Chapter Text
A thought has been haunting the former master of the Ghost Valley, peeking and hiding and flitting across his mind like a baby demon, even as he viciously tries to swat it aside.
His A-Xu has always been sharp of tongue and soft of heart. In the days before he guessed Wen Kexing’s identity as his long-lost shidi, he used to lash out at him quite meanly, but there was always a sparkle in his eye and a quirk of his lips that, while not exactly taking the edge off his words, however soothed their impact like a soft kiss over a sharp bite-mark and left Wen Kexing thirsting for more. After they left Longyuan Cabinet, the edge was blunted, and A-Xu’s sharp words were cushioned by his soft tone and the honest affection in his eyes that he laid out for all the world to see. Wen Kexing isn’t sure what he’s done to deserve such loyalty and affection, but he will be damned if he doesn’t cherish it as his most precious possession.
But somewhere in his mind, Wen Kexing had been sure that, once the events of the jianghu and the Ghost Valley were all tied up, he and A-Xu could rekindle the sparks that had definitely flown between them. He had been okay with giving A-Xu enough time to process, since god knows Wen Kexing had given the man enough shocks — first his identity, then his “death” that on hindsight he grudgingly acknowledges he could have managed better, and then his surprise reappearance and demand to be allowed to personally avenge his dead parents, not to mention the long and difficult process of A-Xu’s cure and painstaking recovery.
But now, A-Xu is completely cured, as evidenced by Jing Beiyuan and Wu Xi’s retreat to Nanjiang after a week-long farewell banquet, and is running around, fixing his stern eyes on the disciples and working them to the bone. Thanks to Jing Beiyuan’s generous help, the manor has been rebuilt, and Zhang Chengling presides gently over all the disciples as the youngest and clumsiest da-shixiong in the history of the manor. (Zhou Zishu’s own childhood stint as first disciple doesn’t count, since he was apparently born as an old man.) A-Xu really doesn’t have much to worry about, what with Han Ying and Chengling doing most of the work anyway — Han Ying dealing with paperwork and relations with the jianghu, Chengling assisting with the disciples’ training and tasks when he is not working his way diligently through Long Que’s scrolls. A-Xu is finally free to sit back and enjoy life. So Wen Kexing believes he might be forgiven for expecting something to change between them.
Initially, he wonders if A-Xu is shy or unsure, and attempts to rally his own slightly rusty flirting technique. Without knowing it, he too has let his own skills grow softer in the face of A-Xu’s unconditional acceptance and loyalty, and has often found himself offering fond words overlaid with teasing smiles instead of the swift, sharp, ferocious jab-and-parry of the initial days of their acquaintance. Now, when he seeks to remedy the situation, his tongue seems to choke on the once-familiar shameless words. No matter, Wen Kexing tells himself that he has time, now that A-Xu is no longer dying. They have all the time in the world.
As the days tumble into weeks and months of warm, comfortable leisure and not much else, Wen Kexing wonders if A-Xu is taking this shixiong-shidi business in an entirely different direction. Heaven forbid, could A-Xu actually have started seeing him as a brother? He shudders delicately at the thought. He knows A-Xu feels a great sense of responsibility towards him. In truth, without even knowing it, he has always craved the rock-steady sense of security that A-Xu radiates towards him and Chengling and now their entire brood of disciples. Never since the loss of his mother has he felt so safe, so loved.
But the thing is, Wen Kexing doesn’t want A-Xu to love him as a brother. Once, he had been sure, A-Xu felt exactly what he felt, and wanted exactly what he wanted. A widening of the eyes here, a drawing of the breath there, an involuntary shifting away. Oh, A-Xu had definitely had deliciously unbrotherly feelings for him. Wen Kexing doesn’t know whether that changed, when that changed, and into what. But now A-Xu’s eyes crinkle when he looks at him, his breath is never as calm as it is when he leans against the kitchen door and watches Wen Kexing cook, and he leans into Wen Kexing’s warmth and his touch more often than he leans away from it.
Wen Kexing pounds the pestle a little too viciously against the medicinal leaves and roots he’s crushing. He wishes he had the face to just confront A-Xu one day. But he can’t bear the thought of A-Xu’s gentle rejection. After all they have gone through together, he knows A-Xu will be kind to him no matter what. But in this, he’s a coward.
