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Will you take me out of here when I'm staring down the barrel
When I'm blinded by the lights, when I cannot see your face?
- “Watercolour”, Pendulum
On the way to Huaisang’s apartment, Meng Yao and Lan Xichen tell Wanyin about Nie Huaisang.
Nie Huaisang is nineteen years old. He lives alone in a second-floor apartment in the formerly industrial part of town that is now home to a burgeoning collection of cafes and boutique shops. Wanyin’s parents used to drive the both of them through that area to tutoring a few years ago and it had been abandoned warehouses with rusted roofs and peeling walls. Now, Meng Yao takes them through a bewildering array of units that are all in contrasting colour schemes while somehow still pleasing to the eye. Sharp and stylish, but ultimately they all look the same. Apparently, Meng Yao says with a smile, it had been a good real estate opportunity.
“And you live fifteen minutes away,” Lan Xichen adds smoothly.
Meng Yao acknowledges that point with a twitch of his lips and a dip of his head. “That too.”
From the back seat, Wanyin asks, “Huaisang lives alone… right?”
That would make sense. That’s why he seems to float in and out of school with no consequence. That’s why Lan Xichen and Meng Yao have to check up on him.
“Does his family live somewhere else or something?”
Meng Yao snorts, but keeps driving. And though Wanyin has only known him for an hour or two (meeting at the club doesn’t count), he gets the feeling that this man normally keeps his feelings about people well hidden.
That he’d let a snort out, well—that doesn’t bode well for Huaisang’s parents.
“Huaisang’s family lives in the capital,” Lan Xichen says. Halfway across the country.
The cadence of his voice is the same as normal, so maybe there is nothing off about Huaisang’s parents. Maybe they are just extremely busy and allow their second son—technically an adult—the freedom to live his life and meet his obligations at his own pace.
Or, given that Huaisang has never ever talked about them, maybe not.
Maybe they’re the same type of rich people Wanyin knows so well: old money with property all over the country and investments and funds galore. For want of nothing, but with expectations all the same. What’s one more hastily bought property for a disappointing second son?
“Huaisang’s father may have the money, but his brother is the one who actually raised him,” Meng Yao says from the wheel. Again, uncharacteristically, his tone is sharp. Wanyin gets the feeling that he and Xichen have been disagreeing on the topic of Huaisang’s parents for a while.
“Nie Mingjue is a military academy instructor at Baoding,” Meng Yao continues. “He was the one who chose this area after Huaisang left the capital. Because we live here.”
Wanyin wants to ask more, about why Huaisang moved here and about the name Meng Yao dropped so casually at the café: Mo Xuanyu.
Who is Mo Xuanyu?
But he doesn’t get a chance to ask, because Meng Yao’s car slows to a stop in front of an apartment that looks as new and modern as any other on the street, and Wanyin has to follow both men out of the car. Meng Yao types in a unit number on the intercom too fast for Wanyin to grasp, and the buzzer rings. There’s no way Wanyin will risk Huaisang hearing him ask his brother’s friends for his exact unit number, so all he can do is wait as it rings, and rings, and continues to ring.
“Maybe he’s out?” Lan Xichen murmurs, but his brows are furrowed.
Meng Yao is frowning too. Not in a way that betrays anxiety or annoyance, but rather like a light breeze of wind has knocked his brows akilter. And yet, as he turns slightly to meet Wanyin’s gaze, Wanyin’s heart is suddenly gripped with ice cold dread.
Huaisang hasn’t been reading his texts.
What if…
As could probably be expected, Lan Xichen and Meng Yao are in possession of a spare key. Meng Yao taps them through the various doors of the apartment building, and Wanyin follows them as they navigate through a maze of stairways and corridors until they stop in front of what is presumably Huaisang’s apartment.
It’s unit number 225.
There’s a click and Meng Yao pushes the front door open, and now that Wanyin can see inside he can’t stop himself from running in. The apartment is a dimly lit mess, piles of clothes lying around and unfinished takeout in front of the television, and Wanyin ignores all of that and rushes further in.
“Jiang Wanyin!” Meng Yao shouts, or was it Lan Xichen? Whoever it was, they follow him, just two steps behind as he re-orients himself to figure out which of the bedrooms Huaisang could be in.
