Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1.

Wei Ying comes to warn Lan Zhan that someone mixed vodka into one of the Coca-Cola bottles over at the drinks table. He gets too close to say this, hand fisted in Lan Zhan’s shirt, his breath sweet and hot against Lan Zhan’s cheek. He’s been drinking the vodka coke, that’s how he knows: a little wobbly, a little lilting into Lan Zhan’s side. Lan Zhan steadies him with a hand to his waist. The high school auditorium looks bigger with all the tables pushed aside, and all the high school kids look smaller, now, out of uniform. There’s a writhing mass of dancing going on in the heart of it all. The disco lights dot everyone in blue, in purple. Wei Ying laughs into Lan Zhan’s neck and hustles him by the grip he has on his shirt and says:

“I’m going back to Evie! Don’t drink the coke!”

“I will not drink the coke,” Lan Zhan says. He was never going to drink the coke. He was never going to come to the school dance, either, but Wei Ying had put on a show about it—had been dramatic, first over text, and then in class, and then on the floor of Lan Zhan’s bedroom: lying on his back, orating to the ceiling about how could Lan Zhan do this to himself? To Wei Ying, too? Remove himself from this unique high school experience, his own youth, his best friend, Wei Ying, on the day of Wei Ying’s first date with the girl he’d been obsessed with since they were—!

Wei Ying had been obsessed with Evie since they were thirteen. She was, in Wei Ying’s own words, cooler than cooler than cool, tall and brown and hair that looked like it’d been chopped off with a razor. Evie was all marker-painted nails and safety-pinned jeans back when Wei Ying was still the shortest kid in school, had a bowl-cut and a gap between his front teeth big enough to fit a finger. He was so loud, at that age. So obnoxious, so desperate for everyone to be looking at him. One time he got up on the table during lunch, did some bad version of tap dance down the length of it, using an empty bowl for hat. He’d kicked Lan Zhan’s food off the table. Accidentally, but still.

It was how Lan Zhan had come to hate him. It was how he came to be friends with him, too: a chase, a fight, Lan Zhan biting down on Wei Ying’s arm when Wei Ying tried to get him in a headlock. He bit too hard, broke skin. Wei Ying howled. Lan Zhan had to take him to the nurse. He sat ram-rod straight in the chair by the door the whole time, waiting for Wei Ying to be patched up—his heart wild in his throat, thinking he would be sent to jail, now. He had never hurt another person before. And that’s what happened to people who hurt other people: punishment.

Wei Ying had bled and cried the whole walk to the nurse’s office, slumped against Lan Zhan, wiping his face on Lan Zhan’s sleeve. Lan Zhan had doubled in height that summer, came back to school taller than even some of the upper years. Wei Ying was so short, next to him. But he hadn’t seemed that way, standing up on that lunch table, cackling, making Lan Zhan’s blood boil. He hadn’t seemed short at all.

The first thing Wei Ying asked him, after being let out of the nurse’s office, was a throat-roughened, “Do you think Evie saw all that?”

They were both outside, empty school yard, waiting to be picked up. Suspended for the rest of the week. Mortifying. Lan Zhan said, “What?” Said, “Who?”

“Evie. Do you think she saw you bite me? Maybe she’ll think that’s cool? Or maybe she’ll be sad for me. I’m okay if she’s sad for me, that’s fine, I know some people are like, oh then she thinks you’re pathetic and it’s charity but I don’t think so, I think like if he talks to me because I’m banged up like and then we start a conversation, then what’s the issue with that, that it started because—”

Lan Zhan took a big step to the left, putting space between him and Wei Ying. Wei Ying noticed, laughed loudly, and took an exaggerated step toward to him again—closer than before.

That’s how it started. That’s how all of it started. Wei Ying was obsessed with Evie, best friends with Lan Zhan, and Lan Zhan was—

Wei Ying asking Evie out to the school dance had been a three-month affair. He drafted up plans, re-drafted them, demanded Lan Zhan psych him up, pep-talk into doing it: the marching band plan, the jumping-out-a-cake plan, the written-in-the-sky plan. In the end, he asked her by the lockers one Tuesday in the 10-minute break between bio-chem and English. Lan Zhan had been nearby, breathless, his stomach a roiling void. Wei Ying stuttered a little, saying, “So like, I was wondering if you . . . like if you . . .”

It was so sweet it hurt to watch. Evie slammed her locker shut and said, “Yeah okay why not. Wei Ying.” She said his name like there was a joke in there somehow. There wasn’t: that’s how she said everyone’s names.

Wei Ying had been beyond human interaction for three days after that. Bleary-eyed and distant. He would not focus, would not sit still, would sometimes erupt into a silence with a, She said yes!? As if he, himself, had only just heard the news.

So Lan Zhan does not want to be at the school dance. Does not want to be at Wei Ying and Evie’s first date. And yet here he is: leaned back in a corner, a dented plastic cup in hand, wanting to put his teeth into something. Wei Ying and Evie are slow dancing to Robbie Williams’ Angels, the same swaying one-two step as every other awkward kid in the hall. Evie has two long arms around his neck, her face pressed to his neck, and Wei Ying has to bend down to keep his hold on her waist. He shot up, two summers ago. Is almost as tall as Lan Zhan, now. The song plays on and some kids start making out and Wei Ying’s hands slide down to Evie’s ass.

Lan Zhan forces himself to close his eyes. To turn his face away. The water in his cup has turned lukewarm in his grip. He wonders if this is the worst night of his life, and knows it is probably not. He should leave, he knows. There is no reason to stay anymore.

The song ends. Lan Zhan glances over, lungs shrunk and tight in his chest. Wei Ying and Evie have parted, are talking, and then Wei Ying nods quickly and gestures and leaves Evie, makes his way over to Lan Zhan again. He is walking fast, has a nervous energy about him: he passes by and grabs Lan Zhan by the wrist and says, “Emergency emergency bro emergency bro advice needed at an emergency speed,” all quick and garbled.

“What,” Lan Zhan says, and gets no answer. Wei Ying guides him through the corridors and up the staircases, muttering, Oh god oh god oh god, to himself. Lan Zhan doesn’t know, and then all at once knows where they’re going: the attic. Tucked above the theatre wing, a badly-locked storage room—old costumes and bottled sweat from ‘85. Modern Hamlet and classic Hamlet and the notorious ‘96 Rat Hamlet: Hamlet, but everyone’s a rat.

It’s a place for rare days when Wei Ying just wants to be quiet. Free periods or skipped periods, sneaking off, lying down on the splintered wooden slats—towered by racks and the tiaras, the one round window letting in a hum of dusty light. Wei Ying goes quiet, in that room. Lan Zhan has often thought: I could spend my whole life listening to him breathe.

Lan Zhan has often thought: Stop. Catching himself staring at the rounded slope of Wei Ying’s shoulder, the soft tilt of his chin, his open mouth, wanting to inhale him somehow: Stop.

Wei Ying hustles them into the attic and closes the door and pulls the light string that brings a single bulb to life.

And then he sits down and puts his face in his hands. “Okay,” he says, and then nothing else.

Lan Zhan comes to sit down next to him, slow in his movement. He isn’t sure what is happening, what is expected of him.

“She was going to kiss me,” Wei Ying says, muffled, into his hands.

Lan Zhan makes sure he keeps his breaths even. “Hm,” he says. Wei Ying looks up at him, wild: a little tipsy, perhaps. Confused, in a panic. His mouth is red like he’s been kissed—he hasn’t. He’s a lip biter, has a habit of picking at his dry lips, the winter sores at the corner of his mouth. It drives Lan Zhan to madness. He dreams of Wei Ying’s puffy mouth, often, sometimes with the real Wei Ying in a sleeping bag on the floor next to his bed. On mornings like those he wakes up in a cloud of embarrassment—hobbling to the bathroom at dawn, running a loud shower to hide the sounds. Wei Ying sleeps on.

“How do I—” Wei Ying starts, stops. He then lets out a single laugh, another. He says: “Oh my god. How do I kiss? Lan Zhan, how do I kiss? I can’t just—I can’t fuck this up, there’s, there’s too much at stake, it’s Evie, I—Fuck.” Picking at his mouth again, pinching his bottom lip. “I should’ve kissed someone. Anyone! Why have I never kissed anyone before? What was I thinking? That I—that I was saving—God I’m an idiot! How did I not—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says. “Calm down.” He says it to himself, as well: his heart is hammering. Wei Ying is talking too fast, and the word kiss has been said too often.

Wei Ying’s attention is on him, focussed, a second. And then he says, “Okay.” Says, “Okay, tell me. Run me through it. I need, I need you to tell me what to do.”

Wei Ying has inflated ideas about Lan Zhan’s experience. He claims Lan Zhan is the hottest kid in school, in town, possibly in the country—he claims this with a stern conviction. Sometimes to a crowd of people, sometimes in the middle of class: announcing Lan Zhan’s entrance to the classroom with a fake trombone sound and the cry, Here comes Lan Zhan! The hottest denizen of our school!

Lan Zhan hates it and is embarrassed by it and doesn’t want Wei Ying to stop, either. It all comes with a flipside devotion to seeing Lan Zhan make use of his ‘universal hotness’: Wei Ying has tried to match Lan Zhan up several times—leaving him alone at a party with some annoyed, crop-topped girl, or making him sit next to someone’s cousin at the back of a car, glancing over like it’s a secret. Lan Zhan does not think the rest of the world agrees with Wei Ying’s take on how he looks: he knows how he stares at floors too long, how his silences make people uneasy. He knows the way he stands, too right and too rigid, and how it makes people wonder about him. He knows what people say about him, the words in circulation. Hot is not one of them, but weirdo is. Creepy, too.

Once, in a heart-aching fit of anger, Lan Zhan asked Wei Ying: why try and pair Lan Zhan off, why not just go and get off with someone himself? Wasn’t he better at people anyway? Wasn’t he always talking about cute girls?

Ah Lan Zhan Lan Zhan, Wei Ying had said, draping himself too close, face squished to Lan Zhan’s collar: You know my heart is taken!

He was talking about Evie. He was always talking about Evie.

Somewhere last year, Lan Zhan made up a fake girlfriend from Germany he supposedly met at math camp. Wei Ying was relentless at this piece of news: pictures, he wanted to see, and details, and what was she like, and did she treat Lan Zhan right, and did she know how lucky she was? And how far did they get, and how often, and did Lan Zhan—

He fake broke up with his fake girlfriend after about a month of this. Wei Ying was devastated on his behalf. Lan Zhan only said: Hm. It’s for the better.

“Tell you,” Lan Zhan says, now. He’s gone hot all over. He knows, in a gut-deep kind of knowing, that this will not end well.

“Tell me, yes, explain to me how to like, not kiss horribly.” Wei Ying continues, all short of breath: “I need your—expertise, I need your—okay. Okay! I will—I am going to do it on my hand, and you watch me, and then you tell me if I’m doing it right. Or wrong.”

“You will,” Lan Zhan starts. He takes a second. “Kiss your hand.”

Wei Ying is still wild-looking. He keeps Lan Zhan’s gaze, nods, licks his lips. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Okay?”

“Wei Ying,” is Lan Zhan’s reply, which he means to follow-up with: This is not a good idea. Or, I do not know what a good kiss looks like. Or, Please don’t. He takes too long for it, though, and Wei Ying has taken the tense silence as consent.

“Okay okay here goes,” he says, and turns so that his profile is to Lan Zhan. He brings his hand up to his mouth: turned, fisted. The thumb and forefinger are supposed to be the mouth. It’s ridiculous, it’s a joke, a crude gesture thrown across the hall to make fun of someone: Hey Itzik this is what you wanna do with Miss Paulsson’s butt! And then the hand-kiss, the fake noises.

It’s nothing anyone does seriously. It’s nothing Lan Zhan has seen anyone do, seriously.

Wei Ying presses his lips to his fingers. He kisses them once, twice. Glances at Lan Zhan out of the corner of his eye to make sure he’s looking. To ask: any comments, so far?

Lan Zhan swallows. The space smells like mould, like old polyester. Like stripped wood. He is sat in an uncomfortable way, and dares not move, shift. The naked light bulb casts down a blanket of orange, a fizz of filament. He watches Wei Ying’s tongue lick between the folds of his own fingers. Watches it move, retreat, leave behind slick, shiny. Wei Ying does that several more times, tilting his head. A make out, this is what he looks like, making out.

Lan Zhan tries to see how stupid it is. All of it, all of this. He can’t. Wei Ying’s mouth makes a wet sound, and Lan Zhan’s stomach drops. Wei Ying turns to him and says: “Yes? What—what do you think? Did that look—”

There’s a shine of spit all around his mouth. He’s wearing a wash-greyed t-shirt with a little stoned alien on a skateboard, holding a joint. Under it the words: far outta this world. The collar is stretched because Wei Ying chews on it. More than once, Lan Zhan has pulled the fabric from his mouth. More than once, he has stared at the stain left behind.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying says. “What do you think? Should I—show you again? Okay, what if I, okay now look—” And he brings his hand up again.

Lan Zhan reaches out, no active thought. He lowers Wei Ying’s damp fist. Wei Ying looks up at him. There’s something less focussed about his eyes, now: the anxiety from before frazzled out. He says, “No?” Says, “Will you—no? You don’t wanna . . .”

Lan Zhan leans in. His head is tilted, eyes low. His mind is white noise. Wei Ying takes a sharp breath, leans away—and they freeze, immediately: Lan Zhan with his mouth a breath from Wei Ying’s chin, body close. Wei Ying half leaned away. The room has shrunk. The party continues in a distant bass.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying whispers the question. It’s a puff of air to the side of Lan Zhan’s nose.

Lan Zhan waits for the moment to end. For Wei Ying to push, or stand up, for something to break. In the meantime, Lan Zhan shifts, the breadth of a hair—closer. He puts a shaking hand to the dip of Wei Ying’s waist. He’s warm, there. Lan Zhan doesn’t know what he’s doing. He feels the hitch of Wei Ying’s breath under his touch—feels it in a breath.

“Do you—” Wei Ying starts, so quiet it’s almost silent. He moves, a sudden restless thing, says, “You wanna show me? Lan Zhan do you wanna—”

They’re kissing. It happens in a space between two small sounds, both of them Wei Ying’s—something like a shock, then a whine. His mouth is open and wet. Lan Zhan’s mill of thoughts go heavy, go hot. He loses track of where things go, finds one hand under the warm fall of Wei Ying’s hair, the other in the fold behind Wei Ying’s knee—pulling at him. The slide of Wei Ying’s tongue scoops him out, a hollow hunger behind his navel. Wei Ying puffs, Wei Ying gasps. When Lan Zhan sucks on his lip, he comes closer: leg over Lan Zhan’s, somehow. Lan Zhan’s grip on him tightens.

It goes on. It goes on for a long time. They’re on the floor, for a while, Lan Zhan on one elbow above him. Wei Ying notices, at some point, that they’ve toppled back. He gives a dazed, “Oh,” and Lan Zhan squeezes his waist, and Wei Ying arches up to meet him. This goes on a while, too. Lan Zhan is nothing but heartbeat, nothing but the blood rushing in his ears. He has spent most waking hours of the past four years thinking about doing this, exactly this, and now he thinks nothing: just pulls, and sucks, and hums when Wei Ying does anything, anything at all. They’re sitting again. Wei Ying is half in his lap, now, saying, “Okay let me—let me try—”

And he tries: teeth to Lan Zhan’s lip. He leans back to see the reaction: holding Lan Zhan’s face in his hands, eyes dark, pupils blown wide. He’s panting. Lan Zhan doesn’t know what he sees, what answer he gets, but the next kiss, when it dives into him, is faster, more frenzied. Lan Zhan has one hand on Wei Ying’s ass. He thinks: I have my hand on his ass. It’s a hot weight, restless in movement. He pinches the meat of it, not deciding to but just for the feel of it, and that of all things startles a muffled cry from Wei Ying—and he jerks away.

He’s out of Lan Zhan’s arms. He’s a tumble on the floor, back on his elbows. He’s breathing hard. His mouth—is a mess. Swollen and red and a mess. His hair—his face—

He lets himself fall backwards. Covers his face with his hands again. He laughs, and it’s not very convincing. Lan Zhan, legs in a half lotus sprawl, feels undone: emptied out, re-filled, emptied out again. He can still feel the weight of Wei Ying’s tongue in his mouth, how sweetly he sucked on Lan Zhan’s. How he sighed, at that. Lan Zhan thinks he might scream if Wei Ying won’t come back, won’t kiss him again.

“Wow,” Wei Ying says. Lan Zhan can see his throat work: swallow, swallow. “Wow Lan Zhan. Haha, what a tutorial.”

Lan Zhan hears the words and feels them go down his spine before he understands them, before he understands the chill that they leave behind.

“Very thorough,” Wei Ying continues. He’s still hiding behind his fingers. “Very—yes. Masterclass! I’m—yes. So lucky. Such a lucky girl, your future . . .”

Downstairs, one song changes into the next, and the crowd breaks out in a muffled cheer: a favourite song. A dancing song.

“We should go down,” Lan Zhan says. It comes out—rough. His throat is sand.

Wei Ying does look at him now. His eyes are red from having pressed into them. His mouth is still a—

Lan Zhan turns from it. Wei Ying says, “I . . .” And, “Ah.” And, “Yes. Right.”

“Evie.” The name is heavy. “Is waiting.”

“Right. Evie. Is waiting, she’s . . . Yes, of course, um, okay, let’s . . .”

