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Chapter Text

then.

It is Lan Zhan’s 17th birthday. 

There’s a party tonight. Lan Zhan hadn’t particularly wanted a party, but Wei Ying had insisted. “We can’t just not celebrate your birthday, Lan Zhan! Your birthday should be a national holiday! The day the best person was born! The whole world should celebrate!”

Wei Ying was always saying outrageous things like that; things that made Lan Zhan’s belly swoop and his ears warm, until Wei Ying laughed and tugged at them and made them burn even brighter.

It’s just one of the many reasons Lan Zhan is in love with him. 

There are so many other reasons, though. He’s been in love with Wei Ying, his best friend, since the first time they met four years ago. Then, he had been smitten by his beauty and his smile. But the list has grown, and Lan Zhan has learned that these things, though wonderful, are the least of the reasons to love Wei Ying. 

He loves Wei Ying’s kindness, his warm heart, his sense of justice, his strength. He loves his teasing, and his touch, and how even in the darkest of places he is an effervescing light. 

It has been four years since Lan Zhan met Wei Ying and fell in love. Four beautiful, agonizing years.

Today is Lan Zhan’s 17th birthday, and it is time he gave a gift to himself.

He pulls his hair back, tying it into a sleek, low ponytail, checking to make certain that no hairs have come free before tying a white ribbon around the elastic. 

Satisfied with what he sees, Lan Zhan takes a deep breath and tries to slow his racing heart. It is time, he tells himself. It has been four years of loving Wei Ying, with a lifetime to go. 

And tonight, Lan Zhan is going to tell him.

He has reason to believe his confession will be well-received. Lan Zhan wouldn’t be doing this otherwise; if he felt that it was hopeless, he wouldn’t risk their friendship over it. But Wei Ying is good, and even if he doesn’t return Lan Zhan’s feelings, Lan Zhan believes he will be kind about it. 

If he does return his feelings…

Sometimes he catches Wei Ying looking at him, will see his eyes dart away just as he looks up from a page in a textbook, and maybe he’s projecting, maybe he’s wrong about this, but it feels like the way he looks at Wei Ying. 

Xichen has been encouraging him to go through with it. Lan Zhan never told his brother, exactly, how he feels about Wei Ying. But Lan Xichen is perceptive, especially when it comes to Lan Zhan, and most especially when it comes to the things that Lan Zhan is trying to hide. Lan Zhan knows that Xichen is trying to be helpful, although, honestly, Lan Zhan would call it more “meddling” and “prodding” and “butting in” than “helping.”

Lan Zhan walks downstairs and finds Wei Ying busy making final adjustments to things with Nie Huaisang. He looks up when Lan Zhan walks into the room, and his smile is blazing. “Wow, Lan Zhan!” he says, running up to him. “You look incredible! Come on, give me a spin!” He takes Lan Zhan’s hand and lifts it over his head, guiding him into a spin, accompanied by a low, impressed whistle. 

Wei Ying makes to let go of Lan Zhan’s hand, but Lan Zhan doesn’t let him, holding tighter. “Wei Ying,” he says, his voice steady despite how his heart has risen so high in his throat that if he opens his mouth he is certain Wei Ying could see it there, pulsing on the back of his tongue. 

Despite the steadiness of his voice, though, Wei Ying sees through him, as he always does. His brows collapse into each other and he squeezes Lan Zhan’s hand. “Lan Zhan?”

There’s a loud clatter as Nie Huaisang knocks an entire stack of cups to the floor just a few feet away from them. “Whoopsie!” he singsongs, making no move to pick them up. 

The moment breaks, which is for the best. Lan Zhan doesn’t want to do this here. Not with an audience, especially when that audience includes Nie Huaisang, which means there is no guarantee of discretion nor privacy. 

Guests begin to arrive after that. Lan Zhan greets them all, thanks them for coming. They’re Wei Ying’s friends, mostly. Lan Zhan doesn’t have friends, not really. But Wei Ying has friends, and Lan Zhan has Wei Ying. 

It’s a good party, as far as parties go. The music is to Lan Zhan’s taste, neither too quiet nor too loud. People gather in little groups to chat, and Lan Zhan follows Wei Ying as he moves between them, easily folded into the conversation, never pressured to speak more than he desires. 

Still, Lan Zhan can hardly focus on the party at all. He’s aware that time is slipping away from him. He needs to act soon, or he’s going to lose the opportunity, and the nerve. 

They’ve just slipped away from a group including Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, whom Wei Ying had provoked into wordless, indignant sputtering such that Jiang Yanli is now patting his arm to soothe him, when Lan Zhan can’t take it any more. 

“Come,” Lan Zhan says, and pulls Wei Ying behind him, all but running out of the room.

Wei Ying doesn’t resist, which is a relief. They’d surely attract attention if he had. Instead, Wei Ying lets himself be towed along, oddly silent, until they are in Lan Zhan’s room and Lan Zhan closes the door behind them. 

“Lan Zhan, are you okay? Is it the party? We don’t have to do it, if you don’t want to. I’ll call the whole thing off right now. We can celebrate just the two of us. I shouldn’t have pushed you, I just think you’re great and everyone should be celebrating the day you were born! But if you’re uncomfortable, then we can—”

“Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying’s mouth snaps closed at the interruption, probably out of surprise. Lan Zhan doesn’t interrupt, as a rule, but he knows by now that if Wei Ying really gets going, then he’ll never have a chance to say what he wants to say. 

In the silence, though, his words get stuck. He tries to dislodge them, but the knot in his throat is too big. 

“Do you want to cancel the party?” Wei Ying asks carefully.

Lan Zhan shakes his head. 

“Okay. Do you want to just hang out up here for a moment?”

Lan Zhan nods. 

Wei Ying smiles at him, reaching out to squeeze his arm, his fingers practically burning Lan Zhan through his sweater, before he flops himself down onto Lan Zhan’s bed.

“Fine by me!” He pats the space beside him, inviting Lan Zhan to join him. Lan Zhan does, his heart thumping harder than ever.  “It’s a good party, right, Lan Zhan? The cake is excellent, although you are not allowed to tell Jin Zixuan I said that. Who knew the peacock could bake? Did you like it? Are you having a good time?”

His smile is bright and eager for praise, with a crackle of anxiety running through it. Lan Zhan hums, but it comes out a little cracked. He clears his throat.

“Uh-oh,” Wei Ying says, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and turning toward Lan Zhan. “That sounded serious. What’s up? Are you peopled out? Are you sure I shouldn’t ask everyone to leave?”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says. Then, “No.”

Wei Ying smiles lopsidedly. “Yes? No? Which is it? Just say the word, Lan Zhan! It’s your day, you get whatever you want today!”

Whatever he wants…there’s only one thing that Lan Zhan wants. He starts again. “Yes, it is serious. No, you do not need to ask people to leave.”

“O…kay. You’re making me nervous, Lan Zhan. What’s going on? Come here.”
Lan Zhan, who had been lying on his back, talking to the ceiling, sits up and moves next to Wei Ying, the mattress sinking a little with their combined weight, making them tilt towards each other. 

Lan Zhan takes a deep breath, wondering if this isn’t a terrible mistake. Is he going to ruin everything? What if he’s misread the situation? Wei Ying will let him down gently, but what will become of their friendship? 

Lan Zhan doesn’t even know what he’ll do if Wei Ying doesn’t accept his feelings. He wants to want to stay friends with Wei Ying, he loves him too much to lose him. But he also worries that he loves him so much, that he won’t be able to move past it and be the friend Wei Ying deserves. He doesn’t want to be a friend with motives. A friend who waits for things to change, who wants more than he is given. He doesn’t want his feelings to be taken as expectations. 

“Hey.” Wei Ying bumps their shoulders together, his voice soft. “Whatever it is, you can tell me, okay?”

“Wei Ying…” Lan Zhan takes another deep breath. Wei Ying takes his hand, squeezing reassuringly, lending Lan Zhan the strength he needs. “I…I like you.”

“Oh.” Wei Ying’s thumb, which had been swiping gently over the back of Lan Zhan’s hand, goes still. “Oh I…I like you too, Lan Zhan. You’re my best friend! And the best person. Who wouldn’t like you?”

“No. I mean that…” Lan Zhan isn’t be clear. He huffs, and tries again. “No. Wei Ying. I like you. I…like that. I like you like that.”

Wei Ying breathes in sharply, almost a gasp. Is it really so shocking? Is it…is it a bad reaction? Is he disappointed? Disgusted? Lan Zhan didn’t think Wei Ying had an issue with him being gay, but maybe it’s different, knowing your friend is gay and knowing that they feel that way towards you …

“You like me…like that?”

“Mn” is all Lan Zhan can manage. His heart is sitting on his tongue, too heavy for words.

“Like…like what, Lan Zhan?”

“Wei Ying…”

“No! No please, I…I think I get it, but I just need to be sure, because if I’m misunderstanding and you don’t mean what I think you mean I need to know right now because otherwise what I’m about to do is going to be super embarrassing .”

Lan Zhan turns toward Wei Ying, looking at his face for the first time. Wei Ying’s eyes are blazing, his cheeks red, his lips parted. He looks…

Hopeful.

“I love you.”

The words are like a magic spell. The tension breaks, and Wei Ying throws himself at Lan Zhan, his arms coming around his neck as he tackles him back onto the bed and kisses him. It’s a terrible kiss, objectively, even by first kiss standards. Neither of them have any experience with this: their noses bump together, their teeth clack, and Lan Zhan can’t even think with how happy he is.

“Like you,” Wei Ying says as they kiss. “Like you like that. Love you. For so long. Lan Zhan. I love you.”

They leave Lan Zhan’s bedroom, eventually. They can’t stay. They’ll be missed at the party, and Lan Zhan’s uncle will kill them if he catches them.

They go back together, holding hands. Lan Xichen looks at Lan Zhan, eyebrows raised in pleased surprise. Lan Zhan feels his ears blush and he can’t help but smile.

Later, Wei Ying shoves a gift at Lan Zhan. It is wrapped in blue paper and tied with a red ribbon. “Don’t open it now, it’s too embarrassing!”

Lan Zhan can’t help but lean over and kiss him on the cheek right in front of everyone. Wei Ying squeals, turning even redder when Nie Huaisang wolf whistles. Lan Zhan loves him. 

Lan Zhan waits until the party is over and everyone has gone home before he opens the gift.
It is a sketchbook. Inside is page after page of Wei Ying’s art. Drawings of their friends and their school. The bunnies that live in Shufu's rose bushes. And Lan Zhan. Page after page of his own face, drawn with such affection that it shines out at him. How could he ever have doubted?

Wei Ying loves him. 

now.

Lan Wangji places the sketchbook back on the shelf. A small pressed flower encased in yellow laminate slips from the pages to the ground. Lan Wangji scoops to pick it up and carefully replaces it.

He doesn’t let himself look at the sketchbook often. Partially because it hurts too much. Partially, because he’s scared to handle it. It feels delicate, too precious to touch after 16 years.

But he’s feeling melancholy tonight, though, so he looks. He looks and remembers and aches. 

It is his 34th birthday, and Lan Xichen is throwing him a party.

Lan Wangji doesn’t want a party. He never wants a party, and this year less than others. Work has been unpleasant. The project he’s been working on for the last five months is at risk of falling through. It isn’t Lan Wangji’s fault, not really, except that it is. The client is unhappy. The fact that the client is difficult and doesn’t know what they want is neither here nor there. Their happiness is part of his job. 

He should be at the office. He needs to try to salvage the project, even though he knows, in his core, that the project is unsalvageable. Lan Wangji has never been good at reading people, and without clear guidance on what they’re looking for, he has little hope that he can create a piece to their satisfaction. He needs to try, though, but he also needs to go to the party. Truly, he is between a rock and a hard place, neither scenario pleasant. But he promised Lan Xichen that he would go to the party, and so he will.

Perhaps it’s the stress of work life that has lowered his walls and let the sadness that he usually keeps wrapped deep beneath his skin to surface. Perhaps it’s just the day: his birthday. His anniversary with Wei Ying.

Or, it would be. If they were still together.

Lan Wangji pushes the thought away. It has been nearly 16 years since he last saw Wei Ying. Long enough to know that his heart can’t move on, but that he can keep going.

He needs to get ready for the party. It’s being held at Nie Huaisang’s gallery, which will at least make it somewhat enjoyable, even if Lan Wangji doesn’t particularly feel like being around people tonight. Nie Huaisang has good taste, and he’s been particularly excited about the exhibit he’s debuting. 

Lan Wangji heads off to the shower, determined to get through the evening as pleasantly as possible, for Lan Xichen. 

then. 

Lan Zhan is studying. 

Or, he’s supposed to be studying. In actuality, his mind hasn’t grasped onto a single sentence he’s read, preoccupied as he is with watching Wei Ying. 

Wei Ying is flopped across Lan Zhan’s bed, textbook spread open in front of him, tongue between his teeth as he copies down notes into his notebook. His hair has come mostly loose from his ponytail and his sweatshirt has rolled up exposing a swathe of skin above the waistband of his jeans.

He’s beautiful, and Lan Zhan still can’t believe that he gets to have this.

It’s been a year. A year since their first kiss. Lan Zhan keeps count of the days. It’s silly, he knows. Wei Ying would tease him if he knew. But Lan Zhan can’t help it. There’s a ticker in his head. Each day, the number grows along with Lan Zhan’s happiness.

“Lan Zhan, do you really think we’ll be covering unit 14 in the final? Because if I can get away with not studying stoichiometry, I will absolutely take it.” He looks up and catches Lan Zhan staring. A grin spreads across his face as Lan Zhan’s ears heat. “Working hard, gege?”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan looks back down at the textbook in his lap, not really seeing it. He hears Wei Ying move, and is unsurprised when his boyfriend plucks the textbook out of his lap and takes its place. “Maybe if gege isn’t working, he can help his Wei Ying study instead?”

Lan Zhan isn’t sure that making out counts as studying, but he isn’t complaining as they spend the next hour kissing, stopping only when Wei Ying pulls back with a grumpy sigh. “Gege, I cannot wait until we’re in the dorms. No more uncles or brothers to worry about. It’s gonna be so good.”

Lan Zhan’s hands squeeze around Wei Ying’s hips, even as he slides off to flop cross-legged onto the floor. Lan Zhan clears his throat, regathering his thoughts. 

“Did you receive your acceptance letter?”

“Eh? Ah, not yet. I’m sure it’s coming.” 

They’ve both been waiting on it for weeks now, never really talking about what it means if Wei Ying doesn’t get into the California Institute of the Arts. Lan Zhan applied early decision months ago. Shufu being a donor and alumnus, his acceptance is all but guaranteed.

Wei Ying, for all that he is smarter than Lan Zhan, is in a more difficult position. As a scholarship student, he’d needed to wait to apply. And now, it’s a matter of both acceptance and money. 

Lan Zhan isn’t concerned. Wei Ying is smart. He deserves this, and Lan Zhan will help with the money if he must. This was why he had his inheritance after all, was it not? To live a happy life? And his happy life includes Wei Ying.

“Come on, gege. Quiz me on this,” Wei Ying says, grabbing his notebook and tossing it to Lan Zhan. “Be more than just a pretty face.”

“Ridiculous,” Lan Zhan says, holding the notebook up to hide his smile. 

now.

Lan Wangji arrives at the gallery precisely at 7pm. Naturally, he is the first to arrive. He’s used to this by now. (“Nobody’s on time for parties, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying had laughed once, pulling him down for another kiss, not ready to let him go.)

Nie Huaisang arrives shortly after him to open the gallery. Naturally, Nie Huaisang is late, despite being the owner of the venue. It doesn’t matter. No one else will arrive for a while yet, in Lan Zhan’s experience. It’ll be nice to have this little bit of time just to look around.

“I think you’ll like this new artist,” Nie Huaisang says, leading Lan Wangji inside. “He’s got perspective .”

He takes Lan Wangji through the exhibit, pointing out favorites as he goes. Lan Wangji has to admit, the art is good. It’s eccentric—Nie Huaisang’s gallery usually is—but it’s also somehow…comforting. Paintings of idyllic fields picked out in dark colors, trees like headstones in neat rows. 

There are umber skies and amethyst seas—tranquil and morbid at once. It makes Lan Wangji aware that he is very, very tired. 

“Did you spot it yet?” Nie Huaisang asks as they approach the final canvas, a large piece that takes up nearly the entire wall, depicting an icy pond surrounded by sharp cliffs in deep navy. Lan Wangji doesn’t know what he means. He shakes his head. 

Nie Huaisang smiles, then points, drawing Lan Wangji’s eye towards a light figure in the painting. It is small, Lan Wangji had thought it was an errant brushstroke at first, but…no. It is just discernible as the form of a man. 

“He’s in all the paintings,” Nie Huaisang says. “If you go back and look, you can find him.”

“Who is he?”

It’s a strange question to ask, and Lan Wangji isn’t sure what makes him say it.

Nie Huaisang shrugs. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

Lan Wangji stares at the white figure, positioned atop one of the cliffs, a brilliant rose sky behind him, dark clouds swirling. “How much?”

Nie Huaisang’s fan freezes mid-waft. “How much?”

“For the painting.”

Nie Huaisang snaps his fan closed. “I’ll have to talk to his agent. He does everything through her. But I should warn you, she’s a tough one. She’ll wring you for every penny.”

“Any price is fine.”

Nie Huaisang clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “And that is why I will be doing the negotiations. Honestly, I don’t know how you Lans have any money left.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji hums. His eyes drift to the nameplate besides the painting. 

‘At the Cold Pond’
Oil on canvas
Yiling Laozu

Not long after, the other guests begin to arrive. Lan Wangji does his best to be social, to speak with everyone, to not reveal how very little he wants to be there. It’s not a big party—Lan Xichen knows Lan Wangji doesn’t like large groups. And besides, there aren’t many whom Lan Wangji counts as friends.

Lan Xichen is there, naturally, as are Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao as his partners. Luo Qingyang is there with her partner, having secured a sitter for the night. Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli round out the group, their son left in Jiang Wanyin’s care. 

Of the partygoers, Jiang Yanli’s company is the warmest. She greets him as she might a brother, and he aches to think that maybe, in another life, she could have been his sister-in-law. They might have stood side-by-side over the stove, learning family recipes together. 

Fate, of course, had another plan. Their friendship is not the result of shared happiness, but forged from sorrow. Weeks, then months, then years of asking the same questions: “Have you heard anything? Have you heard from Wei Ying?”

Questions they stopped asking each other a long time ago. 

The party is successful. The parents of the group enjoy their night “off-duty”, enjoying cake and wine and remarking on the art. There is no singing of happy birthday, nor is Lan Wangji forced into the spotlight at any point. 

His friends gather. They talk and smile and enjoy each other’s company. 

And then they go home. 

Lan Wangji lays in his bed, and sleep feels distant. It is always like this, after being around so many people for so long. He is tired, but his mind won’t quiet, circling sleep warily as he stares at the wall opposite his bed.

He thinks that, maybe, he will put the painting there. Maybe it’s strange, to have it in his bedroom. He’ll have to move some furniture to accommodate it—it is very large. It was a silly purchase, probably. Impulsive.

Lan Wangji turns over and forces himself to close his eyes.

Eventually, he drifts off to sleep, dreaming of cold water.

