Chapter Text
Character background and AU details (click to read)
At a miserable charity boarding school for orphan girls Yue Qi meets the violent, spiteful, completely unlovable Shen Jiu and grows to care for her deeply...
Yue Qi and Shen Jiu are the only girls of Chinese descent at the boarding school, and Shen Jiu is younger, and keeps making enemies, so at first Yue Qi is just trying to protect her, but slowly develops romantic feelings as well. And Shen Jiu feels jealously possessive of her, since she’s the only person who has ever shown her kindness. It’s a bit more intense than the usual toxic schoolgirl friendship.
Several years pass, until one spring Yue Qi is taken in by a distant relative - a rich, sickly, querulous old lady who needs a companion and expects her to be a nurse and maid, a docile girl who follows her every whim, and she is quite happy with how Yue Qi fills that role.
Before Yue Qi leaves, she promises Shen Jiu she’ll get her out of the school, starting with getting her an invitation to stay with her for the summer. But the old lady doesn’t want her to associate with poor orphans, so she does not invite Shen Jiu. When Yue Qi tells her about the refusal in a letter, Shen Jiu replies with one short, extremely angry letter, and then Yue Qi receives no more letters from her. Yue Qi assumes Shen Jiu is giving her the silent treatment because she's angry about the refusal and so throws all of her efforts into pleasing the old lady and being obedient, so that she will allow Shen Jiu to visit next year, hoping that they can talk about everything in person, even though Shen Jiu won't reply to her letters anymore.
But next year Yue Qi finds out that the school has burned down mysteriously and Shen Jiu is listed as having died in the fire. At that news the old lady gives her stacks of letters from Shen Jiu and from Yue Qi which she had been intercepting and keeping from Yue Qi all year – she didn’t like the tone of that last letter and decided Yue Qi shouldn’t communicate with such a mean-spirited, unfilial and foul-mouthed person. But since she’s dead now, there’s no more danger of that, and Yue Qi may have all of the letters.
Yue Qi reads them and weeps, seeing how Shen Jiu’s letters grow ever more bitter, angry and self-loathing as she assumes that Yue Qi, the only person who had ever cared about her, just forgot about her after leaving school and didn’t care enough to even write her, much less to help her escape the school. Yue Qi sinks into a deep depression and runs away. She is found at the site of the burnt down school, digging through the rubble with her bare hands to find - she doesn't even know what, a corpse, a memento, anything. The old lady tries to cure this previously obedient girl’s inexplicable sudden hysteria with really bad methods (think “The Yellow Wallpaper”), so it’s a very traumatic period in her life. She never recovers from the guilt and the heartbreak...
When the old lady dies and leaves a lot of her money to Yue Qi, she unexpectedly becomes mistress of that household that she felt so trapped and unhappy at. And she has no idea how to deal with that new power and freedom because she has had no experience of wielding any kind of power ever...
Meanwhile Shen Jiu has come into a little money through unlawful means, burned down the school, faked her death in the fire, taken up a new identity and is now fighting tooth and nail to appear respectable, perfect and alluring enough in spite of her threatening poverty to nab a rich and biddable husband. She has no idea that Yue Qi would love to fill that role for her...
Yue Qi meets Shen Jiu and recognises her, almost jeopardising her new identity. She apologises for that and for not inviting her for the summer. But she doesn’t mention the intercepted letters, because Shen Jiu had written some painful, soul-baring things in the last letter (she assumed Yue Qi just threw her letters away unread, so it was like screaming into the void) and she doesn’t know how to speak of it. And to Shen Jiu, forgetting her was what hurt the most - she can only assume that Yue Qi really did just ignore all her letters, and so refuses to speak to her or associate with her in any way. So the best Yue Qi can do now is keep sending gifts to her apartment... Until she receives an invitation to tea.