Neither of them move, a moment. The suggestion is there, the announcement. But neither of them do. They breathe, uneven and still a little fast, and then they stand: awkward shuffling, elbows bumping. Wei Ying has to re-arrange his shirt: the back of it got folded up, at some point. The warm stretch of his skin showing. The sight makes Lan Zhan hungry, and again he looks away. I did this, he thinks. He knew what he could get, and what he couldn’t get, and he could have chosen differently but he didn’t: he thought, in a vague off-the-mark kind of way, that perhaps to have briefly would be better than none at all.

He had been wrong.

When they’re on their way down, Wei Ying says one more time: “Such a good friend, Lan Zhan.” He smiles at Lan Zhan, close-mouthed, eyes like half moons. The dot under his lip is more prominent than ever: ringed by pink, puffy skin. Someone else will get to kiss him there tonight. He says, “Really. The best.”

Lan Zhan is sure he is trying to convince the both of them.

He doesn’t stay long at the party, after that. Evie is not on the dance floor, and Wei Ying says he has to go find her: leaves with a squeeze to Lan Zhan’s elbow, a thin smile. It’s all shadows and lights inside the auditorium, and his expression is impossible to read. Lan Zhan sees the rest of the week, month, year, unfolding: the unease he’s planted between them growing, Wei Ying becoming distant, awkward; drifting, a little, not sitting next to Lan Zhan at lunch. Not announcing him to the class on his entrance, not looking at him when they pass in the hallway. He prepares himself for that, now. He thinks: it was going to happen eventually.

He says, “Have a good time,” and hates himself for it. There is no inflection to it. In the dim corner of the room, Wei Ying scans his face, and gives a shaky smile, and says,

“Yeah, I . . . I’ll find you later, yeah? I’ll come find you later.”

“Hm,” Lan Zhan intones, and watches Wei Ying disappear into the crowd, and waits five minutes and then leaves. The air has a bite, though it’s early fall. The sweat on his face cools immediately. He sits in his car a long time, breathing. Evening out. Calming down. He can see the disco lights through the auditorium windows. It looks like a fun time, from the outside. It looks like someone’s idea of a fun time.

Home is quiet. Uncle abroad, brother asleep. The house smells clean and restful. He showers, jerks off quick and painful, feels worse for wear. He checks his phone, before bed. Wei Ying has texted:

where r u!!!! cant find

And then a series of side-eyed emojis, all in a row.

Lan Zhan’s throat goes tight. He remembers: Wei Ying’s hands down the back of his shirt. The way his mouth slipped off Lan Zhan, a few times, slippery and uncoordinated.

Lan Zhan replies, Gone home. And then, to not seem rude: Good night.

He gets up and leaves his phone in the kitchen and goes back to bed. Sleep claims him like it always does: two big hands pulling him down. The one second he is there, and then he is gone.

Chapter Text

2.

On Saturday Ying sends him a sticker of a cat with a napkin on its head that makes it look like a nun. Lan Zhan sends back a question mark, and Wei Ying takes six hour to reply to that: another sticker, of a cartoon flower dancing around, shedding its petals.

Lan Zhan replies:

:)

Wei Ying doesn’t respond. Sunday is silence. Lan Zhan goes for a big run and keeps forgetting his breathing, keeps having to stop, sweaty and panting, hands on his knees. The woods are standing at attention, looming, a low mist coming in. It’s past midday when he gets back home. He is drenched, mud up to his shins, a thrumming cramp at his side. His brother, when he sees him take off his shoes in the doorway, says, “My god, are you all right?”, and Lan Zhan says, “I went for a run.” And Xichen says, “I know, I can see, but are you okay?”

Lan Zhan won’t look Xichen in the eye. He checks his phone, showers. Checks his phone, reads a book. Checks his phone, sits out on the back balcony and stares at the forest’s dark-green head. Checks his phone. A flock of birds is shocked into flight.

A voice-note comes in at 11:30 at night—ten minutes and three seconds long. Lan Zhan listens to it in the morning, one foot out of bed, the heat of his sheets still near. He is not awake enough to hear it the first time, and so he listens to it again, immediately. And then again, while brushing his teeth. And then again, having breakfast. And again, in the car to school, his phone laid face-up in the passenger seat.

Most of it is a ramble. Wei Ying is biking back from Evie’s place, where he’s spent the day, the evening, part of the night. The voice note, Wei Ying announces in the first few seconds, is so that he won’t have to bike alone, and talking to Lan Zhan, even if Lan Zhan is asleep, is almost like not being alone. There’s the sound of wind, of Wei Ying’s laboured breaths, the sound of his bike tires rushing over smooth tarmac.

So we hung out, Wei Ying pants into the microphone, like, all day? And it’s weird because you know like I’ve been in love with her since forever and like I don’t think we’ve ever just talked? About things? Anyway yeah we talked and it was, yeah! It was so weird! And good, and good. I kept on thinking like oh Lan Zhan should be here. Like we’d be talking and she said something smart and I was just like uuuhhh— He makes a sound like blowing raspberries— But you would’ve been smarter than I was I know for sure. Is that weird? Is that weird that I wanted you there? It’s probably weird. It’s just—! I forgot there’d be like this awkward—awkward dating phase where we’d like, not know how to talk to each other or like, touch each other and um I think I just had all these haha horny fantasies and I forgot that . . . Ugh hold on—

Rumbling sounds, a rustle. Something like a car passing. He continues:

Sorry sorry okay I’m back. What was I saying? Ok yeah so like. Yeah I wish we could skip the awkward dating phase and like go straight into the we’re-friends-but-also-I’m-in-love-with-you phase, you know? I mean I’m not complaining Lan Zhan! I’m not! You know I’ve wanted this for like, ever. You know I’ve wanted this. You of all people . . . He laughs, and then is quiet for a while. Is quiet for an entire minute—Lan Zhan times it. It’s longer than he’s ever quiet, in real life. Eventually he adds, voice small: I just passed your house. Hi, Lan Zhan. You’re asleep. You’re in your bed, asleep. I really wanted to stop and knock on your door. Your uncle would kill me, haha. No no . . . I’m on my way home. Ugh. Wen Ning is working a night shift and Wen Qing is up at campus so it’s just me tonight. Boo, boo Lan Zhan, boo at being alone . . . A breathy laugh, and then a sigh.

Okay, he says. Okay, I’ve talked for forever and said nothing somehow. Have I embarrassed myself? Probably, I don’t remember what I’ve said. Good night Lan Zhan. Sorry about what happened at the party I hope you’re okay I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye. Byeeee—

* * *

Nothing’s changed, at first. It’s just a day, just another day. Wei Ying is half asleep at the lockers. He’s forgot one of his books. He demands Lan Zhan carry him to class. Three days ago he had licked into Wei Ying’s mouth and somehow now it’s just another day. But then at lunch they go sit outside with Evie and her friends and Evie is up on the picnic table and Wei Wing is sitting between her legs, his back to her front. He’s telling some story, some inane story about a dead dog in a suitcase, and she tugs his hair, mean and affectionate. It makes Wei Ying laugh. He has a hand wrapped around her leg.

Lan Zhan stares at a blob of bird shit on the grain of the wood. One of Evie’s friends, a short white kid with bleached hair and sharp gaze, is staring at Lan Zhan. His name is Marcus. He often stares at Lan Zhan. Wei Ying calls it weird, calls it serial-killer-y, says, why is he always looking at you like that like, what does he want??, but Lan Zhan recognises the look for what it is. He refuses to name it. He refuses to correct Wei Ying, too. He’s afraid that it would reveal something about him, too, somehow, in a roundabout way.

Evie whispers something to Wei Ying. They leave the table even though lunch is not over yet: they’re going to go for a walk, they say. Everyone hoots and whistles. Evie gives them all the finger. She holds Wei Ying’s hand as they walk away.

Lan Zhan stays at the table with people he doesn’t know, tuning out of conversations he doesn’t care about, his heart a burn at the base of his throat. He still has food in his backpack. He has lost his appetite. Marcus silently offers him half a kit-kat. Lan Zhan declines. I just passed your house, Wei Ying had said in the voice note. You’re asleep. You’re in your bed, asleep.

During History, Wei Ying sits in the back of the class, looking a little glassy-eyed, flushed. Lan Zhan doesn’t want to know. He wants to know, doesn’t want to know.

He finds out anyway. Wei Ying comes home with him after school. He doesn’t expect it, even asks, “Not going to Evie’s?”, and Wei Ying, lingering by Lan Zhan’s car with his banged-up bike, shrugs and says, “We hung out yesterday all day I don’t want her to get sick of me already.”

Lan Zhan hoists Wei Ying’s bike into the trunk. Wei Ying watches him do it. There’s no wind, today, but the sky is a bright grey that speaks of rain. It starts in quiet drops when they’re in the car, and picks up heavy and loud once they’re in Lan Zhan’s room—a clattering on the roof, the wooden slats.

They have homework. Lan Zhan has changed into inside clothes, has sat himself neatly on the edge of his bed, book in his lap. Wei Ying can have the desk, he said, but Wei Ying doesn’t seem too bothered by the desk: he’s slumped in the chair, wheeling himself from here to there. He’s cracked the spine of his book, and is tapping it with a pen, not looking at it. He stares out the window at the rain, and sighs, and glances at Lan Zhan, and sighs.

Lan Zhan ignores him. Wei Ying says, “Well aren’t you going to ask me?”

Lan Zhan makes a margin note. “Ask Wei Ying what?”

Wei Ying gives him a frustrated noise. He tosses the book onto the desk, broods at the window some more. He’s waiting for Lan Zhan to push. Lan Zhan won’t. Wei Ying knows that, and only takes a few seconds to follow it up with a, “Okay so Evie and I made out and—stuff, yesterday.”

Lan Zhan looks up at him. Wei Ying was waiting for it: chair turned toward Lan Zhan, eyes expectant.

“We did stuff,” he says again.

Lan Zhan has no answer. Wei Ying barrels on: “Don’t you want to ask how it was? I mean like—I mean it was my first time with—I mean it was my first time anything, you know, and—you’re my best friend, don’t you want to know what . . .” He trails off. He’s frowning while he talks, picks at the chair arm. Lan Zhan has offended him somehow, by not asking.

“What,” Lan Zhan starts, stops. Thinks. Pretend you’re someone else, he tells himself. He puts the book aside. “What do you want to tell me?”

Wei Ying still picks at the rubber of the arm. “I don’t know,” he says.

Lan Zhan swallows. “Did you . . . like it?”

Wei Ying takes a deep breath in, deep breath out. “Yeah,” he says, not very convincing. “I mean of course. It’s—obviously, I liked it. It’s just . . .”

“It’s just?”

Wei Ying gets out of the chair and flops down next to Lan Zhan. Outside clothes on the bed. Lan Zhan wouldn’t let him, usually. But he’s at a loss as it is, not knowing where the conversation is going, what more he will have to endure. He’s afraid Wei Ying will offer details. He wants them, he doesn’t want them.

“You haven’t done that, right, with Angela?”

Angela. Lan Zhan’s imaginary German ex-girlfriend. Lan Zhan had not given Wei Ying a lot of information—he was a bad liar. The best he could do is keep quiet, act stoic about it, shy. Let Wei Ying assume what he wanted to assume.

Lan Zhan says, “‘That’?”, and Wei Ying says, “You know, that,” and Lan Zhan does not know: stares at him, blankly, and Wei Ying huffs, shoulder brushing Lan Zhan’s when he adds in a rush: “Second base, you know, like. Second base. Hand stuff.”

“No,” Lan Zhan says. “I have—not.”

Wei Ying grunts. The frown is back. “See I don’t like that,” he says. “I don’t like doing things I can’t ask you about.”

“You do a lot of things,” Lan Zhan says, “you don’t ask me about.”

“Oh you know what I mean, I mean like—” But he doesn’t explain what specific things he means. Only shifts and fidgets, makes the mattress dip under them. “I just wish I could like tell you and you could be like, Yes, Wei Ying, that is how it is supposed to be. Or, No, you did that wrong. You know?”

Lan Zhan has too much saliva in his mouth. He doesn’t want to swallow too obviously. The last time Wei Ying had been this close, he ended up in Lan Zhan’s lap. Sorry about what happened at the party I hope you’re okay I’ll see you to—

“I just wish we could do this together,” Wei Ying says.

The beat of silence that follows stretches. Wei Ying then goes a sudden bright red, says, “No I mean! I mean like! Ugh I mean! Like if you had a girlfriend and I have a girlfriend and we’d—go through stuff at the same time and then we could—!”

He cuts himself off, puffed with air, still flushed. He looks down, embarrassed. Lan Zhan wants to feel his skin, now, the heat of it. He makes his hands into fists at his side.

“Can’t you just get a girlfriend?” Wei Ying says, a little quiet, like he’s sad about it.

“No.” He tries to say it the way he means it: I can’t, I never will, I’m too, I’m so, Wei Ying I’m desperately—

“Of course you can!” Wei Ying says. He half-turns to Lan Zhan, a knee up on the bed. “You’re a catch, Lan Zhan, you only have to choose and I swear, any girl, I swear any girl would . . .” He’s scanning Lan Zhan’s face. He feels strongly about this, is getting worked up in his speech. Lan Zhan likes it when he gets like this—determined. Sure of himself.

He says, “You think?” His voice gives a little crack.

“Yes!” Wei Ying nods and puts a hand on Lan Zhan’s knee. “Yes yes! So easily, Lan Zhan, in a heartbeat! I mean look at you, listen to you, who wouldn’t—!”

“How,” Lan Zhan says. “How would I get someone to like me.”

Wei Ying doesn’t reply right away. He seems lost in the question, a moment, a film over his eyes. And then he snaps back, processes, says: “Get! Get, no, you wouldn’t have to get anyone to—no. Look it’s just a matter of . . . timing . . .” He looks at his own hand on Lan Zhan’s knee like he doesn’t remember putting it there. He doesn’t take it away. He tests his grip, there, a small flex of fingers. He says, “Like if you’re at a party, imagine, and you like someone, someone you’ve liked for a while, and she’s . . .” He runs out of breath. He sounds a bit dazed. “She’s leaving, imagine she’s leaving, and so you want to leave too, and you run into each other in the coat room and . . . You say something. Like, had enough of this party too, huh? And she’s like, haha, yeah . . .”

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan wants to move his leg. He wants Wei Ying to remove his hand. Remove it or move it up, either one. Wei Ying raises his eyes to him, slow. There’s a tiny scar on the rise of his cheekbone: a swimming pool accident. There had been stitches. Lan Zhan waited in the emergency-room waiting hall, bought Wei Ying one of every candy bar from the vending machine, panicked over which one Wei Ying would want. Panicked over the memory of Wei Ying’s swimming trunks smeared with blood in the seat of Lan Zhan’s car.

Wei Ying slept at Lan Zhan’s, that night. He let Wen Qing know over the phone. Lan Zhan let him have the bed, and took the floor himself. He didn’t sleep. He must have been breathing oddly, too, because at some point Wei Ying peeked over the side of the bed. The stitched side of his face was still swollen. He lowered a hand, let Lan Zhan have it: hold it. Tightly, at first, but then his grip relaxed. Relaxed. Wei Ying was there—he was there. Alive, he was fine and he was alive.

When Wei Ying was kicked out of the Jiang residence, Lan Zhan wanted Wei Ying to come live with him. That didn’t happen. But the Wens had space for him, a mattress pushed into a corner of their mobile home, separated from the living room by a curtain.

That night, Lan Zhan fell asleep with Wei Ying’s hand in his. He woke up in the same position, unmoved, Wei Ying’s fingers loose through his.

Now, Wei Ying tells him a fantasy: “A book then falls out of her bag, and Lan Zhan, it’s your favourite book. And you’re like, that’s my favourite book. It’s Middlemarch.”

“Middlemarch is not my favourite book,” says Lan Zhan.

“Of course it is, because you are a secret romantic. And you tell her, and she goes, Really! Because no one she knows likes Middlemarch, what are the chances. You talk about it, smart people talk, oh Lan Zhan you’d like a smart girl, wouldn’t you? A real smart girl, who reads and is good at math and . . . Ah, and then it’s been an hour, Lan Zhan! You’ve been talking in the coat room about books for an hour . . .”

“Wei Ying,” he says, again. When he doesn’t know how to fit his heart into words, that's what he does: says Wei Ying’s name, urgently.

“You walk her home. Such a gentleman. You don’t kiss, yet! A date, a date, first . . . You go to the movies. What movie? Ah, costume drama, so you can hate on the bad adaptation, and she’s all dressed up, Lan Zhan. So cute. She’s so cute. What kind of girl would you like, Lan Zhan? What would she look like, hm? What would she—”

“Short,” Lan Zhan says, “hair.”

Wei Ying’s hair is shorn close at his neck, at his sides. Piled on top. “Short hair, yes, yes. So cute. What else? Lan Zhan what else?”

“A big . . . smile. Mouth.”

“Big . . .” Wei Ying says, then mouths the word, silently, eyes on Lan Zhan: mouth. His hand shifts up Lan Zhan’s thigh, an inch, barely that. He says, “Okay. Okay. Short hair and a smile. So you’re in the cinema and you’ve paid for the tickets, such a gentleman, and it’s—the lights dim, Lan Zhan. And she’s right there. And she’s nervous, short hair big smile, and her knee is going all, bounce bounce bounce, you know, like you hate when I do it, oh but when she does it it’s cute, she’s nervous, she’s . . .”

Something in the air has changed. Wei Ying is whispering now, for some reason, and Lan Zhan can’t remember when that started. They’re leaning toward each other, as if the story is a small pearl between them—they’re looking down at it. Lan Zhan, Wei Ying tells him, would put his hand on the girl’s knee, to make her stop bouncing it. He would keep his hand there. She would put her own hand over his. Neither of them would notice the movie, what’s going on, who the characters are: his date would take his hand and push it up her leg, her thigh. She would be so warm. She would be so—

Wei Ying’s hand moves up Lan Zhan’s thigh. Wei Ying looks at it, head bent. His breaths, small and uneven, puff against Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

“That’s how it would happen,” Wei Ying says, a croak of a voice. He sways closer: chest to Lan Zhan’s arm. “That’s how . . .”

