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A wall of fire burst up and around the wall of rock that stood between the three of them and Luo Binghe. Shang Qinghua had his chin in his hand, using his own bending to keep the heat wave from reaching his face. He extended it out to the side as well, hand moving to cover up Mobei Jun beside him.

Shen Qingqiu lifted his arm, his sleeve being the thing blocking the heat for him. He let out a sigh and dropped his arm. He had a blank look of disappointment on his face.

Shang Qinghua glanced back toward the wall of rock Shen Qingqiu had built between them. There was a distant yell of frustration.

Shang Qinghua let out his own sigh as he turned to look at Mobei Jun. Mobei Jun was in the middle of an eye roll. He stood and went to go to the stream near their camp. Shang Qinghua turned back to the wall and waited for Luo Binghe to come around it.

He didn’t have to wait long. A moment later, the rock was spit down the middle from a strong, but thin slice of water from the stream. It sliced right down the middle. Another strip of water came from the side like a wave and disrupted it. Both streams dissipated and fell limply to the ground.

Shang Qinghua looked to the side. Mobei Jun was standing, calves in the water, an irritated expression on his face. The slice Luo Binghe had conjured had been heading straight toward Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua.

Luo Binghe walked through the large rock, eyes blazing. “This is ridiculous,” he hissed. He got right into Shen Qingqiu’s face. 

Mobei Jun had returned, coming to stand behind the rock Shang Qinghua was sitting on. Shang Qinghua could feel the tense way Mobei Jun stood just from the air.

Shen Qingqiu did not wither under Luo Binghe’s stare. They looked at one another. “Is it ridiculous because it’s not easy on the first try?” Shen Qingqiu asked.

Shang Qinghua slowly uncrossed his legs. He began to inch back as Luo Binghe practically steamed through his nose.

“I think that I should try a little bit smaller since I needed to learn from an earth bending master for a reason.”

Shen Qingqiu huffed slightly and turned away. “This is small. When you’re a master at earth bending, you’ll be able to handle much more than that.”

Luo Binghe went to follow after him, arm lifting, and Shang Qinghua jumped up.

Shang Qinghua put out a hand and pushed a burst of air right into the flow of fire that came from Luo Binghe’s hand. “Binghe!” He cried.

Luo Binghe’s head whipped over. His eyes looked red. “It’s not like he wouldn’t have dodged,” he spat. He stomped away again. He went back to the broken rock, where it had crumbled on either side. He rounded it and disappeared from sight.

Mobei Jun and Shang Qinghua stood in place as he went. Shen Qingqiu stood in place, too, mildly surprised and silent.

“You should be gentler,” Shang Qinghua said evenly.

Shen Qingqiu scoffed. “Why? If he didn’t want me as a master, he should have found someone else.”

“Pickings are slim when you’re trying to usurp your father,” Shang Qinghua said drily. He turned to face Shen Qingqiu. “He’s childish. He’s grown up a prince of the fire nation. There isn’t much he struggles to do. Starting small is necessary.”

Shen Qingqiu sucked his teeth once, disapproving. “I disagree. I think you two baby him. He’s capable of more, and you’re stifling him.”

Shang Qinghua rolled his eyes and turned toward Mobei Jun. He threw up his hands helplessly. “Should I talk to Binghe?” He asked.

Mobei Jun frowned. He shook his head. 

Shen Qingqiu began to walk away. “Let him cool off. He’ll come back and we’ll try again.”

Shang Qinghua ignored him and continued to look at Mobei Jun. “You really think?”

“He’ll lose his temper,” Mobei Jun argued.

“I can handle him,” Shang Qinghua assured. He turned to look at the rock where Luo Binghe was inevitably pouting. “He used to get like this all the time when he was learning air bending. I dealt with it on my own then.”

Mobei Jun’s frown deepened.

“You’d think it’d be water he’d struggle the most with,” Shang Qinghua said jokingly. He turned to go head to the rock. “Don’t worry! I’ll be back in a few.”

“I’ll go with you,” Mobei Jun said, shifting toward him.

