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It happened like this, or so he likes remembering: on the spring of his tenth grade, Wei Ying took hold of him and set him off the course of his life. He’s hardly ever this dramatic, but Wei Ying takes delighted pride every time he speaks of himself like he was once a wild teenage troublemaker, so whenever he reminisces of those rose-colored days, Lan Wangji gives wings to his eloquent, romantic heart.
Wei Ying can’t remember the month or the weather or what had set him into motion; Lan Wangji can easily affirm it was a Monday, the beginning of all beginnings, and that the late afternoon sun cascaded hues of pink from the windows, colorful like all of the lotus flowers of Yunmeng. Wangji was alone in the classroom to discard some notes his homeroom teacher had attached to their notice board when the door was rudely thrown open and Wei Ying slid inside, only to drop down to his knees beside one of the empty desks.
“What—” Wangji began, but was immediately shushed by a startled Wei Ying who hadn’t noticed his presence before he spoke. Wangji was never shushed. He was quiet by nature and he was the class president and he would not be shushed. And thus, he walked towards Wei Ying, his name ready to roll off his tongue, and Wei Ying, fifteen and as tall as Wangji and brimming with energy in every edge of his being, pulled his class president down to his eye level and shushed him again.
Wangji gritted his teeth, a second away from yelling at him, and only halted when he heard voices coming from the corridor. Wei Ying crouched even more before him, a paradox of wincing and smirking, and Wangji couldn’t help but raise a perfect eyebrow and strain to recognize the voices that spoke of someone being “done for” once they found him.
Once the voices and footsteps had faded into the distance, Lan Wangji turned to the boy who still hadn’t let go of his uniform shirt and asked, “What did you do?”
Wei Ying looked offended, as if it wasn’t the most attuned response to him hiding in the first place.
“Why aren’t you asking why a bunch of guys is looking to beat up a single guy, huh?”
Lan Wangji didn’t have to narrow his eyes or make any effort to look more disapprovingly at Wei Ying before the other sighed, threw his hands dramatically into the air, and explained that he had caught Wen Chao earlier in the day looking up girls’ skirts in the stairs using his phone’s camera and called him out on it, which basically consisted of telling the guy that using a camera was ‘the only way he could ever get a glimpse of panties, so maybe that was fair in the end.’
“Why didn’t you call a teacher?” Lan Wangji asked with a frown, which earned him what couldn’t be described as anything other than a disgusted look.
“Seriously?”
“Better than provoking then having to hide from a fight!” Wangji hissed.
“I’m not hiding from a fight!” Wei Ying shot back with a loud whisper, as if they could still be heard at any second. “I just know how to pick my battles, they’re in like, five, and Jiang Cheng went home without me!”
“Fighting is against the school rules anyway.”
Wei Ying sure did roll his eyes at him at that, and Wangji thought he could understand why someone would want to beat him up. Which was a terrible thought.
(Still true, though.)
“Look, I gotta scram before those guys come back. Bye, prez!”
And he was off just as he had come in, a gust of wind in the silence, making Wangji sigh a sigh that did not belong to his age. He had never faced that kind of problem as a class president in middle school back in his hometown, and he was... Unprepared, so he was aware his emotional responses were inappropriate and unbecoming of his position. He stood up, patted the creases out of his uniform, and started to plan. Because he, too, wasn’t one to hide from a fight.
When he saw Wen Chao draped across the stairs to the second floor during recess the next day, Wangji walked to him with his back straight and his voice firm and told him, “Loitering in the stairs is against the school rules.”
Wen Chao looked him up and down, but otherwise said nothing. The teen picked himself up and walked away, all the while keeping his eyes on Wangji. A group of students flocked to him right before he turned around a corner and disappeared. Wei Ying showed up at that corner the next instant, frowning in what Wangji assumed was the direction Wen Chao and his group had wandered off to, and when he noticed Wangji, his face broke into a grin and he gave his class president two thumbs up.
Wangji fought the urge to roll his eyes and turned around, set to resume his usual schedule. And despite himself, he thought that’d be the first time he felt accomplished in his new school.
It didn’t take long for Lan Wangji and Wei Ying to find themselves in another similar, although unique, situation. Class President Wangji had to wonder if it really was that easy for Wei Ying to find himself in compromising positions, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the answer was “yes”.
(Neither would Wei Ying or his brother Jiang Cheng, the latter of which refused to be caught in the referred situations, if he could at all help it.)
Wangji was walking home when he noticed some kind of movement and sounds inside the shed of the school storage, a little off to the side of the entrance gates. With a frown and righteous steps, the class president turned on his heels and walked back to the school grounds, not really knowing what to expect but ready to report it.
What he found, curled around himself in a small space under a precarious pile of old desks and chairs, was Wei Ying, who looked up at him like a wounded animal once he got near.
“Wei Ying? What are you doing here? How did you get in here?”
“D...dog...”
“Dog? What dog?”
Wei Ying just shut his eyes tight, hands pressed against his ears, and Wangji was forced to look around for any sign of a stray dog that might have found a way inside. Though he looked in all directions without quite moving from his spot, he found nothing. All he noticed that was the padlock to the shed was old and no longer functional, which was a plausible explanation as to how Wei Ying got inside.
“Wei Ying,” he called, but Wei Ying didn’t look at him, still with his eyes and ears covered. He called again, crouching to his level, not failing to keep an eye out on the mess of old, broken furniture that sat on unreliable balance right above the other boy. “Wei Ying, there’s no dog. What happened? Were you bitten? Are you hurt?”
Wei Ying shook his head, and now closer to him, Wangji noticed he was shaking.
“Are you... afraid of dogs?”
He lowered his hands from his ears, and without looking up at Wangji, nodded.
