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yanqing takes a hesitant step into the boat, watching it teeter a bit before putting his other foot in. he grabs the edge, shifting so that yunli has space to get in herself. he moves back another few inches, just for good measure.
yunli looks at him, nose scrunched up for a second. yanqing panics—did she want something? a moment passes of embarrassing silence, and yanqing decides to hold a hand out for her to get on, despite the odd feeling that this rickety thing is going to capsize if he lets go.
yunli blinks, looking a bit surprised. she then smiles, pleased, and takes his hand, elegantly getting in. she doesn’t grab the edge, just readjusts how she’s standing to stay stable before sitting on the little platform in the back—and oh, that’s what that was for?—and is generally just a million times more poised than yanqing is.
yanqing copies her, sitting down on the little platform in the middle. yunli doesn’t give him a look, so he assumes it’s fine.
in fact, yunli isn’t even looking in his direction. she’s turned back, grabbing her cup of boba first and giving it to yanqing to hold. she then sets the oars in place and unties the rope holding the boat in place. she summons her claymore—something that nearly makes yanqing scream, thankfully, she wasn’t watching to see him freak out for a split second—and uses it to push the boat from the edge, into the water.
yunli looked so… awesome! she knew exactly what she was doing, and did it so poised and elegant… oh LAN, she was perfect.
she grabs the oars once the boat stops moving, pushing it further into the center of the lake, then gets up, sitting down next to yanqing and smiling at him. her hair was pinned up, wound into some complicated bun, decorated with white flowers and perfect makeup.
yanqing suddenly feels very nervous.
“yanqing?”
“y-yeah?”
“try this.”
yunli holds the boba up to him, straw between her fingers. yanqing laughs and pushes it back towards her.
“no! that’s yours.”
“and i’m giving you it to try! please?”
yunli smiles sweetly, and yanqing might just explode on the spot. he leans over, taking a sip. he scrunches his nose a bit, then swallows.
“no good?”
“it’s… good, i guess? it’s really thick.”
yunli shrugs, taking a long sip herself. “oh—yeah, you’re right…”
she swirls the straw around in circles, as if it’ll thin it out a bit.
“yunli?”
“mm?”
“not that i mind or anything, but… why are we in a boat?”
“canoe. i, uh…” yunli pauses, taking another sip and looking down. yanqing feels more nervous now.
“i wanted to talk to you.”
yanqing would like to rectify his previous statement. he is not nervous. he is in full panic mode.
“a-about?” a stutter grows in his voice. because of course! how did he not see it before? of course yunli wanted to break up with him—it was so obvious. she was being so careful with him, uncharacteristically so, brought him to a quiet, semi-secluded place—he’s so cooked.
“um… you.”
“…that really doesn’t. answer my question.”
“well, cause… this is for you.”
yunli proceeds to pull a comically oversized strawberry out of fucking nowhere, thrusts it in his hands, and yanqing fears he may cry.
“uh—thank you?” yanqing smiles at her, and takes the strawberry in his hands. yanqing loves strawberries, if you were uninformed. he holds it, gentle, to his heart.
yunli puts her boba aside and fixes him with a look.
“i do not have Limits, yanqing.”
“…sorry?”
“i am Limitless. a sine function, if you will.” yunli taps her foot against the floor, fingers against wood, constant nervous motion.
“uh, no, you have limits… we had a whole thing about this? you have limits?”
“that was you yelling at me while sushang… mothered? mothered. over me. and you gave me… a citrus. which is my point! the point is the citrine. citrines. citruses.”
yanqing blinks at her.
she sighs, and continues, and unlike the textbook definition of elaboration, yunli only makes him more confused, which does serve to make him relax a bit. fruits and breakups typically aren’t correlated.
“you are worrying.” he frowns at that, and yunli shakes her head. “not worrying—no, you are worrying, but not like… you worrying. in the—don’t look at me like that! you are worrying!”
yanqing has never been more confused. however, the sheer absurdity of strawberries and neuroticism fills him with determination.
