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“You can stop lurking now. There’s nobody else here.”
He Xuan freezes where he stands. Though not far from the beating heart of the royal capital, lanterns in this part of the city are scarce and cheaply made, doing very little to illuminate the shadows that cling to the old temple. He Xuan had counted on them to conceal his presence; he’d forgotten to account for Shi Qingxuan’s unparalleled ability to be a thorn in his side.
He Xuan briefly considers simply disappearing, out of spite or self-loathing or – something else. Something that he has yet to give name to, coiling uneasily in his gut whenever he thinks about Shi Qingxuan, uncomfortably close to fear.
He steps out of the shadows.
Though Shi Qingxuan does not look up, He Xuan can’t possibly miss the flicker of amusement dimpling their profile. Too late, he realizes he’s been played the very same way Shi Qingxuan has played him countless times before: an inability to refuse a challenge had made Earth Master an unwilling accomplice in many of Wind Master’s famously bad ideas and whims.
Neither of them has any right to those titles anymore, but Shi Qingxuan remains just as talented at smoking He Xuan out.
Oblivious or unbothered by He Xuan’s silent steaming as he looms over them, Shi Qingxuan turns their attention to the plate of meat skewers in their lap. They savor one slightly burnt skewer slowly, chewing with relish, and mumble around a mouthful, “I love festival food.” They go on to lick every bit of leftover sauce off their fingers, and He Xuan decides unbothered is right.
At length Shi Qingxuan leans back against the dilapidated wall of the temple and pats their stomach with a content hum. “Sitting’s free, y’know,” they offer. “I don’t mind, but all that hovering and glowering must be very tiring, haha.”
This is the first time He Xuan has worn his real face around Shi Qingxuan since he’d exacted his revenge and left Shi Qingxuan to fend for themself in the streets of the capital, nameless and powerless – and it’s nothing like He Xuan had expected. He feels vaguely disoriented, like an actor stepping onto a stage without knowing the lines.
“Or just keep doing that,” Shi Qingxuan sighs, when He Xuan makes no move except to fold his arms across his chest.
Shi Qingxuan wipes sticky hands on their pants to reach into the folds of their tattered clothes and produce a few thin stumps of bamboo. “Baozhu! Have you ever tried it?” Shi Qingxuan asks.
They scrabble for purchase a bit before they can swing to their feet, wincing. The leftover meat skewer is set aside.
“A few kids gave them to me earlier. You burn the bamboo and it scares malicious spirits away.” They pause expectantly, like they’re waiting for He Xuan, resident malicious spirit, to point out the irony in this statement. He Xuan remains silent.
They babble on as they limp around the temple ground to collect sticks and tufts of dry shrubbery for a makeshift fire. “I’ve gotten good at this now,” they say, kneeling to arrange the kindling. He Xuan observes the surprising deftness with which they handle a piece of flint they dig out of a pocket. “I used to take so long just to get a tiny fire going, hahaha, everyone would make fun of me – ah!”
Shi Qingxuan leans in to blow on the spark and coax the flames of their small fire higher. “Aha! See!” Triumphant, they sit back. The bonfire carves out a circle of light around them, reaching even He Xuan where he stands a distance away.
It’s good that He Xuan is so deeply lost, set adrift by the unexpected tide of this encounter, or he would be feeling the acute ache of Shi Qingxuan’s familiar chatter – of the suggestion of normalcy – like a blade through the chest, right about now.
It doesn’t seem like anything is going to happen when a piece of bamboo is tossed into the fire, but then: a sudden loud pop and a bang! as the bamboo bursts in the heat, startling a whoop out of a delighted Shi Qingxuan.
He Xuan watches Shi Qingxuan watching the dancing fire. Every now and then, the flickering of the flames sharpens the curve of Shi Qingxuan’s mouth into a razor’s point, an edged, skeletal shape. It’s quiet for a few drawn out minutes, the only sounds the now gentle crackles of kindling and, if He Xuan listens hard for it, Shi Qingxuan’s shallow breathing. The noise of the city’s Mid-Autumn festivities fades to a hum in the distance.
