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Their love story, if one can call it that, is unexciting. Uneventful, right until the end. Boy meets boy. They fall in love. They go out on dates, they flirt, they form a connection. They sleep together, shy and uncertain, and it’s good. It’s mind-blowingly good. They share more of themselves with one another. They grow close. They say that three word sentence to each other. They make love. They stop counting their dates, growing more and more intertwined in each other’s lives. They are getting to the point where Lan Zhan contemplates floating the idea of moving in together. It is too soon, but he thinks they both want it.
And then Wei Ying gets the notice that he is being relocated.
*
It is too good of a professional opportunity to give up. Impossible, that Wei Ying would do that for him. They discuss long distance. They fight about it. They fuck. They reach the inevitable conclusion that they would do better as friends.
They promise each other that they will stay friends.
Lan Zhan makes Wei Ying promise that he’ll see other people.
"You can’t do that," Wei Ying says with tears in his eyes. "I can’t — Lan Zhan. I don’t want to go. Tell me to stay."
But Wei Ying has to go. Forcing him to stay would be selfish, shameful. Despicable. Wei Ying deserves better than to be chained by Lan Zhan’s desire.
And so Lan Zhan makes him promise. Wei Ying is brilliant and kind and the best person in the entire world. It is unthinkable that he would go unloved for long.
They kiss one last time, and they say their goodbyes.
*
The beginning is awful. It is so, so awful. Wei Ying is lonely and miserable. Lan Zhan is the person he reaches out to when he is at his lowest. They cry. They discuss the option of long distance again. Lan Zhan considers buying a plane ticket. He lets it slip and Wei Ying gets mad at him about it.
They fight. They fight a lot. They agree that it can’t go on like this; that it is better to have a friendship that is nourishing, than a relationship that’s consuming.
Things settle. Slowly, gradually, they settle.
They manage to have phone conversations where none of them hurt the other. Wei Ying becomes more confident in his new position. Lan Zhan learns to live his life around the gaping, bleeding wound that is Wei Ying’s absence.
They watch movies together sometimes over video calls. They laugh together. They have fun.
They don’t bring up what they were. What they could’ve been.
Their relationship is over. Their friendship blossoms.
*
Wei Ying sounds distracted when he calls on his way back from work. Lan Zhan catches on, but it takes more prodding than usual to get it out of him — Wei Ying is nervous.
He has a date tonight.
"I don’t remember how to do dating," he says with an edge of hysteria in his voice. "I— I’m sorry Lan Zhan. This is awful of me. We shouldn’t be talking about this."
"We are friends," Lan Zhan tells him.
There’s silence on the other end of the line for a while. "Yeah," Wei Ying says finally, tinny and garbled. "Yeah, we are."
"Is there…" Lan Zhan hesitates. "Is there any way I could help?"
*
Wei Ying sends him pictures when he gets home. Two sweaters, a black and a red one. "I don’t know what to wear," he admitted, embarrassed. "I’m so… Lan Zhan, how did we ever do this? This part is horrible."
It is. It is so horrible.
"You should wear the red one," Lan Zhan tells him. He doesn’t tell him, red is the color you were wearing when I fell in love with you.
"Ah, Lan Zhan." Wei Ying’s voice sounds choked up over the phone. "I will. Thank you. Sorry for… for doing this to you. And thank you for being understanding."
"Anytime," Lan Zhan says, and he means it. They are friends.
*
"How did it go?" Lan Zhan texts Wei Ying the morning after. He contemplated whether he should have — texted earlier. Last night. But he did not…
You know what they say, about people who assume.
Wei Ying calls him right when he is done with breakfast.
"It was… okay, I think?" Wei Ying’s voice sounds normal. Everything sounds normal. Like no one had any particularly life changing experience last night. Or so Lan Zhan tells himself.
"Okay?" he inquires, gently.
"I mean, it wasn’t like… you know. Like it was with us." A tiny pinch of sorrow to Lan Zhan’s heart. He breathes through it. It passes. They were never meant to last. "And he’s a nice guy! But I kind of, haha." Wei Ying chuckles nervously and Lan Zhan can imagine it, clear as day, the way he shrugs helplessly, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I sort of froze at the end of the night, when he. When."
"Did you kiss?" Lan Zhan is. Genuinely curious.
"No, that’s when I… I kind of froze on him, and then I ran off. He must think I’m a disaster."
It would be his loss.
*
Two days later, Wei Ying texts Lan Zhan. "He asked me out on a second date??? What do I do???"
Lan Zhan puts his phone down, closes the blinds, turns off the light. In the darkness, he buries his face in his palms and screams silently in his mind.
He turns on the light. He opens the blinds. He texts Wei Ying, "This time, you let him kiss you."
