My Straight Best Friend Thinks It's Bro Stuff novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Such a Good Bro
Tang wakes with a fever in Fu's bed and thanks him for being a good bro while the corridor films the soup; when a gossip post calls Fu his servant, Tang stands on a chair in front of the swim team and says Fu is the most important person in his life, and Fu walks out.
Tang Zhiyuan woke up with a fever, a spoon at his mouth, and Fu Lingchen's face a hand's width from his own.
"Open," said Fu.
Tang opened.
The soup was ginger and pork rib, and it was perfect, and he said so with his mouth full.
"You're such a good bro, Lingchen."
The spoon stopped for a moment, then went back into the bowl.
Fu had tasted the first spoonful himself to check the heat, as he always did when Tang was sick.
He wore his reading glasses and a gray sweater with the sleeves pushed up, and he was not smiling.
He seldom smiled in the daytime, which was one of the reasons the whole fourth floor of Building 9 liked him.
"Third time this term," said a voice from the door.
Luo Bin, his roommate, was leaning on the frame with his phone raised.
Behind him, the other roommate had his phone up too.
Both of them were in swim team sweatpants and both of them were grinning.
"Noting the soup," said Luo Bin into his phone. "Noting the spoon. Noting the sick man's bed, which is not his bed."
"It's the only room with a heater," said Tang. His voice came out rough.
"Fu's roommates are on hospital rotation, so Fu has a heater and a quiet room, and my dorm is damp. That's a medical fact."
"It's a medical fact," Fu agreed.
"Great for the pool," said the other roommate, still filming.
"What pool?" said Tang.
"The GPA pool," said Luo Bin, without a blink. "We've got money on which semester you drop under a 3.9."
Tang squinted at him through the fever.
"I'm not going to drop under a 3.9."
"That's what makes it riveting," said Luo Bin.
Fu put the bowl down on the desk with a small, exact click.
"Out," he said, mildly.
They went, still filming, and he shut the door behind them.
Tang lay back on the pillow and watched Fu write a number in a small green notebook, the temperature he had just read.
There was a warm feeling in Tang's chest, the one he got whenever Fu did something like this.
He had a rule for it.
The rule was that it was bro stuff, and he filed it there and closed it.
At 6:30 that evening, Tang was on his feet and in the upstairs room of Canteen Three.
The swim team ate together every Monday at one long table with a red cloth.
Fu sat at the foot of it as the team's physio, with a tray of tablets.
Somebody had to make sure Tang took them.
The captain stood at the head with his phone in his hand and looked tired.
"I'm sorry, everyone," said the captain. "The Rongda Treehole sent this to me directly. I think you should hear it from me."
He read it out in a flat voice.
"Title: Rongda's Most Unbalanced Bromance."
Somebody laughed and was shushed.
"Swim ace Tang Zhiyuan has a full-time servant."
He kept reading in the same flat voice.
"Sports-medicine junior Fu Lingchen carries his bag, cooks his meals, holds his umbrella, tapes his shoulders and sleeps beside his sickbed."
"What does Fu get? Does the team know what this looks like? Someone should check on him."
Under the text there was a photo.
It showed Fu in the rain with Tang's kitbag over one shoulder and an umbrella held over Tang's head, getting wet himself.
The room was quiet.
At the far end of the table, Cen Mingyu shook his head sadly.
Cen swam second to Tang in the 200 free, and he had a kind, round face that people trusted.
"I'm only saying, it does look like a lot," said Cen. "No offense, Tang. Doc Fu, if you ever need to talk."
Fu said nothing.
He was looking at the tablets on his tray, and his hands were very still.
Tang stood up on his chair.
Nobody had expected it, including Tang, but he was not a man who thought long when someone he loved was being talked about.
"Listen," he said.
His voice was still rough, and it carried anyway.
"That photo is true. Lingchen carries my bag. He's carried it since we were six."
"Tang," said the captain, weakly.
"Fu Lingchen is the most important person in my life," said Tang.
He turned to the table, and then he turned to the foot of it.
"I'd do anything for him. Anything."
"I'd carry his bag, his books and his whole bad day, and I'd do it standing on a chair if that's what it took."
"Yes!" roared Luo Bin.
"It's a bro thing," said Tang.
"It's bro stuff, a perfectly normal, balanced bro thing."
"If anyone has a problem with it, they can say it to my face and not to an anonymous account."
The room erupted.
The other roommate was cheering, and filming, and cheering again.
Tang grinned down the table, waiting for Fu to grin back.
Fu had set the tray down.
His face had gone completely blank.
"Take the white tablets with water," he said. "Not the yellow ones until after you eat."
Then he stood, and walked down the length of the table, and out through the door.
It closed softly behind him.
Tang's grin slid off.
"Was that too much?" he asked the room.
Nobody answered, because Luo Bin had climbed down from the bench and was standing beside the chair.
For once, Luo Bin was not grinning.
He held up his phone, where a spreadsheet glowed, with one row highlighted in yellow.
"Dude," he said, quietly. "He's going to ask you something tomorrow."
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