Chapter Text
I am finished with nine hundred and three paper cranes. If the luck that comes with getting your wish granted is proportional to the number of cranes you fold, I’d say that my chances are rather high. It’s not a thousand, but I think nine hundred and three should be sufficient to show my dedication.
Tomorrow, I will try to persuade Father to let me go out of the palace. It seems like such a fascinating world out there and it seems like such a pity that while they are just a stone’s throw away from me, I have never seen such wonders myself.
I can hardly sleep from excitement.
That is the last entry in the book, and Chongyun gently closes the cover and places it in his lap. Qiu, or rather, Xingqiu now, emulates his posture and is sitting cross-legged on the floor across from him, eyes looking expectantly into his own. Chongyun has seen this pair of eyes more often in the recent days that he could possibly count, but after being granted knowledge of Xingqiu’s story, this apparition appears more like a mystery to him. He had found out his history, yet he has a feeling that he now knew even less than he started out with, and even as the story makes Xingqiu a little more human, his figure appears to Chongyun as being a little more faded than it once was. Their eyes meet and Chongyun cannot seem to pry his gaze away, and with that comes the sensation of being sucked into a golden whirlpool, ears muffled as if underwater.
“Does that mean that the current emperor is…” Chongyun begins, but trails off out of uncertainty. He had never really known when something was a sensitive topic.
Yes. But I hold no resentment towards him, if that is what you are asking.
Xingqiu’s voice brings Chongyun’s thoughts back to the task at hand. The very reason he is currently sitting on a dusty wooden floor with a high-levelled spirit is so that he can exorcise him, and to do that they need to find out what it is that Xingqiu needs to finish in the mortal realm. Right. Although Chongyun finds himself to be pretty on-task most of the time, it hadn’t once occurred to him that this scenario had been strange at all: two friends having a nice little heart-to-heart…
Are they friends? Is this a purely transactional relationship? Oh no, calling it that makes them sound like something else they’re not, nope, not that either—
Personally I believe we are friends, unless you feel strongly otherwise. Albeit with certain benefits, if you will.
“What?”
Presumably, that makes us friends with benefits.
Chongyun feels something wash very uncomfortably over his face. Perhaps it is his own blood rushing all over his cheeks.
“No, I’m pretty sure we are not...that.”
Due to the terms of our agreement I am quite sure that this is a mutually advantageous relationship. Unless it is not that part you disagree with?
There is a stilted pause.
I apologise. I may have overstepped my boundaries.
“No, no, it’s not that,” Chongyun panics and flaps his hands around his face. “We are friends! It’s just that we don’t exactly call it...whatever you just said we were, because—”
Friends with benefits?
Chongyun screams. His ears are so hot they feel like they just might fall off any second. Xingqiu giggles at his expense and it sounds like bells. To think that when this is all over...no, it would not do well to depress himself. “Don’t think this means that you can get out of apologising. Let’s go,” Chongyun stands and dusts his pants off. Sighing, Xingqiu floats after him as they leave the library and make their way towards the servants’ quarters. Evening has settled over the palace grounds, so by the time they reach their destination, the air is of a comfortable temperature.
How do you propose I apologise to them? They cannot see me, if you haven’t realised.
Chongyun, as a matter of fact, had not realised.
“I guess I could act as your translator?”
Why don’t you just apologise on my behalf then?
“No, that won’t do. You need to show some sincerity!” Xingqiu huffs and crosses his arms, but otherwise makes no other comment. Chongyun knocks on the door and a familiar face comes out to greet him.
“Chongyun! Ah, no, I mean, Young Master Chongyun…” a servant girl stutters as she answers the door. Xiaowan, Chongyun believes her name is. She had been the girl who had had her love letter stolen by Xingqiu.
“There’s no need to be so formal. Just call me Chongyun,” he laughs, albeit a little awkwardly, then looks up at the space in the air where Xingqiu supposedly is hovering. “C’mon, say something.”
Oh, it’s her.
“Why do you sound so grumpy? You’ve done her wrong and you still have the cheek to be so rude?” To poor Xiaowan, Chongyun seems to be frowning and scolding the air above him.
I will not apologise to her! I do not feel remorse for what I did!
Xingqiu is whizzing crazily in the air, possibly out of anger, or possibly even out of mirth from teasing Chongyun. “Xingqiu!” Chongyun exclaims, reaching a hand out to grab at him, before belatedly realising that he can’t possibly grab hold of a spirit. He turns to Xiaowan, whose eyes are wide with confusion, and laughs even more awkwardly than the first time. “Ah....how should I say this…”
“Are you here to speak to me about the letter?” she asks, head bowed slightly and her cheeks tinged pink. Chongyun stops in surprise. She is certainly rather intuitive.
