Chapter Text
Shen Yuan has a wide range of literature he reads. Some of it more embarrassing than others, it’s harder to talk about reading a stallion novel filled with papapa to just anyone than his interest in reading about rare animals and plants, after all. So it really shouldn’t be such a surprise that he also reads BL.
He hadn’t even gotten into it on his own, it was only after ranting about his webnovels to his meimei for ages that she finally forced him to listen to her thoughts on what she reads. Shen Yuan’s sister was into BL stories at the time, and after listening to her thoughts on various stories, he decided to try reading one himself to see if they were at all as interesting as she said. Unfortunately, they were. But they were honestly a mixed bag, because even though there were plenty of ridiculous stories like he expected and that he dragged through the mud like any other terrible story, there were also some good ones. Granted, the ratio of toxic yaoi with the characters having ridiculously proportioned hands or some other ridiculous issue to stories he legitimately enjoyed and saw potential in was skewed toward the ridiculous.
Still, after reading a good few Shen Yuan began to feel like his eyes were opened to other possibilities in stories. It’s not like he was homophobic before, he thought himself as pretty relaxed with that stuff, but he hadn’t ever considered two guys being together in a story as something that could really uplift the whole premise. That is of course, until one thought in particular came to mind.
Shen Yuan was a passionate hater of Proud Immortal Demon Way, and as such he was really involved with the fanbase and could spend countless hours reading what others (that is, those who gave any inkling of caring about the plot rather than the senseless papapa) had to say about it as well. Some comments he just brushed off as ludicrous, or so OOC that he would feel like spitting blood if he actually took them seriously. One such topic, that he had become accustomed to just scrolling past lest he go insane, was infamous to a certain user that had the crazy and persistent idea that shipping Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu together would make any sense. How ridiculous! The stallion protagonist and the scum villain, together?! It would be more likely for oil and water to completely mix together than for the two of them to be a ship.
…But hypothetically, Shen Yuan thinks, what would a story with the two of them as love interests be like? PIDW was already such a trash novel, could it really get any worse than it already was? Surely not, right? And so, in what he would never to admit to anyone as anything other than him losing his goddamn mind, he went back and read some discussion posts from said infamous user, found a link to a PIDW inspired story called The Scum Villain’s Self Saving System, and began reading it.
There was plenty to say about the story, the first of which being if it even counted as Luo Binghe x Shen Qingqiu, because is it really still a ship with Shen Qingqiu the scum villain if they just… scrapped him and wrote a transmigrater taking his place? It was essentially just hijacking the man with someone’s OC in his place, and yet…
Shen Yuan reads all of it. In less than 48 hours. He becomes enthralled with it, comparing and contrasting it to the original PIDW. Eventually, after his 4th reread of SVSSS, he comes to the conclusion that, despite how infuriating the miscommunication can be, and the sheer amount of times Shen Qinqiu dies and comes back to life, it’s leagues better than PIDW. At least in SVSSS Luo Binghe finally gets a happy ending, even if it is with the scum villain-but not-OC of a man Shen Qingqiu, otherwise known as Shen Yuan.
And that’s where his love of a BL spin off of PIDW goes from slightly embarrassing to mortifying. Because his name is Shen Yuan. And his best friend’s name is Luo Binghe. Did he get so engrossed with PIDW partly because the protagonist shared the same name as his best friend? Maybe, so what? Did he ever, in his wildest dreams regarding ways the story could be better, imagine Luo Binghe having a male love interest with the same name as him? HELL NO!
So when summer break ends, and he goes back to High school where he sees his Luo Binghe everyday, and he remembers just how many times he reread the romantic scenes between the novel’s Luo Binghe and Shen Yuan, causing his chest to tighten for some inexplicable reason he ends up attributing to his fickle health, Shen Yuan internally swears to himself that he is never, ever, going to bring up his interest in BL and SVSSS to anyone.
Luo Binghe is in love with Shen Yuan. Luo Binghe has known this since he first started getting close to Shen Yuan in middle school. Now, Luo Binghe is a 2nd year in High school with Shen Yuan being a 3rd year. When they first met, Luo Binghe was being bullied by a group of kids behind the school. He had only recently moved to the area, and was new to the school.
This was because, after a few years being in an orphanage after his adopted mother died from being sick, his birth parents were able to track him down and he moved in with them. Turns out there was a situation around the time when he was born where they were separated, and when his birth mother gave birth to him, for reasons around being in bad health and having no family to support her, she gave him up for adoption assuming his birth father was better off not knowing they had a kid. Years later, after she recovered and they met again, truths came to light and it was revealed they had a son together. His father, the hopefully idiot he is as his mother says, insisted that they track Luo Binghe down to at least know he was okay. When they found out that his adopted mother died, they were adamant about meeting Luo Binghe to see if he was willing to become a family with them.
Now, they were. But that didn’t mean the transition was easy for Luo Binghe either. Moving to a new school and being bullied wasn’t the best way to get used to his new life, so when Shen Yuan came and changed that, he was helpless to be anything other than captivated by him. Shen Yuan was only a year older than Luo Binghe, but the way he jumped to his defense that day behind the school resulted in Luo Binghe following after him wherever he went and quickly falling in love with him.
Shen Yuan was smart, kind, and got flustered adorably easily. Luo Binghe wanted to be with him forever. But, despite how easily Luo Binghe fell in love, it seemed Shen Yuan didn’t feel the same. Luo Binghe would love nothing more than to be in a relationship with his gege Shen Yuan, but he’ll take being his best friend any day over not being in his life at all. Still, he was determined to get Shen Yuan to fall in love with him, and he was going to do whatever he could to get it to happen, even if he had to get a little help from Shen Yuan’s sister on how to do so.