Title: Love Story (and Other Tales of Suspense and Horror)
Fandom: Modaozushi | The Untamed
Characters/Ship: Lan Huan | Xichen / Jiang Cheng | Wanyin; background WangXian and XuanLi, Shi Qingxuan, background beefleaf
Additional Tags: Modern day AU, meet cute, wedding planners, crack
Word count: ~2.5k; Chapter 3 / 3
Summary: Jiang Cheng has read enough romance novels to know that he'll never be the star in one of them, not like his dramatically and happily married siblings. With this in mind, he tries to find completely tropeless employment for the summer.



Jiang Cheng can’t decide if Lan Huan is overly anxious about planning their brothers’ party, or if he just doesn’t trust Jiang Cheng and Mr Shi to do it right. He visits frequently, always with new questions and ideas, and Mr Shi tolerantly directs Lan Huan to Jiang Cheng and ignores them.

It’s different to talk to Lan Huan now that he knows there’s no mysterious spouse lurking on the outskirts of their conversations. It’s both more and less terrifying—Jiang Cheng is no longer in danger of being the dreaded homewrecker character, but at the same time, it’s no less important to keep his feelings in check. Just because Lan Huan is single, that doesn’t mean that he wants Jiang Cheng to toss aside their professional relationship and glomp onto him like slime.

Because that’s what it would feel like to Lan Huan, Jiang Cheng reminds himself. Slime.

And yet, he still lets his eyes trace down to the tip of Lan Huan’s nose, the curve of his lips, then arching even lower to the width of his shoulders under his suit jacket, his large hands with their long fingers, the way his belt sits on his hips, the way the cloth of his slacks strain against his thighs as he leans forward in his chair.

Jiang Cheng hasn’t had many crushes in the past, but his body has always been slower to respond than his heart, and encountering the love of his life has been no exception. When he first met Lan Huan, Jiang Cheng’s infatuation was gentle and warm in its joy and wrenching in its hopelessness. But something has begun to turn inside him recently. The warmth has become a scorching heat, and the wrenching pain has been a dull, throbbing ache. Once, the thought of those hands made him think of how they’d feel wrapped around his own, with warm, callused fingers intertwined with his own. And those thoughts haven’t left him, but now he’s just as likely to get lost in the fantasy of Lan Huan’s fingers pressing their way down his waist, his thumbs digging into his hip bones. Or maybe he’d slide Lan Huan’s fingers into his mouth, stroking along them with his tongue and hollowing his cheeks to suck wetly at them.

“Mr Jiang?” asks Lan Huan. “Is everything alright?” He doesn’t look concerned, precisely. He’s leaning forward on the table, and at some point during Jiang Cheng’s distraction, he must have loosened his tie and popped a few buttons on his shirt. His long throat is worryingly on display, and Jiang Cheng loses a few seconds wondering how it might taste.

“Yes, I apologise,” says Jiang Cheng, clearing his throat. “Is it too warm for you in here, Mr Lan? Please, let me get you some water.” And before Lan Huan can respond, Jiang Cheng jumps out of his chair and hurries across the room, trying to control his breathing.

“Thank you very much,” says Lan Huan when Jiang Cheng returns, accepting the water with a smile.

It’s such a beautiful smile.

Get ahold of yourself, Jiang Cheng tells himself firmly. “So, about these centrepieces…”

---

Lan Huan is not, of course, their only client. There are birthdays to plan, wedding anniversaries, weddings, and naming celebrations. Summers are full of events even in their small town, and Jiang Cheng’s days are filled with emails and calendars, spreadsheets and binders.

He perhaps works longer days than he should, really, but it’s surprisingly fun, and he often finds himself at his desk in Mr Shi’s store well after closing, finishing tasks that could really wait until later.

“Qingxuan was right.”

Jiang Cheng startles, jerking his hand and scratching a jagged black line through his otherwise immaculate notes.

Lurking in the doorway is Mr Shi’s husband, Mr. He. Where Mr Shi is bright and cheerful, Mr He is glum and sallow. He slides across the room like a threatening storm, and the fluorescent lights seem to dim as he approaches.

Mr He looks down at Jiang Cheng’s tidy workstation, his dark eyes cold and his thin mouth curling down into a sneer. But what he says is, “You’re good at this.”

The contrast between his body language and his words makes Jiang Cheng’s head spin. “Thank you, sir,” he says tentatively.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be,” Mr He adds, a sentiment which reduces the incongruity of the situation enough to make Jiang Cheng relax a little. Apparently, he can handle statements that aren’t complimentary much better than he can handle ones that aren’t complementary. “I was against hiring you, you know. The business hasn’t been doing well, and I didn’t think it could withstand the added strain of your salary, especially if you’d be deadweight.”

