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Lan Zhan sets up his easel carefully, laying his sketching materials and paints out resting against the lip of his palette so they can't be knocked over by raucous passersby.
His brother doesn't understand how he can come to the museum every weekend for their copyist program after spending all his working hours looking at and discussing art, locked away in dusty old offices, and flicking through slides for his classes.
He doesn't know how to explain that he'd spend all his time here if he was left up to his own devices entirely. Even on the weekends when the museum is teeming with families, small children, and awkward teenagers on dates, even then he feels most at home here.
He also likes to challenge himself to push outside the boundaries of his narrow specialty of Traditional Chinese Art. He pokes around through the Renaissance and Baroque collections and wanders through the Modern collection.
He doesn't get much time to create anymore. It had never been his forte, always more at home in quiet libraries and dusty graduate studios than in the bright airy studios of the actual artists. He'd always been happy to watch, to bask in one particular artist's glow, to watch the way he constructs light and shadow from mixed pigments on his palette.
He tries to keep those thoughts at bay until the weekend, letting memories of Wei Ying flood through him at the smell of oil paint and varnish. He has segregated those thoughts until Saturday, afraid that if he lets go of the rigid structure, memories of Wei Ying will completely consume him.
It’s a busy Saturday at the museum and it’s not a surprise when a small child runs straight into his legs. He looks down at the child who is grinning up at him, looking around for his guardians.
The voice that calls out stops him dead in his tracks, heart beating loudly in his ears.
“A-Yuan!” the voice calls out. He knows that voice. He turns, the child still firmly attached to his calves, and sees –
“Wei Ying,” he says, the name pulled out of his chest like a gasp.
Wei Ying is standing there, eyes wide, flicking from Lan Zhan’s face to where the child hugs tight to his legs as if he’s seeing a mirage. He blinks, smiles, and all of it is gone in a second, all of the years flowing by as if they never happened at all.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying says voice brimming with something Lan Zhan hopes is happiness, “Fancy seeing you here!”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says again, unsure if he can say anything else at this point.
Wei Ying smiles at him, broad enough that his eyes crinkle with the force, and then kneels down so he is level with the child. “A-Yuan! What have you gotten into this time, hmm? Didn’t gege tell you to not grab at random strangers! You’re lucky this is Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying reaches out and pries A-Yuan’s hands off Lan Zhan, cuddling him close.
Lan Zhan manages to pry his eyes away from the scene long enough to see two other people come walking up behind Wei Ying, a small woman with sharp eyes and a tall, broad man with long hair pulled back in a braid.
He has never seen these people before – hasn’t seen Wei Ying in over ten years, not since he dropped out of their undergraduate art program and disappeared entirely. His chest is too full, he feels like he is going to burst.
Wei Ying straightens up, keeping hold of A-Yuan’s hand. He seems content to smile at Lan Zhan, but the woman interrupts him with a cough.
“Oh!” Wei Ying spins on his heel, seeming to realize that the others are behind him for the first time, “Wen Qing, look, I told you he wouldn’t go far.”
“Sorry,” the woman – Wen Qing – says, apparently to Lan Zhan, “He’s still learning about strangers.”
Lan Zhan has had more than his fair share of children running into his legs during his Saturdays at the museum and manages to marshall his words enough to get out “It is no trouble.”
Wei Ying grins broadly at the woman, “Anyways, Lan Zhan is no stranger. We went to school together, right Lan Zhan?”
Lan Zhan nods. Wei Ying looks different, now that he is able to fully take him in, looks older, his face more angular than when they were at school together. Lan Zhan imagines he must have changed as well and wonders what Wei Ying is seeing staring back at him.
Wen Qing looks between the two of them, “Old friends?”
“Mn,” says Lan Zhan at the same time that Wei Ying lets out an enthusiastic “Yeah!”
Wen Qing kneels down and gestures for A-Yuan to come to her. The child runs into her arms, abandoning Wei Ying’s hand entirely.
Wei Ying pulls his face into a pout, looking down at A-Yuan. “So mean! Abandoning me so quickly for your Qing-jiejie!”
A-Yuan narrows his eyes, looking suspiciously between Wei Ying and Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan feels the scrutiny of the child’s gaze acutely. Wen Qing picks him up, resting him on her hip.
“Do you want to stay?” she asks, clearly looking at Wei Ying who looks back at her distractedly.
