Work Text:
The first collection Xiao Xingchen exhibited after his eye condition rendered him legally blind was called “In the Mind’s Eye.” He had sculpted sixty-four miniatures of fighters, each of them so utterly vibrant in their pose that they all seemed ready to flow into battle at any given moment. Xingchen had sculpted each pose from his own muscle memory of his early martial arts days, measuring the angle of each limb against the memories he holds even without sight to guide him. It had been utterly awe-inspiring.
Xichen is at the opening night of Xiao laoshi’s second exhibition, this time called “Eyes of Everyday”. The program he’s handed at the door reads:
“Eyes of Everyday” is a collection of hyperrealistic clay sculptures by blind sculptor Xiao Xingchen. The world, ‘interpreted’ by Xiao laoshi through touch, is reinterpreted into clay. Xiao laoshi wishes to inspire us all to view the world as art, especially in everyday objects that are easily seen. The exhibition is of twenty pieces of fired, unpainted, unglazed clay...
The first piece to greet the wandering visitors is a hand, outstretched as if asking to be held; the edges of the forearm where the piece ends is shaped into a liquid curve. Xichen can’t help but smile - what a way to show how a blind man would view the world. Everything outside his touch is a blurry, liquid uncertainty.
The piece is simply called “Daughter” and a small screen above the unglazed clay plays a short ‘behind this piece’ video on loop. On it, an unknown videographer - Xichen is willing to bet his entire house it’s Song Lan- films Xiao Xingchen being led by the hand by his adoptive daughter as they putter about in a street market. The video then cuts to Xingchen carefully shaping the fingers of the sculpture on display.
Song Lan’s voice narrates the accompanying text - trust Xiao Xingchen to make sure the exhibit is accessible to both the vision and hearing impaired - “‘Daughter’ is the opening piece to the Eyes of Everyday collection. Sculpted from memory: the ‘sight’ most familiar to Xiao Xingchen - the hand of his daughter, A-Qing.”
Xichen moves on. Some of the pieces are of household objects - a lighter that he knows never leaves Song Lan’s inner jacket pocket, a jade lucky Buddha charm recreated in clay, a chinese evergreen plant with its multitude of leaves frozen in art - each in its own alcove, each with its accompanying video clip. Some pieces are more complex - a bonsai Xichen had seen in the Song-Xiao house; and a pair of hands encased in gloves. Xichen doesn’t need to read the accompanying title - “Lover” - to know it’s Song Lan’s.
Xichen declines a flute of champagne offered to him by an attendant, and walks towards a small doorway into a connected side room where one of the bigger pieces sits.
The title of the piece greets him first. “Intimacy”, a small bronze plate informs him before he enters the small chamber. He stops short in front of the bust - it’s undoubtedly Jiang Cheng.
Xiao Xingchen is an exceptional sculptor. Xichen feels his fingers itch to trace Jiang Cheng’s likeness, frozen in smooth, unglazed clay.
The sculpture is like all the others - the edges of it tapers off into a dreamy uncertainty - but the center of it is almost lifelike in its exactitude. Jiang Cheng’s sharp features, eyes closed and lips parted, the length of his neck, down to his sternum, where even the beginning of his scar is sculptured in exquisite detail. The sculpture ends in liquid curves behind the ears and around the hairline. Two clay hands are holding the jaw of Jiang Cheng’s likeness in the same way that Xingchen must had held-
It’s suddenly hard to breathe, the implications of this piece - Xichen almost pulls his neck, his gaze is dragged to the accompanying ‘behind this piece’ video so fast.
In the tiny screen, Jiang Cheng sits like he did for Xichen’s sketchpads, mapped by Xiao Xingchen’s hands. Xichen watches as Xiao Xingchen carefully molds the plane of a cheek onto his half-formed clay, submerges his hands in water to clear off some of the clay slurry and delicately measures Jiang Cheng’s features with his fingers once more.
He watches as the water droplets and clay slurry cling to Jiang Cheng’s bare skin as Xingchen’s fingers leave again - watches as Jiang Cheng does not move a single millimetre, waiting for Xingchen’s touch to return.
Song Lan’s voice narrates: “‘Intimacy’ is one of three busts in the ‘Eyes of Everyday’ collection. It depicts not only the intimacy of human connection, but the intimate way senses are connected. Just as Xiao laoshi 'sees' through physical touch, that vision is returned to physical form, to be consumed by sight once again-”
“Enjoying the exhibit?”
Xichen almost drops his program. Heart in his throat, he turns to find Jiang Cheng, brilliantly alive next to him, a small smirk playing at the corner of his mouth as he watches Xichen watch him under Xingchen’s touch.
“You look amazing,” Xichen says instead of answering.
