Chapter Text
Xingqiu knew the moment Chongyun fell for him. The look of amusement turned soft, adoring, sometime around their seventeenth summer.
Initially, he was scared— relationships, to Xingqiu, were heavy and strategic, Not something born out of the August heat. But it was gentle and quiet; the way Chongyun would rest in his lap when the heat got to his head, the way he would talk when intoxicated on yang energy.
“I have something to tell you,'' Chongyun would say, his voice thick, quiet, like the secret he held was kept under lock and key, “But I shouldn't. I'm sorry, ...sorry.” Chongyun always apologized as he drifted unconscious, never saying what was at the tip of his tongue.
Chongyun loving him didn’t scare him much anymore, but he was afraid of loving him back.
Xingqiu realized he could fall for boys when he was around twelve. An acquaintance of the bookhouse’s shopkeep came to help for the summer. Older, gentle, and calm; the young master quickly developed a crush on him.
He told Chongyun— to which he asked, “You like boys?”
“—too.” Xingqiu corrected nonchalantly, though he wasn’t sure of his own words. Really, he hadn’t had a crush on a girl before. Either way, admitting only to loving men would mean admitting that he would definitively have a loveless marriage when it was arranged. That was a difficult conclusion for the young Xingqiu, who had been steeped in love stories from the moment he could comprehend their words.
“Huh... okay.” Chongyun didn’t ask questions nor did he show a reaction aside from the flushing of his cheeks.
When he was fifteen, Xingqiu was first engaged. She was older, gentle, and calm, but his heart didn’t stir. He was fifteen when he became sure that he would never love a woman the way he could love the storekeeper’s acquaintance, the young Millelith recruit, or the traveling merchant’s son.
They were cordial, but the engagement broke for business reasons and neither kicked a fuss. The engagement lasted two years and a half but they met less than he could count on two hands.
The broken engagement was probably more of a trigger than the heat of summer, in causing Chongyun to fall for him. Maybe he felt like he was now allowed to, maybe he was relieved and wondered why. But Xingqiu was soon engaged again. His father’s swift action sent a clear message. Get married, have children, settle down.
“Again?” Chongyun wiped the water, which he had choked on moments before, from his mouth.
Xingqiu stared into his perch stew, “Mhmm. That’s what I said.”
“I— um…“ Chongyun paused, “I didn’t expect your father to make arrangements so soon…”
“Why? Were you expecting to have a little tryst first, dear Chongyun?” Xingqiu winced internally. He had been trying to hold back on the flirtatious jokes ever since he realized Chongyun’s feelings, but old habits die hard. So much so that they appeared to be more tenacious than the God of Geo himself.
Chongyun tugged on his collar, as though Wanmin Restaurant’s counters had suddenly shot up five degrees.
Xingqiu covered for himself by smoothly continuing with the conversation, “Well, it shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise. My elder brother was betrothed by age twelve. I suppose my father has already been quite lenient with me as the second son.”
“Do you… want to get married?” Chongyun asked, his voice hushed.
Xingqiu snorted, “Archons, no .”
Recalling their meeting, Xingqiu’s new fiancée was anything but warm. She did not smile and barely lifted her eyes from the table as her father talked of her talents. She likely had someone she was seeing already.
After the meeting his brother clapped him on the back and commended his new fiancée’s beauty, adding a snide comment as brothers do, “Or would you rather have married that Xiangling girl you’re always going to see?”
Xingqiu had jabbed him with an elbow, “It’s not like that.”
It certainly wasn’t, especially since he frequented Wanmin restaurant to meet Chongyun more often than Xiangling herself. He couldn’t tell him that, of course, but the ridiculous kissing noises his brother made whenever Xingqiu left for Chihu rock still tested his patience.
“That sounds annoying,” Xiangling laughed. She swung around to grab another one of their dishes. “Why not just tell them, y’know, that you only like m—”
Xingqiu covered her mouth, “ Absolutely not .” He glanced at Chongyun, who thankfully was far too busy with quelling his own Yang energy to listen.
“Ohh! I see. Well then, forget your family, why haven’t you told him ?”
“I have , to some extent. I haven’t clarified the ‘only’ part, but I believe that's a rather unnecessary correction at this point.”
“Only what?” Chongyun interjected, his eyes now open and sharp, flicking back and forth between the other two.
“Only… only—!” Xiangling drummed her fingers on the counter anxiously, “Um…sorry, I’m gonna…” She disappeared into the restaurant’s back room.
Chongyun looked to Xingqiu for answers, but Xingqiu was suddenly very interested in searching for any carrots in his Crystal Shrimp.