Lan Zhan is half-hard in his sweats. It’s obvious and straining—the fabric hides nothing.

“I wish,” Wei Ying says, from somewhere in a dream, “you could have it now. And then we could, and then we . . .”

Lan Zhan puts his hand over Wei Ying’s, pushes it up. Over himself, over the shape of his dick. They both inhale sharply. Wei Ying fingers tighten, and Lan Zhan twitches—lets go on Wei Ying’s hand. His heart hammers, hammers. He wants and he’s terrified and he thinks—the end, this will end now—but Wei Ying keeps his hold. Keeps his hand where it is, a warm palm through Lan Zhan’s briefs, his sweats. His dick jerks again.

Wei Ying stutters a breath. They’re both staring down at his hand. It’s an intoxicating sight: the swell of Lan Zhan’s erection, and Wei Ying’s big hand, not big enough to cover, to fully cover—

He moves it. Kneads, gently. Lan Zhan holds a noise behind his teeth, lips. His eyes roll back. Wei Ying whispers: “We did it like this, over my jeans.”

Lan Zhan is leaned back with locked elbows. His arms are shaking. Wei Ying’s hand is slow on him, figuring him out: up, down. He says, “It felt so good when she did it. Almost too much, like. Does it—Lan Zhan, is it good, is it—are you—”

Lan Zhan is moving his hips into it. He tries to keep still, to let it happen, to let Wei Ying—to let him—  But the honeyed heat of it is pushing at him, thrumming, and he can barely breathe. His hips are rolling up to meet Wei Ying’s movements. Wei Ying whimpers, closed-lipped, puts his face to Lan Zhan’s neck—a hot anchor of skin, of damp lips, of breath.

“Good,” Lan Zhan manages, barely, a punch of air. “Wei Ying—Ah, Wei Ying—”

And then Wei Ying pushes his hand past the elastic of his sweats, his briefs, and takes him in hand: a bare palm over slick, pre-come, long long fingers, the heart-stopping sounds of wet on skin. It draws a startled groan from Lan Zhan, a sob, and then for a while there’s nothing but this: Wei Ying jerking him off under the fabric of his joggers, panting wetly into Lan Zhan’s neck. Lan Zhan has a jumper on, and under that jumper a t-shirt, and under that he’s overheated, sweating. It’s down the back of his spine, at the dip of his throat—heat. Sweat. Wei Ying’s hips hitch on the bed in time with his, moving against nothing, into air.

“You like this so much,” Wei Ying says. “You’re so wet, god. It’s so hot. It feels so—” He cuts himself off with a moan. He opens his mouth, then, over Lan Zhan’s neck: a tongue, a hint of teeth.

That’s how Lan Zhan comes: Wei Ying’s hand tight around him, his mouth on the soft dip behind his ear, the rhythm of Lan Zhan’s hips faltering, pushing. Lan Zhan’s hands are still fists at his sides—dug into the sheets. His vision goes, a moment. His thoughts do too. Everything is wide, and hushed, debris whirring around the birth of a planet.

Wei Ying’s hand is still on him. He’s still a hidden face in Lan Zhan’s neck, catching his breath.

Time goes gooey, and then snaps into attention: the come on Wei Ying’s hand, Lan Zhan’s thighs, belly. The cooling, the clammy. The shaking of their bodies, close.

Wei Ying retreats. He doesn’t look at Lan Zhan. He doesn’t know where to wipe his hand, for a second, and then just does it down the side of his jeans. It leaves behind a wet mark. Lan Zhan swallows, hard.

“Okay,” Wei Ying says, eventually. His voice is garbled. He clears his throat. “Okay, so . . .”

He looks about the room, a little desperate. He gets up, goes, “Hah, okay, um,” and gets his bag, and begins to pack his stuff back into it. He rambles, “So um okay so now we—did that, and that’s, now you’re all caught up! Now you’ve done that and you know, so we’re, it’s all even, you’re up to speed, so I’m—Okay, I’m—”

He’s lost in the middle of Lan Zhan’s room. Lan Zhan can see his heartbeat through the skin of his throat. One of Wei Ying’s socks has slipped down a bit, at some point, is now floppy fabric at his toes. There’s a red rubbing mark on his cheek, where he’s pressed into Lan Zhan’s shoulder. Where he pressed into his neck, his jaw, where he muttered things and opened his mouth and—

He looks terrified, now. Eyes a panic on Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan hasn’t moved from his position. He looks back and doesn’t know what answer he gives Wei Ying. He tries to convey something, everything: the contents of his heart like the shadowy inside of a wide sleeve. He has never felt anything like it: the heat of Wei Ying’s body close, full of purpose. Knowing him so sharply and not knowing him at all. The way Lan Zhan’s chest stutters around a stump of pain at every single one of Wei Ying’s sounds—the voiceless ones, the hitched ones. The moans. The inane words that always followed.

He says: “Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying's eyes flutter. An expression passes over him, indecipherable and devastating. He starts as if to step forward, stops. Says, “I’m—” Swallows. “I have to go,” he says. “I have to go. Sorry. I will see you—Sorry. Lan Zhan I have to go. Sorry.”

He goes.

He leaves behind the widest silence Lan Zhan has ever known.

Wei Ying doesn’t text, that evening. Lan Zhan can’t eat, a shape like a plum lodged halfway down his throat. Before bed, Lan Zhan calls him. Lan Zhan never calls. Wei Ying doesn’t pick up.

He stays up, bites the nail of his thumb down to the skin. He hasn’t done that in years. He pushes knuckles into his eyes. He holds his hair at the roots. He sits up in bed, his phone a temple at the heart of his sheets. He stares at the empty screen and waits. And waits, and waits, and waits.

Chapter Text

3.

The next day Lan Zhan says: “I called you.”

They’re in the bathroom—Lan Zhan followed him there. Wei Ying says, “I know.”  He catches his eye in the mirror, looks away. He’s defensive about it. He washes his hands, says, “Look I was on the phone with Evie for, like, ever last night. I was super tired afterwards.” He glances at Lan Zhan again, a quick thing through the reflection. Adds:

“Don’t be weird about it, okay.”

Lan Zhan pauses. He had wanted to say something, can’t remember what it was. His eyes feel dry. Wei Ying has never never used that word for him, before: weird. Has threatened to beat up people who did, before.

Lan Zhan leaves the bathroom without replying and Wei Ying calls after with a halted, “Wait—Lan—” But doesn’t go after him. Doesn’t chase him down.

Lan Zhan doesn’t join Wei Ying and Evie and her friends for lunch, that day. He eats his food in the leaky corner of the library where the books have been removed because of the water damage. He sits on a plastic footstool and eats, knees too close to his body. A finely chopped salad. A box of salted nuts. He tastes little. On his way to class, he sees the blur of Wei Ying and Evie up against the lockers, making out. He lets it cut through him, a second, and then shuts it out.

At the end of the day, in his car on the way back, he passes Wei Ying on his bike—Evie on the back. She’s in tights, chunky boots. Legs crossed at the ankle, hand on Wei Ying’s waist. They swerve a bit, giving him room to overtake them. Evie locks eyes with him and waves, an uncertain smile. Lan Zhan stares ahead, doesn’t acknowledge. He doesn’t look at them getting smaller in the rearview mirror.

In the evening Wei Ying texts: a sticker of a cat peeking from around a wall, shy.

Lan Zhan drafts a reply. It’s the longest message he’s ever written to anyone. He backspaces all of it, and in the end doesn’t reply at all. The next day during history Wei Ying says, “Hey,” one table over. He’s leaned toward Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan stares at his desk, ears hot. Wei Ying says, “Hey.”

Lan Zhan takes out his notebook and aggressively expands on a finished paragraph. The words are gibberish. He’s writing nothing.

Wei Ying puffs out a derisive sound. He says, “Fine, whatever.” And then, mumbled at his own desk: “Catch you later, I guess.”

It’s like a bruise, sitting next to Wei Ying, ignoring him. It’s like a bruise to watch him walk away at the end of class without waiting for Lan Zhan. It’s worse, still, seeing him with Evie in the parking lot—her leaning back against the pole of a street lamp, him playing with her hand, inspecting it, finger for finger. The way she looks at him: soft, indulgent. She likes him, Lan Zhan realises. He hadn’t thought she would, but she does.

At home he googles, how to fall out of—

The result is a five-step plan. 1, be honest with yourself. 2, focus on your feelings. 3, speak to someone. 4, understand that it may take some time. 5, get excited about the future.

He has an old shirt of Wei Ying’s in one of his drawers—left behind, forgotten. He takes it out and puts it aside and intends to wash it, return it. He meditates. He tells Xichen, “Wei Ying and I had a falling out.” He can barely get the words out. He is sure his voice gives him away: thick, too emotional.

Lan Xichen, at his laptop in the kitchen, glasses on and still typing up an email, replies with a distracted: “Oh I’m sure he’ll come around.”

Lan Zhan marks a date in his calendar with an X. There, he decides. That’s when he will be fine again. He takes out a few university flyers he has stored, and lays them out on his desk. He attempts to get excited about the future.

It sits in front of him, days and months and years, flat and unappealing. He hates his room without Wei Ying in it. He hates his bed without Wei Ying in it. He hates—

Evie finds him during a free period. He’s in the library again, the damp corner. He’s eating a stuffed bun, paging through a forgotten book—the pages have swollen, the cover curled. It’s a story about two boys who go camping at a river and a storm has flooded the bank. The one loses the other, can’t find him, runs in the dark calling out his name. Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!

Evie says, “Hey.”

He looks up at her. She’s looming, like this. A big sweater, her hair up in a spiky tail. He puts away his bun, his book. She tells him, “So like I can’t find Wei Ying and he’s been acting weird so like. If you can help me find him that’d be, like. Thanks.”

He says, “I do not know where Wei Ying is.”

“Okay,” she says. “But can you help me find him? He won’t reply to his texts.”

“Have you tried calling him?”

She looks at him oddly, annoyed. “What’s your problem? Can’t you just—like, help? Aren’t you his best friend or something? God, you two are so—”

“What?” he asks when she cuts herself off. “We are what?”

“Nothing,” she says. And then, with a frown, “Hey did I like, do something to you?”

Lan Zhan turns from her now. He packs up his lunch. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re not nice to me.”

He feels like he's blushing. He’s not, he never is. But it feels like it. “I apologise,” he says, “if my behavior has made you feel—”

“Ah, fuck this.” She walks away, throws a last, “Thanks for nothing!” over her shoulder.

He is left with a murmur of confusion, anxious: she can’t find him, she said. He’s been acting weird, she said. Not replying to his texts. Lan Zhan checks his phone: a week since Wei Ying’s last text, that sticker of the cat behind a wall. The empty silence where Lan Zhan’s reply should have been.

Don’t be weird, was Wei Ying’s request. Lan Zhan was doing as told. He thought he’d been doing as told.

On the other side of the library, someone laughs too loud and someone else hushes them while giggling. There is a rustle. Some books fall from the shelves.

Lan Zhan leaves the library with his bag still half unzipped. He walks fast down the stairs, and then faster down the fall, and then is running up the south wing. The theatre, the stairs. The attic. He thinks, if Wei Ying isn’t there he’ll turn the school upside down. If Wei Ying isn’t there he’ll get in the car and drive around the whole town if he has to. The county, the province, the—

Wei Ying is on the floor of the storage attic, lying with one arm under his head—a hand fiddling with the tail of a costume. Rat Hamlet, ‘96. He’s under the dormer window, half of him in a dusty square of sun. He looks sad, looks puffy-eyed, and then he notices Lan Zhan and the shutters come down. He drops the rat tail. He says, “Ah. You found me.”

Lan Zhan closes the door behind him, bag on the floor. He leans back. “Evie is looking for you.”

Wei Ying swallows at the ceiling. “I know.”

“She is worried.”

“Fuck,” he huffs, and puts the crook of his elbow over his eyes. Lan Zhan watches the quick rise and fall of his chest. It’s one of Wen Ning’s shirts, today. Red, white lettering. Archery Debauchery – Open days Aug 23 – 31

The thirty-one is peeling off. A shudder passes through Wei Ying, some thought, some fear. Lan Zhan is too big for his body, suddenly: arms awkward, body awkward. He’s too tall, there’s too much of him. He wants to shrink. He wants to be held in Wei Ying’s palm, a small thing.

He moves as if he’s never moved before: mechanically, one limb at a time. He comes to lie down next to Wei Ying. He makes sure their shoulders don’t touch.

Wei Ying takes a quiver of a breath and says: “Everything is weird now. I hate it. I hate it so much.”

Lan Zhan says, “I’m sorry.” He says it around a thick throat, a swallow.

Wei Ying drops his arm. He shakes his head, but doesn’t look at Lan Zhan. His eyes are red-rimmed. The sun cuts through him, and his irises light up amber, like this. Lan Zhan has never seen beauty like this. It infuriates him, at times, to have to witness. To have to look at him.

“No one in the world,” Wei Ying says, at length, “cares about me like you do.”

Lan Zhan doesn’t breathe.

“And if you leave me,” Wei Ying continues, “if I fuck up and then you go because, because I—”

“Wei Ying.” He doesn’t know how to shape his words, at first. He says, “I will not leave.”

Wei Ying looks at him now. Damp-eyed, a tilt to his eyebrows like he doesn’t buy it. “Then where did you go? Where did you go, this week? I know I—I know I messed up, but where—”

“No,” Lan Zhan says. He takes Wei Ying’s wrist in hand to underline this. He isn’t quick enough to come up with anything else: a clever word, a smart phrasing. If he says anything more, right now, it will be too much—he won’t be able to help himself. He squeezes Wei Ying’s wrist, instead.

Wei Ying looks at the hold Lan Zhan has on him. “I missed you,” he says.

Lan Zhan needs a beat, to speak. “I missed you,” he says, and Wei Ying tugs at Lan Zhan’s hand and says, “I’m sorry about, about the other day, in your bedroom, I’m sorry I—”

“No.” Lan Zhan’s fingers are a tangle in Wei Ying’s. “No.”

Wei Ying’s eyes are low, restless on a point somewhere below Lan Zhan’s mouth. He says, “I just.” Takes a breath. “God. I just want you to have what I have. Anything I have, all of it. It’s so hard to not—” He glances up, a flit of a thing and then gone. “Is that so bad? Lan Zhan? Is that so—”

“No,” Lan Zhan tells him. He’d tell Wei Ying anything, now, anything to keep him talking. Keep him here.

Wei Ying takes a deep, expansive breath. It shakes on his exhale. He puts Lan Zhan’s hand on his chest. Skin-warmed fabric, the wild thundering of his heart. He keeps his hand over Lan Zhan’s, keeps it. The moment holds, unmoving. And then Wei Ying directs the next step: pushes Lan Zhan’s grip down, a squeezing hold—over the shape of Wei Ying’s pec. His nipple is a hard dot to the centre of Lan Zhan’s palm.

A noise gets caught in Wei Ying’s throat. He’s looking at Lan Zhan, now. Looking straight at him. He kneads his hand over Lan Zhan’s again, and then takes it away—allows. Lan Zhan feels stupid, breathing through an open mouth, eyes everywhere, nowhere. Wei Ying’s face, throat, chest. The world has narrowed down again—to this, to them. To the point of connection: just a hand, just a hand on a chest.

When Lan Zhan speaks, his voice drops, too deep to be a word—more a bass of a sound. “Did you,” he starts. Makes an effort to be heard: “Did you do this with her?”

Wei Ying’s yes is barely there—a flicker of his eyes, a parting of his lips. Lan Zhan touches him more firmly, now. Feels him. The shape of his pec, the count of his ribs. He’s up on one elbow, looking down at Wei Ying. Wei Ying’s breaths are coming in louder, now, more quickly. Lan Zhan pinches softly, a stretch of skin between two fingers, between the fabric of his shirt, and Wei Ying hitches, says, “I’ve—ah—” Says, “I’ve nothing—to hold on, for you, it’s not as—”

“No.” It is all he can say. “No. It’s good.” And then he reaches under Wei Ying’s shirt, and the world tilts: heat, skin. Wei Ying shivers immediately, arches up into it. Lan Zhan goes for what he wants: the soft swell of Wei Ying’s pec, his nipple—the pad of Lan Zhan’s thumb to the nub. Another quiet, Ah!, and Lan Zhan is gone. He feels at it, and feels at it, between two fingers, a pinch, a roll. Wei Ying startles away, then up into it, saying, “Oh god, ah—fuck—”

Lan Zhan lowers. Kisses Wei Ying’s temple, the corner of his mouth, his throat. There he stays, a soft new home: feeling up Wei Ying’s shirt, sucking at the tender slope below his jaw, a leg slotted between Wei Ying’s—letting him move against it. Letting him ride, panting, Wei Ying’s cock a hard straining shape against the rub of his jeans. It’s a fever, it’s a dream. Wei Ying rolls up against him, again and again, broken sounds, a sob, and, Shit, Lan Zhan—baby, ah, I’m—

The bell goes. The shrill sound of it punches through everything. They still for a second—as if it might pass. As if they could still continue. And then Lan Zhan looks at Wei Ying, and Wei Ying blinks, dazed. Then lands into himself.

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck. Shit. Okay—you—” He pushes Lan Zhan back, scrambles up. “Do we have class? God, what’s . . . what time is it, I don’t . . .”

