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Yibo gets the text on Thursday, in Changsha, just as they're finishing an interview segment for Day Day Up. Yu Bin's long WeChat is laden with emojis, but the gist is the same as every other message he's gotten from him in the four months since The Untamed wrapped: get dinner with me!!!!
To be fair, today's request does seem a little more involved than usual, with details about getting a rough headcount and a date that works for most people so Yu Bin can book a reservation somewhere nice for the occasion; the end of December means Lunar New Year prep is already in full swing. Just that morning, Yibo's manager emailed him a bevy of invitations, with one line of quick commentary provided: Pick two, no exceptions.
There's a car waiting in the parking lot to take him to the airport. Yibo climbs into the backseat while typing into his personal chat with Yu Bin. has anyone actually responded to you yet?
i'll have you know that haikuan and ziyi are BOTH yesses, Yu Bin shoots back without missing a beat. will you be in the city? and available for once?
He hasn't been actively trying to avoid anyone. It's just that flying back and forth from Changsha every week does kind of put a damper on his social itinerary. And he's not the only one; the nature of the beast dictates that everyone's racking up frequent flier miles because of work. Most nights, face tight from smiling all day and travel-exhausted, Yibo pushes through his apartment door and doesn't want to see anyone or do anything but play NBA 2K on his PS4 for three hours and pass out with the light in the hallway turned on.
He's still waffling about whether to lie to Yu Bin or make alternate plans so he doesn't have to when his phone buzzes again. xiao zhan said he'd come if you did flashes across the screen, and Yibo feels his stomach flip over.
The thing is: it would be good to see Xiao Zhan again — if Yibo could just trust himself to be normal. He thumbs over to their WeChat thread and scrolls up, chewing on his lip. In between meme spam and complaining about China Airlines' mediocre snack selection, they've been trying to get a snowboarding trip on the books since October, after Xiao Zhan had mentioned being interested in trying it at his birthday party. Work obligations keep pushing it back month after month. It's the same old story every time: a boy makes friends, wants to see them again, and then life gets in the way.
as if zhan-ge has ever had that sort of control over his own damn schedule, he sends Yu Bin, before he waits too long and chickens out. but yeah, sure. i'll be there.
Most of January is a blur of Day Day Up tapings and the last bit of filming for Gank Your Heart. Two weeks before the New Year, the night of their wrap party for the drama, a group chat notification about Yu Bin's dinner reservation pops up on Yibo's phone. The chorus of thanks in the thread quickly devolves into a reaction gif war. Zixuan takes one look at his face across the table and starts laughing into her drink.
"What?" Yibo says, trying not to sound too much like a petulant child. He doesn't think it works.
"Nothing, nothing," she says, delicately spearing her slice of cake with a fork. "You look hilarious when you're annoyed, that's all."
Yibo tips his head back against his chair and groans. A moment later, Guansen swims into his field of vision holding up two beers. "Hey, kid," he says, grinning wide, and taps the butt of one bottle against Yibo's forehead, leaving a damp circle of condensation on his skin. "Cheers."
The last time Yibo felt like this, the bittersweet satisfaction of finishing a project, he was in Hengdian, three drinks deep and sweaty as hell, the humidity of Zhejiang's oppressive summer weighing down across his shoulders. Xuan Lu and Zhuocheng were trying to coax everyone they could to dance on the patio of the restaurant their staff had rented out for the evening, and Xiao Zhan, doubled over in laughter at Haikuan's terrible moves, had wrapped a hand around Yibo's wrist and tugged him into the fray. It's far too cold for that now, but if he shuts his eyes and exhales slow, he can still feel the way Xiao Zhan's thumb brushed against his pulse, can still hear his delighted cackling. As for what happened after, well—
"Penny for your thoughts?" Guansen says.
Yibo blinks. When he lifts his head again, Guansen's eyebrows are raised. "Just tired," Yibo says, clinking bottles with him before taking a long swig. If this is how it's gonna be, he isn't nearly drunk enough to make it through the night.
Yibo spends the last two days of January snowboarding by himself at the Yabuli Resort in Harbin, and then he flies back home. The day of the cast dinner dawns cold and clear. Yibo tries to sleep in, but filming schedules seem to have permanently fucked him over; he's up at six and can't fall asleep again. He finally rolls out of bed at eight, distracts himself with a run on the trail that winds through his apartment complex, and then spends the rest of the day alternating between clicking through furniture options for his new place and playing League matches until his eyes blur.
Half past five, he quits fucking around and calls a cab. Traffic in the city is always a nightmare; they spend what feels like an hour at the corner of Jianguo Road and the 3rd Ring. Yibo's breath fogs up the window as he watches all the bundled-up pedestrians mill by.
Over the course of the past month and a half, Yu Bin's managed to 1) wrangle everyone into being free for a three hour window the Friday before the New Year and 2) land a private room at the Haidilao in Chaoyang. Yibo would be impressed if his stomach wasn't busy trying to make a quick escape up his throat. "I had to suck three dicks just to get this reservation, so you better be grateful," Yu Bin says when Yibo steps through the door, ushering him into one of the chairs at the big table.
"Don't lie, Yu Bin," Zhuocheng says, waving a hand. He's already sitting next to Ji Li, who claps Yibo's shoulder as he sinks into his seat. "You enjoyed every minute of it."
Yu Bin flips him off, but he's laughing. "Got me there."
Yibo glances around the room. "Who else is here already?" he asks, aiming for casual.
"Lao Xiao's running late, if that's what you're asking," Zhuocheng says, raising an eyebrow. Yibo doesn't flush, but it's a close call. "The food's starting to come, though, so it's really his loss."
They'd all gone out for hotpot like this when they finished filming in Guizhou, treating the crew and staff in the city after nobody had to worry about looking bloated in front of the camera anymore. "We're sweating out our weight in water anyway," was Xiao Zhan's reasoning. "Might as well get something good to eat while we do it."
Friendships forged through the trial by fire of xianxia drama boot camp and a long summer of filming in sweltering heat with no Wi-Fi mean that even five months after the fact, the camaraderie comes easy. Over fish tofu and crunchy lotus root, Haikuan talks about the show he's been filming, and Xuan Lu passes around pictures of her new puppy. Haoxuan keeps an eye on the bubbling pots at their end of the table and makes sure everyone's plate is full while regaling them with the latest gossip on the entertainment circuit. Yibo mostly listens, sinking into the heat of Lao Gan Ma and mala broth, but Ji Li does eventually rope him into a heated discussion about first-person shooter game rankings. They don't resurface until the next round of meat comes.
