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Night had long since settled over the Xianzhou Luofu, but the flickering lanterns in Jing Yuan’s residence refused to die out. Their warm glow stretching across the wooden floor, casting ever shifting shadows along the walls as the general paced around the room. It's quiet inside—save for the footsteps, and occasional rustle of fabric and wood as the general shifts through an old drawer, his fingers moving with the careful hesitance of a man sifting through the memories of ghosts.
The entire room is filled with remnants of a era long past, almost frozen in time. A time that, no matter how much he wishes to return to, was gone. He has never been the type to dwell too much on sentimentality, but some things… some things he simply could not part with.
He does not expect company tonight.
He has not expected company in 700 years.
-
When he turns, Blade is standing there, just past the threshold of his study.
Jing Yuan doesn't startle, he never does—Jingliu had trained that habit out of him almost immediately—though there is a moment, just a brief one, where his fingers twitch imperceptibly around the unfinished wooden edge of the drawer. He blinks, and Blade remains standing there, standing just past the threshold of his study, half-drenched in shadow. The red glow of his eyes is dim tonight, his breathing even and unhurried.
He blinks again, still half expecting Blade to vanish.
He does not.
Jing Yuan exhales. He straightens, casting his gaze across the room, as if gauging how exactly to respond—if he could even reach his Guandao, should Blade choose to attack him.
He cannot.
Publicly, Blade is an enemy of the Luofu. A fugitive, a criminal, a traitor whose hands are stained with the blood of Jing Yuan’s own soldiers. Jing Yuan has repeatedly denounced his actions before the people of the Xianzhou, condemned him in the eyes of the law. He's given orders to bring him into custody under any means necessary.
Yet, here he is, standing before him calmly.
As though he's doing nothing more than visiting an old friend.
And all Jing Yuan can see is Yingxing.
Yingxing, whose laugh had once echoed vibrantly in this very room, tossing a carefully embroidered cushion at Jing Yuan’s head when he embarrassed him in front of Dan Feng. Yingxing who would climb in through the window to see him past curfew. Yingxing, who had always been so full of life—so much so that it's almost unbearable to reconcile the man before him with what he once was.
Blade is but a shadow of that man.
The man who had been as bright as the forge fire he'd worked with, silver-tongued, yet unrelenting kind. Alive in ways that Blade had long since buried under blood and silence, and that Jing Yuan has long tried to forget—anything to stop the ache in his heart.
Jing Yuan does not speak. He hasn't seen Blade since the Stellaron crisis, and even then, it had been brief—fleeting glances exchanged between sword clashes and broken, bloody ground. But now, in the stillness of his own home, there is nothing separating them but memories of a time gone by.
Blade’s eyes lower, scanning the dim room. "You kept it the same."
Jing Yuan huffs, a quiet thing. "Did you expect me to change?"
Blade does not answer immediately. His hands remain at his sides, gloved, unmoving.
"I don't know what I expect from you, Jing Yuan,"
The tension between them is aged and fragile, not hostile, but fraught with unspoken words neither of them know how to shape.
If it were Yingxing then maybe—
"Don't look at me like that," Blade says softly.
"The Yingxing you knew is dead, Jing Yuan. Do not mistake my presence here tonight as his return."
Jing Yuan’s breath falters.
Blade turns his head away, gaze shadowed beneath his dark lashes. "He died a long time ago. Don't fool yourself with thinking otherwise. You're looking at nothing more a corpse that refuses to rest."
Jing Yuan wants to argue, but the words catch in his throat. He looks at him, really looks at him—past the crimson glow of his irises, past the stillness of his posture, past the years of absence that stretch like an abyss between them.
"Why are you here?"
Blade turns away from him, silent.
Jing Yuan watches as his shoulders ease, just slightly, as if the weight of centuries has slipped—if only for a moment.
And then Blade, voice quieter now, confesses, "Sometimes, there are moments when the Mara is quiet… I almost feel like him again. Perhaps I wanted to see for myself how much things have changed."
Jing Yuan realizes that this is one such moment. He can't speak. The words he's dreamed of saying for years simply don't exist anymore.
"I think I miss it," Blade murmurs, almost to himself. "I miss… everyone."
Bai Heng.
Jingliu.
Dan Feng...
The admission is a fragile thing. The Blade that the world knows would never speak such words. But in the privacy of these walls, in the quiet sanctuary of a past they had once shared, he allows himself this moment of honesty.
