Chapter Text
Tao is watching is the only thought running through Xiao’s head as he organizes the scattered pile of papers in front of him. He hesitantly cranes his head until his eyes meet hers. They’re shining from across the room, bright and attentive as always. She waves at him, and he shoots her a nervous smile.
Today is his last mock trial of the semester—no, his last mock trial ever.
He’s studied the case extensively, every argument and counter-argument now meticulously laid out before him. He recalls very hellish and late nights spent highlighting important points, making note of holes in his case, figuring out how to avoid said holes, combing through the list of evidence and figuring out exactly which to present and which to avoid.
He remembers nodding off, basked in the dim glow of his desk lamp, when Hu Tao had barged into his room with a gift in hand.
“I heard someone begging for some coffee?”
Hu Tao presses the hot mug to his face, causing him to jerk up in his seat. He groggily rubs his cheek, wincing slightly. “I didn’t say anything about coffee, and why are you up anyway?”
With a soft clink, she places the mug on his desk and takes a seat on his bed. “I could hear you begging for it through… roommate telepathy? Also, I wanted to stay up in case you needed a pick-me-up.”
“Thanks,” he deadpans. “I don’t know how I’d survive otherwise.”
“Well, if you happened to die, I would be very sad, but at least you’d be in good hands, right?” He can’t help but sigh at the morbidity of it all, and Hu Tao rests her elbows on his desk, ruby eyes now curiously glancing over the papers scattered before her. “Oh, so this is what you’ve been working on. I see, I see…”
“I bet you have no clue what you’re looking at.”
“Was it that obvious?” She stifles a laugh and pushes herself off the bed, moving to his side and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “This is for your upcoming mock trial, right? Mister prosecutor-to-be’s last chance to prove himself before hopefully walking across the stage and getting that diploma?”
Xiao’s shoulders begin to sag as he lets out a deep sigh, and his eyes trail over something he had highlighted earlier that night, pencil now rhythmically tapping the page in an attempt to drown out the warmth of her hand seeping through his t-shirt. “Why are you so invested this time? You never seemed to care that much about my other mock trials. You’re not planning anything weird, are you?”
“Aw, no need to be so rude. You can be such a grump sometimes. I always care! I just want you to do extra well this time. You always seem so tense and unsure when you’re down there—or at least, that’s how you were the past few times I was able to watch.” She gives his shoulder a light squeeze. “Also… I have to leave next month. Remember?”
Xiao stands up so fast he almost feels dizzy. Ignoring the way his knees shake due to the sudden motion, he grabs her by the shoulders, blood still rushing to his head. He’s really been hunched over for far too long if he feels this disoriented. Her eyes are calm and understanding, but he still can’t help but feel shaken after hearing those words.
“Oh, Xiao, did you really forget?”
“I-I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy preparing for this trial that I—“
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Airy giggles fill the air, and Xiao thinks that he might actually miss the sound of her voice. “This is really important for you and your career. I’ll be there to cheer you on! And when I finally leave, don’t miss me too much, alright?”
“How long?”
“Four years, but if I’m lucky and crazy enough, maybe three. Ah, but I also need to do a fellowship afterwards, so that’d just bring it back up to four, huh…”
Four years is a long time to wait for someone.
“What if I went with you?” he blurts out, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he can even think about stopping himself.
(He wants this. He wants this. He wants this.)
This time, a hearty laugh escapes her mouth. A pair of arms wrap around him, and he feels her lower her head onto his shoulder, her breath now tickling his neck. His heart flutters. “But then you’d have to go all the way back to Liyue Harbor with me. Not only is that at least four more years of being stuck with the same roommate, but you’ll also have to deal with that dusty dad of yours.”
“I can handle it. Someone has to keep me from driving myself to an early grave. Also, I’m sure my father would be ecstatic if I got a job at the district attorney’s office. I get employed, we stick together; I think it’s a win-win.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
The sound of the gavel reverberates throughout the room, and much to everyone’s relief, the mock trial wraps up smoothly and on time. All of those late nights he spent glued to his desk thankfully paid off. He bids farewell to his classmates and hastily throws all the papers into a folder before rushing out the large double doors.
