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Shang Qinghua is not necessarily surprised by the task of planning Mobei-Jun’s wedding. If anything, he’s surprised it’s taken this long for it to begin.

That doesn’t mean that he’s thrilled about it, though. In fact, if he’s hard-pressed about it, he might even say he’s a bit annoyed about the task.

Not because it’s actually very hard. God knows Shang Qinghua has written enough demon weddings for a lifetime in PIDW to know the ins and outs of planning one, and compared to the amount of bullshit side plots he ends up having to circumvent, this really should be a walk in the park. This does little to assuage Shang Qinghua’s frustration with the event.

At the moment the task had been assigned to him, Shang Qinghua had been too stunned to try and foist it off to someone else. And now, two weeks before the actual event, it’s probably much too late to try shirking his responsibility. So Shang Qinghua dutifully goes about his new job during the day and saves his sulking for his room during the night. It’s a sort of coping mechanism that leaves Shang Qinghua feeling vaguely miserable all the time, but this is the easiest way he can think to go about this.

Of course, probably the most difficult aspect about this entire ordeal is that Shang Qinghua has no earthly idea who Mobei-Jun’s consort is.

It seems a bit ridiculous. Surely this is important enough information that Shang Qinghua should know it? It’s his job to know, isn’t it?

It’s not like he hasn’t tried to find out. Mobei-Jun had assigned him a few lower ranking demons to assist him in the planning process, and they had been Shang Qinghua’s first point of contact in trying to find out this crucial piece of information. It hadn’t been a very fruitful investigation, with most demons just giving Shang Qinghua a blank, confused look before scurrying off. To say Shang Qinghua is at his wit’s end would be an understatement.

Hence, he’s going to do what he probably should have done in the beginning—ask Mobei-Jun directly.

But not too directly. If he asked outright who Mobei-Jun intended to wed, he had no guarantee that Mobei-Jun wouldn’t fly into a rage at Shang Qinghua’s ignorance—this, he thinks, is definitely something his king expects him to know. Sure, he hadn’t hit Shang Qinghua in, well, months, but you never know when that would change! Shang Qinghua certainly wasn’t going to push his luck! Not after he’d come this far!

“My king,” Shang Qinghua starts instead one day. “Err, about the wedding…”

Mobei-Jun doesn’t look up from the scroll in front of him before making a noncommittal grunt.

“About the wedding,” Shang Qinghua repeats, because he’s never been able to speak straightforwardly, and he’s certainly not going to start here. “This one was—was, uh, curious.”

Shang Qinghua falls silent for long enough that Mobei-Jun looks up. When he catches Mobei-Jun’s icy gaze, Shang Qinghua startles back into rapid dialogue.

“Yes!” he blurts out. “I was curious. Very curious! If that’s—I mean—yeah.” He clears his throat and tries to get a single coherent sentence out. “I was wondering what, uh, what qualities—yes—what qualities drew my king to his… betrothed?”

Mobei-Jun stares at him. “What.”

Shang Qinghua’s hands flap a little faster in the air. “As in, uh, what about the one my king is going to marry do you like?”

Mobei-Jun stares at him. Mobei-Jun continues staring at him for a long, long time. If Shang Qinghua didn’t know any better, he’d say Mobei-Jun looked confused at the question. To be fair, it probably is a weird question! As Mobei-Jun’s servant—advisor? companion? whatever Shang Qinghua was to Mobei-Jun—there’s no doubting that a question like this is out of line. But sometimes, on a good day, Mobei-Jun indulges Shang Qinghua’s stupid questions. The temperature in the throne room right now is still above freezing, so Shang Qinghua thinks he might still be safe?

Then Mobei-Jun blinks. Now, there’s something like clarity behind his gaze. Shang Qinghua is not sure if this is a good thing or not.

“Mm,” Mobei-Jun says before setting the scroll in his hands to the side. Shang Qinghua is immediately on edge. Has Mobei-Jun figured out the real reason Shang Qinghua asked the question? God, Shang Qinghua hopes he can survive this stupid plot long enough to at least see the wedding he’s been planning come to fruition! “They’re very resourceful.”

“Ah…?”

Mobei-Jun nods. “And smart.” He pauses and stares at Shang Qinghua. “Most of the time.”

“Right,” Shang Qinghua says, mentally jotting down the points Mobei-Jun is bringing up so he can cross-reference it with a list of potential consort candidates he has in his room.

