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“Close your eyes,” Wei Ying says, and Lan Zhan, surprisingly obedient, does. He takes a piece of the dessert and presses it gently against Lan Zhan’s lips. He notices a gentle crease between Lan Zhan’s eyebrows at first, before he—and again this is a surprise—opens his mouth to take the bite, lips brushing against Wei Ying’s fingertip. Wei Ying wrenches his hand away, nearly dropping the plate. It’s clearly been too long since he last slept with anyone if he’s having impure thoughts about his coworkers eating food at 3pm on a Wednesday.
Lan Zhan’s eyes open immediately and lock on to Wei Ying’s, which is unfair because he was already not breathing, and Lan Zhan’s dark eyes punch the remaining air out of his chest.
“Red bean paste,” Lan Zhan says. He looks out the window. They’re on the 35th floor, so there’s a fair amount to see. “Fried dough?” he adds, uncertain.
“Stop trying to guess what it is and tell me if you like it,” Wei Ying huffs. The guessing is kind of adorable, but Wei Ying wants results.
“It’s good,” Lan Zhan says, swallowing the bite.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Lan Zhan sighs, considering. He takes a sip of his ever-present thermos of tea. “There was an artificial flavor,” he says.
“Still not what I asked.”
Wei Ying has never seen Lan Zhan roll his eyes at anyone, not even Jiang Cheng when he’s yelling about the state of the walk-in, and yet he suspects Lan Zhan is dangerously close to doing so now.
“Yes, I liked it.”
Wei Ying beams. “See, was that so hard?”
“What was in it,” Lan Zhan asks, his voice tight and annoyed.
Wei Ying moves out of the way and gestures grandly to his ingredients: a can of red bean paste, and another can of Pillsbury’s best grands. He might be the happiest he’s ever been, right now, watching Lan Zhan’s expression as he looks at them.
“You won’t be able to publish this,” Lan Zhan says immediately, though he doesn’t look angry. Just...surprised? It’s hard to tell.
“Why not? It’s under ten ingredients, I thought ‘Simple Pleasures’ was our theme for the next issue,” Wei Ying says, though he knows full well why. He just disagrees.
“‘Simple pleasures’ isn’t canned biscuits with some bean paste plopped between them,” Jiang Cheng, having finally noticed that Wei Ying is in the test kitchen and bearing food, snatches a piece from Wei Ying’s plate.
“If you made it from scratch, perhaps,” Lan Zhan offers.
“What, sweet homemade adzuki bean paste spread in southern-style biscuits?” Wei Ying finger quotes.
“‘An Oven-hot Take on the Steamed Bun’,” Jiang Cheng adds, finger quoting back at Wei Ying and showing why he doesn’t write titles.
“Problem is,” Wei Ying sighs, “I tried it from scratch, and it’s not as good.”
Jiang Cheng looks at him like he’s crazy. Lan Zhan just stares.
“I think whatever fat they use in the canned stuff is better for this. Seriously. I tried it with butter, and the texture wasn’t as good.”
Lan Zhan, ever the recipe tester, immediately goes into problem-solving mode. “Did you try it with—”
“Shortening, yes, and lard, before you ask. Both the biscuits and the beans. You do get really fluffy biscuits with a mix of butter and lard, but you can’t combine them in the same way.”
“Mm,” Lan Zhan says, with the blank look on his face that means he’s going through all the recipes he knows in his head.
“Weren’t you supposed to be working on Christmas cookie recipes anyway?” Jiang Cheng asks, because he’s a buzzkill.
“I got tired of coming up with different ways to allow suburban moms to indulge their sprinkle addiction,” Wei Ying says. Truly. He’s going to have sprinkles coming out of various orifices for weeks.
“You could make ‘em spicy,” Jiang Cheng suggests.
“Did that last year, Brent didn’t like it,” Wei Ying says. His boss has an inflated ego that just about matches the amount that everyone in the test kitchen hates him. He’s also weirdly anti-spice for someone who works at a food magazine. Apparently, no one’s ever told him that white guys love sriracha now.
“What if you thickened the bean paste and made it into a sandwich filling on a shortbread cookie?” Lan Zhan asks.
Wei Ying is annoyed. This bastard goes to his mind palace for five seconds and comes up with a better idea than Wei Ying’s had in weeks. “Goddamnit,” he says, but without much malice.
“You’re welcome,” Lan Zhan says calmly, and swipes another piece of biscuit before he leaves.
“You think that’ll actually work?” Jiang Cheng asks around the last biscuit. It’s stuffed whole in his mouth, because he’s a vulture.
“Ugh. Probably. It won’t be the same, but it’ll hit the right notes without being too ‘low-brow’ for us.” Wei Ying stretches, suddenly aware he hasn’t eaten anything today aside from biscuits and bean paste. If he wants to actually have a cookie recipe ready by the deadline, he’d better get back to work. Snack first, though. Always.
***
“Brent told me I have to add a section on adzuki beans and what they are and where to find them,” Wei Ying grumbles. The recipe had been submitted for weeks, and there’d been no response, except today Brent had pulled Wei Ying into his office and said some words like “accessible,” and “welcoming”, and given Wei Ying a 12 hour deadline for copy. Wei Ying had wandered into the test kitchen to find someone to complain to, and Lan Zhan was conveniently in the middle of making something.
“Mm,” Lan Zhan says, busy beating egg whites by hand. Wei Ying isn’t sure why, because there’s like fifteen stand mixers in the test kitchen, but he’s not going to complain about the sight of those corded forearms at work.
“Like people don’t have fucking access to google,” Wei Ying adds, reaching out for a piece of persimmon from Lan Zhan’s prep table.
When Wei Ying had started in the test kitchen, he’d been told that Lan Zhan was famously territorial and wouldn’t let anyone try his food until after the finished product was presented. Wei Ying had promptly ignored all the warnings and made himself such a pest that he assumes Lan Zhan has simply given up smacking his hand away from things. Plus, they’re like the only Asian guys on staff (except for Jiang Cheng, but he started a month ago so he barely counts). Maybe Lan Zhan lets him steal out of solidarity.
“Mm,” Lan Zhan agrees. He’s still using the same hand to whisk, and he hasn’t slowed down at all, which is patently unfair.
“There’s a difference between educating someone and holding white people’s hands because they might be too terrified by a word they don’t recognize to try something,” Wei Ying says after he finishes the persimmon slice. The cloying sweetness lingers in his mouth, and he wonders what Lan Zhan’s plan is to temper it. There aren’t any other fruits prepped, and there isn’t a source of acid that he can see. It’s not like Lan Zhan to make an unbalanced dessert, though.
“I think that sends a message about who we’re for, if we explain only ‘foreign’ ingredients. If I have to do this for fucking red beans then we should have to do it for, I dunno,” Wei Ying tries to think of a ‘white’ ingredient, but it’s hard. “Kale?”
“We ran an article explaining kale last year,” Lan Zhan says. The egg whites are forming into close-knit bubbles now, close to soft peaks. He smoothly switches to his other hand and continues whisking. “Mostly to convince people to not eat it raw.”
