Summary: What begins as harmless chaos between Yao and Yue spirals into full-blown prank warfare across the ZGDX base—until the moment Lu Sicheng hears the dreaded words: "They struck again." But even a team-wide tribunal can't prepare him for the soft voice, trembling lip, and kitten eyes of the one girl who can break through his fury with a single look. And when she stands on her tiptoes, brushes her nose against his, and reveals she saved his Maserati from becoming Yue's next canvas, Sicheng realizes with absolute clarity—this 5'3 menace isn't just under his skin. She owns him.
One-Shot
It begins with Yue being Yue—bored, mischievous, and entirely too entertained by the absurd. Armed with an industrial-sized bag of googly eyes and a twisted sense of humor, he sets to work. By the time Yao returns from scrims, her room has been transformed into a museum of unsettling stares. Every surface, object, and piece of furniture has acquired a pair of eyes. Her toothbrush stares. Her notebook stares. Even Da Bing's and Xiao Cong's litterbox lid stares. The moment her foot hits a floor tile and she sees her mouse glaring up at her, she freezes.
A long pause.
Then a soft, "Oh. He wants war."
Retaliation is a given.
The next time Yue logs onto his computer, he's greeted not by the standard Windows chime, but by Xiao Cong's indignant, high-pitched mewl. Every click is followed by Da Bing's judgmental rumble. Every error sound is a chorus of offended cat chaos. When his game crashes and is met with Da Bing hissing, Yue screeches and nearly tips his chair over.
Yao, sipping her tea in the hallway, smirks.
That's when things start to snowball.
Lao Mao wakes up from an innocent afternoon nap, groggy and confused, only to realize his entire body has been Post-it'ed. Every inch. Every finger. His cheeks. His calves. His eyelids. A mirror is thoughtfully propped against the wall so he can read the insult now scrawled across his forehead: "Heavy sleeper, heavier snorer."
Lao K, who had been gearing up for an evening shower, opens his shampoo bottle and pours out something that jiggles. It's lime green. It wiggles. It smells suspiciously of dessert.
Yue is heard cackling through the vents.
Then Pang opens the fridge and screams. Not because of a health hazard. Not because of expired milk. No—because he is staring into the cold, glassy eyes of thirty mannequin heads. One is wearing his favorite hoodie. Another has Yao's headset. A third has Yue's cap and lip gloss.
He just closes the fridge and walks away, whispering, "I'm done."
Rui walks into his office, expecting a sanctuary. What he finds is his chair—his beloved, lumbar-supporting, custom-leather executive chair—suspended from the ceiling like a cursed chandelier.
A note is taped to the wall beside it.
"Chair's taking a break. You should too."
He stares at it for a solid ten seconds before turning and calling, in the calm, clipped tone of a man rapidly losing his grip, "Ming. We need to talk."
Ming looks up from his tablet, already knowing.
When the words "Yue and Yao strike again" make their rounds, no one dares breathe.
Lu Sicheng, in the middle of a ranked match, quietly puts down his mouse. He closes his laptop with a soft, lethal click. And then, in that voice—the one that makes even Ming straighten up—he says, "Get them in here. Now."
The hallway clears like a swept battlefield. Yue and Yao are shoved into the room like two delinquent kids summoned to the principal's office, except Yue looks smug and Yao looks like she's trying not to giggle.
Yao is holding Xiao Cong in her arms like a shield. Da Bing pads in behind her, tail flicking, settling beside Sicheng like he too has a stake in this.
The room falls quiet.
Sicheng doesn't yell. He just lifts his eyes slowly and says, with a warning weight in his tone, "Start talking."
Yue steps forward like a man with a mission. He pulls out a flash drive. "What you are about to witness," he begins solemnly, "is a comprehensive multimedia explanation of why it was all completely worth it."
Slides flicker across the screen: a mannequin fashion show, a slow-mo replay of Lao K slipping in the bathroom, a gallery of Lao Mao's Post-it'd limbs with soft elevator music playing in the background.
When the lights come back on, no one speaks.
Then Yao turns, her bottom lip quivering slightly, eyes wide and soft and wet like the saddest kitten who ever lived. "I didn't mean to go too far," she says softly, clinging to Xiao Cong like the world is about to end. "I just wanted to make everyone laugh... and... it was fun."
