"What did you do now?"

"Through my mastery of chemistry and with the gracious assistance of several microorganisms, I have created alcohol."

"Fuck yeah!"

Oh no.

"- Um, is that the one that makes it more fun to do math?" Masozi says uncertainly. 

"Yes."

"That's a you thing."

"It could make it more fun to do math. I don't know it doesn't make it more fun to do math."

"The point is," Nie Huaisang says, "that you are all invited to a celebration in Wen Ning's room tonight. Getting drunk optional but encouraged."

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa???

Masozi is in agreement that this sounds kind of aaaaaaa! 

"- Did you ask Lan Xichen if this was a good idea?" he asks. "I - think maybe it's not being careful enough?" And he is now VERY AWARE that he should not trust Wei Wuxian to be an authority on what counts as being careful enough. 

"Of course I asked him, I'm not getting everyone's hopes up for nothing. That's why it's in Wen Ning's room, he has the best wards and is the one who really shouldn't go anywhere when intoxicated. And Ayako has volunteered to walk everyone back in exchange for some of my supply."

"....Okay." Masozi is still pretty dubious of the virtues of alcohol, especially for math purposes? But probably they're not all going to get eaten, so that's something. 

"Also Meng Yao says"-- Nie Huaisang puts on an uncannily good imitation of Meng Yao-- "'once per year, a-Sang, if I catch you guys doing this after field day I will cosign you to an unspecified yet horrifying fate.'"

"Probably Yanli crying."

"It could be horrifying mind-control torture."

"We're not that lucky."

"- You can do mind control torture?" Masozi isn't sure...why...one would ever want to do this, but it'd probably work with his affinity? 

"Meng Yao keeps getting spells for it and then complaining that he has literally no use for them and would instead like a spell to figure out which pipes are leaking when he's doing maintenance."

"I wonder if Lan Xichen gets torture spells too."

"If he did he'd never tell us."

“I guess maybe he’d have to trade with people who have a pipes affinity or something?” Masozi isn’t sure if this is how things actually work but it seems like it’d be a good idea.

"You do also get spells you ask for, you can petition the void for laundry spells and stuff."

"...I asked the void for a spell to fight mals and it gave me an entire book that was mostly spells to mind control them into fighting my enemies for me! Which I guess means they wouldn't kill me but it wasn't really what I wanted. I only used the one that's for paralyzing mals." 

"Right. It might give you spells to try to mind control people into doing your laundry for you."

"The void should really consider that some people want to do things out of affinity. Especially if their affinity is something that doesn't exist in the Scholomance."

"Or if using your affinity would make everyone think you're evil." 

"No one thinks Lan Xichen is evil."

"Meng Yao is kind of evil."

"Okay, but that's not the mind control, now is it, he would be just as evil if his affinity were fluffy bunnies."

"Masozi has an aura."

"Right. So Zaizai just doesn't pull malia and then no aura and then no one will think he's evil! Easy."

"Yeah. I've got lots of other reasons not to use malia too, it - makes you crazy and want to kill people and also makes you not be able to use normal mana apparently. I wonder what you could even do if your affinity were for bunnies? That's so specific." 

"Healing bunnies, taming bunnies, magic items made out of bunny skin..."

"Possibly something involving carrots."

"...An army of bunnies to fight mals for you?" Masozi suggests. 

This conversation seems to be one of those weird mysterious conversations that isn't driving toward solving a problem, though, so he's going to go back to intently studying Mandarin. 

Nie Huaisang, Jiang Cheng, and Wei Wuxian continue to speculate about bunnies for the rest of lunch.

And after dinner, they all head to Wen Ning's room.

Masozi accepts an escort over with Nie Huaisang. His mind is still kind of buzzing with Mandarin practice; he wonders if getting drunk, whatever it's like, will help with that as well as with math? 

"Ta da!" Nie Huaisang says with a dramatic flourish as he takes a bottle out of his bag. "Booze."

Why is he here.

In Masozi's opinion, Lan Wangji is here because he has a SWORD and can help fight off any mals that show up while everyone is making themselves stupider on purpose.

(Masozi is...reasonably sure that he won't lose situational awareness or the ability to use his spell that searches for mals even if he's stupider? He's not totally sure, though, so he's going to check the room very thoroughly before they start this project.) 

...The bottle does not look especially tasty? Masozi gives it a dubious look. 

"I'm going first." He takes a sip.

"Oh my god that's awful. It's the worst thing I've ever tasted. a-Ying, try some."

He does. "Wow. That's appalling. It tastes like someone filtered cheap whiskey through a dumpster of rotten garbage."

"You know, the one advantage here is that it least it won't taste any different the other way."

That is not a very appealing pitch! Masozi will try it anyway once it's handed to him, though. 

....Okay, he's in fact eaten actual food that tasted worse than that. 

"God. This tastes like I'm being poisoned. My entire digestive system is rebelling."

"Wen Ning, your turn."

No. Absolutely not. He will not. This is the worst idea imaginable.

...

He takes the offered bottle and drinks it.

No one is offering him booze as is right and proper.

"Is it supposed to taste like it's poisoning you? Maybe it went off." 

"No, unfortunately, alcohol you brew in your room out of common household materials just tastes like that. The good news is that the second drink tastes way less bad."

"I shouldn't have raided the Dominus's liquor cabinet. Now I have standards."

Masozi stares at Wei Wuxian. He...feels like he's missing some context here? 

"I - did you steal things from the head of your enclave? Wouldn't that - get you murdered if he caught you -?" 

"Uh, no? I was a kid. Do people murder kids for stealing things in Malawi?"

"....Yeah? Or, I mean, I think sometimes people will just murder someone for offending them or looking at them funny, but only if they really want to show off how strong they are - but stealing's way more a thing that just makes you look bad if you don't punish it, I think -?" 

"I mean, I'd get my ass beat if I got caught, but that's just why I didn't get caught."

"My parents helped cover it up because, you know."

"Adults aren't supposed to murder kids for stealing things! They're supposed to beat you until you can't sit for a week."

"- Dunno what you mean by supposed to? Unless it's that your parents are important too and would beat them up if you died? ....S'not hard to kill a kid by accident. Seen it happen." 

...Alcohol is really weird. It makes it easier to say words? But harder to think about what words to say? Masozi thinks it's very mysterious for something to make one thing easier but a different thing harder at the SAME TIME. 

"Maybe wizard kids are more durable? I don't think any of our parents have done anything that would kill any of us, even Wen Ning."

"I mean the Dominus is like our parent, right, because he's the guy who bosses around our parents-- so it's not really the same thing. But when I stole things from mundies Jiang Fengmian just bribed them and then Madame Yu beat my ass."

"All of our parents are pretty powerful."

"Time for the second round." Nie Huaisang gulps it. "It tastes way better if you're already tipsy."

Masozi thinks it tastes about the same amount like something you picked out of the garbage because you were hungry didn't have any money for the market, and then gave the best stuff to your younger siblings and ate the grossest pieces yourself.

