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Hanahaki was a strange thing, Sizhui noticed.
He hadn’t always known what they meant—the torn flower petals drenched in blood that fell from his father’s lips every now and again. At some point, they’d become normal. And he’d forgotten not everyone’s father was slowly dying from heartbreak.
— — —
The first time he noticed it was years ago, back when he was still a rowdy child, who didn’t mesh well with all the strict rules of the Cloud Recesses.
“A-die,” he whined, tugging lightly on his father’s wrinkled robes. Father was resting his eyes, lying on his stomach on the cold jingshi floor—his back remained bright scarlet, and torn to pieces beneath his stained bandages. A-Yuan knew to be gentle. “Is it time to play yet? Xichen-bobo is still working and I’m bored.”
Father hid his face beneath crossed arms. He hadn’t looked directly at A-Yuan all too much lately, but A-Yuan didn’t mind, because when he did, his eyes always looked so sad. It wasn’t really him he was seeing. He was somewhere far away, cold and alone, even though A-Yuan was right there in front of him.
“Later,” Father answered, in a cracked voice, like he was about to cry—or had already been crying.
Biting his lip, A-Yuan asked, “Does A-die not want to see me? Bobo says we have to leave you alone, but being alone is so sad. Do you really want to be alone all the time?”
That caught his attention. Father sat up immediately, wincing slightly as he tensed his muscles, but scooped A-Yuan into his lap nonetheless.
“A-die always wants to see you,” he said, patting A-Yuan’s cheek with a calloused hand. “You are the best part of my day.”
“Then why do you stay inside all the time?” he asked. “It’s much more fun outside—it’s bright and sunny, and there’s rabbits on the hill today! We can go play!”
“A-die has to stay inside a little longer.” A-Yuan didn’t understand why, but Father’s tone was serious, so he decided that was an acceptable answer. Father petted A-Yuan’s hair, where his top knot sat loosely and imperfectly, without his father to do it for him in the mornings. “Your bobo will play with you until I get better.”
“Are you really sick?”
His father’s face changed, then.
A-Yuan knew this hadn’t been the first time having this conversation. His uncle, Xichen, had tried to explain it to him earlier, but A-Yuan still didn’t fully understand. The major thing Father had to heal from was the wounds to his back. A-Yuan didn’t know someone could get hurt badly enough to keep them in bed—or on the floor—for so many months.
He’d cut his finger on a glass shard outside one time and it had been complete agony until it healed. And that only took a few days. He’d had to use a whole fist to be able to write anything legible, and that had only been a single finger!
He couldn’t fathom the pain his father was in. He just couldn’t.
The next part was that Father wasn’t allowed to leave the jingshi. Or he didn’t want to leave. A-Yuan didn’t know the difference sometimes, with how coldly Father acted. There were times his face was an open book, but more often than not, Father kept his thoughts and feelings to himself.
Uncle said if they were sneaky, they could visit Father during the day, while everyone else was busy, but they had to be really quiet about it. He agreed, obviously, he’d do anything to see his father more often.
But the last thing was even more complicated.
Uncle Xichen had said Father was sick… sort of. He’d explained it was hard for Father to see A-Yuan sometimes—not that he’d done anything wrong—but that let him know he wasn’t misreading Father’s sad glances at him.
Maybe Father didn’t want A-Yuan to see how sick he was getting. Because, some days, when A-Yuan visited unannounced, Father looked halfway dead.
A-Yuan didn’t like those days.
He no longer visited Father very much without Uncle present, unless there really was no one else to look after him during the day.
“I’m not—” Father took a heavy breath and shook his head. “It will pass. Some days are better than others, but I will heal, in time.”
Something about the way he said it made A-Yuan not believe him. It was like Father didn’t believe his own words as they came out of his mouth. But there was a rule about lying. Father wouldn’t break a rule, and he wouldn’t lie to A-Yuan.
