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“No, you need to understand,” Wei Wuxian says seriously, chopping a hand against the table for extra emphasis. “The goal of this booth is for them not to kiss me.”
“This is still such a slutty idea,” Jiang Cheng says.
“How is it slutty if I’m not supposed to be kissing anybody?!?”
“It’s the tease,” Nie Huaisang says thoughtfully. He taps his pen against his chin, eyeing Wei Wuxian up and down. Wei Wuxian is wearing a skinny tank top made out of thin white cotton, exposing the skin along his sides. It’s too hot to wear anything else, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how Jiang Cheng is managing to stay alive in his dark school uniform.
“It’s not my fault that I look so good in this,” Wei Wuxian rolls a shoulder and flips an imaginary strand of hair. “Wen Ning, back me up. This idea is funny, right?”
At the end of their recruitment table, busy with taping up flyers, Wen Ning glances up. He does a double take when he sees all three of them, Wei Ying, Jiang Cheng, and Nie Huaisang, looking at him.
“Sorry,” he says. “What was our idea again?”
“We set up a kissing booth,” Wei Wuxian explains again, patiently. “Except there’s a twist! The kissing booth is also a super spicy challenge! Have you ever heard of the Scoville scale? Like how a jalapeño pepper is 3k Scoville units but a ghost pepper is in the millions?”
“Yeah?”
Wei Wuxian beams. “So! We lay out a bunch of peppers, from least spicy to most spicy, and if you can eat it then you can kiss a frat bro! We can set it up like a grocery store! They get to pick and choose! It’ll be great.”
“And lemme guess, in order to kiss you they’ve got to eat a ghost pepper.”
Wei Wuxian lets out a maniacal cackle. “I’d dare anyone to try.” (Author’s note: please do not try this at home.)
“So you’re calling yourself hot,” Jiang Cheng deadpans.
“In terms of spice tolerance,” Wei Wuxian agrees, spreading his hands out with a what can you do? gesture. Nobody else can handle spice like he can, which was, to be honest, part of why he came up with this idea in the first place.
Ok, so maybe that’s a lie. Maybe the real reason is the frightening amount of peppers they’ve grown in the little courtyard at the back of their frat house. Which started as a joke, but has now resulted in 1) increased spice tolerance amongst the entire population of YunMengJiang in part due to 2) a lot of peppers in their meals, 3) a campus rumor that climbing over the fence into the YunMengJiang courtyard would result in serious injury, dizziness, hallucinations, and a near-death experience and finally 4) a truly mind boggling over-supply of peppers, for which Wei Wuxian has just generously thought of a solution for.
“This is still such a slutty idea,” Jiang Cheng repeats.
Wen Ning side eyes him, because he understands their oversupply problem, and is able to follow Wei Wuxian’s level of thinking past the first two twists and turns, and is also not a huge fan of the life-threatening amount of peppers in their basement at the moment. If those peppers don’t make themselves useful as a recruiting gimmick during rush week, then they will end up on their plates. He nods at Wei Ying to give him his silent support.
“It’ll make us look good,” Nie Huaisang says thoughtfully. “All the freshman guys will think that we have girls lining up to kiss us, and all the girls will have a fun competitive game to play during Rush Week.”
“And they get to kiss all the hottest guys on campus,” Wei Wuxian adds encouragingly.
Jiang Cheng nails him with another flat glare, “This just sounds like a scheme to get you some action.”
“No it’s not!” Wei Wuxian says, offended. “It’s not about me at all!”
“Is it?”
“Look at alllllll the people you have to kiss before you get to me,” Wei Wuxian throws out a hand. That hand sweeps over, in quick succession, Nie Huaisang, Wen Ning, Jiang Cheng, Nie Minjue, and all his other frat brothers setting up the booths in the background.
“I’m not kissing anybody,” Jiang Cheng says instantly.
Wei Ying stares at him pointedly, and then repeats the hand gesture again, this time skipping him. “You can be the bell pepper,” he says.
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.
Nie Mingjue comes by and drops a stack of boxes down on their table, interrupting the group. The boxes, hastily labeled with sharpie as “Habanero” or “scotch bonnet” or “Thai pepper”, are filled to the brim with colorful, attention grabbing, hot-looking peppers. A sharp, spicy smell wafts through the air.
“Have you got a better idea?” he asks pointedly.
When Jiang Cheng wavers for just a second too long, Nie Huaisang solemnly takes out a bell pepper and hands it to him.
