Chapter Text
As far as Wenqing can remember, his soulmate has been someone who he has never had to worry about. Wenqing isn’t poor, his family is reasonably well-off, and Wenqing himself has never longed for anything. He’s probably a little spoiled, actually, his parents have never denied him anything in his life provided that he kept his grades up, but even with the reasonably good financial standing that he knows his family is in, it is nowhere near what he experiences from his soulmate.
Since he can remember, anything he tastes from his soulmate is topnotch, the highest quality money can buy. Even simple white rice tastes better when it’s from his soulmate, a quality that Wenqing’s family would never splurge on. It doesn’t really matter to him- maybe he’s sentimental, but money can’t buy the food that his mother cooks, and even though he can appreciate the tastes that his soulmate gives him, it is not something Wenqing would give up his mother’s cooking for.
Still, it also means that Wenqing grows up knowing what monkey head mushrooms and bird’s nest and chinese mitten crabs taste like, and honestly, he doesn’t really see the point of it, but it doesn’t really matter.
What does matter, is that the fact that his soulmate is clearly a rich second generation, which means that Wenqing will likely never have to worry about his soulmate not having enough to eat, or living hand-to-mouth, and it is a thought that makes something in Wenqing warm, a soft sort of relief. He would never wish hardship on anyone, and even if his soulmate might be a spoiled young master, at least they are someone who will never have to know suffering.
Once in a while, he gets the taste of a cheap popsicle, or some other convenience store snack, and it makes Wenqing smile. He imagines his soulmate, someone around his age, sneaking out of their house to buy an ice cream off the streets, or maybe even charming a house maid to sneak them something from outside. He wonders what life is like for his soulmate- are their parents controlling? Are they absentee parents or are they loving ones? Does his soulmate have any siblings?
They are thoughts that Wenqing entertains in the middle of the night, staring up at his ceiling and imagining the taste of sugar on his tongue. His soulmate has a sweet tooth, and it extends to any kind of sweet, not just the expensive desserts. Even if Wenqing himself isn’t too fond of sugar, he can appreciate it well enough, and sometimes he finds himself at a convenience store buying candy for his soulmate to taste.
He’d gotten dragon’s beard candy from a street vendor once, putting it in his mouth and letting the sweetness of the spun sugar slowly melt on his tongue, savoured the nuttiness of the peanut filling, and imagined the way his soulmate might have paused whatever they were doing to enjoy it together with him. He’d gotten the taste of chilli oil dumplings at dinner that night, and his sister had teased him endlessly for the smile that he couldn’t wipe off his face. He knows his soulmate isn't fond of spice, but Wenqing is, and he appreciates the gesture.
He’d passed by a store selling tanghulu a few days later, and he’s already in front of the owner and ordering a stick before he realises what he’s doing. The sugar coating and sour haw hits his tongue when he takes a bite, the crackle of brittle sugar and the burst of sour juice blending seamlessly, and he’s rewarded with the taste of prawn crackers blooming on his tongue bare moments after he’s finished the stick of tanghulu.
If that’s how the universe wants soulmates to communicate before meeting each other, learning each other’s likes and dislikes before they even knew what the other looked like- well, Wenqing wouldn’t argue.
That’s the way Wenqing finds out that his soulmate’s favourite snack is egg tarts, that their favourite candy is white rabbit candy, that they ate red date porridge for breakfast more often than not and a rotating variety of dishes for dinner that depended on seasonality of the ingredients. It’s how he finds out that his soulmate likes his mother’s shrimp omelette, how he finds out that they hate oysters and clams but love scallops.
Somewhere along the line, he builds an entire list of likes and dislikes, and begins keeping a bag of white rabbit candy on hand in case he ever has to eat oysters or clams- which is often, given that City Q is famous for its seafood.
Sometimes, his soulmate pointedly eats what feels like bags of haw flakes after Wenqing so much as lets an oyster touch his tongue, and Wenqing can’t even bring himself to be annoyed even as his mouth feels like it won’t be able to taste anything but sugar and a vague, biting acidity for the foreseeable future.
