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It is seven minutes past two in the afternoon of a truly beautiful Saturday, and Lan Wangji’s entire body has become a veritable kaleidoscope of fluttering nervousness.

Outwardly, there is no good reason for this. The weather is warm but mild, and the sky is mostly clear, dotted only here and there with soft clouds, and there are birds singing in the trees above. He is standing at a bus stop by the side of a sparsely trafficked country road, and while he is not pacing, because it is not proper to pace, he would very much like to.

What if Wei Ying will not come?

What if he thinks this was a bad idea, or worse, a silly one? What if he regrets asking Lan Wangji out? What if-? No, no, he refuses to think that it might have all been a ruse. That this could just be some elaborate prank. It cannot be. It must not be.

Eight minutes past two.

He should have thought this through more carefully.

It is just, Wei Ying looked so unsure the other day. Embarrassed and dispirited and almost like he expected Lan Wangji to say no, when the truth was, he was trying so hard to speak at all. The words had all crowded just inside his lips and he had barely gotten even a single one of them out, and so, when he got back to his office, safe and alone and with time enough to process his thoughts into actual words, they had come too many and too fast instead, and before he knew it, they had decided on a date.

A date. Today. Here. With bunnies.

Nine minutes past two. He glances down the road and there comes the bus, right on time. It pulls up to the stop in a cloud of exhaust fumes and opens its doors to let out the crowd inside, and there, surrounded by kids and picnic baskets, stands Wei Ying.

He is looking down when Lan Wangji first spots him, presumably to make sure he does not trample one of the many small children hurtling past him towards the bus doors, and Lan Wangji is allowed exactly one moment to look at him unobserved. He is wearing his hair in the same messy little ponytail as usual, but it is the first time Lan Wangji sees him out of his barista uniform, and it is, as he has heard other students at the institution say, a look.

Skinny black jeans, low-slung enough that Lan Wangji is certain he would be able to see the waistband of Wei Ying’s underwear were it not for the long, black tank top with some barely legible band name on it that Lan Wangji does not recognise. Heavy black boots and a denim jacket, also black, complete the ensemble. He looks like the very opposite of everything Lan Wangji is and knows – dark and rebellious and daring – but when he looks up and their eyes meet, Wei Ying’s whole face lights up.

“Lan Zhan!” he calls, still inside the bus and with parents and grandparents and baby strollers blocking his way, and Lan Wangji almost staggers.

He is used to people having all sorts of reactions to seeing him. Tired, irked, annoyed, sometimes intimidated, sometimes enraged, and on a few, rare occasions – his brother, a teacher or two – quietly delighted. He is not entirely sure what it is, exactly, that he does to cause these reactions in others, but he cannot recall ever seeing anyone react like this: the way that Wei Ying’s entire expression lights up into a wide smile as though just seeing Lan Wangji has made his entire day.

Lan Wangji still feels stunned by that smile when Wei Ying slides past the few remaining passengers and practically skips off the bus and up to him.

“Lan Zhan, I’m here! Did I keep you waiting?”

“No” Lan Wangji replies, and remembers to add a minute shake of his head, “I have only just arrived.”

Two minutes is not waiting, not when the bus arrives exactly on time, so it is not a lie. The fifteen minutes he spent in the car trying to meditate cannot be considered waiting, either – he knew that he arrived too early. Nor has he been waiting since this morning, or even yesterday morning when he ate his breakfast at the coffee shop, or since midday on Thursday when they decided on this date.

So no, Lan Wangji has not been kept waiting, only expecting-dreading-fretting for forty-eight hours, and now that they are both finally here Wei Ying is smiling widely at him, and Lan Wangji is uncertain what to do with that.

“That’s great!” Wei Ying beams. “I didn’t want to be late and make you think I wasn’t coming.”

Lan Wangji does not know what to do with that, either.

Some part of him realises that this is not a fear unique only to him. Wei Ying himself expressed the exact same worry on Thursday; that was why Lan Wangji made sure to text him yesterday that he was on his way, so that he would not have to worry and become frantic over the not-knowing. Of course, Wei Ying could have done the same thing today and sent a text, if he thought Lan Wangji might worry, but Lan Wangji does not point that out. It is not about the text, after all: it is about how Wei Ying worried about keeping him waiting, and the way it makes him feel seen.

What do you do with something like that?

“You are on time” is what he ends up saying.

“Yeah, that’s probably only thanks to the bus driver” Wei Ying grins, and gestures after the stream of families making their way away from the bus stop and down a narrow carriage road. “Want to get going? You’re looking super handsome today, by the way.”

“Thank you” Lan Wangji says, ducking his head as they begin to walk. “You too.”

“Aww, you think so? I didn’t know what you’re supposed to wear to this kind of place, so in the end I just went for juvenile delinquent chic.”

Wei Ying makes a sweeping gesture over his body with one hand, and of course Lan Wangji cannot help but take him in once again. He does look very nice, even with all the heavy black.

“Got a lot of looks on the bus, I might add” Wei Ying continues, in a tone that for a moment suggests that maybe Lan Wangji should feel jealous, but then does a full one-eighty into: “Lots of despairing grandmothers trying to cover their precious grandbabies’ eyes. But there was this really cute kid, there, you see her? The one with the fairy wings? So cute. Anyway, she sat right next to where I was standing and she looked at me with this really scrutinising sort of look and asked me in a super serious voice if I had put on sun screen. Apparently, her dad had told her that everyone had to wear sunscreen on a day like today, and I didn’t look like I had.”

“What did you say?”

“That she was right, of course, and that I felt very bad, and did she think her dad would make an exception for me? Because, I said, ‘I’m going to see someone I really, really want to see, and I don’t want to be stuck on this bus all day because I forgot sunscreen, because I don’t want to make them sad’.”

Wei Ying is looking at him out of the corner of his eye and smiling, just a little, but enough to make Lan Wangji lower his gaze to the ground. He can feel his ears heat, and his heart thumps in his chest.

“She asked her dad, who had been listening to all of it, of course, because you know, stranger danger, and he gave me this look and said, ‘well, just this once, we don’t want to make anyone sad’, and she turned to me and repeated his reply word by word. It was so cute!”

He practically squeals the words; his face is all scrunched up with glee.

“You do not mind children, then?” Lan Wangji asks.

“I love kids!” Wei Ying replies emphatically. “They’re the best!”

That is a relief.

“Were you worried I might be scared off?” Wei Ying grins and nods ahead of them, at the families all headed in the same direction as they are. They are almost at the end of the carriageway already; Lan Wangji can see the sparse forest give way up ahead.

“Not everyone appreciates the presence of children” Lan Wangji says, not quite finding the words to explain that he only realised now, when Wei Ying has already expressed positive feelings towards children, that perhaps he should have asked about it before suggesting this place for their date.

Their date. He still cannot quite wrap his head around it.

“Well, I definitely don’t mind” Wei Ying says brightly. “So, what is this place? Some kind of farm, right?”

“Mm, not quite” Lan Wangji says, stepping ahead to open the wooden gate for them. “It is primarily a 4H club.”

“Oh! I’ve heard about those! Never been to one, though. I had no idea there was one here.”

Wei Ying steps in through the gate with another smile in his direction, one that makes Lan Wangji fumble with closing the gate for an additional second or two. When he looks up, Wei Ying is looking all around them, his eyes wide and glittering.

“This is adorable” he breathes, with the same kind of squealing quality as when he cooed over the child with fairy wings earlier.

It rather is, Lan Wangji supposes as he follows Wei Ying’s gaze. He has been here so many times that he almost does not see the place any longer, except to confirm that everything is as it should be. Looking at it now though, it is picturesque. All the stables, barns and animal houses are either red with white gables or a dark tar colour; the fences around all the pastures are animal-safe but child-friendly, and the machines that would be part of an actual modern farm are nowhere to be seen.

“Where would you like to go first?” Lan Wangji asks.

“I don’t even know what the options are” Wei Ying laughs, and it is just so strange that he does not seem to mind that at all; that he seems so perfectly at ease with going far outside of town with Lan Wangji that he does not even google the place.

“There are pigs, alpacas, sheep, goats, geese, chickens, and horses, as well as a few cats” Lan Wangji rattles off the list. “And the bunnies.”

“Are the bunnies your favourites?” Wei Ying says, definitely teasing, but kindly.

Lan Wangji nods.

“Yes.”

“Do you want to go and see them right away?”

“Not necessarily. They will still be there later.”

The rabbit exercise run is also one of the places where visiting families usually go first, presumably because rabbits are familiar to most children, and easier for adults to enthuse about than geese. With a busload full of children just arrived – despite Wei Ying’s professed love for them – Lan Wangji would rather wait with showing him that particular part of the farm.

“We can go this way” he says and indicates the path to the left. “To the grazing pastures.”

“Okay!” Wei Ying chimes. “To the grazing pastures! Is that where they keep the horses?”

Lan Wangji nods again, and together they walk down the path. Or rather, Lan Wangji walks and Wei Ying practically bounces, as though there were springs attached to the soles of his boots. It is in sharp contrast with his otherwise black and foreboding appearance, as is the constant chatter.

Lan Wangji has noticed before, of course, even before yesterday’s breakfast at the coffee shop, but Wei Ying talks a lot. It is the sort of behaviour that usually annoys Lan Wangji to no end – he has neither the interest nor the attention to spare for the inane ramblings of others – but… but… he just cannot bring himself not to listen.

