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Language:
English
Series:
Part 4 of Weilan Alternate Universes
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Published:
2024-05-28
Words:
1,997
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1/1
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43
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L'eternità non c'appartiene

Summary:

How many times had Shen Wei stopped to listen to music in the streets and alleys of that city? How many times had he chosen to sit for coffee in a place where he could hear the musicians playing? And enhance that nostalgia a little more with poetic melody.
In the remaining light of the sunset, the face of a man Shen Wei had never seen and who was at the same time the most familiar thing he had encountered in weeks - or perhaps months - was framed by windblown hair and adorned with a welcoming smile that felt like home.

Notes:

If you enjoy reading with music, Caruso played by Hauser and Quella Sbagliata by Matteo Bocelli are what's playing in the fic and while I was writing ;D The title is a line from the lyrics of Matteo's song. Edit by MeLuci_fer : If you'd like it, Caruso performed by Hauser & Matteo Boticelli.
- This can be read as novel-verse or drama-verse inspired, but I must say that Shen Wei's academic field is that of the novel.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

What sad afternoons were those of his first days in that beautiful city in foreign lands. They said that beauty alone would ease the longing for other winds left behind, but what a foolish untruth that had been. 

A whole year had gone by, and there was indeed beauty to be appreciated in every corner, in every step he took in the streets, or from the window of the small apartment in an old building, everything there was nostalgically beautiful. From times of arts and times of conflicts, from times of men who spoke another language, but with their hearts they had said the same words.

Many considered it an auspicious invitation to a glorious life, crossing seas and borders to relearn about the world in distant lands. But glory had never been a motivation of any value to a heart as strong but as sensitive as Shen Wei's.

A golden evening, tinged with violet clouds, had fallen over the city, and cast a vivid glow over the Piazza del Duomo, making the cathedral gleam with the last breath of daylight.

Shen Wei tucked his hands into the pockets of his wool coat as he passed through the square, trying to warm his cold fingertips. Not once had the cathedral failed to appear magnificent to him - an opulent glimpse of the many talents of men.

The people coming and going usually distracted him enough that the sounds became confused and distorted in his mind, and so when the surroundings were like this, he couldn't pay much attention to what voices were talking or singing, or exactly what street performers were playing. It reminded him vaguely of the fairs and festivals in Longcheng, although there, in his homeland, the words still made some sense even amid the din. He missed hearing his mother tongue being spoken by people on the street, and faces similar to his crossing paths with him, by chance, out there, anywhere. Where he belonged.

Being homesick had been a constant since he came to conduct research on Chinese Classical Literature and Arts at the University of Milan. He was told it would get better with time. They said he would get used to it over time. They even said that he would never want to return to his homeland after living in Europe. Maybe that was true for some people, and maybe his academic life would go in a direction that would keep him there, but it would still be a choice between his professional life and his real home. Maybe people would like to forget (if they even learned ) that his homeland was also beautiful, and with vast cultural richness, unique and different from there. And some days, he just wanted to go home.

For a moment, his thoughts didn't seem to be interrupted by the external noise, and he suddenly stopped walking, looking around, where the strange faces no longer passed him by but concentrated on watching the same thing. 

When the silence of the people let him perceive his surroundings, the sound that reached him was subtle and graceful. In a simple harmony, the melody of a cello was carried through the square, slowly taking its place, filling with something new the empty space left by longing.

On one side of the square, far from the entrance to the Duomo, people gathered to watch the cellist playing the melancholy notes that were now the only thing captivating Shen Wei's ears. Attracted by the sound, he didn't worry about time - there was no commitment waiting for him - and joined the crowd around the musician.

The day he left that place, maybe it would be things like that that he would continue to miss, fragments of what felt like home even though it was so different from his real home. The beautiful music was sincere wherever he heard it, across borders or cultures.

In the embrace of the passionate musician, the instrument was a loyal lover, and the notes were whispers of sweet words that would not be repeated.

He had seen countless street performers since arriving in Milan, most of them musicians on a multitude of different instruments, with diverse melodies and songs, so many times they pleased the ears, so many times they were the most interesting part of the day. So many times they converted feelings that Shen Wei had difficulty admitting to himself. His misses, his worries, and how deep his passions really were...

And it was honestly wonderful. On any given day, when he was having a bad moment, his mind was tired, or simply the loneliness of living isolated from what was familiar to him, and passing through some square, any street, on his way home, there was someone granting a moment of relief through a melody, a song, bringing their talent and dedication to make someone else's day a little more beautiful.

How many times had Shen Wei stopped to listen to music in the streets and alleys of that city? How many times had he chosen to sit for coffee in a place where he could hear the musicians playing? And enhance that nostalgia a little more with poetic melody.

Every now and then, even from the window of his small apartment, he could hear distant music, and he would sit by the window looking for the perfect light for a painting, and let the sounds of the brushstrokes mix with the notes coming from somewhere in the streets below.

The loneliness and longing didn't diminish, but he knew how to turn them into art so they wouldn't suffocate his heart.

He watched, interested in the musician's relationship with the cello, in how the bow slid across the strings, smooth as brushstrokes on the canvas. Barely he noticed that, among so many people, someone gave the same interest in watching him that he was giving in watching the musician.

