Archive of Our Own ^beta

“You’re doing it wrong.”

Rin’s head snaps up, ready to rip whoever the fuck had the audacity to interrupt her to shreds—

And is met with the neutral face of Yin Nezha looking down at her work.

“Fucking what?” she asks sharply, giving him the nastiest scowl she can muster.

The last time they’d spoken to each other, if she could even call it that, was in their first year during the Tournament, when she’d pummeled his stupid face into the dirt, and called the Phoenix for the first time.

After that, they’d simply ignored the other’s existence—him too prideful to ever acknowledge his defeat, and her preoccupied with pledging Lore and Jiang’s stupid meditation exercises. Now they’re in their fourth year, and in between summoning the fire on the daily, studying under her other Masters, and stressing over the narrowly-avoided brewing war with the Mugenese (she didn’t know how Empress Su Daji had managed to bend Ryohai’s will, but she won’t look a gift horse in the mouth), Rin damn near forgot he even existed. Her world extended only to the Phoenix, Jiang, Kitay, her other Masters, and occasionally Venka, Niang, and surprisingly, Han, who she somehow managed to befriend over their shared hatred of said snobby, aristocratic Dragon Warlord son.

Sometimes, they’d see each other in the practice rooms or the courtyard Jima had forced Jun and Jiang to share, and she’d catch Nezha glaring at her when his night sessions training the first-years and her Phoenix training overlapped, but nothing else.

So, he, of all people, was the last person she expected to even fucking attempt to correct her work.

Nezha clears his throat, a flash of… something crossing his face before pointing to the problem.

“The problem says you’re not allowed to go through the gates. Not around them.”

Rin blinks, rereading the question, before grimacing.

“I could have figured that out on my fucking own. Piss off.”

Nezha frowns at her, opening his mouth to retort something before closing it again. He looks away.

“I was only trying to help. You looked like you needed it,” he says in a slow voice, and Rin feels sparks of fire flicker from her fingers from sheer anger.

The fucking nerve of this condescending asshole.

“I would sooner get stabbed in the neck than ask for your help. Stay the fuck away from me,” she growls at him.

He raises his hands in surrender and walks away, having the audacity to look frustrated.

Rin has half a mind to chase after him and rip that stupid long hair he grew again off of his head.

She doesn’t fucking understand. Why, of all times, would Nezha even acknowledge her now?

He has what he fucking wants—all the notoriety and popularity that comes with being the most disgustingly beautiful boy in school, the son of one of the most powerful men in Nikan, and the undeniably gifted prowess in Combat that makes everyone else swoon and fawn over him. Why didn’t he just stay in his fucking lane?

Was this Venka’s doing? She’s been bugging Rin for a while now about seeing the city, but any time she even suggested bringing Nezha along, Rin shuts it down hard. She’s found a friend in Venka, sure, after the whole brink of war tension had built a strange solid rapport among students, and she’d just randomly approached Rin one day to apologize, but just because Rin forgave her doesn’t mean Yin the Pretentious Fuck Nezha gets extended the same courtesy.

Rin says as much to Kitay when he finally arrives at the library, arms loaded with scrolls from Irjah.

She can’t quite read the strange look he gives her, either, and it irritates her to no end.

“You don’t know?” he asks, confused.

“What?”

Kitay lets out a surprised laugh, looking strangely delighted.

“Of course, you don’t. I forgot you’re a bit of a hermit when it comes to in-school gossip.”

“What don’t I fucking know?”

“You’re ridiculous, Rin,” Kitay coos, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

Rin curls her fist threateningly at Kitay. “Chen Kitay, I swear to the Phoenix if you don’t tell me right now— ”

He only laughs harder this time. “Oh, this is too good. I thought Venka was exaggerating, but he must be that pathetic if he somehow gathered the balls to talk to you out of the blue.”

“You’re making no fucking sense.”

Kitay doesn’t reply, simply unfurling a scroll and grabbing his ink brush.

Rin thinks he murmurs something along the lines of “—ogling his stupid crush—” and “—fucking coward—” but she doesn’t have any damn clue what that’s supposed to mean.

She lets out a huff of air, shaking her head. 

Whatever. Yin Nezha doesn’t deserve any of the time she would devote thinking about this.

~*~

A few days later, she’s in the middle of one of her futile meditation exercises when she hears footsteps enter the garden. 

It took a while to get used to the Phoenix in her head—a combination of multiple drug trips, Jiang pulling her out when it got too loud or burned too hot, and strenuous exercises on her control, but she somehow managed. Now her flames are only a touch away, and she’s slowly weened herself off the poppy seeds she used to consume—she’s witnessed far too many people in Tikany wither away with their opium addiction to take the risk.

