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"I will no longer wait for you."
Daguanyuan, Hongyuan
A Certain Future
Reflecting upon that day, after Xichun's ascension to the seat of Family Hierarch, Lin Daiyu realised that she could not have said something more ridiculous.
On that very day, she had felt conflicted, angry, and all sorts of complicated emotions that she could not possibly parse at the time with a clear mind.
She had decided that she needed to stop waiting, and pursue a life of her own, unattached to Baoyu.
And then the month after, she found herself helping him with teaching Jia Xichun and one of his coworkers on how to survive Daguanyuan.
And then she found work continuing to advise the Hierarch as she worked to solidify her position in the politics of H Corp.
And then at some point she heard of Limbus Company accomplishing their goals, and maybe saving the world from a few rogue agents in Nagel und Hammer, and she wondered if Baoyu was still alive at that point.
She ignored the feeling that coiled in her stomach at the idea.
She kept working, focusing on matching Wei's steadfast advice in matters of navigating being the Hierarch. She assisted in board meetings, sat at Xichun's right hand as she presided over banquets, and put a few would-be assassins to the blade.
She refused to think too hard about how close Yihongyuan was to that banquet hall, and how Xichun occasionally looked at the darkened windows of the building from across the way.
Lin Daiyu was over Baoyu.
So why was she still worrying about him?
"Daiyu, I loved that day when we went out kiting together."
...What thoughts did Hong lu have for Lin Daiyu?
He hadn't really thought about it... not since that day where he accepted his fate.
He liked Daiyu. As a friend. They played games, flew kites, and...
Spent time together, and that was the most wonderful thing.
He loved spending time with her.
With Lin Daiyu.
And... the time he spent with Lin Daiyu when he returned to Hongyuan...
He didn't feel very much over the first few encounters he had with her. He didn't want to feel anything. He just wanted to look, and do what he was told.
He witnessed Daiyu, and...
She had grown from a child into a woman that Hong Lu was... struggling to not witness.
Her hair had darkened, but still contained strands of that blue colour that reminded him of cool water. She had acquired a robe with the same effect, and her eyes...
Her eyes were oceans. He spent a while observing her, while they were working together in the Hierarch Evaluations. She was amazing in combat, her every movement a flowing stream, unbroken and perfected, from years of training to become what she is now.
After that... when he descended to the Tiekan Temple and confronted the Xianren, and let the floodgates of his emotions open once more, he had a chance to talk once more with Daiyu. With nobody listening or watching, except himself.
She rejected the idea of waiting for him anymore.
...Hong Lu smiled. It hurt.
But he could do nothing except smile at that, because his close friend had decided to become her own person. And wasn't that good?
So why did he feel hurt by it?
He spent a month training his sister Xichun in surviving Hongyuan. When Daiyu read the lesson plan (because she was let go after Baochai no longer needed her), she decided that she had to assist, because in her own words,
"The moment I found out about the contents of his lesson plan, I simply could not allow him to do this alone."
And, well, he enjoyed working with Daiyu for that month. He worked very hard to explain what he felt to Xichun about reading a would-be poisoner, and what weapons to look out for, and how to know when to duck an assassin's blade.
And he read Daiyu's body language to do it. He read deeply into it, and... he didn't want to stop reading the way her face twisted slightly when she looked at him, the slight smile that she wore despite herself when meeting his gaze...
Hong Lu was new to dealing with these sorts of feelings.
That much was obvious to both him and everyone around him.
Fortunately, he didn't have to spend very long thinking about it. Simpler emotions could be reintroduced into his life, first.
First, there was the attack on Limbus Company HQ, and the counterattack on the House of Spiders. He remembered how to be angry, sad, and properly happy across all of that. Then, Limbus Company sent him to N Corp with the Sinners, and then across all sorts of places in order to recover the rest of the Golden Boughs.
Then there were all sorts of other adventures, and over the course of them, he slowly started adding more complex feelings to his repertoire. Making up for lost time. Pride, envy, grief...
Eventually, his contract with Limbus Company was complete, and he was let go with severance pay. It wasn't exactly too much money by his terms, but he considered the fact he got severance pay an accomplishment.
The last party with the Sinners before people started going their separate ways was a lot of fun. He travelled for a bit with a few of the other Sinners, like Don Quixote, until eventually coming to Hongyuan again. There, Don split off for a bit (she said something about opening a Fixer office in P Corp) and Hong Lu went for a long walk to Daguanyuan.
The place was in much better shape, if he was being honest to himself. It seemed like everyone had a room to themselves, and nobody had to worry about losing that room. He liked that. He didn't have to watch anyone falling, ever again. He was proud of Xichun.
But when he entered Daguanyuan, and walked to Yihongyuan, he found an unfamiliar emotion once again forming in his gut.
And he was asking himself questions. Did Daiyu really leave? Was she still around? Did she hear the news of his arrival?
And he knew the first question he was going to ask Xichun after how she was.
He arrived in his house, greeted Xiren (she was cold as before, which was sad)...
And halted in the middle of his house, because Xichun was standing there, and Daiyu at her other shoulder, next to Wei.
He greeted Xichun in the customary fashion for a Hierarch (and was promptly waved off because "you're my brother, you don't need to use all that to say 'hello'!"), exchanged well-wishes and briefly recounted some of his travels. After that...
Xichun looked at him strangely, said "I hope you enjoy your time here, brother. I have a meeting I must attend now.", and left, leaving Daiyu behind.
"That was my favorite game."
"… And mine as well."
"So... You've been well, Baoyu?"
