way he has a sort of bounce to his step even as he picks out the ingredients for something. Lu Guang doesn’t want to go back to pushing the cart and having his personal space invaded, so he follows behind.
And he’s definitely inspecting the shelves for ingredients, and not thinking about earlier today.
Something catches his eye then. He slows, watching a young woman and a man in another aisle looking at the ramen. They’re standing almost hip to hip, heads bowed towards each other as they examine some package in the girl’s hands. There’s a shopping cart beside them, almost full to the brim with various groceries.
“No, this one’s spicy,” he hears the woman say. “Let’s get the other one.”
“How about this one?” the man places a hand on the woman’s shoulder, and points over at a different package of noodles. “It’s on sale.”
The woman scoffs. “You know your mom doesn’t like that flavor. Let’s get the other one.”
The man smiles a bit, sly. “You’re just saying that because you like that one better.”
Lu Guang can’t see the woman’s expression from where he stands, but he does see the man’s smile grow. He swings an arm around her shoulder and says something Lu Guang can’t hear. The woman laughs and lightly shoves him away.
They place the item in the cart and walk away, side by side.
Lu Guang gets hit with a sense of deja vu. He’s had this feeling before, when he looks into photos and sees into other people’s lives. For all the misfortune he seems to witness, there’s the occasional scene like this one; one that is so mundane that it becomes something more. And he’s rooted at the spot, observing. Looking in, but not really a part of it.
He thinks he might throw up.
“And you said I had an obsession with noodles.”
Lu Guang’s neck almost cracks as he whips his head around to see Cheng Xiaoshi standing right there, looking at the noodle aisle too with a thoughtful expression.
Lu Guang rubs at his neck. “I was… just looking at something.”
“Right.” Cheng Xiaoshi gives him a dry look, which morphs into a smirk. “I knew it. You probably thought you were being so slick. You probably thought I couldn’t tell.”
Lu Guang’s brain shutters to a stop. He looks at Cheng Xiaoshi, who’s still smirking. For some reason, Lu Guang feels like a deer in headlights, even though Lu Guang hasn’t been trying to hide anything.
“What?” Lu Guang eloquently chokes out.
“You liked it.” Cheng Xiaoshi leans closer, eyes gleaming. “You liked it a lot.”
Lu Guang finds his brain running in overdrive, racing through memories of the past few weeks. He flips through them like he does with stacks of photos for jobs that need to be sorted through. One by one: drinking tea in the morning, grocery shopping, scolding Cheng Xiaoshi for being an idiot, bickering with Qiao Ling over who has to get up and wash the clothes, Cheng Xiaoshi slapping his palm, eating noodles, Cheng Xiaoshi slapping his palm, waking up in the middle of the night suddenly, and—
“I told you I make good noodles.”
Lu Guang slowly looks over at his friend.
Cheng Xiaoshi winks. “You don’t have to be shy about it.” He rushes into the aisle with the cart. “Hey, let’s pick some out.”
Lu Guang stands there for a bit, before willing his legs to move.
“You can pick,” Cheng Xiaoshi says.
Lu Guang can sort of imagine himself in third person right then. The two of them are standing there, looking at the assortment of noodles. Cheng Xiaoshi is a bit taller than him, all long limbs and unruly black hair. When Lu Guang picks out something and looks it over, Cheng Xiaoshi moves a bit closer, ducks his head a bit lower to read the packaging too. There’s a sort of gut-wrenching feeling that twists inside Lu Guang’s chest.
When Lu Guang realizes that Cheng Xiaoshi has been silent for a while, he looks up from the package and finds Cheng Xiaoshi looking at him. Their eyes meet.
“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, his smile from before replaced by a slight frown. “Are you okay?”
Lu Guang watches his expression. “I’m just tired.”
He can see his friend bite the inside of his cheek. “Oh.”
The realization hits Lu Guang too, at the same time. “I mean— it’s not your fault.” He looks away, at the noodle package. “Like I said, don’t worry about it.”
“You look so tired these days,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, quiet. “And something seems… off.” He pauses. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right? It’s… hard to keep something inside yourself all the time. It’ll rot inside you, until you either let it shrivel slowly, or it’ll grow too big to manage yourself.”
Lu Guang sighs. He stares at the things on the shelf. “I told you. I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
There’s that feeling again, twisting up inside Lu Guang in a cold grip and closing his throat. Lu Guang doesn’t know why Cheng Xiaoshi seems so bent on getting Lu Guang to, what, admit something when there’s nothing to admit. Especially in the middle of the semi-busy grocery store, where everybody could see Lu Guang if he were to…
“I’ve been tired,” Lu Guang settles on. He lets out a breath. “I think I might’ve overworked myself a bit these days.”
He hears Cheng Xiaoshi scoff, but his voice is gentle. “Always looking out for us, but forgets to take care of himself.” He pries the package from Lu Guang’s hands. “Let’s not work today then.”
The stack of photos on the table flashes behind Lu Guang’s eyes. “But—”
“C’mon, Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “One day. We can spend the day relaxing, and then you’ll feel much better. And think about it this way: if you relax now, you’ll be able to focus better when you’re doing work.”
