Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian was late. Late enough that Jiang Wanyin would undoubtedly spend the first five minutes of their study session reminding him of it as though punctuality were a moral virtue instead of an unfortunate personality trait. Considering the two of them had lived under the same roof since they were children, Wei Wuxian had long ago accepted that some mornings simply began with being scolded.
He cut across the central quad of Yuemeng State University at an easy jog, one hand catching the strap of his messenger bag before it slipped off his shoulder completely. Even as he wove through the morning foot traffic, his thoughts remained stubbornly fixed on the measure-theoretic argument that had kept him awake well past midnight. He was certain there had to be a cleaner way to reach the result. Somewhere between finally falling asleep in the early hours of the morning and silencing his alarm one too many times, the proof had continued rearranging itself in the back of his mind. Unfortunately, elegant mathematics had done very little to improve his punctuality.
The campus was already fully awake around him. Students drifted across the brick walkways balancing coffee cups and backpacks, bicycles rattled over uneven stretches of pavement, and faculty crossed the quad with leather satchels tucked beneath their arms, already deep in conversations that sounded suspiciously like committee meetings. The previous night's rain still lingered in the cool morning air, carrying the faint scent of damp earth and turning the elm leaves scattered across the sidewalks into patches of gold that clung stubbornly to the bricks.
Wei Wuxian had walked these paths often enough that navigating them required almost no thought. He knew which shortcut shaved nearly a minute off the trip to the library, which benches stayed shaded through the afternoon, and exactly which stretch of sidewalk flooded every time the drainage backed up after heavy rain. More than that, he knew the people who filled those paths each morning, or at least enough of them that the campus had long ago stopped feeling like a collection of buildings and started feeling like another neighborhood.
The side door of the science building swung open just as he rounded the corner. Another student stepped out without looking, and the two of them nearly collided. Wei Wuxian twisted sideways at the last second, one sneaker skidding across the damp brick before he caught his balance again.
“Sorry!” he laughed, “My survival instincts haven't had coffee yet.”
The other student laughed immediately, “You say that every Monday.”
Wei Wuxian laughed again as he continued backward for two quick steps before turning around again, “That's because every Monday proves me right.”
They continued in opposite directions, the student shaking his head with an easy grin, “See you next week.”
"If I survive this one.”
Wei Wuxian grinned to himself and resumed his jog across the quad.
"Mr. Wei!”
The call came from somewhere to his left. He glanced toward the mathematics building just in time to see one of the undergraduates from his tutoring sessions hurrying down the front steps with an overstuffed backpack bouncing against his shoulders. The student lifted a hand, looking equal parts hopeful and exhausted.
Wei Wuxian slowed enough to keep pace with him, “Still on for Thursday?"
"Wouldn't miss it,” the student groaned dramatically, “differential equations are still trying to kill me.”
"Only psychologically.”
"That's not comforting.”
"Then I'll lie better on Thursday.”
The student's laugh carried after him as Wei Wuxian broke away and continued toward the library.
Another student heading toward the student union spotted him in passing and lifted a hand, “Morning, Wei Wuxian.”
"Morning.”
Someone cycling toward the residence halls called a quick greeting over one shoulder without slowing down.
The library rose ahead of him beyond the line of elm trees bordering the quad, its broad stone steps already crowded with students coming and going beneath the glass façade. Wei Wuxian took the stairs two at a time, shifting his bag higher onto his shoulder as he reached the landing.
"Mr. Wei.”
He slowed immediately and turned toward the familiar voice, a smile already finding its way across his face, “Morning, Dr. Liu.”
Dr. Liu stood a short distance from the entrance, a thin stack of papers tucked neatly beneath one arm. Even before he saw the professor lift the pages, Wei Wuxian recognized the top sheet. The dense lines of mathematics, the neat blocks of handwritten notation, and the coffee stain blooming faintly across the lower corner could only belong to one thing.
His proof from the previous week's graduate seminar.
Dr. Liu raised the paper slightly, “I finished reading your proof."
Wei Wuxian's smile immediately turned sheepish, "Should I apologize before coffee or after?"
Dr. Liu regarded him with the same calm expression he wore during lectures, office hours, and departmental seminars. If he appreciated the attempt at humor, nothing in his face suggested it.
"You skipped three intermediate steps."
Wei Wuxian let out a quiet sigh, the kind reserved for being caught doing something he had known, even while doing it, someone would eventually call him on, "I knew somebody would notice."
