bubble // zhuiling

three

Lan Jingyi

Jingyi swam back to the cave as fast as he could, beating hard against the water. It was quite far from the sect, and he could feel the sun getting lower in the hazy afternoon.

        'Shit, I hope the princess didn't die while I was getting the headband...' he thought in panic.

        He spotted the mouth of the cave at once. It was deep in the sand, where the seaweed was overgrown and the coral was full of life. The temperature of the water dropped inside the cold rock, though Jingyi barely noticed.

        "Sizhui! I got the headband!"

        "Great, thank you so much! I hope we're in time," Sizhui said. He had the boys head resting on his lap, a strength talisman stuck to his forehead already.

         Jingyi crossed to meet his friend in the cave. Sizhui's expression was so soft, he'd only seen him like this once before when Hanguang Jun had brought home pet rabbits from the Surface. Sizhui had cradled the bubble the bunnies were in, just like how he cradled the boys head now.

        "Don't get too attached," was all he said, promptly handing him the white headband.

•

Lan Sizhui

         Sizhui turned it over in his hands. "Was anyone harmed in the process of acquiring this headband?"

         "No, but I ran into Lan Xichen... And I told him about the boy. He said it was alright, but I have to report back to him or whatever," Jingyi crossed his arms over his chest. He hated admitting to being caught.

       Sizhui shook his head with a chuckle. "That works, I guess."

       Gently, he pulled the boy up into his lap to tie the headband.

        Even with the water's funny tricks with weight, it was too easy for him to do so.

        'He's so light...' Sizhui thought worriedly. He brought his arms around the boy, and Jingyi grabbed his shoulders to stabilise him. He wrapped the thin fabric around his forehead once, and then tied it at the back of his head in a knot.

        "It takes a few minutes to connect to the wearer's Golden Core, right?" Sizhui asked rhetorically. He was mostly just saying this aloud. Oh, how he prayed the boy would be alright.

        'Why am I so invested in this boy?' he wondered. Jingyi let go, and the Surfacer slumped back against Sizhui's chest. He held him like that, burying his nose into the boy's shoulder.

•

Lan Jingyi

        For the first time, Jingyi finally got a good look at the boy.

         He was pretty, just like a maiden from the village. 'Well, of course, minus the tail,' Jingyi thought. There was something distinctly feminine about his face, possibly the heart shape. Jingyi poked the red dot that was in between his eyebrows.

        Sizhui giggled softly. "I did that, too."

        Jingyi looked at his best friend. He was pretty like this, too.

        Lan Sizhui. Once he'd considered his best friend his soulmate, though he eventually dismissed the idea.

        'You're not a cut-sleeve, Jingyi," he told himself. And so, he wasn't.