Archive of Our Own

“So?” Jing Yuan asks eagerly the instant Dan Heng joins the call. “How was it? Your first day? You have to tell us everything that happened.”

“Nothing very interesting,” Dan Heng says absently, booting up High Cloud Kingdom to join their world. The only thing that surprised him was the sheer volume of people. He knew Berkeley was supposed to have thirty thousand undergraduates, but he didn’t process how big that number was until he saw all of them wandering around campus with him. “It’s a really big school.”

“Okay, but what did you do?” Jing Yuan presses.

“Just classes, mostly. It’s not something you’d like hearing about.”

“Everything,” Jing Yuan repeats, enunciating each syllable separately. In the background, Baiheng wheezes out a laugh.

“Come on,” Jingliu whines, and Dan Heng can practically see her pouting. “Let me live vicariously through you! My pópo won’t even let me eat dinner until she knows I’ve done all my homework. I can’t wait to get out of here and go to college.”

Dan Heng sighs, muffling his fondness with exasperation. “I like my statistics class,” he offers. “The professor seems very knowledgeable. He’s researching polling oversights right now and he said he likes designing studies.”

Jingliu groans. “Of course you like statistics. You’re a data science nerd.”

“What else did you want me to tell you?”

“The dirty secrets!”

“There aren’t any dirty secrets, Jingliu. I went to class. What more do you want?”

The telltale sound of the fifth participant joining the call interrupts him. Dan Heng cuts himself off. Luckily, no one seems to notice the sudden inconsistency because-

“Hey,” says Yingxing, and Dan Heng has to suppress a smile. He doesn’t know why, actually; there isn’t anyone around to see it, and even if there were, it’s not like smiling is that incriminating.

“Hi,” Dan Heng says. The rest of the call choruses in to join him.

“Yinyue was just telling us the dirty secrets about his first day at college,” Baiheng says.

“I was not!”

Yingxing’s laugh is a snort, a stupid snort that’s sort of obnoxious, but it’s infectious and soon everyone else is laughing too, even Dan Heng. Especially Dan Heng. “It was my first day, too, y’know,” Yingxing says, pouting. “How come no one’s asking about my dirty secrets?”

“You were late,” says Jing Yuan. “Our call starts at five.”

“I have class until five thirty!”

“Ditch!”

“Well, let me tell you about them now, at least,” Yinxing insists. He takes the group’s lack of protest as permission, apparently, because he doesn’t wait more than two seconds before launching into it. “So I have a roommate and she is the most annoying person I have ever had the great displeasure of meeting. I asked if she picked co-ed dorms to bring a boyfriend over and she held me in a headlock for twenty minutes while showing me pictures of her girlfriend.”

“Oh, right!” Baiheng’s voice rises in excitement. “Roommates! I forgot! Oh my god, Yinyue, do you have a roommate? Is he nice? Is he handsome?"

Dan Heng splutters. “I mean, he’s okay."

It’s the truth. His roommate, Luocha, is perfectly okay. He seems a little weird, but Dan Heng is sure that Luocha would call him weird too, so it’s fine. He has a microwave and a rice cooker. Dan Heng had nearly cried in relief when he saw them because Jing Yuan told him they might not have microwaves and rice cookers in college dorms.

“Oh, I get it,” Baiheng says sagely. “He’s within earshot and you don’t want to admit how hot he is while he can hear you.”

“No!”

Everyone on the call laughs.

Dan Heng groans. “Can you just log on already, please?”

“My classes went well, thanks for asking,” Yingxing grumbles. But within moments the fifth player is added to their lobby, and Yingxing’s character appears next to his own.

Dan Heng smiles as their world loads in. He sits in a foreign country at a foreign college and takes comfort in their High Cloud Kingdom server’s familiar pixelated surroundings. The treehouse Jing Yuan built as their first base. The better treehouse Yingxing made, that Baiheng burned down, that Yingxing rebuilt with stone interspersed in the tree trunk. The shrine Jingliu constructed to her favorite webtoon, reconstructed with their avatars’ faces replacing the original ones. His and Yingxing’s secret underground garden, buried beneath the sand.

The High Cloud Quintet. They’ve lasted nearly three years already. Dan Heng hopes, maybe selfishly, that they’ll last forever.

***

Dan Heng is just starting to think that maybe he’s got the hang of college life when he encounters Blade.

He’s standing by the gates into campus, the famous ones that get on all the brochures, counting the number of people that walk by. Random sampling. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Then Dan Heng calls out for the fifteenth person’s attention.

“Hey!”

The fifteenth person glances up. His eyes meet Dan Heng’s as he slips his headphones off, settling around his neck. His eyes are red and his hair would have been quite nice if it didn’t have a headphone dent in the middle. “Yes?”

Dan Heng stares at him. Then he remembers the clipboard in his hands and snaps out of it. “Sorry,” he says, clearing his throat. “Are you a student here?”

“Yes,” he says hesitantly. “Why?”

“I’m doing a survey. For a data science project. Can I survey you?”

“Okay.”

“Great. First question: on a scale of one to five, how much do you enjoy pineapple on pizza?”

He stares at him. Dan Heng shifts under his gaze and pretends to do something with his clipboard.

“What?” he asks finally.

“Pineapple on pizza.”

“…Four.”

Dan Heng makes a note. “Okay. On a scale of one to five, how economically conservative would you say you are?”

“What?”

“Economically conservative.”

He’s being stared at again. Dan Heng normally hates having any attention on him, but this isn’t entirely unpleasant. His eyes are red. Dan Heng thinks he already noticed that, but they’re very red. Dan Heng’s mind wanders from the headphone dent in his hair to his headphones around his neck to oh wow he has a really nice jawline.

“Two.”

Dan Heng nearly forgot the question. Thank fuck for the clipboard in his hands because he just writes down a two and nods. “That’s all. Thanks.”

He doesn’t leave. “You aren’t even going to ask for my name?”

“I don’t really need it.”

“Blade,” he says anyway. Dan Heng makes a mental note. He has a limited memory for names, but he also doesn’t know very many people, so he’ll probably remember it.

“Okay,” Dan Heng says. “Goodbye.” Then he leaves to find more people to ask about pineapple on pizza and economic conservatism and doesn’t think about Blade for the rest of the day.

***

“You’ll never guess what happened to me today,” Yingxing says, as he joins the call.

He’s early. Dan Heng is early too, because it’s seven AM in Xianzhou but it’s the afternoon for him. Well, he says they’re early. It’s more like everyone else is late. Sleeping in, probably.

“What happened?” Dan Heng asks.

“A guy came up to me and asked me the weirdest survey questions I’ve ever heard. It was so confusing.”

Dan Heng smiles as he loads their server. It’s just him and Yingxing, running around the grass near the treehouse entrance. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss survey questions. I was surveying people today, in fact. Maybe he was just a statistics nerd.”

“I don’t think anyone besides you is a statistics nerd.”

“If that were true, I wouldn’t have a statistics professor.”

Yingxing huffs. His character aims a fire arrow at Dan Heng’s feet. The grass catches fire but Dan Heng evades him quickly.

“You’ll never get me like that,” Dan Heng says, matter-of-fact, as he extinguishes the fire.

“Don’t rub it in,” Yingxing groans. Dan Heng imagines that if he were in the room, he’d be draping himself dramatically over Luocha’s pink loveseat with its five equally pink cushions. “I swear I’ll get you someday. I’m off my game today. This school is so fucking weird.”

In the three years Dan Heng has known the Quintet, Yingxing has been by far the most secretive. They had all been reserved initially. Dan Heng took a year to admit he lived in the Luofu province. But Yingxing is even more extreme, offering only fragments of information. His family is from Xianzhou; he lives in America; he speaks Mandarin at home and with the Quintet but English everywhere else; he’s going into mechanical engineering; he’s into men.

Dan Heng had nearly choked when he found out that last one. He’s the same, sort of. He’s into a man, singular. He’s into Yingxing. Has been for the better part of two years. But he barely knows anything about Yingxing, ultimately, so he’s never acted on it.

All that being said, opportunities like this are few and far between. Dan Heng sees it and, against his better judgment, takes it.

“Your school?” he asks carefully. “I remember your college search. Is it one of those?”

“Yeah. The weird one.”

“All of your colleges were weird.”

Yingxing snorts. Dan Heng wants to soundboard that obnoxious laugh and play it all the time, play it whenever he’s down and keep it close to his heart. “You considered them all too,” he points out. “And you ended up coming here for college. So they can’t be that weird.”

A year ago, Dan Heng bought the same college book as Yingxing, just for one more reason to talk to him. He hadn’t actually considered any American colleges before that. He thought he’d just stay in Xianzhou his whole life, until he bought that book. He never told anyone, but he gets the feeling Yingxing knows it was all about him anyway.

Returning to their game, Dan Heng sets off toward a stream to refill his water bucket. “I’m not averse to weird,” he says. “If I were, I wouldn’t hang around with you , Yingxing.”

“Hey!”

The grass beneath him catches flame again. Dan Heng laughs, exhilarated, and jumps around every flame thrown his way, dodging and weaving all the way to the water. Yingxing calls after him, chasing relentlessly until they both run into the stream. Dan Heng is so breathless with laughter by the end that he nearly drowns.

***

Dan Heng makes friends. He doesn’t really know how or why it happens. One day he is alone in the lecture hall and the next day there is March, sitting next to him like she’s been there forever and will be there forevermore.

“Hi,” she says, as she sits down. “I’m March! I’m pretty bad at stats so I really need someone to help me out in this class. You don’t look that scary so I thought I’d sit with you. I’m from San Diego but I like Berkeley a lot already even though it’s colder. Do you like fusion food? I really like sushirritos, which is weird because I normally don’t like sushi or burritos all that much. I prefer quesadillas. Anyway, what’s your name?”

