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Xie Lian grows up loved, pampered, never experiencing pain in his life until he’s ten years old, then he ends up knocked to the ground out of nowhere like he’s been slapped.
(Not knowing then, having no way of knowing then that somewhere, someone even smaller, more helpless, was receiving the same blow.)
His parents are beside themselves; they take him to the hospital constantly, only to have him diagnosed with a soul mark.
A butterfly shaped birthmark on the base of his neck, something that once seemed so innocuous, now taking on an entirely different meaning.
They desperately look for a child with similar injuries, but they don’t find him.
Life isn’t particularly kind to Xie Lian, as it goes on. He loses his parents young in an accident. Ends up shuffled between family members, most of whom are after his parents’ money, and discard him once they realize it’s all locked away in a trust.
Every night is lonely.
Every morning, he wakes up with new bruises, cuts, and scrapes.
People tell him he’s lucky, that soul bounds are rare, powerful things, usually marking the reincarnation of a god.
Xie Lian has never felt lucky.
Each time the pain strikes, he feels cursed.
Hong-er knows nothing of soul bonds. Only knows he’s had the butterfly shaped mark on his chest for as long as he can remember.
He never felt anything from it until he was 8, and out of the blue there was a long, deep cut on his wrist.
Xie Lian wept, after. Clutched his arm to his chest and sobbed with guilt.
He thought it would feel better. That he would have control.
All he felt was shame.
Over time, resentment builds towards the nameless, faceless person on the other end of Xie Lian’s tether.
He gets older, and the world remains ugly, bleak, and lonely. He learns to expect being used, manipulated, and discarded.
It shouldn’t have surprised anyone when he formed a toxic, co-dependent relationship which his classmate.
At least when Bai Wuxiang hurt him, Xie Lian could see it coming.
At least it meant Xie Lian could be a coward and feel some amount of satisfaction when he was beaten without the guilt of harming himself.
At least then, the bruises on Xie Lian’s body were the ones he chose.
Even when Bai Wuxiang made him feel small, weak, and cruel—in his suffering, Xie Lian felt powerful.
And when Bai Wuxiang told him it was love, Xie Lian believed him.
Love had always been a painful thing.
Xie Lian was 19, in a party filled with people that weren’t really his friends, aching to the bone from the night before, head swirling from every substance in his system, curled up on a bathroom floor, sobbing;
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—!”
And he hears a voice.
“It never has to hurt.”
It’s faint, but clear. Ringing in his head. Xie Lian cracks his eyes open, sees his hair strewn out around him on the tile floor, the warped, pale, tear streaked version of his reflection in the mirror.
“You should never have to hurt.”
It makes him angry, because it feels like a lie.
It makes Xie Lian angry, because he’s always been hurting.
“Go away.”
It’s bad enough, hearing voices. It’s worse when he answers.
Then again, louder.
“Go AWAY!”
His hand slaps against the mirror, shattering his reflection.
Blood seeps through his fingers, and he swears.
Because Xie Lian isn’t even allowed to destroy himself without feeling guilt, not when he knows there’s someone else there, feeling it with him.
The voice didn’t sound resentful.
Xie Lian hates that the most.
But it’s there when he’s catching his breath after a beating. Whispering to Xie Lian when he’s aching, pained, and self-destructive.
“It never has to hurt.”
It’s only then, when Xie Lian realizes—
He hasn’t felt much pain from the other end of the born for quite some time.
It’s a stranger that saves him. Just a grouchy, middle-aged man at a train station, tapping his umbrella against the ground irritably, constantly checking his watch.
Bai Wuxiang was angry, and the reason didn’t really matter.
Xie Lian couldn’t make himself care.
It used to be humiliating, getting slapped across the face in public. Then, it became satisfying.
Now, Xie Lian feels remorse. In a far removed, numb kind of way.
It’s his indifference that makes Bai Wuxiang escalate. Xie Lian doesn’t realize until he’s falling off the platform.
He lands hard, wind knocked out of him. Hears the train coming. For a moment, he thinks that might be good.
He’s tired, after all.
It’s only when the train rounds bend that Xie Lian remembers—he wouldn’t be the only one to die.
For the first time in years, he fights.
Scrambles, tries to claw his way back up—only to realize he’s broken his leg in the fall.
He feels the pain on the other end of his bond. The fear. He frantically whispers apologies, and he knows he can’t save himself, but—
A hand catches his own, pulling Xie Lian up.
Just a stranger.
An angry, worried stranger, holding his shoulders firmly as he pulls Xie Lian back onto the platform.
“What’s wrong with you?!”
Xie Lian doesn’t know, really.
A woman calls out—
“Someone pushed him, I saw it!”
For years, people have been bystanders in Xie Lian’s life. To the point where he learned to live under the presumption that no one would help him. No one would care.
He was alone.
Now, he’s surrounded by strangers. Bracing his leg, calling the police, chasing Bai Wuxiang down.
