Was talking to my friend (tumblr user voidix!), and we got on the subject of hair, which inevitably led to Wang Hu Zhong + braiding.

Then the idea for this fic came up via a suggestion from her, and I had to write it! I maybe had too much fun here, but I really love Wang Hu Zhong and I've never written for these guys before, so…

Enjoy!

Chao Xin is looking for somewhere to hide from his responsibilities when he stumbles across Chi Yun fixing his hair. It's a complete accident, and in response to the dirty look he gets, he explains as much: he picked a room at random and had no idea that it was Chi Yun's.

"I can't believe you don't know the layout of this place by now," is all Chi Yun has to say in the face of his excuse. The fingers of both of his hands are still wrapped in the strands of his braid, and he's almost definitely trying to cover the way he had jumped when Chao Xin had come bursting into his room.

"Yeah, well, I panicked," Chao Xin says, preoccupied by watching Chi Yun's hands as they twirl his hair together. "How're you doing that?"

"Doing what?" Chi Yun snaps, his patience level apparently already at zero (a new record, Chao Xin notes). He glances away from his mirror to toss another almost-glare over his shoulder, hands continuing to move all the while.

"That."

When Chi Yun rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to inevitably demand an elaboration, Chao Xin cuts him off.

"With your hair."

Chi Yun's hands finally freeze – partially because they've run out of hair, and partially so that the flat look he gives Chao Xin is extra effective. "You mean braiding?" he asks, voice as deadpan as his expression.

"Yeah! You're really good at it." Chao Xin comes closer and leans on the dresser that Chi Yun is situated in front of. He spares a few moments to scrutinize his own reflection – running his hands through his hair so it lies just right and giving himself a lopsided grin – before returning his attention to the matter at hand.

Chi Yun just shrugs. He looks stuck between being pleased at the compliment and irritated that Chao Xin is sticking around and getting into his personal space. "It's easy, and I've had lots of practice," he explains simply, knocking Chao Xin's hand out of the way to grab a hair band. He ties off his braid and plucks his hat off of the dresser, watching the mirror as he adjusts it.

"Huh," Chao Xin says as he picks up the braid from where it rests down Chi Yun's back. He runs his fingers over it, honestly impressed. "It's perfect." And it is, there isn't a hair out of place. The girls in town braid their hair sometimes, but they're never anywhere near as impeccable as this one.

Chi Yun snatches his hair back and lets it fall into its rightful place. He's still frowning, and probably rolled his eyes again when Chao Xin wasn't looking. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

As if it'd been summoned, Da Xiang's voice is what breaks the silence. "Chao Xin!" he's calling, apparently close by, from the sound of it, "if I find out that you skipped out on training to go into the city again, I'll – "

Chao Xin doesn't bother to stick around and hear the end of the threat, instead choosing to climb out Chi Yun's window, very much content to ignore the indignant shouting behind him.

x

"Ugh."

Chi Yun shakes out his arms and flexes his fingers, sleeves fluttering around his wrists. He deliberates for a minute or two, and then turns to where Mei Mei is sitting at the table polishing Aquario. "Mei Mei," he calls, "can you braid my hair?"

"Sure!" she chirps, helpful as always, and puts her bey away before getting up and joining Chi Yun in his corner of the room.

Situated as he is on the only bench, Chao Xin pulls his nose out of the glossy magazine it's buried in to watch. (He's had a certain curiosity about braiding since that day he'd caught Chi Yun doing it. The kind of curiosity that remains buried until the topic comes up, sure, but curiosity nonetheless.)

Mei Mei's clearly practiced hands make short work of turning Chi Yun's ponytail into a plait, and she ties it off with a flourish. "There."

"Thanks," Chi Yun responds, fiddling with the ends of his hair. He feels a million and one miles away, but fortunately, even though she has to notice, Mei Mei doesn't ask questions or poke fun at him for being too tense to braid his own hair.

"Don't worry, you'll do fine," is all she says. If it were anyone else (read: Chao Xin), Chi Yun might dislike being pandered, but he knows that Mei Mei is genuine.

Still, he fights a frown, lips twitching as he nods. He really is trying not to be nervous, and big battles have never really bothered him before, so why today….

"Can all of you guys braid?" Chao Xin shatters Chi Yun's train of thought with a single comment.

"You mean you can't?" Mei Mei counters, hands on her hips and a grin on her face.

Chi Yun, meanwhile, tosses his hair back over his shoulder and retracts his hands into his sleeves to fiddle with those instead.

"It's not my fault I never learned!" Chao Xin is saying. He's finally gotten off the bench and wandered over to the others, magazine forgotten for the time being.

…In fact, it almost feels like he's hovering a little too close, probably to mess with Chi Yun's braid again, so Chi Yun ducks away and heads for the practice beydish. He'll leave those two to their argument. (Where's Da Xiang when you need him?)

Reaching up to tousle Chao Xin's short locks, Mei Mei says, "Yeah, well, it's not like you need to know or anything."

"Watch it!" Chao Xin's hands come up to bat hers away, and then run through his hair until it's an acceptable amount of ruffled. "I've got a carefully calculated naturally messy look going."

