4 MONTHS AGO.

Lin opened his eyes; he took his first breath like he was waking from the dead, given life by an errant sunbeam tickling the glinting tracers inlaid upon his cheek.

He felt as though he’d barely slept. He was in and out of consciousness the whole night through; he was in and out of Yuhui in myriad sleepless moments that left them filthy for the morning to discover. Even now he was wrapped up in Yuhui, tangled nude with that lover who promised no more secrets, all yearling limbs and stirring loins.

Lin’ai smiled. How fucking lucky was he to wake up with this boy asleep in his arms?

“Ungh,” Yuhui grumbled, shifting to free one of his hands from their tangle, “No.”

The hand came down upon the glimmer stroking Lin’s cheek as if that boy made of meat and bones had any right at all to tell the daylight to stop. However, when his touch was met with skin and not some inanimate device meant to torture him awake, the prince surfaced from sleep and gazed upon his lover.

“Oh fuck, sorry.” Yuhui whispered, stroking the spot affectionately before pulling the covers over their heads. “I was sleeping so good, I didn’t think that was you.”

“Am I just a dream for you?” Lin crooned, wanderlust hands already finding their way to all the places he loved so well. “Are we real?”

“Well, if all of that was just a super intense wet dream, I’m going to be really disappointed.” The prince laughed, adjusting to make all those places easier to reach. “I’m just not used to waking up next to someone—or, maybe I should say that sometimes when I am woken up, it’s not in the most gentle way.”

“I’ll wake you up in a not so gentle way,” Lin said when he kissed Yuhui, freed himself from the blankets and pushed his lover’s knees apart in the filtered morning light. Already he was indecent, trespassing Yuhui’s body like he’d been given every right, like all their mess was a welcome mat and Yuhui was his forever home. “We can be quick, before you need me to go.”

“You HAVE to be silent this time.” Yuhui pushed an index finger to his boy’s lips in a forceful reminder, a caveat to his body’s easy parting. “My parents are surely home and if they catch me like this I will be too dead to run away.”

“I’m not the one who’s gonna have a problem staying quiet,” Lin teased, already pressing forward into Yuhui’s warmth. “Fuck, Yu, I—”

Suddenly, Yuhui’s door was flung wide and bathed the clandestine couple, mid-coitus, in the full strength of morning’s hello and Ren Fei’s hazy shadow. “Yuhui! Why are you still in b—oh my Gods.”

The prince was a knee jerk reaction in the nightskin of his indecency, a hairpin trigger fired off without any prior warning. In a flash, he had the sheets back over Lin’ai and his nudity. He peeked out from the shadow cast by Lin’s body, meeting shocked eyes with his own like the darkness of a dead universe.

His heart was close to beating out of the bindings of his chest. The palpitations calmed only slightly when Yuhui realized his intruder was Ren Fei.

Just as quickly as the doors opened, they slapped themselves shut and Fei, eyes wide as the whole fucking sky, quickly turned, leaning back on the frame with his hands still holding the handles. He pressed his shoulder blades into the door like a child hiding evidence from a teacher who already knew what was broken, eyes darting back and forth to see if anyone had been around to witness all the skin he’d just exposed.

“Um,” he called nervously, stressed and surprised and heartbroken. “I… can go?”

Yuhui laid a hand over his sternum to calm his heart. “What time is it?”

“Eight?” Fei called back, strained voice high in his throat. He swallowed back the wrenching of a gut punch realization tearing a hole through his middle and hung his head knowing very well that he had no real place in Yuhui’s capricious heart.

Lin’ai seemed hardly phased, taking the opportunity to press himself flush to Yuhui’s body, consuming his boy’s warmth voraciously. “If you’re not in trouble, tell him you need fifteen minutes,” Lin whispered to Yuhui’s throat, all persuasive kisses and daredevil rhythm. “I can bring you off in fifteen minutes.”

For his part, Yuhui was so susceptible to affection. He was a golden will under the guise of iron, malleable and weak despite how strong he wanted to make himself seem. The look he gave Lin’ai signaled that fifteen was not enough—the look he gave Lin’ai said that he wanted the luxury of more.