This is easy. Only one door is open, with noncommittally alternative rock streaming out from inside. But apart from the music, it’s so quiet. Why is it so quiet?
And then they find Huaisang.
/ / / / /
The hours spent waiting at the hospital are some of the longest Wanyin has ever experienced. Meng Yao and Lan Xichen spend some time in the room and Wanyin waits outside, staring at his sneakers. At some point Wuxian turns up and keeps him company. Wanyin is technically still mad at him, but he can’t bring himself to tell him to go away.
For once in his life Wuxian is quiet. Wanyin appreciates it.
Eventually the door opens. Wanyin’s head whips up towards the sound and Meng Yao and Lan Xichen emerge, their expressions sober. From the small crack of the door, Wanyin can briefly make out the outline of someone, impossibly slender, on the bed.
Then the door clicks shut.
“Huaisang knows you’re here,” Xichen murmurs. “We’ve told him to expect you.”
His gaze flickers to Wuxian, and his facial expression ripples for a moment, though Wanyin is too exhausted to try to figure out what this means. Some dynamic of ‘YOU’RE DATING MY BROTHER’, maybe?
“You, on the other hand, should perhaps stay outside for now.”
Wuxian nods in greeting, his expression uncertain. It looks weird on him. “Hello, Xichen-ge.”
Lan Xichen’s lips purse and his expression clouds, and Wanyin wonders if it is from Wuxian’s perhaps-inappropriate familiarity or if it’s because Huaisang has told him that it was Wuxian who brought home the drugs.
No matter. There are more pressing issues at hand. Wanyin enters the room alone and takes a seat next to Huaisang’s bed.
“Hello, Jiang-xiong.”
Despite his best efforts, Huaisang’s voice is thin and soft, and it tugs at Wanyin’s heartstrings.
“Oh, don’t make that face. Here to make sure your buddy stays alive before you find out about your university applications?” Mirth seeps into Huaisang’s voice, but it’s a shadow of his normal self, his essence so bled out that only a fraction of what Wanyin has always liked about him remains, and it’s wrong, all so wrong.
“Don’t even think about joking about that.” The words are spat out before Wanyin even consciously registers having ever thought them.
He has never been one to modulate his facial expressions. He’s not good at it. It doesn’t come naturally to him like it does to A-Jie, Meng Yao, Lan Xichen, hell, even Wei Wuxian, and he can tell, by the fire burning in his heart and the tightness between his brows, that his expression is absolutely, 100%, terrifying.
Maybe it works. Huaisang shuts up and wilts back into his bedframe, dark circles under his eyes and his skin pale as bones. He looks like shit.
“What do you want me to say, Jiang-xiong?” he asks, voice weary.
I told you not to call me that , Wanyin wants to say. But Huaisang’s tone twinges at his heart. Everything that Wanyin has grown to expect from him—sarcasm, playfulness, irreverence—has fallen away, leaving only…
“I was so worried,” Wanyin says.
Huaisang sinks a little deeper into his sheets. In that same dull, muted voice, he says, “I didn’t mean for you to be.”
But I was anyway, Wanyin doesn’t say.
There’s a lull, where Huaisang averts his gaze and Wanyin tries to figure out what to say or do.
There’s so much he wants to say. But they’re all things he can’t say. How did talking with Nie Huaisang get even more complicated?
Huaisang eventually breaks the silence.
“Thank you for coming. As you can see, I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.”
“I’m alive,” Huaisang retorts, though the smallness of his voice diminishes his point somewhat. “Anyway. You can go now.”
Briefly, Wanyin closes his eyes. Alive is not fine, he wants to say, but he suspects that saying that right now would just lead to a circular conversation that would waste both their time.
He never used to second-think his conversations with Huaisang this much. Not this much. He doesn’t like it.
Still, instead of giving voice to all the thoughts swirling around in his mind, he says, “You didn’t answer my texts.”
“I…” Huaisang pauses. Impossibly, his gaze drops even lower, like he’s trying to hide from Wanyin from behind his lashes. “…lost my phone.”
It’s an obvious lie, insultingly so, really, given that Huaisang knows that he’s been in contact with Lan Xichen and Meng Yao. But Wanyin ignores it. If he jumps on it, he’ll only get even further from what he really wants to say.
