#but the one thing i find really funny about chen lihua

[lizhly-writes]

one day i'll actually work on the canon of this original fiction instead of going off on an offbeat au. that day is not today. anyway here's the chen siblings being violent people i guess

Chen Liwei wishes he could threaten people. His face is hostile enough that it stops people from talking to him, but apparently not enough for him to scare them in a way that matters. Sure, they’ll be scared for the first five minutes --- an hour, if he’s really lucky --- but that’s not enough for them to rethink that dumb thing they want to do to him or his sister.

To make an impact that lasts longer, Chen Liwei usually has to beat people up.

Today, it’s some of his sister’s crazy stalkers.

“They’re technically not stalkers,” Chen Lihua says, not because she actually disagrees with his word choice, but because she’s a little shit who likes to argue with him for the sake of arguing.

“Fuck off,” Chen Liwei says.

“Don’t be so touchy,” Chen Lihua says, and then, “Hey, do you think if I’ll actually kill him if I hit him again?” She twirls the bat in her hand consideringly.

Chen Liwei gives the prone body in front of him a kick. Not too hard --- just to enough to budge it by a couple centimeters. It’d be nice if he was allowed to break some ribs, but --

“You’re not allowed to kill people, that’s illegal,” Chen Liwei says reluctantly. There’s a limit to how much damage they’re allowed to do. Too much, and then it’s not reasonable retaliation or just kids being kids or whatever the fuck the school or the police lets people get away with. It looks bad, and they can’t afford to look too bad if they want to be properly accepted to a good university.

Even if there are absolutely some people who deserve to die.

“How disappointing,” Chen Lihua says.

“Completely disappointing,” Chen Liwei says.

“I really can’t understand it,” Chen Liwei says, her lips curling. “It sounds so nice, saying you’re in love, but isn’t all of this just to get your dick wet with someone you barely know? I should tear that useless thing off, shouldn’t I?”

“Illegal,” Chen Liwei repeats.

“Fuck off,” Chen Lihua says. Thoughtfully, she taps her bat against the ground --- no, against the body, that’ll be another bruise right there. “Hey, Ge. Speaking of romance--”

“Is there someone you like?” Chen Liwei says skeptically, wrinkling his nose. Considering what they’re doing literally right now, that doesn’t seem right.

Chen Lihua snorts. “I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you.”

“Are you dumb?” Chen Liwei says.

Chen Lihua makes a rude noise. “You’re in a good mood these days, is all I’m saying. And there aren’t that many reasons for you to be in a good mood and also not tell me about it. Is there a beautiful sister-in-law I should be looking out for?”

Chen Liwei feels his face twist involuntarily.

“No?” Chen Lihua says. “That looks like a no. How tragic, I was looking forward to hearing about how some brave white lotus melted the heart of the school’s cool aloof beauty, and together, they bravely faced the world, overcoming all trials with the power of love--”

Chen Liwei shoves a hand over her face.

“Dickhead,” Chen Lihua says.

“Don’t make me throw up,” Chen Liwei says. “Why do you read so many shitty romance novels?”

“A better question is why don’t you read any shitty romance novels.”

“Because I don’t feel like eating trash.”

“Don’t sound so disgusted, there’s a certain appeal to eating trash--”

The body at their feet groans. As one, Chen Liwei and Chen Lihua kick it.

“Anyway,” Chen Lihua says. “So I don’t have a beautiful sister-in-law.”

“Why would you even think that.”

“Well, it’s true you really have been in a better mood,” Chen Lihua says. “Also, last week, some bitch tried flirting with you at lunch and you didn’t make her instantly regret existing.”

Chen Liwei wrinkles his nose in automatic revulsion. Flirting is annoying at best, rage-inducing at worst. Who wants this sort of attention? There’s no respect there. It’s only masses of people who want his body and face, all in the most revolting way possible. That sort of thing is enough to ruin his day.

...Which is why he really should have remembered if it happened last week.

“What?” Chen Liwei says. “Really?”