Yuhui called back to Fei: “I’ll meet you in the library in a little while okay?”

Fei answered without word, a simple shifting of shadow against the translucent, striated glass. His movement was acquiescence. Yes, Fei would be complicit despite his glass heart.

Grinning, Lin’ai took Yuhui in earnest, trickster expression all joyful teeth for the choice Yuhui made.

x x x

It was ten by the time Lin’ai made his escape from Skyline Manor. He was clean, clad in palace colors and clothes obviously not his. He’d pilfered a blackened blue silk shirt very loosely closed across his chest; he left his own linen shirt for Yuhui, trade made for memory and memento.

When that maverick boy turned the corner to the Feng family complex, he stopped dead in his tracks: out front stood Ao tacking Turnip and Potato to their wagon already laden with silver. The joy left Lin’s rough and tumble features, he was besieged by duty, recollected by the real world outside the confines of his love story.

“FUUUCK LIN,” Ao shouted at his brother, exasperated. He stopped hitching the horses to their cart and turned to face Lin’ai, hands on his narrow hips. “I’ve been yelling all morning for you. Where the fuck were you? Do you know how hard it is to keep Quan out of a silver cache? You know he can smell money.”

The older Gui looked the younger up and then back down. He nodded a chin to the new shirt and resumed his work. “Did you go shopping?”

“I’m not going,” Lin said, unmoving. “I’m staying in the city. I can’t go right now.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Ao replied, laughter dying beneath the quick spread of his serious tone. “Get in the wagon.”

“No,” Lin replied stubbornly, louder now, digging in his heels and crossing his arms. “You didn’t tell me we booked an escort. I’m not going.”

“I’m telling you now.” Finishing up the last of his connections between leather and horse and wood, Ao stared flatly at his sibling. “Besides, you weren’t around. We need the money so I took the job. Get in the cart Lin, I’m not going to stand around and argue with you. If you want the indignity of having your older brother drag you out of the city screaming, then that’s fine, but I’m done arguing. It’s shame from here on out for you if you continue down this path.”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Lin pointed at his elder as he backed away, smarter than to turn his back on his own trickster blood. “I will beat your ass, I swear I fucking will, Ao-ao.”

Ao pursued him, footstep following diligent footstep. He grabbed a section of rope that was not yet secured to their transportation. “Big words for someone who’s walking away. Better run.”

Without another warning, Ao darted after his kin. The rope was already spread between his grasp, ready to secure his prey.

Instead of running, Lin centered himself, standing strong. He grabbed the rope, taut between his brother’s fists, and committed his hand to it. He utilized both his leverage and his brother’s velocity, bringing Ao’s face straight into his fist. “I said I’m not going!” Lin growled as a crowd began forming. “I can’t leave now! Not when I just got shit figured out—”

A trickle of blood began to leak from Ao’s nostrils, glistening and dark, closer to a shade of amethyst or plum rather than the vibrancy of scarlet. He paid it no mind, ignored the flash of stars that danced around in his impact vision as he twisted a leg around his brother and threw his weight into a push that toppled them both into the dusty street. He dropped the rope from one hand, pressed a bony knee into his sibling’s diaphragm.

“I’m happy you got your shit figured out,” Ao declared as he backhanded the boy, sharp knuckles smashing into shimmering cheek. “But unless your shit is going to settle this blood debt that our uncle holds over our heads, then you have an obligation that takes priority.”

Lin could barely catch his breath with Ao’s knee on his chest but the adrenaline had him reeling. “Don’t make my shit about money!” Lin spat his own blood up at his brother along with his words, lashing out and grabbing at Ao’s collar. Summoning all his strength, Lin’ai vaulted his brother off him, rolling with him and taking high ground. He brought his fist across the older boy’s face again, eyetooth cutting his knuckle on impact. “Everything’s about money with you, with everyone, with this whole fucking family! I fucking hate it!”