“I’m Dan Heng,” says Dan Heng. “I’m from the Luofu province of Xianzhou.” Then, after processing her words, “I’ve never had a burrito.”

March’s jaw drops. After the lecture she drags Dan Heng two blocks down the street to a Mexican restaurant and buys him a burrito. And just like that, Dan Heng has a friend.

“I made friends,” Dan Heng informs the Quintet, several days later.

“No way,” says Jing Yuan. “You learned to talk to people?”

“Hey, Yinyue’s pretty social,” says Baiheng in his defense. She is wrong, of course, but Dan Heng appreciates the sentiment anyway.

“No, I’m not,” Dan Heng says. “That’s why I’m pretty proud that I made friends.”

“Friends?” Jing Yuan says skeptically. “Plural?”

“Yes. I made one friend. Then she took me to her dorm to watch a movie and I’m friends with her friends now.”

Baiheng, bless her heart, hums in approval. “So how did it go?”

“One of them passed out upon seeing me and I almost had to give him CPR. He said it was because I was too pretty and it was a shame I didn’t give him mouth to mouth.”

“Damn, Yinyue,” says Yingxing, just appreciative enough that Dan Heng’s heart speeds up, makes his fingers falter on the keyboard. “Maybe it’s about time you show me your face, then.”

“No.”

“That’s fine,” Yingxing says, a little too easily. “Send me a photo of something else of yours instead.”

Dan Heng splutters. He barely manages to leap out of the newly-flaming grass before his character runs out of hearts.

“Shame.” Yingxing clicks his tongue. “I almost had you.”

Dan Heng eats seven apples to heal. He wonders if Yingxing knows he’s had him this whole time.

***

“You okay, Dan Heng?”

Dan Heng tears his eyes away from the person sitting by the window of the restaurant. March comes back into focus. Her head is tilted in curiosity and there’s a smudge of guacamole on her nose. “I’m fine,” he says. “Just got distracted.”

March turns around to look with absolutely zero discretion. Her eyes wander for a moment before she locks in on a target. She turns back to Dan Heng with a wicked grin. “I get it now,” she sings, teasing. “You saw a hot guy. He’s got the whole dark-mysterious-handsome-bad-boy thing going on. Didn’t know you were into that.”

Dan Heng feels his face heat up. “I’m not into that.”

“Uh huh. Sure.”

“I’m into smart guys,” Dan Heng says unthinkingly. “Math smart. Maybe science smart. Mechanical engineering smart. With a nice voice and quick reaction time.”

March stares at him blankly. She hasn’t noticed the guacamole on her nose yet. “Very specific,” she says, grin returning with a vengeance. “You have someone in mind already, huh?”

“There’s guacamole on your nose.”

March sticks out her tongue and wipes it off with her napkin. “Stop stalling,” she whines. “Go talk to him already, I know you want to.”

With some surprise, Dan Heng notices he does want to. So he side-eyes March the perfunctory amount, then approaches the window, where Blade sits alone eating a plate of chile rellenos.

“Hi, Blade,” Dan Heng says. He takes a seat on the stool next to him.

Blade glances over and raises one eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t need my name.”

“You remember me?”

“‘Course I do. It’s sort of hard to forget being surveyed by some weirdo about pineapple on pizza and economics.”

“Self-described economic conservatism,” Dan Heng corrects. “And I already told you, it’s for a data science project.”

Blade looks at him strangely. He sets down his fork. “So statistics nerds are real,” he says, sounding amused. “Let me guess. You’re a data science major and you’re from Luofu and you play High Cloud Kingdom.”

“I am, actually,” Dan Heng says, a little taken aback. “I love High Cloud.”

Blade’s eyes widen dramatically, though the effect is dampened by the uneven bangs partially obscuring his face.

“My name’s Dan Heng. What’s yours?”

“You already know mine,” he mutters, but then says, “Blade. Mechanical engineering.”

Dan Heng makes a mental note and tries not to look at March giving him a thumbs up from her table. “There was a correlation,” he says instead. “Between pineapple on pizza and economic conservatism. So the questions weren’t pointless.”

“I never said they were,” Blade says. He eats another bite of chile relleno.

Dan Heng stares at his plate. “You pre-cut all the bites?”

“More efficient that way,” he says, without looking up. “I do all the cutting, then all the eating. Doesn’t really work the other way with this thing.” He holds up his left hand. It’s bandaged thoroughly. Dan Heng winces.

“How did you injure it?”

“I punched a kid’s face in,” he says, smiling wryly. “The doctor says it’s probably worse ‘cause I game too much. Stress injury in addition to the regular injury.”

“Oh.”

Blade nods. He eats another bite. Across the restaurant, March gives him a shrug.

“Please don’t punch my face in,” Dan Heng says.

Blade grins. His smile is the perfect mixture of disconcerting and comforting and Dan Heng feels a little queasy but in kind of a nice way. “I probably won’t.”

“Alright. Thanks.”

That feels like enough, so Dan Heng leaves and goes to sit with March again. She looks absolutely giddy as he takes his seat again, and ignores her grilled shrimp quesadilla in favor of leaning forward to question him.

“So?” asks March urgently. “What’s his name? Is he single? Did you get his number?”

Dan Heng blinks. “I was supposed to get his number?”

March stares at him. The light leaves her eyes.

“He’s in mechanical engineering,” Dan Heng helpfully adds. March smacks her head into the table and groans.

***

“I met a guy from Xianzhou at my school,” Yingxing tells him, as he’s in the midst of decimating a game of online solitaire. Dan Heng doesn’t actually know how to play solitaire, but he’s watching Yingxing’s screen and Yingxing says he’s winning, so he’s probably winning. “From Luofu, actually. So you can’t be that weird, Yinyue.”

Dan Heng feels his mouth twist slightly. “I’m not weird.”

“Yes, you are,” Yingxing says plainly. “He’s in data science, too. For a minute I thought I found your soulmate.”

Soulmate. Dan Heng hopes that his microphone doesn’t pick up the sound of him swallowing thickly. “I don’t know,” he breathes, wondering, not for the first time, if Yingxing knows how badly Dan Heng wants him already. Wondering if he’s known all along. “Maybe you did.”

***

“Where are we going?”

Dan Heng likes Caelus and Stelle just fine. They’re a bit strange, but Dan Heng doesn’t mind. Caelus frequently proclaims that his one true love is Dan Heng; Stelle’s one true love is trash cans. But he does mind when they’re dragging him down an unfamiliar hallway during his free afternoon toward a class he’s never been to.

“Physics building,” March answers cheerily, as if she’s not directing their effort of pulling him down the hallway unwillingly. “We’re finding your man!”

“My what?”

“Your man,” Stelle repeats. “The one in mechanical engineering.”

They must mean Yingxing, Dan Heng thinks, bewildered. “How did you even know about him?”

“March told us.”

They come to an abrupt halt before a door. March peeks her head in, then points at the third row. “Right there,” she whispers. “Fourth seat from the end.”

Dan Heng frowns. But he peeks in anyway, and—oh. Right. Obviously they meant Blade. Not Yingxing. How would they know about Yingxing? He’s careful to only call the Quintet when Luocha is out of the dorm, which is… most of the time, actually. Besides, the Quintet all speak Mandarin. March probably couldn't understand them, even if she was around somehow.

“Go get him!”

“What?” Dan Heng asks, but then someone (Stelle) shoves him through the door of the lecture hall. Dan Heng stumbles into the room with wide eyes, but the trio have already vanished by the time he turns around.

It feels like the whole class is looking at him. He knows they’re not, that most of them are just waiting for the lecture, but still. His eyes fall on Blade.

To hell with it. Dan Heng crosses the room and sits next to him.

“Dan Heng,” Blade greets, somehow looking unsurprised. “Do you have another weird survey question for me?”

“No,” Dan Heng says, then remembers. “Actually, I do.”

Blade smiles. His smile is… nice. His mouth is nice. His eyes are nice. His hair is nice without the headphone dent. “Alright. What’s it about this time?”

“Can I get your number?”

Blade blinks. Then his smile widens into a grin, teeth and all. “Wow. Did you come all the way to my class just to drop that line?”

“Please don’t answer a question with a question.”

His expression doesn’t falter. “Give me your phone.” Dan Heng does. Blade creates himself a contact, adds his phone number to Dan Heng’s contacts and saves his name as a knife emoji and a red heart without any words. Dan Heng might complain that it’s confusing, except that he doesn’t have that many contacts so it’s not. He’d know it’s Blade, anyway.

Dan Heng texts him a quick Hello. Blade opens his own phone, gives Dan Heng the contact page.

“You already know my name,” Dan Heng says, handing it back.

Blade frowns. He switches to a different keyboard. “This one, then.”

It’s a Mandarin keyboard. Dan Heng smiles a little as he types the pinyin of his name, selecting the corresponding characters. He’s grown so used to seeing just Dan Heng, not his given name, that it’s refreshing.

Blade glances at it as he gives it back. “You prefer your first and last name, right?"

Dan Heng nods. “Why’d you have that keyboard downloaded?”

Blade looks at him blankly. “I’m from Xianzhou, too. Or at least, my family is.”

“Oh,” says Dan Heng, like an idiot. He doesn’t know how he didn’t put those pieces together. Blade could read his name. Obviously he knows Mandarin. He even saw WeChat on Blade’s phone, for fuck’s sake. “I didn’t know.”

“You thought my mom woke up and went, Yeah, I want to name my kid ‘Blade’ to keep up the family legacy of weird-ass names?”

“I don’t know. I’d never even been outside of Luofu before coming here. I don’t really know how things work here.”

