Work Text:
How now!
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks I feel this youth's perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes.
- Olivia, speaking of Cesario (Viola), Act I, Scene V, Twelfth Night
Perhaps the story begins here: Luo Binghe has her own fanclub. Like, the k-drama CEO-in-college fanclub, the anime bishounen kind of fanclub.
This, in retrospect, is something Shen Yuan should have seen coming - it was in the goddamn genes of the whole damn family . Gender had never stood a chance between Luo Binghe and her legion of adoring fans.
"Is this really going to become a regular thing?" she finally asks, when the girl - out of three so far - has left, giggling into her math textbook. Honest-to-gods giggling, like Binghe's face is the point of existence. It is a rather nice face, if she has to be straightforward (not straight) but Binghe must never know, or her head will get too big for her shoulders and roll into the way of a car. Shen Yuan wishes getting rid of her was that easy or even an acceptable option in the first place, honestly.
But this is Binghe, and she just smiles beatifically in response and says, "Shizun, you're cute when you're being jealous, but I only have eyes for you."
And Shen Yuan rolls her eyes, as always, and pokes her with her mechanical pencil to make her go back to work. “The library closes in an hour, I'd rather you only have eyes for that textbook.”
“As long as we can grab dinner together,” she says, and Shen Yuan shrugs, because no one passes up a free treat.
Their dinner outings (not dates, never dates , Binghe is a garbage sophomore and Shen Yuan is a classy senior and they both have insane college assignment deadlines and no time for dates) usually end in one of them staying over at the other's place just to work some more on their schoolwork or other... activities. It depends on the mood really.
This particular one ends with Shen Yuan's butt on the couch and her legs easily slung over Luo Binghe's shoulders as the other kneels on the scuffed carpet. She'd tried to protest earlier, when Binghe had insisted on a study break, and immediately given in at the first hint of Binghe pinching her waist through her thin shirt.
Her hands have moved on from there. One tugs her panties aside and the other twists her right nipple until she lets out a shriek. "Oi, brat, be respectful."
“I would like nothing better than to worship your body, Shizun,” she answers cheekily, and puts her mouth to work. Shen Yuan swears she whites out for a few seconds. When she comes to, Binghe has slipped her hand through her shirt for better access to the aforementioned nipple, and her tongue is doing utterly amazing things to her clit. She holds her thigh in place with one hand, almost flipping her to the side so she can barely move.
“I'm going to come,” she grits out, hands fisting in her thick wavy ponytail, and the brat has the nerve to chuckle as she clenches down and wipes down her chin after Shen Yuan squirts.
“No one said you couldn’t,” Luo Binghe says nonchalantly, and then slips two fingers inside. Shen Yuan pulls at her hair, and she smiles into her inner thigh while biting the soft skin, careful to keep away from her overly sensitive parts. “Do you think we have time for a quickie?”
“If you don’t get me off again I’m going to kill you,” Shen Yuan says. "and did you - is that lube?! Did you think you were going to get lucky?!"
“Looks like I got lucky,” Binghe says, pulling away to fish out a packet from her discarded coat, and while she tears it open Shen Yuan wants to say this time! but Binghe looks at her and -
She looks at her like she’s lucky to even have her, setting up and lining up and pushing in all in the space of two breaths - exhaling a broken, ”Shizun, you feel, so good - so good,” right against her ears as she bends her over, pulling out so carefully after she’s gotten used to it -
- and she doesn’t want to hear it. She isn’t ready to hear that. Binghe sobs outright when she clenches down on her fingers and starts to talk very fast, Shen Yuan’s fingers slipping into Binghe’s underwear. “I want you to-”
“Not yet,” she says harshly, speeding up her own fingers, and Binghe goes mute in shock before she nods and kisses her like Shen Yuan wants her to.
They both know she’s not talking about her coming- but there will be time.
Yes, Shen Yuan thinks vaguely, even as Binghe comes too, wetting her fingers, Binghe’s own fingers rubbing at her clit until she screams again - there’s still time. For now.
