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It’s just as Wei Ying expected: when Lan Zhan sees him, there’s a split second where he falters, like he’s about to trip over his own feet. Then he recovers and strides over.
“You are not a beginner,” is the first thing Lan Zhan says. “Also,” he adds after a beat, “what are you doing here.”
Wei Ying grins and strikes a Ta-da! pose, with jazz hands and everything. “Lan Zhan! Aren’t you happy to see me?” He doesn’t miss the way Lan Zhan narrows his eyes and looks Wei Ying up and down, taking in his ratty sneakers, loose basketball shorts, and the oversized sweater that is definitely going to get in his way once they start shooting. It’s not Wei Ying’s fault that all of his athletic wear is Yunmeng University-branded and highly inappropriate for his first day practicing with Gusu University’s archery team!
When Lan Zhan doesn’t reply –– typical –– Wei Ying pouts. “Aw, come on. You’re looking at the Gusu Civil Engineering department’s star PhD recruit!”
This time there’s a huff of breath from Lan Zhan. His golden eyes rake over Wei Ying’s face again, and then he takes a step closer and leans in, and Wei Ying’s breath hitches, for some reason –– it’s probably the surprise of smelling Lan Zhan’s familiar sandalwood scent again. Lan Zhan reaches out with his arm like he’s about to… about to grab the sign-up clipboard that’s hanging on the wall behind Wei Ying. Wei Ying exhales. Lan Zhan scans the handwritten list of names from everyone who’s shown up to the archery taster session today, finds what he was looking for, takes out a red pen from his pocket, and makes a decisive stroke.
“Leave,” Lan Zhan finally says, showing Wei Ying the clipboard where he’s crossed out Wei Ying’s name, and then cocks his head at the doors to the gym. “You will not make trouble in my class.”
“Oi, that’s no way to talk to your elders, undergrad,” Wei Ying retorts, grabbing the clipboard easily and scrawling his name back onto the list with a flourish.
Wei Ying is secretly pleased, though, that Lan Zhan immediately knew that he’d mainly shown up to this class to see if he could get a rise out of Lan Zhan in front of all the fresh-eyed beginners. It means that the past three years they’ve spent goading each other –– on and off the range at regular intervals, every time Gusu and Yunmeng met for matches –– hasn’t all been for nothing. They may not have spent all that much time together, but they do know each other… One could say that they’re friends, of a sort! And no, Jiang Cheng, not only ironically!
And because of that, Wei Ying is loath to just let Lan Zhan kick him out this soon. He doesn’t have any other plans for the day, and ever since he accepted the offer to come to Gusu for graduate study, he’s been looking forward to joining up with the Gusu archery club, to discover what goes on behind their captain’s mysterious façade… As much fun as varsity-level archery has been, Wei Ying has always loved it for all the people you meet –– only the dorkiest people choose to do archery, after all, and clearly Lan Zhan is no exception. Ever since first year, the more resistant Lan Zhan has been to being won over, the more Wei Ying has wanted to figure out his secret. So here, now, Wei Ying crosses his arms, determined not to go down without a fight, and says, “Besides, what makes you think I’m not here to learn? Maybe I’m considering recurve.”
Lan Zhan hesitates mid-way through reaching for the clipboard in Wei Ying’s grip. His hand hovers in the air as he flexes his fingers open and then curls them shut again, as though he’s unsure what to do with it. “You are?” he says finally, expression sceptical.
“Yeah.” Wei Ying nods, smiling. “I mean, barebow is getting boring, what with me being the best and all. What, are you scared of my direct competition, Lan-laoshi?”
Lan Zhan lets his hand fall back to his side. “If it were true, I would welcome it,” he replies seriously.
“Oh,” Wei Ying says. He’d expected Lan Zhan to–– get mad, or something. The way he usually does. But he didn’t, so now the two of them are standing here, as if they’re… having a normal conversation. How odd. They’ve never had one of those before. “Well,” Wei Ying says again, mainly just to fill the silence. “I, uh.”
Wei Ying’s speechlessness seems to perturb Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan blinks, then says, “Unless––”
“No!! Nope, I’m here to learn,” Wei Ying cuts in. He flashes what he’s sure is a winning, innocent smile.
Another huff. “In that case, please line up with the rest of the students. I will be beginning shortly.”
With that –– and one last lingering glare –– Lan Zhan walks away to commiserate with the rest of the instructors, leaving Wei Ying standing there by the wall, still holding the clipboard.
“Well, you’re my only friend on campus, so you better be nice to me!” Wei Ying calls after Lan Zhan, who simply turns to give him a nod. And as Wei Ying puts the clipboard down –– not before adding a smiley face next to his newly scribbled name –– he finds that he’s feeling strangely short of breath from that brief interaction. He chalks it up to new-school nerves and goes back to join the beginners.
