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The ghost of Shang Qinghua’s touch lingers on his skin from when he’d clutched breathlessly at Mobei Jun’s forearms, breath clouding in the northern desert air as Mobei Jun hunted and skewered a frost-spiked wolf.
Mobei Jun exhales sharply, clenching his hands against the smooth wooden surface of the desk.
The lacquered design on the desk Shang Qinghua had commissioned for him stares back at him with the beady eyes of a dragon.
His wrists flex once, twice, quickly in irritation.
Shang Qinghua’s pale face as Mobei Jun laid the corpse of the frost-spiked wolf at his feet crosses his mind, sending flickers of frost creeping across the dragon’s patterned scales.
That had not been the first time Shang Qinghua had rejected the spoils of a hunt. Shang Qinghua, who stared at Mobei Jun when he thought his back was turned and waxed poetic on how he would forever be loyal to Mobei Jun and then stayed silent as Mobei Jun exerted effort upon effort to present him with tokens of courtship.
Months deep into this yet-fruitless endeavour, he wonders if perhaps Shang Qinghua simply did not see him as worth courting.
He hadn’t given the thought any consideration before he’d come into his power, certain that the rightful claim of his long-assured family title would allow him to compensate Shang Qinghua and claim him in fair measure. He was the austere lord of the northern deserts, second in power and title to Luo Binghe alone, with coffers as deep as the north was cold. There were few who could claim to be worthier than him.
More than anger, the thought fills him with a sense of loss so poignant that he finds himself raising an involuntary hand to his chest. Yet Mobei Jun finds himself still unwilling to part with the moments in which it seemed as if Shang Qinghua wanted him the same way he wanted Shang Qinghua.
What was one more act of foolishness in the face of all that he had done already? He had already once played at pitifulness, believing that in the absence of his ancestral power he would guarantee that Shang Qinghua saw fit to gaze upon him favourably, and that too had failed. Shang Qinghua had returned to the northern palace many moons ago, and yet he had gotten no closer to winning his heart than when Shang Qinghua had stormed out of his halls and vanished from sight.
A thought strikes his mind then.
If Shang Qinghua had once spoken of how Luo Binghe could capture the heart of his shizun, perhaps Shen Qingqiu held further insight on the courtship rituals Shang Qinghua spoke of.
“Mobei Jun.” Shen Qingqiu raises an unimpressed eyebrow.
“Peak Lord Shen,” he answers begrudgingly. There’s little point in word games, so he continues without pause, “how does one court in your hometown?”
Shen Qingqiu’s other eyebrow flies up faster than the fan he snaps open. “Court.” Mobei Jun can not, nor does he wish to, decipher the tone with which the words are spoken.
“This one has come to believe that Peak Lord Shen and Shang Qinghua grew up in the same town.”
“Where…?” Shen Qingqiu mutters under his breath. He snaps his fan shut and opens the door a little wider. “So, you’re looking to court—”
Shang Qinghua blinks up at him. “What are these, my king?”
Mobei Jun looks down at the ‘bouquet of fresh flowers’ Shen Qingqiu had told him to prepare. “Flowers.”
His advisor’s face twitches a little at that. Mobei Jun watches in fascination as he bites his lips, eyes flickering between the bouquet Mobei Jun holds and his face. “Yes, my king, only—what are they for?”
“For you.” He had found it unnecessary to detail earlier—Shang Qinghua was sure to be familiar with the courting rituals of his own townsfolk—but he had clearly been mistaken.
“Hrnmg.” Shang Qinghua makes a strange garbled noise, his eyebrows twitching as he reaches a hand out. “That’s…very kind of you, my king, to bring them all the way to me yourself.” He pokes gingerly at the stem and grimaces as dirt shakes itself loose from the assorted flowers and lands on the folded layers of his robes.
Shang Qinghua’s face remains frozen in that half-grimace, and Mobei Jun frowns at that. There isn’t the slightest hint of the strange red upon his cheeks that Mobei Jun has come to cherish as a sign of his fluster. Perhaps Shen Qingqiu had been mistaken about this being a traditional sign of courtship; or perhaps Shang Qinghua’s words hide a deeper meaning—that traditional courting flowers were not typically delivered by the suitor themselves but instead by a third party.
Indeed, the indirect nature of humans lent itself well to complicated courtship rituals.
“My king.”
He will never tire of the way Shang Qinghua calls for him, his eyes drawing to the familiar silhouette as it emerges from the shadows. His advisor stares up at him with something approaching confusion.
“Shang Qinghua.”
The box of “chocolates” had been left in Shang Qinghua’s quarters by servants, as was the human way. He’d ordered that they be placed upon the bedside table so that they would be the first thing Shang Qinghua laid his eyes upon in the morning.
Mobei Jun returns Shang Qinghua’s gaze, wondering when and how he’ll bring them up.
Instead, Shang Qinghua only greets Mobei Jun with a perfunctory bow before starting on his usual daily report as he starts down the hall.
Perhaps there is a method to the madness of humans that the gestures were rejected in the suitor’s stead. That is the only thought keeping him from demanding that Shang Qinghua acknowledge the confectionaries, along with the memory of Shang Qinghua calling him far too harsh and demanding. Too spoiled.
