There is something quietly intoxicating about those words. There have only been a handful of people that Lan Xichen believed that to be true of - he is aware, now, that it is an indicator of intimacy for him. The people that he has been closest to - Wangji, Mingjue, A-Yao, even Huaisang himself - they have all, to varying degrees, been seen incompletely by the rest of the world. A blank wall of ice, a man ruled by his temper, the son of a whore with aspirations beyond his station, a useless headshaker - Lan Xichen had believed with all of them that he could see past all of that, that they had allowed him to know them as completely as anyone could know another person.

Was it arrogance, or a desire for closeness? To know them as few others had, as he allowed them to know him, to see beyond what the world knew of Zewu-jun? Aside from Wangji, he isn't sure what to believe anymore.

But he wants it. He wants it to be true, so badly.

He doesn't say any of that. Instead, he wraps his other arm around Huaisang, holding him more closely.

"Lately I have... had difficulty, occasionally, being able to tell what is real." It is a very quiet admittance - it almost hurts to say it, to acknowledge out loud what he has been wrestling with since Wangji and Wuxian first told him of their suspicions.