Work Text:
Compiling information was one of Luo Ji’s strong suits. While his classmates would whine, drowning their sorrows in espresso shots and energy drinks, Luo Ji would finish all his assignments with a flourish. Numbers were just numbers, data was data.
But this was the first time that the information laid out in front of him was so… demeaning .
“Look at this!” Luo Ji grabs the closest victim, Qiao Yifan, and shoves him into a chair. “Are you seeing this? Isn’t this absolutely ridiculous???”
“Uh,” Qiao Yifan starts, staring at the rows of monitors and the whiteboard full of notes. “What am I seeing?”
“This!”
Through countless hours of research, one thing has been made incredibly clear to Luo Ji.
He was just a side character. Unimportant, forgotten, thrown in only to support the protagonists of the world.
Yifan squints at the screen. “Is this... a fanfiction website? Not that I know what that is, of course.”
“Yes!” Luo Ji starts clicking through tabs with the concentration of a madman. One innocent click on a link led him down an entire rabbit hole, and now all he can do is suffer. “Lots of self-insert fanfictions here, and if you go through these… ships, there’s a definite pattern.”
>Ye Qiu/Reader. 1127 results.
>Ye Xiu/Reader. 1103 results.
>Su Mucheng/Reader. 1045 results.
>Mo Fan/Reader. 967 results.
>Fang Rui/Reader. 906 results.
>Tang Rou/Reader. 879 results.
>An Wenyi/Reader. 539 results.
>Bao Rongxing/Reader. 531 results.
>Qiao Yifan/Reader. 517 results.
>Wei Chen/Reader. 328 results.
And finally….
>Luo Ji/Reader. 3 results.
“Three results! Only three! I mean, it’s a bit weird to think about, but why aren’t there a lot of fanfictions about me???”
“You seem popular enough though?” Yifan scrolls down, giving each fiction a quick glance. “There’s almost a thousand, um, fics, about you and Steam-”
“That! Is not at all important!” His face has to be embarrassingly red now, and the look on Yifan’s face wasn’t helping at all. Him and that- that brainless idiot? That brick-for-brains? The reason why he’s going through this mess in the first place? The imaginations of these people, being put to waste on… whatever that all is. “Just ignore all of those.”
“I think it’s kind of sweet.”
“I think that’s a you problem. Anyways - something is obviously wrong here, and I have to change that.” He grabs a stack of papers, the slam of it dropping in front of Yifan startling the young man. “And so, I created this.”
“The…” Yifan reads out loud, dragging out the words. “The Idiot’s Guide to Main Charactification?”
Luo Ji nods with intensity. His magnum-opus, the culmination of hours upon hours of stalking, his greatest guide yet. And he’s barely gotten started, the twenty pages of words only the beginning. “We’re main character material, Yifan. We don’t deserve this treatment! Or like, the lack of it.”
“I thought that you wouldn’t care about this kind of thing though? It doesn’t seem that important.”
“It’s not, but!”
An image of that stupid bun boy flashes through his mind, that infuriating grin - annoying! If this doesn’t work out, maybe he should start researching ways to get away with murder.
“But?”
“But I’m bored!” Very, very bored. That’s the reason. Of course. The next season wouldn’t start for a while, and although Luo Ji could use his time more responsibly, this was important! And so he grabs Yifan, his papers, and sets off. “The first, and most important step - building your ships.”
Target 1. Ye Xiu.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“What? It’s a great idea! If anybody would be the ‘main character’ in the novel we call life, it would be Ye Xiu.”
“Yeah but… doesn’t he already have a harem? That’s how most people seem to perceive it online.”
“Is that a problem?”
“What if they all come after you?”
“...Great point.”
Ye Xiu: Failed.
Target 2. Su Mucheng.
“Luo Ji, this might be a sensitive question, but are you really even into women?”
Su Mucheng: Failed.
Extra - Tang Rou: Failed.
Extra - Chen Guo: Failed.
Target 3. An Wenyi.
“H-Heyyyyyyyyy,” Luo Ji puts on what he hopes is his most attractive face - he spent a week third-wheeling Mo Fan and Mucheng’s drama watching ‘dates’ to study up. “How have you been? What are you… doing later?”
An Wenyi puts down his cup of coffee, brows furrowing in concern. “Are you okay?”
“Whaaa- fuck!” He attempts to bite his lip attractively, but that was a failure, and now Luo Ji can taste blood on his lips. “Fucking hell, uh, haha! I might be okay, but you sure are fine .”
“Do you need me to call an ambulance?”
“You don’t need to call an ambulance, but you can call out my name later tonight ♡~ “
The look on Wenyi’s face is not very reassuring. His eyes are wide open, mouth opening and closing in some sort of attempt to form words. Luo Ji’s face can’t even get more red than it already is, why did he think this was a good idea…
“Luo Ji,” An Wenyi finally says, after an incredibly long pause, “Are you being held hostage?”
Huh?????
“What kind of code is this? Blink twice if your life is in danger, blink three times if you’re being watched.”
