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Lan Zhan remembers the day he met the Jiang children.
His uncle had dressed him up in smart, stuffy clothing, with a grim sort of brusqueness that belied any fun the community event promised to deliver. Lan Zhan and Lan Xichen had worn matching shades of pale, cut through with stripes of duck egg blue, topped with a smile (Xichen) and a best attempt (Lan Zhan).
“There will be other children there around your age,” Uncle Qiren had told them, straightening Lan Zhan’s collar for the fourth time. It had been straight since the first time. He’d added, “I expect you to be on your best behaviour.” Which was Qiren speak for ‘have fun at an appropriate volume and in an equally appropriate manner.
Lan Zhan’s definition for “fun” and “appropriate” only ever differentiated under circumstance; you could have the latter without the former, but not the other way around, and that was how it was meant to be.
They’ve been dressed conservatively, even though neither of them are old enough for soulmarks yet. Qiren dresses the same, and Lan Zhan wonders, not for the first time, whether it’s because he wants to hide his soulmark or because he doesn’t have any at all. Both options feel taboo but only because they don’t discuss such things the way other people do. Lan Zhan doesn’t understand why, but he gets the feeling he shouldn’t ask.
It is their first time at a community social like this. Xichen has been before, when he’d come of age and with enough accomplishments stuffed into his single digits to overrule with the boasting of other parents, but it’s a premier turnout for their complete family.
Long tables line the room with food and drink, and there’s a string quartet in the corner that likely imagined greater success than playing background music for the social elite. The guests all sport a gasping sort of elegance, eager to exhibit their wealth to so many people all in the same room, and the expensive cut of their clothes makes the collar around Lan Zhan’s neck feel crooked even though his Uncle has straightened a fifth time since they arrived.
After he and Xichen have been presented as a matching set to the newest guest and duly cooed over, Lan Zhan allows his mind to wander a little. Not too far, though; only beyond the immediate perimeter of chatter in order to listen to the music still floating through the room; the musicians really are a little too good just to play for ambience. Lan Zhan appreciates them privately, since no one else seems to be doing so.
That’s when a flash of red catches the corner of his eye, by far the brightest colour in a room sunk with oyster greys and gold. Lan Zhan turns his head towards it just as a face pokes out between a cluster of guests.
“You’re Lan Zhan,” the face says, quite ceremoniously.
Lan Zhan blinks, utterly stumped at what to reply. Uncle’s strictness tells him to fall back on manners, so he replies reflexively, “Thank you,” before hearing how completely stupid it sounds.
The face grins, apparently delighted with this response, and that’s when Lan Zhan notices the glittering silver of its eyes, squashed up into crescent moons to accommodate the smile.
“Okay, you saw him,” comes another voice, and a second face joins the first. The lack of smile on this one is remarkable in comparison. Violet eyes sweep over Lan Zhan with a judgement that feels wholly unwarranted. “Now come on, before Ah-niang gets annoyed at you for running away.”
Both faces disappear back into the crowd then, but not before the first one shoots Lan Zhan a beaming smile. When he turns, the ribbon in his hair flickers red, and then gets swallowed by a swathe of cream satin as the guests reshuffle.
“Didi?”
Lan Zhan turns to look up at his brother’s questioning gaze. He realises that his mind has wandered much further than he intended, and that his uncle is eyeing him for a response.
Xichen saves him by asking , “Remind me again which piece you’re learning for the qin.”
It’s enough information for Lan Zhan to pick up the thread of polite conversation, and he stands poised as the newest acquaintance questions him about his playing.
“I see you’ve met Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying,” Xichen muses a little later. He’s sipping a glass of orange juice and nibbling daintily at a cucumber sandwich he’d snagged off a passing tray. Their uncle would say they should leave one hand free to greet people, but Xichen’s rebellions have always been unobtrusive and for him alone.
“They knew my name,” Lan Zhan replies, knowing Xichen will hear the question behind it.
True enough, his brother hums, “I suppose that may be my fault. I mentioned I had a younger brother last time I came.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t have a response to that, so he stays silent. He’s not sure what to feel about his brother mentioning him to other children, or how it had apparently inspired one of them to hunt him down. Uncle mentions the two of them to other people often enough that Lan Zhan has been recognised all day by people he’s never met, but those are adults and they’re supposed to boast the achievements of their younger relatives. Do other children care about Lan Zhan’s advancement in music and study?
“Why don’t we go and find them?” Xichen suggests, as if reading his mind. “I’m sure the Jiangs would love for you to be friends.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t miss how their uncle is not present in that sentence, but he thinks perhaps he can have a personal rebellion too; after all, Uncle had said behave well, and not avoid others.
As it turns out, locating the Jiang children is a difficult task. Lan Zhan keeps his eyes peeled for more flashes of red, but beyond the occasional soulmark on display, he doesn’t see any. It’s only when he threads his way back to the drinks table that the Jiangs find him.
A hand flashes out from under the tablecloth, snagging Lan Zhan’s wrist and dragging him beneath it before he can even think to avoid getting his trousers dirty.
The grinning face is nearly nose to nose with him, eyes creasing.
“You’re here!” the boy breathes, strangely awed for such an obvious statement. “Xichen-xiong said you would be!”
Lan Zhan feels himself leaning towards manners, remembers the previous attempt, and diverts into a guess. “You are Jiang Cheng.”
“No, I’m Jiang Cheng,” a voice to the side snaps, and Lan Zhan turns to see a scowl directed back at him. “ He’s Wei Ying.”
Before Lan Zhan can claim it’s nice to meet them (judgement pending on the state of his trousers after being dragged onto the floor), Wei Ying butts in. “Xichen-xiong said you play guqin, is that true? Can you play for me?”
“Wait for him to tell you before asking him to play,” Jiang Cheng growls. He hasn’t stopped scowling once and Lan Zhan starts to wonder if that’s just what his face looks like. “Why would Xichen-xiong say so if it wasn’t true.”
“So Lan Zhan can play for me, then!” Wei Ying concludes, and he turns his sparkling silver eyes on Lan Zhan as if they’ve all three come to this result together.
It takes a moment for Lan Zhan to realise that Wei Ying hasn’t let go of his hand. The fingers around his own are squeezing slightly, and Lan Zhan can feel the way that Wei Ying is practically vibrating through the touch. He’s staring at Lan Zhan expectantly, and it’s another moment before Lan Zhan works out that he’s waiting for a confirmation.
When he offers a curt nod, Wei Ying’s face lights up.
“Yes! Play for me soon, okay? I play an instrument too, but I’m probably not as good as you, since I only just started last year. Yu-shenshen made me take up the dizi and at first I didn’t like it but-”
The babble is so fast that Lan Zhan struggles to keep up. Around Wei Ying’s thick Yunmeng accent and his heavy reliance on slang terms, only two in every three sentences is comprehensible. He still hasn’t let go of Lan Zhan’s hand though, which appears to be an increasing source of ire for Jiang Cheng who crouches sullenly beside them.
Lan Zhan glances at him, taking in the unhappy pout of his mouth and the way he sways towards Wei Ying every time Wei Ying sways towards Lan Zhan. Xichen always had a tactic for situations like this.
