Chapter Text
Feng Xin was a man of habit. When the time ticked over to Eleven on Thursday morning, the craving for caffeine crept up his throat almost immediately. Specifically, a craving for fancy, tasty, very expensive coffee, the kind that Feng Xin allowed himself exactly one cup of every morning at Eleven. But only on weekdays, when he was steadily losing the will to live in the face of another six hours of work to do and needed the sugar and caffeine in order to soldier on.
At this tiny airport on the outskirts of the city, however, there was no nice, fancy coffee. There was no Starbucks, or even a cute little independent coffee shop; just some generic fast food places that sold something that looked like pond water, and probably tasted worse than instant powder.
Sighing, Feng Xin shifted his weight on the uncomfortable plastic bench and tapped impatiently on the cracked armrest. With a seven-hour flight ahead of him, some tasty caffeine and sugar felt very much necessary. He regretted not bringing a thermal cup, even though he knew it would have meant spending most of the flight in a dingy little airplane bathroom. Alas, he was a man of habit. Preparing for any deviation from his routine was not in his skill set.
So, no coffee for Feng Xin.
‘Move your bag, or I’ll report it as unsupervised and get it blown up.’
Feng Xin’s chest constricted, a feeling he once mistook for hatred, and he suppressed another sigh. A seven-hour flight was bad enough; a seven-hour flight with Mu Qing was tantamount to torture. For multiple reasons.
Mu Qing dropped his suitcase inches from Feng Xin’s toes, banging so loudly on the tiles that several people waiting at the gate jumped and turned around. ‘Don’t ignore me, you dick.’
Yanking his foot out of the small crater left by the massive bag’s wheels, which Mu Qing insisted on carrying rather than rolling for some godforsaken reason, Feng Xin ignored the flutter of anticipation in his chest and glared up at him. ‘Just walk around it. Bitch.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, Mu Qing kicked Feng Xin’s duffel bag straight into his shin.
‘Ow-! Hey!’
‘Should’ve moved it,’ Mu Qing shot back. He dropped down onto the bench, leaving one seat randomly empty between them.
Feng Xin opened his mouth to retort, but the pointless, insulting argument that jumped instinctively to his tongue disappeared just as quickly as it appeared as he processed just how dishevelled Mu Qing looked.
Technically, he was perfectly put together: his silky locks were bound in a high ponytail, not a hair out of place; the skin on his hands and face was positively glowing, clear and healthy, with a hint of black liner under his dark eyes; his baggy cotton yoga pants and form-fitting ribbed hoodie looked casual and comfortable enough for a long flight while managing to still let him look like he’d stepped straight off a catwalk. But Mu Qing always looked like that.
But while he was as physically immaculate as always, there was something about the stiffness in his expression and the uncharacteristic carelessness of his movements that made him look positively jittery.
‘What?’ Mu Qing snapped at him without looking up, rummaging in his carry-on bag. It was so big that Feng Xin wondered how on earth he’d managed to convince the security staff to let him through with it—and where he was going to put it on the plane. On his lap, maybe? There was no way it was going to fit into the overhead compartments.
Feng Xin cleared his throat. ‘Why’re you here so early?’ he asked, forcing himself to look away from Mu Qing.
‘What? Is it not allowed?’
‘Oh, for the love of- It was just a question, Mu Qing.’
‘You were here earlier than me, anyway.’
It was always too easy to fall into the routine of bickering: letting it escalate to arguing, inevitably going too far, and then refusing to speak to each other for weeks. But Feng Xin didn’t want to keep avoiding and ignoring Mu Qing. For starters, it put their mutual friends in an awkward situation every time, and as much as he dreaded seeing him, he also sort of…looked forward to it, too.
Mu Qing was truly the worst person to have a crush on, but Feng Xin’s heart had made up its mind and refused to listen to any kind of logic.
Giving into his curiosity, Feng Xin made a concerted effort to soften his tone and sound as far from accusatory as his gruff voice could possibly get. ‘You feeling okay?’
It didn’t make a lick of difference. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on in your life, do I?’ Feng Xin snapped, immediately losing the pinch of patience he’d managed to scrounge up. ‘You just look like you’ve got something on your mind. Something happen at work?’
Mu Qing flashed a glare at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘I’m fine. Go sit somewhere else if my face bothers you so much.’
He wanted an argument, apparently. It was as tempting as always to accommodate. But Feng Xin waved him off and turned his gaze away. He was tired, caffeine-deprived, and dreading a long flight; he didn’t have the energy to argue right now, since it would undoubtedly lead to more than harmless bickering.
Feng Xin felt dark eyes linger on his face for a moment longer, waiting for a retort that wouldn’t come, and did his best to ignore the twinge of guilt in his chest.
He wondered what the fuck was wrong with him. Who would ever feel guilty for not arguing?
They fell into a tense, icy silence. Somehow, it was worse than their most vicious fights. Sometimes Feng Xin missed their high school days, when they just punched their frustrations out on each other and then moved on from whatever they’d fallen out about. By college, they’d agreed to behave more like adults and stop physically assaulting each other – for some reason – and these icy silences had started between them. Even back then, when they were stuck together in the same tiny, cramped apartment, these awful moods lasted days. When Xie Lian moved out, they got ten times worse and sometimes lasted weeks.
Finally, Mu Qing huffed a sigh. ‘They stopped me at security.’
Feng Xin looked up. ‘Huh?’
‘They stopped me going through security,’ he repeated. ‘Frisked me and went through my stuff in front of everyone.’
‘Everyone? Everyone’s here already?’
‘No, I mean…’ He trailed off and gestured vaguely at the collection of strangers milling around the gate. ‘They all saw.’
‘Oh.’ Feng Xin glanced around. No one else from their group had arrived yet, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine Mu Qing internally freaking out about what other people might have seen or thought of him. As if anyone would care enough to have a single thought about a random check at airport security. ‘It’s probably just because you were by yourself. They did the same thing to me.’
Mu Qing snorted. ‘Because we were alone. Right.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Forget it.’
Feng Xin dropped it. Mu Qing worried about what his own reflection thought of him on his worst days, and it was impossible to convince him that nobody else’s opinion mattered.
But as the minutes stretched on, Feng Xin started to wonder if there was more bothering him than the stupid security search. Mu Qing sat with his spine ramrod straight and as tense as plywood, his knees pressed tightly together and heels tapping out of sync. The fingers of his left hand fidgeted incessantly with the silver-dyed ends of his inky hair, twirling and twisting it into tangles before combing it smooth again. Between tangles, he chewed on his nail beds until they were red and inflamed.
Feng Xin took a breath to ask what was really going on.
Xie Lian bowled into the pair of them in a whirlwind of floaty sleeves and coattails, wrapping an arm around each of their necks and yanking them into a group hug. ‘Feng Xin, Mu Qing!’
‘Oof!’ Feng Xin tensed up, immediately very aware of every inch of Mu Qing’s being. Beside him, Mu Qing turned into a statue.
‘It’s awesome that you guys agreed to come! Shi Qingxuan deserves to have everyone’s support on her wedding day.’
‘Well, they’re the ones paying,’ Mu Qing muttered, extracting himself from the hug with an inelegant shove. ‘Where are they anyway?’
‘He Xuan’s still in the food court,’ said Xie Lian. ‘When did you guys get here? Why’re you so early?’
Feng Xin’s intestines chose that moment to twist themselves into several knots. Xie Lian made it sound like they’d turned up to the airport together, and the implications made his heart thump louder than a territorial jackrabbit. ‘We- we were just—here. Early. Work habits. You know?’
In his periphery, he caught Mu Qing looking at him with a deep frown. Probably some flavour of utter disdain.
‘Right, yeah, that makes sense…’ Xie Lian admitted, averting his gaze and sheepishly scratching his cheek. It had been a fair few years since he’d had any kind of traditional work schedule; since marrying his suspiciously wealthy husband, he hadn’t exactly needed to worry about his finances like the other ninety-nine percent of the world. His environmental campaigns still took up most of his time, but he had the freedom to make up his own work schedule, and Hua Cheng paid for it all anyway.
Feng Xin was not jealous.
‘I just didn’t want to get caught up in the line at check-in,’ said Mu Qing. ‘This idiot was already here.’
He looked like he’d eased up somewhat since Xie Lian arrived, but he was nowhere near relaxed. Something was definitely up, something worse than the security search. But it wasn’t like Mu Qing would ever tell Feng Xin what it was. Hopefully Xie Lian would notice and ask. Mu Qing wouldn’t tell him either, but he might say something that would let Xie Lian guess. And then Feng Xin could ask Xie Lian. Subtly, of course, with clear disinterest in the answer.
