Archive of Our Own

Figures sprinted across the lawns as the final bell of the summer rang. The sun beat down on the bright smiles of tens of young, happy faces experiencing the pure joy that was the end of another year at the Cloud Recesses summer programme.

There were no words to be spoken as Lan Yuan, Jin Ling, Ouyang Zizhen, and Lan Jingyi tore along the tiny pathways towards the most isolated part of the place all four of them had called home for four weeks every summer since they'd been able to talk. They all knew the agenda for the next few days: do as much as they could together before they were separated again by the necessity of returning home. 

“What do you want to do this weekend?” Lan Jingyi asked, speaking up practically the moment they reached the edge of a fast flowing stream that he wasted no time dipping his fingers into. “We can basically go anywhere, right, Lan Yuan?”

Lan Yuan shot their assembled friends a pleading smile. “Please don't go everywhere,” they replied, hoping that their pointed look towards a very bored looking Jin Ling was received loud and clear. “We can do most things now, though. No more of the summer school rules.”

“Heck yeah,” Lan Jingyi replied, his fist going directly into the water and scattering the fish that swam below. “Maybe we could go down into the town once or twice?”

“That's boring,” Ouyang Zizhen complained. “It takes so long to get there and it's basically the same as being at home. At least up here there are loads of things to see.”

“But it's so quiet up here,” Jin Ling shot back. “All you can really do is swim, and I'll probably be doing way too much of that when I go back to Lotus Pier.”

“It's good for some of us,” Ouyang Zizhen grumbled. Jin Ling thwacked him on the arm.

“You won't be saying the same thing when I tell you what jiujiu told me the other day,” he said. Then, as Jin Ling was wont to do, he stuck his nose up in the air and refused to say any more.

“Oh come on, Jin Ling,” Lan Jingyi said. He poked Jin Ling in the side once, then again, and then a third time. Jin Ling still said nothing. “Lan Yuan,” Lan Jingyi complained. “Make Jin Ling tell us what he means.”

“I don't know why you think I have so much power over him,” Lan Yuan pointed out, turning to look determinedly into the running water. Sometimes, he wished they could be a little quieter; like the fish.

“Because you're Lan Yuan,” Ouyang Zizhen answered, his grin bright. “We are mere pawns at your whim. So tell Jin Ling to open his mouth already.”

“I'll open my mouth,” Jin Ling said. “I'm just not going to tell you what jiujiu said we could do after we finished until you say we can go to Caiyi in the next few days.”

“Brat,” Lan Jingyi said. Jin Ling stuck his tongue out at him. “You're such a baby. Fine, we can go to Caiyi. now tell us what Jiang-xiansheng told you.”

Jin Ling’s returning smile was decidedly smug. “He said we can all go to Lotus Pier for a bit of a break before we all go back home. He can't come to get me, so he said that we would have to organise transport ourselves, but I'm sure we can do that. It can't be that hard, right?”

“Oh fuck yeah!” Lan Jingyi cheered, raising one fist into the air and shouting with the kind of abandon that only someone who'd been banned from swearing for the last month could have. “We should go on a road trip!”

Ouyang Zizhen scoffed. “You've been watching too many weird teen movies,” he said.

“We are weird teens, Zizhen,” Lan Yuan said. “I think a road trip sounds like a good idea. A great one, actually! Better than going cross country on a train.”

“Fine, fine.” Ouyang Zizhen said. “So we're going on a road trip. But how are we going to do that? None of us can drive.”

“Are you sure about that?” Jin Ling asked, his tone full of a very familiar smugness.

“None of us can drive legally.” Ouyang Zizhen conceded. “Which is part of the problem. We need to get across the country legally in a car, but none of us can drive. Which means we need someone to drive us. So who?”

“Lan Yuan’s dad can do it!” Lan Jingyi said immediately, excitement in his voice palpable.

“Oh yeah!” Jin Ling cheered. “Lan Zhan is cool. And he'll do anything if Lan Yuan asked, so that's super easy. Doesn't he have that van too?”

All eyes turned to Lan Yuan. Their heart sank a little.

“Sure,” they said, forcing out a smile that they hoped looked genuine. They supposed that this was the only option for getting them all more time together and a week at Lotus Pier. “We can do that.”

They did not want to do that. They didn't know if they could, really. Their friends might say that their dad would do anything for them if they just asked, but they didn't know if that was the case, not really. They didn't know if they wanted to spend all that time in a van with their dad anyway. Not anymore.

But they could do it. At least, they could try. The way their friends' faces lit up at the idea of crossing the country together in a medium-sized vehicle with nothing around them for hours on end but trees and the road meant that they couldn't really resist.

A little bit of the dread having lifted from their chest, Lan Yuan split off from their friends for the evening - with a promise to reunite later as soon as they could - to go and find their dad. It was a route through the forest they knew well; they'd walked the paths through the Cloud Recesses every day for most of their life.

But when they finally came to the edge of the garden they planted flowers in with their dad every spring, Lan Huan waited at the door, barring them from entering. “A-Yuan!” he greeted, a cheerful smile on his face. “Did you just finish up for the summer?”

They nodded. “I had something to ask die,” they said. “Are you waiting for him?”

Lan Huan’s face twisted into a small frown Lan Yuan couldn’t quite interpret. “No, your father actually told me to make sure that no one came in to disturb him right now; he’s a little busy, so you'll have to wait a bit. Your friends are still here, aren't they? You should go and spend some time with them.”

He finished his little spiel with a reassuring smile that didn't make Lan Yuan feel much better. There was something about this that seemed strange, and a moment later it got even stranger.

Voices sounded from inside the house that Lan Yuan had shared with their father alone. The only other people who ever went in the house were Lan Qiren and Lan Huan. The voice from inside was from neither of them; there was someone talking to their father who Lan Yuan didn't recognise.

“Who's in there?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light. It wasn't that he was suspicious or even annoyed, but he couldn't work out why Lan Huan wanted to keep them away. Why his father wanted to keep him away.

Lan Huan looked back towards the house, a small smile forming on his face. “I think you'll have the opportunity to find out soon enough,” he promised, patting Lan Yuan on the shoulder. “Don't worry about it until then.”

So Lan Yuan turned away, unsuccessful for now, and went back to find their friends. They didn't know who was inside just yet; or how much he would change everything. 

That evening, Lan Yuan hadn’t managed to find the time to slot their request into conversation with their father. They’d been too busy attempting to get him to talk about whoever he’d met with that afternoon. By the time he’d managed to dodge their question for the whole evening, they gave up.

But they wouldn’t be deterred. The next day, once their father slipped out of their home—something he never usually did unannounced—Lan Yuan followed him.

His father’s usual walking route would take him to the most remote parts of the Cloud Recesses, far from anyone’s prying eyes. Lan Yuan had made such a journey with him nearly countless times, and he recognised almost immediately that this time was different.

Instead, Lan Zhan crossed Cloud Recesses to some of the guest accommodation, stopping at the doorway for one of the non-summer school residences. As he knocked on the door, Lan Yuan ducked out of sight, trying to pretend that they weren’t there to follow him; the likelihood someone would spot and greet them was uncomfortably high.

The door opened, and their father immediately went inside. Lan Yuan attempted to get a peek just before the door closed, but the only thing they managed to see was their father’s back and the flash of a dark sleeve as the door was pulled shut.

Lan Yuan frowned. They couldn’t imagine what kind of guest their father would have - they’d never even witnessed him getting along with basically anyone from outside the Cloud Recesses. For him to go where they were staying… whoever they were, they must be someone special.

There was also no way to work out who they were - not for now, anyway. So Lan Yuan turned around, aiming to get away from the area before they were spotted and waylaid by a well-meaning relative or scholar.

In the hope of developing some kind of cover if he was questioned about why he was over by the guest accommodation, Lan Yuan plotted out a route in his head to make a short circuit back to their home before they would go to find their friends again.

But it didn't happen quite like they planned. Before they managed to break through the trees and get back to a place with fewer people who would potentially spot them, the pale figure of their father emerged from the other side of a stream.

“Die!” he called, hoping that he didn't look horrified at the encounter. A tiny quirk of their father’s lips substituted a greeting in reply, and a moment later, another figure appeared.

“Is this your kid?” The figure asked. He had dark, fluffy hair pulled up in a small ponytail, and seemed to be the source of the dark sleeve Lan Yuan had spotted earlier; the dark shirt he wore had sleeves pushed up to his elbows. “The famous Lan Yuan!”

“Mn,” their father said, returning the man’s loud proclamation with a slightly stiff nod. “A-Yuan, this is Wei Ying.”

Lan Yuan offered the man a smile; his returning grin was surprisingly bright. Was their father willingly spending time with this person? “It’s good to meet you,” Lan Yuan said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Wei Ying’s mouth dropped open in surprise as he shot an impossible-to-read expression to Lan Zhan, who was… uncomfortable? Lan Yuan didn’t even think they’d seen that expression on his face before.

They were honestly surprised at Wei Ying’s reaction; his name was one they recognised very well. Their father knew him and spoke of him very frequently - an old school friend, someone he hadn’t seen for a long time.

Someone who was now right in front of them both, returned to the world after however long it had been since their father had heard from him.

“You did?” Wei Ying asked, and then he grabbed Lan Zhan’s arm like that meant nothing. He tugged on Lan Yuan’s father’s sleeve.

Lan Yuan waited for a moment, watching for the inevitable point at which their father would shake him off, take a step away, and leave the conversation with a frosty chill in place of the clear friendliness that was present before.

Except it didn’t happen. Wei Ying’s hand stayed on Lan Zhan’s sleeve, and Lan Zhan even shot him a small smile. “I have spoken of you occasionally,” he answered. “Lan Yuan has a good memory.”

Wei Ying smiled, no, beamed at them both. “Thank you for telling me!” he said. “I knew you missed me really, Lan Zhan.”

Another beat. “Mn,” their dad said, and Lan Yuan had the distinct feeling that they needed to get away from this conversation as quickly as possible. They had no idea why their dad was in the middle of the woods with a long-lost friend who had seemingly showed up out of nowhere, and he was agreeing with him and allowing him to touch him and-

“Well it was good to meet you!” Lan Yuan said, hurriedly backing away from where the two of them stood - pretty close together, now they thought about it. Too close together for people who’d been separated for so many years. “I’m sure I’ll see you around, I have to meet up with some friends, bye-”

He shot them both another smile, which was eagerly returned by Wei Ying (since when had his dad liked people with so much energy?) and acknowledged with a short nod from his father before he managed to escape.

They knew it was probably obvious that they were heading in the opposite direction from where they would find their friends, but they'd just go round the long way. Anything to avoid thinking about what all of that was; seeing their dad smile at someone who wasn’t family was far too strange.

