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fancybehaviour · 3 years

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Daddy Woes

Summary:

Harry is a good husband; so he sends his wife out on a much needed girls day. James Sirius is a naughty boy; so he sends his father down an anxiety spiral.

Notes:

Written for @harryandginuary BINGO!

Prompt I 23: “Why are there zucchini all over our kitchen?” “Do you not like zucchini?”

The sun had sunk low on the horizon, and in a few minutes would dissapear for the night. About dinner time, thought Ginny, as she made her way home after a long enjoyable day, her heels clicking rhythmically against the cobble. As she walked, she rewinded the highlights of her girls day out with Hermione and Luna in her head. Ginny had had an absolute hoot meeting her friends.She was sure she would continue to reminisce until the next time she could have such a day; after all being the mother of a seven month old meant that such trips were a rarity and she cherished them a lot.

Her legs ached from all the walking around she did while she helped Luna shop for her trip and she was looking forward to taking the nice long bath her husband had promised to draw her. She let out a sigh as she thought of sinking her aching legs in a hot bath, her husband perched at the edge of her bathtub as she gave him an exaggerated recount of the day's events peppered with silly nonsensical jokes, him guffawing at them all even though he had already heard them all. He did that a lot these days, laughing. Especially since the birth of their beautiful boy.

She felt a swell of love rise in her as she thought of her family; her seven month old baby son who could scream the house down and her loving husband who tried his best to give her respite from the said infant.

"Harry?" she called, pushing the front door to close and locking it. "James darling? I'm back home. Did you boys have fun?". She continued heading towards the kitchen where she could hear noises, taking care not to trip over the many toys that were strewn about their living room. Courtesy of their many relatives and friends, James seemed to have an amount of toys that seemed absolutely ridiculous to Ginny who couldn't remember seeing so many toys even at the Burrow, that had been the residence of seven children. Making the matter even more ridiculous was the fact that James's favourite toys were actually the copper pots and pans that he liked to bang about making noise.

It was only when she reached the kitchen and took in the desecration that it was that she realised that perhaps today, she might be the only one in the Potter household who might have had any semblance of fun.

Eyes darting from her slightly whimpering son in his high chair, to the trail of food spills surrounding him to the multicoloured stains adorning her husband's apron and his miserable face, she decided to address a whole other issue: “Why are there zucchini all over our kitchen?”

“Do you not like zucchini?”, asked Harry, in a tone that might have been wry if it weren't for the long suffering expression on his face.

"Absolutely not. Can't believe you thought I did, the honor of questionable taste will forever be Hermione's ."

He gave a laugh that seemed more for her benefit (making Ginny wonder if parenthood had done a number on her humour too) and set about cleaning up. Ginny walked into the kitchen and lifted the whimpering toddler into her arms. She pressed a loud smacking kiss on both of his chubby, chubby cheeks, and rocked him gently, seemingly this was all that was needed for his whimpers seemed to slowly subside. She could feel Harry's eyes on them as he continued to clean up the mess; she remained silent, waiting for him to tell her what was weighing on his mind.

Instead he said, "He missed you," so she turns around to see him, looking at them softly with a look on his face that Ginny could only describe as melancholy. It reminded Ginny of her fifth year, when he looked at her like that, like she was everything he wanted but was unattainable.

It seems she was going to have to demand answers after all. Very well.

"Alright Potter, spill. Whatever happened today that has got you relapsing into your teenage angst?"

He laughed, and this time it was a genuine one; BINGO!

Pulling a chair at their kitchen table and settling himself down he said " James kept crying after you left. A lot."

"Uh-huh. Nothing he hasn't done before. "

"Yeah. Sure. But today I just realised.."

"Yeah?" She asked, settling down into the chair opposite him, shifting James into her lap who seemed very fascinated with playing with her hair.

Harry watched him for a moment and then continued, "I know James crying is nothing new. Yet for some reason, it just bothered me today, you know."

"Uh-huh."

"It made me feel like a bad parent." he confesses, looking a bit surprised himself, perhaps at that he had spoken it out loud, yet continued with "I have been feeling like it a lot these days."

There.The dam had finally broken. Ginny had long since suspected that Harry was having troubles with parenting. She had caught him brooding about with a tea mug in his hands instead of going back to bed after whatever ungodly hour James Sirius had decided to wake them up.

She tried many times,to get him to talk, but between her own exhaustion, an infant with a strong pair of lungs and Harry's stubborn refusal to burden Ginny with anymore than she was already dealing with nothing had come out of it. But now that he seemed to want to talk, Ginny did not stop him.

"I just… "he paused, and swallowed, something he did when he was overcome with emotion but wanted to bite it down.

"I want to do this right. I have never wanted so badly to do something right in my whole life. Family..it means everything to me and I want to be a good father but I'm afraid I am failing."

"You are an amazing father, Harry."

He shook his head.

"Am I?"

"Yes" Ginny agreed furiously.

Harry looked into her eyes at that and she hoped he could read her, that he could see himself from her eyes, how she fell in love with him more and more everyday as she saw more and more of dad Harry.

Looking away he continued, "I sure don't feel like it. Today, while you were away, all Jamie wanted was his Mum. I tried everything, feeding him your milk, his favourite toys - yes the pans and pots, we are lucky we have no neighbours- feeding him all sorts of baby food and yet nothing seemed to work for long before he started wailing again. "

Ginny replied, "I don't want to sound like I'm being condescending, but this is the only way I can seem to put it- he's a toddler Harry. No one knows why toddlers do what they do. If he was fussy with you today and missed me I doubt it's because he has decided you were a bad parent."

"I know that - rationally.But the part of me - the same part of me that gets jealous of blokes trying to chat you up or worries that Ron is going to make a new best friend - that part of me makes me think I have been a bad father."

"Today when Jamie kept crying for you, and I wasn't able to calm him down or feed him any of the amalgamation of baby foods I made- it just felt like I was in over my head, without a clue about what was doing. I might as well have been one of those dads who say they are 'babysitting' their kids and leave them up to their mothers and that's not- I never want to be that."

"I don't just want to do this right, I want be good at this. Like I am at Quidditch or catching dark wizards. I know I can catch a snitch, I know how to find a criminal on the run from law. Just like that, I want to be good at taking care of my son...but today, everything I did kept failing and that made me think.."

"James dented your confidence, didn't he," she said softly.

"He did," Harry agrees looking over at the boy who was happily sucking on his toes, completely ignorant of the spiral he had sent his father through.

Lacing her fingers with his, she said,"My mum told me, with parenting, there's bad days and good days, but you've got to understand that having bad days is not equivalent to being a bad parent."

"I imagine she had a lot of those, with seven of you," replied Harry wryly.

"Two of them Fred and George", Ginny reminded him.

They sat for a moment in silence both lost in thought.

"Gin-"

"Harry" ,they both started at the same time, and Harry motioned for her to go on.

"I was just thinking - I had help with this. My mum, Fleur, Angelina, my teammates - I had people to talk this with. To reassure me that I wasn't doing things wrong. But you don't have that."

"No. But I've got you."

"You do," she agrees. "But also, maybe you should talk to people too. Maybe my dad or Bill or George"

He snorts at that. "If anyone had told me ten years ago that I'd be talking parenting with George.." he trails off as Ginny gives a light chuckle.

