Chapter Text
Time is slow and the paperwork pile doesn’t seem to go down. His right hand guides a brush and traces neat and precise characters on the paper, while his left one waves a fan. His old calligraphy master would have scolded him if he were still from this world, but he no longer is, and the summer heat makes it almost impossible to focus on boring administrative duties and the Sect Leader is suffocating even in the lightest robes.
Nie Huaisang hates paperwork.
He could still delegate some of it to a competent subordinate, if he tried hard enough to find one. His brother before him had use of them, the most outstanding of them being Jin Guangyao, then known as Meng Yao. But either because of the bad blood between the two sects, or because Nie Huaisang didn’t really know where to find someone he could trust enough for the task, he still took upon himself to see for most of the decisions regarding his sect.
Nie Huaisang dips the tip of the brush in the ink. Its hair has the same luster as Mo Xuanyu’s, a perfect black even crows could envy.
How lucky was his lover, free from paperwork; free to wander around Qinghe all day as he pleases, to have a nap at the hottest hour, to come pay Huaisang a visit and become yet another easy excuse for procrastination.
“Still not done?”, Xuanyu chirps as he bursts into the room. How can he have so much energy when it is so hot outside ?
Huaisang looks at him, making sure despair reads on his face so Xuanyu can pity him.
“You realise the cause of this paperwork is standing before me, right, A-Yu?” Huaisang deadpans.
“You talk as if I was a parasite!”
“You empty three plates a day and I’m still the one doing all the paperwork” Huaisang whines, fanning himself in rhythm. “That’s not exactly a symbiotic relationship. How are you making useful here?”
The taller man keeps smiling. He used to be puzzled by Huaisang’s sense of teasing, but Huaisang himself knew where to tickle him without hurting his self-confidence (or lack thereof). Still, a part of Huaisang is relieved he didn’t rub him the wrong way by accident this time.
Xuanyu is still standing before him, his hands in his back, with that mischievous grin that Huaisang has never been able to describe otherwise than “similar to Wei Wuxian’s”, his classmate from back in the days. Xuanyu is definitely up to something.
“I brought you a present ”, Xuanyu sings.
Huaisang hides his face behind his fan. It’s a reflex every time he’s losing control of his facial expression. This time, the reason behind the mulberry leaves he painted himself is a blush and a smile.
“Oh?”
Xuanyu nods, and drops a handful of mulberries over the official letter Huaisang was redacting, staining them with their dark juice. Oh well, he had barely written anything past the introductory greetings anyways.
“Mulberries?”
“I found a bush a bit further while having a walk. You told me there weren’t any mulberries in Qinghe, but it looks like you should have checked twice before speaking”.
Nie Huaisang picks one of the mulberries. They weren’t very appealing. Small, covered in dust, already half dried from exposure to the harsh summer sun. Still, Xuanyu sits in front of his desk and throws a mulberry in his mouth, so Huaisang gets himself one too, just to please him. He could still pretend not to be hungry and let Xuanyu have the rest.
Sweet, tasty, strong. They’re delicious. Huaisang can’t conceal his surprise behind his fan, this time, and Xuanyu misses nothing of it.
“Good, right? I have to admit I ate a bunch before coming back here, but I thought you ought to get a taste of it as well. I picked the best looking ones, knowing how picky you are, but trust me, they’re really good regardless of their appearance. Actually, the more shrunk they are, the better they taste. I guess they started fermenting under the sun and-”
Huaisang extends a hand to grab Xuanyu’s collar and pulls him closer, while sparing himself the discomfort of leaning above the low desk. Xuanyu is taller anyways, he bends towards him easily, willingly, gracefully.
Xuanyu’s lips indeed taste like the fruits he snatched earlier. Huaisang can still taste their sour seeds and their sweet ink on Xuanyu’s tongue, who is in return searching for the same faint traces of the mulberries in Huaisang's mouth. How funny that Huaisang had misjudged Mo Xuanyu himself the very same way as the mulberries when he had first met him. Not particularly charming, not particularly appealing, not even his type, much like Wei Wuxian never had been. And yet here he is now, marveling at Xuanyu for being so beautiful, so adorable, for possessing all those features Huaisang's trained eyes had yet been unable to discern at first sight, and only with a closer look he had become aware that yes, Xuanyu had a little something that set him apart of everyone else. His breath short, Huaisang withdraws away from Xuanyu.
“Thank you for thinking of this poor Sect Leader stuck in his office like a prisoner in his cell.”
“You’re acting dramatic again.” Xuanyu picks another mulberry and presents it to Huaisang, who delicately grabs it with his teeth, his lips mischievously grazing Xuanyu’s thumb. Amused, Xuanyu offers another, and this time Huaisang goes for it with only his tongue. The third one was swallowed whole, Huaisang pulling a comical and childish expression as he does so.
