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There were roses in his dressing room, again. Lan Zhan leaned against the door, suddenly overcome. He would tell anyone who asked that it was just because he was tired. But he knew it was relief.
Twelve white roses, tied with a red ribbon.
The first rose he’d ever received had been after a school performance where he’d been dressed up in a shirt that had belonged to his big brother and was just too large on him. Uncle had muttered about frugality and A-Huan had explained that it was to bring him luck and Lan Zhan had focused on the piano and ignored everything else. Until he found a rose, orange and blush, a little battered and bruised, tatty red wrapping ribbon curled around its stem, sitting on his seat when he came back to his seat in the auditorium.
He’d held it all the way home and ignored the pointed comments about placing it on the compost heap from his uncle. His brother helped him put it in water, in the glass from his bathroom, and he’d kept it on his nightstand until all the petals had fallen off.
The next rose had been in much better condition. And hand delivered. Mianmian had thrust it at him when he’d sat down in his chair after his violin solo and before his piano piece. She should have been his rival, vying for the first violin slot in the orchestra or challenging him for solos. Instead she seemed to use orchestra as a social club, making friends and organising parties that he would attend for the first half hour and then leave when everyone else arrived fashionably late.
“It’s not from me,” she told him, when Lan Zhan turned it over in his hands while the orchestra director made a speech. “But I’m not to tell you who it’s from.”
Lan Zhan had placed the rose carefully on the stage next to his chair. When it came home, he was prepared. He hung it upside down and carefully preserved it between two of the heavy encyclopaedias that his uncle insisted on keeping in the music room despite the fact they were out of date and no one used them. Lan Zhan knew he could not guarantee ever receiving another rose and he wanted to make sure he kept this one.
Someone saw him find the next rose, on his chair, after interval, and that started two trends: other people in the orchestra giving and receiving flowers and trying to make Lan Zhan find out who the flowers were from. Lan Zhan didn’t participate in either.
The problem was that he knew who he wanted the flowers to be from. He wanted the giver to be Wei Ying, class troublemaker, popular kid, life and soul of the party and entirely too pretty for Lan Zhan’s entire peace of mind. There was no way he could just ask, though. He was fairly sure he knew why he wanted it to be Wei Ying but he couldn’t face the possibility of public humiliation if he was wrong or even the rumours that would swirl through the school faster that a whirlpool if he was right. It was better to not know and keep his dignity.
There were three roses at his next concert, still wrapped in a red ribbon.
Lan Zhan had been nervous at his first professional concert. He’d been performing in competitions and at school for years and learned how to conquer his nerves. But here people had paid, paid actual money, to come hear him accompanied by an orchestra. It was a lead up to an album, he knew, something he and his brother and his uncle had spent a long time discussing. He was going to finish school and make a recording and tour and put off university to see how it would all pan out.
It was, surprisingly, his brother who was the least keen on the plan. And Lan Zhan knew it was to do with making friends and developing a sense of who he was as a person and being independent. Lan Zhan knew his brother had experienced a lot at university. But he had always been more social, keener on meeting people, on new experiences. Lan Zhan wasn’t scared of that: he just wasn’t sure it was the right path for him.
This concert was to be a test, a proving ground. There was a university place for him if he changed his mind.
The concert hall was big and confusing and Lan Zhan got turned around trying to find his way back to the room he’d been assigned as his dressing room from the stage after their final rehearsal. A suit hung carefully in the corner and the shiniest shoes he’d ever worn sat neatly underneath them. It seemed like a useful emblem for the next stage in his life.
It was only then that he noticed the vase on the table underneath the enormous mirror with lights all around the edge. There were white roses this time, six of them, and two ribbons – one light blue and one red – wrapped around the neck of the vase. And for the first time, there was a card.
Lan Zhan’s hand trembled as he reached for it.
“Good luck,” it said, in handwriting he didn’t recognise. It wasn’t his uncle’s or his brother’s, something Lan Zhan had considered. But it also wasn’t signed. On one hand, that was disappointing. On the other… well, someone was definitely on his side who wasn’t his immediate family or his manager. Lan Zhan felt his shoulders loosen as he smelled the roses.
Lan Zhan’s uncle kept calling the final stop on his first tour the “homecoming” date. In some ways it was, Lan Zhan guessed. He was returning to his home town and the audience was going to be contain a lot of people who had been part of his childhood – his school mates, his old music teachers, his brother’s friends. What Lan Zhan did not want to tell his uncle was that a piece of home had followed him on his tour. At every concert, no matter where in the country it was, roses appeared, delivered to his dressing room. There was less mystery about where they were coming from – usually a local florist would appear and ask if he was Lan Zhan. But they were always there.