That’s when Lu Guang looks up at him again. Cheng Xiaoshi’s looking at him expectantly, and there’s a sort of hushed quiet around them. A couple strands of his hair are draped over his eyes. There’s a smile just barely forming on his lips, but it’s restrained just slightly.
“Okay,” Lu Guang says. “One day.”
Cheng Xiaoshi breaks into a smile then. Lu Guang looks away.
“And Lu Guang.” Lu Guang hears the sound of the noodle package falling into the cart. “Next time, tell me when you’re tired. You don’t have to worry!”
Lu Guang can feel a bit of the tension leave his body. “Alright.”
“Promise.”
Lu Guang eyes Cheng Xiaoshi’s outstretched pinky.
Before he can decide better, he locks his pinky with his too. As Cheng Xiaoshi laughs, he snatches his hand away.
Lu Guang rolls his eyes, placing his hands on the cart beside Cheng Xiaoshi’s. “I thought it was my job to scold you.”
“I wasn’t scolding you,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “I was worried about you.”
“Don’t worry—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cheng Xiaoshi exclaims. “God, when are you going to stop saying that?”
For some reason, Lu Guang feels himself cracking into a smile too. He pretends to look at the items in the cart. Cheng Xiaoshi moves beside him, and his arm is slightly outstretched.
Lu Guang tenses up. For one, insane second, he thinks Cheng Xiaoshi is going to wrap his arm around him.
Instead, he places his hands on the shopping cart handle too.
As they move down the aisle, Lu Guang tries to not notice Cheng Xiaoshi’s hand brushing against his. But he fails, miserably.
--
By the time they’re checking out at the cashier’s, Lu Guang is almost fully convinced that he’s losing his marbles. And it’s all Cheng Xiaoshi’s fault. Lu Guang doesn’t think he’s smiled that much in a long time. And he can’t help it, not when Cheng Xiaoshi kept humming to himself and picking out groceries like a child in a toy store.
They say that someone else’s energy can be infectious. If so, Lu Guang doesn’t have much time left until his demise. It’s like a self-perpetuating loop; Cheng Xiaoshi looks at him every so often, catches Lu Guang trying to hide a smile, and breaks out into a grin. A smile finds its way onto Lu Guang’s face, and then Cheng Xiaoshi’s laughing about something.
This cycle repeats until now, as they check out. Lu Guang’s standing to the side, watching Cheng Xiaoshi pay the cashier. Cheng Xiaoshi’s hair is even more of a mess now from how many times he ran his hand through it.
“Excuse me, dear.”
Lu Guang startles. An elderly lady is trying to push a cart past him.
“Sorry,” Lu Guang says, hurriedly stepping aside.
The lady has a sour look on her face, before turning to watch his fool of a friend fumble with his wallet in front of the cashier. She smiles.
“Ah, young love,” she says. “You remind me a lot of my younger days.”
Lu Guang’s so preoccupied (definitely not still staring) that her words register a few seconds late. Young love? He’s about to correct her, when he sees her soft smile, and a faraway look in her eyes behind her spectacles. Beside her, in her tiny cart, are only a few items: a bottle of soy sauce. A rolled up newspaper. A package of tea.
He realizes that he hasn’t replied. “I— I guess I’m lucky.”
The lady looks up at him with the same smile. “It’s my husband and I’s fiftieth anniversary today. The time will fly by faster than you think. You should cherish it, before you turn into a sappy old person like me.” She shakes her head, chuckling.
Lu Guang feels vaguely uncomfortable. It’s not as if he doesn’t cherish the time he has with his friends. In fact, he can feel every single second he spends with them slipping down the timepiece very acutely, like a faint ticking in his ears. When he thinks of their laughing and smiling faces, he thinks of time capsules; they’re locked away in a place away from everything, untouchable.
Yes, Lu Guang knows it’s a lie. But it still feels better than thinking about the truth.
“Hey, Lu Guang, let’s go,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, bounding up to them. “Oh? Who’s this? A friend?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before smiling, grabbing the lady’s cart. “Here, lemme move it for you. Sorry for being in the way!”
“That’s alright, dear,” the lady says as she begins to walk away. She gives them one last smile before heading off. Lu Guang watches her leave.
Lu Guang’s definitely lost his marbles.
“Who was that?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks, reading over the receipt. “She looks nice. Is she a friend?”
“Just some random lady. Talking about her… marriage, I guess.” Before he can stop himself, he opens his mouth again. “Hey, Cheng Xiaoshi... (Do you really like beefy jocks— no, shut up!) I'm glad we’re friends.”
Cheng Xiaoshi looks up from the receipt and simply gapes at him.
He can feel the tips of his ears starting to burn, so he grabs the bag of groceries from Cheng Xiaoshi and starts walking. “Let’s get home. Don’t wanna be out too late.”
He clears his throat. Cheng Xiaoshi’s oddly silent.
When he sneaks a glance, Cheng Xiaoshi’s making a strange face at the ground. "Lu Guang," he blurts out, "Actually, I—"
They face each other on the sidewalk. Cheng Xiaoshi looks like something's caught in his throat. Either that, or he's building up anticipation like the dramatic idiot he is. Meanwhile, Lu Guang is suddenly sweating buckets and wow, it's hot in here.
