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Linong hears the creaking of the branches, and even before the knock comes, he’s at the window, pulling open the wooden covers to reveal the cool evening scenery.
The night is relatively cold for a summer in the mountains, with a very slight breeze filtering through the dark, cloudy sky. Linong, dressed only in his sleeping robes, shivers as the wind hits the exposed parts of his skin, and even if it’s dark outside, he can still make out Xukun’s outline, perched on a tree right outside his window, his eyes a bright blue glow in the leaves.
Linong smiles.
“Isn’t it cold out there?”
Xukun’s eyes flash. Now that Linong’s eyes have adjusted, he can see that he’s in his true form, a pair of silver fox ears peeking through his silver-streaked hair, his two remaining tails billowing freely out behind him like a cloud of mist. Linong thinks that he can remember when the man had all nine tails, but that was a long time ago.
“You know better than anyone that I don’t feel cold in this form.”
Linong chuckles. “We have to keep up a front, don’t we?” Xukun smiles at him, revealing the hints of his fangs over his lips. It’s so endearing that all of a sudden, it’s like he’s transported back to years before, when times were simpler, and when he was just a boy trying to fill his belly and Xukun was a young fox spirit with all nine tails.
“Do you want to come in?” he asks him, carefully, because he already knows what Xukun is here for. “I bought a few sweet fried rice balls as a late night snack after work. They’re cold but they still taste good.”
Xukun shakes his head. “I’m not staying for long.”
Linong shifts back, pretending that he doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. “What are you here for then?”
“To say goodbye.”
There it is.
Linong feigns a smile. “Why? Are you leaving? I thought you said you would try to stay around the outskirts of the village.”
Xukun scoffs. “I can’t survive without the wild for that long, and you know that. It’s either I stay here and risk losing another tail, or I go back into the wild. And to be completely honest, I don’t want to have to die again for a human who can’t even stay with me when I need him.”
Silence. Linong swallows.
Then, Xukun says gruffly, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“You can say that again,” Linong says gently. He watches as Xukun climbs along the tree branches until he’s perching directly in front of the window, staring right into Linong’s eyes with his brilliant blue gaze. Linong wants to reach out and run his fingers along his jaw, where there are scars from wounds sustained in the past, rough and white against his pale skin. In fact, he wants to do many things with Xukun, things that he could do in the past, but now that he’s chosen this path and Xukun has chosen his, he can’t anymore.
“Then this is a goodbye, right?” Linong asks. “Can I know what you’re going to do now?”
Xukun stares at him, frowns a bit. “I’m not sure. Travel more, maybe? I’ve spent the past twenty years travelling with you, Chen Linong. I’m not very sure anymore where I should go without you. What do you suggest?”
Linong swallows. Xukun isn’t trying to hurt him with his words again, but they sting all the same. “Go see the sea, Xukun. You don’t need to stay in these mountains all the time. There’s an ocean out there that you haven’t seen too.”
“Wasn’t the ocean something you wanted to see?” Xukun asks.
Linong nods. “But I want you to see it for me.”
He hopes that Xukun knows what he’s saying. That even though Linong has chosen now to stay with the humans that have accepted him as one of their own, to merge back into the society that he was taken away from as a child, to find someone else and maybe even start a family, he still wants Cai Xukun to be happy. He wants the brightest path for him, even without Linong by his side. He wants Xukun to see things that he gave up seeing.
Xukun is silent. His eyes flutter shut for a sliver of a moment, long lashes fanning over his cheeks. But then they’re open again, his eyes even brighter than before.
“What will you do, then?”
“Continue working, maybe? I told you about the job at the library, didn’t I? I’ll continue bookkeeping there, and maybe something better will come up. I’m not sure.”
Xukun nods slightly. “And the people here? Are they kind to you?”
“They are,” he reassures him. “Very kind.”
“Then have you found anyone yet?” Xukun presses on. “Anyone who’s caught your eye?”
Linong shifts uncomfortably. His voice is very soft when he answers. “Maybe I will.”
They’re silent again for a long moment. This time, Linong can’t help but let his hand trail out the window and rest on Xukun’s arm. He wants to tell him more, thank him, maybe, or just tell him that he won’t forget all the memories they made together. But the words die on his tongue, too shallow to leave his lips.
It’s Xukun who makes the final move.
He looks up again, staring at Linong with a hardened, determined look in his eyes. “You won’t forget me, will you?”
Linong shakes his head. There’s a lump in his throat, and his eyes are hot. “Never. I’ll never forget you, Cai Xukun.”
Xukun shakes his head a little childishly, unconvinced. “I don’t know if that’s true.” He pauses, leans closer, and closer. “But I guess I can try to help you remember.”
Xukun’s kisses are like touching the flames of a bonfire on a cold winter day. They’re like watching fireworks explode in the still night sky. They remind him of hot summer days wading through ponds and the crisp burn of snow as he walks barefoot through it. Xukun kisses him like he’s there to take him, to consume him entirely. Linong sighs, his lips falling open, letting Xukun take what he needs as his very last gift to him.
And then suddenly, Xukun is pulling away, his eyes flashing. “Is that enough for you to remember me?”
Linong gasps, a bit out of breath. He looks at Cai Xukun for a long moment -- at the two silver tails Xukun hasn’t given up for him yet, at the way his lips are parted and trembling, at how his blue eyes are tinged with red and sadness --, before reaching out and pulling him back into the room.
***
Xukun cries sometime, hours later, and Linong pretends to not know he does. If he admits to himself that Xukun, the silver fox spirit who somehow still loves him, is crying for a future they’ll never have together, then he can’t pretend that tomorrow will never come.