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“Lan Zhan, slow down!”
Wei Wuxian said it, half-jogging to keep pace, the strap slipping off his shoulder for the third time in as many minutes as he hooked it back with two fingers and kept talking anyway.
“You’re going to pretend you don’t hear me again and then tomorrow everyone will swear you’ve always been this fast and I’m just imagining things.”
Lan Wangji did not respond.
He walked with the same measured stride he always did, steps even, posture impeccable, gaze fixed straight ahead, hands folded within his sleeves as though the world around him was nothing more than background noise to be endured.
Wei Wuxian, watching the line of his shoulders and the careful set of his head, felt the familiar itch crawl up his spine, the one that came whenever Lan Wangji withdrew just a little further than usual.
Wei Wuxian sped up, drifting sideways into Lan Wangji’s peripheral vision, craning his neck to catch even a flicker of acknowledgment.
“You heard about the visiting cultivators, right? There’s a whole group of girls staying over by the west dorms. Apparently they’re very serious and very dignified, which means someone is definitely going to fall in love and pretend it’s not happening.”
Lan Wangji’s pace did not change, but his jaw tightened, the movement minute and controlled, and Wei Wuxian caught it anyway, a small spark of triumph lighting up in his chest at the proof that he had been heard.
“Oh, come on!”
Wei Wuxian pressed, leaning closer, lowering his voice into something conspiratorial without thinking about why he wanted it to sound that way.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. You’re always noticing things. Senior Lan Qiren would have a fit if he knew half the rules being broken just by people looking at each other.”
Lan Wangji said nothing.
Wei Wuxian’s grin softened rather than widened, the edge of mischief giving way to something more intent, more focused, and he matched Lan Wangji’s stride exactly now, shoulder to shoulder without touching, the space between them narrow enough to feel charged.
“You know,” he continued, too easily, too carelessly, “it must be nice, being you. So untouchable. People can look all they want and you never have to react. I bet half the girls here would write poems about you if they thought it wouldn’t get them expelled.”
Lan Wangji’s fingers curled inside his sleeves.
Wei Wuxian noticed, and mistook the tension for discomfort rather than something sharper, something already raw. He laughed quietly, nudging closer by habit.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell. Your secret stoicism is safe with me.”
They reached the turning path near the outer buildings, and Lan Wangji slowed just enough that Wei Wuxian nearly overshot him this time, stumbling a step before recovering, his laughter breaking off into something more awkward as he glanced back.
“You really don’t like it when I talk about this stuff, do you,” Wei Wuxian said, trying for lightness, trying to make it sound like a shared joke rather than the truth pressing uncomfortably against his ribs. “Is it against the rules, or do you just not care?”
Lan Wangji’s gaze flicked sideways for a fraction of a second, not meeting Wei Wuxian’s eyes but close enough to send a jolt through him anyway, and then snapped forward again, his voice calm, flat, perfectly controlled.
“It is irrelevant.”
Wei Wuxian winced, then smiled, the expression more reflex than choice.
“Everything’s irrelevant to you. That’s unfair, you know. Some of us have to work hard to pretend we’re not curious.”
Lan Wangji’s steps faltered, just barely, and Wei Wuxian’s heart leapt at the tiny victory, his mouth moving faster to fill the space before silence could reclaim it.
“I mean, you must have thought about it at least once,” he said, lowering his voice again, eyes bright, “about liking someone. Or someone liking you. It happens whether you plan for it or not.”
Lan Wangji stopped for half a breath, then resumed walking, his shoulders rigid now, his spine held too straight, and Wei Wuxian frowned, the first true note of uncertainty threading through his excitement.
“You don’t have to answer,” Wei Wuxian added quickly, waving a hand. “I’m just saying, it’s normal. Even cultivators aren’t immune. Especially not teenage ones.”
Lan Wangji’s silence stretched, heavy and deliberate, and Wei Wuxian felt himself flounder against it, the familiar impulse to fill the void clawing at him harder.
“Anyway,” he said, a little too brightly, “if I were you, I’d at least be curious. Imagine someone serious and disciplined falling for you. That would be something, right?”
Lan Wangji’s breath hitched.
It was barely audible, but Wei Wuxian caught it, the sound slicing through his words and stopping him mid-thought, his smile faltering as he stared at the side of Lan Wangji’s face, the tension drawn so tight there it looked painful.
