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“Hey, Stinky Rain, go change your underwear!”
Huang Shaotian whirls around, but whoever threw out the taunt is too much of a coward to show his face. Only the swift patter of retreating footsteps remains in the empty hallway.
That stupid joke won’t die. The most annoying part is there’s nothing he can do to regain his reputation. He doesn’t smell, he doesn’t. He checked at least three different times in the bathroom. He smells fine and all his clothes are freshly washed. Actually, he smells kind of nice, like his tangerine-scented body wash.
“My underwear is cleaner than yours,” he shouts to empty air. And wow, that sounded a lot better in his head. Whatever. Trash-talk doesn’t have to sound good, it just has to throw off his enemies. He stomps his foot and considers giving chase but he doesn’t want to be late for practice.
Mentally, he curses the new trainee, Yu Wenzhou. This is all his fault.
.
The rumor started after a regular practice in the training camp.
It isn’t sparked by anything out of the ordinary, nothing that Huang Shaotian might look back on and think to himself, hm maybe better not have done that. It’s a perfectly normal afternoon, right down to their worst player embarrassing himself with his stupid slow hands.
Well, almost perfectly normal. Yu Wenzhou is playing a different class than yesterday. He’d been doing that a lot lately, changing account cards. Not that it does him any good, he still gets trounced like a little baby noob. Except baby noobs can play faster than him.
Huang Shaotian corners him after practice. “This is the fourth time you’ve switched classes in a month. Do you think you’re some kind of Glory prodigy or something? There aren’t any more free players, so what’s the point? Do you think if you can be like Vice-Captain Fang, they’ll let you on the team? Keep dreaming.”
Yu Wenzhou takes it all in without so much as a word of protest.
Which is weird, it’s so weird. Why doesn’t he ever defend himself? If it was Huang Shaotian and someone insulted him, he’d have so much to say. He’d tell them how wrong they are until their ears bleed and they run away crying. Yu Wenzhou just stands there and doesn’t even look upset. What a weirdo. Huang Shaotian can’t understand him at all.
The room is still mostly full, and for a split second, he feels a little bad. It’s not Yu Wenzhou’s fault he can’t move his hands. But it is his fault he won’t give up, so maybe that balances it all out.
Besides, Huang Shaotian’s not done yet. Good trash-talk takes time to build and he’s just getting started. “Do you think account cards are like underwear, that you can try a new one every week? Well, well, do you? Speak up!”
Looking back, if he’d known what was about to happen, he might not have been so adamant about getting a response.
Yu Wenzhou blinks behind his thick-rimmed glasses and says the fatal words. “Do you only change your underwear once a week?”
It takes Huang Shaotian a second for it to sink in but it’s already too late. “Do I—do I what? That’s not even the point. Why do you care about my underwear anyway? Are you a pervert as well as a deadlast?”
Instead of answering, Yu Wenzhou turns around and leaves.
Huang Shaotian is too busy staring at his back to realize his encroaching predicament, courtesy of the other trainees in the room who latched on to the juiciest part of the confrontation.
Do you only change your underwear once a week?
.
It was a metaphor okay, a metaphor.
Huang Shaotian was not implying in any way, shape, or form that he only changes his underwear once a week. He has great hygiene. Fine, maybe not great or whatever, but pretty good. He has pretty good hygiene, and now the entire training camp thinks he’s a gross once-a-week underwear wearer.
He confronts Yu Wenzhou, who looks confused rather than smug about his unexpected victory.
“You’re the one who brought it up in the first place,” Yu Wenzhou says, like this whole thing is Huang Shaotian’s fault.
“Is this some kind of trash-talk thing you’re trying out? Are you trying to be more like me? Take my advice, if you want to be more like me, you need to be faster.” Huang Shaotian jogs a circle around him, and stupid Yu Wenzhou just stays put, doesn’t even try to spin in a circle and track his movement. What a drag that guy is. How is Huang Shaotian supposed to make a good speed joke with him just standing there like that?
Yu Wenzhou looks completely unphased and it’s kind of impressive. “I already said it. You’re the one who mentioned underwear first.”
Around them, he can hear the giggles of the other trainees.
“It was a metaphor,” Huang Shaotian spits out through his teeth.
“Stinky Rain, Stinky Rain!” someone calls out. Huang Shaotian makes a note of who it was. They’re going to get demolished by Troubling Rain later. Once, twice, maybe three times if Huang Shaotian hasn’t had enough.
“Stop telling shitty jokes about my underwear!” The moment the words are out of his mouth, Huang Shaotian has Regrets.
