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A comforting feeling.
A hand, warmer than the ones from before…
Lan Sizhui smiled knowingly, his thumb running patiently across the back of his friend’s hand.
“Jin Ling…” He whispered, softly, into the ear of the person next to him. His body inched closer to the golden clad male.
“W-what is it…?” The one who had been called to stumbled over his words, his hand almost closing the book he had been intently focused on. It was surely too hard to speak while pouting like that. He crossed his arms, clearly upset having been disrupted so abruptly, his bottom lip jutting out some... His bright and warm, white peony-themed hanfu folding fittingly alongside his jagged personality. Even his eyebrows edging on obscuring his mark of vermillion brilliance. In that moment, if it were not for the way his hair pieces perfectly held every single strand of his lengthy, deep-brown hair, he would have seemed completely unrefined.
Sizhui tilted his head, his equally long, pitch-black ponytail swishing off to the side behind him.
“I love you…”
There was silence in the room. -- One could hear the air coming in through the window in wisps. It was awkward. But with ‘love,’ awkwardness was to be expected. To truly love someone meant to take everything they offered. -- The talkativeness of a lover who wanted to discuss the sad days they had -- hoping no one noticed how much they longed to be held by their parents… Those moments they, (he), cried. Especially those where you could see the vulnerability, as viscerally as the tip of a sharp blade. . . . When someone you barely knew once, someone you sometimes came across, in youth, because of circumstances set up by the requirements of cultivation study… Trembled one day, ever so publicly, a violent ache escaping him, holding his father’s sword. … The precious tassel that once belonged to his late mother shining from where it dangled. The brilliance was a beauty rivaled only by the loveliness of Jin Ling’s burning tears.
“...”
Of course he didn’t respond. It was Jin Ling, after all. He was not one to express emotion healthily. He often bottled things up until they came out as a raging fountain of fiery vitriol. Which was often. (It was practically his perpetual state of being!)
This in mind, Sizhui only smiled, shaking his head, reaching out once more, seeing as with his beloved’s silence came physical distance. “It’s okay,” he reassured, his voice somehow managing to be even quieter than before. “I know, this isn’t the first time I’ve said this…”
Jin Ling gulped, even his throat heating up from the anxiety. He didn’t hate Sizhui, no… -- But, he couldn’t stand the way that he seemed to calm him down. The way he took all the bad away with his consistent kindness and warmth. It was as if the serene man were melting the snow that had long since covered his heart.
He could almost hear the ice crystals dissipating away.
There was no escaping the mental anguish that came from a deep-seated fear of abandonment. It rooted itself into his arteries and deep into his veins and spilled from his mouth like a poison-curse. This was especially so when he felt there was no real way out of commitment. But, he was unable to convince himself to take out his discontent on the person who looked as if he were made of the same snow that protected his heart.
When Sizhui blushed it was like the sun radiating from beneath the melting ice.
Jin Ling shook his head, on the precipice of panic. “N...No…” Was all he could get out.
Puzzled, Sizhui giggled and kissed the man’s cheek. “No? No, I don’t love you?”
Jin Ling leaned in close -- the side of his face fitting, there, just right, as it rested on the man in white’s shoulder. “ … … … ...No, I won’t say it…”
“Say what, my dearest A-Ling?” Sizhui took the chance to flirt, -- he was basically singing. His rebellious side must have come from his upbringing with Uncle Wei. He giggled at the thought, his own temperament, and the true-to-nature behavior of his closest friend.
“D-don’t laugh!” Jin Ling pouted, frustrated, his cheek pressing more into Sizhui’s clothed shoulder. He shook his head, like an annoyed but touch-starved puppy. Sizhui also thought that was quite fitting.
“...”
The man, sporting the color of an expensive autumn festival, was quiet for a while, as if he was pondering something Sizhui had momentarily forgotten (due to his own incomprehensibly affectionate thinking). The nerve-racking nature of the situation had him moving back to his original seating position.
