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It’s another day where she’s sitting quietly at the ocean’s side, watching the waves slowly, wishing he was back with her.
It’s been three hundred and sixty-seven years. He’s been gone so long. Some days, she struggles believing even in the red string of fate around her ring finger, still as tight as the day Hua Cheng secured it around it, the knot not once having loosened.
But she knows that he must still be out there.
The bracelet around her wrist is still intact, too.
It took a long time for her to realize that these are his ashes, kept inside the pearls that his fiancée gifted him all the way back then. But once she did, she realized all the weight of them.
Him saying that he wanted to give these to her in first place.
Hua Cheng saying that he chose what he deemed the safest place for his ashes.
And it’s her. He wanted her to have his ashes, to protect them, keep them safe for centuries so that he might be allowed to come back if he really wants to.
She misses him. Not a single day has gone by where she hasn’t thought of him, how gentle he was with her in his last moments because that was the real him. That was who he was all the way back then.
Before their fates got exchanged.
Before their fates intertwined.
It’s hard to be mad at anyone involved when otherwise, she wouldn’t ever have met He Xuan.
She watches as some of the fish greet her with a flap of their tail into the water, drops splashing around, then disappearing into the depths again. It makes her smile a little. Even nowadays, Hua Cheng sometime comes to join her, despite her having long paid off He Xuan’s debt for him.
He better thank her once he’s back.
If he ever comes back.
She puts her head into her hands, and feels the tears come. She doesn’t cry as often as she used to anymore, no. Not after all these years of waiting for him; you get used at one point, whether you want to or not.
But now, for some reason, her eyes are getting wet, and she just wishes she could cry into his chest again. Just like back then.
At first, she still tries stroking them away, but barely manages. There are just more to come. She quickly gives up.
It’s seldom that the pain comes through like this, that her heart starts to clench and hurt and that breathing gets hard.
It’s been so long.
And yet, the feeling of his lips on hers finally has never left.
She pulls her knees up to her chest, and puts her head onto them, then hugs her own legs. It’s the best she can do since he’s not here.
Still.
Will he ever even be back?
Once more, her heart feels like it’s being torn apart. Of course she remembers his face, and yet, it’s gotten so very blurry after all these centuries. She remembers the colour of his eyes, but not the exact colour of them, can’t recall how much his golden irises used to shine. Barely remembering the pitch-black of his hair or his voice.
Barely remembering whether he was real to begin with.
A strained sob escapes her lips. Even after all this time, she still hasn’t gotten used to this.
She wished she could say that it wasn’t ever hard, or that she knows for a fact waiting is going to be worth it. But she’s not as strong as Hua Cheng, not as patient as him, and things between her and He Xuan weren’t nearly as easy as between him and Xie Lian.
They always unconditionally supported each other. No matter what. She knows about Xie Lian’s wrongdoings – everyone in the Heavens knows, at this point, but they never even dared to say anything against him as most of them weren’t much better. And Hua Cheng tried his best to support him even when they disagreed – He Xuan and Shi Qingxuan disagreed on possibly everything in existence ever.
Maybe none of this is going to be easy, even if he does manage to come back. And maybe it’s not going to be worth it for a very long time, but it’s not like she would ever have moved on either way.
She knows that he’s the one for her.
Despite all his flaws.
Another sob.
She misses him so much. She wants that godforsaken asshole to finally just come back to her and hug her again.
She looks into the sea just once, then buries her face back into her arms, and just lets herself cry.
She could visit Xie Lian and Hua Cheng and their little family later. Or maybe Quan Yizhen. She’s made good friends with him; after all, he, too, is still waiting for someone to come back.
Hell, she’s even made friends with Mu Qing in all that time. Really, one would think He Xuan would come back before something like this could happen.
After a few minutes, as with most of the days when she comes here, there are steps. This time it’s a single pair of steps. Sometimes, however, there are masses of children coming towards her, and they at least always manage to cheer her up. Older people are sometimes more hostile, or question her.
Right now, she really isn’t up for that, but these step sound like they belong to an adult. Hell, the among of times strangers have comforted her is plainly embarrassing. In the beginning, she had Old Feng to do that.
He died too soon, for her taste, just being a mortal, after all.
Whoever it is; they don’t say a word, and just sit down next to her. She can hear the rustling of clothes, the sound of sand quietly making place for whoever that is.
Maybe the person knows she just needs to cry.
Maybe it’s going to be one more stranger comforting her once she resurfaces from her own grief enough to have a conversation.
But then, suddenly, without a warning, there’s a hand in her hair.
Cold fingers touching her scalp.
Slowly massaging her head, stroking some of her hair back before she can even react.
“Qingxuan,” comes a voice and-
She backs away in utter shock, and looks away, the hand right in front of her face now and when she looks past it-
Another sob leaves her throat, way worse than before.
“No,” she whispers, “no. No. No.”
It’s partly disbelief, and then she slaps her own cheek.
And finds him still being there.
Not having woken up.
Is this really not a dream?
His hair as dark as the depth of the sea, his eyes looking like gold when the sun hits it in just the right way, his kind smile that she saw when he dissipated.
He’s… there.
