Chapter Text
The summer this year in H city was exceptionally hot, especially during the midsummer of August. The streets full of screeching cicadas was enough to drive the common person insane. Asphalt roasted in the sun, and the rising hot air caused the streets to blur in waves of heat.
In the midst of this scorching weather, two pairs of sandals were seen making their way across the road. Two sweaty young men were holding plastic bags from the supermarket, one following the other as they hurried home.
The man walking in front had delicate features with light coloured eyes. He lowered his head to glance at the popsicles in the bag. At the sight of them glistening with condensation, his good-looking features immediately tightened in urgency.
He swivelled his head to yell out, “Hey, Little Ye! Hurry, the popsicles are gonna melt!!”
The black-haired young man who was walking behind him lifted up the hem of his shirt to wipe at his sweaty forehead. With a wrinkled expression and dragging feet, his posture screamed of ‘hardship’ and ‘unwillingness’.
“Su Muqiu, isn’t this all because you spent so long on picking popsicle flavours? What’s the difference between Lemon Soda and Lime Pop anyway?”
Su Muqiu choked, “Can you blame me? As if I’d know what flavour that guy likes.”
Little Ye sighed. “Why care about what flavour he likes? You should’ve just listened to me, and picked whatever random flavour to give him. That person didn’t really want to eat popsicles in the first place. Rather, he wanted to find a reason to chase us out, so he could hog the computer for himself.”
Su Muqiu lightly tutted, but couldn’t resist quickening his pace. “Let’s move faster. It's fine if we let that guy play around with the computer, there isn’t anything valuable at home anyway. But I do have some expensive gear in my online shop that’s hanging out and about…”
“Oho~, so it turns out you do have some self preservation instincts?” Little Ye exclaimed in mock exaggeration, as he jogged to catch up to Su Muqiu.
He continued. “Su Dada, you know to be worried, and yet you still oh-so-casually brought that person back into your home?”
“You were also someone I brought in,” Su Muqiu pointed out.
“How could that be the same thing? I’m an innocent young gifted gaming genius; he looks like nothing good could come out of him.”
Su Muqiu side-eyed him. “Oh? But that person who looks like a ‘good-for-nothing’, happens to look exactly like you.”
“...Where exactly does he look like me?” Little Ye mumbled.
He began to recall that person’s demeanour, when that person struck up conversation with them a few days ago on the street. As he thought of that person’s face, Little Ye's brow wrinkled and he simply stopped talking, continuing to hurry on his way.
The two were sweating buckets and panting like dogs as they stepped into the old apartment block. The moment the key turned to open the door, they were immediately forced to take a few steps back from the imminent heat radiating from inside the apartment.
“Fuck, it’s even hotter inside,” Little Ye exclaimed, not daring to step inside the oven.
Su Muqiu hurriedly slipped off his shoes and headed into the apartment. “What happened? Did the fan break again?”
“No,” came a male voice from inside. The calm timbre was a little rough and sandy, with the words coming in a sluggish tone.
“The electric fan was on, and it perfectly upgraded this apartment from a static oven into a convection oven.”
Su Muqiu’s heart hurt. “God, I can’t have my main computer overheat!! I’ll have to open the outer casing to cool it down…”
The person inside the house replied, “Don’t worry, I opened it.”
Hearing that, Su Muqiu was at once relieved and overjoyed. “Nice! Hey, I hereby bestow upon you a fruit popsicle.”
That male voice laughed, playing along. “Ai, many thanks for your majesty’s generosity.”
“Did you two spend too much time together watching Su Mucheng’s period dramas with her?”
Little Ye exclaimed, who was hanging by the corridor’s railings to air dry. He pulled a face, before turning towards the apartment entrance to shout,
“Su Muqiu, if you don’t install an air conditioner soon, this year’s summer will really result in us having a dead body at hand!”
“If the air conditioner is installed, there’ll be no more money this month for food. Between overheating to death and starving to death, look left or right and it’s both a way to die. You go ahead and choose which one you’d like.” Su Muqiu huffed.
