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In the relatively early years of his life, Mu Qing knelt before the gods and relinquished the comforts of mortality. Sex, wine, indulgence— paltry pleasures that paled in comparison to his boundless ambition. As a teenager, blessed with potential and burdened by station, his wants were so vast and so many that he could hardly name them himself. But he had wanted all the same, with a ferocity that bore its rewards.
Eight hundred years later, Mu Qing stood inside the court of heaven, having relinquished mortality itself and all its inconveniences. He never tired or grew hungry. He ruled over mortal kings and subjects alike. He was a god.
And through it all, still, he wanted. Some intangible, small want gnawed him through until it settled within him as discontent.
At first, he guessed it was the guilt. Abandoning his friends, which had seemed at the time the only logical path, ate away at him for centuries. But he could live with guilt, he thought, and so he did.
Then, somehow, somewhere, he was forgiven. His guilt burned away in a pit of lava as his friends insisted that, indeed, they were his friends. It seemed laughable now, but the admission had meant everything to him.
However, as the next dynasty of heaven birthed itself, Mu Qing still found himself reaching for what remained just outside his grasp. Perhaps his ambition truly was boundless, stretching beyond even the heavens. Perhaps he was doomed to never find satisfaction in himself. Perhaps he didn’t deserve to.
Yet within Mu Qing lay a small kernel of something true. He had buried it, ignored it, tried with all his might to quash it— but he could never rid himself of it. The truth was a tenacious thing. Equally tenacious, Mu Qing knew, was shame.
He didn’t want to dwell on his shame. To dwell on shame was to feed it, to give it credence. He had spent his life trying to do the very opposite of that.
Mu Qing sat up in bed, giving up on a bare attempt to sleep for the first time in— maybe a year, maybe a decade. One would be surprised how difficult sleep comes without tiredness. Sometimes he, in typical martial god fashion, missed war and the toil of battle. Even after ascending, a battle always provided him with a deep, dreamless sleep. It was as if his body held onto the habit of exhaustion, void of the experience.
Mu Qing did not want to think about the other labors he once performed to exhaustion. Not at all. He grabbed his sabre and stalked out of the room. Some time spent drilling forms might clear his head.
But as soon as he stepped into the corridor, he heard a knock on the door. He paused. Even if heavenly officials kept odd hours, surely everyone had enough courtesy to not pay visits in the middle of the night.
The knock came again, more insistent. Mu Qing went to answer.
To his immense surprise, Feng Xin stood on his doorstep. He had a wide jar of liquor in one hand. There was a slight flush to his cheeks, and a sway to his posture that was only noticeable to Mu Qing who had stared at the straight line of his shoulders for so long, but his gaze was sharp when it landed on him and moved to the sabre in his grasp.
“Do you always answer the door armed?” He said, not slurring but with not nearly enough of the biting aggression he had in sobriety, “That’s not very polite.”
“Feng Xin,” said Mu Qing, still somewhat stunned, “what are you doing here?”
“Do I need a reason to be here?”
“You’re drunk.”
“This is as sober as you can be after spending the evening with Pei Ming.”
“What the hell were you doing with Pei Ming?”
“Honestly,” Feng Xin sighed, “I think he might have developed a conscience and now he’s trying to make new friends. It’s a little creepy.”
Mu Qing snorted, noticing that Feng Xin bore no sword strapped to his person. He couldn’t remember the last time Feng Xin had faced him unarmed. His own hand was still clutching his sheathed sabre. For some reason, this inconsequential circumstance thrilled him.
“Nice outfit, by the way,” said Feng Xin.
Mu Qing looked down at himself— in his off-white undergarments — and bristled, “I was trying to sleep!”
“You barely ever sleep,” and again, a small thrill that his habits did not escape Feng Xin’s notice, “Come on, let me in. It’s cold.”
“Let you in?” Mu Qing sputtered, “Why can’t you go home? And it’s not cold—“
“Because I just spent the past three hours listening to Pei Ming talk about his conquests, and now I want to spend time with you.”
Mu Qing could think of no response to that.
Once inside, Feng Xin made a beeline for the balcony that overlooked the Great Martial Avenue. From there, one had a view of every palace of their fellow martial gods, but most directly that of Feng Xin’s. It stood just a couple yards away, gate low and perfunctory, and windows aplenty. An inviting palace. Mu Qing thought it ironic at first, but now he was not so sure. He knew that he was wrong to think, for all these years, that he knew Feng Xin better than anyone. What Feng Xin had given him was merely a facet of himself, not the true reflection Mu Qing assumed it was.