“Can’t believe I’m saying this, but you were really cool today.” A familiar voice stops him in his tracks. Xiao finds Hu Tao waiting for him right outside the entrance of the courtroom, eyes twinkling up at him. “You’re, like, seriously intense when you’re in prosecutor-mode. The switch up really threw me for a loop at first. It was like you were possessed this time!”
He can’t help the chuckle that escapes his lips when he sees how excited she is for him, and he does his best to ignore the butterflies currently fluttering in his stomach and his chest and—Archons, they’re everywhere. He might as well be floating.
“Thanks for coming today,” he says with a small smile. “I appreciate it.”
They make their way out of the courthouse along with the other students slowly trickling out. Hu Tao gently hums a tune as they descend the stairs, and Xiao lets himself soak it all in: he’s officially done with law school, and in a month, he’ll be returning to Liyue Harbor with Hu Tao. Glancing over his shoulder, he takes in the courthouse in its entirety before redirecting his gaze to the woman currently standing next to him.
As if on cue, she meets his gaze and tilts her head. “So what do you wanna do for dinner? Wanna go out and get something fancy to commemorate you officially being done, or do you wanna get take out? How about a nice dessert?”
He hums, deep in thought, and decides to indulge himself just this once. It’s not everyday you can say that you’ve graduated from law school. Xiao admits that he has a penchant for being a bit grumpy and cynical (very common complaints from Hu Tao), so if there’s one day where he should try to act like he’s actually enjoying himself, it might as well be today.
“Why don’t we do both? There’s a place near here that serves pretty good Liyuean cuisine. I could go for some liangpi, and maybe we can get some dessert to go afterwards?”
Her eyes light up at the suggestion. “Oh, yes! Noodles sound so good right now. I could go for a hearty bowl of spicy beef noodle soup, and we can also order some dango to take home. My treat, by the way!” A hand wraps around his wrist, and she gently tugs him in the direction of the restaurant. “Prosecutor Xiao, if you have no objections, then it looks like it’s a date!”
Her cheeks are red now, and he doesn’t miss the way she’s biting down on her lip as she glances at him expectantly, eagerly awaiting some kind of response. The pleading look in her eyes is enough to make his stomach do flips, and he swears his ears are on fire. A gentle spring breeze tickles his neck, granting him temporary reprieve from the heat currently spreading across his face. He hopes she hasn’t noticed the blush currently blooming across his cheeks.
“A-A date?”
“Yeah.” She nods, lips now slightly pursed. “A date.”
He ignores the way her hand feels around his wrist, ignores the growing heat in the pit of his stomach, ignores the fact that his eyes have begun to wander towards her now-swollen lower lip.
“This isn’t the first time, y’know? Don’t act so shocked,” she giggles. “Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten about our other dates. I swear… Your head is full of case files these days.”
Her voice registers as little twinkling stars in his brain for some reason. Why does his brain equate her laugh with twinkling stars? Does that even make sense as a metaphor? He’ll never be half the poet Hu Tao is, that’s for sure.
“Okay,” he begins, more sure of himself now. “It’s a date, then.”
Her entire face lights up.
They’re surprisingly very sober. Hu Tao has her legs thrown over his as they sit on the couch, both currently in their pajamas and watching some random horror movie airing on TV, their cans of beer still mostly untouched. The dango they ordered was demolished in record time, and as good as alcohol sounded afterwards, Xiao finds himself unwilling to take another sip of it because they’ve miraculously already brushed their teeth, and all he can focus on right now are her creamy, bare legs, which are currently right in front of him, ripe for the tak—
He needs to stop having thoughts like these.
They’ve been friends for at least four or five years now, give or take. He remembers meeting her during the last year of their undergraduate studies in an ethics course they were both registered for—that strange girl who wore little flowers in her pigtails and always had her nails painted black. And yes, she wore the oldest pair of high-top sneakers known to man, little ghosts and plum blossoms crudely doodled all over with cheap markers.
One fateful Tuesday, she saunters into class fashionably late—by his standards, at least—and plops down in the empty seat next to his, essentially sealing their fate. He sits there in silence, opting to organize his supplies instead, straightening his pen so that it’s perfectly parallel with his notebook while he waits for the lecture to start. To his dismay, her eyes are aggressively boring holes into him, so intensely he can feel it.
“Wow, you look like you haven’t slept in days. You seem so tense too. At this rate, you might run yourself into the ground… or your own grave, even,” she says, completely serious. “Six feet under!”