“Don’t be mad at me for how the world works!” As they rolled, the crowd moved with them, an undulating mass of footsteps that wanted to see all the gory details of the throwdown, but did not want to directly get involved with the action. Gui Ao hissed from his stinging bones, his aching face, his world reeling in sickly hues, but he was a vicious thing through and through. His hands darted up and grabbed Lin’ai by his hair, his ears. He pulled him down, colliding their skulls together with a loud crack.

“You don’t like this fucking city anyway!” Ao snatched Lin’ai’s hands and threw him aside. He kept him grasped when he scrambled to his feet and began dragging the boy back toward the wagon, stumbling steps dizzy from their row. “Every time we come here you just wanna leave! It’s not my fault that you haven’t calculated your shit thoroughly enough to have a solid out for yourself!”

“I hate you!” Lin was too dizzy to truly resist but he was still conscious enough to struggle, doomed to be carted out of the city against his will. “I don’t like this world and I fucking hate you.”

“That’s fine,” Ao replied, allowing himself to breathe now that the struggle was dying down. He paused at the rope, smart enough to know that Lin could bail as soon as he recovered some of his energy, picking it up and securing his hostage. He hoisted his brother’s body into his arms and carried him the rest of the way then, dumping him in the back with the cargo and a jug of water. “Hate me enough to just do your fucking job and help us make it back here whole.”

Lin’ai was done resisting.

He knew when shit was too good to be true

and yet he’d fallen for it anyways.

This was his fault.

This was Lin’s fault.

x x x

Two days outside of Fanxing, Lin’ai, still bruised and battered from his fight with his brother, sat nestled in the old hay of an abandoned inn’s stable with Turnip and Potato, cutting pieces of apple and feeding each girl in turn. He watched the rain in the dim light of dusk, swatting at a mosquito buzzing near his ear.

Ao’s footsteps crunched in the overgrown grass, toppling weeds with forked stalks. His damp legs collected small-seed hangers-on while his worn boots were spotted with water. His hair long ago turned frizzy and mussed, and his bare shoulders were dusted with rainwater and cuts from sneaking around in stick-dense underbrush. Walking slow, there was a bag slung over his shoulder, heavy with a haul of berries. Behind him he drug the corpse of a still-bleeding fawn.

“I got dinner,” he said, approaching the overhang of the abandoned structure. Encroaching shadow made the memories of his injuries even darker than they already were—Ao always wore contusions like he had a heavy hand and too much face paint. “Do you want to cut this up or do the fire?”

Lin’ai behaved like no one spoke but the wind; like the only companions he had were two horses greedy for chunks of the apple in his hand. He cut another slice and fed it to Turnip.

In actuality, Lin’ai hadn’t eaten since they’d left Fanxing. Normally a bottomless pit, the boy either didn’t have the appetite or was too stubborn to take food from his brother’s hand. He was committed to a hunger strike, committed to a vow of silence that made his typically vibrant atmosphere a gloaming void.

“Okay, cool. Thanks for the help.” Ao drug the animal past the mares and his brother, down to the other end of the stable. He squatted, beginning a bundling of sticks and twiggy hay. “You have to eat today, Lin’ai. You’re not going to be strong enough to make it back to Fanxing if you don’t have any food or energy in your body.”

Again, Lin was silent. Instead, he fed the last of the apple to Potato and made himself a bed nestled against Turnip’s side as she began to doze in REM. He turned his back on his brother and laid down in the hay.

Ao looked back, frown softening the sharpness of his features. He sighed and resumed making himself dinner.

x x x

Six days into their trip to the lands beyond the mountains whose tops gnawed at the billowing bottoms of the farthest cloud cover, the Gui boys worked their way through a small village posted on the outer edges of a long stretch of badlands. Rural encampments like these were typically seen as hostile to newcomers, but the pair of youths had passed through a few times before to not incur too much suspicion, on similar routes that had them taking other precious resources to far off destinations. There was a single main road through the town and from it shot off little avenues pockmarked with squat houses. Thatched roofs were woven through with twine, mud and clay walls were augmented by wooden beams to make them stronger to the elements that occasionally rolled in from the north. Suspended above the road, a vast collection of mechanical signs hung from steel and wire supports, but hard-wired electricity didn’t exist in these parts anymore so their bulbs remained forever dark, their noble gasses dim.

