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"I love you."
Words so simple to say yet so heavy to hear. Meaning so deep and so light all the same. To hear it leave his mouth. To know it was directed to him. Confession so surprising and not.
Mu Qing should be happy, shouldn't he? He wasn't. Rather, he merely feels a weight lift itself off his shoulders. Easily known that a problem was once again gone for him to bear. There wasn't an ounce of hesitancy in Feng Xin's voice. Not a speck of uncertainty, and surely not a tone of lie.
Perhaps the once problem now nothing was the fact he need not to apologize. Need not to say he's been guilty of the wrong doings he'd done in his life toward the man laying on the floor in front of him. Need not to open his mouth in order for the animosity and hatred toward them be gone.
There was no hatred now, and he did not even have to think of what to say.
Just a thin... thin thread slowly reaching out toward him that he can't help but snap it right back off before it could wrap itself around his finger.
He blinks. Unsure now. Awkward and nervous. He'd not expected this to be soon, and he did not expect it to actually happen. He'd thought of this before; the thought of Feng Xin suddenly opening up about his heart, about his feelings, about the things in his mind that Mu Qing could not read.
However, he did not expect it to be somehow related to love.
And for him, no less.
His heart did not burst in happiness. Did not beat rapidly out of joy. He did not feel his body have the urge to wrap his arms around the archer's body and pull him to his chest and say 'I love you, too. Have always been'.
He did not, because he did not love.
The love he has for Feng Xin wasn't like the love Feng Xin has for him. It was more of friends, more of... brotherhood. They've been at each other's throats the moment they layed eyes upon each other, and to suddenly think of it as love in disguise of loathe – Mu Qing simply could not think of it that way.
He thinks of what they have was nothing but friendship and rivalry. Somewhat friendship. He thinks of the thin thread between them a growing relationship, not romantically. He thinks of what they have that it is difficult to manuever around. He'd already wasted enough time thinking of what he can say to His Highness, a confession and an apology all the same.
One problem gone there, a second one here.
There's so much to say. So much to explain, and so much to question. To know, to answer, to clarify. So much to fix, regardless of its cracks and crevices. There's so so much that Mu Qing could answer now.
And in spite of all of it, he didn't open his mouth for it.
"I don't." I don't love you that way. He looks down at Ruoye in his hands, half way done with the stitching before the god he thought was asleep spoke. "And I'm not going to apologize for it." He adds, because why would he? He didn't ask for that kind of love. He didn't ask for Feng Xin to suddenly lean on him after Mt. Tonglu. He didn't ask for Feng Xin to call for his shoulder to rest on after all the years he'd almost shoot it with his own arrows.
He didn't ask for those. Why would he be held accountable for a love he did not want?
He expected some sort of insult. Some sort of weak, pathetic joke. Expected some sort of violent retaliation, because that's what he knows. That's what they both know. Violence, banters, fights, wars, arguments – what do they know about feelings and love?
They don't. They know nothing. Especially about loving the man you've once declared you hated your entire life.
Unable to help himself, he glances down at Feng Xin once he had chuckled. Laying on the stupidly made bed on the floor, his back turned toward the silverette. Mu Qing grasps Ruoye tighter.
"I know." Feng Xin responds just as quietly as his confession. "I know." He repeats much quieter as though it was more for himself rather than the man he had just confessed to.
Then he lays on his back. Just enough for their eyes to meet as Mu Qing sees both pain and relief in those hues of gold. As though Feng Xin was in pain for his feelings were not reciprocated, and relief he finally voiced out something he was not able to for so long.
And Mu Qing says to himself that he shouldn't feel guilty. That he shouldn't feel as though he should have honestly just lied, because lying is worse than saying the truth in this situation. He'll deal more damage than necessary. He'll hurt Feng Xin more than he's hurting him now, and as much as he had hurt both of them before – he wishes no pain such as this be in the other's heart.
Physical pain is will always be better than hurting inside. They have control over what sort of pain they'll feel with their injuries with the help of their spiritual power, but no amount of qi could help them with something like this.
Mu Qing waits for more. For something more the archer would say. He doesn't wait for the other to say it was a lie. That it was a joke. Feng Xin have awful, cringe worthy jokes – however, he never lies. He is a terribly honest man, he wouldn't falsify his words about his feelings. And so, he waits.
To either leave more bruises as they leave the tent, put salt on their open wounds, or something more painful and blissful simultaneously.
He waits as Feng Xin smiles up at him. A small, painful smile that Mu Qing couldn't help but avert his gaze just as the archer opened his mouth to speak the awaited words.
"And I'm sorry I do."
And Mu Qing paused.
"I'm sorry"...?
Mu Qing repeats, once more, in his mind that he shouldn't feel so guilty for not reciprocating a love he does not want. That Feng Xin must have been apologizing because he didn't want Mu Qing to feel awful. To feel awkward and potentially ruin whatever relationship they have salvaged from their brutal rivalry. To feel weird because why was he suddenly saying he loves him after eight hundred years of nothing but insults and pain?
He paused from stitching, rubbing his temples in an attempt to remove some bit of distress he's feeling.
"Don't apologize for loving." He says, in a serene and somewhat composed voice despite the absolute chaos thundering inside him as Feng Xin nods more to himself. His smile wider than before as though he's relieved.
He turns once more, his back toward the silverette. A sign he does not want to continue this conversation. Leaving a fortunate amount of comfortable air between them inside Mu Qing's tent as he has no choice but to continue stitching.
And that was that.
Silence filled the vicinity once again.