"Gosh Jiang Cheng, I told you I was on the way, don't stress me like this! Besides, you know full well that I had to help shijie to choose a dress!" Brushing his hair from his face as he spoke, Wei Ying clacked his tongue in mild annoyance.
Jiang Cheng really should have known how much their sister wanted to look pretty for her boyfriend today – after all it was their first-year anniversary.
And besides, their sister should always come first for her brothers! A mere party could wait, it would still be raging at 4am tomorrow morning anyway, but their sisters date would be over before midnight. So yes, she definitely came first (she actually always came first as far as Wei Ying was concerned) – even if Jiang Cheng seemed to have a different opinion on this particular matter.
"Besides, I told you I wouldn't miss out on this party, I have a reputation to lose after all! So don't you worry, I will not break my record of attending every single party during our time in college!"
Seemingly Wei Ying's answer didn't do anything to satisfy his brother – which was quite unlucky because this meant Jiang Cheng would become annoying again.
Wei Ying found himself groaning into his phone as his brother started to berate him regardless of what he had just said.
"Well, you still should have been here an hour ago! Wen Qing is chewing my ear off here! She wants her rum – and you are making her wait!"
Ah, of course this was about Wen Qing. Jiang Cheng always tended to be super unreasonable whenever his newly acquired girlfriend was involved – fortunately for Wei Ying, he hadn't forgotten the special rum from Jamaica. Otherwise, he would never have heard the end of it.
"Don't worry, I have it right here with me and I will be there in about ten minutes, so tell Wen Qing she won't have to suffer the terrible fate of staying sober much longer – Oh and tell Xue Yang I have his present with me too, he'll be happy to hear about this."
"Wei Ying, please tell me you didn't go ahead and bought weed just because Xue Jang asked you to." To Wei Ying Jiang Cheng's suddenly exasperated voice and frazzled state were quite amusing – usually his brother just got angry at everyone and anything after all.
"As you say, your wish is my command Jiang Cheng." Speaking, Wei Ying shrugged – knowing full well that Jiang Cheng couldn't see the gesture through the phone. "I didn't do it."
But Jiang Cheng could surely hear Wei Ying's grin in his tone.
"You are lying!" - Ah yes, there it was: Jiang Cheng's typical wrath (which, to Wei Ying, in this case, somehow made the whole situation even funnier).
"You just said I should tell you I didn't do so, you never said I should tell the truth!" Laughing at his brother, who was most probably starting to boil for real by now, Wei Ying started to taunt Jiang Cheng even more – going against all common sense by provoking his angry grape of a brother even more.
At least until a few minutes later, when Wei Ying's instinct of self-preservation finally started to kick in – which caused Wei Ying to take his own words as que to escape from the call (before his brother could get really worked up and berate him like his mother always did (and Yu Ziyuan was not to be joked with – she was rather sharp tongued and violent, which made her the 'bad cop', at least concerning the parenting of the kids, while uncle Jiang Fengmian had always been the 'good cop'. But sadly Jiang Cheng took after his mother.))
Which was a shame because one Yu Ziyuan was more than enough for Wei Ying's poor soul.
"Anyway, see you in a few dearest brother, get ready for me rocking the party!"
Before Jiang Cheng could even just snort, Wei Ying had already cut of the line and pocketed his phone, grinning to himself at the prospect of embarrassing his brother at yet another party. It had kind of become one of Wei Ying's hobbies to make his brother say things like 'I don't know him!' or 'don't ever talk to me in public again!' – oh, or his personal favorite: 'I'll break your legs!'.
Actually, annoying Jiang Cheng was nearly as amusing as teasing Lan Zhan – and speaking of Lan Zhan, that was actually yet another reason why Wei Ying was in an exceptionally good mood today.