A middle-aged women rode in the ambulance with him, held his hand. Told Xie Lian he looked like her son.
When the young man wept; she said it was okay.
“It’s okay to cry, when you’re hurting.”
Xie Lian cried even harder.
( “It never has to hurt.” )
Becoming a better person wasn’t easy. Xie Lian had become so accustomed to cruelty, he didn’t know how to believe that the world could be different.
But it was.
Because people could be kind. They could help strangers. They could make mistakes.
And so can he.
He begins to realize that the pain on the other end of his bond—it was never intentional. Never self-inflicted.
Maybe he can’t believe in himself, but Xie Lian believes in the kindness he heard in that voice.
Comforting him, even when Xie Lian couldn’t have deserved it.
So, he tries.
He doesn’t go back to his university. Too many bad memories.
The last time he saw Feng Xin, they were in high school—and he was screaming at his friend to leave him alone.
Xie Lian calls him with little hope, but—
Feng Xin answers on the very first ring.
It’s a new city. No one recognizes him. Feng Xin’s apartment is small, but it feels more like home than the bed Xie Lian left behind.
He doesn’t need to work, there’s still money left—but his therapist tells him routine is good.
His restaurant venture is ill fated.
Xie Lian didn’t think it would be that hard—and the business side of it isn’t. It’s the cooking part that’s downright dangerous. City sanitation shuts him down three times.
Eventually, he’s just selling coffee. Coffee is safe, mostly.
He ends up hiring an employee to help—and Mu Qing is surprisingly good at baking, so it turns into a cafe/bookshop kind of deal.
Feng Xin claims to despise Xie Lian’s new hire, and yet they spend nearly every waking minute together.
He goes a year without hearing the voice.
In that time, he’s built somewhat of a life for himself. Probably not what his parents were hoping for, but—
But it doesn’t hurt.
Even if his pair doesn’t want to talk to him anymore, Xie Lian hopes he knows that. That he forgives Xie Lian, some day.
One day, the pain returns.
Sudden, stabbing, blood dripping down Xie Lian’s cheek as he clutches his right eye.
Feng Xin and Mu Qing rush to help, he’s hurried to the hospital, but—
Xie Lian finds himself calling out silently, hand clutching at the back of his neck.
“Who hurt you?”
They can’t save the eye, but for Xie Lian, it’s a distant concern.
“Are you there?”
The silence in his head doesn’t feel empty, it feels anxious. And Xie Lian knows he’s being heard.
“Are you okay?!”
The only answer he receives is a faint, trembling whisper:
“I’m so sorry.”
Then, nothing.
Years pass, Xie Lian’s 23rd birthday comes and goes. The cafe does well enough. He has friends. Life…doesn’t hurt.
The silence in his head does.
He calls out—and this time, he knows he isn’t being ignored.
The person on the other side can’t hear him.
Xie Lian talks anyway. It doesn’t bother him.
He can’t remember the last time someone really listened when he spoke.
It never feels like talking to himself. Sometimes he’ll reach back, rubbing the mark on his spine absentmindedly when he does.
It’s always comforting—warm.
It’s not that he doesn’t look for his pair—he does. But it’s not as simple as putting an add out in the newspaper, saying, ‘single, 23, M, looking for a one-eyed man with a butterfly birthmark.’
Feng Xin helps, tries to look for police reports that match the timeline. Everything turns up empty. At one point, Mu Qing makes the snarky remark that Xie Lian’s pair might actually be a ghost.
Feng Xin smacks him when Xie Lian winces instead of laughing.
When they do find each other, it’s a completely normal day.
Xie Lian is cleaning the counter, getting ready to close for the night when he hears the tinkling of the doorbell.
You could call it love at first sight, say that Xie Lian’s instincts knew him in an instant, but he had a few clues.
After all—they’re missing the same eye.
They stare at one another for what feels like an eternity, neither of them really breathing, and—
It’s like they know, but they don’t.
The customer tells Xie Lian to call him San Lang. Orders a large coffee (with a shot of espresso) to go.
Xie Lian points out that it’s a little late for that much caffeine, and San Lang smiles in a way that makes his knees feel a little unsteady.
“Wouldn’t convincing people to have healthier habits be bad for business?”
Xie Lian’s mouth is dry.
“…I charge extra for decaf.”
San Lang throws his head back and laughs. It brings warmth with it, all the way to Xie Lian’s toes.
He explains that he actually needs the energy boost—that he works nights.
Xie Lian protests when he drops a few bills into the tip jar with a wink, but San Lang shrugs it off.
He comes back every single day.
Always the same time, the same order, but over time, it seems like San Lang gains the courage to linger.
He’s younger than Xie Lian, only 19–which the brunette struggles to believe. There’s something haunted about San Lang. An aged kind of ache.
