#3khsau

Life is like a box of chocolate, Sima Yi read somewhere, you never know what you’re gonna get. Well, walking into Cao Wei headquarters is about the same, except some of the chocolates are actively trying to kill you. The spectacle du jour, as he’s stepping out of the elevator, meeting Xun You who’s rounding a corner with a massive cup of tea in one hand, is little droplets of red scattered like a trail of breadcrumbs along the corridor down to Jia Xu’s office. It’s an alarming sight, since the killing metaphor is not normally so literal, but Xun You takes it in stride, nodding a cheerful good morning and offering Sima Yi his little paper bag of dried fruit. Sima Yi takes a bit of dried persimmon in lieu of courage.

“What,” he says.

Xun You shrugs and navigates his way down the corridor, careful not to get blood on his reasonably priced shoes.

Sima Yi follows. The door to the office is ajar, and he lets Xun You have the first careful peek through before following him in once it is confirmed that whatever butchery has happened is already done. Jia Xu and Guo Jia are in the office, huddled in the far corner. Jia Xu is half-lying against the wall, looking like he’d slid down it very very slowly. He has one hand held to his ribs and the other shoving a wad of paper up his nose, though not for the usual reasons - there’s blood all over both paper and hand. Guo Jia is crouching next to him, peering in like a curious bird.

Sima Yi, being a survivor type, stops in the doorway, but Xun You walks in and joins the peering.

“Did you fight Cao Hong again?” he asks in polite interest.

“Cao Hong couldn’t touch me in a thousand years.” Jia Xu snorts, wincing as it goes through his probably broken nose. “I fought Zhang Wenyuan.”

Xun You’s face darkens, though not nearly as much as Sima Yi thinks it ought to. He’s met Zhang Liao, Zhang Wenyuan, a couple of times, doing the rounds in the office. The guy is about a head shorter than Jia Xu and fifteen times as angry. There’s no word for the way an small, unassuming person can make you snap out of his way just by moving forward, except ones that Sima Yi feels really weird using in the real world. Killing aura, or something equally wuxia. Sima Yi wouldn’t have fought Zhang Liao for all the money in Cao Wei.

It looks like Xun You agrees. “My xiaoshu told you,” he begins very seriously. Jia Xu responds by telling him to fuck off in Chinese, Oirat and Russian. Astonishingly, Guo Jia steps in like some kind of responsible adult.

“Alright, you’ve done your alpha male posturing for day, lao Jia. Let’s go get your face fixed up. I hope it hurts like hell.” He glances back at Xun You, who’s still frowning. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll talk to Wenruo. You go downstairs and do damage control with the boys there.”

“It’s always damage control,” Xun You sighs, but he does turn around and exits the office. Sima Yi, who is fiercely hoping that neither of the older Stooges noticed him, immediately follows.

“Wow,” Xun You mutters as soon as the two of them are out of hearing range of the disaster zone. It’s a rare enough thing to hear him think out loud that Sima Yi pauses in his frantic mental calculation of escape routes in order to listen. “I knew he was going to do it someday, but I didn’t think he’d do it first thing in the morning…”

That does add a certain flair to the affair, Sima Yi has to admit. He glances back over his shoulder before he can stop himself. “Looks like Zhang Liao really kicked his ass. I get why Xun Yu told him to stay away…”

“No.” The younger Xun shakes his head as the elevator slides open before them. Its insides echo with an antiseptically pleasant Western pop cover. “That doesn’t bother us. Wenhe-ge was asking for it.”

The Xuns are so benevolent, Sima Yi thinks sarcastically. “Then why?”

“What xiaoshu said was that you shouldn’t let a sadist fight a masochist.”