***
There is a beginning to every story, and this is not it. It starts when Shen Yuan first drops in on the dance classes from hell her shidi is going through - seriously, Shang Qinghua complains, they want to kill us dead in the first goddamn semester, why did I take up this elective - and meets freshman Luo Bingge.
She doesn’t remember a lot except watching him dance his way across the floor in yoga pants and a loose tee and vaguely realizing that she’s not the only person staring at the beautiful line of his legs, even though she’s fairly sure he’s a tiny thing - and when he bends over and does a split something fundamental in her brain sputters and dies out.
Shang Qinghua comes up to her at that point, delighted about her dropping in, and promptly introduces his new best friend to Shen Yuan’s disloyal hoe befriending ass (“I’ll call you my best friend again when you help me stretch before my dances,”) and Shen Yuan nearly passes out when Luo Bingge actually fucking smiles like a beacon in her direction. Honestly, Shen Yuan would help Shang Qinghua stretch any day if Luo Bingge tagged along. Maybe showed her how to stretch. A hands on demonstration.
“Shen Yuan, right? I’m Luo Bingge,” he says, and his slightly high-pitched (young!! Too young!! Two years is too young!) voice immediately has her hyperventilating with thirst.
(Luo Bingge talks about his friend’s cat back home delightedly when they all order takeout later, and Shen Yuan realizes she was doomed from the beginning.)
“Don’t,” Shang Qinghua tells her, as they walk home together after she gets her textbooks back from the photocopier. His eyes are wary.
“Don’t what now?” she asks, mystified.
Shang Qinghua exhales heavily. “Don’t play dumb, and don’t go after Luo Bingge. He only does casual flings - multiple flings, at the same time - which is valid, except you’re a monogamous softie when it comes to relationships and he would eat you alive.”
Well. Shen Yuan sort of saw that coming. “I’m not going after -” She sees the sceptical look on Shang Qinghua’s face and hastily amends her statement. “I mean, I’m not interested in pursuing him romantically? The last time I tried that it was shit, anyway. Boys suck.”
“I thought you were the one doing all the sucking-”
Shen Yuan hits him around the head with her textbook, ignoring the ensuing cackles. “Don’t be a smartass.” She smirks. “I’ll have you know some of them are very talented at sucking.”
Shang Qinghua makes a disgusted face. “I’ll take your word for that. The stubble aspect doesn’t look very appealing to me, especially near sensitive areas.”
“Sometimes they suck on each other. Also, you’re straight - don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Multiple times.”
“Please never talk to me about your threesomes ever again.”
“Fine, virgin.”
“Doesn’t make you any less of a monogamous softie, though. And stop being salty - ask him if he has a sibling, go after them instead.”
Shen Yuan pays that last tidbit of information no attention, too busy considering her materials for the next day of classes.
***
The thing is, Shen Yuan’s never actually been in a threesome. Not a proper one. There had been that one time she’d walked in on two guys making out at a party and they’d invited her to watch, and she’d shrugged and settled into a chair near the window, watching curiously as they kissed, hands sliding through hair and on each other’s dicks when they came - her own hand sliding into her underwear because it was strangely addicting, knowing that they were getting off on her being in the same room.
She does have experience with exhibitionism though - from that, and some others - but she’d never actually considered it until Binghe brings it up, literal months of drama later, at their weekly coffee break meeting after their classes are out.
“You couldn’t have given me this in private?” she says, raising an eyebrow at the entire written contract she’s drafted.
There’s an odd light in Luo Binghe’s eyes. When Shen Yuan first started seeing her - after classes, platonically - she always saw a bit of her twin’s cold light in her, even at her warmest. Then she began to thaw, glacier under soft sunlight - and then she started sparkling.
It’s been kind of gratifying, watching it happen. Shen Yuan doesn’t know if she’d be willing to give it up.
“Binghe?” she tries again. “Do you want to sleep with other people?”
A tight shake of the head - it’s supposed to be casual, Shen Yuan can tell, but her feelings are clear. Her face - the twist of her lovely lips are sour with - jealousy?