He drinks, and passes the bottle on. 

"....I wish my parents'd been powerful," he says, not to anyone in particular. 

"Well, now you have us, and you'll graduate and join the enclave and be someone's powerful parents."

…Masozi has no idea what to say to that.

Wei Wuxian is, fortunately for him, already drunk enough that his already pretty low awareness of other people's feelings has completely disappeared.

Nie Huaisang is not really drunk yet but it's been long enough that he feels he can use it as an excuse. "Jiang Cheng! Cuddle me."

"No."

"Jiang Cheng! Get drunker and then cuddle me!"

Wen Ning obediently takes a second drink when it's passed to him.

"Does getting drunk make people want to cuddle more?" Masozi can't tell if he wants to cuddle anyone here more than he usually would? He would absolutely cuddle Lan Xichen if he were there, but also it's impossible to picture Lan Xichen in this situation, he just has too much dignity. 

...He will enjoy looking at Lan Wangji's face, at least, it's a very nice face. (Masozi has not quite consciously noticed that he thinks this mostly because Lan Wangji looks a lot like Lan Xichen.) 

"It depends on the person," Wei Ying says, drinking another gulp. "It makes a-Sang and a-Cheng want to cuddle people, and I am a cuddle slut even if I'm sober."

Why is he being stared at. Is he doing something wrong. He doesn't know how drunken debauchery parties work. No one has given him a ruleset.

Masozi takes another drink when the bottle reaches him again. "We should do math! I think that'd be fun. And I wanna see if being drunk makes me better or worse at Mandarin so you should do my flashcards with me." 

Nie Huaisang puts his head on Jiang Cheng's shoulder.

He has drunk enough that he has an excuse for this and no one is going to think he likes it when he's sober or that every time Nie Huaisang touches him is one of the most treasured moments of his life. He puts his arm around Nie Huaisang's shoulder.

"No math. I have to do enough math at school already."

"Zaizai doesn't like sex so you and Jiang Cheng can look at porn while Zaizai and I do math. --Man, remembering to speak in two languages while drunk is going to build SO much mana."

"It really is."

Nie Huaisang is so warm.

Being drunk does not in fact make the idea of looking at porn sound any more appealing. 

It also makes it harder to do arithmetic in his head, as he quickly discovers, but it's not like that's the most interesting part of math anyway. "Wei Wuxian you should give me more algebra problems to solve! Or make up a logic puzzle, those logic puzzles were really good." 

"Hm. If I give you one grain of rice today and two tomorrow and four the next day, how many grains of rice am I going to give you at the end of the month?"

"....Um, it depends if you're going to keep following the same rule about giving me twice as much rice each day? And if you run out of rice at some point." 

"Same rule and it takes place in Math Land where I can have as much rice as I want."

Masozi giggles. "I wanna live in math land! No one would ever starve, it'd be so good. ...Okay, do you mean the end of this month, or once it's been a month from now? ...Is that a long month or a short month, aren't some of them different numbers of days?" 

"Let's say thirty days."

"Okay. So I can...just count to thirty and double it each time? One is one, two is two, three is four, four is eight, five is sixteen, six is thirty-two, seven is sixty-four...? This is going to get really repetitive, I think there must be a smarter way of doing it but I dunno what. ...No, I can't just say 'thirty times two' - that's only sixty - huh, why doesn't that work, it's...doing a different thing than that...? It's not two times thirty, it's two times itself thirty times in a row - no, twenty-nine times, because the first day is just one... Hmm. Okay I think there has to be a clever way you can do this but I can't think of it because I'm drunk." Which is so unfair. 

"Do the street fighting math. Can you guess about how many grains of rice I'm going to have to give you on the thirtieth day?"

"I wanna...try to find the pattern? If I see how much bigger it gets between one and five and ten and fifteen then maybe I can guess how much bigger it'll keep getting? One is one, five is sixteen, ten is...hmm, right, I was only at seven days. Sixty-four times two is - a hundred and twenty - a hundred and twenty eight? That's eight days. Nine days is - two hundred and, and forty, no, and...fifty six. 256. And - I think that's actually the same number of steps. It's four steps from one to five and another four steps from five to nine. ...I wonder if 256 is sixteen times sixteen?" 

He closes it eyes. Focuses intently. 

"- It is! So I can - do multiple steps at once, I think? and now I know that eight steps is 256. So I can multiply that by itself and get to sixteen steps. ...Except I'm going to say it's 250 because it's street fighting math and that's easier. 200 times 200 would be four with four zeros - forty thousand? 300 times 300 would be ninety thousand. 250 times itself is in the middle so it's - um - about 65 thousand? ...And then if I multiply that by itself that gets me thirty-two days! Which is too many but I can just divide it by two again twice..." 

It turns out that when he's drunk, this is too much mental arithmetic.

"I'm going to pretend it's sixty thousand though, so it's easier. Thirty-six and eight zeroes. That's...um...three is a thousand, six is a million, it's - thirty six hundred million. I guess that's three billion and a bit? And then I need to divide it by two, that's - eighteen hundred million - and by two again, that's nine hundred million. ...I simplified a lot of things there but I think you'd have to give me about a billion grains of rice on the thirtieth day which is SO MUCH." Pause. "Is that right did I do it right?" 

"You're amazing. You're going to kick ass at Street Fighting Math."

Masozi is so delighted! He bounces and grins. "Tell me another one! ...Oh, oh! I wonder how big a bag you would need for a billion grains of rice. I bet you couldn't carry it. Should I figure that out?" 

"I assume you haven't gotten to the formula for the area of a sphere in geometry yet, should I just give that to you? --also, isn't drunk math great?"

In the corner, Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng and Wen Ning have been passing the drinks back and forth and are now thoroughly intoxicated.

Nie Huaisang has his head on Jiang Cheng's lap and does NOT have his hair played with because he DOESN'T HAVE ANY HAIR. "Why don't I have any hair, a-Cheng?" he says plaintively.

Jiang Cheng is patting Nie Huaisang's head and feeling warm and soft in a way that isn't all about the alcohol. "I like your hair. It's fuzzy."

"You just like fuzzy things."

"Yeah..."

Wen Ning is behaving identically to how he normally behaves except that he is smiling and internally he feels very happy and well-liked and a little bit like he is about to fall over.

Everyone seems to have forgotten he exists, which is probably the best possible outcome.

"I wanna try doing street fighting math to guess it!" Masozi looks around. Everyone should know how fun math is. "Wen Ning! Lan Wangji! Do you wanna do drunk math with us?"

...Oh no, Wen Ning doesn't speak Mandarin, does he. How do you say 'math' in Mandarin. Masozi says some words that he thinks mean 'want speak math?' because he can't remember the right word to use to describe doing math, but it could easily mean something completely different by accident. 

"No."

Wei Wuxian translates for Wen Ning, and then Wen Ning says, "No, thank you, I don't like math" and Wei Wuxian translates back.

"Awww." 