Right, it’s going to be one of those days, Sima Yi muses, his head already lightly spinning. He follows Xun You into the elevator and stands next to him for a while as it travels, staring at the closed doors and pretending like he’s supposed to be there and has the slightest idea what he’s doing. Eventually he says, “lao Xun - ”

“Lao Xun is my cousin,” Xun You says, a little bashful. “I told you, please, just Gongda.“ 

"Gongda,” Sima Yi obliges. “Has it ever occurred to you that everyone in this company are completely insane?”

Xun You considers that, calmly contemplative. The elevator drifts down the building with a satisfied hum.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about it,” he remarks after a while, in a tone of very light reproach.  

Sima Yi feels his eyes bulge slightly. “That’s… not making me feel better.”

“Mm.”

“Are you… I mean, you and lao Xun seem like sensible people, I’m not sure how…”

“Oh, xiaoshu has great faith in Cao zongcai.” Xun You shrugs. “I think he feels that it’s appropriate…” his eyebrows bunch up slightly and he trails off, pressing his lips together. Very Xun You of him. So much for insight into the perfect Xun Yu from the person who’s best equipped to give it and isn’t a total psycho like Guo Jia. A part of Sima Yi does have to admit that knowing Xun Yu thinks Cao Wei isn’t on the crash and burn track is very comforting, though there’s still the little question of why the hell. He returns to staring at the elevator doors. The music is very cheerful. The elevator, at least, seems very pleased with its workplace.

It’s a bit of time to ride. He says, “if everyone knew that Jia Xu and Zhang Liao were going to fight eventually, why - ”

“Oh, here we are,” Xun You says brightly, a second before the doors open. He leads the two of them into the social space down the corridor, where there is usually a small gathering of employees around the vending machines. Not today. Today it’s just Zhang Liao, draped in a chair in the corner with a massive ice pack held to the side of his face, Yue Jin to his left and Xu Huang to his right like a pair of honour guards. Probably honouring the ass-whooping he’d handed Jia Xu, Sima Yi thinks with no little solidarity. The whites of Zhang Liao’s eyes are a solid murderous red.

“Good morning, lao Zhang,” Xun You says, mild as the dew on the grass.

Zhang Liao stares at him in awkward silence. It’s a curdled moment before Yue Jin supplies, “sorry, Gongda, he can’t talk, we think his jaw is broken.”

“Kicked him in the face,” Xu Huang is muttering, sounding a little dazed. “Who kicks a guy when he’s down like that?”

“We’re just waiting to make sure he’s walking steady before we take him to get looked after.”

“I get the balls, but the face?”

“We weren’t around when trouble started, but knowing Wenhe, well.”

“Yunchang is going to be so pissed…”

At the mention of his boyfriend’s name, Zhang Liao’s head snaps up and he turns that red murder at Xu Huang. He drops the ice pack - under which his jaw is taking on all sorts of fascinating colours and patterns, Sima Yi notes with fixated horror, Jia Xu is an artist is what he is - and flails is hands in urgent, inept signing. Xu Huang pauses in his lurid muttering to look, and passes the message on to the others:

“He’s telling us not to tell Yunchang.”

“What’s not to tell?” Yue Jin scoffs. “Is he gonna say his jaw is wired shut for a diet?”

The rest of Zhang Liao’s face starts going a matching red. Xu Huang conveys another bout of hand-flailing. “He says Yunchang will kill him if he finds out he’s been fighting at work. And that you’re an asshole, Wenqian.”

Yue Jin just sighs the universal mournful sigh of babysitters of grown-ass men everywhere. Sima Yi barely knows him, but feels a bond of shared fate form nonetheless. “What was the fight over, anyway?” he endeavours to ask, in the interest of due process.

Zhang Liao just shrugs. The other two exchange looks, and then look helplessly to Xun You. “Pick a reason,” Yue Jin says with a shrug of his own. “With those two, chances are it’s good enough.”

