SPIN

It was a terrible habit of his — his mother and sisters teased him for it all his life. His father never remarked on it, but there was suspicion that the habit was inherited from him.

Guanheng did it again when a palace pageboy hurried past him, overburdened with scrolls: Guanheng smiled at him in greeting, and the boy made some sort of face in return — mostly of puzzlement.

This was the tailor’s infamous “Horse Hair Canvas Smile.” It was a fitting name in a number of ways: his smile was charming and loud, with big straight teeth, not unlike that of a horse. However, it was also stiff and mirthless, like the fabric after which that smile was nicknamed.

He could not help it. He smiled like this when he was nervous or uncomfortable, or even deathly afraid. He was no warrior, but many have told him that he would smile his way through an evisceration on the battlefield. His eldest sister mused that it was a relic from childhood, when he would get up to mischief and then smile to placate his irate mother or irate neighbour or irate anyone that Guanheng hassled with his hyperactivity.

His mother thought she had solved his misbehaviour by shoving a heap of silk scraps in his hand and saying “hem these!”. It had certainly occupied the young boy; Guanheng hemmed each piece of material all the way around, even the ones that were cut in funny shapes, and he did it badly. So his mother and sisters showed him how to do it goodly.

‘Did I do it goodly, mama?’ he would ask, offering up a square of embroidered linen.

She would laugh, effervescently proud, and say, ‘You did it bestly .’

He went on to do his best every time, all his life, until he found himself in the unfortunate position he was in now: a summons at the royal court.

As soon as the pageboy disappeared around the corner, Guanheng’s smile dropped and he gulped. He tried to stand still, since that seemed like the proper thing to do — and also because restlessly swaying on his feet was getting on the nerves of the guard standing next to him. This one never returned Guanheng’s greetings; he merely scowled and grunted and looked at him askance.

This lack of sincere engagement with anything Guanheng did or said was precisely the reason Guanheng kept talking to him as they waited for the door to be opened from within.

‘Sir Guard, does this amount of waiting speak to a negative outcome that I ought to be worried about?’

The guard ignored him.

Guanheng continued, now ramping up to a ramble and fidgeting with the sleeves of his robe. ‘Is it possible that the prince has changed his mind, and thinks my work is disgusting to the eye, and I will be executed for being bad at tailoring?’

The guard grunted. 

‘Treason… treason against taste. Felony fashion crime…’

Now the guard sighed. 

‘I’m really not even that good,’ continued Guanheng. ‘I don’t understand why I was even called here. My mother’s a way better tailor than I am! My sisters, too! I should not be standing here!’

‘A male prince will only take a male tailor,’ the guard said, finally worn down.

‘Ah, that’s right…’ agreed Guanheng, though it did little to allay his fears. He was nervous, and had been ever since a messenger from the court swept into his workshop and informed him that he was required at the imperial court. The messenger spoke in such grandiose, intellectual language that Guanheng struggled to keep up; he only understood something about recruitment to royal service and careful selection of skilled artisans. Then this grumpy guard poked the back of Guanheng’s calves with the butt of his spear, and escorted the bewildered tailor here: in front of a meeting chamber, wherein the youngest prince of the realm waited for him.

Now they had been waiting at least thirty minutes, and anxiety was no longer keeping the pain of standing at bay. He rotated his ankles and shifted his weight from foot to foot, and continued to share his handsome, frightful smile with the odd passerby. 

With a loud metallic thud and a whining creak of old wood, the massive door to the meeting chamber opened very suddenly. The heavily-painted, yet utterly expressionless face of a court attendant greeted him — they bowed in polite greeting, then Guanheng bowed, and then he was firmly pushed forward into the room by the guard. The armoured man stayed behind the hallway, however. Guanheng’s last sense of familiarity in this place – as tenuous as it was – was now gone.

Before Guanheng could say his last goodbyes to the guard – perhaps tearful, certainly melodramatic – another attendant scuttled to his side. The two of them silently steered Guanheng to a low table at the centre of the room, gripping his elbows with a force that was less physical and more spiritual, and then gestured in eerie unison that he should kneel. 

Guanheng never claimed to be a brave man, and so he merely accepted the feeling of all his wits being scared out of him. He was out of his depth. These royal attendants of indeterminate gender wore plain but heavy robes, and kept their hands tucked into the large sleeves at all times. As was customary in the court, they were all shaved bald, with the entire face and head painted stark white. Rumour had it that the attendants were eunuchs — but other rumours called them martially trained monks, or shaman-nuns with mysterious magical powers.

Guangheng decided that he should stop listening to the local kids’ playground stories. In any case, if just the attendants were this intimidating, Guanheng would surely perish the second the prince arrived. He bowed his head and gripped his knees, thanking his family and Heaven for the good life he had lived until this point—

Without preamble, the attendants rapidly shuffled to the other entrance leading into this chamber. They each took a handle and dragged the double doors apart. Out of deference, Guanheng dared not lift his head, but his curious sidelong gaze caught the royal’s feet as he stepped in.

The hems of Prince Xiao Dejun’s skirts dragged along the pristine floor, and his slippered feet poked out with every graceful step across the room. Guanheng followed the stride until it came to a stop a few feet in front of him, at the slightly-raised platform running across one side of this room. The slippered feet stepped up, turned, and the prince sat down upon a cushioned chair that awaited him. Guanheng quickly cast his gaze back to the floor just as the prince folded his hands atop his lap.

‘Lift your head and state your name,’ came Prince Dejun’s voice. 

Guanheng did as he was told. ‘Prince Dejun, I am called Huang Guanheng.’ He was so nervous that it was a miracle he didn’t accidentally say his name was Old Treasonface the Kingkiller.

Then he straightened up to look at the royal he was addressing. It could not have been a more destabilising sight.

The Prince was heartstoppingly beautiful; without a doubt the most striking young man that Guanheng had ever laid eyes on. In fact, it was the youth that shook Guanheng more than the beauty: Prince Dejun could not have been older than fifteen or sixteen years old. That was Guanheng’s age! 

In a strange turn, the prince’s eyes widened at the sight of Guanheng, too. 

‘I thought you’d be an old guy…’ the prince said, frowning in puzzlement. ‘Or at least a grown-up.’

One of the attendants coughed — very softly, very politely, and very pointedly. Something about that signal made the prince smooth his face out at once. 

‘No matter,’ said the prince coolly. His intonation changed, and Guanheng could swear he deepened his voice as well. ‘You were invited to the royal court on the merit of your skill. You surely appreciate the profound honour that it is to even be considered by the fifth-ranking prince of the realm. I am to understand that you are presently in the service of… of– uh, of one Marshal… or General, um—’ 

An attendant shuffled up to the prince’s side with great swiftness, and whispered something from the corner of their mouth. 

The prince straightened up again. ‘Of one General Yu, who has been a loyal servant to the crown for many decades!’

Guanheng swallowed thickly. ‘That is correct, my Lord.’

‘And you would be willing to leave his employ to become the royal tailor, until such time you are un-appointed or until your natural death — whichever comes first?’

‘My Lord, I…’ Guanheng began, and realised with terror that he did not know how to finish. Did he want the position of royal tailor? Did he want to leave the employ of the General, a man who many described as “easy to piss off”?’

On the other hand, denying a prince could have much more dire consequences than earning the irritation of a military man (Guanheng did not believe this, even as he thought it).

He tried to answer diplomatically. ‘I acquiesce humbly to the wishes of your Lordship, of course. Whether I stay or go.’ 

Prince Dejun huffed at this. ‘Yes, all right, but what do you want?’

Once again, an attendant coughed to correct the prince’s conversational course. At this, he pursed his lips in annoyance. 

‘You know what?’ he said, looking over to the two attendants at the door. ‘Let me be alone with this tailor. I want to chat in private.’

The two attendants did not move, and exchanged a very subtle look. One of them said, ‘In the interest of your Lordship’s safety, we cannot leave your side while this guest is—’

The prince's lower lip jutted stubbornly. 'Well, I demand it. Leave the room until I call you back.'

'My Lord, protocol states—'

'Do you want to cite the rules to me– ' the prince began icily '– or do you want to keep your jobs?'

At this, the attendants fell silent and looked down at the floor. Then, in their strange unison, shuffled backwards and out of the door, closing it.

Now, Guanheng was alone with the Xiao Dejun, fifth prince to the crown of the Southern Realm.

The silence in the room stretched. Guanheng could look nowhere but at his own hands resting on his knees. He wanted to ball them into fists from how tense he felt, but knew it would seem impolite – even threatening. He willed himself not to sweat through his robes.

Then, loudly, the prince exhaled.

'I really hate doing that!' said Prince Dejun. 'It makes me seem like such a mean person! A despot, even! But really, there's no other way to get them to listen. They'd watch me use the chamber pot if they could.'

The next development almost stopped the tailor's heart completely. The prince stood up, gathered up his many skirts, then stepped down to kneel – on the floor! – in front of Guanheng. They were barely three feet apart now. Details of the prince's face were steadily beginning to engrave themselves into Guanheng's hyper-alert mind: the thick, dark eyebrows; the feminine, fox-like eyes; the cheekbones.

Prince Dejun smiled brightly at him. 'I feel so much better now. This is much more like a real conversation!'

With unwavering friendliness, the prince looked right into Guanheng’s face. His eyes looked almost wet from how big and shiny they were, and were rimmed by impossibly long, dark lashes. He leaned forward now, closing some of the distance between himself and the tailor. 

‘Can I tell you something?’ the prince asked earnestly. Guanheng could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Why would the prince ever ask to say something?

When the prince continued to stare expectantly – even hopefully – Guanheng mustered up the courage to answer: ‘Y-yes, your Excellency—’

‘Ah, no, no,’ said the prince, waving his hand. ‘I’m not “the Excellency”, actually. That’s my father. I’m the youngest of five, so I won’t ever get to be “the Excellency”. At best, people can call me…um… “ Your Notbadness.”’

Guanheng blinked several times. 

‘Ah, so, anyway,’ continued the Prince. ‘I wanted to say that I really appreciate your coming here. I thought maybe you would refuse!’

Refuse! Guanheng thought helplessly. Refuse! Nobody told me that was an option!