“Yes...this might sound ridiculous but you’ve got to believe me…” Chongyun begins, his neck beginning to flush out of embarrassment. Why does Xingqiu have to be the sort of spirit that cannot be seen? It would have helped a lot if he were here...speaking of which, the spirit seems to be completely absent from this conversation. Chongyun sighs.
“Don’t worry, I can accept it...I can accept whatever you tell me,” Xiaowan mumbles, still refusing to meet Chongyun’s gaze. This girl is surely extremely receptive. Not many people he has encountered are so open to the intricacies of exorcism and not always being able to see the spirits he talks about. As he ponders about how he’s going to tell the whole story to her, the silence seems to be making her uneasy, judging from how she shifts her weight from one foot to the other and leans slightly onto the doorframe.
“If you’re going to reject me, please make it quick,” Xiaowan suddenly mutters, concentrating intensely on a pebble lying in the dirt next to their feet.
“Long story short, your love letter was stolen by a ghost and passed to me and I swear I never read it if that’s what you’re worried about, and the ghost, I had brought him here to say sorry to you but he ran off? Floated off? So I’m here to say sorry on his behalf—” Chongyun rushes out at the same time, having gathered his wits and courage sufficiently to spill the entire story.
They share a moment of mutual confusion, before Xiaowan breaks the silence. “What?”
“What?” Chongyun echoes charmingly.
“Ghost?”
“Reject you? What do I have to reject about you?”
Xiaowan suddenly turns a very violent shade of red. “Oh, you never read the letter...never mind then,” she begins to turn away from him and makes a motion to close the door.
“Sorry,” Chongyun says. “For, uh, your letter getting stolen.”
“It’s okay,” Xiaowan replies. “See you around.”
Chongyun waves until the door slams in his face.
You are so stupid.
“Oh, so now you decide it’s a good time to come back?” Chongyun spits out at Xingqiu, who has recently materialised in the air above him, a smug expression on his face.
She accepted your apology, didn’t she?
“Yes, but it was supposed to be your apology, not mine!”
I’m sure you too had something to say to her, regardless of whether you were aware of this or not. Evidently, you were not.
“What is it with you and your mysteries?” Chongyun grumbles, shaking a fist at Xingqiu, who dodges it gracefully. As Xingqiu floats away and he follows, Chongyun can’t help feeling some sort of liberation. Nobody but him can see Xingqiu, and that pleases him somehow, knowing that the little spirit is a truth only he knows and can ever know. When he leaves, will there be anyone else to remember him? And even then, Chongyun is human, and he’ll leave his memories behind one day too. Maybe he can enjoy this time just for a bit longer, he’ll allow that for himself, he thinks and ignores the slight ache in his chest.
“Hey, can spirits eat?” Chongyun ponders out loud.
I doubt so.
Xingqiu puts a piece of bun in his mouth, but as he closes his lips around it, it drops through his body and onto the floor.
Nope.
Chongyun laughs as Xingqiu pouts at not being able to even taste the bun, it had fallen so quickly. “That’s too bad then. There’s going to be a festival tonight, and if you could eat or at least taste the food then I was thinking of bringing you there.”
A festival? I’m not sure if I can even leave these palace walls, I have never tried.
Chongyun takes a moment to think. “I could temporarily seal you inside something and let you come out after we’ve crossed the palace boundary, I think.” Xingqiu’s eyes light up with a fiercer glow then, and he whizzes around as he has recently become prone to do.
Let’s go. Now.
“Now? Xingqiu, it’s ten in the morning, they probably haven’t set anything up yet.” Chongyun chides gently, but lets the amusement and affection ( mild affection, mind you) leak into his voice.
I want to go now.
Chongyun laughs.
When the sky dims, he takes out an empty jar and gestures for Xingqiu to enter. With a gentle brush of air, Xingqiu zips into the jar and Chongyun closes the lid.
It smells.
“Sorry about that,” Chongyun puts the jar in his bag and sets off for the main street, where strings of lanterns are already hung above. “I could only find one that previously stored pickled cabbage.”
I shall bear this disrespect for only as long as it takes to get to the festival.
Chongyun attempts to appease him by saying that it’s unlikely that ghosts have body odour (“Just think about it,” he says, “you don’t even have a body to stink.”) as they make their way out of the palace gates and to the main street, where stalls already line the sides of the cobbled road and lanterns light the scene in varying shades of orange and yellow. Chongyun takes the jar out of his bag and removes the lid, only to see Xingqiu zoom out into the air and disappear.