Wangji didn’t know what to say. After their first meeting, he easily accepted that Wei Ying was loud and over-familiar with everyone, Wangji included, trying to rope whomever he could into his conversations, ready to make the class laugh with his interpretations of classic literature. Wangji often had to remind him that he was forbidden from running in the hallways, forbidden to eat during lecture, forbidden to gossip about the teachers, and really, if he had been in studying at a school in Gusu, Wangji suspected he would have been expelled for his hairstyle alone (long, too long).
But they weren’t in Gusu, they were in Yunmeng, and the city was as unknown to him as that boy who hugged his knees to his chest and whose eyes were getting red with dust and tears.
Wangji clenched his jaw. That whole train of thought spoke of nothing but his own shortcomings; Wei Ying was his classmate and Wangji was his class president and he wouldn’t abandon him. So, with newfound determination, he said, “I’m going to look for it.”
And that was a mistake.
“Wait!” Wei Ying called, reaching forward to catch him, hand closing around his uniform vest, but springing up at the same time. With the sudden movement, Wei Ying’s back hit the desk he was sitting under, subsequently sending a ripple to the mountain of scraps above him, and with a single metal sound as a warning, Wangji only had the chance to say, “Look out!”, before he pulled Wei Ying towards himself and rolled away from the avalanche.
Wangji waited, eyes closed tight, arms secured around Wei Ying, for the sound of falling furniture to stop. Once it did, he let out a long exhale before he heard, very close and very clearly, “Are you okay?”
He was lying on his back so logic dictated that Wei Ying was lying on top of him. The fact, however, still caused his train of thought to screech into a halt, and he counted whole five seconds where he just looked down at Wei Ying before he hastily let go of the other boy and sat up. That proved to be another mistake as Wei Ying chose at that exact instant to move, so his head hit against Wangji’s chin and very much caused him to snap rows of teeth painfully together and bite his tongue.
“Ah, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry! Are you okay?”
“Mn,” Wangji could utter as he winced, moving his tongue and tasting blood in his mouth. Seeing Wei Ying rub his head, he asked, “Are you? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No. I mean, yeah, I think I’m all good?”
They both looked themselves over and, finding nothing other than dirt on their clothes, they stood up and took in the slight heap of broken furniture spilling out of the school storage. It wasn’t massive that it’d take several people to pick up, but it was messy enough that it’d take some time to arrange everything into place without forming another threatening pile inside. Wangji sighed at the same time Wei Ying groaned.
“Ugh, I feel horrible, this is all my fault. I’ll—”
“No need,” Wangji interrupted, pulling his phone from his pocket and typing a message. “I’ll let Mr. Xiao know about the situation. We need to change the padlock anyway.”
Wei Ying shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“But—”
“Wei Ying! You asshole, are you really all the way up here? You lost the dog ages ago, let’s go home!”
Both teens looked up at the sound of Jiang Cheng’s voice, sounding somehow worried and annoyed at the same time.
“You should go,” Wangji said, eyeing the way Wei Ying’s hair was sticking up in all directions.
“But prez—”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
Wangji ended the discussion by walking up to the pile and starting to pick up the desks and chairs, setting them down side by side, as best as he could, given some didn’t have all legs to stand properly. Wei Ying was gone by the time their homeroom teacher reached Wangji, and it was pitch black outside when Wangji finally got home, dirty, sweaty and sore. He sent his brother a single message explaining he was going to call him the next day, and after a shower and a quick heated up dinner, flopped down on his bed, uncharacteristically uncaring about his own manners, and slept all the way till morning.
The next day, he had just sat down on his desk when a hurricane threw the door open and shouted, “Brother Wangji!”
Wei Ying hopped to his desk and Wangji just stared at his blinding, wide smile. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Wei Ying’s brother walk into the classroom and hit himself on the forehead with his hand.
“Brother Wangji, how are you this morning? Did you sleep well? Did you have a proper breakfast? Here, I got you some lotus seed paste cookies! My sister made them herself.”
Sure enough, he handed him a bunch of cookies in plastic wrapping, a red ribbon tying it close. After blinking a few times, trying to catch up with the other’s pacing, Wangji looked up at Wei Ying’s expectant face.
“...I’m good, thank you?” The phrase rolled out of his tongue with a question mark, unsure and a little confused, but Wei Ying just beamed at him, mouth open and ready to say something more before Mr. Xiao opened the door and he was forced to hop back to his own seat, masterfully dodging a kick from Jiang Cheng.
Mr. Xiao started homeroom as usual, not once mentioning the previous day’s incident. Right before the first period rolled in, Wangji caught a glimpse of Wei Ying, blatantly staring at him, and locking eyes with him earned Wangji a wave, before Wei Ying seemed to hide a light, soundless laughter behind his hand.
Facing forward, Wangji listed a few things he was surer about after the beginning of the year in Yunmeng. First, Wei Ying could arrive on time if he put his mind to it. Second, Jiang Cheng ought to be reminded that violence is not permitted within school grounds. And third... Springs in Yunmeng were warmer than he had first thought.
Shaking his head, Wangji shifted his focus back to the lecture, trying to clear his mind from scared classmates and their weight on him, hesitant fingers dangerously close to his face in concern.
Before the day was over, Wangji was forced to add one more item to the list: Jiang Yanli’s homemade cookies were really good and he had no idea how he could ever ask for more.
Summers in Yunmeng were humid, Wangji discovered. Heat clung to skin with almost a physical force, and more often than not, Lan Wangji was plagued with headaches. As dusk approached, the air became thick with the promise of storm, and the torrent that followed was nothing like the rains in Gusu, usually windy, prickling like needles.
On the last day before summer vacation, Wangji found Wei Ying crouching by a tree, soaked all the way from his hair to his sneakers. The rain was a white sheet one had to brave through, and if Wei Ying’s sneakers weren’t bright red, Wangji wouldn’t have recognized him. But sure enough he was there, compromised by the weather, holding his umbrella over an equally soaked cardboard box.
