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It was easy for Mu Qing to remember the first time that he had laid eyes on His Highness.
He hadn’t been doing anything particularly special at the time; his job, nothing more.
He’d been fortunate even in that aspect, in that the Imperial temple would take him in even with such a scandalous family past, particularly as his father had been directly plotting against the crown. They'd eyed him shrewdly and permitted him to take up the broom there and then. When he had given his family name he had not stuttered, albiet he had wanted to. He would have to spend his life, of that he was sure, proving his worth.
There was an air of royalty to the other boy that Mu Qing couldn't ignore - he doubted that anyone stood in his presence long enough could. He was beautiful in an ethereal way; long brown hair tied back in an elaborate style, jewels adorning the hairpiece that sat atop his half-bun. Even the way he had walked had drawn attention, but not in the way that made one think another was pompous or arrogant, for this boy's smile was like the sun.
Something was wrapped around the aura of the other boy so viscerally that for a moment Mu Qing thought he had found a soulmate. The cultivational foundations of the Crown Prince had been so strong that Mu Qing could sense it through the air. It was power, such innate power that he’d never felt from another person that dove straight into his meridians and prodded at his brain. He had dismissed his hoping, however, because in what world would he be fated for a prince? No, it was simply that the Crown Prince’s spiritual powers, even so young, cut through the air like a knife.
As he attempted to place the meal that he had been sent to deliver on the small table at the side of the room - for His Highness had missed dinner - the Crown Prince had taken it directly from him.
“Thank you.”
Mu Qing met his eyes then, but only for the fact that he was too shocked to look anywhere else rather than by deliberate thought. Their fingers brushed as His Highness took the tray, the prince apparently having no qualms about touching an errand boy.
This struck Mu Qing as unusual for several reasons. Firstly: he was the Crown Prince, and secondly: a lot of his fellow pages had talked of Mu Qing being the physical embodiment of bad luck as if it were fact already written by the Heavens.
His silver hair, they said, was an omen. His father had been a sinner. They had whispered that Mu Qing had been born with dark hair, but the gods had cursed him to show his poor lineage as a warning to others.
There was another rumour, one that secretly hit somewhat harder, that said that silver-haired people had bad yuanfen. The basis of all things godly, fate itself, determining everything from even before birth about a person’s life - soulmates, godhood. Yuanfen went beyond coincidence, straight into the hands of destiny.
It was all nonsense of course - Mu Qing had the same hair colour as his mother, and it meant nothing.
Later, it had meant everything - it was the only bit of her he had left.
The Crown Prince’s eyes were almost the exact same pool of gold, reflecting back at him to the point where he could see his shocked expression in them. Mu Qing never met another person with the same colour eyes, something that was uncommon in his neighbourhood. It was the one thing about him that his parents had been happy for; perhaps the only thing worth bragging about.Mu Qing’s eyes softened his features, giving him a delicate face, the face of someone who wasn’t just some street boy.
“What’s your name?” Xie Lian asked a gentle lilt to his voice.
“Mu Qing, Your Highness.” Mu Qing almost cringed with how rough his voice sounded, accented and unused. At home, he would speak to his mother in dialect. Here, and with the prince, that would never be acceptable.
His Highness reached out and wrapped his hand around his wrist, feeling for strong foundations of spiritual power; feeling his fate. There was a particular knack to it, he had been told. Only someone from god-destined lineage could typically sense another's fate.
Mu Qing resisted the urge to snatch his wrist from the other’s hand. There was only so much rejection in life he could surely take; being told that he was not destined for any particular greatness by His Highness would be one rejection too many.
It felt like an age but in actuality was merely seconds.
His Highness dropped his hand but did not drop his gaze.
A moment passed.
A smile dashed across the young prince’s face; Mu Qing almost felt his own twitch in response.
And it had been so.
-
(Sometime much later, deep in the palace, as they waited outside the door for Qi Rong and Xie Lian to cease their mindless chatter, Feng Xin had asked:
“So is it true then?”
“Is what true?”
“Your hair.”
Mu Qing rolled his eyes and screwed up his nose.
“You’re asking me if I’m cursed?”
Feng Xin had shrugged.
“I must be to always have to be around your idiotic, small-brained self.”
It had started a fight, leaving him with a sore arm and an increasingly aching heart that throbbed when those angry eyes turned on him. His bared teeth, for it couldn’t be called a smile, had been painted with his own blood. But Feng Xin's perhaps could have been; smug and satisfied, as he often was after they'd pinned one another down onto rough, cold tile and exerted a show of strength that had turned into gasping raggedly, one on top of the other.
There had been a lot of stolen moments between them, where no one had been around, like this.)
-
Meeting Feng Xin had been less world-altering - or rather, to be more accurate, it had just been so utterly normal that at first, he hadn’t even realised his world might have changed.
