Delinquent High

Chapter 81

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji ate while Wei Wuxian was chatting away about everything and nothing. Simply nonsense to fill the silence. He was now feeling more comfortable and he started sharing small stories and anecdotes from their shared childhood. He even gathered enough courage to threw in there bits and pieces from when he had been living with the Jiangs. Only the funny and good moments of course.

He had a feeling that if he dug too deep, he would break the fragile balance he had found in his heart. The smile on his lips was a little less fake whenever he narrated about how he and Jiang Cheng had gone exploring in the back garden of the Jiang's house and how they had built there a house out of mud. He carefully kept to himself that afterwards, Madame Yu had gotten so angry when she had seen their dirty clothes that she had locked him in his room for the rest of the weekend.

He missed immensely his siblings. Although they were not related by blood, they had still been together for almost ten years. Sharing stories about them was making Wei Wuxian feel very nostalgic. And hurt. He wanted badly to go back to those days when he had believed that the worst Madame Yu would do was to scold him and send him to his room without dinner. Now he knew that the world was not such a kind place.

He quickly shifted the conversation topic before he could get too emotional and break down in front of Lan Wangji again: "Lan Zhan, you are so lucky you have such a nice brother. You must have had so much fun as kids. You were never alone, I am glad, I have been a little worried for you. You were all proper and polite even as a small child. I bet that you have never gotten into trouble for misbehaving, huh?"

Despite all his efforts, Wei Wuxian could not help but reminisce about his own time after his parents had died. Living all alone in an orphanage, not understanding why everything had changed so suddenly, he had kept asking for his parents and Lan Zhan.

Staff in the first orphanage he had been to had been nice and had tried to explain, he had not listened. He did not understand and he wanted things to go back to how they had been. Then, he had been transferred to another institution and mostly ignored or punished for upsetting the other children. Hopefully, Lan Wangji have had it much easier. Well, as easy as it could be for a young child who had just lost their parents.

He knew he had made a mistake right away. It was not as noticeable as in his case, but Lan Wangji got all tense and put away his chopsticks. He was bothered, very much so. Wei Wuxian panicked. This was not what he had wanted. He had hoped that he could mask his own insecurities and guilty conscience, but look what he had done. He had blabbered too much; he should have just stayed silent from the beginning. He always ruined everything with his big mouth.

Luckily, and it was all thanks to his childhood friend, the atmosphere did not stay tense and awkward for too long. With a quiet voice and a somewhat distant expression, as if he was currently somewhere else and not sitting at a table with Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji admitted: "Uncle has always been strict, but brother shielded me."

The revelation took Wei Wuxian by surprise. Both because he had hoped that Lan Qiren had at least treated his own nephews well and because he had not expected that Lan Wangji would so readily confide in him with perhaps one of his worst life experiences. He had to admire his childhood friend's courage at the same time.

He personally would never be able to describe and admit aloud what had happened to him at the Delinquent High. All he could manage was to write pages upon pages of long letters of apology for his inadequacy and weird behaviour. Comparing to Lan Wangji, he was a complete failure. A failure who was feeling very apologetic; he had not wanted to bring up any bad memories, it would have been better if he had never spoken in the first place.

He should have kept quiet and been on his best behaviour. His big mouth had only ever gotten him into trouble, him and many other people who had gotten tangled in his messes, just like Lan Wangji right now. He really should have listened to Madame Yu from the very start. Perhaps he should not have been so adamant on pretending to be his old self. If he was to change, now was the best time.

"Sorry, Lan Zhan, I should not have brought this up. I will just shut up now, do not worry. I..."

Wei Wuxian started apologizing. Although he had already decided that he would only beat himself up where no one would be able to see, he was already falling back into the previous patterns. However, he did not try to stop himself in any way. He had hurt Lan Wangji, he had to apologize and then shut up for good. That was the best he could do for everyone's sake.

Lan Wangji did not seem to see the situation in the same light: "Wei Ying, it is fine. You did not do anything wrong. It was me who chose to answer your question. It actually makes me feel better not to bottle my past in my heart. Talking about bad experiences and memories helps me to process them and see them from different perspectives. I am not ashamed of anything. And neither should be you. I like to hear you talking, and if you will at any time decide that you would like to confide in me, know that I am ready to listen."

And here it was again, Lan Wangji's overwhelming kindness that Wei Wuxian did not deserve but was being given readily and without asking anything in return. His childhood friend really was like an angel descended from the heavens; patient, steady and always present. Wei Wuxian was feeling very out of place being in his company and receiving his help.

Despite Lan Wangji's reassurances, Wei Wuxian did not say another word throughout the meal. He had caused enough grief already. He was beating himself up silently for not being able to act normally for even a single hour. Pretending to be fine and not causing any problems was proving to be more difficult than he remembered. He must have truly gotten out of shape. He had to do better, it was imperative if he wanted to stay with Lan Wangji.

They finished eating and washed the dishes in silence. Wei Wuxian was not confident he would be able to go on normally so he just drew into himself and switched on a kind of autopilot. He was going through repetitive motions while sitting in a backseat and watching everything happen as he would watch a movie.

He only managed a very small polite smile when Lan Wangji asked him what he wanted to do for the rest of the day. There were still a few hours left before the curfew. It would have been nice to spend some more time snuggled under a blanket on the couch and read, but Wei Wuxian's mind was too disturbed and guilty to accept such leisurely activity. He had a bunch of things he wanted to apologize for again, there were still many blank pages for him to fill with his hardly legible handwriting. With a little luck, he would not run out of paper to write on today.

He lowered his head in shame, knowing that he would hurt his childhood friend's feelings once again, and whispered: "Thank you for the meal. I will go back to the room."