Chapter Text
Their mornings are always quiet, a glaring contrast to how they built their relationship – loud and eager and always filled with words being thrown around in haste, of I love you’s and declarations of hate when things get too much. But the mornings after are always quiet.
Rin stretches her arms above her head, white sheets pooling over her naked torso. A sliver of sunlight peeks past the curtains, coating the wooden floor in specs of gold. She turns to her side, grunting, before closing her eyes again. It’s still quiet.
“Morning…”
She feels the side of the bed dip, followed by a sigh. When Rin opens her eyes, she sees Nezha staring at her with a soft smile, hair haphazardly thrown into a low ponytail. She notices that he isn’t wearing a t-shirt.
“Don’t you have work?” she mumbles, still blinking blearily. “Get dressed, you dumbass.”
Nezha leans in and places a soft kiss on her temple. “It’s my day off.”
He pulls her towards him while continuing to pepper her with kisses. Rin clutches at the sheets, complaining softly when they slowly shift from covering her body. “Nezha,” she whines. “Leave me alone. It’s too fucking early for this.”
“Hm?” Nezha lowered his mouth to her jaw, nipping at the juncture just below her earlobe. “Is it?”
“It is,” Rin bites back a moan, clenching her teeth, as he starts to suck on her skin again. She still had bruises from last night littering her neck, she didn’t need him to add more and make her life harder than it already was, but she couldn’t find herself complaining. Not yet.
Nezha moved closer to her, gripping the sheets covering her with his free hand while he cupped her face with the other. “You want me to stop?” he asks, and Rin finds herself staring at his swollen lips. God.
“You’re an asshole. You know that right?” she glares at him. He only pushed himself against her, leaning over her while his hands worked their way down to remove the sheets covering her naked body. His fingers were warm when they touched her stomach. Gasping, she mutters a curse.
Nezha gently grips her waist, squeezing her once. Then again. A shudder runs down her spine as he lifts his head to stare at her. “Do you have any plans for today?”
She thinks for a moment. “I don’t. Why?”
Nezha hooks an arm underneath her waist before moving swiftly to kneel between her legs. She gasps at his movements, clutching at his arms. “Nothing,” he says, leaning down to kiss her on the mouth.
Her eyelids flutter close when she feels him against her, already hot and eager. It’s still way too fucking early for this, she thinks.
“Nezha,” she gasps, almost clawing at his arms. His hand had already found its way in between her thighs.
"Yeah?"
She swallows thickly, already feeling full with just his fingers. Fuck. “I hate you so much.”
Nezha smiles at her, and he looked so pure then that it was hard for her to focus on anything but his face. He always had that kind of effect on her. Stupid, pretty face.
“I love you, too, baby.”
She loses herself in his kisses, and when she comes back, she finds them entangled underneath the sheets, their breathing slow and steady. He has his arms secured around her, as if he’s afraid to let her go. He’s always been like that, always so sturdy and tensed when he hugs her – like a child gripping his mother’s hand amidst a sea of people coming and going. She always wondered why. When he hugs her, there is always a hint of desperation seeping out from his skin, burning and bruising. But she never asked him why.
“I’m hungry,” she mumbles against his chest after a while.
“We can order something if you want.”
Rin looks up at him with her forehead creased. “Take-out is too expensive.”
“I’ll pay.”
She rolls her eyes at him but doesn’t say another word. She could cook for them but she’s already too tired to move around. Instead, she sinks further against his chest and let themselves fall into a steady silence.
Nezha places a kiss on top of her head. Their mornings are always quiet.
Kitay has a habit of buying puzzles and solving them in one sitting whenever he’s stressed. Back in college, when he and Rin were still living together, she once found him muttering curses on the floor while he was already halfway through a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle he found in a nearby store. It amused her as much as it concerned her, but Kitay always had interesting ways of dealing with his own stress, so she let him be.
Today was no different.
“Jesus Christ,” Rin frowns at the scattered jigsaw puzzle pieces littering the floor of his apartment. “Your place is a fucking mess!”
Kitay shushes her with a glare before picking up a corner piece. “Be quiet. I need to focus.”
Rin drops her bag onto the couch with a frown. “You need to get your shit together. What is it this time?”
“I’m working on a project,” Kitay says without looking at her, his voice hard and already on edge. Rin’s frown deepens. “But for some fucking reason, the university wouldn’t approve of my proposal for it.”
“Did they say why?”
“No,” Kitay jams a piece at the center of his puzzle. Rin looks over his shoulder to see what kind of image it is this time. A painting. “I went to Professor Irjah for some advice and he told me that my proposal was too ambitious, so I changed it! But I got rejected again! At this point, I’m never going to finish this stupid degree.”
Rin goes to sit down while Kitay laments about his “doomed future.” She rests her head against the back of the couch before closing her eyes. “We did tell you to take a few years off before doing your master’s program.”
Kitay huffs at her comment. “It’s impractical.”
“It’s reasonable,” she argues. “There’s lesser chances of burning out.”
“I’d rather study than take a few years off. It’s better than being stuck in a low-paying job.”
