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Lan Zhan and Wei Ying, his assigned project partner, have negotiated down to a minimal, tasteful use of star-wipe transitions in their final science presentation. Lan Zhan will admit they do add a necessary level of visual engagement to an otherwise businesslike, though not unimpassioned, argument for renewable energy sources. But he had drawn the line at animated word art.
He reviews the slideshow on his phone as he rides the bus to the Jiangs' apartment, where he’s spent all of his Saturday afternoons for a month. Wei Ying had offered to host their research sessions and Lan Zhan had accepted, nervous at the idea of Wei Ying's voice in his quiet house with his uncle's quietly judging glances. And privately, because he's flustered by the thought of a cute boy in his room. It's a feeling that only increases the more time he spends with Wei Ying, a cute boy who asks him questions about himself and wants to hear the answer and who flirts with him outrageously. Too outrageously— Lan Zhan reminds himself— to be real.
It had annoyed him at first, the flirting, along with everything else about Wei Ying. He was the boy across the classroom who whispered during lessons and who tried too hard to be funny, who argued with the teacher and who Lan Zhan's eyes were inexplicably drawn to when he should be looking at the board, even long before this project pushed them in proximity. Though Wei Ying is still all of those things, Lan Zhan has come to know him as something more than an occasional distraction in class. The list of facts he knows about Wei Ying grows, unwritten but kept as carefully as any science notes.
He has a tiny, ill-advised stick-n-poke tattoo of a tiger on his ankle and a bisexual pride flag hung on the back of his bedroom door. His posture shrinks when his aunt walks into the room. He smiles just the smallest bit, like he’s trying not to, when Lan Zhan tells him his ideas for their project are clever. He thinks Lan Zhan is funny. He eats hotchips with chopsticks so his fingers don’t get covered in red dust and is disappointed that Lan Zhan doesn’t recognize the genius of this maneuver (“I’m an innovator, Lan Zhan! Unappreciated in my lifetime!”). Lan Zhan can almost taste artificial spice whenever he imagines kissing him, which has become distressingly often.
He gets so wrapped up such imaginings, presentation forgotten and a phantom tingle on his lips, that he only narrowly avoids missing his stop. His face is hot with a private embarrassment as he stumbles out of the door as gracefully as he can manage. The breeze, unseasonably cool for the beginning of summer, feels good on his flushed skin as he makes his way through Wei Ying's neighborhood.
Lan Zhan pulls out his phone once he reaches the steps up to Wei Ying's doorway. He could just knock, but that means a roll of the dice on which Jiang gets to the door first. Wei Ying's aunt seems terribly inconvenienced at all times. Jiang Yanli is friendly and wears pretty sundresses, but her smile is so genuine it makes Lan Zhan's every move feel cold and blunt in comparison. He has walked away from their every interaction feeling guilty. Jiang Cheng had opened the door without so much as a greeting and simply shouted, Wei Ying, your guy's here, before returning to whatever it is he does. All awkward encounters he does not want to repeat, so he sends a text.
Lan Zhan: I'm here.
Wei Ying🌶️: yay!!!!!!!!!! \o/✨✨
Wei Ying🌶️: omw down!!!!
A few weeks ago, Lan Zhan might have read this abundance of exclamation points as sarcasm. But Wei Ying has always seemed truly excited to see him, to Lan Zhan’s utter bafflement.
...It's nice.
Wei Ying opens the door in dark red jeans and a worn gray swim team t-shirt, just this side of too small. His chest heaves beneath it, presumably from having just run down the stairs. He's always in such a hurry. His long hair is down and framing a wide-eyed smile, which Lan Zhan is momentarily too dazzled by it to be suspicious of its cause.
"Do you wanna go to the pier with me?" Wei Ying asks in place of a greeting, words rushed in his excitement.
Lan Zhan blinks, processing the unexpected words while doing his best to ignore the stretch of Wei Ying's t-shirt over his shoulders. "What?"
"The pier, Lan Zhan! It just opened for the summer and it's a beautiful day and Jiejie is spending it with her stupid boyfriend and his stupid family so I don't have anybody to win stuffed animals for."
"The project?" Lan Zhan prompts, in case of the very real possibility that Wei Ying had simply forgotten about it.
"We're done! We were just gonna practice presenting today, right? Well, you already do everything flawlessly and my natural stage presence and sex appeal will carry me through."
Lan Zhan narrows his eyes. "What does sex appeal have to do with wind turbines?"
At this, Wei Ying slides one hand up the doorframe, the other placed on his jutted out hip. "Oh, so you don't argue that I have sex appeal?"
"Wei Ying," he says, voice flat as a pressed penny.