…And, alright, yeah, Wei Ying does have two ‘friends’ on campus –– if you can even call either of them that, considering that one is Lan Zhan, a sports rival who hates him, and the other is… well… Auntie Yu’s high school best friend’s son, who also happened to be starting a degree at Gusu this year. Naturally Auntie Yu had forced Wei Ying to link up with this guy, and even though they have absolutely nothing in common, if Wei Ying so much as goes to buy a coffee without Jin Zixuan in tow, Auntie Yu will somehow find out via the auntie gossip pipeline and chastise Wei Ying for not doing enough to maintain family friendship ties.
“Who was that?” Jin Zixuan asks without looking up from his phone when Wei Ying joins him, his thumbs tapping away furiously at his screen. Wei Ying tries to lean over to get a look at his screen, but Jin Zixuan bats him away. Weirdo.
Wei Ying shrugs. “Oh, no one. Just someone I’ve been seeing around for years. He’s one of the best players on Gusu’s team and he’s kind of anal about the rules. The first time our team came here, we won and had some celebratory drinks in our guest dorms, but he busted us for drinking and the whole team got fined.”
That night, walking the Yunmeng team to the dean’s office, Lan Zhan had looked so deeply disappointed, as though Wei Ying had been the one to snitch and ruin all of Lan Zhan ’s fun. It’s clear from Lan Zhan’s behavior that he has hated Wei Ying ever since that day. There was that time when Wei Ying showed up to a meet dressed like Slutty Legolas, blasting Pony out of his tinny phone speakers, and Lan Zhan had shot a flight so hard he’d pulverised the straw butt, with one arrow getting lodged in the Yunmeng gym wall. He’d refused to talk to Wei Ying until Wei Ying agreed to change out of the outfit. What a bore. Sometimes Wei Ying really does get the impression that Lan Zhan wants to skewer him . Well, let him try. Now that Wei Ying is on his team, he’s about to make Lan Zhan’s life so much more interesting.
Anyway, Wei Ying thinks as one of the instructors blows a whistle to get the beginners’ attention and starts listing off a bunch of vocabulary words. He tunes it out, since he’s already far too familiar with the basics. Recurve is just barebow with a bunch of extra bits. It’s fake archery for wimps who need sights instead of just using their own eyes. How hard could it be? He can’t wait to blow Lan Zhan out of the water.
“Wei Ying, posture,” Lan Zhan intones for about the bajillionth time. If Wei Ying didn’t have a deadly weapon nocked and drawn in his hands right now, he’d throw his arms up and scream.
“I’m doing it,” Wei Ying replies through gritted teeth, acutely aware of the fact that there are three people behind him waiting for their turn on the bow. He’s not trying to take up more time than he’s been given, but every time he tries to shoot, Lan Zhan comes up beside him and makes some comment about how he’s not doing it right, and then he just can’t . Of course Wei Ying knows that constructive criticism always comes from a place of generosity –– he’s regional college barebow champion and a child of Yu Ziyuan, he never would’ve gotten here if he couldn’t handle some tough love –– but he can’t deal with this side of Lan Zhan. This firm, but kind, side; this ‘team captain’ side. Now that it’s directed toward Wei Ying, he doesn’t think he could ever get used to it.
“Your arm must be raised more. Hand tucked under your chin.”
“ It is raised ,” Wei Ying says. And the arm is getting really tired. God, why is he so tense? Why is Lan Zhan still watching?
“Come on, Katniss,” Jin Zixuan calls out, as he steps into the spot next to Wei Ying on the shooting line and effortlessly lines up his sight. “I thought you were supposed to be good at this.”
“I ––” Wei Ying is interrupted by Jin Zixuan letting an arrow fly without even looking. It’s a nine. “What the hell? How are you so good at this?”
Jin Zixuan shrugs. “Maybe you’re fucking up on purpose.” He shoots a sharp look at the back of Lan Zhan’s head before nocking another arrow. “If you stopped blatantly flirting with Lan-duizhang, maybe you’d actually improve.”
“I am not––” Wei Ying splutters as he feels blood rush to his face in embarrassment. “I’m not!”
He really isn’t! Wei Ying hopes Lan Zhan doesn’t think that this is somehow Wei Ying’s idea of flirting, like the girl in a romantic comedy who pretends to be bad at math so that she can get her crush to tutor her. First of all, Wei Ying is way better at flirting than that, just ask all the archery girls from Lanling Liberal Arts College; sure, they all ended up rebuffing him, but like, in a nice, encouraging way. Besides, Lan Zhan and Wei Ying would be completely incompatible… right?!
Wei Ying is startled when Jin Zixuan clears his throat, then pulls his face into a grimace as though to say, Why’d you zone out, weirdo? Or maybe I’m done shooting, you’re alone in this predicament now, bye or maybe even just My name is Jin Zixuan and I suck. They haven’t known each other long enough for Wei Ying to have mastered Jin Zixuan’s grimace language yet. But it’s probably not the last thing, because Wei Ying is definitely getting the impression that he’s being mocked right now. Since Wei Ying’s hands are occupied, he just pulls his face into what is hopefully the grimace version of a middle finger.