“There you are, then!” Wei Ying says, smacking his hand on the table with a thump. “That was for white people too! At least Asian people know better than to eat kale raw.”
“Mm,” Lan Zhan says.
“I mean, it’s not just one group of people,” Wei Ying concedes. He wants another bite of persimmon but he’s gotten pretty good at judging when he’s reaching the end of what is acceptable to steal from Lan Zhan’s table and by the furrow in Lan Zhan’s brow, he’s already there. “Everyone’s got a different frame of reference. I just wish we were less explicitly obvious about who we think our readers are and what their frame of reference is.”
“Last year, one of our competitors’ social media teams published a post that suggested you have to shave rambutans to eat them,” Lan Zhan says, dry and calm, like he hasn’t just dropped a bomb on Wei Ying’s brain.
“What,” Wei Ying asks, because there’s no way that’s real. “That’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Mm,” Lan Zhan agrees. It’s almost emphatic.
Wei Ying imagines trying to shave a rambutan before peeling it. “Are you sure it wasn’t a prank?”
Lan Zhan’s wide shoulders move up and down smoothly in a shrug, and Wei Ying reminds himself he shouldn’t be thinking about his coworker’s shoulders.
“It would be a great prank, actually,” Wei Ying muses. He notices a bottle of Chinese black vinegar on the table and spins it curiously.
“Hey, is this going in your egg thing?”
He says ‘egg thing’ instead of ‘meringue’ because he knows Lan Zhan finds it annoying.
Sure enough, the corners of Lan Zhan’s mouth trend slightly downwards. “Yes, it’s going in the poaching liquid for the persimmons. Which will go on top of the pavlova.” He says the last word louder than the others, like if he drills it into Wei Ying’s brain enough he’ll remember one of the five million kinds of meringue that exist.
Wei Ying laughs in surprise. “Look at you! Bringing out the fusion foods! And to think you said it was too low-brow.”
Lan Zhan sighs, one hand still whipping egg whites. “Wei Ying, I never said fusion was low-brow.”
“Right, no, you said:” and Wei Ying pitches his voice low and sultry, which is in no way an exact imitation of Lan Zhan’s but is close enough for humor purposes, “‘I trained at Le Cordon Bleu and at Culinary School in China, why would I waste my time on improving what cannot be improved?’”
Lan Zhan smacks his whisk against the bowl with an annoyed finality, but doesn’t contradict Wei Ying’s paraphrase of his own words. Wei Ying notices that he doesn’t even check that the eggs are at stiff peaks; he just knows. It’s hot, how good Lan Zhan is at baking stuff. It’s all the order and discipline Wei Ying hates adhering to when he cooks.
“I have found it interesting, lately, to widen my idea of what the available possible ingredients are for a recipe,” Lan Zhan says finally, glaring coolly at Wei Ying in a way he interprets as ‘I’m not going to say I was wrong but maybe I was a little wrong’.
Wei Ying can’t help the spread of a delighted grin over his face. “Oh my god, am I corrupting you to my unorthodox ways?”
Lan Zhan rolls his eyes. It’s the first time he’s done it at Wei Ying, and Wei Ying loves it.
***
“Okay,” Sean says, adjusting the camera. “Let’s go again.”
Wei Ying actually likes Sean, like get-together-for-multiple-beers-after-work likes Sean, but if this video making process gets any more annoying he might just punch Sean right in his hipster-beard face.
“Hey,” Wei Ying grits out, feeling like his smile must look crazy by now. “I’m Wei Ying, and I’m going to show you how to make Northern Chinese hand pulled noodles.”
“Cut!” Sean barks.
Wei Ying is about to ask what the hell was wrong this time when it turns out they’re just setting up for the next shot, where Wei Ying shows off the various ingredients. He sees Jiang Cheng out of the corner of his eye and tries to beckon him over but Jiang Cheng, the smart bastard, shakes his head and stays firmly away.
Wei Ying doesn’t love that he’s the guinea pig for the magazine’s new style of video, but he’d been told that after the first few videos focused on authentic Chinese food, he’d be able to do whatever he wanted, and that was an opportunity he didn’t want to give up.
Lan Zhan, the actual test kitchen expert on “authentic” Chinese food, had outright refused, so Wei Ying assumes he was the next-best choice on account of also being Chinese but without Jiang Cheng’s resting bitch face. He has a lot of things about “authenticity” he wants to explore in whatever he ends up doing after these videos, but no one else has to know about that quite yet.
After a little while, things start to smooth out and Wei Ying finds himself getting into the rhythm of what he’s doing. Once he’s got the pre-prepared final dough out with water boiling and his prepped ingredients all ready, he’s actually enjoying himself.
“This kind of noodle is called biang biang, and it’s because that describes the slapping sound it makes when you hit it against your surface,” Wei Ying explains to the camera, carefully prepping one of the noodles in his hands.
“You have to hold it like this, with your thumb over top—not too hard, or else you’ll break it there, and then—”
He smacks it several times against the table in a really, really satisfying way, and the rest of the crew jerks back in shock.
“What?” he asks, laughing. “You didn’t think it was gonna be like that? I told you I was gonna smack them.”
Sean, laughing now too, shrugs. “I didn’t expect it to be—” he makes a quick motion with his arms.
“Ah, so fast. I mean it doesn’t have to be, I just had to get some tension out,” Wei Ying admits.
Once he gets started, it’s a pretty fast process. The noodles go directly into the pot after they’re finished being pulled and they cook up within a minute. The crew shoots over his shoulder to watch the noodles in the boiling water, and then Wei Ying pulls them out and adds them to the bowl, repeating the process until he’s done with the dough.
“Now you add the toppings you want—in my case, the chili, vinegar, soy sauce, salt, and garlic, plus some of the blanched veggies.” Wei Ying says as he drops everything in. “If you wanna be extra you can heat up some oil until it’s smoking and add it to the top, especially if you’re using chili flakes rather than chili oil.”
Thank god the bowl is big, because it makes the mixing process that much easier. Wei Ying turns everything around with his chopsticks multiple times until all the noodles have a reddish sheen.
“And there you are! Hand pulled noodles,” he says with a grin. “Can I eat them now?” he asks Sean, who nods and motions that they’re still filming but he can go for it.
“Awesome,” Wei Ying says, and takes a noodle to taste. He tries not to moan because he’s still on camera but it’s so fucking good, the tangy saltiness, the chew, the crunch of the vegetable, the burn of the chili against his lips. He’s transported to a private heaven for a few moments before Sean clears his throat.
“Yeah?” he asks, mouth full of noodles.
“You should get someone else to try them,” Sean says.
“Uh,” Wei Ying says, looking around the test kitchen. Jiang Cheng is probably still hiding somewhere, so the only person Wei Ying sees is—
“Lan Zhan!” he calls, wondering if he’s been there the whole time. Wei Ying’s bad at paying attention to his surroundings sometimes, but he’s pretty good at noticing when Lan Zhan is around.
