Chapter Text
Shen Jiu was the unfortunate spectator to teen romance drama.
"But Binghe-!" Shen Yuan cried, his younger brother looking furious. "Your mother wanted you to spend that money on yourself!"
The nasty beast, Luo Binghe, was still trying to force the little package into Shen Yuan's hands. His brother was fighting it, looking up at Luo Binghe with a flushed face and teary eyes. Shen Jiu couldn't exactly tell what it was from where he was at. Maybe some fancy stationary?
"Gege, spending it on you made me the happiest-!" Luo Binghe declared in a very dramatic fashion, finally forcing the package into Shen Yuan's hands. His brother still looked petulant, staring up at his best friend from under his lashes.
Ugh.
"Shen Yuan, take the damned gift or don't." Both teens seemed to startle when Shen Jiu spoke. It looked like they had completely forgotten he was there... once again. He'd been standing in the kitchen boiling water for a cup ramen since they'd both gotten home from school. Hell, Shen Yuan had even greeted him! Then that stupid oaf Luo Binghe had started his sparkly eyed bullshit and it had devolved.
As was the life of a background character, but it was still annoying.
Shen Jiu shot a withering look at Luo Binghe, who returned the look when Shen Yuan wasn't looking.
"Shoo. Out. Shen Yuan, you know I hate guests without warning. Go to your room and do your homework."
"But Ge!"
"Don't "but ge" me. I'm sure that Luo Binghe's mother is missing him, too." Shen Jiu made a 'skedaddle' motion with his hands. Luo Binghe rolled his eyed but muttered a quiet 'Goodbye, see you tomorrow' to Shen Yuan, then exited with great petulance. When he was gone, Shen Yuan hugged the weird bag to his chest and then turned on Shen Jiu.
"Ge! You don't have to be so mean to him! It's like you hate him!"
"I don't hate your friend." Shen Jiu groused, roughly taking out a pair of chopsticks to stir his lousy noodles. He was also lying, since he fucking despised that kid. Shen Jiu would push Luo Binghe off a cliff if he ever got a clean shot. Shen Yuan frowned like he didn't believe him then stormed down the hallway of their crappy apartment. The teen didn't slam his door, but it was a near thing.
Alone once more, Shen Jiu leaned against the counter and rubbed his face. God, he hated his. If he hadn't knocked that flag off of Shen Yuan, he'd have probably ended up deflowered right in the fucking kitchen.
Last year, Shen Jiu had started to notice... oddities. He couldn't say exactly when he picked up on them, but he did distinctly remember that one day it seemed like most of the women were plain and seemed to fade into the background. Then there had been an excessive amount of Idol level teenagers and young adults in town, all male. Then there were all the... well, it was just fucking weird. Shen Jiu had thought he was going crazy at first!
But, no, after Shen Jiu realized he was not insane... the world had somehow shifted to that of a BL. Boy's Love. Yaoi. Danmei. Whatever the hell you wanted to call it, they were living in it!
It hadn't been that bad at first. Shen Jiu learned that he and Shen Yuan were what were called "Mob Characters", which was just some slang for unimportant background NPCs. They tended to be faceless and were meant to blend in and not matter.
Shen Jiu kept this observation to himself, knowing exactly what all of that would sound like. Shen Yuan would probably think he was cracking under pressure and get all worried about him.
It had been ridiculously easy to keep going on as normal. Shen Jiu did have to learn a few tips and tricks to keep them out of trouble, sure, but mostly you just had to avoid the guys who were hot and had an unnatural amount of sparkles around them. Sure, there were a few caveats, but that was the big one..... or it had been, until Luo Binghe.
Luo Binghe was Shen Yuan's childhood best friend. A few months ago he'd moved back to their sleepy part of the city with his ailing mother under the support of some sort of patron. At sixteen he was built like a model, with a pretty boy face and the kind of cocky but lovable attitude that was usually eaten up in these kinds of stories. It was obvious he was a "Main Character" who sadly had set his sights on Shen Yuan.
Since Shen Yuan, his poor baby brother, was ignorant of the new minefield he was crossing... he'd been pulled in as "Love Interest" pretty quick. Shen Jiu had been watching the two teenagers circle each other for months now and it was killing him inside. His Didi was much too good for that cretin.
Shen Jiu knew he had to keep his younger brother's chastity safe from that roving beast. So he had started doing research. While not proud of it, Shen Jiu was probably the top fudanshi in the whole fucking city at this point. And he didn't even like BL shit! Like, sure, he was gay, but BL was a whole other ballpark. As much as he had consumed he was more and more sure it wasn't to his taste.
