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‘But—how do you know for sure?’ Gao Yingjie asks. ‘That somebody wants you—you know? Like that—?’
He’s gazing at Xu Bin with these big, wet eyes as he speaks—with one of those patented wide-eyed expressions expressions of his, where he looks all softly confused and sweetly lost (never mind how brilliant Xu Bin knows he actually is), and which have only gotten more destructive since Liu Fei and the training camp girls decided to induct him into the mysteries of eyeliner. All of which means that Xu Bin’s first thought is: Fuck, that’s easy, Yingjie. Just look at them like that and then feel free to assume they’re at the very least now thinking about it.
It doesn’t help, not even a little, that Gao Yingjie’s tone of voice is about a bee’s dick away from sounding like he’s actually flirting.
Yuan Baiqing, that asshole, is openly snickering as he sweeps a final handful of Team Movie Night rubbish into the bin and, then rostered-duty done, sashays off to his dorm. Come to think of it—Yuan Baiqing was to blame for picking the sappy romance film they’d been forced to sit through this evening, too, and that’s probably the only reason Gao Yingjie is even asking about this stuff.
Unfortunately, with Yuan Baiqing gone, there’s nobody else left to save Xu Bin from actually answering Gao Yingjie’s question. Movie Nights are always a bit of a gacha pull like that—sometimes, everyone lingers to chat or play board games, even Wang Jiexi; other times, the whole team hurries away the moment the credits start rolling.
Of course, a year ago, Xu Bin wouldn’t have batted an eyelid about being left alone with a Gao Yingjie set on asking him random questions. He’d have probably just been relieved to see the kid was continuing to forge ahead with his Becoming More Confident campaign, or whatever. As it is, though…
Xu Bin tilts his head back against the couch and studies the ceiling. His free hand starts picking at a throw cushion. The hand draped across Gao Yingjie’s shoulder stays tangled in Gao Yingjie’s sleeve.
Gao Yingjie has been getting kind of complicated, lately.
Within the privacy of Xu Bin’s mind, the voices of certain friends are doing their damndest to insinuate that he ought to have foreseen the chance future complications arising. At the very least, from the moment he’d begun to perceive the surprising frequency of Gao Yingjie’s continued social invitations. Xu Bin, however, would like to counter with the defences that (a) Xu Bin has never been big on borrowing worry from the future like that, and (b) it’s rather difficult to avoid something you’d never anticipated was a possibility.
And—truly—it really had seemed like nothing at all when he’d been invited along, that first time, to watch a match with Gao Yingjie and Liu Xiaobie.
Well. Actually. To be honest, that first time, Xu Bin had kind of assumed he’d been invited along to play the role of some kind of strategic third-wheel; a shield, as it were, to keep the general public from realising the younger two players were on a date. (Xu Bin hadn’t minded. He might be straight, sure, but he’s an ally. Besides, once he’d tagged along to a few more things with the two of them, he’d eventually concluded that he’d been mistaken about the dating. Not unless teenagers had suddenly grown a whole lot less handsy.)
There is a chance, of course, that Xu Bin perhaps ought to have begun perceiving at least something last season. Once Gao Yingjie had walked out of the wreckage of that disastrous defeat by Happy, anyway. Once Gao Yingjie had shaken himself off, straightened his shoulders with an almost concerning determination, and begun tweaking the settings of about twenty different aspects of his life… and yet, despite all that, continued asking Xu Bin to keep him company a surprisingly flattering amount…
Then, maybe, Xu Bin ought to have noticed something.
At the very least, it might have been helpful for him to have noticed something about his own reactions to some of those changes.
Call it a failure of imagination if you want—Yang Cong almost certainly will—but Xu Bin simply hadn’t seen how he, himself, could be caught in the splash zone of any of that. Never mind how often he’d found himself fetching Gao Yingjie some sugary milk tea just because he’d known Gao Yingjie would like it, or keeping him company on a walk, or sitting there after hours while Gao Yingjie used him as a sounding board about work, or training, or the complications of long-distance crushes and nearby friendships, and, eventually, started referring to Xu Bin as his friend, too. Anyway—Gao Yingjie is Gao Yingjie. Gao Yingjie is Tiny Herb’s vaunted young heir and, for all the various other things Xu Bin might not see eye-to-eye with Wang Jiexi on, there’s never been any denying Gao Yingjie’s vast potential.
Xu Bin is literally just some guy who happens to be pretty great at playing Knight.
Also, he’s straight.
Or—well.
Xu Bin has been feeling considerably less straight this season, is the problem.
Even before the introduction of the eyeliner. Or the yoga pants.
