Work Text:
Prologue
Lan Zhan misses question twenty eight.
The realization occurs when the twenty ninth is apparently incorrect. His frown in response isn't unwarranted, nor is his choice to recheck the answer key instead of his own solution. Lan Zhan's answers are never wrong. This isn't pride speaking. Just certainty.
His phone pings just as his eyes spot the miscreant, sitting untouched right above twenty nine. On the tail of the ping comes another, and then another; impatience rolling off the sounds. Self-admonishing, his hand reaches for the phone.
Belatedly, he acknowledges this might be the reason for the blunder—not quite a blunder per se, at least not normally, but a jumbled order of questions is enough to distress a mind prone to finding comfort in order and routine—currently sitting in front of him. This habit of texting in the middle of tasks. He supposes, being in a relationship with a chronic texter had to rub off on him at some point. But phone stopped being Wei Ying's preferred means of communication almost a year ago, when they started living together from the first semester of college. Because that came with more feasible options. Words, mostly. Hands and mouths, occasionally.
By habit, his gaze pans up to the wall clock. Wei Ying won't return for four more hours. Not for the first time, Lan Zhan finds himself wondering how one can miss so incessantly someone they cohabitate with. Then, with a huff, he scatters the thought away and unlocks the phone. The tiniest arch graces his brow.
Yiling Laozu
cmmmooonnn tell meeeee
okokok how bout I win it?
I'll guess something about you
if I'm right you'll give me what I ask
deal?
Out of loop as he has fallen with the conversation, he has to go through the previous texts to catch up. With a frown, his lips press into a thin line. While he does find this new friend rather interesting, he does not appreciate such insistence for things he has clearly drawn a boundary around.
Lan Wangji
I have already told you only my partner uses my birth name.
The response is concerningly quick.
Yiling Laozu
ohmygod it's not like I'm taking it away or something
it's the fucking 21st century
can't we both use it?
Lan Wangji
You may not.
Yiling Laozu
☹️
He sighs. Such abruptness can often come across as rude, Wei Ying always tells him that, reeling with laughter because somehow, he also finds it humorous. However, not everyone gets him like Wei Ying does, so he amends.
Lan Wangji
It's not about tradition. It's… a preference.
I do not like hearing it from others.
Yiling Laozu
Awwwwwwwww really ♥️╣[-_-]╠♥️
Lan Zhan blinks. Not for the first time, he's baffled how swiftly this person's temperament shifts. Coupled with his inability to take offence, Yiling Laozu can be the perfect sunshine when he wants to. Quite like the sunshine in Lan Zhan's own life.
Yiling Laozu
You're such a romantic at heart
The tiny quirk of lips on Lan Zhan's face grows automatically. Of course, Yiling Laozu will say that. If he's being honest, the past two weeks of this budding friendship have felt a lot like how Wei Ying and him were, before they finally confessed. The relentless back and forth about the most insignificant things, the ongoing banter with both of them unwilling to back down, and the occasional brattiness that Lan Zhan is admittedly not fond of from anyone but Wei Ying. In some ways, Yiling Laozu is alarmingly similar to his boyfriend. But in other ways, he is different too. Like Wei Ying, Yiling Laozu lacks a filter. But unlike Wei Ying, Yiling Laozu never flusters.
Inadvertently, his eyes dart up to the clock again. He sighs. There are still too many hours left. In his twenty years of life, patience has always been one of his strongest virtues, but apparently not wherever Wei Ying is concerned.
Yiling Laozu
lemme guess your favourite novel is a romance as well
mmmm pride and prejudice?
Not true. And what a disappointing statement. Wei Ying would be so embarrassed for Yiling Laozu, as is Lan Zhan.
Lan Wangji
Wrong.
Also, Pride and Prejudice is not a romance.
Yiling Laozu
yeah yeah you'll lecture me about it's societal message now
but that doesn't discount it's a love story at core
Lan Wangji
A love story is not the same thing as a romance story.
Your literary understanding is profoundly lacking.
He pauses for a moment, then types one more message, punctuating it with an unamused emoticon just like Wei Ying has taught him to.
Lan Wangji
I do not think Darcy was written with an intention to make you want a Darcy for yourself.
No matter you ended up doing that anyway.
(¬_¬)
Yiling Laozu
aaaahahahaha
did you just
xiao Lan ahh xiao Lan
what am i going to do with you
With an exasperated shake of head, Lan Zhan slides the phone away. He should focus on finishing the practice sheet. A glance at the clock reveals three hours still left. It'll be great if he can finish everything before Wei Ying returns home. It feels like they've hardly had any time to themselves lately.
He's barely touched question twenty eight, on a fresh new page, when his phone pings again. Lan Zhan ignores it, focused on the work as he is. The pinging grows, one after another. Completing the question, he retrieves the phone.
Yiling Laozu
okayokay how about your favourite movie?
I bet it's something like…
like Casablanca?
or…don't tell me!! Titanic?
Incorrect again. While Lan Zhan wouldn't exactly say he's a movie person, he has watched his fair share because of their movie nights. Wei Ying loves movies. Consequently, Lan Zhan has come to love them too. He even has a favourite. And Lan Zhan's favourite is Ratatouille, which they've watched a total of seventeen times by now because Wei Ying can't get enough of making him reenact the final monologue.
Yiling Laozu is so far away from the realm of possibilities that Lan Zhan is tempted to think he's inaccurate on purpose.
Lan Wangji
I would suggest you quit.
You are almost embarrassingly wrong.
When he returns to the question sheet this time, he does not keep the phone away, resigned to the fact that Yiling Laozu won't stop bothering him anytime soon.
Yiling Laozu
noooooooo
you're so mean to me :(((
One eye on the message and another on the question, Lan Zhan smirks. He does not respond until he's through with the problem.
Lan Wangji
Don't you claim I'm meanest to people I like?
Yiling Laozu
What?
Oh
I mean haha
If Lan Zhan didn't know better, he'd think Yiling Laozu was taken aback. But the phone quickly resumes pinging, so he spares it only a fleeting glance and dives back into his work.
Yiling Laozu
ofcourse ofcourse
Touche
anyway, I'm ready for another round
uhmmm
moonlight sonata is your favourite piece to play??
Lan Zhan's eyes narrow. He finishes the next question quicker than he otherwise would.
Lan Wangji
A fortunate guess.
The pings following that are shameless, relentlessly teasing, just as Lan Zhan had anticipated. He keeps his focus strictly on the work at hand rather than Yiling Laozu's antics.
Yiling Laozu
nooooo
you're so unfair
if I'm wrong I'm wrong
but if I'm right it's just a guess
not fair little Lan not fair
Lan Wangji
I'm only being practical.
You have no way of knowing that.
Question thirty two is a tricky one, not exactly in a complicated way, but rather in an engrossing way. By the time he's done, he has no idea how much time has passed.
Yiling Laozu
What do you mean I have no way?
I have every way
You can pretend sophistication all you want Lan-xiong
but you're a romantic at heart
Lan Zhan blinks. Once, and then twice. Half a mind still on the worksheet, the other half almost immediately conjures up the image from two years ago. A shabby diner, its corner-most table, scent of fresh gentians by his side, and a pair of silver eyes gleaming in the sun. Right above the set of soft lips that quirk up cockily as they morph around the words, "Lan Zhan, ah Lan Zhan, you can pretend sophistication all you want but you're actually a romantic at heart."
Another tiny smile blooms on his face, affection almost overflowing in the organ in his chest. Perhaps this shouldn't be as surprising as it is. Yiling Laozu can be a lot like Wei Ying at times, Lan Zhan has received numerous reminders of that over the past two weeks. Wei Ying himself had affirmed the same when Lan Zhan had shown him the texts saying, "I feel he's a bit like you, just bolder. Doesn't hold himself back."
Wei Ying, being Wei Ying, had wiggled his brows. "You mean a daddier version of me?"
Unlike Lan Zhan, Wei Ying is not the jealous type. Rather, he's the type who joins people in swooning at him. More than once, he's caught someone checking Lan Zhan out and walked right over to talk about just how pretty his boyfriend is.
His excuse is always a cheeky, "You're too pretty Lan Zhan, it's not mankind's fault."
With a sigh, Lan Zhan's gaze finds the clock again. Two hours remaining. If Wei Ying was to return earlier for some reason, it would be really nice. He also hopes Wei Ying will bring him the cake he's been craving since yesterday.
When he returns to the practice sheet, the phone is somewhat forgotten, until it pings again.
Yiling Laozu
hello???
Did you zone out on me or something???
Mind astray, Lan Zhan picks it up and types a response.
Lan Wangji
I'm sorry. I got lost in some thought.
Yiling Laozu
hmm I've been told I have that kind of effect on people ;)
so you're forgiven
A huff elicits out of him, brows raised but eyes fond. Maybe Lan Zhan should let him have this one.
Lan Wangji
If you insist.
The responses to follow are very on brand.
Yiling Laozu
ooooohhh fiesty
have some mercy xiao Lan
what if gege's heart gives out?
I'm kind of weak for you y'know ;)
The curve of his lips grows as he reads them one by one. It's almost nostalgic, the rush of finishing his work while simultaneously sneaking time to type witty replies. The summer from two years ago when Wei Ying turned him into a menace by simply taking delight in all that Lan Zhan had to say. When he would goad Lan Zhan and then get flustered himself. When he made him realize just how much Lan Zhan liked flustering him and making him laugh.
Lan Wangji
I'm sure that's true.
There's no immediate follow up. Lan Zhan's fingers move.
Lan Wangji
You see, I too have been told I have such effect on people.
The pause lingers, and when a response arrives, it seems almost unnecessary given the two words that pop up on-screen.
Yiling Laozu
I see
Maybe he's busy as well. Or maybe Lan Zhan has managed to accomplish the one thing he deemed impossible: rendering Yiling Laozu speechless. Either way, it feels like an achievement. With a light shrug of shoulders, and the barest smirk on his face, Lan Zhan quickly types another message and returns to the problem set.
Lan Wangji
I would suggest you be careful.
There's another pause, much longer. When a message eventually pops up, its undertone is uncharacteristically flustered. Almost nervous.
Yiling Laozu
Haha
I mean yeah that's very you
uhh you're a romantic afterall
like all guqin players
A constriction makes its way between Lan Zhan's brows.
Lan Wangji
Moonlight sonata is primarily a piano piece.
There's another long pause so Lan Zhan finishes three more questions in the meantime.
Yiling Laozu
Well I'm certain you play more than one instrument
like all prodigies do
Amusement dances in his eyes as he types a response.
Lan Wangji
I am no prodigy.
But I suppose you are fairly adept at making assumptions.
Yiling Laozu
ahhh no need for all that modesty
you are a prodigy
at everything I'm sure
Lan Zhan finishes question forty three before he picks up the phone again.
Lan Wangji
Everything?
Yiling Laozu
Of course
academics music people
everything
There are only a few problems left. The prospect of being done with it soon makes him pick up his pace.
Lan Wangji
People?
The pause this time is much longer. Lan Zhan is in the middle of the second last question when the response pings.
Yiling Laozu
Oh darling
I'm sure your fingers can play me too
just as well as the guqin
The pen is moving unceasingly to take question forty nine to its end as Lan Zhan's eyes glance up to the text.
The pen stills.
The huff making its way out of him turns into a frown.
With a slight tremble in his hands, Lan Zhan drops the pen.
Question forty nine remains undone.
He reads the text again. And then once more. It does not change even on the third read. Disbelieving, his gaze slides upward. Aligning with his dread, the name above is far from Wei Ying. Like a broken pendulum, his eyes up and down in quick succession. Every time, the name remains the same. Glaring violently at him. Yiling Laozu. Yiling Laozu. Yiling Laozu.
Why would he—
Shuddering still, Lan Zhan's confused eyes move up to read his own texts, belief resolute that they cannot be the reason behind this, hoping desperately they are not what led to this.
...Don’t you claim that I’m meanest to people I like?
...I'm sure that's true.
...I too have been told I have such effect on people.
...You should be careful.
The frown marring his face worsens, gaze so frantic that he can no longer distinguish which text belongs to whom.
What… has he been doing?
He's still in disbelief, wildly confused when his phone pings again, almost startling him.
Yiling Laozu
So uhh you're really committed to someone or was that a lie?
Lan Zhan blinks at the screen, and finds that he's blinking back tears.