They talk about anything but the elephant in the room. Xie Lian mentions that he’s been taking classes part time at a local university. San Lang dodges questions about his work politely, but it must pay him well—the motorcycle on the sidewalk looks expensive.
Sometimes, Xie Lian catches San Lang staring at a matching scar on his chin, or the bandages around his throat.
San Lang’s own throat is covered in black ink, hiding what Xie Lian knows lies beneath.
More often than not, he catches San Lang staring at his eye.
Xie Lian tried prosthetics at first—but it was more awkward when people eventually realized it was a fake.
In the end, he normally wears a simple white cloth cover. Nothing like the black, intimidating leather eyepatch on San Lang’s face.
Eventually, he asks what’s on his mind.
“Does it bother you?”
It’s a loaded question, one with a dozen different meanings, but it Xie Lian’s answer is simple.
“Not anymore.”
And his smile is so gentle, it makes something in Hua Cheng’s chest feel like it’s breaking apart.
Their first kiss is awkward, unplanned. San Lang showed up with a slight stumble in his step, a slur to his words.
And he really, really needed the coffee.
He looked almost like a puppy, chin in his hands as he watched Xie Lian pour the cup, a lazy, lopsided smile in place.
He doesn’t answer when Xie Lian asks where he’s been, or what he’s been doing. Just snatches one of Xie Lian’s hands when he hands the cup over, rubbing his thumb over the older man’s palm.
“We have the same callouses.” He mutters.
Xie Lian is silent, watching him.
They’ve never touched before, and now that they have, it feels like an electric shock through Xie Lian’s system, every hair standing on end.
In a rush, he can feel everything that San Lang does.
Sadness, longing, remorse.
The young man’s laugh is bitter, and his smile is gone.
“…Of course, we do,” he mutters, letting Xie Lian go.
He stands there for a moment, unsure, wrist clutched to his chest, and when San Lang speaks again, he’s contrite.
“…I’m sorry, gege.”
Xie Lian’s chest aches.
“You don’t need to apologize to me, San Lang.”
But he does.
San Lang is always apologizing to him for everything. He would apologize to Xie Lian for a cloudy day, if he could.
He tries to leave, but Xie Lian holds his sleeve tightly.
“You can’t drive like this.”
San Lang doesn’t look at him.
“I’ll come back for the bike tomorrow.”
Xie Lian still doesn’t let go.
Hua Cheng is bigger than him, taller and broader, but there’s a wiry strength in Xie Lian’s arm when he holds on.
“Stay.”
Hua Cheng stiffens, not looking at him, and Xie Lian tugs gently.
“I’ll worry if you go, San Lang. Stay. Please?”
The moment he says please, it’s a non-issue.
There’s nothing San Lang wouldn’t do, if Xie Lian asked.
His shoulders sag, and he allows himself to be pulled along, led to the apartment above the cafe. Small, but comfortable.
It feels like home, when he knows it shouldn’t.
What little coffee he drank didn’t help much, and he still has to lean on Xie Lian heavily when they walk through the hall so he doesn’t stumble.
Xie Lian can’t put him on the couch—San Lang’s legs are too long.
But his bed is plenty big enough for two.
Hua Cheng doesn’t speak when Xie Lian kneels in front of him, but he makes a soft, unintelligible croak when the older man starts unlacing his boots, taking them off carefully.
He reaches out to try and do it himself, but his hand is gently swatted away.
“It’s alright.”
Xie Lian sets the boots down next to his bedside table, straightening. San Lang is sitting on the edge of his bed, looking so lost—
“It’s okay, to need help sometimes.”
Xie Lian never believes the words when he says them to himself, but he hopes San Lang does, this time.
He reaches down, helping San Lang shrug out of his leather jacket. It probably isn’t comfortable to sleep in jeans, but Xie Lian doesn’t dare touch those.
Then, he freezes.
San Lang’s v-neck has slipped down slightly, exposing the plans of his chest.
And with it, the mark.
Small, dark, situated over his heart.
In the shape of a butterfly.
Xie Lian reaches without thinking, feeling Hua Cheng tense and shudder when his fingertips brush over bare flesh.
When he realizes, he tries to retreat—but Hua Cheng grasps his wrist tightly, holding it there.
They stare at one another—not so different from the first time they met.
After all; even if they never said so, they both knew.
Xie Lian can feel San Lang’s heart throbbing unsteadily under his palm.
“…I’m sorry,” Hua Cheng whispers, fingers tightening. “I’m so sorry.”
Xie Lian feels unsteady, like his foundations are about to slip out from underneath him.
“What for?”
One, dark eye stares up at him, sorrowful.
“…You should never have to hurt.”
Xie Lian’s eye widens in return, and his lips tremble—before turning up onto a weak smile.
His free hand rises, cupping San Lang’s cheek gently, thumb stroking his jaw, fingers teasing through the longer pieces of his hair.
