day 2: plaid/cuffed jeans, ft. jiang yanli/wen qing/wei ying

"Not to be a lesbian but oh my fucking god. Oh my god. Jesus fuck-ing Christ."

Wei Ying looks up from the frog he's been inspecting and turns to the other end of the pier where Jiang Yanli--his best friend in the entire world--sits with her phone gripped close to her face, her bare feet dangling in the water.

(The fact that he has no fewer than seven people he would call his best friend in the entire world does not make it less true. Anyway, he's known A-Li the longest, since they were little kids playing out on this same pier together with A-Cheng. Sometimes when they come out here the two-decade-old memories of the three of them racing to be the first to jump into the river, wearing even less than they are now, layer over reality to the point of distraction. Today is not, however, one of those days.

Today is a day for crouching by the shallows and peering under lotus leaves, sketching the frogs until something of clearly much gayer importance is brought to his attention.)

Just as Wei Ying looks up, so does Yanli, peeking over her phone to make sure he heard. Wei Ying will swear later she had actual hearts twinkling in her starstruck eyes.

Emphatically she adds, directly to Wei Ying, "Oh my god."

Grin flashing, Wei Ying stands up and pads over with a quick little hopping gait across the sun-heated boards, ignoring the creak of joints that let him know just how long he's been hunched in the same position. They'll get over it.

"Show me, show me!"

He drops down right up against Yanli and gratefully sticks his feet in the cool water, abandoning his sketchbook and flopping sideways into her so she can do just that.

Yanli giggles indulgently at his nonsense and leans her head over against his, holds up her phone.

It's a photo. And another one, as Yanli swipes a delicate thumb across. And a third, and a fourth, and they're, well, really fucking hot. Wei Ying inhales sharply.

All of them are of Wen Qing--his best friend in the entire world--set against some kind of empty parking garage. And she looks like a goddess. A goddess in plaid and cuffed jeans and blood-red eye shadow.

Not just any cuffed jeans, either, but fancy fashion jeans: almost obnoxiously wide-legged, briefly hugging her hips to hint at curves and then dropping straight down to make her look longer than she really is. The cuffs on the bottom are wide, too, only rescued from trailing on the ground by the spiky heels just peeking out from underneath. Oh, and they're notched open right next to the dangling red silk belt for a thigh window, under which Wei Ying can just see hints of her tattoo.

It probably wouldn't be nearly as bad without the black plaid shirt, four sizes too big, thrown on and hanging open over nothing more than a slash of red lace across her chest. The sleeves are, Wei Ying notes with despair, rolled up to the elbow, showing off forearms which he's always known were unfairly built. It's bad enough in the first shot of her lounging seductively against a concrete wall; the one where she's crossing her arms and staring down at the camera with her trademark quelling look--caught impeccably in high definition--is much, much worse.

"God in heaven," Wei Ying agrees, feeling his mouth go dry.

He knew, technically, that Wen Qing had started her modelling gig last week, taking advantage of her looks to see her through medical school, but he hadn't really thought about it, and definitely hadn't remembered the first set was dropping today.

"Right?" Yanli sounds vindicated. "Holy fucking shit, A-Ying--the one where she's sitting on the yellow beam? I have never before in my life been so envious of a chunk of steel."

Wei Ying laughs and agrees. "Maybe you should put on a raincoat and go knock on her door, ah?"

Yanli elbows him lightly and then they sit there together in the summer sun, bare arms and thighs sticking together, hunched over the little screen of her phone for an incredibly reasonable and normal amount of time, flipping back and forth between the images. Whether it's the fact that Wen Qing is so drop-dead gorgeous or just the novelty of seeing someone they actually know dolled up and posed like a real model, like she's art, Wei Ying isn't sure.

Eventually Yanli pulls back, sits upright, and breaks the silence with a long, soft sigh. "Wei Ying," she announces. "I might have to ask your girlfriend out on a date."

Wei Ying takes a slow breath, sitting up himself, and turns to give a solemn nod, looking up at Yanli with big eyes. "I understand, A-Li. I'm afraid...that I feel the same way about your girlfriend."

After another beat where they just manage to hold eye contact, they dissolve into giddy laughter and fall back together.

"We'll ask her together, ah?" Yanli says, setting her phone down and reaching out to flick a stray hair out of Wei Ying's face. "These turned out stunningly well; she deserves a celebratory dinner."

Wei Ying beams and catches her hand, swinging it like a kid. "In the meantime--"

He doesn't get the chance to finish his sentence before Yanli tackles him into the river.

Spluttering and laughing, they surface and Wei Ying splashes her in retaliation. She beat him to the dunking by a full ten seconds at least!

"No fair!"

"That's for the terrible pun you were about to make about being hot and bothered," Yanli says smugly, and splashes him back.

In truth, Wei Ying can't even try to pretend he's offended; it was a terrible pun. He spends the rest of the afternoon making worse ones, though, just because he can.