It was an hour ago that Ao parked their carriage up the road from the central building of that main thoroughfare: a general store whose pickings were always slim. He left Lin’ai to watch the horses and their cargo, and all was quiet until it very much wasn’t anymore.

Suddenly, Ao came running down the road, shoving locals out of his way with his elbows, carefully holding the folds of his shirt closed as he ran quickly toward the cart.

“LIN—GO! START GOING! HURRY UP!” He yelled.

Cigarette hanging from his mouth, the younger Gui boy swung himself up into the driver’s bench and squinted in his brother’s general direction. At first, he didn’t see anything amiss until he saw something very much amiss: a group of angry vendors chasing his gangly brother down.

The brothers may not have been talking and Lin may not have liked the elder boy much right now but Lin didn’t want Ao to die. Immediately, the younger Gui leaned forward and slapped both Turnip and Potato hard on their haunches. He grabbed the reins when the wagon lurched suddenly forward, knocking him back to seated as the horses took off like they were escaping hell itself.

Catching up to the wagon in just enough time, Ao’s fingers gripped the back as they whizzed through the streets. Carefully, with one arm, he hoisted himself up over the roof and back onto the driver’s bench. The townsfolk yelled in the brothers’ wake, curses rolling from tongues thick with backwood accent.

“Phew.” Ao huffed, settling next to his brother. “I got you something. I think you’ll really like it.”

Lin didn’t look at his brother. He let out a sarcastic little huff, all yeah right in the face of such a lofty claim, the obvious bribery. He only took his eyes off the road for a moment to roll them before he focused himself back on escaping the village and keeping their wagon on the road.

“Oh, you don’t want it?” The older boy asked, propping his feet up on the wagon’s front bar. He smiled to himself, delighting in the breeze catching his hair, brushing his cheeks ruddy from running and still touched with bruises.

Lin didn’t budge at the tease: there was no way Ao managed to steal an apology from a gaggle of poor mountain vendors.

“Well, I can’t take it back.” Shifting, Ao stuck a hand into his shirt to pull out a squirming bird. Its feathers were blue like all shades of the sky and its black eyes opened fully wide like orbs, furiously blinking to readjust itself to daylight rather than the darkness of a shirt. Immediately it began to sing a mechanical song, a stunted, slightly out of tune advertisement jingle from an ancient time. The eldest Gui boy rubbed the bird’s head to calm it, however the small creature still struggled.

Lin turned his head at the sound of the bird’s 8-bit sing-song, looking up at Ao before returning his attention to the bird. Already the little podunk hollow they’d bailed out of was silenced by distance. Lin seemed intent on a trade and offered the reins once the horses had settled into a slow canter.

“You’re right. It’ll probably like you more anyway.” Lin’ai was better with small animals than his brother; perhaps his touch was gentler, perhaps he was better at hiding his wolf teeth in a soft sheep exterior. Ao took the reins and handed the bird over, growing more and more used to keeping up a one-sided conversation.

The bird, now nestled against Lin’ai’s chest, cupped in his hands, managed to find some calm, distress traded for curious chirps. Lin leaned back, mumbling a quiet, strained “Thank you” without looking at the other boy. It was the first thing he’d said since flinging his I hate yous in Ao’s face six days prior. His voice was distracted, his presence far away. The sound was a platitude, not an invite. Chin tucked, Lin’ai was content to slowly familiarize himself with the bird, to align the creature’s nanite components with his own electric time signature.

Ao nodded, reaching into his pocket to dump a handful of jelly candies into Lin’ai’s lap. He split the reins between his hands and made himself comfortable—they would be on the road for a while before there was a spot safe enough to camp for the night.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said. “Just eat dinner tonight.”

Lin shifted away from his brother as he got comfortable with the bird, letting the candies fall off his lap and into the wagon’s foot well.