“It’s because I haven’t,” he scowls, purposefully ignoring the morbid comment she just made. “And maybe I wouldn’t be so tense if you would stop staring so… intensely.”
From what he remembers about her, she’s the kind of student who constantly walks in late or doesn’t show up at all, and when she does show up, she clearly doesn’t pay attention either. She can often be found doodling in a notebook or writing what she claims to be poetry, but the most infuriating thing about her is that in spite of all these traits, she always gets the highest scores in class. It’s utterly baffling to someone like Xiao who always works himself to the bone. It’s just unfair, he often finds himself thinking every time exam scores are released.
“Well, sorry about the staring. I was just a lil curious about you, is all. I’m Tao by the way.” She extends a hand, and he reluctantly shakes it. “And you’re…?”
“Xiao.”
Hu Tao eyes him curiously, and the way she’s scanning him up and down makes him want to jump out of his seat. “Don’t mean to judge a book by its cover, but you look like someone who likes horror movies. Am I right?”
“How did you…” He stares at her in disbelief. “Yes, I do, actually.”
“It was kinda obvious,” she whispers with a devious smirk and a playful glint in her eye. “There’s actually a film I really wanna see that’s airing at a theater downtown this weekend. Word is that the body horror is to die for. Interested?”
“The one that just came out where people basically find pleasure in cutting each other open or whatever? At the Heyu Theater on the boulevard, right?”
“Oh, yes!” Hu Tao’s eyes light up. “That’s exactly the one I was thinking of!”
“Hard pass.”
“Aww, not your cup of tea?” She purses her lips, humming curiously as she strokes her chin. “Are you more of a psychological horror person? Not into body horror? Does it make you squeamish?”
Unfortunately for Xiao, the competitive part of his brain instantly kicks into gear, and words begin flowing out of his mouth before his mind can catch up.
“I don’t get squeamish.”
“Then prove it,” she replies with a smirk as she scribbles her phone number onto a sheet of paper.
He doesn’t prove it.
Xiao watches between his fingers with bated breath as a man’s is sliced open with surgical precision. Stomach churning at the sight, his entire body cringes. Seeking some kind of comfort, solidarity, anything, he turns to Hu Tao, expecting her to be cowering away from the screen or curling up in her seat.
She isn’t doing anything of the sort.
Completely unphased, she watches in awe at the gorey sight unfolding on screen.
Archons, she might be crazy.
After the movie ends, Xiao stumbles through the dark until he exits the theater with Hu Tao merrily skipping behind him. She playfully slaps his back while laughing, which earns her a glare. “Wasn’t that great?”
“You’re insane! How can you watch something like that without flinching? You were smiling the whole time!”
“Oh, so you were watching me?” Before he can get a word in, she throws her head back, laughing even harder. “Body horror really does make you squeamish, huh? To make it up to you, how about you pick the next movie?”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “Next movie?”
“Yeah. Next movie.” Hu Tao smiles at him eagerly. “You’re my movie buddy now!”
All Xiao can do is gawk at her as if she’s grown a second head. “Why me, though?”
“You didn’t have to come with me today, y’know? Especially since we only just met.” Her eyes soften. “But you came anyway.”
They walk down the hall, through the lobby, and out the doors without saying another word, Hu Tao happily humming by his side. Xiao abruptly turns and faces her. He shoves his hands in his pockets, awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot. “There’s a premiere in three weeks,” he mumbles sheepishly, pink now lightly dusting his cheeks. “It’s a small theater at Chihu Rock.”
Hu Tao’s eyes light up. “Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there!”
Watching movies, checking out new albums, grabbing coffee… Perhaps it was inevitable with the frequency they had been spending time together, but they eventually became the best of friends—the absolute bestest of friends, Hu Tao often likes to remind him. One week, he felt annoyed at every little thing she did, and the next, he found himself laughing at her silly jokes and the memes she would text him at three in the morning before finally dozing off for the night.
People often tell Xiao that he’s too serious, and Hu Tao is no exception. He concedes to the accusations a little—maybe he is a bit intense at times, maybe he can be a bit of a killjoy, and maybe he does struggle with letting go and actually living (a newly documented accusation that has been formally filed by Hu Tao herself).