He bites his tongue. Maybe if he doesn’t say anything, no one will notice the inadvertent pun. From the corner of his eye, he sees Yu Wenzhou bite his lip in obvious amusement.
This time, betrayal comes from within. Huang Shaotian’s roommate, who should know better because the guy has literally seen Huang Shaotian’s dirty laundry pile that includes so much underwear, is the one who stabs him in the back. “Shitty jokes. Ha! Get it? Good one, Huang Shao!”
“Shut up! You’re the ones who smell!” Huang Shaotian looks over from his shouting to glance back at Yu Wenzhou but he’s moved over to a nearby computer and already has his headset on, plodding along with his dumb slow hands. Ugh, he can’t wait for that guy to finally get kicked out.
Huang Shaotian whirls back to the group of gathered trainees. “I change my underwear every day. Every day, every damn day, you all shut up. I never said I go a whole week!”
And because life hates him, that’s the exact moment Captain Wei walks into the training room, followed by the entire Blue Rain professional team. And why, why did it have to be today that they were scheduled to practice with the pro team?
Wei Chen stops in his tracks and gives Huang Shaotian a mildly disgusted look.
Huang Shaotian is going to murder their deadlast.
.
(“Blade Master, ha! The only blade he has is his nasty swamp dick.”
“Bet you haven’t heard this one yet: ‘Why does Huang Shao move so fast? Because he’s trying to outrun his own smell.’”)
.
Huang Shaotian escapes Wei Chen’s office with his face flaming red.
He can still hear the awkward lecture ringing in his ears about the changes your body is going through and the importance of laundry and good hygiene. Huang Shaotian has never understood it when people talk about wanting the floor to grow teeth and eat them alive. Not until that moment. It should maybe make him feel better that the captain looked just as mortified as him, but it doesn’t.
He bursts open the door and nearly knocks over the guy behind it.
“Oh, crap, sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, are you okay?” His words tumble to a halt when he sees who he ran over.
Yu Wenzhou straightens his glasses, looking slightly dazed. “I’m fine.”
Huang Shaotian is about to ask what he’s doing here, when he catches sight of the sheet of paper taped to Wei Chen’s office door with the results of the most recent round of elimination matches. They’re the same as always: Huang Shaotian is at the top and Yu Wenzhou is barely clinging to the bottom.
His mood immediately brightens. Nothing like cold, hard facts to show people their place. Especially people with pathetic hands who cast aspersions on other people’s underwear.
“Why do you even bother?” he finds himself asking.
He doesn’t expect an answer. Yu Wenzhou rarely gives answers that make sense. Huang Shaotian hasn’t thought about it all that much, because he doesn’t think about Yu Wenzhou at all (except when he’s forced to play alongside the guy, and then he just thinks he’s slow and annoying) but he suspects that when Yu Wenzhou spouts his cryptic nonsense, it’s because he’s answering the question he thinks you should have asked, rather than what you did ask.
“Why do you?” Yu Wenzhou replies.
Huang Shaotian scoffs. Typical deadlast bullshit. Who the hell even knows what question Yu Wenzhou thinks he’s answering with that crap. Huang Shaotian could probably ask, but he doesn’t care.
This time, he’s the one who leaves Yu Wenzhou standing alone.
It’s a deliberate slap in the face—it has to be—when, the very next week, Yu Wenzhou switches classes again. Huang Shaotian debates for a solid five minutes about whether he should say anything. What if it’s another trap? Is their deadlast trying to spring some sort of new underwear-related horror on him? Is this revenge for nearly knocking him down the other day? That would be so unfair, he apologized for that!
Or maybe it’s belated payback for the whole “deadlast” thing, which a small but growing part of Huang Shaotian is beginning to suspect he maybe deserves. Yu Wenzhou may be the slowest wannabe pro player that ever existed, but some of his fleeting observations are downright scary in their accuracy.
In the end, he doesn’t say anything.
Two weeks later, Yu Wenzhou switches classes again and no one but Huang Shaotian seems to notice.
.
The good news is no one’s telling underwear jokes anymore. The bad news is that it’s because Captain Wei is gone. Huang Shaotian never thought he’d want the crappy jokes back.
Crappy jokes.
If Huang Shaotian breaks into a wheeze of laughter that sounds more like crying, no one is there to call him on it.
.
The day after he starts speaking again, an entire pack of underwear shows up outside his dormitory door, still in the store packaging. A typewritten note set on top reads: please use me. He grabs the underwear from the hallway before anyone can see.
For once in his life, he isn’t fast enough. By lunchtime, the entire training camp knows about his “special delivery.” Yu Wenzhou doesn’t outright laugh at him, but there’s a constant twitch in his lips like he’s only keeping his cool to help Huang Shaotian save face.