“Wei Ying!” Wangji called, approaching him, and he had to raise his voice to be heard over the white noise of raindrops on the pavement. Wei Ying raised his head, eyes narrowed, trying to discern who it was, and once he was within recognizable distance, Wei Ying raised his hand high, as he usually did in class when he had a perfectly constructed question meant to shake the atmosphere of the class, and he yelled,
“Lan Zhan!”
Wangji’s steps faltered, regretting his impulsive call for a millisecond before he continued on, as fast as he could without risking to slip and break his neck. By then, Wei Ying had already breached the casual distance between them with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, calling him with a familiarity he wasn’t used to, but always laughing at his curt responses in a way that invited him in his good moods instead of othering him. So Wangji, with his brother’s wishes and his therapist’s suggestions at heart, let him.
Which led the two of them to that scene under the rain, crouching by a cardboard box and peeking at a kitten that cried and cried, shivering despite the hot weather.
Wangji’s heart shriveled at the image, mouth gaping, a strangled noise escaping him but going unheard, washed away.
“Lan Zhan, what do we do?” Wei Ying asked, sticking close to him and wetting Wangji’s previously not-that-ruined uniform. “I don’t want to leave him here but I can’t bring him home, Madam Yu would kill me.” He punctuated his statement with a whine, and although Wangji would usually hold his dramatics against him (and secretly enjoy them like the rest of his peers), he could understand the sentiment. “Can you take it?”
Wangji shook his head, making Wei Ying visibly wilt.
“Your parents won’t let you have pets either, huh.”
He hesitated, before shaking his head again.
“I live alone. The apartment building doesn’t allow pets.”
He ignored the way Wei Ying’s eyes widened and whatever it was that he mouthed, handing him his own umbrella and saying,
“Let’s get it out of here first.”
Wangji reached into the box as gently as he could, trying to soothe the frizzy furball that cried, trembled and scratched at his hands, and ran alongside a Wei Ying who tried to cover them both with their umbrellas and failed spectacularly at the impossible task. They stopped by a badly lit alleyway between two tall buildings that was mostly covered from the rain, both looking as ruffled and lost as the kitten that they tried to protect.
“Lan Zhan, wait here, I’ll be right back!”
And he was gone, just like that, as if his wasn’t the biggest responsibility, being the first to offer his umbrella to the animal in the first place. Feeling like he had no choice given the little bundle in his arms, Wangji stood there, uncomfortably wet, cooing and shaking the kitten in what he hoped was comforting way. His brother would have known what to do if he had been there, he’s sure, given his big, knowing heart. And maybe Wangji would have been calmer if it wasn’t raining so badly. But there were so many maybes, none of them helpful, so Wangji just paced and waited for Wei Ying to come back, nursing an anxious kind of trust that he’d help the two of them out of the predicament they fell in.
Wei Ying returned after the rain had subsided; to Wangji, it felt like he had been gone for hours. He held a dry cardboard box and a small packet of cat food.
“I’m sorry,” he tried to say in-between long, desperate breaths. “I thought the nearest pet shop was... nearer.”
He placed the box on a dry spot on the ground, far enough from the corner where too many people passed and the rain could get it, but not too deep inside the alley. But as soon as he looked at the naked box on the ground, he frowned.
“I wanted to buy a towel or something but I didn’t have any more money on me. It still feels wrong though...”
Wangji eyed the box for a couple of seconds before sighing and handing Wei Ying the kitten. He had a surprisingly hard time trying to keep it in his hands.
“Wait, what are you— Lan Zhan?!”
Wangji removed his school vest, made a bundle of it, and padded the box with it. Then he took the kitten from a yelping Wei Ying, placed it on the makeshift bed, opened the packet of cat food and poured a portion of it at the corner of the box, which the kitten happily started to devour.
“Don’t rush, now, or you’ll throw up,” he spoke to it. “There’s no need to hurry.”
He heard Wei Ying approach him, his steps echoing in the empty space of the alley, and saw his hair cascade off his shoulder as he leaned down, his hands on his knees. A warm sound of amazement reached Wangji, right beside him, and for some reason, it made his stomach churn, even though it was empty.
“Wow, Lan Zhan really is amazing and reliable. I couldn’t move at all to help it back there, but look at it now! It’s all happy and cozy.”
Wangji could feel his ears hot, and combined with his confused stomach, it made him feel clumsy.
“You helped too. You got the box and the food,” he said, eyes focused on the kitten.
“Okay, let’s agree we both helped it then!”
A moment of silence stretched between them as they watched it eat, long enough for Wangji’s contained agitation to die down and for Wei Ying to build enough courage to reach down and pet the kitten, now that it was too occupied to bite him.
“Should we give it a name? Is it a boy or a girl?”
Before Wei Ying could pick it up to check, Lan Zhan shook his head and said, “We better not. We don’t know if we’re going to see it again.”
It could wander off. It could be chased away by bigger cats or a dog. It could die.
Wangji petted its nose with his index finger, and it closed its eyes and mew’d. He smiled, shutting down his train of thought, knowing simply that he couldn’t get attached to it, lest he lost it.
“You really like animals, don’t you, Lan Zhan?”
Wangji hummed in response. Mother loved animals, would take him and his brother to the zoo and would ask permission so that they could pet the most inoffensive of them. He had had a bunny, once. It passed away before mother did.
“Do you want to stop by tomorrow? We can check on it together!”
He almost said yes on impulse, but managed to stop himself before the word left his mouth.
“Brother is coming by tomorrow. He comes by once a month, but this time he’s staying for a few days.”
When he looked up at Wei Ying, he looked all kinds of disappointed. And wet. They really needed to go home and change.
“What about the weekend then? I can look after it myself until then, I’ll text you updates. Or whenever you’re free, do you want to come over and play video-games? Jiang Cheng’s really bad at them, I bet you can easily beat him. Oh! I can ask sister to make more cookies! You liked them, right?”
