Lan-xuezhang, Please Stop Crushing On Me
Aug. 3rd, 2019 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rikorenChapter 2
Previous chapter: 01
Life is like an RPG: If you pick a wrong option, then what follows will be a continuous succession of wrong options. No matter how hard you try to redeem the situation, it's very likely you'll never be able to go back to the correct path; naturally this also means there's no way you'll be able to get that ending you were aiming for, either.
But life is also harder than an RPG: Nobody can use RL savescumming or cheat codes, neither can anyone know which option we face is the correct one to choose.
Wei Wuxian worked on that report late into the night, finally managed to tap that final period, and immediately collapsed into a puddle on his bed, unwilling to move even a single finger.
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep—
Something was emitting a head-splitting noise.
Wei Wuxian kicked out and knocked over the "offender" with one leg, buried his head under the pillow, and fell asleep.
Our first scene is the day before school started, with Lan Wangji standing in the airport lounge, face expressionless as he raised a nameplate with "Wei Wuxian" on it.
The white shirt he was wearing couldn't be any more plain, his sleeves rolled up the Italian way, revealing the pretty curve of his wrist and the wristwatch attached to it; his stance was clearly a casual one, but the more simple his style of dress, the more accentuated his broad shoulders/straight back/long legs seemed to be. Just standing at the arrivals area, the rate of people turning back to look at him was pretty much 100%.
Wei Wuxian had already slept over ten hours on the plane, and had jetlag on top of that, so at this moment he was entirely unable to get up any energy; but the moment he lifted his head, he was immediately stunned by a beauty that was completely out-of-this world, and the only thought that popped into his head - completely unrelated to gender or place - were two simple and straightforward words:
Good-looking.
But then a second idea inevitably mixed in and colored his personal feelings: He thought, who is this guy, he's so gay.
You really couldn't blame Wei Wuxian for making a personal attack on the first meeting.
Wei Wuxian was the all-powerful Little Genius of Yiling, who'd jumped to being a university first-year at the age of 15, gotten into postgraduate studies at 18, carefree all the way through, never once running into any academic troubles.
If he was just really good at a particular field of study then there wouldn't be a problem, and Wei Wuxian might not have felt any hostility towards the particularly attractive person picking him up at the airport. But as it so happened, he was quite attractive himself; although he was much younger than his fellows, he'd shot up early and didn't have any sort of height difference, a fresh-looking teen idol, attracting a large female fanbase just based on looks alone, practically universally adored, getting preferential treatment wherever he went.
So when he saw a powerful competitor whose height, looks, and manners very slightly trumped his own, alarm bells started ringing in Wei Wuxian's head.
They say one mountain can't hold two tigers, that when alpha wolves meet they bare their teeth and growl—if Wei Wuxian didn't want to acknowledge this opponent, the best solution would be...to mentally put him down.
He couldn't find anything to nitpick, appearance-wise.
Wei Wuxian subconsciously refused to admit that he'd lost, but was also unable to darken his conscience by saying Lan Wangji didn't look good.
And his bearing was even more flawless.
Lan Wangji's stance was straighter than the military position he'd learned back in the day, and just looking at the lines of his wrists, you could tell the guy had more muscle than him.
And so his subconscious picked out an adjective for him which...could kinda lower his threat level, and look sort of like a "personal attack".
As a matter of fact, under the same context, saying a guy happened to be dressed really gay today didn't necessarily mean the way he was dressed didn't look good; but saying a guy was dressed really straight was very definitely not a compliment.
Whatever the case, this meeting left a very deep impression on Wei Wuxian.
At the time, he'd deliberately pulled the backwards baseball cap off his head, casually hung it on his donkey backpack, showed off his (self-proclaimed) most handsome billboard smile, and took the initiative in sticking out his hand, saying: "Hello. I'm Wei Wuxian, the guy you've been waiting for - what do I call you?"
The other guy put down his sign, gave an indifferent nod, and said: "Lan Wangji, Professor Jiang's assistant, and the teacher in charge of your class. Let's go."
The smile on Wei Wuxian's face immediately froze up: "...Lan Wangji?"
The guy walked at a very fast pace; in the short moment Wei Wuxian spaced out, he'd already gotten really far ahead.