“I know, Xiao laoshi is fucking phenominal,” Jiang Cheng says as he faces his own likeness, tilting his head as he admires himself cast into clay.
“I meant tonight. You look amazing tonight.”
“Oh.” Jiang Cheng doesn’t look round, but surely, he can’t be surprised - not when he looks like a dream in his tux and permed hair. Before either of them can say anything more though, some of the journalists find them and loudly begin to ask for pictures of the model with the art piece and demanding that someone find the artist too to have a shot worth publishing.
Silently, Xichen watches Jiang Cheng pose for the press photos with a careful blank smirk edged across his face.
For the rest of the exhibit, Xichen follows Jiang Cheng like a lost puppy. It's probably improper, but Xingchen’s exhibition has shifted something fundamental about Xichen’s understanding of Jiang Cheng just as that first modelling session had.
Xichen simply cannot pull away.
As the opening night dwindles to a close, they say their goodbyes to Xingchen who places a warm hand on each of their forearms and makes them promise to ‘visit soon’. Song Lan throws Xichen a very knowing smirk as Jiang Cheng leads both of them out of the exhibit hall.
Xichen lets himself be led into a stroll by the riverside. Under the weak light of the half moon, Jiang Cheng’s face is shadowed as if a veil is pulled over him. Xichen’s fingers itch to touch.
“You’ve been staring.”
“Does that bother you?” Xichen asks, almost afraid of the answer.
“No,” Jiang Cheng huffs a laugh; the breath of it is a cloud in the cold night air. “It excites me.”
Xichen can’t even hide how those words flash heat through his core and push blood into his face.
“But- I’ve always craved that, you know? That’s how I started modelling. I wanted to be seen, even if it’s just for hour-long sessions. It’s kind of fucked up- but aren’t we all?”
Another short huff, another breath condenses against Xichen’s jacket. Jiang Cheng is so close.
“You artists - you artists give me this escape, you know? As long as I sit still, I am exactly what you want from me, and it feels fucking amazing. The art I model for, and it’s this ... this hyperized version of me that's good. I know how it all fits together in a studio - but you, you’ve been staring at me outside of the studios - and it excites me. But it also frightens me.”
“I know what I look like in art, but I also know me, you know?” Jiang Cheng barks a laugh that is too bitter, too raw- “Modeling like this lets someone interpret their best version of me, and I love it. But I know that, outside, in the real world, I’m - rough. Rough around the edges, rough enough to scratch up and drive away anyone good.”
And suddenly, Jiang Cheng is smiling at him. A despondent kind of smirking grin that does nothing to quieten Xichen’s suddenly speeding heart. Too rough for a good boy like you - he had said that first day, said it jokingly, teasingly, and Xichen had taken it as so. He had not expected it to be like - like this.
“You said all these things to warn me away,” Xichen whispers, suddenly desperate for Jiang Cheng to understand, “but my gaze still can’t be swayed from you. In a whole exhibition of Xingchen’s best pieces, I had eyes only for you.”
He sees the slight widening of the eyes, as if Jiang Cheng is shocked that after all these weeks, after his body has been studied so thoroughly by Xichen’s eyes, after all that’s been said, he still pulls Xichen’s attention as inexorably as the moon pulls the tides.
“Let me take you to dinner,” Xichen asks - pleads really.
Those eyes are no longer widened; they pull the breath out of Xichen as they lower, hooded and intimate, and Jiang Cheng breathes air back into him with a harsh kiss as he steps into Xichen’s space with an almost brutal determination.
“Skip the dinner,” Jiang Cheng murmurs the words into his skin before roughly taking his mouth again, “-take me home.”
Xichen finds himself clutching Jiang Cheng to him, his fingers digging into the small of his back. A soft gasp is lost between them as they part, and Xichen looks down to see Jiang Cheng, eyes unfocused, lips bruised and parted, breathing slowed -
-the same look as he modelled for Xichen, and Xichen can’t help but remember Jiang Cheng shaking himself out of his entranced headspace as he slips on a silk robe, the change in him when he transitions from ‘model’ to ‘Jiang Cheng’; can’t help but think of how Jiang Cheng leaves studios as if what happens inside is of a different life and feels his heart drop -
“Let me take you to dinner,” Xichen says again, watching Jiang Cheng's eyes widen again as they drop their hazy concentration and sharpen into something almost akin to fury. “Let’s do this properly. I want to date you, properly.”
For a second, Jiang Cheng’s face is wide open in an expression Xichen can’t even dream to decipher, and then it rearranges itself into his normal scowl.
But the night air still tastes like sweet victory when Jiang Cheng mutters “Your funeral” against his chest, and lets himself be pulled into a cab to Xichen’s favourite family restaurant.