1000 ㊊ moon
FEYXUAN
one thousand moons, one thousand tries. heaven lies, oh how heaven lies.
TW: suicide, sex work, c/sa
act i
act ii
act I
SCENE 1
There is nothing to be said for those who do not understand the movements of heaven from below. Qian Zhouyu knows, with such deep, unabiding bitterness worse than pennywort’s herbal sting. In the Lands of the Winged, 翼の国, or TSUBASA COUNTRY, far off where the mountain meets the sea, 『there is no place for a creature such as i to be. only among the weeds, like a snake grazing the tops of trees.』There is an irreverence in the way the movements of mortal creatures pride themselves on a knowing they do not have, and would not desire, if they had it. 『no, not mortal creatures. humans are the only animal with such severe pride. HUMANITY OR ANIMALITY? i know how i would like to die. With Dignity.』Qian Zhouyu does not remember the name he was born with, the one that sings of their MOTHER’S LAND, but not their MOTHERLAND, such is the fate to be born in a place so far from walking or swimming or singing distance of your mother’s birth, only in such rituals of unearth…to be denied the land of your mother’s birth, through violence and violation of a nation-state, shattered like a wave across a cliff and made to learn…A new place. A new rank and station. Such an untidy thing as war to defile a nation, to lay it to waste and then debase its people, only to SAVE IT FROM ITSELF! And then find…to realize, there’s nothing valuable TO THE EMPIRE there, only such resources such as SAVAGES know how to use, and in disempowering and stripping a threat of the very thread that as yet maintains modesty…well, now to utterly humiliate and decimate a nation of any grace and respect it once had for even retaining a human rank and station…and then to realize it had already been razed to nothing, in the raising of war,YOU, THE EMPIRE, have razed this beautiful country to nothing because you wanted to conquer and colonize its people, but they resisted the tide of war, they played dirty, GUERILLA WAR, and then you bombed the nation until the air, the very air, killed all the people, and now nothing lives there. Nothing lives there.
(WAS IT NOT ENOUGH FOR THE EMPEROR TO SEND ANTS MARCHING THE POISON THE WELLS?)
『no, for an emperor , the desirable nation must be felled immediately, impossibly, and if such a nation’s people are too proud to come easy to the call of an empire,』
『IT IS THE DISOBEDIENT CHILD’S FAULT FOR FORCING THE FATHER’S HAND.』
“So sorry, Mingming, my mind wandered. O gracious one, tell me again. もう一度教えてくれ。”Yue Xianming sighs and strokes the arch of his foot against Qian Zhouyu’s calf under the table. He rifes his fingers through his hair, laying down on the bamboo-matted floor all languid and loose-limbed in a nest of pillows.“You are insufferable, a talentless airhead,” Yue Xiangming sighs.【你好，我姓千。】
「Hello, I’m Qian.」【你好，你叫什么名字？】
「Hello, what’s your [full] name?」【。。。千咒语。】
「...Qian Zhouyu.」『違うよ～もう一度言ってくれ。』
「Nope! Wrong! Say it for me one more time.」【。。。我叫千咒语。你姓什么？】
「...My name is Qian Zhouyu. What’s your last name?」【我姓月！我叫月仙鸣。】
「My last name’s Yue! My full name is Yue Xianming.」“I didn’t ask,” Qian Zhouyu says, rolling his eyes.“I’m being friendly!”“Overbearing, more like.”“I’m too cute for that! I lied. You do have talent. But you are stubborn, and rude.”“Why? Do I come off as cold?”“Very! And your tones are all! Bad!”“Bad how?”“Mean! Talking to you in Birdtongues is so frustrating! You sound as though you’d rather be doing literally anything else. Awful, ungrateful, talentless, and rude.”Yue Xianming sniffs, throwing his head back and lazing in the cushions. His foot reaches out to wiggle his toes against Qian Zhouyu’s calf again. He is loose-limbed and languid, utterly at ease since today he doesn’t have any clients today. Qian Zhouyu has a headache building behind his eyes that’ll only get worse when he starts on his own clients’ work.『こっちおいで。』
「Come here, come here.」Yue Xianming curls up on his side, graciously offering Qian Zhouyu some pillows to lie on. Qian Zhouyu doesn’t lie down, too wired to be so defenseless, so he sits with his back against the floor table, his ass gently nestled by some feather-down cushions, gifts from some of Yue Xianming’s clientele.“You look anxious,” Yue Xianming says. “なぜ？「 Why?」”
(it is because i want to die,)
Qian Zhouyu doesn’t say, and doesn’t need to. Dryly, he says, “I translate stories from TSUBASA COUNTRY into propaganda for the western empire.”“It’s the only work you can find,” Yue Xianming says, pulling Qian Zhouyu’s head into his lap with obscene force and iron-boned fingers. His bones settle back into hollow jadescent pipe-flutes as he strokes his fingers through Qian Zhouyu’s long, long hair. “Don’t be upset.”“There are other things a foreigner can do in these lands.” Qian Zhouyu looks away.“No. Not for you,” Yue Xianming says, stroking Qian Zhouyu’s forehead, cupping his face. “Sex like I do…neither the operatic theatre of the fantasy like I provide, on an impossible yumescent scale, like I do…a dream come true, very few would be capable of it. And no one like I do. Even if you weren’t a virgin, it’d be impossible for you.”“People pay high for virgins.”“It’s not the virginity they pay for. It’s the fantasy of fucking a virgin. I’ve been a virgin a thousand times. Don’t think of it. It’s not for you.”“Why not?”“It’s just not. Don’t fight me on this. I know better.”“I know you know more about the work, but this is my body, and my choice. Why are you forbidding me? You don’t have that right.”Yue Xianming looks furious, fisting his fingers and pulling tight in Qian Zhouyu’s hair. His fine-boned cheeks are spotted red (like the painted blush of a peony), and his eyes are dark and cruel.Qian Zhouyu watches him, and his own irritation flares, nostrils widening. “What’s wrong with me for asking? I don’t get why you’re so fucking upset over what I do with my body when you do much worse with yours. What, is it because you think I’d make a pathetic whore? Not nearly so high a courtesan as to be railing royalty?”『うるさい。』