“No offense, Mobei, but I think that’ll set him off,” Shang Qinghua said, feeling somewhat fond. “You can stand nearby if it makes you feel better.”

Mobei Jun began to follow after him.

Shang Qinghua smiled to himself as he turned back to keep walking in the direction Luo Binghe had walked in. Mobei Jun stopped by the rock that he’d destroyed as Shang Qinghua rounded it and peeked around the corner.

Luo Binghe was sitting on one of the broken off pieces of the rock. He was holding a small rock in his hand, staring at it as though he was trying to make it move with his will and not his bending.

Shang Qinghua made sure that his footsteps were audible as he went toward him. “Hey Binghe.”

Luo Binghe let out an irritated sigh. “What?” He snapped.

Shang Qinghua’s eye twitched. Brat, he thought. “Well, I think trying to murder all three of your bending masters is a bit of an overreaction.”

Luo Binghe glared at him. “Is it? I don’t need you or Mobei Jun anymore. And if I were to kill Shen Qingqiu, that wouldn’t be much of a loss.”

Shang Qinghua huffed. “Just because you’ve mastered air and water doesn’t mean that you’re better than Mobei and I. You still need us for your little plan.”

Luo Binghe looked back at the rock. He threw it into the stream. “Whatever. We can still get a new earth master.”

“I think if there was another one, we would have found them. It’s not about him being the best master for you, but the only one.”

Luo Binghe let out a groan disguised as a sigh. “I don’t like him.”

“You don’t have to like him to learn from him.”

Luo Binghe groaned again. “Leave me alone.”

Shang Qinghua paused, considered, and then smiled a little. “You know he just said that he’s doing all of this because he thinks you’re capable of it? He accused me and Mobei of going easy on you.”

Luo Binghe pursed his lips. He glanced at Shang Qinghua in his peripheral. “He said that?”

Shang Qinghua tried not to laugh. He kept his face serious but pleasant. “He thinks this will seem small for you, and that’s why he’s starting with it.”

Luo Binghe looked at his feet, where the rubble was gathered. He made an inquisitive humming sound, like he was considering it. 

Shang Qinghua laughed a little to himself, quiet enough that Luo Binghe wouldn’t be able to hear. He turned and saw Mobei Jun standing just around the rock. Shang Qinghua gave an enthusiastic thumbs up. Mobei Jun’s lips twitched, but mainly in consolation. He looked like he’d been hoping to have an excuse to encase Luo Binghe in ice. Shang Qinghua’s heart puttered in his chest anyway, despite how small that smile had been.

__________

Shang Qinghua’s pep-talk seemed to have done something. Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu still seemed to butt heads on a near-constant basis, but it appeared to have a different tone. As he watched with Mobei Jun a few weeks later, he tried to put words to it.

“Maybe it’s more…driven?”

“Hasn’t he always been driven?” Mobei Jun asked blandly. He was reading a scroll. It had water-bending techniques on it, with small, drawn out tutorials. When Shang Qinghua had looked at it earlier, it seemed like things Mobei Jun already knew.

“I guess,” Shang Qinghua allowed. “But don’t you know what I mean?” 

Mobei Jun glanced up to watch Luo Binghe panting, hands encased in rock, on his knees. Shen Qingqiu was goading him to break free, and that it didn’t count if he used any bending or brute strength. “I think you mean he’s more reasonable. Three weeks ago, he would have blasted his way out and given Shen Qingqiu burns.”

Shang Qinghua laughed. He leaned over to look at the scroll. “Why are you looking at this? Don’t you know all of it?”

“I know it,” he agreed. “Binghe knows most of it. There are a few he should work on.”

“He’s busy with learning how to earth bend.”

Mobei Jun huffed. “And?”

Shang Qinghua laughed again. He leaned back away and put his weight on his hands. He watched Luo Binghe stare at the dirt, with such a hateful expression. He’d learned a while ago the ins and outs of air bending because it’d been the one he’d done first. He was considered a master of all three, but Shang Qinghua thought he was really a master at two. It was correct he still had a few things to learn about water. And plenty to learn about earth.

