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Chase Young had never had cause to soften his approach.
He was the immortal prince of darkness. A tyrannical evil warlord. The master of evil. The guy who makes your lower lip quiver. In short, he had a certain reputation. It behooved him to present a severe veneer to remind others of their places beneath him. Even idling with his so-called associates during alliances with fellow Heylin villains did not allow him the ease of true camaraderie and careless laughter, as he needed to mask the nature of his own true intentions and keep his guard up even more around the other villains than anyone else. There was no honor among thieves. Any one of them would happily betray him at a moment’s notice, just as easily as he would do to any of them. The delicate balance of what brief alliances they sometimes formed would fall apart if they didn’t all censor their cynical thoughts from each other. Everything was a powerplay. Everything demanded strict, unyielding fronts.
His jungle cats glimpsed a certain tenderness, perhaps; but they were all fierce warriors in their own right, and Chase Young would occasionally show a respectful affection to the cats. But not quite gentleness. How could his servants retain the ways of a warrior, if they were pampered and cosseted by their master?
The last time he’d been soft was the last time he’d had anything resembling weakness in him. Soft enough to be torn or crushed or taken advantage of by some stale bean and his winged rat of a pet. Thanks to the Lao Mang Lone, there was no physical scar left of those events. The memories alone were enough to kill any part of Chase that had ever been soft enough to be damaged by Hannibal’s tricks or his “guidance.”
Chase Young wasn’t soft.
He couldn’t afford to be, and frankly didn’t care to be.
That was why, if a few months ago, someone had told Chase he’d be feeling something like fondness or a soft some— for some little Xiaolin monk, no less— he would have laughed it off and set his warriors on them.
Trite frivolities like that were only useful for drawing the weak-minded and soft-hearted (they were practically synonymous, weren’t they?) into their own doom, like moths to the flames. It was a useful tool to manipulate others with. Tenderness made people careless and irrational, and Chase could always use that.
…He had a soft spot for Dashi and Guan once. Chase told himself that he couldn’t remember the feeling. He recalled sparring matches that stretched on for days. He reminisced on jianzi games that were drawn out for hours. He remembered laughter that seemed like it echoed into eternity. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t.
Guan and Dashi. The two of them were everything Chase had ever believed in at some point. He had thrown it away so easily that in hindsight, he might have never believed in anything at all, back then. Not enough, at least.
That was centuries ago. The man who existed then did not exist anywhere anymore, especially not within Chase.
Not even a vestige of it.
He’d insist on the truth of that, even right now.
Sharp claws stroked gently across a bald head, scales gently grazing soft, soft skin. Against him lay a little monk passed out from the exhaustion of training, sighing at the bit of physical affection from his training partner. This child usually kept up his guard better than this, especially around Chase Young. Against Chase Young, who was all armored scales and blood-stained fangs and raking claws, this little monk had curled up on him like he was a downy blanket.
This child was the type who would claim that he had nothing soft or vulnerable to him, that he was all unassailable sharpness and raw power. There was a sort of mirror this child held to Chase Young, just by nature of his being. Chase wasn’t always sure how to feel about the things he saw reflected back at him so naturally in everything this little monk did.
The clawed hand patting the child’s head strayed down to cup his cheek, only to pinch it between his fingers and thumb. Baby fat squished in the pads of his fingertips for just a moment, before the child abruptly jolted back awake and shoved away in alertness, taking up a fighting stance and sharpening his glare. As much as Chase respected the little warrior, some part of him couldn’t help but feel that he looked a little silly, acting so tough and being so unshakably soft. The same part of him that may have acknowledged in the back of his mind that he was, once again, looking into a mirror.
Chase heard a shock of laughter that may have come from himself, somehow.
Well, perhaps that echo hadn’t entirely quieted down. Not yet.