Work Text:
Feng Xin barely reacts when the door flies open and Mu Qing storms in. It’s just after 4 pm, the time Mu Qing always returns.
It’s all become a part of Feng Xin’s routine, the familiar sounds of him coming home—the door slamming shut, the click of the lock, the clatter of keys being dropped into the bowl on the counter. Just another Tuesday.
He can hear Mu Qing padding around the kitchen. A pause. A frustrated huff. Muttered curses that get increasingly louder. Then…
“Ugh, what is WRONG with you?”
Yep. Just another Tuesday.
Feng Xin inwardly sighs and barely lifts his head even with his roommate bearing down on him. It’s not hard to imagine the thunderous expression that’s surely marring Mu Qing’s otherwise lovely face. (Ah, who’s he kidding? Anger has always looked good on Mu Qing. Everything does. It’s not fair. Feng Xin hates him.)
“I asked you to do ONE THING, and did you do it?”
Shit, the dishes. He meant to do them today, he really did. This time, Feng Xin actually does sigh. Thankfully, it’s completely lost on Mu Qing as he continues his little tirade.
“No, of COURSE you didn’t! Because you NEVER do! And as usual, I have to do all the fucking dishes. And no, I don’t care if there are only a few bowls in the sink because that’s NOT THE POINT! How long does it take to wash three bowls, huh? Not even five minutes? You couldn’t take FIVE MINUTES to wash three—what the fuck is that?”
Feng Xin whirls around, half expecting a giant spider to have taken up residence in their living room with him. The only thing out of the ordinary is his roommate gaping at him with something akin to horror.
“What are you—what are you wearing?” Mu Qing demands, eyes bulging.
Feng Xin looks down at himself. There’s no way Mu Qing hasn’t seen these sweats before. He wears them like every day!
“No, you idiot!” Mu Qing looks like he’s about two seconds from either punching Feng Xin or running right back out of the apartment. “The—on your face!”
On his face? He doesn’t have anything on his—wait. “My…glasses?”
“Yes. Those.” The words themselves are innocuous, but the statement is laced with venom as if Feng Xin’s glasses have personally offended Mu Qing.
Now, okay, yes, it’s not often that Mu Qing isn’t offended by something Feng Xin has done or just his general existence, but this is utterly bizarre. And truthfully, Feng Xin is bewildered by the whole thing. He’s never seen Mu Qing so rattled. He keeps going back and forth between ogling Feng Xin and looking anywhere except at him, getting more and more flustered by the second.
He almost wants to ask if Mu Qing even knew he had glasses, but he’d probably just get yelled at for asking questions he already knows the answer to.
But how could Mu Qing not know he wears glasses?
Although…now that he thinks about it, he’s never worn them in front of Mu Qing. So, sure, the surprise might be understandable, but was it really that big of a deal? Plenty of people wear glasses!
“Why are you wearing them?” Except he says it like he’s accusing Feng Xin of some terrible crime, the same way someone might ask ‘why do you have a stolen credit card?’ or ‘why are you holding a bloody knife?’
Feng Xin almost laughs. “Why does anyone wear them?” He pushes his glasses up and turns back to the documents he’d been skimming. “I only wear them when I’m reading. Mostly for work.”
He shrugs, hoping it comes off as something a perfectly normal person having a perfectly normal conversation would do and not the awkward ‘I don’t know what else to do with my body why are you staring at me like that’ movement it really is.
“Right,” Mu Qing mutters, clearly dissatisfied with Feng Xin’s response. “Well, you look ridiculous.”
It hurts more than Feng Xin is expecting. He tenses but doesn’t look away from the page he’s pretending to read. “Then look at something else if this doesn’t meet your dumb standards. Sorry for wanting to be able to see I guess,” he snaps.
He waits for a retort, but after a moment, all he hears is the sound of the door closing when Mu Qing walks out.
Shoulders slumping as all the fight drains out of him, he yanks his glasses off and buries his head in his hands.
Why should he care about what Mu Qing thinks of him anyway? It’s not like he doesn’t insult him regularly.
(Yes, he knows why he cares. No, he’s not going to think about it.)
Stupid Mu Qing and whatever thing he has against glasses.
Hua Cheng’s perfectly nice evening is rudely interrupted by incessant banging on their door.
“San Lang, could you get that please? I’m a bit, ah, preoccupied.” His boyfriend smiles apologetically, holding up his hands which are covered in…honestly, Hua Cheng doesn’t know what.
“It would be my pleasure, gege!” He briefly considers taking the pot of broth from the stove when he goes to the door and accidentally tripping and splashing all the boiling hot contents on whoever is on the other side.
In the end, he doesn’t because there’s a 100% chance Xie Lian would be unhappy with him.