Lan Zhan looks up at Wei Ying with a questioning expression. Wei Ying beckons at him. Lan Zhan manages to skeptically rise from his seat and walk over.
“I made biang biang noodles!” Wei Ying gathers some up with his chopsticks, grinning. Because eating wide noodles with a fork is a joke, he’d had to dig around in the test kitchen for a while to even find one pair of chopsticks, which is, itself, a worse joke. “Wanna try? They’re not too spicy.”
Lan Zhan looks at Wei Ying, and then at the noodles. Wei Ying realizes that he’s holding noodles in front of Lan Zhan’s face like he’s going to feed him, and it isn’t what he’d meant to do, but now this is happening? He’s about to laugh it off and grab a fork when Lan Zhan leans forward and tilts his head to slip his mouth around the chopsticks.
It’s an insult to reality how hot he looks, slurping the noodles off of Wei Ying’s chopsticks. There’s truly no world in which it should be attractive, and yet Wei Ying’s jaw has dropped and then the noodles are gone and Lan Zhan is calmly licking the sauce off his lips.
“How’d they taste?” Wei Ying hears Sean ask. Is Sean being quieter than usual or is Wei Ying suddenly unable to hear properly?
“Delicious,” Lan Zhan says, looking at Wei Ying. He nods and walks back to his station.
“Wow,” Wei Ying says, knowing that he has to say something while his brain is currently doing the equivalent of the whirring noise a car makes when it can’t start. “There you have it! Delicious biang biang noodles, uh— I mean Northern Chinese hand pulled noodles, endorsed by Lan Zhan himself! And he usually doesn’t like spicy stuff, because he’s not a spice guy. Or a spicy guy. I mean, he’s not bland, he’s just uh. He’s just Lan Zhan. You know?” Wei Ying realizes in the middle of it that he’s definitely going to have to re-record this. “Anyway, delicious, chewy noodles, straight from the Test Kitchen. Give them a try!”
Once he’s paused for long enough, he looks over at Sean, whose face is screwed up in a sympathetic expression. “Yeah, we’re gonna have to do that outro again.”
***
Wei Ying doesn’t even know the video is posted until he comes home from work one night and Wen Qing is at the kitchen table, smirking at something on her laptop. He’s had a couple of other videos get posted, to middling results. The video team always forgets to remind him when things are finally posted so he only tends to find out when his dad or Jiang Cheng message him about it.
Today, when Wei Ying walks into the kitchen, Wen Qing stares while he kicks his shoes off.
“Perfect timing—just finished watching your newest video,” she says, and the tone of her voice says volumes.
It’s been a month since filming, and Wei Ying has almost been able to forget the whole thing. He sighs. “What did they do this time.”
“Mm, no, it’s not what they did, it’s what Lan Zhan did,” she says, mouth quirked at the corner.
It’s not that Wei Ying has forgotten that moment—on the contrary, it haunts him and occasionally flashes in his mind in the middle of an otherwise perfectly ordinary day—but he hadn’t expected it to be that noticeable to anyone who wasn’t hopelessly lusting after their coworker.
“I guess you could say they helped, though,” Wen Qing says, and gestures to Wei Ying to look over her shoulder. She plays the clip, and Wei Ying realizes with horror that, instead of making it just another moment in his video, it’s been edited with sexy music and Wei Ying’s reaction of horny shock has been cut off for a focus on Lan Zhan’s lips.
“Wow,” Wei Ying says, caught between being impressed and embarrassed.
“Wow is right,” Wen Qing says. “There’s already a ton of views and comments, too,” she scrolls through the comment section and Wei Ying sees a lot of drooling emojis.
“I’d estimate 50% are thirsting after your friend.”
“He’s not so much a friend as a—fifty percent?”
“On the low end.”
“Fuck.”
“This is good, right? Unless, do you think they’re going to kick you off and replace you with him? Or make you suck off some chopsticks suggestively?”
Wei Ying is having some difficulty processing this. “Uh, yeah, no it’s fine. Lan Zhan refused to sign a video contract. They’ve asked him like—at least ten times, I heard. I can’t imagine this is going to make him more likely to do it. And anyway, I’m sure after these thirsty people are finished commenting, things will calm down.”
The video goes viral.
***
Wei Ying has been making random stealth trips to various office spaces for a week now, because he bought Lan Zhan ‘I’m sorry you were on my video that went viral where the editors zoomed in on your lips and made you a sex object, I’m sure it must make you uncomfortable but also I hope you’ve been getting laid? If you want?’ chocolate. And he needs to give Lan Zhan the chocolate in person, because the explanation is too long to write out on a sheet of paper.
Today, he finally lucks out. Lan Zhan is in the test kitchen when Wei Ying arrives to drop stuff for one of his first experimental videos that they’re shooting that afternoon. It’s going to involve pork floss. Grilled cheese, donuts, oatmeal, quiche, taffy…he wants to make a fusion pork floss buffet.
But first, apology chocolates to Lan Zhan. The man doesn’t immediately walk away when he sees Wei Ying approach, which is promising.
“I’ve got chocolate for you!” Wei Ying says, which makes Lan Zhan’s eyebrows raise ever so slightly.
“They’re apology chocolates.” Wei Ying explains what the apology is for, including the ‘hope you’ve been getting laid’ bit. The tips of Lan Zhan’s ears go a little red.
“I’ve had a fair number of offers,” Lan Zhan says quietly. As far as Wei Ying’s aware, this is the first time he’s ever talked about his sex or romantic life in a work setting. This is amazing. They should be popping champagne for this. Wei Ying has had to hear the excruciating details of Sean’s Tinder dates while he searches for the perfect manic pixie dream girl with bangs, along with the various sexual exploits of other coworkers, but this is...this is plaque-worthy. They should put a plaque right here in the test kitchen, that this is where Lan Zhan finally gave in to the unprofessional environment.
“Really?” Wei Ying asks, putting his elbows on Lan Zhan’s workspace in the universal motion for ‘tell me more’.
“Mm,” Lan Zhan responds. He’s prepping a recipe, but Wei Ying can't tell exactly from the ingredients what it'll be.
“Anyone tickle your fancy?”
Lan Zhan looks at Wei Ying like he’s dumb, which is fair. He likes to use weird turns of phrase when he’s asking awkward questions.
“A lot of people told me I’m attractive for an Asian guy,” Lan Zhan says. “Not a winning line.”
“Oh, word.” Wei Ying responds. “I had this guy over at my place once and It was pretty normal until he tried making me congee for dinner? That was wild. He was like, I read this was the food of your people so I thought I’d make some, uh, except we didn’t have any toppings. No youtiao; nothing. Straight up just like, rice and water. And he didn’t cook it for long enough.”
Lan Zhan’s eyebrows twitch up and he frowns, which is the Lan Zhan equivalent of making a face.
“Anyway, I’m sorry your sexy face made my video go viral,” Wei Ying says, because he came here for an apology, not to overshare about past hookups.
Lan Zhan looks way more well-adjusted about it than Wei Ying expected. “Congratulations on your video going viral, by the way.”
