Work Text:
Lan Wangji checked the apartment number one last time, then knocked, the flimsy hollow-core door shaking under his knuckles. He could hear noises in the apartment; music playing, someone talking, a child crying.
The hallway was narrow and shabby, the carpet so dirty and faded its original color and pattern were indecipherable, the grimy grey paint chipping, scraped here and there, Wangji assumed by furniture. It wasn’t the place he’d imagined Wei Ying living when he’d talked about his apartment, and now Lan Wangji wondered if the difference was due to his own lack of imagination or Wei Ying painting a prettier picture to make reality more palatable.
He should have expected Wei Ying would lie like that. He wouldn't want Lan Wangji to worry about him, or pity him, or be disappointed in him. Wei Ying had always been so bad at honesty.
Lan Wangji turned his attention back to the door. It was so loud inside the apartment, he thought, maybe they hadn't heard him, and knocked again, louder, even though it didn't seem polite, hard enough that it made his knuckles sting, all the calluses from his years of martial arts training worn off long ago.
“Hold on,” a woman yelled on the other side of the door. “I’m coming. Now isn’t really a good…”
The door swung open and she stopped mid-sentence, staring at Lan Wangji in shock.
“Wen Qing,” Lan Wangji said. “It is nice to see you.”
“Lan Wangji,” Wen Qing replied. “Ah… a pleasure.”
She was older than she'd been (a stupid thought, people were always older the next time you saw them. He was so tired.). She seemed haggard and strained, the skin around her enormous eyes puffy.
She was dressed in hospital scrubs, that horrible green so popular in the medical community, a sobbing toddler perched on her hip, his face and naked belly slick with tears and mucus.
Lan Wangji expected her to invite him in, or to repeat that it wasn’t a good time, but instead, she just stared at him. Finally, he cleared his throat.
“Wen Qing,” he said again. “You said this was a bad time.”
“Ah,” she said. “Yes- I’m late for work and… yes.”
“I was just looking for Wei Wuxian,” Lan Wangji said. “Is he here?" He looked past her, his eyes skimming over a filthy kitchen as if Wei Ying might have been standing right there, turning curiously to see who Wen Qing had been talking to.
In his imagination Wei Ying looked like he had in high school, long hair caught in a high ponytail, chipped nails painted purple and glittery, a free and easy smile dancing on his face, ready to call out 'Lan Zhan!' and look at him like he was the best thing the world could have given him.
Wen Qing’s face crumpled, like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut. “No,” she said, finally. “I don’t know where he is.”
“Oh,” Lan Wangji said. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”
Her face, impossibly, crumpled even more.
“No,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “He’s been missing for several days now. Listen, I’m sorry, Wangji, but I really have to go…”
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”
She nodded and swung the door shut.
Lan Wangji walked back to his car, parked on the street before the apartment complex, unlocked the door, and sat down in the driver’s seat, automatically slipping the key into the ignition, placing one hand on the wheel and the other on the stick shift, before remembering he didn’t have a plan for where to go. He’d taken the day off, his first one in his four years for working full-time.
Today was Monday. On Mondays, Lan Wangji got up at five, did some light stretching, went for a run, washed and dressed, made and ate breakfast, took the commuter rail into work, ate a salad for lunch, got home by five-thirty, made dinner, and read or played music, meditated, then went to sleep.
He did not drive halfway across the state, visit a cramped apartment building in a sad state of disrepair and probable violation of several housing codes. This was what happened, Lan Wangji could hear his uncle saying when you got involved with someone like Wei Wuxian.
Every day of the week was predictable. Weekdays were all basically the same, except that Lan Wangji ate dinner with Brother on Tuesdays, talked to his autism coach on Wednesdays, called Uncle on Thursdays, had therapy on Fridays. On Saturdays Lan Wangji went for a hike, on Sundays he cleaned his apartment and ran errands. On Sunday evenings he called Wei Ying. Every Sunday evening, 5 pm. He’d make sure his phone was fully charged, sit down on his couch with a glass of water at 4:55, unlock his phone at 4:58, and the moment the clock changed from 4:59 to 5 he’d hit ‘call’.
At 5 pm, every Sunday evening, Wei Ying would pick up. “Hey, Lan Zhan,” he’d say.
'Lan Zhan' was what Wei Ying called him. A special, private name, a name only Wei Ying ever used, and 'Wei Ying' was what Lan Wangji called Wei Wuxian. Every time he heard ‘Lan Zhan’ or said ‘Wei Ying’ he felt a warmth spreading through his chest, a warmth that spread and spread as they spoke, for precisely an hour, Wei Ying doing most of the talking, telling Lan Wangji about his day or his life or his thoughts or something he’d seen/watched/heard/read. He talked a lot about Wen Qing and her family, her brother Wen Ning, their granny and uncle, and their little baby cousin Wen Shizui, who Wei Ying called ‘A-Yuan’.
Wei Ying was good at listening, too. He’d often ask Lan Wangji what he thought, and could somehow tell, even through the phone when Lan Wangji wanted to stay something. He was patient, surprisingly patient, for someone who couldn’t sit still and talked a mile a minute and skipped from thought to thought. He always had been.
He hadn’t picked up on Sunday. The call had gone straight to voicemail. And Lan Wangji had told himself that it was okay- there could have been an emergency, or he had forgotten, or lost his phone, or any number of a thousand of mundane things. But Lan Wangji’s brain was like a vinyl record and every time something like this happened, something unexpected, some break in the routine, it got stuck, repeating over and over and over the last line of the song.
"It's fine," he'd told himself. He'd gotten up to make a pot of tea, he'd gotten the book he'd been reading from his nightstand, he'd tried calling again.
He tried calling again at 5:03 and 5:05 and 5:07 and on and on, every two minutes until his phone died, and then he plugged it in and tried again and again and again, 8:35, 10:13, 12:59, and at 5:01, when he’d been calling Wei Ying for twelve hours he'd called into work sick (he had to read the employee manual to do so) and then found where he’d carefully written Wei Ying’s address down so he could send him a birthday present last October, and without thinking was in the car, driving through the streets he usually ran through, still dark and silent, dirty snow piled up against the sides of buildings, until he was out of the suburbs, into the long dark stretches of forest that always made him feel like his car was a ship, sailing through the ocean of night.