“Does Shang Qinghua…dislike sweets?” He finds himself asking instead, biting his tongue as the words escape his mouth. Foolish.
Shang Qinghua tilts his head and chitters nervously. “No, my king, this lowly one is rather fond of sweets. Ah! Of course, not as fond as he is of his exalted king!”
Despite the light nature of his words, Mobei Jun finds himself comforted. Fond. Shang Qinghua is fond of him.
Something seizes his heart. If it weren’t the sweets Shang Qinghua was opposed to, why hadn’t he reciprocated? He corrects the brief lag in his step, cloak swirling behind him as his stride lengthens.
Foolish.
Attempting to drape Shang Qinghua in his cloak goes similarly poorly, resulting in Shang Qinghua startling out of it and then apologizing for having dropped Mobei Jun’s noble garments and rushing off to get them washed.
All-the-while, Shang Qinghua’s eyes linger upon his chest and he smiles up at Mobei Jun with as much fondness as ever. It is both infuriating and maddening.
As he stares back at the animated figure of Shang Qinghua, he remembers one final suggestion. One that he had initially discarded, thinking it too rough-handed, too similar to the number of failed courtships that Shang Qinghua had left him over.
“If all else fails, pin him to a wall by planting your arm beside his head.”
The moonlight spills inside the empty halls of his palace and fills them with a pale glow. The quiet trod of footsteps comes to a halt as shadows stretch against a particular wall. Softly, fabric rustles as it brushes against frozen marble.
Shang Qinghua stares back at him with eyes lit by that very moonlight, his back pressed against the smooth tiles of the walls.
“My king?”
His lips gleam slightly, pink and damp from when he had nervously licked them earlier. Mobei Jun swallows, close enough to smell the heady mix of ink and parchment.
Shang Qinghua inhales sharply. Mobei Jun stares at the minute trembling of his eyelashes in fascination and watches as colour slowly infuses Shang Qinghua’s cheeks. The piece of wall under his hand crumbles slightly, and Shang Qinghua audibly gulps.
“Shang Qinghua.” His throat works as he presses his lips together and stares down at his advisor.
Shang Qinghua slides a little further down the wall, his eyes darting to the side nervously as if to avoid Mobei Jun’s gaze, but he makes no attempt to escape. Mobei Jun’s free hand lifts until he’s cradling Shang Qinghua’s head in the palm of his hand.
“My king?” Shang Qinghua whispers. The heat radiating from his face warms Mobei Jun’s hand beyond the usual baseline temperature of his cooled skin, but he only presses his hand closer.
“This Mobei Jun would like to propose a courtship,” he says stiffly. “Does Shang Qinghua accept?”
“Yes..?” Shang Qinghua squeaks, a vague haze to the bright topaz of his eyes.
Relief finally settles in his chest. Mobei Jun leans in, the hand braced against the wall slowly sliding down until the points of his nails press against the soft fabric of Shang Qinghua’s robes.
“...wait, what?!”
Shang Qinghua pushes him back, brown eyes shot wide in alarm. Mobei Jun frowns down at him in displeasure and wonders which ritual he’d failed to adhere to this time.
“What.” His fingers feel almost numb from where they’re braced around Shang Qinghua’s shoulder.
“A courtship? My king? Me?” Shang Qinghua splutters, his face heating even further before it suddenly pales. “My king, have you ingested anything strange recently?”
There are no enemies in sight, and yet his chest throbs as if he’s taken a hit from a steel-toed rhinoceros. Perhaps it truly wasn’t the question of how the courtship was presented, but instead the one who presented the courtship that Shang Qinghua had been objecting to all along.
“I have not. Shang Qinghua, is the thought of my favour so unpleasant for you?” He grits the words out, wishing he could have bitten his own foolish tongue off instead.
“Of course not, my king! My king is the most generous demon lord, anyone would be pleased to gain your favour—,” Shang Qinghua blubbers, looking anywhere but at him.
“Anyone but Shang Qinghua.” He drops his hands from Shang Qinghua’s soft body and wrenches his gaze from the look of dawning comprehension upon his face, unable to face the pity that must then follow.
Shang Qinghua falls silent at that and Mobei Jun exhales, finally turning to walk away. Perhaps he would have once demanded Shang Qinghua answer why he would not reciprocate, but that had been before he had keenly felt the loss of Shang Qinghua.
“Do you like me, my king?” The words are spoken breathlessly, as if Shang Qinghua is holding his breath while he speaks. A foolish question, he thinks as he closes his eyes. Why else would he have gone through all this trouble?
The warmth encircling his wrist stops him from taking another step. Despite himself, he turns to face Shang Qinghua again. No matter what, he could never stop wishing for Shang Qinghua to remain by his side.
“My king.” Shang Qinghua beams up at him and steps forward until their chests are touching, looping his arms around Mobei Jun’s neck. “Anyone would be pleased to gain your favour.
“This Shang Qinghua included.”
Why hadn’t he walked away to begin with? Perhaps it was out of the foolish hope that Shang Qinghua would keep him from walking away and confess his own heart. Right now, with his fingers caught around the soft strands of Shang Qinghua’s hair and with a pair of warm lips pressed firmly against his own, he can no longer call that hope foolish.