In fact, he has probably never been further away from zoning out in his entire life, than he is right now.

Wei Ying seems to talk in anecdotes, his thoughts meandering and branching off into unforeseen directions quicker than Lan Wangji can follow, and when he speaks, it is as though he uses his whole body to do so. His words are not only sounds coming from his mouth; they are present in his face, in the tilt of his head and the slant of his shoulders; in the way he gestures with his hands and his arms and how he moves his upper body, even sways his hips and bends his knees to illustrate and accentuate the story he is telling. Lan Wangji notices all of this but has no idea where to even begin trying to read him – and strangely enough, he does not feel like he has to. He feels no pressure from Wei Ying to keep up or respond with anything other than his presence, no demand to contribute or even vocalise sympathy, and there are not a lot of people who do that.

In all honesty, apart from his brother, there are none.

“Look Lan Zhan, there they are!”

Lan Wangji blinks and follows Wei Ying’s excited gaze, surprised at himself. He never stares at people, especially not when they talk.

“Mn” he agrees, trying to collect himself as they approach the pasture where five horses and ponies are grazing near the fence. There are only four other people there, a family group, and Lan Wangji deliberately walks towards a spot by the fence a little way away from them. “The others are probably having lessons today.”

“There are more?” Wei Ying gapes. “How many? Oh look, the small one is itchy.”

The small one – a chestnut Shetland pony – is indeed scratching its head against one of its front legs, quite laboriously so, to the giggles of the two children trying to catch the horses’ attention with handfuls of grass. The horses pay no attention, however: their pasture is full of grass and they are munching away at it quite happily.

“There are nine horses and ponies in total” Lan Wangji says as they walk up to the fence. “The Shetland pony is called Taffy.”

“Taffy?” Wei Ying repeats and leans on the fence to gaze at the horses. “That’s so sweet. Do you know the others as well?”

Lan Wangji nods. He does know all the horses’ names, and their breeds, and he can feel the itch in his mind to rattle them all off but also the tiny voice of warning that not everyone appreciates a rattling off of, to them, random facts. But Wei Ying is leaning his arms on the fence and smiling up at him and he gives in to the urge.

“The Haflinger, that is the one with the light, golden coat and the white mane and tail, is called Charisma. Those two are Connemara ponies, their names are Misty and Cinder, and this-”

The fifth and largest horse of the group, a bay, has walked up to the fence and stops right in front of them with a soft snort.

“This is Ninette.”

She is standing a little to the side, angling her head in the way horses do, her dark eyes watching him intently as he offers his hand for her to nuzzle in greeting. Her lips are velvety against his palm as she inspects it with her soft muzzle, and when she finds it empty of treats, she snorts again and buffs at his hand. He scratches her nose and head in apology.

“She is a Trakehner” he adds, for the sake of exactness. He mentioned all the other horses’ breeds, after all.

“She likes you” Wei Ying says, still leaning on the fence. Lan Wangji is strangely glad about that, to see that he has not jerked away, as many people often do from large animals.

“She recognises me” Lan Wangji says by way of correction. He does not dare to presume that he holds some special place in the horse’s heart, and one should not anthropomorphise animals anyway.

“Lan Zhan, I think if an animal willingly comes up to say hello to you, that’s a pretty clear sign that they like you.”

He glances at Wei Ying who is smiling widely, and then back at the horse. She is as familiar to him as his own hands; a warm and steady presence in his childhood memories, carrying him safely long after he grew too old and too tall for his brother to do so.

“I used to ride her when I was younger” he says. “She is retired now.”

“For real? That’s aweso-” the word is cut off, and followed by a: “Hi there!”

Lan Wangji turns to look and sees the two children standing on the other side of Wei Ying. Their faces are cautiously lit up in that way children have when they really, really want to ask something but do not dare to do so.

“You want to pet the horse, huh?” Wei Ying asks for them, and even though Lan Wangji cannot see his expression when he is turned away like this, his voice sounds like russet gold. The children light up even wider and chime happy little yeses. “Would that be alright with you?”

He is not asking Lan Wangji, but a woman standing some distance further away. The mother, presumably, and on the other side of her, an older man – maybe a grandfather? – watching them closely.

“Oh, yes, of course” the woman replies. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“It’s no bother.” Wei Ying turns to look over his shoulder at him, and Lan Wangji has enough time to think that it is perhaps a little bit of a bother before Wei Ying asks: “Do you think Ninette would be okay with it, if they try to pet her, too?”

“Mm” he says, and adds: “she is kind. Just not good with sudden movements.”

It is not exactly true; Ninette has been at this 4H club for over fifteen years and is both used to children and patient with them, but she will still react to loud shrieks and large gestures. That she is still here and not off grazing again is because Lan Wangji is rubbing her nose in the way he knows she likes best.

“Gotcha” Wei Ying says, still smiling. “Okay kids, you heard that? No sudden movements, okay? We don’t want to scare the pretty horse, right?”

The kids shake their heads in unison.

“Good. Walk up next to Lan Zhan and he can show you how to say hello.”

Lan Wangji jolts a little at this, but when his gaze flicks to Wei Ying there is still that smile on his face, warm and sunny. Then the children are there, between them, keeping a short but respectful distance to the fence and the sixteen hands of horse on the other side of it. They are not only young but small, and Ninette is unlikely to care much for their hands down there.

“Do you want me to lift you up?” he asks. The children nod, but on the other side of them, Wei Ying turns around again.

“Is that okay?”

The mother – it must be their mother – protests again, saying how she does not want to trouble them, but this time it is Lan Wangji who shakes his head.

“It is no trouble” he says. “It will be easier for the horse, too.”

The woman acquiesces and at once the children both raise their arms eagerly. Lan Wangji picks up the younger of them, the quieter boy, and next to him Wei Ying lifts the slightly older girl and walks up closer to Lan Wangji so they stand side by side, close enough to the fence for both children to reach. Clicking his tongue, Lan Wangji catches Ninette’s attention and holds out his free hand.

“You hold out your hand like this” he says and illustrates with his own, palm held flat, open and inviting. “And hold it still, so she can smell your scent. That is how she knows who you are.”

The little boy nods and reaches out his hand tentatively. Wei Ying and the girl copy them.

“What does it feel like, Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying asks, his voice lower than before. “When she nuzzles your hand?”

“It tickles” he replies, almost without thinking about it. “And it can be a little wet, but it is mostly soft and tickly.”

“Nothing to be afraid of, then?”

“No” he says, “nothing at all.”

At this, the boy extends his small hand fully, and it is only a matter of moments before Ninette moves her muzzle over to it, sniffing and snuffling with her big lips. In his arms, the boy giggles.

“Tickles!” he says, a wide grin over his chubby face, and Lan Wangji recognises that reaction. The anticipation of something possibly unpleasant, and the relief of being wrong.

“Me too!” the girl says, a little too loud for Lan Wangji’s liking. “I wanna say hello, too!”

“She’s getting there” Wei Ying says, his voice still low, “look, here she comes. You ready?”

The girl nods in all seriousness, but when Ninette’s soft lips snuffle at her palm, she too giggles with delight.

“This is how you say hello, right, Lan Zhan?”

“Yes.”

“Would she like to be petted on her nose?”

“Mm, like this. Slowly.”

The girl follows his movements, petting the large, broad head with long strokes until Ninette snorts, shakes her head and takes a step to the side. The girl makes a sound deep in her throat then, something deeply hurt.

“Aww, that’s enough scritches for today” Wei Ying says consolingly. “But you could see that she really liked it, right?”

The girl nods – her brother, on the other hand, squirms in Lan Wangji’s hold and he lets him down. Wei Ying lets the girl down too, although she lingers by the fence, her gaze on the horse.

“Hey, maybe you can come back and say hello another day?” Wei Ying says. “Now you know how to do it.”

The girl nods and her grandfather calls for her. The mother thanks both Lan Wangji and Wei Ying profusely and apologises and thanks them again, and Lan Wangji is honestly quite relieved when they walk away, and leave him and Wei Ying temporarily alone by the pasture fence.

“Did you mind about that? The kids, I mean?”

“No.”

He means it. He had not expected it, but he does not mind.

“Good.” Wei Ying smiles again, and Lan Wangji melts a little, on the inside. Wei Ying nods towards the horses. “So, you used to come here as a kid?”

Lan Wangji nods, and hesitates for a moment. He knows that an affirmation is enough of a reply and part of him wants to let it stay that way, but another part of him recognises that Wei Ying is asking for more details than just a simple yes or no – and he wants to give them. Needs to speak the words, these words, because telling him is important.

“I was diagnosed with autism when I was four” Lan Wangji says – it feels like he blurts it out, but he probably does not. He never blurts. “I did not speak and struggled to socialise with other children. My mother thought this would be a good place for me to practice.”

“Was it?” Wei Ying says, without the slightest hint of a negative reaction. Instead, his voice is all warm, just like his smile. Soft around the edges. It makes Lan Wangji feel less blurty.

“Mm, it was.”

“What did you do? Do you remember?”

“I was with the bunnies, mostly” Lan Wangji says, and upon what he recognises as an encouraging nod from Wei Ying, elaborates: “I would feed them and pet them, mostly, and help clean out their enclosure when I was older.”

Wei Ying’s smile grows wider.