What did he say he wanted to do, back at Cloudlet? It’s only been a few hours, but to Wanyin it feels almost like days. Weeks.
Ah. Yes. That’s right.
“I want to apologise,” Wanyin says.
Huaisang makes a noise that’s somewhere in between a choke and a laugh. It’s short and abrupt, and like nothing Wanyin has ever heard from him. “For what? Letting me poison your baby nephew?”
A pang rushes through Wanyin’s heart. “No,” he says fiercely. “You didn’t. It wasn’t you. It was Wuxian. That’s what I texted you.”
He rakes the fingers of one hand through his hair. How should he explain this?
“I was so stupid. I should have waited for you to explain instead of just assuming. I jumped the gun. I’m sorry.”
To his surprise, the words are easy to say. Maybe it’s because he’s been repeating them to himself constantly ever since he found out the truth.
Huaisang laughs, again, and it’s no less heart-rending than the first time. “Who cares? You were right to be careful. I mean, look what happened to me. And I’m a grown man. Better me than baby Jin Ling.”
It’s a terrible comparison, one that’s unfair of Huaisang to expect him to make. Wanyin doesn’t respond.
And Huaisang fills in the silence, like watery paint blurring beyond the edges. “So you should go now. What are you still here for?”
What is Wanyin here for?
When he first rushed into Huaisang’s apartment, he had just wanted to make sure he was fine. While waiting outside Huaisang’s hospital room, he had just wanted to see Huaisang move and talk—anything that would have been an improvement from his still, thin form, crumpled on his floor like wastepaper.
And now Wanyin has done both those things. So, yes, Huaisang has a point—what is he still here for?
Wanyin doesn’t know what he wants.
But he knows what he doesn’t want.
He doesn’t want to leave Huaisang.
He doesn’t want to leave Huaisang to himself right now.
He wants to stay with him.
A name drops into his mind, and Wanyin grasps onto it like it’s a lifeline.
“I want you to tell me about Mo Xuanyu.”
Huaisang’s eyes widen. He looks towards the door, at where Lan Xichen and Meng Yao are presumably waiting on the other side, and Wanyin thinks he can see a hint of something in his gaze—shock?
But whatever it is, it’s gone in the next moment. Huaisang’s lips twitch as a movie roll’s worth of emotions run through his face, each emotion as transient as the last, until his face smooths out. In a few short seconds, Huaisang has composed himself, his tightly pursed lips the only evidence that he felt anything at all.
He turns back and his eyes flicker up at Wanyin, as if to check whether he’s noticed. Wanyin can’t look away in time.
Not that he would’ve. Even if he did, Huaisang would have caught him. And, more importantly, is this the time to look away?
When they make eye contact, Huaisang lets out another laugh. It’s even uglier than the last, scraped raw of everything, like he’s baring everything for Wanyin to see. It’s painful to listen to.
“What’s there to say?” Though Huaisang’s voice is still weak, there’s unmistakable scorn in it now. But at whom? “He’s dead.”
Wanyin has heard brief details from Meng Yao and Lan Xichen. “At the start of the year, right?”
Something flickers in Huaisang’s eyes. Wanyin cannot recognise it as anything except wild, like a flash of embers. Huaisang’s lips curve out into an inexplicable grin, and he wrenches his gaze away from Wanyin to stare straight ahead. As he lets out one stuttering breath, his lashes flutter in the still hospital air, and for a moment, he seems a million miles away.
Then: “Yeah.”
And then: “Why do you want to know? Want to hear what my first boyfriend was like? So you know what to compare yourself to?”
It’s like he’s too tired to even try to couch his words now. The Huaisang that Wanyin knows, the one who would sidestep confrontation and say anything except for what he really thought, seems a thing of the past. The words spilling from his mouth now are as sharp as his thoughts have always been, and Wanyin has to try very hard not to get hurt.
Huaisang knows all about his feelings for him. He’s known, ever since the planetarium. Using his feelings against him like that isn’t fair. This entire conversation, Huaisang hasn’t been fair.
But this entire situation isn’t fair. All the things that have happened to lead them both to this moment in the hospital room have not been fair.
Wanyin steels his resolve, and asks, “The motorbike is his, isn’t it?”
