4 MONTHS AGO.

Three days after their parting, Prince Tian Yuhui arrived at the Fengs’ House of Infinite Dawn. Normally, when he traveled outside of Skyline Manor’s walls, he had somewhat of a convoy with him—a handful of royal guards present to protect both him and those he would encounter from his unpredictable chaos, as well as his best friend or another member of his family—but today he’d been assigned a lone watchman who lingered nearby.

Dressed in the fineries of his standard palace garb, the boy approached on foot, hands politely folded in front of him. The afternoon seemed to carry on and on, high over the tile roofs of Fanxing’s eastern district, catching the light of his sea colored silks as they swirled fluidly around his legs on approaching the gates of that sprawling manor.

It was fortunate for Yuhui that most of the Feng family was indisposed.

Quan was off embroiled in some scheme or another with Yixun, trying to build a Prince trap or something equally stupid. The patriarch was off dealing with the bank and Ban was off communing with nature. Yila imagined him running nude with a herd of deer or something, living his best, most fulfilling life before returning to the human world to bork her dad to sleep.

So Feng Yila, lonely girl without many friends due to her brother’s insatiable jealousy, was happy to greet the young prince she only ever regarded from across the arena floor.

“Are you lost, Young Master?” she asked, coy little cherub, hands clasped demurely behind her back. She was like a fairy: dressed in yards and yards of scarlet, gold embroidered chiffon, pigeon blood rubies in her platinum hair.

“No,” the Tian boy responded, serious gaze moving from the grounds’ elaborate landscape to the immaculate girl before him. “I’m looking for Gui Lin’ai. Is he here? May I speak with him?”

“Oh, Lin? He and Ao took off a couple days ago, I think they got a job,” the girl sighed, sitting on a nearby bench. She leaned over, elbows on her thighs, watching two gold and enamel automaton goldfish swirl in lazy circles beneath the water. She was disappointed her cousins left; Yila always had fun when Ao was around. “They got in a big fight though. Ao-ao beat Lin up pretty good in front of a gaggle of grandmas before they dipped.”

“A fight?” Yuhui’s eyebrows dipped, matching the distress of his growing frown. His posture was failing him, shoulders sliding toward the ground, hapless and bereft of hope. “Is he okay? Do you know how I can contact him? I came to invite him to dinner. I didn’t expect he’d be… gone.”

Yila sat up, resting her weight on her hands as she looked Yuhui up and down. She knew that look of dejection, that barely withheld disappointment—oh my Gods~

“Is Lin’ai your boyfriend?” she asked, somewhere between sympathetic and scandalous. Regardless of her intent, she had a harpy mouth, a gossip’s lilt even if she was good at keeping a secret. “I won’t tell—no one ever listens to me anyways.” She scooted over on the bench, just in case the prince wanted to sit upon hearing her revelation. “I don’t think I can help much, everyone just thinks I’m ornamental, but I can tell you what I’ve heard.”

“He’s—” The prince paused, unsure of what to say. Despite the many hours he and Lin’ai spent talking with each other, despite the measure they’d progressed their relationship over the course of weeks spent together, they never really assigned a name to what they were. Were they exclusive? Yuhui thought so. Were they boyfriends, though? He didn’t know. They never made the designation. Their courtship was breakneck and amorphous outside all those pledges of love; those pledges of love were now touched with uncertainty in the silence of days. “I’m just worried about him, especially after hearing that he was beat up. If you would tell me what you know, I’d be appreciative.” He remained standing.

Yila definitely thought Lin was his boyfriend.

“Ao-ao told me they were taking twenty-thousand silver tael to the frozen coast,” the pale rich girl informed the worried royal. “I think he said either Qiongtu or Molu—or maybe he was just talking about taking it to the end of the road, I don’t know.” She shrugged, looking back to the water. “If they make good time, he said he’d be back in a couple months, but it could be six months or a year before they’re back in Fanxing. They have to go through the mountains and it’s gonna be winter soon.”

“Oh. Okay.” Yuhui looked down, then back up to the Feng heiress. “Does his brother always make him do this?”

“I guess?” Yila tilted her head. “They’re in a lot of debt.”

“I see.” Yuhui nodded. “Do you ever communicate with them when they’re on the road?”

