Shao Long was worried. As he had every right to be. Science bedamned, this was starting to get way too realistic to be anything other than real. The burn on his hand was still very much there, and so was the fabric over his body. The teacher's voice was clearer than ones he'd normally associate with dreams. The clock was moving, there were no blurs around the edges of his vision, and the main thing was that: It had been a full day already.
Sure, the teachers gave him strange looks, his peers whispered about him behind his back, he was called out by Albert (Oh look, the once King of England was, in fact, a tiny teenager once upon a time) for zoning out during a meeting he half understood, half didn't give a damn about. Something about studying, which Shao Long found as extremely nostalgic and extremely disgusting. He hadn't looked at a diagram of the lymphatic system for a decade at least, and he was upset to have finally broken the streak today.
The thought of, "No matter, 'tis but a retelling of life that shall soon end before you were cast to the depths of hell," no longer applied when he tucked himself to bed and felt himself feeling drowsy.
By then, all rationality was lost to him, and Shao Long snorted for the hundredth time that day.
"...Fuck."
Shao Long being weird was a normal occurrence. Usually that meant that he wanted something, and was not-so-subtly trying to get it. For Gion, he took it as a chance to grab a popcorn and find a good comfy seat in which he could sit on while he watch whatever bullshit will unfold as Shao Long thought up another storm to confront Charles. Sometimes— no scratch that. Most times it always ended up with Shao Long making a fool out of himself and them stomping away like some unruly child that needed to be checked by the local pediatric psychologist. Immediately.
For Livio, he mostly viewed people the more empathetic way than Gion would ever care to, but even he drew the line with Shao Long. There was a difference between an insecure child trying to prove his worth and a traumatized teenager attempting to find the meaning of life. Shao Long was categorized as the former by Livio long, long ago.
With Shintarou, things were a little funnier. He was outright disgusted with the guy. Nothing Shao Long did was ever reasonable to him, and sometimes, during a very normal day, he would try to find Shao Long to antagonize, recounting all the times when the Chinese would skip meetings and ditch them all for something or someone. That used to not end very well for both of them, but mostly Shintarou always ended up more pissed than he already was.
Now though, the three of them couldn't exactly put a finger on it, but Shao Long didn't....look like he was planning anything. Quite the opposite, really. The guy looked like he was...waiting. Very impatiently. For the whole day, Gion saw him stabbing himself between the fingers and twitch his eyes whenever someone spoke to him. He kept looking around uncomfortably and let people talk away without speaking for himself. Huh. New.
Oh, and another funny thing happened too.
It was a common thought that Shao Long was your typical Asian kid in a European based education system who scored crazy high above his peers, that even if he wasn't exactly anywhere near Gion and Shintarou, he was still somewhere up there in the ranks and didn't look like he was gonna take a ride down there anytime soon. Point is, Shao Long was smart. He could answer every question the teachers gave him and did look (quite blatantly) like he memorized the textbooks or some digital encyclopedia about the topic. Not exactly Gion's definition of intelligent, but, well, he was someone he'd still look out for.
But today the Chinese couldn't answer one of the basic textbook-based question which the teacher had only asked him about it, expecting Shao Long to answer correctly and hopefully educate the rest of the class more about the matter, since he had recently taken an interest in him. Last week, Monsieur Claude was visibly impressed with Shao Long's ability to memorize every single substances that went in and out of the nephron after ten minutes of discussing about it, like Gion didn't know Shao Long was someone who studies a topic a few weeks before it was discussed. Like he did.
But now?
Now Shao Long couldn't point out the location of the subclavian vein.
What a surprise.
Gion had to pinch his chin real hard to try to understand what the ever-loving hell was going on. Sure, a person can make mistakes sometimes, maybe Shao Long forgot because he was busy memorizing the lower body's lymphatic vessels instead, maybe he had a nasty headache yesterday, maybe he had a tummy ache, maybe he was hit in the head, maybe he was pickpocketed a few days ago and depressed about it until he forgot, Gion didn't know! It could be anything!
In the first place, why did he care so much anyway?!
Maybe because it felt wrong to have someone competent suddenly going blank on him so early in the morning. Maybe it's because he actually respected and admired Shao Long's tenacity in learning that it obviously overcame his lack of rationality and logical thinking. Maybe it was because he actually like the way Shao Long recited research paper he knew the rest of them knew nothing about.
That was how he knew something was wrong.
Right. Okay. So maybe look at a different angle. Anything that concerns Shao Long was indirectly related to Charles. So maybe instead of Shao Long harassing Charles, maybe it was the other way round this time? That could work. Yes, so maybe he should shift his focus to Charles instead and see if something's up, but his intuition told him that even if he were to watch him all day, Charles wouldn't budge unless the guy wanted him to see it. Maybe he'd sneer, maybe he'd smirk, or snort, or scoff, or even roll his eyes. Maybe he'd tell him what he was up to. If he wanted to.
