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The first thing Beiyuan did upon arriving was kiss Zhou Zishu senseless.

A good kiss too, with tongue. He held Zhou Zishu in place, long, elegant fingers at the back of his neck. He liked to be in control, in the beginning. A little bit of ruthlessness. His rings were cool against Zhou Zishu’s face; he never used to take them off and they would leave faint red scratches behind when Beiyuan trailed his fingers along his arm. The kiss didn’t taste like wine but it reminded Zhou Zishu of all the times they had fallen together after the wine.

Beiyuan had always been a very good kisser. Right up until the point that he tried to slip his tongue into Zhou Zishu’s mouth, Zhou Zishu was distracted enough and Beiyuan was familiar enough that he wasn’t thinking anything at all. But as it turned out, Beiyuan did bite down on his bottom lip and Zhou Zishu gasped and then Beiyuan licked into his mouth and—

— Zhou Zishu remembered sharply that Wu Xi was standing right there and then that Lao Wen was standing right there.

He jerked away. “Beiyuan!” His mouth felt swollen and his breath felt short. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He hadn’t seen Beiyuan in years. Lao Wen was standing behind him. None of that was supposed to happen. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Wu Xi was standing right there. Zhou Zishu vividly remembered the time the man had lightly poisoned Jiuxiao for trying to kill Beiyuan, even if it was a misunderstanding hadn’t happened — even if Beiyuan hadn’t even been hurt! — and Beiyuan had been glad it happened, anyways. And Lao Wen was right there.

Beiyuan swiped his tongue against his bottom lip, unruffled. “Worry not, old friend,” he said cheerfully. Behind them, Zhou Zishu could almost feel Wen Kexing’s anger, as if it were a tangible force at his back. “Wu Xi said it was alright as long as he got to kiss you too.”

Zhou Zishu stared over his shoulder at Wu Xi, who raised an eyebrow at him. Wu Xi was a very handsome man. If this had been ten years ago, he might have been interested. “I’m flattered. I’m actually married.”

Beiyuan’s expression transformed into one of extreme glee. “Are you really?”

Zhou Zishu suppressed the urge to pinch his brow. “Yes.” He gestured towards Wen Kexing, hovering very close to his shoulder and staring as if he could pressure Beiyuan and Wuxi into becoming dust. “This one here, in fact. Lao Wen —”

“What a very familiar kiss, A-Xu.”

Wen Kexing had always been a horribly jealous man, which usually Zhou Zishu didn’t mind and often found funny. But being kind to a nervous shopgirl was substantially different than being kissed, with tongue, in front of house and husband.

“It was,” Zhou Zishu said matter-of-factly. It was a familiar kiss. At one point, kissing Beiyuan had been one of the only familiar things he could hold onto. Zhou Zishu wasn’t going to hide that. If Wen Kexing wanted to know him so well, this was one of the things he ought now.

Beiyuan always had a strange sense of self-preservation. He only had it when he wanted to. So Beiyuan said, pleasantly with a small bow, “Delightful to meet you.”

“Behave,” Zhou Zishu and Wuxi said at the same time.

“A-Xu,” Wen Kexing drawled. His fingers were tight around Zhou Zishu’s elbow, pressing into the delicate bend. Wen Kexing never attacked anyone who didn’t bother attacking him first. Zhou Zishu could only hope that Wen Kexing didn’t take his husband being heartily kissed in front of him as an attack. The man was so dramatic, he very well might. “Are you talking to your dear husband or to—” he flicked his fan closed, gesturing towards Beiyuan. “Him?”

“The both of you,” Zhou Zishu said irritably. “Neither of you ever learned when to shut your mouth.”

“So you have a type, then.”

“My type is less annoying than the lot of you,” Zhou Zishu declared, but he wrapped his hand around Wen Kexing’s anyways, his fingers trapping the fan in Wen Kexing’s fist. “Lao Wen, are you going to make enemies with our guests before they’ve so much as stepped in the house?” He gestured towards the door. “It’s cold out.”

Wen Kexing flicked his gaze over Wu Xi and Beiyuan coolly, assessing them. “If they can keep their hands to their selves, of course they can come in.”

“Am I the lord of this manor or am I not,” Zhou Zishu said to no one, tilting his head up to look at the gray-blue patches of winter sky peeking out from between the empty black tree branches.

“I always did want to come here,” Beiyuan said wistfully, hiking his skirts up to step inside. He left neat footprints behind him in the snow as he went. “You never would have let me come before.”

Wen Kexing looked extremely pleased at that; mouth curving into a smug, beautiful smile. Zhou Zishu wanted to kiss that look right off his face. “A-Xu,” he purred. “Am I the first lover you’ve brought back to your home? You truly know how to make a man feel special.”

“Yes, it’s just you,” Zhou Zishu said, rolling his eyes. Of course it was. “Happy now?”

“Almost satisfied.”

“Lao Wen—”

“Zishu, you really have become a family man, haven’t you,” Beiyuan said, laughing. Asshole. “Look at you, trying to calm down your husband before he makes a scene! I always knew you would be henpecked by whoever you married, you know.”

“You did not.”

“Yes I did, I told Wu Xi so—”

“What do you know,” Wen Kexing demanded, hackles raised again. “You haven’t seen A-Xu in years! You can’t know anything.”

It was so easy to set him off — he got jealous sometimes when Zhou Zishu wanted to drink more than his share, he’d whine and say things about how the damn drinking gourd got more love then he did. But that was only a game Wen Kexing played when he felt he deserved more attention than he was currently receiving. This now — the dark look in his eyes — that was real. Zhou Zishu didn’t quite know what to do with it.

Zhou Zishu honestly expected Wen Kexing to laugh if anyone had been able to pose such a wild scenario to him. That an old friend would kiss him unexpectedly in front of his husband. He would have guessed Wen Kexing would make a joke of it, to laugh and say that he didn’t share. He would be jealous, to be sure, but it should have all be easily settled.

Beiyuan had no way to know Zhou Zishu was married no. Ssimilarly, Zhou Zishu had no way to know that Beiyuan would kiss him full on the mouth the moment they saw each other. It was a one-off incident, an easy misunderstanding and yet Wen Kexing was shrouded in a deep resentment that he could not quite laugh away even as he gestured their guests into their home.

Zhou Zishu didn’t know what to do with this really. Sometimes Wen Kexing was so capable of surprising Zhou Zishu that it was alarming.

So he played dirty.

He let out a series of raspy coughs — halfway through the dramatics, they turned real and sickly wet, so it was barely a lie — and Wen Kexing stopped posturing immediately, dropping his hand to Zhou Zishu’s elbow. “A-Xu, are you alright?”

“I’ve no need to stand around in the cold watching you peacock around,” Zhou Zishu replied, and if he let Wen Kexing take a little of his weight, that was for only them to know.

It had been a very long evening and it was only getting started.

It took Zhou Zishu quite a bit of work to get Wen Kexing to leave him in peace. He wouldn’t have minded the man being there while Wu Xi examined him — there was nothing he wasn’t going to tell Wen Kexing either way. But Wen Kexing was never quite rational when it came to Zhou Zizhu. Every time Wu Xi touched Zhou Zishu, even in the most clinical of manners, Wen Kexing glared so fiercely he might be able to set Wu Xi on fire.

Zhou Zishu sighed, staring up at the ceiling. He hated to ask Beiyuan to do anything about it; given the situation, he thought it best to keep the two of them apart until he could talk Wen Kexing down. That left—

“Chengling,” Zhou Zishu said, casting a glance at his disciple hopping from foot to foot. He didn’t want the boy to see this anyways. “Will you help your shishu make us some dinner?”

“Uh,” Chengling said, then, “Um, yes, of course, shifu!” He swiveled around uncertainly, finding where Wen Kexing was leaning against the wall and glowering. “Shishu, maybe we could make that oxtail soup again?”

“Why,” Wen Kexing demanded.

“Shifu liked it,” Chengling offered. Zhou Zishu huffed to himself, amused — Chengling could be so smart sometimes, pick up on the littlest things. Zhou Zishu had liked that soup, even though he hadn’t been able to taste it. It had been smooth and filling. And it didn’t matter if he couldn’t taste it; Chengling knew the best way to get his shishu to do anything was to leverage his shifu.

“Are you sure you aren’t trying to get me out of the way, A-Xu,” Wen Kexing drawled, tapping his fingers against his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps you mean to take your kisses from Da Wu once I’m gone.”

“Lao Wen,” Zhou Zishu snapped, sitting up and dislodging Wu Xi’s hand from his wrist. “If you must be mad, fine, but stop acting like a wronged wife in front of our guests.”

“Aren’t I?”

Zhou Zishu supposed that was true enough. “Then would you go cook something like you’re supposed to,” he said irritably. “Teach Chengling how to make that soup I like.”

Wen Kexing pursed his lips and then pasted on a smile. “Alright, alright.” He unhitched himself from the wall,” he said, unhitching himself from the wall where he had been looming. “Come on, let’s go cook for your shifu, hmm?”

“Okay, shishu,” Chengling said, more than happy to go with the flow.

“Okay, wait for me in the kitchen,” Wen Kexing said. Zhou Zishu had only a moment to wonder why before Wen Kexing crossed the room in three long strides, tucked himself neatly around Wu Xi, and dragged Zhou Zishu into ruthless kiss by the collar of his robes. Zhou Zishu gasped into the kiss, surprised and a little embarrassed as heat rushed to his face.

It wasn’t the first time Wen Kexing had been so harsh with Zhou Zishu but it certainly was the first time anyone had seen them do so. He was keenly aware of Wu Xi sitting by his side as Wen Kexing pulled back, face smug. He even had the gall to lick his lips, slow, like he was savoring the taste.

And then he left without so much as a backwards glance.

Bastard.

Zhou Zishu tried to ask Wu Xi about it but it was a lost cause — the man was singularly focused on Zhou Zishu’s health. “You should talk about it with Beiyuan,” he said once, then repeated it every time Zhou Zishu pushed him.