“Then what brought this on?” Shen Yuan asks. She pulls her cup of espresso towards herself, wincing at the taste. Too many shots - she’s going to end up pulling an all nighter because of this. “Experimenting doesn’t need to be uncomfortable.”
“I don’t want to limit your options,” Luo Binghe says.
Shen Yuan stares at her, motionless over her cup. She pushes away her cup, gulps the last bit of espresso in her mouth down before it goes the wrong way, and stares some more.
Luo Binghe. Part time model, sister of the hottest guy in their entire university, prettiest person in their entire university bar maybe Lan Wangji, if one was being pedantic.
“What the fuck,” she says with feeling. “What options?”
“I -” Binghe sounds flustered now, which is adorable but also terrifying, because she has never been subjected to this side of her except during sex recently. “I heard that you were into threesomes, from Sha Hualing -”
“Sha Hualing knows me?” Shen Yuan is flabbergasted. Why would the second prettiest girl in their entire university, who does not look twice at other girls except when she’s trying to fuck them, bother to look at her?
“Yes, well, apparently you liked someone she slept with,” Binghe says. The jealous note in her voice is definitely audible now. Shen Yuan refrains from cooing, because they are in public and she doesn’t want to give Binghe ideas.
Also, that’s… an absurd notion. The only other person Shen Yuan has actively liked has been -
Oh. Ohhh. So that’s what this is about.
Shen Yuan’s lips twitch without her meaning to. She places a gentle hand on Binghe’s palm, and upturns it.
“I assure you,” she says, voice not wavering even for a second, even as she feels the amusement slip into it, “you are definitely the more attractive twin.”
“I should hope so,” Binghe replies, tone arrogant, and Shen Yuan laughs this time. She resembles him in little ways like these - that insufferable self-confidence in their own attractiveness and charm both siblings have - ways that would no doubt aggravate her if anyone pointed them out, so she never tells her.
“So does that mean you’re dropping the threesome idea?” Shen Yuan asks, teasing. “Or were you just testing if I was willing to share instead of monopolizing you after classes?”
“Mm,” Binghe says nonchalantly, breaking eye contact. Her thick ponytail flutters in the wind, and Shen Yuan is reminded of how she had dug her fingers into it last night. “I don’t know if you are, but I’m not.”
Oh. Shen Yuan feels a little flutter, a hummingbird in her ribcage threatening to burst out and fly right into Luo Binghe’s parted lips. She quickly sets her eyes down to her coffee, ignoring the smug look that the prettiest girl on campus aims in her direction.
Really, she thinks, she never stood a chance.
***
The story actually begins here: Shen Yuan meets Luo Bingge again, wearing everything loose-fitting and looking far more rounder than his incredibly built figure, and with noticeably bigger breasts behind her equally flimsy looking blouse.
“Oh, I’m his twin sister, Binghe,” the doppelganger says, when she catches her staring. She sits down, uncaring of how Shen Yuan gapes in her direction. “Yes, we’re identical. No, don’t ask.”
“...” Shen Yuan doesn’t bother pointing out that identical twins are, as far as she knows, usually of the same gender. Not her business. She takes out her reading material, and starts her class.
And then comes the questions.
“We can easily argue that Olivia is bisexual,” Binghe points out, two minutes into the reading of Twelfth Night, which they are supposed to be analyzing today. “But what about Viola herself? Can her conflict with her presentation as a man not be read as conflict over whether it would be better if she was, say, born a man in a way acceptable by society? Orsino’s love for her, too, can be read with the same amount of conflict. Twelfth Night’s true resolution is that there is no resolution - because all the queercoded people remain conflicted internally about their identities, even after all is revealed for the audience’s pleasure, and we don’t even get to see Antonio’s eventual reaction.”