Eyes still closed, she lets out a sigh of relief.

“Thank fucking gods you’re here, I thought I was about to pass out from boredom. Get me out of here while Jiang is gone, Kitay.”

“I’m not Kitay.”

Rin’s eyes fly open at the familiar voice that always succeeds at grating on her nerves.

Nezha stands by the entrance of the garden, looking around curiously. He’s in his uniform, Combat armband on full display, hair neatly tucked in a bun, stray strands blowing in the gentle breeze. 

Rin’s gaze hardens, glowering at him.

“Get out. This place is occupied.”

“This is school property. Students can go anywhere that isn’t off-limits like the Masters’ quarters,” he replies coolly, looking unfazed.

Rin debates in her head how much trouble she’ll get into if she beats the shit out of him right now. She’s the school’s only shaman—Jiang wouldn’t let her get expelled; being the Lore Master has its perks. At worst, she’ll get latrine duty for the rest of her time at Sinegard. Which might be worth it if she could break a bone in him or two.

Before she could come to a decision, however, he speaks again.

“Venka asked me to find you. She said she needed your fire for some of her arrowheads, or something.”

“And she sent you to find me, of all fucking people?” Rin scoffs. She stretches her back, feeling some semblance of relief as the stiffness in her loosens.

“I was the only other person there.”

“Of fucking course you were,” Rin murmurs to herself.

Stupid Venka and her stupid arrows and her stupid fucking childhood friendship with Nezha.

“Tell her I’ll be over there soon.”

“I can wait for you. We can just walk there together,” Nezha says, leaning against the wall, shoving his hands in his pants' pockets. He’s still looking around, eyes trailing the various plants that Jiang somehow manages to keep in full bloom in most seasons, except winter. No one else but her has been here since their first year, all having deemed Lore a joke after their first week of classes—but here he is, invading her space yet again, the inconsiderate nightmare that he is.

Rin’s eye twitches, and she clenches her fists at her sides. 

What the fuck is going on with this asshole? Does he want to die?

She would strangle him if it wouldn’t cause a whole diplomatic stink between Daji and the Dragon Province.

Even then, it might well be worth it. 

“Leave me the fuck alone. I can go to the training room alone just fine . ”

“I never said you couldn’t. I’m just making sure you won’t forget.”

“Do I look like a fucking idiot to you?”

Nezha’s eyes widen, seemingly realizing how his words sounded—but Rin’s too pissed to care.

She storms past him, every nerve in her body itching to lash out and set his hair on fire. She settles for shoving him aside, almost sending him stumbling onto the grass.

She thinks she hears him call her name, telling her to wait, but she ignores him. 

She doesn’t stop until she reaches the door to the training room and slams it open. Venka doesn’t even flinch, giving her a shit-eating grin as she hops off her seat.

“Never, ever send that asshole to find me again,” Rin snarls through gritted teeth. She’s seeing red and has to take a few calming breaths before the Phoenix decides to take advantage and she burns down an entire section of the school.

“He’s not that bad,” Venka replies, handing her an arrow. Rin presses a finger on the metal tip, making it glow red hot. Grin widening, Venka nocks the arrow on her bow and fires at a training dummy. It lands in a bullseye, straight through the heart.

The sizzle of the dummy’s wood is music to Venka’s ears, she knows.

“No, he’s the fucking worst. ”

“Not if you get to know him,” she quips back, handing her another arrow.

“Why the fuck would I want to do that? I know enough about him,” Rin says, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

“You might be surprised with what you find,” she replies, raising an eyebrow at Rin. “He’s fucking stupid, but he means well, most of the time.”

“Did you forget what shit he’s pulled on me in our first year? He almost killed me, Venka.”

“To be fair, you almost did kill him, too, during the Tournament.”

“It’s not the fucking same, and you, of all people, should know that.”

Guilt flickers on her features and she runs a hand through her hair.

“Alright, fine. He was a bigoted dick back then. He— we— made your life hell. I’m sorry about that, you know I am.”

“You are. He’s not. I haven’t heard a single fucking apology from him.”

Venka lets a short breath loose. “No, you’re right, I didn’t know what that must have looked like to you. I was just thinking—after that whole war scare, everything just felt so shallow. The rivalries, the competition, the in-fighting. We’re all going to be fighting side-by-side one way or another. Might as well fucking get along, you know? But I get it. If you don’t want him around, I won’t bring it up again.”