Reliable sources (namely Nie Huaisang) had told him there had been a leak of information (in other words: Nie Mingjue had told his little brother something once again) about there being a high chance (of exactly 100%) of Lan Zhan being present at today's party (because his brother Lan Xichen would drag him there, come hell or high water – he had seemingly at least sworn to do so).
And with Lan Zhan around everything was always way more amusing – especially since riling Lan Zhan up was Wei Ying's absolute favorite hobby.
Subconsciously letting out a satisfied hum, Wei Ying started swinging the expensive bottle in his hand back and forth, causing the dark brown rum to swash against the glass bottle surrounding it.
Offhandedly Wei Ying thought about how it might not have been the Jiang Cheng's best idea to have Wei Ying bring one of the Jiang-families best bottles of rum to a party. Even if the bottle was supposed to be for Wen Qing alone to enjoy – and take home after the party – Wei Ying was more than sure about said bottle being emptied this very night. And the ones who would drink it would most probably mainly be people who just wanted to get drunk and wouldn't appreciate the quality of the liquor at all. After all, even if Wen Qing had a high tolerance for alcohol, she couldn't drink an entire bottle of rum alone. And she wasn't stupid enough to try something like that either – after all she studied medicine and knew just about everything about the nasty effects of too much alcohol in one's body (and that of course included dying of alcohol poisoning).
"Wei Ying!"
Hearing a voice calling for him from somewhere behind him, Wei Ying stopped in his tracks and turned in order to spot whoever had called for him.
"God, I am so glad I ran into you! I have been wandering around for at least half an hour now – I just can't seem to fine Xue Yang's apartment!"
Even though Wei Ying couldn't remember the name of the guy who had just run up to him, he knew said guy to be one of the peacock's friends – one of the nicer ones that is (in other words: one of the peacocks friends whom he actually tolerate now that the peacock was dating his sister and made her as happy as she deserved to be).
"Well, no wonder, you have been walking around in the wrong neighborhood." Wei Ying laughed at the guy, letting his amusement show while he talked. "Xue Yang lives about five more minutes from here."
"That explains a lot." Not at all minding Wei Ying laughing at him, the guy started scratching his neck in exasperation, deciding to go along with where Wei Ying was steering the conversation from then onwards.
A few minutes of their, rather pleasant, talk later they spotted the house where Xue Yang's apartment was.
Wei Ying went out of his way to point it out to the other male, clearly kidding him.
It earned him a light punch to the shoulder.
Just as Wei Ying was about to make a scene out of the (purely imaginary) horrible pain he was in now, his phone started to ring.
Dropping his act Wei Ying fished the phone out of his pocket, accepting the call without even looking at the caller-ID.
"Jiang Cheng, stop pestering me! I said I would be there in ten minutes, and I am – I am just outside Xue Yang's apartment, so chill out."
"Good for you! Wen Qing already threatened to stab you with her acupuncture needles should you dare to make her wait much longer!"
"Oh, please Jiang Cheng, she is all bark no bite, she would never hurt me!"
"I wouldn't count on that if I were you. She could totally whoop your ass. And believe me, she would do it too. And now get your ass up here and give the rum to her, she is getting cranky."
"Yes, yes, I am on the way sir." Rolling his eyes good naturedly, Wei Ying ended the call on an amused note and put his phone away once again – at the same time watching the guy (whom he still hadn't asked for his name because he would just end up forgetting it anyway) ringing Xue Yang's doorbell.
Within seconds the intercom came to life. "Password?"
Wei Ying, without even thinking about it, immediately started listing a random list of different candies. He had seen Xue Yang play this 'surprise' game often enough to have figured out his pattern – the password always ended up being some type of candy. And mostly it was a strawberry flavored one.
At some point he must have eventually guessed the right one too since the door was suddenly buzzed open and Xue Yang's voice came out of the intercom once more. "You got it Wei Ying, congratulations! You were the quickest today. You beat Lan Xichen by two seconds."
"Of course I did!" Acting all haughty Wei Ying imitated his best peacock-tone before he laughed and slipped inside the house.
