Mondays aren’t as bad as Wei Qing imagines.
Then again, a rare day in is different than the droning monotony of most nine to fives, and his recent health and relaxation kick means that rest is one thing he’s not short on. Honestly, it’s a bit like being back in college again, hurrying out in the morning just like everyone around him, instead of living on his own time. Of course, he still has a chef-turned-driver-turned-valet to make things easy on him, but the world has never been fair, and some people are just terribly unaware of their own advantages.
That isn’t to say he’s not deeply grateful for Yue Fei, just that his perception of easy is… skewed by the man, rather badly. Just like his aesthetics and taste buds have been. Essentially, he’s been ruined.
And maybe it’s thanks to that impossibly smooth gala the Friday before, but the workers of Wei Securities don’t even seem particularly surprised to see this (newly minted) Wednesday-Friday boss on a Monday morning. Though not everyone is pleased–
As Wei Qing crosses to the elevator bank, his eyes clash with those of his elder brother, displeasure and discomfort written clearly across his face. His face that is, even at this distance, obviously taking him in. Wei Qing- Through the bubbling anger and the stab of inadequacy that courses through him… he… doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t understand when he became so displeasing to his brother’s eyes.
He knows he’s done wrong, but he still doesn’t understand what he did to first deserve it.
He never has! What’s so very bad about him, that even his presence at the office is enough to make Wei Qiwan disdain him like this? Because that is what it is about, him at the office. Him back in the family business. Wei Qiwan’s never seemed to notice his much bigger sins. It makes no sense!
What kind of brother, what kind of person, ignores you when you are an embarrassing mess, but actively dislikes you when you apply yourself? And what’s worse– What kind of person does that, after years of encouraging you, acting like they cared, talking up how grand it would be, to work together and shake the heavens? He’d lied. His elder brother, who he’d thought could do no wrong, had lied to him. About all of it.
Lied about loving him.
Wei Qing feels the tension building in the jaw he’s locked, as he waits for the next executive elevator. Feels the ragged edges of that hurt confusion that had shaped so much of his life, since that first failed prospectus. He’s not an idiot; he knows there must be something else in play, something else that he did, or allowed, or was part of, to explain this utter abandonment.
But it hurts too much to look at, much less spend the time to unravel.
So he sneers and he starts problems, even as he wishes for impossible things– like apologies, explanations, brotherhood. Heh. No wonder he’d been short-lived, with such a childish brain circuit, trying to call back bubbles that had already popped.
Just as Wei Qing is starting to experience the cultural touchstone that is ‘hating Mondays’ after all, Yue Fei squeezes his wrist and passes over a napkin-wrapped osmanthus jelly, sourced from who-knows-where. Wei Qing certainly hadn’t seen him cook it or order it or magick it out of the air.
Its… pretty cute. Just the right amount of wobbly.
The elevator arrives, he starts to nibble, and those old hurts are carried back out on a familiar tide. It’s fine. Even if his brother hates him, always, for reasons he is too cowardly to investigate or understand–
At least, if he can keep impressing Yue Fei, keep him by his side… He can live with that.
He didn’t need so many people. Even one person could be enough, even if it meant he’d be completely dependent…. At least he wouldn’t have to feel that loneliness. At least with Yue Fei, he never had to wonder what he did wrong. Yue Fei told him, clearly. Sneered and complained and dressed him down when he deserved it; praised and spoiled and complimented him when he corrected. That was a framework that made sense, a stability that he needed after the rug-pulling that had been his twenty-first year.
Between Wei Qiwan and Gao Zhong, he’d been at his lowest point then. And only Yue Fei had stuck around, stuck by him through that slump. Even his parents had disappered to their little slice of paradise as if being out of college made him fully grown. As if he didn’t still need them.
So he would eat his jelly and let those superfluous feelings roll off his back, and make Yue Fei proud of him. Starting with the gauntlet of awkwardness that this little meeting was bound to be.
Xiao Lirong, please keep your clothes on and your mouth honest.
—
It’s nine on a Monday, in an office, outside of the world of dogblood corporate dramas– so yes, Xiao Lirong arrives appropriately clothed. Even if the slim fit of his Oxford makes Wei Qing instinctually concerned. But with Xiao Lirong demurely settling down across from him, a heavy desk of distance between any footsie or similar shenanigans, and Yue Fei standing behind him like the world’s first oxygen-depleting houseplant…
It’s fine. Everything’s fine. He can do this.
“Water?” Yue Fei doesn’t offer, so Wei Qing is left to. Xiao Lirong shakes his head and taps the thermos in his hand.
