"Big.. Big Brother Tao!"
"Who's. This?" the man known as Big Brother Tao spat lowly.
Yingfei swiftly stood between them and started introductions. "Eheh. Big brother.. This is Li Xiaolang. He's helping me with math in exchange for lunch." She then looked to Xiaolang. "Xiaolang this is my eldest brother. You can just call him Brother Tao."
"Helping you with math, ๐ฆ๐บ?" he raised an eyebrow as high as humanly possible. "No tutor has ever lasted more than five minutes with you. You sure he's only here to ๐ด๐ถ๐ง๐ง๐ฆ๐ณ?"
Feeling half amused and half annoyed, Xiaolang looked slack facedly at the man taller than him. He didn't know how to feel about the sudden intruder. The first emotion was bewilderment. It quickly turned into annoyance at the guy's tyrannical attitude. But hearing the dominating man's words, he couldn't help but be intrigued. He learnt something interesting about Yingfei's normal life.
The more he stared at the guy, the more he realized how good looking he actually was. He had the same jet black hair as Yingfei but instead of black eyes, they were an electrifying blue. It was quite the contrast biologically. He unconsciously wondered what colored eyes their parents had. Seeing him, he knew Yingfei must definitely be beautiful under the exterior she hid herself under.
In all honesty, he couldn't tell if they looked similar at all, the main reasons being the messy hair and giant glasses on Yingfei's face. The other reason was the conflicting personalities. He knew Yingfei had a kind and docile temperament, but her brother's character was clearly over the top. He couldn't imagine Yingfei in any way acting that intensely dominant.
Regardless, as usual he concealed his emotions and nodded to the man looking down on him. "Hello," he whispered lowly.
"What?" the man had placed his hands on his hips as he stared down at Xiaolang.
Holding in his growing annoyance, he repeated himself. "Hello.. Brother Tao."
"Huh." The domineering man grunted then plopped himself onto the sofa and grabbed the game console. Noting that everything calmed down, Yingfei looked at the quiet boy apologetically and went back to the kitchen.
Seeing Brother Tao fiddling with the game, Xiaolang jolted. ๐๐ข๐ช๐ต ๐ข ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต.. ๐๐ข๐ฐ?
"PeachFuzzYT..?" he whispered.
"HAAAAH?" Brother Tao jerked and glared at him. A few seconds later, he sneered, "So you've been looking through my game, huh?"
Xiaolang didn't answer.
"Hmph! So... you play Trinity Wars Online?" although Brother Tao was quite curious, he still feigned nonchalance. The chocolate haired boy hardly spoke and almost never expressed any emotion.
After a while, Xiaolang didn't think there was any harm in telling him, so he nodded slowly.
A myriad of conflicting emotions was showcased on the tyrant man's expression, as if there was a silent war going through his head. Apparently giving in to his urges, he finally tossed Xiaolang an extra controller. "Show me what you got."
Stunned, the chocolate haired boy stumbly caught it and just stood there staring in surprise.
"๐๐ฆ๐ญ๐ญ?"
"Ah.. okay.." he regained his composure.
Soon, Xiaolang logged into his TWO account, SkyWolf.
.....
"Hmmm~" Yingfei hummed to herself. She didn't realise Big Brother Tao would be back today. But it turned out fine, thankfully. Super overprotective brother is sometimes just too much.
She didn't know exactly what was going on currently in the living room but it was okay when she left. Big Brother Tao didn't try to murder Xiaolang immediately! That was definitely good news!
But she clearly understood why. Knowing Xiaolang this past week, she presumed her big brother wouldn't be too against him. The reasoning was simple; Xiaolang wasn't one of those showy, sociable, attractive type of guys. He was just.. Xiaolang. A quiet, unsociable, average person.
In fact, Xiaolang took the heat from Brother Tao rather well. She didn't understand whether it was because the boy had no hostility in him, or he was just incredibly patient. Nevertheless, it helped with curbing her brother's dictator tendencies. If not for that, her brother would have turned into his more cold-blooded side...