Oh well. Maybe he can practice Mandarin with Wen Ning later? Masozi is feeling right now like it's very important to get to spend some time having fun with all of his friends, not just Wei Wuxian. Although he would still rather that the time not be spent watching porn. 

"...Okat, so I'm going to pretend rice is cube shaped. I think rice is normally sort of a cylinder? And some rice is bigger than other rice. If it were a cube it would be...two or three millimeters across, I think? If I made a cube of rice cubes that was ten across, it'd be...a thousand total? And that'd be two or three centimeters. A billion is...a thousand thousand thousand? So that'd actually just be another cube of those cubes ten across, I think. Which would be...thirty by thirty by thirty centimeters. Huh. That's not actually very big! I mean, it'd be enough to eat for weeks probably, but still, I thought a billion grains of rice would be more than that." 

"That is, like, totally a plausible amount of rice for me to give you if I wanted to give you a ton of rice for some reason."

Masozi has, unfortunately, alerted Wei Wuxian to the existence of Lan Wangji. "Hey, Lan Zhan, you should drink something."

"No."

"Everyone else is! Even Masozi and Wen Ning are."

"No."

"S'probably a good idea for him not to," Masozi protests. "We should have one person who can watch for mals. So I can do math and not worry about that." 

"Pleaaaaaaaase?"

He takes the alcohol from Nie Huaisang and gulps it.

"That worked?"

Huh. Eh, whatever, Wen Ning has wards, probably it's fine? Masozi is going to flop on Wei Wuxian's shoulder. "I think that on the first day you'd be being really rude!" he informs Wei Wuxian. "Who gives their friend one grain of rice? That's so stingy!" The mental image makes him burst out laughing, though. "Anyway we should do more math!" 

Lan Wangji closes his eyes and immediately falls asleep.

"What? That's the lamest way to get drunk ever."

Oh no! This is maybe concerning! "I hope he wakes up before curfew! He needs to be able to get back to his room!" 

"Don't worry, worst case we can switch off fireman's carrying him and then make fun of him."

"Who's doing a fireman's carry?" Nie Huaisang says from his comfortable position with his head in Jiang Cheng's lap.

"You."

"No, I'm not. I'm delicate and fragile and in need of protection. Tell them that, a-Cheng."

"a-Sang is delicate and fragile and in need of protection," he says in Mandarin, "and I love him."

"Awwww."

(Wei Wuxian translates the Mandarin portions of this conversation.)

Awwww. Masozi actually understood, like, a third of the Mandarin that time! He's been practicing with the flashcards he made for himself a LOT. 

...Masozi wishes someone loved him. He wishes someone would look at him the way Jiang Cheng is looking at Nie Huaisang. He's among friends, but suddenly he still feels very lonely. 

He looks at Wei Ying. "I also love you, a-Ying. Brothers forever. Get over here."

Wei Wuxian gets over here and puts his head on Jiang Cheng's shoulder. "Does that mean we can't make out."

"Not that kind of brother."

Masozi has not been invited to join in snuggles and he doesn't really feel like he has permission to do so, or ask about it. He's their friend, sort of, but he's not their brother. Also Wei Wuxian keeps getting distracted from giving him more math problems, and he's sad about this. 

...He's going to retrieve the bottle from next to sleeping Lan Wangji, and chug as much of it as he can in one go. It makes him sputter a bit, which is definitely why his eyes are suddenly watering, it's certainly not because he has an emotion. 

"Zaizai, a-Ning! Get over here! Cuddle pile."

Aaaaaaaa.

...He is going to sit a respectful half an inch away from Nie Huaisang.

Nie Huaisang puts his legs on Wen Ning's lap.

Cuddles! Masozi is so happy to be included! He bounces with joy, and then goes over and leans on Wei Wuxian. He feels very floppy and relaxed and warm, and his head is kind of spinning now but it's not unpleasant, exactly, just weird. 

Hopefully no one will try to kiss him? He's not sure he really wants there to be any kissing even when he's drunk. 

"Wen Ning is boring when he's drunk. He acts exactly the same."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you having a good time?" Masozi asks Wen Ning - again, asking in English and forgetting that Wen Ning doesn't speak it. 

After Wei Wuxian translates, Wen Ning says, "yes, I am?" in a questioning tone.

"Good! Are you less scared of people when you're drunk? You don't have to be scared of people, we're not mals, but I guess it's probably not that easy, just deciding not to be." 

If Masozi were sober, he would probably have considered for five seconds whether this was a good idea to say out loud, and decided against. He is, however, not sober, and not running a filter at ALL. 

"I don't know," he says. "I think so?"

"I'm glad!" Masozi beams at him. "I want to give you a hug, can I give you a hug?" 

"Yes. I'd like a hug."

Nie Huaisang removes his legs from Wen Ning's lap.

Masozi will give him a hug! ...A very gentle one, so he's not being scary. "M'glad I know you," he says, slightly slurred. 

Future Wen Ning is going to be suspicious of this because as far as he knows all he's done around Masozi is not talk. Present Wen Ning, however, says, "I'm glad I know you too."

"I'm horny. Is anyone else horny? a-Ying, make out with me."

"Pushy bottom," Wei Ying says, but lies down next to Nie Huaisang and starts to kiss him in Jiang Cheng's lap. (His legs are near Masozi.)

Mmm. Wei Ying's lips are soft and he's a really good kisser. He kisses like he's paying attention, which is probably the only thing he manages to pay attention to that involves neither corpses nor algebra.

This is a really nice visual that is happening in his lap.

Oh no now NOBODY is talking to him about math! 

...Oh well. Masozi can talk to himself about math. "I wonder how many kisses people've had in the Scholomance. I bet I could guess with street fighting math. So it's existed for...two hundred years? And there are a thousand new students each year - there are more than that but I'm going to make it easier. Jiang Cheng, how many of the students do you think kiss people while they're in school?" 

Jiang Cheng is busy being a place where kissing is happening but he does manage to say, "everyone kiss before graduation I think."

"Okay so how many people have kissed is easy, that's just two hundred thousand. But I don't wanna know that, I want know how many kisses. ....Jiang Cheng, how many times in a week do you kiss someone?" 

"When I am drunk, so... two time month? But I am not allowed to get drunk at Scholomance."

"...Huh. Okay I'm going to just say two times a month for students who like kissing, and - probably everyone likes kissing before they graduate but not everyone likes kissing when they're going to be a freshman. I'm...going to say that a quarter of people like kissing in the younger years, and half of people like kissing in junior year and all people like kissing in senior year. ...Probably some people who like kissing still don't do it twice a month because nobody wants to kiss them, or because they're too busy? So my number will be too big. I can say once a month instead and then round it to ten times a year, and - that's five hundred student-years for freshman and sophomore year, and five hundred for junior and a thousand for senior year. So two thousand student-years in total for each new class. Times two hundred. Four hundred thousand. And then times ten for kissing ten times a year. Four million kisses! That's so many kisses! ....Why is the room turning in circles." 

"Because you're drunk."

Masozi is nice to hug...