“You realise that I’m just trying to imagine what you must have looked like as a child, right? All tiny and cute and surrounded by fluffy rabbits. Please tell me that there are pictures?”

Lan Wangji’s gaze drops to the ground and he can feel his ears heat, which is ridiculous. Worrying, how often it seems to happen around Wei Ying.

“I do not know if there are pictures” he says. “There are albums from that time, but I have not looked in them.”

“Oh?” Wei Ying says, and he does not sound very different at first, but then he takes a half-step closer, and then stops. When he speaks again, his tone is different. “Hey, Lan Zhan? It feels like maybe there is something more to this, and if there is, you can tell me about it if you want to, but it’s also totally fine if you don’t, and then we can talk about something else. Or if I’m wrong.”

“No” Lan Wangji says, pushing himself to raise his gaze again. Wei Ying is looking at him intently, but not in a pushing sort of way. “You are not wrong. It is not-” but he cannot say that it is not a big thing, because it is. Or at least there is more to it, just like Wei Ying said. “I have not looked in those albums because my mother died about a year after I first came here. Two years after that, my father died.”

“Oh” Wei Ying says, and it is a completely different ‘oh’ this time. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Lan Zhan.”

He shrugs, he thinks. Not because he does not care, but because he still does not know how to talk about how both his parents died before he was eight. It is probably therapeutically significant that he has never opened those photo albums in all this time, but he cannot help but think that looking at his own baby pictures will be like watching someone else’s life. The people who took those photos, who would have given meaning to the pictures by attaching their memories and little anecdotes to them, are gone. He never got the chance to know them and so he will never know himself as he was then, either.

And besides, there are other pictures, framed ones, on the walls and side tables in the house where he spent most of childhood. Him and his brother and their uncle, at birthday parties and recitals and graduation ceremonies. There are memories there, living ones, in those moments he has shared with the family he still has. He thinks that is enough.

“But you still came here?” Wei Ying asks, probably because he seems to realise, strangely enough, that Lan Wangji does not have words to meet his condolences.

“Yes” he says simply. “No one tried to force me to talk.”

He remembers how safe it felt, coming here. Remembers what it felt like to be allowed to step into the animal enclosures and entrusted with their care, without anyone pressuring or even expecting him to talk. It had felt like going for days without air, and then being able to finally draw breath again.

“Hey Lan Zhan?” Lan Wangji looks up and Wei Ying waits to speak until their gazes meet. “Would you be okay with me holding your hand?”

“Yes.”

He does not even have to think about it, and when Wei Ying takes his hand, he intertwines their fingers, just like that. Wei Ying’s hand is warm. Smaller than his own, the palm slightly calloused and dry, but their fingers slot together perfectly, and it feels like they should perhaps be walking, so Lan Wangji begins to walk – away from the pasture and on along the path towards the alpacas and the rest of the farm.

“How long was it before you started talking?” Wei Ying asks, easily walking in step with Lan Wangji’s strides.

“When I was nine.”

Wei Ying squeezes his hand, just a little. It feels good.

“What did it feel like?”

This question does take some consideration, but not much.

“Before, it was as though I had all the words, inside, but they were stuck, here.” He gestures with his free hand to his throat, to the little hollow between his collarbones. “It still happens, but not as often. And before, everyone adjusted their communication to me. When I started talking, I had to learn how to adjust myself to others. I had not had to learn that, before.”

Wei Ying gives his hand another squeeze, and somehow, it feels even better.

“Yeah, I get that” he says, sounding almost a little wistful. “Like, I haven’t had the exact same experience, obviously, but I think I get that.” He swings their joined hands between them, experimentally, almost; Lan Wangji strangely does not mind. “I’m on the spectrum too, you know. Or, you probably don’t know, but most people clock it pretty early. ADHD”, he adds when he notices Lan Wangji’s silent question. “Textbook case, according to every child psychiatrist I ever met. Ticked just about every box, apparently.”

“How old were you?”

“Five-ish, maybe? It was about a year after I moved in with my foster family.”

Oh. Lan Wangji tenses up and Wei Ying must notice, because he gives Lan Wangji’s hand another little squeeze.

“You can ask about it, if you want” he says. “I’m fine to talk about it.”

But Lan Wangji does not know how to ask how Wei Ying ended up in a foster family, because he knows only too well the possible reasons why, and none of them are things you just ask someone about – especially not on a first date. But on the other hand… what Wei Ying just told him is not all that different from what Lan Wangji himself volunteered only minutes before. A diagnosis for a diagnosis. A foster family for the death of two parents.

As if to say that they are not all that different.

Lan Wangji opens his mouth to speak, but before even a single syllable makes it past his lips, Wei Ying’s gaze has moved past him and his eyes light up.

“Oh look! Lan Zhan! Are those the alpacas?”

Those, when Lan Wangji follows Wei Ying’s gaze, are indeed the alpacas. There are three of them in the enclosure, all of them in different shades of chocolate, and there is a slightly larger group of visitors by their fence. Wei Ying is leading the way and with their hands still joined, Lan Wangji is tugged along. Not that he minds, particularly, which feels strange all on its own.

“I’ve never seen real alpacas before” Wei Ying says. “Wow, they look really weird. Look at their little faces, I just want to pinch them.”

“They would not appreciate it” Lan Wangji informs him, and Wei Ying laughs. He has a beautiful laugh. It does things to his entire face – makes it all bright and crinkly.

“Okay, okay, I won’t. How do you know? Have you tried?”

“I do not need to try. Animals do not like pain. Pinching them would cause pain.”

“Hmm, yeah, that makes sense, I guess. Have you ever heard of cute aggression?”

Lan Wangji has barely even begun to shake his head before Wei Ying continues:

“It’s the psychological reaction whenever you see something really cute and you just want to squeeze it. I’ve got it, and I’ve got it bad.” Wei Ying glances over at the alpacas with what Lan Wangji thinks is a mournful look. “Don’t you feel it? I mean, just look at them!”

Lan Wangji obediently looks at the group of animals on the other side of the fence, but even though he does think they look a bit endearing and knows exactly how soft their wool would be to touch, he feels absolutely no desire to pinch them. They would bite.

“No, I do not feel it.”

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying laughs and swings their hands between them. It feels a little bit like some of the bubbles in his laughter trickle through their hands and into Lan Wangji’s stomach. “How can you be immune to all this cuteness?”

Lan Wangji does not know how to answer this. If he is to be perfectly honest, he has no idea how they even got to this point in their conversation.

“Hey, if I can’t pinch them, will you at least tell me a little bit about them?” Wei Ying asks, after what is probably an inappropriately long silence or no time at all. “The alpacas?”

Belatedly, Lan Wangji nods, and begins to tell Wei Ying what he knows about alpacas. It is not much, partly because the animals are a fairly recent addition to the farm and partly because Lan Wangji has not had much to do with them, and they soon walk on from the enclosure, still hand in hand. This too, is strange: how good it feels to hold hands with Wei Ying. Easy, in a way physical touch rarely does.

They walk past the pig pen, where Wei Ying crinkle-laughs again, and then towards the pasture where the goats and sheep graze, where Wei Ying suddenly stops in the middle of the path.

“Lan Zhan!” Accusatory, but… whiney? “You didn’t tell me there were babies!”

Lan Wangji follows his gaze ahead, and indeed, there are both kids and lambs grazing and playing in the grass. He has been too busy looking at Wei Ying to notice.

“I did not know I was expected to do so.”

“They’re baby animals! Adorable fur babies!”

Wei Ying’s reasoning does not make any sense – and you really should not anthropomorphise animals, Lan Wangji thinks to himself – but he is right on one account. The little creatures in the pasture are young, hardly more than fluffy tufts of fur on spindly legs, tottering through the grass.

Babies.

Something clenches in Lan Wangji’s chest.

Wei Ying does not notice, but simply plops down on the grass right outside the fence, practically cooing at the animals. Lan Wangji, consequently, finds himself carefully checking the ground for muck and then sitting down himself, because if he did not, he would have to let go of Wei Ying’s hand, and that seems a much worse prospect than sitting cross-legged on the grass.

“Oh, they’re so cute” Wei Ying sighs happily next to him. “Look at that one! It’s so wobbly!”

The little kid does seem to wobble on the uneven ground, tentatively trying out each step before putting its hooves down. It bleats, its voice high and thin, and the doe closest to it answers almost immediately. The kid bleats again, takes another step, and promptly trips.

Wei Ying clutches at his chest with his free hand.

“I’ll never survive this” he tells Lan Wangji as they both watch the kid get back on its hooves. “I will die from cuteness overload and it’ll be the happiest moment of my life.”

It is probably for the best that Lan Wangji does not say that this moment right now is already a contender for the happiest moment of his life. It is, though. Sitting in the grass with Wei Ying and holding hands with him as they watch the lambs and kids play just a few metres away fills him with a joy he does not recognise as something he has ever experienced before.

It takes him almost a full minute of sitting in this peaceful way to notice the way Wei Ying cards through the grass with his free hand. Not pulling at it, just combing through it with his fingers, raking through the long straws, over and over. Lan Wangji watches this for almost another full minute before he realises that he is staring – and what is probably going on.

“Are you stimming?” he blurts, which is outrageous because he never blurts.

Wei Ying jolts a little, and his hand stops. He looks up at Lan Wangji, down at his hand, back up at Lan Wangji again, and smiles apologetically.