Having been given permission to study cultivation, he had thrown himself into it with as much vigour and concentration that he could manage. He quickly had risen to be on par with most of the people his own age, despite starting so late.
After being inaugurated as the Crown Prince’s personal attendant, he had finally taken notice of one of the right-hand men of Xie Lian’s that always seemed to be in his orbit.
Of course, the Crown Prince always had someone surrounding him, but the way he spoke to this particular boy, how he smiled at him and spoke with an easy tone, suggested to Mu Qing that they were no ordinary pair of holy Prince and obedient subject.
“You’d do better to throw your weight into your left leg.”
It had been rather late at night after Mu Qing’s other duties had ended. At that time, the Crown Prince had permitted him to catch up on his cultivational study rather than attend to him, and as such his duties hadn’t really pertained to the Crown Prince. Rather soon, however, he expected that his workload would be split between training and attending duties. For now, the only active attendant to His Highness was the boy staring at him from the training room entrance.
They hadn’t spoken before. In fact, Mu Qing had never really seen Feng Xin’s face before then. There was an air to the other boy that told Mu Qing that he belonged here, in these halls, in a way that Mu Qing never had. He had stalked these gilded corridors since he could walk, had been the Crown Prince’s best friend and confidant since a young age.
As to be expected of a high ranked family, the boy was handsome. A deeper skin tone than Mu Qing’s pale complexion.High lines on his face, full lips, dark eyes that were framed by long lashes. Several hairs strayed from his regal topknot into his eyes. His hair was short, hanging just above his shoulders, similar to Mu Qing’s. They couldn’t be less similar in every other aspect, however.
He had been intensely aware of his own looks at that moment, shorter than the boy before him. Light eyes, hair, and light complexion out of place in the palace. He had licked his lips and blinked his eyes.
“Are you deaf and dumb?” Feng Xin continued when he didn’t get a reply.
“No,” he said, breaking his own silence. “I’m just wondering why you’re speaking to me.”
Those pretty eyes had narrowed, and Mu Qing had rolled his own. This would set the tone for their entire dynamic.
“Either take my fucking advice or don’t, I don’t care. Dianxia wants us both to attend to him starting from tomorrow, so don’t be late.”
He was surprised to hear such crass words from a boy with such status, and at that moment, it was like a spell had broken. Mu Qing would be this boy’s equal, more: he would best him. He hadn’t pulled himself up from nothing to be treated like shit at every turn, especially not by someone positioned at the same station as him.
His lips turned up into a half snarl, eyebrows pulled in. “Fine.”
The taller boy stalked out the entranceway once he’d gotten his reply, and Mu Qing innately realised two things - two things never changed throughout his lifetime.
One: He and Feng Xin would always be against one another.
Two: He’d always wish it could be different.
-
The first ten months had been an adjustment period that had had Mu Qing on tenterhooks. He walked a very fine line between angrily taking everyone’s shit as the new kid, and knowing the first wrong move in retaliation would get him kicked out.
But Gods, how he had wanted to exact retribution.
He had known that, at his age, there would be waves made by joining the cultivators. He was extremely late to begin cultivating; most of the cohort had been prepped since birth for this path. Therefore he had to take the quickest and most obvious route: following His Highness’ vows. It hadn’t been easy, but it had been the most logical.
The others were often quite relentless. When Mu Qing made one wrong move, they would turn into jackals. He had taken to rotating the time for his late-night practices so that they wouldn’t be privy to his schedule and hound him, but every now and again, sheer (bad) luck would bring him and several of the others together in the halls at night.
The mornings after, he would turn up with purpling skin, his cultivation not strong enough nor his powers refined enough to circulate and unconsciously to heal yet. He did, of course, give as good as he got, but something was to be said for three or four teenage boys against one.
Feng Xin would watch him openly, but he would never meet his gaze, never say a word to him. Mu Qing would not ask for help from a boy who openly showed his indifference and, on some occasions, his animosity towards him. His Highness would be much more open; pressing for answers with a frown on his face that Mu Qing was well aware he was responsible for putting there. He was, for all intents and purposes, causing trouble.
“It really doesn’t matter,” He would grate out, politeness wearing thin to exasperation as His Highness would press and press the matter. His gold eyes flickered about the room before finding his fellow attendant, who simply gazed at him with his deep eyes as if he were attempting to see into his soul.
The next day, he found that his few belongings had been moved into a shared room with Feng Xin.
-
“You should hit them back you know.” It sounded like less of a suggestion and more of an order. Mu Qing ignored that Feng Xin had even spoken and carried on putting the fruits into the basket.
“I don’t know why you let them fucking beat you.”
“Because, shit for brains, not all of us have a high-ranking family to fall back on,” he hissed out, well aware that he was going to end up in yet another fight as a result of the boy telling him how not to get in fights - where was the logic?!
