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The first year of university for Wei Ying and her little brother goes something like this:
Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng start their undergraduate degrees at different schools across the country, with Yanli finishing up her culinary arts degree at a local school back in Yunmeng. By the beginning of the spring semester, Yanli is due to see her siblings in a few weeks over break, to graduate under the light of the early summer sun, and to marry Jin Zixuan on the longest day of the year.
None of these things happen, because when Yanli takes the drive back to Yunmeng with her fiancé over break where her family is waiting for her, there is an accident.
Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan fall unconscious on impact.
They do not open their eyes again.
Except—except Yanli’s traumatic injury is centered in her brain, and the rest of her organs are mostly okay, and Yanli is listed as an organ donor—
The Jiangs decide—after days of screaming permanent damage into their throats and rubbing their eyes raw—to take her off of life support. The operation is completed flawlessly.
Jiang Yanli takes her last artificial breath a couple minutes before noon on the day the cherry blossoms bloom outside her hospital room window, a day after Jin Zixuan’s heart comes to a stop.
Wei Ying, whose input was unwanted from the beginning, left to beg to unlistening ears about waiting a little longer, about consulting more experts, about finding another way—breaks.
She packs her belongings and goes to grieve within the confines of her nearly bare dorm on campus—Yanli was going to come help decorate soon—angry at every bright flower that dares to bud, angry at the audacity of the world to allow spring to unfurl and give rise to new pockets of thriving life, when the person she has been rooted to and growing with for the last fifteen years is going to be six feet away from the closest ray of sunlight for the rest of eternity.
Wei Ying would give anything, would live in the barren wastelands of winter till frostbite crept into her lungs, if it meant Yanli would be brought back to her. Anyways, it wouldn’t have been winter for long. Yanli’s warm light would have found a way to nurture the desolate landscape around her into fertile soil. Soil brave enough to command life to ascend above ground and bring the change of the seasons through its own will.
Wei Ying pulls the rough covers of her bed over her face and tries to sleep away the debilitating ache in her chest.
It doesn’t matter now. There is no hope to be found in imagining a light that won’t come.
******
In her second year of university, Wei Ying—more adjusted to living in a world littered with gaping craters in the shape of Yanli's gentle smile and open arms and upturned doe eyes—makes a decision. She intends to contact each person who carries a still-living part of her sister in them, to make sure they are taking care of themselves, honoring the blessing they were granted with respect. (If they are not, she intends to Have Words with them.)
Through an anonymous program run by the organ donation company, Wei Ying sends out five emails, one for every one of Yanli's organs that was given away. (Even in death, Jiang Yanli’s kindness knew no bounds; even in death, she was generous with the parts of herself she was willing to sacrifice for others.)
Wei Ying receives four reassuring responses. She also receives one gut-wrenching and grateful apology, mourning the loss of of one of the recipients. (Lung transplants are a very finicky thing. Wei Ying was out of reach for a week, holed up in her still-bare room, after she read that email.)
Her correspondences, which she initially tries to keep up with, fade with time with all but one of the recipients: the girl who received Yanli's heart, who signs off her emails to Wei Ying as Hanguangbun.
Hanguangbun is kind, reserved, funny in the driest way. Wei Ying appreciates the thought she puts into each of her responses, all concise sentences and hidden jokes and carefully meted out parts of a person she finds herself wanting to know more about. Each exchange between them feels like another well-aimed hit of a pickaxe in a mine where Wei Ying thinks she could find treasure, as yet unnamed, undiscovered.
When Wei Ying thinks they've developed an established enough sense of mutual trust, she asks if they can meet in person to talk, delighting in the chance to finally see Hanguangbun and learn if her expressions are as dry as her writing, if she’s lying about not laughing at Wei Ying’s jokes. If she would want to keep meeting. Wei Ying spends the whole day smiling after she sends the message, calming her nerves by catching up on chores and tinkering with a design project. Her cheeks feel sore by the time she gets around to checking her notifications later that evening.
It’s okay. The soreness will abate sooner than she thought, as there is no reason to keep smiling.
Hanguangbun, in her brief response, has apologized and declined the request, and offered no further explanation.
Wei Ying does not push, and ignores the pinpricks of hurt that scatter through her chest upon reading the email. Hanguangbun does not owe Wei Ying her time, does not owe her a meeting, no matter how much Wei Ying wants to see her and maybe ask to feel the familiar pulse thrumming through Hanguangbun’s wrist—to send a final goodbye through the tips of her fingers.
To say a potential hello, to something new, something that could last, had it been given a chance. Wei Ying blinks away the sting in her eyes and sits down to reply.
They continue to talk, and do not mention meeting up again.
