As their last a cappella note fades, Wei Wuxian closes his eyes, completely overwhelmed. The sound of the crowd's applause is distant; they press their foreheads together and it's easy to imagine that they're not onstage in front of hundreds of people, being filmed for millions more. He lets himself pretend for a moment, because this is too much for in front of an audience—not because he's doing it with a guy, but because it feels too intimate and private to share with anyone, let alone the entire country.
He feels a tear slip down his cheek, and opens his eyes to see that Lan Zhan is crying a little too. He laughs a little at how silly and sappy they are, which gets small smile from Lan Zhan. He wants so badly to wipe the tears from Lan Zhan's face, but having a microphone in the hand that's not clinging to Lan Zhan's makes that a little awkward—he barely manages to wipe his own eyes with his sleeve.
They turn and make their way downstage, still holding hands. It's the most terrifying thing Wei Wuxian has ever done, because this isn't a performance anymore, and it can't be written off as one. This is them now, even if they're still in front of an audience—at the very least, this is their public personas, the way they're presenting themselves to the world, and their fingers are still intertwined for everyone to see. But the fear doesn't make him want to pull away—he just wants to hang on tighter, and that seems like a good thing.
Lin Hai, of course, doesn't ask them any personal questions. He mentions Leslie Cheung among the people who have famously covered the song, but doesn't call any attention to it specifically. The only time anyone says anything at all direct is when it's Bao Shan's turn to comment. "Leslie would have loved that," she says. "You did him proud." The comment gets rousing applause from the audience, and Wei Wuxian is suddenly trying not to cry again, and failing a little.
By the time they go to sit back down, he realizes that somewhere during the interview, his nerves faded. He's fine now, holding Lan Zhan's hand in front of all these people. He doesn't think the cameras catch it (or if they do, it doesn't show up in the final cut), but he gives Lan Zhan's hand a quick kiss before letting go as they take their seats. He can do this, he realizes—he can love Lan Zhan openly, and some people will be assholes, but a lot of people won't be, and they'll deal with the assholes and make it through. He didn't realize until he had that thought—that he can do this—that he'd actually been a little bit worried that he couldn't. That he would chicken out and run back into the closet at the last second. But he's not. He was never going to.
They don't win, but Wei Wuxian is so damn proud of Wen Ning he cares even less than he did before (which was very, very little). They somehow do manage to edge out Nie Huaisang and Ouyang Zizhen for third behind Bao Shan and Lan Jingyi, which is better than he was expecting.
Besides, Wei Wuxian is obviously coming out of the competition with the best possible prize.
There are multiple wrap parties—the official one, then the significantly wilder one Bao Shan hosts at her own penthouse apartment. Lan Zhan can't possibly enjoy most of the experience, but is determined to be there while Wei Wuxian enjoys it. He definitely enjoys some of it, though—Wei Wuxian is delighted to discover that, given the right environment, Lan Zhan is perfectly happy to make out in public. Jiang Cheng yells at him for getting his boyfriend drunk enough to do that, until he points out that Lan Zhan doesn't drink and has had nothing but tea and water all night, at which point Jiang Cheng yells at Lan Zhan for enabling him. Lan Zhan is also very happy to have sex in places where they aren't actually in front of anyone but could definitely be discovered (but aren't). By the time they stagger into their apartment, Lan Zhan already half asleep standing, at 5am, they've had two orgasms each, none of them in the same location. Apparently any party can be a sex party if you put your mind to it.
The next few days are not what he was planning when he signed up for the show. Instead of going directly back to Beijing and back to work on his album, they first go to Lan Zhan's place in Suzhou's historic Gusu district, where Wei Wuxian gets to meet Lan Zhan's uncle. Who is clearly much more displeased by his nephew's shameless performances on a common variety show than with the fact that his nephew is in love with and immediately moving to Beijing with a man he met three months ago. When Wei Wuxian asks Lan Zhan about this, Lan Zhan explains that his uncle has no reason to be surprised, because apparently this behavior "runs in the family." This is when Wei Wuxian starts to realize that Lan Zhan's family, while known for being "traditional" and strict, is every bit as weird as his, which makes sense when he thinks about it.