“Wait, Xingqiu, don’t go where I can’t see you!” Chongyun is an only child, and it’s especially during times like this that he is grateful for the fact that he has no younger siblings. Xingqiu is more than enough. Funny how he should think of Xingqiu as a permanent installation in his life . After a few moments, Xingqiu emerges in front of him again. His form seems to be quivering slightly, the edges blurring in and out of the background.
It’s so bright!
Chongyun stifles the urge to grin. Bright, it certainly is, though part of him is convinced it’s not entirely because of the lights. In front of him, Xingqiu whizzes to hover curiously above every stall, and it is all Chongyun can do to sprint after him so as to not lose sight of him.
Chongyun, this is much prettier than the palace ever was. The people here are loud but their smiles are big. Their clothes are rough but their skin is warm.
“You’ve been wanting to come to a place like this, haven’t you?” For some reason, Chongyun feels strangely proud of being the one who had brought Xingqiu here. The way his eyes shine that much brighter and his form seems to glitter around the edges is beautiful, and it looks like happiness. It looks like freedom.
It appears that one does not require a thousand paper cranes for their wishes to come true.
Chongyun chuckles. “That’s really just a fun story they tell kids to keep them busy and distracted.” Xingqiu frowns and turns his back on Chongyun.
That is extremely narrow-minded of you. He pauses for a moment, visibly deep in thought. Oh, but I seem to recall having another wish that is yet unfulfilled. Perhaps one does require one thousand cranes after all.
“What is it?”
Xingqiu looks at Chongyun like the answer is on the tip of his tongue, and there is an inexplicable look in his eye.
Never mind. It is a small wish.
Chongyun senses the tension and decides not to pry further. Xingqiu floats off a little bit ahead and does not reply. If Xingqiu’s final wish were granted, would he lose his tether to the mortal world immediately? Plus, it’s such a small wish, what happens if it gets fulfilled in the next moment? The next second?
Chongyun is an exorcist, but before that he is a boy. He looks up to see Xingqiu’s back, the now-familiar slope of his shoulders, the gleam in his hair. This feels too much like farewell, and Chongyun has never been someone to simply let fate toss him about.
Look, they put the fish on sticks.
Chongyun feels a feeble tug on his sleeve and looks up to see Xingqiu pointing at the grilled tiger fish skewers being sold off of a tray at one of the stalls. “Well, if you could eat, I’d get one for you to try.”
Get one anyway.
“You are so demanding,” Chongyun grumbles as he fishes around in his bag for his money. He lets Xingqiu have the pleasure of holding it as he pays, watching as his eyes focus on the wisps of smoke that waft from the fish. In a final valiant attempt, Xingqiu nibbles at the fish but to no avail.
“Since you were so determined to make me buy it, you can have fun watching me eat it then,” Chongyun smirks, taking the skewer from Xingqiu and biting into it heartily. The poor spirit gazes at him, eyes filled with some sort of longing. He must really want to taste it.
It is at this ill-timed moment that there is a pang in Chongyun’s chest. The idea that Xingqiu’s last tether to this world, to him, is an extremely simple wish continues to haunt him, and it stays stubbornly on his mind till the fish begins to taste like leather in his mouth. He made a promise to Xingqiu to help him ascend, what kind of cowardly behaviour is he exhibiting now? Xingqiu is still staring at his mouth as he chews, and somehow that is how Chongyun makes his decision.
“I thought of a way to let you taste the food. No promises about being able to eat it though,” Chongyun ventures, his heart hammering crazily in his ribcage as he peers at Xingqiu. The spirit’s eyes flick back to meet his gaze in an instant, almost sheepish in its action, and Xingqiu seems to take a moment to register what Chongyun had just said.
Oh! Yes, I would love to try it.
Before his brain can catch up with his body, Chongyun gives the reins to the adrenaline coursing through his veins and surges forward, warm lips meeting cold ones and causing an inferno that lasts the space between one second and the next.
It feels like an eternity and a breath next when he pulls away. Xingqiu is frozen in mid-air, eyes wide in shock before his expression morphs to one of horror. “Crap, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” Chongyun stutters, a red flush creeping up his neck and spreading through his cheeks. He is grown now, but the urge to bawl his eyes out grows stronger as he replays the split second of fear that had washed over Xingqiu’s face. He closes his eyes tightly and tilts his head away, giving the spirit time and space to do whatever he wants. Maybe he wants to flee. Maybe he wants to retch. It’s all okay.
Then, he feels cold fingers grasp the sides of his face, cupping it gently, and it feels like a cool shower. He opens his eyes, only for his gaze to meet a golden one, the brightest one he’s ever seen, and it all melts into lava as the same pair of cold lips touch his.