Another pack shows up the next day.
And the next.
When no underwear is waiting for him on the fourth day, he breathes a sigh of relief. Until he gets to the training room. On the bulletin board, next to the training camp rankings, someone has duct-taped a pack of underwear to the wall. Huang Shaotian lets loose a volley of trash-talk so loud that some of the pro team peek their heads into the room to make sure everything’s all right.
He proceeds to win every single one of his matches that day. (He doesn’t say anything, but he’s grateful to have something to think about other than how his captain never even bothered to say goodbye.)
The underwear, when Huang Shaotian tries it on, is surprisingly nice. He keeps it all.
.
(Why do you bother?
Why do you?)
It isn’t until much later that Huang Shaotian looks back and understands what Yu Wenzhou was telling him that day.
He’d thought Yu Wenzhou was giving him some cryptic bullshit but he’d answered the question honestly. Yu Wenzhou kept fighting to stay, kept bothering to cling to his lowly position, for the same reason Huang Shaotian came to Blue Rain.
Because he loves Glory.
.
Their captain is gone but life goes on.
Huang Shaotian stands in the corner of the training room, watching Yu Wenzhou talk to the same crowd of people who used to make fun of him not too long ago. With a gentle smile, he sits down at his computer to fight everyone who wants to see his prediction skills in action.
Huang Shaotian approaches just in time to see Yu Wenzhou’s warlock with the silly haircut execute a perfectly cast Chaotic Rain. It’s the beginning of the end of the match. It isn’t until the Glory logo shows up victorious on the screen that Huang Shaotian realizes what hasn’t changed since before that last fight with Wei Chen.
“You stopped changing classes,” he says, once Yu Wenzhou has taken off his headset and turned around to face him.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering Yu Wenzhou defeated their captain using his little warlock, so clearly it’s a good fit for him. Huang Shaotian’s a little embarrassed he didn’t see the pattern earlier, he’s supposed to be great at patterns. The classes Yu Wenzhou used during his switching period all had their strengths in long-range fighting. The whole time Huang Shaotian had been berating him, Yu Wenzhou had already assessed his weaknesses and had been actively working to find a way to minimize them.
The barest hint of a smile pulls at the edge of Yu Wenzhou’s mouth. “You noticed.” He pauses, the grin growing into something honest. “Or is this your way of bringing up underwear again?”
A rush of heat crawls up Huang Shaotian’s neck. “Don’t you start that up again, don’t you dare. I can’t believe out of everything I’ve said to you, that’s the thing you won’t let go.”
“Technically, you said it to me, first.”
“I can’t believe you, I can’t—” Huang Shaotian cuts himself off as suspicion dawns on him. “Wait, was it you who put all those packs of underwear outside my door before? Yu Wenzhou, what the hell!”
Yu Wenzhou admits to nothing, but Huang Shaotian is learning how to read his face. The more he picks up, the more he can’t believe he used to think Yu Wenzhou never showed emotion. He has so many different faces and right now every single one of them is laughing at Huang Shaotian.
“You totally did, you did it, I can’t believe you. I’m going to tell everyone that respectable Yu Wenzhou plays underwear pranks on poor, innocent Blade Masters.” He keeps going, a stream of nonsense about the dubious nature of Warlock-users in general and Yu Wenzhou in particular. He never comes out and says, ‘Thank you for distracting me when I was sad.’ Their friendship is still a new thing and he doesn’t want to poke at it too hard. He hopes Yu Wenzhou can see what he means, anyway. After all, he’s scary good at knowing what people are thinking.
The smile Yu Wenzhou gives him is one of his deceptively mild tactician ones, but there’s something warm underneath it that makes Huang Shaotian’s stupid heart beat a little faster. “Say whatever you want,” Yu Wenzhou tells him. “No one will believe you.”
He turns on his heel and leaves the room, an echo of how he used to disappear after Huang Shaotian’s taunts. Unlike all those other times, Huang Shaotian doesn’t watch him leave. Instead, he dogs his heels as they both walk to the cafeteria, talking and talking and talking all the way.
Yu Wenzhou slows his pace just enough for Huang Shaotian to catch up.
.
The underwear jokes from the team thankfully stop when Huang Shaotian is officially named vice-captain. Well, they mostly stop. Every year on the anniversary of his debut game as half of Blue Rain’s Sword and Curse, a single package of underwear shows up on Huang Shaotian’s desk in his dorm room.
It’s not the only thing that’s changed—Yu Wenzhou has long ago obtained solid proof of the thoroughness of Huang Shaotian’s personal hygiene routine.
After all, he’s the one taking Huang Shaotian’s underwear off.