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Renjun shaves his head in autumn; it’s unfortunate. His ears will freeze, but late spring is the most auspicious season for the wedding and he needs time for his hair to grow back. As it is, the wind whistles over the skin on the top of his head, or perhaps it is the breath of the tattooist behind him.
He hears the dip of ink, the recitation of soul rites, and then blooms the exquisite pain of the needle against his scalp. In an hour, he will have the name — the soul name — of his future spouse against his skull.
A mark of devotion. A sign of submission.
A stairway into the soul.
One-way at the moment, but — they’re not married yet, are they?
The days and weeks after that are awful. Excruciating. Dizzying.
Renjun would have used any number of words to describe the feeling — being held upside down by one ankle, submerged headfirst in a pond full of lilies and algae, held hostage on the back of a west-flying crane — if only he had the capacity to think of them.
It’s an impossible process, the creation of a one-sided soulbond: to take the shape of one person, and mold another around it? To expect them to still have eyes, ears, fingers in all the places they are supposed to be? Renjun catches glimpses of grand palaces and bundles of pheasant-feathered arrows, snatches of Southern dialects and the imperial ‘We’.
And yet he’s lucky to have this. And yet brides and grooms across the country experience this complete transformation every day.
He vomits again into the pot laid beside his bed, already part-full. His hair is short, spiky, greasy. Among the daydreams and nightmares, all he tastes is the sour burn of his own spit.
He doesn’t understand until he’s descending from his horse outside of the capital city walls. A man stands before him, holding his hands behind his back, biting his lip. He has an undeniable youthfulness about him, frenetic energy like a stormcloud. He is the only one dressed appropriately to receive Renjun; the rest of them are merely bodyguards, footsoldiers.
They greet each other.
The King of Balhae sends you a nephew instead of a princess, so you tie him to a man in return — technically polite, but saying everything Renjun needs to know about his new position here. He will have to be careful, he is unwelcome. The hereditary line of Balhae will end, not only here but in entirety, if only the Emperor of Tang has the chance to cut it off.
“Liu Yangyang,” the man introduces himself. He has large teeth, well cared-for, on the verge of a smile. “Second County Prince of Jiangnan, currently serving in the Imperial Father’s Feathered Forest Guard.”
Exactly as he expected: high-ranking enough to be complementary, but not so high as to be kind.
“Huang Renjun,” he replies, a sudden, foreign excitement taking over him, “Prince of Balhae. Thank you for welcoming me, I look forward to—”
This excitement isn’t his. It’s Yangyang’s, leaking into him via their soulbond the way the thousand other small moments have ever since the tattoo under his hair healed.
“I look forward to life here,” he finishes. There are worse things than a husband who is eager to greet you. Many worse things.
Renjun isn’t what Yangyang imagined when his grandfather decreed he would be marrying someone from Balhae. He’s small-boned but sharp-eyed, as quick-witted as he is a good listener. He’s exceedingly polite, very nearly professional in his placations, but prone to fits of moodiness in moments when he thinks no one is looking. Mostly, he’s surprisingly willing to invade Yangyang’s personal space, always resting a hand on Yangyang’s arm or brushing a foot against Yangyang's.
Their engagement fundamentally opposes the way that Yangyang has always seen himself: he’s freewheeling, self-led, the half-disappointment heir to the largest circuit. But Renjun is easy to be around, perhaps the easiest Yangyang has ever met. As Yangyang has no choice but to follow through, he finds himself glad it’s Renjun, of all people, that he’ll be tied to.
“Would you like to go hunting?” Yangyang asks, entering the separate complex where Renjun will stay until their wedding day.
Renjun looks up from his poetry, one narrow eyebrow raised. His hair is still growing out, so it hangs loose around his shoulders, making him appear younger than he is. He looks like some kind of scholarly prodigy, elegant calligraphy under his hands and the mid-morning courtyard open behind him.
“You really want me to go, don’t you?” He’s smiling, knowing, teasing.
Yangyang does want him to go.
“Yes,” he answers, enjoying the few seconds that Renjun’s facade slips, barriers collapsing in the face of Yangyang’s naked honesty.
“Okay,” Renjun says, quieter. He rises from his seat and follows Yangyang to the stables.
The wedding is not for another three months. Yangyang will not receive Renjun’s own soul tattoo — will not complete their bond until after the ceremony. On paper, it’s so that he can recuperate under Renjun’s care during their honeymoon period, to save him the shame of appearing bald-headed in court and revealing the most personal detail of Renjun’s existence to the entire world. In practice, it serves as a trial period for Renjun. There is always the possibility he’s a spy, or he’s unstable, or he slights Yangyang in any way large enough for the Tang military to declare war on Balhae.