Oblivious to Guanheng’s rising panic, the prince went on. ‘I’m really not used to all of the pageantry, actually, strange as that sounds! I think everyone at court thought I’d go become a monk, because I was always kicking things as a child, but they stopped allowing me to kick things. And then I got older and I said “I’m going to join the opera!” and they all said no, because princes don’t join operas. How stupid is that! Shouldn’t I get to do whatever I want?’

Guanheng’s cheeks burned from the effort of not smiling in his horrible, awkward way. 

‘However!’ the prince announced, slapping his thighs. ‘Since I’m stuck with the prince thing, I need to start looking the part, now that I’m “of age.” That’s what my father— er, that’s what His Excellency says, anyhow. I didn’t even get to enjoy being sixteen years old for one week before he told me to get myself in order for royal duties! Now I’m doing calligraphy for two hours a day, horse riding for another two hours, guzheng practice for three hours! Straight, you know—!’

While the prince spoke – his formal demeanour melting away to reveal youthful passion – Guanheng gripped his knees until his knuckles were white. He was giving everything to remain composed, but he was becoming overwhelmed. He was alone in here with a member of the royal court; outside, an armed guard waited for the first sign of trouble; at home, his family held their breaths for the outcome of this meeting. And now, at the confirmation that Prince Dejun was only a month older than he, and just as much of a nervous, excitable boy as he was — well, Guanheng was close to fainting.

The sound of the prince’s laugh shone through the fog that was beginning to take over Guanheng’s brain.

‘That face!’ the prince said, eyes all the way closed from smiling. ‘That expression is so funny!’

All the blood in Guanheng froze. He had not realised — he was doing it! The Horse Hair Canvas Smile!

He bowed his head quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to!’

‘You have very nice teeth, it’s good to show them off! Here, here — look up!’

Guanheng did. The prince was flashing a huge grin at him, as if showing off his own teeth to him in solidarity. Like this, the top and bottom teeth didn't align completely. Not in a bad way — in fact, Guanheng thought it was especially charming.

The prince had straight, healthy teeth, with pointy incisors that rather looked like little fangs. The shape of his jaw caused a little gap between the top and bottom rows, visible because his smile was so wide — there was very little demureness or aloofness to it. Like a smile received from a friend.

It took the prince from beautiful to cute, then back around to beautiful again in an endless loop in Guanheng's already-spinning mind. He released his tension by giggling at the silliness of their situation – beaming at each other like fools – and then the prince giggled back. 

Just as he was starting to relax, Guanheng’s eyes re-focused on something that had appeared before him. He had not noticed until it was already right there: a big, fat, brown spider had descended on a line of silk, all the way down from the high ceiling. It stopped right between their faces. If a spider could look sheepish, it did so, as Guanheng and the Prince instantly fell silent. They had noticed the spider at the same time, and were taking a long second to process it.

Then they both shrieked. 

Lots of things happened very quickly. Prince Dejun scrambled backwards, arms and legs flailing; the spider dropped to the ground and skittered in the direction of the prince; Guanheng launched himself over the table, sliding on his stomach across the floor to cup his hands over the accosting spider. Right then, the guard and both attendants burst into the chamber. All involved were equally panicked. 

The guard started an aggressive run towards the prone Guanheng, but the Prince waved his arms urgently.

‘Stop, stop!’ the Prince ordered, quite breathless. ‘Just leave the guy— ah, I say, do not apprehend this man!’

The guard froze. He looked at the prince, bemused, before remembering himself and bowing deeply. ‘My Lord—’

‘Really, it’s fine, it’s fine,’ said Prince Dejun. Then he looked down at Guanheng, still holding his hands together over a space on the floor, and beamed. ‘In fact, he saved my life!’

Then he regarded the scene once more, and his expression reflected a growing alarm. He eyed Guanheng's hands, currently imprisoning a spider for disturbing the peace. 'Is it… still under there?'

'Yes, my Lord.'

'Ack! Isn't it touching you?!'

‘It is,’ admitted Guanheng. ‘It doesn’t bother me, though. I actually rather like spiders — it’s frogs I can’t stand. Ehm, anyway, if your Lordship’s guard would allow me to take it outside…’

He made a slight opening between his palms to peek within. At this, the guard behind him yelped. It was high-pitched. There was an uncomfortable few seconds while everyone in the room politely pretended not to feel embarrassed for him.  

The prince shuffled forward just a bit, looking curiously at Guanheng. ‘Won’t it bite you?’

Guanheng shook his head. ‘Not this one; the Silky Peach Spider is docile. They produce so much silk, in fact, that you can harvest it for textiles. They let you handle them very easily if you’re gentle. I reckon they can sense people’s feelings. Just don’t make sudden movements—’

‘Take it outside!’ the guard barked from behind him, and tapped Guanheng on the bum twice with the staff of his spear. 

He took this as permission to stand up, carefully closing his hands around the spider again. He could feel its little legs tickling his fingers and palms, but it did not seem to be scrambling around. The guard then stepped in beside Guanheng, ready to escort him away. The attendants rushed to the prince, straightening his robes out.

Guanheng felt a pang of disappointment that his meeting with the prince had been so unceremoniously cut short.

Then the prince spoke up. ‘You’re a strange one, Huang Guanheng!’ 

They all looked to the prince, who was back to smiling. Chest puffed, shoulders back, bright and shining eyes. 

‘Please — be my tailor,’ he said.

There was no refusing someone like that, Guanheng realised. Not when his heart beat in his chest like this, as close to smitten as anyone could get at first meeting. Of course he would be his tailor. Of course he would make whatever clothes the prince wanted, and each one would be more beautiful than the last. Guanheng made a private vow in his heart that his devotion would begin right then and there. 

He bowed deeply and said, ‘I do not deserve the honour, my Lord. Thank you. I will be your tailor.’ 

There was no refusing someone like that, so Guanheng did not, and now his life had changed for good. He had always rather liked spiders, because they were lucky, and nothing proved that more than the events of today. 

After all parting formalities were done, Guanheng was promptly turned around and marched out of the palace by the guard. They passed a line of delicately-pruned trees where Guanheng released the spider. 

‘My thanks, little friend,’ he said to it as it disappeared. He was genuinely grateful, and he liked to think the little creature understood his sincere heart.

‘By Heaven,’ said the guard. ‘You are a strange one.’

Guanheng agreed. He did not know how to be any other way.

*

It was considerably less of a joyful occasion when he presented his new royal writ to General Yu. It was a short meeting, but Guanheng had left it feeling sick to his stomach. Needless to say, the general was quite unhappy that his talented tailor had been poached — his toad-like face reddened with thinly-veiled irritation at the prospect of his equally toad-like son no longer hoarding the services of a competent tailor. 

Guanheng had never liked General Yu or his dullard of a son, Yu Pengshan, who sucked in his stomach at every fitting and then complained when his clothes were “too tight” later on. Nevertheless, he always looked splendid thanks to Guanheng’s meticulous work, and General Yu always said as much. What the general could not say out loud, however, was that he took umbrage with Prince Dejun’s decision. Even a decorated general such as him was not allowed to question who the royal family could and could not appoint — and so, he sucked his teeth and made Guanheng feel as if it was his poor decision.

‘You will regret this choice, Huang Guanheng.’ Then he bade him a curt farewell.

It mattered little, though. When Guanheng got home, and shyly announced to his family that he would be getting his own workshop on palace grounds, they erupted into loud joy. His three sisters enveloped him in a hug while his mother burst into tears and his father cheered. Words like “proud” and “talented” and “rich” floated in through one of Guanheng’s ears and out the other — all he could really focus on was his own nervous anticipation. 

It actually had not sunk in until he said the words out loud to them all: his own workshop on palace grounds. Access to the finest materials and the best tools on offer; freedom to create the beautiful, ambitious designs that lived in his head but that no-one but a prince could afford; time with said prince, getting close enough to take his measurements and listen to his wishes. It was a privilege afforded to so few in this entire world, and it would soon be Guanheng’s — the royal tailor.

That is, if he even survived the first fitting. 

MEASURE

Some weeks passed before Guanheng was called in for the first time. He passed the time in his new workshop, now fully kitted out with his belongings, both old and new. It was not a large building – just big enough to house two worktables and several shelves, plus a small adjoining room where he could sleep – but Guanheng felt dwarfed by it at first. Even while it was modest by palace standards, to Guanheng it was grand. It lay near the outer wall of the palace grounds, surrounded by manicured gardens and a willow that wept all over the roof of the workshop. As a result, the royal tailor’s windows hardly saw sunlight, so he often went for walks where he was allowed. Without something to make, he was getting restless — but was spared a death by boredom when an attendant paid him a visit with his first royal assignment. 

This time, there was no convincing the attendants or the guards to leave the room, no matter how petulant the prince got. The only allowance given from the long-suffering attendants was that the royal tailor be permitted to speak freely. Prince Dejun was very clear about wanting to at least have a conversation. 

It was uncomfortable to speak while under vigil from all the prince’s nosy servants.

To avoid trouble, Guanheng was careful to use the proper terms of address, and to never make demands of the prince. If my Lord would hold out his most esteemed leg and other such circumlocutions drew the fitting out longer than necessary, but it seemed to appease the watchful attendants. The prince liked to ask questions, it turned out, and Guanheng grew more comfortable answering them as they came along — about his family, how he learned his trade, and even about spiders.

‘I do like them,’ Guanheng insisted, only to be met with a skeptical smirk. ‘I know people aren’t supposed to like things like that, but I think spiders are great. And silkworms, too… and—’

‘Caterpillars?’ the prince finished for him. ‘And birds that weave their nests out of grass, maybe?’

Guanheng’s eyes rounded into the size of cups. ‘That’s correct, my Lord.’

Prince Dejun smiled knowingly. ‘There’s a pattern. You like creatures that make things.’

Guanheng smiled as he looked down. ‘The prince is, of course, very observant.’

The prince waved a hand dismissively. ‘Not at all. I’ve just had our first meeting on my mind for weeks now.’