The concert hall seemed smaller than it used to feel. Lan Zhan had spent a lot of time thinking about how much had shifted since he’d been away. A door painted a different colour, a new shop replacing a more familiar one. Those changes he could understand. But it took him longer to understand that he had changed more than home had, in the time he’d been away. He wasn’t taller or much older, but he understood more about why his brother had insisted he think seriously about university. Touring had changed him, matured him. He hadn’t, however, made many new friends. Or any. Everyone who toured with him was older, experienced in different ways. Lan Zhan had come to accept that they’d meet for dinners, drinks, while he sat in his lonely hotel room.
There were no roses waiting for him in his dressing room before the concert, either. He played adequately.
After the concert, he shook hands with the people he needed to and pasted on the fake smile his manager had made him practise for hours. It took him longer than he wanted to slip back to his dressing room and his feet pinched in his shiny shoes. His neat bow tie seemed to strangle him and he loosened it as he let the door shut louder than he should have.
“Ah!” said a familiar voice, surprised by his sudden entrance. Lan Zhan closed his eyes and counted to five slowly before turning to look.
Wei Ying was sitting on the arm chair Lan Zhan never used, a phone forgotten in his hand. At his feet was a bouquet of twelve white roses, tied with a red silk ribbon. “Lan Zhan!”
“Wei Ying.” Maybe he worked for a florist, Lan Zhan thought. He was at the local university and maybe he was a delivery boy to make some cash. That would explain why Wei Ying was in his dressing room with his roses. That was all, Lan Zhan tried to tell his pounding, hopeful heart.
“So, anyway. Right.” Wei Ying fidgeted with his phone before standing up and sliding it into a back pocket. “These are for you.” He lifted up the flowers and held them out.
“Thank you,” Lan Zhan said, taking them. He tried out the practised smile.
Wei Ying winced. “Yeah, don’t make that face.”
Lan Zhan’s feet really began to hurt but he waited, patiently, for Wei Ying to leave.
“I promised Huaisang – you remember Huaisang? Of course you do. Your brother is Nie Mingjue’s friend. Or gym buddy – I promised him I’d actually talk to you. So here I am.” Wei Ying stretched out his hands and waggled them.
“With flowers.” Lan Zhan held onto them, feeling the wrapping crinkle in his grip.
“With roses. For you.” Wei Ying let out a ha ha type of fake laugh. “It was just because you were so good and hot and then good and hot and then it became a way of saying hi except I never told you I’d sent them and maybe you think it was weird but I liked you – I like you. And I thought you should know. So that’s what I promised Huaisang I’d say. And I can go now.”
“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan blocked the door when Wei Ying tried to leave. “You gave me my roses?”
“Yeah.” Wei Ying looked down and Lan Zhan felt his heart give a treacherous lurch when he finally glanced up again through his lashes. “But I’ll stop.”
Lan Zhan felt his face shift into something he recognised as a much more genuine smile. “Because you liked me.”
“Ah!” Wei Ying covered his face with his hands. “I knew you’d hate it.”
Lan Zhan dipped forward and placed a soft, barely there kiss on Wei Ying’s cheek. He was astonished at his own bravery. “I like you, too.”
Wei Ying went bright red – Lan Zhan had never seen anyone flush that quickly or that violently – and then he leaned forward and dashed a kiss against Lan Zhan’s lips. His actual mouth. They stood for a long minute just watching each other.
“So. I should go. Properly. But can I have your number? Are you in town long? Or are you going to tour more? And we could have a date? If you’d like?” Wei Ying’s voice climbed higher and higher as the questions tumbled out of him one after another.
Lan Zhan held out his hand and Wei Ying scrambled to get his phone out of his pocket.
Uncle was not pleased with this development. “A boyfriend? Why do you want a boyfriend?”
Lan Zhan could not exactly say that he liked – no, he loved - the kissing. And the dates. And the way Wei Ying’s breath hitched when Lan Zhan’s hips brushed against his. He didn’t want his uncle to have a heart attack. “I like him.”
“It is good that A-Zhan has made friends,” his brother said serenely but very firmly. “It will be good to help him relax before you send him off on tour again.”
