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His king had said he wouldn't hit him anymore, and at first he didn't. But then after a while, whenever Shang Qinghua got a little too careless with his heart, like saying something about taking a holiday that brought up all his abandonment issues, well.
His king just got frustrated when he couldn't express himself in words, and words were hard for him! He always made Shang Qinghua pulled noodles afterwards. He was getting pretty good at it, too, but mainly it just showed that he cared.
Whenever Shang Qinghua found himself flung at a wall or kicked or slapped so hard he felt his teeth rattle, he just reminded himself: Linguang-jun had hit a lot harder than this. It's practically a gentle pat.
When he had tea with Cucumber-bro (which his king allowed, so long as he didn't stay too long and always kept a communication talisman on him), he always had an easy excuse for the bruises. They were cultivators, after all, and the world was full of monsters he had personally created. Life was dangerous.
Besides, sometimes they would be hanging out and Shen Qingqiu would keep groaning and changing position, clearly in pain, so Shang Qinghua thought: That's just what demon spouses are like. But when he brought it up casually, one gently built human spouse seeking comfort with another, Shen Qingqiu's eyes flew wide. "He shouldn't beat you. What, really? I thought you two were done with that."
"So did I. I guess old habits die hard. And you know demons."
"Binghe's a demon, and he doesn't hit me!"
Shang Qingua arched an eyebrow and looked pointedly at where Shen Qingqiu was rubbing his waist. Cucumber's face took on that pinched, scowly look he always wore when he was embarrassed about something. "That's just... you know."
"Oh so when my man beats me it's so terrible, and when yours leaves you like this it's fine?"
"...He needs it to be like this, though," said Shen Qingqiu, but he suddenly didn't seem so convinced. "It's the only way he can... you know. And I can take it."
"Yeah," said Shang Qinghua smugly and sipped his tea. "So can I."
The one thing that changed after that conversation was that Cucumber-bro never smacked him with his fan again, even when he looked like he really, really wanted to. Hah! As if anything he could have mustered would have matched up to what Shang Qinghua was already enduring. And it was worth it, it was all worth it, because he was an honoured consort in the Northern Kingdom now, and An Ding was running smoothly under his head disciple, and he'd even had time to work on his cultivation! If he wanted to, he could take a whole day just to lounge around in his special heated room at the Fortress and write nonsense, or attend demonic functions and festivals that had sounded really cool when he wrote them but in real life turned out to be kind of boring and gross.
Actually, he was bored to tears.
The sex was great! Eventually. When he got it.
Mobei-jun was still the handsomest man he had ever seen, and always would be, with his demonic immortality and abs he somehow never needed to work on. But he wasn't that great a conversationalist. And when he got tongue tied, he would get embarrassed, and then the fists would come out, and so Shang Qinghua didn't start too much small talk.
He was bored and he was lonely, and he was still bruised and hurting most of the time.
It was a bright morning in the Northern Kingdom when Shang Qinghua, looking out over the blinding expanse of snow from his balcony in the royal suite, a warm cup of tea between his hands and the back of his head aching like a motherfucker, realized he wanted to go home.
"I want to go home," said aloud. But he was alone, so no one came to stop him.
He wrote a letter to Cucumber in English and gave it to one of their fleetest messengers to deliver, went back to his rooms, put on his consort's robes and sat down in front of the window for a last look at the stark beauty of the Northern Kingdom.
And did nothing.
He sighed, still torn. He hadn't liked his old life. Nothing there was this beautiful or magnificent, certainly nothing he would ever have access to again. He sat like that for a long time, until it was time for a diplomatic luncheon, and that did the trick. He activated the System and called up the return home function.
The servants found Shang Qinghua's body slumped on the floor in front of the window.
-
He had been back a few months when his Zhongdian Literature account got a request for DM from Peerless Cucumber. He had thought about reaching out, but the idea that there would be no one on the other side because his bro was dead in this world had been too depressing. Also, if Peerless Cucumber was there but didn't remember him, that would just be confirmation that there had been no transmigration, and Airplane had simply gone momentarily insane from too much pot noodle and a fried brain.
But. Cucumber wasn't dead! Not only did Airplane accept the DM, but replied with a link to his real Weibo account.
"It's so weird," said Shen Yuan's voice, same and different at the same time. "Let's switch to video chat."
Shen Yuan’s face, too, was a mix of familiar and strange. The expression was the same, as was the way he held himself, just as he had when it had been just the two of them, back in the other world. Shen Yuan's eyes crinkled when he smiled. They were different, willow leaf eyes rather than phoenix. Shen Yuan said, "You're fat."
"Gee, thanks!"
"It looks good on you. I missed seeing fat people around."
"You can't keep saying the word fat when you look like that."
Cucumber shrugged. He was such an asshole. Airplane had missed him so much.
"Wanna meet?" they both said at the same time.
-
"They were bad relationships," Shen Yuan said decisively one day while buttering a (as it happened) cucumber sandwich. "It's still kind of hard to say it though. It feels like I'm being disloyal to Binghe."
"They weren't real," Airplane pointed out. "Technically none of it happened." Technically he wasn't a widow or a divorcee or sixty years old, but he felt like all of those things.
Shen Yuan hummed in agreement. "I had to convince myself of that before I could leave. I had to believe that if you were gone, and I was gone, the world would be gone too. Nobody left behind, like closing a book."
"It was just a good story. Right?" Then he added quickly, "After you were done with it, anyway." Maybe it was because he had been thinking about Mobei-jun, but he suddenly felt cold run down the back of his spine. Suddenly it was very important that Shen Yuan not get mad at him like he always used to.
"It was a great story when you thought of it. You just didn't get to finish it that way." Shen Yuan did not sound mad, instead he came over and put a plate of sandwiches in front of him.
Airplane burst into tears, and he didn't know why. Everything was suddenly just too much, the pale winter sunlight on the counter top of Shen Yuan's stupid expensive apartment, the weight of black thoughts in his head. And there was Shen Yuan's voice, going hey, hey, it's all right and don't cry and please don't cry, come on, man.
Shen Yuan embraced him, held him just tight enough that he felt anchored but could pull away at any time. Shen Yuan was thin, but he was warm and human and smelling of an expensive shampoo and yeah. Nothing like the man he'd made up and thought he'd loved.
They had been bad relationships. And they weren't real.