Wei Wuxian is not the frat president, thank god, but he is one of their more senior and more sociable members, so he gets sent out to the main street to hawk their wares, so to speak. Nie Huaisang makes him a nice, flashy sign with a bunch of colored peppers on it, and in big letters: “Wei Wuxian’s Super Spicy Kissing Booth!” with a big arrow on it. Wei Wuxian climbs up onto the brick wall lining the street, and makes himself into the flashiest sign holder possible, waving his arms, spinning around, and calling out greetings to the people he recognizes.
He can see the students walking back from their classes, and almost immediately spots Lan Zhan in the crowd, wearing his distinctive white jacket. He has a bag slung over one shoulder, his headphones in his ears, and he looks completely lost in thought, head in the clouds. He doesn’t seem to notice Wei Wuxian or his sign at all.
Okay, fine, so when Wei Wuxian had called the YunMengJiang frat the one with the best looking guys on campus, maybe he had been fudging the truth a little bit. Because right across the street, unfortunately, was GusuLan, with their prep school kids and musical prodigies and, sigh, their academic geniuses, sometimes all rolled into one person, can you believe it. And the worst, worst part of it was, their president was also maybe possibly probably the most beautiful person on campus.
On the brick walkway, Lan Zhan’s gaze catches on something, but it’s not on Wei Wuxian’s sign. Instead, he’s looking the other way, towards his intended destination.
Across the street, the GusuLan house has a little animal petting zoo with white rabbits in grassy enclosures and carrot feeding trays and light music playing from their speakers. If Wei Wuxian is not careful, he will lose the entire female population to that side of the street. Lan Zhan may be quiet and reserved, but he sure fucking knows how to run a frat during rush week. Where there are fun things, there will be girls. And where there are girls, there will be new freshman guys.
But if there’s one thing Wei Wuxian knows how to do, it’s how to cause a commotion.
He drops down from the wall just before Lan Zhan passes by him, hanging upside down for just a moment before righting himself with a flip. Lan Zhan stops in his tracks, maybe impressed by his parkour display? Or maybe, as Wei Wuxian notices the little furrow in his brow, annoyed by Wei Wuxian’s sudden appearance into his field of vision.
Wei Wuxian isn’t deterred. His little flip had drawn quite the crowd. Ignoring them, he grins wildly at Lan Zhan and says: “Lan Zhan! What’s your spice tolerance?”
Lan Zhan recognizes the challenge for what it is, and raises his eyebrows. He takes off his headphones, and as he puts them away he takes in Wei Wuxian’s sign and then glances over to the side, where the YunMengJiang kissing booths are now set up in their courtyard, with a gaggle of laughing freshman looking over their selection of peppers.
Wei Wuxian only catches the small, amused twist of his mouth because he’s watching for it. Lan Zhan thinks his idea is funny. Lan Zhan thinks he’s funny! For some reason, his heart leaps in his chest.
“Aw c’mon,” he cajoles, when Lan Zhan doesn’t answer. “Haven’t you ever seen that show where they eat those spicy chicken wings and the sauces get hotter and hotter? Haven’t you ever wanted to try that challenge yourself?”
“I’m vegetarian,” Lan Zhan says, then tries to sidestep Wei Wuxian to get to his side of the street.
Wei Wuxian immediately steps to the left, following him and holding out the sign. “Peppers are vegetables! So you shouldn’t have any problem with them, right?”
“They barely count,” Lan Zhan mutters under his breath.
“Sorry,” Wei Wuxian says gleefully. “What was that? Are you slandering peppers?”
“Would never dream of it.”
“Our very own, homegrown, YunMengJiang peppers!” Wei Wuxian continues, addressing the stream of students passing by. “Ranging from those on the lower end of the Scoville scale to the very top! Choose your man, prove your worth, and take your well-deserved prize! Who knows? You may very well capture his heart too!”
He glances over at Lan Zhan at the end. Lan Zhan, who is watching him spin around in showman mode, looking only mildly entertained.
“Is this your own advertising pitch?” he asks, when Wei Ying is done. “Or did your brothers come up with it for you?”
“Oh, it was all me,” Wei Ying says. “I came up with the idea, too! Eating different peppers lets you kiss different guys. Whoever eats the hottest pepper gets to kiss me! Isn’t that a great idea?”
And just like that, something in Lan Zhan’s face closes off. Wei Wuxian can feel it like a gate coming down between them. When Lan Zhan says, “It’s creative,” Wei Wuxian isn’t sure if it’s praise or criticism.
Wei Wuxian wavers, suddenly remembering that Lan Zhan comes from a proper, conservative family that probably still believes in old traditional values, like not kissing people you just picked up off the street. Or, not kissing multiple people at all. Like only kissing the one you intend to marry. Stuff like that.
