Chapter Text
Nie Huaisang had known Lan Wangji for sixteen years.
Long enough to know that pressing Accept had never really been the difficult part. He looked at Lan Wangji, then at the screen.
The friend request was gone now. In its place, YilingLaozu sat neatly in Lan Wangji’s friends list.
Huaisang smiled. Lan Wangji noticed immediately.
“Huaisang.”
“I said nothing.”
“You are smiling.”
“Am I not allowed?”
Lan Wangji looked back at the screen. Nie Huaisang lets him.
He knew better than most that Lan Wangji had never been particularly quick to let people close. He was careful with affection, quieter still with wanting and almost hopeless when expected to make the first move.
But once he had decided someone mattered, that was different.
Nie Huaisang had learned that when they were seven years old. It had started with a painted fan.
At seven, Nie Huaisang had already learned to laugh when other people laughed at him. It made things easier.
That afternoon, it was his fan.
He had painted it himself over the weekend. A kingfisher sweeping across the paper in shades of blue and green. The colours matched a costume he had drawn in his sketchbook, inspired by the same bird.
One of the boys took one look at both and laughed. “You made a fan to match clothes that don’t even exist?”
“They could exist,” Huaisang said.
“Are you going to wear them?”
Someone else laughed.
Huaisang looked down at his sketchbook. Then he laughed too. “Maybe. At least I’d look better than you.”
That got another laugh, which was the point. He was already turning away when a voice behind them said, “It is not stupid.”
Huaisang had already been turning away when Lan Wangji spoke from beneath the tree nearby. Until then, Huaisang had assumed he was not listening.
The other boy looked at him. “What?”
Lan Wangji pointed to the fan. “He painted it himself.”
“So?”
“Can you?”
The boy hesitated. “…No.”
“Then you should not mock what you cannot do.”
Lan Wangji returned to his book as though the matter required nothing further. Huaisang stared at him. Lan Wangji did not look up.
For the first time that afternoon, Huaisang stopped pretending not to care. Later that afternoon, Lan Wangji was sitting alone inside with a book.
There were twelve empty chairs. Nie Huaisang chose the one beside him.
Lan Wangji looked up.
“Lan er-ge.”
A small crease appeared between Lan Wangji’s brows. They did not know each other particularly well. Huaisang sat anyway. He placed his sketchbook on the table and opened it to the kingfisher costume. Lan Wangji glanced from the drawing to Huaisang.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Huaisang picked up his pencil. “I’m sitting here.”
Lan Wangji looked briefly at the eleven other empty chairs.
“Mn.”
Huaisang smiled and bent over his drawing.
A few minutes later, without looking up from his book, Lan Wangji said “The blue is better.”
Huaisang looked up from the two shades he had been testing, Lan Wangji was still reading.
Huaisang looked down at the two shades he had been testing along the edge of the costume.
Slowly, his smile returned. This one was real.
“The darker one?”
“Mn.”
Huaisang picked up the darker pencil. “Okay.”
That was how it began.
At ten, Nie Huaisang stopped asking most people what they thought of his designs. He still asked Lan Wangji.
“The blue one or the green one?”
Lan Wangji looked up from his homework. Huaisang pushed his sketchbook between them. Two designs filled the page. One was a long blue coat with silver embroidery at the cuffs, the other was green, layered more heavily around the shoulders.
“The blue one.”
Huaisang looked up. “You actually looked?”
Lan Wangji frowned. “You asked.”
“I know, but usually when I ask people, they just pick one.”
Lan Wangji looked down at the page again. “The second has too much at the collar. It distracts from the rest.”
“You understand this stuff?”
“No.” Lan Wangji looked at him. “But you do.”
Huaisang bent over his sketchbook before his face could give him away.
“Lan er-ge?”
“Mn.”
“I’m changing the collar.”
“Mn.”
“You were right.”
“Mn.”
“Don’t get used to hearing that.”
Lan Wangji returned to his homework. Huaisang changed the collar.
At twelve, Lan Wangji discovered that Nie Huaisang could talk for an astonishingly long time without requiring assistance.
Huaisang could fill an entire afternoon with commentary about fabric, television costumes, school gossip, whatever Nie Mingjue had most recently done to annoy him and why historical dramas were apparently incapable of using the correct fastenings for the period they claimed to depict.
Lan Wangji read while Huaisang talked. Occasionally, he offered an ‘Mn’ which seemed to be all the encouragement Huaisang required until halfway through a complaint about synthetic brocade, he realised Lan Wangji had not spoken in nearly ten minutes.
