Chapter Text
Wei Ying’s new apartment was not what he would call “perfect.” It was on the fifth floor of an apartment building that wasn’t exactly in the safest part of town. The elevator was broken, and according to the landlord, it had been broken for the past few months because the company that owned the building kept “misplacing” the repair request. The apartment itself was rather small—the kitchen could not comfortably hold two people and the wallpaper was peeling in certain corners where Wei Ying suspected there was a hastily patched-up leak. The bathroom did not have a window for proper ventilation, and the walls were thin enough that Wei Ying could hear the neighbors shuffling about next door when he had toured the place.
But, ultimately, it was the cheapest two-bedroom apartment Wei Ying that worked with his teachers’ salary. At the very least, all of the appliances worked, and the neighbors seemed friendly. Despite the fact that the master bedroom had a leak and a window that faced the building’s garbage dump, the second bedroom was neat and cozy and had a beautiful view of the sun rising over the town. Although the part of town they lived in wasn't the safest, there was a train stop only a block away that ran every hour to the nice part of town where his siblings lived. There was a park three blocks away that, although it looked like it could use some attention and care, had a big playground. The roads weren’t too congested, and the local preschool was just a short drive away.
When Wei Ying marched into his apartment with a heavy box of toys, he also noticed that the doorknob had to be jiggled a bit to be opened, but it wasn’t a big deal. He would just show A-Yuan how to open it once they got settled.
Wei Ying carefully set the box in the living room with the most beleaguered and exaggerated sigh he could muster.
“How are we not done yet?” he groaned. A familiar head poked out from behind the wall where the kitchen connected to the living room.
“Don’t whine, you just carried the lightest box in the van,” Wen Qing snapped at him. She looked around before frowning. “Where’s A-Yuan?”
“Here!” came the tiny reply from the tiny two-year-old that clung to Wei Ying’s leg. Wei Ying marched over to Wen Qing, smiling at the way A-Yuan squealed with delight as he continued to cling to Wei Ying’s shin like his life depended on it.
“Did you walk all the way up here like that?” Wen Qing asked.
“Yeah, I’m counting it as my workout for leg day,” Wei Ying said with a shrug. “A-Yuan, can you go see if Wen Ning needs help? Xian-gege is getting a leg cramp.”
“Okay!” A-Yuan said obediently, but he seemed reluctant to unlatch himself from Wei Ying’s leg before he scampered down the hall.
Wen Qing waited until she could hear the sounds of A-Yuan enthusiastically conversing with Wen Ning before she looked back at Wei Ying, brows furrowed and arms crossed. “Did you get a call from—”
“No,” Wei Ying answered before she could finish. “But I did get a text from him. Said he was ‘busy’.” Wei Ying walked past Wen Qing into the kitchen to open one of the boxes set on the counter, but he didn’t miss the way she rolled his eyes and followed him.
“Are you kidding me? That flakey bas—” Wen Qing paused and lowered her voice. “I’m telling you Wei Ying, you need to break up with him. This is the fourth time he’s bailed on you.”
“You don’t have to tell me again,” Wei Ying sighed. “Whatever—I don’t want to talk about this right now. We managed to move things fine anyway.”
To be fair, Wen Qing was technically right. Wei Ying’s current boyfriend had a tendency to be ‘forgetful’ at the worst of times. When they had first started dating, they got along quite well at first, but after Wei Ying had introduced him to A-Yuan, he had started becoming flakier—ignoring Wei Ying’s messages and “forgetting” about specific occasions when he had promised to be there to help out. Wei Ying had been meaning to break up with him for some time now, having not felt anything beyond “kind of fond” for the other man. Wei Ying just wished the guy hadn’t lied to him about being “great with kids” and gotten his hopes up.
Wen Qing didn’t look happy with Wei Ying’s answer. “Look, I’m just worried about you,” Wen Qing said, her expression softening. “You’ve dated more guys than I can count since we’ve met—you need to take a break. You have A-Yuan to worry about now.”
Wei Ying wanted to protest—just to be difficult, but he knew Wen Qing was right. She had a record for being right for as long as Wei Ying had known her. Although usually, she would just leave Wei Ying to his own devices rather than nag, just so she could get the satisfaction of him admitting that she was right. But this concerned A-Yuan, and even though Wei Ying was now A-Yuan’s legal guardian, she would be damned if she let Wei Ying fuck this one up.
Of course, Wei Ying would be just as hard on himself for A-Yuan’s sake.