Then Wei Ying looks back at Lan Zhan again, who finally reacts: he cocks a single eyebrow. It’s so smug and horribly judgemental, and Wei Ying should really be very indignant about this treatment. But instead he squeaks and lets go of the arrow, which leaves his bow with a whoosh and sails through the air only to fall, limp, onto the ground several meters away from the target.
There’s a moment of silence as everyone in the gym stops to stare, and then pretends not to be staring. Ordinarily, Wei Ying would laugh it off, but there’s something about Lan Zhan’s presence that makes Wei Ying just feel self-conscious in a way he never has before. Maybe because they’d previously been equals, and now Wei Ying is treading on Lan Zhan’s territory in more ways than one. The way Lan Zhan has been looking at him, paying attention to him for the duration of the class makes Wei Ying feel so fidgety that he keeps wanting to ask, What do you want from me?!
Lan Zhan’s gaze, which hasn’t wavered, feels like it’s trying to pin Wei Ying down.
“Lan––”
“Wei––”
Around them, the sounds of people returning to their own shooting start up again, but Lan Zhan still hasn’t budged, mouth set like he’s about to start telling Wei Ying off. Wei Ying lowers his bow, embarrassed, and rests it on his shoe. “Ah, Lan Zhan,” he says, scratching his nape. Thank God Jiang Cheng isn’t here to witness this. “I really am trying, you know.”
“I know,” Lan Zhan replies.
“I guess recurve really isn’t for me.”
“No,” Lan Zhan says emphatically, a slight surprise to his expression. “Wei Ying just needs practice.”
“What, is Lan-laoshi going to guide me?” Wei Ying says sarcastically, not in the mood to keep up his class clown persona but still unable to resist trying to get under Lan Zhan’s skin. “Guide me through it like that pottery scene in Ghost ?”
Lan Zhan’s eyebrows knit together and for a moment, Wei Ying’s spirit starts to lift a little –– he’s managed to get to Lan Zhan! Maybe there’ll be an outburst like that time they’d sat together on a coach ride to regionals and Wei Ying tricked him into watching porn! –– but then Lan Zhan nods solemnly and says, “Mn. Alright.”
And all of a sudden Lan Zhan is standing right behind Wei Ying and his hands are on Wei Ying’s waist, and they’re –– really big, with the plasticky part of his finger guard digging into Wei Ying’s skin even through his thick sweater.
All of this is happening really fast and Wei Ying isn’t sure how they got here. There’s a shuffling sound and then Lan Zhan’s shoes are butting up against Wei Ying’s heels, too, Lan Zhan’s whole body a hot line all along Wei Ying’s back.
When Lan Zhan speaks, his breath is hot on Wei Ying’s ear and it tickles at the hairs on the back of Wei Ying’s neck. “Like this,” he says, one hand guiding Wei Ying’s left wrist up so that he’s holding the bow upright again, the other hand cupping over Wei Ying’s knuckles to move his fingers to the bowstring. ”Try without the arrow first.” One by one, Lan Zhan arranges Wei Ying’s fingers around the serving, one above the nocking point and two below, and for some reason Wei Ying just –– lets him.
Wei Ying opens his mouth to protest, to try to regain control of the situation, but instead all he says is, “Uhhhhhh,” because why are Lan Zhan’s shoulders so broad ? They’re just –– encasing Wei Ying, and, well, it does feel kind of… safe, and quite nice, but also horribly intimate for 2pm on a Thursday??!! Is anyone else seeing this?!?!
Then, Lan Zhan places the fingers of his own right hand on top of Wei Ying’s and applies pressure, helping him pull the bowstring back, and all thoughts of other people melt away. They might as well be the only two people in the world.
Wei Ying can feel and hear the precise cadence of Lan Zhan’s breath in synchrony with his, the instinctive inhale-hold-exhale that comes with the drawing of the bow with which their bodies are both so familiar. For a moment after that, everything is dark, and still, and quiet.
When Wei Ying had first learned archery, his coach had recommended he close his eyes during this moment so that he could center himself. He never used to –– because he liked to keep his eye on the target, all the better to line up the nocking point at his temple and to see all the way down the length of the arrow to the yellow center of the target. The naked bow, no tricks, no accessories.
But now… now that Lan Zhan’s behind him, around him, guiding him to hold this new bow, with the pressure clicker and the tripod-shaped stabiliser, it’s all so overwhelming. Wei Ying feels his eyes slide shut, feels himself lean back oh-so-minutely into the welcoming shape of Lan Zhan’s body, feels his arms give in to Lan Zhan’s steadfast hold. He thinks he hears Lan Zhan whisper, “That’s it,” and feels warmth flood his chest, the satisfaction of being praised, of finally getting it right. The soreness of his right arm pulling the bowstring taut, his left palm against the bow’s grip, none of it matters; he thinks he could stay here forever.
