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Every year, every fucking year on February 14th, Lan Xichen’s office ends up overflowing with flowers. Nie Mingjue knows it comes with being the face of the company, but even for a face as pretty as Lan Xichen’s, the quantity is excessive.
It’s become such an annual event the couriers have banded together and developed a batching system for efficient transport. They have little carts that they wheel in all morning to get through the sheer volume of deliveries.
Lan Xichen weathers the teasing with his usual grace and an embarrassed smile. Nie Mingjue weathers it with a scowl and a short fuse.
At this point, everyone knows to avoid him for the whole day. His foul mood has almost certainly been scheduled in every EA’s calendar for months. The entire office gives him a wide berth, which is convenient because he has his own bouquet to deliver.
It started years ago, back when they were a fledgeling business and working obscene hours to keep their heads above water, long before Lan Xichen had charmed enough of the world to be annually inundated with suitors. Not that they’re limited to Valentine’s Day, but it’s the most obnoxious example.
The comment that sparked it all was idle and passing, and Lan Xichen had probably been joking since they’d spent the morning sharing exasperated glances while their distracted staff gossiped about who would be making overtures, and who would be shot down in flames.
But it felt convincing when, with his chin resting in his hand, Lan Xichen had lamented that they were working so much they’d likely both be single forever, sighed wistfully and said, “I do miss receiving flowers, though.”
Too busy grappling with his sudden impulse to buy out a florist, Nie Mingjue hadn’t been able to play along properly. Lan Xichen had laughed, and honestly, that is still what Nie Mingjue remembers most clearly.
Later that day, in a haze of sentiment, Nie Mingjue ordered an anonymous delivery of plum blossoms, telling himself he chose them at random and not because they are ethereally beautiful or because they look delicate but can withstand the harshest winters. He’d then proceeded to panic for a full twenty-four hours.
But Lan Xichen accepted them the next day with enough delighted surprise that, for a while, it chased the exhaustion from his face entirely.
So every year afterwards, he organised plum blossoms to be delivered on Valentine’s Day, even when their respective responsibilities evolved enough that Nie Mingjue wouldn’t be able to watch Lan Xichen receive them. Even when they would be surely buried under the avalanche of other gifts.
In recent years, during yet another fit of sentimentality, Nie Mingjue began secretly delivering the flowers himself, as some sort of misguided one-upmanship with a bunch of strangers.
It’s particularly idiotic on Nie Mingjue’s part because none of the other people participating in this charade even know Lan Xichen, not really.
Some of them may have wined and dined him for business reasons, but they haven’t stayed up to work with him until the early hours of the morning or sat together in silence drinking tea that tastes bitter with disappointment. They haven’t listened to him play the xiao and curled their hands into fists to stop themselves reaching out because of how beautiful he is when he’s lost in the music. They haven’t burned with pride, watching him absorb the immense pressure of running a company while never, never letting the callousness of the world around them put a dent in his compassion.
Nie Mingjue is well aware of how pathetic this ritual is, he tells himself often. But he’s never more aware of it than when he’s laying thirteen stems of carefully wrapped plum blossoms in the centre of Lan Xichen’s desk and trying to fight the urge to knock every one of the other elaborate arrangements to the floor.
It requires some deep, steady breathing this year, but he manages to calm down. That is until the door swings open and Lan Xichen steps in, pausing when he notices he’s not alone.
Spotting the plum blossoms on his desk, Lan Xichen’s smile falters and morphs into something polite and detached by the time he meets Nie Mingjue’s eyes. It’s not a blow Nie Mingjue had counted on facing today, but he rolls with it because this is his own fault anyway.
“Do you need something?” Lan Xichen asks, stepping through the door and closing it softly behind him.
“Just wanted to check in,” Nie Mingjue says, floundering. But it’s apparently the right thing to say because the corners of Lan Xichen’s eyes crinkle, and he relaxes.
“Everything is fine, Mingjue. You can go home, escape all of this nonsense.” He gestures to the piles and piles of flowers stacked on every available surface and a good portion of the floor.
“You could get them diverted to a hospital or something,” Nie Mingjue says, his jealous asshole of a heart beating heavily in his chest at the thought of his being the only flowers Lan Xichen receives again.