One dreary afternoon, he remembers them sitting in a quiet coffee shop. Their legs are tangled together under the table, and he lets her doodle little ghosts on his arm while he watches a pre-recorded lecture, the tickling sensation of her pen leaving a small smile permanently etched into his features.
Sometimes different is good, he realizes that afternoon.
He remembers walking her home one rainy night, arms linked together as they share the flimsiest umbrella imaginable. On the way out of the store, they had eyed a lone umbrella that was on the verge of falling apart sitting in a bin by the entrance. The rain wasn’t going to let up any time soon. They didn’t have much choice in the matter.
“So why forensic pathology?” he asks, trying his best to ignore how drenched his left shoulder is.
“My family’s in the funeral business. Corpses, cemeteries, farewells—it’s in my blood. But sometimes I see the pain in people’s eyes when they say goodbye to their loved ones. The confusion, the shock… Sometimes people can’t move on because they don’t understand why or how, and I want to be that person—that person who tells them when, where, why, and how. It’s another way of giving people closure, I realized. It’s like filling in a missing blank.”
Hu Tao’s eyes are distant and hollow, as if she’s speaking to someone else—someone who isn’t here.
He clicks his tongue—not at her, but at himself. “That’s a great reason. I wish I had that kind of reasoning or motivation.”
“Okay, humor me then. Why do you want to become a prosecutor?”
“My dad currently works as a prosecutor, and he spoke about his work often. I thought it was cool how he got to punish the bad guys. I didn’t understand much at first since I was so young, but one day, he asked me to come see him at one of his trials, and needless to say, I was a bit blown away.” Xiao hums to himself as he attempts to recall that fateful day in a large courthouse situated in Liyue Harbor’s downtown. His fingers tighten around the handle of the umbrella. “The way he holds himself when in a courtroom, when donning those robes… He’s like a pillar of rock, steadfast and unmoving. He has one goal, and he sees it through to the very end with unwavering faith.”
“Oh, that was actually pretty poetic,” Hu Tao whispers to herself before nodding approvingly.
They reach the entrance to her apartment, and he pauses. “Maybe it’s not that I wanted to be a prosecutor. Maybe I just wanted to be more like him.”
“I see,” she replies, hand now hesitantly perched over the door handle. She glances at him and then at the puddle of water pooling at their feet. “Do you wanna talk about it some more over tea?”
He carefully thinks it over. It’s not often that he gets an opportunity like this. He’s always the listener and rarely ever the one being listened to. He tentatively nods, and she leads the way.
Her apartment is, strangely enough, exactly how he had imagined it to be. Matching dark furniture, an unwashed cup of coffee from this morning still sitting on the dining table, and a shelf full of books. She gives him a quick tour and finds that her room is covered in posters—movie posters, band posters, silly doodles on pieces of computer paper taped to the walls. It’s all very her, and he can’t help but smile a little fondly at the sight. Little trinkets are laid out across her desk, and there’s another shelf that’s also, predictably, filled with books but also various CDs and DVDs.
They sit on her couch that night, sipping on hot oolong tea as the news plays on the TV.
“Can you believe it?” Hu Tao remarks, completely absorbed in some scandal currently being reported on the news. “Northland Bank… caught up in a scandal. That’s huge!”
Xiao tunes in, interest now piqued. “Illegally smuggling goods? That’s a bit…”
“Nonsensical?” Hu Tao says, raising a brow. “They’re a bank. Why can’t they just… handle money? Getting into trouble is such hard work someti—Money laundering? I don’t even know why I’m surprised.”
Time passes idly like this—them watching the news together and asking each other questions. Not long after, they begin to talk about their aspirations and goals, and the conversation naturally drifts to topics such as, “Where do you want to go after this?” and “Do you plan on moving?”
She takes one last sip of her tea and sighs. “I’d like to go to Inazuma, actually. There’s a med school there I’d like to attend, and they’re finally accepting applications from foreigners again. Also, apparently there’s a haunted island there! I totally need to check it out!”
Xiao immediately perks up upon hearing this, and he stares at her, eyes wide in disbelief. “I actually wanted to go to Inazuma as well. There’s a good law school there I was interested in attending. Obviously, the best ones are in Liyue Harbor, but I’d rather get some more time and space away from my family.”
Hu Tao puts her teacup down and leans back into the couch. “What a coincidence. Looks like we both want to go to the same place after we graduate.”