“But most of all, they are loyal. To me, to the Northern Peak. They use their strength and cunning to serve me, even when it does not benefit them.” Shang Qinghua can only watch, flabbergasted, as something in Mobei-Jun’s eyes seems to soften. “And I enjoy their company.” Well, there goes everyone on Shang Qinghua’s list. He’s never seen Mobei-Jun enjoy anyone’s company! “They talk a lot,” Mobei-Jun muses, “and they think I don’t listen. But I do. I like listening to them.”

It takes everything in Shang Qinghua not to have his mouth fully drop open. That’s the most Mobei-Jun has said at once! Ever! He would know, he wrote the damn novel! Seriously, isn’t this way too out-of-character?

And worst of all, Shang Qinghua isn’t any closer to figuring out who Mobei-Jun is going to marry in two weeks time. In fact, he thinks he might have even less idea now than he did to begin with. Privately, he’d always thought this was a marriage of convenience—but Mobei-Jun’s expression, that almost fondness in his voice—

“Is that enough?”

Shang Qinghua quickly scrambles into a bow. “Yes—yes, of course. Thank you, my king, for indulging this one’s curiosity.”

“Hm,” Mobei-Jun says, evidently pleased. He returns to his scroll, and Shang Qinghua nearly trips over himself in his haste to get back to his own room.

He can’t believe how little he’d managed to accomplish with the one interaction. Resourceful? Cunning? Talks a lot? That could be any organism in this entire stupid, shitty universe!

Well, not any. Most demons are actually quite reticent, like Mobei-Jun himself, so Shang Qinghua might be able to use that characteristic at least to narrow down his list. Because surely Mobei-Jun has decided to wed another demon—wait, unless Luo Binghe has started a new trend of marrying human cultivators? Shit, Shang Qinghua hadn’t even considered that—this makes his list way, way longer—

Damn. Shang Qinghua keeps making his job harder for himself.

But the more Shang Qinghua thinks about this, the more Shang Qinghua realizes that actually, there is something deeply unfair about this whole situation. Mobei-Jun was marrying someone because they were smart? Because they were resourceful? Then what the hell is Shang Qinghua—chopped liver? Seriously! This is all stuff Shang Qinghua already does for Mobei-Jun! It’s frankly ungrateful of Mobei-Jun to see Shang Qinghua’s efforts and still decide to marry someone else! Has Shang Qinghua seriously already outlived his usefulness? It hasn’t even been a year since Cucumber-bro and Luo Binghe settled down, and if Mobei-Jun gets married, it’s only a matter of time before Shang Qinghua loses his place at the Northern Peak, and it’s not like he could just go back to living on An Ding Peak like nothing had ever happened, and god, Luo Binghe would probably kill him on the spot if he even tried to reside in the spare room of their honeymoon cabin, although, now that Shang Qinghua is thinking about it, he probably really, really doesn’t want to stay there, anyway—

Shang Qinghua reaches his room, grabs a pillow, and smothers his face in it. This marginally helps.

Fuck it, he thinks miserably. I’m not going to help you replace me, you spoiled king.

Now that he’s thinking about it, it would be all too easy for Shang Qinghua to drag this affair out. He’s the only one in charge of planning this damned wedding, so who would even notice if he slipped up a few times, delaying the actual event for a bit longer? He’s not crooked enough—he can hear Shen Qingqiu disagree vehemently in his mind—to retroactively ruin the planning he’s already completed for the wedding, but there’s still a long list of things to complete. If he plays this right, if he’s subtle with it—he could delay this as long as he wants. He’ll have to be careful not to tip off Mobei-Jun as to his actual intentions, but Shang Qinghua has spent enough time navigating this world that this type of subterfuge should come easy to him.

It’s just so he can keep his position at the Northern Peak. That’s it.

That’s the only reason.

And—well, yeah, alright—maybe Shang Qinghua doesn’t want his ideal man married off so quickly. Was that thought so absurd?

Yes, Shen Qingqiu’s voice mutters derisively in his mind. Shang Qinghua shakes his head. He really doesn’t appreciate that so much of his inner monologue now sounds like his fellow transmigrator.

His mind made up, Shang Qinghua turns to the scrolls waiting at his desk. They’re all meetings and materials related to the wedding that just need his sign-off—it’s a quick job, but Shang Qinghua decides he won’t be signing those just yet. Instead, he rummages around in one of his hidden drawers to find the manuscript of a pet project of his—

—it’s just a way to kill time.

So far, Shang Qinghua’s plan is going excellently.