Lan Yuan got the feeling that maybe the issue of a road trip might be a little more difficult than they anticipated. Either way, they needed to report back to their friends as soon as possible - they’d want to know about a mysterious visitor from the past who could make their dad smile too.

It wasn’t until much later that evening that their father returned from wherever he went with Wei Ying. He seemed exactly the same, though Lan Yuan didn’t know what they were really expecting; it wasn't like their father would just become a different person instantly.

It was just that he’d seemed a little bit that way when he was around Wei Ying. It was weird either way, but it couldn’t distract from what they needed from him right now.

“I was talking to my friends about what we’re going to do when they all leave in a few days,” Lan Yuan started, attracting their father’s attention once the meal between them was finished.

“Did you decide anything?” he asked. Lan Yuan hoped he was imagining the way that his father's expression seemed to sour at the thought of their friends and the ‘bad influence’ they were probably having on him.

“Jiang-xiansheng invited us to Lotus Pier!” he said, grinning even at the thought of it. With the worry about the transport, they hadn’t thought all that much about how much they were actually looking forward to the thing that waited for them at the end of it. They loved spending time in Yunmeng.

“I see.” Their father and Jiang Cheng had never really got on. Lan Yuan had probably asked at least one of them about it at some point, because they couldn’t imagine not having asked, but they couldn’t remember what the answer was if they’d ever been given one.

The dislike was mutual, as far as they understood. On Jiang Cheng’s end, it didn’t extend to Lan Yuan. But on their father’s end, it seemed to extend to Jin Ling. Lan Yuan never knew what to think about that.

“There’s only one problem,” they said, pulling what they hoped was their most persuasive ‘please agree to this’ face.

“Yes?” Their father’s tone was wry, but he at least seemed a little receptive to the concept of them needing something.

“We don’t have any transport to get there,” he said. “It isn’t like we can’t get a train, but we thought- well, I thought, and my friends agreed, that it would be really cool to drive there? But none of us can drive, obviously, so we were hoping you would have time now that the summer school is done?”

What they said wasn’t exactly the truth, but they didn’t know how their father would feel if they said that the idea was Lan Jingyi’s. He definitely had a hot and cold opinion of Lan Jingyi as a primary corrupter of his child, but also as one of his child’s earliest friends.

It was complicated. Lan Yuan was starting to realise that they just didn’t understand the logic that their father used in his social interactions, and they were fast discovering that they weren’t okay with that. But that was a whole other problem.

There was silence between them for a moment. That wasn’t an unusual state, but Lan Yuan didn’t like the way that it felt awkward. That was new these days; their father being quiet never used to feel like this.

“I’ll think about it,” he said eventually, his lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed. He clearly didn’t want to do it, and Lan Yuan’s heart sank in disappointment. How were they going to tell their friends? “But you should consider other options.”

“Okay,” Lan Yuan said, approximating a smile. It probably wasn’t very convincing, because his dad’s expression didn’t change at all. They felt a flash of frustration shoot through their chest; he’d been so light earlier. Happy. Why couldn't he be like that now?

So he opened his mouth and said something he was probably going to regret. “Is it because you don’t want to give my friends a lift as well?”

Their father’s face went cautiously blank. Not even angry; that was probably a bad sign, but they didn’t know exactly what it said. “No,” he said. “It is because I cannot do everything for you. I have things to do here, so you may have to learn to be independent this once.”

‘This once.’ Like they didn’t do everything they actually wanted to do by themselves these days. Like they hadn’t discovered themselves and properly learned who they were without his help, because he was no use at that kind of thing at all.

The frustration prickled up more within them, but Lan Yuan clamped down on it before they could say something they’d regret even more. They hated arguing with their dad, even if he was wrong.

Honestly, he should be proud of them. Maybe he would be proud of them if they could actually trust him to tell him the kinds of things they could do all on their own. Or maybe he’d be impressed that they didn’t take a jab at him for the way that he’d been acting around Wei Ying earlier.

They would be within their rights, probably, to ask if the reason he didn’t want to take them to Yunmeng was because he wanted to spend more time with Wei Ying. But they didn’t, because they hated the composed look on their father’s face that looked so fake. It wasn’t his real calm face.

Instead, they turned around and got up from where they sat opposite him. “I’ll think about it,” they said. “We’ll probably be fine without you anyway.”

“Good,” their father said. Lan Yuan couldn’t see his face as they made their way to their room, but his voice sounded strangely tight.

Odd. They wondered what that could be about.

“I don’t understand why he won’t do it!” Lan Jingyi complained for what was probably the sixth time that day, tossing another stone into the river. “What did we ever do to him?”

“Nothing,” Ouyang Zizhen replied immediately. “He’s just old and he doesn’t like children. That’s not unusual.”

“He’s not old!” Lan Jingyi objected. “He’s, what, in his mid thirties?” He glanced towards Lan Yuan, who nodded. “That’s like… adult young, but cool people old. But he’s old in his heart. And mean.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to take us all the way to Lotus Pier,” Jin Ling said. “It’s sort of far.”

“He doesn’t have anything better to do!” Lan Jingyi said. Another stone went into the river, landing with a loud plop.

“I just think he doesn’t want to take us,” Lan Yuan said. “I mean, we’ve definitely annoyed him quite a lot. Even this summer, we probably pestered him more than he wanted us to.”

“You don’t have to cover for us,” Ouyang Zizhen said, clapping a hand to Lan Yuan’s shoulder. “You never do anything to annoy him. He’s just… I mean, I don’t think he even dislikes us, not really. He just likes you more than he likes us, which isn’t hard, because he thinks you’re the best kid ever. Probably because you are.”

Lan Jingyi nodded, his expression indignant. “You’ve seen the way he treats people who really get on his nerves!” he said. “He probably doesn’t hate us as much as you think. Actually, I think he likes us. Because we’re friends with you.”

“Why do you say it like that?” Jin Ling cut in. “Lan Yuan could be friends with anyone if they wanted to. Just because they choose to stick around with a loser like you doesn’t mean they have to.”

“Hey, I’m not-”

“We’re all losers,” Ouyang Zizhen said triumphantly. “Our idea of fun is sitting in a hot car for several hours every day just to travel to spend a week sitting in water with slightly different flowers by it compared to Gusu.”

“What’s wrong with the flowers at Lotus Pier?” Jin Ling asked, immediately rounding on Ouyang Zizhen. Lan Yuan snorted, their gaze drifting to where Lan Jingyi shot them a wide grin - he got out of that one easy, this time.

“The flowers at Lotus Pier are lovely!” The four of them jumped at the sound of a voice drifting through the trees. For a moment, Lan Yuan couldn’t place it, but the memory of the sound slotted into place just before the figure appeared at the water's edge.

“Wei-xiansheng,” Lan Yuan greeted with a smile; he sent one back in return, bright and cheerful just as the day before. “What are you doing here?”

“Wandering,” he said, smiling at all four of them in turn before moving to the side of the river. He picked up a stone from the bank, tossed it, and watched as it skipped all the way across, landing with a small cloud of dust at the other end. “Nice.”

Lan Jingyi’s mouth was wide open. “That’s super cool!” he said, and then - clearly remembering that he had no idea who this was - hurriedly shifted away from the edge of the river ever so slightly. “Who are you?”

Wei Ying dipped into a short mock bow. “Wei Ying,” he answered. “I’m a friend of Lan Zhan’s, staying in Cloud Recesses for… a period of time. Haven’t decided yet.”

“I bet you’ll have a good stay,” Lan Jingyi said, puffing out his chest a little. Lan Yuan smiled slightly; it had been a while since he’d seen Lan Jingyi talk about Cloud Recesses to a stranger. “I’m Lan Jingyi.”

“It remains to be seen whether I’ll have a good time,” Wei Ying said, “but it’s good to meet you kids. Who are your friends, little Lans?”

“I’m Ouyang Zizhen,” Ouyang Zizhen answered, jumping in just as Jin Ling introduced himself, decidedly talking over him.

“Wait, what did you say?” Wei Ying asked. When Ouyang Zizhen opened his mouth again, he shook his head and waved a hand. “Not you. Yellow shirt boy who needs to cut his fringe.”

“That’s Jin Ling,” the aforementioned (and incredibly indignant) yellow shirt boy replied. “And I couldn’t cut my fringe. I’ve been at this summer school for a month.”

“Ah, of course,” Wei Ying said, disguising what was definitely a laugh - Lan Yuan didn’t know what was so funny, and somehow he felt that Wei Ying wasn’t going to tell him. “Jin Ling… well, it’s good to see all four of you. What are upstanding youths like yourselves doing skulking about in the woods?”

“We’re plotting,” Ouyang Zizhen said.

“Zizhen!” Lan Yuan complained; Wei Ying seemed fun, but he was Lan Zhan’s friend. Lan Yuan had no idea what he’d do if he heard about this.

“Oh, I love a good plot,” Wei Ying said, rolling up his sleeves. “What are we plotting? Unless it’s a no adults allowed plot, in which case I am very offended by the passage of time but will step away.”

A beat of silence. The four of them looked between each other, and just as Lan Yuan was about to say that maybe he shouldn't hear what they were talking about, Lan Jingyi opened his mouth.

“We want to go to Lotus Pier,” he said. “Jin Ling’s uncle said we can go! But we have to get there ourselves. And we wanted to ask Lan Yuan’s dad to give us a lift, but he said we should be more independent.”

Wei Ying let out a soft pfft sound. “That definitely calls for a plot,” he said, “and one I may just be able to contribute to.” He paused for a moment, looking around at them. When his eyes met Lan Yuan’s, he smiled.

They weighed up the benefits of telling him he was welcome to give it a shot, thinking about the way their father had been so reluctant. Then they thought about the way he’d smiled at Wei Ying yesterday.

Lan Yuan smiled back at him and nodded. “If you have any ideas, we’d gladly hear them,” he said.

Wei Ying’s face lit up. “Of course,” he said. “Just leave it to me, kiddos. I’ll work some magic - just you wait and see.”

And then he was gone, moving up the path faster than Lan Yuan thought was safe considering how close they were to a river.

“Was he skipping?” Jin Ling asked, derision written all over his face.

“I think so,” Lan Jingyi replied. “But I don’t care. He’s cool.”

Lan Yuan didn’t know exactly what Wei Ying said to convince their father that actually he did want to drive for several days with four rowdy teenagers in a van, but by the next morning, he’d agreed to take them.

The moment they broke the news to their friends, all three of them exploded into cheers, clapping Lan Yuan on the back. “Fuck yes!” Lan Jingyi said. “I knew he’d come round to it eventually, obviously, but-”

“He was worried,” Ouyang Zizhen said. “He thought he was going to have to ask his mum to drive us all the way, and she only has that little car. It would have been miserable and dubiously legal.”