San Lang doesn’t speak, his expression stricken—and Xie Lian doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Silly boy,” he whispers, lips trembling slightly. “You never need to apologize. Not to me.”
When Xie Lian leans forward, it’s with the intention of pressing a kiss against San Lang’s forehead. Nothing more.
But suddenly Hua Cheng tilts his chin up, crushing their lips together
It’s sudden, a little too much force behind it, not that he really minds that.
But Xie Lian is still frozen, unsure of what to do. How to move. How to breathe.
They part for a moment, and Hua Cheng’s voice is wry.
“Should I apologize for that, gege?”
Xie Lian can’t help the small smile on his face, even now.
San Lang is such a child, sometimes.
“No,” he whispers, knowing that Hua Cheng will kiss him again.
And he does. Over and over again, with decreasing clumsiness as he gets a feel for Xie Lian’s mouth on his own.
It’s sweet, and after a few moments Xie Lian decides that it’s good.
Maybe too good.
Kissing Bai Wuxiang was always a painful experience. Partly because of his cruelty, and partly because embracing him felt like a betrayal.
This—
San Lang presses him down.
This doesn’t hurt.
There’s a fogginess that settles over him, a lazy kind of warmth as he leans back against the pillows, Hua Cheng over him.
It’s irregular, sometimes slow, other times desperate. Xie Lain arches, gasping for air. Part of him wants to run from it, but instead he lets himself feel.
He feels, and he feels, and he feels.
It doesn’t go further than that. Hua Cheng’s mouth doesn’t wander. His hands remain firmly on the pillow next to Xie Lian’s head.
The kisses deepen and slow, until Xie Lian feels like one thought is melting into the next—pleasantly sleepy.
Eventually, Hua Cheng eases down on top of him—face tucked into Xie Lian’s neck, arms around his waist.
The older man holds him, strokes his hair, babbles on gently about nothing until he falls asleep.
When Xie Lian wakes up in the morning, he’s alone.
And it’s cold. Lonely.
When Hua Cheng comes back. He doesn’t look at Xie Lian. Not in the eye, anyway.
Slowly, carefully, he asks what happened through clenched teeth.
More specifically—
“What did I do?”
Xie Lian pauses, then he smiles, handing his drink over.
“San Lang didn’t do anything.”
Hua Cheng stares, his shoulders tense.
He doesn’t believe him.
Xie Lian never admits to anything different. Cheerfully insists that it was nothing.
Internally, he wishes Hua Cheng had been there when he woke in the morning. Wishes he could kiss him again. Just one more time.
He never stops coming. And as the days pass, Xie Lian begins the process of slowly piecing him together.
Learns about the foster homes. How many times Hua Cheng ran away. Lines the dates up in his head.
When he’s reluctantly recalling a story about being shoved down a flight of concrete stairs, Xie Lian reaches for his chin, rubbing a scar there.
Hua Cheng grows quiet, his expression twisting with remorse.
Xie Lian wants to comfort him, but he can’t soothe his own guilt either.
Slowly, Xie Lian learns his other names.
San Lang. Hua Cheng. Wu Ming.
His birth mother called him Hong-er, sometimes Hong Hong-er.
Xie Lian smiles at the sweetness of the childhood nickname. “How did she come up with that?”
“…I was born with a red eye. It was noticeable.”
Xie Lian stares at his dark eye, tilting his head—and Hua Cheng’s smile is slightly grim.
“The other one, gege.”
His gaze drifts to the blank stare of the eye patch.
He’s never told Xie Lian how that happened—but there are thing Xie Lian can’t really tell him either.
Eventually, he learns another name—
Crimson Rain Sought Flower.
Not from San Lang, but from listening to Feng Xin. Talking about a case his unit has been struggling with at work.
He’s a hitman. Lethally effective. Completely untraceable. No one has ever seen his face.
Xie Lian’s face becomes unreadable when he learns of the man’s calling card—
Silver butterflies.
But he doesn’t explain it to Feng Xin when he asks.
It explains the odd work hours. Someone so young being so wealthy.
And maybe that’s why he doesn’t want Xie Lian close.
Xie Lian doesn’t care. It doesn’t take him long to decide as much. He even hints to Hua Cheng that he knows, that he obviously doesn’t mind—but still, nothing between them changes.
Xie Lian begins to understand when he experiences something he’s long since forgotten:
Pain.
It comes suddenly, waking him in the middle of the night.
He shoots up, gasping and clutching his side. When he lifts his hand, it comes away red.
Xie Lian’s throat seizes with panic.
San Lang gave him his number ages ago, but now, when he calls—it goes straight to voicemail.
He goes to the ER, silently trying to ease his worries.
If he’s alright, San Lang is alright.
He ends up with eight stitches, but nothing more serious than that. After all—the wound isn’t deep.
Xie Lian calls again and receives no answer.
But he knows San Lang will come back.
He tries calling out in his mind—and the silence isn’t empty. He can feel San Lang there.