For a moment, Dr. Liu said nothing. Students continued to pass around them on their way into the library, the revolving doors turning steadily behind him as conversations drifted across the entrance plaza. The pause stretched just long enough for Wei Wuxian to begin mentally assembling a defense of his argument before the professor spoke again.
"They weren't necessary."
Wei Wuxian blinked.
Dr. Liu lowered the pages only slightly, his tone unchanged, "It was elegant."
The compliment caught Wei Wuxian completely off guard. After submitting the assignment last week, he had been preparing himself to defend omitted steps, justify compressed arguments, or accept another page of comments urging him to explain his reasoning more thoroughly. Praise had not entered the list of possibilities.
"...Thank you."
Dr. Liu held the proof out to him. Wei Wuxian accepted it carefully, his eyes dropping almost immediately to the familiar pages as though they might somehow have changed in the last thirty seconds.
"Expand it."
He looked up again, "Sir?"
"I believe it is publishable."
For a moment, Wei Wuxian forgot he was late. The sounds of the campus faded into the background as his eyes searched Dr. Liu's face for some hint that he had misunderstood. The professor's expression offered nothing beyond its usual quiet certainty.
"Really?"
"You are capable of more than coursework, Mr. Wei."
Wei Wuxian lowered his gaze to the proof once more. He had been proud of it when he finished writing it, proud enough to wonder if he had finally managed to capture the argument in the clean, economical way he had envisioned. Somewhere between submitting it and this moment, it had become just another assignment waiting to be graded. Now it felt different.
A slow smile spread across his face. It wasn't the easy grin he wore through conversations with classmates or the playful smile that so often arrived before a joke. This one settled more quietly, carrying the private satisfaction of someone whose work had been understood by the one person whose opinion mattered most.
"I'll start revising it immediately."
Dr. Liu nodded once, "Good."
Without another word, he turned and continued on his way toward the mathematics building.
Wei Wuxian watched him for a moment before looking down at the proof one last time. He slid it carefully into his messenger bag, taking rather more care than he usually afforded his belongings, then adjusted the strap over his shoulder.
"...after coffee."
Still smiling to himself, he turned and entered the library. A graduate student from the physics department nodded as they crossed paths. Wei Wuxian returned the greeting before making an immediate right towards his first destination.
The coffee shop occupied one corner of the library lobby, separated from the rest of the building more by atmosphere than by walls. Even on a Monday morning, when nearly every table was occupied and the line stretched well beyond the pastry case, the library's quiet seemed reluctant to surrender completely. Conversations settled into low murmurs, punctuated only by the hiss of steaming milk, the clatter of ceramic mugs, and the occasional call of a customer's name from behind the espresso machine. The air smelled of roasted coffee, toasted bread, caramelized sugar, and, beneath it all, the faint dry scent of books that seemed to permeate every floor of the building.
Wei Wuxian stood second in line, absently adjusting the strap of his messenger bag as it crept forward. His thoughts had already wandered back toward the proof tucked safely inside his bag when the student ahead of him reached the register and tapped a meal card against the reader. Instead of the expected confirmation, the machine answered with a sharp refusal. The student frowned and tried again, only to receive the same response.
"...Come on..." he muttered under his breath as he pulled open his wallet, checked the pocket of his hoodie, then unzipped his backpack with growing urgency, searching each compartment as though another card might somehow have found its way there.
The line stalled, though no one complained. A few people shifted their weight impatiently, while others simply looked away, politely pretending not to notice the student's mounting embarrassment. Wei Wuxian watched him search the same pockets for a second time, taking in the increasingly frantic movements and the flush beginning to creep across his face. Without drawing attention to it, he stepped forward just enough to reach the card reader and tapped his own university card against the terminal. This time it responded with a bright, cheerful chirp.
The student turned so quickly he nearly dropped his wallet, "Oh—no, you don't have to—"
"Too late—" Wei Wuxian smiled, "—I already did."
For a heartbeat, the student simply stared at him, caught somewhere between surprise and protest. Up close, Wei Wuxian noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes, the rumpled university sweatshirt that looked as though it had doubled as sleepwear, and the unmistakable expression of someone who had been awake long enough to begin negotiating with the universe for mercy. Whatever assignment had done this to him had clearly won.
Wei Wuxian looked back toward the cashier, "Can you throw in one of the breakfast sandwiches too?"
The student's eyes widened, "Really, you don't have to."
"You look like you need more than coffee this morning,” Wei Wuxian glanced at him, unable to suppress a small smile.
The student let out an embarrassed laugh and rubbed the back of his neck.
"...Organic chemistry."