Then the whistle blows, sharp and shrill. “Alright, class is over, everyone gather round so I can show you how to take the bows apart,” one of the instructors barks –– and the spell, of course, is broken.
“Well,” Wei Ying says, blinking as he’s dragged back into the present, his body tingling all over. “That was weird.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Lan Zhan stiffens and hurriedly steps away. The sudden movement is so unexpected to Wei Ying that he automatically lets go of the bowstring again, forgetting that this time there isn’t an arrow nocked to it, so instead of a release of tension there’s a horrible twang!! sound of protest from the bow. What’s worse is that Wei Ying had been in the middle of turning to try and see where Lan Zhan had gone, and the bowstring slaps him hard in the nose.
“Ow, ow,” Wei Ying says, cursing as he feels the bow slip out of his sweaty palm –– when did he get so sweaty? –– and clatter to the ground. Normally he’d at least have a finger sling on his left hand and be able to use it to catch the bow, but this is a beginner’s lesson and they didn’t provide it and now the whole thing has just fallen –– and he’s pretty sure he heard a crack somewhere in there too, like maybe he smashed the sight. “Shit,” Wei Ying says under his breath as he paws at his stinging face. He can never come back from this.
Except –– Lan Zhan is back, and he’s bending down to retrieve the fallen bow. And, yep, that’s definitely a broken sight. Wei Ying opens his mouth to profusely apologise –– apologise for everything –– but Lan Zhan looks up and simply says, “No apologies needed.”
Lan Zhan slides the sight aperture off its broken mount and tucks the whole thing into his jogger pocket, then beckons for Wei Ying to follow him to the side of the gym, where he starts taking the bow apart himself. He’s not even inspecting it for extra damage, just effortlessly bending the bow until the bowstring pops off, taking the risers out and putting them away.
With nothing to do, Wei Ying crosses his arms and shoves a hand up each sleeve. His face burns from being hit by the bowstring and from the mess that was this afternoon. He’s going to have to pay for the broken sight, and he has no idea how much something like that costs –– a lot probably –– and he’s already given most of his stipend away… Lan Zhan probably never wants to see him again.
Despite the fact that Wei Ying has been a pest all day, Lan Zhan doesn’t seem mad. He’s been been behaving… differently to Wei Ying ever since the class began. And the way he’d stood behind Wei Ying to help him had been… well, it had been really nice, far nicer than Wei Ying deserves, after ribbing Lan Zhan like that.
If you’d asked Wei Ying before –– even just this morning –– he’d have said that Lan Zhan only had three settings: ‘neutral’, ‘annoyed’, and some yet-to-be-unlocked ‘real Lan Zhan’. He’d thought Lan Zhan so easy to read. But as Wei Ying stands there awkwardly and watches Lan Zhan go through the practiced motions of packing the bow away, Wei Ying feels at a loss.
So when Lan Zhan speaks again, Wei Ying’s heart skips a beat.
“Our club bows aren’t of the best quality to begin with, so it is fine. You…” Lan Zhan pauses, which even Wei Ying knows is completely uncharacteristic of him, and which only makes Wei Ying more nervous. Lan Zhan purses his lips, hesitant –– as though what he’s about to say next is going to be serious. “Are you… alright.”
“Ah!” Wei Ying replies, blinking rapidly. Oh –– he won’t say it out loud again since it had been rude before, but: weird. Lan Zhan has just asked after his well-being. Has he… won Lan Zhan over, somehow, in the past hour? Are they really… friends now… un ironically?!
It’s a little disappointing, actually, to think that after the past three years of chasing after Lan Zhan and pulling his metaphorical pigtails, everything has just kind of… limply ended here.
Sure, Lan Zhan has never been openly hostile to Wei Ying before, but he’d always flinched whenever Wei Ying tried to touch him and had gotten really possessive over his Gusu Archery monogrammed hoodie that one time when Wei Ying had tried to borrow it at that winter tournament in second year. Ears red, Lan Zhan had snatched his hoodie back and bitten out something about Wei Ying being disrespectful when all Wei Ying had wanted was to warm himself up and breathe in some of Lan Zhan’s signature sandalwood scent, maybe send Lan Zhan a selfie in it later on in the changing rooms to taunt him. Just for fun!! He would have given it back afterwards! Anyway, Lan Zhan had given him the cold shoulder for the rest of that day; just another example of his fundamental disapproval of Wei Ying’s character.
So all this is just… new. It’s not that Wei Ying doesn’t welcome it. He’s glad Lan Zhan likes him for some reason now! But it feels… wrong somehow; not what Wei Ying wants. Like if they became just regular friends who got lunch or drinks together every once in a while to catch up, they’d be losing out on something. Wei Ying can imagine it all: like any of the Yunmeng Archery teammates he’d been friendly but not close with, they’d talk about school, and job applications, and the other people they were dating or interested in… And imagining having such a relationship with Lan Zhan just brings distaste to Wei Ying’s mouth.