He could see the tropes and plot flags as clear as day now that he knew what to look for, though! Shen Yuan was one of those """straight""" boy becomes gay fantasies, where the handsome main character can bend them. Shen Jiu knew that was bullshit, since Shen Yuan had probably been flying the rainbow flag since he was younger and the kid was just fucking oblivious.
That was part of why Shen Jiu hated this new twist on reality so much! You'd think a gay guy would love to be in a world catered to him! But! It was like these fucking books made you stupid! Instead of Shen Yuan having a nice realization in a few years, possibly even with Luo Binghe, he'd be forced into all this convoluted plot shit until he had the straightness ridden out of him. Shen Yuan was only sixteen! He wasn't letting that happen to him! It would be traumatic as fuck!
And Heaven's above if Shen Jiu wanted to find someone, now. He'd never been hot on the idea of dating, too busy and generally uninterested, but he didn't like the option being taken from him, either! No doubt he could fall into the arms of whatever sparkling seme or uke he wanted to start a romance, but did he really want that? To experience such a cheap and artificial love? No, thank you!
But there was the NEW snag caused by the fucker Luo Binghe: since Shen Yuan was a Love Interest now, that meant that the "characters" in his life were now prime targets for the Gay Beam. That left a few of Shen Yuan's close friends and Shen Jiu, as Shen Yuan's only family, in the hot seat.
Nowhere and nothing was safe. Shen Jiu had become about fifty times more paranoid than he had been before, which was fucked, since he had already been pretty damned paranoid.
He went to work and then suddenly his childhood best friend who abandoned him was introduced as his boss. He went to his college classes and one of his classmates (or the professor!) was sparkling. Fuck, not even the doctor was safe! Last time he'd went there, the guy with the unfortunate mustache had tripped and fallen into his lap! The flu wasn't sexy, universe!
Then it started to get worse. Buff guys passed out in alleyways that he needed to avoid helping. Kids crying and lost, because they had the aura; the little fuck would come after him in ten year's time like a slow release bomb! Shen Jiu had helped a snake after it almost got ran over and he had a fucking flag on his back! What the hell!
And then there had been Luo Binghe's deadbeat dad that one time, which was probably worse than all the age gaps or snake loving combined. He'd rather not even think about that- it still gave him nightmares.
The world was out for Shen Jiu's ass. Literally, by the caliber of men it was sending after him. What if he didn't want to be the fucking mewling bottom, you shitty world? Did you ever think of that?
What all of this amounted to was that only the women were safe.
No one trying to grope him. No one falling into his lap. No awkward conversations or lingering looks. Even if they had a habit of turning to exposition dumping machines of XYZ bishie of the hour, Shen Jiu knew that he could trust the women in his life to leave him the fuck alone.
This was how, later that evening, Shen Jiu found himself at Liu Mingyan's place.
She was younger than Shen Jiu, maybe only eighteen to his twenty three, but they shared a chemistry class. At the start of the semester they'd been paired up as lab partners, which sometimes meant assignments done together. She usually invited him over to her place, both because it was nicer and because Shen Jiu lived in a shittier part of the city. He and Shen Yuan didn't have very much, but he'd been busting his ass since he was fifteen to drag the two of them out of foster homes and poverty. While not exactly his interests, Shen Jiu was clawing for a decent degree in a middling field where he could have stable work. He was close, even if his workload was crushing him.
Anyway, Liu Mingyan- she'd been one of Shen Yuan's classmates, he thought. Her name was familiar but he couldn't place why, exactly. She was nice, quiet and serious and studious. Once she had caught him reading a yaoi manga on his phone and hadn't judged him or made a big deal about it, too. She also always did her fair share of the work on assignments, so she was alright in his book.
They were sitting in her living room, papers spread out on the coffee table, equations and calculations doodled into the margins of papers. Shen Jiu had only been here for about twenty minutes, the two of them working diligently in a comfortable silence.
The buzzer of her fancy apartment rang.
"That must be the snacks. Excuse me." Liu Mingyan said as she got up to leave. Shen Jiu didn't think anything of it; she usually ordered them some macaroons and boba tea from a place around the corner when they studied together. He'd been here enough and they had an easy enough camaraderie that she didn't mind him being in her apartment by himself for a few minutes.
Then. Movement from deeper in the apartment. When Liu Mingyan lived alone.
Oh no.
"Yanyan! Where's the spare towels?" A deep, masculine, familiar voice called. Footsteps padded to get closer.
Shen Jiu almost broke his pencil in half as he suddenly remembered why Liu Mingyan's looks had been nagging at him.