He does not provide them with any reason to doubt him.
It’s strange to see the world through two sets of eyes — most of the time Renjun doesn’t do it intentionally, but he’s getting better at controlling it. The emotional leak is… it’s more difficult, he’ll admit.
Especially at moments like these, when the sheer intensity of Yangyang’s feelings would be apparent to Renjun even if his soul wasn’t wrapped around Yangyang’s like a winter scarf.
He’s just made some offhand joke about court officials while jumping off his horse, and Yangyang, already on the ground with his reins in one hand, just looked at him. One second, two seconds pass by. And then a laugh erupts from within Yangyang, stretching his smile and bending his spine. Renjun can see every single one of his teeth, and none of his eyes at all.
Worse still is the affection, like the unrelenting sun, like water in a sinking ship, like inebriation, blooming through the back of his head. It stops him in his tracks just as the laughter stopped Yangyang. He finds it hard to breathe. For a split-second, he sees himself, fuzzy around the edges, caught in the falling afternoon light, standing wide-eyed. A second burst.
The sheer joy—
He has to fight to keep a grin off of his own face. He thinks he might dance.
Yangyang’s smile!
He’s reminded, vaguely, of a line from a poem he’s just read.
The emperor neglected the world from that moment—
Oh, perhaps Renjun understands.
(Perhaps Yangyang understands.)
As Yangyang straightens up, wiping tears from his eyes, Renjun scolds himself and then thanks the heavens that their bond is not yet mutual. If it was, if it had been in that moment, they might never have moved again.
The moon is full tonight.
Yangyang cannot sleep. His body is exhausted, but his mind races. He’s not thinking anything in particular, bouncing from memory to whimsy to regret to daydream in a single second. He shifts from his back to his side. It doesn’t help.
He counts his breaths, examines the blue-tinted shadows falling on the floor. Nothing there, either.
He listens to the birds and nighttime insects, oh, but, wait. A separate, quiet sound. Fabric, footsteps.
Two quiet knocks against his doorframe.
Yangyang slides out of bed, to the door. He opens it, expecting an apologetic servant or the offer of a late-night snack.
Instead, it is Renjun.
Renjun, in his bedclothes, still-short hair tucked behind his right ear, skin turned to jade under the bright moonlight.
“Hello,” Renjun says, sounding as surprised to be at Yangyang’s doorstep as Yangyang is to see him. He’s looking at the floor, Yangyang decides a fairy could make wings out of his eyelashes and fly straight to heaven.
“Hello,” Yangyang replies.
Suddenly, Renjun looks up and blinks once, like he’s thinking about something.
Just as quickly, he leans forward and brings an arm up, pulling Yangyang down.
Yangyang finds his own hand at the nape of Renjun’s neck, caught between warm, bare skin and a silk curtain of hair.
Renjun presses a kiss, chaster than chaste, gentler than gentle, against the corner of Yangyang’s mouth. He pulls away, and lingers just long enough to say ‘good night’ before turning and walking back down the hallway.
Yangyang watches him but doesn’t see him at all, lost in the sensation of two lips against his lips, an exhale against his cheek — the fine hairs on the back of Renjun’s neck under his thumb.
Like a ghost, like a dreamer, he floats back to bed. He dreams of winter in Balhae.
Dearest Uncle,
It warms much faster further south; many things happen quickly here, in fact. It has taken me some getting used to, but I am doing well. In the morning there is a bird that sings outside the window, I don’t recognize its song — I wish there was some way I could share it with you, you’ve always been so skilled at identifying one call from another. Perhaps I will transcribe it for the guqin and send it back to you. Perhaps, then, you could tell me what it’s saying.
The Prince of Jiangnan writes to me kindly, even though I am monopolizing his only son. Yangyang enjoys hunting, fishing, riding horses, making conversation — he enjoys motion. Rarely does he spend a moment idle, especially when there are more exciting prospects to be found outside of the home.
I realize that could be interpreted poorly — I only mean what it says. Truly, Uncle, do not worry about… me. How are the crops in Balhae? The people? Believe it or not, I miss the cold.
It is so hot here; it seems the sun never ceases shining, even here in the capital. I cannot imagine further south, not at all.
Wishing you good health and good fortune, as always. I will write again after the my wedding.
Your nephew,
Hwang Injoon
Yangyang is on a final trip to Hangzhou, receiving blessings from ancestors and preparing the easternmost court for his and Renjun’s arrival.