Yiling Laozu's question is a slap in his face. Just the fact that he wants such a confirmation shows that Lan Zhan must have given out signals, however unintentional. The question continues to mock him, putting one last nail in the coffin of his overly friendly texts.
What just happened?
What did he do? Why does everything suddenly feel so wrong?
He vehemently shakes his head, uncomprehending. A part of his brain, the smallest rational corner whispers that he needs to calm down first. That he needs to breathe because he might be working himself up over nothing. But another part, a much prominent chunk admonishes him. It tells him that if he really wishes to understand the wreckage, he should put himself in Wei Ying's place. See if he would approve of such a thing.
So he does.
He thinks of Wei Ying making space for someone in his life, the kind Lan Zhan made for Yiling Laozu. He thinks of that person making a pass at Wei Ying. And he thinks of Wei Ying allowing it, accepting it, even welcoming it.
The conclusion of it is glaringly simple.
It would kill Lan Zhan.
Belatedly, he realizes he's shaking, bouts of chill suddenly washing over him. He does not understand anything. Was he distracted due to the worksheet? Is that his excuse? Or were the similarities so many that he mistook someone he barely knows for the love of his life? Or is that another excuse?
Does he really hold so little regard for what he shares with Wei Ying?
Did he really— he shakes his head once more. Desperate. He cannot bring himself to finish that even in his mind, as if scared that asking would make it true. The fact that Lan Zhan almost deceived Wei Ying. That Lan Zhan could be… unfaithful.
The flashes of hot and cold worsen, making him sick in the stomach. The awareness that there's a possibility he's overthinking does little to assuage them.
It's amidst the incessant berating of his mind that he recalls the vague memory of the conversation from two weeks ago, when he had told Wei Ying about Yiling Laozu. Mostly out of his own suspicion because the man seemed to have dropped out of nowhere. And Wei Ying, supportive as ever, was quick to kiss him about it. Between making Lan Zhan laugh with his jokes about the daddier version of himself, and reassuring him that it's okay to let people in and embrace new friendships, he had been able to ease his worries quickly. Wei Ying always made it so easy to just let things be.
"Let's be honest, we both know I'm the only one for you. Today, tomorrow and forever." Wei Ying had said, always so trusting.
Except he shouldn't have.
Lan Zhan is obviously not worth the trust.
He let Wei Ying down at the first chance he got. Failed him at the first test. Disrespected their love, their relationship that is nothing short of a sacred place for the both of them.
It doesn't take long for the surroundings to turn woozy, surreal, untethered as he feels. Lan Zhan is not a man of maybes. He doesn't do things halfway. Certainties are his tether in life and Wei Ying is the firmest one.
The earth is round. The sun rises in the east. And Lan Zhan is in love with Wei Ying. It is as simple, and as universal as that. It has always been.
But he's not so certain anymore.
If he's so superficial with his feelings that all it took for him to walk astray was a nameless nobody he barely knows, then he obviously has no right to be in a relationship. Wei Ying deserves better.
Even if he's able to convince himself somehow that it was all a big mistake, that maybe he was distracted, that maybe he got confused, how will he ever convince Wei Ying?
Just the thought of coming clean twists up his stomach into knots. Their relationship did not have the fortune of an easy beginning. They've had to overcome a lot to be where they are. It's perhaps the reason they regard it with so much care. When reality truly sinks in, he finds himself heaving over the sink, stomach too empty to throw up anything.
Lan Zhan had once made a promise to always love Wei Ying a little extra. So they can spare the excess for days when love seems inadequate. So they never ever forget just what they have to root for. He does not understand how, he's now on the offering end of what he had sworn to protect Wei Ying from.
The clock on the wall mocks him. Only an hour to go. An hour before Wei Ying returns and Lan Zhan crushes his heart. Hurts the person he had sworn to hoard love for so they never run out of it.
An hour before Lan Zhan loses everything.
_______________
Wei Ying's gaze does not stray from the phone screen even after it turns black.
The impatient bouncing of his knees does nothing to calm the jitters in his nerves that have begun to settle heavily in the pit of his stomach like a boulder.
He should have never agreed to this.
The more his phone refuses to respond, the more the dread in his belly thickens.
He should have never ever agreed to this.
Huaisang's ideas have a history of being terribly destructive. Wei Ying should have known better. How he will ever explain it all to Lan Zhan is a consequence he fears to even consider.
When the impatience starts bordering on oppressive, he takes to pacing around, still absolutely flabbergasted as to how he came to this point, how things got so out of control within a matter of two weeks.
One moment, he was at Huaisang's, preparing for their game night. Next, they were drunk to the gills watching a random YouTube channel that performed loyalty checks on couples, some terrible couples at that seeing how every single one of them kept turning out to be unfaithful. One moment, he was feeling sorry for all those people getting cheated on. Next, he was gloating, practically rolling in smugness how his relationship is probably the only one in the world that can withstand loyalty tests that employed such blatant flirting.
Perhaps that was his first mistake.
Because too soon, Huaisang and Jiang Cheng were on his back. Pestering and challenging him to try, drunk as they were. "It would be fun," they said.
Even drunk out of his wits, Wei Ying had possessed the presence of mind to acknowledge how terrible of an idea it was. And so, he had refused without a thought. A thing like a loyalty check would be humiliating even for a regular person, let alone someone like Lan Zhan, who leaves no stone unturned in prioritizing Wei Ying, perhaps overly so sometimes. Wei Ying wasn't about to insult that, even for shits and giggles. Not to mention, he couldn't even fathom how he'd ever come clean to Lan Zhan after playing a prank that nasty.
But then Huaisang had mentioned how Lan Zhan is incapable of getting mad at Wei Ying.
Which is true. Lan Zhan barely ever gets mad at Wei Ying. And even when he does, it's mostly over Wei Ying's own lack of self preservation. Or his tendency to put himself in danger.
Wei Ying should have seen it for the goading it was, when Jiang Cheng insisted that it would just be harmless fun. That Lan Zhan wouldn't mind because there literally would be nothing to mind. Instead, Wei Ying saw it for confidence, singularly elated that Jiang Cheng and Huaisang were just as certain of the result as Wei Ying was.
That was his second mistake.
Because that was how, on a Saturday night two weeks back, Wei Ying had found himself creating the Yiling Laozu. An online alter ego who was just like Wei Ying but notched up by multitudes for distinction purposes. Online, because there was no way he was going to employ someone to flirt with his boyfriend (just the thought had given him a nasty feeling – it didn’t matter if it was for jokes and games). Like himself, because even his friends knew the fake account had to have some essence of Wei Ying to get Lan Zhan's attention. Without a believable resemblance in mannerism, Lan Zhan wouldn't have given Yiling Laozu time of the day.
And that was Wei Ying's last and perhaps the biggest mistake.
Because things only went out of control from there.
It was fine that first night. Almost comical, if not adorable, how Lan Zhan had made it clear to Yiling Laozu, within the first two text messages itself, that he was committed to someone.
"I think this was a bad idea," Huaisang had commented then, in his slurring speech. "He's going to bore us talking about his Wei Ying all the time."
Wei Ying had giggled, because that's exactly what delighted him. It was an incandescently happy feeling, to be loved so. To be cherished so behind his back, in his absence, when Lan Zhan didn't necessarily have to.
Flirting with Lan Zhan was easy. It came naturally to him. Especially since Wei Ying knew everything that could get him talking, or atleast, get enough of a reaction out of him to keep him engaged. And if he's being honest, it was a bit amusing, being shameless to Lan Zhan anonymously.
When he had gone home that night, Lan Zhan was already asleep. With a sticky note on his bedside table telling Wei Ying to not forget to brush his teeth and drink two glasses of water before he goes to bed. In the corner of the note was his usual neat signature, 'I love you.'
That night in bed, his heart had felt so full that Wei Ying couldn't help placing feathery kisses all over Lan Zhan's sleeping face, stirring him awake.
"Did you have water?" Had been the first thing the sleepyhead had asked, voice husky and eyes unfocused. In response, Wei Ying had kissed his mouth and then his neck, trailing down kisses all along his chest and torso and belly as Lan Zhan's breaths grew ragged and heavy, giving in to the slowest and sweetest and sleepiest blowjob of his life.
"What happened to you tonight?" Lan Zhan had mumbled later, cuddled in his arms. "Don't say it's because tomorrow is Sunday and we can sleep in till late."
Wei Ying had chuckled and pulled him closer to whisper into his ear, "I think I fell a little more in love with you tonight."
The morning after, when delirium and hangover both were washed away, Wei Ying was finally left questioning his choices. But it lasted only for a moment, because too soon, Lan Zhan was shoving Yiling Laozu's chat into his face and asking, "What do you think this person wants from me?"
Once again, his heart had overflowed; with the satisfaction of being right, as well as the fondness of Lan Zhan's knotted eyebrows and narrowed eyes gazing at the phone screen suspiciously as if the Yiling Laozu was a very questionable entity. Which, fair.
That would have been the perfect time to tell Lan Zhan the truth, except, Wei Ying's resolve had quickly weakened when Lan Zhan uttered a very soft, "He's not that bad, you know. I feel he's somewhat like you."
"You do?" Wei Ying had asked.
Lan Zhan had nodded, lost in thought. "Do you think he might be looking for a friend?"
That was when Wei Ying had felt the first trickle of guilt. It was never an easy pursuit for Lan Zhan to make friends, or even give someone that much space. In all the ways that mattered, Wei Ying had been a jerk to him, however unintentional.
So he had kept the truth until he figured out a way to let Lan Zhan know. In the meanwhile, he was going to be Yiling Laozu, Lan Zhan's online friend.
Except, it kept going.
For one, he enjoyed being the Yiling Laozu, the daddier version of himself, as he liked to put it. It was funnily nostalgic, scandalizing Lan Zhan with dirty jokes and getting lectured about inappropriateness in return.
For two, a part of Wei Ying just wasn't ready to let go. It was a different sort of drug, the force of Lan Zhan's love in its purest, unfiltered form—in that secret way only an outsider eye gets to observe.
The way Wei Ying was closely entwined with all of Lan Zhan's conversations with Yiling Laozu, despite making a point to never ever bring up Lan Zhan's boyfriend. The way Lan Zhan had shared happy tidbits of their lives, as if he was incapable of not showing him off. The way Lan Zhan never made an exception for Yiling Laozu, the way he does for Wei Ying.
It had been addictive, the all encompassing feeling of being adored with such unflinching loyalty, such unbudging devotion. Being cherished in ways only Lan Zhan can do.
Everyday, Wei Ying would tell himself tomorrow he'll come clean. His tomorrows only kept getting postponed.
And then, out of the blue, today happened.
Lan Zhan flirted back. Not once but twice.
Don’t you claim I’m meanest to people I like?
I'm sure that's true. You should be careful.
Most people would maybe find his sneaky, insinuating texts just a humorous comeback, but Wei Ying has known Lan Zhan since middle school, loved him since high school, and lived with him since the beginning of college. His boyfriend is not a fan of words. It's the deflections of his voice that convey to Wei Ying the gist of his straight-faced rejoinders. Likewise, it's the connotations that deliver the intention in his text messages rather than the words literally. Being coquettish is not Lan Zhan's way of flirting. He's a simple man by design – nice and polite to those he can stand, and blunt to those he cannot stand. Flirting is when Lan Zhan is subtly mean. When he agrees with you in a way that's vaguely disparaging. When he looks you dead in the eyes and throws your own words back at you, sarcastic and well-timed.
Only Wei Ying knows this because only Wei Ying has ever been dealt with it. Only Wei Ying has had the privilege to spend an entire summer delighting in it, finding it hot. And only Wei Ying has had the right to it for the past two years.
Not anymore… as was apparent.
He would have tried being rational about it, would have maybe given it the benefit of doubt considering how close Lan Zhan had grown to Yiling Laozu, if not for the unease that had taken root in his belly, so overwhelming it made him breathless.
It was the same outsider eye mocking him then, because in the end, as far as Lan Zhan was concerned, Yiling Laozu and Wei Ying were two different people. Wei Ying was his boyfriend and Yiling Laozu, a nobody. A stranger.
And Wei Ying wasn't used to sharing Lan Zhan.
There aren't many things that Wei Ying is certain of in life. Most days, he's not certain of even himself. But Lan Zhan has always been an exception to that. His level ground, unbudging through the worst of storms. Lan Zhan: his one certainty in life, the rock that keeps him grounded, the pillar Wei Ying leans on when the world feels like it's running away from him.
