If you bothered reading this fanfiction up until now, please review. Tell me which parts you liked, and which you didn't, and why. Fans of Wicked can suggest happy endings for him, maybe I'll use it. My own rewiew on the chapter is in the bottom.

-o-O-o-

Chapter Five – First Date

In which Gui and Lan speak their minds. In which a relationship moves one step ahead. In which Ling (apparently) starts considering other options. In which Ling sees something she'd rather not.

-o-O-o-

Min Gui Wen forced himself to sit, but for the hundredth time he got up at the sight of some dark-haired girl who happened to not be Feng Lan.

You're being a fool. He told himself, and it almost worked. Almost. He managed to quiet down for one whole minute, and in the next he was jerking to his feet. No, it was not her, again.

Min Gui Wen forced himself to sit, this time very ashamed of his behavior.

"Professor Ming?", a girl voice called behind him, and before he could help, he was standing again.

Part of him welcomed the sight of Feng Lan. The endless wait was over. Other parts of him weren't as satisfied. These parts were the ones analyzing the way Lan had dressed, trying to judge if his own apparel wasn't too formal; trying to compare Lan to her game-self; trying to read her expression and behavior; reminding him of their previous date, if you could really call it that, and reminding him of how disastrous it was. Or. At least, it seemed disastrous now.

"Feng Lan.", he greeted her.

"Am I late?", she asked.

"No, I just got here earlier."

He expected her to say something. She didn't. He was suddenly struck by the thought that she was as much in a loss of what to do as he was. Then he remembered. The restaurant.

"Shall we go?"

Lan nodded, not thrusting her voice to talk.

They walked in silence. Sometimes alongside, sometimes Gui leading. The awkwardness made the walk look longer than the two blocks between the park where they'd met and the restaurant where Gui had made a reservation.

And finally, they were sitting before each other. Following an habit, Gui ordered something, just to make the waiters busy. He didn't quite feel like eating at all. The waiter was now waiting for Lan to order. Gui saw her eyes scanning the menu, lock on a target, and saw her lips forming quietly the words "spaghetti with clams in white wine sauce". She ordered something completely different, then, as the waiter took his leave, she dropped the menu and stared at the professor with resolve in her eyes.

"So?", she asked.

"Huh?", Gui felt dumb-folded.

"Didn't you say that you had something to tell me, Professor?"

Oh, yes, apologize, of course. That was the whole point of this meeting. But there was something bothering him, that he must solve before he could apologize.

"You know, when we're not in class, you can call me Gui.", he said.

"And why is that?", Lan looked at him stubbornly.

"Well...", Gui hesitated, then said, hoping it didn't sound lame. "All my friends call me that."

"You are not my friend."

That was so direct that he felt the urge to object, but Feng Lan never let him.

"Because my friends would never play with me the way you did. They may deny me their help, laugh at my problems, embarrass me in public or even make me go on dates I never wanted to, but they'd never play with my feelings."

That part about the dates was a little too much for Gui. Before he could help he was replying in an angry tone.

"It's not as if you weren't hiding anything from me, is it?"

"I wasn't hiding my identity from you. I was hiding it from everybody."

"Then how is it that Zhuo Lin Bin knows?"

Gui saw Lan get so angry that for a moment he almost feared she could hit him. But, surprisingly, she calmed down enough to answer in an icy tone that allowed no further discussion.

"He discovered."

Seeing she had calmed down, Gui managed to make his own tone lighter.

"I just wanted to know how you ended up being a guy in first place."

"It was sort of a stupid bet with my brother."

She told him in general lines how she got a wish granted by a GM and wanted to prove she could make things on her own. In the end Gui sighed and massaged his temples, but said nothing.

"What's up with that look of yours?", Lan demanded.

"I am just not sure if I can accept this explanation." Hearing this, Lan's temper started to rise again, but Gui didn't give her a chance. "And this meeting went completely wrong. Everything's too new and too weird... even if I were able to apologize, you wouldn't be able to forgive me, right?"

