Work Text:
Feng Xin can’t stop staring at Dianxia’s new servant.
He’s never seen anyone quite like him, dark hair tied up neatly in a long ponytail, pale skin radiant even in the darkest rooms of the palace, lips almost criminally perfectly shaped and colored, clothes always impeccable, not a fold out of place. He was, undeniably, the prettiest person Feng Xin had ever seen.
He was also kind of an asshole, which only made Feng Xin like him more.
“What are you staring at?” Mu Qing demands, his eyes sharp and wary. Feng Xin’s heart feels a bit weak; maybe he should say something nice. Maybe he should foster a good relationship with this boy. Maybe he should try a little harder, do a little bit of good.
What comes out of his mouth is as follows: “Your ugly face.”
Mu Qing flushes instantly, dark red traveling from his neck to his cheeks to curl around the soft shell of his ear. “You’re one to talk about ugly faces. Did someone drop you as a baby?”
This is the longest conversation they’d had since Mu Qing had moved into the palace, and Feng Xin is determined not to let it stop. “I guess I can’t say the same about you. I doubt you were ever held as a baby.”
His insult is a little crueler than he intends it to be. He winces, forcing his mouth shut, but the damage is done. Mu Qing’s beautiful eyes are
pissed
, dark and enraged. Feng Xin’s heart shakes again.
“Screw you, asshole. It was a mistake ever talking to you. Leave me alone.”
With that, Mu Qing turns on his heel and walks away. Even his footsteps are impressive, each one determined and commanding. He doesn’t carry himself the way the other servants do. He almost seems to be daring someone to scold him.
Feng Xin would love to hate him. It’d make his life easier, he’s sure.
But it’s a little too late for that, so Feng Xin has accepted his fate.
ꨄ
Every spare moment he has, Feng Xin antagonizes Mu Qing.
To his credit, Mu Qing takes it very well, simply sidestepping and moving along when Feng Xin attempts to bother him. However, as Feng Xin grows increasingly determined in his approach, Mu Qing can’t help but rise to the occasion.
“Please don’t fight! Guys!” Xie Lian attempts to interject. Mu Qing closes his lips, still glowering at Feng Xin.
“Why are you fighting again?” Xie Lian questions. Mu Qing says nothing, so neither does Feng Xin.
Getting a rise out of Mu Qing is his new favorite thing, Feng Xin has discovered. Without a fail, the thin-skinned boy blushes a violent red, his voice coming out louder and less timidly. It seems like his true self, to Feng Xin, and he loves being the one to bring it out.
Even if his methods aren’t the most conventional.
“Talk to me. Please. I’m tired of the fighting! You two are my best friends and I want you to get along!”
When Xie Lian turns to face Mu Qing, Feng Xin takes the opportunity to stick his tongue out at him. Mu Qing instantly flushes dark red.
“My apologies, your highness. I understand that you’re close with your bodyguard. I just find it… difficult to get along with him. He—”
Mu Qing pauses then, seeming to force himself to continue.
“I will make the effort to get along with him moving forward, if your arguments inconvenience you.”
Xie Lian waves his words away. “They don’t inconvenience me, Qing’er, I just want you two to get along! Will you at least try?”
“We will,” Feng Xin puts in at the same time that Mu Qing says, “I will do my best.”
They stare at one another again. Feng Xin smiles and Mu Qing frowns.
This isn’t going to end well, is it?
ꨄꨄ
And it all goes downhill when Feng Xin gets sick the summer Xie Lian turns sixteen.
Xie Lian and his parents have gone away on something akin to a family trip, leaving even Xie Lian’s two most trusted servants behind. Feng Xin is sure that there are other safety protocols in place, not to mention the fact that Xie Lian can absolutely protect himself.
For once, strangely, he’s too exhausted to find out.
He wakes up with a bone-deep weariness. He drags himself out of bed to change and eat breakfast, sweat beading on his brow as he forces one leg into his pants, followed by the other. His head pounds and spins, but he manages to force his shirt on.
Still aching, Feng Xin makes his way down to the training grounds. He tries to keep his back straight and his face neutral, even as the pain spirals up and down his spine. He wants to collapse.
Mu Qing is already there, going through his drills. He cuts an impressive figure with his saber, the wind blowing through the layers of his clothes, setting it fluttering. Feng Xin can’t help but pause to watch, mesmerized.
The trance is broken when Mu Qing snaps, “What are you staring at? You’re late.”
Feng Xin recovers quickly. “You’re just always embarrassingly early. You don’t have to give away that you have no fucking life.”
Mu Qing opens his mouth, but Feng Xin turns his back, busying himself with grabbing his bow from its usual spot and getting into position.
Targets line up in a neat row before him. Feng Xin pauses as he checks the string of his bow and examines the first arrow he picks up, waiting for his head to clear of the smoke and fog of pain.
It doesn’t work. Feng Xin rolls his shoulders, trying to push the feeling away. Futile, but better than nothing, he supposes.
He nocks his first arrow, closing one eye as he raises his bow. He lines up with the target, breathing deeply. Feng Xin tries to channel the right kind of calm necessary for shooting.
