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After Yue Qingyuan seemed unwilling or unable to start the conversation or to even meet his eyes, Shen Qingqiu decided to start the meeting himself. Preferably he’d do it in the least suspicious way possible.
“I know what it looks like,” said Shen Qingqiu.
“Do you?” They jumped as Shang Qinghua came banging into the office, holding a phone in each hand and a couple of energy drinks tucked under his arm. “Because I’m not sure what this looks like.”
Shen Qingqiu’s first instinct was to pointedly ignore the communication director, partially by force of habit, partially because Shang Qinghua had always…held certain delusions about the nature of Luo Binghe that Shen Qingqiu had never been able to dissuade him of. That it looked like maybe Shang Qinghua was correct didn’t matter. Unfortunately, he really couldn’t ignore him right now. He fixed Shang Qinghua with a cold look and managed to get out, “I understand that--I mean--” before his words dribbled away at the prospect of actually articulating the matter at hand.
On the desk in between Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu was a printout of the email. Shen Qingqiu refused to look at it. If he tried very hard, he could pretend it wasn’t there. When the email had hit his inbox this morning, Shen Qingqiu had read it and reread enough to have it memorized, as he tried to comprehend the meaning of these words arranged in this order. The second that comprehension dawned upon him, he’d deleted the email then promptly tried to forget everything about it.
He wasn’t being very successful on that front.
The message, written with the extraordinary eloquence that Shen Qingqiu knew Luo Binghe was capable of, had been sent en masse to the entire faculty and student body. It stated two main points. Firstly, that Luo Binghe attested that Shen Qingqiu had never slept with, assaulted, molested, groomed, or was in any way inappropriate to him during his time at Cang Qiong Academy (thanks for the endorsement, Binghe!!). Secondly, that Luo Binghe was announcing this because he intended to marry Shen Qingqiu and did not want even the whisper of false impropriety to stain his Shizun’s name.
As explicit as the email was in its aims, it only alluded to why Binghe had decided to announce this so widely. With the undeniably reality of predatory authority figures who abuse their positions, any romantic relationship between Shen Qingqiu and his former student who had lived with him should naturally provoke skepticism in those who heard about it, skepticism that would cause personal or professional difficulties for the teacher involved. Luo Binghe wanted the record abundantly straight because obviously any relationship that involved Luo Binghe would be subject to more scrutiny than most, due to Luo Binghe being at this moment in time the most popular musical artist in China.
A superstar! A once-in-a-generation talent! When you competed with Luo Binghe, the best you could hope for was the silver. He did a little bit of everything, and he was the best at anything. He was number one in pop, number one in rock, number one in rap, first Chinese artist to top the American Country Music charts, responsible for every trend of the last year, from black jeans that looked painted on to really, really long guitar solos. Even the snobs couldn’t hate him! They just said they understood him better than anyone else.
His music’s omnipresence in commercials, movies, TV shows, grocery stores, make out playlists, break up playlists, and the year’s Best Of lists didn’t decrease anyone’s enjoyment. How could you overplay the best songs in the world? It wasn’t just that he was insanely skilled (though he was!) or that he was peerlessly handsome (Shen Qingqiu had eyes!)--he had that spark . Every time he sang, it felt like he was singing to you . He loved you, he missed you, he resented you, he forgave you. Whatever the song was about, it was for and about you.
When his voice came out the speaker, you were so pleased to hear from him that you realized all over again how much you missed him when he wasn’t there. That was the kind of star he was!
“Should I fake my death?” Shen Qingqiu wondered aloud.
Shang Qinghua finished chugging the first energy drink. “It’s worth considering.”
“Maybe we can just ignore it,” Shen Qingqiu offered hopefully.
Shang Qinghua gave him the sort of look you might wear if, say, you’d signed up to run a private academy’s socials and were now at the center of a media scandal involving a global sensation who once dominated a day’s newscycle by posting an almost obscene thirst trap with the now suddenly less enigmatic caption, don’t listen to the gossip. the only one for me is you. “Bro. We couldn’t ignore something like this even if he was a regular past student. Luo Binghe is an international celebrity. Who has announced his intention to ‘court, seduce, and marry’--his words--his former teacher in a mass email to his former classmates . It’s trending on social media platforms I’ve never even heard of. There are declarations of war that get less attention than this.”