“You know,” Chen Lihua simpers, shifting her voice high and breathy as she demurely lowers her lashes. “It’s just --- you were so impressive when you dealt with Qi Mingtao earlier. So dashing and handsome! Actually, I’ve always thought you were a really cool person. I --- I just really wondered --- would you want to--- ?”

“You’re going to make me throw up,” Chen Liwei says flatly.

“You keep saying that but you never do it,” Chen Lihua cackles. “Gege, your stomach isn’t as sensitive you think it is! But yeah, it went a little like that. You really truly don’t remember?”

“Should I?”

“It’s not like it was a stranger. It was one of your classmates. Han Aihan?”

The name is vaguely familiar. It takes a moment, but he eventually associates it with a face. He has no memory of talking with it last week.

Chen Liwei shrugs.

“Shit, she’s been going around saying that clearly, you like her because you didn’t bother scaring her off and also wow, you smiled at her, and what, you weren’t even paying attention? Hey, do you even know who she is?”

Of course Chen Liwei knows who she is. He knows all of his classmates by name, even if he doesn’t remember straight off the bat. Generally speaking, Han Aihan is an average girl with no particular academic talent, extracurricular talent, or even social talent. In other words: “Nothing special.”

“I’ll pay you to say that to her face,” Chen Lihua says gleefully.

“No deal,” Chen Liwei says. “If you want to her to hear it so badly, say it yourself.”

“Ah, you’re no fun. Poor Han Aihan, she’s so unimportant to you that you can’t even be bothered to crush her heart personally. If she flat-out confessed to you, would you even hear it or would it just be ‘huh? Oh, were you talking to me?’”

With some effort, Chen Liwei vaguely recalls Han Aihan saying... something to him. Chen Lihua was right --- at the time, he really hadn’t been paying attention.

“Huh,” Chen Liwei says.

“You’re normally better at remaining awake and alert,” Chen Lihua says. “What were you distracted by? Thinking good thoughts? About what? Oooh, did somebody die?”

He’d honestly been thinking about the offended expression on Wu Youxuan’s face when he saw Chen Liwei’s perfect test score.

“How are you even doing this,” Wu Youxuan hissed. “You spend all of your time either at your job or beating people up, what kind of study medicine are you even taking that you can just casually walk in and get the best goddamn score, stop smiling I’m going to beat your face in --”

“You’d know if somebody died,” Chen Liwei says, and then, because he owes his sister honesty, says, “I have a...”

What’s the word he’s looking for? Acquaintance? Lackey? Victim?

“...Friend?” Chen Liwei finishes skeptically.

Even before their parents had died, Chen Lihua had always been the more social one of them. Back then, Chen Liwei had been abstractly aware of what friendship was, but he’d never really bothered with anything more than surface level relationships. A healthy classroom atmosphere where it was easy to find partners for class projects and maybe a game of basketball --- and that was pretty much all he cared about. After...

Well, he stopped caring about even that, eventually.

Anyway.

Is Wu Youxuan a friend? Maybe for lack of a better word, but Chen Liwei is almost certain he isn’t treating Wu Youxuan nice enough for that. Should he treat Wu Youxuan nicer?

“A friend,” Chen Lihua says dubiously. “You.”

“I’m allowed to have friends,” Chen Liwei says. “You have friends.”

This is a lie. Chen Lihua doesn’t have friends. She has ‘friends’: people that she chats with and laughs with, but doesn’t actually expend any real care or feeling for. She’s explained this before. Something about keeping a pleasant atmosphere, something about feeling like your ‘friends’ are friends, even if they badmouth you behind your back. It’s a lot of effort for not very much payoff, keeping on a fake face, day after day, always ready for the knife in the back.

Chen Liwei doesn’t really get it.

Wu Youxuan is at least upfront about the desire he has to stab Chen Liwei in the face.

“You’re smiling,” Chen Lihua observes.

“Well,” Chen Liwei says. Wu Youxuan is really funny when he wants to stab Chen Liwei in the face.