“Okay, I’ll be waiting!” A-Yuan smiled brightly. Maybe if Father didn’t believe himself, he would believe A-Yuan instead. “You’ll get better soon, and then we can play outside forever! You won’t have to be sad anymore!”
He patted the sides of Father’s forehead ribbon, the way he did to his, sometimes. But Father’s eyes widened and he set A-Yuan down before coughing vehemently into his sleeve.
Sometimes when A-Yuan drank water too quickly, he started coughing, but it usually stopped after a few seconds.
Father did not stop coughing.
The coughs turned to retches, and Father’s white sleeve turned red.
A-Yuan knew he had to go and alert his uncle or grand-uncle, but his feet wouldn’t move. His heart raced and he felt the tug in his gut to push him towards the door, but he couldn’t leave Father alone. He couldn’t leave.
“Wangji!”
The door flew open, without A-Yuan’s help, and Uncle Xichen flew into the room.
His uncle cradled Father in his arms and rubbed his shoulder blades until the coughing fit finally ceased. And A-Yuan still had not moved.
Father sobbed into Uncle’s chest, getting blood on his fancy robes, but all he did was make shushing noises into Father’s hair, no matter how much he shook or cried or wailed.
“I miss him,” Father whispered, hoarse, after his voice had been stolen away by his sobs. “He reminds me too much of him.”
“I know,” Uncle said. And A-Yuan didn’t know what they were talking about, but he knew it was gravely important. His hands still shook at his sides, and he wanted more than anything to make their hug a group hug, but his feet stayed rooted to the floor. “I’m sorry.”
Father shook his head and sat up. His eyes looked glassy and haunted. “I can’t do this anymore.”
And that sounded more final than anything Father had ever said. Not even sad this time. Or stern.
It was empty.
Like he had fully run out of emotion to give.
“Wangji,” Uncle reprimanded. Or maybe it was a gasp. “There’s still so much more to do. You’re still so young. Please. You can fight this.”
“It is a death sentence,” he said, resigned, staring blankly at Uncle Xichen. They’d both forgotten he was in the room, by this point, and A-Yuan didn’t want to remind them. He couldn’t bear for their attention to turn onto him. Their faces were too stony, too serious, and shoved A-Yuan into the harsh reality that they had other lives beyond solely caring for him. “We knew this when it started.”
“That doesn’t mean you should give up .” His hand cupped Father’s bloody jaw and forced him to meet his eyes. “If you can’t fight it for me, could you fight for A-Yuan? Or for W—”
“Don’t.”
A-Yuan’s ears perked up at the sound of his name, but he did not dare come closer. Uncle Xichen’s wide frame now blocked him from Father’s direct line of sight. He would not move an inch.
“What would he say, if he heard you gave up your life for him?”
“He is dead,” Father ground out from clenched teeth. And A-Yuan’s speeding heart dropped lifelessly into his stomach. “His opinion of me is no longer relevant.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“I—” Uncle moved to kneel at Father’s side, and Father looked up, at last, meeting A-Yuan’s eyes for the first time all day. His breath hitched again. “A-Yuan.”
Uncle Xichen quickly flitted to A-Yuan and took his pudgy, little hands in his.
“There’s no need to cry,” Uncle tried to soothe. A-Yuan didn’t know why his uncle spoke to him in such a way, it was his father who needed the consoling.
It wasn’t until Uncle brushed the apples of his cheeks with a delicate thumb, that A-Yuan realized he’d been crying, too. It turned out, his father’s tears were as contagious as his smiles. Though one was more common than the other, nowadays.
“A-die is crying, why is A-die crying?” They barely sounded like real words, with the way his voice wobbled with tears.
Seeing his father—usually so composed, even when in terrible pain, as he’d been lately—completely falling apart and sobbing, it horrified A-Yuan. Something was incredibly wrong and A-Yuan didn’t know what.