“That’s an exaggeration…”
“It’s not. It’s really not. I’ve seen the memes.” Shang Qinghua’s eyes took on the distant glaze of a man fresh from the trenches who knew he was soon to return. “Even if the news doesn’t absolutely run with this up--which they will, don’t have any doubt about that--Luo Binghe’s fans run grassroot campaigns that could topple nations. And they’re feeling a lot of different ways about this. You privated everything and changed all your passwords like I told you, right? I don’t want you getting hacked by lovesick twelve year olds. Actually, just stay a hotel tonight. There’s no way those little bastards haven’t figured out your address. Shit, they might be breaking in now. You don’t know what it’s like out there on stan Twitter!”
Shen Qingqiu hadn’t known before this that there was a stage of embarrassment where everything started feeling surreal. As though this was just a story he was reading. He was being affected by an emotional experience, but that didn’t mean it was actually happening. That was the only reason he managed to say, “We might want to hide the Luo Binghe merch.”
Yue Qingyuan managed to stare at Shen Qingqiu after he said that.
“What you’ve just said is so far beyond my current capacity to handle it, I’m not going to think about it right now,” said Shang Qinghua. “How much merch? Don’t tell me. Tell me. Is it a lot? Don’t tell me.”
When you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That was essentially what Shen Qingqiu was experiencing right now, except instead of his life, it was a tour through his apartment with lingering shots of the posters, the cards, the shirts, the sweaters, the shoes, the socks, the albums, the special edition albums, the super special edition albums, the limited run cassette tapes, the stickers, the mouse pad, the miniature replica of his guitar, the wall calendar, the desk calendar, and the life-sized cardboard cutout that lived in his office just out of view of his webcam. Shen Qingqiu wasn’t sure what his face did during this, but it must have been something because when Shang Qingqua whispered, “Oh fuck, it’s a lot ,” it was with actual terror in his voice.
“I wanted to support my student!”
“He’s rich! He’s fine!”
“He wasn’t rich before! He had nothing, that’s why he lived with me in the first place.”
“No, apparently he lived with you because you forgot to have professional boundaries so hard Luo Binghe started planning your wedding!”
“Stop,” Yue Qingyuan says. “Sit. Both of you.”
Shen Qingqiu hadn’t realized he’d jumped to his feet. It was probably a bad idea, he tried to convince himself, to try to kill his coworker in the midst of a workplace scandal.
Yue Qinguan stared at Shen Qingqiu, who resisted the urge to sink as far down in his seat as he could go. “You have always been. Capable of inspiring. Ah. Devotion.” It takes him about thirty seconds to get out those nine words (well, eight words and a strangled gurgle). The silences were about as horrible as you could imagine. “That a student might. Get confused…”
When it was clear that Yue Qingyuan had bailed on trying to finish that sentence, Shang Qinghua stepped in. “Here’s the good news: Luo Binghe is an adult. There could have be trouble if there are allegations of improper conduct when he was a minor--”
“I would never .”
“He cooked all your meals, bro, I don’t think you know what proper conduct is.”
But Luo Binghe insisted on cooking my meals! He got so sad when I didn’t let him. Shen Qingqiu decided saying this aloud would not help his case. Instead he crossed his arms and said, “He liked to cook. I didn’t know we were discouraging students from following their passions.”
Shang Qinghua looked at Shen Qingqiu like he was an absolute idiot. “Clearly we needed to discourage students from following some passions.” As Shen Qingqiu somehow blushed even deeper, Shang Qinghua shook his head and said, “Whatever, the point is clearly Luo Binghe didn’t perceive there being improper conduct. He really laid out his alarmingly detailed disappointment about that.”
Shen Qingqiu’s ears burned. He wished suddenly that he’d kept his face mask on for the meeting. It seemed too late to pull it back out now. Maybe if Yue Qingyuan awkwardly coughed one more time? Everyone knew that Shen Qingqiu was sickly! He had to protect his health!
“I’m going to assume that there aren’t going to be any other students coming out and declaring their love,” Shang Qinghua said. “Right?”
Shen Qingqiu threw up his hands. “I don’t know! I didn’t know this was going to happen, why would I know if it’ll happen again. If you’re asking me about misconduct--”
“Yeah, that’s basically what I’m getting at.”