She blinks. Once. Twice.
Sicheng's brow twitches.
"No," Yue mutters under his breath, "no, no, don't—don't do it."
Because Yao's eyes are going wide. Too wide. Weaponized wide. And the trembling lip? It quivers.
Da Bing meows once, like a gavel slamming.
Silence stretches.
Ming leans over to Rui, whispering, "He's going to kill them."
But Sicheng exhales through his nose and says, with weary resignation, "Next time, warn me."
A beat.
"Or include me."
A long beat.
"Because if I find mannequin heads in my room, I'm benching both of you."
Yue lights up. "Wait—does this mean you're not mad?"
Pang shouts from the hallway, "I am."
Lao K yells, "My hair still smells like gelatin!"
Yao turns toward Sicheng, soft smile on her face, eyes shining as she mumbles, "Thank you, Cheng-ge."
And Sicheng, watching her with a mix of barely restrained fondness and mild regret, mutters under his breath, "Those damn eyes should be illegal."
Later that evening, after the tribunal has dispersed and the team is finally too exhausted to throw more complaints into the wind.
Sicheng remains seated in the now-empty lounge, laptop untouched, fingers steepled against his lips as he stares blankly at the floor.
The base is quiet. Too quiet. Suspiciously quiet.
So of course she appears.
Barefoot, hoodie-clad, and carrying Xiao Cong like a plush talisman, Yao moves into the room with careful steps, her eyes tracking him with the quiet wariness of someone who knows she might have overstepped. But only a little.
He doesn't look up.
Not at first.
Not until she pauses just in front of him, lifts her chin slightly, and says in that soft, questioning voice that only she could get away with, "You're really mad at me, aren't you?"
Still, he says nothing.
Not when she lets Xiao Cong hop off her arms.
Not when she shifts a step closer, the hem of his hoodie, because of course she's wearing his, brushing her thighs. And not even when she leans in just enough, tilting her head, her hair slipping over one shoulder as she stands on the balls of her feet and presses a whisper of a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
The contact is feather-light.
A breath.
A question.
And it hits him like a goddamn truck.
Because he knows what she's doing. Knows that this woman—this 5'3 platinum-haired, kitten-eyed, chaos-summoning gremlin—has absolutely no idea what she does to him when she looks at him like that. Or maybe she does, and that's the problem. Because she leans back slightly, eyes wide and soft, voice barely above a whisper as she asks, "You're not... really mad at me, are you?"
His jaw clenches.
His hands twitch.
And all at once, the carefully constructed wall of irritation he's been holding onto disintegrates.
"No," he grinds out, voice low and edged with something rougher than frustration, "but I should be."
Her lips tug into a small, hopeful smile. "But you're not."
He looks at her now—fully. Eyes dark, unreadable, and far too aware of just how far gone he's become. "Because you're not sorry," he says, the words flat and truthful.
Yao blinks, then shrugs a little. "I'm not."
Sicheng exhales slowly, a hand lifting to catch her wrist before she can step back. "You kissed me just now," he says, quiet and dangerous, "because you thought it would distract me from being pissed."
A beat.
Her smile grows. "Did it work?"
The silence that follows is long.
Tense.
Then he rises to his full height, still holding her wrist, and she has to crane her neck back just to keep his gaze. "You're lucky I love you," he murmurs, voice dark with something not quite anger, but far from harmless. "Because I should be furious."
She leans into him, bold now, all bright eyes and subtle mischief, resting her other hand lightly against his chest. "But you're not," she whispers again.
And she's right.
Because of all the people who could have gotten under his skin, of all the chaos-bringers in the world—he fell for the one who looks like a fairy, schemes like a strategist, and kisses like she knows she's safe in the eye of his storm.
He curses softly under his breath and pulls her close, muttering against her hair, "If Pang finds another mannequin in the base, you're explaining it."
"Deal," she says sweetly, muffling her laugh against his chest.
Because she knows.
He's not really mad.
He never really was.
Not with her.