"You didn't warn me about that! S'too hard to do math now..."

Maybe he can instead snuggle up with Wen Ning so that they're both leaning against Jiang Cheng - except there are legs in the way - oh well he'll just put his legs on top of Wei Wuxian's legs. Like a leg pillow. This makes him giggle again.

- it reminds him of the one year that he got to hear the Lake of Stars music festival from a distance, when he was very small and snuggled up close with his sister on the lake shore. It's nice. Although he wishes there were...actual visible stars. 

He starts singing Kwathu ku Mulangeni. It's a song about...home. Well. Literally it's a song about a place called Mulangeni, but it's about it being someone's home, and oddly it was always easier to picture that vague song-place and imagine it being home, then to feel like any of the places he's actually lived were home. 

Maybe Shanghai will be home, someday. 

"Hizooooo mwandikumbutsa kale langaaaaaa!" he sings, that reminded me of my past, and he remembers the lake and the stars, and he's happy and sad and warm and lonely all at the same time. 

Wei Wuxian sits up! It is singing time! He is going to sing now!

Because his taste in music is much worse than Masozi's, he sings My Dream by Jane Zhang.

Wait. No one's kissing him now. That's not at all how things are supposed to be. He sits up in Jiang Cheng's lap and kisses him.

Oh.

There are people singing next door in the quiet Asian kid's room! Julia is chilling in her room doing yoga but she's glad that people are having nice healthy social experiences. She pours herself a cup of water, makes it seltzer, pops out the door to maybe join.

Masozi can't remember all the words to this song, and has switched to belting 'doo doo doo' for the instrumental parts. 

It turns out that there are six boys crammed in the quiet Asian kid's room! One of them is asleep. Two of them are making out extremely passionately and without seeming to notice that anyone else in the world exists. One of them is being cuddled by the two singing boys, neither of whom seems to have coordinated on which song or indeed language they're singing in, and one of whom appears to be Shanghai's pet Not Maleficer.

What the fuck!!!!

Julia backs away, still holding her seltzer.

Are they drunk. How are they drunk. Maybe they used their vending machine tokens already (New York makes you give one to the communal stockpile for emergencies) and the vending machines give out alcohol? She doesn't think the vending machines give out alcohol, though! Also! If it did! You'd die!! Julia doesn't want to be one of those spoilsport 'you'll die'  people but like. You don't play on railroad tracks just because you want to rebel against your parents' doom and gloom pessimism.

.....who knew that quiet neighbor had such a party boy wild side????

Julia retreats back into her room and sips her seltzer thoughtfully.

"...did somebody just silently come into the room and then walk out?"

"That was odd."

Even very drunk, Masozi retains enough situational awareness to have noticed the girl snooping on them in time to get a good look. "I think it's - Julie or something. She's from New York. S'the one I offended by accident." 

"Well, she can't have any of our booze. I hate her."

"You could shut the door? If you don't want us being snooped on." Masozi is not going to be the person standing up to do that, though. He's very comfy where he is. 

"But I'm comfy now."

Jiang Cheng has processed none of this because none of it is Nie Huaisang's mouth, which is actually the only interesting thing in the entire world.

What a coincidence, the same thing is true of Jiang Cheng's mouth.

Masozi is so comfortable and happy and also really sleepy now. He starts singing another Chichewa folk song, though not with as much enthusiasm because sleeeeepy, and vaguely wishes Wen Ning had hair to be petted. 

"Why are we doing this again?" says Chloe. She's sitting on Julia's bed squeezed between Fiona and Magnus; Zeke is in front of her with Rebecca in his lap. It's a crowded bed. Silas is in Julia's desk chair, trying to read his homework, like some kind of loser. Julia doesn't know why Silas is like this.

 Orion is, of course, guarding the door. 

        "We can't have Shanghai thinking they throw better parties than us just because they're maleficers!"

"We can't?" says Silas. "What bad thing actually happens if Shanghai thinks they can throw better parties than us?"

         "They'll be emboldened," says Julia with confidence. "Anyone want a mocktail?"

"If we get drunk we will die," says Magnus.

         "Mocktail, doofus. Nonalcoholic. ...also I think even if I made it taste like real alcohol it still wouldn't get you drunk, but I won't do that, because alcohol doesn't actually taste very good."

"I'll have a mocktail," says Fiona. "A frozen apple margarita."

        "I only know how to make pineapple, apricot and lime punch," says Julia. "It's the only one in the spellbook."

"What kind of lame-ass spellbook -"

       "Sssssshhh, I don't want to lose it yet, it also had a bunch of food recipes. He didn't mean it," Julia tells the spellbook, and hands Fiona a punch. "Okay, everyone ready?"

"Yes," everyone says grudgingly. 

 "LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS," roars the room next door, "TO DEFEAT THE HUNS!"

"That's not how Hua Mulan's story goes. It's a stupid movie."

Oh look his kissing has acquired a soundtrack. Like most things that are not kissing, this is totally unimportant.

"I love you," he says into Nie Huaisang's mouth.

"Love you too."

Masozi doesn't know this story! He's going to stop singing and listen instead so he can learn it. 

You're a spineless, pale, pathetic lot, and you haven't got a clueeeeeee....somehow I'll make a man out of you!!!!!!!

"It's FUCKING ABOUT FILIAL PIETY," he yells. "NOT FEMINISM."

....Honestly this story is really confusing and Masozi feels like he's missing enough context that he can't follow it. He leans his head on Wen Ning's shoulder and closes his eyes and half-listens while half starting to doze off. 

"If we start a war with Shanghai over the plot of Mulan we will get in SO MUCH TROUBLE," Silas says, "and also be dead."

Julia ignores Silas, as everyone should. 

BE A MAN We must be swift as a coursing river

BE A MAN With all the force of a great typhoon

BE A MAN With all the strength of a raging fire

MYSTERIOUS AS THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! 

Oh, well, this means war. 

"Jiang Cheng! Nie Huaisang! Stop making out, we have to beat New York."

"In absolutely no sense do we have to beat New York."

"No, I'm with him, we have to beat New York. What are we beating New York at."

"Singing Disney songs! They think they can beat us."

.....Okay he's awake. What are they doing now. 

"Pocahontas?"

"Pocahontas."

What can you expect

From filthy little heathens?

Their whole disgusting race is like a curse

Their skin's a hellish red

They're only good when dead

They're vermin, as I said

And worse!!!!!!!

"Shut up," someone yells from across the hallway.

At first it is hard to hear them over the clamor of Mulan but when it finishes and New York stops for more mocktails it's very audible.

"....what song is that?" asks Silas.

"Dunno?" says Julia. "......seems kind of racist, though. Maybe they're singing it ironically."

"Being ironically racist is still being racist," says Fiona. 

Masozi also thinks this song is kind of weird and unpleasant? He doesn't know it anyway so he isn't singing along. 

Jiang Cheng, Nie Huaisang, Wei Wuxian, and Wen Ning (singing very quietly and barely contributing at all to this project) finish Savages, Savages and then go into Colors of the Wind.

