jinghulaozu

[jinghulaozu]

Modern!AU in which it was simply necessary to talk Part 2/3

Jiang Cheng has always had trouble apologizing — it doesn't matter if he apologized himself or asked for forgiveness from him. The quarrelsome nature and pride did not allow him to step over himself and let go of the situation. But this time he understood that he was really to blame. Jiang Cheng did not just overreact, but did not consciously offend Nie Huaisang greatly. Although, can it be called "unconsciousness" that he did not think when he said those words to a-San? Rather, it is "criticism".

They hadn't seen each other since that ill-fated Friday, and Jiang Cheng had the whole weekend to cook in a lot of guilt and anger at himself. He firmly decided that he would talk to Nie Huaisang and put everything in its place so that everything would be as before. So that they would return to a time when the biggest reason for quarrels for them was the choice of a movie at a sleepover together.

Jiang Cheng shrugs off the memories from high school and continues walking down the corridor in search of the auditorium where Nie Huaisang's lecture is about to begin. The chance that he doesn't skip it is unlikely, but it still exists.

To Jiang Cheng's great joy, Nie Huaisang still came. To his disappointment, Nie Huaisang was not alone. He was standing in front of the auditorium doors, leaning against the windowsill in the company of people unknown to Jiang Cheng. Nie Huaisang was talking enthusiastically about something, while actively gesticulating. His interlocutors listened with no less interest, from time to time inserting their comments and, as it seemed to Jiang Cheng, not the funniest jokes, at which they laughed together. Which was not laughed at by Huaisang either. From the snatches of conversation, Jiang Cheng realized that they were discussing an exhibition that took place just this weekend.

Jiang Cheng pursed his lips, watching a-San's fun from afar with prickly dislike. Apparently, Jiang Cheng is the only one who naively believed that what happened hit the two of them so much that they would prefer to stay at home. After all, as far as he understood, only he was holed up. From his gloomy thoughts, he was pulled out to an irritating ringing laugh, which was aimed at attracting attention, but clearly not Jiang Cheng.

He looked up just as the laughing girl placed her palm on Nie Huaisang's shoulder. She was sitting on the very windowsill that Nie Huaisang was leaning against, so she had to bend down to look at his face. And she did it harder than she should have. Nie Huaisang did not pull away even a millimeter, but on the contrary, nodded in agreement to something and also laughed. Jiang Cheng frowned even more.

He doesn't remember if she was sitting there from the very beginning or jumped on the windowsill recently, but he clearly remembered how many times she deliberately or accidentally touched Nie Huaisang. And she did it more often than is customary with a recent acquaintance, as if she did not know what the "rules of decency" were.

These acquaintances of Nie Huaisang, and in particular this girl, were beginning to annoy Jiang Cheng. And perhaps the point here is that Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng have not talked so enthusiastically for a long time. And, perhaps, this pulling feeling in the chest is a quiet resentment.  Maybe.

When the company remembers about the time and begins to disperse, so as not to be late for their pairs, Jiang Cheng exhales with relief and finally goes forward to intercept Nie Huaisang in front of the doors to the auditorium and take him by the hand to the stairs. It seems that he is still skipping this lecture, but this time on the initiative of Jiang Cheng.

"Jiang Cheng? Hello," Nie Huaisang's voice clearly shows surprise at the sudden meeting. And there is not even a distant note of anger or former resentment in it. Jiang Cheng doesn't know if it pleases him or, on the contrary, offends him. While he is trying to figure out what he still feels, Nie Huaisang is awkwardly crumpling, straightening his hair, “How was the weekend?"

This seemingly simple phrase triggers Jiang Cheng, and he crosses his arms and slightly furrows his eyebrows.

"Clearly more boring than yours. So you'd better tell me."

Nie Huaisang seems a little lost and for the first couple of seconds doesn't even know what to say.

"Do you remember that contemporary art exhibition I told you about with Wei Ying?" — he clarifies uncertainly, wringing his fingers a little. "You didn't like the brochure back then and refused to go."

Jiang Cheng has an unpleasant pain in his chest, and he exhales noisily through his nose. There really was such a conversation, but it wasn't like that.