「Shut the fuck up.」“I already know you think I’m a pathetic failure at everything I try to do and it doesn’t fucking matter that I’m learning everything you teach better than thousands of people could, because you could learn it and do it better, so, what? Nothing I do will be good enough for you, and I’m sick of trying to be.”Yue Xianming’s hand goes limp in Qian Zhouyu’s hair. “I don’t…I don’t think that. I don’t think that at all.”“Then what’s your Fucking problem?”Yue Xianming clamps his mouth shut.Qian Zhouyu stands up in a goddamn rage, even as Yue Xianming follows him with his hand wound up in his hair again, holding Qian Zhouyu like a leash. Qian Zhouyu doesn’t lay a hand on him. Hasn’t ever, never will. Yue Xianming gets enough of people he doesn’t want touching him, touching him.“Please,” Yue Xianming says, quietly. “Please don’t go.”(I’ll do anything,) he doesn’t say.But Qian Zhouyu ignores the part of him that supposes that, telling himself his instinct is lying, he lies and lies and lies by design. By profession, and by design.“I think you should leave,” Qian Zhouyu says.Yue Xianming shakes his head. “You’ll hate me if I tell you why I don’t want you doing what I do.”Qian Zhouyu laughs. “I already hate you.”“You don’t,” Yue Xianming says, voice shaking.『the actor of a millennium.』“Please,” Yue Xianming says. “Don’t hate me.”Qian Zhouyu says nothing, not trusting his throat, flexing his jaw tight with the fury that burns molten hot inside him.Yue Xianming cuddles up to him, untangling his fist to cup Qian Zhouyu’s head by the nape of his neck, leaning down to curl his long, elegant body around Qian Zhouyu like a snake enclosing. He rubs his face against Qian Zhouyu’s neck, his breath warm, his unperfumed scent of simple woodstove smoke and the congee he’d made for them both that morning.Qian Zhouyu knows he doesn’t mean anything by this display, and that he doesn’t mean anything by any of his displays or anything at all. It’s in his line of work, it’s in his bones, in his blood, to show everything he feels by magnified exaggeration, to dominate with a touch, with the suggestion of a fuck, regardless of who it is.So what if he only touches Qian Zhouyu like this, and allows no one else to even LOOK at him outside of work? Qian Zhouyu is his only friend. No one else can trust him, or stand him.“Stop it,” Qian Zhouyu says, not moving. (i won’t force my touch on him. not now, not ever.)Yue Xianming wraps his arms around Qian Zhouyu’s waist and curls vice-tight, like a strangulation. “Don’t be mad.”“I’m not mad. I’m fucking furious. Hypocrite.”“I don’t hate you. Don’t hate me,” Yue Xianming says. “Please?”“Oh, the great Xianming doesn’t hate me, now I can die easy!”“Please? Tell me you don’t hate me, please please please,” Yue Xianming begs.Qian Zhouyu wavers. Surely, this must be another rehearsed performance? But the bugs biting in his gut as it twists violently tell him it isn’t. However, in the absence of any other answer, Qian Zhouyu must simply suppose that it is. Suddenly, despite the heat radiating off Yue Xianming clinging to him, Qian Zhouyu feels his stomach grow viciously cold.“I can’t hate you,” Qian Zhouyu settles on.Yue Xianming looks up at him, somehow, despite being half a head taller. His eyes are red with unshed tears, and his frame trembles with barely constrained panic. “Can’t or don’t want to or don’t?”Qian Zhouyu says nothing.“Please. I need to know. I really, really need to know.” Yue Xianming’s voice is as clear as a bell, if the clapper inside it was earth-shaking.“Does it matter?”“It does. A lot.”“I wish you hated me. You don’t, is the thing.”Yue Xianming’s ears perk. “And?”Qian Zhouyu sighs. “Yue Xianming, you are a soaring hawk, and I am a crawling beast. I am so far beneath you as to not even signify, so little as to not even merit the act of hatred. You believe everyone is beneath you. And, you’re right.”Yue Xianming begins to cry.Qian Zhouyu doesn’t touch him. His fingers twitch, though. “That’s why you’re alone.”Yue Xianming is silent. Tears wetting Qian Zhouyu’s kimono. “Touch me, please. Touch me, touch me.”“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”“Am I so dirty that you don’t want to?”“I don’t think you want me to. You just want me to forgive you. There’s nothing to forgive. I already know what you are, and how you’re like. I didn’t want to say anything fucked up so that’s why I wanted you to leave. But you wanted to stay, so I fucking said it. That’s what I think of you.”“I don’t think of you like that. Everyone else, yes. You’re right. But not you. Never you. 分かってる？まだ知らない？ 「Do you understand? Do you still not know?」”“I’m just like everyone else.”Yue Xianming shakes his head. “Will you hold me? Just for a second? Please?”“Why?”Yue Xianming shakes his head, and then he unlatches his jaw, shudders, and says, “I want you to like me. No one else has to. No one else is important. But it’s very important that you do.”“I don’t matter. At all. To anyone.”“I don’t want to fight. It’s…it’s okay, even, if you hate me, if you’ll just—”
“TOUCH ME.”