“Haaaaaa…” Luo Ji plants his face on the glass table. Hopefully that can cool him down. “Just forget the last five minutes didn’t happen.”
An Wenyi: Failed.
Target 4. Qiao Yifan.
“I heard your attempt on Wenyi didn’t work,” Yifan giggles, reaching over to take another forkful of Luo Ji’s cake. “Better luck next time?”
“I don’t even want to think about it.” Luo Ji practically ran away afterwards, and the thought of even looking at An Wenyi anytime in the next week makes him want to hide. “That was the worst thing I have ever done in my life.”
“At least you tried, that could have also led to the best thing you’ve ever done in your life, am I right?” For some reason, Yifan’s face turns pink. “Aha…”
Uh… what?
“Yifan,” Luo Ji starts, “is there something you need to tell me?”
“Nope!”
Qiao Yifan: Failed.
Target 5. Mo Fan.
Mo Fan only gives Luo Ji a cursory glance, before shaking his head. “Don’t even think about it.”
Mo Fan: Failed.
“Luo Ji! There you are!” Fang Rui sprints across the room, wearing an ear-to-ear grin. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
That’s not good. Luo Ji sits down, bracing himself. “Uh, hi?”
Fang Rui all but leaps onto the couch, swinging his arm around Luo Ji. “I heard that you’ve been… laying on the moves.”
“Uh… huh.” Moves, plural? The only person he’s even tried flirting with was An Wenyi, and that went horribly wrong.
“You didn’t even ask me!” Fang Rui wrings his hands in exaggerated anguish, expression akin to a constipated chicken. “I’m an expert in this sort of stuff!”
“That’s a complete lie,” Wei Chen calls out from the corner. “He left Lin Jingyan on read for an entire week trying to come up with a smooth response, and Mo Fan won’t even give him the time of the day anymore.”
Luo Ji raises an eyebrow. Oh?
“Wh- That’s not true! Mo Fan talked to me yesterday! He even smiled!”
“He didn’t smile, he just didn’t frown .”
“It’s the same thing!”
“Keep dreaming, kid.”
These two… aren't of any help.
Extra - Fang Rui: Failed.
Extra - Wei Chen: Failed.
“And that,” Luo Ji finally says, “is how I got into this mess.”
“Wow.” Tang Ruo sighs, while Mucheng and Chen Guo laugh themselves to death. “I don’t even know why you would think that would work out.”
“It made sense!” Kinda.
The thought process was pretty simple.
- He wasn’t as popular as the rest of his Happy peers.
- Main characters are popular.
- To become popular, he would have to become the main character.
- Main characters have harems.
- If he wanted to become a main character, he would need a harem.
- It would be easiest to practice his harem gathering with his team.
… Maybe his correlations and causations got a little mixed up.
Mucheng clears her throat, finally done laughing - although she won’t stop smiling. “Luo Ji, you are so funny.”
“Thanks?”
“Actually,” Chen Guo says, pondering a little. “There’s a major flaw here.”
Ouch.
“You looked at a fanfiction website?”
“Correct.”
“And just the fanfiction website?”
Mucheng nods along. “Oh, yeah, I see what the problem would be.”
Now he was completely lost. This whole experience has been nothing but pain. “What am I missing now?”
“These kinds of websites attract certain types of people, and I don’t think those types of people would be fans of you.”
Mucheng just saying that with such a well meaning expression… “Damn, you didn’t have to do me like that.”
“Sorry, sorry, but see how Mo Fan has so many fics about him? That’s because he attracts people who write these sorts of things. But if you were to ask Happy fans during live games, or over the internet, I doubt Mo Fan would be considered more popular than someone like Wenyi or even Yifan.”
Tang Rou snorts. “So true.”
Hmm… Su Mucheng makes a great point. “So, where should I find ‘my people’?”
Chen Guo ruffles his hair. “Try the Glory wiki.”
Target ???
“Little Luo!” A cheerful voice rings out behind him, and oh no, Luo Ji needs to walk faster. “Hey, slow down a little!”
If he keeps walking, and doesn’t acknowledge the presence coming closer, then maybe everything will be okay.
“Aww, what’s wrong?”
Just keep walki- “Aah!”
Luo Ji lets out the most embarrassing yelp, as he gets lifted into the air.
“Little Luo, you’re so silly.” Rongxing blinks up innocently at him, as Luo Ji twists to glare at his attacker.
“And you- you’re so cringe .” Luo Ji kicks out his legs, trying to shimmy out of Rongxing’s grip. “Let me go already.”
“Want me to drop you?”
“No!”
“Then stop moving so much.” Rongxing’s grip around his waist gets even tighter. “Did you see that thing I sent you?”
“Against all my better judgement, yes. Unfortunately.”
“Great!” Ugh, the brightness of that dumb bun’s smile is killing him. “So, wanna try it out?”
“Try- wait.” Dread pools in his gut, and Luo Ji feels his neck go cold. “You! Are so! Annoying!”
Rongxing just laughs in return.
Bao Rongxing: Success.