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“I’m sorry, but it seems that we are overbooked for the night,” the woman at the counter said apologetically. “Something happened with our system on the day you booked a reservation, and we have reserved two less regular rooms for you on our end.”
Himeko and Kafka, who both stood in front of the counter, shot each other a look. This was definitely a big problem. In order to cut down on costs — for their stay here would last for quite some time — they had already tried to limit the number of rooms they were going to book.
Originally, they had planned to get six regular rooms — Stelle and March, along with Firefly and Silver Wolf, would be sharing a room each in their respective pairs. The rest had gotten rooms of their own for it was the most appropriate choice. (Blade and Dan Heng had refused to share a room.)
But with the situation at hand, it seemed that the four had to somehow figure out a way to share…
“Are there any other rooms we could get?” Himeko asked calmly.
“There’s just one Deluxe room left. I could get it for you at a regular room price, as an apology from our inn. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
There was a short silence that followed the lady’s words, and Himeko glanced over to the Stellaron Hunter to see what she was thinking. Surprisingly, there was a trace of a smirk on her face. It seemed that Kafka had thought of something.
Kafka then proceeded to shrug. “I guess that would work. We’ll take that.”
***
“You have to be kidding me,” Blade glared at Kafka as the woman happily dropped a key into his hands.
“You just got a free upgrade, is that not great?” Kafka raised her eyebrow. “A Deluxe room at regular room pricing.”
“...You’re expecting me to room with Dan Heng.”
Kafka grinned. “A bonus. The more the better.”
“Did you even ask him for his opinion?”
“Well, the Astral Express’ navigator gave me the green light, so I suppose he would be okay with it either way.”
Blade closed his eyes, resisting the urge to sigh. If he could, he would have argued more for his rights, however this was Kafka he was facing, and they would have to stand here all day for Blade to even have a smidge of a chance of winning this battle.
And unfortunately, he was too exhausted and rain-drenched from the mission just now, so he eventually begrudgingly accepted Kafka’s offer and headed up to the Deluxe room with an equally defeated Dan Heng. (It had seemed that Dan Heng had lost the war with Himeko too.)
Maybe Blade should have fought Kafka and Elio a little harder on the idea of working together with the Astral Express, but there was no turning back time now. He was stuck with Dan Heng, and he had to accept that.
Neither of them talked nor looked each other in the eye as they made their way to their room, a thick silence hanging between them. What filled the space was the burden of words that went unsaid, and could never be said, ever since their last interaction.
Dan Heng had promised to accompany Blade to the very end of his mission to put an end to both their lives, to bury both their undying bodies six feet under the ground forever. But now that Elio’s script required them to live, the chase was temporarily halted, and now there was nothing left between them.
Maybe the past might have bound them together with its threads of longing and hatred, but just like how Dan Heng was no longer Dan Feng, the high elder of Xianzhou Luofu, Blade was no longer the Yingxing that Dan Heng’s mind clung onto.
So they did not speak to each other. Not about the past, nor the present, or the future.
When they arrived at the door, Blade hesitated. He didn’t want to open the door to find out that there was only one bed that they would have to share — it would simply make the situation much more awkward than it already is.
Little did he know that Dan Heng was thinking about the same thing. After all, he knew it was a popular trope to get unwilling pairings together in many of the books that March 7th liked to read mindlessly. He wasn’t too keen about it happening to him.
But they couldn’t stand outside the door forever. Eventually, Blade had to tap their way in, opening the door to reveal—
—four beds?
It wasn’t something they had expected when they were told that they were going to have to share a room. Though, it wasn’t something to be unhappy about.
The room was definitely a Deluxe room, seeing as to how it was more of a penthouse than a normal hotel room. There were two floors, the first floor having a huge bathroom, a living room and a study. The second floor, albeit slightly smaller than the first floor, had enough space for four beds to line up in a neat row.
“Do you want to shower first?” Dan Heng asked Blade after staring up at the second floor for a while. It was such a normal, casual question to start off their first conversation in months. Maybe the mundanity of it was what made it sound weird to Blade’s ears.
Blade knew that he was trying to be courteous for he had spent longer out in the rain than Dan Heng had in the mission less than an hour ago, and he wasn’t going to argue with him about getting the shower first, so he agreed and hopped into the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, he stepped out of the shower, refreshed and ready for bed. He climbed the steps to the second floor to throw himself onto one of the many beds, only to find that Dan Heng had already claimed the one at the very end for his own.
His stillness signalled that he had already entered the realm of sleep, despite his clothes being soaked with rain.
Blade briefly wondered if he should wake the man and tell him that the shower’s open for use, but then decided against it. He didn’t want to think about the complications that may come with it.
So all he did was settle himself on the bed furthest away from Dan Heng’s one, and flipped the light switch to ready himself for the call of sleep.
***
Blade could feel it. A flame, licking at his wrist. The heat seemed to grow with each ticking second, wrapping around his arm like a vice before spreading through his limbs, then encroaching his body.