Something tells Rin that Venka isn’t being completely truthful, but she reluctantly lets it go. As angry as she is, Venka is a good friend to her, and she’d more than made up for what she did to her in their first year.

“Just hand me a fucking bow.”

“You’re going to pretend that dummy’s Nezha, aren’t you?”

“Better than doing it to the real thing, isn’t it?”

~*~

Irjah is fond of holding little tournaments in his class—pitting students against each other with some sort of strategic board game, and then making them write a report on their shortcomings if they lose, and strengths if they win. There are no special prizes for the winners, but Irjah’s praise seemed like more than enough motivation for Rin. 

Kitay is usually made to sit out the competitions after very clearly outsmarting everyone, and the class has an odd number of students, anyway.

Rin enjoyed the challenge, and most students took the games more seriously than before given the very recent threat of war that loomed over them.

For this week’s set of classes, Irjah had chosen chess.

She’s extremely aware that there are outliers in terms of strategic skill in the class, and that she was one of them. She’d easily trounced the people in her bracket—a History pledger, two Linguistics pledgers, Han, and Niang, all of who took their defeats gracefully.

And that’s how Rin found herself seated across Nezha as Irjah sets the board up.

“White or black?” he asks her tonelessly.

Rin chews on her lip, considering. If she chooses White, he might taunt her with only having the first move advantage to win. If she chooses Black, he’s bound to taunt her about being too scared of making the first move. There’s really no winning with this jackass.

“Black. You move first,” she says finally.

“Alright.”

She sits up straighter, trying to contain her surprise at the lack of a scathing reply. Then she shakes her head. He might just be trying to psych her out.

Irjah clears his throat, gesturing for them to begin.

Nezha doesn’t move, still looking at her.

“What are you fucking waiting for, winter?”

Nezha tilts his head questioningly at her. She glares at him, crossing her arms.

He coughs and looks away, and moves his pawn forward.

Rin moves her knight, trying to anticipate his next move. From what she knows of him, Nezha is a blend of intimidating force and speed. He likes to end fights as quickly and brutally as possible. He’s not as precise as Kitay, but he’s certainly formidable. He’ll try and annihilate her pieces off the board, as fast as he can to embarrass her.

But Rin’s strength is that she’s reckless and unpredictable. She didn’t view Combat the way they do because of how Jiang taught her. After learning how to summon fire, she’s never looked at Strategy the same way ever again—she’s learned that sometimes being a wildcard is her best bet to stay alive. Her plans are crazy and almost irresponsible, but they work because how can her enemy possibly anticipate what she’s willing to sacrifice for a win?

She sees his frown deepen when she sacrifices her Queen early on in the game.

Rin lets herself get swept up in the match, moving pieces in ways Nezha couldn’t possibly fathom—some to purposefully get eaten, some for absolutely no reason other than to confuse him, until she only has a knight, two bishops, three pawns and her King left, while Nezha still has at least one of each and his Queen.

She sees the way Nezha’s shoulders straighten as if gaining confidence in his victory. He doesn’t know that he’s getting cornered.

Rin moves her pawn forward, watching him closely.

He takes the bait, letting his King eat it.

Nezha looks up at her, his lips twitching with a hint of a smug smile.

She bites her tongue. She grabs her knight and makes her next move.

“Check,” she says, sitting back.

He stiffens abruptly, eyes snapping back to the board, the smile wiped off his face.

Rin thinks she hears him swear under his breath. Satisfaction thrums in her stomach.

Unthinkingly, he moves his Queen just where she wants him to. In one fell swoop, Rin’s bishop takes his Queen and surrounds his King with her knight, bishop, and a pawn.

“Checkmate,” Rin says, looking him straight in the eye.

Nezha’s face turns into a strange shade of red, brows scrunching together, lips parted in surprise. His eyes dart along the board again, trying to find something to refute her claim or another move he could make, but finding none.

Rin thinks he’s going to explode on her like he’s always done when he got beaten by her in the past. She braces herself, silently daring him to, ready to spring out of her chair at any second.

Instead, he looks up at her, face unreadable, and nods. He extends his hand out.

“Congratulations, Rin.”

Rin blinks, barely stopping the baffled “What?” from leaving her mouth.

She stares at his outstretched hand for a few seconds, waiting for him to make a jab at her. But all he does is look at her, that same strange expression he had that day in the library. She reluctantly takes his hand and shakes it.

His grip is warm and firm, his skin soft to the touch.

She fucking hates it.

Then, he goes back to his seat without another word, stealing occasional glances at her while Irjah continues his discussion.

Rin sits there, confused and fuming, for the rest of the class.