So after class ended, Gion had the chance to actually study Charles for the time being.
And Charles....
Gion rubbed his face. And rubbed it again. No one even noticed. They were all too aware of the problem in the room. The problem being in the shape of Charles threading his fingers together on his lower face, and staring a little too intensely at Shao Long, who was lost in thoughts, tilting his chair back at an angle that should be too unsafe to be practiced. Hell, Shao Long didn't even look like he noticed it. Or anyone. Or anything.
It was driving Gion crazy.
What the hell was going on?
Charles looked like Shao Long grew another head and was super invested in unveiling the trick. Or like he wasn't sure which trash can should he dump Shao Long into. Or which cage in the zoo he should categorize him as. It shouldn't be as disturbing as it was, mainly because Gion would agree on any day that Shao Long was indeed the freak of the group and whatever Charles did to him would be of little concern to him. The problem lied with Gion not knowing who was the exact source of problem in this current conflict. He needed to know here, needed to know who to look out for just in case everything went to shit.
But no, he failed to figure anything out of their very bizarre exchange during the whole meeting, with Shao Long sneering and yet not saying anything in retort when Albert straight up insulted him and Charles not doing anything to stop his fuming friend from further lashing out. Alex had sent more than one desperate SOS look to him during it all, to which Charles inexplicable ignored with the tenacity deserving of praise. Or contempt. Whichever suits best.
Dinner was duller than he expected it to ever be. Usually, the dining room would of course, be filled with silence. Neither Shintarou nor Gion were inclined to breach royal mannerism by speaking during a meal, and Livio was too polite to even think about breaking the mood, lest he talks to himself. Shao Long was never interested in making small talk with them before. He only saw them as the side characters, as far as Gion was concerned, which was hilarious because Shao Long does dress like a main character and has all the dramatic background and history to be one. All in all, the three of them would always leave him in his fantasy, maybe thinking of making them his minions on his way to defeat the villainous Charles once and for all.
It was funny to watch, on normal circumstances.
But there was something different about the way Shao Long watched them that night. Like he was sitting in a theatre and the princes were on screen, playing a mystery show which he could not figure out yet. It could be called rude at this point, to be staring at people like they personally killed their dog or something, but none of them could find the right words to address the issue, not with how Shao Long was looking visibly more irritated by the turn of the hour. Finally, once the Chinese was done with his food, he did his dishes (Would you look at that. He did his dishes!) and silently ambled to his room. Leaving Gion and the rest warily eyeing him from the back. Needless to say, they were....disturbed.
Later that night, Gion prayed that whatever bullshit storm was brewing would not involve him in any way.
Shao Long had gone back in time. He had time-travelled. He had woken up yesterday in the body of his much younger self brewing tea, ready for school. He was not actively dying or burning alive, nor was he bleeding to death. Rather, his vision felt clearer, his back hurt less, the slouch his back had gained was nowhere to be felt, and most importantly, the air smelled fresher! Amazing! 18 years ago, the climate wasn't so bad that every breath left a bad stench in his nostrils!
At the thought, Shao Long celebrated for a brief moment before going back to wallowing in despair. His company! His multibillion company! His mansion! Or rather, his mansions! And his closets, and his computers, and his banks, and his cars! Gone! Whoosh!
And oh! Classes! Again! Not again! Not waking up at 6 am everyday! Not wearing uniforms! Ugh! Ew! No!
And Charles was here! Scratch that, Charles was always there, whether it be by coincidence or intentional. The blond sonic was like a particularly addictive cigarette. Just when you thought about quitting smoking, he'd pop up in your life, poking and prodding and the cycle never ends. Sure, yes, sometimes Shao Long would be the ass and poked and prodded him, but point was, they had been dancing around each other for years. They've ruined each other, they've broken one another more than they could imagine, and the feeling of mutual hatred and dependency to keep their sanity in check, or possibly worsen it, was something that bound them by the hips, that even if they were all the way across the world, there was always something in their lives that brought them back. Charles felt like a constant, a tower in the center of Shao Long's mind where his thought processes revolved around.
And now that pillar was gone, replaced instead by this Charles who at this point of life had not yet been the cause of Shao Long's death, the cause of his father's death, or the cause of Shao Long's social anxiety and speech problems, etcetera. This Charles wasn't yet a cold-blooded monster with whom he shared a toxic bond with, not yet the great President of USA that had authority almost everywhere his feet touches, not yet the demon of a man who had ruined the same number of lives he'd saved.