*****
In Wei Ying's third year of university, she gets a girlfriend. Her name is Lan Zhan, she is the light of Wei Ying's recently less miserable life, she has an adorably strict daily routine that has been reshaped to fit Wei Ying, and she keeps her shirt on when they have sex.
It is in no way an issue for Wei Ying, though she is curious. Since Lan Zhan doesn’t bring it up, however, Wei Ying leaves the topic alone. She knows the weight of hiding parts of yourself away in fear of scaring someone off (or letting them get too close).
Wei Ying doesn't push, until one day she is napping in Lan Zhan's dorm and wakes up before Lan Zhan finishes changing, right in front of the mirror lining the inner door of her closet, and truly, Wei Ying means to avert her eyes right away, but she sees a neat strip of pale scar tissue down the center of Lan Zhan's chest, and Wei Ying thinks she knows what those scars are for, after hours of deep diving the internet learning about organ transfer procedures during restless nights.
No.
Wei Ying jumps to her feet. There is no way. Even if they speak almost exactly the same way and have similar backgrounds and always remind Wei Ying to drink more water, there is no way Lan Zhan would lie about -
"Lan Zhan? Are you Hanguangbun?" Wei Ying asks, and is proud of the way her voice remains level. She tenses and waits, but the silence that descends upon the dorm followed by Lan Zhan frantically putting on her hoodie—Wei Ying’s hoodie, though the lines of ownership have been blurring as of late—is answer enough.
Lan Zhan looks the most panicked Wei Ying has ever seen her. She is walking towards Wei Ying with outstretched hands, like one of her usual soft caresses down Wei Ying's back can calm her down, the way they do when Wei Ying has a bad day at work. The way they do when the memories of Yanli threaten to overwhelm her, when all she wants is the comfort of thin arms tucking her away from the world.
Stepping back from Lan Zhan’s shaking fingers, Wei Ying turns her head away and takes multiple deep breaths. Lan Zhan falters in her periphery.
"Wei Ying–" Lan Zhan starts, quiet, unsteady. Guilty.
A monsoon of fury blows its way through Wei Ying’s veins, legs moving forward without thought, muscles trembling with the pent-up wild energy that permeates the air in the tense hours before landfall. She whips her head back around to glare at Lan Zhan, effectively silencing her. "Why didn't you tell me? You knew who I was the whole time! I told you about jiejie! I told you about yourself! Why didn't you tell me? What were you afraid of?" Wei Ying shouts, voice cracking all over the place, not knowing when she started crying but knowing she won't be stopping anytime soon. Her fingers fly to grab at her hair, needing something to latch on to. None of the hands she’s used to reaching for are available to her now.
Lan Zhan staggers back, as if pushed off balance by the storm raging behind Wei Ying’s words. She retreats farther, shuffling away till the backs of her knees hit the edge of her bed. Her entire body drops onto the mattress, an abandoned puppet, dazedly searching for the supportive tension of broken strings. Lan Zhan looks up at Wei Ying, golden eyes shining with hurt and blinking rapidly before being hidden by still-shaking hands.
The tendons in Wei Ying's forearms twitch; they’ve never been this distraught before without already seeking out solace within each other’s embrace, it is difficult not to let Lan Zhan's distress affect her.
Wei Ying crosses her arms tightly over her chest and digs her nails into her biceps. She paces across the white rug and tries to focus on the soft texture against the soles of her feet to avoid lashing out again and saying something she might regret.
When Wei Ying glances at the bed, Lan Zhan has her hands resting on her lap, and is looking right at her, eyes gleaming with a river of unshed tears. Wei Ying holds herself back from throwing herself into Lan Zhan’s lap and comforting them both.
Maintaining her gaze, Lan Zhan straightens her posture, inhales deeply through her nose, and begins speaking. Wei Ying struggles not to trail her eyes across the sculpted contours of Lan Zhan’s face, the way she’s done so many times. Luckily, the anger simmering beneath her skin works to sharpen her focus, Wei Ying needs to know what Lan Zhan has to say, how she could keep such a thing to herself.
Lan Zhan stumbles through her explanation, words falling from her lips uncharacteristically fast and without much thought. She tells Wei Ying about her decision to reply to her donor’s sister, wanting to assure them that Yanli’s gift was being honored properly. The way she didn’t expect their correspondence to last more than a few emails, the way she didn’t expect to start having feelings for the person behind the written words, for their rambling stories and potent grief and well of infinitely deep and freely given affection.
She's read how Wei Ying describes Yanli: an unbreakable pillar, all the best parts of humanity wrapped up in a woman who was five feet and six inches of overflowing love and elegance and comfort: everything Lan Zhan was not. Yes, Lan Zhan had Yanli's heart, but she didn’t magically absorb her spirit. Lan Zhan’s rough edges and cold demeanor were rigid, unable to be melted and reshaped by the molten warmth that seemed to radiate from the very core of Yanli’s cells.