They had seen each other at their worst and had assumed their best could not match it. But the worst of oneself is not the true self, nor is the best. Both of their fatal flaws lay in their inability to see the people closest to them as complete beings, vices and virtues and all.
“I thought you said it was cold,” said Mu Qing as Feng Xin hoisted himself up onto the wooden railing, balancing the jar of liquor on his bent leg.
He laughed, “This is the heavenly realm, Mu Qing. It’s never cold.”
Mu Qing worried at his forehead with his fingers. He didn’t understand what possessed Feng Xin to come here, why he couldn’t just go home. It was an ordeal enough to be around him sober, much less otherwise.
And yet, this was how they’ve always been. Lengths of time with no contact, brief glares, and empty insults— grace periods inevitably broken when they come crashing back into each other’s lives. It’s always violent, and somewhat poetic.
Mu Qing preferred it when they fought. He knew how to fight with Feng Xin. What he didn’t know: so much, but most of all this— how to do this.
“What are you doing here?”
“You already asked that.”
“Well, you didn’t answer,” he was beginning to lose patience.
Feng Xin fixed him with a flat stare, “Is it a crime for me to be here? I don’t see you kicking me out. I just,” now he smiled, “wanted to spend time with you. Really.”
Drunk Feng Xin was just as prone to quips, it seemed. But the wine smoothed the edges of it, made it teasing and a little vulnerable rather than defensive. Mu Qing clutched the railing, unmoored. The sight of his once-enemy smiling with light high in his eyes and moonlight bouncing off his hair made something horrible stir inside him. The truth in all its vicious splendor. And shame. Always shame, shame, shame.
No, Mu Qing closed his eyes. You are not going to lose yourself over a drunken fool about to fall off your balcony. You have lived with this for eight hundred years. You can survive one night.
Feng Xin reached out and wiggled the jar under his nose. It smelled sweet— the same scent coming faintly off of him, “What’re you thinking so hard about? Drink with me.”
Mu Qing shook his head, “You know I’m not supposed to drink or,” his throat clicked as he swallowed past its sudden dryness, “indulge.”
Feng Xin’s mouth formed an Oh, as if he truly had forgotten, and he withdrew the jar. Before he could take his own swallow, though, Mu Qing caught his wrist.
What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing—
“I’ll have a little,” he said coolly, “Social obligations aren’t indulgences, after all.”
Feng Xin let out a sharp, delighted sound and Mu Qing knew, as he brought the jar to his lips, that he would not survive this night.
Hours later, the jar lay forgotten on the floor, and Feng Xin looked just that much more precarious on his perch.
“Careful,” Mu Qing said, grinning. One could hardly call him drunk, having only taken the smallest sips when offered, but the night (and the company, dare he admit) had turned his insides pleasantly warm. It took him perhaps longer than it should have to realize that he was simply happy.
“I am Nan Yang, the martial god of the southeast,” Feng Xin said with great flourish, “I do not need to be careful of falling from balconies.”
“You’re drunk, Nan Yang Zhen Jun.”
“I’m not,” Mu Qing snickered at him, “I’m not! Alright, a little. But I’m just having a good time. I’m totally,” he twisted his wrist in a complicated gesture, “in charge of all my faculties.”
“Your faculties are shit,” said Mu Qing, taking a swipe at him. Feng Xin dodged and teetered back over the edge. With a yelp, the other grabbed the front of his robes.
“Gods,” Feng Xin gasped, “Mu Qing, pull me up, pull me up.”
“Told you so.”
“Bastard, you’re so unfair. Pull me up.”
Mu Qing let himself make a show of mulling it over, much to Feng Xin’s indignation. In truth, he took the moment to revel in the power he suddenly held. He found a sick sort of retribution in it. Finally, he thought, Finally I have you where I want you.
He shuddered and pulled Feng Xin up.
“Took you long enough!” He said with a touch of his usual snark. The near fall must have sobered him.
Mu Qing rolled his eyes, “Oh, you would’ve been fine, Nan Yang.”
“Well, yeah— but it still would’ve hurt!”
At the absolute outrage on Feng Xin’s face, Mu Qing began to laugh— a proper laugh, mirthful and lacking scorn— and once he started, he found he could not bring himself to stop. He bent himself nearly double with the force of it. And distantly, through his raucous joy, he wondered why they hadn’t been doing this all along.