(Sometimes, Wenqing gets his revenge by eating more oysters, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Then, the year that Wenqing turns sixteen, rich herbal soups and fancy dishes become the cloying salt of instant noodles and acrid taste of burnt rice, and Wenqing worries.
Sometimes, his soulmate goes an entire day without eating, nothing but the taste of watered-down tea to sustain him, and- there is nothing Wenqing can do.
Even as he looks at the bag of white rabbit candy that has become a staple of his life, he wonders if eating one would help matters, or just make things worse.
But slowly, things get better. Instant noodles and burnt rice become simple fare, rice and an egg, or just a bowl of soup, but they get better. Instant noodles are still a staple, Wenqing notes, perhaps more of a staple than should be considered healthy, but at least they are still food.
The same year, amidst the concern, Wenqing starts playing Glory. It’s a new MMORPG with an elaborate setup system and even more elaborate lore, and for some reason, when Wenqing plays, the excitement that bubbles in his heart feels like more than just his alone, like he can put aside the worry that follows him like a cloud.
His avatar, Desert Dust, is named for the poem that his mother likes. It is a Striker, a class that does straightforward battle and charges ahead fearlessly, like how Wenqing wishes he could crush his soulmate’s problems into the dirt as easily as Desert Dust crushes his opponents.
When he plays, it feels almost like there's someone beside him, playing together.
When Wenqing is nineteen, they announce that Glory is having a professional alliance, and Wenqing has never wanted anything more than he wants to sign up. It is not something that his parents agree with, but he has always been determined, and they ultimately give in. He joins the team that his guild forms, signs on as the captain of Team Tyranny, and extends an invitation to join to the only other player who has ever managed to match him for both strength and skill- his best rival, perhaps even his friend, for all that they’ve never met in real life: One Autumn Leaf, a battle mage who is so terrifyingly skilled that it would be a shame if the other player didn’t go pro.
One Autumn Leaf declines, tells Wenqing that he’s already signed with Excellent Era, and even though Wenqing had expected it, somehow the disappointment he feels is almost enough to hurt.
(When Excellent Era releases their player roster, there is only a dark silhouette in place of One Autumn Leaf’s player profile picture, but his profile declares his name to be Ye Xiu, and he’s only one year younger than Wenqing himself. Wenqing laughs when he sees the name, strangely amused. Why not Ye Qiu, to match his avatar’s name?)
The same year that Wenqing signs onto Team Tyranny, he notices his soulmate’s diet changing, just a little. Dinner includes more dishes now, meat and vegetables instead of just the stray egg, and his soulmate has finally begun returning Wenqing’s white rabbit candies with various snacks once again.
It takes him a few more weeks to realise, but when he wakes up in the middle of the night to the familiar milky sweetness of white rabbit candy, it’s almost a relief. No matter that it’s almost three in the morning and that he knows that his soulmate lives in the same timezone as him and should therefore be sleeping, the fact that his soulmate is once more comfortable enough to start buying snacks and sweets again settles something in his chest that he hadn’t even realised was missing.
Almost unconsciously, Wenqing finds himself reaching for his own bag of white rabbit candy before realising that there’s not much point- his soulmate wouldn’t be able to distinguish the difference anyway, so Wenqing settles back into bed and savours the taste of sugar on his tongue.
It tastes like comfort.
Being the captain of a fledgling professional gaming team is more work than Wenqing expected, but he doesn’t mind. The simple fact that he is now allowed to play Glory as a career is more than enough to make up for the amount of paperwork that he has to complete, after all.
Still, it means that he’s been forgetting to eat recently, often enough that he’s fairly certain his mother would yell his ear off if she knew. It’s not that he purposefully forgets- he just doesn’t feel hungry, once he’s absorbed in his work, and he’s started doing work only to blink and realise that he’d completely missed lunch or dinner more than once.