“—Please. Just for a little bit?”“What, no ‘just this once,’ that always turns into more and more and more?”“If…if it bothers you, that I…I’m sorry. If you…hate it when I, I touch you.”“Even if I did, you wouldn’t stop, would you? You’d keep pushing and pushing for it until I either got tired of saying no or relented.”“Because…you…you don’t hate it, so it’s okay to push, right? If it doesn’t really matter to you either way, but it matters a lot to me, it’s okay, right?”“It’s true that I don’t hate it, but I don’t understand it, either.”Yue Xianming clutches the front of Qian Zhouyu’s tear-streaked kimono and mutters something dark.“What are you even saying?”“I said,” Yue Xianming’s voice colder than ice, “if I was a normal girl, you’d understand just fine.”Qian Zhouyu is exhausted, and confused, so he wraps his arms around Yue Xianming’s incandescent form, who folds right into him as though he’d been waiting all this time for a simple hug, and his shaky, tear-wet breathing evens out and his arms loop around Qian Zhouyu’s neck as he buries his face into the long column of Qian Zhouyu’s throat, scenting him.Yue Xianming is warm, and his heart is rabbit-kicking, and he smells so, so good it leeches all the anger and hurt from Qian Zhouyu’s body.“Mmn,” Yue Xianming presses his face closer, nuzzling Qian Zhouyu, his hot breath puffing against Qian Zhouyu’s sensitive skin. “You feel good, you feel so good.”Qian Zhouyu’s arms instinctively flex, pressing Yue Xianming flush against him, and Yue Xianming is right. It does feel good.“I’m sorry for being mean to you,” Qian Zhouyu says.“Don’t care. Happy,” Yue Xianming sighs, breath tickling Qian Zhouyu’s ear as he giggles.Yue Xianming winds himself even closer, cheek brushing Qian Zhouyu’s cheek.Qian Zhouyu hates his heart for beating as fast and as hard as Yue Xianming. He’s not a girl, and no girl’s ever made them feel as much as this, and even if he might not be the same kind of man as most men, he still is a man, kind of, right? Aren’t they? A man, that is? They can’t think when Yue Xianming is giggling breathlessly into their ear.When Yue Xianming closes his teeth and tugs on Qian Zhouyu’s earlobe, sending a hot, wet jolt down to Qian Zhouyu’s dick, Qian Zhouyu lets go just as Yue Xianming slides a thigh between Qian Zhouyu’s legs.“Please,” Yue Xianming begs. “Just a little longer…”“I, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”“Could we? Would it be so bad if we…? Just once, it doesn’t have to mean anything you don’t want it to. Okay? I promise. Would it be so bad?”Yue Xianming sucks at Qian Zhouyu’s neck. Instantly, Qian Zhouyu’s arms encircle Yue Xianming, landing at his waist and at his head, encouraging him closer, that sweet, hot breath. Fuck, he smells and feels so good.“I don’t think…”“Don’t think. Just let me take care of it.”“I mean…it’s…I’m not mad, so you can stop. I’m not mad anymore, so you don’t have to…”“Mmn, but I want to, please let me…?” Yue Xianming sounds wrecked, breathy and gasping like he’s the one getting his throat kissed and sucked, like he’s the one with his cock filling with the friction of a thigh against it.“I, uh,” Qian Zhouyu can’t think, his mouth parting on a gasp as Yue Xianming sucks hard, a bruise blossoming at his ministrations.“Please, please, please,” Yue Xianming breathes into his ear. “You don’t even have to touch me, just let me touch you, I know you hate getting your hands dirty with a thing like me. Just let me touch you? Make you feel good?”Yue Xianming rubs up against Qian Zhouyu’s hip, and then he thrusts again, aligning their hips flush, cock-to-cock.“I, it’s not…I don’t want to force you, I promise I’m not mad, so you don’t have to…”“Tell me no, and (I won’t force You, but if you don’t say you don’t want me, don’t want this, then I won’t stop until you cum. You don’t even have to watch me finish if it disgusts you. I’ll hold off.”“I, uh–um! Fuck. You’re, I can’t think.”“Don’t,” Yue Xianming begs.“Probably–we–maybe should talk?”“No,” Yue Xianming moans, undoing Qian Zhouyu’s obi and his own. Then he stops, his hand on the bulge in Qian Zhouyu’s fundoshi. “Do you really want to stop? Because I’ll stop. And we don’t ever have to talk about it again.”“Um!” Yue Xianming’s lips are red from kissing Qian Zhouyu’s throat, marking him, and Qian Zhouyu is dizzy with how hot that makes him, and he knows he has his ugly flush going on all across his body, and his fingers are nervously working at his palms with the effort of not touching Yue Xianming. Does he want me to?“Please? Just once, let me make you feel good.”“It’s never just once with you,” Qian Zhouyu says.