Lan Zhan isn't fully moving out, since Wei Wuxian may very well come back with him to Suzhou in a few months, so it's not hard to pack up what he'll bring to Beijing. Lan Zhan, to the surprise of nobody, is fairly minimalist and doesn't own that much stuff to begin with. While they're doing all this, they and Xichen go back and forth with Wei Wuxian's publicist, figuring out what to do about the whole Letting People Know What's Actually Up With Them thing. The finale wasn't broadcast live, but it's also on less of a delay than most of the episodes, so they only have a few days before people will undoubtedly start asking questions. There's already a bit of buzz in certain places (such as their supertopic) based on the studio audience not keeping their mouths shut, but at least the show is pretty strict about people recording in the studio, so no footage gets leaked early.
Once they're settled in in Beijing, ready to enjoy a few days doing nothing but paying attention to each other, they watch the finale broadcast together and then each post a statement to their Weibo pages.
That's a wrap on Our Song Season 8! Thank you so much to everyone who watched and supported us and all the other contestants online. It's been so great to watch your reactions to every performance.
We didn't win, but this show has never been about winning—it's about making connections between singers who come from different contexts and different backgrounds, people who might otherwise never meet, learning from each other, and making great music together. And I'm going to get super cheesy for a minute and say that I think in that respect, I absolutely won this season. I think I won the whole show, all eight years. I think this season, I won at life.
A lot of people, maybe including us, were skeptical when they saw that I would be working with Lan Wangji this season. It's not what either of us was expecting when we stepped onto that stage. But what we wound up with was so, so much more than I ever thought I could get from participating in one little variety show.
It may have taken a little while for us to figure each other out, but once we did, what we found was an artistic connection neither of us has ever experienced before. We have wildly different backgrounds and tastes, and yet as soon as we both get invested in the same vision for a performance, we feed off of each other in a creative symbiosis. Which I realize is a super weird way to describe it, but I don't actually have words for it! Lan Zhan may have never heard of most of the songs we performed (for real, he hadn't lol), but his instincts dovetail with and balance mine so perfectly that it never mattered. Everything we did onstage, every performance from us that you saw (with, admittedly, one or two exceptions) was the product of a creative process that I don't think I could duplicate with anyone else.
Creative and artistic synergy is one thing, and is hard enough to come by. Many people who do find a creative partner like this spend their whole lives writing songs with that person or collaborating on movie sets, and that's the extent of it. I think it would be impossible to have this kind of thing with someone you really didn't get along with and couldn't be friends with, of course, but for many people there are clear boundaries there.
But that's not what it is for us. Some of you have suspected that, and many of you are probably smart enough to realize that I wouldn't be writing a full page statement about how awesome it is to find someone I work so well with (it is awesome, though).
For us, our artistic connection was also a personal and emotional connection. I know there are partnerships like that, where two people bare their souls artistically and entwine them in a creative sense like we have and somehow don't fall in love, but I'm not actually sure how. Maybe it's only because I can't imagine having this with anyone else, and I couldn't not fall in love with Lan Zhan. I don't know, I don't know, this is going to get super sappy if I let it. All I know is that this show led me to a person I can't live without. Somehow I did for 35 years but quite frankly I think I just didn't know yet how much life without Lan Zhan kind of sucked compared to life with him.
To spell it out clearly for those of you who are trying very hard to avoid what I'm saying: I, Wei Wuxian, am very deeply in love with Lan Wangji. We are in a romantic relationship together. If you don't like that fact, I think you're going to have to get used to it, because it's not changing anytime soon—hopefully not ever. For the record, I'm bi, please don't bug all my ex-girlfriends with questions about "did you know he was gay" or accuse them of being beards. Any woman I've dated, I have been attracted to and had romantic feelings for. Just not like this (I would apologize but I think they all know full well and would agree).