Understanding settled over Wei Wuxian immediately, "That explains everything."
The cashier placed the sandwich into a paper bag before setting it on the counter beside the coffee. Wei Wuxian accepted it, then turned and held it out to the student.
"Eat before you pass out. Or else organic chemistry wins."
“Thanks,” the student said as he laughed again, this time with considerably less embarrassment than before, and accepted both the bag and the coffee, "I'll pay you back."
Wei Wuxian shook his head, "No need. When you're an upperclassman with money to burn, just pay it forward to some other sleep-deprived underclassman."
The student's smile softened into something quieter, the kind born more from relief than amusement, "Deal."
He disappeared into the lobby with the paper bag tucked beneath one arm and the coffee clutched carefully in his hand. Wei Wuxian watched him weave through the crowd for a moment before stepping forward to the register himself, the familiar grin returning to his face as one of the baristas looked up and recognized him, “Morning, Wuxian!”
“Morning,” Wei Wuxian stepped up to the register, “looking beautiful, like always."
The cashier laughed as she started putting in his order without his prompting, "The usual? Iced coffee with a triple shot?"
"You know me too well."
She snorted as she tapped a few more buttons on the register, "No, I only remember those coffee orders that are going to cause heart attacks."
Wei Wuxian pressed a hand dramatically against his chest, "I come here for support, and this is what I get?"
"Mild concern," she corrected, “very mild."
Behind her, another barista set a large plastic cup onto the pickup counter before calling over her shoulder, "Large iced coffee. Triple shot."
“My lifesaver,” Wei Wuxian glanced toward her and smiled, "how are classes going this semester?"
She pushed a loose strand of hair behind one ear before leaning against the counter with the exhausted posture of someone juggling coursework and too many shifts.
"I'm about two quizzes away from giving up on pre-med and focusing on my Plan B."
Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "Which is?"
She rested both elbows on the counter and smiled as though she had been waiting for him to ask, "Convincing you to marry me and take me away from all this."
For just a heartbeat, Wei Wuxian forgot he was holding his wallet. His fingers loosened around the leather until it slipped against his palm, and he caught it awkwardly before it could fall. Genuine alarm flashed across his face, so brief it might have gone unnoticed by anyone who didn't know him, before he laughed, a little louder than he intended.
"Marriage?" He shook his head almost immediately, "Bad idea."
The second barista tilted her head, her smile never wavering, "Why?"
"I'd make a terrible husband."
"I like a challenge.”
“I’m too high maintenance,” Wei Wuxian laughed again, the sound carrying a trace of relief as he reached instinctively for familiar ground, "I need someone who's happy making sure I remember to eat, go to bed, and have clean clothes. I'm basically a toddler, just with a more advanced vocabulary."
The second barista met his grin without hesitation, "I'm willing to do that."
His smile faltered, "Huh?"
She shrugged, "Yeah, I babysit my sister's kid all the time, so it would practically be the same thing."
Wei Wuxian stared at her for a moment before the joke finally registered. The tension left his shoulders all at once, and he laughed with her, the relief as genuine as the brief panic had been a moment earlier.
The first barista laughed at him from across the register, "Serves you right, flirt."
Wei Wuxian glanced down at her name tag before replying, "You got me, Peyton."
Both baristas burst into laughter. The first barista shook her head, still smiling.
"That's Peyton,” she gestured toward her coworker before removing the name tag pinned to her own apron and handing it to the other barista, "I bet her you couldn't remember my name."
The second barista, Peyton, traded name tags before reaching into her apron pocket, producing a couple of dollar bills, and handing them to her coworker.
Wei Wuxian watched the exchange with a grin, "Yet another reason I'd make a terrible husband."
The first barista laughed as she tucked the money away. Wei Wuxian picked up his coffee, the plastic cup cool against his fingers.
"See you tomorrow. And I'll remember your name."
She folded her arms, "You better."
Wei Wuxian lifted his coffee in farewell before turning toward the staircase leading to the upper floors of the library, the conversation already giving way to thoughts of mathematics, coffee, and the study session waiting upstairs.
By the time Wei Wuxian reached the fourth floor, his coffee had left a damp ring against his palm. He shifted it carefully before pushing through the glass door from the stairwell, letting the quieter air of the study floor close around him. Morning light came through the long windows overlooking the quad, pale and steady across rows of tables already crowded with students bent over laptops, textbooks, and paper cups going soft at the seams.