“No no,” he waves his hands, “Look, Lan Zhan is busy!”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, sure his voice is doing something to give him away, “Please, I would like to,” he pauses, trying to collect his thoughts in a way that will not overwhelm the pair of them, “Reconnect.”
“You can stay,” Wen Qing says, with an air of finality, hitching A-Yuan up on her hip.
Wei Ying chews his bottom lip in the way he always used to do and Lan Zhan is hit by a wave of nostalgia so powerful it’s almost dizzying. “Alright,” he says, finally, “If you’re sure.”
Wen Qing nods, “Wen Ning and I can watch him. Meet us back at the hotel?”
Wei Ying agrees and A-Yuan waves goodbye to his “Wei-gege” as the two – siblings, Lan Zhan finds out after they introduce themselves – leave to go on to the next gallery, Lan Zhan having given them some tips on the most child-friendly areas of the museum.
He’s left with Wei Ying, the crowds still teeming around them but somehow, in this moment, they feel utterly alone.
Wei Ying’s still smiling, but he looks… looks nervous, Lan Zhan finally decides, so unused to the expression on Wei Ying’s face it takes him a minute to parse it.
“Ah,” Wei Ying says, looking down at Lan Zhan’s easel, “You always were so talented, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Zhan looks at the easel, it’s barely anything, the beginnings of an idea. “Wei Ying is the talented one,” Lan Zhan says, as confident in the present tense as he has ever been in anything.
Wei Ying laughs, a small, quiet thing. “You know that was a long time ago, Lan Zhan!”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, “How –” he wars with himself on how to say it, how to best approach those years of distance between them. He stuffs the impulse to ask questions, to peel off Wei Ying’s layers and figure out if he’s still the same underneath. “How have you been?” He finally says. It sounds awkward, stilted to his ears, but true to the boy Lan Zhan remembers, Wei Ying doesn’t give any indication he’s noticed.
“Good!” he says, bright, cheery. Lan Zhan must be giving him a look because Wei Ying deflates a little, shoulders relaxing away from his ears. “I probably owe you an explanation, huh?”
Lan Zhan shakes his head “Wei Ying does not owe me anything. I am merely happy to see you again.”
Wei Ying smiles again, lifting up the corners of his mouth until his eyes squish into crescents. Lan Zhan abruptly feels like a teenager again, full of too many emotions at the sight of that smile.
“You’re too good, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying admonishes, “Do you want to show me around? It seems like you’re at home here.”
Lan Zhan carefully packs up his supplies. Wei Ying squeaks when Lan Zhan rolls up the canvas on his easel, protesting that Lan Zhan will ruin his hard work.
“I come here every week,” Lan Zhan replies, “It is no great loss.”
“Every week?” Wei Ying asks, crowding into Lan Zhan’s space to help him stuff art supplies into his bag. Were it anyone else, Lan Zhan would have shied away but he relishes each time his hands accidentally brush Wei Ying’s arm.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, “The copyist program.”
They both straighten up, Wei Ying is smiling. “Just like we planned, huh?”
Lan Zhan flicks his eyes down and away. He does not want to remind Wei Ying of those days, when Wei Ying would keep Lan Zhan up at night, talking from his bed into the darkness of their shared room, tales of the big city and what they could and would achieve.
It hadn’t felt right, at the time, to take the position he had been offered at the school they’d both dreamed of. He’d agonized at the time. How could he pursue Wei Ying’s dreams without him?
When Wei Ying had vanished just before graduation it had felt like Lan Zhan was missing a limb. He didn’t paint for years, burrowing deep into academia and abandoning his own art. Every time he put a pen to paper, or a brush to canvas, all he saw was Wei Ying’s face.
Eventually, he accepted, creating a perhaps flimsy excuse that at least Wei Ying would be able to find him, one day, if he ever came back.
It hurts a little to know that their meeting today was nothing more than happenstance, that Wei Ying wasn’t looking for him. It’s only fair, Lan Zhan thinks. He’d pursued Wei Ying throughout the whole of his graduate career, working with his sister to track down Wei Ying’s final movements, to try and find any trace of him. He’d known it was fruitless at the time. Wei Ying was brilliant. If he didn’t want to be found, he simply would not be. Still, having something to do gave Lan Zhan’s life purpose.
It’s been years since he’s spoken to Jiang Yanli and he feels a pang of guilt. He debates with himself long enough that it must start to show on his face.
