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It was the worst Jinshi had slept since he was twelve and was deathly sick for a week.
He knew that he did something wrong. He knew he did. The look in his wife’s eyes though… every time he remembered it, it made his heart shudder with want and love and regret. He knew he did something wrong.
The thing was, he loved her. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt for someone. Jinshi loved her like the way he breathed, the way his heart beat— unwillingly, unwittingly, and unceasingly. He loved her to the point that he’d give up everything he’d built to be with her. He’d become the Emperor for her if she’d just asked.
The thing was, he hated that they were married this way.
Jinshi loved her. He loved their marriage and that she was his wife, but he hated that it was arranged. There was little hope that she’d fall for him; Jinshi was too… much. Too loud, too whiny, too impractical. They were married, but it wasn’t a love match. She didn’t want him the way he’d grown to want her.
He daren’t hope so, at least.
Suiren knocked on his door at the same time she used to when he didn’t sleep in the marital chamber. Their room, more like, since they never consummated in there. They had slept there every night, next to each other, since they got married.
Not last night, Jinshi realized with a pang. We didn’t sleep next to each other because I walked out. Because I couldn’t handle my own feelings.
“Young master?” Suiren had come in, and with a tray of breakfast, if he could judge by the rattling noise of porcelain on wood. She set the tray down on the table, sitting down on the chair by his bed. Gentle hands brushed the hair away from his face. “Oh, my dear,” she said softly. “You haven’t slept well, have you?” She hummed. “You’ve never slept well without your favourite toys.”
Jinshi stared at the ceiling. His eyes ached. “She’s more than my favourite toy,” he said hoarsely. “I love her.”
“So why did you leave her?” Suiren helped him sit up, handing him a cup of tea. “If you love her, why aren’t you with her?”
He stared at the cup in his hands, unsure of what to do with it while his mind tried to remember why he wasn’t with his beloved. “Last night, she educated me on… some things,” Jinshi said slowly.
Suiren nodded. “She taught you a lesson on pleasure.” She looked at him for a moment, and nodded again. “You got aroused.”
Well, yeah, but he wasn’t about to say that. Jinshi flushed. “Yes,” he said, trying to sound somewhat dignified about it. It never worked, around Suiren. “And she offered to… help me. But I refused.”
“Now, why would you do that?” Suiren had a twinkle in her eye. “Must be a crazy reason, if the woman you love was offering to pleasure you and you refused her.”
“It felt like…” Jinshi swallowed; his throat was dry, and he hated it. “It felt like she was only offering because she thought it was her duty to, as my wife. She said so herself, that she was the only one who could do so. And I wanted— whatever that would transpire between us— to happen out of love. We already were arranged to be together. I want… I want it to come from fondness, at least. I don’t want to force myself upon her, or have her think I expect it from her because we’re married.”
Suiren looked at him reproachfully. “Did you ask her how she felt on the matter?” she asked.
“Would it matter?” Jinshi countered. “She says whatever she thinks I want to hear, bar some occasions. She’s not exactly the type to speak her mind.”
“You could still ask her,” Suiren said. “Maybe you only need to give her a chance to say what she needs to say, and say what you need to hear. Maybe that’s all, and you’re making a problem out of nothing.”
Jinshi considered the tea in his hands again. “I don’t want her to feel like I expect something from her when I ask,” he said. “I don’t know. I’ve never… felt this way. For anyone.”
“It’s clear.” Suiren sighed, picking up a comb to run through his hair. “Well, young master, get dressed. You have someone who wants to talk to you.”
He froze. “My…?”
“Not Xiaomao, no.” She tucked his hair into a bun and wrapped his usual fabric around it, patting his shoulders when she was done. “Gyokuyou-sama asked for a private audience with you and Gaoshun. You’d do well to attend.”
“I will,” Jinshi sighed. “Do you know what it’s about?”
“She said something about personal matters.” Suiren pulled him to his feet and looked at him; Jinshi looked down, and for a moment, he realized how small sh’ed become. She used to be his entire world. “She said to bring good alcohol and an open mind.”
Jinshi exhaled. “Alright.” He glanced towards the door. “Is my wife still here?”
“She was gone by the time I checked your marital chamber,” Suiren reported. “She said that she was going to spend the day with Ah Duo-sama.”
He nodded, his jaw tight. “Thank you.”
After he got dressed, Jinshi took Gaoshun and made his way to the Jade Pavilion, shocked to find his private audience with the consort to be more private than he imagined. None of her ladies in waiting were there.
“Gyokuyou-sama,” he greeted, bowing. “How may I help you today?”