“Your a-die is sad today,” Uncle Xichen said, explaining nothing. This made his heart beat even more erratically. No one would explain to him what was going on. “He’ll get better, but he wouldn’t want you to see him like this. Let’s get your shugong, okay? He’ll sit with you until I can join you both for dinner.”
A-Yuan nodded through his tears, even though he didn’t like his answer, and let Uncle Xichen guide him by the hand out of the jingshi.
Taking one last look at his father’s slumped form, he realized that not all of the red that stained Father’s robes was from blood. Because, in the midst of all the heaving and choking and sobbing, burst a pile of small flower petals, bright red and signaling danger.
And A-Yuan didn’t know what to make of that.
— — —
His father emerged from seclusion a few years later.
Lan Yuan hadn’t known that was what it was until somewhere near the halfway mark. He hadn’t realized his father wasn’t supposed to have visitors during that time, which was why they had to keep quiet about it.
That was one mystery solved.
And after the wounds on his back scarred over and he could move freely again, that was the second mystery down.
The last mystery was opened up and prodded at by his uncle, in the form of a secret he wasn’t allowed to share with anyone else in the sect.
“Your father has Hanahaki Disease,” he said, and spoke of it as the death sentence it was.
Lan Yuan was eight years old, he was at a point in his life where he understood strife and death and pain. He knew many of his peers had been deeply affected by the destruction that came from the Sunshot Campaign and the tragedies that followed, and he didn’t need to be babied anymore.
“It’s a deadly parasite that plants roots in its host, growing a flower inside their lungs until it kills them.” It’s all very methodological, like Lan Yuan was sitting in class, listening to the lecturer talk about dangerous diseases and their cures. But this one had no available cure, and it’s his father who’s affected. “It preys on people’s emotions and latches onto them when they’re vulnerable.”
“There’s no way to stop it?” Lan Yuan asked anyway, though he knew from the last several years of interacting with his family that they wouldn’t have been acting in this way if there were.
“Usually,” Uncle Xichen sighed and looked away. “The parasite will wither away if the host regains control of their emotions. The most common fix is when the victim is able to accept affection from their loved ones.”
“That’s all?” It was hard to believe dozens of people died from this every year when the cure was simply loving and being loved. “Then why haven’t we cured him yet?”
“It takes a specific person’s love,” Uncle Xichen said. He didn’t look happy to give that answer. Though he rarely looked happy, these days, with all the pressure put on him as Sect Leader, on top of everything else. “And the parasite makes it harder for its host to accept love from anyone other than that one person. It wants to keep the host isolated and miserable.”
Lan Yuan drummed his fingers against his lap. Xichen caught the action and took his hands in his, like he always did when Lan Yuan got upset.
“Wangji loves you, A-Yuan,” he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. “He loves you so much—he’d turn the world upside down for you. Don’t ever think he doesn’t love you.”
“But it’s not enough.” Lan Yuan didn’t mean to whine. He was a big kid now, he shouldn’t cry at the drop of a hat anymore, it was improper. He freed one hand to rub at his eyes. “I love A-die so much but it’s not enough to save him.”
“I do, too,” Uncle said mournfully, like Father was already gone.
“Who can save him, then?”
Another deep sigh. “Someone whose name must stay secret.”
“Why?”
“Your father fell in love as a teenager, during the war,” Uncle said. It felt like a bedtime story, but Lan Yuan knew this story would not have a feel-good ending. He doubted it had a feel-good middle or beginning either. “He was lucky he hadn’t realized it until after-the-fact; maybe he wouldn’t have lasted this long if he’d noticed his feelings sooner.”
Lan Yuan nodded, like this all made sense to him.
“His name was Wei Wuxian.”
“The Yiling Laozu?” Lan Yuan choked on his breath.
His peers had told stories of the fearsome Yiling Laozu and all the bad things he’d started. They said he was the cause of the war. He was why so many children were orphaned, so many lovers were widowed.
Lan Yuan had thought he may have been the reason his father was so bereft. Never like this, though.