Wei Ying makes a face. “Yeah, it’s weird.”
“Weird?”
“I just think there’s a lot of great Chinese food in China that people are clueless about, but am I the right person to do that? I’m more General Tso's Chicken than Three Cup Chicken. And what is authentic? Isn’t the concept of authenticity based on the false idea of one place’s food staying stagnant and never changing?”
Wei Ying sighs, reaching out a hand to fiddle with one of the spatulas at Lan Zhan’s station. He’s got an experiment going to figure out, roughly, the ratio of times Lan Zhan smacks his hand away from the utensils. Lately it’s only been three out of eight tries, but he’s sixteen for sixteen at the little frown line between Lan Zhan’s eyebrows when Wei Ying touches his stuff.
“What’s your favorite Chinese food? Like Chinese Chinese?”
Lan Zhan looks thoughtful. The part of Wei Ying’s brain that is constantly betting on outcomes puts an 80% likelihood on a vegetable dish.
“Nian gao,” Lan Zhan says instead.
Wei Ying is bad at Chinese dish names but he’s pretty sure he’s got this one.
“The...sticky rice cake?” he asks.
“Mm,” Lan Zhan responds, rearranging his utensils. If Wei Ying didn’t know better he’d say Lan Zhan was embarrassed.
“That’s not what I expected.”
“It has a pleasant sweet flavor. And the texture is very good.”
“Oh, sure, I mean…” Wei Ying pauses, thinking back to the last time he’d eaten it. Probably Lunar New Year a few years ago, when he visited Jiejie in Boston. She’d fried some slices to feed him and he’d insisted on adding some ice cream and spiced honey, and she’d laughed and told him to stop trying to 'chef' things.
“It’s, uh…”
Lan Zhan looks at him with the unimpressed expression of someone who knows the person they’re talking to is about to say something vaguely insulting.
“It’s a little bland, is all.” Wei Ying says finally. He’s usually better at not being a dick.
Lan Zhan shrugs. “Maybe you should decolonize your idea of bland,” and starts chopping peanuts in a non-threatening manner.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying laughs, incredulous. “Look at you, turning my own words against me, fuck.”
“I simply think texture is an important and underrated part of a dish in the Western conception of cuisine. Americans like to focus on crunch, but in Chinese cooking chewiness is also valued. Nian gao has the perfect texture when fried. It’s crunchy, chewy, and it sticks just enough to make the taste linger in the mouth so you enjoy it longer. The simplicity of the flavor allows you to focus on the way it feels on your tongue,” Lan Zhan says, sweeping the peanuts into a bowl and moving onto what looks like lemongrass.
Wei Ying is pretty sure he’s not going to be able to talk about food with Lan Zhan anymore after this. Once again, he’s managed to make something that should be so chill just, not chill at all, while Lan Zhan’s out here talking about mouthfeel.
“You’re saying you like something to stick around in your mouth, maybe weigh down on your tongue a little,” because Wei Ying has never been able to back down from shit like this and he’s not about to start now.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan responds, looking up at Wei Ying calmly while he chops lemongrass with sharp, precise movements.
Wei Ying will probably die in this test kitchen, starting an innuendo war with Lan Zhan and making Lan Zhan stare at him while chopping, which is in the top ten of the hottest things he’s seen Lan Zhan do.
“What’s your favorite Chinese American food?” Lan Zhan asks, still not looking down at his knife.
Wei Ying isn’t entirely sure he has an exact favorite, but he has a favorite Chinese American food topic, so he gets to tell Lan Zhan about his opinions on General Tso's Chicken.
****
Sometime after Wei Ying stops doing the “authentic” Chinese food videos and his more experimental videos start getting posted, the tone of the comments changes. He doesn’t notice at first because he’s not really good at reading the comments right after the videos come out, but Jiang Chang grumbles something about dumb people on YouTube and Wei Ying goes to check out of curiosity.
It's a range. Some people are comparing him to a different Asian YouTuber who doesn’t do the same thing at all, some people are telling him to go back to the “authentic” food because the food he’s cooking now is too greasy, and there’s a whole argument about MSG in one thread that gets...pretty racist.
There’s a number of commenters calling things out or defending Wei Ying, which makes him feel a weird mix of appreciated and uncomfortable.
Brent brings it up at their next team meeting. Wei Ying had expected something was up since he’d mostly stopped attending the video team stuff when things were going well.
“So uh, guys, the response to these new videos hasn’t been what we hoped,” Brent says, spreading his hands like he’s laying out a new thought for the table. “There’s been a fair amount of...negativity.”
Wei Ying looks at Sean, supposedly the video expert, to see if he’ll say anything, but Sean just looks thoughtful. Wei Ying sighs.
“You mean racism, Brent,” Wei Ying says.
“Whoa, no man, I wouldn’t go that far,” Brent says immediately, which Wei Ying kind of expected but which nevertheless makes his heart rate tick up. “People just don’t like these new videos as much as they liked your old ones. You know, the kind where you do real Chinese food.”
Wei Ying presses his mouth in a line. They’ve had this conversation multiple times- about how there is no ‘real’ Chinese anything, and how the diaspora experience is its own thing, and clearly none of it has sunk in. He lets out a slow breath, and smiles his conspiratorial smile at Brent. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sean shake his head minutely.
“Can you tell me who doesn’t like my new videos? I’ve seen a lot of great comments from a ton of people. A woman named Barbara in Indiana is my number one fan now that I taught her how to make her own duck sauce.”
Brent rolls his eyes, “No one gives a shit about Barbara in Indiana.”
“Okay, but you said “people” don’t like my new videos—what people?”
Brent sighs in agitation. He’s remarkably easy to stir up with the littlest things, Wei Ying thinks. Has he never had anyone question him before? “The execs, mostly,” Brent says.
As far as Wei Ying can tell, Brent uses ‘the execs’ to refer to an unknown number of people, anywhere from the head of the entire corporation to himself.
“How many of the execs, would you say—”
“I don’t have time for these dumb questions,” Brent snaps, and Wei Ying mentally puts a gold star on his ‘make Brent lose his temper’ goal sheet. He’s easier to rile up than Mom and Jiang Cheng when they’ve missed lunch. “Just get the comment section under control, or we’re taking you off this project.” And then he gets up and leaves, because apparently Brent can’t handle not having the last word in a confrontation.
The rest of the team visibly relaxes once Brent leaves the room. Sean has his serious face on when he looks at Wei Ying.
“That went well,” Wei Ying chirps, and there are a few relieved snorts of laughter.
“Brent’s the worst, sorry. But what are you going to do about the comments section?” Sean asks, and Wei Ying realizes that this has somehow no longer become the problem of the team, but his problem alone.
“Can’t we get someone to moderate them?”
Sean shakes his head. “Technically, they’re being moderated. The company policy is just no hate speech or like, doxxing, but everything else is fair game and they don’t want to be seen as infringing on people’s free speech.”
Wei Ying sighs. “Can I make a video to respond to the comments?”
Sean looks dubious. Wei Ying suppresses the urge to scream in frustration. “I can’t see Brent signing off on that.”
