Chapter Text
To cohabit with Wei Ying is to learn his idiosyncrasies, and those of the people with whom he is closest.
Lan Zhan learns that Wei Ying prefers to hang his house keys up but lacking the opportunity will throw them on the counter and inevitably lose them. He learns that Wei Ying can be convinced back to bed without waking any of their new neighbors with a mouth on the nape of his neck. He learns the way Wei Ying’s body fits in his hands in a hundred different ways.
“You look smug,” Luo Qingyang tells him one afternoon, her finger holding down a page, and Lan Zhan blinks at her like a cat and thinks haven’t I earned it? He doesn’t know how to properly express how happy he is. He’s not someone given to breaking into song and dance, but even if he were, this would not be the kind of pleasure expressed in sweeping arias.
How does one explain the simple, warm contentment of existence when there is something to look forward to every morning, afternoon, and evening?
“Mn,” Lan Zhan, after a moment, offers up, “Xiong-zhang’s barista got him flowers.”
“Were they laden with double meanings?” Luo Qingyang asks, allowing herself to be distracted with gossip, even though she knows that he’s distracting her with gossip. She is a good friend.
“Of course,” Lan Zhan keeps his eye-roll to his tone, and she smiles.
Lan Zhan learns that Jiang Yanli may have baby pictures but Jiang Cheng is the one with middle and high school pictures, photos of the three of them draped around each other and smiling. He learns that Wei Ying’s growth spurt had come late, but he’s had the same smile all his life.
“He used to fall asleep in the practice rooms,” Jiang Cheng is the sort of man who scowls his pride, rather than smiling it. Lan Zhan cannot think of a worse-matched pair of siblings than the Jiangs other than he and his own brother. “You’d have to fish him out in the morning and he always looked like he’d gone on a bender.”
“Well, look where he is now,” Jiang Yanli says diplomatically, and smiles behind her hand at Lan Zhan. She has a way of making everyone feel included in a conversation, even if they’re not actively contributing. “Weren’t you the one always bringing him breakfast, anyway, A-Cheng?”
“That’s not the point,” Jiang Cheng protests loudly, and Lan Zhan learns that the Jiang family shares the way they treat food as an intrinsic part of their love language.
Lan Zhan learns that Wei Ying prefers showers to baths, sun to rain, and sunset to sunrise. He learns that Wei Ying would rather volunteer with animals than keep them but can be coerced into the shelter to pet the cats as long as Lan Zhan is asking. He learns that Wei Ying finds museums boring but loves people watching and will do so for hours while Lan Zhan looks at the art.
“You look happy,” Lan Huan says while they stand side by side in front of their uncle’s sink. Lan Huan washes while Lan Zhan puts the dishes into a rack to dry, as they have since they were very small, and neither of them looks up to have the conversation.
“I am.” Lan Zhan follows the curve of a dry bowl with a rag to polish the porcelain.
“Good,” Lan Huan says, and hands Lan Zhan another dish to put into the rack. “I like him.”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan turns to put the clean bowl away to start on the next. “So do I.”
Lan Huan tilts his head away to hide his smile, and Lan Zhan moves onto the plates.
He learns that Wei Ying will leave scraps of music on every surface if he’s not carefully supervised, not because he’s messy but because his mind moves so quickly that he needs to catch every thought before it gets lost. Lan Zhan learns the shape of Wei Ying’s composing style, unconstrained by the boundaries of what is real and good and proper, in between shared meals and stolen sweaters.
“I need a live soloist for this project.” Wei Ying says one evening while they linger over dinner with their ankles knocked together under the table. “Do you know anyone?” He’s looking at his plate, idly tapping his fingers to the strange 3/1 signature he’s picked up from somewhere, and Lan Zhan stares at him for a frozen moment.
His first reaction is to say no, even though it would be the most obvious lie in the world, and then he has to self-examine why that’s even something he’d like to lie about. He does not like performing live. Wei Ying knows this. Of course he would not ask Lan Zhan to perform for him, before any other option is exhausted.
“For what instrument?” Lan Zhan asks, too late to be anything but forced, and Wei Ying shrugs. The eye contact he makes, when he makes it, is strangely fierce.
“Whatever he wants,” Wei Ying says, and then, softer, “Whatever you want.”
They tangle together in bed that night, as close as two people can get without climbing inside one another, and Lan Zhan tries to keep himself anchored in the reality of Wei Ying’s skin and the cut of his jaw. He turns his mind to the sharp edge of Wei Ying’s teeth rather than the complicated time signature of his heartbeat and the sort of love that means stepping off of cliffs into the unknown.
Lan Zhan learns that Wei Ying bounces when he plays the flute, even when he’s in a recording studio, until someone puts a hand on his shoulder to remind him to be still. He learns that Wei Ying will forget to eat until someone brings something for him and takes a moment to eat with him. He learns another way to say I love you.
“I love you,” Wei Ying says one morning while Lan Zhan reads him the interesting parts of the newspaper, and Lan Zhan looks up so fast he loses his place completely.
“Ah,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Ying’s mouth curls into one of those indulgent smiles that he gives Lan Zhan when he’s being particularly cute.
“Is that all you have to say, Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying teases, and stretches to touch his cold toes to the knee of Lan Zhan’s pajama pants. “Is that any way to treat your favorite Wei Ying?”
“Apologies,” Lan Zhan says, feigning seriousness, and slides out of his seat to kneel beside Wei Ying’s chair, looking up at him. He feels, all at once, breathless with how fortunate he is, like someone who has purchased a box of knick-knacks and come away with a marble worth more than his rent. “I was only thinking of the words to say the same.”
“Ah,” Wei Ying says, and curls his fingers into Lan Zhan’s hair. “Mercy for a man who loves me, then.”
His mouth is soft and fond when he kisses Lan Zhan, hair falling over his shoulder.
Lan Zhan learns that Wei Ying is just as beautiful in a hotel room as he is in their apartment, in a coffee shop, in a truck stop halfway around the world from where they’ll be the next day. He learns that Wei Ying likes phone calls when he gets homesick and sometimes he’ll ask to talk to Lan Zhan’s uncle, because there are different flavors of home.
“What do you think about kids,” Wei Ying asks Lan Zhan after they hang up, sliding his cold hands under Lan Zhan’s pajama shirt, and Lan Zhan can’t smother his laugh.