“He needs to get serious about both,” Mobei Jun commented. “We’re nearing the end of our indefinite amount of time he’s always talking about. If he’s going to kill his father during the festival, then we’ll need to get to the city in a week.”

Shang Qinghua chewed on the inside of his cheek as he thought on it.

“We won’t be able to practice either earth or water while being so close to the main city.”

Shang Qinghua nodded. “You’re right.”

Mobei Jun was quiet for a moment. He glanced sideways at Shang Qinghua, who pretended not to see. “Then what?” He eventually asked.

Shang Qinghua looked over at him then. “Then what?” He parroted.

Mobei Jun nodded toward Luo Binghe. “He takes over. Then what? We reside in the city with him? We become his advisors? We go back to where we came from?”

Shang Qinghua frowned a little as he studied Mobei Jun’s face. Truthfully, whenever Shang Qinghua thought of it, he could think of so many outcomes that it never felt safe or useful to land on anything. He was flying by the seat of his pants.

It was like Mobei Jun could read it on his face. Throughout the last several months, they’d come to know each other well. Mobei Jun frowned a mirror of Shang Qinghua’s. “You hadn’t considered that,” he said, not really a question.

“I’ve considered it,” Shang Qinghua argued weakly. He looked away again. “I just don’t think there’s any point in trying to predict the unpredictable.”

“Hm,” Mobei Jun grunted. He didn’t seem pleased with that answer. Shang Qinghua, despite his ability to read Mobei Jun fairly well, didn’t feel confident in deciphering this. He wasn’t sure if Mobei Jun wanted something in particular, or if he was looking for an answer.

Shang Qinghua toyed with the edge of his shirt, where the threads frayed. Spending nights camping in the open air was beginning to affect the integrity of his clothes. Even still, he tugged on the loose frays as he wound down the pathways of Mobei Jun’s question.

“Going back would be weird, wouldn’t it?” He commented, a breath on the air. He almost regretted saying it, so he moved the words away on the wind. Mobei Jun heard them anyway.

“It would be,” he agreed.

Shang Qinghua felt a bit of relief, even for something as small as that.

__________

Days were leading to the festival. There was no time. And then, something changed.

Luo Binghe was standing on a platform, raised only to the height of Luo Binghe himself. He towered over them. Mobei Jun and Shang Qinghua sat by the riverbank, since interference tended to set Luo Binghe off.

Shen Qingqiu stood beneath him, somehow still seeming to stare down his nose at Luo Binghe, despite looking up.

He wasn’t supposed to use any bending to get down except earth. And he wasn’t supposed to jump off. It was angering him. He’d been able to bend some earth, but not much.

Shen Qingqiu never seemed to be frustrated enough for how dire the situation was. The festival was imminent, and yet he seemed unbothered. Shang Qinghua himself often questioned if the indifference was due to trusting Luo Binghe or because it meant nothing to him whether or not Luo Binghe succeeded. It seemed as though the lack of that answer drove Luo Binghe mad.

Luo Binghe obeyed, but he still used his bending. Shang Qinghua felt the heat from so many yards away. Luo Binghe was practically encased in enraged flames. He stared down at Shen Qingqiu, his eyes flaming, almost red from the reflection of the fire. Shen Qingqiu stared up at him, not shying away from the fire even an inch. 

Mobei Jun shifted, irritated, and Shang Qinghua pushed the heat back with a wall of air. 

Shen Qingqiu’s face changed. His eyebrows twitched, then burrowed inward. It wasn’t an angry expression. It was confused, and then conflicted.

“You humiliate me,” Luo Binghe said, voice low but still carrying.

Shang Qinghua glanced at Mobei Jun, who glanced at him, too. Luo Binghe’s voice was wavering, despite how dark it was.

“I’m the prince,” he said, matter-of-fact. “I’m the avatar. My father is laying our nation and every other to waste in his ruling. I am trying to save you and your kingdom. And you repay me like this?”

Shang Qinghua felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Mobei Jun shifted closer to Shang Qinghua’s side, hands intentionally loose at his sides. Sometimes it was like this. Sometimes Luo Binghe spoke like he was ready to do even worse than his father. Or even murder the masters in his company.