Rin lets out a snort. Anything is better than being unemployed, she thinks. She couldn’t understand then why Kitay would want to continue his studies right after graduation when job opportunities were already lined up for him with the help of his family’s influence, but it made sense. To Kitay, as well as Venka and Nezha, money had never been a problem. The three of them never fussed about getting a job immediately after graduating; only she had to worry about her finances right after her scholarship ended. It made sense that Kitay wanted to further his studies, why Venka wanted to take a couple of years off, and why Nezha had once told her to stop worrying and just relax, but it never made sense for her. She didn’t care if she would be stuck with a low-paying job. It’s better than not earning at all.
“It’s not too bad,” she says after a while. Kitay looks up from his puzzle, the freckles on his face more prominent underneath the living room’s lighting. “You get used to it eventually.”
Kitay shrugs before picking up another puzzle piece near his foot. “What are you doing here, by the way? Where’s Nezha?”
“He said he’ll be home late. Something about having a meeting with his father.” Rin leans forward to look at Kitay’s jigsaw puzzle again. He’s almost finished with it. “I have nothing else to do.”
“Work?”
“Already done with it.”
Kitay hums. “Why didn’t you visit him instead?”
“At work?” Rin almost shuddered at the thought. “No, thanks.”
“It’s not like you’ll see his family there. They’re busy people, so they’re probably away on some business trips or something.”
“I’m not risking it,” Rin shakes her head, frowning. “If I see his older siblings or even his father, I’d probably fucking kill myself on the spot.”
“You are so dramatic,” Kitay chuckles. “It’s a miracle you can manage to stay quiet whenever you see them considering how much you hate all of them.”
“Not all of them. I like Mingzha.”
“Everyone likes Mingzha. He’s got the Yin blood in him, but none of their snobbishness and foul mouths.” Kitay picked out another piece from the floor. “Sometimes it surprises me that he’s related to that family.”
Rin hums, amused. She couldn’t believe it at first, too. They were still in high school when she met the youngest of the Yin’s. Mingzha had been around ten years old then. Round Mingzha, they had called him. His cheeks were like rice cakes and he waddled when he walked. Everyone from Nezha’s family seemed to gain a semblance of kindness whenever Mingzha was around, and it made everything about them a little bit bearable. Thank the gods.
“He’s about to finish high school now, right?” Kitay asks.
“Yeah, he’s graduating in a few months.”
“Time flies.”
“Yeah…”
They both fall into comfortable silence with Kitay’s frustrated grunts filling in the empty spaces every once in a while, but he didn’t say another word. He became wholly focused on finishing his silly jigsaw puzzle, and Rin slowly found herself drifting off to sleep on the couch with her head thrown back and her hands spread on either side of her.
When she awoke, the lights inside Kitay’s living room had been turned off save for the small lamp standing near the doorway leading towards the kitchen. Rin shifts herself on the couch, frowning, when she notices a blanket draped over her torso.
“Kitay?” she calls out, pulling the blanket off her and standing up. She stifles a yawn using the back of her hand, blinking blearily at the windows. It’s already dark out.
“In here,” Kitay’s voice rang from the kitchen.
Rin makes her way to the other room, feet scraping against the wooden floor. “How long was I asleep?” she asks, barely noticing the other presence accompanying Kitay inside his kitchen.
“A few hours,” Nezha answers, smiling at her.
Rin blinks at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Picking you up?” Nezha hands her a cup of water before pulling out a chair for her to sit on. Rin gladly takes the cup away from him, feeling parched from her nap. “You were asleep when I arrived.”
“He’s been here for over an hour, Rin. He even stepped on my jigsaw puzzle.”
“It was an accident!”
“Sure.”
Rin raises at eyebrow at Nezha, grinning when he shoots her an incredulous look. Her eyes dropped down to his torso, noticing the first three buttons of his polo already opened with his tie hanging loosely around his neck.
“How was work?” she asks him.
“Fine. Father was being insufferable.”
“As usual,” Kitay quips, scoffing. “Nothing’s changed, then?”
“Not much, no,” Nezha purses his lips, looking troubled all of a sudden. Rin raises an eyebrow at him when he catches her staring, but he only reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. It’s nothing to worry about, he meant to say. It’s fine. Somehow, it made her feel anxious. “Just…work stuff. You know how he is.”
Kitay hums before turning away from them to wash some of his dirty dishes.
“Well, we should probably get going now,” Nezha says, and Rin moves towards his best friend for a hug. “Good night, Kitay.”
“Night,” Kitay turns around and places a swift kiss on Rin’s forehead. “Be careful on your way home. Don’t forget to text me.”
Rin nods as Nezha places a hand at the small of her back, leading her out of the kitchen. “I won’t.”
“You okay?” Rin asks while they are at a stoplight.
Red streaks illuminated the corners of Nezha’s face as he waited for the light to turn green. He blinks slowly at her question, counting the seconds in his head. “Yeah,” he breathes out as he steps on the gas. “Yeah, of course.”
“You sure?” she cocks her head to the side. “You look like something’s been bothering you.”
