🎂 happy womb-escape day, qin jiu! | 1142 words | fluff/humour, T | birthday oneshot (HBD QJ!) 🥛
You Huo thanks Qin Jiu for 'escaping the womb'. Qin Jiu's first reaction is one of confusion—he cannot help but think of the giant octopus at first, though he eventually realises what he means.
(As the day ends, Qin Jiu feels like the luckiest man alive, and he sure is glad that he'd 'escaped the womb', too.)
(image credits: missevans.com)
☂ Inspired by an old meme.
17/6: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GIN! click here to read on AO3 or click under the cut! ☂
"What do you want to do today?"
Qin Jiu looks at You Huo, impressed—it's only nine in the morning, and he's already said seven words to him; more words than he does in one day on average.
"Isn't it today?" You Huo's tone of voice is one of having just uttered the most ordinarily boring and boringly ordinary thing in the world. "Your anniversary for escaping the womb."
"Anniversary for escaping…the womb?" Qin Jiu tries to recollect his memories—he wonders if he's talking about the time they'd escaped the octopus belly, but belly and womb are completely different anatomical regions, and amongst the many things Qin Jiu doesn't believe, he doesn't believe his boyfriend doesn't know this everyday fact.
A few moments in, and Qin Jiu is still confused. He reckons that his facial expression must have been blanker than the white-faced ghosts back in the sailor exam, because You Huo says nothing—he only clucks his tongue, the lingual click reverberating even louder in the quiet room than any of his words have resounded that day. He hands Qin Jiu his phone.
Qin Jiu pokes at it; as it lights up, the screen is still locked, but nonetheless fully demonstrative of the contents he needed to see, on the little calendar widget at the top of the home screen:
June 17: Gin’s Birthday
"Oh," Qin Jiu feels his lips reflexively curving into a smile. He'd completely forgotten himself, but seems like someone else, a more important person—the most important one—hadn't. "You remembered?"
"I'm not experienced at planning such events," You Huo answers without answering, while somehow also delivering Qin Jiu a question. "So go ahead and tell me what you want to do today."
"You remembered," Qin Jiu's smirk grows into a grin. "Can't believe you remembered."
You Huo shoots Qin Jiu a look that says, answer my question, and don't talk nonsense, and of course I remembered, all at the same time, and Qin Jiu laughs.
"I want to spend today with my favourite person," is all Qin Jiu says. "That is all."
Qin Jiu throws You Huo a shit-eating grin, eyes not leaving his.
You Huo shoots Qin Jiu a look that says, I regret asking you, and any more nonsense and today is your deathday, and don't you already spend every day with me?, all at the same time. Qin Jiu laughs.
---
Turns out You Huo isn't the only one who remembers, because when they get to the military office, Qin Jiu gets showered with confetti.
"Happy birthday, boss!" 922, the unsurprising confetti-thrower grins so hard, Qin Jiu thinks his teeth may fall off.
"Hope you like chocolate," 154 is holding a brown cake lighted with candles. "We made this for you together yesterday night. Even 21 and 78 joined us!"
"Thanks. I like chocolate. I hope our Invigilator A does, too," Qin Jiu nicks some of the chocolate icing with his index finger. "Open your mouth," he grins, said finger worming its way to You Huo's face. "Or this will decorate your nose like the cherry on top of a sundae."
"Put the icing down," You Huo shifts a languid inch away, deftly dodging. "Unless you want your finger bitten off."
"Not that I wouldn't let you," Qin Jiu laughs, managing a smidge of icing on his cheek. "If you really want to."
It's been six straight hours of army paperwork on one of those rare in-office days for them, which means they're only officially off at 8 in the evening. At 7.45, Qin Jiu feels a tug on his wrist. He looks up—it's none other than their bigshot; his bigshot.
"Let's go."
"Playing hooky, boss?" Qin Jiu jests. "We're not even done with these administrative duties."
"I call the shots here, so you will do as I say," is all You Huo says. "And I say, now, that you are liberated from these duties."