Even when Wei Ying wasn't ready to love him, a year ago, Lan Zhan had held on, never letting go.
But all of a sudden, his level ground felt titled. Shaky and unbalanced. The most abhorrent part of his brain was suddenly screaming: who is to say this isn't a regular affair? Which was bullshit of course. Nobody knew Lan Zhan as well as Wei Ying did. And yet, now that the cursed insecure part of his brain was unlocked, the doubts oozed out of it in leaps and bounds.
Something must have shown on his face, for he had soon heard Huaisang's conflicted voice, "Hey, it's no big deal, these texts mean nothing. Don't overthink them."
He could barely bring himself to respond, which was perhaps another terrible mistake. Removed as he was from reality, it did not register until much later when the damage was already done. Huaisang taking over the conversation, typing out that cursed suggestive text about fingers was the last nail in the coffin.
Wei Ying knew it even before Lan Zhan went abruptly silent, that it had crossed every line. It was a crack in the glass mirage that had somehow formed between them in the matter of two weeks.
"I'm sorry for that," Huaisang had explained, voice laced with guilt, "but you're letting it get out of hands. Don't you see it?"
"And this is supposed to help?" Wei Ying had wanted to yell, but his throat was closed up.
"I don't know, okay, but maybe this will break the last wall, let him know it's a fraud or something."
Placing his face into hands, Wei Ying had pressed the heel of his palms hard into his eyes, trying not to cry, before he heard Jiang Cheng grumbling beside him.
"Why are you being like this? If anything, he's the one at fault, isn't he?"
Lan Zhan had once said, it's never a good idea to let others interfere in a relationship, however big or small an intrusion may be, because nobody understands it better than the people involved in it do. He is starting to see now, just what Lan Zhan had meant.
"Did you forget the part where I've been making a fool out of him for the past two weeks?" There was no heat in his voice, just a lot of weariness.
"Anyhow," Jiang Cheng had said, thrusting the phone back into his hand. "Just confirm the final bit if it's so important to you, he's obviously gonna come through."
Neither of them were getting it. It wasn't about some confirmation. Or about some measly questions. And it definitely wasn't about a few flirty text messages.
Even so, Wei Ying had taken the phone and typed it out.
Asked Lan Zhan if he had lied about being committed, with somewhat trembling fingers as every fibre of his being felt nasty for even insinuating otherwise about the most loyal person he's ever known. It wasn't that Wei Ying had been afraid the answer would be a lie, but something about the afternoon had turned the whole thing sour. Something felt wrong within him. Very very wrong. He was suddenly aching for a reassurance, of any sort, to feel at ease.
But Lan Zhan's response had not been immediate. In fact, it never came.
Now, the more Wei Ying’s phone refuses to ping, the more dread pools in his belly, anxiety so nerve wrecking it's hard to breathe.
"I'm still gonna say it's no big deal," Huaisang says, seeming genuinely worried for him. "Maybe he's busy with something."
Just when Wei Ying thinks he'll throw up his entire lunch, or pass out from the headache, the phone vibrates. His bones feel chilly as he dives for it.
The first thing he notices is that Lan Zhan has blocked Yiling Laozu.
There is a message as well.
Lan Wangji
I apologize if I gave you that impression, it was not my intention. I cannot continue this correspondence with you. Please do not attempt to contact me again.
A breath is exhaled, a breath Wei Ying knew he had no reason to hold, as a lone tear trickles down his cheek.
Jiang Cheng smacks him on the head. "Told you it'll be fine. It's Lan Wangji we're talking about."
"He was probably just being sarcastic," Huaisang huffs, shaking his head. The relief is palpable on his face. "Don't you always keep claiming he's funny as hell?"
Except, it's not fine. It's not fine at all.
Only Wei Ying knows how far from fine it actually is. Because indeed, it's Lan Zhan they're talking about.
There's a reason why Lan Zhan is the certainty of his life, his level ground. It's Lan Zhan himself. His personality. His whole thing of putting Wei Ying in the centre of his universe. However unideal or unseemly it may look in the world's eyes, it's the exact thing that keeps Wei Ying tethered. From constantly changing orphanages, to foster houses that quickly grew tired of him, to a home he was vocally unwelcome at until he was thrown out, to a small apartment with shared rent, Wei Ying has seldom had good things that came with a promise of staying. Or with a promise of being truly his.
But Lan Zhan, ever since he stepped into Wei Ying's life, somehow became an exception to that. Maybe it was when Lan Zhan, despite how temperamental he used to be with Wei Ying back in middle school, was the first one to offer him his lunchbox when he noticed Wei Ying without one. Or when he made Wei Ying a scrapbook of his pictures and achievements as a birthday present so Wei Ying would stop downplaying them. Maybe it was when Lan Zhan punched Jin Zixun for insulting Wei Ying even if it meant standing in punishment for the whole day, and then kissed him afterward as an explanation for all of it. Maybe it was when Lan Zhan, the model student, ditched cram school just to go on a date with Wei Ying. Maybe it was when Lan Zhan made out with him in front of everyone at the highschool farewell because Wei Ying wouldn't stop complaining how he failed to do something scandalous enough to be remembered by. Or maybe it was when Lan Zhan went against his uncle, the man who had loved and raised him since childhood, to be with Wei Ying. When he chose Wei Ying over everything.
Wei Ying has no idea when or how it came to be. All he knows is that because of how Lan Zhan is with him, because of how singular he is when it comes to Wei Ying, because of all the exceptions he never fails to make, he has become the only assurance Wei Ying looks for when life misbehaves.
Somehow, surprising even himself, Wei Ying has never felt a shred of insecurity when it comes to Lan Zhan. A certainty is what it had felt like, when they began college and moved in together. A home that finally felt like home.
Now, all of a sudden, the whole foundation of that feels shaken. It’s only a small thing, extremely small from a larger perspective. But, it's also a seed of insecurity that will keep growing until it takes root between them, and perhaps devours what has always been Wei Ying's safe space.
It's a terrifying feeling, that you might never again feel the warmth you unknowingly got used to.
He has no idea how he will explain things to Lan Zhan, how he will come clean, how he will admit to setting fire to the very thing they both have cherished with so much care.
Nor does he have any idea how to curb the clawing in his gut, the burning tightness in his throat that refuses to let him forget how Lan Zhan had flirted with Yiling Laozu. With someone who wasn't Wei Ying. Maybe it was just a mistake, but that still means there exists a possibility of a mistake like this. The sourness of the thought chokes him, makes him nauseous.
He cannot turn this one around. He cannot set it right this time. For all that Lan Zhan is incapable of being angry with him, Wei Ying knows he won't forgive this one easily.
‘Didn't he also fail you?’ His brain supplies unhelpfully and he resists the urge to claw it out of his skull.
The agitation bubbling in him spikes to the point of making him dizzy as he begins putting on his shoes, wanting nothing more than to go home and talk to Lan Zhan.
It's when he's putting on his coat that he finds a piece of paper in his pocket. Another sticky note. It says: Bring me the walnut cake if you pass by Coco's . Scrawled on the lower right corner is a neat and clean and beautiful, ‘I love you.’
Wei Ying has to dig his nails into his palms so he won't burst into tears, the piercing in his throat almost unbearable. Everything feels irreparably out of place.
He will have to take a much longer route if he intends to buy Lan Zhan's favourite cake on his way. Seeing Lan Zhan will get delayed by almost an hour. He will have to simmer in this dread for a while longer, but by God would he do it. Because a conflict matters much less compared to what they've built.
Just as it has taken effort on Lan Zhan's part to get Wei Ying to be so secure in their relationship, it has taken effort on Wei Ying's part to make Lan Zhan learn to want things he considers an indulgence. Desserts, for instance. It has taken effort to wear down Lan Zhan's hardbound walls of discipline and teach him that it's okay to like unnecessary things, to ask for them.
So, Wei Ying takes a breath and hails a cab for Coco's bakery.
———
The first thing he notices when he enters home is the absolute, pindrop silence doused in pitch black darkness.
Lan Zhan seems to have turned all the lights off, something he tends to do when the stress gets overbearing. He'd just shun the room into darkness and then find a corner to curl into until Wei Ying finds him, coaxes him out, and assures him that everything is going to be alright, preferably with kisses.
"Lan Zhan," he calls out. There is no response.
Feeling his way on the walls, he shuffles over to flick the lights on, and finds Lan Zhan sitting cross-legged on the couch, face turned away and eyes tight shut, as if the sudden light burnt him. There is not a fleck of colour on his face.
"Lan Zhan," he calls out again, a mere whisper over the violent squeezing of his chest.
Lan Zhan's gaze sweeps up, slowly, and promptly averts back down. Asking if he's okay feels hypocritical. Asking what's wrong feels cruel. In the end, completely lost for what to do, Wei Ying makes his way over to the dining table and sets the cake on it.
"What are we eating tonight?" He asks, fiddling with the containers for the sake of casualness. The containers are all empty. "Ahh, let's just order some takeouts, Lan Zhan. I already got your cake for you."
There's still no response, the living room absolutely quiet as ever, except for perhaps Wei Ying's heart that's beating in his ears. With a reluctant sigh, he makes up his mind and turns, and finds Lan Zhan staring at him with a strange look in his eyes. There aren't many expressions of Lan Zhan that he doesn't know how to read.
Lan Zhan, for his part, opens his mouth and then closes it. When a word finally escapes him, it stutters out at the first syllable.
Ultimately, he sighs, lowering his gaze, and quietly removes the ivory ring on his finger. The cheap trinket ring Wei Ying had bought for him from a roadside stall on their last camping trip because there were bunnies carved on it. "The symbol of my everlasting love," he had jokingly announced while putting it on Lan Zhan. Except, Lan Zhan seemed to take his words very seriously for he never took the ring off.
Until today, a year later.
Wei Ying barely realizes it as he sprints across the room and finds himself kneeling on the ground, in front of Lan Zhan, tightly holding onto his hands. "What the hell are you doing?" He pries the ring out of Lan Zhan's grasp and stubbornly forces it back on his finger. "You silly, don't you like these bunnies anymore?"
Lan Zhan's eyes turn glassy. He attempts to speak again, eyes fixed on the ring on his finger, although all that comes out are heavy, harsh breaths. Muddled as his own brain is, it takes far too long for Wei Ying to realize that he's actually struggling to breathe, that Lan Zhan might be panicking.
"Lan Zhan!" he nearly yells in alarm, quickly jumping over to sit behind him on the couch. Inserting his fingers between Lan Zhan's in one hand to ground him, he uses the other one to rub comfortingly on his arms. "Breathe, it's alright. Just breathe."
When Lan Zhan's breathing smoothens a little, he leans him snug against his chest, caging him with his arms—loosely enough for it to not be overwhelming but tightly enough for it to be an assurance, to let Lan Zhan know he's present—and gently taps on his shoulders. It takes some time, but Lan Zhan slowly calms down, relaxing into Wei Ying's embrace.
Only once he's visibly alright does Wei Ying gets off the couch to fetch him water. He makes him drink the whole glass, no matter how much Lan Zhan refuses, then places a kiss on his forehead. "Better now?" he asks in the end.
Lan Zhan nods, and attempts to reach for the ring again. Wei Ying grabs his hands again. "Lan Zhan, what are you doing?"
The bob of Lan Zhan's throat moves up and down, before he answers in a raspy whisper, "I cannot keep it."
Jaws pressed tight, Wei Ying nods. "And why is that?" Subconsciously, his hand moves up to place a fist on his chest. There seems to be a piercing ache behind his sternum, a throbbing that keeps growing by the second. "You don't want me anymore? Found someone else?"
The bite in his tone is wholly unintentional, but it makes Lan Zhan flinch. "No!" Lan Zhan haphazardly takes Wei Ying's face into his hands. "No, Wei Ying, I could never–what are you–no, never." The sorrow in Lan Zhan's eyes sheds, wetting his cheeks. "You are the only one for me, you know that. It has always been you."
The knives stuck in Wei Ying's throat travel up, with white hot urge to scream that he had thought so too. To say that Lan Zhan is lying. To ask why does it hurt so much. For all the fury, however, Wei Ying finds himself frozen, shell-shocked at the way Lan Zhan is openly breaking down. In their relationship of two years, he has seen him cry only once, and it was when Wei Ying had wanted to end things a year ago because of the immense pressure that came with being homeless.