Jiang Wanyin and Nie Huaisang were at their usual table by the windows. Jiang Wanyin had law books spread in front of him, one hand resting beside a yellow legal pad covered in straight, crowded lines of notes. His mouth had already flattened into disapproval by the time Wei Wuxian came close enough to set down his coffee. Nie Huaisang sat beside him with his laptop open, an art history text within reach, and a sketchbook tucked under his notebook badly enough that Wei Wuxian could see the corner of it from several feet away.
Wei Wuxian dropped into the empty chair near Nie Huaisang and slid his bag beneath the table with one foot.
“You’re late, stupid,” Jiang Wanyin said.
“I know. I overslept. And then Dr. Liu cornered me outside.”
Jiang Wanyin looked up, “What did you do this time?”
“Apparently...mathematics.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“He wants me to publish my research on Lebesgue integration.”
Nie Huaisang winced, “Even that name gives me a headache.”
Wei Wuxian laughed as he settled back in his chair, “Then it is fortunate that it is my field and not yours.”
Nie Huaisang gave him a look that suggested the distinction brought him no comfort. The rhythm was familiar enough that Wei Wuxian hardly had to think about it: Jiang Wanyin complained because Wei Wuxian was late, Nie Huaisang objected to mathematics on behalf of art and mankind, and Wei Wuxian sat between them with coffee and an unfinished proof, feeling the morning fall back into place around him. It was routine, and because it was routine, it was easy to mistake for something that would always be there.
He pulled Dr. Liu’s proof from his bag, set it carefully beside his notebook, and opened the notebook to the page where he had stopped working the night before. The first few lines of the argument drew him in almost immediately, familiar symbols arranging themselves into a problem he trusted more than most things, and he reached for his pencil without looking away from the page.
Nie Huaisang reached across the table for an eraser. His hand paused before he picked it up. There was a sketch in the lower corner of Wei Wuxian’s notebook. It was small, only a profile drawn in a few clean lines where the margin widened beside the proof, but the shape of it was unmistakable: the straight fall of hair, the calm angle of the mouth, the line of the brow drawn with more certainty than anything else on the page.
Nie Huaisang drew the notebook a little closer and studied it, “His nose isn’t quite right.”
Wei Wuxian looked up at once and leaning over to look at what Nie Huaisang was talking about, “Yes it is.”
“No,” Nie Huaisang touched one finger to the page, “the bridge is too uneven.”
Wei Wuxian picked up his pencil and tapped the same place, “Lan Zhan has a tiny bump right here.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“No,” Wei Wuxian followed the bridge of the drawn nose with the pencil tip, careful not to smudge the graphite, “you only notice it when he’s turned like this.”
Nie Huaisang looked at the sketch again, then back at him, “...How do you know that?”
Wei Wuxian blinked, because the answer was simple enough that he did not understand why Nie Huaisang was asking, “Because I’ve looked at him.”
The words reached his ears a moment after they left his mouth. He glanced at Nie Huaisang, then at the drawing, and cleared his throat.
“...Artistically.”
Nie Huaisang did not answer.
Jiang Wanyin snorted without lifting his eyes from his casebook, “Last week you couldn’t remember whether the scar you gave me when we were twelve was on my right hand or my left.”
“I don’t look at your hands that much.”
“Apparently.”
Wei Wuxian reached for Dr. Liu’s proof again, “That’s not the part of you that usually yells at me.”
Jiang Wanyin rolled his eyes and turned a page. Wei Wuxian returned to the proof, but Nie Huaisang did not return to his work. He was still looking at the notebook, his fingers resting lightly against the edge of the page, and after another moment he turned it as though he had every right to continue investigating. Wei Wuxian let him. Nie Huaisang’s sketchbook was always open to anyone foolish enough to ask, and fair was fair.
The next few pages were ordinary enough at first. Peonies, a café window, one of the streets downtown with the storefront awnings drawn in careful perspective. Jiang Yanli appeared on one page, her head bent slightly as if she were smiling at something in her lap. Jin Zixuan sat stiffly across a dinner table on another, looking annoyed in a way that probably meant the drawing was accurate. Then came a piano keyboard, a pair of hands resting over the keys, and the back of a tall figure standing beneath an umbrella.
Nie Huaisang turned another page and found Lan Wangji again. Then Lan Wangji reading, another of him seated at a piano, then standing beside a window. Nei Huaisang turned the page more slowly after that.
“...Wei-xiong.”
Wei Wuxian did not look up, “Mm?”
“There are an awful lot of sketches of Lan Wangji in here.”