"Seriously though," she says again, "Give it a try. I'm always here though. To listen. Or if you wanna get competitive over who is the worse parent".

Grinning, he says "I fed him courgettes Gin. He hated it. I'm winning this game." and she smiles at him, simply happy to see him happy.

"Oh and what is it?", she asks, and at his quizzical raise of eyebrows she elaborates, "that you wanted to say? You wanted to say something but you let me go first."

At that he gives her a wide smile and says,

"Just that I love you."

#harry potter x ginny weasley #harry and ginuary #harry potter series #harry james potter #harry styles #ginny weasley #ginevra molly weasley #ginnymollyweasley #ginny molly weasley #ginevra weasley #ginny tag #hinny #hinny drabble #married hinny #harry x ginny #james sirius potter

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hopeisour4letteredword · 4 years

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innocent bones ch1

Summary: Apollo gets a wake-up call in a few ways. It’s okay, though--he’s got best-friend backup.

Link to AO3 in the notes.

Apollo’s first thought when his phone rings at some ungodly time in the middle of the night is fuck off. His second thought is oh my God oh no Clay, because he’s had a shit year and maybe it’s made him a bit paranoid and he’s Clay’s emergency medical contact. His third thought, as he toes the line of lucidity, is wait, that’s the ringtone I set for Klavier.

Fuck. If Klavier is calling him at this hour, it’s probably important.

He slaps haphazardly at his nightstand until he finds his phone and yanks it off the charger. He gives himself one last moment to squeeze his eyes shut against the ache of fatigue, then rallies enough to answer the call.

“Justice speaking.“

“...Hurts.”

Suddenly much more awake, Apollo sits bolt upright in bed. “What?”

“Herr Forehead,” Klavier says, in the most childish and petulant voice Apollo has ever heard out of him. To be fair, Apollo hasn’t heard him overtly childish all that many times, so that’s a low hurdle. It’s not much comfort. “Feel—feel sorry for me. I’m in pain.”

“You—what? Are you alright?”

“No.”

Apollo stares unseeingly into the darkness for a second until adrenaline overrides panic and he launches himself out of bed. He almost trips trying to keep his phone to his ear and disentangle the sheets around his legs at the same time. Light, where’s the light switch on his lamp? “Where are you? How bad is it?”

“It sucks,” Klavier whines. “An’ I’m all alone.”

“I’m coming to help. You’re gonna be fine. Are you—you sound really out of it. Did you hit your head? Are you drunk?”

Blood loss? he doesn’t ask. Don’t think about the worst-case scenario. Keep moving. He finds his keys and his wallet, tosses them over by his shoes near the door. No telling if he’ll need his bike or his bus card until he has more information.

“Drugs,” Klavier says, glumly. Apollo grits his teeth. Klavier is one of the most law-abiding people Apollo has ever met; there’s no way he took hardcore drugs of his own volition. Please don’t let it be roofies. Please don’t let him be stranded, injured and alone, in a place where somebody roofied him.

Clothes, clothes, Apollo needs to not get arrested for indecency the second he steps out the door. He yanks on the first pair of shorts he encounters. Shirt? He shoves a hand into his dresser blindly. It comes out clutching one of Clay’s old Sailor Moon shirts, faded and worn. Apollo wears it as a pajama shirt sometimes, but in public—fuck it. Klavier’s safety is worth the weird looks for being a grown man wearing a magical girl anime shirt in public. He’s not gonna dig around for an acceptable shirt at a time like this.

“Keep talking to me. What hurts?”

“My mouth.”

“Your mouth? What happened, do you remember?”

“They stole my teeth,” Klavier says, woefully, and that finally makes Apollo pause, balanced on one foot to pull a sock on the other.

“Your—your teeth?”

“Took ‘em—took ‘em right out. With knives. Now my mouth’s full of holes. It hurts, Herr Forehead.”

An image is cementing itself, slowly but surely, out of the fog of panic and lethargy in Apollo’s mind. He lowers his foot. “Who took your teeth?”

“Teeth doctor.”

“Did...did you get teeth taken out? By a dentist or—?”

“Yeah! Wis’om teeth. They stole them.”

Apollo slumps back against his door like a puppet with his strings cut, and sinks to the ground. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Oh my God, Klavier. Start with that next time.”

“Next time?” Klavier sounds genuinely befuddled. “But they’re already gone.”

“I thought you had been roofied or mugged or something,” Apollo says. He settles on laughter, and it comes out hysterical. “God. Don’t do that to me. I’m too young to have a heart attack.”

“Don’t do what? What’d I do?”

“You scared the shit out of me.” Apollo draws his knees up to his chest and leans on them, trying to take deep breaths. Klavier is okay. He’s not bleeding in an alleyway behind some bar. He’s not about to be assaulted. He’s only stoned on painkillers. “You owe me for this one. I was halfway out the door.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” There’s a rustling noise on the other end of the line. Klavier’s voice is soft and contrite. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“That’s fine,” Apollo says. “We’re fine. I’m not mad. Well, maybe a little bit. Just—goddamn. Okay. Talking. I can talk. Wait. You’re home, aren’t you? You’re not wandering the city like this?”

He’s hyperaware of his own heartbeat, still too loud and too fast. That was a hell of a wake-up call. Apollo has more than enough trouble getting to sleep on a normal night. There’s no way he’s knocking out any time soon after this—might as well keep Klavier entertained if he’s going to be awake the rest of the night anyway.

“Yeah!” Klavier says, perking up again. “I’m home. Oh, but—Vongole is gone.”

“Gone?” Apollo frowns. “Where’d she go?”

“Sebastian took her.”

“What for?”

“He said I prob’ly shouldn’t walk her tonight,” Klavier says, despondently. “I miss her. She’s a good dog.”

“She is a good dog,” Apollo agrees. He scratches a hand through his bedhead and tries not to yawn. “But you’ll get to see her again soon. I’m sure Prosecutor Debeste will give her back tomorrow.”

“But I want her now.”

Apollo doesn’t have a rebuttal to that. God only knows how many times he sprawled next to Vongole on the floor while Mr. Gavin was out of the office, complaining about the trials of law school. She’s a good listener. Always knows when someone needs a hug. She’d make a good therapy dog if she didn’t have so much energy. It’s no wonder Klavier wants her back when he’s this miserable.

“Sorry, man.”

Klavier sighs melodramatically. “Can’t believe he left me and took my dog. I think he likes her better than me.”

“Can you blame him?” Apollo says, wryly. He realizes his mistake right as Klavier makes a quiet, wounded noise.

“...No.”

“Joke,” Apollo blurts out. Fuck. Of course Klavier is too out of it for their normal banter. “I’m joking. That was a joke. I didn’t mean—“

“It’s okay, Herr F—“

“Of course he doesn’t like your dog better than you. Don’t be stupid. That was a really shitty joke for me to make, and I didn’t mean it at all.”

Klavier laughs, weakly. “Right, sure.”

“You’re—ridiculously likeable.” It spills out of Apollo’s mouth before he can stop himself. But why should he stop himself? It’s the middle of the night and Klavier’s fucked up on painkillers and Apollo was an asshole. He can part with some kind words to make up for it. It’s the right thing to do, probably. God, he’s tired. “And a good person. Everybody likes you just fine.”

