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'For fucks sake Mu Qing, how do you not tell me anything ever?!' He raised his voice, yet it trembled and swayed when he looked My Qing in the eyes.
The man before him trembled slightly, and subconsciously stepped back. A long silence endured, and a heavy sigh could be heard in the smaller bedchambers.
'You...' Mu Qing started, 'would never want to hear it. You would-'
'Why? Mu Qing why do you think I'd ever so desperately cling to you if I wouldn't like you? Why would you think I don't want your presence in my life, when you are the only constant that's ever been?!' Still having his heart pounding in his chest, he looked up and stared into Mu Qing's eyes.
'Why would you think I don't want to hear about what you think too?'
The prolonged silence fell heavily, and a single tear drop made sound when it shattered next to general Xuan Zhen's feet.
They stared at the ground, then themselves, Mu Qing driving himself to form a sentence.
--
' Please, tell me when have I ever been wanted? Accepted, maybe even needed, yes. But who under heaven can ever think to want me, have me, see me as a human?'
Drowning in his sorrows, the words spilled out, not entirely forming comprehensive speech both in the contents and rhetorics.
He let out a sigh and continued,
' I've lived a long life, so did you. Took many steps, and with every one I feel guilty. When someone blames me, I feel sick. I can't stand the thought that I did something displeasing. I can't live with so many scenarios that have ensued because of me, and want to pull out my own heart. I want to rip it out, and scream at it because it feels guilt. I want to scream at it, because it feels unjustified guilt. I want to scream at it for the things that it doesn't feel guilty at. For when I hurt others so much, there was so much agony, and at once numbing indifference.
You must understand, general, that I am not lovable. I try so pitifully though it always fails. Look to Xie Lian. How have I hurt him this badly, how much has he had to endure and yet I do it again.
What does it matter, that I tried? I can pity myself all I want, as can you, but what does it matter when it fails? How can I redeem myself, when all I do is fruitless?'
'Nan Yang. Tell me, why do I suffer pitifully when I don't deserve to feel pity?'
He stopped, an eternity passing between his words. The whole world, his life and existence seemed to be against him, gripping at his throat as he tried to form the sentences.
He seemed to have drunk too much, the strong alcohol already getting to his mind.
Otherwise he would have never said that infront of... Feng Xin.
He thought, the things he said were entangled together, some bits and pieces of what he felt, but couldn't express. There was so much he had wanted to say, to shout when no one had listened. Now having someone listen made his throat tremble and lips unable to open. It was hard admitting your own feelings, insecurities and failures Infront of someone you knew so well.
The alcohol buzzing in your mind, the excruciating hour and company made it both so easy to form thoughts, but impossible to let them be voiced.
Nothing could ever force Mu Qing to let go. Both of his own insecurities and thoughts. He could never let the world know exactly what he felt, it would burn him. What he felt is his, the only thing that kept him here for all this time.
'Right. All this time. All this time, Feng Xin, that we have lived,'
Though the alcohol helped him let go, and talk. Even if no one would listen.
'And when we have lived those abnormal years, what did I hold onto? I find it amusing, how we all have a different sentiment we hold onto for life.
You can tightly grip the future, with the hopes they bring you a brighter day. Grasp at the hand of your beloved, knowing you can't let go of life or you would let go of them. Drag on your legacy, thinking that even after you disperse, there will be something left of you.'
' A 'Xin, have you ever thought of what to cling onto when you don't want to be here?'
With the last words, he raised his head allowing the man before him to see his teary eyes, drunken expression that however sad, filled one with understanding.
Mu Qing's life was hanging my a thin thread of woven together immortality, and the guilt he couldn't let go of, dragging him along day by day.
When you have nothing to cling onto, no brighter day you can imagine, you look back at the past, knowing the things you have done, not allowing yourself to run away from them. If I have evoked misery in this world, I must stay in it and suffer it's consequences. Are there none, living another day becomes the penalty. Draging yourself just because there need to be consequences to your actions is the thing you hold onto.
Feng Xin understood that. Yet he hoped he had not. Mu Qing's puzzled thoughts that he scrambled and left to solve put together made a picture he had not wanted to see, had feared to be true.
But it was there. Mu Qing layed himself, his thoughts and reasoning to the person he trusted with it.
'And how do you love someone that desperately clings onto their own uselessness and guilt, Feng Xin, love?'
With a final confession, final exposure of his thoughts he turned around and left.
And Feng Xin also left, after a ungodly amount of time trying to clear through his mind. He ran straight to the person that left, to the person that despite everything, despite all that he had said and what he had not, all that he had suffered he still deserved-,
'MU QING!!! WHAT ARE YOU-'
The scream hadn't the time to leave Feng Xin's throat when one of the pieces holing Mu Qing stattered, him falling to his knees with a bleeding mortal dying body. What was left was guilt.
Feng Xin did not know who screamed. The whole heavenly capital went silent, and all he could hear was that gut wrenching guilt.
He held his body in his arms, seeing how now even the guilt, the last thread of Mu Qing's woven thread snapped.
'I love you'
It could have woven that thread of guilt back together, but not after it had snapped.
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He could not save him.
But he took Mu Qing's advice and lived on that string of guilt.
Because despite all that has been done, Mu Qing was still loved.