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suguwu · 5 months

Text

christmas countdown

Your company is taking on a new project and desperately wants the backing and expertise of retired CEO Jing Yuan. Dispatched out into the countryside to bring him on board, you find it won't be as easy as you think.

Jing Yuan strikes a bargain with you: spend the upcoming days with him, until Christmas Eve, and he'll tell you exactly what it will take for him to come back if you don't figure it out yourself.

Let the Christmas countdown begin.

MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DNI.

pairing: jing yuan x gn!reader

word count: 16k (whoops)

notes: this came about through dms with my beloveds @petrichorium and @lorelune! they both were invaluable, and lore also was kind enough to beta for me, along with another friend. this fic feels like it possessed me; i wrote it in just over a week.

fic notes: hallmark au, gn!reader (they/them pronouns), jing yuan is taller than the reader, age gap (jing yuan is in his early 50s, reader is in their late 30s), this is mostly just fluff.

divider by @/cafekitsune.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“This is the third Christmas you’re missing,” she says, voice thickening, and you can almost see the way her eyes are going glassy with tears, shining beautifully in the light.

“I know. But this project is huge and I’m so close to the promotion—”

“You’ve been saying that for years.”

“This is different. The CEO herself asked for me,” you say with a sigh.

“When would you leave?”

“I leave tomorrow.”

“That’s almost a week until Christmas! Maybe you’ll get back in time! Or maybe it can wait until the new year?”

“No, Mom. The project is waiting on getting this person on board, it can’t wait that much longer. It’s just Christmas, I don’t see why this is such a big deal.”

“It’s time with your family,” she snaps, the words shattering at the edges, honed keen with hurt.

“I’m sorry. Next year, okay?”

“That’s what you said last year.”

“Mom.”

“Fine. But think about it, please. We miss you.”

You sigh. “I miss you guys too.”

The conversation continues on from there; she tells you that your father has taken up gardening, renting out a space in a greenhouse nearby, coaxing it into a full lushness that has him coming home flecked with flower petals. He’s already plotting out a vegetable garden come spring.

You listen as she chatters away, throwing in the occasional “uh-huh” as you scroll through your emails, typing as quietly as you can. You pause as she goes silent.

“Mom?”

“Are you working right now?”

You wince. “I just had a few emails—”

The line goes so quiet that you reach for your phone to see if your earbuds have disconnected. They haven't. Your stomach roils.

“Mom?”

“We’ll talk later, then,” your mother says, and the pit in your stomach grows at the sorrow threading through her voice. “Good night.”

You hesitate. Then your email pings again.

“Night, Mom.”

She hangs up, and the click of the line sounds like a dour bell, but it’s chased from your mind by the bright chirp of your email. You settle back down with your laptop, digging into work once more.

When you finally glance up from your laptop screen hours later, your eyes stinging, you realize it’s snowing.

In the orange glow of the streetlights, the flakes look like embers flickering through the sky, like the sparks of a bonfire on a summer’s eve. It’ll be stomped into slush tomorrow, trodden under so many boots, but for now the snow dances through the air, a ballet all its own.

It muffles the world, blanketing your apartment in oppressive quiet, and not for the first time you feel small in your own home. You shiver. The high ceilings of your apartment feel like a gaping maw, arching and empty.

You shift uneasily and turn on a soft lofi playlist despite the headache that’s settled in at your temples. It fills the air, creeps all the way to the empty corners of your apartment and softens them with sound.

You let out a gentle breath. Still, something cold uncurls behind your ribs, sinks its teeth into bone until it hits marrow. You pick up your phone, swiping up to your messages with your best friend, and you’re halfway through typing out a message before you catch yourself. A quick glance at the clock makes you wince. Your phone thunks against the table as you toss it down.

It’s late and she has a new baby—she needs as much sleep as she can get. You can’t disturb her, not for something as silly as this. You scrub a hand over your face and get to your feet.

It’s quiet as you get ready for bed, even the soft music doing little to soothe you. You turn on every lamp in your bedroom, flood the room with light, until it’s as if the sun has risen and is cradling you in its warmth. You keep them on until the last moment, flicking them off only when you’re tucked in bed.

That cold thing stays with its fangs sunk in until you fall asleep.

***

The airport is nearly deserted by the time you land.

It’s late, night blanketing the terminal, held at bay only by the light pollution of the airport. Your shoes click against the linoleum as you hurry through the empty hallways, eager to be done with your exhausting day of travel.

The taxi driver that heaves your suitcase into the trunk is talkative, but you’re too busy checking your phone, flicking through the emails that poured in while you were in the air. The car rumbles to life beneath you as you pull up an attachment, scanning over the analysis quickly, scratching out a few notes on a scrap piece of paper you’ve pulled from your bag. The countryside rolls by as you work, pitch black except for a few lit windows from passing houses, little lighthouses in the deep sea of the night.

“Here we are,” the taxi driver says cheerfully, killing the engine in front of the inn.

It’s clearly old but well-maintained, a piece of the past caught in the resin of time. There are fake candles guttering in each window. The wreath on the door is almost as big as the door itself, dotted with lights that twinkle like little silver stars and topped off with a perfect crimson bow.

“Thanks,” you say to the driver, trading a tip for your suitcase before heading up the steps of the inn. The scent of pine wafts around you; you step inside before it can stick to your clothes.

“Hi,” you say to the receptionist, who puts down her magazine. “I’m here to check in.”

“Name?”

You tell her. She nods and you check your phone again as she checks you in. Luckily, it doesn’t take long, because the long day is beginning to weigh on you, an ache deep in your bones.

“Let us know if there’s anything you need,” the receptionist says.

“Thanks.”

You pay little attention to the room, simply stowing your suitcase before pulling your laptop from your carry-on bag. There’s a small desk that you settle at; your laptop screen glows brightly as you open it. The world blurs, smears like a watercolor. You blink the fuzziness away to answer a few more emails.

A few turns into many, catching up on all of your current projects now that you have another project to take care of. The headache that slowly blooms is familiar; it lingers behind your left eye, throbbing like a wound. It’s what finally gets you to set down your laptop for the night. It’s late enough that when you peer out the window while getting ready for bed, even the stars seem to have gone cold, twinkling faintly.

By the time you crawl into bed, you don’t even want to look at the clock. Still, you see it when you set your alarm, and you wince. You only have a few hours before it goes off. You curse yourself and roll over to finally, finally go to sleep.

Tomorrow comes too quickly. You wake with the sun, before your alarm, watery light pouring into your room, pooling in soft gold puddles on the floor. It catches on the prism dangling from the window, throwing rainbows against the walls, a whirling ballet of color.

You make a mental note to close the curtains tonight. You hadn’t even realized they were open, with how dark the countryside is around the inn, far too used to the ambient light of the city. When you peer out the window, all you see is woods framing a large, clear space still dusted with snow.

In daylight the inn is even more quaint, brimming with Christmas decor: with thick garlands draped over the doorway arches, weighted down with golden ornaments that catch the light, sending it flickering like the flames roaring in the fireplace. Sprigs of holly are tucked among the garlands too, little fireworks of color. Add in the mounds of fake snow lining a sprawling ceramic village and it’s a picture-perfect display. You trace a finger over the tiny wreath on the village bakery’s door.

“Mornin’,” someone says behind you, a deep rumble of a voice, shaking through you like thunder splitting the sky. You turn around and find a man beaming at you.

“Good morning,” you say.

“Looking for breakfast? It’s in the dining room, right through there.”

“I was really just looking for coffee.”

“That’s in the dining room too,” he says. “I’m Lee. I own the inn with my husband.”

“Oh,” you say. “That’s nice. It’s lovely. I’m sorry, though, I really have to get to work.”

He raises a brow. There’s a whole conversation in that brow, you think. One you’re not interested in having.

You give him a tight smile. “Excuse me,” you say. “That coffee is calling me.”

“Sure,” he says. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

You trade nods with a few other guests as you get your coffee, but you’re in and out of the loud dining room in a matter of minutes. Your room, foreign as it is to you still, is a welcome respite from the chatter that fills the inn.

The coffee is good. It’s rich and nutty, the warmth of it warding off the slight chill that lingers in the room from the large windows. You try to peer out one of them but it’s whorled with frost, ice spun over the glass like embroidery, just opaque enough to let in the light.

You settle back down at the little desk and boot up your laptop. Your inbox has slowly filled up again, and you’re starting to work through it when your boss slacks you.

Qingzu: You’re off your regular projects for now.

Me: ??? I’m almost done with the analysis.

Qingzu: Fu Xuan wants you to concentrate on bringing Jing Yuan on board. I’ll delegate your usual tasks.

You wince. Your coworkers are going to hate you.

Me: I can still do the analysis at least.

Qingzu: What the CEO says goes. Focus on the job she gave you.

Qingzu: Also it looks like the address we have on file for Jing Yuan is outdated.

Qingzu: You might need to do a little searching.

Me: Okay.

You sigh, scrubbing your hands over your face before exiting out of your email. Not for the first time, you wonder why Fu Xuan didn’t reach out to Jing Yuan herself, considering she’d succeeded him at Luofu Corp. You’re not sure how negotiation from a stranger is the better option. And it would certainly have made your life easier.

At least she’s given you a profile on him. The picture is unnecessary considering how many magazine covers the man has graced, but it’s there, and you won’t say no to looking at a pretty face. Even in his official picture, there’s a small, lazy smile on his face. He looks half-asleep, but his golden eyes are knife-sharp.

A tactician's mind, Fu Xuan said, and you believe it.

You read through the profile carefully, taking in details large and small, trying to get a sense of the man you’re supposed to lure out of retirement. He’d retired early, barely into his fifties, and he’d only picked up a handful of projects in the last two years since, mostly charity work. You sigh, deeply jealous, and read on.

The profile isn’t particularly helpful; to be honest, you hadn’t expected it to be. You’ll need to meet him and gauge him for yourself to see what the best avenue is.

You shrug on your coat before leaving the room, slipping past a ragtag group of children. They’re led by a little girl in a hat bigger than her head, the fuzzy flaps of it bouncing as she scuttles down the hallway, her face shining triumphantly, a mug of hot cocoa carefully balanced in her hands.

You hesitate at the bottom of the stairs, glancing between the door and the front desk. You sigh and head towards the front desk. Lee smiles at you.

“Whatcha need?” he asks.

“I’m looking for someone in town,” you say. “I was hoping you could direct me to them.”

“Sure. Who is it?”

“Jing Yuan.”

His smile shatters at the edges, a slowly spreading crack. He leans back on his heels and eyes you up and down.

“You a reporter?”

“No.”

He nods to himself. “Should have known. You look a little too corporate for that.”

You smooth down your coat self-consciously. Maybe you should have brought some more casual clothing for this trip.

“Can you tell me where he is?” you ask.

“He’s not interested.”

“What?”

Lee shrugs, rocking back on his heels again. You think of a great pine tree swaying in the wind, bending, never breaking. “Whatever you want him for, he’s not interested.”

“How about he tells me that himself?”

“I’m sure he will,” he says. “If you can find him.”

“Which I assume you aren’t going to help with.”

“Sorry.”

You roll your eyes and stalk towards the door, wrenching it open and fleeing into the outdoors. The sun is shining but the air is frigid, the type of cold that sinks right through clothing and into your marrow. You shudder and pull up the collar of your coat to try and block the worst of the chill as you walk towards downtown.

It’s an easy walk; you find yourself in the heart of downtown in just a few minutes. It’s just as quaint as the inn, the lampposts lining the street decorated with wreaths faintly dusted with pristine snow. You glance up at the lights strung between buildings, shimmering like the icicles they’re mimicking.

It’s pretty, you suppose. You think people would flock here if they knew about it. Still, despite how small the town is, the streets are filled with people, some of them shouting greetings back and forth.

You duck into the crowds and weave your way through them carefully, pausing just before a cafe. A thought occurs to you as you take a quick peek through the frosted window. You peel off your gloves, holding them in your hand as you step into Auntie’s.

“Excuse me,” you say as one of the waitresses comes over to you, a tray balanced against her hip. “A man dropped these a block back and I thought I saw him come in here. I was hoping to return them. He was tall and had long white hair that he was wearing tied back. I think it was with a red ribbon.”

“Sounds like Jing Yuan,” she says. “You sure paid close attention to him.”

You cough, fidgeting with the leather gloves and she laughs. “Most people do,” she reassures you. You flash her a small, embarrassed smile. “He’s hard to miss, handsome as he is. I can give them to him next time I see him.”

“That’s okay,” you say. “If you know where he is, I don’t mind bringing them to him. I’m just enjoying wandering around town.”

Her eyes narrow; ice seeps into them, the slow creep of the first frost. Her grip tightens on the tray.

You blink at her guilelessly, trying not to hold your breath.

Her shoulders uncoil. “Sorry,” she says. “It’s just—nevermind. I haven’t seen him today. I’d check along Aurum. That’s the main street. If you don’t find him, you can come back here and I’ll give ‘em to him.”

“I’ll just check a few more shops,” you tell her. “I’m on the lookout for Christmas presents, anyway.”

“Cutting it close, aren’t you?”

“I know, I know,” you say. “I’m so bad about it. Thank you!”

“Bye.”

You hurry out the door, flexing your fingers against the cold as you keep your gloves in your hands. The second and third store yield the same results; the fourth shop is a bust too. The locals are more protective of Jing Yuan than you’d thought. You get a suspicious look every time you describe him, and that’s without even mentioning his name.

You step outside the fourth shop with a huff. At this point, you’re worried that someone is going to insist on keeping the gloves. There’s only so many times you can spin the same story before it bites you in the ass. Plus, your hands are freezing; the sunlight is doing little to warm the day despite the rays bathing half the street gold.

One more store, you think. Just one more.

You groan when you see the next store is a bustling toy shop. Children tug at their parents’ hands and smudge their noses up against the windows with gap-toothed grins. They spill out of the entrance like little ants, almost tripping over themselves as they babble excitedly to their companions. They part around you like flowing water as you make your way inside.

“Excuse me,” you say to the first person wearing a nametag that you see, holding out the gloves. “A man dropped these a few blocks back. I tried to catch up but couldn’t, but I thought I saw him duck in here. Have you seen a tall man with white hair tied up with a red ribbon?”

“Funny,” a rich voice says from behind you. “I don’t think those would fit me.”

You freeze.

The man peers down over your shoulder; a few strands of fluffy white hair brush against you as he examines the gloves you’re holding. He tugs one free of your slackened grip and holds it up against his hand, which dwarfs the glove. His low hum resonates through you, a honeyed drip of sound, soft and warm.

“A little small, don’t you think?” he asks.

You turn around.

Jing Yuan smiles at you, his eyes crinkling with it. There’s a wicked amusement tucked up secret in the corner of his full lips; you try not to scowl.

You see why Fu Xuan called him a scoundrel.

Still, there’s no way out of this. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” you say with a shrug. “And I did find you, so.”

He chuckles. “That you did.”

“I—”

“Uncle!”

You blink as a blond blur zips past you and almost crashes into Jing Yuan. The blur turns out to be a young boy—no older than twelve—carrying a sizable sword. It’s almost as big as he is.

“Uncle,” he says again, tugging at Jing Yuan’s sleeve. “Look what I found!”

“It’s a very nice sword, Yanqing,” Jing Yuan says, his smile softening. “But let’s wait and see what Christmas brings, hmm?”

Yanqing pouts for a moment before he glances at you. You realize he shares his uncle’s eyes, as golden as the sun. He blinks. “Are you another reporter?”

Jing Yuan leans down to be closer to his height. “Worse,” he whispers. “They’re corporate.”

The boy wrinkles his nose.

Jing Yuan’s smile threatens to turn into a grin. “Go put the sword back, please,” he tells Yanqing, and you watch him dart off again.

“Could I—”

“I’m afraid I’m busy,” Jing Yuan says. “And you may have heard that I retired.”

“I know, but—”

“Business has no place in a toy shop, you know.”

“That’s not what the toy seller would say.”

He tilts his head, a sliver of a smile unfurling on his lips. “I suppose so,” he says thoughtfully. “Either way, I am busy.”

“Fu Xuan sent me,” you try.

He sighs. “Yes, I had assumed.”

“If I could just get a bit of your time—”

“Not now,” Jing Yuan says. “I’m with my family.”

“But at some point?”

“You’re at the inn, yes?”

“I am.”

“I’ll come find you tomorrow. Does that work?”

“Really?” you say and cough as he smiles, golden eyes twinkling like the ornaments decorating the toy shop. “I mean, that works. Here, here’s my card.”

He takes it; it looks tiny in his hand. He says your name, rolling it over his tongue like he’s tasting it, like it’s something to be savored. Your cheeks heat. A small smile plays across his lips.

“Tomorrow, then,” you say.

He nods, his white hair swaying with it, like dandelion seeds caught on the wind. “Tomorrow. Come on, Yanqing.”

You start as the boy goes past you like a little darting fish, settling at his uncle’s side and tugging on his sleeve. “Can we go to the smithy?” he asks as the two of them turn to leave. “Please?”

Jing Yuan laughs, the sound rich, spilling over you like smooth chocolate. “Just to look,” he says, and they’re almost out the door when you realize—

“Wait!” you call out. “You still have my glove!”

Jing Yuan pauses and glances back, one golden eye rising like the sun over the mountain range of his shoulders. “Oh?” he asks, raising a brow. “I thought you said it was mine?”

Behind you, the employee stifles a laugh. Your cheeks burn. “I—”

He chuckles. “Here,” he says, handing it back. “I’d hate for you to be cold.”

Then he and Yanging are out the door, leaving you standing in the middle of the bustling toy shop. You clutch at your glove; it’s still warm from his hand, like the soft heat that lingers in the hearth stones long after the fire has gone out.

It occurs to you that you may be in over your head.

***

The feeling doesn’t go away the next day.

“Where exactly are we going?”

Jing Yuan flashes you a smile; the edges of it curl into something smug. He’d called early and met you at the inn, coaxing you into putting your coffee in a to-go cup before shuffling you out the door with no real explanation. “Christmas tree shopping.”

“Christmas tr—I thought we were going to talk about the project!”

“We are,” he says easily, pulling into a gravel parking lot surrounded by towering, barren oaks. In the distance, you can see a grid of pines, laid out like an embroidery pattern. “But it’s Christmas.”

“It’s five days away.”

“That’s basically Christmas,” he says cheerfully. He slides from the pickup with feline grace, the flex of his thighs obvious even under the thick denim of his jeans. You stay put in the passenger seat. He raises a brow. “You don’t want to talk?”

That sends you scrambling for the passenger door.

Jing Yuan doesn’t bother to hide the little smile that blooms on his lips, an unfurling flower. You scowl at him as you join him next to the pickup; it has no effect.

“Shall we?” he asks.

You huff and follow him onto the tree lot. He clearly knows where he’s going, weaving through the pines with a dancer’s ease despite his size. You stop at a row of sizable trees, their blue-green needles rustling in the wind. They’re dusted in the lightest layer of snow, like frosting sugar has been sifted over them.

You’re searching for the words to start your pitch when he hums.

“What do you think of this one?” he asks, testing the thick branches of a plush pine, watching critically as needles scatter everywhere. It releases a waft of the sharp tang of pine.

“It’s a tree.”

“Noted,” Jing Yuan says dryly. “Thank you for your input.”

“I don’t understand why I’m here,” you tell him as he moves on to the next tree. “I thought we would go to your office.”

“I don’t have an office,” he says. “And the rec center needs a Christmas tree.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

He glances at you. His eyes are the color of amber shot through with sunlight, a deep, rich gold. His gaze is knife-edged, a flaying thing, and it sinks beneath your skin to open you on its blade. You fidget with your sleeve.

When he smiles, it’s soft and maybe a little sad. He doesn’t say anything; he just hums again and moves to the next tree.

“Jing Yuan!”

“Keep moving,” he says. “We have to deliver the tree too, you know.”

“We have to what?”

He laughs, loud and bright. “You heard me,” he says cheerfully. “Now come on.”

You follow him through the rows, giving him clipped answers when he asks your opinion about a tree. Finally, after several more trees—that all looked the same to you, tall and full of pine needles—he finds one that he’s pleased with.

He tells you to wait with the tree and disappears down the row.

When he comes back, he has an ax.

“Um,” you say.

“Hm? Oh. It’s fine,” he says, resting the ax nearby as he ties his hair up into a high ponytail.

“Is it?”

He hefts the ax up and motions you back before swinging. He strikes true, the trunk starting to splinter under the hit, and the next one is in the exact same spot. The tree groans in protest, but Jing Yuan doesn’t pause. His powerful shoulders bunch and flex as he keeps the ax in motion with ease, though he’s beginning to pant a bit by the time he’s halfway through the trunk. Sweat glints on his brow; it dampens the edges of his hair, darkening it to the silver of the moon.

He swings the ax again, his biceps bulging, and a crack splits the air. The tree starts to topple, falling into its neighbor, which keeps it mostly upright. Jing Yuan wipes his brow, chest heaving, and belatedly, you realize you’re staring.

Behind you, there’s the crunch of pine needles under boots. Two men wearing name tags stride by you and clap Jing Yuan on the shoulder. They confer with him for a moment before they pick up the tree and start carrying it back towards the parking lot.

“There,” Jing Yuan says, sounding satisfied. “We can go now.”

“Do you often just…cut down trees?”

“Only at Christmas.”

You snort. He chuckles before gesturing you back to the parking lot. You head back and come up to the pickup just as the two men finish tying off the tree in the bed of the truck. Jing Yuan gives them firm handshakes; you pretend not to notice just how much cash is transferred between their palms.

The two of you climb back into the truck. You have to move your briefcase in order to sit comfortably and the sight of it sets you back on track.

“You said we’d talk about the project,” you accuse.

“You didn’t say anything,” he says, putting the truck into gear. “So there wasn’t anything to talk about.”

You scowl at him. He pulls out of the parking lot; the truck trundles down the road.

“Insufferable,” you mutter, but from the way the corner of his lips lift, he’s heard it.

Quiet falls. The radio is crooning a soft Christmas song, but it’s faint, like an echo of the past. The heater is on, and the truck’s cab is soft with warmth, like sinking into bathwater after a long day. You lean against the window. Your breath fogs over the glass, a marine layer, and you resist the urge to draw something in the mist.

The rec center isn’t far; you pull up to it just a few minutes later. Your phone rings just as Jing Yuan hops out of the truck.

“I need to take this,” you tell him. “It’s work.”

He hums, something flashing across his face. It’s gone quickly, rolling by like a summer storm, and you’re already picking up the phone, your coworker’s harried voice filling your ears.

The phone call takes a while. At one point, the truck rattles around you—a quick glance in the rearview shows a group of teen boys pulling the tree free from the truck bed, leaving a sea of needles in their wake, a forest floor brought home. Their laughter fills the air, audible even through your earbuds. You turn up the volume.

Jing Yuan shows back up just as you’re finishing your call. There’s silvery tinsel woven into his hair, barely visible except when it catches the sunlight, a lightning strike gleam. “You must be cold,” he tells you. “Come inside.”

You shake your head. “I need to go back to the inn,” you say. “I have a project that just went sideways.”

He sighs. “As you wish,” he says, and climbs back into the truck.

You flick through your phone as he drives back to the inn, answering emails and trying your best to put out the embers of the fire that had sprung up on your project. When you reach the last one, you click your phone off and glance at Jing Yuan out of the corner of your eye.

The cold wind has nipped at his cheeks until roses bloom on his pale skin. The tinsel in his white hair shines, the full moon draped in ribbons of silvery shooting stars, and he’s beautiful in an untouchable way, a statue come to life.

Except—there’s a small, lopsided smile tucked up secret in the corner of his lips. It sweetens his mouth and adds a puckish curve; it makes him real again. It’s a contentment that you didn’t know existed, a quiet happiness that radiates from him.

Something in your chest goes tight.

You clear your throat. He glances over at you, that tiny smile fading into something more polished.

“Something to share?”

“The project.”

“Ah,” he says. “That.”

“Yes, that.”

“I suppose you have me trapped, don’t you.”

“For as long as the car ride,” you agree.

“Go on, then.”

You give him a basic overview, sweeping over the vast lay of the project, upselling things you’ll think he’ll care about while cutting out a few of the things you think he won’t. It’s hard to tell how it’s landing; you’re slowly realizing that Jing Yuan is a hard man to read. You suppose it makes sense, considering his years at the highest level in corporate, but it feels odd.

“I can see why Fu Xuan wants me on board,” he says as he pulls into the inn’s driveway. “And it is the type of project that appeals to me, which she knows.”

You let out a soft breath. “I don’t suppose that means you’ll come on board?”

He parks. “No,” he says.

You sigh. “I thought not. What would it take for you to come on board?”

“Don’t you think it’d be more fun to find that out yourself?”

You scowl at him, ignoring the way the corners of his lips lift.

“No.”

Jing Yuan glances at you, his eyes gleaming, the sun come down to earth.“I'll tell you what,” he says. “Spend up until Christmas Eve with me. You can talk to me about the project until then. And if you haven’t figured it out by then, I’ll tell you exactly what will get me onto the project.”

You eye him suspiciously. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Deal,” you say, sticking out your hand. He shakes it, his grip firm. You can feel the heat of him even through your gloves. It’s soft like the early spring sun, a gentle warmth that blooms through you.

“Not that I mind, but I will need my hand back.”

You let go immediately, snatching your hand back like you’ve been burned.

Jing Yuan smiles at you, eyes crinkling.

“I have to go,” you say, scrambling for your briefcase. You think you hear him chuckle under his breath as you pop the door open. You don’t even say goodbye; you slam the door shut before striding off towards the inn, pretending your dignity isn’t lying in pieces.

At the inn’s door, you can’t help yourself. You glance back.

Jing Yuan smiles and gives you a little wave.

Your cheeks go hot, a supernova burn. You retreat into the inn quickly.

Lee calls out a greeting, but you ignore him and rush to your room. You curse Jing Yuan’s name as you boot your laptop up. Your cheeks are still warm. You scrub your hands over them as if that will help.

Your email pings. With a sigh, you scrub at your heated cheeks one more time before you delve into your inbox.

The rest of the day passes in a blur of phone calls and emails; by the time you look up, stomach grumbling, the sun has set, leaving behind only its reflection in the moon to lead the way. You push back from the desk and rub at your stinging eyes.

When you go downstairs to grab something to eat, the inn’s lounge is full of people. You balk, unsure, but your stomach rumbles again. You make yourself a plate and sit down at the edge of one of the crowded tables, picking away at the food as laughter fills the air around you.

There’s a couple at the other end of your table, hands intertwined as they talk, pressing close to hear each other over the noise. The shorter woman smiles at her partner, quick and bright, a shooting star burning through the night sky, and you look away.

Across the room, a group of teens are laughing among themselves, draped over each other casually. You watch them for a moment. They vie for the handheld console they’re playing with, passing it back and forth as they chatter excitedly.

Something cold slithers behind your ribs. It winds around the bones like ivy, sending roots down into your marrow.

You take the rest of your meal upstairs.

***

The morning light streams through the frost on your windows, the feathered whorls of ice glittering as they cast dancing shadows on the walls. Beyond your window, the inn’s yard is full of bundled up families swooping down the slight hill in brightly colored sleighs, their whoops barely audible.

You watch a little boy tug his father up the hill. He’s so wrapped up in layers that he’s waddling. He throws his hands up in the air as they coast down the hill, snow kicking up behind the sleigh, his father wrapping an arm around him to keep him steady.

Someone says your name.

“Sorry,” you say, coming back to yourself and the conference call you’re on. “Could you repeat that?”

They do and you refocus, tapping away at your keyboard as you sip at your coffee. You’ve stepped back into some of your usual projects now that you’re at Jing Yuan’s whim. He’s clearly a late riser, based on the time.

He calls when you’re on your third cup of coffee. He tells you only to meet him in front of the inn in fifteen minutes. You’re out the door in ten, stamping your feet on the inn’s porch to keep warm, tucking your chin into your coat’s collar in hopes of keeping warm.

