#wu youxuan: so there's an 'us'?

[lizhly-writes]

tell us more about qi mingtao! clear cannon fodder, but i'm kinda curious about whether the high school bully dude ever advances into the adult stage of the novel by becoming some low-to-middle-ranking corporate flunky that pretends he's got the ear of the president to bully clw somehow...

Qi Mingtao is richer than you. Qi Mingtao is better than you.

...at least at Chen Liwei's school, anyway. Qi Mingtao is certainly more well-off than Chen Liwei, but let's face it: it's not hard to be more well-off than Chen Liwei. Like you said, he's cannon fodder. He's not particularly special, and I didn't really mean him to be. He's either 1) wealthier than anyone at the school, but like, still small fry 2) has a relative that's in a position of power at the school itself, like an uncle who's a superintendent or something. Either of these ensures that he's got people following around doing what he tells them.

It's not impossible for him to advance into the adult stage of the novel. People grow up. People need jobs. Low-to-middle-ranking corporate flunky seems appropriate.

Bullying Chen Liwei at work... well, however that turns out that will depend what kind of bullying we're talking about. If it's just some mean remarks and minor favors, whatever. Chen Liwei could probably deal with that himself without too much of an issue. But if it's anything ruining Chen Liwei's career, life, livelihood, etc?

At a certain stage, this will become a very bad idea, because Wu Youxuan will kill you.

[lizhly-writes]

hiya.

First impression of Wu Youxuan: nothing.

This is what Chen Liwei thinks of most of his classmates. Log down the name, remember the face, pick out their impressions toward him --- hostile, neutral, favorable --- and save it for later. ‘Wu Youxuan’ settles firmly into the neutral category and then Chen Liwei forgets about his existence the rest of the time.

Until he doesn’t.

The thing is, Wu Youxuan genuinely thinks that Chen Liwei is going to kill him.

It’s a little special, considering that nobody ever thinks he’s serious when he says he’s going to beat people up. He does it, and there’s this shock of “wow, the school grass is so much more powerful/domineering than we thought”, before it all goes back to the status quo of “surely a little white face like him couldn’t really put up a fight and everyone else who tried were just weaklings and/or we just had a bad day and we’ll definitely get him next time.”

It isn’t like Chen Liwei is invincible, but he’s certainly better than their expectations of him. He surprises them every time. Even if it’s the same people he’s fighting.

Memory of a fucking goldfish.

And then there’s Wu Youxuan, who, despite the fact that Chen Liwei has barely even shared the same airspace as him, is overwhelmingly convinced that Chen Liwei will beat him down into mincemeat.

Admittedly, yeah, at one point, Chen Liwei was absolutely going to do that. But first of all: that was a misunderstanding. Second of all, Chen Liwei honestly thought that Wu Youxuan was going to forget, because that’s what happens every fucking time Chen Liwei tries to make threats. It’s just “haha, you wouldn’t really” or “do you really think something like you could ever do anything” or “nice joke! I didn’t know you could make jokes!”

No one ever fucking takes him seriously.

Except, for some reason, Wu Youxuan.

Wu Youxuan is afraid, and Chen Liwei isn’t ashamed to say that he likes it.

Hey. He’s never claimed to be a good person. School forum gossip that he’ll soften if the right girl comes to tame him? That he might be a jerk, but deep inside, he’s got a heart of gold? Lies. He’s jerk all the way down.

Chen Liwei demands unreasonable things from Wu Youxuan, and Wu Youxuan keeps giving them to him. What, as if he thought it was perfectly normal to ask some random classmate to help him beat up other people? Like Chen Liwei is that far removed from regular social etiquette? Come on.

Is this what it’s like to be Qi Mingtao? Shit, he might understand why that guy goes on power trips so often, then. This is fun.

Chen Liwei doesn’t really expect Wu Youxuan to stay afraid. Chen Liwei isn’t so unreasonable that he’ll try to keep him that way. It’s not like he hates Wu Youxuan enough for that. So Chen Liwei keeps making threats, and he keeps not following through on them, and if it were Chen Liwei dealing with this kind of behavior, he’d figure out the pattern and then fuck off.

Except Wu Youxuan doesn’t do that.

“I’m not actually going to beat you up if you don’t listen to me,” Chen Liwei outright says.

“Fuck off,” Wu Youxuan says. He’s still swinging that baseball bat that Chen Liwei gave him, proper form and only getting more proper. Getting better, getting stronger, like Chen Liwei wanted him to, and that’s the thing: why is he still doing what Chen Liwei wants?

Even after all of this, even after Wu Youxuan’s grown a spine, he still gives into whatever unreasonable thing Chen Liwei demands of him. Isn’t that something.

“Are you just used to listening to me by now?” Chen Liwei says. “Fucking weirdo.”

Wu Youxuan glares up at him. “I,” he says, almost over-enunciating the word, “am going to beat your face in.”

It’s a threat. In general, Chen Liwei can’t even remember how many times he’s been threatened. This sort of thing happens everyday, and it usually only pisses him off.

Chen Liwei surprises himself when he ends up laughing instead.

Fucking hell, is this what it’s like being in a good mood? He hasn’t had one of those in a while.

“You,” Chen Liwei says, grin still pulling weirdly at his face, “are going to have to try harder than that.”