‘Gege, do you want a drink before we board?’
Xie Lian turned around, his face lighting up at the sight of his husband like they hadn’t literally just arrived together, saw each other everyday and lived together. ‘No thanks! San Lang, Feng Xin and Mu Qing are already here.’
‘Joy of joys,’ Hua Cheng drawled back, sounding so sincere and so sarcastic at the exact same time, the way only he could manage. Feng Xin was certain that Xie Lian could always hear both, but simply chose not to acknowledge the sarcasm.
Feng Xin scowled at the lanky bastard over Xie Lian’s shoulder. Mu Qing clammed up tighter than his own bank account in front of Hua Cheng, rendering himself completely mute except for the occasional barbed comment or witty retort. Xie Lian’s creepy stalker-husband was perhaps the only person he loathed more than Feng Xin.
Within minutes, Shi Qingxuan herself arrived and drowned them in melodramatic hugs that engulfed them in so much bosom that Feng Xin thought he might actually suffocate. He Xuan trailed after her carrying their cabin luggage, as well as two big paper bags smelling like fast food under their arms, and brought their usual mood-killing aura with them. Feng Xin gave up on finding out why Mu Qing’s panties were in such a twist; he wouldn’t talk about anything personal in front of Hua Cheng, and he wasn’t likely to talk about anything at all in front of an entire audience.
Their group of sixteen was rowdy at the best of times whenever they all managed to meet up together – which was growing rarer by the day in their mid-twenties – but on the threshold of a secret whirlwind wedding on the other side of the country, they overwhelmed the entire gate with excitable chatter. A few other passengers started shooting irritable looks at them.
Lang Qianqiu latched onto Feng Xin with a proud recount of his paramedic training while everyone else caught up on each other’s ever-faster-spiralling adult lives, and suddenly he was too distracted to keep an eye on Mu Qing, stubbornly silent amid the noise.
Shi Qingxuan’s older brother didn’t approve of the engagement. It was, admittedly, happening a little fast—Hua Cheng and He Xuan had moved to the city just over a year ago, after all. Xie Lian had married his stalker after just six months, despite all of Feng Xin and Mu Qing’s attempts to persuade and then threaten him not to, and Shi Wudu blamed their union for his little sister’s “stupid ideas about marriage.” He kept saying the engagement wasn’t valid. And so here they were, about to board a plane to Las Vegas for a weekend full of drinking, gambling, and a wedding away from angry siblings. Mu Qing had been certain there was no way that sixteen people would be able to keep it a secret from Shi Wudu, but he hadn’t shown up to drag his sister back home yet. So far so good. He was only a few minutes away from owing Feng Xin twenty dollars.
Maybe that was the reason he was so agitated. Mu Qing hated Feng Xin, and he hated losing to Feng Xin even more.
The bride and spouse-to-be boarded first when their plane finally deigned to show up – half an hour late, which resulted in a further two hours of sitting around listening to Lang Qianqiu’s gruesome tales – followed shortly by Xie Lian and Hua Cheng. The rest of them were relegated to Economy.
It wasn’t until he’d spent a fair few minutes in the line to board, ticket and ID in one hand and his carry-on slung over his shoulder, that he realised Mu Qing had sneaked in front of him at some point. He would have been mad, if Mu Qing wasn’t fidgeting so much, hopping up and down on his heels like he was preparing for a long jump, and frowning in the exact same way that he scolded Feng Xin for.
‘Okay, seriously,’ he said, prodding Mu Qing in the back of the head and lurching back a step before he could swat him. ‘What’s up with you?’
‘Nothing!’ Mu Qing snarled through gritted teeth. ‘Will you drop it? God, you’re so annoying.’
Feng Xin shook his head with a huff. ‘Fine then, you prickly bitch. Be grumpy all on your own.’
‘I usually am!’ Mu Qing snapped back, shooting another glare over his shoulder.
I usually am. Wow. Feng Xin didn’t even want to go near that. The implications were just…sad.
He followed Mu Qing through the gate, watched him impatiently click his tongue and tap his foot at the attendants as they checked his documents, and then shuffled awkwardly behind him as his usual quick-march slowed to a snail’s pace along the jet bridge.
‘Fuck’s sake…’ Feng Xin muttered with a scowl, hiking his bag higher up his shoulder and stalked past him. Mu Qing was doing this on purpose, he was sure. Just fucking with him, because that seemed to be the only thing that ever brought him any joy.
Mu Qing didn’t snap back at him. Or laugh.
On board, they had to split up to find their seats; because of course this airline had a business-class, but no option to allocate more than three seats beside each other. Feng Xin found his towards the back of the aircraft. Yin Yu was already sitting down next to the window, seatbelt on, a book with the most dull cover in the world in his lap.
‘Hey,’ Feng Xin greeted, slotting his duffel bag into the overhead compartment.
Yin Yu glanced up and nodded back at him.
As Feng Xin sat down, he spotted Mu Qing moving stiffly into a window seat a few rows ahead. Good. At least they weren’t sitting close enough to spend the entire flight bickering, and Feng Xin wouldn’t be tortured by an unobstructed view of him for seven hours straight with no reprieve.
Two minutes after sitting down, before the plane had even moved, Feng Xin was already bored. He wasn’t very good at flying; all the sitting still and waiting for the world to pass below felt too much like a waste of time, even when the destination was worth it. Waiting for takeoff, Feng Xin impatiently jiggled his knee up and down, staring at the darkened tv screen in front of him, and tried not to let his thoughts run away from him with no distractions to help. Yin Yu, bless his heart, didn’t complain once or even shoot one sideways glance at him.
Takeoff was at least a temporary diversion from boredom; the feeling of being pressed back into his seat while watching the ground fall away would never not be fascinating. It was just a shame that the entire flight wasn’t as interesting.
Feng Xin unbuckled his seatbelt as soon as the sign turned off, even though he had no intention of leaving his seat. Where would he go? To the front of the plane and back again? Pointless.
Mu Qing was sitting beside Quan Yizhen, judging by that curly head poking up over the seat. Ling Wen, Jian Lan, and Yushi Huang were in a trio of seats in the middle front row, already deep in conversation. Lang Qianqiu was stuck next to Qi Rong on the other side of the plane – who invited Qi Rong? Who decided to make those two sit together? – while Pei Ming sat behind them beside a poor, unassuming stranger. Pei Xiu and Ban Yue sat at the front of Economy, where Xie Lian’s big brown eyes kept peering through the curtains to check on them. The guys in business-class were on the other side, enjoying ample leg room and free champagne, probably, where Feng Xin couldn’t see.
His headcount complete and only ten minutes into the flight, he was bored again. He peered over at the window as they climbed higher, watching the city skyline get smaller and smaller, until they broke through the cloud layer where there was nothing to look at except a sea of fluffiness.
Feng Xin wondered what it would be like to step on the clouds, if they were capable of supporting his weight. Like a bounce house? A feather mattress? Or more like molasses?
He was bored.
Letting his head fall back against the seat with a sigh, Feng Xin stared up at the plane ceiling. He briefly considered extracting his laptop from his bag to catch up with work before the weekend, but threw the idea aside as quickly as he thought of it. He’d used hard-earned vacation days for this weekend, so he was going to damn well enjoy them.
Yin Yu was so still and quiet that Feng Xin may as well have had both seats to himself. It was nice to not have someone chattering his ear off, but some conversation would have been nicer. After scrolling forward and backward through the movies on offer for half an hour, Feng Xin settled on some sort of horror-action-thriller from the ’90s that he’d never heard of, and only half-paid attention to.
An hour and a half later, he only noticed that the movie was over when he glanced back at the screen to find the credits rolling. He couldn’t remember the name of the main character, or much of the plot. Something to do with sharks, and people running away from them, but that was about all he could recall.
There were about a hundred other movies to choose from, but each one looked as dull and predictable as the next.
A few passengers were out of their seats now. A young mom was slowly walking up and down the other aisle, gently bobbing her sleeping infant up and down on her shoulder. The poor lady stuck sitting next to Pei Ming had apparently taken the first opportunity to escape his charms to stand next to her friends a few rows back.
Pei Ming himself materialised beside Feng Xin’s seat, draping himself across the back of the seat in front. ‘Find anything good to watch?’ he asked by way of greeting.
Feng Xin pulled out his earphones with a sigh. ‘No.’
‘Nah. Me neither.’
‘Right.’ He waited for Pei Ming to say whatever it was he’d come over here for, but he just stood there, gazing around the plane’s interior and looking almost as bored as Feng Xin felt. ‘…What’s up?’
‘Nothing, tragically,’ Pei Ming sighed. ‘I didn’t sign up to babysit two squabbling infants. No offence.’