On the one hand, I hate that I had to post this. It's stupid, having to explain myself, explain us, like this, when I'd never have to do all this with a girl. But it's also kind of nice to lay it all out. Tell the whole world that this is the absolute coolest, most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, in more ways than one. And I hope everyone reading this finds something like what we've found, and that if it's with someone you didn't expect or someone you don't think you're allowed to love, you'll give it a chance.
Thanks again for all your support, throughout the season and in the future! If there's one thing I can tell you for sure, it's that Lan Zhan will be a part of my future creative endeavors, including the album I'm (we're) currently writing, and we hope you'll support those just as enthusiastically!
I agreed to participate in Season 8 of DragonTV's Our Song because I was in a place in my career where I wanted to explore all of my options, and my brother thought it would be a good way to learn more about a particular segment of the music industry. I will admit I was not entirely enthusiastic about the idea at first, but it did seem like an interesting opportunity.
When I was paired with a mentor whose musical and performance tastes seemed to have absolutely nothing in common with my own, I was skeptical that there was anything I could learn from this man, or any way that our collaborations could be truly fruitful or fulfilling. I am ashamed to admit that I hardly even viewed him as an artist, only someone who was extraordinarily blessed in both his singing voice and looks and who had managed to capitalize on those advantages. (I did not know at the time that Wei Ying has written most of his last several albums, as well as songs for many other artists, or that he has directed his own music videos.) He was also not, at the time, particularly knowledgeable about or interested in the musical traditions my training is rooted in.
And yet, from the very beginning, Wei Ying was kind and welcoming, and took his role as a mentor very seriously. Knowing that I was inexperienced in this part of the industry, even before we began to find common ground musically he took the time to explain how things worked, being very open and honest about the advantages and drawbacks of this kind of career. Once we were more comfortable with each other, mentorship very quickly turned into true collaboration, both of us admiring and encouraging the other's creative instincts and finding the unexpected ways that they naturally fit together and strengthened each other. As our artistic bond deepened, so too did our emotional bond. Friendship, which does not come easily for me, developed surprisingly quickly, and I think we were both caught off guard when within that friendship we found something more.
To say I am not comfortable discussing my private life publicly would be a massive understatement. I am frankly horrified that this is necessary at all. But I recognize that I am in love with a man who is a public figure, and I myself am now somewhat of a public figure in my own right, and unfortunately in our society, these things are necessary. And so I understand that, despite having lived openly as a gay man for over a decade, it is sadly necessary for me to publicly state that fact, and to confirm that I am in a relationship with another man, Wei Wuxian.
Those closest to us were surprised that we preferred to put out two separate statements instead of one joint one. But our partnership, both artistically and personally, has thrived on accepting and celebrating our differences as much as on finding common ground. We have different perspectives even on this, different priorities and different things that we want to say. And that, to us, is a good thing. I hope everyone reading this will accept our statements for what they are, and respect our privacy in this matter.
End of Fic End Notes:
This has been such a wild ride!! I wrote 40k of this in 9 days. I understand CSS even better than I did before. I found so much great new music and watched so many music videos and different people's versions of songs. If writing this fic has made one thing obvious, it's that I'm a theater kid who hasn't used her theater degree in way too long. I clearly need to go direct a musical or something to get this out of my system.
If you are familiar with the show and were disappointed not to get a group episode, I'm sorry. I'm disappointed too. I was excited to write one but had absolutely no song ideas for WWX/LWJ/MM/WN or BSSR/LJY/NHS/OYZZ. If I'd had a few extra weeks I'm sure I could have come up with something super fun, but you'll have to imagine for now.
The workskin for this fic is a combination of Simbeline's for the translations and a modified version of jinsnake's for the Reddit parts. (I scaled it down a lot because inserting alllll those usernames was a lot, I could not deal with dates and up/down vote amounts and all that for the over 600 individual comments in this fic, and taking out the graphics that go with every single comment simplified the coding.)
Thank you to kalany for feedback and help both with the content and technical aspects, including the Elton John joke.
Spicecandy, I hope you enjoyed it! I was very glad when I saw you liked things like Dom!LWJ and rough sex - I was like *whew* I don't have to figure out some other way to write them, I can just let them do what comes naturally.