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Even in the morning after Yu Xia comes back, Lin Zhen’s heart still hasn’t settled down one bit. Sure, it beats along at a perfectly normal pace, but something—something won’t settle. She names it anxiety, and quietly listens to the sound of Yu Xia’s breathing, curled up in her bed. Lin Zhen’s. Lin Zhen herself sits on the edge of it, vaguely dizzy at having woken up next to her.
It’s not anything they haven’t done before. In college, it wasn’t uncommon to fall asleep in the same bed, staying up far later than was advisable, just—talking. That, Lin Zhen realizes with a pang, is what she’d missed the most. The days when she and Yu Xia could just talk, talk about anything and everything, dreams passed between them, colored with a childish hope and joyousness, made all the more precious for the moment those dreams did come true.
“I know you’re awake,” she says aloud. “Do you…?”
“Do I what?” Yu Xia asks. Her suit is all wrinkled from sleep, her hair a mess. She would hate being seen by anyone else like this—there’s self-consciousness, in the way she sits up and attempts to straighten it all out, but Lin Zhen looks at her, and—she stops, embarrassed, or perhaps just realizing that there are more important things to be said here.
“Is there anything else you wanted to say?” Lin Zhen asks. She’s long since mastered the art of steeling her heart and voice to be direct with Yu Xia, and hates how it works. She wishes it’d be—easier than this. But then, she chose to walk away for a reason, and would be half-convinced that Yu Xia running back to her is a dream, if not for the very sight before her right now.
“I’ve apologized so much already,” Yu Xia’s mouth quirks, even as guilt swims in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Lin Zhen. It was me who lost sight of everything.” Lin Zhen missed her so, so much. “I’m sorry it took me so long to recognize that.”
Lin Zhen says, “what’s all this?” and laughs. “You apologized yesterday. Fool.”
Thing is, Lin Zhen could be cruel, she truly could be. She could tell Yu Xia that apologies aren’t enough for the years they spent apart even living together, that apologies don’t cut what she’d done to their dream even if she comes back running. It’d be justified, she thinks. But, really—
She couldn’t bear to do that. She’s missed Yu Xia so, so much, and that was why she stepped away and left. If Yu Xia has come back, then what reason is there to tell her to go away? What reason is there to not embrace her and tell her she loves her? It slips out of her mouth, unbidden and unplanned, and Yu Xia’s widened eyes, the laugh she lets out, it’s all worth it.
“Lin Zhen,” she says, shuffling closer, swinging her legs off the bed to sit pressed right against Lin Zhen, shoulder-to-shoulder, “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you a lot. I’m sorry I ruined it all. I was… so cruel, and selfish, and…” she sighs. “Well. You get the point.”
“I do.” Lin Zhen turns her head to look at her. “But—”
“The days I spent with you... I loved them all,” Yu Xia says. “To be with someone. To be close to someone. To be close to you. That was so wonderful, and I. I hope I can make up for it.”
“Now’s a good time as any,” Lin Zhen says, and she cannot help but throw her arms around Yu Xia. They are both shaped differently now than when they were teenagers, worn down by time and age, exhausted by how life insists on battering one down. Yet, somehow, they’ve held on strong, made it all the way here, in the end.
“Welcome home, Yu Xia,” she says, trying her best to not sound as choked up as she is. She’s so happy she could cry with it. She’s giddy with it. “Welcome home.”
Yu Xia makes a sound, caught somewhere between joy and relief. Lin Zhen has never been happier to hear such a laugh.