"Glad you finally showed your face," Yu Bin calls, and when Yibo glances over his shoulder, there's another person standing in the doorway balancing three platters of sliced lamb in his arms.
"You know I love a dramatic entrance," Xiao Zhan says, cheeks dimpling with his grin. "Sorry I'm late, hope the lamb makes up for it." His nose is still red from the chill outside, puffy winter jacket falling off his shoulders to reveal a black sweatshirt and dark jeans. He's not wearing any make-up, hair unstyled, and there's a face mask tucked beneath his chin. Yibo's stupid stomach does a cartwheel when their eyes meet, but maybe it's just heartburn from eating too fast.
"We didn't save a seat for you," Zhuocheng yells over the backslapping and hand grabbing, but Ziyi's already rolling her eyes and pulling one up to the corner of their table. Yibo scoots over to make room automatically, which is how they end up wedged next to each other, chopsticks clacking.
"Fashionably late as always," Yibo murmurs, nudging Xiao Zhan with his elbow, and can't help the way his mouth curls up when Xiao Zhan smacks his arm.
"I'm never late or early, but arrive precisely when I mean to," he sniffs, reaching out to slide a plate of fish balls into the roiling soup.
Yibo snorts. "Alright, Gandalf."
"You calling me old?"
"Just wise, Xiao-laoshi," Yibo says, managing to keep his face straight, and then they're off to the races again, settling into the familiar rhythm. This part is what he's good at, the back and forth. If he focuses on that, he can just manage to ignore the way Xiao Zhan's leg is pressed against his, long and warm.
Director Cheng puts in an appearance near the end of their meal, when Yibo's trying to decide if he's too full for dessert. There's a clatter of silverware as half the group tries to stand up to greet him, and then a ripple of laughter and applause as Yu Bin leaps forward and catches a pitcher of water before it tips over the side of the table.
"Sit down, sit down," Director Cheng says, shaking his head, and starts making a circuit around the room. When he gets to Yibo, halfway through the order of douhua Xiao Zhan had bullied him into splitting, they shake hands. "Congrats on the new place."
"New place?" Zhuocheng says, leaning over.
Yibo makes a face. "It's not a big deal—"
"Sure it is," Director Cheng cuts in, patting his shoulder. "Your manager told me all about it. Yibo just closed on a new-build condo in Guomao."
Yibo drops his face in his hands as Ji Li starts making cash register noises into his bowl of noodles. "Yeah, well," he mumbles into his fingers. "I may never be able to move in. Turns out it's kind of difficult to make design decisions."
Xiao Zhan kicks his shin. "You should've asked me, dude," he says, easy as anything. "I'm a little out of practice, but I can help. I'll even give you the friends and family discount."
"Xiao-laoshi's love language is acts of service," he hears Zhuocheng say, laughter in his voice, and then he lets out a loud yelp as Xiao Zhan ostensibly kicks him, too.
Yibo lifts his gaze. Xiao Zhan's staring at him, appraising, chin tucked against his palm. "I was gonna ask," Yibo says, because that's actually true, "but I didn't want to seem like I was bringing it up just to take advantage of your peerless skill."
"Oh, shut up," Xiao Zhan returns, eyes flashing. "I'll make your whole bedroom Cars-themed, throw in a night light and everything, just wait."
i wasn't kidding, by the way, Xiao Zhan texts him later, when Yibo's in a cab on the way back to his apartment. i'd love to do design work on the new house - let me know what you have in mind.
The sincerity of it all seems curiously out of place after the dumb memes they've been sending each other; it makes Yibo feel itchy between the shoulder blades. His first impulse is to turn it into a joke again, but when he gets home and flips through the endless tabs and unfinished paperwork on his computer, there's one clear path of least resistance.
Sometimes the only way out is through. Yibo kicks back in his desk chair, picks up his phone, and types: when's the next weekend you're free?
First thing next morning, rehearsals for CCTV's New Year's Gala commence with a vengeance. Yibo doesn't get a chance to breathe until Wednesday, New Years' Day, which is, of course, when Mom decides to video call him.
"We taped your performance to watch today," she says without preamble. In the background, Dad's washing dishes in the kitchen. Mom squints at him through the screen, brow wrinkling. "Have you been eating enough? You look like you've lost weight."
"Mom, please," he says, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Happy New Year. Sorry I couldn't make it back."
When he first moved out of UNIQ's dorm and made his permanent home base Beijing, he'd spent a lot of time calling his parents: about how much water to put in the rice cooker, the best way to reheat leftovers without burning the house down, how to do laundry without dyeing all of his underwear pink. It doesn't happen as often anymore, life getting in the way, but it's still good to see Mom's face. "What are you sorry for? Making money?" she scoffs, but she's smiling too, chin propped in her hand. "Tell me all about the show."
In the twenty minutes it takes him to finish his pot of coffee, he's given her the rundown of everyone he so much as shook hands with over the course of the last four days. "I did get to meet Huang Xiaoming, which was cool," he says as casually as he can. He hides a grin behind his hand when Mom perks up in her chair.
"Was he just as handsome in person?" she asks. Dad, sitting next to her now with his nose buried in the morning paper, snorts.
"Of course he was," Yibo says. "I'll ask for an autograph for you next time."
"Get one for me from Angelababy too," Dad says without looking up from his newspaper. He starts laughing when Mom smacks his arm.
"Okay, fine, moving on," she says primly, leaning into the camera again. "How's the new house coming along?" Yibo grimaces. Dad looks up and raises his eyebrows; Mom purses her lips. "That bad, huh?"
"Zhan-ge is gonna help me, I think," he counters, which feels better to say than it should. They've settled on a Saturday two weeks from now, but not a place yet. Cafes are out of the question; they'll probably end up having to go to Xiao Zhan's place. Yibo's mostly excited for that because he'll finally be able to meet the cat he's heard so much about. Figures it'd take another business arrangement to make it happen. "He used to run a design firm with a friend," Yibo continues, shrugging, "so he offered his services."