He’s trying to flatten his hair, rearrange himself. He’s hard in his jeans. He has a red-blotted hickey, quickly rising up under his skin.

Lan Zhan gets to his feet as gracefully as he can. Wei Ying notices, is distracted for a beat, then shakes his head—to himself. Closes his eyes, opens them. Then says, “Oh, fuck,” touches his throat—right where the bruise is forming. He tsk’s like this is annoying, rather than the peak of all of Lan Zhan’s horny fantasies come alive: his mark, on Wei Ying’s skin.

Wei Ying says, “Jesus, okay, give me your jacket.”

Lan Zhan takes off his jacket, gives it.

Wei Ying takes it, zips it up all the way. The collar is high, almost covers all of it, but digs into his skin. Wei Ying hisses, adjusts, says, “Fucking animal,” though it’s exasperated. It shoots through Lan Zhan like a heat ray, that word—animal. Images flash behind his eyes, bright, too real. He needs to calm down. He has to calm down.

They have double Econ in C0.29, the room that is always too cold, that always smells like a basement. Evie sits a few rows in front of them, and looks back at Wei Ying every now and then: frowning, questioning. He gives her a weak smile, fidgets, pulls up the collar of Lan Zhan’s jacket. She passes him a note. He reads it, replies, passes it back.

She frowns at it. Pockets it. The frown turns into a scowl.

When school ends and spills them out onto the courtyard, they end up a loose crowd, indecisive: Evie’s friends, ready to go. Lan Zhan, ready to go. Evie and Wei Ying between two ends, making awkward decisions. Evie asks, “You wanna come with?”, and Wei Ying says, “Um, I’m—I was gonna. Go with Lan Zhan, today, if that’s . . .” And it’s the first Lan Zhan hears of it. He looks at the ground immediately, thinks: don’t react. He wants to go, now, but has to stand a while longer, wild and hot inside his coat.

Evie says, “Sure,” and, “whatever,” and, “I don’t care. Whatever.”

Lan Zhan watches her go, the slump of her shoulders, and feels an echo, a sadness. But Wei Ying is marching to his car, restless and bothered, hands deep in the pockets of Lan Zhan’s jacket and Lan Zhan can’t linger. Wei Ying straps himself into the passenger seat while Lan Zhan wrangles his bike into the trunk.

They drive. It’s tense silence all the way. They stop at a light, and Lan Zhan stares at him. He barely realises he’s doing it. Wei Ying, eyes sternly ahead, reaches out—turns Lan Zhan’s face away. The light has turned green.

Lan Zhan keeps on driving. The spot where Wei Ying’s fingers pressed into his jaw is hot.

There’s a moment, at the entrance hall, where they stare at each other, heavy and about to snap—but then a sound from inside the house. Xichen. Lan Zhan says, “Come,” and takes him by the wrist. They pass the living room as they go, and Wei Ying waves at La Zhan’s brother with his free hand, and Xichen says, “Oh, hello. Are you two—”

Lan Zhan thunders them up the stairs. He doesn’t want to hear the rest.

Inside his room it’s like you’ve run a mile to get there—out of breath, clammy. Lan Zhan turns on Wei Ying and Wei Ying is quicker than him. He puts a hand over Lan Zhan’s mouth and says: “Don’t say anything. Okay? Don’t say anything.”

Lan Zhan takes him by the hips, walks him back toward the bed. Wei Ying goes, foggy-eyed, hand going slack: fingers over Lan Zhan’s mouth, hooked at his bottom lip. It’s a clumsy touch, over his teeth, into his mouth. Lan Zhan lets him. Wei Ying whispers, “Fuck,” and then they’re on the bed: Wei Ying crawling back, wet fingers on Lan Zhan’s neck, Lan Zhan over him, hovering.

“Just—” Wei Ying starts, and then takes Lan Zhan’s hand, shoves it where he wants it: under the jacket, the shirt, over his nipple. Right where they left off. It wracks through Lan Zhan, a shudder of want, and then he’s all hands: pawing, pinching. Getting off the jacket—getting it off, quickly—pushing Wei Ying’s shirt up, putting his mouth on him. He can’t start soft, too wild for soft, and so it’s teeth, at first. A bite, a nip. Wei Ying cries out, and Lan Zhan has to put his hand over his mouth, now, to keep quiet. Downstairs is not that far. Xichen is not that far.

But that, too, devolves quickly. Wei Ying sucks two fingers into his mouth. Lan Zhan tumbles onto him, undone. It’s a scramble, from there—Wei Ying shifts and moves until he has Lan Zhan’s thigh how he needs it, holding on with a hand, rutting. It pulls an audible fuck from Lan Zhan, which gets a high pitch of air from Wei Ying, almost a laugh which then turns into a whine. That’s where they settle, for a while: Wei Wing under Lan Zhan, a continuous wave of rolling movements, and Lan Zhan with his mouth on Wei Ying, his chest, his sternum and bones, the rise of his lungs to Lan Zhan’s tongue.

It’s enough—it’s almost enough. It’s close. Wei Ying breathes, “Lan Zhan,” moving faster, a chafe now, the painful press of seams, of clothes. He says: “Please, please, please, please, please—”

Lan Zhan pushes Wei Ying’s knees open, settles between them. He has two hands next to Wei Ying’s head, hips working, and he manages this for three—four—times and then Wei Ying gasps his frustration. He rolls them over, sudden and thrilling. The bed gives a loud creak, obvious, and they don’t stop: Wei Ying rides him like that, legs wide around Lan Zhan’s hips, goes fast until he comes. He hides his face in Lan Zhan’s shoulder, muffles the sounds there. It’s hot, and then it’s wet. They’re shaking, they’re both shaking. Lan Zhan is so close, and hitches his hips in small movements, asking—asking—

“Ah, baby—” Wei Ying mutters, and he sounds drunk. He sounds out of it. He palms Lan Zhan through his jeans and Lan Zhan comes, immediately. Jaw cocked, grimacing. Soundless. It passes through him, a current of electricity. It wipes him out, too, leaves him blurry, for a while. Humming, floating an inch above himself. The only point of anchor is Wei Ying’s heavy weight on top of him, the press of his nose to Lan Zhan’s collar. It’s such a good nose, Lan Zhan thinks, inanely. It ends in such a darling point.

He takes Wei Ying’s face in hands, kisses the tip of his nose. His lips. The kiss, as it happens, doesn’t linger long—a one-two, an easy coming together: lips, a brush of a tongue, a touch like hello. Hi. Hello.

They part. They’re a mess.

Wei Ying goes shy when Lan Zhan gives him a change of clothes, and makes Lan Zhan stand with his back turned. Lan Zhan only glimpses the blush-red back of his neck, once, and it’s enough.

Lan Zhan asks, “Will you stay for dinner?” And Wei Ying, still an unusual quiet, pulls at the hem of his shirt to hide the hickey and says, “I mean, if that’s okay,” and Lan Zhan says, “Yes.” And so Wei Ying stays for dinner. Xichen cooks, and asks them both empty questions about school: does Mrs Beerput still wear that red hat? Have they yet repaired that one bench at the gym? Have they learned anything interesting, this week?

Wei Ying answers it all with a careful politeness that makes even Lan Xichen look at him in askance.

They all watch a movie, afterwards. It’s a wholesome comedy. Sometimes Xichen laughs, a sweet and single: “Ha!”

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan sit apart on the couch. Wei Ying’s hand is on the cushion next to him. Lan Zhan puts his own hand close, touches his pinkie to Wei Ying’s. They sit like that, breathless, until a loud scene happens and startles them all.

Wei Ying hides his hands in the sleeves of Lan Zhan’s borrowed too-big-on-him hoodie and keeps them in his lap.

He stays the night. It’s normal enough: Wei Ying often stays the night.

Lan Zhan lies in his sleeping bag and listens to Wei Ying brush his teeth in the bathroom next door. He classifies it: one of the top-5 sounds ever. The quietness of it, the promise of it—Wei Ying, here. Staying, here. Sleeping, here.

When Wei Ying comes back into the room and sees Lan Zhan on the floor he says, “Aiii what are you doing? That’s my spot, that’s your bed, I’m not taking your bed.”

“Too late,” Lan Zhan says, smug. He watches Wei Ying putter about the room, and decides that that, too, is a top-5 sound: his feet on the carpet, the soft thud of him bumping against the back of the desk chair. He’s in Lan Zhan’s sleeping clothes. He makes the room smell like toothpaste.

Lan Zhan never wants to be in a space that doesn’t have Wei Ying in it. That isn’t life, he knows. That isn’t how people live. He wants it, still—assuredly, hungrily.

The light is turned off. Wei Ying is in the bed. Lan Zhan floats. The day has been long, and he has been miserable, and he has been euphoric, and he is tired. They still haven’t said a thing, and not a thing has been solved, and still all Lan Zhan wants is to sleep. Here, with Wei Ying breathing—sleep.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers into the dark. “Zhan-Zhan.”

“Mm?” He is only half awake.

“Could you—” he says. “Please come here.”

Lan Zhan is more awake. He sits up.

Wei Ying says, “You’re so far away.”

He looks small, in the bed, even though it’s a single, even though he’s grown, and tall. There won’t be any space. They won’t be comfortable. They’ve never slept in the bed together.

Lan Zhan goes, there is nothing else to do but to go. Wei Ying shuffles with hitched breaths, moving, shifting to his side—letting Lan Zhan crawl in behind him. They slot together, a cradle. A cup inside a cup. Lan Zhan feels the expansion of Wei Ying’s chest, the exhale that comes next. He feels the goosebumps on Wei Ying’s arm under his hand.

“Good night,” Wei Ying says, quiet, into the dark.

“Hm,” Lan Zhan agrees. He is dragged under. He is trying to stay afloat, but he is going under.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says.

“Hm.”

“Lan Zhan,” he says, again, and then—quiet. Wei Ying’s heartbeat through the line of his spine. The sleepy heat of the back of his neck, the stubbled shave of his haircut, rough against the press of Lan Zhan’s lips.

Chapter Text

4.

Falling in love with Wei Ying happened without his knowledge: silent and unmoving and then there, suddenly. As if to wake up one day and be able to speak another language, never having practiced. As if to wake up one day with the strength to lift stupid big things: cars, rocks, post boxes. Not knowing why, not knowing how it happened.

That’s what it was like. Lan Zhan woke up one day, remembered how yesterday Wei Ying had loudly pronounced all the individual letters in the word queue, just to piss him off, and was in love. Then Lan Zhan remembered Wei Ying cackling at something on TV, remembered Wei Ying being sent out of class for something good and brave, remembered the turn of Wei Ying’s wrist on the bars of the bike—and had to run to the bathroom. Heave, empty-bellied, over the sink.

He was fifteen, when that happened. He didn’t know what to do with it: where to put it, how to quiet it, how to stop fanning the flames. He decided to treat the whole affair like an illness that needed to pass. He went to bed earlier, drank more water, avoided Wei Ying for a while. It made it worse. He missed Wei Ying, and was angry to be missing him, and was frustrated to be angry, and meditated over it and in the meditation could only conjure terrible scenes of skin and wet and fucking.

Cold showers, plenty of cold showers. At school, Wei Ying would drape himself over Lan Zhan at any and all time: during lunch, stealing his food. On the way to class, demanding piggy-back rides. In the bleachers, shouting too loudly at the runners, too close to Lan Zhan’s ear. One Monday someone asked who could do the lettering for a poster, Wei Ying said, “Uh, how about my best friend Lan Zhan, who has the best penmanship???”

His chest was a hot line pressed all along Lan Zhan’s back. His arms were loose around his neck, a thumb hooked over Lan Zhan’s collar. He was so careless with his touch. He gave it so freely.

That summer Wei Ying was kicked out of home and moved in with the Wei siblings. Lan Zhan didn’t go on vacation, stayed behind, and spent two long honey-slow months hanging with Wei Ying down by the lake. It was the best time of his life and the worst all at once: Wei Ying all skin, all rolled in sand, tanned dark and glowing and sleeping like a cat in the sun. Sometimes Jiang Cheng called him on the phone, and they’d talk for a screaming hour, and when Wei Ying came back to him he’d be thin-skinned and sour, not wanting to talk. Not wanting to be touched.

One night at Lan Zhan’s, when he realised Lan Zhan’s uncle had left the liquor cabinet unlocked, he got drunk—on his own, Lan Zhan only watching. Letting him. He didn’t know what else to do. They fell asleep on the couch, eventually, and woke up again at some blue-dark point of the night. Wei Ying was lying half on top of him, chin propped up on Lan Zhan’s chest, staring at him. He smelled like whiskey. He whispered, “You’re so good. You’re amazing. And so—so—” His eyes were a glint of dark shine. Lan Zhan could barely see him. He touched Lan Zhan’s face, barely—a touch of fingers to his jaw, his cheek. “So beautiful,” he said.

Lan Zhan thought they would kiss, then. He thought Wei Ying would kiss him, or let himself be kissed. His mind had gone cottony with it, barely awake as he was. Wei Ying puffed a breath to his chin. Lan Zhan licked his lips, eyes low. They didn’t kiss, of course they didn’t. Wei Ying was drunk, and straight, and his best friend, and it was only just a small pocket in the middle of the night, and the moment barely existed at all.  

He was sixteen, when that happened.

The beginning of the next school year started with a good-luck lantern ceremony. Wei Ying made one for Lan Zhan, and showed it to him proudly: he’d drawn a series of rabbits in motion, jumping in and out of tall grass. Watership Down was Lan Zhan’s mother’s favourite book, which meant that whenever Lan Zhan found a copy in a bookstore he had to buy it—had to, literally, could not physically leave without it. He had eleven different versions in his bedroom bookcase, now. Translations, big covers, small covers. Penguin Classics.  

Wei Ying would sometimes page through them, aimlessly, while Lan Zhan did his homework. Would sometimes read aloud a short passage, and then sigh: “Ugh. Sad. Sad rabbit book.”

When they lit the lantern, Wei Ying said: “Off you go, Lan Zhan’s sad rabbit lantern.” They watched it go up. Wei Ying’s knuckles brushed Lan Zhan’s. Lan Zhan looked at Wei Ying looking up at the sky, eyes bright, and realised, Oh. Realised, This is going to last forever. I’m going to be in love forever.

* * *

It’s Saturday and Wei Ying fidgets over breakfast. He’s half in his own clothes, half in Lan Zhan’s. He keeps the hat of the hoodie over his head, plays with the strings, checks his phone every three seconds. Types quick replies and then puts it away, checks it again, puts it away.

They haven’t even touched, since waking up. Wei Ying won’t let Lan Zhan near: skittering away, making sure to keep distance, keep his body angled away. Earlier, Wei Ying had leaned into the fridge to take out juice, and Lan Zhan wanted to pass behind him to get to the table, and did so with a brief hand to Wei Ying’s waist, and Wei Ying jumped—laughed nervously, put two big steps between them.

Last night he’d said, You’re so far away. He’d said, Please come here.

Lan Zhan steals looks at him from across the table, hoping for clues, for hints as to who they are, now. What has changed, why, what are they allowed. He wishes he could open his mouth and ask. He wishes he was the kind of person with words, any kind of words. As is, he can only manage as much as, “Wei Ying.” And, “Eat.”

Wei Ying is pushing the fruit around the bowl. “So healthy, haha,” he says, and eats one piece of an apple, very slowly. Checks his phone twice more. Then, on a single tight breath: “So I promised to hang out with Evie and the guys today we’re going down to the bridge and there’s this movie screening in the evening some seventies flick I don’t know anyway that’s what I’m doing today.” He inhales deeply.

Lan Zhan re-runs the ramble in his head. Says, “Okay.”

“Do you,” Wei Ying says. “Do you want to come?” He says this to the food, not looking at Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan says, “With . . . you. And Evie.”

“And the rest! The—her friends, and a bunch of people, like it’s a whole hang, it’s just whatever, I mean you don’t have to, totally, I totally get it, no it’s—”

“Do you want me to come?”

Wei Ying looks at him, now. The hickey has bloomed a deep purple overnight. He has the stamp of a crease on his cheek—the seam of Lan Zhan’s sleeping t-shirt. Wei Ying had borrowed into him, in the night.

Wei Ying says a quiet, “Yes.”

Lan Zhan’s heart gives a heavy thud. They’re not talking about it. They’re not even talking about it. Lan Zhan should stay at home, should let him go. Should certainly not be around Wei Ying’s girlfriend, and her friends, shouldn’t go places where Wei Ying will be holding her hand and kissing her, while keeping the secret mark of Lan Zhan’s teeth on his ribs, the mark of Lan Zhan’s mouth on his throat, thinking about how Lan Zhan sucked on his—

“Then I’ll come,” Lan Zhan says. “If Wei Ying wants me to come.” He doesn’t know what he thinks he’ll do there. Seethe with jealousy? Stand around and loom? Make sure Wei Ying remembers how just a day ago they—

“Cool,” Wei Ying says, pulling the strings of the hoodie close over his face. “Cool cool cool cool cool.”

Lan Zhan drives them. Wei Ying repeatedly cleans the screen of his phone on his trousers. There’s a weekend mist hanging in the valley, unmoving rain in the air. Everything smells like fresh earth. The bridge is at the end of town, the bump over the river that separates them from the rest of the world. It’s an old thing, green-copper pillars in muddy banks. There’s a gutted car near the water that’s been there since forever—it’s rusted, moss-grown, windows long gone. Kids hang out there, get drunk there.

When Wei Ying and Lan Zhan come down the decline, there’s a small crowd already gathered. Cardboard boxes over muddy earth, an old ratty couch. Kids from the other school that Lan Zhan doesn’t know. Evie sits on top of the car bonnet, talking to a girl in baggy clothes. She’s pretty. She has a shaved head, pointy ears.