Jing Yuan pulls up a few minutes later. He slides from the car gracefully, looking cozy in a fleece-lined bomber jacket. You tuck your chin further into your coat collar as the wind gusts. He eyes you for a moment.

“Do you have anything warmer?”

“I brought clothes for business meetings, not whatever you have planned,” you say irritably.

He chuckles. “Fair,” he says. “Hold on.”

He disappears to the trunk of the car. When he comes back, he’s got a thick scarf and hat with him, the knit of them full of lumps, clearly handmade. There’s a neon bright pom-pom on the top of the hat.

“No,” you say flatly.

He chuckles. “Alright.”

The wind chooses that moment to gust heavily, biting through every layer to kiss frigid against your skin. “Shit,” you bite out, and when Jing Yuan holds out the hat and scarf again, you take them.

You jam the hat on your head and wind the scarf around your neck before burying your chin in it, pulling it up over your mouth and nose. When you breathe in, the air is tinged with what can only be traces of Jing Yuan’s cologne, a faint hint of warm cedar and bergamot, woodsy and bright. Beneath that, there’s a hint of smoke, of woodfire. It drapes over you like a soft, warm blanket. You resist the urge to close your eyes to breathe it in again.

“Cute,” Jing Yuan teases. You glare at him, but from the smile he gives you, it’s not very effective. You glare harder.

“Let’s go,” he says, urging you towards the car with a gentle hand at the small of your back. You can feel the weight of it even through the thick material of your coat. When you glance at him, he’s already looking at you. He chuckles as you glance away.

“Where are we going?” you ask as you slip into the passenger seat.

He flashes you a coy little smile. “You’ll see.”

You huff; he just smiles.

It doesn’t take you long to get back to the rec center, but you make the most of it, chattering to him about the project, trying to figure out what to highlight based on his reaction. He responds amiably, even asks a few questions, but it’s not enough. You know it’s not enough.

When you arrive at the rec center, Jing Yuan pulls around the back of the building. Before you can even ask, the answer comes into view.

“Oh,” you breathe, cutting yourself off mid-sentence about the marketing strategy, taking in the massive skating rink. The bleachers are covered with twinkling lights and pine garlands, massive red bows dotted along them like flowers. There are lights overhead, too, dripping down like icicles. A Christmas tree sparkles in the far corner of the rink, weighed down with ornaments and topped with a shining star.

Jing Yuan parks and you balk.

“We’re not—”

“We are,” he says cheerfully, the corners of his lips curling up into a lazy smile.

“What does this have to do with the project?” you ask desperately.

“Ah ah, that would be telling.”

You gape at him. He chuckles and gets out of the car; you follow him after a moment. He guides you to the skate shoe rental hut and before you realize it, you have a pair of skates on and are at the edge of the rink. You’re not even sure how he convinced you.

Jing Yuan is already on the ice. He moves like a dancer despite his bulk, swaying over the ice like kelp in a current, rippling and beautiful. There’s something utilitarian to it too, not a single move wasted. An athlete’s precision.

He comes close to the edge and holds out a hand to you. “Ready?” he asks.

“I know how to skate,” you snap at him.

“Okay,” he says, skating backwards to give you enough room to kick out onto the ice.

It takes you a minute to find your feet, skates almost skittering out from under you, but you find your balance quickly and start to skate through the rink. The ice is smooth beneath you, perfectly slick, and you pick up speed. When you glance to your right, Jing Yuan is there, keeping up with you effortlessly, a small smile unfurling across his lips.

His hair is streaming out behind him, barely tamed by the thin red ribbon holding part of it back. You think of the pelting snow of a blizzard, beautiful and dangerous, and look away just as he turns to you.

“So shy,” he says, a laugh rumbling in his chest, and you consider how much it might hurt the potential of the project if you hit him.

“I’m hardly shy,” you tell him.

“That’s true,” he says. “I don’t think anyone shy would have claimed their gloves as mine.”

The tips of your ears go hot. “I needed to find you.”

“I’ve heard that you can ask people things.”

“I tried. They’re protective of you, you know.”

His smile softens, goes tender at the edges. “More protective than I deserve,” he says, so quietly it’s almost lost in the whipping wind.

You bite at your lip. You glance at him from the corner of your eye; his smile is distant now, like the sun dipping just below the horizon.

“Jing Yuan?” you say tentatively.

He blinks. “Hmm? Oh. Sorry.”

You hum. “You skate well,” you say instead of the question that’s lingering on the tip of your tongue.

“So do you.”

“My mom was a skater,” you say, looping around a tottering child. “She taught me when I was little. I haven’t gone in forever, though.”

“How come?”

“Too busy.”

“Too busy working,” he says, and it’s not a question.

You think of the Instagram photos from a few weeks ago, all of your friends at a nearby rink, glowing under the lights as they pile into the frame, caught eternally in joy. The pictures of the food afterwards, of the drinks they used to warm themselves up, each one dotted with a little sprig of holly.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “Too busy working.”

He hums.

You push yourself to skate faster. He keeps up with you smoothly, his footwork impeccable.

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

You glance at him; he meets your gaze steadily, his eyes the color of sunlit whisky, deep and rich. “I’m not upset,” you say.

“Alright.”

The two of you skate quietly for a long while, keeping an easy pace around the rink, avoiding the wobbling tots being coaxed by their steady parents. Teens spin around in circles until they’re dizzy, falling to the ice with a laugh. There’s a girl holding hands with another girl as she scrambles across the ice like a baby deer. You watch them bobble along, a little smile blossoming on your lips.

“Careful,” you hear Jing Yuan warn, and you look up just in time to see a teen boy windmilling his arms as he comes straight at you. Before you can even blink, there’s an arm around your waist, tugging you out of the way. The momentum sends you directly into Jing Yuan; he turns the two of you quickly and grunts as he hits the rink’s edge, taking the brunt of the impact.

You end up pressed together. His arm is still slung low around your waist, holding you to him, the tips of your skates just barely touching the ground; you’ve fisted your hands in his coat to keep from falling. You can’t help but lean into the warmth of him. This close, you can smell his cologne more clearly. It’s different on his skin, the woodfire scent all but gone, while the cedar and the bright flash of citrus from the bergamot still lingers.

“You okay?” he asks, setting you down. His big hands are gentle as he steadies you, touching you as if you’re something fragile, something to be protected.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” You still have your hands fisted in his jacket. You let go one finger at a time before stepping back.

“I’m fine,” he says, straightening up. “Doubt it will even bruise.”

“Thanks,” you say. “For the save.”

“You’re welcome. Think I’m done with skating for the day, though.”

“Me too.”

The two of you skate to the edge of the rink; Jing Yuan holds out a hand to help you from the ice. By the time you’re done returning the skates, the sun is setting, the fiery orange horizon giving way to the encroaching teeth of night.

“I should get back,” you say. “I still have some work to do.”

Jing Yuan glances at you. His gaze is assessing, golden eyes keen, and you wonder if this is what it felt like to be under his scrutiny when he was still a CEO. If other people felt his gaze like an autopsy cut, opening you for his perusal.

“Sure,” he says easily. “If you have to.”

“I do.”

He takes you back to the inn. Your goodbye is quiet, though he takes one last jab at how you look wearing the hat and scarf as he insists you keep them for now.

You watch him drive off, unable to shake the feeling that somehow, you’ve disappointed him.

You work for a while, your room quiet, before you give up in the middle of an email. You shut down your laptop and get ready for bed.

It takes you a long time to fall asleep.

***

“Do you really get up this late?” you ask, checking your watch as Jing Yuan climbs out of his car.

“No,” he says, sounding amused. “Do I give that impression?”

“They literally called you the Dozing CEO.”

“There are worse things to be.”

“That’s true,” you say thoughtfully. “Anyway, I wanted to talk about the second stage of the pro—”

“Later,” Jing Yuan says. “Right now it’s time for coffee. Let’s go to Auntie’s.”

The snow crunches under your boots as the two of you walk into town. The crowd is even bigger today, filling the streets. There’s a band at one end of Aurum, the musicians bundled up as they play lively Christmas music. They take a request from a passing child and they clap in delight as the band starts to play.

“Is it always like this?” you ask.

Jing Yuan nods. “The holidays are a big deal around here,” he says, holding the door to Auntie’s open for you. “It’s a close-knit community.”

He greets the hostess by name and asks about her family; she chatters familiarly with him as she leads the two of you to a booth.

“I can tell,” you say once she’s left. “Is that why you came here?”

He pauses.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, it’s fine,” he says, giving you a little smile. It’s soft, that smile, and sweet at the edges. Your cheeks heat a bit. “But yes, that’s a large part of it. That and I wanted to be out of the city.”

“Really? I thought you loved the city.”

He tilts his head in question.

You cough. “Most of the profiles I’ve read say you like the city.”

“When I was younger,” he says. “But now, I find the quiet suits me.”

The waitress comes by with a coffee for him; he thanks her kindly before returning his attention to you.

“The quiet here has been nice,” you admit.

“Would you ever leave the city?”

“I don’t know,” you say. “I’ve been there for almost twenty years now. I moved there when I was eighteen. Besides, that’s where my job is.”

He hums lightly. “So it is.”

“Speaking of—”

He sighs, cupping his coffee between his big hands to warm them. “Go ahead,” he says. “I said I’d listen.”

You launch into the second phase of the project, outlining the plans and how they’d be executed, as well as what his backing and involvement might look like. Jing Yuan drinks his coffee as he listens, only pausing you once so he can ask the waitress a question.

You wind down and he smiles at you. “You’re very convincing,” he tells you. “I can see how you got Feixiao to come on board for the last project that Luofu did.”

“But—” you say, knowing what’s coming.

“But I’m not sold.”

“Of course you aren’t,” you grumble under your breath. Jing Yuan breathes out a laugh and your face goes hot. “Sorry,” you say. “I’m so sorry—”

“It’s fine.”

“You’re very tolerant.”

“Am I?”

“You know you are.”

He chuckles. “I suppose I am,” he says. “Retirement has taken much of the bite out of me, I’m afraid. Though I don’t consider that a bad thing.”

“It’s not.”

He rests his chin on his palm, gazing at you from under his long lashes. Only one of his eyes is visible; the other is behind the silver of his hair, a sun hidden by clouds. His eye is heavily lidded, but his gaze is as keen as ever. “I’m glad we’re in agreement.”

“Right,” you say, flustered and unsure why. “Me too.”

“I find the best part of retirement is the softness,” he says. “It gives you room to be gentle. With yourself. With others.”

“You sound like a self-help book.”

“I do meditate quite often,” he says, eyes crinkling with his smile. “I would recommend it.”

“I don’t have time to meditate.”

“All the more reason to find some time for it,” he says mildly, taking another sip of his coffee. A droplet clings to his lower lip; he catches it with his thumb before licking his thumb clean. You almost choke on air.

“Are you alright?” he asks, a coy smile unfurling on his lips.

“F-fine.”

That smile grows larger, but he doesn’t comment on it. “Alright. Let’s have a late breakfast, shall we?”

“Okay.”

The food comes quickly, filling the air with the scent of crisp bacon and the sharp, woody tang of rosemary. The eggs melt on your tongue, perfectly fluffy, and Jing Yuan smiles when you let out a pleased sigh.

“Good?”

You nod eagerly, taking another bite.

“Good.”

You’re both quiet as you eat; when it comes time to pay, Jing Yuan doesn’t even let you reach for the bill, simply handing the waitress his card with a flick of his wrist. His playful glare silences you before you can even protest.

When you stand to leave, he gestures you in front of him. He follows you out the door of Auntie’s and the two of you stop under the awning—hung with crystalline stars that catch the sunlight as they sway in the wind—to stay out of the way of the crowds.

“Walk with me,” he says, tugging lightly at the end of your (his) scarf.

“Okay.”

The two of you thread through the crowds; eventually, they thin out and you settle beside each other. You take in the quieter part of town, still Christmas ready, with fake candles flickering in the windows of the offices and thick wreaths adorning the doors.

“Pretty,” you say absentmindedly, toying with a ribbon as you pass, the material velvety under your fingertips.

“Yes,” Jing Yuan says, sounding fond, and he’s already looking at you when you glance at him. “Come along, we’re almost there.”

“Where?” you ask, but you round the corner and the answer is there.

The park is beautiful, even barren, with the tree’s empty branches reaching towards the yawning sky. A light dusting of snow covers the ground, though it’s turned to slush on the paths. You and Jing Yuan pick your way around the worst of the melt, until you find a massive gazebo.

It’s a sight. It’s draped in garlands, each dotted with sprigs of holly and bright little lights that flash like shooting stars. Poinsettias line the gazebo, their stamen golden starfish amid the sea of crimson.

“Wow,” you say.

“It’s my favorite place in the park,” Jing Yuan says. “Though it’s normally a bit more subdued.”

“I would hope so.”

“But it’s not what we’re here for.”

“It’s not?”

“No,” he says, resting his hand on the small of your back and guiding you forward. “Let’s keep going.”

You talk quietly as you wander through the park until you suddenly notice there are a lot more people than there were before. Before you know it, you’re in a line. You look at Jing Yuan, but he simply smiles.

“No,” you say as the horse-pulled sleighs come into view.

“That’s what you said about skating, too.”

“Why is this town so into Christmas?”

“Why not?”

You sigh and let him guide you forward, abruptly aware that his hand is still at the small of your back. The weight of it prickles along your skin. He gives you a light push towards the front of the line.

The sleigh that pulls up in front of you is large. It’s decked out in garlands and holly, filled with soft, fuzzy blankets that look like they would keep you warm on even the coldest nights. The mare in front of it nickers, her tail flicking from side to side.

Jing Yuan slides into the sleigh with feline ease, though he’s broad enough to take up most of it himself. You hesitate.

He chuckles, patting the spot next to him on the bench. “Indulge me,” he says.

You sigh and slide in before sitting down. You immediately regret it. “It’s cold,” you whine, the chill seeping through your pants, but he simply tosses one of the blankets over you and tucks it in at the side, blocking out any chilly air.

“There,” he says. “Ready?”

“Okay,” you say, and the driver flicks her reins, sending the mare into a trot. The sleigh starts to slide forward and you grab onto Jing Yuan’s arm without thinking, sinking your fingertips into the muscle of his forearm.

He chuckles again and pats your hand. “You’ll get used to it,” he tells you.

“And if I don’t?”

“You can always keep holding on to me.”

You immediately let go.

He gives you an indolent smile. His eyes crinkle with it, and you want to curse him for being so handsome. Instead, you huff and bury yourself deeper under the blanket, which has slowly been heating.

“I could be working,” you mutter.

“Would you rather be?”

You blink, not having expected Jing Yuan to be listening to you that closely. “I—It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I just—it’s what I’m good at,” you say, and it sounds like a question even to your own ears. “I’m a good worker. A hard worker. I don’t really have much else to offer, so it makes sense to work all the time.”

“I think you’re underestimating yourself.”

“What?”

“You have much more to offer than just work,” he says gently.

“I really don’t,” you say miserably. “I barely see my friends and I worry about overwhelming them, and my family is just—”

You pause. “And I also just said all of this to you, basically a stranger and also who I’m supposed to be recruiting, so this is just embarrassing now. Goodbye.”

He catches you by the wrist as you start to throw the blanket off and try to wiggle away from his side.

“And here I thought we were more than strangers by now. I’m a little hurt.”

“Jing Yuan!”

“Alright, alright,” he says. “But it’s okay. I’m here to listen if you want.”

“I don’t,” you say, refusing to look at him as he reaches over you to tuck the blanket back in around you. “Just forget I said anything.”

Silence falls, broken only by the steady trot of the mare and the soft jingling of the bells you hadn’t noticed on her bridle.

“That’s part of why I retired, you know.”

You glance at Jing Yuan out of the corner of your eye. He’s staring off into the snowy treeline, his golden eyes hazed over, the sun under morning mist. “I wanted to be good at something other than work. And I wasn’t.”

“That’s not true,” you say softly. “You and your friends—”

“Fell apart,” he says, and you subside. You know just as much about the group of company heads deemed The Quintet as anyone does, which is to say that you only know of their end. Their exploits, their dreams, all overshadowed. Companies—people—that rose into the sky and then fell, burning up in the atmosphere until they were meteors, destined to crash.

Jing Yuan, barely out of his twenties, was the only one left standing.

“I put in years of work to try and get everything right again,” he says. “To acquire their companies and do right by them. I did it, too. And then I stayed. Because I was good at it. Because I didn’t know what else to do.”

You chew on your lip before throwing caution to the wind. You rest your hand on his forearm and don’t move when he jolts. His eyes cut towards you, burnished amber, and the sharp edges of him soften.

“You’re more than just work,” he says. “I can promise you that.”

“Okay,” you say softly, because what else is there to say? “Okay.”

The both of you are quiet for a few minutes. You chew on everything that’s been said, careful not to sink your teeth into the meat of it. You’ll leave that for later, preferably in the dark of your own apartment. Next to you, Jing Yuan seems perfectly at ease, and not for the first time, you’re jealous of his composure.

“Look,” he says suddenly, nudging you gently. He points to where the park meets true forest, where the saplings grow teeth. “Rabbits.”

“Where?” you say, leaning around him to try and see it. “I don’t see anything.”

“Here,” he says, and suddenly you’re encased in warmth, his arms wrapped around you as he points. You peer down the line of one bulky arm and finally see a family of hares in the underbrush, their downy fur as white as the snow that surrounds them.

“How did you even see them?” you breathe, watching as one of them noses at another, who shifts back into the brush. “They’re beautiful.”

“They are,” he says.

The horse nickers and the hares freeze before darting off deeper into the underbrush. You watch until you can’t see them anymore. You settle back before realizing you’re almost in Jing Yuan’s lap, his strong arms still wrapped around you. He’s warm against you, his chest firm despite the slight softness around his middle, and you can feel his voice rumble through you as he asks the driver a question, one you can’t quite make out through the static in your ears.

You push away quickly, settling on the far side of the sleigh. It doesn’t do much, considering his size, but at least you’re further away from him. Hopefully without alerting him to anything.

From the puckish curl of his lips, that hope is dashed. Still, he says nothing, continuing to talk with the driver as you stare out the side of the sleigh, huddling under the blanket now that you’re bereft of his warmth.

After he’s spoken to the driver, he turns back to you, that same little smile blooming on his lips, an unfurling flower. You brace yourself.

“If you’re cold, the ride’s almost over,” he says. “And then I assume you need to go back to work?”

You almost say yes. You almost take the out he’s given you, but you look at him instead, at the way his expression crinkles his eyes and the way his aureate gaze has softened. You look at Jing Yuan and something behind your ribcage writhes, battering against the bones.

“No,” you say quietly. “I think I still have more time.”

He smiles.

***

The two of you spend the rest of the afternoon in the park, meandering through the expanse of it and chatting the whole time. You only turn back towards the inn when it starts snowing, a light fall of fat, fluffy flakes. They catch in Jing Yuan’s lashes when he turns his face up to the sky, his white hair cascading behind him, a river of starlight.

He’s beautiful. You’d known that before, of course—the man was a staple on magazine covers for a reason—but like this, it’s a different type of beauty. You wish you had words for it. Instead, you content yourself with watching him.

He cracks open an eye and sees you looking. “You’re staring,” he says, a small, sly smile blooming on his lips. “Something on my face?”

“Snow,” you say dryly. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

“Ah, so you do care.”

“Maybe,” you say, and relish the fleeting look of surprise that he can’t quite hide. It’s gone as soon as it came, replaced by his usual small smile, but you think there’s a pleased edge to it. “Now hurry up, it’s cold.”

He lifts his face to the sky for a moment more, letting a few more flakes drift down onto him. You wait for him. You’re cold even with the hat and scarf, but he looks so content that you can’t bear to drag him away.

Finally, he strides to your side. The two of you head back into town, taking a route that extends the walk. You chat quietly for a majority of the time, though sometimes you lapse into a comfortable silence, simply watching the snow fall.

He insists on accompanying you all the way to the inn’s doorstep, citing the icy path. You roll your eyes but don’t argue; his smile makes something in your chest twist.

“Thanks,” you say at the doorstep.

“For?”

“Everything,” you say, a little bit helpless.

He smiles again, gentle like the spring sun, and then says: “I’d like to take you to the house tomorrow.”

“The house? Whose?”

“Mine.”

“Oh,” you say.

“Only if you’re okay with it.”

“You haven’t murdered me yet.”

“True,” he says, that same little smile unfurling on his lips. “There’s still time, though.”

“Jing Yuan!”

He laughs, low and rich, more a vibration than a sound, as close together as you are. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Yeah,” you say. “See you then.”

“Goodnight,” he says. But he stays until you give him a tiny shove.

You go to sleep with a smile lingering sweet on your lips.

***

It’s still snowing the next morning. The flakes fall delicately, dusting over the trees like icing sugar, coating the inn like a soft blanket. You watch it as you sip your coffee. It’s slow and steady, like a snowglobe settling after a flurry.

You can tell when Jing Yuan pulls up; your phone vibrates on top of your closed laptop. You gulp down the rest of your coffee before throwing on your coat. The walk from the inn to his car is short but cold. You shiver as you slip into the warmth of the car; he reaches over and tugs your hat down a little more firmly.

“Thanks,” you say. “Definitely couldn’t have done that myself.”

“You’re welcome,” he says cheerfully. “Let’s go.”

The drive to his house is longer than you thought. It’s on the far outskirts of town, set back into a grove of pine trees, not at all the modern manor you’d thought it would be. It’s still large, but there’s a modesty to it that fits him.

He pulls into the garage and leads you inside, where you immediately hear running footsteps. Jing Yuan smiles as Yanqing rounds the corner, all but throwing himself at his uncle.

“You took forever,” he complains.

“I had to go pick up my friend here,” Jing Yuan says, patting the boy on the head. “We can get started now, though.”

Yanqing peers at you. “Are they helping?”

“Helping with what?” you ask, shrugging out of your jacket at Jing Yuan’s gesture.

“Gingerbread, duh.”

“Oh, um—”

“They’re helping,” Jing Yuan says smoothly, ushering you forward into what you quickly realize is the biggest kitchen you’ve ever seen, filled to the brim with sleek kitchenware. There’s already ingredients laid out on the kitchen counter, perfectly arranged.

“I’m afraid to touch anything in your kitchen,” you say.

He laughs, rolling up the sleeves of his dark red sweater. You watch his forearms flex, the muscle rippling beneath his skin, the tendons in his hands cording.

“Don’t be,” he says. “Now let’s get started before Yanqing eats all the chocolate chips.”

Yanqing pauses with another handful of chocolate chips almost to his mouth. He gazes at his uncle for a moment and then defiantly pops it into his mouth. Jing Yuan sighs, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

The boy chatters at the two of you as you measure out the ingredients for gingerbread, though he mostly speaks to Jing Yuan. For his part, Jing Yuan listens intently, paying as much attention to Yanqing as he would to any adult. He nods seriously when Yanqing complains about something that happened at school.

“And then they took away my sword—”

“Wait,” you say, stopping in the middle of mixing. “Sword?”

Yanqing stares at you. “Yeah. My sword.”

You look at Jing Yuan, who laughs. “He’s a fencing champion,” he explains.

“I’m the best in the region,” Yanqing informs you, his chest puffed up. “But one day I’ll beat Uncle.”

You start mixing again. Jing Yuan is a former champion—that has been detailed in almost every magazine he’s ever interviewed with. With good reason, too. You’ve seen the photos of him in his fencing gear, his face mask by his side, his strong thighs outlined by the uniform. He’d been sweaty and smiling broadly, his senior Jingliu at his side, her lips pressed together sternly but her eyes gleaming.

“Ah, this old man can’t keep up with you anymore,” Jing Yuan says, ruffling Yanqing’s hair.

“Liar,” the boy grumbles.

Jing Yuan laughs again. “That looks ready,” he says to you. “Yanqing, do you want to roll it out?”

“Nope.” He’s already sorting through the candy that’s on the other counter, unwrapping various ones. “I’m picking decorations.”

“It’s up to you, then,” Jing Yuan says to you with a little smile.

“I don’t see you doing very much work,” you say. He’s leaning against the counter, looking half-asleep.

“I’m supervising.”

You point your spatula at him. “You dragged me here. Come help.”

“Of course,” he says, pushing off the countertop. He pauses to stretch, reaching high, just enough for his sweater to reveal a slice of his belly and the tiniest hint of silvery hair. You almost drop the spatula. He grabs it before you can, a smug little smirk playing across his lips.

But he doesn’t say anything, choosing instead to lightly flour the countertop and dump the gingerbread dough onto it. He flours the rolling pin as well, his big hand easily reaching around the fullest part of the thick pin. When he starts to roll it out, his hands and forearms flex with each motion, the veins protruding slightly from beneath his skin.

You decide it’s better for you to look at something else. You focus on Yanqing, who is humming happily to himself as he picks out varying decorations.

“Those would make good pine trees,” you say, pointing to the waffle cones.

He eyes you. “How?”

“Like this,” you say, flipping them over so the mouth of the cone is against the counter. “And then you pipe on icing to make it look like a tree.”

He deliberates for a moment. “We can try it,” he allows.

“Okay.”

He slips away to another counter that’s got piping bags and tips laid out all over it, along with several different colors of icing. You glance at Jing Yuan. “You really have everything, don’t you?”

He smiles, cutting out a few shapes from the rolled out dough. “Not everything,” he says. “But I do try to stay stocked for gingerbread house day.”

“Do you do it every year?”

“Yup,” Yanqing says, sliding in next to you. “Since I was little.” He concentrates on the piping bag for a moment, pressing the tip down until it’s at the bottom of the bag and then grabbing a glass and pulling the edges of the bag over the edges of the glass. It holds it nicely and he starts to pile icing in.

“I can tell,” you say, watching his careful precision. He doesn’t reply, too busy piping on the first bit of icing.

There’s a blast of heat at your back as Jing Yuan opens the oven to put the gingerbread pieces in. The pan clinks against the rack and then the heat at your back is softer, a gentle warmth instead. Jing Yuan leans over you to see what Yanqing is doing, his long white hair draping over your shoulder, a waterfall of moonlight.

“Clever,” he says.

“Pretty sure I read it in a magazine.”

He hums. “Still clever.”

“I guess.”

“Look!” Yanqing says. “It looks good, doesn’t it?”

“Very good,” Jing Yuan says, and he’s not lying. Yanqing has an eye for details, swirling the piping to achieve a needle-like texture in the deep green icing. “Now you can put ornaments on it.”

“Yeah!”

You watch him fish through the varying candies to find a handful of circular red and gold ones, which he starts pushing into place in the icing. He works diligently, setting them into patterns, but you’re distracted by the heat of Jing Yuan against your back. He shifts behind you and your fingers flex.

The timer saves you. Jing Yuan pulls away as it dings; you hear the oven open and close again as he sets the gingerbread on racks to cool.

“Make one,” Yanqing says suddenly, shoving a waffle cone into your hands. “We need more for the forest.”

“Is there going to be a forest?” Jing Yuan asks mildly. “I thought we were making a house.”

“We can do both!”

“I see.”

The three of you work on trees as the gingerbread cools. Yanqing chatters away, telling you all about his most recent bout and what he asked for for Christmas. It’s cute, really, watching him and Jing Yuan interact, his hero worship obvious even from such a short amount of time.

You’ve just put the finishing touch—a silver gummy star—on top of a tree when the doorbell rings. Jing Yuan pushes to his feet with a groan and goes to answer it.

When you look up from your tree, Yanqing is staring at you.

“Uncle doesn’t usually bring corporate people to the house,” Yanqing says. “So how come you’re here?”

“I don’t know,” you say. “You’ll have to ask him.”

Yanqing’s gaze isn’t quite as knowing as his uncle’s, but it’s gutting in its own way. “I think it’s because you’re sad,” he tells you.

“I’m not sad!”

“Okay,” he says in the way that pre-teens do. “Lonely, then.”