“How could Father ever love him?”
“He wasn’t always so scary,” Uncle laughed, but it was a sad laugh. “I don’t think he ever really was as bad as everyone made him out to be. But, he made some difficult choices, and Wangji followed. I didn’t always agree with your father’s decisions, but I know he did everything he did out of love and respect.”
“So the Yiling Laozu was a good person?”
Uncle Xichen paused, at that. “I don’t know.”
“Then… is a-die a bad person?”
“I wouldn’t say so,” he said. Which wasn’t a no, and that worried Lan Yuan. Uncle picked up on his growing concern and added, “It seems, people are rarely good or bad. People are very complex, and their actions may seem black or white until you see the full picture.”
Lan Yuan only hummed in response.
“This is why your father’s illness must remain a secret,” Uncle continued. “Wei Wuxian may be dead, but his legacy is far from over. At least for now, we must not let anyone know Wangji is in love with Wei-gongzi. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Lan Yuan tapped a little rhythm into his thigh once more, and Uncle Xichen prompted him with a look. “I… can you tell me about Wei Wuxian?”
“Anything.”
— — —
After learning more about his father’s illness, little details of it popped up all over the place.
Pressed into textbook pages, wrapped up in wrinkled bed sheets, littered around the floor of the jingshi—the little red petals and drops of tacky blood took over their lives. Sometimes, Lan Yuan would find petals in their basket of clean robes, and worry himself sick over it for the rest of the day.
Father had gotten good at hiding it, over the years, but the little parts of the illness always remained.
He’d cough politely into his sleeve when in public, but hide the gnashed up petals under his tongue until he found a moment to himself. He’d speak less in conferences, not because he’d gotten less outspoken or righteous over the years, but because he’d get that disgusting tickle in his throat if he talked too much at one time.
Lan Yuan did the best he could to study Hanahaki Disease in secret. He was only ten, he couldn’t access the more violent parts of the library just yet, not to mention that the elders would ask about it if he tried.
He settled on scouring books on rare plants and medicines. If he couldn’t find the direct source, maybe he could find some secondary advice. He’d also asked Lan Jingyi—his new friend of a few months—to do the same, when he copied lines. Lan Jingyi was always getting in trouble, Great-uncle Qiren didn’t like him much in his classes, so if he had to make copies of library books as punishment, it would be of immense help to Lan Yuan if they were books on mysterious foliage.
Lan Yuan hadn’t told Lan Jingyi everything—he’d been sworn to secrecy and he intended to keep it that way—but he did tell him he was interested in a rare form of lovesickness he’d heard about and would appreciate the help. And, thankfully—knowingly, maybe—Jingyi didn’t ask many questions after that.
They never found much, but Lan Yuan had a good feeling about today.
It was a busy day for the current junior disciples, so a lot of the elders were busy supervising their classes, as well. Meaning, Lan Yuan had free reign of the library, for at least the next several hours.
He pulled a thin book from the first shelf at his eye level. Lan Yuan, admittedly, regretted the way he’d gone about starting his research, yanking random books open and hoping for the best, when he should’ve made a system of some kind.
But this, at least, kept the adults off his trail. He didn’t appear to be looking for something, this way.
Lan Yuan skimmed through the preface, hoping for some kind of chapter summary, something that very few of the books here had. This book seemed to be some form of record keeping, vaguely about plants, if the title was anything to go by. He didn’t know it would be extremely helpful, but that was what his solo day was for, he supposed.
The first thirty or so pages were a bust, but a piece of scratch paper caught his eye.
He didn’t rip the book, he wanted to make that abundantly clear. The paper was already separated, inserted inside the book at a random spot, where it did not belong.
It was a painting. A simple ink sketch, really.
The page was a bit worn around the edges, like it had been well-loved before being shoved into a plant directory book and forgotten, but for good reason. It was beautiful and realistic, but in all seriousness, it was just a small sketch. Nothing to write home about.
But its muse.