Ma’am, Shen Yuan, wants to say, this is the McDonald’s drivethru. But she doesn’t, because Binghe has raised a lot of valid points that merits discussion, and for some reason that pleases her. Perhaps the girl, like her brother, isn’t just made of eyecandy. She encourages debate, and two students start arguing in the back hotly, contesting the topic of Orsino’s feelings, and the class descends into a peaceful kind of chaos, while she goes around checking if anyone has doubts. Binghe does not, so she avoids her.
That doesn’t stop Luo Binghe from doing… whatever she’s doing. For one thing, Shen Yuan is not used to being the one being checked out. Blatantly, at that. She can feel the glares of people across the room when the bell tolls to signify the end of class, and sighs. Ah...really. Is it necessary for Luo Binghe to be this way? She’s going to end up the most unpopular TA on campus at this rate.
Apparently that is definitely on Luo Binghe’s plans, because she asks her out the moment class is finished.
“I don’t date -” she begins, and Luo Binghe’s face falls not unlike a pomeranian, and Shen Qingqiu feels like an absolute asshat. “- after hours, I have no time,” she amends hastily. “Do you need tutoring?”
“Oh, yes, I do!” Luo Binghe chirps, not a trace of her former antagonism on her face, and Shen Yuan knows instinctively in that second, from her tidy bun to her tip of her sensible peep-toe heels, that this girl is going to eat her alive.
***
“You gave her your number?” Shang Qinghua says, horrified. “Why. What possessed you.”
“I’m thirsty?” she offers feebly. He bats her hand away, still looking at her judgmentally. “Look, she was cute, I couldn’t really refuse, plus her brother was hot, and I’m almost 100% certain he was just fucking with me. And if he wasn’t, it’s good to be on good terms with his sister, right?!”
“He’s not going to date you, Shen Yuan,” Shang Qinghua says, again. Pointedly.
“Ruin my fun, won’t you,” she grumbles, and moves past the topic. It’s not like she doesn’t know that. But it feels cool being the conniving one sometimes! Plus, she likes Binghe - she’s a sensible kid, despite all the blatant checking out - it’s not really tricking her, wanting to tutor her, right? It’s not like she’s actually going to get closer to her brother that way, it’s just a flight of fancy, really.
Hey, she texts Luo Bingge on the number he had put into her phone the day before, do you actually have a sister, or were you fucking with me today?
LOL, the reply comes, I apologize if she offended you, Bingmei has no manners. Did she come onto you? Ignore her, she cries when she doesn’t get what she wants.
That’s mean.
It’s the truth! Don’t say I didn’t warn you - pretty girls have always been our type.
Shen Yuan ignores that last text. Surely it can’t be that bad, tutoring her? She does need the help, after all…
Well, she reasons to herself. I don’t fall into that category, so that’s fine.
She texts Luo Bingge as much, who just replies with a ton of facepalm emojis followed by wide-eyed ones, and she turns off her phone, humiliated. What had she expected?! Compliments?!
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe says at their next session, amused. “Do you know I have specific instructions to not seduce people at all for this whole week from my twin? What have you been telling him?”
Luo Bingge’s vague brother complex levels of protectiveness aside, is it really necessary to throw Shen Yuan under the bus like this?!
Shen Yuan conceals her tears, and says, with dignity: “I told him he was ugly.”
There is silence, and then Luo Binghe snorts. “You should really learn how to lie better than that.”
“Only an accomplished liar can say that,” Shen Yuan points out. “Neither of you look like it.”
“Oh, we are,” Binghe says. Her eyes are dark - just a little shadowy. “One day you’ll see it.”
“See,” Shen Yuan says nervously. “Every time you do that thing with your eyes - that shadowy, Amy Lee thing? The My Immortal thing? You look exactly like one of those demonic stallion novel protagonists. Your personal harem following you everywhere doesn’t help. You’re only missing the hairdye and the icy blue eyes like limpid tears.”
“Ooh, would that make me your disciple?” Binghe purrs, hand on her cheek. “Shizun, please instruct this lowly disciple on how to make herself look more human!”
“Take your elbow off my notes, brat!”
***
Maybe it starts when Shen Yuan starts liking Luo Binghe. Like that.