This entire time, a storm has been brewing within Huaisang. But at that question the wind is knocked out of him. Huaisang’s grin falters, and he lowers himself back towards his bed, just a little bit. He’s still holding himself up like he doesn’t want to fall. What, Wanyin thinks, does he think would happen?
Huaisang’s expression is faraway, but it’s morphed into something Wanyin can easily recognise now: sadness.
He is almost about to relent, to change the subject and save it for when he’s better, when Huaisang says, “Yeah.”
Then: “He was a mechanic. An apprentice one. Worked at the garage frequented by the Jins.”
Huaisang laughs. “You know what they’re like. They treated him like dirt.”
Wanyin knows well. He supposes that they lucked out in the sense that A-Jie married the most tolerable one, although by marrying Jin Zixuan she had still cursed them to a lifetime of terrible extended family gatherings.
Huaisang’s lips twitch. “I used to go to school with the worst of them, at Benedict’s… Xuanyu and I met when I caught him slashing my tyres in the school carpark. He got the wrong car.”
Wanyin laughs, despite himself. “He sounds…”
Like a real character. Like a funny guy. Someone who didn’t take shit lying down. Someone Wanyin might’ve enjoyed hanging out with.
Eventually, Wanyin settles for, “cool.”
“He was.” Huaisang has on his face a funny little smile, and Wanyin isn’t sure how he feels about it.
But what he’s sure is that this isn’t about him.
The moment passes. Huaisang puts himself back together and turns back to Wanyin. He still looks tired, but—and maybe Wanyin is just imagining it, for his own self-satisfaction—is he holding himself up a little straighter? Are the shadows under his eyes just that little bit lighter?
“Anyway,” Huaisang says, “you should just go. As you can see, I can’t be the person you think I am. I’m still hung up on my dead ex.”
Oh, is that it? Tell Wanyin something he doesn’t know.
“I don’t care,” Wanyin says. And he really doesn’t. Only a piece of scum would abandon Huaisang over unrequited feelings when he looks like this, after what just happened. Besides, Wanyin has long been operating under the assumption that his feelings are unrequited anyway. That’s old news he learned back when they went to the planetarium.
But.
Are they?
Huaisang knows all about his feelings for him. He’s known, ever since the planetarium. And yet…
“I don’t want to assume, or to put words in your mouth, but…” Wanyin has to choose his words carefully, and he thinks about it, just for a few seconds, “…you invited me to the planetarium.”
And we kissed.
The three words pass between them, unspoken but heard. Huaisang swallows visibly, and he looks between Wanyin and his own hands, balling the sheets between his fingers into a crumpled bundle on his thighs.
“You think just because we kissed, it meant something?” Huaisang asks quietly. When he looks back up at Wanyin, his eyes are scornful. “It could’ve been anything. Maybe I just felt like it. Maybe I was just pent up. It didn’t have to mean anything.”
Huaisang’s expression may be outwardly scornful, but there’s an undercurrent of desperation within. Wanyin can tell. He’s done the same thing countless times, saying one thing while trying to avoid thinking about another.
“I know it meant something,” Wanyin says firmly. “I know you felt something. Tell me you didn’t. I dare you.”
Huaisang’s gaze drops again, and his fingers work harder at the sheets. But he doesn’t say anything.
“Huaisang…” Wanyin says. “Nie Huaisang…”
“No,” Huaisang cuts him off in a surprisingly steady voice. “Don’t do this. Just think about it. Just for a moment. You can think, right?” Huaisang’s fingers continue to worry at his bedsheets, and Wanyin keeps his mouth shut as he barrels on. “You’re smart. You have brains and a bright future ahead of you. Basketball team captain, your pick of scholarships to choose from, early applications done and dusted. You need to work on those. Not this.”
“Huaisang,” Wanyin says, but Huaisang ignores him.
“I’d just bring you down. It’s not even a secret how I got here. It’s in an official record. Oh, Dage is going to kill me.”
Huaisang runs both hands through his hair, pulling his skin back, stretching it tightly over his browbones. Tightly over his skull.
“I’m supposed to have quit drugs. This is gonna be the perfect excuse…”
“Excuse for what?”
Huaisang doesn’t even hesitate. “Military school. He’s been nagging me to go for months. Almost a year. Ever since… Xuanyu died.”
After saying that, he gulps and looks even sicker. Wanyin wonders if he has ever said those words aloud. Then he wonders if he has even thought them.