“But we didn’t have to ask!” Lan Jingyi said. “Because Lan Zhan is cool, actually, so he decided to spare us in the end and we get to go in the van.”

“This is going to be great,” Jin Ling said. He never liked to let on that he was actually excited about something, but it was undeniable at this point. “The van’s big enough, and the weather is meant to be good for the next bit as well. It’s perfect.”

“And Lan Yuan’s dad will be there, which just makes it cooler,” Lan Jingyi supplied. He grinned at Lan Yuan, once the chief supporter of his ‘Lan Yuan’s dad is the best actually’ agenda, and they tried to return with a small smile.

They weren’t so sure it would be cool. Or even good at all, actually. There were just… too many things that could go wrong about all of this, and a lot of them had to do with their dad.

They thought about the last time he’d spent time with Lan Yuan and their friends at the same time; it had been hot out, and the four of them pulled off their shoes at the end of the hike Lan Zhan took them on, rushing over to the water to cool down.

And Lan Yuan had gazed back to the shore once they’d waded most of the way out. Written all over their dad’s face was an expression that could only be described as discomfort; they knew what their dad looked like when he wasn’t feeling much of anything at all, they knew what he looked like when he was secretly pleased, and this was neither of those things.

No, he watched the four of them with tension written all over his face, his hands clenched around one handle of the rucksack he carried with him. He didn’t speak at all on their whole trek back, even when Lan Jingyi attempted to make conversation with him.

Lan Yuan didn’t know what had gone wrong, not exactly. But they knew that their father didn’t want to see them spending time with their friends. He’d rather they didn’t spend time with them at all, actually. They just couldn’t work out why.

“Maybe it isn’t cool for everyone,” Ouyang Zizhen said after a moment. Lan Yuan nearly startled, just about managing to keep their face under control. “Are you okay with your dad being with us, Lan Yuan?”

Lan Yuan bit their lip. “Yes,” they lied. “It’s fine.”

“No it’s not,” Jin Ling said immediately, tugging Lan Jingyi away from them. They tried not to relax at the new, more comfortable distance between them. “You’re not excited about this at all, are you?”

Lan Yuan looked away. “I’m excited to go places with all of you,” they said, “and I do want to go to Lotus Pier. I’m excited for all of that! It’s just… my dad.”

Lan Jingyi’s expression was momentarily surprised - just for an instant, until he schooled it into something a little milder and plopped down on the grass. He patted the spot next to him, and Lan Yuan joined him, their friends following. “What about your dad?” he asked.

“It’s- you know.” They gestured at the air, very much aware that this didn’t really answer anything at all. They just wanted to buy some time to think about how to phrase it.

“We don’t know,” Ouyang Zizhen said firmly, “but we’d like to. So go on.”

Lan Yuan cracked a small smile. “We haven't really got along lately,” he admitted. “He doesn’t really like you all, I think - he thinks you’re rowdy. He probably… I mean, I think he thinks that you’re a bad influence on me. And that maybe it was okay when I was younger, to have friends who were boys, but now-”

“I don’t think he’s shitty like that,” Lan Jingyi said immediately. “I mean- obviously you know your dad better than I do, so please stop glaring daggers at me Zizhen, but I don’t think it’s because we’re boys.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jin Ling grumbled. “I’m a man.”

“And that is not the point,” Ouyang Zizhen said. “The point is that Lan Yuan thinks their dad thinks it isn’t appropriate for his kid to be friends with boys, men, whatever. Which, if true, is fucked, but if false, still sucks right now.”

Lan Yuan shot him a small smile. “I haven’t said anything yet,” they said. “About… gender. You know.”

Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi, thankfully, setted down a little. “Not the right time yet?” Jin Ling asked.

They shook their head. “I don’t know if it ever can be,” they said. “And if he wasn’t so- he doesn’t even like my friends, what’s he going to say if I start making more weird choices about myself?”

“They’re not weird choices,” Lan Jingyi said firmly. “They’re your choices. Not his.”

“But he chooses whether he listens to me about them or not,” they said. It felt like something was about to burst out of their chest; something painful. They didn’t like it at all. “And if he decides not to…”

They shook their head. They didn’t want to think about it at all. It was too hard to imagine.

“I hope you can say something soon,” Ouyang Zizhen said. He moved to put a hand on Lan Yuan’s shoulder again - gentler than the hit from before. They wished it felt a little more comforting.

“We can always help if you need it!” Lan Jingyi said. “We can throw him a gender reveal party.”

“And we’ll beat him up if he doesn’t like it,” Jin Ling offered.

Lan Yuan let out a slightly muffled snort. They felt like they might start crying if they opened their mouth for too long. “He’d beat you. He thinks gender reveal parties are silly.”

“As he should,” Lan Jingyi grumbled.

“Would still be worth it to try and beat him up,” Jin Ling said. “I’ll get jiujiu to beat him up too. I bet we could get enough people to win.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. He hoped his chuckle didn’t sound too much like a sob. “But thank you for offering.”

“Any time,” Ouyang Zizhen said, cracking his knuckles. “But seriously. We can actually help, or provide moral support, or whatever. You could do it at the end of the trip, because then you can escape to Jiang-xiansheng?”

“I can try,” they said, offering all of them a smile. They weren’t sure if they would do it - they honestly didn’t think they could. But if it helped their friends feel a little better about the trip, they could at least think about it.

They knew they’d come to the conclusion that it just wasn’t worth the risks. But right now, that wasn't the point. The point was the excited uptick of Lan Jingyi’s voice as he talked about all the snacks he wanted to take, Ouyang Zizhen trying to plot their route on a map, and Jin Ling’s quiet, satisfied smile when he thought no one was looking.

This was more important than anything their dad could do to ruin this. Lan Yuan just hoped he wouldn’t.

Lan Yuan had expected to get up bright and early on the day of their departure. That was their dad’s default setting for any journey - up at dawn, or before if he could get people to agree to it, with the aim to set out as soon as possible.

He hadn’t insisted on that this time, and Lan Yuan almost wanted to say he was trying to appease them. Why, he couldn’t imagine.

Predictably, his friends were already down at the van by the time they dragged their bag out there. They were practically buzzing around the van, pacing back and forth as they looked up in the direction of Lan Yuan’s home every few minutes.

“Good morning!” they called as they barrelled down the hill. The three of them cheered, getting even closer to the van, waiting for the telltale click of the lock.

It came moments later, and Jin Ling immediately pulled the door open. He didn’t even have time to step aside before Lan Jingyi pushed past him into the back of the van, dumping his bag on the seat next to the back window.

“There’s less space in here than I remember,” Ouyang Zizhen commented, a slightly nervous chuckle escaping his lips.

“You’re bigger now,” Lan Zhan answered, coming up behind them and pushing the van’s door shut. Barely a moment later, he appeared around the other side of the van, settling down in the driver’s seat. “It will be a squeeze to sleep.”

“A fun squeeze!” Lan Jingyi insisted.

“So long as whoever it is isn’t next to you,” Jin Ling said.

“You’re the one who kicks in your sleep, actually,” Ouyang Zizhen replied. Jin Ling let out an indignant squawk, throwing a pillow in Ouyang Zizhen’s direction. He deflected it, and it hit the back of Lan Zhan’s seat.

A tense silence reigned for a moment, and Lan Yuan clenched their fists into sharp balls, their nails cutting slightly into the palms of their hands. They just knew he was going to blow up on them already. At least in his own way.

“Please settle down,” their dad said, and Lan Yuan barely disguised a sigh of relief. “If you tire yourselves out now this will not be enjoyable.”

“Yes, Lan-xiansheng,” the three of them chorused.

“Good,” he said. He glanced out across the car park; but not at the exit. Lan Yuan frowned. “We will leave after you calm down.”

They all nodded, immediately lapsing into silence. They waited, then waited a little longer. The sun rose a bit more, and worry began to gnaw at Lan Yuan’s chest; was he never going to leave? Was this his final refusal, or was he looking at the way Lan Jingyi fidgeted in his seat?

“Room for one more?” a voice called. Before Lan Yuan could even process who it belonged to, their dad opened the passenger door in the front of the van and a bundle of dark-clothed limbs climbed in, weighed down with bags.

“Wei-xiansheng!” Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen cheered in unison. “You’re coming with us?”

He shot a grin back to them all. “If it won’t cramp your style too much,” he said. “I brought bribes to appease you - felt bad about taking up valuable space on your trip, so I hope you like them.”

He reached into one of his bags and dug out a singular packet of biscuits, tossing it through the gap and into Jin Ling’s hands. “Good catch!”

Jin Ling huffed, clearly pleased as he split the packet open. “You probably won’t take up too much space,” he grumbled. Wei Ying beamed in return, but Lan Yuan caught sight of a frown creasing their father’s face.

“Wei Ying is not in the way,” he said firmly. “I invited you. If the children do not wish for you to be here, that is their problem; I am doing them a favour.”

His voice was quiet, and brooked no objection. Wei Ying’s expression turned soft; he mouthed something Lan Yuan couldn’t make out, then spoke. “It’s their trip!” he said. “If they really don’t want me to be here, I’ll go - I want them to enjoy themselves even if you don’t.”

He nudged Lan Zhan with one elbow; another thing Lan Yuan was positive he absolutely hated. And yet he didn’t say a word against it, just turning away with a huff.

Something bitter caught in Lan Yuan’s throat. Wei Ying seemed great, and they were glad he was here, but seeing their father be so… accommodating was strange. It was uncomfortable in its newness, and they didn’t know if they liked it enough to spend all this time with Wei Ying so soon.

Wei Ying was exactly the kind of person that their friends loved; the kind of person Lan Yuan loved. But that was exactly the problem - their dad didn’t like their friends, because they were loud in a way he always found annoying. They understood their dad, and even if they didn’t like that he didn’t like their friends, they understood where it was coming from.

Until now, with the man who chattered loudly in the front of the van, with wide gestures that so often breached Lan Zhan’s previously unbreakable personal space.

Lan Yuan was the only person who was ever able to breach that barrier particularly frequently. Yet here Wei Ying was, walking all over it. They didn’t know how it was meant to make them feel, but they definitely didn’t like it.

At their rest stop for lunch on the first day of the trip, Wei Ying immediately dragged Lan Yuan’s father away, insisting on eating at a different one of the three pitstop restaurants at their chosen rest spot. “We don’t need to supervise them!” he said.

Lan Zhan glanced back at them before nodding, letting himself be dragged away. For the first time since they set off, Lan Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.