And when she asks Kitay about it afterward, he only gives her a knowing grin.

~*~

“I’m your student, not your gardener, ” Rin grumbles, contemplating throwing the gardening shears at Jiang’s head. “And this isn’t even your fucking garden.”

“There’s an old Hesperian proverb that says, ‘Bloom where you are planted’. Gardens are not something you choose, Runin.” Jiang says airily, waving his hands to gesture at the courtyard. “They may be a silly, shallow people, but that proverb makes sense.”

Rin narrows her eyes at him.

“Are you fucking high again?”

“Perhaps.”

“Of course.”

Kitay snorts from where he’s sitting, looking at them with amusement before his eyes dart back to the book he’s reading. It’s one of his rare free days, where Irjah is preoccupied in another province sorting out a border skirmish. Rin had told him he could’ve just spent the day sleeping in, but he’d simply shaken his head and said that Jiang’s methods were fascinating to watch.

Fascinating is certainly one word for it.

Rin makes a rude gesture at Jiang’s turned-back before going back to snipping the grass. Then she hears numerous footsteps entering the courtyard, and she mentally curses. 

Right. The first-years train on Tuesday mornings. It just so happens that Jun decided he wanted to let his favorite apprentices tag along this year to help him demonstrate their techniques.

One of his favorites being Nezha.

Fantastic. Absolutely fucking fantastic.

“Oh, Jun, lovely morning!” Jiang shouts, and Rin could practically see the scowl imprinted on Jun’s face, even with her back turned to them.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why, conducting my morning classes, of course.”

Jun grunts, and when Rin turns, she sees him giving Jiang the most heated glare he can muster, with Venka and Nezha flanking him on either side. For some reason, Nezha’s gaze is trained on her, and it makes her stomach tight. She looks away, pasting a frown on her face.

“Doesn’t look particularly useful to me, you bumbling lackwit.”

“I assure you it’s of utmost importance. Little Runin here is a gem to the Empire.”

Rin couldn’t hold back her snort, which catches Jiang’s attention, making him clap his hands together.

“Come now, let’s get on with our training. Let’s show these pathetic little first-years true skill.”

She stands and barely has time to ask “What training?” before a shovel almost flies into her face. She dives to the ground, arms shielding her body.

“Jiang, what the fuck?”

He simply tsks in disapproval. “Don’t dodge, Runin. What else is your fire for? Properly now.”

“Are you fucking unhinged?”

He doesn’t respond, only sending his watering can hurtling at her head.

Acting on instinct, Rin thrusts her hand out and tugs at the Phoenix, sending a jet stream of flame at the watering can. Surprised screams echo across the courtyard as the plastic melts, dripping a steady stream down to the pavement. From her periphery, she sees the entirety of the class now staring slack-jawed at her, and Rin feels a small thrill of power surge up her spine.

Jiang only purses his lips.

“Good job. But not good enough.”

Then Jiang really gets to work. He throws anything he can reach, gardening tool after gardening tool, at her in quick succession, and Rin sets every single projectile ablaze with ease. She falls into a steady rhythm, finally regaining her bearings.

Where the fuck did he even get this many tools on short notice?

Then her foot catches on a crack in the pavement and sends her stumbling forward. Not enough to completely lose balance, but enough to break her concentration.

“ Rin, on your left!” someone screams, sounding eerily like Nezha—but she barely has time to register it before sending a ball of fire to her left.

Her heartbeat rings in her ears, blood pounding through her veins, staring at the melted puddle of metal on the ground. She can feel the stares of the Combat class beating down her back. From the corner of her eye, she sees Venka with wide eyes and her hand to her mouth, and Nezha looking just as shaken as she feels. Kitay is on his feet, looking wildly at the pool of metal hardening at her feet then back up at her, eyes scanning her for injuries.

“Did you just fucking throw garden shears at me?” Rin shrieks.

 Jiang blinks, then shrugs. “I suppose I did. Those shears were starting to rust, anyway.”

“You could have killed me!”

“Ah, but I didn’t, Runin, and that’s the important part. You owe me a new pair of garden shears, by the way.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“Oh, if humans were capable of doing that, our species wouldn’t last years on this Earth. We’d go extinct, gone with the wind.”

Kitay chokes on his spit, and Rin scrunches her face in disgust. She hears the first-years murmuring among themselves, torn between confusion, awe, and amusement.

“I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back until you’re fucking sober. Tiger’s tits.”

She grabs Kitay by the arm and hauls him out of there.

“Let’s go to the medical wing just in case,” he says to her quietly, looking paler than she’d ever seen him.