His uncle had made a rather grouchy noise at that and Lan Zhan knew the topic wasn’t closed but that the conversation was over for now. He escaped the house and met Wei Ying at the café that had become theirs and knew that he had to just spend as much time as he could with him for now.
“You should play for me,” Wei Ying teased him, lying on the floor of Lan Zhan’s practice room. His uncle had made a face when Wei Ying had shown up at the door but let him in and then told them he was going out but not for long. “A private concert!” The windows to the garden were open and the white gauzy curtains fluttered in a light breeze. The light and shade played over Wei Ying’s skin, making him even more ethereal and beautiful than usual. Lan Zhan’s heart missed a beat.
“What do you want me to play?” Lan Zhan ran his fingers over the keys in a scale, teasingly. He started picking out some Satie, a Gymnopedie, slow and plodding, as Wei Ying kicked at his stool.
“No! No! Something more fun!” Wei Ying sat up and pouted. Lan Zhan burst into the William Tell Overture, laughing to himself as Wei Ying yelled indignantly. Lan Zhan knew he took his playing seriously but there was something fun in this playing around. He was forced to stop when Wei Ying grabbed at his hands.
“I have something to play for you,” Lan Zhan admitted, after he had kissed Wei Ying to make up for his teasing. “It’s mine.”
“Mine?” Wei Ying kissed at Lan Zhan’s cheek. “You mean, you wrote it?”
Lan Zhan nodded, shyly. “I don’t think it’s any good but I wanted to try writing something.”
“It’s going to be brilliant.” Wei Ying leaned into him again and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Then he sat back on the floor, legs crossed at the ankle and eyes fixed on Lan Zhan.
The first few bars were hesitant then Lan Zhan let himself remember how he’d felt when he’d tried to come up with the melody line, the way the music lifted and dropped. The way he felt breathless when Wei Ying kissed him. It was almost a shock when the tune wound to the end and he came back to himself.
Wei Ying clapped softly, eyes bright. “That- Lan Zhan! Play it again, please.” He fumbled over to where he’d been sitting before and grabbed his phone. “I’m going to film you so I can enjoy it. Later.”
Lan Zhan could feel the tips of his ears redden but he sat back properly and waited for Wei Ying to give him the nod. He started by looking at the keys but had to look up and meet Wei Ying’s gaze after a moment. Wei Ying had his mouth parted in a gasp and his eyes were wide and he looked like Lan Zhan was something incredible and other worldly and special. Lan Zhan couldn’t believe anyone would look at him like that.
The breeze picked up, for a moment, making the curtains fluttering behind him snap against the open door. The breeze danced into the room, carrying petals from the blossom outside the window. They cascaded onto Wei Ying, making him look even more like some supernatural being, something celestial. Lan Zhan finished playing, letting the last notes hang in the air, before pushing back the stool and falling to his knees in front of Wei Ying. Wei Ying threw his phone to the side before Lan Zhan pushed him back and kissed him again and again.
His phone buzzed as he was getting ready for bed. Wei Ying had taken to sending him a message to wish him sweet dreams. Sometimes there were even photos. Lan Zhan’s favourites were the ones Wei Ying sent of him in bed, sleepy eyed and smiling softly. He hoped there might be one of those tonight. He was tired, after all, as they’d made out for what seemed like hours, his lips still bruised from Wei Ying’s.
I have something to tell you the message read. Lan Zhan knew it was irrational to panic but he began to worry anyway. I put the video of you playing up on insta. That didn’t seem too bad. Lan Zhan had seen lots of videos of his playing shared online. His manager had insisted on posting some herself.
That’s fine. Lan Zhan lay back on his bed and waited for Wei Ying’s reply. His phone rang.
“I should have asked. But it’s doing, like, serious numbers. I’ve had to mute the notifications kinda numbers.” Wei Ying sounded a little fraught. “I know you wrote the song for me but you looked, seriously, like a fucking angel and I wanted to show off my boyfriend and-“
“Wei Ying, it’s okay.” Lan Zhan grabbed his laptop and opened up Wei Ying’s Instagram. The video was the first thing there and Lan Zhan opened it up. Wei Ying hadn’t even said who he was. There was nothing but a pair of eyes and “Beautiful”. The comments scrolling past faster than Lan Zhan could read seemed to be equally positive. He copied the link and sent a quick email to his manager anyway. He let the video run on silent, smiling when the breeze sent the blast of blossoms into the room. They swirled around him, catching in his hair. He hadn’t noticed that earlier. Wei Ying must have brushed them out when they’d been otherwise engaged. Lan Zhan liked hands in his hair, apparently, especially when Wei Ying pulled ever so slightly when Lan Zhan bit down on his ear lobe.