Then, when Wenqing is busy scanning through potential team members, Wenqing is abruptly shaken from his musings by the taste of chilli and salt. Latiao is not an unfamiliar taste to Wenqing- he’s eaten it often enough, but the burn of chilli coming from his soulmate, who Wenqing has long learned does not appreciate spice, is jarring enough that it breaks him from his concentration. The familiar taste reminds Wenqing that he hasn’t eaten since breakfast, and he can feel his stomach rumble at the reminder.
A glance at the clock tells him that it’s almost eight PM, and he stands. It’s as good a time as any for a break, and some dinner, he supposes. Heading down to the cafeteria, he grabs a quick meal, just simple rice and dishes, and it’s only when Wenqing puts the first spoonful of rice in his mouth that the taste of latiao finally disappears.
There’s a warmth that builds in his chest at that, the realisation that his soulmate was paying enough attention to notice that Wenqing hadn’t eaten in a while, and willingly ate something spicy just to remind Wenqing to take better care of himself.
When he finishes his dinner, Wenqing picks up a small bowl of dessert, a simple iced longan with almond jelly that Wenqing usually wouldn’t bother with, but he knows that it’s something his soulmate will enjoy, and they deserve it.
His soulmate doesn’t return anything this time, but Wenqing can feel the gratitude all the same.
The first time Wenqing meets One Autumn Leaf in person is the first match between Excellent Era and Tyranny. They are backstage, which makes sense, because Excellent Era’s vice-captain is notorious for avoiding any and all media coverage possible, and shows up in masks and caps that essentially shroud his entire face when unavoidable. He bumps into Su Muqiu and a dark-haired man in the corridors backstage, and is summarily introduced to someone who must be simultaneously the most irritating and charming person he has ever met.
When Wenqing takes Ye Xiu’s offered hand in a polite handshake, the younger player smirks at him and tells him to watch his team, because Excellent Era was going to win their match.
Wenqing smirks back, and tells him that Tyranny won't lose.
(They do, but somehow the loss doesn't sting as much as he'd thought.)
It is the week before playoffs, and Wenqing is running drills on Desert Dust when his mouth abruptly fills with a sharp, acrid taste, bitter and astringent and enough to make his throat constrict with disgust. The taste burns on his tongue and down the back of his throat, and he hacks a little, trying to get rid of the taste that is not coming from his end of the bond.
It takes him a while to place it, but- it's smoke. His soulmate is smoking, and it's not a pleasant sensation. Since when did his soulmate smoke, anyway?
Well, at least this was something he could easily address.
There's a small street vendor just across the road from Tyranny's club that sells good grilled oysters, he remembers Ji Leng recommending, and even though he hadn't planned to go out, it's the work of minutes to pull on his jacket and leave the building. He locates the vendor that Ji Leng had mentioned without any problems, and orders a grilled oyster with chilli that is served quickly enough.
The taste of smoke is still acrid on his tongue, but chilli is a strong taste, and oyster even more so, and the moment the food touches his tongue Wenqing feels the smoke lessen, then disappear soon enough.
Satisfied, Wenqing swallows his impromptu supper and heads back to the club, popping a white rabbit candy in his mouth in consolation.
At least the smoke has stopped, and Wenqing now knows how to deal with it should it ever occur again.
(The smoke seldom comes back after that, and although it doesn’t stop entirely, it’s uncommon enough that Wenqing can tolerate it. He’ll wait for after they actually meet face to face to try to get his soulmate to quit smoking entirely- for now, without knowing the exact circumstances that his soulmate is in, he’ll refrain from commenting.)
Tyranny advances to the playoffs, but loses in the quarterfinals to Excellent Era. It’s a disappointing loss, but Excellent Era is the favoured team to win, so it’s not unexpected, at least for the fans.