He grins in triumph when you can’t refute that. Then his brow furrows. “I think he’s lonely too,” he confesses. “He doesn’t want to say it, though. But he is.”

Your stomach twists.

“Yanqing—”

He glares at you. “He is!”

“I’m not saying he isn’t,” you say softly. “I just don’t think you should be talking about it with me.”

“But you understand!”

You sigh. “Yanqing,” you say. “If Jing Yuan wants me to know something, he’ll tell me himself, okay?”

“No he won’t,” he mutters.

“That’s his choice.”

His brow furrows; his lips twist, a sour lemon kiss. “Fine,” he says.

You bite at your lip but he doesn’t say anything else. “Let’s build the house?” you offer.

“We have to wait for Uncle.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Delivery, probably.”

That certainly explains the scuffing noises that have been coming from the hallway. Before you can go investigate, though, Jing Yuan reappears.

“Did I miss much?” he asks, before looking at the still dismantled house. “Oh, you didn’t start.”

“We were waiting for you,” Yanqing says.

“Oh? So considerate.”

“Let’s build already!” Yanqing says, practically bouncing in place. “Uncle, c’mon!”

Jing Yuan laughs and joins the two of you at the counter, looking down at the pieces of the gingerbread house. “Yes sir,” he says. “Where do you want to start?”

“Here!”

It takes several tries to even get two of the walls to stick together. Yanqing makes you and Jing Yuan hold them together as he pipes in royal icing to be the glue; the two of you crowd together on one side of the counter to try and keep them upright. This close, you can feel how thick Jing Yuan’s bicep is as his arm presses against yours, courtesy of his broad shoulders.

Finally, the icing sets. When you and Jing Yuan pull away, the walls stay standing, earning a cheer from Yanqing. He immediately picks up the next wall, gesturing for Jing Yuan to hold it in place. You take advantage of your moment of respite to pull up one of the kitchen stools, nestling into the plush of it.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Jing Yuan warns. “We’ll be putting you right back to work.”

“Yeah,” Yanqing says. “You’ve gotta hold the next wall while the other one sets.”

“Okay, okay,” you say, reaching for the next piece of gingerbread. You set it in place, holding it carefully, bracing the corner of it with your fingertips and the side of it with your other hand. Yanqing ices it quickly, and you wince as he manages to get a good amount of icing onto your fingertips.

“Oops,” he says, looking abashed but not sounding particularly sorry.

“It’s fine,” you say, lifting your fingers away from the join of the walls, still bracing the wall itself with your other hand. You pop your fingertips into your mouth one-by-one without thinking, the sweetness spreading across your tongue rapidly, the sheer amount of sugar enough to make your teeth ache.

Jing Yuan coughs.

When you look at him, he’s already gazing at you, his eyes darkened to topaz, a deep, rich golden brown. For a second, his lazy smile goes knife-edged, something hungry tucked up into the corner of his mouth, but it’s gone when you blink, only a faint amusement remaining.

“There’s a sink if you would find that more useful,” he says, nodding towards the farmhouse sink just behind you. “Though far be it from me to stop you.”

Your cheeks heat. You wait a moment, letting Yanqing take the brunt of the gingerbread wall before you pull away. You wash your hands as the two of them chat behind you, the water burning hot as you try to compose yourself.

The little smirk Jing Yuan sends you when you turn around doesn’t help.

You take in a deep breath before rejoining them, taking the final wall and putting it into place. The three of you continue building, chatting the whole time. Yanqing’s delight is infectious and you find yourself laughing with every mishap and quietly cheering each time a wall stays up. The roof is the most precarious part; it takes the three of you several tries to get it situated.

“Now it just has to fully dry,” Yanqing announces. “Then we can decorate.”

“And in the meantime?” you ask.

“I’m going to my room!” he says, taking off down the hallway. You blink and glance at Jing Yuan.

“He means he’s going to snoop under the Christmas tree,” he says.

“Oh.”

“He thinks he’s sneakier than he is.”

“Don’t all kids? Besides, didn’t you peek under the tree when you were a kid?”

“I would never,” he says, eyes sparkling. “Who do you think I am?”

“The type to sneak under the tree. I bet you shook boxes and everything.”

He chuckles. “I stopped after I accidentally broke one of the presents doing that.”

“You didn’t!”

“I’m afraid so.”

You laugh, the sound bubbling from you like a spill of champagne. “Oh my god.”

Jing Yuan smiles, his eyes crinkling with it. “Don’t tell me you never shook the presents.”

“Of course I did. I just never broke anything.”

He hums. “Of course not.”

“Why do you sound like you don’t believe me?”

“Maybe I don’t.”

“You’re so annoying.”

He smiles, popping a candy into his mouth. You watch the way he licks the residue of it off of his lips. “Now, now, be nice.”

You pick up a candy too. It’s watermelon, the taste bursting over your tongue, stickily artificial. “Are we spending all day on a gingerbread house?” you ask.

“There’s a Christmas market that I’d intended to go to.”

You hum. “Alright.”

“No need to sound so excited about it.”

“Excited about what?” Yanqing says, flouncing into the room. He’s pink-cheeked and looking pleased with himself. You assume the present shaking went well.

“The Christmas fair.”

The boy’s face lights up. “We’re going, right? Right?”

“Yes,” Jing Yuan says. “After we finish decorating.”

“Is the icing dry yet?”

You test the gingerbread house carefully, seeing how well the walls and roof hold up. They don’t move under your gentle prodding nor when you apply a bit more pressure.

“I think so,” you say. “Let’s decorate.”

The three of you set to work. You and Jing Yuan mostly follow Yanqing’s direction; you build a chimney out of non-pareils, the uneven sides like trendy stone work. The fir trees are sprinkled around the yard, each one more decorated than the last; the shingles to the roof are made of gingerbread too, carefully cut into a scalloped edge. The very top of the roof is lined with gumdrops, the rainbow of them like Christmas lights. Chocolate stones make the pathway to the house; the path is lined with little licorice lamps.

Altogether, it’s probably the fanciest gingerbread house you’ve seen. Granted, Jing Yuan had clearly gone all out on different types of candy—so many types that you barely use half of them—but Yanqing’s eye for detail makes it all come together.

“Wow,” you say, putting a final star-shaped sprinkle in place over one of the windows, where it joins a line of others, a draping of fake Christmas lights. “This is really good, Yanqing.”

The boy puffs up. “I’ve won my school’s decorating contest before,” he says.

“I can see why.”

He beams and then turns to Jing Yuan. “When are we going to the market?” he asks.

“After we clean up.”

A pout creases his face for a moment, his lips turning down in an admittedly endearing way. “Fine,” he sighs, looking at the messy counter. You’d tried to keep the mess to a minimum, but between icing and sugar-dusted candies, you hadn’t quite succeeded. As Jing Yuan and Yanqing start to sort the candies and put them away, you start scraping up the dried-on icing.

For a moment, you think Jing Yuan is going to protest, but when you flash him a little stare that dares him too, he subsides without saying a word. You grin triumphantly and he smiles, soft and sweet. Something in you twinges.

You push the little flutter aside, wetting a paper towel to scrub off the worst of the icing. The three of you work away, chatting lightly, until the kitchen is almost as pristine as when you got there.

“That’s good enough for now,” Jing Yuan says, taking in the kitchen with a critical eye. “We’ll get the candy in the pantry later.”

Yanqing perks up. “Christmas market?” he asks.

Jing Yuan nods, a fond little smile unfurling across his lips. “Go change your shirt.”

Yanqing looks down at his shirt, which is spattered with icing from when he got a little overenthusiastic with the piping bag. “Okay!” he says, running off.

You head to the sink to wash your hands again; they’re sticky with leftover icing. Jing Yuan meets you there with a dish towel to dry your hands. His fingertips linger over your palm as he hands it to you. You take in a soft breath, but the touch is gone as soon as it comes.

Yanqing returns and the three of you bundle up—apparently the market is an outdoor one. Jing Yuan fixes Yanqing’s hat despite the boy batting his hands away. Then he turns to you and tugs at the end of your scarf.

“Ready?”

You nod. The three of you pile into one of Jing Yuan’s cars. The ride is mostly quiet, with Yanqing and Jing Yuan chatting here and there, but you’re busy looking out the window at the rolling countryside. It’s picturesque in a way no painting could ever capture, the trees lit golden by the setting sun, the snow glittering like stars as it sits heavy on their branches. The firs bend under its weight while the bare oaks soar into the sky, as if they’re painted in long, sweet strokes.

You pull into a stuffed parking lot. You shiver as you get out of the warm car, burying your chin into the scarf as your breath puffs out in a gentle mist.

The fair is stunning, little stalls lining the closed-off street, each decorated in its own way. Each of them is festooned with lights and garlands, with little stockings hung carefully from the tables. There’s a baker with bread shaped like wreaths, the crust of them perfectly golden-brown, tucked into star-patterned cloth; a weaver with stunning blankets with complex designs; a blacksmith with all sorts of metalwork, each more beautiful than the last. And those are just the first few stalls.

“Wow,” you breathe.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Jing Yuan asks. “I hear it’s grown through the years. It seems to get bigger every year.”

“I’m surprised this place isn’t known as a Christmas destination.”

“It is,” he says. “If you know the right people to ask.”

“How did you find it?”

“A friend,” he says, and there’s something in the set of his mouth that keeps you from asking more. “Come on, let’s go take a look.”

“I want to go to the blacksmith!” Yanqing pipes up.

“Go ahead,” Jing Yuan says. “Don’t go far, please.”

“Okay!”

The two of you watch him take off into the crowd, his golden crown of hair bobbing along, dodging adults and other children alike. Jing Yuan sighs, shaking his head, but gestures you along to the first stall.

You linger over some textiles, including a beautiful tablecloth embroidered heavily with holly, each sprig carefully woven to look as real as possible. You can tell that love was stitched into it, and going by the stall owner’s gnarled fingers, she’s been doing it for a long time.

“It’s beautiful,” you tell her, stroking your finger over a holly leaf. She smiles and starts to tell you about her process; you listen intently, Jing Yuan lingering patiently at your side.

When you finally move to the next stall, someone calls Jing Yuan’s name. He smiles as they approach. They chat amiably for a few minutes before he excuses himself.

As you wander through the market, you notice that it’s a pattern. Multiple people come up to Jing Yuan, all full of smiles and good cheer, talking to him like he’s an old friend. Some of them eye you curiously, but just nod your way when you’re introduced, going back to catching up with some news they’ve heard or thanking Jing Yuan for a favor he’s done.

“You’re popular,” you tell him as you both step into another stall, this one filled with ornaments. They shine brightly under the twinkling fairy lights strung over the stall’s top.

“Am I?”

“Mhm.”

He hums, picking up a snowglobe ornament and giving it a little shake. You watch the fake snow settle at the bottom, revealing the little girl building a snowman, her figure exquisitely made. “They’ve been very welcoming since I’ve moved here,” he says. “I’ve been lucky.”

“I think it’s more than luck,” you say quietly. “I think you give as much as you get.”

He flashes you a little smile. “Maybe so.”

The two of you continue on before someone stops Jing Yuan again, this time near a stall that’s too full for the three of you to step into. You do your best to shift out of the way of the people making their way through the market, but it’s hard to do so with so little room.

You’ve just been knocked into when Jing Yuan loops an arm around your waist and tugs you into his side. It pulls you out of the line of fire for the crowds filtering by. He’s a line of heat against you and you feel it when he chuckles, the sound rumbling through you.

“You okay?” he asks.

You nod, cheeks hot.

“Good,” he says, and leaves his big hand high on your hip, keeping you close. He goes back to amiably talking to the other person as if he hasn’t noticed. If you lean into him, just slightly, no one but you needs to know. You peer at him from the corner of your eye. You take him in, from the moonlight spill of his hair to his sunrise eyes, to the little smile on his lips as he chats away.

He belongs, you realize, watching him slot back into his conversation with ease. He’s a part of the town, and based on how many people have come up to him, an important one. You think of the way the locals had eyed you when you’d been asking about him. It makes sense now. The town protects him as one of their own because he is one. And he’s happy, a subtle glow to him, a type you’ve rarely seen and likely never achieved yourself.

Something in your chest squirms, fluttering against the bones of your ribcage, trying to slip through the gaps. You resist the urge to press a hand to your chest.

He pulls away from the conversation a few minutes later, the hand on your hip dropping to the small of your back as he guides you forward. He stops to talk to a few more people, his eyes crinkling with his smile each time as they come up to him. It’s mesmerizing to watch.

And you’re asking him to give it all up.

Not all of it, you remind yourself. It’s a project, not a job, but something in you winces nonetheless. Your chest tightens, like a ribbon wrapped around it is cinching in.

Jing Yuan glances at you as you step away from his warmth, his hand falling from where it’s been resting on the small of your back. His brow furrows, but it passes quickly, a guttering candle.

You keep your distance for the rest of the fair. You’re still close enough to almost touch despite the thinning crowds, but the gap feels like a gulf between you, as if you’re oceans away.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” you say, but from the way Jing Yuan eyes you, he doesn’t quite believe you. He opens his mouth, but you’re saved by Yanqing, who runs up with sparkling eyes.

“Uncle!” he says. “The blacksmith says we can go to the forge and watch him!”

Jing Yuan chuckles. “Did you badger him into it?”

“No!”

“Alright, alright. We’ll set up a time with him later, okay?”

Yanqing pouts but nods. You hide your smile behind your scarf.

“Let’s go home,” Jing Yuan says. Night has fallen, the sky velvety and dotted with stars. He glances at you. “Would you like me to drop you at the inn?”

You nod. He hums. “Alright.”

The three of you pile back into the car. The inn isn’t far—you probably could have walked, but the cold night has only gotten more frigid. Jing Yuan comes up to the inn’s doorstep with you, catching you by the wrist when you’re halfway up the stairs. You turn around and he looks up at you, his golden eyes shining under the moonlight.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and it takes a moment to gather yourself, too focused on the way his thumb is rubbing small circles on the delicate skin of your inner wrist. You realize you’re leaning towards him, a flower to the sun. He smiles at you, eyes crinkling, and you see it again, that soft glow to him.

Something clicks into place.

“Nothing will make you come on board the project, will it?” you ask, sounding too calm even to your own ears. You shake off his hand. “There’s never even been the slightest chance.”

Jing Yuan lets out a low, slow breath. “No,” he says. “There hasn’t been.”

“Right,” you say. “Okay. Thank you for everything.”

“What?”

“My job is done,” you say. “If I can’t convince you, there’s no point in me being here.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” you say. Your chest hurts. Something sinks its teeth into your ribs, chipping away at the bone. “I came here to get you on board.”

“That’s not what the last day or two has been,” he says softly. “Right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He reaches for you, brushing his gloved fingers against your cheek. “Yes, you do.”

You pull away. “I’ve been here to get you on board, Jing Yuan. To do my job. That’s all.”

“You—”

“I’ll catch a flight tomorrow,” you say. “It shouldn’t be hard, since it’s Christmas Eve.”

He lets out a low, slow breath. He gazes up at you, his golden eyes flickering with something you don’t dare name.

“Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?”

“It’s time for me to go,” you say. “It’s been time for me to go since I got here, apparently.”

He says your name softly. It rolls over you like morning mist, blocks out the world. You take in a shuddering breath.

“Goodbye, Jing Yuan.”

He sighs. “If you change your mind, I’m having a Christmas party tomorrow. You’ll always be welcome.”

You nod sharply, turning on your heel to go inside. Jing Yuan says your name again. You glance over your shoulder. He opens his mouth. Closes it again. And then—

“Travel safe,” he says.

“Thanks,” you say, and then you’re inside the inn, leaving Jing Yuan standing out in the cold behind you. You don’t wait to see if he lingers, ignoring Lee’s cheerful greeting to make your way back up to your room.

You book the first flight you find. It’s late in the day, but that’s fine—you can catch up with your emails and calls. You’ve barely checked your phone today. You can’t quite bring yourself to do it now.

After your flight is booked, you close your laptop and fold your arms, resting your head on them. The fangs sunk into your rib bones dig deeper, hitting marrow.

“Fuck,” you say, sitting up and scrubbing your hands over your face. “Fuck.”

You stare out the window, into the deep bruise of the night. The woods rise beyond the hill, the trees skeletal as they reach for the sky, barely visible in the dark. Stars glitter coldly high above; the moon shines like a lonely mirror. It all feels distant, like a world you’re not part of.

You let out a deep, slow breath. It does nothing to loosen the string wound tight around your chest; if anything, it tightens.

You get ready for bed slowly, that fanged thing still biting deep, leaving teeth marks that ache deeply.

When you fall asleep, the last thing you see is Jing Yuan’s eyes.

***

The next day dawns too early. You once again wake with the sunlight, having forgotten to close the curtains as you drifted around the room last night. The watery light pools on the floor, sweetly golden. The wooden floor is warm under your feet as you cross through the puddles of sunlight.

You get ready for the day quickly. You pack up carefully, rolling your clothes up so they fit better before you tuck your toiletries in. You keep your laptop out to answer emails as they come in. The sun stretches along the floor as you work, barely coming up for air.

You don’t dare give yourself time to think.

You check out in the early afternoon. The receptionist is the one who checked you in. She’s quick and efficient, and you find yourself on the doorstep of the inn waiting for a cab in just a few minutes.

The taxi driver is quiet; you find yourself wishing for the same talkative driver as before. At least it would fill the air, give you something to concentrate on beside the noise in your head.

It’s all mixed together, a slush puddle that you keep stamping through, expecting to not get splashed this time. Jing Yuan, the project, your work, the promotion—it runs through your head non-stop, circling over and over again. Your work, all for nothing. Your possible promotion, just beyond the tips of your fingers. Jing Yuan with his golden eyes and his lips with a smile tucked up secret in the corner of his mouth. Jing Yuan with his laughter and his dedication to the town.

You check your email but it doesn’t help.

You’ve already told Qingzu that you’ve failed. She had taken it in stride; she made sure you knew that no one was going to blame you. The project is going to go forward with or without Jing Yuan. You knew that, but the failure stings anyway. Fu Xuan had asked for you specifically; she must have believed you could do it.

You should have been able to.

Except—you think of the quiet glow that Jing Yuan had yesterday. The way he’d slipped seamlessly into the town’s community, how they treat him as one of their own. He’s happy in a rare way, deeply content with his lot. How you’d felt at his side in the last few days, even as he dragged you around. What it felt like to not be so focused on work all the time; how it felt to live life again.

Something in your chest warms. It rises through you like sparkling champagne bubbles, fizzing across your nerves.

You think of the way Jing Yuan’s eyes crinkle when he smiles.

“Sir,” you call out to the taxi driver. “Can you please turn around?”

***

The party is in full swing by the time you arrive. There are people coming and going; laughter drifts out the door every time it opens. The path is brightly lit, with Christmas lights lining the side and elegant wreaths hanging from posts, each big red bow perfectly tied. They’re glittering with tinsel, woven expertly in through the pine boughs.

You slip inside quietly. It’s completely different from just yesterday: there are tables set up inside, piled high with an entire array of hors d'oeuvres, from tiny little tarts to a bacchanalian cheeseboard, overflowing with plump, glistening figs, wine-red grapes, and fine cheeses. The decorations have multiplied. There are fairy lights everywhere, twinkling merrily. They’re tucked into vast, lush garlands that drape along the tables; there are candles flickering in their ornate holders, little wisps of smoke dancing from the flames.

It's easy to find Jing Yuan; he’s holding court by the Christmas tree, perfectly visible from the doorway. He’s chatting away with the small group that’s gathered around him, but there’s something different about him. Something you can’t quite name.

He looks wilted, almost, like the flowers in the last days of summer, still thriving but sensing their end. He smiles at someone and there’s nothing tucked up secret in the corner of his lips. Your chest aches, something howling between the gaps of your ribs.

He glances up and your eyes meet. He goes still, and then there’s a brilliant smile spreading across his lips, the sun come down to earth. He excuses himself from his group and makes his way over to you.

“Hi,” you say as he draws near, a little bit breathless.

“Hi,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” you say, the words rushing from you like water. “The last few days haven’t been nothing. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s alright,” he says. “I’m sorry that I led you astray.”

“Why did you do it?”

He sighs. “I remember what it was like to work like that. To give up everything for the job. No one should live like that. And you seemed so lonely.”

You wince.

“Sorry,” he says. “But it’s what I saw.”

You shake your head. “It’s not like you were wrong. And you made me less lonely, Jing Yuan.”

He reaches out and sweeps his thumb over the apple of your cheek. You sway into the touch, turning until your cheek is cradled in his palm. “I’m glad,” he says softly. “All I want is for you to be happy.”

Someone whistles. You balk, starting to step back; Jing Yuan catches you before you can go far, pulling you in close.

“You’re under the mistletoe,” someone calls.

You look up, and sure enough, there’s mistletoe hanging innocently above you, the tiny flowers white as snow. It’s tied off with a perfect red ribbon.

“We don’t have to—”

“It’s tradition,” you say, and then you’re surging up to kiss him. He meets you halfway and as his lips brush yours, warmth blooms inside your chest, embers stoked to flame. He cups the back of your head to pull you closer. You make a little noise; he swallows it down.

There’s a certain greed to the kiss; a longing, too. He steals the breath from you; takes in your air and makes it his own. You kiss him harder, as if he might disappear.

When you break apart, he leans down to press his forehead against yours. You close your eyes. You can hear people murmuring, but they seem far away. Only Jing Yuan feels real. You open your eyes and glance up at him. He smiles at you, his golden eyes crinkling at the edges. Your heart flutters behind your ribs, beating against the cage of them like a bird’s wings.

“Merry Christmas,” you breathe.

“Merry Christmas,” he says softly.

He kisses you again and this time, it feels like coming home.

#hsr x reader #jing yuan x reader #jing yuan x you #honkai star rail x reader #bee writes hsr

425 notes · View notes

revasserium · 2 months

Note

Ma’am your writhing is immaculate!!! If possible can we have a rafayel falling backwards?

falling backwards

rafayel; 1,670 words; fluff, fem!reader, no "y/n", slight!suggestiveness, fade to black, the slightest spoilers for raf's bday card, existential cuteness?

summary: the sky forgets, but the sea remembers

a/n: this is rly short and sweet, with a sprINKLE of spice in there for the bday boi!! happy belated my fav mermaid oi

lost and found.

He has waited for you for a thousand years.

And like, this he thinks he could wait for you a thousand more.

“Do you remember?” he asks, his thumb running along the thick rim of his coffee mug, the morning sun pouring thick and lemon-sweet through the endless windows of his vast studio.

“A little,” you say, your eyes fixed on your own coffee, steam still rising in faint, ghostly tendrils above the milky surface.

“Only a little?” Rafayel sighs, leaning back in his chair, his white shirt buttoned carelessly to the middle of his chest, revealing a strip of smooth, unmarred skin beneath. You lick your lips and take a sip of your steaming coffee, cheeks warming as you try to look anywhere else.

“I was just a kid…” you say, a little rueful of his disappointment, but Rafayel only laughs, leaning forward to dip a finger into the chantilly cream dollopped on top of the bowl of fruit sitting in the middle of the table. He reaches out and swipes a bit onto the tip of your nose, making you jerk back, going slightly cross-eyed as you frown.

“Hey!”

“There she is —” he nods, apparently satisfied as he sucks the remaining cream from the tip of his finger, eyes flickering up to meet yours, “There’s that laugh I love so much…”

You somehow find it in yourself to blush and look away, the abashedness of all your previous and younger years welling up inside you, only to crest up your neck and into your cheeks like the morning tide, staining your skin in the color of sunrise. Rafayel watches you with a pleased glint in his eyes, his tongue flickering out to wet his lips.

“You promised you’d come back for me,” he says, pushing his mouth up into a childish pout. You fight the urge to roll your eyes.

“That I don’t remember,” you say, petulant, as you wipe the bit of cream from your nose, scrunching your face to make sure there’s no more. But it’s a lie — though not entirely. You do remember, but only in the way the most important memories always fade with time, tucking themselves into the forgotten corners of your mind until they’re needed. And then up they come, floating to the top of your mind’s eye in flickers and goldfish flashes, like brightly colored fins caught in the morning light, just beneath the water’s shimmering surface.

“Liar,” Rafayel says, and you don’t refute him. He takes a long sip of his coffee and casts his eyes towards the distant horizon beyond his huge, studio windows. The air smells of burgeoning spring, of melting snow and drying paint. Of empty canvases and seafoam and the dewdrops lingering on the leaves of freshly budding flowers.

You press your palms to the warmth of the thick ceramic mug cupped between your hands.

“But… you found me again, didn’t you?”

a whole new world.

The entire world is 70% water. So you know this. So Rafayel tells you.

“The other 30% though, I had no way of seeing, of knowing —” his eyes are faraway as you sit, shoulders pressed against each other, a thick blanket wrapped around you both as the morning chill threatens to seep right into the marrow of your bones.

“I wanted to see the world — the whole world — not just the parts that were sunken under water.”

He says the words sunken like a curse, but you lower your eyes to your hands, clasped in your lap, and you wonder if things enveloped by the soft embrace of water might have it better than the bits of the world doomed to be above it.

“Y’know… I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid,” you say, leaning back and casting your eyes far up towards the endless sky, the horizons brightening in silken steams of pinks and yellows. Still, the sky directly above you with color of a healing bruise, and a thick, unrelenting darkness simmers along the opposite skyline like a crouched cat, waiting for the sun to turn her head before leaping back up again.

“You did? I thought… well, honestly, I thought all Hunters would’ve wanted to become Hunters from when they were kids.”

You shrug, laughing, “You’re not wrong, but… I thought — how cool must it be to fly the planes that Hunters rode in for their bigger missions? How cool would it be to pilot something into Deepspace? I mean… there’s so much out there that we don’t know…”

Rafayel turns toward you. You flash him a soft, indulgent smile.

“So… in that sense, we’re not so different — we both wanted to see part of the world that we hadn’t before. Parts of the world that we didn’t have access to but… I was thinking about it and… isn’t that a kind of running away too?”

Rafayel stills, his breath going shallow as he turns back to watch the far horizon, where the dawn is rising like a great phoenix, feathers burning, her throat full of bright orange light, and suddenly, all the stories and legends make sense.

“The sea remembers everything the sky forgets…” Rafayel says, never taking his eyes off the rising sun, “That’s what my teacher used to tell me. Artists — we try to remember the things that the world tries to forget too — we paint moments and feelings, try to capture a second in time, even though we’re doomed to fail, over and over again.”

You turn to glance at him, and you catch him staring. Your eyes meet and it’s not so unlike the colliding of lost stars. He reaches out to trace a finger along the edge of your cheek and you feel your breath burning like sunrise in your chest, and suddenly, there’s an entire world caught in your belly, a rising dawn feathering its way out of your throat —

Kiss me, you want to say. Instead, you say, “Happy birthday.”

Thanks, it looks like he might say.

He leans in to kiss you instead.

calculations.

Later, when the sun has risen and set once more, when the tides have come and gone again, when the moon hangs high and envious in the late winter sky and he has his lips pressed to yours, the taste of your pleas slick and sweet on his tongue, he wonders if a lifetime under water has just been preparation for this.

He traces the seashell shapes of his fingers along the white sand beaches of your skin, dropping kisses into the moonlit pools caught in the dip of your collarbones.

“R-Raf —”

He savors in the way your breath catches and cuts, the way he can sever them with silver scissors as he laves his tongue across the midnight bruises blooming along your shoulder, your chest, your hips, the soft, plush insides of your thighs.

“Don’t you think you owe me at least this much?” he asks, his own voice a soft rasp as he pulls back, panting, “After leaving me alone all those years ago… making me wait for so long?”

You keen, head pressing back into the soft feather-down pillows of the mountain-top chalet, lips kissed pink, your cheeks flushed dark with color.

“I — please — more —”

“Mm…” Rafayel grins as he cocks his head, drinking in the sight of you spread out beneath him, “Since you asked so nicely…”

He figures that the human body is also made 70% water. Of salt and gravity. Of the mind forgetting while the body remembers.