She doesn’t notice it at first, really. She hasn’t been attracted to enough people that it counts, and if she notices her cleavage a bit more than she usually does with girls who don’t ever have their tits out, or if her gaze lingers too long on the curve of her lips or the swell of her back, or even her toned biceps when she subs in for a game in the basketball court during an official match that she’s forced to attend as moral support.
Then it starts getting more obvious, when she really pays attention to how attentive Binghe is in all classes - not just hers - and how she trudges past her obvious dyslexia to take notes. Shen Yuan bribes the professor with hazelnut cookies to get him to change fonts to a more readable version for essays, and she feels like she can live off the sunny smile Binghe aims her when she tells her about the change for a month or two.
To be fair, Luo Binghe is attractive enough that Shen Yuan doesn’t notice she’s actively still attempting to court her until they’re into their fifth tutoring session, when she calls it quits after Binghe has finished working on a long, long project on Twelfth Night under her supervision (“But Shizun, what if there was a sequel where Sebastian and Antonio finally fell in love and Cesario realized Orsino wasn’t shit,” she says, and Shen Yuan rather fancies Binghe’s rendition of Cesario, when all is said and done) and asks if she can borrow a raincoat, because it’s absolutely pouring outside.
“Stay the night, Shizun,” Luo Binghe says. “We can watch gay anime together!”
This is how Shen Yuan ends up in bed next to her, cuddled into her side while they watch Junjou Romantica in growing horror.
“Why,” Luo Binghe repeats, after the spit-kiss scene starts repeating. “Oh my god.”
“It’s a classic,” Shen Yuan tries, maintaining a straight face, before she bursts out laughing. “God, I’d forgotten how terrible this was. Even the age difference aside -”
Luo Binghe aims her a Look. “The age is secondary here, they’re both adults, technically, but that man is clearly taking advantage of him! It’s creepy!”
“Oh, you have no idea, wait until the next one,” Shen Yuan cackles, and lets the first episode of the Egoist arc start playing.
Binghe is oddly silent at this one, and Shen Yuan cuts a glance at her. “What, you don’t find this one amusing?”
“Mm,” she says noncommittally. “I don’t like the stalking aspect of it, but.”
“There’s a but?” Her eyebrows shoot up.
“I’m not excusing his actions!” Binghe adds hurriedly, shoving more popcorn into her mouth. “Just… Hiroki sounds so lonely. And Akihiko definitely doesn’t deserve him, and Nowaki would probably treat him better.”
“I mean, yeah, this would be the nicest pairing if it didn’t romanticize stalking,” Shen Yuan agrees. She looks back at the screen, and tries to picture it, and then smiles wryly. “I did like Hiroki and Akihiko together, though. Somehow I always thought that he’d see the light. Change his mind, learn to fall in love with Hiroki.”
Ideally, Shen Yuan thinks, if this was an ideal world - she would be tutoring Luo Binghe’s twin instead, the one with the sharp jawline and the deep set eyes so similar and yet so different from Binghe’s. They’d do whatever he did on dates, and then she’d get the life fucked out of her, before he moved on to his newest conquest.
That… is more depressing as a thought than she anticipated. She sighs. “Ideally, a lot of things happen that we wish for, but some things you just can’t control.”
“Like love,” Binghe agrees quietly. Her ponytail droops a little, and she looks so upset when Shen Yuan looks back at her that the next set of actions she takes (she will swear this until the end of time) are entirely involuntary.
She leans up and doesn’t quite register the warm forehead under her lips until a good few seconds later, at which point it’s too late to call it an accidental brush.
Luo Binghe stares at her, wide-eyed. Shen Yuan begins to stammer under the full force of pretty eyes fringed with long lashes.
“I - yes, you can’t control love, but also pretty girls aren’t allowed to look sad over it,” she says, an obstinate note creeping into her voice.