“--then no .” Binghe had always been the student Shen Qingqiu spent the most time with, lavished the most praise upon, spoiled the most indulgently. Sometimes he’d felt bad about neglecting his other students.
Yue Qingyuan delicately cleared his throat. Shen Qingqiu’s fingers twitched towards the pocket his mask was in before he caught himself. It might actually be a better idea, he thought, to catch something and die quickly. “Shen Qingqiu--the school will stand behind you no matter what. But in order to best respond, I must ask if you have behaved in a manner with a student that would leave you open to legal liability.”
“Of course I didn’t!” Shen Qingqiu snapped. “And why would you stand behind me if I did??”
“I mean to say hypothetically--”
“Don’t support hypothetical me!”
Shang Qinghua leaned forward and snatched the email off the table. “‘Shizun never sought my romantic or sexual affections, of this I am sure. He seduced me with an inexplicable obliviousness to his own overwhelming appeal.’ So you’ve got that working for you. The paragraph about your legs is…less than great, but really, Luo Binghe couldn’t stress more your, ah, ‘coquettish ignorance of sexuality’--”
Shen Qingqiu lunged at him. Shang Qinghua just barely danced out of his furious grasp. “‘I confess some gratitude for his innocence on this matter,’” Shang Qinghua read as he kept dodging, “‘as it prevented him from noticing any potential romantic rivals that I might have had to overcome. I take comfort that he has, however unwittingly, been waiting for me as much as I have waited for him.’ Love that he called you both virgins--DON’T HIT ME, BRO.”
“STOP QUOTING.”
“May we continue?” Yue Qingyuan said. “Please.”
Shang Qinghua pointed incredulously at Shen Qingqiu. Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes and sat back down. Shang Qinghua moved out of arms reach and said, “If there wasn’t any underage relations, and Luo Binghe clearly denies that, then… Legally and by the school’s board of ethics, you’re in the clear. Luo Binghe left the school three years ago, which is in fact the minimum amount of time we state must pass before a faculty member can engage in a personal relationship with a student. Like, exactly the minimum. To the day.”
“Binghe’s always been very punctual,” Shen Qingqiu muttered, his face buried in his hands. Fury at Shang Qinghua had given him a brief pick-me-up, but he couldn’t ignore the reality of the situation. Luo Binghe was always brilliant. Always had been. He had no doubt thought hard about the best way to punish his teacher for what he did. Shen Qingqiu has to marvel at the labyrinthian machinations of his Binghe’s mind. What a way to destroy his old teacher’s reputation! And Shen Qingqiu could not even deny it because Binghe had given him nothing to deny!
Shang Qinghua waited a moment, maybe checking to see if Shen Qingqiu was going to start hitting again. When he continued to just sit with his head in hands, Shang Qinghua continued carefully, “Luckily the fan reaction right now is more confused than anything else. They’re still deciding whether they hate you. Unfortunately, some of the people who’ve already decided it is actually really romantic are starting fights with people who think this is super creepy. And it’s such a good stupid internet fight that more and more people keep getting invested. It’s escalating, bro. I’ve found six fanfics so far. That’s a fanfic per hour since the email went out. And there’s this thread that’s going viral where the author breaks down how every song on his debut album relates to you. It’s…honestly really convincing.”
Shen Qingqiu refused to think about that then instantly thought about it. His favorite Luo Binghe songs had always seemed remarkably relatable, in very specific ways. Some of the language, the imagery, yes, it had made him wonder, briefly. But all the songs were so passionate . Whenever he listened to the second verse of “Falling from You,” he shivered, like Luo Binghe was running his fingers up the back of his neck. How could Luo Binghe write something like that while thinking about him ? His student no doubt had hundreds of women he would rather sing to instead. Shen Qingqiu had chalked it up to coincidence and kept listening to his favorite songs.
Shang Qinghua, for some reason, kept going. “They’ve done a lot of fanart already just based on your photo on the school website. Some of them are actually pretty good. Super kind to you.” He lifted up one of the two phones like he wanted to show Shen Qingqiu the screen. “Here’s one--”
“ Get that out of my face. ”
“Yep yep yep yep yep yep, okay phone is gone.”
Yue Qingqyuan made a gesture for Shang Qinghua to move on. He did not make it like he was looking forward to whatever came next.
