Laike always felt most comfortable under the cover of dark.

After leaving the elder Tian prince and the blonde to settle into the guest accommodations, Laike was quick to drag Yuhui out of the stone halls of Yunji’s Cultivator Dormitories. Despite his ability to go unseen and unheard, the shadowcraft boy was well aware other disciples were always listening; he didn’t need Xueyu knowing where he’d been and what he’d done.

They walked a path littered with cicada songs, unlit by the swarm’s electric senses. The swarm knew Laike’s strange energy, knew his shadowless presence, and knew he didn’t need light to make his way in the night.

“There’s so many places I could take you,” the long haired orphan said to his royal friend. He took Yuhui’s hand and laced their fingers together in a reassuring weave, tugging him along now that Laike was sure he wouldn’t fall victim to the tricks of twilight. The younger boy walked backwards along the uneven stone path, looking back at Yuhui with constellation eyes, giddy and grinning. “There’s so many places we could go.”

“Show me your favorites first,” Yuhui replied, keeping up in a diligent step, happy to hold Laike’s hand in the warmth of his own. “I don’t really care about seeing things that don’t matter. I just want to learn all the things you like, what sort of spaces you take comfort in.” The prince’s lips were curled like a latter-month moon—when she would shift from new toward full, when she would peek from behind the immense bruising of night with a sliver of stolen light. He trusted that boy leading him deep into the darkness, he’d already decided that he would go wherever Laike wanted to take him.

“I’ll take you to Yelu,” Laike replied with a grin. “I watch time pass from predawn to grey morning there every day.” The boy halted in his reversible gait, pulling Yuhui into his arms and wrapping him up when he inevitably strode right into his pause. “Will you watch it with me today? Will you be with me when the sun rises?”

The older boy was the sweetest collision, arms slung around the shadow boy’s waist, hands trailing up his back, fingers slipping along the angles of shoulder blades. Yuhui turned his cheek to rest it against Laike’s chest, taking comfort in the nearness for now, content to just be against him for the time being.

“Yeah,” Yuhui said, grin deviously working the corners of his lips. “If you promise to keep me entertained all night.”

“The night is long,” Laike commented, somehow callow and conniving at once. They were together, sweet and succinct, but Yuhui’s shadow stood alone amongst a scattering of moonlight leaves sighing for tomorrow’s sun, tomorrow’s rain. “You might have to give me some ideas. Can you help me?”

“Mmhm.” Yuhui’s hum was an exhale eager for its follow-through inhale, his long breath savored and full of that night-jasmine boy, his negative-space perfume, his moonflower aura in reverse. “I think I can come up with a few things.” He pulled away after a moment, mind already a machine full of schemes as he looked up to the disciple. “Is it far?”

“Don’t you hear the water?” Freed, at least temporarily, Laike tugged the young prince along, floating light on the chill air of Yunji’s springtime breeze, playful gusts biting like autumn nipping at winter’s heels despite the balmy temperature of Yuhui’s sea level home. As they moved along the path, the white noise roar of their destination grew louder, old stone-tiger yawn both a warning and a herald.

They walked among cliff faces, through ancient trees with their arms full of sleeping birds, firefly jars strung through the canopy high overhead. Eventually, the path opened up to a clearing where the mountain growled liquid down its hidden terrace, supplying Fanxing’s river with clean sparkling water, so clear the boys could see the shape of every riverstone even in the dead of night.

At the edge of the bank, that shy thing no longer needed pushing to take the things that wanted him: he turned Yuhui around, shadowplay body pressed to chaos-stream back, tricky fingers snagged in his belt.

“This is Yelu falls,” Laike said low. He expected the boy in his arms to read his lips, every syllable pressed into the shell of Yuhui’s ear. “I think this place is my favourite.”

“It’s beautiful—” Yuhui was soft-spoken, almost as if he was too nervous to dare mingle his voice with the rushing of water, with the fall of liquid sky rolling over glistening pebbles and the scattering of a static spray that loosely coalesced into a mist brazenly rolling toward the treeline. The truth, however, was that he wanted to keep that body close. He felt the twelve hours they’d been apart like they were longer: twenty-four, forty-eight, seventy-two, a week, a month. “—But it’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Yuhui pressed himself back into the arms that held him, jet eyes fixed on fluid movement before him, the gentle ripples sent running through a snaking path back to the city from which he came.

“I bet it’s pretty stunning with snow. Which season do you like the best here?” The prince angled his chin to barely glance aside, beginning to divert his attention back toward his friend.

“Winter is beautiful but it is severe,” Laike murmured, head tilting to watch Yuhui turn. “Master Xueyu’s punishments are the worst in the winter. For that reason alone, I think summer is the best on Yunji.”