“I guess I was.”

“There is no need for you to stop” Lan Wangji hurries to say, because this he recognises only too well: the whiplash reaction to being caught. “It was not my intention to… to point it out, it is merely… I rarely see anyone else do it.”

His voice becomes quieter as he speaks, he can hear it shrinking as he realises what he has just done, and he does not want it to. He wants to apologise for his bluntness, for unintentionally shaming Wei Ying for using a coping mechanism he himself desperately needs, and when he can dare to believe that he is forgiven, he wants to talk. Wants to ask Wei Ying about what his stims did for him just now, ask him a hundred questions about a hundred things, and he needs his voice to do that, needs his words, and he will not be able to if they leave him now.

“It’s okay” Wei Ying says. “I’m just not used to people calling it what it is. Mostly they just tell me to stop.”

Lan Wangji is angry at that. Instantly so.

“You do not have to stop” he says again. “You should be allowed to stim whenever you need to.”

Wei Ying laughs again, but not quite in the face-crinkling way this time.

“Thanks. You should too, you know. Be allowed to stim.”

Lan Wangji stares at him, at that. Swallows, because his throat feels a little dry suddenly. It should not come as a surprise, perhaps, but… no one except his brother has ever told him that.

No one who mattered.

“What did it do for you?” he dares to ask. “Just now.”

“Huh? Oh, the stimming!” Wei Ying raises his free hand and turns it over in the air, as though studying it for answers. “I don’t know, it made me feel good. More grounded, more here, with you.” He smiles and squeezes Lan Wangji’s hand. “It’s easier to keep my head in one place if all my senses are in on it, too, you know?”

Lan Wangji does not know.

“It is different” he manages. “For me.”

“Yeah? What does it do for you, Lan Zhan?”

“It…” he searches for the right words, “it gives me a focus point when everything becomes too much.”

“Good too much or bad too much?”

“Both.”

“Well, if you feel the need, just go for it, okay? And if it’s a bad too much, I’ll try to help make it less bad.”

Wei Ying smiles, and it feels almost unreal. This. All of it.

“…okay” Lan Wangji finds himself saying, as if someone encouraging him to stim freely is an everyday occurrence. “Thank you.”

The smile on Wei Ying’s face turns into a grin, one that scrunches up his whole face.

“But this is a good place, right? That’s why you suggested coming here?”

He gestures broadly around them, and Lan Wangji follows his sweeping arm with his gaze. Green grass, the pasture with grazing animals, the families standing by the fence some meters away. A good place.

“Yes. It is familiar. I know where I can go for quiet. I feel safe. The staff know me.”

“Loud noises set you off?

“Mm.”

“What about the children?”

Lan Wangji frowns.

“They are children” he says, and when he realises that this might not make sense to Wei Ying, he elaborates: “They are loud in a different way. Most of the time. And the children who come here during the weeks learn to be quiet around the animals.”

“You come here often then?”

“Once a week. I volunteer here.”

“Really? That’s so cool, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying leans back, using his free hand on the grass for support, and sighs loudly. “Man, I wish I’d known you could volunteer at a place like this. There are no lamb-babies at the archery range.”

Lan Wangji is so dumbstruck at the idea of lamb-babies – he has never heard a word at once so seemingly idiotic and acutely spot-on before – that he almost does not catch the rest of Wei Ying’s words.

“You practice archery?” he asks.

“Yeah, among other things” Wei Ying chuckles, but he looks slightly embarrassed.

“What other things?”

“Oh, um, swimming, music, painting, and like, four different kinds of martial arts… Not all at once though! I also tried yoga for a while, it was not for me.”

He laughs. It gives Lan Wangji a chance to catch up.

“Music?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you play an instrument?”

“Well, I did, the dizi, but I haven’t practiced in years. You play the qin, right?”

“Mm, guqin is my primary instrument” he replies. “I also play the piano.”

“So cool” Wei Ying says again with a dreamy sigh. His gaze wanders and since Lan Wangji cannot stop looking at him, he sees the smile on Wei Ying’s face before he sees the reason for it. “Hello little one!”

About two metres away from them, just on the other side of the fence, is one of the lambs. It stands with its front legs almost comically apart, as though pushing against the ground to keep its balance, and it looks at them in the way lambs do – ears perked and an almost smiling expression on its tiny face.

“Oh, aren’t you the most adorable little baby?” Wei Ying coos. “Look at your little nose! Your tail!”

The lamb, which is indeed wagging its fluffy little tail happily, does not seem bothered by the attention at all. If anything, it seems curious, because it takes another step forward, and Wei Ying makes a sound as if he is about to choke.

“Lan Zhan, please, please tell me it’s okay to pet it?”

“If it allows you, and its mother does not mind” Lan Wangji says, repeating the rules as he learned them as a child. “And you should not use the same hand as you petted Ninette with, to reduce the risk of spreading disease.”

“Oh, that’s okay then!” Wei Ying raises his free hand. “This is the uncontaminated one, so we can keep holding hands! I mean, if that’s okay? I’ve been holding your hand for a really long time now, haven’t I? We can stop if it’s uncomfortable or-”

He has not held Wei Ying’s hand for nearly long enough.

“No need” Lan Wangji says. “I like it.”

Wei Ying makes this little sound, not quite a laughter, more like an exhale, disbelieving and both sad and amused at the same time. From the other side of the fence there is a thin-voiced bleat.

“Oh, sorry!” Wei Ying says at once, unfolding his legs to get up so quickly that Lan Wangji almost – but only almost – must let go of his hand not to fall over when he tries to follow. “I haven’t forgotten about you, little one.”

He squats down by the fence and holds his hand out just above the lowest wooden rail. The lamb, almost at the fence already, takes a few curious steps forward, bleating happily. The mother sheep, only a meter or so away, keeps watch but shows no alarm as her child head-bumps the proffered hand.

“Whoa…” Wei Ying whispers on an exhale, and he is suddenly a lot quieter. “Hey. Hello there. What are you smelling? Do you smell the grass, huh? You’re too small for grass. Yeah, you’re just a baby. Babies don’t eat grass, you kn- oh, that tickles.”

Wei Ying giggles as the lamb nibbles at his hand with its lips, no doubt searching for food, and Lan Wangji feels something click inside him, like something falling into place in a piece of old machinery or clockwork. All day today he has seen Wei Ying just like this. In each and every encounter he has had, with children and adults and animals alike, he has shown kindness and consideration, taking time and care to adjust himself to them and make sure that they are comfortable. Maybe, just maybe, Wei Ying is someone who would be willing to do that for him, too. Someone who might, in turn, let Lan Wangji try to do the same for him.

“Sorry I haven’t got any food for you” Wei Ying tells the lamb. “You’ll have to go to mummy for that. But maybe when you’re bigger I can come back and give you some grass, okay? Yeah, let’s do that. Oh, you’re done now? Okay. Bye-bye, baby.”

The lamb totters off towards the ewe, its tail still wagging happily, and Wei Ying lets out a sigh.

“I have been blessed” he says as he heaves himself up from the squat with one hand on the fence rail for support. Once he is standing again, he pats the fence twice. “Good thing this is here, or I would’ve brought that lamb home with me.”

Lan Wangji opens his mouth to tell him that not only would such an action be both illegal and highly traumatising for the sheep, it would also be highly impractical, but he stops himself.

“You are joking” he says instead, and Wei Ying laughs.

“Of course I’m joking” he says and takes half a step closer to Lan Wangji. “Mostly. It’s one hundred percent my gut reaction to just reach down and grab it and bring it home with me so I can cuddle it whenever.” He glances over at the lamb and its mother, sighs and shakes his head. “We’d better leave, before I actually do it. God, it had the softest fluff I’ve ever felt.”

As they walk away from the pastures and along the path that will lead them back to all the main buildings, Wei Ying enthuses about what is now, apparently, labelled his Near Lamb Experience. He chatters and gestures broadly, even when they briefly let go to take turns washing their hands by the outdoor sink, but after, when Lan Wangji holds out his hand, heart pounding wildly, Wei Ying takes it with a smile that could outshine the sun.

It is impossible not to look at him.

He should stand out here, an adult in his all-black denim and boots outfit and without a child in company, just like Lan Wangji knows that he himself does, but somehow, Wei Ying does not. He looks like he fits right in here, in the midst of all these animal enclosures and families with baby strollers and picnic blankets, and his hand fits so well in Lan Wangji’s. What if he could fit into the rest of Lan Wangji’s life just as easily? If he did, Lan Wangji would never have to let go.

Ridiculous. He is being ridiculous.

“Oh, Lan Zhan! Is that a café?”

Wei Ying’s smile is as warm as it is radiant. Lan Wangji must nod to help himself get actual words out.

“Yes. I thought we could eat there. They do not serve cooked food, but they have sandwiches and waffles.”

“Waffles?!” Wei Ying looks like Lan Wangji just handed him the birthday present of his dreams. “They have waffles?! Can we?”

“Of course?” Lan Wangji cannot quite help the questioning tone in his voice. He just said so, did he not? “We can go there now, if you would like to?”

“I’d love to! Waffles are the best!” Wei Ying smiles brightly, but with something like nostalgia in his eyes. “My sister used to make them for Sunday breakfasts sometimes.”