After a few beats of silence save for the shudder of Klavier’s breath across the line, Klavier asks, half-joking, “Even you?”

Apollo rolls his eyes. “No, I’m talking to you at three AM while you’re high as a kite on anesthetics because I hate you.” Another beat. “That was another joke. Just to be extremely clear.”

“You like me?” Klavier asks, so damn hopefully that Apollo doesn’t have it in him to pretend otherwise.

“Yeah.”

“I like you, too,” Klavier says, happily. Apollo’s heart thumps traitorously hard against his ribcage. He’s too exhausted to deal with his own pining right now. It’s not fair that Klavier can do this to him out of nowhere. He’s not even trying to flirt right now. He’s just a naturally affectionate person and it’s destroying Apollo. “I wish you were here. I wish Vongole or Sebastian was here. I’m bored and lonely and my mouth hurts.”

“I know, bud.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Sleep?” Apollo suggests. Klavier makes a dismissive sound. “Uh. Watch something on Netflix? Or whatever rock stars watch their movies and shit on these days.”

“I start falling asleep when I try to watch anything and then I have nightmares ‘cause my mouth hurts.”

That sounds like it will be a problem no matter what Klavier does to occupy himself. “Do you have more painkillers?”

“I... forgot where I put them. And how many to take.”

“Find them and read the bottle, then.”

“Print’s too small.”

“...Are you so drugged up you can’t focus on text?”

“No, but they made me take my contacts out before they stole my teeth, and—“

Klavier wears contacts? Apollo opens his mouth to ask about it, but there’s an abrupt series of loud noises on the other end of the call. Loud, brief knocking, the thud of a door closing, the jingle of metal on metal.

“Sebastian!” Klavier cheers. Apollo hears a distant curse and thumping. “You came back!”

A voice, muffled and indistinct. The intonation lilts into a question.

“Herr Forehead,” Klavier answers, matter-of-factly.

“Oh, good grief. Give that here.”

“No, don’t—!“

“Hello?” Prosecutor Debeste says, his voice clear and focused now. It has the polite edge of professionality. “Mr. Justice, I presume?”

“That’s right,” Apollo says. He feels kind of weird about talking to somebody from the Prosecutor’s Office who isn’t Klavier while he’s on the floor, hair a bird’s nest, wearing a Sailor Moon shirt and one sock. Yeah, Prosecutor Debeste can’t see that or anything, but it’s the principle of the matter. “Hi. Um.”

“Sorry about the trouble. I hope he hasn’t kept you up too long.”

“Uh, no.”

“Sebastian,” Klavier wails, in the background. “Give it baaack!”

“Are you staying with him right now?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I just. To be honest, he made it sound like you stole his dog and ditched him.”

“Of course he did,” Prosecutor Debeste says, exasperatedly. Klavier whines, barely audible to the receiver. Vongole barks happily in response. “I’ve been here all night. I only took Vongole out for a bit to do her business and run around—she hasn’t been able to sleep either, not with Klavier this wound up. Don’t worry, he has someone keeping an eye on him.”

“That’s, um. Good to hear.”

“I can take care of things from here, so I’ll let you get some rest. Klavier can get in touch with you again in the morning if you need anything from him.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Justice. Thanks for keeping him company for a while. Klavier, say good night—“

“But we were talking—!“

The line goes dead.

Apollo takes his phone away from his ear and just looks at it. He thinks maybe he should process the last thirty minutes. His mind chases itself in loops instead. After a minute, he presses the heel of his free hand against his eyes, trying to massage out the exhaustion headache that’s starting to set in. Fuck. He still doesn’t know if he can sleep. What’s Clay always trying to tell him, about resting and keeping your eyes closed for a while being better than not sleeping at all? Can’t be any worse, at least. He might as well give it a shot. He settles back into the sheets, long cold by now, and tries to relax.

A street—not dark, but dim, maybe, with the hazy glow of a setting sun in the evening. The shadows are long and the light is golden. It catches on the leaves of trees in the park, turns them ethereal with shining halos.

I’ve been here before, Apollo thinks, then, that’s absurd, it’s the park, of course I’ve been here before.

Another golden halo, beside him on the park bench. Klavier’s hair catching the sunlight it so often seems to be spun from. Klavier’s blinding smile as he laughs at something Apollo just said, something already forgotten. Déjà vu strikes Apollo again. He does remember being here, remembers the way Klavier turns to him with a conversational parry, smirking, words balancing perfectly on the bizarre line they walk between sharp and friendly.

That’s what he remembers. That’s not what happens this time. What happens this time is:

Klavier’s smile goes soft and warm, an affectionate curl of his lips, and he says, “I like you, too.”

#klapollo #klavier gavin #apollo justice #ace attorney #long post

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haikuna · 7 years

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Tin Can Dreams

A/N: Watched the Chinese film I Belonged to You and was immediately inspired to do a Winwin fic, so that happened. Here we go then. Oh, and as per usual, there’s edits to come.

Saturdays were for bothering Sicheng. Everyday was for bothering Sicheng.

Pairing: Sicheng x Reader Genre: Fluff and fluff and so much fluff, tinkerer Winwin Word Count: 8000+

Some days you think about the boy that lives in the house at the top of the hill. The tin one, with the rusted doors that creek creek creek and scares all the little kids away. Think about the secrets this boy keeps tucked under the moss spilling over the house’s stone gates, and the ones he keeps deep inside himself.

You think about him most days.

Your uncle tells you not to think too much about it. It doesn’t matter who the boy is. There’s a boy that lives in every other house dotting the winding streets, wedged in the spaces between streetlamps and alley ways. In the apartments that stack up and up and up and nearly touch the sky. He asks if you wonder about any of them.

“No,” you say, picking at vines that grow and grow over the walls squaring off the post office, “Just the tin house.��

He sighs at that, giving you a weak grin that you know he doesn’t really mean because you’ve had this talk time and time again. He just adjusts the hem of his buttoned-up navy shirt, and the police hat he fixes atop his head as per routine, and leaves you with a pat on the shoulder and a gruff salute that warns you not to get into any trouble.

You most certainly do not, because it’s Saturday.

And Saturday’s are for sitting and thinking, with no one there to talk to you or get you in any trouble. Saturdays, which are long and drawl on at the beat of the wagon wheels- clicking and clacking down the sloping roads. Saturdays are lonely and all you have is your thoughts of Dong Sicheng; the boy in the peculiar tin house. Saturdays are for first encounters.

You see him as quickly as you register the bang ringing around the corner.

Barreling down the hill, into your vision, up the stairs, and sticking right there- behind the wall you’re sitting on top of. He looks like he’s trying to dissolve into space, pressed up against the stones, like he’s not even breathing. You want to tell him he’s doing a really bad job of hiding, if that’s what he’s doing.

He doesn’t even notice you sat atop the wall with your knees pressed up against your chest, peering through the curtains of your hair falling over your eyes. Smiling.

“What did you blow up?”

Sicheng sinks into the ground, arms crossed right there over his head because a voice just came down from the sky, and God sounds an awful lot like a teenage girl. In that moment he looks horrible, scared and shaking. You don’t know why that’s so funny.

