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Mu Qing doesn’t have bad luck. He doesn’t necessarily have good luck either, but he thinks he’s somewhere in the middle. Throughout his life, there have been ups and downs, but he’s worked and earned what he has. His struggle paved a jagged and narrow path made of rocks, quicksand, and eventually smooth cement. Because of it, he’s an ascended martial god. Even if bad luck plagues him, he’s experienced it enough to tackle the obstacle and keep his position in the heavens.
Except his skin tingles uncomfortably— pleasantly —at the thought of Feng Xin, and that feeling is, in every sense of the words, bad luck.
For years, the two pesky generals been head-to-head. Competition is inevitable when they’re simply at opposite ends of a room. Little between them is agreed and the urgency to fight one another conquers every logical idea in their brain. On the surface, they only have one thing in common: concern for Xie Lian’s well-being. Now, it’s not their utmost concern. In fact, if it was their utmost concern, the Ghost King would ensure they found some other thing to worry about. Xie Lian’s well-being is Hua Cheng’s concern first and foremost.
Doesn’t matter. Feng Xin and Mu Qing have one other thing in common and it’s that, though Hua Cheng helped get them out of Mount Tonglu and brings Xie Lian irrevocable joy, they hate him.
Hate. Something Mu Qing has felt for eight hundred years. Hate, not for Hua Cheng, but for Feng Xin. Hate was a thread that stemmed from his bones, developed and hardened as Mu Qing lived another dreadful year of his life. Overtime, it thickened and became residual anger. Residual anger ran like a vein in his skin, piercing right into his heart and pumping at speeds unknown to man. Then one day the thread snapped. Everything curled into each other and became so entwined in his heart that it turned into a knot. So twisted and taut that he could barely breathe around the reason why it was left as such.
That knot does not feel hate. That knot does not feel anger.
That knot feels confusion and a little bit of something else the more he hangs around a certain archer.
Alone in his palace, the thoughts rage war in Mu Qing’s head. If they were to come to life, the place would be ravaged and burned, but his thoughts are stuck in the confines of his brain. For better or worse, it is there where everything turns to ash.
A knock comes to his door. The thread tightens, knowing who’s behind the door. Mu Qing still lets him in. Deep inside, he always wants to see him. Someday he’ll admit it to himself.
Feng Xin strides in, heavenly light haloing around his broad figure, reflecting elegantly over his golden armor. Black hair is pinned back into a bun, as it always is. Confidence exudes with every step, quaking the ground beneath. His eyes do not meet Mu Qing’s, not until they’re only a few meters away from each other.
What is it about Feng Xin that makes his mind blank every now and then? It can’t be the sharpness of his jawline, the serrated edge so tempting yet so dangerous. It can’t be the way his eyes narrow at Mu Qing, fiery but searching for something beyond the warm irises. It can’t be the slender neck that juts veins when he’s mad, or the absolute preciseness of each arrow shot from trained and delicate fingers, or the disgustingly beautiful smirk on his lips when he’s proven right.
No. No, it’s just Feng Xin. It’s just Feng Xin and his unnecessary presence in Mu Qing’s palace, where no one but the two breathes the same air.
“Xie Lian says he needs our help,” he relays. His arms are crossed over his chest, as if affronted by simply being in his palace. “We should go to him at once.”
At the mention of Xie Lian, Mu Qing regains his train of thought. Whatever he needs, Mu Qing does his best appease, guilt still heavy from all those years ago. He’s doing his best to make it up to him.
“If he needs us, then he would have notified us both, not just you.”
Feng Xin huffs. “Well, he didn’t. He only told me.”
That’s rare. Usually, if Xie Lian needs something, he doesn’t even go to his generals. He has a husband ready to risk his life for him and sweep the floor if he dares to ask. When he does need Mu Qing and Feng Xin, he contacts them simultaneously through the spiritual communication array. Xie Lian is a simple man, he’d rather fill two needs with one deed.
“I don’t believe you,” Mu Qing confesses. Feng Xing is taken aback, fixing his posture. “Did you see him on your own?”
“What does that matter?”
“Just what would you need to see Xie Lian about?”
Feng Xin fumes. It’s an annoyingly attractive scene (secretly, Mu Qing loves when he gets mad). In response, Mu Qing’s blood boils with pleasure.