Lan Jingyi took the lead in buying their food, heading over to the corner they’d settled in with a tray piled high. “So,” he said, rubbing his hands together as he sat down and gladly accepted Ouyang Zizhen’s proffered hand sanitiser. “Wei Ying.”

“Wei Ying,” Ouyang Zizhen agreed, a smile on his face that Lan Yuan knew from experience meant exactly nothing good. “What do you think his deal is?”

“He and Lan Zhan are like, childhood friends?” Lan Jingyi asked.

“Teenage friends,” Lan Yuan corrected. “Into early adulthood.”

“Wait, do you know him, Lan Yuan?” Ouyang Zizhen asked, the excitement in his voice undeniable.

Lan Yuan shook their head. “Die talked about him sometimes,” they answered. “They were really good friends. I always thought he was dead, though.”

Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen gasped in tandem. “I wonder why he’s here,” Lan Jingyi said. “He’s kind of… not the sort of person your dad hangs around with?”

Lan Yuan nodded. They were glad they weren’t the only person who’d noticed that. “He’s very different.”

“What are you thinking, Jin Ling?” Ouyang Zizhen asked. “You’re looking at your chicken awfully hard.”

“I think Wei Ying might be…” Jin Ling shook his head.

“Might be who?” Lan Jingyi asked, bouncing in his seat a little. “Do you know him? Is he your uncle?”

Jin Ling shrank in on himself. “I just… know the name Wei Ying from somewhere already, alright?” he replied, his tone a little snippy.

“Sorry for pushing,” Lan Yuan said, shooting a stern look at Lan Jingyi. He had the decency to duck his head and mumble his own apology. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

“I know,” Jin Ling said. Lan Yuan hadn’t intended to provoke his competitive spirit, but apparently they had. “My family are weird about this. There’s a Wei Ying - I think his name was Wei Ying - sort of in my family? I don’t remember ever meeting him, but he gets mentioned occasionally when they all get angry at each other. He was kicked out, I think? They don’t like talking about him, he just kind of comes up sometimes.”

“Maybe it’s a different Wei Ying,” Ouyang Zizhen suggested. “It’s not like he’s the kind of person you kick out of a family unless he did something really bad. He’s really nice!”

“That wouldn’t stop Jin Ling’s family,” Lan Jingyi pointed out. He was rewarded with a sharp hit on his arm from Jin Ling. “I’m not wrong! Your grandma is scary!”

“She is,” Ouyang Zizhen agreed. “But I don’t know. I can’t imagine Wei Ying getting kicked out of anywhere… except maybe the Cloud Recesses?”

“He used to break a lot of the rules when he visited years ago,” Lan Yuan confirmed.

“Okay, that means all of this makes even less sense,” Lan Jingyi said. “How does your dad manage to tolerate someone who breaks the Cloud Recesses rules? He still gives me an evil eye every time my voice goes above, like, two decibels.”

“That’s just because you’re loud,” Jin Ling shot back. “But it’s weird. I feel like he doesn’t even tolerate Wei Ying’s presence, he actually… enjoys it?”

Lan Yuan nodded. “He smiles. And he lets Wei Ying into his space.”

“Do you think it’s just because he’s known him for ages?” Lan Jingyi suggested.. “He lets you into his space. And your uncle!”

“They haven’t known each other for years, though,” Lan Yuan reasoned. “He’s probably actually known you for longer than he’s known Wei Ying, in terms of time you’ve spent together.”

“Cool,” Lan Jingyi said, a satisfied smile on his face. “But that doesn’t explain… anything.” He gestured at the air, in the rough direction of where Wei Ying had dragged Lan Zhan.

“Maybe they’re… you know,” Ouyang Zizhen said, wiggling his eyebrows. Lan Jingyi giggled.

“Okay,” Lan Yuan said, gathering up the food left on their tray and standing up. “I’m not listening to you discuss that.”

Ouyang Zizhen and Lan Jingyi did, at least, have the decency to look a little bit sheepish about shamelessly discussing Lan Yuan’s father’s romantic life. Lan Yuan didn’t even have the heart to be annoyed; if only because, honestly, he felt like they were probably right.

There was something weird going on between Wei Ying and their father. They really wished they knew him well enough to work out what it was.

The only problem with leaving their friends behind was that Lan Yuan then had to find somewhere else to go without going back to the van. The obvious place to go from there was the bathroom, but that turned out to be exactly the wrong choice.

When they reached the bathroom, they stopped in the doorway. There was a long queue outside one, and nothing at all at the other. And sure, maybe they were feeling daring. Maybe there was a part of them that didn’t want to stand in a queue with all the women waiting to use the bathroom.

They sucked in a deep breath and went to the men’s. It wasn’t like there was anyone there, and there was no reason there’d be any issue. They weren’t making a fuss, they could just say that they’d read the wrong sign, it was fine. It was fine.

It was not fine. Well, it was fine initially, when they used one of the stores and went to wash their hands. But just as they did so, someone else came into the bathroom.

“A-Yuan.” Lan Yuan quite possibly shot directly into the air, their hands splattering water everywhere as they jolted.

“Die,” they replied. They hurriedly shoved their hands under the water again and tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. Their father took a step backwards, checked the door, and came back in again. They'd never wanted to run away from him so much in their whole life.

“Was the queue for the other toilet too long?” he asked. There didn't seem to be any judgement in his tone, just curiosity, but they didn't want him to be curious right now. They didn't want to be around him at all, let alone in a scenario like this.

“Yes,” they said, and then they made the mistake of going for the soap. Yes, it was good hygiene, and yes they would normally use soap, but right now the best thing to do was probably to get as far away as possible.

The worst thing was, it didn't look like their dad was going to do what he'd clearly come there to do. He just stood there for a moment, just watching them as they rinsed their hands. Just before they went to leave, just before they were far enough away that they could excuse themselves, Lan Zhan opened his mouth to speak again.

“How are you doing?” he asked, and if this wasn't the worst scenario ever they would have laughed at how awkward he sounded. “Is everything alright? You have... been a little quiet.”

“Do you have to ask?” they complained, just about disguising the wince that shook their body at the sound of those words leaving their lips. They sounded annoying even to him; he had no idea what it sounded like on his father’s end.

Though they supposed it didn't matter too much. They didn't want him to follow it up; they didn't want to talk to him at all. Especially not on their own like this.

“I wanted to,” Lan Zhan said. “You have been... we have been distant lately.”

They supposed that was one way to put it. It was one of many ways to describe the arguments, the tension. Their father never allowed them to talk to the people they wanted to without questioning it, and he always wanted them to justify anything they did if he thought it would take them away from what he had already planned for them.

Because it wasn't just their friends. It wasn't that they dressed in a way that he didn't like or had their hair cut shorter than was acceptable for most people who were generally seen as women. It was that he didn't want them out too late, yes, but it was also that sometimes they got the feeling that he didn't want them to spend any time away from home at all.

Their father had a plan for their life. He knew exactly what they were good at and the path they could take with the skills they developed. He believed in their ability to do well on the path he'd set out for them, and he would support them every step along the way, just as he had for the last decade of their life.

And he was right, in a way. They were good at all the things that he helped them with across their life. They wanted to do those things. But they didn't want to do only those things, and the more he suggested that it was all they should focus on, the more they wanted to stray from that path. The more it grated when he tried to stop them from doing exactly that.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” was what they eventually settled on as a response. It wasn't perfect, but they couldn't think of anything else to get them away from this right now.

Still, he wouldn't let them go. “A gap has formed between us recently,” he said. He sounded upset, not in the way that Lan Jingyi sniffled or Jin Ling huffed, but in the quietly detached way he always had; the way Lan Yuan had always been able to recognise.

The bitter feeling in their chest had them wondering if Wei Ying could recognise it too.

When they didn't say anything, still a little bit at a loss for words, their dad spoke again. “I would like to bridge that gap and break the barriers that have been thrown up between us.”

He sounded so earnest that it hurt. They couldn't do this; not here, not now. “We're in a public bathroom,” they said. At least he had the decency to look a little cowed at those words. “I don't want to talk about this now.”

“Later?” he asked. “After we stop for the night there should be some time before we need to get to bed.”

‘We.’ Because it was never about their choice, even when it was meant to be a trip that they enjoyed. “I don't want to talk about it at all,” they said, trying to ignore the downturn of their father’s lips and the way they knew that their friends would be disappointed in them for not taking this chance.

He never understood. And they knew, really, that he never would. 

They left the bathroom behind and tried to ignore the stinging behind their eyes. They hoped no one else would notice. 

Lan Yuan wasn’t sure if their dad had said something to Wei Ying, or maybe he'd just picked up on the general mood, but the next stretch of the journey was very quiet; no Wei Ying making comments at everything they passed, no loud jokes, not even the radio.

Lan Yuan, for one, just wanted to avoid this whole thing. So he set his head down on the glass of the window and let himself drift as far away as he could, hoping that maybe when they stopped again, they’d just be at Lotus Pier already.

He knew they wouldn’t be, of course, but it was a nice sentiment.

Instead, they woke up when the van stopped, with Jin Ling tugging gently (more gently than they’d normally expect from him) at their arm. “Wei Ying set a campfire up. Want to come and see?”

They blinked for a moment, eyes a little blurry, before they pushed themselves upright and nodded. “I can join,” they said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Honestly, I don't think we’ll survive without you,” Jin Ling said with a groan. “Jingyi and Wei Ying in the same space is completely insufferable.”

“I know,” they replied with a laugh, brushing off their trousers and climbing out of the van into the late evening air. “I'll save you from the terror.”

The sight that met their eyes once they moved through the trees and over to the campfire surprised them a little: in his lap, their father held a guitar. It had been quite a while since they last heard him play and they hadn't even realised he'd brought it with him.

He stopped strumming abruptly when Lan Yuan approached. They tried not to think about what the fading chords meant.

“Lan Yuan, you're up!” Wei Ying called. “I told Jin Ling not to get you, I thought you might have come down with something after eating earlier.”

“I was fine, but thank you,” they said, shooting him a small smile. It was sweet of him to worry; their father had barely glanced their way, a difficult to read expression only made worse by the shadows that marked it. “Just a little tired. I’m awake now.”

“You’ll probably be awake for a while longer,” Lan Zhan cut in. “You slept for hours. It’ll be hard to get back to it once we go to bed.”

There was half a lecture in his tone, and Lan Yuan frowned, ready to open their mouth to say something else they’d probably regret.

Wei Ying, however, appeared to have other ideas. He grinned, the firelight making his expression look almost wicked. “You definitely won’t be sleeping any time soon after this,” he said. “I promised Zizhen over there a ghost story.”