“You look amazing,” Wei Ying said, voice quiet. “And I can’t believe that you’re dating me.”
Lan Zhan watched the video cut off just before he had started to move off the piano stool. “I can’t believe you’d date me.”
“So. Another thing. Um.” Wei Ying let out a long, slow breath. “My aunt and uncle and A-Cheng and A-Li are away visiting their cousins this weekend.”
“Do you want to come here?” Lan Zhan worried that Wei Ying was going to be on his own.
“I was wondering. Um. More. If you wanted to come over here?” Wei Ying’s voice was trembling. “We’d be on our own.”
“That-“ Lan Zhan had to swallow to get moisture enough to keep speaking. “Yeah. That’d be good.”
Lan Zhan’s brother was beaming over the breakfast table the next morning.
“What?” Lan Zhan asked, suddenly suspicious. He poured his tea carefully from the pot and kept an eye on his even happier than usual brother.
“Guess who went viral!” Lan Huan waved his phone at Lan Zhan before snatching it back to start reading. “Exquisite piano playing from new star! It’s still trending today.”
“Uh huh.” Lan Zhan grabbed a slice of toast and buttered it. “Wei Ying filmed me.”
“And Uncle has been fielding calls since dawn. Local news, national news – they want you to appear. And you wrote the song, right? So we need to get to the studio and record it and release it and-“
Lan Zhan held up his hand. “It was for Wei Ying.”
His brother stopped talking and looked at him fondly. “This could be a chance, didi, to get your music out. To crossover.”
His uncle stepped out of his office, diary in hand. “Lan Yi says you’ve been booked to play on Saturday at the opera house. There’s some kind of charity gala.”
“But I-“ His uncle glared at him over the top of his diary. “Isn’t it a bit late? This isn’t how it works.” Lan Zhan’s voice dropped. “I had plans.”
“Someone dropped out and it’s the perfect opportunity for a relaunch. Your career comes first.” His uncle was clear. There was no arguing. “Now get dressed. I’ve booked studio time for this morning.”
Lan Zhan switched off his phone after he texted Wei Ying his apologies for the weekend. He asked his brother to see if they could get a spare ticket but Lan Huan had shaken his head.
The opera house stage was enormous. Concert halls were big but this was a whole other level. The sets backstage were huge, towering up into the flies. Lan Zhan had been rather overwhelmed by them until it was his time to rehearse. Then he’d gone back to sitting in the auditorium and moping.
He hadn’t heard anything from Wei Ying since Thursday. Nothing had been posted on Wei Ying’s social media either – which made Lan Zhan worry even more. Wei Ying liked to document every thought. Lan Zhan wasn’t quite at the point of sending another text but he was giving serious consideration to asking his brother to see if his friends had heard anything. Nie Mingjue’s little brother was friends with Wei Ying. He might know more.
Lan Huan shuffled into the seat next to him. “What’s wrong?”
Lan Zhan shook his head. Some singer was warming up on the stage while the techs played with the lighting. Then she shifted into a sad, plaintive lament, which Lan Zhan thought was absolutely perfect.
“It’s about Wei Ying, right?” Lan Huan shrugged. “There will be other weekends.”
“He’s going back to university. And I’ll be on tour.” Lan Zhan knew his words were clipped and angry but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Better we break up now.”
He missed the sharp glance his brother sent him.
Lan Zhan went out to eat with a few others from the gala, picking at his dinner and trying not to think about Wei Ying or obsessively check his phone. He also didn’t engage much in conversation. What was the point if all he was good for was playing the piano and touring? It wasn’t like he could keep friends, let alone a boyfriend.
He was reluctant heading back to his dressing room. New clothes awaited him – not shiny shoes and a suit but some kind of floaty shirt. Lan Zhan liked it, against his will, and thought his brother had more to do with choosing it than his uncle. Small kindnesses. Long white pants, soft white shoes. At least he’d be comfortably dressed on stage for once.
Lan Zhan switched on the lights and stopped. There were roses in his dressing room, again. Twelve white roses, tied with a red ribbon. He let the door support him and tried not to cry.