“It’s not that different,” Blade says, kicking his feet back as the lights in the room go dim and the professor steps up. “If you want to leave, you should leave now.”

Dan Heng doesn’t have any interest in physics, really, but he does have an interest in continuing to sit where he’s sitting. So he doesn’t move. He watches Blade take notes with his right hand and wonders if he can even write with his left. Blade’s thigh presses against his in the narrow lecture seats. He’s warm. Dan Heng is usually cold. He’s never minded being cold but he doesn’t mind that Blade runs warm, either.

“So you’ve never been to the states before now?” Blade asks as he slides his notebook back into his bag, after the lecture finishes. “Not at all?”

Dan Heng shakes his head.

“Have you gone into the city yet?”

“No.”

Blade’s eyebrows fly into his hair. “Okay,” he says firmly. “Tomorrow I’m taking you. We’re going to the ferry building and we’re getting dinner together.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” Blade says, like it’s obvious. “Meet me outside Towle Hall at five.”

Dan Heng should really say no. His idea of a good night out is one where he doesn’t go out at all. Besides, the town around Berkeley is fine. He doesn’t need to cross the bay. But still, there’s something incredibly persuasive about Blade’s eyes.

“Alright,” he says, a little breathy. “I’ll see you there.”

Blade just nods as he leaves the classroom. Dan Heng stands there and watches him go with his heart racing and wonders what he’s gotten himself into.

***

Luocha is rarely around. Dan Heng has grown so used to ignoring his imaginary presence that aside from his microwave and his rice cooker and his pink loveseat with five pink cushions, he sometimes forgets Luocha technically lives there, too. So when the door opens while Dan Heng has the entirety of his limited closet strewn out on his bed, he jumps.

“It’s just me,” Luocha says, sounding amused. “Really now, who else could it be?”

Dan Heng forces himself to calm down and not feel like an idiot. “I was distracted.”

“Clearly.” Luocha hangs up his coat and peers over to Dan Heng’s side. They have a paper screen dividing the middle of the room, but it’s somewhat ineffective because Luocha is about eight centimeters taller than the top of it. “Cleaning your closet out already? It’s nowhere near new year yet, you know.”

“I’m not cleaning,” Dan Heng says. He barely has any clothing that isn’t necessary, anyway. “I’m trying to pick an outfit.”

Luocha’s eyes widen in understanding. A smile stretches out across his face. His mouth is thin. It’s a little disconcerting. “Ah. The classic pre-date anxiety. Really now, Dan Heng, you’re gorgeous no matter what you wear. Don’t worry yourself.”

Dan Heng scans his face for insincerity and doesn’t find any. “Thanks?”

Silence falls as Dan Heng sifts through the pile again, putting aside his lighter shirts. Too cold. He overestimated how warm California would be. He should probably buy another sweater.

“Fine,” Luocha sighs dramatically, out of nowhere. “I hear you silently pleading for my fashion expertise, and it pains my bleeding heart. Please, allow me to offer my assistance.”

Dan Heng hesitates. But he could probably use a second opinion, so. “Okay.”

Luocha immediately comes to his bed and sweeps half of his clothing to the side. “No,” he says by way of explanation. Then he riffles through Dan Heng’s sweaters at record speed, pulling out three of them with a contemplative frown. A green buttoning cardigan, a white knit turtleneck sweater, and a pink silk robe.

Dan Heng frowns at the robe. “I didn’t think I owned that.”

“You do now,” Luocha says, with a smile that is trying to be charming but ends up rather threatening. “You’re right, though, it’s not quite what you’re going for. Try this one.”

Thus begins Luocha’s reign of terror over his wardrobe. Dan Heng catches the white shirt thrown at him and resigns himself.

***

“You look nice,” Blade says, when Dan Heng reaches the dorm building Blade requested to meet him at.

“Thanks,” says Dan Heng. Luocha had been a merciless fiend, but he eventually settled for the green cardigan and Dan Heng’s only pair of jeans. “My roommate looked through my entire closet and made me try on half my sweaters. I’m glad it wasn’t a futile effort.”

Blade looks at him with a crooked half-smile. “It kind of was. You look nice in everything, as far as I can tell.”

Dan Heng feels himself warming up against the cold and wonders if he actually needs another sweater or if he just needs to keep Blade around. “He said something similar.”

“At least your roommate has sense,” Blade mutters darkly. "Mine, on the other hand…” He starts walking; Dan Heng gets the hint and follows alongside him toward the train stop. Toward uncharted territory. It would be terrifying, were it not for the oddly comforting presence beside him. “She’s a public nuisance. A menace to society.”

Dan Heng huffs a breathless laugh. “Really?”

And he listens as Blade goes on an impassioned rant about his roommate, Kafka, a literature major who plays violin loudly and passionately at unholy hours and waxes poetic about her girlfriend daily and makes him cook nearly every night. Dan Heng finds himself watching Blade’s face instead of the sidewalk and nearly trips on the concrete.

They reach the stop quickly. The train ride, too, is fairly uneventful. It’s much louder than the trains he’s seen in Xianzhou, high-speed rails that approached with the silence of a deadly assassin. This train is more like a lumbering pixiu announcing its presence. A friendly beast.

Dan Heng tells Blade as much, and he frowns. “Is it really that loud?” he asks. “I grew up next to a train station, so I guess I wouldn’t know. We’d have to pause the TV every time a train went by.”

“A train station? Like freight trains?”

Blade snorts. “No. Passenger trains. They only have freight in, like, the Midwest.”

Dan Heng doesn’t know where the Midwest is. He thought California was the west already. But he doesn’t have time to ask, because Blade is pulling on his arm to stand. Apparently, this is their stop. It’s underground. Dan Heng follows him onto the escalator with mild trepidation.

The instant he emerges, it’s clear they’ve entered another world entirely. The glimmering skyscrapers are no surprise. No, the real spectacle is the illuminated white tower before them, a great clock tower beyond which lies nothing but water. The tower lights glimmer in their reflection, like a glorified version of the city preserving its radiance.

Blade must notice Dan Heng staring because he spreads his arms as if to encompass everything and smiles. “Welcome to San Francisco, Dan Heng.”

Dan Heng drinks in the radiance of the city at sundown with wide eyes.

“Come on,” Blade says, grabbing his hand, and Dan Heng is powerless to resist as Blade leads him down the street, towards the white tower that Dan Heng barely registers as the ferry building, towards the shimmering water and resplendent color of everything around him. Everything is so beautiful and vibrant and beautiful and breathtaking and beautiful and Blade is—

Oh.

And Dan Heng thinks Blade is—

“You alright?”

Dan Heng belatedly realizes that he’s stopped in his tracks. Blade’s eyes catch the sunlight as he turns his head, dyeing them almost orange. Like fire. Fire right beneath his feet, burning away at his heart until it’s too late. “Yes,” Dan Heng breathes. “I’m more than alright.”

***

“And then we went to a restaurant and got oysters,” Dan Heng recounts. He takes a long sip of his boba tea. It’s a little too sweet but he doesn’t particularly want to tell the staff.

March’s straw falls out of her mouth, splashing back into her lemonade. "And then?"

“And then we took the train back and I went to bed.”

“Ah,” Stelle says knowingly, wriggling her eyebrows. “To his bed, I presume.”

Dan Heng nearly chokes on a boba pearl. “No!” He clears his throat, trying to maintain both his dignity and his ability to breathe. “I walked Blade to his dorm. Then I went back to my own dorm and went to sleep.”

“And nothing happened in his dorm?” Stelle asks.

Dan Heng frowns slightly. “Why do you keep asking?”

“Oysters,” she says simply. “Best known aphrodisiac. Sends a message to have oysters on the first date.”

“Oh.” In truth, he had been the one to request the oysters. Blade read a list of restaurants in the area and Dan Heng chose seafood without knowing there were any implications. He clears his throat again, this time completely independent of the boba. “I don’t think it was a date.”

March groans, slamming her hands down on the table. “I’m done. Done, Dan Heng. Never helping you again.”

“Okay.”

“You’re supposed to be upset about that.”

“I’m not,” Dan Heng says. “Do you want another lemonade?”

March scoffs. “Don’t think you're off the hook yet, you little barbecue sauce packet,” she hisses, but hands him the empty cup for a refill anyway. “Are you going to go out with him again?”

“Yes.”

March nearly drops the lemonade as he hands it to her.

Dan Heng frowns. “What’s so surprising about that? I enjoyed going out with him. I’d like to do it again. Isn’t that a natural response?”

“You enjoyed going out with him,” Stelle repeats flatly. “And you’d like to do it again.”

“Yes.”

“And it wasn’t a date.”

“Correct.”

March just sighs. “Good thing I already said I wouldn’t help him, huh?”

Stelle glares at her. “Well, I don’t want to do all the heavy lifting either! And Caelus refuses to acknowledge that Dan Heng went on a date with someone that wasn’t him, so he’s out of the question too.”

“It wasn’t a date,” says Dan Heng again. “And I can’t make it to dinner on Wednesday. Blade says his roommate is going out and he wants me to pick a movie. Do you think the school library has wò hǔ cáng lóng? The director’s cut?”

March throws her straw at him.

“You can always pirate it,” Stelle adds helpfully. March, out of straws, jabs her in the side with her elbow.

***

He wasn’t lying, when he said he’d like to do it again. Blade’s company is pleasant. He seems to have something to say about everything, and though Dan Heng doesn’t always have something to argue in response, he likes listening.

So Blade watches wò hǔ cáng lóng with him and they both cry. Then Blade makes gnocchi with pesto and revels in the fact that his roommate is gone.