There’s no better way to include people than to ask them about themselves, he’d told Lan Zhan once. It had seemed like strange advice at the time - the only people who ever asked Lan Zhan about himself were adults who wanted an avenue to talk to Uncle Qiren.
But it's advice that makes sense now, and Lan Zhan rudely speaks right over Wei Ying to ask, “Do you play an instrument as well, Jiang-xiong?”
The question seems to take both Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng by surprise; Jiang Cheng’s scowl unfurls so quickly that Lan Zhan learns he doesn’t just look like that, and Wei Ying’s eyes seem to glitter even more.
“He does!” Wei Ying announces, and Jiang Cheng smacks him in the shoulder.
“He wasn’t asking you!”
Wei Ying just grins and reaches out to lace their fingers together.
Visibly relaxing at the contact, Jiang Cheng sniffs and replies, “I play piano.”
“I like piano,” Lan Zhan tells him earnestly, since Xichen had also said that validating people’s talents is polite.
Whatever he’s said appears to have a profound effect; Jiang Cheng’s scowling face goes slack and a little starry.
Unexpectedly, he reaches out and takes Lan Zhan’s free hand in his, at once completing their circle. The closed circuit seems to draw a balance between them; Wei Ying’s babbling slows to a pace that Lan Zhan can comfortably understand, and Jiang Cheng breaks his unhappy silence often to translate the slang into Layman’s terms.
Their escape from filial duty is disrupted when a sharp voice calling for Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying glides by their hiding spot. Wei Ying freezes so hard that his grip makes Lan Zhan’s fingers cramp.
“We should go,” Jiang Cheng whispers, shifting uncomfortably. Wei Ying seems to have a similar stranglehold on his hand.
Wei Ying nods. The smile he paints on his face looks nothing like his previous ones. “You’ll play for me next time, won’t you, Lan Zhan?”
His silver-grey eyes are big and shiny, and Lan Zhan finds himself answering, “Mn.” despite having exactly zero certainty. It feels like a promise, at least, and Lan Zhan keeps his promises.
With their dual grips, the boys squeeze indents between Lan Zhan’s knuckles before slipping out from under the table. Left alone, Lan Zhan glances down at his legs; there’s scuff marks over the pale fabric. He quickly gives up on rubbing them out, partly because he’s making the smudges worse, and partly because it feels like scrubbing away the floaty, pleasant feeling buzzing under his skin.
Lan Zhan finds his brother in conversation with Nie Mingjue, who he knows only as Lan Xichen’s good friend and someone who’s particularly good at sports.
Xichen smiles at him when Lan Zhan approaches. “Did you have fun, didi?”
The spaces between Lan Zhan’s knuckles twinge at the question; a phantom feeling of fingers between his own. “Mn.”
Xichen’s answering smile is bordering on smug, and he turns to Nie Mingjue to explain, “Ah-Zhan met the Jiang boys today.”
Nie Mingjue whistles, long and low and completely inexplicable. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece, Zhan-er.”
“They were nice,” is all he replies, and then instantly regrets it when Xichen’s expression turns triumphant.
He’s learned that Wei Ying is adopted and plays the dizi and likes spicy food. Similarly, Jiang Cheng likes spice, though not as much, plays the piano, and expresses affection violently. However, the glance that passes between Xichen and Nie Mingjue says that they know something he doesn’t. Lan Zhan doesn’t ask; if it’s important, his new friends will tell him about it next time.
When their Uncle finds them later, he appears to be even more tightly buttoned than when he arrived, his necktie knotted so thoroughly that it pushes pinkness into the skin beneath his collar.
“Your trousers are filthy,” Qiren remarks, which is somehow worse than him simply telling Lan Zhan he’s disappointed.
When he turns away, Xichen leans in to murmur, “They’ll be here next time, didi.”
☽
Jiang Cheng hates Lan Zhan before he’s even met him.
Not satisfied with comparing Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying to each other, Yu Ziyuan had brought up more than once the exemplary behaviour of the twin boys of the Lan family. Before he’s even attended his first community gathering, Jiang Cheng knows this about them: they’re perfect, accomplished, and not actually twins.
It’s bad enough that Wei Ying uses the first time they attend the event as his own personal quest to find the venerated Lan not-twins. When he hunts down Lan Xichen, he doesn’t even introduce himself, instead immediately demanding, “Don’t you have a brother?”
“Wei Ying!” Jiang Cheng barks, slapping him in the arm. “Apologies for his rudeness,” he says to Lan Xichen. “We’re honoured to meet you.”
For his part, Lan Xichen only appears discreetly amused at the introduction. “I do have a brother, yes. Sadly, he is not in attendance tonight.”
Wei Ying seems awed enough at getting a reply that he skips right over asking why and instead demands, “What’s his name?”
Lan Xichen smiles at him. “My didi’s name is Lan Zhan.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying repeats to Jiang Cheng that evening, tone hushed and full of wonder.
He’s climbed into Jiang Cheng’s bed again and pulled the covers over their heads where it feels safe. Jiang Cheng will have to remind him to return to his own before they fall asleep, because his mother says sharing a bed is inappropriate and they don’t understand what that means, only that it's bad and makes her shout.
“Isn’t it such a pretty name, shidi? Lan Zhan ,” Wei Ying sighs like even the syllables taste sweet.
“It’s alright,” Jiang Cheng grumbles.
He re-evaluates that concession after the tenth time Wei Ying says Lan Zhan’s name. Everything is Lan Zhan this and Lan Zhan that, which is far too much of anything for a person Wei Ying’s never met. He’s positively vibrating into the atmosphere when he learns that Lan Zhan will be at the next gathering. Jiang Cheng only feels a little bit mollified when his mother yells at Wei Ying for fidgeting so much and then spends the whole afternoon feeling guilty about it.
It turns out that hearing the name ‘Lan Zhan’ uttered so many times in so many inflections doesn’t actually prepare Jiang Cheng for finally meeting Lan Zhan. With one hand clamped around Jiang Cheng’s wrist, it had taken Wei Ying less than five minutes to hunt down the fabled second son of the Lan family (perfect, accomplished, not a twin).
“Okay, you saw him,” Jiang Cheng grouses, because Wei Ying is smiling so hard he looks like he’s going to pop his jaw and ah-niang will yell if she has to take him to the hospital.
He wasn’t planning on paying even an ounce of attention to this Lan Zhan, since the boy had monopolised Wei Ying’s thoughts for the past two months and Jiang Cheng thinks that’s selfish of him. But a line of duck egg blue stripes his periphery and Jiang Cheng finds himself turning inadvertently, locking his gaze with a pair of brilliant, golden eyes.
Pretty like his name, Jiang Cheng thinks, and then nearly stomps on his own foot for the absolute betrayal of his brain.
To his utter dismay, meeting Lan Zhan does absolutely nothing to quell Wei Ying’s obsession.
“We have to talk to him more!” Wei Ying insists. “We barely got a chance, shidi! Dont you want to talk to Lan Zhan?”
