I can't figure out how to explain this for the life of me so here's a visual. They live in an apartment similar to this, where all the units are connected by a single walkway.
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This is chapter 69 but there's no 69
☂︎
Rain dribbled down the eaves of the apartment building, twinkling like stars in the city lights. Wei WuXian sat carelessly on the half-wall that overlooked the parking lot. He held his feet out beneath the curtain of rain and pretended he was at the end of a dock, somewhere nice, somewhere far away from the city squalor. In his fantasy, he imagined a vast lake with rippling lotus skirts. There were willow trees too, flanking the water. He could teach A-Yuan to swim there, like his uncle Jiang had taught him.
It was a nice daydream.
But in reality, Wei WuXian saw his shitty old car parked next to Lan WangJi's and he started to feel out of place in his own home. Again.
He sighed heavily, snuffing his cigarette on the back of his hand and dropping it into the trash a floor below. The kiss of cinder burned quietly. It puckered into a red scab, a small chrysanthemum freckle on his white skin. He wasn't sure why he did it. Subconsciously, maybe, he was disciplining himself for even relapsing. This was the first time he'd bargained with a smoke since A-Yuan came into his life. But it had been a week since he lost his most valuable job to death and debauchery and rent was due soon and—
"Wei Ying!"
Lan Zhan?
Before Wei WuXian could even turn his face, two arms wrapped tightly around his waist, yanking him off the wall, backwards into Lan WangJi's chest. They both landed on the ground in an awkward heap, Wei WuXian's head in his lap and WangJi's hands still rested on his bare belly (Wei WuXian was in his favorite cropped sweater).
Wei WuXian gazed up at Lan Zhan, blinking softly so as to look pretty for him. "What was that for?"
"I-I thought..." The man was stammering. His eyes wouldn't leave the wall. One would think his whole world lay just beyond it.
Oh, Wei WuXian finally realized. He really thought I was about to jump? He burst out laughing and it was perhaps the most beautiful thing Lan WangJi had ever seen, and had ever heard. Even the rain took pause to listen.
"Lan Zhan, you're so adorable." Wei WuXian giggled. He lifted a hand to pat Lan Zhan's cheek. From this angle, they appeared rounder, more boyish. "Even if I was going to jump, it's only two stories. Worst thing that could happen is a broken bone or two. You think I can afford a hospital stay right now? I'd rather just die."
". . ."
To Lan WangJi, that was hardly a consolation.
"Hm. Anyways, thanks for saving me, Lan Zhan."
After one last stroke of his thumb along Lan WangJi's cheekbone, Wei WuXian lowered his arm. Suddenly, the Jade looked troubled. Maybe Wei WuXian had overstepped. Though they'd had this unspoken feud between them—touching each other, flirting shamelessly—this one felt more intimate. It was a touch that transcended familiarity.
He was surprised when Lan Zhan caught his wrist gently.
"Eh? Do you like when I touch y—"
"What happened?" Lan WangJi asked with breathy concern. Wei WuXian could feel it, too, where his head lay on Lan WangJi's chest. It sat completely still, whereas before, his head would lull with every breath like a duck in the ripples of pond.
"Ah, that... I did that. It's just a bad habit."
"Mn," Lan WangJi agreed. He thumbed the burn, still wet with rainwater. The slick spread like a salve. It was soothing. "Wei Ying shouldn't smoke."
"I don't. Not often. But I've been rejected by five jobs in the last four days. I'm not qualified for anything, Lan Zhan, and I could be, too... I was doing well in college, you know? But then I had to raise a child all by myself who was suddenly sprung on me."
As he listened, Lan WangJi eased his arms around Wei Ying, hugging him carefully. It didn't even matter to either of them that they were on the ground still.
"Wei Ying is doing his best."
It was a simple sentence, but for some reason, it impacted Wei WuXian greatly. He'd had no one in his life to tell him this for so many years. Now he did and it was too much to bear.
"You never told me where you worked," Wei WuXian asked before he could begin to cry.
Lan WangJi hummed. "I work at a rehab and mental health facility." It was half a truth. The Cloud Recesses was more than just a red herring—it was his mother's dream. Briefly, he gazed up and wondered how his mother would have felt about Wei Ying.
"Of course you do. You're a living, breathing Angel," Wei WuXian murmured. He himself, who was also gazing up, became lost in Lan WangJi's beauty. WangJi's pale face was looming above his, a ghost inside his thick black hair. Wei WuXian could almost see himself in those earth-brown eyes and it instilled him with confidence that didn't feel like his own.
He grabbed Lan WangJi by the face and pulled their lips together.
It was a bit awkward at first—the upside down kiss—but they grew into it. What a spider-man moment! He supposed this made him the Mary Jane, but he didn't mind it.
Their chaste mouths became dirty on each other in the best way. Saliva glimmered between them like little bells, and neither knew whose was whose anymore. Lan WangJi tasted so good, he smelled so good and felt so good, and he was so soft.
Eventually, he noticed Lan WangJi had stopped kissing back.
Wei WuXian came to his senses with a jolt. Everything was suddenly so real to him. This wasn't a joke anymore and that scared him because it never had been, not to him. But what about Lan Zhan? Wei Ying didn't want to know. He wasn't ready to be told none of this was real.
Shaking in his sweater, Wei WuXian stood up and stared at the ground. "I-I'm sorry," he whispered. Before Lan WangJi could say anything, Wei Ying ran into his unit and slammed the door.
Lan WangJi's heart was left beating a mile a minute.