“What?” He asked, breathless, when he caught the expression on Feng Xin’s face.
“Nothing,” but his eyes never left his face, “I’ve never seen you laugh like that.”
Under his gaze, a familiar, defensive urge rose up in Mu Qing and he said, with a snide curl of his mouth, “Well, you’ve never been very funny.”
Feng Xin’s brow furrowed for just a moment before he turned to rest his elbows on the railing. Mu Qing stared at him, bewildered. He felt foolish for his needlessly unpleasant comment— born of a place of embarrassment— but surely it hadn’t actually upset Feng Xin. They had said much worse, done much worse, to each other before. He reached out and his hand hovered in the space between them before dropping down to catch the railing.
“Do you ever wonder,” Feng Xin said, as if reading his thoughts, “why we haven’t been doing this all along?”
“Doing what?” said Mu Qing, as if he didn’t know.
“This,” a wide gesture, “Talking. Being friends.”
He hummed, wishing they had more wine for want of something to do with his hands. He still clutched the railing like the ground threatened to slip out from under him, “Probably because you’re an asshole while sober.”
“I’m being serious, you prick.”
But Mu Qing didn’t want to be serious. It seemed to him that every interaction he had with Feng Xin amounted to a countdown until one of them brought up the past, and then a further countdown until they started fighting over it. He wanted to preserve this thing, bright and new, where they drank and laughed and pretended that they didn’t dream of killing each other.
Well, Mu Qing supposed, that wasn’t all he dreamt of. He chose not to sleep for a litany of reasons.
“You hated me,” he said. He meant for it to come out cool as a matter of fact— instead an age-old, childish accusation rose to his throat.
“You never made yourself easy to like.”
“I’m not easy to like,” and he hated himself for how petulant he sounded, how wounded.
From the look on his face, Mu Qing knew that the other had caught it. Feng Xin’s expression flashed with something too quick to name, something that Mu Qing detested him for. He flushed. He wished the ground would swallow him whole. He wished the newly built heaven would fall out of the sky if it meant that Feng Xin would stop looking at him like that.
“Mu Qing,” he began—
“Don’t,” said Mu Qing, hard as cold iron, “I don’t want to hear it from you. I never asked for your pity.”
Feng Xin scowled, “Why the hell would I pity you? For what? You—“ he stopped, lips drawn together.
“Say it,” Mu Qing’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.
Feng Xin remained silent for a long time, but his glare never let up. Mu Qing felt that familiar, vicious singing in his blood. He wondered if a day would come when they grew tired of this. A small part of him dreaded it. The anger between them stung, but it was theirs. And he had held it for so long that he did not think his hands would fit quite so well around anything else. Mu Qing would take Feng Xin’s glare for the rest of eternity if it meant that he never looked away. He could fight him forever if it meant he had him.
“You know what?” said Feng Xin, “No.”
Mu Qing blinked, “No?”
“No, I’m not going to let you bait me into this again. What is wrong with you, Mu Qing? I want to— to talk with you, but you just…” he sighed, “You make it so difficult.”
“Oh, like you’re so pleasant,” he rolled his eyes.
“I just don’t understand you.” The anger had leaked out of Feng Xin’s voice, leaving it tired and sad. His eyes softened and mouth twisted into an indescribable shape. For one incredulous moment, Mu Qing thought he might cry.
That sent a shiver down his spine. Of apprehension or anticipation, who could say.
Feng Xin said, “I want to.”
“What?”
“I want—” a hitch in his breath and a slow exhale reminded the other god that he wasn’t quite sober, “I want to understand you.”
Mu Qing flinched. Physically. Damn it all to hell— he had triumphed over a heavenly calamity, but met with Feng Xin’s words and the sheer force of his wretched sincerity, he flinched. Never had he hated the god beside him more.
He turned away, full-body, the line of his spine a door he wished he could slam shut. His breaths came harsh in the night air.
“Gods, Feng Xin,” his voice hardly sounded like his own, “Go home.”
“I— What?”
“Go home. Do I need to say it again? I want you to leave.” If he had to spend one more minute in Feng Xin’s sight, he would scream. Or worse, weep.
“Mu Qing—” He reached for him.
Horrified, Mu Qing whirled around and shoved his hand away, “Don’t— Don’t touch me. And stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to burst into tears. It’s unsightly.”
“I can’t help it.”