“Up here,” you call after him, sat atop your knees and looking down, “Why’d you run away?”

When Sicheng follows the sound of your voice he freezes. Doesn’t even give you an answer. Just stares at you sitting there on the wall, looking curious and amused. He never says a word.

“Dong Sicheng,” You say in a kind of hum, toying with him and the way he’s so shyly looking up and down, here and there.

He blinks and blinks and blinks, backing away in this clumsy little stumble, feet catching on feet and cobble stones that tumble down the stairs as they fall, “How do you know my name?”

While he’s not blinking, he’s looking at you, in careful little flutters that disappear just as quickly as they occur. And Sicheng is utterly endearing in the way he goes about that.

You’re giggling, in a sound that ring and rings in the air, “My dad’s the police chief,” you say like everyone should know this, and just about everyone does, “I should know everyone, don’t you think?”

He’s looking at the ground now, thinking hard about what comes next and why you’re still staring at him. He meets your gaze again, for added measure, and he’s stepping back, further and further away, “You’re really the daughter of the police chief?”

You frown at that, “You think I’d lie?”

You don’t know why you’re surprised when Sicheng goes and runs away from you, up all the sets of stairs till he disappears behind the cars and fruit wagons where you’ll never find him and where you’ll never bother to look. You think it’s so silly and awkward of him to leave without so much as a goodbye, and pretend he did spare you one, for your own satisfaction. You don’t really have time to be offended. Just time to wonder.

Saturday keeps going when Sicheng leaves. Business as usual. Rivers keep flowing under the networks of bridges, wheels keep clacking and clacking on as they roll over the pavement, and you still sit there, picking at vines on the wall outside the post office.

Even without Sicheng’s own testimony, you find out, from the rice cake lady that runs her stand on the crowded corner with all the other restaurants, that Sicheng blew up a toaster. How he did that, the lady doesn’t know.

You think you’ll find out someday. Maybe even from Sicheng.

Dong Sicheng is a really fantastic runner.

Great form. Incredible speed. Sometimes you think it’s a real shame he dropped out of high school in his second year. He really would’ve thrived.

You try to tell him this whenever you meet eyes outside the post office. Call his name in a loud and teasing, “Dong Sicheng!”

But he always scurries away in such a ridiculous frenzy. Great form, still. Incredible speed. You wished he’d stick around so you could tell him.

You try to think of what it is, exactly, that scares him so much because you aren’t the biggest, most frightening force out there- not anywhere really.

Of course, your dad really was the police chief, a man of 6 feet and 4 extra inches that sauntered down the sidewalks late at night and at every hour, but he sang Abba in bars at ungodly hours and carried you around town on his back any chance he could get. Most people knew not to be so scared of him. You wonder how Sicheng could have missed that memo.

Your uncle thinks you’re obsessed with Sicheng, that’s if he didn’t think you were obsessed before. He tells you the way you’re always chasing him is probably what scares him and always warns you of the chance that he might put out a restraining order on you.

“He wouldn’t do that,” you always tell him, teasing the black tufts of his hair because it doesn’t matter what it looks like under the hat. You only know a handful of facts about Sicheng that you’ve gathered from all the other kids around the block, but one of them is that he is utterly terrified of the police and most forms of authority and you think that’s enough to keep him from putting out any orders on you.

“You can’t play on his fear like that,” your uncle says, trying to shove your hands away, “boys don’t like that.”

“Boys don’t like anything,” you cross your legs up on top of the wall, and your uncle follows suit, “And if I cared about that than I’d never have fun around here,” you throw some vines down onto the ground below, pouting down at the people that walk away, pouting up at your uncle sitting beside you, “Want me to stare at this wall all day and watch the moss grow?”

“That would probably be better for Sicheng.”

You grunt at that, “Don’t care. Just want to know why he’s so scared of me.”

The next few hours are spent sitting up on your wall with your uncle, picking at vines while he tells you about the crook he caught late last night. He said he found the man just in time before he could swipe out his knife and cause any real damage. And even though you give him plenty of uh-huhs and mhms to feed the story, you’re not really listening much. Not so much because you’re thinking of Sicheng, but also because you’d heard fifty shades of this same story from your dad over countless family dinners. Man catches sweet old lady in the alley way. Man corners sweet old lady, makes a grab for the purse. Police officer dad (or uncle) conveniently runs onto scene, drop kicks the man into the garbage cans. And so on and son on. You think your uncle catches on to you disinterest when he gets to the piece about booking the guy.

“I think your boyfriend’s been posting flyers around town,” your uncle stops talking about the crook.

You know exactly who he’s talking about, ears perking up because you’re finally paying attention, “Why do you say that?”

“Because I see him posting flyers around town.”

You follow the nod your uncle gives you, in the direction of Sicheng who’s not too far down the street. This is the first time you ever see him with anyone else, a boy that looks around his own age and is holding a bag of more flyers as he trails behind him.

“Is he allowed to do that?” you ask your uncle, but you’re not really asking him because you’ve already made up your mind on what you’re going to do next.

“Not technically,” he shrugs, only to see you uncross your legs, shooting up and off the shallower side of the wall onto the pavement, “Y/N, wait, where are you going?”

“I’m helping you enforce the law!” you say like it’s obvious.

Your uncle snorts, “Or trying to talk to cute boys.”

“Whatever comes first.”

“Dong Sicheng!” You come shouting down the street, but only when you’re close enough so you don’t give him too much time to run away, “Dong Sicheng!”

He sees you the first time you come singing his name, but his feet don’t really register to run until you’re only a few feet away (most certainly not a result of that devastating way you looked in that rose dipped dress). When he finally comes to his senses, he’s shoving the posters he has in his own hands into his friend’s and goes dodging his way around all the carts and people ahead.

He can’t run away fast enough.

It’s chases like these that really remind you of Sicheng’s cardiovascular prowess, because he makes it at least several hundred yards up endless slopes and steps, before you catch him. You’re tired when you do it, having finished the dash in your rayon sundress with the winding rose decals, and you’re probably breathing very hard in a way that is not cute at all. But you catch him. That matters.

You have him pushed up against a wall in absolutely no time at all. Smiling, because you’ve finally done it, and Sicheng is a complete and utter statue in your grasp. It’s funny. You think. Very funny.

“You’re a really fast runner,” you tell him, still smiling.

He doesn’t say a word to that.

“Why are you always running away from me?” you ask, and Sicheng thinks you’re cute, but he’s too busy shaking in fear to really expand on that thought.

“Your dad wants to arrest me,” he’s looking down.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does.”

“No, he doesn’t,” you say more matter of factly, and Sicheng can’t really argue with that definitive tone you’re speaking with, “because he thinks your inventions are funny. He likes them.”

Sicheng is surprised by that, which you can see in the way his eyes go a little wide while he’s staring at the ground, but he doesn’t really believe you, “No he doesn’t,” he shakes his head, “No one likes them.”

“I like them,” you say and his eyes go wider, “So does my dad.”

He doesn’t really say more to that, because he’s becoming more and more aware of the distance between you and him right now. Like he’s just now noticed your hands are resting right on his shoulders. Of course, he already noticed how pretty you were and he wasn’t surprised all that much that you were this lovely up close, but then he just never actually thought you ever would be this close.