Finally, Cheng Xiaoshi clears his throat. A small smile creeps up his face. “Yeah... Me too.”
The walk back is rather silent. Lu Guang sneaks another glance at Cheng Xiaoshi.
He’s watching the birds flying by.
--
The surprise, as it turns out later, is manual labor.
Lu Guang wipes the sweat from his face, taking a step away from the heat of the kitchen. He can hear Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi fussing over something boiling in a pot. He takes off his mitts and settles back against the counter. He closes his eyes for a moment, taking in the sound of his friends talking, which fades into the background, replaced by the scent of something delicious wafting out of the kitchen. A pot clangs in the background. Lu Guang’s hands burn from all the cutting and dicing he’s done (with the help of Qiao Ling, of course, or he would’ve chopped his own hands off), but he supposes that it burns in a nice way.
“Ugh, I never knew you were such a neat freak,” Qiao Ling complains.
Lu Guang hears Cheng Xiaoshi’s aggravating laugh. “Trust me. Just do what I say.”
Footsteps from the kitchen, coming closer to Lu Guang. “Ugh, can you believe— hey, what are you smiling about?”
Lu Guang opens his eyes and sees Qiao Ling.
“Nothing,” Lu Guang says.
And two hours later, when they’re dead-beat exhausted but full from too many bowls of noodles, laughing themselves silly over the strange combination of ingredients that Cheng Xiaoshi has forced into the noodles, Lu Guang tries to figure out why the room is suddenly so bright. Or why he lets himself laugh with them, unguarded in a way that makes the tips of his ears burn.
Qiao Ling loses rock-paper-scissors, throws a mini-tantrum, and goes to wash the remaining dishes.
“Guess this one,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, the remnants of laughter still on his face, pointing at a few noodles left in the remaining bowl. “You’ll never be able to guess it.”
Lu Guang tastes it. “It’s good. It tastes like…” He doesn’t want to say it.
Cheng Xiaoshi grins. “Mashed bananas and soy sauce.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You said it was good!”
Lu Guang has to give Cheng Xiaoshi some credit. He somehow turns what should be monstrous into a surprising creation.
“Say ah.” Before Lu Guang knows it, Cheng Xiaoshi’s holding up some noodles with his chopsticks in front of Lu Guang’s face.
Lu Guang has an out of body experience again. He can clearly see himself pause to contemplate his actions, before leaning in and eating the noodles from Cheng Xiaoshi’s chopsticks . Only after chewing and swallowing the noodles, and accounting for the unique taste, does he realize what he’s done.
Cheng Xiaoshi has a strange expression on. His mouth hangs open slightly, and his eyes are wide. The chopsticks are still held up halfway, still in his hand.
Lu Guang’s throat feels dry. “It’s good,” he says, as if it’ll somehow get time to move again past this little moment.
He sets his chopsticks down.
He clears his throat.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s expression still doesn’t change for a second, but his eyes roam over Lu Guang’s face. Then, suddenly, he bursts out laughing. In fact, he slams the table and points at Lu Guang’s face, still laughing. His eyes are crinkled and it looks like tears are going to actually pour out of his eyes.
Lu Guang puts on a scowl. “What? ”
“Your face— it’s so red!” Cheng Xiaoshi points at his face again.
Lu Guang tries to scowl more, but even he can feel the heat rush to his face.
His friend’s laughter dies down a little, but there’s still a sly smile on his face. “You really are something, Lu Guang.” His face is tinged pink from laughing.
(Later, Lu Guang would contemplate his life as he lies in bed, thinking. He would never match Cheng Xiaoshi’s annoyingly loud snores with a pink-faced, drunk-with-laughter Cheng Xiaoshi. Then again, Lu Guang’s life seems to be full of surprises. Much to his dismay.)
Cheng Xiaoshi looks away then, at the counter between them. Lu Guang can tell that he’s thinking because he’s doing that thing where he bites the inside of his cheek. His eyes flick up to meet Lu Guang’s, quickly leaving.
“I’ll put this back,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, snatching up the empty bowl. As he walks away quickly, Lu Guang catches a small smile on his face.
Later, Lu Guang ends up in the kitchen. It’s empty, since Qiao Ling finished a while ago.
He needs a drink. Some nice, cool water. He thinks it should help soothe the way his nerves seem to be on fire, how his body feels like he’s teetering on the edge of a high precipice, the ground in front of him unseeable. His heart can’t seem to slow down. And the worst part is that this awful, fluttering feeling is addicting.
He sighs, and downs the water in one motion. But it does nothing.
Qiao Ling walks into the room. She startles when she sees him leaning against the wall next to the doorway.
“Lu Guang,” she says, yawning. “I thought you were sleeping already.” She heads to the fridge, opening it and looking inside.
“Qiao Ling,” Lu Guang says. “I feel really hot. I think… I might be sick.”
Qiao Ling walks over to him and reaches up to place a hand on his head. She frowns. “You don’t have a fever.” She then inspects his face for a moment. Her frown morphs into a slightly confused smile.