Ever since Wei Ying had met Wen Qing and Wen Ning all those years ago after transferring university and moving away, the three of them had developed a life pact of sorts. He owed them his life for helping him when he had broken off contact with his adoptive parents, and they in turn felt the same towards Wei Ying, who had helped them when the Wens suffered from their own family problems through an awful scandal.
When Wei Ying had met A-Yuan, he was just a baby whose parents had disappeared and whose legal guardians had no way to take care of him. Wei Ying often babysat A-Yuan when Wen Qing and Wen Ning had to deal with the fallout of the scandal, and ended up spending more time with A-Yuan than they did. When Wei Ying had finally reconnected with his adoptive parents and was put back in the safety of the Jiang family resources with the help of his siblings, after a few long and heavy conversations, Wen Qing and Wei Ying agreed that it was best if Wei Ying adopted A-Yuan and provided for him before he started going to school. Especially if it got A-Yuan away from the debt collectors and the family shame.
And although Wei Ying loved A-Yuan dearly, the prospect was terrifying to handle on his own. SO, at Jiang Yanli’s gentle but insistent request, Wei Ying finally moved back home for the first time in eight years.
When most of the important furniture for making the apartment livable had been unpacked, Wen Qing and Wen Ning headed back home in the early afternoon after Wei Ying insisted that he didn’t need anymore help. Of course, Wen Qing only proceeded to affectionately scold him and insist that she and Wen Ning would be dropping by that weekend to make sure they weren’t missing anything. After setting up the child-safe shelves and bed in A-Yuan’s room, Wei Ying laid on the bedroom floor and groaned at the way his back cracked. Truly, his age was getting to him and he could imagine Wen Qing snapping at him ‘You spritely young men in your late twenties are spoiled—wait until you hit thirty!’
There was once a time when Wei Ying had thought thirty was incredibly old. A number that was far away—too far away. A young nineteen-year-old Wei Ying would stare out the window with thoughts of a familiar, stern and handsome face, hoping that time would speed up because if he just waited eleven more years, then maybe…
His chest suddenly started to ache. It had been a while since he had lingered on those memories. Now, at the age of twenty-seven, Wei Ying wanted time to slow down a bit, dreading the day he would one day hear about Lan Zhan’s probably elaborate and beautiful wedding to an equally beautiful spouse.
(Would Lan Zhan invite Wei Ying to his wedding? Probably not. They hadn’t had a proper conversation in years. Lan Zhan had probably forgotten all about him.)
Wei Ying was pulled out of his thoughts when he suddenly felt a weight land on his stomach, knocking all of the air out of him.
“Xian-gege!” A-Yuan plopped himself down on Wei Ying’s gut. Luckily, the toddler was fairly light, but it had taken Wei Ying by surprise. “I want to play!”
“You want to play?” Wei Ying asked, propping himself up on his elbows as he looked down at his watch. “It’s almost dinnertime! Xian-gege has to get dinner ready…” Wei Ying paused as he remembered that they had just moved in. The fridge was essentially empty aside from some milk and some takeout that was too spicy for A-Yuan to eat. After humming to himself for a moment, Wei Ying picked up A-Yuan and lifted him into his arms, sitting himself up properly. “Have you ever been on a train, A-Yuan?”
The toddler’s big grey eyes went even wider with childish excitement. “No,” he answered, looking every bit hopeful.
Wei Ying smiled. “Do you want to go on an adventure before dinner?”
“Yes!” A-Yuan clapped his tiny hands together. “Can we, Xian-gege? Can we?”
“Yeah!” Wei Ying’s grin grew. A-Yuan’s enthusiasm was contagious, and despite the fact that Wei Ying had just been emotionally and physically drained from all of the moving, he got to his feet. “Do you need help putting on your shoes? Or do you want to try doing it yourself?” Wei Ying asked as he placed A-Yuan on the floor.
“I can do it!” A-Yuan insisted, his tiny little legs carrying him as fast as he could out the door.
Wei Ying couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear as he watched A-Yuan struggle to put on his little sneakers, trying his best as he fumbled with the velcro straps. Jiang Yanli had told him about this after she had given birth—about how being a parent truly brought on new feelings of love and affection beyond compare. And A-Yuan was already such an amazingly sweet and intelligent kid—who could possibly resist the urge to tease him and squish his cheeks? Wei Ying wanted the best for A-Yuan and only hoped that he could give him just that.
“I did it!” A-Yuan cheered as he got up to his feet.
Quickly checking over his shoes to make sure they were secure, Wei Ying grinned. “Nice work, A-Yuan! High-five!” he asked, holding his hands up high and moving them out of range every time A-Yuan jumped. It wasn’t until A-Yuan started to pout that Wei Ying let the little boy high five him successfully.
