Chapter Text
“I have a confession,” Lan Zhan’s beautiful neighbor says the following morning. They’re sitting together on his couch, every inch of which is covered with musical notation. Lan Zhan already has a feeling for what the confession is - he is not at all surprised when Wei Ying continues, “I haven’t actually written anything for the violin.”
Lan Zhan closes his eyes, as if that will be enough to block out the sad reality that his type is relentlessly stupid.
“Aah, Lan Zhan, it’s really not that big a deal- listen, don’t be upset! I can write something! I’ll write something right now!”
Lan Zhan doesn’t open his eyes. He has a feeling that Wei Ying’s face is very earnest and hard to look at, and he emotionally can’t handle it after less than five hours of sleep. “Wei Ying,” He says, trying not to sound long-suffering and certainly failing. “What am I here to play?”
He has his violin case across his lap, because that is what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s supposed to be playing the violin for Wei Ying to, quote, “pick up the vibes”, unquote. He can’t noodle around for his neighbor. He doesn’t like the violin enough to compose for it.
His experience with the violin comes up against two of his uncle’s rules- do not be dishonest , first, mandates that he cannot lie and say that he is bad at the violin. He is not. Lan Zhan is objectively good at the violin. The other is do not be boastful, which means that he also can’t say that he’s great at the violin, which is what other people have said of him. The squishing between two rules has made his journey with playing the violin fairly fraught with familial tension.
That’s one of the reasons that he prefers the guqin. For one thing, nobody talks about him when he plays the guqin, because nobody cares about it outside of a very narrow circle, mostly of his uncle’s acquaintances. For another, he’s never stupidly offered to play his guqin for his neighbor, which is a strong recommendation in its favor.
Wei Ying shifts beside him and Lan Zhan opens his eyes just in time to watch Wei Ying’s mouth transition from a sulky pout to a determined pout, presumably because he’s trying to ruin Lan Zhan’s life with his face.
“Don’t be like that, Lan Zhan,” He says. Lan Zhan has no idea what he’s being like, but he refuses to ask for clarification. “Listen, listen. I just need to hear you play a little bit, alright- I’m sure you’re very inspiring! I’ll definitely be inspired.”
Lan Zhan resists the urge to bury his face in his hands. “Wei Ying,” He says, and does not successfully keep the despairing edge out of his tone. “That doesn’t make any sense.” It doesn’t, objectively. It doesn’t make sense for Lan Zhan to play someone else’s work to- what, inspire Wei Ying to write his own?
Wei Ying knocks his fist into his knee, sitting up straighter. It sends a cascade of notation paper sliding off of the couch. “That’s where you’re wrong, Lan Zhan,” He says very seriously, “Because you have an inspiring face.”
Lan Zhan looks at him. Wei Ying looks back, steadily going pinker. He clears his throat. “-- I mean.”
Lan Zhan undoes the clasps on his violin case silently, and lets Wei Ying marinate in his shame.
Lan Zhan’s violin is very expensive and very beautiful. He hasn’t played it in three days, not even to practice, which is a long time to be away from the instrument with which you make your livelihood. He has been feeling- his brother had politely described his mood as mercurially despondent, which doesn’t seem… inaccurate. Uninspired, maybe. He lifts the instrument out of its case and tucks it between his chin and shoulder, settling his fingers along the board.
Wei Ying stares at him with something like stars in his eyes, and Lan Zhan does his best not to examine his expression too closely. Dropping a violin that cost more than a full year of both of their rents combined would be embarrassing and tragic.
“- I only write commercial music, you know,” Wei Ying says abruptly, as if Lan Zhan has any cause to know that. “Like - you know, jingles.”
Lan Zhan casts an eye over all of the staff paper scattered between them and at their feet. It doesn’t seem like he only writes commercial work. “What you have written is not a jingle,” He says, trying to clarify any confusion. For one thing, it’s a little long.
“Well, no,” Wei Ying agrees. “But this is the first thing I’ve ever- you know, the first real thing. Cut me a little slack!”
Lan Zhan doesn’t put his violin down, because if he does, he has a feeling he’s never actually going to get around to playing it. “Commercial music is still music,” He says idly, and draws his bow across the strings. His violin playing always tends to sound mournful to his own ear, a sighing thing. “I have recorded many times in a commercial capacity.”
Wei Ying blinks, obviously surprised. “Have you?”
“I do not lie,” Lan Zhan says, and he has no idea why he’d lie about that, anyway. It’s very common for people to prioritize commercial performance over traveling to different orchestras. It often pays better, and it’s significantly less tiring. “I have performed live in the past. It is not my preferred method.”