Jiang Cheng flinches and looks down. It had seemed to him as though they had plenty of clients, but he doesn’t know what’s normal.

Mr He leans against the wall by the desk, his eyes still fixed on Jiang Cheng. “Qingxuan is an artist and a people pleaser, but he is hopeless with the business side of things, and planning events is a business. Even with me handling the finances for him, Qingxuan has been floundering under all the research and paperwork. He’s just not good at it. But,” Mr He adds, and it sounds like an accusation from his lips, “you are.”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t really know what’s going on. “I’m happy to help,” he demurs uneasily.

“Why are you working here?” asks Mr He. “You’re talented and knowledgeable and hardworking,” he hurls the words like insults. “You could be working anywhere. But you came here, to this failing business. With the way Qingxuan was fluttering around and avoiding the subject, I thought this was some nonsense matchmaking scheme, but it isn’t, is it?”

Jiang Cheng can’t imagine what kinds of conspiracy theories must be spinning through Mr He’s overly paranoid mind right now, and they all seem to be founded on the idea that people who are talented and knowledgeable and hardworking don’t need summer jobs. And what a joke, anyway, that the only person who has ever associated those adjectives with Jiang Cheng hates him for it.

“Not a matchmaking scheme,” he confirms, trying to rein in his rising temper. “The goal was to avoid matchmaking. I was looking for a job, not a love story. All the other jobs I could think of seemed to feature on the top 20 most common romance tropes, but not the assistant to an event planner.”

Mr He’s sneer deepens. “I would have thought you’d be more practical than that.”

Jiang Cheng flushes, but it’s nothing he hasn’t heard before. He’s too practical and boring for romance, they say, and so of course choosing his job to avoid something that will never happen to him seems like a wasted effort. But he isn’t just boring—he’s loud, and he’s prone to anger and jealousy, and it’s too much of a risk to hope that he’ll be cast as just the boring side character and not as the antagonist.

“You think your job and its alignment to some trash novels has anything to do with finding love?” asks Mr He icily.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Jiang Cheng snaps, his temper making him unwise as usual. “Mr Shi understands. He told me about your storybook romance, you know.”

Something in Mr He’s eyes flickers. It takes Jiang Cheng a moment to identify it as amusement. “I doubt he really told you anything. I love Qingxuan like a tsunami”—this was not, Jiang Cheng felt, the most comforting of similes—“but he’s more full of stories than facts. Always fluttering around, eating up gossip like candy. ‘This person met that person in this way, and it was so romantic!’” he mocks.

Jiang Cheng’s hands clench into fists. Mr He notices, and he laughs, long and cold. “Do you not believe in love, then?” asks Jiang Cheng.

“Of course I do,” says Mr He dismissively. “Didn’t you hear me say that I love my silly husband more than life and death and revenge? But I don’t love him because of the way we met. Ha! I really don’t love him because of the way we met! I love him because he’s him. Believe me, angry little purple boy, what makes your love story special and romantic isn’t the background scene, it’s the person.”

It shouldn’t really be a revelation, but somehow, it is. Jiang Cheng thinks of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, and imagines them in other roles. Their story would have been different in some ways, but he wonders if it wouldn’t have followed a similar path even so. And if Wei Ying hadn’t been at a tattoo parlour, and if Lan Zhan hadn’t been at a flower shop, would they still have tripped their way into love? Jiang Cheng thinks they might have.

Jiang Cheng has been foolish about so many things lately. His misunderstanding over Lan Huan’s party had only occurred because he’d been so stubborn in ignoring everything that disagreed with his initially reasonable assumption that it was Lan Huan’s anniversary that was being celebrated, because it made a storybook kind of sense that it would be. Jiang Cheng has spent so much time focusing on the window dressing of the romances around him that he’s never paid attention to the truth of the love stories. He’s never recognised that the love stories aren’t between two roles, they’re between two people, whatever role they might be in.

Mr He is still looking at him.

Jiang Cheng clears his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that the business is struggling, Mr He. I’m not sure what I expected coming here, but I really love this job. Is there any way I can help? Maybe an advertising campaign?”

Some of the storm clouds fade from Mr He’s face. “What do you have in mind?”

---

The anniversary party is small and loud and joyful. Wei Ying leans on Lan Zhan’s shoulder, face flushed despite the alcohol-free drink service, as their family and friends take turns telling silly stories about the lightning-fast romance.