Lan Yuan didn’t have to be a detective to figure out the painting was of his father. A younger version of him, probably close to a decade old, but there was no doubt in Lan Yuan’s mind that the image was of him.
“Interesting,” he mumbled. But the questions brought up by this stray paper overwhelmed the answers.
Who could’ve drawn this? Did Father know? Was it gifted to him, or did the artist mean to keep it hidden? Were there any more portraits hiding around the library? Around the Cloud Recesses? How far did this artist’s touch go?
But most importantly: Could it have been Wei Wuxian?
Uncle Xichen had said the two danced around each other during the war. He said maybe Father’s feelings hadn’t been as unrequited as he’d thought.
Maybe repressing his love back then had saved him, maybe it hadn’t.
But Wei Wuxian was dead.
His feelings towards Lan Yuan’s father no longer mattered, because he’s no longer here to act on them.
Lan Yuan closed the textbook. He’d barely just started, but already felt done for the day. Placing the book back in its place, he promised himself to return later today to finish his research.
He slipped the folded up portrait into his sleeve and left the library as it had been, quiet and secretive and detached as ever.
And there were more portraits.
It took Lan Yuan three more months to find them all, and by then he’d built up his own secret collection of Lan Wangji portraits in his personal trunk. It no longer mattered if his father had been made aware of these drawings—the fewer reminders he had of Wei Wuxian, the longer he would remain in good health. Remain in Lan Yuan’s life.
He knew his father would never truly get over his first love, but Lan Yuan would do his best to make sure that love didn’t kill him, not so early in his life.
— — —
Secrets, of course, got out eventually.
They had a good run, Lan Sizhui was thirteen when the dreaded day finally arrived. Unfortunately for them, it had to come at a discussion conference in Lanling, over a hundred li away from the privacy of their own home.
“—and if Hanguang-jun has anything to add?”
Sizhui cocked his head at the voice. He was still getting used to sitting in on discussion conferences, who to pay attention to, how to address certain questions, how long to deliberate before speaking. Everything was a game, and Hanguang-jun wanted him to learn early.
“Hanguang-jun?” the voice prompted again.
Jin Guangyao looked between Sizhui and his father for a quick second before repeating his name once more.
And Sizhui was so focused on everyone else, he barely had enough time to catch Hanguang-jun as he toppled from his seat and collapsed to the marble floor of the Jinlintai.
“A-Die!” Sizhui heard himself shout, but his mind was elsewhere.
His hands pulled Hanguang-jun into a sitting position and he checked his pulse and qi and breathing, but his mind was sent back to the jingshi, when he was four years old and watching his father sob and beg for death.
Sizhui was vaguely aware of others trying to help, but his body was moving on its own, he had no control here and could only watch as he and several Jin staff members attempted to wake his sickly father.
In seconds, the frantic chaos subsided and Hanguang-jun awoke with a gasp. But it returned just as quickly once his father began coughing up blood and entire flowers—bright red lotus flowers—onto the pristine, white marble floor.
This was the moment that Sizhui had to come back to himself, as all the whispers about Hanguang-jun’s love life circled the room.
“He’s got Hanahaki.”
“This can’t be new, that was a full flower, there.”
“Who could it be?”
“He already has a son, what if his wife left him?”
“But who would ever leave Hanguang-jun?”
The gossip made it worse, Sizhui could tell.
Over the years, he came to realize that bringing up Wei Wuxian in earshot of his father made the illness flare up. He could go days or weeks at a time without coughing up a single petal, but one word of Wei Wuxian would bring all that progress crashing back down again.
Finally back in control of his limbs, he hauled Hanguang-jun’s arm over his shoulders and attempted to walk him out of the conference hall.
They didn’t get very far.
A few other Lan disciples recovered quickly enough, and helped Sizhui bear some of his weight. At least this secret did not pull apart the trust the disciples shared with one another. For which, Sizhui was grateful.