Wangji stared up at Wei Ying, thinking, to his own surprise, about how all of his suggestions sounded appealing, on a level that made him both excited and reluctant. Mother still lingered on the edge of his perception, like the water on his clothes, damp and cold against his skin. But when Wei Ying talked, he didn’t think much about mother. And with Wei Ying supporting him, meeting him where others had given up on reaching, maybe he could just...
You deserve a normal school life, Wangji. Making friends, playing after school, falling in love. You don’t have to bear the world on your shoulders, you’re fifteen. Mother wouldn’t want it for you. Uncle and I don’t want it either. Find something you want to do in Yunmeng. For a few years, forget about things here, and just live. I’ll be right there with you, A-Zhan.
“Okay,” he said, and Wei Ying’s whole face lit up, making him look even younger than he was.
People could come and go from your life at any time, without warning, without goodbye; at fifteen, Wangji had already learned that. But when he told his brother about Wei Ying the next day, he realized that he already knew so much about the boy. His best subjects, his favorite snacks, his knack for getting into trouble then hiding behind Wangji or pulling him along with his escape plans. He had already let him in through the cracks of himself that he thought he was still mending, and showing the picture he sent about the cat they had rescued the day before made him warm, made him smile. His brother let him talk, only prompting questions now and then, paying close attention to him as he cooked for them, Wangji’s favorite dishes. In the afternoon, after Wangji had spoken more than he had in a year, while he made plans with Wei Ying on his phone, his brother cut apples into bunnies so they could have them with iced tea, while the sun shined through a rain shower outside, in the intense and incomparable Yunmeng summer.
Yunmeng was a romantic city; even at fifteen, Wangji could remark on it. In Gusu, people who saw each other every day at the same time could go forever without greeting each other, if there was no particular reason to do so. It wasn’t particularly bad, just like Yunmeng wasn’t especially good, but Gusu was a city of deep thoughts and tight schedules, while in Yunmeng, the baristas at the coffee shop near Wangji’s house remarked when he was in a good mood or downcast, passing him his favorite tea mix like it was a magic potion to refresh his spirits.
He was sent there for a change of pace, to unburden his heart, and every new season seemed to be alive with color. The spring where he met Wei Ying had rose-colored mornings, pleasant to the eyes like a well-constructed store display; the summer of their acquaintance was golden in sunbeams that broke through the curtain of the Jiang household, sweet with the taste of Jiang Yanli’s cookies and brother’s store-bought cloud cakes. When autumn rolled in, the rains growing fewer and the winds turning colder, the city blanketed itself in shades of red. Wangji had only seen such vivid, perfect example of autumn in pictures, leaves falling in bursts of yellow and orange, the smell of chocolate, cinnamon and honey taking over the air of the coffee shop, and couples huddling closer and sharing scarves, with the excuse of cold afternoons.
Like the seasons that naturally give place to one another, Wangji didn’t pay attention to how his relationship with Wei Ying grew. Thinking back on it now, he smiles fondly at how easy it had been for them to go from glancing at each other from across the room to studying side by side, shoulders brushing, Wangji’s sighs making Wei Ying suppress his laughter in the library, or in their classroom, their desks pressed together while everyone else did their club activities.
One missing the touch and affection of someone who would never return and the other eager to be close for no other reason than a born disposition to give, and give, and give all that he had, his mischief and jokes, his favorite things and spontaneous ideas, his attention and unburdened routine. With Wei Ying, the class president spent hours outside after school, instead of going straight home to study. He bit his lip to keep from smiling or chuckling when Wei Ying was silly in class and he played games until he was too sleepy to support Wei Ying’s team of friends. In turn, Wangji watched as Wei Ying’s grades rose, noticed that he and Jiang Cheng fought less (although the banter would probably never stop), and the boy wasn’t seen wandering idly around the city after school anymore, as Wangji sometimes witnessed in spring, when he stayed out until late, helping Mr. Xiao. Wei Ying didn’t have a bad nature, Wangji had reached that conclusion the first time he caught him hiding from Wen Chao, but he had an inclination to be in places he wasn’t supposed to be, unafraid of the dark.
Perhaps that was mostly Wangji’s upbringing casting judgment on others, which made him flush in shame when he thought about it. But years later, Wei Ying admitted their time together kept him from seeking conflict like a pastime, in a sort of compensation for his complicated relationship with his adoptive parents. Whether he did well or bad in his simple teenage life always led to conflict, so he wasn’t used to the way Wangji looked at him when he did well, when he did good, with uncomplicated, genuine praise. Those had been Wei Ying’s words. Wangji was just happy to see him do well, because no one shined like he did when he was having a good time. It was an addicting energy, like a favorite taste he couldn’t get enough of.
There were layers where their pieces connected, layers where one’s strengths made the other’s weakness smaller, and there was the simple fact that they just really liked each other. Wei Ying liked seeing those clear eyes and that straight-laced personality indulging him, making him want to play with him until he forgot about time, and Wangji liked being pulled around by that hand, which didn’t let go of his. Lan Xichen could see it all as Wei Ying greeted him animatedly when he came over, and Jiang Yanli patted both of their heads with knowing hands while they ate her lotus paste cookies in the living room, talking over whatever it was that they were watching.
Wei Ying first kissed him the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival. They were the only ones in the classroom, putting away their things so they could go home, the sun already glowing weak and shy through the open windows. Wangji was saying something about how he usually spent the day of the festival quiet, at home, watching the pretty decorations on TV, and when he turned his head towards Wei Ying, his friend leaned in and kissed him.
There was just surprise at first, and no movement by either of them. Then Wei Ying moved back, enough that their noses wouldn’t bump into each other when he tilted his head the other way, and he leaned in again. Wangji wasn’t more prepared for the second one, he didn’t know where to put his hands, so he just left them right where they were, resting on top of his bag, on his desk.