Guanheng’s heart began to race at a shameful speed, with shameful suddenness. He said quickly, ‘I need a back measurement now. If my Lord would allow me to step behind him…’

Prince Dejun turned around, his back to Guanheng. He moved his long hair to the front with a dainty flip. The tailor almost yelped — he had been coached by the attendants that the prince should never move for the tailor; the tailor should always position himself accordingly. However, to correct the prince’s fitting etiquette… he shot a panicked look to the attendants at the edge of the room. 

They seemed unphased. In fact, one of them shrugged. There was an element of exasperation there, like they had coached the prince in exactly the same thing, and to no avail. It further endeared the prince to Guanheng, really — it was comforting to know that even royalty could be careless with their formalities. 

Guanheng swallowed his doubts and held his measuring tape up against the prince’s back.

No arrow shot out of the walls to kill Guanheng for his impertinence, so relief washed over him. He took down the measurements he needed across the shoulders and wingspan. 

‘My Lord…’ Guanheng ventured, feeling braver now that the prince was not looking at him. ‘You mentioned before that you had wanted to join the opera…’

‘I did!’ the prince said brightly. ‘I love the opera. I like singing and acting, and I’m sure I could master the other two skills if I trained…oh, but why do you bring it up?’

Guanheng carefully pulled the tape measure tighter around the prince’s waist. ‘I’ve…ahaha, well—’

Flustered, he stuttered. Even with his head bowed to check how many inches made up the prince’s waist, he could see said prince turn his head slightly in order to listen. Guanheng regretted saying anything. Even the most minor comment could come off as arrogant and upset a sensitive royal. 

‘Have you been to the opera?’ the prince asked, voice bright with interest. 

Guanheng gathered himself. ‘Yes. Or, more precisely, um… I’ve made… costumes… for the opera…’

The prince whirled around at once. ‘You have?!’

Guanheng almost leapt through the ceiling in fright. He wished he had, instead of staying put, because now he was almost in an embrace. He felt the attendants’ gazes burning into his back. He had miraculously kept hold of both ends of the tape measure, which meant he was now nearly  nose-to-nose with Prince Dejun, wrapping a leather cord around him. One tug could pull him very close—

Oblivious to the inappropriate closeness, the prince peppered him with questions. ‘Which theatre? Which costumes? Which opera? Maybe I’ve seen it — I’ve gone to watch so many!’ 

Guanheng finally released one end of the tape and stepped back. ‘My Lord, it was only a small troupe… certainly nothing worthy of your—’

The prince clapped his hands together once. He bore an expression of resolve as he said, ‘Don’t tell me. I’ll guess.’

‘My Lord…?’

‘That’s right!’ said the prince. ‘You have a signature, I’m sure of it. Something that shines through all of your garments. If I just think back…and keep a close eye on the clothes you make for me… I’m sure I could guess which opera you costumed!’

Guanheng felt his stupid face do the stupid smile. His heart was pounding so loud he could swear it rattled the room. Quickly, he knelt down and held out his tape measure near the prince’s leg, gesturing for the next measurement.

‘I could only dream of catching my Lord’s eye like that,’ he replied diffidently. ‘The Prince’s mind need not be occupied by something as… something as mediocre as…’

The prince, grinning, offered his leg for measuring. He didn’t seem to acknowledge Guanheng’s pleas. In fact, he only looked thrilled.   

‘I’ll pay close attention from now on,’ proclaimed Prince Dejun. Then Guanheng looked up, and the prince was looking down at him, and the seams of the tailor’s heart stretched to their limit.

The prince winked.

The seams burst.

*

Nevertheless, Guanheng had survived that fateful first fitting. He survived many, many more after that.

He lived through apocalypse after apocalypse, as far as his nerves were concerned: the first time Prince Dejun wore one of his tailored outfits to a public appearance; the first time he was allowed to conduct a fitting with the prince alone, without attendants around; the first time the prince’s robe slipped off by mistake, exposing bare shoulder for just a moment. So many firsts, yet not enough of the ones that began to weave together inside Guanheng’s imprudent imagination.

In the absence of wisdom, and of restraint, and especially of attendants, the prince and royal tailor had become friends. At least, that is how it felt in Guanheng’s embarrassingly porous heart. Sometimes many weeks would go by without a fitting, and Guanheng’s hands would itch with impatience. Moreso than that, the anticipation of talking with the prince again would grow and grow until he could hardly stand it. He would miss the prince. He would think about him, and ponder on jokes he could tell him — he drew laughter so easily from Prince Dejun. The very fabric of the young man was joyful, bright, and soft to the touch.

And that was where that imprudent imagination came in. Guanheng could not know for sure if the prince was soft to the touch. He could not know anything of that sort — four years only knowing him by sight, or by his changing measurements, or by his maturing voice. By the new things they talked about every fitting. By the new feelings Guanheng had to press down inside himself with a hot iron, flattening them, disciplining them. 

Four years had gone by in a flash. Guanheng might have denied that it was four whole years at all, if he were not looking through his own old notes – quick scribbles of past designs and carefully-written measurements, all made in the prince's service. 

Laid out like this, he could track how much the prince had physically grown. His overall stature was not all too different from when they were sixteen years old, but he was two inches taller; his shoulders broadened somewhat and his neck became thicker. Even his arms and back and thighs filled out from their very waifish teenage look – something Guanheng guessed came from archery and horseback riding. The Prince never much cared for either – preferring his more cultural pursuits – but his commitment to these princely sports built him a strong new body.

As for Guanheng, he paid little attention to his own appearance. It did him no good, as a commoner, to be vain. He only really became aware of his own changes when the prince pointed them out — such as now, while Guanheng was pinning a sash in place around the prince’s waist.

The prince’s eyes went wide, then narrow in the mirror in front of them. He turned his head and stared Guanheng down with a suspicious draw to his eyebrows.

He asked, 'When did you get taller than me?'

'Oh…’ Guanheng said, looking down at himself. ‘Must have been overnight.’

‘Now’s not the time for your jokes!’ Prince Dejun grumbled. ‘We were supposed to stay the same height forever!’

‘Were we?’

‘Yes! Now you look like a man and I still look like a kid!’

Guanheng laughed. ‘You look every bit a man, my Lord.’

‘Nonsense. Next to you? Look at your shoulders! Look at your height, and your hands! If you weren’t stuck here making my clothes, you’d be on some training ground getting big and buff and manly. Or, rather — bigger, and buffer, and manlier.’ 

Guanheng looked away, feeling unduly praised. ‘I am none of those things, my Lord. I’m also not stuck, as you put it. I wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else.’

‘Not even on the glorious battlefield?’

‘Especially not there.’

‘By Heaven, me neither. Could you imagine fitting me into armour?’

‘I’m sure my Lord would wear it magnificently.’

Dejun scoffed. ‘For the four and a half minutes until I’m killed in the skirmish, yes.’

'The prince underestimates himself,’ Guanheng protested. ‘ Five minutes, surely.’

Dejun burst into laughter at that, and Guanheng followed him.

They continued giggling through the rest of the fitting until Guanheng had to do the tough thing of admitting he was done. The tailor bowed to the prince, and they parted ways — but not before the prince suddenly reached out and grabbed Guanheng’s hands between his own.

It was unprecedented. At this touch – the first in four years – Guanheng felt struck by lightning and squashed by a boulder all at once. Prince Dejun was looking into his eyes imploringly, and then squeezed his fingers.

‘Huang Guanheng,’ the prince said. ‘I beg of you — don’t ever tire of me!’

The tailor was struck dumb – rendered breathless, winded. ‘My Lord?’

Prince Dejun continued rapidly, like he could not get the words out fast enough. ‘I could make you promise, but— oh, but I won’t! I can’t! All I can do is ask you. Even though I’m a spoiled prince and a bit annoying, and small, and crowded all the time – always crowded by attendants! – I loathe to think you dread these fittings with me. I should think that we’re best of friends! Best! So don’t tire of me, all right?’

Guanheng wavered a moment. His body gave him the choice of passing out, or being truthful — there was no inbetween. He walked the line between those options until he toppled over to one side.

‘It’s as you said, Dejun,’ Guanheng said honestly, without thinking, without fear. ‘I won’t. I can’t.’

They both stood dead still, hands clasped together, more casual than they had any business being with each other. Words had lost their usefulness now — there was only the unspooling of Guanheng’s heart into Dejun’s; a thread going from one lonely soul to the other. In all this time, without realising, he had unspooled the whole of himself, leaving nothing left for anyone else. Understand me , Guanheng pleaded. I cannot say it aloud, so just read my heart. Know me. Stand closer. Bring your lips to mine.

Prince Dejun smiled in utter relief, and squeezed the tailor’s fingers one last time before letting go. Then he laughed. 

‘But look at me! So unbecoming of a prince. Well, until I see you again, Huang Guanheng!’ 

In that instant, Guanheng fell from a tower of elation into a pit of grief, knowing that the moment was to be only one of its kind in his whole life. Prince and Tailor, Best of Friends, Hapless Lover and Clueless Beloved — no matter what, that was the closest they would ever get to one another. Ah, how embarrassing — Guanheng could feel it. He’d given too much of his devotion to someone who could not feel the same.

All this time stitching the prince's clothes together – it seemed he'd unwittingly stitched himself to the man. Now, he could not pull apart from the prince without ripping some piece of himself into frayed threads. 

But… was this so terrible? Why grieve something beautiful, just because its shape, colour and fit were different than what you imagined? 

Best of friends, the prince had said. What a wonderful, wonderful thing to be. 

He held this thought in his head the whole time it took for him to finish sewing the clothes. He spent extra days, as he often did, sewing the peach blossom design he reserved for the prince’s wardrobe alone. He embroidered them carefully, lovingly, chasing a perfection that only Prince Dejun was worthy of wearing. 

Dejun loved those hand-sewn peach blossoms, and said so at every opportunity. They soon became his signature at the palace and among the public — fine, delicate, pink-orange designs that were thoughtfully placed across his garments. Guanheng would structure it like a painting, using techniques favoured in the far off Western Realms, where painters would layer pigments over each other until the picture looked like something you could step into. Background, middleground, foreground — those oily paints did what ink could not; but likewise, ink did what those paints could not. Ink was precise, delicate. A poem was made only of its most essential words; an ink drawing, only of its most essential strokes.

