Work Text:
It’s raining.
Surrounded by the dissonance of falling drops meeting shining tar, two rivals-turned-friends sit beside each other. There’s a bottle of cheap liquor balanced between them, already half empty, resting on the floor of an overhanging balcony.
Beneath them, a car honks as the man within curses, his profanities dispersing into the settling night like puffs of warm breath.
The clouds above split open and pour the sky onto the ground, one piece after another, painting tranquility into the city’s bustle.
China is most beautiful at night.
Mu Qing tips his head back against the window glass. The only light comes from the neon around him, pulsing in flashing glimpses of pinks and blues, catching on the pooling rainwater. His apartment balcony is just the right size for two rather tall men to sit comfortably, an inch shy of touching. To his left, Feng Xin lifts the bottle to his lips and sets it back down with a quiet clink. Their rare silence has been amicable.
Mu Qing can already feel the alcohol in his system. His brain is working slower, eyes unconsciously drifting to his left now and again, catching and memorising the sight of Feng Xin.
Even when they were younger, he had always been an eye-catcher. Now in his twenties, having lost all the remnants of baby fat that clung on at 15, he looks more alluring than ever.
Mu Qing feels his throat close up a little. To compensate, he grabs the bottle and tips it back almost aggressively, the small part of his brain that he keeps locked away whispering about how Feng Xin’s mouth had been on it only moments ago.
He has long since accepted what can never be. Grieves it, almost, when the bottle lands with a ringing clang as he closes his eyes.
Has it already been 10 years?
In the dim recesses of a mind inhibited by booze, Mu Qing tries to remember how they had met, once upon a time. There was some shouting, a scuffle of painful sorts, and many vitriolic words from either end. Xie Lian had broken them up with a bout of pointed coughs and a hand on each back.
By the end of it, they both sported matching bruises and split lips, accompanied by the most terrible first impressions of each other.
Mu Qing smiles at the memory. Their friendship hadn’t come easy.
All through high school their relationship had been tumultuous, littered with arguments over nothing and petty fights that Xie Lian had had to break up over and over.
But with time came maturity, and by university the two had finally reached a sort of mutual agreement, neither so willing to tear the other apart for the smallest things anymore.
Sometimes, though, when Mu Qing rolls his eyes one too many times, Feng Xin still leans over to pinch him. The fights that came after always felt a little like home, warm in their familiarity and constant in their presence.
The warmth of liquor in him fights against the cooling air. His mind hums pleasantly. Feng Xin is here, and it’s on these rare, stolen nights that Mu Qing lets himself loosen just a little.
He had spent so long cultivating an image of an ice-cold man. It was hard to let down the walls that surrounded his heart. Harder, still, was to continue pretending he didn’t care for anyone beyond himself.
His problem had always been that he cared too much; about his mother, his reputation, the people that surrounded him who he wanted nothing more than to call ‘friends’. This fervent desire to prove that he wasn’t as selfish as he presented drove itself into an immovable wall. He had never learnt how to openly care, and so all his goodwill had been misread.
Time and time again, his actions had led to hurt. Time and time again, he would fall victim to their blame.
Stewing in thoughts too far out of reach for even a sober self, Mu Qing opens his eyes again. When greeted with a soft breath of frigid wind and rain, the stifling feeling within subsides.
The rain seems to wash away his past. From his beginnings in the slums to his mother’s early passing, all could be forgotten and borne away by the drops. The world was unkind, and in turn, so became he.
But the little child in him, hidden behind curtains of ice and cynical defenses, still desperately only wanted to pick cherries under the sun, wicker basket in arm, and have someone to love and be loved by. His deepest, most shameful desire was merely to be cared for.
In the drizzling embrace of rain and night, it’s easy to pretend he is.
A soft sigh to his left distracts him from his musings. Mu Qing glances at Feng Xin from the corner of his eye, only to find him already staring back. A surge of that well familiar self-consciousness prickles through him.
“Do I have something on my face?” he asks. Much to his shame, his voice comes out far softer than intended. At its pathetic tone, he rolls his eyes and looks away.
Feng Xin hums noncommittally. “Yeah,” he says eventually, “a whole lot of prettiness.”
And oh, how that hurts. It’s the surest sign all night that he’s had too much to drink. Mu Qing feels his heart clench around itself, and a brief wave of pain washes over him. His mask cracks a little as a semblance of his longing trickles out.