“this is a really bad way to break up, if it is that.”
“no! you… the citruses!” yunli makes a gesture, as if yanqing has absolutely no brain and she is extremely obvious with her wants and needs.
“what about citruses?”
“i—guinaifen said! guinaifen said. you think i have Limits. once again, iterating, i am a sine function.”
yunli is Hovering, and there is a specific way she hovers, yanqing knows. he sets the strawberry aside, and takes yunli’s hand, and presses between her knuckles.
“what did guinaifen say?”
“i asked. about the citruses. and she made me pay for answers! i am ten credits in the hole.” her finger scritches on his palm. it is good that yanqing is fluent in Yunli.
“you are worrying, which was already obvious. you think i have Limits, and you think i… ah. vitamin c something.”
vitamin c?
Oh.
The Oranges.
“is this about the oranges?” yunli nods.
“scurvy freaks me out.” yanqing says, and why does he say that? scurvy does not freak him out. it does, but not that much. it freaks bailu out a lot. “i mean—bailu. freaks bailu out. bailu always tells me after you leave. you have really low vitamin c. and everything, basically, which doesn’t really make sense because i think you eat normally, but i’m not arguing with the healer.”
yunli nods after a moment in understanding. she picks up the strawberry and puts it in yanqing’s hands again, as if he’s at risk of forgetting the strawberry is sitting there with its excessive size.
“strawberry. orange.” she puts a hand out at each word. then draws a line bringing them together. then clasps her hands. then unclasps them, picking up the boba and taking a long sip. it made that weird sound that meant you were at the end, but yanqing swears he didn't see yunli drink that much.
yanqing hums. “so you definitely aren’t breaking up with me?”
yunli looks up, alarmed. “what? no. that would prove i am not Limitless. this is not an algebra 2 proof. i am not the equation nor are you the proofee.”
“i’m losing the metaphor here.”
“no you aren’t. eat your strawberry.”
yanqing takes a bite from it, and he almost feels bad, because something naturally of this size should be painted and framed somewhere. it’s sour at first, cold too, but sweetens in his mouth in a way that just makes his nose twitch a bit.
yunli’s gaze rakes over him, and he can’t make out what sort of look it is. new look. he supposes he’ll have to add it to his mental list. “you’re like a rabbit.”
“…th’nk you?”
yunli digs into her pocket—black safety shorts beneath her skirt. out she pulls a small pink tube. yanqing leans in, interested. he can feel his cheeks puff out.
“wazzat?”
yunli uncaps it, twisting it deftly between her fingers, decorated in long press ons. “lip tint.” she replies, staring at it for a moment. “show me your phone.”
yanqing shifts the strawberry, now half eaten, into one hand, the other fishing his phone out. he passes it to yunli, who swipes to his camera. she holds it up to her face, applying the color. yanqing takes another bite of his strawberry.
it’s a nice shade—yanqing doesn’t know anything about makeup, but even he can appreciate a pretty color. red, in a soft way. it’s just darker than yunli’s lips, in a way you can tell the difference. a gentle sheen couples it, shimmery white.
yunli gives his phone back once she’s done, capping the cosmetic and storing it back into her pocket. yanqing finishes off his strawberry, and after a bit of contemplation, puts it into yunli’s empty boba cup.
the boat moves, ever so slowly, down the lake. maybe it’s been moving, but yanqing only really notices now. all this beauty, but maybe yunli outshines the flickering fireflies and the thin, rolling fog and the hanging vines and the whistle of the wind and the way the sunlight peeks through the trees like little rays of heaven. maybe he needs to stop waxing poetic. maybe he wasn’t a poet before she came along.
maybe she looks at him, and his heart stops.
yunli shifts, ever closer, and the light grazes over her face. maybe she’s shining, wordlessly, she places a hand on yanqing’s cheek. yanqing smiles at the touch, and maybe he’s never felt fonder.