This little game of theirs goes on until the last mulberry, after what Huaisang looks at the desk, and the unfinished letter with mulberry juice stains instead of the serious matters he should have written about. Huaisang’s expression turns into what seems like a pout, but he is seemingly not conscious of this one.
“Bring me to the mulberry tree.” Huaisang decides.
Xuanyu lifts an eyebrow.
“What happens to paperwork?”
“I’m the Sect Leader, there’s no one above me to tell me off if I don’t tend to my duties…”
Anymore , he wants to add, but he mourns his older brother as much as he enjoys not being scolded for being lazy or incapable, often both.
Xuanyu shrugs and stands up, offering an arm for Huaisang to wrap his own around. In large and vapory cotton robes, he isn’t exactly dressed for taking a walk outside, especially not on the small mountain paths he suspects Xuanyu has ventured. But he is presentable and it was all that matters to Huaisang, who had given up on meeting up others’ expectations a long time ago.
As they leave the fresh shadows of the pavillion where Nie Huaisang has his study, he immediately regrets not grabbing an umbrella. Such a harsh sun will surely cause him a sunburn, or worse, he might tan , and what is his skin going to look like in twenty years if he acts so careless? He’s about to tell Xuanyu to wait for him a minute, so he could go to his room and fetch an umbrella, but stops when he looks at his lover’s face, glowing in the sun, growing little freckles from repeatedly facing its light. Though he is tied by blood to one of the most dignified cultivation clans, Mo Xuanyu had never given up on most of his provincial habits, and even though Huaisang was always given strange looks for caring about refinement more than anyone really ever did in Qinghe, Nie clan still preserves a mostly formal behaviour. Somehow, Xuanyu’s attitude is refreshing, freeing. Huaisang gives up on his umbrella, instead tightening the grip of his arm around Xuanyu’s.
They walk on the rocky paths, Huaisang occasionally getting the flaps of his robes trapped by the thorns of a bush. He is used to such a setting. Countless were the times when Nie MingJue had insisted his little brother practise the saber on the edge of a ravine, on unsteady grounds, unlike the training fields. Huaisang hated coming here back then. But now he is strolling on them with Mo Xuanyu holding his arm, waiting patiently for him to free his robes from the thorns without tearing the fiber off, pulling an effort to walk to his quiet rhythm even though Xuanyu has an habit of walking fast even when he isn’t in a hurry.
“I think it’s close to there.” Xuanyu announces. The path is narrowing, to the point they can no longer walk side by side. Instead, Xuanyu drops his hand down to Huaisang’s, inviting him to follow his steps. He guides him carefully towards a rather large bush. It is indeed a mulberry tree. Huaisang can tell from the shape of the leaves, who are part of his namesake, and that he had painted from previous illustrated models or dried leaves, but never got to see in nature. Xuanyu fumbles the leaves in search for more mulberries, but after a while and a couple mishaps to his fingers from the thorns, he turns to Huaisang.
“I think I ate all the mulberries I could reach earlier.”
Huaisang smiles. “Don’t worry, I can see more up there!” he points at a range of mulberries shining in the sun. They too, try mimicking the color of Xuanyu’s hair.
Xuanyu tiptoes to reach them, but he lacks a couple inches still. He looks around for a rock, or anything that could grant him the required height. But there is nothing around him other than Huaisang.
Xuanyu grins again, and endeared by his genuine smile, Huaisang doesn’t see him coming. Xuanyu grabs Huaisang by the waist, placing the Sect Leader’s weight on his shoulder in order to keep his balance.
“A-Yu!” Huaisang shrieks. But he searches for his balance as well, passing an arm around Xuanyu’s neck.
“Come on, pick them up, you’re cute for sure but you’re not as light as a feather either”, Xuanyu urges.
°°°
Somehow, the little walk has refreshed Huaisang’s mind, and his afternoon was certainly not as productive as another more invested Sect Leader’s would have been, but at least the official letter he had to get done, was written and ready to be sent away.
Xuanyu had disappeared after their walk in the mountain. Huaisang suspects he went to have a nap, or to grab some snack in the kitchens, for mulberries are certainly not enough to calm the appetite of such a restless person as Xuanyu. He longs after him, and after his fan, for Xuanyu grabbed it earlier but didn’t return it. After trying (and failing at) completing another few tasks stacked on his desk, Huaisang gives up, and walks to his room.
Half veiled by the curtains of the bed, the only part of Xuanyu’s face that remains visible is his grin. Wearing nothing, and waving in his hand the fan with mulberry leaves, intentionally concealing the most intimate part of his anatomy from Huaisang.
“What is this?” Huaisang asks, faking outrage, while both of them know how pleased he is at the display.
“Your reward”, Xuanyu declares.
He closes the fan in a swift move.