"..."

"So, let me tell you just one thing. It was never my purpose to hurt you. I can't deny that that's what I did, but it was never my purpose. Can you keep that in mind until we've both calmed down, then meet again to do things properly?"

Lan was willing to answer "no", but Professor Ming did sound sincere, his blue eyes glistening through his spectacles. Suddenly she realized she quite liked his spectacles. At least here, when they were alone. In class, his glasses made him look more adult and serious, more distant from her... from the students, she meant. But here, with no appearances to keep, they were just glasses. Just polished lenses to correct some eye problem. She wondered if Gui's eyesight was really bad without the glasses, or if they were just for reading. He seemed somehow much more human after these considerations.

"Okay, then. See you in..." she was about to say "game", but the word died inside her. Instead she said. "... class next week. Bye, Professor Ming."

And Gui was forced to watch her going, wishing she had just said "See you in game tonight. Bye, Gui."

-o-O-o-

Two weeks after their conversation, Gui felt ready to seek Lan again. He wasn't angry about she having created a male character anymore, and was even convinced he had been the first at fault when they met. And, more importantly, he knew Lan was ready too.

In game he didn't dare to provoke her as he used to, and Prince was acting very distant. But in real life the changes were perceptible. For a few days Lan had stubbornly looked away from him every time he gazed in her direction and was always absent-minded during his classes, but slowly she started paying attention to the lectures and taking notes. He knew she was ready when she allowed herself to look at him in class.

Therefore, he left a small note in her locker (this time he didn't have to resource to burglary, he just dropped it inside through the slits) and again they combined the details in game.

-o-O-o-

"So?"

This time, Lan's question didn't caught Gui off guard.

"Feng Lan, I'm sorry. Wanting to play you with when I saw your stunned face was wrong and a proof that I am immature and egoistic." If Ling was there, she would have reminded him that "immature and egoistic" is often called being young. "I also want to tell you that after playing along you for all those months, I really came to admire your character... no, not Prince, I mean your personality... and I hope you can forgive me and we can be really friends."

So, that's it. Lan tought. He wanna be friends with me. Because for Prince it was all that talk about the thorny rose he couldn't put down, but for her … She sighed. He must have been disappointed. He had such high expectations for his Prince...

"So?", Lan woke from her daydreaming to find Gui's expectant face.

"Huh?"

"So, Feng Lan, are you willing to forgive me?"

There he was again, with his sincere, sparkling blue eyes. But there was something annoying her.

"You know, you don't need to be so formal with me, Profes... Gui." She corrected herself. Then added, unsure. "I can call you Gui, can't I?"

He grinned.

"Of course you can... Lan."

"Xiao Lan"

"...?"

"My friends call me Xiao Lan."

Gui felt as if he was in heaven.

"But, I'll ask again. You will forgive me, Xiao Lan?"

Lan was silent for a moment.

"I forgive you. But... I just wanted to know. How did you feel when you discovered I was a girl?"

Gui was expecting everything but this question. He thought carefully about his answer, trying for the first time analyze his own feelings. He had first felt... happy. Because, for one crazy moment his brain forgot completely about his circumstances and said "Then it won't be a problem for me to be with him." Then a less optimistic part of him felt defeat, because, even Prince being a girl, she had rejected him every time. And finally the overwhelming logical part of his brain told him she must hate him, because she thought he only liked her when she was a guy. Of course he wasn't telling Lan all of that. Gui decided for an abridgment of his most recent feelings.

"I felt like I had to know you better, because all this time I had been seeing you under the wrong lights."

Silence while Lan reflected over his words. Then it was his time to ask.

"And you? How did you fell when you discovered I was not gay?"

At first and briefly, happy, she thought. But no way she was telling this to Gui. Then mad. But her rage he had seen. So what was left? She felt as if she was just echoing his words when she said.

"I felt like you weren't the person I thought I knew."