Luo Binghe still looks speechless. She opens her mouth a few times before snapping it shut. “Shizun - it’s not like I can force them to like me back. Or date me. Or - ” she blushes this time, faintly - “sleep with me, I’m not as confident as Sha Hualing is in that aspect. Or my brother.”
“Well,” Shen Yuan says, in an unprecedented stroke of courage she will mildly regret later. “You could always ask.”
Luo Binghe does, enthusiastically, and Shen Yuan finds herself, to no one’s great surprise, unwilling to refuse.
(They forget about the anime in the background until the moaning on screen starts back up like a jumpscare, and that, ironically enough, and not the sound of thunder is what makes Shen Yuan screech right into Luo Binghe’s mouth and fall off the bed.)
***
But really, this is how it ends officially: there’s a pool party at Luo Bingge’s frat, and Shen Yuan tags along with Shang Qinghua because he’s unofficially thirsting after this one ice queen nerd who happens to be Bingge’s sidekick who had apparently broken his locker trying to get the invite in ( really, why do the Luo siblings travel in packs of jocks?! )
This means that besides Ning Yingying, his other immediate student, and Liu Mingyan, who is apparently Luo Bingge’s latest attempted conquest. Shen Yuan is immediately shoved in their midst when he arrives, after Shang Qinghua takes off in the direction of his nerdy Amy Lee wannabe soon-to-be boyfriend (he has the eyes like limpid tears down) and the three of them stare at each other awkwardly until Yingying offers them cans of the grape flavoured Fanta she keeps drinking, and they courteously agree to down it.
“Tastes like sports anime,” Shen Yuan says, after a sip.
“Nice Echizen Ryoma reference,” Liu Mingyan says.
They regard each other with the mutual satisfaction of those who have watched Prince of Tennis in its entirety multiple times, as well as the musicals, and therefore know everything there is to know about sports anime and probably have posters of Atobe in their rooms, before this relative peace of lesbian anime solidarity is broken by Luo Binghe’s brother unceremoniously descending from the stairs and charmingly winking in their direction. Ugh.
Shen Yuan wonders, vaguely, when he had turned from Luo Bingge to Luo Binghe’s brother in her head. Probably some time in the last month, when she realized she was dreaming of sly curves of lips upwards much more than she was thinking of naked boys at pool parties.
“Ugh,” Liu Mingyan says, and Shen Yuan realizes she said that out loud, unlike her. “Be careful.”
“What?” she says, blinking back at her, turning away from his gaze. “Has he been harassing you?”
“No,” Liu Mingyan says, subdued. “But you be careful - the Luo siblings are very, very bad at sharing.”
It takes her a moment, before she goes crimson. “Wait, no, you’ve got it all wrong - I’m pretty sure he was checking you out!”
Liu Mingyan shakes her head mutely, and then heads away, Ning Yingying in tow, who looks over her shoulder at her, inexplicably worried. Shen Yuan watches them go, puzzled, before he feels the shadow over him, and turns to see Luo Bingge towering over her.
Bingge and her haven’t talked often. They text, sometimes, but it’s usually for classwork, or something about Shang Qinghua. Today she had asked him what Mo Beijun would be wearing, so Shang Qinghua could turn up looking equally preppy. She herself is less preppier than usual in a shimmering green minidress and strappy heels, because Binghe had begged and pleaded for her to show up in something that would match her outfit, but that’s not the point.
The point is that the girl in question is nowhere to be seen, and her brother is here.
“Just the girl I was looking for,” Bingge says flirtatiously (what the fuck) and puts his arm around her to lead her into the balcony. Sha Hualing is aiming poisonous eyes at them from whatever corner of the house she’s in, Shen Yuan is sure, and she shivers suddenly. This is not good. This is not good at all.
“Please refrain from using me to get rid of your flings,” she attempts weakly.
“Mm, or ideally you could sleep with me permanently, and I wouldn’t need any more flings,” he says calmly, and Shen Yuan rears back as if slapped.
He doesn’t say anything else, merely looks back at her, eyebrow raised. “What?” he says, arrogance in his tone clear. “It’s not like you haven’t wanted to.”