"I will pay you to shut up!" says the person across the hall.

"What??? No one offered to pay us to shut up!" says Chloe indignantly. 

            "It's because we're not racist!" says Julia. "And because we're good at singing."

"For eight thousand dollars, I will stop," says Magnus, and bursts into giggles. 

"Strong mocktails, I see," says Silas dryly. 

            "I think we will simply have to drown them out," says Julia. "What's everyone's favorite Disney song."

"Part of your world!"

          "Too serious. Sounds like we're conceding something."

"When will my life begin -"

         "Same problem."

"Out There, from Hunchback -"

         "Too obscure for a singalong and also, wow, you guys are Mr and Ms Depressing tonight, all right, what's your favorite Disney song that's not about being trapped staring out at the world wishing we could be part of it."

"A Whole New World," says Rebecca. 

         "Thank you! Does everyone know that one -"

"Let it Go!"

        "- right, yes, that's it, of course, I'm an idiot. Let It Go! All together, now, one, two, three, four -"

"You know, it's not Mulan."

"We have achieved victory! By reminding them that Disney also makes stupid inaccurate movies about Americans."

"But we've still got to outsing them."

"Obviously."

"We should do The Lion King! For Masozi."

There are three valiant attempts and one not-so-valiant attempt at Swahili. 

New York finishes Let It Go and moves on to A Whole New World. Rebecca wants a virgin Pina colada and Julia tries the spell eight times before she gets anything vaguely coconutty.

"We could sing The Lion King with them!"

"No, that would be GIVING IN. They'd think they were WINNING."

"What bad thing happens," says Silas, "if Shanghai mistakenly thinks -"

"SHUT UP, MOM," Julia and Chloe and Magnus chorus in unison.

Masozi knows none of these songs and it’s kind of hard to follow either of them when they’re both happening at once. He will halfheartedly ooh along once he’s half picked up the notes. Some Malawi-folk-music-style harmonies make it in after a while.

Masozi….does not speak Swahili. It's related enough to Zulu that he can soooort of recognize it and figure out why they said 'for Masozi', but it's also pretty mangled and he cannot actually understand any of it.

He can do enthusiastic harmony as soon as he figures out where the song is going, though! It is somewhat more enthusiastic than on-key. 

........you know, of all the Disney songs to be inexplicably yelled outside his room when Leander is trying to study, these are definitely not the worst. It could be...

He's not sure what it could be. He doesn't actually have strong opinions about Disney songs. Small World, maybe?

But regardless the Lion King singing seems rude. If he wasn't allowed to watch Moana because nobody trusted him not to pick up Tokelauan by accident people should not be yelling in whichever African language the Lion King is in across the hall from him. This is his extremely hot take which is not actually that hot now that he thinks about it, even if he is sort of aware that there is a zero percent chance that he's going to pick up any of this language from a group of yelling kids who probably don't even speak it.

"See. This is why they should have let us bring our guqin. Can you imagine Lan Zhan's guqin rendition of Circle of Life. We would absolutely win. I am pretty sure New York has never even heard of the guqin."

"She'll still be our neighbor next year."

"Right! Next year we will absolutely win at Disney."

Hakuna Matata!

Awww this one is happy and bouncy! Masozi will sway and bounce along to it with his arm still around Wen Ning. 

The noise is sufficient to wake up even Drunk Lan Wangji. 

...What is going on.

People are singing? People are singing Disney?

Someone is cuddling Wei Ying! That person is not him! They should not be doing thatz

The singing is briefly interrupted while Wei Ying goes "--ooh, aggressive much, you know I like a dominant man but this is kind of ridiculous! Right! Okay! Cuddling! Cuddling now! That sounds fine!"

There. Now Wei Ying is in his lap. The order of the world is correct.

"So the thing we're doing is challenging New York for dominance via our greater knowledge of Disney. Right now we're working through the Lion King because of Masozi."

"I need my guqin."

Wei Wuxian pats him sympathetically. "Next year."

Now there are four people enthusiastically singing Hakuna Matata and one person sort of mumbling along in the background!

Oh wow, Lan Wangji when he gets drunk is cuddly? Huh! 

Masozi continues to not know any of The Lion King but Hakuna Matata is pretty repetitive and also pretty amenable to ooh-ing along. 

Julian was trying to alternate metallurgy homework and Horrible Wall Sits, but how's anyone supposed to focus with all that racket downstairs. Is someone having a party? What kind of an absolute loon would be having a party in the Scholomance? 

....doesn't Buddhist Spaceship Girl live downstairs and just up the hall? 

Okay. Mystery solved. Second question: what's with the call-and-response section and why do they sound Chinese? He knows Wen Ning lives down there but he always seemed so sweet, and neither musically inclined nor, uh, confusingly racist. Whatever is going on there, the melody suggest Disney but the snatches of lyrics he's getting suggest not focused grouped. And now they're doing the Lion King, okay. He hopes Wen Ning isn't being bullied into lending his room to out for choir practice; if his enclave-mates want to wake everyone up they could at least have the good grace to offend their own neighbors. Some people would love to host singing parties if they didn't have to worry about what everyone in a 10-room radius would think of them for the next four years. 

Whatever. Julian and his table of specific heats can make their own fun. 

      "Now what -"

"Reflection? Mulan pissed them off last time...."

"That's an argument against it," says poor ignored Silas. 

"It's also not a great singalong song."

"I really think we should do Part of your world. It's a great singalong song and - does anyone not know it - see - and it's not that depressing cause she does get to be human -"

      "Fine," says Julia. 

"And I want a virgin Pina colada like Rebecca's."

Julia hands her one.

"Look at this stuff - isn't it neat - wouldn't you think my collection's complete - wouldn't you think I'm the girl, the girl who has....everything?"

"Oooh, I like Little Mermaid."

"This is a war."

"But a-Cheng! I like The Little Mermaid!"

Wei Ying is sad. This should not be allowed.

Lan Wangji has not fully followed why he is sad but it seems to be because he wants to sing Part Of Your World? This is an easy problem to solve. Lan Wangji can definitely sing Part Of Your World. He knows all the words.

He does so with great enthusiasm.

Does no one take their war against New York seriously????

He is going to join in but UNDER PROTEST.

Up where they stay all day in the sun

Wanderin' free, wish I could be

Part of that world

What would I give if I could live out of these waters?

What would I pay to spend a day warm on the sand?

Now they are singing Part Of Your World and Wei Ying is happy. This is good. Wei Ying should be happy. Lan Zhan wonders if he can obtain a copy of The Little Mermaid at the Scholomance. Maybe someone is taking a class on Dutch literature. Is The Little Mermaid Dutch? Maybe it's Norwegian. He would ask but his mouth is busy with singing. He should have two mouths to solve this problem.

"They're singing along!"

      "That means we won."

"They have conceded to the power of American cultural hegemony."

      "If only there were a Disney song about why you shouldn't malefice."

"I think we should stop while we're ahead," says Silas.