Xu Bin has no prior experience with liking someone who isn’t a girl.
And… he can still feel Gao Yingjie still watching him, no matter how intently he’s studying the ceiling. It’s all too obvious in the rec room’s night-time quiet, with only the two of them left and the big screen TV switching out to the low blue tones of some screensaver or other, and he—
Actually. Hmm. Come to think of it, Xu Bin tells himself: maybe it’s too obvious.
Perhaps it’s a last ditch attempt at self-preservation, or maybe too long wearing Tiny Herb green has infected even him with the ability to overthink things, but—if Xu Bin tries really, really hard—he can almost convince himself—even under the gentle weight of Gao Yingjie’s patiently watchful gaze—that he’s obviously making a mountain out of a molehill. Clearly, Gao Yingjie wouldn’t actually flirt with him. Obviously, he has entirely misinterpreted Gao Yingjie’s tone of voice just now. And the feel of that question. And the way Gao Yingjie had been tilting his head just-so against Xu Bin’s arm, almost as though he’d been positioning himself for peak cuteness—positioning himself to frame those pretty eyes of his with those fluffy, almost-curls he’d let grow long over the summer.
Xu Bin has seen his sisters perform cuteness like that. Not at him! But—at home. When he was younger. He’d teased them about it, a bit—the way little brothers do—entertained by the silliness of them pouting, and gazing, and tilting their faces; figuring out how to look this way or that with the help of mirrors or the cameras on their phones. Perhaps that glimpse into the crafting of such cuteness is why he’s never found it so exciting when girls make those same faces in selfies online, especially whenever it’s clearly nothing more than a ploy to get something in return.
Of course—Gao Yingjie isn’t a girl.
There were multiple conversations about that, actually, before this season’s official start. Wang Jiexi and Gao Yingjie, and the management reps, and Xu Bin stuck there in pseudo vice-captain limbo the way he often is. Gao Yingjie had stunned everyone with his quiet refusal to cut his hair, is the thing, and then someone up high had seen his outfit out of uniform; PR had panicked, and so HR had panicked even worse, and then Wang Jiexi had done that thing he still hasn’t quite kicked the habit of—simultaneously pushing back defensively at everyone else on Gao Yingjie’s behalf while also attempting to push Gao Yingjie up and into the ideal position himself.
Xu Bin, for what it’s worth, had found the entire debate singularly stupid. Not out of any principled stance. More that he couldn’t see how it mattered, from a Glory-playing perspective, if Yingjie wanted to launch himself into Season 11 with girly hair, nor how on earth PR could find it so concerning when surely anyone with eyes could see that at least a fair chunk of their fans would surely eat Gao Yingjie’s new look up with a spoon.
At least—Xu Bin hadn’t understood the alarm until he’d overheard Liu Fei giggling with some girl over voice chat about Gao Yingjie’s ‘femboy era’.
Xu Bin isn’t generally one to regret realising things about himself, but apparently even he isn’t one hundred percent immune to it.
He isn’t remotely immune to the way Gao Yingjie is choosing to stay snuggled comfortably against him while he struggles to find a safe answer to Gao Yingjie’s question, either.
Xu Bin sighs. He has no idea where people find the energy to overthink things on the regular. This cannot possibly be about him, he reminds himself firmly. Just because he’s been spending the last couple months unlocking some new and inconvenient information about himself… that has no connection to…
Gao Yingjie is a teammate, a friend, and a junior, and Xu Bin simply happens to fit into that neat, safe zone of ‘senior enough, but not too much’ that leaves Gao Yingjie feeling comfortable enough to ask him questions about things like sex or dating because a movie has made him curious.
God only knows, Xu Bin couldn’t imagine talking to Wang Jiexi about those things.
Admittedly still looking at the ceiling, Xu Bin clears his throat in a determined kind of way. He says, ‘I… well… it varies, probably. You’re going to have some people who’ll just come out and say it clearly, of course, but they’re very much the minority. At least, it’s only happened a few times to me, ah. I think it’s mostly just… people making the extra effort, you know? Being extra nice. Showing up and being there for you, uh. Making time. Paying extra attention to your feelings, reactions, your likes and dislikes…’
Xu Bin is mostly just regurgitating things he’s read in articles or heard from his sisters while they argue about which of them has fallen in love with the crappier boy this time around. He’s suddenly very glad, however, that nobody else is around to hear him; he’s growing uncomfortably aware that it mightn’t take too much effort to find a picture of himself in his words, actually.
His desire to look at Gao Yingjie—to see Gao Yingjie’s reaction to what he’s said, to see whether Gao Yingjie has also noticed the things Xu Bin is prone to—is so strong that Xu Bin feels vaguely unwell about it.