Wenqing is already used to Excellent Era’s cryptid vice-captain hiding his face during public appearances, so Ye Xiu appearing in a face mask and a cap pulled low over his face is no surprise at all, but when Wenqing shakes his hand during the post-match, there is something about the bright gold of his rival’s eyes, shining in the shadow of his cap that sends a frisson of something down Wenqing’s spine.
The unidentifiable emotion disappears almost as sudden as it comes, and Wenqing pushes it to the back of his mind.
“Good game,” is all he offers, and even though the defeat is bitter, his words are sincere. Excellent Era had played a good game, and with two powerhouses in the form of both Ye Xiu and Su Muqiu, it was no surprise that they’d made it this far.
“You played well,” is Ye Xiu’s reply, and no matter that it is a running joke that the sound of the other player’s voice naturally draws aggro, Wenqing can hear the sincerity in his rival’s voice as well.
Wenqing holds Ye Xiu’s gaze from under the brim of his cap, unblinking, and it is only when Ji Leng nudges him that Wenqing realises that they’ve been holding their handshake for perhaps longer than is normal.
The moment breaks, and Wenqing moves on to shake Wu Xuefeng’s hand instead.
The end of the season brings with it Excellent Era’s win, and a friendly inter-team dinner. They’re all gathered in a restaurant in City B, where the finals were held, and food and chatter flow freely, to the point where even Royal Style doesn’t seem too bitter about their loss.
Sure, Guo Mingyu spends most of the night ribbing Su Muqiu and Ye Xiu, but that's fairly par for the course anyway.
"Tch, it's so unfair that Excellent Era has two gods what the fuck, why can't you be like us normal people and only have one? Leave some glory for the rest of us, damn it!" Guo Mingyu's complaint is a commonly heard one, but Wenqing is more amused by Ye Xiu’s immediate reaction, a smirk followed by a matter-of-fact, “Go play in the regular game, then, no one’s stopping you!”
On Wenqing's left, Lin Jie stifles what sounds like a laugh, and Wenqing's gaze darts briefly to the Tiny Herb captain, who has successfully buried his reaction in his food.
Guo Mingyu flips Ye Xiu the bird, and turns back to his food after Ye Xiu doesn't deign to reply, popping a nearby fried wonton in his mouth instead.
Simultaneously, the taste of fry oil and seasoned minced meat bursts to life across Wenqing's tongue, and Wenqing pauses. There was no way, right? They've been eating for a while already, and Wenqing should have noticed by now if he'd been tasting what Ye Xiu ate, so he writes it off as simple coincidence and doesn't think further about it.
Until he tastes sesame oil and chicken, the exact same dish that Wenqing had just eaten a few moments before. It's soy sauce and sesame and roasted chicken, and it doesn't stop.
Wenqing pauses in his eating, taking a sip of his water to make sure that he isn't just tasting what he'd eaten beforehand, and then looks across the table to Ye Xiu, who is diligently making his way through what looks to be the equivalent at least half an entire chicken piled on his plate.
Even if your favourite food in the world was chicken, no one would actually eat that much for no reason, right?
Unless. Unless Ye Xiu had noticed that his soulmate was eating the same dishes that were on the table in front of him right now, and was trying to weed them out.
Wenqing sighs again. Really, there were better ways to find your soulmate, but there's something amusing about watching Ye Xiu determinedly shovel more and more chicken into his mouth, barely slowing for a second.
Ye Xiu is adorable like this, though, cheeks puffed out like a hamster's, and something in Wenqing goes warm with the knowledge that this god of Glory, this amazing, tactical, stunning player is his soulmate. His rival since the beginning, the boy who was barely a year younger than him, the only person who'd ever given Wenqing a worthy fight in Glory.
Ye Xiu was his soulmate.
Ye Xiu was the person who returned sweets with Wenqing's favourites, the person hated chilli but ate it anyway because Wenqing liked it. This was the person he had grown up learning about, grown up looking forward to meeting, grown up buying so much white rabbit candy for that the convenience store auntie opposite his house had gotten into the habit of saving a bag just for whenever he came in.