“Right, uh…In terms of more local reaction.” Shang Qinghua grimaced. That didn’t seem like a great sign. I liked teaching, Shen Qingqiu thought mournfully. I think I was pretty good at it sometimes.
“Cang Qiong’s social media pages are. Well. Having a lively discussion. There are a lot of alumni weighing in with varying levels of surprise. And discussion from current students and their parents, plus a lot of randoms popping in. Moderating has been rough . We’ve already burned through two communications interns. Then there’s the discussions in places we can’t moderate. Those are…” Shang Qinghua once again got the look that said he was losing himself to the sound of distant gunshots and his brothers dying on the battlefield around him. “The discussions aren’t as positive as they could be.”
The statement sounded like the tip of an iceberg that Shen Qingqiu was not currently interested in finding the full scope of. What did it matter? He was hitting it either way. He made a noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper. Something about got Shang Qinghua to rally. “Buuuuuuut, again, it’s not as bad as it could be. Most people aren’t sure exactly what to feel. A lot of them seem mainly concerned for your safety. Some students want to form a defense militia to protect you when you walk around campus. Liu Qingge says he’ll sponsor it as an official club.”
Shen Qingqiu frowned. “What? Why?”
“Because Liu Qingge is one of the romantic rivals that Binghe’s taunting. He hates that kid. And technically he’s supposed to be sponsoring a club already so this might be to get out of sponsoring chess--”
“No, I mean why do we need a militia ?” Shen Qingqiu interrupted.
“Not a militia,” Yue Qingyuan corrected. “That would violate our gang policy. This is a group of motivated students interested in learning about safety and security.”
“And also an adult,” Shang Qinghua said, “who is currently standing outside this office with a crowbar in case Luo Binghe comes by.” At Shen Qingqiu’s blank stare, Shang Qinghua snapped at him in the most irritated tone he’d used all meeting, “Because the email is insane, bro. Insane insane. This is not a normal level of interest in someone. Everyone who’s read it knows that. They don’t want you to get kidnapped or worse. He sent hundreds of people a manifesto about his feelings for you and what he hopes to do with them. People are supposed to write manifestos when they’re going to a bomb a building, not ask someone out on a date.”
Shen Qingqiu blinked. “Binghe’s the student, though,” he said, like Shang Qinghua could have forgotten.
“Was the student. Was. Now he’s a very rich man who has dedicated his life to fucking you and sounds like he’s sleeps every night--apparently chastely!--with a sex doll he made of you that has a wig made from your own hair.”
Shen Qingqiu did not think about his student, pleading up at him with those warm brown eyes, as he begged “Please, Shizun, just a strand!” It seemed bad out of context, but that was a normal request! They’d been learning about Victorian England’s mourning traditions to prepare for the Dickens unit. Luo Binghe always found the most interesting ways to engage with the texts. And so what if Shen Qingqiu let Binghe take more? Have you ever tried separating just one strand of hair? It’s hard! And Shen Qingqiu could use a haircut! Naturally, Binghe was as amazing at cutting hair as he was at everything else he tried. He hadn’t been trying to turn the boy into his personal barber. And it wasn’t like Shen Qingqiu needed his hair clippings…
“There have been multiple emails already from concerned students and alumni regarding your personal safety,” Yue Qingyuan said solemnly.
Shen Qingqiu tried to process these words. His brain kept refusing. He had imagined a million responses from his current student body: anger, disgust, fear, schadenfreude, scorn. Worry had never crossed his mind. Worry? Who would want to kidnap him? Anyone who abducted Shen Qingqiu would probably give him back for free.
Yue Qingyuan continued gently, as though to a startled horse, “My concern is less the general reception to this email, and more his stated intentions. I want to talk to you about those. Please, sit back down.”
Shen Qingqiu was halfway to the door before he realized he’d stood up. “We--we don’t need to discuss that.”
“We super do,” Shang Qinghua said. “It’s like, the thesis statement of the email.”
“It’s not--he’s just--that’s personal--and even if!! So you see.” Shen Qingqiu’s argument made, he desperately tried the door handle. It was locked.
“Bro,” Shang Qinghua said pityingly. Do you know how far you have to fall in life for Shang Qinghua to pity you??