Rin nods dumbly, the adrenaline draining out of her body. It’s not the first time Jiang had done something this stupid to piss Jun off. He wouldn’t have done anything to deliberately hurt her, fatally, at the very least. He wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t sure she could handle it.

That’s not what’s bothering her. Jiang has always been batshit crazy, she knew that before she even pledged Lore.

No, what’s bothering her is how she thinks she saw Nezha react.

So, she pretends. Rin pretends she didn’t see Nezha trailing her every movement as she set things aflame, something akin to amazement painting his visage. She pretends that she doesn’t still hear his voice screaming that warning at her like he was fucking scared for her .

Maybe the apprentices in her first year were right. Lore might be driving her mad.

~*~

The Masters make an unprecedented decision on the week the Mugen-Nikan peace treaty was going to be renegotiated.

They let the students of Sinegard have a five-day break.

Kitay immediately invited her to stay over at his home for its entirety, and Rin happily accepted, elated to have some semblance of peace from Jiang’s constant delirious ramblings. Venka said she’d pop by from time to time, too, the Sring residence only a few neighborhoods away from the Chens’.

Rin thought it would be fun. And more importantly, it would be time away from Nezha, who seems to be everywhere after that day in the courtyard—lingering in the corner of her vision, two tables away in a classroom, sitting across the room in the mess hall.

If Jiang didn’t drive her fucking nuts, his sudden constant presence will. She could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Staying the fuck away from him will hopefully clear her head.

But on the third night, he popped up, knocking at Kitay’s bedroom door like some ghost that refused to move onto the next life and haunted people for shits and giggles.

“You said he wouldn’t be here,” Rin hisses accusingly from under the pile of blankets Kitay had heaped on her, pinching at his leg, and he raises his arms defensively.

“I didn’t know he would be!” he hisses back quietly, before whipping around, “What the hell are you doing here, Nezha?”

“My family was visiting from Arlong, something about Empress Daji needing political support during the negotiation. Your father invited us over for dinner.”

“I thought that was just Minister Sring! Venka, did you know about this?”

Venka doesn’t even look up, still painting her lips in the mirror. “Don’t fucking look at me, do I look like I listen to the bullshit that old man spouts? Toss me the powder.”

Nezha frowns, crossing his arms. 

“Look, I don’t know why it’s such a big fucking deal—” he pauses, his gaze finally landing on Rin, just as she sits up, scowling. His eyes widen, clamping his mouth shut. “Hello, Rin.”

Rin deliberately looks away, pretending to not have heard him. She throws the powder at Kitay’s bedside table, Venka catching it with ease. 

Kitay clears his throat, eyeing the two of them warily.

“Well, just tell Father we’ll be down in a few minutes after Rin and Venka wash up. Unless you want to watch these two lovely ladies change…?”

Pink tinges Nezha's cheeks, looking at Rin in alarm before shaking his head.

“No, I’ll just tell Minister Chen you’ll follow—” he says hurriedly, shutting the door with force.

“You’re gross,” Venka says, unimpressed.

“Works every time.”

The dinner is fucking excruciating . Rin has more than enough reason to hate the Yin family because of Nezha alone but actually seeing how the rest of them act only cements her repulsion of them.

Lady Saikhara is a raging Hesperian heretic, making Rin, Kitay, and Venka share a look as she talks about the fascinating lands of Hesperia and how she’d found enlightenment in Makerism. Yin Jinzha has condescension dripping from every pore of his body, his eyes roving over Rin and his lips twisting in revulsion at the sight of her before brushing past her forcefully to sit next to his father. Rin’s fingers twitch to set those stupid expensive robes of theirs on fire, but she stopped herself to save Minister Chen, who’s been nothing but kind to her every time she’s stayed over, the trouble. 

It’s still sorely tempting, though.

Yin Vaisra is slightly more tolerable, keeping a politely neutral smile on his face the entire time, but Rin just chalks it up to pretenses—he’s a Warlord, first and foremost, and Minister Chen is one of Su Daji’s closest advisors. Building a good rapport with him could help sway any decisions made by Daji in his favor—Rin doesn’t see a man like Vaisra being polite and accommodating out of sheer goodwill. 

Nezha, for whatever fucking reason, was seated across her on the table, and Rin can feel his stare on her skin like the glare of sunlight beating on her face as she eats. She pretends to listen in on the adults’ conversation about the peace treaty renegotiations going smoothly, and how they’ll see peace for the next few decades more if all goes according to plan.

She reaches over to grab a soup ladle at the same time he does, and their fingers brush, making her jerk her hand back and sink into her seat. Kitay wrinkles his brow at her, patting her hand sympathetically.