Nezha unconsciously tightens his grip on the steering wheel, and her eyes flicker onto his knuckles for a moment. She’s pushing him to his limit? Already?
“I’m fine, don’t worry.”
“Okay,” she waits for a moment to pass. “Whatever you say.”
Sometimes, their silence confuses her just as much as it delights her. For people who prided on being loud most of the time, they would incessantly fall into rapid silence that almost felt too unbearable to keep. Those silent moments are unlike their peaceful mornings. No, these silent moments were cold and always tethered on the edge of a cliff, threatening to fall, break, and shatter on the ground. But they never do.
Rin blinks at her own reflection, the tips of her roughly cut hair still dripping wet against her shoulders. Nezha hadn’t said a single word after they had gone home, and his silence made her queasy. They were fine just this morning; of this, she remembers clearly. He had kissed her just as he always does before they parted for work. He even texted her later that day and picked her up from Kitay’s place to take her home. She couldn’t possibly have done something wrong to upset him.
Right?
She chokes out a breath before grabbing a towel to dry her hair. When she finally enters their room, she notices him sitting at the edge of their bed and still wearing his work clothes.
“You okay?”
Nezha lifts his head and finally looks at her. She approaches him with light footsteps, tethering between asking more questions and keeping quiet. It’s always been difficult for her to navigate Nezha’s emotions despite being with him for almost five years now. As much as she prided on knowing him the most, she also knew that there were some parts to him that would take her centuries or more to fully realize.
Nezha reaches out to grab her waist, gently pulling her body towards his. Rin settled in between his thighs before he pulled her down to sit on his lap. She can feel his breath fanning across the expanse of her neck, his lips barely grazing the sensitive spot below her earlobe. When he tightens his embrace around her, Rin feels the familiar tension plaguing him. She shifts her body to face him, letting her fingers thread through his hair.
“Nezha?”
“Hm?”
She can feel his chest slowly expanding against her shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Just tired,” he whispers against her neck. “Did I worry you? I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Rin smiles before placing a kiss against the side of his head. “Did your father stress you out too much?”
“Yeah,” Nezha sighs, nuzzling closer to her. His arms were still tensed around Rin’s waist, as if he was afraid to let go. “He, uh, wants us to attend a party next week. I know you hate my family’s social gatherings, so I turned down his invitation. We got into a bit of an argument over it.”
Rin bites the inside of her cheek. She does hate social gatherings. It makes her feel…small.
“You can still come if you want to,” she says, still caressing his head. “I don’t mind.”
“He wants me to bring you. For the family’s image or some shit.”
Rin almost lets out a snort. “I don’t think I’ll contribute anything to your family’s image.”
She waits for him to let out a snarky remark, but when it doesn’t come, she peers down to see him with his eyes closed and still breathing against her neck. His eyebrows were furrowed as if he was lost in deep thought. She leans down to place another kiss on top of his head, and when his eyelids finally flutter open, she sighs.
“I…want you to go with me,” he says too quietly that she almost misses it. “If it’s alright with you. But I’d like it if you would come.”
“Is it for something important? I don’t understand,” Rin leans back, trying to get away from his embrace. Nezha doesn’t let her. Instead, he tightens his arms around her even more, looking even more desperate than before. “Why do I have to be there?”
“Father wants us there-“
“No,” Rin shakes her head, frowning. “Nezha, you know how I feel about your family. I don’t want to go.”
“Just this once? Please, Rin.”
“Why?”
“I- this is the only time I’m asking you, Rin. Please. I need us there for the family.”
“Oh, shut up!” Rin breaks away from his embrace, his hold still burning against her skin. “You know they fucking hate me, Nezha. I’m not going to act like a dog just to please them. I’m not fucking going!”
Nezha winces at her tone but still reaches for her, his hands trying to pull her back to him. There it is again, Rin thinks. The tension in his arms, the desperation seeping out of his skin, the way his body seemed to tremble at her outburst. He looked so small and so afraid.
“Rin…”
“No,” she grits her teeth in frustration before letting him pull her closer to him once again. His touch was light and almost fleeting, and Rin almost gave in. “Nezha, I’m not going. You can’t convince me.”
“Okay,” he mutters before burying his face against her stomach and closing his eyes. His arms locked in on her again, tighter this time, and she almost sighs. “I’m sorry. Don’t be mad. I hate it when you’re mad.”
“You drive me crazy, that’s why.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Nezha sighs. “I’ll just tell them we’re not going.”
Rin almost felt bad. In all the years she spent loving him, she knew just how much he would bend the laws of the universe for her simply because he loves her. But he loves his family, too. And that’s one part of him that she would never be able to change completely. His love for them had been planted years before them. That’s not something she can simply understand or compete with.
“You can still go,” she sighs. “Just…not with me.”
“Okay…” he exhales into her skin. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say that.”
A beat passes.
“I love you.”
And another.
“I love you, too.”
Their night ended in silence, limbs wrapped around each other in the dark. They were cold and tethering on the edge of a cliff, threatening to fall, break, and shatter on the ground. But they never do.
The morning after was quiet.