...Wenqing should probably say something.
Opposite him, Wenqing watches in amusement as Su Muqiu frowns at Ye Xiu before reaching out with his chopsticks to snatch a piece of chicken off his vice-captain's plate. "Leave some chicken for the rest of us, you jerk, I wanted that chicken too!"
"Hey!" Ye Xiu's protest is muffled by the food in his mouth, and he twists a little to shield his plate from Su Muqiu. "The chicken is good, okay!"
Lips twitching, Wenqing wonders how it was possible for one of Glory's greatest tacticians to be quite so silly, but, well, it was kind of cute, actually. In a really dumb way, but it was.
"Pfft," Wei Chen snorts, reaching out to snatch a piece of chicken off Ye Xiu's plate as well. "Does Excellent Era not feed you or something? Ha, what's the use of having two gods if you don't even rear them well?"
"Stop stealing my chicken," Ye Xiu says, scowling at both Wei Chen and Su Muqiu.
At the exact same time, Su Muqiu scowls at Wei Chen as well. "Fuck you old Wei, we're not some farm animals to be reared!"
Then said Excellent Era captain turns back to Ye Xiu, and arches an eyebrow. "Okay, but seriously, you have like three quarters of the entire dish on your plate."
"It's very good chicken," is all Ye Xiu says.
"...Are you okay?"
There is a long silence there, long enough that Wenqing can see some of Excellent Era's other members beginning to look at their vice-captain with concern, before Ye Xiu abruptly sets down his chopsticks with an audible clack, and what Wenqing is fairly certain passes for a pout on his lips. "Dammit I just want to find my soulmate, they were eating the same food and I know they must be here!"
An even longer silence follows, before Wu Xuefeng says, tentative, "Little Leaf, you couldn't have just said that?"
Ye Xiu just pouts harder, looking so bereft that Wenqing momentarily thinks about stopping the charade and putting his soulmate out of his misery, but then Ye Xiu pushes himself to his feet, slamming his hands on the table before Wenqing can do more than consider.
"I'm going to start eating chilli if you don't reveal yourself right now," Ye Xiu threatens, and Wenqing's considerations fade in the face of amusement, remembering how much his soulmate hated spice.
"Your spice tolerance sucks," Su Muqiu says, as if taking the words from Wenqing's own mind, and Wenqing's lips twitch once more.
"Shut up, Muqiu," Ye Xiu hisses.
"No, seriously, you can't even eat mild hotpot without crying."
"Oh my god, shut up."
Watching, amused, while Ye Xiu and Su Muqiu bicker continuously, Wenqing reaches out to dip a piece of chicken into the saucer of chilli before popping it into his mouth.
Immediately, Ye Xiu's head shoots up, eyes darting over everybody at the table. "Who just ate chilli, what the fuck, you knew I wasn't looking, why are you like this, whoever you are!"
Silently, Wenqing continues chewing on his chicken.
Beside him, Lin Jie stares at him, and Wenqing just shrugs, earning a sigh from the older captain.
Reaching out for another piece of chicken to dip in the chilli, Wenqing abruptly changes his mind, reaching instead for the chilli alone, and puts a small piece into his mouth the moment Ye Xiu looks away. On his tongue, the chilli burns, not really enough to faze Wenqing, but he watches in faint amusement as Ye Xiu coughs, wrinkling his nose.
"Why are you like this!" His soulmate complains, reaching for his water. "Drinking water doesn't even help me because the spice is in your mouth!"
Wenqing repeats the move a few more times before he finally has pity on Ye Xiu and unwraps a white rabbit candy to put in his mouth instead.
"Why do you keep waiting for me to not be looking!" Ye Xiu cries, throwing his hands up. "Who just ate white rabbit candy!"
Lin Jie turns to look at Wenqing, eyebrows raised. "...Shouldn't you be saying something?"
Wenqing shrugs once more. "Excellent Era won the championship."