Lu Guang slaps a hand across his face. He sighs for around the hundredth time that night.
To put it simply, it’s like someone has sent every little nerve in his body jumping. And they’re bouncing around inside him. And the more he tries to stop the feeling, the more it continues, sucking the energy and breath from him.
And, in this moment, it seems as if someone has grabbed that feeling inside his chest, and twisted sharply.
“Qiao Ling,” Lu Guang says, voice rough. “I’m just so…”
He breaks off before he can finish.
Qiao Ling, thankfully, doesn’t make him finish. She shakes her head and steps toward him. “Aiya. Come here, you big baby.” She wipes her hand underneath Lu Guang’s eyes, and Lu Guang startles with the realization that they came away wet.
“You’re such an idiot sometimes,” Qiao Ling says. “Both of you.” But her tone is soft.
When Lu Guang doesn’t respond, she tugs at his sleeve. “C’mon. Go to sleep. Maybe you just need to think on it.” She flicks off the kitchen light. As if an afterthought, she pauses, and says, “And don’t be embarrassed. Everybody cries sometimes, Lu Guang.”
“Remember, don’t question the past.”
He’s a tiny pair of eyes, floating through the space that doesn’t exist anywhere. Somewhere, he pries into what has already happened. A snapshot in motion, come to life again. Somehow, he can almost reach into their world. He wants to shout into their space, to make himself heard, as if he needs to let them know that he’s there.
That he exists. And he can see them like no one else can and—
And that one of them will die.
“Because we can’t change the past.”
He’s running. And running. The soles of his feet are on fire and he exists in this moment, running down the streets, his eyes on the young lady about to board the train home. He’s calling out to her. She’s turning around.
“And don’t question the future.”
“Because?”
“... because the future will… change because of us,” Lu Guang says, looking away and shutting his eyes to avoid letting him see his tears.
He doesn’t want to exist in that space between everything anymore.
And the future does change: he’s running, but away instead of towards. When he blinks through his tears, he sees a basketball. Hearing a cheerful voice, he looks up.
Lu Guang staggers back onto the couch.
He presses a hand to his face and it stings, but not more than the sudden realization that hits him at that moment.
Cheng Xiaoshi is still standing there, breathing hard. Lu Guang can see frustrated tears from his face, but it’s masked by the pure rage that seems to cover his entire, trembling figure. Frankly, it takes everything in Lu Guang not to crack apart too, in that moment; he can still see the building collapsing on itself, the cries of pain, can hear the last breaths that escaped that woman until the very end. His heart is thumping wildly in his chest.
Lu Guang deserves that punch.
There, in the darkness of the living room, is a light. Or, rather, a light that only Lu Guang could see, and it halos around Cheng Xiaoshi, almost as if he’s an entity from a different world, screaming at Lu Guang why, why, why. Lu Guang can still feel the sting of his fist against his face, strong but so different from the trembling person in front of him. Though, with Cheng Xiaoshi looking at the ground, he can’t tell if his partner is more shaken by the situation or enraged.
Cheng Xiaoshi is an idiot. At least, in Lu Guang’s mind. A particularly persistent one that has managed to sneak past Lu Guang without him realizing it: no matter how difficult the situation is, Cheng Xiaoshi manages to always feel for others, even at the cost of damaging himself or his own emotions. Maybe because he stands there, close to tears, he’s even stronger than someone who would stand resolutely still; because he’s felt such a connection to others and still stands for them when they leave him.
He knows exactly what he wants.
But what does Lu Guang want? Does he want this? Does he want to see the suffering faces of people in the past, almost “forced” to exist again and relive it through his demands? Does he want to pull Cheng Xiaoshi from what his heart truly desires, what any human would want?
Of course not , is what pops into Lu Guang’s mind, but it’s muffled by the demands of time itself, ever the opponent to humanity: you must not change the past.
There is no answer that Lu Guang can think of.
So he goes to Cheng Xiaoshi.
He crouches down to where his partner is, on the floor, and rests his hands on his shoulders. He nearly recoils from how he can feel the tremors on Cheng Xiaoshi’s body.
A moment of silence passes between them.
When Cheng Xiaoshi starts to shake again, Lu Guang reflexively tightens his hold on his shoulders. He starts to rub soothing circles and—
— he stops, pulling away slightly. He still can’t see Cheng Xiaoshi’s face.
The silence that holds them is such a fragile one. Cheng Xiaoshi could break it, like everything, if he so desperately wants to.
Cheng Xiaoshi finally looks up at him through the strands of hair hanging messily over his golden eyes. His eyes are red in the corners and covered in a wet sheen.
“If I can’t save them,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, voice cracking, “then what’s the point in delivering the words?”
The words that would’ve normally left Lu Guang’s mouth now catch in his throat.
Who is Lu Guang, to tell him not to wonder about the past and the future? When Lu Guang looks at Cheng Xiaoshi, a part of him recoils from his recognition of his own past. When he looks at Cheng Xiaoshi, a part of him stupidly, stupidly reaches for the future, in the hopes that maybe he can grasp onto it and keep it for himself. Like a shriveled plant craving warm rays of sunlight.