Wei Wuxian glanced over. For a moment he looked at the open notebook the same way Nie Huaisang had, taking in one page, then the next, then the one beneath it. Whatever pattern Nie Huaisang had found was apparently visible to him too, because after a beat he laughed.
“Can you blame me?” He took the notebook back and looked down at the nearest sketch, “He’s the perfect subject.”
Jiang Wanyin scoffed, “Perfect?”
Wei Wuxian looked at him, surprised, “Of course.”
His attention dropped back to the drawing, and his smile came more slowly this time, “Honestly? It’s ridiculous.”
Nie Huaisang rested his chin against his hand, “Because...?”
“Because he’s better at everything.”
Jiang Wanyin looked unimpressed, “Name one thing.”
Wei Wuxian frowned at him, as if the problem were not finding an answer but narrowing the answer down to something Jiang Wanyin would accept, “Everything.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Music,” Wei Wuxian started, before continuing, ticking off his fingers as he added, “languages. Cooking. Teaching. Being patient.”
Nie Huaisang smiled, “You forgot looking pretty.”
Wei Wuxian nodded immediately, “That too.”
The agreement came so easily that, for a second, nothing about it seemed strange. Then he noticed Nie Huaisang’s smile widening and Jiang Wanyin’s casebook lowering by a fraction of an inch, and he looked back at the notebook as if the sketch might offer assistance.
“...Objectively.”
The comment lingered for a moment after Wei Wuxian made it, though only because Nie Huaisang was smiling as if he had been handed something interesting and Jiang Wanyin had lowered his casebook just enough to look annoyed in a new direction. Wei Wuxian kept his attention on the proof in front of him and waited them out. He had survived worse things than being caught acknowledging the obvious fact that Lan Wangji was good-looking. Objectively.
Jiang Wanyin shook his head and returned to his reading, “You certainly spend more time with him than anyone else.”
Wei Wuxian adjusted the edge of his notebook back into line with Dr. Liu’s proof, “Probably.”
“That’s weird.”
“No it isn’t.”
“He’s got to be getting tired of you by now.”
Jiang Wanyin said it without looking up, as if the conclusion required no more thought than the casebook in front of him. Wei Wuxian laughed because that was what came naturally, though it arrived a little too quickly and did not settle quite right once it left him.
“Lan Zhan’s more patient than you.”
“He’d have to be.”
“Well, yeah. He’s my best friend and you’re just my brother. Of course he’s more patient with me.”
“Whatever,” Jiang Wanyin snorted as he turned another page, the thin paper rasping beneath his fingers, “Mom said if you’re late for dinner again she’s changing the locks.”
Wei Wuxian waved the concern away, still looking down at the proof, “I’m having dinner with Lan Zhan tonight.”
Nie Huaisang looked up from his laptop, “Sounds like a date.”
Wei Wuxian laughed, “It isn’t.”
“Who usually invites who?”
“Lan Zhan,” he shrugged, because that part was easy to explain, “but his schedule’s more hectic than mine.”
Nie Huaisang watched him with the mild patience of someone waiting for a subject to finish proving his own point, “Who drives?”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian reached for his coffee, “he says it doesn’t make sense for me to bike all over town.”
“Who pays?”
“Lan Zhan, but—”
“Wei-xiong...” Nie Huaisang smiled, not broadly, not cruelly, just enough that Wei Wuxian began to dislike the direction of the conversation, “you’re describing a date.”
For the briefest instant, the thought did not frighten him. It arrived warm and unguarded: Lan Zhan across a dinner table, one hand resting near his tea, his mouth softening at something Wei Wuxian said before he decided whether it deserved to be called a smile. The image was familiar enough that his mind accepted it before it understood the danger of accepting it. Then the warmth vanished, something colder settling in its place.
Wei Wuxian set his coffee down carefully, “Don’t joke like that.”
The seriousness in his own voice made the table go still.
Nie Huaisang’s smile faded, “...Why?”
Wei Wuxian lowered his eyes to the coffee in his hands. The ice had begun to melt, leaving beads of water to gather against the outside of the cup beneath his fingers. He turned it absently on the tabletop, watching the thin ring of condensation follow the movement before it disappeared beneath his hand again.
"Because it took years."
The words came quietly enough that neither Jiang Wanyin nor Nie Huaisang interrupted.
"Years."
A faint smile crossed his face, drawn more by memory than amusement.
"Lan Zhan didn't even like me when we met,” he let out a soft breath that almost became a laugh, “honestly, I don't think he liked anybody."
Nie Huaisang smiled, but said nothing. Wei Wuxian's attention remained on the cup between his hands as he continued.
