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Yibo is surrounded by love. He feels it in his bones, in every muscle, as he moves on stage. He feels it in the shine of the green lights, flooding every corner of the arena. He feels it in Yixuan and Wenhan’s touch, their arms winding around him like no time has passed at all since they shared a future. Like time itself hasn’t ripped them apart. He feels it bubbling out of everyone around him, ecstatic to be doing what they love so much on stage together.
He is happy too. Getting to perform like this is a rare treat now, with how busy he has become over the last few years. He eagerly jumps at every opportunity to stand on stage, be it dancing or singing.
And so do his fans. There was a time when he looked out over an audience with no one there to support him. Now his fans take over whole arenas and make others feel like he once felt. Insignificant. It’s a cruel, twisted kind of love, one that’s helped him get this far but… hurts.
As their song comes to an end he looks out across the sea of lights, letting his eyes wander over his name repeated again and again. Green, green, green, green— yellow. Ah. For a moment he almost thought… but no. Now that he’s noticed one, his eyes catch on more yellow signs easily— they’re littered in between the green all over the stands, no matter where he looks. Years have passed, but those fans always come. They are there for love too. They still believe.
Finally his eyes land on one sign so close to the stage he can easily make out the words despite how bright everything is. It’s a short, square sign, and it reads WangXiao.
He swallows drily.
Maybe after all this time he should be prepared for the emotions that well up inside him, but he isn’t. He never is. He lets out a little huff, looks down at the floor and then back at the sign again. Leans in closer to Yixuan and tries to school his face back into his usual indifference to not give himself away to the world.
He has always been grateful for their support. There is something comforting in knowing that at least some of his fans are not spreading hate about someone he cares so much about. That they want both of them to be happy.
Yibo just… wishes he could still believe.
✧
Xiao Zhan was like a beautiful whirlwind that Yibo couldn’t tear his eyes away from. It was almost overwhelming, the way Yibo was drawn to him, how impossible it was to stay away and how at ease Yibo felt around him.
Yibo was no stranger to intense and immediate crushes, but with Xiao Zhan it felt different right from the start. Like jumping head first from a cliff into deep waters.
Maybe that was what made him just as afraid as he was eager.
Running lines together so easily became tumbling around on a sea of hotel bed sheets, exchanging kisses and touches, and Yibo had never felt so hungry. Punches and slaps became nothing but excuses to touch in front of others, and shouts and rowdy behaviour nothing but a means to keep Xiao Zhan’s attention on him at all times. He craved it, needed it, like water to quench his thirst.
For a moment, Yibo dared to believe.
And when he did, the fear found him. If any of this was real, was there a place for it in his life? In Xiao Zhan’s? Even disregarding the obvious concerns for their careers, Yibo had been around long enough to have seen how these things ended. He’d made friends, he’d had crushes. When work stopped bringing you together, people lost contact. He’d seen it happen, accepted the resulting loneliness as a part of his chosen path. People came, people went. But for the first time in a long, long while, he hoped this time would be different. And with that hope came the fear that it wouldn’t be.
With each time Xiao Zhan called him ‘Lan Zhan’, each time the crew called Xiao Zhan his ‘wife’, each time Xiao Zhan came to him when he struggled to get out of his role, a little piece of Yibo’s heart shattered.
It became easier to lean into that familiar truth than to cling to the unlikely possibility that this time could be different. He could let things flow through him, expecting them to end. Live these few months to the fullest and enjoy every moment. No matter what his treacherous heart hoped would come after.
“We won’t,” he said with confidence, when asked if they would stay in touch after filming. And then swallowed down the hope that bubbled in his chest and tried to make it up his throat when Xiao Zhan made fun of him for his certainty. As if he was wrong, as if there was more to this than their roles. As if he was the one being stubborn.
So he tried, once, to correct Xiao Zhan. To tell him that he was Yibo. Not Lan Zhan. Xiao Zhan laughed, smiled that smile that oozed Wei Ying, and called him Lan Zhan again.
