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‘A bad memory’ is what clings to Wei Wuxian like a personality trait, as if no longer branded into the label of each shirt he wears, but instead tattooed into the skin that covers his current life.
Lan Zhan had always brought it up with a quiet complaint woven into his words, the last time two lifetimes ago; a one sided argument at the poolside, the sound of goggles snapping against the back of his head, and the uneven timbre of his voice echoing against the tiles. And yet it’s him this time, standing on the opposite side of the stage, counting the tape measured steps between them, and wondering if Lan Zhan still puts his left sock on before his right.
In this life, he is Wei Wuxian; bright and talented with his hair cropped shorter, dyed and carefully styled to uphold the image of an idol group member.
(For some reason, he isn’t the visual and petulantly, he chalks this up as an abomination against mankind. Beside him, Huaisang snickers into the palm of his hand indiscreetly and playfully shoots him a wink. ‘After all’, he had said one night, with only the two of them left in the practice room, mirrors steamed up from training, the air con fan whirring underneath his words, ‘the entire dance line can’t be visuals, Xiao Wei. That wouldn’t be fair.’)
It was at KOD where he got off of the stage to a thunderstorm of cheers, drunk off of applause and drunker off of the adrenaline running through his veins; and found himself with a business card pushed into his hand, stamped with the name of an entertainment company that he vaguely recalls seeing on television.
More than anything, it was curiosity that brought him to the glass doors, but that had brought him back to Nie Huaisang in this life, and even after Wei Wuxian collapses onto his bed after another long day of schedules, he finds that he does not taste regret.
On the stage, fourteen metres away, Lan Zhan (Lan Wangji, in this life); up and coming model turned actor turned occasional OST singer (the mic stand between them shook with his distaste for Wei Wuxian); stands with rapt attention, tailored suit making him look like he just stepped out from another photoshoot. Wei Wuxian can’t walk five steps without seeing Lan Wangji’s face stretched out across the skies, and curses twice when he sees his name printed next to his in his first solo shoot in seven months - once, for the inevitable glares that Lan Wangji will shoot his way when Wei Wuxian will tease him; twice, for the stupid feeling that erupts in his stomach at the idea that he will be able to see him again, that he can’t seem to squash down no matter how hard he tries.
Their first meeting, this time around, had been nothing too extraordinary.
A shared waiting room running off of the energy of sleep deprivation and restlessness, and the tension of a string wound too tightly. A bundle of five boys and the clash of Lan Wangji’s silence had created bad impressions that seemed to last longer than entire lifetimes spent together.
And at this, Wei Wuxian tries to keep himself upright; after all, he is no stranger to Lan Zhan’s cold stares, can even admit that at one point he used to thrive in them; but it is the distance that makes him falter. It’s something that he can’t get used to, isn’t sure if he would ever want to.
(Not when this time, he woke up with the memory of Lan Zhan’s hand in his, of Lan Zhan holding him close; not when he can still feel the phantom press of Lan Zhan’s lips against his forehead.)
Like in the previous life, and the one before that, this Lan Wangji gives him a diplomatic nod, and tries to hide the way he grits his teeth in annoyance.
As if the universe is playing a cruel joke on him, Wei Wuxian loses the deciding round of FIFA, is pushed out of the dorm with a face mask, sent on the 2AM snack run to 7eleven, and almost physically bounds into Lan Wangji.
He looks as tall and as handsome as Wei Wuxian remembers him, unfairly so, and even prettier than all the billboards that line the subway stations. No bundle of pixels could ever capture the slope of his nose, the cut of his jaw, and the little furrow in the space between his eyebrows; the way the sharp, artificial lighting of the store catches the hollows of his cheeks.
In turn, Wei Wuxian forgets to catch himself staring.
Behind his mask, Wei Wuxian quirks his mouth into a smile and nods politely in greeting.
“Sorry,” he says, sheepishly, and moves to pick up the fallen packet of shrimp chips. (The bag is crumpled so in the back of his mind, he makes a mental note to give them to Huaisang in a feeble attempt of petty revenge for sending him out here in the first place. It’s pathetic, and he knows, but nothing can be more pathetic than how he feels around Lan Wangji, how his heartbeat stutters, palms clam up, body betraying him when it knows full well that this Lan Wangji does not remember him).
“Let me,” he offers, when Wei Wuxian fails to grab for it, stupidly cradling his snacks, wedged between the crook of his elbow and his chest, and drops another with every attempt.
