![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Write Me a Way (But Don’t Write Me Off) [Chapter 2]
Title: Write Me a Way (But Don’t Write Me Off)
Fandom: The Untamed | Modao Zushi
Pairing/Characters: Jiang Cheng / Lan Huan, Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying, Lan Huan & Lan Zhan, background Wei Ying / Lan Zhan
Rating: NR (probably T?)
Warnings: idiots in love
Word Count: 1,684 words, 2 / 5 (Chapter Directory)
Summary: Modern college AU, set ~somewhere???~. Lan Huan slowly finds himself falling for Jiang Cheng, who is (maybe) related to Wei Ying, who is (definitely) dating Lan Zhan, and none of them are (probably) in the mob.
Lan Huan lingers outside of the lecture hall as class draws to a close, listening to Professor Shen’s icy voice ringing through the open doors. He’s worried that he’s being presumptuous, or even stalkerish, in showing up to the 2:15 nature poetry course, hoping to catch Jiang Cheng as he leaves, but Wei Ying has so far not followed through in providing a bridge of contact—perhaps because Lan Huan hasn’t been brave enough to ask—and Lan Huan…
Lan Huan is lonely. He’s never been good at connecting with other people before—the few friendships he has were really formed despite him rather than because of him. It’s not that people don’t like Lan Huan—that isn’t the issue at all. They like him, but he doesn’t hold their attention for long, and certainly not long enough for people to overcome the endless rules and rituals that guide his heritage. As a child, he had resented the way his way of life had made him seem alien to others, had tried to shed the symbols of his people when he thought he could get away with it, but now that he’s older and living with his uncle and brother so far away from the rhythms of his sect, he’s grateful for the anchor of familiarity. He doesn’t want to give up his heritage, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be alone with it, either.
But Jiang Cheng seemed inured to the alien. He must be, to be able to put up with Wei Ying. And they already share the common ground of this class. He seems like Lan Huan’s best chance at socialising with anyone other than his uncle, Lan Zhan, and his lovely star jasmine. And after meditating away his rush of anxiety, eating dinner, and getting a full night of sleep, Lan Huan has decided that the chances of Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying being involved in major organised crime was really very low. Probably. It’s so hard to tell with Wei Ying.
“Do not disappoint me again,” says Professor Shen, signaling the end of the lecture in his typical manner.
The students gather their materials—no one in Professor Shen’s classes would dare to do so before having been given explicit permission—and leave the room silently, heads hanging low. Lan Huan peeks inside; no one approaches the lectern, where Professor Shen stands, sneering at the students who are slower to pack up.
None of the students seem to be Jiang Cheng. Lan Huan’s stomach lurches. Perhaps Jiang Cheng did not attend today. Of course, many students skip lectures, though Professor Shen’s attendance policy is particularly draconian. But perhaps Jiang Cheng was ill. Lan Huan shouldn’t have simply shown up, unasked for and unwanted and—
“Hey,” says Jiang Cheng’s smooth voice from behind him.
Lan Huan doesn’t jump. He simply turns around and smiles. “Ah,” he says. “I’m glad you found me despite my failure to find you.”
Jiang Cheng smirks. “I left through the doors at the back of the hall and saw you creeping over here. So you were looking for me?”
“Yes,” says Lan Huan, refusing to blush. “I haven’t had the chance to get your number off Wei Ying yet, and since you mentioned you were in this section, I thought you might be willing to study with me.”
No, no, no, no, that’s much too forward. He should have led into the invitation with more subtlety, perhaps asked after Wei Ying or the family dinner they’d mentioned, he should have—
“Okay. Are you free now?”
Lan Huan blinks, struggling to centre himself after his brief spiral. “Certainly!” He beams at Jiang Cheng, masking his nerves expertly. “Perhaps in the atrium?”
Jiang Cheng looks Lan Huan up and down. “I have a better idea,” he says. “If you’ll follow me?”
“I don’t care where you go,” says Professor Shen. He’s standing in the doorway, now, with his sleek messenger bag slung over his shoulder, looking, as always, too perfect to be real, as though he were an actor playing the role of a professor rather than a real person. Only the cruel twist of his lips breaks the illusion. “Just make sure it’s not in my way.”
“Yes, Professor Shen,” they hurry to say, backing away from the doorway.
He brushes by them carelessly, the heels of his expensive boots clicking on the floor as he glides away like a spirit of doom.
“He’s not so bad,” says Jiang Cheng after a moment. “My mom is way scarier.”
Lan Huan doesn’t point out that Jiang Cheng waited until Professor Shen was out of earshot to make that comment. Instead, he simply asks, “Where to?”