He drops his pose with the same curl of his lip he always wears when Lan Zhan refuses to play along with him. "Please go with me? I promise you'll have fun. When's the last time you did something just for fun? Serious question. Because I have a feeling it's been a while."
Suddenly defensive, Lan Zhan casts around in his brain for something to throw back, something fun to prove that he's not as boring as Wei Ying is implying. He enjoys playing his violin. He likes running track, is good at it and has the trophies to prove it. He plays Animal Crossing most days after school before starting his homework (He's just finished crossbreeding enough blue hyacinths to line the path between Dotty and Ruby's houses). But he knows that isn't what Wei Ying is asking. He tries to think of the last time he did something spontaneous and exciting, something special, and truly can't remember.
When he looks up again, he half expects Wei Ying to mock him. Instead he asks once more, genuine and hopeful, "Please?"
"Can I leave my backpack here?" Lan Zhan asks in return.
"Really?" Wei Ying gasps, ignoring the question for the 'yes' underneath.
"I don't want to bring my laptop," Lan Zhan explains, just to be stubborn as he shrugs off one shoulder strap.
Wei Ying drops the bag just inside the door with a bit less care than Lan Zhan would have preferred before shutting it behind him. He grabs him by the wrist and rushes him right back to the bus stop he had just left, as if he thinks them arriving sooner will make the bus do the same. It won't, but Lan Zhan lets himself be led anyway. Wei Ying fills the time by chattering, pausing only briefly to greet the driver after the bus hisses to a stop in front of them.
“I love going to the pier. My uncle used to take us every summer," Wei Ying says, having directed them to sit in the raised area at the back. Lan Zhan tries not to stare too obviously at the place where their thighs touch as he listens, the accidental human closeness of public transport bringing on a different kind of torture than usual. "It's really pretty at night when all the lights are on. I’m gonna drag Jiang Cheng with me this summer when we’re not on lifeguard duty. He thinks he’s too cool to hang out with me now that he’s got a learner's permit but he’s wrong!”
Lan Zhan gives his usual listening-noises in response, but says nothing. For him, the approach of summer has taken on a mournful sort of tinge lately (yet another thing that makes him an odd teenager). It seems inevitable that this new friendship will fizzle out into nothing when Wei Ying is no longer required to spend time with him. Lan Zhan doesn’t have much experience in maintaining relationships not already cemented by shared DNA. And so he resolves to content himself with the occasional brush of legs while Wei Ying still has a reason to sit next to him.
But then Wei Ying leans across him to pull the stop chord, takes hold of his wrist before the bus's doors even open, and takes off in the direction of Lotus Pier— its location in the skyline marked by a ferris wheel that Lan Zhan absolutely does not trust— and it's hard to be sad about much of anything. Wei Ying only relinquishes his hold once they've passed under an entryway adorned with pink lights in the shape of a lotus flower, sidewalk giving way to boardwalk. Already Lan Zhan can see lots of couples holding hands as they walk. He takes some secret satisfaction in the idea that for a moment, from a distance, he and Wei Ying must have looked like one of them.
The air here smells like popcorn and lake water. The clouds have parted and the sun beats down hot enough that Lan Zhan undoes the top button of his shirt's henley neckline (It's technically a woman's blouse, light and loose-fitting and subtle. He plans to broaden his wardrobe further once he's no longer subjected to the daily trials of high school). Wei Ying, also affected by the sudden heat, draws his long hair up into a half-ponytail with a bright red scrunchie taken from around his wrist. The ponytail wiggles with his steps as he leads them down the boardwalk, past food stalls and souvenir stands. Lan Zhan pushes aside the stupid, childish impulse to pull it.
Wei Ying rubs his hands together, greedy as he surveys the stretch of pier before them, brightly colored game stalls lining either side. He spins around to look at Lan Zhan, ponytail swinging. "Which do you wanna watch me win first?"
Lan Zhan looks around, watches a man bounce a basketball off the rim of an undersized hoop and walk away without even the smallest of the Pokémon plushes on display, and questions the whole pursuit. Surely Wei Ying brought them here for more than just this? "These games are usually rigged in some way. You should keep your money."
"What?" Wei Ying fully gasps, scandalized. "No, dude, I could do this shit blindfolded. Just wait, you’re gonna be so impressed."
"Impress me with your fiscal responsibility," Lan Zhan deadpans. Wei Ying laughs, surprised and delighted. Lan Zhan turns his head out to the water to hide his smirk. He thinks I'm funny, he sighs in his head, pleased by the thought and a little delirious with it every time it is proven true.
"Ah, Lan Zhan, I knew you only loved me for my money," Wei Ying sighs dejectedly. "Well, that and my sweet, sweet bod."
