“So do you think it’s impossible? Staying friends after you break up?”

It’s not that it’s impossible, Xuanyi thinks, looking at Fu Jing’s back, her figure even thinner than usual but, as usual, she takes up all of Xuanyi’s sightline, occupies her entire vision and leaves no room for anyone else. It’s just that things will never be the same again, and sometimes that’s too hard to handle. You’re too used to things being a certain way – wanting to tell them good news and bad news and everything in between first, wanting to reach for their hand and take shelter in their arms, wanting to wrap yourself up in them and vice versa – and when you can’t have that anymore, when the person is still there around you but not with you in the same way…

It’s just too hard.

 

Xuanyi’s and Fu Jing’s chopsticks clash midair as they both reach for the last piece of chicken, and they both freeze, the wood clinking the only sound in the room.

Somehow, Xuanyi makes herself speak. “Oh, sorry. You take it.”

Fu Jing, as expected, doesn’t budge. “No, you take it.”

“I’m fine, I’m pretty full already anyway,” Xuanyi lies, hoping her stomach won’t grumble and give her away.

“You didn’t even eat lunch,” Fu Jing says, and Xuanyi doesn’t ask how she knows that despite them having separate schedules earlier in the day.

“I’m fine,” she repeats with a tight smile. “I don’t want it anymore.”

“Well, I don’t want it either,” Fu Jing says, looking on the verge of crossing her arms over her chest and huffing like a petulant toddler, and Xuanyi is torn between being endeared and frustrated. Her Xiaofu is so stubborn.

No, she reminds herself, not her Xiaofu anymore. Not her anything except fellow Rocket Girls member.

“Oh my god,” Chaoyue groans. “Are you going to fight over a piece of chicken all day? And not even for the chicken but for the other person to have it.” She reaches out and snatches said piece of chicken and plops it into . “There,” she says, muffled through the mouthful of food. “I saved you the struggle.”

“Hey!” Fu Jing protests. “That was for Xuanyi.” (And despite everything, Xuanyi can’t help the way her heart clenches at that.)

Chaoyue gives her a belligerent look and swallows. “She clearly wasn’t going to eat it, and you weren’t either, and I’m not interested in watching you two start a fight over a piece of chicken. Now come on, there’s still a table full of other dishes you can eat. Both of you could really use some food.” She puts some spicy beef on Fu Jing’s plate and some pork belly on Xuanyi’s, their respective favourites. “I’m such a filial child. You’re welcome.”

Fu Jing stiffens, and Xuanyi wonders if she’s going to say something about how they’ve gotten ‘divorced,’ but then Fu Jing merely picks up the slice of beef in her chopsticks and stares at it with eyes that aren’t really seeing what they’re looking at. Xuanyi has been doing much of the same with everything around her lately.

The piece of beef falls from Fu Jing’s chopsticks, and she pushes her chair back as she mutters something about going to the washroom, not meeting anyone’s eyes as she takes her leave, shoulders hunched and steps jerky. Xuanyi barely remembers to not stare.

“Eat,” Chaoyue says, pushing Xuanyi’s plate towards her.

Xuanyi mechanically puts the pork belly into and chews. It’s juicy and well-seasoned and just the right amount of fatty, but she feels like she’s swallowing a mouthful of chalk. “Thank you,” she says quietly to Chaoyue, and she isn’t talking about the food.

“You should eat more. I can practically count your ribs.”

Xuanyi musters a weak smile. “Have you told Fu Jing that?”

Chaoyue snorts. “I can definitely count hers. But I know it’d be a futile battle to tell her what to do. If there’s anyone who can compete with you for the title of most stubborn, it’s her.”

Xuanyi doesn’t quite know what to make of that, and she isn’t sure she wants to. Chaoyue may seem like she has the tact of a charging bull sometimes, but she’s much sharper than she lets on. Xuanyi’s sure she’s deduced more than Xuanyi wants her to, and it’s not a conversation she’s ready to have now, if ever.

“Xuanyi—” Chaoyue starts, but Fu Jing returns to the table just then and Xuanyi couldn’t have been more grateful for her timely interruption.

“The interview this afternoon is going to be a pain,” Fu Jing says, sounding back to her normal self.

“What do you mean?” Chaoyue says. “The host has the biggest crush on you.”

