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"Ok, I've got three song options." Wei Wuxian puts his phone down in front of Lan Wangji, who is sitting at their small kitchen table eating plain congee for breakfast. (Who eats congee plain? Hopefully he at least put salt in it.) "We'll need one that we'll definitely do, and a second one that we'll only perform if the audience likes that performance better than at least two of the other pairs. Tell me what you think."
Lan Wangji frowns at the three-song playlist Wei Wuxian has given him. "One of these is yours, but the other two are by the same group?"
"...Yes?" Wei Wuxian raises an eyebrow. "Junior League. Have you heard of them?"
"No."
"Are you kidding me?" Wei Wuxian laughs and sits down across from him. "Actually, I've known you for like twelve hours and I totally believe that. Okay, yeah, that's the K-pop band I debuted with nearly twenty years ago. Here's the thing: I don't do a lot of ballads and love songs anymore. I know that's most pop stars' bread and butter, but I've always liked the more upbeat stuff, and once I started getting more artistic control over my albums, I pushed everything in more of a dance music direction. But I get the feeling you're probably not ready to dive right into EDM. We'll ease into it." Lan Wangji raises one eyebrow the tiniest bit at Wei Wuxian's smirk. "That's my most recent ballad—it's not a love song, it's from an OST last year, it's about, y'know, a hero's heart as he sets out for adventure or whatever—and then two of my old songs back with Junior League. I realize you'll have to trust me on this, but they're classics. But the reason I went with those when it's not like I don't have any recent ballads is that they're love songs that were written specifically for a bunch of guys to sing together, so they'll be structured well for us to split up between us without making it sound like we're singing to each other or anything."
Lan Wangji shifts, looking slightly uncomfortable at that. "Of course."
"So anyhow, jie just called and the cameras will be here in an hour to record us 'deciding,' and then of course we've only got the rest of today and tomorrow to work out the details and rehearse. I think we should go with the OST song as our first performance, but you can pick which of the others you think should be our second one."
Lan Wangji frowns. "As the senior partner, you are supposed to choose the songs this week, not me."
"I mean, I did," Wei Wuxian says with a lopsided grin. "Dude, I'm literally telling you what I think the first one should be and only giving you two options for the second one. If you want, I'll choose both, but I figured you'd like a little bit of input. We're working together here."
"All right," Lan Wangji says quietly. He's frowning at Wei Wuxian's phone thoughtfully.
"Cool. Gimme your WeChat, I'll send you a link to this playlist, ok?"
They get this worked out, and Wei Wuxian goes to leave Lan Wangji to eat his plain congee in peace.
"Wei Wuxian," Lan Wangji says, stopping him. "Thank you. For trying to choose music I will be comfortable with. And for not making me perform... dance music."
Wei Wuxian laughs. "Hey, I'm here to mentor you, right? Not torture you. Anyhow, tack a 'yet' onto that. Like I said, we'll work up to it." He winks at a worried-looking Lan Wangji and retreats to his bedroom.
"Ok, jiejie and the camera crew are on their way," Wei Wuxian says, looking at the text from his sister. "Picked a song yet?"
Lan Wangji is sitting on the couch, reading a book of what appears to be Tang-dynasty poetry. "I do not particularly like either one, so it does not matter to me which one we perform."
Wei Wuxian snorts. "Don't sugarcoat it. I mean, even if you don't like them, did one seem more like something you can do than the other?" Lan Wangji shakes his head, not looking up from his book. Wei Wuxian sighs. "Okay, fine, I guess it really will be a surprise to you just like it is for the camera! Just remember, don't say you don't like the songs on camera!"
They get through the filming. They don't do much more than "get through" it, though. Wei Wuxian explains the plot of the TV show their first song is from, and the emotional resonance of the story with the song, and Lan Wangji listens patiently but does not react in any way. Then he tells a funny story from his Junior League days to go along with the second one, and Lan Wangji again does not react. Yanli prompts him a few times for his opinion on the songs, but he just says things like "Wei-laoshi has an impressive back catalogue from which to choose," and "I am sure he has chosen songs that he believes will allow us to showcase our talents." All in a voice that sounds monotone even for him—Wei Wuxian is pretty sure none of it is going to make the final cut.
Then they pile into the sponsor car back to the studio. Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji to go hang out in the green room while he handles talking to the music director about the arrangements and to the stage director about their stage setup and everything.
When he gets back to the green room with their rehearsal schedule, which someone shoved into his hand at some point, he finds Lan Wangji alone there, meditating.
"Hey!" he says. "Lan Wangji!" No response. "Lan Wangji?" He smirks as he wanders closer. "Lan-er-gongzi?" He's pretty sure Lan Wangji isn't asleep, just meditating, which means he's ignoring Wei Wuxian for some reason. "Lan Zhan!"
Lan Wangji's eyes fly open, glaring at Wei Wuxian. "How do you know that name?"
Wei Wuxian takes a step back, startled. "What?"