This Charles was only an child. An asshole child, yes, but still a child.
Shao Long didn't know if that was any better.
He sighed as he moved another Xiangqi piece after Gion moved his own.
He had gotten over this whole issue about time-travelling a few hours ago, wrapped in his cold sheet, swarmed by all the overwhelming sense of dread during the early hours of the morning. Accepted that he was no longer going to see his bank accounts anymore, or his collection of cars unless he was determined enough to start again.
He was so busy mourning his Lamborghini Revuelto that he didn't notice the severe expression Gion was giving him. Or giving the board. Or how the number of pieces stacked on his side was growing in size, and Gion's own was half of his. Or how Shintarou and Livio had already lost a couple minutes ago and was now patiently waiting for Gion to beat Shao Long's ass the same way he beat them. Or Shintarou's and Livio's rapidly growing concern over the turn of events.
Because no one wins against Gion at board gamed. And even if there was one, Shao Long wasn't someone in the list of possibilities Gion had written in his own head when he beat his chess tutor back in Italy.
And he was losing now, to the freakiest in group.
Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.
When Shao Long realized that Gion was taking too long a turn, he glanced at the prince, squinted when he was being stared at, and looked down on the board. When he found nothing wrong, Shao Long raised a brow suspiciously and waited, waited and waited for Gion to say something. What, did he find Shao Long's company boring? Did he have a problem with how he played? Did he suddenly feel he was too good to play with him? What was it? Speak up, man? What is it? C'mon, work with him here!
When Gion's frown only grew in severity, Shao Long's anxiety grew and so did his insecurity, self-awareness, self-depreciating, and a whole ton of other self-problems. The familiar urge to cover his face and bury himself in the ground was overflowing, and his fingers twitch in discomfort the longer Gion stared. Shao Long flipped his fan shut and tapped it on his lips, looking away with a cough.
"...What....?" He croaked, which probably sounded better coming out of a frog than his mouth. It was a small sound, and couldn't be properly heard unless one was prepared to listen. But Gion wasn't expecting him to mumble, he was expecting Shao Long to gloat, or laugh, or sneer or harrumph in his glory over the victory he had claimed.
So when the sound didn't quite make itself into his ears, he couldn't help but let out a "Huh?" at it, which only served to agitate Shao Long further.
With an alarmed look, Shao Long slammed his fan hard against his own face, effectively covering the lower half of it before grabbing one of Gion's pieces on the board. With eyes as wide as the sun, Shao Long slammed the piece down somewhere in the board and got up with a huff. Before Gion could even begin to fathom was had just transpired, the Chinese had already stomped away to his seat, which happened to be a few tables further away than his usual spot. The table used for the game was left, and so were the pieces on the board, alongside the stunned looks Shintarou and Livio gave him.
After finally breaking out of his stupor, Gion dared himself to look at the board, and found himself gaping at the sight of his chariot checkmating Shao Long's general.
Did Shao Long just.....did he lose on purpose??
Wait, what? That option hadn't been available before, how could it possibly lead his chariot in the path of the general when it was obviously blocked by a pawn just now— oh.
Oh, so that horse piece was actually over there, and when Shao Long moved Gion's chariot back then, it opened a pathway for the horse to block the general's path, while the chariot blocks the other path—
Oh.
He could've won all this time—
Gion didn't even know if he should feel offended or amazed.
Shao Long wasn't smarter than Gion. He didn't study under a chess master for years. He didn't go to a single class about chess but played it a lot during his early business years with his PA and occasionally his business partners in a show of dominance and over the years, he had managed to gain the skill to beat most of his peers with sheer trauma from humiliation and his brain coding the chess pieces as money in his mind. It worked well. But let it be known that he had never once competed against Gion after graduating Momosu for fear of shaming himself down to his 9th ancestors.
But he was older, and therefore he was much, much more experienced than Gion was currently.
34 years old Shao Long could easily beat 16 years old Gion, but 34 years old Gion could murder Shao Long within two moves.
Inwardly, Shao Long rolled his eyes at Gion's pitiful form as he cleared the board with a blank look on his face, because the brunet shouldn't be this worked up about losing once in a while. Shao Long lost a thousand times in his life and aside from his very unstable mental health, he was doing pretty good in life. Besides, someone could win chess by pure luck, if they were so beloved by destiny. Gion should just accept the fact that sometimes life is bitter but coffee is addicting, and so it should not be treated as something life-threatening. It's not like him losing proved that he was dumber than Shao Long or something.
Shao Long just literally failed to answer a simple question by one of their teachers yesterday.
So really! Get over it Gion! You're still a golden child!
You look ridiculous sulking.
13/7/2023