An Almost Lan

Chapter 12

A/N: AU and OOC, just a reminder.

Thank you for your votes and comments, they really encourage me!

Thanks to @CALActorsTypist on Twitter for editing this.

Warnings: I don't even know what to say.  Wei Ying's POV. Let's hear from our boy.

He made himself scarce for the rest of his siblings' visit. His siblings, he wasn't sure he had the right to call A-Li and A-Huan his siblings anymore, not after Lan Zhan's blatant rejection of his inclusion in the Lan family. He wasn't sure if the rest of them felt the same way about him. Maybe, he wondered, they were just pitying him, seeing him as a charity case, a good deed to do to society.

Consciously deciding on hiding away from them, he made the Lan farm and stables his refuge. He spent every waking hour training, jumping on Subian until both horse and rider ended up exhausted. It was the very least he could do for Uncle Qiren, he had introduced him to horse jumping and supported him every step of the way so he wanted to make him proud and maybe one day becoming an international champion.

Wei Ying was sincerely moved by Lan Qiren and Aunty Yu's intention to legally adopt him. It was something that he couldn't imagine even in his wildest dreams. He always viewed them, all of them as his family. Not being able to remember his parents had left a void in his existence, but the Lans and Jiangs had replaced them in his life, making him feel a part of a family.

Well, at least it was how it had felt for him. Apparently, not everybody felt the same. He honestly didn't see it coming. Never expecting Lan Zhan, his brother and soulmate, to view things so widely differently. As he trained with Suibian, he would often get lost in his thoughts and memories, trying to pinpoint what he did wrong, how he could have offended Lan Zhan, or what could be the cause for his rejection.

***

That night, after he left the dining room he just wanted to escape from the house. It had been a long time since he had felt the weight of a rebuff, not experiencing it since aunty Yu took him and his siblings to that weird doctor appointment when he was around 8 or 9 years old, he didn't remember it clearly. The doctor had taken some saliva samples with a swab and that had been all. Aunty Yu had really changed after that, she had become...nicer...softer, almost warm, but anyway she wasn't completely warm even with A-Li and A-Cheng. It was just not her nature.

Shortly after that, Uncle Fengmian had passed away and he had felt so unsure of what was in the future for him. Truly afraid of being left alone in the streets again or maybe being left at an orphanage or something like that. Thankfully, Aunty Yu really made an effort to have a better relationship with him. No, scratch that, to have any kind of relationship with him.

She made sure everyone, herself included, received individual therapy as well as family sessions. He was reluctant at first, truly afraid of saying something wrong, something that might show that he was...defective in any way. It was only after a year of attending his weekly sessions that he realized his therapist didn't reveal anything about what they talked particularly, she just gave general advice to aunty Yu about how to help him overcome his insecurities.

When the Lans entered their lives, he felt off-kilter again. At least when they first received the news of the upcoming wedding, but as soon as they met the Lan brothers, he had clicked with both of them, especially with Lan Zhan. They became inseparable for several years, their bond seemed so strong that he had some trouble with Jiang Cheng because he felt some sort of abandonment from Wei Ying's part.

Now he was terribly confused. Had he imagined his bond with Lan Zhan? Had he done anything that warranted such a hurtful rejection? He didn't know. His knee-jerk reaction was to run away from the house. He wandered aimlessly for a while until he came back and climbed to the rooftop. He spent the night gazing at the stars and wishing that somehow he would feel loved again someday.