Still, Wei Ying should be glad that they’re on good terms now. He forces a casual grin on his face, remembering that Lan Zhan had asked about the whole getting-slapped-by-a-bowstring thing. “You know me,” he says. “I’m unbreakable. One time when I was really young, I fell out of a tree and my limp is only slightly noticeable.” When he sees Lan Zhan’s blank, slightly horrified face, Wei Ying snorts. “I’m kidding. I mean, I did break my leg. But it’s fine now.” He sticks his foot into the air and wiggles it. “See? Anyway, I’m fine! Don’t worry about it, Lan Zhan.”
But Lan Zhan’s eyebrows have knitted together with concern. “We will get you ice.”
Oh, and there was that one time Lan Zhan bit Wei Ying. Wei Ying had kind of forgotten about it until Lan Zhan brought up getting ice, because Lan Zhan had certainly not offered to tend to Wei Ying’s horrible resulting wound in any way whatsoever on that day.
It was just last year, at a regional round in Qishan. Being so close to each other, Gusu and Yunmeng often shared a coach when they had to attend a match at a third destination to help save money on transport. In the summer, everyone shoots outdoors, which comes with the added difficulty of having to calculate the impact of the wind on an arrow’s trajectory. Wei Ying loves it though; loves the challenge. That day, during warm-ups, he was doing something –– he can’t remember, but he was probably trying to show off –– and gesticulated so wildly that he elbowed Lan Zhan next to him right as Lan Zhan was about to fire off an arrow. The arrow ended up flying sideways. Thankfully, no one got hurt, but the umpires had seen it.
At the end of the tournament, both Lan Zhan and Wei Ying were called over for a stern lecture on safety protocols, which Wei Ying still feels to this day was pretty unfair since they both ended up winning in their respective categories and should have been forgiven, but whatever. Lan Zhan looked upset –– he had probably never been in trouble for anything before, what with his stellar reputation –– and Wei Ying felt guilty for dragging Lan Zhan into it, so he tried to buy Lan Zhan a snack from the Qishan sports center’s canteen to make it up to him. Only, Lan Zhan wouldn’t say what he wanted, so Wei Ying bought him a coffee, and only then did Lan Zhan say he didn’t drink coffee, and, well, long story short, the shared coach left without them. And then the sports center closed, on account of the fact that it was 9pm. And there was no signal for their phones because Qishan University is in the middle of nowhere.
So Wei Ying and Lan Zhan ended up sitting on the side of the road, under a streetlight near the sports center parking lot, waiting for their teammates to notice that they’d been left behind and to figure out how to turn around without incurring overtime costs on the coach rental. Wei Ying busied himself with typing out endless messages to Jiang Cheng bemoaning his abandonment that would arrive all at once later on, and when his phone died, he stared off into space and tried to ignore the loud rumblings of his stomach.
It was around then that Lan Zhan bit him. Wei Ying can’t really remember what he did to warrant that kind of treatment, only that he had been chatting with (or at ) Lan Zhan, asking him questions about his life and offering up unprompted information about his own when Lan Zhan didn’t respond. It had been hot, even for the middle of the night in the summer, because climate change and all that, so Wei Ying had taken off his top and was using it as a towel so that he could lie down and lounge around, fan himself with the book he’d begged off Lan Zhan earlier, claiming he wanted to read it. Maybe he tried to steal Lan Zhan’s phone to look at his photos or something; the kind of stuff he does all the time with girls. Next thing Wei Ying knew, Lan Zhan had grabbed onto his wrist –– his grip was iron-tight –– and was sinking his teeth into Wei Ying’s forearm like it was a particularly delicious slice of melon.
“Hey!” Wei Ying said, to no avail. All Lan Zhan did was glare at him, and then turn his back to Wei Ying and sulk. No explanation whatsoever. Wei Ying was left there to nurse the red marks and loudly complain, threatening to show it to Gusu’s coach and get Lan Zhan kicked off the team for violence –– even after the marks faded (it wasn’t that strong of a bite, it didn’t break skin or anything). All while Lan Zhan stayed silent about his crimes.
When it got really, really late and Wei Ying couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, he slipped his shirt back on and decided to nap. Lan Zhan let him wad up his hoodie to use as a pillow, and when you give Wei Ying an inch he’ll take a mile, so Wei Ying whined that he couldn’t sleep without music until Lan Zhan broke down and gave him his phone.
“Wait! We have to share, it’s not fair otherwise. You owe me after you attacked me like a dog,” Wei Ying said, so that’s what they did; Lan Zhan putting on one of his playlists full of music that Wei Ying had never heard before. Wei Ying remembers really liking the songs, and asking Lan Zhan to send him the playlist, but he must’ve fallen asleep before getting a reply.