A few hours down the road, when the mercenaries finally stopped, Lin reclined by the fire whistling little melodies to the bird he was bonding with. He’d named the creature Loquat and he prioritized playing with it, watching it pick at a half ripened date he held between his fingers. The sun went down and the root and rabbit stew Ao set for him went cold but Lin didn’t seem to mind: he still had no intention of eating.

Quietly, Ao picked up his brother’s bowl and ate his portion, determined to not let the meal go to waste when they had no way of keeping it for later. He made quick work of the second helping then stood and climbed atop the wagon to hunker down for the night.

Lin remained where he was, confiding hushed words to Loquat in the forest’s quiet.

x x x

Before dawn the next morning, Lin left camp to forage for a small cache of food for his companion. Despite their brief time together, the pair seemed bonded: Lin would walk and Loquat would flit between branches, picking caterpillars off shrubs and swallowing them down with great delight. The little creature would return to his head, his shoulders, picking at strands of his hair and grooming him, hoping to find nits.

The boy looked exhausted when he settled into tacking Potato and Turnip into the wagon, silently going about his business as Loquat played between Turnip’s ears.

“Don’t,” Ao moved his brother aside by inserting his body into the space he was occupying, taking over the task. He had a piece of jerky between his teeth, gnawing on the slice for his breakfast. “I got it.”

Pushed aside, Lin’ai moved to Potato instead, starting the same task on the other mare.

“I said I got it,” Ao snapped at the boy. “Go sit the fuck down.”

Lin wavered at Potato’s side, considering his options before he continued with her straps. His voice felt a little weak and his words fell quietly between them. He wasn’t angry—he was resigned, dulled. “When did you stop asking, Ao? All you do is tell. You just make demands like everyone else.”

“Does it matter?” Ao stopped, shoulders slumped. “You hate me, so don’t talk to me.”

“Before this. When we left Fanxing,” Lin replied, flat. “You just gave me orders like you were my shitty boss.”

“You came to me with no already in your mouth. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t even ask. You said no.”

“You could’ve asked why,” Lin said, chin tucked, hurt evident. “You could’ve asked anything.”

“That’s not fair. I did ask you something. I asked if you went shopping and you said ‘no, I’m not going.’” Ao folded his arms across his chest, eyebrows furrowed. “You want me to keep prodding you after that? Really, Lin?”

“If the options are why or get in the wagon, then yeah I want you to keep prodding!” Lin suddenly yelled over the horses’ backs. “You’re the person I’m supposed to confide in, who I tell everything to—how am I sposta do that when you don’t give a fuck?”

“How can you say that I don’t give a fuck when I’ve been trying to get your stubborn ass to eat for a fucking week?” Ao shouted back. “Look at you! Look at how worn out you are! Does that boy back in Fanxing mean nothing to you? Are you so ready to let yourself die out here over a scrap of pride?” The older boy shook his head, lips mangled by a frown. “I’m not going to have a therapy session with you to get you to come to terms with leaving the city for a little while. We decided we were going to do this business, borrowed money from the worst fucking people to have this thing to call our own and you’re so ready to give it up. Don’t you see, Lin? There’s not a way I can win because I am not the person you want to be with right now. So stop acting like there is anything I can do to make this situation better for you, stop trying to convince me that I don’t love you because I do.”

“You didn’t even let me say goodbye!” Lin was a jarring noise, sharp and shrill and full of shards in the forest’s peace. “Why is this about winning? Why is winning even on your mind? I’m not a fucking game you can hedge your bets on. This isn’t about my pride and this isn’t even about him anymore—I’m upset because I have a brother who can’t fathom that he has anything to be sorry for!”

“It IS about your pride! Listen to what you’re saying! Sit down and fucking examine how you’ve been acting, Lin’ai.” Ao remained an impassioned shout, far less shrill than the frequency of his kin. “I’m sorry, okay?! I’m sorry you have to be around someone you fucking hate. I’m sorry I drug you away from the city. I’m sorry I can’t read your mind. I’m sorry that I make you think that I don’t care about you, even though I would fucking die for you. Okay?! I’m sorry for everything. All of it.”