Shen Qingqiu’s frown continued to deepen. “Are you—crying?”

Luo Binghe’s flames grew larger. They were so large they threatened to singe the leaves in the surrounding forest. If it went on much longer, their cover would be completely blown.

“Alright,” Shen Qingqiu said hastily, the way a parent might relent to a child. His arm came up, hand outstretched. “Enough for today then.”

When Luo Binghe didn’t come down, Shen Qingqiu shifted and the pillar he’d created lowered back to the ground. The flames engulfed the both of them and Shang Qinghua jerked forward. Mobei Jun caught him around the waist and snarled an urgent no.

“You’ll be burned,” Mobei Jun said in his ear. Shang Qinghua held onto the hand that rested on his stomach.

The fire dissipated as quickly as they’d erupted. Shen Qingqiu’s hands were on Luo Binghe’s cheeks, swiping tears. “Don’t cry, for god’s sake. I can’t believe you’re crying,” he hissed.

Luo Binghe stared down at him, hands at his sides, though still turned out as though ready to light them again. He was stiff, like a statue, and he stared down at Shen Qingqiu as though he’d been turned to stone at the touch.

“Are you really that upset?” Shen Qingqiu continued, as though speaking to himself. “I know you can do this, you are the only one who is becoming convinced you can’t.”

Then, Luo Binghe seemed to melt. His shoulders loosened, his hands relaxed, and his expression turned from shock to something subdued and pouty. “I know that I can,” he muttered.

“You don’t know it,” Shen Qingqiu argued in a snappy tone. “If you did, you would have done it by now.”

“Moving non-malleable things that do not come from me doesn’t come naturally,” he said. “My fire is my own.”

“You’re doing just fine,” Shen Qingqiu insisted. “It hasn’t been long at all—of course it will be difficult. You’ve learned more in three days than most learn in three months.”

“Really?”

Shang Qinghua relaxed, as though someone had cut his strings. Mobei Jun held up his slumped form. He turned his head to look at Mobei Jun. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Mobei Jun had a look of disgust on his face before he looked down at Shang Qinghua as though he was saying, I wish this was a joke.

Shen Qingqiu, in blissful ignorance, continued to wipe away Luo Binghe’s steady-falling tears, assuring him he was doing perfectly well, he was only hard on him to push him.

Mobei Jun released Shang Qinghua, and they both turned to continue cooking the fish. To only Shen Qingqiu’s pleased surprise, Luo Binghe seemed to pick up on earth bending quite quickly after that.

__________

Sometimes the feeling Shang Qinghua got from Luo Binghe—the one that whispered an urgent warning to run, or proceed carefully—prickled at his neck when Luo Binghe wasn’t around. Sometimes, it prickled when it was just Shang Qinghua and Mobei Jun. He trusted Mobei Jun. In fact, he trusted Mobei Jun more than anyone. But that feeling had lingered, and in the days nearing the festival, it was like the two of them, Luo Binghe and Mobei Jun both, were lit wires, leading to an explosion.

__________

A whisper—

“I want to show you something.”

Shang Qinghua blinked a few times. His eyes focused on the clear night sky. The moon was almost full, and it lit their small camp almost like the sun. He turned his head.

Mobei Jun was knelt beside him, hair hanging a curtain past his shoulders. His hand was on Shang Qinghua’s waist where he’d shaken him. “Qinghua,” he murmured quietly. “Come with me.”

Shang Qinghua frowned and glanced around. Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu were still asleep. He looked back at Mobei Jun. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Mobei Jun said shortly. “Come with me.”

Shang Qinghua pushed himself up. The full moon was only a day or two away. Mobei Jun tended to be awake at night when the moon was filling. The energy and strength it gave seemed to pulse in him each month. Mobei Jun helped him the rest of the way up. His hand remained in Shang Qinghua’s as he led him deeper into the woods.

He felt sleepy, trotting along without paying much attention to where they were going. The forest was quiet, and there were so few sounds that Shang Qinghua almost noticed it. He’d think on it later, when he tried to sleep again.