Which is - besides the point, Shen Yuan has already made it clear to Shang Qinghua, who has a loose mouth when he’s drunk, and it was a thing of the past anyway, but mostly all Shen Yuan feels in this moment is fury. Not for herself - there’s a healthy dose of that, too - but mostly -
The resulting slap resounds in the empty balcony.
“Next time,” she says calmly, rubbing her hands together, “don’t go after your own sister’s girlfriend. I don’t care about your petty rivalries, but I am not a toy to be fought over.”
Bingge stares at her for a second, before he starts laughing.
“Oh, God, you’re hilarious. Cute, but hilarious. No wonder she’s head over heels,” he chuckles. “Nice right hook, too. Don’t worry, I have no intention of sleeping with you. Like, ever.”
“I wasn’t worried, I’d cut your dick off if it came anywhere near me, frankly speaking,” Shen Yuan says, getting more irritable by the second.
“It won’t,” he says, still chuckling. He doesn’t seem to care about the rapidly swelling shiner on his cheek at all. “I’ll be leaving now, Binghe should be here in a few minutes, she said she was on her way ten minutes ago.” He turns away, leaving Shen Yuan with more questions than answers. Was this supposed to be a test? But why?
“Oh, and,” Bingge adds, dropping the bombshell without care. “I don’t dance. Might as well tell you that.”
“WHAT?” Shen Yuan replies. Loudly. There are people peering in through the doors now, curious as to the source of the commotion.
“We’re identical,” Bingge says patiently. “It was a physical education elective, I found it boring, so she took over.”
“You can’t just - do that!” she says.
“We kind of did,” Bingge informs her. “Like the movie. It was surprisingly easy. Also people were too busy staring at her ass to notice. And her voice isn’t pitched all that higher than mine.”
“Oh my fucking god,” Shen Yuan mutters, in a daze. “You’re Sebastian.”
Bingge’s lips twitch. “Frankly, Olivia,” he says, grinning. “You’re not my type.”
***
This is how things all tie into an epilogue: A little death. First of Shen Yuan’s dignity when she realizes the magnitude of fool she is on the Clown Scale, which, as Shakespeare’s Touchstone said in As You Like It, is only the privilege of the truly wise. Or something of the sort. Second, of Shen Yuan herself, again, under a currently extremely pleased girlfriend’s fingers later that night, ensconced in one of the upstairs rooms in the frat.
“But Shizun, don’t you love a happy ending?” Binghe asks, from the crook of Shen Yuan’s thighs, fingers thrusting in slowly. Her voice is teasing, and her slow motions even more so.
“I’m still mad at you,” Shen Yuan gasps, scrabbling at the bedsheets when Binghe pushes her minidress higher up her hips, until her wetness is all but exposed to the open air, before Binghe slides her mouth onto it. She stops talking for a while, muffling high whines into her hands, before she lets go with a sigh. “Gods - I can’t believe I was texting you on your like - burner phone? Is that what it was?!”
“No, that really was my brother,” Binghe says calmly. “I didn’t lie about that.”
“What did you lie about, then?” she demands. “Besides, like, the obvious.”
“I was embarrassed, I don’t really have an excuse.” Binghe shrugs, and crooks her fingers upwards again, pressing forward, forward until she finds the spot. “Plus, you were into boys. I had to make sure you would like me either way, because I could tell you were still gunning for my twin.” Shen Yuan screams. “Which, I suppose you’re not complaining now, girlfriend. ” A shit eating grin forms on Luo Binghe’s face, one that Shen Yuan wants to wipe off her face immediately, so she solves that by pulling her down into a kiss, hairtie coming loose and her long hair falling around them in waves as they both descend downwards. Shen Yuan doesn’t even care anymore about whose bed this is.
What a tangled web we weave, Shen Yuan thinks with only very mild despair when Binghe enthusiastically begins to work at her insides again, when first we practice to deceive.
But it’s all right. Mostly because this is one spider’s web, she muses, that she doesn’t quite mind being caught up in.