So Guanheng made a chimera of a technique; something he could call his own. Something he could indulge as a worldly lover of so many things from so many places.

Across the chest and back of the garment, the fabric would be solid and fitted and vivid, eye-catching as royalty should be. Below, in the skirts and sleeves and sashes and capes – the parts of the outfit that swished and swayed – he would place several layers of semi translucent fabrics in similar colours, each one embroidered with a different element of his peach blossom designs. Thus, they would animate as the different layers moved — the optical illusion of peach blossoms blooming, growing, shifting on their thin branches as if in a breeze. 

His hands would ache for days after completing something like this. Yet, it was incomparable: the sight of Prince Dejun adorned in the fruits of the tailor’s labour. His proportions were so ingrained in Guanheng’s mind that he no longer knew how to make clothes for anyone else, and he did not want to. No-one else could look so beautiful. No-one else but Dejun could bring his garments to life; make them breathe and move and dance as if each stitch was a living organism in its own right.

It was enough. Anything else would be greed. It would be folly. It would be above his station and beyond his fate. 

And so, the royal tailor came to serenely accept his lot in life. All things considered, this was the best way things could go: to adore someone you could not touch meant that your touch could never become a shove. If one is not holding – grasping tightly, hugging close – then there is no need to “let go”. There was no need for the warmth of their body to suddenly part from yours, because it had never been there.

There was no need to rip apart any stitches made to join two hearts, two bodies, two lives. Guanheng did not need to endure the pain of loss because the ecstasy of gain had never been his. Prince Dejun was his muse, and a muse was not something to possess — it was something to treasure from afar.

This, he could bear.

*

Guanheng’s twentieth year of life was drawing to a close, with spring shedding the last vestiges of itself in swaths of pink petals across the palace courtyard. The trees were just beginning to turn yellow and orange and red, though it would be some time before the green gave way entirely for the colour palette of sunset.

His parents worried about him. Not in a suffocating way, but now that all three of his sisters were married, the weight of expectation had now become tied to Guanheng’s ankles. Heavy expectation was not new to him, however — being the exclusive tailor to a prince — so he took his daily walks with a lightness in his step nonetheless. He was in no rush to get married. 

Whenever he found himself thinking about why this rush was lacking, he swiftly set his thoughts down another path. Guanheng was not only an expert in sewing, but in mental diversions as well — he had picked up the habit of reading a book as he took his daily walks, and the stories therein were a wonderful distraction from the whipping gales of thought that blew about in his head. A good antidote to thinking too much, he thought, was simply not thinking at all. 

And so he came to think nothing of most things. Especially the topic of marriage.

It was well into the afternoon, just as Guanheng was beginning to entertain thoughts of dinner, that an attendant intercepted his path through the palace’s outer gardens. They appeared like a spectre — stark white and quietly imposing. He was used to their sudden appearances, usually to brief him on his next courtly duties, but they always came first thing in the morning, and always to his workshop. This late afternoon call was out of the ordinary.

‘Huang Guanheng, you are being summoned,’ said the attendant. ‘Come with me.’

‘Right now?’ asked Guanheng incredulously. ‘Am I going to– was I meant to prepare anything, or—?’

‘No. Just follow.’ The attendant began to walk briskly, then turned suddenly to appraise him. There was a microexpression.

Guanheng had been around these stoic attendants long enough to read it. He smoothed his clothes and hair out the best that he could, trying to make himself presentable. The attendant seemed satisfied with the result, then continued on. Guanheng half-jogged to keep up with their bizarrely quick steps.

Though Guanheng pressed them with questions, they were silent the entire walk to the palace. He tried to soothe himself out of panic by telling himself that if he were in any trouble, it would have been guards that came to fetch him instead. 

He later found himself wishing that this were the case — when he was escorted to Prince Dejun’s private meeting chamber, a place he’d never been before, a sick feeling presented itself deep in his gut. Then, when the prince entered, with tension in his smile and worry in his eyes, Guanheng knew the news would not be good.

Arrest and imprisonment were preferable to whatever wretched thing he was about to hear.

‘Huang Guanheng,’ greeted the prince, once the attendant was out of the room. ‘You look well.’

‘Prince Dejun, thank you,’ said Guanheng hollowly. He folded at the waist stiffly without a thought, something of a bow. ‘I am honoured to be summoned.’

‘We trust that this sudden summons did not worry you,’ said the prince. Hearing him take the royal mode of speech – distant and cold in its formality – Guanheng’s sick feeling increased tenfold.

‘Nothing my Lord needs could worry me,’ Guanheng lied. 

‘Ah, it’s not–’ the prince cleared his throat. ‘I have no need of anything. That is, no need of anything new . I wanted to let you know of your next project… I wanted to tell you myself, is my meaning. The next garment to be made. It’s quite – ah, it is of great importance, and it is imperative that your schedule be cleared for this.’

Guanheng slightly bowed his head. It could have been read as respectful deference; a readiness to accept his next task. It could also have been to hide whatever ugly expression was coming to the front of his face. 

He hated this. He hated listening to this. The way the prince was speaking to him now — they were not “best of friends”. They were not friends at all. In this room stood a royal and his subject; a someone and a nobody; two strangers.

‘I’m, um…’ the prince continued. ‘I am engaged, you see. To be married.’

‘That is wonderful news, my Lord,’ Guanheng replied. He stared at the ground; burned two holes into it as the dialogue ensued.

‘It would make me incredibly happy if you made my wedding robes.’

How horrible. Terrible. The worst.

Guanheng said, ‘I am not worthy, my Lord.’

Dejun chuckled; a little exhale of air, delicate and lacking in mirth. ‘There is no other more worthy in this world.’ 

‘Then I will make–’ Guanheng choked, and had to start again. ‘Then I will make the most splendid robes of my life, my Lord.’

‘I am sure of it. You're my tailor for a reason. No-one else would do.’

There was nothing more to say. The silence in the chamber was cloying, and coated Guanheng’s throat until he thought he might never be able to speak again. When the attendant returned, they placed a scroll in his hands – a formal brief of how the wedding garments should look, a schedule for fittings, and a stamped writ allowing him to source the materials – and then walked him out. 

Guanheng dragged his feet, which made the fast-moving attendant huff in impatience. They stopped, then turned to examine Guanheng with dark, incisive eyes. 

‘You look unwell,’ they said.

Guanheng smiled wanly. ‘Your concern is pleasantly surprising.’

‘It is no concern for you. You had better be well aware what an honour it is to make Prince Dejun’s wedding clothes.’

‘I am.’

The attendant looked at Guanheng for a long time, and their face seemed to soften. Though their near-invisible brows were still pinched, it looked to be of concern rather than of outright disdain. They looked left, then right, then stepped the tiniest bit closer to Guanheng. 

‘One month from now, the entire realm will be expecting the prince to look breathtakingly beautiful on his wedding day.’

Guanheng’s heart twisted, but ignored it. ‘Yes.’

‘And though it will not be…’ the attendant paused, took a deep breath through their nose, then continued. ‘Though it will not be easy for you, it is our firm belief that there is no greater tailor up to the task.’

Guanheng swallowed. 

‘Now go home,’ said the attendant, placing the icy exterior back in place. ‘Get to work for the sake of your prince.’

The royal tailor tried not to feel utterly ridiculous. It did not go over his head that the attendant had said your prince . Not our prince, not the prince . Had Guanheng’s affections been so open? So obvious? Did everyone know that Guanheng was—

Nothing. He was nothing! 

There was nothing to be obvious about. He merely cared about the prince, that is all — just like anyone in the kingdom cared. The royal family were to be taken care of, protected, respected; and they served the realm in their own ways in return. That was all there was to it, and Guanheng’s pounding heart was merely an irrational response to surprise. Nothing more.

His stomach grumbled. It selfishly protested its emptiness, despite everything else going on with Guanheng’s psyche at that moment, and so he had no choice but to listen to his hunger. He meandered down to the town centre and sat down at the only place capable of fixing such an atrocious mood: the soup noodle cart.

The cart was set-up in a bustling main street, into which droves of people had streamed for the evening rush. It was a cool night, and orange firelight burned at intervals down the street, making a dotted line of light for at least a mile in both directions. The crowds were loud enough to drown out Guanheng’s thoughts, so he sat down at the last free bench near the cart and placed his order.

Despite the noise all around, Guanheng was seated close enough to other tables that he could pick up their conversations — and the latest bit of gossip was none other than Prince Dejun’s engagement. Several men were sharing drinks and meals; they were of varying ages, and looked to be labourers.

‘—and here I was hoping I’d get to enjoy peacetime until the end of my days.’

‘The end of your days is close at hand with the way you drink and smoke, uncle.’

‘Tch!’

‘What’s this about not enjoying peacetime, anyway? If anything, this engagement will secure it.’

‘Well, I’d certainly hope so! King Qian’s forces are the ones keeping those green-sashed bastards out of our walls, aren’t they? If the security of the kingdom depends on him having a groom, then let him have one! 

'Hell, let him have two!’

‘Who needs two grooms? Anyway, we don’t have another prince or princess to spare. Prince Dejun’s the last one we got. He’d better impress that Northern King, or else this alliance is done for…’

‘Her Majesty could have another baby…’

‘She’s forty-eight years old!’

‘And?’

‘By Heaven, you really are stupid—’

Guanheng checked himself out of that conversation, which continued on raucously. He looked up at the distant mountain that shadowed this side of town every afternoon as the sun set behind it. He imagined a line of horses dotting that landscape, their spear-wielding, orange-cape-wearing riders keeping careful watch of the borders. Without the aid of the allied King Qian’s cavalry, Prince Dejun’s father may not have quelled the attacks coming from their unfriendly neighbours across the plains. 

Now, this aid could be solidified for generations to come, crushing any foreign incursions in the Southern Realm for a long time — all they needed to do was marry two houses together. 

This was the cold, unfeeling reality of it. Prince Dejun, from birth, was fated to be a piece of a puzzle; the puzzle fitting the realms together. Marrying for “love” was the ironic privilege of the common man. 

