Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian froze.
Something warm and soft touched his lips, a foreign sensation pressing against his mouth. He reached for his blindfold, but even before his fingers touched the fabric, the mysterious person grabbed his hand and pinned it against the tree above his head.
Beneath his blindfold, his eyes widened in shock as he realized what was happening. This wasn’t a mere brush of a hand or the curious exploration of a finger. It was another pair of lips kissing him. Gentle but demanding with an aura of pent-up rage or frustration.
He tried to kick the other person, but they expertly batted away the attack and leaned into him until their weight pressed him against the tree branch he sat on, preventing any further attacks.
“Who—”
The question was swallowed by the kiss, his muffled protest dying in the midst of heat filling his chest and climbing into his cheeks. He’d never been kissed before. Between fighting in the Sunshot Campaign and trying not to make enemies of his allies, he’d never had the chance. Who was this person? Some shy maiden stealing a kiss when he was vulnerable with his vision obscured by a blindfold?
Wei Wuxian used his free hand to try to push the other person away, but that, too, was captured and held captive above his head. His heart beat fast. The temperature in his body climbed to new heights like he’d never known before.
This wasn’t just a kiss. It was a kiss .
The mysterious person ran their tongue along his bottom lip, and when he gasped in surprise, they deepened the kiss. Tongue against tongue. Seeking. Exploring. Tasting.
Shock trembled through Wei WuXian’s body from his quivering heart to his shaking fingers. He was sure the warmth of his blush peeked out from beneath his blindfold and traveled to the very tips of his ears.
The other person broke away for the briefest moment, and Wei WuXian turned his head away. He couldn’t allow them to keep kissing him when he didn’t even know who they were.
However, they grabbed him by the chin and pulled his face back toward them, kissing him again and again until he was sure he’d melted into a puddle of overwhelming emotion.
His heart couldn’t take any more. The shock. The surprise. The desperate need to find out who had him pinned against the tree.
Wei Wuxian shifted his head the slightest bit, managing to pull the back of his headband against the textured bark of the tree. It gave him the faintest view of the white robes decorated with soft blue clouds from someone of the Gusu Lan Sect.
Another wave of shock encompassed him at the realization. Those in the Gusu Lan Clan were often poised and reserved. He didn’t know anyone from the Cloud Recesses brazen enough to steal a kiss from an unsuspecting victim.
The Gusu Clan member kissed him a couple more times before all too suddenly, the hands released him, and they strode away. But not before Wei Wuxian caught the faint glimpse of a rip on the bottom of their outer robe.
Slowly, Wei Wuxian pulled off his blindfold, his lips swollen and tingling and his mind in a complete daze. Someone had kissed him. Quite thoroughly. Then, they’d left just as quickly.
And he had no idea who it had been.
His black blindfold dangled from his fingers as he stared straight ahead, his mind in a stupor. The maiden had been strong enough to pin him and skilled enough to block his kick. Although the Gusu Clan was known for their strength…
He could count on only one hand how many female cultivators existed in the Gusu Sect. It would be too easy to find this shy maiden. He had to find out who had kissed him. He couldn’t rest until he did.
He waited throughout the day, passing the time agonizingly slowly until the competition ended, and the after party began. Beneath the enormous outdoor pavilion, dozens of people of different sects meandered about in celebration of winnings or promises to beat one another next year. Drinks flowed. Laughter spilled. Everyone was having a good time.
But Wei Wuxian found it difficult to pay attention to Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, and Nie Huaisang when his gaze constantly roamed about the area, lingering especially longer on the section of the pavilion with members of the Gusu sect.
He recognized most of the Gusu clan members attending the party, knowing each by name. Most were men, but only a few were women.
Surreptitiously, he studied each woman, his attention lingering longer on the hem of their robes. However, he found no tears or holes worth mentioning, and nothing that resembled the robes of the person who had kissed him.
He frowned, his mind wandering as he turned back to his friends and adoptive siblings. What if the person who had kissed him had already left after the competition? If they didn’t eventually come forward to confess, then he would never learn who they were.
Disappointment slowly crushed his chest, and he released a long sigh. Perhaps it didn’t matter in the end who had kissed him. It was only for curiosity’s sake, after all. There were no women he had a crush on, so even if he learned the name of this mysterious maiden, he might not like them in the end, anyway.
He only half-listened to Nie Huaisang as he told a story about an intelligent monster living in the mountains that told riddles. His attention flickered in and out as he thought about his mysterious maiden while listening as this riddle beast attacked those who guessed its answers wrong.
A flash of white entered his peripheral, and he couldn’t stop his heart from climbing into his throat when several more members of the Cloud Recesses entered the pavilion. He didn’t notice their faces at first and only studied their robes. Although they didn’t move much between the three of them, he still watched and waited.
Finally, one of them turned.
Wei Wuxian’s face warmed with unbearable heat. His heart thundered in his ears.
If he hadn’t been looking for it, he would have missed it entirely. At the bottom of the outer robe near the hem was an expertly patched row of stitches, hardly discernible to the wandering eye.
His heart beat wildly in his chest as he slowly lifted his gaze. Scared. Excited. Nervous. Beyond fretful. His eyes followed the elegant form enveloped in white robes with blue clouds and trim, a sash tied around a slender waist. Slim shoulders with a poised posture. Long black hair, a white headband neatly flirting with its ebony strands. And then he dared to take a deep breath to look at the person’s face.
His heart jolted in shock. His mouth hung wide open in disbelief.
Lan Wangji?!
Wei Wuxian turned his head away and stared at the wall in complete shock. This didn’t make sense. This…this…this aloof man who seemingly hated him, who acted like he wanted nothing to do with him, who spurned him every chance he got…
Lan Wangji was a cut sleeve?
No, no, no. Surely, he was mistaken. Lan Wangji was emotionless and uninterested, constantly pushing away Wei Wuxian’s attempts at friendship. Despite receiving rejection after rejection, Wei Wuxian had never stopped trying. Why would he when he’d crushed on the other man for years?
Yeah, yeah, whatever. He was half a cut sleeve himself. So what? He liked women. But he really liked Lan Wangji. This was too good to be true. Surely, he’d gotten it wrong.
But as his gaze darted to the sewn-up rip on Lan Wangji’s outer robes, he knew he wasn’t mistaken.
His fingers brushed against his lips, still tingling with pleasant heat after the unexpected kiss. Lan Wangji was good. Really good. Not just a surprisingly excellent kisser, but he was good at hiding his true self. All this time, he’d been a cut sleeve? Then how long had he liked Wei Wuxian? Perhaps as long as he’d liked him, too?
He shook his head, still reeling from the shocking discovery and unable to tear his gaze away from Lan Wangji’s straight, elegant back. If Lan Wangji could brave kissing him, even with a blindfold, then he could brave jumping out of the water. If the land proved too dry and hostile, he could just jump right back in and try to forget anything had ever happened.
But Lan Wangji wouldn’t be an easy catch. He’d already proven himself a difficult one to hold onto when he kept slipping out of his hands.
Wei Wuxian needed to draw him out. Carefully. Strategically. And in order to do that, he must create a fake urgency with fake chaos. Lan Wangji could never resist rushing into the very pit of mayhem.