Fic: everything they cannot see (Qiubing)
A/N: @xinyuehui @snicker-doodles 💖
Chen Shi will be the first to admit that he’s not the sharpest tool in the box. But what he is, is insightful when it counts. More than that, when it truly counts, Chen Shi sees what others may not.
General Qiu is careful about it. To a better man, it would have been practically impossible to pick up on the ways the little things peek through the mask of stoicism and severity. But Chen Shi is just a normal man. And so, he sees the way the General turns to Bing-ye — the slow tilt of his face to the man like how a flower seeks the sun.
He sees the way General Qiu looks at Bing-ye. Sees how he looks at him with shades of yearning and longing, as if his very soul burns to be near him, and every part of it coloured by a deep and undeniable fondness that is there one moment and gone at the exhale of a breath.
And when Bing-ye turns to face General Qiu, every trace of that is gone.
Chen Shi marvels. Sits at awe in the way the mask on General Qiu’s face shutters over into place so that quickly, one could even dispute it was ever gone in the first place.
Bing-ye and General Qiu are looking at him. He manages a quick answer, squeezing it out around a squeak. Oh, he should probably start paying more attention to what they’re planning.
