#xicheng
Jiang Cheng, Lan Huan, and the Ghosts: arc II

arc I: https://twitter.com/dodoscreamb/status/1398990222164066307?s=20

It was starting to snow, and no one was coming for him.

He was scared. So scared. The cold was biting into his skin and his fingers were starting to numb. He should've listened to his nanny and wore his mittens, silly-looking and scratchy as they were.

Actually, he should've

listened to his nanny & not going out alone.

Winter was bad for him, Mama always said. Winter was his enemy.

But the snow was so beautiful & white, and soft to touch. He wanted to play, just for once. He wanted to join A-Jie & Wei Ying and made a snowman with them.

Just once.

But he couldn't find the garden where A-Jie and WY were playing. In fact, he couldn't find /anything/. He was following the first cobblestone path he found at the backyard of their home, and the next thing he knew he was here, in the middle of the ... park? Forest?

Was this area still part of their house?

He couldn't be sure.

He turned around, but he found that the path had actually diverged, and he didn't pay attention to where he was going.

He was lost and alone, with only the silent black pines as companies, standing like judges.

He should've listened. He shouldn't be such a naughty kid.

"A-Jie, Wei Ying ... Help me ...."

It was getting harder to breathe.

He sat under a tree, pulling his knees to his chest, folding up as small as possible to protect himself from the merciless wind. His sobs were loud and ugly in this white world. His chest was burning, as well as his cheeks.

Maybe this was a punishment for a naughty child.

If he died here, would his family find him?

What if they didn't? What if he was left here, buried in the snow, forever lonely and waiting for someone to come?

He coughed and sobbed harder. Someone, please come! Please! He didn't want to die, not like this. Please, please, ple--

"Why, hello there."

He looked up. An older boy was crouching in front of him, his silky black hair framed his beatific face like the mahogany frame of a painting. It was surreal, to see such an otherworldly appearance in this world of white.

"Are you a snow spirit?"

He heard the stories of snow spirits from his nanny. She said the snow spirit would kidnap children who play alone in the winter. The children would be kept in a magical ice cave, never to be seen again.

But instead of kidnapping him, the boy only laughed.

"I'm not, thankfully.

My name is Lan Huan. I'm Jiang Yanli's friend. I hear that she's missing a cute little brother, and I'm helping her looking for him."

He blushed a little at that. His family always called him "cute" all the time and it was annoying, but when this boy said it, it made his heart

fluttered, like a moth was hiding behind his ribcage.

"I-I'm A-Jie's little brother, Huan-gege," he said quietly, "I'm sorry I've been such a bother to everyone."

LH laughed. It was a pleasant sound. He wouldn't get bored listening to it all day. "A boy as cute as you could

never be everyone. Let's go home, everyone's been waiting for you."

LH carried him on his back all the way home.

His chest was still burning and it was painful to breathe, but he was no longer afraid.

He was safe here with LH.

He could feel LH's beating heart through his back, and it made him warm.

He closed his eyes.

As long as Lan Huan was here, he will be fine.
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Lan Huan had changed.

Jiang Cheng would know. Had he not think about LH more than he thought about himself?

JC knew his LH better than he knew his own fragile heart. He knew that this man was different than the one he loved.

"I'm so sorry, I can't stay. The boss wants me there

tonight."

"It's just for a day. I promise I'll come back tomorrow morning. You'll wait for me, right?"

"I wish I can stay, but the job--"

"What is this new job that you seem to love so much, you'd rather do it than accompanying your dying husband!?"

JC hated it.

He hated using his condition against LH, hated to remind the both of them again and again that he was always this close to death, with only LH keeping him tethered.

But LH always did this to him first. Leaving him behind, even though he had /begged/ him not to.

Was it really that hard for LH to stay by JC's side?

LH was standing at the foyer, shoes on, ready to disappear into the night. Again. He never stayed during the night these days, unheeding of JC's pleas.

Didn't he know how scary it was at night? What if the ghosts came back?

They stood there for seemingly forever, JC in his thin sleeping robes, trembling with the cold and emotion; LH by the door, looking stricken and speechless, his pale face a strange fixture in the dim of light.

"Please, A-Huan," JC croaked, "don't leave me again."

LH swallowed. He looked hesitant, and for a split second JC was hopeful.

But then the man scrunched his eyes shut, refusing to look at JC when he said--

"--I'm sorry."

And just like that, he was gone.

(The ghosts came again that night. They trashed the furnitures, breaking things. JC was hiding in their room, under the covers that couldn't keep the cold away.

LH didn't come.)

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JC had a lot of enemies.

Winter, cold weather, cat fur, and even spicy foods were among the few things he must not stay close to. He grew up not knowing the feeling of any of these things, always tortured by yearning--all in the name of staying alive.

But the worst enemy,

Mama warned him, was his own emotions.

"Don't get too happy or too sad, A-Cheng. Feelings are deadlier than poison. Keep them at bay."

But JC's weakness was that he always felt too much and too intense. There were many dangerous times when he was choked by his own cries,

suffocated by his own laughter.

For many years, he feared that his glass heart would burst from the many feelings it held.

Until LH came.

Until LH came and shared his heart with JC, containing whatever JC couldn't.

"Don't make me too happy, A-Huan," JC warned him once,

when the man whispered promises of their shared future.

A-Huan kissed the tips of his hair. "I'll gladly be happy for the both of us, my heart."

But perhaps--perhaps now LH was getting tired of bearing the weight for both of them on his shoulders.

Perhaps that was why, he was starting to give back JC's sadness, piling them on his chest until it felt as if JC was crushed by a mountain.

It hurt to speak, it hurt to cry,

and it hurt to /breathe/.

JC was aching all over, the pain was a prickling needle through his body and soul.

He was fading.

He was fading faster than when he was lonely and alone, waiting for his A-Huan to come home.

And how sad was that? That his lover's presence slowly

became the death of him.

"Do you still love me, A-Huan?" He asked, his voice raspy between his rattling breaths. He felt faint. He couldn't leave the bed anymore.

LH was standing by the bed, and it was like a cruel reenactment of their first separation all over again.

Will LH left him again? This time, forever?

LH looked conflicted. Why was that? His A-Huan never hesitated before. He was JC's pillar of certainty in his small tumultuous world.

"I just want what's best for you," LH said, half of his face was hidden in darkness.

JC felt faint.

He reached out a trembling hand to his A-Huan, but the man didn't reach back.

He never reached back, JC realized, not after that first day when he came home.

After that, he was growing more distant, more ... Estranged.

Sometimes JC was even sure LH was scared of touching him.

Why was that?

What was LH so scared of?

"A-Huan, it's me," JC whimpered, "I'm A-Cheng. Your husband. Please hold me?"

LH stayed where he stood.

The world was getting blurry. JC felt faint.

He was fading.

He closed his eyes.
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