Chapter Text
Meng Yao meets Nie Mingjue in his 8:30 political science class. It’s technically supposed to be an intro class, and therefore the hall is big enough for all 200 people enrolled, but the fact that it’s at 8:30 means that it’s too early for most people to get up.
The fact that the professor is uninterested in teaching the class, vaguely racist to anyone who is not American, male, and Protestant, makes people even less inclined to attend.
Meng Yao, who has always valued making connections and talking to his teachers (schmoozing, Huaisang had said delightedly, when he had tried to advise him on how to get his teachers to like him. You want me to schmooze them, Yao-ge!), always attends class, even when that means he gets approximately 6 hours of sleep after his job, and is bored out of his mind as the professor goes on yet another tangent about immigration.
There’s about 30 people in the lecture hall, and they’ve all got their spots. Meng Yao sits in the second row on the edge, and the only other Chinese guy in the class had decided to sit right above him, which means nothing because as high school has taught him, shared culture does not imply friendship, but also gives Meng Yao great amusement whenever he starts muttering under his breath in Mandarin when the professor says something particularly outrageous.
He’s friendly with a few other people in the class, but when the professor offers extra credit for a partner dialogue about current political speech, he puts an arm around his chair and twists to look behind him, only to see the guy opening his mouth as well.
“Hey -” they both say at the same time, and the other guy breaks off with a laugh.
“We’re probably asking the same things,” he comments, gesturing for Meng Yao to speak, and Meng Yao ducks his head a little, smiling as well.
He’s not shy - he’s been begging for scholarship money from more people than he can count in the past year, and to do that you do need to have a certain form of confidence that Meng Yao is very glad to have developed. It’s just that it’s nice to know what the answer will be before he asks.
“Would you like to be partners for the project?” he asks, eyebrows raised and the guy nods.
“That sounds great,” the guy says. “You know, I was just going to ask you that,” he says, with a little shoulder shrug, and pauses, and it takes Meng Yao a second to realize that was supposed to be a joke.
“Very funny,” he says, dryly, and the guy laughs.
“I’m Nie Mingjue,” he offers instead.
“Meng Yao,” he responds automatically, “Are you free now? We can get a head start.”
“Sure,” Nie Mingjue says. “Fair warning, I’ve got to go at 11 for Econ, but I’m yours until then.” He gets up, heaving a bag over his shoulder in a smooth movement. Meng Yao gives himself 5 seconds to admire his figure before he reaches down for his own bag. “Any place you want to work in mind?”
“Library? We’ll probably be early enough to grab a table in the group level.”
Left unsaid is that there is probably no one having sex in there at 10 am.
“Sounds good,” Meng Yao says, and they make their way out of the lecture hall, and into the bracing cold of February.
They talk as they walk, and Meng Yao learns that Nie Mingjue has a younger brother, is studying Economics and is maybe thinking of adding a Military History minor. He helps his dad out in his butcher’s shop, and will probably work there the rest of his life. He also learns, as they walk into the library and pause in silence to see if anyone's decided to get up early and make out in the library instead of the dorm, that 10 AM is not too early to hear some thuds and moans.
This is why he never comes to the library.
They exchange a look.
“I would offer to go to my dorm,” Meng Yao says, wryly, “but I think we would have the same problem.”
“Cafe?” Nie Mingjue asks, looking a little desperate.
“Excellent idea,” he says, and they duck back out.
The cafe’s a good spot, and when Nie Mingjue has to leave for his economics class Meng Yao’s honestly sad to see him go. He was easy to talk to, and actually contributed as they planned, which was nice as Meng Yao has been used to people pawning off the work. He wasn’t incredibly passionate, but he was dedicated, and entirely unwilling to let Meng Yao do everything without any input from him.
It was nice. They exchanged numbers and made plans to meet the next day to actually watch the speech - Meng Yao thought they could get more points if they focused on body language and presentation instead of just looking at the transcript and Nie Mingjue had agreed.
He hadn’t made many friends since he came to university. He’d had some people he worked with regularly before the winter break, but none of them had really bothered to keep in touch, and now that the courses had changed they were simply people who he waved hello to in the corridors. He thought that maybe Nie Mingjue could be a friend.
He wouldn’t be getting his hopes up, though.
They met the next day to go over the speech, and then the day after to do the final partner dialogue recording, and Meng Yao had fully expected for them to go back to just sitting above each other in class except that Nie Mingjue had come into class and instead of sitting above him, paused on the step next to where Meng Yao was sitting.
“Anyone sitting there?” he said, gesturing, and Meng Yao blinked bemusedly up at him.
“No,” he said, and pulled his bag a little closer to the chair so Nie Mingjue could get past.
He shuffled past and sat down. “Have you done the reading?”
Meng Yao could feel himself smiling, delighted. Perhaps he had made a friend.