“We don’t have to talk about it or acknowledge it or anything ever ever ever, you don’t have to touch me, you can just let me take care of you. Make you feel good? But if you want me to stop, I’ll stop, and we don’t have to talk about it either.”“It’s not that I don’t want to touch you…” Qian Zhouyu murmurs.“Do you? Want to?”“I–I don’t know. I…I think we should, stop…before we can’t go back.”“I don’t want to go back,” Yue Xianming says, eyes pleading, “I want to make you cum.”
『i want to cum in his mouth.』
Qian Zhouyu eyes Yue Xianming’s red mouth.Yue Xianming’s eyes light up, and he falls to his knees, undoing the tie of his own fundoshi as Qian Zhouyu undoes his own, slipping his kimono off his shoulders. Yue Xianming stays in his, the expensive gifted silk with tancho koi swimming in circles, in swirling currents, in floating, flying patterns, pooling around his legs.“Can I?” Yue Xianming says, sitting prettily on his knees but his hair all haphazard from its low-ponytail tie, falling loose around his face, all untidy like he hates, and his teeth worry his lip swollen as he pets and strokes Qian Zhouyu’s hairy thighs, his eyes welling up with preemptive tears like he’s sure Qian Zhouyu is going to say no and he wants to make sure…no, even Yue Xianming is beyond deception now.He really wants this.“Please,” Yue Xianming says. “Please don’t be mad.”“I’m not mad,” Qian Zhouyu says, brushing his thumb over Yue Xianming’s face, whose eyes shut and whose lips part on a moan as he does so, cheeks flushing with pleasure. “But I do hate you.”“Don’t, please don’t, let me convince you.”Qian Zhouyu’s lip tugs on an ugly smile. “I know. I know you want to convince me not to. That’s all this is, isn’t it? You convincing me not to think badly of you.”“I want you to like me,” Yue Xianming says, biting the inside of Qian Zhouyu’s thigh. “I want you to like me so much.”“You’re only interested in me because I don’t worship the ground you walk on,” Qian Zhouyu shakes his head, tracing Yue Xianming’s cheekbone with their thumbnail. “If I didn’t fucking hate your guts, you’ d have no reason to stick around, and you’d throw me away like you’ve thrown away every other momentary fascination you’ve ever had in your life.”Yue Xianming sobs.Qian Zhouyu kneels down next to him, gathering Yue Xianming in their arms.“I’m right, aren’t I? You’re crying because I’m right.”“Kiss me,” Yue Xianming says. “Kiss me, please? It’s okay if you hate me forever and always, just kiss me? Please?”Qian Zhouyu puts his thumb on Yue Xianming’s lips, which part on a broken moan. “You’ve said please so many times I think you’ve forgotten what it means. I can barely believe all the rumors that say you’d never beg. You do it all the time, with me, when you don’t get what you want.”“I don’t care about them. Just you. Kiss me?”Qian Zhouyu leans in, then stops, a breath away. Yue Xianming sobs.Qian Zhouyu says, “They say you don’t kiss, either. You’re too good for it.”“Please, Zhouyu. I want it so much.”Qian Zhouyu kisses him, closing the distance with a soft press of lips. Yue Xianming is instantly on him, moaning and shoving him down to his back, straddling his hips and rocking, both their cocks still hard. Yue Xianming is rubbing against him, the soft, velvety skin of his beautifully proportioned swan-cock against Qian Zhouyu’s thick length, the wet leaking from his head slicking them both.Yue Xianming rubs them together, stroking them, and Qian Zhouyu wraps a hand around his to help guide him to the pace he likes, as if he were just doing it to himself, not thinking not thinking about really anything at all, just the lush of Yue Xianming’s lips, the heat of his mouth, and the dew grass of their spring tea.“Mm, what was that about not having me see you cum?”“Changed my mind, want to cum,” Yue Xianming whines. “Want you to see what you do to me, only you.”“I’m sure you say that to all your lovers.”Yue Xianming pulls back, a line of saliva connecting their lips, his lips twisting in a confused frown. “I don’t talk to them? I never talk to my clients. They think I’m mute.”Qian Zhouyu looks at him quizzically. “I can’t get you to ever shut up.”Yue Xianming seems to declare that as unimportant, or at least less important than kissing, and goes back to kissing Qian Zhouyu as though this is the most important thing he’s done with his entire life. Yue Xianming loves teasing kisses, having Qian Zhouyu chase him with his lips, with his tongue, following the pace Yue Xianming sets as flirtatious but absolute, especially as Yue Xianming’s throat hums on a long, endless moan from where they’re rubbing up against each other, Qian Zhouyu setting a tight grip but refusing to let Yue Xianming push them any faster.Yue Xianming is panting into Qian Zhouyu’s mouth, and the look on his face when Yue Xianming pulls back to gaze at Qian Zhouyu is of pure elation.Qian Zhouyu watches Yue Xianming lick his lips, and when Qian Zhouyu brushes the line of his cheekbone with the back of his fingers, Yue Xianming shuts his eyes and cums. Qian Zhouyu is so fucking turned on by the splurt of Yue Xianming hitting hot and sticky against him, the way Yue Xianming rubs the globs of it into the wetness between their cocks…it makes Qian Zhouyu cum, too.“Mmnh!” Yue Xianming smiles at Qian Zhouyu with dopey bliss, kissing him through his orgasm and working him until he’s oversensitive. Qian rubs the mess on his hands and cock on the fabric of Yue Xianming’s expensive kimono.Yue Xianming wipes his hands on it also, not a care in the world or, apparently, a single thought in his head, just looking at Qian Zhouyu with pure adoration.He cups Qian Zhouyu’s face between his hands, kissing him full. “Feel good?”Qian Zhouyu is about to say yes, actually, but something stops him. Something in his throat. He coughs and chokes and gags on something until Yue Xianming’s face goes deathly pale and he pries open Qian Zhouyu’s mouth to reach his delicate jade-carved fingers in and pull out one long, long heron feather.“You can’t make me go back, I won’t go back, you can’t make me go back there, nothing will make me go back there, you can’t, ”
I WON’T LEAVE HIM!
