Chapter Text
It’s 2 PM on a Tuesday and Jin Zixuan is curled up in the corner of a dingy basement laundry room, tears in his eyes as he struggles to understand why the universe— and this washing machine in particular— hates him.
Zixuan knows that he’s spoiled—objectively speaking—but in his defense, he’s nowhere near as bad as some of his cousins. He’s a rich kid , but not a ‘hit someone’s grandmother while committing a DUI and then laughing at the judge’ rich kid.
His problem is that he never knows what to say, or how not to say it, or how to walk things back and apologize when people are looking at him.
His mother gets all weepy at her weekly girls’ night and insists that her poor sweet boy has anxiety , but his father would sooner chew glass than let one of his clan near a licensed therapist.
But he’s not here to snap at Zixuan about crying, and that he can still afford.
So he sits and he weeps, and the laundry still isn’t getting done.
And then the door squeaks open, and Zixuan’s only reaction is to stuff his face into his stupid quarter-zip like a cashmere fleece turtle.
“Is someone in here, or is the laundry room haunted again?” A man’s voice calls, and it’s almost jarring how friendly it is.
“Again?” Zixuan hiccups.
Footsteps on the tile, and then there’s a man frowning down at him with open concern. “Aw, bud. Are you crying? Me too sometimes.” And he pops a squat, right there in front of the sad turtle man, and Zixuan gets a close up of the riot of tattoos on his arms and peeking through the gaping rips in his jeans. “I’m Wei Ying.”
“Zixuan.”
“Cool. You wanna stay down here? You good?”
“I’m human garbage. I belong on the floor.”
“Okay that’s troubling. You wanna walk me through this?”
And ordinarily, Zixuan’s answer would be no, but Wei Ying also sounds like he actually gives a shit.
So he says, “I don’t know how to do laundry.”
“Yeah, the machines are kind of old and fussy.”
“No.” Zixuan sniffles, popping his face out of his shirt so he can get his point across clearly. “I do not know how to do laundry. I’ve never washed my own clothes. I have no idea how to look after myself. But now I have to figure it out and it turns out I’m so, so bad at this. ”
“Oh. Oof. Life stuff, huh?” And then Wei Ying swings himself around and wedges himself back into the corner next to Zixuan like he is not a strange man weeping on the floor of their shared utility. “It’s hard by yourself.”
“I feel so useless.”
“Nah, man. It’s a point we all have to hit eventually. Here, I’ll help.”
Zixuan watches as the exact sort of man who would make his mother cross herself and then the street hops back up and extends his hand, fingers wiggling, like he’s excited to be doing laundry with Jin Zixuan.
And the thing is?
He is.
Because that’s Wei Ying.
He stands there in the muggy laundry room enthusiastically teaching another grown ass man how to separate lights from darks and how fabric softener is a lie even if the mascot on the bottle is cute. And then he takes off his shirt because again— it is muggy as shit —and there are so many more tattoos.
Zixuan wonders if they could evaporate off of Wei Ying and onto him. Wonders what it’s like to make that sort of choice for yourself.
Memorizes how to do a complete load of laundry, and also what it feels like to make a friend.
-
Zixuan wouldn’t say he has a crush on his neighbor. He doesn’t get butterflies around him or anything, but he does blush when Wei Ying teases him. Or when he passes in the hallway after going to the grocery and holds up his detergent like a trophy and Wei Ying woop s at him.
So he is attached to him.
At least, enough to get a swell of undeserved confidence when he hears something go bump in the apartment hallway at 3 AM when he’s staring blankly at the ceiling from his mattress on the floor.
Like every horror movie casualty ever, he makes the command decision to investigate the noise and finds a man roughly his age crouched in front of Wei Ying’s door doing something to the lock.
And, because nothing bad has ever actually happened in his life, he doesn’t think twice before clearing his throat and asking, “What are you doing?”
And the other man, who somehow looks like a fairy from one of his childhood storybooks with five or more facial piercings, smiles at him. “Small friendly B ‘n E.”
Jin Zixuan learns, later, that B ‘n E means Breaking and Entering, and also that this particular sleep paralysis demon will also be a person who sees through his bullshit recreationally. But for now, he nods like he has a clue what that means. “Okay. Why?”
And the man holds up his bleeding hand and says, “I got a booboo.” Like a five-year-old showing off a lizard to their mother for the sheer thrill of her confused screams.
But for the duration of this conversation, he hasn’t stopped screwing with the lock.
“That’s…uh…that’s a big booboo.” Zixuan says, swallowing acid.