“Are you sorry you didn’t treat me like your partner? Are you sorry you didn’t give me a fucking say in my own life?” Lin’ai grew quiet, defeated. He dropped to the leafy ground, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Potato nuzzled at his head before she began to root around in his hair, like she could find an apple in there if she tried hard enough. “I don’t hate you. I’m sorry I said it. But it really, really fucking hurts, Ao. It’s like you don’t trust me to make my own choices. I would’ve come with you if you’d just given me some fucking time.”

Ao resumed tacking the horses, fastening straps to girths and wood to metal. He was quiet, curt. “I told you I was sorry for all of it. Please choose to eat food now.”

With a frustrated groan, Lin’ai picked himself up off the ground and stormed off into the woods, making his way back into the thicket. Loquat was soon after him, flitting off in a blur of blue through the trees.

“Lin!” Ao called after his sibling, trotting behind. “Lin—I’m sorry. Don’t run off into the forest.”

Lin was too exhausted to figure himself out, too hungry to be stoic, too strung out and angry and hurt to fight anymore. He crouched suddenly, pressing his palms into his eyes to hide how red they’d become, how close to a breakdown he was getting. “I fucking blew it. It’s done. It’s done. I love him and I fucked it up.”

Ao bent down behind his brother, hand gentle on his back. “Just send him the bird. How bad can it be, Lin? Just send him the bird and tell him you’ll be back soon. Tell him it was me.”

“How can I say that? How can I fucking say that? What kind of man am I if I blame this on you? I have to take responsibility for it.” Lin was grieving an impending loss, sickened by every thought he imagined had flown through Yuhui’s head. He raked his hands through his hair, lids tarnished to rust by all his sorrow, all his lack of sleep.

“Then if he can’t wait for you, then maybe it was never meant to be.” Ao stroked his brother’s hair. “He has to know that this is part of your life, right?”

“That I’ll just disappear without word at random? That maybe I won’t come back? Who will ever live with that?” Lin’ai balled up tighter. “I love him. Never meant to be isn’t an option anymore, Ao. You don’t understand.”

“I understand enough to know that sitting here in a forest and crying about shit is not really going to help you much in the grand scheme of things.” Ao patted Lin’ai’s back and stood. “You don’t know anything until you talk to him. You can’t say anything is over until you hear him say it. He can’t say it if you don’t send him that bird.”

“I’m not crying,” Lin’ai said on a tremble of weeping, deep breath stuttering in his chest. “I’m really tired, and hungry, and I still don’t think you’re sorry, and—”

“Alright. Come on. Come back to the wagon and eat.” The older Gui reached down and tugged his brother’s sleeve. “I am sorry. Okay? I’m sorry for treating you badly, Lin’ai. I love you.”

Lin relinquished his movements to his brother but his rambling continued in between hiccuping gulps of air. “—and I named her Loquat, and I don’t think, you believe me, when I say that, I don’t actually hate you—”

“Uh-huh,” Ao soothed, arm looped around the younger boy’s shoulder to guide him back to their camp. “It’s okay. I believe you.”

Stepping out of the thicket of trees, Ao left Lin’s side to go set up a bed for him amongst their cargo. He laid out all of their blankets and made a pair of pillows from extra clothing. He shoved aside all their food stores except for the assortment of dried goods he was sitting aside for Lin’ai’s breakfast.

“Come here, Lin. I made you a spot.”

“—and I really do, appreciate Loquat, ’cause she’s his favorite colour, and—” Lin continued. Despite his continued speech, he was a docile thing; he obeyed on auto-pilot, settling in wherever his elder directed him.

“Yeah, I know you like her.” Ao kneeled down, weaving his fingers together and cupping his hands so he could take Lin’ai’s foot and hoist him up into the back of the wagon. When he had the boy inside, he placed a container of jerky in his lap, sat a carafe of cold tea beside him. “Eat up then sleep.”

Lin’ai bowed his head as Ao left him. Loquat returned to his side, perching on the edge of the cargo, turning her head left and right, black eyes wide. The sellsword put a piece of jerky in his mouth, chewed slowly, and began to think of what, exactly, he was going to say.