Lan Yuan pursed their lips for a moment, unsure of exactly what to do. Were they meant to be enthusiastic? It was hard to summon up the will to be.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to make a decision. Lan Jingyi patted a section of log next to him, gesturing for Lan Yuan to sit down. “I think Wei Ying was waiting for you to wake up to start,” he said. “Come on, we’ve been waiting for ages. Please?”

He pulled such a silly face with his words that Lan Yuan couldn’t resist, trying to push away the last of their bitterness towards their father as they sat down. He was directly in their line of sight as they did so, but that was fine. They could just try to ignore him and listen to the story as best as they could, even if they were absolutely positive that it wouldn’t be any good. They’d been on plenty of summer camp excursions, and they’d never met an adult who could tell a ghost story as well as their great uncle.

“Alright,” Wei Ying said, rubbing his hands together. “I hope you’re all ready, because I’m bringing out the good one.”

“Sure you are,” Jin Ling said. Lan Yuan could hear his eye roll.

“I am!” Wei Ying said, and then he started in earnest. “This is not a story that starts with ghosts,” he said. “It starts with sisters. Two sisters, in fact, travelling so very far from their home. Each of them had a little boy, both just tiny babies at the time. They weren’t happy sisters, not exactly, but they did what they could. They knew they could survive, and they’d do anything for that purpose.

“Not everyone agreed. When the sisters arrived at their destination, they were met with cruel words. They’d travelled so far, and for what? Just scorn? Just to watch their backs at every hour, and live in fear that their sons would never grow strong and healthy?”

“Is this a harem drama plot?” Lan Jingyi asked. Lan Zhan shot him an absolutely foul look, but Wei Ying just laughed.

“It could be, if you want,” he said. “But that’s not the point. The point is that the women found themselves besieged at all sides, and one of them could no longer bear to stay. So, against her sister’s will, she stole both babies from their beds, packed them both into a little basket, and left.

“She walked, and walked, and walked, trying to find her way home. But the roads were dangerous for a woman on her own, and she stumbled into the lands of fearsome bandits. I don’t think I need to tell you young kids what happened next, but-”

“There aren’t many ghosts in this story,” Jin Ling complained.

“Let me get to it!” Wei Ying said, waving his hands in the air. “You’ll make it less scary if you keep interrupting, you know. The woman ended up trapped in a cave, along with her son and her nephew. The bandits preferred to leave her to herself most of the time - she unnerved them, and the way she treated the children did so even more.

“The bandits heard children crying in that cave almost all hours of the day. There were two children, but the cries rolled into one. Sometimes, strange smoke billowed from the cave’s entrance, and some of them swore they saw an odd light from the place. They gave the place a wide berth for weeks, and when someone finally checked up on her, there was only one child.”

“Wei Ying, is this sui-”

“Probably not!” Wei Ying replied, a high laugh echoing off the trees around them. Lan Yuan shivered. “But I started, so I’ll finish. The bandits felt the child was strange. He didn’t speak much, and ate even less. They remembered the way the babies cried, but this boy never did. He didn’t seek affection from the woman they assumed was his mother, but simply stared at her.

“In turn, she held no affection for him. It was because of him that she was trapped in this terrible place - she hit him, broke his bones, burned him. He didn’t scream, didn’t cry. He just watched, and remembered, and all the while, he learned to hate.”

The fire seemed quieter than before, and every sound around their little site mounted ever louder. Lan Jingyi’s hands clutched the wood of the log beneath them very tightly as Wei Ying continued.

“Eventually, the woman reached her limit with captivity. After what must have been months, perhaps years of planning, she struck as if a vengeful spirit. She poisoned all the water supplies in the camp, watching as they fell one by one. And then she handed a blade to her child, barely more than six years old, and told him he knew what to do.

“There was only one survivor of that terrible night. Anyone who encountered him years later would never believe the tale he told - that the child moved fast as lightning, with the kind of strength that could only be held in a body of an adult. His eyes were filled with bloodlust, and at one point, the sole survivor swore that there were two pupils contained within each of his eyes.

“And then he was gone. Set loose into the world, ready to do who knew what to whoever crossed his path. Stopping him was a mere impossibility.”

Wei Ying finished his tale with a smile, and Lan Yuan let out the breath they hadn’t realised they’d been holding. Then they closed their mouth, carefully schooling their expression back into something neutral.

“Well?” Wei Ying asked. “What did you think?”

“It was okay,” Ouyang Zizhen said. Lan Yuan knew his tone: he was acting nonchalant, but there was a shake to it that couldn’t be denied. “I didn’t really get it.”

“What happened next?” Lan Jingyi asked, not bothering to hide the tremor to his voice.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Wei Ying said, twisting his hands behind his back. “What do you think, Lan Zhan?”

Lan Yuan’s father smiled, like Wei Ying hadn’t just told a story featuring heavily implied cannibalism to his beloved child, and then he actually answered. “The child returned to normal for a while,” he said, “and started what he felt was a very normal life. But nightmares of that night always remained, and bloodlust surged up within him frequently, plaguing him for the rest of his life.”

Wei Ying pouted, leaning in close to Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan let him, even shifting his guitar away from his lap to accommodate more Wei Ying. Lan Yuan was starting to think that there would be straddling involved if the rest of them weren’t right there. 

“No happy ending?” Wei Ying asked.

“The boy, as a young man, meets another lost soul who had been wronged in the name of a feud for power. Together, they right the wrongs done to them and ensure that no one will ever suffer again. Does that sound right?”

Lan Yuan stood up. Their father’s voice was… was something. Layered with meaning, certainly. Sappy? Quite possibly.

Impossible to bear? Definitely.

When Lan Yuan curled up on their bed that evening, there was still a sick, uncomfortable feeling in their chest. The way their father looked at Wei Ying burned into the back of their eyelids, and it wouldn’t leave them alone no matter what.

Lan Yuan and their father were an odd pair. Lan Yuan had been aware of this for as long as they lived. By all rights, he wasn’t meant to have a place in the Lan family.

They were an interloper. A welcome one, but an interloper nonetheless.They had slowly been assumed into the family they had spent most of their life with, but that didn't mean they belonged. It didn't mean that they would still be welcome if they crossed too many lines.

That didn't seem to apply to Wei Ying. No matter what he did, their father just accepted it. Accepted him. Every word he spoke, every action he took. 

Even if they didn't belong, Lan Yuan had always felt like they knew their father. They knew what it looked like when he was happy. They knew what he looked like when he felt he belonged somewhere.

He had never looked more like that than when Lan Yuan saw him with Wei Ying.

They turned over and tried not to look into the spot in the darkness where they knew Wei Ying slept. Just beyond was where their father lay; they didn't want to even attempt to imagine the kinds of things that either of them were thinking right now.

Were they thinking about how he didn't belong? Did they see him as someone in the way? They had always been the person who was most precious to their father’s life, but they couldn't see that being the case for too much longer. How long was it until he saw it too? 

What Lan Yuan really wanted was the kind of family where all three of them could fit together in a way that made sense. They wanted it, but they couldn't imagine it ever coming to pass. 

“We are lost,” Lan Yuan’s dad declared, like none of them had already worked that out. Of course they were lost; this was the third time they’d pulled over to check the map in as many hours.

Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi groaned in unison, looked at each other with a shared, slightly horrified expression, and then pretended it hadn't happened at all.

“Lan Zhaaaaan,” Wei Ying complained. He draped an arm over Lan Zhan’s shoulder as he spoke, very gently shaking him as he went. “How could you get us lost? We just had to follow the road.”

Lan Yuan’s dad had not, in fact, ‘got them lost’. Each and every person in the van, Lan Yuan imagined, was perfectly aware of exactly how much time and energy Wei Ying had dedicated throughout the day towards distracting him. 

Lan Zhan, however, simply nodded, saying nothing to confirm or deny the completely ridiculous accusation. He just kept driving, the rest of them in a slightly tense silence, as the sun continued to set.

Eventually, he stopped once more. They were still in the middle of nowhere, but the sun had basically set entirely now. The only material difference between now and their three other stopping points earlier in the day was that here they were entirely off the road, away from any traffic that might pass overnight.

But they were still completely lost, and Lan Yuan didn’t know why that bothered them so much, but it did. 

“Don’t we have any way to get back in the right direction?” he asked. He didn’t want to be stranded out here in the middle of nowhere - even if they were fine, it felt different to being purposefully in the middle of nowhere. With their dad, even the latter was bad enough.

“Not unless any of you kids have signal!” Wei Ying said cheerfully. “Or battery, for that matter.” At that, he waved his dead phone in the air. Lan Yuan didn’t know what point it was meant to illustrate, but with the thorns caught in their chest and the relentless feeling of wrongness that filled everything right now, the joke didn’t feel very funny.

“Why doesn’t the van have something we can use to find our way?” they complained.

Their dad looked up at them with that horrible, judgemental frown, and something inside them shrank back in on itself even more, angry and tired. They were so sick of this. “The van was not bought for long distance travel,” Lan Zhan explained.

“Maybe you could have prepared it then, instead of-” Lan Yuan shook their head and bit back the words that formed on their lips. Their head moved to Wei Ying, and then to their friends. Everyone was staring at them.

They were probably thinking about how stupid they were. How over-emotional, because of course they would be. Compared to everyone else, they were just-

Lan Yuan turned away and walked. They didn’t listen for if anyone called after them, nor did they turn back to see if anyone was following. They just walked out into the night and kept walking, not thinking at all about where they wanted to end up. They just wanted to be away.

They didn’t know how long they walked before some of the anger in their chest burnt out. All they knew was that it was dark and getting steadily colder, but they still couldn’t go back. Not after all of this.

They sat down on the ground and waited. They didn’t know what for; they didn’t expect anyone to find them, and knew that no one would be able to get in contact with them. They didn’t know if the frustration that had built in their chest was going to get any better, either. They just knew that if they were stuck in a small space with their dad for any longer, it would only get worse.

He stayed there for a while, staring at the sky. The tree cover was too good to see the stars, but a little moonlight poked through. It was quiet, too - until he heard the footsteps approaching steadily.

Lan Yuan tensed up, turning around. They didn’t have anything to defend themselves, but they weren’t helpless either. They wouldn’t let this take them by surprise.

A moment later, Wei Ying appeared between the trees, a torch in his hand. “Lan Yuan?” he asked. The joking tone that was so familiar had vanished. “Can I come over?”

“I won’t stop you,” they replied. Internally, they winced a little at how much their tone sounded like Jin Ling - maybe their father wasn’t the only person they’d spent too much time with in the last couple of days. 

“Knowing Lan Zhan, if you didn’t want me here you’d just bite me,” Wei Ying said with a chuckle. Lan Yuan stared at him. He laughed again and sat down a short distance away, before his face fell into something more serious. “Alright, I’ll stop joking and present my terms. You don’t have to answer me, I know I’m a weird stranger, but… what’s up?”