“…Oh.” Yuhui’s eyebrows twisted toward each other, dipping in some sympathy for plights his imagination could only take its best guess constructing. “Is there a lot of birdsong? Do animals come and spend time with you when you’re sitting quietly?”

“There are,” Laike replied. “I don’t know that they necessarily come to spend time with someone sitting in the quiet alone—I think that assumes that man is something more than an obstruction. I don’t know that we are anything more than scenery. We are the ones that ascribe intention to the things in our vicinity without discernible intention. Isn’t that man’s plight?”

Slipping around Yuhui’s newel pillar frame, Laike canted his head when he obstructed his companion’s view of nature.

“Do you wanna go in?”

“Hmm…” Yuhui pursed his lips in brief contemplation, fingers moving to reluctantly unwrap the grasp from his belt. He began to kneel, feeling his way down Laike’s long torso with open palms flat atop his chest, his stomach, and lower then—to his hips, his thighs, helping himself to the silent pat-down for the simple goal of being able to stick his fingers in the traces of water lapping at the shore upon which they stood.

“Yeah,” the older boy said, neither overjoyed nor displeased with the water’s temperature when he looked back up that body’s length. “We can get in.”

“Then you should probably take off your clothes,” the taller boy advised solemnly through his rude grin. “Unless you swim fully dressed. Is that how they do it in the city?”

“I’m getting there,” the prince advised insolent behind a cunning expression sharpened by his retort. He stood again, working the exoskeleton of his belt between his digits. “If you’re going to be so impatient, then maybe you should help me speed up the process instead of just standing there and watching me.”

“I was being serious,” that impertinent thing said so innocently, like he really didn’t know how that city down the mountain worked; honestly thought that maybe city folk went into the water with all their clothes still on their backs. “Help me understand.”

He was betrayed only by the easing of his posture, that slick saunter bringing him close enough to help Yuhui with his belt. He didn’t need to look to understand how it worked; all he needed to know was in that displaced royal’s face, eye to eye and lip to lip.

Yuhui’s fingers fell away from his waist, moving to take hold of Laike’s clothing instead. Though he was less skilled in the low light, he caught himself up in the boy’s garments by choice rather than chaos, urging fabric apart with his sightless wandering and making a mess of all the disciple’s carefully arranged order. The prince tilted his chin up to kiss the fighter, long and tender, motions languid when he was torn between his mouth’s adoration and his mind’s desire to see that thing stripped before him, as if it were possible to have everything he wanted if he just showed a speck of restraint.

Laike was brisk endeavour; he was pickpocket fingers and spry hands. Even if Yuhui sought to occupy him, Laike remained diligent. He made quick work of Yuhui’s belt and tossed it aside to rest upon a dry boulder a few feet away, smoothing his attentions past the first layer of clothes to untie the silk cordage holding Yuhui’s under-robe shut so his touch might replace the expensive garment his greedy friend wore closest to his skin.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he murmured into Yuhui’s mouth, like he was better at communicating with his teeth. “Gods, I’m so happy you’re here.”

“I missed you,” the older boy replied, gentle breath broken in their affection, as though the sentiments expressed weren’t plainly obvious, as though his nearness could have been a product of any other feeling, of something other than the dire want that coursed through his every muscle wrapping his needy bones. “When you left me, I thought it would be a while before we saw each other again and I was so saddened by that. You were right earlier—this predicament my brother has gotten himself into isn’t exactly ideal, but I’m thrilled that I can spend time with you again.”

Yuhui smoothed down the mussed arrangement of his lover’s clothes, pausing that slipshod perusal to push himself into the bare night of Laike’s grasp. His touch was more precious than any silk, soft and hungrily sought.

Gods, Laike marveled at how easy it was to slip his arms about that narrow waist, to hold Yuhui by the breadth of his ribs. He found joy in the familiar, hung his heartstrings upon Yuhui’s weight: this boy in his arms was real and solid and perfect, not some foggy failure brought to life by his desperate memory.

“You better finish up,” Laike replied softly, keepsake mouth turned keepaway taunt. He pulled away without a goodbye kiss, backing away so he could watch Yuhui’s dismay at their widening proximity—even as he baited that flickering boy’s interest with his own brisk strip-off. “I’m not so good at being careful with collateral when I’m tryna accomplish something.”

Yuhui’s lips worked themselves into a pout, eyebrows dipped to hard sell that expression. Still, he made quick work of the loose cloth draping over him, removing each obstacle between him and his good time—his robes, boots, trousers until there was nothing left. Each was folded into a neat square, sat aside and crowned with his belt.