“Do you want to go?” Wanyin asks cautiously, and Huaisang immediately snorts. Well, at least he has enough energy for that.
“Of course not. Do you think someone like me would fit in at military school ? Well, not that I fit in here, either…”
“You do fit in,” Wanyin says, and he half-believes it, too. “Your paintings are out of this world. The art crowd thinks you’re cool. Everyone thinks you’re cool. Even Wuxian, even if he acts otherwise.”
And me.
Huaisang scoffs and looks at Wanyin, probing his gaze levelly, his expression measured. Then he turns away again, this time towards the window, and sighs. “Whatever. Military school, remember?”
“Do you want to quit drugs?” Wanyin asks cautiously.
Huaisang laughs, and in front of Wanyin he starts to unravel again. “Quit? As if it’s that easy.”
He doesn’t say any more.
Wanyin waits, conscious of his own heartbeat and of the linoleum floor beneath the thin soles of his sneakers. Outside the room, his surroundings had been a flurry of activity—anxious family members asking about their loved ones, doctors and nurses hurrying to and from their ward rounds, emergency staff rushing patients around on patient trolleys, all manner of medical machines beeping. But here, in Huaisang’s private room, all Wanyin can hear is the sound of their breathing.
For a few minutes, all Huaisang does is look out at the window. Then he opens his mouth to speak.
“I see him, you know, when I take them.”
Wanyin doesn’t have to ask who. He is quickly learning that this heartbreaking expression on Huaisang’s face is only ever associated with one person.
“I can even talk to him. Sometimes he even says things back. But it’s not the same.”
Wanyin has no idea what to say or do, and so he waits.
“Did you know that ever since he died I haven’t been able to dream in colour?”
“But your paintings—” To Wanyin’s admittedly untrained eye, they’re exquisite, masterpieces of emotion and beautifully blended colour.
“Yeah. Well.” Huaisang makes a movement that is almost like an aborted shrug. “This is reality.”
He brings his knees up and hooks his thin elbows around them, avoiding Wanyin’s gaze all the while. None of his regular leather bands or string bracelets adorn his forearms. Instead, there is only a white hospital bracelet that dangles off his right wrist and a clear tube coming out from the inside of his left elbow. This is a Huaisang that Wanyin has never seen.
But it’s still Huaisang.
“I stopped being able to remember his face three months ago.” Huaisang continues, his tone turning from conversational to confessional. “I can’t picture him in my mind anymore. But when I take the pills…”
“Do you have photos?”
“No. I lost my phone. For real.” Huaisang’s lips twitch up, as if to acknowledge the joke between them, but Wanyin can’t find it in himself to find it funny. “So much was happening with the ambulance and the emergency room that I must’ve just left it somewhere. And when I came back the next day, it was gone. Everything was gone, his tools, locker, spare shoes, everything.” He turns back to Wanyin. “Isn’t that hilarious?”
“No.” Wanyin can barely hear himself talk, but he pushes out the words anyway. They’re important. “It’s not funny at all.”
“Well, I think it’s funny,” Huaisang says. “I’ve nothing of him. I can’t see his face anymore, not even when I take the pills. Not today, not the last time either. All I have are memories, and even those are fading.”
The expression on his face is that of someone who has been afraid for so long that they have simply become tired.
“I’m losing him completely. And it’s not like I can go up to the garage and ask for a photo.”
“I guess not,” Wanyin can only say.
“Yeah.”
Huaisang shrugs, and hunches further forward, burrowing his face into his knees.
“Anyway, you should really go. My brother’s going to be here soon, and you don’t want to meet him.”
From everything Wanyin has heard about Nie Mingjue, he doesn’t. But he wants to leave Huaisang even less. Wanyin looks at Huaisang, trying to see if he can figure out what he’s thinking, but Huaisang is either too tired or no longer in the mood and he curls in on himself, resolutely avoiding eye contact.
Wanyin doesn’t push it, and only asks, “Do you want me to stay until he comes?”
Huaisang doesn’t say yes. But he doesn’t say no, either, only stays still, shrunken into the bed, expression haunted, gaze fixed on the spot on his sheets right above his knees.
Wanyin stays where he is.
/ / / / /
When Nie Mingjue arrives, it’s with Lan Xichen and Meng Yao in tow. The latter two’s expressions are sober. The former’s expression is severe.
