Su Mucheng made Ye Xiu take her out for ice cream, partially to talk to him away from the rest of the team but mostly because it was summer and hot and she wanted something sweet. The local ice cream shop wasn’t private, exactly, but the staff knew them and wouldn’t bother them, so it was as good as they were going to get.
They got their ice cream, sat themselves next to a window, and Su Mucheng waited until Ye Xiu had a spoon in his mouth before saying, “Are you going to visit your boyfriend this summer?”
Ye Xiu, to her delight, sputtered as he swallowed his strawberry ice cream. “What boyfriend?”
Su Mucheng grinned and leaned forward. “You’re blushing.” She took a bite of her own ice cream—chocolate caramel covered with fudge sauce and sprinkles—before pointing her spoon at Ye Xiu. “Your boyfriend. The reason you picked strawberry instead of plain vanilla for once.”
“That is not why—” Ye Xiu made a face. He had to have realised the admission in his words. Su Mucheng smugly kept eating her ice cream and waited for him to work his way into saying something more. “We’re not— He’s not my boyfriend.”
“But are you going to see him?” Su Mucheng stole a bite of Ye Xiu’s ice cream.
Ye Xiu sighed and didn’t even try to complain about her thieving habits. “It’s not that kind of relationship, Mucheng.”
“Say it’s a booty call, then.” Su Mucheng shrugged. “Does it matter what you call it?”
Ye Xiu scowled. “Since when are you a relationship expert?”
“Since never?” Su Mucheng chewed on a frozen morsel of caramel, thinking. Ye Xiu stuck his tongue out at her, and she barely resisted the impulse to do the same back despite the food still in her mouth. “I don’t know,” Su Mucheng said, after she’d swallowed. “I just think he makes you happy, and that’s a good thing. So why not indulge?”
Ye Xiu looked down at his ice cream, then out the window at the people parading by. “It’s not that kind of relationship,” he said again, which Su Mucheng was pretty sure meant I don’t want to get myself in too deep more than I don’t think about the possibility.
“Not yet,” Su Mucheng muttered, but she kept the words quiet enough that Ye Xiu wouldn’t need to respond. Pushing Ye Xiu rarely worked.
Instead, Su Mucheng started commenting on Excellent Era’s training, pretty dresses she saw on people passing by, and the drama she was watching. Ye Xiu relaxed, teasing her back, and—since the smile on his face was all she’d wanted anyway—that was good too.
As far as Sun Zheping was concerned, this had been inevitable. Zhang Jiale had been mooning over Ye Qiu from the first day they’d joined the Alliance; catching them kissing before a match had been a surprise only because it meant Ye Qiu reciprocated.
Sun Zheping didn’t want to contemplate where Zhang Jiale went during the small gaps in match schedules against Excellent Era. Sun Zheping ignored the bitterness in his throat when he smiled and told the team to mind their own business and not tease Zhang Jiale. Sun Zheping told himself he wasn’t waiting, sleepless and aching, for the sound of Zhang Jiale returning to his bedroom at midnight hours.
He was looking out for his friend; that was all there was to it.
And if he spent those hours remembering the way Zhang Jiale’s mouth had felt on his the one time they’d kissed—
(It had been before their first playoffs match. “For luck,” Zhang Jiale had said, bright as blooming flowers, and Sun Zheping still wasn’t certain if Zhang Jiale had meant to catch his mouth or his cheek. He wasn’t sure which answer he’d like better, either.
Zhang Jiale’s lips had tasted like cherries for one brief moment before Sun Zheping had pulled away, heart hammering in his chest. Zhang Jiale had apologised, blushing profusely, like this was somehow his fault and not Sun Zheping’s failure to control himself.
They’d never spoken of it again.)
—then that was his own pain to bear.
Season Four’s rookies gathered for lunch on the first day of All-Stars, which Huang Shaotian was certain would become a ritual for all the newcomers now that All-Star Weekend was definitely going to be a yearly event. All their seniors had grinned and shooed them away, and Huang Shaotian had been more than happy to run ahead to what Su Mucheng swore was the best dim sum place in town to claim a big private room for them.
He liked this atmosphere, all the chatter flowing across the room, not feeling like he was the loudest voice in the room because there were too many voices in the room for his to overwhelm anyone.
Then Su Mucheng leaned forward into the middle of the table, where food had been but mostly empty plates now rested, and asked, “What’s your favorite piece of pro gossip you’ve learned about since signing?”
“Is this appropriate?” Zhang Xinjie started asking, only to be overruled by Zheng Xuan saying, “Captain Yu and Huang Shao’s orange juice rivalry.”
