Chapter Text
Jin Ling
Sup bigheads
My dad finally brought my projector and speaker over
9pm my room bring snacks or no entry
Jingyi
Who are you calling bighead
You straight up look like those roly-poly toys
But okay will be there
Jin Ling
The fuck
My head is perfectly proportioned
The Jin in my name stands for golden
Golden ratio
Anyway I’m uninviting you Zizhen come alone
Jingyi
I was gonna bring that dark chocolate drizzled popcorn you like but ok
Guess I’ll just have to finish it myself!
Jin Ling
Why didn’t you say that earlier
You’re re-invited
Don’t mention my head size again though
Zizhen
I really thought us starting college means us being like
A bit less childish or something
Jin Ling
Speak for yourself I’m plenty mature
Jingyi
HAH Jin Ling’s got joke’s today!
Another one another one
Zizhen
You know what nvm forget I even said anything
Jingyi waits till 8.55pm to get out of his bed. Jin Ling’s dorm is a 10 minute walk away, but Jingyi likes to make Jin Ling itch with impatience, toeing that line between near-punctuality and a lateness that incurs Jin Ling’s ungodly wrath like the pro he is. Thankfully, Jin Ling’s temper has most definitely gotten better as the years have passed- Jingyi distinctly remembers him engaging in a one-sided cold war with him back when they were 7 because Jingyi sneezed in his vague direction when he was wearing his favorite coat . Petty bastard. Nonetheless some results of his parents’ coddling are more tolerable, even beneficial, like aforementioned projector and speaker. It’s slightly ridiculous considering they stay a 2 hour drive away from the campus, but hey, good for him and good for Jingyi and Zizhen. Jingyi shouldn’t have to go movie fridays-less just because Jin Ling doesn’t know how to pack for college.
Jingyi moved in 4 days ago, followed by Zizhen and then Jin Ling. During the process of dorm selection Jingyi and Zizhen were allotted the same dorm and were this close to being neighbors but some fucker happened to select the room next to Jingyi just as Zizhen was about to click on it. “Tough luck,” Zizhen had said, shrugging his shoulders. Jingyi chose instead to silently seethe and bemoan the misfortune bestowed upon him by the gods for a longer time than strictly necessary. Jin Ling on the other hand ended up in a dorm for business majors, which straight up had the exterior of a 5-star hotel. Curse those business majors and the money they rake in for the school; it’s not Jingyi’s fault that literature doesn’t fuel capitalism. So now Zizhen’s history major self and him are stuck in this dorm sharing a communal toilet with 11 other guys on their respective floors. Perfect.
The dorm is still pretty quiet at this time. It’s a Friday, and it seems like most people are choosing to move in over the weekend instead. Makes sense; school only starts on Tuesday, and some people’s parents are eager to spend a couple more days with their precious little child. Jingyi’s parents, on the other hand, dropped him off the earliest day the dorms would take him. Not unexpected of them, really.
He’s texting Zizhen to get his ass ready, walking down the hallway to the staircase when he hears a familiar voice. And then another familiar voice. And then yet another familiar voice, one he hasn’t heard in ages, but the very moment he heard it he knew he could not mistake it for another. Jingyi freezes. It can’t be. Maybe he’s gotten it mistaken after not hearing it in a couple years. Maybe there’s someone else out there with the very same measured cadence.
“...but I’ll be fine, Baba. You really don’t have to worry.”
The hairs on the back of Jingyi’s neck stand. The voices are coming from the stairwell just below, and Jingyi makes a quick dash into the bathroom, the closest hiding spot he can find.
“My little boy, all grown up! Ah, your Baba is about to start crying. Next thing we know our Sizhui is conquering the world and forgetting all about his fathers. You had better make more trips home now that you’re close to home again!”
Jingyi needed no confirmation, really, but hearing the voice of who he knows has to be Mr. Wei calling the name of his son made Jingyi’s whole stomach just drop. His son, Lan Sizhui. The name feels so foreign to hear again, as if it was someone else’s memory. Like it belonged elsewhere, in another time. His back pressed against the door, Jingyi hears the sound of their footsteps echoing around the stairwell less and less, sounding closer and more solid, their voices getting louder. He just can’t believe it. He doesn’t really want to believe it.