Lan Zhan's answering laugh is little more than a forceful exhale through his nose, easily missed. Or it would be, if Wei Ying wasn't looking right at him, a small smile pulling at his lips. It embarrasses Lan Zhan somehow, Wei Ying catching him in the act of laughing. It also makes some clenched thing at the bottom of his chest loosen just a fraction. He wonders vaguely, distantly, if that's what it feels like to be seen naked. Wei Ying leans in, conspiratorial.
"Lan Zhan, I'm gonna win you a bear like we're a white heterosexual couple in a movie from the 1950's," he vows, as solemn as if they were on a battlefield instead of a boardwalk. Almost immediately the serious facade cracks into another smile, and again Wei Ying tells him, "You're gonna be so impressed."
"I don't need a bear," Lan Zhan protests, already imagining where he'll keep it in his room. How would he ever truly turn down anything Wei Ying handed him?
Oblivious to this, Wei Ying sighs. "Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll make you a bet. I've got ten bucks in this pocket." He noisily slaps his own thigh to illustrate before setting them walking again, appraising the games they pass by as they speak. "Ten bucks' worth of tries, and I'm gonna win you one of those weird Rasta bananas at least. If I don't, we'll go back to my place and practice our PowerPoint. Sound fair?"
Lan Zhan is developing a rebuttal (more for the sake of argument than any real objection) when a distracting hand on the small of his back hustles him past some game involving a tragic array of live goldfish in tiny little bowls. If Wei Ying feels his sharp intake of breath, he does not mention it, perhaps assuming it's one of sympathy for the fish (It is a little bit, but it's mostly the touching. Apologies, fish).
The hand drops a moment later, casual as if nothing happened. It takes Lan Zhan yet another moment or two after the touch leaves him to ask, "And if you win?" He's not made many bets in his life, but this one seems suspiciously unbalanced.
Wei Ying takes a break from eyeing some kind of ring-toss (apparently inadequate for his purposes, as they do not stop walking) to look at Lan Zhan with a tilt of his head. "Then we get a bear or whatever."
Lan Zhan suppresses a roll of his eyes. "Not the game. The bet."
"Ah, that," he laughs. His focus shifts to Lan Zhan's face once again, playful but searching. Lan Zhan gets the feeling he is sizing up his odds, like Lan Zhan is himself a new, challenging carnival game. The same naked, looked-at feeling hits him until Wei Ying laughs again, loud and sudden. "How about this? If I win, I get a kiss on the cheek. Like white heterosexuals in a 50's movie, you know?" He taps his own cheekbone for emphasis.
A flash of annoyance and Lan Zhan lets this eye-roll go unfettered. It's this brief window of unrestraint that allows him to say, acknowledging it out loud in a way he never planned to, "You shouldn't flirt so much when you don't mean it."
"Hey." Wei Ying bumps Lan Zhan's shoulder with his own. "Who says I don't mean it?"
Lan Zhan opens his mouth to speak, but a soft gasp from Wei Ying cuts him off before a response can formulate. He follows his eyeline to yet another game just as Wei Ying's fingers grasp onto his rolled up sleeve, tugging him towards it.
"Darts, Lan Zhan! Oh, I'm great at those, c'mon!"
Thrown but a little bit relieved by the sudden change in topic, Lan Zhan lets himself be pulled along. He stands a step behind Wei Ying as he takes in the colorful array of prizes hung up around them. There are indeed some questionable stuffed bananas with dreadlocks, and above them a row of oversized unicorn plushes. The game is manned by a bored-looking girl a little older than the two of them.
Wei Ying slaps two dollar bills onto the counter. "Your finest darts, please, madam."
Three darts are slid across the counter, Lan Zhan suspects without much of the requested regard for their quality. Wei Ying looks over his shoulder and holds the plastic dart up, close to Lan Zhan's face.
“You have to blow on it for good luck.” At Lan Zhan's blank stare, he explains, “You know, like dice! Vegas, baby.”
Something in him startles to attention at Wei Ying calling him "baby," even as an offhand joke. He deals with it the best way he knows how, by ignoring it completely.
"Ugh, you never play with me," Wei Ying grumbles without much heat. He turns back around to send the dart flying with a flick of his wrist.
The first dart hits the outermost ring of the board. The second only barely edges out the first. Lan Zhan's heart sinks. He hopes with an intensity that surprises him that Wei Ying was joking about going home if he loses. Lan Zhan does not want to prepare cue cards on the merits of solar farms, not now that he's here. But how to say, No, I want to stay out in the sun with you, without giving too much away? Perhaps he should've just blown on the dart. He does not feel particularly lucky.
Eyes on the literal prize, Wei Ying is oblivious to his inner turmoil. "Oh, I see how it is," he mumbles as he picks up his third and final dart. "I'm about to fill the giant unicorn-shaped hole in your life, Lan Zhan, just you wait."