No one else would ever see this. No one else would ever know. But for now, however brief, however broken, Yingxing is here with him.
Jing Yuan moves takes a step back, before he can do something idiotic.
Blade is a wanted criminal across the entire cosmos, he reminded himself. He's smart. He's certainly not above abusing his past relationships if it benefitted him and the Stellaron hunters. He hardly believes something as fickle as morals would stop him from killing Jing Yuan if he so much as let his guard down.
But what would be his motive?
His business on the Xianzhou should've concluded by now. Kafka herself had told him that they wished for the Stellaron and nothing else.
The Stellaron hunters were criminals but they weren't pointless in their killing. What would they gain from Jing Yuan’s death apart from the wrath of the entire Xianzhou alliance?
Maybe...
He turns back toward the drawer, reaching inside. His fingers brush against something small, cool to the touch, worn with age yet still tantalisingly familiar.
He pulls out an old hairpin.
A intricate little thing. Silver and carved like a branch, with a vibrant green jade embedded within each groove, faintly reminiscent of an Immortal Aeroblossom. The base is plain, save for the faint engraving filled with black lacquer, long since worn by Jing Yuan’s fingers running themselves over the engraving over the course of centuries.
'Let our hearts hold you when arms cannot' it read.
He remembers picking it out for Yingxing with Dan Feng during a trip to the Zhuming. A surprise specialty pop-up market had appeared in front of their hotel.
-
"How about this one?"
"Tacky."
"Oh come on, it's adorable! This one?"
"Jing Yuan, that's a blank."
"I know that!" He looks at the plain base of the jade hairpin in his hands with a comtemplative look. "I'm sure if nothing here is satisfactory, we could just engrave something onto it ourselves. How hard could it be? I've seen Yingxing do it at least 100 times!"
"Our Yingxing is also the master craftsman of the Artisan Commision." Dan Feng says, skeptical.
Jing Yuan rolls his eyes at him and passes a confused seller a wad of credits.
"I'm sure it can't be that hard." He smiles at Dan Feng, already pulling the other back to their hotel by the hand, "Come on! Help me decide what to put on it!"
Dan Feng begrudgingly allows himself to be tugged away, even if only to appease Jing Yuan.
-
Dan Feng finally stops him after the pen knife in his hands slides off the metal and into his finger for the 4th time.
"But Dan Feng—"
"Yingxing will break my neck if I let you continue doing this— Stop that." Dan Feng hisses as Jing Yuan tries to reach for the pen knife again, resorting to holding his hands gently as he lets the Cloudhymn energy heal Jing Yuan’s wounds.
-
In the end, they'd asked Yingxing for help in making his own gift once they got back to the Luofu.
-
Yingxing had worn it long ago, his hair pulled back with easy carelessness, a familiar sight that had once been as ordinary as the sun rising over the Luofu’s skyline.
Jing Yuan had found it after the battle against Shuhu, bent at an odd angle and half trampled on the floor. He had kept it, intending to return it after fixing it.
But Yingxing had vanished, and the hairpin had remained in his drawer ever since, only brought out when the loneliness became too much and Jing Yuan needed to remind himself that he hadn't always been alone.
He steps forward, extending his palm slowly. "Here," he says. "I believe this belongs to you."
Blade’s gaze flickers down. The moment he sees it, something in his expression shifts—subtle, fleeting, but there.
Remembrace.
He reaches for it, then hesitates.
Finally, he takes it, the metal resting in his gloved hands once more, after centuries.
"Thank you,"
Then, quietly, Blade says, "But I cannot use it anymore."
Jing Yuan’s brow furrows. "What? Have you forgotten how to tie your hair?" He found that hard to believe. He remembers the way they'd all go to Yingxing when they needed to do their hair in intricate braids and elaborate designs for festivals and public appearances. He remembers the care he put into each and every braid.
A soft breath of something like amusement escapes Blade’s nose, but it fades as he lifts his hands—and slowly, carefully, removes his gloves.
Jing Yuan’s breath stills.
Beneath the fabric, Blade’s hands are scarred beyond recognition.
Scars, thick, unrelenting keloids, stretch across his palms and fingers, remnants of wounds long since healed but never truly gone. They are old wounds. Deep wounds. Wounds that speak of death and resurrection over and over again.
Jing Yuan does not need to ask where they came from. He already knows.
Jingliu.
The sight of them strikes something deep in his chest. Something raw. Something agonizing.