Qian Zhouyu’s head spins, suddenly heavy and dizzy and overlarge. His eyes shut against his will, and his entire body crumples. The last thing he hears before his limbs are dismembered, severed cleanly and bloodlessly, like a weeping butcher’s doll, is:
【WELL, NOW, IF HE’S THE PROBLEM, THAT’S SIMPLE, “XIANMING!”】
act I
SCENE 2
yue xianming knows better than to believe the word of god, of gods. that's why when they tell him he must return to heaven or the world will end, he says, "let this world end. if my beloved isn't in it, it doesn't matter." and then he does what they wanted him to do all along.he claims the dicentra of his birthright. they call it a lot of things. in the tongue of the shadow of the wind, they call it OMIKAZE, or, the omikaze inheritance. after the mythic god, OMI-IE, split themselves in two, one half to be restored in the Infinity Loop with the peach of OMI's eye, MOMOJINTAROU, and the other to become OMIKAZE, the cast-off divinity of the god above god, the one that made heaven…omi-ie-sama didn't even want it. yue xianming doesn't want it, either. but helplessly watching qian zhouyu's severed arms and legs crawl away, trying to race off to yue xianming's family dinner plates… yue xianming has no choice. but to call on his birthright.
TO FALL IN LOVE ONCE AND FOR ALL.
their house is small. zhouyu's house is small. yue xianming invited himself in one day and never left. it's a three room hovel where one room is the toilet, another is the kitchen, and the largest room, though still not large, is the bedroom/living room/entry room/office. qian zhouyu lies motionless in the nest of pillows yue xianming inserted from his storerooms, useless, unwanted gifts from his clients to get him to open his mouth or his legs.it was always the latter, xianming thinks, because he values his thoughts, his languages, too highly to waste his breath on such fools.he loves to give his useless, expensive things to qian zhouyu who seems to eye them suspiciously and use them only with the utmost caution. as though he can see the cumstains that bought it.the house is small, but tidy, dustless with the fine, exacting precision of a beloved housewife waiting for her husband to come home. yue xianming is the one who has to take work outside, and qian zhouyu barely leaves except to deliver his empire transcripts to the post, but qian zhouyu would choose to live miserably in a messy, run-down shack before thinking better of himself, that he should live better than that. and yue xianming would rather live in a shack with zhouyu than in the emperor's palace. so yue xianming cleans and cooks and tidies just for the simple luxury of being near qian zhouyu.i'd do far worse just for the luxury of looking at him. though zhouyu barely looks back. rarely meets his eyes.yue xianming looks dispassionately at the dismembered body of his beloved, his limbs writhing independently on the floor, the both of them still naked with their cum drying on yue xianming's fish kimono. yue xianming un-self-consciously wanders to the dresser and shrugs on the heavy, rough fabric of qian zhouyu's favorite haori.it smells like him. like the crude catmint soap he likes to use and the dust of parchment, of palimpsests, because zhouyu can't afford to waste something as precious as rice paper, so he erases old documents and false-start transcripts and uses them again and again, every successive work bearing the marks of what came before it.yue xianming was not always yue xianming. but I don't remember everyone I was or have been, either. many of those positions were roles, and even yue xianming is just his favorite role. the person he wants to be. the edition of himself he wants zhouyu to find it in himself to love. but this xianming is too close to who he is. so of course zhouyu can't love it.yue xianming sometimes wishes he had never met qian zhouyu so he would never have to know the particular sorrow of a girl who will never be loved back, but who loves and yearns, just so much, for someone who barely tolerates her… it's not that yue xianming thinks qian zhouyu hates the time they spend together, yue xianming playing housewife, cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner for qian zhouyu, making sure he's the first thing qian zhouyu sees when he wakes up and the last thing qian zhouyu sees before he goes to sleep…of course qian zhouyu loves the convenience, and doesn't mind that yue xianming is the one to give it to him… but yue xianming knows that if qian zhouyu had his pick? it would be everyone first, and then him. to him, I am a rotten, dirty girl… an Untouchable Thing. but if I had been born a normal, ordinary girl… if I was the type of girl to bear breasts and a slit beneath my clothes? he could love a girl like that. it's easy and rewarding to love a girl like that.
but yue xianming is what he is.