“Ugh. Fine. Can I comment?”
“Like...respond to the negativity?” Lauren asks.
“Yeah, so that I can actually tell people why I chose to do this and maybe they’ll get off my fucking back about it.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Sean starts, but Wei Ying’s done with being told he can’t do things.
“You’re telling me we can’t moderate the racist comments because they’re not racist enough, but I can’t make a video responding to them because Brent is too touchy about it to let me, and now you’re telling me I shouldn’t even respond to the comments on my own damn video? Dude. What the hell else am I supposed to do? You just asked me about this like it was my own problem because I guess it’s the Chinese guy’s job to fix it?”
“Hey now, I never said that,” Sean says, defensive, and Wei Ying feels like punching the table.
“Does anyone have any better ideas?” Wei Ying asks, in the syrupy sweet tones he uses when he’s close to losing his temper. It’s not a question, not really.
No one responds.
“Fine,” he says, and relaxes his shoulders. He smiles to the room, although Lauren’s the only one who makes eye contact. “I’ll do it myself. See y’all later.”
***
Responding to comments while high was the best idea. Wei Ying is floating on a cloud of pleasantness and imagining the people writing shitty comments to him are tiny little goblins with pitchforks.
Wen Qing read a few comments over his shoulder before she snorted and started making dinner instead. She didn’t tell him not to respond, though, so he assumes he’s doing a good job.
There’s a comment accusing all Chinese people of being homophobic (wow), and Wei Ying writes a whole-ass paragraph trying to unpack that, ending with “and don’t forget comb sisters???? I do not have the blood of lesbian great-great aunts coursing through me for you to try and come at me with your poor knowledge of history and culture! Read a book, sweetie! xxo”
An hour later, he closes his laptop, pleased with his work. He scoops himself some celebratory ice cream and adds chili oil, because why not.
His phone pings with a text from Jiang Cheng.
My Angriest Brotheriest Grape: wth are you doing in the comments??
Wei Ying: wym?
My Angriest Brotheriest Grape: of your video. You’re not supposed to respond to those like that!
Wei Ying: who said?
My Angriest Brotheriest Grape: wtf!!! do you want to lose your job????
Wei Ying: It’ll be fine, bro, don’t worry!
My Angriest Brotheriest Grape: why are you such a dumbass sometimes
Wei Ying: idk what you’re talking about my comments are brilliant
My Angriest Brotheriest Grape: you already had ppl going to bat for you in the comments so you didn’t have to
Wei Ying: ya I’m sure the likes of sandu_ss and hgjun have better things to do with their time than going after internet bullies, it’s kind of weird how intense they are?? Like they don’t even know me lol
Wei Ying: and I can defend myself!!!
Wei Ying: anyway I’m sure this will all blow over soon
My Angriest Brotheriest Grape: Mom says she better see you at dinner on Sunday or she’ll kick your ass
Wei Ying: kk, love you baby bro!
***
Wei Ying’s comments don’t go over well. He is subjected to a whole rant in Brent’s office about “negativity in online spaces” and how apparently if you’re an internet personality like Wei Ying is (Wei Ying has his doubts about this), you’re not supposed to get “drawn in by the negativity”. Wei Ying tries to point out that he was not given other options, but he is ignored. Instead, he’s told that he’s not allowed to comment on videos anymore. No one who works at the magazine is. There is a whole new policy in place, thanks to Wei Ying.
Wei Ying is caught between incandescent anger and a distinct lack of surprise. In the moment, he simply shrugs and leaves Brent’s office, but there’s got to be something else he can do. He’ll figure it out. In the meantime, getting drunk about it seems to be the best option. He really isn’t looking forward to Jiang Cheng saying “I told you so”, so he waits until he knows Jiang Cheng won’t be in the test kitchen, and invites everyone else out to his preferred after-work spot. Surprisingly, Lan Zhan tags along.
***
“Oh yeah, listen, I love cream cheese in Asian food—Philadelphia rolls? Check. Crab Rangoons? Absolutely. Cream cheese is one of god’s greatest creations, and I heartily welcome her into Chinese cuisine. Get the fuck in here, cream cheese, you’re fine, I’ll say.”
There’s a pause while everyone else mulls this over and Wei Ying determines his next opinion.
“You know my problem with white people?” He asks, after most everyone at the table has moved on to other conversations.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, and he’s got a warning look on his face, but Wei Ying is four IPAs in and he’s well past the point of no return.
“It’s not—I mean, you could argue, there’s a lot. But it’s not...it’s not white people. It’s white Americans,” Wei Ying says, waving his hand impatiently. “Like—Sean, where are your people from?”
Sean’s eyebrows raise. “Uh, I mean, like, a lotta places. Ireland, England, Germany—”
“Yeah, I get it, ok, but your family’s been in the US for—”
“I think it was my great-grandparents who came—”
“Ok, cool, yeah, that makes sense,” Wei Ying cuts him off, because he’s not interested in hearing it. “So like...how often would you say, growing up, that you had to eat meat with bones in it? Like, not chicken wings or ribs. Just, you know, you’ve probably had it by now, like fucking peking duck or whatever—like just hacked apart meat with shards of bone in it. How often?”
Sean blinks behind his big glasses, and takes a considering swig of his beer. “Dude, I don’t know. Fuck. Not very often?”
“See?” Wei Ying waggles a hand at Sean, looking at Lan Zhan, who doesn’t seem to understand the point he very clearly made.
“You didn’t get taught to eat around the bone,” Wei Ying says to Sean, who still looks confused. A few other folks from the test kitchen are watching Wei Ying now with slight frowns. “You didn’t—you expect your bite to go clean through. You chew with confidence. The confidence of someone who’s only been served, like, chicken breasts and shit. You don’t expect to bite down on anything hard or tough like gristle, or god forbid bone, and what happens when you do?”
Sean shrugs, clearly taking a step back from the conversation.
“You freak the fuck out, is what you do. You send the order back, or you yell about it. You spit it back out like it offends you. You don’t want to work around it, you want someone else to do that for you. You didn’t expect a sharp bone in your meat and you’re gonna freak the fuck out about it because, unlike me, you don’t chew gently.” Wei Ying recognizes, by the point at which he’s yelling the last words, that maybe this conversation has gotten ahead of him. He continues regardless.
“And like, I shouldn’t hold it against you, that no one taught you how to deal with it. I guess it’s not your fault. But it’s stupid that you think that’s the way everyone is, when there’s a whole shit ton of us out here who are very used to—chewing around the bone. We know it’s gonna be there, so we’re careful. And then you have the fucking gall to ask us why.”
Wei Ying feels a tug at his elbow, and it’s Lan Zhan.
“Come get another round with me,” Lan Zhan says. Wei Ying is surprised, but he answers the siren call of Lan Zhan and beer.
By the time they’re halfway out of the bar, Wei Ying begins to suspect the promise of another round was a ruse.
But Lan Zhan’s pretty strong, and Wei Ying’s pretty drunk, and it’s been a while since someone manhandled him around in a pleasant way. So Wei Ying goes along with it.