As the weeks passed it became natural to live in the moment, to accept that this was what he got and to see it as the gift it was. This bubble in time with Xiao Zhan, playing soulmates with all the intimacy that entailed. Even the kind they didn’t get to share in front of the camera, but still needed to let out. And he became shameless with it, letting his enthusiasm, his love, ring loudly between the buildings of Hengdian.
Accepting that it would end was safer, almost freeing.
Funny, wasn’t it? Yibo had never been one to care about being safe before. He jumped head first into things, recklessly putting himself on the line for what he wanted. He lived for adrenaline, lived for being, doing, taking what he wanted.
But Xiao Zhan was different. Xiao Zhan was always different.
✧
It didn’t end. Not for Yibo.
He had believed he would be able to step off set and be the same as he had been before, as he had done so many times. But retrospectively it was easy to tell that had been nothing but wishful thinking. Yibo should have known it wasn’t going to be that simple. Not when it was about Xiao Zhan. He did know, as they sang together underneath those white windmills when everything was reaching an end. He knew that summer was special and would never leave him.
It ended with fumbling kisses that tasted like beer, pressed up against the inside of a hotel room door they'd barely managed to shut behind them. And then in the morning they flew off to different locations.
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying were no more.
Not for another year.
They messaged, they even met up once or twice — Yibo travelled all the way to see Xiao Zhan for his birthday and with so many other people there it wasn’t like it could have been anything more. It made sense to be just friends.
When promotions for the drama started, they drew each other in again like magnets and Xiao Zhan’s smile was brighter than ever. It felt even harder to tear his eyes away than Yibo remembered. And the world noticed.
If the world noticed, Xiao Zhan had to as well, right?
He had to notice that Yibo hadn’t left any feelings behind in Hengdian or Guizhou or anywhere. That they were still with him, clinging to him, dragging him directly into Xiao Zhan’s orbit at full speed and that he was powerless to stop it.
“What has changed in your daily lives since filming?” some host would ask, and the cold ‘nothing’ they gave in response would settle inside him, building up into sharp icicles that would pierce through him later, when he was no longer blinded by Xiao Zhan’s dazzling smile. Just like when Xiao Zhan joked about expecting to see him on a weekly basis even sixteen years from now. Or when he pretended he would design things for Yibo.
Maybe Xiao Zhan didn’t call him ‘Lan Zhan’ anymore, maybe everyone looked at them like they knew something Yibo didn’t, maybe the world assumed something existed between them that wasn’t there. But Yibo knew the truth.
These things come to an end.
✧
Xiao Zhan’s eyes were shining with tears as he said his goodbyes. Yibo could see the way he fought to hold them inside, and he wanted nothing more than to reach out, to comfort him.
But he couldn’t, and even if he could have — they weren’t for him. Xiao Zhan was saying goodbye to Wei Wuxian. To his life and experiences. His feelings.
Yibo understood. It wasn’t Yibo he needed.
It was almost funny how he felt relief when Xiao Zhan had to fly off immediately to some other set, despite being ill. Funny in a way that settled like a layer of guilt at the bottom of his stomach.
✧
Award shows came, award shows went, and so their official time together in the spotlight reached its end too. No longer could they appear to know each other, no longer could they seem intimate. That was difficult because Yibo’s entire being was so attuned to Xiao Zhan, pulled like the tide towards the moon.
Difficult, when a large number of the fans they’d gained wanted nothing more than to see them together. Difficult, as just as many on either side wanted to never see them together again; wanted them to hate each other.
Easier, when he could bury himself in work again. He loved acting, loved digging deep into a role and mastering it, loved learning new things along the way and becoming better. He was sure though, that together he and Xiao Zhan could have reached further than Yibo ever could by himself, even with the fame the Untamed propelled them both into. Together, they would have made each other even better, and they would have been unstoppable.