When Wei Ying next woke up, he was in the backseat of Auntie Yu’s car. As soon as she saw from the rearview mirror that he wasn’t sleeping anymore, she started chewing him out about how his archery coach had called her in the middle of the night requesting her to come pick them up because it was too late for the team to turn back. Lan Zhan, he was able to glean from between the lines of Auntie Yu’s lecture, had been dropped off at home already. The hours they’d spent together had been so surreal –– and Wei Ying felt a tightness in his chest every time he tried to think about it afterwards, trying to parse through exactly what had happened between him and Lan Zhan in the near-darkness so far away from anyone else –– that the memory had gradually faded, becoming as distant and blurred as a dream.
The ice, it turns out, is a frozen pack of vegan sausages from the minifridge in the office space shared by all Gusu sports team captains. The package starts melting as soon as Lan Zhan takes it out of the freezer, dribbling tiny droplets of water all over Wei Ying’s sweater collar.
As Lan Zhan putters about the office putting things into drawers and slightly passive-aggressively tidying up the kitchenette, Wei Ying squirms on the beat-up couch and tries to shift the sausages away from his neck, but Lan Zhan notices and walks back with a frown. He leans over and presses the ice pack back to the part of Wei Ying’s face that’s begun to bruise, his fingers splayed out so that his thumb hovers right by Wei Ying’s bottom lip, his other arm propping himself up on the back of the couch so that he’s bent above Wei Ying, an inverse of the position they’d been in on the shooting line, earlier.
“Right,” Wei Ying croaks after a beat, reaching up to pat the back of Lan Zhan’s hand awkwardly. Lan Zhan lets go of the ice pack once he’s sure Wei Ying’s holding it, and stands upright. “Thanks,” Wei Ying adds hastily.
“No need for thanks,” Lan Zhan mutters, and then turns away, like he’s embarrassed he’d said something like that. He starts walking to the door like he’s about to leave, and just let Wei Ying stay here until whenever, but then stops and says, “The class is over, but we still have the gym booked for another hour, for experienced archers to practice. If you’re feeling up to it, would you…”
“Oh, hell yeah.” Wei Ying nods so enthusiastically that the ice pack drops onto his lap, but he ignores the cold wetness –– he’s excited to shoot again. Standing up to tug off his sweater, voice muffled, he says, “This time, let me show you how barebow is done. Then I can make fun of you for being bad.”
And maybe Wei Ying mishears, but from his cocoon of tangled sweater he swears he hears Lan Zhan say, “Wei Ying could never be bad.”
The gym is completely empty by the time they return with only one straw butt standing on its easel moved back to 18 meters instead of the 12 meters it had been for the beginners. “Huh,” Wei Ying says as Lan Wangji picks up his own bow and starts to unscrew the stabiliser. “I thought more of the instructors would be here.”
“It is customary for experienced archers to take beginners out for drinks after a taster session,” Lan Zhan replies. And then, instead of explaining why he ’s not there with them, he just falls silent.
“Okay,” Wei Ying says finally. “Oh, right, you don’t drink.”
“Mn.”
Well, that also explains why Jin Zixuan didn’t wait for Wei Ying. The team probably took everyone to the student union bar, which is where Wei Ying and Jin Zixuan were last night, and Jin Zixuan has become obsessed with their mango cocktails. Clearly he cares more about those mango cocktails than Wei Ying’s poor injured face. Traitor.
Lan Zhan hands Wei Ying his own bow, now stripped of all the extra implements so that Wei Ying can demonstrate his barebow technique. The bow is a good size, since they’re of roughly the same height, Lan Zhan two or three inches taller than Wei Ying –– which Wei Ying hadn't realised until today, until Lan Zhan had… Anyway, Lan Zhan’s bow is all white and sleek, and glints under the gym’s fluorescent lighting. It’s lightweight but with a heft to it and the finger sling isn't one of those premade ones, but long white fabric with faint cloud embroidery that has custom knots worked into it to make it compatible for archery. Wei Ying does a low whistle. “Great bow. Bet this has your name carved onto it,” he says.
“Not mine.”
“Hm?” Wei Ying replies absent-mindedly as he throws his discarded sweater at Lan Zhan, who starts folding it carefully.
“Its name is Bichen,” Lan Zhan clarifies. And sure enough, Wei Ying spots 避尘 painted on both ends in elegant, clear characters; white on white, so not immediately noticeable, but with an inner glow to the lettering. Clearly Lan Zhan did it himself.
“Your bow has its own name!” Wei Ying says. “Is that a Gusu club rule?” When Lan Zhan nods, Wei Ying muses, “In that case, I wonder what mine should be.”
“You should bring it from now on. Luo Qingyang, the instructor with the whistle that you met today, is good at helping people come up with names.”