Tiny Herb's captain blinks multiple times, then turns his gaze back to Ye Xiu on the other side of the table. "...Carry on, then."
Barely hiding a laugh at the reaction -Tiny Herb's captain was widely reputed as the nicest person in the Alliance, but he was secretly just as chaos-loving as the rest of them- Wenqing continues watching as Ye Xiu sulks in his seat, scrunching up his nose when Wenqing lets another slice of chilli sit on his tongue.
He's probably getting a bit too much amusement from it, actually.
"I'm going to destroy your arena record the moment I figure out who you are," Ye Xiu grumbles, reaching over to steal an ice cube from Su Muqiu's glass when his runs out.
Wenqing snorts. It's about time that he revealed himself anyway, and Ye Xiu's implied threat isn't something that Wenqing will take lying down- One Autumn Leaf may have broken Desert Dust's hundred percent win rate in-game, but Desert Dust had returned the favour not long after anyway.
"I'd like to see you try," Wenqing says, picking up another chilli as Ye Xiu's head snaps up and he stares at Wenqing, eyes wide.
Then his soulmate lunges across the table, knocking Wenqing's chopsticks -and the chilli- from his grip. "What the fuck, old Han, what the fuck it was you all along? And stop eating chilli, you asshole!"
(Beside him, Lin Jie mutters a resigned, "Finally," and quickly escapes the danger zone to stand beside Wu Xuefeng instead.)
"I demand a sweet, my mouth is on fire from your stupidity," Ye Xiu says, glaring, and Wenqing shrugs. It's not like he doesn't have candy on him, and Ye Xiu did deserve some compensation, he supposed.
Although the flashing gold of his eyes and the annoyed flush high on his cheeks is very pretty.
Unwrapping another sweet, Wenqing reaches out to pop it in Ye Xiu's mouth just as his soulmate opens his mouth to say something else. Ye Xiu's eyes widen for a fraction of a second, lips still parted, before he finally seems to register the candy in his mouth.
"That's not what I meant, you jerk," he grouses, wrinkling his nose as he sucks on the sweet in his mouth. "The spice is in your mouth, you should be the one eating the sweet!"
Wenqing laughs. "You didn't specify."
Huffing, Ye Xiu grabs Wenqing by the collar and pulls him close. Their lips are barely a millimeter apart, close enough that Wenqing can feel Ye Xiu's breath on his lips, can see the darker flecks of brown in the gold of his eyes. His heartbeat quickens in his chest, half anticipatory and half apprehensive, hyper-aware of fact that practically the entire professional alliance was in the room.
Ye Xiu's lips ghost against his own, so featherlight that Wenqing almost doubts whether it happened, then Ye Xiu presses closer. Warm, chapped lips fit against his own, and Wenqing's eyelids flutter closed without his volition, sinking into the ki-
A familiar milky sweetness coats his tongue, and Wenqing pauses. Ye Xiu's tongue brushes against his lips, and Wenqing's eyes fly open as the candy is pushed into his mouth.
Ye Xiu grins at him, impish. "Thanks for the candy, old Han! It tastes nice, doesn't it?"
It takes Wenqing a moment to process what happened, but when he does it's all he can do to shake his head, partially resigned but also silently amused. Ye Xiu was a god-level tactician, after all.
But Wenqing wouldn't go down without a fight. He reaches for the chilli on the table once more, lips twitching. "I could always-"
"Don't you dare!" Ye Xiu all but yells, darting forward to grab for the chilli. Just as his fingertips brush the saucer, Wenqing snatches the dish away from under his soulmate's nose.
"Oh my god, fuck you, old Han, you're such an asshole!"
Smirking, Wenqing picks up another piece of chilli.
("So," Wu Xuefeng says, tilting his head back to meet Lin Jie's gaze. "Is now a good time to tell them that we're soulmates too?"
Lin Jie blinks. "Maybe after they stop trying to kill each other."
"So... never, then?"
A shrug. "...Yeah, probably.")