He’s not done that much—if he’s too obvious with it, he’s pretty sure Mobei-Jun will go back to beating him up three times a day, or probably worse. But when he’d received the food order for the wedding banquet, he’d pushed the scroll under a few others to delay the shipment. When the interior designer—which is apparently a popular job for demons in PIDW? Shang Qinghua certainly did not remember writing that in, so it’s probably Shen Qingqiu’s fault—asks to meet with Shang Qinghua, he makes an appointment and decidedly does not show up. In front of his king, Shang Qinghua chalks it up to his faulty memory, and surprisingly, he’s let off with only a slightly annoyed huff. The appointment is rescheduled for a later date, with Shang Qinghua already planning to use the same excuse again. When he receives a scroll with the measurements of the bride—seriously, how does Mobei-Jun even have those? Shang Qinghua’s never even seen him interact with this consort that he apparently knows the measurements of—Shang Qinghua doesn’t even bother opening it. Not because the measurements would make him jealous. Obviously not. There’s just no reason Shang Qinghua needs to know the bust width of Mobei-Jun’s consort. But Shang Qinghua decides he probably can’t get away with just ignoring the tailor altogether, so he just sends in his own measurements. He’d just say some scrolls got mixed up. Either way, they’d end up with a set of clothes way too small for Mobei-Jun’s intended, which would only cause further delays.

Shang Qinghua thinks this is a great plan. A fantastic plan, even.

When Mobei-Jun asks him to pick out ornaments from the Mobei family vault, Shang Qinghua is initially a bit stumped. Although he’d insisted it was an endeavor he could complete on his own, Mobei-Jun had decided to silently observe Shang Qinghua during this particular task. It’s not like Shang Qinghua isn’t used to this level of scrutiny, but it’s also not like he usually tries to mess up his king’s orders! He actually is quite competent at running the Northern Peak, no matter what others might think.

So Shang Qinghua is a bit more careful as he scans the piles and piles of wealth and jewelry haphazardly clumped throughout the expansive room. A part of him winces to see the organization—or rather, lack of—of the room, and he mentally adds it to his infinite to-do list. Actually, if he moves this task up that list, he’d have less time for wedding planning. This might be something to consider.

He slowly trails through the room, stopping every so often to peer at a particular headdress or necklace within the piles. Mobei-Jun watches him, a silent, but impossible to ignore presence behind him.

Shang Qinghua can’t exactly avoid choosing anything altogether, not with Mobei-Jun right here. So Shang Qinghua will just have to choose the gaudiest objects he can find and hope they’re visually offensive enough that Mobei-Jun’s actual bride will be forced to come down and pick their adornments themselves.

Actually, why the hell is Shang Qinghua doing this job at all? Seriously! How was Shang Qinghua supposed to know the fashion taste of Mobei-Jun’s consort?

Shang Qinghua ignores the fact that he wrote Mobei-Jun as a character and probably should know what Mobei-Jun’s type is. There’s a reason he never gave Mobei-Jun a canonical love interest in PIDW, okay? And it wasn’t anyone’s business but his own.

Shang Qinghua’s eyes catch on a delicate, sparkling headdress. There’s a dark blue, radiant stone in the middle that Shang Qinghua should probably know the name of, and it’s surrounded by a delicate filigree of silver. It almost looks like it was carved from ice itself, and the thought comes unbidden to Shang Qinghua—someone tall and elegant, walking beside Mobei-Jun with this headdress, in the Mobei colors, and—

Shang Qinghua shakes his head. This is exactly the image he’s trying to avoid.

He forces his gaze away from the headdress, and it lands on a chunky golden necklace near the bottom of this particular pile. Frankly, it doesn’t look like it belongs in the PIDW universe at all, but Shang Qinghua has given up on categorizing the random anachronisms he stumbles upon. He reaches for it and winces at its weight. It’s certainly not something he’d want to wear for hours at a time, but the weight probably wouldn’t make a difference for a demon. He holds it up and offers it to his king.

“Perhaps my king’s intended would like to wear this?”

Mobei-Jun doesn’t look incredibly impressed with Shang Qinghua’s choice. Shang Qinghua does not blame him for this.

“...Qinghua likes this?”

What does it matter? Shang Qinghua wants to wail. I’m not the one that’s going to wear it!

Instead of grabbing Mobei-Jun by the ruff of his cloak and shaking an answer out of him as to why he’s making Shang Qinghua make all of these decisions, Shang Qinghua simply bows his head slightly in deference.

