Chapter Text
“Out of curiosity.. what’s your favourite flower?”
Xiangling looked over, eyes narrowed in mild confusion at the sudden question. Hu Tao was sat cross-legged on the grass next to her, her melancholic expression bathed in the dim glow of the crescent moon above as she gazed right back at it.
She looks beautiful.
“Same as you,” she answered.
“.. Silk flower?”
She smiled down at her hands.
“That’s the one.”
Hu Tao turned her head to the side to meet her gaze, and right as she did, a warm breeze swept past. It ruffled Xiangling’s short blue hair, hair that was usually up in an intricate braid but was now splayed out beneath her like a splat of indigo paint on a dull green canvas, framing her deep brown eyes, her cute button nose, and all the other features Hu Tao had come to adore. Seeing her like this, in the low light and in the rare, comfortable and calm atmosphere that would manifest around them only when they were alone on quiet evenings; it left her breathless. Her words came out barely a whisper.
“How come?”
Xiangling pondered it for a moment. She’d always liked silk flowers, ever since Hu Tao brought her a bouquet of them after one of her pranks had upset her. It must have been nearly a year ago by then, she thought - she had been pestering her all day at the restaurant, and by the end she’d caused multiple broken plates and angry customers leaving prematurely - yet, being the irritating trickster she so loved to be, Hu Tao called Xiangling clumsy for all the mistakes she’d caused. And she lost it. Shouting, crying, pushing her friend into the wall, she couldn’t hold back all the stress and frustration that had built through the day; and Hu Tao took it all silently with a face full of shock and regret. After being shoved out of the small establishment, the funeral parlour director showed up the next day before opening hours with a neatly wrapped bundle of silk flowers in hand, a small apologetic smile on her lips. Her eyes hadn’t that mischievous twinkle, for once - but a look of deep sincerity.
She sighed, reminiscing on the memory. As irritating as she was, Hu Tao could be sweet when she wanted to be.
“Because,” she smiled a genuine smile as she sat up, running a hand through her short, dark hair. “They remind me of you.”
Hu Tao felt her chest tighten. This girl..
This girl who she’d teased and tormented, day in and day out for all their childhood and teen years. This girl who hadn’t a drop of spite or hate in her entire being, who’d forgiven her for every stupid mistake and every obnoxious comment or trick she pulled on her. This girl, who despite everything was nothing but kind to her, when really she deserved all the hurtful words she threw at her on that evening a year ago a thousand times over - even though Xiangling herself made it clear that she meant none of it. This girl, who sat beside her looking like she belonged in an oil painting, a sight too perfect to be real and too delicate to touch, with her lightly tousled, shoulder-length hair; her honey coloured eyes, wide in wonder and awe as she gazed up at the heavens above; her soft-looking lips parted in a warm smile that revealed her upper teeth ever so slightly, a smile that Hu Tao noticed was reserved only for moments like these.
This kind, loving, caring girl, who had no idea that she’d sown the seeds of the silk flowers that grew in her chest. Silk flowers that, over many months, had now almost fully grown. Her own favourite flowers, blooming an even deeper red than they do in the wild, tearing at the tissues inside her ribcage - as a poet, she couldn’t help but find it a fitting, beautifully tragic demise. As a funeral director whose life’s ambition was to allow the cycle of life and death to continue, she couldn’t bring herself to fight it. But as a young woman, just barely nineteen years old, whose only crime was to have fallen in love with her best friend; she was scared. And she felt an inexplicable guilt for it.
This sweet, honest girl, whose life she only added stress to - of course she had the audacity to fall in love with her. And of course she’d be leaving her, just like that.
“.. I’m sorry,” she muttered softly, voice threatening to break as tears began to form in her eyes and a lump began to form in her throat - a flower or a sob, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
Xiangling’s expression quickly fell from warm to worried as she heard the utterance, and she turned to meet Hu Tao’s gaze. For just a second, she thought she noticed teary eyes gleam in the moonlight, but she turned her head to the side too quick to be sure.
“For what?” Xiangling spoke gently, nothing but care in her voice as she reached over and took her friend’s cold hand in her own. She saw her clench her eyelids shut and swallow, hard. A single tear escaped, which Hu Tao hastily wiped away, hoping the other girl didn’t notice but knowing that she did.
“For treating you-,” her breath hitched. “For treating you the way that I do. I don’t want to upset you, ever, I just-“
Xiangling just squeezed the other’s hand and leaned slightly closer, wanting to hear what she was trying to say.
“I just- … I don’t-“
“Hu Tao,” Xiangling shuffled closer and touched her cheek gently to turn her head & meet her eyes. She gasped lightly, not expecting the contact or to be cut off in that moment, but calmed almost instantly at the warm feeling of Xiangling’s thumb wiping away a stray tear.
