Hugs are nice. 

He holds on until it's a little weird, fails to have the willpower to let go for ten seconds, and then lets go.

no don't let go

"It really is fine," he says. He's not sure whether that's true or not. 

"It can be okay and still be something you shouldn't have to put up with."

He nods seriously and — doesn't lean on Ben. 

Ben doesn't lean on him either!

"It must be weird that none of us are Confucian."

"Less so than you'd think — that was one of the things we were expecting, I'd been preparing for it for a while." 

"I'm curious what you weren't expecting."

"I wasn't expecting the sports to be so — the word I want isn't useless, but I grew up doing archery in the expectation that I'd use it someday, tourney was very strange." 

Ben laughs. "It really is useless. I'd say Flynning is better but they systemically took all the useful parts of swordfighting out of it."

"I know! It's terrible! My mom used to watch tournaments and point out all the things that would get you killed if you tried them in real life." 

"Your mom sounds great."

"She is. — she used to bring a chess set to any party she expected was going to be boring." 

"I wish I could do that."

"After a certain age I couldn't get away with it either, but who'd stop you." 

"Lots of people. When I'm king-- which hopefully won't be for a long time-- I'm going to have to keep every human kingdom and all the nonhumans happy. If I offend someone at a party, they might block a law that's really important to me."

He doesn't know how to say 'I guess I thought politics would be different if you had actual power' in a way that is neither unspeakably rude in context nor unspeakably vulnerable in context, so instead he just hugs Ben. 

Gosh! Hugs!

"It's just. Once I become king, I won't have anything that's just for me ever again."

It's one thing for Chen to live like that but he is very very sure that Ben should not. 

"Yeah. Public property of Auradon." 

"Yeah. It's good to have a friend though."

"It is." 

Maybe he should hug Ben a little bit tighter. 

This should not make Ben as happy as it does.

Actually, everything should make Ben as happy as it possibly can. 

Eventually he says, "Probably we should do homework."

"Probably we should!" Most of the homework he has is for Chem. 

He's very smiley while they study.

Their hands touch when he gives Chen a pen.