Zhou Zishu hated when people wouldn’t talk. He couldn’t even torture this guy. By all means, Zhou Zishu was the one being tortured here, getting his pulse taken and his wounds checked and having to jog up in down in place so that Wu Xi could test his stamina. “Wu Xi,” he said, pained, heart pounding. It was both torture and embarrassing, frankly. “Come on.”

“Talk about it with Beiyuan,” Wu Xi said absently. “You can sit down now.”

Zhou Zishu sat back against the bed, chest heaving. His shirt was off and he was sweaty even after only a few minutes. He used to be so much better than this. He could push through, of course, he always did, but like this, standing alone in the bedroom while a healer clinically marked down everything wrong with him — he realized it had been … a while since he had to fight alone. Longer than he expected. It just seemed that Wen Kexing was always there backing him up now, filling the gaps that Zhou Zishu had created in himself and never minding. “Are you done embarrassing me now?”

“Your medical health is not embarrassing.”

“What about the time you caused Juxiao to have the hiccups for a week straight.”

The corner of Wu Xi’s mouth curled up. “Embarrassing and extremely funny are not mutually exclusive.”

Zhou Zishu suppressed his own grin. Wu Xi was straight-forward to a fault, but he’d never been boring. “I suspect this situation isn’t as funny as Juxiao’s.”

Wu Xi shook his head. “I wish it were,” he said, marking his notes fluidly. He had pages of them. That seemed bad. Minor problems never had pages of notes. Zhou Zishu tried to read them but it was impossible. “Why did you do this to yourself, Zhou-zhuangzhu?”

Zhou Zishu blinked down at Wu Xi. “What else could I have done?” This was the only way out. He could have faked his death; he could have threatened to leave. Maybe he simply could have asked to go. Some of those might have been successful tactics, even. But for him, this was the only way.

Wu Xi put down his notes. “You could have come to Beiyuan and I,” he said earnestly.

“Oh, you would have welcomed me with open arms?” Zhou Zishu raised his eyebrow. “Perhaps even kisses?”

Wu Xi’s eyeroll was anything but subtle; he must have been learning his dramatics from Beiyuan. “I’ll let him yell at you about this one,” he promised, then said, “You know, I never did get that kiss promised to me.”

Just like that, the door slammed open.

“Do not even think about it, Zhou Zishu,” Wen Kexing yelled, utterly undignified.

Zhou Zishu raised an eyebrow at him. “I wasn’t,” he said, partly amused and partly… well, concerned. He hadn’t realized Lao Wen was there. “It’s not like I promised it to him. Were you listening the whole time?”

Wen Kexing wrinkled his nose. “Why shouldn’t I have been,” he demanded, mouth curled into a pout, which wasn’t the real concern. Zhou Zishu didn’t care that he listened in; he would have told Wen Kexing anything that was going to be said, but…

“So your hearing has faded enough that you couldn’t hear him?”

Zhou Zishu pressed his lips together. So Wu Xi had heard him, then, dithering outside the door, and Zhou Zishu hadn’t. Wen Kexing deflated all of sudden, face devoid of — well, devoid of anything. “My hearing is starting to go,” Zhou Zishu agreed. “Taste and sense of smell first.”

“So you have three more senses to go?”

“Sense of touch sometimes too,” Wen Kexing said pointedly. There was a sliver of exhaustion in his voice and Zhou Zishu winced. He hadn’t exactly told Wen Kexing that but Wen Kexing paid him more attention than anything else. Wen Kexing would notice if Zhou Zishu didn’t react when he brushed his hand over his shoulder or hand. Sometimes Zhou Zishu found harsh, clear bite marks littering his body. Wen Kexing had always been a biter but when Zhou Zishu traced the clear imprint of teeth, he knew it was for his benefit. He wouldn’t feel anything less than ruthless.

Zhou Zishu met Wen Kexing’s eyes over Wu Xi’s shoulder. “Not consistently.”

“Mm,” Wu Xi said, jotting that down too. “Could be worse.” He looked up, eyes dark. “I presume you don’t mind Wen-gongzi hearing the diagnosis?”

Zhou Zishu wasn’t falling for it. “That’s what you got him to come in here for. It’s nothing he won’t hear anyways.”

He was looking at Wen Kexing when Wu Xi outlined everything to him, his Lao Wen caught in the candlelight. The room was growing dark and his Lao Wen was growing dark too. Zhou Zishu stared at him, caught, and so he saw the immediate sheer relief in Wen Kexing’s face, shining and bright like stars, when Wu Xi said, “There’s a definite chance.”

I won’t leave you, Zhou Zishu thought, There’s no need to be jealous if I don’t have to leave you.

Wu Xi left after a quick run-through about the surgery, promising that the very next day Zhou Zishu was going to be on a strict diet and medical routine, which was far more a threat than a promise. Zhou Zishu turned that thirty percent chance over and over in his head, marveling at it. That was a real possibility. Even more so, with Wu Xi — he wouldn’t overestimate himself, but he was very good.

“A-Xu,” Wen Kexing said from somewhere near the door. Zhou Zishu smiled, slipping the robe up his shoulders. He fully expected Wen Kexing to come forward, to wrap his arms around his waist and prop his chin up in the crook of Zhou Zishu’s shoulder. Wen Kexing was taller but had a way of making himself seem shorter, like he was created to fit the shape of Zhou Zishu’s back.

But he felt nothing as he tied his belt. When he turned around, Wen Kexing was still near the doorway, brow furrowed. The candlelight shadowed his eyes.

“What,” Zhou Zishu said. “You aren’t happy?”

“Of course I’m happy.” He didn’t sound it. He sat down at the table, gaze cast downwards at the medicines that Wu Xi had left. “A-Xu, you’re going to live, of course I’m happy.”

“You don’t seem it.”

Wen Kexing jerked his chin up. “I am.”

Zhou Zishu rolled his eyes. “Lao Wen, I swear to you, I didn’t know what Beiyuan was planning. I would never do that to you.”

Wen Kexing pursed his lips. “I suppose that will do,” he said, though he clearly wasn't telling the truth.

Zhou Zishu wasn’t sure what it was about this particular infraction that had settled over Wen Kexing like fine dust, dragging him down. It was more than just a kiss between two old friends, more than a misunderstanding.  Zhou Zishu would have expected him to shake it off, and Wen Kexing had certainly tried. But it smoldered inside of him, coals and kindling smoking up his bones.

“Then what,” Zhou Zishu said, exasperated and tired just from getting undressed. He wished Wen Kexing would just give this up and come sit by him, elbows pressed together until Wen Kexing deemed that too chaste and would start pressing kisses anywhere he could reach. He wanted this misunderstanding to be untangled so that they could fall asleep. “I kiss one other man and suddenly you don’t want to spend your life with me?”

“That’s not it.”

Zhou Zishu watched Wen Kexing carefully, every bit of him a little wavery and soft under the candlelight. “Come now,” he said softly. He catalogued the way Wen Kexing’s eyes shifted, the flutter of his eyelashes creating shadows against his cheek. “You knew I had been with other people.”

“I hated them all too,” Wen Kexing said, so immediately and viciously that Zhou Zishu smiled. “And none of them mattered to you!”

That was true. Most of the people Zhou Zishu had slept with were for missions, and most were forgettable. Besides Wen Kexing and Beiyuan, there was no one out there worth remembering, either for their skill or general personage. “They don’t matter now.”

“But they do.” Wen Kexing was still at the table and Zhou Zishu was still sitting on the bed and the space between them seemed unsurmountable. “Now you have all this time left; what if someone else matters more?”

Zhou Zishu stared at him incredulously. He could not even imagine the leaps in logic Wen Kexing had taken to get here, to believe that Zhou Zishu would simply move on after he had his life back. What was the point of a life without Wen Kexing? “To who do I even owe all this time to,” he said in disbelief, which was thoughtless to say.

Wen Kexing shuddered, that whole-body anger that sometimes cropped up. “I wouldn’t want dear A-Xu to stay with my side to fulfill any sort of debt,” he said, voice dripping cold. His grip was viselike on the cup of tea before him until it threatened to crack. “He is free to live his life as he pleases, regardless of whether or not I saved it.”

“I didn’t care if my life was saved before I met you,” Zhou Zishu snapped, and that hit a nerve, at least, because Wen Kexing finally looked up, eyes wide like he’d been gut-punched. “Lao Wen, what would be the point of all this only to leave you? I only want to live for you. Us.”

Wen Kexing softened. “A-Xu,” he said quietly, a quiet admission. The argument was over.

“I want life with you or not at all, Lao Wen.” There was more truth in it than he would have strictly liked, but Wen Kexing was not someone to shy away from it. Wen Kexing wasn’t someone to be frightened off by the edge of the knife Zhou Zishu wielded. “How many months has it been now since we met? And you still think I’m capable of other people?”

“Of course you are,” Wen Kexing grumbled, but it was short and warm as he got ready for bed. The usual annoyances and gripes he had, the games he liked to play. “I saw how you kissed him.”

Zhou Zishu sighed. “He was familiar,” he supplied, lying back down on the pillows. He wished he had some wine, to ease him into sleep, but Wu Xi had been clear about his forced sobriety and had taken the two blue wine jars with him as he’d gone. “Beiyuan and I — we understand each other.”

“I thought we were supposed to understand each other.”

“I can’t be understood by two people?” Zhou Zishu said thoughtlessly then realized, oh, of course Wen Kexing wasn’t so much mad about the kiss as the knowing. “Lao Wen, it means nothing now that I have you. In a few months, they will be back home and I will be home here with you.”

“But if I wasn’t here.”

“Then I probably would sleep with them and enjoy it well enough and they’d still go home in a few months and I’d be here.” Zhou Zishu rolled over, propping his head up on his hand and taking in his Lao Wen. “In this scenario, the only difference is I would be lonely.”

Wen Kexing stared at him, eyes hooded, almost fragile. The bones of his wrist jut out sharply, almost fragile, where he had nestled his chin in the palm of his hand. “You would be lonely without me?”