“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying asks, “Something wrong?”
Lan Zhan has to look away from him. He has to ask. “Have you spoken to your sister?”
There’s a long pause. When Lan Zhan looks up, Wei Ying’s face is shuttered off, eyes looking down at their feet.
“Wei Ying –” he starts. He should not have pried.
Wei Ying looks back up at him, a smile still on his face. It’s looking a little strained around the edges and Wei Ying’s eyes have a look to them that Lan Zhan can’t pinpoint. “It was a fair question,” Wei Ying says. “I haven’t, no.”
Lan Zhan nearly opens his mouth to continue, to ask why , but he pulls himself back at the last second. Wei Ying did not expect to meet him here today, Wei Ying did not ask to be interrogated about those missing years. If he wants to talk about it, he will.
Lan Zhan slings the backpack full of his supplies over his shoulder and raises an eyebrow at Wei Ying. “Let me show you around,” he says. He wants to reach out a hand to Wei Ying, wants to touch him in some tangible way to prove to himself that this is real, but he restrains himself. He had not been a tactile person when they had last known each other and he does not want Wei Ying to think of him as pushy. He doesn’t want to emphasize the years between them, the way they have both changed.
Wei Ying’s smile brightens as they wind through the galleries. Lan Zhan knows the museum like the back of his hand at this point and it is easy enough to take Wei Ying to all his favorite pieces, as well as the entire contemporary Chinese painting exhibit that has been installed in the temporary galleries for the last month.
“Lan Zhan! Did you curate this?” he asks, leaning in close to one of the paintings.
Lan Zhan shakes his head and then realizes that Wei Ying is not looking at him. “No. It is more modern than my focus. My colleague Luo Qingyang was the primary curator of this exhibit.”
Wei Ying turns on his heel away from the painting to look at Lan Zhan. “You always were an old fuddy-duddy,” he says with a teasing grin, “Still not writing about anything after nineteen hundred?”
“Seventeen hundred, actually,” Lan Zhan says in a deadpan tone of voice and Wei Ying laughs with his full body.
“Modern art is soulless,” he says, in a voice that is clearly meant to be a poor imitation of Lan Zhan’s when they were at school together, his face schooled into a scowling mask. “Some things never change I guess?”
“Mn,” agrees Lan Zhan, “However I do not agree with your first point anymore.”
“No?” asks Wei Ying. “You were so serious about it back in school. I still remember I never got you to talk as much as when I brought up Marcel Duchamp in our theory of art class.”
Lan Zhan’s face must do something because Wei Ying laughs again. “I am still not a fan,” Lan Zhan admits, “Of Duchamp. However I have gained…” he mulls the words over in his head. “Perspective.”
It is an easier thing to admit than the truth. When Wei Ying had disappeared, Lan Zhan had poured over every paper, every sketch, every canvas he’d left behind, and in them, he had found meaning deeper than any of the dadaists that Wei Ying liked to airdrop into his phone while they were supposed to be having studio time.
If he thinks about it now, he was probably well on the way to bursting out of his narrow, stuffy worldview when Wei Ying left, that was just the catalyst. He can still remember the way he felt watching Wei Ying paint like he was watching genius unfold.
Wei Ying wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, “Maybe your colleague helped with that, hmm?”
Lan Zhan has to take a few seconds to parse what Wei Ying is saying and he shakes his head, feeling his ears burning at the implication. “We are just friends,” he deflects. His personal life is not a subject he enjoys discussing, not with his brother, not with his uncle, and not, now, with Wei Ying.
Wei Ying grins and tips his head to the side, “Really? Lan Zhan, I can’t believe you’re single. You can’t be telling me you’re single, I won’t believe it.”
“I am telling you,” Lan Zhan says, “So you must.”
“Because Lan Zhan would never lie, right?” Wei Ying says with a teasing smile playing on his lips, “Okay, I guess if you say it then it must be true.”
Showing Wei Ying around the galleries that he’s very possibly more familiar with than his own apartment is a wonder. He tries hard to keep in the moment and not let his mind stray back to the sun-dappled days of their undergrad when he and Wei Ying had first started talking about applying to the grad program here.