“Lan Zhan?” he said. “Hey?”
Lan Wangji did not answer.
They walked in silence for several more steps, the air between them thick and brittle, and Wei Wuxian’s thoughts raced, replaying his words, searching for the mistake he could not see, the rule he had broken without knowing it existed.
Having not found it, he tried again.
“Lan Zhan, you’re so cold-hearted.”
Lan Wangji stopped.
Not slowed, not hesitated–stopped, so abruptly that Wei Wuxian took three more careless steps before noticing the sudden absence of quiet footsteps beside him, the silence snapping taut enough to make him turn around mid-sentence with a grin still loose on his mouth and a question already forming.
Lan Wangji stood exactly where he had halted, spine straight, hands folded in his sleeves with their usual precision, gaze fixed somewhere slightly below Wei Wuxian’s shoulder rather than at his face, a posture so rigid it looked carved rather than chosen, and the stillness around him felt wrong in a way Wei Wuxian could not immediately name, like a familiar pattern broken without warning.
“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian called, lighter now, tilting his head and taking a step back toward him, trying to catch his eye. “What, did I say something forbidden again, or is this another silent lecture?”
Lan Wangji did not move.
Then, with a carefulness that felt deliberate to the point of strain, he turned.
When he looked at Wei Wuxian directly, the usual distance in his eyes sharpened into something colder, narrower, a focus so intense it made Wei Wuxian’s grin falter despite himself, his weight shifting without permission, the instinctive sense that he had stepped somewhere he was not supposed to stand.
For a breath, they simply faced each other, the air between them too tight, too deliberate.
Lan Wangji inhaled, slow and controlled, and then exhaled in a way that did not steady him.
He lifted his hands, not fully, just enough that the lower edges of his palms pressed against his eyes where the wrists began, fingers splayed upward, his head dipping a fraction as he dragged his hands down once, not far enough to hide his face entirely, only enough to smear away the shine already gathering at the corners of his eyes with a motion that was far too rough for how carefully he did everything else.
“Can you just stop,” he said, voice low, even, the words measured so tightly they sounded almost rehearsed, “please.”
Wei Wuxian froze, every flippant response scattering at once, his mouth opening and closing uselessly before he managed:
“Stop… what?”
Lan Wangji did not answer immediately.
His hands remained where they were, palms covering the upper half of his face now, fingers pressing hard enough that his knuckles paled, his breathing shallow but controlled, each inhale cut short before it could tremble.
“Stop talking,” he said after a pause that stretched long enough to ache, “about that. About women. About desire. About how easily you speak of it.”
Wei Wuxian stared at him, confusion blooming sharp and disorienting, his thoughts stumbling over each other as he tried to reconcile the words with the boy in front of him, this rigid, controlled figure who had never once raised his voice, who corrected posture and recited rules and looked through Wei Wuxian more often than at him.
“I wasn’t– I mean, I was just talking,” Wei Wuxian said, stepping closer without realizing he was doing it, his voice dropping despite himself. “Lan Zhan, I was just saying people like people, that’s all, why are you so serious about it?”
A sound slipped out of Lan Wangji then, sharp and small, something caught between a breath and a laugh that never finished forming.
“Because you know,” he said, and the certainty in his voice landed like a blow, flat and unforgiving, “you know exactly what you are doing.”
Wei Wuxian stopped short, his foot hovering before he set it down again more carefully, his brows knitting together as the words refused to make sense.
“Know what? Lan Zhan, I swear, I don’t know what you think I’m doing, but I really don’t.”
Lan Wangji’s shoulders drew in, barely, a movement so subtle it would have been easy to miss if Wei Wuxian had not already been staring too closely, searching for something to anchor himself to.
When Lan Wangji spoke again his voice was quieter, strained at the edges despite his effort to keep it level.
“You speak,” he said, “you speak endlessly, you make light of things you understand very well, and you want to make fun of me so much that you look at me while you do it. I am not blind.”
Wei Wuxian’s chest tightened, the familiar rush of words faltering into a clumsy tangle.
“I don’t– I look at you because you never look back,” he blurted, the truth slipping out unfiltered, too fast to stop, “and because if I don’t talk you disappear into your own head and I don’t know how to reach you otherwise.”