The princesses and princes of the royal family could not have the bliss of true love, and Guanheng, every bit a common man, could not muster up the interest to find it for himself. He had the choice, and still would not do it — and yet there were those who had to partake in holy matrimony whether they liked their spouse or not. Guanheng’s selfishness suddenly felt very unfair to Dejun.

Prince Dejun , he adjusted in his mind. He poked at a morsel of meat in his bowl, sullenly kicking it around the soup with his chopsticks. Don’t call him by name alone, for Heaven’s sake. Prince Dejun. Prince, prince, prince!

And so, the noodle cart was no longer a safe refuge from his anxieties. He took himself home once it became dark and lay on the hard floor, hands folded over he stomach, directing his thoughts from the wearer to the design. 

Drapery, hemming, seams, knots, beads, bows, and buttonholes. Colour and texture and proportion. Beauty in the tangible. These are the things Guanheng understood better than anything else; better than other people's emotions or even his own. 

Clothes. Wedding clothes. The finest wedding clothes the realm would ever see, on the most beautiful groom who would ever be wed. Guanheng, his royal tailor, would be the mind and hands behind it at all.

He shot up, eyes blazing. Resolve seized him in a vice grip and deposited him at his workbench. Before he could question it, he was splaying parchment out across the desk and sketching madly with charcoal, idea after idea after idea. Even as he drew his stream of consciousness, he planned which fabrics he would get the next morning. Even as he planned that, he worked out a timeline in his mind. 

His thoughts were buzzing, enormous, but focused, like a swarm of locusts. This — this is what Guanheng could do!

And for Prince Dejun, by Heaven, he would do it! 

*

For the next seven days, Guanheng was of singular purpose. He woke up before dawn and went to bed well past midnight. He only took breaks to eat and use the toilet — and he would often forget to do even those basic things. For every other minute of the day, he was running between vendors for materials, cutting fabric, pinning, un-pinning, scrapping, re-doing. There was no room for slothfulness, and he dreaded the prospect of losing momentum if he sat down to rest for too long.

The garment had already begun to take shape. On the mannequin was a floor length tunic with a tighter bodice over it, heavily embellished along its collar. The bodice fabric was a deep scarlet colour, a warm hue to complement the prince’s fair skin. Underneath the tunic, which had a slit down the front, Guanheng would begin to layer mesh and very thin silks, all hand-embroidered with blossoms and leaves and other delicate things — this would be the most time-consuming part.

Eager to begin, he sat down with the silks before him. He felt heavy and clumsy, fatigue making a home in his bones. Despite it, there was a fire in him now; an excitement to create what might become his magnum opus — even his body felt tingly and warm with it. Quite… quite overwarm, in fact. He touched his brow and found it damp with sweat. 

At his workstation, his vision began to swim. He noticed when he failed to thread the eye of a needle for the umpteenth time — something he could normally do with his eyes closed. By way of remedy, he sought a quick rest. He walked in a slow zigzag to his bed, and shakily sat down.

It hardly helped. Perched there, swaying with exhaustion, scenes that had been tucked away in his memories began to smoulder. Then, at once, they burned through him like wildfire, with the heat and haze concentrated in his head. 

No-one else would do.

That right there was the source of Guanheng’s affliction. The words spoken by Prince Dejun, meaning one thing but feeling, in Guanheng’s heart, like another. It infected the poor tailor with a fever impossible to shake. 

He had caught love — he was positively symptomatic with it. Sighs and tummy-turns and faraway, feverish delusions; flushed with longing; lovelorn and frail. It lived in him, using him up, until his body had no choice but to boil them both alive – the disease and him. He wanted to be bedridden; that is, sent to bed under doctor's orders with his beloved, never to leave until he'd shivered, shuddered and gasped his fever out. Until there was only sweat and sweet ache. 

Lovesick, terminally. He loved the prince so much that he might die from it.

Head heavy with daydreams of panther-dark eyelashes and cheekbones as high as a seaside cliff, Guanheng keeled over like an overfilled sack. He was unconscious before his head hit the pillows.

*

When next he opened his eyes, he was looking straight at the jowls of a man above him. He blinked until the jowls became clear. Then they were familiar: Doctor Bai, the physician from his childhood. 

The doctor was frowning as he always did. It mattered little whether his mood was good or bad; his face was simply stuck like that. Guanheng felt relieved to see it.

Then the doctor slapped a cold cloth on Guanheng’s brow.

‘Doctor…’ he croaked. 

‘Shush, shush!’ Doctor Bai scolded at once. ‘You sound like a toad.’

‘Anything but that…’

The doctor pressed a cup to Guanheng’s lips. ‘Drink. Now.’

Guanheng obeyed, and was rewarded with the foulest tasting medicine ever made. He grimaced, but dared not gag or spit — the doctor was watching him intently. 

‘Doc, am I dying?’

‘Pah! We’re all dying.’

‘I mean, in the short term…’

The doctor sniffed, roughly adjusting the cloth on Guanheng’s head. His bedside manner was horrendous, but his medical knowledge was unimpeachable — Guanheng’s whole family trusted him. 

The doctor eventually gave Guanheng a long look and said, ‘You’ll be just fine. But you’re extremely lucky one of those attendants came knocking at your door. When you didn’t answer for almost a whole day, they sent word to me. Crawled through your bloody window, I did!’

Guanheng tried to imagine the old man’s plump body squeezing through the small window, and the mere thought almost made him burst into laughter. Thankfully, he was too tired for that.

He lifted a feeble hand to pat Doctor Bai’s pot belly. ‘Thanks for curing me, Doc.’

The doctor scoffed. ‘Oh, a cure? Son, I’m a thousand years too young to make a cure for what you have! Pah! Your problem is here!’ He prodded Guanheng’s forehead several times, with some force. ‘You work too much, and dream too much, and you worry more than the first two things combined!’

The doctor then poked him in the tummy, continuing to scold. ‘And so you eat basically nothing.’ Then he grabbed the blanket Guanheng was under and shook it pointedly, while wagging a finger at him. ‘And sleep? Dare I ask you how much sleep you get? Pah! — like I don’t already know your foolish habits. You work from sunrise to sunrise. You consider blinking to be sleep. Which half of the day do you rest, hmm? Neither? Well! You cannot live as both the eagle and the owl, you know!’

‘I have much to do…’ answered Guanheng weakly.

‘Spare me!’ Doctor Bai said, getting up on creaky knees. He pointed at a small gourd next to Guanheng’s bed. ‘You drink that every morning after breakfast – which you must eat – and again after dinner. Don’t moan about the taste! And, boy, listen to me carefully now: if you work yourself to death, I’ll bring you back to life just to beat you senseless!’

Guanheng groaned and rolled over to face the wall. 

‘If you’re not better in two days, I’m telling your mother.’

He groaned even louder, covering his head with the blanket. He listened to the doctor packing up his things and opening the door to leave — at which the doctor spoke again.

‘And little Heng…’ Doctor Bai said, firmly but not unkindly. ‘Whatever it is that’s ailing your mind right now… rest assured that it will pass. Things do pass.’

The door shut, and all was quiet. 

Guanheng thought about getting up, but his limbs thought otherwise. He gave in to the fast-acting medicine and slept through the night.

*

The next morning, his body was leaden but his head was clear. Far too clear for comfort. He was too exhausted to fret, and without his frenetic thoughts, Guanheng was left with only the most basic scaffolding of human mental processes: his feelings .

He got out of bed slowly, bathed slowly, got dressed slowly. The slowness was killing him, and against all medical advice, he went right to his workstation. He wanted to work. He wanted to put his mind to something other than his weakness. To think about something other than the root of his poor health.

But sitting here, looking at the same silks and threads he’d laid out the night before, there was no escaping the bitter truth: he was making wedding garments for Prince Dejun, the future groom of King Qian Kun.

And there it was — tears welled up in the tailor’s eyes.

This whole time, Guanheng thought he had accepted it — but what he had mistaken for acceptance had, in fact, been hope. 

And hope! What a deplorable thing! One held onto it so tightly in the hand, but it had jagged edges, impossible to see until they’re already cutting you up.

An absolutely unforgivable naivety that he indulged until now — until it made him sick; until it doubled him over like this, over his workbench, weeping. What kind of idiot fell for a prince? What kind of idiot entertained the fantasy of being loved back; of being held and kissed and confessed to by someone so laughably out of his reach? Only Huang Guanheng, a unique fool, could fashion a narrative so deluded; and, like everything he made, the craftsmanship of that delusion was perfect. 

It had felt so real — so comfortable and worn in, like everyday clothes. Now, facing reality, he crumpled tearfully where he sat, feeling thoroughly moth-eaten and pathetic.

Royals are for royals. Commoners are for commoners. Dejun is for the King and Guanheng is for no-one. No-one at all. He pressed his forehead onto the tabletop, unable to lift his head even if he wanted to.

‘Idiot,’ he sobbed. He said it aloud to himself to make damn sure he heard it. ‘Idiot. Idiot.’

Choked sobs became heaving sobs. Heaving sobs became wails. He had not wept like this since he was a little boy, when every pain felt gargantuan in its newness; impossible to rationalise with only a handful of years to his name. He buried pain deeper and deeper as he grew older, ashamed of ever letting it see the light of day, and determined to show his vulnerabilities most shallowly. He was a grown man. The tears should have been short-lived. Should have been quieter and cleaner. Should have been easier to stop and wipe away. 

But Guanheng cried and cried; a mess and a fool and a child, even at twenty years old. He cried.

Wounded beyond all help. Alone beyond all measure.

CUT

One week before the wedding, Guanheng showed up for the final fitting. The wedding robes were essentially complete, only needing the finishing touches while on Prince Dejun’s body.

The attendants undressed the prince while Guanheng averted his gaze. Once they had dressed him in every piece of the wedding clothes Guanheng finally was allowed to approach. 

He was calm. Any pain he felt at any time was back to being dull and distant, and expertly ignored. Quickly, quietly, professionally, the tailor did his work.

‘The prince may turn to the mirror and check,’ said Guanheng when he finished tying a braided sash around the waist. He stepped back and waited for the prince to turn. The prince did not.