-
He's sitting on the workbench. It's late into the night, yet Yingxing is still working. Dan Feng had come with him earlier, but had long since retired to bed upstairs upon seeing that Yingxing was far from finished.
His eyes wander over the aging, wooden shelves, each and every one filled with blueprints to the priceless works that that Yingxing had crafted over the years.
A swipe of something cold brushes across his cheek and he yelps, Yingxing is grinning at him.
He hadn't noticed when the clashing of metal on metal stopped for a moment.
His hand goes to his face and comes away pale blue.
"It's just a cold healing salve," Yingxing explains to him, "Bai Heng makes it for me, incase I get burnt."
Jing Yuan stops marveling at the cool blue paste on his hands.
"You burnt yourself?" His brow furrows, taking Yingxing’s hands into his own and looking them over.
"Nah, just a habit at this point. It keeps my hands soft," Yingxing smiles, wiping off the salve from his cheek to put on his hands, "It helps with the aching too. She said if I keep using it I'll be able to keep crafting for longer."
-
Blade watches him carefully, as if waiting for a reaction, an acknowledgment of the irreversible damage done to him. But Jing Yuan does not flinch, does not pull away. Instead, he exhales—long, measured, shakey.
And then, softly, he says, "I see."
Silence stretches between them, fragile as spun glass.
Jing Yuan pointedly ignore the pain building up in his chest. For all the years he'd known Yingxing, he was always happiest in his workshop. And it was just... gone.
Jing Yuan would never keep him company by the forge's fire late into the night as he worked tirelessly on his new project again.
He'd never see that bright smile again, the one that Yingxing would always give him after he finished a project.
Yingxing would never craft again.
To have something so integral to him, his greatest joy in life, forcibly torn away from him...
Jing Yuan felt sick to his stomach.
So he does the only thing he can think of.
He reaches forward, careful, deliberate. He takes the hairpin from Blade’s palm, his fingers brushing lightly against the smooth ridges of old scars.
"Turn around," Jing Yuan says, voice steady, "Let me do it."
Blade blinks at him.
Jing Yuan turns his head away, his cheeks flushing slightly. "To do your hair, I mean."
For a long moment, Blade does not answer. He simply looks at him, expression unreadable, gaze dipping from Jing Yuan’s hand to his face.
For a horrifying moment, he thinks he's overstepped their tentative peace.
But then, finally, Blade exhales. And quietly, softly, he nods.
"Alright."
-
The room is quiet—too quiet.
Jing Yuan sits behind Blade, his fingers weaving through the strands of his dark hair, carefully gathering it up as he once did centuries ago.
He should not be trembling. His hands should not be shaking.
But they are.
The hair is different now—longer than he remembers, no longer tied back in that effortless half-ponytail Yingxing used to favor. But the feeling is the same, soft and silky in his hands. It's so achingly familiar that for a moment when he closes his eyes, Jing Yuan can almost pretend that no time has passed. That when he lifts his gaze, he will not see scars, or bandages, or the hollow weight of having lived too many years in Blade’s eyes.
For a moment, he is back on the training grounds, the scent of morning dew in the air, Yingxing sitting cross-legged opposite him as he lazily complained about Dan Feng’s braiding skills.
"I swear he does it too tight on purpose. Maybe he’s bitter because my hair is nicer than his."
"You do realize he’s listening, right?"
"And? What’s he gonna do, fight me over it?"
A laugh, a shove, a sharp tug on his hair, the familiar warmth of companionship—of something more—rings through the air.
Jing Yuan blinks, and the past collapses like sand slipping through his fingers. His grip on Blade’s hair slackens for a moment and the braid goes loose in his hands.
Blade does not speak, but he can feel the weight of his presence, can hear the steady sound of his breathing.
The Mara in him is quiet tonight—Jing Yuan can't even detect its presence despite being so close. He suspects it's been a long time since Blade has been able to exist without its pain.
Jing Yuan exhales through his nose and resumes his work. His hands must not tremble.
"Do you want it the same way?" he asks, his voice quieter than he intends.
Blade hums, a soft, contemplative sound. "However you like," he replies. "It’s been so long that I don’t think I'd remember the difference."
Jing Yuan’s fingers pause briefly before he continues, trying not to remember how picky Yingxing had been with his hairstyle.