At that time, it was the tears streaming down that pretty face that had made him say fuck it and talk to Lan Zhan after a week of silently ignoring him. In the end, Lan Zhan had been able to convince him that they would be okay as long as they're together.
As he watches him now, trying to control his puffy red eyes, Wei Ying realizes he's just as unprepared for it as he was back then. He's just as incapable of seeing Lan Zhan in tears.
He cannot wrap his head around how something that was started as a joke and proceeded to become the most genuine show of their love has suddenly turned into one of his worst nightmares. He could never have fathomed an insignificant prank would affect them this way, making them question something they proudly deemed unquestionable.
To say he feels like a jerk would be an understatement. But to say a small part of him isn't glad seeing Lan Zhan crushing himself with guilt would be a lie.
It's through the prickling in his heart that he registers Lan Zhan thumbs clumsily wiping his cheeks. "You haven't even heard me out," Lan Zhan sniffles, frowning. "Why are you crying?"
Wei Ying blinks, only now realizing his own blurry vision. "What do you mean why am I crying?" His voice breaks too as the words push themselves out of his closed up throat. "I'm crying because you're crying. I cannot see you like this, don't you know that?"
Lan Zhan's face, if possible, crumbles even more. "I do not deserve this, Wei Ying. I did something terrible to you. I do not deserve your tears."
Wei Ying's eyes flutter close. "I did something too."
But Lan Zhan is already shaking his head, as if nothing Wei Ying did could surpass his own offence. "You remember Yiling Laozu?" He asks with a tremble in his voice.
Kneeling in front of him, Wei Ying quietly hides his face into Lan Zhan's lap, and nods, the fabric of his pyjamas rubbing onto his face. He wishes, more than anything, that he did not know Yiling Laozu.
"H-He made some advances at me," Lan Zhan takes in a resigned breath and then adds, in a whisper almost too quiet to be heard, "I think I allowed it, Wei Ying. I think… I think I was unfaithful to you."
Lan Zhan's face has once again turned white. He looks as if the admission took away every fight from his body, listlessly as he slumps against the backrest of the couch. Now would be the most crucial time, Wei Ying knows, to come clean. To put them both out of this unfounded misery. And yet, when he speaks, what comes out is—
"Why did you do it?"
He himself is surprised at the cruel bluntness infused into his words, perhaps even more than Lan Zhan. Wei Ying cannot remember a time he was cruel to Lan Zhan, discounting when he was trying to save him from himself. When Lan Zhan knew it was deliberate. Except, Lan Zhan doesn't look surprised. In fact, he looks as if he didn't hear Wei Ying at all. If he was currently of saner mind, he would maybe find it strange that Wei Ying is not shocked at his admission. But tormented as he is, the question only breaks him more. "I don't know, I don't know," he sobs, mumbling crazily, fingers carding frustratedly through his hair. "I don't know Wei Ying. There must be something wrong with me."
The statement is a layer of chill around Wei Ying, freezing him for a moment. He shakes his head, almost subconsciously. "No, no, Lan Zhan." His eyes flit over his frame, wide and nonplussed. "Baby there's nothing wrong with you. There's noth—"
"There has to be!" Lan Zhan bursts out, cutting him off. There's a strange sort of desperation in his eyes. The fingers in his hair are grabbing and pulling on his hair now. "Wei Ying, there has to be something wrong. It would kill me if I—if I did that to you knowingly. It would kill me."
For a moment, Wei Ying sits stunned, watching in disbelief. He cannot remember why he had ever thought the prank would just be silly fun. It's devastating, the urgency in Lan Zhan's eyes, frantically wishing to believe there's infact something wrong with him, because he would rather be of unsound mind than hurt Wei Ying knowingly.
Numbly, he inches up and untangles Lan Zhan's fingers from his hair, and whispers, "Shhh, there's nothing wrong." Gently rubbing on his scalp, he leans their foreheads together in an attempt to soothe him. Lan Zhan quietens, slowly closing his eyes.
"I don't even know his real name, Wei Ying," he says after a moment, voice small and watery. "I knew nothing about him, and yet I confused him for you. I don't know how it happened."
It's astoundingly gentle, the way the storm raging in Wei Ying's chest quiets down to merely a murmur as a kindle of hope begins to push its way out to the front.
He leans back, eyes not straying from Lan Zhan's face. "Confused him for me?"
Lan Zhan opens his eyes and nods, and then shakes his head, and then nods again. "I…he…he said that.." Lan Zhan appears conflicted, opening and closing his mouth. Moments later, he sighs and shakes his head with certainty. "That does not excuse it. Wei Ying, I will not make excu—
"Lan Zhan." It's Wei Ying who interrupts this time, with the same sort of desperation. How he wishes he could open his heart and show it to Lan Zhan. "I want to hear it, please. I don't care if you think it's an excuse, let me be the judge of that. Just tell me, please love, before my assumptions consume the whole being of me."
Lan Zhan stares at him for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, before his eyes softly avert downwards. "I–he talked about moonlight sonata," he says, staring at his hands. "More like… more like guessed it as my favourite, and – and even teased me about being a romantic. Just like you had, on our first date. It–It brought up some memories and… no, no, that doesn't make it okay, that doesn't make it right—"
Lan Zhan goes on, shaking his head and mumbling about how it all sounds like an excuse, trapped as he is within the judgments of his own mind. But Wei Ying has long stopped listening. The force of realization almost sways him back, in relief or trepidation, he's yet to make a distinction. Because of course he did, of course he slipped up.
He doesn't remember much of their conversation from the first date, his memory has never been as good, but Wei Ying does remember always knowing that moonlight sonata is Lan Zhan's favourite melody to play. In this whole debacle of two weeks, there had been several occurrences where Lan Zhan would share a tidbit or two and Wei Ying would find himself lost in nostalgia, often to the point of almost forgetting he wasn't Wei Ying at that time. The banter was so much like how they used to be before they started dating that several times, Wei Ying had found himself having to say something excessively bold to divert Lan Zhan after steering too close to exposing himself. So many times he had to backspace Lan Zhan and change it to Lan Wangji, catching himself at the last second.
Who is to say the same didn't happen with Lan Zhan? Unlike Wei Ying, he didn't even have a reason to explain his confusion. As the muddle in his brain clears second by second, he fails to understand how he had failed to consider that. Probably due to the dread plaguing his mind but still. It's his Lan Zhan afterall. Just how did Wei Ying let his doubts grow so much? As much as he had yearned for clarity just hours back, now that it comes, it leaves him feeling cold. Especially the evidence that this would never have happened if the Yiling Laozu wasn't Wei Ying himself. Or if Wei Ying had just picked someone else.
Hadn't Lan Zhan said that Yiling Laozu reminded him of Wei Ying? Hadn't Lan Zhan made their relationship clear to Yiling Laozu the very first day?
On his way back, Wei Ying had prayed to every God, begged every deity he could think of, to somehow turn this around. To anyhow put a reason to what happened so it would hurt less, so the anxiety of this uncertainty would stop killing him. And now that he has the explanation, he feels none of the relief he had thought he would.
What good is the reassurance that comes at the expense of your beloved breaking apart in your arms, all because of you?
"Can I hug you?" Lan Zhan's quiet question breaks him out of his stupor. He looks exhausted. "Please?"
Wordlessly, Wei Ying surges up and engulfs him into a hug, so tight and so consuming as if it would somehow erase this evening. Lan Zhan hugs him back with equal ferocity, hiding his face into Wei Ying's neck.
"I will respect it if you choose to leave," Lan Zhan's body trembles like a fluttering leaf as he says that, hauntingly quiet. He feels fragile in Wei Ying's arms. "But Wei Ying… you–you have to know I never intended to hurt you. You are my lifeline, hurting you would be no different from hurting myself, you know that right? Please tell me you do."
It's soundless, the way Wei Ying's heart shatters.
If someone had told him that cursed night they hatched this cursed plan that its consequence would be a wreckage of this magnitude, he would have laughed at them. Things like that just didn't happen in his relationship.
But he would have also sworn off the idea. The risk of it would have been enough to make him back off.
Wei Ying might be a carefree guy with little to no regard for himself and life in general, but there are a few things he absolutely draws the line at. Lan Zhan is one of them. If something affects him adversely, then it's automatically out of question for Wei Ying. That's one thing he has always made his stance clear on. No matter how harmless a certain kind of fun seems to his friends, Lan Zhan is off limits, unless he himself participates, which he often does, for Wei Ying's sake.
And yet, here Wei Ying is, holding his shaking form in his arms – a consequence of his own misjudgement. He cannot, for the life of him, understand just how things escalated to this point, when he can't even separate out half the things he did while pretending to be Yiling Laozu. Maybe it was him all along, maybe it wasn't, he can no longer make a distinction.
The realization isn't an easy one, that maybe the only thing keeping Lan Zhan still clinging to him is a threadbare illusion maintained by the absence of his side of truth. The side he's terrified of, but also the only thing that can help Lan Zhan right now.
With a definitive breath, he attempts to extract Lan Zhan's face out from the crook of his neck. "Lan Zhan, listen to me."
But Lan Zhan's grip tightens around him, refusing to let go. "Just a moment please," he whispers.
"Lan Zha—
"I know," Lan Zhan interrupts him. "I know this makes you question my love, but Wei—
Wei Ying pulls him back with force, not wanting to let him finish. "I don't need to be told that, you hear me?" Lan Zhan's face emerges swollen due to tears, nose red and eyes redder. Wei Ying's thumb gently grazes over his lower lip, hoping the revolting within him won't make his heart collapse. "Nobody's going anywhere. You have to hear me out."
Lan Zhan's eyes fill up again. "I let you down."
"You didn't." Wei Ying whispers.
But Lan Zhan is not ready to listen. He's already shaking his head, mumbling, "I failed to make the distinction."
"Sweetheart, you didn't—
"I failed to separate you from him." Lan Zhan interrupts him again, eyes unfocused, insisting on his own version of truth. "To–to separate the love of my life from someone who… whom I don't—
"Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying raises his voice slightly, hoping it would get through. "Listen to me, you got confused, that's all."
Somehow, it has a contradictory effect because Lan Zhan looks stricken. "You do not have to make excuses for me," he whispers, disbelieving. Wei Ying shuts his eyes, praying for patience.
"I failed to—" Lan Zhan mumbles again. "From…from someone I barely know. I do not—"
"It was me." His admission is barely a whisper, deathly quiet.
Lan Zhan, caged in his own mind, doesn't hear him at all. "How did it happen?" He keeps repeating to himself, pressing on his forehead. "I do not understand."
Wei Ying helplessly stares at him for a moment, then in one swift motion he turns Lan Zhan's face with both hands, forcing him to look into his eyes, and repeats, loud and clear. "It was me, Lan Zhan. There is no Yiling Laozu. It was me all along."
Finally, Lan Zhan falls quiet, although the incomprehension in his eyes remains. "What?"
The genuine confusion on his face pricks Wei Ying more than anything else. When his throat refuses to work again, he unlocks his phone, and pulling up the Yiling Laozu chat, places it in Lan Zhan's hand.
It's another long moment of confusion before comprehension finally dawns on him. "It was you," he breathes out, shock and surprise mingled together. Wei Ying doesn't miss the large wave of relief that rolls out of it.
He stuffs his face into his palms, unable to look at Lan Zhan, and utterly unprepared for whatever was to come next. It's a while before he hears Lan Zhan again.
"But why?" Lan Zhan sounds bewildered, but at least his voice is steady and no longer frantic. "Was this meant to be a surprise?"
Wei Ying eyes squeeze tight shut. What he wouldn't give to make that the truth! When he doesn't raise his head for a long time, Lan Zhan does it for him, gently grazing his still shaky thumb under Wei Ying's eyes. "Did I ruin it?"
Wei Ying shakes his head.
"Then?"
Swallowing, he forces his throat to work. "It was… a prank."
A knot makes its way between Lan Zhan's eyebrows. "A prank," he repeats, expression shuttering a little. "Which part of it was supposed to be funny?"
Wei Ying's flinch is mostly instinctive. He takes Lan Zhan's hand into his, desperate for a grounding touch. "I don't know what I was thinking, I'm sorry."
The frown marring Lan Zhan's face worsens, his glance oscillating between his hand and Wei Ying's face. "I do not understand. You know me too well to play a prank like this."