"It took me half of high school to convince him I wasn't completely insufferable."
His thumb followed another bead of water around the side of the plastic.
"And now, for whatever reason, he's finally my best friend."
The admission felt strangely larger once it had been spoken aloud. He shrugged, trying to make it smaller again.
"I'm not risking that."
Neither of them answered, so he continued before the silence could ask questions he wasn't prepared to think about.
"So I don't want you making something out of it."
"Why?"
"Because people talk,” the answer came immediately, "and rumors spread."
He looked down at the notebook lying open beside Dr. Liu's proof. Somewhere in the margin, beneath a page of measure theory, Lan Wangji still looked calmly back at him in graphite.
"Eventually they end up in Gusu,” his fingers stilled against the cup, "and Lan Zhan's family already has enough reasons to think I'm a bad influence."
The words settled quietly between them before he added, "I don't want to hand them another one."
Nie Huaisang watched him for several moments before speaking again, "You think one rumor would end your friendship?"
Wei Wuxian's thumb rested against the side of the cup. A bead of water slipped beneath it and broke against his fingertip, "I think friendships end for a lot less."
Neither of them spoke. Across the table, Jiang Wanyin closed his casebook and rested his hand over the cover.
"You're overthinking it."
Wei Wuxian looked up.
Jiang Wanyin gave a small shrug, "If Lan Wangji ever gets tired of you, it won't be because of one rumor."
For a moment, Wei Wuxian simply looked at him, the knot that had quietly tightened in Wei Wuxian's chest since Nie Huaisang joked about dinner eased just enough for him to believe Jiang Wanyin might be right.
Jiang Wanyin continued, "It'll be because he finally decides it's more effort than you're worth."
The words were matter-of-fact, spoken with the same certainty and practicality Jiang Wanyin brought to everything else he believed to be true. Wei Wuxian lowered his eyes to the notebook lying open beside the proof for Dr. Liu. The sketch in the corner of the page caught his attention before the mathematics did, the graphite profile looking exactly as he remembered drawing it only a few days earlier.
After a long moment, he nodded once, "...I know."
Jiang Wanyin reached for his casebook again. Nie Huaisang looked from one of them to the other, opened his mouth as though he meant to say something, then seemed to think better of it. He picked up the eraser he had originally reached across the table for and rubbed it absently over a line in his sketchbook that didn't need correcting.
"Mr. Wei? Sorry to interrupt."
Wei Wuxian looked up immediately. One of the undergraduates he tutored stood beside the table with a notebook hugged against his chest, looking apologetic enough that it seemed he expected to be turned away before he had even asked his question.
Wei Wuxian smiled, "You're not interrupting. What's going on?"
The student relaxed a little and stepped closer, opening the notebook between them. The page was crowded with calculations, arrows, and crossed-out attempts that climbed steadily into the margins before finally surrendering to a blank stretch of paper near the bottom.
"I'm stuck on this assignment. I know I'm missing something obvious, but I can't figure out what."
Wei Wuxian turned the notebook slightly toward himself and read through the work without saying anything. His eyes moved slowly down the page, following each step until they reached the point where the neat handwriting dissolved into increasingly frustrated revisions.
He looked back at the student, "What are you trying to prove here?"
"That this function converges."
"Good," Wei Wuxian tapped a single line near the middle of the page, "and where does it start fighting back?"
The student leaned over the notebook and pointed almost immediately, "Here."
"Then don't try to prove it first,” Wei Wuxian looked at him expectantly, "assume it fails."
The student frowned, "Assume it fails?"
"Mn," he tapped the same line again, "if we assume it fails, what breaks?"
The student lowered his eyes to the notebook. His lips moved silently as he retraced the argument from the beginning, one finger following each line until it reached the assumption. He stopped there, frowned again, then flipped back a page before returning to the original proof.
"...That would contradict the condition from the previous line."
Wei Wuxian smiled, "Exactly."
The student's eyes dropped back to the notebook, “…So I don't need to force it directly."
"No," Wei Wuxian leaned back in his chair, "you let the contradiction do the work."
Understanding settled across the student's face with almost visible relief.
"That makes so much more sense."
"See?" Wei Wuxian smiled, "Your brain already knew. It just needed someone to stop it from panicking."
The student laughed, the last of the tension leaving his shoulders as he closed the notebook.
"Thanks. I'll see you Thursday?"
"Thursday," Wei Wuxian nodded, "bring the next thing that tries to kill you."
"Probably still Real Analysis."
"Persistent enemy."