“You know I will, Baba. I did come back to be closer to home after all.”
It’s funny, Jingyi thinks. The last he heard Sizhui speak in person was when they were 14, the middle of puberty where everyone’s voices were cracking and still sounding not quite so right. Jingyi himself was personally fighting for his life everyday, trying to convince his choir conductor to put him in the tenor section, please Laoshi, this is starting to look a little embarrassing for me. They made fun of Jin Ling relentlessly, with his voice breaking every single time he got mad and raised it. They teased Zizhen for sounding the exact same the whole time. And he remembers Sizhui, his soft and even voice. It barely sounds different now, perhaps just a little smoother, a little deeper.
Jingyi doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until the voices fade away again and he gets to exhale, messily, almost loudly. He’s got to go, Zizhen’s sure to be wondering what’s taking him this long, but his entire head feels numb. Sizhui is back , he thinks. Sizhui is back and he’s in the same college as me and the same dorm as me, on the same floor as me. Sizhui is back. The thought of it is so bizarre and foreign and…something else completely. He can't quite recognize it, but he isn't trying to either. All he knows is that this shock is going to take a little while to defrost.
Zizhen
Dude did you die
You said you were coming down the stairs like 5min ago
And my room is just right by the stairs you remember that right
Don’t tell me you got lost
Please don’t be lost I cannot afford to go looking for you
I’d get lost myself
Cmon man Jingyi I don’t need Jin Ling yelling at me on a Friday night can you hurry
JINGYI
Sigh
All men do is lie
Jingyi
Dude
I think I just saw Sizhui
I think he’s staying on the same floor as me
What
Why did I not know this
Zizhen
Like
Sizhui your childhood friend???
Sizhui who played soccer with us during recess??
Jingyi
Yeah
Exactly that Sizhui
Zizhen
Didn’t he like
Move to some private academy halfway across the world
Never to return or something
Jingyi
I mean
Yes?
I guess not
Anyway it doesn’t matter I’m coming over rn
Hope you got your ass ready for a Jin Ling special
Zizhen
Wtfffff
“Like, Sizhui your childhood best friend? Sizhui who played soccer with us during recess?”
“God, you and Zizhen have spent way too much time together. But yes, that one,” Jingyi says distractedly, pulling at the fibers of Jingyi’s carpet. They’re sprawled on the floor of Jin Ling’s disgustingly big room with his pillows and blankets strewn everywhere. Each one of Zizhen’s legs are somehow on Jingyi and Jin Ling respectively, bringing manspreading to a whole new level. There’s the sound of the end credits still playing in background, but if Jingyi’s being honest he hasn’t really been paying attention the entire time the movie was running. He’s mentally stuck in the bathroom of his dorm, the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears.
“Stop picking at my brand new carpet,” Jin Ling shoots out as he smacks Jingyi’s hands lightly. That earns him a pointed look but there’s no real heat behind it. Jingyi isn’t mustering much. From the corner of his eye he sees Jin Ling quirk an eyebrow up.
“Is that a bad thing? A good thing? All I remember was you saying that he left to go study at some fancy school and y’all just like, stopped talking.”
When Zizhen puts it like this, it really does sound simple. Just another bittersweet coming-of-age story, where you keep the door open and people choose to come and go. In a sense that isn’t wrong, but there’s something else about it that makes it feel like this broad, sweeping characterization is lacking. It wasn’t just any other story and it wasn’t any other person. It was Sizhui. Sizhui, his very first best friend, the person whose house felt like his very own for more than half his life. On principle Jingyi knows that every relationship dynamic is unique and friendships are no different, but he knows his friendship with Sizhui just felt a shade more so. He can’t put his finger on the specific reason, can't elucidate this feeling to another, but maybe that’s just how it is when you once had someone whose life was so inextricably linked to yours.
“Yeah, it isn’t much. It’s just weird to see him again I guess,” is all Jingyi settles on saying.