On an ordinary day, he would catch a glimpse of people looking at him, but he was just one foreigner among many in a city like that. Right now, it felt different and his eyes chased something uncertain to meet the gaze that was upon him among the crowd.

Eyes like his own.

In the remaining light of the sunset, the face of a man Shen Wei had never seen and who was at the same time the most familiar thing he had encountered in weeks - or perhaps months - was framed by windblown hair and adorned with a welcoming smile that felt like home.

When Shen Wei noticed himself, it was too late, he was already smiling back.

Maybe it had taken him a long time to notice the other, and now it was too late, because the music was coming to an end, people were applauding and starting to move, going over to the musician and leaving some money in the cello's open case, and then dispersing in all directions. Shen Wei raised his head, trying not to lose sight of the man, looking for him among the people who now passed in front of him, but it was as if the man had disappeared into thin air.

The sense of returning home had only lasted for a few seconds while he had been lost in that gaze, and now Shen Wei was alone again. Maybe it would take a thousand lifetimes to find those eyes looking at him once more.

Although disappointed, Shen Wei still smiled to himself before heading towards the musician while taking out some money from his pocket. Sometimes an instant contained enough beauty to last eternity in someone's heart.

As he bent down to drop off the money, he felt his head hit something hard and hollow and he immediately raised his hand to the sore spot on the side of his forehead.

He was ready to apologize in his excellent English, or even his passable Italian, when the silky, deep voice reached his ears.

“Duibuqi, duibuqi…”

Hearing that was even better than listening to the music. As he looked up, he found what he had been looking for a moment ago.

Instead of responding to the man's apology, he put his hand over his mouth to cover a shy laugh.

The man scratched his head, unsure of what was funny to Shen Wei, but seeming relieved that he hadn't gotten angry, he continued in the same beautiful Mandarin - which Shen Wei missed so much and which he could swear had the accent of his region, "Ai, I was trying to meet you, but not exactly like this..."

"Meet me?" Not that Shen Wei wasn't trying to do that a minute ago.

"Oh, well, I don't understand Italian and not everyone here speaks English, so my investigation is going down the drain..." The handsome - and Chinese - stranger looked like the kind of person who had 'trouble' written on his forehead, but Shen Wei had a somewhat boring life, so maybe...

“I see… Are you trying to use me or is this a ridiculous excuse to-”

“It’s a ridiculous excuse,” the man admitted easily. “But it’s not a lie either.”

“What investigation?” Shen Wei maintained the most serious expression he could manage, but the man's friendly and almost overly honest face was breaking his facade.

“We can sit down for a drink and I’ll tell you…” The charming smirk was almost unfair. Shen Wei was not there to be enchanted by a person but to focus on his work.

“How shameless. I don't drink.” But you look like a work of art and I would love to look at you just a little longer, sketch every line of you on paper and never forget the features of your face, so I can then pretend to myself that I meet you after a long time and that I will meet you again no matter how much time passes.

People trying in vain to talk to the musician or leave money in the cello case were bumping into the two of them and it took them that entire minute of conversation to notice.

The man gently took Shen Wei's hand and guided him a few meters away, away from the people passing by, away from anything that would distract them from each other - or tried, even accidentally, to separate them.

Warm, calloused hand in Shen Wei's cold hand. He didn't let go when they stopped and turned to each other.

“Coffee or tea, then?” The man's confidence didn't sound arrogant. It was amusingly smug to Shen Wei, but also sounded like that man would try just anything to have a moment longer with him. 

Behind them, the musician positioned the bow and began a new melody. Maybe Shen Wei would have time to lose his shyness and ask the man to let him draw him over coffee.

“I don’t even know your name…”

“Zhao. Name is Zhao Yunlan. Special International Investigations Department of the Ministry of Public Security of China.”

"Oh... actual investigation..." And now the man, Zhao Yunlan, had Shen Wei a little more interested in it. “I mean… Shen. Shen Wei. Hi.” Maybe a coffee or two wouldn't hurt, but Shen Wei's poetic introspection was gone. The sense of returning home, however, was a little more vivid in the other's warm smile.

"It's a good name. Beautiful name." Still holding Shen Wei's hand, Zhao Yunlan guided him so they could find a good place for coffee and a detective story.

Whatever trouble Zhao Yunlan might be, Shen Wei felt dangerously too willing to it, but before that, they could just watch the musician from a distance, over coffee, for an hour, for the rest of the night, for a few days longer.

Night had begun to fall, the lights of Piazza del Duomo and the surrounding establishments were turning on little by little, shining on the features of the man who was the most beautiful thing Shen Wei had seen there in a whole year.

Maybe home wasn't always a place .

…

Notes:

Many thanks to Luci and Amalia for checking the information about research in the Humanities at the University of Milan and for cheer the bts of this fic set in their city. My family lives in Bergamo and Rome, so I thought it best to consult my Milanese girls.
*Title's translation: Eternity doesn't belong to us - but this author needs to say that maybe yes, it does belong to Weilan u_u.
Vince, I tried to write this seriously, but I failed the moment Zhao Yunlan stepped onto the scene :D
Thanks for reading!

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