Work Text:
“I’m home,” Feng Xin’s voice echoes through the tiny apartment, accompanied by the slamming of their front door and the thump of his bag on the floor. Soon after, his head pokes into their shared bedroom, where Mu Qing’s curled up on the bed with his laptop. “Hi.”
“You’re so loud.” Mu Qing rolls his eyes. “The girl next door’s going to be mad about it again.”
Feng Xin grimaces. “What, no hi back? No ‘welcome home, Feng Xin?’” He pads back into the kitchen. “You hungry?” he throws over his shoulder. Mu Qing watches the motion of his back muscles underneath his pressed white button-up and curses, not for the first time, that Feng Xin has chosen to be a Business Bro.
“What is this, one of those romance animes you watch? And yeah.”
Through their thin walls, Mu Qing hears their fridge door open and close just as quickly. They’re definitely eating out tonight. He pauses his typing and waits for it–
“We’re out of food,” Feng Xin calls. There it is. “Also, fuck you, I don’t watch anime.”
“Stop yelling,” Mu Qing yells back.
-
They run into the girl next door on their way out, who shoots them a look of what is, quite frankly, completely justified and understandable disdain. That doesn’t stop Mu Qing from meeting her side-eye with a blank stare of his own. She looks away first. As she should, Mu Qing thinks with no small degree of smugness.
They grab takeout from Malaysian Palace, a tiny restaurant a few blocks from their apartment that must cook with the touch of God or something. Mu Qing loiters outside the singular tiny window as Feng Xin orders for them, idly watching a flock of pigeons opposite the street.
A large, tanned hand pushes a cup of Thai tea at him. “Here,” Feng Xin says. He’s holding a plastic bag filled with an irresponsible amount of food containers.
Mu Qing wrinkles his nose but takes the cup anyways. “I wanted mango sago,” he says.
Feng Xin rolls his eyes. “God,” he says, but Mu Qing dares to imagine for a second that his voice almost sounds fond. He offers Mu Qing his own cup, filled with mango sago. “You’re such a princess sometimes.”
“If I’m such a princess,” Mu Qing snarks back, switching their drinks, “why didn’t you give me the mango sago first?”
“Because last time we came, I gave you the mango sago, and you told me you wanted the Thai tea instead.”
When Mu Qing thinks about it, he did, in fact, do that. Which reminds him—
“Doesn’t your job have a happy hour or something?” he asks. “Like, don’t you have to network, suck up to the bosses, all that?”
Feng Xin shrugs, looking all too unconcerned for someone who’s actively trying to score a return offer. “I mean, yeah,” he says. “But I knew you wouldn’t have eaten. Also, my manager’s a douchebag.”
“He’s going to lose his hair in a few years, anyways,” Mu Qing says, then sips his mango sago primly to stop himself from laughing with Feng Xin’s cackle. It tastes sweet.
They take their food to the steps of the nearby cathedral, which is some historic landmark or another. It must be frightfully sacrilegious to eat pad thai and curry chicken with white rice there, but they do it every time because Feng Xin thinks it’s fucking hilarious to mess with the tourists who come.
Mu Qing doesn’t have the heart—or the balls—to tell Feng Xin that a vast majority of the people who linger do so to stare at him, at his sharp jaw and broad shoulders and the way he throws his head back when he laughs.
“Hi. Excuse me.” One such girl is standing in front of them now. She is, unfortunately, dressed very cutely, wearing a pink satin slip skirt that Mu Qing is dying to find for himself. “Do you mind taking a picture of us?”
“Uh. Um. Yeah, sure thing,” Feng Xin says, already rising to his feet. Mu Qing misses the days where he was awful with women.
The two move out of earshot, so that Mu Qing can only watch as Feng Xin snaps several photos of the girl and her friend. He watches as Feng Xin shows the pictures to the girl, who nods in enthusiastic approval, and then—what the fuck—asks her something, pulling out his own phone. Getting her number, probably.
Mu Qing pulls his gaze away. Every time he starts noticing too much about Feng Xin, or starts thinking that how Feng Xin treats him means something, something like this always happens. Feng Xin, getting a girl’s number. Feng Xin, flirting with a pretty boy. Everyone wanting Feng Xin, including Mu Qing, and Feng Xin wanting everyone but him.
From afar, Feng Xin’s flustered voice reaches Mu Qing’s ears. He looks up in time to see Feng Xin turn a furious shade of red at something the girl must have said, and looks down just as quickly. Gross.
“Hey.” Feng Xin nudges at Mu Qing’s shoe with his own.
“Had fun?” Mu Qing asks, careful to keep anything remotely resembling jealousy, or anger, or bitterness out of his voice.