“Nah, it doesn’t really matter to me,” Wei Ying says. “Mine is just cobbled together from stuff I found on eBay anyway. I can call it, like, whatever. Hey, Suibian has a good ring to it actually.”
That makes Lan Zhan pause, and for some reason it occurs to Wei Ying that Lan Zhan would roll his eyes in this moment if that were something he did. But Lan Zhan just nods and says, “Alright.” He hands Wei Ying his quiver rattling with arrows –– carbon, of course, which probably cost approximately what Wei Ying’s stipend gives him in a year –– then steps away, making room for Wei Ying on the shooting line.
As Wei Ying places his feet to either side of the red tape on the gym’s beat-up wooden floor and flexes his shoulders, he has to admit that he’s still feeling a little nervous about having Lan Zhan’s eyes on him, especially as he’s still not sure what’s going on between them now, why there’s been a… gentleness to the way Lan Zhan has behaved around him since class began, and why the idea that they might actually become regular friends is so disconcerting to Wei Ying.
The ice had helped him focus a bit better, stop him from confusing himself with his own train of thought, but now he finds himself thinking back to the vague memories he has of that day in Qishan. The moment of quiet between them at the very end when Lan Zhan had had to lie down next to Wei Ying so that they’d be close enough to share his earbuds. Being so close and so still that Wei Ying could have reached out and laced his fingers into Lan Zhan’s, might have then been able to feel Lan Zhan’s pulse in his wrists. Thanks to what had happened earlier, Wei Ying has kind of technically held Lan Zhan’s hand now, but that had been so ambiguous. If Wei Ying had made a move that night in Qishan, it would’ve been–– It might’ve felt––
This is so silly. Wei Ying doesn’t even know if he’s into Lan Zhan like that. It’s just that here, now, as Lan Zhan sits with Wei Ying’s sweater folded and resting on his lap, and Wei Ying stands in front of him, hopefully not about to make a fool of himself, there’s somehow that same feeling again as in Qishan, or something like it. Something oddly intimate, like they’re sharing a moment that nobody’s ever had before. It makes no sense, of course, but the thought makes it kind of hard to breathe. Ah… where did all this even come from?! Focus, Wei Ying!
Wei Ying clears his throat. “Look at me!” he says, nocking the arrow, then hoisting the bow up and pulling back, feeling the easy give in the bowstring. He’s not wearing a finger guard so his fingers will be sore soon, but he can shoot two or three flights before he has to rest. He brings the nocking point up to his eye, lines it up with the target, and lets it fly –– it sails through the air and lands dead center, just as the universe intended. Wei Ying cheers and swivels around to Lan Zhan. “Did you see that?”
Lan Zhan nods.
Wei Ying proceeds to shoot all the arrows in the quiver in quick succession. While some of them veer into the red, which would disappoint him if this were a competition, he feels better now, as though each arrow that leaves the bow is taking some of the tension in his body away from him. He’s long forgotten about the pain from the bruise on his face even though he’s prodding at it every time he pulls the bow taut.
“Alright,” Wei Ying says when he’s run out of arrows. “Your turn now.”
Wei Ying doesn’t try to guide Lan Zhan’s hands for him; somehow it feels odd the other way round, and besides, the first time had resulted in the need for an ice pack. Instead, he uses Lan Zhan’s discarded stabiliser rod to poke and prod at Lan Zhan’s limbs and barks orders in different accents until –– to Wei Ying’s delight –– Lan Zhan breaks down in exasperation and lets go of his final arrow prematurely, getting a two.
“Ha!” Wei Ying says triumphantly, pointing at the huge contrast between their flights. He’s about to make some annoying comment, but the words die in his throat when he glances at Lan Zhan’s face and sees that––
That––
Lan Zhan is smiling!
It’s only a slight uptick of the mouth, a softness to the eyes, and a redness to the ears –– details that strangers, or anyone who hasn’t spent as long as Wei Ying has cataloguing Lan Zhan’s expressions in order to pinpoint when he can get a rise out of him, wouldn’t be able to pick out –– but it’s definitely a smile. And maybe it’s weird of Wei Ying to over-analyse another person’s facial expression in this way, but it does feel a little bit like a gift for him, from Lan Zhan. It helps that Lan Zhan has caught him looking but hasn’t tried to hide the fact that he’s smiling; instead Lan Zhan lets it fade naturally and then strides off to collect the arrows from the target, leaving Wei Ying standing by the shooting line with the stabiliser still in his hands, wondering what he’s supposed to do with something as precious as that.
Wei Ying coaches Lan Zhan through three more flights. Lan Zhan is a fast learner, and this is coming up to be the second-longest time they’ve ever spent together, so gradually Wei Ying stops talking as much, just stands there with his arms crossed and the stabiliser tucked into an elbow, watching with a teacher’s pride as Lan Zhan goes through the motions, getting better and better with each arrow. They’ve been on their feet for a couple of hours now, but Wei Ying doesn’t feel tired at all. His nerves and anxieties have turned into a giddiness, an excitement that he can’t name –– but that doesn’t feel all that bad, either.