‘Excuse us a moment,’ the prince said to the attendants in the room. Knowing better than to argue, they left. Only then did the prince turn around to see himself reflected, with Guanheng standing behind him.

Guanheng saw a flicker in Prince Dejun’s eyes as he saw his wedding clothes in their near final form. He was glimpsing upon himself two weeks from now, and Guanheng could read all manner of emotion in his face. There were others he could not read there, too.

‘Is it to my Lord’s liking?’ asked Guanheng in a controlled voice. 

‘Liking?’ murmured Prince Dejun. He ran his hand through the embroidered skirt layers, marvelling. ‘Huang Guanheng, this…’

He did not finish speaking, and instead turned back to look at Guanheng. There was an impassioned look in his eye; one which Guanheng, in his numbness, could not meet. He bowed, then knelt down. He gestured to the cushioned stool next to him. 

‘My Lord, I must make a correction to the fabric around the ankles.’

Without a word, the prince sat and extended his leg before Guanheng. The pants under the skirt were to hug the shape of the leg closely, but not too tight that it pinched in places, and so Guanheng was meticulous in his checks here.

After a difficult few minutes of focused silence, the prince said, ‘Do you feel that you must stay here, Huang Guanheng?’

The tailor did not look up from his work to answer. ‘My Lord?’

'I don't want a new tailor, you see.'

Guanheng's hands froze.

'I thought we could… go together,’ the prince went on. ‘That you could come with me to the Qian palace, I mean. As my tailor.'

'As your tailor,' echoed Guanheng.

There must have been something in his voice – an edge, a prickliness – that silenced Prince Dejun. The air between them became heavy. 

Guanheng put a pin through the fabric. He reached for another. Put it through. Reached for another. He kept his eyes fixed on the prince's shin, doing his job. As a tailor.

When he spoke up again, Prince Dejun's voice was quiet and unsteady.

'Just come with me wherever I go…' he said. 'A-Heng.'

Breaking point. Guanheng could not bear to hear that in the prince's voice. His head fell forward, brow pressed against Prince Dejun's knee, face crumpling with emotion. It was improper and presumptuous, but he gripped the prince's calf with both hands, lest he slump over if he let go. 

He inhaled sharply, tears springing up and overflowing.

'I can't stand it!' he cried. 'Why ask me such a thing? Why call me that – “A-Heng?” Why call me that now , while I'm pinning the very last thing I'll ever make for you?' He buried his face, ashamed, but unable to stop talking. 'I can't stand it. I should come with you, wherever you go? Wherever your hus—' he choked, sniffled, and shook his head roughly. ' — your husband takes you!'

‘A-Heng— Guanheng—’

‘You have no use of me anymore.’

‘You’re wrong!’

‘You have no use of me!’ Guanheng said firmly, fiercely. He looked up, and both he and Prince Dejun’s eyes were wet. 

'This is the next part of your life, my Lord,’ he said to his prince. ‘You don't need me there.'

Guanheng wiped his face roughly with his sleeve. Then he took his seam ripper in hand and continued with clinical precision.

'The fit is no good, my Lord,' he explained quietly. 'We need to un-stitch this.'

*

The rest of the final fitting was done in silence, and did not take long. Guanheng would have six more days to finish the garment before handing it over to the attendants for wedding preparations. Then his work would be done and thereafter his future was uncertain. 

Attendants helped him carry all his things back to his workshop and said goodbye to him at the door. Guanheng harboured the suspicion that the attendants were being extra nice to him as of late, though it did nothing to cheer him. 

He placed the wedding robes back on the mannequin and prepared his things for tomorrow’s workday. He ran his hands through the silk skirts, watching them move, just as the prince had earlier on. 

To his own surprise, Guanheng was satisfied. After everything – illness, tears, hard work – he was proud of himself. The prince would be breathtaking on his wedding day, indeed. Unlike his relationships with others, clothes were something that Guanheng could not ruin. If the wedding would be the last time he would ever see the prince, then at least the occasion would be joyous. 

In the midst of daydreaming about his creation’s moment in the sun, there was a knock at his door. 

He contemplated not answering. He had been looking forward to rest, and after that conversation with the prince, perhaps a little bit of moping as well.

Courtesy and curiosity won out. Guanheng went to the door and opened for the unexpected guest — and his heart leapt into his throat.

‘Apologies for bothering you so late in the day,’ said Yu Pengshan. ‘I saw you walking back here from the palace and thought I’d greet an old friend!’

An old servant, Guanheng thought dryly, taking in the man’s wide set eyes and puffy cheeks. He was a man now, just a year younger than Guanheng, but still bore that toad-like appearance that ran in his family. Guanheng bowed to him.

‘It is good to see you after so many years,’ Guanheng said dishonestly. ‘Are you visiting the palace with the General?’

Pengshan nodded. ‘He’s been working closely with the Northern generals. There will be no holes in the security for King Qian’s arrival — not with my father in charge!’

Guanheng responded with an insincere chuckle. He waited for Pengshan to get to some sort of point, which he never did — instead, he asked Guanheng if he had eaten dinner yet.

‘Not yet…’ Guanheng replied warily. ‘I was just going to—’

‘Ah, good! Great! Let me treat you, for old time’s sake.’

Guanheng wanted so badly to say no. There was no offer in the world he wished to decline more. He would rather step into a pond full of frogs than have a meal with this dreadfully boring, self-centered man.

‘Lovely!’ Guanheng said, mirroring his enthusiasm with false cheer. ‘Where to?’

Cursing his own spinelessness the entire way, Guanheng walked with General Yu’s son all the way to main street in town. It pained him to listen to the man’s inane stories, unfunny jokes, and outright fabrications about his martial prowess. The only upside was that since Pengshan talked so much, Guanheng did not have to make conversation — he only had to grunt or laugh or say “hmmm!” every so often.

The conversation over dinner was no better, but Guanheng began to notice how strangely Pengshan was acting. He grew more and more skittish as the evening went on, casting his eyes around him and puffing on his tobacco pipe like crazy. 

Guanheng could not help but ask, ‘Are you quite alright?’

‘Yes!’ said Pengshan too quickly. ‘Yes, yes, yes, quite fine. Are you full?’

‘I’ve had enough…’

‘Good, good! Yes!’

Guanheng noticed now that Pengshan kept glancing up, over Guanheng’s head, in the direction of the palace on the hill. Suddenly his pupils constricted, and he took another deep puff of his pipe.

Guanheng turned. He saw that up on the hill, the sky was glowing. A column of thick, choking darkness rose up into the air. 

A fire, a big one, devouring something and coughing up the smoke.

‘Ah, how unsightly!’ Pengshan remarked, a shake to his voice. Guanheng whirled around to look at him, and he could see the man shirk away from his gaze. He blathered on, lips still around his pipe, ‘Hope it’s nothing serious, what with it being– being so close to—’

‘Treating me to dinner so far from home…’ Guanheng said coldly. ‘For old time’s sake, was it?’

Pengshan could not meet his eyes.

Guanheng got up and ran, intuition sounding off a terrible dirge in his heart.

He ran all the way up the hill until he was tasting blood; until he could hear shouting from the courtyard within the palace’s outer walls. He followed the noise until he came to a stop before the site of the inferno.

The urgent shouting in the courtyard became a faint din in his ears. People knocked into him as they ran past, cursing and sweating and soot-stained, hauling buckets of water from the nearby stream. A paralysed part of Guanheng’s brain knew that he ought to look away, first of all — and then, he ought to run to the stream himself and help. 

He should be dousing the fire eating up his workshop before his very eyes. 

The intermingling smells of different burning fabrics stung his nose. Guanheng could name each one, like a sommelier could identify the ingredients of wine. Wool, cotton, leather, silk — oh, the silk. How the flames must have relished in consuming it; a wild and frenzied hunger that left nothing but ash behind once the feast had finished.

Something tickled Guanheng’s cheeks — hot, hot tears. 

He swayed on his feet before catching himself, the sudden off-kilter movement jolting him back into awareness. His eyes finally looked somewhere else besides the scarlet conflagration, and caught sight of a tall, broad figure standing motionless just beyond the illumination range of the fire. The figure stood with arms crossed, watching the burning workshop with the same sense of inaction that had just overtaken Guanheng.

Or perhaps not the same sense. This was not shock, or dumbfoundedness, or fear — the figure stood proud, chest puffed, watching with intent. Watching with interest. Watching with… triumph.

Guanheng’s eyes adjusted, no longer seared into half-blindness by the bright flames, and he recognised the figure at last.

General Yu locked eyes with Guanheng, like a blade locking with another during a duel. Guanheng, trembling with the effort of staying upright, knew he was defeated.

You will regret this choice, Huang Guanheng.  

A four-year fermenting vengeance deep in the General’s heart — its acrid stench filled the courtyard now, burning everything Guanheng had built for himself to the ground. 

Regret, Guanheng thought numbly. How fortunate for you that I am too meek for the other things, General Yu: fury, hatred, violence, justice. How fortunate that I will not be putting a burning plank of wood through your eye. How fortunate that I was weak before, and now I’m weaker still. Congratulations.

He dragged his heavy feet to the riverside, picked up the first bucket he saw, and filled it with water.

*

It took forty minutes for the last flame to be extinguished. By then, the workshop was half-ashes, half debris. The people who had helped put out the fire were steadily dispersing, many of them giving Guanheng a concerned pat on the back or a sympathetic word as they passed him. Guanheng heard them as if they were underwater — muted and unclear, barely able to discern the words.

He picked through the rubble of his workspace. Though ceiling beams and walls had toppled, the mannequin still stood, like a spiteful miracle. It was burnt to blackness, and Prince Dejun's wedding clothes were a hideous mess of brown, ruined, melted cloth. Weeks of work, destroyed.

Someone stepped up next to him. He heard the crunch of broken things under their feet.

He was good at recognising them now — this was the same attendant from the day Prince Dejun shared the news of his engagement; the one who showed Guanheng just that tiny bit of kindness. 

They were probably here to give him even more bad news. He waited for it.

‘Are you hurt?’ the attendant asked in a level voice. 

‘No,’ answered Guanheng.

‘I see. But your workshop has been razed. Did the prince’s garment surv—’ they stopped, seeming to notice the burnt remains on the mannequin.

