Chapter Text
Dan Heng's Rules
1. Don't enter my room without permission.
2. Don't disturb me when I'm in my room.
3. Don't ask about my medical condition.
* * *
"It would brighten up the space," Jing Yuan says, leaning over the handle of the shopping cart to inspect Dan Heng's find.
Apparently, Dan Heng has been standing a moment too long in front of one of the mirrors, his one-sided staring contest mistaken for purchasing deliberation. Dan Heng blinks hard away from his reflection, and it takes him a second blink to find familiarity in Jing Yuan's face. The man looks completely out of place in his tailored suit, yet right at home browsing the curated, somewhat claustrophobic aisles of interior goods.
"I thought you were at work for another hour," Dan Heng says, his surprise eventually giving way to words. He tries not to stare, but Jing Yuan is the sort of person who naturally commands attention. Dan Heng's entire middle seems to uproot a little every time he's around, his heartbeat floating that much higher between his ribs. He would roll his eyes at himself, but he doesn't want Jing Yuan to get the wrong idea.
"I excused myself early," Jing Yuan explains with an easy smile, seemingly oblivious to Dan Heng's symptoms of infatuation. Doing nothing to alleviate them, in fact. "I thought you could use an extra pair of hands."
Dan Heng's mouth sets into a thin line. "I can hold my own, you know."
"I'm not so sure..." The corner of Jing Yuan's visible eye creases with mirth. "You were in a pretty serious deadlock with this mirror. If I hadn't arrived just now, who knows what may have transpired."
Dan Heng sighs. "All right, just put it in the cart. If you'd please."
"Right away." Jing Yuan dips forward in a polite and very unnecessary bow, inevitably drawing the attention of a few peripheral shoppers. "A new coat rack for the good sir as well?"
Dan Heng tries to forget they're in public together, and holds down the smile tugging at the far edge of his lips. "Don't get too carried away."
* * *
Sometimes, their hallway mirror reflects someone else back at Dan Heng, and sometimes it reflects his roommate passing behind him, his eye bright as a coin as he offers a friendly wink. How Dan Heng knows it's a wink, when Jing Yuan's other eye is perpetually obscured behind his hair, is an inexplicable skill.
Dan Heng has lived with Jing Yuan (and Jing Yuan's cat) for a few months now. Their routine is, to no small relief, compatible. So far he can brook very little complaint, and in different circumstances Dan Heng might even call it comfortable.
Jing Yuan follows his odd requests without comment, and doesn't bring up Dan Heng's ambiguous Vidyadhara heritage, or the strange hours he keeps. He's tidy enough and respectful of their shared space. Amicable without overstaying his welcome, and well-spoken without being condescending.
He also happens to be wildly intelligent, annoyingly humorous, and unfortunately handsome. It's not that Dan Heng usually gives much thought to outward appearances, but that Jing Yuan is frankly impossible to ignore. Such is the conceit of living together, even if Dan Heng goes to certain lengths to limit interactions.
Jing Yuan, meanwhile, seems to recognize Dan Heng's efforts and purposefully leaves the perfect amount of distance between them. The sort of tantalizing divide that Dan Heng, to his own exasperation, gravitates to of his own accord. Something burrowed in him wants to toe that line, to disturb the so-called shore of their perfunctory relationship.
In different circumstances, Dan Heng might.
But it's best if they remain this way, he thinks, not without a sense of distant regret. Casual acquaintances, a shoal between them.
* * *
Turns out, Dan Heng is quite bad at avoiding friendships, or rather he is aloof in a way that somehow invites the most gregarious personalities into his life. Despite the socially inhospitable hours he keeps as a special hire, he finds himself more often than not sandwiched between two of his coworkers at the Astral Express research hub. Stelle and March are insistent on oversharing and taking him on impromptu excursions regardless of willingness, much less dissent. (Dan Heng finds he doesn't actually mind, so long as they don't keep him out past a certain hour.)
"Dan Heng, do you really have to head back so soon?" March says with a pout, when he firmly declines a late-night jaunt to Aurum Alley.
"I do," he says. "Sorry," he amends, knowing his apologies usually do well to soften March's disappointment. He isn't being insincere about either statement.
Stelle elbows March in the rib, and shakes her head. This seems to flip on a light instead, which practically beams through March's increasingly toothy grin.
"Ooooh, you've got someone waiting back at home for you, is that it?"