For all his extroversion, Wei Ying doesn’t always like new things. When the Jiangs had first taken him in as a child, it had taken him months to be comfortable enough in the new house to be able to sleep through the night; the company and empathy of jiejie and Jiang Cheng had been what really helped smooth the way. He’s never admitted this to anyone, but he’d been terrified about leaving Yunmeng University, a campus he’d practically grown up on since both Auntie Yu and Uncle Jiang were faculty there, to come to Gusu –– and even though it’s been two weeks since he moved into his apartment here, he still feels out of place when he walks around. He’s lost count of the amount of times he’s gotten lost while on the way to some induction or event already, even though he’s never usually this bad with directions. He’s been feeling like a reptile that’s just shed its old skin, all new and startled by the breeze.
It’s in part why he’s been looking forward to this archery club introduction for so long –– archery was the only context in which he’d been to Gusu, before, and it’s not just the sport itself that’s familiar and comfortable to him: he’s made so many memories at the indoor and outdoor archery ranges on this campus that those spaces have become reassuring to him, too. He hadn't realised how relieved he would feel when he walked into the class earlier and found himself amidst the Gusu team uniforms.
And, yeah, spending the afternoon with Lan Zhan has been confusing. Wei Ying had felt so taken aback at first, afraid that he had somehow ruined things by coming to Gusu, afraid of not knowing what was happening and what would happen next. It had gotten better, eventually; less precarious, more comfortable.
And when the archery club’s gym booking came to an end and they packed away the rest of the things, Lan Zhan paused mid-way through hoisting his equipment bag onto his shoulder and Wei Ying tilted his head and waited. Lan Zhan’s ears were pink. Wei Ying said, “So what’s this I hear about experienced archers taking beginners out for a drink? Because I’m in the mood for boba,” and Lan Zhan unfroze and strapped his bag to his shoulders and nodded.
It was still early enough in the autumn for them to find a spot on the grass to drink their boba, and it was a bit like that night in Qishan when Wei Ying had talked Lan Zhan’s ear off, except this time Lan Zhan gave short, considered answers to Wei Ying’s questions. Which is how Wei Ying learned that Lan Zhan has a sweet tooth (earlier he’d taken a sip of Lan Zhan’s drink and it had been terrible, so that explains that), that his favorite color is red, that he took up baking after seeing Great British Bake Off as a teenager and was good at every part of it except the icing. Wei Ying had tied his sweater around his waist and taken his hair down from its bun, and spent the conversation alternating between fidgeting with his hair-tie and scratching absent-mindedly at his forearm, which was still a little sensitive from the sunburn during his visit to Lotus Pier a few weeks ago. Only after a comfortable, content silence fell between him and Lan Zhan did Wei Ying suddenly realise that the part of his forearm he’d been worrying this whole time was where Lan Zhan had bitten him, a year ago. Blood started to roar in his ears at that thought, and Wei Ying wondered whether to –– ask , about why Lan Zhan had done that. But that would also be so embarrassing, and maybe a bit rude.
Before Wei Ying could make up his mind, Lan Zhan’s phone alarm rang and he said he had to get to a meeting with his thesis supervisor. Wei Ying’s heart sank, but then Lan Zhan asked for his phone number so that he could give him information on how to officially join the club since the information provided at the class was mainly directed at actual beginners, not regional college barebow champions. After Lan Zhan left, shooting Wei Ying a last one of those slightly intense gazes, Wei Ying leant back and loafed about in the grass a bit more, warming his skin under the golden setting sun.
He winds up having dinner a bit later, on account of his stomach being full of butterflies. It’s only when he’s doing the washing up, playing tinny music from his phone speakers and thinking back idly on his day, that it hits him. It hits him so hard that he smacks himself on the forehead with a palm full of dish soap and doesn’t even care about the fact it’s probably gotten into his hair.
“Oh,” Wei Ying says to himself, his voice feeling oddly loud in the empty studio. “ Oh.”
And then he laughs, letting his shoulders shake for a while. He laughs at himself, and at Lan Zhan, and at everything. He finishes the dishes, dries his hands, uses a kitchen towel to dab at his damp face, and then goes to find his phone where he’d left it on the kitchen table.
He finds his chat history with Lan Zhan, which consists of a single message sent earlier that day:
Lan Zhan [5:57pm]: This is Lan Zhan .
And he dithers a little over what to say, how to phrase it, but in the end he goes for something simple and straightforward –– because Lan Zhan has been so clear, this whole time, about what it has been that he’s wanted. It’s Wei Ying who needs to step up to the line now, whose bow is drawn and whose target is on sight, and who only needs the confidence to let the arrow fly.
Me [8:48pm]: Do you want to go on a date?
Lan Zhan: Typing…