Still holding her wrist, still breathing her in like she's both his salvation and the reason his blood pressure will never stabilize again, Sicheng says nothing for a moment. But she doesn't retreat—not this girl. She leans closer, so close her breath warms his lips, and then—
She rises onto her tiptoes again, presses her body against his like it belongs there, and nuzzles her nose gently against his, that small, delicate motion as intimate as it is disarming. "You know," she murmurs, voice airy and innocent in the way only she can fake, "you should be thanking me."
He blinks. Just once. "For what?"
She hums lightly, the tip of her nose brushing his again, the smile forming on her lips far too satisfied for someone who should be begging for forgiveness. "I stopped Yue from using your Maserati in his prank."
His entire body stills. Slowly, methodically, like a man trying very hard not to unravel, Sicheng takes a full breath and exhales through his nose. "What."
She nods, lashes fluttering as if she isn't poking a dragon's eye. "He was going to wrap it in rainbow vinyl and park it backwards in the CK team lot during their press conference. He even had bubble letters that said 'Daddy's other carry.'"
A muscle in his jaw twitches. "And you didn't tell me because—?"
She lifts her brows with wide, pointed innocence. "Because then you'd actually be mad. And you're already so very serious all the time."
His grip on her wrist tightens just enough to make her glance down, then flicker her gaze back up to his with a flush of real awareness. "Tong Yao," he says lowly, dangerously, "if you weren't already mine, I'd have you arrested for war crimes against my sanity."
She bites back a grin and shrugs, utterly unrepentant. "But I am yours. So technically, that makes this your problem."
And God help him, he laughs.
A short, breathy sound that slips from his chest like it was yanked from somewhere deeper, because somehow—somehow—this is who he chose. This girl who wears his hoodie, weaponizes her eyes, disarms fury with kisses, and considers saving his luxury car from disaster her version of affection.
"You're going to be the death of me," he mutters, pressing his forehead to hers.
"You love it," she whispers back.
And he does.
Hell, he really, really does.
She lingers in his arms for just a breath longer, enough for him to feel the rise and fall of her chest against his, enough for the softness of her mouth to hover like a promise. Then, with the same disarming boldness that never fails to knock the wind from him, she tilts her chin up and brushes her lips across his.
It isn't a kiss meant to provoke.
It's not meant to distract.
It's a whisper of connection, a ghosting touch that's tender and unguarded and so impossibly her that it leaves him standing there, stunned, even as she pulls back with a soft smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
She doesn't say anything as she turns, slipping from his grasp with that light, graceful glide that somehow always makes him want to chase her. She walks to the door of the lounge, the oversized sleeves of his hoodie swaying at her sides, Xiao Cong following like a fluffy shadow while Da Bing lingers beside him, staring up as if he knows something is about to happen.
And then—
Yao pauses in the doorway.
Turns.
And with her head tilted just slightly, eyes gleaming with something that dances on the knife's edge between innocence and mischief, she looks at him in that way that always undoes him. "By the way," she says softly, voice light but steady, "when I was in your room earlier? Stopping Yue from stealing your spare car keys for that prank..." She trails off for effect, watching as he narrows his eyes slightly, already dreading what comes next. "I found a little black box."
Time halts.
His breath doesn't catch—it vanishes.
"And if you ever decide to ask…" she continues, voice now gentler, her eyes warm but utterly unafraid, "my answer is yes." And with that she turns and walks away. No fanfare. No teasing glance back. Just the soft pad of her footsteps down the hallway and the quiet thump of Da Bing eventually trailing after her.
Sicheng doesn't move. He doesn't breathe. The most feared man in the league, a player known for his lethal calm and absolute control, stands frozen in the center of a room that now feels like it has no air, no gravity—only the echo of her words, still spiraling around him like the aftershock of a nuclear confession.
A little black box.
She found it.
She knows.
And she said yes.
He lowers himself into the chair slowly, like a man not quite sure if the floor will hold. He'd braced himself for every reaction. Every scenario. Every possible future in which he gave her that box.
Except this one.
Except her beating him to it.
And now?
Now he was completely, irrevocably wrecked.
And somehow—
It wasn't even a prank.
Notes:
Author's Note: The Muse would like to say that all comments, even small ones, are very much welcomed and they very much enjoy reading them!