That night, once all the disciples are herded off to bed, he and A-Xu sit drinking wine in the courtyard as they are wont to do. Han Ying makes himself scarce before A-Xu can finish inviting him to join them, a suspicious curve at the corner of the younger man’s lips as Wen Kexing shoots him a death glare. Wen Kexing tries to keep his eyes on the moon, and the lovely plum blossoms drifting down above them, but he finds his gaze drawn more and more to A-Xu’s elegant frame draped over the steps, the healthy glow in his cheeks, the radiance in his dark eyes, the relaxed shape of his lips, the delicate curve of his neck at his open collar.
“Lao Wen…”
Wen Kexing hastily draws his gaze up to meet A-Xu’s, prepared for that smirk that used to hit him like a blow to the stomach. But A-Xu’s eyes are strangely gentle.
“You’re not drinking,” A-Xu says.
“Ah, forgive me, A-Xu,” Wen Kexing lets his mouth run, since his brain seems frozen, “I was so lost in your ethereal beauty that I forgot about everything else.”
A-Xu snorts. “Finish your cup, moron.”
But he fills up Wen Kexing’s cup as soon as the latter drains it, and Wen Kexing can’t even complain about the lack of lasciviousness on his beloved’s face, for A-Xu looks so simply, perfectly happy.
The night stretches on in comfortable silence. Wen Kexing thinks up a couple of lines of sophisticated but suggestive poetry, but the words dry up on the edge of his tongue. He drowns them in more wine, and drowns himself in A-Xu’s smile.
When the wine is long over, and the fragrance of plum blossoms becomes too much to bear, Wen Kexing takes his heart in his hands and says, “Time for bed, A-Xu?”
A-Xu blinks and looks around at the deserted courtyard. “Ah yes,” he unfolds himself gracefully to stand up. With another gentle smile, he says, “Good night, Lao Wen.”
Wen Kexing swallows. A-Xu is still smiling at him.
“Good night, A-Xu,” he whispers.
A-Xu bends to pick up the empty wine jar, but Wen Kexing beats him to it. During the time A-Xu had been recovering, Wen Kexing had got used to taking care of him in small ways that he didn’t even notice, and picking things up so that his A-Xu didn’t have to bend was one of them. A-Xu just grins and lets him do it, though A-Xu is a genius martial artist who can sweep the floor with anyone who isn’t Wen Kexing. Well, maybe even Wen Kexing, if that’s what it took to get A-Xu’s hands on him, and both of them on the floor.
“Lao Wen?” A-Xu’s amused voice draws him out of his dangerous thoughts.
“Ahaha, A-Xu, let me get that to the kitchen. You’ll just dump it somewhere,” He tried for mildly scolding, and it must have worked, for A-Xu huffed and flounced off towards his room, but not before Wen Kexing saw him hiding his smile.
This man would be the death of him.
After hastily dropping off the tray with the wine jar and cups in the kitchen, Wen Kexing makes his way back to his room. A-Xu’s room is already dark. He must have dropped off easily, as he tends to do ever since his nails were removed and his internal injuries cured.
As he enters his room, Wen Kexing gets a strange sense that someone has been here. He halts at the door and spreads his senses. Nobody. He lights all the lamps with a flick of his qi, and sees nobody else. Closing the door, he prowls the room until he’s convinced he’s alone. He can’t tell what’s different, but he knows it’s not his imagination.
He tells himself he’s not in Ghost Valley any longer. Any of the disciples might have entered in a misguided attempt to clean up, despite Wen Kexing’s clear warnings that everyone was to stay out of his room — the herb closet he had built in a corner of his room houses as many poisonous species as medicinal ones. But his stores are untouched, and unable to find anything concrete, Wen Kexing makes himself relax again.
It’s when he begins undressing for bed that he finds the first sign. On the dresser where he keeps his hairpin lies a single plum blossom, not the delicate pink-and-white blooms of the manor courtyard, but a rarer species, flushed red as the robes he keeps folded in his clothes-chest.
[To be continued]