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So this is where she lives, was his first thought.
Standing there, spying from behind a boulder, Honghui cannot help but feel just the slightest bit foolish. The emperor had ordered the commander and lieutenant to pursue Hua Mulan back to her home and present her his token of gratitude, and of course Honghui did the only logical thing — sneak out from the festivities and follow, keeping a safe distance so no one would be any wiser.
The gates to the village stand open. Excited mentions of her name float towards him like whispers on the wind; the wind itself toys with his hair, loose and long freed from the tight military updo. If he closes his eyes, he might just feel that lithe, dandelion touch of hers, for all of those few seconds when she placed her hand in his. The curl of his fingers pulling hers closer had seemed only natural.
Honghui draws nearer, taking care to keep his footsteps light, looking eagerly for the girl in red, the centre of attention. Through the gates of the tulou, Commander Tung barks an order and waves at his staff. The men turn; the horses' hooves send dust flying.
Quickly, Honghui ducks away, hidden from sight. He's careful to creep around the boulder that hides him as the entourage passes, just in case the commander's sixth sense prompts him to look back and catch a soldier red-handed. Red-handed, in...
...well, what was he doing?
What was he hoping to get out of this, anyway? Mulan had dropped his hand that night, and yet he'd gone slinking back like a shadow to where she lived. He'd need a miracle for her to look his way. And he still didn't know how to talk to women.
The tulou towers before him, imposing. Almost like the walls that had kept the war out. Honghui turns away, heart thudding, palms sweating, just checking. Just to see if the commander was well out of the way.
Really, what on earth—
"—are you doing?"
—
Honghui's first thought after that was oh, god.
Mulan leaps from her perch on the tulou roof and is scaling down the bricked wall before he even has time to blink. Backed up against the boulder with a heart beating too fast, too suddenly, he can do nothing more than stare at the woman now crouching in front of him, countless questions flitting across her eyes.
Quickly, he composes himself, clearing his throat. "That was dangerous."
Smooth.
Mulan tilts her head. "What was?"
Honghui gestures to the wall behind her. "That."
"Well..." she smirks, her confidence glowing. Against his better judgement, Honghui extends a hand to her as he makes to stand. She takes it.
"I've been doing that for years since I was little."
She's on her feet. Her hand lingers in his like a temptation.
"It's nothing," Mulan finishes, grinning, fingers slipping from his own.
Honghui lets out a low whistle of admiration, and as Mulan looks down to brush some dirt off her clothes, he takes the opportunity to rest his eyes on her. Slowly, with time that the war hadn't given him before, he takes in the shape of her shoulders: rounded with strength, unyielding. The way the wind moves her long hair into a dance, the first peek of a scar that disappears underneath her neckline. How had she done it? How had she endured it? Why had she—?
"You haven't answered my question," she says, redirecting his attention. "What're you doing all the way here?"
Momentarily he falters, attempting to stay as composed as possible while searching for an answer. Something suave, something smart to charm her off her feet would be good. But it feels like a dangerous game, to spin a lie in times like these. Those eyes, that quick sense of hers — they'd call his bluff instantly.
Instead, Honghui finds himself glancing at her hands, and how he'd asked for them back there, outside of the imperial palace. She already knew that much. The smile that forms at the thought is wholly unbidden.
"You wouldn't like it if I said it was to pursue you, would you?"
Her lips purse, but he'd swear he saw her eyes shimmer. "Pursue me?"
He nods simply. And as quickly as it appeared, the light in her eyes seemed to vanish. Mulan looks away, her hair providing a convenient curtain to hide her from him.
"I think you'd rather want someone else." This quiet, muttering Mulan is new. She still looks every bit the soldier, lines and edges roughed up by war. All of a sudden, he is taken back to the night when the men eagerly discussed the types of girls they would go to war for. Hua Jun had sat quietly — must have been happy to be overlooked in such a compromising conversation. What had it been? Fair skin, thin build, demure and alluring...and she'd been scaling that wall for years? That wasn't the most ladylike thing to spend a childhood learning.