“In this humble servant’s opinion—”

“No.”

Shang Qinghua blinks and looks up. “My king?”

“Don’t call yourself that.”

Shang Qinghua’s eyebrows shoot up. It takes him a moment to school his expression back into something acceptable.

“Uh…” he says intelligently. “Why… not?”

Mobei-Jun’s expression turns pensive. “It’s not fitting.”

What the fuck does that mean? Shang Qinghua is under no impression that his position at the Northern Peak isn’t something immediately replaceable at Mobei-Jun’s whim, no matter how hard he’s been trying to prove otherwise, but this—

God! Mobei-Jun is so infuriatingly confusing sometimes!

Then what am I supposed to call myself? Shang Qinghua wants to ask, but he’s struck by the sudden fear that the reason Mobei-Jun doesn’t want him calling himself a servant is because his actual position is less than that. Shang Qinghua is pretty sure that isn’t actually possible, but when dealing with this spoiled, temperamental king, Shang Qinghua chooses to err on the side of caution. And to be honest, it would be way too much of a blow to the little ego Shang Qinghua has left to learn that he’s not even valuable enough to be called a servant.

“Hgh,” Shang Qinghua says instead. “Right. Of course, my king.”

Mobei-Jun seems pleased with this, or at least, as pleased as he can look. Shang Qinghua swallows and turns away. He has more awful adornments to choose, after all.

Shang Qinghua is incapable of keeping his mouth shut, so of course, he needs to tell someone about his mastermind plan. This someone, as usual, ends up being Shen Qingqiu. Shang Qinghua sometimes kind of does wish he had literally anyone else to consider a friend, but he’s also pretty sure he’ll never find someone as willing to tolerate his bullshit as Shen Qingqiu. The guy faithfully read every chapter of PIDW, didn’t he?

“Well?” Shang Qinghua says after he finishes describing his most recent tactics. “What do you think?”

Shen Qingqiu stares at him for a few moments. He’s not holding his typical fan, so Shang Qinghua can see the disdain plainly on his face.

“Dude,” Shen Qingqiu eventually says. “That’s kind of pathetic.”

Shang Qinghua’s smug expression drops. It’s nothing he doesn’t know, but to hear Shen Qingqiu just say it…

“It’s—not that bad. It’s working so far, isn’t it?”

Shen Qingqiu’s hand twitches, as if there’s a phantom fan in his hand he’d like to beat Shang Qinghua with. “Is telling me about this seriously the only reason you visited?”

Shang Qinghua looks away. “Yeah, well, there’s a meeting about the wedding I’m technically supposed to be attending right now.”

“...so you used me as an excuse to get out of it,” Shen Qingqiu guesses dryly.

Shang Qinghua coughs. Shen Qingqiu sighs.

“Airplane, you know you’re only delaying the inevitable, right?”

Shang Qinghua’s grip on his robes underneath the table tightens. It’s so easy for Shen Qingqiu to sit here and say this—he’s got his happy ending, he doesn’t have anything to worry about, he has no uncertainty about his future—

—Shang Qinghua doesn’t even know if he’ll survive tomorrow.

It’s a very harrowing thing to have the knowledge that you’re not supposed to be alive. He’s well aware he’s surviving now only upon Mobei-Jun’s whims, and the second he falls out of Mobei-Jun’s favor, he might as well be doomed to the same fate as the character he replaced.

He’s not sure what will happen to him if he dies here. He’s never been especially interested in finding out. He supposes there’s a chance he’d return to his original body, but he’s not actually sure if that’s something he wants anymore.

His small, fragile existence might be just that, but it’s his. It’s an existence he’s carved out for himself in a world where he doesn’t have one, so can he really be blamed for trying to preserve it? For trying to keep it, for just a little bit longer?

Mobei-Jun getting married doesn’t have to change much. Shang Qinghua has survived this long by being a sticky bastard, and if it worked on Mobei-Jun, he’s sure it can work on Mobei-Jun’s mystery consort, too. If it’s just a matter of existing that he’s worried about, Shang Qinghua is sure he’ll find a way. Honestly, if he can’t find a way to get by on his own in a universe of his own creation, it’s just a bit embarrassing.

Mobei-Jun getting married doesn’t have to change much. Shang Qinghua predicts it will, anyway.

And that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? Shang Qinghua doesn’t want things to change. Right now, he’s almost confident in saying he is the closest person to Mobei-Jun. But that changes—everything changes—when Mobei-Jun gets married. Shang Qinghua goes from being something to nothing. 