This feels… different, somehow. True. Not that Lan Wangji feels as though Wei Ying has lied to him – in fact, he has been extremely open about his every opinion and feeling through all of their interactions – but this feels sincere in a wholly different way. It feels as though it matters.

“You have a sister?”

“Yeah.” Wei Ying smiles, a more tender variety of what Lan Wangji is beginning to consider his usual brilliance. “Well, she’s my foster sister, technically. She is seven years older than me, and A-Cheng – that’s our brother – is half a year younger than I am. She’d take care of us a lot when we were kids.”

“Oh.” He is struck again by the similarities between them, however quickly drawn the comparison is. Wei Ying as… what did he call it? A textbook case. Moving in with his foster family at the age of four. An older sibling to care for him, when his parents were no longer there, or able. “You are close?”

“Yeah, we are” Wei Ying says as they step inside the cafeteria. There is a single family inside, the children seemingly trying to decide on waffle toppings. “She’s so grown up though, getting married and starting a family, and A-Cheng is apprenticing at his father’s company, so we don’t see each other very often these days. And their mother doesn’t really like me that much.”

Wei Ying says the last part with a shrug, but his voice also drops significantly, which makes Lan Wangji feel quite certain that this, too, is something that really matters to him, and so, consequently, it also matters to Lan Wangji. He wants to ask about it, desperately so, but although Wei Ying said it was something he was okay to talk about, Lan Wangji does not know if this truly is a good place or time. They are on their first date, after all, and among other people who could all too easily overhear them. Before he can make up his mind though, the family ahead of them in the queue receive their trays and step out of the way, and it is their turn.

“Wangji! Hi!” the woman behind the counter chirps. “Long time no see, how’ve you been?”

“Well, thank you, miss Blake” he says, dipping his head slightly.

“Don’t you ‘miss Blake’ me” miss Blake says to him, wagging her finger in warning before turning to Wei Ying. “I’m Catherine.”

“Catherine” Wangji repeats dutifully, “allow me to introduce you, this is-”

He falters. What to say? Should he introduce Wei Ying as his date? His friend?

“I’m Wei Wuxian” Wei Ying says, filling the strained silence as though it was nothing at all. “Well, Wuxian is my first name. Nice to meet you.”

Wuxian, Lan Wangji thinks, his chest filling up with warmth. He only gave her his courtesy name. Not Wei Ying. Then he notices his own reaction, and that realisation makes his ears grow hot almost instantly. Ridiculous. He is being ridiculous.

“Nice to meet you too, Wuxian, you said? I haven’t seen you here before.”

“It’s my first time” Wei Ying says lightly, “but I really like it here.”

“I’m glad to hear it” miss Blake says, with a smile Lan Wangji cannot decode. “What can I get you both today?”

“I’d like two waffles, please, with both jam and cream.”

“Strawberry or raspberry?”

“Can I have both?” Wei Ying does a thing with his eyebrow that somehow has miss Blake laughing.

“Yes, of course you can. Something to drink?”

“Just a glass of water would be great, thanks.”

“Gotcha. Wangji?”

“One waffle, with raspberry jam on the side, please. Water to drink, please.”

She nods before he has even finished speaking, making him feel predictable in the not-good sense of the word. He has had waffles here before, many times, but he does not dare to trust that she will remember his preferences, and he would rather make certain of it.

“Sure thing. Are you paying separately or together?”

“Separately” Wei Ying says, at the exact same time as Lan Wangji says “Together”.

Silence falls heavily between them for all of a second, and strangely enough, Lan Wangji is the one who recovers first.

“I will pay for us” he says, and it is only as he begins to think about reaching for the card case in his pocket that he realises that he and Wei Ying are still holding hands, and he needs his hand to reach into his pocket. Letting go does not feel like an option, but not paying is not an option either, so he is quite at a loss for what to do when Wei Ying gives him a quick squeeze and releases his hand for him.

“You don’t have to pay for me” Wei Ying says, “let me just-”

“I want to” Lan Wangji cuts him off, and since he apparently has his card closer at hand than Wei Ying does, he does get to the card reader faster and pays for them. Miss Blake smiles at him, still with that weird expression that he is beginning to suspect is amusement.

“I’ll have your waffles ready in a few minutes.”

She walks over to the waffle iron and Lan Wangji turns his attention to the floor. He would like to turn it to Wei Ying, but he is not sure if perhaps he overstepped just now, and his hand is still tingling from the loss of Wei Ying’s hand in his. It feels strange, suddenly, to be without it, and he longs to hold Wei Ying’s hand again. He does not speak his wish, though. Does not know how to say the words or even make a gesture to communicate this strange new desire. Instead, he leaves his hand in his pocket, fidgeting with the clasp mechanism on the metal card case.

How long did they hold hands for? Almost an hour, he thinks, with only a short break to wash their hands. An hour. That a single hour of his life can feel longer than all the other hours combined, and still too short.

“Are you okay?”

It takes Lan Wangji several moments to catch up to the words, spoken softly and close by, and he looks up at Wei Ying’s face. He just spoke in Mandarin.

They have not exchanged a single word in Mandarin before.

“Yes” he says, automatically replying in the same language. “Why?”

“You look a bit uncomfortable. Like you’re holding back.”

Lan Wangji hesitates; but Wei Ying’s words make him feel just as he did in the coffeeshop earlier this week: seen, in a way he rarely feels seen by anyone. Understood.

“I do not know how to describe it” he says.

“You don’t have to. Just let me know if there’s something I do that you need me not to do, okay?”

And then Wei Ying brushes his hand against Lan Wangji’s, pinkie against pinkie, and Lan Wangji almost catches his fingers on a reflex he did not know he had.

“Here we go, waffles and drinks.” Miss Blake places two plastic trays on the counter and smiles at them. “Please put the trays in the cart when you’re finished, alright?”

“Yes, miss Blake” Lan Wangji replies and takes the tray with a single waffle and the jam in a separate little porcelain dish.

“Goo- Wangji! I’ve told you-” she sighs and shakes her head. “Well, enjoy your waffles, boys!”

It is something of a relief to get back outside again, where miss Blake cannot smile at him or give him looks that he cannot quite decipher. Wei Ying follows him and soon leads the way towards a small table with two chairs standing by themselves a little way off.

“This looks so good” Wei Ying says, back to English now, as he puts his tray on the table and plops down on one of the chairs. “I haven’t had waffles in ages. Is it okay if I dig in?”

“Of course” Lan Wangji says as he takes the other chair and begins to cut small bite-sizes of his own waffle, adding a knife’s edge of jam to each piece before eating them.

On the other side of the table, Wei Ying is spreading his two kinds of jam and a big dollop of whipped cream in a thick layer of white-and-red swirls, before cutting out the waffle hearts and picking one of them up with his hand. He has barely swallowed his first bite before he lets out a throaty sound of enjoyment that makes Lan Wangji think instantly of a very different kind of pleasure. Thankfully not in a way that would make it impossible to leave this table with his dignity intact, but… still. He clears his throat delicately, feeling his ears heat.

“Oh god” Wei Ying says between one mouthful and the next. “Why don’t I have waffles every day? This is the best.”

“You would not receive adequate nutrition if your diet consisted solely of waffles” Lan Wangji points out, and swallows another bite of his own.

“Pfft, nutrition-schmutrition” Wei Ying says, devouring another waffle-heart with obvious gusto before smacking his lips. Lan Wangji cannot bring himself to look away.

“You like it?”

Lan Wangji nods and takes another bite with just a hint of jam. The waffle will probably go cold before he can finish it, but he will eat as much of it as he can before that happens. It helps that Wei Ying is so occupied with his own food that he does not say anything that requires Lan Wangji to answer, and so he can direct all of his attention on eating. The waffles do taste good, he likes waffles, but they cool quickly. Lan Wangji enjoys three of the five hearts fully, forces himself to finish the fourth one, and finds it impossible to even put the fifth in his mouth.

“You’re not having that?”

He glances at Wei Ying, quickly, and shakes his head.

“Can I have it?”

“…help yourself.”

Wei Ying reaches across the table and snatches the cold waffle-heart from the plate, dips it in the remaining jam and devours the whole thing in three chews.

“Thank you” Lan Wangji says quietly.

“Huh?” Wei Ying blinks at him and licks jam off his thumb in a most distracting way. “What for?”

“…helping me finish my meal.”

Wei Ying laughs and shrugs, like it was nothing.

“You didn’t want it” he says – but then, after another moment, cocks his head as though struck by a thought. “No” he says, “wait, hang on, what you’re saying is, you couldn’t finish it?”

Lan Wangji nods, relieved in a way he cannot allow himself to stop and examine. He wants Wei Ying to know this, to understand, and that Wei Ying should even think to ask this question is… huge. Rare. But he cannot sit here and expect Wei Ying to guess the answer – he must speak it, out loud.

“I… struggle with food. Different textures and smells and temperatures, or when different foods are served together.”

“Oh.” Wei Ying, thankfully, only wipes his hands on a paper napkin and says: “So, hot, crispy waffle is fine, but cold, soggy waffle is no-go?”

“Mm.”

“And jam on the side.”

Lan Wangji feels like he does not shrug so much as he shrinks in his seat.

“Yes” he says quietly. And then, for some unintelligible reason, he continues: “My brother would help me finish my meals when we were younger. We were raised to do so, whether we enjoyed the food or not.”