“Huh? Yeah, I guess,” Feng Xin says, taking his seat next to Mu Qing again. “Tiger Princess, by the way.”
Now it’s Mu Qing’s turn to be confused. “What?”
“Where her skirt’s from. You were wondering, right? I saw you looking.”
Feng Xin turns to look at Mu Qing, who can do nothing but stare back. The sun has gone and set, but the sky has turned the blue of summer twilight—lighter than black and bright enough to see, blanketing the world like a filter on a photograph. It makes Feng Xin’s eyes look unfathomably dark; accentuates the sharp, straight line of his nose; deepens the shadows under his eyes, under the curve of his bottom lip.
“Yeah,” Mu Qing breathes. He’s learned not to question moments like this. “Thanks.”
-
Feng Xin and Mu Qing had never lived together before this summer, until Xie Lian had ditched them to live with his weirdo boyfriend/potential fiancé, leaving them scrambling to find a sublet within their budget.
Before that, they’d lived in separate dorms—Feng Xin with the other business majors, Mu Qing on the liberal arts side of campus—but had encountered each other with discomforting regularity. In their freshman year, such encounters ended in fights that were inevitably filmed and posted on Twitter.
In their sophomore year, after Xie Lian had transferred in, they’d seen each other with increasing regularity.
(For the spring semester of their sophomore year, Feng Xin’s archery practice had overlapped with Mu Qing’s fencing practice. It was horrible. Mu Qing had needed to see Feng Xin, forehead dripping with sweat and arm muscles bulging, every day.
One time, as they were walking out of the gym together—which was only because they had been leaving at the same time, anyways—Shi Qingxuan had run up to them and thrown their arms around Mu Qing.
“Qing Qing!”
Mu Qing had untangled his arm from theirs with some difficulty. He’d been distracted by Feng Xin, who stood behind Shi Qingxuan, raising both eyebrows and mouthing ‘Qing Qing’ at him.
Later, when Shi Qingxuan had said something entirely too fast for comprehension before speeding off, Feng Xin had turned towards him with an odd look on his face.
“So,” he had started, measured. “You and Shi Qingxuan, huh?”
“What?” Mu Qing had scoffed. “No, they’re just in my program.”
Feng Xin had shrugged. “I’m just saying, man.” Feng Xin had never called him man before. “I think they have something with Ming Yi, so.”
“We don’t have a thing,” Mu Qing had said, hotly. “They call everyone weird nicknames.”
“You don’t let me call you a nickname.”
“Because you’ve never called me one!”
“Fine,” Feng Xin had said, his chin jutted out in a way that should have made him look stupid but just made him look hot instead. “Not Qing Qing. A-Qing? Qing’er?” He snapped his fingers. “Qing’er.”
Mu Qing had rolled his eyes, feeling the heat rush to his cheeks. “Whatever,” he had sighed. “I hope you’re happy.”
“Trust me,” Feng Xin had said, sounding smug, or maybe just happy. “I am.”)
All three of them—Mu Qing, Xie Lian, and Feng Xin—had lived together that summer, which was great, but also horrible. They’d had to deal with Xie Lian’s sketchy new boyfriend, then his creepy old stalker, who had somehow been behind Xie Lian’s family’s company’s bankruptcy.
Mu Qing doesn’t remember much from those few months, but it had ended with both Xie Lian and Mu Qing in the hospital and Jun Wu, that motherfucker, in jail. Also, Xie Lian’s boyfriend had gone missing and didn’t show back up until the fall semester of their junior year had already started, leaving Xie Lian dull-eyed and listless until his return.
And now they’re here, subletting together in the summer after their junior year. Mu Qing has his return offer already, netted in his sophomore summer. He’d read the email from the hospital bed, when Xie Lian was dead asleep and Feng Xin was sitting at his side.
(“What the fuck,” Feng Xin had said. “I mean, I knew it, but what the fuuuuck.”)
Feng Xin himself has scored a prestigious internship for the summer, which he’s ended up hating, but he’s gunning for the return offer anyways. He rolls out of their shared bed a couple hours earlier than Mu Qing every day to shower, shave, and pull on his daily slacks-button up-blazer combo. Mu Qing stays awake long enough, eyes half-lidded, to offer scathing commentary on Feng Xin’s fashion choices.
(“That pink doesn’t go well with your undertones,” he said once, knowing full well that that shirt made Feng Xin look incredibly handsome.
“Fuck off and go to bed,” Feng Xin had retorted. “Not all of us can be as pretty as you.” He’d rounded the bed to stand next to Mu Qing. “Bye. I’ll be back. Want me to get you anything from the bakery?”