Huang Shaotian sat bolt upright. “Hey!” He was about to scold Zheng Xuan, but Yu Wenzhou was laughing, so he instead thought furiously about something that could move attention elsewhere. “Does it count if I’d heard about it earlier?” he asked Su Mucheng. At her grin—which felt predatory and almost uncanny on her otherwise-sweet face—Huang Shaotian said, “Ye Qiu and Zhang Jiale.”
“Are they really together?” Fang Minghua asked Su Mucheng. He twisted the engagement ring on his finger. “People keep saying things about it, but…”
Su Mucheng shrugged. “Neither of them will say they’re dating or anything like that.”
Huang Shaotian’s eyes widened. He knew a but when he heard one.
“Who wants to bet on how long it’ll take them to get together?” Su Mucheng asked, eyes bright with mischief.
“You didn’t want gossip at all!” Huang Shaotian pointed his finger at her. “You just wanted to gamble about your captain’s love life!”
“I also want gossip.” Su Mucheng grinned. “So? What’s your bet?”
Huang Shaotian sputtered. Zhang Xinije muttered, “Never,” and then the betting was on.
Losing season five’s finals after getting so close to winning for their captain was enough to keep anyone up at night, especially for a rookie crushed by the god of his own class.
Zhang Wei gave up on sleep around one in the morning. He didn’t need to be okay tomorrow. The media was mostly going to focus on Sun Zheping’s retirement and how close Zhang Jiale had gotten to winning for him. They wouldn’t care about the rest of the team, no matter that Zhang Jiale hadn’t gotten here on his own; Sun Zheping’s injury had weighed on all of them, and they’d all promised to get him the trophy he deserved.
So yeah, Zhang Wei was wandering through Hundred Blossoms at the witching hour—appropriate, for a Witch player—when he saw someone else slip out of the halls and down to the kitchen.
“God Ye?” Zhang Wei asked in disbelief. He didn’t see Ye Qiu much, but Ye Qiu wasn’t as much of a mystery to his fellow Alliance members as he was to the public, and there was no mistaking his shaggy hair and the particular grace of his fingers as he waved.
“Ah, I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be awake.” Ye Qiu yawned. When he reached up to brush his hair out of his face, his pajama shirt slipped and Zhang Wei saw a bruise—a bite mark—on his shoulder. It looked new.
Zhang Wei made a noise, putting this together with all of his captain’s lectures about personal lives being private. He turned back to the fridge, which hadn’t gotten anything new in it during the last thirty seconds. “Sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it.” Ye Qiu reached past him and pulled out a jug of milk and chocolate syrup. “Don’t worry about the loss, either; you’ll have more chances.”
“Captain Sun won’t.” Zhang Wei shut the fridge. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with that. Instead, he turned the kettle on and found a packet of lavender tea; warm and soothing and with absolutely no caffeine.
Ye Qiu paused. He’d gotten out a glass, poured milk in, and held the chocolate syrup above it. “Captain Sun,” he said, very slowly, “should be proud of everything you have accomplished. And if you learn one lesson from your captain, learn this: don’t overwork yourself in search of victory. He wouldn’t want you to make the same mistake he did.”
Zhang Wei winced. “Is this your way of telling me to go to sleep?”
“I’ve had this argument with one Zhang already tonight.” Ye Qiu stuck the chocolate milk in the microwave. “I don’t want to have it with another.”
Zhang Wei flushed. “Ah, yeah, okay.”
Ye Qiu raised his eyebrows. “Also, your vice-captain seems to believe that his team doesn’t know I’m here. I’d prefer he hang on to that delusion a little longer; it seems like something he’d stress about, and he has more than enough stress on his shoulders as it is right now.”
That was an order if Zhang Wei had ever heard one. He straightened. “I won’t tell.”
The microwave beeped. Ye Qiu carefully took the glass out. “Goodnight, xiao-Zhang. Sleep well.”
“Yeah,” Zhang Wei echoed. “You too.”
The kettle hissed as Ye Qiu went back upstairs. Zhang Wei watched him go, made himself tea, and hoped that maybe he’d be able to get some sleep tonight.
“Just give me cover,” Ye Qiu said. “I'll take care of the rest.”
Zhang Jiale kicked him. “You—!”
“What about me?” Ye Qiu tugged Zhang Jiale's ponytail. “It's a great plan.”
Tian Sen agreed with Ye Qiu, but didn’t say anything as Zhang Jiale kept grumbling. For one, All-Star Weekend’s exhibition match didn’t need a complex plan. For another, Ye Qiu was more than powerful enough to pull off a full-frontal assault with Zhang Jiale's skilled support. The fans might shout about how Su Mucheng was a better fit, but Tian Sen thought that the different combinations this mixed team allowed was more fitting for All-Star Weekend.
Plus, he liked having a chance to experience Su Mucheng’s excellent cover. It might be enough to allow them to flank Team B and maybe take out Zhang Xinjie soon enough to make this exhibition match almost fair.