Of oxygen and the stuff of lost and wandering stars.

“Tell me one more time,” he says, bending down to graze his lips along your earlobe. He savors in the way your body shakes with shivers, the slick of sweat, the soft break in your voice as moan his name.

“Raf - a - yel — please. I want — I want you.”

hiraeth.

“Do you… ever miss home?”

You try to think about how it might feel to miss a home you can no longer go back to, to come from a place that everyone around you has written off as legend — about the doubt and uncertainty, but about the freedom too.

It’s the morning after, except this time, you’re tucked into the bend of his arm, your ankles locked beneath the twisted sheets, his hair a tangled mess, haloed around his face against the soft white of the pillows.

“Home… doesn’t always have to be a place, y’know.”

“Yeah… I know that.”

“Oh? You do?”

Rafayel smiles, a thing of tenderness and salt, even as he tucks you close. Like this, you wonder if he knows that there’s an entire ocean locked beneath the dark of his gaze.

“Sure I do. Ever since that day — on the beach, my home hasn’t really been Lemuria.”

You swallow passed the dryness collecting in your throat like so much soft, white sand.

“Then…”

Rafayel lets out a puff of laughter, turning his eyes towards the ceiling.

“C’mon, I thought you had to be smart to pass the Hunter exams.”

You crinkle your nose and inch in closer.

“Maybe… maybe I just want to hear you say it.”

You don’t miss the way his ears go red as he makes a show of sighing, glancing back towards you with a helpless smile.

“Fine, fine — ahem… here it goes,” he says, clearing his throat with perhaps too much pomp and circumstance.

“Ever since that day on the beach… my home hasn’t really been Lemuria…” his voice trails off as his eyes soften and he turns to face you properly, the teasing lilt seeping from his voice until the only thing left is warmth and honesty and you can’t help but hold your breath.

“Since then… my home’s always been… you.”

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sheafrotherdon · 2 months

Text

Of all the luxuries it is possible to seek in the world, Nicky is greedy for contentment. He finds it in a dozen different places, scattered piecemeal, hour by hour. The trick, he discovered two centuries into his improbable life, is simply to look for it, to notice the sweet, quiet stillness inside his chest that means he is full. Like now, an hour into wakefulness while Joe still sleeps beside him, their bedroom filled with fragile morning light; like this, he thinks, stretching a hand up toward the ceiling as if he might walk his fingers along the meandering lines of cracked and ancient paint.

He is warm, and Joe feels warmer still beside him, curled toward him, his breath puffing softly against Nicky’s bare arm. He is not yet hungry; there is a glass of water on the bedside table, and Nicky is grateful to so easily be able to quench his thirst. The blankets on the bed are heavy; the flat is quiet; it’s too early yet for the traffic that passes on the street below to have become a constant hum. Beside him, Joe grumbles and turns on to his back, sighs and sleeps on, his mouth slightly open. Nicky smiles when Joe begins to snore.

The walls are pale blue; the door is wooden and stands ajar. There’s a chest of drawers against the wall that’s seen better days, on which sit dishes and bowls that Nicky can’t see but knows hold a watch, silver rings, a door key, a single stick of gum. The armchair that sits in a corner is green and the springs in the cushion are old and cranky, and Nicky can barely see the upholstery for the jeans and shirts and one stray sock piled there. If he lifts his head, if he rolls to the side, he'd see his own boots on the floor. But he doesn’t move; he thinks instead of the twist of fate or luck or destiny that put Joe in his bed, in his heart, in the deepest marrow of his bones, and only then does he turns to lie on his side and press his nose to Joe’s shoulder. He doesn’t speak. He is happy and still.

#joe x nicky #kaysanova #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #morning #tenderness #contentment #a stolen moment

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agustdiv1ne · 9 months

Note

CONGRATS ON 3K ASHLEE 🥳🫶🏼✨ you’re truly amazing and here’s to many more milestones!!

right so, ik this isn’t a movie, but I was wondering if you could do something along the lines of bridgerton + beomgyu + fluff and smut please 🥹 but if it really is just movies, then titanic with the same member and genre please <3 thank you in advance <3

NOW SHOWING...

pairing: choi beomgyu x fem!reader

genre: historical fiction, romance, fluff, smսt

wc: 4.2k

details + warnings: mdni, beomgyu and mc's characters are jack and rose adjacent but they actually have a happy ending bc i said so <3, mentions of alcohol, no established dom/sub dynamics but gyu takes the lead a bit, soft + romantic sex, fingering (f receiving), unprotected sex (don't do this!!), my big dick gyu agenda makes an appearance, light dirty talk, a little possessiveness, beomgyu calls mc: love, beautiful

note: SMILES!! TYSM <33 you are one of of my longest moots and i appreciate you and your talent so much! i've unfortunately never watched bridgerton (or else i would have used that ;-;), though i do adore titanic so i ultimately went with that ^^

you have found sunsets to be far more magnificent at high sea.

tonight brings one that is, by far, one of your most beloved from the voyage thus far: a sky flushed a deep rose, billowing clouds contrived of fairy floss drifting above your head. the horizon holds clear where the roseate hue melts into the ocean and scatters about the peaks of gentle waves. it's quite a breathtaking sight, almost too good to be true. a painting; that is what it resembles — you wish that you could reach up and brush your hands through it, watch it coat and swirl about your fingertips like smudged pigments on canvas.

leaning against the railing, you inhale a deep breath of fresh, salt-heavy air. it stings as it fills your lungs. despite the beginnings of spring, the weather has remained chilly, growing further frigid whenever the sky fades to black. now, the sun hangs low, sinking closer and closer to the sea that awaits to swallow it whole — you will be forced to return back inside soon.

sighing quietly, your mind wanders to beomgyu, the man who has won over your affections over the past five days. you wish he could be here with you to see this picturesque display. where is he right now? on one of the lower decks, perhaps? should you go find him?

does he miss you as much as you do him?

not even half a day has passed since you last saw each other, but these thoughts swirl within your brain nonetheless. busy mixing with pretentious elites and the potential suitors your mother demanded that you meet throughout the day, you hadn't found time to sneak away and meet with him despite your aching desire to. you just barely avoided your mother's watchful gaze to escape out here and finally be able to breathe.

as naïve as it may sound, you feel as though you've known the charming man your entire life. strangers with a divine connection — you ponder if you must have known beomgyu in a past life, fell for him just as you do now. your typically rational mind supplies you with grandiose ideas of running away, of fleeing this suffocating, predetermined path that you were born into. he is a breath of fresh air after all of the men that you have met who only wish to marry and mold you into a submissive, obedient housewife that they can then neglect. unlike those men — no, you think, those insolent boys, he is not hungry to further his wealth, to fasten his name to yours for the sake of status. he doesn't expect you to change yourself. rather, he takes you as you are, with all your sharp edges and imperfections, and worships you down to the marrow of your bones.

the longing to wander the entire ship until you find him strikes you square in the chest like a sack of flour, knocking the breath from your lungs. your heart aches. you want to see him. you must see him.

“i should’ve known i’d find you out here.”

it's quite strange, how the hand of fate plays its cards. you whip your head around, and there he is, with his sun-kissed skin and wind-tousled hair, as if he had somehow heard your thoughts and rushed to meet you. the upward quirk of his lips conveys both fondness and mischief while he moves closer to you, gentle hands wrapping around your waist. you mirror his expression, relief flooding your system at his well-timed arrival. sliding your hands over his shoulders, you link your fingers together around the nape of his neck.

“gyu,” you whisper while you surge forward to embrace him, pressing your face into the junction between his neck and shoulder. he nearly stumbles, but quickly regains his balance, returning the hug. “i missed you.”

“we saw each other this morning,” he chuckles, but the way his arms tighten around you betray his true emotions.

you deliver a light pinch to his neck in jest, mumbling against his neck, “you’re impossible.”

this simply makes him laugh harder, his chest shuddering against your own. he curls a hand under your chin to remove your face from his neck, and his chestnut-colored eyes find yours. “and you love it.”

“unfortunately, yes,” you admit with a sigh. he smiles wider at that.

a peaceful silence fills the air between you. only the sounds of the ship cutting through the sea fills your ears. turning in his hold until his back presses against your chest, you look back out to the horizon. the pink sky has faded into a muted indigo, the sun barely a semicircle along the horizon. the air has grown colder now, but the warmth that beomgyu exudes wards off the chill that runs deep beneath your skin. your place one hand atop the ones looped around your stomach, the other reaching up to play with the ends of his soft hair.

“where’d you disappear off to today?” beomgyu breaks the quiet first. he feels the way you stiffen within his hold, how your fingers stop toying with his hair, the deep breath you exhale. you can that he immediately regrets asking.

“my mother,” you begin to explain, a bitter, sour note in your voice. “she dragged me from party to party today. they weren’t even parties, really, just excuses to flaunt wealth and peacock about. it was absolutely ridiculous.”

you hear the small giggle he allows at your choice of words, and your lips turn up again. teasing, you say, “i’m glad my misery amuses you.”

“no, never,” he hastily says, oddly serious. your fingers rubbing soothing circles against his scalp is a silent confirmation that you know. a few beats of silence pass once more, your eyes trained on how the sun continues its descent below the horizon.

the ocean's maw has fully consumed the sun when he pulls you back against him, his warm breath caressing the shell of your war and causing you to shiver. the quintessentially impish lilt of his voice returns, a smirk rich on his lips.

“wanna go to a real party?”

and to a real party he takes you. a gathering on a lower deck, the tunes played by the instrument-wielding passengers brash and loud. others sing, some dance, many drink. it's as if you are walking into a brand new world, seeing colors you have never seen before. it is so disorienting yet exhilarating at the same time.

your hand enveloped in his, beomgyu guides you into the sea of noise and moving bodies with confidence towards two men who cheer his name at the sight of him. they each hold a glass of amber ale, eyes glazed over as they spot you behind their friend.

“you finally made it! thought you weren’t comin’,” the slightly taller of the two calls, his words slurred. his fox like eyes meet yours again, and he grins. “you must be the girl he’s been ravin’ about! y/n, right?”

you offer a shy nod and a polite smile, nerves apparent in the way your eyes dart across the room. next to you, beomgyu grows a bit red in the face, but holds you closer to him. how easily he picks up on your emotional state is beyond you, but appreciated.

beomgyu moves to introduce the two men, and you learn the taller one is named yeonjun. the shorter man, his eyes as round as a doe's, is named taehyun. he is far more reserved compared to the other two, but welcoming nonetheless. you converse with them for a considerable amount of time, growing more comfortable the longer you stand with them. none of them seem to care that you come from a wildly opposite walk of life as them; they treat you as a friend all the same.

the conversation soon turns to their history and how exactly they came to know beomgyu. they happened to meet while in paris, yeonjun explains, bonding over their shared heritage and quickly developing a close friendship.

“it’s a miracle we even got on this ship!” yeonjun laughs before he takes another swig of his drink. “gyu won a game of cards back at the port just before she set sail. lucky guy, ain’t he?”

“yeah,” beomgyu responds before you are able to utter a word, looking down at you with fondness coloring his gaze. “i really am.”

the two men soon depart on a search for more alcohol, leaving you and beomgyu alone. he does not take long in snatching your hand to drag you towards the makeshift dance floor.

“beomgyu, wait, i can’t—”

“c’mon!” he exclaims. “dance with me!”

he pulls you close to him as soon as you reach the space. chest to chest, hand in hand. your eyes widen, frantic.

with haste, your voice strained in order to be heard over the music, you say, “beomgyu i don’t, i don’t know this dance, i can’t do this!”

“sure you can!” he jovially yells. “just follow my lead!”

the music surges around your bodies as you begin to skip about the room. with beomgyu guiding you along to the fast-paced tempo, your apprehension melts away. you do not have to be in control, you can simply feel and allow yourself to flow along with him. you squeal as your unsuitably formal dress flutters around your legs and your heeled shoes click against the floor rhythmically. both of you laugh unabashedly, growing drunk on the excitement of it all. your heart beats erratically against your ribcage, your cheeks beginning to hurt from how wide you beam.

you feel more alive in this moment than you have in your entire life.

he spins you around and around until you grow dizzy. then, you are off once again, eventually joining a line of people holding hands and snaking about the room. you skip along with one hand held by a woman who speaks to you in rapid french and the other still taken by beomgyu, who attempts to translate her words, albeit poorly.

out of breath, you squeeze his hand, and he takes your hint; you break away from the line. others easily fill the void that you leave.

you stumble, giggling, and beomgyu catches you. harebrained and giddy and every cell of your body positively surging with joy, you are unable to even think your actions through before you are cupping his face in your hands and crashing your lips against his.

whoops and hollers sound around you, but the sole thing that permeates your senses is beomgyu's soft lips melding with your own. the grip of his hands upon your waist fortifies, but only enough to hold you to ensure your unchanging propinquity. hurried, ravenous, you devour each other in the middle of the crowd until you grow desperate for oxygen. pulling away, you draw a breath deep into your lungs, mouth agape just as the full force of what you did crashes into you, a strike of lightning straight to your chest.

and rather than fret, your lips split and their corners rise, and you laugh. you laugh and laugh and laugh until you collapse against beomgyu's chest. he gathers you up to his chest before you crash to the floor, holding you by your cheeks while he comprehends your wild eyes and glowing mien.

“are you alright?” he queries.

i think i may be in love with you, is what you wish could say, but you bite the words back before they escape.

instead, you ask, “come with me, please?”

he nods and allows you to pull him towards the stairs that you first entered from. mistakenly, you briefly meet eyes with yeonjun, who stands across the room with a suggestive smirk, eyebrows wiggling in your direction. though your cheeks grow warm, you continue to push forward, weaving your fingers through those of the man following close behind.

the trek to your private chambers takes far longer than expected. both of you are guilty of pulling each other into dark corners and giggling into each other's mouths at nearly every turn. the situation becomes dire once you reach the upper decks, dodging acquaintances of your mother through roundabout hallways. after what seems like hours, you reach the door of your room, swiftly unlocking it and pulling beomgyu inside.

without delay, he presses you up against the door, forearms caging you in, and crashes his lips to yours once more. gone is the nonsensical laughter and teasing touches — now all that remains is a carnal hunger, a bone-deep desperation to feel and to devour one another whole. his sly tongue sneaks into your mouth, dancing with your own before it retracts and his teeth graze your lower lip. you exhale a breathy whine, hands pawing at the rough linen of his shirt.

he pulls away to momentarily catch his breath before he blazes forward to kiss you once more. your finger pressed to his lips, however, halts his movements. questions dance in his pupils.

“take me to bed,” you whisper.

biting your lip, you watch as the gears within his brain churn as he processes your words, how his eyes grow impossibly darker once he does. the short journey to your bed is a blur in your mind. hands tug at clothes and undergarments until you lay bare beneath his own naked torso, his trousers low on his waist, though unable to hide the aching erection that strains the fabric.

he reaches up to tweak your nipple, causing you to inhale sharply. he finds great delight in how sensitive you are, his lips ravaging your neck until he locates the weak spot just beneath your ear. he bites down lightly. a shock of bliss jolts down your spine, and you squeal his name — god, how he would give away what little money he has to his name to hear that sound every day.

the combination of his lips gliding down your neck and his thumb circling your nipple renders you speechless, merely able to moan and grip the soft sheets below you as he brings you pleasure that you have never felt before. though his calloused hands against your skin feel much rougher than those of the men that your mother forces you to mingle with, he treats you gentler than any of your desperate suitors ever could. almost as if your body is made of glass, he does not press hard enough to inflict pain, nor does he force you to your knees to take him. no man you have lied with before has treated you in such a manner, putting your needs before his own. your heart pounds at the realization. you pray that he cannot hear it.

deprived of warning, his lips and fingers disappear from your skin. you whine at the sudden confiscation of pleasure.

“why did you stop?” you pant, breathless, trying to reach up to touch him. he captures your hands and links his fingers between your own. he presses your arms back against the sheet before he lets go.

he stares down at you for a moment, eyes trailing from your heaving chest to the swollen pout upon your lips. with a ghost of a smirk, he leans down to press a chaste peck to the corner of your mouth, his forehead now pressed against yours. eyes hooded, he breathes, “patience, beautiful. i’m gonna make you feel good, i promise.”

“hurry, then,” you plead. you feel as if you are going insane without his touch. addictive, akin to opium; you want more, you crave it.

“ah, so demanding,” he jokes, though he gives in. he allows you no time to respond as he kisses you again, leaning over you with forearm pressed into the mattress next to your head. a hand slides down your side — drawing goosebumps to your skin — to your thigh, spreading you wider for him. you inhale sharply through your nose when you feel fingers press against your soaking center, one slim, rough-skinned finger sliding slowly past your entrance. the groan he emits rumbles against your own chest. he raises his head no more than a millimeter, shuddering at the wet heat that coats his skin as he begins to thrust the digit in and out.

“fuck, you’re so tight,” he curses, unable to help himself. clinging to him, you bite your lip at his ministrations, nearly drawing blood when he slips a second finger in, stretching your walls. his thumb finds the aching bud just above to ease the sting.

“g-gyu,” you whimper, the sound singing in his ears like wind chimes, urging him to move faster, curl his fingers against the spongy patch inside you, watching how your face contorts beneath him. he fixates on the spot. your hips involuntarily buck up into his thrusts in response, the cord within your stomach tightening. your gaze meets his, desperate, pleading. “gyu, i need, ‘m going to—”

“let go, beautiful,” he groans, grinding his cock into the crease of your thigh for relief. “you can do it, c’mon. let go for me.”

his deep-voiced encouragement sends you over the edge, warmth flooding your veins as your thighs quake around him, nails digging into his tanned skin. your eyes screw shut.

“that’s it,” he coos as you float back down to earth. he rubs soothing circles against the skin of your cheek. “my lovely girl.”

“want you, gyu,” you beg, stomach warm from the praise. “want you inside.”

he freezes, eyes wide. “are...are you sure?”

“i’ve never been more sure in my life,” you say. thus, his grin returns. he moves to unbutton his trousers, and you help him, grazing the hard imprint in his underwear. he hisses at the sensation, then stands from the bed to remove his remaining clothing. your mouth dries at the sight, and you gulp. he is quite well-endowed, his cock standing tall against his soft abdomen, the tip an angry crimson, the color fading as your eyes travel down the shaft. you squirm at the thought of it being inside you, stretching your walls beyond belief, pressing into every spot within you with every roll of his hips.

he settles between your thighs once again, guiding his cock against your wet folds. your poorly-veiled apprehension is not lost on him.

“i’ll go slow,” he promises, guiding the head of his cock to your awaiting entrance. “don’t wanna hurt you...you ready?”

with a deep breath, you hum in confirmation. he murmurs out a quiet “okay,” directed more towards himself than you, and shifts his hips forward. the first press brings with it a small ache. you wince, and he slows, inquiring if you are okay.

you nod. “go slow, please.”

“of course, love,” he whispers, distracting your mind from the pain with his lips. inch by inch, he sinks deeper into your walls, soon bottoming out deep inside of you with a strained moan. he stills to allow you to adjust. as soon as you do, you’re urging him to move. he obeys, thrusts slow-paced and tender until you beg for him to quicken them.

“yeah?” he coos. “y’want more? you, fuck — you have all of me already, s-so greedy.”

the roll of his hips sharpens, canting upward — faster, harder, deeper. all you can think to do is moan, the thoughts ricocheting in your mind now too jumbled for you to decipher and voice. a fire has ignited in your stomach, growing hotter and brighter when swings your legs over his shoulders. the angle of his thrusts causes the head of his cock to brush against a spot deep inside you, a place that has never been explored prior. a sound that is foreign to your ears tears itself from your chest, loud and unabashed.

above you, beomgyu groans. his head is thrown back, mouth agape, his hair a tousled mess atop his head. a few strands stick to his sweat-drenched forehead. a flush has traveled down and stained his chest, his abdomen flexing in exertion as he loses himself completely. his head drops down again, his eyes meeting yours, half-lidded and brimming with heady lust. you attempt to hide your face in the sheets, growing shy at the intensity of it all, but he reaches down to grip your chin, holding your gaze steady.

“watch me,” he orders. in a daze, you obey, glassy eyes barely able to comprehend the bombardment to your senses. his free hand locates your slick clit, rubbing quick circles, breath shaky as your walls flutter and tighten around him. “so good. so good for me, beautiful. no one can make you feel as good as i do, hm?”

“o-only you!” you manage to agree through your cries. he slips his thumb past your lips, and you immediately begin to suck on the digit.

“so pretty, such a good girl,” he mumbles out, half delirious. “will never get enough of you.”

your high slams into you in a flash, your entire body quivering around him. beomgyu rapidly pulls out, ropes of his release spilling across your abdomen as he jerks himself, gasping at how your empty hole flutters around nothing. your legs drop from his shoulders, as weak as a newborn fawn's. he collapses next to you, mopping up his release with the handkerchief sitting upon your nightstand, before he pulls you to his chest, holding you like you are about to disappear into the air. he cups your cheek gently, kissing you slowly, savoring every second. when you pull away, there lies an urgency in his expression.

“run away with me,” he whispers, searching your face for something, anything. “once this ship docks in new york, run away with me.”

your chest tightens. he feels the same — oh, he feels the same. you battle back the tears beginning to form on your waterline and hold him close, reaching up to envelop the hands on your cheeks with your own and kissing him breathless.

your forehead presses to his as you respond, a watery smile painting your lips, “where would we go?”

“anywhere you’d like,” he breathes. tears form in his own eyes — hope, unbridled joy. “just say the word.”

your blooming love is not star-crossed, but auspicious, you realize while standing on the deck of the carpathia.

you had been separated from beomgyu in the sinking of the titanic that night, in the frantic crowds shoving towards the life boats and the gunshots ringing out to maintain a semblance of order. your mother had found and pushed you onto one, lowered into the sea before you were able to leap out, to search for him. you sobbed into your palms the entire night, unknowing whether he survived the sinking or not.

but now, he is across the deck before you, alive. his clothes and hair are drenched in seawater, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders — but he's alive, so very alive. he has not spotted you, his eyes pointed out to the sea where the so-called "unsinkable" ship met its watery grave. your hands begin to shake. warm, breathing, alive.

you croak out his name, tearing away from your mother in order to sprint over to him, ignoring the weakness of your limbs and the frantic protests from your mother behind you. your calls of his name amplify in volume. he spins around, and his face melts into disbelief. he races across the remaining distance between you, feet thumping against the wooden deck. arms wrap around you as the two of you meet — two souls colliding, winding and weaving around each other like threads on a loom. tears are not lost upon either of you, streaming down both of your faces as you hold each other, skin against skin as you ensure this is not a dream, or mirage.

“i love you,” you sob. “i can’t, i didn’t know if—”

he shushes you, tucking your face into his chest. “i know, love. i know. i love you, too. we’re here now, we’re together. alive.”

you choke back a whimper, crying until you can no longer. as you shift back to look at him, you find that he's smiling. a thought hits you suddenly.

“where is yeonjun? taehyun?” you ask. he squeezes you once, pointing somewhere across the deck. following his finger, you find them: beaten down, weary, but breathing. you have never been a particularly religious person, but you think that something must be watching from above, providing you such unfair luck. they wave. you wave right back.

“we floated on top of furniture until a rescue boat found us,” he explains. “we were lucky. i was half dead when we were found.”

the thought punctures your chest, but he doesn’t let your thoughts run astray for long. “it’s okay, love. you couldn’t have done anything.”

“i know, but—”

“but nothing.” a gentle smile plays on his lips. “we’re here now, aren’t we?”

“yes,” you say, your expression reflecting his. “shall we still plan to flee?”

he grins something tired yet enthusiastic. “of course, beautiful. there's no one else i'd like to see the world with more than you.”

3k event masterlist | masterlist

#txt smut #beomgyu smut #txt x reader #beomgyu x reader #txt imagines #beomgyu imagines #txt fluff #beomgyu fluff #beomgyu drabbles #txt drabbles #beomgyu scenarios #txt fanfic #3k milestone celebration #agust.nsfw #💌 — gyu

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zombiepuke · 6 months

Text

Thinking about Valentina tonight. Thinking about how she was a poor sex worker just trying to make it in the world and got manipulated and conned into Cecilia’s scam because, come on, it’s just pretending to be a nurse for a little while and she’ll definitely split the money with you and it’s easy, easy cash and she was probably desperate

And how she literally got sexually assaulted right fucking before being thrown into a torture trap - already seen as trash by the masses just because she’s a sex worker. It probably wasn’t the first time she’d been attacked like that, either

About her waking up, tied to a pipe-cross, terrified, confused, sitting in a dirty room with people she hardly knew, especially the blonde “doctor” who had claimed her share of the easy cash would change her life, give her at least something. But instead of that, she gets tossed into a trap by a man who claims to have this insane moral code as if he were God, but is so easily transparent and is so obviously full of shit. You cannot judge a person’s entire morality on one mistake, one act of desperation. John would know best, even good people do gray things when backed into a corner

And then, she’s up first - her trap was arguably the most brutal, the most painful, the most dangerous - she had hardly any time to think before the timer is clicking down, Cecilia is screaming at her to “just do it! Just saw your leg off! It’s fine you’ll be fine! Save yourself save yourself save yourself!!!!” as if she were some goddamn cheerleader at a game, as if it were her hands that held a piece of metal that was about to cut through her own femur

She’s a crying mess, just a woman who wasn’t all good but certainly not all bad, certainly undeserving of this fate, at least. She doesn’t think she can muster the courage to do it, but the proximity of the saw to her exposed neck makes her understand - she doesn’t want to fucking die.

Then she manages to do it, actually fucking do it - force a braid of wire right down the meat of her thigh, right through every artery and vein, every ligament and muscle, right through to the bone, and then some. Blood literally gushing like a hot spring, and she’s screaming nonsensically, the pain incomprehensible, unlike anything she, or any normal person, had ever felt before. And Cecilia is still yelling at her to not think just do it, but her hands shake and tremble, her brain screaming at her to stop mutilating herself, and all the while the timer is continuing to tick down.

And she moves the saw back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until pop

Her leg slides clean off, right at the dotted line.

And still, through all of that trauma and excruciating pain, she’s able to take her bloody, shaking hands and attach the suction to her exposed femur as steady as she could, like she was supposed to, crying and sniffling and probably so pumped full of adrenaline and terror and feelings no human should ever have to feel. And she’s sit having to watch the timer tick down to zero, panicking, screaming for her life, but the goddamn tube was too long, took too long, didn’t pump enough of the liquefied marrow into the strainer—

And she gets a saw-wire through her neck at a painfully slow pace, and her head on the floor.

After all of that, she still fucking dies a horrific death. She saws her own goddamn leg off, and she still dies - and if she had literally a second more time, she would have survived - the trap at least. Who knows if she could have lived any sort of trip to a hospital, the amount of blood lost, shock coursing through her veins.

And then to have her deceased body disrespected and mutilated by the woman who had claimed to help her, provide for her, talked her into the scam in the first place, her stomach torn open haphazardly and her intestines pooled around the room like some dirty rope. Her decapitated head used as a prop piece.

I’m just thinking about Valentina and her last moments so full of pain, how scared she was. How she didn’t deserve that, at all, how the woman who was the mastermind behind it all got to walk with hardly a scratch. How Valentina’s punishment did not fit her crime and how skewed John’s logic was.

And for Amanda to then rattle on about how Valentina didn’t harbor the will to live - bitch please. I’d like to see anyone else slice their leg off at the thigh in a matter of minutes after waking up confused, scared, unknowing of what was about to happen to them. And to be the first one up to bat? If anyone had the will to live that night, it was fucking Valentina. My girl went through the wringer and she got absolutely nothing in return.

She should have lived she should have lived she should have fucking lived

#i have so many feelings about her #i love her so much and i am so angry about her death #saw #saw x #number one valentina stan RIGHT HERE AND YALL DONT FORGET IT

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passivenovember · 1 year

Text

wait until you taste me

Max says the dumbest shit in the world.

