In Parallelity, In Perpendicularity |XICHENG|

VI | just along the surfaces

"Er-ge..."

"Er-ge..."

Lan Huan tried to live.

"Er-ge..."

It was not easy as he remembered.

Never before had Lan Huan been subject to emotions so contradicting it threatened to swallow him whole. He was a Lan. He was supposed to be the master of his own self, as Lans were taught and raised to be. He was supposed to hold the power over his feelings, as the rules had regulated them to be. But now he supposed he wasn't anymore a Lan.

(But then again, what did it mean to be a Lan? He had been so sure then, until he wasn't, now, because in the grand scheme of things, what truly was it to being a Lan?)

Time to him had become fleeting as much as it was painfully lasting. He had since lost track of it: the curfews turning to mere hours and important dates to mere days. It didn't matter now that he slept in the mornings and rose at nights. It didn't matter now that death anniversaries would pass and birthdays could only keep on coming.

They were only cycles never-ending he ought to keep up with but couldn't. Getting by was his best. Ignoring, his second. Forgetting was his worst, so he could only turn a blind eye, a deaf ear.

He would never truly leave Lan Huan's mind. His face would flicker in and out, whether by Lan Huan's will or not. His voice would echo every now and then, and the absence of his presence would be telling whenever Lan Huan tried on the best days to smile at something, point at it, and turn only to realize that there was no one there.

Then his name—unspoken but still so carved deeply into Lan Huan's soul—would forever ghost his lips. He, the person whom Lan Huan had known once yet also the villain everyone came to know, would never leave him.

He would lure Lan Huan with his warm dimpled smiles into warm memories long past and cage him there. Then he would placate Lan Huan with his sweet, sweet words while holding a knife just out of view. And just when Lan Huan trusted him enough to turn his back, the knife was his, one with his heart.

(Then Lan Huan would pull that knife out of his own heart and stab it in return and watch as his sworn brother, his most trusted friend who betrayed him in the end, bleed with a betrayed look on his face. Then he would tell Lan Huan: "Lan Xichen! In this life, I've lied countless times, killed countless times. Like you said, I killed my father, my brother, my wife, my son, my teacher, my friend—of all the evil in the world, what haven't I done?!...But I've never even thought of harming you!" Then it was a spiral all over again.)

This man whose sins were written in blood could still hold Lan Huan's heart in a tight grasp and play the betrayed, even if he, too, had been the traitor.

(So who was it then? Between Meng Yao who betrayed others yet never Lan Huan, and Lan Huan who betrayed the person that spared him from everything, who was the greater traitor?)

But that, too, didn't matter now, did it?

Once upon a time, it did. It mattered. Lan Huan's grief was his everything. He had gone and locked himself, because his world had crumbled.

Then he learned that others, too, had crumbled. And—

I was selfish.

ZeWu-jun emerging back into the world was not on a whim. It had been a months-long decision—one he still dallied about up until today.

Lan Qiren had fallen ill sometime before, and Lan Huan's haze was forcibly ripped off him. All of a sudden, his heartbreak weighed less than his worry. All too soon, his grief was less than his fear of losing yet another important person to him.