“Who are you calling shit for brains when you can’t even use yours to fight back!” Feng Xin spat angrily, and Mu Qing rolled his eyes, moving back yet again for some apples.
“Seriously, you’ll upset His Highness,” Feng Xin tried a different tactic.
“Oh yeah, I forgot you lived up his asshole.”
“Don’t talk about His Highness like that!”
“Calm the fuck down, we’re doing such a simple task; surely even you don’t want to turn this into a fight.”
Feng Xin grumbled but backed down, although his expression did brighten as he spotted Xie Lian across the courtyard, speaking to another disciple. Mu Qing followed his gaze before returning to Feng Xin quickly.
What was it like, he wondered, to know you had a good fate?
As the sun filtered through the trees, deepening Feng Xin’s tan and toasting his nose a light pink, he knew he’d never be on par with anyone here. His best would never be good enough.
Especially not for the boy beside him who idolised his best friend.
No, Mu Qing would never be on par with that.
-
(And yet, despite it all, they’d catch each other’s eyes across the room and suppress a smile whenever Qi Rong said something particularly stupid. When their fellow disciples suggested going to the nearest village to get sweets, Feng Xin declined to stay back and spar with Mu Qing.
That was something.)
-
“What are you fucking sulking for now?”
“I am not sulking.”
“Why do you always have a face like a kicked donkey then?! Or are all street boys this sullen?”
That comment had earned Feng Xin a sneer that pulled at his currently split lip.
Feng Xin’s eyes had flickered to it, before he had joined him on the hall floor. Mu Qing had finished all of his afternoon duties and managed to get time to himself. This would have been glorious if not for the fact that Feng Xin always seemed to have a sixth sense for when he was either ‘slacking off’ or wanting to be left alone.
“Hold still then you fucking idiot-” was all he heard before there was a warm hand on his face, and he almost jolted completely away as he felt the first curls of Feng Xin’s spiritual powers enter his meridians, attempting to heal his wounds.
It was the first time he had ever felt the other’s spiritual power in such a way. It reacted weirdly to his own, the two pushing against each other for a moment before his acquiesced so easily that he felt almost angry. Surely he should be able to stand up for himself?!
He didn’t wish to know the expression on his face as he looked at Feng Xin. It should have read: “Are you fucking out of your mind?!” but he was pretty sure it was displaying more curious wonder.
“You needn’t look so shocked, I’m sure you’ll open your stupid mouth and say something that makes me split your lip again soon,” Feng Xin said, but there was no sneer to it as he pointedly didn’t look at Mu Qing, red splotches winding their way up to his neck.
Curious wonder, indeed.
-
(On one of their free days, in which His Highness was at an official engagement inside the palace that they were not permitted to attend, they’d visited a different part of the Capital to have jiaozi. Feng Xin had eaten his own weight in pork and cabbage filled dumplings by the time that Mu Qing had managed to drag him away.
Mu Qing had been trailing a little ways behind to check the stalls for anything his mother may have liked. The heat had been pleasant, spring breathing fresh air into his lungs, and the humidity had been low. Some people had side-eyed Mu Qing, as always, but Feng Xin had gotten good at the thousand-yard stare at anyone who appeared like they wanted to approach.
When Mu Qing had stepped in something that a horse had left behind, Feng Xin had laughed so loudly that it had echoed through the street, startling strangers into looking their way. Mu Qing hadn’t had the heart to berate him for enjoying his misfortune.
They hadn’t tried to kill each other even once.
It had been nice.
That stray thought woke Mu Qing up in the middle of the night, abrupt and terrifying.)
-
While Mu Qing’s lack of dark hair was uncommon, it couldn’t be said it was rare - numerous hair colours adorned people both in the palace and the kingdom. From deep reds and chestnut browns to pitch blacks and light hair just like Mu Qing’s.
The source of his mockery was that he had always seemed like an easy target, particularly as he’d never fought back.
Yet as he’d gotten older and grown into his looks, jealousy rather than scorn had been the reason for the bullying that he quietly endured. Endured was the right word for it because he wanted to very much put all of them flat on their backs and break their spines. He most likely would have been capable. Sometimes he fantasised about it before bed, drifting off sweetly.
But, even though he hadn’t asked for it, it seemed like someone else, someone unlikely, was watching out for him.
Many times, Feng Xin had found Mu Qing ganged up on one way or another by the other disciples, usually aiming dirty kicks his way during practice or making his life hard for him while doing other tasks. In the beginning, he had said nothing. Eventually, he had taken to breaking it up, but never getting so far involved that it would incriminate him in any way - usually, some harsh words and reminders of just who he could tell were enough.