He didn’t pull away. He didn’t breathe or make any noise. As with the first time Wei Ying threw himself on him and hugged him, he allowed himself time to take the new feeling, to welcome it, to let its warmth spread through him. As far as thought went, he could have spent seconds rationalizing it, and could have spent many more minutes lingering on it. But in that moment, all of the steps that he created to let Wei Ying in had already been rehearsed, were already known, so after an instant of hesitation, he made just a small movement in return, leaning against his weight, slightly opening his lips and closing them again against Wei Ying’s. What they were, what had changed, everything would come later, could be put into words later. When Wei Ying kissed him the first time, what he perceived under the calm behind his eyelids was that Wei Ying was Wei Ying. Wei Ying knew him like he knew Wei Ying back, and that, too, was knowing. Opening up, trusting.
And it felt so good, just to be that close.
After what couldn’t have been more than mere seconds, Wei Ying pulled away. Because he was leaning against him, when he moved back, Wangji moved forward, chasing him, but he caught himself quickly. Opening his eyes, he saw Wei Ying smiling in a way he hadn’t seen before, self-contained and just pretty, before he laughed and looked up at him with his usual (but perhaps augmented?) cheer.
“So you’re spending the day with your brother?” He asked, resuming their conversation, but bumping a foot against Wangji’s.
“Mn,” he let out, and although he had been thinking about how he was going miss his mother on that second festival without her, he let himself smile at Wei Ying.
“I’ll save one of sister’s mooncakes for you. They’re better when they’re fresh, but they’re still good a day later!”
“I’ll look forward to it,” he said, and he meant it, and when Wei Ying bumped his foot against his again, he bumped back.
“Okay, let’s go home.”
Wei Ying threw his belongings messily into his bag while Wangji made sure everything was in place before they zipped their bags closed and stood up, not in sync, but in the comfortable image of their usual routine. They put Wei Ying’s desk back into its original place, but before Wangji could take a step towards the door, Wei Ying leaned in again and placed a kiss on the corner of his mouth.
Wangji just blinked at him, and before he noticed it, Wei Ying was already at the door, with his mischievous smile in place.
“I’ll race you to the entrance.”
“Running inside the school building is forbidden.”
Wangji arched a perfect eyebrow, the corner of his mouth (the one that Wei Ying had claimed) tilted upwards, and Wei Ying just grinned.
“It only matters if we’re caught.”
And he was off. Wangji huffed, walking fast to the door. He looked one way, then the other, and upon seeing no one, he ran after Wei Ying.
The spirited youth laughed, delighted. Their little race lasted until they almost fell down the stairs upon seeing Mr. Xiao on his way to the second floor. The boys, flushed, with hairs in different states of disarray, bowed to their teacher and climbed down at a normal pace. Once Mr. Xiao was out of sight, Wei Ying laughed behind his hands while Wangji reprimanded him and laughed at the same time.
The time for reflection about their relationship never really came. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, he sat on the couch, leaning against his brother, while they both reminisced about a time when her voice filled the space in their original house. Wei Ying’s messages that night weren’t any different than they usually were, and neither were their conversations, nor was Jiang Yanli’s mooncake tastier than mom’s. Only he could barely keep himself from smiling in Wei Ying’s presence anymore, and Wei Ying wanted to talk to him all the time, throwing him notes, wanting to help him with his class president duties, and being reprimanded for being too restless more than once by different teachers.
The kisses grew in numbers, in intensity, and in that red autumn, they mapped Yunmeng with their secret hiding places. Wei Ying kissed him when they stayed back after gym class, to clean the floor and put away the supplies. He kissed him when he came out of the faculty office, barely out of the teachers’ sight, in the lone, well-lit hallway. He kissed him in the alley where they once rescued a kitten together, who was gone now, out to live his nine lives. He kissed him after school, sitting on the floor and hiding behind desks, his fingers clutching Wangji’s vest as he hummed deep in his throat, just beginning to discover the depths of each other’s mouth. And he pulled Wangji into an empty classroom when he was taking a pile of homework to Mr. Xiao, his arms circled around his neck and one of his hands in Wangji’s hair in the way they learned they both liked, papers falling around their forms on the floor like cherry blossoms in May.
“Lan Zhan is my favorite kiss,” he said in the shadow behind the coffee shop, autumn leaves crushed at their feet, and Wangji felt a little pain in his heart, to think that Wei Ying might have kissed other people when Wangji had only ever kissed him. It was hard to dwell on the thought when Wei Ying’s kiss melted him with the taste of chocolate and the burn of his spiced latte, and the words Lan Zhan, favorite and kiss spoken together out of Wei Ying’s mouth made him smile against his lips, breaking the kiss, and Wei Ying laughed and cooed at him and called him his adorable class president.
They didn’t speak of it, didn’t name it, but he was Wei Ying’s something and Wei Ying was his first, second, and following kisses, and at sixteen, unwilling to think about the end of things, which was black and absolute, Wangji took his brother’s and his therapist’s words to heart, and he allowed himself to just feel.
Content with the passing of days, balanced between his studies, duties, Wei Ying and those in his orbit, Lan Wangji never bothered to think about how others perceived him. Students would sometimes ask him with help on a few subjects, but save for Wei Ying, no one asked him for private tutoring lessons. He volunteered to be class president, and no one tried to run against him for the position. The vice-president was decided by Mr. Xiao, Wei Ying’s incredibly smart but constantly reticent friend Nie Huaisang, whose pleads of “Oh, God, please, no” went unheard as Wei Ying instigated the whole class to give several enthusiastic, “Go, brother Nie, go!”. Wangji spoke more to the boy in video-game chats than at school, and still it was only after summer vacation that he seemed to linger in Wangji’s presence for more than five seconds.