“Probably not something you’ve ever seen before, huh?” Wei Wuxian forces a laugh, and then puts his sign down. He feels oddly unsettled and guilty, like he’s wronged Lan Wangji, but he doesn’t know why. Maybe he shouldn’t have used him in his little advertising bit. And then asked him about eating chicken wings, aaaghh. He forgets to use his brain, sometimes.
“Mn.”
Wei Wuxian knows that he’s being annoying, and he knows when to stop being annoying too. He bows out of Lan Zhan’s way, letting him get to his building.
“Kiss your rabbits hello for me,” he says. “I’d come visit, if it wasn’t a betrayal of my frat, treason of the highest order, fraternizing with the enemy and all that. They’re very cute.”
Rush Week goes on…properly, after that. The YunMengJiang Super Spicy Kissing Booth pulls decent numbers for a half baked idea desperately thrown together in the last minute after weeks of procrastinating.
Jiang Cheng, despite acting all pissy about it, looks slightly mollified by the huge groups of giggling girls coming up to him randomly and giving him bell-pepper tasting kisses. At least, he stops complaining a few days in. The rest of his frat brothers, overjoyed by the prospect of anyone coming up to kiss them at all, are singing Wei Wuxian’s praises by day two.
Even Wen Ning gets some action, despite choosing a Scotch Bonnet pepper with a SKU of 350,000, when some competitive sorority girls hear about the whole thing and come over to see what it’s all about. If anything, the YunMengJiang courtyard is lively all week, especially with the discovery that Nie Huaisang, despite choosing a Thai Pepper with a SKU of 100,000, cannot actually handle the heat. The sight of him choking and crying, wailing about regretting his actions, seems to flip a switch in the more…spicy portion of the campus population. The entertainment value and draw of the Super Spicy Kissing Booth somehow becomes both the opportunity to kiss a frat bro…and also the opportunity to make him cry in pain as you make him your bitch because he cannot handle the amount of spice that you can.
Wei Wuxian honestly doesn’t know what’s going on there, other than the discovery that the female population this year is just a tiny bit terrifying.
Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, gets no action at all. He is too busy from a combination of spending time out on the street, directing traffic, and running errands back to the house for more supplies and peppers. Their rush week eventually just devolves into a free snack food stall, with extra kisses on top, for the spice-loving portion of the student body.
A population that, of course, definitely does not include Lan Wangji.
Now, Wei Wuxian had made a big deal earlier about how visiting other frat houses would’ve been betrayal, treason, fraternizing with the enemy and all that, yada yada, but the truth was that it wasn’t that big of a deal at all. YunMengJiang and GuSuLan weren’t even really rival frats, due to their wildly different specializations and vibes. GuSuLan was the super formal old-school alumni-funded trust-baby frat……and YunMengJiang grew hot peppers in their backyard for fun.
So Wei Wuxian absolutely could have gone over to visit the rabbits at GuSuLan, or snuck into their frat house for ‘research purposes’, and scoped out how many people they were getting, what kind of snacks they had, and gotten all sorts of intel. But Rush Week is a busy time for everyone, and Wei Wuxian somehow can’t think of a good enough excuse to go visit. Lan Zhan obviously has everything completely under control. He’s been doing this for years, after all, compared to YunMengJiang’s hastily scrambled together plan. Wei Wuxian would only be in the way.
Then he wonders, why shouldn’t he be in the way? Doesn’t YunMengJiang need all the extra advertising it can get? Besides, Lan Zhan can’t go through life without acknowledging that he can’t handle spicy things at all! It’s a weakness! It could be exploited!
Still, the days pass, and the most he does is glance over the small wooden fence at the rabbit enclosure and greet them from afar.
Then, before he knows it, the fence is taken down, and the enclosure is packed up and moved. Rush Week is over.
The YunMengJiang frat bros are ecstatic with the results of Rush Week. The current count is three newly non-single frat members, at least seventeen new crushes, a kiss count of over a hundred for some individuals, and definitely a kiss count of over a thousand for the fraternity as a whole. In all aspects, the event was a massive success.
Wei Wuxian listens to them chatter giddily about their plans for the next year, expanding the garden, adding more crop variety, maybe making this a yearly thing. He quietly boxes up the remaining peppers, mostly those in the spicier category, so that they can be donated or stored somewhere for next year.
If Jiang Cheng and the others notice that he is being a little quieter than usual, they don’t comment on it. He and his ghost peppers, unchallenged, had given YunMengJiang a sort of legendary status amongst the pepper-lovers on campus. And after Wei Wuxian had demonstrated his ability to eat one without dying or even throwing up, he had cemented himself and YunMengJiang as the undisputed top boss.