“Isn’t it the same thing with me?” Dan Heng asks. “You ended up cooking anyway, even though she’s not here.”

Blade shrugs. “Yeah, but I like you. So I don't mind.”

“Oh,” says Dan Heng. His face feels warm. He eats another bite of gnocchi and hopes Blade doesn’t notice, but judging by the way Blade half-smiles, it’s probably futile. “That’s good.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Blade says. “‘Cause Kafka says the garlic I use is too strong, but I like it this way. Do you think it could use more pine nuts?”

“I meant that you like me.”

Blade’s eyebrows disappear into his bangs. He sets down his fork.

“The pesto is good too,” Dan Heng adds quickly, to which Blade only laughs and gives him a smile that’s a little too fond for people who’ve only known each other a month. Dan Heng doesn’t give himself time to wonder, though, because Blade is already talking about the movie, about love stories wrapped up in the guise of chivalry, about long-forgotten pasts and incredible duels, and Dan Heng loves that movie but he loves it even more in Blade’s voice.

And so it goes. Dan Heng has a university meal plan, but whenever Blade texts him asking if he wants to try a new shakshuka recipe, or help him wrap three treasures dumplings, or finish Kafka’s weird chia seed pudding concoctions, he goes. Sometimes he gets roped into watching movies, too. Blade thinks it’s a crime he hasn’t seen Casablanca; Dan Heng wrangles him into seeing Raise The Red Lantern with much difficulty.

Dan Heng likes their arrangement very much. The only problem is the allegations. Luocha laughs at him every time he leaves and tells him to have fun with his loverboy. Caelus sends crying emojis every time he says he can’t make it to dinner. And now—

“Yinyue,” Jingliu sings, mischievous. “Do you have a boyfriend?"

Dan Heng doesn’t even let it catch him off guard. “No,” he says, already feeling tired. “I’ve told you a thousand times, my roommate is perfectly average and I don’t—"

“Not him! The new guy.”

“What new guy?”

“The one who got you to watch a movie in English?"

Dan Heng frowns as he boots up High Cloud. “How did you know that? Did Jing Yuan tell you?”

“No,” Jing Yuan says, sounding affronted. Too much so. Suspicious. “I’d never tell your secrets, much less to someone like Jingliu.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Calm down,” says Baiheng, ever the reasonable one. “We have to focus on the task at hand. Interrogating Yinyue.”

Never mind. Dan Heng hopes her avatar trips over a cobblestone and dies.

The call join sound resounds in Dan Heng’s headphones. A new voice asks, “Doing what?”

“Ah, Yingxing,” Baiheng greets. “Just in time. We’re about to interrogate Yinyue about his boyfriend. The one who got him to watch an English movie.”

“I told you already, he’s not my boyfriend,” Dan Heng says, heading toward the forest to hunt down some malefic apes for materials. “He’s nice, so I watched one of his favorite movies with him. I made him watch Raise The Red Lantern with me, so it’s only fair.”

"Raise The Red Lantern?" Yingxing repeats, uncharacteristically quiet.

“He’s down bad,” Baiheng declares. “No one likes that movie except you, Yinyue. He must like you a lot.”

“It’s a classic.”

“My pópo likes it,” says Jingliu flatly. “That should tell you enough about your tastes.”

“He speaks Mandarin,” Dan Heng defends, running back and forth to signal the other members to come to the forest with him. “So he understood it just fine. Anyway, Yingxing, will you come with me?”

“Wait,” Yingxing blurts. “What movie did he make you watch?”

“He didn’t make me watch anything,” Dan Heng grumbles, but then clarifies, “Casablanca. Why, do you like it as well?”

Silence.

“You’re muted, Yingxing,” Jing Yuan says.

All of a sudden, Yingxing’s character appears next to his, moving toward the forest alongside him. “He must have good taste.”

“He does,” Dan Heng says unthinkingly. “I enjoyed the movie very much. He cooks, too. He made three treasures dumplings with eggplant instead of prawns. I thought I wouldn’t like them, but they were delicious.”

He can practically hear the grin in Yingxing’s voice. “I meant he must have good taste because he likes you."

Jing Yuan whistles slowly. “Yingxing, if Yinyue’s man makes him more dumplings, you might have to back off.”

To his surprise, Yingxing just laughs. Strangely enough, he doesn’t snort, like usual. This laugh is breathier, lighter. “I don’t think I’ll have to worry about that, actually.”

Dan Heng feels his face flaming and stays silent.

“So, Yinyue?” asks Jingliu impatiently. “Do you like him or what?”

Dan Heng plans to respond, as usual, with a resounding ‘no’. He’s never had difficulty doing that before. With anyone else. But he thinks of Blade, of his voice and his hair and his cooking and his smile, and says, “I don’t know.”

Silence. Then, after a long, fragile pause, Jing Yuan says, “Why don’t you tell us about him?”

Not you too, Dan Heng thinks wryly, but they deserve to know, and besides, he’s already told Jing Yuan about watching the movie. Might as well. “He’s nice. He cooks a lot. He told me he can cook anything. I don’t know if I believe him yet. He supposedly hates his roommate but he 3D-printed a planter for her houseplants.”

More silence. He stumbles into a malefic ape and spams jump until Yingxing runs over and sets up a strike for him.

In the end, it’s Jingliu who blurts, “Is he hot?”

Dan Heng’s fingers slip and he left-clicks on accident. The malefic ape nearly kills him.

“We were all thinking it,” she mumbles defensively. “Gotta know this kind of stuff.”

Dan Heng clears his throat as he eats apples from his inventory. “He’s certainly not bad-looking… hey, why aren’t these healing me as much as usual?”

“My bad,” Yingxing says, a little too guilt-free. It’s only then that Dan Heng glances down and notices the forest floor aflame beneath his feet, dealing extra damage.

“You’re kidding,” Dan Heng deadpans, as he extinguishes it and eats yet another apple.

Yingxing laughs. “I almost had you. Kinda wish you were thinking about me instead of him, though.”

Maybe Dan Heng would be, if Yingxing would show him his face already. “Don’t worry about the dumplings,” Dan Heng says instead, as he gathers the malefic ape’s drops. “He’s horrible at wrapping them.”

Yingxing hums. “If that’s all that stands in between him and you," he says, "I guess he’ll just have to practice.”

***

Winter sets in quickly. Dan Heng heard that California was warm and had packed accordingly. But Berkeley is neither warm nor cold by Xianzhou standards. It hovers in a perpetual limbo between twelve and twenty-two degrees. Dan Heng didn’t know this. He heard ‘warm’ and thought twenty-five. So when November rolls around, Dan Heng arrives at Blade’s dorm in a cotton button-up that does nothing to combat the chill lingering in the air.

“You came here in that?” Blade asks bluntly. He’s in the kitchen, which used to be a countertop but has been forcefully converted into a kitchen by Blade’s sheer determination. He has an electric burner and a toaster oven to make up for the countertop’s critical fault of not being an actual kitchen.

“I did.” There’s an empty spot on the shoe rack for him, which makes him feel more than a little strange. It’s overwhelmingly pleasant. “What’s wrong? Is it a bad color or something?”

“You look cold.”

“You said you were making suān là tāng and I certainly won't be cold after that,” Dan Heng points out. He plunks his bag down on the counter next to him. “I brought the other ingredients.”

Blade glances over at them, then nods. “Text me later, I’ll pay you back. Cut them up?”

“Alright,” Dan Heng says, doing his best to avoid looking at Blade’s bandaged hand. It’s improving, probably. He doesn’t really know. In any case, it’s probably best to keep him away from knives for the time being. Blade seems content to watch over the soup, and Dan Heng feels useful, at least a little, as he slices up the mushrooms and bamboo shoots.

As he moves on to the pork, Dan Heng gives in to his overwhelming curiosity and asks, “Why did you punch them?”

Blade huffs a sad-sounding laugh, more a sigh than anything. “Took you long enough to ask,” he says quietly. “This girl said some transphobic shit to my cousin Silver Wolf. So I punched her. Broke her nose. Then she pulled a switchblade and sliced off half my fingers.”

“Oh,” says Dan Heng, for want of a better response. He glances down at the knife in his own hands and has to suppress a wince. “Do you… get in a lot of fights?”

Blade laughs for real this time, rich and hearty. “No. That was the only one. I’m a goody-fucking-two-shoes most of the time.”

Dan Heng finishes cutting the pork in silence. He offers the cutting board, which Blade takes with a small hum of acknowledgment. They both stand over the soup pot on the electric burner, watching steam rise.

“Are you going home over fall break?” Blade asks eventually.

“No,” Dan Heng says. “It’s a long way. And I don’t like my family very much.”

“Do you miss Luofu?”

Dan Heng mulls this over. Does he? In Luofu he had an oppressive family and a rigid schedule and no friends save for the Quintet. Here, he has a schedule that he chose. He has a fascinating statistics professor. He has March and Stelle and Caelus. He has evenings free to spend with Blade. He has a good thing going here. Better than ever before.

“Not really, no.”

Blade exhales harshly. It messes up the steam rising from the soup. “I’ve never been to Xianzhou,” he says. “Always wanted to go, though. Maybe you can take me someday.”

He doesn’t particularly love Xianzhou, but if it were with Blade, Dan Heng doesn’t think he would mind going back. “Only if you take me where you grew up, too.”

“I already did.”

Dan Heng frowns. “You’ve only taken me to one place.”

“I know.”

Dan Heng recalls the city lights on the water and the glimmering white clock tower and his eyes widen. “You grew up there?"

“Well, not there, exactly,” Blade says, as he tips in the pork and bamboo shoots. “That’s downtown. I lived in the Sunset. Only neighborhood in the city where you can speak any Xianzhou dialect and never need to switch languages.”