The pause is awkward.
“I’m not a girl,” is all he says in return, glad to find his voice as cold as it should’ve been. For safety, he rolls his eyes once more.
Feng Xin pauses. His eyes rake over Mu Qing’s hunched over form. “Handsomeness, then,” he replies. He scooches over and leans his head on a cold shoulder, completely missing the way it tenses under him.
“You’re drunk.”
“And you’re prandsome.”
“Prandsome?” Mu Qing echoes. “Is that an insult?”
“No. It means pretty and handsome,” Feng Xin says. And perhaps it’s the booze, or perhaps it's a mellowness lent from the rain, but his voice sounds gentler than usual.
“No, but okay,” Mu Qing murmurs, so quietly the rushing traffic beneath them swallows it up almost instantly. Feng Xin breathes softly against his neck. Unbidden, his own head tilts as well.
They sit like that for a while, one leaning on the other, watching the city go by. The rain continues to fall, pittering and pattering like soft footfalls against the balcony roof. The bottle of wine is almost empty. Feng Xin pokes Mu Qing’s side, grumbling when his hand is pushed away. “Hey, Mu Qing,” he says.
“What is it?” comes the reply, a little slower, a little more slurred.
“Why did you leave?”
At once the serene atmosphere crumbles apart.
Mu Qing closes his eyes. The knee-jerk reaction to snap back rears its ugly head. “Why should I have stayed?” he counters. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wants to slap them back in. “No, no.” Not for the first time that night, he curses the alcohol in his blood.
His brain feels like it’s crawling through thick spider webs and grasping at mist. Feng Xin doesn’t speak. His breathing is even, almost as though he’s asleep— but the steady tapping of his index finger against his thigh betrays his wakefulness. Mu Qing lifts his head and sighs, letting it fall back and hit against the glass window.
Why had he left? In the years after Xie Lian’s expulsion, he and Feng Xin had fallen from grace as well. From the talented fencing prodigies had sprung two young men: one a pariah, the other his servant. From the province’s best archer had bloomed a young man insistent on falling as well, shackled by his own loyalty and deemed guilty by association.
Mu Qing and Feng Xin had followed Xie Lian for almost a year, both leaving their families to look after him and his ailing parents. Having grown up in poverty, Mu Qing was no stranger to grime or hardship. Perhaps it was under this assumption that the others had thought him suitable to play servant. He was tasked with almost everything; washing their clothes, acquiring and cooking their food, busking on the streets illegally to earn what little money they could. For months they roamed, vagrants in the same place they had grown up.
It was hard, thankless work. Waking each day to the sharp pains of an empty stomach, falling asleep under the sky with no blankets in the midst of winter— eventually, it had all become too much.
Mu Qing had been first to leave. With the sickness of his mother and the end of her life looming, he naturally chose to go back and look after her over labouring day and night for what he’d thought of as a hopeless case.
Xie Lian had let him go without fuss. In the deep depths of his mind, Mu Qing had felt a bitter disappointment at this. Even in their last moments together, they couldn’t acknowledge him for what he’d sacrificed, couldn’t even look him in the eye. A man who had escaped hell once would never go back willingly. Similarly, a man who insisted upon staying on a sinking ship could only be described as a fool. And Mu Qing had never been a fool.
So he’d left.
“Why should I have stayed?” Mu Qing says again, this time quieter, a little slower. “I was only 17, too. I had my whole life ahead of me, but instead I was looking after you all. And we kept arguing, it was so pointless, so damn futile. You weren’t even grateful.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. The pause stretches before he continues.
“And my mother… She was getting old herself, older than Xie Lian’s parents. How could I leave her? You were my friends, but she was my family. The only family I had left.” He freezes at the words spilling off his tongue, mentally berating himself for the damning transparency he is flaunting.
Feng Xin lifts his head off Mu Qing’s shoulder and stares him in the eyes. In the dark, his pupils are blown wide, irises more black than gold. “You never told me about your mother.”
Mu Qing scrunches his nose and looks away, gaze finding a home on a silver butterfly resting on the railing. “Didn’t I?”
He wants to laugh at the absurdity of the thought. What good would it have done to have told them? Would you have helped? Would you have cared? The butterfly flits its wings, flapping lazily. It seems to be waiting out the storm, comfortable under the shelter of a roof. What right did you have to know?
