An Almost Lan

Chapter 24

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, remaining errors are all mine.

Warnings:  Xue Yang is back!

The peals of laughter that came from Lan Zhan's room woke Wei Ying up from his afternoon nap. It seemed she was visiting again. Mianmian, Lan Zhan's teammate in the National Fencing Team had become a constant visitor to the house. Since that night when Nie Mingjue and she had brought a very drunk Lan Zhan home, the three of them had become closer.

Now Lan Zhan and Wei Ying were attending college, both of them chose to stay home and go to a local university. Lan Zhan had enrolled in the same one as him pursuing a double major: music and finance. Wei Ying had chosen to pursue his dream and become a veterinarian. All seemed to be going perfectly well for both of them, except Wei Ying was in a state of constant uneasiness when Mianmian visited Lan Zhan at home.

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan's relationship had improved, even if he said so. They were now able to maintain more than superficial conversations, both willing to share some of his hopes and dreams. Of course, it was not as it was before, but they were way better at this point. He was always careful around Lan Zhan, too afraid of letting on his feelings. He'd rather have Lan Zhan in his life as his brother than as his enemy or something like that.

There was of course the puzzling fact that Lan Zhan always seemed on the verge of telling him something, something that he had figured was important to Lan Zhan, but they had absolutely no luck, there was always someone interrupting their conversation. Sometimes it was Xue Yang, who had taken to visiting him at home almost every day or Mianmian coming to pick Lan Zhan up to go on yet another shopping spree, or even Nie Mingjue who was always pestering Lan Zhan about fencing strategies and whatnot.

Even Jinzhu and Yinzhu seemed sometimes to act too fishy for his taste on that matter. The fact was that they were getting better in their relationship, and he was grateful for that. He had begun suspecting that Lan Zhan liked Mianmian, and even if he could ask him, he was very afraid of his answer, just as much as he was afraid of asking why that incident in their past had happened. Those two were subjects he avoided with utmost care and he didn't foresee it changing anytime soon.

***

Still in a gloomy mood, he was trying really hard to focus on his homework. It was Friday night and he heard Lan Zhan left with Mianmian...again. He heard their voices from the corridor slightly muffled by the door, they were going shopping again and after that they were meeting Nie Mingjue at their favorite cafe.

He was not jealous, of course he wasn't. He had no claim over Lan Zhan and he would never have one, but still...the uneasiness didn't go away as much as he fought it. He knew he should be happy for Lan Zhan, he finally had friends to hang out with, but a part of him, a very selfish one, definitely was not.

Unable to stop brooding, he tried for the nth time to focus on his Biochemestry homework when Xue Yang arrived unannounced...again. His best friend had developed a knack for entering his room without even knocking as soon as he was let in into the house.

The fact that Jinzhu seemed to have some sort of a crush or at the very least a soft spot for him didn't help. She was his enabler.

"What are you doing dude?" was Xue Yang's substitute for a proper greeting.

Wei Ying was somewhat startled as he had been lost in his thoughts. "What the fuck, Xue Yang? Why don't you knock on the door like normal people?"

"Normal is grossly overrated and I would rather die than be normal. Normal is boring dude," he responded, nonchalantly.