Though he can't quite tell if Wei Ying understood the promise he just made to him, Lan Wangji finds himself content - even if he hasn't, he will show him its meaning every day until he does. Even if he had the words for it right now, what good would they be without the actions to prove them true. With every passing second, the idea of tomorrow as something that they have now to share becomes more real.
What he can tell is that Wei Ying is more concerned with reassuring him than any promises made. He's never known what to do with it, with sympathy or reassurance, never known how to fit it into his view of himself and the world. Like being handed an odd foreign object, its purpose and origin uncomfortably inscrutable, his answer used to be to ignore it or to toss it back. As long ago as he can remember, whenever someone - mostly his brother - had tried to tell him not to worry, or that it would be fine, or to slow down, it was because he'd made a mistake somewhere. Although he understands now that isn't always the case, and a little boy's simple and honest compassion had assured that he won't close himself off to it completely, his first instinct is still to think Wei Ying is being too generous.
Wei Ying's generosity is an extraordinary and paradoxical thing, never diminishing or diluting for how much of it he gives to the world. But it doesn't matter that he doesn't see where Lan Wangji had failed, so long as he himself sees it clearly. What matters far more in all that is something else, and it matters so much that he leans forward by a hair's breadth to speak with the same quiet conviction as before. "I believe you," he says and this time he doesn't have to avert his eyes. Again, he lacks the words to express his thoughts on trustworthiness and faithfulness, on who was right and who was wrong, but they have tomorrow to do it differently.
And that idea stirs in him a feeling much simpler, much clearer than all torrential thoughts on second chances and regrets and strange new worlds... It's so small and precious that he lowers his gaze a little, his features softening as though it's too fragile for all the intensity that had just been burning within him.
"I'm glad you came back." And came back like this, the most impossible of all the ways in which he could have transcended death - entirely himself, whole in mind and body.
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What he can tell is that Wei Ying is more concerned with reassuring him than any promises made. He's never known what to do with it, with sympathy or reassurance, never known how to fit it into his view of himself and the world. Like being handed an odd foreign object, its purpose and origin uncomfortably inscrutable, his answer used to be to ignore it or to toss it back. As long ago as he can remember, whenever someone - mostly his brother - had tried to tell him not to worry, or that it would be fine, or to slow down, it was because he'd made a mistake somewhere. Although he understands now that isn't always the case, and a little boy's simple and honest compassion had assured that he won't close himself off to it completely, his first instinct is still to think Wei Ying is being too generous.
Wei Ying's generosity is an extraordinary and paradoxical thing, never diminishing or diluting for how much of it he gives to the world. But it doesn't matter that he doesn't see where Lan Wangji had failed, so long as he himself sees it clearly. What matters far more in all that is something else, and it matters so much that he leans forward by a hair's breadth to speak with the same quiet conviction as before. "I believe you," he says and this time he doesn't have to avert his eyes. Again, he lacks the words to express his thoughts on trustworthiness and faithfulness, on who was right and who was wrong, but they have tomorrow to do it differently.
And that idea stirs in him a feeling much simpler, much clearer than all torrential thoughts on second chances and regrets and strange new worlds... It's so small and precious that he lowers his gaze a little, his features softening as though it's too fragile for all the intensity that had just been burning within him.
"I'm glad you came back." And came back like this, the most impossible of all the ways in which he could have transcended death - entirely himself, whole in mind and body.