It’s lonely in the Liu family’s Chang'an house without him there. Renjun’s days are spent in a haze of poetry, and pondering, and long naps, and watching new leaves unfurl on the trees outside one day at a time—
It’s springtime, but Renjun feels as though his world has been painted over with a wash of diluted ink, a grey film. He catches snippets of Yangyang every now and then, the aftertaste of glass noodles and wine on his tongue when he hasn’t eaten, or strange bouts of seriousness overtaking him, sudden waves of determination. It doesn’t help; if anything, it makes it worse.
He misses Yangyang, that’s the first thing.
The second is that being alone has given him the chance to think. Too many chances.
He finds himself split into four parts, a criminal in the northern protectorates being pulled in all four directions by galloping horses.
North: It’s terrifying, in a debilitating, unfathomable way, how much he’s changed. How much Yangyang has changed him. How impossible it is to know if it’s a natural, inevitable progression, or if it’s only because of the tattoo on the back of his head, the soul he’s entwined himself around.
South: But he likes Yangyang. He likes being around him, he likes the way he makes him feel. And, clearly, if this is all the bond’s fault, then at least Yangyang likes him too. Must like him a lot.
East: That’s so self-absorbed. Doesn’t that feel wrong, somehow? Manipulative? Of himself or Yangyang he’s not sure, but it’s — if it hadn’t been one-sided from the beginning, what would have happened?
West: None of this fucking matters we never had a choice in this wedding or any fucking part of this from the beginning let’s just go back to fucking sleep.
Renjun decides that’s a good idea. He rises from where he’s been sitting, on the interior porch, looking out onto the courtyard garden. It’s still early afternoon, but what does it matter?
On his way back to his bedroom he decides to grab a snack. He has a hand on the door to the kitchens, ready to open it, when—
“Do you really think it’ll happen?”
A young boy’s voice, quiet.
“It might… my sister’s husband is one of the Emperor’s dogs, you know. I heard this from her.”
An older woman, more brazen.
“The poor guy…”
“Eh,” the older woman, “it happens in politics. They’re probably just looking for a reason to go to war, anyway. They’re always ready to sacrifice their own kids like this if it means the country is stronger. Larger, I guess.”
“I, I just… Do you think he’s actually doing it? Selling his soulmate’s secrets?”
“Well, they’ve been intercepting his mail for weeks, so surely they have something they can use.”
Renjun’s hand falls limp against his side. He examines the gap between the doorframe and the hallway floor — so incredibly small, so small he’d never notice if he wasn’t staring at it, but it's something that would exist, no matter how skilled the carpenter, the architect. He manages a breath in through his nose, softly enough that the servants won’t know he was there. Alright, okay.
At least there are no four horses here, at least this soulbond is one-sided.
He goes to his room and goes to sleep.
The interior of Xuanzheng Hall is beautiful. Of course it is, what else could it be?
There’s gold everywhere, red and blue and green.
Yangyang can’t bear to look at any of it. He focuses on the Emperor’s ear, instead. He is an old man, and it is not a particularly beautiful ear — in fact, he’d call it the ugliest ear he’s ever seen.
Their wedding was cancelled while he was travelling back to the capital.
On account of treason, and spying, and disrespect of the soulbond. A thousand and one charges, who knows what else. Having more beautiful ears than the emperor, maybe.
Renjun is alone in the center of the hall, kneeling, forehead to the ground. His robes are dirty, pale, rough. Still, he holds more charm than the rest of the court, the columns and the artwork, any and all of it combined.
“Huang Renjun of Balhae has been found guilty,” one of the court officials says, “and the Emperor has determined his punishment. He will serve it tomorrow at noon. For Second County Prince Liu of Jiangnan, the Emperor has selected one of his nine ladies of talents as replacement for this embarrassment, should the Second County Prince still feel amenable to a wedding.”
And then the court deflates. Yangyang’s knees do not buckle, he does not vomit. He does not move at all.
The emperor’s ear turns, so that Yangyang can barely see the back of it, and the rest of him goes along with it. It disappears through a hidden doorway.
The officials leave. Yangyang almost goes himself, but then Renjun is rising to his knees.
He cannot help but watch.
Was it real, Yangyang wonders, before chastising himself. Of course it was. There’s no way it couldn’t have been.
Their gazes meet, for just a moment, and then spring apart, like two startled fish.
In his peripheral vision, he sees Renjun smile. It’s perfect, even though it’s just two lips, some teeth, and Yangyang starts to cry.
Something on the back of his head is burning.