"So..." Gui said after a while. "Let's get to know each other, this time."

Lan nodded. They relaxed a bit and started eating the meal they had ordered. The food was almost cold.

"Profes... Gui. Can I ask you something personal?", the girl asked after swallowing her food thoughtfully.

The request made him nervous, but wasn't him who had just said they should get to know each other? He gestured her to proceed.

"Why are you a masochist?"

"Pft..." Gui choked with the tea he had just sipped. "I'm not a masochist!"

Lan even dropped her chopsticks in shock.

"You're not? But you always look so happy when I hit you in game!"

"That... that's because I thought it would make you happy! Aren't you a sadist?"

"No!". Well, since the assassins who'd been targeting Prince didn't count, she thought she wasn't.

They looked at each other in profound disbelief for a few seconds, and then just started to laugh idiotically, first just giggling, and in the end roaring with laughter.

And when they finally regained control, they started clearing out another few... misunderstandings.

-o-O-o-

Meanwhile, in Second Life

ICIA was more motivated than ever since Ice Phoenix had joined them. And Phoenix actually liked her new job, because she didn't have to be confined to the office and Ling was a boss much less scary than Yulian.

"So, Phoenix, we're about to start Moon City's branch of ICIA..." Ling was saying. "And I was thinking you'd be just the right person to command things over there. How about it?"

"Actually I... I don't want to leave Infinite City." She said. Ling nodded. She was expecting this.

"Because of Prince, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, are you sure? You know, now we've finished the census, the work of the agents will get sort of boring. If Star City had offered some resistance, we'd have plenty of things to do, but in times of peace I guess the only work that still holds some fun is ordering people around. And you'd do just that if you went to Moon City as branch chief."

Phoenix refused the offer, then Ling sighed.

"Then your first boring, minor task will be helping me finding a qualified replacement to go to Moon City in your place." She took some sheets of paper there were just too suspiciously at hand. "Here's the list of the agents I found more suitable for the post. Check on then and give me your opinion. Don't need to write the report, just come to talk to me when you're done."

For some reason, Phoenix just expected to hear the system notice saying "Your quest log has been updated".

She took the names and left to fulfill her mission.

-o-O-o-

Phoenix read the names again. Her task had nothing of "minor and unimportant". Even though the agents identities weren't being concealed from the other agents, they weren't spread, either. So, after Ling and Prince, she was now the person with the greatest knowledge about ICIA and it's agents. She wished to know one more thing, tough. What were the criteria Ling used for choosing these people? They seemed to be completely random... Unless... Phoenix frowned. Checking the list again, she started counting. There were a few players she'd never met, but regarding those she knew, there was no doubt. Male, 20 to 26, handsome.

Suddenly Phoenix had doubts about the nature of her quest.

-o-O-o-

Real Life

The lecture was about to start, and Gui was just waiting the last few students to enter so he could close the door. Among the late students were Jing and Yun and... Feng Lan. Of course, he reminded himself, that was to be expected, since they were friends. But he couldn't help to notice her, because before it as as if she was hiding herself and he'd never taken notice of her.

"Good morning, Professor." Jing and Yun complimented. Lan said nothing, but she met Gui's gaze. He found that reassuring, for she usually looked away from him.

But the real surprise came during the class, when he was right in the middle of an explanation. With his peripheral vision he saw a hand rise, then he heard the voice he was only beginning to get used to say.

"Professor, can you please repeat this last part?"

It was Lan's only participation in that class, but suddenly Gui felt much more self-conscious while teaching. Two days after, she answered a question, and by Friday she was making commentaries on the subject. And her commentaries were very pertinent, Gui thought.

For the next two weeks, Lan's performance in class continued to improve, and the teacher realized he'd been thinking about her too often. Her angry rebukes for Feng Yang Ming, her brow frowning in concentration, the faces she made when she was told her answer was wrong... She was Prince, but at the same time she was not. He was starting to loathe his job as a teacher, and he'd gladly exchange half his IQ for being able to sit next to her and listen to the jokes she was laughing at, borrow her notes and be with her not just in his class, but in all classes.