"Oh, that's wonderful," Mom says, clasping her hands together. "I knew that boy had a good head on his shoulders."
Yibo tilts his head. "Did you? I seem to recall you saying something about not letting my older costars bully me—"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she says loudly, smacking Dad again when another smothered laugh escapes from behind the shaking newspaper, and launches into an animated story about her ongoing cold war with the cabbage lady at the market.
They don't actually meet up for another month because of shifting schedules; Xiao Zhan's filming some movie that's supposed to come out in the fall, and Yibo has to stay in Changsha a few days longer than expected at the end of February. The first Saturday of March Xiao Zhan technically has something else going on in the afternoon, but they're both in the city. Yibo arrives at Xiao Zhan's apartment first thing in the morning with two lattes and a bag of youtiao that's definitely not in either of their diet plans.
"My savior," Xiao Zhan says, eyeing the coffee with extreme interest, and lets him through the door.
It's a nice place. There are big splashes of color from the pop art hanging around the living room, and the kitchen's all dark granite countertops and gleaming chrome. Outside, through the big bay windows, they can see the whole Beijing skyline lit up by the sunrise. It's not his style, but Yibo can still objectively appreciate the aesthetics. He sets the food and coffee on the island and says, pensive, "As expected from a design professional," running his hand down the herringbone backsplash behind the stove. This whole process is the reason "herringbone" is even in his vocabulary, so he does feel pretty adult right now, all things considered.
"Fuck off," Xiao Zhan says, grinning around the rim of his latte. He reaches for a piece of youtiao to crunch down on and leans back against the counter, chewing thoughtfully. "I took a look at some of the paperwork you sent over. The layout's good, but do you know when they'll let you in to see the space? I wanna take some pictures."
"I can try to schedule something," Yibo says. He takes a sip of his own coffee. "More importantly, though — where's your cat?"
Xiao Zhan shakes his head. "Your ulterior motive, revealed. She's around here somewhere. Sometimes she gets nervous around strangers."
"Relatable," Yibo says, dry. Xiao Zhan's laughing as he leads the way down the hall and into the bedroom.
It's curiously bare; there are half-packed boxes of clothes and bedding all along the far wall. Xiao Zhan ducks underneath the bed frame, and then starts rifling through the boxes. "Jian Guo?" he says in a tone that could only be considered his cat voice. "Hey, baby, come meet my friend. He came just to see you."
Yibo peers into a box of picture frames, nonplussed. "You're not moving too, are you?"
Xiao Zhan waves a hand. "Nah, you just caught me at a weird time." Yibo takes a peek into his closet, which is also half-packed. No cat. "My entire building's closing for remodeling purposes — apparently there's going to be fumes everywhere, so I thought I'd pack most of my stuff into storage just to be safe."
"What about you?"
"There you are," Xiao Zhan says, pumping his fist, and emerges triumphant from a pile of sheets with a white and gray kitty in tow. "Uh, I was gonna crash at a hotel for the time being. That's actually what my afternoon meeting is about."
"Oh, come on," Yibo says, letting Xiao Zhan pour the cat into his arms. She looks dubious about the situation at first, but after a few pets she settles into the crook of his elbow and, for all intents and purposes, seems to fall asleep. "What about Jian Guo? She'd hate hotel housekeeping."
Xiao Zhan scratches the back of his neck. "You're probably right. I dunno, I could probably board her somewhere—"
"I have a guest room," Yibo offers, before he can really think it through. It's true, and isn't helping a friend in need what Xiao Zhan's already doing for him?
Xiao Zhan opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. "Are you for real?"
Yibo swallows around the dry patch in his throat and lifts his shoulders. "Why do you sound so surprised? Can't I do a nice thing for my poor friend who's basically being evicted?"
Xiao Zhan rolls his eyes. "I'm not being evicted, oh my God."
"Look, consider it repaying the favor," Yibo says. In his arms, Jian Guo yawns wide, jaw cracking, eyes squeezed shut. He bops her, scratching between her ears. "It'll be just like rooming together on the road last year."
Xiao Zhan gazes at him, face unreadable. For a heart-stopping moment, Yibo thinks that he's somehow let something slip — that for once, the impassive mask of his resting bitch face has failed him — and then Xiao Zhan breaks out into a toothy smile and asks, too cheeky by half, "Is that a promise?"
They'd shared hotel rooms all through production, which was only natural; he and Xiao Zhan had the most scenes together, and Xiao Zhan only gave him a little bit of shit about keeping the television on CCTV 5 at volume level three through the night.
In Guizhou, they were washed out for three days at the tail end of monsoon season, the real sheets of rain that were coming down in torrents a far cry from the fake sprinkles the crew turned on when the cameras were rolling. Between running lines back and forth with the rest of the cast and trying to connect to the shitty hotel internet, Xiao Zhan somehow found out that Yibo had never read the source material of the drama.
"It was like, the first thing I did when I was cast," he said, incredulous, and proceeded to sit on Yibo while shoving a tablet in his face until he finally gave in. "I'm telling you, it informs the whole fucking character."
Yibo genuinely could not remember the last time he actually read a novel, but the writing was engaging enough that it wasn't a chore, and it helped that Xiao Zhan kept peppering him with questions about how far he'd gotten.
"You know there's a blindfolded kiss in the flashback sequence, right?" he'd asked over breakfast the second day of their rain delay, smiling through his rice porridge, and Yibo had known it was a joke, that Xiao Zhan was just teasing him, and had still flushed red all the way up to the tips of his ears.
They wouldn't kiss in the drama; folks higher up on the food chain had long since written any aspect of that relationship out of the scripts. Forced intimacy had never been his favorite part of acting, so it should have been a relief, but there was something — about the push and pull of their bickering during the liminal spaces between scenes, about kicking Xiao Zhan's ass at every dumb game they played to pass the time, about hearing the drawn-out vowels of his whining and the high arc of his laughter — that made Yibo feel vaguely disappointed anyway.
It goes like this: in mid-March, Yibo leaves on an early morning flight to Changsha at the beginning of the week, and four days later, by the time he gets home on Thursday night, Xiao Zhan's humming merrily in his kitchen, a truly garish argyle apron on, hair still stiff with product from whatever schedules he'd had earlier. He appears to be putting the finishing touches on the first home-cooked meal that Yibo's had since — he doesn't even remember when.
