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English
Series:
Part 1 of Link Click Hair Fics [just roll with it]
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Published:
2025-02-24
Completed:
2025-02-25
Words:
1,698
Chapters:
2/2
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18
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109
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803

Of Blond Hair and Tenuous Friendships

Summary:

Xia Fei gets invited over to Shiguang's hotel room, and Cheng Xiaoshi just can't help his curiosity

alternatively, your hopefully dear author is STILL hung up on Xia Fei's hair and gives him a reason for it.

Notes:

*looks at Xia Fei's lack of parental lore*
*rubs my hands together like a greedy little fruit fly*

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

"Hm..."

Xia Fei doesn't look up. Can't look up, really, not with the way his new friend [can he call them his friends? Is that allowed when he's-] is drilling holes into his skull. It's like a self-preservation instinct- when you're not supposed to look a wild animal in the eyes.

So he keeps his resolutely on his phone screen, and shifts a little in the slightly uncomfortable hotel seat he's somehow found himself in.

Lu Guang [Xia Fei thinks that's the pale haired boy's name, but he's only heard it once] sits next to him, legs crossed at the knee as he reads... is that a manga?

Really, the two-toned blond can only vaguely see the pages, but it looks like a manga.

Huh.

Maybe they can trade recs after this whole... spying on them thing blows over. If Xia Fei is still allowed to be-

"D-does he always stare like that..?" he needs to get his mind off it.

Cool grey eyes, sharp like a stonecutter, flick over to what Xia Fei knows is an orange that trembles like a fading sunset. Which would've been a cool analogy if he hadn't gotten it from Minecraft.

Lu Guang looks back at his manga.

"All the time. You get used to it."

Do you!?

"I- I see."

Xia Fei wasn't a stranger to stares, he couldn't be. Being a model practically came with a light up sign that said 'Look at Me!' in eye-catching neons. But it was only the three of them in this room!

Look at your pretty roommate damnit, not me-!

And somehow- despite their current setup, with Cheng Xiaoshi on the bed [the one bed] and Lu Guang between his stare and Xia Fei- he knows the dark haired boy is staring at him.

Honestly he would've much preferred having Lu Guang as roommate then the one he had now. Soft white hair, fair skin and cutting eyes, not messy or intrusive...

"Do you want me to tell him to stop?"

Considerate. Xiaoshi was a lucky bastard.

"Ah... I mean-" he finally glances at the boy staring holes into him, "It's not like he's hurting anybody...?"

"If he's making you uncomfortable, you should tell him. He's an idiot, but he means well."

Well that was blunt. But maybe it was just a testament to how long the two had been friends? Xia Fei wouldn't know, he'd never had one that lasted longer than a handful of months.

Unless Laoban counted, but he wasn't really a 'friend.' More like... some.. secret third thing?

Anyway-

Aside from Laoban, he'd never really had someone that cared about making sure he felt 'comfortable' in a space either. Despite his frosty exterior, and attempted detachment [yeah, he had noticed. nobody stands up for someone they didn't at least like] Lu Guang was...

"Ah! You're a really sweet guy, you know?"

He goes to put his hands on his shoulders, or arms or bony elbows, wherever his hands can reach as he closes his eyes with a sniffle. But what he lands on is... decidedly more solid than this noodle of boy should be.

Xia Fei opens his eyes in confusion.

Ah.

Maybe these two were some secret third thing.

Because Xia Fei's hands landed on black fabric instead of blue.

Cheng Xiaoshi's brown eyes, usually so warm and friendly, peer at him from over Lu Guang's fluffy white hair- his arms wrapped almost possessively around his slender shoulders. Blocking contact.

...he didn't even see the guy move.

"Uh.."

"Hey, is your hair natural?" Cheng Xiaoshi asks, completely bulldozing past any questions about his sudden clinginess.

Or- not sudden at all clinginess, to be honest. Maybe sudden contact was the better phrase. Whatever.

The point is, Lu Guang relaxes under his arms like ice melting on copper. Tension that Xia Fei hadn't even notice building until it faded away slipping off too narrow shoulders.

He looks up at counterpart, a grey brow raising, and Xia Fei privately thinks that maybe those stonecutter eyes weren't so sharp after all.

"That's what you were staring at him for?"

The two toned blond lets them have their private moment as he gathers his words, still gaping at the easy intimacy that exists between the two. Cheng Xiaoshi goes to answer, and then closes his mouth with a pinch to Lu Guang's side.

Xia Fei pulls his hands back.

"So...?" Xiaoshi prompts again, resting his chin atop white locks.

Hm?

Oh! Right, his hair.

He threads his fingers through his blond bangs and pulls them up off his forehead, and of course no darker roots show.

He just redyed it last night.

"I dye it," he clarifies, once he sees false understanding start to dawn in the dark haired boy's eyes.

The laugh that spills from his lips at his genuinely shocked expression feels more real than it has in years. His chest a little looser.

"Have since I was a kid," Xia Fei continues, for no real reason other than the fact that it's quiet in this small room and they're listening, "My.. my mom did it, at first, before I was old enough to do it myself."

