Work Text:
The weather is finally warm enough to prop the balcony door open in the morning for a fresh breeze, and Lan Xichen settles in at his kitchen table with a small, content smile. He takes a deep breath and can smell the familiar aroma of his tea mingling with the wet green scent of spring, the faint acrid tang of urban pavement a subtle counterpoint. His new apartment is beside a park, and the sound of birdsong rings loud and clear in the early morning air.
He opens his book and sets the tasseled bookmark on the table. This latest read is all about urban landscape design - he’s been trying to incorporate more greenery into his architecture projects. Murmured voices drift in through his window from people on their morning walks, giving him fleeting glimpses into their lives.
“...thunderstorms over the pier…”
“...of a dizi, don’t tell him…”
“...the smallest, most amazing person…”
“...destroying everyone at Mario Kart…”
“...soup, but you don’t get any...”
Lan Xichen blinks, and realizes he’s been staring at the same line on the page for the past few minutes, straining his ears to catch words in a low, pleasant voice. The words are barely pitched loud enough for him to hear, but it feels like they fill his one-bedroom apartment with warmth and friendliness. He realizes uncomfortably that he’s been eavesdropping on someone though, so he reluctantly goes to slide his door closed. Maybe he’ll just take a quick peek down at the street, to see what this person looks like?
He sticks his head out over the edge of the balcony to look down, and immediately gives a surprised yelp when a trickle of cold water lands on his scalp and slides down his neck.
“Hey!” A voice — the voice, actually, but it’s more aggressive — yells from above him. “Be careful!”
Lan Xichen looks up and is glad that his family doesn’t have a tendency to blush. There’s a man leaning out from the balcony above him, with a jawline so sharp he almost thinks he’d cut himself on if he touched. Grey eyes meet his and he finds that he can’t look away, which is probably for the best — from the quick glance he’d gotten, the other man had probably just showered, because his white t-shirt was clinging in some very interesting ways.
“Sorry for yelling,” the man says after a moment, a light flush decorating his cheekbones. “You startled me. But you shouldn’t stick your head out like that — what if something actually fell down?”
“I thought I heard something,” Lan Xichen says without thinking. There’s a drop of water trailing down the other man’s neck, and it’s very distracting.
The man breaks eye contact, looking to the side as he flushes harder. “If you say nice things to your plants, they grow better. I water them each morning, so you’ll probably hear it pretty often.” He gestures loosely with a plastic watering can.
Lan Xichen feels like he’s seeing it happen in slow motion - the purple plastic slips out of his upstairs neighbor’s fingers and falls towards his face. A spray of tiny water droplets flies from the spout, sparkling in the early morning light - thankfully, it seems mostly empty, or he thinks he would’ve closed his eyes by reflex. Time speeds up again as his hands snap out, and he catches the watering can millimeters from his face.
“Oh my god,” the man says, “I am so sorry. Are you okay?”
“It’s fine,” Lan Xichen says, setting the watering can down and looking back up. “I can… bring it up to you? You’d be apartment 305, right?”
“Yeah,” his neighbor says, “My name’s Jiang Cheng. Let me make it up to you — would you like to come in for tea?”
Lan Xichen can feel a smile stealing over his face. “Lan Xichen. And I’d really like that.”