His therapist, Xichen, and even his mother, when she was alive, constantly nudged Wangji towards the path outside of his comfort zone to make friends, but it never came easy to him. He was comfortable with the role of the class president; it kept him occupied and his mind working. No one seemed to read the books he liked, he didn’t read comics, and he liked either instrumental music or songs that weren’t popular and trending. It was only after becoming close to Wei Ying that he found common ground for conversation, but he really only meant to talk to the boy himself, his siblings, and occasionally his friends, like the very Nie Huaisang who seemed constantly surprised at Wangji’s presence at the Jiang household, or Wen Ning and his sister Wen Qing, well-mannered and old friends of Wei Ying who were somehow related to the guy who insisted on breaking a rule at least twice per week, often disappearing in the middle of the day.
“He won’t repeat the year, don’t mind him,” Wen Qing told him one day by her usual spot next to Jiang Yanli. “Uncle will kill him if that happens. He’s probably pushing his absence quota to its limit, but he’ll do well in his exams. It’s what he’s always done anyway.”
“But that makes him a worse example for the other students,” Wangji said with a frown. Sitting on the couch, appearing to be much smaller than he was, Wen Ning nodded.
“You’re not wrong, but not all delinquents can pull off what he does. Don’t push his buttons too much,” she added sternly, pointing at him with her dessert spoon. “He knows some dangerous older guys. I know you’re the class president and all, but I advise even Wei Ying to stay away from him.” That didn’t go as well as she expected, but Wangji said nothing. “I made sure to find out which school he was attending so I could get A-Ning enrolled all the way across town. Every class has a bad apple, but some are poisoned, and you don’t wanna touch them.”
Wangji felt incompetent and powerless at her advice, but he was aware he couldn’t help those who couldn’t help themselves. Mr. Xiao, however, was a kindhearted man who never gave up on a lost cause, and Wangji saw him try again and again to talk to the teen, only to get ignored.
For his part, Wangji just tried to be fair. If someone asked for his help, he gave them his attention. If faced with a situation he couldn’t manage on his own, he sought someone, usually a teacher, to mediate and guide him. If his classmates were loud with some kind of complaint, he tried to listen. And if someone broke the rules, well... He admitted he got more lax about that once he discovered Wei Ying kept a copy of the key to the roof, and when asked about it, he just winked and kissed him against the sunset that very same day.
So on the coldest day of the year, when Wen Chao crowded him with his gang a few blocks from school on one of the few days Wei Ying went off with Jiang Cheng, Wangji was confused. The guy wasn’t in his thoughts, it had been a long time since he confronted him about anything, and as far as he knew, neither had Wei Ying. Still Wen Chao bared his teeth unpleasantly and asked, “Would the class president be so kind as to follow us?”
As he followed the group, who flanked him from all sides, Wen Chao spoke, more to himself than to him. “You know, I knew you were going to be a pain in my ass the moment you were appointed class president, but I thought we could co-exist nice and peacefully, yeah? You kept your bitch of a boyfriend out of my sight and we each minded our own business.”
Wangji’s brows furrowed, but he did not engage.
“So what is my surprise when I get home and my old man is seething with rage at me getting caught smoking at school. Shit, I didn’t even know I got caught, since you didn’t have the balls to talk to me to my face.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Wen Chao whirled around, grabbing him by his collar. In the proximity, Wangji could notice, for the first time, the bruises on his face that Wen Chao didn’t hide as well as he thought he did.
“Oh, you don’t, huh. That’s fine, we can come to an agreement.”
The alley he pushed Wangji into was familiar, filled with good memories. But what waited him there wasn’t any stray animal, but a young man who smiled with a cat’s sharpness in his eyes.
“You see, I don’t know what he’s gonna do to you either, so we’re even.”
The light seemed to catch something in the man’s hand, and Wangji’s eyes widened, his feet backing away towards the entrance of the alley, but Wen Chao pushed him back.
“Oh, don’t worry too much. I just told him I didn’t like your face, so my bet is that he’s just going to mark you a little.”
His henchmen laughed, but Wangji didn’t dare to focus on anyone but the man with the pocket knife. There wasn’t enough space for Wangji to circle him, keep a safe distance, and Wen Chao blocked the passage from where he had come from. If he wanted out of the alley, he’d have to get past the man — or resist. He wasn’t much of a fighter, but he wasn’t non-athletic either. He may not have done much other than class president work since the beginning of high school, but he had won sports competitions in junior middle school.
They thought they could intimidate him, make his legs tremble in the dark and cold, but Wangji was a natural to the dark and the cold, Gusu dusk falling so early it was no wonder that its residents went to bed early as well, longing for the sunlight of the breaking dawn.
Face to face with a threat, Wangji used all his willpower to remain calm and think of his next step. Maybe he could—
The man lunged at him at the same time Wangji’s phone started to ring in his bag, lying on the dirty ground.
Wangji threw himself to the side, very conscious that he hadn’t managed to dodge much. He felt an acute pain on his cheek, and a trail of blood was sure to be making its way down to his chin.
“Score one,” the man said, grinning an excited smile. “I got paid for five scores. But if you move without thinking, I don’t know where they’ll land, so why don’t you be a good boy and stay still, hmm?”
Wen Chao was silent, no doubt just enjoying the show. The man made a few short movements in Wangji’s direction, without really attacking, just to laugh as he flinched and braced himself. Wangji was partially distracted by his phone, alive with Wei Ying’s ringtone, so he missed the millisecond where the man stopped playing around and swung at him again. Once, twice, he cut through the sleeves at his shirt, and Wangji slipped.
Although he winced at the impact, he saw the exact moment the knife was raised over his head, ready to pierce, but he raised his hands just in time — to hold the impact of the man’s wrist and grip the very blade that tried to blind him.
The man let out a low gasp, but as he breathed down on him, Wangji saw no surprise in him. He pushed into Wangji, but not with his whole body, as if it was the very situation of Wangji struggling that he liked to see.
Wen Qing was right, was all that Wangji thought before the whole scene was disrupted by a yell.
“What the fuck are you all doing?!”