Hmm, it tastes good.
A tongue flicks inquisitively at Chongyun’s lips. The involuntary shudder he lets out loosens them, and the kiss deepens. Chongyun feels like his knees are about to buckle under him, so he reluctantly tears himself away to gasp for air. His brain is nothing but mush, and his vision is so blurry that he can no longer make out Xingqiu’s face.
Except that even after he rubs his eyes, Xingqiu’s form remains vague and cloudy, and the only thing Chongyun can still make out is his eyes. “Wait, what’s going on? Are you allergic or something? Can you even get allergic? You’re dead!” he laughs, but the worry creeps even faster up his spine when Xingqiu does not reply. He only smiles, and Chongyun wants to cry when he realises he can no longer see it.
I really wanted to stay. But...I promised you.
It’s only then that Chongyun realises. The last wish, the final tether…
You are truly the best exorcist the world has ever seen. I never even saw it coming.
“No, I didn’t mean to do that, I didn’t know—” Chongyun feels like his legs are filled with lead, but he steps forward instinctively, lips still tingling with his crime, stretching out his arms as if to hold Xingqiu together, hold him close.
Xingqiu looks at him like he wants to continue speaking, but his form is already so scattered that it looks impossible for him to continue. Only his eyes, molten gold, bear deep into Chongyun’s soul and fill with tears.
“Xingqiu, can’t you stay?” Chongyun feels his own chest squeeze and his eyes burn. “Is this all you want? Think of something else you want, quickly, then we can use that—”
Two boys whisper under a blanket. “I’ll make sure you get everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“Xingqiu, Xingqiu,” Chongyun whispers, reverent as if to carve the sound of his name onto his tongue, to memorise the way it curls sweetly around his teeth. Who else would?
The candle goes out and it is hard to tell where one of them ends and the other begins.
When he leaves, the air goes stale, as if the only life it had ever been given had left along with him. The seventh prince now lives solely in Chongyun’s memories, and Xingqiu lives solely in Chongyun’s heart, but when he opens his eyes and sees nothing, feels nothing, it is hard to believe that the ache in his chest had been for something real.
But his faith is real, so he sits himself on the dusty ground and takes out one of his talismans. He nimbly works his fingers into making creases and pressing folds into the paper until he forms a crane. I love you , he tries to say to the paper crane, but the words only sound in his mind and get stuck in his throat. He settles for writing the words on its wing instead, and when it’s done he kisses it and sets it on the ground.
He makes one that says come back , one that says I miss you , another that says I’m sorry . Then, he gathers all of them and places them gingerly in his bag, so that they don’t get wrinkled, wipes his tears, and heads back to the palace.
The price of the time he had spent with Xingqiu is about a hundred gold taels. That is also the amount that gets recorded under his name, for a royal service he had done for the palace. The emperor himself thanks Chongyun for his work and praises him; even writes him a letter of recommendation that will see him no shortage of commissions for the rest of his career. But the paper that the letter is written on is coarse, and he inevitably thinks of the way paper cranes learn to fly under his fingers. Their paper feathers are soft, but Chongyun knows all too well that their wings are anything but brittle.
Chongyun returns home to raucous cheer and celebration. His father slaps him on the back so hard he can feel the breath shoot out of his lungs and his father laughs hard and proud. However, Chongyun can’t seem to bring himself to show a smile that shows his teeth, let alone reach his eyes, so he tells everyone that he’s tired and retires to his room.
Dear Xingqiu, he begins, the nib of his pen lingering slightly on the curls of his name. I wish I could see you again. It’s a simple letter, more of a note actually, but the care Chongyun takes in penning each stroke makes its sincerity almost immeasurable. With practised fingers, he takes the edges of the paper and folds them inwards, and in a matter of moments he has a charming paper crane in his hands.
Dear Xingqiu, I wish I were not selfish.
Dear Xingqiu, I wish you had chosen to break your promise.
Dear Xingqiu, I wish you knew that I love you.
Chongyun makes a trip to Qingyun Peak every week just before the sun rises. When the time comes for the sun to peek over the horizon, he gently releases his multitudes of paper cranes into the oncoming breeze, solemnly watching as they drift off, some moving upwards till the clouds cover their wings, some floating down to land in a puddle, on a rock, or some earthly abode. Today, when he climbs up the mountain, he carries up to his nine-hundredth paper crane and when he watches it fly, all he can feel is a sharp yearning and a sharper determination. He had once called such belief childish, but now he understands that in the face of no other alternative, no other hope, such belief is one’s tether to the mortal plane.
When he releases his thousandth paper crane, he likes to think that his wish came true.