Mu Qing never rose to it, never took the bait, never got himself kicked from his position like they clearly had been hoping - a poor nobody who hadn’t deserved to attend to His Highness. For that, His Highness praised him, although Mu Qing felt that he shouldn’t accept such praise when he wanted to kick their teeth down their throat. He told His Highness as much.
That hadn’t meant that Feng Xin, noble-born and protected from being punished in too harshly, had shown the same restraint.
When Mu Qing had turned up to attend His Highness one morning, a few years after their first acquaintance, with a purpling eye, a split lip, and cradling his right arm, Feng Xin had dragged him back to the practice room and thrown every last one of the sniggering disciples to the floor of the training room and broken their dominant arms.
He could still, with rather vindictive pleasure, picture the abstract horror on their faces as they realised that, actually, a group of four could be beaten by one man alone.
While their spiritual power would heal them much faster than usual, it wouldn’t be fast enough to forget the message so brutally pummelled into them.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Feng Xin had said when the guards had come to question him and seen his bones rather intact compared to his peers. Mu Qing had gazed at him with searching eyes from across the room.
Of course, the Queen had known. But there was not much she could do when, for once, Mu Qing backed Feng Xin up.
Feng Xin had healed him rather effectively under the guidance of His Highness.
Later, when they’d gone to bed, Mu Qing laid awake and stared at Feng Xin in the dark with a second pulse throbbing in his veins.
-
(And yet, they say familiarity breeds contempt? Whoever said that Mu Qing realised, was right.)
-
Three years had passed before he realised he had stopped looking at Feng Xin.
At first, the arrogance and sure nature of the other boy had drawn his eyes to him. That, and the fact that they were both the only attendants for Dianxia. Unfortunately for both of them, this meant spending every single day together.
That had transformed into all day, every day over the year, mostly due to the fact that their cultivation levels were very easily matched. Therefore, their teacher felt it only logical and sensible to partner the two of them together - and she had not relented no matter the number of fights they had gotten into.
They’d become like a well-oiled machine. He didn’t even need to spare a second thought to be able to seek Feng Xin out. Their relationship developed through the childish teething year, as they’d circled each other, unable to understand where they fit had been ironed out. Now, despite the fact they didn’t understand each other, they were one of two halves. It was almost impossible to remember a time when one had been without the other.
Something constantly snapped and pulled between them, tempers and emotions fraying invariably often. Mu Qing had never had this sort of relationship with another teenager; where even the mere sight of Feng Xin's features starting to turn up into a smirk had him itching to wipe it off.
However, he could feel him even when he wasn't looking at Feng Xin.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could anticipate a move, a block, and could feel the anticipation build in Feng Xin before he struck. His feet would move before he thought about it, and he would be countering, his spiritual powers reaching and turning as they put feelers out for the other boy.
When he ended up flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him time after time he would bare his teeth and get back up. The number of times he would show up to tend to His Highness with a bruise and a limp and receive a long-suffering sigh and a lecture about how he and Feng Xin had to, at some point, put whatever this was aside was more than he was able to keep track of.
But what could he say? That he didn't know what this was? Why did the other infuriate him so? They were just opposite people. In every aspect, in every way, from looks to background to morals, they were different. He was frigid ice and Feng Xin was hot coal; it would have been much more fortuitous for them to have never met.
So why did Mu Qing bother looking for him around every corner？
There was no rational explanation for the constant fighting and sniping between them. For all intents and purposes, despite it, they worked well together. They were consistently top of the class, second only to one another, depending on who was winning overall at that particular time. When they worked together for paired or grouped work, it would inevitably end disastrously for them, but not as disastrously as it would end for the opposing team.
Then why was it that one of them would open their mouths, usually Feng Xin, say something fucking stupid, and they’d be on each other like vultures after a carcass?
It was like a physical need to split the other open, to leave as many marks as possible, to attempt to become one being rather than two separate men. Perhaps they never had been; from the moment that they'd met it seemed like there had been no other choice, no other outcome. Maybe this destiny was what His Highness had felt that day in the temple.
More often than not then, Mu Qing would often leave practice with a split lip, but he'd also leave with a thundering heartbeat and some kind of rosy flush to his face.
He would sneak a glance at the other boy, mouth just as bloody, face just as red before his eyes turned back to the wall as they were lectured by the Queen on having patience and respect for one another. After such a chewing out, they’d both return to their rooms and simply undress and redress for bed in silence. Feng Xin, most likely because he was in a mood. Mu Qing, because fuel had been added to the evergrowing fire crawling through his chest cavity.
No, it seemed that he hadn’t stopped looking.
He’d started feeling instead.
