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Realizing that the comfort and joy she feels around Maomao has always been there isn’t the slightest bit surprising to Shisui, really. Under the bright afternoon sun, Maomao sits at the base of a tree, her attention half on the grasses and weeds growing out of the ground, half on Shisui’s desperate chase after a bug.
“Aren’t you going to give up, already?” Maomao calls out to her, just as Shisui pounces, and jumps to her feet victoriously with a bug trapped between her hands. “Never mind…”
The bug wriggles fiercely. Shisui beams at Maomao. “See, I told you it wouldn’t take long.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Maomao sighs, but there’s a small smile on her lips. She looks at Shisui like she doesn’t know what to do with her, and a bit like she doesn’t really mind, either. Shisui knows this because she knows Maomao has no time or patience to deal with fools; if she had deemed Shisui a fool hardly worth her time, then she would not already be planning a hundred different ways to lure her out of the rear palace.
“Let’s go back before we get in trouble,” Maomao says, rising to her feet. She really means Shisui, but she won’t say that out loud. Shisui, carefully cradling the insect between her hands, follows after her, smiling against the way her heart desperately flutters and attempts to take flight in her chest, beating its wings like the insect that wants freedom from Shisui’s hands.
Oh, she loves Maomao, this she has understood. It had probably been set in stone the moment she felt bad about deceiving her best friend in the entire world about her identity and purpose.
Things she isn’t allowed to feel.
That’s the thing about wandering around the rear palace every day with Maomao and Xiaolan, Shisui understands. She isn’t allowed to enjoy this. Having friends, having fun. Even though she is having fun. To say she is lying to herself about this would be incorrect; it all boils down to one thing:
Loulan is a doll, an insect, one that does what she’s told, sits pretty and delicate, and schemes and plots and holds her mandibles and pincers poised over Maomao’s throat, prepared to doom her to a fate that she will never be forgiven for. She knows that much. And—
Shisui is simply a girl. Shisui is allowed to strong-arm Maomao into accompanying her on her bug-hunts, is allowed to take her on adventures; is allowed to feel Maomao’s hand in hers and think about how she’s never done this before; about how all she wants is to do this forever. Slowly break down Maomao’s walls and watch the wariness, already melted away into incredulous fondness, melt further into affection. The kind of affection that drips from Shisui’s ribs.
She thinks about telling Maomao: I’m here to take you away. Will you come with me?
All while knowing it’s futile, because Shisui is not meant to outlive her stay in the palace.
It’s fine, Shisui tells herself, it’s fine.
She knew what she was getting into, after all. She knew what was getting into when she obeyed her mother and went to the palace armed with plans to tear the empire down; knew what she was getting into the first night she let the emperor bed her and every night after (and he’s gentle, yes, he’s good to her, he never treats her like a fragile, breakable doll, and it infuriates her) and she knows what it means every time she swallows a bitter drink meant to kill whatever takes root in her stomach.
It’s fine when she shows up, posing as a servant girl, pretending that she isn’t about to vomit out everything in her stomach, pretending that she doesn’t want to sit next to Maomao, lean her head on her shoulder, and fall asleep, just like that. It’s fine, because—
Loulan grew up a doll, knowing her purpose and place in life. It has been years since she has felt a loving touch that isn’t that of a sister she isn’t allowed to acknowledge, much less sound sleep. Loulan is an insect, burrowing beneath the dirt and taking decisive hacks at the roots of the empire. It’s her purpose, and it’s what she came here to do.
And yet, and yet.
She is a good and obedient daughter.
Maybe that’s why there’s grief that tastes like blood in her mouth when she finally puts together exactly how to get Maomao to leave and go.
She has long since made her peace with the trajectory of her life, and even then, there’s something else that wriggles in the back of her mind, threatening to burst out to the forefront. Part of her that wants to keep this game going for far longer than is advisable, all for another day as Shisui.
Maybe, then, she might be able to accept Maomao’s affection without wanting to cry. Unlikely.
“Hey, Maomao,” she asks once, “do you really need to hide how you feel that often?”
“Huh?” Maomao squints at her. “What are you talking about?”
“I just mean,” Shisui picks up a dry leaf, listening to it crinkle between her fingers. “You don’t like showing how you feel about anything all that often. You don’t like it when people can tell you’re happy or sad about something… unless it’s about medicine and poison, though.”
Maomao is silent for a moment. “Shisui,” she sighs, “you’re one to talk, you know.”
“Huh? That’s mean!”
“Is it? I’ve never once seen you not like,” she gestures, “this.”
“Maybe I always am this cheerful,” Shisui argues, less because she refutes it and more because she wants to see what else Maomao says. More because if she has it thrown in her face that she is a liar and her entire relationship with Maomao (and Xiaolan, she’s going to miss that girl so much, when this is over) is based on lies and trickery. “It’s more fun to look on the bright side of life.”
“That’s why you get along better with Xiaolan,” Maomao shakes her head. “Seriously.”
Shisui smiles, picks up Maomao’s hand to lace their fingers together. Surprisingly, Maomao doesn’t fight it. She smiles because if she doesn’t, she might find that lately, it’s become easier to pose as Loulan instead.
Isn’t that scary? When did Loulan become a mask, too? Hasn’t she always been, or is Shisui the lie she presents and has grown into. Maybe both are true.
Insects undergo metamorphosis; Loulan—Shisui— is not quite like that. Or maybe she is. An exoskeleton she’s constructed around herself so thoroughly she has become content with not trying to seek out where she begins and ends.
“You’re my favorite, though,” she whispers.
Maomao snorts. “Don’t tell Xiaolan that. She’ll cry.”
“I think she knows that all too well,” Shisui laughs. “You’re her favorite, too. And Master Jinshi, too.” She makes a face, but doesn’t refute it. “Maomao, you’re so easy to fall in love with,” Shisui sighs, almost theatrical.
“What’s with all the drama?” Maomao asks, but her fingers curl around Shisui’s. It’s almost too much coming from Maomao. Shisui almost tells her the truth, right here and now.
But she holds her tongue.
In the aftermath:
Bodies of comatose children laid out before them, Shisui—Loulan—holds herself still. Speaks calmly, modulates her voice just like she’s done this entire time.
It hurts. To have Maomao look at her like she’s someone foreign and unfamiliar. A poisonous insect, she’d say, if she weren’t so familiar with Maomao’s love and passion for poisons of all kinds.
Perhaps it is this thought that gives her strength to keep going. This is the best she can do for these children, the best she can do for Maomao.
Don’t look at me like that, she wants to cry. Don’t. I wish things were different, too.
Every word she speaks is a knife to her throat, blood bubbling out and dripping to the floor between them, and Maomao sees none of it. Loulan believes that this is a fitting punishment. This is only the natural consequence of everything that has conspired since the very beginning.
Of course Loulan knew this the first time she put on a servant girl’s uniform and donned a name that did not truly belong to her. The only thing left for her is to walk to her death, having broken a hundred hearts along the way.
That’s what she believes, until—
“Shisui,” Maomao says, her eyes hard and full of resolve.
Shisui smiles, so big and wide it hurts, and by some miracle of her willpower, does not immediately burst into tears.
Maomao has always loved poisons, didn’t she? No matter the cost to herself.