They walked the one block to the train station together with A-Yuan tightly gripping onto Wei Ying’s fingers. A-Yuan looked at the approaching train with reverence, and all but dragged Wei Ying towards a seat next to the window. A-Yuan kneeled on the seat with his tiny palms pressed against the glass, pointing out different things as they passed.
“Don’t put your face on the window—it’s dirty,” Wei Ying warned him. He was holding onto A-Yuan with both hands, making sure the child didn’t fall when the train wobbled. Although A-Yuan obediently nodded, he still kept his face as close to the window as possible.
They arrived downtown after about two stops, and as he and A-Yuan walked hand in hand out into the bustling square, Wei Ying couldn’t help but feel a wave of nostalgia wash over him. The hometown he had grown up in had never been small by any means, but he didn’t remember it being quite this busy on a random early Wednesday evening either. Although some of the shops near the train station had changed, the buildings and landmarks stayed the same. Even the groceries and market street looked familiar.
A-Yuan tugged on Wei Ying’s hand, looking up at him with wide eyes. Wei Ying got down on his knees to face his son, adjusting the tiny little jacket so that it sat snug over his shoulders.
“What’s up?” Wei Ying asked. A-Yuan only pointed curiously at the running fountain in the middle of the square, where a few older children were throwing coins.
“Xian-gege, why are they throwing money into the water?” A-Yuan asked.
Wei Ying smiled as the memories began to flow. Jiang Yanli had a tradition where, every time before she took a big exam, she would drag her brothers to the old fountain and make a wish. After she had gone off to college, Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying had continued the tradition, even dragging along a panicked Nie Huaisang who was convinced he was going to fail.
“They’re just tossing coins,” Wei Ying explained, remembering Jiang Yanli’s explanation when he and Jiang Cheng were ten. “If you toss a coin into the fountain and wish really hard, your wish might come true.”
“Really?” A-Yuan asked, his eyes as wide as saucers.
“Yeah! How do you think your Xian-gege got so handsome?” Wei Ying joked. A-Yuan didn’t quite seem to get it, so Wei Ying just laughed as he fished his wallet out of his back pocket. “Do you want to try?”
A-Yuan nodded wholeheartedly, and his face broke out into a wide grin as Wei Ying handed him a coin. A-Yuan hastily thanked Wei Ying before running off to the fountain.
“Don’t stand too close!” Wei Ying called out to him, walking after him and standing just a few feet away. He watched as A-Yuan looked around at the other people around him and mimicked them. A-Yuan clenched the coin in his little fist and squeezed his eyes hard, his tiny brow so furrowed and round face scrunched as he wished hard.
“It works, Lan Zhan, I promise!”
Wei Ying pulled Lan Zhan to the edge of the fountain, a coin clenched tightly in his fist. It was the first time he came here without either of his siblings, but he wanted to come here with Lan Zhan after school. With the end of the school year rolling around, Wei Ying just wanted to spend as much time with Lan Zhan as possible, show him all of his favorite places and all of his favorite things before they both parted for who knew how long.
“This fountain has never failed me!” Wei Ying continued insistently. “Every time I’ve made a wish, it always came true! That’s how I got so good-looking.”
Lan Zhan rolled his eyes, but didn’t pull his hand away from where his wrist was trapped in Wei Ying’s grasp.
Despite his skepticism, Lan Zhan tossed in a coin with Wei Ying. Wei Ying remembered watching Lan Zhan from the corner of his eye, looking at how Lan Zhan had the coin held tightly in his fist, holding his fist up to his lips. HIs eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and when they both tossed their coins, Lan Zhan had gazed after it expectantly.
“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, you looked so intense!” Wei Ying said. “What did you wish for?”
Lan Zhan paused, his expression still but the tips of his ears turning pink. “Secret,” Lan Zhan stated simply. “What did you wish for?”
Wei Ying grinned mischievously. “You really want to know, Lan Zhan?” he said, nudging Lan Zhan’s arm with his elbow.
“Mm.”
“I wished…” Wei Ying held the silence for a moment too long. “That Lan Zhan would let me call him Lan Er-gege!”
Lan Zhan’s entire face went bright red and he finally pulled himself from Wei Ying’s grasp. “Shameless!” he said again, marching away as Wei Ying ran after him, laughing all the while.
“Sir! Sir! ”
Wei Ying almost jumped as his attention snapped back to the present. He turned towards the commotion, only to see a shop attendant from the jewelry store chasing after a short man wearing a yellow sweater. The man seemed to have forgotten a ring box in the store and apologized profusely.