And with it, Xie Lian feels an ocean of guilt. Almost too overwhelming to bear. It feels like drowning.
Hua Cheng does return, just as Xie Lian knew he would—
To beg for forgiveness.
He barely holds back his sobs, his forehead touching the floor, knuckles white as he spits out a thousand apologies.
Xie Lian drops to his knees in front of him, and when Hua Cheng flinches away from his arms, his heart breaks.
“San Lang, you never need to apologize—”
“I do!”
He’s bigger than Xie Lian. In so many ways beyond physical years, the world has left him older.
But now, his voice is small, broken; that of a lonely child. One who never forgot the feeling of heartbreak.
“I promised!” Hua Cheng chokes, his shoulders trembling.
Xie Lian feels helpless watching him, hands outstretched, but unable to touch him. “…Promised?”
Hua Cheng’s hair covers his face, tilted down like this—but Xie Lian can see the tears dripping from his chin.
“That I—I would never let anyone hurt us again!”
Hurt us again.
When Xie Lian first felt pain, he pitied himself. Resented everyone and everything around him. Eventually, he learned to restrain his reactions, to keep it all inside. Passive.
When Hua Cheng felt that pain, he learned how to bite back. He learned how to fight.
For both of them.
When he finally looks up, meeting Xie Lian’s gaze—he looks desperately afraid.
Not for himself. Not for Xie Lian. It’s more like San Lang is looking for something in his eyes—and is relieved when he doesn’t find it.
Then, in a painful flash of awareness, Xie Lian understands.
When Xie Lian calls for Hua Cheng in his mind—he can usually feel him there. Sense his presence, his emotions.
It took him so many years to recognize it, that the voice—
“You should never have to hurt.”
It was real. And it was him.
That comes with a painful truth.
Hua Cheng must have felt Xie Lian there, too.
In his worst moments.
He must have felt that, for years, Xie Lian resented him. Wanted to hurt him. Blamed him.
Now, watching the man sitting before him on his hands and knees, it’s clear.
Hua Cheng must think Xie Lian hates him.
When he looks at Xie Lian now, he must be searching for resentment in his eyes. To see if Xie Lian will fall back into that feeling, into that blame at the first chance
“San Lang,” he whispers, reaching for him, “I’m not upset.”
“You should be, gege.” Hua Cheng replies bitterly.
Xie Lian is quiet, wrestling with his own guilt—which is a daunting task. Trying to think of the right words to say.
“…I don’t hate you,” he whispers, fingertips brushing against Hua Cheng’s cheek. “I could never hate you.”
The younger man flinches, but he doesn’t push him away.
“How?” Hua Cheng whispers, his voice trembling.
And he sounds young, so young.
After all—sometimes, it feels like the entire world hates him. Most of the time, actually. And he could live with that.
But nothing hurt quite like being hated by Xie Lian.
“Go away!”
It’s been almost five years since then, but Xie Lian’s voice is still so fresh in his mind. Sharp, pained, resentful.
“Go away!”
Hua Cheng tried.
Tried to stay away from him. To be as unobtrusive as possible. To barely occupy the shared space in the bond. For years, he tried.
When he lost his eye, he felt Xie Lian there. Crying out for him, worried for him, despite Hua Cheng’s constant failures. Despite how much Xie Lian must have despised him.
By then, staying too far away felt pointless—and Hua Cheng made a compromise with himself.
Close. If he found him, Hua Cheng would get close.
Not too close—he wouldn’t burden his beloved that much.
But close enough to know him. To protect him. Even if Xie Lian didn’t want him—
Hua Cheng hoped that maybe, given time, he could make Xie Lian hate him a little less.
That was as much as he had ever hoped for.
Now, he’s sitting here, listening to Xie Lian say—
‘I could never hate you.’
And Hua Cheng can’t fathom it.
The hand on his cheek trembles slightly, and when he looks into Xie Lian’s eye—it’s brimming with tears that won’t fall.
“Because you’re a part of me,” he explains simply, pushing long, slightly unkempt bangs out of Hua Cheng’s face.
The younger man has forgotten how to breathe.
He doesn’t move this time, when Xie Lian leans in to kiss his forehead.
“San Lang is the best part of me.”
It takes time, for Hua Cheng to believe that Xie Lian actually wants him close.
It’s almost like luring a stray cat into the house during the winter. Leaving out bits of food, offering an affectionate scratch behind the ears here and there.
They start taking walks together.
Just to the grocery store, or the park. Hua Cheng carries the bags for him, or sometimes he’ll sit on a bench beside him and daydream while Xie Lian reads.
He’s surprised, the first time Xie Lian takes his hand as they walk—but he looks happy.
He still never reaches on his own.
Xie Lian manages to coax him up into his apartment for dinner once or twice—only for Hua Cheng to end up cooking the meal each time.