“You have a brother?” Wei Ying asks, as if it does not bother him in the slightest that Lan Wangji, a grown adult, could not bring himself to eat three bites’ worth of cold waffle. When Lan Wangji nods, Wei Ying smiles widely. “What’s he like?”

“Tall.”

Wei Ying bursts out a laugh.

“You’re pretty tall yourself, Lan Zhan” he says. “What’s he like?”

“Caring” Lan Wangji says after considering for a moment. “Kind. He likes to read poetry.”

“Is he older or younger?”

“Older, by four years.”

“And he’d finish your food for you? He sounds like an awesome big brother.”

Lan Wangji lowers his gaze.

“He is. He would do anything for me.” He realises that he is picking at the seam of his trousers and stops. Unseemly. “You said your sister took care of you when you were younger. Xiongzhang took care of me, too, though he was only a child himself.”

“Yeah?” Wei Ying’s voice is soft, muffled, as though it comes from somewhere further away. “How so?”

“He would speak for me, interpret what I needed or wanted, even before our parents died. After, he was the only one who understood me at all. I would have meltdowns and he was the only one who could decipher why they happened. He chose his own after-school activities by which would allow him to accompany me to mine. When we grew older, he got his driver’s license despite how much he dislikes driving, so I would not have to take the bus or the tube.”

It was Xichen who would hug him in just the right way when he needed it the most, long and hard and without any demands for reciprocation. It was Xichen who walked into teacher’s conferences and principals’ offices to demand that Lan Wangji receive the support he needed and was entitled to; Xichen who taught him how to cook for himself, so that he would know what was in the food before he ate it; and Xichen who gave him the words to describe his sexual identity when he never even knew such words existed.

“I have been dependent on him all my life” Lan Wangji concludes, the words as heavy as the realisation when it first hit him a few years back. “I still rely on him far more than I would like.”

“Isn’t that okay though?”

When Lan Wangji raises his gaze, Wei Ying smiles at him and shrugs.

“I’m not saying it’s necessarily fair to the older sibling, but isn’t it okay for you to depend on others for help if you need it? That’s what my therapist keeps telling me, anyway. What’s the point of you wrecking yourself trying to do it all on your own?”

“I do not wish to be a burden to him, or to anyone else.”

“Lan Zhan…”

Wei Ying reaches out, then seems to catch himself and places his hand on the table between them instead, palm up. Lan Wangji hesitates for maybe five seconds before he places his own hand in Wei Ying’s, but once he does, he does not regret it. Holding hands with Wei Ying feels like finding a piece of himself he did not know he was missing.

“In what ways could you possibly be a burden to anyone?” Wei Ying asks.

Lan Wangji swallows and his gaze drops.

“Perhaps not a burden” he allows, “but… being with me takes effort. I do not talk much, and I do not catch non-verbal cues easily. I get overwhelmed by loud noises and keep a very restrictive diet and I need my routines. There are times when I lose my speech, or shut down, and I… I do not wish to be someone who needs to be accommodated all the time.”

He falters, falls silent. Wei Ying sits in silence as well, waiting, perhaps, for a continuation Lan Wangji might not be able to ever give him.

“Hey Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying says quietly. “If you were to ask him if he regretted it, all those things he’s done for you, and you knew he couldn’t lie, do you think he would say yes?”

Something hot rises in Lan Wangji’s throat. He cannot even imagine it.

“No.” And then, almost in Xichen’s defence: “My brother never lies.”

“Well, there you have it” Wei Ying says, only a little louder, but much brighter.

“But he changed his entire life for me. I do not want anyone else to have to do that. I would not want you to have to do that.”

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. Wei Ying, who has been bouncing his foot, stops and stares at him with an expression Lan Wangji cannot even begin to guess what it is. The heat from before rises to his ears, his cheeks. He never blurts. And yet, he just did. Again.

“Isn’t that what people do, when they like each other?” Wei Ying asks softly. “Make room for each other in their lives?”

Yes, Lan Wangji wants to say, at least that is what I hope they do. It is only that so far in life, with the exception of his brother, it has seemed as though he takes up far too much space for people to even want to try.

Only now does he realise that Wei Ying has not reacted negatively to that last part of what he said, the assumption that slipped out. Instead of dismissing the thought, the idea of being someone who might need to change his life for Lan Wangji, Wei Ying… took it. Took it and said people who like each other.

“There is something…” he begins, then pauses and closes his eyes briefly.

Not like this. Wei Ying is not Xichen; Lan Wangji cannot expect him to ask questions and use the answers to make conclusions about what Lan Wangji is trying to say. He needs to speak these words himself, explain himself, difficult though his thoughts might be to put into words.

“I wanted you to know about this.”

He opens his eyes, and Wei Ying’s attention is still on him, a little crease on his forehead, a tentative smile on his lips.

“Which part, Lan Zhan? You’ve told me a lot of things.”

“All of it. About me. About my autism and my routines and how I function, because- I wanted to go out with you. I want to go out with you again. But if you do not know, if you cannot…” he scrambles for words and finds only Wei Ying’s, “make that space for me in your life, then I do not think we should. Go out again.”

He has been masking all his life, or at least ever since he became old enough to realise that he was expected to, needed to, to be able to get anywhere on his own. He masks at university and on the train he takes to go there; even here at the centre, even when he visits his uncle, he masks. But he knows he could not do so with a partner.

He can pretend for an hour, or half a day. Pretend that the loud music in some shops does not bother him, pretend that he does not mind another sudden change in the schedule, pretend that a thousand things do not prick his mind like bee stings and sometimes makes him need to shut himself away from all the noise and the light and pull at his hair and bite and claw until the overload drains out of him.

He can pretend, for a while. But not with a boyfriend.

Wei Ying says nothing for a few moments, but he is still holding Lan Wangji’s hand and he looks deep in thought. Then he nods, a gesture that somehow encapsulates all of their surroundings.

“Is that why you invited me here?” he asks, and it is almost the same question as he asked before, but it is also infinitely different. “To make it easier for you to tell me?”

Lan Wangji nods, relieved beyond words.

“This place is important to me. And I feel safe here. If you… if you reacted badly, or left, I would be okay here.”

Wei Ying squeezes his hand again. Lan Wangji does not think he could ever tire of the sensations that single gesture creates in him.

“Yeah, I get that” Wei Ying says, and then he laughs, a dry little sound. “I get how people can make you feel like you need to take that kind of precaution. Manage their expectations.”

Manage expectations. It is a fitting description for what Lan Wangji has just done; in fact, it is exactly right. A way of telling Wei Ying who he is, what he needs and what he can give, before all the things he cannot be or do become untraversable obstacles.

“I bet if we were to list things off, your things and mine, it’d probably look like we shouldn’t even be on this date to begin with” Wei Ying continues. “I mean, look at me. I’m loud and obnoxious and clingy, and I can’t keep track of time so I’m always running late and disappointing people. I either can’t focus on anything for more than five minutes at a time, or I go into hyper mode and forget to eat and sleep, and then my anxiety kicks in and fires up every abandonment issue in the book…”

He cuts himself off, and Lan Wangji’s heart throbs at the sight of his eyes just then. There are shadows in them, the shapes of which remind Lan Wangji of fears that live in his own mind.

“I think you’re great, Lan Zhan, and this is such an awesome place. I haven’t even seen the bunnies yet, but I’m really glad to be here with you. So, you know, if by some miracle you don’t think I’m too much by the end of today, I’d like to go out with you again.”

“I do not think you are too much” Lan Wangji says. He is not sure what Wei Ying thinks he might be too much of, exactly, but he is not too much for Lan Wangji. In fact, he has been nothing but enthusiastic, considerate and open-hearted, but Lan Wangji does not know how to put any of that – or what it means that he has been all those things – into words. “You are… you… you finished my waffles.”

Wei Ying blinks at him and for a moment, Lan Wangji berates himself for failing to speak his mind yet again, but then Wei Ying laughs. Not at him, and not like something is hurting, but radiantly.

“Lan Zhan!” he beams. “Of course I finished your waffles! Tell you what, if you ever need help finishing a meal, just let me know, alright? I can even make a show of it, so you can pretend to be annoyed at me!”

Lan Wangji cannot help but stare at him. It is a ridiculous suggestion, but there is a meaning underneath the ludicrousness, the warmth of which burrows into his chest and settles there. It is such a small thing, but it feels large, and it makes Lan Wangji wonder if waffles and cream and jam would taste differently on Wei Ying’s lips.

Ridiculous.

“Thank you” he makes himself say, because that is what you do when someone gives you something: acknowledge it out loud. “I appreciate it.”

“So formal, Lan Zhan” Wei Ying says with a laugh. “There’s no need for that, okay? We’re good. Or, we will be, once you’ve shown me the rabbits. We can go see them now, can’t we?”

How could Lan Wangji do anything but nod? They have finished their waffles, or Wei Ying has, and he does want to bring him to the rabbit enclosure. For all that this whole place feels personal to him, the rabbits are the creatures closest to his heart, and if he wants Wei Ying to know who he is, how he is, then there is no skipping over the rabbits.

“We should clear the table” he says, and then nods, “but we can go see the bunnies after.”

“Yay!”

Wei Ying shoots up out of his chair like fireworks into the sky, and with their hands still joined, he almost pulls Lan Wangji along with him. He is apparently just as unwilling to let go as Lan Wangji is, because he stacks their trash on the tray one-handed as he prattles on:

“You’ve no idea how much I’ve looked forward to seeing them! Actual bunnies! You know, we never had pets when I was a kid, but we went to a petting zoo once and I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much as when they dragged me away from the rabbits. Must’ve been my first ever heartbreak!”

