Work Text:
Wei Ying does his best to maintain a polite smile while waiting for his custom cake order.
His very late custom cake order.
Today’s his fiancé’s 30th birthday, and while he was trying his best to not deck the annoying bakery guy, it was proving a bit too difficult to hold onto his sanity after travelling for thirteen nonstop flight hours.
He just wanted to surprise his beautiful future husband with a sweet kiss and his surprise Gusu themed cake this evening, but not only did his flight got delayed, but now his cake order too also was late. Wei Ying groaned when he looked at the time, it was already getting close to half-past eight now. It almost felt as if the universe was trying to stop him from meeting the love of his life.
While suppressing his umpteenth sigh, Wei Ying opened his phone and gazed at the old pictures on his screen, courtesy of his sweet Yanli Jie.
Wei Ying didn’t remember much from his childhood. It always felt as though he was looking at a faded picture from a wall made up of murky waters. But he can remember meeting Lan Zhan with a sharp intensity that even he couldn’t understand.
He can almost touch the burning sand and smell the sickly sweet aroma of vanilla ice cream that he shared with the silent and puffy-eyed kid in white. His Lan Zhan was the cutest amongst his peers, with round biteable cheeks, and poorly hidden irritation behind those gorgeous and oh so furious golden eyes. Maybe he really did fall in love with his fuddy-duddy of a lover that day.
Wei Ying was a late bloomer; it took him years before he understood the depth of his feelings for his best friend. It was not until the fateful night of Lan Zhan’s 19th birthday when he found a very drunk Lan Zhan crying over a torn and hastily tapped picture of Nie Mingjue that he even fully realised that dating Lan Zhan was an option. Those few weeks were agony for not just a broken-hearted Lan Zhan, who apparently had broken up with his secret boyfriend, Nie Mingjue. But also for Wei Ying because he was just not prepared for the sheer contrast between his elation over his own feelings and helplessness over not having any way of lessening Lan Zhan’s grief.
It took a long time before Lan Zhan was able to recover from his first failed relationship, but Wei Ying did his best to support his love as best as he could. It wasn’t until Lan Zhan’s 23rd birthday, that Wei Ying gathered enough courage to convey his adoration for his best friend.
A part of him was scared that Lan Zhan would never be able to accept Wei Ying as his lover, and it took his silent friend two whole weeks before he returned Wei Ying’s desperate messages, having run away after Wei Ying’s very public and very over the top confession.
Much like his childhood, Wei Ying doesn’t have much recollection of those two weeks, just a lingering ache of sorrow that re-emerged after sudden remembrance.
But that was then. And this was now.
Wei Ying would accept all the pain and misery to have this with his best friend. Lan Zhan was it for him.
And after these seven years of devotion and companionship, Wei Ying was starting to believe the same was true for Lan Zhan. Wei Ying won’t lie and say that being together with Lan Zhan was easy. Because while Wei Ying was a grubby and nearly disowned adoptive son of very reluctant and regretful parents Lan Zhan was the much loved and talented heir of the influential Lan Clan of the Gusu.
Lan Zhan’s Uncle was still not fully accepting of their engagement, but still, Wei Ying was happy to accept Lan Qiren’s silent disapproval over sharp jabs that Madam Yu seemed to spew every time Lan Zhan attended once a month Jiang family dinner with him. It was funny how Madam Yu was far more accepting of Lan Zhan over her adoptive son. Shockingly, or maybe not, she was the loudest among those who advised the second jade of the Gusu Corporation against marrying a street urchin such as Wei Ying.
Wei Ying would never admit it but he still feared sometimes that Lan Zhan would heed to his adoptive mother’s advice and leave Wei Ying for someone better and lovable.
After spending an hour jumping from one dark possibility to other, Wei Ying was finally able to drive to his and his fiancé’s shared apartment. Wei Ying tried his best to silently enter his flat without making much noise and for once it seemed that the luck was on his side as the hall was empty. He worried for a second that Lan Zhan was not home, but delightfully he quickly caught the light coming from his bedroom. Smiling he made his way to his sleepy love and got a little shocked when he reached his closed bedroom door and heard the unmistakable resonance of his future husband’s moan.
Cackling inside, Wei Ying prepared to tease his naughty fiancé and opened the last obstacle before him with a loud and happy shout of “er-gege”, and immediately felt as if someone had twisted his gravity and he was falling into an abyss of dark and coiling despair.
For the love of his life was lying in front of him, blossoming like the first light of the winter, lovingly cradling someone else’s head between his thighs.
Fortunately or perhaps unfortunately his shout seemed to have caught the focus of the entirely in love and entwined couple because that was what it was. Even though Wei Ying was wrong about Lan Zhan’s devotion for him, he still was entirely too familiar with the minute rivets of affection and care that Lan Zhan expressed through with golden gaze and red ears.
And that was all that Wei Ying needed. It would be fruitless to cry or demand an explanation. But perhaps Madam Yu was right all along.
That Wei Ying was not enough.
That Lans Only Loved Once.
Wei Ying finds himself slipping back into the familiar haze. And mercifully the world melts around him.