Shang Qinghua spent the entirety of his original life as a side character, writing shitty novels in his shitty apartment with his shitty laptop. Can he be blamed for finding it unjust to be forced to conform to this role so much more wholly even in a universe of his own creation?

“Yeah,” he eventually says when he realizes Shen Qingqiu is still waiting for an answer. “Well.” He goes silent. For once, his mind-to-mouth filter seems to be working. As patient of a listener as his fellow transmigrator is, Shang Qinghua gets the sense that this just isn’t a problem any amount of complaining could solve. He’d only come here because he thought he’d feel better blurting everything out, but now that he’s here, he just feels more miserable.

Shen Qingqiu gives him an odd look. “But you… seriously don’t know who he’s marrying?”

“Of course I don’t,” Shang Qinghua snaps. “I didn’t write this.”

“You didn’t write a lot of things.”

Shang Qinghua raises his eyebrows in exasperation. “What?”

“I mean… maybe you’re not reading this situation right.” Shen Qingqiu taps his fingers on the table. “The plot has obviously deviated from what you wrote. But still, I doubt the system would just… make something up like this.” He gives Shang Qinghua a look. “Surely Mobei-Jun must be marrying someone you know, then?”

Why the fuck would he tell Shang Qinghua that? Is he trying to make Shang Qinghua feel worse?

If he is, it’s working. Shang Qinghua bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to bleed.

“What difference does that make? Whoever my king decides to marry, I—” The words catch in Shang Qinghua’s throat and he swallows. The temperature in the room almost feels like it’s dipped, and Shang Qinghua has to shake his head to rid of the sensation. “I’m not—I can’t—” He cuts himself off. His shoulders drop. “I can’t be happy about this. I don’t know how to accept this. But I can’t tell him—” Shang Qinghua chokes out a strangled laugh. “I can’t exactly tell him no. Delaying it is the only idea I have.”

Shen Qingqiu’s gaze turns almost pitying. Shang Qinghua immediately has to look away. This meeting was a bad idea.

“Shang Qinghua—”

“Sorry,” Shang Qinghua says, standing up abruptly. “I should probably go now. I’ve been away for a while.”

“Are you—”

“I’ll send you both a wedding invitation at some point,” Shang Qinghua interrupts him to say, waving behind him as he hops on his sword. “Make sure you bring a good gift!”

If Shen Qingqiu responds to that, Shang Qinghua doesn’t hear it. Once in flight, Shang Qinghua lets out a deep sigh. Nothing Shen Qingqiu said was wrong or even contestable in the slightest. Shang Qinghua is pathetic. Maybe a part of him wanted to hear that.

Shang Qinghua is pathetic, but at the very least, he’s subtle about it. He’s being selfish, but in a way that only he’d notice. As long as he keeps it that way, he’ll be fine.

“Qinghua.”

Shang Qinghua startles from where he was outlining very important information on his desk. If that important information was more a first draft of a new stallion novel than the plans for a wedding, well, that was no one’s business but his own. Either way, he sweeps the papers into a drawer in his desk and turns to face the guest in his room.

“A-ah, my king!” he says, a bit surprised. More recently, Mobei-Jun has taken to randomly appearing in Shang Qinghua’s room, but he’s always a bit of an unexpected presence in Shang Qinghua’s room—mainly because Mobei-Jun looks so out of place in Shang Qinghua’s cramped, messy space. “How can I help? This one was just making the, ah, final arrangements for the—”

“Qinghua.”

Shang Qinghua stops talking. Not because of the interruption, but because there’s something wrong with Mobei-Jun’s face.

“...my king?”

“Do you,” Mobei-Jun starts, before stopping. His expression twitches. Is he hesitating? The thing that’s wrong with his face—

—is he nervous?

“...do you not want this marriage to proceed?”

Shang Qinghua can’t help the unseemly noise that escapes him when Mobei-Jun gets out his full question. He’d been priding himself on his subtlety just yesterday! How—how did Mobei-Jun—how did he know—?

“What,” Shang Qinghua manages to croak out. “What? No, no, no, I would never—I wouldn’t dare to—no, of course, it’s not that—”

“Qinghua.”

Shang Qinghua’s mouth snaps shut.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m—I’m not—”

“I heard you.”

“...huh?”

“At Consort Shen’s.”

What? What? Then, Shang Qinghua hadn’t just been imagining that chill? What the fuck?