“That makes sense. I mean, you can be his friend again if you want. Maybe y’all can rekindle that friendship and bring back the old times.” Zizhen proffers, trying his very best to be helpful. He’s even kept his limbs back, bless him, and has drawn himself back up to a proper posture. It’s a little funny to see, his face serious and earnest while he tries his best to talk about something he knows little about. It’s not his fault; while Sizhui had spent many recesses playing soccer with Jingyi, Zizhen and Jin Ling, the latter two never interacted much with Sizhui beyond getting their asses handed to them every time Sizhui played on offense. And while Jingyi did speak of Sizhui while he was still around, he could neither capture the immensity of Sizhui’s presence in his life in speech to them then, nor did he want to speak of the resulting gaping hole it left in him after. He’s kept it shelved neatly in the recesses of his mind ever since then, and while Jingyi would say he’s “processed it” and “has made peace with it” he’s aware deep down that he has simply refused to approach the matter all this time. So it stagnates in his mental attic, never to see the light of day, and Jingyi is content with that.
But Jingyi is not going to say all of that of course, opting instead to nod and make some non-committal sound in reply. The rooms sinks into silence; Jingyi knows that his reply his hardly satisfying. But Zizhen has nothing more to say and, well, Jin Ling knows when not to prod. It’s a lightning strike sort of rare phenomenon that they’d be any quiet with each other and it’s so obviously so because none of them really know what to do.
At last, Jin Ling breaks the silence.
“Uh, wanna play Overcooked?”
“Fuck yeah.”
It’s impressive how fast that thick air of discomfort can break and, as the game begins and they get lost in the chaos of it, Jingyi thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can convince himself that this will not matter in the grand scheme of things.
It’s a little funny how it all began. It looked a little like this: after 2 months of enduring Zizhen and Jin Ling’s non-stop chatting, their form teacher decided that putting Jingyi in between them would be a good idea. It still beats Jingyi why Lin Laoshi did that when he could’ve just separated those two, but he supposes teaching lower secondary students just does a number to your brain and common sense. Fair enough. Of course, he gives Lin Laoshi enough to regret by the third day of this new seating arrangement because, guess what, nothing makes 13 year old boys bond more than arguing over soccer.
(“Of all the teams you could pick to support, you decided on Chelsea ? That’s just embarrassing bro.”
“Well at least it isn’t Man Chest Hair United. Or Arse anal.”
“...I know you spent all week thinking up those. Also fuck you, Man U literally just won their 19th league title. Go ahead and dunk on Arsenal and their Wanker manager though, Zizhen’s taste is a little impaired.”
“It’s Wenger you asshole, it’s French!”)
But of course the real bonding came from the detentions and clean-up duties that come from arguing about soccer during class time. They introduced Jingyi to their little group of friends who would play soccer after school, and Jingyi began dropping by once in a while. It was a shock to Jingyi- Jin Ling and Zizhen were slowly becoming his friends, and Jingyi wasn’t expecting to make proper friends within 2 months of secondary school starting, and he told Sizhui that much.
“It’s still your fault for going into the science stream, by the way,” Jingyi whined then, lying on Sizhui’s bed as he watched him finish his homework by his desk. Sizhui, ever the reasonable and patient boy he was, simply smiled as he continued penciling down some horrendous physics equation from his formula sheet.
“From the frequency you complain, you’d think that I migrated across the world or something,” he had teased then.
“You might as well have. Your home room is literally on the opposite side of our campus.”
“But I still come over and hang out with you every other recess, don’t I?”
Jingyi remembers Sizhui looking up from his work then, eyes sparkling. Sizhui was right, as always. He was always right and always so, so reasonable. It really was quite ridiculous, Jingyi thought, that Sizhui was always so considerate, even from the very beginning when they were snot-nosed first graders. Sure, he had his moments just like any other kid, but on the whole Sizhui spent his whole life being sweet as honey. Jingyi would be hard-pressed to find a time where Sizhui did anything without putting Jingyi first, and perhaps he had gotten used to that and thought it to be a standard when he shouldn’t have.
Whenever Jingyi thought back on this sequence of events (and he loathes to admit it, but there was a time where it looped like a broken recorder in his head) he genuinely felt like it was either some insane coincidence or a really sick joke being played to him by the heavens. Days, weeks, months after Sizhui left, he had expended all his mental energy flipping through the endless rolodex of their shared memories, trying to find something that could have clued him in or prepared him. All he found instead were moments like these, useless for anything but missing him.