Feng Xin scowled at him. ‘Who’s squabbling?!’
‘Not you and Mu Qing, by the grace of whoever happened to hand out the tickets,’ he replied without missing a beat. ‘Although, I wouldn’t mind sitting behind the two of you. You guys are entertaining when you fight. Those two over there might actually kill each other before we land.’
Bristling, Feng Xin struggled to think of a response. He and Mu Qing still fought like cat and dog whenever they met up, even with months of not seeing or speaking to each other in between—just like Lang Qianqiu and Qi Rong, he’d thought. He’d assumed the rest of their friends were just as sick with all four of them for their pointless bickering. ‘That-! Look, did you just come over here to be entertained?’
‘Yeah, pretty much,’ said Pei Ming, shameless. ‘Why don’t you go switch places with the puppy dog over there?’
Yin Yu flinched. It was such a subtle movement that Feng Xin wouldn’t have noticed it if it were anyone else, but Yin Yu had been sitting so still for the whole flight that he’d almost forgotten he was there at all.
‘You want Mu Qing and me to piss off the entire flight with our shouting?’ Feng Xin pointed out. ‘Yeah, no thanks. They’ll kick us both out through the emergency exit.’
Pei Ming chuckled. ‘Well, at least that would be entertaining. Won’t you save me from my boredom, Feng Xin?’
‘By getting myself thrown out of an airplane?’ Feng Xin scoffed. ‘You’re not even supposed to be here! You’re going behind your best friend’s back to support his sister’s wedding, you know?’
‘It’s not going behind his back,’ he argued. ‘Shi Qingxuan will find a way to marry her beloved eventually, no matter what her brother says or does, so I’m doing Shui-xiong a favour by keeping an eye on her for him. Better this than the pair of them running off on their own to the back end of nowhere on their own where they could run into any kind of trouble, no?’
‘Right. Nothing at all to do with a free weekend in Vegas, huh?’
Pei Ming slapped his hand to his chest in a theatrical display of offence. ‘Feng Xin! You wound me!’ But then he grinned, all white teeth and charm, and winked. ‘I’ll pay for my fair share of rounds, don’t you worry.’
Rolling his eyes, Feng Xin turned his attention back to his movie, which somehow still had more credits to roll.
‘Careful. You looked an awful lot like Mu Qing just then.’
Feng Xin flicked his middle finger at him without looking up. He clenched his teeth at Pei Ming’s cackling as he wandered away to find someone else to pester. As soon as he was gone, Feng Xin climbed out of his seat and wandered towards the cubicles at the front of Economy. He didn’t particularly need to go to the bathroom, but there was nothing else to do.
As he passed by, he noticed Quan Yizhen perching backwards in his seat, kneeling up on his knees with his arms folded on the headrest as he gazed longingly towards the back of the plane. A quick glance back confirmed he was trying to give Yin Yu his best impression of an abandoned, starving puppy, if he would only just look up from his book.
Beside him, Mu Qing was looking out the window and didn’t notice Feng Xin watching. After unconsciously bracing himself for a quick trade of barbed comments and insults, Feng Xin relaxed and wandered on by.
On the way back from the bathroom, Feng Xin’s eyes found Mu Qing again, but he was still looking out the window. He was entranced by the view, apparently, even though there was still nothing to see but clouds. But as Feng Xin neared, he paused and frowned. Mu Qing wasn’t just looking out the window; he was staring with eyes wide and unblinking, back ramrod straight in his seat and white fingers clenched into both armrests. From the aisle, even over the roar of the engines, Feng Xin could hear his short, shallow, harsh breaths in time with the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
Was he…?
No.
He couldn’t be. Mu Qing was too much of a logical bastard to be plagued by a fear of something as irrational as flying.
But then, what else could this be all about?
A logical bastard he may be, but Feng Xin supposed a phobia of flying would explain his extreme jitteriness back at the terminal.
‘Hey, Yizhen,’ said Feng Xin, nudging Quan Yizhen’s foot with his knee. ‘The seat next to Yin Yu is empty.’
He didn’t even answer. Lurching out into the aisle and shoving Feng Xin back a step, he bolted straight to Yin Yu’s side. Making a mental note to remember where his luggage was, Feng Xin dropped into the vacant seat beside Mu Qing. His panting was even louder now, so harsh that his throat must be hurting.
‘So,’ said Feng Xin.
‘Shut the fuck up and go away,’ Mu Qing hissed back through gritted teeth, eyes still glued to the window.
‘You don’t like flying, huh?’
Mu Qing scoffed, a noise that sounded like it was supposed to be a sarcastic laugh but came out halfway to a sob. His fingers clenched and unclenched around the armrests, his black-painted fingernails leaving deep crescents in the soft plastic padding.
‘Hey, maybe don’t look out the window?’ Feng Xin suggested. ‘It’s easier to pretend we’re not thirty-forty thousand feet up in the air if you just focus inside.’
‘Oh, fuck you,’ Mu Qing whispered with a shudder.
He bit his lip. He hadn’t meant to tease him. It just didn’t make sense for Mu Qing to be afraid of flying; surely he’d looked up all the statistics about air travel fatalities? And surely they were super low?
…Feng Xin hoped they were low. He’d never thought to look them up himself, and now he didn’t have WiFi to find out and reassure them both.
It was fine. It would be fine. Probably.
‘Ah!’ Mu Qing squeaked, his head snapping away from the window with his eyes closed tight. Feng Xin looked over to find that the clouds had finally given way to reveal the earth below, so far away that the forests looked like splotches of dark paint and the mountain ranges were little more than clever shading. It was, in short, a very long way down.
‘Can I get you gentlemen anything?’ asked a flight attendant.
‘No thanks-’ said Feng Xin.
‘Whatever you’ve got that’s strong,’ Mu Qing interrupted, eyes still closed tight.
The flight attendant nodded in sympathetic understanding and said, ‘I understand. I’ll be right back, sir.’ Then she leaned in and gave Feng Xin’s shoulder a squeeze, ignoring the way he tensed up at her closeness. ‘Don’t worry, we see nervous flyers all the time. Your friend will be fine once they’ve had something to take the edge off.’
‘…Uh huh,’ Feng Xin muttered. Once she was gone, he turned a frown on Mu Qing. ‘You don’t drink.’
‘That’s not true,’ he snapped back, finally opening his eyes to glare at him. ‘I don’t drink excessively. There’s a difference.’
‘Okay, whatever, but why now?’
‘If we go crashing to our deaths, I’ll be too unconscious to notice.’
Feng Xin barked a surprised laugh. ‘How much are you planning to drink?!’
‘As much as it takes.’
‘Okay, no.’ Feng Xin stood up. ‘Get up.’
Mu Qing blinked at him, the shimmer of pure terror and the spark of anger both vanishing for a split second beneath sheer confusion. ‘Why?’
‘You’re swapping with me. Get away from the window.’
‘What? No? I need to be able to see if we start to fall!’
‘I thought you wanted to be too unconscious to notice? What’s the difference if you can see or not?’
Thin, pale lips snapped shut and pressed into an even thinner, angry line. He glared as hot as molten fire, but the usual sharpness of his black eyes was dampened by what looked like self-consciousness. It wasn’t that long ago that a single look into those eyes would make Feng Xin go weak at the knees and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It still made him go weak at the knees, but for rather different reasons.
‘I’ll drag you out myself,’ Feng Xin threatened.
‘Fucking- Fine!’ Mu Qing barked at him, throwing up the middle armrest with so much force that Feng Xin flinched. ‘If you want the window seat so bad, just fucking ask.’
Feng Xin didn’t bother to argue with him. He hated the window seat—there was no opportunity to stretch his legs in the cramped space. But if it helped Mu Qing cling to the tattered remains of his pride to suggest that all of this hassle was just a ploy to claim the window seat, then Feng Xin was willing to take the hit. Mu Qing shuffled slowly across the seats on his butt and settled in the one next to the aisle, making no move to get up. He crossed one long leg awkwardly over the other in the limited space and folded his arms tightly over his chest.
‘Halfway there, I guess,’ said Feng Xin. ‘Are you going to get up?’
‘What for?’
‘…To let me in?’
Mu Qing tossed his pretty head. ‘That part’s not my problem. Figure it out yourself.’
‘Mu Qing-!’
‘I’m not standing up in this thing, Feng Xin.’
Feng Xin threw up his hands, unspoken swears and curses streaming through his mind and barely held back by his clenched teeth. He briefly entertained the idea of just spending the rest of the flight standing in the aisle; but then remembered that there were another four hours to go, and he couldn’t exactly stand through landing.