“With anyone? In the whole neighborhood?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Blade grumbles, rolling his eyes. “You know I speak Mandarin. It’s not like I just happened to pick it up somewhere. My mom and my aunt use it.”

Dan Heng thinks, very briefly, of Yingxing, and wonders how common Xianzhou-speaking households are here. But he dismisses this thought quickly in favor of a more pressing concern: “If you’re fluent, why do you never speak Mandarin with me?”

Blade chokes on air.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Blade says, a bit too quickly. “I just—I sound pretty different when I talk in Mandarin. So it’s less confusing to just stick to one language.”

It’s not entirely convincing. But Dan Heng doesn’t care enough to fight this battle, not when it clearly makes Blade so uncomfortable. So he just glances down at the timer and says, “Isn’t it time to add the mushrooms?”

The soup does indeed keep Dan Heng from feeling cold. The bowl is warm in his hands and the soup is spicier than he thinks is warranted. Blade just laughs at him as he tips back the broth. The soup takes a while to cook, but Blade insists that they have time for a movie. He puts on some black-and-white mystery that’s probably famous and lets Dan Heng rest his head on a pillow in his lap and everything goes blurry as Dan Heng pulls the blanket up further and closes his eyes. He thinks he feels Blade’s hand combing through his hair, and then he’s gone.

***

Dan Heng wakes up in between sheets and has to blink himself awake for about two minutes before he realizes he’s in Blade’s bedroom.

He gets up and wanders into the hallway until he finds the living room. He takes comfort in the familiar surroundings until he notices there’s a woman dressed in all black by the toaster oven.

“Hello,” he says.

She turns around. “Hey,” she drawls, not sounding surprised. “Another one night stand, Bladie? You’re so cruel.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Blade grumbles, though his voice is muffled by the pillow his face is pressed into. He’s lying on the couch, facedown in the same cushion Dan Heng had fallen asleep on.

“What’s a one night stand?”

Blade lifts his head just to glare in the kitchen’s direction. “Don’t listen to her, Dan Heng.”

“Oh, this is Dan Heng.”

Dan Heng realizes that this must be the infamous roommate, Kafka. “Nice to meet you,” he says. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gone soon. I apologize for falling asleep.”

“Don’t apologize,” Blade says. “You have a lecture at nine, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Take this.”

Dan Heng catches the blur that’s thrown at him. He unfolds it. It’s a black-and-red patterned flannel.

“Wear it. You looked cold last night.”

He puts it on. It’s a little oversized, but fits comfortably over his shirt. It smells nice. He thinks it might be Blade’s conditioner. “Thanks.”

“Wow.” Kafka is leaning on the counter, staring at Dan Heng and half-smiling. “Too bad you have class. I’d love to ask you some questions.”

He gets the feeling that she means to be intimidating, but it’s not really working because Dan Heng is too tired to feel intimidated. “Okay,” he says, as he puts on his shoes. Then, “You should play violin for me too.”

Kafka’s eyes light up. Then her half-smile widens into a full grin. “I’m in love with him,” she declares. “Sorry, Bladie, you gotta give him up. He’s mine now.”

Dan Heng laughs as he closes the door behind him. “See you!”

He swears he hears Blade calling back after him, something like Don’t encourage her, but he can barely hear anything above the steady hum of his racing heart.

Give him up, Kafka had said. Like he’s already Blade’s bad habit. Like Blade is already his.

***

At four in the afternoon, Dan Heng gets a message. It’s from Jing Yuan.

What are you wearing right now, it reads.

Dan Heng frowns as he types out his response. Why do you want to know?

Bet with Yingxing, Jing Yuan responds almost instantly. Just tell me.

Button down shirt with a red and black flannel and corduroys.

Jing Yuan types for an exceptionally long time. Then, finally, Fuck.

He sends back: ???

I owe Yingxing so much money holy shit.

Dan Heng doesn’t think much of it. They probably bet on something stupid. The High Cloud Quintet always does things like that, particularly Jing Yuan, whose competitive streak is rivaled only by Jingliu’s. He smiles just thinking about them. He loves the Quintet. All of them. They’re—

Oh. The Quintet.

They were supposed to have a group High Cloud session last night, weren’t they? And he missed it, because he was… asleep in Blade’s lap. Jingliu might lose her mind if she found out.

He opens their chat server and sends a quick message. Sorry I couldn't make it last night. Fell asleep on my friend’s couch by accident.

Jing Yuan is there in instants. Fuck , he sends. Then, Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Holy shit, Baiheng chimes in. Then of course comes Jingliu: Oh my fucking god what the fuck is going on.

But most cryptic of all is Yingxing, who says only, I told you.

Dan Heng stares at that message for a long time, wondering what it could possibly mean.

***

He finds out the next evening, when he logs onto High Cloud with Baiheng to build a sheep pen.

“You didn’t actually fall asleep on Yingxing’s couch, right, Yinyue?” she asks.

Dan Heng’s hand slips on the mouse. “Is that what he told you?”

“Yes. He said you couldn't come because you were asleep on his couch.”

“I think I would know if I had been asleep on Yingxing’s couch,” says Dan Heng.

Baiheng sighs in obvious relief. “Okay, good. Do you have any spruce wood?”

Dan Heng throws her the spruce wood on autopilot. He’d know if Blade was Yingxing. He’d just know. They’d probably talk about High Cloud a lot more. He doesn’t know if Blade even plays High Cloud. Besides, Blade’s voice and Yingxing’s don’t sound the same. Yingxing speaks slower, more clipped, higher-pitched.

Yes. He’d know. He’d know if Blade was actually the person he’s had a raging crush on since he was sixteen.

Dan Heng doesn’t let himself think about it any more than that.

***

The supposed respite of fall break looms over Dan Heng like a cloud of anxiety. He dooms and glooms around the dorm for about two days before Luocha intervenes. “Stop dooming and glooming around the dorm,” says Luocha. “You’ll make my loveseat gray.”

“It’s still pink,” Dan Heng says as he sits on it.

Luocha looks at him and sighs. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know what to do for fall break.”

A pause. Then Luocha laughs. He laughs like a pelican trying to imitate a heron; he attempts to achieve grace and fails abysmally. “Is that all?”

“Yes. All my friends are leaving.”

“Then go with them.”

Dan Heng thinks about it. Stelle and Caelus are going home to Florida and told him he would be eaten alive there. March is driving to San Diego to see her grandparents, and would probably let him come along, but he has doubts about her driving ability. Blade told him he’s leaving for a few days without elaborating, and Dan Heng knew better than to ask.

“Well,” says Luocha slowly. “Worst case scenario, you can always go with me.”

“Really?”

“Of course. We always go to the same restaurant, anyway. So long as you don’t mind an hour or two drive to Sacramento and my five aunties trying to feed you, you’re welcome to come along.”

Dan Heng thinks about it. He doesn’t have to think about it for long. “Okay.”

So when Thanksgiving rolls around, Luocha borrows a friend’s car and drives them to a restaurant called The Abundance, where his family sits around a massive round table. There are at least twenty people. They speak a colorful tapestry of Cantonese and English, only half of which Dan Heng understands. As promised, Luocha’s five aunties fuss over Dan Heng and say he’s too skinny and pile food onto his plate. Dan Heng sits next to one of Luocha’s cousins: Sushang, a high school girl with no filter. He decides, very quickly, that she’s good company.

“They like you,” she stage-whispers to him, gesturing toward the aunties’ congregation. “Watch. They’re going to tell Yukong to find a man like you.”

“Yukong,” one of the aunties says, and dives into a high-speed Cantonese rant.

"Dan Heng is such a nice young man, and he’s very smart," Sushang speed-translates to him under her breath. "Why don’t you go to Luocha’s dorm for the holidays so you can pick up one for yourself? Oh my god, called it.”

“They’re intense.”

Sushang giggles. “You should see them when the bill comes. They squabble over it like hens.”

“Do they really,” Dan Heng says slowly. “I’m… going to the restroom.”

He does not go to the restroom. He goes to the front counter and hands over his credit card and asks to charge everything from their table to his account. Then he comes back and finishes the meal with Luocha’s family. He tells them about his major and his career aspirations. They all nod firmly and send meaningful glances toward Yukong. Dan Heng tries to be apologetic toward her, but she doesn’t seem bothered. Perhaps she’s used to it already.

“So, Dan Heng,” a man who he thinks is Luocha’s grandfather asks. “Are you single?”

He chokes on his water. The table bursts out laughing.

“No one who’s single responds like that,” Sushang whispers to him.

“Come on now,” Luocha interrupts. His eyes glimmer as he smiles. “Of course he’s not single, with those dreamy eyes and incredible smarts. He has a lovely partner back at college.”

Dan Heng is about to be swarmed with attention when the server comes over bearing a tray with a receipt. He is thankfully spared by the aunties’ intense focus on the bill.

“Let me,” says one, before the server can say anything.

Then, a cacophony breaks loose. A collage of I’ll do the honors this time, and Please allow us, and You couldn't possibly, and It’s been the longest since I paid. The waiter’s efforts are futile.

“Excuse me,” Dan Heng says, and to his surprise, everyone actually turns to pay attention to him. “Please don’t worry. I already paid.”

A full three seconds of silence pass. Then, as if choreographed, all five aunties scream and rush to hug him in unison. Dan Heng is a little overwhelmed by the attention, but it’s not bad. He’s never had this type of family. He had maids, but they were more bodyguards than caretakers. The Dan elders who raised him were never like this. It’s a nice change.

“I think my family likes you more than they like me,” Luocha gripes as they drive back. It’s nearly ten by the time they escape the restaurant. Dan Heng had given Sushang his number and reassured the aunties that if he were ever single he would call them up to find someone for him.