After throwing the popsicles into the fridge, he began opening all of the apartment’s windows and adjusting the electric fan’s position. A refreshing wind slithered by, immediately making the apartment feel cooler by a substantial amount.
Su Muqiu continued to bustle about the apartment. It was only after a while did he raise his eyes to look at the person camped in front of the computer.
The person had black hair, black eyes, and looked to be around 27 or 28, with crossed long legs wedged between a wooden chair. Hands that were offensively beautiful for a male tapped continuously on the keyboard, directing the character to complete tasks in the game.
His attitude looked to be incomparably lazy and relaxed, as if that person were merely playing Minesweeper, but those pair of deep black eyes were frighteningly focused—from the moment Su Muqiu and Little Ye returned, that person engaged and responded in conversation, yet his eyes never left the computer screen for even half a second.
Su Muqiu mused, “The guys who operate betting circles aren’t even as focused as you.”
“This is a guild-assigned mission, of course I’m focused,” the other replied.
Su Muqiu raised an eyebrow. The other wasn’t bluffing, he really was grinding a smurf account. That person’s attitude was so focused it looked like he was battling against a maxed out boss…yet he was here completing level 10 dungeon missions.
Astonished, Su Muqiu exclaimed, “This work ethic, this level of thinking, Little Ye really should hold you as a role model.”
The other lightly acknowledged him with an ‘oh’, before perking up with interest, ”Many thanks boss Su, may his royal majesty bestow upon this subject another popsicle as a reward?”
“Very well.” Su Muqiu waved his hand.
The Little Ye they had been talking about had slowly made his way into the apartment, twisting open the tap to wash his face. Emerging dripping wet, he turned to Su Muqiu, then towards the person who was smiling like a fool. Smiling like that just from receiving two popsicles meant for placating kids, Little Ye abruptly felt his teeth sour.
“...You really have some nerve, ‘Ye Xiu’!”
That person finally found it within himself to turn his head around. He threw the towel draped across the back of his chair towards Little Ye's head, smiling. “Nerve? Is that as tasty as a popsicle?”
Little Ye, who had moved to catch the towel, only managed to feel a wave of sudden fatigue hit his heart.
The first time Little Ye met that person, he immediately had an impression that the other ‘looked like nothing good could come out of him,’ and up to this day that feeling had yet to change.
That person's appearance looked to be 70-80% similar to Little Ye himself. However, it was that remaining 20-30% of a difference that made people immediately think ‘they weren’t the same person’.
What was even stranger was that this person also called himself 'Ye Xiu'.
Little Ye made an annoyed noise before taking the towel into the bathroom for a proper shower. As he cooled down, he began to recollect what the person had said to them a few days ago, when he had first approached them outside the Internet Cafe.
It happened back when Little Ye himself had met Su Muqiu in the Internet cafe, within the first month when he started living with the Su siblings.
It happened back then; that day was just like any other day.
Midsummer, late afternoon, in the Internet Cafe’s too-cold air conditioning. Su Muqiu had just sent over the account he’d been power-levelling over to his client. Turning off the computer to go outside, Little Ye and Su Muqiu were eagerly discussing tonight’s dinner menu when—
It was at that moment, they saw a stranger standing outside the internet cafe. Dressed to the nines and clad in a full suit with leather shoes, the stranger leaned against a lamp post, eyes lidded as he slowly took a drag out of his cigarette.
The cigarette smoke blurred the face behind it; it was only a pair of brilliant black eyes that shone through clearly.
At that moment, Little Ye clearly remembered the roaring hum in his ears. Beside him, Su Muqiu asked in a low voice, “Hey, is that your big bro? Come to snatch you back home?”
The stranger’s lips tilted up as he smiled, putting out his cigarette. The large steps he took as he made his way towards them seemed to resonate against the floor.
“Hi, Muqiu,” the stranger waved, then grinned. “Care to take me in?”