Four staircases later Wei Ying saw a grinning Xue Yang leaning against the doorframe, the door standing wide open. "You two really took your time, I could watch my hair turn grey while we waited for you – and just for the record, you two are late by one hour, fifteen minutes and twenty-six seconds."
"You are an even worse drama queen than me." Shaking his head in mock-resignation, Wei Ying pulled out a plastic bag from his jacket, throwing it at Xue Yang with a grin of his own. "But I know you can't ever stay mad at your provider."
Xue Yang grinned as he caught the bag, his entire face changing into a you-are-the-best-expression.
"You are right my dear Wei Ying, after all, who will get me all the good stuff if you aren't around to be my sugar daddy anymore?" Winking at Wei Ying, Xue Yang jokingly blew him a kiss.
"Indeed, there will be no one, so remember to treat me really good tonight my little sugar baby – show daddy why you are his favorite!" Following up on Xue Yang's show, Wei Ying moved close enough to Xue Yang to wrap a single arm around the others waist – his tone deliberately smokey while his eyes glinted in an jesting manner.
"Of course. I'll immediately roll the first joint and we can go and take our first hit daddy. Does that sound satisfactory? I will even use your favored active coal filters instead of normal ones – just so you can inhale my devotion and love for you." Xue Yang wiggled his eyebrows at Wei Ying, clearly just wanting to smoke but trying to cover it up in a you-want-it-while-I-just-keep-you-company-way (of course he didn't crease his lighthearted flirting either – there was a reason for them being such close friends after all. In other words: they were simply said both equally non-serious people).
"Sure, I am in baby." Dropping his arm but not the act, Wei Ying allowed Xue Yang to step back inside his apartment, following him immediately afterwards.
"Wow, seems like they didn't exaggerate things when they said you were shameless. Now that I finally saw it for myself, I really have to say you exceeded my expectations."
Turning back to face the guy who was still behind him, sounding like he was quite stunned (and refreshingly not judging at all), Wei Ying simply shrugged. "I'm simply less stiff and uptight than others."
"Are you, by any chance, talking about my brother?"
Turning back to his front, Wei Ying saw Lan Xichen in front of them, giving them both a friendly smile. He must have decided to check up on who had just decided to add their presence to the party – it was something of a habit Lan Xichen had.
"Lan Zhan? No, it was just a general statement. Besides, if I had to name the person whom the description of 'stiff and uptight' suits the best, it would be your uncle, not your cute little brother."
"I see why you would say that." Lan Xichen's smile stayed polite and friendly, not letting Wei Ying guess the emotions he was feeling.
"But now that you brought Lan Zhan up, where is he even at? Shouldn't he be with you?" Moving his upper body left and right so he could look past Lan Xichen, Wei Ying started to search for Lan Zhan. Normally he would have guessed that Lan Zhan would choose to stick around his brother – not wanting to expose himself to too many strangers all at once. Or wait, had Lan Zhan somehow managed to stay at home? That would be a total let-down!
"He is in the living room." Smiling a bit wider due to some mysterious reason, Lan Xichen pointed into the general direction. "I am sure he will be glad to see you."
Wei Ying laughed heartily, waving Lan Xichen's words off. "I highly doubt that – but that won't save him from me! In fact, I just decided to go and join him. Oh, but could you maybe do me a favor and give this to Wen Qing? Thanks!" Pushing the bottle of rum at Lan Xichen without even waiting for an answer, Wei Ying swiftly maneuvered around Lan Xichen and made his way through the hallway, all the way careful not to bump into any of the various things scattered around the floor in an unholy assembly of tripping hazards. It would be a miracle if no one ended up falling over something at some point of time.
As soon as Wei Ying had entered the living room, he immediately spotted Lan Zhan standing close to the currently unoccupied beer-pong-table in the back of the room.