Unlike his companions, Nie Mingjue is simply dressed in a gunmetal grey T-shirt, black track pants, and a shiny black athletic jacket. When he steps into the room, his combat boots rap solidly against the floor. Nie Mingjue is huge, the opposite of Huaisang in every way, with strong features where Huaisang’s are small. Wanyin can barely make out Huaisang among his sheets. He cannot miss Mingjue filling out the entirety of the doorway with his body.
In short: Nie Mingjue is terrifying.
Wanyin is moving before he realises it, and he stands up. An instinctive reaction to Nie Mingjue’s commanding aura, probably. And while Wanyin is the captain of the basketball team for a reason, at his full height he only reaches up to Nie Mingjue’s eye level.
Well, all the less point of him pursuing a basketball career beyond high school. People can argue otherwise until they’re purple in the face, but there’s no beating pure height.
Still, Wanyin stands up straighter.
“Who are you?” Nie Mingjue’s voice is loud and booming, and Wanyin thinks he has a very good idea of how he maintains discipline in his classes at military school.
“I’m Jiang Wanyin… sir,” Wanyin adds, after belatedly realising that that might be a good idea. Or maybe it’s another reaction to Nie Mingjue’s authoritativeness, helped along by his years at private school. Mingjue doesn’t look impressed that that was an afterthought, but he doesn’t say anything, only furrows his brows.
And Wanyin can’t help it. He feels compelled to keep talking.
“I’m Huaisang’s—friend.”
Nie Mingjue looks even less impressed at the pause. But the only thing he says is, “You must be a good friend then, to visit him in hospital after knowing him for barely three months.”
Wanyin is well versed enough in doublespeak to know what Mingjue means: given Huaisang’s background, it’s impressive he even knows he was hospitalised. In the circles they frequent, these things are normally swept under the rug and handled discreetly. This private hospital room is proof enough that this time won’t be an exception.
Nie Mingjue casts his gaze behind Wanyin, at Huaisang, and his brows furrow even more.
“Jiang Wanyin, was it? Thank you for taking the time to get to know him in your last year of high school. I hope he hasn’t been causing you too much trouble.”
While Nie Mingjue’s words are courteous, his tone is dismissive. The look in his eyes is the same look that Wanyin’s mother gets when she sees his latest report card. Wanyin isn’t sure if he likes it.
No, he definitely doesn’t like it. Nie Mingjue is the complete opposite of Jiang Yanli, domineering when she would be soft, dismissive when she would approach, pushing when she would pull. Siblings should be ride or die, with you all the way, someone on the same level. With a brother like that, no wonder Huaisang reacted the way he did to A-Jie.
“Anyway, he’ll be out of your hide soon,” Mingjue says gruffly, then looks back at Huaisang. “Brat, you’re going to military school.”
Huaisang’s expression has gone blank, and all he does is shrug. The atmosphere is too tense for Wanyin to dare to try making eye contact with Lan Xichen or Meng Yao, but he’s reasonably sure that at this point, this is not a surprise to anyone in the room.
The seconds tick by, one after the other. Wanyin’s heart is racing, but Huaisang seems content to let the world pass him by.
Mingjue is the first to break the silence. “Well?”
Huaisang shrugs again. Clearly, this is a well-trodden topic of conversation between them, with both sides having made their stances clear long ago.
“If you don’t say anything, I’m going to proceed,” Mingjue says. One hand goes into his pocket and comes out holding a phone. It’s one of the latest flagship models, and while Wanyin can tell it’s larger than his own, it still looks like a miniature in Nie Mingjue’s hand.
“I’ve got the headmaster’s personal number,” Mingjue says. “We’ll get you in there by the start of next week.”
A streak of annoyance passes through Huaisang’s expression. “Whatever. Do it, then.”
His tone has an edge of insolence to it. Once again, it’s something Wanyin has never seen before.
Maybe Nie Mingjue does have a point. Wanyin has only known Huaisang for a few months. In fact, when he confessed to Huaisang he could count the number of weeks he had known him with his fingers. Can he really say that he knows Nie Huaisang?
In the face of Huaisang’s lack of resistance, Mingjue pauses. But he quickly seems to come to some sort of decision.
“Remember that you said it.”