“Every now and then Ao will send me a bird or a package with something cute in it,” she recounted, tapping a red tipped finger to her lip. “They never follow a set path—they’re trying to outsmart bandits and stuff, you know? It’s hard to say when they’re gonna pass through a city, if they go through cities at all.”

“… Yeah. That makes sense. He’s mentioned bandits before.” Kicking a foot on the path he stood, the middle prince of the Tian line was absorbed in thought for a moment before he turned away. “Alright. Well, thank you for talking with me and giving me your help. It means a lot.”

“Hey, Young Master?” Yila called, sitting up. She felt some need to reassure the prince. The poor boy just looked so sad.

“Yes?” Yuhui glanced back.

“He’ll probably come back alive,” she chirped, optimistic because the only other thing she could say was he’ll definitely die out there. “Plus, they can’t leave the silver, so he definitely won’t run around on you.”

The prince bit the inside of his cheek and nodded again. “Okay. Thanks for the reassurance. Have a lovely evening.”

He focused back on the path that would return him to the palace, arms folded and eyes down on the road.

x x x

Five days after his meeting with Feng Yila, a little blue bird, feathers like an azure oil slick, perched on the railing outside of Tian Yuhui’s quarters at dawn. It sang a happy little song—a combination of a little tune his owner frequently hummed clipped into the prerecorded jingle passed down to it from its roots in ancient advertising. “—eight-eight, two-three-hundred~ empiiiiiire~~”

Immediately upon hearing the under-melody of the bird’s midi call, Yuhui jumped out of bed and ran into his courtyard. He was a big dreamer, always ready to have his heart more than crushed. What if, his mind told him in poison whispers and persuasive nothings, it was not some mechanical message, but the boy he missed in the flesh? He would be holding the bird to tease his lover awake. He would be there and real, trickster smile splitting his lips to show teeth.

That was Lin’ai’s style, wasn’t it? Playful, provoking.

This was Yuhui’s style—irrational, incorrect.

Outside, he looked down to the small creature. Yuhui kneeled in front of the railing and offered the animal his upturned palm which Loquat eagerly hopped into, cold little feet grasping around his fingers. It behaved like it was home, like Yuhui was his owner. The little bird looked directly at the Prince and trilled a hungry little bark.

Lin’ai had carefully set Yuhui’s coordinates as Loquat’s home, made the boy’s face familiar, and turned himself into a roaming beacon, a dangerous gamble, potentially discoverable to anyone who knew about the Gui boys’ silver haul.

Yuhui walked the bird inside and sat upon a pillow at his low table. He let the thing hop around for a few moments before taking it back into his grasp and feeling along the bones of its construction, the meat of its overlay. Sometimes messenger birds had switches or buttons built into them, sometimes organic matter was the dominant operator. Each bird was different, descended from those built by an expansive collection of marketing companies that no longer existed. In the ancient times, they were products of whatever lot, run, year they were manufactured in, unique to the specifications of their wildly varying makes and models. Carrier avian were revived to better serve corporate pockets.

In those days, nature died and capitalism grew like an invasive vine in its place. Natural things were replicated to function as feel-good products—surreptitious bodies of advertprop meant to wet the hungry mouths of consumerism through the calming lull of birdsong. However, when capitalism died, nature fought its way back, devouring circuitry in blood and viscera, coaxing life forward through generations of parasitism and symbiosis, death and rebirth.

The prince stroked the creature’s head, pulled her wings out to examine their build. The bird pecked at the Yuhui’s hand, squabbling with those prying fingers until she got herself a little distance and griping in Lin’ai’s melodic sing-song. When she was comfortable, she began rooting around the tabletop for crumbs of the boy’s snacks long gone, chirping when she found a little morsel.

After such a long flight, Loquat needed to replenish her energy to deliver the mercenary’s message.

“Oh. Sorry. Hold on—I’ll get you something.” Yuhui stood and briefly disappeared. When he returned, it was with a stem of grapes. The boy began to pick and split each fruit with his fingers, leaving the halves open for the animal.

Cheerfully, Loquat immediately indulged herself in the fruits. When she was done, she looked up at Yuhui, chirped twice, then offered him a tiny, rudimentary hologram image of the boy he loved, played back his voice with surprising clarity.

“Loquat, look at me—pay attention, you have to look at me when you’re recording. Okay girl: good, now… stay still.”