Jiang Cheng does not, no matter how much he’s thinking about those golden eyes. Or were they more topaz? It’s upsetting that he doesn’t know for certain, which is why he shoves Wei Ying under the table and tells him to wait.
For someone who’s essentially been kidnapped, non-twin Lan Zhan appears remarkably composed. If anything, he actually seems a little annoyed at Wei Ying’s enthusiastic babbling, which shouldn’t please Jiang Cheng as much as it does. He knows ah-jie would be disappointed in him for such pettiness, which is almost enough to get him to stop. Almost.
He assumes Lan Zhan is just going to let Wei Ying dominate the conversation, which is why he’s stunned into dumbness when golden eyes turn on him and Lan Zhan asks, “Do you play an instrument as well, Jiang-xiong?”
“He does!” Wei Ying answers immediately, and a powerful wave of defensiveness rattles up Jiang Cheng’s throat.
“He wasn’t asking you!”
It’s a little harsher than he means it, but Jiang Cheng’s had to listen to Wei Ying going on about this boy day and night. It’s only fair that he gets a little of Lan Zhan’s attention as recompense, right? Wei Ying must hear it, though, because he laces his fingers with Jiang Cheng’s in their private signal of apology.
“I play piano,” Jiang Cheng replies and tries not to make it sound huffy.
He assumes that Lan Zhan is going to say something about the merits of the piano as an ensemble instrument or whatever.
Instead, Lan Zhan says, “I like piano.”
He doesn’t even sound like he’s joking, so plainly honest in his admission that it sends a weird kind of warmth pinging around Jiang Cheng’s tummy. Impulsively, he reaches out to grab Lan Zhan’s other hand, the one not occupied with Wei Ying, and laces their fingers in his own apology. Jiang Cheng quietly resolves to stop making assumptions about Lan Zhan.
That night, Wei Ying climbs into his bed again, drawing the covers up over their heads. This time, he grabs both of Jiang Cheng’s hands in his own and squeezes. It’s tight enough that Jiang Cheng can feel the giddy energy shaking through his fingers.
“Wasn’t he cool?” Wei Ying whispers. Even in the dark, he sounds alight. “Did you like him, shidi?”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t have to think before he answers. “I liked him.”
☽
The first day they had been taught about soulmarks in school, Wei Ying knew he wanted one.
“There are many types of soulmarks,” their teacher had explained. “Commonly they are romantic, but they can also be familial or platonic.”
“I don’t have one,” Wei Ying says, immediately checking the length of his arms and down his shirt. He makes it all the way to rolling up his trouser legs before the teacher waves at him to stop.
“Soulmarks only develop after the age of sixteen,” she explains. “It can be hours, or even years after, but never before. Not in recorded history, anyway.”
Wei Ying takes that last part as a personal challenge. He goes a whole week announcing that he’s going to force his soulmarks so that they match with his shijie before Yu-shenshen snaps at him to stop making a nuisance of himself.
Bringing soulmarks up in front of her has always been a fast track for a verbal whipping, though Wei Ying doesn’t understand why. All he knows is that Yu Ziyuan keeps her own soulmark tightly concealed and forbids talk of it within her earshot. Wei Ying has never seen her without the wide silver ring wrapped around her middle finger, the band thick enough to obscure the coordinates stamped under the skin there.
“Jiang-shushu doesn’t have a ring,” he says to Jiang Cheng.
They’re in their room, but he keeps his voice low still, in case Yu Ziyuan is passing by the door.
Jiang Cheng grunts. “Duh, soulmarks don’t have to match locations on bonded people.”
That much is true, which is probably why he doesn’t say anything more. But Wei Ying knows the real reason is that Yi Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian’s soulmarks don’t match.
It’s an unspoken truth, the kind that they’d learned outside of their family before having it confirmed within. The first time someone had been bold enough to mention it in front of Jiang Cheng, Wei Ying had had to drag his didi kicking and screaming off a bloodied boy from the Jin family. It was impossible to admit to Yu Ziyuan what the fight had been about; Jiang Cheng doesn’t dare repeat the accusation, lest it turn out to be true, and even at age seven Wei Ying has enough survival instinct to keep his mouth shut. They’d both been punished with a grounding, and Jiang Cheng never broached the topic again.
When they had finally met Lan Zhan, Wei Ying knew instantly that he’d wanted two sets of marks. Desire had surged so strongly in his belly that he felt charged with it, giddy like he’d eaten too much sugar.
“Wasn’t he cool?” Wei Ying whispers under the cover of the bedsheets. He can feel his own fingers trembling with the joy of it, even as Jiang Cheng holds them tight. “Did you like him, shidi?”
“I liked him,” Jiang Cheng replies, in the tone that says he means it.
Meeting Lan Zhan at the community socials becomes a shared experience in anticipation, though Jiang Cheng’s version of excitement is always loud and grumpy, whereas Wei Ying’s is loud and delighted. The one time Wei Ying can’t attend with the flu, he cries about it until Jiang Cheng comes home and then makes him recount every single word Lan Zhan said.
After the fourth social, when they’re once again found hiding under the table by a fondly exasperated Jiang Fengmian, their families set up playdates. Lan Qiren had seemed incensed at the idea of leaving one of his nephews at a household as raucous as the Jiang’s estate. But the alternative was inviting Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying into his own home, and that had apparently been a horrifying enough prospect for him to relinquish Lan Zhan. It’s been two years since this started and Lan Qiren still drops Lan Zhan at their house like it’s the last time he’ll ever see his nephew.
“Does your shushu have a soulmark?” Wei Ying asks from where he’s hanging off the bed.
Lan Zhan hadn’t been allowed over for his tenth birthday, but he’d shown up today with a belated gift of White Rabbit candy, and that had been enough to erase Wei Ying’s misery over the matter .
Jiang Cheng smacks his leg from where he’s seated on the bed. “You can’t just ask stuff like that! It’s rude!”
“I don’t mind,” Lan Zhan replies. Unlike the two of them, he’s sitting perfectly upright, cross legged on the floor. Wei Ying likes the way Lan Zhan plays with Legos. It’s bizarrely precise, bordering on thematic. So weird. “But I can’t answer.”
“Why not?”
Jiang Cheng hits Wei Ying in the leg again. Lan Zhan shoots him a look and Jiang Cheng’s hand comes to cover the place he just assaulted, just below Wei Ying’s knee.
“I don’t know if shushu has a soulmark,” Lan Zhan explains calmly. “It is also not my place to say.”
“See?” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Lan Zhan has manners.” He still squeezes Wei Ying’s knee though, so he’s not really mad.
“I can’t wait to get mine,” Wei Ying sighs wistfully.
Lan Zhan stops ordering the Lego blocks at the exact same time Jiang Cheng’s thumb goes still on Wei Ying’s knee. Both of them have turned away, and Wei Ying can’t function unless he has the attention of at least one person, so he wiggles his way upright.
“What? Did I say something?”
Unhappiness is hooking a corner of Jiang Cheng’s mouth, which for once Wei Ying doesn’t want to tug at; he knows Jiang Cheng’s trepidation about soulmarks runs perfectly parallel to how much his parents have argued that day.