They did not stop until Hanguang-jun arrived safely in his room, with a doctor on the way to check up on him. Sizhui did not leave his side, but politely dismissed the others to continue on with the conference without them. Someone would fill them in later.
“How is he, doctor?” Sizhui asked, after some time with the three of them sitting in total silence.
Father’s chest barely moved as he took in shallow breaths, and his skin had turned pale and clammy. Sizhui hadn’t stopped feeling like he was four years old, watching his father reach towards a slow and painful death and not being able to do anything about it.
“It’s bad,” she said, and Sizhui’s heart nearly stopped.
It was one thing to hear bad news from Lan healers, who were known to be blunt and procedural. It was entirely different to hear it from a healer of a foreign sect, who knew this was Hanguang-jun’s only son she spoke to.
“His hanahaki has progressed to the point of full flowers,” the healer explained, though Sizhui already knew. “Hanguang-jun is nearing the final stage; I assume—I hope—his doctors in Gusu are already aware of this?”
Sizhui could only nod blankly.
“I recommend he stay home from now on,” she said, strictly clinical and emotionless. “I fear the strain from travel are making the effects on his body worse.”
It was always a lingering fact in Sizhui’s mind, that his father would die young. But it never felt as close as it did now.
He scooted to the foot of his father’s bedside, with the healer opposite him, checking Father’s meridians one last time. He was not dead, but he would be. Soon.
“How much longer does he have?” Days? Weeks? Months? Could Hanguang-jun hang on for another year? How much longer would Sizhui be able to say he had a father? “Do I… Should I send for Zewu-jun now?”
“Oh, honey,” the healer said, finally realizing who it was she was talking to.
People usually realized it late, that Sizhui was still just a child. This was no different. He would always be a Lan disciple first, a child second. A sect heir first, his father’s son second.
But as the spell of propriety and politeness broke before the woman’s eyes, Sizhui was allowed to be a kid again, to be Hanguang-jun’s scared son.
“You have time. When he wakes, I’ll advise him to take a long vacation. He shouldn’t spend his final months working himself too hard.”
Months.
He had months.
Sizhui took a shuddering breath. He could work with that. Begrudgingly, Sizhui could deal with the idea of losing his father in a few months time. Somehow.
Maybe he would live to see the springtime, when the weather in Gusu was most pleasant and breezy. He knew Father enjoyed the rain. Maybe it would be a nice time to die, if that were possible.
— — —
Hanguang-jun did not last months.
He did not last months, because he lasted years. He persevered through the spring, then the following, and the next, and into the next . He was able to see Sizhui off on his first night-hunt alone—with the other coming-of-age Lan juniors—and barely ever wavered under the public eye.
His health was still on the decline, there was no hiding that, but Father was alive.
Though, Sizhui could not bring himself to hope.
It was all he could think about, once their assistance was requested in Mo Village. The town wasn’t too far from Gusu, but it wasn’t close either. If something happened to his father while he was away, it would take more than a day’s journey for him to find out and return home. And would he last long enough for Sizhui to say goodbye?
“Ha-Hanguang-jun? You don’t need to bother him,” Mo Xuanyu interrupted, as he and Jingyi discussed their situation. Though this was truly more work than they’d signed up for, and they were more than a little out of their depth, Sizhui was almost grateful for the young master’s hesitance to call for help. It meant Sizhui was not alone in wanting to keep Hanguang-jun away, just this once. “I can solve the problem.”
It didn’t sound likely that Mo-gongzi would be of too much use to them, but Sizhui appreciated the offer more than Mo-gongzi could’ve ever imagined.
“We’ll send the signal,” Jingyi suggested softly—he knew of Hanguang-jun’s illness nearly as closely as Sizhui did, very nearly, “and wait for him. He always comes to help.”
He nodded firmly. He shouldn’t worry in the presence of Mo-gongzi.
But neither Jingyi nor Mo-gongzi knew the state Hanguang-jun had been in before they’d departed for Mo Village.