Dan Heng blinks. He hasn't mentioned anything about a roommate to either of his coworkers, but Jing Yuan's visage comes to mind, unbidden. He shakes his head, but he worries it's not entirely convincing. Stelle elbows March again.
"Then what is it?" March presses, ignoring Stelle's light jabs.
"I... have a cat," Dan Heng says, with a slight furrow of his brow. Again, Jing Yuan floats somewhere in his hindbrain, which is ridiculous when an actual cat exists in their shared apartment.
He pulls out his phone, and shows a picture of Mimi he may or may not have taken in secret. They don't need to know he has a roommate, or that this cat is actually his. If he surrenders even an inch they'll take the mile, he's sure.
But moreso than their questioning, Dan Heng is worried he might accidentally let slip everything he's deliberately left unaddressed, when it comes to Jing Yuan. That he finds him attractive, that he can't get him out of his head, that their living arrangement had been in part personally-requested by Dan Heng.
The girls are oblivious to his thoughts, too busy cooing over the photo of the white ragdoll and its perfectly blue eyes, thank the gods. Dan Heng clears his throat, tucking his phone back into his jacket. Eventually, after a bit more friendly chatter, the two let him go on his way.
When he's out of earshot, Stelle turns to March and murmurs quietly, "I think it's something else. But he probably can't tell us what it is."
* * *
Dan Heng sometimes sees Jing Yuan around for dinner, though Dan Heng himself is usually sequestered in his room by the time it gets any later in the evening. They interact mostly on the weekends, though Jing Yuan is often busy then. Jing Yuan goes between the library and communal garden, the gym and whatever local cafes, and juggles a number of social engagements on the side as well. (He regularly invites Dan Heng to join him in any of these activities, and while Dan Heng had politely declined at first, he'd eventually acquiesced. He'd hoped it would ultimately reduce the frequency of these asks, but then found himself, foolishly, wanting to spend more time with Jing Yuan.)
This evening after work, Dan Heng happens to catch a glimpse of his roommate through the mirror before he finds him passed out on the couch. An arm is slung haphazardly over his eyes to block out the artificial light, the other dangling over the cushions. Old scars peek out from behind the cuffs of his sleeves. Mimi is camped squarely over Jing Yuan's chest, rumbling away contentedly. Dan Heng smiles to himself, and fights the temptation to add to his secret album of cat photos.
Jing Yuan's phone is on the floor alongside a handful of what Dan Heng presumes to be work papers. The pages are decorated with sticky notes, which are intermittently left around the apartment as well—reminders and doodles and quotes. Dan Heng doesn't mind, understands that Jing Yuan needs them even if he can't personally parse half their meanings. (On one of the small papers had been the drawing of a maple leaf. When asked about it, Jing Yuan had just shrugged, said it was something he recalled from a dream.)
...Jing Yuan does not seem the forgetful sort. He is meticulous despite his easygoing nature and bedheaded appearance. His notes rarely have anything to do with Dan Heng, not that Dan Heng expects them to, but when his gaze inevitably flicks to one at present, he sees, in Jing Yuan's handwriting:
Dan Heng, Courtyard.
Dan Heng blinks, and then squints. There's no courtyard in their apartment complex, or anywhere else nearby he can think of. And yet the image of one comes to mind like a compulsion—a small area with a stone bench, fringed by maple trees. Dan Heng closes his eyes, and tries to tune the memory to a clearer resonance.
He's interrupted when he hears a soft exhale beside him.
"...Dan Heng?"
Jing Yuan stirs, arm sliding away to reveal his face. He looks at once surprised to see Dan Heng, and entirely too sleepy to do anything about it. Being trapped under Mimi's feline weight probably doesn't help, either. Dan Heng feels a bewildering impulse that he can't quite name, but possibly involves biting.
"Sorry to wake you," Dan Heng says instead, invoking his rationale. "I just got back."
"It's fine. I didn't mean to nod off." Jing Yuan slowly sits up, cradling Mimi in his arms and gently depositing her on the couch before he starts gathering his things from the floor. A quick check of his phone illuminates the time alongside Mimi's sweet face, overlaid with a series of text notifications from "Yao Guang."
Dan Heng shouldn't be nosing into Jing Yuan's business, and he tries not to look at the sticky note again, deciding not to point it out either. His stipulation had been that Jing Yuan not ask about his health, and so far he's diligently abided by that rule.
There's an awkward silence. Usually, Jing Yuan has no issue filling in the gaps with his chatter, but tonight he seems oddly reticent. He's looking at Dan Heng almost as if he sees someone else.