Wei Wuxian hurried to catch up with him, saying with disbelief: "You're the Lan Wangji?!"
Lan Wangji: "?"
Wei Wuxian: "The Lan Wangji who skipped grades even faster than I did, and started studying for a PhD at 18??? The one of the Lan Sect Twin Jades who tested into the school from Gusu last year?!"
Lan Wangji: "I am from Gusu, it's true."
Wei Wuxian was stunned.
He was all Yiling's "other people's children", parents always telling their kids "Try to be more like that Wei Wuxian, if you were half as talented as him then I wouldn't need to worry about you".
But Lan Wangji was the entire country's "other people's children"; whenever he was mentioned, it was parents saying "Just look at that Lan Wangji, you should try your hardest to go get a supporting role under him".
......
Wei Wuxian's psyche didn't quite fall apart, but he couldn't help at least feeling a little fragile.
It was too late for him to piece together the fragments of self-esteem that'd shattered all over the floor...or any of his other delicate feelings for that matter, because Lan Wangji had already walked off into the distance with his suitcase.
"Waitwaitwaitwait! Hey, slow down, wait for me!!! Lan Wangji—!!"
※
The dream quickly skipped past their first meeting, and changed to a different scene.
The Lan Wangji in this dream was just as refined and courteous as the real one, with the bearing of a man above the rest, but also seemed a little more worldly than the real one.
One who could take the initiative in conversation, who answered every question, who'd give a response to anything you said—and the most frightening thing of all, sometimes when walking in front of Wei Wuxian, he'd turn his head to look at him, and you could see a vague hint of a smile on his face.
If this was an idol drama, his acting skills would definitely get a negative score; if it was a novel, then the author was definitely OOC.
Lan Wangji can smile? And turn a smile to me specifically? That's totally impossible.
If he answers one question out of three that's already a big win for me okay!? The phrase "man of few words" was practically custom-fitted for him.
Regardless of how much criticism Wei Wuxian had for it, the dream continued to play.
Through the vague haze of dreamland he could see Lan Wangji still walking up ahead, while he followed along behind.
The whole time he was the only one chattering ceaselessly, while Lan Wangji simply nodded his head on occasion, replying with a single word or a fraction of a sentence.
After walking for a while, Wei Wuxian suddenly got the feeling he was riding something; it didn't have any sort of cover, and it was shorter than a horse, but a little higher than a bicycle. The unknown four-legged creature tramped down the road, its hooves clopping loudly as it went.
When he looked a little closer, he realized it looked kind of like his beloved donkey backpack.
What exactly was he saying with Lan Wangji? Talking incessantly, in bits and pieces, a bunch of trivial nonsense from morning 'til night, seemingly needing to pull out literally everything to debate over. In the end, all he could manage to remember was the one line:
"Lan Zhan, try leading it along with the rope."
Lan Wangji said: "Why?"
Wei Wuxian said: "Just do it for me, come on, take the rope."
He thought Lan Wangji would ignore him like always, but to his surprise he really did take up the rope as requested; this made him happy beyond belief, laughing uncontrollably on the donkey's back.
Hm?...Who's Lan Zhan?
Isn't his name Lan Wangji?
The scene suddenly shifted, changing into an ordinary-looking farmhouse, which from the outside looked kind of like those costume dramas they show on 8PM TV.
Wei Wuxian pushed open the window, and sure enough, inside was sitting a familiar "Lan Wangji". A waterfall of raven-black hair cascaded down past his waist, body dressed in a simple but not unsophisticated ancient-style cloth outfit, the perfect image of a heavenly immortal, as beautiful as a celestial being descended to earth. His slender fingers moved over a loom, and a roll of pretty embroidered cloth was created just like that.
Wei Wuxian spat out the liquorice stalk hanging from his mouth, shook the fish basket in his hand, and said: "...Er-gege, I'm back."
Lan Wangji lifted his head, his mouth tilting slightly upwards at the corners, used his wide sleeves to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then went to pour him a cup of water.
Lan Wangji weaving cloth? Hahahahahahahaha!
Wei Wuxian laughed so hard in the dream that he was hammering the wall - bambambam, three strikes exactly, no more, no less, the sound it made actually a little like knocking on the door of his dorm room; when he heard it he felt even more overjoyed than before, rolled over, and fell right off his bed.