Fu Jing makes a face. “Exactly.”

“You should be glad to have more male fans, Laofu. One would think all Paofus are girls.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Fu Jing wrinkles her nose. “Who needs men?”

Chaoyue looks meaningfully between Fu Jing and Xuanyi. “Definitely not you two. You know what you need?”

“Some more food?” Xuanyi says in a lighthearted voice.

Chaoyue claps her hands together. “Exactly! Why are we talking so much when we could be using our mouths to eat?”

“Yeah,” Fu Jing says. “Talking is overrated.”

“Cheers to that,” Chaoyue says, raising her glass, and Fu Jing makes a sound that could pass off as a laugh as she follows with her own.

Xuanyi is proud of herself that her grip is steady as she joins the toast. Even though she’s just drinking water, it leaves a bitter taste in .

 

“I miss you, you know,” Fu Jing says conversationally one day.

Xuanyi looks at her and almost wishes she hadn’t. Fu Jing’s expression is casual, not carefully blank or tightly controlled the way Xuanyi’s is, but actually relaxed, the expression she would have around any other friend.

“I miss you too.” Xuanyi barely makes out the words.

Fu Jing tilts her head to the side. “You don’t talk to me anymore.” It’s not said like an accusation, and it’s accompanied by a smile that’s sad but not bitter.

“You don’t talk to me either,” Xuanyi says, and a hint of a whine slips in, unbidden.

“It’s…hard,” Fu Jing says after a beat, and Xuanyi can understand the feeling all too well. “But I miss being your friend. I miss it when we were friends, before everything got complicated.”

Complicated. Is that the word Fu Jing would use to describe them? Not just the state they’re in now, but their relationship too? Xuanyi can’t argue against that, and yet, when she thinks about them, what she remembers is reaching for Fu Jing’s hand like it was the simplest thing in the world, because it was. Fu Jing was her one surety in a shaky existence, her singular truth in a false world. It hurts, that Xuanyi has to keep using the past tense.

“Are you saying we’re not friends anymore?” Xuanyi asks.

“Are we?” Fu Jing asks back, like a challenge.

“I don’t know.” Xuanyi swallows. “I don’t know what we are.”

“What do you want us to be?” Fu Jing says, her voice completely open, like she’d accept whatever Xuanyi says.

Xuanyi thinks, for a second, about saying I want us to be together again, or I want to go back to the way things were, but she’s never been the type of person to bare her heart when she knows that reality would crush it. They all have their ways of protecting themselves: Fu Jing hid her fears and insecurities behind her fierce exterior, and Xuanyi buried her sorrows and pains under her unfaltering smile. Once upon a time, Xuanyi had coaxed out the shy girl under the bravado, and Fu Jing had taught her that tears weren’t signs of weakness. They had laid themselves bare in front of each other in every sense, and now Xuanyi can’t imagine letting all her defences down in front of another person. She can’t imagine not just loving, but trusting, someone else the way she does Fu Jing.

Sometimes she thinks that Fu Jing ruined her for everyone else, and she wonders if Fu Jing would be proud or sad or even care. She wonders if she has the same effect on Fu Jing.

 

Fu Jing starts returning later and later to the dorm, often with tousled hair and clothes not her own and once an unmistakable hickey on her neck. It gets to the point when Xuanyi can no longer tell herself that it’s just the wind that messed up her hair or the outfit is just one that she hasn’t seen.

Actually, she realized the truth a long time ago, but she just didn’t want to believe it. It’s only when Fu Jing comes home with sparkling eyes, gliding along like she’s weightless, that Xuanyi finally know she can’t deny it anymore.

“Good night?” Chaoyue says knowingly.

Fu Jing takes off her jacket and playfully snaps the sleeve in Chaoyue’s direction. “None of your business.”

“It’s that yoga instructor, right?” Zining says, and as Fu Jing nods, Xuanyi wonders why they all know more than her.

“Yoga instructor,” Yamy whistles. “She must be very flexible.”

Fu Jing rolls her eyes. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I used to be a yoga instructor too, you know.”

“Yeah, and you’re very flexible.”

“How would you know?” Zining asks suspiciously. “Do you and Xiaofu have some sordid history we don’t know about?”

“What?” Yamy splutters. “We’ve danced together a million times, haven’t you noticed she’s flexible?”