“No thank you, Wei-g…” Oof, now the houseplant is gearing up to attack someone. Xiao Lirong is clever though, and quickly corrects, “Mr. Wei. Sir. I brought coffee from home.”
“Right then. Well, anyway… Look, we can’t keep hooking-”
“Please turn over your phone before this meeting continues.” Ooh, and now the houseplant can talk! And move! While Wei Qing is amusing himself with avoidant humor, Yue Fei very efficiently takes the instantly proffered smartphone and slips it into some fancy signal-blocking bag. They are a securities company after all.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Vegf, atf RGC mbnfgr fnfgsatlcu (fnfc atlr) yea Tef Mfl tjr cfnfg yffc bcf ab ajxf glrxr. Ugbyjyis yfmjerf tlr fwqibsfg ajxfr rb nfgs wjcs bo atfw.
Qfl Hlcu kjnfr tlr jqbibulfr, offilcu jkxkjgvis ilxf atf asgjca jybea ab atgbk wbcfs lc tlr fz-ibnfg’r ojmf. Dea fnfc lo atf rafqr jgf rlwlijg, tf rkfjgr atlr lrc’a atja!
“Where was- Right. Mr. Zhao, I’m… very remorseful, about the way you arrived at this company. And how you arrived… isn’t how things will continue to proceed. I’ve decided our Lord and Saviour Jesus is my only husband-” Xiao Lirong chokes on air, and Wei Qing can hear the eye roll from Yue Fei behind him. At least it cuts the tension, and that’s the goal. “Well, not really, but I really am trying to not… do all that… anymore. Which makes your position here a little awkward.”
He pauses, sips his water, wishes he’d written this all down on flashcards after all. Surprisingly, it’s Xiao Lirong who restarts the conversation, a weary sort of false optimism in his tone. Something Wei Qing is intimately familiar with.
“Of course. I understand. Mr. Wei is moving on with his life, throwing out his bad habits.”
“That’s not exactly-”
“It’s fine. Thank you for giving me a year of stability, it’s more than I expected.” Xiao Lirong looks very young, when he smiles so bitterly. “Honestly. I know what I am. Mr. Wei is not the first to outgrow this-” He self-deprecatingly waves at his own body, “-and he won’t be the last. ”
Xiao Lirong screws the lid of his thermos tight and stands up, ready to bow all nice and properly. Part of being a good sugar baby is keeping things light and friendly, especially when they end. Not having feelings and opinions is part of the attraction, at least for a certain type of man.
“Do you want me to be?”
“Pardon?”
“I won’t be the last. But do you want me to be? You- come on, sit down again, otherwise I’ll feel like I have to stand up, and then we’ll all be weird assholes who stand when we can sit.” Wei Qing resists the urge to look at his handsome houseplant and Xiao Lirong complies, confused but listening. “Great. Right. So, I was pretty fucked up for… really, everything around all this, but didn’t you… want to be a med tech, or something like that?”
“…I did.” Quiet, the solemn voice of someone paying their respects at the grave of their dreams.
Wei Qing plows right on.
“Cool. Well, you really suck at this job, but hey- it’s not on you. It’s on whatever asshole hired you and plunked you down without any guidance or qualifications.” Whoever that asshole might be, ahem. “Anyway. Go to cram school, or hire a tutor. I’ll pay for it. Take the entrance exams, and wherever you get in, I’ll pay for that as well. We can call it a scholarship or… something. Longterm it’s cheaper than you being an assistant, and you know… you’ll have more ability to make me the last. If you want me to be.”
Xiao Lirong’s knuckles are very white, as he tries not to be taken in.
“Mr. Wei, you really don’t have to be this generous. It’s out of proportion with our entanglement.”
Is it? Wei Qing legitimately can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter. He’s spent money on stupider shit.
“Then take it as you benefiting from all the guilt I have to other people I messed around with. Daddy Jesus is like, really committed to atoning, or something. I don’t know, I’ve never actually checked.”
Wei Qing manages to ruin his heroic image in just three sentences.
Oddly, it seems to help Xiao Lirong accept the generosity, bow deeply, and scurry off to research prep programs and universities, now that his always-inconsistent boss/fuck buddy is offering so very much stability. He wants to strike while the iron is hot, enroll before Wei Qing can come off this new bender of righteousness.
A harsh, but reasonable conclusion, given the behaviors he’s seen (and participated in).
—
It’s very quiet, after Xiao Lirong leaves. You can even here the thumping of Wei Qing’s nervous leg against the edge of his desk.
“That was okay, right?”
“It was overly generous… But fine.”