So he climbed straight over Mu Qing’s lap, having to hunch over in the narrow space between the seat and the overhead compartments.
‘Ack-!’ Mu Qing hissed, lurching back in his seat and swatting as much of Feng Xin’s knees and calves as he could reach. ‘Brute! Clumsy oaf! You’ll damage the aircraft!’
Feng Xin slipped down into the window seat beside him. ‘I know you think I’m hard-headed, but I promise I’m not capable of breaking an airplane, Mu Qing.’
A derisive snort was his only response. At that moment, the flight attendant returned with a small glass of what looked like whiskey. ‘Your drink, sir-’
Mu Qing plucked the glass out of her hand.
Feng Xin could guess what he planned to do. ‘Mu Qing, don’t-’
He downed the spirit in a single gulp, tensing up and grimacing as the fiery liquid took him by surprise and burned its way down his throat. He shuddered and handed the glass back to the attendant.
She looked at him with gentle concern. ‘Would you like another?’
Mu Qing nodded, and Feng Xin suppressed a sigh. As soon as she was gone again, he said, ‘You know they’re going to charge a fortune for that, right?’ Mu Qing just shrugged, arms and legs still crossed, as tense as a bowstring. There was no sign of his usual grace and elegance. Feng Xin wasn’t usually a nervous flyer, but all this second-hand agitation was making him all kinds of anxious. ‘Come on, it’s not that bad. You don’t really need to drink through it, do you?’
‘I’ll do what I want. I don’t need your permission.’
This was uncharted territory. Mu Qing was supposed to be the sensible one; he and Xie Lian were always the designated drivers for their group on the rare occasion they went out drinking together. Mu Qing was supposed to be the one reluctantly keeping Feng Xin’s drunk ass from hurting or killing himself with his own inebriated stupidity. To have the tables turned like this was unnerving.
He caught Mu Qing staring across him out the corner of his eye, gaze fixed once again on the window. Feng Xin snapped the shade closed. Mu Qing flashed another glare at him before turning away with a toss of his head and a sulky pout on his mouth.
Feng Xin supposed he owed him several nights’ worth of drunk-babysitting. He could cope for a few hours. Besides, what shenanigans could Mu Qing even get up to on an airplane?
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
‘Okay, no. That’s enough. You’ve had enough, Mu Qing!’
‘I have not!’ he whined, weakly fighting Feng Xin’s grip on his wrists with his head heavy and lolling a little. ‘Don’t tell me what to do! Don’t take it away from me!’
The flight attendant was back at his side, accompanied by a colleague. They both wore open concern on their faces, but Feng Xin couldn’t figure out if they were worried about Mu Qing, or worried about the disruption he might cause to other passengers. So far, by some miracle, he wasn’t being overly loud, hadn’t made any attempt to leave his seat, or tried to engage with anyone other than Feng Xin and the attendants.
‘Water, please,’ Feng Xin asked her. She nodded in agreement.
‘No-o!’ Mu Qing complained, twisting in his seat to fix his gaze on her instead. ‘I don’t want to stop! I don’t want to be normal again! Thinking hurts!’
How she managed to ignore him, Feng Xin would never know. The sincere, open dread on his face was heartbreaking, his anguish on full display. The other flight attendant darted away, hopefully to fetch some water.
Mu Qing flopped back against his seat and pouted at the cup when she set it down on his tray. He stopped moving entirely, his wrists going limp in Feng Xin’s grasp.
‘…It’s fine,’ Feng Xin said to the two flight attendants, still hovering worriedly beside them. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’
‘Okay, sir. Please buzz for us if you need assistance.’
‘Thanks.’ He waited until they both disappeared through the curtain to Business class before turning to Mu Qing, who was still pouting. ‘Are you going to start flailing again if I let you go?’
‘No…’ Mu Qing muttered, staring sadly at his cup of water.
Slowly, Feng Xin released Mu Qing’s wrists. True to his word, he didn’t start throwing his arms around in a melodramatic temper tantrum. He let his hands fall into his lap for a second, and then took several attempts to figure out how to properly fold his arms. His bottom lip jutted out like a child in timeout. Feng Xin pushed the cup a few inches closer to him. ‘Have some water, yeah? It’ll make you feel better.’
‘No!’ Mu Qing whined. ‘Don’t wanna feel better.’
‘Why the fuck not?’ Feng Xin asked with a nervous chuckle.
Mu Qing let his head loll to one side, away from Feng Xin. ‘Scared…’ he whispered, so quiet that he was nearly drowned out by the roar of the engines, and that one word in that small voice with that vulnerable expression nearly cleaved Feng Xin’s heart clean in two. He wanted to swaddle Mu Qing up into a little bundle and tuck him away inside his ribcage where nothing could ever hope to hurt him.
The last time he felt this way, Feng Xin had met a litter of week-old kittens at the animal shelter where Xie Lian volunteered, and he’d wept so much at the sight of their little abandoned faces that he’d had to be escorted out for disturbing the other visitors. He still wasn’t allowed back.
Feng Xin squashed down the urge to wrap Mu Qing up in a hug that would undoubtedly earn him a punch to the mouth and cleared his throat. ‘You were scared?’ he asked, trying to sound gentle and not at all choked up. Mu Qing’s fear had been evident from the beginning, but it was a unique experience unto itself to hear him admit it. He couldn’t remember Mu Qing ever admitting to any emotion other than anger.
‘Still scared,’ he muttered, shifting and fidgeting in his seat like he couldn’t get comfortable. ‘But less.’
‘Not so scared now? Because you’re drunk?’
Mu Qing shrugged inelegantly. ‘Harder to…remember.’
‘Hm? Remember what?’
He let his head loll back towards Feng Xin. ‘F… Fen- Feng- A-Xin, if the airplane crashes and I die, will you bury me next to Mama back home?’
While his heart seized and threatened to turn itself inside out by somersaulting over and over again at being addressed so intimately by Mu Qing’s usually bitter tongue, Feng Xin chuckled hysterically.
‘If the airplane crashes and you die, don’t you think I’d die too? I’m sitting right next to you,’ he managed to say. ‘Come on, we’re not going to-’
Mu Qing’s eyes widened to an almost comical degree, the black of his irises shimmering like he was on the verge of tears. ‘You’re gonna die?!’ he exclaimed, raising his voice in panic and turning several heads.
‘Shh!’ Feng Xin hurried to hush him, grabbing hold of his hands again. His cheeks feeling warm, he flashed what he hoped were reassuring smiles at the curious faces all looking at them. ‘It’s fine, it’s fine, Mu Qing! No one’s dying. Okay? Not me, not you.’
‘How do you know?’ he asked, his gaze intense and earnest. He let Feng Xin hold onto his wrists, making no attempt to fight him off or wriggle free.
‘Because…’ Feng Xin cursed himself again for not knowing the exact statistics of air travel safety. There was no quicker way to convince Mu Qing of anything than reciting a list of facts and unarguable logic. He would just have to do his best to guess, and fill the gaps with confidence. ‘Because people fly all the time, right? There are hundreds of flights every day, right? And there are less than…a hundred…crashes every year, right?’ He hoped to any god that would listen that Mu Qing didn’t already have every correct aviation statistic committed to memory. ‘And, like, ninety-nine of those have no fatalities anyway.’
Mu Qing just blinked his big black eyes back at him, hanging off his every word.
‘So…it’s just not gonna happen, right? It’s like being struck by lightning. It’s technically possible, but the chances are so low that it may as well be impossible. Right?’
For the longest moment in history, Mu Qing continued to stare at him. Then he pushed himself back into his seat, hands slipping free of Feng Xin’s loosened grip. ‘You don’t know that,’ he muttered, fumbling to fold his arms across his chest again. As contrary as ever, even inebriated, but at least he wasn't on the verge of tears or raising his voice anymore.
For a little while, Mu Qing stayed quiet. He sat with his arms and legs crossed and his head lolling onto his shoulder. He didn’t touch the cup of water, but he was behaving himself, so Feng Xin took advantage of the break to mess around with his phone instead of watching him like a hawk. After tapping between four different social media apps before remembering one by one that they all needed internet access, he tried reading one of the novels downloaded to his Kindle app, never before touched.
Feng Xin just wasn’t a book kind of guy, as much as he sometimes wished he could claim to be. He might have had more lasting luck on dating apps if he could, in good conscience, add books to his Interests list.
After ten minutes of peace, he glanced up out of the corner of his eye to check on Mu Qing. He was still sitting quietly in exactly the same position, his head bowed forward and his eyes half-closed—but a second cup had appeared on his tray. His novel forgotten – and he’d only managed to get about two pages in anyway – Feng Xin frowned at the empty cup, sitting unassuming beside the cup still full of water. ‘Mu Qing,’ he said. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘What?’ Mu Qing asked, speech still muttered and slightly slurred. He didn’t look to see what Feng Xin meant.