Yibo drops his duffel bag on the floor and stares at the plates of steaming pasta sitting on the counter. "Where the hell did you even find basil?"
"There's this thing," Xiao Zhan says slowly, as if speaking to a very small child, "I don't know if you heard of it before, but it's called a supermarket, and—"
"I know what a supermarket is," Yibo huffs. "You went shopping? How did you not get mobbed?"
"Ah, Wang-laoshi," Xiao Zhan tuts. He finishes ripping up the basil and presses his stained fingers to his chest. "Not everyone is as famous as you."
Yibo rubs a hand across his face, trying not to laugh. "I walked right into that one."
"You really did." Xiao Zhan sets the food on the dining table and turns back to the stove. "Did you know," he continues, poking at a pot Yibo has definitely never used, "that the only thing you had in your fridge was a moldy tomato and some frozen dumplings? I was morally obligated to get you groceries."
"Oh, I'd been looking for that tomato," Yibo says mildly. "I hope you didn't throw it away."
Xiao Zhan doesn't even dignify that with a response. "Sit down," he says instead, waving over his shoulder. "The soup is almost ready."
Soup, Yibo mouths. He shakes his head. "They should've cast you as Jiang Yanli," he says, sinking into a chair, and laughs when Xiao Zhan sends him a rude gesture. The pasta looks good, some sort of chicken alfredo sprinkled liberally with parmesan beneath the basil. It's certainly not Yibo's usual routine of video games, junk food, and crashing on the couch, but it's — something. It's nice. He could get used to this far too easily, which is a problem he'll deal with when he's less tired and less hungry. For now, there's hot food on the table. He's not going to ruin it by overthinking everything.
"So this is your style," Xiao Zhan says a minute later, sliding a bowl of minestrone over.
Yibo looks up from a mouthful of penne; Xiao Zhan's watching him eat, eyes bright, an indulgent smile on his face. Yibo swallows with some effort as Xiao Zhan gestures around the room.
"Minimalist, I mean."
"Not really," Yibo says, when he can trust himself to speak again. He glances at the bare walls, the dull brown varnish on the furniture and the tangle of wires and consoles piled in front of the TV stand. Everything's utilitarian because it has to be; most weeks, all he does is sleep here. "It's what came with the apartment, so I didn't have much of a choice."
"Hm," Xiao Zhan says. He raises his own soup spoon to his mouth and takes a sip. "What do you like, then?"
You rises unbidden to Yibo's mind before he beats it back with a stick. "I don't know," he says, and he's not meaning to be difficult on purpose, but being around Xiao Zhan always seems to scramble his brain. "Isn't that what I have you for?"
Xiao Zhan's face creases into a smile. "I'm not a wizard, Lao Wang," he says, twirling his spoon between his fingers, "but I'll see what I can do."
Of course he likes Xiao Zhan. Who wouldn't like his hapless charm, his goofy, nose-wrinkling grin, the way that he treats everyone like they're the only person in the room? Yibo just — likes him too much sometimes, so much it makes his throat ache. He wishes there was a word for that feeling where you want so badly to be close to someone but are simultaneously afraid that they'll see you too clearly, that in a certain light they might discover the truth. It's a terrible way to live.
Maybe part of it is this: he knows their current living situation is temporary. Xiao Zhan's apartment building isn't going to be remodeling forever, and Yibo's already put in the down payment for his new condo. Eventually, come hell or high water, he'll have to move in. For now, though, maybe part of his brain thinks that if he can just recreate where they were and how they felt last summer, he can finally get over it. Move past where his heart's decided to lodge itself. Surely it'll start working any minute.
Yibo does the dishes after dinner while Xiao Zhan dumps out Jian Guo's litter box; she puts in an appearance when he's rinsing out bowls, hopping onto the counter to bat curiously at the water jetting into the sink. He chuckles when some of it splashes onto his shirt.
"Jian Guo," Xiao Zhan says, despondent. "Don't be so rude to our gracious host."
"No, it's fine." Yibo flicks some water at her, and she twitches backward before jumping down to twine between his legs.
"We'll lock ourselves in the guest room after I finish bagging this up, I promise."
"I mean it," Yibo says, slotting the last plate into the drying rack. It suddenly seems imperative that Xiao Zhan gets it. "It's fine. I appreciate the company."
Xiao Zhan raises his eyebrows. The whole group had shot the shit on set enough that everyone knew each other's decompression routines like the backs of their own hands: Yu Bin likes eating, Haikuan does yoga, Zhuocheng trolls Weibo, Xiao Zhan sketches when he isn't too exhausted to hold a pencil, and Yibo switches on his laptop or his PS4 and lets the blue light lull him to sleep. Alone time is hard to come by in this business. It might start to wear on him later, but right now Yibo doesn't mind that Xiao Zhan's in his space. After four months of sticking together like glue, it feels right.
Yibo wipes his hands on a dish towel and leans down to scoop Jian Guo up. "Listen," he says, the corner of his mouth turning up. "I don't have a handy ass to kick when I'm playing games by myself, alright?"
Xiao Zhan makes a noise of protest and takes the bait. "Best of five Mario Kart does the laundry?"
Easy money. "You're on," Yibo says.
Everything is set up by the time Xiao Zhan's refilled the litter box and they've both changed into more comfortable clothes. Yibo loses the first match just to boost Xiao Zhan's confidence a little bit, and then Jian Guo slides into his lap during the second, a clear act of sabotage, but he wipes the floor with Xiao Zhan in the next three races.
"Double or nothing?" he asks, inspecting his fingernails as the last award ceremony washes across the screen.
"Not a chance, you sandbagger," Xiao Zhan groans, flopping backward against the couch. "My thumbs are gonna be sore tomorrow."
They switch the TV to something else, a movie running on CCTV's film channel with a lot of dramatic music and plenty of explosions. Yibo must fall asleep at some point, because the next time he opens his eyes, the room's mostly dark, and he's horizontal on the sofa, a blanket drawn up to his chin. The TV is still on, a late night romance flick this time: someone's crying wet, limpid tears — a confession scene, maybe. It's hard to tell. The volume is turned down low, just the way he likes it.