-
(海上生明月，
天涯共此时)
-
It grew in his chest like wisteria, beautiful, like all pure emotions were, yet invasive. It covered every crack, and burrowed into every hollow until hitting Feng Xin in the face only served to add to it rather than stave it off. Every mark left behind from the other boy pushed the vines deeper, snagged and ripped into his spiritual power until he could hardly use it against the other, preferring non-spiritual punches.
“Can you not even hit hard nowadays?! Your bark was always worse than your bite.”
Feng Xin caught him, backhanded, with his elbow, causing Mu Qing’s nose to burst across his face with a disgusting crunch and a splash of warm blood. For once, both of their expressions were wide open, both in shock. It was such a foreign expression on Feng Xin’s face that, for a moment, Mu Qing couldn’t move. The concern that broke through the usual angry glint in Feng Xin’s eyes rendered him vulnerable, wounded and open in a way that the other had never made him feel before.
“Mu Qing-” Feng Xin began.
One of the other disciples winced and made an abortive move like she wanted to help, but Mu Qing struck quickly, teeth bared.
Later, when they stood in front of Xie Lian with matching black eyes, after having their matching broken noses healed by Mei Nianqing, they vehemently blamed each other. His Highness made them play yet another one of his hare-brained bonding games.
After attending to His Highness in sullen moods, they plodded back to their room, particularly as Feng Xin kicked his shoes across the room as Mu Qing folded his clothes carefully. Feng Xin spent the entire time looking like he had swallowed a frog as if he wanted to say something but never did.
Mu Qing slid beneath the covers without so much of a word to the other boy. He was protected from the fact that he was staring at Feng Xin, yet again, by the darkness of the room.
There were thousands of things he wanted to say, as always, yet none of them ever make it out.
It would always be his greatest fault.
-
(Once he had ascended, sometimes he lingered on how things might have all been different if he and Feng Xin had learned to speak the same language, instead of constantly misunderstanding each other. What would have unfolded if they had not stubbornly refused to give in for the sake of the upper hand?)
-
Mei Nianqing would always prefer Feng Xin, a point that had been startlingly obvious right from the very beginning of his discipleship but had carried on throughout the years. Of course, Mu Qing was never anything but polite, courteous and obedient, but it didn’t change a damn thing.
Besides slandering Mu Qing at every available moment, Mei Nianqing took to dissuade any notion that any of the disciples had soulmates at all. Of course, Mu Qing was sure that for the most part, he was right. Not many people found their soulmates, and unless you were a god there was never any way to know. Even then, it took some sort of affinity to take note.
Knowing someone's fate and whether or not their match would be heavenly blessed was the job of only very specific gods. Mu Qing’s mind had wandered to wondering whether His Highness, surely destined for godhood, had a soulmate out there. He was sure that with His Highness’ fate there would be no barrier between him and finding the person he was destined to be with.
He wondered idly whether Feng Xin would ever have a soulmate. His fate appeared good, glimmering like he had been destined for the role that he was currently playing. Perhaps he’d been someone noble in his past incarnation, saved someone important, or was simply favoured.
Mu Qing took a sweeping look at Feng Xin under his lashes.
The shape of his jaw and how his hair fell loose, brushing the nape of his neck. His dark skin and tall stature. Two years older than Mu Qing, and more matured.
Feng Xin took that moment to glance over, staring for a moment at Mu Qing who had been caught looking. Mu Qing held the gaze, not one to back away from a fight. Feng Xin sneered.
No way, he thought privately to himself. Feng Xin was far too fucking annoying to be so favoured.
Besides, that would be admitting that he, too, was equally as unblessed.
“Of course, besides Feng Xin, I don’t have much faith in you disciples having a good enough fate at all to have a soulmate,” Mei Nianqing spouted, and Mu Qing almost managed to tune him out completely. He was always blowing smoke up Feng Xin’s ass one way or another, it was no different whatever the topic.
“Well it’s not about to be Mu Qing is it?” one of his fellow disciples’ snickered to another.
Mu Qing was impassive, even though his brain started working at five hundred miles an hour. What would Feng Xin’s soulmate be like? Would they match his temperament? Or would they be the antithesis; cool and calm, soft-voiced and level headed. Would they be attractive?
“Shut up!” Feng Xin snapped at the offending disciple. The ugly, pretty thing in his chest reared its head again as he pretended not to have understood, or heard, why Feng Xin was telling the other disciples to be quiet.
He didn’t let himself look too long, lest he be the target of more direct and rather truthful rumours. After all, all this talk of soulmates had excited the other disciples.
He was not sure he could face knowing what Feng Xin would think of Mu Qing’s feelings.
-
(God, he was fucking lonely.)
-
After His Highness ascended and they were appointed to the Middle Court, Feng Xin sought him out.
“Do you think what they said about soulmates is true?” Feng Xin randomly asked him one day. Mu Qing wasn’t even sure what had brought the question on. The confusion must have shown on his face because Feng Xin elaborated at speed.