“That’s none of your concern, Mu Qing,” Feng Xin grits through his teeth. “Stop asking me questions. The Royal Highness needs our help. Are you going to sit here in your lonesome palace or are you going to go with me?”
“I don’t think you’re telling me the truth, so no, I won’t be going with you.”
Feng Xin is noticeably angrier and it gives Mu Qing a satisfying sense of pride. Pride over the fact that he’s made his rival feel something towards him, as his fiery temper tends to do. If it results in a fight, then he’s ready to win. Eight hundred years of training with Feng Xin, the two walking a tightrope over the depths of their true emotions that cave deeper every time they balance above.
“I have no reason to lie, Mu Qing.” The way he says Mu Qing—a tinge of frustration, a tinge of hinderance—could dull or heighten his senses in any other situation.
Mu Qing takes a step forward to get real in his face, make him boil the way he is right now. “Then tell me the truth.”
“I am telling the truth!”
“Why did you go see Xie Lian?”
At his sides, Feng Xin clenches his fists into bundles of fury. Mu Qing would love to get angry, would love to throw the next punch and argue until the heavens turned into hell, but that knot in his chest refuses to feel so. Mu Qing feels the fringes of angry, but not because of Feng Xin’s existence or his personality or his grudgeful stubbornness. It’s because Feng Xin is holding something back from him and Mu Qing thought they were past that.
“I needed to get something off my chest!” Feng Xin surprisingly breaks. Tense shoulders loosen into a hunch and he closes his eyes tight, tight tight. “I needed to get something off my chest, so I went to him.”
There’s no reason for emptiness to fill Mu Qing to the brim. There’s no reason for him to be upset that Feng Xin went to see Xie Lian without him. There’s no reason for his chest to tighten again but ache differently.
Yet, Mu Qing has never been too good at showing how he truly feels, so he says rather indignantly, “You descended just for that?”
Feng Xin shoots arrows with his glare. For once, Mu Qing doesn’t mean for him to react as such.
“You could have...You could have told me,” Mu Qing says, and with it, the knot loosens the slightest.
“I couldn’t have told you,” Feng Xin scoffs, avoiding his gaze. “You’d just make me angry all over again.”
“No I wouldn’t!” Mu Qing gets defensive, scowl nearly erupting on his face. “Do you think I’m that antagonizing? You can confide in me, Feng Xin.”
“I cannot because every time we speak, a fight breaks out! I’m sick and tired of it!” Feng Xin throws his arms into the air, increasingly annoyed, then he holds his head in his hands. Mu Qing dares to reach out but he knows better.
And Mu Qing has nicer things to say, has words that could quell the situation into one with much less outrage and vexing, but he’s been wired to react despite it. No word Feng Xin spits from his mouth could unravel that knot that’s slowly killing Mu Qing, and no word Mu Qing spits from his mouth could save his poor heart from his denial.
“If you had to go to Xie Lian because you were so afraid to fight me, then you’re not worthy of your place in the heavens.”
Those words, however, could sting like dry ice on skin. Mu Qing witnesses Feng Xin take them to heart. A piece of Mu Qing shatters at his expression: shock, offended and gashed. All things he’s made him feel before, no doubt, but not in this context, where Mu Qing has asked him to be vulnerable. Not with the two of them alone with their sentiments.
Mu Qing regrets it as hostility builds in Feng Xin.
“You don’t think I’m worthy?” he asks with heavy breaths, each taken after a couple of words. Then, he explodes. “If me not confiding in you makes me unworthy, then you not confiding in me makes you unworthy! I’m not afraid to fight, you’re afraid to fight!”
Without a second guess, Mu Qing grabs at Feng Xin’s robes, pulling him close. In the back of his mind, faded from the intensity, he takes note of his earthly smell. “I am not afraid.”
“Then tell me something!” Warm breath fans over Mu Qing. “Right now!”
His hold on Feng Xin secures. There’s so much to tell him. So much, but he doesn’t know where to stop and where to end. That confusion and that “something else”—he knows what it is, he constantly invalidates what it is, but there’s no way of getting rid of it.
Mu Qing grew up from scraps and made it as a servant to the royal family of Xian Le. He found himself a talent. He could wield a sword nearly as masterfully as the crown prince and he was still capable of stitching back together the tiniest hole found in any fabric. In time, he moved up, and eventually he felt self-assured. Nothing in all three realms could revert him to being the timid version of his past.