Zhang Liao looks a little offended, but doesn’t protest this claim, possibly because his jaw is broken. Knowing Jia Xu as he does, Sima Yi is rather forced to concede the point, incidentally reasserting his evaluation of Cao Wei as made up of about forty percent mad geniuses to sixty percent the just plain mad. What a fun career he has to look forward to. He joins everyone else in the room in looking to Xun You for responsible adulthood. Xun You, he realizes, is still holding his big cup of tea as he settles down into a chair next to Zhang Liao. He catches his eye. Older or younger, it’s impossible not to look a Xun in the eye once they get you. Xun You looks so attentive and well meaning with his steaming tea. It is a strange and terrifying gift. 

“Wenyuan,” Xun You says. “I’ll cover for you with lao Guan.”

Zhang Liao looks profoundly relieved. He nods. Just like that, Sima Yi thinks. Defences penetrated and collapsed. Now comes the moving in for the kill.

“I’m just asking that you remember what zongcai said. If you need to let out steam, you’re welcome to do it, just not inside the company. Whatever we are out there, here in Cao Wei we’re us.” He reaches out - god, what a pro - and lays his teacup-warmed hand lightly on Zhang Liao’s shoulder. “Whatever grief the world gives us, it stops right at these doors.”

Yue Jin and Xu Huang are nodding. Sima Yi feels a little like he’d just observed some dark magic ritual. He wonders if there are going to be manly hugs. Since Zhang Liao hasn’t punched Xun You yet, or even tried to shrug that hand off his shoulder, the possibility looms uncomfortably clear. In the end Zhang Liao lets out air in a weird little sad noise and also nods. He holds his hand up and Xu Huang grabs it and helps him to his feet. Some urgent gestures are exchanged. Xu Huang turns to Xun You to interpret. 

“He says thanks, Gongda, and that he started it, so Wenhe shouldn’t get in trouble.”

“That’s for zongcai to decide.” Xun You looks severe. “Lao Jia does have a history, and fighting in the company is a serious matter…”

Zhang Liao waves a hand. Xu Huang looks doubtful, but adds, “he says it’s fine, it was, uh - Wenyuan, are you sure - uh - he says it was therapeutic.”

Sima Yi coughs. Xun You is forced to talk over him extra smoothly. “I… see. I’ll pass that on. Wenhe-ge does have some… special ways of relating to people. It’ll be good not to worry about the two of them in the future.”

Zhang Liao nods reassurance. Xun You and Sima Yi stay just long enough to see that he’s being hauled off for some much-needed medical attention, before heading back upstairs to report. Once they’re back in the elevator, Xun You lets out a long, slightly whistling breath, and crosses his hands behind his back with a beatific smile.

“Completely insane,” Sima Yi says into the happy hum of elevator pop. 

Xun Yu does not attempt to contradict this amply proven truism. He drums his twined fingers against each other - the other Xun would never let telling movement get away from him like that - and stands again in contemplation, watching the floor numbers tick by. “Complicated people,” he says ponderously. “Complicated management.” Then he grins, a grin worthy of Cao Wei. “I love this job.”

“Oh god,” Sima Yi groans before he can help himself. “You’re like a happy Guo Jia.”

He’s not even sure if he’s surprised when Xun You puffs up with pride (to the degree that Xun You is capable of pride) like it’s the best compliment he’d gotten all year. He also tries not to contemplate whether this means that he, Sima Yi, is expected to shape up into a happy Jia Xu. What excellent future prospects, what a professional horizon. “What does your xiaoshu have to say about that?”

“Xiaoshu knows that I always have the best interests of the company in mind,” Xun You answers primly, which Sima Yi takes to mean that he doesn’t think they’re supposed to talk about it. “The important thing,” he adds after a moment, “is that Wenhe-ge was right, Zhang Wenyuan is adjusting.”

That sounds nice. Optimistic, even .Sima Yi swallows slightly. He asks, “Gongda, this, uh, adjustment… does it usually involve getting kicked in the fa-”

It's inevitable that it happen at some point, so of course, it happens with the worst possible timing.