Chapter Text

then.

cant make it 2nite
sry :(

Lan Zhan looks at the message waiting for him on his instant messenger and his heart sinks. He has just returned from an early morning run. Freshly showered and dressed, he turned on his computer in the hope of getting an early start on the paper due Monday so that he might have the afternoon and evening free to spend with Wei Ying.

It appears that he shouldn’t have bothered. It is 7am and the message was sent five hours ago. There is no point in replying at this moment as Wei Ying is offline now, probably sleeping.

Lan Zhan tries not to feel too scorned at the cancellation of their date, but it’s hard. This isn’t the first time in the past few weeks Wei Ying has canceled suddenly. It isn’t even the second. It’s been nearly a month since they’ve seen each other outside of school. And even at school, Wei Ying has been acting strangely: evasive, jumpy, avoidant. Lan Zhan had thought he was imagining it, at first. Then he’d thought that maybe it was just the anxiety of midterm exams.

But now he’s not so sure.

He logs off and shuts down the computer. Staring at the screen isn’t going to change things or get him any answers. He needs to talk to Wei Ying. 

He knows that it’s too early to expect Wei Ying to be awake. It’s too early to be making social calls at all. Lan Zhan knows this, but now that his brain is whirring, the anxiety takes over. 

Quietly, not quite sneaking but very much trying not to attract his uncle’s attention, Lan Zhan slips out of the house. 

The bike ride to the Jiang’s house isn’t far, but it takes long enough that Lan Zhan’s thoughts spiral, presenting him with increasingly horrible scenarios. Thankfully, he’s made this particular ride often enough that he’s able to make the journey safely, even distracted as he is.

By the time he arrives, Lan Zhan is breathing hard and it has nothing to do with the ride. He distantly recognizes that he’s on the edge of panic. Ridiculous. He needs to calm down. There’s no reason to jump to conclusions or assume the worst just because of a canceled date. Wei Ying is probably busy. He probably has responsibilities around the home that he can’t delay. It might be a little last minute, but, then, Lan Zhan is aware that Wei Ying’s home life differs from his own. 

Which, now that he’s thinking of it, leads to another concern. Now that he is here, should he just…knock on the door? It is early, and he doesn’t see any particular signs of movement inside. Will he get Wei Ying in trouble, showing up so early? Wei Ying doesn’t say much about his foster parents, but Lan Zhan has heard enough to know that they are not always reasonable people. 

He stands on the sidewalk outside the house, frozen with indecision for several long minutes before the decision is taken out of his hands. A window on the second level opens and a voice addresses him. “Lan Wangji! Are you here for A-Ying?” Jiang Yanli calls down to him as quietly as she can while still being heard.

Lan Zhan nods, relief flooding through him as she points him to a window two down. “I’ll wake him.”

Lan Zhan moves over to the indicated window and waits. And waits. 

And waits. 

It seems to take forever, but eventually the window slides open and a very rumpled Wei Ying sticks his head out. His hair is messy, his pajama top—which appears to just be a worn t-shirt—is slipping off one of his shoulders, and Lan Zhan loves him. 

“Lan Zhan?” His voice is creaky, still sleep-rough. He rubs one of his eyes, that blinks at him and his forehead creases with worry. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

Lan Zhan walks forward, gazing up at him, and forces out the words. “You canceled our date.” He tries to keep any accusation out of his voice, but it still comes out hurt. 

“Is that—? Aiyah, Lan Zhan! It’s so early! I’m just busy tonight.” But Wei Ying looks away as he says it, back over his shoulder, as if to flee.

“You canceled last week as well,” Lan Zhan says, the words pointed but quiet, drawing Wei Ying back out. “And the week before.”

It works. Wei Ying looks at him, and Lan Zhan notices that his eyes look puffy and red. He’d thought at first glance it was from sleep, but when their eyes lock together it becomes clear that he has been crying. Lan Zhan’s chest aches and he walks another few feet forward until he’s standing in the flowerbeds. “May I come up?”

“I—no,“ Wei Ying says quickly, then adds, as if in resignation, “I’ll come down. Give me a moment.”

It’s a crisp spring morning, still on the edge of winter. Lan Zhan is warm from his bike ride, but the cold air bites at his fingers and nose. He realizes that he’s forgotten his jacket. 

When Wei Ying emerges, he is dressed far too light for the weather, a thin robe added over his pajamas. He wraps his arms around himself, and Lan Zhan’s heart pangs at how vulnerable he looks.

“Wei Ying—”

“You shouldn’t have come.”

It’s not the wind that makes Lan Zhan shiver now, but the coldness in Wei Ying’s voice. He flinches back from it. “Wei Ying…”

“Lan Zhan. I…we should break up.”

Lan Zhan's stomach drops so quickly that he’s certain he is falling. Certain that a hole has opened up in the ground beneath him and he is careening into a pit, deep beneath the sidewalk. He sways on his feet.

“Whoa!” Wei Ying says, rushing forward and grabbing his shoulders, only to pull his hands away a moment later as though burned. “Are you okay? Lan Zhan, it’s…it’s not you.”

“Why?” Lan Zhan demands, the platitude slipping through him like a knife. “Why do this?” He shouldn’t ask. He doesn’t think he wants to know the answer. He doesn’t know that it matters, as there isn’t any answer that would make this okay.

Except, it does matter. It matters more than anything. Whatever it is, whatever Wei Ying’s reason,  Lan Zhan will fix it. Whatever’s broken, whatever’s gone wrong, he’ll fix it. “I’ll fix it,” he says, the words crashing through his barriers into the spring air.

“Lan Zhan…there’s nothing to fix.” Wei Ying isn’t looking at him again. He’s staring down at his own feet, clad in a pair of black bunny slippers, the matching pair to the white bunny slippers he’d bought Lan Zhan for his birthday, just a few months ago.  “You’re not broken,” he says to the slippers. “You’re…the opposite. You’re great. Perfect . I just…we…” Wei Ying lets out a frustrated breath and scrubs his hands through his hair, mussing it further. “I didn’t get in, okay?”

“What?”

“To CalArts, to the Institute! I didn’t make it. I can’t go with you.”

The falling feeling ceases, Lan Zhan’s stomach settling back in his abdomen for a hopeful moment. If that is all, then that is no obstacle at all. 

“Wei Ying. It’s okay. We don’t have to go—”

“‘We’ nothing. Lan Zhan! You can’t not go . It’s your dream! It’s your future, you can’t give it up just because of me.”

“No,” Lan Zhan says sharply. Wei Ying is so wrong in so many ways that Lan Zhan hardly knows where to start. Has he been so unclear? Lan Zhan knows that he is not the best at expressing his feelings all the time, and guilt uncoils somewhere in his ribcage at letting Wei Ying believe something so wrong. He closes the space between them and wraps his arms around Wei Ying, collecting his words like seeds from gravel. “You are my dream. My future. I don’t care about school.”

“That’s not true—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan interrupts him, which is successful in surprising Wei Ying into silence. Lan Zhan looks into his eyes, moving his hands up to cup his face. “I do not lie.”

Wei Ying’s eyes scan Lan Zhan’s face, searching. Lan Zhan stands on a knife’s edge, willing himself to pull back the curtain, to show himself to Wei Ying. He takes Wei Ying’s hand and places it over his heart, letting him feel it hammering out his feelings in a bone-shattering code.  

“I…okay,” Wei Ying says, letting out a shaky sigh. “Okay. You win.”

Lan Zhan exhales, the edges of the breath tremulous and ragged. He presses their foreheads together, sagging with the relief of it.  “Good,” he says, earning a small huff of laughter from Wei Ying.

He can’t help but tilt their mouths together then and kiss him. 

“Are we still on for that date tonight, or have you already made other plans?” Wei Ying asks when they part.

Ridiculous, Lan Zhan thinks, and kisses him again. “All my plans are with Wei Ying.”

now.

bad news, lan wangji
they wont sell it

Lan Wangji looks down at the text from Nie Huaisang and frowns. It’s been a week since his birthday. Nie Huaisang had followed up with him the next day regarding the painting, confirming that Lan Wangji really did intend to go through with the offer.

Lan Wangji had, of course, but now the artist isn’t selling?

Frustrated, Lan Wangji calls Nie Huaisang back. The line rings long enough that he expects it to go to voicemail, but then there’s a click and the sound of frantic fumbling before Nie Huaisang finally speaks.

“Ugh, you know, it’s rude to call people without notice.”

“You texted me,” Lan Wangji points out reasonably.

“ Yes , which means you should text back!”

Lan Wangji has known Nie Huaisang for nearly two decades now, and has counted him as family for one. As such, he ignores the whining without comment and moves to the meat of the matter. “Why won’t the artist sell?”

Nie Huaisang sighs dramatically down the phone line, which Lan Wangji, again, stoutly ignores. “No idea. His agent won’t tell me. She just keeps repeating that they aren’t interested.”

“But you spoke with her previously, and she agreed to discuss a price with you.”

“Yeah…” Nie Huaisang trails off, letting the silence hang, and Lan Wangji realizes that he’s holding something back. And, more irritatingly, that he’s going to make Lan Wangji ask. 

He suddenly feels very tired as he pinches the corners of his eyes. “Do you know what changed their mind?”

“I don’t know,” Nie Huaisang says then, at the skeptical sound Lan Wangji makes, “No, really, I don’t! But it is interesting. Everything was fine until I mentioned who was buying.”

“I see,” Lan Wangji says, though he’s not sure that he does. He’s not sure what about him would put off the artist. Lan Wangji is far from a public figure, and is happy to keep it that way. He isn’t the sort to make himself known in so-called “high society”, and for the rare appearances he is expected to make at premieres, he keeps a low profile. He is also conscientious of the projects he takes on, and all in all, he doesn’t think it is too immodest to believe his reputation is beyond repute. It’s true that he does make a point of donating both time and service to fundraising efforts for a variety of organizations, some of which might draw the scorn of some. But if this Yiling Laozu is the type to turn his nose up at services aimed to provide assistance to populations most at risk of violence simply because of some ill-conceived perception of worthiness, well…well, then he doesn’t deserve Lan Wangji’s money in the first place. 

But his mind drifts back to the painting, and he has a hard time imagining that this is the case, as ridiculous as it is to think he can understand a stranger from paint on canvas. “Did they say anything else?”

“Noooo….”

“Huaisang.”

“Ugh. Fine. Okay. I’ll tell you, but I’m not supposed to. You can’t tell anyone that I told you, Wangji! It’s a violation of my ethics as a dealer of the arts!”

Lan Wangji delicately says nothing. 

“Wen Qing—that’s the agent—wouldn’t tell me details, but she may have let slip that ‘apparently “Lan-er-gege’s” money is no good with him.”

The term of address makes Lan Wangji’s heart stutter. “What?”

“Her words! Or, his, I guess. The artist’s. I really don’t know, Lan Wangji!”

“I see.”

His heart kicks back into gear, the sound of his blood now thunderous in his ears. He’s aware that his reaction is out of proportion to what he has been told, but he can’t seem to control it. There’s no reason for it to affect him this way—most likely, it is nothing more than a careless, flippant response given with the intent to offend. This person couldn’t have known that it would have the opposite effect; that, rather than taking offense, Lan Wangji would feel the fluttering ghost of a feeling caught in the chamber of his heart. A feeling as if he is standing on a precipice, staring down a dark chasm with no bottom. “Do you have her number?”

“Whose? Wen Qing’s? Yeah, of course. But she won’t budge on selling it.”

“Give it to me.”

There’s the sound of a fan flicking open and closed rapidly . “Lan Wangji. It’s not–”

“Give it to me, and I’ll advocate to the board to contract with you as the sole provider of art for all of our premises.”

“And a good word with your contacts?”

Ah. That’s what this has really been about, then. Nie Huaisang has been trying to get Lan Wangji’s list of film contacts for a while. Lan Wangji isn’t sure why he hasn’t just asked Xichen, who would be far more amenable to the request. Likely because he doesn’t want Mingjue to know that he’s using family connections for personal gain. 

Well, it’s not as though Lan Wangji has been holding out for any particular reason. Nie Huaisang is good at what he does. He has good taste and would be a boon to anyone who could handle his…eccentricities. Truly, Lan Wangji has only resisted because Nie Huaisang has insisted on speaking around the request, in the way that he never says anything outright. Lan Wangji supposes the time is ripe to give in. “I can make introductions.”

“Really?” His voice pitches up, in apparently genuine surprise, which Lan Wangji finds oddly satisfying. “Isn’t there a rule about that? Don’t mix private and business stuff, or something…”

“Huaisang.” Lan Wangji says as Nie Huaisang trails off.  “Her number. Please.”

Five minutes later, Lan Wangji is staring at his phone as the reply text comes through. 

I thought I might be hearing from you, Lan Wangji.
Let’s talk.

then. 

It is the last day of the school year. Meaning that this is the last day that Lan Zhan will go through the routine that has seen him through the last four years: the last day that he will wake up in this bed, put on this uniform, and walk to this school.

After today, his life will be different.

Distantly, Lan Zhan is aware that once this thought would have scared him. Change used to be the sort of thing that made him a little queasy, like driving too quickly over an unexpected dip in the road. But circumstances have changed, and, as they are, Lan Zhan isn’t scared. There are many things ahead of him that are unknown, things he can’t predict. Some of them will be easy, some hard, but he isn’t worried. He isn’t worried because he won’t be facing it alone. There are many unknowns, but the fear pales in comparison to the certainty of the one thing he does know: Wei Ying will be with him. He doesn’t need to know the rest to know that the future will be wonderful.

It had been scary when he’d told his uncle, months ago, that he wouldn’t be attending CalArts, and would be attending UCB instead. “This is because of that boy.” It hadn’t been a question, which was for the best. Lan Zhan couldn’t have denied it anyway. That had been the end of it, though. Shufu hadn’t tried to talk him out of it, knowing that there was no use once Lan Wangji had set his mind to something. Besides, UCB was a good school. Their pedagogy might be different, but different didn’t necessarily mean bad. Lan Zhan’s education wouldn’t suffer too much.

The only thing close to an attempt to dissuade him came from Xichen, who had called him later that day, likely at their uncle’s behest. “Are you sure, Wangji? CalArts is one of the best arts and music schools in the country. Don’t you want to study music?”

“I am sure,” was all Lan Zhan had said. Brother hadn’t argued. In the end, nobody had argued with his decision. They may have been disappointed or skeptical, but they didn’t try to convince him to change his mind.

Lan Zhan isn’t worried. UCB might not be ideal for pursuing a musical degree, being more specialized STEM, but so long as Wei Ying was there, it would be the right place for Lan Zhan too. 

Lan Zhan finishes knotting his tie, snugging it up against his throat, and gives himself a final once over in his mirror. He looks good, he thinks. Good enough to close this chapter of his life and open another. 

He arrives at school early, as usual. He likes to take his time before the hallways are crowded to get his things in order. He’s a little disappointed when Wei Ying doesn’t appear at his locker, but there’s nothing unusual about this. Much like Lan Zhan is usually early, Wei Ying is usually late. 

Still, he’d thought that, with it being a special day, they might sneak a little alone time together in the hallways for one last time. 

A few minutes before the bell rings for home room, Lan Zhan walks over to Wei Ying’s locker, hoping to catch him and walk to class together.

Wei Ying is not there.

Lan Zhan frowns. Wei Ying is running later than usual—most likely, he slept late. It is the last day, after all. They can’t exactly give him detention now. Shrugging off his disappointment, Lan Zhan takes his bag and heads to class.

Wei Ying doesn’t show up to home room.

He doesn’t show up to their third period history class.

He doesn’t show up to orchestra. 

A sense of unease grows in Lan Zhan, until, by lunch hour, his stomach is a tangled into a knot so tight the mere thought of food sits like an inert lump in his throat.

He walks into the cafeteria, immediately looking around, ears straining for the sound of Wie Ying’s laughter, usually echoing loud off the high ceiling even in the crowd. But Wei Ying is nowhere.

Lan Zhan spots Jiang Wanyin sitting at a table with Nie Huaisang, and walks over to him. Jiang Wanyin doesn’t see him approach, busy glowering at his lunch as though it has insulted him. 

Lan Zhan has never much liked Jiang Wanyin: an opinion he does his best to keep to himself, for Wei Ying’s sake. It is desperation that makes him approach now. Nie Huaisang goes silent as her nears, eyes widening, and he elbows Jiang Wanyinand nods towards Lan Zhan.

“What are you—oh. Lan Wangji.”

“Jiang Wanyin.”

They stare at each other, before Jiang Wanyin huffs loudly, a sort of angry almost-laugh, and goes back to glaring at his food. “I don’t know where he is.”

Lan Zhan clutches the strap of his bag hard enough that his knuckles pop. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said! I don’t know where he is. No one does. Woke up this morning: gone. His clothes and shit too. He fucked off.”

The words are all clear enough, but Lan Zhan doesn’t understand. Lan Zhan feels dizzy as the meaning swirls around him, eluding comprehension. “He…left?”

A nod, sharp as the point of a knife, catches him between the ribs. "Where?"

Jiang Wanyin turns the glare on him now, face contorted with anger that spits like hot oil dripping into the cold water beneath. "I said I don't know! He didn't exactly leave a note!” He grits his teeth together, the hisses. “Why do you even care?"

Lan Zhan frowns. This is why he doesn’t like speaking to Jiang Wanyin. They seem incapable of understanding one another. "He is my boyfriend."

"Yeah, well. Fat lot of good that did him, huh."

The words catch Lan Zhan off-guard, ice slipping into his belly. He suppresses a shiver. "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said . You're his boyfriend, your family practically owns CalArts with the amount of money they donate. But of course, that doesn’t matter. Heaven forbid you bend your fucking rules and help him."

That doesn’t make any sense. Lan Zhan can’t piece together what Jiang Wanyin means, what he is accusing him of.  Wei Ying hadn't gotten into CalArts, it was true. But he had asked Lan Zhan not to worry about it. Had said that Berkeley was just as good. They’d agreed it would be better this way, anyway. Better to get far away from their hometown. To move far enough away that they’d have to live in the dorms. Together. They were going to do it together. 

"Wei Ying...we are going to UCB together."

Jiang Wanyin goes oddly still. Nie Huaisang drums his fingers on the table in obvious discomfort, chewing his lip as he looks between them. "Is that what he told you?"

Lan Zhan feels lost, unanchored, as though he is falling through empty space. "It is our plan."

Jiang Wanyin snorts and shoves his food away from him. "Then I guess you didn't know him that well after all. Wei Ying doesn't make plans."

"I—"

"He isn’t going to Berkeley. He never was. He isn't going anywhere."

Lan Zhan doesn’t remember the rest of the day. He doesn’t know if he goes to his classes or talks to anyone. All he can think about is Wei Ying. He is waiting for him to appear, to smile, to laugh, to say that it is all a joke, a misunderstanding. Anything, anything…

Wei Ying doesn’t appear.

The school day ends, the year ends, in tears and laughter as Lan Zhan’s classmates clutch each other, exchange numbers, make promises that will be kept and broken over the following weeks and years.

Lan Zhan doesn’t stay for any of it. He runs home, wondering if, hoping that Wei Ying will be there. 

He isn’t. Lan Zhan goes up to his room, not registering the attempt at celebratory decorations in the living room, nor the smell of something sweet emanating from the kitchen. 

Numbly, he turns on his computer and connects to the messenger as his last hope.