As soon as Xiao Lirong dismisses himself, Yue Fei returns to personhood, disinfecting the desk and chair with a fervor that Wei Qing would call petty on anyone else, but just calls part of his fastidiousness when it’s Yue Fei engaging in it.
“The religion bit was strange.”
“Strange is better than being an overbearing (Vice) President.” Wei Qing spins his keyfob against the polished wood as he watches Yue Fei’s smooth movements. “I just… I don’t want to be the guy throwing money at… someone… even if that’s what it is.” He is going to very nicely pretend that Xiao Lirong is just an employee that didn’t work out. Yue Fei is kind enough to go along with it.
“Master Wei has always been very tenderhearted.”
Wei Qing laughs, “You are very probably the only person who thinks that.”
“Then I am the only person who is correct.”
Yes, you’ve always been. The perfect, the best– how much I could have avoided if I’d realized that earlier instead of having to replay all this. Ah, at least there are enough shows I missed and things I forgot, to keep it interesting absent the option to fast-forward.
Yue Fei is one of those people with the gravitas to make anything sound like fact. A conviction seductive enough that a small part of Wei Qing is won over, to this idea of his own tenderness. He hums and leans back in the chair and wonders what, exactly, one does with the rest of a Monday, when their whole reason for coming into work is concluded by 9:30 AM.
Probably… browse the internet, right? Play games? Or, ah… maybe… His fingers twitch towards the locked desk drawer, where his first draft of the D-Day prospectus is presumably still wallowing in its own unworthiness. He actually gets the key into the lock this time, before deciding he is not ready to deal with all that.
Phone it is.
He slinks from the desk to the couch like he’s expecting to be scolded.
But if Yue Fei is judging his (lack of) work ethic, he’s polite enough to hide it. Other than fishing away his phone every few hours and making him walk around to avoid blood clots, the guy leaves him to his own devices, quietly sitting off to the side and doing whatever it is he does, when not having to take care of the care and feeding of Wei Qing. Actually-
Wei Qing flips off of his back and onto an elbow, only temporarily distracted by the thought of how hot it would be, if Yue Fei was seated behind his own desk and staring him down, judging him for being so lazy and boneless. Again, broken brain, pay no mind to it.
“Hey, Yue Fei?”
Yue Fei looks up, bathed in the softness of a morning not yet blazed into the full force of a noonday sun. Wei Qing feels a frisson of pleasure, at the way his eyes quickly skim over him and the surrounding area, protective and proactive in his attentions. It would be better to be worthy of such attention absent a salary, but Wei Qing isn’t greedy. Honest.
“What do you do, when I’m not doing anything?”
“Is there a task?”
“No, I just… I mean, you spend all your time with me. Even when we’re not together, you’re always around. How can you stand it?”
Hey, am I too needy? Did Wei Qiwan give you weekends off, did his household staff let you have a life of your own? Do I need to invite more staff into our bubble, to keep you around? I will, I will, just tell me and it’ll be done.
God, do I have to make way for someone else to date you, even?
Yue Fei shrugs, seemingly unconcerned with his own existence. “Master Wei is not as hard to stand as he believes.” Yue Fei squints and bites against the pad of his thumb. “When he’s behaving himself, that is.”
Well, add that to the pile of things that are accidentally erotic. At this point, Wei Qing will need to forget his entire math curriculum just to make room for all of them. It’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make, even as he presses further, curiosity and the desire for closeness coming together.
“But like, you don’t take holidays, or nights off… don’t you have a family or lover or- umm… I just mean… I can be reasonable! If you want that, I just mean, I don’t mind…”
I do, but I know that’s scary and broken, so I’ll pretend I don’t! Just for you!
Yue Fei stands, walks over, squats down. Close enough that Wei Qing is lost in his eyelashes again.
“Is Master Wei planning something?” Those lashes, this closeness, that voice– Wei Qing temporarily forgets how to breathe. Which does nothing to help him eloquently explain that he’s not trying to sneak groupies into their newly cloistered home, he just doesn’t want Yue Fei to think of him as a chore or obligation or whatever.
“Plan? No plan, just- don’t want to be a bother.” His voice grows softer and softer with each word, his cheeks heat to powdery pink under the attention.
My family literally pays you to deal with me, but I don’t want to overdo it. Also please pay attention to and feed me and protect me forever, but not in an obligated sort of way, thanks.
Yue Fei leans back on his heels, rolls something around in his mouth before deciding to speak. To share, even.
“It’s no bother. I don’t have a family, and I don’t have Master Wei’s interest in romance.”