Lan Zhan watches him in profile as he draws his arm back and shifts the weight of the projectile in his hand. His eyes narrow at the target. He's handsome when he's focused, Lan Zhan thinks, just as he looses the dart from his fingertips. It pierces the cork with a thunk.
Attention fixed on Wei Ying, it takes Lan Zhan a moment to notice the dart's point of impact. The rings of the target seem to radiate out from it like a ripple in water. It's a perfect bullseye.
Wei Ying steps back until they're standing shoulder to shoulder, a smug look on his face as he meets Lan Zhan's eyes. His uncharacteristic silence is more of a brag than any combination of words he could say. It's just a silly game but he does, somehow, make winning it look... Cool. Lan Zhan is, inexplicably, despite himself, impressed. He only barely rolls his eyes when Wei Ying gives a flourishing bow.
Across the counter, the girl reaches up and begins to pull down a big pink unicorn.
"Actually, can he get the blue one?" Wei Ying interjects before she can hand it over.
It really should be no surprise that Wei Ying knows his favorite color— Lan Zhan wears something blue nearly every day— but it’s this that finally pulls the corner of his mouth up despite the game attendant’s put-out huff. She hands the stuffed animal to Wei Ying, who spins to present it to Lan Zhan, thrusting it towards him with both hands.
“You’re smiling,” he says, still a little smug as Lan Zhan accepts it.
Lan Zhan says nothing, but ignores the urge to smother the smile now that it's been seen. Maybe it's not so bad if Wei Ying sees it. Still he feels compelled to point out, turning the unicorn's face up to Wei Ying in demonstration, "It's not a bear."
Wei Ying just throws back his head and laughs. "Yeah, I guess it's not. Got me there. C'mon, there's still more pier to see."
Lan Zhan shifts his prize onto his hip like a small child to keep it from dragging on the boardwalk as he follows Wei Ying's lead. He doesn't know if there's a plan anymore now that Wei Ying has accomplished his self-imposed mission. But he does know that he can feel it when Wei Ying's eyes keep flicking to him as they walk, which thrills and confuses him in equal measure.
"Well?" Wei Ying finally prompts. He angles his face, tilting his cheek expectantly in Lan Zhan's direction. “We had a bet, didn’t we? I won a game for you and I still have cash left to get us on the ferris wheel.”
"We're not going on the ferris wheel," Lan Zhan answers, addressing the easiest part first. It occurs to him he had never quite agreed to their bet's terms, not out loud. He could simply say that. He's surprised Wei Ying remembers even bringing it up in the first place. This jokingly offered kiss should be as easy to shut down as a ride on a rickety ferris wheel. But...
But this is his chance. Wei Ying has offered him a pass in the form of a wiggling eyebrow and a sun-browned cheekbone. He can indulge just a sliver of this big, stupid crush, embarrassing and unwieldy in its enormity, all with the plausible deniability of holding up his end of a bargain.
And yet still, even with Wei Ying offering, Lan Zhan can't ignore the possibility that it's all just a joke. He could lean in only to watch Wei Ying reel away in disgusted shock that Lan Zhan would ever think he was serious. It's a fear that not even the chorus of Hey, who says I don't mean it? playing in Lan Zhan's head can dismiss.
A few wordless seconds tick by in his indecision and Wei Ying straightens, teasing smirk fading. He looks almost... sad. It looks so wrong that Lan Zhan has no choice but to scramble to fix it. On impulse, his body moving before his brain can veto, Lan Zhan presses the unicorn's snout to Wei Ying's cheek and puckers his lips into the air, making the noise of a kiss.
Wei Ying turns to him, eyes wide and an alarming shade of red creeping across his cheeks. "I— You— Lan Zhan, oh my god." He pulls his swim team t-shirt up over his flushed face and Lan Zhan steals a glance at the bared skin of his stomach. "Oh my god. Oh, no."
"Wei Ying?" A potent mix of fear and embarrassment crawls up Lan Zhan's spine that even that was too much. It was too much and he still wants to place his hand flat on Wei Ying's stomach, to splay his fingers wide to cover as much surface area of skin as he can. Wei Ying's covered head shakes and emits a noise not dissimilar to a steaming tea kettle.
"You're so cute. Fuck, you're so cute." There's the sound of a deep, steadying inhale and Wei Ying's face pops back out of his collar, still red. He claps his hands together. "Okay! Okay, I'm good. All good. Recovered. Anyway! Let's get some food, yeah? I want something deep fried. Or do you wanna play more games? Ooh, I bet you'd be good at the Test Your Strength machine. If I just wanna watch you swing a sledgehammer around, that's my business."
Lan Zhan nods, a little stunned by the display. "Okay."