“You’d look so good, though,” Wei Ying says wistfully, and Lan Zhan chooses, for his mental health, not to think about it.
He fails not to think about it. Everything is terrible.
He tunes his violin by ear and Wei Ying watches attentively, like maybe he’s getting his vibes from this and this alone. Lan Zhan doesn’t feel particularly driven or creative enough to make something up on the spot, even with Wei Ying’s eyes burning holes into his forehead, so he suffers through the opening to one of Paganini’s caprices.
He pretends it’s not because he wants to impress Wei Ying. He doesn’t succeed in convincing even himself, but Wei Ying has no way of knowing what’s in Lan Zhan’s head, and Lan Zhan has been blessed with an exceedingly neutral face. Nobody ever has to know but himself.
At least Wei Ying looks impressed. He looks enchanted, actually. He hasn’t stopped looking that way the entire time that Lan Zhan has been present, though, so he’s making an effort not to take the frankly very flattering expression to heart.
It’s not even a particularly pretty piece of music. It’s evocative and complicated, fast and impressive, more a showpiece than something that anyone likes for the lyricism of it, but Lan Zhan finds it pleasing for just that reason. It’s hard and it grabs his attention, makes him think about the delicate muscles that hold his hands together in a way that his thousandth rendition of Canon in D does not.
He lowers the bow slowly and raises his eyes to meet Wei Ying’s. He regrets it, a little bit, because Wei Ying looks- just-
Wei Ying looks cracked open, a little bit, eyes shiny. “I was right,” He chokes out after a moment, eyes dropping to the couch between them. “You do look good. You’re - wow, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Zhan mercilessly wrangles all of his higher processes into line so he doesn’t blurt out the first thing he thinks, which is you look better, closely followed by never stop looking at me. “Thank you,” He says after far, far too long. “I imagine that is- not what you need.”
“Hah,” Wei Ying says, not even a laugh so much as an exhalation. “I mean. I’m no Paganini, Lan Zhan. But I wasn’t lying when I said you were inspirational.” He taps a beat against his leg, double-time, and then slows it down.
Lan Zhan watches him, setting his violin back into its case. He wonders about Wei Ying’s process- the jumps that he makes from concept to putting notes on paper. Lan Zhan has composed simple music, generally in the interest of furthering his own coursework, and never anything so complicated as an entire sonata with backing percussion.
“When you were playing the flute,” Lan Zhan starts, and Wei Ying glances up from mouthing something to himself to grin, quicksilver-bright.
“Oh- yeah, I was trying to figure this part out. I don’t play violin, you know, but it just seems like a better solo instrument.”
“You’re writing a concerto for an instrument that you don’t play because you- don’t think that flute is a worthwhile solo instrument?” Lan Zhan can’t help how bewildered he sounds. It’s bewildering. It is, of course, not necessary to play an instrument to write an entire composition for them. It just seems very- odd.
“Well, when you put it like that,” Wei Ying says, rolling his eyes. “I dunno, violin concertos just seem more like real music, don’t they? Who’s ever heard of a flute concerto?”
Lan Zhan wonders, vaguely, where Wei Ying’s sense of real as opposed to fake music comes from. At what point in Wei Ying’s life was he told that the music that he creates isn’t real enough to count? “Mozart,” Lan Zhan says. “Rautavaara. Devienne.”
“Why are you an expert in flute concertos, Lan Zhan?”
Lan Zhan blinks at him, slow. “I like the flute when it’s not three in the morning.”
Wei Ying flushes at that, shifting uncomfortably, but he doesn’t apologize again. He tugs out a piece of staff paper and starts jotting in the margins, stealthy like he’s trying not to draw attention to it. “You can’t tell me that you play the flute, Lan Zhan,” He murmurs. “You’ll be too perfect, I’ll have no choice but to kiss you.”
Lan Zhan suppresses his first five reactions and ends up at an awkwardly strangled-down mmn? before he clears his throat. “The xiao,” He says, unsure if that’s close enough to the Western flute to be worth kissing him over. “But my brother is a concert flutist.”
“Ah,” Wei Ying says, smile going a little sly. “So I have to kiss your brother on the mouth.”
Lan Zhan experiences a jealousy that he’d prefer not to admit to and has to spend an entire two seconds breathing through it. He recognizes, logically, that Wei Ying is not serious, and nobody is actually getting mouth-kissed over the flute. His less-than-five hours of sleep, however, say that he should call his brother and warn him off his beautiful neighbor.