Wei Ying is not online, but there is a message waiting for him:

im sorry
its better this way
dont look for me

Later, Shufu comes by Lan Zhan’s room and leaves an envelope on his desk. There is no address and no stamp. There is only Lan Zhan’s name written hastily across the front,  and inside a laminated red flower. 

Chapter Text

now.

Lan Wangji arrives at the coffee shop thirty minutes early. 

It’s a large cafe, the space designed to convert into a bar in the evenings, with high top tables mixed in with lounge seating. The vibe is somewhat more eccentric than Lan Wangji is used to, work by local artists hung on the walls, prices listed beneath names that are a mix of baffling (“total machination of the color red”) and direct (“white paint with blue stripe”). He eyes the elaborate menu in bright-colored chalk on the back wall before placing his order for a simple jasmine tea. The tattooed barista, sporting a buzzed head painted in neon leopard spots, give him a curt nod, plopping two tea bags into a chipped ceramic mug with a cartoon squirrel drawn on the side declaring boldly, “I like big nuts!”

Lan Wangji accepts it with as much aplomb as he can muster given the situation, then finds a table near the back, where there is at least some semblance of privacy.

He’s had two days to prepare for this meeting. Two days filled with anxiety and something that isn’t quite excitement, but close to. Now that he’s here, though, he’s not sure he’s ready for what’s to come at all; he’s not entirely certain what he’s been preparing for. 

He’s turned it over and over again, thinking through all of the possible scenarios, but finds his imagination unequal to the task. All he truly knows at this point is that he’s entering the situation on unequal ground. This woman, Wen Qing, seems to have some idea of who he is, but he’s not sure if it’s just general public perception or something more. 

He’s had time to think about it, to rein in some of his more wild hopes. It isn’t unfathomable that someone might refer to him as “Lan-er-gege”. It’s not improper or incorrect, after all. Xichen is the public face of their company, everyone is aware that Lan Wangji is the younger brother.

It could be anyone. 

It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. 

The meeting time comes and goes. His tea has gone cold, but Lan Wangji is sweating. It’s hot in the cafe, the heat cranked high and a fireplace roaring, and he can feel a drip trickle down the small of his back. His sweater is soft wool,, but in this environment it is stifling. 

He waits. 

Five minutes past the meeting time. 

Then, ten. 

Twenty.

At half an hour past, just as he has all but given up hope, the door to the cafe opens, and in struts a small woman in a red coat, wearing a harried expression.

Her eyes snap quickly over the cafe before landing on Lan Wangji, and she walks determinedly toward him. “Lan Wangji?” she says, pulling out a seat and sitting before he can answer. “Wen Qing. Sorry I’m late.”

Lan Wangji merely nods, not quite forgiving, but at least acknowledging the apology. 

“So,” she says, swinging her oversized purse over the back of the chair, then kicking her legs into a crossed position as she leans back and looks him over assessingly. “You’re him, huh?”

Lan Wangji sips his tea for something to do in lieu of an answer, though cold, bitter flavor coating his tongue unpleasantly. It is, he assumes, a rhetorical question and that she will explain in time. But Wen Qing merely crosses her arms and continues to look at him. She hasn’t even removed her coat. 

“Would you like a beverage?” he asks, taking a stab at politeness, and at, hopefully, convincing her to settle and stay for a bit. She was the one who said that they needed to talk, but so far she doesn’t seem very forthcoming. 

“Hm. Ginseng tea. A little honey. Extra hot.”

Lan Wangji nods, then heads up to the counter to place the order, keeping one eye on the table as he does so, lest she try to leave.

She doesn’t. She watches him back for a bit before pulling a phone out of her pocket and typing quickly. 

The barista seems to know her, and has the order rung in and ready before Lan Wangji even reaches the counter. “Her mug broke last week,” they say as they pass it to Lan Wangji, who dips his head in acknowledgement.

He returns to the table and hands her the tea. She sips it, apparently uncaring of the heat, then settles onto her elbows, looking at him levelly over the table. 

“So. Lan Wangji. Why am I here?”

Lan Wangji frowns. Their meeting had been her idea. “You said we should speak.”

“I said I was expecting to hear from you. You texted me first. You must’ve had something on your mind.”

She’s right, but Lan Wangji still feels off-balance. He doesn’t know what Wen Qing knows about him or his suspicions about the identity of the Yiling Laozu, and fears showing too much of his hand. It feels dangerous to reveal too much. If he has misjudged, presumed, hoped too much, the cost to his heart may be too high. Lan Wangji struggles to think of where to start, looking for safe ground.

“Why won’t you sell me the painting?”

Wen Qing’s eyebrows raise, and Lan Wangji has the impression that this was the wrong question. “He doesn’t want to. Is that why you wanted to talk to me? To plead your case? Throw money at the problem?”

“No.”

“Hm. Maybe you should try. We could use the money.”

Lan Wangji blinks at her, betraying nothing. “Would more money change the artist’s mind?”

Wen Qing laughs; a sharp, snort of a laugh. “No. No, I don’t think it would.”

They sit in silence for a while, until Wen Qing shakes her head. “You’re just as talkative as he said. It’s no wonder.”

Lan Wangji’s heart does something funny in his chest. He sets his tea back on the table. “What do you mean?”

“Lan Wangji. Be straight with me. What do you actually want to talk about?”

Wen Qing’s eyes are as sharp and clipped as her tone. She taps red, pointed nails on the tabletop impatiently in a steady clack-clack-clack.

Lan Wangji steels himself, and answers. “Who is the Yiling Patriarch?”

“My client. An incredibly talented artist. An absolute idiot.” clack-clack-clack.

“Does he know me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Who doesn’t know Lan Wangji, renowned philanthropist and heir to Lan Corp?”

“Most people,” Lan Wangji answers, his patience growing short. “Why won’t you answer my questions?”

“Why won’t you ask what it is that you actually want to ask?” clack-clack-clack.

They stare at each other across the table. 

It’s pointless, Lan Wangji realizes. He had gotten his hopes up, despite himself, for nothing. Wen Qing never promised him answers. He wonders why she had agreed to meet with him at all, unless she’d only meant to taunt him.

Lan Wangji is in no mood for being taunted. It’d been his mistake, hoping for something impossible. Sixteen years and he continues to make the same mistakes, to hope the same hopes. He’s a dog chasing the mechanical hare around the track over and over again. “My apologies for wasting your time.” Lan Wangji stands, folding his coat over his arm and offering her a small bow, then turns to leave.

“Ugh, stop being dramatic,” Wen Qing says suddenly, snapping out a hand and grabbing his arm. Lan Wangji pulls back out of her grasp with a glare. “Sit down. Just…look. I can’t tell you things. It’s not how it works. I can’t offer you information . Do you understand?”

“If you cannot answer my questions, then it is better if I lea—”

“No,” she cuts him off, snapping her fingers. “Listen to me. I can’t offer you information. I—for fuck’s sake, do you need to call Nie Huaisang down here to interpret?”

This is not solid ground for Lan Wangji. He is not used to subterfuge or speaking in code in this way. But at the mention of Huaisang’s name, Lan Wangji understands. He sits back down across from her and shakes his head. “No need. I understand. You can not offer information.”

“Well done.”

“But you can answer my questions if I…ask them correctly.”

“Maybe,” she corrects him, resuming the rhythmic strum of her nails against the table. “ Maybe I can. You know, I was late because it took me that long just to be able to get here without raising suspicions. I could be fired for even talking to you.”

Lan Wangji frowns. “If it is putting your career at risk—”

“No.” She jabs a finger at him. “I’m here. We’re doing this. Now ask me the question .”

Lan Wangji takes a deep breath. Then, he takes his heart out, and offers it across the table. “Do you know Wei Ying?”

then.

“A-Zhan, have you seen him?”

Jiang Yanli runs toward him across the lawn, before he’s even dismounted from his bike. Lan Zhan’s heart sinks. 

“No. I had hoped…” He tails off, uncertain what he had hoped. 

“He’s not here.” Jiang Yanli’s eyes are glistening and she blinks rapidly to keep the tears from falling. “I got an email from him this morning and I came over as soon as I could, but he was already gone.”

“I received a message as well,” Lan Zhan says. “It told me…he said not to look for him.”

“Oh. Oh, A-Zhan, I’m so sorry. I…I don’t know where he is. He just said he was leaving, but he didn’t tell me where. I don’t know anything , I don’t know why he would do this.”

She dabs at her streaming face futilely with the back of her hand. Lan Zhan wishes he had a handkerchief or something to give her, but he has nothing; can do nothing but stand in his own helplessness and watch. 

“Jiang Wanyin said Wei Ying…was not going to the University of California?”

“No.” Jiang Yanli shakes her head, confusion etched into her face. “He turned it down months ago. Dad got him in on an engineering scholarship, but A-Ying refused. Said he didn’t want to be an engineer. That he’d rather dad save the money or something. I—didn’t you know?”

Lan Zhan can’t find the strength to answer her. He didn’t know. He hadn’t known, because Wei Ying had never told him. For weeks, months, they had been talking about the future. They’d made plans about living in the dorms, about the classes they would take. About finding an apartment off-campus after their first year, moving in together, how they would spend their time once they were alone…

…except, they hadn’t. Not really. As Lan Zhan thinks back on those conversations, on the daydreams, Lan Zhan realizes the Wei Ying had never said about their future. He would talk about how nice it would be to live together, or how fun it would be to live in the dorms, but he only spoke about it like a pleasant dream. Never a reality. It was Lan Zhan who made the plans. Lan Zhan who spoke of moving in together, of what they would do after graduation, of their lives. 

But Wei Ying never agreed or added to the plans. He would smile or laugh or kiss Lan Zhan and call him romantic or ridiculous. And Lan Zhan had just accepted it, had taken Wei Ying’s love for granted, had believed that they wanted the same things. That a future together was inevitable. That they were inevitable.

And now. Now, everything he had thought he had was crashing down around him, blood roaring in his ears as his head spun. 

“A-Zhan? Are you okay?”

“Please tell me if you hear from him.” 

Lan Zhan swings a leg back over his bike. He needs to move. He needs to get out of here, to get away from Jiang Yanli and…and do something. Something to let out the storm inside before it blows him to pieces. 

“Of course. And you…you too? Please?”

Lan Zhan nods, the motion painful with the tightness in his throat. She looks for a moment like she wants to go to him, to hold him, to say something devastating. He rides away before she can shatter the cracked glass of his heart, leaving Jiang Yanli and the house—Wei Ying’s home no longer—behind him. 

Over the coming weeks, they keep each other updated on what they find. They’re in near constant contact after that first day. Jiang Wanyin does not involve himself—Lan Zhan doesn’t know if Jiang Yanli has asked him, he doesn’t know how Jiang Wanyin feels about their search. He sees him sometimes, in passing on the streets, anger jumping in the muscles of Jiang Wanyin’s jaw, and they say nothing to each other. 

But Lan Zhan and Jiang Yanli keep searching even as one week passes into the next and the answer is still the same: nothing. Nothing. Nothing. 

The summer is drawing to a close when Lan Qiren finally sits Lan Zhan down in the family room, a serious expression on his face, hands clasped tightly in his lap. “You still have your place at the Institute secured. It is time to stop this foolishness.”

Lan Zhan says nothing. Instead, he nods to his uncle, then stands and leaves the room. He’s aware of his rudeness, but can do nothing else. How can he be asked to make this decision now? He still hasn’t found Wei Ying.

The next day, Lan Xichen calls him as well. Lan Zhan knows what to expect, but his words are a whip slash. “Wangji. You can’t give up your future for somebody who didn’t care enough to stay.”

Again, he says nothing. He can neither protest, nor agree. He can’t speak for Wei Ying, he realizes, because Wei Ying never even spoke for himself. He’ll ask him, he decides. If he— when he finds him, he’ll ask. Wei Ying, what do you want?

The final days of summer pass by, one empty day after another, and soon, too soon, the decision cannot be delayed any longer. 

He doesn’t recall making the decision. He doesn’t know that he did. All he knows is that it is September, and they are making the drive to the other side of town, car loaded with his possessions, ready to move him into the dorms. He may not be attending UCB anymore—there is nothing for him there anymore—but he can’t bring himself to give up on his dreams entirely.

Maybe, maybe, Wei Ying will appear. Maybe they’ll fall back into the future they’d discussed…the one Lan Zhan had discussed. A future with both of them, living on campus, their lives woven together, creating a beautiful tapestry. Maybe. 

Maybe.

Chapter Text

now.

Lan Wangji looks down at the map open on his phone, then up at the rundown warehouse before him. Several of the windows are boarded over, the paint is peeling, and he can see from here that the roof leaks. There are no signs, not street number visible to confirm that he has the right place. There’s only a broken callbox, with a slip of paper behind the plastic casing, the ink running where it has gotten wet, and the barely illegible characters for the Burial Mounds.

He presses the button on the callbox futilely. Then knocks on the glass door.

No one answers. But there’s loud music coming from inside, indicating that someone is there, and they probably can’t hear him. He looks at his conversation with Wen Qing again, then enters the door code she sent and walks in. 

There’s a small anteroom off to the side, housing a folding table and chair apparently operating as the front desk. Behind this, “Burial Mounds Art Studio” is painted in large, bubble letters across the wall, along with a flashing neon sign over a heavy door reading “Art In Progress.” 

Lan Wangji walks towards the door, puts his hand on the doorknob…and freezes. What is he doing here? If it’s Wei Ying—that is, if the Yiling Laozu is Wei Ying, Wen Qing had never answered him—but if it is Wei Ying, then what is Lan Zhan hoping to achieve? What does he want from him?

The question is jagged, full of sharp edges. He’ll cut himself if he handles it too carelessly. Instead, he closes his eyes, and slows his breath, needing to calm down. 

It doesn’t work. His heart is racing so fast that his face and hands are tingling. He needs to leave. He shouldn’t be here. This was a mistake. If it’s Wei Ying, if it’s really Wei Ying…

He opens the door. A wall of sound hits him, along with paint fumes and harsh, overhead fluorescent lights. He blinks, trying to process all of this sensory input at once.

The music is a traditional piece, one Lan Wangji knows well, has played and arranged many times. This particular arrangement is for a blended orchestra, with the parts for erhu shared with the violin, the xiao dueting with an oboe—although he could be wrong. The volume is turned up so loud that Lan Wangji can hardly make out the different pieces of it. It’s like looking at a canvas filled with neon, his ears unable to find anywhere to settle. 

The room he enters is large, with high ceilings and an almost comically oversized fan spinning overhead. There are cans of paint left in odd places all over the floor, grouped together according to no system that Lan Wangji can discern.

There are empty canvases, sketchbooks, glasses full of brushes scattered pellmell over the floor and work tables, but Lan Wangji only has eyes for the man standing at the far end of the room, back to him. He’s wearing black overalls with no shirt, his hair is tied back in a red handkerchief, and he is painting in broad, confident brush strokes across a large 4x6 canvas. 

Lan Wangji stares at him, disbelieving. He is different than he remembers. Different even than he expected, though Lan Wangji isn’t sure what he expected. Expectation and memory have been shaded by 16 years of desperate, wild, formless hope. But there is no denying it. 

The man makes a large stroke with his brush, a streak of green paint slicing across the canvas, then steps back to look at it. Lan Wangji draws closer—he isn’t aware of moving, it is as though he’s being pulled forward by some force outside of himself—and he can see that familiar line he gets between his eyebrows when he’s thinking. It’s this, more than anything, that cements it. 

“Wei Ying…”

Wei Ying doesn’t hear him. The music is too loud, Lan Wangji is still too far away. But now that he has said it, time spins up again in great gulping leaps, dragging reason in its wake.

Lan Wangji should go.

He has what he came here for. His suspicions are confirmed. 

He should go.

He doesn’t. His feet won’t move, neither forward toward Wei Ying nor back towards the door. He’s stuck in a liminal space, his head and heart at war. 

The wrinkle in Wei Ying’s brow clears, and his mouth opens in a laugh that Lan Wangji can’t actually hear but he can imagine. Wei Ying steps forward, swipes his brush again with an air of finality, then drops it onto the dropcloth beneath him in a careless display of triumph. 

It is all the warning gets before Wei Ying turns, and, at last, they face each other. 

Wei Ying is…beautiful. As beautiful as Lan Wangji remembers. Over the years, there were times where he would think that maybe he was remembering Wei Ying incorrectly. He didn’t have many photos, and most of the ones he did have were blurry—it had been nearly impossible to get Wei Ying to hold still.  Even those Lan Wangji rarely looks at, for fear of opening an old wound that he is just beginning to realize had never actually healed at all. 

But his memories of Wei Ying were so radiant and lovely and warm that he thought maybe they weren’t real. Maybe his mind had repainted Wei Ying into something more spectacular than he had been. It seemed impossible that he had been so wonderful.

Now, confronted with the real thing again after all this time, Lan Wangji knows his mind never lied to him. Wei Ying is, if anything, more beautiful than he remembered. There are smears of paint over his face and clothes, he has dark rings under his eyes, his hair is tied back in a frizzy ponytail behind the handkerchief, and his lips are chapped.

He takes Lan Wangji’s breath away.

They stare at each other for a long time, until Wei Ying breaks eye contact. He blinks rapidly, shakes his head, then looks at Lan Wangji again. Something flashes in his face—panic? anger? confusion?—and his mouth opens in a question that Lan Wangji can’t hear.

Wei Ying must see that Lan Wangji can’t hear him, because he grimaces and says something else that Lan Wangji is pretty sure is an expletive, then shoves a paint covered hand into his overall pocket and fishes out a phone, jamming his thumbs into the screen.

The music abruptly stops. 

The room is so quiet, so suddenly that it makes Lan Wangji feel almost dizzy.

They look at each other. Lan Wangji waiting, Wei Ying…

Growing up, as friends, then as boyfriends, Wei Ying had rarely ever been quiet or at a loss for words. Lan Wangji had learned that quiet meant that Wei Ying was scared. Not scared in the usual ways, though. He wasn’t afraid of spiders, or heights, or talking in front of groups. In the usual ways, Wei Ying had always been fearless. But he did get scared, fearing things that made Lan Wangji want to fight the world for him. But there was no way to shield Wei Ying from the fear of being too much. Of being not enough. Wei Ying was afraid of being hurt or left behind, and even more afraid of hurting others. 

Lan Wangji hates seeing Wei Ying look at him like that, but he doesn’t know what to say. 

Wei Ying did hurt him. He can’t say he didn’t.

It was Wei Ying who left.

Suddenly, Wei Ying’s expression changes. The surprised, broken look blinks away, and then he is smiling, a sunny smile that doesn’t fit his face, overflowing the corners and not quite reaching his eyes.

“Hello!” he says in a bouncy, impersonal voice. “How may I help you?”

Lan Wangji is too stunned to reply right away, and Wei Ying takes advantage of his silence. “Sorry I didn’t hear you come in! Don’t get a lot of visitors, so I had A-Ning go for the day. No need for him to sit up front if there’s no appointments. So! Are you interested in a painting?”

“I—”

“You’ll need to go through my agent, but if it’s a commission I can take down the details.”

“No, I’m—”

“But I should warn you, I only really do landscapes. I’m not a portrait-person, really, so I can’t do family photos. It only takes one angry husband yelling at you for failing to capture his wife’s beauty to turn you away from that line of work, trust me. And I bet your wife is very pretty.”

“I am not married,” Lan Wangji says, as if that’s the important thing to say. “Wei Ying. I’ve…where…are you well?”