"...Are you all right?" Dan Heng ventures.
Jing Yuan nods. "Mhm, it was just a strange dream."
"A nightmare?"
"Not quite." A beat, and then, "Dan Heng, do you ever dream that you're someone else?"
Dan Heng looks away in thought. Across the room, there's the mirror that carries someone else's face half the times Dan Heng looks into it.
"...I don't remember my dreams," he finally says.
* * *
Late that evening, Dan Heng locks his bedroom door as well as the door of the conjoined bath. He draws water into the tub and steps inside, exhausted. The water is shallow, and cool. He sits against the side and draws up his knees. He closes his eyes, and sees Jing Yuan's face one last time before he falls asleep.
* * *
In truth, Dan Heng does not remember much at all beyond the past few months, and even recent events require monumental effort to maintain in the warped archives of his mind.
One of his earliest memories is with his doctor, a young woman with dark hair, and red hands kept underneath red gloves. A Vidyadhara in hiding, like himself.
"I propose a living arrangement with another patient," Lingsha says. "We'll designate outside observers to ensure your well-being, and of course, you'll each convene with your respective physicians on a regular basis."
As for this outside observer, she shows Dan Heng a photograph of a woman with an elegant smile and long, vivid curls.
"Your caseworker will be Miss Himeko Murata. ...She'll be your boss of sorts as well. Though I don't claim it'll be easy by any means, we generally find that some form of employment is effective in allowing patients to reintegrate with society."
Lingsha then neatly tiles a series of portraits on the table between them. "These are the candidates. We thought it would be best if you chose yourself, if you agree to this arrangement."
"I don't want to be an inconvenience to anyone else," Dan Heng says, carefully.
"I understand. You won't be forced to divulge your circumstances, but these shared arrangements are for their own safety as well. We can't admit them to a public hospital, same as for you."
Dan Heng nods briefly before he studies the photographs. In truth, he wouldn't have minded anyone, yet his brow furrows when he sees the faces before him, something tugging at the back of his mind.
There's a woman with long hair half-pinned by a silver peacock, her eyes the color of gems. A pair of halovian twins, a girl with a sweet face and her watchful brother. A man with black and white hair and a daring grin, sharp as razors. A foxian woman with golden markings on her shoulders as delicate as vines—or perhaps as choking.
Dan Heng's gaze finally falls to the face of a man with eyes the color of bright amber—or one of them at least. He's not entirely sure since half of his face is shrouded by his pale hair. There's a small mole under his left eye that draws Dan Heng's interest, as well as the vestiges of a burn that the patient's high-collared shirt can't entirely conceal.
For whatever reason, and for just a single heartbeat, he gets the sense he's looking into a mirror.
"...Who is he?" Dan Heng asks. Lingsha is silent for a moment, appraising him carefully before answering.
"His name is Jing Yuan."
Dan Heng pauses, silently turning those syllables on his tongue. "Why was he hospitalized?"
"I'm not allowed to disclose that information, though you may of course ask your roommate in person. What I can tell you is that that all candidates have been thoroughly vetted. None pose a danger to you."
"Do I pose a danger to them?"
"No." She shakes her head firmly. "I won't ask nor expect you to believe me unconditionally, but you will be kept safe, Dan Heng. And we will figure out a way to cure your condition."
"...As you know, our Vidyadhara memories are impermanent by nature, washed away with each hatching rebirth. Though we know the trigger, something else continues to severely disrupt that cycle. Until we can figure out what that is, I'm afraid we won't be able to devise a better treatment."
"...I'm neither reincarnated, nor do I have the memories I should," Dan Heng eventually says, without a sense of self-pity—without a sense of self. "I am no one at all, then."
Lingsha shakes her head. "It may feel like a liminal space right now, but I believe you will regain your past, with time. Each day will feel as difficult as the last, but the grains of memory are embedded there. The tide will take away less each morning, and soon you'll be left with a shoreline, somewhere you won't be drowning all the time."
Dan Heng tries to imagine this, and sees himself standing in front of a primordial ocean. Lingsha seems to know, instinctively, what he envisions.
"And after that?" Dan Heng asks, his gaze falling back on the picture of 'Jing Yuan'.
"After that, you'll find the shells in the sand that give way to grass and trees, and the sun and sky. And after those: birds, clouds, mountains—this entire world."
Dan Heng is silent for another moment, and eventually tells her he'll think on it. But they both know he's already made his choice.