It had been mostly Wei Ying, honestly. Lan Zhan has never been the adventurous type and the graduate program at their university had been perfectly respectable. Wei Ying had always pushed, though, pushed for the best, even if it meant moving across the country. Lan Zhan had just gone along with his flights of fancy for a while, listening to Wei Ying talk about the big city, until slowly, surely, the dream had wormed itself into his heart as well.
He’s still not sure what the actual reason he ended up coming here was. Yes, he’d already applied and been accepted when Wei Ying vanished, but he’d been accepted to many other programs as well. He’s not completely sure if he’s honest with himself about those motivations, whether this had really been what he’d wanted or whether it had just been another foolhardy way of feeling close to Wei Ying.
He doesn’t regret it, though, and that’s only half because the winding path of his life has brought Wei Ying unexpectedly back onto it.
They fall into an easy rhythm, Wei Ying acting performatively shocked whenever Lan Zhan compliments something painted after 1800 or, god forbid, photography.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying says with faux alarm, “I thought photography was a craft !”
“I do not believe I ever said that,” Lan Zhan replies, taking it in stride, “And the delineation between art and craft is an artifact of a misogynist academic system.”
That gets a full-body laugh out of Wei Ying, the kind that leaves him doubled over with giggles.
It’s all too soon when Lan Zhan realizes the museum is closing. They had wandered around for several hours.
“I apologize,” Lan Zhan says, as they make their way towards the entrance, “I have kept you too long.”
“Nah,” Wei Ying says, “Don’t worry about it. I told Wen Qing before we came that I might get sucked into the museum and they could just go back to the hotel without me. It just ended up being a little… different, that’s all.”
Lan Zhan tries not to focus on the way that Wei Ying says the word different , and tries not to obsess about whether it’s good different, or bad different. Wei Ying has obviously had a good time with him today, not even Lan Zhan’s perpetual anxiety can talk him out of that. However, Wei Ying had disappeared for a reason, surely. Lan Zhan is not sure he still has a place in Wei Ying’s life, whatever that may look like now.
They get to the entrance and Wei Ying turns to face him, placing a hand on Lan Zhan’s forearm. He’s visibly gearing up to say something, and Lan Zhan braces himself for it.
“Do you want to come back to the hotel?” Wei Ying says, all in one breath, then closes his eyes and lets out a breath through his nostrils, “Not – I didn’t mean it that way. There’s no good way to say that, we don’t even have separate rooms so it’s not like I could even mean it that way. I just meant I could introduce you to Wen Qing and Wen Ning when there’s not a million people all around us and A-Yuan isn’t trying to make a break for it.” He opens his eyes and looks at Lan Zhan hopefully.
Lan Zhan lets Wei Ying ramble himself out for a brief second and then nods, smiling a bit, “I would like that very much,” Lan Zhan says and watches as the grin spreads itself over Wei Ying’s face.
“Hope you’re ready for a walk,” Wei Ying says, letting go of Lan Zhan’s arm and shoving his hands into his pockets. “We didn’t exactly get a place in the best part of town if you know what I mean. I think we’ll have to take the subway and walk.”
“I can call a cab,” Lan Zhan says, already walking down the steps at the front of the building and raising his arm to hail one. Wei Ying grabs onto Lan Zhan’s bicep and tries to pull his arm down to no avail.
“Lan Zhan!!” he protests, eventually giving up on tugging on Lan Zhan’s arm, “Trust me, absolutely not, a cab ride will be so fucking expensive, you have no idea!”
“It is getting dark,” Lan Zhan says, “And we will get back sooner if we take a cab.”
Wei Ying is in full-on pouting mode when Lan Zhan finally gets the attention of a cab, but he dutifully gives the address of the hotel to the driver and slides in the back seat, Lan Zhan following him in.
The car ride is quiet. Lan Zhan would say it borders on uncomfortable. He is pretty sure that the only reason Wei Ying had relented and gotten in the cab is because of Lan Zhan’s last remark – that they would get back to the hotel sooner. Lan Zhan feels a pit of guilt spike in his stomach. He’d kept Wei Ying away from his friends for far too long, they are obviously on vacation and Lan Zhan had usurped almost an entire day.
They make remarkable time considering what the traffic is usually like arriving at the hotel just as dusk settles over the city. It is, as Wei Ying had said, not in the best part of town, although Lan Zhan would not say it is the worst, just an area less frequently trodden by tourists. The hotel is a smaller building, not like the grand high-rise ones you’d see in the city center. Wei Ying leads him up the stairs, with an apologetic grin at the elevator.