Wangji took the distraction with open arms. He felt the pressure on the knife lessen and kicked the man off him, dragging himself through the ground and backing away as best as he could as Wei Ying — it really was Wei Ying’s voice — broke through Wen Chao’s human barrier and ran towards Wangji, kneeling beside him.
“What...” He looked from Wangji’s arms to his hands and his cheek and Wei Ying’s whole face twisted in a way Wangji hadn’t seen before, his head turning towards Wen Chao. “Wen Chao,” he all but snarled, and Wangji held onto his arm with his good hand, still not looking at from the man with the knife.
“Ah, Wei Ying,” the man with the knife said. “Long time no see.”
“Xue Yang,” Wei Ying spat. “You have two seconds before I call the cops.”
“No need. My job here is done and I have no interest in your little high school affairs,” Xue Yang said, a bit too cheerfully. “Send my regards to Mr. Xiao!”
“Get the fuck out!”
He hopped away to the other end of the alley, disappearing from view like a shadow. Hearing more loud voices behind them, Wangji turned his head to see Jiang Cheng grabbing Wen Chao by the collar; none of his henchmen seemed to be around anymore.
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Wen? You got too bored so you wanted to try assault? You want to be fucking detained?”
Wen Chao pried Jiang Cheng’s hands off him like he was nothing. He looked at the face of all three friends, spat, “I didn’t do shit to him,” and proceeded to walk away. Wei Ying was ready to jump on his feet if it wasn’t for Wangji’s hold on him and Jiang Cheng’s glare.
“What, you want to go beat him up so you can join him in at the station? Be my fucking guest, asshole,” Jiang Cheng said, kicking him lightly, before pointing his chin to Wangji. “Are we going to get him to the hospital or not?”
Wei Ying seemed to finally remember that Wangji was bleeding, and for the first time since he barreled into the scene, he didn’t know what to do. Wangji saved him from his panic by finally attempting to stand back on his feet, and Wei Ying helped him, holding onto his forearms. It wasn’t really necessary but he wanted Wei Ying there.
“Are you okay?” Jiang Cheng asked, walking out of the alley so the two of them could do the same. “Do I need to call an ambulance or something?”
“It’s just a few cuts,” Wangji said, feeling Wei Ying’s fingers on his cheek once he was in the light, his heart clenching at how Wei Ying seemed like he wanted to cry when he saw the blood on his hands. “It’s okay,” he said, looking at Wei Ying and not his brother. “I can walk. Maybe I won’t need stitches.”
“Lan Zhan...”
Wei Ying seemed torn between throwing himself at him and staying back, his hands kind of hovering in the air in indecision. Wangji just took a step closer to him, taking his hand in his good one, and Wei Ying let his forehead fall against his shoulder.
“Can we really not implicate Wen Chao in anything?” Jiang Cheng said, starting to walk. “Is the bastard really just gonna walk?”
“Not unless we have proof,” Wangji said, feeling Wei Ying’s hand hold his tighter. Jiang Cheng raised his eyebrows expectantly, but Wangji just said, “I’ve got nothing.”
“Oh, fucking—”
“I can help with that.”
Nie Huaisang approached them. Wangji wouldn’t be able to tell where he had come from. Was he hiding behind a tree...?
His confusion soon slipped away, unimportant, as Huaisang waved his phone at them.
“I couldn’t get the guy in the alley at all, but I’ve got privileged pictures from Wen Chao that are not going to look good once we report this.”
Huaisang’s line got two very synchronized reactions from the Jiang siblings. Wei Ying let go of Wangji to throw his arms around his friend and squeeze, and as he was trapped in that fierce hug, Jiang Cheng slapped him on the head.
“Ow! What was that for!”
“If you have something to say, just say it! Don’t wait around for a dramatic entrance, goddamn it!”
“Brother Huaisang!”
“Guys! Guys! Brother Wangji is still bleeding! Can we just go already?”
In the end, Wangji walked to the hospital with his hand wrapped in one of Huaisang’s handkerchiefs, amid endless chatter and bickering, with Wei Ying clinging to his side, feeling like Wen Chao had given him more with that incident than taken.
It was only after he was safe that Wangji could admit to himself that he felt fear. Why he hadn’t given the feeling his consideration before that was something that he considered discussing with his usual confidantes, but ultimately, he decided, he would take it to his uncle. If he told him what had happened in Yunmeng that day, he would surely transfer him the very same day back to Gusu, using any and every one of his connections to do so, but Wangji didn’t need to be so clear about it. He would never lie to the one family other than his brother that he was still close to, but he would know what to say about the afflictions of the heart and the soul, picking them apart and laying them down so Wangji could reflect and come to his own conclusions. For all of his harsh exterior, for all of his rigid rules, he was intelligent and ever conscious, a man who knew both the limits of himself and the boys he now cared for — young men, who looked up to him for example and guidance. He had sent Wangji far so he could heal, but he could hear him in Xichen’s words even when his brother didn’t name him.
There was much that had him afraid, if he really stopped to ponder it. But sitting on the couch of the Jiang household that evening while everyone cared for him in one way or another, he was most afraid of losing that. So much attention robbed him of all his words, he could only repeat “I’m all right, it’s okay” into the evening, but the circle that he had somehow fallen in was the opposite of the feeling of being cornered that had suffocated him in that alley. Jiang Yanli’s touch on the bandage on his cheek, Jiang Cheng’s scowl as he retold the story, even Jiang Fengmian’s reluctance to hold his wife back as she yelled about making sure Wen Chao got expelled this time; everything wrapped around him like a scarf, like an embrace that he so dearly missed.
“Wei Ying,” he spoke to the figure he could make out in the dark of the boy’s room. The owner of the bed he was trying to sleep on, the owner of the scent that was everywhere and everything. “You should sleep.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said back, voice low and a little bit broken, his own makeshift bed forgotten on the floor as he knelt and rested his upper body next to Wangji. “I can’t sleep. I’m too...”
“Agitated,” Wangji completed for him, trying not to sound as tired as he felt. “I’m fine. I’m not even going to miss school.”