“What’s she like?” Feng Xin’s voice is low in the evening, barely audible over the sounds of rain and bustling cityscape. His naive words pull Mu Qing out of the bitter storm in his head.
“Mm. She died shortly after I went back,” he says flatly. Embarrassingly, the back of his eyes are starting to burn. Damned alcohol, damned thrice over. “She taught me everything she could. How to write and read, how to sew, how to cook and clean. My mother… She was a seamstress. She liked cherries best of all, but could never afford them.”
“I owe her a lot,” goes unsaid.
Feng Xin is silent when he finishes. Between them lingers a sort of truce, fragile in its youth. “I’m sorry,” he says in the end. “She sounded lovely.”
“She was. In eighth grade, when you caught me picking cherries from the school’s trees after Xie Lian lost his earring, you called me a thief. The cherries were for her, and any of the other street kids I used to play with,” Mu Qing says expressionlessly, turning away again. An age-old anger swirls in him at the memory.
“You remember that?” Feng Xin asks, disbelief written across his handsome features.
“It’s hard to not.” For some reason, he’s always been able to remember small things, and because of it, held grudges that rarely dissipated. His bitterness came from the memories he couldn’t forget.
Feng Xin inhales sharply. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I was an idiot back then.”
Mu Qing turns his head fully towards him at the apology. This isn’t something they do. They hit and curse at each other until they grow tired, then continue living peacefully until the next disagreement, but they don’t ever say sorry. Such a simple word is unheard of when in the company of the other, and the confusion shakes any last dregs of hurt from the front of his mind.
Outwardly, he only sneers and says, “Still are.” He grabs the bottle and tips it back fully, enjoying the way it burns down his throat. The last few drops linger in his mouth, chasing away the sourness that had crept up. When he sets the glass back down, it rings hollowly.
“Hey, Mu Qing,” Feng Xin says again. “Mu Qing.”
“What?”
The warmth in his brain is so easy to fall into. Mu Qing knows he hasn’t had enough wine to justify a blackout, but he feels the itching temptation of pretending to anyway. He could tell the truth tonight and then deny it all tomorrow, continue being the sarcastic man he is known to be.
“Why’s your name so sad?” Feng Xin asks, lifting a hand and poking his cheek.
For a moment, Mu Qing doesn’t understand what he means, instinctively turning his head to bite the offending finger. He smiles when Feng Xin hisses and recoils playfully. Then the words make it through the thick haze blanketing his brain, bumping into all the buttons that warn something truly inane is about to be said. He rolls his eyes preemptively in preparation.
“To yearn for affection,” Feng Xin whispers, eyes flicking between his bitten finger and Mu Qing’s glittering eyes. “What would you do if you had it?”
Outwardly, Mu Qing scoffs. I don’t know, he wants to say. He wants to retreat back into his shell and look the other way, act deaf until the danger is averted or bite until it flees. I don’t know, because the only person who ever felt ‘affection’ for me died 6 years ago. Instead, he shrugs. “Pick cherries for them.”
Feng Xin tilts his head and stares at him. There’s a small smile on his face. “Mu Qing. Mu Qing, Mu Qing, Mu Qing,” he chants, as if testing the taste of the words.
“Feng Xin. Feng Xin, Feng Xin, Feng Xin,” Mu Qing parrots.
“Yeah?”
“Just copying you.”
“Oh,” Feng Xin says. Then he smiles again, bright and dazzling against the backdrop of a dark sky. “I like your name. It reminds me of you.”
Mu Qing pauses. He sees Feng Xin’s earnest expression and snorts. “What else would it remind you of?” he snickers.
“Cherries also make me think of you. And swords, and the colour silver, and cats. I see you in a lot of things,” Feng Xin lists. “I like them all. You know, it’s funny, ’cause most people think I’m a dog guy. But I like cats more. Maybe because it feels like it means more when they actually trust you enough to let you come closer. They’re like you, in that way.”
God, he is a fool. The most wonderful fool. Mu Qing smiles, turning his face away. This fool is the only person capable of crushing his heart with kind words. If he closes his eyes and ignores the slight slurs joining every syllable, he can pretend these kind sentiments are more than the nonsensical ramblings of a drunk man.
“Mu Qing,” Feng Xin says again, tugging lightly on his sleeve until he looks at him again. “I like you. I really, really like you.”
