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Here’s the thing. He Xuan certainly never expected himself to become attached to Shi Qingxuan. It wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to linger from a distance. He wasn’t supposed to sneak coins into the dirty clay bowl. He wasn’t supposed to care.
But he did.
To be fair, it was kind of hard. That is, to completely rid yourself of all feelings for someone who so wholly and sweetly cared for you themselves. Someone who, after declaring they were your best friend, did exactly everything a best friend did and more yet still never entirely knew you. It made him sick.
He thought it would be over when he killed Shi Wudu. In and out. Nothing quick. But the hollowness that had consumed him for so long was still there, a dull throb in the pit of his stomach.
Then Qingxuan leaves.
He’s whisked away by the Lady Rain Master of all people. And He Xuan is once again, alone.
Then again, he’s been alone from the start. Qingxuan was never really his best friend. They never really had a proper relationship. He still keeps an eye out though.
Maybe he stops dropping coins into the dirty clay bowl because now Qingxuan has food to eat. Maybe he stops leaving old blankets out on the street because now he has a place to sleep. But He Xuan still cares.
The hollowness is still there, ever present like a leech sucking all feelings other than care away. It’s disgusting.
The leech morphs into something far worse when one day he spots Qingxuan a little too close to Yushi Huang for comfort.
He looks good, He Xuan begrudgingly admits, in simple robes far less elegant than anything he’d worn in the heavens. His hair is still long, now braided over a shoulder but the shine it once held is no longer there.
However, his toothy grin and fluttering lashes make up for all lost shine. If He Xuan notices the stars are gone from Qingxuan’s beautiful eyes he doesn’t mention it.
What hurts He Xuan the most—a feeling he’d later reluctantly name as jealousy— is that Qingxuan is babbling on and on with an arm looped through Yushi Huang’s, an image reminiscent of his and He Xuan’s (or was it Ming Yi’s?) time as heavenly officials.
His fists curl up into balls, blunt nails digging into the meat of his palms because for fuck’s sake this shouldn’t make him feel anything.
It’s fine. Everything is fine, He Xuan tells himself.
But then Yushi Huang is handing Qingxuan a piece of fruit from who knows where and Qingxuan eats it straight from her fingers, still with as little shame as ever, and He Xuan feels his blood boil.
The soft smiles and sparkling eyes once directed at him are now trained on someone else. The attention of someone with a personality brighter than the sun now belonged to someone else.
He turns around and leaves.