‘The cup. Where did it come from? What was in it?’
Mu Qing shrugged. ‘I dunno.’
‘You do know.’
He turned his face away, like a petulant child.
‘Mu Qing, was that more whisky?’
He shrugged and refused to answer.
‘Who the hell gave it to you?!’ Feng Xin demanded, looking around the plane as though he could identify the perpetrator on sight. He could imagine Pei Ming doing something like this just to mess with them, but he was currently sandwiched between Lang Qianqiu and Qi Rong to try and stop them from punching each other into two walking bruises. The flight attendants had been very aware that Mu Qing had already had too much to drink, so he couldn’t imagine them bringing him more. Unless he fixed them with his vulnerable abandoned-kitten expression, then it was very possible that they crumbled to his request.
‘What?’ Mu Qing asked in a mutter.
‘The cup!’
‘What cup?’
‘Mu Qing, I can still see it.’
Without missing a beat, Mu Qing grabbed the empty cup and tossed it away down the aisle, startling the passengers in the seats ahead of them. Feng Xin stared at the place it had vanished under a row of seats, too shocked to react. One of the flight attendants hurried over to collect the cup, and Feng Xin spluttered over his apologies. ‘Mu Qing, you can’t just—do that!’ he hissed. He grabbed the full cup of water, just in case Mu Qing decided to throw that next.
‘S’fine,’ he slurred back, failing to cross his arms again and letting them fall heavily into his lap. ‘You fixed it.’
‘Fixed what?’
But Mu Qing either forgot or lost interest in what he was trying to say. He let his head fall heavily back against his headrest and his eyes fell closed. With a resigned sigh, Feng Xin put his phone away. If Mu Qing was going to be sneaking drinks from a trouble-making ally, then he would need to keep at least one eye on him at all times.
The plane shook and rattled around them as they hit a pocket of mild turbulence. Mu Qing furrowed his brow over his closed eyes, scrunching them tight, and groaned, ‘Sto-op…’
Feng Xin bit his lip and turned his face away, struggling to suppress his laughter. Of course an inebriated Mu Qing would try to scold the plane for daring to react to turbulence while he was still on it. Somehow, it seemed to work.
A short time later, once Feng Xin was fairly convinced that Mu Qing had fallen asleep, he suddenly straightened up in his seat and said, ‘A-Xin.’
‘Hm?’ he answered, his heart doing a little flip. He yelled at it internally to calm the fuck down.
‘I need to pee.’
Feng Xin glanced over at him. His eyes were still closed, brow slightly furrowed, and he was squirming. It was honestly surprising that he’d gone this long without needing to go to the bathroom after so many cups of whiskey. ‘Okay. Go pee, then.’
‘Where?’
‘Where-?’ Feng Xin echoed. He pointed down the aisle. ‘There’s a cubicle just down there. Before the curtains. See the sign?’
Mu Qing dragged his eyelids open, and he struggled to follow Feng Xin’s pointing finger. He looked for a while, blinking slowly at the bathroom signs. Feng Xin couldn’t work out whether he could see it or not, or whether he had already forgotten what they were talking about. But then he slowly turned his head back towards him, unfocused eyes peering into Feng Xin’s face. ‘But it’s all the way over there.’
Feng Xin blinked at him. ‘What? Can’t you walk?’
Mu Qing blinked back at him. ‘The plane is moving. I’ll fall over.’
Mu Qing had refused to stand up on the plane when he was stone-cold sober. It stood to reason that the alcohol hadn’t managed to completely assuage his fear; he had admitted to still being scared, after all. ‘You won’t fall over,’ Feng Xin tried to reassure him. ‘Look, that woman’s been standing up for the whole flight and she hasn’t fallen over.’
Though Mu Qing looked over to the young woman with the infant, still slowly pacing up and down the aisle, he still didn’t look convinced. He turned back to Feng Xin and repeated, ‘I’ll fall over.’
‘You won’t fall over, Mu Qing. It’s okay.’
‘S’not. I’ll fall over.’
‘Is that worse than pissing yourself?’ Feng Xin asked. Mu Qing’s squirming was getting more urgent, thighs rubbing together and his feet tapping on the floor.
Mu Qing frowned and scrunched up his nose, which was adorable and made Feng Xin want to pinch it. His disgust at such vulgar language couldn’t be dulled by alcohol, it seemed. Looking from the bathroom signs up front, to the woman soothing her baby behind them, and then back over to Feng Xin, Mu Qing finally pushed out his bottom lip in a pout and said in a small voice, ‘Come with me…?’
‘Come—with you? To the bathroom?’
Still squirming, Mu Qing let his eyes slide away and he tugged anxiously at a strand of his silver-black hair.
Feng Xin swallowed heavily. The airplane was flying quite smoothly now, and even drunk Mu Qing should have no problem walking the short distance to the bathroom. The entire Economy class would see the two of them walking towards the cubicle together, and conclusions would definitely be jumped to. But the alternative was to say no. Mu Qing was so scared that he might actually choose to stay in his seat and risk wetting himself in a very public place with no way to clean himself up for another three hours.
It wasn’t really a choice at all. Sighing, Feng Xin knocked his knee against Mu Qing’s and said, ‘Alright, fine. Get up.’
Mu Qing’s pout grew more pronounced. ‘You first.’
‘How?!’ Feng Xin demanded, throwing up his hands and gesturing vigorously at the fact that Mu Qing was still blocking him against the window. Mu Qing looked at him with such a wide, shimmering doe-eyed look that Feng Xin immediately let his head fall back with a loud groan, and gave in.
Mu Qing was so damn lucky that Feng Xin had the biggest stupid crush on him and was physically incapable of saying no to such a stupidly adorable expression on his stupid pretty face.
Getting to his feet and awkwardly hunching over once more, Feng Xin climbed back over Mu Qing’s lap to reach the aisle. At least he didn’t swat at him this time.
After some animated urging, Mu Qing finally got to his feet on legs that resembled that of a newborn fawn, but refused to move unless Feng Xin had his hands on each of his shoulders and walked behind him like the world’s shortest, slowest, and most pathetic conga line. He managed to usher Mu Qing into the cubicle and convinced him that, no, Feng Xin did not need to stay in there with him. HE closed the door and stepped far enough away for everyone to see that they weren’t doing anything weird in the bathroom.
Pei Ming was waiting for him, thumbs hooked into his front pockets and one eyebrow raised. Feng Xin felt his shoulders slump. ‘Don’t.’
‘So you switched places with Yizhen after all, huh?’
‘So what?’ Feng Xin grumbled. He wanted to stomp back to his seat, away from Pei Ming’s pointed questions, but he also didn’t want Mu Qing to step out of the cubicle and freak out at the very front of Economy when he realised Feng Xin wasn’t there.
‘So, I haven’t heard any shouting—at least, not louder than the two other idiots over there, and I didn’t notice anyone throwing open the emergency exit, so I assume both you and Mu Qing have been spared the embarrassment of being kicked out at cruising altitude.’
Feng Xin shrugged and leant back against the interior wall beside the cubicle. ‘He’s less confrontational when he’s drunk.’
Pei Ming’s eyebrows rose to meet his hairline. ‘He’s drunk?’
‘Yeah?’ Feng Xin frowned. ‘Why the fuck else would I escort him to the bathroom? Sorry,’ he added quickly, as the young mother scowled, covered her baby’s ears and hurried away from him.
‘I don’t know, I kind of assumed…’
‘Assumed what?’
Pei Ming made a vague waving gesture with his left hand. ‘You know. What do most people do in an airplane bathroom?’
‘Not-!’
‘A-Xin, help me.’
Feng Xin’s head snapped round at the same moment Mu Qing curled his fingers into his sleeve. In his other hand, he was clutching yet another empty plastic cup. There were definite amber droplets clinging to the bottom this time.
‘You-!’ Feng Xin plucked it out of his grasp. ‘Who keeps giving you these? Is it you?!’ he demanded, pointing an accusatory finger at Pei Ming.
‘No? I didn’t even know he’d been drinking until thirty seconds ago?’
Mu Qing stuck out his bottom lip and clumsily reached out in an attempt to snatch his cup back. He missed by several centimetres; Feng Xin didn’t even have to move out of his way. ‘Give it!’
Pei Ming’s face did something strange—morphing into a pleasantly-surprised grin, like Mu Qing being drunk was the best news he’d received all week, but more conniving. Feng Xin hated it. He set the empty cup down on a stranger’s seat tray and grabbed hold of the hand that had attempted to grab it. ‘Come on, it’s empty anyway. Let’s go sit down before you fall over.’