“Kun says you’re trying to seduce me,” he blurts out, because he feels like you’ll stop getting too close if he says it, “Says girls that wear pretty dresses like you want a boyfriend.”

You figure Kun must be that friend of his, the one carrying around all his posters, and decide right then and there that you don’t like him much, “Kun doesn’t know anything about me.”

“Kun knows most of the people around here,” he mumbles out.

“I know me better,” you fire back, and Sicheng thinks that makes perfect sense, so he doesn’t argue. You let your hands fall from where they are on his shoulders because you know you’re making him nervous, “I don’t wanna be your girlfriend.”

He peeks up at you under his mess of fringe, “You don’t?”

“Not yet.”

Your uncle once told you that boys didn’t like being pursued by girls. The way Sicheng’s looking at you, you think he was right. You still didn’t really care.

And you most certainly do not care now, because you’re reaching up there, right to the wall behind him, and tugging off one of those flyers. Sicheng stops breathing right then, because your gaze is still very much on him, spilling out in this overwhelming kind of sunshine, in this goofy little grin. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think you were about to kiss him. But he did, in fact, know better.

“Why’re you looking for computer parts?” You whisper, but your voice is only slightly slipping out under the cover of your giddy laugh.

Sicheng kind of moves to push you out of the way, and pulls his poster right out of your hands, “Why do you care?”

“Just wanna know.”

He’s walking down the line of the walls now, taking down the posters like he knows you’re going to tell him to do, and tries not to think about your footsteps that are echoing after every step he takes, “I’m programming a watch to talk.”

“Why?” you prod, skip along behind him, down the tons and tons of stairs. At one point, you’re even speaking over his shoulder, set on the very tips of your toes.

“No reason,” he’s trying to shake you off, though not with much conviction, “Just feel like it.”

“I want a watch that’ll talk to me.”

You’ve stopped at this point, and Sicheng is standing with his arms outstretched towards the wall when he pauses to look back at you. His brow arches, “You do?”

You nod with your hands tucked behind your back, giving him a sweet little mhm as your skirt falls over in beautiful rings around you. Sicheng likes you. He really likes you. But, he doesn’t really know what like is or how you deal with it, so that kind of fluttering in his stomach he gets whenever he sees you always registers as a signal to run. And he usually does. But not now.

“Why?” he goes back to his task of gathering flyers, “Why would you want one?”

“No reason,” you say, and you’re still just standing there, “You can post your flyers on the boards by the river, or the one in the square,” you offer, watching him tediously pick at the tape he’d used to fix his posters onto the walls, and you keep going, gaining more and more momentum in your playful ideas, “No one’ll take them down. And I can help you, too! We can set aside a few hours and-”

“What do you want from me?”

If you really knew what you wanted from Sicheng, you probably would’ve given up on chasing him much earlier than now. But, all you really knew was that Saturday’s were for bothering Sicheng. Everyday was for bothering Sicheng.

“Maybe I just wanted to be your friend,” you conclude, and you think that’s fairly accurate as far as your own motivations go.

Sicheng scoffs, “You don’t chase people to make friends.”

And he is absolutely right when he says that, but you’re not the type to be very embarrassed about broken social norms.

“You do when they’re afraid of your dad for no good reason,” you counter, and he slinks back.

For a while you think the city might’ve cleared out, because all you hear is the scuff of Sicheng’s shoes against the cracked pavement and your own humming that resonates with wind chimes that sing their own pretty songs from where they’re hanging. And you don’t see much else but Sicheng’s hands so carefully pulling at his own flyers, or the peaks of his mussed-up head of jet black hair, flopping over his eyes every now and then. You like staying like this, with Sicheng not running away and not looking so scared of you. You want to stay with him even when it’s getting dark, and all the streets, paved or cobbled, are falling prey to shadows. You want to stay with him more than anything when he’s looking at you, hundreds of flyers, in different states of wear and tear, grasped in his left and right hands.

“I’ll be your friend,” Sicheng finally says, and he decides on the fact right then and there.

Your smile is caught that moment in the dazzling ray of the street lamps, spreading wide and tilting your lips in the most delighted way. And Sicheng feels those stupid flutters in his stomach again, so he doesn’t wait for you to respond before he turns on his heel to head back to that old tin house on the top of the hill.

“Good night, Dong Sicheng!” You call after him before he can disappear into the dark.

“Just Sicheng,” he calls back, flustered and then he’s gone… down the road and too far to see.

The only thing you really don’t like about Sicheng is the fact that he never lets you touch any of his tools. God forbid you go anywhere near his screw driver, or his blow torch or his gene splicer (he always says it’s not a gene splicer, but never tells you what it is). You really thought he’d trusted you enough by now.

“What are you working on now?” you ask over his shoulder.

“Don’t know,” he says.

“Don’t know?”

“Nope,” he sighs and drop the wires he’d been tinkering with back onto the wooden table, “Don’t know.

You hum a little at his answer, and fall right there into the grass some feet behind him, “Then how do ya know it’s going to be anything at all?”

You watch him from behind and see his shoulder go up and down in this careless shrug, “Because it’s what I do. I make things.”

“Sound enough reasoning,” you accept his statement with a nod, and splay yourself across the greenery.

Sicheng’s house, it turns out, was not as mysterious as you thought. In fact, it was very much like your own. You figured this made sense after all, since they were only divided by an expanse of four equally similar homes. The only real differing factor, putting aside the daunting Tin doors and roof top, was that Sicheng’s home was a little bit smaller, with a yard that went on and on for what felt like ages. Had you not spent so many days in this yard at this point, though, you’d never have recognized the lawn’s full square footage, mainly by fault of all the crates Sicheng had stacked, filled with computer parts and other fixtures, which all together made a wall you’d only ever once peaked over. The piece of the yard which was made available to you to roam and wander, was occupied chiefly by Sicheng’s tools and his worktable, leaving a small bit of grass and another loose crate, filled to the brim with several nameless contraptions.

“What’s all that?” you ask Sicheng, when he’d finally taken a break and sat down beside you on the grass.

“Old toys,” he shrugged, and you found it adorable how he considered his inventions toys. Never really growing up and always staying sweet.

“Am I allowed to touch these?” You quirk a brow, and he seems kind of hesitant. This makes you roll your eyes. Could you be trusted with anything?

“Don’t break any of them,” he finally gives in, and you light up at his answer, he tries to keep you behind, if even just for a second, flashing you a pleading look, “Please.”

You nod.

Sicheng’s toys are endlessly fascinating and you find something new to fawn over the deeper and deeper you look. Everything is shiny and priceless, even if they’re rusted, because all of it is just so beautiful and so so Sicheng. You think you’ll like anything that Sicheng makes. Anything.

“I like this one,” you say curtly, unraveling two tied together tin cans from a string of lights.

He looks unimpressed with your choice, and more concerned for the lights you’d just pulled them out of, “They’re just tin-can phones,” he says, and takes the lights out of your hands to coil them back into place, “I’m sure you could make your own.”