If Wei Ying had more time, maybe he would cry about this kind of unbudging faith in himself. But he doesn't, so he haphazardly scoots closer and holds both of Lan Zhan's hands, rambling on and on. "I made a mistake, I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so fucking sorry, I just – I don't know how it escalated. We–we were there at Huaisang's watching—
Lan Zhan's hands are plucked out of his grasp, startling him.
"Huaisang…" Lan Zhan echoes almost eerily, searching his face. "Your friends were in on it?"
Only when faced with a question like this does Wei Ying realize the horrible implication of it. There's no right answer. Fumbling, he attempts to grab his hand again but Lan Zhan withdraws it as if burnt.
"Was this… a joke on me?" He sounds small.
Wei Ying vehemently shakes his head. He's no stranger to Lan Zhan often misunderstanding social cues and then feeling that people might mock him for it. Valiantly blinking back tears, Wei Ying attempts to reach for him, but Lan Zhan flinches, and it's enough to send the tears tumbling down. Lan Zhan never flinches from him.
"Did you all—" Lan Zhan begins, then falls quiet. Something flickers over his face, an unusual moment of vulnerability, before he decisively shakes his head. "No. I do not believe you would make fun of me."
And Wei Ying can no longer take it. Throwing all of Lan Zhan's pleas to wind, he pulls him closer to cradle his face in his hands. "I would never do that, Lan Zhan, you know I wouldn't." Desperate kisses are dotted all over his face to punctuate all he says because Wei Ying would rather die than have Lan Zhan ever think a thing like this again. "I was being stupid. We were drunk, watching those stupid loyalty check videos and—
This time when Lan Zhan withdraws, he moves completely away from the couch. "Loyalty check?" The disbelief drips not just from his voice but also his eyes.
It's almost as if Wei Ying is realizing only now just how messed up the whole thing was, through Lan Zhan's worsening reactions.
"Do you… not trust me?"
"No. Nononono." Wei Ying gives in, openly weeping and frantically wiping his eyes. "I did it especially because I trust you. Because – because I knew if there's anybody who'll come through, it's you."
The expression on Lan Zhan's face falls harder. He takes a large breath, blinking around profusely. "You put me through a test because you were certain I would pass."
Wei Ying nods, quite readily so.
"But I failed, Wei Ying."
There are often days when Lan Zhan is quiet, well, quieter than usual. Not noticeable enough for the world, but loud enough for Wei Ying. On days life is less than kind, he may need an extra hug, or an extra joke to elicit that tiny huff of his. Sometimes, a fragrant bath in Wei Ying's arms. But no matter how hard it gets, his silences are never a sign of defeat. That's just not his thing. Unlike now.
It's almost eerie, the hollowness in his voice, as if the admission took the wind out of his sails. That he failed in the one thing where losing was always out of question.
Wei Ying doesn't know if it's that utter helplessness in Lan Zhan's voice or the defeat lining his frame that has him denying it all fervently. "You didn't. You absolutely didn't. Everything is fine."
Lan Zhan takes another breath. "Is it? Look at us, you think it's fine?"
"It will be." He has no idea where this confidence springs from. All he knows is that he will do whatever it takes. "I promise you."
"How?" Lan Zhan's question is calm, but there are flecks of anger in his eyes, the kind Wei Ying is neither used to nor delights in. "I was left questioning my love for you and you were left questioning your trust. Our very foundation is shattered, how do we pick up the pieces?"
"We will fix it." He doesn't really have much else to say at this point. Explaining will be hard right now, when Lan Zhan's mind is so muddled with extremities. "We always do."
He hopes Lan Zhan will believe him, or at least have a little faith. But Lan Zhan only turns sadder, his eyes never easier to read than now. He doesn't even look angry anymore. Just lost and overwhelmed, as if he's wandered into an unknown territory and he doesn't know how to find his way back home, back to Wei Ying.
"I spent half the day fearing I will hurt you," Lan Zhan says, unnervingly quiet. "And you came home expecting the same."
Wei Ying's face is stuffed back into his palms, unable to contain the fresh wave shedding down his eyes. He wants, so terribly, to deny every bit of that. But he can't. Because it's true.
"This home you love so much, you came here expecting it to fall apart," it's another blow on Wei Ying's increasingly shattering heart, the way his voice trembles. It's unnaturally fragile, almost watery. "You came to me fearing I might scar you for life, and I don't know what to do with that."
If Wei Ying was capable of lying to Lan Zhan, he would do it right now. Because anything would be better than this. This reality where he has to see him so shaken. But he can't. Lan Zhan won't believe him anyway. Wei Ying was fearful, it's true. The pristine walls of his trust had indeed suffered a dent.
And so, the stalemate in the aftermath stays, stretching wide and brittle. When the silence turns deafening, Lan Zhan quietly escapes to the balcony. Wei Ying neither stops him nor follows him out, supposing some space apart might help.
Himself however, he remains rooted to the couch, not moving a muscle, uncertain if he'll be able to walk straight. It's hours before Lan Zhan returns, way past the dinnertime although neither of them spare a thought to food.
Lan Zhan shuffles on his feet for a moment, then walks over beside the couch. Wei Ying attempts to catch his eyes, but Lan Zhan keeps his gaze averted. Another moment later, he says, very quietly, "I would be sleeping in the guestroom tonight."
And it surges back up, the ache behind Wei Ying's sternum, with twice the burning and ten times the intensity. In the one year of living together, this is a first. Before Lan Zhan can move away, Wei Ying grabs the hem of his shirt, the fabric being the only warmth between his cold, numb fingers.
He cannot be sure, hazy as the corners of his vision have gone, but he thinks—hopes—that Lan Zhan has paused, slightly turned to him.
"Are we breaking up?" He blurts, barely coherent even to himself.
The constriction between Lan Zhan's brows reappears, eyes peering at Wei Ying with a mixture of disbelief and confusion. "For someone who put my faith on a pedestal, you sure possess a remarkable lack of it," he grits out, yanking his shirt off to move away, leaving his hand hovering in the air.
Blankly staring at his now trembling fingers, he pulls his knees up to his chest, hugging them tight. This… this is also a first.
Between the two of them, it's Wei Ying who requires constant reminders and reassurances. Of the love, the security, the place he holds. And not once has Lan Zhan denied him that. On days Lan Zhan is too busy with academic work, Wei Ying doesn't shy away from perching himself on the study desk, pouting and sulking with a "Lan Zhan, you haven't told me you love me today." These antics never fail to make Lan Zhan smile. "What a grievous oversight on my part," he would say with that precious little laugh of his and take Wei Ying into a lingering sweet kiss. "I love you everyday."
He's just really good like that, never refusing to indulge Wei Ying's ridiculous demands, and always finding a way to give him what he needs in a way it wouldn't feel burdensome. Lan Zhan makes space for Wei Ying in a manner nobody ever has. For every hesitation of his, Lan Zhan has taken an extra step forward. For every unuttered question, Lan Zhan has offered him a thousand answers, hoping one of them would be what Wei Ying needs. Everytime Wei Ying has told him his insecurities should not be Lan Zhan's problem, he has found the man looking back and saying, "But they are my responsibility."
So now that Lan Zhan has pulled away, Wei Ying doesn't know where to find his strength. And he really really needs some right now. One moment, he feels as if he's out of his body, watching from afar. Next, he feels as if the walls are caving in on him, with nowhere to run. Shackled so tightly he is within his own brain, it takes a long while for him to notice Lan Zhan is beside the couch again, and is looking at him with something akin to helplessness in his eyes. Their eyes meet. Wei Ying swallows the lump in his throat.
With a sigh, Lan Zhan kneels in front of him—quite like Wei Ying had done a few hours back—and gently unclenches his fist, one finger at a time. Taking Wei Ying's cold hands between his own, he rubs on his knuckles to warm them up.
"You know me, often more than I know myself." He slowly raises his eyes to gaze into Wei Ying's. "Look at me and find your answer."
That's all it takes. That tiny little assurance, for the earth shattering relief to crash into Wei Ying, swaying him forward. The message is loud and clear. For all the hurt coursing between them, Lan Zhan has never looked at Wei Ying with denunciation in his eyes and he won't start now. For all his anger, he is still the boy who found him, against all odds, when Wei Ying himself didn't want to be found. So Wei Ying takes a large breath and lets his head plop on Lan Zhan's shoulder. Lan Zhan doesn't push him away. He lets him stay as long as he needs.
"We both need to clear our heads," Lan Zhan says after a moment.
Wei Ying nods, still resting on his shoulder.
The next time Lan Zhan moves away, he doesn't pause until he has disappeared into the guestroom. And despite that, Wei Ying finds himself breathing okay.
They can do this, he knows that now.
Most of his night is spent either on the couch or loitering around the living room, unwilling to step inside the bedroom. When he begins nodding off on the couch, he finally wanders in, hoping the sleep will show mercy and succumb him in before he can register the stillness of the room. Not even five minutes later, he finds himself back on the couch, breathing steadily to wash off the coldness of the empty bed.
Minutes later, he gathers some cushions and arranges them outside the door of the guestroom. Here, at least his heart feels light enough for the heaviness of his eyes to win over.
He's barely begun nodding off again when he hears it, the incessant rustling of sheets from inside. He strains his hearing and indeed, it's the sounds coming from inside. Lan Zhan finds sleep unpeaceful over issues as insignificant as incomplete assignments. On nights Wei Ying finds him tossing and turning, he would light some of those sandalwood candles Lan Zhan keeps in the drawer and go to bed early to cuddle him to sleep. It usually works wonders in calming Lan Zhan down. Sometimes, he might resort to tiring him out physically. He cannot imagine what tonight must be like for Lan Zhan.
He stays against the door for a while longer, straining his ears as much as he can to scope out the situation inside. His senses only grow more and more aware as he hears Lan Zhan's sleepy, distressed whimpers. When he can no longer bear it, he gets up and quietly enters the room.
Sure enough, there's the same familiar knot between Lan Zhan's brows. His eyes are tight shut but his hands have fisted up the hem of his pyjama shirt, clutching to the point of wrinkling them. Lan Zhan hasn't even drawn the blanket over himself, and his hair is terribly mussed as if he's been twisting for a while.
As quietly as he can, Wei Ying crawls into the bed and places a thumb over the crease between Lan Zhan's brows, caressing it gently. Slowly, the knot disappears. Fully ignoring his own chastising mind, he places a soft kiss on Lan Zhan's forehead and pulls the quilt over both of them. Some of the tension seeps out of Lan Zhan's frame and his fists slowly unclench. So, Wei Ying places an arm around his midriff and very gently pulls him closer, stuffing his face into the crook of Lan Zhan's neck. It's almost palpable, the way Lan Zhan gradually relaxes and his breathing smoothens.
If Lan Zhan gets angry about it in the morning, Wei Ying will accept it. Right now, he doesn't care.
As if to affirm, Lan Zhan sleepily curls into him, slotting himself into Wei Ying's embrace, just the way he likes to be held when he's upset.
It doesn't take long then for Wei Ying to fall asleep as well.
———
The morning after, he wakes up to an empty bed.
That, in itself, isn't something unusual since all of Lan Zhan's classes happen in the morning, unlike his own. Wei Ying had prioritized sweet morning sleep and opted for afternoon classes. In fact, nothing seems out of the ordinary even outside. There's coffee on the coffee maker, brewed exactly how Wei Ying likes. His notes and assignments according to today's schedule, laid out beside his laptop, just how Lan Zhan arranges them so his already delayed ass won't get held up looking for things last minute. And there on the dining table is a dish of breakfast, covered and ready to be microwaved.
All in all, it's just another one of Wei Ying's usual mornings.
The only absence being that of the little sticky notes Lan Zhan leaves beside his breakfast everyday. Mostly, reminders of his share of chores— ‘Do not forget the groceries, Wei Ying.’ ‘It's your turn to clean the bathroom, Wei Ying.’ ‘Last day to return that strange book about ghosts, Wei Ying.’ —and occasionally, Lan Zhan's silly little requests that never fail to delight him because of how rare they are. ‘If you pass by Coco's, please bring me their walnut cake.’ It never mattered if Wei Ying was passing by or not. He would take a detour if he had to, but he always got Lan Zhan his favourite cake.
Signing every note on the corner would be a prettily scrawled ‘I love you’.
Today, there is nothing. Just Wei Ying's breakfast sitting lonely on the vast expanse of the dining table that feels noticeably empty without the colourful note on it. Its absence feels achingly glaring.
