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Binghe has been living in the bamboo house for a few weeks when Shizun starts … relaxing.
There's no other word for it. It begins with an invitation to join Shizun at the table while they eat. Binghe goes to get a second set of eating implements, half expecting a trick, and then kneels cautiously across from Shizun.
What he gets is a full bowl of food and a grilling about his studies.
He's as wary about the latter as the former. Is this a prelude to making him learn inedia? Will he be denied food tomorrow?
What will happen if he answers honestly? Will he find himself being mocked tomorrow? Is there some other agenda hiding behind that stern face?
He gives safe answers and eats as much as he is given. It will not be the first time he has gone hungry.
The next day at breakfast, Shizun blinks at the table. "Where is Binghe's portion?"
"I … I ate already," Binghe answers, bewildered.
"Of course. Binghe shouldn't cook my breakfast on an empty stomach," Shizun declares. "But he might join this master anyway, if he likes."
Binghe kneels obediently, and doesn't tell Shizun that he'd only eaten after he'd made Shizun's meal. He's trying to work out if this pronouncement is intended to be taken as an order from his master, or if there's some other meaning he's missed.
At dinner, Shizun's frown is more severe as he stares at the one eating bowl, one set of chopsticks. "If Binghe would prefer to eat alone, this master will not insist."
Slowly, Binghe produces a second set of implements, and is shocked when Shizun's face relaxes.
"Sit," Shizun orders, and he does. "Now, I've been considering the problem you were describing with the three-fold leaf technique—"
What follows is the most educational discussion Binghe has ever had with his master. Gone are the cold orders to "figure it out"; instead, Shizun deconstructs Binghe's difficulty and offers three different explanations for its cause. Binghe can practically feel his cultivation level increasing on the spot.
The dishes run out before he realizes how much he has eaten. Shizun picks one of them up and frowns at it.
"Binghe apologizes," he says quickly. "This one will eat less next time."
"Silly child." He gets a rap from the ever-present fan—but light, more like a pat than anything meant to hurt. "Eat less? Which of us has mastered inedia and which has not? Which of us is still growing?"
Binghe has heard enough complaints about how fast he grows. "Forgive me, Shizun."
"There's nothing to forgive. Binghe should simply make more next time."
"Make … more? This disciple would not dare waste—"
"Waste? What waste?" Shizun gives him a narrow-eyed stare that has Binghe shrinking. "Even if Binghe made twice as much as he could possibly eat, this Peak can afford it."
"Shizun?"
His master sighs, and Binghe braces himself. "Breakfast should be moderate but filling," he says quietly. "Binghe should make enough so that he is well-fed for his work without being stuporous. By lunch you should be hungry, but not yet ravenous; that meal should be the same. Dinner, however—you are growing, Binghe. If you are not still full when you go to sleep, we aren't feeding you enough."
Binghe stares at him.
"Double the amount next time," Shizun orders. "We'll figure it out. Now, did those explanations last night help any?"
For the first time in his life, Binghe begins to eat until he is full. Going to bed without being hungry is a strange experience, almost as strange as Shizun's continued insistence on dining with him. Not just dining! Speaking! Conversing, even!
At first the focus is narrowly on Binghe's training. Then one evening Shizun mentions Ning Ying Ying, and the next thing Binghe knows, they're discussing the sect lessons as a whole—as if Binghe has any right to have an opinion about Shizun's teaching!
When he voices this, he earns another fan tap. "Of course Binghe is permitted opinions. Silly child."
"I am a silly child," Binghe agrees. "So how could this lowly one have an opinion?"
Shizun blinks at him as if it's never occurred to him that there might be other options. "We all have opinions, Binghe."
"But—"
"Trust this master to know the worth of your opinions versus his own."
Binghe flinches. "Then why ask?"
His master sighs, and taps his fan on the table edge. Binghe flinches again, but it doesn't escalate. Instead, Shizun says, "Worth less does not mean worthless, Binghe. Your perspective is not mine; you will always see things I do not. I would value that even if you had the insight of a wooden plank."
Shizun … values Binghe's perspective? Shizun values Binghe's anything?
"Yes, Shizun!" he says brightly, and gets the precious gift of a soft look from his master.