Jiang Cheng leads him to a park. It’s technically still on campus, but in a part Lan Huan has never attempted to visit, nestled in between the nursing college and the business building. The park is small, really just a little grassy field with a few areas of well-tended flowers, but it’s quiet and has a feel of privacy, shaded as it is from the view of the surrounding buildings by a well-placed circle of oaks and maples.
“I like to study here sometimes,” says Jiang Cheng, digging in his backpack and pulling out a small bag, which he unfolds into a little tarp.
Lan Huan flushes slightly. Jiang Cheng always seems very prepared. He’s not sure why that makes him feel more distracted than Jiang Cheng’s prettiness, but somehow, it does.
“Thank you,” he says as he sits beside Jiang Cheng on the square of plastic. “This is lovely.”
Jiang Cheng simply shrugs, but there’s a quick flicker in his gaze that makes Lan Huan wonder if maybe he’s pleased at the compliment. “So you want to study together. Like what? Read together? Write together? Quiz each other? Revise one another’s poems?”
“All of the above, if you’re willing,” says Lan Huan, smiling at him. “Or if not, then whatever you are willing to do with me. I don’t want to waste your time.”
Jiang Cheng shrugs again. “All of that’s fine with me. Professor Shen’s a real hardass, and I’ll never be able to face my parents if I fail the elective that I begged them to let me take.”
Lan Huan carefully navigates around what sounds like a sensitive issue. “Elective? What’s your major, then?”
“Business,” says Jiang Cheng dully. Then he visibly shakes himself and says, “Which I don’t mind. It’s fine. I just also wanted to study something fun. Something for me, rather than something for my career. I guess that’s stupid.”
“Not at all,” says Lan Huan, trying not to be obvious about the way his heart is doing overtime.
Jiang Cheng fiddles with his backpack straps, which he’s left sitting on his lap. “So I’ve been taking a poetry class every term. At first, they filled my general education requirements, then my interdisciplinary liberal arts electives, and I was most of the way to a double major before my parents even noticed.” His lips twist into a grimace, a shape that Lan Huan doesn’t like as much, but which unfortunately doesn’t serve to make them any less distracting. “So we had this big fight, with me saying it won’t distract me from my ‘real’ classes, because it hasn’t so far or anything, and maybe it’ll make me look like a more well-rounded person or something if I come out of my combined MBA with a second BA in poetry.” His eyes flicker over to take in Lan Huan’s expression. Lan Huan isn’t sure what he sees, but he continues his story. “Then they finally agreed, and I found myself in one of Professor Shen’s classes for the first time.”
“...Ah,” says Lan Huan. He’s used to strict teachers—Lans are infamously strict—but Professor Shen really is something else.
“Yeah,” agrees Jiang Cheng, smiling ruefully. “Maybe you don’t believe me, but I did really well in my poetry classes with Professor Ning and Professor Ming, but now…”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“Wei Ying doesn’t think I look like a poetry kind of guy,” says Jiang Cheng, scowling.
Lan Huan laughs. “What does a poetry kind of guy look like?”
“Like you, probably,” says Jiang Cheng, turning his eyes to Lan Huan and looking him over appraisingly. “Or like Professor Shen. You didn’t believe that I was really in a poetry class when we met the other day either.”
“That’s true,” Lan Huan allows. “But I think that may have been less because you have an anti-poetry aura and more because Wei Ying made it sound like he was calling a mob boss to pick us up.” He eyes Jiang Cheng sidelong. “You’re not, right?”
He’s not. Lan Huan is mostly sure.
Jiang Cheng laughs so hard he nearly chokes. “He’s such a diva. And you bought that? How?”
Lan Huan doesn’t say, I was well on my way to an anxiety attack, and when I spiral, I fixate on a single, worst-case scenario, no matter how absurd or unlikely it might be, and then I can’t pull myself free of that idea until I’ve managed to calm down, and sometimes not even then, so I have to record it in my journal and take it through the logic steps my uncle taught me. Lan Huan doesn’t say that, because being a Lan has already made him an outsider from the start. He doesn’t need to be an outsider with anxiety, too, and it’s not like Jiang Cheng will notice. Lan Huan projects a sea of calm around him. No one ever suspected he had anxiety until he had his breakdown, and some people didn’t believe it even then.
“I think the glitter bomb was what convinced me,” says Lan Huan, feigning a thoughtful expression. “That kind of nefarious behaviour can only come with a criminal backstory.”
Lan Huan thought Jiang Cheng was beautiful before, but he’s something else when he laughs. Beyond beautiful. Exquisite, maybe. Lan Huan lets his eyes trace over Jiang Cheng, and he wonders if Jiang Cheng would be open to being more than just study partners.