“It’s been out the whole time we’ve been here,” Wei Ying explains as they climb up to the fourth floor, “Pretty typical, from what I hear.”
They head to the room Wei Ying is sharing and open it quietly. As soon as the door is open A-Yuan rockets off his place on the bed and zooms across the room to attach himself to Wei Ying’s leg.
“Wei-gege was gone for a long time,” he mumbles into the fabric of Wei Ying's jeans and Wei Ying ruffles his hair affectionately.
Wen Ning is seated on the bed next to where A-Yuan had been sitting, a book spread out across the bedspread between them. He grins at Wei Ying, “Jiejie went out to grab some food, he was getting grumpy.”
“Was not,” mumbles A-Yuan, rocking back on his heels and releasing Wei Ying’s leg to peer slightly distrustfully up at Lan Zhan.
“Hello, A-Yuan,” Lan Zhan says. He had not had much experience with children until a few months ago. He had volunteered at the museum as one of the guides for the grad school tours on a whim around six months ago. It had been quite the experience, and he is grateful to it for giving him at least some idea of how to interact with A-Yuan, “Do you remember me from earlier?”
A-Yuan looks at him before nodding, shyly, holding onto Wei Ying’s leg with one hand. Wei Ying laughs and bends over, swooping A-Yuan into his arms with an enormous kiss on his cheek as A-Yuan giggles. “Lan Zhan is my friend, just like Ning-gege and Qing-jiejie!” He explains to A-Yuan who scrubs at where Wei Ying had kissed his cheek.
A-Yuan looks from Wei Ying to Lan Zhan before apparently deciding on something. “Come read the book with me,” he says, pulling on Wei Ying’s shoulders, “We were reading!”
Wei Ying lets himself be led, sitting A-Yuan and himself down on the bed next to Wen Ning. Lan Zhan follows and feels somewhat awkward for a brief moment before sitting down on the twin bed opposite.
It feels both pleasantly domestic and uncomfortable, sitting there across from Wen Ning and Wei Ying as they read A-Yuan a book about dinosaurs. It feels like Lan Zhan is intruding like he’s grasping at moments with Wei Ying that he knows he will never get to have.
Wei Ying is here on vacation. He will leave, soon, and Lan Zhan might never see him again. The thought pulls at his heart and he tries to drink in each one of Wei Ying’s smiles and laughs.
It immediately becomes awkward when Wen Qing returns with dinner for her brother, Wei Ying, and A-Yuan but, obviously, not Lan Zhan. His presence suddenly becomes too much and he excuses himself with waved goodbyes to A-Yuan and a quiet word to Wei Ying. He should ask him for his number, should ask to see him again, should do anything, but Lan Zhan finds he cannot make his mouth shape the words to ask and it seems all too soon that he is putting his shoes back on and stepping out into the corridor.
He is almost to the stairwell when he hears the heavy thud of someone running behind him and Wei Ying calling out his name, “Lan Zhan!” he calls out, skidding to a halt in front of him, “That’s it??”
Wei Ying’s eyes are flashing and he sounds suddenly furious, as if Lan Zhan leaving was an affront to him personally. Lan Zhan’s heart aches but he can’t say anything, suddenly, the lump in his throat is too great to get words out around. He opens his mouth, closes it, and shakes his head. “Wei Ying,” are the only words he’s able to get out and they sound choked, unlike him.
Wei Ying’s eyes soften, minutely, but he’s still braced as if for impact. “You’re not going to ask?” He says, and the question has a lilt of frustration to it, “After all this time?”
Lan Zhan clenches his fist and makes his voice work with great concentration, “You do not owe me answers, Wei Ying,” he says when he is finally able to find the words.
Wei Ying lets out a teakettle noise of frustration, beating his fist against his thigh. “I want you to ask! Lan Zhan, I – I didn’t realize it would impact you so much, I really didn’t. But you did it! You came here and did everything we talked about!” Wei Ying’s eyes are wet, slightly, and he scrubs at the moisture with his palm, “I didn’t know you would. I didn’t know!”
Lan Zhan’s fingers relax, and the tension in his jaw loosens, “Wei Ying,” he says, “How could I do anything else?”
