Chapter Text
Lan Wangji arrived at the cafe half an hour before his usual time, and found a large plastic bin of spinach on his usual table. He hesitated, looking around for the best alternative, when Wei Ying saw him and began shouting in the middle of a transaction with another customer.
“Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan! Give me a minute and I’ll move it!”
There were several people in line, a lot for the small cafe, and he wasn’t sure when this ‘minute’ would come. He looked around again. Most of the other tables were topped with mosaic tile, pretty but uneven. He was accustomed to coming in and settling at the smooth, wood-topped table by the window, with space enough for his papers and plenty of light. The table had always been free.
He could sit somewhere else but it would require adjustments. Some kind of hard surface. A different way of laying out his papers. Light; very few areas of the cafe got enough light. He disliked having to change his routine without warning, especially when all the other options were unsatisfactory. He could go somewhere else, but that was the most unsatisfactory option of all.
Sometimes, in moments like these, he would hang in indecision for a length of time he recognized as absurd. He ought to be able to just adapt, and he could if the need was pressing, but he didn’t want to. This was how he spent Saturday mornings: he came to the cafe, the barista smiled at him, he settled in at the table. The barista, Wei Ying, brought his tea while he laid out his papers, his pen, his rubric, and then he worked through the week’s grading to the background and occasional diversion of Wei Ying’s chatter.
It was one of the few parts of his life that was still consistent and predictable, and he was stubbornly, unhappily resistant to the idea of changing a single thing.
Before he could decide, Wei Ying was at his elbow, lifting the bin of spinach and passing a cloth quickly over the table.
“There you are! All yours!” He grinned brightly. He was wearing a charcoal-grey henley today, soft and faded. Open at the neck. “I’ll bring your tea over in, uh...” he looked over at the line of customers, which he had evidently abandoned in order to come here and move the bin.
Lan Wangji tried, with only partial success, to look away from the points of his collarbone. “There is no hurry. When you have time.”
“Ah, you’re the best, thank you Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying slid the bin into the large refrigerator case and jumped back behind the counter.
He laid out his papers, his pen, his rubric. Behind the counter, Wei Ying was asking the current customer how her job interview had gone, telling her cheerfully that he was sure she’d aced it, his long quick fingers ringing in her order while he talked. Yes. Everything and everyone was where they ought to be. He began to work, content.
Twenty minutes later a mug of white tea was set on the table in front of him, and he looked up. Evidently the morning rush had died down. Wei Ying was smiling down at him. As usual, several wisps of hair had escaped from his messy bun. As usual, Lan Wangji’s fingers itched to smooth them back.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You came early today!”
“Yes. I will likely be leaving early as well.” He hesitated. “It wasn’t necessary to interrupt your work to clear this table.”
“Don’t be silly, of course it was! Where else were you gonna sit in this rathole? Why do you think the spinach bin was there in the first place?”
Lan Wangji frowned. That made no sense.
Wei Ying glanced around the cafe and then slid into the seat across from him, leaning his arms on the table and looking up at him conspiratorially. “Okay, I’ll tell you a secret. I put that bin there to save your table.”
Lan Wangji blinked.
“Really! You know, I’m rearranging things in the fridge, getting set up for the day, and then oops, it gets busy and I didn’t have time to put everything back yet so it just sits on your table and happens to stay there until about...” he looked at his wrist, which held a hair tie and a fine chain bracelet but no watch, “five minutes before you usually come in.”
Wei Ying looked up with giant oh no you’ve caught me, oh please don’t tell on me eyes, but he was smirking too. Then he bit his lip, and Lan Wangji stopped breathing.
He cleared his throat and said, with some difficulty, “That isn’t necessary.”
Wei Ying sat up, mercifully, but kept chattering. “Of course it isn’t necessary. I get up at six am because it’s necessary. I save your table because I like having you right here in my line of sight all morning. Besides, if you can’t get the good table here you might start going somewhere else, and then what would I have in life, to make it worth getting up at six am on a Saturday?”
“Money, presumably.”
“Ugh,” Wei Ying crinkled his nose. “I’m talking about joy here, I’m talking about the beauties and pleasures of life, I’m talking about existence over subsistence... wait, what am I talking about?”
Wei Ying laughed at himself. He laughed gloriously. He did everything gloriously, and Lan Wangji badly needed him to not be sitting in front of him talking about beauties and pleasures any more.
“Spinach,” he said.
Wei Ying laughed again, throwing his head back. “See? You’re so funny, Lan Zhan, what would I do if you started going somewhere else?”
“I will not start going somewhere else.” Thank goodness his brother wasn’t there to hear that. He was looking very hard at his papers to avoid looking at the line of Wei Ying’s throat. “As long as I’m able to finish my work.”
“Right! Right, I’ll leave you alone,” said Wei Ying, standing. “Holler if you need anything.”
It took Lan Wangji several minutes to refocus on his work. Did Wei Ying actually save his table every week? It was an extraordinary claim. It was probably just customer service banter; not a lie exactly, because it was never meant to be taken as true. He had never been good at identifying those not-a-lie untruths that seemed a constant part of social exchange, but at least he knew they were there. He’d learned to step delicately around such conversations, withholding his reaction until he knew what was meant to be taken seriously and what wasn’t.
