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Lan Zhan isn’t his boss, technically. He works in a different department than Wei Ying and their paths have only crossed a handful of times in the few months they’ve worked together, but Lan Zhan is high enough up on the corporate food chain that Wei Ying feels a sudden jolt of panic at the sight of him.
On a Sunday morning.
At the farmer’s market.
Wei Ying wonders, briefly, if he’s dreaming. It’s just past eight, so while the market has been open for an hour already, he’s still borderline asleep. It could explain a lot of things. For example, the stroller Lan Zhan is pushing, with a young, sweet-looking kid staring wide-eyed at all the stalls they pass. Now, Lan Zhan may be impossibly handsome, but he also speaks five words a week and will likely never develop laugh lines in his entire life. How would he have had a child? And with who? Wei Ying has stared at this man’s hands for long enough that he knows he doesn’t have a wedding ring. Another thing that Wei Ying’s deepest, darkest dreams may have conjured up is the sight of Lan Zhan with his hair falling over his shoulder in a long, loose ponytail, with a few wayward strands framing his face. He always has it in a tidy, slicked-back bun at work, so this means he literally lets his hair down on weekends, like some sort of off-duty model. And the last, most jarring piece of evidence that Wei Ying’s sinful imagination has truly run wild, is the fact that Lan Zhan is in a beautifully basic, plain white tee, with slightly cuffed sleeves. It’s a far cry from his usual neutral uniform of perfectly tailored suits and starched shirts that highlight his broad shoulders and small waist, but devastating nonetheless, because it gives Wei Ying a complete, uninhibited view of Lan Zhan’s bare arms for the first time. And every inch, from shoulder to wrist, is covered in tattoos.
He isn’t close enough for Wei Ying to get a proper look at all the details, but he can make out a few illustrative florals, a little script, and a hell of a lot of blackwork. On one arm, some pieces are bold and intentional while others look softer and more sprawling, clearly done in bits and pieces over time; an unplanned sleeve, it seems. Yet on the other arm, an intricately detailed, fierce-looking dragon wraps around the entirety of it, filled in with more colour than Wei Ying has ever seen Lan Zhan wear.
Wei Ying has one tattoo, an amateur stick-and-poke atrocity he let Nie Huaisang do on his hip in college, after they both had too many drinks. It is ugly and embarrassing, but thankfully always hidden. Wei Ying once entertained the idea of getting more tattoos done, but was always too indecisive to commit. Such permanent body modifications are absolutely commitments. And Lan Zhan is clearly a very committed man. Of course, it isn’t enough that he’s a DILF, he has to be a tatted DILF. To think, Wei Ying once found the tiny silver hoops in Lan Zhan’s ears kinda hot for someone as stuffy as him. Little did he know.
“Who are you drooling at?” Wen Ning whispers, and Wei Ying promptly shuts his mouth and nearly spills his iced coffee.
“No one,” Wei Ying says quickly, pulling up a folding chair and taking a seat, hoping he can adequately hide behind the stacked jars of honey, honeycomb, and honey-flavoured treats on the table in front of them. He’s helped out at the Yiling Honey stand in the past when Wen Qing was busy with med school, but it’s been a while since the last time. Does Lan Zhan come here often? Does he ever buy honey from the Wens? Does he even eat sugar? Is honey sugar?
Wei Ying ruminates on this in a distracted silence, slurping his coffee loud enough that he barely hears Wen Ning greeting the next customer who approaches the table.
“Good morning! Can I help you?” he asks, with all the genuine eagerness of someone who is not yet jaded by the cold, cruel world they live in that would plague Wei Ying with waking dreams of unattainable men.
“Hello. Are you the beekeeper?” says a familiar voice, deep and rich as molasses, and nothing like honey.
Wei Ying scrambles to his feet. “Lan Zhan!”
Lan Zhan blinks at him, then glances down at Wei Ying’s shirt, which is bright yellow and says SWEET LIKE YILING HONEY in bold black font. “Wei Ying. You’re also a beekeeper?”
“Nooo, no, I’m just helping a friend! Wen Ning’s family are beekeepers,” he says, patting Wen Ning on the back. “They’ve been in the business for, what, fifty years? Best honey in town!”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan hums, nodding at them before stepping closer and having a more thorough look at their offerings. Beside him, the kid in the stroller squeezes a floppy plush rabbit in his tiny hands.
“Baba,” he says, all gummy and adorable. “Baba, baba, baba.”
“Yes, this is honey, see?” Lan Zhan murmurs softly to him, picking up a small jar of lavender-infused honey to show him. “Baba puts it in his tea. You put it in your yogurt.” When Lan Zhan bends his arm, his bicep flexes, nearly distorting the realistic mountain landscape barely hidden beneath his short sleeve.
Wei Ying blames his lack of filter on being under caffeinated, but he would lick that mountain range if he could.