Lan Wangji flinched.
It was unmistakable this time, a sharp recoil that went through his shoulders and neck before he stilled again, his hands finally dropping from his face only to come together at his chest, fingers curling into his sleeves with a tension that pulled the fabric taut.
“Do not say that,” he said, and now his voice shook, not loudly, not dramatically, but with a fine, relentless tremor that made each word cost him effort. “Do not pretend concern when what you are doing is mockery.”
Wei Wuxian shook his head, fast and helpless, stepping closer again despite the way Lan Wangji’s posture tightened further, retreating inward rather than back.
“I’m not mocking you, I swear I’m not, I don’t even know what you think I’m mocking.”
Lan Wangji let out a breath that sounded torn from him, and then he covered his face again, this time fully, both palms pressed hard over his eyes, his head bowing as his shoulders began to shake in small, contained movements, the discipline drilled into him fighting visibly against something that no longer fit inside him.
“I know my feelings are not worthy of your attention,” he said into his hands, voice muffled but no less clear, “I know they are improper, and undignified, and something you can laugh about because you are untouched by them, because you can speak freely and remain clean. I know that.”
Wei Wuxian felt the ground tilt under him, the words landing one after another with no space to breathe between them, his mind catching on a single phrase and refusing to let go.
“Your… feelings?”
Lan Wangji did not answer him directly. His shoulders trembled again, sharper this time, his breathing breaking its careful rhythm despite his obvious effort to contain it, tears slipping past his fingers and darkening the skin beneath his eyes.
“Can you not leave me in peace,” he asked, the question barely louder than a whisper, “just this once. I am tired. I am so tired.”
Wei Wuxian’s heart hammered, a frantic, uneven rhythm that drowned out everything else as understanding slammed into him sideways, incomplete but undeniable, his throat closing so hard he had to swallow twice before he could speak at all.
“Lan Zhan,” he said, softly now, carefully, the way one approached something fragile without knowing where it might break, “I didn’t know. I swear to you, I didn’t know.”
Lan Wangji shook his head once, a small, disbelieving motion hidden behind his hands, his tears continuing to fall in silence, his body locked in place like moving would shatter whatever control he had left.
Wei Wuxian took another step forward, lifting his hand without touching, hovering uselessly in the air between them, not knowing where to put it, not knowing what would hurt less, and then voices sounded faintly somewhere beyond the path, approaching, careless and loud, and Lan Wangji stiffened sharply at the sound, his breath hitching as he turned his head just enough to listen, still covering his face, still crying, still standing there as the world threatened to intrude and Wei Wuxian opened his mouth.
“Do not say anything,” Lan Wangji said, abruptly, the words breaking over each other in a way that immediately betrayed how much effort it cost him to produce them at all, his hands still covering his face, his head angled downward as though he could fold himself smaller by force alone. “Please. Do not try to explain. I cannot listen right now.”
Wei Wuxian stopped breathing without realizing he had been doing it, his lifted hand hovering uselessly before dropping back to his side, fingers curling reflexively into his sleeve as he forced himself to stay where he was, to not crowd, to not fill the space the way he always did when something went wrong.
Lan Wangji drew in a breath that stuttered halfway through, his shoulders rising and locking, and then he spoke again, words spilling out now in a strained, uneven line that sounded nothing like the measured cadence he usually maintained with iron discipline.
“I know how it looks,” he said, voice low and tight, “I am aware of how easily I can be read. I am not ignorant of my own failings. I know I do not hide things well when I am watched closely, and you watch very closely.”
Wei Wuxian flinched at that, the accuracy of it hitting harder than any accusation, but he kept silent, his teeth pressing into his lower lip as he forced himself not to interrupt.
“You speak so freely,” Lan Wangji continued, his hands shifting minutely against his face, fingers pressing harder at his temples, “you laugh, you tease, you speak of affection and desire as though they are games, as though they are harmless things that cannot wound, and you do it while standing beside me, while looking at me, and I cannot tell whether you are unaware or cruel, and I do not know which would be worse.”
A tear slipped past his palm and dropped onto the stone between them, dark and round and undeniable.
“I cannot stop noticing,” he said, more quietly now, his voice thinning as he spoke, “I cannot stop hearing it, or seeing you, or remembering that you look at everyone else so easily while I must teach myself not to look at all. I tell myself you are careless, that you do not mean it, that you do not see me in the way you see others, and then you speak again, and it feels deliberate.”