He'd asked once, during a long night of shooting on horseback in the fake rain, what Xiao Zhan thought about when he had to cry on command. By that point in production, Xiao Zhan had done it more times than they could count, but Yibo couldn't forget the first time he did it at boot camp, when they were still just sitting around the table reading through the scripts, tears dripping off Xiao Zhan's face, his skin puffy and red. Yibo had been so startled that he'd missed his cue, and they had to take it from the top again.
"Well, first, I drink a lot of water," Xiao Zhan said, with the tone of someone imparting grave wisdom. He laughed when Yibo hit his arm. "I'm serious! Hydration is important."
"Okay, Dad," Yibo scoffed. "No wonder you're always running off to pee in between takes."
Xiao Zhan shook his head, the wet bangs on his wig slapping his face. "You just need to have more empathy in your soul, Lao Wang." He dodged as Yibo tried to whack him with his prop umbrella. "Would you believe me if I said I always imagine something terrible happening to my cat to get in the right mood?"
"Bullshit."
Xiao Zhan shrugged. "A magician never reveals his secrets," he said, waggling his fingers like a damn fool, and ran right into Yu Bin in his haste to get away from Yibo's next smack.
Aside from the addition of Jian Guo, which means Yibo has to think about lint-rollering himself every time he steps out of the house, the cadence of living together isn't so different from living alone. The vast majority of Xiao Zhan's stuff is in storage anyway, so it's mostly little things like fresh fruit on the kitchen counter, two pairs of slippers in the hallway, the odd article of clothing that goes missing one day and only resurfaces because Xiao Zhan's wearing it the next time Yibo comes home with two boxes of take-out soup dumplings in tow.
"Appropriating my clothes now, are you?"
Xiao Zhan looks up absently from where he's ensconced on the couch. One of Yibo's cable-knit sweaters hangs loose around his neck; Xiao Zhan's taller than he is, but Yibo's broader. That's a dangerous train of thought. "I think I should have free rein of the wardrobe since I'm basically your live-in maid now," Xiao Zhan says, grinning when Yibo sends him a look. "Hey, I did actually patch a hole for you. See?"
Yibo leans in, squinting. "You know how to knit?"
"You learn a lot of things as the oldest member of a boy band."
"As maknae, I was always the one getting babied."
"So not much has changed," Xiao Zhan says, mouth twitching when Yibo waves a fist at him. "Before you beat me up, I put some stuff together on my plane ride back this morning. Let me know what you think."
Yibo trades a box of food for Xiao Zhan's tablet. There are several 3D mock-ups adapted from the floor plans Yibo emailed him, swatches of color and pattern against different varnishes and a neat list of furniture choices next to each room. "Is this actually a Cars-themed bedroom?" Yibo says when he gets there, and kicks Xiao Zhan's shin when he nearly tips over laughing.
"It's a joke, it's a joke," he protests, raising one hand in supplication. "I gave you other options, I promise." He pushes himself back upright and twirls his stylus between his fingers, knee jiggling. "There's some stuff I won't be able to confirm until we visit the actual condo, but I tried my best. Hopefully it helps."
All kidding aside, Xiao Zhan was extremely thorough. "It does," Yibo says, heartfelt, and scrolls some more. It's like a weight he didn't even know was there has lifted off his shoulders. "You did all of this in one plane ride?"
"I had time to kill," Xiao Zhan says, like it's no big deal.
"He's talented and he's humble," Yibo says, and smirks when Xiao Zhan pretends like he's going to toss a soup dumpling at his head.
At the end of the month, they have a rare weekend off. Yibo wakes up on Saturday at half past eleven, head full of cotton. He yanks a racerback from the pile of probably-clean laundry, tugs it on, and walks into the kitchen to a freshly-showered Xiao Zhan flipping eggs in a skillet.
He's not wearing a shirt — in fact, all he appears to be wearing is a pair of Yibo's sweats, slung low on his hips. It's nothing Yibo hasn't seen before, on set and at various hotels last summer, but context is everything, apparently; he's pretty sure his body temperature jumps about ten degrees in the span of two seconds, heart thrumming in his rib cage like a purring engine.
Jian Guo stalks over and butts her head against his shin. Yibo picks her up obligingly, manages to unstick his throat. "Isn't it dangerous to be frying things with no shirt on?"
"I laugh in the face of danger," Xiao Zhan shoots back, jumping when the oil in the skillet pops. "Any plans today?" he says loudly over Yibo's smothered laugh.
"Nothing in particular," he says. He tries not to stare at Xiao Zhan's bare chest when he turns around to slide the eggs onto a plate, but that just means his eyes move toward Xiao Zhan's arms. They're thin but toned; Yibo kind of wants to bite the curve of his bicep, which is totally normal. Fuck. "I was, uh, just going to take it easy. Play some League, maybe."
"Typical," Xiao Zhan says, aiming a pointed glance at the ceiling. "Today's youth, so uncultured."
Yibo, grateful for the distraction, allows indignance to wash over the acrobatics going on in his stomach. "What were you going to do, then, if you're so cultured?"
Xiao Zhan's expression turns a little sheepish. "Probably catch up on movies."
Yibo sends him an unimpressed look. "That's so much better."
"Hey, you like superhero films," Xiao Zhan says quickly, wiggling his eyebrows. "Have you seen that animated Spider-Man one yet? I've been meaning to and I haven't had the time. It's supposed to be really good."
Yibo ends up renting it on Tencent for them to watch after breakfast, because he's a sucker like that. Fortunately, Xiao Zhan disappears into the guest room and comes back out wrestling a sweatshirt over his messy hair, torso twisting pleasantly in a way Yibo decidedly does not dwell on, so Yibo doesn't have to deal with trying to follow the plot while also pressed up against — all of that.
It actually is an excellent movie, despite the fact that Yibo spends half of it covertly watching Xiao Zhan nerd out about the animation choices every five minutes. At any rate, he's probably going to have that Sunflower song stuck in his head for the rest of the week.
While the end credits roll and they idly figure out what to do for a late lunch, Xiao Zhan lets slip that he hasn't watched any of Nolan's Batman trilogy. They end up ordering Korean food delivered, and Yibo pulls his DVDs out, loads the first one into the Xbox. "Prepare for your mind to be blown," Yibo says, kicking back against the couch.