By comparison, Lan Zhan appears perfectly blank, still as a statue of jade.
“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying ventures. “You don’t want soulmarks?”
“I…” Lan Zhan makes a face like he’s thinking very hard. “I don’t know.”
Wei Ying sucks in a breath, incredulous. “How can you not know? Don’t your parents have them?”
Lan Zhan flinches so hard that Wei Ying actually twitches too, a recoil of surprise. This time, Jiang Cheng hits him for real, cuffing his ear hard enough to sting so Wei Ying knows he really is mad.
“Wei Ying!” he hisses.
“They did,” Lan Zhan replies, clinically in the past tense. His voice betrays nothing. “My parents' marks didn’t match.”
“Oh,” Wei Ying says dumbly.
Two sets of parents without matching soulmarks feels like an oversaturation, in terms of parents in Wei Ying’s immediate sphere. He’d always heard that his own parent’s soulmarks were a match made by the Heavens, and as ten year olds do, he’d assumed that meant that everyone else’s were as well.
Wei Ying crawls off the bed to sit next to Lan Zhan and make a mess of the Legos, which seems to make Lan Zhan feel a little better. After a second, Jiang Cheng joins them; he’s obviously trying to make his blocks neat like Lan Zhan’s, but he’s been living with Wei Ying too long for it to really work.
“Ours will match,” Wei Ying promises.
Lan Zhan’s golden eyes grow wide as dinner plates, and he stares at Wei Ying with unfiltered hope.
“It doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to decide who you’re bonded with!” Jiang Cheng barks at him, which is a very defeatist attitude.
“Yes I do!” Wei Ying grins at him. “I’m deciding right now, the three of us will get matching marks. Or I will take a rocket to Heaven and yell at the Emperor!”
“Do not,” Lan Zhan says. Then, coyly, “Ours will match.”
Jiang Cheng looks at him in a betrayed sort of way, but Lan Zhan leans over to order his Legos nicely and it gives way to a smile. The agreement leaves them buoyant until Lan Qiren comes to pick Lan Zhan up and Wei Ying crawls into Jiang Cheng’s bed.
Their hands meet halfway as they reach for each other.
“Do you really think we’ll match?” Jiang Cheng asks. He sounds terrified, which only makes Wei Ying squeeze his hands tighter.
“I know they will,” Wei Ying replies, with all the confidence and naivety of his years.
Yu Ziyuan yells at them for sleeping in the same bed when she finds them the following morning.
☽
Despite Lan Qiren’s best efforts, dread swims thick through the household on the day of Xichen’s sixteen birthday.
Lan Zhan can tell by the curt, almost pained way with which their Uncle goes about his morning routine. Even on a normal day, he’s stiff and upright, but today his movements are down right jerky. Like a poorly manoeuvred puppet.
Lan Xichen is well-mannered enough to pretend he doesn’t notice, but trying to engage Uncle Qiren in conversation only serves to highlight his abruptness. He shuffles the morning paper with a dismissive snap, and Lan Xichen doesn’t try talking to him again.
Lan Zhan waits until after breakfast to approach his brother.
“Xiongzhang,” Lan Zhan murmurs, and presses a book into his hand along with several contraband packets of White Rabbit candy that their Uncle doesn’t allow.
He doesn’t ask about soulmarks, but Xichen tells him anyway. “It appeared at midnight,” he explains, and Lan Zhan watches as Xichen rubs away a layer of makeup he’d painted across the inside of his wrist. “It woke me up.”
There, settled over his pulse, lie twelve numbers, split with two letters. Latitude and longitude; the place where he’d first met his soulmate, signed into Xichen’s skin in elegant navy script. A timestamp sits just below it, a sturdy confirmation.
Lan Zhan doesn’t dare touch it, but he does lean closer to get a better look. “What did it feel like?”
Xichen, always so good with words, shockingly shakes his head. “It escapes definition. I’ve never felt anything like it, didi.”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, though he wishes he knew. They both continue to stare at the mark, hushed, tentative awe filling them to the brim. It feels like it reaches all the way to the corners of the room, dousing everything in an electric glow.
“I’m waiting for the right time to tell shushu,” Xichen says quietly. It’s a futile admission, since they both know there will never be a right time to tell their Uncle such things. But Lan Zhan indulges his brother in the lie and Xichen tilts into him until their shoulders bump in thanks.
“Do you know who it is?” Lan Zhan asks instead.
It’s a dangerous question, mostly because they’ve been raised to think that soulmarks are dangerous. But years of this rhetoric can’t stand up to the thrilling hope of a teenager who’s been promised someone.
Xichen hesitates, just for a second. “I believe it is Nie Mingjue.”
It’s close enough to the truth without a full confirmation. Lan Zhan tugs Xichen’s phone out of his brother’s pocket and presses it into his hands. Xichen’s fingers tremble before he takes it, and he offers Lan Zhan a gentle smile.
Lan Zhan returns one of his own before getting up and returning to his own room. If nothing else, he can allow his brother the privacy to confirm this for himself.
☽
“You’d think we’d have to stop coming to these once we hit Junior High,” Wei Ying complains as he leans up against the long table.
He’s still shoving wontons into his mouth, so it can’t be that bad of a time. Lan Zhan will admit however, that the community socials have long lost their novelty, which was really only derived from getting to see Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng. Largely because Jiang Cheng will almost definitely arrive stuffed into some fancy outfit he clearly detests, and Wei Ying is on his third year of successfully sneaking in Lao Gan Ma despite doing a sincerely poor job of hiding it, something Lan Zhan will never admit he finds hilarious.
“What?” Jiang Cheng snorts, tugging at his collar. “And miss hearing all about how we’ll never be as rich as the Jin? I think Jin Zixun would asphyxiate if he didn’t get to tell us every two months.”
“Here’s hoping,” Wei Ying sighs longingly.
“Every two months is not so bad,” Lan Zhan says magnanimously. He adds, “I’m sure the Jin family appreciates the community service.”
Wei Ying barks out a laugh and very nearly loses the jar of chilli crisp bulging through his jacket pocket. Beside him, Jiang Cheng shoots Lan Zhan an absolutely wolfish grin. It had taken a while to coax them out of him; fourteen months, not that Lan Zhan was keeping track. Where Wei Ying’s smiles were freely given and liberally applied, Jiang Cheng’s had required a certain amount of unfolding. The first time he’d donned a proper, full-mouthed smile, Lan Zhan had stared at him for a solid ten seconds, trying to scrape the exact breadth of it into his retinas.
Whenever he gets one now, it feels like a personal accomplishment; timestamped and recorded - Lan Zhan was here.
“I heard that Yanli-jie got her soulmark,” Lan Zhan ventures.
Wei Ying really does lose his hot sauce at the query. Jiang Cheng saves the jar before it hits the ground and shoves it into Lan Zhan’s pocket, because if they’re smuggling contraband then all three of them are in it together. And also Jiang Cheng’s wicked sense of humour dictates that he’s one hundred percent willing to stain Lan Zhan’s pale clothes with chilli oil.
