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Qiao Chen is an annoying brat just waiting for someone to show him his place and shut him up. Who’s the first to snap? Baiyang probably. They do it in the locker room, or in the attached shower, after a particularly petty argument on the court during doubles training.
They keep it up, messing around after practice almost every day. It’s the optimal way to release built up tension in the face of their match against Xing Yao, they decide. After the game they stop making excuses. It feels good, so both decide to continue, to make this a thing.
'Rivals with benefits' is what they call it, the thing. The team doesn’t know, they don’t fight any less during training. Siyang walks in on them one day. He promises not to tell, but he splits them up for practice more often. No distraction before the nationals are over.
It’s awkward after the incident, they barely talk to each other anymore, the team starts to notice the lack of bickering and fighting but they decide not to intervene for now, they are old enough to talk this out.
Except they aren’t and Qiao Chen messes up.
He spends a lot of time with Xingzi, one day they end up in her bed. It’s like a gate opened for the flood. Few days later he makes out with her brother, messes around with some of the players of Yu Feng. Zhiming tries to call him a few times, his training plan is still empty.
The ringing of his phone gets lost between the sheets and his groans as Tienan sinks into him.
Jiale texts him a few times, asking if he wants to eat dinner together, but he already has plans with Kefei.
Even Lu Xia leaves him a passive-aggressive message.
“Come to the training tomorrow, I may let you win for once.”
He feels uncomfortable on his way to Yu Qing’s court now, but he owes this walk of shame to his teammates. He may be an idiot, but he’s not a complete asshole. He does feel guilty for letting them down and leaving them hanging. The others, despite their relief to see him on their court again, don’t go easy on him. Zhiming updated his training plan for him to catch up on the missed practice, Lu Xia doesn’t let him win.
“Are you and Xingzi a thing now?” Dayong asks during a short break. Qiao Chen remembers the stinging of his cheek when the girl found out he also messed around with her brother. He shakes his head, eyes fixed on his feet.
He is alone in the locker room after the training. Until someone leaves the shower, and he looks up and looks away again, because Baiyang’s just leaning against the doorframe, eyeing him with a frown of disgust. Tension hangs in between them suffocatingly as they both finish changing in silence. Baiyang leaves without another word, and Qiao Chen somehow finds it hard to breath now.
Jiale tells him to talk to Baiyang, as if he was someone who’d listen. Xinglong makes him dinner and gives him a kind and awkward but comforting pat on the shoulder before scurrying back to the kitchen to help his dad. Xiangqian hits him on the back of the head, hard, when he tells him about everything that has happened. Then he makes him muffins and they dance to their favourite singer’s songs until Qiao Chen starts sobbing and Lu Xia comes home to his father wrapping the giant boy in a blanket and feeding him leftover dough.
The tiny boy sends Baiyang a text.
“Have you ever cried about him?”
The middle finger emoji he receives is answer enough. He wants to kick both of them.
Zhiming is an asshole, there’s no other reason why he would pair them up as double partners for training today. Of course, they end up fighting. The game stays unfinished as both of them are more focused on each other anyway.
Baiyang lets it all out. His words hurt, but Qiao Chen knows he deserves it. Baiyang hurt so much more because of him. The others leave the court, giving them the privacy they didn’t bother to get themselves.
Almost inevitably, they end up in the shower room again. It’s cold tiles, it’s hot water, it’s teeth clashing and bruises forming. Baiyang finishes in him, fingers wrapped around his throat and Qiao Chen starts crying. He is left alone on the hard floor as the other leaves. He sobs.
Vision blurry, ears ringing, he doesn’t notice someone enter until they are uncurling his clenched fists and pulling him forward into strong arms. Qiao Chen breathes in Baiyang’s scent deeply as he buries his head in his neck. The other holds him like this, whispering sweet nothings into the boy’s hair as he wraps the towel he brought around Qiao Chen’s shivering frame. They stay like this for a while before Baiyang lifts them both up, carrying the naked boy into the locker room, carefully sitting him down on a bench.
Baiyang dresses him as Qiao Chen stares at him blankly, tears now ceased.
“I think I like you,” he breaks the silence with a whisper, and only after the words leave his lips does he know it is the truth. Baiyang looks up from where he is tying the other’s shoes with a sigh.
“I know you slept with Ziping.” A confession in return.
“Not only Ziping,” Qiao Chen mumbles, tired of lying and hiding his shame.
Baiyang slaps Qiao Chen’s thigh and comes up to sit next to him, throwing Qiao Chen’s shirt into the latter’s lap. “We aren’t dating. You can sleep with whoever you want. I’m in no position to care,” Baiyang shrugs.
“But I want you to care.” Qiao Chen is getting frustrated with himself.
Baiyang sighs heavily, taking one of the other’s hands into his, slipping his palm over the other’s before intertwining their fingers.
“I do care. Too much for my liking.” He looks up to find Qiao Chen’s red-rimmed eyes already fixed on him. “I want to try. I know this is stupid, after all you’ve done. I know I should be mad at you. I /am/ mad at you, hell, but I still want to try.”
Baiyang huffs, angry at himself and his inability to put his feelings for Qiao Chen aside and be angry for at least a bit longer.
“Don’t think I’ve forgiven you.” He squeezes their locked hands. “Give me two weeks. I don’t think I’m capable of being fully rational and honest with you and myself after seeing you cry like that just now.” He stands up. Qiao Chen nods, dazed.
He watches Baiyang’s back as he leaves the locker room.
Two weeks, he can wait.
It’s been 8 days, after they just won the second double in the national final, when Baiyang kisses him in broad daylight in front of their teammates, when he kisses him in front of the audience and on national TV.
“This should be answer enough, right?”