Nothing except the way his heart skips a beat when Feng Xin hides a sincere smile from the world. Nothing except the desire to end this feud between them, but being too accustomed to the rhythm that comes with it.
“I HATE FIGHTING WITH YOU!” Mu Qing confesses loud and clear, pushing him away from his personal space as he does so. Every nerve in his body makes his eyes look anywhere but towards Feng Xin. “I hate—I hate fighting you because I’m convinced I hate you. I don’t hate you. I don’t even want to be your enemy, I—I really do think of you as my...my f-f-friend.”
Friend doesn’t seem like the right word, even as it rolls off his tongue in embarrassing stutters. The weight of the word friend barely holds a candle to what he actually means. Mu Qing can’t bring himself to say it though. The knot doesn’t tighten or loosen, it just stays put in his chest. Therefore this feeling is more than whatever friends entails.
“I don’t think of us as enemies.” Feng Xin sighs. “I don’t think of us as friends either.”
Rejection is such a common thing between them. They’ve rejected each other’s ideas for centuries, rejected each other’s fighting style, rejected every which thing that could possibly be. But a butterfly fluttered hope in Mu Qing’s stomach. For once, he wanted at least a semblance of acceptance.
Mu Qing was never afraid to fight Feng Xin. What he was afraid of was rejection. Yet he was expecting it because it’s so ingrained in their relationship, planted seeds and grew thorns that reached past the heavens. If they’re not enemies or friends, then there’s nothing left to be.
However, Mu Qing cannot keep quiet. His chest feels like it’ll burst any second, so with tears held back from all the pain, he yells, “Then what is it, Fengxin? What is it about me that aggravates you so much to not even consider me your friend? What is it that you want from me!?”
“I WANT TO BE SOMETHING MORE!”
Lightning strikes. War comes to a halt in Mu Qing’s mind and the beating of his heart stutters for a second. More noticeably, the knot begins to untie.
Feng Xin looks wiped out. Either he can’t believe the words came out of his mouth or he’s taken out by Mu Qing’s stunned expression. Regardless, he marches back up to Mu Qing, close enough so that all he can see when he tilts his chin down is the nervous shine to Mu Qing’s eyes. Feng Xin’s chestnut brows are furrowed and he has to hold back every urge to smooth them out with his fingertips.
“I get this feeling around you that makes me equal times angry,” Feng Xin grunts out, then finds himself softening, “and equal times wanting. I tried to find ways to ways to hate you but I can’t.”
Mu Qing keeps his face neutral. Their eyes stay trained on each other—Feng Xin’s expectant, Mu Qing’s craving—until Mu Qing glances down at his lips and keeps them there. Pale pink. Plump. Outline a shade darker than his skin and all so empty, like maybe it’s missing something.
“Why are you staring at me.”
Mu Qing gulps. “I’m not staring at you.”
“Then tell something to me.”
That’s the thing. There’s plenty of things to tell Feng Xin, one being that he feels the same. Mu Qing has searched far and wide for reasons to hate Feng Xin and has failed time after time. Want and anger flare up inside and he’s been confused about it, but only because he didn’t want to face reality. What good would it be to have feelings for his rival, his maybe friend, if they were just going to fight about it?
Except, the feeling is mutual, and Mu Qing never thought this far ahead. Words fail him at a time they so desperately need to be on his side.
“Tell me what you want,” Feng Xin whispers aggressively, huskily. “Get it off your chest.”
Mu Qing still hasn’t come up with any words, but he knows what he wants. Actions do better than words and he would love to get it out of his chest.
He takes a grab at Feng Xin’s robes again and closes the space between their lips. It doesn’t feel particularly nice. Their lips are smashed between each other for the first few seconds, but they’ve both never been very patient in general. Feng Xin finds his way past his lips, hungry and forceful, and takes what’s his.
The knot in Mu Qing’s chest unravels and is replaced by a wildfire. It burns past the hollow cavern and sets aflame his intuition and spirit, encouraging his initiation to higher levels.
Mu Qing pulls him impossibly closer. Faintly, he hears the sound of fabric tearing, but it’s deafened by the small moan he elicits from a fierce pull of his hair. Feng Xin walks them back, lips never leaving his, until Mu Qing’s back hits the palace wall, force of it all echoing through the hall.
In all eight hundred or so years, Mu Qing has never felt a heat so intense. And, like he does with all things, he wants to challenge it.