With Wei Ying he had to be particularly careful because there were so many things he wanted to be true. For a minute he’d thrilled to imagine Wei Ying saving a place for him every Saturday. Thinking of him. Wanting him there. He couldn’t afford to take that seriously; it would hurt too much to learn he’d been wrong.
Besides, making customers feel welcome and happy to be there was part of the barista’s job, and Wei Ying was very, very good at his job. He could appreciate it in that light: a skilled professional at work.
That settled, he returned to the next exam in his stack. The next time Wei Ying called out, “Am I right, Lan Zhan?” in the middle of a discussion with his coworker, Lan Wangji only raised his eyes briefly, causing Wei Ying to laugh and say “Sorry, sorry, I’ll stop bothering you.”
He didn’t, of course. He rarely went more than ten minutes without calling out to Lan Wangji, or catching his eye and grinning, or stopping by his table to ask how his students were faring. “Are you a strict grader, Lan Zhan?” he’d asked once. “I bet you are, I bet you’re one of those teachers that has students bragging in the halls if they get higher than a B minus.”
“I try to give clear expectations and make consistent judgements,” he’d answered, and for some reason Wei Ying had beamed at him.
He didn’t mind the interruptions. They were part of his Saturday morning routine, a pleasant counterpoint to the steady work of grading. Today, however, Wei Ying seemed in particularly high spirits, and particularly inclined to work them off by teasing and flirting in Lan Wangji’s direction. He found himself getting more flustered and distracted than usual and had barely managed to finish his stack of papers by the time Xichen was due to arrive with A-Yuan.
Normally, he would finish at 12:30, then go meet his brother and son for lunch. Today Xichen had an appointment, so they had shifted the entire morning half an hour earlier, and he would be dropping A-Yuan off at the cafe at noon. If A-Yuan wasn’t too tired, they might linger and have lunch there. Wei Ying had never met A-Yuan — he didn’t think he even knew he had a son — but he was always engaging and talkative with children. It would be pleasant to see him being engaging and talkative with his child.
Wei Ying left for his lunch break a little before noon, which was ideal timing. With luck, he wouldn’t return until after Xichen had come and gone. Xichen had never been to the cafe, but he’d somehow gathered that there was an attractive barista regularly there on Saturday mornings. For this regrettable leak, Lan Wangji was inclined to blame Nie Huaisang, who also worked at the cafe. Huaisang seemed to be constantly dispersing gossip, despite pretending total ignorance any time he was asked a direct question. Blaming him was certainly preferable to the alternative: that his interest was obvious enough for Xichen to have picked it up from his own conversation. He tried not to mention Wei Ying very often. He wasn’t certain he succeeded.
In any case, he’d rather not have Xichen witness Wei Ying’s manner toward him, especially as high-spirited as Wei Ying was today. Xichen would certainly misinterpret it.
His luck held; Wei Ying was still absent when A-Yuan ran in, clutching a large paper butterfly, Xichen behind him.
“Walk,” said Lan Wangji, leaning over to embrace his son. “You might trip if you run.”
“Look what I made!” cried A-Yuan, pushing the butterfly in his face. Lan Wangji took it and laid it on the table, smoothing one wing where it had been crumpled in the small fist.
“I see,” he said, examining it seriously. “You’ve chosen many colors. Tell me about them.” He lifted A-Yuan onto his knee and looked up at his brother. “How was your morning?”
“It was very nice! He got some paint on his jeans, but it’s washable.” Lan Wangji glanced down at the smear of purple on his son’s knee, and nodded. Xichen looked around the cafe, looked specifically behind the counter, and quirked an eyebrow at him.
“You don’t want to be late,” said Lan Wangji pointedly. Xichen’s eyes twinkled with that knowing, exasperating elder-brother smile, but he said his goodbyes and left.
Lan Wangji turned back to A-Yuan, who was chattering about the colors on the butterfly’s wings.
“I’m sorry, I was saying goodbye to Uncle. Please tell me again,” he said, and A-Yuan began again with the splash of purple at the top corner, which matched the one adorning his knee.
As often happened, Wei Ying’s voice preceded his entrance, calling to his co-worker through the open door, “Frankie, they forgot to order spoons again, can you hold down the fort a little longer while I —”
Lan Wangji was already looking to his entrance, head turning as if magnetized toward the voice, so he saw the moment when Wei Ying’s eyes landed on A-Yuan and the smile fell from his face. He looked stricken, and Lan Wangji immediately looked to his son in alarm. A-Yuan seemed fine. His small eyebrows were pulled together in a small frown as he looked back at Wei Ying, but that wasn’t surprising, given the expression on Wei Ying’s face. Lan Wangji had seen that face beaming, laughing, whining, wheedling, and occasionally angry, but never like this. He looked blank and hollow and it stirred something fierce in Lan Wangji: he wanted to rise up and obliterate whatever was making him look like that. Then his eyes lifted to Lan Wangji and there was a flash of something almost like betrayal, before he pressed his lips together and turned his back.