He's not sure which suggestion he's agreeing to. Maybe all of them. All he knows is that Wei Ying called him cute. Wei Ying thinks he's cute.
"Okay," Wei Ying says back, smiling as his hand finds its customary place on Lan Zhan's wrist. He leads him on down the boardwalk to wherever he wants to go.
By the time they leave the pier the sky is a deep lavender, like one of Wei Ying's sister's sundresses, and Lan Zhan should be getting home. He hardly ever stays out past sundown. He's a pleasant sort of tired, sunbaked and sugar-sticky from the cotton candy Wei Ying insisted he try ("Look, Lan Zhan, I'll even give you the blue half!"). Wei Ying must feel the same, if the way his shoulder slumps against Lan Zhan's on the ride back to his neighborhood is anything to go on.
The walk back to the bus stop from the Jiang's apartment (the destination of a brief detour to retrieve Lan Zhan's things) is unusually quiet given Wei Ying's presence, serene if not for the ridiculousness of Lan Zhan carrying a big blue stuffed unicorn with him. The most comfortable means of doing so turns out to be a hug around its middle, which Wei Ying clearly finds delightful.
Wei Ying does not usually walk him after their homework sessions, but he does tonight. Lan Zhan can't help but think of how nice it would be if they held hands. He's had this thought several times over the course of the day, especially in the moments when Wei Ying held on to his wrist. Perhaps he could've made it happen. All it would have taken is a quick readjustment and some courage. He'd already made one bet that day, why not gamble some more? Wei Ying thinks he's cute after all. But each time, Wei Ying had let go before he could work up the gumption. At the end of the day, Lan Zhan is not a gambling man.
They reach their destination before long, hands to themselves the whole way. He expects Wei Ying to bid him goodbye, turn around, and head home, but he lingers wordlessly at Lan Zhan's side beneath the streetlight that illuminates the bus stop. For maybe the first time in his life, Lan Zhan feels the urge to break a silence.
"Today was... good," he offers, drawing Wei Ying's eyes up from studying the concrete.
"Yeah? Ah, cool. I'm really glad. I had a really good time." He nudges a pebble off the curb with the rubber toe of his shoe. There are little sharpie drawings on his sneakers. Lan Zhan is wondering how he hadn't noticed that until now when Wei Ying asks, "Do you still wanna come over next Saturday?"
Lan Zhan only then remembers their project, the reason he came here in the first place. He had forgotten about it. It seems Wei Ying has as well. "We'll have already presented our assignment by then."
Wei Ying laughs a little as he rubs at the bridge of his nose. "I know, I know, but we've got a tradition going now, right? You come over, I bother you for a couple hours, you tolerate it and go home. You like a routine, and I like hanging out with you— Seems like a win-win scenario to me. If you're, y'know, free.”
A short while ago, Lan Zhan would have never imagined that a phrase as simple as I like hanging out with you could devastate him so completely. Wei Ying thinks he is funny and cute, and he likes hanging out with him. It feels almost indescribably good to hear these things, the feeling only amplified by its newness. He wants to make Wei Ying feel good too, especially in the face of such self-deprecation.
The most he can muster is, “You don’t bother me."
"What?" Wei Ying scoffs. He levels him with a skeptical look. "Yeah, I obviously do. I bother you all the time. I make a concerted effort to bother you, Lan Zhan, maybe you've noticed."
Oh, he's noticed. His eyes narrow at the memory of inappropriate drawings left in unattended notebooks.
Wei Ying smirks as he points at his face, his point proven. "See?"
Yes, but— "I don't mind it. Not really." This too is an understatement. He wraps his arms a little tighter around the stuffed animal Wei Ying made him spend the afternoon carrying. He amends, voice quiet as if to make the admission feel smaller, "I like it."
"Oh." Wei Ying's smirk fades into one of the small, private smiles he never wears to school. "Ah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan."
“The usual time?” Lan Zhan asks, grasping for the lifeline that is scheduling. Scheduling is safe and easy and doesn't at all resemble a confession.
Wei Ying, unwittingly showing a complete lack of mercy, does not answer him right away. He simply stands there, looking at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan has no choice but to look right back. He opens his mouth to say Wei Ying's name, a gentle reminder that he asked a question, but his thoughts are derailed when Wei Ying's eyes drop down to his parted lips. They rest there for only a moment, just long enough to notice, before darting away.
He finally answers, his head nodding and his voice overloud after the seconds of silence, "Yeah! The usual time, yeah, yes."
Lan Zhan gives a nod back. They've reached an agreement— next Saturday, the usual time— and Wei Ying is still standing here at the bus stop, even though he does not need to be.
They wait there together, the space between them filled by an awkward silence, an overstuffed unicorn, and the knowledge that Wei Ying has looked at Lan Zhan's mouth.