And then, startled, he recognized what he was feeling. Hadn't it started exactly the same way with Prince? Hadn't it started just as a curiosity to see what he would do next and he would react in many situations? Hadn't that same curiosity changed into a desire to be close to him and make him happy? Ling was right, Gui realized. Love was a living thing, and it was being born within him.

-o-O-o-

Second Life

In game, very few people realized the change in the relationship between Gui and Prince. Out of habit, and maybe to keep the appearances, the duo continued with the hug-and-punch act, but Gui no more ended as a bloody mass on the floor. In fact, Prince didn't even bothered punching Gui anymore. Instead, he'd discovered a new ability "Devil Pinch of the Seven Hells", and after using it to make the bard jump with the pain, the two of them got along pretty well.

That night, bard and elf met again under the arches in the castle yard. This time, at least, none of the looked sad or distressed.

"I saw your note in my locker." Prince said. "Again".

This time, the note said:

Xiao Lan,

I would like to take you to dinner and maybe do something fun afterwards.

Answer me in game, and we can see to the details.

Always yours,

Gui.

"So?", he asked, looking forward to the answer.

"I don't get it." Prince said, with his most ingenuous dumb-folded expression. "You did nothing wrong. What do you want to apologize for this time?"

Gui smiled at the elf adorable face. Actually, he was closer to beaming.

"I'm not apologizing." He said slowly. "I'm asking you on a date."

-o-O-o-

The elf started to blush from the tip of his pointy ears.

"You.. you can't... you..."

"I?"

"You're a teacher. Teachers shouldn't date their students."

"This rule applies only for dating students regularly. And this year is almost ending, and next year you don't have any classes with me, so I won't be exactly your teacher. And besides..." Gui's speech became a little more flustered. "I'm only 26! How can they expect me to abide by the same rules as teachers who are twice my age?"

Prince reflected for a while. Gui's reasoning made sense. And he looked so cute when he was obstinate, even younger than his twenty six years.

"Right... But don't let it cause us trouble, okay?"

"That means you'll go out with me?", Gui insisted stubbornly.

"Yes, I'll go out with you."

"YAY!", and with this cry of sheer happiness, the bard logged off.

-o-O-o-

Real Life

Zhuo Lin Bin finally felt ready. It was time to ask Xiao Lan out on a date. He stopped by the flower shop and bought a bouquet of sunflowers. A reminding of that... previous date... when Xiao Lan asked so innocently if he liked her, and he felt his love confession was being wrested from him by a major force. He hated that moment the most, because he felt really awkward knowing that Xiao Lan knew about his feelings.

This time tough, he would be the one choosing where and how he would say things. He even had an accomplice who was willing to help! Feng Yang Ming helped him into Lan's room, where he left the bouquet. Then he left. He planned to "drop by casually" after Lan had come back from Jing's house and found the flowers.

And so, he waited. He waited in a park nearby for Yang Ming to call on his cellphone, so he'd know when to appear.

His wait was brief. Lan had called just after he's left the house, informing she was on her way back.

-o-O-o-

Lan entered her room to find a bouquet of sunflowers nested in her pillow. Her first thought was Gui, but she rejected it immediately. He didn't knew were her house was, and even if he did, he wouldn't just appear there to leave flowers. Also, sunflowers... not Gui, definitely. Sunflowers made her think about someone else. Someone close to her. Someone so close to her that she knew that as soon as she discovered she would feel really dumb for taking so much time to think of that person.

She examined the flowers closely, caressing the petals and smelling the perfume. Who was the person that made her think about sunflowers?

Just when she put the bouquet down again and was about to leave her room, the doorbell rang. And then she discovered, and felt really dumb for taking so much time to think of that person. She knew who had sent the flowers, and she knew who was at the door. When Yang Ming opened the door, there he was, just as she had imagined.