Wei Wuxian swallowed hard, his chest tight enough that each breath scraped on the way in, the instinct to deny, to rush in and correct, burning under his skin while he forced himself to stay still, to let Lan Wangji finish because stopping him now felt unthinkable.
“I know what I am,” Lan Wangji said, and the words landed heavily, stripped of ornament, “I know what place my thoughts occupy in this world, and I accept it. I have accepted it for a long time. I do not expect understanding, and I do not expect kindness, but I cannot endure being reminded of it every time you decide to be entertaining.”
His shoulders shook again, more visibly now, the control he had been clinging to splintering in small, relentless fractures, his breathing slipping fully out of rhythm as he fought it back with clenched teeth and shaking hands.
“I am not asking you to care,” he said, the sentence breaking apart as it left him, “I am asking you to stop. To leave me alone. To stop standing so close and speaking so loudly and pretending that this is all nothing, because it is not nothing to me, and I am tired of pretending that I am unaffected.”
Wei Wuxian’s vision blurred, the world narrowing sharply to the boy in front of him who never spoke, who never complained, who never asked for anything at all, now shaking under the weight of words he had clearly held inside himself for far too long, and the realization settled in his chest with sickening clarity that every attempt he had made to get closer had landed exactly wrong, pressing on a bruise he had never known was there.
“Lan Zhan,” he said again, barely above a whisper, his voice rough, “I wasn’t talking about other people because I don’t see you. I was talking because I wanted you to look at me.”
Lan Wangji froze at that, the movement so sudden it felt like a snapped string, his hands still covering his face but his shoulders locking in place, his breathing catching hard enough that it almost sounded painful.
“What,” he said, the word falling out before he could stop it, thin and disbelieving.
Wei Wuxian took a careful step forward, slow enough to give Lan Wangji time to pull away if he wanted, his hands raised slightly at his sides, open and empty.
“I didn’t know,” he repeated, the truth of it aching, “I thought you hated me. I thought you were distant because you didn’t want me anywhere near you, so I kept talking, kept trying, because if I stopped you’d disappear again.”
Lan Wangji shook his head once, sharp and unsteady, a denial that seemed aimed as much at himself as at Wei Wuxian, his fingers pressing harder over his eyes as though he could block out the words by force.
“You should not say that,” he said, his voice breaking openly now, “you should not give me things I cannot afford to believe. Do you have any idea how cruel that is.”
“I’m not being cruel!” Wei Wuxian said, desperation bleeding into his voice despite his effort to keep it steady. “I’m being honest. I like you. I like being around you. I say stupid things because I don’t know how else to get through that wall you keep around yourself.”
Lan Wangji’s breath shuddered, the sound tearing out of him before he could contain it, and his hands slid down from his face at last, revealing eyes red-rimmed and shining, tears clinging stubbornly to his lashes as he stared at the ground between them rather than at Wei Wuxian.
“You do not get to decide that for me,” he said hoarsely, “you do not get to break down my boundaries and then act surprised when I bleed. I have rules because I need them. I have distance because without it I cannot function, and you trample it without noticing, or worse, without caring.”
Wei Wuxian’s chest felt hollow, his thoughts racing too fast to catch as guilt twisted sharply through him, but before he could answer, footsteps sounded again, voices rising in careless laughter just beyond the turn in the path.
Lan Wangji stiffened violently, his hands coming back up to his face as he turned slightly away, shoulders hunching in instinctive defense while Wei Wuxian stepped instinctively closer, blocking the line of sight just as Lan Wangji whispered, barely audible, “Please–”
“Lan Zhan, don’t hide from me.”
Wei Wuxian’s hand moved before he finished the sentence, not grabbing, not rushing, only slipping forward into the narrow space between Lan Wangji’s wrists and his face, hovering there for a breath that stretched unbearably long while Lan Wangji remained rigid, shoulders still drawn tight, breath stuttering shallowly behind his palms, the faint sounds of approaching voices fading again somewhere beyond them without either of them acknowledging it.
Wei Wuxian waited.
When Lan Wangji did not pull away, did not recoil or tighten further, Wei Wuxian eased his fingers against the edge of Lan Wangji’s sleeve instead, the contact light enough to retreat from at the slightest resistance.