(The truth was, Wei Wuxian had to run to the kitchen and drink milk for the rest of the day in order to handle it. Just because he could handle it didn't mean that it was easy, and he had thankfully only needed to demonstrate it once.)
But in the midst of boxing up all the peppers, a strange feeling twists in his gut, and it’s not an ulcer, because Wei Wuxian knows very well what that feels like. Instead, it’s this dark, complicated mess of resentment and isolation. He can’t relate to his brothers’ excited chatter about the experience, because, well, he hadn’t quite participated.
Amidst cheers of “the scotch bonnets are all gone!” and “THANK GOD THEY’RE GONE I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA DIE” and “oh, we’re out of habaneros too!”, Wei Wuxian stares down at his box of untouched ghost peppers, small and vibrantly red, practically pulsing with danger.
Abruptly, Wei Wuxian carries his box out of the house, and then into the backyard.
With Rush Week over, the garden beds are mostly all picked clean now, and the sudden quiet is a welcome relief from the loud chatter in the courtyard.
Wei Wuxian sets down his box, surveys the garden blankly for a moment, and then sits down.
The garden, if it could be called that, is an indented space in the ground surrounded by raised brick walls, matching that of the main street. It had been a weed-infested, cobblestone-ridden mess of a place when he’d first joined YunMengJiang. Due to the low light and generally creepy vibe, no one else had wanted to come here. So, just for fun, he used to spend a lot of time in his first year here cleaning up various beds and planting peppers in their place.
It had reminded him of home, or whatever fragments of memory he still had of a place called home.
A branch cracks above his head, and Wei Wuxian jumps. A year of deweeding had not yet banished the creepy vibe of this place, and he hadn’t expected anyone to be here.
Of all the people there, however, the last person he expects to see is Lan Zhan, emerging from the top of the wall.
“Lan Zhan?”
“Hey,” Lan Zhan says, a little startled as well. He pulls himself together quickly, though. “I came to check out your booth. I’m sorry I came late. Things got too busy too quickly.”
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian deflates. Of course. Lan Zhan was just here to make a courtesy call. Check out the other frats. Do market research, whatever. He didn’t come because Wei Wuxian invited him or anything, or because Wei Wuxian spun a sign in front of his face. It’s just business.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s been a long Rush Week.”
Lan Zhan considers him, and then hops down from the garden wall, joining him against the brick wall. He lands so lightly that Wei Wuxian barely even feels the leaves stir. “How did it go?”
“You could still say it went well,” Wei Wuxian curls his arm around his knees, hugging himself a little. It’s not that he’s disappointed in their numbers, or how much fun the others had, or their increased fame on campus. No, that would be silly. It had been a great event. A roaring success. A tale that will cement itself into the history of YunMengJiang for generations to come, and yada yada.
“Then why do you look so glum?”
Wei Wuxian hesitates, startled.
“Things looked really lively here, from what I could see,” Lan Zhan says, still watching him. Offering support, maybe? Wei Wuxian swivels his head around to look at him, confused.
Lan Zhan puts his hands behind his back and leans against the wall, looking down at him. His eyes catch what little light there is, in this gloomy space, and suddenly Wei Wuxian feels completely seen through.
“Yeah,” he says, startled into a little bit of honesty. “I guess I’m just jealous of the others, cause they all had a lot more fun than I did.”
Lan Zhan looks at the box of untouched ghost peppers, and then at him. His mouth tightens a little.
“If you just wanted kisses,” he says, his voice a little clipped, “You probably should’ve chosen something a little less spicy.”
“I know, I know,” Wei Wuxian groans. “No. That’s not it. It’s not like that at all. It’s just that we grew too many peppers last year. It started out as a joke, and then -” he trails off, because Lan Zhan knows this already. He had been here for all of it. He won’t be fooled by all of Wei Wuxian’s useless rambling.
But Lan Zhan just stays there, watching him, waiting for him to finish. His earlier irritation seems to be gone, replaced by simple curiosity.
Wei Wuxian shrugs, trying to put on a smiling face, but somehow failing. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Nobody even tried to touch these.”
And, somehow, unintentionally, or maybe subconsciously, Wei Wuxian had dug up way too many forgotten memories from his childhood of being unwanted. Untouched. Left alone. Whoops. Who knew that a box of ghost peppers could accidentally be a metaphor for his whole existence?
“Maybe I just have bad taste,” Wei Wuxian concludes, feeling a little defeated.
