"How fearsome," some ghosts whisper in awe, "Surely Chengzhu will raise them into mighty beast."

Meanwhile, Yin Yu tries not to laugh, lest he gets fired lol

Oh no, the creature looks so sad D:

Don't worry, at least once HC is back, XL can jam out to both chimes combined -- Really, they kinda make for a great band :D

And should someone ask XL what his favourite music is, for the first time, he could answer without any hesitation or doubt :)

Also, with every session, XL would become gentler. but WM's hair always still ends up looking messy lol

It gives him something to do, something to keep his thoughts from wandering.

With time, this could become their little ritual of sorts: one which they someday will realize, they no longer need to do out of necessaty, but simply because they want to :)

And if I were to think more self-indulgently, I'd also like to imagine that playing with WM's hair is strangely therapheutic to calamity!XL

In a WM survives AU, WM might be able to convince XL to do that instead whenever he has self-destructive thoughts.

Afterwards, WM stands there, frozen in confusion (and happiness), with strands of hair sticking out in every direction, making him look messy and kinda silly

(That look invokes XL's cuteness aggression all over again, hehe~)

Evertime he walks up to the ghost, he does so seemingly without warning or reason (we know the reason), and then proceeds to put his hands on either side of WM's head and just completely dishevel his hair

The message reads: "Omg, I'm so sorry, but your date won't be able to make it D: They suddenly came down with a nasty headache, but they're totally down to re-schedule! You down?"

That night, while in bed (with HC cuddles up next to him, sleeping soundly) and smart-phone in hand, XL thinks to thank SQX for setting them up, only to see an unread message from SQX he didn't notice getting while too pre-occupied (read: too busy being lovey dovey) with his date

They proceed to have a lovely date that ends in a kiss and confession <3

He was just passing by and saw XL through the window, so he went in to say hi, but he's certainly not complaining about XL asking him to sit down, holding his hand from across the table, and blushing while rambeling about how he's glad that "it's San Lang after all"

XL gets really excited thinking HC is his blind date (and *agreed* to be his date!), but unbeknowst to him, HC is not the person he was set up with

In fact, HC has no idea XL even is on a blind date!

Anyways, so he sits down at the restaurant SQX booked and waits there anxiously

And what do we have here: After a short while Hua Cheng, Xie Lian's best friend (and long term crush), walks in and walks up to XL, cheerily greeting: "Gege! It's so nice to see you~"

He could technically have SQX deliver the bad news for him and cancel on the other person last minute, but figures it'd be more polite if he went personally to tell them it won't work out between them
He'd make up an excuse like: "Sorry, I'm not looking for anyone right now" or something, me thinks

Thinking about a modern AU where Shi QingXuan gets too excited about setting long term single Xie Lian up with a blind date to notice he's really reluctant and only really agrees to go as to not offend his secret date

Wait, I love this -- like a lot, lot
I can't look away; this is too cute 🥺

I´m sorry, people: the rick-roll was an inevitable must

I know I cannot be forgiven

Wu Ming clinging to the stem in his sleep as if it were a teddy bear (˶˃ᆺ˂˶)