But this was how things were. They ended with the end of the show. If he told himself that enough times, he could believe it.
✧
A big storm at the worst of times made it clearer than ever that Yibo had made the right decision. (If there had ever been a decision to be made by him or for him, and things had not just happened as they were supposed to.) But nothing could have made the events Xiao Zhan was forced to go through worse than if there had been anything real to leak. It was good that Yibo hadn’t pushed for more, good that it hadn’t been the same for Xiao Zhan.
Yibo didn’t even want to imagine how much it would have hurt if there had been more. It was good that there was nothing there to turn into further ammunition.
But oh, how it hurt that there was nothing he could do but watch from the sidelines as the whole country tried to rip Xiao Zhan apart. How he tried to reach out, tried to ask if he could do anything to help only to receive a ‘don’t you dare’ in response. He wouldn’t dare. And he knew Xiao Zhan was right, as was his staff, his management, everyone.
He couldn’t do anything, he was the only one who could do absolutely nothing but watch him be swallowed by the waves from afar.
✧
Maybe there was something he could do, after all. It felt silly and even presumptuous to ask for something so practical, so business-like and impersonal, something they could hire just about anyone for, but— Yibo had nothing to lose.
And neither did Xiao Zhan. Not anymore.
So after months of mutual silence, Yibo finally reached out again with his heart jumping wildly in his chest. And somehow, magically, Xiao Zhan accepted his offer.
The thing was, he knew what would happen. He knew their mutual fans would know immediately that the panther-themed mascot was drawn by Xiao Zhan, but since their teams had never really stopped leaning into hints that there was something real between them, he doubted it would truly surprise anyone. And Yibo was busier than ever, while Xiao Zhan’s team was… not. Having them help him set up an official marketing page made sense. Yibo could support them financially, even temporarily, so they could ride out the storm. And he knew Xiao Zhan would never have accepted charity.
His plan worked.
And though that made their cooperation tighter and made it easier for their teams to push the mutual marketing towards their shared fans more deliberately… Yibo could live with that. He could live with a lot of things.
He too, after all, wished it was true. Unlike the fans he just happened to also know it was not.
✧
The Xiao Zhan that stepped onto the stage at the Starlight Awards was a new man. Stronger, calmer, more withdrawn. But also more beautiful than ever.
Yibo watched him practice. He watched him perform in the middle of a vast sea of bright red lights, surrounded by support. Yibo couldn’t pull his eyes away, not even when they shared a stage.
After his own performance he rushed backstage, tucking himself into a corner of his dressing room. He breathed, stared at the wall and then let the tears that had tried to force their way out for what felt like years fall. There was regret, of course, but most of all he felt relief. And loneliness.
Xiao Zhan was barely a few rooms away, but in that one night he had become unreachable. Untouchable.
The follower count of their shared Weibo supertopic grew with a record number that night. He nodded quietly when his manager suggested they ride on that wave as much as possible, that it was good now, actually, to be associated with Xiao Zhan. That the value gained was now larger than the risks associated with upsetting their personal fans.
That he should mention Xiao Zhan again sometime soon, on air. As a friend.
Yibo swallowed and nodded once more.
His hotel room looked awfully like the one in Hengdian. And if he leaned back against the closed door behind him and closed his eyes he could almost feel Xiao Zhan’s breath on his skin. Almost.
✧
Yibo finished project after project, never knowing whether any of them would air any time soon, or even at all. He fulfilled everything required of him and more, and was rewarded with more chances to do the things he loved the most. And perhaps it was good he was so busy, as with Xiao Zhan back on the playing field, where he belonged, his existence seeped its way into Yibo’s life through every little hole possible. A reminder of what could have been, or perhaps more so of what could never have been.
“Your marketing is genius,” one of Yibo’s co-stars commented on set one day. “It’s been years by now, but they still believe there was something real between the two of you.”