Billy forces himself, tooth and nail, to give the grace he never got to touch with his own two hands. She’s a teenager. She’s dumb and her nature is rose-colored. Heart-shaped fillers slipped covertly in that delicate space behind a splash of blue.

Her head is filled with hot air. Good intentions. Speckled with delusions that are charming when she’s not so reckless, and.

Billy doesn’t want to smash her hopes on ground in front of her.

Life will, eventually.

Life always does, but. Billy figures he could try and be the storm wall that protects her garden of wonder.

He gets over that real quick when she can’t do the same in return.

When she bats her eyelashes and says, “I’m glad you and Steve are friends, now,” at Sunday dinner the week before Spring Break.

In front of everyone.

Billy thinks her head is the size of the Hindenburg. She’s full of helium and she’s flying too close to the sun.

Neil tucks a wad of flavorless peas into his mouth. “Who’s Steve?” He asks.

And immediately, Billy’s walls shoot like salt pillars from the ground.

He weighs his options. What would happen if he got up from this table and ran? If he tucked Steve Harrington and his name and his reputation and his memory into a plastic bag and disappeared.

Billy’s got delusions of his own.

He’s full of quilted daydreams, stitched from every moment Steve has ever looked, smiled, laughed at one of Billy’s jokes. The thread is golden, the color of every late-night promise to drive Billy across county lines.

Billy’s delusions are plushy-soft comfort he’s not ready to bring out of the closet.

So he takes a sip of water. “Steve,” Billy says. “He’s. Steve Harrington.”

Neil leans forward. “Harrington?”

“Yes sir,” Billy wills his voice not to crack.

He’s reluctant to spoil this part of his exile. To call the hounds in, bloodthirsty, to trample and tear the thing he’s clutching like a spot of gold to his chest. He digs his heel into Max’s foot under the table and wishes he wasn’t in his Saturday lounge-around clothes. He yearns for his boots, to break a bone. Eye for an eye, to somehow cancel the marrow that’ll splinter in his face when Neil finds out the truth.

“Good family,” Neil says. Every syllable lands like crystalized hail. They clink and roll and clatter all around the dining room. “Might be a good influence.”

“He is good,” Max says happily. She kicks back. It stings. “Billy and him–”

“He and Billy,” Susan chimes, and Billy thinks how ironic that Susan would choose now to become a real person when she’s usually set dressing.

Reanimation, just to fire a canon and contribute to the sinking of Billy’s battleship.

Billy dabs his mouth with a wadded-up paper towel. “May I be excused?”

Neil’s eyes snap to, and for a single, terrifying moment, Billy thinks he remembers. Carlos. The Pier. California. He wasn’t too drunk, he wasn’t irate, he remembers–

But Neil. He nods, brows knitted with faux worry. “Everything alright, son?”

He only lives up to Billy’s expectation of him when it’s deserved. When Billy’s done something besides breathe, one inhale after the next.

“Just tired,” Billy says. Wonders what would happen if he ran.

–

Max says the dumbest shit in the world.

She’s a chick. She’s a girl with an attitude the size of Missouri and a tongue that can pierce the skin, and that’s where their similarities end, careening over the mouth of a cliff into nothingness.

Billy learns early on that if he wants any peace at all he’d better tune her out just short of plugging his ears with cotton and bloody fingertips and dynamite, so when the wailing reaches a fever pitch he can blow his head off and float far away from here.

Sometimes, though, Max’s scowl will clear and it’s like the Oracle is speaking through her.

You know, this garbage disposal noise you call music actually rocks. Or, I’ve been thinking about piercing one of my ears. It looks cool on you, I guess. And, when Billy needs to hear it most, your dad’s such an asshole.

She’s a wrecking-ball with no awareness of her swing.

And when she speaks, it’s not the same as I understand.

It’s not, I look at Neil, I see the way he wishes you were dead and I get it, now. Why you’ve always got a lit match in your palm, ready to burn the world to the ground.

When Billy least expects it, Max’s words are daybreak. Filled with light so blinding Billy's a bug under a microscope, slowly catching fire.

Two days before spring, Max slams out of her bedroom while Billy’s working on his bench press.

He hardly notices.

He’s floating, a little. Like a balloon. He’s listening to the new Tears for Fears album because Steve’s obsessed with it, and he’s pretty when he’s excited, and Billy’s a sucker for the plush, wide-lipped smiles that drip like gold from Steve’s face. “They’re good, Bills. They’re like if Halloween and Valentine's day had a baby.”

Billy’s stuck in a ground-hog day memory of the way Steve’s hair flopped into his eyes when he promised, “They’re like us.”

And.

Billy’s not paying attention. He’s at least twenty shoulder-presses in, he’s smiling, he doesn’t really notice when Max’s heavy, sock-feet steps don’t carry on through the living room, and that’s his first mistake.

Before Billy knows what’s happening, Max looms over him.

He feels, like the distant brush of a spiderweb on his back, Max glaring. Searching his face.

But Billy’s a ship lost in a sea of brown eyes.

He almost can’t find it within himself to be pissed that he can smell the peanut butter on her breath, almost, but then Max says, “You know Steve wants to kiss you, right?”

And Billy sits up so fast that he almost knocks himself out on the barbell.

“Woah, you’re bleeding,” Max steadies him, brows pinched with concern. “Are you–”

“You can’t say shit like that.”

“I’m just pointing out the obvious.”

Immediately, something warm starts to trickle over the right side of his face. “Shit,” He says, at the same time Max howls, “Oh, god, you’re bleeding–”

“What the fuck did you think would happen?” Billy tries not to move his head too much. He grips the edge of the bench until the leather splits like canyons until he’s sure the pads of his fingers will separate, too.

“I’m sorry,” Max babbles, “I didn’t mean to–”

The house is silent.

Beyond the throbbing in his skull and past the strangled, nervous way Max is breathing while she waits for him to strangle her to death, there’s nothing.

All of Hawkins might as well be gone. Deleted from the page like a bad line of poetry. Billy wonders what would happen if the drapes parted from the window. Would anything stare back at him? Streets and mailboxes and cloud-covered skies. Would the black cosmos would press hard against the glass, would their refuge of plaster and slate would crumble under the weight of the universe–

“They’re not home,” Max says. Every space monster to his roost.

Billy nods, wincing at the pain that fries and curdles behind his right eyebrow.

Max steadies him. “Shit, do you need some ice?”

“Don’t need ice, I need a rag,” Billy says, “And a beer.”

“You don’t need a beer.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m serious,” Max tells him, arms crossed. “If you have a concussion the last thing you want to do is get drunk–”

“I’m not gonna get drunk off one beer, shitstain.”

“Billy.”

“Max,” Billy snarls, working to push his voice fifteen octaves higher until they sound exactly the same.

Max lopes furiously down the hall, returning a second later with crisp, beaded PBR in one hand and a wet rag in the other. Billy dabs his brow with the scratchy fabric, knowing Neil will reem him later for getting blood all over Susan’s good cloth.

Billy can’t think about that, now.

He reaches for the PBR and Max tugs it out of reach.

“Max–”

“I’m just. In biology, we’ve been reading about fetal alcohol syndrome.”

Billy feels like he got pushed in front of a train and whacked his temple on a railroad spike. “I’m not a fetus.”

“No, but our bodies are still developing,” Max says, like Billy’s an idiot. He’s thick and dumb and ridiculous for not paying attention in eighth-grade science class and knowing that the legal drinking age is twenty-one for a reason.

Billy doesn’t give a damn about that. “You made me split my brow, dipshit.”

“That’s not really my fault,” Max bargains. “I was just saying that Steve–”

Billy yanks the beer from Max’s hands. “Shut up,” He insists, nails burrowing under the pop-top, but just as Billy’s about to crack the seal and give himself over to the only thing in the world that would soothe his agony, Max is on him.

“I’m worried about your brain,” She says, just short of tackling him off the bench, and.

Well.

She hollers. When she’s keeping secrets. When she’s trying to get her way. And Billy squints his eyes, ready to reiterate she has nothing to worry her stupid redhead over and it’s not really her place to worry about him, anyhow–

“You might have a concussion.”

“And you might have a death wish.”

“What’s it taste like, anyway,” Max wonders. “If it’s so good. It looks like root beer.”

“It tastes like piss.”

“Why do you drink it so mu–” When Billy glares, sharper than a new glade, Max bristles like a porcupine, “Look, I’m sorry I scared you–”

“You didn’t scare me,” Billy snaps. Spiders scare him, locked jaws and missed curfews and slashed tires scare him. Not little red-headed stepsisters who can’t mind their fucking business.

Billy wants to throw the PBR at her.

Steve scares him. Steve–

Billy presses the can to his eyebrow, instead, hissing through his teeth at the feeling.

Max’s shoulders drop, “Thanks for not drinking it,” She mutters, and it’s so sincere, so steeped in the sisterly worry Neil’s always preaching about, that Billy can’t swallow the question that bubbles up his throat like strawberry perfume.

He has to know, “Why do you think Steve wants–”

“Whenever he watches you talk he always gets that look on his face.”

“What face?”

Max’s sneakers sing on the hardwood, dragging like nails against the chalkboard in Billy’s mind that’s been scrubbed clean and scribbled with Steve’s name, over and over and over again. “The blank one. You know, like when boys are about to kiss you and every thought flies out of their head like–”

“How do you know what that face looks like,” Billy demands, stomach turning over on itself when her freckles burn away in shades of red.

“Lucas–”

“God, that’s sick.”

“Don’t be an asshole. Just because Steve’s a loser and you’re a raging dickhole with a face only a mother could love–”

Billy winces, his molars grinding. It has nothing to do with the pain. Nothing to do with split brows and annoying sisters. “You’re one to talk, I can’t even look at you without wanting to Ralph.”

Max rolls her eyes. Deflates. “Sorry,” She says, soft and small, and.

She’s eyeing the PBR. Neil would kill Billy if he ever found out, but.

Billy cracks the beer and hands it to her. “Get lost before my head stops swimming.”

–

Steve’s fridge has the warmest light Billy’s ever seen, but maybe Billy’s just high.

The glow cuts him from marble. He’s the work of artists long dead, the picture of beauty. Billy sways against the kitchen sink, feeling very much like he could fall asleep to the soft harmony of ketchup bottles and pickle jars making a grab for the fairytale prince.

It’s Friday. Just before spring break. They’re staring down a two-week barrel of nothing but lazy mornings and hazy midnights and each other.

Miles and miles of nothing but this.

Billy’s excited. He could live forever in this moment, and the thought bubbles laughter out of him, surprised and happy.

Steve looks at him, startled out of thought. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.”

Steve smirks, and. His nose is perfect in the refrigerator light. Billy never noticed before. He re-shelves a jar of olives, the fancy cheese-stuffed kind, and tugs a hand through his hair. “What are you even hungry for?”

“Whatever you want,” Billy chews on his thumbnail, stomach churning.

“Nothing sounds good. I don’t think I’ve got food in here, anyway.”

Billy watches him open a bag of sliced cheese. Is so warm and content he could fall asleep next to the bread box. “What do you call that?”

“Not food.”

“It’s food.”

“It’s ingredients, that’s not the same thing,” Steve pulls a slice from the bag, folding it a million times until it splits evenly down the middle.

“It’s food, Harrington, it’s a whole meal,” Billy smiles in spite of himself when Steve nibbles on one half and holds the other, grinning, out in front of him. “No, I’m not–”

“Don’t even try it, Hargrove, I know you get the munchies when you’re stoned,” Steve wiggles the cheese at him, eyes big and brown and as expectant as they are beautiful, so.

Billy pops the cheese slice and eats it without tasting anything.

Steve watches him, unblinking, “Well, what do you think?”

“It’s cheese.”

“Yeah, but you’re not full, right? Because there’s only more of that if we stay here.”

“Where else would we go?” Billy frowns, not getting it. The cheese is better than the single-packaged shit Susan gets from Melvalds. It’s smoky, and aged, and Billy could polish the whole bag if he wasn’t worried about the cheese farts.

Steve fiddles with the corner of the bag, avoiding Billy’s eyes, “We could go out–”

“Close the fridge. You’re letting all the cool air out and now our dinner is gonna spoil.”

“Our dinner is not a bag of cheese,” Steve grumbles, but he hip-checks the door, collapsing onto his elbows in front of the paper towel dispenser. He tugs at his hair until it looks like it hurts, until his sprouting laugh lines disappear, and Billy hates it.

He wants them back.

He swims through the fog, trying to think of something funny to make Steve smile, but Harrington’s already pushing away from the counter, frown deep-set. “Why don’t you ever wanna eat anything when you’re here?” He demands.

And Billy can’t say that it’s the fault of his kid sister. That her insane, paranoid ramblings about love and blank expressions have gotten under his skin, and now everything Steve does feels like the start of something else.

Billy can’t admit that he wants it to be something else, so. “I eat popcorn sometimes.”

“I’m not talking about snacks, I mean real food,” Steve says. He studies Billy’s face, “Do you get your energy through photosynthesis or something?”

Billy laughs, loud and sudden. “No, I just–”

“I could cook for you.” Billy almost brains it on the spotlessly tiled floor because Steve’s eyes get bigger, somehow. Sparkling with earnestness. Steve shuffles, hands on his hips. “I want to cook for you,” He says, like it means something else entirely.

And whatever it is. Billy can’t handle that.

He bristles, says, “I don’t feel comfortable eating anything that costs more than the house Max and I live in,” Hoping it’ll sink the lifeline Steve’s trying to throw him.

“It’s just organic shopping,” Steve shoots back.

Which. “Huh?”

“It’s got like, less sugar. And preservatives, or something,” Steve shrugs, tongue darting pink and swift across his cupid’s bow. “My mom does the shopping when she’s home.”

Billy frowns. “Well, I’m not eating half of your mom’s paycheck. What will you eat?”

“You know, making dinner for you means I’ll get some, too,” Steve says. A smile tugs lazily at the corners of his perfect, clever mouth, and Billy is swallowed by anticipation.

There’s nothing he loves more in the entire world, probably, than seeing the subtle birth of each smile. The way Steve paints them on as if he were writing secret letters addressed to Billy, slipping them between the folds of conversation so Billy is surprised whenever they unfurl and bloom like tulips in the springtime.

Steve’s eyes hunt over his face, “You’re sure you’re not a plant? A sunflower?” Steve asks. He scoots close, fingers reaching to tilt Billy’s head toward the kitchen light, “Look like one to me,” He says, and.

Out of nowhere, his face goes carefully blank. His eyes land somewhere and stick, like the spindly legs of a fly to trapping paper.

Steve is watching Billy’s mouth.

He’s leaning forward, he’s–

Somewhere, in the back of Billy’s mind, Maxine bangs on a door labeled No Admittance, hollering about the way boys look when they want to kiss you.

It scares Billy, how much he wants it.

How much it would kill him if it never happens.

“I’m not a fucking plant,” Billy says, shrugging away. He stares wildly around the kitchen, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. “This kitchen is disgusting.”

Steve watches him, quietly amused as Billy pretends to find something on the counter to scrub.

Billy works a damp paper towel over every inch of the counter, putting an island between them so Steve doesn’t have the chance to swoop close. Get his hands on Billy’s face.

Those fingertips would send sparks flying.

Billy would char and burn and bubble over, so.

Steve watches him for a quiet moment and Billy avoids his eyes, terrified of what he’ll find when he has to stop scrubbing the counter. “What are you doing?”

Eventually, the marble will come away on the paper towel. “Cleaning,” Billy says. “If we’re going to eat a bag of cheese in here, it’s gotta be spotless.”

“Wanna go to Benny’s?” Steve asks.

Billy stares at him, then, stomach growling on command.

Steve’s answering smile is brighter than the harvest sun. Billy could sprout into fields of marigolds, he could be picked and kept forever in a vase on the fireplace mantle. “I don’t want you to feel like you’ve gotta clean up after me,” Steve tells him.

Guilt, sharp and swift, pangs in Billy’s stomach. He wants to insist that it’s no bother. That he’s used to cleaning up after Max and sweeping away the delicate bits of himself that clatter to the ground. And even if there were fruit punch stains all over the marble, the remnants of Steve living everyday in this house, Billy wouldn’t mind cleaning up after him.

Billy wouldn’t mind taking care of him.

Steve shuffles around the island, smile sheepish and cute. “C’mon, we can have pancakes.”

“I want chicken strips.”

“Alright.”

“And a double chocolate rootbeer float with ranch–”

“For your ice cream?” Steve teases, “That’s disgusting.”

“For my fries, asshole,” Billy shoves him playfully, “Do you want to feed me dinner or not?”

Steve rocks away and lands closer, cheeks red like strawberry ice cream, “I want to do a lot of things for you,” He admits quietly, and.

That face is back again.

Billy wants to pull away, but he’s caught. Steve catches him, hook and line, says, “Billy–”

And Steve kisses like he’s never done it before, but has always wanted to try. Like he’s been waiting his whole life and every one before that for Billy. For this moment. High spring nights and empty stomachs and yearning, soft as fresh soil.

His fingers thread into the curls at the base of Billy’s skull.

Their knees bump together, Billy grabbing onto Steve’s shoulders to stop from falling back against the trash can.

The kiss opens up.

Gets sloppy and good and Billy could live here forever. His lips could swell and melt into Steve’s and it would be perfect.

Steve pulls away, but he stays close. Their lips brush on every desperate breath. “Sorry my kitchen is disusting,” He says.

Billy can’t think straight. “I’ll clean it for you.”

“Let’s stay in,” Steve says. He kisses Billy’s jaw and both eyelids, licking slowing into his mouth.

Billy throws the paper towel in the garbage can.

For the first time in his life, he’s full.

For an anonymous donor! I hope you enjoyed this drabble :)

#harringrove #harringrove for turkey #fluff

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theladyofbloodshed · 8 months

Text

You're The Closest To Heaven I'll Ever Be - Chapter Three

(If you read the Wings & Embers nessian chapter online, let's pretend it happened but there was no neck nuzzling)

Blood rubies. Damned blood rubies. Azriel had advised against any trip to the Summer Court with a new, untested high lord. They hadn’t yet got the full measure of Tarquin beyond his ambition and desire to see his court succeed. As always, Rhys knew best and cared little for the consequence because he was confident in Velaris’ security. He’d risked himself to get the book that Amren was translating. Then the three chicken-egg sized rubies had been presented to Azriel with glee by Keir at the Hewn City. Now, he had to stretch his spies a little further. Not only did they need to cover the Queens’ residence on the Continent, the Spring Court, and the mortal village that Feyre’s sisters lived in, but Adriata too. Not that any good came from it. He grew increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress. If Tarquin and Varian turned up on the steps of the Hewn City, they’d be none the wiser until it happened. If Azriel failed, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.

Azriel wasn’t sleeping. Each day, he pushed the limits of what a fae body should be able to function on. The headache that needled at his temples made him irritable. Mor had commented that he looked gaunt on one of her frequent interceptions; she had a habit of knowing when he’d returned and would often seek him out on the roof. One day, it would snap for them. The mating bond. In truth, he only ever returned to have a brief glimpse of her. There was no other reason to return to Velaris when his skillset was needed elsewhere.

‘You are allowed to take a break, you know,’ she reminded him. ‘Come to Rita’s with us tonight.’

‘When I take a break that means we’re complacent. This city – and its people – are too important to grow complacent with.’

The heavy gait of Cassian sounded as he rounded the stairs from the roof. A sheen of sweat was on his forehead and his hands remained wrapped from whatever training he’d run through with Feyre.

‘If you don’t take a break willingly, your body will decide when it happens, brother.’ He clapped him on the back in greeting. ‘Alright?’

‘I’m fine,’ Azriel deflected.

He wasn’t. He was exhausted. His body was used to running on empty with a little coaxing that it would just be one more night of broken sleep. This was different. A bone-deep exhaustion was burrowing into his marrow with every day that he pushed himself. The pain in his chest hadn’t subsided either although he had grown used to it. It was always with him now, as much as his shadows were.

A shadow wrapped around his hand to disguise it as he plucked an apple from the bowl on the kitchen side. It was the first thing he’d eaten all day and the dim light of his siphons was giving away how much he was flagging.

Mor gave an easy shrug. ‘Where are you off to next?’

‘I’ll sweep the mortal village.’

‘No need,’ called Cassian as he settled onto the couch in the lounge. ‘I had the pleasure of delivering a letter there last night to the wicked witch of the west.’

Irritation clawed at Azriel’s chest. Rhys knew he would be heading there that evening. It was a long flight for Cassian – and he hadn’t been informed of it. That was surely an oversight. Unless Rhys thought Azriel incapable of delivering a letter. After all, his spies had failed thus far.

Useless, a voice murmured in his ear.

‘Cass is in a bad mood because of - what did you call her? A bossy know-it-all female?’

Cassian let out a long, deep groan. ‘You’re as bad as Feyre. And her damn sister.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, lying because Cassian always had a tell when he lied. He’d shift his shoulders slightly and glance to the left. ‘I just can’t stand her.’

‘Why?’ demanded Azriel.

A familiar hot spike of anger that usually meant he was about to do something reckless pulsed in his veins. His feet took him to the lounge where he stood ready for battle. He forced himself to breathe out then sit. Sleep was definitely needed. There was no need to fight Cassian over visiting the mortal sisters. He pressed cold fingers to his ribs.

‘She let her fourteen-year-old sister go into those woods and hunt while she did nothing. She doesn’t deserve Feyre’s concern. Feyre gave up everything for her.’ Cassian unwound the wraps from his hands as he spoke and bent his fingers. ‘I can’t put up with somebody so selfish and cruel.’

A muscle worked in his jaw. ‘We weren’t there in that cottage. We only have Feyre’s side.’

‘Feyre wouldn’t lie about it,’ he scoffed. ‘You think her sisters deserve Rhys’ kindness?’

‘My brothers said I deserved what happened to me,’ replied Azriel, voice cold and empty. He couldn’t think of that place for long without spiralling into a hell of his own making.

Mor’s eyes branded into his skin, snagging on his scars, revulsed by them. Even Cassian, who usually never looked at them, betrayed himself and stared at Azriel’s ruined hands. Azriel rose from the chair, grateful to the shadows that flocked to him, covering him from view.

‘Siblings are complicated. There are two sides to everything.’ He swallowed, regretting saying anything at all. ‘I have to go.’

***

The weather matched Nesta’s mood that afternoon – grey and miserable. A steady thrum of rain had been pattering against the glass for hours, locking them inside the manor. The path towards their manor was soggy and Elain’s baskets of flowers on the windowsill looked as if they were drowning. Although she had tried to occupy her time with needlework and her books, Nesta’s mind was too restless to settle on anything for long. She had been that way since Feyre had made her triumphant return with three strange faeries: One was arrogant and made no secret of it; one was rude and made it everybody’s problem; and the third was permissible, she supposed. Beautiful and well-mannered, but aloof in a way that had unsettled her.

The rude one had turned up the previous night with a letter after flapping around the chimney like an overgrown pigeon. Rather than hand it over at the door, he had insisted on following her all the way to her bedroom to speak. It was most improper. Then again, for a great brute who lacked any sort of manners, Nesta supposed it was normal for him. He had likely conquered many women. He certainly strutted about her house as if he had experience in such areas. She hadn’t liked the way he had looked at her. Or how he had crowded her space. At least the thought of Tomas Mandray had stilled him – and her – because for a moment, Nesta was certain he had been about to kiss her. She might have clawed his face if he tried.

She hissed through her teeth as her needle missed its mark and made her finger bleed.

From her vigil at the window, Elain glanced round. ‘When do you think father will return?’

When his pockets were bloated with coin. When his greed had been satiated. When he remembered he had daughters who needed him.

‘I do not know.’

Her sister fingered the iron engagement ring, turning it this way and that. ‘We cannot marry until he returns.’

Good, Nesta thought, maybe Lord Nolan will be dead by then and Graysen will inherit his title.

‘Then let us hope he returns soon.’

Nesta shifted in her seat. She stretched her neck backwards, bending as far as was comfortable, while she pressed a hand against her ribs.

‘Are you still in pain?’

‘It is nothing,’ she replied swiftly.

Elain frowned. ‘Did the healer truly not know what is causing it?’

They would have been better off throwing their coins down the drain than enlisting that crooked healer ever again. He had been utterly useless, prodding and poking, making her cough and lean over for no good reason. The fraud had concluded that there was nothing wrong with her, except stress was causing her phantom pain. A good dose of sea air was his recommendation. Those years of stress in their rotten cottage hadn’t caused any such pain but a couple of weeks with fae in her life had successfully managed it.

‘Tuberculosis. I shall leave you my books in my will,’ she said, turning back to her needlework.

‘You should not make such jokes, Nesta. If it is true that faeries are coming here to war then-’

‘Then whoever is still standing may inherit my entire library. Is that better?’

Her tone left Elain in a stunned silence. The mortal queens would hopefully be arriving soon and they’d be tasked with playing hosts. Nesta did not want to think of the consequences of the meeting – of what could happen to her people. The realistic answer was a brutal death. Since Feyre had turned up on the doorstep, she felt as if she was constantly holding in a breath, waiting for something awful to appear around a corner as war brewed. It kept her up at night. Feyre’s tale – how she had died and returned as a faerie – haunted her too. She could not think of her youngest sister’s sacrifice without growing tearful. Nesta wished that she had kept Feyre there the day they had painted together rather than sending her off with hope that she would have a happy ever after with her high lord. Instead, she’d met her death then a fate worse than it.

Her grey eyes shifted to her younger sister. Even with her face turned towards the window, Nesta could make out the forlorn expression from Nesta’s barbed words. They were all guilty of wrapping Elain up to never feel any bumps or sharp edges. A slightly venomous tongue could wound Elain. Nesta knew little of war, but she’d approach it the same way she approached anything else, with steely determination to make it through. Elain? Elain was delicate. War would break her. A life without Graysen would ruin her. Nesta knew she needed to stop taking out her worries on Elain, but she needed her sister to open her eyes to the world. It could be cruel and hard. They had protected Elain for as long as they could, but one day this world might chew her up and spit her out if she didn’t toughen up.

‘Elain, would you ask Mrs. Laurent to prepare tea? She always gives biscuits when you ask. Then I’d like to hear about your plans for the western portion of the garden.’

Because they had made her soft, Elain was easy to mould. A compliment here or there did the trick. Elain loved to be wanted; she excelled in social situations. And Nesta hated that she used Elain like a puppet sometimes.

She gave Nesta a lovely smile then went in search of the housekeeper. Mrs. Laurent adored her. All of the staff did.

As she stood, Nesta let out a sigh then discarded her embroidery in the chair. At the window, she gazed out across the manor’s grounds. Mist that had been conjured by the rain curled around the stone walls that lined the property. It was a bleak day. The sort of day that drives hope into the ground. Nesta held her hand over her chest to soothe the pain blooming there.

If it came to war, Nesta would go wherever Elain went. It was her fault her sister was naïve and delicate. She had already failed one sister – as her new friends were keen to remind her. She would not let Elain down.

***

How could it be?

The fading light had made his shadows stronger. He only recognised the sister thanks to the lamp illuminating the room. She stood at the window, tall and thin – too thin. His shadows engulfed him, obscuring him from view. Beyond that, Azriel had shielded himself too. Not even Rhys would know he was there. He didn’t know why he had come here. There had been a pull that demanded he ensure the house was safe. And it was. But he couldn’t leave because the eldest sister stood in the damn window staring at him.

How could it be?

Azriel knew that Nesta wasn’t truly seeing him, but her eyes had passed along the stone wall then stopped exactly where he was stood somehow like a force had compelled her to do it. There had been no shock, no cry of alarm. Her gaze had just settled there, almost in a trance. Her fingers splayed out across her ribs, rubbing against them without conscious thought.

