Fluffy WangXian Oneshots Book Two

The Voice of the Soul Part 5

SECOND VERSE

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan's song gave them an A+ for their grades, and even their teachers were proud of them. They performed it at the end of their first year, when they were both seventeen.

This is their song:

Of Stars And Paper Lanterns

Gazing into the past of my life,
How can it be forgotten?
As the stars continue to shine,
And the waves keep breaking upon the shore,
I will always look for you,

Here you are, right next to me,
As longed for and wanted eternally,
To stay by my side forever,
Whether a dream or reality,
Here you are, right next to me,

Paper lanterns in the sky,
Stunning magnolias in the tree
Outside your window,
Flower petals fall from the branches,
But I still play carefree,

Here you are, right next to me,
As longed for and wanted eternally,
To stay by my side forever,
Whether a dream or reality,
Here you are, right next to me,

Little by little, I can see clearly,
The softness of your smile,
Memories like whirring films,
As time records the sound and sights,
Of the days we spent together,

Here you are, right next to me,
As longed for and wanted eternally,
To stay by my side forever,
Whether a dream or reality,
Here you are, right next to me.

**************

(Last year of High school, and WangXian are eighteen years old)

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan attend a songwriting camp in the summer before graduation. They're mostly done with their exams and the teachers are happy with their progress.

More importantly, both sets of guardians are happy enough with their grades to let them go to this event.

"Two weeks of nothing but writing songs! Lan Zhan, can you believe it?" Wei Ying has been excitedly chatting all the way there.

He and Lan Zhan are sitting in the back of Nie MingJue's car, with XiChen in front. They've left Huaisang and Jiang Cheng with the strictest of requests to work as hard as they can in order to earn enough money to buy their instruments. Jiang Cheng is going to be the drummer of their band, Mianmian and Huaisang have been taking turns as the percussion/keyboard musicians.

Lan Zhan used some of the money that his mother had given him to buy his guitar and a bass guitar, and Wei Ying had worked his ass off to buy his own guitar. Their instruments are secured in a well-padded nest in the boot alongside their luggage. Wei Ying had somehow managed to sew scraps of fabric together to create the ugliest of guitar covers for them as well, begging the local fabric shops for any remnants they wanted to get rid of, to do so. It was, he said to Lan Zhan privately, a homage to Madam Lan, to thank her for having Lan Zhan and teaching him about music.

There was something attractive about the ugliness of the finished products, he had said, and it was so close to what his mother had told him, so long ago, that Lan Zhan had agreed to use them. But then, he would have done anything for Wei Ying.

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan have been writing songs nonstop, and researching the different artists and as many genres as they can, and these occasions have fast become Lan Zhan's favourite time spent with Wei Ying.

Once their exams had finished as a collective, they were freer to practise, and gel together, as Wei Ying called it, otherwise getting all five members together in one place felt like an impossible task.

Their jamming sessions took on a nomadic quality because no band is ever immediately good, even passable, and so they took whatever spaces large enough to accommodate them were offered.