Since nobody else was talking about the plan, which meant they agreed with the basic idea, Tian Sen leaned over to Su Mucheng. “How do you stand seeing this more than one or twice a year?”
“I'm storing up blackmail,” Su Mucheng told him, flipping her hair over her shoulder with a smirk. “For whenever they finally admit what this antagonism is hiding.”
Tian Sen shook his head. Su Mucheng was far scarier than anything else he might encounter at All-Star Weekend this year, thanks to his luck of being on God Ye's team.
The obliviousness of these two gods to the clear fondness the other held for them was a close second, though.
“I thought you’d go to Hangzhou.” Fang Shiqian shoved a mug of tea into Zhang Jiale’s hands. He looked like he needed something to hold onto. “I can host you for now, no problem, but—”
Zhang Jiale set the mug down with a loud clunk. “He and I aren’t dating.”
Fang Shiqian squinted at him. “That’s a pretty specific thing to say when I’d just named a city.”
“Were you not talking about Ye Qiu?” Zhang Jiale threw his hands over his head, and his body all the way back over the couch, until he was one long mess of limbs not quite sliding to the floor. “Fuck, he’s not— I wanted to escape, okay? He’s still playing. I don’t want to distract him.”
Despite the rumours saying otherwise, Fang Shiqian was capable of holding back his tongue. In any other circumstance, he wouldn’t do that, but Zhang Jiale’s exhaustion—with Glory, with assumptions, with expectations piled upon him that he’d burnt himself out trying to match—was palpable. So instead, Fang Shiqian said, “It’s nice to know I’m your second choice.”
Zhang Jiale stared at him. His mouth opened, closed, and then he burst out in gasping peals of laughter, shaking enough to vibrate the couch as he collapsed sideways onto Fang Shiqian.
“I didn’t think I was that funny,” Fang Shiqian said, but he didn’t think Zhang Jiale heard him. Fang Shiqian shook his head and patted Zhang Jiale’s shoulder. “Stay as long as you need to,” he said. “Just so long as you keep moving forward.”
“Zhang Jiale wouldn’t come join Happy for you?” Qiao Yifan clapped his hands over his mouth as soon as he’d said the words. “Ah, captain, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
He’d never seen the two of them together, anyway. He just knew the rumours: Ye Qiu and Zhang Jiale had been something—fuckbuddies, boyfriends, partners; nobody seemed quite sure which—since season three. After first the one and then the other had retired, there had been a general thought that they’d go off and be overly competent somewhere else. Maybe their luck would balance out, even.
But the thing Qiao Yifan was certain about, because Deng Fusheng had made a point of it, was that absolutely nobody was allowed to talk about it to either party involved. Mostly because it was pointless, he’d said, but also because it was rude.
Ye Xiu shook his head. If he’d noticed the implication of Qiao Yifan’s words, he’d ignored it. “Jiale has other plans.”
The softness of Ye Xiu’s smile did absolutely nothing to dispel the rumours, though. Qiao Yifan nodded furiously. “We’ll train hard enough to win anyway,” he promised.
“Of course,” Ye Xiu said. “I wouldn’t have recruited this team if I didn’t think you would.”
“I thought you’d enjoy having a room to yourself.” Ye Xiu tilted his head in that obnoxious way he sometimes did when he knew he was right and just wanted to mock people about it. “Are you going to miss me, lao-Wei?”
Wei Chen raised both his hands to flip him off. “Screw you.”
Ye Xiu smirked.
“No, fuck off, I don’t want to know.” Wei Chen turned around, not that there was much space to do that in their shared room in Happy’s headquarters. “So are you telling the rest of the team that you’ve got a Tyranny boyfriend?”
“We’re not—” Ye Xiu’s sigh meant that Su Mucheng, at least, had already had this reaction. Wei Chen made a mental note to trade gossip with her as soon as possible. “No, because I really don’t think anyone’s going to be looking for me at night after I’ve gone to bed.”
Wei Chen snorted. “So you’re leaving me to field any late-night crisis the kiddos have.”
Ye Xiu threw a pillow at him. “You telling me you can’t handle that, old man?”
“Can I tell them where you are if they ask?” Wei Chen looked back over his shoulder, where Ye Xiu was packing for the trip to Qingdao. He should probably also do that, but Wei Chen wasn’t expecting to need anything but a few changes of clothing and his electronics, so he’d been figuring that he’d manage on the morning of their flight.
Ye Xiu’s hands slowed to a stop. “If you think they can handle the idea of their captain disappearing to have sex,” he said at last, “you can tell them.”
Wei Chen made a loudly disgusted noise, mostly to make Ye Xiu laugh. “They’ll act like it’s their dad having sex.”
“They’re better than that.” Ye Xiu glanced at Wei Chen, a positively terrifying smile growing on his face. “Hey, lao-Wei, what if it were Huang Shaotian I was planning on meeting? What would you think of that?”