"Lan Zhan!" Calling out to the law student, Wei Ying added a wave of his hand to make himself even more visible to Lan Zhan, quickly feeling said man's golden eyes on himself. And judging from the harshness of Lan Zhan's glance, he was expecting Wei Ying to do something ridiculous already.
And actually, Lan Zhan wasn't even wrong – after all Wei Ying had planned on thoroughly teasing the other throughout the evening. And to Lan Zhan such a behavior was, without a doubt, nothing but preposterous.
"Hi Lan Zhan, nice to see you." Starting the conversation off with a pretended innocence and an ingenuous smile, Wei Ying situated himself right next to Lan Zhan, making sure he could watch Lan Zhan's face as well as the room itself (in order to see Xue Yang when he came to search for him) from where he was standing. "It has been a while – oh and by the way, sorry for the bunny incident once again!"
This was where the teasing officially began.
'The bunny incident' referred to a story from a week ago. Wei Ying had stayed back at the college that day because he had had to meet a deadline for a paper (and since he hadn't even begun with the paper until that day, he still had to do everything from beginning to the end that day).
So, in the end he had chosen to get his work done inside the universities law faculties library (simply because he thought of the law faculties library as the by far prettiest and most silent one of all the libraries the college had) and had gotten to doing what he should be doing for once.
As the time had passed, he noticed how all others had left one by one – except Lan Zhan and himself (and of course Wei Ying had not chosen to sit down a mere two seats away from Lan Zhan just so he could observe the other, that had been a pure coincidence, he was sure of it).
But while Lan Zhan had worked diligently, Wei Ying had started to keep getting off track, not able or even just willing to truly focus on his work – not even with the deadline breathing down his neck.
So, in the end, he had just decided to annoy Lan Zhan a bit – after all Lan Zhan's reactions had always been the most amusing ones. It would surely recharge him – at least that was what Wei Ying had thought – but he had not at all thought Lan Zhan could just not be bothered at all.
No matter what he had done, from throwing little paper balls at Lan Zhan to singing short songs to him or even straight up walking (or rather bouncing) around the man, talking to him nonstop – nothing had made Lan Zhan pay Wei Ying any attention. He had even allowed Wei Ying to sit down on his desk right next to his arm and pick up his books so he could browse through them – even going so far as to fetch another copy of a book when he needed one that Wei Ying refused to give back. It had been truly frustrating.
So, at some point of time Wei Ying had grown bored – especially since he was an economics student and didn't like law at all, he didn't even find it interesting. In fact, he wasn't fond of all these regulations either. He knew that they made sense to a certain degree, but let's just phrase it this way: there were enough laws out there which were completely over the top – no one needed those.
And just to name a few examples: In Germany it was illegal to run out of fuel on the Autobahn, in Arizona no one was allowed to feed garbage to pigs without first obtaining a permit (who even fed pigs with garbage? In Wei Ying's opinion that should be illegal in itself!), in Indiana liquor stands weren't allowed to sell refrigerated water or soda, in Russia it was illegal to brush one's teeth more than twice a day and in China it was compulsory to announce the approach of a Russian (well ok, that law dated back to 1907, but anyway, it was still ridiculous – especially since failing to announce a Russians approach was punishable by death – at least back then. Wei Ying didn't know about the law still being in effect or not since it had probably not been enforced in a long time even if it had never been abolished).
Wei Ying shook his head, asking himself why he could even recall all of those laws – maybe he shouldn't pay this much attention to Lan Zhan's words, scripts and books from now on. It was clearly not doing him any good.
But then again, he needed some form of relief for his boredom. On the other hand, Lan Zhan seemed to refuse to be of service for that today. So, he had put Lan Zhan's things back down, rising up from Lan Zhan's desk with a last glance at the man. He had still gone ignored. Thus, he had signed and walked back towards his own desk, starting to scroll through the internet at random.