Wei Ying keeps his hands in his pockets when he goes down to say hello. Evie lets him step between her legs, head tilted up for his kiss. He gives it off-centre, the corner of her mouth, and steps back quickly. He glances nervously to Lan Zhan, away.

Lan Zhan realises immediately how out of place he looks: grandpa in a light grey pea coat, an eggshell jumper. White sneakers, white socks. He feels like a bright set of teeth glaring under blacklight, the rest of the room a dim blur of colours. The crowd under the bridge is giving him weirded-out looks. Some of them giggle.

Wei Ying calls him over. He’s introduced to the girl, Layla. She has a ring of a piercing hidden under her front lip. She talks to him like their conversation is a joke: What are you favourite subjects in school, Lan Zhan? Have you picked out a retirement fund yet, Lan Zhan? Are you excited about selling out to the man, Lan Zhan?

Next to them, Evie is trying to get Wei Ying to pull his hoodie down a little, untie the strings. Wei Ying won’t, says, “Just leave it, god, why won’t you just let me—”

Lan Zhan watches the exchange with hot eyes. He knows why Wei Ying won’t lower the hoodie below his neck. He knows what he’s hiding.

“Huh,” Layla says, and Lan Zhan looks at her, and understands he’s been watched. He blinks. He’d left her mid-conversation. He says,

“I apologise. What were you—”

“I’ve known Evie since we were kids, you know,” she tells him. “Our parents were friends.”

“Hm,” he says. He doesn’t know what else to say to that. She looks at him like she’s trying to figure something out, and so he turns away somewhat, inspects the rush of the river instead. He can’t sit anywhere, lean against anything—there’s too much mud, too much dirt. But Layla is nicer to him, after that, an inch softer. When Evie and Wei Ying walk away, hand-in-hand, to join a card game under the bridge, and Lan Zhan doesn’t know how to follow, Layla asks him a quiet, “So do you think he really likes her?”

Lan Zhan takes a long, careful moment to answer. Says, “He has liked her for a very long time.”

“Right,” Layla said. “Which means . . .”

“I do not know,” he says, honestly. He watches Evie settle on the ground, back to Wei Ying’s chest, head leaned back against his shoulder. Wei Ying looks to Lan Zhan, looks to Lan Zhan stood next to Layla. He’s frowning. Evie’s hand is on his knee.

The mist makes everything colder. Someone has a bottle of drink with them, starts passing it around. Lan Zhan notices Wei Ying drinking deeply, throat working. Layla tells him about her dad’s work: a smith turned artist. He bends metals into statues. Layla sounds embarrassed and proud of it in equal measure. Lan Zhan hums, listens. Nods. He tries not to stare at Wei Ying, and fails. When Layla asks him about his parents he tells her, as he tells everyone:

“Dead.”

“Oh,” she says. “Fuck.”

“Yes,” he says. “Fuck.”

She shivers. He gives her his coat. Under the bridge, someone made a joke, and everyone is laughing loudly. Layla says, “You’re a strange one,  but you’re nice.” He says, “The ‘but’ seems unnecessary, grammatically,” which makes her laugh. Wei Ying comes over, and his eyes are hard, restless. His hands are deep in his pockets again. “What are you guys talking about?” he asks, nice enough, though there’s a bite there. “Looks fun. Looks cozy.”

“Layla’s father is a sculptor,” Lan Zhan tells him. Wei Ying looks at his mouth while he says this. Looks away.

“That’s cool,” he tells Layla. Then, “Hey,” to Lan Zhan. “Hey I’m going to walk around. My legs are all—” He shakes them out as if to say: noodles. His smile is a quaver at Lan Zhan. “Wanna come?”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says.

“Oh,” says Layla. “Should I—”

“Bye!” is Wei Ying’s reply, hand on Lan Zhan’s elbow, pulling him along. The mud squelches under their feet. They go up, toward the trees. A path, there, and the low fog. Out of ear shot, Wei Ying says: “You gave her your coat, huh.”

“She was cold,” Lan Zhan says.

“Very noble.” Wei Ying puts on a weird accent to say that—mock-posh. He might be angry, Lan Zhan isn’t sure. He’s something, though, and it’s agitated. “She’s pretty isn’t she!”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, because she is.

“Hah!” Wei Ying nods a lot. His smile is pins and needles. “Okay! Okay okay!”

They walk on. Lan Zhan has his teeth ground together, his jaw tight. Whenever he glances sideways Wei Ying is looking at him and then pretends he isn’t: staring up at the trees, at the ground.

Lan Zhan asks, “How was Evie?”

Wei Ying doesn’t answer. The silence gets heavier. They get to a wall, a high wall—there used to be some kind of building, behind it, some electricity generator. It’s long since been taken down, but the wall remains, graffiti’d and crumbling, running through a stretch of the woods for no reason.

Wei Ying comes to a stop. He tries to lift himself up the wall but he’s not tall enough, his grip is not steady, his foot slipping on the brick. He says, “I want to see behind it.” Lan Zhan knows what’s behind it: plastic bags, trash, empty beer cans. Condoms. Wei Ying says, “Help me up.”

Lan Zhan comes to stand behind him. Wei Ying notices with an intake of breath, says, “I meant—foot up, like—” He mimics with his hands. Lan Zhan stares, pointedly, at Wei Ying’s muddy shoes. Wei Ying gives a quiet, hah, right, and then shuffles—won’t make up his mind.

Lan Zhan says, “Turn,” and Wei Ying turns. His chin is down, his ears red. Lan Zhan holds him by the waist, lifts, and that’s how they get Wei Ying high enough to grab the edge of the wall, hook one elbow, two. He looks over the top of it.

Lan Zhan has to put his strength into it, a hand to Wei Ying’s hip, the other balled in his hoodie—his own, given to Wei Ying. He’s heavy. He’s warm. He’s so, so close.

“What do you see,” he asks.

“Man,” Wei Ying says. “Nothing much, huh. Just junk. Let me down, let me—”

It’s not as smooth, the way down—hold slipped, balance lost, Wei Ying going—“Ah shit—” and Lan Zhan catches him with a hard grip, a hiss. It’s clumsy. He has Wei Ying in his arms, now, and Wei Ying is breathing fast, nervous sounds like he’s laughing—he’s not. One of Lan Zhan’s hands is under his hoodie, over the heat of his belly. It happened accidentally and he keeps it there, fingers twitching. The muscles of Wei Ying’s stomach contract under his touch, and for a second he leans, yields, then says, “Ah no no no Lan—”

He turns in the circle of Lan Zhan’s hold. Lan Zhan’s hand turns with him, a squeeze to Wei Ying’s waist, which makes him sway—toward Lan Zhan, away.

“What are . . .” Wei Ying’s eyes are unfocussed. He puts his hand over Lan Zhan’s wrist, there where it’s anchored. He means to either keep him there or push him away—it could be either, either one. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Zhan says. He doesn’t, not exactly. Things go slow, when it’s the two of them, now. Things go sluggish, hot. Quiet. He leans in, just a little. Lowers his voice: “What do you want to do?”  

Wei Ying huffs like the air’s been pulled from him. His hand inches up, under Lan Zhan’s sleeve: circles his arm. They’ve drifted close, noses touching. Lan Zhan nods to kiss him. Wei Ying says, “Evie—” He’s so near the movement almost brushes Lan Zhan’s mouth. “Evie is . . .”

“Is what?” Lan Zhan asks. He tugs Wei Ying closer.

“The dream,” he says, a whisper. “Isn’t she? She was always the—dream. And now I—I can’t—just let that . . .”

Lan Zhan leans away to look at him. Wei Ying chases him, the almost kiss, then catches himself—steps away, steps out of Lan Zhan’s hold. He lets go of Lan Zhan’s arm.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” he says. His voice is thick. And then he grunts and rubs his face harshly and says, “Ugh just—let’s just. Let’s just go back, I—” he doesn’t finish that thought, and starts walking back up the path.

Lan Zhan watches him, a moment, his belly turning heavy on itself. He follows, several steps behind, keeps the distance between them. Wei Ying rips leaves off low branches, throws them to the side.

They don’t stay long, after that. Wei Ying marches back to Evie, a thunder cloud of a mood over his head. Evie, too, is wrapped in a tight-jawed attitude, face blank in a way that looks like trouble. The two of them huddle off to the side and argue. Layla gives Lan Zhan his coat back, silently, and he accepts, silently. They lean back against the car and watch.

“What do you think they’re fighting about?” Layla asks. She has her arms wrapped around herself.

Lan Zhan shrugs. And then, in a welling fit of honesty—feeling bruised, boiling over, confused: “I don’t understand. I thought I understood. I don’t. I don’t know . . .”

She looks at him, eyebrows up. They’ve only just met. She has no idea what he’s talking about. He himself barely knows.

“Sorry,” he says, and keeps his eyes down. His shoes are caked in mud.

“Hey, I—” she starts, and is stopped: Evie bustles toward them, eyes red, nostrils flared. Lan Zhan goes rigid, a flash of a second thinking Wei Ying has said something, that she’s coming to yell at Lan Zhan, but no—none of that. She’s coming for Layla, grabs her by the elbow with a, “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

And Layla says, “Okay um can I just—” Which Evie won’t let her finish, tugging her along with a, “Lets’ just go,” and Layla goes. She shrugs at Lan Zhan, walking backwards. “Bye,” she says.

Lan Zhan waves, once. Evie and Layla disappear around the bend and Wei Ying is there, bright and angry, pacing down the length of the old car. “She thinks she can just—!” he says, not at Lan Zhan specifically. He picks up a pine cone and throws it into the rushing waters.

He says, “She can’t like, chase me away,” says it a few times, as if arguing his point to himself. “I’m not going to leave because she’s—because she’s being—”

“Do you want to leave?”

Wei Ying’s attention catches on him properly, now. He’s wild-looking, eyes dancing from Lan Zhan, to the path where Evie went down, to the bridge. He says, “I,” and, “I,” and then: “You know what, yes. Fuck this, yes. Let’s just—let’s—”

He leads them back up the incline like he’s in a hurry. Lan Zhan’s car waits for them, a blurry white shape in the mist. The metal is damp, collecting droplets. They get inside and the sound of the river falls away, locking them into silence. The whoosh of the safety belt is loud, now. Wei Ying’s breathing—loud.

They drive. The wipers ping back and forth. Wei Ying says, “Now I have those stupid movie tickets.” He sulks against the window.

“Hm,” says Lan Zhan. They’re in town, now. Cafe lights reflect in puddles.

“I paid for them and everything.”

“Mm.” And then, not looking at Wei Ying, one hand on the stick, changing gears, “It would be a shame,” the car ahead of them is taking a slow right turn, “to waste them.”

Wei Ying stares at him. He can feel Wei Ying staring at him. Heat rises to his face, like a touch of a hand to his jaw, his ears. He swallows. The wipers tick on and on. Wei Ying shifts in his seat.

“Um,” he says. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

Wei Ying shifts again. Lan Zhan forgets to take a turn, and then zones out at a traffic light and has to be honked back into attention. It’s still an hour until the movie starts. There’s a pub across the street. It has a small kitchen in the back, and spills out the smell of used oil. Lan Zhan orders them chips. A sugary drink for Wei Ying, water for him. They eat in tense silence. The chips are fatty, salty. Wei Ying says, “So salty.” Lan Zhan agrees. That’s the extent of the conversation. Their ankles knock together under the table, which makes Wei Ying pull away, and makes Lan Zhan stretch out his legs—seeking.

The air conditioning in the cinema is too high for how cold it is outside. There’s not many people in the theater, just a handful, one head in the middle row, a small group a little lower down. Wei Ying and him sit in the near back row. The projector beams brightly overhead, a ray of dust. The commercials go on for a long time, loud and chatty. Wei Ying hunches low in his chair and won’t stop moving, shifting, fidgeting. His face is half in the dark, half lit by the screen—deep reds, bright blues.

The movie starts. The theater goes quiet, hushed. Lan Zhan has forgot the title of the flick, the genre, the summary he’d been given—scenes happen on the screen and he doesn’t see them. He sits, unmoving, and still his heart races. The smell of butter and popcorn. Wei Ying’s leg bounces, knee close to his.

Lan Zhan puts his hand on Wei Ying’s leg. He whispers, “Calm down.”

Wei Ying pushes Lan Zhan’s hand off. He bends forward and puts his face in his hands, then sits up, pushes fingers into his hair, huffs, looks up. Blinks rapidly. Lan Zhan can see his pulse in his throat.

“Wei Ying,” he says. “We can go.”

“I—” He closes his eyes, opens them. “I don’t—”

“We don’t have to stay.”

“No, I.” He huffs. “I . . .”

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“I want—” He looks at Lan Zhan, now. The scene on the screen changes with a bright yellow flare. The light catches the little hairs on Wei Ying’s cheek, his upper lip. He looks a vision, like this. A dream, a demon. He says, “I want you to kiss me.” And then, not a breath later, “Mmm I’m fucked, I’m so fucked, I’m—”

Lan Zhan doesn’t hear the rest. He hears the small sound of Wei Ying’s lips, parting. He hears the intake of air when he scratches his nails to the nape of Wei Ying’s neck, into his hair. He hears the rustle of their movements, and the slick slide of tongues. Wei Ying bends, melts: tilts to Lan Zhan’s touch, goes pliant. He lets Lan Zhan move his head, like this, like that. Lets Lan Zhan put a hot hand under his hoodie. Lets Lan Zhan knead at the meat of his thigh, hitching noises into Lan Zhan’s mouth.

Someone hushes them. They quiet down, catch their breaths. They try to watch the movie for a while. It doesn’t work: Wei Ying stays close, kisses his neck, behind his ear. He whispers something unintelligible. He has a hand fisted in Lan Zhan’s jumper, pulling. Lan Zhan grabs him by this hair, kisses him again. It’s hungrier, now, a ramped-up thing, Lan Zhan’s teeth on Wei Ying’s bottom lip.

Wei Ying gasps. They’re hushed, severely this time.

“Fuck, fuck,” Wei Ying says, half in his lap. They’ve been making out for what feels like hours. What feels like seven movies in a row. He takes Lan Zhan’s hand, says, “Okay let’s—come, come, we’re—”

He pulls Lan Zhan up, walks him down the aisle. Someone shout-whispers a sarcastic, “Thank you!”, which they ignore. Wei Ying walks faster. He takes them out the theater, down some hall, up a flight of stairs, into the empty bathroom. The lights blink on lazily, one for one.

They’re on each other. Wei Ying hustles them into a stall. Lan Zhan has him up against the wall, and the hunger flares higher, hotter. For a while it’s all hands, hands, nothing close to enough, and then Lan Zhan gets to his knees—unbuttons Wei Ying’s jeans, pulls them down. He’s hard in a borrowed pair of Lan Zhan’s briefs. Lan Zhan presses his face to him, his mouth, mindless—rubbing, breathing. Wei Ying’s knocks his head back, keens, pushes his hips forward.

“God, ah,” he says, puts a hand on Lan Zhan’s shoulder. It’s sweaty, hot. Lan Zhan tugs his briefs down, and the hand on his shoulder turns into a painful grip.

It’s a sloppy blowjob. It’s Lan Zhan’s first, he barely knows what he’s doing. It feels too wet, like he can’t close his mouth properly, can’t keep his lips tight enough—saliva down his chin, pre-come. Wei Ying is a heady weight on his tongue, against the roof of his mouth. Wei Ying moans at all of it, all of it: one hand up to hold to the top of the stall, the other in Lan Zhan’s hair, on his face. Lan Zhan wonders how he looks, from above, and embarrassment curls around his arousal, a fan to the flames.

Wei Ying says, “Yeah, ah—yeah—” And calls him, “Baby, fuck, sweetheart, don’t—don’t stop, so good, so—”

He comes with a sob. Lan Zhan tries to swallow all of it, and can’t, and it spills down his neck. Into his jumper. He jerks Wei Ying through it, until Wei Ying asks for mercy, a gentle hand over Lan Zhan’s. Lan Zhan hides his face in Wei Ying’s thigh, the crease of it, shoves a hand into his jeans, strokes himself for five whole seconds and comes—mouth to Wei Ying’s skin. Wei Ying pets his head, his hair. “There you go,” he says. “That’s it, that’s good, that’s . . .”

Afterwards, while Lan Zhan washes himself by the sinks—tries to get the stain from his collar with a wad of tissue paper—Wei Ying watches him through the mirror. He’s leaned back against the tiled wall, looking wrung-out, kissed dumb. Mouth puffy, eyes low.

“I can’t think,” he says. His voice is wrecked, too. “It’s like I can’t think when you touch me.”

Lan Zhan pauses. He throws away the wad. He keeps his gaze on Wei Ying.  

“You put your hands on me,” Wei Ying continues, “And I—I can’t think.”

Lan Zhan doesn’t know what to say to that. He goes to him. Wei Ying receives him like he’s been doing it for years, like it’s all they’ve ever done: arms around Lan Zhan’s neck, head tilted to meet him. They kiss, for a while. It’s slow and deep and Lan Zhan thinks Wei Ying is trying to say something, the way he’s kissing him. He doesn’t know what it is. He leans in closer in case that’s the answer.

It doesn’t seem to be.

He drives Wei Ying home. It’s dark. The mobile-home park lies in the valley, flanked by pines, flanked by forest smells and the hush of the river around the bend. There’s people walking home with groceries, people standing by their neighbour’s door, talking. One woman has just come home from work and realised she’d left out her wash during the day, and now it is damp, and must be taken in again. Rewashed.

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying watch the tableau from inside the car, parked nearby. They’re waiting for something: a moment in which a parting might fit, a lull for conversation.