Hanguang-jun had meant to lead their team down the mountain, but he’d had a coughing fit so strong he needed to remain in the Cloud Recesses for an extra few hours to recover. He’d urged Sizhui to continue on without him, that he’d catch up to them, but Sizhui saw the new, coily stems attached to these lotuses.
The disease had advanced again.
Father may not survive another fit, for real this time.
He’d been a medical miracle, holding on for years longer than he’d planned, and Sizhui knew Father still wanted to die, sometimes, when it got bad. Sizhui would not be able to keep him here if Father did not want to be. The least he could do is ease his other worries.
But Jingyi’s bright flare signal reached the night sky anyway, and Sizhui knew his father would not be far behind.
They continued the fight and won, surprisingly, with a significant amount of help from Mo-gongzi.
“Stygian Tiger Amulet,” Hanguang-jun assessed, when the night finally quieted and their team congregated in the center square of Mo Village.
“But the Stygian Tiger Amulet was destroyed in the battle at Nightless City,” Jingyi thought aloud. “Maybe… what if the Yiling Laozu never died?”
Hanguang-jun’s face tightened, never taking his eyes off of the sword, and Sizhui’s chest hurt. Jingyi didn’t know the hope he’d placed in both of their hearts with that small suggestion.
Sizhui had told him all the good and kind stories he’d learned about Wei Wuxian over the years. Jingyi knew nearly everything Sizhui had learned about their situation, except for the fact of putting two and two together—that it was Wei Wuxian who was slowly killing his father. That he was the only one who could actually save him, not just prolong his suffering, the way Sizhui and Xichen were doing with their measly offers of love.
Sizhui could not afford to keep hoping, not at this point. Not with his father so far gone. He’s already had one miracle, the fact that he’d hung on for so long, Sizhui couldn’t hope for a second miracle to completely cure him forever.
He tore his eyes away from his father, as he, too, had hope written plainly on his face.
“Where’s Mo-gongzi?” Sizhui asked, instead. The square was empty, now, save for their small team.
A distant balcony shook with quick movement, and Hanguang-jun followed hotly on the man’s trail.
Sizhui, unthinking, sped after the both of them on foot, out onto the paved street.
He couldn’t see the other man from this distance, but followed Hanguang-jun’s gaze at the dark night ahead of them. There was something tired and hopeful about the way his father looked out at the empty road.
Hope had been placed back in his heart—in his too full and flowering lungs—and if it was misplaced, this time, it would kill him.
“Wei Ying,” he whispered, like the name itself was a secret, and promptly collapsed to the pavement.
The inn was closeby and cheap.
Sizhui tipped the host extra.
He locked himself in his father’s room.
He could not be emotional in this situation. He would not.
Father still breathed; he was not dead.
He was not dead.
Even if he had two separate seizures on the way to the inn, even if he barely budged when Sizhui dropped him on the bed, even if blood still freely flowed from his eyes and nose and ears—Hanguang-jun was not dead.
Sizhui used to hate being the only child in the room.
He’d hated the way the adults sent him outside when his father’s fits became too violent. He felt the need to be at his side, even if he had to watch helplessly on the sidelines, he needed to know what would happen to him.
Now, though...
He wished he had an adult here to tell him what to do. He couldn’t do this alone.
Where would they find a healer, at this time of night? Should Hanguang-jun be propped up or lying down in the meantime? Would he have to send for his family, if his father didn’t make it through the night?
Sizhui didn’t realize he’d started crying. He desperately rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, but the tears wouldn’t stop. His throat was sticky and wet as he choked on his sobs.
He’d been fearing for the day his father would die since he was thirteen—likely even before that—but nothing could’ve prepared him for the reality of it.
“Don’t leave me,” he sobbed into his father’s chest.
He was not a corpse, because his father was not dead.