“A cardamom bun,” Mu Qing had mumbled into his pillow. “Bye. See you.”
Feng Xin had whispered something in response, but Mu Qing didn’t hear before slipping off into sweet, dreamless sleep.)
The apartment has one bedroom, one bathroom, and a good-sized living room/dining room/kitchen. The main room gets plenty of sun in the afternoons, and the bathroom somehow has a full tub in it. Plus, the place is within their budget, and in decent proximity to Feng Xin’s office. All this had outweighed the fact, when they were originally trawling the Facebook subletting groups, that it has only one bed.
Xie Lian nods sympathetically when Mu Qing tells him this, but it’s undermined by the fact that he’s visibly holding back a laugh. It’s Thursday—“the best day to get brunch, just the two of us,” Xie Lian had said—and they’re at the place with the $20 bottomless mimosas.
Except Xie Lian doesn’t drink like ever, and Mu Qing started drinking in college but stopped after that disastrous night when he got so wasted he doesn’t remember how he got home from K-Town, so they’re really just there for the pretty-okay pancakes and the not-bad omelets.
Ever since Xie Lian had transferred to their university, they’d begun tentatively mending the rifts that started during middle school and outright imploded in high school. Xie Lian has told Mu Qing, repeatedly, that he has never hated him or laughed at him behind his back. On his end, Mu Qing has tried to believe it—and has assured Xie Lian that many of his misconceptions came from not what Xie Lian did, but what he himself had always been prone to think.
And so, Thursday brunches. Feng Xin’s at his internship, and Hua Cheng is off doing whatever he’s doing. Art, says Xie Lian. Probably mob business, say Mu Qing and Feng Xin.
Mu Qing’s describing to Xie Lian what had happened that week: On Monday, he and Feng Xin had tried a new recipe for beef bulgogi, which they’d eaten for dinner while watching some 2000s movie on Netflix. They’d sat right next to each other on the couch, and Feng Xin had yawned and draped his arm around Mu Qing.
On Tuesday, Feng Xin had honest-to-god brushed Mu Qing’s hair away from his face in the morning before work.
And on Wednesday, they’d gotten Malaysian Palace and had eaten it on the cathedral steps. Feng Xin had taken photos for a girl and her friend, and, while Mu Qing thought he was flirting, he was learning where her skirt was from because he had noticed Mu Qing liked it.
“I mean,” Mu Qing says, waving around his mocktail, “it’s not like I care. I don’t. I mean, I like it, even, I just– I just wish he’d stop leading me on like this, you know?” Xie Lian’s the only one who knows about his devastating, long-term, hopeless crush on Feng Xin, after having successfully pried it out of him in their junior year of high school. Which means that Hua Cheng probably also knows, that motherfucker.
Across the table, Xie Lian has paused chewing his pancake. He blinks several times, finishes chewing, and swallows. “Mu Qing,” Xie Lian says carefully, treading like Mu Qing’s a startled cat that might spook, “Feng Xin told me he already confessed. And that you rejected him.”
Mu Qing blinks. Checks that he’s still retained his grasp on English. Then finally lets it sink in. “I WHAT?”
Heads whip in their direction from across the restaurant. Mu Qing glares back at them until they reluctantly turn away, then turns to Xie Lian. “I what,” he hisses.
“Ahahaha,” Xie Lian says, scratching at his cheek awkwardly. “I don’t know! But Mu Qing, I really think you should talk to Feng Xin.”
Mu Qing stares at him. He inhales, holds it, then exhales slowly. “Fine,” he says, and he’s proud at how his voice doesn’t waver. “I’ll do that now.”
“Mu Qing, wait–” Xie Lian half-rises from his seat, hand outstretched as if he could do anything to dissuade Mu Qing.
“Bye, Xie Lian,” Mu Qing says. He throws his purse over his shoulder and pulls out his phone. Feng Xin’s the last person he called, and he presses the option to call him again. “Send me a Venmo request later. See you later.”
And with that, he’s on his way to Feng Xin’s office.
-
“Qing’er?” Feng Xin sounds confused when he picks up, and understandably so. It’s not like Mu Qing makes it a habit to call him during work hours; he’s always just texted until now. “Is everything okay?”
Mu Qing hears Feng Xin say something indistinct to somebody else. Then he’s moving, pushing through doors until the chatter in the background fades away, and all Mu Qing can hear is Feng Xin’s steady breathing.
“Feng Xin,” Mu Qing starts, then stops. “Um.” He’s never felt so flat-footed before.
“Where are you?” Feng Xin asks. “Do you need me to come pick you up?”