He’s pulled out of the bar into an alley, and he’s about to make a joke about it when Lan Zhan starts speaking.
“Are you alright?”
Wei Ying laughs. “I mean I’m tipsy, but that can’t be that much of a surprise—”
“No, before we came here, you seemed…off.”
Wei Ying frowns. Lan Zhan shouldn’t have noticed anything was weird, because they’re not...friends. Are they friends? Wei Ying isn’t sure how to categorize someone when they’re a coworker but also maybe Wei Ying is ridiculously attracted to them.
Lan Zhan is staring at him, and it’s very odd. It’s...intimidating? Hot? It’s too much. His dark eyes are so, so serious, and concerned, and it’s a lot for any man to handle, let alone this specific Wei Ying.
“Ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying pulls out a smile from somewhere far away and makes himself move to safer territory. “I’m fine! I just wanted to enjoy time with my coworkers, and it’s after 5, what’s the problem?”
Lan Zhan’s expression doesn’t change, so Wei Ying looks at the dumpster a few feet away from them. Maybe he can pretend to see a rat and run away from this conversation.
“Mm,” Lan Zhan says. “You had a meeting with Brent and then you decided to get drunk and rant about white people. Just a regular day.”
Wei Ying is definitely Too Perceived in this moment. There is Too Much Perception happening.
“Did Brent...What did he say?” Lan Zhan asks.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Blah blah blah, the execs, blah blah blah, I wear colorful socks like it’s a personality trait, blah blah, negronis.”
Wei Ying could tell Lan Zhan he’s forbidden from commenting, that he received an official warning that is getting lodged with some HR person he’s never seen and he could get fired if he disobeys. But he doesn’t want Lan Zhan’s sympathy, or his anger, or even his “I refused to sign a video contract because I Have Standards” condescension. This is Wei Ying’s problem. He’ll fix it himself.
“Do you think rats have favorite restaurants?” Wei Ying asks while staring at the dumpster. He finally sneaks a glance at Lan Zhan, who looks like he’s trying to hide his frustration.
“Like Ratatouille?” Lan Zhan asks.
“What—that’s not—have you never seen Ratatouille?” Wei Ying vaguely remembers they were talking about something else, but that’s no longer important.
Lan Zhan shrugs. “I assume it’s about rat restaurants.”
If Wei Ying was a more suspicious person and if Lan Zhan were a more cunning one, he’d suspect Lan Zhan was winding him up deliberately. But Lan Zhan is always so direct. It’s impossible.
“Bro. You are. Wow.” Wei Ying says, clearly at a loss for words.
“I don’t watch children’s movies.” Lan Zhan says, as if that’s a helpful explanation.
“I genuinely don’t know what to say to you right now,” Wei Ying says, leaning against the wall behind him. “I mean, I’m not surprised? But I’m like, not not surprised.”
***
Wei Ying isn’t sure how he’s ended up here, in his own apartment, cleaning up his mess of a kitchen while Lan Zhan sits with perfect posture at his kitchen table.
Well, he knows how. Mostly.
“I have never eaten General Tso's Chicken,” Lan Zhan had said quietly, as though if he could be quiet enough about this he’d be able to tamper Wei Ying’s response.
It actually hadn’t surprised Wei Ying that much. Most Chinese Americans he knows don’t eat General Tso's Chicken on a regular basis, since it’s like, laughably unauthentic. There was a documentary and everything.
That knowledge didn’t stop Wei Ying from having a dramatic response.
“Whaaat!!! Lan Zhan, this is bananas, you’ve gotta try some. Just to say you’ve had it,” he’d said, giving Lan Zhan a little bro-bump to his shoulder. After much trial and error he’s figured out that Lan Zhan is mostly ok with telegraphed touches. He’d found out the hard way, however, that Lan Zhan didn’t like—for example—a coworker coming up behind him and poking his sides.
Lan Zhan’s eyes were closed, like either Wei Ying was being horrendously stupid or he was just thinking.
“Mm,” he’d said. “I was hoping Wei Ying could give me some suggestions on where to go.”
And that had been it. Those words out of Lan Zhan’s dumb perfect mouth, a mouth beloved by millions if YouTube statistics are any measure, and Wei Ying had pulled up his favorite place by his apartment and called in an order, adding on crab rangoon for fun. He’d dragged an unprotesting Lan Zhan to the subway, and had tipped the guy playing a saxophone cover of “Party Rock Anthem” five bucks. Lan Zhan had looked at him strangely and Wei Ying had almost asked if Lan Zhan also didn’t know about Party Rock Anthem except the train had arrived and Wei Ying knew better than to be that guy having a drunken one-sided conversation on the subway.
He’d brought Lan Zhan to his apartment, and of all the ways he’d imagined this ever happening, this specific scenario had never come up.
“You know the song that guy was playing, right?” he asks finally, scrubbing at his cutting board. It feels good to do something before the delivery arrives. Wei Ying feels a lot closer to sober now than he’d like to be, but he feels rude drinking when he knows Lan Zhan doesn’t.
“LMFAO,” Lan Zhan responds. And then, a few beats later, “I don’t live under a rock.”
Wei Ying laughs, and looks at Lan Zhan, who has the smallest of smiles on his face. Wei Ying feels, for a moment, like Lan Zhan belongs here. Here, at Wei Ying’s kitchen table, smiling his microscopic smile and joking with Wei Ying about pop culture things he hasn’t seen. He wants so badly that he’s overwhelmed.
The doorbell buzzes.
Wei Ying startles out of his daydream and grabs his keys and the tip. Lan Zhan starts to stand as well, but Wei Ying waves him back down with a force that his jie would be proud of.
“Nah man, you’re my guest, sit the fuck down. I’ll just be a sec.”
A ‘sec’, of course, turns into a few minutes, because Wei Ying forgot about Uncle Wang who owns the restaurant and has taken to bringing Wei Ying’s delivery personally so he can give Wei Ying advice on his videos.
Today, Uncle Wang is all about the pork floss. “I think you should try pork floss topping on bubble tea next,” he says, and Wei Ying nods fervently because he honestly loves Uncle Wang, even if he also desperately wants Uncle Wang to stop talking right now.
“Mm, good boy,” Uncle Wang finishes, patting Wei Ying’s shoulder. “Okay, see you next time.”
Wei Ying takes the stairs back to his apartment two at a time, and finds Lan Zhan standing in the living room, creeping on his bookshelf.
“No fair,” Wei Ying says as he unpacks the takeout. “You can’t look at the shelf without letting me editorialize on which roommate added which books.” He takes down the nice bowls from the cabinet, digging the chopsticks out from the bag.
“Mm,” Lan Zhan hums. “The collection of romance novels?”
“Oh, almost entirely mine,” Wei Ying says, because it’s true, and he’s not sure how open Wen Ning is about his obsession with bucolic farmer romance novels.
“Highly recommend Helen Hoang, Jasmine Guillory, and Ruby Lang if you like modern stuff,” Wei Ying says. He firmly believes everyone should at least try reading a romance novel once, just in case they really like it. Wei Ying has gifted Jiang Cheng a Courtney Milan book for every birthday since college, and he hasn’t heard any complaints so far.