(He takes what Xie Lian makes without complaint, of course, but Xie Lian can’t pretend his own food tastes good, he knows better.)
He gets hurt again at work, though not as badly as before. Just a series of bruises on his knuckles, some of them split.
“…San Lang must have been angry,” Xie Lian murmurs, examining his hand when he returns.
Hua Cheng hangs his head in shame, murmuring—
“I’m sorry, gege.”
Xie Lian’s response is the same as ever:
“San Lang never has to apologize to me.”
He raises Hua Cheng’s hand to his lips without thinking, kissing the bruises on his knuckles.
“It’s okay to hurt sometimes,” Xie Lian murmurs as Hua Cheng watches him with wide eyes, jaw slack.
“It reminds us that we’re alive.”
Xie Lian’s eye has always been so beautiful—but never more so than right now, looking up at Hua Cheng, sparkling with an emotion he doesn’t dare to name—
(But it feels like affection.)
“And I always feel alive when I’m with my San Lang.”
My San Lang.
Hua Cheng’s heart throbs with that phrase like a prayer, one he repeats each night as he tries to sleep.
My San Lang. My San Lang. My San Lang—
His hand presses against the mark on his chest, and it’s only when he’s alone that he dares to whisper—
“My Xie Lian.”
It’s almost been a year since he met San Lang, and Xie Lian is nearing 24. His life is so different, and in many ways the same.
But it does feel like they’re stuck.
Trapped in their own guilt, silently pining and longing, neither willing to ask too much of the other.
No one really understands the bond between the two—and Xie Lian never tries to explain.
One day he walks into the cafe, and Mu Qing is standing there, broom in hand, the same color as a tomato.
“What’s—?”
“Ah, THERE is my favorite cousin!”
His only cousin.
Xie Lian scowls.
It’s not uncommon for Qi Rong to come around—and it’s always to ask for money.
Sometimes, Xie Lian writes a check to send him away. The money isn’t being spent anyway—it might as well be used to spare him trouble.
Some days, however, Xie Lian doesn’t feel so generous.
Today was one of them.
Naturally, he doesn’t react happily to being spurned. He protests. Whines. Drags a boy in from the street and pretends he’s his son.
Xie Lian remains unmoved—and in the process of forcing his cousin out the door, he gets elbowed sharply in his side.
It stings, makes him hiss—but he doesn’t think anything of it.
Not until he feels a rush of emotion in his head. One that isn’t his own.
Rage. Pure, blinding rage.
At first, he thinks he might be losing his mind, until he realizes—
Oh.
It’s San Lang.
“…I’m alright!” Xie Lian calls out in his mind, trying to calm him down. “I’m okay, San Lang, really!”
After all—the last thing he needed was for the man to come down here and snap his cousin’s neck.
(As appealing as that daydream might be.)
“Are you sure, gege?”
“Promise!”
It’s helpful in some ways. Makes Xie Lian more mindful of the way other people touch him. For the first time since he was a child, he learns how to re-enforce his physical boundaries.
But sometimes, his visitors aren’t quite as harmless as Qi Rong.
Sometimes, all he has to do is walk out from around the corner and see one face to cry out, his face pale as he shrinks back against the wall.
Sensing his fear, San Lang’s voice is bright in his head. “Gege?!”
Xie Lian doesn’t answer, and Bai Wuxiang smiles.
“Time flies, huh?”
He scans Xie Lian’s face, ever the sadist, always looking for a reaction.
Xie Lian doesn’t give him one, pale and drawn, already regretting the fact that he allowed himself to show fear.
“Aren’t you going to say hello?”
“…” His hands ball into fists at his sides. “Hello.”
It’s curt. Flat. Sometimes, when Xie Lian wants people to go away, he tries acting more like San Lang.
He isn’t very good at it, but it comforts him now. Makes him feel stronger.
His ex leans against the counter, arching an eyebrow. “Is there a story behind the eye?”
Not one that Xie Lian is willing to discuss with him.
“Just an accident,” he mutters, nails biting into his palms. “Bad luck.”
Bai Wuxiang’s gaze never leaves his face. “That’s always been a problem with you.”
‘That wasn’t bad luck,’ Xie Lian thinks to himself silently.
‘It doesn’t count as bad luck if you’re doing it to me on purpose.’
“…How have you been?”
It’s an attempt at politeness. A barely there conversation before Xie Lian can find an excuse to get away.
Bai Wuxiang’s lips turn up into a a bitter smile.
“You know how I’ve been.”
He steps closer to the counter, moving to walk around it—and Xie Lian doesn’t move. He just watches him.
“I’ve been in prison.”
But paroled fairly early, all things considered.
“And you didn’t even write to me.”
Of course, he would expect that.
Honestly, if not for a stranger with an umbrella, and a woman that Xie Lian reminded of her son, he probably would have.
They would probably have stayed together, miserable as it was.
That, or Xie Lian would have been dead.