“I would be dead,” Zhou Zishu said bluntly. “Don’t you know that by now?”

Wen Kexing’s mouth slanted downwards, a pink melancholy curl. “I know that.”

Zhou Zishu took in Wen Kexing’s tense figure. “I won’t be, with you,” he said after a moment. “So come to bed.”

Wen Kexing was gone when Zhou Zishu woke up — Zhou Zishu was used to that. He slept late these days. He hoped but had little belief that Wen Kexing was aggravating every soul left in the house.

What he first found, though, was Beiyuan.

“I see you’ve decided to join the ranks of the lazy,” Beiyuan declared, straightening his robe in a lackadaisical manner that meant Wu Xi would be straightening it again whenever they made their way to the kitchen. “It’s nearly noon!”

“Not my intention,” Zhou Zishu replied, reaching out and straightening Beiyuan’s collar himself. Beiyuan always used to do this, wear his clothing so sloppily so that everyone — Ping An, Wu Xi, Zhou Zishu — would have to follow him around neatening him up. “The nails used to wake me up every midnight. I’ve grown used to it.”

“And you like it,” Beiyuan accused, narrowing his eyes. Being scrutinized by Beiyuan wasn’t unfamiliar —  Zhou Zishu had long since known that Beiyuan was one of the only people who truly understood him. But it had been a few years, and Zhou Zishu had someone else to scrutinize him now. It was unsettling how easily they could slip back into their roles. “Zishu, you do! How scandalous.”

Zhou Zishu shrugged. He did and he didn’t. It was a nice freedom to be able to sleep in so late, but it would be better if he chose it instead of had it happen to him. “It’s not so bad,” he said, because the freedom of it far outweighed the oddity of waking up with the sun high in the sky. “I always miss breakfast now.”

“When you’re an old man like me, you will sleep all the time.”

“You’re two years younger than I am,” Zhou Zishu replied absently. Beiyuan had been saying these sorts of things for as long as they had known each other, even when he was barely seventeen. “It’s neutral.”

“Bah, you’re already so neutral,” Beiyuan grumbled.

Zhou Zishu shook his head at him. “You know me better then that,” he said, taking Beiyuan’s elbow. “Come on, you’ll get lost.”

Beiyuan followed him happily, twisting his head around this way and that to inspect the manor. He’d always wanted to come here, Zhou Zishu never let him. Never let anyone. He tried to see it through Beiyuan’s eyes. It was a sorry sight — Wen Kexing wasn’t particularly handy in construction work and Zhou Zishu didn’t trust anyone in the gardens but himself, given the amount of tender care those plants and poisons were supposed to have.

But despite the sagging porch and the gardens begging for a thorough weeding, the snow brightened everything up. And the worst of the damage was gone — the trees in the courtyard had been trimmed, the cobwebs swept away. It wasn’t so desolate now; that was nice. Zhou Zishu wouldn’t have wanted to show it to Beiyuan the way he showed it to Wen Kexing and Chengling.

“It’s lovely,” Beiyuan said quietly, craning his head to peer at the black tree branches that spindled across the pale blue sky. “I always imagined it would look like this!”

“Mm,” Zhou Zishu agreed, because it was beautiful. There was no more beautiful place on earth. “And how is Nan Jiang?”

“Also lovely,” Beiyuan sighed. “Wu Xi and I nearly killed each other getting there, of course.”

Zhou Zishu pressed his lips together against a smile. “Of course.”

“We have a son now.”

“You do?” But he wasn’t really surprised. Beiyuan had wanted a child of his own so badly; it had pained Zhou Zishu when Beiyuan had gone to the emperor and swore he was never going to have any. All for the sake of appearances, plans, all for the sake of Helian Yi on the throne. Beiyuan ended his future to make sure his plan stayed in place and yet— “You always did love children.”

Beiyuan smiled wistfully. “You’ve got a disciple of your own, now, haven’t you? After all those years saying you’d never.”

“Not worth my time, and they still aren’t,” Zhou Zishu said exasperatedly. He couldn’t hear Chengling anywhere but he was certain the boy was finishing up his sets of Swift Moving Steps. For all he complained, Chengling never stopped before finishing all his exercises. “He’s alright.”

Beiyuan pursed his lips, that familiar look on his face he got when he could see right through Zhou Zishu. “It’s that husband of yours,” he guessed, the smile on his face turning rather devious. “You like him.”

“I married him, didn’t I,” Zhou Zishu grumbled. It had been entirely informal, surrounded by little other than bright green grass and the purple smudge mountains, but it was enough for the both of them. They were men beholden to each other and little else. “He’s a nuisance.”

Beiyuan huffed, a fond eyeroll sent his way. “I’m grateful to him,” he declared boldly, waving one arm around inelegantly. “Without him, would you have even sent a letter asking for us?”

“No.”

“I knew the answer, you didn’t have to confirm it so cruelly,” Beiyuan complained half-heartedly. Zhou Zishu pressed down on his smile, staring up at the sky instead. “But I mean it, you know. I am grateful to him — I’d like to say so, but I suspect he may hate me.”

“It’s not personal.”

Beiyuan raised an eyebrow. “I kissed you quite thoroughly.” He sounded like he would be rather delighted by the chaos, if it hadn’t been one of his oldest friend’s husbands he’d just ticked off. “I am genuinely sorry for it. I wouldn’t have done it, had I known.”

Zhou Zishu knew this, of course. He also knew that Beiyuan was good with people, would have figured out Wen Kexing easily, and probably would have flirted with Zhou Zishu anyways, had he only a slightly better lay of the land. “It’s not that,” Zhou Zishu said, shaking his head. He didn’t need Beiyuan to beat himself about it. “He just doesn’t like that you know me so well. The kissing is a secondary matter.”

“Is it really?”

“It’s a primary matter but not the most important one,” Zhou Zishu countered, because it didn’t seem kind to explain all of Wen Kexing so easily. He at least should have a choice in the matter. “Don’t worry so much, Beiyuan.”

“It’s my fault!”

“Maybe watch your back though,” Zhou Zishu continued on, adopting an absent air like it didn’t matter much to him.

He expected Beiyuan to protest, to swat at him like an old grandfather, to be a general brat. Instead, Beiyuan said, “You seem happy.”

How did he do that? “Keep your observations to yourself.”

“Really, Zishu,” Beiyuan protested, tucking their arms back together as they continued through the garden. He always had this habit of dragging people along with him when he didn’t want them to run away; it had never been particularly effective. Except here Zhou Zishu was, being dragged along. Perhaps it was more effective than he’d realized. “I do mean it. You seem quite content with your life now. Leaving Tian Chuang was good for you, even if—” he faltered.

“I might die,” Zhou Zishu supplied. It wasn’t as he had forgotten.

“Yes,” Beiyuan sighed, now looking at the ground instead of any of the winter-blooming trees with their struggling buds. “It’s strange to say so. I was always so sure you would kill me first.”

Helian Yi had always liked Beiyuan a little too much; that sort of thing was dangerous. And Zhou Zishu had always been Helian Yi’s man, not Beiyuan’s. Although some days it seemed one and the same — and on many days, it seemed more like Beiyuan’s campaign than Helian Yi’s — Zhou Zishu had known that Beiyuan might become a liability.

“So was I,” Zhou Zishu admitted. “You’re getting off free and clear, then.”

“I hope you do too.”

Zhou Zishu didn’t put much stock in hope. “Well, perhaps your husband will be good for something.”

Beiyuan pursed his lips. “Can I see them,” he asked after a minute, which was thoroughly a surprise. Zhou Zishu wasn’t sure how to answer — Beiyuan had obviously seen his naked chest hundreds of times, but it was different now.

But Zhou Zishu had always trusted Beiyuan with his weaknesses. And Beiyuan had always been able to stomach the worst of everything.

“No you cannot!” Wen Kexing appeared in a flash of teal.

Zhou Zishu and Beiyuan both flinched in tandem. Zhou Zishu hadn’t heard him approaching and Beiyuan looked at him with eyes wide, calculating and worried. Zhou Zishu didn’t know how much Wu Xi had told him — Wu Xi was sometimes so particular about the privacy of his patient’s health — but no matter what Beiyuan knew, it must be strange to see how weak Zhou Zishu had become.

“Lao Wen, warn a man,” Zhou Zishu said, peeling himself away from Beiyuan and pressing his hand to Wen Kexing’s. The one holding the vegetable cleaver. “Breakfast?”

“Lunch,” Wen Kexing said snidely, stalking his way back into the kitchen.

Brat, Zhou Zishu thought fondly. What he said was, “Come on, Beiyuan. I’ll eat a bite of everything first so we can be sure Lao Wen doesn’t poison you.”

Wen Kexing was a mean, terrible man and so was Zhou Zishu. But the lunch passed easily and Wen Kexing didn’t poison anyone. Personally, Zhou Zishu rather doubted it was due to any kindness or grace extended. It was a toss-up as to whether or not Wen Kexing though that poison in this instance wasn’t flashy enough, or he was gloating about how good of a cook he was. To which everyone generally agreed that he was, although Zhou Zishu had yet to technically taste any of it.

You could, he thought to himself as Wen Kexing deposited a few pieces of fried chicken, somehow lighter than air, on his plate. Zhou Zishu ate them because there was no reason not to and the tense expression on Wen Kexing’s face faltered just a second, revealing a quiet smile like the sun breaking through gray clouds.

I’m going to live for that idiot, Zhou Zishu decided, eating whatever was passed on his plate and allowing Wen Kexing and Beiyuan to snipe at each other.

“Tell me all about that awful man,” Wen Kexing declared that night as they were undressing for bed. By now, it was an old routine — Wen Kexing liked to put his hands everywhere, flirtatious as he pulled Zhou Zishu’s robes off, folding them neatly before he started disrobing himself. Zhou Zishu had missed it yesterday.