“Surprised?” Wei Ying asks when Lan Zhan enters the kitchen, because people usually are.
Lan Zhan shakes his head. “You seem like a romantic,” he explains.
Wei Ying doesn’t have a quippy response to that, so instead he unpacks the food.
“No pressure, but if you don’t like this I’ll be devastated,” Wei Ying half-jokes when Lan Zhan has finally put the food in his bowl.
Wei Ying watches Lan Zhan chew for a good thirty seconds before he remembers that it’s rude to watch people eat. He stuffs an entire crab rangoon in his mouth while he loads his own bowl. Now that Lan Zhan has seen his dirty kitchen, he figures he can drop any sort of premise that he’s not a horrifically messy person.
Lan Zhan coughs, and Wei Ying remembers that one of the reasons he likes this General Tso's Chicken the best is because they don’t make it white people spicy. Which, incidentally, is over Lan Zhan’s spice tolerance level.
Wei Ying gives Lan Zhan a few moments after he hands him a glass of water before he asks.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s enjoyable.”
Wei Ying rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I asked.”
Lan Zhan huffs a tiny laugh that Wei Ying wishes he could record and play back when he’s feeling down.
“I like it, Wei Ying. It’s sweet but in a balanced way. And the texture is great.”
Wei Ying feels relief flood through him. “Good, I don’t have to kick you out of my apartment.”
He lets them eat a few more minutes in silence before it gets to be too much.
“What kind of character would you be if you were in a stereotypical romance novel?”
Lan Zhan swallows. Wei Ying half expects him to dodge the question.
“What are the options? I’m not very familiar with the genre.”
“Oh, you know...brooding and severe duke who needs to be fixed, perky down on her luck heroine who tells it like it is, the fakeout love interest that you THINK she might fall for but actually he’s her secret brother, various background family members, the farmer who delivers backstory…”
Lan Zhan looks thoughtful. “Who would you be?”
“Oh, antagonist, for sure. I’d probably, like, do a lot of evil shit and then die partway through so the romance can happen.”
“Not the plucky heroine?”
Wei Ying laughs. “I don’t have the bosom for it.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t smile, but the corners of his eyes crinkle in what Wei Ying considers to be a satisfying way.
“But seriously,” he tries again, after Lan Zhan has taken a few more bites. “You’d be the brooding duke, right? You’re all about, like, rules and order.”
“I’d prefer a contemporary romance, I think.”
“Okay sure, so you’re the brooding and severe food critic who is super unimpressed by everything and has ridiculously high standards.”
Lan Zhan’s microscopic smile comes back. “Does this make you the brilliant chef who makes food that causes me to revisit my childhood, who also happens to be a rat?”
Wei Ying’s jaw drops. “You fucker, you have seen Ratatouille!”
“Only a few scenes while my brother was watching,” Lan Zhan admits.
It’s a good night. One of the best Wei Ying has had in a while. And when Wei Ying walks Lan Zhan to the door so he can head back to his own apartment, Lan Zhan looks at him and Wei Ying could swear he’s about to be kissed. It feels very vindicating for all the times he’s watched Lan Zhan at work in the test kitchen or at his desk and felt a little creepy. It feels like maybe something could work out between them, given a little more time together. It’s a nice, warm feeling, and Wei Ying wraps it around himself before he goes to bed that night.
Of course, the next day, everything goes to shit.
***
Months later, Wei Ying has almost gotten rid of the bitter taste in his mouth. He’s almost forgotten the way Brent had smiled while explaining to him that they were looking into proving the identity of a few continued commenters who were most definitely Wei Ying, based on the way they defended him and knew the inner workings of the test kitchen. Brent had shown him some of the comments.
Wei Ying recognized Jiang Cheng’s speech patterns, did some quick math, and then laughed in Brent’s face and called him a racist pile of shit. He’d smashed the glass paperweight in Brent’s office, the stupid one from a golf tournament, just to be extra sure they’d fire him.
He shouldn’t have worried. He’d been fired, and then blacklisted. His pitches and applications were going nowhere, to the point that he assumed he’d been demonized to everyone at the magazine. Not that Wei Ying was trying that hard to keep in touch with anyone except Jiang Cheng.
The only other person who’d reached out was Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying had ignored his calls until they’d stopped. At first, it had been out of self-pity, then guilt, until finally it had been so long that Wei Ying didn’t know how to explain himself. And Lan Zhan deserved a better explanation than Wei Ying could come up with.
In the meantime, he’s been working for Uncle Wang. Not cooking, although sometimes he preps for Uncle Wang’s son Kevin, the chef. They let him take notes on the dishes for his own future reference. Instead of cooking, Wei Ying helps clean the kitchen and the one tiny table no one ever eats at. He delivers orders on his bike when they need the help. He’s grateful for the pay, and he gets to keep the tips on the orders he delivers. One woman in a fancy Manhattan high-rise had recognized him, even, and somehow still tipped him a quarter. She mouthed “sorry” as she did it, though, as if to show that she knew she was being a dick.
Tonight, Wei Ying is looking forward to the end of his shift, likely after this delivery near Chinatown. It’s the one day a week he, Wen Ning, and Wen Qing can have dinner together after they’re done at the Wen acupuncture clinic, and Kevin’s offered to cook up whatever odds and ends are leftover in the restaurant for him to bring home.
When he knocks on the door, an attractive Asian guy opens the door and waves him in, explaining he has to find his wallet. It’s the first time he’s been invited inside someone’s house, and he’s not sure he likes it, but he stays next to the shoe rack and wonders if he’s seen the guy before—he looks kind of familiar. There’s a hallway and a few paintings that make Wei Ying guess the guy is Chinese, but he never wants to assume if he doesn’t know for sure.
“Brother, did you say the order was—” a voice says, and Wei Ying’s chest tightens.
It’s Lan Zhan, staring at him from the hallway. This is—this must be Lan Zhan’s apartment. Or his brother’s? Or both? Wei Ying had never heard anything about Lan Zhan’s living situation when they’d worked together.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says. He looks hurt? Or sad. Which is understandable. Considering he’s been personally disappointed by Wei Ying.
“Uh, hey.” Wei Ying says, trying for a smile. He’s pretty sure it looks pained. “How’s it going, Lan Zhan?”
Lan Zhan looks like he’s about to respond, but he’s interrupted by his brother.
“Sorry, sorry, these days I never remember where I keep my cash,” Lan Zhan’s brother holds out a payment that looks like it contains a solid tip and Wei Ying takes it and hands over the takeout, operating on autopilot.
“Brother, this is my—former coworker Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says when Wei Ying is just about to say his Awkwardest Goodbye Yet because he has no idea where this is going. “Wei Ying, this is my brother Xichen.”
Now that he knows they’re related, Wei Ying can see the resemblance. It makes the series of expressions Xichen goes through even funnier, knowing that he’s never seen anything half as expressive on Lan Zhan’s face.