Lightning-quick and so very awkward, Wei Ying stoops to kiss the unicorn's fuzzy blue nose before he all but runs away, tossing behind him a hurried, “See you Monday!”
Lan Zhan shuts his eyes against the tidal wave of affection that washes over him for the boy currently fleeing down the sidewalk, powerwalking as though his young life depends on it. It is good that Wei Ying finds him cute. The feeling is enormously mutual. He opens his eyes again to watch his retreating back, half-ponytail swaying behind him.
Just before he rounds the corner, Wei Ying looks over his shoulder. He catches Lan Zhan staring. Perhaps if they were in class or if Wei Ying were about fifty feet closer, he would try to pretend he wasn't looking at him at all. But they are not and he isn't, so Lan Zhan just keeps looking, even if it's embarrassing to be caught. Wei Ying waves. Lan Zhan wiggles one the the unicorn’s legs in return. Wei Ying buries his face in his hands and walks faster.
Lan Zhan is beginning to suspect that Wei Ying— loud, argumentative, charming Wei Ying— is secretly shy. The thought brings a smile to his face. He feels like a grinning idiot when the bus finally arrives, though the driver most likely only sees a stoic young man who also happens to be carrying a unicorn. Curiously, one teenage boy with a giant stuffed animal gets more stares on public transport than two teenage boys with a giant stuffed animal.
He gets one more stare when he arrives at home. Uncle is sitting in the living room, reading a book and drinking tea when Lan Zhan enters the apartment, his carnival prize passing through the door first.
Lan Qiren pauses, mug raised halfway to his mouth. "What is that?"
Lan Zhan looks from his uncle to the plushie. "A unicorn."
Uncle blinks in silent confusion. Lan Zhan takes this as his cue to flee, ascending the stairs as hurriedly as one can without giving the appearance of hurry.
In the safe harbor of his bedroom, he takes a seat on his bed. The unicorn is sat politely next to him. Lan Zhan maintains dignity for all of three seconds before he buries his face in cheap blue fabric to muffle a pathetic little whine.
He should've kissed Wei Ying. He should've kissed him. He should've kissed him. If he had only—
A knock on the door startles him out of his rare moment of weakness. He drops the stuffed animal over the side of his bed as though the thing is evidence of a crime, ignoring the absurd pang of guilt he feels for mistreating it.
"Yes?" he calls, once he feels like it's no longer obvious that he was moping about a boy (Though he will admit, whining about one's problems does feel good. He understands why Wei Ying does it so much.)
Lan Huan ducks his head into the room.
"Did you have fun studying?" It’s not uncommon for Lan Huan to check in with him like this but lately he looks much too knowing for Lan Zhan’s liking, even before his double-take at the unicorn on the floor. He raises one eyebrow a careful increment. "Who's your friend there?"
"Lotus Pier reopened today." This explanation is insufficient, judging by his brother's patiently blank look, so Lan Zhan adds, "Wei Ying is very good at darts."
Lan Huan takes a beat to absorb this information, steps into the room, and closes the door behind him with a soft click. Lan Zhan has long stopped puzzling over his brother's selective regard for his privacy. He asks, voice low and the beginnings of a proud smile on his face, "A-Zhan, did you just go on a date?"
"No," Lan Zhan answers instantly, trying and failing not to sound like a child accused of having a crush. He thinks again of the look on Wei Ying's face just before they parted ways, when he looked at Lan Zhan's lips and maybe even thought about them— when Lan Zhan should've kissed him. "I don't... think so."
Lan Huan opens his mouth, no doubt to dispense some older-brotherly advice that Lan Zhan certainly appreciates in theory, but is interrupted by the buzz of Lan Zhan's phone. It vibrates again as both of them look at it, as if in response to the attention. Lan Zhan looks back to his brother, ignoring his phone even as it persistently buzzes again, and again.
Lan Huan ends the standoff, diplomatically opening the door to leave. "I'll leave you to it."
Lan Zhan picks up his phone the moment the door clicks shut.
Wei Ying🌶️: hey! Sorry we didn't practice the presentation togehter today
Wei Ying🌶️: *together
Wei Ying🌶️: I'll practice on my own tho!!! Promise!!
The last message is accompanied by a picture of Wei Ying throwing up a peace sign in front of his computer (He does this often, claiming that it is somehow linked to his bisexuality). The monitor displays the title slide of their PowerPoint and backlights Wei Ying's goofily grinning face. The angle is as unflattering as the lighting. It's a ridiculous picture. Lan Zhan is utterly charmed. It's probably inappropriate to save it, he thinks, but only for long enough to close the app, immediately reopen it, and save it anyway.