As it turns out, training is considerably easier when one is well-slept and well-fed—never mind the other changes. Binghe has access to as many cultivation manuals as he can read, now. He has a master who will answer questions. He thinks there is nothing he could possibly want for, in this new, charmed life he is somehow leading.
And then Shizun relaxes further.
He starts reading aloud to Binghe in the evenings—mostly his own cultivation manuals (which makes Binghe feel he is being granted precious secrets) but also novels and poetry (which makes Binghe feel he is being granted something even more precious than that). He leans across the table to put more food in Binghe's bowl. He smiles more.
He has a terrible sense of humor, Binghe discovers. He will laugh at the worst puns, and make even more awful ones in return. Binghe begins thinking up new ones as he runs laps, just to see that startled, happy smile bloom on Shizun's face.
He loves knowledge like a cat loves fish. Every so often Binghe will mention some detail, some creature he came across in the market as a child, some story about demons, some piece of irrelevant trivia, and Shizun's eyes will light up and Binghe will find himself under interrogation about the raising of two-tailed sea snails or the exact plot of The Demon Princess and the Parchment Fairy.
He is also shockingly tactile. Fan raps give way to head pats. He takes Binghe's hands and folds them into the right shapes when Binghe struggles with hand seals. He tugs Binghe down when Binghe hesitates to sit at the same table as his Shizun. In fact, he tugs Binghe a lot: never anything hard or annoyed, but soft, gentle nudges. Move here, stand like this, a little bit this way, Binghe … he does not let himself make mistakes just to feel that gentle touch more often, but he thinks about it.
One evening they're sitting at the table, working on different tasks—Binghe has a comparative essay to write, a new sort of task that Shizun has introduced, and Shizun has a stack of reports to read. Binghe is staring off into space, thinking about how he might contrast qi to sunlight, when Shizun reaches over.
Binghe's reflexes are more than good enough to have stopped him—he does not try to hide the movement, doesn't try to make it subtle at all—but Binghe stays still, at first because he cannot quite see Shizun as a threat anymore, and then because he's curious what will happen.
What happens is that Shizun grabs his nose between the second knuckles of his first two fingers and wiggles it slightly.
"Got your nose!" Shizun announces, and pulls back, waving his fist in the air.
Binghe blinks at it, then, cross-eyed, at his nose. That—that doesn't look like a nose in Shizun's hand, and he can still see it …?
There was a time, once, when he might have imagined his master would break off his nose, for no better reason than because he wanted to. Now, Binghe is just confused.
A quick pat, and then a second with the other hand, confirm that his nose is, in fact, still on his face.
He turns the confused look on his Shizun, who bursts out laughing.
"Shizun?"
"I'm sorry," Shizun gasps, still giggling like a child. "I guess you don't do that here, huh?"
Slowly, Binghe shakes his head.
"It's a game," Shizun explains. "It's my thumb, see?" Slowly, he unfolds his fingers, demonstrating how he's caught his thumb between his fingers, as if that is the reason Binghe is confused.
"But … why?" Binghe asks, still feeling adrift.
"Why?" Shizun echoes, blinking back. "Because … it's a game, I guess? It's—it's something we do. Where I'm from. With people we like—friends, family, you know."
His confusion collapses into one solitary thought. Shizun likes this Binghe?
"I won't do it again, if it bothers you," Shizun offers, his laughter stopping.
"I'm not!" Binghe blurts. If Shizun likes him—if this is how he shows it—the last thing Binghe wants is for him to stop. "I'm just—I've never—." He pauses, takes a breath, and says, "It didn't bother me. I was only surprised."
"Ah." His Shizun's smile returns. "Alright, then."
Binghe has his nose "stolen" about once a week after that. He never works up the courage to do it back—that is far too much liberty to take, even with a master as kind as his—but he starts laughing as well, although he never does quite understand the joke. It makes Shizun happy, so it makes Binghe happy.
Eleven years later, Binghe is lying in bed next to Shen Qingqiu. Shizun is propped up on one elbow, talking idly about the plans to replant Qing Jing Peak—bamboo grows fast, but the last few years have not been kind to the other vegetation—and Binghe is just staring at him.
Somehow, he is here. Somehow, he is alive, and Binghe is in his bed. Somehow, Binghe has been lucky enough to have this.