—and he touches his fingers to qian zhouyu's forehead, leaving behind the godmark of a new moon. a hollow circle. an absence. qian zhouyu's limbs crawl back to him, and they seal back with godmarked lines where they had been severed, once, egg-white rings on tan skin, rings where in sunlight, the flesh will be transparent as glass, or uncooked albumen, but in the moon they will seal like hardened egg white.the mark on his forehead will, too, fill white with the cycles of the moon.when qian zhouyu opens his eyes, his head cradled in yue xianming's lap, he rubs his temples."my head hurts like a motherfcker.""do you know me?" yue xianming says, his voice ringing like a bell, rolling like the wind ripples on clear water.qian zhouyu gives him a tired, puzzled look. "I don't know."and that's by design."what do you know?""I'm… I'm not sure.""do you want to go back?" yue xianming says calmly. "to how you were before? or before that?""I…" qian zhouyu looks at yue xianming, eyes empty and black. "I think I'd like to go back. to how I was just before. but not before that."yue xianming nods simply, the egg of his heart singing a solemn tune. the chick inside it is dying. it has never gotten the chance to become born.qian zhouyu holds up a hand. "wait. even if I can go back, what about you? you can't, right?"yue xianming smiles, but it flickers. "perceptive as always, though never how I like, or want you to be.""I still want to go back. but what are you going to do?"yue xianming blinks at him. and then he smiles. "why, now, I'll do what I always do.""and what's that?"yue xianming touches qian zhouyu's forehead, activating OMIKAZE'S MARK."what else do you think, zhouyu?"yue xianming kisses his sleeping face. he whispers into his lips as he takes the thread of time between his teeth and pulls taut."why, now, I'll—
—ACT."
act I
SCENE 3
"Mingming? どうしたの？風通オマエはすごく変なやつだけど。。。今。。"『Mingming? What's wrong? You're usually a weird guy but… lately… 』Yue Xianming looks dead-exhausted and he's been. Quiet. Secretive. Unhappy. Qian Zhouyu never realized how unhappy Yue Xianming was before… Qian Zhouyu doesn't remember, exactly, what he's not supposed to remember, and what he is, but he has these dreams, so violently vivid of… of having Xianming in his arms and cumming for him and he can remember the feeling of Xianming's cock sliding against his and he wakes up with wet sheets and Yue Xianming nowhere nearby like he usually is and no note either until he appears midday looking hungry but refusing to eat."I can't do it," Yue Xianming says this time, instead of nothing all the other times.He is sitting on Qian Zhouyu’s futon, like he has been, unmoving, for however many hours Qian Zhouyu has been working under deadline… 『but what do such things matter when my only friend is in such a state? GOD, I'M TERRIBLE.』 Qian Zhouyu sits next to him, too close for propriety, like Yue Xianming likes, but Xianming looks up at him and… smiles, but it is a pitiful, broken thing. Something happened. And Qian Zhouyu has been too full of shame imagining the velvety skin of Yue Xianming's perfect cock sliding against his, slick with his own wet, to do more than notice vaguely that Yue Xianming is a little quieter than usual."Mingming…"Yue Xianming reaches for his hand, holding it delicately between both of his. Qian Zhouyu's ugly blocky man hand stained in ink. Yue Xianming kisses his fingers, lips moving reverent and lingering, worshipful, and Qian Zhouyu's breath picks up as he tries desperately to not get hard, fails, and then tries not to look at the huge fucking shame of his hard-on. He wants Yue Xianming to mock him for being such a virgin, but Yue Xianming is still in his strange mood, even as he parts his lips to suck around Qian Zhouyu's index finger, bobbing his head and kitten-licking and throating it.Qian Zhouyu moans helplessly and brokenly, confused and more turned on than he has been in his life. Yue Xianming pulls another finger into his mouth and fucks his own throat with them, humming and rubbing his thighs together. Qian Zhouyu pulls his fingers out with a pop and cups Yue Xianming's face with his ugly paw-like hands and leans in for a rare taste of him, helpless against the ruminations of what his lips feel like, if they're as good as the knowing in his dreams.Yue Xianming holds his hands where they are on his cheeks, and he tilts his chin down, gazing at some mark, probably an ink stain, on Qian Zhouyu’s forehead, before meeting his eyes. Yue Xianming looks like he is holding all the sorrow of the ocean in his gaze. But he doesn't look like he will cry. Qian Zhouyu kisses his cheek. Yue Xianming makes a soft noise in his throat, pressing his mouth to Qian Zhouyu’s palms before pulling his hands away."I have to tell you something. Before you continue," Yue Xianming says.Qian Zhouyu watches his red lips. "Yeah?"Yue Xianming scans Qian Zhouyu’s eyes, the earthen plates of the world shifting beneath the ocean waters, and then he fiercely pecks him on the lips."I changed my mind," he murmurs."About what?" Qian Zhouyu kisses him, clumsy but so desirous, Yue Xianming guiding him with a tilt of his head and a touch of his lips."It's better like this," Yue Xianming says, and not about the kisses."What is?"Yue Xianming kisses Qian Zhouyu’s open mouth, licking into it, and Qian Zhouyu forgets to think for a while after that. Yue Xianming tastes so good, like the spring tea they both shared that first time they spoke, though not the first time they met. It was at Qian Zhouyu’s favorite teahouse after he asked if the tea Yue Xianming had this huge pot of, all to himself, was any good. Yue Xianming had nodded, taking a sip of his tea that first time they'd seen each other, and said nothing. Qian Zhouyu knew the teahouse attracted a disreputable bunch, including a darker-skinned foreigner like himself, so he didn't think anything of it.He saw Yue Xianming more often after that, though for a beauty like himself, Qian Zhouyu had thought it strange no one was looking at him. He learned later that Yue Xianming had a knife on him at all times, and he was not afraid to use it if anyone even looked at him in a way he found displeasing. Crazy fucking whore, other men said beneath their breath, when he was out of earshot.But a lay like nothing else, one that'd ruin you even for god, other men said wistfully.Qian Zhouyu preferred to keep his ballsack where it was, so he didn't look at Yue Xianming more than to simply note he was there until Yue Xianming started trying more and more outrageous attempts to get his attention.At first, it started with watching Qian Zhouyu, who was already disinclined to stare overly much at men (trained it out of himself as a boy-seeking-boy among schoolchildren) and especially beautiful men. But even so, Qian Zhouyu was a far drop in the ocean away from being