He took the roses to the stage with him, placed them on top of the piano. He had three pieces to play – two Classical and then his own composition, the one he’d written just for Wei Ying. He bowed to the applauding audience and sat, perfectly, and played, as well as he could. He loved the Chopin, felt every inch of its longing and pain. It matched how he felt when he looked at the roses on the piano, knew who they represented. There was a hush after he’d finished, an awkward shifting in the audience as if they knew they’d witnessed him pouring out his heart on the piano.
He took a moment before starting to play his composition. It still didn’t have a name. It was hard to call it something when his head and heart just referred to it as Wei Ying. He focused on the roses again. They had to mean something, had to mean Wei Ying would still talk to him, at least.
He wished Wei Ying was here to see him.
It wasn’t just that Wei Ying was responsible for getting him here, on this stage, in the first place. It wasn’t just that the last few months had been something that Lan Zhan had never thought he’d ever be allowed to have. Wei Ying had given him something, helped turn him into the type of player who felt the pieces in a whole new way, made audiences sigh and shuffle instead of clap robotically. He had even helped him get out of those uncomfortable, chafing, perfectly polished shoes and into something that he was happy in. Wei Ying had made him happy.
Lan Zhan didn’t notice the first petal drifting from the flies but the ones that landed on the keys were hard to ignore. He kept playing, realising that someone was spilling petals over the piano, over him. Well, paper shaped like petals, at any rate. This hadn’t been part of the rehearsal or been discussed as part of the performance at all. Lan Zhan kept playing, his mind whirring. The chaos of the flowers, the way it reminded him of the video. Realistically, there was only one person who would have even thought to suggest this…
Lan Zhan took a long breath as he finished playing. The audience exploded into applause and cheering – that was new – and it took him a moment to remember to stand and bow and paste a smile on his face and bow again. Then he turned to head to the side of the stage.
Wei Ying was in the wings, a red rose in his hands.
Lan Zhan kept his pace as slow as he could, which meant he did not run. He did not sprint. Instead he walked, sharply and purposefully. With an aim. Which was to get to Wei Ying.
“Hey.” Wei Ying’s voice was soft, appropriate to the side of a stage, as the crew hurried to clean up the petals for the next performance. “That was great.”
“It was for you,” Lan Zhan told him, honesty compelling intensity, the lack of any filter. “I missed you.”
“Ah, Lan Zhan.” They were still not touching despite the fact Lan Zhan could feel the heat from Wei Ying’s skin. He needed to touch him, to make sure he was real. Wei Ying seemed to sense that and took Lan Zhan’s arm. “Why don’t you show me to your dressing room?”
Lan Zhan started leading him towards it when a better idea came to mind. “Is… is your house still empty?”
Wei Ying stared at him. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Lan Zhan pulled him towards the stage door, focused. “Call an Uber. Or we can get a cab.”
“Don’t you need to take a bow? At the end? Shouldn’t you stay?” Wei Ying wasn’t holding him back but matching his pace towards the exit. They were in a quiet corridor, now, and Lan Zhan stopped to crowd Wei Ying against a wall.
“You’re more important,” Lan Zhan breathed, hotly, before kissing Wei Ying, hard. Wei Ying eagerly responded, pressing up into him. Wei Ying’s hands slipped up under the soft shirt, clutching at his bare back, and Lan Zhan shuddered, his hands automatically pulling Wei Ying closer. They had to part to gasp in air, eventually. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Wei Ying was a little dazed, eyes dark and wanting.
“For the roses-“ Lan Zhan kissed his cheek. “And for being here-“ He kissed Wei Ying’s other cheek and ignored his pout. “And for being you.” Lan Zhan stepped back.
“What? No?” Wei Ying grabbed at him to try and bring him closer again. “You’re supposed to kiss me again.”
“It’d be better if we were somewhere we didn’t need to stop,” Lan Zhan pointed out. He was going to maintain some semblance of self-control. He didn’t want to be found, or accused of public indecency, or have anyone else see Wei Ying like this. He could hold on until they were in an empty house, all by themselves. “Do you have my brother’s number?”
Wei Ying nodded. Then he reached down and adjusted his pants and sighed.
“Can you tell him to get my stuff?” Lan Zhan didn’t push Wei Ying against the wall again and started guiding him towards the exit again. “I’m busy.”
Wei Ying laughed, texting as he kept pace. That, Lan Zhan thought, was better than any music.
There were roses in his dressing room. Lan Zhan knew who had sent them. He snapped a picture and sent it off.
Thank you.
I love you.