He says, still looking at the ceiling, and feeling more awkward than he has in half a decade, ‘Of course, there’s touch, too. Not people being inappropriate or gropey—though I suppose that is a sign that they’re into you, probably, just, uh, also a sign that they’re a dick? So. More, uh… just… little extra touches? Touching that isn’t strictly necessary, but doesn’t really cross any kind of line, either. Like they’re not quite able to resist putting their hands on you, but they don’t want to push too much, either. They’re just hoping you’ll notice, and like it. Maybe ask you to touch some more. Maybe…?’
Xu Bin’s voice peters off. This is the dumbest thing he’s ever said in his life. He is a horrible, terrible, no good mentor, and Wang Jiexi ought to make him write an essay detailing his obvious failures.
‘Hmm,’ Gao Yingjie says, his voice a low, warm hum. ‘I see. That’s basically what Yifan said.’
‘Ah?’ Xu Bin blinks. Was Gao Yingjie texting during the movie, and Xu Bin somehow didn’t notice? Was this not about the stupid movie at all…?
When Xu Bin gives up on the cowardice of ceiling watching, he finds Gao Yingjie gazing off toward some vague, unknowable point. Gao Yingjie looks deep in thought, bottom lip sucked in cutely between his teeth. He also looks rather a lot like he’s blushing, but probably it’s that the television’s screensaver has switched to something pinker.
‘So, about the touching,’ Gao Yingjie says abruptly, eyes refocusing sharply upon Xu Bin. ‘When someone wants you. All the other things line up, but I’m finding the touching weirdly complicated. Some people are more tactile than others. I don’t see how I’m supposed to be sure that it means something, like—’
Xu Bin is expecting Gao Yingjie to say something further. He isn’t at all prepared for the sudden grazing of fingertips across the hand he’s had slung across Gao Yingjie’s shoulder all evening; the hand that’s been using the material of Gao Yingjie’s t-shirt sleeve like a fidget spinner.
‘Like this—?’ Gao Yingjie adds.
It takes far too long for Xu Bin to process that this is Gao Yingjie finishing his sentence. Could something like this mean something, maybe?
Xu Bin is too busy freezing. Some ridiculous part of his body has just been slingshotted back to the world’s strongest sense memory of the first time a girl brushed her knuckles against his in a hoping-to-hold-hands kind of way. The rest of his body, in contrast, is attempting not to bluescreen. Only after who knows how long does he say (with Gao Yingjie’s fingertips still flitting across his hand the entire goddamn time), ‘Uh. Yeah? I mean. Sure, why not? That’s some nice touching, uh, I’m sure it’d get the message across perfectly well.’
There’s this insane second where Xu Bin thinks Gao Yingjie is about to start laughing, or giggling, or something. Then Gao Yingjie has caught his lip in between his teeth again, mouth tugging down into a careful, thoughtful frown. ‘Oh,’ Gao Yingjie says, which isn’t even properly a word but which is somehow despite that expressing a whole variety of things that has the portion of Xu Bin’s mind stuck on hoping-to-hold-hands abruptly switching to the pros and cons of locking Gao Yingjie in an attic and also finding out who the fuck influenced the guy into being able to flirt. (It was Qiao Yifan, wasn’t it? It was Qiao Yifan, and that shameless little team of his, Xu Bin just knows it.)
Gao Yingjie might still be frowning and gnawing cutely at his lip, but Gao Yingjie’s eyes sure are starting to dance. Gao Yingjie says, ‘Oh, I meant—this.’
The too-light caress of Gao Yingjie’s fingertips solidifies into an outright poke as he prods, incredibly pointedly, at Xu Bin’s hand.
Xu Bin’s hand… which has been playing with Gao Yingjie’s sleeve for most of the evening. Xu Bin’s hand, which is at the end of Xu Bin’s arm; while Xu Bin’s arm has been wrapped around Gao Yingjie’s shoulders since before the goddamn movie’s title screen showed.
Xu Bin’s hands have somehow fallen into the habit of touching Gao Yingjie kind of often, haven’t they? Xu Bin—he couldn’t say since when. Definitely by late last season. Before the fluffy, girly hair and the distractingly pretty eye make-up, or the whole tiny shorts-over-dark-leggings thing that had gotten management’s knickers in such a twist before the season’s start.
He kind of touches a lot, doesn’t he? Including when it isn’t at all necessary, but hopefully without ever quite crossing a line. Almost as if he’s actually been out here hoping Gao Yingjie would—what? Notice and enjoy it? Ask him to touch some more—?