Shen Qingqiu closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool wood. There was nothing in the world he wanted less than to deal with this. “I know,” he said softly. “I deserve this.”
The complete silence behind him confirmed how much the other two men agreed.
“...how?” asks Yue Qingyuan. “Why? How?”
Or not.
Shen Qingqiu sighed. He did not turn around. It was easier to face the door. The shame, which was never very far away when he thought of his favorite pupil, had never burned hotter. The memory came as easily as it ever did: Binghe on his knees, begging. Tears rolling down his cheeks to drip onto the floor. Hands grabbing for Shen Qingqiu. Shen Qingqiu stepping back.
“Please, Shizun, please, I don’t care about anything else, I just want to stay with you forever.”
“I don’t want you here forever.”
“I made him leave,” Shen Qingqiu said. “He told me he wanted to stay and I betrayed him. How could he possibly…” How could this possibly be anything but revenge? Shen Qingqiu deserved whatever professional fallout Binghe could rain upon him. He had never expected this to be the way Luo Binghe would seek Shen Qingqiu’s rightful punishment, but he couldn’t deny the results
Yue Qingyuan looked deeply confused. “I thought Luo Binghe graduated early?”
“He did,” Shang Qinghua said. “Shen Qingqiu is being dramatic.”
Shen Qingqiu got out of his own head enough to glare. “He didn’t apply for early graduation, I did on his behalf. He was neglecting his own future to, to--” To be my housewife! Shen Qingqiu could not possibly say that aloud. He could barely let himself think it.
Shen Qingqiu had found out about the multitude of academic opportunities that Luo Binghe had been turning down by complete happenstance. He’d been accosted at a teaching convention (that miserable kind of professional hell) by the president of Huan Hua asking if Shen Qingqiu intended to let Luo Binghe answer any of their numerous, numerous calls. The slightest bit of digging revealed the sheer extent to which Luo Binghe had been hiding his options. Luo Binghe cooked Shen Qingqiu’s meals and cleaned Shen Qingqiu’s house and graded Shen Qingqiu’s papers--had exerted himself to the task of making his Shizun’s life frictionless --and all the while had lied to him. Told Shen Qingqiu tearfully of each university rejection, every interview that didn’t call back. Shen Qingqiu had raged on Luo Binghe’s behalf. Who could reject such a fine student? Who wouldn’t want the chance to say that you played some part, however small, in such a remarkable person’s inevitably remarkable life?
When Shen Qingqiu realized the extent of the deceit, he couldn’t at first understand why . Binghe wanted to be a success. Binghe wanted greatness. Binghe was currently going into his summer break having turned down every internship, job, and girl that glanced his way so that he could… what? Coddle his old teacher? Help him grade assignments for his summer classes? It didn’t make any sense. Not until he told Binghe one morning that he really could pack his own lunch.
“But I want to!” Binghe had said. “It makes me feel like I’m thanking you.”
“Thanking me?” he’d asked, bemused.
His student had nodded, looking surprisingly serious. “What Shizun has done for me, who he has been to me… There is no task I wouldn’t take if it lightened his burdens. I had nothing before this. I can never repay his kindness.” In those last days Shen Qingqiu shared with him, Shen Qingqiu had often had moments like this, where Binghe would catch the light just so or give a certain look, and suddenly instead of the child he’d raised, Shen Qingqiu saw a man. Binghe stepped forward to put the lunchbox in Shen Qingqiu's hands. "Let me thank you, Shizun," Binghe said.
Shen Qingqiu shook himself. Stop thinking! he scolded himself. About anything! “Binghe was meant for greater things than to keep this old teacher company paying a burdensome debt.”
“Bro, are you even thirty?”
Why was he bothering to explain? Luo Binghe hadn’t been ruining his life for them. They hadn’t made a child feel so indebted to them that he felt he could never leave.
Shen Qingqiu tried the doorknob again.
Shang Qinghua started pacing. “I think--I mean, I don’t know, this whole situation is insane--but I think if we put out a carefully worded statement, something along the lines of, ‘Following an investigation, we have found no misconduct on the part of our teacher, Cang Qiong will not comment on this personal matter, blah blah blah’--say something without really saying anything, that buys us time. The semester’s almost over, the other teachers can cover your classes through finals, and then you go on sabbatical. Out of town. Really out of town. The Gobi Desert. You can write that pedantic dissertation on trash novels that you won’t stop talking about.”
