4 MONTHS AGO.

It seemed that Yuhui’s heart was a constant stutter. Whenever he was around Lin’ai, it felt like that muscle was going to jump out of his chest, was going to break his ribs with the force of his affection. He laid back upon his pauper’s clothes spread out in an open meadow, breathed deep of the wind combing its fingers through weeds towering up to worship the black eye of the new moon. Fanxing city, dim and sleepy, sat idle in the distance.

Two weeks and a handful of days passed since he first met the Gui boy, but this was no mere second meeting. In the space between now and then, Yuhui made time to see Lin whenever he could. He tried his best to make appointments, and though that cunning mercenary never entirely confirmed nor denied the younger boy’s attempted agreements, Yuhui always greeted him with the biggest smile when he saw that sunbleached crown of his lover again. Distaste for the Feng clan turned out to be a mutuality shared between them, however Yuhui never really had a desire to spend much time talking about families nor pasts. He was only ever interested in their now: those moments when he got to be himself, when he was allowed to wear nothing but the remnants of the love made between that traveling boy and him, a prince hiding from his royal burden.

Yuhui’s cheeks were flushed from his exertion, a camellia bud singing out of time, a peony blossom dressed in the remnants of a springtime rain. While he caught his breath, his black eyes watched the stars scattered motionless above them as they came and went, covered by the world still turning and clots of clouds unseen in that aphotic sky. Behind him, his hair was a mirror of the dark—above turned below, cosmic and untamed.

“I miss you more and more each time we have to be apart,” the boy called Xun confessed on a shaky exhale.

Lin’ai leaned down, palms pressed to Yuhui’s chest to grant him his prize of a kiss. Splayed knees all filthy with top soil and meadowgrass, the mercenary shuddered with the bell chime aftershock of his shattering. He was a vile thing always seeking to keep Xun in his body for as long as possible; a grotesque little hostage taker looking to make a willful prisoner of this invader always coming at his gate.

“You’re the one who always has to go,” Lin sighed, a listless tease at the corner of Xun’s mouth. He settled flush against his new moon lover, breathing an inverse harmony to the other boy’s hard won melody line. “Maybe you should stick around if you miss me so much.”

“What would you do?” Xun asked, slack arms betrayed by fingers intent on stroking the skin of Lin’s thighs. “Would you get tired of me?”

“Maybe.” Lin laughed at the thought, hands folded across Xun’s chest so he could rest his chin, so he could take in this view that would, if the past was any indication, leave him too soon. “Or maybe I’d get to stop missing you, too.”

“That’s not very reassuring.” Xun’s frown was only half-committed. He couldn’t truly be upset after the time they’d just spent together. “You always just tell me maybe.”

Suddenly, the mercenary’s grifter gaze clouded with a more somber haze, a serious, rueful look nearly foreign on that devil-may-care face. “Maybe I fuck around and tell you maybe ’cause I’m scared of the real answer.”

“Why? What’s so scary about it?” Concern replaced the fading embers of the prince’s elation as he watched sobriety take that boy under its wing. His idle adorations paused, unable to concentrate on touch over talk.

“I really like you, Xun,” Lin’ai said, tilting his head to watch how the implication of his confession might land. “Really like you. That too soon sort of like you, you know? Ha, it sounds lame…”

“It doesn’t. I really like you too,” Xun replied, earnest and full of warmth in the chill of a darkmoon breeze, a swirl of long-traveled river air weaving through that timeless night. “I think about you all the time. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just drop everything and be with you… but you’re kinda hard to read, or maybe I just haven’t picked up on your expressions yet. I dunno.”

Lin’ai had one expression: a caustic smirk befitting a quick-talking ruffian.

“I hear that a lot but this is just how my face is.” Lin laid his cheek upon his palm as he continued his observation, tendrils of hair long escaped from his braid tickling Xun’s throat. “Stay with me then. Hit the road with me next time I’ve got a haul to take some place. What’s keeping you here?”

“A lot. My family, myself. I don’t have much practical experience in doing things. My mother and father over-worry about me, which is part of why I have to sneak off to see you. Besides, how would it go out there for me? I think I would just cause you and your brother more trouble than I’m worth, you know?” The prince moved his hands up to fiddle with the end of the braid, brushing it quickly across his throat.

Lin’ai fell silent. His disappointment was evident when he looked away. Despite all that woodland boy’s attempts to mask his kneejerk response, he felt rejected all the same.

“I guess it’s not a comfortable life,” the mercenary tried to quip as he kissed Xun’s chin. He pushed himself up and off his perch astride the other boy’s hips and sat on the grass, elbows resting on his knees. He looked up at the sky; hated how it was already brighter than he wanted it to be. “It’s almost time.”

The other boy remained where he was, arms growing still once they were lazily folded atop his abdomen. Yuhui’s eyes watched a flock of birds move slowly above, he followed the gradual changes in the sky as if hypnotized by leisurely turning of the world. After a moment, he turned his chin back to his lover and gently said: “I love you, Lin’ai.”

The sellsword didn’t respond—not at first, anyways. Slowly he dropped his eyes from the black-violet-pink glazed sky, then closed them entirely. The smirk was gone from his features, his own confession stifled in his locked up music box chest. Lin forced himself to laugh, a soft breathy thing that he didn’t really feel. “…heh, that’s kinda cruel, isn’t it? You shouldn’t say that if you can’t be with me, Xun.”

“It’s how I feel. If you don’t like it, then you’re welcome to forget I said it.” Yuhui traced Lin’ai’s profile carefully. “Why is it that I have to go? Why are you unable to stay? Why is it me not being able to be with you?”

“Who sneaks out to see me? Who evaporates at daybreak? You don’t even let me walk you home.” Lin’ai finally looked over, tired of keeping up the game face. He was softer now, with the trappings of heartbreak in his eyes. “You’re either in love with a secret or ashamed of what you’re doing—and I’m not condemning you for it, Xun. I get it. I really do. And if that’s how it is, you know, it’s alright. I just…” Lin groaned and laid back abruptly, palms pressing into his eyes. “Ugh, I can’t. I can’t be in love with someone who’s only halfway here. It doesn’t go away during the day. Why do you have to?”

Xun started to redress himself, sitting up to ease the exertion of sliding back into his clothes. “Is that what it’ll take—seeing me during the day? Or are you giving up on me? I know I’ve not been fair to you, but if I mean something to you then let me make it right. I want to show you my life. I just need a minute to make that happen, okay?”

After a pause, the older boy dropped his arms but continued to stare up at the sky. His expression was more resigned now but a ghost of his crooked smile traced the lines of his lips like it was working up the courage to repossess him during this delicate moment. “What’s your surname, then? Who am I in love with?”

“Tian,” the boy responded, standing and pulling on his pants.

Frustrated again, Lin’ai stood and began to dress as well. “Gods, Xun, If you don’t want to tell me, just fucking say so. Don’t play with me,” Lin snapped as he pulled on his clothes. “There’s no one in the royal family named Xun. Why can’t you just be honest with me? Why is it so fucking hard?”

“My given name is Yuhui.” The prince tied his belt and began to walk back toward the city, now twinkling brighter than the stars fading in daybreak.

“And I’m Zao Lie, back from exile in the desert,” Lin sniped at Xun’s back but he didn’t follow. He simply laid himself back out on the dirt, cursing himself for not being better, not being worth an honest answer from this boy he’d lost his heart to.