“I don’t know, I’m not ogling her while we’re dancing.”

“Neither am I! Who would ogle Xiaofu, except—”

Yamy abruptly stops talking, and they both cast Xuanyi furtive, guilty looks, as if suddenly remembering that she’s in the room.

Xuanyi summons her most convincing smile. “Except her new girlfriend?” she says lightly, turning her eyes to Fu Jing, who’s giving them a look akin to a deer in headlights. “What’s her name, Jingjing?”

She sees Fu Jing flinch a little, so miniscule a movement that anyone else would have missed it, but it’s unmistakable to Xuanyi. She can catalogue every expression of Fu Jing’s, can and has mapped out every sensitive spot on her body: the spot behind her ear that makes her shiver when Xuanyi blew the lightest breath, the dip in her back where there’s a lone mole that Xuanyi liked to trace with her tongue, the place on her left side where she’s particularly ticklish and squirmed when Xuanyi exploited that.

Again, it hurts to use the past tense. The pain is still so fresh for her, like all her wounds are new and open, while Fu Jing’s are long-healed and even the scars are fading. Xuanyi wonders how it can be that there’s such a difference between them. She knows that Fu Jing had loved her every bit as much as she loved (loves) Fu Jing, so why is it that Xuanyi feels like her insides are filled with lead, particularly the dead weight in her chest, while Fu Jing is floating weightlessly into some other girl’s arms?

Fu Jing whispers a name that Xuanyi doesn’t catch and doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to put a name, a face to the girl who took Fu Jing from her, even though she knows it’s immature and petty to think of it like that. For once in her life, she can let herself be those things.

Xuanyi summons that smile again. “Are you happy?”

Fu Jing stares at her, not with that unseeing look, but with one that is all too piercing. Xuanyi feels like the lead in her bones starts to liquefy, and for the first time in months, that dead weight in her chest stirs to life. “I am,” she says, quietly, cautiously, like she’s afraid of admitting it.

Xuanyi doesn’t want her to feel that way. Xuanyi doesn’t want her to feel guilty at finding happiness again, at basking in its warmth while Xuanyi is stranded alone in the cold.

“Good,” Xuanyi says, and unlike her smile it’s genuine. “You deserve to be happy.” Her voice holds, even, and resonates with the earnestness she feels even as the melting lead spreads within her blood, dark and toxic.

Fu Jing’s eyes mist over, and Xuanyi has a moment of panic, of wanting to go to her and comfort her and wipe away her tears, but she fights down that instinct with every rational part of her, knowing it’s not her place to do that anymore.

“You deserve to be happy too,” Fu Jing says, her voice thick, the tears making their way there too. She’s always been a crier.

Xuanyi knows that, but her happiness has walked away, hand in hand with someone else, and she’s far too proud and not selfish enough to beg for it back.

“I am,” she says, and even to her own ears she can hear how unconvincing the lie is.

 

“I’m sorry, Xuanyi,” Yamy says, contrition written all over her face. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Talked to Fu Jing? Asked about her life? You don’t need to be sorry for that.”

“I’m sorry too,” Zining says. “We were being insensitive.”

“No, you were being normal,” Xuanyi says, “and we need some normality around here.” She takes a breath. “You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me. We broke up months ago.”

Yeah, and you’re clearly not over it, both of their expressions say.

“Fu Jing seems happy,” Yamy says tentatively, looking at Xuanyi like she expects her to burst into tears at the observation.

“She does. I’m glad.”

“You really are, huh,” Zining says. “Some people would be gutted to see their ex happy with someone else.”

Leave it to Zining to be blunt.

“If she can’t be happy with me, at least she’s happy without me. That’s all I can ask for: her happiness.”

“You love her,” Yamy says slowly, like she’s just realizing it herself. “You still love her.”

“Of course I do,” Xuanyi says, and it’s her one surety, her singular truth. She loves Fu Jing. “That doesn’t mean I think she belongs to me or I hope she’ll be single forever. It means I want the best for her.”

“How do you know that’s not you?” Zining says. “Xuanyi, I never asked, I didn’t want to pry but… You obviously loved each other so much. Why did you break up?”