He unlocks his phone and navigates it, presumably to his Contacts. Nobody else moves a muscle, not Lan Xichen nor Meng Yao, and especially not Huaisang, who just watches his brother with dispassionate eyes. Nie Mingjue is just bringing the phone to his ear when Wanyin blurts out, “Wait, what are you doing?”
Mingjue’s gaze flickers across to him briefly before going back to Huaisang. “Headmaster?” he greets evenly, and desperation rises within Wanyin.
“Wait. Stop. You can’t do this. Huaisang clearly doesn’t want to go to military school.”
Wanyin is turned completely to face Nie Mingjue now. Faintly, he can register his fingers balling up into fists, his nails digging into his skin. Behind him, there’s a faint noise, a choked out “Jia— Wanyin,” but he’s too busy raging to give it much thought.
“Just look at him. He just got admitted to hospital! He’s in no shape to be going anywhere!”
Mingjue ignores him completely and continues talking into his phone, and Wanyin’s ire only rises.
“Are you even listening? What kind of brother are you? You think this is going to achieve anything?”
Wanyin is faintly aware that he must be shouting now. Mingjue looks at him again, irritation flashing through his eyes, and cuts the call.
“Are you quite done? The decision has been made.”
“No, you’ve made the decision!” Wanyin argues. “Just look at your brother for a moment! How do you think someone like him would do in military school?”
“I have taught many students like him who have gone on to flourish,” Mingjue fires back. “Military school teaches self-discipline through routine. Not that this is any of your business.”
“It is my business,” Wanyin grounds out. “He’s my friend. And he clearly doesn’t want to go. Are you going to pretend he does just because he’s not saying no?”
Mingjue glowers even more fiercely at that, but Wanyin pays him no heed. The words are falling straight from his heart through his lips now. He can’t stop himself.
“You say you want him to have a routine? You probably just want him to have people who will have his back. But he has that here. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Why rip him away from everything he’s built and make him build it all up again?”
You really think that nothing has changed when you’re the one who hasn’t been paying attention?
That sentence is on the tip of Wanyin’s tongue, but somehow—mercifully—he finally has the presence of mind to keep it there. His tirade done for now, Wanyin takes deep breaths.
He actually doesn’t know how much Mingjue keeps tabs on Huaisang. There has to be some degree of it, since his two friends are looking after Huaisang on his request and since he was the one who actually raised him. It’s possible that Wanyin may have said too much.
But he’d say it again in a heartbeat.
Nie Mingjue looks furious and frankly, being so close to a man who is this angry and who is big and strong enough to snap his neck is terrifying. But behind all the anger, Wanyin sees something he understands.
He also feels like he might be on the verge of understanding himself a bit better, too, but now is not the time to go there.
“You probably want the best for him.” Wanyin’s voice is quieter now, but he tries his hardest to keep it firm. “No, I know you do. It’s what my A-Jie would want for me. But I think he can get that here. Through his own power. At his own pace.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Wanyin can make out a shifting movement. But after all that he’s said and given what he’s about to say, turning back to look at Huaisang is even more terrifying of a prospect than facing Nie Mingjue head-on.
“Also, I don’t know if it counts for much, since I’m still in high school…” A snort from Mingjue tells him that it doesn’t, but Wanyin plows on anyway, “but I’ll look out for him. And it’s not just me. My brother will help too, and his boyfriend, the head prefect. He’s Xichen-ge’s little brother who is the best student in school. And Huaisang has other people too, like Xichen-ge, and Meng-xiong. People who care about him. Who will keep an eye on him.”
Nie Mingjue’s expression shifts. Though he still looks angry, his fury is no longer focused solely on Wanyin. Instead, Nie Mingjue broods, his brows creasing even closer together, and the silence that stretches on grows more and more oppressive. Wanyin finally dares to look behind him, and sees that Huaisang is now one with his bed. Wanyin, himself, feels bolted to the very floor.
Eventually, Nie Mingjue raises himself up to his full height, and all illusions Wanyin ever had about his own are brutally crushed to pieces. The way Nie Mingjue looks down at Wanyin, towering from up above, makes Wanyin feel like he’s a worm being inspected by a bird.