Relieved that it was nothing of concern, Wei Ying turned back. “Okay, A-Yuan, are you ready to—”
Wei Ying’s entire body went ice cold. He felt a horrible plummeting sensation in his gut as he stared at the spot that A-Yuan had just been standing in front of the fountain just a few seconds ago—a spot that was now empty.
“A-Yuan?!”
Quickly, Wei Ying rushed over to the side of the fountain, looking over to make sure the child hadn’t fallen in. Aside from the coins that littered the bottom of the fountain, the water was clear and the fountain was empty. The relief that A-Yuan didn’t fall in was overshadowed by the crippling horror of the fact that A-Yuan had completely disappeared into thin air.
Wei Ying’s heart raced in his chest as he looked around frantically for the toddler in his puffy jacket. How could this have happened?! Wei Ying had just turned his head for a mere second and A-Yuan had completely gone missing. How could he have let this happen? How did he let himself get distracted for a mere moment.
Wei Ying began to frantically search the area around the fountain, asking people if they had seen A-Yuan around anywhere to no avail. The mere seconds seemed to last for an eternity, each metaphorical tick of the clock another moment A-Yuan could be in danger. Wei Ying frantically ran around, all but tugging his hair out of his head as he searched. As he passed by the same spot again for the third time, Wei Ying’s vision was starting to blur in his panic. Should he call the police? Should he ask for help? Who should he call? Jiejie? Jiang Cheng? Wen Qing and Wen Ning would come down in a second if they knew A-Yuan was missing, but would it be too late?
Wei Ying cursed himself, his mind becoming an awful, muddled mess. In the discord of the background noises of people walking around town blurring together, suddenly a voice broke through his thoughts.
“Xian-gege!”
Wei Ying turned sharply towards the source of the sound and, sure enough, a small toddler in a puffy red jacket was waving at him with a tiny arm, grin wide on his face as if there wasn't anything wrong. His other hand seemed to be holding onto something, but Wei Ying was too focused on making sure A-Yuan was okay to notice. Wei Ying felt the relief wash over him almost immediately, a little overwhelmed by how quickly the panic subsided. He had half a mind to drop to his knees and take a breath, but instead ran towards A-Yuan, arms extended. A-Yuan ran forward on his tiny legs and all but jumped into Wei Ying's arms.
"A-Yuan!" Wei Ying said, both scolding and letting out a breath that he had been keeping in. He carried the little boy in his arms, afraid that if he let him go for another moment, he would disappear. He looked at A-Yuan for a moment, eyes frantically searching for any sign of harm on the toddler's round cheeks, making absolutely sure that it was his son and not a figment of his imagination. When all seemed well, Wei Ying tried his best to frown sternly. "A-Yuan, what were you thinking! Don't ever wander off again! What if I had lost you?"
A-Yuan, who was always such a good and well-behaved kid, wasn't used to being scolded. His eyes welled up with tiny tears, and Wei Ying automatically felt bad for scolding him.
"Ah, don't cry. don't cry," Wei Ying said, rocking A-Yuan in his arms. "Xian-gege isn't mad. I just don't want you to get lost and hurt, okay?" When A-Yuan nodded, wiping his eyes with his tiny fist, Wei Ying relaxed.
"I'm not lost!" A-Yuan tried to insist. "Tall gege helped me!"
"'Tall gege'?" Wei Ying repeated. It wasn't until then that the rest of the world came into focus around Wei Ying. He felt his heart stutter before he looked up, as if it knew what was to come, but it still didn't stop Wei Ying from feeling like the air had been knocked out of his lungs when he realized who had been leading A-Yuan back to him.
Lan Zhan aged well. That part wasn't exactly shocking. Wei Ying sometimes caught glimpses of him throughout the years through Lan Huan's social media, so he knew that Lan Zhan at age 27 only grew more impossibly beautiful since their high school days. But nothing that Wei Ying could have seen online compared to seeing Lan Zhan in the flesh, standing tall just a short distance away. His handsome face looked just as stern as ever, but Wei Ying was surprised that he could still recognize the way his golden eyes were slightly wider with shock, and strong brows slightly furrowed.
Despite the way Wei Ying's heart hammered in his chest, and despite the anxiety that clawed at him, reminding him that they hadn't spoken in almost ten years, Wei Ying found himself walking towards Lan Zhan like he was pulled by a magnet.
"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said.
Wei Ying’s mouth felt dry, but before he could even think, he felt his chest ache as a name he hadn’t said out loud in years slipped past his lips.
"Lan Zhan."