“Oh! It’s a pleasure to meet you, Wei Ying,” he says finally, beaming serenely. For all that he was in a transactional relationship with Wei Ying five seconds ago, he sounds like he really means it.
Wei Ying nods and shakes his offered hand. “Same.”
He realizes this means that Lan Zhan must never have told his brother about...anything with Wei Ying, which feels like a relief. Jie knows everything about what went down, including the will he/won’t he potential romance with Lan Zhan, because Wei Ying tells his jie everything. He’d spared Jiang Cheng only because his brother tends to get theatrically grossed out when Wei Ying talks about dating.
“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Xichen asks, which throws Wei Ying for a loop. Who does that?
He’s in the middle of protesting that he’s fine when Lan Zhan touches his brother’s shoulder.
“Wei Ying likely needs to return to work soon. Will you set up dinner in the kitchen?”
“Oh! Sure. It was nice to meet you, Wei Ying,” Xichen says, sounding a little like he’s going to grill Lan Zhan over this later but he’s willing to give them some privacy for now.
Once he’s gone, Wei Ying still feels out of sorts. Lan Zhan looks good, and it’s throwing him off. Lan Zhan always looks good, but Wei Ying’s never seen him in whatever kind of sleek casual lounge outfit he has on now.
The past few months, Wei Ying’s been keeping himself too busy to think too much about things, but now that “things” have caught up with him, it aches a little.
“I’m sorry I didn’t—” Wei Ying tries, but Lan Zhan holds up a hand to interrupt him.
“No, Wei Ying, I’m sorry. I should have said something to someone before you—left. Or I should have walked out the day they fired you. I wasn’t certain what was happening, but I should have believed you were in the right.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’m sure I’ll land on my feet once things die down. I’m already learning a lot at Uncle Wang’s place, anyway! Lots of Cantonese. Mostly swears.”
Lan Zhan’s expression turns dark. “What do you mean, ‘die down’?”
“Oh, uh…” It feels weird to say it out loud, like he’s complaining. “I don’t know what happened, but I’ve been pitching and sending my resume places and so far I haven’t heard anything. Usually I at least hear back on pitches, but...it’s like I’m a ghost. I’ve been wondering if Brent blacklisted me, or something.”
“Mm,” Lan Zhan says. His brows are creased in a different way than Wei Ying’s seen before. He forgot how much he enjoyed cataloguing Lan Zhan’s expressions.
“Like I said, I’m sure it’ll die down eventually,” Wei Ying offers, when Lan Zhan seems stuck in anger mode.
“Mm,” Lan Zhan nods, like he’s shaking himself. “I’d like to help you find work, if you’ll let me. I have a few contacts at other places I can ask.”
“Sure,” Wei Ying says. At this point, he’ll take any help he can get.
Lan Zhan looks for all the world like he wants to say something else, but he just nods. “I—should let you get back to your work.”
“Oh! Right. Yes.”
As Wei Ying turns to leave, Lan Zhan says his name one last time.
“Please—feel free to reach out. If you need anything, or if you’d like to talk. I hope you still consider me a friend.”
Wei Ying feels his smile spread across his face. “Lan Zhan. Of course.”
***
“Wei Ying?” Wen Ning sounds worried, so Wei Ying hurries into the living room to see what’s up. “Uh, you should check this out.”
Wen Ning hands his laptop to Wei Ying, and Wei Ying sees the title of an article.
“Troubled Times in the Test Kitchen: One Food Magazine’s Toxic Environment”
With a sinking feeling in his chest, Wei Ying sits down and starts to read. There are about a dozen sources interviewed (some anonymous, some not), including Lan Zhan. There’s some talk of Wei Ying in the description of the promising video series, but his catastrophic departure isn’t mentioned. Instead, other people have come forward with stories of execs—mostly Brent—behaving badly. He doesn’t recognize any of these stories, but he does recognize the shape of them.
“How is it?” Wen Ning asks. He’s curled up in a whole-body wince, and Wei Ying takes a moment to be grateful for such a good roommate, friend, and little brother.
“It’s, uh…it’s wild,” he admits.
Wei Ying spends the rest of that day high and eating ice cream straight from the pint, occasionally texting back and forth with folks from the magazine who’ve started a commiserating group chat. Jiang Cheng’s not texting him back, but he’s active in the chat so he must be doing ok, and Wei Ying will see him later that week anyway.
The next day, he finds out that Brent was fired, and pours himself a celebratory beer after work. It's not quite justice, but it's not nothing.
The next Sunday, he’s at Mom’s for the weekly family dinner, and finally gets to talk to Jiang Cheng about what happened.
“After you left, we knew there was more to what happened than you just breaking shit and getting fired,” Jiang Cheng explains. “Thanks, by the way, for not telling me about any of it,” he adds, voice dripping with sarcasm. “So we started talking about what we could do. None of the internal stuff worked, but, well, you saw the results.” He pops another orange segment in his mouth. “Your boyfriend was pretty helpful, by the way.”
“My boyf—Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying laughs too loudly. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Jiang Cheng waves an uncaring hand. “Whatever. He was helpful. And he seemed like he missed you.”
Wei Ying takes a long breath in. He hasn’t reached out to Lan Zhan since he delivered him food. He’s opened up a text window a few times, and just...given up. How do you tell a man you want his professional connections and also to make out with him a little (maybe a lot)? Most of the advice websites just say it’s a bad idea.
“What are you kids gossiping about? It’s dinner time! Come eat, don’t disrespect your dad’s cooking.” Mom chides in Mandarin, her voice loud from the kitchen.
They’d tried to tell her, back in the early days of the divorce, that she and Dad didn’t need to hang out anymore. After all the vicious fights and snide comments, they all felt like it would be easiest for the two of them to stay apart. But somehow, his parents worked as friends better than they had as a married couple, which meant Dad came to Sunday dinners and cooked for everyone, and they videochatted with jiejie and her husband over Jiang Cheng’s dessert (always Jiang Cheng’s dessert now, ever since Wei Ying’s disastrous pork floss cheesecake experiment).
On the train home, filled with good food and only a moderate amount of yelling from Mom and Jiang Cheng, Wei Ying opens another text window.
Wei Ying: my brother called you my boyfriend, lol.
Hot Coworker LZ: lol?
Wei Ying:...it means laugh out loud?
Hot Coworker LZ: I’m aware. What is funny about the idea of me being your boyfriend?
Wei Ying stares at the text, his heart rate rocketing. What on earth is Lan Zhan trying to do?
Wei Ying: nothing!!
Wei Ying: At all!
Wei Ying: You’d be a great boyfriend!
Wei Ying: Anyone would be lucky to have you!
Hot Coworker LZ: Prove it.
Wei Ying:...what?
Hot Coworker LZ: Go on a date with me.
Wei Ying nearly slams his head back against the wall of the train in shock. Is this real? And not a hallucination? Also—how the hell is he supposed to answer that?
Wei Ying: Can we watch Ratatouille?
Hot Coworker LZ: Fine.
Wei Ying: Deal!