Stupid. This is so fucking stupid.

“Runin, you know it’s always nice to see you. Empress Daji has heard lots of praise for you,” Minister Chen says suddenly, smiling in her direction. She feels the entirety of the table turn to her, and her cheeks burn. “Ziya says you’re progressing wonderfully in your training. The most receptive shaman he’s ever taught. Is that true?”

“Father—” Kitay starts to protest.

“It’s alright,” Rin tells him. “If Master Jiang thinks that, then I suppose so.”

“Would you mind showing us?”

“ Father. ”

“Only if you’re comfortable, of course.” Minister Chen adds kindly.

Rin sets her shoulders back and lifts her chin ever so slightly. The weight of the Yins' judgmental gazes is boring down on her, making her temper flare. 

Like hell are they going to look at her like she's worth nothing more than the dirt under their feet. They may be one of the most powerful families in Nikan, but she's Sinegard's one and only shaman—their prized possession. If Jiang had told the Empress she's their gem, then they better fucking believe she is.

Jiang calls them flashy party tricks, only done to entertain the weak-minded who cannot grasp the forces of the Pantheon, but she figures they would be enough to impress them.

Rin conjures her flames, taking care to keep them small and manageable so Kitay doesn't get burned next to her. She lets them take the shape of a phoenix, letting it dance on her shoulders. She lifts her hand and lets her fingers move, lighting them into tiny balls that she flits over her palms. When she's satisfied, she extinguishes them in the blink of an eye.

She meets Nezha's gaze head-on for the first time the entire night, and she isn't sure what emotion she sees on his face, only that it's not hidden beneath a mask or layers of condescension, nor is it anything negative, and it makes her all the more bewildered.

“Impressive.” Minister Chen tells her, pleased. “And you've done this for how long now?”

“Since my second year, Minister Chen.”

“And you've already mastered controlling it? That's an incredible feat for someone so young.”

“Thank you.” Rin ducks her head in gratitude. “I'm hoping it can be useful in battle.”

“Well, battle or not, that is a great talent you have. The Empress will surely find a place for you in her army, even during peace times.”

It really was no wonder that Kitay turned out as kind and considerate as he is—the Chen family held no amount of snobbery in them, and welcomed her with no hint of prejudice, delighted that their son had a friend.

Yin Vaisra, however, is looking at her with a gleam in his eye that makes her squirm.

“Minister Chen is correct. That is quite an ability you have, Runin,” he says, his interested tone only setting her on edge.

Rin doesn't deign to reply, turning back to her soup, feeling unsettled.

Eventually, the conversation strays away from her and wades into different territory, on foreign affairs and provincial politics that she tuned out.

“I'm sorry about Father putting you on the spot like that,” Kitay sighs to her. “He was more than a little enthusiastic when he found out you were the newest shaman Su Daji kept mentioning. You know how he is. Not that we weren't glad to have you over before, but—”

“I get it, Kitay. Don't worry. I don't mind.”

The rest of the dinner, thankfully, passes in a blur, with Kitay and Venka doing their best to distract her, and the Yins decide to take their leave for the night.

As they pile out the room, Nezha says his goodbyes to Kitay and Venka, who both give him looks Rin can't understand.

Then he turns to her, and Rin stiffens. But he only clasps his hands together.

“That was… good. The fire you made a while ago.”

“Excuse me?”

Nezha swallows dryly, eyes flickering around the room. If she didn't know any better, she'd think he's nervous.

“The flames. Your flames. During dinner.”

“And what makes you think I fucking care about your opinion on my fire?”

Something flashes in Nezha's eyes, a bout of irritation that's so familiar to Rin. Fucking finally , something normal. Something she can understand about him.

But then he shakes his head, the emotion going as soon as it came. He opens his mouth and—

His older brother calls him sharply to hurry up, and Nezha flinches.

“Have a nice night, Rin,” Nezha says instead, awkward, randomly placing his hand on her shoulder, before following his family out.

Rin blinks, feeling the ghost of his hand still on her shoulder.

“What the fuck was that?” she asks to no one in particular.

Kitay tilts his head, looking, for once, equally as baffled. “I'm not sure. That wasn't what I thought he would do. What is wrong with him?”

“I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“You just might,” Venka murmurs to herself, grimacing as she adjusts her robes. “And it won’t even be on purpose.”

~*~

“Nezha clearly has a crush on you.”

Rin chokes on her drink.

Han thumps her on the back, clearly holding his laughter back. They’re getting random stares from around the mess hall, but Rin couldn’t care less, still reeling.