"Don't overhype it for me," Xiao Zhan complains, folding himself cross-legged on the floor, knees braced against the coffee table. He's gratifyingly engrossed for most of the afternoon, though, pausing just once to refill Jian Guo's water bowl.
Still: watching four movies in a row takes its toll. Xiao Zhan is the one who dozes off this time, head tipped back against the seat of the sofa halfway through The Dark Knight Rises. Yibo doesn't have the heart to wake him up; without a day's worth of make-up caked on, Xiao Zhan looks like he could use the rest, twin smudges beneath his eyes. He looks funny with his mouth hanging open, breath wheezing out of him. He also smells like Yibo's shampoo, which makes Yibo feel weirdly tender in ways that he doesn't want to examine.
After allowing himself another minute to watch Xiao Zhan sleep like a fucking creep, Yibo gets up, turns the TV off, and goes to get a blanket.
On Sunday, they make the trip to the new condo. A friendly foreman hands them a couple of hard hats and leads them up the elevator to Yibo's unit. The structure of the place has mostly come together, but there are no floorboards in yet, and exposed piping is still sticking out everywhere. "This is where the floor-to-ceiling window is gonna be?" Xiao Zhan asks, pulling his phone out to take notes. After a lengthy back and forth that Yibo manages to understand about 50% of, Xiao Zhan unzips his DSLR and starts snapping photos.
Yibo's known Xiao Zhan for over a year by now, but seeing him locked in like this still feels like a revelation. It's not that he didn't think Xiao Zhan knew how to be serious; sometimes you just get so used to a certain side of a person that the reminder alone is enough to shock your system. Some days they were on set until two in the morning and couldn't stop giggling long enough to get one good take, and other days Xiao Zhan nailed two full pages of lines on the first try and made it look so effortless that Yibo wanted to grab him by the lapels of his hanfu and—
But that's not how it happened, was it? They didn't kiss in the drama because the real movers and shakers on the production team would never give it the green light, but that didn't keep Xiao Zhan from finding him at the end of last August, as the wrap party was starting to wind down. Yibo had long stopped counting how many drinks various colleagues had pressed into his hands, and the whole world seemed to be spinning slightly as he floated off the dance floor, but he remembered, even through the gauzy haze of alcohol and his throbbing headache the next morning, the way Xiao Zhan had smiled, wobbly and nervous and real, and leaned in to tip their heads together. Yibo remembered how Xiao Zhan tasted like salt and lime, remembered the firm, sure press of his mouth. Remembered how warm Xiao Zhan's palms were against his biceps, anchoring Yibo down as his eyes fluttered shut.
Xiao Zhan had kissed him. Yibo hadn't dreamt it, but after Xiao Zhan pulled away and Yibo opened his eyes, heart pounding like a timpani in his throat, he hadn't been able to find Xiao Zhan again for the rest of the night.
"Sorry," Xiao Zhan croaked at breakfast, wincing at the light slanting in through the windows. Yibo didn't know it until he said it, but it was the last thing he wanted to hear. "Everything after dinner is kind of a blur. I tend to get touchy when I'm drunk."
"Understatement of the year," Zhuocheng said, sunglasses draped over his face, equally hungover, and Yibo's stomach sank to the vicinity of his knees. "I think he kissed half the cast and crew."
Maybe it was good, then, that he hadn't stuck around. Who knows what Yibo would've said in the heat of the moment?
There was no time to dwell on it, anyway. Most of them had flights back to Beijing scattered throughout the day; Yibo had one straight to Changsha. The next time he saw Xiao Zhan in person was October, when Yibo hopped on his motorcycle to deliver a cake for Xiao Zhan's birthday, and they'd been texting like nothing had happened for several weeks by then. That didn't stop Yibo's stomach from leaping into his chest and staying there the whole time. If anyone thought he was being weird, at least everybody had the grace not to mention it.
In the afternoon, Xiao Zhan tags along to the realtor's office to help Yibo sign off on all the necessary paperwork. The lady at the front desk greets them with a smile and asks, "Moving in together?" to which Yibo blanches and Xiao Zhan laughs.
"Just advising a friend," Xiao Zhan says, sipping on a proffered glass of water while Yibo's wrist goes numb. "Painless, wasn't it?" he asks later, on the taxi ride back to Yibo's apartment. When Yibo glances over, Xiao Zhan's flipping through the pictures on his DSLR.
"Only because you helped."
"Well, I live to serve," he says, winking smarmily. He pushes the camera toward Yibo, tapping the screen. "I think this would be the perfect space for a dance studio, and the contractors would probably be able to get exposed brick laid in."
"Why'd you ever give this up?" Yibo blurts out before he can stop himself. "I mean — design, photography, all that stuff. You obviously love it."
Xiao Zhan studies him for a minute, fiddling with the string on his lens cap, and then asks, "Why did you decide to buy a new condo when you're hotel-hopping out of town for most of the year?"
It's not an unfair question. "I guess I was tired of living in a house that didn't feel like a home," he says, feeling too vulnerable.
"And you thought throwing money at the problem would fix it," Xiao Zhan says. His tone is soft enough that it doesn't feel like a judgment, but Yibo squirms in his seat all the same. "You'll learn this when you get older and wiser, like me," he continues, adopting the voice of an old crone with uncanny accuracy. "Money can't fix everything, and a house is a home because of the people living in it. That's all." Yibo blinks. Xiao Zhan nudges his elbow, a genuine smile crossing over his face. "This is a good start, though."
The second week of April, Yibo comes home to an empty apartment. There's a brief note from Xiao Zhan taped to the refrigerator: Remodeling's finished, it says, next to a tiny cartoon rendering of Xiao Zhan with Jian Guo curled in his arms. They're both giving him the peace sign. Sorry to leave while you're out of town, but I gotta move fast before I have to fly out to film Douluo Continent. Open the door and look down for a surprise!
Yibo opens the fridge. At the bottom of the fresh produce drawer, below tupperwares of ready-to-eat meat and veggies, is a single ripe tomato.
The rest of the month is, like every other, filled with work, but Yibo's brain still makes time for him to miss having Xiao Zhan around. One month, apparently, is all it takes to get used to living with someone; devouring an entire bag of Senbei rice crackers for dinner just doesn't seem to cut it anymore. Texting Xiao Zhan i'm eating like shit again without your cooking honestly seems a little too pathetic, so all Yibo can do is stare at his TV and try to exorcise his feelings by killing a bunch of people in Counter-Strike Online.