Maybe, maybe he’d be willing to be friends.
Fandom: The Untamed | Modao Zushi
Pairing/Characters: Jiang Cheng / Lan Huan, Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying, Lan Huan & Lan Zhan, background Wei Ying / Lan Zhan
Rating: NR (probably T?)
Warnings: idiots in love
Word Count: 1,684 words, 2 / 5 (Chapter Directory)
Summary: Modern college AU, set ~somewhere???~. Lan Huan slowly finds himself falling for Jiang Cheng, who is (maybe) related to Wei Ying, who is (definitely) dating Lan Zhan, and none of them are (probably) in the mob.
Lan Huan lingers outside of the lecture hall as class draws to a close, listening to Professor Shen’s icy voice ringing through the open doors. He’s worried that he’s being presumptuous, or even stalkerish, in showing up to the 2:15 nature poetry course, hoping to catch Jiang Cheng as he leaves, but Wei Ying has so far not followed through in providing a bridge of contact—perhaps because Lan Huan hasn’t been brave enough to ask—and Lan Huan…
Lan Huan is lonely. He’s never been good at connecting with other people before—the few friendships he has were really formed despite him rather than because of him. It’s not that people don’t like Lan Huan—that isn’t the issue at all. They like him, but he doesn’t hold their attention for long, and certainly not long enough for people to overcome the endless rules and rituals that guide his heritage. As a child, he had resented the way his way of life had made him seem alien to others, had tried to shed the symbols of his people when he thought he could get away with it, but now that he’s older and living with his uncle and brother so far away from the rhythms of his sect, he’s grateful for the anchor of familiarity. He doesn’t want to give up his heritage, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be alone with it, either.
But Jiang Cheng seemed inured to the alien. He must be, to be able to put up with Wei Ying. And they already share the common ground of this class. He seems like Lan Huan’s best chance at socialising with anyone other than his uncle, Lan Zhan, and his lovely star jasmine. And after meditating away his rush of anxiety, eating dinner, and getting a full night of sleep, Lan Huan has decided that the chances of Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying being involved in major organised crime was really very low. Probably. It’s so hard to tell with Wei Ying.
“Do not disappoint me again,” says Professor Shen, signaling the end of the lecture in his typical manner.
The students gather their materials—no one in Professor Shen’s classes would dare to do so before having been given explicit permission—and leave the room silently, heads hanging low. Lan Huan peeks inside; no one approaches the lectern, where Professor Shen stands, sneering at the students who are slower to pack up.
None of the students seem to be Jiang Cheng. Lan Huan’s stomach lurches. Perhaps Jiang Cheng did not attend today. Of course, many students skip lectures, though Professor Shen’s attendance policy is particularly draconian. But perhaps Jiang Cheng was ill. Lan Huan shouldn’t have simply shown up, unasked for and unwanted and—
“Hey,” says Jiang Cheng’s smooth voice from behind him.
Lan Huan doesn’t jump. He simply turns around and smiles. “Ah,” he says. “I’m glad you found me despite my failure to find you.”
Jiang Cheng smirks. “I left through the doors at the back of the hall and saw you creeping over here. So you were looking for me?”
“Yes,” says Lan Huan, refusing to blush. “I haven’t had the chance to get your number off Wei Ying yet, and since you mentioned you were in this section, I thought you might be willing to study with me.”
No, no, no, no, that’s much too forward. He should have led into the invitation with more subtlety, perhaps asked after Wei Ying or the family dinner they’d mentioned, he should have—
“Okay. Are you free now?”
Lan Huan blinks, struggling to centre himself after his brief spiral. “Certainly!” He beams at Jiang Cheng, masking his nerves expertly. “Perhaps in the atrium?”
Jiang Cheng looks Lan Huan up and down. “I have a better idea,” he says. “If you’ll follow me?”
“I don’t care where you go,” says Professor Shen. He’s standing in the doorway, now, with his sleek messenger bag slung over his shoulder, looking, as always, too perfect to be real, as though he were an actor playing the role of a professor rather than a real person. Only the cruel twist of his lips breaks the illusion. “Just make sure it’s not in my way.”
“Yes, Professor Shen,” they hurry to say, backing away from the doorway.
He brushes by them carelessly, the heels of his expensive boots clicking on the floor as he glides away like a spirit of doom.
“He’s not so bad,” says Jiang Cheng after a moment. “My mom is way scarier.”
Lan Huan doesn’t point out that Jiang Cheng waited until Professor Shen was out of earshot to make that comment. Instead, he simply asks, “Where to?”
