Work Text:
"Lan Huan, I think it was a bad idea to take a walk right after con."
"Why?"
"Cause we keep getting stares, that's why!"
Lan Huan lifts the sleeve of his white hanfu to hide his chuckle, but A-Jue sends him a glare anyway. A-Yao nudges his boyfriend. "Come on, MingJue, I doubt you hate the attention that much!"
The glare changes targets, but the blush on his face says otherwise. Lan Huan doesn't comment further.
Besides, taking a walk in his white hanfu is so much more freeing than he thought. Not because of looks and the phones directed at him and his friends - that he's pretending to tolerate it - but because of how he feels in these clothes. His teacher always expects him to arrive to school in a suit and tie when they have a meeting for his research, so to be able to walk around in something else than a four-piece suit or a loose tee and sweatpants is just so relaxing.
And maybe, secretly, he does like the attention a little bit. But nobody has to know that.
He stops in the middle of the student plaza, realizing his friends aren't following him anymore, and Lan Huan zones back in the conversation just in time to listen to them bicker on a place to get a quick snack before they head home for dinner.
"I think we should go to Stringy Souls," argues Jin GuangYao. "They always have the best nacho toppings and - Lan Huan watch out!"
Everything happens in a flash.
A weight behind him pulls him by his robe and drags him down. Barely capable to keep his balance, he reaches out to whatever tried to take him, intending on getting them off him, but he ends up swaying and grabbing onto the first thing he can reach: the stranger's arms. Everything is blurry, all noise is reduced to a murmured curse and a distant fabric tear, and when he finally stops spinning on his feet, he can only stare at whoever grabbed him.
His next breath catches in his throat.
Lan Huan has seen many handsome men in his lifespan, but no one as beautiful, as mesmerizing as the one in front of him. Sun kissed skin, reminiscent of the tan sand of the Caribbean, all sharp lines in the contours of his face and wild wide stormy blue eyes are his view. His throat clicks when he swallows.
Somebody clears their throat, and it hits him that the Beautiful Stranger just collided into him.
"Are you okay?"
The person nlimkd owlishly, which is both adorable and amusing. What they answer was beyond Lan XiChen's realm of possibilities.
"Did I crash a TV set?"
A nervous chuckle falls out of his lips as he straightens them both and, with much reluctance, parts with the Beautiful Stranger. "No actually, I'm coming back from a convention. I just dressed for the occasion." Lan Huan wipes off invisible dust off his robes. The stranger's eyes roam all over his face and up to his hands as he adjusts his dragon headpiece before coming back to him.
"Well- um- you look really god. Yeah. Uh- I mean good. Oh shit my skateboard. Gotta go. Bye." And then the stranger dashes away without a single look back, and Lan Huan is rooted in his spot.
I didn't even get his name.
A snap of fingers in front of him startles him back to reality. He's in the middle of the student plaza with his friends, in New York City, and everything is so big, so loud, and he wants to run after the fading silhouette and know everything about Beautiful Stranger.
"Never mind Stringy Souls, Lan Huan looks like he's seen a ghost!"
🛹
Lan Huan spends the rest of the weekend in a haze. He sews the tear in his robes, he calls his uncle and eats, but he stabs his finger three times, zones out twice of his uncle's retelling of - something - and spills his food three times on his clothes. His research doesn't budge, obviously, and he drops a glass while doing the dishes.
Beautiful Stranger stays on his mind, and the whiplash gets more brutal when A-Yao shows him the video of Beautiful Stranger colliding into him on the internet. It went viral Saturday morning, A-Yao tells him. It has thousands of comments under the post, yet Lan Huan, as he watches the looping video, only has eyes for the stranger and his heart soars every time he remembers the spinning sensation.
On the coffee table, his phone vibrates loud enough to jump him out of his trance. It's his calendar reminder for the day after:
class 1:00PM amphitheater H2001 POL1105 GR.C
An email notification follows it almost instantly:
Lan Huan,
Don't forget that you take over my classes while I'm in DC this week. Send my regards to the students and let them know to contact you first if they have questions; only you are allowed to transfer their email as a last resort if you can't answer them.
Attached to this email is the schedule and class material you have to go over for each group.
Enjoy your Sunday afternoon and I will see you in two weeks for the update on your thesis.
Dr. Harry Sanchez, PhD.
Business and Society Program
Leonard N. Stern School of Business
New York University
Right, he has a busy schedule this week. He should get to organizing his files and reviewing his old notes if he doesn't want to look like a complete idiot.
🛹
The next afternoon, Lan Huan feels so much better. He reviewed his notes, answered students' emails and made food for him and his roommates, all in less than twenty-four hours with a decent amount of sleep. In a single day, he renewed what he thought was lost when he met Beautiful Stranger and had his entire being flipped upside down.
This is the first time Lan Huan will meet the people behind the assignments he's been correcting for months now, and just thinking about making an impression of an awe-stricken fool makes his own pride shudder. So he strides into his first class, firm and confident.
The class looks full, which is already a good thing, and when he puts his bag on the professor's chair, he just barely manages to keep his mouth shut as he makes eye contact with a student in the third row.
Beautiful Stranger from the student plaza.
Oh. Oh he's here. Okay.
This is fine. Lan Huan's done plenty of presentations in front of MingJue in high school when he had that old crush. It shouldn't be any different now. Please, to any gods out there, please please don't make this situation any different, I don't want to embarrass myself.
For an appearance of being put-together, Lan Huan only nods towards him before he looks away. Hopefully his collar is high enough to hide his rising blush?
It's okay. You're fine. You're totally fine. Introduce yourself to the class. This is just like any other presentation. RELAX.
I AM RELAXED!!!
Lan Huan clears his throat and directs his attention back into the rest of the class. The words come out of his mouth in a somewhat normal (and definitely not stressed out) voice, although less from his own will because if he keeps up that silence any longer he'll probably start hitting his head on the desk.
And thankfully, the class passes smoothly. The students take him seriously even if he's barely a year older than them and he doesn't (maybe a little) get distracted by the deep tone of Beautiful Stranger's voice, whose name he learns is Jiang Cheng when he calls for attendance.
His breath catches at every sentence Jiang Cheng speaks, and is utterly charmed by his intelligence. As he walks home with a racing heart, Lan Huan silently vows that he won't let Jiang Cheng slip through his fingers once more.