Mei Mei says something back, but all Chi Yun hears clearly as he leaves is Chao Xin asking whether Da Xiang knows how to braid, too.

x

He catches Da Xiang in the middle of a workout on the logs and decides – when he sees him bend into a jump and watches the tail ends of his hair dip into the water – that now is a good time to ask about that braiding thing.

So Chao Xin sits down, tugs off his socks and shoes, rolls up his pants, and dangles his feet in the water. Maximum comfort achieved, he leans back on his hands and gets down to business. "Hey, Da Xiang?"

True to form, Da Xiang's launch doesn't falter even with the distraction, although he does waver just the tiniest bit on his next landing. He spins with perfect balance to face Chao Xin, and frowns when he sees his relaxed posture.

Chao Xin, of course, takes this as a cue to keep going with his initially planned line of conversation. "You can braid, right? D'you think you could show me how?" He kicks his feet in the water, creating waves that are significant enough to rock Da Xiang's log.

Brow furrowed, Da Xiang seems understandably confused by the request. The movement of his perch doesn't faze him, his body adjusting automatically to keep him balanced. "Why?"

"Because everyone else can," Chao Xin explains, reaching up with one hand to flick some of his bangs out of his eyes. "Come on, you always wanna teach me stuff! This isn't any different – besides, think of it as a team-building activity."

Da Xiang only narrows his eyes and scrutinizes him for a long while. Then, in one smooth motion, he hops off of his log and lands on light feet right next to Chao Xin. "Very well," he says, "but only if you do some real training first."

"You mean like the logs…?" Chao Xin stops kicking and retracts his legs, feet pressed to the lip of the pool.

A grin spreads across Da Xiang's face. "Excellent suggestion."

x

When Mei Mei wakes up to someone tapping insistently on her door at just after three in the morning, she expects some kind of emergency. Something like…the temple is on fire, someone snapped all the weights off the ends of the training poles (again), or something even worse – like maybe somebody fell off a cliff.

She absolutely doesn't expect to find Chao Xin looking for hair advice.

But that's what she gets, at just after three in the morning, when everyone else is asleep and she would love to be as well.

"You want me to…what?" The question is punctuated by a wide yawn. It's unintentional, but she still hopes it gets the 'I don't want to be awake right now' point across.

"Help me practice braiding!"

She squints at him, wondering if she's spaced out and missed something, or if there's some kind of joke here that she can't pick up on. Chao Xin doesn't look tired – actually, he looks wide awake and even fired up, if she isn't imagining things.

"Uh-huh," she says, still suspicious, "why?"

Chao Xin shuffles on his feet and cranes his neck to look down the hall. (Mei Mei pokes her head out of her doorway, too, but she doesn't see anything of note and has to pull back when he decides he's done.) "Because," he says, and his voice is much quieter now, "when Da Xiang was showing me how to earlier, I told him I would be better than him before he knew it. For some reason he took that as a challenge, and – "

Mei Mei perks up at the admission, and even interrupts him. "Woah, wait – you challenged Da Xiang to a hair braiding contest?"

"…Accidentally..?" Chao Xin offers meekly, shrugging his shoulders.

She smiles, definitely much more awake now. "Now this I gotta see."

"So you'll help me practice?"

"Why not?"

"Great!" Chao Xin's face breaks into a charming smile –

– the kind that he apparently thinks will let him shoulder past her and into her room to start practicing right away.

"Wait – now?" Mei Mei is, understandably, incredulous. "It's three in the morning!"

"No time like the present, Mei Mei," is all Chao Xin has to say for himself.

If possible, his smile seems to ooze even more charm than before. Mei Mei is either more tired than she originally thought, or he's actually sparkling – which is weird and definitely not typical three in the morning behavior.

She sighs.

"Fine. But you owe me, and you better not be tired for training tomorrow!"

x

The next time Chao Xin stumbles across someone braiding, he makes the surprisingly wise decision to stay hidden and not interfere.

At first, he assumes that Da Xiang and Chi Yun are getting in some practice before their contest – that's what he's been doing with Mei Mei for a week now, so it only makes sense. (He's gotten pretty good, too. Chi Yun was right about it being easy, at least!)

Something about their posture makes him pause, though, and this rare moment of tact is what keeps Chao Xin from stumbling in and ruining the moment.

They're sitting on Da Xiang's bed, Chi Yun's legs dangling over the bottom edge. Behind him is Da Xiang himself, legs folded neatly as he brushes out the younger 'blader's hair. When he starts to braid, Chi Yun's stiff posture relaxes, and they talk.

Hiding just out of sight as he is, Chao Xin can't really make out what they're saying, but the whole thing seems very intimate. Da Xiang goes deliberately slow, and he's careful in a way that speaks of reverence for the task at hand. Chi Yun's quiet comments are responded to with short murmurs from Da Xiang, and whatever they're discussing is obviously serious.

Chao Xin knows that Chi Yun and Da Xiang are close, and he knows that Chi Yun has a lot of respect and admiration for their leader. But he realizes, in this moment, that he himself has precious little knowledge about any of his teammates…especially their pasts.