But a whole two seconds later, he thinks it would’ve been worth it because he’s barely even cracked the door open and Mu Qing is already shoving it the rest of the way open, sending him stumbling into the wall.
“Please,” Hua Cheng tells the empty hallway in a dull monotone, “come right in.”
“Mu Qing? Is everything okay?” The concern in his boyfriend’s voice is impossible to miss.
“HE HAS GLASSES!” Mu Qing wails, collapsing onto the table just as Hua Cheng rounds the corner into the kitchen.
Oh, so it was finally happening.
He pauses and shares a look with his reflection in the window above the sink. Reflection Hua Cheng understands.
“Who has glasses? Feng Xin?”
Mu Qing’s answering groan is muffled by his hands flying up to hide his face.
Xie Lian looks to Hua Cheng for help, and Hua Cheng, of course, obliges. “He’s having a crisis because he thinks Feng Xin looks hot with glasses,” he explains, leaning in like he’s divulging a secret but making absolutely no effort to be any quieter.
As he expected, Mu Qing immediately begins to splutter. “Who asked you?”
“Am I wrong?” Hua Cheng lifts an eyebrow. He’s not wrong, and Mu Qing knows it if the way he grumbles something incomprehensible is anything to go by.
Xie Lian glances between the two of them. “Ah, I think I’m still confused. What’s so special about glasses?”
“Literally nothing!”
“I see.” Xie Lian chuckles awkwardly. “So, you have a…um…a glasses kink?”
Hua Cheng can’t help the violent coughing fit that ensues. It’s only a small consolation that Mu Qing doesn’t fare much better, turning an interesting shade of pink.
“No,” Mu Qing denies vehemently. “It’s not a problem with anyone else. Just—just Feng Xin. It sounds so stupid, but…I don’t know how to explain it. Like, he’s always hot, but with the glasses…it’s just obscene!”
Xie Lian nods like he understands perfectly, but it’s pretty obvious he’s even more confused.
Mu Qing huffs. “Okay. How about this? Your boyfriend doesn’t wear glasses, right?”
“Right,” Xie Lian agrees.
“Sometimes I do,” Hua Cheng says without thinking.
Silence fills the kitchen. Usually, he welcomes Xie Lian’s eyes on him, but now he feels like he’s about to jump out of his skin at any moment.
“I, ah,” Hua Cheng swallows and tries not to fidget, “I don’t wear them often. It doesn’t really work with the…” He gestures vaguely to the eyepatch. “Contacts are more convenient.”
Xie Lian’s eyes are wide, but he looks more intrigued than anything else. “Can I see?”
“Oh my god,” Mu Qing mutters.
Hua Cheng ignores him and nods because when has he ever been able to deny Xie Lian anything? He returns a moment later donning the black and red frames he usually keeps hidden.
His boyfriend takes one look at him and freezes. “Oh.” (Hua Cheng isn’t sure if this means he needs to throw out the glasses or start wearing them every day.) Xie Lian slowly sinks into the chair across from Mu Qing and puts his head in his hands, sighing heavily. “I think I understand.”
Mu Qing nods miserably.
It’s almost 10 pm when Feng Xin finally hears the front door open.
He waits until Mu Qing has removed his shoes and deposited his keys in the bowl before wordlessly handing him a cup of tea and leading them to the couch.
Predictably, Mu Qing sits at the opposite end as Feng Xin, tucking his legs underneath him. He sips his tea and hums, the corners of his mouth ticking up almost imperceptibly. “It’s hot,” he comments mildly. It doesn’t seem like much, but Feng Xin knows better; Mu Qing is pleased.
“I just made it.”
“Mn. Good timing.”
Feng Xin takes a sip of his tea and tries to think of a better reply than ‘actually I’ve been checking your location every five minutes for the last hour, so I knew exactly when you’d get back.’ Look, it was Mu Qing who suggested sharing their locations with each other in the first place back when they first moved in together. For safety reasons, he’d said.
And in this case, for knowing when to start making the tea.
“You’re not wearing your glasses.”
Feng Xin blinks, startled out of his thoughts about acceptable roommate behavior. “Oh, yeah. I don’t really need them now.”
“Oh.”
If Feng Xin didn’t know any better, he would say Mu Qing almost sounds disappointed. He shoots Mu Qing a sideways glance.
Yeah, something is definitely off.
“Better for you, right?” he says carefully, watching for Mu Qing’s reaction. “You didn’t exactly like them.”
Mu Qing’s eyes dart off to the side. “I never said I didn’t like them.”
“I think your exact words were ‘you look ridiculous’ which isn’t exactly a glowing review,” Feng Xin says dryly.
“You did look ridiculous, just…not in a bad way.”
Feng Xin narrows his eyes. “That makes no sense. How do you look ridiculous in a not bad way?”