Lan Zhan: It's fine. I will practice on my own as well.
Should he send a picture back? Reading his own response, he sounds more like a stuffy professor than a peer, let alone a friend or... anything else. He reopens the photo of Wei Ying. He closes it, types out the word You and watches the little line blink expectantly at him. He stares at his phone, at a loss for words in two languages and a library of emojis he does not fully understand how to use.
Another burst of messages rescues him from his paralysis.
Wei Ying🌶️: But hey!! now you've got another study buddy!🦄 You're very lucky, unicorns are incredibly studious creatures
Wei Ying🌶️: I've seen two of the lotr movies so i'm a bit of an expert in western mythology
Wei Ying🌶️: You don't actually have to keep it though ahaha
Wei Ying🌶️: The unicorn i mean
Lan Zhan: No, I'm keeping it.
Camera app opened in selfie mode, Lan Zhan picks the stuffed animal up from the floor where he had so cruelly dumped it and carefully arranges it in his lap. He holds the phone out at arm's length and takes a photo, centered on the unicorn. Only the bottom half of his face is shown. He wonders if maybe he should take another where he pouts his lips a little, then feels immediately ridiculous and sends the picture with lips unpouted. What is this boy doing to him?
Less than a minute later, Lan Zhan receives a blurry picture of what he eventually deciphers to be Wei Ying flopped against his bed (Lan Zhan blushes all alone in his room at the knowledge that he can recognize Wei Ying's sheets) with an arm thrown haphazardly over his face.
Wei Ying🌶️: This kills the man, Lan Zhan
Lan Zhan: Do not die, please.
Wei Ying🌶️: Uggghh fine if you insist
Wei Ying🌶️: I guess it would be a dick move to make you do the presentation by yourself huh?
Wei Ying🌶️: Anyway i'll leave you alone now, you had to put up with me all day and isn't it almost your bedtime anyway??
Lan Zhan: It's 6:43 p.m.
Wei Ying🌶️: right right so you must be getting sleepy being up so late
Wei Ying🌶️: Night gege!!😊🌙✨Sweet dreams!!
Lan Zhan: ...
Lan Zhan: Good night, Wei Ying
Lan Zhan: 🙂
Lan Zhan spends his next Saturday on Wei Ying's Animal Crossing island. In real life, he is sitting shoulder to shoulder with Wei Ying on his bed.
Their assignment has already been completed, presented, and graded (A+, as to be expected) and Lan Zhan is in Wei Ying's room again. For no reason. Wei Ying just wanted him to come over. And so he did, whiling away the afternoon hours playing video games at his friend's place. Lan Zhan feels remarkably like a teenage boy. Still, it's a little strange being here without his school things, nothing safe and impersonal to fall back on when he can't think of what to say. He hopes Wei Ying won't suddenly realize he's just as boring as he appears at first glance. He surreptitiously scatters some bells around Wei Ying's island, something like a bribe.
It's the in-game clock chiming just at the end of Wei Ying's haunted house tour that finally alerts Lan Zhan to the time. He looks up from their two screens to see that the sky outside of Wei Ying's bedroom window has gone dark.
"I should be heading home," Lan Zhan says, a note of regret barely audible in his voice. He does not technically have a curfew as there has never quite been a need for one, but his family might start to worry if he is out for much longer. Well, Uncle might worry. Lan Huan knows where his brother is.
Wei Ying clicks a few buttons and his character does a sad little animation. He pulls the same cartoony face in real life for good measure, with surprising accuracy. "Look how sad we are, Lan Zhan."
Lan Zhan drops another bag of bells in apology.
He takes care to save his game as (digital) Wei Ying runs circles around him and smacks him with his bug net. He shuffles to the foot of (real life) Wei Ying's bed to find his bag, into which he carefully zips his Switch.
"Can I walk you to the bus stop?" Wei Ying asks. His long legs swing into view as he joins Lan Zhan at the edge of the bed. He's wearing shorts, leaving the little tiger on his ankle in plain view. Lan Zhan would like to run his thumb over it, see if the tattooed skin there feels different to the touch.
He refocuses on collecting his things before he can be caught eyeing his friend's legs, and gives an answering hum in the affirmative.
At the doorway, stepping into their shoes, Wei Ying surprises him with, "Thanks for coming over."
A perfectly normal thing to say, banal even, but Lan Zhan finds himself oddly touched by the polite words. The fact that they come from this boy, balancing unsteadily on one foot as he laces himself into a pair of sharpied Converse, only deepens their meaning. No one has ever thanked him for spending time with them.
"Thank you for inviting me," he answers, and hopes it sounds as sincere as he means it.