Lan Zhan has never been good at finding the right moment for anything. He says, “Will you tell Evie?”

“Tell her what?” Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan looks at him. Wei Ying bumps his head against the headrest, grunts. Says, “I don’t know. I don’t know, my head is all messed up, I don’t . . .”

Lan Zhan’s hands tighten at the wheel. “Right,” he says. “Of course. I understand.”

“Do you?” Wei Ying leans forward to catch his eye. “Do you? Do you understand?” There’s a crease of a frown between his eyebrows. “Do you?”

Lan Zhan watches a young man smoke out of a window.

“It’s easy for you,” Wei Ying says. “You’re not—hurting someone. Or, like, cheating or whatever. It’s not the same.”

There’s still a slight ache in Lan Zhan’s jaw. The taste of Wei Ying is not gone yet, his mouth, his skin. Lan Zhan notes it with every breath in, a part of him, now. “You are right,” he says. “It isn’t the same for me.”

Wei Ying frowns deeper.

Lan Zhan says, “Good night, Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan.”

“Good night.” He reaches across Wei Ying’s seat, opens the door for him. His arm brushes Wei Ying’s chest on retreat.

Wei Ying doesn’t move, for a moment. He sits there, door open to his side, seatbelt undone, backpack at his feet. He takes a breath like he might say something, then changes his mind, closes his mouth. Gets out, slams the door behind him.

He has both his arms wrapped around himself as he walks home. Street lights touch the tips of him with a soft orange. He doesn’t look back, and Lan Zhan doesn’t drive away. He remains, parked, headlights on, soft rain passing through the beams.

He watches Wei Ying get out his keys, watches him get inside the house. Watches the lights turn on.

He drives home. He takes it out on a poor tree in the front garden: drives his fists into the bark, only hurts himself in the process. He grunts, he kicks. He slides down, sits in the mud, in the drizzle.

Lan Xichen opens the front door. “Wangji? What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Lan Zhan says, voice like a creaking door, and gets back up.

Chapter Text

5.

On Sunday Lan Zhan wakes up to a notification. This message has been deleted, time-stamped at 1:30.

Then, on Monday, Wei Ying isn’t at school. At first Lan Zhan thinks Wei Ying is avoiding him—skipping their joint bio class, ducking to and from hallways when Lan Zhan walks by.

During the long break he spots Evie and her people huddled at the end of the corridor. There’s an air of drama about them: Evie sat on the floor with her back to the lockers, face hidden, one of her friends with her arm around her, talking softly, soothing. Marcus hangs around awkwardly, worrying his bottom lip between two fingers. Wei Ying isn’t there. His absence feels like a part of the story.

Lan Zhan stares at them. He notices he’s been staring when Marcus catches his eye and makes his way over. Lan Zhan has PE, next block. He has his gym bag in hand. Marcus says, “Hi,” and lounges himself against a wall. “So he’s not here, huh?”

Lan Zhan looks at him. “What?”

“What?” Marcus shrugs. “Wie Ying. I get it. I’d stay home, too.”

“What?”

Marcus seems to catch on to something, then. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Uhh.” Marcus inspects his shoes. The soles of his shoes. “They broke up. He didn’t tell you?”

“They—” Lan Zhan clamps his jaw shut. Across the corridor, Evie nods gravely to whatever her friend is saying. There’s hands involved, a gesturing like the friend is mimicking pushing something off.

“Weird he didn’t tell you,” Marcus says. “I thought you two were like, super tight.”

“Did,” Lan Zhan starts, stops. Rearranges. “Did he—?”

Marcus gives him a quick look. He still has a buzzing sort of energy, even in this small exchange—that laser-beam of a focus, like he’d pull the answers from Lan Zhan by hand, if they weren’t given freely. He says, “She broke it off I think. She only said they fought and that she, you know. Had enough or whatever.”

Lan Zhan nods, swallows. Nods again. Marcus follows the movement.

“I thought you guys were friends,” he tells Lan Zhan.

“We are.”

“Weird he wouldn’t tell you, huh.”

Lan Zhan doesn’t answer. Evie’s friend manages to get a single sob of a laugh from her. She glances at Lan Zhan, away. She doesn’t know. Wei Ying hasn’t told her., and now Wei Ying isn’t here, and now Lan Zhan—

Lan Zhan doesn’t know relief from anger, anger from fear. It’s knocking about inside him like a shoe in a tumbler.

“Hey,” Marcus says, and turns to face Lan Zhan fully. “Do you like, want to hang out sometime?” He’s straight-ironed his bleached bangs over his forehead. He hides the bulk of his braces behind his lips. He’s put a sheet of bravery over a shaky voice. His fingers pinch the skin of his wrist.

Lan Zhan wishes he could be kinder in saying, “No.” He doesn’t know how. He might, another day, be softer, but his mind has gone a fuzzy loud, a repeated echo of Wei Ying’s voice when he tried to catch his eye and asked, Do you? Understand? Do you? Do you? Do—

“Hah. Just like that, huh.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re really not,” Marcus says, and his voice breaks a little. They both hear it, and Marcus looks away. He says, louder: “But I’m not wrong about you though, am I.”

Lan Zhan says nothing.

“Are you into him?”

Again, he takes Lan Zhan’s silence as an answer and laughs—a short and breathless sound. “Sad,” he says, a terrible word.

It’s that, of all things, that ticks up Lan Zhan’s heartbeat. That makes everything come together in a rush: Evie crying, the words, broken it off, Wei Ying’s saying, she’s the dream, isn’t she, she’s the—

He tells Marcus, “You don’t know anything.”

“Maybe,” Marcus says. He’s silent, a moment. Then adds, resignedly: “But I do know unrequited when I see it.” Pulls his lips tighter over his braces. “Obviously.”

Lan Zhan sees himself from a bird’s perspective, for a moment, a belly-swooping tilt: kissing Wei Ying in the attic like he was allowed to, then reaching out, reaching out again, with or without permission. Ying talking about Evie, falling in love with Evie, and at every turn Lan Zhan distracting him and holding him and Wei Ying struggling in his arms saying—she’s the dream, Lan Zhan, she’s the—

Marcus sulks back to his group. Lan Zhan remains standing, a moment, bag in hand. There’s a sour taste in his mouth, a terrified realisation at the base of his spine, creeping up. A girl is crying. Wei Ying hasn’t come to school. I did this, he thinks, clear as day. He has been muddled. He’s been a lava spill of want, of take, of mine.

He sees, now, who he’s been. What he’s been. He thinks he sees.

He walks away. He walks down the corridor, and down the hall, and out the school. He walks down the parking lot. He’s at his car, gym bag still in hand, and the recess bell goes: kids flood, spill in and out the building—kids migrate from class to class, chattering. Eating, smoking.

Lan Zhan gets in his car and drives. His hands are clammy on the wheel. When he catches sight of himself in the mirror, he is pale, a blueish terror around his eyes.

* * *

First he parks down the valley, at the end of the lot, and tries to call Wei Ying. It goes to voicemail immediately, three times over. Phone’s off. He hyperventilates for a while, forehead to the steering wheel, and then collects himself.

A few people greet him as he walks to Wei Ying’s home. He knows them. He’s been a regular enough staple over the past two years. The Wens have made the caravan as lovely as they could: a small garden to the left, a few chairs to sit in. The house’s wheels are boxed in with bricks, a little stair going up to the door. In the back there’s a coop with chickens that rumble quietly throughout the day.

Lan Zhan knocks on the doorframe. Takes a step back, then steps back up again. He has been nervous before, but never so physically, never so in his body—shaky, sweaty, sick with it.

He doesn’t expect there to be an answer. He expects no one to be home, or to be ignored. Instead, Wei Ying opens the door. His hair is somewhat wild, up in chunks, matted. He looks like he’s been sick, or in bed all day. There’s bags under his eyes. He’s blank-faced, at first, and then sees Lan Zhan and is brought up short—as if he wants to close the door again. As if he wants to undo the action.

“I thought—” He starts. Realises, tries to comb down the worst of his hair. “I thought you were A-Ning.”

“Ah,” Lan Zhan says, all intelligence. “I am—not.”

Wei Ying gives up on the hair. He’s in a baggy shirt, wide basketball shorts. He’s drowning in cloth. He looks smaller than he is.

“You weren’t at school.”

“No.” It’s all Wei Ying says, and then stares down. A silence stretches, and a grandma totters by slowly, watching them with great interest. Wei Ying notices her, seems indecisive for a moment, then gives an irritable, “Well are you gonna come in or are you just—”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says quickly.

The house bears the marks of sulking: unwashed dishes, windows closed and curtains drawn, a heap of blankets. Lan Zhan stands in the middle of it, uneasy. He came to apologise, and he does not know where to start.

“Well I guess you heard then,” Wei Ying says, flippantly, rummaging at the table: moving things form left to right, not clearing the counter so much as rearranging the mess. “She dumped me, so. So I’m not—I’m single now so I can’t teach you like, anything new or whatever if that’s why you’re—if that’s what you came for. So.”

Lan Zhan sits down, heavily, without intending to. There’s a couch under him. It’s good there’s a couch under him. He says, croakily: “No.” He says, “That’s—not why I’m here.”

Wei Ying throws him a quick glance. He frowns at the table, coughs a laugh at it, says, “No, of course, duh.” Then, on a sigh, “Well I don’t know why you’re here I can’t—like. Entertain you. I’m kind of . . .” He gestures at the room. “I don’t know. Heartbroken or whatever.”

Lan Zhan nods. His eyes prickle. I did this, he thinks again. “I apologise,” he says. And then, for good measure, “Wei Ying. I’m sorry.”

“Huh,” Wei Ying says. He fusses between the kitchen and the bar, clattering things into the sink.

“For my involvement,” Lan Zhan explains.

Wei Ying stops in his movement. His back is to Lan Zhan.

“Perhaps,” Lan Zhan says, voice not as steady as he wants, “she will come around. In time.”

“Hm.” Wei Ying gently puts a bowl on the counter. He takes a breath, says, “You want that for me?”

Lan Zhan digs his hands into his own knees. It helps. He says, as truthfully as he can: “I want the best for you. You deserve . . . the best.”

He sees Wei Ying tilt a look up at the ceiling. Sees the cocking of his jaw from profile, the bob of his throat—up, down. He blinks rapidly, then inhales sharply and says, “Ugh whatever just—” He turns to Lan Zhan. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you at school?”

“You weren’t at school,” Lan Zhan tells him, again, as if that’s answer enough.

Humour passes over Wei Ying’s face. It’s dry, and mirthless. “Right,” he says. And then, a long minute later, “Well I’m not going back to school now so . . .”

Lan Zhan still has his hands at his knees. Still has his back straight. Wei Ying keeps looking at him like he’s an obstacle in the room, something to skip around.

“Are we,” Lan Zhan tries. “Are we still friends?”

Wei Ying nods at the ground. He’s solemn about it. “Yeah, Lan Zhan,” he says. “Sure. Friends. Whatever.”

Lan Zhan never thought he would want to weep at the word whatever. Would want to weep at the sight of a shrug. He should leave now, probably. He should leave Wei Ying alone, stop trying to push for more. It’s what got him here in the first place, he knows. Heartbroken, Wei Ying said he was. Lan Zhan knows the ache well. He should leave.

He stays, rooted. He stays, shaking so lightly it’s like a shiver, a fever.

“So,” Wei Ying says. “What now?”

Lan Zhan looks at him as miserably as he can.

Wei Ying avoids his gaze. He says, “Are you gonna go?”

Lan Zhan shakes his head. Wei Ying says, quiet: “You’re staying?”

Lan Zhan doesn’t say yes. He doesn’t nod. He just doesn’t move—he’s staying. Wei Ying says, “Well I don’t know what to—” He stops, thins his lips. “You wanna like, what, play video games?”

“Okay,” says Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying does look at him, now. Lan Zhan never wants to play video games. It’s been a point of contention for years. He’s always said he doesn’t see the point, the cyclical nature of the narrative, the locked-in feeling of a universe on screen. Wei Ying has always said, Jesus lighten up it’s not that deep, and would play them alone, all flashing lights and pow-bam sounds while Lan Zhan read on the bed.

“Yeah?” Wei Ying says. “Seriously? Are you—? No, okay. Whatever, okay. Video games.”

Wei Ying has a TV installed at the foot of his bed—the mattress tucked into the corner of the living room. There’s a curtain dividing it from the rest of the house, which Wei Ying has left open. The sheets don’t match, and are all wrinkled, rumpled. The pillows are flung sideways. The duvet is shoved to the ground.  

They install themselves on top of it, backs to the low edge of the mattress. It smells like sleep and bodies, here. Like the old shaggy carpet. It’s an old TV, a bulbous-belly one. Wei Ying is on his knees, tugging at wires, reconnecting them. The screen flashes from white noise to a blue block to the glitching menu of a game.

Wei Ying hands him the control. It’s a sticky plastic thing. The letters are worn off the buttons, the rubber tacky. Wei Ying explains to him which button does what from a safe distance—not touching, not leaning in. It’s darker, in this corner, darker with the house shrouded in the late noon light. The TV is the only light, overly bright. It’s some kind of fighting and collecting game, something with magic. Their characters move in parallel boxes, each on his own quest.

Wei Ying is very fast, long fingers quick on his console. His little man scurries about in the game. He’s kept a gap between him and Lan Zhan, and it feels deeply unfamiliar to sit so far apart. On the screen, Lan Zhan idles, and idles, and idles.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying tells him, eyes fixed ahead. “You gotta do something, you can’t just stand there. Go go go.”

Lan Zhan takes one pixelated step forward. Wei Ying is sitting with his knees drawn up, wide, the hems of his shorts pooled down his thighs.

“You just gonna stand there??” Wei Ying says, and rushes at some monster animal, shooting rays to kill it.

Lan Zhan attempts. He’s distracted, and slow, and the muddled fog is returning, he feels. He came here clear headed, with a purpose. He’s forgot what that purpose was, now. He’s forgot half of who he is. This is what he becomes, in the nearness of Wei Ying—single-minded, loyal only to the next moment when Wei Ying’s elbow might brush his.

He puts down the console and gets up and Wei Ying says, “What—” And Lan Zhan says, “Water,” and goes to the kitchen to get water. He fills a glass. He stands at the counter, hands gripping the edge of the sink, and breathes down at himself.

Back at school, kids are running a lap, doing jumping jacks, climbing ropes, palms sore.

Lan Zhan watches Wei Ying play in the dim corner, for a while. His water glass sweats in his hand. When he sits down again, he sits closer, arm pressed to Wei Ying’s.

Wei Ying falters a moment. An a sharp inhale, but he keeps on playing. Lan Zhan doesn’t pick up his console again. He doesn’t see the point. He watches Wei Ying play, instead, feels the shifting muscles of his arm, the heat of him, close. He’s stealing moments. He’s cheating, he’s—

“Can you,” Wei Ying says, strained, “stop looking at me?”

Lan Zhan has been looking at him. He tilts, slumps into Wei Ying: forehead to Wei Ying’s bony shoulder. This is how he stops himself from staring—getting closer. Hiding himself in Wei Ying.

“Lan Zhan, ah—”

“Sorry,” Lan Zhan says. It comes out dark and slurred. He might be drunk, he could be. He thinks this is what drunk is probably like. “‘M sorry.”

There’s still the cheery music coming from the TV. The umf’s and ah!’s of the character walking, trying to pick up something. Wei Ying’s hands slow in movement, then stop altogether. Lan Zhan is rubbing his face to his sleeve.

“Lan Zhan . . .” he whispers. It’s uncertain, question-shaped.

Lan Zhan only mouths his reply, soundless: please. He presses his lips to the edge of the shirt’s collar, half over skin. Wei Ying shudders, a full-body thing. Lan Zhan shapes the words to the crook of his neck: I want you. He asks: Can I have you?

It’s the most selfish thing he’s ever said, not-said. Wei Ying’s breathing is audible, and his throat works and he asks, “What are you—saying—”

Lan Zhan sucks over the fading hickey. Come back, is what he wants from it. Wei Ying drops the console, hand shooting up to Lan Zhan’s head—a reflex, holding him in place. He hisses. He says Lan Zhan’s name, again, and Lan Zhan puts the soft ridge of his teeth to his skin. He leans closer, closer still, and Wei Ying moves—tilts his neck, gives more. The TV babbles on in an inane loop. Lan Zhan grabs Wei Ying’s shirt, pulls. Puts his hand under it, spans skin, is greedy for it—the warmth, the memory. Wei Ying is shaking under his touch. He’s all raised goose bumps, pushing up into Lan Zhan’s hand.

The word necking comes to Lan Zhan, silly and unbidden—something kids in movies do. Horny and aimless. Jack and Janet sitting in a car. Let’s go down to the Kissing Lake. But now, here, in the damp heat he’s made of Wei Ying’s skin, he wonders how anyone does anything but this—just this, for all of times. Sucking, kissing. The way Wei Ying gasps, a high little sound, a curse. Lan Zhan, he says, over and over, one long word: LanZhan-a-Zhan-Lan-Zhan-Lan-Zhan-Lan—

He slides his hand down Wei Ying’s belly, the trail of hair, the elastic of his shorts. He pauses. Hesitates. Wei Ying’s hand comes up to cover his.

Lan Zhan comes up from his hiding place, only a little. He finds Wei Ying’s mouth an inch from his. He finds the rest of Wei Ying blurry, but makes out: that his eyes are dark, and his cheeks are dark, and his lips wet. He asks Lan Zhan, “Are you sure?”

Lan Zhan answers with a pant of a breath. He says, “Yes.”