“...You’re a decent guy, huh?”
“I mean, my mom thinks so. But probably not that many other people.”
The man grins at him. “That’s good! Like—if moms and dogs think you’re cool, then you’re cool. Otherwise—fsssh—sociopath. Except Wei Ying. Dogs are dicks to Wei Ying, but Wei Ying is not a dick.”
“Yeah,” Zixuan grins. “He taught me to do laundry.”
“That’s cool! He’s been teaching me how to read.”
It feels like being punched in the chest. Jin Zixuan hates it. So he nods his head and bounces on the balls of his feet the way his father hates, and turns in the doorway to make room. “I have a first aid kit and some old mystery novels. If you want to come in.”
There’s like a solid minute of confused blinking, like the guy’s operating system is trying to onboard this information. “I could be a weirdo.”
“You are a weirdo. And for the low, low price of coming inside, you could be a weirdo with a bandaid.” He shrugs. “I’m Zixuan.”
“Xue Yang.” Xue Yang grins, tucking away his lockpicking kit. “As a sign of my eternal gratitude, I probably won’t rob you.”
“Yeah. I have literally zero things for you to steal.” He laughs and leans back against the door as another new friend saunters into his humble abode. Pauses. Looks at him in a way he knows means oh, you poor sad baby. “What’s mine is yours, I guess.”
This list includes a refrigerator, the aforementioned stack of mystery novels, a mattress, his cellphone and charger, and a duffle bag full of Zixuan’s most foldable clothes.
Xue Yang sleeps like a cat at the end of the bed, head pillowed on Zixuan’s calves, and resolves himself to steal as many lawn ornaments and wacky souvenir shirts as it takes to make his new buddy’s place at least 64% less depressing.
Zixuan’s father would literally shit himself.
-
At 10 AM, Wei Ying knocks on the door. “Hey, I don’t suppose you’ve seen—”
And then he catches sight of Xue Yang, sitting criss-cross applesauce on Zixuan’s counter with a sleeve of crackers and some spray cheese, a paperback bookmarked open on his knee.
“Oh, cool. There he is.” He smiles, thinks twice about it, and starts to frown instead. “Did you know he was in here?”
“Yeah, we met last night.”
And Wei Ying visibly relaxes in the and everyone still has their original number of kidneys kind of way.
“Is that Cheez Whiz?”
And Xue Yang smiles a closed-eye smile that doesn’t worry Zixuan yet and says, “His fridge has a cucumber in it. For eating.”
Zixuan frowns. “What else would I use a cucumber for?”
It is an act of potentially divine mercy that Xue Yang chooses only to smile at him while Wei Ying grabs Zixuan’s house keys off the hook by the door and orders everyone out. Now.
-
Wei Ying is also kind of broke, but he covers their bus fare.
He gets them to the store in one piece, and he doesn’t even make it weird when Zixuan gapes in terror when the doors slide open and the noise hits him square in the face.
Just says, “Everybody keeps one hand on the cart!”
Like Zixuan and Xue Yang are a pair of five-year-olds he’s determined not to misplace.
(Admittedly, they are a lot like a pair of five-year-olds he’s determined not to misplace.)
And then he gets into a five minute argument with Xue Yang about Peanut Butter : Crunchy vs Smooth.
“Explain to me why anyone would want obstacles in their nut butter. Explain that to me in a way that makes sense.” Wei Ying sighs.
“Sometimes you need to bite things.”
“So, texture?” Zixuan looks up from the nutritional information and watches Xue Yang snapping his teeth demonstratively. “It’s a texture thing?”
“Apex predator shit.” The world’s scariest house cat confirms. “The satisfaction of cracking something open.”
“You should be in jail, that’s how wrong you are.” Wei Ying says, disgusted.
Both of them make horrible noises at Zixuan when he reaches for the two-in-one peanut butter and jelly jar.
-
Xue Yang crawls right back onto the counter once Zixuan’s groceries are unpacked and put away, a box of Extra Most Cheeziest Cheezy Mac clutched in his eager talons as he intones with all the seriousness of a monk: “Don’t forget the water. Firemen are judgy. Don’t forget the water. ”
“Counterpoint.” Wei Ying says, pouring milk into Zixuan’s new cup measure like a real, actual adult. “Biceps.”
“Eh, me I like them tall, skinny, and full of issues. Firemen have too much of their shit together. A-Xuan?”
Zixuan has grown up in a household that was, if anything, violently heterosexual but he can see the point. So he says, “A nice butt is a nice butt.”
And basks in the immediate validation. And the hooting noises.