Zhou Zishu focused on the weight of Wen Kexing’s hand against his collarbone. Was it less than yesterday, was that a little less sensation gone? “Beiyuan?”

“Yes, of course, who else,” Wen Kexing said impatiently. He shed his own teal robes like a snake, and picked up the rosewood comb that sat on the little table by the window. He always combed Zhou Zishu’s hair before bed, even though Zhou Zishu’s hair was coarse and tangled easily now. A clump of it had fallen out a few days ago, which he hadn’t told Wen Kexing about it but—

—He could see Wen Kexing’s hand falter in the mirror, comb hovering just above the sparse, bald patch. He almost said something but then Wen Kexing started again like he’d never stopped, pushing it all down.

“Beiyuan isn’t an awful man,” Zhou Zishu said, then corrected, “He’s rather like us.” Which meant that he was, in fact, an awful man but that Wen Kexing had no room to talk.

“I have high doubts that man knows how to use a sword.”

“You don’t use a sword.”

Wen Kexing gave a gentle tug on Zhou Zishu’s hair, just hard enough that Zhou Zishu allowed his head to be pulled back and his throat bared. Like this, he could just the blur of Wen Kexing out of the corner of his eye. “I can. Can he?”

“I suppose he is rather good with his sword,” Zhou Zishu mused, teasing, and was entirely prepared for the annoyed growl forming in the back of Wen Kexing’s throat. He almost laughed at the look of pure rage on Wen Kexing’s face. “Lao Wen, can’t you control yourself?”

“Why should I,” Wen Kexing demanded, rounding Zhou Zishu’s shoulder and settling firmly in his lap. They didn’t particularly fit like this well; Zhou Zishu having to both lean back and extend his leg to keep balance rather precariously. He wondered if he could still carry Wen Kexing to the bed. “I’ve half a mind to take you right in the courtyard and marry you again in front of them.”

Zhou Zishu raised an eyebrow, amused. “What would that prove.”

“That you are mine, not theirs.”

Zhou Zishu hummed thoughtfully. “You’ll have to share some of me,” he said honestly. “I won’t kiss either of them again if you don’t want me to but Beiyuan and I have history.”

“And Da Wu?”

“I’ve never kissed Da Wu,” Zhou Zishu said honestly. There had been a point when Wu Xi had asked him — he’d seemed so young, even though he was only a year or two younger than Zhou Zishu. He barely left the estate, of course he didn’t know how to kiss anyone. “Wu Xi asked if I would mind teaching him but in the end he was too much of a romantic to kiss anyone but Beiyuan at all.”

Wen Kexing pursed his lips. “Stop finding this funny.”

“I’m very serious, Lao Wen.”

“You aren’t! A-Xu thinks it’s so funny to laugh at his husband and makes jokes at his expense!”

“Lao Wen makes it so easy.” Zhou Zishu tugged a bit of Wen Kexing’s silken hair. “Is it enough for me to promise that I won’t kiss either of them?”

Wen Kexing pursed his lips. “No,” he said petulantly, though he didn’t seem inclined to tell Zhou Zishu what would be enough. He was just being childish now, wanting to be petty instead of wanting to actually talk about what it was that was eating him up inside. Zhou Zishu could relate; he hated to talk to. But unfortunately for Wen Kexing, Zhou Zishu was a hypocrite.

Zhou Zishu groaned as he stood, sweeping Wen Kexing up. It wasn’t all that easy; for how light Wen Kexing was, Zhou Zishu was not as good as he used to be. Wen Kexing clutched at him and squawked when Zhou Zishu deposited him on the bed, sleeping robes rumpled and cheeks delightfully flushed.

“I won’t kiss either of them,” Zhou Zishu promised, pressing soothing kisses to Wen Kexing’s lips and cheeks and eyelids. He left a kiss on the tantalizing curve of Wen Kexing’s collarbone where his robe slipped open. Then, because he was not a good man, he added, “If you wanted to kiss them, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t mind.”

“A-Xu!”

Zhou Zishu laughed against Wen Kexing’s chest, could feel where Wen Kexing was trying not to laugh too. “Just let me know—” he ducked when Wen Kexing swatted at him, collapsing against the bedcovers. He was tired. A tired old man who fell asleep early and woke up late. “Alright, alright, peace, Lao Wen.”

Wen Kexing rolled over so they were face to face. “You never get jealous over me!”

Zhou Zishu snorted. “What is there to be jealous of? You’ve been unable to take your eyes of me from the moment we met and you never shut up about it either.”

Wen Kexing grumbled a little bit. “It would be more fun if you minded,” he said petulantly.

“I can pretend to mind, if you’d like.”

“I want you to really mind!”

“How unfortunate that Lao Wen and I are not compatible in this regard.” Truthfully, Zhou Zishu didn’t know why he didn’t mind; he could be territorial when pressed. Maybe it truly was that he just had that much faith in Wen Kexing, horrifying as it was.

“A-Xu!” Wen Kexing pushed his cold nose against the crook of Zhou Zishu’s shoulder. Zhou Zishu jumped at the assault, spitting out curses. How was it fair that he sometimes couldn’t feel light kisses or the fall of rain but the sensation of freezing cold was still sharp as usual? “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding the topic! I demand you tell me about that horrible man.”

Zhou Zishu huffed, settling his head back on the pillow. They’d left one candle on, but Zhou Zishu couldn’t make out much. Only the curve of Wen Kexing’s cheek. “I’m not sure how much there is to tell,” he said, curling his arm around Wen Kexing’s waist. “We both worked for Helian Yi. Making sure he rose to power.”

“Let me guess,” Wen Kexing muttered, “You in the dark and him in the light, never getting his hands dirty?” He clearly didn’t think much of Beiyuan and it wasn’t technically inaccurate. Beiyuan played the spoiled prince incredibly well; he barely used a sword, slept all day, and never had blood physically on his hands. It wasn’t until the end that even Helian Yi had realized that a cruel stranger had replaced his childhood friend.

“I suppose,” Zhou Zishu said thoughtfully. “He pretended to be in the light very well. But we were both in the dark and he knew it.” He traced his fingers across Wen Kexing’s collarbone. “He was more ruthless than I am, most days.”

Wen Kexing scoffed. “You’re lying to me.”

“I’m not. He was the mastermind of it all; whatever he told me to do, I did. Many undeserving people were tortured by my hands, on his orders. We murdered children.” Zhou Zishu pressed his finger down on a faint pale scar on Wen Kexing’s shoulder. “He was very good at plans.”

“Is that what drew you to him,” Wen Kexing asked darkly, pressing his own fingers against on Zhou Zishu’s waist where he’d left bruises a few nights ago. “Him ordering you around while pretending to be good and kind?”

It was funny that Wen Kexing could sound so jealous about that in particular. “No. It was just that he already understood what a cruel man I was, and that I understood the choices he made to hurt decent people were for the greater good.”

“So,” Wen Kexing drawled. He shifted his weight, sitting up and leaning over Zhou Zishu so that his hair fell around his face, his arm caging Zhou Zishu in. He was still upset, Zhou Zishu thought, looking up at Wen Kexing’s sharp features. It didn’t matter that Beiyuan was in the past, and Zhou Zishu was here now. Wen Kexing was a mercurial thing. “You thought you’d fall in love with someone who understood you?”

His tone was mocking. Was he mad that Zhou Zishu had such a relationship with someone else first? Wen Kexing had had flings but nothing like this, nothing to last. Well, Zhou Zishu hadn’t either. “It wasn’t love. We were never meant to last.” It was familiar and comforting, but not love. It was a pragmatic arrangement. “That was what made it worth it in the first place.”

Wen Kexing’s face was filled with skepticism. “You mean to tell me that you cherished some fleeting thing simply because it wouldn’t last forever?”

Zhou Zishu shrugged. “We knew where our loyalties lay. We walked different sides of the same path and we knew we would betray the other if we had need to. Who else could I be so free with, while playing games in the imperial court?”

“You make it sound so… cold,” Wen Kexing observed. His mouth quirked into a smile. “Are you truly pretending that you only cared for each other as a warm body?”

“No, of course not.” Beiyuan had always been the one thing that he could care about freely, knowing what the man thought of him. “We understood each other very well, is all. To the point where we might have considered betraying each other to be friendship.” It wasn’t much of a betrayal, after all, when you knew it was always going to happen.

“And yet neither of you betrayed each other at all.”

“No.”

“Sounds like love to me.”

Zhou Zishu coughed. “It was just convenient,” he said, because it was. Zhou Zishu could expect to be stabbed in the back at any moment so he didn’t mind showing it to another person so much. Those years in the capitol had been rough. He could hardly trust a brothel worker the way he could trust the man who might kill him. “That’s all.”

“Ha,” Wen Kexing said. “Why didn’t you betray him then, if you were both so sure you would?”

Zhou Zishu frowned. He had never thought of it that way. That despite it all, they had not been unkind when they had the opportunity to be. Huh. “There was never reason for it to happen.”

“That’s love.”

“You seem very fine with that,” Zhou Zishu observed. Not that he put much stock in this “past love” thing, but Wen Kexing did, and it seemed if Wen Kexing found out Zhou Zishu had loved another man, he’d have a fit about it. He had been having a fit about it, this whole week.

“Well, I can kill him if it becomes a problem.”

“Don’t do that.”

Wen Kexing bared his teeth. “Stop me, then.”

“Ai, Lao Wen,” Zhou Zishu sighed. “I haven’t spoken to either of them in years, and yet they still came all the way here to do us a large favor. Can’t you play nice for just a bit?”

There was a long silence, long enough that Zhou Zishu though Wen Kexing might have fallen asleep. Eventually, Wen Kexing shifted just slightly, quick enough that it wasn’t his usual rolling around in his sleep. “Fine,” he said, voice muffled against Zhou Zishu’s collarbone. There was a bite to it — both the sharpness of his voice and the scrape of his teeth against skin, because his Lao Wen was harsh like that. “Since they’re doing us such a big favor. I’ll play nice.”