"What I want to know is where he puts it all. I mean he's a bundle of sticks and I bet he's eaten twice his weight already - someone take that damn plate away!"

"You just try," Jia Xu says contemptuously and sticks another couple of danjiao in his mouth.

There's a certain - not rivalry, as such, Guo Jia contemplates. But sometimes he is keenly aware of the sharp-cornered distance between Cao Cao's Stooges and the old guard, the Caos and Xiahous that have been there to build the company from the dirt up. It's understandable, he thinks a little glumly as he looks around the room and then back to his beer. These are all mature, rough men who've raised their fortune from minerals, lots, construction - real things, not the kind of invisible money that comes from magic papers that twentysomething freaks like Guo Jia juggle in the air without leaving the house. Guo Jia gets them, he honestly does (except maybe for the leaving the house bit, he'll never get the appeal of that.) The truth is you have to get them if you want to be able to work on them. With them. Same difference. They know where they stand with Guo Jia and they appreciate it even if they don't always get it, and naturally it's impossible for them to find a bad word to say about either Xun, even when Gongda makes his little pushes just a little more frequently every week. So it's all good. It's a productive tension.

That Jia Xu, though. He's been with Cao Wei for six months already, and Guo Jia is still waiting, every time they go out, for the inevitable to happen.

"Eat us out of house and home I swear. You people eat whole sheep, don't you?"

Like tonight. It's a small thing, but seeds usually are.

"I wonder if he could eat a whole sheep," Li Dian says with something like awe. All around the long table, the whole pack of Cao Wei higher-ups mutter and nod in appreciation of the merit of the question. They're all varying degrees of drunk already, though it's pretty early in the night, and watching them is its own kind of sport for Guo Jia. Almost compensates for not indulging, himself. Cleaning up your lifestyle sucks. But a promise made to Xun Wenruo is a promise, and besides he really doesn't want to fall over tonight and make Jia Xu have to carry him home again. Not tonight. It's supposed to be a party, and Guo Jia isn't going to a whole lot of parties these days.

So people-watching it is, in the just slightly too-warm haze of the restaurant, counting the loosened ties and the hopeful glances back at the blaring karaoke machine. Bodies shift and elbows nudge around the table. He pokes at the vegetables on his plate and drawls to Xun You, "take some of your favorite stuff right now."

"Huh?" The poor kid is still miles behind the rest of them sometimes. Though he does automatically reach for the roast duck.

"A good portion. Wenhe is about to get to some real eating."

Xun You is thankfully smart enough not to ask, if the real eating hasn't happened yet, what Jia Xu has been doing up until now.

"Well?" Cao Hong, ever the high standard of tact, pokes a finger at Jia Xu from across the table. His voice has been rising just a bit with every comment "How much can you stuff in there?"

"I can eat a whole sheep, yes," Jia Xu says wryly, and of course it's too much to hope that he'd stop there, so he goes on: "But I don't know about stuffing things in, lao Zilian, that's your department."

It's a water-weak insult, but that just adds to the humiliation when Cao Hong takes it. Naturally. Jia Xu doesn't deign to use a good insult when a bad one will do just fine. But enough assorted relatives laugh that the only way for him to save face is pretend to be laughing with them. He smacks a large hand down on the table. "I bet I can out-eat you, you skinny little shit."

"As long as you're not eating me out, I'm good." Another round of laughter, another pair of danjiao. It's amazing how easy lewd jokes come to Jia Xu considering his complete and lifelong apathy towards all things sexual. He duly starts loading up his bowl, starting with the roast duck. But now something's changing, people are looking. A tiny little shiver runs up Guo Jia's spine, like a cat's ruff going up.

They've all been waiting for this, he realizes. They've all felt it, that undefined electrical static that hovers around Jia Wenhe, just looking for someone to strike sparks with. And they've hoped someone else will get shocked first, thanks Cao Hong for obliging.