His dad hated his friends and was disappointed in him. They didn’t get on like they used to, and now Wei Ying was here and they got on perfectly. His father didn’t even hate the person Lan Yuan was - because he didn’t know him anymore. There were so many things he could say in answer to that question.

“Nothing,” he said instead.

Wei Ying nodded. He probably saw through the lie, but if he did he didn’t say so. “It was stressful earlier,” he said. “I know you have stuff you want to get to, and it’s not like you want to spend even more days shut up in a van with your dad and his- me.”

Lan Yuan pursed his lips. “We’ll be back on track tomorrow, right?” he asked.

Wei Ying hummed. “I can’t promise it,” he admitted. “But I’ll try not to distract your dad again, and hopefully we’ll hit a road we recognise eventually.”

“He’ll probably be able to get us back.” Wei Ying hadn’t said anything about him being in the right - or in the wrong. Lan Yuan found they were almost glad for it.

“And then we can get you kids a meal as an apology for the trouble,” Wei Ying said with a laugh. He paused for a moment, and Lan Yuan could see what he thought was a thoughtful expression in the torchlight. “What kind of food is your favourite? I’ll buy it for you.”

“Anything spicy,” they said immediately, and Wei Ying’s face lit up.

“Fantastic,” he said. “Your taste is much better than your father’s.”

Lan Yuan cracked a small grin. “Are you insulting my dad or yourself?”

Wei Ying choked. “What did you say there, A-Yuan?”

Their smile widened. They didn’t know what it was about Wei Ying, but they always felt so bold around him. “I can ask it clearer,” they said, layering on as much innocence as they could muster. “Are you having sex with my dad?”

In Lan Yuan’s opinion, Wei Ying looked about two seconds from passing out. “How old are you again?” he asked, rubbing the back of his head. Lan Yuan took his sheepish smile to mean ‘yes’ and promptly decided not to unpack that right now.

“Sixteen,” they replied cheerily. “I know what sex is.”

“Alright, alright,” Wei Ying said, waving his hands in the air. “Okay. That’s enough out of you, are you up for going back to the van? If you embarrass me any more, I’ll have to… summon the spirit of the boy from the story.”

Lan Yuan snorted. “Sure,” they said, standing up and dusting their legs off. It was at this point that they realised they’d definitely been played, even if it was at Wei Ying’s expense; they felt a lot better than they had.

They offered Wei Ying a hand, and he smiled, taking it and pulling himself up. He turned back towards the direction he’d walked from, and then paused.

“You can ignore this,” he said. Lan Yuan nodded. “But your dad worries about you, you know?”

Lan Yuan bit their lip. “I know,” they replied. They wished he worried about the right things.

“Come on, into the river!” Wei Ying crowed, almost the moment they came to a halt in their short walk from the van. He’d insisted on it so everyone could ‘stretch their legs’, but everyone had been able to hear the running water before they even got out of the van. “Last one in is a boring old fogie.”

As he spoke, he looked over at Lan Yuan’s father, whose expression was very much unamused. “I will accept my fate,” he said simply, crossing his arms as he looked down at the water.

Lan Jingyi was the first one to go in, fully clothed and yelling. He’d regret it later when he had to walk all the way back up to the van in denim shorts, but for now he seemed to be enjoying himself. Ouyang Zizhen was next, pulling off his jacket and shirt before he joined him.

Lan Yuan watched the water with more than a little hesitation. They didn’t really like getting into the water that much. They’d done it plenty at home, and they could swim really well, but the thought of their shirt sticking to their chest when they were wet was probably the worst feeling ever.

They looked at Jin Ling who, ever prepared, had brought swimming trunks in his rucksack. He changed quickly, but paused before moving any closer to the water. “I don’t know if I actually want to go in,” he said, looking meaningfully at Lan Yuan. He really wasn’t subtle at all sometimes.

Lan Yuan shot him a smile and moved down towards the water. “Are the stones sharp?” they called over, their hands over the straps on their shoes.

“A bit, but take your socks off!” Lan Jingyi called back, with words that could only be spoken by a man who regretted approximately everything.

Lan Yuan bit back a response and pulled their socks off, running down to the water without another moment’s hesitation. They’d be fine once they were in there.

And they were. Everything was perfectly fine until Wei Ying decided he wanted in on the fun too. With a swift movement Lan Yuan initially only saw out of the corner of their eye, he pulled his shirt off and discarded it right next to their father.

There was a moment where Lan Yuan was pretty sure their heart stopped. Not because they were seeing the person who was very clearly their father’s… something (crush? Boyfriend?) without a shirt on, hence experiencing the mortifying ordeal of knowing what his dad’s type was, but because…

Cutting across the upper half of Wei Ying’s chest were two slightly curved scars. They were joined by a nasty burn scar just above, so maybe it could be dismissed as something else by someone who didn’t know what they were looking for, but Lan Yuan knew exactly what that looked like.

So did all their friends. “Lan Yuan!” Ouyang Zizhen called over the sound of the rushing water. He turned his head away from Wei Ying, leaning in closer to Lan Yuan’s ear. “Are you seeing that?” There was a wide, excited smile all over his face, and Lan Yuan imagined theirs looked pretty much the same.

Lan Jingyi had noticed too, clearly, and Jin Ling’s expression showed the same thing. But it also showed something else; something thoughtful, with his brows furrowed slightly. Lan Yuan shot him a questioning look, and he shook his head. “Later!” he said.

They nodded, and then tried to stop looking at Wei Ying, who danced rather close to Lan Zhan. “Will you look after my clothes, gege?” he asked, and Lan Yuan immediately brought their hands up to their ears. They did not want to hear that.

They didn’t hear or see their father’s response, but a moment later there was a splash, and Wei Ying stumbled around in the water just a short distance away from them. “Lan Zhan…”

They didn’t stay for long after that; the water was much colder than any of them expected, and Lan Zhan put his foot down when he saw that Jin Ling’s lips had turned a little blue. Soon enough, they were on their way back to the van, and Lan Yuan finally didn’t have to make such a concerted effort to keep their eyes from straying to Wei Ying.

“Okay,” Jin Ling said, once they’d finally dried off, changed their clothes, and Wei Ying had bundled the four of them into the corner of another roadside fast food place. “So Wei Ying might be my uncle?”

Ouyang Zizhen spat the straw of his milkshake back out into his cup, fixing Jin Ling with an incredulous look. “You’re serious?”

Jin Ling nodded. “You know I told you about the guy who kind of got disowned from my family and now no one likes to talk about him?” The three of them nodded. “Well, he’s my mum’s adopted younger brother. His name is Wei Ying, and I never met him, but- Lan Yuan, remember when you told us about trans stuff?”

Lan Yuan nodded. “Wait-” he said. “So when you knew about all of those things before I even told you, that was because of him?”

“Yep,” Jin Ling said. “A-niang told me about things, because she said it was important that I know because she wished she’d known when she was younger? So. That’s sort of weird, huh.”

“It’s not weird!” Lan Jingyi said. Jin Ling smiled. “Well, it is a little bit weird, but mostly it’s good. Because this means Lan Yuan’s dad probably understands this stuff better than we thought, right?”

“Maybe,” Lan Yuan said. Through the realisation, they hadn’t even thought about it that way, but now it was out loud they felt the tiniest spark of something hopeful light in their chest. They didn’t want to think about it too much, just in case, but… it was a nice thought.

“Almost definitely,” Ouyang Zizhen said, twirling his straw around. A small splatter of milkshake landed on Jin Ling’s food. “If your dad knows anything about the man he’s clearly hardcore pining after, he definitely knows that! And he knew him as a kid, too, so there’s no way he doesn’t know about it.”

“That doesn’t mean he understands,” Lan Yuan pointed out. He couldn’t get his hopes up. If he did and his dad still couldn’t accept it, everything would just be so much worse.

“Your dad doesn’t really do things by halves,” Jin Ling said. “And if he was a dick about this, I bet Wei Ying wouldn’t still be around.”

Lan Yuan nodded. That was all right, but- he didn’t know. He just didn’t know. He hunched in on himself a little, hoping that they’d maybe get the message. “Maybe he can accept it in Wei Ying but not me. I don’t want to rush into this anyway.”

Ouyang Zizhen nodded, moving to pat them on the shoulder. Lan Yuan pretended they didn’t see the fervent ‘cut it out’ gesture he made at the other two. “It might be weird if you told him right after you found out about Wei Ying anyway,” he said. “Just take your time and do it when you want, just as you’ve always done.”

Lan Yuan hummed, busying himself with another mouthful of food and hoping he could just get this out of his mind already. Things didn’t seem quite as terrible as they had a couple days ago, but that didn't mean this would be okay. It didn’t mean anything would be okay.

“Lan Yuan, can I borrow you for some super secret and very important schemes?” Wei Ying asked early the next morning, before they even set off. “It won’t take long and no one will be put at mortal risk, promise.”

Lan Yuan shot a glance at their father. He… didn’t seem opposed, which wasn’t all that surprising considering that it was Wei Ying who suggested it. “Sure,” they said, standing up and leaving the confines of the van. “Is everything alright?” they asked, once they were out of earshot of everyone else.

Wei Ying let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, everything’s fine,” he said. “I actually wanted to ask you the same thing. You seemed a bit upset yesterday and I-” He ran his fingers through his hair, a decidedly awkward expression forming on his face. “I wanted to check I hadn’t done anything wrong or overstepped a line.”

Personally, Lan Yuan thought that having to watch someone flirt with his dad was definitely over the line, but he didn’t want to complain. It made them both happy even if it was sort of mortifying. “Oh, good,” he said. “I thought you were planning to get us lost again. No, everything’s okay.”

Wei Ying’s face brightened. “Glad to hear it,” he said, reaching forward to ruffle Lan Yuan’s hair. “You’re a great daughter to Lan Zhan, you know. You’re probably even better behaved than he was at your age.”

Lan Yuan tried and failed to disguise his wince. He couldn’t help it; the feeling that shot through him at those words just felt wrong. Bad in a way he struggled to contain when his guard wasn’t up.

“A-Yuan?” Wei Ying’s face turned concerned again. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

Lan Yuan blinked, shooting a hurried glance back at the van. Unbidden, their heart raced; this was an opportunity. A perfect one, presented right to him on a platter. He wouldn’t get a better moment to tell Wei Ying than this.

This was not the first time Lan Yuan had come out to an adult. A year ago - the last time they visited Lotus Pier - they mulled over their words for hours on end while trying not to think about what might come after they spoke them.