Just like that of the morning kiss he didn't receive. In all probability, Lan Zhan isn't even aware Wei Ying sometimes wakes up enough to register the soft press of lips on his cheeks right before Lan Zhan slips out of bed. The slumber that follows it is always a very sweet one. While it's equally possible Wei Ying just wasn't awake today, somehow, maybe instinctively, he knows that's not the case.
The day is mostly a blur.
Wei Ying barely retains whatever is taught in the class, barely interacts, and outright skips out the break time. If his friends notice his silence, they make no mention of it.
In the evening he returns to an empty house, with Lan Zhan nowhere in sight. He waits and waits and waits, and is just starting to get worried when he hears the front door.
Lan Zhan returns right on dot for dinner time. He cooks while Wei Ying is in the shower, places his dinner on the dining table covered under the insulated lid, and then escapes with his own food to the guest room.
It stings more than Wei Ying would like to admit, but if space is what Lan Zhan requires, then Wei Ying will respect that. And so, he eats alone on the couch. Barely two bites in, he loses the appetite and the rest of the dinner is soon discarded away.
Like the previous night, this one too is spent wandering around the house. He tries getting some of his work done but is too distracted to be able to concentrate. Once he's made sure that Lan Zhan has fallen asleep, he tiptoes into the guestroom again. Lan Zhan soon relaxes into his embrace and finally, after excruciating twenty four hours, something within him feels alright.
It goes on, day after day.
Waking up without any kisses, eating all by himself, and somehow, being alone despite being together in the same house. Lan Zhan leaves home before Wei Ying can wake up and returns only at dinnertime. He cooks dinner, leaves Wei Ying's share on the dining table and promptly escapes to the guest room.
It feels wrong, even beyond the general wrongness of it. Something about it niggles at the back of Wei Ying's mind but he's unable to put a finger on what it is.
So he bites his tongue, zips his mouth, and lets it be. Lan Zhan wants space, so Wei Ying will give him that. He tramples upon the urge to ask Lan Zhan just where he's been all day, nor does he bother him with his presence. He willingly stays in the shower while Lan Zhan cooks and emerges only after Lan Zhan has disappeared into the guest room.
Try as he may, by day three, things start to weigh on him, perhaps visibly so.
At the cafeteria, Huaisang gives him a concerned look. "Maybe I should talk to Lan Wangji once," he says. "Explain to him it was more of my fault."
"Was it though?" Wei Ying asks without looking up. "Was it you who kept prolonging it?"
"We have to do something, at least." Jiang Cheng scowls on the seat next to Huaisang. "It's not like you're the only one at fault."
Now, Wei Ying looks up. "Go ahead if you want to make things worse."
Jiang Cheng sighs, "You're starting to look like a ghost."
"Maybe I deserve it," Wei Ying retorts. "Wasn't the whole of this shit hinging on Lan Zhan never getting mad? Maybe it's karma that he's mad now, rightfully so."
Wen Qing puts her book down with an audible sigh. She had been explicitly vocal in her disappointment when she was told about what went down on the one game night she missed. Now, she gives Wei Ying a contemplative look. "You are definitely in the wrong, that's true, but I think you're misreading the situation. You're centering it around what happened rather than its aftermath. A bit simplistic, if you ask me."
"And what? Y'all are some kind of experts on me and Lan Zhan now? Know him better than I do?" Wei Ying nearly snaps, stretched thin as he is, treading the last thread of patience. Wen Qing, neither one to get offended, nor cower away, gives him a pitiful look and places a soothing hand on his shoulder. Wei Ying is unable to help the sob that breaks out of him. "I don't know what to do, I miss him so much."
With a sigh, Wen Qing engulfs him into a hug. "You dumb idiot."
Nobody mentions anything about talking to Lan Zhan thereafter, and that's a small mercy. Wei Ying heeds the advice and tries to be more practical with his thoughts. All it does is worsen the niggling at the back of his head, almost to the point of frustration.
It's not until day five that Wei Ying, bent over a lonely bowl of spicy ramen that he can't taste, finally clocks just what has been unsettling him.
It's the one too many averted eyes and startled looks from Lan Zhan, on catching him on the off chance, that finally clue him in. Wen Qing was right. He has been oversimplifying the situation.
It's not the want of space that has Lan Zhan cowering away. Lan Zhan isn't avoiding him, or perhaps, even mad at him. The abrupt averting of his usually unflinching eyes when Wei Ying comes home early. Going out of his way to not spend time together. Actively making efforts to not cross paths with him. It's almost as if… as if he's scared.
Scared of facing him.
It's the bone-deep desperation that comes on the tail of that realization that has him stepping out of the shower much earlier that evening so he can catch Lan Zhan in the kitchen before he escapes.
Lan Zhan is plating the food when Wei Ying enters, and immediately, his back stiffens.
"Zhanzhan," Wei Ying whispers, heart in throat. "I haven't eaten properly in days. Eat with me… please."
Lan Zhan visibly swallows. But he also nods.
Not a sound is made as they eat together, finally, after five days of not speaking to each other, except for the clicking of utensils. Wei Ying has missed the deep cadence of that voice, he has missed it achingly. He wonders if he can somehow make Lan Zhan talk but he keeps quiet in favour of preserving the fragile little something he's been able to concoct.
Afterwards, when he's distractedly doing the dishes, he watches Lan Zhan quietly retrieve his pillow from the guestroom and enter the bedroom. It's possible it's simply Lan Zhan finally realizing the futility of sleeping there. It's equally possible this is a step Lan Zhan is taking, now that Wei Ying has taken one. Either way, it's enough.
That night, sleeping in their bedroom after so many days, when Wei Ying hugs him, Lan Zhan unconsciously grabs his hand, hard and tight, like he often does when he's having a nightmare. But tonight, there's a tinge of desperation in it. It's that, more than anything else, that hits Wei Ying with a clarity that had only been an intuition niggling at the back of his mind all these days.
His beloved is stuck.
Wei Ying had been a fool all this time, assuming Lan Zhan was mad at him. That Lan Zhan was avoiding him. He had been such a fool. When, even in anger, has Lan Zhan ever done a thing that Wei Ying has clearly expressed discomfort for?
Turning over, Wei Ying finds his eyebrows drawn once more. Glistening in the moonlight, this face that has always rivalled the moon itself, looks weary tonight. There are bags under Lan Zhan's eyes, his lips jutting out just slightly. He raises a light finger to relax Lan Zhan's face before trailing it down along the lines of his jaw. The sight, now imbued with the hard realization, makes his chest squeeze.
How had he been so blind?
Out of all the times that they've found themselves in a pickle, it has always been Lan Zhan leading Wei Ying out. Taking his hand, guiding his steps, one kiss at a time. Because Lan Zhan's general rule of love is extremely simple: Love is easy if you let it be. And it's only because he has been loved so in return that Wei Ying knows how true it is. Love truly can be the simplest thing possible.
Sometimes, love is just a collection of colourful sticky notes with the most mundane things written on them, hidden away in a box from your beloved's prying fingers because they keep trying to recycle them for the sake of the environment.
But just as you cannot always give your hundred percent to something, love cannot always be a fifty-fifty, no matter how perfect a relationship is. Sometimes, it will have to be eighty-twenty and that's entirely human. Not once has Lan Zhan failed him there, no matter how much he had to compensate for. Where Wei Ying falters, Lan Zhan takes an extra step. Where Wei Ying misses out, Lan Zhan makes up for it. The only thing important is to not flee the ground. It has always been as uncomplicated as that.
Now that it's Lan Zhan who's lost, it will have to be Wei Ying.
To step up and love a little extra. To take his hand and guide him out. To walk the excess mile. Lan Zhan will meet him, maybe in the middle, or maybe someplace where the line is more blurred. But he will. Like he always has.
When sleep finally pulls him in that night, Wei Ying's heart is steady for the first time in days, and head a lot more willful.
It's his turn to be the eighty, and he won't let them down.
———
The first thing he does next morning is wake up early so he can visit the nearest flower shop on his way to the lectures.
The shop owner, when told that the flowers are to cheer up his very upset prince charming, is so touched that she fully allows him to raid her shop and even gives him a student discount. Wei Ying emerges from the shop with a big smile on his face and a bouquet of exactly nine daffodils, tied together with an odd looking red scrunchie.
Then, he goes to look for his designated flower delivery person.
Mianmian raises an eyebrow. "Don't we usually get him gentians?"
Wei Ying grins. "Tell him to count, he'll know what it means."
He hopes he's right.
He hopes Lan Zhan remembers Wei Ying's very first fuck-up as his boyfriend. Back in the senior year of highschool. Their second date.
Wei Ying had shown up an hour late because he had to ransack every flower shop for gentians, which had, surprisingly, seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. He had entered the cafe in the end, wheezing and sweating, with a bunch of nine daffodils in hand, tied together with his downtrodden red scrunchie.
Lan Zhan, who had ditched cram school and his tutoring classes, and lied to Lan Qiren about it, all for the sake of the date, had rightfully glared at him from the corner-most seat. It was their crucial time of the last school year, just a few months away from national entrance exams, the same thing Lan Zhan had been getting regular earfuls for from his uncle. So his anger was fully justified.
Nevertheless, his eyes had softened immensely when Wei Ying explained his predicament with: Your anger is valid. But so is my need to find your favourite flowers. Because the look they had brought upon your already pretty face last time was simply priceless. So you're gonna have to cut me some slack now, Lan Zhan, because see—I got nine of these for you. Do you know what that means? That means the sum of our birth dates. That's so romantic of me, Isn't it? I'm so cute, no?
By the time Wei Ying was done rambling, Lan Zhan's whole frame was shaking with badly contained laughter which he was trying very hard to suppress, pressing his lips tightly. Which was also the whole purpose of this ridiculous ramble. There is nothing in the world that Wei Ying had loved – still loves – more than eliciting those laughs out of Lan Zhan.
"Since when does twenty three plus thirty one equal nine?" Lan Zhan had asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Since this very broke highschooler with zero money fell in love with this very pretty boy who loves flowers," Wei Ying had said, pointing to himself and then Lan Zhan. "Love in poverty tends to make you count the digits individually, Lan Zhan." He had punctuated that with his most exaggerated pout, the kind that always drew Lan Zhan's eyes to his lips.
Lan Zhan had still punished him by withholding a kiss on that date. "Otherwise you won't learn," he had said. But he had also not let go of the daffodils even for a second.
Wei Ying hopes he won't let go this time either. He also hopes Lan Zhan would punish him because that would be much more bearable. There's nothing that kills him more than his silence.
Reaching home that evening, he still doesn't find Lan Zhan anywhere in the house, a clear message that he's not ready to see Wei Ying before dinner, until he absolutely has to. Before Wei Ying can resign himself to disappointment, however, he catches the sight of all nine daffodils sunbathing under the window, assorted with all the love and care into a jar of water. Just like that, the heaviness in his chest bleeds away.
The rest of the evening and night proceeds no different from the previous few days, but it's enough for now. At least, Lan Zhan is allowing himself to listen, understanding what Wei Ying is trying to tell. That he's with him, that he will always be there. That it's still them against the problem. Not them against each other.
This isn't the first time their limitations have proven to be a thorn between them, and it certainly won't be the last. From Lan Zhan's reluctance to even stand Wei Ying in their early days to Wei Ying's inability to believe in them, they have overcome it all.
Even an almost break-up couldn't tear them apart, perhaps the biggest storm they've had to weather till now. When Lan Qiren had sent Lan Zhan away at the end of highschool hoping he'd ‘get over’ his infatuation. At that time, Lan Zhan had found his way back within a week, stood beside Wei Ying, and made it clear in simple but astute words, that he's willing to be disowned if that's the price of loving him. A magnanimously reckless move, in all honesty, if not for the fact that Lan Qiren loved his nephew too much to not give in when faced with that.
Today, they're here, with uncle not only having resigned to the inevitable but also actively making efforts to include Wei Ying in the family dinners, going as far as to asking the cooks to include separate spicy portions for him.
Mere thought of that makes Wei Ying smile. They have come out stronger before, and they will do it again.
And until they do, Wei Ying will keep trying.
So the next day, before Lan Zhan comes home, he pulls up an easy pistachio cookie recipe, and gets to work.
Because that had been one of Lan Zhan's blunders: making white chocolate brownies for Wei Ying's birthday, unaware that he was allergic to white chocolate. Wei Ying, freshly in love and always low on self preservation, had greedily gobbled them all without batting an eye.