“Business is alright,” he says. Then, “I’m sorry. I think you have me confused with someone else. My name is Mo Xuanyu.”

“No,” Lan Wangji says. It is Wei Ying. He would know Wei Ying anywhere, no matter how many years might pass. “You…we—”

“Do we know each other?”

The words hit with such force that Lan Wangji has to take a step back. Regret flashes across Wei Ying’s face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared.

“Whoa,” Wei Ying says, stepping forward, his hand reaching toward Lan Wangji, only to be quickly retracted back to his side. “I—I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not who you think I am.”

Whatever Lan Wangji had expected their reunion to be, however he had imagined it—and he had imagined it hundreds, thousands of times over the years—it had never been this . He feels dizzy. He feels like he might be sick. 

“I—” Lan Wangji swallows and closes his eyes, breathing in deeply through his nose. The fumes make his head swim. It’s probably not safe to work in here. Wei Ying should be wearing a respirator. Lan Wangji wants to grab him by the wrist and pull him out of this toxic place, push clean air into his lungs, make him promise to be more careful. “I am sorry. I must have been mistaken.”

The words taste more acrid than the air. He hates them. Hates the lie, the pretending, but Wei Ying is looking at him like a stranger, or like he wishes he were. And Lan Wangji always tried to give Wei Ying what he wanted, to make him happy.

“Yeah,” Wei Ying says, wrapping his arms around his chest. “A mistake.”

Lan Wangji needs to leave. He feels unsteady, and he’s pretty sure he can’t drive right now, but but he can walk. He can get his car later, or send someone to get it. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. He needs to go. “I’m sorry for bothering you,” he says, nodding crisply as he turns to leave, keeping his pace steady and appropriate, even though he wants nothing more than to run.

The walk to the door is the longest walk of his life. 

Then, the walk through the front office.

Then, to his car.

He doesn’t start the engine or try to drive. He just sits, breathing, head propped against the headrest, eyes closed as he exists.

It’s been five minutes, or maybe thirty, or more, when there’s a knock on his window. 

He opens his eyes, the light searing like an iron rod into his head. The pain makes his stomach roll. Wei Ying is looking in at him, frowning at him, lip caught between his teeth. Lan Wangji rolls down his window. 

“Are you…okay?” Wei Ying asks. “You looked a little unsteady and I got worried. Are you sick? You don’t look good. You shouldn’t drive right now.”

Lan Wangji starts to deny it, but he can’t. He can’t seem to speak at all. 

“Let me drive you,” Wei Ying says, opening the door without invitation. “You came out all this way just to be…disappointed. It seems like the least I can do.”

Lan Wangji is a weak man. When offered so plainly the thing he wants more than he wants even the air in his lungs, he cannot deny. He nods. 

“Great. Okay, scoot over? I’ve got you.”

The drive is quiet. Wei Ying tries to keep up a stream of chatter, but when met with Lan Wangji’s silence, in tandem with the fraught atmosphere, he soon peters out. 

It’s a short drive, though. They arrive at Lan Wangji’s apartment twenty minutes later. 

Twenty minutes.

Wei Ying is twenty minutes away. Has been. For how long?

“Here you go,” Wei Ying says, pulling into the driveway and throwing the car into park. “Home sweet home.”

“Mn.”

When Lan Wangji doesn’t get out right away, Wei Ying takes the initiative, circling around to the passenger side door.

Lan Wangji allows himself to be helped. Wei Ying’s hand wraps around his arm, and heat travels up it, almost painfully, like the tingle of blood flow returning to a sleeping limb. 

Wei Ying escorts him to the door, waiting patiently as Lan Wangji finds his keys. He unlocks the house, heart hammering. Wei Ying is here, on his doorstep. He should ask. They need to talk. He needs to talk. It’s been so long, he has so many questions. But even if they can’t talk, even if he can’t ask, he just wants Wei Ying here a little longer. There’s something shrieking in his chest, banging against the cage of his ribs, reaching with withered hands for water, for light, for Wei Ying.

He should try. 

“Would you like to—”

“Looks like you’ve got it from here!” Wei Ying interrupts and takes several steps back from him and jams his hands into his pockets. “I’ll be going.”

Once, when Lan Wangji was a child playing catch with Xichen, he’d thrown the ball poorly, hitting a window. At the time, they’d thought themselves lucky that the window didn’t break. It wasn’t when Shufu had called them over and asked what happened, that they’d seen that the window had shattered, spiderweb fractures running through it though no shard had been dislodged. 

Lan Wangji feels very much like that pane of glass. “How will you get home?”

“Ah, don’t worry about me. I’m not so far from Qing-jie’s office. I’ll go bother her for a ride, she won’t mind.”

“I see.”

Lan Wangji stands at the door, moving in slow motion as he reaches for the handle and begins to turn it. 

“Lan Zh—Lan Wangji?”

“Yes?”

“This…person. Wei Ying. Was he really that important to you?”

Lan Wangji swallows around the foreign sensation in his throat, but the words still come out choked. “He was the most important person. He is.”

“Oh.” Wei Ying lets out a shaky breath. For a desperate, hopeful moment, Lan Wangji thinks he’s going to stop pretending. That Wei Ying is going to close the distance again, and maybe, maybe…

“I hope…I hope you find him.”

“As do I.”

Lan Wangji opens the door. 

“Wait! Hang on, you should—” Wei Ying fumbles in his pocket, then rushes forward and shoves something into Lan Wangji’s hand. “Take this. It’s my card, it has my number on it. For if you—if you decide you want that commission.”

Lan Wangji looks down at the card. At the place where Wei Ying’s hand is touching his. “Thank you.”

“Ah, no no! There’s no need. I’ll—I’ll be going. See you later!”

Wei Ying turns and runs down the sidewalk. Lan Wangji watches him go, and continues standing on his doorstep long after Wei Ying is out of sight.

The business card is made of matte black cardstock, lightly textured, with text printed in a glossy red with a phone number and a name: Mo Xuanyu.

Lan Wangji enters the number into his cell phone, then slides the card into his wallet. 

Tomorrow, he will talk to Nie Huaisang, upping the offer on the painting. 

Tomorrow, he will figure out what to do next.

Tomorrow.

For tonight, he goes through his routine as usual, and it isn’t until he takes himself to bed that he finally allows the tears to come. 

then.

“Wangji!”

Xichen’s arms wrap around him. It’s not quite a hug, but it’s closer to one than anything they have shared since they were children. Lan Zhan stiffens against his will, causing Xichen to draw back. 

“How are you?” he asks. A strange question, considering they had spoken just half an hour ago, when Xichen’s flight landed. 

“Well,” Lan Zhan says, bending down to take one of Xichen’s bags to bring it inside. It has become an easy habit to lie to his brother. Easier than the truth. 

“Shufu told me your classes are going well.”

“Mn.”

“Good! And what about…”

He trails off expectantly. Lan Zhan knows what he is asking, but he’s not going to help him. Not when Lan Xichen already knows the answer. 

“You know, A-Yao has a friend at the Institute, you might—”

“No.”

To his credit, Xichen doesn’t push, though this won’t be the last of it, Lan Zhan knows. His brother doesn’t understand Lan Zhan’s reluctance to make friends. 

That’s fine. Lan Zhan himself finds it hard to explain. But so long as Lan Zhan holds onto the space where Wei Ying was, so long as he keeps the things that he can control the way they were…so long as he does that, there will be room for Wei Ying to come back.

So he pushes at the walls, even as he feels them closing in, willing to hold them up for as long as it takes. 

“You know it will get better, right?”

Lan Zhan doesn’t answer. He takes the bag to his brother’s room—to what used to be his brother’s room, before Shufu had stripped the posters and replaced the bedding and turned it into a room for guests who never came. 

now.

Lan Wangji makes it through the next few days by rote, with two exceptions:

First, he calls Nie Huaisang and tells him to triple the offer on the painting. Nie Huaisang is equal parts horrified and delighted by this. Horrified, because “What did that Wen woman say to you?” And delighted because of the commission his gallery is about to earn. 

“I’m going to be able to fund a whole new exhibit!” he enthuses to Lan Wangji. “There’s one I’ve had my eye on. It’s—well. I don’t want to give away the surprise.”

Lan Wangji, who’s interest in the art world had narrowed down to one single artist overnight, had only hummed.

Second, he texts Wei Ying. Or, should he say, Mo Xuanyu. 

With the clarity of…well, not a good night’s sleep. Lan Wangji had not slept at all. But with the clarity of a fresh day, Lan Wangji has decided that if Wei Ying is Mo Xuanyu now, then he needs to respect it. 

The text he sends is simple. Safe, he thinks. It reads:

Mo Xuanyu- My apologies for my behavior yesterday. I appreciate your assistance. Please allow me to take you to dinner, it is the least I can do. 

Text sent, he resolves to not let himself think about it until he gets a response. He has things to do. Work that has to get done. He can’t afford to be distracted.

His resolution fails. 

The whole day, he hears nothing. And the next. Three days. Four.

A week goes by with no response from Mo Xuanyu. Not thinking about him goes from challenging to impossible as time passes; every few minutes, he feels phantom vibrations from his phone, taking it from his pocket every time only to find a blank screen looking back at him.

“Wangji,” Lan Qiren snaps as he pulls his phone out yet again in the middle of an important meeting. “Is it urgent?”

There is no text. Lan Wangji slips the phone back into his pocket, but as soon as it is out of sight he feels the prickle of anxiety again. “No, Shufu.”

“Then please keep it put away and pay attention.”

The meeting is about a new client. They’ve been asked to consult with a famous movie composer on a new film. Shufu and Lan Xichen have been debating the merits of taking the contract for the last hours. 

Lan Wangji does not have the energy to care, and when asked his opinion can only say, “I can do it.”

After the meeting, Lan Xichen pulls Lan Wangji aside into his office. “Is everything okay?”

Lan Wangji is not a good liar. It is not in his nature. But he’s trying not to think about it, and telling Lan Xichen would mean opening up the topic to be discussed for the indefinite future. Besides, he doesn’t want anyone else to know about Wei Ying, for now. “Mn,” he hums, hoping this non-answer is enough to satisfy Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen looks at him, waiting, but when Lan Wangji offers nothing else, he shakes his head. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

Lan Wangji frowns. “No need—”

“Wangji,” Lan Xichen interrupts, which surprises Lan Wangji into silence. “Go home. I insist.”

There’s no way to protest that won’t make things worse. Lan Wangji nods, and complies.

Being home doesn’t help. At work, at least Lan Wangji had something to distract him. At home, it is just Lan Wangji and his thoughts and the terrible feeling that he is waiting for something that will never come. In some ways, he has always been waiting. He’s been waiting for 16 years.

When his phone vibrates in his pocket a few hours later, Lan Wangji almost doesn’t reach for it. It’s probably just his imagination again.

Then, it vibrates again, several times in a row. 

Resigned to yet another blank screen, Lan Wangji takes it out.

He has nine text messages.

Just like that, his heart kicks into overdrive. He blinks down at the phone, too startled to remember for a moment how to work it. Then, he’s fumbling, typing his passcode incorrectly multiple times until his phone locks, forcing him to wait for 30 seconds before trying again.

He uses that time to calm down, to slow his breathing and his racing heart. It is the longest 30 seconds of his life.

When he can, he unlocks his phone and opens his texts.

The first is from Nie Huaisang:

“ Just heard back from Wen Qing ,” it reads. “ Turns out she was off this past week and only saw the offer today. They accepted. ”

A satisfied thrill runs through Lan Wangji. The painting is his. And, best of all, Mo Xuanyu has been properly compensated.

Which leads him to the other texts.

The offer is too generous!
For the painting, and the dinner!
gege r u rich?? 🙈
ahahah jk dont answer that
If this is bcuz u feel like u have to, u shouldnt
U dont owe me anything
But im also greedy and im not gonna turn down the cash
thx is what im trying to say

Lan Wangji reads it over and realizes he is smiling. He doesn’t bother hiding it. No one is here to see him anyway. He texts back.

“And the dinner?”

He waits, wondering if he will get anything else. Then:
“?”

He huffs. “You aren’t turning down the money. What about the meal?”

He sends it and belatedly realizes how it sounds; like he’s buying Mo Xuanyu’s time. He flushes, and his thumbs scurry to clarify, when a message comes through.

“Is dinner still on the table after I ghosted you all week?”

He lets out a relieved breath. “Always.”

The reply comes quickly. “Ok but I pick the restaurant.”

Mo Xuanyu picks a casual dining restaurant in town. It’s part of a chain, not the sort of place Lan Wangji usually goes, but he doesn’t care about the food anyway. There’s a large group of people waiting for tables, mostly families, laughing, smiling, arguing. Lan Wangji walks past them to the host stand. It is through careful, deliberate self regulation that he has managed to arrive at the restaurant only 15 minutes early. 

He’s not expecting, when he reaches the front, to find that Mo Xuanyu is already there.

“Lan Wangji! Over here!” He jumps to his feet as Lan Wangji enters, waving him past the disinterested hostess towards his booth. Lan Wangji takes a deep breath and walks over to him, heart hammering in his chest.

“Hi,” Mo Xuanyu says, smiling across the table at him.

“Hello.”

Dinner is pleasant. More than pleasant. It’s like slipping back into soft, worn pajamas: comforting and familiar. Lan Wangji speaks little, enjoying instead the cadence of Mo Xuanyu’s voice as tells Lan Wangji about his life, drawing a patchy outline of the past 16 years.

“Wen Qing is amazing. I wouldn’t be able to make a living off of my art without her. Her and Wen Ning have done so much for me. They pulled me out of a dark place. Them and A-Yuan.”

“A-Yuan?”

“Ah, haven’t I mentioned? He’s my kid.”

Lan Wangji, who had been about to take a sip of his tea, sets his cup carefully back on the table. “You have a child?”

“Yeah! Well, he’s ours. Me, Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s. We raise him together. Do you want to see a picture?”

Mo Xuanyu reaches into his pocket, taking out a paint-splattered phone, and starts thumbing through his photos. Lan Wangji uses this moment to compose himself. It makes no difference that W…Mo Xuanyu has a child. It has been 16 years, after all.

“Here we go!” Mo Xuanyu shoves his phone at Lan Wangji, showing a photo of an embarrassed preteen holding up a drawing of a field of rabbits with a blue ribbon reading “1st place” pinned in the corner, Mo Xuanyu beaming next to him, arm slung around his shoulders.

“First place in his school’s art fair,” Mo Xuanyu declares proudly. “He takes after his Xian-gege, after all.”

Lan Wangji can’t help but react to the nickname, his hand clenching around the phone, the screen going dark. Mo Xuanyu seems not to notice, taking back his phone.

“What about you, Lan Wangji? Any kids?”

“No.”

“Really? I would’ve thought…”

Mo Xuanyu trails off. Lan Wangji wants to reach across the table and squeeze the rest of that sentence out of him. 

What had he thought? Lan Wangji remembers talking about this. About having kids, about having a family. He’d had a plan. A timeline. It seems so foolish now, to think that life could be planned. 

 Lan Wangji had wanted children, it’s true. He’d talked about this, but when he’d talked about it, when he’d imagined it, he had always meant together.

He had only meant with Wei Ying. 

Conversation moves away from their families, skirting dangerously around the edges of the past, and back to work. Lan Wangji tells Mo Xuanyu about how he moved away from performance and into the composition side of music—he mostly does commercial work, though he still composes in his free time as well.

Mo Xuanyu nods along, something sad and understanding in his eyes. He leans forward as Lan Wangji talks, elbows on the table, then, somehow, they’re holding hands. Lan Wangji’s words dry up, along with his mouth, at the feeling of their skin pressed together. Mo Xuanyu’s palm is warm and dry against his.

“Lan Zhan. Do you like the commercial work, though? It’s important to have passion,” Mo Xuanyu says, his thumb sweeping across the back of Lan Wangji’s hand. “You should do what makes you happy.”

“Is that what you do?” 

The words come out sharp. Not an accusation, exactly, but no less barbed. Lan Wangji wants to pull them back into his mouth, to chew them until the thorns are mush between his teeth.

But Mo Xuanyu only smiles, a little sadly, and squeezes his hand.

“You’re right,” he says. “You shouldn’t listen to me, Lan Zhan. I don’t know the first thing about being happy.”

The check comes a short while later. Lan Wangji is loath to end their evening together, but he has no reasonable excuse to request more of Mo Xuanyu’s time. He pays, and they exit together, standing awkwardly outside the restaurant. 

“Do you need a ride?” Lan Wangji asks, but Mo Xuanyu shakes his head.

“I’m not far from home. I can walk.”

“It is no trouble.”

“No, really. I like to walk a little after a meal.”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji considers, then, feeling more bold than perhaps he should, he takes Mo Xuanyu’s hand. “Then I will walk with you.”

“What? Ah, you don’t have to do that! It’s out of your way. It’s really not necessary!”

At no point, though, does he say that he doesn’t want Lan Wangji to accompany him, so Lan Wangji ignores him. They set off together, walking until even Mo Xuanyu falls quiet.

It is a sizzling sort of silence. It crackles around them, licking electric tingles over Lan Wangji’s skin. He feels hot all over, and he’s embarrassed to realize that his palms are beginning to sweat. He wonders if Mo Xuanyu notices, but if he does he says nothing, nor does he pull his hand away. 

“This is me.”

They stop outside of a squat building with a crumbling concrete stoop. Lan Wangji looks up at it, noting the water-stains where the gutters leak and the cracks that spiderweb up the foundation.

He says nothing, merely nodding.

“Well…thanks,” Mo Xuanyu says. They’re still holding hands. He’s looking at Lan Wangji with an expression that Lan Wangji can’t decipher, but it’s familiar. How many times had Wei Ying looked at Lan Wangji exactly like this all those years ago? He’d thought he’d understood what it meant then. 

He knows now that he’d understood very little about Wei Ying.

“Payment fulfilled, right?” Mo Xuanyu continues in response to Lan Wangji’s silence. “Sorry that I probably wasn’t that interesting.”

“No,” Lan Wangji interjects. “I enjoyed your company.”

“Oh.”

“I would like to take you out again.”

“Oh.”

Mo Xuanyu bites his lip. Lan Wangji can’t help how his eyes drop to his mouth, remembering the taste of it, wondering if it’s still the same: spicy and warm and sweet. 

He tears his eyes away, back up to Mo Xuanyu’s, and finds him looking at him, eyes dark and wide. 

“Lan Zhan…”

Lan Wangji steps forward at the same time that Mo Xuanyu steps back, dropping his hand at last.

“I have to go in. They’re waiting on me.”

He’s not looking at him now. He’s staring at the ground, his hand opening and closing at his side. 

Lan Wangji swallows, then nods. “I understand. May I…” he hesitates, reaching forward as though to take Mo Xuanyu’s’ hand again before stopping himself. “May I call you?”

“I’m not much of a phone call person.”

“I see.” Disappointment washes through him, the taste-memory of Wei Ying on his tongue replaced by something thick and bitter.

“You can text me though?” Mo Xuanyu says quickly, the words coming out all squeezed together on a single breath. “If…if you’d like?”

“I’d like that.”

“Good,” Mo Xuanyu says, exhaling long and slow. “Good. I—I really do have to go.”

Lan Wangji nods again, and Mo Xuanyu turns and walks up the steps to the front door, digging in his pocket for a key. Lan Wangji watches him, taking in every second he can, just in case this isn’t real. Just in case he’s lying. In case he runs again.