“Right,” Zhou Zishu said after a moment. He wasn’t sure why Wen Kexing had said it like that, but it was hardly the time to pick Wen Kexing’s reasoning apart. He was tired; it was late. The day had been exhausting for many reasons. It was enough that Wen Kexing said he would play nice. For now.

The surgery was to take place very quickly. Zhou Zishu had so many medical examinations with Wu Xi that it made his head spin. Medical examinations were always terrible, he avoided them when he can. His energy was siphoned away by the mere prospect of lifting his arms and rolling his head around, to prove to Wu Xi what his capabilities were. They were, at the moment, not very high.

And Wu Xi was always able to tell if Zhou Zishu was downplaying something. “Don’t be tough,” he warned, grinding down a few herbs for the last of the medicinal salves. “This is surgery, not training.”

Wu Xi liked when Wen Kexing went to the medical examinations, as he tended to give very exacting descriptions of A-Xu’s capabilities that made A-Xu burn with embarrassment from head to toe. Wu Xi, of course, loved the attention to detail. And he and Wen Kexing got on like a house on fire — whenever Wen Kexing walked into one of the examinations, he’d get this look on his face, devious, and proclaim, “A-Xu, you kissed him, didn’t you?”

“Can’t you stop this,” Zhou Zishu would say as Wu Xi laughed. They shouldn’t get on so well. “Is your mouth only good for talking shit?”

“You know very well what else my mouth is good for!”

“Perhaps not as good as Beiyuan,” Zhou Zishu teased and watched Wen Kexing’s mouth smear in indignant anger. He and Beiyuan had established a truce but it was fragile. Beiyuan didn’t push it. For other people, perhaps they could have bonded over a shared love of Zhou Zishu. Wen Kexing was too selfish to bond with someone over something like that and Beiyuan shrewd enough to know that. Zhou Zishu didn’t know what they had bonded over; it was enough that he could talk with Beiyuan in the garden without his husband scowling across the room.

“It’s because I told him he shouldn’t stress you out,” Wu Xi said in private, a few days before the surgery. “You need to be calm and meditative up until the surgery. Your heart rate can’t be up. He at least knows that’s constantly arguing with your friend isn’t going to help your stress levels.”

“Right,” Zhou Zishu said blankly. “Is this why we can’t fuck either?”

Apparently, it was. It was the reason for everything — all the healthy meals and the tentative peace, all the medical concoctions that Zhou Zishu had to drink daily. He was for once thankful he couldn’t taste a thing. He hated following doctor’s orders. But if it wasn’t for Wen Kexing altogether, he wouldn’t be doing this at all. Might have been dead, at this point. He thought it was more terrifying to Wen Kexing to be the one waiting, to be the one to lose something.

For Zhou Zishu, it was far, far easier. All he had to do was live.

The night before the surgery, Wen Kexing made him promise up and down that he was going to do his best to come back.

“Aiya, you have no faith in me, Lao Wen,” Zhou Zishu complained, because it was what they did. Wen Kexing fished for compliments and Zhou Zishu complained that he wanted one and neither of them was made for anything particular soft. “Are you really so worried?”

Wen Kexing grinned, teeth bared and white in the dark. “No. I just thought I’d give you some incentive. Don’t you appreciate it?”

“Brat,” Zhou Zishu complained, thought something warm lit up in his chest. He hadn’t liked the thought that Wen Kexing would be moping around through surgery, waiting for him to die. This suited them better. Much better. Zhou Zishu angled his head for a kiss, licking his way into Wen Kexing’s mouth. “You’ll be alright?”

“Weren’t you just complaining that I had no faith in you,” Wen Kexing said, leaning down for another kiss. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got your disciple to reckon with you and your best friends to kiss.”

Zhou Zishu laughed, soft. “Alright, Lao Wen,” he said easily. “Let’s sleep.”

“You really said you would let Beiyuan kiss me if you could?”

Wu Xi sighed. “Yes.”

Zhou Zishu gestured as skeptically as he knew how. “You once tried to break my arm when you learned he was at a brothel.” It had been very terrifying but also very funny — he couldn’t remember exactly how old Wu Xi had been, but he’d been short and adorable. “He didn’t even sleep with anyone in the brothel.”

Wu Xi raised an eyebrow, as if to say what about it? “Is this really what you want to talk to me about in the hour before I perform surgery on you?”

“It clearly doesn’t ruffle your feathers enough to matter.” Zhou Zishu accepted the bowl Wu Xi handed him, what Wu Xi had said was both a painkiller and would make Zhou Zishu more relaxed. Despite this, he was clear that it would hurt very much. “I’m curious. Can’t I get my curiosity sated before I die?”

“You aren’t going to die.” Wu Xi brandished a surgical knife. “I’m too good for that.”

Zhou Zishu rolled his eyes. “Come on.”

“You can ask Beiyuan later.”

“I want to hear it from you,” Zhou Zishu said, allowing Wu Xi to arrange him on the table as needed. He was pretty sure it was cold, but he couldn’t feel a damn thing. He’d need to be tied down, both legs and hands, but Wu Xi was going to kindly let him pass out before tying him up. “Why would you let me kiss you?”

“He missed you. We are happy, but you are his closest friend. He loves you.”

Zhou Zishu stared up at Wu Xi. “And that’s okay with you?” He lifted his arm again, the one that Wu Xi had grabbed so strongly that night outside the brothel that it was only a vague sense of fondness that Zhou Zishu did not break his jaw. “You tried to break my arm. At the brothel.”

“Well, I don’t love you like I love Beiyuan,” Wuxi said practically. No tact, that one. Never had bothered to learn. “But nor do you love Beiyuan like you love your Wen Kexing and nor does Beiyuan love you like he loves me.”

He made it sound so flowery, almost romantic. A tragical tale. Except it wasn’t. It was just too very good friends. “We just fucked, Wu Xi, it wasn’t love.” His tongue was starting to feel a little heavy. Out of control. The anesthesia must be working. It made it sound like he was lying, when he said they just fucked. Lies were heavy and blurred, lies were crisp.

“Yes, it was,” Wuxi said simply. “And had I know, then, that you two were—” his mouth flicked down. “—I would not have taken it well. But actually, I have found I’m quite thankful you to as well. Without you, Beiyuan would be dead.”

“You can be grateful without kissing me about it.”

“I suppose I could,” Wu Xi said thoughtfully, looking up from his organized line of tinctures, salves, herbs, and knives. “But you are our friend, Zishu. And you took care of Beiyuan while I could not. You were a comfort to him, when he needed it. Kept him sane, kept him human. And for this, I am more grateful than you can imagine.”

“He told you the part where we expected that I’d kill him?”

“You’re the only reason he’s alive,” Wuxi replied, patting Zhou Zishu’s knee. “Can you feel that?”

“Only barely.”

“Good, it’s working.” Wu Xi nodded, thoughtful, then picked up the trailing thread of his thought again. “You are our friend, Zishu. You should feel good. Be happy the way you allowed us to be. You should be taken care of and loved. That is why I would kiss you.”

Zhou Zishu closed his eyes. That was a very kind thing for Wu Xi to say. He thought this he understood the most. “I am,” Zhou Zishu told him. Things were getting a little clouded. “Happy, I mean.” Happy and taken care of and loved, all of it.

“And I am happy for you,” Wu Xi replied. “I’m almost sorry you and Beiyuan cannot still be as close as you were.

“No you aren’t.”

“No I’m not,” Wu Xi agreed with a smile. Ah-ha, Zhou Zishu knew he wasn’t quite so cool with it as he made himself seem. Zhou Zishu still remembered the fourteen-year-old brat he used to be. “Do you understand, now?”

“I think so.” Zhou Zishu yawned, jaw cracking. He estimated he had perhaps thirty seconds before he was knocked-out. “I suppose I can die in peace now.” He flashed Wu Xi a self-satisfied smirk and caught Wu Xi in a laugh just before his vision went black and he fell unconscious.

Truth be told, Zhou Zishu had the easy part. Get knocked unconscious, have invasive surgery, sit in a coma for a few months. He wasn’t the one preforming the surgery. He wasn’t the one who had to cut open flesh, nor was he the one who had to continually channel qi through his meridians for the entire procedure.

In fact, he barely recalled that it hurt. It must have been more painful than anything he felt before, but like he said. He had the easy job.

When he woke, the sun was far too bright. He was outside, buried in the snow, freezing cold. But he could feel the cold, every bit of it, and the rustle of the wind and the bird calls. The tap-tap-tap of footsteps and the brilliant shadow that fell across his face as Wen Kexing leaned over him, face warm.

Zhou Zishu looked up at him overwhelmed.

His recovery was forcibly slow. But he was alive. He spent several days doing nothing — he saw Chengling and Beiyuan briefly but it was too much, they were too loud, they moved too quickly, like buzzing bees. Wu Xi shooed them out immediately; Wen Kexing refused to go.

Zhou Zishu curled up in bed, unable to bear the sensation of the weight of the quilt or even the silken sleeping robes. It had been so long since he felt anything; even the weight of Wen Kexing’s hand was too much but Zhou Zishu refused to give up that. The first time he’d winced, the face Wen Kexing had made — Zhou Zishu lunged for his hand too quick. He’d overshot; overestimated his speed and nearly ended up smacking Wen Kexing in the face. Not his most graceful but he couldn’t have Wen Kexing making that face, like he wasn’t good enough for Zhou Zishu anymore.

Not when he was here taking care of him, keeping the curtains drawn because the sun was too much and cooking him the blandest food imaginable, both for the taste and his stomach. He hadn’t had anything for months except thin broth that Wen Kexing trickled into his mouth while he slept.

“Sorry,” Zhou Zishu rasped out. It seemed even the tone of his voice had changed, though he couldn’t tell if that was from disuse or not. He had kept careful track of the loss of his senses but it was impossible to remember what it had been like when he was whole. “I can finally taste your cooking and you have to make me the blandest things.”