so dull a blade as to be so completely unobservant as one would need to be in order not to notice how intensely interested Yue Xianming's come hither eyes were, and that they were aimed directly at him.Qian Zhouyu really preferred to have his ballsack where it was, and he liked to have both balls if he could manage it, so he didn't do so much at look at Yue Xianming despite literally everyone with functioning eyeballs in the vicinity could tell Yue Xianming wanted him.Up until this second, with Yue Xianming's bottom lip sucked into his mouth, and Yue Xianming's tongue teasing into his, Qian Zhouyu had thought Yue Xianming had lost interest long ago in his petty little game of seduction, which Qian Zhouyu is beginning to perhaps suspect was not a game in the slightest."Remember in the teahouse when your staring didn't work so you started throwing things at me," Qian Zhouyu smiles.Yue Xianming smiles back at him, wicked color returning to his cheeks as he kisses Qian Zhouyu with pride in every elegant touch. "Peanuts and pebbles and chipped porcelain and dead bugs. My favorite was all the little balls of paper that got stuck in your hair and that I had plotted to oh, so smoothly offer to comb out so gently with your head in my lap after we retired to one of my private rooms and then you'd suck my cock and fall in love with me forever. ""I wish it been that easy," Qian Zhouyu smiles at Yue Xianming, dazed and affectionate and deeply relieved he's coming back to his usual humor. "I'm just glad I accidentally sat at your table and that you didn't chase me off like a wild dog.""No," Yue Xianming kisses him deeply, "I talked to you instead. Do you remember? No one else was in the teahouse that day.""Why?"Yue Xianming smiles at him, the light in his eyes flickering. "A premonition.""Of?""I had promised myself if you didn't notice me that day, I would give up for good.""So you rendered everyone else in the establishment a non-combatant.""I never said I played fair."Yue Xianming kisses Qian Zhouyu’s jaw and down the salty skin of his sweaty throat. Qian Zhouyu feels him smile when he bucks and gasps when Yue Xianming bites and sucks a deep bruise, hips chasing the air."Want me to suck you off? I don't offer my mouth lightly," he teases.Qian Zhouyu flushes all down his chest. It feels so good, so easy, so natural with Yue Xianming, he wonders if this is the dream and his dream had been reality. "Can I… you?""You, the virgin, would rather suck me than get sucked?""Please," Qian Zhouyu says, cheeks hot. "I've been dreaming about your cock."Yue Xianming stills, frozen, before lightly rubbing whatever ink stain he was looking at on Qian Zhouyu’s forehead with the back of his fingers. "And it's because of those dreams you… you're doing this?""No," Zhouyu says honestly. "I…"Qian Zhouyu grasps Yue Xianming's kimono and starts pulling it off of him as Yue Xianming does the same to him in turn, two unfolded obi falling to the wayside. As the beautiful gold-dark skin of Xianming's body reveals itself, 『oh god his waist! 』, Qian Zhouyu’s mouth waters. Yue Xianming's cock is jutting hard, pointing skyward, and he rubs his thighs together as Qian Zhouyu is about to lower his head, a drop of saliva dropping down from his mouth as he opens it to take the head in.Yue Xianming pulls his hair and Qian Zhouyu shuts his eyes and moans, a scant few inches away from his prize.Yue Xianming says, "Why today?"His voice is curiously cold, and Qian Zhouyu wants desperately to please him. He looks up from where he's laying down between Xianming's thighs, rubbing his thumbs in the soft skin of the inner juncture of thigh and hip."Don't be mad with me," Qian Zhouyu whispers, an echo of his half-remembered dream."I could never be," Yue Xianming says simply. He waits, and Qian Zhouyu waits, too, before Yue Xianming pulls him up by his grip on his hair until Qian Zhouyu is sitting between his thighs, in his lap.Yue Xianming curls around him like a sun-warm serpent, taller and longer-limbed than he is, but more slight.Yue Xianming cups Qian Zhouyu’s face. "I'm in love with you."Qian Zhouyu doesn't realize he's crying until Yue Xianming rubs his tears away."There's not enough time," he says, and doesn't know why.Yue Xianming kisses him as he begins to stroke their cocks together, hot and wetter than Qian Zhouyu imagined, slick sounds flowing Xianming's palm. He feels so good, the heat, the silky skin and the hardness against his. But Qian Zhouyu has this terrible, wretched dread growing inside him like a parasitic half-remembered dream. He moans, helplessly, and grabs Xianming's arm to get him to explain, to understand something that even he doesn't."I know, Zhouyu. I did it this way because I love you. And I know you'll never forgive me. I love you, I love you. I love you so much, please remember that, okay? I love you so much."Yue Xianming's pace picks up, the wet vice of his hand following the friction of his hips and his kisses down Qian Zhouyu’s throat, sucking and biting, leaving an indelible mark. Qian Zhouyu’s straddles Yue Xianming's hips and thrusts his cock down before grinding up into Yue Xianming's hand, moaning shamefully loud when Xianming rubs the pearly wet heads of their cocks together, so fucking good and so sensitive."I, Xianming, Mingming, you—you have to know that, I, you—""No, Zhouyu," Yue Xianming chides gently, pulling Qian Zhouyu's earlobe with his teeth before sucking on it. "You hate me. I know that now. You really, really hate me. And, I'm going to make sure you always will. If you won't… if you won't… If you can't, at least you can hate me. Forever. I'll be… Zhouyu, I'll still be here. A haunting. A ghost. I'll love you. You just won't be able to see me, or know.“When a… when something like me becomes a haunting. A soaring beast. We still can't touch the ground. But we watch you. And look. And, for me, I will love you. And know you will hate me forever for this. What I will and have done to you. You will never move on, never recover, and you will always hate me, but you will never be able to forget me."Zhouyu has no idea what is going on, but he feels the dread, the horrible, all-consuming terror and fear and despair and deathly dread worse than every single time he has wished he was dead… He grabs Xianming's hand on their cocks, still working them smoothly, stilling his wrist and trying to stop both the impending doom and his orgasm, but then Xianming kisses him, so, so sweetly, the salt of light tears on his lips, and Zhouyu can't tell if… 『if they're mine or his, 』 and helplessly, Zhouyu cums, feeling the hot splash of Xianming cumming against him with a soft, broken mewl.But when Zhouyu opens his eyes, he has the cum of two people on his cock, a terror-striken, painful sob in his chest, and a white heron feather stuck to the white, sticky mess.