He shouldn't have done it, he knew. He should have called his therapist or his autism coach. Should have called them the fifth time he'd phoned Wei Ying and not gotten an answer. He should have done his cognitive behavioral therapy exercises for when something unexpected happened. He wasn't a kid anymore, confused and undiagnosed and resourceless, at the mercy of the atypical neural circuitry not even he understood. He was a functional adult who could make small talk with strangers and had polite relationships with the people in his office and his neighbors. He didn't have to get stuck anymore.
The sky had paled as he drove, the sun rising behind him as he traveled west, his mind skipping and jumping with worry and confusion and anxiety and fear and exhaustion, a day’s worth of exhaustion. But exhaustion could be good; sometimes it made it easier to break free of his routine, to ignore his anxiety, to go to a strange place and knock on a strange door and ask questions of someone he hadn’t seen in ten years.
He thought all this as he sat in his car, not really noticing how cold it was or how much he was shivering, then thought about Wen Qing, her exhausted, crumpled face, the sobbing child, the glimpses he’d seen of the apartment behind her, cramped and messy, dirty dishes piled up in the sink and on the counter, toddler’s toys accumulating in corners like snowdrifts, blankets and sheets piled up on the couch like it doubled as someone’s bed.
He’s been missing for several days now.
Lan Wangji remembered Wei Ying telling him how busy he always was, trading off child care with Wen Qing and Wen Ning, and Granny and Uncle when they were well enough. He thought about how Wei Ying had said they were just staying afloat, but if anything happened, he didn’t know what they would do.
Wei Ying had said that. Wei Ying, who was bad at honesty because he didn't want Lan Wangji to worry or pity him or be disappointed in him. Wei Ying who always always always saw the glass as half full and also 'there are enough water particles in the air to fill it the rest of the way'. Wei Ying who had had a thousand schemes up his sleeve.
I should have offered to help, Lan Wangji thought. Surely he could have done something; he could have washed the dishes or tidied up the kitchen or folded the sheets and blankets on the couch. He could have offered money, although he didn’t know if Wen Qing would have taken it; people were weird about that.
Maybe I should go back to offer, he thought, and he was still ruminating over this, over what he might say or do, over what Wen Qing’s reaction might be, when movement on the other side of his windshield caught his eye; a bus was pulling away from a bus stop on the other side of the street, a person running after it and slipping and falling on the slushy sidewalk, their bag falling open and things spilling out.
Lan Wangji got out of his car without thinking, waited for a break in the traffic so he could walk across the street, and realized that the person who was now sitting, their scrubs getting wet from the slush on the sidewalk, their possessions scattered across the sidewalk behind them, was Wen Qing.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around her legs, her face pressed into her knees and she was shaking as if she was laughing or crying. Crying, Lan Wangji assumed. He picked up her backpack from where it lay in the slush and began to stuff her possessions back into it, loose papers and packets of tissues and a ziplock bag with a now squished sandwich and a bruised apple, pens, change, a pacifier. He opened the packet of tissues and took a few squares out and carefully cleaned the slush off of each item before dropping it into the bag, then he dropped the dirty tissues into a trash can and brought the backpack to Wen Qing, and then, not knowing what else to do, sat down beside her, in the dirty slush, on the sidewalk.
Lan Wangji hated it when people cried. It always made him feel so powerless. He wasn’t good at other people’s emotions at the best of times. Comforting people always seemed to involve saying the right thing and touching them and he wasn’t good at those things either.
Wei Ying had been. He'd always known just what to say or do. When someone needed to be touched and when someone couldn't handle the contact. How to talk a sobbing person into brightening up and then laughing. How to break through the loneliness and the sadness and the pain.
Wen Qing looked up at him when he sat down, her bag in his lap. Her face was red and puffy, streaked with tears and snot, just like the toddler- A-Yuan, Lan Wangji realized- had been. Lan Wangji opened her bag and handed her the packet of tissues.
“You’re still here,” she said, wiping her eyes and her face and then balling the dirty tissues up in her hands.
It took a few moments before Lan Wangji realized this had been a kind of question. “I wasn’t sure what to do next,” he explained. “You missed your bus,” he said.
“It’s that kind of life,” she said. Lan Wangji blinked but didn’t ask her to explain.
“I can give you a ride,” Lan Wangji suggested. “If you’re going to be late somewhere.”
“You don’t have to,” she said.
He never knew how to reply to this. Why would she think he had to? His autism coach had probably explained it to him once, but there were so many things to explain about why people did things and how to respond to them, so many things to remember about human interaction, and Lan Wangji was so tired and Wei Ying was missing for several days now that he didn't have the strength to remember what was appropriate or, really, care that much.
“I know I don’t have to,” Lan Wangji said, finally.
“Oh,” Wen Qing said. “I forgot how literal you were. Are you sure it’s okay?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t have offered otherwise,” Lan Wangji said.
Wen Qing nodded. “I’m going to get your car all dirty,” she said, standing up and trying to brush off the slush that had soaked into her scrubs.
“Perhaps you should change before going to work,” he said, and she nodded, so he followed her to her apartment, and stood awkwardly in the kitchen while she disappeared somewhere to get changed.
The mess was worse close up. Empty boxes of cereal and crackers and bags of junk food were scattered around and there was a collection of apples slowly going soft. Cracks between the counter and sink and stove had accumulated black grime, maybe even mold, and he thought he saw a large insect skittering among the dirty dishes.
Wen Qing came back into the kitchen in a clean pair of scrubs, holding a towel, which she gave to Lan Wangji. He took it, looking a question at her.
“Your pants also got dirty,” she told him. “So you don’t get your car dirty.”
He took it and thanked her, then led her to his car.
“I didn’t know you and A-Xian were still so close,” Wen Qing said, as Lan Wangji pulled out of the parking spot.
“We spoke every week,” Lan Wangji said, carefully merging into traffic.
“Yeah,” Wen Qing said, with a little laugh. “He insisted he had to keep 5 pm to 6 pm clear no matter what. I think A-Xian has been late to literally everything else in his life except talking to you.”
Lan Wangji didn’t know what to say to this, so he didn’t say anything. After a moment, Wen Qing gave him a few more directions, then said “you must really care about him, to come all this way looking for him, when he just missed one phone call, yesterday.”
This seemed like it was some kind of question, so Lan Wangji thought about it for a minute, trying to figure out what she was asking. Finally, he said, quietly, his eyes on the road. "You know what he means to me."