“Thank you for saving me,” Dan Heng says. “Quick thinking, with the lovely partner bit.”

“It wasn’t quick thinking. I told the truth.”

“But I’m not dating anyone?”

Luocha laughs and laughs. “If you say so," he says, still smiling.

***

The end of the semester approaches. Dan Heng and Blade stop watching movies and start reviewing for exams. Dan Heng is lost in his US History requirement; Blade’s fatal weakness is English.

“This shit isn’t even my first language,” he complains, as he stares at an analysis essay. It’s already almost one in the morning. Dan Heng doesn’t have class until afternoon the next day, and he didn’t tell Luocha when he’d be back, so when he finished studying, he just stayed.

“I didn’t learn English until I was eight years old and I’m passing without any issues.”

Blade tips his head back and groans. “Congrats on being fucking perfect at everything, I guess.”

“I’m not perfect at everything,” says Dan Heng. “I got an eighty-two on my presentation on the Gilded Age.”

Blade glares at him. “I will never cook for you again.”

“That’s fine. I have a meal plan.”

“I hate you.”

“I’ll read your essay,” Dan Heng offers, already leaning over to look at his laptop. Blade’s desktop is just across the hall, in his room, but he always does his work with Dan Heng on the couch. He says it’s out of solidarity but Dan Heng thinks it might be more about the comfort of sitting next to each other.

Blade turns his nose up in his periphery. “I no longer hate you.”

Dan Heng leans closer than strictly necessary to read his essay. When he tilts the laptop toward himself, his fingers brush against Blade’s thigh. He’s warm, always warmer than Dan Heng, who is cold even when he’s asleep.

“Change this,” he says, highlighting a few sentences of analysis. “It doesn’t align with your argument. You should probably restructure this topic sentence, too. And the punctuation should go outside the quotation mark if there’s nothing after it. Page numbers outside in parentheses.”

Blade blinks.

“I’ll do it,” Dan Heng says, reaching over to change the punctuation. But his fingers miss the keys entirely when Blade’s hand lands on the far side of his waist.

“You’re so good at everything,” Blade says, words almost blurring together. “Fucking… you’re good at English. And Mandarin. And statistics. And gaming. And you’re so pretty. God, I wish I could just keep you around all the time.”

Dan Heng stares at him. “What?”

“Fuck you,” Blade mumbles. His eyes are half-closed and sliding further by the second. Dan Heng watches in bewildered silence as he slumps over, falling into Dan Heng’s side. Oh. He’s asleep.

Dan Heng recalls falling asleep here, too, and waking in Blade’s bed. He never asked if Blade slept in the bed too or not that night, but given that he was on the couch in the morning, he probably didn’t. So Dan Heng unceremoniously drags Blade to his bedroom, lays him down on his bed and pulls the covers over him. Then he leaves for the living room.

On his way out, a shadow follows him.

“Hi,” says Kafka. Dan Heng nearly jumps. She laughs at his reaction, clicking her nails together. “You don’t have to sleep on the couch. Bladie wouldn’t do that to you.”

Dan Heng frowns. “He won’t mind?”

“Not if it’s with you,” she says cryptically. “The one night stands thing was a joke, by the way. He never has anyone around except for you. Rest assured.”

He’s not entirely sure what she means, but it sounds like a positive. “The couch is comfortable.”

Kafka smirks, tilting her head. “It’s not a question.”

Dan Heng busies himself shutting down programs on his laptop, stalling for time. He places the two computers on the coffee table while he considers. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Kafka says, softer this time. “He likes you. A lot.”

“He told me as much.”

“So you know it’s true, right?”

In the end, the decision isn’t hard. Dan Heng tells himself that Blade’s bed is big enough that he might not even notice. He lifts the covers carefully, sliding into the other side. Immediately, his usual coldness fades. He’s not sure if it’s Blade, or just the blankets. In any case, the exhaustion from the full workload kicks in quickly and takes him out before he feels guilty about it.

***

For as long as he can remember, Dan Heng has been an early riser. He’s not sure if it’s his nature, or if it was drilled into him, but either way, it’s so ingrained now that he can’t seem to ditch the habit.

He regains consciousness slowly. The first thing he notices is a gentle, welcoming warmth. The second is a grounding weight across the side of his waist. The third is Blade.

Suddenly Dan Heng is wide awake. He stares at Blade, still asleep, hair splayed out across the pillow like a black-and-red halo, with his arm slung over Dan Heng’s waist. He’s much too close. Dan Heng distinctly recalls getting into the other side of the bed and yet here he is, with his head tucked under Blade’s chin and Blade’s body heat bleeding into him.

Dan Heng gets up quickly. He doesn’t allow himself to stay too long. It’s weird, surely, to do something like that without asking first. He never should have done it at all. Never mind that it was the best he’s slept in weeks.

***

Lunch. The dining hall. Dan Heng slams down a lemonade from the shop a block away as a peace offering and says urgently, “Help me, March.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I’m just as shit at history as you.”

“Not with history.”

March takes the offered lemonade with a scowl. “I told you, I’m not helping you anymore.”

“Change your mind.”

March rolls her eyes. She takes a sip of the lemonade. It’s strawberry peach. Her favorite flavor. Dan Heng didn’t know they made different flavors of lemonade. He thought there was just lemonade.

“I slept with Blade.”

March spits out her lemonade all over the dining hall table. “Holy fuck,” she gasps. “Okay, um? What? Spill the fucking tea, oh my god.”

“That’s lemonade, not tea.”

If March could glare any harder her eyes would hit the table and bounce around like marbles. “You know what I meant,” she mutters. “So? Was he good? Did he top? Is he actually shredded underneath that jacket?”

Dan Heng frowns. “What?”

“The sex, Dan Heng. You said you had sex with him.”

“I said we slept together. That’s not the problem. The problem is that I left afterwards.”

March stares at him blankly. Then, slowly, realization dawns in her eyes. “Dan Heng,” she deadpans. “Don’t tell me you meant that literally.”

“How else would I mean it?”

March takes off the lid and gulps down the entire lemonade in three sips. “End my life,” she says flatly. Then she walks off.

Dan Heng watches her leave, baffled.

What.

***

Dan Heng considers his options. They are limited. He can’t ask Blade, obviously. He already tried March. He can’t ask Luocha; he’s already too embarrassed about not coming back the other night. He can’t ask the Quintet; Jingliu would bounce off the walls and swoon over how romantic his nonexistent love life is. He can’t ask Caelus; he’d cry. He could ask Stelle, but he is objectively terrified of anything she suggests.

He’s just about to give up when he recalls the newest contact in his phone.

Fuck it, Dan Heng thinks. High school girls are a great resource for this type of thing, right?

Hi Sushang, he begins. I need some advice.

***

“Open the door, Blade.”

“What?”

“Open the door,” Dan Heng repeats over the phone.

Blade opens the door. His eyes widen as he takes in Dan Heng standing there in his flannel with a cupcake tin in his hands and his phone against his ear. “What’s this about?”

“I’m sorry,” says Dan Heng quickly, as he steps over the threshold and hangs up. Blade takes the cupcake tin with baffled eyes. “For leaving the other day. Running out on you.”

Blade looks at him strangely. “You don’t have to apologize for having your own life.”

“Oh.” Dan Heng pauses with one shoe off. “Well, I meant the cupcakes as an apology. But we can just frost them for fun if you don’t want the apology part.”

Blade’s mouth quirks up. “That sounds perfect.”

So Dan Heng takes off his other shoe, places them both in the spot reserved for him on the shoe rack, and removes the cover from the cupcake tin. There are a dozen cupcakes in it. Somehow Blade looks even more surprised to see its contents.

“Stelle’s dorm has a kitchen,” Dan Heng explains, as he reaches into his bag for the buttercream he made earlier. “I baked them there. They might not be very good. I don’t know.”

“Why cupcakes?”

Dan Heng feels his face heat up a little. “My roommate’s cousin said it’s a good way to apologize,” he mumbles. “She’s fifteen. I probably shouldn’t have listened to her.”

But to his surprise, Blade’s smile only widens. “You were really worried about it, huh?”

“Yes,” Dan Heng says plainly. “I don’t want you to be mad at me. I don’t think I’d like it.”

Blade is quiet as Dan Heng searches for scissors to cut the corner of the buttercream into a makeshift piping bag. He hands the scissors over silently. Their fingers brush. Dan Heng has to remind himself to breathe and almost cuts half the bag off when he feels Blade’s hand ghost across his waist.

“I don’t mind, by the way,” Blade murmurs, and Dan Heng sets down the scissors before he can make any more mistakes. “That you’re clingy when you’re asleep.”

If Dan Heng thought his face was warm to begin with, he can’t imagine how flushed he must be now. “I’m not,” he says. “Well, not normally, at least. But you’re warm.”

“So mean. Only using me for my body temperature.”

“I’m trying to apologize.”

“Don’t push it,” Blade retorts, but his smile is wide and he’s standing next to Dan Heng, removing a cupcake from its tin so Dan Heng can frost it. He bumps into Dan Heng’s hip, probably on purpose. “You’re lucky I like cupcakes.”

Dan Heng thinks it’s more likely that he’s lucky Blade likes him, but keeps silent.

The first cupcake gets messed up, mainly because Blade keeps leaning over his shoulder to check on his technique and he’s so close that Dan Heng can feel his breath on the shell of his ear and stumbles over his own hands. He lets Blade try the second one, and feels extremely gratified when he messes up too. The third is Dan Heng’s, which turns out much better, with an almost passable swirl. Blade’s hand shakes on the fourth, so Dan Heng helps him hold the bag steady and pipe in a circle. Dan Heng tries to make a five-point star on the fifth. He stares at it in intense concentration until—

“You’re cute.”