Viciously, Wei Ying bites into a wonton. “Yeah, shijie got her mark a few weeks ago.”
For most people, this would be something to celebrate. For Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng, it’s akin to a funeral march. Neither of them appear as though they want to elaborate, so Lan Zhan prompts, “Do you know-”
“It’s the fucking peacock,” Jiang Cheng hisses, with such distaste that his entire face contorts. If he had to utter Jin Zixuan’s name, it might get stuck that way.
“Ah.”
The heir to the Jin family is snobbish and stiff, which is a glowing report as far as the Jin go in their evaluations. Beyond the cursory social awkwardness, Jin Zixuan is as respectable as any fourteen year old can be. He’s also the only person Lan Zhan has met who’s as pressed for conversation as he is, which is another private comfort that Lan Zhan harbours. Something he’ll never say out loud to Jiang Cheng or Wei Ying.
As if sensing treason, Wei Ying snaps, “He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.”
“They started dating,” Jiang Cheng adds, which more succinctly explains why Wei Ying is shredding another wonton with his teeth like it might bite him back.
Lan Zhan just blinks. For nothing better to say, he remarks, “I wish Yanli-jie and Jin Zixuan happiness in their new relationship.”
Twin glares of betrayal are sent his way. Lan Zhan studiously ignores them. From what he knows, Jin Zixuan insulted Jiang Yanli once when they were nine, and her brothers have had a vendetta ever since. Each time he hears the story, the transgression has escalated; he once heard Wei Ying insist that Jin Zixuan set his shijie’s hair on fire. Nie Mingjue had later explained that he’d called her “plain” to her face, which is akin to a capital offense by her brothers’ vitriol.
Lan Zhan sighs, idly casting his gaze about the room of guests. The gatherings tend to swell closer to Qixi and Lunar New Year, but it’s late September and people are busy gearing up for the new school term, so it’s a thinner turn out than most months. His eyes snag on a soulmark, brazenly exposed over a woman’s shoulder blade, the longitude and latitude of the place she first met her soulmate striking through her pale skin in looping silver script. Something about it being so clearly available for anyone to read makes Lan Zhan itch a little. Right down into the first layer of skin where his Uncle’s anxieties have penetrated. His fingers find the hoop of corded bracelet Wei Ying had given him last Qixi.
“They’re placeholders!” Wei Ying had announced. “Until we get our marks.”
Both he and Jiang Cheng had received one each; violet for Jiang Cheng, the same colour as his eyes, and duck egg blue for Lan Zhan. He still doesn’t know where Wei Ying found the exact shade that matches his formal attire, but he’d presented the bracelets with such unbridled joy that Lan Zhan hadn’t thought to ask.
Under Lan Zhan’s thumb, the three glass beads knotted midway through the band roll together, a pleasing texture. There’s something reassuring about the symmetry; three beads for three bracelets for three people. Wei Ying’s unshakable conviction that their trio is destined for each other. Such an idea feels too big with only fourteen years to his life, but Lan Zhan finds himself sinking his fingers into it with more greed than he’s willing to admit.
“Hey,” Jiang Cheng’s voice at his side knocks Lan Zhan out of his reverie, and he turns to see the other boy watching him closely. Evidently, he hasn’t missed the way Lan Zhan was staring at someone else’s soulmark. “Are you still nervous?”
Lan Zhan sometimes forgets that Jiang Cheng has a similar apprehension about his own soulmarks. Shamefully, it’s one of their similarities that he privately appreciates; soulmarks are so damned in his own family that it’s a sick sort of comfort to know they’re equally cursed elsewhere.
For a moment, Lan Zhan considers saying he’s fine. A perfect non-answer to a sort of non-question. But Jiang Cheng is more perceptive than anyone really gives him credit for, and he doesn’t like being lied to, so Lan Zhan simply reaches out and takes his hand.
Jiang Cheng wastes no time in threading their fingers together, giving them a squeeze so they’re locked in tight. Lan Zhan reaches for Wei Ying’s hand, too, and finds it already halfway towards his own. They’re too old to hide under the table anymore, but Wei Ying grabs Jiang Cheng’s hand quickly, squeezing it once before their cluster looks too much like a summoning circle in front of the guests, and that brief moment of contact feels like sharp relief. Closed circuit.
Lan Zhan breathes out slowly, and the hands holding his tighten in tandem.
“How’s Xichen-ge getting on with Nie Mingjue?” Wei Ying asks suddenly.
Lan Zhan follows his gaze to where the two in question are chatting by the piano. To anyone else, they’d appear nothing more than close friends. But to Lan Zhan, the rhythmic sway of his brother’s body into Nie Mingjue’s space screams of unnamed intimacy.
“Uncle still doesn’t know,” he says, and releases Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng’s hands to fold his own at the base of his spine. It’s the most unsubtle way of withdrawing, but they just lean closer to him to compensate. No longer held in place but staying all the same.
Jiang Cheng swipes a youtiao off the table and starts tearing it with his fingers. “Still waiting for the right time?”
It’s not meant as a barb, but Lan Zhan feels a kick of defensiveness as he remembers the tubes of concealer that Xichen keeps in his pockets at all times. “Mn.”
It might be silly, since Xichen and Nie Mingjue’s soulbond is something of an open secret at this point, but it still feels like an axe descending. The truth that no one speaks aloud.
Jiang Cheng eyes him. “I didn’t mean it like that. Xichen-ge’s not obligated to tell anyone if he doesn’t want to.”
“I know.”
“What do you know, Zhan-xiong?” a voice slides in from the side.
Nie Huaisang snatches the ragged youtaio out of Jiang Cheng’s hand and tears a bite off it, having apparently materialised out of nowhere.
“Oi!” Jiang Cheng protests, even though he didn’t have any intention of eating the dough in the first place.
Nie Huaisang waves a shushing hand at him. “Quiet, quiet! Zhan-xiong was answering my question.”
“Nie Huaisang,” Lan Zhan acknowledges steadily. Questions are a dangerous game with the younger Nie. You can either say too much or too little, and either one will tell him exactly what he wants to know.
“Zhan-xiong,” Nie Huaisang replies, businesslike. “Wei-xiong. Fancy seeing you here.”
He steals a wonton off Wei Ying’s plate - how many wontons exactly Wei Ying had snagged, Lan Zhan doesn’t know - and Wei Ying just shoves the entire platter at him.
“Who’s that with your brother?” Wei Ying asks, still staring across the room.
Nie Huaisang answers around a mouthful of food, “You haven’t met Jin Guangyao yet? He’s Zixuan-xiong’s new half brother.”
They all turn to glance surreptitiously at Jin Guangyao. Generously, nobody says what they’re thinking; that he doesn’t look new. He actually appears to be around their age, which means he’s been Jin Zixuan’s brother for a long time, and only recently been recognised. Everyone knows that Jin Guangshan’s adultery makes a mockery of soulmark culture.
“He’s in Junior High in Lanling,” Nie Huaisang explains. “Same school as his brother.”
Wei Ying arches a brow. “So Jin Guangshan is trying to save face by sending him to the same private education as his legitimate son.”