He manages, by some stroke of luck, to hit the bullseye. With a grin, he turns back to Mu Qing.
Then his eyes roll up to the back of his head and he sees nothing but darkness.
ꨄꨄꨄ
“Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot,” Feng Xin hears when he comes to slowly.
Everything is blurry and a little too dark. He tries to sit up, which causes his entire body to explode into starbursts of intense pain, so he gives up the endeavor.
“You fucking idiot. Don’t you dare move.” Then Feng Xin’s brain notices a few different things.
First of all, the bed he’s laying in is not his own. It smells different, like cherry blossoms and sun-warmed wood.
Second of all, he is currently not in possession of a shirt. He can’t fathom how that came to be.
Last of all, he knows that voice. He’d recognize it in any universe, in any form, at any time.
“Qing’er…?”
“Shut up. Do not speak. You big, stupid fucking moron. Go back to sleep. Given how sick you are, it shouldn’t be difficult.”
Annoyingly, Mu Qing is right. Feng Xin strains to keep his eyes open, but it’s a losing battle.
“Go to sleep,” Mu Qing says, and it must be his imagination, because his voice is tender and soft.
Feng Xin opens his mouth. The darkness swallows him whole.
ꨄꨄꨄꨄ
When Feng Xin wakes up again, sure that Mu Qing’s presence was nothing but a figment of his delirious imagination, he is met with the sight of Mu Qing sitting at his bedside again.
“Qing… Qing’er…” he manages to choke out. Mu Qing looks up.
“You’re awake?” Mu Qing asks at the same moment that Feng Xin says, “You took off my fucking shirt?”
Mu Qing instantly turns bright red. “Y-you fucking—! You were burning up, I had to do something! Weirdo!”
“How am I the weirdo?! You’re the one who took off my fucking shirt!”
“S-stop bringing it up! Enough! Back to sleep!”
In truth, Feng Xin is feeling sleepy once again, but he fights to stay awake. His eyes flutter closed, but he still manages to ask, “Why are you taking care of me?”
Mu Qing pauses from soaking a piece of cloth in the basin of water on the floor next to him. Dark hair falls into his eyes, but he ignores it. “Because. Go to sleep.”
Feng Xin is giving up, drifting back into oblivion, when he hears something else.
“Why do you hate me so much?”
And because he’s so out of his mind, his consciousness barely tethered to his body, he answers truthfully. “I don’t hate you, Qing’er.”
Mu Qing freezes, but Feng Xin doesn’t see it. He can only mumble, “I like you, Mu Qing. You’re great.”
The cloth in Mu Qing’s hands drops. Feng Xin is already fast asleep.
ꨄꨄꨄꨄꨄ
Feng Xin can’t remember a single thing from when he was sick.
Which is inconvenient, because Mu Qing is acting unbelievably weird. As if Feng Xin said or did something that he wasn’t supposed to.
What could he have possibly done? He’d been sick , for heaven’s sake! There’s no way he could’ve done anything too drastic, right?
He would love to reason with Mu Qing and have a conversation about something Feng Xin may or may not have done. Unfortunately, they’ve never been the type of people to have civil and normal conversations. Entirely Feng Xin’s fault, he can concede that much.
But Mu Qing won’t even fight with Feng Xin, much less tell Feng Xin what’s on his mind. He’s at a total loss.
Well, not completely. Feng Xin has a plan.
Years and years of being around Mu Qing and Xie Lian has given Feng Xin a good idea of what Mu Qing is doing almost all the time. Currently, Feng Xin and Xie Lian are training, which means that Mu Qing should be back in Xie Lian’s room, taking care of arranging the robes for Xie Lian to wear when his parents visit in a few hours.
Feng Xin waits a few minutes before speaking. “Wait I— where’s my bow?"
Xie Lian turns to face him. “Your bow? Did you leave it in the room again?”
Feng Xin plasters an appropriately sheepish expression on his face. “I must’ve. Could I run back and grab it?”
“Take your time, A’Xin, it’s alright. I’ll be fine,” Xie Lian tells him evenly. His attention has already been absorbed by a new stack of training booklets set out by the cultivators of the mountain.
Feng Xin turns and walks as slowly as he can manage. Once he’s certain that Xie Lian can no longer see him, he breaks into a run.
Mu Qing jumps like a cat when Feng Xin slams the door open. Feng Xin waits for some kind of scathing comment or disgusted glare, but Mu Qing only points to where Feng Xin had left his bow propped up in the corner.
He ignores it, taking two steps closer to Mu Qing. This seems to startle the boy, who takes a singular step back, regarding Feng Xin warrily.
“What did I do?” Feng Xin asks, blunt and to the point.
Mu Qing’s eyes are still flat, devoid of emotion. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been ignoring me. And avoiding me. And you won’t fight with me. What did I do wrong?”
This time, Mu Qing lets out a soft scoff. “I won’t fight with you, and that makes you upset?”
Feng Xin doesn’t know what to say, so he sidesteps the comment. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did I do something when I was sick?”
Mu Qing stiffens, then turns. “No.”