And he’s right, because he knows by now that you’re not completely inept in tinkering and configurations (you’d actually saved a good number of his own inventions in the past few months you’d known him), but you’d still never seen a pair of these funny little trinkets. Not in person.

“I mean I know what they are,” you tell him, holding the can up right there in front of your eyes like you’re getting a better look, “but I never got to make one. Can we use them?”

Sicheng doesn’t look interested, but you know he’s kind of got a weak spot for you and your pretty sundresses, “I’m standing right next to you, Y/N.”

Stupid. Of course you’re aware of that.

“Well, then one of us has to move,” you answer simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, which it kind of is.

“I’m not moving,” he says in an uncharacteristically definitive voice that sounds as if it’s been borrowed from the countless quips you’ve rattled off at him.

“Well, if I must, Dong Sicheng.”

You have his side of the tin cans laid out right on the grass in front of him, before he has time to really think about what’s coming next. Giving him a polite curtsy, you trot off to run around Sicheng’s pile of crates, and you disappear with only a string of yarn to tell him where you’d gone off to.

“I said you could call me Sicheng!” he shouts at the crates, into the blocked off distance.

He sees you pop your head over the wall, if only for a few second, with your tin can held up to your ear, “What’d you say?” you grin cheekily, “You have to talk through the phone or I can’t hear you!”

He gives you several seconds to make sure everything is all good and smooth and all the vibrations can pass through and through between you both, when he hears your voice somewhere off in the distance, high pitched and eager.

“Can to your ear Dong Sicheng!”

“Stop calling me by my full name,” he takes the can right in his hand and holds it up to his mouth with those lightning fast reflexes he had used in all that time spent running away from you.

He hears this kind of garbled noise come from the other end, and figures you must be laughing.

“I don’t wanna,” is all you say and Sicheng thinks the sound is echoing through these stupid tin cans just to taunt him.

“Y/N,” he’s using the definitive voice again.

“Fifteen seconds,” you say.

Sicheng has no idea what you mean by that, which you had already figured, so you elaborate, “I’ll give you fifteen seconds to tell me why I should stop calling you by your full name.”

Sicheng contemplates on the other side, you know he does because contemplating is one of those many things he likes to do.

“And you’ll stop if I do?”

You nod even though he can’t see a thing you’re doing, “Give me a good reason first. Fifteen seconds.”

To be completely straight, Sicheng is almost always flustered by most things you do, but is in a special kind of disarray at your sudden challenge. Like you’d just asked him why he lets you come over to his house every Saturday. Or asked exactly why he had decided to be your friend. The answer’s the same for everything. You just have him feeling some stupid, unexplainable kind of way. And the way you sound out every single syllable of his name doesn’t help.

“You.. I…” he stumbles around in his reasoning, “well, I don’t call you by your full name.”

“No one said you couldn’t,” you test him.

He sighs at that, because you always have an answer, “But it’s just not- people don’t do that. Call people by their full names. They just don’t do that.”

You don’t like his answer. Neither does Sicheng.

“Times up,” you say, voice as flat as your dad’s vast expanse of a forehead.

“Did I convince you?” he questions wearily, but he already knows the answer.

Neither of you say anything for a good while, but you’re both holding your tin cans up like you’re waiting for answers.

“I’ll stop if it really bothers you,” you offer, and he thinks there’s nothing more to say but you keep on going, “But I like your name Sicheng. That’s why I call you that.”

This fact alone is entirely the truth. You really do love Sicheng’s full name. Love the whole lot of it, from beginning to end. It rolls off your tongue so easily. It belongs to him. You don’t really want to stop calling him that, but you also don’t want to lose him to your own childish interests.

Sicheng doesn’t want to lose you either.

“You can keep doing it,” you hear his voice drift down the line, “but stop yelling it all the time.”

You promise you will, and you keep that promise. If only to keep saying Dong Sicheng for another couple hours, for weeks and weeks, maybe even for years and years.

You wanted to call him Dong Sicheng for as long as he’d let you. Even if it was just through these tin can phones.

When you invited Sicheng over for dinner, you had greatly miscalculated your dad’s ability to keep away from his work.

Which is why you and Sicheng were, at the moment, pushed together on an inadequate contraption being passed off for a chair, in the bunker room of the local precinct. You don’t know how you convinced Sicheng to enter the building, what with his knees quaking so fiercely at all the tall uniformed men.

“You’re very skinny,” your dad says, and your uncle is sending him a pointed glare because he was the brother that inherited most forms of manners.

You don’t really say anything to disagree because Sicheng really is skinny. You liked that about him.

“I guess so,” Sicheng squawks out, and his eyes widen like he’s surprised by the sound he just made, “my brothers are… they’re kind of on the thinner side too.”

Your dad nods, and sticks his fork right into his salad, “A whole family of skinny boys. We need more of those, I’m tired of these meat heads.”

Sicheng thinks you’re kind of weird because you laugh at that. You usually laugh at most things your dad says, because he’s your dad, and you’re his daughter, and you shared most things. Sense of humor included. But, even while he’s kind of unsettled by that connection, Sicheng’s still infatuated by the way your lips curl up every time your dad says something. Even more when they curl up for him.

Most of the dinner goes on like that, with your laughing, and Sicheng’s staring, after Sicheng’s gotten over the fact that they’re not really eating dinner at a table, instead balancing bowls of food on the mattress of one of their overnight bunks, while both your uncle and your dad sit under a flannel blankets in police issued jumpers. Weird, again. But, Sicheng still likes you enough to ignore it.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” your uncle cuts into all your smiles, and your dad’s quips, and Sicheng’s staring, “are you two…”

Everyone at the table knows what he’s asking, and it’s such a party ending question. Sicheng can’t deny the implications fast enough, “we’re not.. we just… we’re-”

“Being safe about your activities?” Your dad finishes, and it takes Sicheng a good few seconds to catch up to what he really means.

He faints as soon as he does. In a sweaty, anxious pile on the chair you’re both sitting on.

Even though your dad insists on hauling him back home while he’s still passed out, you opt to wait until he comes to. And when he does, you both walk back down the path to both your houses following the road lit up by all the street lights.

“I fainted,” Sicheng says, and he has his arm draped around your shoulders for added support.

“You sure did,” you nod, and you’re smiling, “I have something to tell you.”

It’s quiet after you say that, and Sicheng doesn’t know why you’re not telling him the thing you said you wanted to say, “What is it?”

“I can’t say it here,” you answer, “we have to use the phones.”

The phones are just as much of a pain to lay out as they always are, and Sicheng makes a mental note to fix them in place for good someday.

When he hears your call from the other side of the wall, he puts the phone to his ear like he always does.

“You listening?” you’re asking, and Sicheng’s feeling impatient.

“Yeah, what is it.”

He’s waiting and waiting and waiting, and almost takes his turn to yell back at you when you finally answer.

“I think I might like you,” you say in the shyest sound he’s ever heard you utter, and he thinks his heart must’ve stopped, “And I just wanted to know if that was okay. For me to like you.”

Sicheng never really makes you nervous, mostly because you always feel so safe with him. But, when you’re sitting there in the dark, wrapped up in trees that go on and on and on, you find you’re more scared of him than you are of whatever is waiting in this stretch of darkness.

“You like me,” you hear him say.

“Think so,” you reply.