“Hey,” she starts, eyeing him curiously before lightly tugging on his sleeve. “What if we went together?”
“Together? What do you mean?”
“I mean it in a literal sense. What if we move to Inazuma together? We both want to go to school there, it might be a bit pricey to move if we go by ourselves, and we’re the bestest of friends! Doesn’t that sound like a great idea? Xiao and Tao take on Inazuma!”
He thinks it over, tracing the rim of his cup with his finger. He goes in circles, round and round, trying to talk himself out of it, trying to convince himself that, no, he doesn’t need to go with her, but despite his efforts, he feels something tug at his heart. She’s smiling at him like she always does, a little mischievous, but also bright, warm, and inviting. How could he say no? She’s his best friend—no, his bestest friend.
And it hits him gradually, like a building toppling over and caving in on itself.
He wants to spend more time with her just like this, the two of them talking about everything and nothing at all. Whether it’s in a coffee shop or in the record shop or in the arcade or that one theater on the boulevard or maybe like they are now, here, on her couch, it all sounds lovely as long as it’s her.
He says yes.
They spend the last months of undergrad studying furiously for their entrance exams, huddled together in their apartments, busy poring over study guides and practice tests, and alternating locations depending on the week (or how messy Hu Tao’s living room is). Not long after they graduate, they take their respective exams, sending each other off with a pinky promise and a simple you’ve got this each time.
They both discover that they’ve reached their target scores on their first attempts. He remembers finally getting his score in the mail and Hu Tao pulling him in for a hug upon hearing the news.
It’s the first time he notices that she smells like flowers.
Thanks to those months of preparation and also probably by the grace of the Archons themselves, one very uneventful morning, they find themselves staring at their acceptance letters, both of them now stuck onto Hu Tao’s fridge.
“I just wanted a reminder of our success to stare me in the face every day. Don’t you think it’s kinda nice?”
“Tao, your magnet says KILL ME NOW. That’s hardly a good reminder or even a good omen. It’s in all caps too. It’s… aggressive.”
She pouts. “Okay, but yours is, uh, the Ghostbusters logo. That should be a good omen, right? Ghost… busting? We’re winners.”
“You’re so ridiculous sometimes.” He playfully punches her arm, trying to hide the fact that he’s smiling now.
In a few months, they make it to Inazuma without a hitch, and they’ve been attached at the hip ever since.
And here they are now, years later, legs tangled together on their living room couch. Hu Tao lets out a satisfied hum and drops her head onto his shoulder, nuzzling against him until she’s comfortable.
“Today was nice.” Her voice is airy and light.
“Yeah, it was.” He wraps an arm around her and rests his cheek against her hair. Her warmth envelops him fully, and the scent of her shampoo is gentle and floral. The movie in the background is now nothing more than just white noise. He plants a chaste kiss on the top of her head without thinking, and she lets out another content sigh before reaching for the remote and switching the TV off. He doesn’t have it in him to feel embarrassed right now.
Hu Tao yawns. “It’s getting late. We should go to bed soon before the ghosts decide to wake up. They can be so chatty at this hour.” She squishes his cheeks and grins, eyes now full of mirth. “It’s really comfy here though. Not sure if I can find the strength to get up… Carry me to my room?”
“So demanding. And I thought today was my special day,” he grumbles to himself, letting out a soft huff. “Also, stop talking as if ghosts are real. You’re being ridiculous again.”
“Oh, but they are! You don’t know what I’ve experienced!” She purses her lips. “Also, I don’t think I’m capable of picking you up like that, so why don’t you just entertain this young lady’s silly desires tonight?”
He never was good at saying no to her, so he scoops her up in his arms without further protest and slowly stands up. Hu Tao giggles into his chest, arms now wrapped around his neck as he walks to her room, softly cooing to herself something along the lines of, “The kitchen ghost will haunt you if you drop me.”
Xiao rolls his eyes and gently lowers her onto her bed and moves to pull away, but Hu Tao’s arms remain wrapped around him. He tugs himself away from her once, twice, but to no avail. He raises a questioning brow, and all she does is warmly smile up at him with lightly flushed cheeks. It’s from the alcohol, he reasons with himself.
“Why don’t you stay here for the night?”
“Am I really that comfy?” he somehow finds the courage to ask.