“Ah,” Shang Qinghua says weakly. “My king, that was simply—”

“Do you not want this marriage to proceed?”

“It’s—it’s really not my place to say—”

A flicker of something almost like confusion flickers on Mobei-Jun’s face before it smooths into a cold, humorless anger. “You’re not answering the question.”

Shang Qinghua swallows. Foolish, foolish, foolish! How else did he think this was going to end? If he tells the truth, it won’t end well for him. If he continues to lie, it really won’t end well for him. The longer he stays quiet, the longer Mobei-Jun’s expression darkens.

"I... I don't,” Shang Qinghua finally blurts out loud.

Mobei-Jun’s expression shutters.

“I don't want the marriage to happen,” Shang Qinghua admits out loud, squeezing his eyes shut. All of his work, all of his pandering, and this is the reason he’s going to die? It’s a shitty ending fit for a shitty author. But maybe, just maybe, Mobei-Jun will be merciful? Maybe Shang Qinghua’s stickiness can still be worth something? When Mobei-Jun stays quiet, Shang Qinghua hurries to fill the silence. "It—it doesn't matter, though. I will—I'll carry out my king's orders regardless, of course, I apologize for the—the previous delays, of course, they're absolutely unacceptable—"

“No,” Mobei-Jun says. There’s something strange in his tone. “The wedding is canceled.”

Shang Qinghua’s eyes fly open. “Eh?”

"Make the necessary arrangements," Mobei-Jun says, turning away before Shang Qinghua can see his expression. "I will inform the guests."

Canceled? Canceled? Messing with the wedding plans and delaying it is one thing, but canceling it? This is going to have massive political repercussions—this is going to ruin the Northern Peak—

"Wait,” Shang Qinghua blurts out before Mobei-Jun can leave. “No, no, wait," he scrambles to say. "My king, I'm simply—" He waves his hands in the air. "It—it doesn't matter," he ends up saying again. "What does it matter what this lowly servant's opinion on the matter is?" Resorting to groveling is all he can think to do now. It’s worked for him before, hasn’t it? "I will always, always do what my king wishes, even if it means—"

“I told you not to call yourself that.”

Shang Qinghua winces. He keeps making misstep after misstep in this conversation—honestly, talking is the one thing he’s supposed to be good at!

“I’m sorry—”

"I don't understand," Mobei-Jun bites out, like the words pain him to get out. He's still turned away. Shang Qinghua desperately wishes he could see his expression. "If you did not want this. Why would you not tell me?"

"How..." Shang Qinghua is so bewildered by this question that he can hardly think of a single thing to say. This is a very rare occurrence. For a moment, he simply gapes at the back of Mobei-Jun’s head. “How could I have..." He looks away. "I could not bear to be so selfish,” he admits softly. “And... anyway—" He lets out a weak laugh. "If my king is happy, that—that is all that matters."

“That’s not true.”

Shang Qinghua’s gaze flits back to Mobei-Jun in surprise. He’s facing Shang Qinghua again, something indecipherable and almost pained in his expression. Shang Qinghua has never seen Mobei-Jun look like that before.

No, that’s not quite true. He thinks he’s seen it once before, at the northern border. Something in Shang Qinghua’s chest twinges.

"I want," Mobei-Jun starts before he pauses again. He scrutinizes Shang Qinghua’s expression for a few moments. "I want you to be happy. That is important to me."

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says. Something in his chest twinges a little harder.

He’s… been reading all of this wrong, hasn’t he? This entire time, he hasn’t allowed himself to think of himself than anything more than Mobei-Jun’s servant, but—

His king—his spoiled, selfish, brat of a king—is fond of him, isn’t he?

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says again, a bit quieter.

This is edging into dangerous territory. It makes Shang Qinghua beyond happy to hear these words from the typically reticent Mobei-Jun, but as they bounce around his mind, Shang Qinghua can’t help but feel like these words would be far too easy to misinterpret. Shang Qinghua gets the feeling he’ll get quite a few sleepless nights turning these words in his head. But for now, he has a wedding to fix.

“Hearing that makes me… happy,” Shang Qinghua eventually says. “It makes me very happy, my king, so happy I can hardly put it into words.” He lets his gaze drop. “But I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I were the reason my king is unhappy.” With a determined exhale, he squares his shoulders and faces Mobei-Jun again. “So, I must insist the wedding proceeds.”

Mobei-Jun’s expression, which had slowly been warming, immediately chills again. “No.”

Ah. There was that spoiled nature Shang Qinghua knew and loved.

