Work Text:
2010
On a cold February evening, Xiao is chopping blanched malantou in his downtown Liyue apartment, bleeding grassy stains onto the wooden cutting board, when a song comes on the radio that dredges up a decayed memory from the riverbed silt of time.
”Zhexie nian wo bu rongyi;
(These last few years haven’t been easy)
wo zen neng gaosu ni?
(how do I begin to tell you?)
Youguo duoshao tanxi,
(So much sorrow)
yeyou duoshao tingli...”
(yet so much strength)
His knife falters, raised just above the board. Something lurches in his gut, tossing and turning like a bad dream, but he can’t put his finger on it. How does he know this song...?
The front door swings open.
“Yahoo, Xiao!” Venti kicks off his shoes and drops his guitar case with a thud. “I’m back!”
Briefly forgetting the song, Xiao turns and smiles. “Welcome home. How did your session go?”
“Eh, not half-bad! My fingers are gonna be so sore, though.” Venti loops his arms around Xiao’s waist and sneaks a glance over his shoulder. “Oooh, malantou! Should I help with the tofu?”
“It’s alright. I’ll take care of it.”
Venti giggles. “You know, I never would’ve pegged you for the domestic type when we first met.”
Xiao rolls his eyes. “Shut up and go put your coat away.”
Undaunted, Venti pecks Xiao on the cheek before darting off to the coat rack. “Oh, yeah!” he says, undoing his buttons. “Guess who I ran into on the way back. Zhongli! He invited us to his New Year’s Eve dinner, next Sunday. Do you want to go?”
Xiao stills.
New Year’s. The Lantern Rite. Of course. How could he have forgotten? Typical, typical Xiao, a voice scoffs, always so selfish, so desperate to cut yourself free of your own blood, to leave behind where you came from—
Then a realization lances through him, as abrupt and deafening as a gunshot.
“I haven’t gone home for the Lantern Rite in eight years.”
Venti’s grin falls. His tone softens, cautious. “You mean Jueyun?”
Yes, Xiao almost says, but—Jueyun isn’t technically home anymore, is it? His family is dead and buried, their house was sold off, someone else lives there now. It’s been a long road, but home is here. Xiao is here. He has a mentor and a partner and friends and a career, he’s happy, he’s supposed to be happy—so why does his chest ache so much?
“I don’t know,” he manages.
And tears start to roll down his face. He touches them in detached surprise. Why is he crying over this? He could’ve easily gone back to Jueyun last year, he just hadn’t because he’d been so busy finishing up his master’s thesis, and it wasn’t a big deal, and all the years before that, he hadn’t even wanted to go back, and yet—all those individual little decisions are accumulating, tumbling, catching up to him and slamming into his gut—
“Hey, hey, Xiao.” Venti cradles Xiao’s face. “Look at me. Please?”
“I’m sorry,” Xiao chokes out, “I don’t know why—“
“Shhh. It’s okay. Let’s sit down.”
Carefully, Venti prises the knife out of Xiao’s white-knuckled grip and guides him over to the couch. Xiao feels dizzy.
“If you want to talk,” Venti says gently, taking Xiao’s hand in his own, “I’ll listen.”
Talking about your feelings. Right. That’s a thing that’s supposed to be good. Xiao blinks away his tears, trying to gather the glass-sharp fragments of his memory—to piece back together all those long years when a bright future seemed beyond his reach.
“How do I begin to tell you?”
2008
“To 417 Chihu Avenue, please,” Xiao tells the taxi driver, counting out the fare, and settles into the back seat as the taxi pulls away from the curb.
“The lanterns this year were really something, huh?” the driver remarks.
“Lanterns?” Xiao repeats blankly.
The driver arches an eyebrow. “For the Lantern Rite. Were you out of town?”
Xiao’s stomach drops. Oh. The Lantern Rite. That’s... That is a thing that exists. That is an important thing that exists.
“Sort of,” he mutters. In truth, between crippling art block, obsessive replays of that disastrous argument with Venti, and a general, persistent lethargy, the entire occasion had slipped Xiao’s mind. Sleeping right through the festival... The year’s off to a lovely start, isn’t it?
“Good, good,” the driver says distantly. “It’s important to spend time with family. They won’t be here forever, after all.”
Xiao doesn’t bother to correct him. The conversation dies there, and the driver drops Xiao off at his apartment with a perfunctory, “Take care.”
As Xiao trudges inside, he checks his phone again. Still no texts from Venti. Xiao sinks into his bed with a sigh. First his family, then the second chance Zhongli gave him, and now this... Is there a single good thing in Xiao’s life he hasn’t somehow destroyed?
The year didn’t end, he thinks tiredly. It’s just one long, terrible nightmare.
Fittingly enough, he dreams of rotting bamboo. Under the shadow of the crooked stalks, he sits at a table with six empty chairs and eats a steamed fish. He sets the head and tail aside, a symbolic act meant to bring abundance in the coming year. Then, in the morning, he uncovers the leftovers to finish them off. But the fish’s single milky eye rolls in its socket, and its jaw gapes open.
“Greedy, greedy child,” it singsongs. “Do you really believe someone like you deserves to be blessed?”
