An Ode to Stars🌟
With the launch of my Star Projector Kickstarter, I took a look back on all the stars that I have painted over the years. There's just something so magical about their unique shape and glow that brings joy to my inner child. My actual childhood was quite traumatic so now I'm making up for all the lost time. Every painted star heals me just a little bit.
It takes a lot to get Lan Wangji’s head out of his book when he’s riding the bus on his way to campus. And this? This is a lot.
He’d been engrossed in a book of poems and had closed his eyes to savor a line when the bus stopped to pick up some more passengers. When he opens his eyes again, a pretty, college-age girl is boarding the bus, sliding her card through the machine at the front. Lan Wangji has seen lots of pretty girls, so this is not remarkable. He is about to put his nose back in his book when she moves aside and the most beautiful boy Lan Wangji’s ever seen enters behind her.
At first, to Lan Wangji, he looks like a bird. A hummingbird, maybe, because he’s humming here and there—saying something to the bus driver that makes her laugh, eyes lighting up when the girl beckons him to an open seat, chatting amiably with her as the bus lurches to life and continues down the road. There’s something almost elfin about his features. Sharp nose, pretty angled eyes, a long sheaf of black hair tied into a high ponytail behind him. It’s not jut his face that reminds Lan Wangji of a bird. He’s slender, small-boned, but still clearly masculine. Lan Wangji would like to hold him in the palm of his hand, stroke his hair like you would stroke a baby bird’s feathers. Watch him sing.
The book falls useless between Lan Wangji’s thighs. Poetry is forgotten. Lan Wangji stares.
As he talks to the girl, this beautiful boy glances around curiously at the bus around him. His eyes are dark, and they dart around as though trying to take in every detail at once. For a terrifying instant, those eyes land on him. But then they are gone again. Lan Wangji is glad. He doesn't want to disturb a bird in the wild.
Then, the boy’s gaze is on him again. And this time it stays, for two endless seconds.
Thankfully, that glance, too, is short-lived, and he returns to looking at and chatting with the girl, who must—must!—be his girlfriend, although they don’t hold each other or lean in the way Lan Wangji has seen lovers do on campus. What girl wouldn’t want to be the girlfriend of this rare bird? Lan Wangji doesn’t know why this irritates him, but it does. He picks up the book where it lies limp and shuffles the pages, trying to find where he left off.
Movement in his peripheral vision. Lan Wangji looks up. The beautiful bird is getting out of his seat, speaking one last word to the girl, and—what?—is heading to the back of the bus where Lan Wangji sits. A flood of panic comes over Lan Wangji, like when he was at that violin recital at age 10 and his violin was hopelessly out of tune. Don’t let him notice me. Don’t let me be perceived.
No such luck. The boy stops right in front of Lan Wangji’s seat and locks eyes with him. “She’s cute, isn’t she?” he says.
He might well be speaking Arabic for all that Lan Wangji understands these words. “What?”
“Mianmian.” The boy hooks a thumb forward, toward his companion. “I saw you looking at her. She’s available, you know. If you like, you can come up and I’ll introduce you. She’s a sweetheart."
The boy thinks he was staring at his friend. This realization dawns on Lan Wangji slowly, a sluggish sunrise. “No, thank you,” he says.
“Okay,” says the boy sunnily. “Thought I’d ask. Have a good one!”
And he turns with a flourish and heads back to his seat.
The bus stops again, Lan Wangji’s jerked forward in his seat. The shock breaks him out of the daze he’d fallen into. The boy talked to him! Lan Wangji got to hear his voice! A lovely, musical tenor. His vowels were resonant and clear. Crisp consonants. He danced through the words as much as spoke them.
Delight soars through Lan Wangji, and then he attempts to remember what he said.
Lan Wangji was caught staring. Which couldn’t be helped because he was staring. Was, and still is, because his eyes have remained fixed, stubbornly, on this boy since the moment he turned his back. Lan Wangji is not used to having such little control over his body. But his eyes keep telling him this boy is a feast, and he must drink him in for as long as he can. After all, once the bus arrives at his stop, or theirs, he will likely never see him again.
Somehow this feels like impending doom.
The boy glances back at him once more in mid-conversation with Mianmian. Who is not the boy’s girlfriend, and that’s a relief. Lan Wangji is not entirely sure why. His brain is racing to catch up to his heart and his fascinated eyes.
Leaning in toward Mianmian, the boy says something that makes her laugh, and then he glances again toward the back of the bus and Lan Wangji. When their eyes meet, he offers a blinding smile. He says one more thing to Mianmian, and then he’s up again, making his way to Lan Wangji’s seat one more time.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to introduce you?” he says sunnily. “You’re staring pretty hard.”
Lan Wangji is, but not at Mianmian. His eyes are full of this wild bird, so close, and his hands itch to reach out and move his hand across the collarbone that juts out from his loose T-shirt, just to see what his skin feels like there.
Oh. He wants to touch. That’s new. Lan Wangji doesn't think he’s ever felt such a strange urge before. His mind is still scrambling to find out what it means.
“You know,” the boy says, “most people would find that creepy.”
Lan Wangji takes in a tense gulp of breath. He had been so enthralled, he hadn’t thought abut what the boy would think of his staring. He forces some words into his throat. “I was not—”
“Oh, I know you’re not,” the boy says. “I can tell. Mianmian thinks so too.” Had Mianmian also turned to look at him? Lan Wangji hadn’t noticed. “It’s really okay if you want to meet her. You look kind of nervous, but she’s good with it. Wei Ying, by the way.” And wonder of wonders, this boy holds out his hand for a handshake.