Jiang Cheng leads him to a park. It’s technically still on campus, but in a part Lan Huan has never attempted to visit, nestled in between the nursing college and the business building. The park is small, really just a little grassy field with a few areas of well-tended flowers, but it’s quiet and has a feel of privacy, shaded as it is from the view of the surrounding buildings by a well-placed circle of oaks and maples.
“I like to study here sometimes,” says Jiang Cheng, digging in his backpack and pulling out a small bag, which he unfolds into a little tarp.
Lan Huan flushes slightly. Jiang Cheng always seems very prepared. He’s not sure why that makes him feel more distracted than Jiang Cheng’s prettiness, but somehow, it does.
“Thank you,” he says as he sits beside Jiang Cheng on the square of plastic. “This is lovely.”
Jiang Cheng simply shrugs, but there’s a quick flicker in his gaze that makes Lan Huan wonder if maybe he’s pleased at the compliment. “So you want to study together. Like what? Read together? Write together? Quiz each other? Revise one another’s poems?”
“All of the above, if you’re willing,” says Lan Huan, smiling at him. “Or if not, then whatever you are willing to do with me. I don’t want to waste your time.”
Jiang Cheng shrugs again. “All of that’s fine with me. Professor Shen’s a real hardass, and I’ll never be able to face my parents if I fail the elective that I begged them to let me take.”
Lan Huan carefully navigates around what sounds like a sensitive issue. “Elective? What’s your major, then?”
“Business,” says Jiang Cheng dully. Then he visibly shakes himself and says, “Which I don’t mind. It’s fine. I just also wanted to study something fun. Something for me, rather than something for my career. I guess that’s stupid.”
“Not at all,” says Lan Huan, trying not to be obvious about the way his heart is doing overtime.
Jiang Cheng fiddles with his backpack straps, which he’s left sitting on his lap. “So I’ve been taking a poetry class every term. At first, they filled my general education requirements, then my interdisciplinary liberal arts electives, and I was most of the way to a double major before my parents even noticed.” His lips twist into a grimace, a shape that Lan Huan doesn’t like as much, but which unfortunately doesn’t serve to make them any less distracting. “So we had this big fight, with me saying it won’t distract me from my ‘real’ classes, because it hasn’t so far or anything, and maybe it’ll make me look like a more well-rounded person or something if I come out of my combined MBA with a second BA in poetry.” His eyes flicker over to take in Lan Huan’s expression. Lan Huan isn’t sure what he sees, but he continues his story. “Then they finally agreed, and I found myself in one of Professor Shen’s classes for the first time.”
“...Ah,” says Lan Huan. He’s used to strict teachers—Lans are infamously strict—but Professor Shen really is something else.
“Yeah,” agrees Jiang Cheng, smiling ruefully. “Maybe you don’t believe me, but I did really well in my poetry classes with Professor Ning and Professor Ming, but now…”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“Wei Ying doesn’t think I look like a poetry kind of guy,” says Jiang Cheng, scowling.
Lan Huan laughs. “What does a poetry kind of guy look like?”
“Like you, probably,” says Jiang Cheng, turning his eyes to Lan Huan and looking him over appraisingly. “Or like Professor Shen. You didn’t believe that I was really in a poetry class when we met the other day either.”
“That’s true,” Lan Huan allows. “But I think that may have been less because you have an anti-poetry aura and more because Wei Ying made it sound like he was calling a mob boss to pick us up.” He eyes Jiang Cheng sidelong. “You’re not, right?”
He’s not. Lan Huan is mostly sure.
Jiang Cheng laughs so hard he nearly chokes. “He’s such a diva. And you bought that? How?”
Lan Huan doesn’t say, I was well on my way to an anxiety attack, and when I spiral, I fixate on a single, worst-case scenario, no matter how absurd or unlikely it might be, and then I can’t pull myself free of that idea until I’ve managed to calm down, and sometimes not even then, so I have to record it in my journal and take it through the logic steps my uncle taught me. Lan Huan doesn’t say that, because being a Lan has already made him an outsider from the start. He doesn’t need to be an outsider with anxiety, too, and it’s not like Jiang Cheng will notice. Lan Huan projects a sea of calm around him. No one ever suspected he had anxiety until he had his breakdown, and some people didn’t believe it even then.
“I think the glitter bomb was what convinced me,” says Lan Huan, feigning a thoughtful expression. “That kind of nefarious behaviour can only come with a criminal backstory.”
Lan Huan thought Jiang Cheng was beautiful before, but he’s something else when he laughs. Beyond beautiful. Exquisite, maybe. Lan Huan lets his eyes trace over Jiang Cheng, and he wonders if Jiang Cheng would be open to being more than just study partners.
Maybe, maybe he’d be willing to be friends.