Chapter Text
Chongyun woke up to Xingqiu breathing deeply against him, still asleep in his arms. He could barely believe that last night was real. Not only did he kiss Xingqiu, which he must have dreamt up, but he realized his feelings for him and processed them. Out loud. Chongyun began to wonder whether he had been transported to some kind of spirit realm of illusion.
Xingqiu began to shift beside him, rolling over to be practically nose-to-nose with the other. “Good morning, ‘Yun.” He hummed. A sly smile crept onto his face as he watched Chongyun’s cheeks heat up.
“Good morning, Xingqiu. I- I, uh,” he couldn’t help but stutter over himself as Xingqiu leaned his head into his chest. “Um… Good morning.” With that, Xingqiu rolled around once more in order to sit himself up under the bedsheets. He looked down at Chongyun through long eyelashes that fluttered as he let out a snicker.
“You are too cute,” He said, swinging his feet over the edge of bed. He began delicately gathering his ornate coat from the floor where he had shed it the night before. Neither of them had even thought about changing clothes the night before. Much more important things were happening. “I am so glad I can say things like that now, it makes teasing you so much easier.”
“Don’t you dare. It’s embarrassing enough as it is.” Chongyun sighed, wrapping the blanket around his head.
Xingqiu pulled it away and lightly kissed his forehead, prompting another short circuit of Chongyun’s brain. “Mm, I think I will.”
Chongyun rolled his eyes and gave Xingqiu’s shoulder a shove before finally sitting up himself. “While I am enjoying this humiliation,” He started as he began to get out of bed and join Xingqiu in gathering their things. “We should cover some ground today. We are close to Wuwang Hill, it should only take around one more day to get there. Might even be better if we push forwards into the night. The spirit might be more present in the dark.”
Xingqiu stopped. “... We’re going now?”
“Of course we are. What else would we be doing?” Chongyun asked, still absorbed in tidying the room. Xingqiu had really made a show of scattering their shoes and coats across the floor.
“Must we go… right now?” Xingqiu asked in response. His voice was much quieter this time. Chongyun paused now too, turning to look at the other boy. His back was to him.
“Is there an issue?”
Xingqiu took a breath before turning around. He looked uneasy, much more uneasy than he had looked this entire trip. He was even worrying the fabric of his undone coat between his fingers, a habit that Chongyun hadn’t seen in ages. “I will admit, I am a little worried about my brother and his… possé.”
“Why?” Chongyun put the shoes he was holding down and approached the other slowly.
“Why?” Xingqiu scoffed as if the question had been a joke. Upon seeing Chongyun’s sincere expression, he looked to the side. “He is looking to hunt me down and take me home! He could be waiting right outside for all we know!”
“He isn’t outside, Xingqiu. He left, remember?” Chongyun tried to offer a reassuring touch. But Xingqiu turned to the nearby window just in time to avoid it.
“What if he is?”
Chongyun was at an impasse. Xingqiu often worried about possible events rather than current ones, which Chonyun never fully understood. He routed to offer the only thing he knew would solve this path of thinking: clear solutions. “Alright. Then we talk to him.”
Xingqiu looked over his shoulder, brows furrowed. Wrong answer. “What do you mean, talk to him? He is one of the most unreasonable people I know!”
“Talking would be the only thing we could do if we saw him, right?” Chongyun tried to explain, but Xingqiu simply walked past him to occupy himself with the undone bed sheets.
“Any time we have disagreed, he’s come out on top. Not to mention how my family is always on his side. Any time I have snuck out, he’s caught me. Any time I try and-” Xingqiu cut himself off by giving one of the pillows an emphasized throw onto the bed, then leaning over the mattress in defeat. “It does not matter whether he is right outside or miles away, he is still out there looking for me. When he finds us, I will have to go home.”
“Well, we can’t stay here,” Chongyun stated, trying to find his way back to reason. He joined Xingqiu in the tussle against the bed. “We have a hunt of our own, remember? The whole reason we came out here? Plus, we would have to keep paying for this room somehow and I don’t have the kind of money to keep you here when I leave.”
Xingqiu stood by his side, silent. Chongyun hated when he was this quiet. He dared to look up to the other, and Xingqiu wore an expression Chongyun had never had directed at him before. He could barely categorize it, but it looked close to… betrayal.