He keeps it simple—nothing elaborate, nothing too tight—Yingxing hated it when it was too tight. Just a careful tie, a smooth gathering of hair held in place with the old silver and jade pin. His fingers brush against Blade’s nape as he finishes, and the brief touch sends a shiver down his spine.
"Done," Jing Yuan says, his voice steady despite himself.
Blade reaches up, fingers ghosting over the pin. He exhales—quietly, carefully—as if trying not to disturb the moment.
"It’s nice," he murmurs.
Jing Yuan huffs a breath of amusement. "I don’t remember you being one for compliments."
Blade does not answer. Instead, he tilts his head back slightly—not enough to break contact, but enough that Jing Yuan sees his profile more clearly. The lantern light catches against the edges of his face, throwing sharp angles into softer relief.
And then, just as softly, Blade says, "You used to do this for Dan Feng too."
Jing Yuan looks away.
Blade closes his eyes briefly, as if recalling something distant. "He used to act indifferent about it, but he liked it. I could tell."
Jing Yuan does not answer right away.
How could he?
The mention of Dan Feng is like a blunt, rusting knife between his ribs, old but just as painful. He had loved them—loves them even now—with a devotion that has never wavered, never faltered, even when time and tragedy tore them apart, he couldn't let them go.
Dan Feng, whose fate was sealed long ago, who now walked around in the same body yet recognised neither of them.
Yingxing, who had died and become something else, who's only goal now was searching for a release from a life he'd never wanted.
Jing Yuan himself, who had never expected to lead alone so soon, who had foolishly believed that they'd have more time.
Yet Yingxing is here with him, a remnant of a past that should have faded but never did.
Jing Yuan swallows against the ache in his throat. "I miss him," he admits.
Blade does not respond at first.
"I do too."
The silence that follows is thick with unspoken grief.
Jing Yuan’s hands are still resting in Blade’s hair. He should move them, should put this moment to rest before it unravels into something neither of them can bear, something that should remain in the past where it's safe from their new reality.
A fugitive and his hunter.
But before he can, Blade turns.
The movement is slow—cautious, like he is testing something fragile. Jing Yuan does not resist as Blade shifts to face him, their knees almost brushing.
And then, Blade reaches out.
Jing Yuan barely has time to process before scarred hands find his face.
Soft... despite the scar tissue—his hands were still soft.
Blade’s touch is light, hesitant—as if he's unsure whether or not Jing Yuan would stop him. His fingertips ghost along the side of Jing Yuan’s temple, then down to his jaw, tracing something that only he can understand.
Jing Yuan does not breathe.
Blade’s eyes—Yingxing’s eyes—search his own, as if reading all the things that Jing Yuan had spent centuries trying to bury as they resurface through the tears gathering in his eyes.
And then, softly—far too softly—Blade murmurs, "You never moved on."
The breath he has been holding escapes in a tremor, and he cannot stop the way his shoulders shake, how his vision blurs at the edges.
Blade notices. Of course he does.
And he pulls Jing Yuan into his arms.
Jing Yuan breaks.
His breath hitches as he's drawn into a careful embrace, his face pressing against the fabric of Blade’s cloak, his body folding into warmth he never thought he would feel again.
Scarred fingers thread into his hair, stroking slow and gentle, a soothing touch, one that Yingxing used to do for him centuries ago.
Jing Yuan shudders. His grip tightens around the fabric of Blade’s sleeve, his entire frame trembling as he finally lets himself cry.
The weight of centuries—of love regretfully unspoken, of loss that never healed—comes crashing down all at once.
Yingxing does not say anything. He simply holds him, the way he used to, as if centuries of bloodshed and grief had not built a wall between them. As if they were nothing more than just Jing Yuan and Yingxing.
-
He doesn't know how long they stayed like that. But eventually, the storm inside Jing Yuan ebbs into something quieter, though no less fragile.
And then, in a voice so soft that it almost does not exist, Jing Yuan somehow brings himself to ask.
"You never moved on either, right?"
Blade stills.
His breath catches. Jing Yuan can feel it.
For a long moment, there is only silence.
Then—Blade pulls back, just enough to look him in the eyes. His own gaze is unreadable, a storm of emotion barely restrained.
And then, instead of answering with words, Blade leans in.
The kiss is soft—softer than Jing Yuan ever expected.
Careful, cautious, as if Blade himself does not fully understand why he’s doing this. His lips barely press against Jing Yuan’s, a hesitant whisper of contact, yet it sears through him more deeply than any clash of blades, more painfully than any wound he has ever suffered.