      "Oh, Silas is right, we should sing Mother Knows Best."

Silas tries to swat Julia with her pillow; she dodges.

"If Little Mermaid is the winner we stick with it. What else is there - Under the Sea, there's -"

Nie Huaisang is very drunk and therefore filled with a sense of peace and goodwill towards humankind and therefore is inclined to end this fight on a positive note.

Kiss The Girl!

- yeah, all right. Zeke and Rebecca will be all over each other but there are worse kinds of social awkwardness for parties to end on.

(Julia is not attracted to Zeke or Silas or Orion or Magnus. When the girls play Marry Fuck Kill they generally marry Zeke or Magnus depending on their type and fuck Orion because you can't kill Orion, but playing Marry Fuck Kill isn't a sex thing.)

This is a good song because Wei Ying should be kissed? Specifically, he should be kissed by Lan Wangji. But Wei Ying is not a girl. Technically this song is urging other people to kiss girls, which Lan Wangji thinks he is in favor of, because if they are kissing girls they are not kissing Wei Ying, and therefore Wei Ying is all his.

Drunk Lan Wangji is very cuddly and, um, this kind of hurts actually? He's holding onto Wei Wuxian tightly enough that it's cutting off his circulation and there are probably going to be bruises tomorrow. Wei Wuxian is not really sure how to object to this so instead he sings his heart out in order to distract himself.

You know what would be a very fun way to sing this song, according to Nie Huaisang?

The most fun way to sing this song is straddling  Jiang Cheng's lap and sing "and you don't know why, but you're dying to try, you want to kiss the girl" directly at him, with a yearning expression and half-lidded eyes and occasionally punctuating "go on and try, you gotta kiss the girl" by grinding on his lap. 

This is the peak sexual experience of Jiang Cheng's life. Possibly the peak sexual experience of anyone's life. If a mal burst into the room and killed him this very second he would die happy. 

Dramatic mournful face: 

"Sha-la-la-la-la-la, my, oh, my
Look like the boy too shy
He ain't gonna kiss the girl
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, ain't that sad?
Ain't it a shame? Too bad
He gonna miss the girl."

You really don't have to call him out like this.

(He is too happy and also too horny to care.)

No!!! This is a terrible song!!! He should get to kiss Wei Ying, or alternately other people should get to kiss the girls so they're not kissing Wei Ying.

You would think that Zeke and Rebecca would kiss but actually they're just looking lovey-dovey into each others' eyes. Julia figures kissing would interfere with the singing, and Rebecca seems really into the singing. (Rebecca's cool. The seniors are all like 'she's going to be dead by end of term so whatever' but Julia hopes they're wrong about that! It's true mundies have a bad time in the Scholomance normally but they've got Orion and if Rebecca's stuck she can cheat off New York and stuff.)

Masozi feels like he is probably not really getting the emotional point of this song? 

The second the song concludes Jiang Cheng pins Nie Huaisang to the ground and starts to make out with him with significantly more passion than skill.

Wow apparently Jiang Cheng really likes Disney!

"I think," Wei Wuxian says, "we should go give New York the rest of the booze. As a present. Because we had a fun time singing together."

Aaaaaaaah this is suddenly way too many strategic considerations to be trying to evaluate while Masozi is drunk and also distantly aware that he's terrible at this! 

"....I think it'd be good to give them a present because we had fun singing but I don't know if they're going to want the alcohol? I mean, it tastes really bad and they're - rich and stuff - if they want alcohol they can probably get their own that doesn't taste horrible?" 

"Zaizai, we're also rich."

Wei Ying wants him to take the alcohol to New York! He's not sure how to do this because they're in the Scholomance and won't be able to go to New York for four years. That seems like a long time to keep alcohol, even if alcohol supposedly gets better as it ages.

However, Wei Ying has also expressed the desire to take the alcohol to the other people who are singing, and this Lan Wangji can help with much more easily. He takes the alcohol and walks off to the other room that sound came from.

"Hey! Hey! Get back here! You can't just run off--"

He knocks politely on New York's door even though it's open.

New York's Disney singalong is in the middle of degenerating into a pillow fight. And then -

- fuck is that a Shanghai kid or is it just another random Asian kid and it'd be racist to assume they're a Shanghai kid - 

A bunch of giggling children blink confusedly at Lan Wangji. 

"Hi!" says Julia brightly. "You can join if you want but the next round of mocktails is on you."

He presents them with the alcohol.

"Sorry! Sorry. This is the first time in his entire life that he's ever been drunk and it turns out that he gets wasted really quickly-- uh, we thought we would bring you the rest of the booze? Because the singalong was fun? And then he just sort of took off with the alcohol." 

"Wei Ying is very good," he says in Mandarin. This is the most important part of the conversation.

" - are you actual, for real, drunk," says Silas disbelievingly. 

"Uh, yes? We were having a party to celebrate my enclavemate successfully making moonshine. We're all drunk."

Masozi has managed to STAND UP which honestly is very heroic of him, and also to follow Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji to the next room which is even MORE heroic, and now he is going to stand there and lean on Lan Wangji and check for mals around them. 

"...You can make alcohol out of food?" he offers helpfully. 

"....did anyone tell you guys that there's, uh, a murderer on the loose?"

"That's really impressive alcohol," says Silas. "Thank you for the really impressive alcohol! How about we trade you -" and he grabs some of Julia's rocks off her desk - "these? Sound good?"

SILAS THAT'S MY ROCK GARDEN! Julia barely refrains from yelling indignantly at him in front of Shanghai because Enclave Solidarity.

Masozi is drunk and therefore has zero filters. 

"....I don't think that seems valuable enough for that trade? How much work did it even take you to make rocks?" 

"Oh, you can just have it!" he says cheerily. "Free sample. Come by Nie Huaisang's any time for more. --Don't worry, we're in a-Ning's room which is probably the most warded place in the Scholomance and we have Ayako to walk us back to our rooms and we're under strict instructions that we're only allowed to get drunk this week or Meng Yao will make us breathe manually for four days."

Meng Yao would do WHAT. 

(Masozi is not going to say anything in front of New York, obviously, but he is so confused and curious!) 

Blink blink blink.

"Glad to hear it," says Magnus. 

"Anyway! Here you go! I had a great time! You better be on your best game next year because we're going to be prepared and have a Disney villain medley arranged for guqin and dizi."

"Wei Ying is very good," he says to no one in particular.

Masozi has no idea what's happening right now but he can smile brightly at the person anyway! 

"- Wanna tell me a math puzzle to solve? ...Everyone else got too drunk and started kissing instead of doing math." 

Magnus raises an eyebrow. "Say there are six maleficers in the freshman class, and we turn the Maleficaria Studies classroom into an arena and have them fight to the death. How many head to head matches -"

"What can I say except, "You're welcome"," yells Silas very loudly, " For the tides, the sun, the sky

Hey, it's okay, it's okay You're welcome

I'm just an ordinary demi-guy!"

 - yeah fair that was about to get awkward!!!! 