“Hey, don’t hurt yourself, please,” he says, and chuckles quietly and her entire body seems to explode-
“Kiss me so that I know this is real because every time you kissed me in my dreams you disappeared, and I woke up.”
There’s no hesitation in the way both of his hands come up to her face, frame it, and he pulls her close.
Without any further ado, he kisses her.
Right on her lips.
He doesn’t disappear.
And it feels just like back then.
And this is just where she belongs, and when he lets go of her, and kisses her again, much shorter this time, her entire face distorts.
He’s back.
He’s back.
She blinks, tries to see him through her tears. Barely manages. And throws her arms around him as fast as she somewhat can to bury her face in his chest, just like back then, so she can actually cry.
“Xuan…!” she sobs into him.
He smells just like back then. Almost as if he was never gone.
“I’m back. I’m sorry it took so long. I had a lot to deal with. But I’m back now. And I’ll never leave you again. I promise.”
There are hands in her hair again, stroking it so carefully and lovingly that it elicits another tiny sob from her mouth.
He’s back.
He’s back.
She’s so happy she feels like she might throw up.
“Xuan…!”
It’s a desperate scream, and she ignores the slightly pained moan that he releases when she presses him closer to her, but no matter what, he does the same, and they just keep each other in that tight embrace.
“Please- please don’t cry like this again. It was bad enough back then. I can’t take it again.”
“Well, it’s your fault!” she says, shaking her head into him, taking a deep breath to have her lungs filled with him and just him.
He’s back.
He’s… really back.
“Then let me apologize. Just this once. I’m sorry for the grief I caused you, Qingxuan. But I’ll never leave you again.”
Her lips are tingling.
“I promise you. I’ll never leave you. I’ll hold you every night from now on, if that’s what you want. I’ll kiss you every single second of the next one hundred years to make up for all of this. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
Her eyes are burning from the tears. She can barely speak, doesn’t know how to respond, so she does the only thing that makes sense to her.
She tackles him into the ground so that she’s properly on top of him, and puts her entire body onto his to make sure that he can’t leave because no matter his words, she’s still scared he will.
“Be a bit careful, won’t you?” he grunts when she grasps at his arms, pressing her face into his neck.
“Don’t care,” she mumbles, “you used to throw me to the ground all the time, so now it’s my turn-“
At the last word, she can’t help but sob again, his hand in her hair still, the other suddenly around her waist, holding her in place.
He’s still as skinny and bony as back then. The scent of salt water on him, making it indistinguishable that this is really him and no one else.
“I’m here. Please stop crying-“
“Shut up. I forgive you. Shut up. Or I’ll make you.”
He laughs at that, just laughs again so very happily-
Her heart breaks.
Properly this time.
Just for him.
It feels a bit like her life is ending and like every single sorrow is falling from her chest and her entire body just goes limp against him although she’s still just crying her eyes out.
She has no clue how much time passes with her just lying on his stomach. Doesn’t know how much time passes with his hands in her hair, and on her back, and his hands grasping hers and playing with her fingers, thumb stroking her index finger, bending them, stretching them, intertwining them with his. Has no clue whether it’s been a minute or an hour or ten.
All she knows is that she cries on and off the entire time, lets him play with her fingers, the bracelet, her hair.
Finally feeling safe and fulfilled and in the right place.
After centuries of being lost.
All she really needed was him being close to her.
None of them speak. Not once, during the entire time, about nothing at all.
Because there’s nothing to talk about, all she needs is feeling him and making sure this isn’t a dream sometimes, purposefully taking deep breaths of salt water and after a while, wind, too.
“Qingxuan,” he’s the first to say something again after God knows how long, “I want to kiss you. I want to kiss you so badly. Can I? Please?”
Him whispering these words, directly into her hair from where his chin and lips are buried inside of it, and hell, as if she could deny him.
“Just- a second,” she says, “you still…?”
Another happy laugh.
She didn’t think her heart could break again.
“I still love you, Qingxuan. More than anyone in the world. Don’t you dare doubt that ever again.”
“And you won’t lie to me again?”
“I’m far past lying, love. All I want is you, honestly and genuinely. As long… as it’s the same for you.”
She peels herself off him, and finally looks into his eyes. She’s still sitting in his lap, though. She’s not going down from it either any time soon. He’s taller than her. Like this, he’s the perfect height for kissing.
He sits up, although requiting her gaze all the time.
“I do, He Xuan. All these years, I waited for you. So that we can kiss again. So that you can fulfill your promise. I need you more than I need air to breathe, and- and- and- I love you.”
The last bit she can only mumble, almost as if she’s embarrassed to tell him that again.
As if it wasn’t an obvious fact.
“X-Xuan?” she asks when he suddenly tackles her this time, burying her into the sand with a forceful push, and pressing his forehead against hers.
Laughing directly into her mouth.
“You have no idea how cute you are, Shi Qingxuan. You have no idea what you’re doing to me. You have no idea how much I want to kiss you. I won’t stop. Not unless you ask me to, not for another century. This was all that kept me going at first. You make me feel alive, Shi Qingxuan. Ever since meeting you, I knew I couldn’t hurt you. And I never wanted to. I’m so sorry. So please let me kiss you. You’re the only thing binding me to this world-“
“Wait, wait, just- before you do,” she says, her trembling hands coming up to his waist, and grasping at his cloth.