Maybe Lu Guang isn’t holding Cheng Xiaoshi still by the shoulders, but clinging to whatever can anchor himself in this moment. Because he feels as if the room is spinning around him, spiraling downwards until he can only reach one, logical conclusion regarding this idiotic, brave, kindhearted fool—
Lu Guang is hopelessly in love with Cheng Xiaoshi.
When their eyes meet, Lu Guang can see every small detail of Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes. And… Lu Guang’s reflection in them. He feels a shiver run down his body, wondering if his partner could tell what he’s thinking in that moment. If he could, he’d hate Lu Guang (well, even more). Lu Guang can imagine the way Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes would subtly shift, then slant into rage as he realizes that Lu Guang has been a hypocrite this entire time. And that Lu Guang would dare impose his own feelings on their friendship, sending everything that had been precariously in balance teetering off into chaos.
No. Nothing can change. Nothing will change. As always, Lu Guang would do what he has to do to keep the life they have. Even if it costs him.
“No matter if it’s the past or the future,” Lu Guang says, evenly, though he thinks the tenseness of his voice may betray him, “We can’t think about it. Because we can’t change the past.
And the future may change because of us.”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s expression doesn’t change as he fixes a hard stare at Lu Guang. Although his eyes are wet and red, his jaw is clenched shut. It reminds Lu Guang of a stone wall.
He shoves Lu Guang’s hands off his shoulders, and walks away without sparing a glance back.
What’s the hardest thing about love?
Well, to contrast extremes… what’s the best thing about love? Is the embrace of your beloved all the sweeter for the time spent wanting? Is it the secret smiles shared with knowing looks? Is it the hurtling, chaotic feeling of life turning upside down on its head? Is it all the sweat that pours from your face as you struggle up the steps yet again, one after the other?
Lu Guang watches the couple embracing on top of the mountain.
He wonders how much time they have left.
Or, rather, how much time Lu Guang has left. How much time he’ll get to spend with Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling, before everything from the past catches up to him.
Hmm. There he goes, thinking of the past and future again. Something twinges inside him, and it’s unpleasant.
So, Lu Guang might be a fool (or, probably, definitely).
But the universe didn’t have to curse him with being sick too.
He’s curled up on the couch in the living room. The rain is gently pattering against the window. Something inside him feels heavy, like a stone sending him sinking into the deep depths of nothingness.
The rain sort of melts into the soft ticking of the clock from behind him. He’s probably been lying here for around an hour already, but he doesn’t feel like turning his body around to glance at the clock. He’d rather face the dark cloth of the couch.
There’s a sound from the other room. The creaking of stairs. Lu Guang doesn’t have to look up to know who it is. His shadow falls over Lu Guang.
There is a long, long second of silence.
Then Cheng Xiaoshi nudges him on the arm. “Hey.” There’s a brief pause, before he nudges him again. “Thanks. For the boba.”
Lu Guang lets out a breath. It feels like something’s lifted off his shoulders, but something still keeps him weighted down on the couch. He can’t bring himself to face Cheng Xiaoshi, but he can feel the couch shift as Cheng Xiaoshi sits at the other end of it.
“You know,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, in a light tone, “You’re always scolding me for doing stupid things. But what about you going out in the rain without a jacket or umbrella? Just for boba?” He laughs. “Silly.”
Before Lu Guang can object, Cheng Xiaoshi has his hand on his forehead. He’s surprised that his friend (or, whatever they are now) doesn’t recoil from how much the contact seems to burn. Then again, Lu Guang’s the one going absolutely insane, not Cheng Xiaoshi.
“You don’t seem to have a fever,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, pulling his hand away. Lu Guang has the strange urge to chase the feeling.
“I’m not sick,” Lu Guang mutters.
“Ah, and there I thought that you’d forgotten how to talk!” This time, Lu Guang shifts onto his back, and can see Cheng Xiaoshi’s grin. He’s framed against the droplets falling on the windowpane behind him as well as the moonlight. “Well, come on now.”
“... What?”
“Aren’t you going to scold me?”
Lu Guang scoffs. “If anything, I thought that you came down here to yell at me.” He notes the way Cheng Xiaoshi’s grin seems to slip. “I deserve it after all.”
His partner’s grin drops. “Hey, don’t say that.” He seems to fidget then, his gaze falling anywhere besides Lu Guang’s face. “Look, I came here to say that… even though I think that was a douchey move on your part — I sort of appreciate it.”
“You… what?”
“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, “I used to think you were so heartless before.” He leans back on the sofa. “The way you always told me the same thing, as if it could stop me from wanting to help those people. But the problem is, I can’t ever separate my feelings from those in the picture — everything they feel, I feel.”
Stop, Lu Guang is begging in his mind, stop . Or Lu Guang would say something stupid. Anything to stop the sick, twisting feeling in his chest. When he closes his eyes, he can see their faces behind his eyelids.
“So, what I’m trying to say is…” Lu Guang can feel his hand brush against his sleeve. Softly, maybe a bit unsure of a gesture. “Sorry,” Cheng Xiaoshi blurts out. “For being who I am. I can’t help but want things to be different.”