Wei Chen howled and attacked him with the same pillow Ye Xiu had thrown at him to begin with. Ye Xiu retaliated, abandoning his half-filled backpack with relish, and they didn’t stop until Chen Guo showed up to yell at both of them for making a ruckus.
“I could try to arrange our room assignments so that you don’t need to sneakily reserve another room.” Zhang Xinjie crossed his arms and hoped that the smile trying to sneak around the edge of his lips would soften his expression enough. “Or you could ask Ye Xiu to change up Happy’s roommates during All-Stars so that he and Fang Rui are rooming together. If that happens, Ye Xiu and Lin Jingyan could switch rooms once we’ve checked in. Wouldn’t that be easier?”
Zhang Jiale covered his face with his hands. “Vice-captain…”
Zhang Xinjie patted his shoulder. “We’re happy for you, Jiale; please believe that.”
“I hate you all so much,” Zhang Jiale informed him, but he leaned into the touch. “You could also ask him?”
“Your relationship, your responsibility.” Zhang Xinjie waited long enough for Zhang Jiale to glare at him, just to affirm that Zhang Jiale was posturing out of habit and not actual annoyance or dislike for the task. “Please let me know what he says.”
“If his team’s okay with it, it’ll happen.” Zhang Jiale reached for his computer. Zhang Xinjie saw his chat interface come up, and turned to leave Zhang Jiale’s room.
As he did, he heard Zhang Jiale say, almost too quietly to hear, “Thanks.”
“How’s it feel to finally officially share a room with your boyfriend?” Su Mucheng leaned against the doorframe, smirking. It was the middle of the day. She’d knocked and waited for them to open it. There was absolutely no reason for either Ye Xiu or Zhang Jiale to be embarrassed about this, even if they had only gotten into the hotel an hour ago.
And yet Zhang Jiale sat on the bed, blushing Tyranny-red like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, while Ye Xiu stood in front of her with a familiar expression of exasperation on his face. “Mucheng,” he said, “is this really the only reason you’re here?”
Su Mucheng grinned at them. “Captain Yu wants everyone to gather in the conference room in fifteen minutes. I volunteered to find the two of you, and he looked very grateful that I’d offered.”
Ye Xiu flushed. “He— Did he really think—?”
“You’ve spent like eight years telling us you weren’t dating.” Su Mucheng waggled her eyebrows. Seeing Ye Xiu, normally so even-keeled, finally somewhat mortified was so worth it. “Were our assumptions about what you were telling yourselves about your relationship wrong?”
Ye Xiu shook his head in weary resignation. Zhang Jiale rose from the bed and looped his arms around Ye Xiu from behind, resting his chin on Ye Xiu’s shoulder. “Hey, I overheard Huang Shaotian saying something about a betting pool?” Zhang Jiale grinned at her; the blush might not have faded from his pale skin, but embarrassment had lost its hold. “Who won?”
“Depends.” Su Mucheng had checked all the original bets on the flight over, then calculated how she was going to count all the changes once China’s National Glory Team had been announced. “When did you finally admit to yourselves that you were dating?”
The look Ye Xiu and Zhang Jiale shared just cemented Su Mucheng’s opinion that it was earlier than the team announcement, which about half the betting pool had belatedly thought was the catalyst. “First match against each other in season ten,” Ye Xiu said. “You should’ve figured that out already, Mucheng.”
“Once it happened, sure.” Su Mucheng shrugged and scrolled through her spreadsheet. “But if you’re asking for gossip, the least I can do is give you accurate gossip. So it’s good to have confirmation”
Zhang Jiale laughed, and Ye Xiu chuckled more quietly underneath. “When did the betting start?”
“All-Stars season four.” Su Mucheng glanced up at them. “Fang Minghua won, by the way.”
“Please tell me what Captain Yu guessed so that I can rib him about it,” Zhang Jiale begged, and Ye Xiu ruffled his hair with a grin that meant he definitely wanted to know too.
Su Mucheng felt like her smile might break her face. She’d watched Ye Xiu shoulder so much over the last few years. To see him let go of so many responsibilities—even if he did have them foisted back on him in part—and relax into someone else’s touch—
It was good. It was what she’d hoped for, all those years ago, and she was glad to see it finally happen.
“After the meeting,” she said, stepping out of their doorway. She had to keep some leverage on them, after all. “Captain Yu’s going to be upset if we aren’t there on time.”
“We’ll be following right behind you,” Ye Xiu said, but Su Mucheng saw the way Zhang Jiale turned towards Ye Xiu as she closed the door. If they didn’t spend another half-dozen minutes making out, she’d be surprised.
Su Mucheng smiled and leaned by the door. She’d wait as long as she needed for them to emerge; she’d already done so once, and she’d never need to wait so long again.