“Are you sure? Really? I don’t—I want you to—”

“I’m sure,” Lan Zhan says, and reaches into Wei Ying’s shorts—finds him fully hard, leaking. He groans, bites at Wei Ying’s jaw, and then they’re kissing, open-mouthed and clumsy. The back of Lan Zhan’s mind gives a faint thud of an echo, the neon-light shape of Wei Ying’s words, I’m heartbroken. He pushes it away. Wei Ying asked him if he was sure, and he was sure. Heartbroken people need comfort, he knows, and if this is comfort, he will give it. He is a selfish man, he is quickly finding out, and he is greedy, and he will take whatever he is given. Give whatever he is asked.

Wei Ying says, “Wait wait wait wait—” And pushes him off for a terrifying single second, and then he is on Lan Zhan again, straddling his lap, leaning back into the kiss with a satisfied Mmmmm. His cock is out, trapped in the elastic of his briefs, obvious and hard between them—pushed into Lan Zhan’s belly. The fabric of his shirt. Lan Zhan has his hands down the back of Wei Ying’s shorts, kneading. Pulling him in in waves: rocking forward, rocking backwards. Forward, backwards.

“Fuck, fuck,” Wei Ying says, straight into Lan Zhan’s mouth. “Fuck you’re hot. Do you know how hot you are? You don’t, you don’t, do you wanna, Lan Zhan do you wanna, do you wanna—”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says. And then, retroactively, “Do what?”

Wei Ying moans into the kiss and doesn’t reply for a while. He’s speeding up, and Lan Zhan thinks Wei Ying’s going to come, like that, pushing his cock against him like that, but then he slows down and says a whispered: “On the bed, on it, do you wanna, ah—”

Lan Zhan doesn’t know his own movements, how he gets from A to B, only that he does: that he hoists Wei Ying up on the mattress, that Wei Ying crawls backwards and pulls him along. That they make out like that, for a while, rutting, rubbing together. That Lan Zhan wants to touch him, and so he does: strokes him for a while, pinches his sides, his nipples. Wei Ying’s shirt is rucked all the way up under his arms.

Then Wei Ying twists under him, reaches for something under the makeshift banana-crate bedside table. Pushes it into Lan Zhan’s hand, then lies back down, a dark blotchy blush down his cheeks. His eyes are wide. Lan Zhan looks at the lube, then at him. Back at the lube.

“No? Okay no never mind,” Wei Ying babbles. “Stupid stupid idea never mind just give it back I’ll—”

Lan Zhan holds it out of his reach. He leans down, pushes his forehead to Wei Ying’s. Stays there, a moment. He has his eyes closed. He needs his eyes closed, for this.

“What,” he says. His voice sounds like it’s been pulled through sand. “Do you want?”

“I dunno, just . . .” Wei Ying squirms, tries to get at him. Kiss him. Lan Zhan won’t let him. Wei Ying huffs, says, “Can we—I dunno. Can we fuck?”

Lan Zhan drops back down, back into Wei Ying’s throat. He pushes his hips to Wei Ying’s. He nods. Wei Ying nods as well, pushes up as well, tries to get Lan Zhan to look at him as he says, “Yeah?” And, “Yeah?”

“Mm” Lan Zhan manages, just about, bites his chin, his nose, his earlobe. Kisses him, frenzied now. They need to slow down. He’ll come soon, if they don’t slow down.

He pulls away to get his shirt off, to get the lube on his fingers. Wei Ying is left with his legs a wide bracket around Lan Zhan’s, shoulders to the mattress, staring up at Lan Zhan with a puffed mouth—open. He hitches up, aborted, uncontrolled thrusts. He’s leaking onto his belly. It’s a debauched sight, it’s ungodly. It makes Lan Zhan’s gut tighten with want, with a hunger so sharp it almost feels like anger.

Wei Ying gives a high Ah! when Lan Zhan works his shorts off, his briefs, legs a tangle between them. Everything breaks into fragments, after that, over-sharp, over-lit. Too much to process at once. Lan Zhan’s wet fingers sliding between the heat of Wei Ying’s cheeks; Wei Ying’s mouth pressed to his temple saying, “I’ve—done it, before, on my own, so you can just, please just—”; the sound of it, the first push in, the suction on the way out; Wei Ying saying, “Ah—ah, baby, slow—ah—slow down, mmm—”; Wei Ying’s eyes rolling back, Wei Ying riding his fingers, Wei Ying hair sticking to his sweaty face. Wei Ying breathing into his mouth: “Put it in me, put it in—god it’s gonna—it’s gonna feel so good, please, please—”

Neither of them last very long. They go slow, at first. Lan Zhan moving over him, an awed and syrupy roll of his body. Wei Ying is wide-eyed, breathless, holding on. He keeps saying, “You’re so big,” and, “You’re inside me,” and, “You’re so—big, god, it feels—”

“Do you like it?” Lan Zhan asks. The words are all glued together, barely shaped. It’s a fantasy pulled from the depths of him, from nights alone, from blurry porn and wet dreams and— “Does Wei Ying like being full?”

Wei Ying gulps, at that, a full-body jerk—onto Lan Zhan’s cock, up against him, seeking friction, and he says, “Jesus fuck okay ah—” and it all goes very fast, from that point on. Lan Zhan keeps talking, now that it’s happened. “Look at you,” he says, pulling back to look at Wei Ying. Look at where they’re joined—the shiny skin of Wei Ying’s thighs, the stretched rim. The impossibility of how much it’s taking. “Look at you,” he says. “So good,” pulling Wei Ying onto him, again and again. “So good at taking it.”

“Uh-huh,” is Wei Ying’s answer, out of it, nodding with a whine in his throat. His hands are fists in the sheets, lap in Lan Zhan’s, the rest of him a long stretch of chest—of skin. He’s covered in the marks Lan Zhan has left on him, just a few days ago, small yellowing bruises. Lan Zhan holds him up with two hands, touches him. Wei Ying sob, and sobs, and says, “I’m gonna—I’m—” And comes, a shaking apart. It goes on. He grabs on to Lan Zhan’s back, nails into skin, and doesn’t let go for a while.

After, he makes Lan Zhan come with his hand, sucking on his earlobe. He gets it all over his stomach, his thighs. Lan Zhan is turned inside out. He floats, for a while, buzzing skin, a wide and gaping affection—fish on land. He can only kiss whatever bit of Wei Ying is near. Can only grab at him, weakly, keep him close.

They doze. They wake up. They move to the other end of the mattress. Kiss, doze. Lan Zhan cleans them up at some indeterminate point, a wet wipe. Wei Ying is loose and naked and half asleep under him going, “Mmm so kind.” It’s the height of Lan Zhan’s life.

Next time he wakes up, the bed is empty, the heat of Wei Ying’s body still caught in the sheets, in the mattress. The day has darkened by degrees. Lan Zhan peers past the curtain, into the house. Wei Ying is in the kitchen, doing something. He’s got his t-shirt on backwards. There’s a cartoon sunshine on it, wearing sunglasses, throwing up a peace sign. It’s the shirt he’d worn the day he got drunk and passed out on Lan Zhan’s couch. The day he’d called Lan Zhan beautiful.

Lan Zhan searches for his own shirt, his briefs. The movement of Lan Zhan dressing gets Wei Ying’s attention, and he looks over his shoulder. He does something shy: eyes skittering off, face flushed, mouth twisted. Lan Zhan goes to him, gets up behind him, wraps himself around Wei Ying—breathes in. Wei Ying’s hello is a stuttered breath, a laugh. Lan Zhan holds him tight-tight, a moment, hands under the gaping fall of shirt, roaming. The papery sound of dry warm skin. He loosens his hold so Wei Ying can breathe. Wei Ying is making sandwiches. Lan Zhan’s heart is over-full, happy and sad, both at once.

“Are you hungry?” Wei Ying asks, head turned, nose brushing Lan Zhan’s.

“Mm,” Lan Zhan says. He kisses his cheek.

“Is that a yes? What is that? Are you hungry? You have to be hungry, we haven’t eaten in forever, you should eat, it’s good to ah—”

Lan Zhan bites the back of his neck. Wei Ying laughs, says, “You can’t eat me,” and Lan Zhan makes a sound like he disagrees. Feeling bold, feeling woozy and high and still aroused, he puts his hand over Wei Ying’s ass. Kneads at it, feels its shape. The knife clatters out of Wei Ying’s hand, and he leans forward over the counter, holding himself up. “Lan Zhan,” he says, quiet and shocked. “It’s the kitchen.” Like that’s the line he’s drawn for himself: not in the kitchen.

“It’s the kitchen,” Lan Zhan agrees, and feels at Wei Ying through the fabric of his underwear: where he’s left damp, puffy. Open. Wei Ying exhales in a quick, ha-ah-ah, followed by a hissed, “Shit.” Lan Zhan won’t let an inch between them—all of him pressed to Wei Ying’s back. He circles his fingers, circles. The leftover lube soaks through. Wei Ying says, “You—ngh, can’t—do that, Lan Zhan, it’s embarrassing, don’t—”

Lan Zhan pulls his underwear down a little, gets in his hand in. He wants the evidence. He wants the reminder. He doesn’t want to forget that it happened, that it was real. Wei Ying is scorching hot, there, swollen, lets Lan Zhan’s fingers in easily. Lan Zhan presses his nose to the back of Wei Ying’s head, kisses him over his hair—the thick of it, the matted mess of it. Wei Ying moves like they’re fucking again: rolling, shaking.

“Is it,” he starts asking, then doesn’t finish his thought. Lan Zhan hums at him, urging. Wei Ying sucks in a sound. He says, “Is it loose? It feels so—ah, open. Like, ah, Lan Zhan, like you could—slip inside, if you—”

They don’t eat the sandwich. They barely make it back to the bed. Lan Zhan gets the head of his cock in with Wei Ying bent over the kitchen counter, but they need more lube, Wei Ying wound up as he is, squirming as he is. They both get on their knees, this time, the mattress’ springs dipping under them. Wei Ying complains that he’s sore, that he can’t, he can’t again, but every time Lan Zhan tries to slow down or pull away he says, “No no no no no no—” and pulls him back, gets down on his chest. Widens his legs, ass up.

They go at a neck-break speed, at first. Lan Zhan’s hands bruising on Wei Ying’s hips, Wei Ying whining through a single-toned moan the whole time. His face is pressed to the sheets, his spine is curved in. Lan Zhan can barely breathe, looking at him. And then the tide of it breaks, somehow, and Lan Zhan drapes himself over Wei Ying, and they find a new rhythm: deeper, quieter. It punches gasps from both of them. It’s so, so good. Wei Ying sucks on Lan Zhan’s fingers, noses at his palm. Calls him sweetheart, asks him to come inside him.

Lan Zhan commands, helpless to it.

Afterwards, Lan Zhan hides his face in Wei Ying’s belly for a long time, catching his breath. Gathering himself, trying not to spill over with love. Wei Ying speaks in low tones, words that Lan Zhan can barely make out, enjoying the bass of them. Wei Ying pushes fingers through Lan Zhan’s hair, petting him. Tugging at him, occasionally, affectionate.

They roll around. They kiss. Everything is tangled, legs and arms. Then Wei Ying goes wide-eyed, realising something. The blush rises to the surface again, a humming shade under the brown of his cheeks. He looks down at themselves, their knotted embrace, and away. Looks at Lan Zhan, away.

“What?” Lan Zhan asks. He feels like he’s smiling. He’s not sure of he’s smiling.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, quiet between them. “Lan Zhan. You’re naked. You’re so naked.”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan agrees. Says, “I don’t mean to alarm you. But so are you.”

Wei Ying puts his hands over Lan Zhan’s eyes. Lan Zhan has a fun time peeling them off, kissing his wrists. His arms, the crook of his elbow. He stays there, with the thin, soft skin. He noses at it, nips at it. Wei Ying laughs a little, and Lan Zhan hums the question again: what? And Wei Ying says, “It’s . . . weird, when you do that.”

“Weird how?” Lan Zhan asks, making his way back up to Wei Ying’s mouth.

“Like I’m your . . .” Wei Ying lets him kiss his bottom lip, his upper lip. Says: “Like you’re sweet on me or something.”

“Aren’t I?” Lan Zhan asks, heart hammering.

“Shut up,” Wei Ying says, and kisses him. “Shut up,” and kisses him more, harder.

He has to leave, eventually. Evening has fallen and Wen Qionglin will be back from his shift soon and Wei Ying keeps saying: “He’ll flip if he sees us like this, he’ll flip,” but doesn’t let go of Lan Zhan, all the same. They manage to dress, at some point. They manage to eat, too. They get distracted: on the couch, Wei Ying on his back, Lan Zhan over him, between his legs, in his neck. Lan Zhan already has his shoes on. He was ready to go.

“Aiyah,” Wei Ying says, weakly pushing at Lan Zhan’s face. “Aren’t I bruised enough? I’m all—I’m all—mmm—”

They make out for a long time against the doorpost. Mouths numb, by now: they’ve been at it all day. Wei Ying says, “Go,” and then reels him back in.

“I will see you tomorrow?” Lan Zhan asks. Wei Ying nods, thumb stroking the cartilage of Lan Zhan’s ear. “You will come to school?” Lan Zhan adds, and Wei Ying says yes against his lips. The last kiss is a three-point punctuation, noisy, turning Lan Zhan’s heart in a loop.

He pulls away with difficultly. He turns to look at Wei Ying, a few steps from the doorway. It’s dark out, the light from the streetlights, from inside the homes, casting everything in a glow. He says, “I hope . . .” He says: “I hope Wei Ying is less heartbroken. That it—” He swallows. “Helped.”

Wei Ying, who’s looked so soft, visibly tightens at that. He frowns. “Helped?”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, and he’s embarrassed, now. Embarrassed to have spoken the thought aloud, to have given it this shape. After everything they’ve done, this is what gets him abashed. He tilts his head down, says, “Good night, Wei Ying,” and leaves.

There’s a heat all down his spine that stays with him the full ride back. His body aches, sore, over-worked. He showers and it feels good. He eats and it tastes good. He thinks of Wei Ying and his stomach goes round and round and around.

Before sleep, he texts Wei Ying a heart. A single heart, big and red.

He waits for a reply.

It doesn’t come.

Chapter Text

6.

The sun is not up yet when Lan Zhan wakes up. Morning is the colour of a thistle, a pale strip along the horizon. There is one star left and it blinks lazily over the top of a pine tree. Lan Zhan stands before the mirror and tallies up the evidence: the shape of Wei Ying’s fingers over his hip, red trails up his back. The stamp of a mouth over his collar. He is within his body, in it, fresh and new and close to the surface.

On the way to school the crisp morning air makes his breaths into clouds. He takes a moment, tampers a smile.

He waits at the entrance for Wei Ying. The school population swarms around him, funneling into the mouth of the building. Wei Ying is five minutes late, biking fast, out of breath. A wind picks up. From behind the woods, the sky has turned a bruised colour—a storm shrugging up to take seat.

Lan Zhan comes to meet him halfway down the path. The first autumn leaves skitter over the gravel and are tossed around them. Wei Ying has a sheen of sweat over him, skin tight, plastic-wrapped. He still looks like he hasn’t slept. Lan Zhan means to walk up to him, greet him with a kiss, a touch. Wei Ying takes a step back, then a babble of words, a, “Ah Lan Zhan it’s late, we’re late, come on come on—”

He walks briskly into school. Lan Zhan follows, wrong-footed. He tries to catch Wei Ying’s eye. Wei Ying ignores it. He needs to get his books from his locker, and Lan Zhan insists on waiting for him, and Wei Ying says, “No you’re already late because of me go go go don’t wait.”

But Lan Zhan waits, worrying at a sand grain of dread.

The storm unfolds over the school during class. It’s a sudden rush of heavy rain, loud, clattering on the roof. All the students look up in unison. Someone says, “Whoa.” The wind makes the sash of the one open window clatter down and there’s a teeter of nervous laughter in response. Lan Zhan sits behind Wei Ying and stares at the back of his head, which is bent down. He doesn’t look up when the rest does, doesn’t react when the teacher asks everyone to quiet down. His pen is on his notebook, unmoving.

The grain of sand grows, grows. An egg at the base of his throat.

Evie finds them on the walk between one class and the next. She says, “Hey,” flat, and opens her bag—takes out a handful of things, gives them to Wei Ying. One of his sweaters, a poetry book. There’s papers stuffed into the cover, a wad of them: Wei Ying’s handwriting. Love letter he’s written to her, notes he’d passed her in class.

Wei Ying says, “Oh,” and stands there, arms full. He looks miserable. He looks like he’s about to cry, watching Evie walk away. A quick tremor to his chin.

A grain, an egg. A fist of a thing, expanding.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, and tries to help him by taking some items off of him. Wei Ying was dazed and now snaps back into attention, moves away and says, “No just—let me—”

Lan Zhan’s hands fall away. He straightens, smooths out his expression. A fist of a thing, the width of a brick. The weight of one. Everything was different yesterday, and he doesn’t know what has changed in the meanwhile. On his phone, the big-heart emoji still thumps on, alone, unanswered.

“God,” Wei Ying says. “I just—need a second, okay. Just give me a . . .” He trails off, eyes flitting to the end of the corridor—where Evie just turned, disappeared.

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says. “Right.”

Wei Ying looks at him, registers something. Starts to say something, stops, grunts, frustrated. Says, “Just—! Just—”

“It’s fine,” says Lan Zhan.

“I’m gonna put this away.” Wei Ying nods at the stuff. And then, “Don’t—come after. I need . . .”

“A second,” Lan Zhan finishes for him. “I understand.”

“Okay,” Wei Ying says. He sounds unhappy. Looks unhappy. He walks away with his backpack slung over one shoulder, half open, the other strap hanging low, brushing the floor. The laces of his one shoe have come undone. Lan Zhan only wants to follow, wants nothing else but to follow: close Wei Ying’s bag for him, tie his laces for him.