Nie Mingjue thinks that he has made another best friend, in Meng Yao.
He tells this to Xichen, in one of the few times that they can work out to call each other.
Lan Xichen, thus far, has been Nie Mingjue’s one and only best friend, then turned boyfriend. They’d met when they were younger, because A-die and Lan Qiren had had some type of relationship going on, and Nie Mingjue had had a very confusing sense of wanting to be friends with him and wanting to be him, before he realized that he was a man.
They had been attached at the hip for most of their childhood, and while Xichen had made friends wherever he went, Nie Mingjue really hadn’t. He was too quiet for most of the girls, and a girl to most of the boys, and he had had Xichen, so he hadn’t really cared one way or another.
Then their father had gotten the opportunity to take over the Asian grocer in the city, and had picked up and moved, and so Nie Mingjue had gone from seeing Lan Xichen every day to maybe once every two weeks.
He’d been forced to make other friends, but none of them he had ever gotten really close to, forever being on the fringes of whatever group was formed. He’d been presenting as a guy by the time he’d gone to that high school, so it was a little easier, but it wasn’t the same.
They tried to call, at least once a week, but Lan Xichen always had his orchestra, or mock trial, or something and Nie Mingjue always had his courseload to get rid of as many general education requirements as possible, and helping A-die out with the shop.
It still wasn’t the same as seeing each other every day.
They still saw each other every two weeks or so, when A-die and Lan Xichen’s shufu made them all have dinner together, or give Huaisang his music lessons (Nie Mingjue had quit as soon as he could, much to the mutual relief of Lan Qiren and himself. He wasn’t tone deaf, but he had absolutely no talent for music and hated practicing with a passion. It was just so - boring.).
And then Lan Xichen had gotten into the fancy university on the coast, and, after much hemming and hawing and what Nie Huiasang had called ‘Asian eldest child regret,’ had decided to go.
It was a great university. Lan Xichen wanted to become a lawyer one day, and it was a Lan Qiren approved career, and it would have been a foolish choice to pass it up.
With the time difference on top of everything, they had been calling even less, and they didn’t even see each other regularly any more.
So it was nice to make a new friend. There honestly wasn’t anything interesting in his life outside of Meng Yao - the shop was progressing normally, getting more customers, and they had added a snack section outside of the staples of rice, meat and fish. His classes were mostly the last few intro classes he could catch up, which neither him nor Xichen were interested in talking about, and Lan Xichen could fake it but Nie Mingjue knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t be interested in Nie Mingjue talking about the Punic Wars any more than Nie Mingjue would be interested in Lan Xichen’s pre-law classes. He did, on the other hand, have stories to tell about Meng Yao, who had kicked him in the shin when Nie Mingjue had gotten lost in his own heated mutterings over his latest reading, and kept walking straight when he ought to have turned, and then they had argued over whether or not if he got there the long way it counted as the right way.
So Lan Xichen was told about Meng Yao.
The first time they had talked about Meng Yao, Lan Xichen had teased Nie Mingjue about having a crush on him, which Nie Mingjue had vehemently denied.
The second time, Lan Xichen hadn’t teased him, but he had blurted it out anyways.
“I don’t even know if he’s gay, Xichen,” he complained, “and then my,” he gestured invisibly to his whole - “everything.” Body. He was saving up for a mastectomy, as that was cheaper and he was still unsure about the vaginoplasty, but it was slow going.
Lan Xichen hummed sympathetically. He’d been going to his school’s gay networking events, and had apparently tried speed dating, which had been recounted to Nie Mingjue in excruciating detail as Nie Huaisang had shamelessly eavesdropped from the bed across the room.
“You can always tell him, if you feel comfortable?” Xichen had offered, pen scratching as he did some reading at the same time.
“Maybe,” Nie Mingjue said doubtfully. He’s never actually had to tell someone - either they called him a ‘he’ and he didn’t have to say anything, or they called him Ms. Nie and he grit his teeth or made up some lie about his parents marking the birth certificate wrong.
The conversation had moved on from there, and he had turned it over in his head as he had met Meng Yao for lunch again the next day.
He trusted Meng Yao - he’d had him come over a few times to study in silence together, or make food.
Meng Yao had met Huaisang, even, and come over for dinner more than once. Nie Mingjue had never really introduced any of his friends to Nie Huaisang. Nie Huaisang had been such a fragile child - the birth that had killed his step-mother leaving him with a misaligned spine and asthma. Nie Mingjue had been so careful with his didi, a sense of protectiveness that had not lessened at all once Nie Huaisang had mostly outgrown the asthma, and had gotten into the fancy private art school for high school.