And promptly ended up in the hospital.
Lan Zhan had spent the whole night at his bedside, white in the face, almost teary-eyed, not budging no matter how much Wei Ying asked him to. Then, the next day, to make up for it, he had baked Wei Ying, pistachio cookies. At that time, Lan Zhan had shaped them all like lotuses, to make Wei Ying smile.
Today, Wei Ying shapes them like bunnies, hoping they'll make Lan Zhan smile.
At dinner, Lan Zhan stares at the dish of cookies for a very long moment, but he says nothing. Before leaving the table, however, he gingerly takes one and places it in his mouth.
"These are good," he says after a while. It's barely a whisper, even though his throat seems to be working hard. "Thank you."
His voice, after so many days, fills Wei Ying with so much joy as if it were a rain shower after a particularly parched drought. Grinning, he pops in a cookie too, probably to celebrate, and promptly ends up in a coughing fit. The cookies are actually quite terrible—hard, bland and mushy in texture.
But, given what they've managed to achieve, they taste delicious to him, so he pops in two more. He must be doing something right, he's certain now.
In the days that follow, this trend he has stumbled upon by trial and error, continues. To somehow, anyhow, bring Lan Zhan out of the shell he has crawled into.
Sometimes, Wei Ying finds ways to recreate their numerous hiccups, to let Lan Zhan know that this situation is just one of the many, that it's not bigger than them. Other times, he deliberately plots things to make Lan Zhan converse with him. A broken mixer here, a rattling table there – because Lan Zhan is neither good with electronics, nor is he handy. When he runs out of options, there are always Lan Zhan's shirts to pluck buttons from. Wei Ying is not heartless enough to place bugs under their bed, and bugs and needles are the only things that give Lan Zhan enough heebie-jeebies for him to seek Wei Ying's intervention. So, needle it is.
Wei Ying is yet to be less amused by the fact that Lan Zhan cannot stand needles. The first time he had approached Wei Ying with a shirt in one hand and a button in another, he had looked so apologetic that Wei Ying was scared for a moment.
"I do not like needles," Lan Zhan had explained, mouth flat and lower lip slightly puckered. "When I'm around them, I feel like they'll poke me in the eye."
With jaw on the floor, Wei Ying had sewn his button then. So shocked was he that he had forgotten to laugh at it, and so, he laughed twice as hard the next time. Not at Lan Zhan, he had sworn, but rather at the way he was glaring at Wei Ying. Least to say, sewing buttons on Lan Zhan's shirt has been Wei Ying's sureshot way to romance ever since.
But alas, it does not work this time. When Lan Zhan notices the ripped button the next day, he simply replaces the shirt. Wei Ying makes a mental note to turn that stupid shirt into a mop.
Slowly but surely, hitting and missing, the clouds begin to disperse. Nothing much changes, except in small ways. Like Lan Zhan not staying out till dinnertime, or pretending to be busy when he's home. He even calls for Wei Ying when he spots a cockroach in the bathroom one day. It makes Wei Ying so happy that he doesn't kill the cockroach as a reward.
And it's in the middle of the next week, on a Friday morning, that Wei Ying stirs awake to a soft brush of lips on his forehead. The urge to cry about it is intense, but he only smiles and pretends to sleep through it.
That night, he finds himself at Lan Zhan's bedside, much after he's fallen asleep, scribbling on one of his sticky notes. Out of all that he has done, this, he hopes more than anything, will not fail.
A year ago, when Wei Ying was kicked out of the Jiang house, Lan Zhan's uncle had decided that the boy wasn't fit for his nephew and sent Lan Zhan away to Singapore for the summer. Wei Ying, resigned to living in Wen Qing's basement with no future prospects, had fully agreed with Lan Qiren, for he too believed that he would ruin Lan Zhan.
But Lan Zhan had soon found his way back to him. No matter how many times Wei Ying told him to ‘get lost’, he hadn't listened. Quite possibly the worst week of Wei Ying's life because everyday he had to look into the eyes of the person he loved the most in the world and tell him that he didn't want him. Everyday, Lan Zhan would look a little more broken.
In the end, perhaps Wei Ying had indeed succeeded in breaking him; for on the third day, he had found Lan Zhan in the garden, valiantly trying to stop the tears falling down his eyes. In that moment, no sacrifice seemed to be worth it, worth the pain laid bare in those golden eyes. Wei Ying was tired, so utterly exhausted that the weariness deep in his bones didn't take long to shatter, breaking him down too.
"I am used to burning things, Lan Zhan," he had screamed, crying his heart out, letting it all fall. "I can ruin you completely, don't you see it? I can hurt you in a hundred ways."
Tonight, he jots down the same cruelty on paper that a year ago, he had received a promise in exchange of.
I hurt you in a hundred ways.
It is both a confession and a question. A challenge he hopes, with every fibre of his being, he won't lose.
The morning after, like everyday, he wakes up to an empty bed, but also with a quiver in his heart. The tremble quickly travels down to his feet as they intuitively take him out of the bed, all the way to the dining table.
On the table is a covered tray of breakfast. Kept beside it is the same note from last night, Wei Ying's messy handwriting proudly on display.
A year ago, a newly homeless Wei Ying had broken down in Lan Zhan's arms, weeping over and over again, that he could hurt him in a hundred ways.
And every single time, Lan Zhan held him a little closer and told him in return, that he will love him in a hundred and one.
Today, when his numb fingers pick up the sticky note and turn it over, he expects his heart to give out. It doesn't. It's achingly ordinary, Lan Zhan's response on the flip side.
I love you in a hundred and one.
In the corner below is a neatly scrawled, ‘I will always love you.’
His feet don't give in either, just like his heart. He doesn't know why he had expected that, as if he didn't already know the answer. As if he didn't know his Lan Zhan. As if he didn't know that Lan Zhan will always have love to spare for him, for them — extra on days it's harder to believe in it.
That evening, on his way back from the university, Wei Ying takes a detour to Coco's bakery. One walnut cake, two packs of pineapple buns and five milk chocolates later, he runs home, like a whirlwind carrying treats for his sweetheart.
Lan Zhan is in the living room, on the floor by the couch, quite like that fateful evening. Except today, he has worksheets strewn all around him; probably the already graded test papers to recheck as a part of his assistant duties for the history professor.
Lan Zhan has this habit of decluttering and organizing when he's unable to get his mind to calm down. Often, in the process, he ends up upturning his surroundings even more. That's how Wei Ying finds him, frowning and glaring at a bunch of papers scrambled all around him which he was probably trying to assort in a serial order. Unable to help himself, a laugh erupts out of Wei Ying.
Startled, Lan Zhan looks up in surprise. It has been days since the walls of their little house have echoed laughter.
"Hey," Wei Ying says softly, taking a seat near him on the floor. "Can we talk?"
Lan Zhan pointedly gazes at the papers around him. "Only if you help me sort them too."
Wei Ying laughs again, feeling livelier than he has in days. Picking up several of the sheets, he begins stacking them one over the other randomly. Lan Zhan watches him for sometime, eyebrows knotted and lips pressed thin, then quietly pries the stack out of his hands and begins arranging them serially. Wei Ying bites back an amused grin and picks up another stack to copy Lan Zhan and arrange it serially as well. Only once they've fallen in a companionable silence does he speak.
"You've been avoiding me."
Lan Zhan's hands stutter over the papers. "I have not."
Wei Ying nods and scoots a little closer. "Let me rephrase. You've been hiding from me."
Lan Zhan busies himself with the papers for sometime, so Wei Ying does the same, giving him the space to iron his thoughts. When he speaks, Lan Zhan says, very very quietly, "I have been… afraid. Of seeing you."
Wei Ying stays silent, eyes resolutely on the papers.
"I have been afraid that… that one day—" Lan Zhan falls quiet for a long moment so Wei Ying looks up, and finds him blinking widely. There's such unabashed vulnerability on his face that for a second, Wei Ying has this urge to deflect the topic. Or perhaps to set everything on fire. But he stays put, because it's important that Lan Zhan gets this out. "I keep fearing that one day… I'll find contempt in your eyes. For me." His eyes fill up. "I wouldn't know how–how to live with it."
Wei Ying had an inkling of this, and yet, to hear it out loud – in the voice he loves the most in the world, with trepidation laid bare on that beloved face, with Lan Zhan struggling to breathe as the words are forced out – it's no less jarring. Wei Ying retrieves the stack of papers out of Lan Zhan's hands and sets them aside. Then he crawls over to where Lan Zhan is leaning against the couch and climbs into his lap, knees affixed on the either sides of his waist. Very gently, he takes Lan Zhan's face between his hands.
"Zhanzhan," he says softly, thumbs urgently stroking Lan Zhan's cheeks. "All the love I have in me, you are the centre of it. I wouldn't even know the worth of my affections if not for you. Or what it means to look into a pair of eyes and be looked back, to be seen. What do you suppose will remain of me if I were to lose you?"
Lan Zhan's eyes avert downwards, causing a lone tear to trickle over Wei Ying's hand. Wei Ying surges up and places a kiss on his forehead. "I'm so sorry for what I did to you, to us," he says, mouthing close to his temple. "But Lan Zhan, you've given me a hundred chances for hundreds of my missteps, won't you give me one more to fix this for us?"
Eyes lowered, Lan Zhan asks, "Even after what happened?"
"Especially after what happened," Wei Ying responds.
Slowly, Lan Zhan meets his gaze. "But I hurt you."
"Not more than I hurt you." Wei Ying stares into his eyes for a few moments, then softly leans their foreheads together. "You remember the summer you were sent away?"
Lan Zhan nods. It's not a good memory for either of them.
"I told you to get lost, quite rudely so," Wei Ying adds, "but you came back to me. Why did you do that?"
"You did not mean it," Lan Zhan frowns, as if offended on Wei Ying's behalf.
"Indeed I didn't," Wei Ying agrees. "But how did you know that? You had no reason to believe otherwise."
"I had every reason," Lan Zhan is quick to contradict, just as Wei Ying had expected. "Even if they were discounted, you told me to get lost once and then cried about it for three days."
Wei Ying laughs. "Correct. Do you remember what you had told me back then? That my reaction mattered more than those cruel words. Do you remember?"
Wei Ying can never forget the kindness that these words were on that day, at that time when the world had refused to spare him a place despite how large it was.
In all honesty, Lan Zhan was not only the reason for them getting back together, but also the reason Wei Ying had picked himself up and gave another shot to life. Those all nighters he pulled to secure a full-ride college scholarship would have seemed much more impossible if Lan Zhan hadn't been there beside him, in a cold hard basement, terribly nodding off and pretending he's not sleepy at all.
Today, he extends him the same kindness when he says, "Same for me, Zhanzhan. Does your reaction not matter more than what happened? Do I only get that privilege?"
Lan Zhan's eyes are still sad. "It's not the same thing."
"Lan Zhan, love," Wei Ying says. "When I think back on that day, the only picture that comes to my mind is that of you breaking down, you crying in my arms, you believing there's something wrong with you. It tore my heart apart, how is that not the same thing?"
"That still doesn't make it okay," Lan Zhan whispers. "I let you down."
Wei Ying heaves a sigh. "And that is why you're going to listen to me now, patiently."
Lan Zhan opens his mouth again, but Wei Ying places a thumb over his lips, shutting them close. "Like I said, patiently."
So Lan Zhan acquiesces, quietly staring at him.
"You really need to get into my head to understand my perspective, Lan Zhan, and it's important you do that because yours is too extreme," Wei Ying says. If his voice is laced with desperation, he can't really help it. "You're being harsh on yourself, and too single-faceted about what happened. We need to be on the same page about this. It's not as simple as you failing me or–or letting me down as you like to put it, quite ungenerously so."
Lan Zhan's gaze averts once more.
Wei Ying places a finger under his chin and tilts it back up. He needs Lan Zhan to look into his eyes so he knows just how much Wei Ying means it. "I can hardly differentiate you know, between the things I said to you as myself and… as him." He doesn't know why it's hard to say Yiling Laozu out loud. "Despite being so overly conscious, because at the base of it all, it was still me, even you could tell, couldn't you? In my mind, most of those two weeks are just one big blob of me smiling and mooning at my phone because…" He falls quiet, then takes a breath. "You don't know what it's like, Lan Zhan, to witness how you love. Then there was you being honest since the first day, and your assertiveness with–with him, to make no exceptions even when he begged. So… unlike what you think, it's not really possible for me to focus on just what scared me, without considering the much larger before and the much tragic after of it."