Jiang Cheng was the only openly queer adult they knew. He was like none of their teachers, and definitely not like their dad, who Lan Yuan never would have known was gay until he was right there with Wei Ying being really, really obvious. If Lan Yuan was going to tell anyone, they were going to tell Jiang Cheng.

It was fine; better even than they'd expected. Jiang Cheng seemed to understand what they were talking about, and knew all the right things to say. It was like he'd heard it all before. It was comforting.

This was a very different situation. There was no reason it would go badly, but that didn't mean their heart didn't leap in their chest.

“I’m… not his daughter,” he managed. Suddenly, the previously cool morning air felt very hot around them. “I’m- not a girl. I-” He was messing this up royally. This was so bad.

Still, Wei Ying’s mouth dropped open and something akin to understanding graced his face. “Oh, shit,” he said. “I am so sorry, A-Yuan. Take your time, I’m listening.”

They nodded, sucking in a few shaky breaths before they could continue. “I’m not a man either,” they clarified. “Not completely. I, uh, my name is fine, and I use they pronouns a lot, but also referring to me as a man is fine. But a-die doesn’t know yet so- please don’t let it slip to him or anything.”

“Of course.” Wei Ying seemed so calm all of a sudden, and Lan Yuan had no idea how that made them feel. “The knowledge is safe with me, and I’m- very glad you trusted me enough to say something.”

Lan Yuan nodded fervently. “I do,” he said. “I wouldn’t have until yesterday, but-”

Wei Ying laughed. “So that was why you were all staring. I thought there was something weird on my back.”

And with that, Lan Yuan could smile again. They didn’t feel quite at ease just yet, but they felt a lot better. It was- it was like a rush, almost. It had been so long since they’d last told anyone, but the words had tumbled out so much faster than they’d anticipated. They’d been understood far better than they could have imagined. Accepted just like that.

They wanted the feeling again. They wanted that feeling to come from their father’s lips. So before he knew it, Lan Yuan took another step forward.

“Can you help me tell my dad?”

“Of course.” Wei Ying’s response was immediate, and Lan Yuan could have sworn that something resembling pride flickered across his face. “Anything you ask. Just tell me how you want it to go, and I’ll do my utmost to make it happen.”

Lan Yuan nodded, his heart racing again. He didn’t know if it was from nerves or excitement this time - probably both. “Do you think he needs to hear anything else before I say something?” he asked. “He- I mean, he needs to know enough about what I’m saying, and I’d rather… he might listen to it more from you?”

Wei Ying hummed. “It should be fine,” he said. He laid a hand on Lan Yuan’s shoulder; they were shaking. They hadn’t realised. “He knows plenty. He’s been good about it for as long as I’ve known him, honestly - whatever you tell him, he’ll be fine about it.”

Lan Yuan closed their eyes. A feeling welled up inside of them that they couldn’t quite name, tightening around their throat, but they nodded and forced the next words out anyway. “Okay,” he said. “Then I… if you could get my friends away from the van for a bit, that should work. Maybe this afternoon? Then I can have the time I need to talk to him.”

They almost couldn’t believe they were actually, seriously planning this. It hadn’t been all that long ago that they thought they never would, and yet-

“Consider it done,” Wei Ying said, squeezing their shoulder once. “Need anything else?”

“Just-” Lan Yuan sucked in a deep breath. “Do you really think he’ll be fine with it?”

They knew their father. Logically, as long as he had the knowledge beforehand, he would understand. But Wei Ying knew him too, and if he thought it was a bad idea they’d abandon this in an instant. They didn’t think they’d be able to take it if it went badly.

Wei Ying paused for a moment, looking off into the distance. “He’s not always good with change,” he admitted. Lan Yuan tensed slightly; they knew that, but it was even less encouraging coming from someone else’s lips. “But he cares about you. Deeply. Probably more than he cares about anyone else. Maybe it’ll take him a little while to get used to it, but he’d never reject you for this.”

Lan Yuan sniffed. He didn’t want to cry, but it was hard. It was hard to untangle all of the emotions running through him right now. It’d probably be even harder once he got to the afternoon.

But he had to try. Everything was falling into place, so maybe, just maybe, it was worth giving this a shot.

Wei Ying worked fast. From the moment they stopped, it probably only took him five minutes to coax the others away with vaguely worded promises of… something. Lan Yuan hadn’t been paying attention; he was too nervous.

Blood rushed in his ears as he sat, rooted to his seat with his hands clenched at his sides. He could do this. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t know, but he did know that he was operating on a timer, and the longer he left it, the more likely it would be that he wouldn’t start at all, too worried that he’d be interrupted partway through.

They had to act now, or they might never summon up the courage. And right now, the only thing pushing them forwards to make this happen now was that Wei Ying would probably be disappointed if he returned to find that his efforts had been in vain.

“A-Yuan.” They jolted out of their thoughts to the sound of their father’s voice. It was clearly a visible reaction; his brow furrowed minutely, a clear sign he was concerned. “You look ill. Do you want to get some fresh air?”

A part of them wanted to be annoyed at him for assuming what they needed right now. The other part was too scared to feel anything else.

They nodded. “Come with me?” they asked, barely concealing the shake in their voice. Given their father's reaction, maybe they didn’t manage to conceal it at all.

Unsurprisingly, he agreed, and within a moment Lan Yuan had pulled his shoes on to go outside for a bit. Push came to shove, if this went really badly he could just run away. That was always an option.

Once he managed to get away, he’d be able to call Wei Ying. He’d left his number for Lan Yuan, just as one final backup. When he typed it into Lan Yuan’s phone, he’d said he hoped they wouldn’t need it. With their hands stuffed in their pockets to conceal how much they were shaking, Lan Yuan wasn’t so sure.

“Dad.” Their voice came out as barely more than a whisper, but Lan Zhan still stopped, turning towards them. “Can we- can we talk about something?”

He nodded. “If you want to,” he said, which was part of the problem; they didn’t want to. They wanted him to understand without words. They wanted to just not have this conversation ever, with anyone, because it was unfair that they had to talk about it just to be understood. This conversation was so hard, and it was only going to get harder.

They almost wished he would insist on it, like the last time he’d tried to have a conversation with them. This time, they wouldn’t brush him off, wouldn’t say that they never wanted to talk about it. They’d let all the words spill out if only he gave them a little push, but right now-

“Maybe we should sit down,” their dad said, gesturing to a spot under a tree. They nodded mutely, gladly relieving their shaking legs. They really didn’t know if they could do this. “What did you want to say?”

“I- so you know- no, wait, I was talking to Wei Ying and-” Lan Yuan cut himself off and shook his head. “Give me a minute?”

Lan Zhan nodded, the picture of patience. They wondered if he felt like that inside; right now, their mind wanted to tell them they were just missing an annoyed expression. “Take your time.”

Lan Yuan took a few carefully controlled breaths. They’d done this with Jiang Cheng, who was arguably far scarier, and with Wei Ying, who they barely knew. This should be fine. This would be fine.

“I’m not a girl.” They didn’t know if it was a good place to start, but it was out there now. They could build on it, build on the flicker of understanding on their father’s face, igniting the fire that spurred them onwards. “I’m- do you know what transgender means? I can explain it if you need, I-”

“I know what you mean.” Their father’s voice was always so carefully controlled, but it felt even more so now. Lan Yuan tried not to think about what it could be hiding; there’d be plenty of time for that later.

“I’m not like- Wei Ying is just a man, right?” Lan Zhan nodded. “I’m not quite like that. I’m a bit of a man and also a bit not at the same time. So if you could… not call me your daughter? I’d like that. And just not referring to me as a girl but as a man, but also they pronouns are good as well. Is that- I’ve been talking for ages, is that okay?”

His father was still for a moment. He didn’t look quite so composed anymore, his expression thoughtful. “I understand,” he said, and his voice was warm. “Thank you.”

Lan Yuan nodded, screwing their eyes shut and clenching their fists tightly. They didn’t know what came after this. They’d planned so many answers out in their head late into the night for over a year now, but they somehow hadn’t reckoned with how quiet their father could be.

“A-Yuan…” Their father’s voice was closer, now, and when they opened their eyes their vision was blurry. He offered a tissue, held steadily between them. When Lan Yuan took it, he opened his arms.

It was all they could do not to fall forward into them. Their father’s arms circled tightly around them, pulling them close into his chest. They buried their head into his shoulder, knowing they’d get tears all over him but barely able to care. With the way he ever so gently rocked them, they knew he didn’t mind either.

“Thank you for trusting me,” he said. “If you will permit it, I cannot wait for the day I can tell everyone about how proud I am of my child and their bravery.”

Lan Yuan cried harder, and his father’s embrace tightened. He’d never felt safer in those arms than right now.

Lan Yuan had barely managed to dry their tears by the time Wei Ying returned, Lan Yuan’s three slightly disgruntled but still triumphant friends trailing behind him. Each of them held what appeared to be a paper bag full of sweets.

They offered them all a smile when they clambered into the van, loudly proclaiming that Wei Ying tricked them with the promise of showing them something ‘really cool.’ “There was nothing there, Lan Yuan,” Ouyang Zizhen complained.

They nodded, hoping their smile didn’t seem too watery. They didn’t know if they trusted their voice right now.

“Wait,” Lan Jingyi said. He squinted in Lan Yuan’s direction, then turned to the front of the van. “Can we kick you two out for ten minutes?”

Lan Yuan opened their mouth to say no, but their father was already moving, pulling the door on his side of the van open and tugging - only once but still very noticeably - at Wei Ying’s sleeve. He followed instantly, leaving the four of them alone once more.

“Is everything alright?” Lan Jingyi asked immediately. “I am so sorry, I didn’t realise that when Wei Ying was drawing us away he was- that bastard, I thought he was chill! I should have twigged when the place he led us to had nothing there and then he agreed to go and get food when we complained, and-”

Lan Yuan shook their head, cutting him off. “I asked him to,” he said. Three mouths dropped open in tandem. 

“I rescind my harsh judgement,” Ouyang Zizhen said, grinning at his bag, “and am now going to enjoy the sweets he paid for even more.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great for you,” Lan Jingyi said, shoving him in the shoulder. When he didn’t get the desired response of Ouyang Zizhen dropping his bag on the floor in surprise, he shoved harder. “But why did you want us away? I thought you hated talking to your dad.”

“I… wanted to tell him. About gender stuff.”

“And you did?” Jin Ling asked, leaning forward in his seat. After a moment of thought, he pulled one of his sweets out of his bag and offered it to them. “Did it go okay?”

They nodded. “It was fine,” they said, blinking back a fresh flow of tears. They didn’t even know why, it was just- they had so many emotions. They didn’t know how to put everything that had been said into words. “It was good?”