“In the way Kun said you liked me?”

And you laugh at that, “Yeah, I’d say so,” and when you’re not looking at the ground, you’re looking back at the wall of crates, which is small and so far off in the distance, “Do you hate me now?”

“No,” you hear him answer, and you finally breathe, “You can do that, I guess. You can like me.”

You give him a silly little thank you, before you take some time for yourself to be happy. The ground is wet underneath you, and the forest is awfully terrifying but you are just so completely elated at the moment, nothing could really ever hurt you. You pick the phone up again, just in time to hear the end of Sicheng’s reply.

“…for liking me.” And you figure the first words were thank you.

“Always,” you tell him, falling into the trap of this stretch of darkness, under the maples and alpines, atop the heads of blades and blades of grass, “Always.”

It takes Sicheng several weeks before he has the system of tin can phones set into place and working without a hitch.

Your glad he managed that, because now you can lay down in the comfort of your own room and not in the middle of a forest whenever you want to speak to him. Of course, you have to call him when you want to talk, which he thinks makes the whole system rather counter intuitive, but you think it’s just an added step to your own secret form of communication. You like keeping secrets with Sicheng.

It’s a very quiet Saturday morning, when you’re talking to him, and your windows are all fogged up with mist and you can’t see out to all the moss-covered roads and rusted cars. That’s all fine with you, because you’re just imagining Dong Sicheng all holed up in his mess of a room, with all his inventions scattered in pools around him. You bet his hair is messy again. It always is.

“What did you dream about last night, Dong Sicheng?”

What you can’t see on the other end, and what you absolutely can’t imagine, is the way he’s just frozen up at your question. Because he really doesn’t want to admit that he’d just woken up from a vivid dream of you. One where you’re sitting up on your wall like you always do, with your hair tied up in a bow, and your dress hanging in a pretty cloud around you. That’s really most of the dream, because Sicheng could watch the sight for hours. Sicheng could look at you for hours and never consider a single thing outside of that.

“Uh, wiring,” he lies, a very bad lie at that.

“Uh, wiring?” you repeat, mimicking his panicked tone.

“Yeah,” he tries to keep going, “In my computer.”

“That’s cool,” you say, kicking around your feet under your covers, and you really do think it’s cool because its Sicheng, and everything he does is your favorite, “I dreamt about a raccoon.”

“A raccoon.”

“Yeah, a really big one,” your voice rises in pitch, “Maybe the size of you. And it was in my house, picking at everything in my fridge, right before it got a good look at me. And, god, Sicheng was that thing scary…”

Your story goes on for the better half of an hour, and Sicheng decides he really loves your stories. Loves the frantic way you tell them, to the point where they start to lose all sense, and the way he thinks you’re slowly starting to get up, out from under your covers, because you really need to get your thoughts out.

“Y/N.”

You stop talking, “Yes, Sicheng?”

And Sicheng doesn’t know why he asks you this question, but he’s too caught up in his desire to know, “Do you… do you ever dream of me?”

You giggle, and so does Sicheng, “Most nights,” is your answer and Sicheng thinks he likes that, “You’re the one that saved me from the raccoon.”

You think about how Sicheng must be smiling. That shy smile- the one he hides under the cover of his cotton tee but is relentless in its perseverance. That smile that happens because you ponder him, and he loves the thought of you, and you dream of this moment dragging on into forever. A place where you sit and pass grins back and forth. All teeth in loud colors. That sounded perfect as your forever. Sounded perfect now.

“Sicheng, can I come over in a few hours?”

And Sicheng says yes, because he wants to dream of you tonight, with the clearest image of you and a sundress he has yet to see.

Your high school science fair has you thinking less about science and more about the inner workings of love and infatuation. About the gears that wound and wound and lead you to Dong Sicheng on a quiet rusted street.

You tell him this every now and then, as you trail down all the rows of projects, and he blushes-a rose that soaks into his cheeks and doesn’t fade.

“Did Kun make anything for the fair?” you ask him, after you’d prodded him enough about all the things that make him so great and how lucky you were that love worked the way it did.

He shakes his head, “No. Kun’s not good at making things.”

“Kun doesn’t seem to be good at anything,” you inquire, as you both stop to inspect a homemade tesla coil.

“Not true,” Sicheng says as he’s reading all the captions on the scrap booked poster, “He’s great at following me around.”

Sicheng has a way of making you laugh whenever you’re around, even if your uncle thinks he’s off beat and awkward.

“That’s a very useful quality,” you beam up at him, “Might even be the best. You know, that kind of loyalty.”

“It’s okay, I guess,” Sicheng shrugs, and decides he’ll move on to judge the rest of the inventions.

Sicheng’s made plenty of better things than the projects that litter the school gym for this fair, but you like the way he’s giving each one a certain amount of attention. Like they’re still worth the inspection, no matter how elementary they may be. It made him a good choice as a guest for the event, rather than bringing in your dad who was a juggernaut in his stride. You figured the projects were safer under Sicheng’s scrutiny than under your father’s careless feet.

The two of you pass by a paper-mache volcano, spewing out red molten liquid just in time for you both to observe. It’s a sad attempt at science, but Sicheng’s still looking at it like he’s trying to find value.

“I made that one,” you lie, leaning into his side.

“You did?” he arches a brow, and now he’s looking even harder for something good to say.

“No,” you stop his stream of thought, and tug him away from the mountain, “I didn’t make anything. Just like Kun.”

“Just like Kun,” Sicheng repeats.

“Yeah,” you say, and link your arm under his, “And we both like to follow you around. Funny.”

You come to the end of the fair, and find you’ve learned nothing at all. Not exactly at the fault of the student’s hard work and more because you’re only ever focused on Sicheng when he’s around.

“Maybe I should’ve brought our tin can phones,” you suggest, as you exit the doors of the gym and find yourselves in a hallway dotted with only a handful of people that smile at the tall and disheveled Sicheng you have hanging on your arm. You smile back, because Sicheng sticks out in a proud, unconventional way. A gangly pole with a ruffled head of hair that stumbles through and through. A bit of a mess, and right now he belongs to you. A perfect reason to smile.

“I made those,” Sicheng rings you out of your own thought, and he’s looking into all the passing classrooms wondering what he missed when he dropped out.

You shrug and slow down to match his pace, “I made you use them again.”

“That’s not science.”

You disagree with that, “I think there’s science there. In convincing people to do amazing things.”

Sicheng almost laughs, “All we do is talk about dreams and my inventions.”

“I think it’s amazing,” you say and you’re very convincing in the way that you draw out your words, “You should to.”

You catch onto the way Sicheng is slowly drawing closer and closer to the open classrooms, and figure you can find one for the two of you- If he was that interested. The one you find isn’t a science classroom, which you think is a shame, but it’s got plenty of tools and books that keep Sicheng on his feet, and that makes you happy.

“Why’d you drop out of school?”

This is really a question you think you should’ve had answered months back. You think you should’ve asked him when you first met, but you had done plenty of rude things when that happened, and you felt this question fell to cleanly under that category too.

Sicheng doesn’t seem all that disturbed by your curiosity, carding through a book on ancient literature, as he sits himself up on one of the desks, “Dad lost his job. Just couldn’t afford it anymore.”