And before Xiao can answer, he starts to choke, small but sharp fishbones digging into his throat.
2005
As flocks of guests descend upon Wangshu Inn on their homebound migration, it falls to the inn’s two owners, a surly cook, and Xiao to attend to them—the only staff who hadn’t already left on the same trip. The labor is tedious, as usual—doing laundry, making beds, scrubbing floors and tables—but Xiao doesn’t mind. It keeps him busy. Keeps him grounded. (And the job comes with room and board, so he can’t complain too much.)
Once it’s time for his dinner break, he picks up a bowl of soup and rice from the kitchen and slips into the inn lounge. This late into the evening, there’s only one guest still up: an old lady complaining to a long-suffering Verr about the local train schedule.
“—canceled twice today. Twice! Can you believe it?”
Over at the front desk, Huai’an clears his throat. “Verr,” he calls, “could you take a look at this...?”
Verr’s relief is palpable. “Excuse me. Please enjoy your stay.”
As Verr steps away, the guest grumbles something under her breath, gaze swiveling around the room—before landing on Xiao.
“Oh!” she exclaims; Xiao stiffens. “It’s not often I see young folk around these parts. Homeward-bound, are you?”
“I work here,” he corrects, shifting uncomfortably.
The guest looks aghast. “Still on the clock so close to New Year’s? Goodness! Verr, give the poor boy some time off!”
Verr and Huai’an tense, sharing an uneasy glance. Xiao straightens.
“I’m not able to go back this year,” he says tersely. “Please don’t concern yourself with it.”
The guest clicks her tongue. “Ah, that’s a shame. I suppose there’s no way around it sometimes. But you should give some consideration to your parents, young man. They must miss you a great deal.”
A tomb can’t miss anyone, Xiao thinks, sharp and terrible as the drop of a guillotine—and immediately feels sick. He stands up, the legs of the chair scraping against the floorboards. “Excuse me,” he distantly hears himself say.
And he all but runs to his room, shutting the door firmly behind him. His fingers shake when he opens the bronze censer on the windowsill; the lid slips from his grasp and he curses. Finally, he manages to light some incense and sits back on his bed. As the faint scent of jasmine fills his lungs, he breathes in and out, slow and deep.
A knock sounds on the door. “Xiao?” Verr calls. “Can I come in?”
Xiao freezes. Does he want to talk to her right now? Would it be rude to refuse?
“If you don’t want me to, that’s fine,” she continues. “I’m sorry about that guest. I gave her a piece of my mind, so she shouldn’t be bothering you again.” After a pause, she lowers her voice to a murmur. “You don’t need to explain anything to me. But I thought I should let you know that Huai’an and I will be having a little New Year’s Eve dinner tomorrow. Yanxiao will be there, too. I’d love for you to join us.”
Xiao bites the inside of his mouth, unsure how to respond. Why is Verr inviting him to a gathering meant for family? Is it an apology for the rude guest? A gesture of misguided pity for the runaway college dropout?
If he went with Verr, would it be yet another betrayal of his family?
He doesn’t know. He’s so tired.
Verr gives a quiet sigh. “I’ll leave some tea by your door. Sweet dreams, Xiao.”
2003
At 4 PM local time, the Liyuean Student Association at Petrichor University hosts a screening of the annual Lantern Rite Gala. Five of them crowd around a flat-screen television outfitted with a bright yellow IPTV box, eating cooked-from-frozen dumplings out of paper bowls—the dregs of the twenty-odd total members who were left behind on campus for New Year’s Eve. Plane tickets are too expensive, one of them sighed, and there’d been a chorus of commiserating laughter.
Xiao, sitting in the corner of the small apartment, back pressed against the wall, forces a smile and tries very hard to focus on the television—on the singers in long, glimmering gowns and the ensemble dancers with identical smiles and identical costumes, twirling in undulating columns across the electronic stage—and not on the stomach-gnawing thought that he might be the only one here who hadn’t wanted to go home.
”Zhexie nian wo bu rongyi;
(These last few years haven’t been easy)
wo zen neng gaosu ni?”
(where do I begin to tell you?)
But what is there to tell? Xiao thinks.
He doesn’t know why he decided to come tonight. He doesn’t like television. He doesn’t know these people, beyond a perfunctory recognition of their shared cultural background. He doesn’t think they really care about or like him. That’s largely his own fault, he supposes. Lots of things are his own fault.
What am I doing here?
Before Xiao even realizes it, he’s standing, fingers curled into shaking fists at his sides. The other students give him strange looks.
“Sorry,” he blurts out, “I just remembered”—he scrambles for an excuse—“I have an assignment due tonight.”
”Tonight?” someone exclaims, dismayed.
“You could ask for an extension?” another suggests.
Xiao gives a vague shrug, thanks them for the food, and quickly leaves. As he exits the building onto the cobblestone street, relief crashes into him—followed by a crushing emptiness. For a moment, he just stands there, alone, the sharp wind biting at his exposed skin—and thinks about his parents.