The three of them cheered in unison. “It was good!” Lan Jingyi immediately launched himself at Lan Yuan for a hug, and Ouyang Zizhen joined him only a second later. Lan Yuan looked between their shoulders to catch Jin Ling’s eyes; he shook his head, but after a moment gave them a quick, awkward pat on the shoulder.

They stayed like that for a while. More than ten minutes had definitely passed by the time Wei Ying knocked on the van doors to ask if they could come in again, and by then Lan Yuan had worked their way through another handful of tissues.

They didn’t think they’d ever been happier in their life.

“A-Yuan.” It was late - far later than either of them were usually up - when Lan Yuan’s father turned to them in the booth of the slightly sticky shop they’d trekked to for a late night ice cream (at Wei Ying’s insistence, which Lan Yuan was fast learning was perhaps the best way to get their father to agree to something). “I’d like to show you something.”

Lan Yuan paused for a moment, his heart uncomfortably fast in his chest. He didn’t know what his father wanted, didn’t know what might be said, but-

His words from earlier had lit something else in their chest. Hope, maybe. Whatever it was, it didn’t want to be ignored.

“Of course,” he replied, pushing himself up out of his seat and leaving the others behind. Lan Jingyi shot him a quick thumb’s up, and they smiled back at him. This would be fine.

Lan Zhan led him out of the shop and back to the side of the road where the van was parked. He opened up one of the bags stuffed tightly into a corner and picked up a blanket from within. Then, without another word, he turned out towards the trees.

Lan Yuan followed, of course, the ground beneath his feet slightly rough. The night was slightly chilly, and it left the grass cool against their ankles, but they knew they didn’t have it in them to complain. Not that they really wanted to, not anymore.

Eventually, maybe twenty minutes out from the road, the trees thinned a little. That was where their father stopped, spreading the blanket out on the ground beneath them and sitting down. After a moment, Lan Yuan joined him.

“Look.” Their dad pointed up through the trees, and Lan Yuan inched a little closer to catch exactly what he was looking at.

Above them stretched the sky, wide and dark, scattered with countless stars. Lan Yuan had stargazed plenty in the past, but it was always at Cloud Recesses. Everywhere else they went was too full of light, the stars hidden by a much closer power.

The stars looked different out here. They felt different. How long had it been since they last did something like this with their father?

Everything was very far away. The van, their friends, Wei Ying, the sky and all the stars it held. Everything was held at a distance except their father. The man who, barely a few days before, Lan Yuan thought he’d be distant from forever.

A smile found their face again, and they shifted a little closer to their father on the blanket again. It had been a long, long time since they’d really been close - longer even than the last time they watched the night sky together.

When they looked down from the sky down to his face, Lan Zhan was already looking at them, his face full of an unfathomable expression. For just a moment, it struck Lan Yuan as to how many times they’d seen almost that exact expression before. They wondered what it meant.

“We’re not just here to look at stars,” their father admitted. Lan Yuan had already guessed as much. “Is that alright?”

He nodded. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Wei Ying.” The words tumbled out with an immediacy Lan Yuan was unused to from their father, but Wei Ying seemed to provoke that kind of reaction from him most of the time. “He…”

“You don’t have to lay it out for me,” they said. Their father always struggled with actually talking about this kind of thing. He always had; they’d assumed that was why he hadn’t said anything about Wei Ying before now.

“I wish to,” he answered, his voice steady and clear. “You deserve to know what’s going on.”

Lan Yuan was tempted to make a joke about how obvious it was that there was something going on - how obvious it had been since Wei Ying first tumbled into Cloud Recesses barely a week ago (and it felt so much longer, somehow). But they couldn’t bring themselves to even lightly tease their father, not right now.

“Wei Ying and I are… together.” A mild word, really, but his father gave it so much weight. “I believe—I hope—that this is something that will continue for the foreseeable future. I do not know exactly what he wishes to happen, but it is possible that he will- be a part of our family when you return from Yunmeng, if that is what you wish also.”

They nodded, offering him the brightest smile they could muster. They did want that. They wanted their father to be happy, and Wei Ying’s proficiency in causing exactly that couldn’t be understated.

“I apologise for not being open to you about this before,” Lan Zhan said. His hands twitched in his lap, a sure sign that Lan Yuan’s father was actually nervous. “I struggle with these kinds of conversations, but that is no excuse. I should not have let my hesitance to be open affect my son so much.”

Lan Yuan’s mouth dropped open, their heart racing as it filled with a thousand feelings all at once. Tears sprang to their eyes, but they didn’t know exactly what had caused it. Maybe it was everything.

Their father faltered when he saw. “Is calling you son the right thing?” he asked. “It’s not too-”

“No, it’s…” Lan Yuan shook their head, slightly lost for words. Without thinking about it too hard, they flung their arms around their father, squeezing him as tightly as they could. “It’s perfect.”

Lan Zhan froze for a moment, and then his arms found Lan Yuan’s back, pulling him closer. Compared to the cool night air, he was the warmest thing in the world, brighter than all of the stars put together.

The weather was warm and a little wet when the van pulled into Jiang Cheng’s drive. Five loud cheers rang out; the traffic on the way in had been absolutely terrible. Lan Yuan even caught sight of a smile from his father in the rearview mirror - he caught his father’s eyes and smiled back.

Lan Jingyi piled out of the van immediately, making a frantic attempt to gather up all the belongings he’d managed to scatter around the van over the last few days. He was followed immediately by Ouyang Zizhen and Jin Ling as they sprinted up the drive to knock on the door - as if Jin Ling hadn’t already messaged his jiujiu to let him know they’d be there imminently.

Lan Yuan stayed for a moment, watching Wei Ying and their father. They seemed to hold some kind of silent conversation, with Wei Ying making some very exaggerated facial expressions as he went.

As they busied themselves with whatever that was, Lan Yuan alternated between gathering up a few pieces of rubbish that had collected on the floor of the van and watching the colour on Jiang Cheng’s face turn very rapidly from white to red to white again as Jin Ling informed him of... something.

It only took Lan Yuan a few moments to work out what it was when Jiang Cheng strode down the drive, a very odd expression on his face, and then rapped loudly on the window of the passenger side of the van. “Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying jolted like he’d been hit by lightning, and that was when Lan Yuan realised what the nonverbal conversation must have been about. Of course - there was a history here. A history Lan Yuan very much wasn’t privy to, and they weren’t sure if they were meant to be.

“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Ying called, a very wide smile stretching his face. Lan Yuan didn’t think they knew enough about Wei Ying to judge whether it was fake or not, but it definitely didn’t look comfortable. “Fancy seeing you here?”

“Fancy indeed,” Jiang Cheng said. Lan Yuan wanted to run away at that tone in his voice, honestly. The fact that Wei Ying hadn’t done so already was probably testament to how much time they’d once spent together - or maybe Wei Ying was just special like that. “It’s almost as if you drove my nephew all the way here.”

“I didn’t drive!” Wei Ying said cheerily. He looked towards Lan Zhan, who immediately removed one hand from the steering wheel (the other remained very tightly clenched around it, his knuckles white) to take Wei Ying’s left hand in his own. “Lan Zhan did.”

“Lan Zhan did,” Jiang Cheng echoed, his gaze fixed on their interlocked hands. “Come on, get out of the van.”

Wei Ying practically squeaked. “Maybe not?” he suggested. “I’ve been sitting down for so long. My leg might cramp, and then you’d take advantage of my weakness.”

“I would not let him,” Lan Zhan said, perfectly seriously, and Lan Yuan was starting to wish that he’d just got out of the van when they arrived. He could be having a perfectly not uncomfortable conversation with his friends right now.

But no, they decided to stay in the van, and now they had to deal with… whatever this was. They still didn’t quite know.

“Did you have a booking at a hostel to get to?” Lan Yuan asked, as sweetly as they could manage. Maybe that would remind the ‘adults’ here that they weren’t the only people in the world.

Sure enough, the three of them practically jumped to attention, and Wei Ying immediately picked up the lifeline Lan Yuan granted. “Yes, you’re right! Thank you so much, A-Yuan, I’d completely forgotten.”

They did not have a booking at a hostel to get to. As far as Lan Yuan knew, they hadn’t even decided if they’d be staying in Yunmeng for long at all. He supposed they were now.

There was a beat of silence. “That means you have to get out of the van, Lan Yuan,” Jiang Cheng said eventually. He was still looking at Wei Ying very, very expectantly. Wei Ying’s skin was even thicker than Lan Yuan had thought.

“I want to say goodbye first,” they replied, fixing him with the sternest glare they could muster. They had no idea what all the history was between Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying, or how their father fit into that, but they weren’t going to let it get in the way now. They could deal with it like real adults - later.

Thankfully, Jiang Cheng seemed to get the hint. He backed off and went back to the doorway, pointedly not looking at Wei Ying more than once every twenty seconds.

“Thanks for that,” Wei Ying said.

“You need to talk to him,” they shot back. Wei Ying deflated. “Just not now.”

“I hear you,” Wei Ying said, leaning into the back of the van to ruffle their hair. They frowned at him, but he just laughed. “Another day.”

“Good.” They clambered over the divide between the front and back of the van; they probably looked really silly, but they didn’t think they cared at that point. They threw one arm around Wei Ying’s shoulder, and the other around their dad’s - it reached, just about, though it was a bit of a stretch.

“I’m really glad we did this trip,” he said. “And I’m glad you were both here.”

“I’m glad too,” their dad said, reaching up to pat them on the head once. “I’ll see you again soon. Stay in touch.”

“Of course,” they promised. “Will I see Wei Ying again too?” He’d already had an answer to that question from his father, but maybe he felt like he deserved a little repayment after the ordeal they’d just put him through.

They both paused for a moment before Wei Ying let out a slightly nervous laugh. “Probably about as soon as you see your dad again,” he admitted.

They smiled, and the nervousness on Wei Ying’s face faded. “Good.” Lan Yuan pulled their arm away from their dad for a moment and gave Wei Ying a quick hug, before turning to their dad and burying their face in his shoulder. He sort of hoped his friends weren’t looking, but even if they were it was worth it.

Jin Ling grinned at them as they made their way up the drive to join everyone. “How long until I have another uncle?” he asked. Jiang Cheng smacked him gently on the back of the head. “I’m just asking!”

“Probably not too long,” Lan Yuan said with a laugh, turning back to watch the van. Their dad started the engine, and they waved; they knew he’d watch in the mirror for as long as he could.

Before long, they disappeared around the corner, leaving only the sight of the lotus lake glittering in the afternoon sunlight.

Lan Yuan smiled to themselves. The week ahead was going to be great, but the best part of their holiday had already happened.