“Really!” Shang Qinghua insists. “What I said before—what you heard at Shen Qingqiu’s—it was all just a, a momentary lapse in judgement! Yes!” Shang Qinghua nods vigorously. “I had my reservations, but now I see that, ah…” He trails off and gestures vaguely in Mobei-Jun’s direction. “This is truly the best course of action! For you, for… me, for the Northern Peak—”

“No.”

Shang Qinghua deflates. All of this, and Mobei-Jun still wasn’t satisfied? If Shang Qinghua didn’t know any better, he’d say Mobei-Jun was actively looking for a way out of this wedding.

Unless… that actually was the case? No, no, that wouldn’t make sense. Not when Mobei-Jun had been lauding his consort’s virtues just weeks before—

Ah. There’s a thought.

“My king!” Shang Qinghua cries. “Would canceling the wedding not be a slight to your intended?”

Mobei-Jun’s eyebrows raise. Shang Qinghua hurries to continue.

“This serv—this one remembers very well how my king praised their, uh, their cleverness, their loyalty, their… penchant for speech.” Shang Qinghua puts on his best, most pitiful expression. “This one finds it difficult to believe that my king would say all of this and then… abandon them so close to their day of union.”

Mobei-Jun stares at him. One moment passes, then another, then another. Mobei-Jun is still staring at him. Neither of them have said a word for the past minute. If Shang Qinghua wasn’t sweating already, he certainly is now. It’s as he’s wracking his brain for something else he could possibly say that Mobei-Jun finally speaks.

“Qinghua,” he starts slowly. “Who do you think I want to get married to?”

"Er," Shang Qinghua says, a bit stricken. Are they finally having this conversation? It’s a bit overdue, but Shang Qinghua can’t tell how Mobei-Jun will take the news that his wedding planner doesn’t even know whose wedding he’s planning. "I don't—I don't know,” he admits in a rush. “But I'm sure they're wonderful—my king would only ever choose the best, after all, and I—" would love to meet them, is how he wants to finish the sentence, but the words don't quite make it out of his mouth.

“You don’t know,” Mobei-Jun repeats flatly. Shang Qinghua wilts. Why can’t he do anything right in this conversation?

“Well, I—”

“You don’t know,” Mobei-Jun says again, but now there’s something different to his tone. “You don’t know, and that is why you don’t want this wedding.”

Well. Well! Maybe there’s a way Shang Qinghua can get out of this mess, after all!

"Y—yes! That's exactly it, my king!" He doesn't know why these words are so hard to get out. He’s just solving a problem of his own creation. He wanted to fix this, didn’t he? "I trust your judgment, of course, but it would, um, relieve me greatly if I knew—"

“Shang Qinghua.”

Shang Qinghua snaps his mouth shut. He stares expectantly at Mobei-Jun. Mobei-Jun stares at him back.

“...yes, my king?”

Mobei-Jun continues staring at him. “Shang Qinghua,” he says again. Shang Qinghua waits. Mobei-Jun doesn’t say anything further. After a few moments, Shang Qinghua lets out a weak cough. “The one I want to marry is Shang Qinghua.”

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says.

Mobei-Jun blinks at him.

“What?”

Something almost amused tugs at Mobei-Jun’s mouth. “You did not know?”

“I—I asked you—I asked you what you like about them,” Shang Qinghua splutters out. “Why would I ask that if I knew—if I knew that—” He can’t bring himself to finish the question. Mobei-Jun raises an eyebrow.

“I assumed you wanted to hear this king compliment you.”

“What,” Shang Qinghua says again, “what? You can’t be seriou—me?” 

Shang Qinghua feels a bit dizzy. Has he been poisoned? He’s got to have been poisoned. Wait, maybe Mobei-Jun is poisoned—

“I’m not poisoned,” Mobei-Jun says flatly. Shit, did he say all of that out loud? “Yes.”

“Shit,” Shang Qinghua says weakly. “Um, I, uh, need a—” He waves his hand vaguely in the air before slumping into his chair. He brings a hand to his forehead. “You’re—I’m—we’re—?” 

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun says simply.

“Haha,” Shang Qinghua gets out. “Right. Yeah. That’s, um—” He shakes his head. “What?”

“What part about this is difficult to understand?”

“All of it?” Shang Qinghua blurts out incredulously. “Since when are we getting married—? I didn’t even know you liked me, let alone—” He cuts himself off abruptly and shrinks into himself. “Or—is this, like, a politics thing? Not that there’s—anything wrong with that, I mean, I’m sure there are benefits to—”

“I have been in love with you since I was seventeen.”