He gently guided his hands downward, not forcing them apart but coaxing them away from his eyes inch by careful inch, until Lan Wangji’s face was visible again, lashes clumped dark with tears, jaw set so tightly that the muscle there trembled.
Wei Wuxian did not speak right away. He did not smile. He did not fill the silence the way he always did. He simply held Lan Wangji’s wrists where they rested now at chest level, not restraining, only anchoring, his thumbs warm against the pulse there, his own breathing unsteady but deliberate.
“I wasn’t talking about them,” he said finally, voice low, uneven in places he did not bother smoothing over. “I was trying to talk to you.”
Lan Wangji’s gaze flickered, sharp and startled, then dropped immediately, his chin dipping as his breath caught again, a faint sound escaping him before he pressed his lips together to stop it.
“You do not speak to me that way,” he said, words precise but strained, “you speak around me. You perform.”
Wei Wuxian huffed out something like a breath of laughter that didn’t reach his mouth, his grip tightening for a fraction before he loosened it again, forcing himself to slow down.
“Because every time I talk to you directly you look straight through me,” he said, leaning in just enough that Lan Wangji could not pretend he wasn’t there, “and I figured if I talked loudly enough about everything else you might finally turn your head.”
Lan Wangji’s hands twitched in Wei Wuxian’s hold, fingers curling and uncurling against the fabric of his sleeves, his shoulders lifting once on a breath he failed to control, and when he looked up again his eyes were sharp with confusion rather than coldness, searching Wei Wuxian’s face with an intensity that made Wei Wuxian swallow hard.
“You enjoy humiliating yourself?” Lan Wangji asked, and there was no mockery in it, only genuine uncertainty.
Wei Wuxian shook his head, slow this time, his thumb brushing unconsciously over the inside of Lan Wangji’s wrist where the skin was warm and thin.
“I enjoy seeing you look at me,” he said, and then, because stopping there felt dishonest in a way he could no longer tolerate, he added, “and I thought it was the only way you ever would.”
Lan Wangji inhaled sharply, his breath catching high in his chest, and his hands finally stilled, tension shifting rather than disappearing, his gaze locked on Wei Wuxian’s face now with a focus so intense it bordered on overwhelming.
“You did not know,” he said, not a question.
Wei Wuxian shook his head again.
“I didn’t,” he said quietly. “Lan Zhan, if I had known, I would never–”
He stopped himself, jaw tightening as he recalibrated, refusing to offer reassurances he couldn’t yet define. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I was trying to make you notice me.”
Something in Lan Wangji’s expression fractured then, not dramatically, not all at once, but in a subtle loosening of the tight lines around his mouth, in the way his shoulders sagged a fraction as though a weight had shifted rather than lifted, his breath leaving him in a long, unsteady exhale.
“You are unbearably reckless,” he said, voice hoarse, “and you speak without regard for consequence.”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth curved, small and tentative this time, the familiar spark there but dimmed by caution.
“You noticed.”
Lan Wangji’s lips parted, then pressed together again, his gaze dropping to where Wei Wuxian still held his wrists, to the point of contact he usually avoided with such fierce precision, and he did not pull away.
Wei Wuxian felt it then, the fragile permission in the stillness, and he moved slowly, releasing one wrist to slide his hand down, fingers curling gently around Lan Wangji’s knuckles, lifting them with care until he could bow his head just enough to brush his lips there, the kiss brief and hesitant, warm against skin gone suddenly flushed beneath his mouth.
Lan Wangji went utterly still.
Wei Wuxian froze with him, breath held, ready to retreat at the slightest sign of rejection, his heart hammering so loudly he was certain Lan Wangji could hear it, and then Lan Wangji’s fingers tightened abruptly around his sleeve, not pushing him away but pulling him closer, once, hard, his other hand following to seize the front of Wei Wuxian’s robes with startling force.
Before Wei Wuxian could react, Lan Wangji stepped into him and wrapped his arms around him fully, crushing, unrestrained, his grip violent in its urgency, his face pressed into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder as his breath shook against his collarbone, and Wei Wuxian staggered a half-step back under the sudden weight of him, arms lifting instinctively to hold him, the world narrowing down to the fierce pressure of Lan Wangji’s embrace and the way he clung without letting go.