[lizhly-writes]

God, asking abt Yuhang made me remember the whole THING abt the mobster Haoran found KO'd on the street (bc last we saw Yuhang was when Haoran was??? Drugged???). Was there already a follow up piece to that or did I just have an elaborate fever dream abt Haoran getting this really poorly disguised stalker following him around? But honestly the way Haoran is (incidentally or otherwise) collecting the other male leads like pokemon is so funny to me.

AHAHA yeah that! I did, as it happens, write a followup. But it never made it to tumblr, and while I did play around with creepy stalker vibes, I was going to scrap it, since it didn’t quite vibe with what I was trying to plot out. I don’t believe you’re making this up from whole cloth though – I think you might be remembering bits from Chen Lihua’s stalker over here.

Well, we’re only at two love interests for Yang Haoran! Three, if you count Jiang Mingxi! Just enough for a Pokemon battle, but no more. I have not been planning on giving him more, but I will admit that I throw things in depending on whether or not I find it funny, soooo we'll see.

Anyway! Anyway!!! Your ask got me thinking about the followup again, so I started working on it. Here's a piece of it, under the cut.

Yang Haoran really thought he had successfully gotten away with it.  He’d been a bit nervous, but after a week with nothing out of the ordinary – well, more out of the ordinary than usual – he thought it would be fine to let his guard down.

He was so very, very wrong.

One day, as Yang Haoran was coming into work, he found a vaguely familiar man already at his desk, absently tracing fingers over the characters on Yang Haoran’s nameplate.

“...Hello, can I help you?” said Yang Haoran, whose memory for faces was not exactly the best.

It worried him that the man was vaguely familiar. Vaguely familiar meant that Yang Haoran had met him before, and he was a little too finely dressed to be a typical office drone – so, likely a higher-up that Yang Haoran had seen at a meeting or something similar.

Yang Haoran did not think there were very good reasons for a higher-up to unexpectedly be at his desk. Sure, Yang Haoran was a nepotism hire, so he couldn’t be fired, but nepotism only took you so far when the people who got you the position didn’t really like you very much in the first place.

“Was there a meeting this morning?” Yang Haoran said cautiously. “I don’t seem to remember getting an invite?”

“You saved my life,” said the man, and abruptly Yang Haoran figured out why the man looked familiar.  He looked a lot different under the office lights and not covered in his own blood.  

The first thought Yang Haoran had was, oh, good, I’m not in trouble.

The second thought Yang Haoran had was, I should have let him die. 

“What,” Yang Haoran said slowly, instead of fuck dammit, like he wanted to.

The man smiled. It was a nice smile, as far as smiles went, and Yang Haoran would appreciate it a lot more if it wasn’t caused by his own mistakes coming back to haunt him. “I’m sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Wu Youxuan. You’re Yang Haoran.”

It wasn’t a question. Yang Haoran wished it was a question.

“Yes, I see you’ve read my nameplate,” Yang Haoran said. He should have left it home. It wasn’t as if It was a real nameplate, he wasn’t high-ranking enough for the company to actually give him one. No, this was a joke that Zhao Yuhang had presented to him, saying something along the lines of “You don’t think you’ll be important enough for people to know your name? But you’re so important in my heart, A-Hao! Everyone should know who you are!”

...Anyway.

Yang Haoran smiled – pleasant, professional, and puzzled. “I’m… not sure what you’re talking about. I think you might have the wrong person?”

Let no one say that Yang Haoran was a bad liar.

“Is that so? It’s just – your face looks very familiar. I was in, ah, a predicament a little while ago, and I could have sworn…”

“Are you sure it wasn’t someone who looked five to six points similar? Maybe I just have one of those faces.”

Yang Haoran knew for a fact that he did not have one of those faces. He was supposed to be a character worthy of the attentions of the female lead, capable of making the main character feel unworthy by merely existing. The young master of the Yang family, well-dressed, head high, hair swept out of his face, had an objectively striking appearance and presence, quite possibly aided by some plot-driven aura attached to his person.

The key was that Yang Haoran, messy-haired and with the style and demeanor of an average salaryman, didn’t.