The prince returned to Laike’s side, picking up his hand to pull him toward the soft water shore.

“Do you swim here often or just come sit?” Yu looked aside, pertinacious in his curiosity about that boy.

Laike was less careful than his friend. His own clothes had been tossed over a boulder, unfolded in their happenstance disarray.

“Both,” the shadowless boy murmured softly as he allowed Yuhui to coax him toward the water. Maybe later they could go climbing along Yelu’s terraced steps. For now, the cover of water would probably be a comfort: it wasn’t necessarily freezing in Yunji’s high-altitude breeze but it wasn’t exactly comfortable either. “I practice archery on targets hidden in the treeline along the water’s edge. The sound of the water is calming; it helps me clear my head.”

Laike pushed Yuhui back till they were knee deep, thigh deep, waist deep in their clearwater reprieve, hands coming up to stroke Yuhui’s jaw.

“Does it clear yours too?” Laike asked, barely above the rumble of the world around them.

Yuhui tensed as the chilled water devoured half of his height, steps turning slow and irregular until his skin could get used to the temperature.

“I don’t know,” the prince replied, “I don’t get many opportunities to be around water like this.” He leaned into Laike’s touch, happy to welcome the boy into his immediate vicinity, his small delight foretold in the cat-like satisfaction curling his lips. “My pond is comforting, but it doesn’t really clear my mind. I end up thinking about new things when I watch its water. Maybe there’s something in the grandness of the landscape. The sound here is much larger than around the palace.” Yuhui took his friend by the waist, stroking over the protrusion of hip bones with caressing thumbs.

“There are a few places to swim away from the palace, just outside of Fanxing, but visits have always been few and far between. My parents are over cautious with me.” He looked up to that beautiful thing of sculpted night, enthralled by his every angle dusted in moonlight.

“If they’re so overcautious, why are you here?” Laike’s query was honest as he canted his head. He eased back further—if Yuhui was going to keep hold, Laike would surely drag him beneath the river’s rippling surface.

“Because all of Fanxing is collectively shitting itself at the thought of me becoming king.” Yuhui grinned, willing to risk the water for the sake of their closeness. He eased into a less sardonic explanation, speaking on. “My brother talked my dad into it. He had a lot of explaining to do when we got back to the palace. I think they’re starting to ease up a little though, just in general. They know they’re not going to be around forever.”

“Maybe it’s because you’ve been doing better since I warded you,” Laike boasted, easing back toward the slow rush of the falls, floating with his chin trespassing the water’s surface. In all honesty, he didn’t know if what he did was a match for what Lady Jiling did for the young prince but he was feeling precocious, possessive. It would probably be better not to show how much he wanted to affect that boy in his arms, smarter to shield his adoration in that aloof poise his face held so well,

but Laike was a tender thing past the exoskeleton,

warm blooded beneath his upbringing’s carapace.

The long-haired boy smiled in any case, crystal clean water beading on his cheeks. “I don’t think you’d be a bad King, if it came down to it.”

“Thank you. The city doesn’t know me like you do.” The older boy smiled with the words. “I don’t want to be King, though. There’s too much to learn, too much responsibility.” Yuhui glided through the water, swimming toward the center of the reservoir in curious exploration.

“Your warding does really help me. I always enjoyed when Lady Jiling would come see me, she’s very good to talk to, but I’m very happy that you’re taking over the task.” He looked back to Laike, legs slow with movement, arms gently combing through the water.

“Life is responsibility. Getting older is responsibility.” Laike lingered near the falls and, after wading toward the first terraced step, pulled himself up onto a ledge under a soft cascade of water, lighter than the heavier rush of the downpour some ten feet off. He ran his hands through his loose hair and pulled it over his shoulder, closing his eyes to concentrate on the mineral spring’s gravity galloping across his shoulders and down his back. Laike, for whatever reason, found comfort in the pressure, any pressure; the more precarious the outcome, the more dire the consequence, the greater his calm. Bright laugh ringing out and cracking against both stone-face and water-wall, that mountain raised fighter leaned forward and shook his head to clear his vision: despite the beauty of their surroundings and the majesty of nature, the only thing Laike really wanted to watch was Yuhui. “I’m happy with the responsibility I was given; it brought me to you.”

Though Yuhui’s smile faded, his joy remained unchanged. He fell into a quiet reverie, observing his friend from a distance before looking up to the long night hanging high above their heads. The sky was rich, made of navy pitch spread thick before the vastness of the unknowable space beyond. Stars shone through its layers like moth-nibbled silk, twinkling in the distortion of distance, through miles of atmosphere contorting the pureness of the void with currents of air. His chin tilted back down to Laike.