Mu Qing resisted. ‘You said I wouldn’t fall over!’ he complained, frowning at Feng Xin with eyes full of complete betrayal.
‘Well, well. Isn’t this an interesting development?’
Feng Xin flashed a glare at Pei Ming. ‘Keep your paws off him. He’s drunk.’
He raised his palms defensively. ‘Come on, A-Xin, I concede that he’s very pretty, but you know I don’t swing that way. I also prefer my partners to be a little less helpless than this. He’s all yours.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Feng Xin hissed back. He gave Mu Qing’s hand a gentle tug. ‘It’s fine, you won’t fall over. I’m right here, see?’
For a painful moment, Mu Qing still didn’t move. He blinked sluggishly at their connected hands, and then at Feng Xin’s face, hazy irises struggling to focus. Pei Ming hovered beside them, grinning at them like they were a pair of particularly entertaining clowns. Finally, Mu Qing finally uttered, ‘…Okay.’ And then promptly dropped almost all his weight against Feng Xin’s side.
‘Oof-! Mu Qing, why-?!’
‘Hah!’ Pei Ming barked, smacking a hand over his own mouth and snickering into his palm.
‘Will you piss off already?’ Feng Xin snapped at him, wrapping an arm around Mu Qing’s sinfully narrow waist to prop him up. ‘Go back to playing referee for Lang Qianqiu and Qi Rong.’
‘But this is so much more interesting.’
‘Go away!’
‘Go ’way,’ Mu Qing echoed, letting his head loll onto Feng Xin’s shoulder.
Pei Ming cackled. ‘Okay, okay, I’m going. I’ll get a better view from over there anyway.’
‘You’re such a dick.’
Feng Xin hoisted Mu Qing more securely against his side, seeing as he’d apparently decided to let Feng Xin walk for him, and started the awkward shuffle back to their seats. At least he didn’t have to climb over Mu Qing’s lap to sit down this time. But even once they were settled and Feng Xin had managed to extract his arm, Mu Qing kept his fingers curled into his sleeve. No amount of subtle or unsubtle shaking could dislodge him, holding onto the cotton in a vice-like grip.
Giving in, Feng Xin asked, ‘How are you feeling? Nauseous yet?’
Mu Qing shook his head lethargically from side to side. ‘Sleepy.’
‘Sleepy?’ he echoed hopefully. ‘Want to take a nap?’
‘Mm… Maybe?’ Mu Qing scrunched his nose as his eyes drooped closed. The plane chose that moment to hit another pocket of turbulence, rattling like a maraca. Eyes still closed, Mu Qing scowled and kicked the back of the seat in front of him in annoyance. The passenger sitting there shot a glare over his shoulder, which Feng Xin pretended to not see. Mu Qing kept talking, determined to not nap and give Feng Xin a break from his shenanigans. ‘Too noisy to sleep.’
‘You can skip the whole landing if you sleep through it, you know?’
With obvious effort, he blinked his eyes back open for all of two seconds, just long enough to say, ‘Buyao. (Don't wanna)’
Feng Xin couldn’t remember the last time he heard Mu Qing use Mandarin. He’d almost exclusively used English for as long as Feng Xin had known him, even when talking about things related to home, but it was obvious he knew the language as well as anyone else in their social circle. Only with his mother had Feng Xin ever heard him speak it, and she’d passed away almost a year ago. Maybe Mu Qing hadn’t spoken it at all since—until now.
‘Wouldn’t’ve come if I knew it would feel like this,’ Mu Qing went on, completely in full Mandarin now. A slightly slurry, mumbly version of it, at least. ‘Never flew before. Never flew with Mama. Couldn’t pay to go anywhere on a plane.’
Not only speaking his mother’s tongue to Feng Xin, but also bearing his heart, apparently. Feng Xin was going to need an emotional brace at the other end of this flight after all the whiplash he was suffering. ‘Was there anywhere you wanted to go as a kid?’ he asked, responding in the same language. ‘Did you ever want to get on a plane when you were little?’
But Mu Qing didn’t answer. Moving so slowly that he appeared half-asleep already, he opened his eyes and turned to Feng Xin, staring blankly.
He clearly didn’t have a clue what he just said.
Feng Xin snorted softly, finally giving into the temptation to reach over and pinch his nose. ‘What, you can speak it but you can’t understand it?’ he teased, pulling back before Mu Qing could swipe clumsily at him. ‘Or did you just forget what I said already?’
He huffed, but it came out more like a sleepy sigh, and let his eyes fall closed again. ‘Bu zhi dao, (Didn't know)’ he muttered, and then continued in English, ‘that it’d be scary.’
‘You really never got on a plane before today, huh?’
‘Nuh uh.’
‘Are you never getting on a plane again after today?’
Mu Qing stuck out his bottom lip and frowned again, the perfect picture of petulance. ‘Gotta get home… Then never again.’
‘You could drive it,’ Feng Xin pointed out. ‘It’d take a few days… Maybe a week? But doable for sure, if you really don’t want to fly again.’
‘All on my own?’
His voice was so small and quiet that Feng Xin was struck again by the tearful desire to hide Mu Qing away inside his ribcage, just to ensure that he was never on his own ever again. He took a steadying breath and replied, ‘No, not on your own. You don’t have to be on your own unless you want to be.’
Mu Qing’s pout turned indescribably sad. ‘That’s not true…’
Feng Xin wished it would be acceptable to just hug him. He looked like he needed it. His mother died almost a year ago, and Feng Xin didn’t know of anyone else that Mu Qing would deign to touch in such a way. He’d certainly never seen Mu Qing hug anyone else in his life, or even accept a hug from anyone without going as stiff as a statue and snarling like a tiger, but it was tempting to try nonetheless. It was almost worth being snapped and swiped at; whether it was now or in several hours once he’d sobered up, Mu Qing would certainly chew him out for it at some point.
He refrained, keeping his arms to himself. It would be too difficult to explain if he had to attend his friends’ wedding with both of his eyes scratched out.
Feng Xin sighed. ‘Alright, let’s just take a nap, yeah? You said you’re sleepy.’
‘No,’ Mu Qing argued, even as his eyes fell closed and his head lolled against the seat rest.
Within just a minute, he was fast asleep; lips slightly parted and chest slowly rising and falling. Feng Xin took a deep breath, exhaling a whole hour’s worth of tension. He didn’t dare take his eyes off Mu Qing for more than a few minutes, even asleep, just in case he stealthily woke up and plucked another cup of whiskey out of thin air, but at least he had something of a break. His poor brain hadn’t been put through its paces like this since college, and his emotions – which Feng Xin would readily admit weren’t particularly well developed in the first place – felt as tender as a fresh bruise.
‘Hey, Feng Xin!’
‘Shh!’ he hissed back instinctively, scowling over at Shi Qingxuan as she popped up beside them.
She turned surprised eyes on Mu Qing, still slumped in his seat and very clearly asleep. Making a theatrical show of keeping her voice down, she continued in a stage-whisper that was barely any quieter, ‘You were supposed to bunk with Yin Yu this weekend, right?’
‘I guess,’ Feng Xin replied, keeping his own voice down. He hadn’t actually looked at the itinerary yet; he was supposed to kill some time on the plane figuring out what he was supposed to do once they touched down in Vegas. And then Mu Qing had happened.
‘Well…’ Shi Qingxuan went on, grinning in a way that implied she was trying to make some bad news sound better than it was. ‘How do you feel about swapping with Yizhen?’
Feng Xin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Even asleep and drunk, he didn’t trust Mu Qing to not wake up, notice, and mock him for it until the end of time. ‘Why didn’t you put those two together in the first place? Yizhen always wants to stick as close to Yin Yu as he’ll physically let him.’
‘You know,’ she said with half a shrug. ‘Just wanted to mix things up a bit, but Yizhen just asked, so… Want to make sure everyone’s as happy as I am this weekend!’
‘Are you sure Yin Yu will be happy with this new arrangement?’ Feng Xin pointed out with a restrained chuckle. ‘But yeah, fine, whatever. Who was Yizhen bunking with, then?’
‘Well,’ she said again, pausing, like she was thinking carefully about how to word the answer. The way her eyes flicked to his sleeping companion gave it away before she could say it.
‘You’re kidding?’
Shi Qingxuan smiled, cocking her head to one side as she brought one hand up to scratch the back of her neck sheepishly. ‘Uh, no? Aha, I’m sorry. You guys will be fine though, right? You lived together for four years.’
‘We didn’t share a room!’ Feng Xin protested. ‘And Xie Lian lived with us for two of them.’