"But it did hurt you," says Lan Zhan, stubborn as ever. "It wouldn't have, if all that is true."
"That's where you're being extreme," Wei Ying argues. "It's not that simple. It hurt me, yes, but not in the way you think. It was more because I was caught off-guard, not having expected it since I had no idea a specific memory was what triggered the confusion for you. I was unaware, Lan Zhan, that it was a reminder of our first date, you know how bad my memory is. And because I was unaware, I let the doubt fester." With a sigh, he leans their foreheads together once more. "I was more incensed about having to share you, about someone else getting to see the side of you that only I'm privy to." He holds Lan Zhan's face, gazing into his eyes as pointedly as he can when he asks, "Are we really going to overlook the entirety of what we share for the few moments of doubt I had when I was quite literally spiralling? Insecurities aren't new to me, Zhanzhan, you know that more than anyone else. But just because we've never encountered them between you and me shouldn't mean we let them win the one time they manage to get to us."
It's palpable, the way some of the helplessness that has plagued Lan Zhan's eyes for the past few days slowly bleeds out. "I haven't been able to rest my mind."
"I know, I know my love." Wei Ying punctuates it with a kiss on his temple. "But you've been worrying about the wrong things. You've been so rude to yourself, so unkind to my baby. A lot happened that day, Lan Zhan, we both got hurt, we were both afraid. But I know I can safely say that it wouldn't have happened if"—he sighs—"if Yiling Laozu was someone other than me."
"We can't know that for sure," Lan Zhan objects.
"I can," Wei Ying counters, with a kiss on his cheek. "I know you, often more than you know yourself, don't I? Your words, not mine."
For the first time in what now feels like a forever, Wei Ying finds something akin to hope in Lan Zhan's eyes. "You really think we will get past this?"
"As long as it's us, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying smiles at him. "You and me together, we've always been bigger than our troubles, haven't we? Be it my own destructive tendencies, or your scary Old Man Lan, we've faced it all. You remember our first date after you came back from Singapore that summer?"
All of a sudden, Lan Zhan huffs, a quiet watery thing but with a twinkle in his eyes. "The skeleton museum," he says fondly.
Perhaps it's a measure of how deprived of him Wei Ying has been that even such a tiny show of fondness fills his chest with immense warmth.
"Exactly," Wei Ying gives him a smile. "Because we were supposed go there on the day uncle sent you away. So you wanted to pick up right where we left off."
Lan Zhan's eyes soften more. "It worked out."
"And there's our answer." Wei Ying leans in and places a kiss on his other cheek as well. "You asked me where do we start picking up the pieces, I say right where we left them off. For starters, I'd really like a kiss, I've been so so soooo starved."
For a moment, Lan Zhan's eyes linger on his face, soft and searching. Then he surges forward and kisses him.
Holding Wei Ying's face, he pulls him down and slots their lips together in the way only Lan Zhan does—soft but firm, possesive and secure and consuming—for the first time in days, and it tastes like everything it is. Forgiveness. Hope. Love. Because with them, it truly has, always been that simple.
"It won't happen overnight," Wei Ying whispers, in between the kisses he lovingly dots all over his beloved's face, simultaneously wiping the last of wetness trickling down Lan Zhan's eyes. "But between my bad tasting bunny cookies, and your lovely breakfast notes, I think we'll find our way."
"Your bunny cookies are my favourite," Lan Zhan sniffles.
"The entirety of you is my favourite, you silly goose." Wei Ying says, capturing him into another kiss.
The makeout is well on its way to adequately heating up when Lan Zhan wrenches them apart, and pulling back a little, has the audacity to pant and say, "Speaking of sticky notes—
Wei Ying groans before he can finish. "Are you kidding me right now? Out of all the bad timings you could pick to be annoying, this is the one you choose? After I've made it abundantly clear that I'm not parting from the notes until one day before I die."
"I hate it when you say that." Lan Zhan bristles.
Wei Ying does no better. "And I hate it when you cockblock me."
"We are supposed to be a responsible generation," Lan Zhan explains, like the nerd he is.
Wei Ying rolls his eyes. "Yeah well, I'll make up for it by inventing a green fuel or something someday."
Lan Zhan looks at him like he's the most ridiculous man on this overly polluted and populated planet. Which is fair. Still, Wei Ying gives him an exaggerated pout, "What? Don't you believe in me? Don't you think I'll become a great scientist one day?"
"Wei Yiiiiing," Lan Zhan nearly whines.
So, Wei Ying whines too, "Lan Zhaaaaan. It's not like I'm saying I'll never do it, am I? Trust me, I have it all planned out. When we're old and gray with balding heads and pot bellies, and we can no longer walk without our knees rattling, and Wei Ying junior can no longer—y'know—go up so we have to resort to just kissing and cuddling and sloppy handjobs, and I'm certain that I'm just one good orgasm away from toppling over the threshold of life—it's then that I'll write the most magnificent will of the century. Imagine the surprise of our grandkids, Lan Zhan, when they find out that all they have to do to inherit my badass inventions is to recycle a few thousand sticky notes, hahaha. They'll be like oh wow! easy-peasy, and then BAM! It's the notes with a few thousand I love yous on them. They'll cry us quite a few rivers, don't you think? I definitely think so. And that's how they'll learn: the sweetest rewards sometimes bear the hardest price. What a teachable idea, no? Wei Wuxian—the coolest and the most responsible grandpa to ever grandpa, don't you agree?"
The whole ramble was mainly because nothing cheers Lan Zhan up more than talking about babies and grandchildren and growing old together. And sure enough, by the time Wei Ying is done, the man is hiding his face because he doesn't want to smile just yet, or show how charmed he is.
So Wei Ying holds his face close and asks, "Are you wondering why I didn't include Lan Zhan junior? It's because he's immortal."
And it punches out of him. The laughter that Lan Zhan was holding back. He immediately presses his lips hard but his whole frame shakes with it. Wei Ying loves it when Lan Zhan does that. He loves it even more when he's the reason behind it. He loves making him laugh so so so much.
"You are so ridiculous," Lan Zhan says, wiping a tear from the corner of his eyes.
"On that note," Wei Ying, who had somewhere during all the laughing and smiling, crawled out of Lan Zhan's lap and was sprawling on the floor, sits up. "I'm also very hungry. What are we eating tonight? I'm feeling dumplings."
"Whatever you say." Lan Zhan nods, and after a moment of thought, asks, with a very badly concealed glee in his eyes, "Did I smell the walnut cake when you came home before?”
He looks so unabashedly hopeful that Wei Ying has to kiss him about it.
_______________
Epilogue
They do. Find their way, that is.
At least that's what it feels like when Lan Zhan walks into the living room four months later and finds a brown box with a sticky note on top of it that says: ‘See you later, little bunny.’
Kept inside the box are a pair of black fishnet stockings, a pair of fur rabbit ears, and the sheerest red robe that Lan Zhan has ever seen. Just the touch of its material sends a shiver down his spine. He has always loved wearing Wei Ying's colours in the bedroom. There's something oddly sensual about it, about being claimed, being owned. And in the past month, they've discovered that Wei Ying loves it just as much. Seeing Lan Zhan in his colours – or more precisely, Yiling Laozu's colours.
It took them more than a month for the Yiling Laozu to no longer be a sore topic. Two months to arrive at a point where they were freely joking about it.
Lan Zhan had been the first one to break the ice. During one of their cleaning days.
Wei Ying, who was terribly struggling with moving the couch to the other side, had tussled with it for two whole minutes before slumping over it like a bag of flour. Lan Zhan, who was waiting on the side with a broom and dustpan to sweep under it, had watched Wei Ying with pity in his eyes, and said, "Yiling Laozu would move it in a second."
For another whole minute, Wei Ying's jaw was on the floor. And then, he was somehow infused with a new kind of energy. Because when Lan Zhan tried to take over his task, he had pushed him aside and slid the couch over in one swift movement. It was nothing short of a revelation, for both of them. Lan Zhan got to watch Wei Ying flex his biceps, and Wei Ying got to see just what effect they had on Lan Zhan. So when the cleaning was done with, Wei Ying had shoved Lan Zhan into the same couch and fucked his brains out.
And the next day, very pointedly, he had added the newly launched vibrator into the cart saying, "Now that we've established you're very much into the daddier version of me, maybe we should unlock your Yiling Laozu kink or something."
Sitting beside, Lan Zhan had elbowed him hard.
Wei Ying was promptly offended. "What the hell, do you have a sadist kink or something too? Biting me at nighttime and bruising me in daylight?"
So Lan Zhan leaned over and bit his earlobe twice as hard. "Not true. I bite you in daylight as well."
Twice as affronted, Wei Ying had very mutinously added a pair of blue handcuffs to the cart too. "For your very deserved punishment."
Lan Zhan would never ever admit to the heat that had pooled in his belly at the mere thought of that.
Another day, however, the same Wei Ying was not at all offended when Lan Zhan kicked him on the ankle for being overly cheerful with the attendant at the shopping mall. He had cackled instead, teasing Lan Zhan for being the most jealous man on the overly populated planet earth.
So, in response, Lan Zhan had looked him dead in the eyes, cockily pointed out, "You are one to talk, for someone who gets jealous of himself," and walked right out of the mall, leaving Wei Ying gaping and chasing after him.
Somewhere around the end of second month, Nie Huaisang and Jiang Wanyin had gifted them both an expensive, weekend long romantic trip to a seaside villa as an apology. Neither Wei Ying nor Lan Zhan had felt it was necessary but nevertheless, the gesture was immensely appreciated. For they got to spend the whole weekend strolling the local handicraft market, running between the waves on the beach, and fucking like rabbits at a ridiculous love-themed hotel that came with a ridiculous heart-shaped jacuzzi and surplus freebies.
They're somewhat regular now, these adventurous nights where, in Wei Ying's words, they get to put Lan Zhan's Yiling Laozu kink to action. Because there's no point wasting the only good thing that came out of a mountain of troubles, remains their very rational reasoning behind it.
Regardless of their regularity, however, these nights are yet to fail at being the highlight of Lan Zhan's week, or not excite the very core of him. It's not that their sex life was boring before, but there's a kind of force that accompanies Yiling Laozu, a kind of edge that comes with him. Lan Zhan has no idea how Wei Ying manages it but he's extremely into it.
Only in actions though, for actions are all Wei Ying's Yiling Laozu-ness is limited to. The moment he opens his silly mouth, the facade is shattered.
It had been a discovery as fascinating as it was hilarious, Wei Ying's inability to talk like Yiling Laozu.
For all that he can be a bolder, daddier version of himself when he's hidden behind texts, Wei Ying, in reality, is incorrigibly incapable of actually verbalising the same debauchery. He's terrible to the point of embarrassing, mostly because he gets mortified at his own words. For all his shamelessness, there's a kind of innocence in things Wei Ying says that's distinctly hard to conceal if he's not completely hidden away from Lan Zhan. The first time he had tried dirty talking like the Yiling Laozu in bed, he had whispered into Lan Zhan's ear something along the lines of "If you won't give it to me willingly, I'll just take it from you," and then promptly sat up, scarlet in the face. After two awkward seconds of staring at each other, they had both burst out laughing.
That was both a lesson and a realization. Realization that, ironically enough, shamelessness is the most remarkable point of distinction between Yiling Laozu and Wei Ying. And lesson that, if they truly mean to put Lan Zhan's Yiling Laozu kink to action, then Wei Ying will have to learn to keep his mouth shut in bed.
A tremendously hard feat, but not entirely unachievable, as certain times have proven.
In the evening, just as instructed, Lan Zhan puts on every article that's there in the box. Freshly showered and doused in his favourite scent, he slides a body chain under the ultra soft fabric of the red robe. It's coolness is stark against his warm thighs stretched snug under the black fishnet, doing a number on his nerves. For good measure, he retrieves the blindfold from the drawer as well, and places it next to the lamp on the bedside. He has a feeling he will be in the mood for some heightened senses tonight.
Just when he's touching up his lip gloss one last time, his phone pings with the message tone, mere seconds before the doorbell rings as well. He's half-smiling and half-rolling his eyes as he picks the phone up, already perceiving the ludicrousness the message would entail. And sure enough:
Yiling Laozu
Daddy's home baby bun! 😉