Shang Qinghua was baiting him. Shen Qingqiu was duly baited. “It’s about audience reactions to serialized novels of the 19th century as a parallel to modern fan communities surrounding webnovels,” he said for the millionth time. “Do I get to come back from the Gobi Desert at some point?”
“Sure. When Cang Qiong isn’t in every gossip column as the setting of a romantic, forbidden teacher-student love affair.”
Yue Qingyuan frowns. “He should not have to uproot his life when he has done nothing wrong.”
“Parents aren’t going to send their kids to a private school with paparazzi hanging around outside!”
“What about Luo Binghe?” Shen Qingqiu interrupted. He gestured vaguely in the direction of the desk and the piece of paper lying on it. He didn’t turn his head to look at it. Even in the context of this conversation-- especially in the context of this conversation, actually--he couldn’t bring himself to think about the words directly. He could, at best, peek at an adjacent thought from around the corner. “I owe him an answer.”
“You don’t, actually,” said Shang Qinghua. “You’re not supposed to interact with someone stalking you. We, the school, can send a reply on your behalf that makes your refusal clear in no uncertain terms, give a polite ‘thanks but no thanks,’ and tell him not to contact you again.”
“And hurt his feelings?” The other two men stared at Shen Qingqiu like he’d grown a second head. If he had, it’d also be blushing. “Binghe is clearly just…” Shen Qingqiu was completely unable to think of what adjective should come next. He skipped over it entirely. “I know him well. He’s sensitive--that’s how he can write such good music. He put himself in a very vulnerable position. We can’t just ignore that. He deserves…”
His revenge, Shen Qingqiu thought. To be able to hate me in person. To ask me why I pushed him away and finding that I have no good answer except that he had already wasted too much time with me. To get revenge for the time I already stole. He deserves to have his triumph over me.
“He deserves the world,” Shen Qingqiu said quietly.
“Oh my god,” said Shang Qinghua in horror, like a prophet struck by terrible revelation. “You’re going to fuck Luo Binghe.”
“I’ve got it open!” one burglar said to the other. They slid in through the now unlocked window into what appeared to be the living room of the darkened apartment. Messy, the girls thought. It was unfortunately true. The whole apartment looked like it was lived in by a guy whose idea of cleaning was to put stuff in the same basic area into one pile. Eventually the pile would become large enough that he started carrying off little bits of the pile to whatever corner he could throw them into. All surfaces were just resting place for piles. If one pile got in the way of something, you just scooped it up and movde it somewhere else until it became a problem over there instead.
One of intruders started taking photos on her phone. “Go find the guest room,” she said to the other. “That’s where he slept.”
The thought of lying down in the same bed Luo Binghhe had once slept in filled the second girl with the kind of ecstasy saints wrote about. She crept down the hallway to where the apartment schematics said the bedrooms should be. Maybe there’ll still be a hair on the pillowcase! The thought moved her feet faster. The door to the guest room opened silently on well-oiled hinges. It was the cleanest room in the apartment by far, with a neatly made bed and clear floors. The only clutter was a paperback book on the nightstand, with a bookmark sticking out. It was a book in English she didn’t recognize. When she picked it up, she noticed the dust layer. No one had touched anything in this room for a while.
Out in the living room, the first girl was recording a video, her phone pointed at the albums hung so carefully on the walls. She tried to keep her hands from shaking as she narrated to her future viewers. “Look there, he’s got the limited release white vinyl. Wait-- two of them?” And the posters, she marveled. And the trivia books! And look, here on the desk--was that a collection of models of Xin Mo?? Ever since her girl DemoNina had posted Shen Qingqiu’s address and the girl had discovered it was in her neighborhood , she’d been dizzy with a lightheaded delight that kept her floating above caution. She could do something for the Luo Binghe fandom. She could become an absolute legend .
Even if she hadn’t been so thoroughly enraptured with how freaking viral she was about to go, the girl still wouldn’t have noticed the man walking up behind her. Famously light on his feet, moving with a grace that made ballerinas feel like elephants, Luo Binghe was exceptional at--well, at everything. At the moment, he exceeded at not being heard as he stalked this intruder.