"As well as I could manage, considering I am without a job, Daiyu."
"It's nice to finally see you again."
"I agree. You found your way back to Daguanyuan, then, after your travels?"
Daiyu shifted uncomfortably, her eyes darting away from Baoyu. "I... I never left, in the end. I've become a bit of an advisor and bodyguard to Xichun, but I'm terrible with her presentations, so it's no wonder she left me behind for this meeting."
Xichun didn't have a meeting on her schedule for today. Did something come up with the board and she needed to attend on short notice?
"Oh. You stayed for me?"
She couldn't find the words to answer that question. It came as a bit of a shock, really. Was he so presumptuous to think-
Did she really stay for him?
What is this feeling in her stomach, like snakes coiled up and wriggling?
"I... Your sister's done a good job of being the Hierarch."
"I had no doubt she would be. She had good people mentoring her, and advisors from different walks of life to keep her on the right path."
"She's growing into a lovely woman, as well. There are a group of determined young men that I have had to ward off from attempting to try and woo her."
"Oh, that seems unfortunate." Hong Lu frowned. It was one of those expressions he had mastered in his time. A way of expressing displeasure that was not merely verbal.
He tried to bring up the subject most on his mind, but she deflected. Did she... no longer like him, because he left her behind again?
"I had hoped to meet you again here, Daiyu. It's been a long time."
And a flush was playing across her face. She seemed... embarassed. Was he embarassing her? Being too forward? He might have to reconsider his approach to this conversation.
"...It has been a long time."
She looked him in the eyes again. Oh, those eyes. Looking at them was like diving into the Great Lakes and letting yourself be pulled down by a Whale. He was losing himself in those watery hues again-
"Baoyu?"
Hong Lu shook his head to break eye contact for a moment. "Yes, Daiyu?"
"I've been doing some thinking, just now."
This would be the moment, then. The moment that she says that she wasn't going to wait for him again. The moment that hurt he felt on that day would cut again.
"And?"
"And... I think that there is might have been a reason why I did not leave Daguanyuan like I said I would."
Hong Lu found himself experiencing a type of anticipation and hope he never thought he would feel in this moment. It was an overpowering torrent of tantalising what-ifs and potentialities coursing through his mind, swirling around the girl he could not say a word to for fear of hurting her.
"Baoyu... I think that I waited for you, again."
...
"Daiyu?"
She was obviously getting quite embarassed, with the way she couldn't meet his eyes and the flush around her cheeks was only intensifying.
"I waited for you, because I think that I care for you, Baoyu."
The snakes coiling in his stomach redoubled their writhing.
"Daiyu, are you meaning to say that..."
"I remember the way that I felt when I heard the news that Limbus Company had stopped Nagel und Hammer from killing a lot of people, and all I could think about was if you were okay, Baoyu. I think that I might care for you more than any other person in the City."
"Daiyu..."
"I thought about you too, Daiyu."
She finally met his eyes again, and they were filled with a set of confusing emotions that Hong Lu would have to spend several hours trying to decipher.
"Baoyu?"
"When you said that you weren't going to wait for me, back then, I felt... hurt. But I didn't know why, because I was only just remembering how to feel."
Hong Lu took a step closer to Daiyu.
"But I've spent some more time since then thinking about how to feel, and figuring out all sorts of emotions. Envy, pride, desire..."
Daiyu's mouth opened in a little O shape, but she said nothing.
"But there was one emotion that I couldn't quite figure out. The emotion I felt when I remembered you, the way you looked, and the way you treated me."
He took another step closer.
"I'm feeling that emotion again, right now. It feels like there is a string between you and me, pulling each other together, and all I want to do is close the gap and say a certain phrase to you."
"Baoyu, do you mean..." He could identify the emotions in her voice. Anticipation, hope.
"Yes, Daiyu."
"I think that I love you."
"Then, Baoyu, I love you, too."
She walked forward until she met Baoyu in her arms. He could feel her warmth against him as his arms wrapped around her back, pulling her closer as she reciprocated. They paused for a moment, looking into each others' eyes.
Lin Daiyu always thought that Baoyu's eyes were a little odd. One eye was black as night. The other was a stunning jade gemstone, the source of the nickname he wore more like a palanquin on his back than a term of endearment. But the black and jade, as she stared deep into it, was one of the most beautiful things in the world for her to see in the moment.
Hong Lu was entranced by those eyes looking into his, the endless welling oceans of emotion now flooding forth, desire and joy and love intermingled in a way that he couldn't stop looking away from. It was the most beautiful thing in the world he could ever witness, the deepest hues of the sky and the rushing waters of the river.
Almost together, they leaned toward one another, heads tilting as their lips met.
Hong Lu was in the clouds, soaring not as one of them, but a bird with his wings aflutter, pursuing the flowers caught by the breeze as he danced alongside their path.
Lin Daiyu was swept under, a rip current pulling her out from land with no hope of ever coming back to shore. But it was fine; she dove through the waves, every movement as though the water itself was an extension of herself. She leapt upwards from the waves, and...
The sky meets the ocean at the horizon.
The two separate, cheeks flushed. Daiyu was the first to speak.
"This is what we are to each other, now?"
It took Hong Lu a few more moments to respond, as he caught his breath.
"I would like nothing more than to be this to you, Daiyu."
And the ocean and sky meet once more, the land between them only separating them for a time. It is a moment of bliss, the oceans sending the clouds into the sky for them to reach back down and reflect their colour into the depths. One witnesses oceanic blue, the other sees a sky in jade.