‘You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine! It’ll be like being back at college, right?’
‘You say that like it’s supposed to be a good thing?!’
‘See you when we land, Feng Xin! Look after him!’
And then she was gone. Feng Xin let himself collapse heavily against his seat, utterly exhausted. Unfortunately, the sudden movement jostled Mu Qing, and he slid sideways until his head met Feng Xin’s shoulder.
They’d spent more or less their entire lives in each other’s orbits in some form or other; and then three months after college, Mu Qing suddenly got himself a job and basically vanished from Feng Xin’s life. They still had their various group chats from high school, but Mu Qing only popped up in those to share his (usually contrary) opinion on whatever conversation was going on at the time, or to insult Feng Xin. Their friend group got together to meet up on a semi-regular basis to catch up, but no one’s schedule ever aligned to get everyone together at once—except in the instance of a secret runaway wedding, Feng Xin supposed. After six months in which the only interactions they’d had was passively insulting each other in the group chat, Feng Xin was about to experience more of Mu Qing than he’d ever had to suffer in his life. Even when they shared an apartment, they kept to themselves most of the time; they always ended up knocking heads whenever they crossed paths, and neither of them had had the energy for it while neck-deep in studies.
With Mu Qing fast asleep on his shoulder, Feng Xin didn’t dare to even breathe too deeply. He couldn’t move to put on another movie, or pick up his phone, or even stare out at the clouds with the window shutter down. He could only sit completely still, breathing so shallowly that he felt a little lightheaded, and wait for Mu Qing to wake up on his own. Or to land in another two hours. Whichever happened first.
‘Sir?’
Feng Xin blinked himself out of a waking trance and turned to the flight attendant. ‘Mn?’
‘We’re coming in to land shortly,’ she said quietly. ‘Can I ask you to lift the shutter, please?’
It took a moment for Feng Xin’s brain to kick itself back into gear. He had to glance at the window, and then back at the flight attendant before he realised what she was telling him to do. Making more effort to keep his voice down than he’d ever made in his life, he replied, ‘Can’t we make an exception? He’s been terrified the whole flight and landing will be worse.’
Her expression was endlessly sympathetic. ‘I understand, sir, but for safety reasons we must have all window shutters up during landing.’
Feng Xin took another breath to argue further, but it was pointless. The longer they kept talking, the more likely they would wake Mu Qing. The longer he could stay asleep before landing, the better. Feng Xin was already anticipating the imminent freak-out as the ground loomed nearer and nearer. ‘Alright,’ he huffed, reaching over as steadily as he could to push the shutter back up to reveal a bank of clouds.
When the seatbelt sign came on, however, it was impossible to avoid waking him. As Feng Xin wriggled to get his seatbelt on, Mu Qing squirmed and made a series of wordless moans and groans in pitiful protest.
‘No helping it, Mu Qing, sorry,’ Feng Xin muttered. ‘Need help with your seatbelt?’
Mu Qing grumbled wordlessly again, finally lifting his head up and squirming in his seat without opening his eyes. And then shuffled over and set his head right back on Feng Xin’s shoulder without making any indication that he understood or even heard.
‘Hey?’ Feng Xin gave him a nudge. ‘Mu Qing? Seatbelt.’
‘Mmph.’
Feng Xin sighed and leant over to do it himself. Mu Qing complained again, patting at him irritably and with growing urgency until Feng Xin managed to get his seatbelt clipped closed and settled back again. He smacked a clumsy palm into Feng Xin’s chest, pressing him against the back of his seat.
‘Stay!’
‘All right, all right. I’m done.’ Feng Xin couldn’t help but chuckle. He’d never seen Mu Qing behave like this before. But perhaps Mu Qing had some idea—it would explain why he never elected to join his friends when they got drunk, if he knew alcohol led him to behave like a petulant toddler. ‘Go back to sleep if you can.’
Mu Qing huffed again. Two minutes later, he blinked his eyes open and rubbed his hands over them. He wriggled in his seat and looked down at his lap, fighting sluggishly against the seatbelt. Feng Xin watched him frown—and then his eyes snapped up to the window, wide awake in time to watch the airplane descend below the clouds and the ground came into view. His fingers immediately clawed into Feng Xin’s chest, scratching his skin through the cotton of his T-shirt, and didn’t notice his wince of pain. ‘Falling?’
‘No, just landing,’ Feng Xin tried to reassure him, and also tried gently to pry those catlike claws from his shirt. ‘We went up, so we have to come down again, right?’
‘Going up was bad, though…’
‘But going down means we won’t be in the air anymore, and you don’t have to be scared.’
Mu Qing didn’t answer, just staring at the window with wide eyes and pinprick pupils. Feng Xin wanted to close the shutter again, since that seemed to help a little the first time, but he could see the flight attendant watching them. The ground was coming up to meet them quite rapidly now, the built-up city of Las Vegas sprouting up out of the desert in the distance.
‘Come here,’ said Feng Xin, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him back against him.
Although he allowed it, Mu Qing still mumbled, ‘’M not napping, A-Xin…’
If he was in any doubt about whether he was still drunk before, Feng Xin knew for sure now. He didn’t think his heart would ever recover from hearing that name in Mu Qing’s voice. ‘What do you think’s gonna happen? We’ll crash into the runway?’
Mu Qing squeaked. ‘Yes!’
An idea struck; probably not a good idea, but it was better than doing nothing and letting Mu Qing wind himself up into hysterics. He lifted the hand that was resting around Mu Qing’s shoulders and covered his eyes.
‘What are you doing..?’
‘This is fine, right?’ Feng Xin asked, hiding the anxious fluttering in his chest with false disinterest.
‘But I can’t-!’
‘You didn’t want to know about it before, did you?’ Feng Xin pointed out. ‘I’ll tell you what’s happening if you want.’
Mu Qing said nothing for a moment. His fingers were still clutching Feng Xin’s shirt, but he didn’t try to escape his makeshift blindfold. ‘Alright,’ he muttered eventually, still tense against his side.
‘Okay.’ Feng Xin turned to the window. The land was rising quickly, but he said, ‘We’re still quite high up. Just under the clouds, I think.’ The airplane banked to the left, preparing to line up with the runway. ‘I think we’re circling the airport first…getting a good look at it first so everything’s in order for landing.’
Mu Qing squeaked.
Feng Xin tightened his hold on him. ‘Everything’s fine. We’re still high up. Might be a good few minutes yet.’ He was lying through his teeth, and he couldn’t tell if Mu Qing was buying it or not. His fingers were trembling against Feng Xin’s chest, and his lips were pressed into a thin, pale line. The runway loomed, closer and closer with the skyscrapers of the Las Vegas Strip erupting around them. The engines started to whine and the cabin rattled, and Feng Xin realised he couldn’t lie his way all the way through the landing; especially with Mu Qing starting to claw at him again and his breaths coming in short, sharp gasps against his collarbone. ‘Small bump coming up, Mu Qing.’
‘Ah-!’ Mu Qing gasped as the wheels touched down with a jolt, the sudden break pushing them forward against their seatbelts.
Feng Xin didn’t remove his hand from Mu Qing’s eyes until they had slowed all the way down to taxiing speed. He lifted his palm slowly, giving Mu Qing plenty of warning. ‘See?’ he said as black eyes blinked rapidly, zeroing in on the window again. ‘We’re on the ground. No crashes.’
‘Felt like crashing…’ Mu Qing mumbled, finally extracting his fingernails from Feng Xin’s shirt and pushing himself upright in his seat, still swaying slightly. He scraped loose strands of his hair from his face, slightly damp with sweat. ‘I hate this. I hate you. Never again.’
‘It’s not my wedding we’re flying out here for,’ Feng Xin pointed out, rolling his shoulders and finally stretching his arms above his head—or at least trying to in the cramped space. ‘Blame Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan if you want someone to blame. And while you’re at it, blame them twice, since we’re stuck in the same room at the hotel now.’
Mu Qing scrunched up his nose, but otherwise didn’t react to that particular revelation.
‘Are you still drunk?’ Feng Xin asked.
‘Dunno. Maybe. How long does being drunk last?’
‘Depends on what you drank, how much you drank, and how fast you drank it,’ he pointed out. ‘And the rate you metabolise too. You metabolise stupid-quick, so you might get over it quick too.’
‘Mn.’ He rubbed the backs of his hands across his eyes and sighed heavily. ‘Hate this.’
‘You did this to yourself.’ They seemed to have been pulled into the gate now, but the seatbelt sign hadn’t turned off yet. Drunk Mu Qing was a handful. Sober Mu Qing was a pain in the ass. Feng Xin was eager to offload him to someone else – preferably Xie Lian – before he had to learn what a hungover Mu Qing was like. He needed a nap. He didn’t want to spend the whole afternoon being a punching bag after spending the whole flight being a babysitter.