Wen Kexing’s cool fingers carded through his hair, the other hand taking back the bowl. “You can taste it for real soon,” he murmured. So quietly, Zhou Zishu knew, but it still felt like a yell. In the dark, Zhou Zishu hadn’t even been able to truly see him. That morning in the snow had been too bright and then Wu Xi had been upon them immediately. “I’ll make you something so spicy you can’t handle it.”

“I always liked spice,” Zhou Zishu mumbled. “Before.”

Wen Kexing huffed. “Lord Seventh told me,” he said. “Apparently I’m not the only one who hated kissing you after a meal.” He fluttered his spare hand around his mouth. “My lips would tingle with it.”

Zhou Zishu managed to raise an eyebrow. “High compliments—”

“From the spice!”

“Are you and Beiyuan friends now?”

“It was really very boring without you,” Wen Kexing informed him, tone of voice dry. But his fingers kept combing, soothing Zhou Zishu’s headache. “I had to find something to entertain myself for three months, A-Xu, didn’t I?”

“I’m glad,” Zhou Zishu mumbled. He would have hated Wen Kexing to be lonely. He was glad that they could get along better, at least a little bit. He was glad Wen Kexing was here with him; he was glad that outside those doors, Beiyuan and Wu Xi were there for him too. He was weak, but they were there.

It got better. He could stand on his own for a few minutes, then an hour, then a day. He could stand more candles, then the dusk, then the dawn. He could see Wen Kexing’s face so clearly, the angles of him sharp and almost inhuman and entirely his Lao Wen.

“Finally rejoined us, I see,” Beiyuan said, sauntering in after one of Zhou Zishu’s sessions with Wu Xi. In fact, Wu Xi had not quite finished, he was still in the middle of stretching Zhou Zishu’s legs out and working the muscles.

“Beiyuan.” Wu Xi’s voice was full of disapproval. He did not believe in medical examinations being performed in front of third parties. Wen Kexing was an exception because Zhou Zishu allowed it, and because Wen Kexing was the one who woke up every morning next to Zhou Zishu and helped him stretched out his limbs, massaged all the muscles.

Beiyuan gave a winsome wink. “You’re almost done.”

Wu Xi slowly lowered Zhou Zishu’s leg. “You are a menace,” he said flatly, digging his thumb into the tense ball of muscle at Zhou Zishu’s knee. “Zhou-zhuangzhu?”

Zhou Zishu stared up at the ceiling blankly. “It’s fine.” Beiyuan would find a worse place to annoy him if he didn’t let it happen here. Not for the first time, he wondered at the similarities in Beiyuan and Wen Kexing. Was Zhou Zishu just always fated to be stuck with some annoying bastard chasing after him?

He hated that the thought made him warm.

“Oh, are you done avoiding me then?”

Zhou Zishu scowled over at the little bit of white robes that he could see from this angle. “Not at this rate.”

Beiyuan huffed, reaching out to help Zhou Zishu sit up. It wasn’t unfamiliar — Zhou Zishu had gone to Beiyuan several times when he was injured and Beiyuan had never minded the blood on his robes. There was no blood now and he didn’t seem to mind either. “It’s been a month, Zishu,” he said softly, adjusting his arm around Zhou Zishu’s waist. “I barely see you. I worry.”

“Lao Wen is taking good care of me,” Zhou Zishu said, frowning.

Beiyuan’s fingers were cold against Zhou Zishu’s wrist. “Believe me, I don’t doubt that.”

“Good,” Zhou Zishu said, for lack of anything to say. “You’re… getting along better?”

“Quite well,” Beiyuan said cheerfully, which could mean any range of things but probably meant that the two most annoying people Zhou Zishu had ever known had finally met their match. “I think he felt better once he found out how generally incompetent I am at martial arts and cooking.”

That sounded about right. Wen Kexing was as proud as they came. There was more to it, of course, but Beiyuan likely wouldn’t share unless Zhou Zishu stopped avoiding him. “Good. Are we done now?”

Beiyuan’s mouth curled down, just at the edges. If Zhou Zishu didn’t know him so well, he wouldn’t have noticed, but he did. He’d always known Beiyuan so well. “Zishu,” he said pitifully. He was always so good at whining. “Please. You were unconscious for three months; I only — I want to see you alright.”

“I’m fine. It’s just — you shouldn’t have to see me like this.”

“Zishu—”

“I don’t want you to.”

Beiyuan cupped Zhou Zishu’s cheek gently, so he could turn away if he wanted. But Zhou Zishu didn’t. “Haven’t I seen you in all manner of things?” Beiyuan’s thumb smoothed a perfect circle across Zhou Zishu’s jaw. “Haven’t you seen me dead?”

“That’s different.”

“You forget I know you so well, Zishu.” Beiyuan gave him a soft smile. “I know you are not the type of man who lets anyone see his weaknesses. You let me once, though.”

“I didn’t let you. You already knew them.”

“You let me keep knowing them,” Beiyuan countered, and now they were talking in circles. Beiyuan was particularly good at this. “If you don’t want me to see you like this, I won’t.” He squeezed Zhou Zishu’s hand. “I’m only glad you have someone. Just — please, not forever?”

“Not forever,” Zhou Zishu agreed, unable to stop himself from giving at least that.

“I think you should talk to Lord Seventh.”

Zhou Zishu raised an eyebrow. He had been in the middle of folding a spare set of robes, hands brushing together, but he paused, the robe dangling in the air. “You really are getting along, then,” he said, rather confused. He wondered if Wen Kexing and Beiyuan had decided to tag team him, but he couldn’t imagine it — their truce didn’t extend this far.

“He is looking so sad all the time, all over the place — in my kitchen! He can’t be sad in the kitchen. That’s bad for the food.”

“The food tastes fine, Lao Wen.” Zhou Zishu finished folding the robe and set it on the dresser. It still astonished him how soft it was to the touch, now that he could feel such subtle things again. “It tastes more than fine.”

Wen Kexing perked up immediately from where he was sitting cross-legged on the bed. “Really,” he said, clearly fishing for compliments. He leaned forward, setting his chin in his palm elegantly. It did nothing to obscure his wide grin. “What about the soup. Not too spicy?”

“Could have been spicier.”

“And the fish?”

“Needed more salt.”

“What about the chicken?”

“Not crispy enough.”

“A-Xu!”

Zhou Zishu suppressed his smile as he doused the candle, shuttering the room in darkness. “It was good, Lao Wen,” he said softly, and let Wen Kexing take from that what it was — that it was the best meal Zhou Zishu had ever had, that every meal Wen Kexing made was the best meal he’d ever had.

“That was quite kind of you, A-Xu,” Wen Kexing said after a moment. Zhou Zishu couldn’t make him out very well in the dark yet but after a few moments, he could at least see the edge of Wen Kexing’s smile caught in the moonlight. “Come here.”

Zhou Zishu went, unerringly, over to the bed. It wasn’t all that late, and he wasn’t all that tired, but he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to entice Wen Kexing into sex until Wu Xi gave the okay. When it came to his own health, Wen Kexing was unbearably cavalier and with Zhou Zishu, he was so delicate that it was painful. His fingers skated across Zhou Zishu’s skin so light that Zhou Zishu wondered if he imagined it.

“What will you do now that you have me,” Zhou Zishu said, sliding in under the blanket. Wen Kexing’s fingers were burning hot against his stomach.

“Nothing, of course, my dear A-Xu. You’re in poor health.”

“Aren’t I the opposite of being in poor health,” Zhou Zishu said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve heard my health is quite good, even.”

“Mm,” Wen Kexing said happily, wrapping Zhou Zishu up in his long, long arms. Zhou Zishu put up a token protest, of course, but Wen Kexing only pressed them even closer together, like an extremely clingy child. “Very good! So perhaps A-Xu should give those who helped a reward?”

“You don’t need a reward, you maniac.”

“A-Xu! Of course I was talking about Lord Seventh! This humble wife would never seek a reward for caring for his husband; that is only what a proper wife should do—”

Zhou Zishu cut him off in the middle of his annoying, adorable posturing. “Alright, out with it,” he said easily. His hand found Wen Kexing’s on his stomach, twining their fingers together. Wen Kexing’s fingers flexed, startled — he forgot, sometimes, that Zhou Zishu could feel everything now. “What happened while I was out to make you stop wanting to remove Beiyuan’s head from his body?”

Silence.

Zhou Zishu smiled. Wen Kexing could probably feel his grin against his collarbone, tightly pressed together as they were, but Zhou Zishu didn’t care. He’d deny it if Wen Kexing said anything. Besides, Wen Kexing was busy. “Lao Wen.”

“A-Xu.”

“Lao Wen,” Zhou Zishu said again, voice light and joking. “I certainly won’t talk to Lord Seventh if you don’t want to talk about him.”

“That’s cheating, A-Xu.”

“You started it.” Zhou Zishu didn’t think that was strictly true, but when it came to Wen Kexing, assumptions like such were generally correct. “What, is it embarrassing.” He let out an over-the-top fake gasp. “Did you kiss him and he rejected you? How tragic, Lao Wen!”

“I did not,” Wen Kexing mumbled. “It’s nothing important. I was tired and he brought me tea.”

Zhou Zishu waited for a second but no other information was forthcoming. “Lao Wen, are you kidding me,” he said, stifling his laughter. This is much funnier than the version he’d made up in his head. “You hissed at him like an angry cat for weeks behind my back and he brought you tea and it was all solved?”

“No,” Wen Kexing said petulantly, his grip on Zhou Zishu’s fingers tightening. “I still hate him. He came all the way here and I should have been the one to save you, not some idiot prince who you used to fuck.”

“You were the one to save me,” Zhou Zishu said gently, peeling Wen Kexing’s fist apart. He’d left half-moon marks from his nails across Zhou Zishu’s wrist, which Zhou Zishu didn’t honestly mind in the right circumstances, but these weren’t the right circumstances. Zhou Zishu had only been awake for a month. Wen Kexing must still feel… tenuous.