“Lan Zhan?” Mo Xuanyu says as he pushes the door open, head angled just slightly towards him, face hidden in the loose fall of his hair, hardly more than a shadow. “It was good to see you.”

“Whenever you like,” Lan Wangji says. Mo Xuanyu doesn’t respond, but slips inside and closes the door behind him.

Lan Wangji walks back to his car alone, heart aching and full, and wonders if it can survive being broken again.

Chapter Text

now.

Lan Wangji has a problem.

It’s been about a month since that first not-date with Mo Xuanyu. He thinks of it as a “not-date”, because, though they see each other weekly and text daily, nothing has progressed beyond the level of friendship. Lan Wangji is happy to have Mo Xuanyu’s friendship, and is content with how things are if that is what Mo Xuanyu wants. In truth, Lan Wangji wants more, but he’s learned better than to push for his own desires. Last time, it had driven Wei Ying away for 16 yrs. He won’t risk that again.

It’s not the friendship that’s the problem. It’s not even his own sore heart. Rather, it’s a date on his calendar, circled in purple sharpie and a short two weeks away: his dinner with Jiang Yanli.

They do it every couple of months: she cooks the main dish, he brings a side and a bottle of something non-alcoholic and sparkling, and they catch each other up on their lives. It used to be that they met more frequently, once every week or so, to compare notes on their search for Wei Ying.

As time passed, as hope grew sparse and their lives moved forward—

No. Not “their” lives. It was Jiang Yanli’s life that moved forward. Jiang Yanli who found the strength to continue moving as she shouldered the weight of her grief. As Lan Wangji has become painfully aware over the past weeks, he did not keep moving. He’s been living his life trapped in place—not so much unable to move as he was unwilling to try. Now, Jiang Yanli has her husband and her son, and as a result they meet less frequently than they once did and the purpose of the dinners has changed. 

Lan Wangji could pretend that this absolves him of responsibility. He could turn away from what he knows he needs to do, what he owes her. But the thought of leaving Jiang Yanli in the dark, nursing the hurt of Wei Ying’s disappearance, alone with the quiet fear of his death or suffering…it is unconscionable. It is too much. There has always been an unspoken agreement between Jiang Yanli and Lan Wangji, one that he has already broken: to share any news of Wei Ying. 

Lan Wangji hasn’t told Jiang Yanli about Mo Xuanyu. It would be a betrayal of his trust. After all, Mo Xuanyu ever mentions the Jiangs. He doesn’t talk about his sister. Not directly, at least. She’s there, though, in the pauses. In sentences left to drift, open and incomplete, thin tendrils tracing the shape of her name but never taking hold.

He feels himself to be in an impossible situation. Mo Xuanyu’s existence isn’t Lan Wangji’s secret to tell. But he can’t handle the alternative. Lan Wangji can’t sit across from Jiang Yanli, enjoying the deep well of her kindness and warmth while keeping this secret from her. Not when they shared tears together, when they held the remnants of what once was in their cupped palms as the other fell apart and offered hope that they might be glued together again. 

Lan Wangji can’t keep this secret, but he also can’t tell her. Only one solution remains.

The trouble is, he doesn’t know how to ask.

Mo Xuanyu is sprawled across Lan Wangji’s couch, his feet propped up on the arm, his big toe poking out of a hole in his sock. The nail is painted bright green. He catches Lan Wangji staring and wiggles it. “Do you like it?” he asks. “A-Yuan painted them. Apparently his friend was getting teased for painting his nails, so he wanted to do his as well. But he needed practice first. Green isn’t really my color, but I was happy to sacrifice my toes to the cause.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji hums, walking towards the couch. Mo Xuanyu moves to sit up and make space, but Lan Wangji shakes his head, instead lifting Mo Xuanyu’s legs and takes a seat beneath them, letting them come back to rest in his lap.

“Oh,” Mo Xuanyu laughs, a little breathily. “Oh. Okay then.”

Lan Wangji likes this. He likes having Mo Xuanyu here, taking up space in his apartment, laying across his sofa like he had a claim to it. Lan Wangji shouldn’t like it so much, he knows he shouldn’t, but it doesn’t stop the satisfied purr from rumbling low and inaudible in his chest. 

Mo Xuanyu, having found an entry into his favorite topic, is telling a story about A-Yuan again. These are some of Lan Wangji’s favorites. Mo Xuanyu takes so much pride as a parent, and A-Yuan sounds like a great kid: kind and smart and funny. All the things that Mo Xuanyu is as well. They are the qualities about him that Lan Wangji admires the most, and he tells him as much, enjoying the way Mo Xuanyu sputters and turns red under the praise.

“Lan Zhan! You can’t say things like that!” he protests, kicking his feet petulantly. Lan Wangji grabs his ankles, holding them in place. 

“Why not?”

Mo Xuanyu doesn’t answer immediately, which is odd. He is usually quick with his words, eager to poke and prod, his tongue often quicker than his thoughts. Lan Wangji turns to look at him head on and sees Mo Xuanyu staring, open-mouthed and red-cheeked, and completely still.

Lan Wangji starts to ask if he’s okay, but before he can speak, he feels Mo Xuanyu give an experimental tug of his ankle against his grip. Not as if he’s trying to get away. It's as if … as if he’s testing something.

The motion brings back a flood of memories that Lan Wangji has kept locked tightly, safely away. Memories of Wei Ying, hazy-eyed, staring up at him, wrists pinned to the bed, straining against Lan Wangji’s grip, never quite strong enough to get loose, like they both knew he could.

Lan Wangji looks at Mo Xuanyu now, the memory of Wei Ying burning in his mind, and squeezes tighter. 

Mo Xuanyu moans, the sound high and tight, as though he had tried to hold it in but couldn’t. He turns redder still, even as his eyes, dark and hot, lift to Lan Wangji’s. “Lan Zhan…”

Slowly, deliberately, giving him the space to object, Lan Wangji lifts Mo Xuanyu’s ankle to his lips and places a kiss to the bit of exposed skin between his pant leg and his sock. Another moan, and Mo Xuanyu shivers in his hands. “Lan Zhan,” he says again.

“What?” Lan Wangji asks.

“I…” Mo Xuanyu bites his lip, falling silent. 

That won’t do. Lan Wangji squeezes again, harder this time. “What do you want?”

“I want…” Mo Xuanyu exhales shakily, his eyes squeezed closed so tightly his whole face crinkles around them. “I shouldn’t.”

Lan Wangji places his ankle down gently and releases it. Mo Xuanyu’s eyes fly open, staring down his body at Lan Wangji. “I shouldn’t…” he repeats even as he kicks his legs out of Lan Wangji’s lap and starts to crawl towards him. “I shouldn’t,” he says, as he straddles Lan Wangji’s lap and Lan Wangji’s hands come up and grip his hips. 

“Why not?” Lan Wangji tilts his chin up, Mo Xuanyu’s breath hot on his mouth.

“Because I’m not…”

He shudders and closes his eyes again, and a tear slips free, carving a wet streak down his cheek. Impulsively, Lan Wangji catches it on his thumb and licks it. 

“What?” Lan Wangji presses. “What aren’t you?”

“Good.” Mo Xuanyu’s whole body is shaking now.

“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji says, then wraps his arms around Mo Xuanyu and pulls him into a tight embrace.

The shaking stops after a moment, Mo Xuanyu’s face tucked firmly into Lan Wangji’s neck, one hand against the back of his head holding him there. Lan Wangji could stay like his forever, wants to hold him right here, so close that there is hardly a breath of space between them.

He wants this and only this. Right up until he feels Mo Xuanyu’s mouth open and his tongue lick against the side of his neck, up to his ear, which he takes gently in his teeth.

And suddenly, Lan Wangji wants more.

With a growl, Lan Wangji’s hand in Mo Xuanyu’s hair turns from gentle to fierce, fisting into his ponytail and pulling until Mo Xuanyu goes with it, mouth open on a gasp. “Lan—” but the name is cut off as Lan Wangji kisses him, at last.

The kiss is frantic at first. Mo Xuanyu presses into it until Lan Wangji’s lips bruise, and then further still. Lan Wangji opens his mouth to him and then Mo Xuanyu’s tongue is in his mouth, desperate and hungry, a constant low, needy whine coming from the back of his throat. 

Lan Wangji kisses him like this for a while, letting himself be kissed, before taking back control. He grabs Mo Xuanyu’s wrists and pulls them loose from where his hands have woven themselves into Lan Wangji’s hair. Mo Xuanyu goes limp against him almost at once, and Lan Wangji takes the chance to gentle the kiss. To turn it sweet and slow, savoring the taste of it.

Mo Xuanyu grows impatient, as Lan Wangji knew he would. Soon he’s wriggling in his lap, sitting his full weight down onto him as his hips jerk in small thrusts. Lan Wangji moves both wrists into one hand, then uses the other to grab Mo Xuanyu’s hip, holding him in place. 

“Be still.”

“Lan Zhan, I can’t, I—”

“You can,” he scolds, leaning forward to drag his teeth across the knot of his throat. “Be good for me, Xuanyu.”

“Wei Ying.”

Lan Wangji stills. He sits back to get a better view of Mo Xuanyu’s face. 

“Wei Ying,” Mo Xuanyu…Wei Ying repeats again. “Call me Wei Ying.”

then.

It is the first day in a new school, and Lan Zhan is nervous.

Just a few short weeks ago, Lan Zhan was in a different country. He was on a different side of the world, living in a different house.

Just a few short weeks ago, Lan Zhan had a mother.

"Don't be scared, Didi," Huan-ge says, squeezing his hand. "I'm sure everyone will be nice! And I'll be here to get you when the day is over, just wait for me out here."

Lan Zhan wants to protest that he isn't scared. Nervous isn't the same as scared. Scared is sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a chemical smelling room with tobacco yellow walls as a nurse walks over to you with a frown and tells you the doctor wants to speak with you.

It's being pulled back into a private room with your brother and your uncle and knowing, from the way he won't look at any of you, that it went badly. That it isn't good news. That—

"I've got to go to class," Huan-ge says gently. Lan Zhan realizes that he's been clinging to his hand, staring at the doors. There are students, other kids, watching them. Lan Zhan hears a few titters of laughter and finally drops his brother's hand, ears burning with shame. 

"3'o'clock," Huan-ge reminds him, speaking in English this time. "Have a good day, Didi."

"3'o'clock," Lan Zhan repeats. He's been practicing, preparing for this, but the words still feel clumsy in his mouth. 

With one more goodbye, Huan-ge leaves him. Lan Zhan pushes his way through the double doors with the tide of students flooding into the building and makes his way inside.

The principal's office is his first destination. He wishes, as he approaches the desk, that Shufu could be here. But Shufu had work and besides everything had already been prepared. All Lan Zhan has to do is give his name to the woman behind the desk, and she'll tell him where to go.

"Hello," he says as he approaches. She looks up at him from whatever she is working on, peering over the top of a pair of reading glasses.

"Home room starts in 2 minutes, you're not tardy yet if you hurry."

She speaks at a ponderously slow speed, her voice a little too loud. Lan Zhan thinks he has misunderstood, because this is not what is supposed to happen. He turns the sounds over in his head, mashing at them, but no other words or meaning emerges. "I am new," he says. "I was told to come here."

The lady looks at him, her mouth turning down before she clicks her tongue and shakes her head. "Wait. Here.” She points at a chair, gesturing several times until Lan Zhan walks over and takes a seat. 

He’s anxious. He’s not sure what’s happening. He was told he had to check in at the office and they would tell him where to go. Now, he feels that he’s misunderstood, certain that he’s messed up already. Are they going to call Shufu and tell him that Lan Zhan is causing trouble? 

The panic rises in his throat making it hard to breathe. Lan Zhan tries to remember what the social worker had told him when they got here. “When you’re feeling overwhelmed, just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and count your blessings.”

Lan Zhan closes his eyes, draws a tight breath in through his nose. These days, it’s hard to think of blessings to count, but he tries. He has Shufu. He has Huan-ge. He has a home. He isn’t sick. He isn’t in a hospital. He’s at school. He’s at school thousands of miles away from home. He doesn’t know anybody. Mother is gone. Father doesn’t want them. People speak to him like he’s stupid, when they speak to him at all. 

He clenches his fists and tries to pull the thoughts back, but he finds he can’t. He’s slipping, his mind free-falling down into darkness. He’s alone. He’s different. He’s—

“Are you Lan Wangji?”

Lan Zhan’s eyes fly open at the familiar language, spoken in an unfamiliar voice. There’s a boy looking down at him. A Chinese boy, with a bright smile that crinkles his eyes into half moons. He’s wearing a vivid purple hoodie with a basketball emblazoned in an orange starburst. It’s slightly too small for him—the cuffs hit an inch above his wrists, and look a little worn. His hair is cut bluntly, so his bangs make a straight line across his forehead, hanging into his eyes. He shakes them out of the way, but they fall right back into place again. 

“Um. Sorry. I thought…do you not speak —?” The boy begins again, in English this time, and Lan Zhan realizes he has spent too long staring and never replied.

“I do,” he says quickly. Then, flushes at having interrupted. “My name is Lan Wangji.”

“Oh great! Well, hi, Lan Wangji! I’m Wei Wuxian. I’m your buddy for the day. I’m meant to show you around. I think we’ve got the same classes. Do you have your schedule?”

Lan Zhan shakes his head.

“Aiyah, they can never do anything right here. Hang on. Hey! Susan!”

He switches to English as he turns and shouts to the woman behind the desk. She glares at him, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to notice. 

“He doesn’t have his schedule yet! Do you have it for him?”

“Lower your voice,” the woman snaps. She opens the desk drawer, rifles through it for a long time. Frowns, and begins to rifle again.

“Lan is his last name,” Wei Wuxian provides helpfully as he peeks over her shoulder. “Remember? It’s the opposite—”

“I know that,” she says curtly, but Lan Zhan notices that she switches to a different drawer. She pulls out the file and hands a sheet of paper over to Wei Wuxian. 

“ Thank you~ ,” Wei Wuxian singsongs as he takes it from her. It’s so rude, so impertinent, that Lan Zhan can do nothing but stare. 

“Get to class.”

“Ah, but the bell’s already rung! We’ll be tardy! We need a pass. You can’t expect us to get a demerit when we were just doing what we were told. I’m being a good citizen here, I shouldn’t—”

“ Fine ,” she sighs, grabbing a square yellow pad and scribbling on it before tearing off a sheet and giving it to Wei Wuxian. “Now go .”

“Already gone!” Wei Wuxian smiles, then hurries away and grabs Lan Wangji’s backpack off the floor. “Come on! I’ll show you to your locker first. Damn, what do you have in this thing, bricks?”

“Books.”

Wei Wuxian laughs and slings the bag over his shoulder. “ Books . I know that, gege. I’m just messing with you.”

Lan Zhan follows the boy as he leads him through the oddly labyrinthine hallways of the school. Wei Wuxian talks the whole time. Normally, Lan Zhan would find this grating. But it has been too long since he’s heard a voice other than his uncle’s or his brother’s speaking to him in Mandarin, that he finds it oddly comforting. Wei Wuxian stops in front of a narrow gray locker that looks like all of the others, looks down at the paper, and nods. “This is yours! Here’s the combo.”

It takes Lan Zhan a few tries to open it. The locker jams easily and needs a hard rattle before it finally opens, which Wei Wuxian supplies by ramming his shoulder into it. Lan Zhan resolves to simply carry his bag with him in the future. 

As they finish up and finally head over to home room, Wei Wuxian pauses outside, giving Lan Zhan a strange smile and cocking his head to the side. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

He doesn’t, but when Wei Wuxian says it it feels…embarrassing. Like he’s done something wrong again without meaning too. Anxiety uncoils like a viper in his belly, and he feels the shame burning in his ears as he drops his eyes to his feet. He opens his mouth, wanting to prove Wei Wuxian wrong, but nothing comes out. 

Then, there’s a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. Oddly, Lan Zhan doesn’t flinch away from the touch. Instead, he looks up and Wei Wuxian is still smiling but…but it isn’t cruel. It isn’t laughing. It is gentle and earnest when he says, “Don’t worry about it. People are nice, and if they aren’t then you just tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

Lan Zhan frowns. “Fighting is forbidden.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen, his mouth drops open. This time, he does laugh. “Fighting? Who said anything about fighting? I mean, I will fight, if I have to….Aiyah, don’t look at me like that! Fine, fine. No fighting then.” Wei Wuxian shakes his head. He is still holding Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “You’re funny, gege.”

Nobody has ever called Lan Zhan funny before. He takes a moment to wonder if he is being teased, but Wei Wuxian’s face looks kind and sincere and Lan Zhan feels the tension in his shoulders ease. 

“Come on,” Wei Wuxian says, letting him go at last. “We really do have to get inside if we don’t want to get a demerit. If I get another, I’ve got to do a Saturday school, and I do not plan on giving up my Saturday, Lan Wangji.”

“Lan Zhan.”

“Eh?”

“My name,” Lan Zhan says, wondering if maybe he’s going to melt through the floor. “It is Lan Zhan.”

“Oh.” Wei Ying regards him for a moment, and then holds out his hand. Confused, Lan Zhan takes it. It is warm, but not hot. His palms are dry and a little rough. He must play sports. “Good to meet you, Lan Zhan. Call me Wei Ying.”

now. 

“Zixuan is taking A-Ling for a father-son day next Sat, so it’ll just be us!
Looking forward to seeing you! <3”

Lan Wangji looks down at the text, a leaden feeling in his belly. 

Wei Ying shifts next to him, grumbling sleepily as he pulls the blankets up beneath his chin, burrowing down further into the comforter. 

He’s spent the night again. He’s spent the night a lot over the last few days. Lan Wangji can hardly believe it, and often finds himself holding his breath, as though the heave of his chest will be enough to shatter the illusion, or to send Wei Ying running, a frightened animal fleeing a threat. 

They’re not dating. Lan Wangji is very aware that they are not dating, that what they’re doing has no definition, no label, no strings or commitment. When they’re together, pressed chest to chest, panting and hungry for each other, Lan Wangji can give in to the desire to pin Wei Ying in place, to hold him, to keep him.

But in these moments, in the quiet after, it what he hopes is the in-between, this thing between them seems more fragile than the finest tendrils of spun glass. He can only cradle it in the palm of his open hand and hope that it doesn’t break.

He stares at his phone, the text from Jiang Yanli like a heart beating beneath the floorboards, and knows that he can’t continue to do this. Wei Ying is alive. Wei Ying is here, and he can’t bring himself to continue to lie to her. 

For all that his heart was broken, he knows that hers was as well. The loss of Wei Ying was never something they moved past. Having Wei Ying back in his own life is proof of that. Is proof that the hole, the silence of him, was always there. They had just learned to ignore it. 

He sighs, placing the phone screen down against his chest and closing his eyes. It is well past 5. He has work today. He needs to get up, to go for his run (a short one, as he has spent his morning watching Wei Ying’s eyelids twitch through dreams), to shower, and to go about his day.

Carefully, he slips out from beneath the covers and quickly dresses in his running clothes. It takes effort to pull himself out the door, to follow along the worn tracks of his morning routine. He allows himself one final look over his shoulder, towards the room where he left Wei Ying sleeping, and hopes that he will be there when he returns.