Singing! We're singing now. Lan Wangji likes singing. And also Wei Ying. 

"Okay," Wei Ying says, "okay, all the super wasted people are going back in the room where they can't cause an international incident-- bye! Love you guys!"

Masozi was just starting to think about the problem and then suddenly there was SINGING. 

"- Okay so head to head means you match people one on one, I think? So six would be - three matches? ....And then the winners of each of those should fight each other but three is an odd number! So I think you'd need to have some sort of - scoring? To decide which two of the winners would fight each other first.....?" 

He trails off and follows the others. 

"Sorry!" he says over his shoulder. "There's only one of me and I am babysitting a lot of people with no alcohol tolerance whatsoever!"

Lan Wangji is going to go with Wei Ying! Because the best place to be is next to Wei Ying.

Julia's door closes.

"What the fuck are you playing at," says Silas. "We don't want to offend Shanghai."

      "You don't want to offend Shanghai!" says Magnus. "Another mocktail, please, Julia."

"If there's a war everyone loses."

      "I dunno I count eight of us to four of them and one of us is Orion and all of them are drunk."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

      "The kid wasn't even offended!"

"Because he's an idiot!! Whose strings someone - not us - is pulling! A smart murderer won't kill you, Magnus, and an idiot murderer might."

      "Jules, where's my mocktail."

"Jules?" says Julia, handing it over Magnus's head to Fiona instead. 

        "Oh, are you a humorless scold too now?" says Magnus. 

"I want to have a nice party with singing and no politics. And no one trading away my rock garden."

      "I didn't want them to be able to say later that we owed them," says Silas.

" - whatever. Someone think of the next song, I'm all out of ideas." 

From next door, in Mandarin but loud enough for New York to hear: "Jesus fucking Christ! I don't want to see you with your hand down my brother's pants! a-Ning is RIGHT THERE!"

Masozi flops down on Wen Ning's bed. "....Did that math problem make more sense to anyone else?" he asks plaintively. "I - I felt like it was maybe just a stupid math problem, but - I don't know...?" 

" - These Are A Few of My Favorite Things!" says Rebecca. 

" - great," says Julia. "Loudly. Please."

"It was a stupid math problem," Wei Ying says. "We are all going to do MATH or SING from now on. Kissing is BANNED from this party. You are NOT RESPONSIBLE USERS OF KISSING."

(This is also loud enough for New York to hear.)

:(

Bouncebouncebounce. Also he's going to go hug Wen Ning again because Wen Ning is GOOD. 

"- Tell me another math problem! A good one this time!" 

Hugs! Wen Ning likes hugs.

He likes hugs a lot better than watching Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang explore each other's tonsils.

Jiang Cheng is being glared at by Wei Wuxian so he behaves. This is a complete upheaval of the fundamental order of the universe, which is that Jiang Cheng glares at Wei Wuxian so he behaves. 

Also, Wei Wuxian walked in on him like twenty seconds into this handjob and it is Jiang Cheng's opinion that a courteous brother would have at least waited until his pants were off because a pants-on handjob is, while admittedly the peak erotic experience of his life, not in fact very good in terms of sensation. In fact it is mostly really uncomfortable.

Dammit! Virginity loss attempt two thwarted, and Nie Huaisang is pretty sure that he's not going to get a second try on this one because he's not going to get drunk until next year and he's pretty sure that Sober Nie Huaisang is going to think this particular virginity loss attempt is a bad idea. He has no idea why, it felt great, but Sober Nie Huaisang often has weird ideas about this kind of thing.

He comforts himself by singing BTS songs.

Awwww. He can put his head on Nie Huaisang's shoulder and listen to him sing (the most beautiful sound in the world). 

NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. ONLY LEANING.

"Okay, Zaizai, let's do math."

Masozi has been granted an entire twenty seconds to think about his goals here.

".....I want to do math? But I think maybe other people here want other things. - I think Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng want to kiss each other? So they should do that because they'll both be happy! And people being happy is GOOD." 

Pause. 

"- Wen Ning? Have you ever kissed anyone before? Do you - want to try it...?"

"They are not allowed to kiss each other because they will try to have sex and no one wants to look at that." Mandarin: "a-Ning, Zaizai wants to know if you want to try kissing him."

Oh no. What is the right answer here. 

"Yes? No? Um, I mean, I don't--"

"He wants you to kiss him," Wei Ying says, because while he is the closest thing to a responsible adult in this room that mostly says things about the room.

All this kissing is okay as long as no one tries to kiss Wei Ying. If someone tries to kiss Wei Ying he will HIT THEM WITH BICHEN. 

He holds Wei Ying protectively so no one gets ideas.

"Ow! Ow! Lan Zhan! That hurts!"

:(

He has hurt Wei Ying. He is the worst person in the world. He should hit HIMSELF with Bichen.

He unwraps himself from Wei Ying and then, realizing that not touching Wei Ying is the most horrible thing imaginable, scoots to hold him again.

"That was the most pointless-- anyway. Zaizai. Kissing."

Masozi does not really feel like Wen Ning's response here was encouraging! ...Also there are confusing and maybe concerning things happening nearby!!! 

"- Wei Wuxian? Are you okay?" 

(Meanwhile he is snuggling up against Wen Ning and rubbing his back in small circles.) 

WEI YING MIGHT NOT BE OKAY?????? HE WILL HIT SOMEONE WITH BICHEN!

"Don't worry, Zaizai, I'm fine. I'm going to make fun of Lan Wangji so much for this in the morning. So. Kissing or math?"

"....I dunno? I'd want to do one math and then kissing but maybe I'm the only one here who wants math?"

"I want math! I always want math."

"I want math. Wei Ying likes math."

"See. There we go. You have a three liter jug and a five liter jug and an unlimited supply of water, how do you measure exactly four liters?"

Masozi spends a while considering this, lifting both hands and gesturing vaguely as a thinking-aid. 

"I - if you filled the three-liter jug and poured it into the five-liter jug and then filled it again...no that'd be six not four - if you filled the five-liter and poured it into the three-liter and let the rest spill, and then filled the five-liter again....that'd be eight... Half of eight is four but I dunno how you'd get half, if you don't have a bigger jug you can pour out half of...." 

- apparently he is still too drunk to do math??? 

He is going to kiss Wen Ning instead, even though he's probably very bad at kissing. 

This is very wet and not very pleasant and he really preferred the leaning????

....Yeah this isn't very enjoyable. Maybe it would be better if he were good at it, but it's not like he has any practice so how could he be. 

Masozi backs off. 

".....Sorry! Wen Ning, I - I don't think you should think you don't like kissing if you didn't like that, 'cause I'm not a very good kisser?" 

He will go back to snuggling. Snuggling is much easier. 

Yes. Snuggling is nice. He likes snuggling.

Everyone's distracted so maybe he can lick Nie Huaisang's neck a little bit.

Whimper.

"Okay, so, you're on the right track with the jug problem-- it might help to think about it in a more abstract way? You're adding and subtracting threes and fives and you need to get to four."