The thought of Cassian coming here to war with her infuriated him for some reason. They had no blame in this; they were two mortals trapped between warring fae. They were asking these sisters to uproot their lives and potentially sacrifice their standing in society to host the Queens. Whatever had occurred during a youth of poverty was between the sisters, not for Cassian to meddle with. The level of anger towards Cassian wasn’t justified though. Azriel knew he needed to rest before he became undone. His anger was sputtering out of him as bad as it was when he was a boy, before he could keep it leashed.

His attention snagged on the blurred outline over Nesta’s shoulder. It was the middle sister. She carried in a tray of tea then settled it on a table. He swore he saw a brief smile flicker over Nesta’s lips. It evaporated as quickly as it arrived, but it had been real. She turned back to the window for a moment, silver eyes sweeping the grounds, canvassing over him again, before she tugged the thick, blue curtains across.

The mortals were safe. The house was secure. And he had work to do. There was no reason to remain any longer.

But as he winnowed to the Continent, the ache in his chest seemed to give a sigh of relief, like something restless there had settled.

#azriel is like hmm the pain in my chest feels better when i'm near nesta seems weird #nezriel #nesta archeron #azriel

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thisisallthehattersfault · 25 days

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I'm so intrigued by ritual behavior in animals. Many animals practice what we can only describe as funerary rights and veneration of the dead, while certain species of ape and elephant have displayed behaviors not unlike sun-worship, being aware of and showing some kind of reverence for celestial bodies.

I like to think, if the Straw Hats were ever to worship Luffy, Chopper would be the first to do it. It would be an instinctive thing, and maybe worship wouldn't be the right word for it. Reverence doesn't fit -- he has been elbow-deep in his captain's chest, he has seen Luffy (seen all his crew-mates) reduced to sweat and blood and vomit. He has washed the filth of survival from their faces and tipped water to their lips and held death at bay with sutures and splints and antidotes. The flesh is not a holy thing; the body is not be sanctified (except of course that it is, it is, and no one knows that better than a doctor.)

Chopper is less animal now than he was before he ate his fruit, but he is nature’s creature still. He can feel the seasonal climate of a new island in his bones as they approach. His fur prickles when danger is near. When his crew forage for supplies in strange new places, Chopper follows the scent of clean water and green, growing things until it leads him to resources he can bring back to the herd.

And when the sun rises, he tips his face into its light and feels the warmth seep into him.

There is a profound gratitude winter creatures feel towards the sun. Nights on Drum were always so very long, and the snow so thick. In deep winter even the evergreens had a hard time catching enough of the gray, watery light to keep themselves alive. It wasn’t uncommon for Chopper’s original herd to spend hours or days foraging and only find barely enough to eat. When the sun emerged enough to melt the snow and pull tender, edible shoots up from the earth, coax sweet green leaves to bud on the tips of barren branches, it always felt like a gift to be cherished.

After he ate the fruit and became something that is neither reindeer nor human and not quite a proper mix of the two, something that is maybe not only difficult to classify but downright incorrect — when he became whatever he now is, and gained the ability to perceive a world so much greater than himself, he felt that was exactly what the sun was: something greater than himself. Something greater than his herd, or the human settlements, or either of the good Doctors that raised him. Something greater than the evergreen forests or the snowy fields. Greater even than the long, dark winter. Doctor Hiriluk taught him, of course, what the sun is made of, but that didn’t make it seem any less like magic to Chopper. This huge, burning thing, so far away and unimaginably powerful and yet it reaches its fingers down and down and down into the snow and tugs up plants for the reindeer to eat. Ancient and unreachable and unapproachable, but still it warms his fur. Still it melts the snow caps into streams of clean, clear water that teem with life in the summertime.

Right from the beginning, Luffy does for Chopper what the sun does for the snow fields. He gives warmth and persistent, blinding light until the icy top-layer has gone to slush and everything beneath sprouts anew, growing strong and reaching up towards the sun. Chopper boards the Going Merry for the first time and his bones ache like spring has come, and under Luffy Chopper does as all green things do in the sunlight: he grows. He learns and trains and overcomes, until he feels less like those tender spring shoots and more like the evergreens, standing tall, unbowed by the winter.

It makes sense to me for Chopper to be the first of the crew to look at Luffy and understand that he is something else. Something more. Something greater than himself. Maybe not consciously, but instinctively, not in mind but in gut and marrow. If Luffy is to Chopper what sunlight is to the snowfields then it’s only right the rest of the world, too, should get to tilt their faces to the light of the sun and feel it’s warmth seep into them. The crew learns about Nika and Joyboy and ancient prophecies and Sun Gods given form, that Luffy is something that is neither human nor god and not quite a proper mix of the two, and Chopper tucks his nose into Luffy’s hip and digs his horns into Luffy's belly until Luffy reaches down to pat him, and thinks, I could have told you that.

#One Piece #monkey d. luffy #tony tony chopper #sun god nika #joyboy

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venusandsaturnsrings · 1 year

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i mentioned cowboy childe once upon a time and uhhhh he hasn’t left my brain Ꮚ•ꈊ•✿Ꮚ

˚✧₊• cowboy childe… he’s a menace, to say the least. that’s not to say he’s an all around terrible guy, he does have his own moral code, but to anyone wanting a calm or more standard lifestyle he’s off the rails.

he more or less developed a reputation as a wanderer who ‘dealt’ with all problems he deemed necessary; typically injustice towards the poor or disposing of generally unsavoury characters. if someone who knew something about something caught wind of him heading through town, it was guaranteed to cause a stir. an expensive glass of whisky and all the details was everything he needed to get to work. though, not all of his jobs were of a violent nature. he could often be found hired by elderly farmers to care for their cattle for a couple days or playing games to amuse local children who absolutely adore his tales of adventure.

enter, you. the simple clerk of a boutique and tailor in a growing frontier town. you mainly specialize in refitting garments and accessories of all varieties but occasionally take on more complex custom pieces as you have the steadiest hand in the shop. it had been a cool spring afternoon when he walked in. immediately, the small chatter and giggles leaking through the building halted but he didn’t seem phased. you supposed this happened often for him given the reputation he carries. his boots clacked loudly as he walked to your counter, knuckles tapping the brim of his hat further up to get a better look at you. with a face of freckles, sunshine, and open skies, he requested your work for a new holster. one beautifully crafted of leather, silver hardware, and sinew but ornately stitched and with plenty of room for bullets. he proudly showed you the colt revolver he carried with a wooden handle he’d carved himself while travelling. you weren’t one to decline any work, so you took up the project, much to his delight.

it was hard to find you working without Ajax hanging around afterwards. whether it was him bringing you some fresh fruit or inviting you out to the saloon after the day, he seemed to have grown quite fond of you and you’d be lying if you claimed not to like him as well. perhaps he had blood on his hands but you admired his perseverance and dedication to bringing equality to towns that needed it. after one particular trip to the saloon, he took you back to where he was staying with hands never leaving your body.

for a man so isolated, he sure knew where to touch. with calloused finger tips and chapped lips he brought you a kind of pleasure only comparable to a personal heaven. having those same sunburnt shoulders and star kissed cheeks between your legs or above your body was a celestial experience, one you didn’t think you could let go off. one you ached for already knowing he’d depart once you finished his commission. one you wanted to sew into a garment only to be worn by yourself. it was a love felt in the marrow of your bones and by whatever god out there did you not want to let go. you knew you couldn’t dawdle on the project as you needed to make money but a couple cents lost meant nothing should he stick around for a little longer.

if only you knew how he planned to settle not only in your heart but also in your little town but, he found your desperation cute. Ajax couldn’t wait to show you the draft for your new home. <3

#i’m sowwy i lob him :((#big beefy cowboy man <3 #cowboy childe #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #slightly suggestive #genshin impact x reader

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suguwu · 1 year

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lover be good to me: part two

You meet Kita Shinsuke on a rainy summer day, with a sea of hydrangeas swirling at your feet. You know him instantly, as only a soulmate can. He seems like a good man. Like a good soulmate.

But it’s your wedding day.

minors and ageless blogs do not interact.

<- part one - part three ->

pairings: kita shinsuke x f!reader, oc x f!reader

notes: and part two is here! i am once again so excited to be able to share this fic with y'all. thank you again to everyone who has sat thru me yelling at them about this fic—it means the world! and a special thank you to my beta for getting through this beast and getting it into tip-top shape <3

title and part title are from hozier’s “be” and “nfwmb”

tags for this part (contains spoilers for fic): soulmate au (first words), this is a very reader-centric story, slow burn, pining, hurt/comfort, reader and kita are implied to be around their 30s, non-graphic partner death (not kita), anxiety, borderline panic attack, food consumption, love as a choice.

wc: 16k

Shinsuke almost catches you.

You’re still whirling around to run, a jewelry box ballerina wobbling in place desperate to stay on her feet, when his fingers graze your wrist. They’re warm. Callused. They trace along the delicate skin there, sending sparks skittering beneath your skin.

His fingers flex, start to close around your wrist.

But they don’t.

They fall away, until there’s only the ghost of him lingering on your skin. He speaks too, his steady voice almost pleading, but your thrumming heartbeat is filling your ears and echoing inside you, a wild hymn of instinct.

His touch falls away and you’re through the shoji before you realize where you’ve gone. You whip past your friends, their shocked expressions blurring at the edges like watercolors, and into the hallway.

It hurts to breathe.

You dart into one of the shrine’s empty tea rooms, chest heaving. You slam the shoji shut behind you and sink to the floor, your shiromuku pooling around you, gleaming like moonlight in the dim. You knot your fingers in the fabric. Your fingertips brush over the heavy embroidery, over the graceful sweep of a crane’s wing, and your grip tightens.

Your chest aches, a bruise of a thing; the red string of fate wound fast around you, your ribs its spindle, cinching tighter with each passing moment. The world wavers.

You come back to yourself on the other side of the room. You’ve shed your shiromuku; it’s in the middle of the room, an empty husk; a cocoon broken open too early. Your next breath is shaky.

Faintly, you can hear people rushing through the hallway. Their voices wash over you like waves on a distant shore. You bury your face in your hands.

You don’t look up when the door opens. Abe and Yoshikawa have always been able to find you, no matter where you hide.

The door shuts, and then—

“Hi,” Takao says.

You go stiff.

“Hi,” you say, refusing to look up.

You feel Takao settle next to you; the fabric of his kimono is soft against you. He sets his hand on your knee. He’s warm, as always. It’s the soft heat of freshly washed sheets, of the spring sun’s tender touch. You curl into him.

It feels like home.

Quiet falls. It settles between the two of you like the night, a shroud of your own making. Takao leans back. He sighs; it sounds like it comes from between the gaps in his ribs, from the very depths of him.

It sounds like saying goodbye.

“Please don’t leave me,” you say, and you sound small even to yourself.

“I think that’s my line.”

You wonder if the words taste as bitter as they sound. If they linger sour on his tongue. Takao seems to realize it at the same moment, but he doesn’t apologize, and you don’t ask him to.

“I’m not going to leave you,” you say.

He hums skeptically, low and resonant, and it chips away at your bones, scrapes you down to your very marrow.

“I’m not,” you insist, low and desperate. You barely recognize yourself. But you want to keep Takao, to keep this man you’ve spent years learning, spent years loving. Leaving him would carve you open and Kita may be your soulmate, but even the most careful stitches can’t always keep a wound shut. “We said it didn’t matter.”

“We did,” he says. “But I think it might.”

“He’s a stranger, Aoshi,” you say. “I don’t know him, not the way I know you. Not the way I love you.”

“It’s different, though, isn’t it?” he asks. “With soulmates.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“But it is.”

You swallow down the sob.

He shifts next to you, giving you more space to curl into him. You take it, burrowing into his side and pressing your face against the soft fabric of his haori. He sighs.

“Do you feel—” he starts. You can feel the way the words rumble in his chest. He stops and runs a hand through his hair; he blows out a big breath. “Do you feel connected to him?”

You bite at your bottom lip. You remember Shinsuke in the sea of silken hydrangeas, the deep blue of them eddying around his legs like the tide as he moved through them. You think of how your eyes had caught on him then. How his companion had faded into the background.

How well you’d known the taste of his name on your tongue.

“I don’t know,” you say.

“Yes, then.”

“I don’t know, Aoshi,” you snap. “I don’t know anything except that we were supposed to get married today and now it’s all—”

“Fucked,” he says when you trail off. “It’s all fucked.”

You nod, sniffling miserably.

“I think we need some space,” he says.

“From?”

“Each other.”

You pull away from him.

“What?”

“I think we need some space from each other,” he repeats. He’s not looking at you, his dark eyes focused straight ahead, as if he can see through the shoji and find all the answers right there.

You want to shake him.

“I don’t need space from you,” you bite out. “I need you.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Fine,” he says. “I need space from you.”

“Aoshi, what? Please, I don’t understand.”

He blinks. His eyelashes are wet; they’re clumping together. There’s a stray one caught on his cheek like a dandelion seed. You catch yourself before you reach for it.

“You have a choice to make,” he says. “And I don’t think I can watch you do it.”

“My choice is you!”

He looks at you, then. He looks at you, his eyes night-sky dark, and there is something terribly tender to him when he says, “I don’t think you know that yet.”

You sob.

It’s pulled from somewhere deep inside you, an animal sound that you didn’t know you were capable of making, something that lives behind your bones. It guts you, that sob, flays you open from neck to navel.

Takao sucks in a sharp breath. His hand flexes by his side. You sob again, softer this time, but no less wounded for it.

“You’re not being fair,” you tell him.

“Neither are you.”

You grit your teeth, wondering if there’s such a thing as fairness, in a moment like this. You think it’s unlikely.

“You don’t get to make my choice for me,” you snap.

“There are no choices being made today,” says a new voice, and you close your eyes as your mother’s perfume wafts around you. She smells of summer irises and the honeyed earth of saffron, and you breathe her in as she gathers you into her arms.

You curl up into her, a child once more, and start to cry in earnest.

“Go,” she says to Takao. If she says anything else, you can’t hear it over your own sobs, over the great, gasping breaths wracking your body.

You feel Takao leave, the warmth of him fading away, and it takes everything you have to not reach out to him. You sob again, choking on his name.

“Oh, tadpole,” your mother says. She presses a kiss to your temple. “Let him go for now.”

“I’m supposed to be getting married,” you tell her.

“I know, tadpole.”

“Why is this happening?”

She cradles you close. “I wish I knew.”

“You said—”

“I know.”

“Mama,” you murmur. “Mama, what do I do?”

“I don’t know, tadpole,” she says, and you feel one of her hands shift to press against her stomach, to cradle her own soulmark’s blackened kanji. “I don’t know.”

You turn your face into the crook of her neck and cry all over again.

She hums to you, soft and soothing, but lets you cry your fill. She pets at your back, her strong hand firm, keeping you grounded in your own skin.

Your sobs have just started to abate when the phone rings.

It cuts through the heavy air of the tearoom like a knife. Both of you jolt with it, and you furrow your brow. It’s a classic ringtone, the one all phones come with, and you immediately know whose phone it is.

You push yourself up and out of your mother’s arms glancing to where your shiromuku still lays, a collapsed chrysalis. You chew on your lower lip but go to it, kneeling in front of the beautiful fabric and picking it up carefully until you can see Shinsuke’s utilitarian flip phone. It jingles, the ringtone continuing, and you reach for it with trembling fingers.

Miya Osamu, the lit screen reads.

You sit with the phone cupped softly in your hands, your pulse thrumming. You trace a finger over the edge of it.

You flip it open before you can convince yourself otherwise.

“Hello?” you ask.

“You picked up,” Shinsuke says.

You suck in a sharp breath. You had known, but it’s so different hearing his voice. The steadiness of it, even though the edges of it sound worn down.

“I did.”

“I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Me neither,” you confess.

“Are you alright?”

You close your eyes. This would all be so much easier if he wasn’t good. But you know he is—you can hear it in his voice, in how earnestly he asks.

“Not really,” you say. The least you can do is give him the truth. “I assume you need your phone back?”

He goes quiet. You listen to him breathe and something in you aches, like a healing bruise being pressed. You wish you were better, that you were kinder, that you could handle this with grace instead of inelegantly side-stepping it.

“Yes,” he says. “And I’d like to talk.”

You bite your lip. “Yeah,” you say. “We probably should.”

The two of you agree to meet in the tearoom in thirty minutes which is good, because even with your shiromuku shed, the kimono you wear is clearly wedding garb. It’s beautiful in its simplicity, stark white and painstakingly stitched, and you desperately need to be out of it.

It’s your mother who helps you disrobe, her fingers careful as she unwraps the pristine obi, the gossamer fabric as delicate as a spider’s web gleaming in the low light of the room. You stare out the window as the attendant takes it and folds it up for storage. She’s glancing at you occasionally, her dark eyes wide, and you wonder what she’ll tell the people she knows. How she’ll spin the story of your misfortune. If she will tell it as a blessing instead.

The obi is followed by the kimono itself slipping from your shoulders like water, and your mother brushes a hand against your cheek before she hands you your street clothing. She and the attendant leave you to remove the rest yourself. You leave the nagajuban pooled on the floor as you dress.

Once you’re dressed you wander over to your kimono, carefully hung next to your shiromuku. The attendant has smoothed most of the wrinkles from the silk, and you trace a finger over the long lines of it.

You wonder if you’ll ever get to wear it again.

By the time the attendant returns to retrieve the garments you’re sitting by the window, staring out into the pouring rain. The lush plants of the courtyard—heavy, ruffled ferns with massive fronds and vining shrubs with blossoms like little stars dotted between verdant leaves—sway under its touch, dancing to a tune that only nature knows.

Behind you, the shoji clicks open and shut.

You turn around.

Shinsuke gives you a soft smile. It’s wan, but there’s still a sweetness to it somehow. His hat is gone; his gray hair gleams silver in the light, the black tips all the darker for it, and you think again of thunderclouds.

“You’ve been crying,” he says, his brow furrowed, and that almost sends you into a fresh wave of tears.

You let out a watery laugh. “A bit,” you admit. “It’s fine, though.”

He watches you, those vulpine eyes shining. He clearly doesn’t agree.

“Here,” you say, reaching out. “Your phone.”

He moves closer and takes it from you with quiet thanks. He lingers there and you bite your bottom lip, trying to figure out what to even say to him.

“I’m sorry for running,” you say.

He smiles, soft and sad. “I understand.”

“I just—I don’t even know where to start.”

“That’s alright,” he says calmly. “We have time.”

We. He says it so easily. Your stomach roils.

“I can’t,” you say. “I can’t do this.”

Shinsuke’s expression doesn’t change, but he’s different suddenly, like a guttering flame finally blowing out. You swallow down a sob.

“I understand if you need space,” he says. It’s barely there, a wisp of a thing, but there’s pain in his voice. “I know this isn’t easy.”

Your laugh is wild at the edges, an unraveling stitch. “If we’d met an hour later, I would have been married.”

His fingers flex.

“I just—” you catch yourself as your voice cracks. Your lips are tingling; you bite down on the bottom one to make it stop. “I can’t do this right now. Please. Shinsuke, please.”

The tilt of his lips is edged with sorrow. “It’s fine,” he tells you. “We’ll trade phone numbers for now.”

“Thank you,” you whisper. “Thank you.”

He nods. You trade phones, his fingers sweeping over your palm. They’re callused, rough against your skin, and you feel the ghost of them long after he’s drawn back. When you take your phone back, you’re careful to keep from touching him.

Kita Shinsuke, his contact reads, and you can’t help saying it aloud, letting your tongue roll over each inch of his full name now that you know it.

Shinsuke—no, you think, he’s Kita, stranger that he is to you—smiles. He says your name too, his voice soft like the spring sun. Your stomach churns.

“Thanks,” you say, drawing back into yourself, curling up like a fern frond. “We’ll—we’ll talk soon.”

He looks like he wants to say something else, but he must see something in your face because he simply nods. There’s something you can’t quite understand tucked up secret in the corner of his mouth.

“Alright,” he says. “Soon.”

He glances back at you once, just before he disappears into the hallway.

The shoji has barely clicked shut behind him when it’s opened again and Abe and Yoshikawa tumble into the room. They sweep you into their arms without a word and your knees give out. They cradle you as they lower you to the floor, and Yoshikawa hums quietly as you knot your fingers in their kimonos.

“C’mon,” Abe says, the gentlest you’ve ever heard her. “Let’s get you home.”

“Aoshi’s not there,” you sob.

Yoshikawa’s grip tightens.

“That’s fine,” she says, as steady as the sun’s rise, “because we will be.”

***

You wake to sunlight streaming in through your window. It cradles you like a lover, plays gently over your face, and you wrinkle your nose.

“Aoshi,” you grumble, “you forgot to close the curtains last night.”

There’s no response.

You crack an eye open, peering to the other side of the bed only to find it empty. When you press your hand against the worn cotton sheet, it’s cold.

It all comes pouring back in, a riptide of memories washing over you like a stormy sea.

“Oh,” you say quietly, curling up so that your knees are pressed against your chest. You blink back the tears. “Right.”

The sunlight thickens, pools like molten gold around you, and you turn your face up to it, a winter flower searching for warmth. You don’t know how long you stay like that; you’re only roused by the faint sound of clattering in the kitchen followed by the purr of your coffee maker. The scent of it fills the house, and you put on your house slippers.

When you enter the kitchen your father is snipping away at your neglected bonsai, trimming the needles back with careful, sure hands. He glances up at you.

“Hi,” you say.

“Hi,” he says. “You’re terrible at taking care of this.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, putting down the pruning shears. “Did you sleep?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Good.”

“Yeah,” you say, and quiet falls.

His lips have a faint downward tilt as he watches you, like a waning moon. He sighs, thumbing at the soil of the bonsai. There’s a flash of his soulmark, blackened into a charcoal smear, a gravestone all its own. Your eyes catch on it.

“Did you love your soulmate more?” you ask. “Was it better with her?”

“Oh, tadpole,” your father says. He comes over and takes your hand, squeezing it lightly. “It was different. Not better, not worse. Just different.”

“But did you love her more?”

“I loved her differently.”

“You keep saying that, but what does it mean?” you ask, pulling away from him. “Either you loved her more or you didn’t!”

He sighs. “It isn’t that easy,” he tells you.

“It is!”

“It isn’t, tadpole.”

“It has to be.”

“It’s not black and white when it comes to soulmates,” he says gently. “You know that.”

“I want it to be,” you whisper. “It’d be easier.”

“It would be,” he agrees. “It would be.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

He sighs. “You don’t have to know, not right this minute.”

“What if I never know?”

He hums, picking up the pruning shears again. He brushes a soft hand over the bonsai tree, tracing over a winding branch, his fingers reverent against the old bark. A few blue-green needles come loose, pattering down to the counter. He sets the pruning shears against a branch and the blades flash, catching the light as they come together. He catches the little branch as it falls.

When he looks up, he looks right past you. You think of early morning mist, how it swallows a person down.

“You will,” he says.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. His gaze flickers to you and when he smiles, it feels like something you aren’t meant to see.

The coffee pot gurgles. It breaks the spell and your father’s smile warms at the edges, smoothing out the tender gash of his mouth.

“I made it the way you like it,” he says. “I thought you might need it.”

“Yeah,” you say. “I think I do.”

You’re halfway through your first cup when your mother emerges, already fully dressed for the day. She looks you over from head to toe and her face softens, goes sweet at the edges.

“Did you sleep?” she asks.

You nod.

“Good.”

“Where are you going?” you ask.

“The shrine,” she says.

You wince.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Take care of what?”

“There’s a soulmate clause in the contract,” she says carefully. “They’re required to refund you. Mei is meeting me though, and she thinks the clause is loosely worded enough that she can get them to hold a different day for you instead, if you’d like. It’ll likely be a less auspicious rokuyo day, but—”

“But if I marry Aoshi, it might be the best I can get.”

She nods. “At least you’ll have options.”

“I guess. Mei’s going?”

Mei is an old friend of your mother’s and one of her prime sources for her study, a veritable treasure trove of data. She’s made for the courtroom, tiny and calm and whip-smart, and her grasp of soulmate law—tricky at the best of times, highly scrutinized as it is—is unparalleled.

“Yes,” she says. “We’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

She comes over to you and cups your cheek. You lean into the touch, into the saffron scent lingering on her skin. “You aren’t alone, tadpole,” she murmurs.

You close your eyes. “I know.”

She pats your cheek lightly. “Good,” she says.

You miss her warmth when she pulls away.

She takes her purse from your father; they murmur to each other. Your father leans forward to press his forehead against hers and you look away.

The door clicks shut behind her, and your father starts to hum, low and off-key. The quiet, off-beat snick of the shears accompanies him. It’s like being a child all over again, and you settle into the hazy familiarity of it.

The morning stretches on. Yoshikawa and Abe appear during your second cup of coffee, and they drag you out to the new cafe you’ve been meaning to try. It’s a creperie filled with hazy pinks and soft greens, the warm air scented sweet. The three of you squish into a small booth as you have so many times before.

They keep you busy, plying you with sugary crepes dipped in rich, thick chocolate and decorated with fresh, perfectly red strawberries. They’re cut into little fans, pressed softly into the chocolate, almost like small flowers in the dough. The three of you peel them out of their paper cones, licking at your fingertips like little kids. You swap flavors, trading bite for bite.

You close your eyes as you reclaim your own crepe from Abe, sinking into the taste of it, letting the sugar wash everything away. Abe laughs, loud and bright, accompanied by the low purr of Yoshikawa’s voice. You let the sound of them encompass you and wonder how you ever got so lucky.

You check your phone as you leave the creperie. You bite at your cheek as your phone screen comes to life, Takao’s little smile carving out a piece of your heart. It’s an old photo from when you first got together, and it’s still a favorite even after all these years.

Abe takes your free hand and squeezes it softly. She doesn’t say anything, but then again she doesn’t need to.

There’s still no message when you go home. Dusk is falling, the last fingers of sunlight playing across the horizon, and you hesitate on your own doorstep. Yoshikawa coaxes you inside with a firm hand on your back. When you glance back at her, her dark eyes are sharp but kind.

Once you’re inside, you can’t decide what is worse: Takao not being home, or the fact that he was. His favorite jacket is missing from the closet; his to-go mug isn’t by the coffee machine. One of the dresser drawers is still cracked open.

Yoshikawa and Abe talk to you, but you can’t quite hear them. They bundle you onto the couch and stay until late, when you finally shake the cobwebs from your thoughts. Abe bites her lip when you shoo them out the door, but she goes without a fight.

The house is quiet as you get ready for bed. The bed feels vast, too big for just you. You reach for your phone perched carefully on the nightstand, untangling the charger from the trailing vines of the pothos it’s by so you can pull it closer. You squint against the brightness, texting Takao a simple good night.

He doesn’t reply.

You hadn’t known the living could haunt, but you go to sleep curled up around a ghost.

***

You go back to work.

There’s still days left of your soulmate leave, but you need the distraction. You ignore the quiet whispers and bury yourself beneath a new project. Caught up in your work you float through the day, only coming up for air when your phone vibrates. You snatch it up each time, but it’s only stray notifications—a news alert; a pop-up saying that the recipe blog Yoshikawa likes updated; your IC card balance.

It’s never what you want it to be.

It carries on for two days; each day you wait for the ping of Takao’s text, but you receive nothing. On the second day you wrap up your day late, staying behind to finish off a few notes on the new project. It’s not as if you have anything better to do.

The sun has set by the time you’re on your way home. The city has bloomed into a neon wonderland, little shocks of color blazing through the night. You watch a black cat scuttle across the sidewalk, its fur glinting fuschia from the nearby izakaya’s sign.

Your neighborhood is quieter but it still has the hum of the city to it, a familiar song. There’s a sweet scent on the breeze, courtesy of the night-blooming flowers that coat the building next to yours. You trace your fingertips over a delicate petal. It’s silken against your skin, and you sigh, turning to your home before coming to a quick halt.

Golden light is slanting out your kitchen window. It pools warmly on the ground, and you suck in a harsh breath, almost running to your door. It opens with a click. You step inside and for a moment, the genkan looks undisturbed. But then you see Takao’s shoes tucked carefully into the getabako; his house slippers are missing. There’s a quiet rustle from the kitchen’s direction.