“Are you fucking high ? Did you steal some of Jiang’s opium nuggets?” she splutters out, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

“He’s so bad at hiding it, don’t tell me you haven’t seen it.”

“What are we talking about?” Niang asks, sitting across them and plopping her tray on the table. The mess hall was more generous than usual, giving them a larger heap of gruel than usual. Still disgusting, but slightly more filling.

“Nezha’s crush on Rin.”

“Oh, that,” Niang says without flinching, making Rin feel more bewildered. 

“‘ Oh, that?’ Is that all you have to fucking say? Not ‘ That’s fucking insane, Han,’ or ‘ I need to take you to the medical wing because you’re clearly turning delusional, Han’ ?”

Niang shrugs. “It’s really obvious.”

“ Thank you, Niang.”

“Don’t make me burn your fucking eyebrows off, Han.”

“Even the lower years notice it. The few girls in our dormitories keep gossiping about it. They all keep whispering among themselves about how they think Nezha is so pretty—”

“That’s fucking disgusting—”

“—but that it’s a shame he already has his sights set on someone.”

“And you think that someone is me ? Have you completely lost your shit?”

Niang tilts her head, confused. “He stares at you all the time. You haven’t noticed?”

“ What? ”

“No, seriously. His eyes follow you everywhere. It’s kind of unnerving. And he keeps trying to talk to you, right? And you’ve started replying with words that aren’t some variation of ‘Fuck off’, haven't you?” Han adds, taking a bite of his food and making a face at the taste. “Do we have a damn famine? Where’s the salt ?”

“If I have to hear that shit one more fucking time, I swear—”

“Hear what?” Venka says, plopping beside Niang with Kitay in the tow. Rin immediately hands him her apple slices and he grins, squeezing her hand as a thank you.

“Venka, tell these dumbasses they’re wrong.”

“Gladly, but about what?”

“Nezha’s extremely transparent crush on her,” Han replies, earning him a shove to the side.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“I wasn’t asked, but me neither,” Kitay cuts in, shoving his spoon in his mouth and grimacing.

“You fucking traitor, after I gave you my share of apples for the past three years—”

“Look, fine, I’ll give, the ‘crush’—” Venka uses her fingers as air-quotes, “—isn’t confirmed. He won’t admit it, even though it sticks out like a sore thumb whenever you’re in the same room together. Like that dinner—” she snorts.

“Stop fucking bringing that up—”

“Wait, what dinner?” Han asks, as Rin elbows him.

“ But —” Venka continues as if she wasn't interrupted, “—he has said that he wanted to make amends with you.”

“Wha—when—why? He fucking hates me!” Rin sputters.

Venka raises a brow, leaning forward. “That was three years ago. I hated you, too, yet here we are now.”

“That’s fucking different! You’re a better person than he is!”

Kitay’s shoulders shake with suppressed laughter.

“Shouldn’t you be relieved that he doesn’t want to fight anymore?” Venka asks.

No. Yes. Maybe. 

She doesn’t know.

All she knows is that Nezha not hating her and actually trying to be nice is doing strange things to her brain, and she wants it to stop. He doesn’t get to throw her off-balance, not when she’s finally settled into a routine she’s happy with and actually feels like she belongs somewhere.

And she won’t let him take that away from her.

~*~

One day, Rin explodes. Metaphorically.

(If she did literally, half of Sinegard wouldn’t be alive. But that’s another story.)

It was a long time coming, a ticking time bomb slowly nearing the end of its fuse.

Nezha was acting nice. Too fucking nice.

If this is some sick trick, and he’s simply playing the long game, Rin’s not going to wait around to see what he has planned to humiliate her.

So, when he somehow stumbles into her in the training room that day and fucking apologizes for it , Rin absolutely loses her shit and rips him a new one.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” she screams.

Nezha blinks, taking a step back. “I said I was sorry.”

“Don’t play fucking stupid with me! You know exactly what you’re fucking doing, Yin Nezha, and I’m sick of it.”

He only looks confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

Rin snaps, and she feels her hands light ablaze, making Nezha cringe. She forces herself to calm down, not wanting to cause another Tournament incident, even though he so clearly deserves it.

“This. This fake nice guy act you’ve been putting on for the last six months. What the fuck have you been planning? Haven’t you fucking done enough?”

Realization dawns on his expression and he holds his hands up placatingly.

“That's not what I was doing—”

“What else could it have been? Just leave me fucking alone!”

“I was just trying to be nice—”

“Since when were you nice to me , of all people?”