And out of the corner of his eye he saw Wen Qing, who he hadn't really talked to in ten years, who he'd never been particularly close to, close her eyes, press her lips together, nod once.
They were quiet after that, Wen Qing occasionally giving Lan Wangji directions to her work until he pulled up in front of the hospital.
She looked at him. “Thanks for the ride,” she said. “And picking up my stuff. I’m sorry I don’t know more about where A-Xian is. But, Wangji…” she hesitated. “I don’t think he would have just left us like that if he had a choice. I know he has a reputation for being flaky, but I don’t think it’s true, not where it counts.”
Lan Wangji took his wallet from the center console, and slipped a business card out of it, holding it out to her. “I know he wouldn’t,” he agreed. “Here. If you need anything, just let me know.”
She took the business card doubtfully as if she couldn't imagine what she could possibly need that he could provide, then looked back up at him and nodded and slipped it into his pocket.
His pants were uncomfortably wet, from the slush, probably ruined, and he thought about stopping somewhere and buying new ones, maybe getting a hotel room, taking a shower, and getting some sleep before driving back to the city, but instead he entered his apartment into his GPS and drove straight there, even though he had to blink to keep his eyes open.
He got back to his house before noon and took a nap, or tried to take a nap. Lying in bed during the day was strange and he found himself drifting in and out, his thoughts circling uselessly.
He thought of Wei Ying, he remembered Wei Ying, he dreamed of Wei Ying, he woke with the taste of Wei Ying on his tongue, the sound of Wei Ying's voice in his ear, the sound so clear and real it hurt to blink his eyes open to a world in which Wei Ying had somehow been lost.
(How do you lose a person in the 21st century? How do you lose a person when the internet exists?)
When it was time he got up and made and ate dinner, then played his guqin for an hour, then mediated, then went to sleep.
He spent most of the week in the way he normally did, waking at 5, going for a run, showering and making breakfast, taking the train to work. Except he kept finding himself stopping. On his runs, he’d discover he’d suddenly come to a standstill. The water in the shower would begin to grow cold and he’d realize he hadn’t finished washing his hair. He’d pause in the middle of eating breakfast and then suddenly his tea would be cold, he’d be playing the guqin as twilight grew, and then suddenly it would be dark.
“Brother,” he said, on Tuesday night, as he and Lan Xichen sat around Lan Xichen’s maple dining room table eating winter melon soup. “I think there’s something wrong with my brain.” This was a conversation he should have had with his therapist or autism coach, maybe, but somehow, sometimes still Brother understood him better. Brother shared his DNA, was the only one who knew the endless combat of their early lives, the endless silence of their Uncle's house, the endless weight of their family expectations.
Lan Xichen looked at him, over the top of the reading glasses he’d lately started wearing, although Lan Wangji couldn’t say why his brother was wearing reading glasses to eat soup.
Lan Wangji explained about Wei Ying going missing and then the weird pauses he’d experienced that day.
“Ah,” Lan Xichen said. “It sounds like grief.”
“Grief?” Lan Wangji repeated, skeptically.
Lan Xichen nodded. “Radical changes in how you perceive the world, like the death of someone very dear to you, can cause cognitive problems as your brain tries to reconcile the world as it is with the world as it was.”
Lan Xichen had gotten a double major in undergraduate in psychology and philosophy and sometimes it really showed.
“No one died though,” Lan Wangji said.
“You said that Wen Qing said that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have left if he had had a choice,” Lan Xichen said. “You said you agreed with her.”
Lan Wangji nodded.
“What are you interpreting that as, if you don’t think it implies that Wei Wuxian is dead?” Lan Xichen continued, gently.
Lan Wangji blinked, and then looked down at his soup. There were ripples in it as if a small rainstorm was falling only on his bowl. “Wei Ying can’t be dead,” he said, to the bowl. His voice came out rough and broken, like some tortured animal.
Lan Xichen rested one of his long-fingered hands-on Lan Wangji’s shoulder. “Why not?” he asked, quietly.
“Because,” Lan Wangji began, but of course there was no end to that sentence. Anyone could die at any time. Mother had died. Father had died. Everyone died eventually. Wei Wuxian had devoted two years of his life to taking care of the Wen family and then suddenly disappeared. What could have caused that but death?
The soup tasted saltier than it had before. What was in tears besides salt and water? That was the kind of thing Wei Ying would have known. Some kind of proteins, probably. White blood cells. He could call him up and ask him.
That's why Wei Ying couldn't be dead. He could still hear Wei Ying's laughter, could still feel Wei Ying's hand cupping his cheek the way it had the first time they'd kissed, lying on the guest bed in Uncle's house. After, his lips had tingled in a way that had made him watch to keep touching them.
His lips still tingled. That's why Wei Ying couldn't be dead. Lan Wangji had always been going to kiss him again. Was- he was going to kiss him again, someday. When Wei Ying...
Lan Wangji dropped the spoon and felt his fingers, very carefully, curl up against his palm. There was a noise he was listening to, a static-y kind of noise and it was loud enough that it drowned out whatever Brother was saying.
In his head, Lan Wangji threw his bowl of soup across the room. In his head the bowl shattered on the wall, the soup splattered across the thick beige carpet. In his head he knocked over the table, the bowls and plates smashing together, the utensils chiming and flicking sliver glints around the room, the water glasses shattering into millions of pieces, the vase of flowers spilling a cascade of de-thorned roses across the floor, then smashing into the stems like replacement thorns.
In his head he screamed and screamed and screamed until nothing came out of his throat but blood.
All while sitting so still, so perfectly still, hands only loosely curled into fists, jaw closed but not tensed. A meltdown that would not get him in trouble. A meltdown everyone else could ignore.
Wei Ying could not be dead, because if he was, Lan Wangji was a ghost. Wei Ying was the only one to ever see him for who he was, the only one to ever really understand what he wanted to say. Without him he was invisible or worse, always masked, always hidden from view. Without Wei Ying, he spoke in garbled sentences, communicated only in misunderstandings. Without Wei Ying, Lan Wangji could not exist in the world.
Lan Wangji had been a ghost before, had lived fourteen years of his life without knowing Wei Ying existed. And then there had been the bad years during undergraduate when Lan Wangji had gotten Depressed and Wei Ying had gotten Addicted and they’d lost touch.
And there were the hours he had lived between Sunday evening at 6 pm and the next Sunday at 5 pm when Wei Ying wasn’t there to see him or know him or understand him. How much harder could life possibly be without that one hour a week?