"I was told that my legal name was only needed for the payment paperwork, I was not told that the producers would be releasing that information to the other participants," Lan Wangji bites out.
"Are you serious?" He is clearly serious, but Wei Wuxian is baffled. He knew the guy was naive, knew he stayed off of social media, but... "Dude, it's on your Baidu Baike page. The entire world can see it. A lot of people who use a stage name, their real name is on there—myself included! And you know I researched all the juniors before I got here."
Lan Wangji's eyes go wide. "I had no idea that there was private information on that page. Who submits that information?"
Wei Wuxian snorts. "It's a wiki. Literally anyone can edit it. Anyone who's ever known your real name could have put it there. It helps to have a reference for it, but not everything gets taken down if there's no citation. And if your legal name has ever been on any webpage, anywhere on the internet, they can use it as a citation."
Lan Wangji seems to be calming down, but he looks disturbed by this information. "That feels very intrusive," he says.
"Yeah," Wei Wuxian says. "Welcome to showbiz. That part sucks ass. I wouldn't blame you if you decide to stick to opera just so you don't get any more famous than you already are." He sits down next to Lan Wangji on the couch. "If you do go more into pop, you just have to decide what you want to be public knowledge and what you don't, and be really careful about managing who has access to the information you don't want the public to know. Which starts with hiring a good publicist—their job is just as much keeping you out of the spotlight when you want to be as it is keeping you in the spotlights you do want to be in."
"I apologize for snapping at you," Lan Wangji mumbles.
"No worries," Wei Wuxian says. "So I guess you always go by Lan Wangji, then? Even when it's not the name in a program or a list of credits?"
"Only those closest to me call me by my birth name. Most of my colleagues call me Wangji offstage."
"So I should stick with Lan Wangji, even off-camera."
Lan Wangji hesitates. "You can call me what you wish. It is not a secret, I just didn't think anyone here knew it. I was startled to hear it. If my real name is not private information as I had assumed, I have no reason to avoid letting the other contestants or crew hear it."
Wei Wuxian grins. "Ah, you shouldn't give me an opening like that, Lan Zhan!" The tips of Lan Wangji's ears go slightly pink, which is adorable. "If you're not careful, we'll be friends by the end of this! Tell you what, you can call me Wei Ying."
"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji murmurs. "Your sister calls you A-Xian. Your family does not call you Wei Ying?"
"Oh, ah. Sometimes." He puts his feet up on the coffee table. "As you probably guessed from the different surnames, I'm adopted. My birth parents called me Wei Ying. They died when I was a kid. At first, my adopted family called me that, too—I mean, it was my name, right? But I'd only been there for a couple of years before Madam Yu, my adopted mom, wanted me to start modeling and doing commercials, so she gave me a stage name. And they mostly started calling me that. Now they mostly just use Wei Ying if they're mad at me, which is why jiejie never uses it, because she's never mad at me."
Lan Wangji frowns. "I don't have to use it if it has negative connotations."
"No, no!" Wei Wuxian scratches the back of his neck and doesn't look at Lan Wangji, uncomfortable with how honest he's about to be. "I got it from my parents, y'know? It's always nice to have someone who wants to use it in a nice way. I've really only ever had a few people who have. Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan call me that a lot of the time. Xingchen was close to my mom before she died, so they knew me as Wei Ying before Wei Wuxian. It's nice." Lan Wangji nods. "Anyhow. Names aside, why were you ignoring me in the first place? What did I do to you?"
Lan Wangji frowns. "That was petty of me, I'm sorry. But I am still annoyed. Why did you send me in here while you went and dealt with all of the details of our performance? Shouldn't we both be involved in that process? None of the other juniors have been waiting in here."
Wei Wuxian's eyebrows flew up. "Oh! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have assumed. You just... didn't seem real thrilled about these songs in general, so I figured you probably didn't care too much about all that. I figured I'd just save you the trouble. But hey, look, now that I know, I won't do that again, I promise. I'll default to keeping you involved every step of the way, okay? So be sure and tell me if you don't care about something and want me to handle it myself."
Lan Wangji nods. "Mn." He hesitates, and Wei Wuxian can tell he has more to say. "My parents also died when I was young," he finally says, like it's an admission. "My brother and I were raised by our uncle. So I... I understand what you mean, when you say your name is a good thing because your parents gave it to you. Perhaps not my father, he was mostly out of the picture long before he died, but my mother. My uncle and my brother call me Wangji some of the time, especially in any professional context, but she died before I took on a stage name. She never called me anything but Lan Zhan."
Wei Wuxian is pretty sure it's the most Lan Zhan has said to him at one time since they met. He doesn't say I'm so sorry or any of the other trite, meaningless things people say when they find out your parents died a million years ago.
"In that case, I'll definitely call you Lan Zhan," he says softly. "I know this is work, but we have to live together, too, right? We shouldn't be formal all the time. Hey... Lan Zhan and Wei Ying, that gives me an idea for our team name..."