“Where are we going?” He asked.

“No where,” Mobei Jun said. “Just far enough no one will hear us talking.”

Shang Qinghua swallowed. That woke him up a little more. His heart pounded in his chest as he pondered what it could be that Mobei Jun wanted to discuss. “Oh.”

Mobei Jun squeezed his hand in a mildly comforting gesture, which Shang Qinghua found endearing enough for it to actually work at soothing him.

When they reached a small clearing, Mobei Jun led them to a small boulder. He sat down and pulled Shang Qinghua to sit beside him.

“What is it?” Shang Qinghua asked lowly, settling on the rock and leaning into Mobei Jun’s warmth. “The anticipation is killing me.”

Mobei Jun turned on the rock to face him. He tugged Shang Qinghua to face him, too. Shang Qinghua’s heart was pounding in nerves. Mobei Jun’s fingers laid on his pulse. “Do you trust me?”

Shang Qinghua frowned and tilted his head. “I do… But you’re freaking me out.”

Mobei Jun’s gaze was dark. “I want to show you something. It will seem bad. Or alarming.”

Shang Qinghua’s frown deepened. “What is it?”

Mobei Jun held on his hand, turning it over. “Tell me you trust me.”

Shang Qinghua tried to soften the nerves out of his voice. “I trust you.”

Mobei Jun looked down at Shang Qinghua’s hand in his. Shang Qinghua’s palm was up, cradled in Mobei Jun’s. “Your heart is pounding,” he commented.

Shang Qinghua flushed a little. “You can feel it?”

Mobei Jun nodded. “And sense it.”

Shang Qinghua swallowed. “Sense?”

Mobei Jun’s fingers moved. He touched along one of the tendons in Shang Qinghua’s palm and traced it up to his finger. He did it to each one. The feeling was ticklish and caused chills to rise on his skin. “The way I can feel for water when it’s near.”

Shang Qinghua tried to breathe evenly as he watched Mobei Jun’s hands.

“Blood is liquid, you know.”

Shang Qinghua blinked several times.

“I can’t normally sense it the way I can right now. The moon.”

Shang Qinghua’s breath sped despite his best efforts. “Mobei.”

Mobei Jun looked back up. “Trust me?” He asked again.

Shang Qinghua nodded, through his apprehension.

Mobei Jun nodded down to Shang Qinghua’s hand. His thumb was resting in the center of Shang Qinghua’s palm.

Shang Qinghua’s fingers curled over Mobei Jun’s thumb. Shang Qinghua hadn’t tried to move an inch.

__________

All Mobei Jun had done was shown Shang Qinghua that he could control a person when the moon was full. He’d done little else except move Shang Qinghua’s fingers. They’d discussed it, and the logistics. And then Mobei Jun led Shang Qinghua back to his bedroll. He brushed a hand through Shang Qinghua’s hair, leaned in, and murmured a gentle and breathy thank you, and went to bed, too.

Despite how innocuous it had ended up being, Shang Qinghua felt like his entire world had shifted. It had felt intimate to be trusted with something like that. It was intimate to be a confidant to such sensitive information. It was intimate for that to come from Mobei Jun, who held everything so close to the chest.

Shang Qinghua had already been attached. He thought even more on what would happen after Luo Binghe usurped the throne. It weighed on him more heavily. It weighed on him like a mountain. He understood Luo Binghe’s frustration in feeling unable to move a single rock.

__________

Shang Qinghua surveyed the wreckage. He stared down from his spot in the palace tower. Shen Qingqiu stood beside him, mouth parted into a horrified silence.

The entire city was on fire. Where it wasn’t on fire, it was encased in ice. Every so often, a burst of air blasted through the streets, and all it did was fan the flames. Houses and buildings were toppled and uprooted beneath raised platforms of earth. It seemed earth bending had never been a problem for Luo Binghe.

The guards in the room watched, too, from another window. They were breathing in ragged breaths, in rage, despair, or fear—it was difficult to tell. Shang Qinghua glanced toward the door. The guards were still too close.