They leave the Jiang's and start out towards the bus stop, lapsing into a quiet not unlike the last time they walked this way. The lull in conversation is a change of pace from the afternoon's chatter, but not a bad one. Maybe something about evenings makes Wei Ying contemplative. Maybe he talks himself out during the day, his well deeper than Lan Zhan's by miles but not as bottomless as it appears. They reach their destination in companionable quiet that Lan Zhan is reluctant to let go of for the night.
"Hey," Wei Ying says, when Lan Zhan was preparing for a goodbye.
"Hey," he echoes, a little thrown but pleased for the extra moments.
"Do you wanna hang out this summer?" Wei Ying asks. The words are hurried, exhaled as if preceded by a deep breath. "We could go to the pier again. You had fun, right? We could go at night when it's pretty. Or we could do other stuff! We could go the movies, or museums, or go swimming. Do you know how to swim? I could teach you if you—"
"Yes." Lan Zhan is not in the habit of interrupting, but the word seemed to expand in his chest with Wei Ying's every suggestion until it demanded to be set free. "Yes."
The corner of Wei Ying's mouth twitches. "Yes, you know how to swim?"
"Yes, I would like to hang out with you this summer." He wants desperately for Wei Ying to take him to the pier again. Maybe this time they'll hold hands, palm to palm, fingers interlaced as Wei Ying pulls him along to whatever catches his eye. He might even let Wei Ying talk him into riding the ferris wheel. Maybe Wei Ying will hold his hand tighter while they're up high.
"Cool," Wei Ying sighs, aiming a brilliant little smile at the ground. "That's really cool. You're really cool. I like you a lot."
Lan Zhan steps forward and places a kiss on his cheek. A week late is better than never.
Wei Ying raises a hand halfway to his own face before catching himself. His cheeks are red. "What was that for?"
"My end of our bet. Apologies for the delay."
"Oh. Do you—" He's cute when he's shy. But it's not long before the smile Lan Zhan knows, lopsided and teasing, pushes through. He looks up through his eyelashes, a caricature of coyness. "Do you think if I win you another stuffed animal, I can get a kiss on the lips? I did promise you a bear after all."
He's joking around of course, flustered and trying to fluster Lan Zhan back. But Lan Zhan doesn't want to wait that long. Honest, he tells him "I don't need prizes to want to kiss you."
"Wow. You mean to tell me," Wei Ying starts, smile growing ever wider despite the mock suspicion in his voice. "You like me for more than my carnival game skills? Sounds fake but okay."
"Well," Lan Zhan says, voice kept carefully flat, "That and your sweet, sweet bod."
The laugh that startles out of Wei Ying is loud in the night, percussive above the hum of summertime bugs and the electric buzz of the bus stop light. His hands come up to cover his eyes as his laughter fades enough to speak through. "Oh my god. Oh my god. You're not allowed to be funny anymore. I forbid it. I can only handle so much at once, Lan Zhan, you gotta give me a break. You either have a stop being funny, or stop being smart and smelling good and caring about animals and—"
When Lan Zhan takes a gentle hold of Wei Ying's wrists to pry his hands from his face, it has the unexpected side effect of stopping him talking. They spend a frozen moment like that, eyes silently locked with Wei Ying's hands held up by Lan Zhan's in the space between them. Tentatively, Wei Ying settles his palms on either side of Lan Zhan's face.
He can't say which of them is the first to lean in, but in the next second Lan Zhan is kissing a boy on the lips— a cute boy who has a tattoo and draws on his shoes and wants to take him out to the movies. Wei Ying does not taste like hotchips, Lan Zhan notes with some relief. This closed-mouth press of their lips does not taste like much of anything. He will have to adjust his daydreams accordingly. That'll be no hardship as every part of this is better than his daydreams, down to the flutter he can faintly feel in the pulse-points beneath his fingertips telling him he is not the only one nervous and elated. There's even something deeply satisfying about the soft noise their lips make when they finally pull away.
"You're smiling," Wei Ying says. He wiggles Lan Zhan's face a little, seemingly just because he can with it held between his hands like this. He's smug again. It’s cute on him.
"Yes," Lan Zhan admits. Wei Ying put the smile there. It’s only fair that he sees it. He wants him to see it.
Wei Ying relinquishes Lan Zhan's face to drape his arms over his shoulders, wrists lazily crossed behind his head. Lan Zhan lets his hands come to rest at his waist, the motion slow and cautious to offset the bolder touch. His trepidation proves unnecessary when Wei Ying shuffles in closer, near enough that the ends of their noses brush. In a whisper, he asks, "Can we keep kissing 'til your bus gets here?"
Lan Zhan doesn't see a reason to answer that with words. He closes his eyes against the streetlights and kisses Wei Ying again, willing the bus to drive slow.
This is going to be a good summer, he thinks. He can't wait to learn to swim.