He leaves out that she only forced it on to him because he looked too much like his father. The remnant phantoms of erratic bleaching burn his scalp.

"Is your hair natural?"

Lu Guang sees right through the point of the question, the two toned blond can tell, but he doesn't say anything; just leans into Cheng Xiaoshi's embrace under the guise of looking at his fringe.

Considerate, Xia Fei thinks again.

"...sort of," the pale-haired boy hedges.

...what the hell did that mean?

bonus, after Xia Fei leaves the lover's hotel room:
-> cheng xiaoshi walks xia fei out
"So... what was that earlier?"
"Hm?"
"The- holding thing?"
"Oh! A-Guang doesn't like to be touched by strangers. Sorry, if-"
"No- no, I get it! That makes sense."
...A-Guang?

Chapter 2

Summary:

five seconds are up, it's time for shenanigans

Notes:

honestly, was NYOT planning on making a second chapter but whaddya know

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"What- what do you mean 'sort of'!?"

Seriously! What kind of answer was that? It was either yes or no! Either your hair was natural, or it wasn't! Yes or no!

...right?

Xia Fei thinks that's right. Surely it-

Cheng Xiaoshi's arms tighten near imperceptibly around Lu Guang, though his expression doesn't change. The two-toned blond vaguely wonders if the clinginess is still necessary.

"Guangguang's hair has been white for as long as I've known him," he says, and looks down at the soft fluff his chin is resting on, "I mean- we live together, and I've never seen any darker roots either."

So... it was natural then? But that didn't explain the grey eyebrows or dark lashes. Xia Fei had met a model with albinism exactly once, and their red toned eyes had been framed with what looked like cotton.

It was understandable why they had become a model- natural cause and effect, even- to be honest but maybe Xia Fei was just gaining an appreciation for fair features.

"It wasn't always white, but I don't dye it."

"...you're just chalk full of cryptic answers, aren't you?"

Too late does the two-toned blond realize that maybe that... wasn't the most polite answer. Especially to a prickly, pale-haired introvert. Especially to someone he wants to like him.

An apology is on the tip of his tongue when-

"You're catching on!" Xiaoshi cackles, making no effort to smother his infectious laughter.

Lu Guang has an embarrassed flush high on his ears and cheeks.

"He never really gives a straight answer about anything and he's super secretive!"

"Can you stop talking about me like I'm not right here-"

"Hah!? But you do it all the time!"

"Because you're an idiot-" the two bicker back and forth like an old married couple, but Cheng Xiaoshi doesn't release his counterpart and Lu Guang doesn't push him away.

Distantly, Xia Fei wonders if this is how that creepy hat guy feels around him and Laoban.

Somewhere, under his ribs though, he feels something warm bloom. If... Cheng Xiaoshi could be so comfortable with someone he knows is keeping secrets from him, if Lu Guang could be held so dearly when he's...

He swallows back the feelings thick on his tongue.

Could he really stay their friend?

If no harm comes to these two, if he comes clean when this is all over... will these two- will they let him stay in this bubble they've carved into time?

"Xia Fei."

The warm voice of Xiaoshi cuts into his thoughts like a gentle nudge, like the sun calling its flowers to attention. His warm brown eyes flick down to the piercing stare of the man in his arms.

"Cheng Xiaoshi told me, once, that he'd wait until I was ready to tell him things," Lu Guang hedges, and his stonecutter eyes reluctantly meeting trembling orange, "He didn't push."

Xia Fei's stomach drops like a stone.

"And so we won't push you."

Because they know. Maybe not the full story, god hopefully not the full story, but they know he- they know that he didn't approach them because they liked the same sports team.

They know he's motivated by something that's not their company and Xia Fei feels like an idiot.

The room feels dark at the edges of his vision, filled with too many eyes and grasping hands and-

He's failed.

Pale fingers cautiously extend into his line of sight, which he hadn't even noticed had fallen to the floor. Pale fingers attached to a pale hand, attached to bashful grey eyes.

Xia Fei takes it like a dog doing a trick.

"...Marie Antoinette syndrome."

..wha?

Xia Fei looks up, his confusion and- god he's crying- tears obvious on his face.

"Huh?" he intones dumbly.

"It's why my hair's white."

Oh.

Oh!

Ohhh.

It's a peace-offering. An alliance, an out, but not quite forgiveness. Lu Guang's eyes aren't so resemblant of stonecutters anymore, but they're not soft with that same admiration he looks at Cheng Xiaoshi with.

No, they're more like... pebbles.

Smooth, and comforting to hold in your palm.

Xia Fei slides his hand forward until their palms meet, like two humans shaking on a bet.

And his shoulders feels a little lighter.

Notes:

please drop a comment if you enjoyed >w• or if you wanna see me write a specific trope?

your hopefully dear author would love to hear it!!!

Notes:

i like to have Xiaoshi and Ling describe Lu Guang's eyes as kitten grey, or 'soft' because of how dearly he holds them

contritely, he doesn't really know Xia Fei all that well yet

please leave a comment if you enjoyed, your hopefully dear author thrives on such things <3 <3 <3

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