Impossible, a voice at the back of his mind said. Completely impossible. He shoved it away. He shoved and shoved until the hurt was curled into a small enough portion of his mind that he could begin to see again, see how the light from the windows had changed from the golden glow of the sun to the orange of streetlights, see how Brother had cleared the table, left him sitting alone in the dark dining room.
He blinked, stretched his fingers, ignored how much his muscles ached.
Brother stood in the doorway, backlit from the kitchen behind him. He didn't ask 'are you okay?' He didn't even ask 'should you call your therapist?' He didn't ask if Lan Wangji wanted a hug.
Lan Wangji stood. “I should get home,” he said. "I am still behind on sleep.”
His brother hesitated. Something had broken their relationship into a million tiny pieces once and they'd never figured out how to repair it into something that worked. Lan Wangji still didn't know what it was. They'd survived their parents' death and what had happened before it, had survived the coldness of Uncle's house but hadn't survived, somehow, becoming adults.
“Wangji,” Brother began and then stopped. “Wangji, you can call on me for anything. You know that.”
Lan Wangji nodded and did his best to smile at Brother. “It’s okay,” he told him. “It’s just grief. People have died before.”
No, that voice in his mind said. No one. Not like this.
Lan Xichen gave Lan Wangji a look not much different from the look he always gave him, the look that said ‘I’m concerned for you, but I don’t know what to do,’ and also, ‘please let me in’, and also ‘just tell me what you need’, and also, most painfully, ‘I don’t understand you.’
He didn’t offer a hug. Lan Wangji had long ago trained the people he was closest to to never touch him. Wei Ying wouldn’t have respected that. Wei Ying would have hugged him anyway. Without Wei Ying in the world, maybe Lan Wangji would never be hugged again.
He walked down the stairs and walked the two miles back to his apartment.
The most striking thing about grief, he thought, when his brain had enough room to allow for meta-cognition, was how isolating it is. How was it possible that Wei Ying could be dead and people still laughed and smiled and talked about tv shows and celebrity gossip? How could Lan Wangji be walking around with a war-torn landscape inside of him and not one person around him knew anything was wrong?
And then he thought of Wen Qing and baby A-Yuan with their faces covered in tears and snot. He wasn’t the only one devastated.
The more he thought about them, the more his heart twisted. He’d only had Wei Ying one hour a week, but the Wens had had him every day, had depended on him for child care and income, and, Lan Wangji didn’t doubt, joy. Wei Ying was brilliant and beautiful and generous, but more than anything else he was full of light, finding humor in all the darkest things, smiling at Lan Wangji like he hung the moon.
He thought of that cramped, dirty apartment, the piles of dirty dishes and trash, the mold growing in the cracks on the counter, Wen Qing’s face when he asked about Wei Ying.
How were they going to survive without him? he wondered. How was he going to survive without him?
He didn’t really realize he’d made the decision until instead of going hiking on Saturday he found himself doing his errands, standing in the middle of the grocery store wondering what was healthy for toddlers to eat, and finally just buying a lot more of what he usually bought, plus a lot of cereal and crackers, since he’d seen the empty boxes of them on the Wens' counter.
He loaded the bags into his car and then stood there, looking at them, wondering what his plan was. He didn’t have one, obviously. He was just going to drive out there and hope they were home and drop a pile of groceries on them and…?
It was stupid, he thought. This is stupid. You’re not supposed to just show up at people’s houses. You’re not supposed to bring them bags of groceries. You’re not supposed to shove yourself into people’s lives, especially people who were grieving. But Lan Wangji’s life now had a giant hole in it and the Wens’ had lost Wei Ying as well, and he couldn’t help thinking- and thinking and thinking- that those holes could somehow fit together.
So he rose early on Sunday- as early as he normally rose- and grabbed the towel Wen Qing had lent him, the bags of groceries he’d put in the refrigerator, and tried very hard not to think about what he was doing.
He drove the same route he had before, the road even more empty because it was Sunday, making him feel not just that he was at sea, but that he was at sea and alone in the world. The week before he hadn’t thought Wei Ying was gone; he’d thought he was overreacting, that it was silly to worry about someone missing a phone call. He’d thought that until he’d see Wen Qing cry, until she’d told him Wei Ying was missing.
He’d thought Wei Ying was probably just tired of him, tired of his insistence that the phone call always happen at the same time, tired of talking to a silent phone, tired of how much Lan Wangji needed Wei Ying, how he was the only one Lan Wangji really had when Wei Ying had so, so many people.
He’d felt then like he usually felt, pathetic and built wrong, and not like he felt now: utterly destroyed.
He parked in the same place as he had before, hesitating before grabbing the groceries. He considered leaving them in the car, exposing Wen Qing to his weirdness one small step at a time, but then thought of Wei Ying saying ‘if you’re going to be weird, be full weird.’
“Be full weird,” he told himself, squishing the towel into one of the bags and looping the straps of the reusable bags over his arms.
He retraced his steps from the week before, up into the dingy hallway, the disgusting carpet, the scratched walls, and stopped in front of the door. The apartment was quieter this time and Lan Wangji was suddenly afraid he’d gotten there too early, that he might wake them up if he knocked, and he was considering going back to his car, waiting in it for a few hours more, but he heard some quiet voices behind the door, steeled himself, raised his hand and knocked.
A moment later Wen Qing opened the door, gaping at him as she had the first time. Behind her, he could see her brother, Wen Ning, the family resemblance clear from their shared confused, shocked, expressions.
“Lan Wangji,” Wen Qing said, finally. “Um…” she looked down at the grocery bags.
“I came to return your towel,” Lan Wangji said, fishing the towel from the bag he’d stuffed it into and handing it to Wen Qing.
She took it, still looking confused. “Oh, thank you,” she said, finally. “Don’t you live in the city though? You didn’t have to drive all that way just to return the towel.” She looked at the grocery bags again, then up at him.
“I, ah, also bought too many groceries yesterday,” Lan Wangji said. “I thought maybe you could use them?”
Wen Qing looked again at the grocery bags, then again up at Lan Wangji. He felt like he must be missing something, that that look must mean something, but he couldn’t figure out what. So he just looked at her and she just looked at him and Wen Ning’s eyes flickered between both of them and if Wei Ying had been here he’d have thought it was the funniest thing and he’d have made fun of them and broken the tension and then everything would be okay.