He wants to mentally smack himself.
“Yeah.” She smiles even wider, and her toothy grin is beginning to make his heart to do little somersaults. “And I’m pretty comfy too, I’d wager. Am I right? I bet I’m cozier than a blanket, warmer than the sun on a cool day, and softer than the wings of an angel.”
“That’s a lot of lofty comparisons you just threw at me.” He sighs, and it comes out sounding more fond than he’d like. “But yes… You are very comfy. Are you sure you’re not drunk?”
“Xiao, we hardly had any, remember?” She frowns at him. “You’re as vigilant as always, I see. I appreciate it by the way, but just so you know, I’m totally sober. Not even buzzed.”
“Alright, I guess I can spend the night here,” he replies, wondering if she can feel the tremor in his breath as he crawls over to the empty side of the bed.
Xiao lifts up the covers and slips under, relishing how cool the sheets feel against his skin. Hu Tao shifts slightly, and he can feel the mattress dip as she scoots closer to him. She has excellent night vision, he suddenly recalls. He wonders if she can see how flustered he must be right now.
She rolls onto her side and throws an arm over him. When he finally faces her, she’s smiling at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners. He slides his arm under hers and pulls her in close, a hand now comfortably resting on her back.
Xiao wonders when they got this close, their unlabeled relationship making his head spin as her breath tickles his neck. Was it after the first date or the second? He’s not really sure anymore, the progression of events becoming fuzzier by the second.
Perhaps they’ve been toeing the line between friends and lovers for far too long. Was it when they held hands on the way to the library during their first date? Or was it the kiss she left on his cheek after their second date? Was it the hand on the small of her back as he guided her through the crowds during the fireworks festival that one time or the loose strand of hair he tucked behind her ear?
Or maybe it was…
Oh.
“Let’s go back to Liyue for the holidays! It’ll be a good change of pace,” Hu Tao had suggested.
But her hands are now gently cradled in his as they sit in front of her grandfather’s grave. They’re a long way from Inazuma now, but it doesn’t feel like it with the way the thunder is violently roaring in the distance.
It’s raining.
Xiao’s hair is uncomfortably matted to his face, and his socks are soaked in mud and rainwater, but he doesn’t care.
“He died so suddenly,” he remembers her choking out between tears and shaky breaths. “I thought I was okay—I thought I’ve been doing okay up until now, but I guess not. I don’t know why it’s hitting me so hard this year.”
The rain continues to pour down on them, but he tries to wipe away her tears regardless. Hu Tao leans into his touch, his palm now gently resting on her cheek. She takes his other hand in hers and laces their fingers together. He doesn’t even think about backing away. He’s never seen her so defeated before, so consumed with grief. His heart pangs at the sight.
“We’re well-acquainted with death. I mean, we’re the Hu family, after all. We’re in the funeral business for crying out loud! Death is inevitable; life is but a cycle… I know this, but…” her voice trails off, and her eyes are dark and stormy.
Where did you go? he wants to ask. How can I help with the pain?
“But what?” he asks as gently as possible, lightly stroking her cheek with his thumb.
“I just can’t accept it sometimes—the fact that he’s gone, I mean. It was so sudden. The people who investigated our case… They said it was an accident, but I don’t believe them. It just didn’t add up. Nothing made sense.”
Hu Tao’s head dips lower, and her shoulders begin to violently shake. Xiao pulls her into a hug, holds her as tightly as he can without hurting her. Eventually, she pulls away from him, just enough so that she can see his face, her hand now resting on his shoulder. "I'm being ridiculous... I'm sorry."
His brows furrow at her words, and his lips are now pulled into a thin line. Ignoring the pounding of his heart and the way his fingers are trembling in the cold, he leans in and leaves a kiss on the corner of her mouth before pulling away slowly—painfully so. Can she feel it? he wonders. Can she feel how he feels for her, how his heart aches for her? Does she know that he, too, often mourns the loss of someone he loved and lost?
He never was the best at being vulnerable or expressing how he feels through words, but this… He can do this at the very least.
“Did you know that I still miss my mother? She died a long time ago, but it still hurts. I don’t think I ever really got over it.” She lifts her head and peers into his eyes, as if searching for something. “When we lost her… it was so sudden. The illness—the doctors didn’t detect it in time. I know he’ll never admit it, but sometimes my father and I wonder if she’d still be with us if they had caught it sooner.”
