This is a spin-off to Smiling Eyes, although you can (probably) read this as a stand alone fic. 

 

 

 

 

♥    Shakespeare In Love  ♥

 

The first time Lina sees Zhang Yixing, she leaves with a bitter taste in .

For one, his reputation precedes him at least where Lina is concerned. Her best friend, Yiran, calls herself his biggest fan, and stalks him on a semi-regular basis. Before even ever laying eyes on this “Zhang Yixing,” Lina already has a headache from the name alone, Yixing this and Yixing that. When Yiran moves past the stalking and enters the confessing stage, Lina thinks she is finally free. They can date, live happily ever after, and everything will be okay.

Except nothing is okay, because apparently, this Zhang Yixing is a photography major who turns down beautiful girls who are more or less perfect. Lina wonders what this Yixing guy looks like if he can turn down girls of Yiran’s caliber.

“I don’t understand,” Yiran groans, flopping onto Lina’s couch. She has been moping for the past half hour, but has finished with the tears. “How can he just – he wouldn’t even say why he won’t go on a date with me. He just said he couldn’t.”

“Maybe he’s gay,” Lina suggests, because really, that is the only logical reason in her mind. Yiran is one of the school beauties, and there were lines of guys waiting to take her out.

“That would be kinda hot,” Yiran answers, finally cracking a smile. She laughs, and rubs at her bloodshot eyes. “But also sad. Yixing and Yiran – doesn’t that even sound perfect?”

Lina thinks that yes, it does sound rather heavenly.

They are eating lunch at a sandwich place right off campus when the door to the restaurant swings open and three people stroll in. Yiran almost coughs up half of her salad as she ducks, pushing Lina’s head down lower.

“That’s him,” she hisses, eyes wild. “The one with the headphones around his neck – that’s Yixing.”

Lina swats her friend’s hand away and sits up straight, straightening her hair with a huff of annoyance. Then, she looks over at the newcomers, who have seated themselves in a booth not too far away. She recognizes one of them, a blond guy, as oddly familiar. Not a student, surely, but – oh, that guy in the magazines! The girl next to him is reading the menu, biting her lip while the model, Lu Han, watches her carefully.

Across from the two is the last person, dressed in a black jacket and red skinny jeans. A pair of purple beats headphones wrap around his neck, and a brown designer backpack sat at his side.

“I think he’s in my English literature class,” Lina blurts. Although she has never seen his face, she has tripped over that stupid backpack several times on her way to her seat at the back of the class.

“WHAT?” Yiran is not amused.

“He’s in my stupid Shakespeare class, the one I was forced to take by my advisor,” she answers. Craning her neck, she wills him to look up. What does this mysterious Zhang Yixing even look like? She gets a good look a moment later when the man finally looks up and their eyes meet.

Lina forgets, for a moment, how to breathe.

Zhang Yixing’s eyes are dark brown, nose sharp and set high. He seems to be staring into her soul, and then she realizes that she has been caught and quickly straightens up. Then, the photographer smirks, and a dimple appears on his cheek.

Instead of snapping her head back like her instincts tell her to, Lina grits her teeth and meets his gaze dead on with a glare. She refuses to be intimidated by a pretty photographer with a magic dimple. Never.




Lina trips over the stupid brown backpack for the third time that week a few days later. Instead of tucking it under the chair, Zhang Yixing leaves it out in the middle of the aisle, almost tauntingly.

“Could you please not?” she snaps, finally rounding on the owner of the bag.

A flash of recognition flits over Yixing’s face momentarily, but then his face is stoic again. “If you watch where you’re going, you can, oh I don’t know, maybe step over it?”

Lina feels her blood pressure rising. “,” she mutters.

Yixing just grins again. “The lady doth protest too muc