yunli leans in, pressing a kiss to yanqing’s lips. her lips are a bit wet, courtesy of the makeup and that way she always licks her lips, then bites them, as a nervous tic. but nevertheless, her lips are warm, and they’re hers.
yanqing winds a finger into her hair, and she presses him against the edge of the boat. they pull away to take a breath, and yunli gasps a little, then giggles. she smiles at him, sweet like golden kiwis. her thumb darts to his lips, wiping at them. he thinks that maybe she doesn’t get what she’s trying to get off, which is why she starts laughing like she’s at a comedy show and he’s the comedian. he thinks that maybe he’s never been in love before but if it doesn’t feel like this, he doesn’t want it.
“what?”
“stained—hehe! stained ya’ lips.” her laughs taper off into chuckles. she leans her forehead against his, and her breath doesn’t really smell all that great, but yanqing doesn’t mind.
“i feel like you were trying to do that.” he retorts, grinning, and yunli grins back.
“caught me.”
“you’re getting arrested now.”
“oh no!” they both burst into giggles, and yanqing pulls her in for another kiss, and maybe yanqing loves her.
because yanqing is ever so eloquent, he expresses this realization.
“i love you.”
it’s a whisper, and maybe yunli doesn’t hear, because she doesn’t say anything.
yanqing blinks his eyes open, and—
oh, LAN.
yunli looked down at him, eyes big and cheeks quickly tinting pink like her lips and the lasting eyeshadow from her party.
“you love me?” she asks, and for a moment yanqing is scared, maybe it’s just a little too much, just a little too soon.
but then yunli breaks out into a smile, sheer joy painting her face, and she kisses him again.
and maybe she loves him too, under fading sunlight and the quiet chirp of birds and the clearing of a throat.
wait—what?
yunli pulls away, and yanqing notices that one of her legs was right next to his thigh, which is how she got so close in the first place, which really just makes the moment more incriminating.
dan heng, march 7th, and stelle all stand there. dan heng stares blankly, presumably the one who cleared his throat. march 7th blinks, then snickers. stelle—the worst of them all, why does yanqing ever have faith in her?—doubles over in laughter, hand on dan heng’s shoulder to stabilize herself.
yunli blinks—oh shit, she hasn't met the astral express crew yet—then frowns, looking back. she shifts closer to yanqing—not helping, yunli!—placing a hand on his leg. he’s pretty sure his face is bright red right now.
“can i help you?” she asks, dully. as elegant as she is, gorgeous even, she doesn’t like being interrupted. yanqing doesn’t know how he feels being the object of her obsession, but the burning on his cheeks seems to indicate it’s a good thing. yunli also doesn’t appreciate being laughed at, which yanqing can get behind.
stelle stops laughing somewhat, straightening and wiping her eyes. “we—” she snickers. “we were looking for yanqing. guess he’s busy.” she smirks at him.
yunli blinks, then looks at yanqing, then back at the trio, then back again. she jerks her head towards them. yanqing stares, then nods after a second. yunli moves aside and yanqing stumbles to his feet.
“n-no! not busy. not busy at all.” yanqing steps out of the boat—canoe—bad idea. his pants immediately get soaked up to his upper thigh. he gets out anyway, because there’s no use in getting back into the boat to dock it first, especially if he got yunli wet in the process.
yunli, in turn, rows the canoe back to the shore, because she is infinitely more intelligent than yanqing is. she ties it up to a tree trunk, getting out and smoothing out her skirt.
“right. i’ll be off. i’m bringing more strawberries next time.” yunli states, slowly inching away from the trio plus yanqing. her hand twitches and she looks over at dan heng’s polearm. “do you three like strawberries? yanqing does.”
“huh?”
march smiles in that big sister way. “oh, i love strawberries! thanks, miss yunli!”
yunli’s lips quirk. “…just yunli. goodbye.”
she promptly leaves and yanqing has to take a moment to fully recover from the past hour or so.
“soooo. yanqing! didn’t know you got—”
“my brain is fried. goodbye.”
“hey!”