Here, Wei Ying stops pacing. Lan Zhan explains that meeting in person would make whatever friendship they were building together through email too real, too risky. She didn't want to be in someone's life as a proxy connection to a person who isn't here anymore, weighed down by the apprehension of being expected to live up to someone she could never be.
More than all of that, Yanli died for Lan Zhan to live. Lan Zhan is only here because Yanli was too far gone. What if all Wei Ying could see when they were together was the loss of her sister? Even if that wasn’t the case, what if Lan Zhan still wasn’t the kind of person Wei Ying could stand to be with all the time? Lan Zhan couldn’t bear to let Wei Ying know all of her and be disappointed. (At the root of it all, Lan Zhan didn’t want to be invited through a door that held inside the promise of safety, only to be left waiting in front of it later on, peering in through the cracks at the sides, wondering if the beloved face behind it would ever want to see her again.)
So, Lan Zhan kept the virtual barrier between them, a shield. Then she walked into the lecture hall on the first day of Advanced Music Composition and the girl who sat next to her struck up a one-sided conversation and Lan Zhan left class knowing that she had to tell her new friend who she was. Except, every time she tried, it got harder. By the time they were together, it felt like the words were cuffed to her throat with the strongest steel, leaving them unable to break free and climb out into the air. Lan Zhan never meant to keep the secret for this long, to keep Wei Ying from getting the sense of closure she’d been seeking in the first place.
She is sorry, sorry, sorry.
“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan says, gentle, accepting. “I understand if you want to leave. I betrayed your trust and selfishly kept you from something that would have made you happy. I broke the promise I made, to always make you happy,” Lan Zhan whispers, finally turning away, voice hoarse, physically belying the way she is unused to saying so much all at once. Wei Ying grabs a water bottle from her overnight bag and passes it to Lan Zhan, who accepts it with hesitant hands and furrowed brows, searching Wei Ying’s face for closed off thoughts.
Lan Zhan falls quiet after drinking, gaze switching to the other side of the room, boring into the picture she has of herself and Wei Ying on her dresser, smiling against the golden afternoon. They were captured in a moment of bliss by Wen Ning, their eyes on each other as they stood in the middle of an unending field of tulips. Wei Ying feels her chest constrict at the memories of that day, so new into their relationship, elated with the knowledge of being wanted by the one they want most.
It was the first time Wei Ying could stomach the sight of spring blooms without wanting to light a fire to every petal in her general vicinity, buoyed by the sight of the rainbow of colors reflecting off the white sundress hanging delicately over Lan Zhan’s body, by the soft smile tucked into the corner of Lan Zhan’s mouth every time she looked at Wei Ying. Her lipstick had been faintly smudged by the flurry of kisses Wei Ying gave her when she shrugged off her thin denim jacket and let down her hair, overwhelmed by Lan Zhan’s beauty. By the unguarded love emanating from Lan Zhan’s sunlit eyes.
Wei Ying shakes her head, not even bothering to let Lan Zhan believe she would leave her for even a second. Yes, Lan Zhan made a mistake, but not one worth losing her over. Lan Zhan is here, loving and being loved by Wei Ying. Yanli—Yanli is gone. Meeting Hanguangbun wouldn’t have changed that. Saying a final goodbye, as much as it would have brought her a sense of false peace, wouldn’t have changed that. Wei Ying will always be relearning how to live without Yanli. Closure is, and has always been, out of reach.
In spite of the ache that has taken up residence within the marrow of Wei Ying’s bones, flaring to life at the slightest hint of familiar spices and lilac colored dresses, Wei Ying has learned that even the valleys of grief she descends into are not infinite. The ground beneath her can still shake and transform and give rise to rolling hills, scattered mounds of joy she can allow herself, that she hopes will one day grow to be a full mountain range, peaks high enough to sit pillowed amongst swirling clouds. Wei Ying does not want to see the view alone, wants the foundation of the tallest mountain to be built off the love she shares with Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, who is still silent and scared and waiting.
Wei Ying steps towards the bed.
"Lan Zhan,” she says, soft. Lan Zhan immediately looks to her. “I'm still incredibly angry. You lied about the one thing that you knew would hurt me the most, and you kept lying the entire time I’ve known you.” A broken sound comes from Lan Zhan’s sealed mouth. “But, I am not leaving you. I could never.” Wei Ying’s voice wobbles. “I know you, Lan Zhan. I know that you did it because you didn’t want to disappoint me, that you wanted to protect yourself, to protect me. You know how much I miss her, and maybe you were right, that I would have latched onto you in unhealthy ways if I met you knowing the truth. Look at us now, though, even without knowing I’ve latched onto you like a territorial octopus. You can never get away from me without my express permission.” Wei Ying lifts the corners of her mouth into a crooked smile, eyes and nose burning. Lan Zhan is looking at Wei Ying with so much hope, biting the insides of her cheeks trying to hold herself together, clenching her fists tight against her thighs. Wei Ying is already planning to kiss away the red, crescent-shaped indents that will be left behind on her music-worn palms.