You slip off your shoes and drop your bag into its place.

“Hello?” you call out, wincing at how timid you sound.

The rustling stops. It starts again, and Takao rounds the corner just a few seconds later.

“Hi,” he says shyly. “You’re home late.”

“Worked late,” you say. “You’re back.”

“I am.”

You’re across the room in seconds, and he wraps you up in his arms as you barrel into him.

“Please stay,” you say, knotting the soft cotton of his shirt up in your fingers. You can feel the slow rise and fall of his chest. Something in you warms. “Please.”

He cups the nape of your neck, the warm span of his palm soft against the tender flesh there. You breathe him in, still nestled in tightly against him.

“You didn’t respond to me,” you murmur.

“I said I needed space.”

“It was just a good night text.”

“Let’s not do this,” he says.

Something in you wants to drag it out. To make him hurt the way you hurt. But you bite back on that part of you, swallow the poison down.

“Are you staying?”

He sighs and you go very, very still.

“I am.”

You slump into him with a sigh of relief. He cradles you close.

“You scared me,” you tell him.

“I know.”

“Don’t do it again.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Good.”

“You know, this is what I was afraid of, all those years ago,” he murmurs, brushing a kiss against your hairline. “That I wouldn’t be able to let you go if your soulmate came. And that I’d have to worry about you leaving me.”

“How many times are you going to make me say it?” you ask, gritting your teeth. “I’ve told you, I’m not leaving you.”

“You might.”

“We’ve been together for years,” you say, pulling back so you can meet his dark eyes. “He’s a stranger. He wants an idea, not me. Not really. So no, I’m not.”

He sweeps his thumb over the apple of your cheek. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to.

You kiss him then, a featherlight brush of your lips that lasts for just a breath before you pull back. He cups your jaw and chases you. He kisses you again. Deeper, more solid. When he pulls back, you open your eyes and look at him.

“I’m not, Aoshi,” you say. “I know. Trust me.”

He watches you. His eyes remind you of a summer’s night, encompassing and pitch-black, but warm. Always warm. He searches your face, his gaze so intent that it feels physical.

He nods.

You let out a low, soft breath.

Now you have to talk to Kita.

***

It takes time.

Your work’s soulmate leave is generous, but Kita is at the whim of his farm. The rice paddies don’t care about soulmates nor do they pay attention to weekends. And devoted as he is, he heeds their call, nature his kindest mistress.

It makes you think of Toyooka. You know the song of the fields, the rustle of the rice in the countryside breeze, an age-old tune that’s sunk into the soil. This close to harvest the verdant fields go Midas-touched, gilded with the sweetest hint of gold.

You wonder what Kita’s farm looks like. If it looks like the summers of your youth. If he sits on the engawa in the hot months, eating crisp watermelon down to the white bone of the rind, juice dripping sticky down his fingers. If the taste curls thick on his tongue, sweet with the countryside’s unique freedom.

He’d offered his farm as a meeting point early on, but without a car it’s too far. It’s too personal as well. He’s sown into the soil there, living in each grain he’s tended to. You think his hands were kind against the rice shoots, his long, thick fingers careful as he planted them.

It’s too much, the idea of being surrounded by him.

Your home is out of the question because it’s not just yours.

You couldn’t do that to Takao, not when he’s stitched into every seam of your home. He’s in every atom of it—the slight imprint of his form in the memory foam mattress; his toothbrush, half-flattened by how hard he brushes, tucked neatly into a cup by the sink; the photos that line the walls, a tapestry of silken years woven together.

It’s also the one thing Takao’s asked of you.

(“Don’t bring him here,” he says one night, his voice flat.

You pause in the middle of drying a dish. He holds out the next, still soaked to the point that it’s dripping on the floor, and you hurry to finish. It almost slips through your fingers when he lets it go.

“I wouldn’t,” you say fiercely, even though you’d thought about it for one brief second. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think I would do that to you?” you ask him, setting the dish onto the rack. He hands you another, and you take it without thought.

Takao blinks. He turns to look at you, and his expression is beautiful and terrible, a tender underbelly flayed open.

“No,” he says. “I don’t, not really. I just want this home to have always been ours. Just ours. I just—wanted to be sure, I guess.”

You reach out and cup his face, cradling it between your palms. “It is,” you tell him. “It’s just ours. It’ll always be ours.”

He considers you. “Good,” he says, and he catches your hand in his. He turns his head; he presses a kiss against your palm. It’s devout, that brush of softness from his lips against the ley lines of your skin, as if he’s an acolyte at your altar, laying offerings at your feet.

The two of you press together for a moment, the warmth of his lips searing through your skin to settle in your bones. You take up his hand and press your own kiss to the center of his palm. His eyes go half-mast, and you can feel his smile against your skin.

He pulls back. Squeezes your hand softly, and then he’s turning back to the sink, already reaching for another dish.

You stand there for a moment. Your hand has gone cold without the heat of his skin. You flex your fingers, trying to make sense of the dread creeping over you.

Takao glances at you. He smiles, sweet and fleeting, a dandelion tuft caught in the breeze. For a breath, you’re in high school again, gazing at a boy you’ve never spoken to but spent hours with, the two of you balanced on a precipice. And then the past fades, until you are left with who Takao is now. With who he has become to you.

You smile back, and then take the next plate he hands you.

It’s easy, after that. He washes, and you dry, a rhythm you’d know anywhere. Takao is swaying, humming along with the radio, and he laughs when you start to sway with him, your hips bumping each time.

He doesn’t bring Kita up again.)

With both your homes off-limits, you’re back to square one.

Finally, Kita decides to drive to you.

You choose a little coffee shop on the outskirts of the city, both to shorten the drive for Kita and for its familiarity, a cradle of comfort for a conversation you’ll never truly be ready to have.

It’s a charming place, more rustic than modern with little wooden tables and shelves draped with plants, their lush vines hanging down behind the counter. It’s always warm, the sunlight streaking through the windows to paint the counters golden. The shop is studded with flowers too, bright buds spilling over the lip of water pitchers in a froth of color. Coffee is heavy on the air but a note of sweetness threads through it, a sugary bite of fruit. The pastries are made in-house and you know they’re sinfully good, little melt-in-your mouth slices of heaven.

You’ve eaten three since getting here. You’re on your second drink too having gulped down the first one—scalding your tongue in the process—so quickly that even the barista had seemed surprised.

It’s your own fault, really—you were almost a full half hour early. With nothing to do but wait, you’re all tangled up in yourself.

The woman tapping away on her laptop in the corner pauses to eye you warily as you shred another napkin. You’d folded this one into a lopsided origami bird before beheading it. You send her a polite smile; she turns back to her laptop without a word.

You try to make another origami animal but you can’t remember any other patterns. You could make an army of birds you suppose, but after the fifth one you run out of napkins. When you consider getting more, the look on the barista’s face keeps you in your seat. You slouch down into it, your cheeks warm.

You look up just as Kita enters, the little bell at the top of the door chiming quietly. He finds you instantly, his amber eyes settling on you as soon as he’s through the door. He smiles, warm like the spring sun, his eyes crinkling with it.

He’s as handsome as you remember, leanly muscled with broad shoulders and casually graceful as he walks to your table. In the cafe lighting his gray hair goes silvery, bright against the black tips of it, and you think of a moon being eclipsed.

“Hello,” Kita says, holding out a hand when you start to get up. “S’fine, you don’t need to get up.”

“Oh,” you say, caught awkwardly between sitting and standing. A smile drifts across Kita’s face like a summer breeze, a quick, soothing thing. You cough and sit back down. “Hi.”

The two of you are quiet for a moment. He’s watching you, drinking you in, and his eyes remind you of a sunlit forest, of the way the sun’s rays drip down between the trees like honey. It aches, the way he looks at you. It’s soft and sure. Steady and open and earnest.

Kita looks at you like you help make the world make a little bit more sense.

His gaze flickers down to the tabletop, and that same small smile blooms on his lips.

You suddenly remember your mini-army of origami birds, including their headless leader. You fight the urge to close your eyes in mortification.

“You should order something,” you say, fidgeting with your cup. “Their coffee’s nice.”

“Alright. D’ya want another?” he asks. “I’ll get it for you.”

You shake your head. “No,” you say. “Thank you, though.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” you say, and he nods.

When he goes to the counter to order you hurriedly sweep the remains of your shredded napkins away, wincing as they flutter into your purse. Some of them stick to your sweaty palms, and you rub them vigorously against your thighs until they curl up into little paper pearls. They patter to the ground quietly. You send out a quiet mental apology to the cafe workers.

“You alright?” Kita asks. He settles down across from you and you envy his assuredness, how serene he looks.

You nod, not trusting your voice.

He eyes you for a moment, those golden eyes all too knowing. But he doesn’t say anything, choosing instead to wind his hands—lightly tanned and slender, with a constellation of small scars scattered over his skin—around his cup.

It’s tea, you think, the faintest hint of it reaching your nose, and it fits him in a way you can’t quite put into words. There’s a hint of a smile on his lips as he takes a small sip and you look away.

“I’m glad we could meet,” he says.

“Yeah,” you say, already wishing you had another napkin to shred. “I think it’s important to talk.”

“It is, but I just wanted to see you.”

He says it so simply. Kita speaks with the surety of the sun’s rise; he means every word he says. There’s a sweetness to him that could only come from earnesty. He leaves no room for doubt.

You break in the face of it.

“I can’t be with you,” you blurt out.

He goes still. The smile on his lips fades. “What?”

“I can’t be with you,” you repeat.

“We’re soulmates,” he says, and it’s the most rattled you’ve ever heard him. His fingers flex. He looks lost, those amber eyes hazy, and you think of the morning mist, how it swallows down the sun. There’s a tiny quiver to his lips.

“I know.”

“We’re supposed to be together,” he says.

You ache for him.

“I’m sorry,” you choke out. “But that’s not enough. I can’t leave him. I don’t want to leave him.”

Kita’s quiet. The silence stretches on. And then—

“You love ‘im,” he says softly.

You nod.

“You’re happy?”

You nod again.

Kita leans forward and cups your cheek. He skims his thumb over your cheekbone, a careful glide. It comes away wet, his skin salt-kissed, and you lean into his calloused palm.

He wipes away another tear. His touch has the same aching tenderness of a fresh, swollen bruise.

“Okay,” he says. “I can live with that.”

That quiet, easy capitulation makes it worse. You can see he means it; it’s reflected in his eyes. If you’re happy, that’s enough for him.

Your stomach hurts.

You sniffle, pulling away from his warm touch and wiping at your eyes. Your cheeks are hot, and they get hotter as you see a few people glancing your way. Kita lets out a slow, deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say, staring down at your coffee cup. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know.”

It’s not an “it’s okay,” but you suppose that would have been asking for a lot from him. You look at him from underneath your eyelashes and find that his amber eyes are distant, like the sun at the very edge of the horizon.

You wonder where he’s gone, and then think that perhaps it’s best that you don’t know. You fidget with your cup. The porcelain of it scrapes against the table, and Kita’s eyes clear. Still, they’re not as keen as they usually are, and you shift in your seat. He takes in a soft breath, a whisper of a thing, and then his eyes flicker to you.

“I’d like to stay in contact with you,” he says.

You jolt, almost knocking your cup off the table. “What?”

“I would rather have you in my life.”

“Shin—Kita, that’s not fair to you.”

“Please call me Shinsuke.”

You ache for him, something bone deep that no salve will help subside. “That’s exactly why this isn’t fair,” you say gently. “You’re going to want more than I can give you, and we both know it.”

“I know,” he says. His eyes are keen as they flicker over you; the tilt of his mouth makes you look away. “And I’m sorry. But I won’t ask anything of you, except for this.”

“Kita—”

His fingers flex, but he doesn’t correct you.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” you ask. Your hands are trembling; the words are sour on your tongue, the lemon tang of a promise that’s going to hurt.

“Yes,” he says, steady as stone.

You sigh. “Okay,” you say. “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

You nod, toying with a sugar packet as he sips at his tea. You fold and unfold the edge of the package, until the paper starts to wear thin, a few tiny crystals of sugar spilling loose to plink against the table.

The silence that falls is heavy, weighing you down like an anchor. There’s the quiet background noise of the cafe: the chatter of the barista and other customers, the soft tinkle of the bell as someone else enters, the hiss and purr of the espresso machine, but it seems distant.

“I’m gonna go,” you say abruptly. “I think that’s for the best.”

You’re already starting to gather up your things when Kita stands. “It’s okay,” he says. “You should stay. I need to be gettin’ back to the farm anyway.”

“You just got here,” you say helplessly. “You drove all this way.”

He glances at you. His expression is complicated; you can’t quite parse it.

“I drove here for you,” he says gently.

You open your mouth and close it again, a koi-like gape. You sit down slowly, settling into the booth again. He picks up his cup of tea—still piping hot, little wisps of steam rising from it like smoke—and gives you a little smile that doesn’t quite reach his striking eyes.

“Get home safe,” he says.

“You too,” you say faintly.

You watch him leave, the way each of his steps is steady and sure. You don’t think you’ve ever known someone so at home in their own skin. But there’s a curve to his shoulders now, the broad width of them collapsed inward. It’s minute but it’s there, and your stomach roils again, a sour brew of emotion welling up in you.

He pauses to ask the barista something; she gives him a to-go cup and watches as he carefully pours his tea into it. He hands back the other cup with a little nod of his head.

The cafe door clicks shut behind him, bell chiming, a clear, porcelain sound that cuts through the chatter of the cafe. You resist the urge to bury your face in your hands, choosing instead to look down into your nearly-empty cup. The dregs of it are dark, and you wonder if your future is written out in them.

You blow out a soft breath and scrub at your face with your hands. When you glance up, the barista is carefully not looking your way. To avoid seeing the way her lips have twisted, you glance out the window into the haze of the mid-morning sun, still spilling golden over the tiny parking lot. You immediately balk.

Kita’s still there.

He’s in his truck, half-hidden by the glare of sun against the windows, but you know it’s him. You can’t see his eyes, but you can tell he’s staring straight ahead. His mouth is a thin, tight line. You chew on your lower lip.

One hand comes up to scour beneath his eyes. It comes away with a wet sheen catching the sunlight and shining bright. You wince, glancing away.

You stare down into your coffee cup again. When you down the last of it, the dregs of it, it’s sharp and bitter on your tongue.

It almost erases the heavy, metallic tang of guilt.

Almost.

***

Your phone pings.

You grab it without looking away from your monitor, typing in your passcode one-handed as you mutter the last line of the email to yourself. You flick the notification to pull up the text without checking the name and pause.

It’s a picture of the rice fields, rippling in the breeze like a current, the stalks going gilded as harvest draws closer. Beyond the sea of them there are rolling hills of green with only a few power structures—standing tall on their metal legs as they reach into the sky—to mark a human presence. It’s all framed by the bluest sky you’ve ever seen, filled with puffy white clouds that you think are likely being whisked along by the breeze.

It’s so vivid you can almost smell the fresh air.

There’s also only one person that could have sent it to you.

Trying to keep in contact with Kita has been an exercise in awkwardness. You feel bad but you’re trying to figure out how to temper it, since you’re caught between what you know he wants and what you’re capable of giving him.

To his credit, Kita never pushes. You suspect that he prefers calling—he seems the type—but he mainly texts, following your lead.

(“I feel like I owe him this much,” you tell Takao one night, when Kita has texted you while the two of you are curled up on the couch watching a movie.

“I don’t think you owe anyone anything,” he says, but he never asks you to stop.)

There’s still a hint of stilted awkwardness to it, but it has gotten better than it was.

It’s stunning, you text back. It reminds me of summers in Toyooka.

He doesn’t reply until dusk is settling, but that’s not unusual considering how diligent he is with his farm. You reply quickly, bored with the TV show you’ve been watching as you wait for Takao to pick up dinner, and the two of you fall into conversation.

He asks about Toyooka and you tell him. You tell him about catching summer fireflies and playing in the fields with Abe. You’re about to tell him about Abe’s duckling that followed her everywhere one summer when you realize exactly how long of a paragraph you’re sending.

Before you can second guess yourself, you delete the paragraph and send a different message: I think this might be easier as a call.

I’d like that, Kita replies.

You hit call, knowing you’ll balk if you give yourself time to think.

He picks up instantly.

“Hello,” he says.

“Hi,” you say, a little awkwardly. “How are you?”

He chuckles, but it’s kind. “I’m good,” he says. “How are you?”

“I’m good.”

“That’s good,” he says. Silence falls for a moment. It’s not a comfortable one, and Kita shatters it by saying: “You were talking about your summers in Toyooka?”

“Yes,” you say, and you launch into the tale of Duck (“She named the duckling Duck?” “We were six.”) and how he’d followed Abe through the sea of paddies, all the way up to the genkan of the rented house each and every day.

Kita is a good listener. He seems happy to let you chatter away. He asks questions here and there and tells a few stories of his own, but mostly he’s quiet, just the soft whisper of his breath echoing on the line.

The two of you talk until you hear the door to the house open. Takao calls out a greeting, a familiar song, and you call one out in return. Rustling accompanies him and the faint scent of spices starts to waft into the living room.

“I should go,” you say into the phone. “Dinner’s here.”

“Alright,” Kita says softly. “Have a good night.”

“You too.”

Takao comes into the living room as you hang up; he presses a quick kiss to your lips. He tastes suspiciously like your favorite appetizer.

“Hey,” you say, narrowing your eyes at him. “Did you eat some on the way home?”

“Yup,” he says cheerfully. “A toll for my labor.”

“You haven’t finished your labor yet. I set the table, so go unpack the food.”

“Yes ma’am!”

You bat at him; he dodges with a little laugh. He leans down and gives you another quick kiss, this time at the corner of your lips, sweet and fleeting. When he pulls away he heads towards the kitchen, lightly swinging the bag of takeout as he goes.

You’re getting to your feet to follow him when your phone vibrates in your hand, buzzing along your skin. You glance at the notification and see that it’s Kita. You flick it open.

It was good to talk to you, he’s texted.

You pause for a moment, chewing on your lower lip. You can hear Takao humming to himself in the kitchen.

Yeah, you reply. It was good to talk to you too.

It’s easier after that. You stop agonizing over each word. It doesn’t completely fade; you will always be more careful with Kita than you are with anyone else. It’s the kindest thing you can do for him.

The two of you start to text more, each message a string drawing you closer to each other. He texts you photos of his ducks. You repay him with photos of the conbini’s cat, a spoiled little thing often found lounging in the front windows, little face turned up to the sun.

You start to call too. It’s sparse at first, often a continuation of a text chat that simply would be better on the phone, but it grows more frequent as the weeks pass. Some nights it’s short; other nights, you feel lost in time, as if only seconds have gone by when you’ve talked for much longer.

You grow used to seeing Kita’s name pop up on your screen. It’s nice, if you’re honest. You like talking to him.

“What’re you makin’?”

You glance towards where your phone is propped up. At some point, today’s call became FaceTime, mainly so you both have your hands free to make dinner. It gives you a glimpse into his kitchen; a glimpse into him.

His kitchen is meticulously clean and inherently practical. Everything seems to have its space, whether it’s a row of well-maintained pots and pans or a knife block with an assortment of handles jutting out from it, a sharpener carefully tucked in beside it.

But there are other little touches of Kita scattered about: the apron hanging from the rack is embroidered with tiny rice paddies, each stitch painstakingly made by his grandmother’s steady hand; the strawberry plant in the window is heavy with small, glistening berries despite the season; there are neatly folded handkerchiefs tucked loosely into a drawer by the cleaning supplies.

Even through a phone screen it feels warm. Homey in a quiet way.

Kita moves back into frame with a bowl in his hand. He’s got a brow raised, and you remember he asked you a question.

“Nikuman,” you tell him, gliding the cabbage over the mandolin’s shining blade. You work it carefully, watching the ribbons of white-green flutter down onto the cutting board. “Oyakodon too. You?”

“Tofu hamburger.”

“That’s your favorite, right?”

A small smile blooms on his lips. “You remembered.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

“I’m not,” he says. “It’s just nice.”

You hum, finishing up with the cabbage and dumping it into a bowl. Kita keeps chopping as you pour rice into a pot and start to wash it. “Ugh,” you murmur to yourself. “Almost out of rice.”

“What rice do you use?” Kita asks.

You point at him with a wet hand. “No,” you say. “You’re gonna judge me.”

“Over rice?”

“You’re a rice farmer!”

He chuckles. “And?”

“That means you know rice secrets. Like better brands.”

“I could always give you some.”

“Some rice secrets?”

“Some rice.”

You hum. “Thanks, but I don’t want you to have to go out of your way,” you say. “Shipping it seems inconvenient.

“I was thinkin’ I could bring you some. I have a delivery in the city soon.”

You pause. Kita’s stopped preparing his dinner, instead turning his gaze on you. Even through the phone, his amber eyes almost glow. You think of the last vestiges of a sunset, of the deepest sheen of gold threading across the horizon.

“Kita…”

“You can say no,” he says quietly. Quietly, but no less steady for it.

You sink your hand into the rice that’s settled at the bottom of the pot, still covered by water. When you flex your fingers, the grains slip through them like darting little fish. You do it again. The water ripples around your wrist.

“I can’t, Kita,” you say.

He nods, his gray hair a lightning strike gleam. “Alright,” he says. His shoulders dip low, an exhausted Atlas, and you sigh.

“Not yet,” you say. “But one day.”

He nods again. For a moment you think he’ll say something else, but he simply gives you a crooked little smile. When you change the subject, he doesn’t fight it. The two of you settle back into conversation as you cook.

You hang up as Takao returns home. Dinner has just finished cooking, the oyakodon perfectly golden, the scent of it lingering savory in the air. You settle in at the table, talking about your day as you eat, until you finally put your chopsticks down.

“Kita asked me to meet up.”

He puts his chopsticks down as well.

“I said no,” you say, meeting his gaze. “Well, I said not yet.”

“Not yet? You want to see him?”

“I think I’d like to,” you tell him, because you will always be honest with him about this. “But I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t want to stop you from doing something you want to do.”

“I will, though.”

He runs a hand through his hair; it flows through his fingers like water, little rivulets of dark hair catching between his fingers. “I know,” he says.

“I’ll choose you, Aoshi,” you tell him. “As many times as it takes.”

He reaches over and cups your cheek with a warm hand. “I know,” he says. “It’s not my favorite thing, but if you want to see him you should.”

You cover his hand with your own and turn into his touch. You press your lips against his palm, against the leylines that are carved there, a future you don’t know how to read.

You press another kiss to his palm, a quiet gratitude for his trust.

He leans over to brush a whisper of a kiss to the corner of your lips.

As you turn back to your meal you think of the waver to Kita’s smile, like the sun hidden behind passing clouds.

One day, you promise him. One day.

***

One day comes quicker than you’d thought.

It’s early, the sun still hovering over the horizon as the blue of dawn fades away into something brighter. The sunlight catches on the city buildings, the windows shimmering like a mirage, a promise of what’s hidden behind them. The streets aren’t empty—they never are—but the frantic pace of them has slowed to something leisurely, as if the city is still waking up too.

You weave your way through the streets. The route is familiar and you pay little attention to where you’re going, choosing instead to watch the vendors begin to open their stores. The florist is already putting out buckets of flowers, a riot of color from the dawn hues of a ruffled ranunculus to the deep purple of the elegant, leggy irises rising over the rest. He’s half-lost in the blossoms, pushing his way through petals to lay out more of his wares. Some of them catch in his hair.

Next door, the conbini is still aglow. It’s always a beacon in the night, but it’s softer in the day. You head in and grab a quick snack for later, giving the half-asleep cashier a little smile.

The bustle of the street has grown when you leave the conbini, the stream of people burgeoning into a river. But you still hear it when someone calls your name.

You glance around and find Kita just a door down from you, coming out of a small grocer’s. He smiles at you softly and you almost duck back into the conbini.

He waits there, leaving the choice of approaching up to you, but you’ve run from him enough. You slip through the crowd and join him by a flat of dusky peaches, the air around them faintly sweetened.

“Hi,” you say. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

He nods towards the inside of the grocer’s shop. It’s small, clearly family owned, but it’s well-stocked. There’s a kid—no more than ten, you think—carefully putting shining apples into a basket, their face scrunched up in concentration.

“Tsukada stocks my rice,” Kita says, and now that he’s said it, you vaguely remember him mentioning this neighborhood when you’d talked about his delivery route a few weeks ago. “I’m very grateful for it.”

A scoff comes from behind the register. An older woman peers out, her brow raised. Her eyes are wrinkled at the edges, her crow’s feet papery, but the thickest line is clearly a laugh line.

“It’s good rice,” she tells you. “Simple as that.” She eyes you curiously, tilting her head to the side. Her thick black braid thuds against her shoulder; it’s streaked with gray, like pebbles just visible through a river’s darkened waters.

Kita inclines his head to her, a small smile on his lips. “You’re kind,” he says.

“Just tellin’ the truth.” Tsukada settles back, disappearing behind the register again. “Take some fruit with you when you go. I know your granny likes peaches this time of year.”

“I will,” he says. “Thank you.”

She waves him off with a gnarled hand, barely visible from your vantage point.

Kita returns his attention to you. “It’s good to see you,” he says, all summer warmth. “I don’t suppose you have a little time? My next delivery isn’t until later.”

You purse your lips. He tracks the movement, his eyes dimming, and you sigh.

“I have a little time,” you say. “Coffee?”

He lights ups. “Perfect,” he says. “D’ya know a place near here?”

You nod. “I think it has tea, too.”

He smiles at you. Then he’s calling a respectful goodbye to Tsukada, gathering a few of the peaches to put in the bag slung over his shoulder. You watch him pick them, his long fingers tender against the soft flesh. He brushes his fingertips along a stubborn leaf still attached to the stem. You half expect him to tear it loose, but he leaves it in place.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

The two of you wind through the streets. He stays by your side but gives you space, only pressing close when the stream of people on the sidewalk thickens to a river.

The coffee shop isn’t far. When you duck inside the scent of coffee billows over you, sharp and thick and a little bit bitter. You both order—Kita offers to pay, but he doesn’t look surprised when you decline—and then find a little booth tucked away by a small window. The sun has warmed the seats. It streams through the glass in whirling colors, catching in the stained glass decal pressed close to the window. It dapples Kita with pink like he’s been flecked with sakura petals, and you hide your smile in your coffee cup.

He seems to notice, an answering smile tugging at his lips, but he doesn’t mention it.

“How’s the farm?” you ask.

“S’good,” he says, taking a sip of his tea. You can smell it faintly, even through the coffee, an earthy kiss. “The ducklings are fully grown now, since I know that’s what you really want to know.”

“You caught me,” you say with a laugh. “Can you blame me? They’re so cute!”

“Yeah,” Kita says, his gaze steady on you. “They are.”

“And you’ve been skimping on the pictures.”

“I sent you one just yesterday.”

“Yes, exactly! Just one!”

He chuckles softly. “I’ll do better,” he promises.

“Good.”

“And how’re you?”

“Working a lot,” you say. “It’s starting to feel like it’s all I do, but my project should be done soon so I can have a bit more time. I want to meet Abe’s new girlfriend, but I haven’t had a chance yet.”

“I’m sure you’ll meet her soon.”

“Hope so. How are your Olympians? This is what, their second one coming up? I’m looking forward to it.”

He grins. It’s broad and bright, brimming with pride and joy. “They’re not mine,” he protests, but his grin doesn’t falter. “But yes, their second, and they’re good. Workin’ hard. It’s off season, though, so hopefully they’ll come ‘round to visit.”

“I’m sure Aran will.”

“He doesn’t have a choice,” he says. “Granny’ll go get him herself if she’s got to. He’ll get an earful about it, too.”

You smile into your cup. “I’d like to see that.”

“It’s sure something.”

“I can only imagine.”

Kita takes a sip of his tea. Not for the first time you’re struck by the way he moves, the careful surety of it, steadiness edged in grace. You wonder if it’s from his time playing volleyball or if he was always like this.