2AM morphs convenient stores into strange shapes, moulds the muggy air around them into something that Wei Wuxian doesn’t quite understand, and it sits heavy between them after they pay wordlessly and leave the store, the gentle patter of their feet out of step. Beyond the threshold, Wei Wuxian moves to bid goodbye (polite, once again, and with a start, he realises that he’s getting better at it), but he stops mid step.
There’s something there. It’s not quite recognition, but it’s something.
Lan Wangji has his face pulled into something inexplicable, something that doesn’t quite seem like pure discomfort, so Wei Wuxian leaves the seconds to him. Between them, he counts. The distance between their toes; worn slippers, carefully cleaned loafers. Passing cars. Pulses. His heartbeat hammering underneath his skin.
“I-” Lan Wangji stops, casting his gaze back down to their feet and the oceans that stretch across the asphalt. “Wei Wuxian.” And he says it like a reminder more than anything else, like a secret that he is hoarding for himself.
At this, Wei Ying forces himself to smother the hope that blooms in the pit of his stomach.
The seconds pile in on them, cicadas muffling the roaring in his ears, but the moment breaks, and they part with no other words shared, bowing politely (once more) and parting at the fork in the road.
There are 7.8 billion people on this earth and counting, and yet the world catches him by his ankles, throws him off balance, and leads him back to Lan Wangji again.
(Hanging upside down off of the side of his bunk bed to grin stupidly at Wei Wuxian, Huaisang calls it fate. Wei Wuxian calls it a debt to be repaid, and thinks of that moment at Nevernight, hands wet with blood and still helplessly clutching onto his final breaths, Lan Zhan’s shouts rumbling through the skies above him.
Nevernight plagues his dreams when he finally dozes off at an hour creeping closer to 6 in the morning; the panic rushing through his veins, the crashes of swords that climbed in a thundering crescendo, the way Lan Zhan’s voice cracked on the final syllable of his name.)
This is what they’re shaped like now.
Two figures carved into a studio with the staff’s murmurs rumbling beneath the soles of their shoes, and the red ribbon that is looped around Wei Wuxian’s wrist burns.
“I do not hate you,” Lan Wangji says, clipped but eyes distant, his gaze fixed on a spot past Wei Wuxian’s ear. And at this, Wei Wuxian tries not to falter, because this is what his Lan Zhan did all those lifetimes ago, when he did not want to look Jiang Cheng in the eye anymore; had pulled the resentment so closely to his neck that his back was pulled even more rigid in his hostility. “I never hated you.”
‘Perhaps not in the last life, but definitely in this one,’ he wants to refute, feels the words ready to tumble out into the space between them; but instead, he clamps down and gnaws on his lip, and tries to think of a more fitting response. This is another habit he hasn’t managed to shake off no matter the cycle (the fourteenth: how he can’t help but land himself into trouble with Huaisang; the seventh: how he fails in prioritising himself;
the first being how he will continue to chase Lan Zhan through lifetimes).
He could yield. He could keep this up. Could take every word seriously; hold it carefully in his palms and keep things formal between them. Because this is growing up and learning how to let go and accepting that he cannot keep expecting the memories hoarded from five lifetimes ago to fit into the spaces that this Lan Wangji leaves behind.
He could. He could.
He should.
There is nothing but a trail of withered memories left in his wake; dog eared snapshots of Hanguang-jun and Yiling Laozu and an ever growing series of failed attempts. In this life, he should count his blessings; that he can still see Lan Zhan daily; even if the blessing comes in the shape of a painful reminder of eyes that do not recognise him (and an ugly thought that grows with each setting sun that perhaps Lan Zhan is better off without him.)
But Wei Ying has never been one to let things go.
Like a wound that he can’t help but pick, until he presses too far and it infects into a nasty thing with a bad aftertaste, he always finds himself crowding in too close; hands always reaching for Lan Wangji’s sleeves, fingers teasing and probing and poking at his cheeks. In this life, one where perhaps he should let them straddle the line between awkward acquaintances and pleasant work colleagues; in this life, he should-
“It seemed like you hated me when I tried to get you to film that Douyin with me though,” he blurts out, almost like a reflex, laughter dancing in his eyes.
Wei Wuxian expects Lan Wangji to recoil, to hold himself even more stiffly; to give him a look so cold that Wei Wuxian would falter. But instead, he finds himself faced with the barest of smiles (one that he could trick himself into thinking is almost fond.)
Just as this is an old wound that he refuses to let scab over, Wei Wuxian cannot help himself.
(Three rebirths down the line, Lan Zhan will stare at him from across the practice room, will long to reach out to pull him closer, and will not fault him.)