Another customer comes up to the stall and Lan Zhan steps aside to make room for them, so Wei Ying waves Wen Ning off to greet them. “I got this,” Wei Ying whispers. Wen Ning looks between him and Lan Zhan, then waggles his eyebrows knowingly, and Wei Ying can only get in one sharp jab with his elbow before Lan Zhan looks up again.
“Can you suggest a flavour? Something mild.”
“Oh, orange blossom, for sure,” Wei Ying says, reaching for one of the jars on display. “It’s my favourite one, very fruity and floral and... juicy,” he adds, feeling the blush creeping down his neck from his cheeks. “Do you want a sample?”
“No need,” Lan Zhan says, continuing to peruse the stock. “I trust you, if it’s your favourite.”
It’s said so off-handedly, Wei Ying barely even registers the kind words. This is the most they’ve ever spoken! Lan Zhan has no right to be so charming this early on a Sunday morning, before Wei Ying can wake up enough to charm him back!
Wei Ying clears his throat and grins widely at the kid in the stroller, giving him a little wave. “Hi there! I’m Wei Ying. What’s your name?”
He gives a timid wave in return. “Yuan,” he mumbles, then holds up a few chubby fingers. “I’m four.”
“You’re four! ” Wei Ying gasps in shock. “That’s such a fun age.”
“It is,” Lan Zhan agrees, giving Yuan the warmest little smile Wei Ying has ever seen, or ever will see.
“God, I never knew you had a son, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying pouts. “Then again, I guess that’s not something that would’ve come up at work organically. Unlike this honey. It’s definitely organic. Certified!”
Lan Zhan regards him in worrying silence for a long moment before snorting.
“Was that a laugh?” Wei Ying asks, eyes wide. “I can’t believe this! You’re so chill on the weekends.”
“I am ‘chill’ outside of work,” Lan Zhan clarifies. “I am professional at work.”
“Yeah, you’re a professional at hiding all your sexy tattoos,” Wei Ying says accusatorily. “Are you smirking? Now you’re smirking at me.”
“No,” says Lan Zhan, who is definitely smirking.
“Unbelievable,” Wei Ying mutters.
Lan Zhan snorts again, then picks up a wrapped package of honey cookies and carefully reads over the ingredients list. “A-Yuan, would you like a cookie after lunch?”
“Yes, please,” Yuan says politely, but it comes out more like pease , and Wei Ying has to bite his lip before he squeals about it.
“It’s on the house!” he says, then holds a hand up when Lan Zhan frowns at him. “Please, I insist, I wanna make regular customers out of you two.”
Lan Zhan ducks his head in thanks. “Does that mean you’ll be here again?”
“Sure, at some point. I help out when they’re short-staffed,” Wei Ying says with a shrug. “What about you, you two come here every weekend?” It sounds dangerously close to being a pick-up line, but he’s already called Lan Zhan’s tattoos ‘sexy’ to his face, so he’s all in at this point.
“Usually,” Lan Zhan says, grabbing a jar of honey walnuts as well. “But not next Sunday, I have a tattoo appointment.”
If he’s bringing them up first, surely it’s okay for Wei Ying to ask. And he’s dying to ask.
“You’re getting another one? How many do you have?” Wei Ying blurts out.
Lan Zhan looks pensive as he hands Wei Ying a few bills. “I stopped counting after twenty.”
“Jesus,” Wei Ying says softly. “Are they all—I mean, can twenty tattoos even fit on your arms—”
“I have pieces on my back, chest, stomach, and legs. A great deal of my body is inked,” Lan Zhan states simply, like he’s not delivering earth-shattering news. “I am limited to areas that I can hide in professional settings.”
Limited , he says. Wei Ying might cry.
“I have a tattoo, too, you know,” his traitorous mouth says, before he can think twice about it.
Surely that’s nothing to someone like Lan Zhan, a living work of art in more ways than one, but of course he asks anyway, whether out of politeness or in taking sick pleasure in watching Wei Ying embarrass himself.
“Do you?” Lan Zhan’s lips quirk up ever so slightly. “Show me.”
Wei Ying scoffs, cheeks burning. “Lan Zhan! So bold! It’s somewhere private. You’ll have to buy me dinner first if you want to see it.”
“Alright.”
Wei Ying blinks.
“I’d like to take you out to dinner,” Lan Zhan says, like it’s a challenge. He holds eye contact with a searing gaze. “Tomorrow, let my secretary know when you’re free. A-Yuan, say goodbye to Wei Ying.”
“Bye-bye!” Yuan says, waving cheerfully with one hand and clutching the honey cookies in the other, as Lan Zhan pushes the stroller away.
“Bye-bye,” Wei Ying says weakly before collapsing back onto the folding chair.
Wen Ning crouches down beside him, grimacing. “Dude. Are you really gonna show him?”
Wei Ying takes a shaky breath. “I might not have a choice.”