[ He inhales through his teeth, a shallow attempt at polite--wholly unasked for--commiseration that he knows Lan Wangji will see for the act it is. He is not uncaring, and most assuredly not uncaring when it comes to the matters that Lan Wangji finds important no matter how he feigns otherwise, but he doesn't believe he's too far wrong in guessing that any excuse to escape from the mundanity of daily sect business is a good one. ]

Is it really all that bad? Ah, Lan Zhan, didn't I say? I warned you. [ He didn't really, not in any way that held weight at the time, but he'll lay claim to it like he did regardless. ] I know, I know, who else could do it? Who else would be suited to such a role? Hanguang-jun is the only one who knows the song to tame the wild hearts of our dear sects.

[ This isn't what they're here for, he knows. As easily as the words spill free, they're just empty, hollow sounds, a performance meant to draw the mind away from the matters at hand, a dizzying array all its own. Even as he leans in where he sits, eyes laughing with the teasing, it feels like treading on foreign, fragile ground. He doesn't want to look down, doesn't want to see that he's at the edge what whatever this is, no matter how fiercely that one spark of hope has taken root in his chest.

All the wandering, all the wondering, and he's right back here where he started: a little breathless, a little intimidated, somehow forever intent on orbiting the intensity of this sun. ]

It's your own fault, really. I would recommend trying harder to be less impressive, but I don't know that it's possible.