“A-die, I don’t know what to do.” He balled his fists at Hanguang-jun’s bedside, grasping both at fresh linen sheets and the wrinkled sleeves of his father’s dirty robes atop them. Sizhui’s voice barely made it past his lips above a whisper, though his burning heart told him to scream. “I’m not ready.”
Usually, his father would choke and cry and send him out of the room. Usually, he wouldn’t seize and lose consciousness and bleed from his face.
The lack of fight in him was what unnerved Sizhui the most.
He was never any good at comforting his father, but if he were conscious now, Sizhui could at least try. Here, Sizhui was as much help as he’d always been, standing and watching from the outskirts while other people handled it.
Sizhui never knew what the healers did to help him, besides cleaning him up and keeping watch while he slept. Sizhui could do that on his own.
“I can do this,” he told himself. “I can do this.”
He repeated his short mantra while he fetched warm rags to wipe away the blood with. He repeated it while he made the room as comfortable as possible while his father slept. He repeated it as he started a letter addressed to Zewu-jun, marked as urgent.
His hand froze before he could start the first sentence.
“I… can’t,” he whimpered. He set the brush down and fell at his father’s bedside.
Sizhui could not write this letter.
He didn’t have the words, and even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to put them into the universe and make them concrete. Writing it down would mean it was happening, it was real. Maybe if he didn’t think about it, he could pretend his father would always be okay.
Sitting at his bedside as his father struggled to take in breath made it hard to pretend.
Sizhui got splotches of ink on his father’s hand as he held it under his own.
The murky blackness of it against Hanguang-jun’s sallow skin showed just how thin and pale his father’s hands had become. Had they always been so fragile? Had they always looked one accident away from shattering?
What happened to the undefeatable Hanguang-jun? How could he have come out of an entire war unscathed, but love was what would take him out?
Was it cruel to keep Father’s brother away from him, if these were his final moments? Did Sizhui have a duty, both as son and the future sect heir, to send for the rest of his family? Could he not just be a helpless, selfish child one last time?
He did write the letter to Zewu-jun.
But he did not send it.
He also did not move once from his bedside vigil.
And early the next morning, Hanguang-jun woke up.
— — —
This time, it did not take much to convince Father to come back home with him. This time, he knew his flare up was near-fatal. He would not survive another.
They’d gotten lucky for Sizhui’s entire sixteen years. And they knew their luck had run out.
But something odd happened, as their team came across the team of young Jin disciples atop Dafan Mountain, on their way home. Because Father looked happy, genuinely and entirely happy, for the first time in Sizhui’s life.
Looking at Mo Xuanyu, as they held each other’s wrists, his father looked lighter and freer than Sizhui had ever seen him. Color had come back to his skin, and his face appeared truly free of pain.
It was only then that Sizhui allowed himself to hope again.
Mo Xuanyu came back with them to Gusu, and Sizhui did not ask any questions.
“Aren’t you a little curious?” Jingyi whispered, as the two of them passed by the jingshi after dinner.
“Of course,” he said.
Sizhui had a million and one questions. He didn’t understand how a lifetime of pining over Wei Wuxian could be fixed by a moment of eye contact with Mo Xuanyu. He didn’t know how the two could have possibly met and formed a friendship, let alone a relationship, when Sizhui had, more or less, been constantly aware of his father’s location for the entirety of his childhood. He didn’t understand how Hanahaki Disease could plague a person for two whole decades, yet wither away in minutes, like it had never existed.
He had years worth of questions, but he’d never push to ask them.
“They deserve their privacy,” Sizhui explained. “And Father will tell me when he’s ready.”
He had time.
He had time, which was something Sizhui had not been prepared for.
His father was happy with Mo Xuanyu at his side, and he had the time to enjoy it. He would tell Sizhui everything, when the time was right. And Sizhui would happily wait for that day, no matter how far away it might be.
In the meantime, he would enjoy every second of his father’s presence, because he was alive. And he wasn’t going anywhere.
They had time.
And that was all Sizhui had ever wanted.