Work Text:
It’s cold. That’s what Changsu notices, as he sits in the middle of a park fifteen minutes away from his apartment at who knows what o’clock in the morning. He has a hoodie and an extra coat on over his pyjamas but it still feels like it’s freezing in the middle of autumn. It’s unusually cold weather for the season. It’s a faint thought at the back of his mind as he stares up into the sky, an abyss dotted with stars. His fingers go stiff from the cold and he inhales deeply.
The silence between them is awkward. Changsu itches to grab his phone and fire a text to Lin Chen, to ask for help. Maybe it was a bad idea after all to meet up with his semi-stalker. He doesn’t even really know who Xiao Jingyan is, besides the fact that he’s looking for someone named “Xiao Shu” and has practically no social media presence at all. When Changsu had asked, the reply text had been: i don’t really use technology. He had left it at that and not probed any further.
Jingyan sits across him, a mug of tea in front of him, back straight and one leg crossed over the other. The guy gives off the air of a celebrity, of someone who knows he’s being watched and admired, and Changsu cannot help but wonder what kind of person Jingyan is. In the brief time that Jingyan has entered the cafe and settled down with a drink, he’s already attracted the glances of maybe four neighbouring tables (male and female alike) and everyone who walks into the store seems to notice them.
In contrast, Changsu feels muted and plain. Like the back drop to an eye catching centerpiece in an art gallery. That’s not really the point. He takes a sip of his coffee and clears his throat. Jingyan meets his eyes and offers a closed off smile, a stark contrast to how he’d been the last time Changsu had seen him. The first time Changsu had seen him. The encounter still feels like some kind of bizarre dream, especially juxtapositioned with his current reality.
“So, it’s better lighting and less hectic right now. Do I still look like the person you were looking for?” is not a good starting point for conversation after a polite exchange of ‘how do you do’s, but Changsu has never been in this kind of situation before. Jingyan doesn’t seem fazed by his directness, one hand resting next to his cup, the other curled up in his lap.
“Yes, but I don’t think that is why you agreed to meet me here today,” Jingyan doesn’t beat around the bush either. His smile turns indulgent and Changsu feels off-balance. Frankly, when Lin Chen had asked him why he was going to meet his cyber stalker, he didn’t really have a good reason either. He suspects Lin Chen let him come the way a parent reluctantly allows their child go out on their own for the first time. It had been with promises to remain in populated areas, not to follow Jingyan anywhere private, and to generally be aware of stranger danger.
“I, uh, was just curious. Why did you ask to meet me anyway? You already know I’m not the person you’re looking for. Just because we look alike doesn’t mean I can actually somehow lead you to them, you know,” Changsu points out what he thinks is the obvious. Unless Jingyan believes in using doppelgangers to locate each other; Changsu read about the kind of stuff once when he was younger, a myth amongst many on the Internet.
“That’s true, but hope is difficult,” Jingyan’s words are cryptic and undecipherable, along with the wistful expression on his face, but he offers no further elaboration and Changsu feels uncomfortable probing. The truth is, even as he sits across Jingyan, he doesn’t know why he agreed to meet the stranger. To any logical person, they probably wouldn’t have offered their name to someone looking for their doppelganger, much less accept their friend request on WeChat a couple of weeks after.
They also wouldn’t have agreed to meet up with a virtual stranger just because that person asked them to. It’s not like either of them have really chatted over texts besides their initial exchange. Changsu had just added the contact as his friend and left the chat there. Jingyan hadn’t prompted any conversations as well, besides asking if Changsu could meet him. Was it just because Jingyan had asked so persistently? Or was it because of what Changsu had seen on his face that day?
“I actually don’t like tea or coffee. I should’ve gone with the hazelnut biscotti or something,” Jingyan says, interrupting the silence that had fallen over both of them again. Changsu blinks and stares at the full mug of tea in front of Jingyan, then he realizes that Jingyan hasn’t touched it at all since he sat down. It’s a bit of a non sequitur, but Changsu can take it for the conversation starter that it clearly is.
“If you don’t drink tea or coffee, then what do you drink? Sodas?” which there are plenty of, lined up in the refrigerator display right next to the cashier. It seems like a childish sort of preference, incongruous to the way Jingyan carries himself, but Changsu’s not here to judge. He has a caffeine problem that’s probably worse than just liking fizzy drinks over hot beverages. If there’s anyone who should be judging anyone, it should be Jingyan judging him for his over reliance on caffeine to function.
“No, not sodas. Is that a caramel latte?” Jingyan’s lack of a straight answer strikes Changsu as odd. After mentioning that first tidbit about himself, wouldn’t it be natural to follow up with a response if someone asks a question about him? It’s not like he couldn’t hear Changsu asking, it’s not like there was anything else being said. Though it’s beginning to seem like Jingyan is having some sort of conversation only he can follow the thread of.
“Well, yes, actually. Can you smell it from there or something?” Changsu sniffs his cup and wrinkles his nose. It just smells like regular coffee. It doesn’t particularly smell of caramel or anything.
“Just a lucky guess. Excuse me for a minute, I’ll go grab that biscotti and be back. Would you like some?” the expression on Jingyan’s face shifts from casual to searching. It abruptly feels like Changsu is back to that dream-like encounter again, like maybe somewhere on his face there’ll be answers.
“No, thanks,” it would probably be a bit too much to tell Jingyan that he has a hazelnut allergy. The guy is his cyber stalker after all. Nonetheless, a pleased sort of smile settles itself on those Adonis features and Jingyan heads towards the counter. Changsu looks down at his coffee in his cup and then to the mug of tea across the table, a meaningless reason to waste time at the cafe for conversation. He still doesn’t know why he’s here.
Jingyan flips through the folders of documents that Zhanying sets down on the desk in front of him for his perusal, listening to his secretary detail to him the important points of every agreement he’s signing. It doesn’t take more than half an hour to go through the pile and he stacks them back to Zhanying. He sets his pen down and pauses, then reaches towards the framed photograph that sits on his table. His fingers hover a face in the picture and his hands tighten on the frame.
“Zhanying, do you believe in second chances?”