“Can we talk alone?” Mingjue’s voice is rough and low, and more conciliatory than Wanyin expected. Of course, what that actually means is that instead of sounding like he wants to murder him, Mingjue sounds like he just wants to rough him up instead.
“About what?”
“I just want to talk, kid.”
“Well,” Wanyin says, sounding braver than he feels, “if it’s anything about Huaisang you can say it to me with him in the room.”
The atmosphere shifts again. Nie Mingjue’s eyebrows raise, but Wanyin doesn’t dare to think about what that might mean. Interpreting things positively at this point feels unwise. Dangerous. Like it would be conceding ground.
“Fine.” Mingjue’s lips quirk up into a smirk, and though it is mocking and aggressive where Huaisang’s would be lazy and playful, Wanyin can see the family resemblance now.
“I was trying to do you a favour,” Mingjue continues, “but if you want your dirty laundry aired in front of everyone it’s your funeral. I know your type, thinking you’re so impressive because you're a sports captain or because daddy pulled some strings to help you lead some nonprofit campaign that you’re going to pass off as your own work. You only care about stacking your high school CV. Well, guess what?” Mingjue’s eyes flash contemptuously. “My brother will not be your community service project.”
“He is not my community service project!” Wanyin immediately yells. He can feel himself get angry again and immediately modulates his expression, but he knows that for a few seconds his face was nothing but naked fury. He hates what Nie Mingjue is saying. He hates that he can point out twenty examples of those types of people in his school alone.
“He’s not my community service project,” Wanyin repeats quietly. “He’s my friend. I want him to be happy.”
At that, Mingjue scoffs. “Yeah? Well? What are you saying?”
He takes a step closer to Wanyin and his eyes narrow. “You think you can make him happy?”
Wanyin should have expected the conversation to go this way, and maybe, in a less emotionally fraught, personal situation, he would have. But Mingjue’s question floors him now. Wanyin balls his fists even tighter and meets Mingjue’s gaze directly, but in the back of his mind he thinks back to all the times he and Huaisang have spent together, all the mundane happenings they’ve shared. Of Huaisang stealing his mozzarella sticks and teasing him about being a nerd, of the countless portrait sitting sessions where they would just talk about nothing, of the time Wanyin nodded off and Huaisang just let him sleep.
Of the time they went clubbing and Huaisang laughed when Wanyin almost planted face-first on the dance floor, only regaining his balance at the last moment. Of the time Huaisang looked up at him through his lashes in the art room and sang for Wanyin as the rising sun painted his features in gold.
Of the time they went to the planetarium and Wanyin confessed his deepest feelings in front of bright, swirling Jupiter.
Of the time Huaisang joined his family in teasing him, as they all tucked into his sister’s cooking at the dinner table.
Of the time they kissed in Wanyin’s room, with nothing but each other in their sight.
There were plenty of happy times, weren’t there?
He looks back up at Mingjue.
“Yeah.” His voice is quiet, but rushing up from within Wanyin is a strength of conviction he has not felt in a long time. “I think I can.”
There may or may not be a gasp from the direction of the door, but Wanyin pays it no heed. He keeps looking at Nie Mingjue, tilting his head downwards just enough to maintain eye contact without being insolent.
Nie Mingjue is the first one to look away, scoffing as he does so. Whatever is running through Wanyin’s veins at this moment makes him feel invincible, and he keeps going.
“So I told you what I think. But isn’t there someone else you need to talk to?”
Something twitches on Nie Mingjue’s face. But after a few moments, he obliges, looking past Wanyin at Huaisang on the bed.
“Well?”
Suddenly, the attention of the entire room is on him. Huaisang freezes, maybe upon realising that, and turns pink.
It’s good to see some colour in him.
Wanyin’s heart is in his mouth as he waits for an answer. Huaisang seems genuinely taken aback, and he looks between everyone in the room, his eyes wide open in disbelief. When they make eye contact, Wanyin forces himself to nod, knowing that his cheeks are flaming red right now and pretending with all his might that they aren’t. Huaisang then looks back at his brother, and a bit of wonder enters his expression now, like he can’t believe this is happening. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again, frowning as he does so, looking away from everyone—
“Well, Dage, of course—” and Huaisang shakes his head, like he still can’t believe it, “—of course. Of course, I want to…… I want to stay.”
Feed the fire, break your vision
Throw your fists up, come on with me
Take me out of here