“No, no,” Mu Qing says. “I, um. I just wanted to ask you when you were coming home tonight. Sorry for bothering you.”
“Qing’er–” Feng Xin says, but Mu Qing’s already hanging up the phone.
He does not bring it up to Feng Xin that night. He watches Feng Xin’s brow furrow when he responds noncommittally to Feng Xin’s inquiries about his day, why he called, if he was okay. When they get ready to go to bed, Mu Qing hesitates. But when Feng Xin turns towards him, face creased in weary confusion, he slides under the covers without a word.
Mu Qing doesn’t bring it up the next day, either, or the next. It helps that Feng Xin’s been called in on a Saturday, which he accepts with no small amount of complaining.
“I’m sorry,” Feng Xin says that morning, spraying cologne onto his wrists. Mu Qing had been the one to pick out that cologne, had smelled nearly every damn bottle in the shop before he’d found the perfect one. Warm and oaky, but not musky, because those smelled disgusting. A little sweet, a little peppery. “I know you wanted to check out that museum today.”
Mu Qing just shrugs. Maybe he would have rain-checked today anyways, too preoccupied with this newfound revelation that Xie Lian had dumped on him. He’s too drowsy to notice how Feng Xin watches him in the mirror, confused.
“I’ll see you when I get back, okay?” Feng Xin says, finally.
“Okay,” Mu Qing sighs. “Bye, A-Xin.”
He hears Feng Xin trip over the threshold, but doesn’t fully register it.
At around 4 in the afternoon, Feng Xin returns home, buoyed by an early dismissal. “I’m home,” he calls, his voice boisterous. He walks into the bedroom. “Let’s go to the museum,” he says.
Mu Qing looks up, then ducks his head down. “I don’t know,” he tells his laptop more than he does Feng Xin. “They want me to finish this by next week, so.”
“What? But you said you could go today. Do you want to go tomorrow?”
"I'm not sure," Mu Qing says, very conscientiously not looking at Feng Xin. "They just gave me a bunch more work, so. It might be a while."
“Okay,” Feng Xin says after a long pause. Now that Mu Qing’s fully awake, he can hear the hurt in Feng Xin’s voice. It makes his chest grow tight with guilt. “Okay.”
He leaves the bedroom. Soon after, Mu Qing hears the front door slam shut. Feng Xin doesn’t come home for a long while after that.
-
The next week passes in awkward silence. They stop eating dinner together. Feng Xin stops coming home early and starts going to happy hours again, as evidenced by the faint smell of alcohol he brings in with him at night. They don’t go to Malaysian Palace, or that bagel shop a few streets over, or the park to do their work outside.
Feng Xin starts sleeping on the couch, even though it’s too small and too stiff and leaves him wincing every morning. He eases the door open quietly, as if to not wake Mu Qing, and so Mu Qing pretends not to wake up. He asks his manager for more tasks, so that when Feng Xin does come back, he can stare at his laptop instead of forcing conversation.
They don’t go grocery shopping together, even as their fridge gets emptier and emptier, until Mu Qing returns home one day to find it fully stocked. Feng Xin has gotten him his favorite brand of yogurt. When Mu Qing opens the produce drawer to find a fresh bag of cherries, he stares at them for a long while. He feels the ache in his chest that he hadn’t even realized was absent, these past couple of years, until its return.
Feng Xin won’t talk to him until he signals that it’s okay, Mu Qing realizes, holding the cherries in his hands. Throughout their lives together, Feng Xin has always been the one to push—sometimes when Mu Qing had wanted him to, sometimes when he hadn’t. But he won’t, now. This Feng Xin is patient with Mu Qing.
This Feng Xin is scared of– something. Something that Mu Qing can’t quite put his finger on, but always follows Feng Xin like a cloud, now. Something that doesn’t dissipate even when they’re laughing together.
It’s Mu Qing’s turn to be brave, now.
Feng Xin comes to a halt when he opens the door, clearly not expecting Mu Qing to be sitting on the couch.
“Hi,” Mu Qing says.
“Hey,” Feng Xin says. “Um. How was your day”
“Do you want to get Malaysian Palace?”
“I mean, I literally just did the groceries–” Feng Xin starts, then cuts himself off, laughing under his breath. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s get Malaysian Palace.”
They get their food and sit on the cathedral steps. The sky is that indescribable shade of blue again. Feng Xin hadn’t had the chance to change out of his work clothes, so he rolls his sleeves up to his elbows to reveal his corded forearms. Mu Qing waits until they finish their food, focusing instead on the group of kids playing soccer in the street.
He waits until Feng Xin has finished the last bite of his beef satay before he speaks.
“Xie Lian says you confessed to me.”
