Work Text:
Lan Wangji has put this off as long as he thinks he can. Yuan is past the age when he should have learned, but not so much so that it had drawn the attention of anyone but Lan Xichen, who had given Lan Wangji that awful, pitying half smile of his when he’d said If you do not teach him, Uncle Qiren will.
If Yuan’s first Inquiry receives an answer, Lan Qiren should not be privy to it.
Lan Wangji is not sure what he fears more-- an answer or silence. He had played so many times and received nothing. But as Yuan settles in with his own guqin before him, ready and eager to learn, Lan Wangji can’t help but feel a traitorous flicker of hope-- it would be worth the pain of knowing he didn’t matter, if it meant finding Wei Wuxian’s spirit.
He clenches his jaw. If not for the nagging fear that Lan Qiren would drive Wei Wuxian away, he would not allow himself to play with Yuan, lest the boy understand the desperate desire of Lan Wangji’s heart. It is not a fair burden to place on a child.
“Hanguang-Jun,” Yuan says, voice measured and polite. “I am ready.”
“Mn. Then repeat the notes I play.” Lan Wangi begins, playing melodies that had become as natural to him as breathing. Yuan follows nearly perfectly. He is a precocious child, already growing into a young man that even Lan Quiren cannot find fault in. Lan Wangji goes over the more difficult parts a few times, and then, quicker than even he himself had been as a child, Yuan is ready to channel his spiritual energy.
“Are you certain?” he asks. His voice rises, and for a moment Lan Wangji wonders if he has remembered all the people who might answer his call. But then Yuan smiles, the tiniest bit of pride shining through. Lan Wangji feels the corner of his own mouth twitch upwards. Even if Yuan has forgotten everything before he came to Cloud Recess, he has picked up Wei Wuxian’s easy smile.
“I am always certain.”
Yuan looks down at his guqin and takes a deep breath. His forehead creases as his fingers move over the strings with deliberation. He completes Inquiry with grace, and then the first question: Who are you?
The notes ring out, and fade into silence. The strings remain still. “That was very good,” Lan Wangji says, working to keep his voice even as his heart beats so hard he is sure it will break free of its rib-caged prison. “Please play it once more.”
Yuan plays with greater confidence. Each note bears his will clearly. Still, when his fingers stop, so do the strings.
Again, demands Lan Wangji’s heart. Again, if he will not answer me, he must answer you. Whatever I may have been to him in the end, whatever I may not have been, he loved you. He would not ignore you. You must play it again. But aloud, he merely says, “We should end this lesson here. You are doing very well.”
Yuan bows his head, but hesitates before rising. “Hanguang-Jun… is it true that Inquiry is very important to you?” Lan Wangji stares, and after a moment, Yuan continues. “Some of the other disciples have said you play it often, late at night, even when you travel far for night hunts.”
Were he older, Lan Wangji might tell him the whole truth, but why should a boy so young shoulder such grief? Someday, he would have to, but now Lan Wangji cannot take away his easy smile. “There is someone I would like to reach,” he says carefully. “I have not been successful.”
There is curiosity in Yuan’s eyes, but he does not press the matter. He bows and leaves with his guqin, and Lan Wangji is left alone with his heavy heart.
He plucks the strings of his own guqin again, but this time his question is one he has never dared to ask. Are you really gone? Wei Ying?
As with Yuan, there is no answer.