The student laughed again before disappearing back between the tables, his notebook tucked under one arm instead of clutched tightly against his chest.
Nie Huaisang watched him go before looking back at Wei Wuxian, "I don't understand how you make them enjoy mathematics."
“I don’t,” Wei Wuxian shrugged and reached for his pencil again, “I just convince them it's less evil than it looks."
Jiang Wanyin turned a page without looking up, “So you lie to them?"
"It's educational optimism."
Nie Huaisang tilted his head, "Is that accredited?"
"It should be."
Jiang Wanyin turned another page, "Study."
Wei Wuxian lifted his pencil in a lazy salute, "Yes, counselor."
The conversation dissolved as easily as it had begun. Nie Huaisang returned to his laptop, Jiang Wanyin to his casebook, and Wei Wuxian to the proof lying open beside his notebook. For a while, the only sounds at their table were turning pages, the quiet tapping of keys, and the soft scratch of pencil against paper as the morning settled back into its ordinary rhythm.
“Wei Wuxian!”
The voice carried across the fourth floor sharply enough that several heads lifted from nearby tables. Wei Wuxian looked up from his proof, pencil still poised over the margin, and for a moment the girl hurrying toward him was only a pale face and dark hair coming quickly between the rows of tables. Then he placed her.
Yue Ling.
She had taken advanced calculus with him the previous year, one of the students who always sat near the front and wrote in neat, careful lines. More than that, she was Wen Li’s closest friend. Wei Wuxian had seen them together often enough to associate one with the other before he had time to think through why that association made his stomach tighten.
He was already halfway out of his chair by the time she reached the table, “Yue Ling?”
Her breathing was uneven, and strands of hair had come loose around her face as though she had crossed the campus at a run. She braced one hand against the edge of the table, not quite leaning on it, but close.
“I’ve been trying to call you.”
Wei Wuxian reached for his phone at once. The screen lit beneath his thumb, showing silent mode still active from the night before. Of course. He had silenced it while working and never turned the sound back on.
“I’m sorry. I had it on silent—”
“It’s Wen Li,” Yue Ling swallowed, “she’s in labor.”
His hand stilled around the phone, “What?”
“She’s been asking for you.”
The proof, the coffee, the table, the remains of the conversation about Lan Wangji, everything fell away before Wei Wuxian had time to decide what to do with any of it. He pushed his phone into his pocket and began gathering his things, not carefully enough to notice which papers went into the bag first or whether the notebook closed over the page he had been working on.
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the wrong answer, or maybe only the answer he had not wanted. He zipped the bag and pulled it over one shoulder.
“Hold on,” Jiang Wanyin said, “who is Wen Li?”
Wei Wuxian glanced at him, but only briefly, “A student.”
The words changed the air around the table. Nie Huaisang looked from Yue Ling to Wei Wuxian, his expression shifting from concern into something more uncertain.
“Your student?”
Nearby, someone whispered, “Is that Yue Ling?”
A second voice answered too softly for Wei Wuxian to catch, and the low murmur that followed spread through the nearest tables with the careful speed of people pretending not to listen. A phone appeared near the end of the next table, angled downward as though its owner were checking a message. Another student lifted theirs halfway from their lap.
“Former student,” Wei Wuxian was already shouldering his bag, “Advanced Calculus.”
The explanation did not help. He could feel that much even without looking around, though the only faces he truly registered were Yue Ling’s, pale and urgent, and Jiang Wanyin’s, gone still in the way that usually meant anger had not yet decided what shape to take.
“Former student?” someone whispered.
“Did she say labor?”
Jiang Wanyin stood, “And she’s in labor?”
“Apparently.”
He stepped closer, “Why is your former student asking for you while she’s in labor?”
Wei Wuxian looked at Yue Ling. Her hand tightened against the edge of the table, “Please. We have to go.”
That was enough, Wei Wuxian turned toward the stairwell, “I’ll explain when I know what there is to explain.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’ll call later.”
“Wei Wuxian—”
“Later.”
He did not have the time to make it sound gentler. He followed Yue Ling between the tables toward the stairs, aware only of her quick steps ahead of him and the weight of his bag against his shoulder. Behind them, Jiang Wanyin and Nie Huaisang remained at the table with the open books, abandoned notes, surrounded by whispers.
The stairwell door swung shut behind them, cutting off the low murmur of the fourth floor. Yue Ling was already halfway down the first flight, one hand skimming the railing without quite holding it, and Wei Wuxian followed close behind with his bag striking his hip at every step. His coffee was still on the table upstairs. So was at least one sheet of his proof, unless he had managed to shove it into his bag without noticing. The thought appeared and vanished before it could matter.