Just when he thought Mu Qing was over the worst of his drunkenness, Feng Xin watched him unclip his seatbelt as soon as the sign switched off and stand up like he was ready to sprint for the terminal; and then swayed dangerously on the spot and collapsed back into his seat without a shred of grace. He pressed a hand over his eyes and muttered, ‘Ow…’
‘Is the plane spinning?’ he asked.
‘Hate this…’ Mu Qing complained for the third time.
Feng Xin sighed. ‘Let’s wait for everyone else to get off first, yeah?’
‘Mmf.’
He took that as a yes.
Mu Qing was no better ten minutes later, once all the other passengers had disembarked. He was more careful climbing to his feet, clutching onto the backs of the seats. He still swayed dangerously from side to side, his legs weak and wobbly beneath him.
If this had happened a year ago, Feng Xin would have just left him behind to figure it out for himself. He also wouldn’t have willingly swapped seats to sit next to him for a six-hour flight, allowed him to sleep soundly on his shoulder for half of it, or looked after him while drunk. Now, however, he went back to collect his duffel and hooked it uncomfortably over one shoulder before coming back to wiggle Mu Qing’s suitcase out of the overhead compartment. It was definitely at the very upper limit of the compartment dimensions. He definitely fluttered his eyelashes at the gate to get it permitted onboard.
Feng Xin followed an unsteady Mu Qing off the plane, across the jet bridge, and through the gate to baggage claim. The rest of their group was already waiting for them.
‘Hey, Feng Xin!’ Shi Qingxuan called, waving her arm high above her head even though they were all clearly in view. ‘We thought you guys got lost!’
‘Loud…’ Mu Qing muttered, one hand coming up to clutch his head, and then he slowly wandered off to lean against a pillar.
‘Is everything okay?’ asked Xie Lian, stepping away from the group to speak to Feng Xin with his voice lowered. ‘Mu Qing doesn’t look very well… He didn’t seem like himself before we boarded either, did he? Has something happened?’
With a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure that Mu Qing was too busy holding his head to pay any attention to them, Feng Xin replied in a whisper, ‘He’s scared of flying. He drank too much on the plane trying to cope with it.’
Xie Lian’s eyes widened. ‘He never said anything! We could have done something to help!’
Feng Xin fixed him with a look. ‘It’s Mu Qing. In what world would he ever admit to something like this, or let anyone help him?’
‘I guess…’ He sighed. ‘But I still wish he’d said something. At least you were with him, Feng Xin.’
‘Right,’ Feng Xin responded, holding back a scoff. Of everyone Mu Qing could possibly want to witness him both frightened out of his mind and drunk, Feng Xin wouldn’t even make the list. ‘I think he’d be happier with you. We need to take cabs to the hotel, right? Can’t you go with him?’
‘Ah, well…’ Xie Lian scratched awkwardly at his cheek. ‘San Lang and I are going to go pick up some supplies for the weekend. Pei Ming is taking our luggage to the hotel for us. Can I ask you to look after Mu Qing for a little longer? We won’t take forever, I promise!’
Feng Xin wanted to shake him. Couldn’t he see how vulnerable Mu Qing was right now? Couldn’t he tell how emotionally wrung out and exhausted Feng Xin’s heart was? He didn’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and find out that Mu Qing hated him even more after having his inhibitions brought down in front of him.
But—they were here for Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan. Making their wedding the best it could be would be everyone’s priority. ‘Alright, fine. We’ll see you later then.’
Xie Lian beamed. ‘Look after him, Feng Xin.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
They waited for nearly half an hour for their luggage. Of course, Feng Xin’s suitcase seemed to be the very last one to be offloaded. He watched everyone else pick up their stuff and make their way to Arrivals in pairs and trios. Yin Yu already looked ready to find a hole to go and hide in, with Quan Yizhen clinging to his side and chattering in his ear. Lang Qianqiu and Qi Rong were still bickering, but still headed outside together for some reason. Ling Wen, Jian Lan, and Yushi Huang were already discussing where to go for dinner as they left the carousel. Pei Ming gave Feng Xin a hearty pat on the shoulder as he passed, a smirk on his face, and just laughed when Feng Xin flipped him off.
By the time his bag appeared, there was just one other suitcase left to be picked up. Feng Xin hauled his suitcase off the conveyor belt and took a closer look at the other one as it passed: plain black but big enough to hold an entire closet.
‘Hey,’ he called back to Mu Qing, who hadn’t moved from the pillar or removed his head from his hand. ‘Is this one yours? They’ve lost it if it’s not.’
Mu Qing lifted his head just enough to peer through his fingers. ‘…S’mine.’
He made absolutely no move to go over and collect it. With a huff of frustration, Feng Xin hauled Mu Qing’s luggage off the belt. ‘Okay, I know you’re feeling gross right now, but I physically cannot carry all of this and you by myself. Come and get your own stuff.’
With a pained groan that was halfway to a whimper, Mu Qing finally stumbled over.
Holding onto his duffel and his suitcase in one hand, Feng Xin kept his steps painfully slow to keep pace with Mu Qing. He hovered his free hand behind Mu Qing’s shoulders, just in case he completely lost his balance and fell. After another half-hour wait in the taxi line under the scorching midday desert sun, he had to then convince the driver that Mu Qing wasn’t going to throw up in his cab before he agreed to take them the five-minute journey round the block to their hotel.
It was a big and grand place, like everything else on the Strip. Chandeliers hung low from the ceiling over a painted flagstone floor. It was the sort of place that looked fancier than it really was. He could already hear the sort of snide comments Mu Qing would make about the tacky colour choices and staff uniforms, if he wasn’t preoccupied with the spins and the nausea. But Feng Xin wasn’t about to complain about the hotel; he would have been just as comfortable in a budget motel, and Shi Qingxuan clearly liked it, since she picked it. That was what mattered.
Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan were loitering alone in the lobby when Feng Xin and Mu Qing finally arrived. Shi Qingxuan stuffed two key cards into Feng Xin’s grasp, turned to grab He Xuan’s hand, and hauled them back out into the sunshine before they could even say hello. The Las Vegas Strip was clearly too enticing to waste any time on small talk. Or any talk.
‘Fine, let’s just…go lie down,’ Feng Xin muttered, partly to Mu Qing but mostly to himself. He’d been curious to visit the city when he’d first received the invite, but now he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less.
‘Don’t wanna,’ said Mu Qing.
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t wanna…sober up yet,’ he muttered.
‘…Why?’
Mu Qing shrugged, the action nearly causing him to stumble into another guest trying to reach the reception desk. Feng Xin caught him. ‘Easier to just not.’
He didn’t want to touch the implications of whatever that meant. ‘Okay, well, let’s go put our stuff away first. Then you can do whatever you want.’
‘Mn.’
They found their room on the fifth floor. In contrast to the lobby, the walls were painted plain magnolia with heavy teal curtains framing the window, which looked down onto the attached resort. Both of the large beds had crisp, plain white linen and too many pillows. Feng Xin nudged Mu Qing until he let his legs give out beneath him and sat down on the one nearest the en suite, just in case he needed it in a hurry. With a whiny groan, he collapsed backwards and lay back sideways across the bed, legs dangling over the edge. He threw both arms over his eyes.
Maybe now he’d stay still, Feng Xin hoped. He moved his luggage to the edge of the room and Mu Qing’s beside the closet, where he knew he’d want to unpack once he was feeling a little less like death. Only then did he allow himself to sit down on his own bed, heaving a huge sigh of relief. It had been a long day, and he’d been forced to deal with all of it without a single gram of caffeine. With parties and weddings to prepare over the next two days, this evening was going to be their only free time. There was a city to explore, casinos to lose money in, and a resort to enjoy, but Feng Xin couldn’t be bothered with any of it. He’d quite happily skip dinner and sleep through until tomorrow morning.
Mu Qing suddenly bounded to his feet. Feng Xin looked up, expecting him to make a dash for the bathroom; but no. He walked straight for the door to the corridor.
‘Where are you going?’ Feng Xin called after him.
‘Bar.’
‘What-? Mu Qing, you’re already drunk!’
‘Good. Wanna stay that way.’
‘You might give yourself alcohol poisoning!’
‘Call a cab if I do. Can’t afford an ambulance.’
The door banged shut between them. Feng Xin grabbed one of his five pillows and screamed a plethora of curses into it. Then he threw it aside and raced after Mu Qing. It would really ruin the mood of the wedding if Mu Qing managed to kill himself before the bachelor party, and Xie Lian would never forgive him.