The hologram Lin’ai sat back, apparently convinced that Loquat would do as she was told. He was a constellation in the dark, a grid pattern that mimicked the planes of his face, that could hardly express every detail of his longing. If he had bruises or scrapes from his fight with Ao, the recording didn’t pick them up. It flickered, here and there, but for the most part, the recording’s movements were smooth, full of his typical cavalier swagger.

“Hey, Yuhui. I’m sorry this is how you have to hear from me. You’re probably really upset with me right now.“

The prince watched the recording with a placid face despite his eyes devouring the electric-signature sight of the mercenary. He folded his arms on the table and leaned into them, as if being closer to the approximation of Lin’ai would negate real distance.

“I had to leave town—my brother booked us on an escort up to Huanghan City. It gets so cold up there that the ocean freezes in parts. Isn’t that crazy? Not even something as strong as the ocean’s tide can overcome the ice. Anyways, we’re trying to get the haul up there and get off the isle before the winter storms trap us. If we get stuck, it could be a few months before we make it back down, if we make it back down at all.”

Lin’ai looked down for a moment, collecting himself before looking up toward the sky.

“I’m… I’m really sorry, Yuhui. You deserve better than getting left without a word. If I’m honest, I didn’t want to take the job, but my brother persuaded me to go.” He coughed. “It kills me that I didn’t get to tell you goodbye, that I didn’t get to tell you I love you. That I didn’t get the chance to be your not-secret. I get it if you’re done with me but, Tian Yuhui whose-name-I-know, I gotta confess: I love you and there’s no frozen sea or impenetrable mountain range that will change that.”

Lin’ai’s image leaned forward and seemed to pick up the bird as the viewing angle changed.

“This is Loquat. She’s pretty cool—I set you as her homing base so if she can’t find me, she’ll always come back safe to you. Let her rest for a day or two and feed her really good before you send her out again. She responds to commands, so when you want to record a message to me, just tell her: I have something to say to Lin’ai. When you want to hear my voice, just say: tell me what Lin’ai said.

“I’m desperate to hear your voice again so I hope you’ll respond, even if it’s just to tell me how much you hate me. I love you, Tian Yuhui, and I hope I’ll get to tell you that in person soon.”

The recording ended and Loquat shook her head, like she was snapping out of some strange dream or trance. When she got her bearings, she sought out another grape, happy to have such abundant repast.

Yuhui, however, was in shambles. Shoulders shaking, the boy sat up and covered the tears in his eyes with his hands. He was completely lovesick, heartbroken and yearning, scared for what Lin’ai would endure in his travels, helpless to sway the outcome of his heart’s greatest desire even with all the power he held as a prince.

Through a trembling voice broken with sniffles, he mumbled to the bird: “Loquat, tell me what Lin’ai said.”

x x x

“I have something to say to Lin’ai.”

Loquat’s black eyes turned and focused on Yuhui approaching from the opposite side of his bedroom, hands fussing with a robe he was finishing closing, the sash his cursed fingers were struggling to tie. He knelt at his table and waved to that boy so far away, smile bright despite the longform agony making his heart ache.

“Hi Lin’ai. I hope this message finds you well. I hope you’re still healthy and safe and well-fed, wherever you are. I miss you, okay? I’m not mad at you and I certainly don’t hate you. I understand that you had to leave and look, it’s even okay that you didn’t say goodbye or tell me that you loved me because we already told each other all that. You’ll just have to keep my parting kisses longer in your memory, right? Those ones I gave you before you climbed my wall to leave.”

Two days passed since Yuhui received the Gui boy’s message. He listened to it over and over between now and then, watching the way the static-etched recollection of his lover spoke through his lips and gestures, trying to see anything about the boy’s surroundings as he moved to learn more about his life on the road. The morning over the palace was gloomy with clouds hanging heavy and low, however the bird still took an accurate transcription of Yuhui despite this. The prince shifted, leaning forward into the bird’s sight. He spoke like the boy he was talking to was sitting right in front of him.

“Tell me about how your journey has been so far. I want to hear about the things you’ve seen and what you’ve done. Is it boring out there on the road or are you constantly under attack from people that want to get into your haul? A week or so ago I went to the Fengs’ manor to invite you to the palace for dinner with my family. Feng Yila spoke with me and told me about what you were carrying. I hope you and your brother are being really careful. Please take extra care to not get hurt—I’m not sure what I would do if I lost you out there.”