The fic itself
Yue Qi closes the door as she steps into the room. She gets only a brief impression of pale walls, heavy curtains, a table laid out for a feast before she sees Xiao Jiu and can’t focus on anything else. She’s really there, reading on a settee, looking serene and sophisticated in a tea gown of pure green silk. Yes, she had told Yue Qi to come to tea as long as she agreed to "follow simple instructions and stop with the bloody apologies", but somehow it still hadn't seemed real until now.
"Hello," she says softly.
"You came!" Xiao Jiu replies nonsensically, as if that could ever be in question. “Well then! You remember what I said? You can't apologize and you have to do as I say. If you don't, it’s over.”
Yue Qi nods. "What do you want me to do, then?"
Xiao Jiu rises and takes a step towards her, then sweeps her gaze from Yue Qi's eyes down to her boots. Yue Qi shifts from foot to foot. The high heels are uncomfortable, but she’s been told they make her feet look dainty. Surely the shape of her boots will have no bearing on how well the meeting with Xiao Jiu will go, and yet Yue Qi had spent days preparing the most fashionable hairstyle, the prettiest dress, anything to make herself look appealing.
"Your dress," Xiao Jiu says slowly. "It's too expensive. This is a tea party, what if you spill something on it?" She steps closer again. "You'll never get it out of that white lace. I want you to take it off."
Yue Qi needs a moment. "Take it off?" she repeats, just to make sure her mind isn’t playing tricks on her.
"Yes. Take it off or leave," Xiao Jiu replies evenly.
"Are – are you serious?"
Xiao Jiu rolls her eyes in a gesture so achingly familiar that Yue Qi forgets her confusion, overwhelmed with fondness. "I'm serious. Look, I'll take off mine too."
Xiao Jiu reaches for the ties of her own tea gown and before Yue Qi can get her bearings it’s slipping off her shoulders, revealing an elegant chemise, corset and petticoat with no decoration but rows upon rows of neat, precise pintucks. The room seems to heat up. She looks slender and immaculate as she drops her tea gown on the settee.
"Well?"
Yue Qi finds herself nodding, her throat too dry to speak.
"Good," Xiao Jiu says, locking the door. “I’ll get your buttons.”
Good! The word thrills through Yue Qi as Xiao Jiu steps behind her. Xiao Jiu liked something she did!
There’s dozens of small pearl buttons on the back of the bodice, making this dress impossible to put on alone, but Xiao Jiu’s clever fingers make quick work of them. Yue Qi wants to turn and look, but she’s afraid to move, keeping even her breathing shallow, as if Xiao Jiu were a bird unexpectedly alighting on her hand. If she keeps perfectly still and doesn’t speak, maybe she can avoid reminding Xiao Jiu who she is and how much she hates her.
Cool hands brush along her shoulders, sliding the flounces and the wide sleeves down, leaving Yue Qi’s arms covered in nothing but goosebumps . Then her waist ties are untied, the skirt hooks are unhooked, and Xiao Jiu is in front of her again, unbuttoning the cuffs and tugging off the sleeves in a brisk, efficient manner.
The dress pools around Yue Qi's boots.
"Step out of it," Xiao Jiu says, and she obeys, dazed. The afternoon dress with all its lace and frills lands on the same settee as Xiao Jiu's austere tea gown, looking flighty and frivolous in contrast. And yet they lie there next to each other like lovers.
Yue Qi keeps looking at the dresses because she can't trust herself to look at Xiao Jiu without – well, inappropriate thoughts. Though the thoughts seem to find her anyway – of thin cotton, warm skin, sensitive–
A snap. She jolts and whirls around – was her undisciplined mind somehow too obvious?
Xiao Jiu isn't looking at her. She's opening a pretty wooden box. It's full of jewellery resting on a bed of rich green velvet.