He’s all warm now from all the cuddling.
She feels like she must have been asleep for a few minutes, too, actually. She feels like she might just fall asleep while kissing him, too, simply because of how safe and sound she feels.
Even if he killed her brother – who cares? Who cares? Surely not her. She’s long stopped caring.
“Yeah? Hurry up, I can’t-“ he mumbles, already inching closer, and she smiles, laughs against him, feeling so free of all her worries and sorrows and sadness of the past century.
He really is all she needs.
“You- before you left… you said something about getting married? Is your offer still standing?”
She takes him kissing her harder than she’s ever been kissed before as a ‘yes’.
She takes his lips moving against hers slowly, yet so desperately, a slight tremble in every single one of his motions as a ‘yes’.
She takes the way his hands possessively grasp at her shoulders as a ‘yes’, as a sign that she always belongs to him, and she claws at his waist to make sure he knows that he also will always belong to her from now on.
That there’s going to be no more lies and secrets.
His lips are so soft. They taste like salt, and it might be the water, or it might be because he’s started crying when kissing her. Finally.
She feels complete. Because now that her heart has been properly broken, it can at least be mended back together, and every single one of his kisses is proof of that, soft lips kissing hers, or the corner of hers, or kissing away a tear or her nose or her eyebrow, her closed eyes, as if he wanted to map her face with his own lips.
“Do you want to marry me, Shi Qingxuan?”
It’s a quick question between two kisses, much more meaningless than the way their bodies are finally in the same place again, as well as their souls, yet carrying so much weight.
“Yes,” she breathes into his mouth, lets one hand wander up his back towards his head, tugging at his hair a bit. It’s so smooth. He’s so beautiful.
Just feeling him so close to her is good enough for her to finally feel at peace with everything that has ever happened in her life.
“You truly make me the happiest man alive- or well, not alive,” He Xuan says, and she can’t help but giggle again, and pull away a little. Look into his eyes. At his smile.
This is the man she always saw beneath layers of hate and revenge, below the mask of her beloved “Ming-Xiong”.
Because no matter how cruel he might have seemed, how poorly he treated her at times, she knew that he has a heart of gold. She had felt it, no matter what her brother or others had said. She always knew, knew that He Xuan is one of the kindest people in the world if only he lets himself be.
If only all his other regrets got resolved.
And they did.
“…Xuan.”
“Hm?” he asks, looking down at her.
“Can we get married today, then?”
“If I can stop kissing you until this day ends,” he answers, which sure, isn’t a yes or a no, but she somehow can’t bring herself to complain when his lips meet hers. Softer this time, just them being connected, long fingers running over her arms and sides, taking her hands again. She has no idea how the guy is even holding himself up, but well, he is a ghost after all.
“We should probably talk first,” she tries to say, but he just shuts her up with another kiss. He truly plans not to let go, huh? He’s not the only one who can play this game.
For a second, she breaks the kiss again.
“You’re right. Screw talking. I love you and you love me and that’s all we really need to know.”
“Exactly,” he mouths.
And goes straight back to kissing her.
Every single time, her heart flutters, and her eyes sometimes start watering again, and when she starts trembling, he gives her some time to steady herself, and to stroke some hair out of her face. Kiss away her tears again. Tell her over and over in a quiet voice that he loves her and that she’s beautiful and that she’s all he needs to remain in this world.
Not even once does the memory of her brother’s head make it to the surface of her mind. Not once.
Because he’s really here now.
“Xuan,” she says again, trying to catch his attention by grasping his chin, her fingers shaky with how much they’ve been kissing and how much she’s been crying, “Xuan.”
He distances himself from her.
“Qingxuan. What is it? Can we please just go back to kissing-“
She headbutts him, although softly.
She does feel flattered that he’s this obsessed with her.
Maybe he finally realized that he’s not cheating on his fiancée or anything. That he’s free to love someone else. Who knows, maybe he even met her. Maybe she assured him that she just wants him to be happy.
“This is important. It’s something I forgot to say all the way back then. Even before you searched me out again to gift me your ashes.”
His gaze gets even softer.
“Hm? What is it?”
“Thanks for repairing my fan. I appreciate it. It was the first sign that made me believe that you didn’t hate me, and that you didn’t mean to hurt me. Thank you. It was really important to me.”
Even with the sun already sinking – god, seriously, how long has it been – she can still see the faintest of blushes on his cheeks.
A slight rose red, emphasizing his beautiful eyes, until she leans up and pecks his cheek.
And the pinkish tint becomes a full-on crimson.
“…I’m going to get back to kissing you now.”
“Are you embarrassed?” she laughs, touching his cheek, just tapping her fingers against it a few times, feeling the slightest bit of warmth radiating from them. “You’re cute, Xuan-“
He does go back to kissing her, and successfully shuts her up.
Fair enough, she thinks to herself. It’s not like she’d want it any other way.
If he wants to kiss her for a century, then she’s going to let him do exactly that.
Simple as that.