“He is in a committed relationship,” Lan Zhan says reasonably, “So it might be wise to refrain.” Committed is a complicated word to describe Lan Huan’s frequent entanglements with the tiny, passive-aggressive barista at the coffee shop that he prefers, but Lan Zhan isn’t about to get into his brother’s sex-slash-romantic-life with Wei Ying. He has decided that he wants Wei Ying as far away from his brother’s sex-slash-romantic affairs as possible.
“Shame,” Wei Ying says, a smile in his voice. Lan Zhan sort of wants to push him over, which he recognizes is a ridiculous thought. Wei Ying is still jotting notes down on the staff paper, transitioning away from the margins and into the lines proper. “Well, don’t tell him I didn’t think that the flute’s a good enough solo instrument, anyway. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Lan Zhan can’t think of another way for him to have meant it. He raises his eyebrows in silent question, and Wei Ying huffs a brief noise.
“Well, as a flautist,” He pronounces it that way, long vowels. Lan Zhan feels vaguely like he’s being scolded. “It was made pretty clear to me, right, that the order of operations was piano, violin, cello if I must, percussion if I couldn’t swing it otherwise. When I was in school. So.”
Lan Zhan blinks slowly, trying to properly work through the tangle of logic. “But you still chose the flute.” He doesn’t risk saying flutist again.
“I stayed on the fluter path, yeah,” Wei Ying says, widening his eyes. Lan Zhan can tell when he’s being fucked with but he has no idea what he wants to do about it, so he ignores it. “Well - I mean, I dropped out. Before that. But mostly.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t know what to do with this piece of information about Wei Ying, privileged as he feels to receive it. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to murmur vague consolation or reassure Wei Ying that having a degree really isn’t that important, or if he’s supposed to just nod and accept that Wei Ying obviously has an inferiority complex about, of all things, playing the flute.
He ends up saying, “Mm. You play well.” It doesn’t exactly encompass the range of feelings he feels, but at least it’s more or less inoffensive. Wei Ying’s mouth tilts up into a not-quite smile.
“When it’s not three in the morning,” He says, low like it’s a joke between just they two, rather than them, probably the six surrounding neighbors, and maybe the people who live the floor above Wei Ying.
“Even then.” Lan Zhan admits, and commits himself to reading some of the notation that Wei Ying has made on the percussion section, which has been trapped under Lan Zhan’s right thigh the entire morning. Wei Ying stares at him for a long, frozen moment, but ends up electing to say nothing at all.
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“I’m sorry,” Luo Qingyang says, sounding not at all sorry. “You met him in the middle of the night while wearing your pajamas and you’re still willing to talk to him?”
Lan Zhan looks at her dubiously. “Of course,” He says. He doesn’t know if she’s managed to miss the number of times that he’s called Wei Ying perfect, or if perhaps he’s managed to use the wrong synonym, or what. “He needs a violin player.”
“You haven’t played violin in months,” Luo Qingyang reminds him, which is extremely unfair. He has certainly practiced the violin, lovelessly, in the intervening time. Lan Zhan doesn’t say that aloud, though, because she’ll have precisely the same argument that his brother does- namely, that he looks dead behind the eyes when he’s actually playing.
“Well,” Lan Zhan says primly, and scoots down a single row of books so they’re no longer looking at the gardening section and are instead looking at the home decorating section of the little used bookstore they tend to meet at. “I haven’t forgotten how.”
Luo Qingyang holds up a hand, invoking their pause-and-reverse rule. “You met him in the middle of the night in your pajamas, went to his apartment the same day, and played violin for him?”
“Paganini,” Lan Zhan recalls, and picks out a book to flip through it. He’s not looking for anything in particular, but Luo Qingyang has uncomfortably perceptive eyes and he’d like to avoid them at all costs. “- He seemed to like it.”
“Obviously he seemed to like it,” Luo Qingyang, it turns out, doesn’t need her eyes to sound judgmental or be perceptive. If he didn’t like her so much, Lan Zhan would probably hate her. “A world-class violinist played him Paganini in his living room!”
Lan Zhan doesn’t protest world-class (you will not lie), but neither does he confirm it (you will not be boastful ). He flips the page to look at the options for decorating an open-concept space, even though he has absolutely no plans to change the layout of his living room. “It sounds strange,” He acknowledges delicately, and Luo Qingyang scoffs, because she is rude.