"That's not fair, Zilian," Cao Ren interferes like the only mature adult that he is for Cao Wei. He's less drunk than the rest, Guo Jia notes with uncertain relief. "You'll leave nothing for the rest of us."

"Fuck, just order more food!" Cao Hong flaps his hand at his cousin. Then he scowls. "But not this great huīcài, not for him. It's too nice for him." He's gesturing wildly with his chopsticks. "Just get a horse and stick it in a fire for a bit. Not too long. You'd like that." Now he flaps his hand in Jia Xu's general direction.

And Guo Jia thinks, shit.

Now everyone's eyes are on Jia Xu, waiting for the retort. It's like watching a ping pong game. For the first time, Guo Jia realizes that his old classmate is a bit drunk, too. Saw tonight coming, maybe. Or maybe just had enough of waiting and decided to speed things along. "Hey, Gongda," he mutters to Xun You. "If we can't defuse this in the next two minutes, you're gonna have to help me fake passing out."

Xun You's eyes reflect a hint of the general look of morbid fascination. "Can Wenhe-ge really eat that much?" 

"What? Oh, sure he can. You haven't seen him really gorge yet. He's like one of those fold-out bags..." and it is hilarious and no one thinks so more than Guo Fengxiao. Except right now, and he's got to impress that on Gongda and fast. So he abandons discretion and, Wenhe-style, goes for the brutal truth. "His philosophy is, eat as much as you can when you have any food, because you never know when you won't." 

Most people wouldn't get it, even if they knew Jia Xu's background. Bless Gongda's Xun family brains, he makes the connection instantly - what he knows about Jia Xu, what he already understands about the world even being so young, and Cao Hong's comment. Very unfortunate comment, even if he doesn't realize it, didn't mean it to do what it did. Cao Hong is a simple soul, Guo Jia knows, he just said the first piece of shit that he could think of throwing. No one else around the table knows yet that a step has been taken out of the sandbox and into a minefield.

Sometimes Guo Jia hates being so smart. He's the only one who doesn't even blink when Jia Xu makes the obvious comment on eating Cao Hong's ma. It's a comment that would've made Cao Hong go off like a whole crate of fireworks if he didn't realize that he'd walked right into it - he's simple but he's not actually stupid.

Case in point, he's clever enough to tell that his last insult hit something, and to keep playing a winning hand.

"I bet you'd like that too. You know all about horse-fucking." 

No one laughs.

Just as Guo Jia is considering the most effective angle to pass out in, Cao Ren - who is getting a pay raise for this, Guo Jia swears to god - puts a meaty hand down on his cousin's shoulder. He presses down there just a little. "I think you're drunk," he says in a voice that presses just a little more. "Sorry about that, Wenhe. Xiao-Hong, apologize to the nice man."

Cao Hong makes a grumbling noise that could pass as an apology, but then also mumbles something about how Jia Xu started it. Cao Ren's heavy brows start to knit together in exasperation - one day that look is going to get stuck on him - when Jia Xu chuckles. And not even that nastily, by his standards.

"Right, right. I did start it. So I ought to finish, right? Let's forget eating. How about we have a drinking match instead?"

Cao Hong naturally roars into the challenge. Guo Jia relaxes slightly in his seat. "Oh, this'll be fine," he murmurs to Xun You. "Wenhe will drink him six feet under. And then Zilian can drop unconscious in his own vomit and we'll have a quiet and happy ending." Jia Xu's capacity for alcohol is approximately ten times his capacity for food. Just as long as Cao Hong doesn't get the bright idea to make any comment about khumiss. Or, worse, vodka. "You just remind me to hide my hangover meds when we get home."

Xun You isn't really listening. Like all the rest of them, he's caught up in watching drinks get poured and Cao Hong tossing his back before even waiting for Jia Xu's glass to be full. Public spectacle, Guo Jia thinks, great for morale. He wishes he'd planned this in advance. There's a whole bunch of things he should have thought of maybe before bringing Jia Xu into Cao Wei, telling him it's their kind of place.