“I didn’t have anything to say.”
“So cold, Xianle.”
Xie Lian never liked that nickname. Didn’t like the person he was, back when people called him that.
Hearing it now feels like an unwanted touch, violating as it skates over his ears.
“…Even after what you did to me.”
Xie Lian’s lips tremble.
“I didn’t do anything to you.”
Bai Wuxiang comes closer.
Theoretically, Xie Lian is stronger than he is. Faster. He was in martial arts classes ever since he could walk.
But ability and knowledge don’t always translate into aggression. When it comes to defending himself—Xie Lian struggles.
“You think so?”
He reaches out, taking one of the longer pieces of Xie Lian’s hair, slowly winding it around his index finger. “Even after you let them think I pushed you?”
Xie Lian’s expression doesn’t change—but there’s a faint tremor in his shoulders when he remembers the sound of the train approaching. The pain in his leg. How helpless he was.
“You did push me.”
“No,” Bai Wuxiang has a tone reserved just for him. One that sounds like he’s dealing with a slightly unruly child. “Don’t lie, Xie Lian. You jumped.”
Xie Lian grimaces.
Sometimes, his ex’s tone can be so patronizing, it makes him doubt himself.
Makes him think he’s remembering wrong. Or that everyone else on the train platform lied about what they saw.
“I didn’t jump.” Xie Lian repeats firmly.
“There’s no need to be a liar, Xianle.”
Something about that gets to Xie Lian.
Hearing that name, being spoken to so familiarly by someone he doesn’t even want, the way Bai Wuxiang is touching his hair—
It sets Xie Lian’s teeth on edge.
“I’m not a coward, or a liar.” He mutters, fists balled out so tight, they tremble. “That’s you.”
Bai Wuxiang’s eyes flash.
CRACK!
It’s been years since anyone laid a hand on Xie Lian that way. The slap is so vicious, it feels like his brain is knocking around in his skull, stars dancing before his eyes as his skin tingles, burning hot.
Hua Cheng isn’t calling anymore.
He’s still there. Xie Lian can feel him. Can feel the anger—even greater than it was before, swirling in Xie Lian’s chest until he’s the one who can’t breathe.
He’s waiting.
Xie Lian can feel it.
Waiting for Xie Lian to tell him that he’s alright, like he always does.
Xie Lian’s eyebrows knit together with a wave of anger of his own, and he feels his nails break skin against his palms.
He doesn’t love himself enough to be angry on his own behalf.
But Hua Cheng’s anger is enough for him. Gives him the space to be wrathful.
“Come.”
He calls out intently, feeling Hua Cheng alert in response.
“I need you, San Lang.”
When he opens his eyes, only a few moments have passed. Bai Wuxiang has leaned closer, fingertips tracing the swelling mark on Xie Lian’s cheek.
“We can’t change who we really are, Xie Lian.”
Xie Lian will always be the person he was when they were together.
He’ll always be the selfish, angry child that tore into himself—then turned to the hands of a stranger when he felt too much shame to self-inflict his own pain.
He’ll always be the person who hurt Hua Cheng.
And by that logic, of course—Bai Wuxiang must think they deserve each other.
To be fair, there was a time in Xie Lian’s life when they probably did.
But Hua Cheng loved him, even then.
“Have you ever heard of Crimson Rain Sought Flower?”
His ex pauses, his eyes widening slightly. So, he has.
Xie Lian could probably hurt him now, if he wanted to. His hands know how. There’s enough anger in his heart.
But he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
Not even the person who hurt him the most.
Xie Lian already tried kicking back at a source of pain in an effort to feel control over it, and all he did was hurt the person he loves the lost.
Hurt himself, hurt the other half of him.
And, he thinks invoking Hua Cheng’s name in his defense would make the man happy.
“He’ll get here soon.” Xie Lian murmurs, tilting his head.
He tries a lopsided smirk, one he’s seen on San Lang’s face many times. It feels a little alien on him—but powerful.
“If you’re here when he does, you’ll die.”
For so long, Bai Wuxiang towered in Xie Lian’s life.
Made Xie Lian feel broken, angry, and small.
But now, watching him slink off, his tail between his legs, Xie Lian realizes that it was something he chose.
That he chose to be angry, bitter, and afraid. And now, he’s choosing something else.
The first time Hua Cheng tried to help him, Xie Lian lashed out at them both, glass tearing into his palm, sobbing—
‘Go away!’
But now, he’s calling for him.
Come. San Lang, come.
San Lang, I need you.
When he bursts in, he nearly knocks the door off its hinges.
His eyes scan the room, searching for an enemy—but there’s just Xie Lian.
Xie Lian, leaping into his arms.
Xie Lian, kissing the swelling mark on his cheek in apology.
Xie Lian, twisting his fingers into his hair, dragging him down.
Xie Lian, kissing him.
Again, and again.