Mu Qing freezes. The rain disappears, and it takes along with it the rest of the world. The universe shrinks to a small bubble that surrounds them. Feng Xin is still staring at him expectantly, eyebrows slightly furrowed as he watches for his reaction. Suddenly, the cool air warms over and the beating of his errant heart seems louder.
“No, you don’t,” Mu Qing says, and it comes out as a whisper.
The entire night had led up to this. How beautiful, how terrifying, to live out the moment he had so shamefully imagined for years.
“No you don’t, Feng Xin. Tomorrow, you’ll wake and you won’t remember any of this. You’ll yell at me for letting you drink too much, and then you’ll hang around me while I make breakfast and point out everything I do wrong. You’re drunk.” In his haste to avoid his own vulnerability, Mu Qing had forgotten that they no longer lived together.
He watches as Feng Xin’s face falls. “I won’t. I do like you. I’ve liked you since… I don’t know. A while. I just didn’t know how to tell you. You always looked so pissed whenever you saw me, I thought you’d hate me more.” He grins sheepishly. “I may be drunk, but I’m not such a lightweight that I’d start spewing random things over just half a bottle.”
Mu Qing laughs at the strange taste of his words. It’s a bitter, breathless sound, like the wind that gushes before rain. “Why are you telling me all this now?”
Feng Xin shrugs, smile turning sad. “Figured I might as well. I know you don’t like me back, but I thought I should make sure before I try to move on. It’s what the books always say, right? ‘If you love someone, tell them.’” He fidgets with his sleeves. “If you think I’m dumb or stupid, then go ahead and call me so. I don’t know why I started liking you, either.”
Silence permeates the air. Slowly, the sound of rain creeps back in. Mu Qing exhales softly. He feels as though he’s standing on the edge of an eroding cliff, unknowing of how far he’ll fall but more scared of its ticking inevitability.
So he gathers his courage and takes a few small steps forward, pushing himself off the rocks and embracing the thrill of gravity. At least he can blame it on the wine.
“I don’t think you’re dumb or stupid. I say it a lot but I don’t really mean it,” he says, turning away at the awkward words. The cars beneath them have clustered into a jam, a sea of red blanketing the roads. “I’m selfish and cold, and I won’t change for you. Don’t say you like me.”
Unexpectedly, Feng Xin laughs. Not loudly, and not happily, but it’s such a beautiful sound that Mu Qing cannot help but stare. “You’re not selfish, A-Qing. You’re the least selfish person I know,” he says, a soft grin once again gracing his noble features.
“I know you volunteer at the shelter every Thursday, and I know how much you try to help others. I know how you used to make dinner even when it wasn’t your turn, back when we roomed during university– even when you’d roll your eyes and say that it was takeout.
“I know how hard you worked, not just to keep yourself alive, but the rest of us, too. You’re a lot of things, but you’re far from selfish and cold. Fuck, I lied earlier. I know exactly why I started liking you, why I still do.” Feng Xin’s eyes widen, his own realisations piling onto eachother.
His mouth never stops running.
“You’re the one constant I’ve had these last 10 years. Even when we argued, even when you left, you never stopped caring. I remember when you showed up with rice you’d stolen from the family you were working for. I remember throwing it back at you.
“God, how can you even bear to look at me? I assumed the worst of you at my own worst moment. I’m such a fucking hypocrite.”
Mu Qing feels a dazed sort of panic settle over him. Even worse, his cheeks are heating up faster than he can bite back. “Shut up. Just- just shut up for a second. Don’t say that.”
Feng Xin falls silent. He looks away. “Look, I really don’t expect you to like me back-”
“Shut up, I said!” Mu Qing feels a growing headache entirely unrelated to the wine. A dizzying joy settles over him, but it’s quickly chased away by a bitter voice. Silly boy, it says, you really believe him? It must be a dare, or a prank. Or perhaps he’s just drunk, too far out of it to even understand what he’s saying. The thoughts running in his head squash any excitement that had been building, breathing fear into its place.
“I can smell you overthinking.”
He slaps Feng Xin lightly.
“Ow. Rude. I’m trying to pour my heart out to you, and here you are hitting me.”
Mu Qing looks up through a sheen of blur. He blinks rapidly, but the layer of film won’t go away.