========
Next Chapter: 03
Previous chapter: 01
Life is like an RPG: If you pick a wrong option, then what follows will be a continuous succession of wrong options. No matter how hard you try to redeem the situation, it's very likely you'll never be able to go back to the correct path; naturally this also means there's no way you'll be able to get that ending you were aiming for, either.
But life is also harder than an RPG: Nobody can use RL savescumming or cheat codes, neither can anyone know which option we face is the correct one to choose.
Wei Wuxian worked on that report late into the night, finally managed to tap that final period, and immediately collapsed into a puddle on his bed, unwilling to move even a single finger.
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep—
Something was emitting a head-splitting noise.
Wei Wuxian kicked out and knocked over the "offender" with one leg, buried his head under the pillow, and fell asleep.
Our first scene is the day before school started, with Lan Wangji standing in the airport lounge, face expressionless as he raised a nameplate with "Wei Wuxian" on it.
The white shirt he was wearing couldn't be any more plain, his sleeves rolled up the Italian way, revealing the pretty curve of his wrist and the wristwatch attached to it; his stance was clearly a casual one, but the more simple his style of dress, the more accentuated his broad shoulders/straight back/long legs seemed to be. Just standing at the arrivals area, the rate of people turning back to look at him was pretty much 100%.
Wei Wuxian had already slept over ten hours on the plane, and had jetlag on top of that, so at this moment he was entirely unable to get up any energy; but the moment he lifted his head, he was immediately stunned by a beauty that was completely out-of-this world, and the only thought that popped into his head - completely unrelated to gender or place - were two simple and straightforward words:
Good-looking.
But then a second idea inevitably mixed in and colored his personal feelings: He thought, who is this guy, he's so gay.
You really couldn't blame Wei Wuxian for making a personal attack on the first meeting.
Wei Wuxian was the all-powerful Little Genius of Yiling, who'd jumped to being a university first-year at the age of 15, gotten into postgraduate studies at 18, carefree all the way through, never once running into any academic troubles.
If he was just really good at a particular field of study then there wouldn't be a problem, and Wei Wuxian might not have felt any hostility towards the particularly attractive person picking him up at the airport. But as it so happened, he was quite attractive himself; although he was much younger than his fellows, he'd shot up early and didn't have any sort of height difference, a fresh-looking teen idol, attracting a large female fanbase just based on looks alone, practically universally adored, getting preferential treatment wherever he went.
So when he saw a powerful competitor whose height, looks, and manners very slightly trumped his own, alarm bells started ringing in Wei Wuxian's head.
They say one mountain can't hold two tigers, that when alpha wolves meet they bare their teeth and growl—if Wei Wuxian didn't want to acknowledge this opponent, the best solution would be...to mentally put him down.
He couldn't find anything to nitpick, appearance-wise.
Wei Wuxian subconsciously refused to admit that he'd lost, but was also unable to darken his conscience by saying Lan Wangji didn't look good.
And his bearing was even more flawless.
Lan Wangji's stance was straighter than the military position he'd learned back in the day, and just looking at the lines of his wrists, you could tell the guy had more muscle than him.
And so his subconscious picked out an adjective for him which...could kinda lower his threat level, and look sort of like a "personal attack".
As a matter of fact, under the same context, saying a guy happened to be dressed really gay today didn't necessarily mean the way he was dressed didn't look good; but saying a guy was dressed really straight was very definitely not a compliment.
Whatever the case, this meeting left a very deep impression on Wei Wuxian.
At the time, he'd deliberately pulled the backwards baseball cap off his head, casually hung it on his donkey backpack, showed off his (self-proclaimed) most handsome billboard smile, and took the initiative in sticking out his hand, saying: "Hello. I'm Wei Wuxian, the guy you've been waiting for - what do I call you?"
The other guy put down his sign, gave an indifferent nod, and said: "Lan Wangji, Professor Jiang's assistant, and the teacher in charge of your class. Let's go."
The smile on Wei Wuxian's face immediately froze up: "...Lan Wangji?"
The guy walked at a very fast pace; in the short moment Wei Wuxian spaced out, he'd already gotten really far ahead.
Wei Wuxian hurried to catch up with him, saying with disbelief: "You're the Lan Wangji?!"