Yuhui’s eyes fell and his face turned briefly somber, but he was quick to recover. It seemed like he shook whatever grim thought he was having away. His black eyes looked back at Loquat, sparkling blue in her digital vision.

“I’ve been doing as well as I can in your absence. Things have been quiet around here, but I don’t really mind. Without you to distract me, I’ve been staying in at night and resting and focusing on my duties. I want you to know that I love you Lin’ai. I love you and I miss you so much. Come back to me when you can. Don’t rush and get careless. Just come back. Talk to you soon.”

The recording ended and Yuhui let the bird indulge herself in a bowl of fruits and seeds. When she was finished, well rested and recharged with energy for her long journey, he took her outside and let her fly away.

x x x

In just five day’s time, Loquat returned to Yuhui’s courtyard.

It was raining and she was grumpy, singing her little jingle begging to be let inside. She’d endured so much in her journey, water beaded in her feathers, breath of frost still present at the very tips of her iridescent wings.

Yuhui opened his door and picked the bird up, bundling a silk handkerchief around her damp body. He patted her down and brought her inside, scritching the feathers of her head mussed by the rain.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” he said like she could understand, like she could respond with anything other than singsong peeps and hard-coded melody. He put her down on the table and pushed her seed cup closer. “I know it’s hard. Here, catch your breath and warm up.”

Loquat was quick to eat. Eventually, she slowed her consumption, alternating between nibbling her feast and preening herself, ruffling her feathers till she was naught but a round little ball of jittering fluff. Eventually, she looked up at Yuhui and her big black eyes cast the image the Prince longed to see.

It was Lin’ai, eagerly taking the bird in his hands and finding a quiet place to sit. He mumbled quietly to Loquat as he settled down next to a fire in the middle of a room: “Come on, Loquat—tell me what Yuhui said again.”

The hint of rafters above him were broken and the boy was half dressed, hair wet from what surely was a dip in a nearby stream. Loquat recorded his every expression as Yuhui’s message played out for him: his elated grin when Yuhui confessed that he still loved him, the dip of his head when Lin unconsciously notated every question Yuhui asked him, the way his lips pressed together to hold his quake at bay when the sound of Yuhui’s voice became too much to bear. Loquat captured both the joy and sorrow of receiving such a message: happy to hear his lover’s voice, devastated that he couldn’t touch his face.

Yuhui smiled as he watched Lin’ai’s reactions, settling in to absorb the message that would surely follow.

“Tell me what Lin’ai said,” he requested after a few moments, when he was sure the bonus material he’d seen was over.

Another scene: now the grid of Lin’ai’s angles rested on his side. He spoke softly, secretive and quiet, as though they were face to face in bed, as though volume would corrupt the ardent tremble in his words.

“Hey again, my beautiful Yuhui, boy-I-call-mine. I love you—I love you so fucking much. When Loquat got back, I couldn’t wait to hear from you. I was in such a hurry I think I accidentally recorded myself listening to your message. I probably look like an idiot. Anyways, I’m sorry you’re bored but I’m glad you’re making the most of your time while I’m away. If you really double down on your studies and your duties, I’ll give you a reason to skip out on your tutors when I come back to town. You’ll end up right where you’re supposed to be—that’s how learning works, isn’t it?”

The boy laughed, then rolled onto his back, looking up at the sky while Loquat captured his profile.

“I’m really glad to hear you’re not upset with me. I was convinced you’d wash your hands of me, that you’d think I abandoned you. I was so pissed at my brother that I refused to eat for days after we left Fanxing.” He pressed a knuckle to his bottom lip, pursed in thought. “Every mile up the road it gets colder. Some of the mountain passes are terrifying: the wind howls so loud and mournful I can’t hear Ao when he’s talking right next to me. You’d think I’d forget something as simple as touch, especially with the wind starting to bite, but I carry our last night together in my skin; your kiss still warms my bones; the echo of your sound and the ghost of your body pressed to mine keeps me maintaining my body heat—so don’t forget, okay? Even if you’re not here, you’re saving my life.”

Lin turned his head to look at Loquat. He was exhausted and even the gridlines showed it.