He's not sure it'll last. Binghe will love his Shizun until the seas dry out, but how long will Shizun tolerate this?
They've gone two rounds tonight already; Binghe is considering angling for a third, to demonstrate concretely the advantages to having a lover with the stamina of a heavenly demon. There is so little else he can offer that would be worth staying for.
(Safety? Binghe will do his best to assure that, whether or not he ever warms Shizun's bed again—whether or not he ever sees Shizun again. Love? Wealth? Suitors would line up to ply Shen Qingqiu with gifts and adoration, if he ever so much as hinted he were open to it. Power? A single word from him and half of the most powerful cultivators in the world would fall at his feet for the chance to bed him. Binghe has nothing to offer that no one else has, except himself.)
A pinch on his nose pulls him out of his thoughts, and he glances down just in time to see Shizun's fingers slide off it, thumb caught between them.
"Got your nose!" Shizun announces, and giggles.
It's something we do. Where I'm from. With people we like.
"Shizun …."
"Sorry, I'll put it back," Shizun tells him, and pretends to pop it back on, finishing by running a finger down the tip. "There. All better?"
"Shizun," Binghe whispers, and bursts into tears.
"What?" Shizun scrambles up, wraps Binghe in his arms, runs a hand over his hair. "What is it? Binghe??"
"Shizun … likes me?" Binghe whispers.
The hand stills. Binghe tries to hold his breath and fails.
"Of course I like you, you impossible brat," Shizun tells him in a soft voice that removes even the tiniest sting from the epithet. "This master has always liked his Binghe."
"I thought …." Binghe swallows hard. "I know you did. But when I …."
"Oh, Binghe." Shizun sighs, and tugs gently on one of his curls. "I was afraid of you, for a while. But I always liked you."
Binghe tries to make himself stop crying, and fails.
"I liked you as my sweet white lotus Binghe," Shizun goes on. "But I like you differently like this."
"Like what?"
"You're darker." It's a truth that aches in Binghe's heart. "But you're also more complex. You're my equal, now. No, my superior."
"Never," Binghe denies.
"You are."
"Binghe can only ever be Binghe. Shizun is … Shizun."
The other man makes a face at him. "I prefer Binghe."
"Do you?" Binghe breathes, and is surprised by just how desperate it sounds. "You aren't just … tolerating me? For the sake of the world?"
"What?"
"I have good hearing. 'He'd burn down the world if you look at him funny', they say. 'Good thing he has that Peak Lord to keep him—'." He chokes off at the look on Shizun's face.
"Binghe." Shen Qingqiu leans on one hand and puts a hand on Binghe's chest, right over the old scar. "I'm not doing this out of some—some notion of sacrificing myself to save the world, if that's what you're thinking."
Binghe lets out a breath.
"I'm with you because I love you."
His chest seizes; for an instant, he can't draw new air, and then he gasps it in like a man surfacing from an icy lake.
"Silly man," Shen Qingqiu grumbles, but he's smiling.
"This Binghe loves Shizun too." That gets him a flick on his sternum; he finally smiles back and says, "A-Yuan."
"Much better," A-Yuan proclaims.
Then, greatly daring, Binghe reaches over and— "Got your nose."
A-Yuan's startled peal of laughter dries the rest of Binghe's tears. "Oh no! Give it back!"
He pretends to return it, as A-Yuan had, and then follows up with a kiss to the tip. "All better?"
Shen Qingqiu's eyes cross slightly as he looks at it, then at Binghe. "Of course it's better. My Binghe would never dare leave his Shizun's face in a less than ideal state."
It's teasing, and the warmth goes straight through Binghe. "Ah, so now you're Shizun again?"
"Binghe!" He gets the lightest, gentlest slap to his chest for it. "How is this master supposed to think when you look at him like that?"
"The same way this Binghe thinks in the presence of his master's perfection," he answers. When Shizun's mouth opens wordlessly, he takes that as invitation, and kisses him.
"Binghe." Shen Qingqiu leans his forehead against Binghe's when they come up for air.
"A-Yuan," Binghe replies, and then works his hand under the covers. "A-Yuan." He grins. "Got your—"
"Binghe!"
(He does get that third round, though.)