“Aiya, Lan Zhan, really. You should know by now that nothing about you could have ever disappointed me. Regardless of whose heart you carry, you've had mine for a long time.” Wei Ying finishes, tapering off to a whisper. And this—this is when Lan Zhan breaks, tiny hitches of breath followed by the spilling of tears that drag down towards her chin and sink into her hoodie, creating damp patches across the center of her chest (and a little to the left).
They have been apart for long enough, Wei Ying decides, and (finally) throws herself across the room. Lan Zhan is ready to catch her before she finishes taking her first step. Wei Ying leaps into Lan Zhan’s lap, wraps her arms around Lan Zhan’s waist, tucks her nose into the safest place on Earth, deep into the dip where Lan Zhan’s broad shoulder meets her neck. Here, Wei Ying feels the familiar touches of Lan Zhan’s cold, dangling earrings, draped across Wei Ying’s face, coveting the warmth from the blood rushing through the vessels in her cheek.
Lan Zhan pulls Wei Ying even closer, tipping them back till they're lying on the bed. She buries her face in the cinnamon-scented strands of Wei Ying’s disheveled hair.
They feel each other relax on impact.
There is so much they need to talk about, Wei Ying thinks. About Lan Zhan’s fear of Wei Ying leaving, about honesty in spite of fear. About Yanli.
For now, though, Wei Ying holds Lan Zhan, and is held in turn.
Wei Ying gives herself a moment to be thankful, for the chance to have had Yanli in her life, for steaming soup placed at her bedside on her worst days and nerdy articles piled up in their chats and knowing smiles when Wei Ying was up to no good. Yanli’s love was strong enough to keep her steady when she was young and new and adapting. Even when she was gone, she somehow made sure Wei Ying wouldn’t start to wilt under the suffocating weight of loneliness, leading her to the one other person on the planet who could know Wei Ying as well as she did and still adore her beyond all measure. Yanli always did know what Wei Ying needed most.
When Wei Ying starts to wriggle, Lan Zhan loosens her hold, allowing Wei Ying to prop herself up on her elbows. She dips her head to lay kisses across the damp planes of Lan Zhan’s cheekbones, down, down, down. Down further, till her lips touch above the raised white tissue streaking a line between the soft swells of Lan Zhan's breasts under her hoodie, where Wei Ying feels the rise and fall of an otherwise silent gasp. Large hands scramble to pull Wei Ying up, to hold her closer, tight enough that Wei Ying feels her insides start to rearrange, pushing a strained giggle from her compressed lungs. Damn Lan arm strength.
(There is nowhere else she would rather be)
*****
In Wei Ying’s fourth year of university, her girlfriend blurts out a marriage proposal mid-unpacking boxes in their new apartment. Wei Ying, dressed in her most tattered pair of sweats with her hair in a tangled mess of a bun on her head, has just dusted off her lifeline (her coffee machine) and set it on the kitchen counter next to Lan Zhan’s fancy waffle maker. Lan Zhan seems to freeze over the image of the two appliances together for a minute. No matter who says otherwise, Wei Ying knows how sentimental Lan Zhan is, and understands that her girlfriend probably needs a minute to process the domestic image before her. What Wei Ying does not know, is that thirty seconds later, Lan Zhan would blurt out—
“Wei Ying. I want to marry you,” as confident and casual as she sounded reading off their grocery list for the week earlier that day.
Later, after Lan Zhan realized what she said in full then panicked before processing Wei Ying crying and pressing snotty kisses to her face, after they’ve exhausted their emotional reserve for the day, they shower and slide into bed together, Wei Ying propped up on her elbow, admiring the engraved silver ring on her adorning her hand. (Lan Zhan had been carrying it in her pocket for weeks! Weeks!)
Lan Zhan tangles her fingers with Wei Ying's and lays them over their connected hips, using the hand curled around Wei Ying’s shoulder to smooth down her hair. Cheek pillowed against the soft skin of Lan Zhan’s chest, Wei Ying relaxes her body, falling into the hazy space where incomprehensible images start to form behind her eyes. She is lulled into rest by the rhythm she has missed for years, that has been her favorite sleep aid for months. She feels safe in the knowledge that the two hearts that matter most are gathered safely between her arms.
In her dreams, Wei Ying skips across a lavender sky, feet bouncing atop lotus petal clouds. The winds carry the melody of a fond laugh to her waiting ears, bright, happy, at rest. Wei Ying nuzzles her face further into Lan Zhan, and sleeps on.