But he'd watched Hua Jun fight; watched Hua Jun endure training after training; talked, confided in and listened to Hua Jun. He'd felt something shifting, slowly moulding the annoyance in his inner shape into a space quietly yearning for Hua Jun to fit into. And then he'd watched Hua Mulan risk her life in the deepest pits of the ugliest war. He'd watched as she saved them all. And she was still every bit the person that Hua Jun was.
The words are before him even before thinking. The wind dies down into nothing more than a wispy breeze, but it could have been a whirlwind for all he cared, if only for him to step closer, closer. So she could hear him.
"I think I'd know exactly who I'm after, Hua Mulan."
She pauses, then shakes her head, as if he didn't know what he was saying. Once again, a flush of wind interrupts them, messing up Mulan's already unruly hair and prompting her to wrangle it from her face.
It's a statement in and of itself. "I've been giving the matchmaker a headache."
"Good." He looks her straight in the eye before grinning. "Then I can court you without worry."
It makes her freeze in the prettiest disbelief, a smile, laugh and a scoff fighting for the spotlight of her expression all at once. A moment passes between them, Honghui only just able to resist preening over catching her off guard, that well. In front of him, Hua Mulan avoids his gaze and makes a valiant effort to keep her fluster from getting obvious. But she fails. The blush rises.
She's the one.
Mulan clears her throat, rights herself and steps towards him. "Who are you and what have you done with Chen Honghui?" Smiling, she reaches for him; playfully, he dodges. "He doesn't know how to talk to women."
"He's learning!" he laughs as he sidesteps her next advance, bringing his arms up to block hers. "There's one he'd fight a war to talk to."
He's starting to like the face she makes when she tries not to blush. They fall into an easy rhythm of light strikes and soft blows, the sparring routine that had been taught to them as soldiers coming back to them with ease — though Honghui's attempts to ignore his training are deliberate, as he does nothing to prevent his partner from entering his personal space. Later on he'd swear that Mulan was playing the game just as much as he was, letting his hands linger on her arms, turning her body just so to get that much closer to him. She meets him readily, deflecting his moves and advancing her position with a grace that would have bewitched him fully if he had never been trained to fight back. A cloud of dust rises around them as they spin and twirl in tandem, only getting bigger when Honghui feels his foot scuff and slip on something the wrong way.
They fall to the ground with a thud, his arms wrapped around her waist as his body cushions the landing for her. She ends up half-curled on him, her upper body square on his, and Honghui is utterly unprepared for the closeness. He catches his breath, and so does she; his gaze wanders to the features of her face, slips to the corners of her mouth, her lips. And he'll call it even, when he catches Mulan intently eyeing his own.
"You're truly serious? About what you said about courting me."
He chooses to give in to the urge to tuck her hair behind her ear as it falls like a veil around his face, hoping that was answer enough.
"I said I'd see you again, didn't I?"
His fingers drift to the apple of her cheek as she smiles. The cool of the evening settles in, and Mulan shifts, getting comfortable. Lying like this, this close — where he could savour the details of her, down to the curve of her smile and the curl of her lashes — he could've lived a life with every other little discomfort.
Mulan leans forward, carding her own hand through his hair, smoothing his flyaways from his face. Her fingers pull gently through the catches and tangles his hair acquired from the wind and the elements, and if it were up to him, the moment would have stretched blissfully into forever. Honghui finds himself leaning into her touch, until her movements stop.
"Would you like to stay for dinner?"
Laughter escapes him in surprise as he sits up, hands adjusting around her waist to keep her close. "I've not even begun to romance you properly and you already want me to eat a meal with your parents."
She grins. "Fair enough."
"We could take it slow," he offers, alongside his hand yet again as he stands. He's been doing that a lot these past few days, he realises. But Mulan takes it, entwining their fingers this time.
"Slowly, then. I like the sound of that."
And as he pulls her to her feet, the wind smiles around them, her hand a soft and welcome weight in his.