"I said that modern art is far from my understanding, but I didn't say that I wouldn't go with you," he says irritably, and then adds: "But it doesn't matter anymore. "

Nie Huaisang gets lost again and looks away guiltily. They are silent for a while, and Jiang Cheng begins to get angry about this situation, so he tries to return to the topic of conversation:

"So what's up with the exhibition?"

"Well," Nie Huaisang continues to crumple and opens his mouth to say something, but still remains silent. When he finally makes up his mind and a spark of admiration lights up in his eyes, Jiang Cheng thinks that he will start talking about the paintings he saw there. What he definitely did not expect was that instead of telling about paintings that Jiang Cheng did not understand, Nie Huaisang would begin to talk enthusiastically about his new friends: "At the exhibition I met the guys and it turned out that they also study at our university, can you imagine? Zhu An has his own musical group, and Mi Xiaoming sometimes performs in the theater. He knows the whole corpse personally and even promised to introduce me to them. We passed each other so many times in the corridor and didn't even realize that we had so much in common."

The enthusiasm and joy with which Nie Huaisang talks about them evokes an incomprehensible mixture of emotions in Jiang Cheng. He is confused, upset and angry at the same time, and every new word makes him feel only more disgusted with these people. He doesn't understand why Nie Huaisang keeps talking about them. They have already left, but Nie Huaisang is still with them, and not with Jiang Cheng here and now.

He listens to the praises of Nie Huaisang's new friends until his patience begins to resemble a red-hot metal rod.

"As far as I noticed, you met not only the guys," Jiang Cheng interjects when Nie Huaisang takes a pause for longer than two seconds.

"Oh, Chen Shun?" Nie Huaisang understands his message and continues just as happily. "You know, she's..."

"I'm not interested," Jiang Cheng cuts him off and frowns, simultaneously biting his tongue. Nie Huaisang falls silent in confusion and Jiang Cheng turns away, not allowing his thoughts to touch his tongue. He came here to talk to Nie Huaisang. He basically didn't want to know anything about these "incredibly creative personalities", and about this Cheng Shun in particular.

"That's a bit rude, don't you think?" Finally, Nie Huaisang speaks, also frowning. His voice sounds much quieter, and not so enthusiastic anymore. This tone reminds Jiang Cheng of Friday night. Something tugs at his chest again, and he turns around, unable to keep the words between his teeth:

"Having fun with 'new friends' behind Wei Ying and me is also a bit rude, don't you think?" This mirrored phrase of Nie Huaisang sounds like a mockery and the guy raises his eyebrows in disbelief. This confusion of Nie Huaisang only makes Jiang Cheng more uncomfortable from the inside.

"Are you trying to make me feel guilty now?" Nie Huaisang does not ask, but rather clarifies, and also crosses his arms over his chest. The manner in which he says this somehow reminded Jiang Cheng of his mother's manner, and he flares up:

"No, I'm trying to figure out what the hell? "somehow it turns out that in addition to anger, resentment slips into his voice, and Nie Huaisang no longer frowns. He stares into Jiang Cheng's eyes for a while, and then looks down and sighs wearily:

"Listen, there were always three of us, and we had fun. But then Wei Ying had a relationship, and he began to pay more attention to them than to us. So I don't see anything wrong with making new acquaintances too."

"Wei Ying has a relationship, you have "new acquaintances", and I will go on a solo voyage?"  Jiang Cheng waves his hands in indignation and takes a step towards Nie Huaisang.

"I didn't say that," Nie Huaisang shakes his head gloomily. "You can make friends with someone too."

"I was fine with everything up to this point," Jiang Cheng says angrily, pointing at himself and taking another step towards Nie Huaisang. The latter moves away from him and almost presses his back against the wall. He feels trapped in a cage, so he looks up at Jiang Cheng with an angry look.

"It didn't suit you much, since I became a problem for you," he says, clearly recalling a recent quarrel. His eyes are full of resentment and disappointment, and Jiang Cheng realizes that Huaisang did not forget anything, but just tried to pretend that nothing had happened. Jiang Cheng's heart skips a beat, and then pulls with such force that it is impossible to breathe. He wanted to have a normal conversation. Guilt pours out on him like icy water, but before he can say anything, Nie Huaisang continues, "Don't worry, I won't burden you with myself anymore."

Nie Huaisang shoves his palm into his chest, pushing him away from himself and immediately turns around, running down the stairs to the first flight and opens the door.