Noticing, with disappointment, the Lan only tried to egg him on, but in a manner worthy of a gentleman, “... Yes?” He, as if not even touching him at all, took the opposing man by his upper arms and pulled him back, consolingly. Looking into those lovely, warm, almond-hued eyes, he searched for words that may not have been coming.
From that small distance, Jin Ling seemed to have a fire light, burning away his reason. He reached out, quite suddenly, knocking away one of Sizhui’s hands, but soon after apologized with a face of regret. Words of a similar caliber soon followed. Then, as if the two had recovered from the initial shock of the shorter man’s unannounced action, Ling became even more bold…
He touched Sizhui’s headband. Not just that, he trailed his hand to the back of his head, -- his fingers managing to keep contact with the elegantly embroidered fabric the entire time. Once at the back of the other’s head, Ling slowly started pulling one of the sides which dangled from an articulately even-made bow… Slowly pulling away the thing, that, if touched by anyone else, would have resigned the man before him to a life of dedication to someone aside from himself… A Lan's headband: the one thing that only a lover or family member should touch. The headband that Jin Ling had just, in an almost ceremonious way, completely removed.
The once bold Lan Sizhui became frigid, as if he had just been shocked by Purple Lightning, or something. (Surely, with the feelings that currently ran through his heart, that may be a fate that would soon come to fruition!) If he had the words he would have been stammering them out.
His chest heated up, and his own fingers were shaking, and, as if he had misplaced his own mind, he started pawing around for a ribbon of sorts on Jin Ling’s head.
When he didn’t find it, he instead found Jin Ling’s lips pressing to his own. There was a strange moment of silence, as if the wind around them had stopped. The desk that they sat beside suddenly became invisible and the lights in the room seemed to dull out… Or, maybe, that was because Sizhui had closed his eyes… All he could feel was the cautious pressure that leaned into his lips. It felt much nicer than any bunny he had secretly pressed to his face, when caring for his father’s pets. Oh, how he wished his mind would not distract him in such moments… But, when Jin Ling wrapped his thin arms around him, he was brought back in.
Half in a daze, his eyes hazed over with the heat of the kiss, he thought about how he, too, would have been lost without his own adoptive father… How he wished he could adopt Jin Ling, in a way… Become a surrogate family to him… But, Jin Ling had Uncle Cheng, and he even had the people of the Lanling Jin Clan that he now oversaw…How could he be so self-assured to believe that he could give Jin Ling more than what he already had?
What was this feeling that could not be described with more than the spoken word, ‘love’?
Sizhui felt as if a part of him would be lost, never to return, if Jin Ling had rejected him, in earnest… But, then, what was it, the feeling of having the one he yearned for returning his affections?
“Sizhui…?” Jin Ling asked, picking up on the clear change in mood. He cleared his throat, shaking his head as if to sike himself up, then tilted it. Getting closer to the puzzled man, he ducked down, some, so that Sizhui would be looking at him, with his ashen eyes from above. “A-...” He began, then coughed, weakly, into his fist, the one holding the lengthy headband. He continued, no more confident than before, “A-Sizhui?”
There was another kiss. This time it was Jin Ling’s mind that was vacuumed of all its words.
With anyone else, letting an eager lover take advantage of the new height difference may have caused him distress. But the kiss was chaste and quick, as expected from someone of the Gusu Lan Sect. Jin Ling didn’t know how to not appear uncouth by showing his disappointment. But, it was evident on his face, anyway. Though, he knew the differences in their temperaments never seemed an issue, before.
As long as they continued to work together, they had all the time they needed to sort through their needs and expectations for each other. Deep within their melting hearts, surely they both felt similarly. The two of them knew the pain of being left behind. One: the pain of never really knowing, -- the other, the pain of forgetting. But, when they were close, together, whatever the definite names of the feelings they harbored, they were … Comforting...