“You should come play soccer with us during recess too,” Zizhen said one day. They had just ended math class, unanimously decided by them three to be the worst class ever , late, and Jingyi was already texting Sizhui to tell him he was rushing down.
“I usually hang out with my friend from another class though.”
“Well, tell your friend to come too, duh,” Jin Ling had retorted.
And so Jingyi’s worlds collided. It’s not particularly groundbreaking or anything considering that they’re in the same school and same level, but somehow Jingyi remembers his palms sweating when he texted Sizhui to invite him for soccer. Even then he had thought that that didn’t quite make sense; he’s close to Sizhui, and Jin Ling and Zizhen are his friends too, so exactly what does he have to be nervous about? Was he afraid of Sizhui saying no? That couldn’t be it. Jingyi knew that Sizhui wouldn’t have said no. Did he think that his friends wouldn’t get along? Maybe, but there wasn’t a single person that Sizhui couldn’t get along with. Besides, it was just soccer. It wasn’t like Jingyi was inviting Sizhui to a sleepover at Jin Ling’s and to become best friends with him and Zizhen. That thought was disconcerting.
True to who he was, Sizhui did in fact get along with Jin Ling and Zizhen. There was something about Sizhui that was just so likable that even when he consistently wrecked everybody on his opposing team, nobody was mad or bitter about it. Even Jin Ling, whom Jingyi had discovered after the very first time quiz they took to be the world’s biggest sore loser, had simply given Sizhui a look of appraisal after a depressing 1-4 game.
“Your friend is good. Like really good,” Zizhen had commented later on.
“I know right? He’s super fucking good at sports. I think he was just born athletic. And also STEM-inclined.”
“So, nothing like you.”
“Fuck off. But yes. Hey, we complement each other okay. I do the artsy and humanities-based stuff, he does the sports and STEM stuff. We’re the dream team.”
“That’s better than Jin Ling and me. We’re like two left feet trying to dance.”
The comparison was so ridiculous that it made them both laugh, but when Jingyi thinks back about it what he remembers most is the lingering feeling of pride. He remembers rolling the words dream team in his mind, on his tongue. That’s what him and Sizhui were, he had thought then. Like peanut butter and jelly, or like Jingyi passing Sizhui the beansprouts he hated and Sizhui putting the soy sauce chicken he disliked into Jingyi’s bowl. It just made sense.
“Y’all have got to go back man. It’s 2am and I want to sleep,” Jin Ling announces after the fifth or so round. Zizhen and Jingyi unanimously groan; Zizhen at the prospect of having to walk back to their dorm in the middle of the night, and Jingyi at the fact that his temporary reprieve from thinking about the dorm situation is gone. Jin Ling, ever efficient, kicks them out in record-breaking speed, leaving the two miserable and tired boys trudging back.
The 10 minute walk is not that fun when it’s 2am and windy, so Jingyi and Zizhen try their best to hurry back, much to Jingyi’s rising anxiety.
“You know what would be really funny?” Zizhen pipes up as they walk through the entrance of their dorm.
“Spit it out.”
“It’d be wild if Sizhui’s the one that’s staying in the room right next to yours.”
Ah, fuck.
“I did not even consider that.”
“Didn’t you check the doors of your neighbors? My RA stuck name tags on each of our doors. It’s kinda neat.”
“I…did not notice that.”
Jingyi’s blood is running colder by the minute, and it has nothing to do with the powerful central AC of their dorm building.
“Never mind, it’s late now so everyone who’s in should be asleep. You can go snoop and see which room he’s staying in so you can like, avoid it or not. I don’t know man.”
“Zizhen, sometimes you really are a genius.”
“Sometimes?”
“Don’t push it.”
Jingyi
When you said that just now
Had you come up to my floor to check already
Zizhen
No?
Tf are you talking about
Jingyi
The rooms
The names on the room doors
Zizhen
What about it
??
Wait
Oh
Wait
Omg are you serious
Jingyi
Yeah
Right fucking opposite me
Just my luck
Zizhen
Sorry for your loss
Or congratulations idk
Jingyi
Just shut up and go to sleep