"What?"  Jiang Cheng is so stunned by a-San's words that he does not immediately come to his senses. When he does, it's too late. "No! Nie Huaisang, stop! Come back!"

But Nie Huaisang is already hiding around the corner.

[jinghulaozu]

Modern!AU in which it was simply necessary to talk Part 1/3

“Hey, baby, don't you want to meet?” a wide palm lie on the lower back of Nie Huaisang, and the open neck and left ear are covered with hot breath, in which the smell of alcohol is clearly detected. For a moment, the guy is lost from surprise, which is why he almost falls with his elbows on the bar.

“S-sorry, you made a mistake, I…”

"Not a girl," is exactly what Nie Huaisang wanted to say before he was interrupted by Jiang Cheng's dissatisfied (though rather almost angry) voice:

“Get your hands off him. He doesn't get acquainted.”

The palm from the small of her back disappears, and, turning around, Nie-xiong realizes that it is not doing this of their own free will. Jiang Cheng squeezed and twisted the unlucky suitor's wrist so that he almost howled out loud. In this situation, Nie Huaisang could only sympathize with the guy.

“Man, let me go, yes, I understood, I understood,” he pleaded, unable to endure the pain in his wrist anymore.

“Get lost. And so that I don't see you again today,” Jiang Cheng finally let go of the guy's hand, who had not had time to introduce himself, — Nie-xiong mentally dubbed him Li Yung — and hurried away. As soon as he disappeared from sight, Jiang Cheng's gaze shifted to Nie Huaisang himself. The latter, in turn, smiled gratefully.

“A-Cheng...”

A-Cheng, to Nie Huaisang's surprise, didn’t smile in response, but seemed, on the contrary, only became sterner, and not wanting to listen, and after a couple of moments disappeared into the crowd.

“Your cocktail,” the guy looks at the bartender, at the cocktail on the bar counter and again at the crowd, and seems even more lost.

“Thank you,” he says, putting the money on the counter without looking. “This is for you, help yourself.”

“We're not supposed to,” the bartender objects, but Nie Huaisang no longer hears. He immediately goes straight to the back exit, knowing for sure that his friend went there.

When the metal door slams behind his back, he is not at all surprised at his rightness, but simply comes and sits quietly next to the boxes (or pallets, in the dim light of the lantern it is impossible to make out). Jiang Cheng smokes, which he does extremely rarely in fact. And Jiang Cheng is still angry. He doesn't turn to Nie Huaisang, continuing to drill his gaze into the brick wall opposite. Cigarette smoke is tart, almost acrid — Nie-xiong doesn't like this, so he takes out his pack and lights up too.

“Thank you for helping,” says the guy, after the first puff, and again smiles gratefully, trying to look into the face of a friend. Jiang Cheng lets out something between a snort and a whistle, and squeezes his cigarette harder, causing it to almost break in half.

“How many times have I told you to cut your hair properly?,” the question sounds quiet, evil and, as it seems to Nie Huaisang, not quite appropriate.

“What's that got to do with it? You have long hair too, you don't cut it.”

“It's not me with long hair that looks like a girl,” Jiang Cheng seems to spit out these words, and finally turns to Nie Huaisang. “And it's not to me that all sorts of incomprehensible people come up from time to time.”

Nie Huaisang fundamentally disagree with the guy's statements either about hair or kickbacks (this has happened only three times since high school, if it counts today's incident, and all the "pickups" were not to say that they were sober), but he still kept silent.

“Li Yung will have to see a doctor now,” Nie-xiong said after a couple of minutes of silence to somehow dispel the situation. “You at least dislocated his wrist.”

These words had exactly the opposite effect on Jiang Cheng. Just starting to calm down, he was angry again:

“Li Yung? So you did manage to get acquainted after all?”

“What? No, we're not... I'm just...” Nie Huaisang was starting to feel like he was being interrogated. This feeling was very familiar, and extremely unpleasant.

“Never mind,” he eventually shrugs off, not knowing how to explain what he said earlier. Jiang Cheng is fundamentally not satisfied with such an answer.

“Just like you didn't take into your mind the idea that such a situation could happen?,” he squints his eyes either in condemnation, or in contempt, and Nie-xiong doesn't like any of the options.