Had he cried? Had he cried when he’d spent an entire night dialing Wei Ying’s number and receiving no reply? Had he cried when he sat in the car no knowing what to do? Or when he’d sat next to Wen Qing and gave her tissue after tissue? Had he cried when his mind kept stopping, when his brother suggested the obvious truth, when he’d kept feeling the absence of Wei Ying in the world in the way that a tongue probes the absence of a tooth?
He must have- the salty soup, the private rainstorm.
Now he was crying again, and it wasn’t the slow overbrimming, the slipping of tears out of overflowing eyes, soft and smooth and graceful, like how people cried in movies, beautifully, calmly. No- he was bent, over like sadness was something he was trying to vomit out, his breath coming in ragged gulps, each sob wracking his body, the tears flooding his sinuses, his nose overflowing as much as his eyes.
Hands grasped him, pulled him in- he couldn’t see, couldn’t think who it was- took the bags from his hands, sat him down on the couch, wrapped around him. Wei Ying had been the last person, maybe the only one who’d ever held him like this, arms heavy and steady and patient, and that made him cry more, into whoever it was’s sleeve, leaking and shuddering until he was wrung and worn out, emptied, hollow.
“Here,” Wen Qing said, pressing a warm damp cloth into his hands, sitting down on his other side, waiting as he pressed the cloth against his eyes, used it to clean his face, then finally pulled it away, handing to back to her sodden now with snot. She traded it for a hot mug of tea, getting up to throw the washcloth in the sink, then sitting down again.
“I’m sorry,” Lan Wangji said, when he could speak. It seemed incalculably wrong, to show up on their doorstep and then to burst into tears. He’d meant to help them, to ease their lives just a little.
No, that wasn’t true, was it? He’d come because he thought it would make grieving Wei Ying easier, to be around people who had also loved him.
“I didn’t mean to come here and to start crying like that,” he said. “I was just thinking… in the hallway, how much easier it would be if Wei Ying was here- how’d he laugh at us staring at each other like that.”
The person who’d been hugging Lan Wangji all this time- it must have been Wen Ning- laughed, a short, nervous laugh, and Wen Qing smiled. “He would have,” she agreed, then sighed. “Wangji, why did you bring us groceries?”
Lan Wangji thought: I should be honest, I need to be honest, and took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then tried again. “I miss Wei Ying- Wei Wuxian- so much,” he said, finally. “Even though I only talked to him once a week. The thought that he might be gone.” He pressed his lips together and waited until he felt the threat of tears passing. “I thought you must miss him so much more. And you needed him to help you with A-Yuan and money and everything. So I thought maybe if I helped you a little I wouldn’t feel so sad.” And because of his promise to himself to be honest, he added “And lonely.”
Wen Qing pursed her lips and looked away, but Wen Ning hugged him a little tighter for a moment. “Okay,” she said.
“Okay?” Lan Wangji asked. It seemed like she was agreeing to something, but he didn’t understand what.
“We’ll take your groceries,” she said in a tone that made it clear that they were doing him a favor.
Lan Wangji nodded, seriously, and said “thank you.”
It was a rare morning, Lan Wangji found out later, when neither of the Wen siblings had to be at work. Wen Ning made pancakes, using the strawberries Lan Wangji bought them, and Wen Qing put the groceries Lan Wangji bought away, stopping now and then to puzzle over something. Lan Wangji gathered that there was something unusual about the cereal he bought or the crackers or the vegetables, but he wasn’t sure what.
Lan Wangji walked to the stove and began washing the dishes, persisting despite Wen Ning’s efforts to stop him, telling him he was a guest and he shouldn't do work. But it was comforting to wash them, to do something so simple and easy that made such a large difference to the state of the kitchen- Lan Wangji had always liked doing the dishes, the act of taking something dirty and making it clean.
He was still feeling a little shaky as he worked his way through the stacks of dishes, the smell of pancakes filling the air. His eyes were still stinging and his face felt raw. His whole body felt raw, like he’d been turned inside-out. It was a surprisingly refreshing feeling.
Wen Qing came over and started drying the dishes that were piling up, and she and Wen Ning talked, then A-Yuan came running out into the kitchen, excited for pancakes, followed by Granny, who was exactly as advertised, a wrinkle old white-haired woman, someone short who’d been made shorter, become compressed and stooped with age.
“Xian-gege!” the toddler yelled and wrapped his arms around Lan Wangji’s legs and Wen Qing and Wen Ning turned full of hope and then they realized what had happened and their faces fell. Lan Wangji wondered how much he looked like Wei Ying from the back, both of them with long black hair, tall and slender. A toddler probably couldn’t distinguish Lan Wangji’s rigid posture from Wei Ying’s easy grace.
Lan Wangji stooped down, his hands still wet and soapy and looked at A-Yuan, who looked back at him, confused. “You’re not Xian-gege,” A-Yuan accused, and his face scrunching up in the prelude to a tantrum.
Wen Qing pulled him away from Lan Wangji and lifted him easily into her arms. “Look, A-Yuan,” she said. “Strawberries. Lan-gege brought strawberries for us.” She picked one up from the carton and held it to the baby’s lips, and he leaned forward and bit it, red juice running down his neck. “Isn’t he nice, bringing us strawberries?”
“Nice,” A-Yuan agreed, forgetting his anger, grabbing the strawberry with his chubby hands. “Nice gege.”
Lan Wangji returned to the sink again, finishing up the last of the dishes while Wen Ning set the tiny kitchen table and the Wens’ old uncle shuffled into the room and then they were eating, crowded around the table, A-Yuan perched on Wen Ning’s lap, everyone remarking happily about the strawberries, such extravagance in the middle of the winter, and Granny and Uncle looked curiously at Lan Wangji but didn't ask any questions and something about it felt right so to Lan Wangji, like finding a place that felt like home, and at the same time heartbreaking, like finding a place that felt like home and knowing you didn’t belong there.
When the meal was over and they were cleaning up, Lan Wangji said to Wen Qing, “I’d like to help.”
She looked at him, washing dishes again, and raised an eyebrow.
“I mean when we’re done,” he said. “On Sundays, I usually do chores and errands. You don’t have a car, right? I could help you run errands, if you have any, or if there are some things you need cleaned?”