“Our fates must be decent, right? We’re in the Middle Court. Eventually, we may even be able to ascend ourselves. So doesn’t that mean-”
“Not necessarily,” Mu Qing hummed. This was quite possibly the most civil talk they’d had in recent memory. “I personally don’t think everyone has one.”
As always, Feng Xin took it completely the wrong way, flying off the handle.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?!”
“Nothing? What the fuck is wrong with you now?”
“You were implying that I wouldn’t have one!”
“I said no such fucking thing?!”
Feng Xin scoffed like he didn’t believe him. It seemed they were fated to always misunderstand each other.
“Tsch,” Feng Xin continued, tossing his hair out of his eyes before delivering the killing blow.
“Who would want someone as bad-mannered as you as their soulmate?”
Mu Qing felt marginally better after beating the other man senseless.
-
There had been something hot in his chest when the palace had declared a simple child to be bad luck for his highness, and that he should have forsaken saving him. Yet again, Mu Qing took the fallout for that somehow; after all, Mei Nianqing would not pass up the opportunity.
Mu Qing was not inherently individualistic. A great many people may have thought so, including, it seemed, Feng Xin. Growing up where he had perhaps left him jaded. Rather, he had learned quickly that he would have to fight for everything he had and wanted.
There were some things that he quickly learned not to want at all.
Before His Highness had been banished, he’d nearly mastered it.
Cutting words, scathing looks and a drawn sabre would keep Feng Xin where he belonged, at arm's length, rather than where Mu Qing wanted. Sometimes he truly believed he did have a poor fate, to be named Mu Qing of all things and yet be destined to be lonely.
The war only made it worse.
Feng Xin and Xie Lian had each other when they'd had nothing. Although Mu Qing had tried his best, splitting himself between two people who would do without him and one who simply couldn’t - his mother - he found it a thankless job.
He hadn’t said a word to His Highness about Feng Xin, even though he had seen what was happening between him and the woman at the brothel. For all the heaviness he already stored in his chest, what was one more stone, one more weight?
While Feng Xin snuck out to see her, he’d walk away after dinner to sit out back near the forest. He didn’t stare in particular at anything; in fact, he tried to think of nothing in order to lessen the weight in his chest.
He would never amount to anything if things stayed the way they were - they all never would. He was stuck, torn between the duty to his family and the duty to the crown. One of them, the one that unfortunately had absolutely no sway or power anymore and no obligation, didn’t give a true shit about him. It was hard for him to admit, but it was the truth.
There was only one way the three of them would make it out of this in some semblance of living, and it was not how they were currently carrying on.
Besides, His Highness still had Feng Xin. They would have each other. After all, it would be better for someone like Mu Qing to have no one.
He could count the times he had made Feng Xin smile on both of his hands, and yet she could pull one from the depths so effortlessly. He’d be jealous if that didn’t imply he had thought that he had had a chance in the first place.
But did he not think that?
After all the years, side by side, after all the hours spent longing, perhaps he had managed to kid himself. Perhaps he’d even deluded himself so far as to think that their fighting was some elaborate courtship and not real hatred.
All the times spent staring at the other, pinning each other down over and over again in a display of dominance that had no real applications. Using it, rather, as an excuse to lean his head down as much as he could possibly get away with before Feng Xin’s eyes would widen, and he’d go deliciously limp in his grasp. Their sparring sessions had gone on past ascension, past their real use, taking out frustrations on the other until they were left sprawled side by side, where sometimes their fingers would touch, and Mu Qing would pretend not to notice and wouldn’t pull away.
How could he not think that?
And yet, at the same time, he berated himself.
How had he ever thought that Feng Xin would be destined for him?
-
(When he dreamt, Feng Xin was by his side. It struck him how sad his life was when his dreams were so boring, so mundane that they were simply he and the man he was hopelessly fucking in love with. It was simply enough that for once, someone had decided to choose him, and not out of some misplaced pity.
Whenever he woke up, his chest ached.)
-
He still slept between them every night, arms tucked into his sides as he faced Feng Xin. The other man’s face was much more peaceful in rest, softening his features. For a moment he could kid himself, make-believe that they had a normal life. Perhaps Feng Xin had met him in some random village. He was taken by the way Mu Qing looked, had wrapped an arm around his waist and pressed soft skin against his own.
Sometimes Feng Xin even stared back.
They didn’t talk, and they didn’t speak of it later. If Mu Qing woke up considerably closer, Feng Xin never mentioned it.
He thought about what would have happened if the war had changed. If he could give voice, selfishly, to these feelings in his chest, what would Feng Xin say? It was nothing but a shallow dream. Feng Xin had never shown him anything but contempt. He was not one to mistake loyalty for anything otherwise.