‘I see,’ they said again. ‘I will need to inform the prince—’

‘No need.’

‘Pardon?’

‘It will worry him,’ Guanheng insisted, shaking his head. ‘I will make it again.’

‘You have less than a week—’

‘It’s enough time!’ Guanheng snapped. He felt bad, so more gently, he repeated, ‘It’s enough time. I can do it.’

‘Not possible. It is a risk to the ceremony.’

‘Please,’ Guanheng begged, looking up at them. ‘Please, let me try again.’

The attendant was quiet for a long time, looking away from Guanheng to think. 

When they were done thinking, they looked back. ‘The prince often says, “no-one else will do.” I suppose I shall have to trust his Lordship.’

Guanheng almost sank to his knees in dizzying relief.

As the attendant moved to leave, they paused in hesitation, then reached up to place a hand on Guanheng’s shoulder. It was an act of grace from a stranger he had known for years; an act that would only be allowed here, in the ashy waste of his life, in a moment where he needed it most.

‘I am limited in how much I can help you,’ said the attendant quietly.

‘I understand,’ said Guanheng, giving the stoic attendant a small smile. ‘Just this chance is all the help I need.’

With that, the attendant retracted their hand and left. Guanheng took a moment to quietly grieve his losses – no tears, no nonsense, since he’d had quite enough of that – before dusting himself off. He was still filthy, but there was no time to waste. 

The fabric warehouse would close before long.

*

Though he ran as fast as he could manage, he arrived in time to see Mrs Zhang closing up shop. He bolted to her, wheezing, and put up a hand to indicate that he needed a moment to recover before speaking.

‘Is that you, Guanheng?’ she asked, squinting at him. Her night vision was poor in her old age, and her patience even poorer. ‘Don’t bother me at closing time, silly boy! It’s late!’

Guanheng bowed deeply, though it made it harder to catch his breath. He clapped his palms together in a pleading gesture. ‘How striking you look tonight, jiejie! I thought I was running to greet your daughter!’

‘Oh, stop it with your “jiejie”,’ she replied, accustomed to his flattery. ‘If you want to buy something, wait until morning. Goodbye—’

‘Mrs Zhang, wait, wait, wait. Please! Morning cannot come soon enough for what I need.’

She narrowed her eyes at him, but waited for him to continue.

‘I need to get to work right away,’ Guanheng quickly explained. ‘If I could get silk – lots of it, all kinds – and cotton, linen, even brocades, if you have– oh, oh, thread as well, for embroidery—’

‘Tomorrow!’

‘Now!’

‘And will you pay me now?’

Guanheng swallowed thickly. He tried to smile, but he could feel how ugly it was. ‘No… not right now. But as soon as I can, I’ll pay for everything in full! With interest! I just need some time…’

‘How can I run a business like that?’ Mrs Zhang protested hotly. ‘I can’t just give so much away! Why do you need that much all at once, anyway?’

Because General Yu burned my workshop down and I’ve lost everything, including all tools and my money and even my own clothes! thought Guanheng desperately. I have nothing to my name except this last bloody job I have to do!

He said, ‘Emergency.’

‘Hmph! I shan’t be driven to ruin by your emergencies. Come back another time!’

‘Mrs Zhang, I beg of you—!’

—‘Little Heng?’

Both the tailor and old woman turned toward the voice. Stepping into the dim lantern light was a tall, svelte figure that they both recognised at once.

Guanheng said, ‘Ge?’

Mrs Zhang cried, ‘The River King?!’

The man chuckled shyly at Mrs Zhang’s reaction. ‘Ah, please, my name is Dong Sicheng. But I’m touched that you recognised me.’

Guanheng’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Sicheng was as beautiful as ever, if not more so than five years ago — he had grown handsomely into his features and his long limbs, which once made him look gangly but now moved with impeccable grace. He was dressed in plain clothes and had no makeup on, but there was no mistaking the face of Dong Sicheng, the star of the Glass River Opera Troupe. 

Evidently, Mrs Zhang was a huge fan — she suddenly gripped onto Guanheng’s arm for dear life, almost ready to faint in the presence of Sicheng’s illustrious presence.

Sicheng bowed, then smiled brightly at Guanheng. ‘You’ve become so handsome!’

Guanheng declined the compliment politely, struggling to keep the starstruck Mrs Zhang upright at the same time. It was about now that Sicheng seemed to notice the grime that Guanheng was covered in — he considered this, looked up towards the palace, then his face fell in realisation.

‘There was all this commotion over a fire on the hill…’ said Sicheng. ‘Surely that wasn’t…?’

‘Don’t concern yourself, Sicheng-ge!’ Guanheng said, trying to reassure him with a smile. ‘No-one was hurt. Things are only things.’

‘I’m not sure your things are only things, given your job title…’

Guanheng’s spirits deflated at that. 

‘People talk, Guanheng,’ Sicheng said with gentleness. ‘Rumours of what was lost in a workshop fire are already flying—’ He stopped himself, conscious of Mrs Zhang. It would not help to let that sort of thing spread and cause a panic. He asked, vaguely, ‘How much of it had you finished?’

‘Just about all of it,’ Guanheng replied.

‘By Heaven…’

The genuine heartbreak in Sicheng’s voice was stirring. Guanheng had felt everything from enraged to desolate to panicked to numb – but this was the first time he’d felt relieved. It was a sudden affirmation, a comfort, that Sicheng genuinely cared even though he didn’t have to. Guanheng had gotten so used to spending time alone, and grappling with his feelings all by himself, that this small sympathy did something quite miraculous: it cheered him up.

‘I’ll get through it,’ he said to Sicheng, and now actually believed it. ‘This may sound strange, but it’s been a great help just to see you again, ge.’

‘I’ve done nothing,’ Sicheng replied, bemused.

‘Not so.’

‘Hmm. Well, what can I do to actually help you?’

Guanheng shook his head insistently. ‘Nothing, nothing! Please, don’t trouble yourself for me. I’ve made the garment once, so I’ll just do it again.’

‘With what materials?’ asked Sicheng. He said it gently, patiently, like nothing Guanheng said could be a wrong answer. Sadly, Guanheng had no answer for him at all, so he just smiled stiffly at him.

Sicheng smiled sweetly back. ‘Just tell me what you need.’

‘Ah, thank you, but… well, I don’t have the money to pay you anything—’

Sicheng took Guanheng’s hand.

‘Little Heng,’ said Sicheng, his doll-like face taking on a serious countenance. ‘There are those of us in the troupe who know one thing for certain: the work you did for us was nothing short of Heaven sent. The first time I wore those robes you made – the blue ones, for the River King, you remember? – it was as if they wrapped a magic around me. All of us felt the same, down to the little shoes you beaded — you didn’t just make costumes for us; you made art.’

Guanheng flushed and his body tensed up to flee. ‘This– Sicheng, this is far too much praise, and for nothing—’

‘Not for nothing! People talked about our play for days, weeks, months, Guanheng — they were spellbound by the way we looked. Some thought our costumes were some sort of alchemy or witchcraft with the way they moved and glinted under the sun. Audiences came back again and again and again. We did not pay you nearly enough for what you made for us.’

‘It was enough, Sicheng. I loved the work.’

‘Nevertheless, the troupe is indebted to you. Let us help.’

Guanheng pulled his hand out of Sicheng’s soft grip. He was unable to accept the generosity Sicheng was offering. ‘Really, there’s no need. No need. Thank you. I’ll– ehm, it was good to see you. I’ll be going now.’

‘Guanheng!’

Guanheng bowed quickly and hurried off, nerves set alight. Sympathy was one thing, but he could not bear to impose on others like this. His troubles were entirely his to deal with, and to bring old friends into this miserable fold would be unacceptable.

No, Guanheng was better than that. He could not let the mischievous machinations of fate discourage him, or breed more disappointment. The prince was expecting wedding clothes, and wedding clothes Guanheng would provide. Time was short, but Guanheng was skilled. He had one week to make the wedding clothes from scratch, and nothing would stop him.

Like an apparition, Sicheng appeared suddenly in front of him and stopped his escape. Guanheng yelped, startled.

‘Huang Guanheng,’ Sicheng said with a terrifying, crescent-eye smile. ‘You ran away from me.’

‘How did you do that?!’ Guanheng asked incredulously. 

Sicheng ignored the question. ‘Where will you sleep tonight?’

This gave Guanheng a reality check. He had not thought that far, and suddenly realised he had been rushing back home — a home that was currently in a smouldering pile. 

‘I would have figured it out…’

Sicheng wrapped an arm around Guanheng’s shoulders and turned him around, walking them both back the way they came. He said, ‘You’re coming with me. We have spare beds.’

Guanheng tried, and failed, to wriggle out of Sicheng’s powerful, brotherly grasp. ‘I don’t want to impose on the troupe—’

‘You are not imposing.’

‘But—’

‘You’re as stubborn as a donkey, Guanheng.’

With that, Guanheng ceased his protests. There was no arguing with Dong Sicheng.

In any case, the slow and quiet walk back to the troupe’s housing, down in the coolest part of the valley, Guanheng felt the sleepiness settle over him like a blanket. A safe place to rest was exactly what he needed, despite his own self-destructive opinion on the matter.

Tomorrow was another day.

*

He woke up at nine in the morning, exactly twelve hours since he lay down on the sleeping mat. Once he noticed how high the sun was in the sky, he scrambled up in a panic. At least three hours of daylight had been wasted! 

While hastily making himself presentable, he mentally prepared for another attempt at persuading Mrs Zhang to sell – or, more accurately, loan out – fabric to him, as well as other sewing tools. Guanheng chose to ignore the magnitude of the task before him. It was going to take at least half a day to source just the materials he needed, and then every precious second after that would be devoted to making the garment. There would be no time to sleep, barely any time to eat, and certainly no time for shenanigans. He would miss the shenanigans most of all.

He sped out of the sleeping quarters, nearly knocking over some confused troupe trainees going about their morning. He had almost made it out of the front door before a little girl grabbed his arm.

‘Tailor-gege,’ she said. ‘You have to go to the theatre.’