By the time they reached the lobby, the morning rush had thinned just enough for them to move quickly through it. Students stepped aside when Yue Ling cut across their path, startled more by her pace than by anything else. Outside, the campus looked exactly as it had an hour earlier: bicycles moving along the brick paths, students crossing the quad with coffee and backpacks, sunlight catching on the glass face of the library. No one beyond the doors seemed to care that Wei Wuxian and Yue Ling were nearly running. On a university campus, two students hurrying somewhere was not enough to become a story by itself.
“How long has she been in labor?”
“Hours? I don’t know.”
Yue Ling’s answer came between breaths. She kept her eyes forward, weaving through the foot traffic without slowing, and Wei Wuxian matched her pace because asking her to explain while standing still felt worse than moving toward whatever waited at the hospital.
“Did something go wrong?”
“I don’t know. They won’t say.”
“Where is her family?”
“I don’t know.”
The same answer should have become useless after the second time. Instead, each repetition left less room for anything else. Wei Wuxian watched her profile as they crossed the street at the edge of campus, taking in the tightness around her mouth and the way she kept one hand curled around the strap of her bag until her knuckles went pale. She was not keeping anything from him. She simply knew too little, and what little she knew had been enough to make her come searching.
He tried to arrange the facts into a shape that made sense. Wen Li. Labor. City General. Asking for him. The pieces refused to fit.
He remembered Wen Li: quiet, hardworking, always seated near the front with color-coded notes and a habit of thanking him after office hours even when he had done nothing more than explain a limit for the third time. He remembered the afternoon she had come to office hours smiling so broadly she could barely sit still long enough to ask her question, only to blurt out halfway through the proof that she and Sean were expecting a baby. A week later she had been so sick she could hardly keep water down. When she apologized for missing class, he had started letting her video call into lectures from home so she wouldn't fall behind while she waited for the worst of the hyperemesis to pass. By mid-semester she had proudly shown him the first ultrasound before carefully tucking it back into the folder with her notes.
Then Sean had died.
After that, he remembered extensions instead of office hours, quiet conversations instead of excited ones, remembered a few conversations outside class when she had looked hollowed out by grief, he remembered a young woman who looked as though she had been trying to carry more grief than one person should ever have to carry alone. Nothing in those memories explained why she would ask for him now.
He had not been family. He had not been close. He had helped because she needed help.
“Is she okay?”
Yue Ling’s breath caught, “I—I don’t know.”
Wei Wuxian looked ahead toward City General rising beyond the next intersection, its pale exterior half hidden behind a row of winter-bare trees.
“Is the baby okay?”
Yue Ling pressed one hand briefly over her mouth before letting it fall, “I don’t know.”
That answer was worse than the rest.
The automatic doors of City General opened onto bright floors, pale walls, and air that smelled sharply of antiseptic beneath something faintly floral from a dispenser mounted near the elevators. Wei Wuxian slowed despite himself as they crossed the lobby, his body still prepared to run while the hospital demanded quiet. Yue Ling did not stop. She led him past the reception desk, down a hallway, into an elevator whose mirrored walls showed him his own reflection for the first time since leaving the library: hair wind-tossed, bag strap twisted across his chest, expression more unsettled than he would have liked.
Neither of them spoke on the way up.
When the elevator opened, Yue Ling stepped out first and turned toward Labor and Delivery with the certainty of someone who had already made this trip too many times that morning. The ward was quieter than Wei Wuxian expected. Nurses moved behind the desk with soft-soled efficiency, voices kept low, phones ringing somewhere behind closed doors. A woman in a loose cardigan sat near the waiting area with both hands clasped around a paper cup, her eyes fixed on nothing in particular.
Yue Ling led him down the hall without stopping until they reached a closed door. Only then did she slow. Her hand went to the handle, but she did not open it.
Wei Wuxian looked at the door, then at her, “Why does she want me?”
Yue Ling’s grip tightened around the handle. Up close, he could see how tired she was, the strain around her eyes and the faint tremor in her fingers.
“I—I don’t know.”
It was the same answer she had given him all the way across campus, and for the first time, Wei Wuxian thought she might be lying. But not because she wanted to. It was as if whatever answer she did have was waiting on the other side of the door, and she had no right to speak it first.
After a moment, Yue Ling looked away from him, “But she asked for you.”
The words still did nothing to explain why he was there. They only made the question heavier. Wei Wuxian watched as Yue Ling opened the door to the delivery room.