“Xiao, I’m so sorry… I didn’t know…”
“It’s okay. How could you have known if I never told you?” He takes a deep breath. “What I'm trying to say is that… some days are harder than others, but there’s no shame in that. It’s only hard because you loved them.”
“Now where have I heard that before?” A half-hearted chuckle escapes her lips. “That sounds oddly familiar…”
“I learned it from the best. You were thinking out loud while writing one day, and it really resonated with me.” He wipes away the last of her tears, rain be damned. “Do you want to talk about it some more? Some place warm and over tea, perhaps?”
For the first time in what feels like hours, she smiles, and his heart soars.
“That sounds lovely, Xiao.”
“We should leave before the ghosts start eavesdropping,” he quickly adds, lips quirking up into a small smile. “Just think about how many of them are wandering around right now.”
She playfully smacks his shoulder before planting a kiss on his cheek. “Hey, that’s my line!”
“One day, I’ll figure out the truth behind his death,” Xiao says in the comfort of her hotel room, now comfortable and, most importantly, dry after being out in the rain all afternoon. He takes a sip of his tea, a subtle smile pulling at his lips as it warms his belly. “I don’t know how long it will take, but once I become a prosecutor, I’ll make it happen.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?” Hu Tao’s eyes are no longer red and puffy. They're now sparkling at him and brimming with warmth. “You promise?”
“Of course.” She holds out her hand and sticks out her pinky. Xiao links his pinky around hers, and then she juts her thumb out, causing Xiao to raise a brow in confusion.
“Stamp it,” she says.
“Stamp it?”
“Press your thumb to mine.” Hu Tao is practically bouncing in her seat now, and Xiao can’t help but softly chuckle at the sight. “C’mon! Do it!”
He presses his thumb to hers, pinkies still intertwined. “Alright. It’s a promise.”
Xiao presses rewind, the sensation of intertwined pinkies and his lips pressed against the corner of her mouth that one rainy night now playing over and over again. His lips tingle at the thought. The setting was hardly romantic at the time, but now they’re dry, warm, comfortable, and most importantly, in a bed. Her fingers are ghosting over the hem of his shirt, and he wonders what they’d feel like splayed across his bare skin.
His entire body burns at the thought.
Romance was never something he felt was meant for him.
Logically, Xiao knows that people aren’t born into categories such as meant to experience love and not meant to experience love, but it’s always been such a foreign idea to him, as if it were something completely unfathomable and out of reach. It’s not a topic that often crosses his mind either. His thoughts were always elsewhere, always focused on some goal or place he wanted to be instead.
But Hu Tao crashed into his life and flipped it all upside down.
He pulls away from her, just far enough to see her face. Her piercing gaze unsettles him, and his heart begins to pound in his ears.
“Something on your mind?” she asks, voice so quiet it’s almost whisper.
“Yeah. There’s something I can’t get out of my head.”
“And what would that be?” Hu Tao moves a hand to his chest and lightly drums her fingers against the fabric of his t-shirt. “Are you thinking about your career now that you’re done with law school? Stressed about the upcoming bar exam?”
“N-No, that’s not—” The words clumsily tumble out of his mouth, and Hu Tao lets out a soft laugh. Her hand moves upwards to play with his hair, twirling a strand around her index finger. “No, I’m—It’s embarrassing, sorry.”
“Entertain me?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you—I mean, yes, you, but a specific memory… pertaining to you.”
“You’re being so cryptic for once. It’s kinda weird coming from you of all people.” He can’t see her, but he can certainly hear the frown in her voice. “It’s also kinda endearing though, I must admit. Are you nervous? Scared the ghosts are eavesdropping?”
“Maybe.”
“Well don’t be.” She leans in to kiss his cheek, and Xiao has to wonder whether the Archons are on his side or if they’re conspiring against him. He can’t help but contemplate whether reincarnation is real. If it is, what kind of karma carried over into this life? Was it more bad than good? He can’t tell, and he’s not sure if he wants the answer to that. “No need to be nervous around me. You can tell me anything.”
“What if it’s about this?”
She softly hums. “What do you mean by this?”
The words get stuck in his throat; it’s as if his lips have been sealed shut by some divine force.