Lan Wangji: "?"
Wei Wuxian: "The Lan Wangji who skipped grades even faster than I did, and started studying for a PhD at 18??? The one of the Lan Sect Twin Jades who tested into the school from Gusu last year?!"
Lan Wangji: "I am from Gusu, it's true."
Wei Wuxian was stunned.
He was all Yiling's "other people's children", parents always telling their kids "Try to be more like that Wei Wuxian, if you were half as talented as him then I wouldn't need to worry about you".
But Lan Wangji was the entire country's "other people's children"; whenever he was mentioned, it was parents saying "Just look at that Lan Wangji, you should try your hardest to go get a supporting role under him".
......
Wei Wuxian's psyche didn't quite fall apart, but he couldn't help at least feeling a little fragile.
It was too late for him to piece together the fragments of self-esteem that'd shattered all over the floor...or any of his other delicate feelings for that matter, because Lan Wangji had already walked off into the distance with his suitcase.
"Waitwaitwaitwait! Hey, slow down, wait for me!!! Lan Wangji—!!"
※
The dream quickly skipped past their first meeting, and changed to a different scene.
The Lan Wangji in this dream was just as refined and courteous as the real one, with the bearing of a man above the rest, but also seemed a little more worldly than the real one.
One who could take the initiative in conversation, who answered every question, who'd give a response to anything you said—and the most frightening thing of all, sometimes when walking in front of Wei Wuxian, he'd turn his head to look at him, and you could see a vague hint of a smile on his face.
If this was an idol drama, his acting skills would definitely get a negative score; if it was a novel, then the author was definitely OOC.
Lan Wangji can smile? And turn a smile to me specifically? That's totally impossible.
If he answers one question out of three that's already a big win for me okay!? The phrase "man of few words" was practically custom-fitted for him.
Regardless of how much criticism Wei Wuxian had for it, the dream continued to play.
Through the vague haze of dreamland he could see Lan Wangji still walking up ahead, while he followed along behind.
The whole time he was the only one chattering ceaselessly, while Lan Wangji simply nodded his head on occasion, replying with a single word or a fraction of a sentence.
After walking for a while, Wei Wuxian suddenly got the feeling he was riding something; it didn't have any sort of cover, and it was shorter than a horse, but a little higher than a bicycle. The unknown four-legged creature tramped down the road, its hooves clopping loudly as it went.
When he looked a little closer, he realized it looked kind of like his beloved donkey backpack.
What exactly was he saying with Lan Wangji? Talking incessantly, in bits and pieces, a bunch of trivial nonsense from morning 'til night, seemingly needing to pull out literally everything to debate over. In the end, all he could manage to remember was the one line:
"Lan Zhan, try leading it along with the rope."
Lan Wangji said: "Why?"
Wei Wuxian said: "Just do it for me, come on, take the rope."
He thought Lan Wangji would ignore him like always, but to his surprise he really did take up the rope as requested; this made him happy beyond belief, laughing uncontrollably on the donkey's back.
Hm?...Who's Lan Zhan?
Isn't his name Lan Wangji?
The scene suddenly shifted, changing into an ordinary-looking farmhouse, which from the outside looked kind of like those costume dramas they show on 8PM TV.
Wei Wuxian pushed open the window, and sure enough, inside was sitting a familiar "Lan Wangji". A waterfall of raven-black hair cascaded down past his waist, body dressed in a simple but not unsophisticated ancient-style cloth outfit, the perfect image of a heavenly immortal, as beautiful as a celestial being descended to earth. His slender fingers moved over a loom, and a roll of pretty embroidered cloth was created just like that.
Wei Wuxian spat out the liquorice stalk hanging from his mouth, shook the fish basket in his hand, and said: "...Er-gege, I'm back."
Lan Wangji lifted his head, his mouth tilting slightly upwards at the corners, used his wide sleeves to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then went to pour him a cup of water.
Lan Wangji weaving cloth? Hahahahahahahaha!
Wei Wuxian laughed so hard in the dream that he was hammering the wall - bambambam, three strikes exactly, no more, no less, the sound it made actually a little like knocking on the door of his dorm room; when he heard it he felt even more overjoyed than before, rolled over, and fell right off his bed.
========
Next Chapter: 03