“I’m going to run out to the store and get spoons,” he said in a flat voice to his co-worker, and left without looking their way again.
It was as if a stormcloud had gathered over their morning. A-Yuan didn’t resume his cheerful chattering about the butterfly; after a minute he spun around and wrapped his arms tightly around Lan Wangji’s neck. He hugged him back, concerned.
“Are you feeling all right?” He looked again, more carefully, for any sign of some injury or ailment that might have made Wei Ying look at him like that. A-Yuan looked normal, if perturbed, and resumed his clinging hold around his father’s neck as soon as he released him. Lan Wangji kissed the side of his head and patted his back.
“Would you like to eat lunch here, or go home?”
A-Yuan still said nothing. Lan Wangji frowned. He would have preferred to stay; he wanted the reassurance of seeing Wei Ying again and knowing that he was all right. But Wei Ying was not his responsibility, after all.
“Shall we go home?” he asked, and finally got a small okay out of his son.
A-Yuan refused to be put down, clinging monkey-like while Lan Wangji awkwardly gathered their things and paid his tab. He wanted to ask the other barista if Wei Ying was all right, but that would be presumptuous. It wasn’t any of his business.
It was a difficult afternoon. He was unsettled, a sour worry in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t quiet no matter how often he told himself it wasn’t his business. A-Yuan alternated between clingy and hyperactive, climbing the sofa at home (very much against the rules) but clinging to his father’s leg and refusing to go play when they went to the park.
At last, his own patience fraying, Lan Wangji decided it was a day for an afternoon TV exception. They settled in on the sofa, A-Yuan with his head across his lap and one foot repeatedly kicking the cushions. He’d formed very firm ideas about things like screen time when he’d begun parenting; after almost two years, he felt he was doing well if he only lapsed once or twice a week.
He couldn’t stop worrying over Wei Ying’s reaction at the cafe. The morbid, anxious part of his mind kept whispering that it had been directed at him, or more specifically, at him with a child. He’d never let himself believe Wei Ying’s flirtations to be in any way serious, but that did not stop him from wondering now: what if they had been? What if that look of horrified shock had been at the idea of dating a single parent?
Everyone had told him, when he’d announced his plans to adopt, that it would make dating harder. He hadn’t bothered to hide his disdain for those comments. He hadn’t bothered to retort that dating was already impossible, miserable, and dreary, and if he never saw another Tinder or Grindr profile it would be too soon. He hated going to bars, he hated trying to talk to someone he’d just met, and despite a wearying number of attempts he’d only once or twice had sex that was noticeably better than handling matters himself.
He didn’t want to date. He did want a family. Fortunately the one was not a prerequisite to the other. He’d thought through his decision carefully and now he couldn’t imagine having done anything else. Seeing the world through his son’s eyes was an endless fascination, and working to make his son’s world a safe and happy place was the most gratifying mission he’d ever undertaken. Nobody who would run from this was worth having. Even someone with quick fingers and a glorious laugh.
I just don’t want you to be lonely, Xichen had said once, when he’d tried to express all this.
I have never been less lonely in my life, he’d responded, with perfect truth.
Not that parenthood was an unbroken stream of joy and gratitude, as he was reminded repeatedly that afternoon, and again when A-Yuan woke up wailing at two in the morning. The only time he really wanted a partner was in the middle of the night. Lack of sleep affected him badly, and he wished it could be someone else’s turn sometimes. But there was no one else, so he hauled himself out of bed and went in to comfort his sobbing son.
It took several minutes of soothing words and back pats to get anything coherent out of A-Yuan, and when he did it was a rain of cries: When is Xian-gege coming back, where did Xian-gege go? He didn’t recognize the name. He’d learned as much as he could about A-Yuan’s past and the people that had had a part in it, but there were many gaps.
“Who is Xian-gege?” he tried asking.
A-Yuan just looked up at him with large, tear-heavy eyes and whispered, “I miss him.”
They had talked a lot about missing people. A-Yuan had lost so many people already in the first years of his life, many whose names and stories Lan Wangji would never know. But he knew the grief, and he never wanted his son to feel obligated to hide it. So they talked about missing people.
“It’s okay that you miss him,” said Lan Wangji, a familiar litany to them both by now. “Do you feel sad?”
“I feel sad,” A-Yuan repeated, shoulders hitching with tiny hiccuping sniffs. “When is he coming back?”
“I don’t know. I am not sure where he is.”
But this seemed to frustrate A-Yuan. “Xian-gege! I miss him! Please, baba?” He looked up at him with wet cheeks and a wide, quivering frown. “Please baba can you ask him? I really miss him!” He sobbed again, heartbreakingly.
It stabbed straight through him, cracking open the reservoir of loss and helplessness that was all his own. His child’s grief did that, sometimes. It always took him by surprise. He caught his breath sharply and gathered A-Yuan into his arms, holding him tight until the pain ebbed.
“I will try,” he said softly into A-Yuan’s hair, when he could speak again. He never made uncertain promises and tried not even to raise uncertain hopes, but his son was hurting. His son believed he could make it better. He couldn’t not try.
Wen Qing might at least know who this “Xian-gege” was. He would text her in the morning. It would be a start.