Sit Softly On Your Shoulder

Chapter 4: Delightful Innocence

Lan Zhan wakes up slowly, in bits and pieces. His eyes flickering open and he sees a beautiful evening sky, or it could be just before dawn breaks. He must still be dreaming, he thinks, struggling to wake up and make sense of it.

Why is he lying down?

That thought jolts him awake enough to fully open his eyes and look at the marvel above him.

Half of the ceiling is painted a deep, dark blue gradually lightening to a pale sky blue, and then morphing to a deep peach with hints of coral and fuschia, ending with a vivid reddish pink. Stars and clusters of galaxies are painted all over it, making it a stunning piece of artwork and then the dryness in Lan Zhan's eyes makes him realise that he hasn't blinked once.

The merging of the colours, the sheer scope of its magnificent rendition, the magnitude of it has made Lan Zhan forget his words.

The only thing that snaps him out of it is a warmth to his side. He's not alone in this bed.

Ordinarily, that would cause him quite a bit of panic, and admittedly, he stopped breathing in the hopes that it was Wei Ying who was sleeping next to him. But the shape is all wrong, much too short unless the nearly six foot tall man has shrunk in the wash, and definitely more lumpy. But soft, as Lan Zhan finds out, after poking it.

There's a muffled chortle.

So Lan Zhan does it again, and again, the lump makes a noise as if it's laughing. Then, a cute nose pops out from under the covers, followed by two bright silver eyes.

"I'm A-Yuan," he says confidently. "Who are you, and why are you sleeping in my bed?"

"That's a good question," Lan Zhan tells him honestly. If he found someone sleeping in his bed, the chances are he'd want to know that vital piece of information, too. "I don't know," he adds quietly.

"Shhhh!" A-Yuan says very seriously, lifting a short, chubby finger to his lips. "You have to hide wiv me. K?"

Lan Zhan nods with equal seriousness. "Why are we hiding?"

The cute little boy blushes, but then he pouts with determination. "The dwagon was chasing me," he says, implementing the same level of severity as a crew telling their passengers that the engines have failed. All four of them.

"Dragon?" Lan Zhan's eyes darted to the door and back again.

"A-Yuan? Where are you??!" A shrill voice shouts.

That's not Wei Ying's voice, and Lan Zhan immediately cringes, feeling as out of place as a dollop of vanilla ice cream on a sunbed. A-Yuan stiffens, and then instinctively curls closer, his little body shaking with fear. Lan Zhan covers them both up with the blanket and pulls the little boy closer, smiling in spite of the imminent danger.

The voice fades away, annoyed and still making that awful sound.

The blanket is super soft under his fingers, and Lan Zhan notices that it's handmade. All the tiny little stitches are meticulously neat and uniform, connecting a myriad of colours and designs together in such a random, unorganised pattern, that he realises it is a patchwork quilt in the truest sense of the word. Some of the pieces look like they might have been part of a shirt or a blouse, or maybe even curtains, all brought together to make something new. Like all the different souls of the world coming together to make it a brighter, colourful and more welcoming place.

"Don't worry, A-Yuan, I will protect you," Lan Zhan finds himself promising, because that sounded like an evil dragon to him as well, and he's not about to betray this tiny beautiful soul.