Their. Like they're the same, like they have the same problem with the world.

"Where d'you even learn to drink?" Cao Hong demands as Jia Xu empties his glass in one smooth swallow. His grip on his own glass is tight as Li Dian refills it. He waits this time, so he can look Jia Xu in the eye when they both drink again.

"Guess," Jia Xu says dryly, then smirks. "No, wait, let me. Your guess is, my family's illegal distillery. Where we make shit out of potatoes and horse piss."

Cao Hong snorts. A low sinking feeling starts again in Guo Jia's chest. Cao Ren tries to catch Xiahou Yuan's gaze across the table, but can't find it. Xiahou Yuan is looking. Everyone's looking. Cao Hong drinks and wipes his mouth with a heavy hand. "Sounds about what I was thinking."

"Haha, yes." Jia Xu takes his next drink slowly, almost like he likes how it burns inside on the way down. "I know what you're thinking, Cao-xiansheng."

"Is that where you learned how to be such a little shit, too?"

"No, I went to Renmin for that."

"Must be why they kicked you out," Cao Hong says. His face is flushed all the way into his eyeballs. Jia Xu savours his next drink as well, eyes half-lidded. He leans back a little in the chair, letting his long legs stretch out, taking up space. Calculated indifference. Guo Jia knows how that looks, and it doesn't look good on Jia Xu. He's made up of too many coiled springs in those freaky long arms and legs of his, in his knuckles and jaw. He's naturally irreverent ninety percent of the time, but he can't fake calm. He went to Renmin for two years and didn't learn, and never learned until they expelled him. 

He never learned and he's never going to. Guo Jia can't change him. He doesn't believe in people changing, anyway.

"Lao Jia," Guo Jia says very quietly, but too quietly as it turns out. This is not his job. He needs an adult. He needs Wenruo. He's stuck with the wrong Xun, though, the one who may be real smart but doesn't know  - but the truth is that Wenruo doesn't know either, he reflects, bitter at the sudden thought that he's privy to a kind of real intimacy. Jia Wenhe's sad little secrets. Or not even that. Just the knot that comes with it, the weight of understanding that gives these things their gravity. It doesn't matter, never does. Jia Xu isn't listening to him anyway. His gaze is fixed ahead. He's just finished another drink. Like he knows exactly what he's doing.

"Why did you get thrown out anyway?" Cao Hong's voice slurs slightly. Guo Jia has somehow lost count of how many drinks it's been. Cao Hong's back is sagging as his balance goes, but his shoulders are taut with tension. He leans his elbows on the table and the skin is white where it meets the wood. "Settle a bet for us. They find out you were illiterate?"

"My grades were better than xiao Guo's," Jia Xu says quietly. His smirk is thin. "You could ask him. But he'd never admit it."

"Right, you're such a fucking genius you don't need an education."

"Better than needing an education and never getting it, right, Cao-xiansheng?" But Cao Hong barely notices the comeback. He's on a roll now. 

"So what, antisocial behavior?" He gestures with his glass. Droplets of baijiu fly into the air and spatter across the table just shy of Jia Xu's hand. "You quit when they wouldn't let you bring your goats into the dorm?"

I thought you knew what you were doing, Guo Jia thinks as Jia Xu's fingers tighten on his glass. It's such a small thing. Small things are dangerous from Jia Xu. There's a weird stillness around the table, a kind of frozenness that deflects the noise and music of the restaurant. Cao Ren is leaning forward again. Zilian, he mouths slightly in Cao Hong's direction. He knows. Guo Jia realizes that everyone knows. They're all sitting, waiting, not sure if to lean forward into the action or back away from the crash.