Lady Gyokuyou smiled sweetly at him. “I heard that you had a little secret,” she cooed. Jinshi instinctually stiffened. “Gaoshun, would you be a dear and close the door?”
Jinshi watched Gaoshun shut and bar it, hackles raising. What a traitor. At Lady Gyokuyou’s invitation, he sat down at the table and waited for her to reveal what she knew. Or what she thought she knew. Sometimes, consorts get false information about him that they think would get them somewhere, but he never pinned Lady Gyokuyou as the type to get involved with something like that.
“I found Maomao recently,” she said, “with a ring on her finger. An identical match for the one you’re wearing right now, actually, so thank you for the help.”
Jinshi’s shoulders raised. Crap.
“And if you two are secretly married, with our dear apothecary as the moon prince’s consort…” Lady Gyokuyou’s smile widened. “Then you must be her husband, the prince.”
Was it worth pretending not to be who he was?
Jinshi thought to his wife, who he’d never want to deny was his wife. And then to the ring on his finger that he’d forgotten to take off in his rush to get here and solve the problem as quickly as possible so he could go home and sulk.
Nah.
“So what if I am?” Jinshi said, crossing his arms. “As I am here, I am Jinshi, the eunuch, with only the desire to help ease your concerns.”
The consort hummed. “Well, my current concern is that Maomao seems a tad lonely, and since you two are married anyway, I want the two of you to be truly together! The palace isn’t known for its romance other than the coupling of the Emperor and his consorts, so it’d be lovely to have someone be in love around here.”
Jinshi wanted to cry. He left his home to escape from his feelings and now someone was telling him to face them and embrace them and that it’d be nice?
“Fortunately for you, Gyokuyou-sama, Jinshi-sama is already painfully aware that he’s in love with his wife,” Gaoshun said, completely out of nowhere.
Traitor.
Lady Gyokuyou clapped delightedly. “Oh, that’s perfect!” she said. “Gaoshun, did you bring the alcohol?”
“The finest,” Jinshi’s attendant said.
Jinshi realized too late that this was an ambush.
Maomao hummed as she walked towards her little workshop, basking in the light of the setting sun. She had spent the entire day talking to Ah Duo, wondering where she went wrong or what Jinshi did wrong or what the both of them did wrong, drank a fair amount of booze, cried a little, took a nap with her head in the consort’s lap, and eventually got sent home to ‘relax and recuperate’. She hadn’t intended to, because she wanted to work on some testing, but as she opened the door, she guessed she wasn’t going to relax nor recuperate either way.
Because sitting in his favourite chair, curled up under a patch of sunlight, was her husband.
Crying.
He had looked up at the sound of the door opening, and somehow, amidst his crying, found it in him to light up at the sight of her.
“My darling!” Jinshi tried to get up, but lost his balance and fell over. He stuck his arms out instead, like a child waiting to be carried. “I missed you!”
Ah, Maomao thought. So he was drunk.
She sighed and made her way over to let him wrap his arms around her. No matter what he did, it was technically her job to comfort him. She was his wife, after all, even if he refused her advances.
In Jinshi’s arms, she was lifted to his lap and held close to his chest like something precious.
“… ‘aomao,” she heard him mumble sadly. “I did a bad thing and I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad. I love you too much so please don’t be mad.”
Maomao froze. He. Did not just say that. He didn’t. He shouldn’t have.
He did.
Jinshi’s cheek pressed to the crown of her head. “I love you, but I can never say it to you because I know you don’t love me back.” He sniffed. “Cause you never had a say in being here. And you never had a say in marrying me. It’s a miracle you don’t hate me, that you let me do as much as you let me do already.”
She lifted her head and looked at her husband full in the face. “You’re my husband, Jinshi-sama,” Maomao said, not sure why she was trying to reason with an unreasonable drunk. “Of course I’d let you do what you wished.”
“But I don’t want you to let me do anything you don’t want to do or have done to you because I’m your husband,” Jinshi retorted, nose wrinkling sadly. How did he manage to do that…? “I want you to want to do those things as well. Because you want to, as yourself, not as my wife or as a princess or whatever it is.”
Maomao felt his hand bring her closer to him. “Jinshi-sama…”
“Do you think you’ll ever love me?” he whispered. “Would you ever consider— loving me? No, that’s a big ask. Would you— do you think you’d ever be fond of me? Or… care for me at all?”
She brushed his bangs away from his face, trying to keep her touch feather-light. She didn’t know what to say. She certainly didn’t know what she felt.
“You’re drunk, Jinshi-sama,” Maomao settled on saying. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“I love you,” he warbled.
Maomao exhaled slowly. “I know.”