“Why?” she asked. It’s the same why she asked before. “We’re not a charity you can just bring groceries to or do dishes at to feel better about yourself.”
“Jiejie!” Wen Ning scolded.
“Wei Ying wanted to help you,” Lan Wangji said, after struggling with the question for a long minute. “And I wish I could help Wei Ying.”
“Helping is not transitive,” Wen Qing said. “It does not logically follow that therefore you wish to help us.”
“Perhaps not logically,” Lan Wangji said.
“Jiejie,” Wen Ning said, again. “Why not?”
“Why not?” Wen Qing demanded. “Why not allow another person with a savior complex into our lives? Someone else we grow to depend on until something happens and he too disappears?”
“Yes,” Wen Ning said. “We need help, Lan Wangji wants to help. And…it comforts him to be here. Right?” he asked Lan Wangji, who nodded. “See? It’s a trade.”
“You’re always saying that,” Wen Qing said. “You always think it’s a trade.”
“It is,” Wen Ning insisted. “You think time and money are more valuable than emotions, but what’s more important than being happy?”
“Wei Ying used to say that,” Lan Wangji said.
Wen Qing rolled her eyes. “Usually about why he didn’t do his homework,” she said, sighing.
“I haven’t made any promises to you,” Lan Wangji said. “Just brought you some groceries. I just want to stay here for a little while longer.”
“Wei Wuxian isn’t going to walk through that door any moment!” Wen Qing snapped. “If you’re waiting here for him, you’re going to be waiting forever.”
“You don’t know that!” Wen Ning exclaimed. “You don’t know what happened to him. He could have… he could come back!”
“I have accepted that,” Lan Wangji told Wen Qing. “I’m not expecting him. I just… I don’t want to be alone.”
Wen Qing snorted and turned away. “Fine,” she said. “Whatever. Clean the place if you want to so much.” She grabbed her bag. “I’m going to be late to work.”
“Thank you,” Lan Wangji said, gravely.
“I’m sorry about Jiejie,” Wen Ning said, when she’d slammed the door behind her. “It’s been really hard for her. She’s the oldest- well, except Granny and Uncle- and she feels responsible for all of us. Wei Wuxian going missing was really a blow.” He hesitated.
“I think he was dealing,” he said, finally.
Lan Wangji frowned. “Drugs?” he asked.
Wen Ning nodded.
“He told me he was clean,” Lan Wangji said. “He was very proud of it.”
“I don’t think he was using,” Wen Ning said. “I think he was doing it for the money, to support us. I got really sick and we didn’t have medical insurance and we didn’t know how we were going to pay the debt and then suddenly Wei Wuxian was bringing home more than he should have been able to make delivering pizza. We knew, A-Qing and I, well, we suspected what he must have been getting up to, and we should have stopped him, but at the time it seemed like that was the only way we could keep a roof over our heads, and so we didn’t.”
Lan Wangji thought Wen Ning must have felt guilty, so he said “he made his own choices.”
Wen Ning smiled and nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “No one ever told Wei Wuxian what to do.”
“You don’t have a car, do you?” Lan Wangji asked. “If you have any errands to run that would be much easier with a car, I’d be happy to take you.”
“Oh,” Wen Ning said, with a smile. “Usually that would be getting the groceries, but you’ve already done that.”
Lan Wangji nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Then why don’t you show me where your cleaning supplies are?”
For the rest of the day he scrubbed and mopped and scraped and wiped, only stopping to make lunch and dinner. He started in the kitchen, shoving the empty boxes and bags and other trash into trash bags Wen Ning found for him, stacking the pile of mail into a neat heap, scouring the kitchen counters and the stove, even emptying out the refrigerator, making executive decisions on what was too old to keep, cleaning the shelves before putting everything neatly back in.
When Wen Qing came back, Lan Wangji was stirring a large pot of soup, talking to Granny (or, rather, listening to Granny talk), while A-Yuan played on the newly cleaned carpet at her feet.
Wen Qing came in and dropped her bag on the floor, then looked around. “Well,” she said, finally. “For a rich boy, you’re not bad at cleaning.”
Lan Wangji bowed to her. “This one does not deserve such deep praise,” he said.
Wen Qing rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
“I should go home,” Lan Wangji said. “It is a long trip and I’m tired.”
Wen Qing nodded. “Thank you for cleaning our house and cooking dinner. I’m sorry I wasn’t more welcoming.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Lan Wangji said. “I did just barge in here.”
Wen Qing smiled. “Are you planning on barging in here next week?”
Lan Wangji hesitated, then nodded.
“Well,” Wen Qing said. “If you’re going to go grocery shopping, especially if you’re going to one of the Asian markets, let me know ahead of time and I’ll give you a list.”
“I will,” Lan Wangji said, and said goodbye to her and Granny and Uncle (A-Yuan was asleep) and left.
Lan Wangji had always assumed that grief was like a clean wound, something that hurt the most when it was inflicted and slowly healed, the pain lessening until it was just a twinge that reminded you now and then what you had lost. That’s how it had been, he assumed, when his mother and then his father died, although he had been very young then; it had been hard to remember clearly. Pain was like that; something you couldn’t remember directly, only the damage it did to your life.
But his grief for Wei Ying was an infected wound. Every week the contamination spread.
At first, going to the Wens once a week was enough; looking forward to the visits tamped down the hopelessness, the loneliness, until it was bearable. When he was there, enveloped in the easy warmth of the desperate family, Wei Ying was so real, so tangible his loss made sense.
He brought them groceries every Sunday, cooked meals for the rest of the week, packing lunches for Wen Qing and Wen Ning, freezing dishes that could survive the process of being frozen and reheated so they’d have food available for an emergency. He cleaned and fixed things; broken lights and missing screws, a leaking faucet, a door that wouldn’t quite shut, a window that wouldn’t open.
In the afternoons, he and Granny and A-Yuan would troop down to the car, Lan Wangji bringing bags full of dirty laundry, A-Yuan carrying a backpack full of books and toys, and they’d drive to the laundromat, where Granny and Lan Wangji would sort the clothes and linens, then argue about what setting to put each washer on, and A-Yuan would first sit in front of the washing machines in dazed wonder, then would find a toy and pretend it was exploring the laundromat, then would curl up in Granny’s lap and listen to her read a book or tell a story as Lan Wangji got up to move the clothes from the washers to the dryers, listening to Granny and A-Yuan talking. Then they would fold the laundry, Granny chastising Lan Wangji for being too careful, too slow, and pack it back into the bags.