At first it was comforting, but soon it grew to the point it was akin to a raging fire, jolting him awake from the peace of temporary oblivion.
Reluctantly peeling his eyelids open, Blade slowly sat up on his bed, trying to figure out where the heat was coming from. It wasn’t until he looked at his wrist did he finally realise what was going on.
…He had forgotten to take his bracer off, like most nights.
Although Yingxing had died, and Blade made sure to leave him behind, Yingxing’s habits were still hard to quit. He had done away with most, such as ignoring the aching and the longing his body felt without someone by his side in bed, forcing himself to acknowledge the empty air that filled the space between his arms.
But habits such as wearing the bracer that Dan Feng and Yingxing shared to sleep was something he kept forgetting to forgo. He used to wear it so he could track Dan Heng down, but now that he wasn’t chasing Dan Heng anymore, what was the point?
He used to wonder why Dan Heng kept it on even though he had no reason to, but now, Blade was starting to understand why. Not fully or comprehensively, but at least he understood the compelling urge to keep it on.
But now that it was disturbing his sleep, there was no choice but to remove the bracer—
He paused when his finger grazed the warm strap, a new question surfacing in his mind. Why is it so hot anyway? What was Dan Heng doing?
Before he could even stop himself, his curiosity had him out of his bed, travelling the entire length of the hotel room’s second floor to get to Dan Heng’s side.
And there the man was, his figure lying restlessly in bed, blankets askew. His scrunched eyebrows disturbed the image of a peaceful slumber, limbs twitching every so often. Cold sweat dripped down his forehead as he tossed and turned, his mouth quietly mumbling incomprehensible sentences and words.
Blade could only catch so few.
“Blade… no… don’t… Yingxing… please…”
Those words almost made him step back and turn away, but he forced himself to ignore it and lean down to gingerly touch his forehead.
His cold palm came away hot.
Dan Heng was having a fever.
Blade couldn’t help but exhale a sigh. It must have been from the rain just now, and Dan Heng not showering or changing out of his drenched clothes must have worsened it.
But what was he going to do now? His immortal body has never been able to encounter a fever, and the rest of the Stellaron Hunters never asked him for help whenever they got sick. The last time he had dealt with this minor illness was aeons ago, back when this body still lived a life under the name of Yingxing…
Maybe he should just not bother. There was nothing between them but the broken past, and Blade had no incentive to help him. Would Dan Heng even want his help? He would think not.
Yet, just as he was about to retreat back to his bed, the hot pulse from his bracer made him stop.
Fuck.
In the end, he tried contacting the Astral Express for help — Stelle, mostly, since the numbers he had from the Astral Express was just Stelle’s and Dan Heng’s — but Stelle didn’t pick up. Most likely because she and March were already fast asleep.
Then he tried to reach out to the rest of his teammates, but just like the call to Stelle, no one answered.
So he had to turn to his final resort — which was to turn to the internet for help.
A bunch of questions into the search engine and a few scrolls later, Blade was well equipped with the knowledge to take care of the now sick Dan Heng. The only problem was actually doing it.
Which came the challenging first task. Getting Dan Heng out of his wet clothes.
After pacing the length of Dan Heng’s bed and wondering how he should go about doing this, he finally willed himself to reach down and slowly helped the man out of his clothes, removing article by article until he was able to strip the man down to his underwear.
He tried not to stare too hard at Dan Heng’s lean body and exposed skin, lest Yingxing’s memories and feelings of longing pierce through the surface of his mind again.
Rummaging through Dan Heng’s luggage, he was able to find some clothes that seemed like sleepwear, and quickly slipped it on for him.
By some miracle, Dan Heng did not wake throughout the entirety of that process, still trapped in whatever dream he seemed to be stuck in. So that called for the next and last step: Cooling his fever down.
After doing this, then he could go back to bed.
He went to the bathroom to grab a cloth and ran it under cool water, then returned to tuck Dan Heng in properly and gently placed the cloth onto his forehead.
That should do it, right?
The thought was cut off when he felt a hand clasp his own, preventing him from removing his hand from the cloth on Dan Heng’s forehead.
“Blade?” the man asked softly, and Blade could see his eyes flutter open and close, trying to make out the person before him despite his vision being addled by sleep and his fever.
Blade had thought that Dan Heng would immediately let him go after realising who was the person standing before him, but to his surprise, Dan Heng’s grip had tightened instead.
“W…wait. Don’t go. It’s… cold,” He muttered, pulling his arm down to hug it. It was then Blade realised that he also had been holding the bracer close to his chest all this time, his shivering body desperately clinging onto what little of Blade’s warmth it could provide. “I’m cold.”
“Hold on, you—” Blade tried tugging his hand out of Dan Heng’s embrace, but all it did was make Dan Heng pull him in further, almost making him stumble into his bed.
“Stay,” Dan Heng said, eyes half-lidded. “Please.”
A part of Blade wanted to give in so badly — after all, this is what Yingxing had craved eternally ever since their separation, but yet, all those years of hatred mixed within the throes of longing was what held him back.
“You don’t actually want this.”