“Because…” Xuanyi closes her eyes for a second. “Because we needed this”—she waves a hand around them—”to stay together more than we needed to stay together. Because we needed to put Rocket Girls above ourselves. You can’t have everything in life. Something had to give. And us, that was the thing that gave.”

Zining, who has a cold resting face only rivalled by Fu Jing’s, looks like she might dissolve into tears. Yamy, whose leader glare can quail even Chaoyue, is wide-eyed and has a hand to .

“Please don’t pity us,” Xuanyi says. “I didn’t tell you this so you would feel sorry for us. What’s done is done. And Fu Jing – she’s happy.”

“But you’re not,” Yamy says. It’s not a question.

Xuanyi gives a sad smile. “I’m learning to be.”

She’s working towards it, towards mending their friendship. She knows that most likely it’ll never be what it once was, before everything turned ‘complicated,’ as Fu Jing said, but she wants to be friends again. She wants to know about Fu Jing’s life, including her girlfriend, without any jealousy or pain; she wants to joke around with her and ; she wants to give her pats on the back and squeezes on the shoulder and hugs. All the things they used to do when they were friends and just that. She’s not ready for that right now, but she thinks she’s learning to be.

It’s the closest thing to a happily ever after that she can hope for them.

 

“I want us to be friends again,” Xuanyi says.

Fu Jing has that sad look on her face again, but this time it’s tinged with a hint of bitterness. “So you admit we’re not anymore.”

“It hurts to be friends with you,” Xuanyi admits, and she sees Fu Jing flinch again, much more noticeably this time.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry. I’m not trying to guilt trip you. I don’t want to be the bitter aftertaste to your sweet drink.” Xuanyi pauses. “Sorry for the cheesy metaphor.”

“What’s my sweet drink, milk tea?”

Xuanyi manages a smile. “I guess it could be.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Xuanyi,” Fu Jing says seriously. “I never wanted to.”

Xuanyi swallows. “I know that.”

“The thing with… It’s not that I was trying to hide it from you. I just didn’t want it to seem like I was flaunting a new relationship, or even worse, like I was trying to make you jealous.”

“I know that too.” She had never thought that for a moment. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“And if you…find someone else, I hope that you can tell me.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon,” Xuanyi says without thinking, and at Fu Jing’s pained expression, she immediately tacks on, “I don’t think I’m up for a relationship right now. It’s about time I spent some more quality time with myself.”

“That’s what they say, right? ‘Me, myself and I, the best ’?”

Xuanyi stares at her. “Who’s ever said that?”

“I don’t know, I just read it somewhere.”

“One of your late night Zhihu^[1] binges?”

“I don’t do that anymore,” Fu Jing whines, making the same face she always does when she’s cutely complaining.

“Okay, Jingjing,” Xuanyi laughs, and she sees the way Fu Jing’s face crumples for a second before it smooths out.

“I miss you,” Fu Jing suddenly says. “I mean – I don’t mean it like that! I do miss you and what we had, but—”

“Don’t worry, I know you’re not saying you want me back,” Xuanyi says heavily.

Fu Jing stares at her with that laser focus again. “I loved you, Xuanyi, so much. More than I ever thought I could love someone.”

“And I loved you,” Xuanyi imagines saying back, but she doesn’t know if she has enough willpower to add the d at the end.

“And it hurts me so much to see you unhappy, and know that I’m part of the reason, if not all of it.”

“You’re not responsible for my happiness,” Xuanyi interrupts. “Don’t let it burden you.”

“It’s not a burden,” Fu Jing counters. “You’re not a burden. I just…want you to be happy.”

“You want me to be happy, so you can let go? So you can finally stop feeling sorry and guilty and responsible?”

Fu Jing doesn’t flare up like Xuanyi had expected her to. “I want you to be happy, because I’m your friend and I care about you.”

“My friend,” Xuanyi repeats like she has a bad taste in .

“You said you wanted to be friends again!”

And somehow, all the fight drains out of Xuanyi. “I did, and I do, but. It’s hard. It’s…”

“Complicated?” Fu Jing suggests.

“Yeah,” Xuanyi says, and she wants to laugh. It’s either that or cry. “It’s complicated.”

“Take your time,” Fu Jing says. “I’ll wait for you.” And isn’t it ironic, her using words about coming to terms with the end of their relationship that Xuanyi had once told her at the start.