“You know…” he trails off.
When Mu Qing doesn’t bother to finish that thought, Feng Xin sighs and sets down his cup on the coffee table. “Okay, this is a good time to do something called ‘using our words’.”
Mu Qing cradles his tea closer to his chest and grumbles something Feng Xin can’t make out.
“What was that?” Feng Xin asks innocently because feelings or no feelings, he can’t resist giving Mu Qing a hard time.
And yeah, he definitely deserves the unimpressed look that’s sent his way.
“Maybe,” Mu Qing announces defiantly, sitting up straight, “you look good with glasses.”
Feng Xin blinks at him. Tries to process. Fails.
After too much time has passed, Mu Qing curls back in on himself. “Maybe,” he reiterates as if that would lessen the effect of such a shocking revelation. (Shocking for Feng Xin, that is.)
“So,” Feng Xin begins slowly, “you think I look good with glasses.”
“I think you look good all the time.” Mu Qing slaps his free hand over his mouth, eyes as round as saucers.
“Uh…” Feng Xin feels like his brain is working overtime trying to keep up, and until then he’s resigned to gaping like a fish.
Mu Qing slowly lowers his hand. “I did not just say that out loud,” he whispers.
“Nope, you did.” Feng Xin’s voice comes out strangled. “You definitely did.”
“Oh my god.” Mu Qing looks down at his cup and then sets it on the table. He stands swiftly, barely looking at Feng Xin. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to fling myself into space right away.”
Feng Xin seems to momentarily lose any sense of self-preservation he might have had because he ends up blurting out, “If it helps, I think you look good all the time too.”
This time it’s Mu Qing who’s left gaping like a fish. “I…I don’t know if that helped or made it worse.”
“No, it definitely made it worse,” Feng Xin says more to himself than to Mu Qing. And then, to his horror, he keeps talking. “Unless it’s in a friend way. Because then it’s fine, it’s chill. Friends are supposed to be supportive anyway, right? And we are…friends.”
He can literally feel the exact moment Mu Qing pulls back, his face becoming closed off and expressionless.
“Do you mean it in a friend way?” Mu Qing asks, expression carefully blank.
There’s no other way to put it. Feng Xin panics. “Uh, that’s classified.”
“That’s classified?”
“Or it depends,” Feng Xin hastily tries to backtrack. “Do you mean it in a friend way?”
Mu Qing crosses his arms. “That’s not how it works.”
“I mean that’s your opinion.”
“…”
“Okay, not the best choice of words there, but maybe—”
“Where are your glasses?” Mu Qing interrupts.
Feng Xin blinks, taken aback by the sudden topic switch. “In my room.”
“Go get them.”
“What? Why?”
Mu Qing rolls his eyes. “Just get them.”
He doesn’t understand, but he hurries to his room anyway and retrieves his glasses from the side table.
“Thank you, I’m just going to take these,” Mu Qing says when he returns, plucking the glasses right out of his hands.
Feng Xin opens his mouth to protest, but Mu Qing shushes him. “Calm down and hold still.”
He’s not sure where to look when Mu Qing steps directly in front of him, and he still doesn’t know where to look when he slides the glasses onto Feng Xin’s face.
Feng Xin blinks, eyes adjusting to the lenses. Mu Qing steps back and regards him with an expression Feng Xin can’t pinpoint. It feels very much like a test. He hopes he passes.
And after what feels like an eternity: “No.”
Feng Xin furrows his brows. “No what?”
“No, I don’t think you look good in a friend way.” Mu Qing gives him a significant look, but Feng Xin still doesn’t get it. Mu Qing rolls his eyes and gives a resigned sigh, taking a step closer. “In other words, I think you look good in a decidedly,” he gives Feng Xin a meaningful once over that’s impossible to misinterpret, “not friend way.”
“Oh. Right.” Feng Xin clenches his hands at his sides so that he doesn’t reach out, but he feels himself swaying forward. “Me too. But about you.”
Mu Qing hums. “Good.” They’re very close now.
But then Mu Qing is brushing past, striding towards his room. He pauses at the doorway and looks over his shoulder. “Well? Are you coming or what?”
“I…” Feng Xin shakes himself. This was really happening. “Yeah. I mean yes. I just—dishes.” He gestures lamely to their long cold cups of tea.
“Oh, now you decide to worry about the chores.” Mu Qing rolls his eyes. “Fine. But don’t keep me waiting too long otherwise I’ll just go to sleep.”
Feng Xin nods vigorously. “Right, of course. I’ll be fast.” He scoops up the cups and heads for the sink but stops when he hears Mu Qing’s voice again.
“One more thing. Keep the glasses on tonight.” Mu Qing smirks and disappears into the room.
And Feng Xin? Feng Xin’s never washed dishes faster in his life.