“I’m sick, not drunk,” Dan Heng replied as he curled into himself, the cloth rolling off as he moved, but neither of them reached out to adjust it back onto his head. For a moment there, he did look pitiful. “…I’m going to freeze to death.”
So Blade gave in.
He climbed into his bed, and almost immediately Dan Heng buried his face into his shoulder, wrapping his arms around this new source of warmth. Gradually, he could feel Dan Heng relaxing in his hold, then slowly drifting off to sleep again, his breaths evening out, his restlessness and shivers fading away into the night.
For a time, Blade laid there, awake. He hated how he immediately noticed the way they so easily slotted against each other, falling into place so naturally as if they had done this ever since the start of time.
Now that his arms were filled again with the warmth of another — a person who belonged there — Blade couldn’t help but wonder if he would have to do away with Yingxing’s bad habits all over again after this night was over.
But it didn’t matter, did it? At least not in that moment, as he felt Dan Heng’s heartbeat against his own, pulsing its own rhythmic lullaby.
He let it lull him to sleep.
.
.
.
Extras
When Dan Heng stirred from sleep, he could feel another presence wrapped around his frame, foreign but not unwelcome.
Instinctively, he sunk deeper into the warmth, burying his face into the soft but defined pillow-like object right in front of his face, breathing in to fall back into oblivion—
A whiff of familiar red spider lilies set off an alarm in his brain, making him reel back.
This—
Right before him in his bed was Blade, the dangerous man who had been out for his blood for centuries on end, wrapping him into a gentle embrace.
Their hands were tightly intertwined together, the bracers on their arms thrumming against each other as if happy that they have been reunited as a pair.
Somehow, it was that sight that truly triggered a reaction out of Dan Heng, and without thinking, he pushed Blade out of the bed.
***
Blade had been rudely awoken by a rough shove which had sent him tumbling mercilessly to the ground.
He had immediately snapped awake, scrambling to get up to shoot a glare at the offender who was still on the bed.
Dan Heng returned the look, but his mussed hair and bleary-eyed expression diminished the threat in his eyes, making him look…
Blade refused to finish that thought, but it did not prevent an unfamiliar feeling, one that did not belong to him, from worming into his heart.
“Who was the one who begged me to stay last night? ‘I’m sick, not drunk’?” He imitated.
Something passed over the other’s eyes — he must have just remembered what had happened the night before. Dan Heng’s mouth opened, whether to rebut or admit that it happened, he would never know, for he closed it back again, pursing his lips together.
Then, a sigh. “Thanks. For taking care of me. I apologise if I put you in a tight spot last night.” The words were oddly formal and distant compared to how he had practically begged Blade to stay the night before.
Blade simply let out a grunt of acknowledgement and looked away.
There was no need for all that, he thought. He supposed the deed served them both — as much as he did not want to admit it, it was the most restful sleep Blade has ever had in centuries. And Dan Heng seemed much better now.
…Is he?
Blade glanced back at Dan Heng, who was busy staring off into space to recollect his consciousness. He showed no indication of discomfort, but Blade supposed he would never know if he did not ask or check.
There was no way he was going to ask, of course. That left him with only one option left. (Blade did not realise at that moment that he also had another option, which was to keep his hands off this entire thing altogether.)
Before he could decide against it, he stood up and reached out, lightly touching his forehead.
The man flinched, but surprisingly didn’t pull away, and let him check his temperature.
It was back to normal, just as he thought.
Why did he even bother? Blade quickly retracted his hand and turned around, stiffly walking away towards the bathroom.
No other words were exchanged between them after that. All that probably should have been said was left hanging in the air of the room, trapped in their relationship’s stifling tension.
***
“Hm?”
“What?” Himeko asked, eyeing Kafka. She seemed amused by something on her phone.
“Nothing,” the woman shrugged. “It’s just Blade called me last night. Which is peculiar because he would never use his phone unless necessary, much less reach out to me.”
“Do you think it could have been an emergency?” Himeko asked slowly, knowing fully well why Kafka couldn’t receive or answer the call last night was due to them… being busy.
It was the reason why Himeko was drinking her dark circles away with her specialty coffee. The Stellaron Hunter, on the other hand, was positively glowing.
Kafka hummed. “Or was it just because of a lovers’ spat?”
Possible. Blade might have not been able to endure rooming with Dan Heng last night and might have called her to insist on getting a separate room from him.
“Well, they don’t have to worry now, because— ah, speak of the devil.”
Himeko looked up just in time to see both Dan Heng and Blade entering the lobby to meet them at their agreed time. They seemed to be decidedly ignoring each other, but at least not as distant as the day before.
“Good morning,” Kafka greeted them. "Let's start the day off with good news, shall we? The hotel told me that another room got freed up, so you guys can split from tonight onwards.”
The two looked rather surprised. Dan Heng was the first to speak. “Oh.”
And that was that.
Himeko couldn’t help but exchange a look with Kafka — their response was not as enthusiastic as they would have expected. They instead looked… disappointed, almost.
Huh. Something must have happened.