He’ll blame the Archons before he admits to being a coward.
Xiao is not one to react impulsively. He always thinks things through meticulously, and Hu Tao often teases him for needing at least a five step plan for every decision he makes. Unfortunately, that often goes out the window when it comes to her.
Years of mental fortitude completely undone by one person.
Xiao rests his free hand on her cheek, gently caressing it with his thumb. Against every rule in his book, he leans in and plants a gentle kiss on her cheek, ignoring how close he is to her lips and how easy it’d be to just inch down a little more and satisfy the curiosity that’s been gnawing away at him all night. And the way her breath hitches in his ear doesn’t go unnoticed either. It takes everything he has to pull away. Somehow, he manages to do just that and takes a deep breath before finally answering her question.
“I meant this, Tao. I’m thinking about… us,” he replies, mentally berating himself because he’s still tip-toeing around what he really wants to say, but somehow, the implications of the words tumbling out of his mouth are even worse.
“Okay...” she says, voice drawn out and uncertain. He’s definitely confused her. He needs to fix this. “Are you… uncomfortable? Do you want me to stop—”
“No!” he blurts out. “It’s not that I’m uncomfortable. I’m not. I’m very comfortable, actually.” He kisses her cheek again, a little lower this time. “I like this.”
The room that was once cloaked in an inky darkness begins to lighten like a veil lifting from his eyes. Moonlight filters through the blinds, and his vision begins to adjust to the dark. He watches as she nods, slowly and a little unsure, beckoning him to continue his train of thought.
“I don’t think I can find the right words to properly articulate what it is that I want to express.”
“Xiao, please!” Hu Tao snorts. “You sound like a law student right now.”
Hu Tao smiles at him demurely, and Xiao lets his eyes trail down to her lips. He wonders if she noticed because she does the same, and he has to fight the urge to lick his lips. Hu Tao leans in closer, and he can feel her breath on his cheek now. Her eyes flutter shut as she kisses the corner of his mouth. It’s slow and drawn out, the way her lips drag across the outer edge of his mouth and towards his cheek where she plants another kiss right below his cheekbone.
He can’t help but shudder under her touch, and when her gaze meets his, he falls apart.
“What is it that you want, Xiao?”
You, he desperately wants to say.
Maybe this is a bad idea—two people who have been friends for years repeatedly toeing a certain boundary for the past year or so about to finally cross that threshold—but maybe he doesn’t care anymore.
If Hu Tao could take a peek into his mind, she’d scoff at him and shake her head in disappointment, mumbling something along the lines of, Oh, Xiao… Why don’t you live a little? The world is your oyster, so open it up already. It’s in the palm of your hand, is it not?
And she’d be right, he supposes. She’s in his arms right now, is she not?
“I want to kiss you,” he finally confesses in a heavy whisper. The words should’ve had more weight, more gravity, when finally spoken aloud, but somehow, they’re light as a feather, effortlessly rolling off his tongue.
“I want to kiss you too,” she whispers back, lips now so close to his that he thinks he can feel every syllable.
A smile spreads across her face, so wide it sets his heart on fire as he closes the tiny gap and presses his lips to hers. Her lips are so soft and warm; he wonders why he waited so long. As she moves to capture his top lip between hers, he feels her tongue lightly swipe against his lip, and he melts into her.
Xiao preserves this memory the best he can, allowing the world around them to dissolve away as he memorizes the feeling of her clothed body pressed flush against his, her hands combing through his hair, the softness of her lips, the warmth of her tongue, the flush of her cheeks, and her content sighs. It’s a lot to take in, a lot to process all at once, but that’s what living’s all about, he supposes.
It’s a bit rough and disjointed. He can’t quite piece together the moments in his head as smoothly as he’d like, not with the way her tongue feels brushing against his. Regardless, he tries—oh, he tries.
This isn’t like poring over case files in law school, where the pieces are designed to connect in a very specific manner that is logically infallible. Instead, this is living and breathing and evolving—his heart grows fuller with each and every passing second, feelings that were once dormant and suppressed now blossoming into something new.
He holds the memory in his hand, rolling it around like a little clump of dirt—he rolls it between his fingers until it becomes smooth and whole. A palm unfurls to reveal a small iridescent pearl. It’s shining. Yes, it’s shining, and it’s oh so beautiful.