“Shit, A-Qing, are you… crying?” Feng Xin asks hesitantly. A warm hand comes up to cup his face, thumb brushing away a drop of wetness. “I’m sorry, forget I said anything-”
“No, you can’t take it back,” Mu Qing says weakly, hating how it comes out almost pleading. “And I’m not crying, either, so you can shut up. It’s just the wind in my eyes.” Feng Xin’s hand is so warm, almost scalding, a shield from the night’s chill.
But no warmth from the outside can thaw a cold that blooms from the inside. “You can’t like me, you stupid, stupid idiot. You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re drunk out of your goddamn mind.”
“Drunk words are sober thoughts,” the stubborn bastard says immediately. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.”
The neon lights surrounding them sprawl across Feng Xin’s handsome features, casting soft shadows and revealing the slight wetness in his own eyes. Mu Qing feels his breath catch again. When had he gotten so close? He can count every freckle that dusts his nose, every eyelash that flickers as his gaze drops.
“Tell me to stop if you want,” Feng Xin whispers. “Tell me to stop and I swear I will.”
Patience has never been something Mu Qing prides himself on. It hadn’t been 10 years ago when his fist first met Feng Xin’s jaw, and it certainly isn’t now. The world blurs dangerously, tipping on its axis.
Just this once, he can indulge himself. The alcohol cheers him on.
“You’re so fucking corny,” he says, before closing the gap himself.
Feng Xin tastes like wine and memories. His lips are soft in their feel and softer in their embrace. His hand comes up to rest against the back of Mu Qing’s neck, the other staying where it is on his face. It’s a chaste kiss, sweet and conveying none of the things Mu Qing wants to say.
It’s over and done within a matter of seconds.
The silence that falls after lasts for an indefinite time. A moment, a breath, perhaps a lifetime passes between the two, warm gold meeting steely onyx, sunlight filtering through cracks in fragile rock to find the hollow resting within.
Mu Qing’s heart is rabbiting, his mind messier than it’s been all evening. Thousands of thoughts race through his head, each less coherent than the last, until eventually settling on the one that screams loudest.
“Do you regret it yet?” He barely breathes. He prepares himself for the inevitable agreement, the words which will nail his coffin shut forever. But they never come. Instead, there is only the gentle scratching of fingers through his hair.
“No,” Feng Xin murmurs, confidently against the pulse of his neck. He gives a small chuckle, just a puff of air in the dark. “I could never regret you. Thank you for indulging me, Mu Qing.”
It’s these words, given so easily, that set his brain and heart alight.
“If you don’t want to talk about it anymore, that’s cool. I accept your rejection,” the fool says. He must be blind to miss the way Mu Qing’s face contorts.
“...Wait.” It’s a simple, single syllable. In the drizzling night, it hangs alone; tense, weak, and desperate. Feng Xin watches him expectantly. His gaze is a tender thing, a little sad at the corners, longing evident in the furrow of his brows.
“Yeah?”
“I just… kissed you. And you still think I’m rejecting you?” Mu Qing hates the way his voice wavers. He despises the hope he feels building within, loathes how weak it makes him. “You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought, Feng Xin.”
The man beside him tilts his head downwards, almost sheepish. “I am.”
“No, you don’t get it.” And there’s that familiar frustration he had missed so much. Only this time, it brings along a friend; a feeling that introduces itself as ‘joy’. Mu Qing breathes in deeply, closing his eyes against the new emotions. It smells like night, and rain, and the warmth he’s come to associate with safety.
“It’s my turn, so be quiet and listen up— don’t make me repeat myself. I think you’re… good. You’re really good, Feng Xin. For the longest time, I wanted to be your f-f-friend. But I thought you looked down on me because— I don’t even know, my background?— and I hated you for it. I hated how you always made me feel like I had to prove I was worth looking at. But then I saw how loyal you were to Xie Lian, and I realised that maybe you weren’t such an asshole afterall. By then, though, you already seemed to hate me as much as I thought you did.”
He pauses for a breath, opening his eyes to find Feng Xin still staring, lips slightly parted as he listens.
“I thought I might as well just get your attention the only way I knew. So I’d roll my eyes at everything you said and pick fights all the time, just to have you look my way. Damnit, I don’t even know what I’m saying. I’m never drinking with you again.”
He wipes the back of his hand across his wet eyes. “Anyway, then you got with Jian Lan and I decided to just give up. But when you broke up with her, I was so happy. I told you, I’m selfish.”
Feng Xin frowns at the memory. “Oh. I thought you just found it funny that I was dumped.”