It wasn’t like he’d wanted their relationship to break down. Growing up, Xiao had been as dutiful a child as anyone else. He believed sincerely that his parents loved him and had his best interests in mind; they would take care of him, and he would listen to them until he grew up and could take care of them. This was as true and constant as the mountains. But slowly, surely—tiny little rocks started tumbling loose. Chiding him for doodling when he could be studying. Frowning when he asked for brushes and ink and rice paper. Sitting him down, trying to talk him into physics or medicine or engineering, telling him there was no future in the arts. Fighting over his decision to go to Fontaine. His mother threw a chair onto the ground, shouting that he was an ungrateful, selfish child. Greedy, greedy, greedy. And before Xiao knew it, a landslide was roaring down the slopes, and all he could do was run away.
Tears burn his eyes. He blinks them back and, with unsteady fingers, dials a number he knows by heart. As the call rings, he stares at his ragged breaths, condensing in the night chill.
Yingda answers on the fourth ring. ”Hello?”
”Jiejie,” Xiao says, papering over the crack in his voice. “Happy New Year.”
”Xiao! Happy New Year! Oh, wait—Petrichor is seven hours behind, right? So it’s still New Year’s Eve?”
“Mm.”
”Are you doing anything fun?”
“Talking to you.”
Yingda laughs. ”I don’t think I’m that fun, but—“
Before Xiao can think better of it, he interrupts: “Are you upset I didn’t come back?”
”Upset?” she echoes. ”Why would you think that?”
His grip tightens on the phone. “Be honest.”
”No, no, Xiao. I’m not upset. If anything, I...” Yingda falters. Then, in a small, furtive murmur: ”I envy your bravery.”
Xiao blinks. “I was going to say the same thing to you,” he says, bemused.
This time, Yingda’s laugh is strained. ”Forget it, then. Let’s not talk about that stuff today. We can talk about...oh, I don’t know. Any ideas?”
“Can you...” Xiao swallows. “...describe everything to me?”
And blessedly, Yingda doesn’t ask. She tells him about the stir-fried rice cakes, the bowls of tangyuan, the steamed fish—tells him about the lanterns, the scarlet couplets, the fireworks—tells him about the jovial efficiency with which Fushe deboned pork cuts; the scandalized glower Minu shot anyone who didn’t fold their jiaozi correctly; the delicate precision of Fanan’s paper cuttings; the proud gazes of their parents as they passed out red envelopes—
(If Xiao had gone back, would they have looked at him like that, too?)
(She doesn’t tell Xiao if their parents asked after him; if there were arguments; if there were stilted lapses when someone broke the script of a joyful family celebration. That’s fine. He doesn’t want to know.)
At last, Yingda says apologetically, ”I’ve got to run. Mom and Dad are starting to give me funny looks. Don’t worry,” she adds. ”I won’t tell them you called.”
But still, Xiao can hear the sound of her breaths, crackling through the speaker.
“Yingda?”
”Hey, Xiao. Next year... What if we snuck out and had our own New Year’s Eve dinner? Just the five of us siblings.”
Already calculating the nightmarish logistics involved, Xiao frowns. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
”Just consider it!”
2010
“We never did get to have that dinner,” Xiao says hoarsely.
Next to him, Venti traces comforting circles around the base of Xiao’s thumb. “You wish you had more time, don’t you?” he murmurs knowingly.
“I wish a lot of things went differently,” Xiao admits. In 2008, he should’ve gone to see the lanterns. In 2005, he should’ve taken Verr up on her invitation. In 2003, he should’ve spent more time with his siblings. “But I shouldn’t... I shouldn’t be dwelling on that. There’s nothing I can do to change what happened...”
“You’re not wrong,” Venti says soothingly. “But sometimes, things we buried come back up. When that happens, it’s okay to sit with your grief. You don’t need to completely let go. It’s just another part of you.”
For better or worse, goes unsaid. Once, Xiao might’ve come firmly down on the “worse” side. Wouldn’t you be able to breathe so much easier if you could excise the tumors of bitter loss and guilt from your chest? The only reason he never tried was because he didn’t think he deserved that sort of peace.
But after two years of self-reflection and growth, of support from his loved ones and many sessions of therapy, he’s come to see his story in a different light. If he could reach back through the river of time, to all those lonely Lantern Rites, he’d tell that estranged boy, stumbling along a foggy road: keep going. Your journey matters. Life flows on.
Xiao breathes out. “So it is.”
“What do you want to do, then?”
To go home, he thinks. But what does that mean?
Home is here. Home is Wangshu Inn. Home is Jueyun. Home is so many different places and people, scattered and strewn like fallen stars. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, is it?
As it turns out, the answer is quite simple.
“Let’s go to Zhongli’s dinner,” Xiao decides. “After that...” He glances up at Venti. “...road trip to Jueyun?”
Venti smiles. “Just like last time, eh?” He squeezes Xiao’s hand. “That sounds lovely.”
And in the background, the radio sings on:
”Changye di na chuan lei di;
(The teardrops of the long night)
wo zen neng liu gei ni?
(how could I leave them to you?)
Youguo duoshao qiaocui,
(So much suffering)
yeyou duoshao meili...”
(yet so much beauty)