"Remember these? All the gauche baubles you kept sending to me though it was obvious I would never wear them?" Xiao Jiu's voice is mocking but Yue Qi can't regret anything: she's too busy suppressing a smile. The gifts were meant as something for Xiao Jiu to sell if she ever needed money, but she has kept them – has even bought a pretty velvet-lined box to protect them! The box is full to the brim – has she not sold even a single piece? This must mean she hasn’t been in a situation where she needed money since they met again, and that thought warms Yue Qi to the core.
"I suppose that's what a proper vapid little heiress like you would wear. Well then, since I certainly don’t qualify as one, why don't you wear it yourself?" And then Xiao Jiu’s tone turns from scathing to strangely emphatic as she adds: “All of it.”
Yue Qi doesn't understand this game. She can only nod.
Xiao Jiu nods as well and takes out a pair of earrings. They're green jade, the colour of her eyes. It's the first piece that Yue Qi had ever bought – she had seen a flash of that green in a shop window and couldn't stop thinking of the way it would frame Xiao Jiu's face, hanging next to a cheek that was no longer painfully thin but still just as delicate. But of course she couldn’t give her earrings – it would have been the height of presumption to expect Xiao Jiu to pierce her flesh for her. She only bought them once she noticed their clever clip-on fasteners.
Yue Qi startles and shivers as Xiao Jiu runs her nail lightly down the shell of one ear, pinches the earlobe between her finger and thumb and pulls it closer. Hot blood rushes to the points of contact.
"Stay still," Xiao Jiu orders, then lets go, and Yue Qi does her best not to sway after her, feeling the absence of her fingers keenly. They are replaced by a shock of cold metal over the flushed skin. There’s a burst of sensation at the first pinch, but it fades immediately, leaving behind a constant tingling pressure, as if Xiao Jiu’s nails were still clasping her earlobe.
Xiao Jiu steps away, her gaze evaluating, then reaches for the other ear. Yue Qi obligingly turns into her touch and is rewarded with a second earring, another spot of tingling warmth blooming under Xiao Jiu’s touch.
Yue Qi likes the thought of being adorned in that green jade. Without thinking, she moves to touch the earring.
"I told you to stay still," Xiao Jiu snaps. "I don't want you getting in the way. Don't touch anything. Give me your wrists."
She clasps a bracelet around each of Yue Qi's obediently outstretched arms.
"Now keep your hands behind your back."
Yue Qi can feel herself blushing. She twists her fingers together nervously over her tailbone. Together with the shape of the corset, that pose probably makes her look like an exaggerated drawing on a fashion plate, her excessive chest thrust forward and hips back.
Meanwhile Xiao Jiu fishes a long pearl necklace out of the box and slips it over Yue Qi's head. She makes a loop and repeats the motion until there's three layers of beads fitting snugly around the neck.
She follows it up with a dragonfly pendant on a chain that ends up resting over the chemise, between Yue Qi’s breasts.
Then there’s a necklace of filigree beads, so long it almost reaches her knees. It ends up sliding off the sides of her bosom, curving around it rather than hanging straight down. It frames the chest in a way that makes Xiao Jiu cluck her tongue. She ties it into a knot halfway down so it lies over the dragonfly.
She slips more necklaces over Yue Qi's head and runs her hands down them to make sure every chain and bead lies smooth and untangled. Yue Qi can almost feel the warmth of her skin.
And now there's only a second pair of earrings left in the box – big, showy chandeliers studded with diamonds, the kind that Xiao Jiu used to fantasise about. She’d say she definitely could yank one off a rich passerby's ear and run away fast enough. Then she could pawn it for a ton of money and never be hungry enough to scrape burnt gruel from the bottom of the pot ever again. The only reason she didn’t do it was that one earring wasn’t enough to feed Yue Qi as well, and grabbing both would take too long to escape, she said once.
Now Xiao Jiu dangles the earrings from her fingers. Her hands are supple and smooth, her nails well-manicured – gone are the hangnails, the calluses, the way her skin was constantly dry and painfully rough. She looks like she has worn gloves all her life, like she has never had to scrub laundry in the river in winter. Yue Qi can’t help smiling.