About an hour later he had finally convinced himself to back to his paper again, but even then he had found it hard to concentrate on that sensitivity analysis he was supposed to work on.
To make a long story short: he had ended up looking out of the window from time to time. And that was how he had been lucky enough to spot two bunnies hopping around the campus just as the dusk had begun to set in.
Almost immediately an idea had popped up inside his head – the perfect way to finally get Lan Zhan's attention and get rid of his weariness!
He had stood up, rushed outside the library and towards the spot where he had caught sight of the bunnies.
After looking around a bit, inspecting the bushes and high grasses around himself, he had finally detected the two fluffy creatures once again. A black one was happily nibbling on the leaves of a leaves while a slightly larger white one was looking straight at Wei Ying – seemingly observing him.
As Wei Ying had closed in on them, the white one nudged the black one, giving Wei Ying the impression of it warning the other.
But warning would do the bunnies just as little good as watching Wei Ying did in itself. After all he had always been agile – especially since he had often helped his shijie to catch the bunnies she once used to keep. He had in fact done so whenever they had broken out of their cage.
In short: Wei Ying had successfully caught the two bunnies after a short period of them trying to outrun him.
After that Wei Ying had carried the bunnies back inside the library, setting them down right on Lan Zhan's desk without even so much as warning the other. The bunnies had ended up running from his grasp as soon as his grip on them loosened.
They had run all over Lan Zhan's perfectly orderly materials, leaving traces of dirt in the form of bunny-paws everywhere. They even managed to scatter some of Lan Zhan's loose papers to a degree, that Lan Zhan had to re-organize them later on.
It really was a funny sight while it lasted.
Lan Zhan had never looked more taken aback. His eyes had chased after two bunnies, trying to somehow predict where they would run so he could rescue his materials without frightening or hurting the bunnies in the process of doing so.
Of course, that didn't work out – after all the bunnies didn't think about where they wanted to run to or which stack of papers they maybe shouldn't set a paw on since they would slip the moment the papers glided away underneath them.
But the grand finale of the show was truthfully said the cutest and most heartwarming thing Wei Ying had ever seen.
At some point the bunnies seemed to somehow realize how Lan Zhan wasn't trying to catch or harm them, instead shuffling things around whenever it was possible for him to do so, so neither the materials nor the bunnies would be impaired any further (he even prevented the black bunny to fall of the desk due to its clumsiness twice). So the bunnies actually ran straight into his arms, even cuddling up against his body as though Lan Zhan's form could protect them from the evil man who had caught them (in other words Wei Ying, who had been just about been dying from laughter just a few moments before).
Lan Zhan's facial expression, however, at that one moment, had taken Wei Ying's laughter and breath away in just a matter of seconds. Lan Zhan's mien had been the most precious one Wei Ying had ever seen on anyone.
He had almost been jealous at the bunnies for being able to soften even the detached Lan Zhan's gaze like that, making even the frosty jade-statue of a man warm up to a warm Adonis.
Somehow, thinking back at this memory, Wei Ying started to wonder about what had happened to those bunnies afterwards. He only remembered how they had refused to leave Lan Zhan's side from the moment they had made themselves at home in his arms onwards.
In fact, since Lan Zhan had still wanted to finish something (and re-organize his scattered pens, papers and materials as well as clean his laptop from the tiny bunny-pawprints), Lan Zhan had ended up putting the two of them in his lap (where the two had started to cuddle close to each other – probably even falling asleep at some point).
And while the bunnies had been having the time of their lives resting Lan Zhan's lap, Wei Ying had been reprimanded in a quite icy tone.
Life was truly unfair.
Oh well, at least Lan Zhan had finally graced him with his gaze and words while he rebuked Wei Ying.
"Wei Ying isn't sorry."
At Lan Zhan's unfazed statement, Wei Ying abruptly came back to himself, ripped out of his fond reminiscing of the bunny-scene and Lan Zhan, the most handsome bunny charmer Wei Ying had ever had the pleasure of meeting.