Wei Ying doesn’t reply. Lan Zhan spends the day strung out, on edge and needlessly horny.
Right before his bedtime he receives a message from Wei Ying.
"Done."
*
This first guy Wei Ying goes out with doesn’t last. Wei Ying doesn’t say why, and Lan Zhan doesn’t ask. For a few weeks, everything is back to the way it had been. Lan Zhan spends more time than usual jerking off, a mix of sad and angry, imagining the moment when Wei Ying kissed the guy for the first time, wondering if Wei Ying had thought of him at all when he did it.
It doesn’t matter. They are friends. They both agreed it wouldn’t work. Besides, Lan Zhan was the one who encouraged Wei Ying to date, and he does so again now, a strange and gratifying pang in his gut when he purposefully brings it up.
"I, uh. There is someone, actually," Wei Ying confesses. "We’re going out, um. Tomorrow."
Lan Zhan sits up straight, listening intently. Wei Ying doesn’t share many details. Like the previous time, he seems to think Lan Zhan would be hurt to hear about it.
"What are you wearing?" Lan Zhan asks him.
"Ah, I don’t know! Would you. Do you want to help me choose?"
*
Wei Ying sends him outfit pictures again. Lan Zhan picks one that would accentuate Wei Ying’s slim waist, his gorgeous backside. Wei Ying giggles when Lan Zhan tells him that.
"You should kiss him this time," Lan Zhan says. "If the date is good."
The date is good. Wei Ying confirms it by text, accompanied by a kissing emoji.
*
The following morning, Lan Zhan calls him for details.
"Aiyo, Lan Zhan! Are we that kind of close?"
"I know what you look like naked," Lan Zhan points out.
Wei Ying is quiet. "Okay. Okay. Fair."
It was just a peck. A brief, chaste touch of lips to lips. On Lan Zhan’s and Wei Ying’s first date, they had…
Never mind. That kind of thinking will get him nowhere.
Still, that doesn’t mean Lan Zhan doesn’t get to tease, a little.
"Oh?" Wei Ying challenges, affronted. Lan Zhan can hear the laughter in his voice. It is good to hear him happy. "What should I have done, then?"
"Used tongue," Lan Zhan deadpans.
Over the phone, he can hear Wei Ying’s breath catch. "Alright," he says. "Okay. I’ll do it."
That brief flame of jealousy that Lan Zhan curbs instantly feels an awful lot like satisfaction.
*
"Third date!" Wei Ying announces proudly the following week. "Do I put out — yes or no?"
"It is customary," Lan Zhan informs him. "And you are, ah. Eager."
So eager. Wei Ying sputters, but Lan Zhan can tell that he wants it.
It is the weekend. Lan Zhan is lounging on the sofa in his apartment, listening to Wei Ying’s recount with rapture. How Wei Ying had kissed the guy, hard and fast that last time. How it reminded him — just a little — of how good it could feel. To be with someone else like that.
His hand drifts, down his chest, his abdomen, playing with the strings of his pants.
"You should blow him," he tells Wei Ying, when he is done with his monologue. Lan Zhan cups himself over his pants, feeling himself full and heavy under the fabric.
"Oh?" Wei Ying’s voice is rough. Low.
"You give great head." Lan Zhan says it matter-of-factly. "Makes a good impression."
"I give life-changing head, thank you very much," Wei Ying announces, as though Lan Zhan doesn’t know. He sounds breathless. "What should I, then… after?"
"Let him jerk you off." Lan Zhan tugs his pants down. "Like I did with you."
"Exactly like we did?" Wei Ying sounds… affected. The memories this brings up are filthy and vivid.
Lan Zhan makes a noncommittal sound. His cock peeks above the line of his pants. He smears the head with his precome.
"I’m not sure he’d be into… finger stuff. So soon."
"Make him."
"I, ah…"
"You shouldn’t have to settle," Lan Zhan says. "You deserve someone who’ll treat you right." Like he used to. Like he would’ve.
There is an unmistakeable soft moan from the other end of the line. Lan Zhan slips his hand under his waistband, touching himself.
Wei Ying’s voice comes back online, his words slurred. "I’ll do it."
*
Lan Zhan doesn’t expect to get more than the succinct "Done." by text before their next phone conversation.
Instead, Wei Ying sends him pictures.
His lips, puffed up and used.
His hole, gleaming with lube.
His cock, soft, resting by a puddle of come on his skin.
And a message, preceding the images: "Quick, before he gets back, here’s the evidence."
Lan Zhan jerks off right there by his kitchen island, screen lit by Wei Ying’s dirty pictures.
*
He calls Wei Ying.