But Xiao Jiu’s words wipe the smile off her face. “Did you really expect me to wear these monstrosities? You must have realised they are far too heavy for comfort. So why? Did you want them to pinch and tug at my ears all day, so I’d constantly think about you?”
At this hideous misunderstanding Yue Qi can’t contain herself any longer and bursts out, “No, no, of course not! If you ever thought that, I’m s—"
Xiao Jiu steamrolls over her words, cutting off her apology. “Well, I don’t care what you want, and that’s not how this is going to go. If you like that sort of thing, wear them yourself.” Her cheeks are flushed with anger at Yue Qi’s presumption. “What a shame that your ears are already occupied. Well then, you can wear them here.” Her eyes are heavy on Yue Qi as her hand moves towards the necklaces–
No, not the necklaces–
She pulls at a ribbon and Yue Qi breathes in a shocked gasp as her chemise softly falls apart, revealing her breasts where they start to grow pink, only stopped from sliding further by catching on the peaked nipples. Embarrassed heat flares between her thighs and she tenses up, curling in on herself, squeezing her legs closer together, but that doesn’t stop Xiao Jiu.
She pulls open the second ribbon and now the nipples are in full view, shamefully hard, scrunched up and ugly.
Yue Qi almost raises her arms to hide them. But Xiao Jiu had told her to keep her hands behind her back and to stay still. Whatever this is, whatever Xiao Jiu wants to take from her – she deserves it, doesn't she?
Yue Qi grips her right hand with her left behind her back and closes her eyes tight, doing her best to shut out the world and disappear. Her head feels like a rung bell and her intimate parts are hot and pulsing. But she hears a faint jingle from her left and suddenly she has to know what Xiao Jiu is doing, so she makes herself look. It seems the sound is coming from the earrings, jostled by the slight trembling of Xiao Jiu's hand.
A hand that is moving toward an exposed breast. She– her fingers– she cups it. Yue Qi’s face burns but she can’t tear her eyes away from Xiao Jiu’s cool fingers on her naked flesh, so close to the wild beating of her heart that she might feel it trying to hammer its way out of Yue Qi’s chest. Xiao Jiu pinches the nipple, holds it in position as her other hand moves the open maw of the earring over it, there's a click, a jolt, a shiver, and – the left breast is claimed by Xiao Jiu.
She holds up the heavy earring, her fingers just barely brushing the skin around it, then lowers it gently. It pulls the breast down until it's stopped by the edge of the corset. Xiao Jiu gently taps the earring with her fingernail and it sways, sending more little jolts all through Yue Qi's body. Over the rush of blood in her ears Yue Qi hears a harsh intake of breath, which reminds her that she should probably breathe as well. Her chest rises with a desperate gulp of air, and the earring jingles, pulling at her slightly, another little shock of sensation.
Before she can get her bearings Xiao Jiu's hand is there again, grasping the right nipple and adorning it with the other earring. She lets it drop freely this time, and the harsh pull of gravity sends a spark through Yue Qi's nerves and a pulse to her groin.
NSFW illustration
Xiao Jiu steps away. Is she watching Yue Qi? She can't bring herself to look up, it must be such a lewd, ridiculous display. But Xiao Jiu doesn't say anything mocking. Slowly Yue Qi lifts her eyes. Xiao Jiu's face is neither amused nor disgusted. She's merely watching the earrings chime quietly with every shallow breath that Yue Qi takes, her mouth slightly parted, the angry flush from earlier still in her cheeks.
Perhaps – perhaps it’s not anger?
Suddenly she seems to shake herself awake. "If–" Xiao Jiu's voice is raspy. She starts again. "If you want to leave now, I’ll help you dress.”
Yue Qi’s breath hitches and she shakes her head desperately, producing soft chimes and gentle tugs from all four of her earrings.
“Then...” Xiao Jiu says slowly, “Do you want to stay for tea? Like this?”
Yue Qi nods in relief.