“Ah,” Shang Qinghua says faintly. “Right.”

“I have been courting you for about that long, as well.”

“Courting,” Shang Qinghua chokes out. How is Mobei-Jun just able to admit to all of this with such a straight face? Shang Qinghua can hardly believe anything he’s hearing. “That long? But you never—I mean, you never said anything, how was I supposed to—?”

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says with the patience of a man who’s been trying to propose for about a decade, which Shang Qinghua guesses he is— “Do you really think I would let any advisor wear my colors?”

Shang Qinghua looks down at his robes—at his very nice, tailor-made, luxurious robes that Mobei-Jun had unceremoniously dropped off in Shang Qinghua’s room without a word. Something like recognition begins to tickle the edges of Shang Qinghua’s mind.

“And by wearing them, I was accepting your proposal,” Shang Qinghua realizes out loud slowly. He’d written something like this, just once before, but—

Well, how was he supposed to know this was going to happen to him?

Mobei-Jun nods. Shang Qinghua brings a hand to the bridge of his nose.

“Holy shit,” he mutters into his hand. “I’ve been sabotaging my own wedding.”

Mobei-Jun stays silent for a few moments as he watches Shang Qinghua speak unintelligibly into his hands. Shang Qinghua only realizes he should probably say something more coherent when the temperature of the room begins to drop.

“You are still unhappy with the arrangement,” Mobei-Jun says. It’s not phrased like a question, but Shang Qinghua’s head shoots up.

“No, no, my king, I—” Shang Qinghua’s mouth flaps open and closed a few times. “This—this is everything I’ve ever—” He shakes his head. “It’s just so—difficult to comprehend—”

“Why is this so hard to believe?

God, where does Shang Qinghua even start? “Because—because you,” Shang Qinghua says, gesturing wildly at Mobei-Jun, “and—me?”

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun says. “And?”

He says it so simply, like there’s no other way it should be, that Shang Qinghua’s remaining harangue dissipates on his tongue.  

“My king,” Shang Qinghua says helplessly. “You really do like me, don’t you?”

“...yes.”

Ah, so cute. His king is so cute! Shang Qinghua can’t handle it!

He’s sure he must look like a right fool, grinning giddily at Mobei-Jun, but he can’t help it—not when Mobei-Jun is looking away, giving Shang Qinghua an even better angle at what might be—what has to be—a slight flush on his cheeks. Shang Qinghua wonders, if he touches it, if the skin will be warm against his palm.  

Almost as if Mobei-Jun can read the thought, he glances back at Shang Qinghua. “And Qinghua?” he asks. “You want this?”

Shang Qinghua answers by slowly bringing his hands to Mobei-Jun’s face. Mobei-Jun doesn’t move, instead watching Shang Qinghua carefully. His cheeks are faintly, slightly, warmer to the touch than the rest of Mobei-Jun’s skin. Shang Qinghua’s dopey grin grows dopier. His favorite creation, cradled in his palms, but somehow, more than that—he’s the same, but different in all the ways that matter.

“I think,” Shang Qinghua says slowly. “I’ve wanted this for a very, very long time.”

Mobei-Jun leans into the touch. “Good,” he murmurs.

They stay in that position for a few moments longer. Shang Qinghua thinks he could stay like this forever, if he had to. But then a thought strikes into his mind, and he startles away.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh! Nothing’s ready! I need to—there’s so many meetings I need to reschedule!”

Mobei-Jun’s lips twitch. It almost looks like he’s suppressing a laugh.

“My king,” Shang Qinghua whines. “You can’t make fun of me, I didn’t know—!”

Mobei-Jun silences him by pulling him forward and smashing his mouth against Shang Qinghua’s, which almost makes Shang Qinghua startle again, because wow, teeth, but then Mobei-Jun angles his head just a bit to the side, and then, wow—

When Mobei-Jun pulls away, Shang Qinghua is left gaping at him.

“You know now,” Mobei-Jun says, before sweeping his cloak behind him and leaving through a portal. Talk about a dramatic exit.

Shang Qinghua brings a hand to his lips. Talk about a dramatic kiss.

That is what that was, right? It’s not like that meant something different in demon customs, right? If what Mobei-Jun was doing to Shang Qinghua for the past decade was courting, then maybe—

Shang Qinghua shakes his head. That’s a problem for a different time. For now—

He has a wedding to plan.