It can’t go on like this. This is… wrong. Unfair. To Lan Zhan. To the guy Wei Ying is seeing. To Wei Ying himself, even if he is the one who initiated, even if…
Lan Zhan can’t do it.
He sternly waits as the phone rings once, twice, three times. Wei Ying picks up.
"Are you proud of me, gege?" he purrs. "I did everything you told me to."
And Lan Zhan, conflicted, horny and feeling an irrational rush of pride, tells him, "Mn. You were good."
*
Wei Ying calls him up before his next date. For ideas.
Their time in bed together had been delightful, but not… remarkable. They didn’t have enough time to open up to each other enough to make it remarkable, fumbling instead through the first pitfalls of intimacy, of being horny and in love and not wanting to destroy this unbelievably good thing they had found.
Now, Lan Zhan has no such constraints.
"Do not come."
"Oh?" Wei Ying asks. "Are you asking me to go abstinent?"
"For the duration of this date," Lan Zhan tells him. "Yes."
"Should I just tell him I’m not in the mood?" He can see Wei Ying’s pout as clearly as if they were standing in the same room together.
"You are in the mood," Lan Zhan says. Wei Ying gasps, but it ends on a tiny, exasperated groan. "And you will be. But you won’t come."
"What do I get," Wei Ying wheedles. "If I’m good?"
"The right to come the next time."
*
Wei Ying sends him a dimly lit picture of his dick, flushed red and hard and aching.
"Are you at his house?" Lan Zhan texts back.
The text bubble indicating that Wei Ying is typing shows up and disappears, several times. Finally Wei Ying answers, "Yes."
"Touch yourself. Now. In the bathroom."
Lan Zhan feels smug, aroused, drunk on the fumes of his power.
Wei Ying, in return, sends him a video.
Obedience looks extremely good on him.
*
This guy doesn’t last either. "He wasn’t fun," Wei Ying dismisses him without much concern. "There’s another one, though, that texted me. That is, if you’re… if you’re okay with it."
Lan Zhan is, weirdly, more than okay with it.
*
He tells Wei Ying what to wear. What to say, sometimes, when Wei Ying comes up with ridiculous pickup lines. Wei Ying sends him the menu of the restaurant he’ll be going to — "You were always so good at choosing for me."
Lan Zhan chooses his food for him.
And he tells Wei Ying how to let other men touch him. It is wrong, he knows. He thinks Wei Ying knows it too. It’s what makes it exciting, the wrongness of it. It is an intoxicating high, one Lan Zhan is unable to let go. If he cannot touch Wei Ying himself, then — controlling when and how he does it, with whom — it is the next best thing.
Wei Ying is always, always so good for him.
There is a name to what they’re doing, Lan Zhan is aware. More than one name, probably — more than one reason for why they shouldn’t be doing this.
They keep doing it.
*
"Hey, Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying asks him one night. He is at home, alone. Between guys, as he calls it. Sometimes when this happens Lan Zhan thinks that maybe — maybe that last guy had really been the last. That inevitably, something will give, they will give words to this nameless thing between them. Find their way around it, through it, back to each other.
Sometimes Lan Zhan thinks how the next guy might be the last guy, for completely different reasons.
He hums, so Wei Ying knows that he’s listening.
"I can’t sleep."
"Would you like me to help?" Wei Ying doesn’t like expressing it, doesn’t like to be the one to ask. Always, Lan Zhan is the one who offers; Wei Ying is the one who escalates.
"Yes." It sounds like a sigh. "Yes, please."
Lan Zhan can imagine it, Wei Ying lying on his bed, playing with the waistband of his pajama pants. Waiting for permission.
"You could tell me how I should —" it ends mid sentence, breathless and throaty, and Lan Zhan’s belly is flooded with warmth. With hunger.
But they don’t do this kind of thing. Outside of Wei Ying’s dates, they are merely friends. Good friends. To break out of this pattern would be to admit…
Something which Lan Zhan wants to admit so badly. Something he never ever will, for Wei Ying’s sake.
"Have you eaten?" he asks. His own need, burning as it may be, is immaterial at this moment. It is a pleasant realization, soothing, to know that all he has to do right now is take care of Wei Ying.
To know that he knows Wei Ying’s needs better than Wei Ying himself.
"I have," Wei Ying says through a yawn. "I’m just… restless." Lan Zhan can imagine him wiggling his eyebrows. "Gege could help me with that."
"Close your eyes," Lan Zhan instructs. "Breathe."
"Mmm." He imagines Wei Ying settling into bed, the phone lying close by on his pillow.
"Do not touch yourself."
"Aiyo, Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying yawns again mid-protest.
"Tomorrow," Lan Zhan soothes him, as if that is a promise that he has the right to make. "Right now, just breathe for me."