"Yes, maybe you are right Lan Zhan! After all I would never have seen that cute expression of yours hadn't, I enriched your evening with the bunnies presence back then!" Deciding he could not drop his attempt at teasing Lan Zhan yet – especially since he had played him off like this just now – Wei Ying winked at Lan Zhan, trying to push his buttons once more.
"Shameless!"
Even though Lan Zhan's tone clearly sounded sharp, the tips of his ears had turned into an adorable shade of light pink.
It made Wei Ying smile involuntarily. Lan Zhan really was way too cute.
"Wei Ying, there you are!"
The moment Xue Yang's voice burst the bubble Wei Ying had been in until now, Wei Ying's smile immediately shifted from small and genuine to a wider, more easily given one.
Suddenly Wei Ying even noticed the noises inside the room again – the chatter, the music, the clinking of the glasses and bottles. Had it been this loud already when he and Lan Zhan had talked? How come he had understood each of Lan Zhan's lowly spoken words then?
"I finished up rolling the joint and gathered some people who wanted to join us – I hope you are ok with that."
"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" In fact, Wei Ying was way more ok with having to share a joint with a handful of people more than he was with having to join them right now – he somehow didn't feel like leaving Lan Zhan behind just yet. He actually nearly felt tempted to just stay around Lan Zhan and reject Xue Yang. But then again, if he didn't get a move on right now, he wouldn't be asked again and the joint would be gone by the time he joined them later on. And on top of that Xue Yang (even though he was generally speaking a nice person) had a bad habit of taking such things quite personally – so standing Xue Yang up just to have a talk with Lan Zhan probably wasn't a good idea.
"I'll be right there – You guys will be on the balcony, right?"
"Yes, hurry up though, otherwise we will start without you."
Wei Ying could see Xue Yang's eyes travel from him to Lan Zhan as he spoke – and for the fraction of a moment they stayed on the silent man, appearing to assess something.
"Just give me a second, it won't take long." Not knowing why, but somehow needing to pull Xue Yang's attention back onto himself, Wei Ying smiled at the other, shifting his body just enough to block Lan Zhan from Xue Yang's estimating glances without showing his intentions too openly.
"I'll take your word for it." Xue Yang returned Wei Ying's smile with a blinding intensity, his features lighting up so much that it was nearly frightening.
It was truly strange. Xue Yang always hosted the grandest parties, had a lot of friends, got along with people quite easily, was popular with the girls and on top of that even was handsome as well as smart – and yet he sometimes just had something eerie. And even if Wei Ying did indeed like him, he still got the shivers sometimes – just like now. Maybe it was just because of Xue Yang was a 'bit' bipolar though.
Shaking the feeling off, Wei Ying cleared his mind and turned back to Lan Zhan, surprised at seeing Lan Zhan watching Xue Yang leaving.
Somehow it made Wei Ying restless. Lan Zhan typically never paid anyone any kind of special attention.
"Do you want to join us?"
Wei Ying heard himself speaking before he was even aware he had opened his mouth at all.
Actually, even after he had spoken, he couldn't understand why he had suddenly felt the need to affirm whether or not Lan Zhan wanted to follow Xue Yang in the first place.
Wei Ying didn't even know how he would react to any answer Lan Zhan could give him.
"I do not do drugs."
Seemingly Wei Ying didn't have to worry about that anyway though. Lan Zhan had not understood what Wei Ying had meant anyway.
"Ah yes, that was stupid of me to forget." Laughing it off Wei Ying decided to simply forget whatever had just happened inside his head. He didn't understand it anyway. And he wasn't sure he wanted to understand either.
"I'll see you later then." Wei Ying maintained the smile on his lips, making sure to lock eyes with Lan Zhan before saying his next few words, making them sound just on the border of serious while he kept his tone light, joking. "Promise me you won't leave before I return to you."