Don’t, Wei Ying told him, so he doesn’t. Instead he gently thumps his forehead to someone’s locker, three times in a row. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles.

Wei Ying disappears during lunch. The whole school collects at the windows, watching the storm pass over the yard—the bending of the trees, the flattened grass. At the edge of the woods, one tree is felled, falls over. Everyone goes, “Oooooh!”

No one can focus during chemistry. Everyone is on news sites, following the progression of the storm. The teacher is exasperated, calling them to attention again and again. One girl keeps on updating the class: trains have been cancelled! The bridge is blocked off!

Lan Zhan is paired up with Wei Ying to write up the formula of a reaction. They work in silence, Wei Ying wrapped in a prickly cloak, leaning away, mouth pressed closed. Lan Zhan can’t breathe, passes a note saying: Are you upset with me?, which Wei Ying reads and quickly shakes his head to, eyes down—he crumples the paper, shoves it in his pocket.

Lan Zhan tears off a piece of paper by folding a line, pressing down with his nail, pulling carefully. He writes: Tell me what I did.

Wei Ying looks at the paper on the table, pushed into the space between them. He’s a coiled spring, a pressure cooker. He licks his lips, then starts to shove out of his lab coat. Lan Zhan watches him, eyes wide. Wei Ying tosses his coat aside and leaves, and someone says, “Hey why does he get to—!” and the teacher says, “Wei—Wei Wuxian, come—!” and Wei Ying leaves the door wide open behind him.

Lan Zhan is on his feet, struggling out of his coat, too. “Mister Lan,” the teacher says, and Lan Zhan only gives a gruff, “Apologies,” on passing, and gives chase. Wei Ying is running, disappearing down the corridor.

Lan Zhan catches up just in time to see him push out into windy courtyard. He shouts, “Wei Ying!” but a harsh gale steals the words from him. Wei Ying doesn’t even hear. He’s blown sideways, walks against the push of it, hair a wild dance. He’s making for his bike.

Lan Zhan goes after him. Wei Ying notices, a glance over his shoulder, and hurries: unlocks his bike, gets on it. Lan Zhan tries to think through the blood in his ears, through the squeeze of his heart. The rain hisses back to life, falling plum-heavy, painting the green a brighter shade—the concrete benches a dove-grey dark. Lan Zhan has to wipe at his face to see Wei Ying up on his pedals, tires fast on the gravel, making his way into the wooded path. The trees sway, sway.

Lan Zhan says, “Fuck.” He thinks it twice more. He moves. His hands are slippery on the car keys, on the door handle. The car doesn’t come alive quickly enough, and he grunts at it, impatient. The wipers can’t go fast enough, and everything is blurry around him, the rah-tat-tat of rain on metal.

He catches up with Wei Ying deep enough into the road that the school is invisible behind the trees. Ahead of them is only the next turn of the tarmac, the intimidating stand of the evergreens. Wei Ying can barely get an inch forward, against the wind, pushing and pushing and eventually giving up: throwing his bike aside, a gesture like he’s groaning. He tilts his face back, covers it with his arms. His chest heaves. He’s soaking. The wind pushes the fabric of his shirt against his skin—he’s not even grabbed his jacket, on his way out. Not even his bag.

Lan Zhan pulls the car to a halt next to him. Wei Ying notes this and doesn’t move: doesn’t remove his arms from his face, doesn’t move. The storm whistles on. Lan Zhan leans over, opens the door.  

“Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying’s body stutters around a movement. He’s laughing, or crying. Lan Zhan can’t tell which one.

“Wei Ying. Get in.”

Wei Ying looks away.

“Get in,” Lan Zhan says, teeth clenched, and Wei Ying sucks in an angry sound and walks away a step and then walks back and gets in the car, slams the door. Crying, then, Lan Zhan decides. He’s teary-eyed, a warped grimace—a muscle jumping in his cheek. He’s trying to smile, it’s not working. His hair is plastered down. He’s shivering, teeth chattering, and he’s saying, “Can’t a man get a second to himself, I mean goddamn Lan Zhan, can’t you just—”

“You would rather endanger yourself,” Lan Zhan cuts in, and he’s seething, is all anger and heartbreak and confusion, “than talk to me.”

“Endanger!” Wei Ying repeats the word like it’s ridiculous. Ahead, a tree gives a dangerous creak, and somewhere in the woods something clatters. More thunder. Wei Ying’s fake-smiling expression falters.

“Wei Ying,” he says. Breathes. Again, now, he keeps his hands on the wheel. “Let us just say it and be done with it.”

Wei Ying huffs a laugh, high in his chest. “Yeah,” he says, shivering still. “Yeah. Okay then. Okay. Go on then.”

“I understand,” he says, and it gets stuck in his throat so he has to start again. The car smells like rain, like wet clothes. “I understand if—you regret. What we did. I have not—” He bites his lips. “I have not been a good friend. I stood in your way, when you— With Evie. I did not let you . . .” That part he cannot say out loud, he finds: I did not let you love someone else. I kept you to myself. Instead he says, “But I believe that she cares for you. Genuinely. And if you try, again, I think she will be amenable. And I will not stand in your way. I will not get—” A grain, an egg, a fist and a brick— “Involved.”

There is silence, for a while. Lan Zhan stares at his hands on the wheel, knuckles-white, clenched. The only sound is the storm. The only sound is Wei Ying’s shivering breaths. He can feel Wei Ying staring at him, can feel the cogs of thoughts, can feel him gearing up.

“I—” It comes out as a puff. A quick intake, the start of a sob. “What? I don’t want her back.”

Lan Zhan’s head snaps up. Wei Ying looks miserable—confused, soaked, weepy. Lost. Lan Zhan loves him so much.

“I don’t understand. Then what. What do you—?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Wei Ying asks. “Isn’t it obvious? God. Isn’t it?”

“No,” Lan Zhan says. “Not to me. No.”

“I want—” Another sob, which he hides with his sleeve, pressing it to his eyes. Lan Zhan wants to touch him. He waits. Wei Ying looks up again, says, “I want what—we did, that. I want that, and also, more, and I want you to look at me, all the time I want you to look at me and I’m losing my mind because I don’t know what you—if you’re—”

“What.” Lan Zhan can feel his heartbeat in his teeth. “If I’m what?”

“I don’t know. If you’re doing whatever. If you’re just really horny and trying out shit and I was, like, offering for you to . . .”

“Wei Ying,” he manages, just about. It’s a broken croak. The rest comes out in a tumble from the depths of him: “I’m gay. I’m—mad about you.”

Wei Ying looks at him. Looks and looks. The tears have stopped for now. He is blank-faced. Eventually, he says, “You’re—what?”

“I love you,” Lan Zhan says.

Wei Ying gets out the car. He shouts something that Lan Zhan can’t hear over the rain. He paces around, and Lan Zhan calls him back in, and his brain is behind five steps, and he’s not sure what has just been said, or not.

“Wei Ying!” He’s sure his face is all flush, bright red. It feels like it is. “Get back in the car!”

Wei Ying gets back in the car, panting. He’s quiet, for a beat, and then turns to Lan Zhan—punches his arm, not hard, but all the same. Lan Zhan’s hand shoots up to the sore spot. “Ow,” he says.

“You’re an asshole,” Wei Ying tells him. He’s still out of breath. “Why would you say that?”

“It’s the truth,” Lan Zhan says, outraged and confused and a skittering heart, a fledgeling hope, and the need to say it again now that it’s out, now it’s been said: “I love you. I’ve been—”

“Oh my god shut up,” Wei Ying says, and puts a hand over Lan Zhan’s mouth, and moves—out of his seat, scrambling closer, babbling, “Shut up shut up shut up—” He meets Lan Zhan halfway, pulling him in, removing his hand to kiss him: wet and clumsy and mostly teeth, clattering. Lan Zhan grabs his face with two trembling hands. He wants to kiss nicely and he can’t; he wants to do it right, and he can’t. They breathe into each other, slip against each other, and Wei Ying talks and talks, saying, “How am I going to live with you, oh god, I love you, ugh, this is, terrible oh god I—”

They somehow get Wei Ying up into his lap. His head hits the roof, and he bends down, and Lan Zhan doesn’t know how to touch him first: wet clothes and wet jeans and a dear face, a dear mouth. He’s getting Lan Zhan wet, too. His skin is cold when Lan Zhan gets his hands on him, but he warms quickly, face hidden in Lan Zhan’s neck.

“You’re my best friend,” he tells Lan Zhan, muffled. Lan Zhan presses his fingers into the knobs of his spine. He’s still so wound up, his body still caught up in the fear of it all while his heart has already gone wide, has cracked right open. Wei Ying tells him: “You’re so good. I can’t—”

“You did not know,” Lan Zhan says, though he means it as a question. He means it to wonder: was I not obvious? Have I not always been obvious? But Wei Ying misunderstands, comes out of the crook of Lan Zhan’s neck, answers—

“I never know anything, Lan Zhan, you know this, you know I never know, and then you kissed me and you were so good and I liked it so much and I couldn’t sleep or eat or—”

They’re kissing. It happens between one word and the next. It’s less of a mess, this time, but still fast, still like they’re drinking—like they’re parched. Wei Ying’s mouth has a heat to it, a taste, a shape. Familiar, now. The knowledge zings through Lan Zhan, a lick of possessive arousal. Wei Ying had said, I love you, and then said, this is terrible, like a smile. Like a pin’s head through skin.

Lan Zhan squeezes his waist, pinches. Cups Wei Ying’s ass, all rough jeans, digs his fingers in. Wei Ying’s mouth goes slack round Lan Zhan’s tongue. “When you do that . . .” he starts, trails off, pushing into the touch. It’s clear, anyway, what he means—how his eyes turn glazed, heavy-lidded. How his breath goes shallow.

They rub together without finesse, without space to move in. Lan Zhan keeps him close. Wei Ying says, “We should—go somewhere. God. We should . . .”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says. “We should.”

They kiss instead. Wei Ying says, “Ugh baby I’m getting you all wet, I’m dripping all over—ugh, your car, your poor car, I’m—”

“Do not care,” Lan Zhan tells him, from the bottom of his heart. Wei Ying laughs, calls him a fool, and a careless rich man, and presses his lips to Lan Zhan’s brows, the dot below his eyes.

“We should go,” Wei Ying says, at the join of Lan Zhan’s jaw, and Lan Zhan grinds up against him in answer, and then the wind howls up and a branch falls into the underbrush and startles them both—Wei Ying bangs against the ceiling again, and his knee bumps on the gears, and Lan Zhan stills them both. Wei Ying laughs through the pain, playing up how much it hurts, pouting and getting Lan Zhan to soothe him—pass his hands over the stop of Wei Ying’s head. His knee.

“We should go,” Lan Zhan says, sadly, so sadly that it makes Wei Ying laugh more. He’s so bright, now. He was miserable, and now he is so bright, and Lan Zhan decides that it’s his job, from now on, to attend to this brightness, this shine.

They get Wei Ying back in his seat. Lan Zhan asks, “Should I—drive you home?” He does not consider going back to school.

“Can we go to yours?” Wei Ying asks. “Is that okay? Can we go to yours?”

No one’s at home right now. There’s the whole house just for them. Lan Zhan swallows, says, “We can go to mine.”

Wei Ying nods and pushes himself into the corner of the car door, away, to put some momentary distance between them but he’s sucking on his lips and is staring at Lan Zhan’s mouth and Lan Zhan has to drive very slowly. There’s a storm, and the roads are slippery, and the trees dangerous, and his mind is a high-pitched horny loop of half-formed images of fucking. Wei Ying is right there, the heat of him in damp clothes fogging up the car windows.

They don’t say much, during the drive. Wei Ying asks, once, “Your brother’s not home, is he?” To which Lan Zhan says, “No,” and then Wei Ying says, “Okay cool,” and adjusts the clinging fabric at his thigh. His crotch. Lan Zhan considers parking the car in an empty lot. Considers leaning over and putting his mouth on Wei Ying, just like that. When he glances he can see the bulge in his jeans, the strain of his zip.

At the house, Wei Ying barely waits for the car to stop before he’s out, impatient, bouncing on his toes. He as good as drags Lan Zhan down the path, plasters close when Lan Zhan fiddles with the keys, and the moment they’re inside it’s a blur: Wei Ying pushing up against him, a half kiss, Lan Zhan telling him wait, telling him he needs to get out of his wet clothes or he’ll catch a cold and Wei Ying attempts to take off his shirt right there: nervous laughing in the darkened hallway, pressed up between a bulk of winter coats.

Lan Zhan stops him, says, “Wei Ying. Let me take you upstairs.”

Wei Ying lets go of the hem of his shirt. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, yeah, take me—take me upstairs, okay.”

In Lan Zhan’s room, with the curtains drawn and the stormy daylight filtering in grey and milky, Wei Ying stands shirtless before him. Lan Zhan rubs his hands over Wei Ying’s bare arms. His skin is raised in goose bumps. He’s still shivering. The frenzy has simmered into something quieter, now. Shier. Lan Zhan asks, “Do you want to shower, first? You’re cold.”

Wei Ying shakes his head. “You should warm me up,” he says. And then laughs at himself, anxious. “That sounds dumb, forget that, just, please—” He huddles close, into Lan Zhan’s body, to be held. To be touched.

Lan Zhan touches him. Flat-palmed, fingers fanned over his back, his spine, his shoulders. The back of his neck. Wei Ying gives a small sound, held behind closed lips. He arches. He whispers into Lan Zhan’s collarbone: “So you really like me.”

“Mm.”

“Mad about me.”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Years,” Lan Zhan says. It’s the truth, after all.

Wei Ying looks up at him. His mouth is open on a small O. He says, “Oh no.” Shakes his head, says, “Oh no, no no.”

Lan Zhan holds him by the neck. Kisses him, briefly. Says, “It’s all right.”

“It’s not,” Wei Ying says. He sounds upset about it. “You were—and I—?”

“Wei Ying. It’s fine.”

“But,” Wei Ying says. His hands are fists in Lan Zhan’s shirt. He says, “Lan Zhan. Let’s get into bed, Lan Zhan, can we get into bed? I want—I want you—”

They get into bed. They need all hands to peel Wei Ying’s wet jeans off of him, and it’s not easy, not with Wei Ying unwilling to let him go—wanting to touch him, keep him close, rubbing his face to Lan Zhan’s cheek and neck and chest. Lan Zhan wraps his blanket around the both of them, sat up against the headboard, Wei Ying in his lap. They’re in their underwear, still, slow about it. Wei Ying circles his hips like he’s trying it out for the first time. He’s feeling out Lan Zhan’s shoulders, his arms. He speaks in low and unfinished sentences: “I don’t—I hate that—you were alone, I don’t like—I don’t like that—”

“I wasn’t alone. I was always with you.”

Wei Ying shudders a breath. His forehead is pressed to Lan Zhan’s. His mouth is open over Lan Zhan’s. The plump of his ass is grinding over Lan Zhan’s cock, unfaltering.

Lan Zhan pulls him closer, presses their chests together. He says, “What about—” And thinks maybe he shouldn’t, maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. He says it anyway: “Evie?”

Wei Ying groans, an embarrassed sound. He wraps his arms around Lan Zhan. Brushes their noses together. He says, “I don’t know, that was, I was—I was all—” They breathe together, a moment. Wei Ying isn’t going anywhere. He doesn’t stop moving. He adds, quietly: “I had a story in my head. It wasn’t the right story.”

Lan Zhan closes his eyes. “And this?”

“It’s good,” Wei Ying whispers. He grinds down faster. “It’s perfect.”

Later, when Lan Zhan is inside him—Wei Ying’s knees splayed wide on either side of Lan Zhan, his inner thighs slick and shiny with lube, a hot blotching flush up his mottled chest—Wei Ying says: “Can I stay here? Can I live here?”

It’s the moment in-between: it took a second for Wei Ying to be able to settle all the way down, get all of Lan Zhan in him, and now they’re waiting, a beat. Adjusting. Lan Zhan’s reply is more a rumble of bass than words: “On my dick?”

It gets a puff of amusement from Wei Ying. He nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Yes. Just—every day. I want . . .” He’s unfocussed, eyes glazed over. He reaches back to feel—where they’re joined. The stretch of him around Lan Zhan. His hands are hot, slippery. Lan Zhan groans, cock twitching. He digs his hands into Wei Ying’s thighs, hides a curse into Wei Ying’s chest.

“Move,” Wei Ying says. “Baby, sweetheart, move, move, you can, I want you to—”

The storm works its way up to a crescendo. A muted flash of lightning throws everything into deep shadows: the table, the desk, the bed. The two of them, writhing shapes on the bed, wrapped in each other.

When Lan Zhan wakes up, it’s because Wei Ying is awake, leaned over him, tracing a finger down the line of his nose, over the rise of his lips. He comes into focus, soft-faced, and Lan Zhan takes a breath—sheds his sleep and falls a clumsy step deeper into love. Wei Ying smiles with his eyes. He whispers a secret:

“When you first kissed me, I thought: oh, she will be so lucky, whoever you end up with. You were so strong, and you held me with both hands, you know? Like you wanted everything. Like you had to gather everything all at once. And I thought—ah, so good. She’s lucky.”

Lan Zhan blinks up at him. His heart has stilled, a beat.

“But it’s me,” he says, like he’s telling Lan Zhan, like Lan Zhan doesn’t know this. “I’m the lucky one. It’s me.”

Not a grain, not a whisper. Lan Zhan reaches up to his sleep-warmed love, holds him—an earlobe between finger and thumb. “It is you,” he says, and tugs him down.