Wei Ying takes a long, deep breath in. Exhales it out, loud and drawn-out. "I miss you," he mumbles. "Always did sleep… better when… when you’d tell me…"
"Just breathe," Lan Zhan repeats. His chest is expanding, contracting, all at once, a hot mess of yearning. Whenever they used to fall asleep together — there was no other place in the world where he wanted to be. After… He thought his heart had grown accustomed to the constant tearing. He hums, softly, the song he never got to gift him. It was foolish of him, he thought back when Wei Ying showed up with the news. To fall so quickly, when young love was prone to be so unstable, so fleeting.
"S’… nice song…" Wei Ying murmurs. Lan Zhan imagines his eyelids getting heavy, his eyelashes like the most delicate ink strokes over his skin. "What’s it… where’s it from?" It is barely a mumble, softly fading away.
Lan Zhan hums and waits, hums and feels his heart beat in his chest, both of their hearts beating in tandem, on two opposite sides of the country.
He sings softly, and he waits, and when he is certain that Wei Ying has fallen asleep, he whispers, "It is yours."
*
The following day Wei Ying shows up on his doorstep.
Lan Zhan is coming back home from work. From afar he doesn’t recognize the dark-haired figure, sitting hunched by the building entrance, patiently waiting.
Then Wei Ying turns his head, flashing him his brilliant smile. "Did you miss me?"
"I…" Of course. Of course Lan Zhan had missed him. But… "What are you doing here?"
"You wouldn’t ask," Wei Ying says.
Lan Zhan stares at him. The sun is setting behind the row of buildings on his street, sending golden rays from beyond the horizon. They caress Wei Ying’s face, lighting it up with a glow as if from within.
"You told me how to touch myself — how to let other guys touch me," Wei Ying corrects himself. "I let you decide everything, what I eat, when I sleep. And you… you never asked me to come back."
"Of course," Lan Zhan manages to utter. "That would be. Selfish." So awfully selfish of him. The thought had never crossed his mind, even, because…
"I love you," Wei Ying says. "So much." He stands up, dusts off his pants. "I thought… since we both decided that it was the right thing. Then that must mean that staying with you would be the wrong thing to do, right? Because we — we both wanted it, but we both didn’t want the other to give up on anything. Or feel like they were the reason the other gave up on something," he adds softly.
Lan Zhan’s words are stuck in his throat. They hurt, a physical ache, but Wei Ying’s presence before him is a balm to his wounds, a sight for sore everything.
He is so incredibly beautiful. More so than Lan Zhan could possibly remember.
"So I’ve decided… to take charge, for once. Take control of my own life." He walks closer, and closer, and closer, until he is within reach, a breath away from being enveloped in Lan Zhan’s arms. "You see…" He sways into Lan Zhan’s body. Lan Zhan catches him.
He doesn’t think he is capable of letting go.
"I can find another position. Another job. There are many of those." Wei Ying’s voice lowers, and he wriggles further into Lan Zhan’s space, wrapping an arm around his back. "But there’s only one you, Lan Zhan."
"Those guys…?" Lan Zhan tries.
"Pfft." Wei Ying laughs. "All made up. Except that first one. Man, was that guy boring."
Lan Zhan growls, the pieces falling into place. He gropes Wei Ying’s backside. Wei Ying yelps, then giggles.
"You…" Lan Zhan says.
"Yep!" Wei Ying cheerfully answers. "You were providing some titillating masturbation instructions, let me tell you."
"You disobeyed."
"Ah-ah-ah!" Wei Ying tuts at him. "Technically, I only lied. It’s not the same."
Lan Zhan grinds against his front, letting him feel what it’s doing to him.
"I’ve thought about that too," Wei Ying continues, as though unaffected. But the hitch in his voice is noticeable, as are the desperate little thrusts of his hips. Lan Zhan stills him, hands like shackles on his waist. "Since I’m, you know. Back. And not planning to leave."
He says it matter-of-factly, but there’s a question in his eyes, a hesitation in the way his smile quirks. Lan Zhan holds him close, breathes him in. He presses a soft kiss to Wei Ying’s temple. Wei Ying shudders and relaxes into him.
Lan Zhan hardens his voice. "You will have to find a way to redeem yourself." He pulls away, meeting Wei Ying’s eye. Wei Ying bites his lip, simpering. Lan Zhan can tell that his eyes are laughing; that Lan Zhan has said the right thing. It feels so easy all of a sudden. To be with Wei Ying. To know where he is going. Where they are going. Weeks and months of learning his every tell, responding to his every whim. Not binding him, but freeing him. Freeing both of them.
"Hm," Wei Ying finally agrees. He tips forward, pressing a chaste kiss to Lan Zhan’s cheek. "You come up with the suitable punishment, and tell me."