Who knows what Xu Bin’s expression is doing, but Gao Yingjie’s coyly biting teeth are rapidly losing the war against his lips’ desire to smile. In fact, Gao Yingjie’s whole expression is dancing toward happy, now, and the pink on his cheeks can’t have anything at all to do with the forest green on the TV screen.
When Xu Bin smiles in a slightly helpless kind of way, Gao Yingjie falls outright into grinning.
Right. Yeah. Sure. Why the fuck not. Wang Jiexi is going to be beat him to death with a broomstick, but it’s not like Xu Bin is going to lie in the face of Gao Yingjie gazing so fucking cutely at him.
Of course, returning to staring at the ceiling does seem briefly tempting. Hopping off the couch and calling it a night would probably be extremely wise.
What a shame Xu Bin is who he is.
Without moving an iota, at least outside of clearing his throat, Xu Bin says, ‘Ah. You mean—my touching?’
Gao Yingjie nods.
Xu Bin draws his fingers away from the creases he’s worked into Gao Yingjie’s t-shirt sleeve. He’s watching Gao Yingjie closely as he bats his thumb lightly against Gao Yingjie’s fluffy hair. ‘This touching?’
Gao Yingjie nods again. His shoulders have grown somewhat tense against Xu Bin’s arm, but Xu Bin is about ninety percent sure that isn’t a bad thing.
‘Well,’ Xu Bin says. Part of him wishes it didn’t feel so daring to simply settle his palm against the warmth of Gao Yingjie’s bare neck, but the rest of him is too busy thrilling at the way Gao Yingjie’s lips part around this shuddery little breath in response. ‘And you want to know if it means that I—you know—’ Xu Bin lowers his voice. He’s not being coy; they're in the rec room for god’s sake. ‘—want you?’
Another nod. Brighter blushing.
Xu Bin wrinkles his brow. ‘That uh. That depends.’
‘On what?’
Xu Bin might have no experience with people who aren’t girls, but he’s suddenly remembering that he’s really quite familiar with Gao Yingjie, actually. Xu Bin grins. ‘On whether you like the idea.’
Gao Yingjie’s smile is small and shy, but his nod is nothing if not clear.
The speed with which he shifts himself up, and around, and onto his knees, lips brushing a kiss against Xu Bin’s cheek, is even clearer.
‘Wang Jiexi is already going to murder me,’ Xu Bin groans into Gao Yingjie’s hair. He’s been hit by the intense certainty that Gao Yingjie is approximately one second away from climbing straight into his lap and—look, Xu Bin mightn’t be big on borrowing trouble, but the consequences of that life choice are a no-brainer. ‘There is no universe in which I am making out with you on the rec room couch, Yingjie. He will make my death slow and painful, instead of swift and bloody.’
Gao Yingjie laughs so hard he almost topples off the couch entirely, but he doesn’t actually argue with Xu Bin’s logic. He simply turns the catching-hold of Xu Bin’s carefully steadying hands into a hug and says, in a sweet and little cheery tone, like he’s making polite conversation rather than dropping lava flasks, ‘I suppose it’s convenient that neither of us has roommates.’
Xu Bin contemplates setting Gao Yingjie down neatly to one side and putting himself straight into the rubbish bin, to be entirely honest.
He shakes his head, instead, playacting stern, and says, ‘Hey, what’s the deal with you being so scary bold these days? First it’s the pretty hair and cute pants rebellion, and now you’re out here picking up seniors? This some wild phase or a brave new Yingjie, huh?’
Gao Yingjie tilts his head. This time, when he gnaws anxiously at his lip, Xu Bin is reasonably certain it’s genuine. ‘That… depends.’
Xu Bin will feel embarrassed, later, that he doesn’t immediately recognise that it’s him Gao Yingjie is echoing. In his defence, Gao Yingjie has slipped his arms around Xu Bin’s neck and is studying him intently; it’s kind of a Lot. ‘Yeah?’ Xu Bin asks. He has to bite down the urge to call Yingjie baby. ‘What’s it depend on?’
‘I guess,’ Gao Yingjie whispers. ‘On whether you like it, maybe…? At least, maybe a little bit it on that. It’s also for me, but… yeah?’
‘Fuck,’ Xu Bin says, incredibly succinctly. And then, ‘Hey, so, on the one hand, I like it very, very much. And, on the other hand, I’m taking a quick holiday from this conversation and putting my face in your pretty hair because it’s that or I break my own rule about not making out with you on this couch, okay?’
Gao Yingjie’s answered ‘okay’ is more or less lost to him laughing, but, honestly? Xu Bin gets it loud and clear, despite that.