“Don’t let anyone hear you say that,” Jiang Cheng warns. “Ah-Niang’s friends with Jin-yima.”
“I can keep my mouth shut,” Wei Ying promises, and flatly ignores the sceptical looks sent his way.
He hasn’t taken his eyes off Jin Guangyao since spotting him. Lan Zhan understands why after a moment; it’s like watching the tide. Xichen will lean back and Jin Guangyao will lean forward. Nie Mingue will turn and Jin Guangyao turns with him, a visual echo, filling the spaces left open to him.
Does he not know that Xichen and Mingjue are soulmates? It’s only hard to miss if you aren’t trying to see it. But the longer Lan Zhan watches, the more he sees the openings being left almost on purpose. Places for Jin Guangyao to slot himself into, opportunities he doesn’t miss to do just that.
And then Xichen smiles at Jin Guangyao. It’s wide and full-toothed, and Lan Zhan has only ever seen him smile that way at Nie Mingjue before.
“Huh,” Nie Huaisang remarks, apropos of apparently nothing.
When Lan Zhan glances at him, Nie Huaisang is thoroughly and deliberately occupied with his youtiao.
☽
All of Lan Qiren’s belligerence over his nephew’s playmates turns out to be wonderfully redundant by the time they make it to junior high school. It takes exactly one day for Wei Ying to bully them into a break time routine, hunting Lan Zhan down the second class finishes so all three of them can hang out together at lunch. Jiang Cheng indulges this by synchronising their library study times; partly because Wei Ying nagged his ear off about it, but mostly because he really does want to hang out with Lan Zhan.
The three of them clustered together feels right in a way they had to fight for before school started. Their exposure to Lan Zhan is no longer dependent on Lan Qiren’s mood.
“Where do you get all these little sticky tabs?” Jiang Cheng asks, pawing at the muted blue booklet by Lan Zhan’s arm.
“Quiet,” Lan Zhan murmurs. It’s fair, since they’re in the library, but Jiang Cheng knows that Lan Zhan is just being a stick in the mud. He proves this a moment later by answering, “Xiongzhang bought them for me online.”
“You special order your tabs so they match your aesthetic?” Jiang Cheng scoffs. It’s not surprising, for a guy like Lan Zhan. You could look up the word ‘coordinated’ in the dictionary and they’d just be a picture of his face. Still, the tabs are a pretty colour. Far nicer than Jiang Cheng’s loud, stock fluorescent ones.
Lan Zhan glances up at him and silently pushes the small booklet over. It makes Jiang Cheng’s heart thud a bit, so he immerses himself in using the offered tabs to hide the ugly red of his cheeks. He’s always blushed ugly; Lan Zhan only blushes on the tips of his ears, because not even embarrassment can mess up his cool exterior.
The day Jiang Cheng had discovered this factoid had been the third community social since meeting Lan Zhan; the day that Wei Ying got sick and couldn’t attend. He’d been shaking with fever and hoarse as sandpaper, but he’d seemed far more distressed about the fact that he’d be missing out on seeing Lan Zhan. Jiang Cheng still remembers the way Wei Ying had clutched his sleeve like a lifeline, eyes rimmed red and glassy as he’d begged, “You have to tell me everything, didi! Everything he said when you get back, okay?”
Honestly, up until that point, Wei Ying had been acting as a pseudo medium for Jiang Cheng’s interactions with Lan Zhan. Without him there, Jiang Cheng had felt a little footloose in the conversation, and Lan Zhan hadn’t been any better, armed only with the appropriate set of pleasantries for a community gathering. He’d still hunted Jiang Cheng down under the table without complaint though, not even hesitating to get his trousers dirty when they kneeled down facing each other.
It had been so stilted that eventually Jiang Cheng blurted out, “I don’t know what Wei Ying would wanna do, if he were here.”
Lan Zhan had just stared at him for a long moment before replying, “What would you like to do?”
The question had stumped Jiang Cheng so much so that he didn’t even respond; he just took Lan Zhan’s hand in his (different, without the weight of Wei Ying’s in his other), and led them out the main hall to one of the music rooms near the back of the building. Wei Ying found them boring so Jiang Cheng had stopped asking to go, but he’s relieved to find that the doors are still left unlocked.
He tugs Lan Zhan quietly into the room and sits down at the old grand piano, not even looking back before he starts playing. Twenty bars into Chopin’s Nocturne op.9 no.1, Lan Zhan sits down next to him on the piano stool, his back to the keys. Jiang Cheng risks a glance at him and pays for it with a wrong note, fingers slipping off the B sharp jarringly.
He closes the piano lid with a snap, disproportionately cross with himself. “Do you play?”
Lan Zhan hums - Jiang Cheng remembers, because it had been the first time he’d heard it.
“No,” he says, before righting himself on the piano stool and opening the key lid again. “Can you teach me?”
Instead of resting his fingers on the keys, Lan Zhan had settled his hands atop Jiang Cheng’s, and let Jiang Cheng play the piece again, his fingers ghosting the movement where they were settled. By the end of the coda, Lan Zhan’s ears were pink and, unable to stop himself, Jiang Cheng had reached out to trace a finger over the shell of one of them. Warm.
Now, sitting across from him in the library, Lan Zhan’s ears are pink again. This time, Jiang Cheng resists the urge to touch them, even though it thrums in his fingertips; the coolness of the blue tabs is a poor substitute.
“Jiang Cheng!” A loud whisper shoots over the study hall, and Jiang Cheng looks up to see Wei Ying skipping over to them, very nearly dropping his armful of books with his bouncing. “Lan Zhan!”
He’s met with an answering chorus of shushes that make more noise than Wei Ying did to begin with. Wei Ying shushes them back rudely, and the shushing is replaced with glaring, which is less effective but at least more quiet. It doesn’t matter though; Wei Ying unceremoniously drops his stack of books on the desk with a thud that echoes all the way up to the library’s high ceilings.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan admonishes him, but it’s half hearted at best. Jiang Cheng thinks that Lan Zhan would let Wei Ying get away with murder, and the admonishment would still be halfhearted at best. Granted, he would too, but he’d yell about it a little more.
Wei Ying just beams at them as he flops into a chair. “Everyone here is so noisy,” he stage-whispers, earning a fresh wave of silent glaring.
“You’re late,” Jiang Cheng snips. “You better not have been ‘fixing’ the maths curriculum again.”
“My way is better,” Wei Ying says immediately. He’s right, of course, but Jiang Cheng knows better than to encourage him.
Lan Zhan eyes him intensely. “What happened?”
The smile flickers on Wei Ying’s face. Jiang Cheng used to hate this; Lan Zhan seems to have a sixth sense for when Wei Ying is distraught, something Jiang Cheng had thought he’s been singularly attuned to. But growing up with Wei Ying means that he’s too close to see it sometimes. Only in the past few years has he begun to appreciate that between the two of them, they’re a foolproof mood ring for Wei Ying’s emotional state.
“Ah, nothing nothing!” Wei Ying hums. “People are kinda testy about soulmarks sometimes, don’t you think?”