Zhuo-gege.

-o-O-o-

"Are you free Saturday night?"

Until a few minutes ago, all three of them were chatting happily, then Yang Ming left the room saying he was bringing snacks for everyone, and Lan was alone with Lin Bin. Then he slowed down the pace, brought the conversation for more personal subjects, hinted he was willing to spend more time with her... and asked about Saturday.

Lan looked at him with suffering eyes.

"I... am not."

Given the way she was biting her lip, he knew she was telling the truth and was indeed very sorry for not being free. He proposed they could go out on Sunday, or the next week, but she still looked troubled. Suddenly he feared she just didn't want to go out with him. He must have shown his fear in his face, because Lan said quite abruptly.

"It's not you, it's... It's just that... a person... asked me on a date, and I accepted. And I don't feel... comfortable dating one person one day, then another right after."

Even tough he didn't have any logical reason to suspect that, Lin Bin knew that "a person" was Professor Ming Gui Wen, and in the back of his mind the bard was singing:

And I will take her out tonight,
And I will treat her kind.

(…)

You're gonna loooose that girl...

The part that hurt even more, he realized, was that if he had just asked her sooner, it would be Gui receiving a "No" right now.

-o-O-o-

Saturday finally arrived.

The sky was still bright, but the sun would set in a few hours. Lan looked worriedly at the hours in her wristwatch. She was almost fifteen minutes late. Then she hurried towards the entrance of the cafe where she and Gui had arranged to meet, and almost collided with Gui himself.

"Fen... Xiao Lan. You're really punctual."

Lan looked at her watch and thanked God, Buddha and Allah for having advanced it fifteen minutes.

The cafe had two environments, one indoors and one alfresco. They chose a table in the late of those. After they took their orders, they started discussing what they were going to do next. Lan suggested wathcing a movie, and Gui produced a brochure with the schedule of the movies. Clearly, he'd been thinking of the same thing.

"Then, how was your week?" Gui asked.

"Normal... I guess." She didn't quite understand his question.

"I'm just curious. I wanted to hear about life in the university from a student's perspective."

She laughed.

"Okay, then... Monday Professor Qi announced we will have a test on Classical Literature next week. We had a work on pairs on Modern Literature to hand down Wednesday, but my brother's pair had a fight with his girlfriend and did nothing, so my brother pestered me until I agreed helping him, but it was troublesome because Professor Ming," she glanced at him "from History of Literature, gave us lots of homework, and I spent all morning finishing it."

"You must have hated it."

"It wasn't that bad." Lan said, distractedly. "I mean, it sucks doing homework Saturday morning, but since it was History of Literature it was fine."

"So you like History of Literature?" Gui sounded very surprised.

"I like. Why did you think I didn't?"

"It's just that you started paying attention to my classes only recently, I mean, before you were always so absent-minded and looked to everywhere but the board."

Lan blushed slightly. Just the decorous blush of a student who had been caught in misbehavior.

"I was just trying to get unnoticed by you. I was afraid you could realize who I was, but since now you know, there's no point in hiding anymore."

"Well, I'm happy you like History of Literature. It's my favorite subject."

"Is it you favorite subject because you teach it?"

"Exactly the opposite. I teach it because it's my favorite subject."

They started talking about literature and books, and they were having so much fun. About many things they completely agreed, and then, suddenly, they found a topic of discordance and started discussing it. Like... they liked the same book, but for completely different reasons! At this point, Gui realized he hadn't have this much fun in real life for a long time. Lan was still talking. Her skin seemed so smooth under the orange light of the setting sun. Her moving lips looked so soft...

"Gui, what's the matter?" Lan asked, realizing the way he'd been looking at her and approaching. "Gui?"

Their eyes met, and slowly they crossed the small distance that was left between them.

The sun had just disappeared in the horizon when they kissed.

-o-O-o-

Since kissing is good, and people just don't keep track of the good things, they didn't knew how much time passed before Lan abruptly disengaged from Gui's embrace.