He'd tried to ask Jia Xu once, just flat out ask him, why do you care so much. About this of all things. You're a professional weirdo. You wear those abstract art shirts with your dheel everywhere. You like American style kung pao chicken. You argue with professors until they kick you out of class. Everyone thinks you're crazy. Everyone tells you you're crazy, and you give not a single measly fuck. But say a word about uncivilized Mongolian peasants and you go nuts.

First of all, I'm Torghut, Jia Xu had said. And second of all, and he punched Guo Jia hard enough to drop him on his ass.

"Fuck, did that hurt?" Cao Hong sounds genuinely surprised. He knows what's going on, too, and suddenly he's all about it. Pleased and predatory. His eyes dart sideways as he notices Cao Ren get to his feet. He's got maybe five seconds, and he makes such beautiful use of them, Guo Jia would clap if he wasn't busy planning unobtrusive ways to murder him. "Fuck. You miss it, don't you, rooming with your fucking goats in your fucking hovel. Six months in Beijing, I bet you miss horse-fucking - "

"Zilian," Cao Ren thunders, just as Guo Jia is grabbing Xun You's wrist and considering the most effective angle to pass out in. "Ahman will fire your sorry drunken - "

"He started it!" Cao Hong throws at him. When Cao Ren doesn't stop coming at him, he flings himself to his feet to meet his bigger cousin's onslaught. "Bullshit! Ahman that sanctimonious ass. You all think the same about his little freak-show! Nobody here worked for years just for a highschool dropout from a three-people village waltz in and start giving orders like Cao Wei was his daddy's sheep-shit business!"

Cao Ren never makes it across the table. Jia Xu gets up. He's really tall, Guo Jia remembers, he's really tall when he's angry. Cao Hong turns away from all his relatives and tries to pre-empt the attack by throwing a punch at Jia Xu's face. Tries. It plays out like a dance. Jia Xu slides effortlessly out of the way, grabs Cao Hong's oncoming fist, pivots and pulls. Cao Hong is on the ground before he can finish his curse. Jia Xu's foot swings backwards - 

Guo Jia leaps. Next to him Xun You scrambles up as well. They each grab one of Jia Xu's arms and force him back. His breathing shudders and spasms against their weight. His booted foot stops half an inch away from Cao Hong's eye.

The karaoke machine picks this moment to stop blaring. Cao Ren makes it to his cousin's side in the shocked cold silence that follows. Guo Jia can't quite get a look at Cao Hong from where he's desperately clinging to his classmate's stiff arm, but the pathetic heaving noises from the floor tell him all he needs to know about who won that drinking contest. He's almost relieved, because he knows what happens now. He knows what comes next. He's been in this situation plenty of times before.

"C'mon, lao Jia," He nods at poor Gongda, getting him to disengage, and tugs at Jia Xu's arm. "Let's get some air."

It's not until they're well and out next to the restaurant's rear entrance that he thinks that might've been an unfortunate choice of words. It could have been a heady spring night, but this is Beijing. Air. Guo Jia snaps his filter mask into place, and it's about ten seconds before Jia Xu starts rubbing his eyes and sniffling and swearing in Oirat. Allergies, Guo Jia knows, thinking this Jia Wenhe is a real hypocrite about telling other people to remember their meds. But it still makes his old classmate damp-eyed and breathing shakily in a really disturbing way. Worse, the way his fists are tight at his sides and his face is red and shoulders still trembling with dissipating rage. It's easy to get the wrong impression. It's always so damn easy, with him.

Guo Jia wants to say, I'm sorry. But he might as well want to grow wings and fly.

What he says it, "I'm so glad we imported you. You have no idea how long I've waited to see Cao Hong get beat up."

Jia Xu snorts. It's as shaky a sound as the rest of him. "Does that mean I'm not fired?"

A horrible, humourless smile crawls onto Guo Jia's face. Of course. "That would be keeping with your track record, wouldn't it?"