“Not all of us are delusional about ours,” someone mutters under their breath.
Jiang Cheng glares at the third year who’d spoken. He sneers until the weight of Lan Zhan’s glowering joins in and then he abates with a scowl.
Wei Ying hums, indifferent to the exchange. Abruptly, he pushes himself to his feet, the chair legs making a horrible, echoing scrape, though most people have given up on ineffectually glaring at him by now.
“Don’t mind me,” he says, apparently to the library at large, since they’re minding him very much. “I’m gonna go hunt down some books for this paper. Text me if you’re leaving for class.”
Jiang Cheng watches Wei Ying’s back as he retreats between the shelves, high ponytail swinging red as a wound with the ribbon he wears in protest of uniform regulations. Across the table, Lan Zhan’s eyes snap to Jiang Cheng, a flare of understanding sparking between them.
“I’ll go,” Jiang Cheng tells him, pushing out of his seat.
Lan Zhan’s lips press together hard, but he just nods and lets Jiang Cheng go. Still a stickler for the rules, even after knowing the two of them for so many years. Contrastingly, Wei Ying is weirdly predictable despite his chaos; Jiang Cheng knows the exact path his fractious pacing will take him, which is why he finds Wei Ying jamming books against each other in the back corner of the library, the exact opposite section he needs to be for his assignment materials.
He looks up when Jiang Cheng slides between the stacks, and doesn’t even have the decency to seem surprised. At least he stops bullying the books, choosing instead to thumb at the packed pages of the one he’s holding, roughening the edges of the paper.
Jiang Cheng takes it from him before he can do any real damage, but Wei Ying without anything in his hands is even more dangerous, so Jiang Cheng slides their palms together, locking him in place.
“You gonna tell me what happened?” he asks.
“Nothing happened,” Wei Ying mumbles immediately, except he’s staring at the pilfered book in Jiang Cheng’s free hand and not even bothering to conceal his pout.
Jiang Cheng squeezes his hand tighter. “Let me rephrase that: Tell me what happened.”
It’s easy to tell when Wei Ying is building up to something because he talks around it, pulling out random topics and questions like he’s trying to spin you on a carousel. The trick is finding the common thread, a single overlapping word in every question. It’s just annoying, because Wei Ying clearly thinks he’s very good at hiding things when in actual fact he’s abysmal; you just need to know how to look.
“What do you think of familial soulmarks?” he asks, conversationally, like he’s not ticking down on the clock Jiang Cheng’s set him.
Another squeeze to his hand has Wei Ying stilling, at least. “I don’t think anything about them. Don’t they just mean you’re the best version of yourself with that family member?”
“But then isn’t it hard to navigate like, dating and stuff? Like, if you don’t have a romantic soulmate, then how do you know you’ve met the right person?” Wei Ying reaches his fingers towards a fresh book. The action has him stretching the link between their fingers, and Jiang Cheng uses his hold to sharply tug Wei Ying back into place.
“So you think a romantic soulmark is better?” Jiang Cheng issues it like a challenge, but he finds himself turning towards the answer, thirsty for the truth of it.
Wei Ying fixes him with a look, which means he’s getting close to the heart of the issue. “Don’t you?”
The urge to snap that it doesn’t matter batters the backs of Jiang Cheng’s teeth, and he knows Wei Ying can see his jaw flexing with the effort to bite down on it. Because suddenly it seems like it does matter. It seems like it matters very much, and not just to Wei Ying, but to Jiang Cheng, too.
They’ve never really put a name to their ambiguous relationship, but it’s been years since Jiang Cheng learned that the Nie brothers don’t sneak into each other’s beds every night, and almost just as long since he stopped questioning why that felt strange to him. That the Lan brothers didn’t need to touch constantly, just to feel the comfort of the other being there.
“I think,” Jiang Cheng starts, choosing his words carefully, “that I don’t need a cosmic tattoo to tell me who to love.”
He watches those words land, telegraphing through Wei Ying just to see how they come out on the other side. It doesn’t have to be romantic if Wei Ying doesn’t want it to; they can stick to their quasi-familial closeness and Jiang Cheng will learn to love someone else. Or at least, he’ll learn how to love someone alongside Wei Ying and- And Lan Zhan, too, if he’s being honest. It’s always been the two of them.
Wei Ying hums. His free fingers have found another book to torment, but he’s not letting go of Jiang Cheng’s hand.
“You know people come to this corner of the library to make out, right?” Wei Ying laughs. “I caught Huaisang macking on some third year student who doesn’t have a soulmark yet. How do you think they even met?”
He’s talking around things again. This time, Jiang Cheng sucks in a breath when he works it out, his grip on Wei Ying’s hand twitching because he’s not sure if he wants to let go or hold on tighter.
Is that why you came here? he wants to ask. Desperately. His tongue itches with wanting to ask. Because it was either going to be him or Lan Zhan that followed Wei Ying down here between the stacks, and it doesn’t seem to matter which of them got there first.
Wei Ying just watches him, almost like he’s waiting for Jiang Cheng to understand. Like maybe he knows he can’t hide shit and it’s all just a silly game to test who’s really paying attention.
Jiang Cheng’s been paying attention since Wei Ying was dropped into his life at five years old, and now they're fifteen and he’s yet to lose interest.
“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Ying murmurs. For all his confidence at being chased, he’s quick to doubt now he’s got one of them here.
That’s why Jiang Cheng tugs Wei Ying closer by their joined hands, and leans in to kiss him.
Wei Ying stops breathing. Jiang Cheng hears it because it’s silence in the library around them, possibly for the first time since Wei Ying arrived.
He’s never really thought about what his first kiss would be like beyond a meeting of mouths, strange and new and novel, but he knew it would be warm. He knew it would be with either Wei Ying or Lan Zhan and it didn’t matter which as long as it was one of them. Then Wei Ying breathes out shakily through his nose and it’s like time starts moving again.
They each have a free hand - Wei Ying’s climbs Jiang Cheng’s back from hip to spine, smoothing out the shape of him. Jiang Cheng’s cups Wei Ying’s jaw, dipping his fingertips beyond Wei Ying’s hairline and tangling them there the way he’d always wanted to.
This doesn’t feel like making out, even though that’s probably what it looks like from the outside. Wei Ying kisses him and Jiang Cheng kisses back and it feels like the last ten years of his life peaking all at once. A great, thundering conclusion to every single touch that’s passed between them in a decade.
When Jiang Cheng presses his weight into Wei Ying, trapping him against the frayed books, sealing the space between them into a single line of contact, Wei Ying shudders and opens his mouth-
“Wei Ying?”
Wei Ying jolts so hard that he nearly headbutts Jiang Cheng in the face. Lan Zhan is standing at the end of the row, his eyes widened, taking them in. Silence that had settled around them like a great secret feels brittle now, shatter-ready and waiting. The scrape of Wei Ying’s nails against Jiang Cheng’s scalp reminds him that they’re still tangled together, pressed close at every available point.
He knows what it looks like from the outside; making out, plain and hormonal.