Hua Cheng is frozen, not sure how to react.
He told himself that he wouldn’t get too close. Wouldn’t ask too much, and that one day, Xie Lian might hate him less.
He fought so hard, just to hear the words,
‘I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.’
And they were enough.
For an entire lifetime, they could have been enough. But now—
“I-I love you.”
Three words reshape the entire world, shattering it, constructing it anew.
Xie Lian’s fingers tighten in his hair, and Hua Cheng’s heart goes still.
“I love you, San Lang, and—”
Xie Lian shudders.
“—and I’m so sorry.”
It’s quiet, just the gentle sound of the rain outside, their breaths rising and falling on the space between them.
Hua Cheng’s head tips forward, pressing their foreheads together.
There are tears on Xie Lian’s cheeks.
“Gege never has to apologize.”
Hua Cheng’s thumbs wipe them away, and Xie Lian realizes that he’s shaking.
“Not to me.”
They’re stumbling up the stairs after that, like the moment Hua Cheng realized that he didn’t have to keep his distance, he suddenly couldn’t get close enough.
Now, he clings onto Xie Lian like separation might kill him, whispering in between kisses—
“Say it again.”
“Please, say it again.”
Xie Lian never denies him, not once.
“I love you.”
Even when they’re pressed back against a door, and Hua Cheng is making his head spin.
“San L-Lang, I love you!”
At some point, he ends up spun around against it, hands clinging for purchase as Hua Cheng mouths at the back of his neck, and finally, for the first time—
He sees Xie Lian’s mark, matching his own.
The sound that leaves his mouth is barely human.
He’s tentative, when he says it.
“Mine.”
It’s ragged, gasped out between breaths as they move together, like he might be asking for more than Xie Lian is willing to give.
But he could ask for it all—and Xie Lian would never say no.
“Yours.”
Their hands squeeze together.
Before, Xie Lian could never imagine himself being with someone like this. Even when he was with someone before, they never went so far. He never felt any desire for it.
Kissing Hua Cheng is like cutting a rip cord, and he’s in free fall—but it’s never frightening.
It’s easy, natural, each step flowing into the next. Holding onto one another, entangling until Xie Lian feels like he could die from the weight of Hua Cheng inside of him—but that he’d rather that, then ever feel empty again.
Hua Cheng says ‘I love you’ so many times, the words never seem to leave Xie Lian’s ears.
He says it with his lips, his hands, his teeth, every part of him.
Holds him close, refusing to let go.
And when Xie Lian wakes up the next morning—he isn’t alone.
It isn’t lonely.
He asks for the truth of what happened the night before, and Xie Lian gives it freely.
And he knows, when he explains, that Hua Cheng remembers.
The way Xie Lian used to hurt.
The way Bai Wuxiang used to hurt him.
When he asks to take his life—Xie Lian doesn’t say no.
Maybe he should. Maybe that’s the better thing to do—
But Xie Lian understand that just because hurting Bai Wuxiang wouldn’t help him, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t help Hua Cheng.
They never spend another day apart.
Xie Lian still lives his own life. Runs the cafe, finishes his degree. He gets into community planning. It isn’t much, but it’s helping people.
Xie Lian has always loved helping people.
Hua Cheng still goes out in the night. Sometimes, he comes back a little bloodstained or bruised. He apologizes, kisses the matching marks on Xie Lian’s body, and allows his lover to wipe the grime away.
Other nights, when Xie Lian gets impatient, he calls—
“San Lang, come home.”
And when they are home, together, alone, they explore one another. With hands and mouths, whispering in the dark.
One night, when he’s sitting in Hua Cheng’s lap—Xie Lian finds a familiar scar, long and deep, tracing the inside of his right arm.
Sometimes, the guilt is so much.
Hua Cheng kisses it away, whispers that Xie Lian never has to apologize.
Neither of them do; not to one another.
But there are still moments when Xie Lian fights tears, whispering—
“I hurt you so many times, San Lang.”
His husband always smiles, cradling his face his hands.
“It’s okay to hurt sometimes.”
He bumps their noses together, coaxing Xie Lian to look at him, until all he sees, hears, and feels is Hua Cheng.
“It reminds us that we’re alive.”
Xie Lian always gives into him, laughing shakily.
“And my Xie Lian always makes me feel alive.”
When the guilt comes for San Lang, Xie Lian is there too. Pressing his lips against Hua Cheng’s cheek, fingertips stroking over the leather of his eyepatch.
Xie Lian tells San Lang that he likes the fact that they always match, even in the places where they’re broken.
It takes Hua Cheng time to believe him, but Xie Lian is patient.
It takes Xie Lian time to forgive himself, but Hua Cheng will always forgive him first.
And in loving his husband, every part of him, Xie Lian learns to fall in love with his own scars, one by one.
Even when he doesn’t want to. Even when it’s hard.
And in doing so, he becomes something beautiful.