It’s the only thing he can say, the only answer to why he had followed Wei Ying around like a lovesick puppy today and why he was so willing to let him go back into the ether. Where Wei Ying is concerned he has never been his own master. His life now is more proof of that than anything, the shadow of Wei Ying’s laugh consuming his every moment.
He must be showing some of that on his face, some minute change in his expression that only Wei Ying can see because Wei Ying is smiling, a broad, watery grin that cracks his face in half.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, “You really didn’t have to.”
As if that’s not the point. As if Lan Zhan had ever had any choice in the matter. It was decided from the moment they met, the first time that Wei Ying had chucked his paintbrush across the studio aiming for one of their classmates, and hit Lan Zhan. He can still remember how he felt, the rage and irritation that consumed him. He had silently moved through life before that, nothing ever touching him. Wei Ying had changed him, had been a bright spark in a gray day. He doesn't know the words to explain this to Wei Ying, doesn’t know how to say that everything had stopped when Wei Ying had left, and how carrying on with the plan they had come up with was the only way to feel close to him.
He says nothing, but Wei Ying must be able to tell what he means regardless, that weird way he’d had, at the end, of telling what Lan Zhan was thinking with nothing more than a look in his direction.
“Give me your phone,” Wei Ying demands, holding out his hand. Lan Zhan fishes his phone out of his pocket, unlocks it, and drops it in Wei Ying’s outstretched palm. Wei Ying snatches it away and holds it close to his face, jabbing at the screen with shaky movements.
“There,” Wei Ying says, holding out the phone once more. “I changed my number. You… probably knew that, huh?”
Lan Zhan nods. He had tried to call Wei Ying every day for a while until the number had come up as disconnected.
Wei Ying’s face scrunches up and he scrubs at his eyes with the hand not holding Lan Zhan’s phone. “I put my number in there,” he says, and Lan Zhan takes the phone back, unlocking it to a screen with Wei Ying’s contact information. “If you don’t text me, I’ll come back here and kill you, I really mean it!”
Lan Zhan can’t help it, can’t help the smile that lifts the corner of his mouth. “I will,” he says quickly, and then, a heartbeat of a pause, “Tomorrow?”
Wei Ying’s smile is blinding, “Definitely. We’re here for the rest of the week! I demand you take me and A-Yuan to lunch tomorrow, actually.”
Lan Zhan can do that. “What about –” he says hesitantly, not willing to voice the question.
Wei Ying shakes his head “Don’t worry about that, it’s a whole week away, Lan Zhan! You don’t need to worry about me,” he says, unnecessarily.
Lan Zhan still has so many questions, so many things that he wants to share with Wei Ying, and so many things he wants to know about Wei Ying’s life now. It’s too much, it’s overwhelming and Wei Ying is right, they have a whole week before they have to worry about that. Lan Zhan slips his phone back into his pocket.
Wei Ying isn’t looking at him anymore, shifting back and forth on his feet uneasily. “I really had to leave, Lan Zhan,” he says, “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave you. ”
Lan Zhan believes it. Has never not believed it, really. Wei Ying may have been wild, sometimes thoughtless, but never cruel. “I know,” he says, simply.
Wei Ying looks back up at him with a smile. “I’ll be waiting for you to text!” He promises, “Don’t make me hunt you down!”
“That will not be necessary,” Lan Zhan replies, and Wei Ying lets out a reassuring giggle, snapping the tension between them like a twig.
Wei Ying sways back and forth indecisively for a second before lunging forward and wrapping his arms around Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan stiffens instinctually. Since Wei Ying, there has been no one who is so casual with their touches around Lan Zhan, his icy exterior putting most people off. He has friends, work colleagues more like, but no one has hugged him in this way since the last time he saw his brother.
He relaxes into Wei Ying’s hold for a second, arms coming up to hold him back. They sit there, Wei Ying’s warm breath huffing into his ear. When Wei Ying pulls back his eyes are misty again but his face is determined. “I want you to ask,” he says again, and then, “Tomorrow.”
Lan Zhan nods. “Tomorrow,” he replies.
Wei Ying looks for a second like he wants to say something else, hand twitching minutely. He thinks better of it and lets out a breath, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lan Zhan,” he says, before turning to walk back to their room.
Lan Zhan exhales, slowly, and then begins his trip back home. His apartment will seem emptier than usual tonight, now that he has more than an old memory to remind him of Wei Ying’s face, his smile.
It will be enough for tonight, and there will always be tomorrow.