"You shouldn't have done that."

"You didn't like it?" he was frightened by the possibility.

"No... I mean, I liked it... I mean..."

She gave an angry sigh. She couldn't even begin to voice her objections. Even tough Gui had said the rule only applied for dating students regularly, he was still a teacher. And she wasn't sure if he could separate her from Prince properly. And Zhuo-gege had asked her on a date too, and she wasn't sure if she liked any of them that way. And it was only their first date and... Well, at least that was a understandable excuse.

"It's too soon." She said.

"I'm sorry. I won't do that again unless you want me to."

Lan nodded. These terms were fine.

"Do you... do you still want to see that movie?" Gui asked. Seeing her nod, he got up. "Then we got to hurry, or we're going to loose the last session."

During the movie, Lan noticed Gui kept his hands folded in his lap. As in opposition to "holding her hand" or "putting an arm on her shoulders". After a little thought, she rested her head on his shoulder. He started to make a move, as if to embrace her, but in the end he kept his hand folded in his lap.

Lan sighed. Maybe these terms weren't that fine.

-o-O-o-

A while ago

It was Saturday, and it was dusk, which happened to be Ling's favorite time. She loved the way the world got all orange when the sun was setting.

Second Life was getting into her nerves already. She had always liked MMORPG, but she wasn't a regular player by nature. If she didn't have a responsibility on-line, she would log on only every now and then. So, since it was Saturday, she was taking part of the night off. There was a karaoke nearby that she just loved. She loved singing, when she was happy or when she was desperately in need of happiness. Even tough she was shy, the stage on that karaoke had the power of making her forget about people and about her problems, and when the lights were over her the world was just she and the microphone she used to shout all her feelings. At least that was one thing she and Prince had in common, she reflected. They both put their hearts into the music, so you could almost hear their souls singing behind their voices. The only difference was that Prince's voice was good.

While she walked down the street, she observed the urban scenery. Her eyes stopped upon a cafe where she had never been, but that seemed really nice. There, a couple caught her eye. A pretty girl with a pony-tail and... Ling looked again to be sure. That was Gui!

Suddenly she wasn't happy anymore. She felt envy stinging painfully.

But that was nothing compared to what she felt when Gui inclined towards the pony-tail girl and they kissed. She felt so bad that the feeling inside her seemed like a solid thing, and she wanted to puke so that thing wouldn't be inside her anymore. Unfortunately, one can't just puke bad feelings out. So Ling ran.

She ran to the karaoke and asked immediately for a song. "I love to hate you", from Erasure. She wasn't sure if the lyrics applied. She didn't care. She liked that song, and the only thing she needed were troubled lyrics that she could use to shout her feelings out.

She didn't cry. In fact, she was very composed when she took the stage. And then she sang. She poured all her feelings into it, specially in the chorus:

And the lovers that you've sent for me

Didn't come with any satisfaction guarantee

So I return them to the sender

And the note attached will read

How I love to hate you,

I love to hate you

I love to hate you

I LOVE TO HATE YOU!

But her voice cracked in the last long note. The music was fading, but the heavy feeling inside her chest was not. She left the stage looking so helpless that some people were unsure whether they should applaud. Ling sat alone on her table, trying to hold back the tears. She wasn't the crying tipe. Or at least she didn't want to be. Especially in public. Then the person after her started singing "It's my life".

That was when she started sobbing uncontrollably.

-o-O-o-

My own review on this chapter:

Liked – The part when Lan asks Gui if he's a masochist. I don't know if I conveyed the feeling, but in my head this part was just too much fun.

Disliked – The part when Ling gives Phoenix a mission. It didn't feel right to put that part there, but I had to because it will important for... oops, almost spoiled here.

Also, even if I didn't write everything I intended too, the chapter ended very long and I think these black letters against white screen will turn into a big headache, sorry.

And for me, Wicked does deserve a happy ending, but he can't pair up with Ling because they're not each other tipe.