Just as she finished getting lunch ready, she heard a loud laughter.
"BWHAHAHAHAHA AFTER WEEKS OF DYING!"
It was her brother, she sweatdropped. Ignoring the constant weird sounds she was hearing, she brought the food and set it up on the dining table.
"TAKE THAT YOU MUTILATED DONKEY!!"
She slowly placed the utensils beside each plate. Noticing one slightly out of place, she fixed it.
"OH YOU WANT MORE?? HAIYYAAAAA!! PEACHFUZZ 360 ROUNDHOUSE KICK!!"
Yingfei dropped a fork.
"THESE SUCKERS STILL GOT SOME LIFE IN EM! BRAT, CAST A FOOT FUNGAL SPELL!!"
She steadily walked towards the living room.
"KEHKEHKEHKEHKEH DIE DIE DIE DIE DIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
Gachak. The screen went black.
"What the.. FEIFEI WHAT DID YOU DO!?" Brother Tao roared.
She calmly stood, arms crossed, before the two men. "You were being too loud and ๐ณ๐ช๐ฅ๐ช๐ค๐ถ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ด. Besides, lunch is ready." She walked back towards the dining room.
"But.. But.. You know I can't save this shit like this!" he fumed frustratedly.
"Relax! I just pulled the screen plug. Just turn it back on and save it," she appeased dispassionately without looking back.
Brother Tao quickly proceeded to save all the progress with Xiaolang. The younger man moved absentmindedly, numb to all the yelling that had happened beside him. It would be a lie to say that the yelling didn't bother him at all. In fact, he could have sworn that he felt his ears bleed at one point.
Surprisingly, he actually enjoyed the interaction. It was hard to find a competent player in the game that he could work so well with.
In-game Brother Tao was a berserker, which was rare in itself and also because players usually refrained from ever choosing such a taxing character. Hard to achieve and hard to survive as. Xiaolang on the other hand was a warlock swordsman, a well rounded rare character. He usually played on the offensive side, attacking close range. For him to cast any spells, he needed to keep a distance from the opponent and have a well-oiled tank to take most of the brunt force, thus he rarely had enough practice on the spell-casting warlock side of his character. He took this as a great opportunity to hone his skills.
They ended up making a great team.
Being utterly focused on the gameplay, the yelling was somewhat easily ignorable... In any case, finding someone that had such good rapport with you was not an easy task so he managed to accept it somehow.
The two ended up adding each other as friends in-game. Xiaolang wanted to add him into his in-game team but thought it was better to ask his other team member first.
"HAHAHAHA! You helped me a bunch, brat!" Brother Tao thundered and slung his arm around Xiaolang's neck. They walked to the dining room together to see Yingfei already seated and eyeing them incredulously. He grinned foolishly at her. "He may end up being my tutor instead of yours, Feifei! HAHAHAHAHA."
"What?? But I thought no team member could even stand more than five minutes with you in the game. You sure he's not only here to ๐ด๐ถ๐ง๐ง๐ฆ๐ณ?" she asked half mockingly.
"AAH??"
"Nothing," she shrugged.
"Pfft.." Xiaolang tried muffling his laughter. Seeing this side of Yingfei was really interesting. Their sibling antics was also just too entertaining. "OOF!"
Brother Tao smacked his back appreciatively. "This brat can handle it! If he can handle my idiot sister's mental torture, than he can definitely handle a little physical pain! Now let's eat and continue again! HAHAHAHAHAHA."
"HEY! HE'S ๐๐ TUTOR!" Yingfei rose from her seat and glared at him.
"Now he's ๐๐๐๐ AS WELL!!" he declared before his sister.
"BWAHAHAHAHA," Xiaolang finally couldn't keep it to himself anymore and burst out laughing with tears in his eyes.
"HAHAHAHA!" the two siblings also started laughing at themselves.
.....