Xuanyi looks down. “What if I decide it’s always going to be too hard?”

“Then… I don’t know.” Fu Jing sounds lost. And sad. She’s always so sad now, when she talks to Xuanyi, when she used to light up at the mere sight of her. She was wrong, about Xuanyi not being a burden. “I don’t know what you want me to do, Xuanyi.”

Xuanyi doesn’t know either. This is the person that she loved the most in the world (in the universe! Fu Jing would correct in her cutely whining voice), the person she wanted to charge through her 20s (and the rest of her lifetime) with, the person she had completely broken down in front of and was tenderly pieced back together (on more than one occasion) by, the person who ruined her for everyone else and yet she could not bring herself to regret a thing.

“I’m sorry,” Xuanyi finally says, and Fu Jing looks at her with wide eyes. “I’m being immature and petty.”

“You’re not—” Fu Jing tries to argue, but Xuanyi pins her with a firm glare that makes her shut . Some things still hold.

“I think I rushed myself. I’m not ready for this, yet. To try to be friends.”

“You can take your time.”

“You know me,” Xuanyi says with a weary smile. “I set a goal and I’ll push myself to achieve it until I either reach it or reach my breaking point.”

“Yes,” Fu Jing says slowly. “I do know that.”

“I think this time, I’m closer to my breaking point than my goal,” Xuanyi says candidly. She usually wouldn’t admit these things, but this is Fu Jing, after all. A lot may have changed, but some things still hold.

“I’m sor—”

“Don’t,” Xuanyi says. “I think both of us have apologized enough. At this rate, we’ll be fighting over that piece of chicken forever.”

“That piece of chicken?” Fu Jing repeats, sounding bewildered, but then a light clicks on in her eyes a moment later. “I guess this time there isn’t going to be a Chaoyue swooping in and ending that battle for us.”

No, this time there isn’t going to be.

Xuanyi steels herself. “You asked me what I wanted from you.”

“I did.”

“But you already realized what I need.” She’s always been good at that. Some things still hold. “Time.” They do say that time heals all wounds, don’t they?

“Take all the time you need.”

“I miss you too.” Xuanyi finally lets herself say it. “I think I tried too hard to suppress that, but really, I just need to feel it.” She smiles, and for once it’s genuine. “Someone once told me that it’s not a weakness to feel.”

“Oh yeah? Sounds like a wise person.”

“For some definitions of wise,” Xuanyi says teasingly, and Fu Jing makes the face she always does and whines, “Hey! I’m very wise!”

And when Xuanyi laughs and Fu Jing joins in, the lead starts to trickle out of her body.

 

“You look better these days,” Chaoyue says, passing a glass of punch to Xuanyi.

“Do I?” Xuanyi takes a sip and finds it pleasantly sweet and fruity.

“Yeah, more…relaxed. And you’ve put some weight on so you don’t look like a skeleton anymore.”

“Did anyone tell you that you have a way with compliments?” Xuanyi says wryly.

Chaoyue ignores that. “Are you really okay with everything?” she asks, jerking her head meaningfully towards a corner where two people are standing close together.

Xuanyi lets herself look too, and even though she feels a sting, it’s not the punch to the gut, the stab to the chest, it would have been weeks ago. “Maybe I’m not a hundred percent,” she says thoughtfully, “but I’m on my way. Well on my way, even.”

Chaoyue gives her an assessing look. “Are you going to go say hi?”

Xuanyi makes a face. “I need a few more drinks in me for that.”

Chaoyue laughs and, as if hearing the sound, Fu Jing turns around and meet Xuanyi’s eyes from across the room. Fu Jing doesn’t look abashed or awkward, nor does she look away, but instead she gives Xuanyi a small, unsure smile. Like a tentative invitation.

Can we be friends again? Not can we pretend nothing happened? or can we forget it all? But, can we move on?

And, healing slowly but surely, Xuanyi smiles back.

---

A/N: [1] Zhihu (知乎) is a social media app where people ask questions, get answers and engage in discussions about a variety of topics, like a combination of Quora and Reddit.

Even though I knew while writing this that they weren't going to get back together, I was so tempted to steer it into a happy ending, as is my wont. It just feels...wrong for them not to be together. And it feels extra weird to write Xuanyi as the more affected one while Fu Jing had moved on. That went against my own headcanon.