Dan Heng’s star loses one of its points entirely. Buttercream drips off the side of the cupcake.

Blade cackles. “Got you,” he sings, tidying up the dripping frosting with his index finger. He glances at it, then grins. And swipes his finger across Dan Heng’s nose.

“Hey!”

“Sorry,” Blade says. He doesn’t sound sorry.

Dan Heng wipes the buttercream off his nose with a paper towel.

“You missed some.”

And suddenly Blade is leaning in close, his hand coming up to cup Dan Heng’s face. Dan Heng swallows thickly but doesn’t protest. Blade has him backed up against the counter. Cornered. His heart races in his wrists as Blade drags his thumb across Dan Heng’s lip. His touch lingers for far too long to be coincidental. Too long for Dan Heng to not know what it means.

“I don’t think you got any icing there,” Dan Heng whispers.

“No,” says Blade, “I didn’t,” and then Blade’s mouth is on his.

Oh.

Dan Heng’s eyes slip shut as Blade kisses him. It’s easy, even though his lips are chapped. Blade doesn’t kiss him fast, but he’s still demanding, slotting their mouths together at just the right angle for Dan Heng to feel weak in the knees as his lips part. He leans up into the touch, closer, closer, until the only thing holding him up is the counter behind him and Blade’s hand on his face. He sighs into it, relaxing enough that his head nearly starts spinning.

Blade parts from him slowly. It takes Dan Heng several moments to register that he’s pulled away at all, with how close his lips still are. He blinks his eyes open.

“Dan Heng,” Blade murmurs, his thumb stroking his cheek and his voice scratchier than usual. “Tell me you want this too.”

And Dan Heng hesitates. Just for a moment, but it’s one moment too long, judging by how Blade’s eyes shift.

“There’s someone else,” Blade infers.

Dan Heng glances away. “I… don’t know.”

Blade steps away slowly, as if to avoid spooking him. “Sorry. I should have asked.”

“I thought I was the one apologizing.”

That makes Blade smile, just a little. “Yeah. You’re right.”

They stand there in silence for a moment. Dan Heng tries to stand and finds his knees still a little shaky. He hasn’t kissed many people before, mainly because he’d found his first few kisses rather unsatisfactory. But that hadn’t been unsatisfactory at all. Far from it.

“Is it someone back in Xianzhou?”

Dan Heng blinks.

“Whoever you’re hung up on,” Blade clarifies. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m just curious.”

Dan Heng is still dazed enough that when he tries to picture Yingxing, the image he’s formed from his limited descriptions and his High Cloud avatar, the only face that comes to mind is Blade’s. He clears his throat and dismisses it quickly. “He’s an old friend,” Dan Heng admits. “I’ve liked him for years.”

“That’s kind of sweet,” he says, although his eyes look soft in an almost self-deprecating way.

“I’m sorry,” Dan Heng says, stumbling over the words a little. “I didn’t mean to—Well, I just—I don’t know, really. I’m sorry.”

“Thought I told you not to apologize anymore.”

“You did.”

“Then don’t,” Blade says, like it’s that easy. “It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to. I’ll just forget it happened. Nothing has to change.”

“You’re sure?”

“‘Course I’m sure. I like having you around.”

Dan Heng thinks, unbidden, of Blade’s words late that night, right before he fell asleep. I wish I could just keep you around all the time. A fragile, half-conscious admission that felt too truthful.

“Okay,” he says. “Then I’ll stay around.”

***

And he does stay around. He still heads over to Blade’s dorm for a meal the following week, right before finals start. Blade makes scallion pancakes and Dan Heng tries to fry some of them. They sit a little too close together. It’s like nothing had changed at all, and yet everything feels different, now that he knows the feeling of Blade’s mouth on his.

Dan Heng is careful not to stay the night. Still, even when he’s back in his own bed, he ends up lying awake thinking of kissing Blade too often for comfort.

The worst part, he thinks wryly, is that he hadn’t wanted to stop. It felt right to kiss him. Dan Heng would have done it if Blade hadn’t. He had kissed him back without a second thought, melted into his touch like he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. The worst part is that he hadn’t even thought of Yingxing until it was too late, until he already knew how good it felt.

No, he thinks, as he lies there, sleepless. The real worst part is that he’d do it again. He wouldn’t even hesitate. He wouldn’t even regret it.

When Blade sits next to him, utterly enthralled by whatever black-and-white classic movie he’d picked out, Dan Heng thinks of pushing him into the couch cushions, pinning him down and refusing to let him go until both their lips were stained red and swollen. But Blade had restrained himself. The least Dan Heng can do is return the favor.

No matter. It’s not a big deal. He’ll get over it soon.

***

He misses a Quintet call. Then another. Then another.

Jing Yuan messages him privately, asking if he’s okay. Dan Heng replies that he’s fine, just stressed out about finals week. Jing Yuan sends back his sympathies and wishes him the best.

Really, all Dan Heng wants is to talk to Yingxing. They don’t even have to be playing High Cloud. He would watch Yingxing play solitaire again. He would let Yingxing annihilate him at chess. He doesn’t care. Anything, at this point. But Yingxing doesn’t message him. Doesn’t reach out. So Dan Heng bites his tongue and stays silent too. He sets his status to offline and holes up in his room to study for winter exams.

***

Luocha puts his foot down halfway through finals week.

“Dan Heng,” he says, peering judgmentally over the ineffective paper divider. “I don’t know what happened, but please. You can’t mope around your room all day. I don’t care what kind of troubles that loverboy of yours has given you, you’re better than this.”

Dan Heng glances up from his laptop, startled. “I didn’t say it was him.”

“But it was.”

Dan Heng holds Luocha’s gaze for all of two seconds before he sighs. “It was.”

“Well, you don’t need to explain,” Luocha declares, shaking his head dramatically. “We’re going out. Get dressed. And I mean really dressed. No pajama pants. And don’t you dare wear that flannel of his. You know what? Let me do the honors.”

“You really don’t need to.”

“Oh, but I do,” Luocha counters, grinning, and before Dan Heng can protest, Luocha is rummaging through his dresser again and throwing a pair of chinos and a sweater vest at him. Dan Heng didn’t know he owned a sweater vest, but he suspects that Luocha would say the same thing he always does: You do now. So he just puts them on and lets Luocha inspect his handiwork with a critical eye until he finally nods in approval.

Luocha doesn’t tell him where they’re going. He motions for Dan Heng to follow him, and they walk. The air is crisp, but not cold. Dan Heng breathes it in and for once appreciates that he predicted the weather incorrectly when he moved here.

They eventually reach a brick building, where Luocha stops. “Here we are,” he says. “Come in. I’ll buy your ticket.”

Dan Heng, somewhat bewildered, follows him inside. Luocha is already at the front desk, chatting with the person sitting there. She smiles brightly and hands him two tickets and two programs, each emblazoned with Berkeley Repertory Theatre on the front.

A theater. Dan Heng has never seen a play in English before. Or any play, really, aside from the few classical operas that the Dan elders dragged him to.

“My friend’s show,” Luocha explains, as he hands over one of the programs. “It’s called Wildfire. She wrote the play. The lead actor’s also an old colleague.”

“You know a lot of people,” Dan Heng says absently as he flicks through the program.

Luocha shrugs. “Berkeley is a big school. You end up knowing people.”

Dan Heng decides not to question it. He’s not sure why Luocha knows so many people, or why he’s out of the dorm so often, but he supposes he knows a lot of people too, and he’s spent several nights out of the dorm. Dan Heng is many things, but he’s not a hypocrite.

They find their seats easily. Dan Heng flips through the actor’s profiles until the house lights dim.

It’s a show about a resistance group, an underground society of perceived criminals, separated from the aboveground society for their own good. The play follows a businessman who travels between the two realms, above and below. A criminal who tries to hide his heart of gold. In a chase with the law, he brings a surface noble down with him, who witnesses the suffering of the underground people for herself and resolves to change it.

The storytelling establishes a grip on him quickly. It’s engaging, the actors are excellently suited to their roles, and the aboveground and belowground sets contrast beautifully. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, Luocha was right. The show is the perfect distraction.

They have dinner together, too. Luocha tactfully avoids the nearby seafood restaurant and suggests Mediterranean instead, and Dan Heng goes along with it. All in all, it’s a lovely night out.

“I wish I liked you instead,” Dan Heng says, as they walk back to their dorm.

Luocha tips his head back and laughs. “No, you don’t. You deserve much better than me, and we both know it. Even my aunties know it.”

Dan Heng can’t really argue with that, so he doesn’t. “Thanks for tonight, anyway.”

Luocha smiles slightly. “Anytime, Dan Heng,” he says. “Anytime.”

***

“Tell me about him,” Blade requests, while they’re walking alongside a pond by the edge of campus.

They’re both done with their finals. Dan Heng is fairly sure he passed US History, which is a relief. But hearing those words is the exact opposite. Dan Heng doesn’t need to ask who he’s talking about. They both already know.

“I don’t think I should.”

“Why?”

Dan Heng can’t look at him. “You know why.”

“Because you like him more?"

Their steps fall at the same time. Blade must be taking shorter steps on purpose to match his pace. The thought makes his head spin.

Blade’s hand brushes against his, then falls away. Dan Heng thinks of fleeting words and late nights and secret underground gardens and makes up his mind.

“He’s everything to me,” he says quietly. “He stays up with me when I feel like crying myself to sleep. He shows me how to make something beautiful out of nothing. He watches my back. He makes me laugh. I can’t imagine it being anyone else.”