"Oh! Five plus five is ten! And three plus three is six! And ten minus six is four!!!!"

Delighted wiggle. 

"- I still dunno how you actually do that if you just have the two jugs though." 

"Right-- you've sort of got one five and one three at a time? If that makes sense."

He is following none of this but his Wei Ying is SO smart.

This problem is NOT FAIR to give him when he is DRUNK. 

"...Okay so. Five is one more than four, and three is one less. You...could pour the five into the three and stop once the three was full? ...But that'd still be just five total. Since you'd have the three full and the five with two left. ...Can I get any more materials for this? This is math world so there should be as many materials as I want?" 

"Nope! Only two jugs. You're on the right track, though. So you have your two, what can you do with your two?"

Aaaaaughhh. 

"- I tried to think of it but I couldn't!"

Masozi is pretty sure that he COULD figure it out if he weren't DRUNK, however. 

"...If I fight you and win will you tell me the answer." 

"NO fight Wei Ying!" he says in English, enunciating clearly so he can be understood.

.......Apparently he is missing even more context than he realized? 

Oh no, Lan Wangji doesn't speak English and so he...needs to say things in Mandarin...?

He doesn't actually know the word for 'fight' in Mandarin?

He does know the words for 'learn' and 'work' and 'you'. And so he can....probably say most of an entire sentence, if he includes some miming by lifting his fists? About how he would be delighted to fight anyone including Lan Wangji? 

Lan Wangji has NO idea what is going on! Is Masozi threatening Wei Ying? Lan Wangji will FIGHT him.

Masozi can't threaten anyone if he has been PUNCHED IN THE STOMACH.

........Ooooh a FIGHT! 

Masozi is totally capable of wiggling just far enough out of the way that the obviously-telegraphed punch toward his stomach doesn't hit too hard!

And then he can follow that momentum and twist around and - fling his hand to gouge out Lan Wanjgi's eye no he shouldn't actually kill or disable anyone here they're his FRIENDS He can redirect his hand to the back of Lan Wangji's neck and dig VERY HARD into the pressure point his mother taught him about -

- and then see what happens, he's never actually had an opportunity to try this for real before...

English and Mandarin: "No actually hurting each other! Just fighting!"

Lan Wangji will do what Wei Ying tells him-- owwww that really hurts but Lan Wangji has practiced for years to keep his form no matter how much it hurts-- he's going to grab Masozi and flip him onto the ground--

"I think Masozi's going to win."

"Yeah, probably," he says, because Nie Huaisang is right about everything.

"You are drunk."

"Mhm. Love you."

He wraps his arm around Jiang Cheng's shoulder. "Love you too."

Masozi weighs much less and will totally be flipped! 

- he can try to use that momentum to twist around and dig his toe into Lan Wangji's butt? Which is a move he remembers practicing with his– mother? sister? damn it he can't remember nevermind he can think about that LATER - 

- ok he's definitely flat on his back on the ground which is a vulnerable position and he's GOING TO DIE no he's still with his friends and this is for fun– 

He remembers what his mother taught him, and wriggles under Lan Wangji's weight - no he definitely isn't strong enough to knee him in the groin - but he can probably manage to sneak his arm under and grab/squeeze/tickle him there??

Ack! What is happening to him! That is not a place that is supposed to be touched!

On instinct he punches Masozi in the chest, once twice three times--

Ouch! This is someone who slightly knows how to fight maybe? 

Also he's really strong? 

...that's really attractive, honestly? 

Also Lan Wangji's face is RIGHT THERE. 

Masozi.....is apparently going to be trying to kiss him now...? 

(Why is he doing this? He's not sure.) 

WHAT???????

He punches Masozi again to get him to STOP!!!!

This is the funniest thing that has ever happened to him.

"No fair! Kissing was definitely banned!"

- oh no is kissing banned? Unfair! 

(Masozi barely notices the punch.) 

...He can bite Lan Wangji's shoulder REALLY HARD instead.

No!!! He is moving away from Masozi because more KISSING might happen!!!!

He is going to hide behind Wei Ying and let Wei Ying protect him from the kissing.

Aaaaaaah? 

Masozi disentangles himself and sits up. "I - I'm sorry - was that breaking the fighting rules?" 

"No kiss! Only kiss Wei Ying," he explains.

"Wow, you are super drunk."

....Oh, is the rule that he can only kiss Wei Wuxian? Because he can totally do that!!!! 

(While also digging his nails really hard into Lan Wangji's armpit, since apparently his butt is impervious to pain??) 

Lan Wangji shoves him hard away from Wei Ying, hard enough that his head clunks into Wen Ning's bed. 

"NO you kiss Wei Ying! I kiss Wei Ying!"

He is just going to sit here quietly watching this happen because everything in the world is very good.

Ow! 

...Maybe Wen Ning likes drunk fighting more than he likes drunk kissing? 

"Wanna fight?" Masozi asks him, and then grabs Wen Ning's wrists and topples him onto the floor because this is FUN!!!

Wen Ning does not want to fight!!!!

This is a terrifying thing to have happen!!!

He is going to lie here limply until it is over.

"Want to kiss Wei Ying," Lan Wangji says plaintively.

"You are so goddamn wasted it's hilarious."

Oh no! Wen Ning didn't like what just happened! Masozi is bad at making things happen on purpose! 

"....I'm so sorry," he attempts to say in Mandarin - these are easy words that he's learned before but he's DRUNK so he's probably mispronouncing them... He can do snuggles and pets to try to make up for messing this up again...?

Snuggling is better? He will accept snuggles but very nervously in case they turn into hitting again.

"Hey, Zaizai, I'll fight you when I'm sober."

"But not right now."

"No, right now is for petting your fuzz. It's so good. It's so fuzzy."

"Wanna fight you later..." Masozi says, vaguely, toward whoever was offering that.

- in the meantime, he remembers how his sister taught him to give shoulder massages, and he can roll Wen Ning over onto his stomach and give him a massage instead of fighting him...? 

Very quiet happy noises.

"If we go back to my room we could do kissing."

"And other things."

"And other things."

"No. Absolutely not. No one is going anywhere until Ayako gets here and then you're walking back to your own individual rooms."

"Killjoy."

Shoulder rubs are nice! He makes such happy noises about it.

Happy noises! Wen Ning is making such good noises! Masozi is so incredibly delighted about this turn of events!

"I LIKE you!" he tells Wen Ning, while gently massaging his neck. 

Eeee! It makes him so happy and squirmy to be liked.

"I like you!"

"I was supposed to kiss Wei Ying!" Lan Wangji explains to Wei Ying. "But then Masozi kissed me."

Wei Wuxian pats him. "That's very sad for you."

He has an expression of utter misery.

Masozi is not even slightly going to notice Lan Wangji’s misery! He is very distracted.

Wen Ning’s neck is very soft??? Masozi isn’t sure if Wen Ning is aware of this important fact?

”Your neck is SOFT!”” 

"Thank you!"

"Why are they allowed to do that?"