There’s a pause. “And… thank you.”
There’s a slight shift in his partner’s tone. Lu Guang finally looks at Cheng Xiaoshi, who’s wearing a small, hesitant smile.
Admittedly, Lu Guang can now say that maybe he notices too much about Cheng Xiaoshi and maybe that’s why he can always pick out the many different shades of his moods by just the subtle changes in his expression: the quirk of the corner of his lips right before cracking a corny joke, the harsh furrow of the brows when in deep focus, the scrunching of the eyes before laughter, the steady look in his eyes when he’s about to do something foolish.
But this one that he’s wearing now is a new one. It’s unsure. There’s something flickering in his gaze, as they face each other.
“Don’t be sorry,” Lu Guang finally says. “What’s done is—” He stops himself before he can finish.
“... already done?” Cheng Xiaoshi finishes for him. He laughs a little. “You really are predictable.”
Lu Guang can’t help but roll his eyes this time. He sits up beside Cheng Xiaoshi, leaning back on the sofa. He brings his legs up, wrapping his arms around his knees.
“You said I was heartless?” Lu Guang asks.
“I said I thought you were.”
“Thought?”
Lu Guang looks at Cheng Xiaoshi, and Cheng Xiaoshi stares back. Had they been sitting so close this whole time?
He looks away, at the table in front of him.
“Nah, you might be hard headed. And dense,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “But not heartless.”
“I think I’d rather be heartless,” Lu Guang mutters. “And inhuman. Then I'd be fine right now.”
“I thought you said you weren’t sick.”
There’s that twisting feeling again.
Cheng Xiaoshi pokes him on the shoulder. “Lu Guang. Hey. Don’t worry about it.”
“How can I not worry?” Lu Guang forces out. “Time is a complicated thing. Not worrying about it would be stupid.”
Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t answer. Well, not verbally. He sidles up closer to Lu Guang so that they’re touching, and now Lu Guang can feel the rise and fall of his shoulder as he’s breathing. As they’re breathing together, in silence.
Although the darkness of the room and the soft patter of the rain on the windows would’ve normally been comforting, in this moment, the darkness seems to close in on Lu Guang, like stormy clouds rolling in over the sky. Or the night sky as the heavy clouds are about to pour down on him as he runs down the sidewalk. Or the suffocating quiet of a night spent lying awake, with only the ceiling to stare back at him.
Then, Cheng Xiaoshi coughs. “Well, it seems like you’ve been worrying about it a lot these days.”
“No, I’m not,” Lu Guang instinctively says.
They sit there in silence again.
Lu Guang sighs. “Okay, I am.”
“Why?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks. His next words come out a bit quieter. “You know, I’ve done a lot of, let’s say, regrettable things before. So I can’t exactly judge you for anything you tell me.”
“But you’d be angry.”
“About what?” Cheng Xiaoshi quirks a smile. “C’mon, we’ve been friends for so long. Even if I do get mad or whatever, it doesn’t mean we won’t be friends. Whatever happened to having each other’s backs? You really are acting strange these days, Lu Guang.”
Seeing his friend’s smile, and hearing those words, has a strange effect on Lu Guang. Though, he supposes it shouldn’t surprise him anymore that his chest feels like it’s aching and that there’s a smile faintly tugging at his lips.
“So,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, “Tell me?”
Lu Guang pauses. He takes a look at Cheng Xiaoshi, who’s watching him expectantly.
He can feel the thoughts forming in his head. But to say them out loud?
Some things are probably best left unsaid, untouched. They’re fragile and precious, so much so that taking one false step would result in crushing everything you know and care about.
So he doesn’t say anything. He reaches into his pocket, and brings out a small, crumpled piece of paper. He hands it over.
Cheng Xiaoshi takes it silently. Lu Guang watches his eyes rove over the words.
“This is…” A grin starts to form on Cheng Xiaoshi’s face. “A recipe?” He laughs, crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes. “Lu Guang, what is… boba and coffee ramen? ” He waves it in front of Lu Guang’s face. “You even wrote out a whole recipe for it, and—” He glances at the paper again. “ — it’s… really similar to the Boy’s Dormitory one.”
Cheng Xiaoshi presses closer to him, grinning. “Did you wanna make it together? I knew you’d like cooking eventually!”
Lu Guang can’t help but smile a bit. “It was… really nice.” Watching his friends make chaos in the kitchen. Reveling in the scent of noodles in the heat of the kitchen. Being surrounded by laughter as they ate.
“Ah, but… I still don’t get what you mean,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “It’s nice and all that you wanna cook with me, but I thought you were upset about something.”
This idiot. Lu Guang opens his mouth to say something, then clamps it shut again. He can feel his ears start to burn. “It means…” He leans in closer to say it quieter. For what reason, he couldn’t say. After all, there was no one in the room besides the two of them. “That... we should all be happy together. Eat more. Enjoy more while we have time together.” Because who knows when it might end? "It's... just a thought I've been having for some reason."
“You say that like— like we won’t have time together later.”