He had been right to come back here, Luo Binghe thought. He had been expecting to feel some level of guilt about sneaking in here. It never came. Someone had to look after his Shizun. These pests proved that. The mess proved that. The half-full takeout containers in the trash proved it. Shizun hadn’t even changed the locks. He needs me. The joy he took from that thought felt mean. The guilt didn’t come for that either.
When Shizun asked Luo Binghe what he was hoping to do after graduation, he’d lied. Said something about wanting to achieve his full potential so he could make his Shizun proud, maybe in academia where he could become the scholar that Shen Qingqiu had always treated him like. Maybe if he was still living here, under his Shizun’s careful tutelage and constant attention, Luo Binghe would have done just that. He knew Shizun would prefer Binghe to have interest in hobbies besides taking care of his old teacher. Luo Binghe would have other hobbies when Shen Qingqiu let his favorite student take care of him. That was what he was hoping to do after graduation. Superstardom hadn’t factored into his original plan to make his Shizun love him, but he didn’t intend to be away from his Shizun for a second longer than he had to be. Shizun had told him to become great. There were only so many ways to achieve greatness by 20. Scholarship wasn’t going to cut it. Now a fourteen year-old byproduct of the celebrity his plan required was rooting through his beloved’s desk.
In a moment, Luo Binghe would make himself known. Take his fan on a rapid journey through shock, disbelief, delight, terror, and then the sudden lack of a phone. After he’d deleted the photos and the backups, he’d tuck the phone into his pocket, smile to the girl, and ask her to call her friend into the living room, at which point he’d say the words you say when you need people to understand that the reason you have achieved so much was because you had no limits on what you would do to get what you want. What Luo Binghe wanted right now was privacy for his loved ones. They’d listen very carefully, leave very quietly, and probably never buy one of his albums again. Or maybe they would. Fans said they loved him. Luo Binghe knew very well how love for someone could make you treasure even their cruelty.
He would do all of that in a second. Luo Binghe can’t do anything right now but look at Shizun’s desktop. This is where he would sit to grade for about twenty minutes before pulling up an egregiously bad web novel he thought Binghe didn’t notice him reading. Shizun spent perhaps too much time in front of this computer, looking at this monitor. And on the right bottom corner of that monitor, there was a post-it note held on by washi tape of Bingpup fanart.
When Luo Binghe came into the apartment, the amount of times he saw his own face was heartening but not surprising. He tried very hard to not read too much into Shizun’s merch collection. Shizun adored having something from his students to hang up. Ning Yingying had once made an admittedly very cute flier for a school movie night, and he’d kept it up on the fridge for months. It was certainly a good sign that Shizun seemed not to mind looking at Luo Binghe, but he didn’t let himself interpret anything more hopeful than that.
This post-it note’s adhesive didn’t even work anymore. That’s why Shizun used tape. It had fallen down at some point and he’d put it back up again.
The note said, “I saw these and thought of you.”
Luo Binghe had written dozens of notes like this. Shizun complained when Luo Binghe spent his stipend on gifts for him, but Shizun kept wearing the new socks or cupping the new mug or favoring the new pen, so Luo Binghe kept buying him gifts for the thrill when Shizun gave up on pretending he didn’t like them. This post-it must have been from one of those. Stuck on whatever item Luo Binghe had thought of recently that was good enough for Shizun to want but commonplace enough to overcome Shizun’s sense of propriety. Maybe this note was from the red rose he’d left on Shizun’s bed. Maybe it was from the novelty cucumber keychain.
Shizun can deny whatever he wants, and maybe he even believes it, Binghe thought with a savage kind of joy. He thinks he shouldn’t, so he says no, but he still wears whatever you gift him. Blindsiding Shizun with email had been a gamble, but Binghe had tried the slow and steady approach already. You couldn’t let Shizun get his feet underneath him or he’d just run. As the girl turned around and froze in shock, Binghe let himself feel a little hope. Shizun wanted him, even if he didn’t realize it. Shizun had never gotten a gift from Binghe that he didn’t want to be cornered into accepting. Binghe was giving Shizun himself.
“L-L-Luo Binghe?” the girl gasped.
“Hello, little sister,” Luo Binghe said. He smiled cheerfully and without even a little shame. “Let’s talk about boundaries.”