“But then I—” Lan Xichen says, and stops, his eyes catching one the plum blossoms again. “You’re right, of course,” he says. “Silly romantic notions.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Nie Mingjue says. “It would be more practical, so you’d have room to work, at least.” Whatever ground he’d made up initially is forfeited, because Lan Xichen looks remote and uncomfortable again when he nods.
“I’ll do that next year,” he says quietly, still looking at the flowers Nie Mingjue had left on his desk.
Everything about this conversation feels wrong, and not just because Nie Mingjue is doing his level best to pretend his throat isn’t closing over. Lan Xichen is one of the kindest, gentlest people Nie Mingjue has ever met, but he doesn’t back down like this, not when it’s only the two of them. There has never been a time when Lan Xichen has been afraid to disagree, in his own tempered way, so Nie Mingjue is at a loss for why he’s standing here looking defeated and deferential.
Voice rough, Nie Mingjue forces himself to say, “No.”
“No?” Lan Xichen says, raising his eyes and blinking as if caught off guard.
“If you like the flowers, keep them.” Nie Mingjue attempts a shrug, but suspects it comes off as angry more than anything. It shouldn’t matter, he may feel unreasonably possessive, but that doesn’t mean Lan Xichen should suffer for Nie Mingjue’s weaknesses.
Lan Xichen reaches out and lifts the plum blossoms, smiling down at them unhappily. “I like these ones,” he says. “I’ve been getting them for years, since before this started becoming a problem.” He casts a dismissive glance at the rest of the offerings.
“I know,” Nie Mingjue says because he can’t think of anything else. His brain jammed up somewhere around the point where Lan Xichen closed his eyes to inhale the scent of the blossoms.
Taking a deep breath, Lan Xichen watches Nie Mingjue searchingly for a few moments, like he’s making a decision. “I had always hoped,” he says eventually, “that they were from you.”
His voice is quiet and sombre, but it slams into Nie Mingjue like a solid right hook.
“You hoped?” he asks. It feels like something frantic is trying to break out of his chest. It might be his heart. Possibly his common sense.
Lan Xichen nods. “Because at the time you—well. It made sense back then. But you never said anything, so I have since come to the conclusion that I was either mistaken and they are not from you, or if they were, they didn’t mean what I wanted them to mean.”
He gently places the flowers back on his desk and turns back to face Nie Mingjue. “Silly, romantic notions, as I said.” The sorrow is plain on his face, but his gaze doesn’t waver, and Nie Mingjue thinks that this is the bravest man he’s ever known. And that he’s a fool for not taking a chance six years ago.
Lan Xichen has always been the one who can talk to people, to captivate and enchant, and Nie Mingjue has always been the one standing behind him to make sure no one takes advantage of his endless trust and patience. That is to say, Nie Mingjue doesn’t have the words to tell Lan Xichen everything the flowers mean. Nor does he know how to verbalise everything else he feels, has felt all this time.
So he does the only thing that makes sense. He takes Lan Xichen’s face in his hands and kisses him, trying to saturate it with all the things he can’t say and hoping it’ll be enough.
Lan Xichen opens beautifully under him, soft and pliant and astonished.
Nie Mingjue wants to sink into him, to press in and devour. But he holds himself back, keeping the kiss brief and his touches light, even when Lan Xichen gasps against his mouth, and it mortally wounds Nie Mingjue’s self-control.
“It was you,” Lan Xichen breathes. He’s smiling with such tender honesty, Nie Mingjue can only nod helplessly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m an idiot,” Nie Mingjue says, with a mirthless huff of laughter and a brush of his thumb over Lan Xichen’s cheek. Lan Xichen doesn’t argue, but his smile turns fond, and it’s so familiar that Nie Mingjue laughs again, happiness mingling with his awe.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Lan Xichen says, moving closer and wrapping his arms around Nie Mingjue’s waist.
He’s right, there will be plenty of time for Nie Mingjue to berate himself for his cowardice later, for now, he’s going to enjoy the soft skin of Lan Xichen’s neck under his hands and the bright warmth spreading through his chest.
“Will you keep buying me flowers?” Lan Xichen asks.
“As often as you want them,” Nie Mingjue says, and this time, Lan Xichen kisses him.