With every bit of energy left in him, Mu Qing fights to take control of the kiss. He bites where he can, soothes it over with his tongue, scrape his teeth where it feels right, all so he can make Feng Xin succumb to him. Feng Xin tugs at his hair again so that their lips separate.
Everything about him makes Mu Qing want to devour him. Hooded eyes glaring at him with need rather than want, lips moist with spit and painted cherry red, heaving chest still trying to catch a breath—all things Mu Qing managed to do, and for fuck’s sake, there’s never been a prettier picture painted before him.
“Don’t make this a competition,” Feng Xin mutters, inching closer until his breath tickles Mu Qing’s ear. “We’re equals for now.”
A light kiss lingers over the film of sweat below his ear lobe, then another one follows, and another, and another until he sucks on the juncture of his neck. Naturally, Mu Qing’s hands unclench around Feng Xin’s robes and roam up, past his shoulders and into his tied back hair, pressing him deeper into his skin.
Mu Qing no longer holds back the thoughts. No longer denies his feelings. Mu Qing loves this, Mu Qing loves him.
One day, he’ll tell him. One day, they’ll string together. “I love you.” No, “I love you, Feng Xin.”
But first, they’ll get this out of their system.
One loud knock reverberates through the palace halls, making Mu Qing’s eyes snap open and Feng Xin’s tongue freeze. Then, two softer knocks follow.
“Uh, Mu Qing?” a hesitant voice none other than Xie Lian’s says. “Did Feng Xin come by and tell you I needed your help?”
Feng Xin raises his head, licking his lips and smirking devilishly at Mu Qing. He could smack it off it he knew it wouldn’t turn the both of them on.
“Told you I wasn’t lying,” he whispers slyly.
“Mu Qing?” Xie Lian repeats, knocking harshly again, except this time the door opens.
Mu Qing did not allow the door to open. Feng Xin must have not closed it entirely.
In a quick instant, the two push away from each other, smoothing down their robes and trying to look as pristine as usual. Yet, it doesn’t fool Xie Lian. His jaw drops at the sight of both his generals disheveled, clearly from messing around with each other. Feng Xin wipes his lips as Mu Qing tries to fix his hair.
“Well!” Xie Lian claps his hands together and purses his lips. His voice sounds a key higher. “Um. Oh! San Lang, you see, he’s off doing business in the Ghost City, and I wanted to be...uh…”—Xie Lian points his hands at Mu Qing and Feng Xin, then unclasps them, as if he’s presenting them to someone—” adventurous, and thought I could bake. It did not turn out well, and now Puji Shrine’s roof has caved in. For the first time. Like. Well! You two look busy, so—”
“We’re not busy!” Mu Qing assures, straightening his shoulders.
Feng Xin scoffs. “We’re kind of bu—”
“WE’RE NOT BUSY!”
“Ahaha okay!” Xie Lian laughs nervously, walking backwards to the exit. “Just! You know! Come help me whenever you can! Preferably today because I’d like to sleep under a roof but honestly whenev—”
Just as he’s past the threshold, Mu Qing slams the palace door shut. The generals look at each other, desire from before not having faded, but definitely grown more muted. Mu Qing’s hair falls from the band he awfully tied, sticking against the back of his neck. He kneels down to pick up the band. Feng Xin walks back up to him as he gets up, then snatches the ink black band from his fingers.
“Allow me,” he says, moving behind him to gather his hair. Mu Qing lets him, knowing he could do so himself, but acknowledging Feng Xin is probably better at it then he ever will be. Nothing wrong with making him do a few things for him either.
Calloused fingers run up the nape of his neck and fold themselves in his strands. Mu Qing shudders.
“When should we go to Puji Shrine?” Mu Qing asks to get his mind off the current situation.
“Later.”
“We should go now.”
“We’re busy.”
“We are not busy.”
“We’re busy!”
Mu Qing rolls his eyes and turns around to face him, taking a hold of his robes once again and pulling him down. “We’re not busy.”
Feng Xin grins. This time, it threatens to make Mu Qing smile back. There’s a lightness to the way his lips flick up—it’s as rare as it gets, but Mu Qing gets to witness it. Something tells him he’ll get to see it more often than ever and it reminds him that there’s the heaven they live in, then there’s the heaven between them. It’s there that he’ll share his smile with Feng Xin too, but not today. It’ll happen some day, in the future, when he confesses once again, but with his words.
“Make us busy, Feng Xin.”