“You don’t have to apologise for anything,” she said with honesty in her smile. “I know you don’t mean to upset me, even if you do make me cry & yell at you.” She lightly shoved her by the shoulder with the last few words, eliciting a small, sad smile from her friend.
She continued. “I know you. I know you’re sweet, and gentle, and caring, even when you’re pulling your little pranks and trying to scare me. You know how I know?”
Hu Tao furrowed her eyebrows & tilted her head to the side slightly, unintentionally laying it in Xiangling’s palm in the process. The latter felt her heart swell at the simple action - Hu Tao’s skin was soft, warm, albeit a bit flushed from the tears. She looked up at her expectantly through her lashes, like a lost puppy, and she couldn't help but think how adorable this side of her was, even if she didn’t let it show often. She was so.. enamoured , by the sight that she barely registered the small tingling sensation beneath her ribs, as if something had manifested itself onto her lungs, tickling the tissue and-
.. Oh.
So that’s what that feels like .
She pushed the realisation to the back of her mind, for now, and continued what she was about to say.
“I know, because every time you do upset me, you make it up to me. You’ll show up with a bag of slime condensate for my cooking, or fermented plum blossoms so I can make flower cakes. Do you remember when I lost my cool at you, after hours at Wanmin, and the next day you showed up with a bouquet of silk flowers?” Hu Tao nodded, her expression soft and listening intently. Xiangling felt the presence in her lungs grow with each sentence, her chest tightening slowly and uncomfortably - and she knew exactly what it meant. “That day is why silk flowers remind me of you. It’s why they’re my favourites. I know you’re sweet under that outer shell you put up, because if you weren’t, you would never bother with those cute little gestures. Even when you’ve done nothing, all I need to know that you’re just playing around is that damn smile,” Xiangling’s voice gradually quietened to just above a whisper with her last sentence, barely registering it herself as she gazed down at the other’s lips, slowly being tugged into said smile, albeit slightly sadder.
“What damn smile ?” Hu Tao countered after a moment, a hint of mischief in her tone and smirk. She knew it hurt - physically and emotionally - to tease the other girl, but she just couldn’t stop herself. Even if it caused the flowers in her lungs to bloom further, tearing her apart from the inside, she’d never get tired of that flustered expression when she really got to Xiangling. It was ironic really - it’s what was killing her that kept her going. Her inner cynic scoffed. How poetic.
But that flustered expression never came. Xiangling simply rolled her eyes and put a finger to the other girl’s smirking lips, rendering her mildly surprised.
“That one. That stupid little damn smile ,” she giggled. “I hate it.”
“No you don’t.”
“No, I don’t. I wish I did.”
The pair laughed together under the light of the stars and moon above, both of their chests tightening ever so slightly with each moment they spent together, their discomfort and building pain unbeknownst to the other. A new sensation for one, but a feeling that the other had been living with for far too long. Longer than the average person would have been able to cope - but it was beginning to catch up with her. Hu Tao was only human, after all.
And she didn’t have long.
~
“Hey, Xiangling?”
“Mmm?” She simply hummed in response, her head in the other girl’s lap as she felt Hu Tao’s ring-adorned fingers play with her hair.
“The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?”
Xiangling giggled. “You say that every time we come up here. Are you out of original material?”
Hu Tao just smiled that bittersweet smile once more, her gaze never leaving the moon in question. Xiangling was completely unaware of the quiet confession she made so often, and though it pained her she wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, she really did love the moon, thinly veiled admittance aside. She’d spent many a night tracing its craters and contours with her fingers, but every time it looked more stunning than the last. It was one of the many things she’d miss in the next realm.
“Well, I’m not wrong, am I?”
“No, you’re not, it’s.. pretty” Almost as pretty as you, Xiangling wants to say.
“You don’t sound so sure,” Hu Tao chuckled at the other’s apprehension.
Xiangling sat up and pouted at her. “Is this some kind of inside joke or trick you’re not telling me about?”
If anyone else dared to so much as touch her prized hat, Hu Tao surely would lose it & unleash the fiery spirit of Boo Tao on the culprit. But, just this one time, she opted to take it off of her own head and place it gently onto Xiangling’s, in a successful bid to turn her frown to a beaming grin once more. She fits the sun more than the moon, she thinks to herself.
“Maybe..”
“Hu Tao!!” Xiangling slapped her friend on the shoulder playfully as she just laughed in response.
As her giggling died down Hu Tao mumbled, “Maybe if you do some research, I’ll let you in on it next time.”
“You better,” she whined as she came to rest on the other’s lap once more, the hat still on her head. “I really wanna know.”
Hu Tao looked down and brushed a strand of indigo hair from Xiangling’s face. She smiled and shook her head, gazing up once again to her old friend in the skies above.
I don’t think you do.