Guanheng blinked down at her. She was dressed in a plain grey shirt and loose breeches, the uniform of young troupe trainees. 

‘Eh?’

She tugged his sleeve. ‘Sicheng-gege said so.’ She began to pull him back through the dormitories towards a courtyard. On the other end of that courtyard was the theatre hall, where the troupe rehearsed and performed for smaller audiences. 

Guanheng remembered it as rather a quaint thing, to put it politely. The stage had been a creaky patchwork of different woods, and the hall was drafty from all the little gaps in the poorly-made walls. The troupe did not have a lot of money when it started out, but Guanheng so loved the stories they told — it kept him coming as often as he could, even if dust rained down on the spectators whenever the performers landed too hard after a flip.

But this — this was not the theatre hall he remembered.

As the little girl led him into the building, he gasped. There was an exquisite, tall, colourful backdrop to the stage that transported Guanheng to a foggy, mountainous, illustrated landscape; gorgeous, shimmering curtains hung down on each side, floor-to-ceiling; the wooden stage was lacquered, and rows of sturdy benches were lined up and stacked against the sides of the hall.

They were pushed to the sides to make room for one final, startling thing: laid out in a clearing on the floor were mats and low tables. On and around them were bolts and bolts of fabric; a box of thread in various colours; an assortment of tools; and a mannequin. 

The royal tailor’s old mannequin – a steel pole with a wooden torso atop it, partly repaired with copper wiring and still stained black with burn marks. 

‘What is this?’ he asked the little girl. 

‘Dunno!’ she replied, before running off excitedly. 

Guanheng whirled around when Sicheng’s voice answered instead. ‘Mrs Zhang has come to watch The Soldier and the River King three times, did you know that? She knows my lines better than I do.’ He stepped out from the exit to the side of the stage, smiling genially at a confused Guanheng. He then gestured to all the fabric and tools. ‘I’m sorry, but we don’t have a workroom big enough. I hope this space is all right.’

The thread of realisation poked through the eye of the needle at last. Guanheng’s frantic, almost incoherent protests began tumbling out of his mouth before he knew it, but Sicheng gently quieted him. He looked off to the side and called for someone – or some people – to enter. 

‘I’ve also enlisted some help on your behalf,’ Sicheng explained. ‘You’ll hate me for it now, but luckily I accept belated thanks.’ 

Entering the hall were four women familiar to Guanheng. Familiar in the most literal sense — they were his mother and sisters. Before he could react to it, they were already running to him with open arms, laughing and squealing in delight. 

His mother petted his hair over and over. ‘Ah, son, I was so worried! We saw the fire up on the hill and thought — ah, I don’t know what I thought! I could have wept when I heard what had happened.’

His eldest sister interjected. ‘Sicheng came to each of our homes late last night. How could we say no after that!’

‘Say no?’ Guanheng echoed, confused.

‘We took the road up just before dawn — by Heaven, I rarely regret moving to the countryside but this morning I certainly did!’

— ‘The walk was brutal!’

— ‘Oh, yes, yes.’

— ‘But our sweet baby Guanheng needs us, doesn’t he!’

Guanheng looked between all the chatty women of his family, struggling to follow. Then his mother took his face between her hands. 

‘Let’s get started,’ she said, a grounding determination in her voice. ‘Tell us what you want us to do.’

His sisters hopped over to the bolts of fabric and boxes of tools, which Guanheng now realised was a makeshift workstation. 

‘Ma…’ he breathed. ‘I can’t possibly make you all do this—’

‘Hush, now, hush. Don’t be prideful. We’re only helping you do the grunt work. The design will still be yours, and all that lovely embroidery will be up to you.’

Sicheng waved to Guanheng from his new perch on the edge of the stage. ‘Best get started, little Heng. Use this space for as long as you like — just don’t mind us rehearsing here from time to time.’

His eldest sister piped up again. ‘Stop gawking! Hurry up and show us some sketches! Give us some measurements!  Tell us where to cut!’

Of course , Guanheng thought, feeling a little prickle of emotion in his throat. Who else could I possibly trust to help me with this, besides the ones who taught me everything I know?

‘I said stop gawking!’

He laughed, a breathy exhalation of relief and joy and renewed hope. Yes! He had made the prince’s garment before, and he would do it again — and better! And faster! And with help he did not know he deserved. 

‘One second, one second,’ he said, hurrying to retrieve parchment and chalk. ‘I’ll draw it out…!’

*

His mother and sisters were always the more reasonable ones in his family. Guanheng had to be forced to join them for meal breaks and sleep — but when they did manage to drag his cramping hands away from his elaborate embroidery work, he ate voraciously and slept like a rock. 

His mother, with her experience and meticulousness, sewed the fitted jacket with little intervention needed from Guanheng. She worked the fabric like she’d woven it herself, and used a needle like it was a part of her own body. His eldest sister worked miraculously fast, and made the pants to perfection in less than a day — embellishments included. His other two sisters cut and pressed and pleated and braided, but also kept everyone’s spirits up. They liked to joke and gossip, and were highly skilled at spotting when Guanheng was losing steam. 

Everything was done to Guanheng’s specifications, and that’s where he struggled most. It was hard for him to give orders or correct another’s work; if his sisters did not recognise his reticence so well, and pestered him for honest feedback, he might have let a lot of things slide. If anything, his family were perfectionists by proxy, unable to accept delivering anything but the most ideal version of Guanheng’s design.

And Guanheng… he spent a full five days hunched over swaths of silk, tongue pressed to the side of his cheek in concentration. He wore a headband at all times to stop the sweat of his brow dropping into the fabric. 

Blossom after blossom. Leaf after leaf. Branch after branch. Delicate lines of shimmering gossamer between the branches; the mere suggestion of a spider’s web. He told a story in his head as he sewed, letting dreamlike scenes play out in his imagination.

Prince Dejun loved the opera, and yet would never set foot on a stage — and so, Guanheng would make him the hero of their own private romance; of a secret, sweeping tale in the peach blossom orchard, filled with magic and adventure and spiderwebs that divined the fates of kings.

When attendants knocked on the door of the theatre hall the day before the wedding, Guanheng greeted them with a smile. They had come to fetch the wedding garments.

‘I’m ready,’ said Guanheng.

He was.

*

The tailor had no more clothes of his own, but even the things he’d lost in the fire would not have been fine enough for a royal wedding. He borrowed a jacket and tunic from Sicheng, and set off early in the morning. 

He was not the only one with the idea to leave before dawn for a good seat, and found himself carried in a dense crowd snaking up the road to the palace pavilion, lined on each side by guards from both the North and Southern Realms. Guanheng had never seen this many people gathered at once, not even on the busiest streets during festivals. 

People gushed and cheered and sang songs; the sky was bright and clear; flags and ribbons danced in the breeze — Guanheng was glad for this. The garment would move well in it. 

He breathed through the tightness forming in his chest. There was no avoiding the presence of anxiety, his oldest friend — but his will had become strong in just the last month. If Guanheng could not weather this ceremony, then he could not call himself a man at all.

After more than an hour, drums began to pound from every corner of the courtyard in front of the wedding pavilion. The path to the decorated structure where the couple would be ordained had been given a wide berth for security, so people shoved and stood on tiptoes to get a view. Some even climbed up trees or stood on jutting rocks if they could get away with it.

Every steady drumbeat was felt in Guanheng’s bones. He stared, waiting for the bride and groom to emerge — and so, after an eternity, they did.

At the sight of the King, Guanheng’s swollen heart popped. It was more of a relief, really, than a heartbreak. He knew, from the moment he laid eyes on the monarch from the North, that Prince Dejun would be happy.

King Qian was handsome. He had round, clear eyes and strong eyebrows. Fetching, full lips and smooth skin. In his wedding adornments, he looked every bit the powerful ruler that he was — and it felt as if everyone in the square, including Guanheng himself, inhaled at the same time upon seeing him.

The subsequent exhalation came when Prince Dejun stepped out from a cluster of guards and hooked his arm into the king’s. A gasp of reverence. 

The prince was fully adorned now as well — hair styled and jewelled, bracelets and earrings that caught the light with even the slightest movement of his head. Whatever space Guanheng’s heart had made for melancholy had vacated for awe. There he was, Prince Xiao Dejun, in the wedding clothes the royal tailor had made for him. 

They were crafted from the tragedy and the lunacy of his unrequited love, and it could not have been more beautiful to look at. An enchantment upon the whole crowd. 

Anonymised in the press of people, Guanheng could hear them whispering about the way the garment looked, how it moved, how it did not exceed the prince’s beauty, nor fail to meet it, but matched it just right. A perfect fit.

The skirts were a moving painting with every step forward. Embroidered flowers stopped becoming decorative and became narrative — they told a story of budding and blooming and endless life. 

But Guanheng knew the robes by heart. He did not need to watch them; so he watched Dejun instead. He watched his face – beautiful, serene, brave – and thanked the Heavens for his luck. He had spent four years watching a boy grow into a man; a friend grow into the love of his life. 

The grooms went into the pavilion and were wed. It happened very quickly. The cheers went up like the roar of a storm. Guanheng felt a weight lifting at last — and held his breath as Prince Dejun emerged for the last time.

Arm-in-arm with the King – his husband – Prince Dejun walked back down the path out of the wedding pavilion. The volume of the realm’s joy was deafening, celebrating a harmonious union, and flower petals cascaded down from the sky where they had been released from woven nets. 

Prince Dejun came ever closer to Guanheng’s vantage point, and, as if magically divining his precise location, he looked up to meet Guanheng’s eyes.

They smiled at each other – small, hard to catch by others, but as big as they could get away with – and time stopped for Guanheng. Maybe it stopped for them both. Maybe it stopped for the whole world, allowing for this moment to be felt deeply, remembered eternally. A karmic reward for the intensity and selflessness of Guanheng’s love.

Or maybe Guanheng had imagined all that – he was a dreamer after all – but he had not imagined that shared smile.

As the Prince walked off, further and further, becoming small and yet still dazzling in Guanheng’s vision, there was nothing but joy in Guanheng’s heart.

Walk into your new life, my beautiful A-Jun, thought Guanheng. And I shall see in you the next one.