"Fengxiao." and suddenly, much more suddenly than Guo Jia can handle, Jia Xu's voice is soft. He tilts his head back and turns his closed eyes up to the murky sky, the streetlights. "Please fire me. I hate it here. Let me go home to the goats."

Quiet, Guo Jia looks a his oldest friend, really looks at him up and down. The abstract art shirt and the old dheel, the designer pants and the heavy workman's boots. The tall, trim and strong figure, and the running eyes and nose, the awkwardly flushed face. Cao Hong is a moron, he thinks, or he'd know exactly how Jia Xu eats the way he does and stays this fit. Should've seen him in the Cao Wei office gym, every day, at any mad hour. Stretching, weights, going through his kickboxing routines, but mostly on the treadmill, running. Always running. Run hard enough and maybe you'll forget that you're running between four walls, under glaring neons, in the stale air-conditioning. That you can't go outside without your own body letting you know how much you don't belong here. That there's no horizon to run for. Is this some kind of metaphor for our sad Capitalist lives? Guo Jia asked him once, and he wonders if Jia Xu would've decked him then, too, if he wasn't too busy keeping pace with the treadmill. 

It's amazing how much violence one man can have in him. Guo Jia wants to burn this shitty world, but Jia Xu is burning already. The day he'd made it out of his village, the moment he saw what the outside world could be and what it was, something in him reacted with the open air. A cold fire sometimes, of indifference and contempt, but always flaring up in the end. Burning bridges.  

"What," he asks, "like you did when Renmin kicked you out?"

Jia Xu breathes in sharply, softly, rocking a little with the impact of those words. It's been a few years, but they both remember what he did after getting expelled, which was definitely not going home. More like bluffing his way into Zhang Xiu's little company, and winging it on the job there, bluffing and winging it so well that soon the company wasn't so little anymore, and somehow keeping Zhang Xiu the hell out of trouble when the Dong Zhuo fiasco blew, and finally coordinating the Zhang-Cao merger and taking up the job offer that Guo Jia's been pushing his way for years, and winding up back in Beijing...

Maybe he should fire him, Guo Jia reflects. But he won't. It wouldn't matter if he did, really. He'll wind up back one way or another. He can't stay away from this outside world, hasn't got it in him. Not the quitting part, he's not a self-destructive wiseguy like Guo Jia. The other part, what comes after. That's the real tragedy of Jia Wenhe, he thinks; that they both know he'd make a really lousy goatherd.

"Request denied, anyway," he says, the filter mask making it easier to pitch his voice dull and disinterested. "You're not leaving me alone with Xun Yu that monster. You know I didn't get a single drink tonight?"

Jia Xu looks at him, then gives a glum smile. The high pitch of fury has burned him out like a fever and his eyes are hollowly tired. He puts his hand on Guo Jia's shoulder. "They were shit drinks and I had to keep drinking them." He sways a little, bracing himself against Guo Jia, alcohol catching up to adrenaline in his system. Guo Jia finds a great deal of comfort in imagining Xun Yu's reaction when he wakes up tomorrow to find a spectacularly hungover Jia Xu on his couch. "If I'm not fired then it's your problem explaining all this to Cao-zongcai."

"He'll understand," Guo Jia says before he can think of an appropriately sarcastic reply. Because there's that, at least, if nothing else, one thing that's less broken in this place that's very much Guo Jia's place. He was hoping it could be their kind of place. He's an idiot, but he was hoping.

Jia Xu's hand gets a little tighter on his shoulder. He doesn't know if it's some kind of display of affection or if his classmate is just about to fall over, but he chooses not to ask any more difficult questions tonight. They're going to need a cab. He should go back in and get Xun You on that, there's no way he can haul a passed out Jia Xu into a car on his own, and Gongda is really good at that comforting small talk thing, too...

He tries to think some cheerful Xun-style thoughts, about how at least this time they've got friends and they're together and they'll make it through, jia you Fengxiao-ge, Wenhe-ge. But there's that growing wings and flying thing, again.