“You would leave me here?”
No! Not at all! How were his words getting so misconstrued? “I meant that I can’t leave you here, not that I want to! I thought you didn’t want to go outside?” He asked, searching for the usual cues he took off on Xingqiu. He received nothing.
“Chongyun. You cannot be serious.” Xingqiu said. Chongyun was, as always, serious.
Chongyun tried yet again to reach out to Xingqiu, but this time he turned away on purpose. “I don’t understand what you want right now,” He tried to explain. Xingqiu threw his hands into the air in frustration.
“Well I do not want to see my brother! Is that good enough for you?”
“I know what you don’t want, I just don’t know what you want, Xingqiu,” Chongyun explained. Conversations with Xingqiu weren’t usually this hard for him to navigate. This was turning into unknown social territory. “I don’t have any solutions that let you avoid your brother indefinitely other than staying here. I don’t want you to feel uneasy, so that’s what I thought you wanted.” There.
“That is absolutely not what I want.” Xingqiu mumbled, turning even further away from Chongyun. He was trying to button his coat, but his fingers were shaking enough that he wasn’t doing a very good job. Why were his fingers shaking?
“What do you want? I’m trying to help you!” Chongyun reached for his hands.
“Then I hope you know that you are not helping at all.” Xingqiu pushed them away.
Chongyun sat down on the bed with a sigh. This was getting exhausting. “I’m trying to understand how you feel about all this-”
“You are failing spectacularly.”
Now it was Chongyun’s turn to throw up his hands. “You are not letting me understand!”
“I do not understand why my words are not making it through that thick head of yours!” Xingqiu snapped, volume raised. He finally turned to face Chongyun and he looked… scared. “I am worried about what my brother will do to me when he finds me! These sorts of things never go well for me, and you know that! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, but I do not want to be left on my own! I cannot even believe that you would leave me here!”
“I don’t want to leave you here! I misunderstood!” Chongyun insisted. He started rubbing his temples to try and calm himself down with repetitive motion. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what I can do to make things better!”
Xingqiu gave up on his coat buttons in defeat. “I don’t want solutions. I just want you to help me. Support me,” He sighed. “You make me feel safe. I don’t need you to solve this, it’s bigger than you.”
“Even if it is, I want to help you.” Chongyun reached out, finishing the last few buttons for him.
Xingqiu waved his hand in dismissal. “It is… a family thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
Chongyun’s hands dropped. “... Oh.”
Now it was Xingqiu who hated the silence.
“I did not- oh Gods, I did not mean it like that, ‘Yun.” He started to backtrack, but it was too late. Xingqiu had never spoken about his family life like that. Chongyun stood, eyes on the floor.
“You’re right. I don’t understand.” He said. “We should go.”
Xingqiu kept trying to revise what he said, stuttering over what might best amend his misunderstanding, but Chongyun had already made up his mind. If Xingqiu knew he couldn’t grasp his troubles after all they’ve been through, maybe Chongyun never would.
“I am sorry, Chongyun, I-”
“It’s fine.”
Chongyun didn’t even bother changing into new clothes. He simply threw on his white jacket and gathered his things back into his bag unceremoniously. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Xingqiu did the same, keeping his face out of Chongyun’s view. Every time he tried to catch a glimpse into his gold eyes, Xingqiu darted away. He was moving like a frightened cat, as if one wrong move from Chongyun would bring out claws.
Xingqiu didn’t even bother to look behind him as he scooped up the room key into his hand. “Check the room. I’m leaving.” He mumbled.
Kisses don’t make everything perfect. Chongyun was still his cold, confused self. He could still never understand the complexities of Xingqiu’s life, no matter how badly he wished to fix everything that the other was struggling with. He had watched Xingqiu go through lifetimes of different experiences that Chongyun hadn’t even bothered to ask about. Maybe that’s the problem. He didn’t know what Xingqiu really needed because he simply couldn't understand.
“... I’ll wait for you, Chongyun.”
It was only after Xingqiu had closed the door that Chongyun realized that the other had been crying. Even more surprising was the fact that Chongyun was tearing up too.