“It’s not boring on the road. I wish it was boring. Every day is hard; every day gets harder. Game’s getting more scarce the further north we go. Two days ago it was still warm enough to bathe in a creek—now most of the water we pass is frozen. We got lucky tonight and found an old cave that warmed up pretty good once we started a fire, but I don’t reckon we’ll keep getting this lucky. I guess that’s the problem with what we do: we can’t just stop at an inn for the night. Maybe someday, when we grow the business to escort with a larger crew, we’ll be able to travel more comfortably but for now, we gotta suffer. I miss our nights together. I miss when I could look forward to seeing you again in just a few short hours. I feel like I was spoilt—a few hours seemed like forever back then. Now I’d give anything to be a few measly hours away from you.

“Tell me what you’ve been up to—tell me how you miss me. Maybe next time I can show you how much I miss you too—when I’m not in a cave lying ten feet away from my brother.”

A muffled groan came from somewhere behind Loquat and Lin’ai looked up, grinning cruelly. He looked back at the bird.

“Anyways, goodbye for now, Yu’er. I love you dearly, I miss you desperately, and I’ll see you soon.”

Loquat blinked rapidly then remembered her feast, guzzling a sunflower seed like she could eat the thing whole.

Like a letter adored, Yuhui always rewatched the messages that Lin’ai sent him. He replayed the missive into the night, he listened to it before his sleep—a declaration of love before naught, a goodnight to ease him into the bleak darkness of dreams.

x x x

“Hi, Lin’ai.”

Yuhui’s smile was wide and deviously pointed. Loquat’s field of vision captured the bare minimum of his surroundings: he was submerged to his shoulders in a pool of water that sparkled through the strange electrical relay of its capture, and behind him stretched long panels of knotted wood, shaded and marring the uniformity of birds-eye gridlines with swirls of non-Euclidean linework. Off the water, a humid mist rose up, interspersing a tangible-seeming eddy of digital steam throughout his projection. The prince was holed up in one of the palace’s private baths. His hair was soaked and clung to his cheekbones.

“I miss you. I thought that if I sent you a message from the bath, then maybe you’ll be able to warm your hands. Or, if not your hands, then maybe your heart? What do you think? Is it working?” Yuhui folded his arms on an edge, leaning his chin atop them. “You looked really tired in your last recording and I’m very worried about you. Is there anything I can do to help you while you’re out there? Let me know if there is and I will try my very best to make it happen. Do you get to be more comfortable on the way back to Fanxing, or are you escorting stuff back here too? I hope your journey back is easier on you…” His head lulled to the side, eyes up as if he was lost in thought. “Yesterday I had a difficult time paying attention when Master Xueyu was here to train my brother and I and the Rens. He got me really good on my side—wanna see?”

Without waiting for a response, because that was not how long-distance bird communication worked, Yuhui rose up from the water, hand trailing down the side of his abdomen to the top of his thigh. In the dim light of his bath, there was a bruise stretching across the area, but perhaps it didn’t encrypt well.

“I dunno if you can tell through Loquat’s eyes—look right here. It’s sore, but maybe I learned a lesson from it.” Yuhui laughed and settled back down in the warmth. “Someday I’ll be inlaid with a weapon and then perhaps I can go on short hauls with you. When we were talking before, I think I might’ve given you the impression that I don’t want to travel or that I might even look down on what you do. I want you to know that’s not true. I would really like to travel, especially if it is with you, I just don’t want to make your job more difficult than it already is.” Gently sighing, Yuhui rested his cheek on folded knuckles, leaning into the arm that was now holding him up.

“I want to know about the animals you’ve seen. Are there animals up there that don’t come to the forests around here? What’s the biggest animal you’ve come across? How are Turnip and Potato? Aah, maybe I should wrap this up.” He smiled, bashfully looking down. “I love you, Gui Lin’ai. You’re so beautiful when you’re relaxed, when your voice is hushed and meant only for me. Loquat renders you perfectly, you know? She’s such a good bird to bring you home to me.”

The prince looked back up, reaching a hand out for Lin’ai to take and hold.

“I love you, Lin.” His voice cracked. “I miss you more than I could ever put into words. I love you. Bye.”

In the dead of night, Loquat was sent on her way.

x x x

Eight days later, between the late night and pre-dawn hours, Loquat returned home.