Lan Wangji’s brain, already running like molasses, shudders to a halt entirely. He gets to touch?
“Lan—” What is his name? Lan Wangji has momentarily forgotten. “Lan Zhan.” His hand slips into Wei Ying’s and this is the most perfect second of his life.
Wei Ying is warm.
Which is to say, he’s real.
This boy who had appeared to Lan Wangji like a bird, like some otherworldly creature, has a warm body and a name. Wei Ying.
Wei Ying’s gaze flutters down to the book in Lan Wangji’s hand. “Are you a student?” he asks. “Mianmian and I are at Gusu. The campus is really nice, but the grading’s strict. I’m surprised they even let me in.”
Lan Wangji’s heart is racing. Now that Wei Ying is a real person, Lan Wangji had better act normal around him. “I, too.” he says. “Gusu.” He could have strung that together a bit more artfully.
Wei Ying leans against the pole to steady himself as he gazes at Lan Wangji. “Oh, really? Sweet. Maybe we’ll see you in classes one of these days.”
If Lan Wangji had Wei Ying in his class, he might never hear a word the professor says. “Perhaps.”
“What are you studying? What is that? Poetry?” Wei Ying leans forward to take a look at the book. “I freaking love poetry. Especially the dirty kind.” He laughs, and Lan Wangji catches his breath at the beautiful sound of it. “Are you a literature major?”
“No,” Lan Wangji says, and his brain is awake now, thank God, even though every half-second his heart skips several beats. “I’m in the music program.”
“Oh, wow!” Wei Ying’s eyes widen. “Wow, I’m so jealous. I’m in social sciences. Mianmian, too. Some of the classes are so awfully boring. But that’s what you’ve gotta do to be a social worker. I’m gonna help people for a living.”
Wei Ying has warm skin, and a name, and a purpose. Lan Wangji has never before had the urge to just reach up and pull a man into his lap before, but it would be so nice if he could.
“Well, I better get back to Mianmian. This bus ride is so long. Why is West Campus housing like in the next town over? Argh. See you, Lan Zhan!”
And then Wei Ying is scampering back to his seat just in time to reclaim it before another patron can take it away.
With his brain fully working again, Lan Wangji takes a moment to summarize what’s happened. Physically, he knows this is attraction. He’s attracted to Wei Ying. It feels, though, like so much more than that. He can’t find a word that encompasses the enormity of how he’s felt ever since Wei Ying got on the bus. He knows it’s not love, because love is something you build and that comes with time, but crush feels like an inadequate word for this much emotion.
He may not have a word for what he feels, but he knows what he wants. He wants to follow Wei Ying off the bus. Into his boring social science classes. Into the quad, where Lan Wangji wants to layer his body over Wei Ying’s and kiss him in the grass. He wants to feel Wei Ying’s weight on him, and sleep beside him, and have him there every day when Lan Wangji wakes up. This boy with whom he’s exchanged maybe a few dozen words. This much wanting is not a crush. Whatever it is, it has completely swallowed him up.
As he watches, still helpless to look away, Wei Ying chats with Mianmian. They both look back toward him quite a bit. And then Mianmian says something, tilting her head, that makes Wei Ying stop and sit there with his mouth hanging open. He looks at Lan Wangji. He looks at Mianmian. The two talk for another minute.
A familiar building catches Lan Wangji’s eye as the bus passes it. Oh no. Lan Wangji’s stop is coming up. Pretty soon he’ll have to take his eyes off Wei Ying and exit, and while he may meet him again on campus, he may not. Ever. It’s too tragic for Lan Wangji to stand. He clenches a fist around his poetry book.
He’s so busy contemplating the sorrow of this moment that he almost misses the fact that Wei Ying is heading back to talk to him again. Wei Ying’s cheeks are slightly rosy, and he’s all the more appealing for it.
“Hey, uh, Lan Zhan,” he says, “Mianmian thinks maybe you weren’t staring at her. You were staring at me.” His cheeks flush all the more. “Is that … is that true?”
Heat rises to Lan Wangji’s own face in answer. Without thinking to, he nods.
Wei Ying just stares at him for a moment, a taste of Lan Wangji’s own medicine, and he deserves it, he’s made this Wei Ying so uncomfortable. He should have had better control of himself. He should never have--
“Give me your hand,” Wei Ying says. And then, when Lan Wangji doesn’t move, he repeats it.
Lan Wangji holds out his hand, not sure what to expect.
Wei Ying grabs him by the wrist, pulls out a ball-point pen, and scrawls a phone number across Lan Wangji’s palm.
“Call me,” he says with a smile.
And he runs to the front of the bus, Mianmian rising and following behind him, as they reach Lan Wangji’s stop.
Lan Wangji is too stunned to move and misses the stop entirely.
That’s okay, though. He can always walk from the next stop. It’s not so far. The only thing he regrets is being unable to follow Wei Ying further. He has his number, though. And he has time.
Wei Ying. A wild bird. And now, Lan Wangji holds the means to catch him, right here, in the palm of his hand.
Sometimes you have to put a painting aside and gain some distance. Especially because if you look at the picture for a long time, you can lose the feeling. At least that’s how I feel sometimes.
After a break, I was able to look on it with fresh eyes and finish it.
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