HE IS ALONE.
AND HE REALIZES THEN, THAT HE MAY ALWAYS BE.
ACT II
SCENE 1
zhouyu, why can't it be easy? why can't any of it be easy. I have watered the wells of empires poisoning kings and killing mice, and I have watched mountain valleys drown into rivers and sever the passages between neighboring places, and I have thought of throwing myself off cliff faces, as I wondered what point there was to it all.the dead are the only alive, zhouyu.I died at twenty-five. I want you to know there was nothing left of me when we met but you made me feel something still, something yet.
IS THIS A LOVE LETTER OR A SUICIDE NOTE?
the truth is I don't know. I don't know.I was responsible for my own beginning and I will be responsible for my own end.I wish it was easy to be with you, zhouyu. I wish it could have been easy. with the omikaze inheritance, it could still be.it may take a thousand tries for me to get this right. to reshape the world, O BLESS HER MIGHT! but if I cannot do it in 1000 moons... there may be nothing left for me.there may be no sacred after all.
IS THIS A LOVE LETTER OR A SUICIDE NOTE?
ACT II
SCENE 2
“are you ever so afraid that you want to die,”
zhouyu asks me. before he answers, “of course you’re not. of course such a thing as you could never.”i smile at him, and i say nothing. he’s drunk. not on alcohol. but on some kind of poison. that was meant for me. the teahouse we met at, we went to, the one we always go to, there is no loyalty in it…they spiked my tea, and zhouyu knew it before me, and i know the memory of eons past and eons to come.but i did not know this one thing. that i would be poisoned by one cup. just one.i hold zhouyu’s hand. “zhouyu, you aren’t going to die. i’m…i’m sorry. i…i didn’t catch it sooner. i should have been the one under the knife.”“no, no, no no no,” zhouyu slaps at my cheek loosely. once upon a time i would have begged, i did beg, for him to touch me. he holds my cheek, caressing it, and i close my eyes, savoring the feel of his clammy palm against my cold skin.“is it bad i want you to kiss me?” i ask him, my eyes staying shut.“give me the antidote and i’ll kiss you,” he says.“you won’t,” i say simply. “either before, or after.”so i pull from my sleeve, just slightly outside of his perception, a pearl drawn from the dew of all the world. i show it to him, who knows a divine thing even if he thinks he’s dreaming alone…and he opens his mouth and reaches his hand.i put the pearl on my tongue and smile at him.zhouyu starts to cry without noticing, and he tilts his head forward and kisses me, tongue swiping the pearl from mine.a tear falls from my cheek, and i stash the blood pearl away for later.
zhouyu’s head clears immediately, and he loses his balance briefly before tapping his forehead like keeping a beat or trying to remember something, and then he rubs at the mark he can’t see, and i sit and wait and smile blandly.“xianming,” he says. “yue xianming…did you. what have you done?”“i made you forget.”“forget what?”“mmn. so many things. so many times. but this time, zhouyu…i’m…i’m sending you back to sea. i’m…i have to go, zhouyu. i have to go, and i’ve…”qian zhouyu grabs me by the throat with both his hands. “what have you done?”“i halved my divinity.” i pull out the blood pearl. “this is my mortality.”
THIS IS MY DEATH
“and i am going to send you back to sea. i have to go back to heaven now. this is my 1000th moon. i had fun, zhouyu. if you can call it such. i…”“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.”“goodbye, zhouy–”he snaps his teeth, lightning-quick, instincts and agility enhanced by the immortality i cut clean from the OMIKAZE within me like fileting a fish, and he closes his mortal teeth with unholy heavenworthy force on my fingertips, snapping up the flesh of my index and thumb just past the nailbed. the melted icefloes of mountain blood drip in a grand spurt of red, and before I know it, he's already decided if I will or will not be dead.“you are not going to die on me, xianming. you can’t leave me that easily.”“oh, zhouyu,” i say, stroking his cheek with the back of my regrown finger.
“it’s already been done.”