Lan Wangji can only bear a 30 minute run before he finds himself all but sprinting back to his front door. He opens it, and comes face-to-face with Wei Ying, backpack slung over one shoulder, shoes still untied.

“Oh,” Wei Ying says, taking a hasty step back to put space between them. “I thought you’d be gone longer.”

“I had a short run today.”

Wei Ying lets out a sheepish chuckle as Lan Wangji moves past him. Lan Wangji bends over to remove his shoes, heart pounding—whether from the run or how close Lan Wangji came to missing Wei Ying, he isn’t sure. 

“I didn’t want to run off,” Wei Ying says. Lan Wangji’s fingers fumble over his laces, his breath hitching. He hopes Wei Ying doesn’t notice. “It’s just, I’m actually on kid-duty today. Gotta get him off to school. I promised Wen Qing before I came over that I’d be back by 7.”

“I see,” Lan Wangji says, glancing at his watch. It is 6:40. “You will be late.”

“Not if I run,” Wei Ying says. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time for a long goodbye. Even though I really love your goodbyes.”

Lan Wangji is a coward. He kisses Wei Ying goodbye at the door, watches him slip away into the morning, out of the liminal space where they are together, where maybe they have always been together, back to a life as distant from Lan Wangji as the moon.

Guilt eats away at Lan Wangji throughout the rest of the morning. He has always been good at compartmentalizing, at keeping his feelings and his personal life separate from his work. But the walls had never been able to withstand Wei Ying. 

His phone vibrates in his pocket all day, small, nothing texts from Wei Ying. Photos of his lunch, of a can of spilled paint, a selfie of his face streaked in blue. Lan Wangji smiles at them all, as the cavern in his chest grows wider.

He has just returned home from work, and has started the process of changing out of his stiff work clothes into soft loungewear, when his phone vibrates again.

He takes it out of his pocket, expecting another text from Wei Ying.

It isn’t. Jiang Yanli has texted him again. He opens it and finds a photo of A-Ling sitting in front of a guqin, frowning with concentration. It’s a spectacular frown, and clearly Jiang Yanli had thought so as well, as it is captioned, “I don’t think the guqin is in his future.”

Lan Wangji texts back, though it takes him several tries as his hands are shaking. “Perhaps a wind instrument would suit him better. If I recall his toddler years correctly, he has the lungs for it.”

The string of laughing emojis he receives back pulls a small smile from him, but does nothing to ease the tension and the hot-cold prickle along his scalp. 

The guilt that has been tearing at him grows new claws as he looks at the photo of A-Ling and realizes that the number of victims his cowardice has claimed is larger than he realized.

He places his phone face down on his bedside table and finishes changing before heading into the kitchen and starting the water for tea. Normally, he would begin work on dinner right away, but Lan Wangji finds he has no appetite.

It is only after his tea has cooled to an acceptable sipping temperature and he takes a mouthful that he retrieves his phone again. His nerves are as soothed as they are going to get. There’s no more reason to delay.

He opens his conversation with Wei Ying. 

It takes him a few attempts before he gives up on trying to craft the words. He’s being overly cautious, and in the end he decides that direct is the only approach.

“I am having dinner with your sister next Saturday,” he texts. “I would like you to attend, if you are willing.”

He hits send. Then, thinking of the hurt and fragile person Wei Ying was all those years ago, sends a quick addendum. “I know she would be happy to see you.”

He waits. It is a little before 7pm. Wei Ying is likely still at the studio, perhaps with A-Yuan set up at the front desk working on his homework. Lan Wangji knows that sometimes Wei Ying gets lost in his paintings, the outside world and time falling away from him.

An hour goes by, and he tells himself not to panic. 

An hour and a half.

2 hours.

Lan Wangji is late getting ready for bed that night. He tries to do things as usual, but he is distracted, his nerves frayed with impatience.

His phone chimes at last at 10pm. He is propped up in bed reading, trying to make himself drowsy or else distract himself from his nerves.

He forces himself to finish the sentence he is reading before slipping a bookmark between the pages and looking at the message.

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

He blinks at the words on the screen as the slide like ice down his throat into his belly. The phone chimes again, brittle and cheery. 

“Sorry.”

Lan Wangji hits the call button, not even sure what he is going to say, only aware of the fact that Wei Ying is slipping away from him again. It rings twice before it goes to voicemail. He tries again with the same result. The third time he calls, the phone doesn’t ring at all.

“Wei Ying I am sorry ,” Lan Wangji texts. “Please answer your phone.”

He watches the message, waiting for the status to change to ‘read’.

It never does. 

Lan Wangji falls asleep with his phone in his hand, waiting for an answer that never comes.

then.

Core credits, Lan Zhan has decided, are a racket. 

He stares at the blinking cursor on his computer screen, trying to come up with something new or unique or even interesting to say about Romeo and Juliet . It’s not that he doesn’t like Shakespeare, it’s just…

No. It is that he doesn’t particularly like Shakespeare, if he’s being honest with himself. But his personal tastes have nothing to do with the present situation. Regardless, this is a required paper and it is due in three days.

He never should have left it for so long, but Lan Zhan’s course load has been more grueling than he anticipated. Even with his rigor and work ethic, he’s found himself in multiple situations like this. Starting a paper days before it is due, with no ideas and no time to think. 

With a resigned sigh, he switches to the browser window containing an essay written by his professor and published in an academic journal. It is cowardly, perhaps, to parrot the professor’s own opinion back to him, but Lan Zhan finds that, at this point, he doesn’t really care. He’s just begun a paragraph rehashing the role of fate and free will in the play, when his computer makes a sound like a door opening. 

He freezes.

It can’t be. He must be imagining it. 

Heart in his throat, Lan Zhan minimizes the browser and looks at the AIM window. 

There, under Buddies 1/1 , is xXxghostdaddyxXx.

Wei Ying. 

Quickly, he clicks the name, opening a chat window. His head is spinning, the room is spinning. Wei Ying. Wei Ying .

His hands hover over the keys, trying to think of what to say. Two years. It’s been two years since they saw each other, since they spoke. Since Lan Zhan had any hint as to his whereabouts, since Lan Zhan even knew, for certain, that Wei Ying was alive. 

The weight of those years slams into him, and Lan Zhan can’t move. He can’t think. What can he say? Will Wei Ying even answer? Or will it be too much, will Lan Zhan scare him off again? What if Lan Zhan makes him run?

Before he says anything, before he can think of what to say, the door slams closed. 

Wei Ying’s name turns gray. 

Lan Zhan has lost his chance. Wei Ying is gone again. 

His paper forgotten, Lan Zhan spends the evening, then the rest of the night, waiting for the sound of an opening door. Wei Ying is alive. He’s out there.

Lan Zhan sends emails, which bounce back.

He makes phone calls to a dead number.

He stares at his computer, writing out what to say if… when Wei Ying comes back online. He won’t waste time. He’ll be ready. He’ll find the perfect words, the exact combination, like a magic spell, to bring him back.

Wei Ying does not log on again.

Lan Zhan fails to turn in his paper.

now.

A week passes without word from Wei Ying. Lan Wangji does not stop trying, though he knows it is pointless. He won’t go so far as to turn up at Wei Ying’s work, he has some understanding of boundaries, after all. 

But he can’t help himself from sending texts, making daily phone calls. They all go unanswered. He knows it is likely that Wei Ying has blocked his number, but he keeps trying anyway.

Lan Wangji’s dinner date with Jiang Yanli quickly approaches, and the thought of sitting across from her with this secret sitting like a stone in his throat is nearly unbearable. Whether he tells her or keeps Wei Ying’s secret, either feels like a betrayal.

But if he did tell her…then what? How would he explain that he had found Wei Ying only to chase him away again? 

He pushes the dilemma as far out of mind as it will go, which, it turns out, is not very far at all. 

This becomes evident when his office door opens Thursday afternoon unexpectedly and Nie Huaisang invites himself in.

“Wangji! Good, you’re here. Come with me, I’m hungry.”

Lan Wangji blinks at him. 

It’s not that he and Nie Huaisang aren’t friendly. Maybe they’re even friends. But they’re not the sort of friends who show up to work to take each other out to lunch. 

Which can only mean one thing. 

“What do you want?”

“Me? Want?” Nie Huaisang flaps his fan at Lan Wangji before bringing it to his face and frowning over the top of it. “Wangji, Wangji, I don’t know what you mean. Can’t I take my friend out for lunch?”

“You never have before.”

“Maybe, but there can be a first time. Come on. I know you don’t have any meetings.”

“How do you know that?”

“Hm? Ah, I don’t know. I probably don’t know anything. Come on, then, or we’ll miss our reservation.”

It is Lan Wangji’s usual lunch hour, and it’s true that he doesn’t have any meetings that afternoon. He’s also well ahead on his work, having poured himself into long office hours to avoid returning to his empty home. 

With a shake of his head, he stands, grabbing his jacket. Once Nie Huaisang gets a scheme in his head, there’s no derailing him. It’s best to get whatever this is over with. 

Their reservation turns out to be at a small, upscale restaurant with a hidden entrance nestled into the side alley of a nondescript building. Rather than opening the door and walking in, Nie Huaisang knocks in an obviously coded rhythm. 

The door opens silently and they step inside to a dark room draped in rich greens and the soft, muted sounds of a silk and bamboo ensemble playing somewhere within. 

“I’ve been waiting to get in here forever,” Nie Huaisang informs Lan Wangji as they’re led back to a table cordoned off by a screen partition. “They were conveniently ‘booked out’ until da-ge talked to  Xichen-ge who talked to Yao-ge. These places are all about who you know.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t know what to say to this, so chooses to say nothing. These sorts of places are exactly the types he avoids. As much as he enjoys quiet and the finer things, these sorts of establishments that cater exclusively to the elite always set his teeth on edge.

However, the meal is enjoyable. Nie Huaisang forgoes conversation as they eat, for which Lan Wangji is grateful. The food is good, the tea is superb, and the music is gentle. Lan Wangji goes so far as to forget that Nie Huaisang is not the sort to do things without motive. 

As such, he has no one to blame but himself when Nie Huaisang looks up at him over tea after their dishes are cleared away and blindsides him. 

“Is this about ‘Mo Xuanyu’?”

Lan Wangji doesn’t spit out his tea, but it is a near thing. The air quotes around the name are all but audible. He should know better by now than to drop his guard around Nie Huaisang. 

Very carefully, keeping his face as neutral as possible, he swallows his tea, placing his cup delicately down on the table. “What do you mean?”

“This whole *thing*,” Nie Huaisang says, waving a hand at Lan Wangji. “Your whole miserable state.”

“I was not aware that I appeared miserable.”

“Well you don’t ,” Nie Huaisang says with a sigh. “You look the same as always. But Lan Xichen says you’re miserable. Which is making him upset. Which is upsetting da-ge.” Here, Nie Huaisang snaps his fan closed and raps it against the table. “Which means now it’s my problem.”

Lan Wangji presses his lips together tightly. 

Nie Huaisang sighs again. “Look, Lan Wangji. Just. Keep your chin up, okay? I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

From anyone else, the words would be empty. But having known Nie Huaisang for nearly two decades, Lan Wangji knows better than to underestimate him. He narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing!” Nie Huaisang says, dropping back into character and waving his hands anxiously. “Nothing at all!”

Their waiter comes by and drops their check at the table shortly after. Lan Wangji takes it before Nie Huaisang can make a move—not that Nie Huaisang tries particularly hard—and pays. It doesn’t do to be in debt to Nie Huaisang.

Friday marks 10 days since Lan Wangji last heard from Wei Ying. Considering he went 16 years without word from him, it should be nothing. It should be easy.

It isn’t.

After his impromptu lunch with Nie Huaisang, Lan Wangji has taken care to appear more okay than he is around Lan Xichen. He hadn’t realized that his behavior had been causing his brother distress. He doesn’t want to put Lan Xichen through that. Not again. Not after the first time Wei Ying disappeared.

It’s hard, though. It’s hard to focus, to pretend like nothing is wrong. Especially as Saturday draws nearer. 

Still, Lan Wangji can do nothing but continue on as if everything is normal. 

Friday evening, he cooks his dinner and prepares the dish he’ll bring tomorrow. After, he picks up the book he has been trying to read, an old sci-fi novel that Nie Mingjue had lent to him some time ago that he needs to return. 

It’s not a bad book, but the words drip through his mind like oil over water, never really settling in before they slip away. Still, he persists for a full hour before finally admitting defeat.

He’s tired. He’s slept poorly, and it’s catching up with him. He glances at his clock. It is only 8pm, but he supposes it’s not too early to wash his face and head to bed. 

As he slips beneath the covers, Lan Wangji picks up his phone and sends off one final text, as he has every night. 

“Goodnight, Wei Ying.”

The message joins the string of unread messages before it, and Lan Wangji turns over onto his back and sleeps.

Saturday morning, Lan Wangji wakes with his heart hammering.

He lies in bed working hard to control his breathing. He had been dreaming. He can’t remember what the dream was, except that he had been running, chasing something that was moving further and further out of reach.

It is still dark out, but it is the time of year when the sun rises late. With a deep breath, feeling calmer at last, Lan Wangji rolls and turns on his phone screen to check the time.

It is 4am.

He has 1 missed call, and a voicemail waiting.

His heart kicks back up again. It is an unknown number, but there are few people who would call him in the middle of the night. It is either an emergency, or…

Well. In any case, it is urgent.

He sits up in bed, and plays the message.

There are several seconds of silence, and then, “Lan Zhan.”

Wei Ying. It’s Wei Ying. Lan Wangji presses the phone more firmly against his ear.

“Lan Zhan. I wanted to just say that, I’m sorry. That’s probably not enough, but I am. But I owe you more than an apology. I owe you an explanation.”

“I…I don’t know where to start. I’m a little drunk right now, if you couldn’t tell. I shouldn’t be doing this but…I owe you. I owe you a lot. This last month has been…it was…”

Wei Ying trails off. Lan Wangji holds his breath, waiting, hoping this won’t be the end of it.

“I guess I should start with why I left,” Wei Ying continues. “The first time, I mean. Fuck, this is harder than I thought. We were so young. You had this whole bright future ahead of you, and I just…I didn’t have that. A bright future. I mean, maybe I did. A different one.”

“I could’ve done it. I could’ve taken Uncle Jiang’s money, and gone to Berkeley and majored in engineering and…and then what?” He's speaking faster now, rushing to get the words out. “Spent a life doing something I hated and dragged you down with me? I didn’t want it. I didn’t want it, and I was too scared to tell you.” 

“I didn’t want that to be our lives. Maybe we would’ve stayed together. Maybe not. But I know we would’ve resented each other. I…I couldn’t take that, Lan Zhan. So I ran away. Like I’m doing now.” Wei Ying laughs, wet and hiccupping. “I’m not very brave, Lan Zhan. I waited until I knew you’d be asleep to call.”

“I’m probably running out of time. But I just wanted you to know that it was never you. I just wanted you to know that. To say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I lo—”

The voicemail cuts off. Lan Wangji can’t breathe. Wei Ying…what had he been about to say?

He calls the number back, desperate to talk to Wei Ying, but the line rings dead. 

Frustrated, he throws his phone down onto his bed, holding his head in his hands.

All this time. All this time, Wei Ying had thought that Lan Wangji would resent him. How could he believe that? How could he believe that Lan Wangji would be better without him?

He knows he’s being unfair. What Wei Ying had said, about them being young, about their futures, hadn’t been wrong. Lan Wangji can’t know what would have happened if they’d stayed together. If he’d ended up at UCB with Wei Ying.

But he does know that life without Wei Ying has not brought him happiness. He has been content, perhaps. Comfortable.

But not happy.

Has Lan Wangji ever told him that?

He grits his teeth together, then grabs his phone and flings the blankets back.

It’s too early, but Lan Wangji doesn’t care. He realizes now that Wei Ying is not the only one who has been running away.

But Lan Wangji is done. He’s tired and he’s sick of pretending. 

It’s time he stopped running, and took a leap instead.

Chapter Text

now.

There’s a light on in the Burial Mounds, and a moving truck parked out front.

Lan Wangji pulls into a spot along the curb across the street, taking several deep breaths to prepare himself. As he watches, a man exits the building. He’s dressed in all black, but it is not Wei Ying. This man is taller, and he walks in a silent, almost morose prowl. His arms are loaded with an nearly comically tall stack of boxes, which he loads into the back of the truck.

Lan Wangji continues to wait for another fifteen minutes, but nobody else appears. There is no sign of Wei Ying. But Lan Wangji hasn’t come this far to give up that easily. Mentally pulling back his shoulders, he gets out of his car and approaches. 

The man hears him, turning towards the sound of his footsteps. He isn’t startled, exactly, but a ripple of panic passes over his features, the muscles in his face stiffening at his approach. 

"Is there something I can help you with?" His voice is softer than one would expect looking at him, his tongue catching on the consonants in a nervous stutter.

"Wen Ning?" Lan Wangji guesses. 

The man looks at him oddly for a prolonged moment, then nods. "Lan Wangji. A-Jie said you might…" he trailed off, the sentence fluttering off into a limp end. 

Lan Wangji is not surprised to find they were expecting him, although it makes Wei Ying’s absence all the more painful. "I'm looking for Wei…Mo Xuanyu."

"I know."

"Is he here?"

Wen Ning fidgets, weight shifting between his feet and not quite meeting Lan Wangji's eyes. "No."

"I need to speak with him," Lan Wangji insists. Maybe he should say more, explain to Wen Ning his side of things. But he can’t bring himself to say it. Not to a stranger. Not when he hasn’t even said it to Wei Ying.  

"He's not here."

"Where can I find him?"

"I can't say."

Under different circumstances, Lan Wangji would respect Wen Ning's loyalty. But these are not different circumstances, and he finds himself clenching his fists with frustration, the ends of his nails sharp against the skin of his palms. If Wen Ning notices, he pretends not to. If anything, he's looking at Lan Wangji with something akin to pity, and it makes Lan Wangji's stomach ache.

"He won't be back here," Wen Ning says after a too-long silence. 

"Why?"

Wen Ning shrugs and picks up a box that he then loads into the back of the van. "The lease was going to be up soon anyway."

"But why now?"

"I…I can't …"

He trails off. 

"Where is he going?"

This time, Wen Ning simply says nothing. Lan Wangji hadn't expected him to. This is going nowhere. Lan Wangji goes back to his car and tries to think of what to do next. 

Wei Ying has left the Burial Mounds. Another attempt to flee into the night. Leaving Lan Wangji in the same place he’s been waiting for years, like a camper lost in the woods. He’s stood in one place, as if he was the one who was lost, waiting for Wei Ying to come back and find him. Unable to make his way back to where they’d been, unwilling to make his way forward lest he lose his way entirely. For years, Lan Wangji has stood in one place, while Wei Ying moved on, building a new life away from the rubble of the one he’d left behind. 

Lan Wangji lets his head fall against his steering wheel, his knuckles aching with how hard he's gripping it. He doesn't know what to do. He wants to find Wei Ying. He needs to talk to him. He can't take another 16 years of silence. But Wei Ying clearly doesn't want to see him. Is it selfish to chase a person who doesn't want to be caught? He doesn't know. He can't be sure anymore. 

What he does know is, he can’t stand in the same place, waiting for the past to find him. He needs to move. They can’t be what they used to be, the past can’t be recaptured. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have something new. Lan Wangji doesn’t know what that looks like. There’s a bleed in his heart, a wound that has remained fresh and weeping all this time. One that he had hoped Wei Ying would staunch. Now, he realizes that a wound can never heal, so long as he continues to cut himself open on vain hope again and again.