“Do you ever miss it?” you ask.

“Sometimes,” he says. “It made sense, y’know? Learning something, repeatin’ it, then using that repetition to move forward.”

“It doesn’t sound that different from farmwork.”

He chuckles. It’s low and warm, like the first true rays of light pouring over the horizon. “I suppose they have similarities.”

“Seems like it to me.”

The two of you keep chatting. It’s easy to pick up the thread of the last time you spoke, and you weave it into today’s conversation.

You bask in the glow of the morning sun as it streams over the booth. Under the sun’s warmth the world goes honeyed, a slow, sweet drip of time. You shift sleepily. Kita breathes out what could be a little laugh at the sight, but when you look at him he’s got his face tilted up into the light. It gilds him, his half-closed eyes going from amber to pure gold, as if he’s Midas-touched.

You sigh.

He blinks, the fan of his long eyelashes casting a soft shadow on his tanned cheeks.

“I have to go,” you tell him. “But this—this has been nice.”

“Very nice,” he agrees.

“Let’s do it again sometime.”

His breath catches briefly. You pretend to not hear it.

“Yes,” he says, a quiet hope lining his voice. You hate yourself a little. “Let’s.”

You give him a little smile as you rise to your feet. He gets up too despite his unfinished tea, and the two of you head out the door together.

The humid air rolls over you; you can already feel the heavy stickiness on your skin. You huff, rolling up your sleeves, and a tiny smile appears in the corner of Kita’s mouth. He doesn’t say anything though, and you bid him a quiet goodbye.

He returns it, his eyes soft, and you head down the street.

When you turn the corner, you can’t help it. You glance back at where you left him.

He’s already gone.

***

Autumn makes itself known.

It encroaches on the hazy, honeyed nights of late summer slowly, a creeping first frost. The cold is soft edged, more a kiss than a bite. Still, the hydrangeas that line the path to the municipal office have faded under its touch, the blossoms leeched of color and gone brittle at the edges. They rasp out a dry, harsh song as the breeze picks up.

You shiver and lean into Takao’s warmth as the two of you walk to the office, your kon-in todoke clasped tight in your hand. The ink of your seals is still fresh, done hurriedly at the kitchen table when you realized that you were going to be late for your appointment. Abe’s seal is almost too far out of the witness’s section to count; she’d still been bleary-eyed, her first cup of coffee only partially drunk. Yoshikawa’s seal is perfectly in the box for it. She was still teasing Abe when you and Takao left.

“Nervous?” Takao asks, twining his fingers with yours. His palm is slightly sweaty; you hide your smile in your scarf.

“A little. You?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“Yoshikawa,” you say promptly. “I don’t think marriage would rattle her at all.”

He laughs. “Yeah, I can see that.”

You slip inside the office; the chatter of it settles over you. You shrug off your scarf as you orient yourself, reading the signs plastered all over to figure out where the two of you need to go.

The clerk who processes your kon-in todoke is young. She has a kind smile, and she flashes it as she takes the form from you, along with your koseki tohon. She holds out a hand for your IDs and her nails are baby blue, dotted with tiny white clouds, a perfect summer sky. You can’t help your smile.

You lean into Takao as she scans your forms. He gives your hand a little squeeze; when you glance up at him, the tips of his ears have gone dusty pink. You almost laugh. He seems to realize it, delivering a nudge to your side that makes you pinch at him.

“Everything looks in order,” the clerk says. “You have your soulmate form as well?”

“Yes,” Takao says. He hands it to her; you stare at the bulletin board behind the clerk’s head so that her face is blurry. Her keyboard clicks away, but she doesn’t say anything, and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

She examines your forms again, her eyes sharp as she reviews them, and then she’s shuffling them together and forming a neat stack. She flashes that same sweet smile.

“Congratulations,” she says. “You’re officially married.”

Takao squeezes your hand before letting go. He turns to face you and he’s glassy-eyed, his lower lip trembling. He cups your cheek and pulls you close to brush a barely-there kiss against your lips. You chase him when he starts to pull away, deepening the kiss for a brief moment.

“Hi,” you say when the two of you break apart. “Husband.”

“Wife,” he replies. There are roses blooming in his cheeks, the blush spreading from his cheekbones up to his ears. He nuzzles his nose against yours.

The clerk coughs, but when you glance at her, your cheeks heating, she’s still smiling.

“Thank you,” you tell her.

She nods, gathering the rest of your paperwork and handing the small stack to you. You collect them carefully before handing them to Takao so he can put them in the small folder he’d brought.

The entire trip home feels unreal, the cityscape swirling together in a watercolor blur, neon melting into the harsh sheen of metal, softened by a hint of greenery. Takao’s touch is grounding though, and you squeeze his hand from time to time, as if making sure he’s still there.

He always is.

The two of you exchange rings in your sunwarm kitchen. You have no vows, but you think you don’t need them. It’s enough to see the look on Takao’s face as he slips the ring into place; it speaks a language from long ago that you still know by heart. Abe and Yoshikawa cheer when you’re done, and then the rest of the day rushes by, filled to the brim with mini-celebrations. Your friends have gone out of their way to provide what the shrines will not, and you once again wonder how you’ve gotten so lucky.

Dusk is falling when the last of your guests leave, the sunset spilling over the horizon like fire. The last dregs of light fade as you curl up next to Takao on the couch. He presses a soft kiss to your hairline; you chase him for a real kiss. You lace your fingers together when you break apart. You thumb at his wedding ring idly, the metal warmed by his skin.

“We’re married, huh?” you say.

“Seems that way.”

You laugh. “Don’t sound too excited, now.”

He pinches at you. “I’m not excited,” he says, deftly avoiding your return pinch. “I’m happy. There’s a difference, you know.”

You lean into him. “I think you’re right.”

“It happens sometimes.”

“It does?”

He pinches at you again. You shove him away, but he pulls you back in and cradles you close. You play-struggle for a moment and then finally relax into him when he tightens his grip.

“Are you?” he asks softly.

“Am I what?”

“Happy.”

You turn in his arms, reaching out to cup his jaw. You stroke your thumb against his cheekbone.

“Yes,” you say. “I am.”

He kisses you then, his mouth soft and sure. You would know his touch anywhere, you think. It settled beneath your skin long ago.

“Good,” he says. “Good.”

You bury your face in the crook of his neck, tasting the salt of his skin on your parted lips. His breath wavers. You press a kiss to his pulse.

“I have a phone call to make,” you murmur into his skin. “And I need to do it soon. It’s important.”

He tugs you back up so that you’re looking at him. His eyes—as deep and dark as the night sky—flicker over you. You wait. His brow furrows for a moment and then understanding blooms on his face. He leans forward to press a ghost of a kiss to the corner of your lips.

“Okay,” he says, letting you go and getting to his feet. He pauses, as if he wants to say more, but he heads to the kitchen without a word. You watch him go before grabbing your phone and dialing.

You take in a deep, slow breath as the line rings.

Kita picks up quickly. The two of you exchange pleasantries for a few minutes, catching up with each other briefly. There’s an easy flow to it, but he pauses after a moment.

“Is something wrong?” he asks.

You bite at a hangnail.

“I got married today,” you say softly. “I—I thought you should know.”

He’s quiet. It reminds you of the deepest parts of winter, when even the air is still. You ache with it. He’s a bruise that will never quite fade, you think, and you can only imagine what it’s like for him.

“Thank you,” he says eventually, his voice soft but steady. “For telling me.”

“It didn’t feel right to not,” you confess. “I’m sorry, Kita.”

“I know.”

The call doesn’t last much longer. There’s not much left to say after that, and your husband is patiently waiting for you.

Once you’ve hung up you head into the kitchen and find Takao slicing up a small cake. It’s a froth of delicate frosting topped with crystalline spun-sugar flowers. Abe had insisted that you have a wedding cake and you hadn’t bothered to argue.

He glances up when you wander in. His smile is incandescent, a starlight thing, and you go to him with a matching smile tugging at your lips. You kiss him once, then again, and then a third time still. He laughs.

You wind your arms around his waist as he finishes cutting the cake, pressing your forehead between his shoulder blades. He smells of home; there’s the faintest hint of his cologne under the scent of your laundry detergent. You press closer.

“Hard call?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say, muffled by his shirt.

“It’s over now.”

“So it is.”

He puts down the knife and turns around in your arms. He draws you close. “I love you,” he says. “Enough that I’ll even share this cake with you.”

“Oh, wow.”

“I know.”

You laugh. “You’re ridiculous,” you tell him, knowing you sound terribly, disgustingly fond. You start to pull away but he tightens his arms around you. “Aoshi!”

“You gotta say it back.”

“I love you,” you tell him softly. “I really do.”

His smile is tender and fleeting, a dandelion seed caught on the wind. You kiss it from his lips. His hands come up to cup your jaw; you feel the metal of his wedding ring against your skin.

It feels incredibly ordinary.

You hope it always will.

***

You shiver as you pull the door to the onigiri shop open, burying your face in your scarf even as you step into warm air. A gust of wind whips in behind you, carrying a few rare snowflakes—fat and fluffy, a perfect pure white—inside. You pull the door shut behind you quickly.

It’s blessedly warm in the shop and the air is spiced with enticing, savory aromas. For a moment, you think of your father’s kitchen: the clutter of ingredients spread across a chopping board, an organized mess; the weight of a worn soft apron; the warmth of a heating stove. You open your eyes, not realizing you’d closed them as you breathed in.

It’s a cozy shop. There are plush looking booths and a few small tables, plus a handful of stools at the counter the chef is working behind. He’s a broad man, his forearms flexing as he shapes an onigiri. He snaps something at one of the men sitting on the stools, reaching out to smack the blond’s hand as he tries to grab something behind the counter. The blond squawks, pulling back and looking deeply offended.

You cough out a laugh.

Both of them snap their gazes to you. They’re twins, you realize, encountering two identical faces. The chef’s furrowed brow smooths out into something placid. He pushes the blond back into his seat with a big hand.

“What can I get ya?”

“Oh,” you say, caught off guard with how easily he’s switched up. “I’m not sure yet, I’m sorry.”

“Menu’s over there if you need one,” he says, pointing to a stack you hadn’t noticed. “Sit wherever you like.”

“Thanks,” you say, and suddenly, the man next to the blond looks up. He’s handsome, tall even while he’s sitting down, his shoulders just as broad as the chef’s. He’s also oddly familiar; he says your name and you blink.

“Aran?” you ask.

He beams. “It is you! It’s been a while. Are you staying to eat?”

You glance between the three of them. The twins are staring at you now; the chef has a brow raised but is otherwise placid, while the blond gapes. You put two and two together and realize that they must be the Miyas. No wonder the name of the shop sounded familiar.

“You’re Kita’s soulmate,” the chef—Osamu, you remember—says. He sounds bland, but there’s a bit of a sneer tucked into the corner of his mouth.

“That’s her?” the blond—Atsumu, then—says. He looks you over from head to toe, his honey-brown eyes shining in the low light. His mouth twists into something lemon-edged, a faint hint of sourness lining his whole form.

Osamu ignores him, looking at you instead. “Kita’s here,” he tells you. “He’s droppin’ off some rice in the storeroom.”

You glance at the door of the shop.

“Dontcha want to see your soulmate?” Atsumu asks, a little bit mean.

You wince. You twist your scarf around your fingers, spooling it around your knuckles.

Aran sighs, looking very, very pained. “Don’t be rude,” he chastises.

“M’not being rude! I’m just asking! She’s not—”

“Atsumu.”

Kita emerges from the back, coming up behind the counter. His sleeves are rolled high on his forearms; there’s a light sheen of sweat on his brow. It turns his hair to the dark gray of a summer storm cloud. His mouth is drawn taut, a gash of a thing.

Atsumu goes pale.

“I’ll have the other part of the delivery for you later this month,” Kita says to Osamu. The dark-haired twin nods. There’s a little smirk on his lips, the bitten down delight of watching a sibling get in trouble.

Atsumu’s fidgeting, tugging at the hem of one of his sleeves with long, strong fingers.

“Hey,” Kita says, turning to you. “S’good to see you.”

“Yeah,” you say, still looking at Atsumu, who looks like he’s waiting for a death sentence.

“I didn’t realize you came here, I would have told Osamu to look out for you.”

“It’s my first time. A coworker suggested it.”

Atsumu’s shoulders are slowly lowering. There’s the slightest twitch to Kita’s lips, a little half-smile that you recognize. There’s a layer of mischief to it that you’re still getting used to.

“By the way, Atsumu,” he says, and the blond chokes. “Didya have something you wanted to say?”

Osamu snorts as his brother wildly shakes his head. It’s quiet but obvious and Atsumu scowls at him. Kita clears his throat and both brothers snap to attention.

Next to Atsumu, Aran looks like he’s holding back laughter. It’s a good look for him—he glows with it, his barely contained smile bright and true.

“Ya sure?” Kita asks, that same little mischievous tilt to his lips. Atsumu nods. “Alright then.”

He rolls down his sleeves as he steps out from behind the counter; he comes over to you and gives you a crescent moon smile, soft and sweet. The two of you step away from the group slightly.

“Hi,” you say, quieter this time, something just for you and him.

“You stayin’?” he asks. “You should join us.”

You shake your head. “I have to get back,” you tell him. “Another time?”

“Of course.”

Kita stays by your side as you order; he radiates a gentle heat, like the bricks of a hearth long after the fire has died down. You watch Osamu make the onigiri, placing each filling carefully. His big hands are gentle as they mold the rice. There’s care and pride in each movement and it lives in his face, too, in the swell of his smile as he completes each one.

They’re a lively group—Atsumu is growing louder and louder as he argues with his brother, something like a pout on his expressive face before it’s wiped away by indignance.

“Oi!” he says, pointing at Osamu, halfway out of his seat. “Take that back!”

“Nope,” Osamu says.

“You—”

Aran grimaces as he pulls Atsumu back into his seat. “You’re so loud.”

“Am not!”

“Ya are,” Osamu says. “Now shut up, you’re bothering the customers.”

Atsumu makes a noise that reminds you of a cat that’s fallen into water as Osamu hands you your order. The box is rather simple, with Onigiri Miya stamped onto it in a deep, rich ink, but it somehow reminds you of the bentos of your childhood. You think it might be how carefully the onigiri are tucked into it, each one nestled close to the next, a little mountain range of rice.

Kita walks you to the door after you say your goodbyes to the rest of the group. He holds your onigiri box as you put your scarf back on, looping it around your neck.

“Sorry you couldn’t stay,” he says. His fingertips linger when he hands the box back. “I promise my friends don’t bite.”

“Maybe not Aran.”

He laughs softly. “The twins are all bark and no bite,” he says. “Besides, I can keep ‘em in line.”

“I noticed.”

He smiles. “See you soon?”

“Yeah,” you say. “See you soon.”

He holds open the door for you; a gust of wind sweeps over you, tugging playfully at the end of your scarf. You carry his warm smile into the cold winter afternoon.

You’re almost halfway down the street when you hear a familiar voice.

“Hey!”

You glance back over your shoulder. Atsumu is powering after you; he catches up to you in an instant, tugging you back until you’re both out of the way of other pedestrians. You’re halfway into an izakaya’s doorstep, the winter peonies surrounding it swaying around your ankles. A few early customers peer out the door at you, but Atsumu pays them no mind.

“What’re you doin’?” he asks, a little too loud.

“Miya—”

“Kita’s traditional,” he says roughly. “It’s only ever gonna be you for him. You know that, right?”

Your stomach roils.

(I’ve been waiting.

He still is.)

“I’m married.”

He throws his hands up into the air. “He’s still your soulmate!”

“I don’t love him!”

“It’s Kita,” he shouts, startling a few passersby. “Everybody loves him!”

“I’m not in love with him,” you say, the words bitter on your tongue. You are so, so tired. “I’m married. I’m happy. Kita’s accepted it, so why can’t you?”

He snorts, honey-brown eyes narrowing. “You really think he’s accepted it? Or is that what you tell yerself so you can sleep at night?”

“Fuck you.”

The words snap out of you, brutally frigid, like river ice cracking beneath its own weight. To your utter horror, there are tears pooling hot in your eyes, threatening to spill over. Atsumu looks almost as horrified as you feel, but it’s of little consolation. You can feel a sob welling up inside you, rippling through you like oceantide.

You manage to bite down on it when it leaves you, muffling it just enough. Then the tears finally fall, carving their way across your cheeks like snowmelt, already bitterly cold from the winter air. You rub them away with the back of your hand.

“I didn’t mean ta—”

“But you did,” you say, knife-sharp and drawing him up short. “You did. Goodbye, Miya.”

He doesn’t follow you when you walk away.

***

The neighbors’ little girl loves the summer rains. She spends them running around outside, the murky puddle water splashing under the soles of her banana-yellow boots. She has a matching umbrella and sometimes you and Takao can see it from your bedroom window, whirling like a top.

“We should do that,” Takao says, his chin hooked over your shoulder. It’s pouring out. The rain hums against the roof, nature’s oldest song, and the neighbors’ girl—Aiko, you think—is dancing to it. You can just make out her long braid bouncing as she hops from puddle to puddle.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says, getting to his feet and tugging you with him. “Let’s go.”

“Aoshi, it’s pouring.”

“Yes, that’s the point.”

You laugh and let him drag you through the house. He shoves your raincoat at you, shrugging on his own before the two of you race to the genkan, giggling as you go. You slip your boots on and run outside.

The rain sluices down on you, the humid summer heat already sneaking its way beneath your raincoat, the beginnings of sweat starting to gather. You pay it little mind, sucking in a deep breath instead, taking in the scent of the wet concrete as Takao grabs your hand. He tugs you towards Aiko.

Before you know it, the two of you are swinging her back and forth between you, her little wrists clutched tight in your hands. She shrieks with delight each time she comes up off the ground; each landing creates a tidal wave in the puddle she crashes down into.

Takao is laughing, low and sweet, and when you glance at him, he’s already looking at you. His dark hair is plastered against his forehead. Water droplets are beading on his long eyelashes before he blinks them away.

Your breath catches for an instant. And then Aiko is tugging on your hand, wanting to go again, and you glance away from your husband with a little smile.

You stay outside with Aiko until her father calls her in. Then the two of you tumble back into your house, stripping off your wet clothing with groans.

Takao cooks dinner as you lay everything out to dry. You’ve just clipped the last clothespin into place when he calls to you; you take the extra clothespins and clip them along the little storage space you’d added to the balcony for them, a short length of bright blue twine.

He’s made curry, the type that warms even your bones. The two of you curl up together on the couch to eat. You lean into him, ignoring his groan as you accidentally elbow him in the stomach.

“We should go on our honeymoon,” he says after a moment. “It’s almost been a year and we still haven’t gone.”

“We should,” you say, scraping your bowl clean and licking the last of the sauce off of your chopsticks. “Where do you want to go?”

“Haven’t thought that far.”

You snort. “You’re the one who brought it up!”

“It’s a step by step process, you know. First we have to decide to actually go, then we pick the place.”

He easily evades your little pinch.

“It’s gonna be hard to pick,” you tell him.

“Maybe.”

“We’ll figure it out, I guess.”

He leans in and presses a kiss to your temple.

“We always do.”

He’s right, you think. You always do figure it out.

Together.

***

The farm is dusted with snow.

It reminds you of powdered sugar, light and fluffy and easily blown away in the slightest breeze. It’s the first snow according to Kita. The true frost set in over the last week; the paddies have iced over, a cobweb of winter. You listen to the crackle of it settling and shiver, pushing deeper into your scarf.

“Ya warm enough?” Kita asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “It’s just a little more mild in the city.”

He hums his agreement. The two of you keep walking along the worn dirt path, weaving through the slumbering fields. The snow crunches softly underfoot. In the distance, you can hear the rumble of a truck; it purrs and groans as it putters down one of the other roads.

“I’m glad you came,” Kita says softly.

He’s invited you several times, never pushing, but you’ve always said no. You don’t know why this time had felt right, but it had. You watch a crow circle overhead before it lands in a bare tree, a spot of darkness against the pale blue sky.

“Me too,” you say. “I’ve never been out here in the winter.”

“Pretty, ain’t it?”

“It is.”

The two of you lapse into a comfortable silence as you wander further. You pass another farmhouse where two small children are playing outside, both of them bundled up to the point that they’re waddling more than walking. One of them has a crimson scarf, the deep color of poppies at night, the ends of it fluttering in the gentle breeze.

They’re sliding a puck back and forth on ice that’s creaking ominously. They wave to you with the branches they’re using for hockey sticks.

“Should we stop them?” you ask, waving back.

Kita shakes his head. “There’s only an inch or so of water, this time of year. They’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

“Did you ever do that?”

He laughs. “Course.”

“Play or fall through?”

“Both, actually,” he says. He takes hold of your arm as you slip on a patch of ice, keeping you upright with ease. “Careful now.”

He waits until you’re steady before he lets go. He presses a bit closer after that and you let him. The wind is too constant to really feel the heat of him, but you think you feel it anyway.

You fall back into comfortable silence. The wind is whistling softly through the bare trees, stirring the last clinging remnants of the leaves. You watch one of them tear free and blow away. It carries across the fields, which stretch as far as the eye can see.

You turn back when you get to the edge of the paddy you’re walking next to. By the time you’re back to the farm, you’re chatting about what to make for dinner. Kita had taken you to the local market earlier in the day letting you browse through the piles of daikon and leeks, each of them fresher than anything you would see in the grocery store.

“Oden?” Kita suggests as you enter the genkan and you nod.

“Sounds perfect,” you say, using the wall to balance as you start to take off your boots. Kita stops in the middle of taking off his jacket and kneels down in front of you to get the buckle you’re struggling with. “Kita, you don’t need to do that.”

“Already down here,” he says with a smirk. “So I might as well.”

You sigh. “Thank you,” you say, slipping off your jacket and hanging it carefully.

He nods, tucking his outerwear away neatly before getting to his feet. After he’s sure you’re all set, he heads down the hall, turning on the small kotatsu that sits in his living room. It’s an older one, the blanket slightly worn, patterned with white cranes. It was his grandmother’s, you think.

“Get warm,” he says. “I’ll start cooking.”

“I should help—”

“You can after you’ve warmed up a little bit.”

“Fine,” you say, ignoring the little smile on his face as you pout. You sit at the kotatsu and melt into the warmth as he heads into the kitchen.

You join him not long after. He gives you leeks to chop as he peels daikon; you spend a few minutes at his pristine kitchen sink, washing the grit out from between the leaves. The two of you chatter as you cook. The kitchen is slowly heating, until it’s like a banked fire.

His kitchen is small but set up well and the two of you move around it easily together. You rarely bump into each other and hand off ingredients as the other needs them. It’s seamless and it doesn’t take long before the oden is done.

The two of you settle at the kotatsu to eat. Kita hands you a pair of well-worn chopsticks.

“You should come for longer next time, if you can,” he says.

“I’ll try to,” you say, knowing that you’ve only touched the surface of the farm. Of the life he’s built here, in the wide expanse of the countryside.

He smiles warmly. “Good.”

Time flies by until Kita has to get up to turn on another lamp as night encroaches. When you peer out the window, the night sky sprawls endless above you, softly lit by the tender touch of the waning moon.

“I should go,” you say. “It’s late.”

He hums an agreement. The two of you bundle up in the genkan; Kita lends you a too-long scarf that’s messily knitted. You wrap it around your neck several times before you are willing to brave the cold.

The snow glistens under the moonlight as you trudge to Kita’s truck. There’s a stillness to the night, as if you’re on the cusp of something unreal, something otherworldly. You tilt your head back and gaze at the stars, scattered throughout the plush darkness, glinting like ice.

Kita cranks the truck’s heater to high as it rumbles on. It blows out a gush of cold air that makes you shudder, but it’s already warming by the time you’re pulling out of the driveway.

“Where does your farm end?” you ask.

“Just here,” he says, flicking on his blinker as he makes a turn down the road towards town. “Then it’s Suzuki’s place.”

“Do they—”

“Have ducks?”

“...Yes.”

His eyes flicker to you, the amber of them aglow in the silvery moonlight. “He does.”

You must look pleased because he laughs, the sound low and warm, filling the cab of the truck like billowing smoke. The smile on his lips is wide and you think of the horizon, how it never ends, and hope that his joy never ends, too.

“Kita,” you say, unable to help yourself.

“Mhm?”

“I’m glad we’re friends,” you say softly.

Kita’s smile dims, the summer sun hidden behind thin, wispy clouds.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. He sounds a little sad. “Me too.”

The rest of the ride is silent.

***

Winter melts away in the face of spring’s burgeoning warmth. The crocuses come early this year, pushing up through the dregs of frost, unfurling quietly, steadily. Yoshikawa paints them; they’re bruises against the soft white of her canvas, the yellow stamen cradled between petals like golden treasure.

She gives you and Abe the paintings one day at the park. They’re carefully wrapped, no bigger than your hand, tied up with a piece of twine that you think she sniped from your gardening supplies.

“What’s this?” Abe asks.

“Find out for yourself,” Yoshikawa says, as if Abe isn’t already tearing into the paper. She hands you yours as you sit up from the pile of blankets you’d laid out on the grassy knoll of the park. You pull it open carefully.

“Pretty,” you breathe, tracing a finger over the long, elegant curve of the stems. “Are these the ones behind the house?”

She nods.

“These aren’t your usual style,” Abe says.

Yoshikawa shrugs, laying down on the blankets and shielding her eyes against the sun. “I’m trying something new.”

“It’s nice,” Abe says. “You should do more like it.”

“Maybe.”

“When are you going to paint me?”

“I already painted you,” Yoshikawa points out.

“That was in high school!”

“It’s still painting you.”

You tune them out and lie back down. You curl up so that you can pillow your head on Yoshikawa’s stomach. She shifts to give you more room. She smells like sweet, wet earth. You think of a garden after rain, when it’s gone lush and green. You sink into the oasis of her.

Abe wakes you up as the sun is starting to set. You groan but let her coax you up. The three of you gather your items plus a few things you hadn’t had at the start of the day: a heart shaped rock Abe tripped over; a box of okonomiyaki that’s perfuming the air with a savory, spicy scent; a few golden wildflowers, tied carefully together with a hair elastic.

You know the walk home by heart, so you spend your time looking at the city as it comes to life, a night-blooming flower. Next to you, Abe is chatting merrily at Yoshikawa, who is looking at her with a smile you know well. She glances at you and drops you a sly little wink.

“What was that?” Abe asks immediately.

“Nothing,” Yoshikawa says, taking your keys from you and opening the front door.

“It was something!”

“It really wasn’t.”

“Yes it was!”

You listen to them bicker all the way to the kitchen, trying not to laugh. Abe whirls on you. “Tell me,” she whines.

“It really was nothing,” you say. “She’s just winding you up.”

Abe huffs. “I hate you both.”

“You love us,” Yoshikawa says, opening up the box of okonomiyaki and grabbing three of her favorite plates.

“Sadly, I do.”

Your phone rings; when you glance at it, it’s an unknown number. You silence it and grab a plate from Yoshikawa. The three of you eat and chat, swapping bites here and there since you all got different fillings. The sun sets; the golden light pours in through your kitchen window and haloes your friends.

Your phone vibrates and you pull it out of your pocket, expecting it to be Takao. Instead, the same unknown number is calling you again. You frown and pick up.

A woman says your name. There’s something to the way she says it. You let out a soft, shaky breath as you listen.

You hang up. Your phone sits heavy in your hand.

“That was the hospital,” you say, sounding too calm even to your own ears. “Aoshi was in an accident.”

Abe and Yoshikawa’s heads come up.

“Is he okay?” Yoshikawa says, blade-sharp.

Your vision is going black at the edges, a slow, steady swallowing. You sit down carefully, the wooden floor cold even through your clothing.

Abe says your name.

She sounds scared.

“No,” you say evenly. “He didn’t make it.”

#bee writes hq!!#kita x reader #kita shinsuke x reader #haikyuu x reader #hq!! x reader #.lbgtm

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