Jing Yuan sucks in a sharp inhale, his body frozen. His heart is hammering—loud, insistent, a roaring storm in his chest.
But he can't pull away.
He doesn’t want to.
The touch is fleeting and hesitant, but its real. So achingly real.
And it breaks Jing Yuan all over again.
His hands, still curled into Blade’s cloak, tighten. He doesn’t notice the way his breath has turned unsteady, or that his shoulders are shaking, that he is crumbling beneath the weight of this moment—not until Blade pulls back, just barely.
Just enough for Jing Yuan to see the look in his eyes.
There is something there—something raw, something pained, something filled with centuries of quiet longing.
Jing Yuan tries to speak.
"—yingxi…"
The words never fully form.
His voice catches, the name slipping from his lips like a half-formed prayer, a wish spoken too late. But Yingxing understands.
A quiet breath leaves Blade’s lips, and then—he presses his forehead against Jing Yuan’s.
A moment later, his lips brush against Jing Yuan’s temple.
Blade exhales shakily against his skin. "Yingxing," Jing Yuan sobs, the name finally falling past his lips in full. As if speaking it will make him stay this time.
Blade’s fingers thread themselves through his hair, pressing lightly against his scalp. His voice is quiet, softer than anything Jing Yuan has heard from him in centuries.
"Shh," Blade murmurs, gentle in a way that should not be possible for him. "It’s okay. I’m here."
But it’s not okay.
It has never been okay.
-
Jing Yuan does not let go.
He should. He should step back, gather himself and pretend he hasn't just unraveled in Blade’s arms. But he can’t.
His hands remain tangled in Blade’s cloak, his forehead still pressed against Blade’s, his breath unsteady as he tries to calm the storm inside his chest.
For a long time, neither of them move. The air is thick with something fragile, something Jing Yuan does not want to disturb.
Blade moves slightly, and for a horrifying moment, Jing Yuan thinks he's going to leave him again.
Jing Yuan shudders, burying his face into Blade’s shoulder, gripping at him as if afraid he will disappear again.
"I don’t—I—" His voice collapses, his throat tightening painfully around the words. "Please don’t leave me. Please—"
Blade stills.
Jing Yuan does not let go.
For a long, long time, Blade does not answer.
And then, in a voice so soft it barely exists—he speaks.
"I won’t," he murmurs.
Jing Yuan’s breath hitches.
Blade’s hands settle against his back, his grip firm, grounding. "Not tonight," he says, as if offering a small mercy.
And it is not forever.
Jing Yuan knows that.
Blade will leave eventually, because Blade is Yingxing. He will disappear into the night like a ghost—the dream Jing Yuan was never meant to have.
But tonight—tonight, he is here.
And that is all Jing Yuan can ask for.
Blade’s fingers continue their slow, absentminded strokes through Jing Yuan’s hair.
The touch is soothing, familiar.
A distant memory stirs, of a time long past, when Yingxing would do the same after long nights at the forge—when he would settle beside Jing Yuan with a weary sigh, let himself lean into him, rest his head against Jing Yuan’s lap, and let him comb through his hair as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
It had always been Dan Feng who scolded them for being so lazy.
"You two are insufferable."
Yingxing had only laughed.
"What, jealous? You can join in, you know."
A scoff, a flick to Yingxing’s forehead. And then, once he thought no one would notice, Dan Feng would rest his hand atop theirs.
Three of them. Together.
Jing Yuan remembers.
He squeezes his eyes shut.
He wants to go back.
To that time, those days when they were whole. Before everything went so horribly wrong. Before they became this utter mess. Before Jing Yuan had to learn to be on his own.
But time is cruel, Yingxing is no longer Yingxing, and the Dan Feng they knew is forever gone.
Jing Yuan sucks in a shaky breath.
"I tried to find you."
Blade does not react right away at his words, but his fingers go still against Jing Yuan’s scalp.
Jing Yuan exhales, his breath shaking with the weight of years, of loss. "For so long, I—I looked everywhere," he whispers. "I searched every trace, every rumor. I even checked places we swore we’d never return to, the planet we lost Bai Heng, just in case—"
He clenches his teeth, shaking his head. "But you were gone. No matter how hard I searched, you—" His breath stirs, uneven, broken.
"You were just—"
Just gone.
His voice cracks on the last word, and suddenly, he is crying again.