What he needs now is to talk to Wei Ying. He needs honesty—a long overdue presenting of the cards. And then, he needs to move into whatever comes next. 

The world around Lan Wangji is a familiar painting, every paint stroke well-known, every shadow and highlight, every shade of red. The future is a blank canvas, ready to hold something new, something that Lan Wangji cannot see or even predict. The hardest part of starting a painting is putting down the first stroke. Lan Wangji starts the car and shifts into drive; he holds his brush aloft over white canvas. He types an address into his phone, letting the GPS guide him; he dips into the paint and makes his first stroke.

He stops by Wen Qing's office. He doesn’t have much hope of finding Wei Ying there, and he knows Wen Qing isn’t one to give in to pressure if he asks for information, so he doesn’t plan to try. But it’s possible that she knows something and will want to tell him, and so he goes. But the office is dark, and he knows even before he tries the door and finds it locked that she isn’t there.

Lan Wangji resigns himself to walking around the area. He feels like a man possessed, eyes following him in worried, suspicious watching as he paces the streets for hours, knowing Wei Ying lives nearby, desperate to spot him.

The day slips away from him. Morning turns to afternoon, to evening, to night, dragging the dregs of his hope into the dark.

Lan Wangji sits on a park bench, face tilted up towards a clear, dark sky, counting the small handful of stars blinking weakly through the wash of city light.

Wei Ying will not be found if he doesn't want to be. Lan Wangji’s eyes burn, and he closes them, shutting himself into the grey-dark of his thoughts. On Saturday, he goes to Jiang Yanli's. He sits across from her with Wei Ying's secret heavy on his tongue.

Lan Wangji is sick with his own silence. Given the chance, any chance, he won’t let them make the same mistake again. 

Lan Wangji's phone vibrates in his pocket in the middle of a meeting.

Lan Xichen looks up at him, but quickly lets his gaze slide away, not wanting to draw attention in front of their clients. Lan Wangji is past caring. This is a pointless meeting, made to soothe the egos of self-important men. A task Lan Wangji has never cared for, nor been good at. He cares even less than usual now, and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Several pairs of indignant eyes swing toward him, an irritated ‘tsk!’ that is probably meant to shame him. He ignores it, checking his messages to find a missed call from Nie Huaisang.

It would be lying to say he isn’t disappointed. It has been two months since Wei Ying walked out of his life again, without notice or explanation. There has been no contact, and as much as he tells himself to expect nothing, the habit of hope is a hard one to break. He puts his phone away, turning his attention back to the room of affronted, puffed up men glaring at him around the table.

Lan Wangji waits until the end of the day to call Nie Huaisang back. He didn’t leave a voicemail or send a follow-up text, so Lan Wangji reasons that it can’t be that urgent.

“Wangji! I’ve been waiting all day! What took you so long?”

“I was at work,” Lan Wangji answers, bemused. “As were you.”

“Ah, Wangji, I was working! It was work! I was calling because I’ve got a new exhibit coming and I wanted to invite my favorite customer!”

“I’m not interested.” The last art Lan Wangji purchased was Wei Ying’s painting, and he can’t imagine anything measuring up to it.

“Wangi! Please say you’ll at least come and look,” Nie Huaisang whines into the phone. “I really went out of my way for this one. It’s risky, and I’ve got a lot riding on the opening.”

“I am not in the market for more art.”

“Tch!” Lan Wangji can practically see him flapping his fan through the phone. “You don’t have to buy anything. This is a sales call. Aren’t we friends? It’s thanks to your commission I was even able to afford to put on the exhibit. I’m thanking you. So be gracious and come. As a friend. This is a personal invitation.”

Lan Wangji squeezes his temples with his free hand as he realizes what is happening, and that he won’t be able to wriggle out of this. “Ge put you up to this.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Nie Huaisang says in a flutter. “So you’ll come?”

Lan Wangji sighs. “When is it?”

“Thank you! You have no idea how da-ge’s been pressuring me. You know how it is. I don’t know why they’re like this, brothers are really such a pain—”

“The date?”

“I’ll text you the details. Thanks again!”

Lan Wangji hangs up. A moment later, his phone chimes as the text comes through. The event is in a week, and accompanied by an unfamiliar address. He searches it to find that it’s for a studio in another town over two hours away. 

Of course Nie Huaisang wouldn’t have mentioned this before extracting a ‘yes’ out of him. Not that he could have refused the invitation even if he’d known. Nie Huaisang was ruthless when it came to getting his way, and would use every underhanded means at his disposal. With Lan Wangji, that usually meant putting Lan Xichen on the case. And for all that Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen were different, stubbornness was clearly genetic. Lan Wangji didn’t much look forward to a battle of wills with his brother. They had both learned long ago that while Lan Wangji could generally out-stubborn Lan Xichen, that did not apply when Lan Xichen chose to fight on behalf of “Lan Wangji’s well-being.”

Personally, Lan Wangji thinks his being is well left alone, but Lan Xichen never understood that alone and loneliness were not the same thing.

Lan Wangji is also lonely, it is true, but it is the sort of loneliness that a room full of people wouldn’t change.

He saves the date and location to his calendar and texts Nie Huaisang back. “Did you acquire a second studio space?”

“Not mine! A friend of mine, Sisi, is renting me space for the exhibit. She’s just getting started, and you know how I love to support women-owned businesses!”

Lan Wangji is not sure that he knows anything of the sort, but he can’t disagree with the sentiment. He will go, stay for exactly as long as necessary, and then leave. He can do that much.

Lan Wangji drives to the studio on his own.

Lan Xichen left with Nie Mingjue a few hours earlier to help Nie Huaisang with last minute set-up. Lan Wangji, as a “personal guest” of Nie Huaisang’s has been sharply instructed that he is “not to lift a finger! I know how you Lans are at parties.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t know ‘how Lans are at parties’, but he’s happy to have the extra time to himself. Lan Wangji enjoys driving; the solitude of it, the peaceful focus. It’s almost meditative, how his thoughts can fall away as he concentrates on the simple act.

He arrives before the start of the event, but only by a few minutes. He is a bit surprised, therefore, to find Lan Xichen standing outside alone, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Wangji!” he calls to him when he spots Lan Wangji getting out of his car, hurrying over to him. 

“Ge,” Lan Wangji greets him, frowning. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. Nothing’s wrong. There’s just been a change of plans.”

“What do you mean?”

“Huaisang, he…well. I’m sorry you drove all the way out here, but the exhibit…we should go to dinner. Have you had dinner yet?”

“No,” Lan Wangji answers, surprised by the question and to hear his brother stumbling over his words. Lan Xichen knows that Lan Wangji hasn’t eaten—they have plans to go to dinner together after the event. “What is going on?”

Lan Xichen smiles at him, but Lan Wangji knows this smile. There’s something Lan Xichen isn’t telling him, and it’s something bad. The last time Lan Xichen had smiled at him like that, it had preceded the news that there had been an electrical fire in one of the archives, taking with it a great deal of their mother’s work. But Lan Wangji can’t think of what the cause of this smile might be, and Lan Xichen doesn’t answer.

“We can get dinner after the event,” Lan Wangji says, moving to step around his brother, only for Lan Xichen to quickly sidestep and block his way.

“Wangji, I—”

“Xichen.” Nie Mingjue exits the studio, moving swiftly towards Lan Xichen, his expression flinty. “We talked about this. It’s not your decision.”

“And I didn’t agree,” Lan Xichen argues, lifting his chin higher. “If it was Huaisang—”

“If it was Huaisang, then you would be stopping me just like I’m stopping you.”

Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen lock eyes for a tense, drawn moment. Lan Wangji has never witnessed anything this close to a fight between them before, and decides quickly that he does not want to be involved.

He steps around Lan Xichen. This time, Lan Xichen doesn’t move to block him and Nie Mingjue nods in approval. 

“You don’t have to forgive him,” Lan Xichen calls to Lan Wangji’s back. 

Lan Wangji doesn’t know what he means. He can’t think of what Nie Huaisang could’ve done that would require his forgiveness. But then, Lan Xichen has always been more sensitive. Perhaps he has perceived some slight that Lan Wangji has missed.

Once inside, though, Lan Wangji re-evaluates several things very quickly.

The gallery is small: a single room, with low ceilings and lights too bright for the space. There’s a small crowd, but nothing like what Lan Wangji would expect to see at one Huaisang’s events. These are the first things he notices: the brightness and the people. This is all that has time to register before he sees the art.

Given the size of the room and the sparseness of the crowd, Lan Wangji has a clear view of the walls, crowded to the point of clutter as the same face gazes out from behind archival glass over and over again. 

The entire exhibit is made up of portraits and, after a slight moment of disbelief, Lan Wangji realizes that they are portraits of him.

They vary in size and media. Some are small pages, drawn roughly in black ink. Others are large floor to ceiling canvases, oil paintings rendered with excruciating care, not a brushstroke to be found in the folds of white fabric or the peachy flush of his cheek. Again and again he sees his face looking back at him, each wearing an expression he doesn’t understand. 

They’re him, they’re very clearly him, and yet he can hardly recognize himself in them. This person has crinkled eyes, faint lines bracketing his mouth. He has long, loose hair that he tucks behind his ear, revealing the upward curve of his lips. His eyes are soft, his gaze gentle and warm, and Lan Wangji’s lungs are tight, too heavy at the sight of himself as he might have been. Who he could have been if he was a different person, living a different life.

Him, if he were happy.

He turns on the spot, taking in painting after painting, dozens of imaginings of a better life than the one he has allowed himself to live. Each new version of himself leaves a bruise, and he wonders that he doesn’t gasp or fall to his knees. 

When he sees it at last, it is a blow to the chest that kicks his heart back into pumping. His head swims as oxygen pours into him and he takes a step towards it. Then the crowd is parting for him as he floats across the room, feeling out of his body, as though he is a balloon tethered to a string held by his own hand. 

He approaches the back wall, the space received for the crowning jewel of the collection. Here, there are two pieces, placed side-by-side.

One is a painting, the largest of the collection. It is technically impeccable. The paint so smooth, so deliberate and patient, that one might think it impossible that it was a person who has made it. 

There is a placard beside it, reading:

‘ now.’
Oil on canvas, 2023

Beside it is a sheet of paper torn from a spiral notebook, the ragged edges still intact.The same scene sketched in pencil over the blue ruled lines of the page, the whorls of fingertips imprinted in smudged graphite. It is the same, except he is younger here. 

The same, except this is not the scene from another life. This is Lan Wangji as he was, once, with his heart written on his face and a flower in his hair.

‘then.’
Pencil on notebook paper, 2006

then.

A day at the park had been Lan Zhan's idea. It is springtime and the trees have begun to flower. They'll wilt soon, falling to the ground and giving way to small green buds that will bring leaves. The time to see them like this, when their petals are bright and crisp and full, is limited. 

But that is only an excuse. 

The real reason they are here, the real reason he has suggested it, is the same reason for everything that Lan Zhan does: Wei Ying.

Wei Ying, who is currently pulling himself up onto an even higher branch in the swaying treetop, this one bowing with his weight even as he swings a leg over it. 

Be careful, Lan Zhan almost says. But Wei Ying is smiling down at him, eyes bright and creased with happiness, so he says nothing.

"Lan Zhan, if I fell right now, what would you do?"

"You won't fall."

"I could."

"You won't."

"Tch! Lan Zhan, you don't know that!" Wei Ying kicks his legs beneath him into the open air, his chin tilting with mischief. 

Lan Zhan doesn’t know it, but he has to believe it’s true. He has to believe that nothing bad can happen to Wei Ying, because the alternative is too much for him to consider. The next moment, with only a triumphant “hah!” to warn him—it is very nearly a laugh, but it is not—Wei Ying jumps. Because he knows Wei Ying, because he is always watching him, Lan Zhan opens his arms.

They’re only teenagers. Wei Ying doesn’t weigh much, but neither does Lan Zhan. He catches Wei Ying, if it can be called a catch. They both fall to the ground, and it hurts as they collide, but not so much that Lan Zhan can’t hold onto him. He wraps Wei Ying in his arms, willing himself to be a soft, safe place for Wei Ying to land. 

They tumble, rolling together down a small hill. Wei Ying lets out a small “oof!” as they come to a halt with Lan Zhan on top of him. When he smiles, Lan Zhan can count the lines that bloom at the corner of his eyes. He could find a hundred different shades in the flecks of his irises. He can see the bit of adhesive on the bridge of Wei Ying’s nose left behind by a pore strip. There’s a red spot at the tip of his nose, the skin shiny and tight were a zit is starting to form. Lan Zhan would stay like this for hours, for days, taking in every bit of him, memorizing the blemishes and the sparkle. 

A drop of water splatters on Wei Ying’s forehead. His nose crinkles as he places a hand on Lan Zhan’s chest and pushes him off. “Is it raining?” he asks, wiping his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

As if in answer, the clouds open and a deluge of heavy warm rain rushes towards the ground. 

“Shit!” Wei Ying yelps, and grabs Lan Zhan’s hand, pulling him to his feet and running from cover through the downpour. 

There’s nowhere to go, so they end up beneath a tree, huddled together beneath Lan Zhan’s coat. They’re soaked to the bone

There’s nowhere to go, so they end up beneath a tree, huddled together beneath Lan Zhan’s coat. They’re soaked to the bone. It's a disaster. Lan Zhan should have checked the forecast. He should have brought an umbrella, or chosen a different day. Gloom settles over him, colder and heavier than his rain-logged clothes.

“Hey, Lan Zhan, look!”

Wei Ying is pointing at something, his eyes wide and mouth parted with wonder. Lan Zhan follows his finger, and sees it. A pale rainbow against a dark gray sky. Wei Ying takes Lan Zhan’s hand and squeezes. “That’s lucky, right? I don’t know if rainbows are supposed to be lucky, but it feels lucky, doesn’t it?”

He turns to Lan Zhan, eager and happy, and Lan Zhan nods. He does feel lucky. 

“Oh, you’ve got…” Wei Ying reaches for him. There’s a sound like thunder, but it is only Lan Zhan’s blood pounding in his ears. Wei Ying’s hand brushes delicately over his hair, and plucks out a red flower. 

“It must’ve fallen from the tree,” he says. Wei Ying looks at it for a moment, then reaches up and places the flower behind Lan Zhan’s ear. “I think it looks better here, actually. Who wants to be in a tree when they can be in Lan Zhan’s hair? That flower has good taste.”

Lan Zhan’s face is hot. His heart is fast and booming in his chest. Wei Ying looks at him, looks at him, then chuckles and shakes his head, squirming closer to his side. 

“The rain should let up soon,” he says, a strange quality to his voice that Lan Zhan doesn’t understand. “Let’s enjoy it while we can.”

Chapter Text

now.

"Is that you?"

Lan Wangji hears the questions, but doesn’t recognize the speaker. He shakes his head. Is it him? How could the person in that painting ever be him? Has he ever been that vulnerable or that hopeful? Would he feel like that again? 

Could he?

He doesn’t know. He can’t remember. 

The world is too bright and angular, even as the edges of it go dark. His heart is rabbiting in his chest. His face prickles and sweat appears in icy patches over his skin. 

He knows what is happening. Deliberately, he inhales for a three count, holds it, exhales. The darkness recedes. The room loses its mirror shattered edges. His skin is tacky beneath his clothe and he wants to leave, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stands in front of the painting, confronted with his own happiness, his real happiness, and the loss is so keen it is as though a knife has manifested between his ribs, slowly carving him open from within. 

“Wangji…” Lan Xichen’s voice is soft and near behind him. That is the breaking point. Lan Wangji finds he can’t tolerate it. Gentleness hurts more than sharpness ever could.

He turns on his heel without a word and stalks out of the studio, back to his car.

As he drives, he finds that this time he is not so grateful for the solitude.

He makes it home, somehow. Sense memory, rote repetition. Things he knows all too well.

The lot to his building is empty of people. One of the streetlights flickers, the shadows of the branches twisting in the fluttering light. He watches them from the driver’s seat, the car going cold around him. His phone rings. It has been ringing regularly for the entire two hour drive home. He looks at it at last and is unsurprised to find several missed calls from Xichen, as well as a handful of texts.

“Mingjue has reminded me that you cannot answer while driving
Please call me when you get home.
I’m worried about you.
I’ve told Huaisang that his behavior was unacceptable.
You should expect an apology from him shortly.
I’m sorry as well, Wangji.
Call me when you get home”

Lan Wangji doesn’t have the stomach to call Lan Xichen right now, but he does send him a quick text letting him know he is safe.

Then, he opens the other text he has waiting for him, this one from Nie Huaisang.

It does not contain the aforementioned apology. He had not expected it to.

Instead, there is an address, and a single sentence:  

“The ball is in your court.”

Ridiculous. How could it be? When has that ever been true?

His entire life, Lan Wangji has been the one chasing. Control has only ever been an illusion, or a misunderstanding. Every time he has presumed to be the one steering things or taking the next step, he has been wrong. Horribly wrong. 

The ball is in his court?

Lan Wangji rests his head against his knuckles where they grip the steering wheel. What do they expect him to do? What is the point of sending him an address when Wei Ying knows where to find him? Wanting someone doesn’t mean he is wanted. When is it enough? When is it too much?

It is 9pm and Lan Wangji is very tired. 

He moves as if his body is a separate thing. He watches himself as he exits his car, unlocks the door to his building, enters his apartment. He watches as he takes off his shoes, then his clothes, leaving them in a trail on the floor behind him until he falls into bed and falls quickly asleep, thinking of nothing, hoping for nothing, and it is nothing that finds him. 

The next day, when Lan Wangji awakes well into mid-morning, still too tired, unrested despite sleeping in, he has a plan.

A night of dreamless sleep brought a surprising order to his thoughts. And with the clarity of morning light, Lan Wangji knows: he doesn’t deserve this. He has tried being brave, he has tried being cautious. He has tried talking and silence, he has sought, he has leapt, he has chased and chased and chased. 

What he has never tried is letting go.

Nie Huaisang is wrong. The ball is not in Lan Wangji’s court. Wei Ying has hoarded it for decades, but Lan Wangji no longer wants to play this game. He doesn’t deserve being abandoned time and again with no explanation. 

What he does deserve is closure. 

It is with this in mind that, around midday, Lan Wangji enters the address into his GPS and prepares himself for whatever awaits him.

It leads him to an office building, attached to a large warehouse. Freshly painted letters across the glass of the front door read: Burial Mounds Fine Art.

The lights are off inside. Possibly no one will show up today. If that happens, Lan Wangji will try again. He is not chasing, he tells himself. This is simply what it takes to finish this too-long chapter of his life and finally turn the page. So, he waits.

He doesn’t realize he has drifted off until a loud rap against his window, the sound of metal on glass, startles him awake. He opens his eyes to find the sharply concerned face of Wen Qing looking down at him, rings poised against the window.

“Come on then,” she says and walks back toward the building, pulling a keychain from her pocket and unlocking the door. 

Lan Wangji hurries to follow her. His back and neck ache as he unfolds from the driver’s seat, and he has the unpleasant sensation of being able to taste his own breath. It occurs to him that he did not brush his teeth last night, nor this morning. 

In short, he is not at his best.

