Chapter Text
It’s unconventional, the way they started out.
One drink led to another, and then another, and another. Somehow, along the days of rising and falling, Rin eventually finds herself crouching in front of her dorm’s dirty bathroom floor with a positive pregnancy stick in hand. Her first instinct is to tell Kitay about it. He’ll understand, right? He’ll help her through it. Maybe she’ll even tell Venka. Out of everyone she knows, Venka will understand her the most for certain. They will understand; they have to.
She tells Nezha first.
They were careless and stupid is what she said. She cried to him for the first time, after eight years of knowing each other, four years of confusing friendship that always bordered on hatred and insults, and almost a year of drinking and sleeping with each other in secret. They were too careless. This shouldn’t be happening. This isn’t what they planned.
“Why aren’t you saying something?” she bites, already angry as she watches him staring blankly at her. Nezha’s face remains unmoving, his eyebrows furrowing repeatedly as if he’s fighting against words that are threatening to spill over his lips. “Nezha.” Rin grits her teeth.
She’s an absolute mess—there’s hair sticking against her tear-stained cheeks, eyes holding flaming daggers that are piercing through every inch of his skin—but he finds that he wants to worship her.
“What do you want me to say?” he finally asks, but it’s wrong. He bites his tongue, waits for her anger to meet the simmering ocean lapping over his chest. But nothing comes.
Rin starts to sob again. “Fuck you.”
Nezha blinks at her, willing his desires to go away. The image of peace stains his vision, burning itself through the turmoil in his soul. He desperately claws at them, killing them with his own fingertips.
“The choice is yours,” he tells her carefully, watching for any signs of anger. He’s familiar with her hatred; he wants to hold onto it. He doesn’t want her tears. “Whatever you choose, I’ll help you through it. You know that.”
Rin peers at him through tear-stained lashes. “But what do you want?”
Nezha shakes his head. “No,” he says, swallowing his pride for the first time. “What I want doesn’t matter, Rin. I don’t want to cloud your judgment with what I want.”
“Just tell me!”
Nezha swallows the lump in his throat. He looks down at his blood-stained fingertips, expecting to find his sins branded against his skin. Instead, he finds his desires planting themselves onto his palms. Roots crawl steadily along his wrists, and they come into fruition near his heart. He loves her so much.
“I want it…” he whispers. He’s always so weak when it comes to her. He wants to worship her, to tell her that he loves her. But it’s not yet the right time.
Rin leans back against her seat. Nezha’s unit grows colder and quieter. Silver light spills over them, weeping against their skin. They’re frozen in place, unable to move forward. But Rin is always the first one to burn.
“Okay,” she breathes, whispering more to herself. “I’m… I’m keeping it. We’re keeping it.”
“Rin—“
“It’s okay, Nezha,” she tells him, and for the first time in almost a decade, Nezha couldn’t find a trace of anger flowing from her lips. “We’ll be okay.”
Nezha presses a hand over his chest. The waves are gone.
It’s unconventional, the way they built their relationship.
They eloped a few weeks after Rin told Nezha about her pregnancy. It was a crazy idea, they know, but it seemed to be the only way to calm themselves despite the uncertainties lying ahead of them. Kitay and Venka served as their witnesses even though they too were just as clueless as them, and Rin had to resist the urge to cry as Nezha hastily kissed her after their I do’s.
She’s scared. So, so, so scared. She doesn’t even know if she wants this—any of this—but it’s already too late for her to turn her back against him, against them. It was a mess, but at the same time it felt exhilarating. At that moment, she felt alive more than ever.
“We’re crazy,” she tells Nezha afterwards.
Nezha squeezes her hand. Once. Twice. Thrice. She knows what’s coming next.
“I love you.”
She doesn’t respond, but she holds on to his words like a starved man clawing for food.
It’s unconventional, the life that they built.
Four months into her pregnancy, Rin files for a leave of absence from her university. Nezha tried to stop her, telling her that he’s willing to shoulder every single one of her expenses, but she still proceeds to dismiss him.
“I need this,” she tells him. “I need more time to think.”
“About?”
Rin shrugs.
Days turn into months. Suddenly, the hastily assembled life they built is filled with even more chaos upon the arrival of their son. They named him Mingzha, after Nezha’s late brother, and for a while, life was better than before. There are still uncertainties, but they’re still in their early twenties after all.
After Nezha graduated and got his degree, he immediately decides to work under his family’s company, while Rin chose to stay behind for a few more months before Nezha finally convinced her to continue her studies.
“He’ll be fine,” he assures her one night as they loom over their son’s crib. A small, permanent space rests in between the two of them. “I can take care of him while you’re gone.”
Rin glares at him. “I don’t trust you.”
But she still did, and life turned better for the three of them eventually.
Rin graduates shortly after Mingzha’s second birthday, and the two of them had to cope with the terrible two’s while juggling their full-time jobs. When Mingzha turned three, Nezha was finally able to inherit one of his family’s companies, and Rin had finally hit a stable spot in her job that afforded her the luxury of comfortability. At four, Mingzha was already more than eager to start school, and the two of them dreaded his first day at kindergarten.
“Are you crying?” Rin puts a hand over her mouth to conceal her grin.
Nezha glares at her before turning back to watch their son running along the school’s entrance. “I’m not.”
“You are!”
“Shut up, Rin!”
Being away from Mingzha also meant spending a lot more time with each other. Time that was lost amidst the chaos of their relationship. Time that they couldn’t previously afford to have. They used to be a bunch of kids together—a couple of bickering teenagers under the sun. Now they’re lost, but slowly finding their way back with time.
Rin sighs into his bare chest, the familiar warmth of his skin branding itself against her palms. “Nezha? You awake?”
Nezha hums in acknowledgment. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Nezha grabs her hand from his chest and squeezes it. Once. Twice. Thrice. Rin holds on to it.
It’s unconventional, the way life moves in circles.
They used to be filled with so much hate that it inevitably spilled into love. But hatred comes back in waves to carry them offshore.
“An annulment?” Nezha asks.
“Yes.”
They’ve been lost at sea for a while now.
“Okay.”
“That’s it? You’re not going to say anything else?”
“What do you want me to say, Rin?” Nezha’s face remains unmoving, his eyebrows furrowing repeatedly as if he’s fighting against words that are threatening to spill over his lips. “You know I’ll always go with whatever you choose.”
The ocean crashes and burns through his chest.