They dispose of the trash in a nearby bin and put their trays in the cart for collection later on, and then Lan Wangji leads the way across the yard to where the rabbits are kept. He has been coming here for so many years that the rabbit pen feels almost like true north; as though even blindfolded he could start from anywhere on the grounds and still find his way there, guided only by the invisible pull.

The enclosure lies half-hidden behind the stable: just a small house added onto the stable wall, with a roofed enclosure built around it that allows the rabbits to walk in and out as they please. It is a large space, with toys and food stations and water bottles, as well as a digging pit and several hutches for hiding in, and when they arrive there, two rabbits are outside. They do not seem to care much about their audience outside the mesh walls, however – no less than three family groups, although the children are surprisingly quiet – but are instead focusing all their attention on a dish of leafy green vegetables between them. It is a common scene, one Lan Wangji has seen a thousand times, and yet the sight of the two rabbits munching together, noses twitching, calms him.

Next to him, Wei Ying suppresses a squeal.

“This is the best place ever” he sighs wistfully. Then, only a moment later, he tugs on Lan Wangji’s hand. “Lan Zhan! What are their names?”

“That is Mellow and Dapper. They are bonded partners.”

“Aww, really? So they’re on a bunny date!”

“Rabbits do not go on dates” Lan Wangji points out. This should be obvious: dating is a human social construct, and as such cannot be applied to rabbits.

“But they left their bunny house and went outside to have a meal together! That’s got to be bunny date.”

Lan Wangji opens his mouth to argue his point, but closes it almost immediately again as he realises, with something akin to confusion, that he does not want to stand his ground on this. The idea that the rabbits might have somehow decided to go outside together, share a meal together, simply because they enjoy each other’s company, is of course ludicrous, but… but…

It is also absolutely heart-warming.

And just like that, this is not enough. Simply standing here and watching, on the outside of the enclosure, like all the other visitors. It did not matter so much with all the other animals, but here, with the rabbits, he wants to somehow show Wei Ying what this place truly means to him, and it is not this.

“Come” he says, and for the first time today, he is the one tugging at Wei Ying’s hand.

“What?” Wei Ying stumbles after him. “Wait, Lan Zhan! We’re leaving? We’ve barely said hi to the bunnies!”

Lan Wangji shakes his head. They are not leaving-leaving, but there are families here, and small children, and there are things you simply do not say in front of small children. Instead he leads them back the way they came and then through the open stable door. The stable is empty and quiet, with all the horses either on riding lessons or in the pasture, and so, there are no families in here, either. No children to notice as Lan Wangji walks up to a door in the wall and takes a key off a hook.

Wei Ying gasps.

“Lan Zhan!” he whispers, eyes glittering as he watches Lan Wangji let go of his hand and proceed to unlock the door. “Is that- Are you taking me to meet the rabbits?”

“Mn.”

This time, Wei Ying does not manage to suppress his squeal. He also does this curious little dance on the spot, pulling both his closed fists to his chest and pumping them excitedly in front of him in tight little circles.

“Oh my god! I’m going to meet rabbits. Real rabbits!” He stops abruptly and looks at Lan Wangji with sudden horror. “Lan Zhan! What do I do? What if I scare them?”

“You will not.”

“But what if I do? Aren’t rabbits really easily scared?”

“As long as you do not make loud noises or sudden movements, they will be alright.”

“But Lan Zhan” Wei Ying says, laughing awkwardly, “did you see me just now? I am loud noises and sudden movements.”

“Not so.” Lan Wangji shakes his head, and, in a stroke of inspiration, puts his hand on Wei Ying’s and gives it one of those little squeezes Wei Ying has been giving him all through the afternoon. “You did not scare the horses, or the lamb. You will be fine.”

For a moment it seems as though Wei Ying will protest, but then he exhales and his shoulders fall, and his thumb strokes Lan Wangji’s. It tickles.

“Okay” he says with a nod. “Okay. Thanks.”

“No need to thank me. It is the truth.” He takes in Wei Ying’s tense expression. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be!” Wei Ying says with a nod. “Let’s go meet the bunnies.”

Lan Wangji opens the door, and almost instantly the sweet smell of grass rolls out, like a red carpet welcoming him back. He motions for Wei Ying to step inside first, and then follows quickly, as relieved as ever to hear the little click of the door as it closes behind him.

“Whoa” Wei Ying breathes. “It really is a bunny house.”

“Mn.”

It really is. Nothing in this room, except for the ceiling light, is made for humans. There are hidey-holes and litterboxes, and shelves for climbing, as well as chewing toys and water bottles and two hoppers full of hay, and the floor is absolutely covered in piles of straw, but even so, stepping into this small room feels like coming home.

Lan Wangji’s gaze flits across the room as it always does whenever he comes here; checking the state of the water and food, as well as the boxes and toys, to make sure nothing is amiss. It is only a matter of a few seconds, a reflex so ingrained that he barely notices it himself. Once he has made certain that nothing needs his immediate attention, he looks around for the rabbits. With Mellow and Dapper still outside, there should be two rabbits in here. Since they are not out in the room, it is reasonable to assume that they are in one of their burrows.

“We can sit down” he tells Wei Ying. “If they want to, they will come out.”

“Oh, okay.”

There is a stretch of mostly empty floor by the wall, and once Lan Wangji has moved a couple of toys out of the way and sat down, Wei Ying soon follows. He mirrors Lan Wangji’s cross-legged position with ease and when he catches Lan Wangji stealing a glance at him, he smiles, as though all the insecurities from a minute ago have already been washed away from his face. It is a radiant but somehow also gentle smile, and once again Lan Wangji finds it difficult to meet his gaze.

It is not that he does not want to look at him; he has been finding himself staring at Wei Ying all afternoon, but… this is different. It is not so much about looking at Wei Ying, as it is about being seen by him. Here, as he is, where it matters most.

It is difficult to look at him and not know what he sees.

“This really is your favourite spot, huh?”

Wei Ying’s voice is light, but not dismissive. It is fond, and Lan Wangji nods, once.

“It shows.”

“How?”

The single word comes out slightly croaked, but at least it comes out, despite the sudden apprehension coiled tightly in his chest. People usually only comment on his expressions to call him stone-faced or unreadable, or to tell him how difficult he is to understand. That someone should think that something shows on his face, someone who barely even knows him, is… new.

Terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

“When we petted the horse earlier, you were watching it with the softest gaze” Wei Ying says. “And it was the same now, when you looked around in here. But right before that, when you closed the door, it seemed as though all this tension just drained right out of you.”

Maybe it should scare him that Wei Ying sees him so clearly. Maybe it should make him want to shield himself. But it does not. It makes him want to unfurl, like a flower opening itself up to the morning sun rising above the horizon.

“This is a good place” he says, once again borrowing Wei Ying’s words from earlier.

“What makes it so good?”

“Here, I can just be me” he says, hoping they are the right words. “Simply… Lan Zhan. I do not need to talk, or smile, or care about what other people think. The bunnies do not care about any of that.”

“Yeah? Hey Lan Zhan, about-”

There is a slight movement in the hutch at the opposite corner of the room, a shuffle of straw, and then a sand-coloured rabbit hops out into the room. It is followed almost instantly by a slightly larger rabbit, its fur the colour of milk chocolate.

“Oh” Wei Ying sighs next to him, sounding absolutely awed. “They’re adorable.”

The rabbits seem to deliberate for a few moments, before they begin making their way across the little room towards them. The sand-coloured rabbit leads the way, and is soon sniffing at Lan Wangji’s hand and enjoying a few scritches.

“Look at the nose” Wei Ying whines, “it’s twitching, Lan Zhan!”

“Mn.”

“Can I say hi?”

“Yes. Hold out your hand like this, where she can see. Slightly above her head and to the side is good.”

“Like this?”

“Mn.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Wei Ying hold his hand out in a loose fist. The rabbit studies him carefully for a few moments and when the hand comes close enough, reaches up to bump its head against it. Wei Ying makes a noise somewhere between a whine and wheeze.

“Her name is Buttercup” Lan Wangji says, “you can pet her by moving your fingers lightly back over her head. Nose to head at first.”

He illustrates with his own fingers in the air, and Wei Ying copies him. Underneath his fingers, the rabbit lowers her head slightly, as though inviting more scritches.

“Buttercup, huh?” Wei Ying muses. “What a sweet name. Who’s her friend?”

“Hazel. She is the shyest one.”

The chocolate-coloured rabbit is still keeping her distance from them and Lan Wangji lets her: she will approach when she is ready. Meanwhile, Buttercup looks as though she is melting under Wei Ying’s fingers, flattening herself out to allow the most possible area for his fingers to pet.

“You can try to stroke over her back” Lan Wangji says. “With the palm of your hand, not all the way to her tail, but in one stroke.”

“Okay…”

He sounds very hesitant, and Lan Wangji can see that his touch is almost too light, but Buttercup stays happily right where she is.

“She liked it?”

“Mn.”

