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There was a spot they had once liked to visit. It lay just on the edge of Lanling, on the roads towards Gusu. A spot truly unremarkable, unmemorable. They wouldn’t be able to give directions to it even if they tried.
But it was their spot.
It had been many years. Many falling outs, many sacrifices, many tragedies since they’d last walked this path, but now, here they were again. They both felt it, felt the call of this place that had once been theirs and theirs alone. Felt it, and needed hardly even a brush of the hand to discuss before veering off the path as one, and into the endless rows of green. The one place that remained that was like...
“Home,” Xingchen whispered, remembering the view of the bamboo forest. Of the rivers snaking through, revealing imposing waterfalls or peaceful ponds if you cared to follow them. It did not matter, though, that he could not see it any longer. Being here was so much more than that.
It was the clean smell of the bamboo paired with the musty smell of the always slightly-damp earth. It was the sounds of birds – a finch? Maybe a dove? Xingchen didn’t know, but promised himself he’d learn each of their distinct calls one day – as they went about their business. Creatures so small yet so unafraid of building their dreams high in the sky.
This place was the taste of fish, freshly caught, cooked slowly over a carefully constructed fire in their clearing. The feel of Zichen beside him, pressed up close, each taking slow, easy breaths. The rise and fall of their chests making the pair expand outwards, but inevitably collapse back into one another in the end.
And like this, they eventually fell asleep.
—
“Zichen?” Xingchen asked blearily, recognizing where he was before he remembered when. He groaned softly as he stretched, rising from the soft dirt to find his partner. He followed the promising crackling sound of fire, the delicious smell of food.
Fish, again, of course, but when they were here, the monotony didn’t really bother him.
He felt the heat of the fire as he approached. This place so familiar to him that even though he had had his sight the last time he was here, navigation was much easier than it had been following less crowded, but less familiar, paths.
“Good morning, Zichen,” Xingchen said, smiling as he held a hand out, silently asking if the other man wanted to take it. Instead of a hand, though, he received only a slightly warmed wooden stick between his fingers, the smell of breakfast from the other end of it making his stomach rumble. He laughed, “Fine. I’m hungry too.”
Zichen did take Xingchen’s hand once the second fish was done though, leading the two of them to sit on a log by the little cooking fire. It wasn’t cold, exactly, but the morning breeze and recent rainfall still made the fire’s sde a welcome spot of warmth.
It was just so blissfully quiet here.
Xingchen had experienced quiet before. The pained quiet of a man overcome by grief. The lonely quiet of wandering the countryside alone. The eerie quiet of a city that always seemed just a bit too devoid of public life. And Xingchen had been able to move through each of those moments with patience and grace.
This quiet was different. Not the eye of the storm but the end of one. Not just easy to get through but easy to live in. A quiet to find each other in, to grow to learn about one another again.
Xingchen flipped open his palm, letting Zichen slowly trace out one character after another. He shivered pleasantly at the touch, but tried to focus. Tried to learn the little quirks in Zichen’s handwriting style through feel that he had never noticed while reading. An extra flourish here, a lazy refusal to fully lift his finger between strokes there. He concentrated on learning them all, not just so that Zichen could communicate more quickly in future once they became familiar, but also just because they were his quirks and Xingchen wanted to memorize them all.
Breakfast over and diligently tidied up, they went for a walk. One of Xingchen’s hands was left to run along the bamboo trunks as they passed, the other sat firmly in Zichen’s hand. Both the wood and the hand offered comfort, direction, and familiarity, but only for Zichen could Xingchen return the favour.
They made their way towards the source of the river, easy to find by the roaring sound of the waterfall, and sat near the shore, enjoying the gentle mists cast from the water as it thundered down.
Xingchen let his hands explore the ground beneath him, feeling the stones, dirt, and leaves. He let the earth run between his fingers, pausing to pick up a particularly intact branch he found, marvelling at its smooth edges, the cool freshness of its leaves right at his fingertips.
He felt Zichen shift behind him, shuffling closer. Xingchen leaned back in kind, a gentle smile gracing his face unconsciously.
Zichen reached up and traced three words into Xingchen’s shoulder. Xingchen. Together. Happy.
Not a question, but a simple equation. I am together with Xingchen. So I am happy. Some of the most easily understood words, as some of the ones Zichen had been most eager to communicate, after Xingchen’s return.
“Well then that’s how we shall stay, right Zichen?”
Zichen let out an affirming hum and let his fingers travel up to Xingchen’s head, carding his fingers through his hair. His fingers, though, almost immediately got snagged in the tangled locks, and Zichen cleared his throat. His new version of his old affectionate tutting in disapproval.
Xingchen laughed, “I slept on the ground, Zichen, the cold, hard ground, what did you expect?”
Zichen pokes at the back of Xingchen’s hand, telling him to clean the dirt out from them, after which he lifted his lover’s hand to his own head, inviting him to compare.
“That’s not fair, though, you had your head on my chest all night. It’s not nearly the same,” Xingchen smirked mischievously, “Besides, now that I think about it, I seem to remember having to stop you from drooling onto my robes at some point? I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not where all of it ended up… Are you sure that didn’t tangle my hair?”
Xingchen only laughed harder at Zichen’s indignant pokes to Xingchen’s arm, his shoulder, his back, “Stop, stop! You know I’m ticklish there,” he gasped. And Zichen easily obliged, but not without a small huff of victory.
Xingchen sighed, leaning back further, enjoying the feeling as Zichen went back to running his fingers through his hair. The two sat there for a while, listening as the river rushed by, the wind rustled through the bamboo above. Savoring the moment. Lingering in this hard-earned tranquility.
“I really could stay here forever, you know.”
Zichen hummed, then traced a thus far unmentioned word between them, each stroke hesitant as though trying to maintain the ability to change course as long as possible. Just in case.
Sect?
Xingchen froze, letting the word sink in slowly. The weight of Zichen’s question, what it could mean, what it would take, winding its way down to his core.
A swell built in his heart, constricting his throat and building a pressure of happy tears behind his eyes. He turned, hands on Zichen’s shoulders, nodding eagerly.
“If... if that is what you want? Then yes!” he cleared his throat, conscious of his exclamation, and quieted down, now shy in his hopeful excitement, “Yes we could do that. We could make this our... our...”
And even with this being the most quickly drawn character Zichen had ever traced on him, and even though, with Xingchen’s hands still fixed firmly on his shoulders, the character was written on his less discerning chest, not his sensitive palm, Xingchen understood, and agreed, immediately:
Home.