The Thursday before Labor Day weekend, he stops by Mango TV's offices in Changsha. Gank Your Heart is doing studio sessions for everyone participating in the soundtrack for the drama; Yibo's been practicing a lot in the shower.
He runs into Xujia in the bathroom between recording sessions. They haven't seen each other since the wrap party in January, but Xujia's still all smiles. "How's Produce Camp going?" Yibo asks as they walk back to the studio together. "Xiao Zhan said you were competing with some of your old bandmates."
"You were a dance mentor once, you know how it is with survival shows," Xujia says, grimacing. "Speaking of Xiao Zhan, though, I heard what you did for him. That was really kind."
Something cold settles in the pit of Yibo's stomach. "What do you mean?"
Xujia waves his hand. "I'm sure he told you all about it," he says, matter-of-fact. "I mean, Wajijiwa hasn't paid any of us in months, which is why he had to move out of his apartment. I said he could take over the couch at our dorm again, but he didn't want to impose. He said you let him crash at your place for a few weeks while he figured shit out."
"Right," Yibo says. His face feels frozen. "That's exactly what happened. Do you know where he's staying now?"
"Uh, he doesn't post in the group chat as much anymore, but last I heard he was filming in the mountains somewhere," Xujia says, sending him a funny look. "He did leave his cat with us, though."
"Say no more," Yibo says, grim, and pulls his phone out.
He takes a taxi straight to the X-NINE dorm when he lands in Beijing the next day. Jian Guo's happy to see him, twining around his legs as Zhiguang gathers all her stuff. "Take care of them, alright?" he says at the door.
Yibo doesn't even really know what he's agreeing to, but he says, "I'll try," mouth dry. Once she's settled at Yibo's apartment, he snaps a few photos of her curled up on his couch and sends them to Xiao Zhan.
He must really have been in the mountains with no service, because it takes him until Sunday night to show up at Yibo's door. "Did you kidnap my cat?" he says, nonplussed, at the same time Yibo says, "Did you think I was never going to find out?"
Xiao Zhan deflates; he looks even more exhausted than usual, skin pale, cheekbones standing out in sharp relief. "Okay, you go first," he says, raising his hands.
It's not what Yibo means to say, but what comes out is: "So you were actually evicted."
Xiao Zhan scrubs a hand over his mouth. "Who told you that?"
"I saw Xujia in Changsha last week."
"You maknaes are all narcs," Xiao Zhan says, an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, but Yibo keeps staring at him, unflinching, and Xiao Zhan's brow wrinkles again.
"You could've just told me."
"You have enough on your plate to worry about," Xiao Zhan mutters. "I'm fine. I've got savings, I figured out a hotel situation that works for me—"
"I can help you!" Yibo interrupts, before he can lose the thread of what he's trying to do here.
"Yeah?" Xiao Zhan says, smiling faintly. "You gonna march over to WJJW HQ and force management to give me my back pay?"
"No, but," he splutters, trying to seize on something, anything. "Just — move in with me. You can stay here till the house is done in July, and then — well, you were there. You know there's more than enough room in the new condo."
A pained look passes over Xiao Zhan's face. "Don't offer something like that without thinking it through."
"I've been thinking it through for the past seventy-two hours!" Yibo says, and it's not until Xiao Zhan takes a stunned step backward that he realizes he half-shouted it. "Look, I know I can't cook for shit, or clean, or knit—"
"You're really selling this," Xiao Zhan says.
"Shut up," Yibo says, ears ringing, the words rolling out of him now like water rushing from a dam that's finally broken. "I can't do as many things as you, but I still — I want to take care of you, okay? I want to be the person you come to when you need something. You make me want to be that person, which is fucking scary as hell, but I'm done trying to ignore it."
Xiao Zhan blinks down at him, suspiciously fast. "Why?"
"Because I love you, you absolute idiot," Yibo says, too disconsolate to keep himself from saying the quiet part out loud anymore. He's tired of hiding, tired of constantly running away. "And I get it if you don't feel the same way, but don't stand there and tell me I don't get it or I'm not mature enough or I haven't thought it through, because I swear to God, it's been eight months since you kissed me at that stupid wrap party and I feel like I've been thinking about it every single day since then." Yibo takes a deep, shaky breath. Lets it hiss out again into the silent air.
"Oh," Xiao Zhan says eventually, voice very small.
"Anyway," Yibo says. He hunches his shoulders, like that'll help at all with how overexposed he feels.
Xiao Zhan raises his hands and pushes his fingers against his eyelids for a long moment. Then he looks up, eyes glittering, and says, "What makes you so sure I don't feel the same way?" Before Yibo can pick his jaw up off the floor, he continues, almost brusquely, "Do you want to know why I left? It was too hard to stay when you kept doing things that made me want to kiss you all the time." He looks down at his palms and shakes his head. "No one's ever asked me why I decided to stop being a designer. No one's ever paid enough attention to notice."
"Why did you?" Yibo says, voice cracking.
"Some days I honestly don't know," Xiao Zhan says, heavy. Then the corner of his mouth lifts into a wicked smile. "I'm glad it means I got to meet you, though."
"Gross," Yibo says with feeling, but there's something warm spreading through his chest, tingling all the way down to his toes.
Xiao Zhan exhales, palming the back of his neck. "You have to understand," he says slowly, embarrassed, "that day at the wrap party — I panicked. I thought I'd gone too far, so I just decided to fix it by kissing as many other people as possible."
"It almost worked," Yibo says. He steps into Xiao Zhan's space, adrenaline zipping through the arches of his feet, making him feel brave. "I guess we're both idiots."
"Yeah," Xiao Zhan agrees, and then they're kissing in the dim light of Yibo's front hallway, Xiao Zhan's tongue sliding along the seam of Yibo's mouth, his hand like a brand against Yibo's hip. They're pressed together so tightly that Yibo can feel it when Xiao Zhan relaxes, exhaling into his mouth. He tastes like stale soda, probably whatever he was drinking on the plane; it's still the best thing that's happened to Yibo in a while. Since last August, maybe.
