Sometimes When We Touch

7. I'm just another writer still trapped within my truth

Reluctantly, Lan WangJi left the dehydrated Wei Ying to rest. Luo QingYang stopped him on his way to the lobby. "Mr, Lan? May I see you for a moment." Lan WangJi followed, curious as to why what should have been a question was obviously a demand. Once settled into chairs on either side of her desk, she made a face that would normally be considered a smile, but was quite plainly not. Her eyes were hard and piercing; she was rather intimidating for a person a full head shorter than him. "If you want to pursue anything beyond a professional relationship with Dr. Wei, please let me know now."

"What?" Lan WangJi stared at her in shock.

"Dr. Wei is too fragile for anything more than a slightly casual friendship. He says you went to school together? Whoever he was then, he is not that person now."

"Wei Ying is not fragile," Lan WangJi insisted.

"Really?" She leaned back in her chair. "I've been Dr. Wei's assistant since he finished medical school. I have access to his home, phone, car, and social media accounts. I pay his bills. I'm the one who makes sure there are eggs and vegetables in his refrigerator and meat in his freezer. Because the only thing he remembers to buy at a grocery store is ramen and coffee beans and sometimes chips. I'm the one who sends Dr. Jiang over to make sure he eats a proper dinner at least twice a week. I'm the one who schedules his phone calls with his other siblings to ensure he speaks with them every week. I have access to his entire life; you've been here a few weeks after a nearly twenty year absence, and you think you know better than me? No, you don't get to waltz in here and proclaim 'Wei Ying is not fragile.' Not to those of us who work round the clock to take care of him." Her voice became even more frigid. "If it was up to me, I would be kicking your ass to the curb, but I've been overruled."

"Who overruled you?" Who else was watching over Wei Ying like a mother hen? And siblings, plural, in addition to Jiang WanYin? He only had two foster siblings.... "What happened?" He had to ask even though he already knew the answer: A'Yuan.

"Are you planning on staying long enough for you to deserve to know?" She braced her palms against the desk edge. "If you're planning on becoming friends again, I need to know. Because I'm going to be the one picking up the pieces when you leave."

"I won't hurt him," he promised.

"Of course you will," she retorted. "And he'll let you." She snorted. "Not only will he let you, he'll convince himself that he's responsible for it."

Lan WangJi pondered her statements. All of them. If Wei Ying needed someone watching over him, down to what he was eating.... "I promise that I will not attempt to become friends until after my children are done with his class."

"So another five or six weeks? And then what?"

"And then, I have to tell him why I moved here."

She pursed her lips. "And why did you move here?"

The simplest answer was the most complicated. He whittled it down to, "I have something that used to be his."

"Give me your cell number. I'll add you into the rotation. For now." Luo QingYang did not look happy.

Getting 'added to the rotation' meant getting texts with locations and times of where Wei WuXian would be. Sometimes it was their office parking lot in the morning or lobby in the evening and they'd walk into or out of the building together. A few times it was at the Road Runner, where Wei WuXian was going to be eating alone. Sometimes it was at a coffee shop. All infrequent enough and random enough that Wei WuXian had no clue his assistant was playing the role of a master puppeteer behind the curtain.

Lan WangJi did not mind, overly much, that he was dancing to her tune. Although the meetings were contrived, the interactions were genuine. Time spent with Wei Ying was worth anything. Everything.