“I know.” Wen Kexing sat up and Zhou Zishu went tumbling back flat against the bed, neck craned awkwardly against the pillow as he tried to figure out the right emotion when Wen Kexing was feeling. “But could he have saved you, had I not been here?”

Zhou Zishu raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Wasn’t it obvious by now? Zhou Zishu hadn’t asked Beiyuan to come even with Wen Kexing right beside him. Zhou Zishu hadn’t even wanted to live without Wen Kexing beside him. “Are you really asking me that again—”

“A-Xu, would you please actually think about the question,” Wen Kexing said, now exasperated himself. What did he have to be exasperated about, ah, wasn’t Zhou Zishu the one undergoing interrogation here? But Wen Kexing had such a serious look on his face so Zhou Zishu huffed, settling deeper under the quilt, and thought.

Could Beiyuan had saved Zhou Zishu’s life? Zhou Zishu had never asked him to do that, of course. Even back then when they were both in the capitol, long before Zhou Zishu thought of leaving Tian Chuang, would he have asked? Maybe then. Maybe for someone else — for Juxiao, who Beiyuan had always liked — maybe then Zhou Zishu could have asked, but for himself?

Was there a possibility where Zhou Zishu could have let Beiyuan in like that? Could Beiyuan have stopped him from inserting the nails in at all?

Maybe if Wu Xi had never been there, or maybe if Beiyuan hadn’t been so terrified of Helian Yi. But Beiyuan was terrified of Helian Yi, enough to leave the capitol forever, and Wu Xi was there to take Beiyuan away. Wu Xi did a better job of keeping Beiyuan human than Zhou Zishu ever could have. They weren’t good at being human, the two of them, but sometimes, when they were together, it was easy to pretend.

They always had been so close.

Zhou Zishu opened his eyes. “Maybe if things were different,” he said honestly, running his hand over Wen Kexing’s shoulder. “In a different world. But in a different world, he and I would both be different people anyways.”

Wen Kexing collapsed against Zhou Zishu’s chest. “A-Xu,” he said heavily. “I think you may have loved him very much. That makes me feel better.”

Zhou Zishu spluttered immediately. “Are you a fool,” he demanded. “Weren’t you mad because you thought I loved him and now you’re okay?”

“Yes, because you said it would have to be different,” Wen Kexing said triumphantly. “It never could have worked out, in this world, yes?”

“Yes,” Zhou Zishu said. He did not think he would ever understand the paths in which Wen Kexing’s mind moved. He could not understand why it was suddenly now fine. It was fine that there were situations where Zhou Zishu and Beiyuan could have ended up together, happy, because they were rare? Because none of them had ever happened?

“Yes,” Wen Kexing said absently. “He told me some stories.”

“That sounds…” Zhou Zishu considered. Embarrassing for him, most likely. “Trying.”

“Mm. That horrible man reminded me that you never even told him you were dying, so there was really nothing to be jealous of. And I’ve decided I’m not.”

“You aren’t?”

Wen Kexing’s long fingers wrapped around Zhou Zishu’s wrist. “What is there to envy? You don’t even talk to him.”

“Lao Wen—”

“Are you really just going to leave it like this? You haven’t had more than one conversation with him since you woke up.”

It wasn’t like Zhou Zishu wanted to leave it like this. He just didn’t know what to say. He just didn’t know how to act, really, around someone who knew everything about him. Who had seen him at his worst, always, until he was gone. “I don’t know what to say to him,” he said after a minute. Sorry I cut myself off from you? Sorry I wouldn’t stay alive for you? That all sounded… a little glib. “There’s nothing I can say to him.”

“So you won’t even try?”

“Lao Wen—”

“Are you going to get tired of me too one day?”

“Lao Wen!” Zhou Zishu reached blindly back out, finding the curve of Wen Kexing’s shoulder. He should have expected something like this coming — three months was a long time to be alone with your thoughts, a lot of time for underlying issues to simmer and rise — but he wouldn’t have expected their argument to be about Beiyuan. “I am not leaving you. I married you. I did not marry Beiyuan. I did not write to Beiyuan. You are the one stuck with me for the rest of our lives. It has only been you. Could only ever have been you.”

Wen Kexing was silent a long moment. Zhou Zishu felt the minute twitch of Wen Kexing’s throat under his fingers as he swallowed. “So you’ll talk to him?”

Zhou Zishu stared up at the ceiling. “Yes.”

“Good,” Wen Kexing purred, rolling over with a satisfied-sounding oomph.

Zhou Zishu sighed. He had definitely just been played.

It took him three nights to talk to Beiyuan. Wen Kexing kept giving him knowing glances — too knowing — which was annoying. Was Zhou Zishu a man of his word or not?

Well, he wasn’t and Wen Kexing knew that. But he could admit that Beiyuan did deserve a conversation about all of it instead of a passing comment of we were close. They had been close. In some ways, Beiyuan had kept Zhou Zishu sane. And while Zhou Zishu had never promised to show Beiyuan his childhood home, he had promised to share a drink with him. And that drink was currently buried in the dirt underneath the master’s rooms, where Zhou Zishu now resided.

The jar of wine was dusty and cool against his fingers when he finally dug it out. He’d wanted to do it himself, even though he wasn’t entirely back to rights, which meant crawling around under the porch. He didn’t fit as well as he had when he was seventeen. But it wasn’t as hard — he didn’t breathe as heavily as he thought he would, his joints didn’t ache — as he expected.

The hard part was knocking on Beiyuan’s door. “It’s me.”

It took a moment, then slid open. Beiyuan frowned up at Zhou Zishu, brow furrowed. “Zishu,” he said, somewhat amused. “Are you even allowed to be up this late yet? I thought Wu Xi made you go to bed early.”

“It’s barely dark out,” Zhou Zishu said, completely ignoring the fact that he’d been falling asleep earlier in the evening than any old man ever would without any instructions from Wu Xi at all. He just did it, which Wu Xi was delighted about either way. “Were you asleep?”

Beiyuan preened. He made absolutely no move to pull the collars of his sleeping robes tighter for propriety’s sake at all. “I’m an old man, Zishu, show respect to your elders!”

“You’re younger than me, last I checked.”

“That’s what you think.” Beiyuan suppressed a smile. “Coming in, I expect?”

Zhou Zishu would wonder if Wen Kexing had tipped Beiyuan off — “Expect my foolish husband to make some clumsy attempt at reconciliation soon”— but Beiyuan was always like this. He knew Zhou Zishu knew so well — he knew everyone so well, really. No one else could know so many people like he did; their flaws and weaknesses, their strengths, exactly where to move them for a master plan to fall into place. Even if Beiyuan had never been friends with Zhou Zishu, he’d know him.

Zhou Zishu was grateful to be friends with him, truly.

“Wu Xi cleared me for a night of drinking,” Zhou Zishu said carefully. He lifted the jar of wine in his palm. This was true, in fact. Zhou Zishu was mostly cleared for most things now, though Wu Xi had said he wouldn’t get another drink in him for another good month if he went overboard.

Beiyuan sat up eagerly, scrapping his unpinned hair over his shoulder. “Did he now?” He narrowed his eyes. “Wouldn’t you rather drink with your husband for your first time?”

Zhou Zishu gave him a mild glare. “You’ll be leaving soon.”

“We’ll drink with him next week,” Beiyuan proposed. “A good bye toast.”

Zhou Zishu shrugged, not much caring. “I suppose you’ve both learned how to get along better now.”

“I wore him down.”

That was not surprising in the least. “If anyone could wear him down, it would be how annoyingly devoted you and your husband are to each other.”

Beiyuan laughed. Zhou Zishu didn’t think he used to laugh so much. “You know us well.”

Zhou Zishu set the jar of wine down. “We have always understood each other very well.” It wasn’t exactly what Beiyuan had said and Beiyuan noticed that, eyes watching him instead of the wine in the center of the table, dirt crumbling down the sides. “This is the wine I buried here all those years ago.”

“Breaking it open for me?” Beiyuan eyes curved into dark crescents when he smiled. “You must think I’m quite special.”

“I promised you we would drink it when he became emperor,” Zhou Zishu said, fetching a set of blue cups. He set them down neatly, one in front of him, one in front of Beiyuan. “We are long overdue on that promise.”

Beiyuan sighed. “Yes, I suppose we are no longer young men.” For a moment he appeared so far away that Zhou Zishu worried he was only a ghost, a slip of a hallucination. “Do you regret it?”

“Growing older?” Zhou Zishu raised an eyebrow, purposefully obtuse. “I don’t know, prince, you’ll have to tell me.” He poured Beiyuan’s wine first, almost to the brim. They toasted.

It was good wine; he knew. He imagined it on his tongue before he sipped it; its mellow flavor and the sweet notes smooth. It tasted even better than his memories.

“You know that isn’t what I meant.” Beiyuan sipped at his own wine; eyes fluttering closed at the flavor. Aged for twenty years; nothing was better. “I don’t suppose you do.”

“Regret it? No.” Zhou Zishu sometimes wished he could regret it, but he never had. If he lived this life over again, he would make the same choices. Put the same man on the throne. Spare the same lives and the end the same lives, and chose to live with the weight. He would, frankly, only change a few tactical errors. “Do you?”

Beiyuan’s eyes glimmered over the edge of the cup. “No,” he said once the cup was empty. “I don’t believe I do. But you didn’t think I would.”

“And you didn’t think I would. Seems that nothing has changed.”

“You could have,” Beiyuan protested immediately. He feigned a swoon, head back and hand fluttering in the air. When he spoke, it was mockingly sweet. “Oh, Zishu, doesn’t being in love change things?”

“Don’t be coy,” Zhou Zishu needed far more wine for this; he didn’t see any reason to stop himself for pouring them each another glass. Beiyuan pounced on his immediately, sufficiently distracted enough for Zhou Zishu to ask, “Did you really think—”

Beiyuan grimaced. “No.”

“You don’t have to look so depressed about it,” Zhou Zishu told him, rolling his eyes. “It’s no personal offense.”

