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‘NO WAY’ was the common train of thought as the world ended before everyone's eyes, well everyone except Lan Qiren; whose back was turned. Wei Wuxian practically vibrated in excitement as he stared in disbelief at the little slip of paper in his hand, the little note in his hand, the little note handed to him by Lan Wangji of all people. He eagerly unfolded the note and froze, jaw dropping at what it said, three little characters written in beautiful calligraphy.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian protests loudly only for Lan Qiren to whip around and it’s not long after that that Wei Wuxian is ejected from the classroom and assigned more copying, of course the copying.
Lan Wangji feels a brief flicker of smug satisfaction before he squashes it, after all, more copying meant more time spent together in the library. It’s not the last time it happens, anytime Wei Wuxian’s punishment is in danger of ending Lan Wangji will find some way of inciting him to act out, though that’s not to say that Wei Wuxian doesn’t get himself into plenty of trouble on his own - he does - but the punishments for those infractions are almost never copying. So Lan Wangji gets… creative; he finds himself engaging in behaviors he never would have before, tugging Wei Wuxian’s hair, discreetly poking or pinching him, passing notes, and anything else he can that gets Wei Wuxian to make enough noise to call Lan Qiren’s attention to him, anything to get Wei Wuxian copying in the library and spending time with him, however unwilling.
Wei Wuxian is visibly getting frustrated with him as well as Lan Qiren’s unwillingness to believe that his prize disciple could be capable of such behavior which is quickly extending to outside the classroom, Wei Wuxian finds himself being harassed on the paths and if Lan Wangji catches him sneaking around after curfew or in areas he shouldn’t be.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian protests to a sharp tug at his hair, turning to glare at Lan Wangji who has the audacity to look as innocent as possible with such a stoic face.
“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji replies as if he has done nothing, his deep voice sending shivers down Wei Wuxian’s spine, “It is past curfew.” Wei Wuxian makes a noise more commonly heard after stepping on a cat’s tail.
“I am literally on my way to my room right now!”
Lan Wangji stares at him levelly and as it stands Wei Wuxian doesn’t dare turn his back on the man for fear that the harassment will continue as soon as he does - he’s not wrong. Lan Wangji’s stare is piercing, Wei Wuxian hysterically wonders if this is how a mouse feels when cornered by a snake; while he’s never thought of himself as a coward in this moment Wei Wuxian wonders if it might be better to cut his losses and simply run.
“Lan Zhaaaaan,” Wei Wuxian whines, slumping in exhaustion, Lan Wangji blinks slowly then turns and walks away, unwilling to let the opportunity get away Wei Wuxian runs all the way back to the room he shares with Jiang Cheng, collapsing on his bed and screaming into his blankets.
“What’s your problem!” Jiang Cheng snaps from his side of the room, Wei Wuxian groans.
“I ran into Lan Zhan on my way back,” he whines, “Stupid fuddy-duddy pulled my hair again and then he just stared at me!”
Jiang Cheng snorts,
“How did it go from you harassing him to him harassing you? Not that you don’t deserve it.”
Wei Wuxian pops up and slaps his hand down on his bed before flopping on his back.
“I don’t know,” he whines, “this all started that first day he passed me that note. He’s barely left me alone since, I don’t even dare go to Caiyi to get Emperors’ Smile, he’ll only be there waiting when I get back, he always knows where to find me somehow!”
“Serves you right,” Jiang Cheng snorts.
Wei Wuxian pouts before he hauls himself up to ready for bed huffing at the bruises marring his skin from all of Lan Wangji’s pinches.
~~~~
The next day they are given a day off while Lan Qiren deals with some clan business so Wei Wuxian escapes down to Caiyi and tours the street market, breathing in the scent of street food, listening to vendors hawking their wares, and avoiding cutpurses. It’s as he’s idly considering lunch that he notices a young boy picking on an equally young girl, pulling her hair, taking her doll, and pinching her, even as he seems to light up whenever she turns her furious attention on him. He quickly intervenes,
“Aiya! That’s no way to get a girl’s attention! You have to be kind, give her things she’ll like,” He reprimands the boy, “not take her things and hurt her.”
The boy meekly nods and Wei Wuxian gives the boy a flower he had picked earlier.
“Here, give her this, flowers are much nicer than hair pulling and pinching.”
The boy takes the flower gently and turns to give it to the girl with a meek apology, looking over his shoulder for approval from Wei Wuxian as he does and getting a pleased nod in return. Once that’s sorted Wei Wuxian turns back to the market and browses the food stands for something that sounds good, mulling over the earlier interaction. He hadn’t seen pigtail pulling since leaving Yunmeng but it was nice to know that some things didn’t change from region to region, still, such harsh pigtail pulling was inappropriate, there was no need to be mean when kind words and gifts worked so much better and inspired healthier relationships. But, there was this gnawing feeling in the back of his mind, why did he feel the need to protect the girl when he had engaged in pigtail pulling before? It was almost as if he had understood the girl’s frustration, but why would he? It came to him in a flash, Lan Zhan pulling at his hair and pinching him. But that couldn’t be right, he and Lan Zhan were both men! Surely there was no way Lan Zhan felt that way for him, right?
“Lan Zhan ah! You’re so confusing!”
~~~~
The pigtail pulling - as Wei Wuxian had reluctantly started calling it - continued and Wei Wuxian could feel that he was getting close to his boiling point in tolerance for it. And then it came to a head one day while he had been copying rules in the library; he had sat by Lan Wangji, intending to irritate him only for Lan Zhan to simply huff at him and then a mere quarter shichen later the tug at his hair came. Filled with righteous rage, Wei Wuxian reached over and yanked on Lan Wangji’s hair, hard. Hard enough to tilt Lan Wangji’s head to the side a good amount and when Lan Wangji turned to glare at him, he met that cold glare with an indignant and furious glare of his own.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji growled, a warning.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian growled back, a warning of his own.
From that point on it became a sort of ongoing fight, Lan Wangji would tug Wei Wuxian’s hair and Wei Wuxian would tug right back, oftentimes much harder which would incite Lan Wangji to tug back harder as well. The tension between the two was felt by the entirety of the Cloud Recesses and many Lans when to the trouble to try to keep them apart, calling on them for help in coordinated efforts that put them on opposite sides of the Cloud Recesses, unfortunately the guest disciples were amused by the tension and conspired to push them together, placing bets on when they would come to blows. And to be truthful they weren’t far from it, every day they came closing and closer to a new level of physicality in a way that had many people staring in a kind of shocked awe at them, that Wei Wuxian could push the revered and cold Second Jade of Lan to such discomposure. There were several times when hair pulling turned to a stand off, locked glares and building tension before someone would step between them and break the tension. At this point many were calling it an honest miracle that Lan Qiren didn’t know.
“Doesn’t know or ignores.” Many guest disciples whispered amongst themselves.
However, no one could have predicted the way the situation would end. After delivering a pair of male rabbits to Lan Wangji as he copied in the library one day Wei Wuxian decided to get even and tugged first and it quickly escalated from there, by the time some one arrived to separate them Lan Wangji’s tongue was so far down Wei Wuxian’s throat that the poor soul that found them wasn’t even sure it was in China anymore. From that moment on the hair pulling and pinching never occurred in public even as it escalated in private and the poor souls that stumbled on them could testify, hair pulling often led to kissing between those two depraved souls and when Lan Qiren finally stumbled across them… well, it’s said he was in the infirmary for qi deviation for quite some time and a wedding was arranged quickly.