Qin Jiu laughs as he gets pulled by the wrist—seems like they must have more important things to do at the moment.
---
"Wow," Qin Jiu grins. "A candlelit picnic on a deserted beach, three hours away from the mainland? Have I swallowed a romance novel—or rather, have you?"
"It's quieter here," is You Huo's quiet response.
"True. Had we been back in the office, perhaps 922 would already have sung his lungs out a second time by now."
"...I'm not singing, just so you know." You Huo removes something from the picnic basket—it's a cake; their second one for the day. "I do have candles, if you want."
Way to fan the flames of his feelings for him. Qin Jiu chuckles.
"Of course I want the candles," Qin Jiu whips out a lighter from his pocket. "Gotta set fire to everything we can set fire to, no?"
You Huo doesn't respond—he, does, nonetheless, go ahead and 'set fire' to each of the candles, the cake beginning to look like some sort of crowned, glowing alien floating in the dark of the dim moonlight.
"Thank you for escaping the womb thirty-odd years ago," You Huo's face and words are equal parts eerie and hilarious behind the lighted cake he's holding. “Make a wish.”
The entire scene feels like a witch ritual, and Qin Jiu can barely suppress the mirth bubbling from his gut. At the same time, the little crevice in the little space between his lungs is warm from the candles, and yet warmer from everything he's had the honour of receiving today, from the only one he'd ever wish for.
"The world wouldn't be as bright and grand without you." You Huo’s voice sends light but crisp reverberations into the salty air, resounding soft but clear in the silence of the night. The flames on the candles flicker in his eyes transfixed on Qin Jiu’s, adding gentle emphasis to his words.
Qin Jiu leans forward suddenly. You Huo doesn't stagger backwards at the movement because he'd been expecting him to blow out the candles in the first place, but he also does more than he’d expected him to. Before he knows it, the candles are blown out, leaving them in near pitch-darkness; Qin Jiu is on top of him, his lips on top of his. As if playing gooseberry, their phones beep in an automatic notification that it's 18 June, 00:00, but Qin Jiu does not care; neither of them do.
"I hope it isn't too late for a birthday kiss from my most beloved," Qin Jiu smiles between their teeths and lips, feeling like the luckiest man alive.
You Huo says nothing—he lets his lips do the talking for him, and Qin Jiu can hear every word he says, including:
I love you, too; thank you for being born, and thank you for being alive.
Happy birthday.
Me at the system about JiuHuo: They've never *explosions in the background* done anything *sounds of glass shattering* wrong in *car crushes against a wall as gunshots are heard* their life ever!*bazooka blasts*
When he'd first called him 'my big invigilator', the greeting wasn't exactly well-received, to say the least.
"My big invigilator," Qin Jiu held a bag of bread—compliments from the Languages exam office. "Baguette or vienna for you?"
"I belong to myself," was his only response; he hadn't even bothered answering the actual question before his head fell back onto the table with a soft but perceptible thud, like a full stop at the end of a terse sentence. Seconds later, You Huo was no longer awake.
Qin Jiu clicked his tongue—he'd only wanted to ask if he was hungry.
Afterwards, Qin Jiu had the prudence to try softening it a little—surely 'our' would work. It wasn't like it couldn't be interpreted as just a friendly way of signaling in-group solidarity.
"Invigilator A, join us for dinner?" was another examiner's invitation the other day—a half-ditched attempt to bridge some degree of camaraderie between the two factions.
"No thanks."
Well...not that they'd expected him to accept anyway.
"Come on," Qin Jiu, now also known as 001, had no prudence to give up, nor give in. "Surely our big invigilator can show us some face. We're colleagues after all, even if not from the same side."
"..."
Ten minutes later, the few of them, 001 and A included, sat around the restaurant table, half of them regretting their life decisions, most of the other half wanting to go home, one of them smirking and the last one of them looking like he could kill a man any moment.
"Can't believe our big invigilator really did show us some face." Qin Jiu, on You Huo's right, reached over to You Huo's left where the teapot was positioned. "What a lucky day."