“No. Maybe, a little. Remember, we were just kids. I still hated you a bit for your brash words and all the new emotions you’d make me feel. But I’m not cruel enough to kick you when you’re down.” A small drop of hurt slides down his throat at the assumption. “But the point is… I’m just me, and on the other hand, you’re loyal, and handsome, and kind to everyone-”
“-but you. I was kind to everyone but you, and that was my first mistake.” Feng Xin sidles closer, pressing his warmth against Mu Qing’s shoulder. He reaches out a hand and tentatively touches the other’s. At the lack of resistance, he pulls it into his lap and starts gently massaging the long fingers. “I thought you were a prick, too, when we first met. But I also thought you were really unfairly good-looking.”
Mu Qing cracks a half smile, eyes on where his hand is held in Feng Xin’s. “Prandsome?”
“The prandsomest.”
The rain falls lighter. It almost seems to be breathing with them.
They sit in silence for a while, both lost in thoughts and old memories that had spanned over a decade. Eventually, it’s Feng Xin who breaks the silence.
“So. Was that an ‘I-like-you-too’?”
Ever the dimwit, this silly, silly man. “Maybe.”
“Knowing you, that’s a yes.” Feng Xin pulls him closer, dropping his head to the curve where Mu Qing’s neck and shoulder join. His breaths tickle feather-light against his throat.
Mu Qing hums happily. How simple it is to relax in another’s embrace, how foolishly difficult he had convinced himself it would be. His misgivings fade a little. “I won’t change. I’m still going to roll my eyes all the time and cook your eggs wrong on purpose.”
Feng Xin huffs a laugh against his neck, simple and genuine. “Good. I like them that way. I like you that way.” Oh, how easily such words flow from his silver tongue. “I never looked down on you. I’ve always thought of you as my ‘f-f-friend.’ And I know Xie Lian did too.” He presses a light kiss to Mu Qing’s collarbone, hidden under the top of his shirt. “So then what are we?”
Mu Qing’s face twists, embarrassed. “You know what I want. Don’t ask stupid questions.”
Feng Xin laughs softly. “How long?”
“Hm?”
“How long have you liked me?”
Mu Qing shifts, thinking. He briefly considers lying. “Pretty much since we met. When we were 14,” he eventually mutters. His cheeks are warm again. Come to think of it, they’ve been warm the whole time.
Feng Xin lifts his head and gapes. “That long? I kept you waiting.”
Mu Qing smiles. He’s been doing it a lot this strange night. “Wasn’t waiting. Didn’t think I had anything to wait for.”
Feng Xin stares at him, eyes roving across his face as though trying to memorise it. “Your smile is lovely. You’re lovely. How did it take me so long to realise?”
“’Cause you’re dumb.” Mu Qing feels the telltale fog of drowsiness drifting across his brain. It must be around 11 already, and they had both been drinking. “What about you?” he asks sleepily, “how long?”
“Like I said earlier, I don’t know. It just crept up on me. I only realised when you left, how much you mattered to me and how much I cared. I’m sorry.”
It’s all he’s wanted to hear from anyone. An apology, an admittance of care, one or the other. Never did he expect to hear both from the same person, even less so for the person to be Feng Xin. He leans down and presses a soft kiss against cheek.
“Me, too.” He doesn’t know what exactly he’s apologising for, only that there is much to correct. But for the first time in a while, there is no fear in Mu Qing’s heart. The path from here will be one they travel together.
The evening has long since bled into night, the rain stopping gradually as the skies knit themselves back together. Below them the cars are fewer and sparse, the occasional red lights zooming along twisting roads.
In an hour, the two new lovers will stand on shaky legs and walk back inside. Feng Xin will grab his jacket and pull his phone out to call a taxi, and Mu Qing will invite him to stay instead. He will accept, and they will fall asleep tangled in the arms of each other.
Come morning, they will wake to splitting headaches and extreme embarrassment, Mu Qing locking himself in the bathroom for half an hour as he scolds his own tongue. But they will both remember what had happened the night before, sitting above the city with the raindrops as their witnesses. Feng Xin will tease him for the brief appearance of a stutter in the word ‘friend’, and Mu Qing will scramble his eggs again.
For now, though, they are content to just lean against each other and watch the world turn. And if Mu Qing whispers an “I love you”, it’s quickly borne away and swallowed by the wind— just not before Feng Xin hears it and captures his lips once more.
[END]