Lu Guang can only shrug. “That’s how it is.”
They stare at each other, before Cheng Xiaoshi breaks into a small smile. “Okay.” His gaze flickers slightly over Lu Guang’s eyes. “Let’s do that.”
Then, there’s a current of something between them. Something that makes Lu Guang unable to look away, and Cheng Xiaoshi is looking at him too. The air seems to still around them.
“But do me a favor,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “If I act weird around you, just ignore it, okay?”
“Acting weird?” Lu Guang huffs. “How can I tell the difference if you’re always—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, “How can I tell the difference if you’re always weird?” He says in a slightly deeper, monotone voice, making a weird face with droopy eyes. “Don’t think about the past and don’t think about the future. Don’t think about anything.”
Although Cheng Xiaoshi looks like an ugly hog with that expression, Lu Guang, disgustingly, feels his heart do a flip. He tries to frown. “I don’t sound like that.”
“Yeah, you do.” Cheng Xiaoshi sighs, a smile at the corners of his mouth. He gains a thoughtful expression. “When I do think about it, you’re right. Well, maybe not completely. But if you’re so worried about the past and the future right now, then why don’t you take some of your own advice?
Focus on the present instead. After all, isn’t that why we’re doing this in the first place? Besides paying the debt… we’re helping other people pay their own debts, so they can be happy in the present. Just like you want.”
Something whirls to a halt in Lu Guang’s mind.
He’s running in the rain, with nothing but the moonlight to show the path in front of him. The sounds of harsh shouts and breaking glass echo in his mind. And if he goes back, he’ll be fated to walk that path again for as long as he can be made to. It’s a long span of his future lifetime he’s looking into, but it’s all narrowed into a dark tunnel filled with their faces, their regrets, their stolen futures, their debts—
“Hey!”
There’s a basketball rolling to his feet. Lu Guang glances up.
“We’re missing a person,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, an easy smile on his face. He’s dressed in a jersey and shorts. The light drizzle has halfway soaked his shirt and made his hair an unruly, dark mess. Strands are stuck to his forehead by rain, and a droplet falls from his hair onto his eyes. “Why don’t you play with us?”
Later on, he’s sweating and soaked with rain, passing the ball to one of Cheng Xiaoshi’s friends. He takes a look at Cheng Xiaoshi, who’s at the side, easygoing smile replaced by a focused look as the basketball comes flying at him.
“Like I said,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, “Isn’t it all about taking that step in the moment? It’s like— wh-what are you—”
Lu Guang jolts from his memories. This close, he can even feel the other’s breath hitch. He can see every single speck in Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes, and the moment that his brown eyes steady into an all too familiar expression and—
Cheng Xiaoshi kisses him.
Lu Guang freezes. He thinks he might have just had a heart attack. Or probably is still having one, considering the fact that Cheng Xiaoshi’s lips are softer than he’d imagined. And he’s probably losing the last of his sanity, considering the fact that he curls his fingers into Cheng Xiaoshi’s hair, pulling him in until there’s no more space between them at all. And Cheng Xiaoshi reaches around him, his hands grasping at the back of Lu Guang’s shirt and neck like he can’t afford to let go.
It’s almost like falling into the deep end of a swimming pool. They’re sinking in a slow, quiet hush, but Lu Guang can swear that his heart is going to beat out of his chest with how loudly he can hear it.
They part like breaking the surface too. Lu Guang leans back for air. Somehow, Cheng Xiaoshi’s ended up straddling his lap.
Cheng Xiaoshi looks down at him, breathing hard. His face is flushed.
Lu Guang gives himself a second to try to calm his racing heart, but he can’t.
Cheng Xiaoshi runs a hand through his hair. “Um.” Lu Guang watches the way his tongue darts out to wet his lips.
Lu Guang grabs his hand. Places it over his own chest, where he can be sure that he doesn’t have to say anything for Cheng Xiaoshi to get the message.
When Cheng Xiaoshi smiles, it’s like light breaking through the clouds. Lu Guang wants to stop time right then, and to bask in it for a while longer, but he can’t help but pull Cheng Xiaoshi into his arms again.
--
“So… is this what you meant back then?”
They’re in the kitchen, and— you guessed it: cooking noodles. Lu Guang supposes that they’re going to get sick of noodles eventually, even if they keep trying weird combinations like boba and coffee.
Lu Guang has half a mind to scold Cheng Xiaoshi for being up in his personal space. After all, how can Lu Guang pay attention to the stove in front of him if Cheng Xiaoshi insists on keeping his arms wrapped around his waist from behind, his chin resting on Lu Guang’s shoulder? Every so often, his hand wanders idly down his side. Lu Guang wonders if Cheng Xiaoshi’s even aware of doing so.
“Hmm? What do you mean?” When Cheng Xiaoshi talks, his breath sort of tickles his ears.
Lu Guang is really going to burn the food eventually.
“When you were talking about the women in the picture,” Lu Guang says, stirring the pot.
Cheng Xiaoshi snorts. Lu Guang doesn’t have to turn around to hear the smirk in his voice. “No, Lu Guang. I actually just wanted to be business partners the whole time.”