That seemed like a reasonable enough answer. Sicheng loved learning so much, you knew he wouldn’t drop school so voluntarily. So you accept what he says with a tuned out hum, “you miss it. I’d guess.”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, not looking at you even though you’re looking at him, “would’ve been nice to read all these books and go to school with Kun. With you.”

While Sicheng always knows how to make you laugh, he also knew how to stop you from breathing entirely. By saying things like what he just did. Your mouth was stitched up so tight in a painful grin, no air could ever make it out.

Sicheng might’ve noticed the way you had stopped talking, because he puts down his book and gives you a curious tilt of his head, “Did I say something wrong?”

You shake your head, so fast, and your head is spinning, “Not a thing,” and he goes back to his reading, and you’re still foolishly smiling, “You didn’t say a single thing wrong.”

Of course, Sicheng believes you, because you’re honest when it comes to these things, perhaps not honest all the time, but definitely right now. But, then his lips are turning down in this unexpected frown, and you wonder why.

“You graduate next month,” he drawls out solemnly, eyes still on his book “Where are you going to go?”

You want to tell him you hadn’t really thought of that, but you most certainly had. You, with all the faith you had brewing in your heart, did care about Dong Sicheng and his quirky inventions, and you still very much wanted to know how he blew up a toaster, but you couldn’t put your life on hold for any day dreams. You wanted to, sometimes, but you both knew that was a useless idea to dwell on.

“Hong Kong,” you answer, and Sicheng looks even sadder at that, “I got accepted to a university over there.”

He’s trying to smile now, because this was good for you and things that were good for you were supposed to make him happy.

But then, his heart is dropping. And nothing’s really going to save him from this horrible sinking feeling.

Light spills in through the classroom window, feeling almost intrusive because this kind of silence isn’t supposed to be accompanied by good things like sunlight, or the laughing down the halls, or your beautiful yellow sundress. Silence like this is supposed to be silent; nothing’s supposed to be in it.

“Sicheng,” you say weakly, and you’re sitting right atop the desk that’s set in front of him, “Sicheng, you know I’m still going to dream about you right? I’d never let anyone else save me from raccoons.”

And Sicheng, no matter how badly he wants to be sad, thinks of you anyway, and the way you’re smiling even though he knows those are tears that are peaking out at the very corners of your eyes. Sicheng really loves you, for that, and for everything up until now.

“You better not,” he says, and he takes your hand in his, and the two of you sit there in silence, pushing away futures, and anything that’s going to keep you apart.

Your phone goes off in the middle of the night, and you answer the call only to be told to come to your tin can that’s hooked up beside your bed. You don’t argue, because this is your process and you always follow the process.

Sicheng’s voice is a little gruff, but clear as day in your own head, “I need you to go to the wall right now.”

“You need me to go,” you question, rolling your fleece sheets between the tips of your fingers, “right now?”

“Right now,” he repeats, and you know he’s running out of patience.

You’ve already made up your mind to do as he says, but you do so at a painfully lackadaisical pace, still talking to him through the phone, “You know it’s been a long day, right?”

“Yeah,” he answers.

“What with graduation and all,” you yawn, lazily throwing your sheets off, “I’m kind of tired out.”

“It’s a graduation gift,” he sputters out, like he’s racking his brain for things to hurry you along.

And that does catch your attention, because gifts interested you nearly as much as Sicheng.

“Do you have my talking watch?”

“Sure,” he says, “So just come out here. Now.”

And though he sounds so insincere, and you’re very sure you’re not getting any pink talking watches, you come down anyway after giving a him a quickly thrown out okay and another yawn because you are still extremely tired out.

You don’t think Sicheng planned this out very well, because while you’re making your way to the wall, you see him doing the same, and you think he must’ve forgotten you were both coming from the same place. You try not to let him know you’re following behind, though, because he just looks so cute in the way he’s stumbling about. He’s holding some things in his arms, and you think of how maybe he hadn’t lied when he said he had a gift for you.

“You think you’re sneaky,” you hear Sicheng call out, and he’s still walking on ahead.

“Am I not?” you drawl out quietly, pulling your coat tighter around your body as you try to match Sicheng’s strides.

“Absolutely not,” he says, and he’s slowing down, because you’re tired, or because the wall’s only a few feet ahead, you don’t really care, you’re thankful regardless.

There’s not really anything spectacular about the sight when Sicheng turns to look at you. He looks messy, as expected, maybe even messier with the added factor of it being midnight. And he’s wearing these cute slacks that seem to be trying to make up for the fact that his hair is just never quiet put together. It’s not spectacular, especially not for a spontaneous midnight outing following graduation, but you’re content with it all the same.

He gives you time to find your place on your wall like you always do, where you’re picking vines and looking down at him expectantly, “No talking watches?”

“Not yet,” he chuckles, and takes a second to let himself breath before he hands over a slip of paper.

It’s a train ticket to Hong Kong, made out for the twentieth of February, and you’re not really sure what you’re supposed to do with it.

“Dong Sicheng, this is nice and all, but I already bought my ticket.”

He’s leaning back against the wall, chin tilted up so he’s looking you right in the eyes, “Not for you.”

“Not for me?”

“Nuh-uh,” he shakes his head, “I bought that ticket for me.”

You know what this means, but you’re not really sure how it’s happening right now. Where did Sicheng buy this ticket? Where’d he get the money to buy it? Why wasn’t he sharing any with you?

And of course, Sicheng always has his answer, “I’ve been fixing up computers for people since last spring. People pay me a pretty attractive amount.”

“Attractive enough to get you a place to stay in Hong Kong?” you eye the ticket again and again, still not comprehending the situation.

“Enough for the first few months of rent,” he shrugs, “and I figure the software I’m working on well get me through for a bit of a while after that.”

You have no idea how he manages it. You never have any idea how Sicheng does the things he does, but right now you’re happy, and you try to keep your questions careful for fear of it all disappearing.

“Why’d you do that, Dong Sicheng?” you let bits of vine fall down onto the stairs, as you try to choke back these embarrassingly joyful tears.

And the dam that blocks of Dong Sicheng’s thoughts comes down, crumbles in your two hands.

“I love you. I love you and I never told you that. And I never gave you that watch, or the story of how the toaster exploded. I could’ve given you more, and I haven’t, and I’ve got to follow you, or I’ll never get to do any of that. I have to go to Hong Kong because, Hong Kong has you, and you are the only dream I want to follow.”

The street lights are flickering now: a countdown that warns you both to head home. You don’t see yourself leaving. Where Sicheng stands, he’s clenching his fists, and your hand finds the top of his head to sooth him down from his outburst. You watch your fingers disappear into the wilderness of his hair, let it calm the both of you before your lips curl into a playful simper, “You’re mighty dramatic, Dong Sicheng.”

“Don’t care,” he says through his uneven breaths and huffs that keep coming out, “I want to buy myself some time to do that all. I want to be with you.”

“So you are going to give me that talking watch someday,” you say, and ignore all the voices that tell you this isn’t right.

The two of you watch the sky, folding in its own stretch of darkness, in spaces which tuck away the science that speaks against your bond.

And Dong Sicheng smiles, “As long as you keep dreaming about me.”

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