“Shi Qingxuan,” He Xuan says into the quiet, and he didn’t mean to, hasn’t planned what he’s going to say; he doesn’t think he could. Better to let his words fall where they will, like dice. So much in his life and in his death has felt inevitable, anyway. “What is this?”
This: sharing a companionable moment around a festival bonfire like nothing at all has changed, like the tapestry of their lives hasn’t been ripped to unrecognizable shreds by He Xuan’s own bloody hands. Like they’re still friends, or anything at all to each other but an agonizing reminder of what they’ve lost.
For the first time that night, Shi Qingxuan actually looks to be self-conscious. They bring a hand up to rub their nose awkwardly, then drop it back in their lap, where it balls into a fist.
“I don’t know,” they admit. They tilt their face up, not to meet He Xuan’s eyes but enough for him to fixate on the frustrated furrow between Shi Qingxuan’s eyebrows. “I’ve been thinking that – that it hurts enough already, you know?”
“I close my eyes and I see ge. I look at you and I see – “ their voice hitches on a painful breath. Shi Qingxuan goes on, talking faster now, like they’re worried they’ll run out of courage if they don’t hurry. “What I mean is it doesn’t matter. My brother is gone and your family is gone and nothing’s going to change that and it’s always going to hurt.”
He Xuan keeps very, very still.
“What I mean is,” Shi Qingxuan repeats, eyes squeezed shut in distress, “I don’t want to cause myself any more pain by pretending that I don’t miss my best friend.”
He Xuan thinks again about turning on his heel and walking away. With a sharp exhale of breath, he sits down, legs folding gracelessly under his weight. The bonfire gives a sympathetic hiss.
“I’m – “ he starts. Shi Qingxuan opens their eyes and looks right at him, and He Xuan’s mouth snaps shut.
“I’m not asking anything of you,” they say. “I don’t expect anything. Forgiveness or apologies or – “ they laugh, short and dry. “What’s that good for anyway, right. And. Please don’t ask anything of me.”
He Xuan thinks he understands, then. No expectations and no asking for what they cannot give. They have both lost so much of themselves that there is very little to spare – he feels it like a phantom limb at times, and worse than the pain of loss is the constant forgetting, thoughtlessly reaching for something that is no longer there.
And that is what it all comes down to: understanding. Shi Qingxuan and he are mirrors of each other, after all, born to fulfill two sides of a single fate. In all of the Three Realms, who could know them better?
There are no promises, but there is Shi Qingxuan breaking the silence again to push a paper plate with a single meat skewer in He Xuan’s direction, saying: “Here, try this.”
He Xuan stares at them. “Don’t be an idiot. That’s your only dinner.” He is aware of how often Shi Qingxuan gets to have dinner, especially a dinner of real meat, which is to say not very often at all. He Xuan doesn’t say so, but the insinuation must be clear on his face.
Shi Qingxuan sighs in a way that is achingly reminiscent of the old them, a spoiled Heavenly Official accustomed to getting their way. “Just take the food,” they huff. And softer: “Not everything has to be so hard.”
Doesn’t it? He Xuan wonders. It has been so very long since He Xuan felt anything was simple.
He pulls the plate over and stuffs his mouth with meat to avoid having to reply. Shi Qingxuan laughs, muffled into a hand where once they would’ve thrown their head back with open mirth. Still the corners of He Xuan’s lips curl slightly upwards in response, helpess.
There is nothing that they can offer each other at this point, no words to make things right because they will never be right – nothing but their presence at each other’s side. Like He Xuan sharing a moment with Shi Qingxuan around a festival bonfire, knowing that perhaps tomorrow or next week this invitation would be rescinded, but for now –
For now it is welcome, and it is enough.