She was sluggish from her journey, battered by weather and exhausted. The distance between the boys was growing wider and it was beginning to take its toll on the little blue bird so faithfully traveling between the two lovers. When she arrived, she chirped once, then laid down with her head to the side.

Yuhui scooped the bird up in his hands, bringing her to his face to affectionately nuzzle. He took her inside and laid her down on his bed, then covered her body with bedsheets and placed her water and food nearby. Always, he was content to let her recover at her own pace. His thumb idly stroked her cheek, ran gently over her head and neck.

An hour passed, then another. Dawn began to creep very softly over the horizon and the quiet was broken by a low croon of a greeting projected into the unoccupied space in Yuhui’s restless bed.

“Hey, Yu’er—Ao went to the village for supplies so I’ve got a couple hours to myself.”

Lin was crouched by a pile of sticks, striking a firestarter into the kindling. The roof above him was caving in, collapsing thatch and twigs providing little cover from the snow drifting inside. Loquat even rendered his breath, visible in the cold.

“I miss you so much. I miss your touch. It’s getting real cold up here now. It’s difficult to think about anything but the temperature and the hunger but I keep you in my mind. Distraction is the best way to get through tough times, right? So thank you for all your help.” Lin looked toward Loquat as the flames caught and he grinned for Yuhui, as though one smile could undercut the gravity of everything else he’d described.

Quietly, Yuhui watched, startled out of the light slumber he managed to find since the bird’s return. He frowned despite his and Lin’ai’s theoretical nearness, their intersecting energies so cleaved by the inconvenience of physicality. The mercenary sat huddled atop the prince’s bed—the fire that roared for him burned blue and geometrical on the disarray of royal sheets.

Lin’ai placed a cigarette between his lips and lifted a burning stick to light the end. “Sometimes when I’m laying in the back of the wagon, I close my eyes and imagine the way you taste, the way you leave my lips wet with the memory of your kiss. I’ll touch my jaw and let it tremble just a little, the way your first touches were in that broken Zhao courtyard—a little nervous, unsure but excited. I’ll put my hand on my throat and press, just a little. Gods I can’t contain myself when you’re on my mind: more than anything, I want to have you skin to skin again.”

The prince shifted, moving his pillow more into his arms, like he could hug it and somehow the emotion—the warmth—would make its way to the juddering of Lin’ai’s bones.

Lin, crouched with his elbows on his knees, arms straight, tilted his head back with the drag he took, then looked toward Loquat with a grin. “I watched your message from the bath so many times I thought Loquat might try and leave me.”The sellsword shifted, sitting cross legged in front of the little blue bird so he could speak more directly, more intimately. “I watch it in the middle of the night when Ao’s asleep and I’m the lookout; I watch it when I’m supposed to be searching for firewood; I watch it when I’m supposed to be sleeping in the wagon. I couldn’t see your bruises but getting to see you, all of you, warmed me more than any fire or hot spring ever could. I come with your name like steam in my mouth, write each character with my tongue along the edge of my teeth, hot breath begging mercy from the frozen air. Does that please you?” He laughed. “I miss you so much I’m yanking it to your hologram every time I’m alone. I’m so in love with you I can’t stop replaying your messages, even though I know I’ve gotta do this job to get back to you alive.

“I’m going to take you so many places—not every job is like this, I promise, so don’t get scared. It’s not safe but it’s freedom and it’s mine, you know? I’d like to share that with you, just like I want to share everything else with you. I’ve never shown you my weapon—maybe when I get back, I can teach you some underhanded shitty tricks to deploy in a fight that’ll make your honorable teacher real upset. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep from feeling the ache of this distance again: that way you can see all these wolves and bears and white foxes for yourself.

“I think I talked about jerking off too much and I don’t have much time left—but I’m gonna record some proof of how much I fucking miss you. Watch them alone, okay? Just tell Loquat ‘I miss Lin’ai’ and she’ll start all the videos I’ve recorded for you. You can tell her next to skip to the next one. She’ll always start with a new one but once you’ve watched them, she’ll start with the first.

“Tian Yuhui, I can’t wait to wander the world with you. I love you so much it fucking hurts; I miss you desperately.” Lin bowed his head, stuck on a pause caught in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, composed himself, took a drag of his cigarette, then looked up with a grin, eyes saddened by all that pent up longing. “I’ll… I’ll see you soon, Yu’er. I have to see you soon. Bye for now.”