“Oh…You like that?” Wei Ying asks the rabbit, stroking her back again. “Is that good? Oh, that’s a good spot, I’ve got you, I’ve got you…”

With Wei Ying’s attention now on the rabbit, Lan Wangji dares to look at him fully again, rather than just glance at him out of the corner of his eye. Takes in the straw already clinging to his black jeans and the smile that lights up his whole face as Buttercup keeps flattening herself under his large, gentle hand.

He is breath-taking.

The touch of paws on his calf interrupts his thoughts, and he looks down to find Hazel sitting right in front of him, front paws on his leg as she asks for his attention.

“Hello” he says softly. “Good girl.”

He does not have any treats for her – there are strict rules about how and when treats are given – but when she does not move away, he pets her head very lightly with two fingers, just the once. When she stays, he does it again.

“Look, Buttercup” he hears Wei Ying say, “your friend is here too. Getting pets from Lan Zhan. Are you jealous? No? Good.”

Lan Wangji blushes, he knows he does, but he keeps his attention on the rabbit still perched on his leg. She seems to be enjoying the touches, and so he keeps at it, moving his fingers slower and repeating the motion with shorter pause until she too begins to relax into a little bunny puddle, and he can hear the soft noise of teeth grinding.

“Now I’m getting jealous” Wei Ying says. “If I’d known I could get head scritches like that, I would’ve just climbed into your lap weeks ago, Lan Zhan.”

It feels like the blush explodes on his skin, like his ears and neck are on fire, and he must push the idea of Wei Ying sitting in his lap forcefully out of his mind, or he will lose it.

“I would have pushed you away” he says quietly. “I would not have known what to do.”

“Hmm. Good thing I didn’t, then, if it would’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“Mn.”

“Speaking of uncomfortable though…”

Wei Ying sounds so awkward that Lan Wangji cannot help but pick up on it. He glances in Wei Ying’s direction to see if maybe he can glimpse something of the possible reason why, but it is impossible. Wei Ying is still looking down at the rabbit and his face is expressing perhaps a dozen things at once and Lan Wangji does not know how to solve the equation of how they belong together.

“I was going to say, before…” Wei Ying continues, “I’m sorry about getting your name wrong. At the coffeeshop. Doing it on purpose, I mean.”

He glances up at Lan Wangji, then lowers his gaze to Buttercup again, grimacing.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I wanted to get your attention and I could tell that it was working, but it was also a dick move. So, I’m sorry about that, and if you don’t want to be called Lan Zhan, just tell me and I’ll stop.”

For a moment, it is as though something has clamped down on his throat and he cannot breathe. On the one hand, Wei Ying is right: it had been annoying to have someone he did not know call him by a name they had no right to use. If he had been trans, if it had been his deadname being called, it would have been downright hurtful. On the other hand… he cannot imagine Wei Ying calling him by another name. Not now. Not when the way Wei Ying says his name, his familiar name, makes him feel warm and fluttery and as though, for the first time he can remember, someone sees him for him.

The way he feels when he is here.

“Hey Lan Zh- hey, was that too much? Do you need me to do something?”

He blinks. At some point, he has looked away from Wei Ying and is apparently staring down at Hazel, who is still grinding her teeth happily while his hand massages her neck. Was it too much? He does not think so. Unexpected, but not too much.

“Thank you for apologising” he says. “It was annoying, and you probably should not do something like that again.”

“Ha, yeah” Wei Ying says thinly, “yeah, you’re right…”

“I do not want to be called Lan Zhan” he continues. “Not by just anyone. It is for family.”

Only, of course, what little family he has left does not use it. He is Wangji to them as well, and he does not know exactly how that happened. Had not realised just how much he had missed it, being Lan Zhan. Not just here, to himself, alone with the rabbits, but to someone else.

“Aah, I’m sorry, I’ll-”

“Wei Ying.”

He is not used to interrupting people – he rarely gets the chance, and it is rude – but right now it feels necessary, and Wei Ying does stop talking. Still, it takes conscious effort for Lan Wangji to look up from the bunny underneath his hand to the man sitting next to him, and even more so to meet his gaze.

“I do not mind it now” he manages to say. “I do not want you to stop.”

For a moment, Wei Ying looks almost like Buttercup: melting towards the floor as his shoulders sink and his whole upper body sags.

“Lan Zhaaaan” he whines, “you can’t say stuff like that! My poor heart can’t take it.”

He smiles, though. Wide and brimming.

Buttercup, on the other hand, seems to think that whining was not what she wanted out of being petted, and begins to move away. Not running, just deciding that enough is enough, and Hazel – ever attentive to her partner’s decisions and happy to follow her lead – moves away from Lan Wangji’s hand only a moment later.

“Oops” Wei Ying says sheepishly, “sorry. That was too loud, wasn’t it?”

Lan Wangji withdraws his hand to his lap, shakes his head.

“No, only unfamiliar to them. They retreat to try and understand what just happened, and decide if it is dangerous or not.”

Given that both rabbits are sitting less than a metre away, looking fairly calm, he is not too worried about what they will decide. Wei Ying, on the other hand, looks positively mournful, and Lan Wangji cannot stand it; cannot bear to see Wei Ying think he somehow messed things up when he in no way has.

“Wei Ying” he says again, and even just speaking the name feels like such a rush, both for the way it tastes in his mouth and the way Wei Ying looks at him when he says it, with hunger and hope and homesickness in his eyes. “You were not too loud.”

He wants to console him, reassure him somehow, but it does not seem as though simply taking his hand would be enough and without thinking it through, he reaches his hand out to Wei Ying’s cheek. He can see the slight dilation of Wei Ying’s pupils, hear the quick intake of breath.

“You are not too much.”

He knows he said it before, but perhaps he was not clear enough then. Perhaps Wei Ying did not understand what he meant by the words he spoke, or perhaps he did not catch the words that were left out.

“And I do want to go out with you again.”

Wei Ying lets out a breathless little gasp, and beyond that and the thunderous pounding of his own heart, Lan Wangji knows that this is a moment of swelling music; strings and horns and percussion building and building towards an inevitable crescendo as he leans in, his gaze locked with Wei Ying’s. He cannot remember having ever felt this way before. Feather light and brimming, like he could take off and soar into the air at the slightest touch.

“Tell me to stop” he manages to say, feeling as though he is being carried by a wave, one still growing but which could break at any time. “If you do not want to.”

“No” Wei Ying says quickly, words tumbling over his lips in their haste, “no, don’t stop, I don’t want you to s-”

Lan Wangji kisses the word right off his lips. A quick peck, that is all – everything, it is everything – and yet the crescendo does not break. If there was music, it would merely tremble for a moment, caught by the way Wei Ying whimpers under his lips, and then Wei Ying kisses him back and the music washes over him again, loud and jubilant and bubbling like laughter.

When the kiss ends some immeasurable time later and they both draw back a little, Lan Wangji’s lips are positively tingling with the impression of Wei Ying’s lips on them. Wei Ying’s eyes are glittering and there is a giggle in his voice as he says “oh wow, Lan Zhan” and in that moment, Lan Wangji knows two things with perfect clarity. First, that he will do everything in his power to make sure that Wei Ying will never be sad again, and second, that if he ever is, Lan Wangji will do everything in his power to make him smile like this again.

He has no idea how to put those realisations into words though; in fact, it feels as though every word he has ever known is being rapidly wiped out by the sensation of Wei Ying’s lips on his.

“Was that good?” he manages to say, and Wei Ying laughs.

“‘Was that good’?” he echoes. “Good? Lan Zhan, that was- that was fireworks under the skin, didn’t you feel that?”

He nods. He did feel it; feels it still, crackling just underneath the skin of his lips and where his hand still rests against Wei Ying’s cheek.

“You okay?” Wei Ying asks lightly, and it is so freeing how there is no worry in his voice but also no demand, nothing to make Lan Zhan feel guilty over his silence.

“Mn” he defaults, and then, because he needs Wei Ying to know just how much this moment matters to him, how if Wei Ying felt fireworks, he heard an orchestra: “more.”

“More than okay?”

“Mm.”

“Oh.” Wei Ying smiles, warm and pleased. “That’s good, then.”

Lan Wangji shakes his head, just the once.

“Not good?”

He jerks his chin up slightly, and Wei Ying giggles.

“Oh, more than good?”

Lan Wangji jerks his chin again.

“Great?”

Again.

“Even better? Lan Zhan, what’s better than great?”

He has no idea, and he does not care. All he knows is that Wei Ying reading him, laughing with him – for him! – until his face crinkles, is a hundred times, a thousand times, better than okay.

“Again?” he asks, and he can feel Wei Ying’s smile grow wider under his hand.

“Kissing? Or dating?”

Either. Both.

Holding hands. Sitting side by side in the grass. Sharing a meal. Petting bunnies. Feeling seen, feeling understood, feeling as though there is a place in the world large enough to fit him by someone else’s side. Fireworks and orchestras, and a crinkling smile.

All of the above.

This time it is Wei Ying who leans in and closes the distance, and Lan Wangji meets the kiss and returns it, gives it back over and over until Wei Ying is sitting in his lap, panting and laughing into their kisses, sounding as delirious and drunk as Lan Wangji feels.

“Lan Zhan” Wei Ying whispers, his voice full of wonder and filling Lan Wangji’s chest with bubbles again, with the way he weaves Lan Wangji’s name into a spell, a summoning, a truth. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan…”

“Wei Ying” he replies, the only words he has left. “Wei Ying.”

Ridiculous. He is being ridiculous.

He has never cared less.