Wen Qing leads him into an office wordlessly, with the commanding presence of someone who is used to being obeyed. Lan Wangji doesn’t feel like speaking, so he follows until he finds himself in a bare room containing a gleaming desk and a wall of large bright windows with no coverings.

“Sit,” she says, pointing at the only chair. “I’ll make tea.”

“That’s not necessary.”

Wen Qing snorts, unpolished and abrasive. “Like hell it’s not. You look like shit.”

Lan Wangji can’t argue with that. He feels like shit, so it only makes sense that he looks like it as well.

Wen Qing disappears from the room, leaving Lan Wangji alone. He looks around the office, trying to focus on his surroundings as his thoughts chase each other in circles around his head. There’s not a lot to look at, though. The office is only sparsely furnished, very clearly still in the process of being moved into. There are cardboard file boxes stacked high in a corner, and a graveyard of cords on the desk in front of him, though there is no computer in sight. Outside, a pair of birds squabble in a tree near the window and there’s the sound of the occasional car passing by. 

Lan Wangji focuses on these things, letting his thoughts pass him by without reflection. They can’t help him now. So he waits, drifting, and it is only after half an hour has passed that Lan Wangji realizes it has been too long for Wen Qing to just be making tea.

As he thinks it, before he can consider what it means, he hears a voice. A familiar voice, loud and panicked, ringing through the hall. Lan Wangji’s heart rate picks up so quickly at the sound of it that he feels sick.

“Qing-jie, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Is A-Ning okay? What’s happened?”

“Of course we’re fine,” Wen Qing says. “Why would I call you here if something like that was the problem?”

“I don’t know!” Wei Ying yells. “All I know is I get woken up by a call and you’re telling me it’s ‘urgent’, and I get here expecting the place to be on fire, and—”

The door to the office swings open, and Wei Ying, seeing Lan Wangji, stops suddenly short. “What–?”

Instead of answering, Wen Qing shoves Wei Ying from behind. He tumbles into the office and into Lan Wangji, who has just stood and catches him before they can both topple over. 

Behind Wei Ying, Wen Qing pulls the door shut. There’s a loud click as it locks from the outside

“What? Qing-jie!” Wei Ying yelps, scrambling to get his feet under him, pushing off of Lan Wangji’s chest.

“I’m not letting you out until you talk,” Wen Qing informs them from the other side.

“I—this is kidnap!”

“You’re not a kid.”

“False imprisonment then! You can’t—”

“Wei Ying, are you threatening to call the cops on me?”

“Ugh, no! Of course not! I would never, you know that. But you can’t—”

“What I can’t do is put up with another minute, let alone another two months of you moaning away over your own stupid decisions. I don’t care what you decide, but figure it out .”

The next sound they hear is Wen Qing’s heels clicking away from the door. Wei Ying shouts a few colorful phrases after her, but Lan Wangji can tell his heart isn’t in it. 

Finally, Wei Ying turns and looks at him. 

“So.”

Lan Wangji waits for more, but Wei Ying seems uncharacteristically reticent. 

“Mn.” Lan Wangji hums, also uncertain where to begin. Then, “The paintings.”

Wei Ying groans loudly and lets himself fall back against the door, sliding to the ground with his face in his hands. “You saw them?”

“Mn.”

“I am going to kill Huaisang,” Wei Ying swears into his palms. “He promised .”

“Wei Ying…” Lan Wangji pauses, trying to think of what to say, but the only word that comes to him is, “Why?”

“Because he insisted! He promised me enough money to put A-Yuan through college. But he agreed to do it at a different gallery, he promised not to tell. The liar.”

“That’s not…” Lan Wangji trails off again. Perhaps he should’ve used the time Wen Qing was gone to figure out what he wanted to say. “I am glad he lied,” Lan Wangji says. It isn’t what he wants to say, but it is, at least, a start. 

“Don’t,” Wei Ying says quickly, his breath rushing out of him. “Lan Zhan, don’t. Please.”

“The paintings—”

“Were private! I was never going to sell them! They weren’t—”

“They weren’t very good.”

“—ever meant to be…wait. What?”

“Art should hold truth, in some form.” Lan Wangji moves away from Wei Ying, back to the chair, and folds his hands in his lap. “I’m not that person.”

“Lan Zhan…” Wei Ying’s voice is quiet and tight. Lan Wangji doesn’t look at him, knowing he isn’t strong enough. 

“I want to know why.”

“Why—what?”

“Why I’m not that person,” Lan Wangji says, watching light glares on passing cars. “And why you think I am.”

Neither of them speak for a long time. Despite knowing that this is the reason he came here—to talk, to hear Wei Ying out, to say his peace—Lan Wangji has already exhausted his will to speak. 

It is, predictably, Wei Ying who finally breaks the silence. “I’m sorry.”

Lan Wangji flinches. 

“Sorry, I—look. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t want to do it. I…you…I like you. I like being with you. You make me feel…” his sentence dangles limply. Wei Ying shakes his head as if trying to jostle the words out. “I don’t know why you bother with me. Why you ever bothered with me.”

“Enough,” Lan Wangji snaps, surprising them both with the force of it. But Lan Wangji isn’t here to watch Wei Ying turn himself into an effigy for his own self deprecation. This isn’t about hurting either of them, even though he knows it will hurt. He just wants to understand. 

“Why did you leave?”

Wei Ying’s eyes drop to his hands as he begins picking at a hangnail. “Which time?”

Lan Wangji doesn’t respond, even when Wei Ying laughs bitterly and his finger starts to bleed. “I told you about the first time, didn’t I? When I was drunk. Ah, maybe I didn’t say it right. Lan Zhan…Lan Wangji…” He wipes his hand on his pants, leaving a red smear, and sighs. “I feel like you’re expecting something better, some big reason that’s going to explain it all away and make it okay or forgivable, but…I could lie. I could make it up. But it wouldn’t be the real reason. The real reason is, I panicked. I was a coward, I was young, I was in over my head, and all of those are just excuses. The truth is, I barely thought about it at all. It was all too much and suddenly I just wanted out. The rejection letters, the disappointment, the whispered fights about me, my whole future crumbling, and…It wasn’t about you, it was just…everything. I just decided and then there was nothing else to do. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t think about us, I didn’t think about you. You were just…collateral damage.”

With effort, Lan Wangji doesn’t react, even as the words impact as if they are physical. His ribs squeeze tight around his lungs, his heart barely given room to beat. It hurts. Across the room, Wei Ying gives him an apologetic look, but Lan Wangji only spares it a passing glance before nodding for him to continue.

“I told myself that, once I was out, I would call you. I’d make it up to you, I’d explain. But then I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t until after I left that I realized what I’d done. And suddenly it was too much. It was too late. I didn’t think about the repercussions until I’d already broken everything, and then it seemed too hard to pick up the pieces. Everything was too broken, and it was my fault. It would never be the same, and it was my fault.”

“You were young.” He doesn’t say it as an excuse. He says it because Lan Wangji remembers what it was like to be a teenager. How everything felt so big, every emotion too much to contain, the world and the future a looming behemoth set against you. He remembers because he knows how it is to be powerless against a too-large world. 

Wei Ying shakes his head. “I was stupid.”

“Yes. Young and stupid frequently go together.”

That earns a sniffling little laugh. “You weren’t stupid, though. You wouldn’t have run.”

“Everyone is stupid sometimes. No one can say what they would have done. Only you were in your position.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t know why he’s defending Wei Ying, or, at least, the Wei Ying of the past. Part of him wants to be angry, and to hold onto that anger like a shield. But he also knew the young man they are talking about. He knew that Wei Ying and his drive to push and fight and keep going even when things seemed impossible. He was brilliant and brave and larger than life, and deeply, deeply sad.

“Well I was stupid and a coward. You may have noticed that I grew up. I don’t have the young excuse anymore. I could have called at any time. Instead the first time I saw you I gave you a fake name and pretended not to know you. Poorly, I might add. I don’t even know why I did it.”

“Is that true?”

“…no,” Wei Ying admits. “I did it because I’m the same impulsive person I’ve always been ,and it seemed easier to just pretend than to confront it. Then you were so nice and so you and you let me just…slip back into being me. I didn’t deserve it.”

Lan Wangji’s hands clench together. “ I didn’t deserve it.”

“No.”

“I didn’t care about pretending,” Lan Wangji says, the words tumbling forward now. “I didn’t care about what was deserved, or punishment, or penance or any of it.”

“I know.”

“Then why ?” Lan Wangji asks, and now he is pleading. He needs this answer, whatever it is. “Why did you leave?”

Wei Ying brings his knees up to this chest, holding them tightly to himself as he drops his face out of view. “You were so forgiving.” His voice is muffled and Lan Wangji has to lean forward to hear him. “What if she didn’t forgive me? What if she did ?”

“She would. She will.”

“And that’s worse!” Wei Ying explodes, his head slamming into the door behind him as he looks up at Lan Wangji with wild, tear-stained eyes. “Why should everyone forgive me, huh? Why should they have to?”

“It’s not your choice.”

“Clearly,” Wei Ying says bitterly. “Nothing ever is. Is that enough yet? Are you satisfied?”

The ache in Lan Wangji’s chest is no better or worse than when they began. They spoke, he listened, and yet nothing is any different than it was before. Letting go feels a lot like being left. “No.”

“Me neither.” Wei Ying gets to his feet, brushing his hands over his pants to smooth them. “I made those paintings because I hoped they were true. I wanted them to be. I wanted to imagine you happy because I’m selfish, and it made me feel better to believe it. I thought, if you were happy, then it didn’t matter that I ran. It would mean I did the right thing.”

“You make me happy.” He shouldn’t say it. He doesn’t mean to. But it comes out unbidden, a truth too big to contain. 

“That’s a lot of responsibility to put on one guy.”

A lump, hard and painful, rises in Lan Wangji’s throat. This is what it comes back to. Being too much, asking too much. He doesn’t know how to stop, even when he wants to. It’s why he’s here, to put an end to it—

“Hey.” Wei Ying is at Lan Wangji’s side suddenly, squeezing his hand in his. “Not like that. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How then?”  It comes out as a croak. 

“Do you remember Miss Williams’ home ec class, back in sophomore year?”

“Life Skills,” Lan Wangji corrects. Wei Ying smiles.

“Right. Life Skills class. The egg project, remember? They gave us all an egg and made us carry it around for a week. Then we had to return it and you were graded on how well you took care of it?”

“I remember. You dropped yours and replaced it. You got an A.”

“I did. You were so mad.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. What I never told you was that wasn’t my first egg. I’d gone through a full dozen at that point.” Wei Ying shakes his head sheepishly. “I kept trying to juggle them just because Jiang Cheng told me I couldn’t.”

“That sounds like you.”

“Yeah. It does. I’m not good with fragile things. I’m careless. And your happiness is…it’s precious. And you keep offering it to me. I’m selfish, Lan Zhan. I wanted it. I want it. And I can’t ask you to—”

“You did not ask,” Lan Wangji interrupts, exasperated, which is surprising enough that Wei Ying falls immediately silent. “You never asked. I offered. I knew.”

“You didn’t know about the eggs!” Wei Ying attempts to joke.  

Lan Wangji gives him a flat look. “Wei Ying. I watched you juggle and drop that egg at least four times.”

“I—what?”

“You kept calling for me to look. And every time I did, you would drop them.”

“Oh.” Lan Wangji watches in fascination as Wei Ying’s face turns suddenly, brilliantly scarlet. “Well. That does sound like me actually.”

“Mn.”

Wei Ying laughs. He is still holding Lan Wangji’s hands, playing with his fingers absently. “What about the rest of it? About the whole me running away thing?”

“It’s not a crime to be scared.”

“But hurting people is a pretty shitty thing to do.”

Lan Wangji hums. “A-Yuan,” he says, and Wei Ying tilts his head in confusion. “When A-Yuan does something hurtful, what do you tell him?”

“That’s different, he’s just a kid—”

“What do you tell him?”

Wei Ying’s cheeks puff as he exhales in exasperation. “I tell him to say you’re sorry. But—”

“And if the other person doesn’t forgive him?”

“I—well, I would tell him that you’d don’t say sorry for forgiveness. You say sorry because you did something wrong, and then you prove it by not doing it again.”

“Because it’s not up to him if they forgive him.”

“Lan Zhan, I get what you’re saying, but it’s different—”

“Are you sorry?”

Wei Ying’s shoulders shudder, his fingers squeezing tightly around Lan Wangji’s. “You have no idea how much.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“And do you? Forgive me?”

Lan Wangji unknots his fingers from Wei Ying’s and brings his hands to Wei Ying’s cheeks, tipping his face up and looking into his eyes. “Does it matter?”

“I…I guess not.”

It’s reckless. It’s thoughtless and foolhardy and were he someone else, were Wei Ying someone else, he would never say to do it. But they aren’t other people. After sixteen years, they are still Wei Ying and Lan Zhan.

Maybe this is what letting go looks like. Maybe it isn’t forgiveness, or forgetting, or going separate ways.

Maybe letting go looks like taking a step, without any plans at all. 

When their lips touch, it isn’t in passion. It’s a calm touch, gentle and brushing, a salve applied gently to an open wound. They stay together, barely touching, for a long moment before Wei Ying pulls back and shakes his head. 

“And people say red is my favorite color. Lan Zhan, I am literally more red flag than man.”

“Warm colors always suited me.”

They kiss again, the same barely there touch. “Me too,” Wei Ying says this time, his lips still brushing Lan Wangji’s. “You make me happy too.”

Lan Wangji wraps his arms around Wei Ying, holding him tightly. After a while, Wei Ying pulls back, just enough to look up at him. His face is splotchy, his eyes are swollen, and his nose is running freely.

“This is your last warning,” he says gravely. “There’s no getting rid of me again. I’m going to be a real limpet”

Lan Wangji dips forward again and kisses Wei Ying soundly. “Good.”

It continues like that. Wei Ying pulling back with some new objection only for Lan Wangji to kiss it off of his mouth again. 

“You could do better—” he argues.

“Uninterested.”

“People will talk.”

“Boring.”

“I’ll ruin you,” Wei Ying tries again.

“I look forward to it.”

Soon, there are no protests. There’s no space, no breath for them. Wei Ying melts against him, and Lan Wangji gathers him up, with no thought but to kiss him. They’ve talked enough for now. They’ll need to talk more later. But at this moment, there are far more interesting things to be doing with his mouth—

WHAM.

Wei Ying yelps, falling backwards off Lan Wangji’s lap as the door slams open. Wen Qing is standing there, backlit by the hallway lights, arms crossed tightly as she glares at them, looking like a portrait of hell. “All sorted?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “Good. Now get out of my office, you’ve sullied it enough.”

“All sorted! We’ll just—be going! Sorry, Qing-jie!” Wei Ying says in a rush, scrambling to his feet, running a hand through his hair in a feeble attempt to smooth it. 

Wen Qing rolls her eyes. “OUT.”

“Going! Come on, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“And don’t forget, you’re watching A-Yuan tonight!” Wen Qing calls to them as they hurry away. 

“Got it!” Wei Ying calls, practically running now. 

They make it to Lan Wangji’s car, and Wei Ying climbs into the passenger seat without hesitation. “My bike is safe here,” he says at Lan Wangji’s questioning look. “Come on, gege. Take me home.”

So Lan Wangji does.

The car ride is short, and strangely comfortable given the earlier tension and all the things still unsaid. Wei Ying must feel it too, as he jabbers in a slightly loopy manner about whatever catches his attention, until they are standing outside Wei Ying’s apartment door. 

“Don’t judge me,” Wei Ying says as he unlocks the door. 

Wei Ying’s place on the inside is exactly what Lan Wangji had imagined. It is warm and friendly and lived in. It is also gratifyingly empty of roommates. 

“Sorry for the mess,” Wei Ying apologizes unnecessarily. “Um. Wen Ning takes weekend classes and won’t be back until late. A-Yuan is at his friend’s place, but he won’t be back for a few hours.”

“Good.”

They make good use of those hours. They spend them wrapped u[ in one another, sometimes talking, other times letting all words and worries go just to be together. 

Lan Wangji doesn’t spend the night. They both agree it wouldn’t be appropriate, with A-Yuan home. And besides, they have agreed that, this time, they will take it slow. Still, as Lan Wangji looks through the collections of photos and saved drawings that Wei Ying has collected of his life and his new family over the years, Lan Wangji can’t help but imagine the future where he is part of this. A part of this family. He wonders if someday he might be able to call A-Yuan his son. He would like to.

He doesn’t say this. Not yet. It’s not time. They’re not ready.

He’s not ready.

Lan Wangji can’t deny that there is still fear there. Still anger. He can’t promise that they will ever truly go away. But those are small things in comparison to the joy. They will handle it together, the baggage that they carry.

Lan Wangji is in his own bed that night when his phone rings.

He smiles at the name on the screen as he answers. “Wei Ying.”

“Hey, Lan Zhan. It’s not too late to call, is it?”

“Never, for you.”

“Charmer,” Wei Ying laughs. “I–uh…I wanted to ask you…”

“Anything.”

“Careful, gege. You’ll spoil me.”

“I intend to.”

Wei Ying laughs again. 

“What did you want to ask, Wei Ying?”

“I…I wanted to ask. Do you have a-ji…I mean, do you have Jiang Yanli’s number?”

“I do,” Lan Wangji says slowly. 

Wei Ying’s exhale is shaky over the line. “Good. Okay. That’s good. Could you–?”

“I will send it to you.”

“That’s…yeah. That’s great. Lan Zhan. I…how is she? And Jiang Cheng? How is he?”

“Good. Annoying.” Lan Wangji answers each question in turn, and hesitates. Then,  “They miss you.”

“Oh.”

“If you would like, we can call her together.”

“Yeah…yeah, gege. I think I’d like that.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

then.

“Gege! I told you not to get me anything!”

Despite his protests, Wei Ying shakes the package vigorously, holding it up to his ear to listen. When this reveals nothing, he turns his blinding grin on Lan Zhan. “Can I open it now?”

“Whenever you’d like,” Lan Zhan answers fondly. “It’s your birthday.”

Wei Ying immediately unties the ribbon before tearing into the paper. “Oo!” he cries as unwraps the sketchbook. “It’s pretty!”

“The salesperson told me this is the best watercolor paper on the market,” Lan Zhan says, a little nervously. “It is cold-pressed so the paint should sink in a little. It is textured, it may make line work difficult, but—”

Wei Ying silences him with a kiss. “I love it, gege. Oh!” He gasps as he opens the pages and finds the laminated red flower within. “Is this…oh my god. Lan Zhan, is this the flower from the park? You kept it?”

“I did.”

There’s a complicated look on Wei Ying’s face as he brushes his thumb over the petals encased in protective plastic. “You softy,” he says. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“A reminder,” Lan Zhan answers. 

“Of what?”

“That I love you.” 

Wei Ying laughs and clutches his chest. “You’re too much for me, you know that? I can’t take it! How am I supposed to live up to it?”

“Being Wei Ying is enough.”

“Says you,” Wei Ying scoffs. “Nobody can top this level of gift giving, gege. How am I supposed to keep up?”

“Next time,” Lan Zhan says, his eyes warm on Wei Ying’s, drinking in his joy and radiance. “You can give the flower to me.”

“Yeah?” Wei Ying says, swallowing around some emotion. “Yeah. Okay, I will. And then it’ll be a reminder that I love you, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, Lan Zhan. You’d better be ready for it. Next time.”

“Next time.”

—FIN—