The glare Mu Qing fixed him with could have sent the fiercest ghost cowering, “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to just come in here and, and say these things, and pretend you’re not drunk when clearly—“
Feng Xin cocked his head to the side, “I think I know my own limits. I’m not a child.”
“You act like a child.”
“Aren’t you talking about yourself?”
“Fuck you,” said Mu Qing, emphatic, “I bet this is just so funny to you.”
Feng Xin made a bitter noise in the back of his throat, his eyebrows arched high, “Does it look like I’m laughing right now?”
Actually, the other god’s overwrought expression seemed to mirror that of Mu Qing’s. But where his emotion came from a place of unspeakable humiliation, Feng Xin’s came from— what, exactly?
Mu Qing had long since resigned himself to the fact that they would never understand each other. And yet, in his quietest moments, he let himself believe that maybe they understood each other better than anyone in this world.
Here was Feng Xin, just laying his confession out on open hands, and trusting Mu Qing (ha!) to know what to do with it. To perhaps, offer his own vulnerability in return.
But Mu Qing had never been trustworthy.
“Why are you so upset?” asked Feng Xin, “What did I even say?”
“Who’s upset?” A bark of laughter escaped him, “I just want you to get out so I can finally go to sleep.”
He frowned, “You know, I thought you meant it when you said you wanted to be friends.”
Mu Qing let out a strained breath, as if the words were a physical blow. He remembered that moment, how the lava seemed to burn the centuries away and return them back to those days on Taicang Mountain. He had looked up at them, Xie Lian and Feng Xin, and the desires he had struggled to voice his entire life had clawed their way up his throat. And stuttering, hesitant, he had braced himself for the rejection he knew he deserved. The rejection that never came.
But that was when Mu Qing thought he might die a ghastly and fiery death. Even then, faced with his end, the words had not come easy. Honesty never had, and now it seemed it never would. He couldn’t bring himself to say what he wanted to Feng Xin at this moment even if he tried.
This confession was so much more damning.
“Did you mean it when you said we were always friends?” he finally asked, pathetically, hopelessly.
“Yes. Of course I did,” Feng Xin said without hesitation. He was the better man, apparently.
“Then I meant what I said too.”
“Then why the hell are you… being like this?”
He supposed he deserved that.
“This is just how I am. You should know that by now.”
Feng Xin sighed, mostly frustrated but— was there fondness there too? Was there? “That’s what I’m trying to say, if you would just listen for once,” he grabbed Mu Qing’s wrist before the other could react, “I want to know why. I want you to tell me. Can you not just say what you mean, after all this time?”
Mu Qing opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it. Feng Xin’s gentle grip felt as heavy as a shackle, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.
“It’s so easy for you,” he said, a tinge of bitterness creeping into his voice, “You’re always open and— and honest. I’m not like that. I can’t be like that.”
There was a long moment of silence, and he wondered if Feng Xin had given up. If he was about to let go, say goodnight, and see himself out. Then, maybe Mu Qing would finally be able to get some sleep and he’d remember this conversation only as a dream. They’d go back to glaring at each other from across rooms and never speak of this again.
“Mu Qing,” Feng Xin’s face broke into a grin, “was that a compliment?”
“Absolutely not.”
“It sounded like one.”
“Get your hearing checked.”
“Come on,” he swung their joined arms back and forth between them, so easily affectionate, “Why are you so mad? I’m the one who should be mad.”
Mu Qing wanted to spit out a retort, or maybe just spit in his face, anything to convey how pure his resentment is. But it would look stupid, he realized, with his arm swinging rhythmically like one of Ling Wen’s strange mathematical contraptions.
Damn Feng Xin with his wine and half-confessions and friendship and expectations. Shouldn’t he know better than to expect things from Mu Qing by now? Shouldn’t he know that Mu Qing will never, has no desire to, live up to him?
You are not my ideal. He considered saying, nonsensically, because that had nothing to do with the conversation at hand really. You are not my goal, you presumptuous bastard.
But deep down, Mu Qing knew that a part of him had always wanted to reach for Feng Xin. He never did, not for lack of desire, but for certainty that Feng Xin would not reach back.
Yet here they were. Such misplaced certainty.
“You’ve always been like this,” Feng Xin murmured, more reflective than taunting. He stopped swinging their arms and instead became incredibly absorbed in the stitching of Mu Qing’s cuffs, “Even back then, you cared so much about what other people thought. You could never say anything straightforward,” he looked up with that same wry grin, “I thought you were such a two-faced prick.”