“What did I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Mu Qing, why won’t you—”
“If you forgot, that’s on you! Leave me alone, Feng Xin!”
The outburst stuns Feng Xin, but not enough to make him give up.
Something in his mind clicks, making connections. He reads the defensive, upwards lift of Mu Qing’s shoulders and the curl of his fist beneath his sleeves and understands.
His voice softens. “I’m sorry for forgetting. Whatever I said… I…”
He isn’t sure where to go from there. Does Mu Qing want whatever it is he said to be true? He can’t get a read.
So he opts to say, “I’ll take accountability. Can we at least talk about it?”
Apparently, this was the right thing to say. Some of the tension leaves Mu Qing’s body, but it’s far from all of it.
“Tell me what I said. Please.”
“...”
Mu Qing takes a soft breath, then starts. “When you were sick, I took care of you.”
Feng Xin had guessed as much, but he doesn’t speak.
“And when you were sick, you… said some things.”
“Like?”
“Like…” Mu Qing’s fists tighten again. “You said you didn’t hate me. And that you… you liked me.”
Feng Xin isn’t sure whether to feel mortified or relieved. “Is that it?”
“Is— what do you mean is that it!” Mu Qing sputters. His familiar reaction makes Feng Xin smile.
“I mean, is that it? I thought it would be worse, judging by your reaction,” Feng Xin responds. His smile fades as another thought occurs to him.
“Is… Mu Qing, does it really horrify you that much that I might like you?” Feng Xin can’t keep the slight waver from his voice.
“That’s not it.” Mu Qing still refuses to look at Feng Xin.
“Then what is it?”
“Shouldn’t you be going back to Dianxia?”
“Tell me what it is?”
“He’ll get worried.”
“Dianxia won’t notice, I promise. Now tell me.”
“Why are you so obnoxi—”
“Tell me.”
“I will not —”
“Tell me.”
“Fine!” Mu Qing explodes, and Feng Xin has to smile. He knows Mu Qing too well.
“I… it was… because I like you, Feng Xin!”
His face freezes once again. Clearly, he doesn’t know Mu Qing as well as he thought.
“You what ?”
Mu Qing’s ears are red. Feng Xin can feel his own face heating up.
“Like… you like like me?”
“And you don’t. Right, Feng Xin?” Mu Qing says, speaking as coldly as if he’s rejecting Feng Xin.
“How would you know? Have you ever asked?”
“Just based on the way you act around me. Like you hate me,” Mu Qing informs Feng Xin. “I don’t believe what you said?”
“It was the truth,” Feng Xin insists, surprising himself. Because he believes the words he’s saying, and he wants Mu Qing to do the same.
“Sure,” Mu Qing snorts. “I’d rather you not lord this over me. There’s no need for me to have to tread lightly around you because of what you forced me to tell you. So if you could just—”
“Let me prove it.”
Mu Qing whips around finally, eyes wide. “What the hell are you saying?”
“I said, let me prove it. Let me prove that I lo— like you.”
Mu Qing’s expression flickers through too many emotions for Feng Xin to keep track of before shutting back down. “Stop it, Feng Xin.”
“You won’t listen to me, so let me show you.”
Feng Xin steps closer. Mu Qing doesn’t step back. Feng Xin moves closer again and again, but Mu Qing never steps back.
His face is red now, he feels it, but he doesn’t stop. He closes the distance with one more step.
Mu Qing’s eyes are squeezed shut. Embarrassed, Feng Xin does the same. He holds his breath, feeling his confidence drain out of him.
By some miracle of fate, Feng Xin manages to force himself to lean forward enough to tap his lips against Mu Qing’s lips.
It’s a graceless, awkward, stiff first kiss, but it’s a first kiss nonetheless. And with Mu Qing. This is a reality Feng Xin never could have imagined.
Slowly, Feng Xin reels back, blinking his eyes open. Mu Qing’s lips are slightly parted, one finger pressed against them, brows furrowed as he opens his own eyes slowly.
Somehow, Mu Qing turns even redder than he was. Feng Xin has always thought of Mu Qing as the moon, but in this moment, he looks much more like a fiery sun. “I-Idiot! What the hell was that?!”
“Do you believe me now?” Feng Xin questions stubbornly.
“Idiot! Idiot!” Mu Qing repeats. “You— Feng Xin!”
“Mu Qing!” Feng Xin chirps back.
“Idiot!” is all Mu Qing says. Feng Xin grins, relieved. Something in Mu Qing’s face tells Feng Xin that this whole interaction isn’t going as badly as he thought it was.
“So? Do you believe me?”
“So what if I do?”
“Mu Qing, will you let me kiss you again?”
“N- of course not! N-not in Dianxia’s room!”
Feng Xin huffs a laugh. “Will you let me kiss you in the orchard?”
“…”
“Or the training grounds?”
“M-maybe—”
“Or the hallways?”
“Feng Xin!”
“The dining halls, then.”
“Idiot! Shut up!”
“Dianxia’s room again it is.”
This time, when Feng Xin steps close and leans in, Mu Qing is right there to meet him halfway.