"I am my own person." You Huo pushes away his teacup which Qin Jiu had just filled, the scalding water narrowly missing the latter's pinky. "I also have arms of my own, so drink your tea."
Surprisingly, "our big invigilator" seemed to have wound up being acceptable at some point.
"Traitor," some drunken colleague of theirs (relatively new and junior-ranking: 968th, going by the tag on his shirt), had grown the balls to go up to Invigilator A of all people to unleash their frustrations. "You people are traitors to humanity for not stepping up against anything. And you most of all, A."
You Huo wasn't moving—it wasn't clear if he was just letting him continue kicking him in that inebriated state, or was a few moments away from potentially killing this Invigilator 968.
"I'm afraid our big invigilator has an appointment with me now,"
Qin Jiu had stepped in—it wasn't clear who he was trying to save.
"If you'd excuse us."
Pulling away 'Traitor' Invigilator A by the wrist, Qin Jiu realises he'd been silent the entire time.
No protest; no cold assertion of not belonging to anyone but himself.
Two years and one coincident period of memory loss later, Qin Jiu's hypothesis still remained the same—"our big invigilator" (actually, now "our top student") is O.K., at least if not uttered sarcastically. Or maybe it was because ever since that time they'd 'cleaned' the haunted school, they came to be officially established as 'friends'.
(Qin Jiu had certain complaints to make about the 'friends' status, but he figured it was, at least, certainly better than being enemies.)
"You can make yourself at home," Qin Jiu threw his jacket over the couch, evidently making himself at home at his own home. "Would our top student like a drink? I have gin."
"Water is fine." You Huo was already sitting on the couch at this point; a few seconds in and his eyes were already shut.
Qin Jiu chuckled—he didn't think he'd really make himself at home.
(He hadn't told him this yet, but he could make himself at home here any time he wanted.)
Three years and a victory later, they try to make themselves a home. Some time ago, they'd realised their goals were aligned; along the way, they'd also had certain other mutual realisations on the side—those that really felt more central than anything else; those that told them it wasn't just their goals which were aligned.
The door clicks close. It doesn't take Qin Jiu a long process of elimination to figure out who's back.
"My big invigilator's back," Qin Jiu is already at the stairway to accost him. "How much I've missed you."
"Move," You Huo's fingers and palm apply a funny ticklish pressure on his abdomen. It's obviously not a lot of pressure, but Qin Jiu lets himself get 'moved' anyway.
Upstairs, the only room is the bedroom—there's only one, the master bedroom, and even the toilet is within the room. Life is better here than in that dingy old district, and not only because it isn't an either-or between 'invigilator room' and 'confinement room'. Also, the rooms are pretty large—at least, large enough to fit a bed meant for two.
"I've been thinking about something recently."
You Huo blinks at Qin Jiu near-expressionlessly. In such moments of seeming inscrutability, only those who've already known him for a while may manage to catch the question mark in his eyes; Qin Jiu is mere centimetres away, so he definitely sees the question mark.
"You never protest anymore at being called 'our big invigilator', or even 'my big invigilator'. Same for 'our top student' or 'my top student'. Why?" Qin Jiu's trying to frown but he fails; of course he's grinning, it's a happy problem. "What happened to belonging to yourself, and being your own person?"
Qin Jiu is no longer centimetres away, nor waiting for an answer—after all, he already knows it.
"I've always been my own person, but I'm now already also yours."
Global Examination Audio Drama || Theme Song, "Cogwheels of Time and Space"
原著：木苏里@木苏里
演唱：白翎@正版白翎酱丶 大C@大C爱唱歌
作词：冥凰@-冥凰-
作曲：何论哲-Xu1 Studio
编曲：何论哲-Xu1 Studio
混音：HJLL-Xu1 Studio
制作人：徐一-Xu1 Studio @徐一_
音乐监制：贰哲-Xu1 Studio @贰哲
策划：@魔渔队
监制：阿瑶@阿瑶知马力 洲洲
统筹：嗒嗒@是TaTa不是DaDa
海报设计：清梦环途@清梦环途
宣传：泡芙
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