A-die had often complained about Nie Huaisang picking a more profitable path, but it was always mostly a joke. He’d saved for the art school and paid for it without ever mentioning it, even as Nie Huaisang had protested again and again that he could do just fine on his own, and didn’t need some fancy schmancy tutoring.
Meng Yao had stayed at the dorms over spring break, which Nie Mingjue hadn’t realized until it was almost ending, and then immediately felt bad about it. He was pretty sure that Meng Yao’s mother was dead, and he never mentioned a father.
He probably was on the scholarship for those without parental support - the university was notorious for having a set of funds set aside by some orphan donor a long time ago, and being pretty generous with them.
Regardless, it didn’t matter if Nie Mingjue wanted to tell Meng Yao or not, because Meng Yao had been waiting outside the door after his meeting with his history professor, and heard the man call him Ms. Nie, for the 10th time.
Nie Mingjue didn’t even bother correcting him. If he had looked at the long hair and decided that that was all that he was going to take into account - even with the moustache, which Nie Mingjue was very proud of growing in! - well, that was his problem and there was nothing he could do about it.
He had come out the door, a little mad, and had stopped short at the sight of Meng Yao standing outside the door, eyes a little shocked and tense like he wasn’t sure if he should run or not.
Meng Yao had not wanted to discover any secrets when he had decided to loiter outside Nie Mingjue’s last appointment of the day.
Ms. Nie, the professor had called him - her? Nie Mingjue, who had come out of the office with a scowl on his face, and then stopped short at the sight of Meng Yao. His face did - something, and then smoothed itself out, looking - defiant.
Like he was scared.
Meng Yao, who had been deciding whether or not to flee, straightened up and smiled. Pretending nothing had happened it was.
“I looked at your schedule yesterday and wanted to ask if you wanted to grab dinner,” Mng Yao said, apologetically, deciding that he wasn’t going to mention it if Nie Mingjue didn’t mention it he wasn’t going to either.
“Sure,” Nie Mingjue said, shortly, and started walking out of the building. Meng Yao scrutinized Nie Mingjue out of the corner of his eye. He wouldn’t have known that Nie Mingjue was trans without hearing him be called Ms. Nie. He could assume that it was a secret, but how much of a secret? His brother called him da-ge, which was good. No one looking at him on the street would have called him a woman without knowing first - he didn’t know how the professor knew, maybe the attendance system told him?
They were going in the wrong direction for the dining hall, but that was alright. Nie Mingjue was glaring into the ground.
“I’m a man,” Nie Mingjue said, at last, looking straight and not at Meng Yao. Meng Yao nods, regardless.
“Used to be a girl,” Nie Mingjue says, “and I haven’t been able to change it on the legal forms, yet, but I’m a man now.”
“I’m gay,” Meng Yao blurts out, “if that helps,” and immediately wants to die of embarrassment.
He’s good with words. He prides himself on having an eloquence that no one expects of him, coming from where he is. But he’s got it. He’s got perfect English, a good vocabulary, and he can charm people with ease.
He doesn’t think he’s ever floundered for words like this in his life.
Nie Mingjue stops, and laughs. It’s a little hysterical.
“Sorry,” he says, and Meng Yao starts laughing a little too. “I don’t think I’ve had to tell anyone before.”
“I haven't either,” Meng Yao confesses. “I’m not making my life any harder than it needs to be.” Nie Mingjue snorts in agreement.
“Agreed,” he says, and blinks, just realizing where they are.
“You let me go the wrong way?” he says incredulously. Meng Yao blushes.
“I wanted to be kind to my best friend in a crisis,” He retorts primly, and Nie Mingjue laughs.
“Best friend, huh?” he says, smiling, and Meng Yao blinks. He hadn’t realized he said that.
“Of course,” Meng Yao says, trying to sound like he meant to say it all along.
They go to dinner.
Nie Mingjue starts inviting him over a little more, after that. It’s almost the end of the school year, and Meng Yao has gotten an internship with the city housing board for the summer while Nie Mingjue’s just going to be working in the shop.
Meng Yao’s excited to get out of his four person triple, because while it is a whole lot cheaper than literally any other dorm, it’s also more cramped than the apartment he used to live with his mother in, which he had not thought was possible. The money his mother left him after she died had gone right into health insurance, which meant that Meng Yao is entirely reliant on scholarships, which are very generous at this university, but the cheaper his housing the more he can use to save for summer housing and the like.
They stay in touch over the summer, and it’s so nice to have someone to talk to on a regular basis, besides his coworkers.
It’s nice to have a friend he can complain to, a place where he can cook good food at, someone who he can really talk to. School starts again, and they spend more time with each other than ever. Now that the weeder classes are done, they have probably half their classes together, and they spend even more time outside of that studying.
They call, they text. Nie Mingjue is easily the person he’s spent the most time with, except for A-niang.
And then Nie Mingjue ghosts him.