Lu Guang smiles, then drops it. “Sure,” Lu Guang says back in the same deadpan tone. “That’s what I wanted too.”
“Perfect,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “Now we can do business partner things! Like this—”
And Lu Guang does not almost spill the soup from the pot. He does not blush when Cheng Xiaoshi presses a kiss to his neck.
Okay, maybe he does. But that’s besides the point.
Lu Guang frantically tries to gain control of the pot. “H-how long have you been…?”
“Since the beginning,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “And you never noticed once.”
Lu Guang is almost tempted, then, to frantically scour through his memories of the past few weeks in a desperate attempt to finally make some sense out of his life. And maybe, at the end of all that, he would come to the conclusion that he wasn’t, in fact, losing his mind the whole time. And maybe, everything had been pointing towards this logical conclusion all along, that the ever-complicated strings of fate had united at this one, singular point to allow them this moment.
Of course, he couldn’t do that. Not with Cheng Xiaoshi trying to tickle him now. Lu Guang sort of shoves him with an exasperated huff.
“Cheng Xiaoshi,” Lu Guang says, “How do you expect me to—?”
“The pot!”
Lu Guang watches, as if in slow motion, the pot beginning to tip from where he could’ve sworn he had it a moment ago. Cheng Xiaoshi is making a rather comical face of shock as he reaches for the pot, but, of course, his arms were already around Lu Guang, and Lu Guang tries his best to grab for the pot as well with a spasm of his arms.
This is the end. This is how he’s going to die, after everything. A terrible fourth degree burn from a pot of noodles. He’d laugh, if he wasn’t currently too busy trying to maintain his balance, because for some reason he slipped on something and—
The next thing he hears is a loud clatter on the floor. The next thing he knows is that he and Cheng Xiaoshi are sprawled across the floor on top of each other.
Lu Guang groans, opening his eyes. There’s something heavy on him, and he can only see a mess of black before Cheng Xiaoshi raises his face and looks down at him.
God, Lu Guang wishes he could scowl and call him an idiot. It would at least be easier for him to accept than the way his heart seems to lurch out of his chest.
Lu Guang looks over at where the soup has spilled. It occurs to him that maybe Cheng Xiaoshi had tackled him away from the pot, rather than tripped on him. He looks back at Cheng Xiaoshi.
After a heavy silence, Cheng Xiaoshi begins to smile. “Don’t worry, Lu Guang.”
Lu Guang just sighs. “Why are you like this?”
“C’mon,” Cheng Xiaoshi says, “We have all the time in the world to make noodles together.”
At this, Lu Guang finally can’t help but quirk a smile. And when Cheng Xiaoshi sighs, Lu Guang can’t help but mirror him, his shoulders loosening, only to still again when Cheng Xiaoshi moves his hands to cradle Lu Guang’s head. Lu Guang thinks he’s going to kiss him, as ridiculous as it sounds, sprawled on the kitchen floor, but he doesn’t. He holds eye contact, and when Lu Guang closes his eyes, he can feel him almost hesitantly move his hand down the side of his face, pausing.
Cheng Xiaoshi is always surprising.
Lu Guang can surprise himself too, he supposes, with the way he reaches up and grabs Cheng Xiaoshi’s hand.
They stay there like that, a frozen moment in time.
“How are we going to tell Qiao Ling?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks.
That’s when Lu Guang opens his eyes again.
“I… don’t think we have to.”
[Lu Guang isn’t sure whether he’s feeling amused at the sight in front of him, or exhilarating relief from not being the target of Qiao Ling and her rolled-up newspaper.
Cheng Xiaoshi runs faster than he’s ever run before.
“You idiots took years to get together,” Qiao Ling says, vaulting over a table, newspaper held high, “And you’re asking me if I knew?”
Lu Guang chuckles from his corner, where he’s pretending to read a book. His gaze flickers back to the page.
When he raises his eyes over the edge of the page, they meet Qiao Ling’s. She raises her newspaper.]
--
“Now what?”
“Stay still and wait for my signal.” This one should be an easy one, if Cheng Xiaoshi can pay attention. “And stop drawing attention to yourself.”
He watches Cheng Xiaoshi hide in the past, in the photo. He can also see his smirk. “That’s kinda hard to do. I mean, look at me. Doesn’t everybody want a piece of me?”
Lu Guang refuses to say anything, knowing a trap when he hears one. At this, Cheng Xiaoshi just laughs.
It’s as bright as the sun streaming in through the window, but a fleeting moment, nonetheless. But, maybe, no, quite possibly… he could collect hundreds of these moments, and he wouldn’t feel the absence of one gone forever, because he might always have one more to replace it with.
Lu Guang shakes his head. “You—” He stops. “ — are really something.”
He can see Cheng Xiaoshi smile wider. “Love you too.”
The words seem to hang in the air, even when Lu Guang brings himself back to the present moment of the living room. Finally, he allows that aching, fluttering feeling to grace his lips in a small smile.
He brings the tips of his fingers together. At their connection, light from the window reflects off his fingernail.
A node of time, he thinks, that might’ve been inevitable.