“Hmph,” grouses Jiang Cheng, when it’s his turn. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What romance? I haven’t heard of any romance. Don’t they say, ‘if love falls in a forest, but no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?’”

Lan Zhan’s omnipresent frown deepens forebodingly, but Wei Ying nearly falls over laughing.

“I can’t support a marriage no one told me about, so my support begins today,” says Jiang Cheng firmly.

“Aw, baby brother, you do care,” giggles Wei Ying into Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

Jin Zixuan rolls his eyes. “You can’t pretend you didn’t know about their marriage until today when you’ve been complaining about not knowing for a full year, Jiang Cheng.”

Jiang Yanli pats her husband’s arm. “A-Cheng did such a good job planning the party, didn’t he?”

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan both blink at that in surprise. “Brother planned the party,” says Lan Zhan, though his tone is uncertain.

Lan Huan clears his throat. “I came up with the idea for the party,” he corrects gently, smiling at Jiang Cheng. He slipped into the seat beside Jiang Cheng at the beginning of the party and has since spent the evening placing his long fingers on Jiang Cheng’s wrist and leaning over to whisper comments into Jiang Cheng’s ear—innocent little comments that nevertheless make shivers run down Jiang Cheng’s spine. Even more disturbingly, Lan Huan took the casual dress code seriously and arrived in a t-shirt and jeans, and Jiang Cheng’s eyes keep snagging on Lan Huan’s biceps. “Mr Jiang and Mr Shi did all the real planning.”

Jiang Cheng slumps down in his chair, flushing. “It was all Mr Shi, really,” he mumbles, though in fact, Mr Shi had taken to referring to the party as Jiang Cheng’s baby and to Lan Huan as Jiang Cheng’s client.

“Thanks, ‘Mr Jiang,’” sniggers Wei Ying, but he comes over to gather Jiang Cheng in one of his massive, squeezing hugs.

Jiang Cheng puts on a facade of protest, but he leans into his brother and squeezes him back just as tightly.

“You know,” Jiang Cheng tells Lan Huan after the party has cleared out and they’ve begun to clean up. “You can probably call me by my name, now. I mean, our professional relationship ends today.”

Lan Huan steps closer to him, even though they were already standing at a perfectly reasonable conversational distance before. “Does it?” he asks softly, his warm brown eyes fixed on Jiang Cheng’s. “I might need some more events planned. How else will I find an excuse to spend time with you?”

“I’ll be going back to school now, so that excuse won’t help much,” Jiang Cheng tells him, tone dry. “But why do you need the excuse? If you want to spend time with me, just do it.”

Lan Huan has somehow come even nearer without Jiang Cheng quite being aware of how. His face is so close that Jiang Cheng can only focus on one feature at a time, and he has to dart his eyes down to Lan Huan’s mouth to confirm the smile that he thinks he sees in Lan Huan’s eyes. “I want to spend time with you, Jiang Cheng,” Lan Huan tells him softly. The words are carried to Jiang Cheng on an exhale that tingles as it reaches his skin.

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng breathes, and he doesn’t need to look down to see this smile, because he can feel it against his lips.

---

Wei Ying is furious when he finds out.

“How long has this been going on?” he demands. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “Two months,” he says. “And we’re telling you now. Note that we are telling you before we elope,” he says pointedly.

“Elope?!” screeches Wei Ying, who can dole it out but not take it, as usual. “Absolutely not! You’ll have the traditional marriage ceremony! With bride games, and family tea, and a full reception!”

Jiang Yanli chooses that moment to return to the table they’re gathered around in the bakery, carrying a tray of snacks. “A-Cheng,” she gasps. “You’re getting married already?” she sounds worryingly delighted.

“No one’s getting married!” says Jiang Cheng. Lan Huan shifts in his chair, not meeting Jiang Cheng’s eyes. Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes at Lan Huan suspiciously and kicks him under the chair. “None of that! We are the responsible ones,” he hisses at Lan Huan.

“Yes, dear,” says Lan Huan obediently.

“I should have known,” fumes Wei Ying. “It was a mistake to let you work for an event planner! I should have made you come to the tattoo parlour! You’d have been safe there.”

“Safe like you were?” Jiang Cheng asks dryly, jerking his chin at Lan Zhan meaningfully.

Wei Ying turns red. “That was definitely the exception!” he insists. “It’s a very unromantic occupation!”

Jiang Cheng laughs. He feels calmer about the world since Mr He shared his philosophy on romance, but in retrospect, it’s no mystery where Jiang Cheng got his convoluted beliefs about romance tropes from.

END