He glanced back at Shen Qingqiu. “We knew this was a possibility.”

“No we didn’t,” Shen Qingqiu said tightly. “We were going to do this calmly. As calmly as an usurping could be. I never agreed to a massacre.”

Shang Qinghua’s jaw was tight. “I didn’t either. But we knew who Luo Binghe was when we agreed to help him.”

“I’ve only known him for a month.”

“That’s enough, for Luo Binghe.”

Shen Qingqiu’s mouth was a tight line.

“Stop—You—Stop them,” one of the guards whispered.

Shang Qinghua didn’t know if they would believe that they had no idea this was going to happen. They’d snuck into the festival, and they’d attended the same speech that the entire city was attending, including Luo Binghe’s father. No one had known who they were, except for one of Tianlang Jun’s advisors. He recognized Luo Binghe, and Shang Qinghua and Shen Qingqiu had been arrested beneath their noses.

Luo Binghe had been too far away to hear or see, nearing the stairs that led to his father. Mobei Jun had been up in a nearby building, inconspicuously on a balcony. He was ready to strike from above if things went south. He hadn’t seen either.

Shang Qinghua hadn’t expected the muzzle, the cuffs, or the yanking out of the street. He was dragged through the road, feet tearing as he went. People watched on, as though unsurprised at such an arrest. He had been hiding near the back of the procession line.

Shen Qingqiu had been on the other side that Mobei Jun wasn’t on, down below to stay close to the stone. He’d been taken in metal and kept off the ground.

They were kept in the palace, at the top, away from the earth. Shen Qingqiu was unbound, but Shang Qinghua remained cuffed, hands kept encased in a contraption that kept him from bending the air. His feet were in similar condition. 

“It wouldn’t have turned out like this if you hadn’t arrested us,” Shen Qingqiu replied blandly.

“Stop them,” the guard repeated.

The next moment, the entire side of the tower was closed off in ice. The small stream in the center of the city was dry after it. The air was staticky from how dry it’d been wrung. The plants were wilted and faded. 

The guards stumbled back from the window. 

Shang Qinghua turned to Shen Qingqiu. “Decide,” he said. “They will come soon. If you reject him, decide that now when you can still escape.”

Shen Qingqiu frowned down at him. “And you? You’ll accept this?”

“I accepted this a long time ago,” Shang Qinghua admitted. 

“Mobei Jun was puppeteering men in the street,” Shen Qingqiu hissed. “He walked them to their deaths.”

Shang Qinghua swallowed. He nodded. “I know.”

“You knew,” Shen Qingqiu accused. “You knew he could do this.”

“Only for a short while,” Shang Qinghua said, somewhat weakly. “I told you—I made my choice long ago. Near the beginning. I just didn’t know how it would happen.”

Shen Qingqiu fumed. He leaned his hands against the windowsill and stared intently at the ground below. The fire was creeping toward the tower. “I’ve only known him a month,” he repeated.

“It’s enough,” Shang Qinghua repeated, too. 

“Fuck,” he hissed. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have indulged him so much.”

Shang Qinghua couldn’t help but burst into laughter. “What?”

Shen Qingqiu glared at him. “I should’ve been harder on him.”

“I think he might’ve done all of this just to you if you had been any harder on him. It was either this or that.”

Shen Qingqiu pressed a hand to his head.

The door rattled. Then, a hand gently unlocked the door. They all stared at it in bated silence. It wasn’t being blasted down, which was not entirely fear-inducing, but neither was it a comfort.

The door slid open and a body fell through. It was a palace official, face gray and empty. Mobei Jun walked through.

Shang Qinghua swallowed, heart pounding at the sight of him. It went against everything he was ever taught to cater to something like this—to indulge it or accept it. It was against every value that had been taught to him in the temples. Yet Shang Qinghua loved him.

Mobei Jun saw the guards first, and he raised his hand. They seemed to twist in on themselves. Blood leaked out of every orifice they had. He turned. His thunderous expression softened when he laid eyes on Shang Qinghua. 