When Yibo pulls back, his face is wet. Xiao Zhan reaches up to brush his thumb across Yibo's cheek and sighs. His lashes are clumped together, and his nose wrinkles as he lets out a damp chuckle. It hits Yibo after a moment that this is the first time he's seen Xiao Zhan cry for real. Because he can't think of anything better to say, he murmurs, "Are you thinking about Jian Guo?"
"No, fuck you," Xiao Zhan says, but he's laughing thickly through his sniffling. "It's just been a very stressful time for me."
"So come back home," Yibo says. He catches Xiao Zhan's hand in his, tangles their fingers together. "Jian Guo wants you to. I'm pretty sure she likes me better anyway."
"You take that back."
Yibo bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "I'm serious. We could be living in a mud hut together and I'd probably be happy." Xiao Zhan's eyes flash. "Don't test me on that. Just come back. Please?"
Xiao Zhan pretends to think about it. Yibo holds his breath, waiting, during which time the cat herself decides to grace them with her presence, hopping lightly between their feet. Xiao Zhan smiles at him like the sun, squeezes Yibo's hand, and says, "Okay."
*
The thing about press junkets is that they always seem to take the carefully calibrated madness of Yibo's regular schedule and dial it up to fifty. The Untamed starts airing at the end of June, and a week later they've sat for three different photoshoots and taped two and a half variety shows. The rest of July looks about the same.
Despite the exhaustion of flights every other day and smiling twelve hours at a time for the cameras, it's nice to have most of the crew back together on the road. Yibo spends a lot of time playing Fortnite on his phone as they get shuttled back and forth between events, the airport, their hotels. "You're so bad at this," Yu Bin says from the front of the van, cackling, when Xiao Zhan gets killed first for the third game in a row.
"I'm too old for this shit," he groans, kicking the back of Yu Bin's seat.
Haikuan sighs as the whole vehicle devolves into slap-fighting. "Sometimes I'm thankful we're mostly traveling in places with 5G reception now, but then I wonder, at what cost?"
"We'd be hitting each other regardless," Yibo remarks, thumbing through the game to take everyone else out. Haikuan grins, shaking his head, and concedes the point.
Other things that are nice this time around: sharing a room with Xiao Zhan again. Not much is different, really, now that they're… dating? Together? (Xiao Zhan called it going steady once, to his own great delight and Yibo's intense chagrin.) Xiao Zhan still sucks at video games, and he's still helping out with the condo; it isn't ideal that the tail end of that timeline coincided so perfectly with the barrage of the press tour, but they've managed to start packing up the old apartment bit by bit, fitting it into the familiar routine of eating together and fooling around.
It's just comforting, at the end of a long day of fielding the same interview questions over and over, that they can check into a hotel, drop their bags, and press each other down into the starched sheets. Xiao Zhan has always been generous with touch: a hand on a make-up artist's back as he held an umbrella over both of them on set, hanging off Zhuocheng between takes when he didn't want to stand upright anymore, every time he'd cupped Yibo's elbow and held it there, grinning, to keep Yibo from digging it into his ribs again.
So much is the same as it was a year ago, but this part still feels new — the part where Yibo's allowed touch back with intention, to push Xiao Zhan against the door and run his hands up Xiao Zhan's shirt, to press his face into the hollow of Xiao Zhan's neck and breathe in the smell of his cologne. Yibo doesn't think the novelty is ever going to wear off.
"Hey," Xiao Zhan says, eyes crinkling with his smile, draping his arms around Yibo's shoulders. "So impatient. You maybe wanna take this to the bed? Think about my back."
"Too old for this shit?" Yibo asks, guileless. He laughs when Xiao Zhan pinches his neck and swings them both over.
Xiao Zhan's back hits the mattress with a soft thud, bangs falling into his eyes. Yibo just looks at him for a minute, takes in the tilt of his jaw, the line of his body, the spread v of his legs. "What?" Xiao Zhan says, cocking his head.
"Nothing," Yibo says. He takes a steadying breath and crawls up after him.
They've done a lot of making out over the past two months. Yibo likes the heady way Xiao Zhan's mouth opens up for him, the telltale uptick in his breathing, how red his lips are when they have to come back up for air. Handjobs took Yibo a few tries to figure out when it wasn't his own dick he was touching, and he still hasn't had a ton of practice giving blowjobs, but from what he can tell, Xiao Zhan seems to appreciate his enthusiasm. He props himself up on his elbows to watch Yibo undo the button of his skinny jeans, lifts his hips so Yibo has an easier time tugging them and his underwear down around his knees.
Xiao Zhan isn't hard yet, but he's already flushed pink across his collarbones. He hisses a little when Yibo spits in his hand and bends closer to start jerking him off. "Too much?" Yibo asks, easing up on the pace but tightening his fingers, and smiles when Xiao Zhan lets out a soft noise.
"Keep going," he says, shifting restlessly, throat bobbing as he swallows. Yibo's about to slide down and put his mouth to work when three sharp raps come from the door.
"Oy!" Yu Bin calls through it, because of course it's Yu Bin. "Answer your phones, you dicks."
"Oh my God," Xiao Zhan chokes out, tossing an arm over his eyes. Yibo hides his face in the crease of Xiao Zhan's thigh to keep from laughing audibly, shoulders shaking. "What do you want?"
"Some of us are going out to grab food at the night market two blocks down," floats Zhuocheng's voice. "You should come with." This just keeps getting better and better. Yibo shifts the hand on Xiao Zhan's dick so that he can lip at the tip, slow and hot.
Xiao Zhan reaches down to grab his wrist, lightning quick, a warning look on his face. "We'll come find you," he says, sounding strained. "Later. Yibo's in the shower."
There's a brief murmured discussion outside. "Alright," Yu Bin says at last, but he doesn't sound happy about it. "Don't take too long! Just text us when you're ready and we'll meet you downstairs."
They stay frozen for another beat as the hallway empties. "Jesus," Xiao Zhan says, sagging against the pillows, chuckling incredulously. "Can't get one moment of privacy around here."
Yibo raises his eyebrows. "Should we just go? I mean, I am kinda hungry."
"Don't you dare," Xiao Zhan says, stern. He reaches out again to thread his fingers through Yibo's hair. "Haven't I taught you anything, Lao Wang? Finish what you start."
"Whatever you say, Xiao-laoshi," Yibo says, solemn. He's grinning all the way back down.