Yibo did his best to smile, and nodded, swallowing drily.
“Funny that,” the older actor continued with a laugh. “Xiao Zhan gave me that exact same face last autumn when we filmed Ace Troops.”
Funny that, how all paths would lead to Xiao Zhan. And how all who starred in dangai would end up on military-themed sets together. How others, having lived the same shared experience, would so easily assume it was nothing but marketing.
It hadn’t been for Yibo.
But a bitterness settled inside him, like a layer of grime clinging to his insides, as realisation came. That it didn’t matter what it once was for him, because it had become exactly that. Nothing but marketing.
There was nothing to wash the grime away with.
✧
All rivers really did flow to Xiao Zhan, and Yibo still gravitated down them at full speed. There was a strange comfort in being allowed to connect to people Xiao Zhan would call friends. Friends in same-sex relationships almost everyone knew about, yet who were accepted enough to perform at Party galas. It was heart-warming.
And it would have taken someone much stronger than Yibo not to feel envy.
Though— The world did assume there was something between him and Xiao Zhan. The world treated them like an open secret as much as it did these friends. The world was just wrong.
It would have taken someone stronger than Yibo for anything to happen in the first place. What did it matter if there had ever been anything, whether it had been just a bubble in time on set or something more, when Yibo had never dared to ask?
What did it matter what it could once have been, when Yibo had embraced the impossibility of it so willingly and never dared to try?
Dating rumours would always surface right and left, and his team would post statements with impressive efficiency, never once denying the possibility of him and Xiao Zhan. But when Xiao Zhan’s name was mentioned over dinner, and Ayunga turned to look at him with a soft smile, it felt like a big red ‘FAKE’ character had been branded on his very soul.
Yibo smiled back.
✧
Once he had been asked to describe that summer in two words, and the response had come all the way from the tips of his toes — from the deepest corner of his heart, from the smallest of molecules inside him.
True feelings.
✧
And in a sea of green lights he chose to dance bathed in red lights of his own.
✧
Yixuan’s arm is warm and heavy across his shoulders. Wenhan’s laugh is contagious as they stumble while pushing their older brother in through his hotel room door. There are still remnants of adrenaline in Yibo’s blood, and they buzz pleasantly together with the alcohol from the after party.
He loves them both so much, loves that even though their time together ended long ago, their connection did not. It’s real, it’s alive and pulsating through Yibo, making him feel light. He’s happy to be here with them. Happy that not everything ends. Not everything has to end. Some connections last, stay with you, sink deep into your bones to be dug out again at the right moment. They’re kept hidden, protected, until their time comes again.
Maybe those fans are right to believe.
Maybe whatever connection he and Xiao Zhan made back during that summer could also be dug out this same way?
His own suite is on another floor, higher up in the building and much larger and more luxurious. That’s what he gets for being the one bringing in the most money to Yuehua. Exile.
Once Yixuan’s door is closed he snatches a hug from Wenhan. Just a quick one, and then he’s off to the elevator. It makes small pinging noises for every floor it passes, but Yibo loses count quickly. Dozes off with his forehead leaned against the cool metal wall.
The fancy room looks nothing like the small, shabby one he once shared with Xiao Zhan in another time and place, but that is still where his mind wanders. He leans back against the door, breathes in the stale hotel air and thinks back to the best summer of his life.
The summer when Wang Yibo fell in love.
When he finally drops into bed his phone lights up next to him. There’s a message, and Yibo isn’t sure if it’s fear, panic or hope that sets his body alight when he sees who it’s from.
He squeezes his eyes shut, presses the notification and then finally, when he knows it’s loaded, he takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.
Then he reads.
Let’s talk to our teams about making an announcement and dissolve the CP. I can’t do this anymore.
He reads it twice. Then locks his phone and swallows drily.
When he closes his eyes again he realises he can’t remember what Xiao Zhan’s kisses taste like.
✧