Slowly, as if he could sneak them past Wen Qing, he bought them things they desperately needed; new clothes for A-Yuan, who was rapidly growing out of his, winter clothing for Granny and Uncle, new towels, a bunk bed for the room that Wen Ning, Uncle and A-Yuan shared so everything would fit into it better, pans that weren’t scratched and dented, a floor mat to make it easier on Granny’s knees when she did the dishes.
But, like rot working its way through the body, the pain of Wei Ying’s absence deepened, ate away at the quick of him every moment he was away from the Wens. In his apartment, impossibly clean and spacious and sparse compared to the Wens, the gray walls undecorated, the hardwood cabinets holding enough dishes for eight, even though he never had anyone over, the living room an empty sea of pristine carpet, there was nothing to insulate him from that insidious pain, the thoughts that spiraled about him like a whirlwind, feeding back on themselves, gaining him nothing.
On the train, in his office, it was the same. Once the barrier between him and other people had protected him like an invisible shell. People were dangerous, unknowable, volatile balls of emotion. They didn’t care that Lan Wangji’s brain worked differently- they took every difference as a slight- his hesitations, his expressions, his overly formal language, his stiff posture, his stillness. They were offended when he spoke and offended when he didn’t speak. It was better to be separate from them, better to be alone.
But now the insulation seemed to go the other way, kept him lonely rather than alone, frozen, unable to reach out. Even his brother seemed impossibly far. On their Tuesday night dinners, he would open his mouth to say something about it, about the screaming black void that was the loss of Wei Ying, of how he woke some nights in terror, and then closed it again, words unspoken. He didn’t tell his brother of his trips west, of the Wens and how proud he felt for repairing their broken heater. He didn’t tell him about the feeling of being home.
Brother only found out because they ran into each other at the Asian grocery store one Saturday, Brother’s cart full of vegetables you couldn’t get in the American grocery stores; king oyster mushrooms, bitter melon, gailan, Lan Wangji’s from the ingredients on Wen Qing’s list, texted to him late the night before; frozen meats, frozen dumplings, doubanjiang, pickled mustard greens, honey ginger tea syrup, and a vast array of other things Lan Wangji had never tried- brightly colored snacks and candies, packets of instant dried noodles.
Brother looked at Lan Wangji in surprise, looked down at Lan Wangji’s cart in surprise.
“Brother,” Lan Wangji said.
“Wangji,” Brother replied. “I thought you went hiking on Saturdays and did your shopping on Sundays.”
“Oh,” Lan Wangji said. “I changed.”
“You changed?” Brother repeated, seeming almost alarmed.
Lan Wangji nodded. “Now I go shopping on Saturdays,” he said.
Brother looked down at the cart. “And you’ve started eating meat?” he asked.
Lan Wangji shook his head. “I’m picking up groceries for some friends,” he explained. “There isn’t a good Asian grocery store near them.”
“Friends?” Brother repeated. Lan Wangji was beginning to get annoyed with him. He didn’t have to keep stating the obvious and repeating what Lan Wangji said.
“Yes,” Lan Wangji said.
“Ah,” Brother said, suddenly seeming to realize there was a trio of old women glaring at him for blocking their access to one of the freezer doors. He gave Lan Wangji a look that said ‘I’ll interrogate you about this Tuesday’, and wheeled his cart away.
On Sunday, Lan Wangji was eating tomato omelets with the Wens when someone knocked hard on the door. They all looked at each other in confusion, then a voice said, loudly ‘I know you’re in there, Wei Wuxian. Let me in.’
Lan Wangji tensed up, remembering what Wen Ning had said about Wei Ying dealing, but Wen Qing rolled her eyes and got up, and unbolted and unlocked the door, letting it swing wide. A man swaggered in wearing a dark purple bowling jacket embroidered with lighter purple dragons, and looking about the place with a fierce glare.
“Where is he?” he demanded of Wen Qing, and Lan Wangji suddenly recognized him as Jiang Cheng, Wei Ying’s asshole brother.
Jiang Cheng turned his glare on the table and Wen Ning blushed and looked away and Granny and Uncle stared back unperturbed and A-Yuan waved his spoon and called “Hi, angry-gege!”
“He’s not here,” Wen Qing said.
“Well, when will he be here?” Jiang Cheng demanded. “He hasn’t texted A-Li back in five weeks and she’s starting to really worry about him, and it’s not good in her condition…”
“We don’t know,” Wen Qing said.
“You don’t know?” Jiang Cheng repeated, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “What, like, he didn’t tell you where he was going?”
“Like he went to work five weeks ago and he never came back,” Wen Qing said, crossing her own arms.
Inexplicably, Jiang Cheng burst into laughter. “You mean he flaked on you too?” he cried, doubling over with the violence of his sick amusement.
“No,” Wen Qing said. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“He did it to me,” Jiang Cheng claimed.
“No,” Wen Qing said, again. “He turned down a job offer from you. He didn’t leave you without the means to pay rent or provide childcare. Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have ‘flaked out’ on us.”
“Wow,” Jiang Cheng said. “You really overestimated him, huh?”
“Leave,” Wen Qing said, coldly.
“You really have no idea where he is?” Jiang Cheng persisted.
“I have an idea where you’ll be,” Wen Qing threatened. “If you don’t stop insulting your brother and get out of my apartment.”
“Seriously?” Jiang Cheng demanded. “You’re seriously mad at me over this?”
“I’m mad at you for not even considering the possibility that your brother might be in serious trouble or worse. I’m mad at you for taking five weeks to realize that something might be wrong with him,” Wen Qing said. “Lan Wangji was here four days after he vanished.”
“Lan Wangji?” Jiang Cheng repeated, confused, then his eyes found Lan Wangji sitting squished between Uncle and Wen Ning.
Lan Wangji scowled at Jiang Cheng, but he probably couldn’t tell.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jiang Cheng demanded.
“Eating breakfast,” Lan Wangji replied, not that Jiang Cheng deserved an answer.
“You… what…” Jiang Cheng shook his head. “You really think Wei Wuxian might be in serious trouble?” he asked Wen Qing.
Wen Qing sighed, but Wen Ning answered. “We think he might have been dealing,” he said. “Might have gotten caught up in something.”
“Dealing?!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed. “That idiot! I thought he was clean.”