“Lan er-ge, am I bothering you?”
Lan Wangji looked up from his book. “No.”
“You haven’t said anything for 10 minutes.”
“You did not ask a question.”
Huaisang burst out laughing, collapsing sideways against the sofa. “I like you.”
Lan Wangji regarded him with genuine confusion. “Why?”
That only made Huaisang laugh harder.
By fourteen, Huaisang had learned there were different kinds of Lan Wangji silence.
There was ordinary silence. Reading silence. Annoyed silence. The silence that meant I do not know how to answer that. And a particular silence that meant something was wrong.
One afternoon, Huaisang looked up from his sketchbook and watched Lan Wangji align the three pens beside his notebook. Then align them again. Then move one slightly to the left.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Lan Wangji adjusted the pens again.
“Lan er-ge.”
“Nothing happened.”
Huaisang closed his sketchbook. He looked at the perfectly straight row of pens. “You’ve rearranged those three times.”
Lan Wangji’s hand remained beside the pens. Huaisang waited without pressing him. “I received a lower mark than expected.”
Huaisang blinked. “That’s it?”
Lan Wangji looked at him. Huaisang immediately winced.
“No. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Silence.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“All right.”
Huaisang reopened his sketchbook. He stayed.
Almost twenty minutes later, Lan Wangji spoke again. “I made a careless mistake.”
Huaisang looked up, Lan Wangji was still staring at his notes.
“I see.”
“I will not make it again.”
“No,” Huaisang agreed. “Probably not.”
Lan Wangji looked over.
Huaisang smiled. “But if you do, I’ll still sit here.”
Lan Wangji’s expression softened in a way Huaisang might have missed if he had not known him so well.
“Mn.”
The pens remained where they were.
By sixteen, Lan Wangji had learned Nie Huaisang too.
Huaisang had become very good at laughing. At school, it was useful. Someone saw one of his designs and asked whether he planned to spend his life making pretty clothes. Huaisang laughed.
Someone else asked if his brother was embarrassed by him. Huaisang laughed harder.
By the time he sat beside Lan Wangji that afternoon, he was still smiling.
Lan Wangji looked at him. “It bothered you.”
Huaisang blinked. “What did?”
“What he said.”
“Lan er-ge, I was laughing.”
“I know.”
Huaisang’s smile faded. He leaned back against the seat. “You’re very annoying, you know.”
“Mn.”
“You’re supposed to disagree.”
“I know.”
Lan Wangji shifted slightly, making more room beside him. Huaisang moved closer. Neither of them mentioned it again.
At eighteen, their schedules began pulling them in different directions.
Huaisang was studying design seriously now. What had once lived in sketchbooks and fabric scraps had become pattern-making, fittings, portfolios and plans for a label of his own.
Lan Wangji, meanwhile, was already being drawn into Gusu Interactive, taking on more responsibility there with every passing year. They saw each other less. Whenever they did, very little changed.
One evening, Huaisang had been sitting in Lan Wangji’s room for almost three hours, sketching while Lan Wangji worked. Eventually, he stretched.
“I should go.”
Lan Wangji looked up. “You are leaving?”
Huaisang remained halfway out of his chair. “…Yes?”
Lan Wangji looked back at his laptop. Huaisang considered him, then lowered himself into the chair again. “Do you want me to stay?”
Lan Wangji looked at him. “I asked if you were leaving.”
“Lan er-ge, normal people say ‘Stay.’”
“You understood.”
“Unfortunately, I did.”
Lan Wangji returned to his work. Huaisang picked up his pencil again.
Ten minutes later, Lan Wangji quietly pushed a plate of cut fruit towards him. Huaisang ate it without comment.
At twenty, Lan Wangji stopped sleeping enough.
Nie Huaisang noticed because Nie Huaisang noticed things Lan Wangji preferred other people not to.
Gusu’s transition had accelerated. Lan Qiren remained at the head of the company but more decisions were passing through Lan Wangji first. Meetings multiplied. His office light stayed on later.
Nie Huaisang complained about this for several weeks. Lan Wangji ignored him.
Then one evening, Huaisang arrived with his phone, sat across from Lan Wangji’s desk and announced, “I’ve decided you need a hobby.”
Lan Wangji looked up from his report. “I have hobbies.”
“Name one.”
“Reading.”
“Reports do not count.”
“I read books.”
“When?”
Lan Wangji said nothing.
Nie Huaisang smiled. It was not a reassuring smile.
“Excellent. Give me your phone.”
“No.”
“Lan Er-ge.”
An hour later, Lan Wangji had somehow acquired a Honor of Kings account.
