terminal velocity to catastrophe
The thing about college frat parties is that people are there for a multitude of reasons, but by far the most prominent are: 1) to impress someone you know is going, or 2) to get so wasted you forget you have midterms next week. Which makes for such a pleasant crowd.
Xiu Ying is here for neither of those reasons. She doubts she could impress anyone anyways, considering that she was homeschooled until she was unceremoniously kicked out of said home when she was sixteen and then sustained herself off of Ebay textbooks until it came time for college applications—which just goes to say, that she didn’t really have time to learn what party-with-alcohol etiquette was before now.
She stares down the red Solo cup that’d been handed to her by….someone. They all look the same at this point. She’s attending a university in Northeast America, so like, of course they do. The liquid in the cup stares back at her, sloshing up and down with the vibrations of the blaring song that the DJ decided to curse everybody’s ears with.
So Xiu Ying, who is probably as smooth and inconspicuous as a hippo on ice skates, leans uncomfortably against the wall, having a staring contest with her drink and hoping she looks like she’s going to drink it.
The walls are shaking to the rhythm of the bass. There’s flashing blue and red lights from…some corner of the room. And literally everybody is with someone, sweaty, and dancing.
A figure breaks out from the crowd, in some moment of mercy from the universe. She hardly considers looking up until he’s standing in front of her.
“Nice,” Zhang Wei deadpans.
“Don’t,” Xiu Ying returns.
He gives a small snort laugh at that. “Didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it,” Xiu Ying snips. When he raises his eyebrows in question, she gestures to herself. Her roommate had lended her a blue cami, and in a moment of pity, some…fishnets to put under her ripped jeans. “I’m fitting the occasion.”
“Fitting the occasion indeed,” Zhang Wei concedes, though it’s definitely a teasing tone. She flips him off, to which he rolls his eyes and leans an arm on the wall. “You know she’s here. Right?”
Xiu Ying tenses. She averts her gaze when Zhang Wei gives her a concerned look. “Didn’t think she’d come.”
“I told you she might be.”
“…didn’t think I’d see her.”
“Okay, well,” Zhang Wei’s mouth screws up in a grimace. He looks over his shoulder, then turns back to her. “She’s…across the room right now.”
Xiu Ying whips back to him, eyes wide. She stands up on her tip toes, looking over his shoulder, and—right, he’s. Right. Ren Ju is standing in the other side of the room, picking up a cup from a table. The air on her side of the room must be frigid.
“Crap,” Xiu Ying hisses, looking back at Zhang Wei. “Crap, she’s coming our way.”
“Xiu Ying,” he says.
“She’s gonna see me! I don’t want her to—”
“Xiu Ying.”
“—and I shouldn’t have even come! What was I thinking—”
“Xiu Ying,” Zhang Wei repeats, catching her gently by the wrist of the hand she’d been using to gesture, unsubtly, at Ren Ju’s form, who is now weaving through the mass of bodies towards them. “Breathe.”
Xiu Ying takes a deep breath. It does nothing to calm her. Zhang Wei looks down at her, expression unreadable.
“I’m not ready for her to…” Xiu Ying starts. She trails off, something lumping up in her throat.
Zhang Wei looks over his shoulder again, then back at her. “She’s getting closer.”
“I know.”
“Xiu Ying,” he starts, looking hesitant. “If you had a way to get out of this—”
“I would take it,” she interrupts, desperate. “Zhang Wei. If you have an idea, anything, just—just do it, I don’t even—oh God, she’s right—”
“Are you sure?” He asks, strangely. “Anything is…Xiu Ying, are you—”
“I am completely, one hundred percent, regrettably and unfortunately sober,” she deadpans. Ren Ju is—she’s right there, and, “If you, just—Zhang Wei, now—”
Zhang Wei leans down, closes his eyes. Xiu Ying falters, staring at him. Then he presses their lips together.
There’s a million things running through Xiu Ying’s mind, but the most urgent of them is Ren Ju can’t see me, so she closes her eyes. And stops thinking.
Her wrist Zhang Wei had in his hold from earlier is pressed against the wall near her head, and Xiu Ying makes a soft noise. The thing is: she’s really trying not to think about it, but Zhang Wei’s other hand comes up to ever so gently cup the side of her jaw and tilt her head, and she wonders if Zhang Wei’s ever done favors like this for other friends.
Time goes by so quickly in the midst of it all, Zhang Wei holding her so delicately. Her lips feel numb, which is a fact she’ll get embarrassed and die about later.
“Zhang Wei,” Xiu Ying murmurs, quiet, when he pulls back. Their foreheads are pressed together. “I think she’s gone.”
“What?” He mumbles back, voice slightly rough. His eyes are closed. “Oh. Good.”
“Yeah,” she returns. The embarrassment is starting to kick in. “Th-thank you for…”
“Right,” Zhang Wei nods, clearing his throat. He takes a step back.
Xiu Ying wraps her arms awkwardly around herself. Zhang Wei won’t really meet her eyes. She looks to the crowd, sees the retreating back of a girl with a white top. The lights are flashing. There’s another awful song playing. Xiu Ying has a headache now.
She can’t help but think that everything’s just gotten much worse.
Footnotes:
-Mushroom Chocolate by 6lack is the song I imagined to be playing during this!
-this was a warm up i know it’s rough!! also Xiu Ying does indeed not return Zhang Wei’s (thus far unnoticed by her) feelings so please don’t think they’re gonna get together lol
-this is an alternate universe of a main series i’m co-writing with @mnemosynink, check out the first chapter here!: https://theprose.com/post/383820/chapter-one-on-rogue-cultivators-and-old-blood