Feng Xin’s not chewing on anything, but he somehow manages to choke anyway. Even still, his expression is calmer than Mu Qing would have expected—resigned, almost.
“Yeah,” Feng Xin says. “I did. Is that why– Is that going to be a problem for you?” Is that why you’ve been ignoring me? he does not say, but that’s what Mu Qing hears.
“Well,” Mu Qing continues, “Xie Lian also said that you said I rejected you.”
Feng Xin laughs. It isn’t amused. “I mean, you did,” he says. “Which is fine, by the way. But you did, so.”
Mu Qing shakes his head. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t.” Mu Qing rolls his eyes, feeling frustrated and more than a bit wounded.
“I’m seriously not kidding. Mu Qing. Come on. You really don’t remember?”
That’s it.
Mu Qing launches himself at Feng Xin, almost knocking over his Thai tea in the process. He’s going to throttle Feng Xin, he really will, on the cathedral steps in front of kids and tourists and who knows, maybe even God Himself. He’s going to kill Feng Xin right then and there, because how dare he, how dare he sit there and call Mu Qing a liar when he knows–
Feng Xin’s huge, warm hands land on Mu Qing’s hips and squeeze, not hard enough to hurt but firmly enough to shock him back into the present.
“Okay,” Feng Xin says. “Mu Qing, tell me what happened, then.”
“You never– I– I’ve always– Why aren’t you calling me Qing’er?” Mu Qing bursts out. It’s only then that he realizes he’s perched on Feng Xin’s lap, somehow, knees on either side of his body. A full body shiver tears through him, and he feels his cheeks grow even warmer.
The night air is sticky and warm, and the residual light of twilight is fading quickly now, so that Mu Qing can barely make out Feng Xin’s expression in the dark. But he feels it when Feng Xin begins to run his large, large hands soothingly up and down Mu Qing’s side, like he’s a hissing cat that needs to be calmed.
“Qing’er,” Feng Xin starts, then hesitates. “Do you really like it when I call you that? I thought you secretly hated it or something.”
“You idiot,” Mu Qing breathes. “Like I’d ever hate something secretly instead of just telling you.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Feng Xin laughs, sounding a little breathless, a little awed. A little scared.
Mu Qing has to be brave, now.
“Feng Xin,” he says, tentative. “A-Xin. I’m in love with you.”
Feng Xin’s hands still at his sides. Now that they’re not moving, Mu Qing can tell they’re trembling, minute tremors that are barely perceptible but there nevertheless.
(Mu Qing does not remember this, but Feng Xin does: a night out in K-Town, after Jun Wu had been arrested, at a karaoke place with drinks at justifiable prices. Xie Lian singing 90s Chinese ballads, badly. Shi Qingxuan singing even worse.
Feng Xin, tipsy, touching Mu Qing’s elbow. Turning towards him. Leaning in, kissing him: soft, featherlight, barely there. Whispering, “Mu Qing, can I–”
Mu Qing saying no, pushing away, smiling as if he weren’t shattering Feng Xin’s heart while doing it. Mu Qing meaning, unbeknownst to Feng Xin, you’re drunk, I’m drunk, and I love you too much to have this be a mistake. Mu Qing forgetting in the morning.
Feng Xin remembering.)
“What?” Feng Xin’s whole body is shaking now. The light from a nearby streetlamp catches on his eyes—they’re shiny, Mu Qing realizes with a start. Feng Xin, who has always preferred to yell over speaking and has relocated a shoulder with barely a sweat, is crying.
“Oh, A-Xin,” Mu Qing sighs, pulling Feng Xin’s face into his chest. “Why are you crying?”
“Fuck you,” Feng Xin says, muffled. His arms wrap around Mu Qing’s torso and squeeze tightly, as if he’s scared that Mu Qing will slip away and disappear into the blue-black of the summer night. “I’m crying because I’m in love with you. Fuck. I thought you– I thought you said no.”
K-Town, Mu Qing realizes with sudden clarity. “I don’t remember you confessing to me,” he says carefully. Tenderly. He has to say what he means, especially now, when it matters most. He can’t let Feng Xin misunderstand him. “But if you’d confessed to me when we were sober, at any time, I would have said yes. I’m saying yes right now.”
“You’re saying yes?”
“Yes.” Mu Qing smiles. “A-Xin, look at me. Yes, I’m in love with you.”
Feng Xin turns his head just enough so that one dark eye is peeking out. Even with just a sliver of his face exposed and barely any light remaining, he looks incandescently, unbelievably happy. “I love you,” he says helplessly.
“Let’s go home, Qing’er,” he continues.
“Let’s go home.”