Nie Huaisang refused to explain how this constituted a victory for either of them.
Three weeks later, Lan Wangji was still playing. Nie Huaisang wisely chose not to mention it.
At twenty one, Nie Huaisang launched his first collection.
He had spent years being told fashion was unstable.
That he should have a backup plan. That he should be practical.
Nie Mingjue, who loved him deeply and worried with equal intensity, had asked approximately seven hundred questions about revenue projections.
Lan Wangji asked one. “When does it launch?”
Huaisang told him.
Four minutes after the website went live, an order appeared. Then another.
Huaisang stared at the names.
Lan Wangji.
Lan Xichen.
He immediately opened up their group chat.
NHS: did you two coordinate this
LXC: Coordinate what?
NHS: YOU BOTH ORDERED WITHIN 4 MINUTES!
A typing indicator appeared. Disappeared.
LXC: Ah.
NHS: ZEWU-JUN
LXC: Congratulations on the launch, Huaisang 😊
NHS: THAT DOESN’T ANSWER MY QUESTION
Lan Wangji did not reply at all. Which was, frankly, even more suspicious.
The suit arrived two weeks later. Huaisang saw Lan Wangji wearing it at a Gusu event and nearly walked into a waiter.
“Lan er-ge.”
Lan Wangji turned. Huaisang pointed at him.
“You bought it.”
“Yes.”
“I told you I could send you one.”
“I know.”
“I own the company.”
“Mn.”
“Giving you one suit would not bankrupt me.”
Lan Wangji adjusted his cuff. “It is your work.”
Huaisang’s next complaint died before it reached his mouth.
“You should be paid for it.”
“Does it fit correctly?”
Huaisang swallowed whatever had lodged itself unexpectedly in his throat and circled him once.
He tugged lightly at one sleeve. “Obviously. I designed it.”
“Mn.”
“Still. You could have let me give you a discount.”
“No.”
“Ten percent.”
“No.”
“Five?”
“No.”
“Lan er-ge, friendship benefits exist for a reason.”
“I am supporting your business.”
Huaisang sighed. “You’ve been like this since you were seven.”
Lan Wangji looked faintly puzzled. Huaisang smiled. “Never mind.”
The brand grew.
So did the collection of Nie Huaisang suits in Lan Wangji’s wardrobe. Some were sleek and understated, exactly the sort of thing Lan Wangji would have chosen for himself.
Some were not.
One jacket from Huaisang’s second collection had a collar he now regarded as evidence that twenty-one-year-old Nie Huaisang should not have been allowed unsupervised access to a sketchbook.
“Please throw that one away.”
Lan Wangji refused.
“I was young.”
“You were twenty one.”
“Exactly.”
“It is well made.”
“It is hideous.”
“It is not.”
“Are you defending my own design against me?”
“Yes.”
Huaisang gave him an offended look. “I hate you.”
“No, you do not.”
Huaisang narrowed his eyes. “Lan er-ge.”
Lan Wangji continued buttoning the jacket. Huaisang pointed at him accusingly. “You made a joke.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“I did not.”
Lan Wangji walked away. Huaisang followed him down the corridor, delighted.
At twenty three, Nie Huaisang was still sitting where he had always sat. Beside Lan Wangji.
The furniture was simply more expensive now.
His phone buzzed. Nie Huaisang ignored it.
Across the office, Lan Wangji was still looking at the newest name on his friends list.
YilingLaozu
Huaisang watched him for a moment.
Seven-year-old Lan Wangji had defended a painted fan because someone had made something with care and other people had laughed.
Ten-year-old Lan Wangji had studied designs he claimed not to understand because Huaisang did.
Fourteen-year-old Lan Wangji had let him stay without asking him to fix anything.
Eighteen-year-old Lan Wangji had asked ‘You are leaving?’ when what he meant was ‘Stay’.
Twenty-one-year-old Lan Wangji had bought a suit he could have received for free because ‘It is your work. You should be paid for it.’
And twenty-three-year-old Lan Wangji had just spent an unreasonable amount of time considering one very ordinary friend request.
Some things changed. Some things really did not.
A notification appeared on the screen.
TEAM CHAT
YilingLaozu: gg 😏
Lan Wangji’s attention shifted to it immediately. A moment later, his fingers moved towards the keyboard.
Huaisang smiled and looked back at his own phone. He had no idea what would come of this particular friendship.
But he knew Lan Wangji. And once Lan Wangji made room for someone beside him, he had a habit of keeping the seat.
Nie Huaisang should know. His had been there for sixteen years.