By the end of that second sentence, there’s an odd catch in his tone and his ears are red again. Wei Qing thinks there’s a secret here, but it’s not his place to dig. Not right as Yue Fei is voluntarily opening up to him. All things in moderation, or something like that.
Yue Fei continues, “A quiet life helping manage the louder life of someone else… is exactly what I am good at. Especially when Master Wei is being so diligent about lowering his volume.”
Ah! Compliments! Compliments and suggestions that he really could do this forever; that he’s not saving up to marry some girl in his home village or take care of his parents or buy an island or whatever. Wei Qing is back to liking Mondays again. Really a great day all around. A+, would recommend.
—
Yue Fei is mostly honest, in what he tells Wei Qing.
He was raised to be like this, and there is no family that he claims, although biologically… he probably has plenty of kin.
It’s one of the side-effects of growing up in a commune where no one worries about things like parentage, but everyone is experiencing the guru on the (not so) downlow. His mother was favored, his father is– if he had to guess, he can’t imagine that old fart sharing her out as magnanimously as his teachings suggest. Unfortunately, he’s probably a true-blooded child of the man. Even now with all manner of young things following them around wherever they’d fled to avoid extradition, his mother was still, as far as he knew, part of a triumvirate of harem empresses, only with more hallucinogenics than true poisons.
The only lie lay in his interest in romance.
And even then, he’s not really lying. Just not over-sharing things that can only serve as useless complications. He… has interests. Maybe. Very recently acquired ones, centered on a certain someone that is in turns devilish and angelic like flipping a switch. But he doesn’t want them, doesn’t need to feel those things, so there’s no point in sharing them.
He’s human. He has physiological responses when someone beautiful and enticing grinds against him and kisses him like he’s the only person in the world that could ever matter, the only one it needs to hold to be worth living in. It’s normal to react. Normal to think about it, to wonder if all that passion and those deep appetites could stay boxed up and focused on one person.
Probably not.
And Yue Fei is not his mother. He has no interest in sharing. Not even a little bit.
So this temporary fascination is just that– an interlude, a splash of color before everything returns to the comforting baseline of gray that he so enjoys wrapping around his existence. He can be intrigued, drawn to it, without being foolish enough to forget their real palette:
Wei Qing is his master. He is Wei Qing’s servant.
Wei Qing is brilliant. But he is not stable, monogamous, or able to persevere through the kind of things needed for a lifetime commitment. And that’s fine. He doesn’t need to have those characteristics. Yue Fei is here to help him be the best, most long-lived version of his true self, not to mold him into something completely antithetical, just to match his own dull preferences.
He can’t have romantic feelings for Wei Qing, because Wei Qing will disappoint him. But that’s fine. He just won’t have them. He’ll let the dreams and the what-ifs run their course, he’ll remember those terrible photos and all the scenes he had to clean up after, for years and years, and eventually, they’ll move into a safe space again, where there is nothing sexual between them.
It helps that Wei Qing doesn’t remember it. That he was probably picturing that stupid television general, or TYY, or- well, anyone who isn’t him. Yes. It’s good that it worked out that way. Neater. More convenient.
He’s definitely not the tiniest bit disappointed. Definitely doesn’t wish that Wei Qing’s good behavior was coming from a desire for him as a man, rather than a source of the kind of strict platonic love that he was so obviously weak to resist. He certainly didn’t feel that he’d won when Wei Qing so cleanly broke relations with that Rong’er person. Because that would be ridiculous.
Yue Fei refuses to be a ridiculous man.
…
If only his dick would get the message.
Author’s Corner:
Just like Wei Qing, Yue Fei is Yue Fei for a reason.
I love a character who can project that it’s more economical to pay tuition than to keep on an unfit employee, but still get lost in Yue Fei’s eyelashes 😻. The wording throughout this work so far is truly beautiful.
I wish they could just read each other’s mind 🥲
Ooo, it’s so interesting to learn more about Yue Fei’s background!! I wonder if we’ll see more of that commune (possibly cult?) in the future? At least Yue Fei is starting to understand his feelings now… if only he knew Wei Qing is in the same boat.
Hehe i love them both
Wei Qing is the biggest simp ever. Love it.
😮💨 this mans though process stresses me out 😂
Idk why I’m crying over a fictional character’s broken self esteem on a Friday morning before work, but here we are.
I’m still concerned about how dependent WQ is, but at least he knows about it.
And he’s already trying his darnedest to be good, so I’m just glad the baby is okay for now.
Poor YF, it’ll get better buddy (idk I haven’t read ahead yet so crossing fingers here).