He wonders if any of them would be open to helping him amend that, someday.

…He also knows that he definitely should not be eavesdropping, as that definitely will not build any kind of trust. So he turns around, and goes back the way he came.

x

"Come on, Mei Mei, admit it! You're proud of me."

From her seat in front of the mirror, Mei Mei laughs. "Alright: I'm proud of you," she says, reaching up to touch one of the twin buns on her head.

Chao Xin puts his hands on his hips and surveys his work, looking between Mei Mei and her reflection in the mirror. He tweaks the left bun and tucks away some stray hairs, then shoots her a winning grin. "And I've made excellent progress!"

Mei Mei rolls her eyes. "You know," she says, "Da Xiang can get much more complex than just braided hair buns, but you're getting there."

"Are you kidding? These are flawless braided hair buns. I can beat Da Xiang at braiding, easy." Chao Xin busies himself with spritzing hairspray on the two knots. They're pretty, and they remind him of flowers, and overall it's a job well done!

"One more week of practice!" Mei Mei insists, nonetheless. Her amused aura has gone and turned no nonsense, just like that.

"Aw, c'mon, I – "

"Nuh-uh!" she cuts his protest off, adjusting her own hair this time. "Work for it! Don't think you can just catch up to Da Xiang's level that easily."

Chao Xin sighs. "You're the boss."

x

He doesn't realize how unprepared he really is until the day of their contest actually arrives.

Oh, yeah, he sure is confident at first. It's a beautiful day, what could possibly go wrong, he's got this braiding thing down, and so on.

Plus, the format they work out isn't even that stressful or trying: Chao Xin will braid Mei Mei's hair while Da Xiang braids Chi Yun's, and whoever ends up producing the most interesting and well-crafted style will be the winner.

Chao Xin likes his chances, because he's got the perfect twist to put on the signature braided buns he and Mei Mei have been working on for weeks now. Learning to French braid is supposedly difficult, but Chao Xin fancies himself a prodigy, and he's picked it up pretty quickly. He puts that to good use now, asking Mei Mei to sit bent forward so that he can French braid up the back of both sides of her hair.

Once both halves are braided to a good height and tied off with bands, Mei Mei sits up again and Chao Xin does the rest of the braided buns as normal, grinning all the while.

"Ha! Done." That went better than he'd thought, but he absolutely will not be mentioning that out loud. Instead, he puts his hands on his hips and stands tall, squaring his shoulders. "What do you think, Da Xiang? Pretty cool, right?"

"Not bad," Da Xiang acquiesces from his station over to the left, "impressive use of French braiding, especially for a beginner."

Chao Xin is all set to thank him for his compliment, but stops short when he turns to see his opponent's finished product.

Da Xiang, apparently, has been done for a while now, and he seems very amused that Chao Xin has only just noticed this fact. On a stool next to him sits Chi Yun, his hair hanging loose except for the zig zagging braid through it that causes the bottom to go diagonal.

"What is…" Chao Xin blinks, and ignores the overly self-satisfied look on Da Xiang's face. "How did you do that?"

"It's just a sophisticated form of waterfall braid," Da Xiang explains, crossing his arms. "It's nothing special." The way he looks at Chao Xin says he knows that this isn't true – that it actually is very awe-inspiring to a beginner, and that he really is very happy with himself, and also that this contest has probably been rigged from the start.

"That's just a sample of Beylin Temple's four thousand year old braiding techniques," Chi Yun says, watching Chao Xin with blatant amusement on his face. It's not a look that Chao Xin is accustomed to seeing from him, but it's a refreshing change of pace…one that has him smiling along.

"I can show you the rest, if you like," Da Xiang offers.

Mei Mei is giggling, and Chi Yun's smile is twitching, and even Da Xiang's rigid shoulders begin to shake...and Chao Xin feels even more like he's been played. He's pretty sure that no matter what he answers, he's in for a long line of examples and tutorials anyway.

"Why not?"

He was just joking about the "team-building" thing when he had posed that first question to Da Xiang all those weeks ago – but something about sitting with his fingers buried in Da Xiang's hair while Mei Mei and Chi Yun give instructions over his shoulder makes this team feel like a family.

x

"Hey, so you might have beaten me when it comes to style," Chao Xin says, popping his head into the bathroom where Chi Yun is untwisting his hair and Da Xiang is brushing his teeth, "but I'll bet I can beat you when it comes to speed."

Da Xiang spits a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink. "You're on."

Yeah so somewhere along the line, this kind of morphed into Chao Xin getting on better terms with his teammates? And ended up more feels-y than funny? Whoops.

Idk. In the beginning of Metal Masters, he's pretty alienated from the other three – I think Chi Yun even mentioned that Chao Xin didn't originally train at Beylin Temple; he just showed up for the World Championship qualifiers. That really got me thinkin', lately, and I guess it bled into this fic.

(...Also I'm a very amateur braider, like Chao Xin, so I picked stuff that impresses me to impress him, lol.)

Thanks for reading! :D

PS: There are reference photos for the hair styles linked in the version of this story on my AO3, if you want to check them out!