His shoulders tremble as he presses his face against Blade’s chest, as if trying to hold himself together. A futile attempt.
Jing Yuan’s throat burns. His voice collapses into a sob. "I should have found you," he gasps. "I should have—I should have—"
"But I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, you were— you weren't anywhere. Every lead I had just—"
Led to nowhere.
As if Yingxing was the sun's shadow, and he was racing against the inevitable sunset.
Lost to the winds of time, buried beneath blood and death and the curse of an undying yet horrifyingly mortal body. For centuries, Jing Yuan had been reaching for a nothing more than a ghost that hated its own body.
Perhaps it was because he had failed.
He failed Yingxing, for never finding him when he needed him most.
And it's haunted him ever since.
-
Blade lets him break.
He doesn't pull away, doesn't tell him to stop. He simply lets Jing Yuan fall apart in his arms.
And then, after a long, fragile pause, he speaks.
"You couldn’t have found me, A-Yuan."
Jing Yuan freezes.
Blade exhales, slow and even, as if recalling something distant. "I ran," he murmurs. "Far. Far enough that even she would never find me."
Blade’s hands, still tangled in Jing Yuan’s hair, tighten just slightly.
The name does not need to be spoken aloud for Jing Yuan to understand.
The actions of his master as she succumbed to the madness shouldn't tarnish the memory of their dear friend.
The name remains unspoken between them, but they both feel it settle into the room like a weight.
Jing Yuan shakes his head. "Still! I should have—"
"Little lion."
His breath stirs sharply.
Blade’s voice remains devastatingly honest. "You would never have found me, no matter how hard you searched."
Blade cups his face, tilting it up until their eyes meet. There is no anger in his gaze.
"I have never blamed you."
Jing Yuan’s breath stills.
Blade watches him, his expression unreadable, yet softer than before. "If anyone is innocent in the mess of this all," he murmurs, "it’s you."
The words feel like something is splitting open inside Jing Yuan’s chest. Like they were fracturing all the locks on the cages he'd hidden away, his memories of those days trapped within them finally surfacing again.
The guilt, the grief, the aching regret that had buried itself deep in his chest, nestled beside his very soul, bubbling up to the warm sunlight once more. He had spent so long carrying the weight of his guilt.
Guilt for being powerless. For not saving Yingxing. For not being able to save Dan Feng from the Preceptors forcing his rebirth. For not being able to save Jingliu from succumbing to madness after losing Bai Heng. For standing by while everything he loved was ripped away.
And yet here he is, Yingxing looking at him with something almost like understanding.
Looking at him without blame, without a single drop of resentment.
Jing Yuan’s breath shudders, his vision blurring with tears. His hands tremble violently, coming up to grasp Blade’s blazer, pressing into the warmth of his skin as if grounding himself.
"I missed you," he admits, voice breaking on the words. "I missed you so much."
Blade exhales. He leans in, resting his forehead against Jing Yuan’s again.
"I know," he murmurs.
And for a long moment, they simply stay like this.
"I missed you too,"
Their past linger, heavy in the air between them. The weight of centuries, pressing into the cracks that only time can fix.
Jing Yuan does not know how long it lasts before Blade finally pulls back.
There is something hesitant in his expression, something almost reluctant—as if he, too, does not want to let this moment go.
But then, in a voice quieter than before, he offers something else.
"If you’re not opposed to it…" His fingers ghost along the strands of his newly tied hair. "I can stop by when the Mara feels weaker."
Jing Yuan’s breath catches.
He stares, something raw and aching opening up in his chest. "You—" His throat feels tight. "Really?"
Blade meets his gaze. And then, simply—he nods.
Jing Yuan’s hands tighten without thinking. He doesn't stop himself when he leans forward—when he presses himself back against Blade’s warmth, arms wrapping around him, a desperate answer.
"Please."
Blade does not resist.
Instead, his own arms settle around Jing Yuan’s back, pulling him in.
"Promise. Promise you won't disappear again." A cruel thing to beg of someone who could never be his.
Blade’s fingers thread through his hair one last time, slow, deliberate.
"I’ll come back," he murmurs, almost too quiet to hear. "When the Mara is weaker, I'll come back."
It is not a promise. It can never be a promise.
Not anymore, like it once was—once could've been.
Not with the lives they lead.
It doesn't stop him clinging on to that hope.
For now, it's enough.
For now, Yingxing is here.
For now, Jing Yuan is not alone.