Blade walks alongside him in silence. In the wake of his thoughts, the pond they walk along looks almost like the pond in his and Yingxing’s garden. If he were to add some lilies, it’d be just the same. All that’s missing is its other creator.

“I get it,” Blade says softly. “I have someone like that, too.”

Dan Heng glances up, surprised. Blade’s mouth quirks up at the side and his eyes don’t waver from Dan Heng’s face. “You do?”

“Yeah.”

He looks at Dan Heng like he’s that person, like he’s the one Blade’s known for so many years, like he’s the one Blade can’t imagine being anyone else. And though he knows it’s not plausible, that they’ve only known each other for a semester, his heart skips a beat regardless.

This time, when Blade’s hand brushes against his, Dan Heng reaches out and takes it. Maybe the pond doesn’t look like his and Yingxing’s at all. He doesn’t know. He hasn’t logged into High Cloud in a week. Maybe two. He’s not sure whether he longs to hear Yingxing’s voice or longs to avoid it.

“Come with me,” Blade says abruptly, cutting off his thoughts.

Dan Heng doesn’t even let himself feel caught off guard. “Where?”

“Back to the city. I want to show you the place where I grew up.”

Dan Heng swallows the sudden knot in his throat. “Okay,” he says, and doesn’t think about how his grip tightens on Blade’s hand. Doesn’t think about how he never makes spontaneous decisions. Doesn’t think about how Blade is his exception to everything.

***

They meet in front of the same building as that first night. Follow the same route, too. Dan Heng is a little too proud when he buys his train ticket without issue. Blade just watches him, half-smiling, and then pulls out a metro card. Dan Heng scowls at him and tucks his paper ticket into his pocket.

The train is loud again. Dan Heng prepares himself for it, but is still caught off guard by its intensity.

Blade nudges his shoulder. “Still feel like… what did you call the train last time? A pixiu?”

Dan Heng hums, almost impressed that he remembered. “It’s much nicer than the quiet ones. You never know when they’re coming. At least these trains announce their presence.”

“Trust me, you’ll get tired of it if they’re announcing their presence every five fucking minutes. Right outside your bedroom window.”

“Is that what your childhood was like?”

“I’m exaggerating a little,” he admits. “It wasn’t every five minutes. Probably every ten. And they shut down at midnight.”

Dan Heng sits there in what would have been silence were it not for the aforementioned train noise. “It must have been inconvenient.”

“Not really,” Blade says offhandedly, as he swipes open his phone. "I'm a really deep sleeper now, at least." He offers Dan Heng one of his earbuds. Dan Heng takes it and slides in closer to make the wires fit. Not for the proximity. Of course not. He doesn’t recognize the song but it’s pleasant. Some sort of electronica, maybe, but not too high-energy. The rest of the train ride breezes by and the train goes silent again when they reach their stop.

“I’ve never bought my own train ticket before this,” Dan Heng says, apropos of nothing, as they disembark.

Blade turns to face him so fast that his earbud nearly falls out. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Dan Heng muses. They walk toward another station, a bus connection further west. “We didn’t travel very much. The estate had most of my needs.”

“The fucking what," Blade says flatly.

“The estate.” Dan Heng frowns. “Have I not told you this?”

“I think I’d remember if you told me you grew up in an estate." He huffs out a laugh. “Let me guess. The fucking family elders raised you or something.”

“The maids did the actual raising,” says Dan Heng. “But the elders chose the maids, so.”

Blade looks at him, then laughs, sounding almost delirious with breathlessness. “Oh my god,” he says. “Marry me already. I want to be rich too.”

Dan Heng fervently ignores his heart kicking into overdrive. “We’re not really rich.”

“I’m going to state college on a scholarship and I’m still going to have debt. You’re rich.”

Dan Heng hasn’t ever really given his family wealth much consideration. Truthfully, he’s thought of abandoning it dozens of times. Leaving the estate to Bailu. But she’s only eight, and besides, he likes being able to pay for tuition. Maybe in a few years.

“So marry me,” Blade repeats as the bus arrives, cutting through his thoughts. “It’s a win-win deal. You get a marriage green card, and I get your money.”

Dan Heng knows he’s joking, knows he must be, but the look in his eyes is a little too genuine. He tries to say he doesn’t want anything of the sort. Doesn’t like Blade like that. But what comes out of his mouth is, “I don’t know if I want a green card.”

The instant the words come out, Dan Heng knows he’s fucked up. Blade’s eyes shift into something more disingenuous. A mask. A shield, maybe.

“Right,” Blade says, smiling with a strange bitter undertone. "He’s back in Xianzhou, isn’t he? Of course you wouldn’t want to stay here.” With me, he doesn’t say, but Dan Heng hears it regardless.

There’s a lengthy pause as the two of them find their seats on the bus. Blade lets Dan Heng have the window seat and he watches the city roll by with fascination. They move from skyscrapers to neon buildings to rolling parks in the span of minutes. Dan Heng lets it all wash over him, pretending not to feel Blade’s eyes on him like a gentle weight wrapped around him.

Once the buildings stumble together into stacks of apartments and the park widens into a green expanse, Blade taps his shoulder. “This is our stop.”

Blade takes his hand to help him down from the bus. His touch is warm. It’s always warm. Even when Dan Heng might not stay, even when Blade already knows he’s not sure yet, he’s warm. Dan Heng just wishes—he wishes that—

“He’s not in Xianzhou,” Dan Heng blurts. “He lives here. In America.”

Blade’s steps falter. Even on his home ground, in his childhood neighborhood, he stumbles through those familiar steps. “I thought you said you didn’t travel much?"

“I didn’t. I’ve never met him in person. Only online.”

And Blade stops walking. Turns to face him and grabs him by both shoulders.

“Dan Heng,” he says. “Dan Heng.” Then he laughs. “Holy fuck. You’re kidding.”

“I’m not…?” Dan Heng gently removes one of Blade’s hands, pries it from his shoulder and tries not to feel too hurt. “It’s pretty typical to have online friends, isn’t it? I didn’t really know anyone else. Not until I came here, at least.”

“Dan Heng,” Blade repeats, breathless. "Yinyue. It’s me. It’s been me this whole time.”

Dan Heng’s eyes widen. His heart skips a beat and makes up for it by beating a thousand times in the next millisecond. He can’t possibly be hearing right. He can’t possibly—

“You never asked for my given name,” Blade says. “My Mandarin name. Ren Yingxing."

Dan Heng’s world comes to an end and reinvents itself in the span of a moment. Reinvents itself anew and changes nothing except for Blade’s eyes, Yingxing’s eyes, except for turning carmine to ruby and for turning two names into one.

“Yingxing,” he says, a little incredulous. It's impossible; it's the only thing that could have ever made sense. “Chú le nǐ, wǒ wú fǎ xiǎng xiàng rèn hé rén.” [Aside from you, I can't imagine anyone else]

Blade glances at him and laughs. And then, in the same voice Dan Heng’s been hearing in his headphones for the last three years, he says, “Kàn qǐ lái wǒ men liǎng běn lái jiù shì tóng yī xīn." [It looks like our hearts were the same from the start]

This time, when Blade leans in, Dan Heng closes the distance first.

Yinyue kisses Yingxing for the first (second?) time on a sidewalk in a city in another country. And though he has to tiptoe, though Blade fumbles to pull him too close, though they both run out of breath, it’s the best kiss of Dan Heng’s life.

By the time they reach the bakery Blade intended to go to, that record has been broken at least three times over. Dan Heng hopes Blade will break it another thousand times.

***

As winter break wraps up, Dan Heng brings Blade with him to meet March and Stelle and Caelus for lunch near campus.

“Oh my god,” March says very loudly when he approaches their table. “Dan Heng, isn’t this the hot mechanical engineering guy we tried to set you up with?”

Blade glances at him, half-smiling mischievously. “You think I’m hot?”

“Yes,” Dan Heng says flatly, sitting next to him, much closer than strictly necessary. “I think you’re quite good looking. In fact I think you’re the most handsome man I’ve ever met.”

March’s mouth hangs open. Her straw falls listlessly back into her lemonade.

“I guess it worked,” Stelle says mildly.

Caelus buries his head in his hands and despairs.

***

“Holy shit,” Baiheng breathes, three months later. Dan Heng can hear her voice shaking. “Oh my god. Holy fuck. It’s actually happening.”

“What?” Jingliu demands, spamming jump in-game. “Tell us!”

“I got into Stanford University!” she squeals. “Yingxing, Yinyue, get fucking ready! I’m coming to America, baby!”

But before either of them can respond, Jingliu wails. “Don’t leave me!” she cries. “Baiheng, don’t betray me like this. Don’t join their dark side. I’ll make you three pay for this transgression, I swear!"

“Calm down,” Jing Yuan says, though even he sounds amused at her dramatics. “America is a big country. They might not be anywhere near Stanford. Perhaps not even the same state.”

“Actually,” Blade interrupts. "That’s, uh. That’s our rival school. It’s like, an hour away from us.”

"Us?" Jingliu practically screeches. “You and Yinyue? You both—"

“Yeah,” Blade says. “We both go to Berkeley. Took him, like, four months to realize it was me, though. That was actually my couch he fell asleep on, by the way.”

“I suppose now is a good time to tell you we’re dating,” Dan Heng helpfully adds.

Silence. Then, like a single beam of sunlight breaking through the highest cloud of all, Jingliu comes shining through to express all of their thoughts:

“What the fuck.”

***

(Later on, Blade walks over, turns Dan Heng’s chin away from his computer, and kisses him languidly. Dan Heng gets so distracted doesn’t even notice his High Cloud avatar burning up in flames until his screen already says Game Over.

“Finally got you,” Blade gloats.

Dan Heng just sighs and says, “You’ve had me this whole time, you know.”)