“I was made by what people thought of me.”
Feng Xin raised his eyebrows, “What do you mean?”
“Exactly that,” said Mu Qing, dispassionate but for the tensing of his jaw, “Unlike you, I never had the luxury of not caring about others’ opinions of me.”
“Oh, come on, Mu Qing, you know that’s just an excuse. His Highness never—“
Mu Qing shook his hand off and turned towards the horizon where the first rays of light peeked through, “You may think it’s an excuse, but it’s the truth. Sure, Xie Lian never cared about status, but I— but what about everyone else? I’m sure it’s easy to not care about status when it only benefits you. You have no idea what I had to put up with on Mount Taicang. You have no idea what it’s like to have to justify your fucking presence to people who don’t even know your name.
And yes, I resented it! I resented having to serve His Highness, and I resented caring about what other people had to say about it. I wanted a life I could stand, and I resented that despite all I had, I still didn’t have that. Back then, fighting with you might have been the only time when I didn’t resent anything. Because I have never, ever cared what you thought of me, Feng Xin.”
By the end of his spiel, he was breathing hard with the same heady rush as he experienced that day, and though the humiliation of this exposed vulnerability loomed in the distance, he rode off the high of rendering Feng Xin speechless.
“What is with your obsession with the past?” He spoke words with intent to hurt, “Does it feel good being ruled by your regrets?”
Feng Xin said, “I could ask you the same thing.”
“Your regrets and mine couldn’t be more different.”
“I don’t think so.”
He did not look at Feng Xin. No matter how he wanted to turn and search for the honesty or lack thereof in his face, Mu Qing kept his eyes trained on the distance, because he knew better than to let some carelessly chosen words stir him. He knew better. He said nothing.
“I’m not the only one obsessed with the past. At least I don’t pretend like it doesn’t matter to me.”
“I’m not pretending,” he muttered.
“Mu Qing, all you do is pretend,” Feng Xin took his hand one last time where it rested on the balcony railing, “Can’t you look at me?”
He looked. And Feng Xin looked back. And here, as the sun broke over the horizon, they saw each other at once for the first time in their eons of existence.
Mu Qing wanted to ruin the moment with a confession, wanted to say I loved you all this time. I loved your idealism, and your stupidity, and your pride. Everything I hated about you, I loved just the same. You are the only one I have ever wanted, and the shame of it was so unbearable that I could have killed you.
He wanted to ruin it by asking Did you love me too? Do you? Could you?
But he didn’t. Instead he turned his hand over, palm up, and allowed himself to hold onto Feng Xin.
“You look exhausted,” he said.
Mu Qing frowned, “We can’t even get tired.”
“That doesn’t mean you should just skip sleeping. For— shit, how long has it been, Mu Qing?”
He shrugged, too unbalanced by his thoughts and the weight of Feng Xin’s hand to even come up with a response.
The other god moved away, took his hand with him, and tugged gently.
“Come on.”
“Where?” But he was already stepping forward, following Feng Xin back inside.
“We’re going to sleep.”
Feng Xin threw open the first door he saw amongst the many of the Palace of Xuan Zhen and was met with racks of swords and suits of armor.
“That’s the armory,” said Mu Qing.
“I can see that.”
“It’s morning.”
“I can see that too.”
“Feng Xin—“ he dragged his heels, and Feng Xin stopped to turn towards him, “I can’t.”
“It’s fine, our juniors can take care of our affairs for today.”
“That’s not what I—“ Mu Qing’s face flamed. At that, Feng Xin seemed to realize, and color rose to his own cheeks.
“Mu Qing, I didn’t mean— I swear—“ he took a breath, “Just sleeping.”
“I know, but…”
“We don’t have to. And it doesn’t… it doesn’t have to mean anything. If you don’t want it to.”
Mu Qing, unnerved by such uncharacteristic displays of tenderness, looked down at his slippers and Feng Xin’s bare feet. He hadn’t even noticed him take his shoes off in the doorway. It must have been cold.
And suddenly, Mu Qing could not think of anything he wanted less than for Feng Xin to leave.
“Okay,” he whispered, and led them down the hall.
As they tucked themselves into bed, and as Feng Xin reached still for his hand atop the covers, Mu Qing did not wonder what might become of them afterwards. He did not wonder how he would look at Feng Xin in the future, nor how Feng Xin would see him. He did not think of wants, reciprocated or otherwise.
He closed his eyes. His sleep was dreamless.