“Hey, how was I supposed to know?”

“You always don't know anything and don't see anything,” Jiang Cheng gets up from his seat and throws a cigarette, immediately rubbing it with the sole of his shoe into the damp asphalt. Nie Huaisang remembers his own only when it burns his fingers, rotting all the way to the filter, and just drops it down.

“You've got a great job, I would like that,” Jiang Cheng says much quieter, but still dissatisfied, not wanting to look at the guy.

“What are you mad about?,” the behavior of a friend no longer fits into any acceptable framework, and this begins to anger Nie Huaisang, and he also rises to his feet.

“It's because ...” he turns sharply, in a desire to express everything in face, but for some reason bites his tongue, turning his head away, throwing instead, as if waving away: “It doesn't matter.”

“No, tell me, once you've started,” Nie Huaisang takes a step closer, trying to look into his friend's face, and his tone is adamant.

“Because I'm tired of saving you forever, okay? Stop getting into trouble and pretending to be a princess in trouble,” Jiang Cheng seems to spit out the words again, and you can read in his eyes that he immediately regrets it. For some reason, it does not seem to Nie Huaisang that this is not what he wanted to say initially, but this doesn't make it less offensive.

“I heard you, Jiang Cheng,” Nie-xiong tries not to sound broken and looks away, taking a step back. He takes his phone out of his pocket to check the time, and, turning it off, realizes that he has not memorized the numbers, but doesn't turn it on a second time.

“I think I should go home. My brother is probably already worried. What if I find adventures on my own head again.”

“A-Sang,” Jiang Cheng calls him uncertainly, apparently still confused by his own words. Nie Huaisang sees out of the corner of his eye how he pulls his hand towards him, but stops himself at the last moment, lowering it back and clenching it into a fist. After that, Nie-xiong no longer feels remorse when he stops him himself, but with words:

“You don't need to see me off,” he throws, and then adds with some irony: “I'm still a modern princess, I can call myself a taxi on my own. Good night.”

Without waiting for an answer, the guy turns around, heading away from the alley, ordering a taxi on the way, not wanting to stay there a minute longer. Jiang Cheng doesn't call out to him anymore, but the guy feels his intense gaze on his back. And then, almost at the very sidewalk, an angry exclamation and the noise of wooden boxes catches up with him, but the guy doesn't really care anymore.

“Damn you!” Jiang Cheng angrily kicks the boxes he was sitting on not so long ago, and he doesn't know who he means: A-Sang, that drunk jerk, or himself.

He clenches his fists and breathes through his nose, trying to calm down, but he is prevented from doing so by a noise, this time metallic. The door slams, letting someone out, and Jiang Cheng turns around to look. The uninvited guest turns out to be the same drunk guy. “Speak of the devil,” Jiang Cheng thinks, feeling his still clenched fists begin to itch. The guy also recognizes him almost immediately.

“Hey, man, calm down,” he shies away, seeing an unkind look in the semi-darkness, and raises his hands reassuringly. “I’m not going to get to him anymore, I didn't know he was your boyfriend.”

“He's not my boyfriend,” Jiang Cheng says, deciding for himself that he still won't waste any time or nerve cells on this asshole, and turns away to smoke again.

“It didn't look like it when you twisted my arm. If he isn’t a boyfriend, then why the hell did you attack me?” displeased, but at the same time, the guy warily notices, also lighting up, and seeing that no one is going to kill him, he continued more relaxed, and even to some extent cheeky: “You don't pretend, so give way. I wouldn't hurt him. Even rather the opposite.”

This jerk stretches out the last sentence; complacently and with obvious lust in his voice. Jiang Cheng seems to be pierced through and through, and the cigarette, barely lit, still breaks under his fingers, and the decision to leave him alive flies to hell.

The guy manages to understand what is happening only when he is grabbed by the breasts and slammed back into a brick wall.

“I see you haven’t had enough?” Jiang Cheng hisses in his face and, after waiting for the overwhelming horror in the opposite gaze, once again slamming him into the wall, throws him away from himself like some kind of garbage. "Not 'some kind'," he thinks, "But the real one."

“Hide.”

“Mad,” the guy throws, getting up from the asphalt and, without even shaking himself off, hurries to get as far away as possible.