The day before Mu Qing disappeared, he woke up to the warm pressure of Feng Xin’s arm over his waist. He was flat on his back, with the two of them curled up near him. Something welled up deep within him, threatening to overflow as his eyes pricked uncomfortably.
He didn’t move for a long time, even though he was sure they were both awake. He let himself have this, pretending to be asleep with controlled breathing as he stared at the sunrise through the window over Feng Xin’s back.
-
(When Mu Qing left, a part of himself stayed behind. He told himself that he would go back for it, but he knew, truly, it was not a promise he could keep. More to the point, it was not a promise he had made to anyone but himself.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d disappointed them.)
-
Their final argument was again down to pride; something that Mu Qing wouldn’t (couldn’t) part with and something that Feng Xin would never have. Not as long as he lived in the shadow of His Highness’ supposed greatness for the remainder of his life, anyway. Feng Xin would never love him, for he didn’t have any thoughts outside of duty. Except, that was not true, was it? For he loved that woman, the one whom Mu Qing didn’t know the name of, but that stood looking beautiful while she waited for him every third day. Everything between them that hadn’t had a name, never would.
It was proven to Mu Qing that Feng Xin could want, but not for him.
It was not that he only saw duty. It was that he didn’t see Mu Qing at all.
Every shared look felt like a delusion his heart had made out of what his eyes had seen. And yet, he couldn’t stop himself. If he could crack open his chest, and take his feelings out, he would have done long ago - should have done at the first warning signs. But no, they are rooted. Firm in their foundations.
Yet they were dying, rotting from the inside with contempt for one another. All three of them were playing a balancing act, and had in fact been playing it from day one. But now that their roles had ceased to exist, to have any meaning, and the boat could be rocked, it was taking on water fast. Exposing what Mu Qing had always suspected - that they saw him still as the errand boy, and not as an equal.
It was a horrid feeling of vindication when they wouldn’t take his sincere suggestions seriously. He had been poor and nothing once, he would return to it again. There was to be no pride in survival, yet they couldn’t comprehend it. To shed their titles, the things that had meant everything to them had been their whole identities, they’d be naked. But Mu Qing would be the same. The difference was that he was not afraid of it.
“Can you not put yourself first for one moment?” Feng Xin was shouting at him again. It was strange, how despondent he could feel, yet how anger could blaze so fiercely in his heart. How he could feel that they were all tilting off-axis, that something was breaking. “Not everything is about you!”
“I never said anything about myself.”
“You always think you know best!”
“Well when you have such plain answers and stupid explanations, is it not the truth?”
“You think of us as too prideful!” Feng Xin spat, but he hadn’t made a move to land the first blow yet.
“But I’m correct,” Mu Qing gritted out, tired of this already.
“You cannot seriously be fucking suggesting that His Highness begs on the street.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Do you take us for some back alley urchins?”
Mu Qing narrowed his eyes at that. “Can you not think for one second about how I feel when you say that?”
“I know how you feel! You only think of yourself, naturally, so it’s easy to know how you must feel!”
How could Feng Xin possibly know that every time Feng Xin so much as spoke to him, Mu Qing carved his heart out and grew another one that could withstand the taunts until it cracked once more?
“You are incapable of assuming what I think. Were you dropped on your head as a child? You always think the worst of me!”
“You see what I mean?” sneered Feng Xin, smugly crossing his arms.
“Why is it that you never take my suggestions on board-”
“Because you’re fucking bad luck!”
Mu Qing’s mouth snapped shut so sharply that if he’d still been human he was sure he’d have broken his jaw. Feng Xin’s face was flushed, but there was no suggestion that he would apologise; he surely wouldn’t think of it. How well Mu Qing can read his face, his lack of expression a testament to all their shared years together. And yet, it has come to mean nothing at all.
“Anytime you’re involved, it just doesn’t fucking work the way it’s supposed to. It hasn't been right from the beginning.” Once he had started, he could not seem to stop himself, and Mu Qing just stood there and took it, for there was nothing else to do.
“I’m not begging in the street just because you fucking said it was a good idea. When have you had a good idea? How is that a good fucking idea? Is it nostalgic for you or something?”
There was deathly silence wherein Mu Qing looked at him. Really looked at him. If he had thought he could ask Feng Xin to go with him, he would. But there was no fucking point. Mu Qing would always play second fiddle to literally anyone else in Feng Xin’s life, for all that Mu Qing had continuously put him first - saving him, fighting for him and with him, loving him.
“If you don’t want to lower your status, and allow me to bring you such shitty luck, then that’s fine.” He’s fully aware his chest is heaving, and Feng Xin is blissfully quiet. “But I don’t fucking have to be here either.”
“Then go!” Feng Xin shouted, and his chest was heaving too. Something thick clogged up Mu Qing’s throat, something painful and wet. “You’re all fucking bark and no bite as usual!”