“He was,” Wen Qing defended. “He was just trying to keep a roof over our heads.”
“And you let him? Wen Qing? You let him do something like that for you?”
Wen Qing looked at him, her eyes murderous. “What choice did we have, exactly? I didn’t see you, with all your resources, lifting a finger to help.”
“A-Qing!” Wen Ning protested.
“Wei Wuxian always did what he wanted to,” Wen Qing continued. “I’ve never seen you manage to stop him from making stupid choices. I don’t know why you think I’d be able to.”
“And you, Lan Wangji,” Jiang Cheng accused. “You let him?”
Lan Wangji blinked at him. “I didn’t know,” he said, mildly, although maybe that was a lie, maybe he could have seen through the holes in Wei Wuxian’s stories if he’d been listening. If he’d been paying closer attention.
Jiang Cheng stomped over to the couch and flopped down onto it, covering his face with his hands. “You checked all the hospitals?” he asked, his voice muffled.
“Of course,” Wen Qing replied, defensively.
“You contact the police?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“Of course not!” Wen Qing exclaimed.
“Of course not?” Jiang Cheng repeated.
“If he was doing something illegal,” Wen Qing said. “I didn’t want the cops involved.”
“I’ll hire a private detective,” Jiang Cheng said.
Wen Qing hesitated, then nodded. “Okay,” she said.
Jiang Cheng pulled himself up off the couch and walked towards the door, but stopped halfway to look at Lan Wangji again. “But seriously,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Leave him alone,” Wen Qing said. “He’s eating breakfast.”
Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes at Lan Wangji, then shook his head, and left, slamming the door behind him.
“Angry uncle is angry,” A-Yuan observed.
Wen Ning broke into laughter that sounded kind of hysterical until Wen Qing’s glare successfully suppressed him. “Sorry,” he said, finally. “Wei Wuxian… Wei Wuxian used to call him ‘angry grape’- because he always wears purple and I just kept thinking of that.”
“Do you think the private detective is a good idea?” Lan Wangji asked, frowning.
Wen Qing shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter,” she said. “He’d do it no matter what I thought. Well, maybe at least we’ll get some answers.” She stood up and took the plates, bringing them over to the sink. “I’ve got to get ready for work.”
Lan Wangji and Wen Ning cleaned the kitchen after Wen Qing left, Lan Wangji unable to stop the conversation from running through his head.
He’d never liked Jiang Cheng when they’d been at school together. Never liked the Jiangs in general, though Jiang Yanli had to be the exception to that. They’d never loved Wei Ying the way he deserved to be loved. He’d always been holding his breath, waiting for them to change their mind, to reject him, and they had, eventually.
Something had happened, something confusing, complicated. It was why the Wens, who’d gone to private school with the rest of them, were now living in this run-down apartment, why Wei Ying had left Cloud Recesses, and Lan Wangji so long ago.
Wei Ying had been holding his breath with Lan Wangji too, back then, waiting for him to realize one day he didn’t want him. Wei Ying, who had been the star at the center of Lan Wangji’s solar system, who still was, who had so much gravitational pull that even when he was gone Lan Wangji orbited him.
Jiang Cheng hadn’t been the one who'd kicked Wei Ying out, couldn’t really be blamed for it. He’d been a child then. They’d all been children. But on some level, Lan Wangji couldn’t help blaming him, couldn’t help feeling that he was complicit, that he never asked exactly what happened, never stopped blaming Wei Ying for leaving him when Wei Ying had never had a choice.
Lan Wangji cleaned and cooked and did the laundry with A-Yuan and Granny and then found himself back on the couch of the Wens’ apartment, staring blankly at the television, which wasn’t even on. He was still there when Wen Ning got back home from his late shift, smelling like grease and cheese.
Wen Ning sat down on the couch beside him. Wen Ning had always been quiet, tagging around with their little crowd in high school, the youngest, the shyest. He’d hero-worshipped Wei Ying, had tried to copy his style, had been so happy every time Wei Ying paid him attention.
So had Lan Wangji. In so many ways he and Wen Ning had been the same.
“You still have the bracelet he gave you,” Wen Ning said, pointed to the tattered black rope bracelet dotted with red glass beads Wei Ying had given him so long ago. He smiled faintly. “Of course you do,” he said. “You loved him so much.”
“We all loved him,” Lan Wangji said.
Wen Ning smiled and shook his head. “I remember how you used to look at him when you didn’t think anyone could see you.” He sighed. “I remember how he used to look at you. When he told us you’d broken up…” He shook his head again.
“I would have done anything,” Lan Wangji said. "To keep him." He tried to swallow the lump in his throat.
“And he wouldn’t let you,” Wen Ning said. “That was Wei Wuxian all over- he’d sacrifice his life for a stranger but wouldn’t accept the smallest bit of help from the person he loved the most in the world.” He sniffed. Lan Wangji realized Wen Ning was crying. Well, Lan Wangji was crying too. He wiped his face angrily. How many times would he cry over Wei Ying? He was so tired of it.
“That’s you, by the way,” Wen Ning said. “The person he loved the most in the world. He was so excited for those conversations, every Sunday. He’d make such a big deal out of it. ‘Everyone be quiet, Lan Zhan’s about to call me.’ It was so stupid. He was so stupid. ‘Why don’t you just go to him?’ we’d ask him. ‘No, no,’ he’d say, ‘Lan Zhan doesn’t want me like that.’ Even though we all knew what he meant to you. He knew too, he just couldn’t…”
“I know,” Lan Wangji said.
Wen Ning leaned against Lan Wangji. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, a few weeks ago. About helping us because you can’t help him. About not wanting to be alone. I was thinking that we should help you because he can’t. It feels right to have you here,” Wen Ning said, and sniffled a little. “Not because you’re buying us things and cleaning and everything, but because it’s like you’re a little piece of Wei Wuxian that’s come home. Why don’t you just stay, Lan Wangji? Sleep on the couch, or my bed if you’d rather.” He laughed. “You’re a little long for the couch anyway.”
“What would Wen Qing say?” Lan Wangji asked.
“Wen Qing has to learn that she’s not the majority vote,” Wen Ning said. “Granny agrees with me, and A-Yuan does too, I’m sure.”
“It won’t bring Wei Wuxian back,” Lan Wangji said, softly.
“Wei Wuxian can’t be our home anyone,” Wen Ning said. “We have to build it ourselves now.”