“It felt like one,” Beiyuan murmured softly. His finger traced around the edge of the cup, collecting a stray drop. His expression hardened when he reached for the jar of wine, showering a bit of dirt across the table. “I did believe it for a moment. When Ye-daxia came to us, explaining — I thought maybe you had sent him.”

“Ah,” Zhou Zishu said, softening. “Only I hadn’t.”

Beiyuan let out a little laugh, just on the edge of bitter. “Only you hadn’t,” he agreed. “All these years later, even after you saved my life, you wouldn’t let yourself rely on me.”

“I didn’t rely on anyone,” Zhou Zishu said, which was no secret. He did not believe he had relied on anyone since Juxiao had died, all those years ago. It was as if Juxiao had removed the ability from him, clinically and coldly in a way the man had never been when he was alive. “Not since Juxiao died.”

“Oh, Zishu,” Beiyuan said, dropping his cup to the table. He had a struck look on his face, not surprise, exactly, but a pained realization. Something like grief. When he wrapped his fingers around Zhou Zishu’s, they were warm and trembling. “I should have—”  

Zhou Zishu shook his head. “Everything was lost in the siege.” Beiyuan was lost, Juxiao was lost. Zhou Zishu hadn’t realized it then, but his purpose too was lost. Helian Yi ascended the throne and Zhou Zishu too was lost among political missions that weren’t so important and he was not so young, anymore. He slipped away like rain into the river. Dissipated. “I am only thankful you weren’t lost as well.”

“I might well have been, for all the good I did,” Beiyuan said frustratedly. “After all you did for me—”

“Let’s not start with that,” Zhou Zishu suggested. “I did not do it so you would owe me a debt; I did it because—” he trailed off.

He did it because of what they owed each other — not in terms of debt, but in terms of friendship. In the fragile thing they had built, knowing full-well a wrong move would bring the entire building down on their heads. He did it because Beiyuan had kept parts of him alive that he never would have cared to let live. Perhaps it was no burning fire, the friendship, the love they’d had for each other — but the smoldering embers left behind were not sad. They were proof they had lived, loved. And it was much easier to bring a fire back to life if the coals were still hot.

Zhou Zishu didn’t think he could have allowed anyone to keep him alive the way Lao Wen was keeping him alive, if not for Beiyuan. He wouldn’t be human, without Beiyuan.

“I did it because I wanted you to live and be happy,” Zhou Zishu said after a long moment. “Because you were my friend.”

Beiyuan’s face cracked; he smiled and teared up all at the same time. “You are a charmer,” he accused soppily, brushing at his eyes elegantly. “Zishu, you went above and beyond for me. I never imagined you would help me at the expense of the Crown Prince.”

“It wasn’t at his expense.” If Beiyuan had plotted against Helian Yi, he could have killed Beiyuan then. He would have regretted the loss of his friend but he wouldn’t regret doing it. But faking Beiyuan’s death wasn’t the same as betraying his prince. “He never could have had you; I lost him nothing.”

Beiyuan’s expression was something far away. “He could have,” he murmured, tracing his finger around the edge.

Zhou Zishu furrowed his brow. “All you ever wanted was to get away from him.” They had never talked about this before. Zhou Zishu supposed Beiyuan never wanted to bring it up, considering the man he wanted to get away from was the same one he was plotting to become the emperor. “Even if he thought he had you, he wouldn’t have, would he?”

Beiyuan wrinkled his nose. “You’re too astute, Zishu.”

“Perhaps you wear your feelings on your sleeve,” Zhou Zishu suggested. Beiyuan paused for a second, pondering that, then they both broke out into laughter. Beiyuan had never been open about his real emotions a day in his life, and it was a well-trodden joke that Zhou Zishu didn’t have any feelings at all. Even now they still knew each other so well.

The look on Beiyuan’s face was fond as he settled down but he clearly wasn’t finished. “Maybe if I had—”

“It wouldn’t have mattered, Beiyuan.”

“But—”

“It was never a secret,” Zhou Zishu said loudly, because that was true too. Beiyuan had never said it. Zhou Zishu had never said it. Zhou Zishu could never hope to keep any from Beiyuan. “I knew. That was never the issue.”

Beiyuan swirled the cup in his hand, the wine sloshing in a neat circle. Rhythmic, like hypnotization. For a moment, there was only the sound of breathing and the quick splash of wine. “It never would have been me, would it have been.” Beiyuan stilled his hand, the wine quieting. “Do you know what I mean? It never would have been me.”

Zhou Zishu pressed his lips together. He had let Beiyuan in as much as he could. As much as he was able, maybe. He was grateful for that — he hadn’t even realized he was doing it; he’d been so young. By the time he realized, he was already in the middle of it. But Beiyuan was in the middle of it too. And Beiyuan always had Wu Xi and Helian Yi and the country to take care of and Zhou Zishu had much the same to deal with. Beiyuan had known everything about him but Zhou Zishu had never been a willing participant.

Not like the way it was with Wen Kexing.

“No,” Zhou Zishu said after a moment. “It never would have been. But I think… it could have been you, if not for me. Do you understand that?”

Beiyuan smiled ruefully. “Yes, I suppose I do.” He let out a quiet laugh, not so bitter as if could have been. “It is almost funny — I spent all those years expecting a betrayal from you. But the betrayal was never you; it was us together. And I think this may be worse.”

Zhou Zishu wet his lips. “It seems we can still surprise each other after all,” he said hoarsely. He never would have thought of this way. “I rather prefer… this one, though.”

“Yes, me too,” Beiyuan murmured. “I never would have guessed this. I thought about it often.”

“Did you?”

“I never cared to stop the inevitability,” Beiyuan said with a nonchalance that would make Zhou Zishu worry for the man’s safety, if he didn’t understand it so well. “We knew the worst of each other, Zishu. A betrayal counts for very little when there was always a certainty it was going to happen.”

Zhou Zishu smiled as he drank. He had thought the same each time he and Beiyuan fell into each other’s bed. It was nice, to be with someone who knew the worst of you. Who expected that ruthlessness from you. Beiyuan always knew, each time he invited Zhou Zishu into his bed, that it probably wouldn’t be tonight that his blood spilt. And one day, he would be wrong.

Only he hadn’t been.

“Your predictions have been wrong before, fortuneteller,” Zhou Zishu said. Beiyuan was a far cleverer man than him. He wondered if Beiyuan had ever truly believed Zhou Zishu would betray him after all or if he had known this too. They were both so terribly pragmatic, at times. “I’m glad that they were.”

“As am I,” Beiyuan said. “I never — well, we were friends, but we only because such because of our goals.”

“Is our friendship truly so clinical?”

Beiyuan laughed. “I only meant,” he said, pouring himself more wine, “We knew so well where our loyalties lay and they were never with each other. And yet here we are.”

Zhou Zishu smiled. “I’m a married man now, Beiyuan,” he joked. “My husband is a very jealous man.”

“As is mine,” Beiyuan replied, rolling his eyes fondly. As if Zhou Zishu didn’t know that about Wu Xi. “And I don’t regret it, but I do regret not sharing one last kiss with you. A thank you.”

“You can.”

“What?”

“Lao Wen gave me permission,” Zhou Zishu said. “For one kiss only. He said I could, because I loved you.”

Beiyuan looked supremely pleased with this. “You loved me?”

“You loved me too, didn’t you?” Zhou Zishu poured him more wine, overly fond. “Even if it led nowhere, I was thankful for it. I loved you.”

Beiyuan shifted forward, hair sliding over his shoulder and sending shadowed, dancing shapes against the wall. “Just once more, then,” he said softly, gaze alighting on Zhou Zishu’s lips for just a moment. How many times had they sat like this, drinking wine and laughing at each other across the table, only to end up in the same bed? The soft press of Beiyuan’s lips was so familiar, so careful — he always kissed like this at first, as if testing the waters. It was Zhou Zishu, always, who pushed them further until Beiyuan took control but today it was different.

Beiyuan’s hand cupped the back of his neck, pulled him close. Zhou Zishu gasped a little into his mouth, surprised, and Beiyuan pressed even close, licking into his mouth insistently. Zhou Zishu drowned in the feeling, warm and familiar, kissing just for the sake of kissing.

When they broke apart, both panting, Beiyuan’s lips red — he smiled. That familiar smile, the look on his face like he had been testing a theory and was delighted with the findings. It was, after all, a very good kiss. They had been kissing each other for a very long time. And Zhou Zishu knew him. He was sitting there at the table, his knees knocking into Zhou Zishu’s, flushed and a little unsteady, and Zhou Zishu missed him.

It was a comfortable sort of hunger, familiar in the way only terribly old friends could be.

“It’s different now, how I love you,” Zhou Zishu told him. “But I do still love you.”

Beiyuan tipped his glass back, wine clinging to the lips that Zhou Zishu had just tasted. “I suppose I never thought you’d say it.” It was a testament to how well they knew each other that he didn’t pretend Zhou Zishu hadn’t known. He had known how important it was to him at the time; he had known how inevitable it was that it had to end. He had thought he’d known how bloody the ending was going to be and instead it was soft and sweet, petals blooming like spring instead of heads severed.

“I suppose being married has that effect on me,” Zhou Zishu said after a moment. “It always seemed that I couldn’t love something that was going to have a tragic ending.”

“But you did anyways.”

“But I did anyways,” Zhou Zishu agreed. “And the ending wasn’t all that tragic after all.”

Beiyuan hid his smile in his glass; Zhou Zishu thought it was to hide how melancholy a smile it was. “It could have been,” he murmured offhandedly.

“No use thinking about that now,” Zhou Zishu offered. Beiyuan had a terrible habit, sometimes, of talking like certain destinies were set. But they both knew they never were.

“I like this one much better, you know.”

“Yes, I do too,” Zhou Zishu agreed. He didn’t feel the need to say anymore. Perhaps neither did Beiyuan. They both just tipped their glasses up for the rest of the wine, comfortable in the silence.