“Fuck you,” he managed to get out, storming past Feng Xin, who reached for him as if to either shove him or stop him, yet he slipped around him, unwilling to even look at Feng Xin’s face one more time.
There was a moment of synchronicity as if his spiritual powers note the surging of the other’s from his upset, but he pushed his own down instead of letting it sway his want to comfort. Feng Xin had said what both he and His Highness had clearly been thinking for a long, long time.
Why had he thought it might have been different?
If he stayed a moment longer, he was going to burst.
“If this is what you want,” Xie Lian states, but what he really hears is: “If you do this, that is it.”
Neither of them attempted to stop him.
How easy it was to break a heart, it seemed.
What was one more time anyway?
-
(He didn’t keep his not-promise.
In fact, he made it worse.
Not only did they not stop him, but they actively ousted him.
And for what?
His chest was still on fire with unsaid feelings and his heart was still weighed down with duty and guilt.
Nothing had changed, except that he was truly alone.
How did gods know they have good fate?
Was it possible to be quite so unlucky yet so divinely favoured?
Or perhaps it was because he had nothing that the gods gave him something so that he could fill the hole in his chest with self-righteous pride. Or rather, it seemed, love.
What the fuck did he do in his past life for this?)
-
The clock chimed, the ground shook, and the communication array was abuzz.
General Nan Yang ascended.
Mu Qing could not look away.
The slope of his features, noble and proud. He looked tired; a deep frown was on his face as the light cleared. It were as if he were born to grace Heaven with his presence, settled and calm with no uncertainty about his being here, passing his Heavenly Calamity with undoubted ease. Mu Qing felt so suddenly out of place again, as if he were catapulted back to his teenage years, a lithe and silvery Mu Qing beside Feng Xin, the epitome of supple masculinity and physicality. Feng Xin’s face was bathed in the new glow of ascension, lighting up his eyes from within.
In all honesty, Feng Xin could have had any face. His spiritual power surged at the proximity as if they were old friends calling to each other from the Lower Court training grounds once again, and the pain in his chest that had been dormant came leaping back as if it could not believe its luck.
Feng Xin was greeted instantly. Pei Ming drew him closer, saying something that undoubtedly was wholly inappropriate. He spotted Feng Xin finally giving a smile, relaxing in a way he had rarely done around the other.
Mu Qing could not move.
His feet were cemented to the tile he was standing on, becoming one with the bridge. His body felt immeasurably heavy, like he was filled with lead. His spiritual power flew through his meridians as if he were in mortal danger, reacting violently to the echo inside his body.
There was heat in his chest, blooming, flooding his meridians. It was painful as he looked at the other god, tingled down his arms, and left him pulling in sharp breaths. It was an awareness that had been breeding while he’d been human and had become fully formed right at this very moment. The ascension of the other god had completed what had been brewing in the moral realm.
Feng Xin hadn’t noticed him yet and never would. Not in the way that he wanted.
He would never be able to swallow his pride and tell Feng Xin how he really felt. After all this time, something still buzzed under his skin for Feng Xin just as it had the first day they had met in the practice room. His heart still hammered in his chest, and his face burned with embarrassment and heartache with every targeted, brutal word. Punches would hurt less. He had spent years wondering how a god could be so unlucky as to fall in love with someone who would never love them back.
At twenty years old, he told himself the feeling would disappear in time. That he would get tired of physically and mentally fighting the other man and lose whatever connection he had to him; dissolve into not giving a fuck. However, it had never happened, and all he had done since then was ache.
Feng Xin was, at heart, someone who could be trusted. Loyal even to people he didn’t like much. It wasn’t that Mu Qing was much different from that, it was that he was all too often misread as being spiteful and underhanded despite his best intentions.
He had always hoped that Feng Xin would ascend. That they would be able to put aside their differences, talk it out, come to some sort of truce. That they would finally hear one another, without everything that came along with trying to beat the other into submissive understanding. He had been hoping this day would come.
Now, he didn’t know how to bear it.
No, he would never swallow his pride and tell Feng Xin how he really felt. He would never feel the same.
Their dynamic, carefully curated to the point where it was almost a choreographed dance, had finally worn on him. Something that had become a painful 'what if' over the past years had become startlingly clear with their dual accessions. Viscerally, he could feel it inside his chest with absolute certainty. The revelation of this fact was drumming a constant beat in the back of Mu Qing’s mind. It threatened to be the end of him.
Feng Xin met his gaze over the bridge.
(“There once was a boy. He was born with nothing, and he was told he would most probably die with nothing -”
“This doesn’t sound like a happy story.”
“Not everyone's story is, I'm afraid.”)
It was as clear as day.
Feng Xin is Mu Qing’s soulmate, yet Mu Qing is not his.