“But—” His voice was too loud for the night, and almost, almost too loud for the other occupants of the house to hear. Wangji’s shushing caused him to become even smaller.
Through the nightlights that shed a glow into Wei Ying’s room, the thin curtains turning the shadows purple like Yu Ziyuan’s lipstick, like Jiang Yanli’s flower hairpins, Lan Wangji visibly set his comforter aside, opening a space that Wei Ying, questioning with only the rise of his head, took no time to fill at Wangji’s equally unvoiced sign.
If the Jiangs found them in each other’s arms, what would they say? What would they think? To everyone, they were just friends. But everyone could also clearly see that through the opposite of their personalities, the loudness of Wei Ying’s voice completed Wangji’s silence, just like his ever moving feet urged Wangji forward, his hands pulling and pushing at the same time in tomorrow’s direction, ever gently and ever insistent, just as Wei Ying was. And Wangji liked to think that his stillness brought Wei Ying a place where he could rest and be, just be, as reflected on the smiles he sent him when there was only the two of them in that classroom, Wei Ying with his arms pillowing his head, not asleep, but looking, seeing Wangji.
To everyone else, they were just friends, but to each other, they...
They held each other close, Wei Ying’s hand drawing patterns on his back, his own fingers gently scratching against Wei Ying’s scalp. His brother used to do it to him, when he was too broken to do anything but lie down with his head on his lap. It brought him the sense of the passing seconds, of the present, and together with Xichen’s shushing and humming, he would stop crying. Wei Ying wasn’t crying but the fierce hold of his arm around him lessened, the rising and falling of his chest falling back to a steady rhythm.
“Lan Zhan,” he spoke in the low voice of the night, and Wangji felt the words tickling his neck. He hummed his response, and Wei Ying continued. “You’re the class president. You can’t get into fights. It’s forbidden, okay?” Wangji hummed again. “I’ll have to keep an eye on you now, so you don’t misbehave again.” He acquiesced again, for Wei Ying’s peace of mind. “Lan Zhan.”
“Wei Ying, sleep.”
“Lan Zhan, when I asked sister what it’s like to like someone, she said that it’s different for everyone.” He kept his head tucked underneath Wangji’s chin, and in the no-space between them, Wangji was sure he could hear his loud heartbeats. “But that you think about them all the time, even when you don’t think you’re thinking about them. That you miss them even if you talk to them all the time, and that you want to tell them everything and give them everything. I thought that sounded too complicated, you know? That I needed time to get all that.”
Though he was still hyperaware of the pounding of his heart and the warmth on his hands and face, Wangji still gave himself a moment to think about Jiang Yanli and how she managed to put so much of the mysteries of the heart into so many little words.
“But when I saw you bleeding today, I... Lan Zhan, you can’t get hurt again, okay? Or you’ll turn me into a delinquent.”
Wangji said nothing, but Wei Ying wasn’t waiting for an answer.
“I don’t want you to get hurt, and I’ve been thinking about your birthday present ever since you told me your birthdate, and I called you today even though I had nothing to say, just because I wanted to hear your voice, and Jiang Cheng called me clingy and ridiculous, but... I never liked anyone before, but I think I like you.”
“You’re not ridiculous,” Wangji spoke into his hair, holding back his desire to smother him into his arms.
“I think I really, really like you.”
“I really like you too.”
“...You do?”
The question was small, unsure, and so endearingly stupid that Wangji had to smile.
“You thought I didn’t?”
“...’m sorry. I didn’t really think before I spoke. But I always felt we were on the same page when we kissed.”
“Don’t apologize. I really like kissing you.” And he kissed Wei Ying’s hair to prove his point.
“Mmn. Like kissing you too.”
But he didn’t move to kiss him. Wei Ying’s hold on him felt lax then, and his voice kept getting muffled by the falling sleep. It appeared to Wangji that all of the confessed feelings were the weight keeping him from floating away into his deserved rest.
“So, are we dating now?”
Wangji pretended to think.
“How long have we been kissing?”
“...Since October?”
“Then we’ve been dating for three months.”
“Whoa.”
He did pull away from Wangji’s embrace then, and in the dim light that briefly showed Wei Ying’s expression, he almost chuckled at the genuine awe on his face.
“Jiang Cheng is going to kill me.”
“Is he?”
“He bet that no one would be crazy enough to date me.”
“I don’t think he’s going to kill you.”
“He’s still going to be so mad.”
“I reckon he’s familiar with the feeling.”
A gasp.
“Lan Zhan, how could you end my little brother like that, huh? I’m too sleepy for fancy words.”
The gentle rumble of a chuckle only heard between them.
“Sleep, Wei Ying.”
“Good night, Lan Zhan.”
“Good night.”
When Yuan asked his father about his school years, his words had color like the changing seasons.
When he asked for guidance with his feelings of anxiety and responsibility, Wangji would tell him that as a class president, he made sure that he made everyone feel heard, and that in doing what he thought was right, with everyone’s feelings in consideration, there would always be a time when at least one person sided with him, and that in that support he found the strength to keep trying his best, like the winter that would always melt into the blooming spring.
When he asked for help with his studies, Wangji would sit with him and walk through all of his problems with him, even though he was a college professor himself, even though he always seemed busy, he would always look for the easiest ways to teach him, like he once did for his classmates, in summer vacations with the fan blowing on their notes, all the way to the falling autumn.
When he asked about what it was like to fall in love, Wangji could tell him that for him, it began on a Monday, the beginning of all beginnings, in the spring of his tenth grade. But Wei Ying, unable to pinpoint the exact manner or time, told their son that if one day his chest hurt when someone wasn’t around, that if he felt safe around them, that if thinking about them made all the days they had known each other feel colorful with every little detail about them, then he’d know what it was like to fall in love.
Yuan didn’t think he understood, but his fathers told him that he would know, eventually.