Lan Zhan has never seemed like a runner, but he looks like he might bolt any second. Even in shock, his face is profoundly blank. It takes Wei Ying breathing his name for his eyelids to flutter, and even then he doesn’t look away.
Jiang Cheng steps back first, releasing Wei Ying from his cage against the shelves. It’s cold without another body pressed against his, but all he can really think about is how Lan Zhan must feel cold too with neither of them. They probably should have talked about this. It seems starkly apparent that they haven’t talked about this, and now Jiang Cheng has tasted Wei Ying’s mouth without planning to and he can’t look Lan Zhan in the eye.
Wei Ying is snagging Lan Zhan’s wrist, careful in his movements but no less firm. Jiang Cheng hadn’t even seen him move until he’s dragging Lan Zhan back, hands wound together. Wei Ying takes Jiang Cheng’s hand too, and Jiang Cheng takes Lan Zhan’s because that’s what they’ve been doing since they were eight and it feels like the most natural thing in the world, even when looking at him feels impossible. Closed circuit.
“Jiang Cheng,” Lan Zhan calls, and Jiang Cheng looks up at him, helpless.
Now he’s looking, he can’t stop his eyes from travelling to Lan Zhan’s mouth. Wei Ying’s mouth by comparison is kiss red and shiny, which means that Jiang Cheng’s must be as well, and it’s only Lan Zhan that doesn’t match. Something about it feels incomplete.
“We missed you,” Wei Ying says, which sums the feeling up exactly.
This might have been his plan all along, because he knew that one of them would follow him and it didn’t matter which. It occurs to Jiang Cheng that Wei Ying also knew that with two of them gone, the third would come looking. So he follows where he’s directed when Wei Ying unhooks himself from their hold in order to press Jiang Cheng’s hand firmly into Lan Zhan’s, delivering an extra nudge to both of their shoulders until they’re close enough.
From this distance, Jiang Cheng can count Lan Zhan’s lashes. They’re just as thick up close, which should be impossible but instead fills him with a strange sense of vindication. What a petty triumph.
Wei Ying nudges them both again and then leans back against the shelves with a lazy smile. Watching, Jiang Cheng realises.
“What are you looking at me for?” Wei Ying teases, making a show of kicking his ankles crossed. “Don’t you both have something more interesting to be doing?”
He’s going to be a smug shit about the whole thing so Jiang Cheng automatically turns away; you don’t reward bad behaviour with attention. That’s never stopped Wei Ying before but it makes Jiang Cheng feel better. Lan Zhan is still staring at Wei Ying, though, the bow of his lips shaping a question that he’s not saying. It doesn’t usually matter because they know Lan Zhan; Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying have been fluent in his unique, non-verbal language for years. But Jiang Cheng can only read hesitance from the twitch of his mouth, and abruptly wonders if Lan Zhan was meant to be the one to follow Wei Ying first. Perhaps, he’d wanted Wei Ying to be his first kiss.
These thoughts meet an abrupt halt when fingers find Jiang Cheng’s chin, lifting it so he can look Lan Zhan fully in his honey gold eyes. His ears are pink; Jiang Cheng reaches out mindlessly to trace the shell of one of them and nearly shudders with gratification when it makes Lan Zhan’s eyelids flutter.
“Jiang Cheng,” Lan Zhan says again. It’s the only thing he’s said since he got here; their names, his and Wei Ying’s.
Jiang Cheng can hear the question behind this one, and he nods jerkily, his stomach swooping as Lan Zhan leans in. His full eyelashes flutter again as he closes his eyes, and it’s the last thing Jiang Cheng sees before Lan Zhan’s mouth is on his.
It’s soft. That shouldn’t be surprising - for all of Lan Zhan’s cool, clean sliced edges, he’s fascinatingly tender underneath. Jiang Cheng had once seen him carry a bunny out of the road wrapped tight under his jacket, extraordinary in his gentleness.
It’s kind of overwhelming to have that same care turned on him. The way Lan Zhan sighs into his mouth, pressing forward with his jaw as he rubs a thumb over Jiang Cheng’s cracked knuckles, makes his heart thud painfully in his chest. One of Lan Zhan’s hands finds its way up to Jiang Cheng’s waist, tugging them closer together, more of a question than a demand. It makes him feel… Small.
Is this how Wei Ying feels, Jiang Cheng wonders, when he does it to him?
An arm slides around Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and it doesn’t belong to Lan Zhan. Jiang Cheng pulls back just as Wei Ying leans between them and captures Lan Zhan’s mouth with his own, his arms around both of them together. This close, Jiang Cheng can put a visual to things he’d only felt behind the darkness of his closed eyes; the flash of tongue as Lan Zhan licks into Wei Ying’s mouth. The tendons flexing in Wei Ying’s hand as he curls a hand around Lan Zhan’s shoulder. They’re being quiet, which seems impossible where Wei Ying is concerned, but Jiang Cheng hangs on every whispered breath and slick noise between them, captivated.
Wei Ying pulls back with a soft pop and a grin so smug that Jiang Cheng has to pinch him, just a little. It just makes Wei Ying wriggle, but does nothing to cow his smile.
Jiang Cheng huffs. “You gonna tell us what’s got you so riled up then?”
Wei Ying wriggles some more until Lan Zhan belts an arm around his waist, holding him in place.
Pouting, he replies, “Some snotty kid in physics was mouthing off about triadic soulmates.”
He says it as a joke, arms still looped around Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan’s shoulders, but he’s squeezing them too tightly for it to be anything less than anxiousness. Isn’t that a stupid thing to say? Tell me it’s a stupid thing to say.
Lan Zhan glances at Jiang Cheng; they know the steps to this dance, they’ve done it before. Wei Ying likes to laugh loudest at the things that hurt the deepest, and when that happens, he needs to be told plainly that it’s okay.
“What did he say exactly?” Lan Zhan asks carefully. His thumb is skimming rhythmically over Jiang Cheng’s waist, and he must be doing the same thing to Wei Ying since he’s curling into the touch like a cat.
“He said there was no chance the three of us would get matching marks,” the reply trips out over a laugh that not even Wei Ying seems convinced of. “But he’s stupid, so it doesn’t matter.”
“He’s stupid,” Jiang Cheng says, and makes a mental note to find out who ‘he’ is. “Bet he doesn’t know we’re making out in the library.”
Wei Ying barks out a genuine laugh at that, and Lan Zhan squeezes him tighter since they’re still in the library and he’s still a stickler for the rules. “Bet he doesn’t. His loss, really, but I want you all to myself.”
“Mn. Stupid,” Lan Zhan agrees, ears flushing a little at Jiang Cheng’s crooked grin.
“Happy now?” Jiang Cheng prods; Wei Ying’s not the only one that needs to be told things plainly sometimes.
In answer, Wei Ying just sighs dreamily, tucking his face into Lan Zhan’s neck. “Soooo happy, ChengCheng. I knew we were meant to be together. All three of us.”
It sounds simple put like that; the three of them. Together like they’ve always been since they were eight. Jiang Cheng refuses to let doubt stain the edges of this moment, but the image of his parents’ marriage flashes through his mind.