Lan Zhan leans down, hooks a finger into the corner of the box, and drags it over, inspecting it. Wei Wuxian is momentarily distracted by the side profile of his face, suddenly so close to his own. Lan Zhan is usually so serious. What is he doing here, entertaining the likes of Wei Wuxian for?
“You know how spiciness works, right?” Lan Zhan says unexpectedly. “It’s not a matter of taste.”
Wei Wuxian stares at him, uncomprehending. Lan Zhan glances at him, and then … just doesn’t look away. His eyes search Wei Wuxian’s face, but Wei Wuxian has no idea what he’s looking for. His own mind is completely blank, white printer paper, no ink, head empty, no thoughts.
Lan Zhan is so incredibly close, and his eyes are so pretty, and he’s being so unexpectedly kind and it’s honestly kind of throwing Wei Wuxian for a loop. Because he knows Lan Zhan is the sort of person that gets up incredibly early in the morning to feed his rabbits. He knows that Lan Zhan will pick them up and cuddle them and that he loves playing with their ears. And he knows that Lan Zhan has the most adorable secret smile when he thinks no one else is looking. He knows that Lan Zhan can be warm and caring and kind.
But he had never really envisioned any of that kindness being shown to him.
So now, with just the two of them in the garden, and with Lan Zhan standing so close, and being so kind, when Wei Wuxian has been nothing but a nuisance to him, and when Wei Wuxian doesn’t deserve any of it at all, all of Wei Wuxian’s usual brilliant lines and quips simply fly away.
Then, almost before Wei Wuxian can catch it, Lan Zhan reaches into the box and takes out a ghost pepper and takes a bite (Authors Note: PLEASE do not try this at home). Just as quickly, he spits it out and makes a face.
Wei Ying jolts, and then almost screams in horror. “Lan Zhan!!! What are you doing?!?!?”
Instead of answering, Lan Zhan simply grabs him by the back of his neck and pulls him into a kiss.
Wei Ying would like to say that his heart nearly stops in bliss, his eyes fill with tears, his whole body goes numb with pleasure, and he melts into Lan Zhan’s body, feeling like he has finally come home.
But the truth is that his heart nearly stops, straight out, his eyes fill with tears, his whole body goes numb, and he almost passes out from the amount of capsaicin he has just unexpectedly ingested.
Wei Wuxian chokes, and then frantically grabs at Lan Zhan’s jacket. “HOLY SHIT, LAN ZHAN, ARE YOU OKAY?!?”
Lan Zhan coughs, his eyes already watering. “I’m fine,” he says, but Wei Wuxian knows he’s lying.
Then it finally hits him. Lan Zhan just kissed him. Lan Zhan just kissed him.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, stunned. And then, “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” with greater urgency, as Lan Zhan slowly starts dying in front of him. “Why did you - why would you do something like that? Are you - are you crazy?”
“I don’t know,” Lan Zhan says, with a rather concerning amount of sincerity. “Do you feel better now?”
Wei Wuxian stares at him, dizzy. His vision is blurry, and his eyes are stinging, and maybe not all of it is from the ghost pepper. He feels vaguely like a plate has just been shattered over his head. He also, vaguely, feels like someone has just set off a firework inside of his mouth.
So, instead of answering, he leans forward impulsively to kiss Lan Zhan again.
He regrets it immediately, because Lan Zhan makes a small, distressed sound of pain, and Wei Wuxian backs off instantly.
“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” he says. And then, he can’t help it, he bursts out laughing. He lowers his head and tries to control his laughter, but he just can’t. “Lan Zhan, oh my god, I’m so sorry. I don’t know - I just - I can’t believe you just did that.”
Lan Zhan’s hand comes up to touch his, and his fingers gently circle Wei Wuxian’s wrist. Wei Wuxian lets his grip loosen, until Lan Zhan’s thumb runs up his wrist into the center of his palm.
“If you’re laughing,” Lan Zhan says, “then it’s worth it.”
Wei Wuxian is pretty sure that, if it weren’t for the peppers already doing it for him, he would have spontaneously combusted right then and there.
“Holy shit,” he says, grinning so hard that he thinks his face will break. “Lan Zhan, you’re insane. I can’t believe you just hit me with a line like that. Where is this coming from? Are you trying to steal my heart? If you say things like that to me then you can kiss me anytime. But not right now!” He adds hastily. “Right now, it’ll hurt. Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, are you sure you’re okay?”
Lan Zhan watches him babble, and gives him one of his secret, soft smiles. If it weren’t for the peppers, which were already doing it for him, the sight would have knocked Wei Wuxian’s breath out of his lungs.
“Yeah,” Lan Zhan says, and then kisses him anyway.