Shang Qinghua tugged on the bindings even though he knew it’d do nothing. “Mobei—”

Mobei Jun came to him. “Qinghua.”

Just as Mobei Jun reached him, Luo Binghe swept in like a tornado of fire. Heat burst through the room, hair floating from the warmth radiating from his body. 

Mobei Jun’s hand was cool in comparison to the heat as it rested on Shang Qinghua’s cheek. “Are you alright?”

Shang Qinghua blinked a few times. It was odd, to marry the different versions of him he’d just seen. All of it was pleasing—all of it made him giddy. He nodded.

Mobei Jun leaned down and pressed his forehead to Shang Qinghua’s. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I should have watched you more closely.”

“Mobei,” Shang Qinghua choked out. “Don’t apologize. Are you alright, too?”

Mobei Jun pulled away and nodded. He glanced over him. He frowned at the blood over his legs and feet. “Who has the keys?” He was nodding toward the cuffs.

Shang Qinghua looked to the guards he’d killed. “One of them has the keys.”

Mobei Jun turned and went to fetch them. Shang Qinghua watched for a bewildering moment as Shen Qingqiu scolded Luo Binghe like a child before he looked back at Mobei Jun. He brought the keys back hastily and unshackled him.

When his hands were free, he reached out and held onto Mobei Jun’s arms. “What now?” He asked urgently. “You laid waste to the entire city—what now?”

Mobei Jun held onto him back. His gaze was intense. “Whatever, I suppose. There are a lot of possibilities.”

Shang Qinghua shot him an annoyed expression. He was taunting Shang Qinghua’s response to that same question only days prior. It seemed so long ago. “Mobei,” he said seriously. “Please.”

Mobei Jun drew him in. “Luo Binghe will take over. I will do what I want. Just as I planned.”

“You can’t just do whatever you want,” Shang Qinghua hissed. “You just—whether or not people would have been thankful for a usurping is useless now. You both just—you ruined it. You just murdered countless people.”

“They took you,” Mobei Jun snarled back. “What did you expect? That I would let that go? You know who I am—you know what kind of man I am. I showed you.”

Shang Qinghua blinked a few times. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what?” He snapped.

“I meant—you can’t just—you can’t just waltz around anywhere, you’ll have to be careful. You can’t be blasé about this.”

Mobei Jun’s glare was fierce. 

Shang Qinghua squeezed his arms to emphasize his words. “I mean it. You have to commit to this.”

“I am committed,” Mobei Jun said, just as angry and snarly as before. “You think I wouldn’t have done this if I wasn’t committed?”

“You didn’t seem too keen on remaining in the city with Luo Binghe—”

“I’m committed to you, idiot,” he snapped. “I don’t care about anything else.”

Shang Qinghua blanched.

Mobei Jun grabbed the back of his neck, fingers tangled in his already-tangled hair, and yanked him forward to kiss him. It was less of a kiss and more of a punch, with his own mouth.

Shang Qinghua let out a shocked sound, at the kiss, but mainly the painful knock against his teeth. His hands came up to push at Mobei Jun’s shoulders. Mobei Jun pulled back enough to glare down at him again. 

“You knew who I was,” Mobei Jun said again. “And you helped me. And this is what I want. You are what I want.”

Shang Qinghua blinked a few times, trying to process, and before his brain could come to anything, he himself was moving forward. He threw his arms around Mobei Jun’s neck to press their mouths together again. It was gentler that time, but still not very soft.

“You’re crazy,” Shang Qinghua whispered. “I like you so much.”

Mobei Jun’s hands were simultaneously ice and heat on his back. He kissed Shang Qinghua with zero finesse and one hundred percent passion. It was endearing.

“I’m going to follow you,” Mobei Jun murmured. “Wherever you go.”

“We’re gonna be walking in circles,” Shang Qinghua said back. “I planned on following you this entire time.”

Mobei Jun’s face did something unique. To Mobei Jun, at least. He looked almost pained for a moment, like he hadn’t expected it. Shang Qinghua couldn’t bear it. He kissed that expression into something sweeter.