“It is strange. Are you kidding me?” Lan Zhan knows that’s rhetorical, but he’s still inclined to snarkily tilt his head in a gesture that she’ll certainly read as I don’t know, am I? Luo Qingyang gives him a distinctly dubious look. “Is that your type? Menace to society? Terrible neighbor?”
Her thought process mirrors his own so uncomfortably closely that he is once again forced to wonder whether they had, perhaps, been separated at birth. He and Luo Qingyang have more in common than he and his brother do, excluding their faces.
“It might be,” He says, solemnly. The next chapter of the book deals with decorating an outdoor patio space, which Lan Zhan doesn’t have access to. He closes it and puts it back, carefully aligning its spine with the books beside it. He wanders off to the music section, where he always ends up, fully expecting Luo Qingyang to follow him. She can never resist mocking his admittedly regrettable taste.
“That’s so sad,” She says once they’re comfortably ensconced in the section with all of the sheet music, old enough to be thin at the edges. Lan Zhan loves this section. Sometimes he finds little-known works by people that he can’t find on a casual Google search and his passion for classical music is briefly renewed. “There’s, like, a million perfect little daughters weeping and tearing at their blouses because there are no Lans left to marry.”
Lan Zhan considers this, flipping through a book of what might be moderately racist shanties from last century. He and his brother do tend to have romantic entanglements that lean towards obsessive and disastrous. Also, male. Nearly universally. “They may have to settle for Uncle.” He agrees, and suppresses a smile when Luo Qingyang whoops with laughter, quiet as she's able.
“Your uncle would get in a fist-fight with a matchmaker,” She tells him sincerely, and Lan Zhan nods. His uncle may be very strict, but there are certain areas of life that he would not press, and this is one. Perhaps because of his own proclivity to never be alone with anyone for any reason.
“I’m going to meet him tomorrow,” Lan Zhan says, and Luo Qingyang’s eyebrow flicks up. She has a much better one-eyebrow expression than Lan Zhan does. Hers is biting.
“I assume you don’t mean your uncle. Hot neighbor?”
“Mn. For coffee.”
“You hate coffee.”
He gives her a look, hoping to translate, somehow, without words, that he’d go just about anywhere for the strange pleasure of Wei Ying’s company. “I assume I can order more than coffee there,” He says, slow and patient. She hates when he uses that tone, and she shows it by threatening to throw a book at him.
“I’d also note that you hate people,” She says, which is- untrue, but not an unfair assessment. It’s less that he hates them specifically and more that he simply doesn’t care about the vast majority of people, which isn’t particularly conducive to casually hanging out with random strangers.
Wei Ying is not a random stranger. He’s -
“It’s different,” Lan Zhan says, trying not to sound as sulky and stubborn about it as he feels. He’s already going to have to have this same uncomfortable conversation with his brother, and his brother will say nearly the exact same things.
“Oof, buddy,” Luo Qingyang says, extracting what is less a book and more a pamphlet of hand-written sheet music. She sets it on top of what he’s pretending to read like a peace offering. “You really tripped and fell in love in, like, twenty minutes flat, huh?”
Lan Zhan grimaces. He’s been trying not to think too hard about it. “Don’t.” He says, and flicks through the sheet music gently. It seems different. It costs less than a dollar. He’ll probably buy it just to see how it feels to play, even though he knows how it will feel- deeply mediocre, more than likely.
“Mmh,” Luo Qingyang says knowingly. She manages to fit a lot of tone into a single word. “Well, if you need help getting dressed for your date-”
“Don’t,” Lan Zhan says again, more desperately. If he thinks about meeting with Wei Ying as a date, he’ll work himself up to distraction about whether or not it would be appropriate to bring- what, flowers? Snacks? As if they’re not going to a coffee shop?
“Fine,” Luo Qingyang raises her hands, keeping her books pressed against her ribs with her elbow. “I’ll be nice. Let me know how it goes, though. See if you can get any recordings. I miss hearing you play.”
Lan Zhan hums a brief noise that can be taken either as agreement or not to avoid making any promises. He doesn’t know if Wei Ying will have anything for him to play. He doesn’t know if he’ll want to play it, even if Wei Ying does. The idea of being disappointed with Wei Ying’s composition is- terrifying. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if the first person he’s actually felt any particular urge to play for comes up short of his admittedly high expectations.
Luo Qingyang must read something of that in his face, because she makes a vague sympathetic noise and knocks one of her books into his, jostling him out of his thoughts. He breathes out and shrugs.
“We’ll see,” He says, and takes them both up to pay.