Work Text:
Every year, Wen Ning is asked what he wants for his birthday. Every year, Wen Ning has the same reply: he likes anything!
It's not that he doesn't have opinions—he does! some!—but he doesn't mind getting gifts from friends that are a bit random. And if he ends up with practical gift cards, that's not exactly a hardship either!
But then he sees how Big of a Deal Wei Ying makes out of Lan Zhan's birthday. Wei Ying might actually be losing hair at the rate he's pulling on it, and he looks so mournful and stressed out that Wen Ning decides that some guidance might be good this year. One less thing for people to think about.
So this year, he tells everyone he's into stationery. It's not untrue, he writes letters to Jiejie and sometimes his extended family, and he's always enjoyed the feel of a nice pen in his hand. He knows a little about everything, being a tinkerer at heart as well as someone who enjoys listening to master craftsmen talk about their art, and so stationery is something he appreciates. It's fine.
But, buoyed by the fact that WN had an opinion, all of his friends get him stationery gifts.
Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli buy him expensive paper (the nice kind that feels almost like silk as he's writing, along with some toothier paper).
Nie Huaisang gets him extra packs of his favorite extra fine point lining pens in a beautiful rainbow of colors.
Nie Mingjue, Meng Yao, and Lan Xichen get him watercolor pencils and brush pens—the fancy kinds, because they're adorably happy together and enable one another in the best (worst) of ways.
Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen, and Xue Yang have trawled vintage sites and bought a variety of stamps, which is a promising sign of how their friendship is evolving.
Most hilariously, Wei Ying and Lan Zhan get him an improbable amount of washi tape featuring bunnies and other adorable creatures.
When the entire stash is unwrapped and sitting on his desk, Wen Ning is dumbfounded. There's so much stuff. All of it is beautiful and usable, but there's so much of it! When she sees it, Jiejie laughs and ends up buying him an organizer for all of it.
"I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind," Wen Ning confesses later to her, still shellshocked by the thoughtfulness and quantity of stationery he now possesses, and Jiejie pats his hand.
"Your friends just wanted to make sure you were happy," she says, helping him put everything away. "I'm glad your friends are so good to you, A-Ning."