Nezha stammers—he fucking stammers, of all things, him —hurriedly trying to explain himself.

“Rin, I’m sorry. I just—I didn’t know how else to approach you. Apologizing out of the blue for no reason felt disingenuous. I know Venka apologized when the war tensions were high, and it felt like that window already came and went—”

“And acting like nothing happened doesn’t sound fake? Are you a fucking moron?”

Nezha sighs, running a hand through his hair.

“I didn't know what else to do.”

“You're an idiot.”

He grimaces. “I know.”

Rin throws her hands up in exasperation and walks away, but he grabs her arm. She wrenches it back, glaring at him. He moves back, bowing his head, looking apologetic.

“I'm sorry, I just—look, Rin, you don't have to accept my apology. I get that. But I do mean it. I want to clear the air between us, I don't want to fight you anymore. I'm sorry. About everything.”

He sounds so fucking genuine.

It makes her want to punch him in the face even more.

Rin turns back to him slowly, still suspicious.

“If this ends up being a fucking trick—”

“It's not!” his mouth twitches into a hint of an amused grin. “I don't think any plan involves making a fool of yourself at dinner at the Chens.”

“Not any good plan,” Rin says on instinct. She huffs. “I ought to beat the shit out of you.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Haven't you already?”

“You're not making this any easier for me, Yin.”

He lets out a surprised laugh, before seeing her scowl and reigning it in.

“I just want to start over. Really. No other reason. I was an asshole to you—”

“—a gigantic one—”

“—and I thought I was better than you, but I've come to realize that I'm not. And I'm sorry. Really. I think we'd work well together if we can stop fighting.”

Rin stays silent, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

Could it really be this simple? Had he really just come to realize how awful he was to her and was trying to fix things?

She didn't think he was capable of that.

Then again, she never thought she'd be able to bend a god to her whims before, either.

And Rin's so tired of trying to prove herself, of trying to compete with him, knowing she'll never have what he does, and him her.

She swallows, praying she doesn't regret this.

“I'll think about it.”

A tentative smile creeps up on his lips, and Rin despises the fact that she thinks it's pretty.

Stupid Yin genes.

After three weeks of deep thought (and Kitay and Venka's goading) and being the receiving end of pleading glances from Nezha himself, she plops herself unceremoniously next to him in the courtyard during a nightly training session and steals his water.

He beams at her with silent understanding.

~*~

Being friends with Nezha is, for lack of a better word, strange.

Not much, and yet somehow, a lot has changed.

Nezha and Han still have a tumultuous relationship, but somehow manage not to butt heads when Venka invites him to their lunch table at the mess hall. Kitay is endlessly amused by the development, and Niang is just glad everyone is getting along. 

She and Nezha have found a strange rhythm, bickering back and forth but never truly fighting, which she didn't even think was possible a few months ago.

“Is it just me, or has Jun been extra crabby with Jiang the past few days?” Rin asks, taking a sip of her water, and stretching her legs under the shade of Jiang's garden. The mess hall seemed too crowded with anxious first years preparing for the Trials, and Kitay had said the noise distracted him too much.

“It’s not just you. He says he’s been hoping you’d set Jiang's garden on fire so he can stop yapping about it,” Nezha responds, trying to steal Rin’s boiled potato. She slaps his hand away, before biting a huge chunk off the potato so he can't take it anymore. He purses his lips and rolls his eyes.

“You’re so greedy.”

“And you’re a spoiled little shit. You already ate your fucking potatoes.”

“You always give Kitay your food! You can spare some for me!”

“Leave me out of this, daddy's boy,” Kitay replies, happily munching on Rin's extra fruit pieces. 

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Weak comeback, 2/10. You can do better than that, Yin,” Venka replies, dropping her ink brush with a flourish and stretching her back. “And done. Fuck Jima's essays.”

“I already told you to finish it last night but you decided drinking sorghum wine was a better use of your time.”

“Shut the fuck up, drinking sorghum wine is a better use of my time. Not my fault you don't know how to have a little fun, Rin.”

“I have plenty of fun!” she protests, earning a snort from Han. Niang looks away, suddenly interested in picking at her nails. “Oh, fuck you all. I can have fun.”

“Your idea of fun is Irjah's riddles. Sue us for thinking you're weird.” Han replies.

“But Irjah's riddles are fun, though,” Kitay says, frowning.

“My point exactly.”

“Rude.”

“Honest,” Han corrects.

“Why don't we all take a night off tonight? Then we can have some fun together,” Niang suggests.

“Doing what? I have to do Yim's assigned readings— what the fuck are you looking at me like that for?”

Nezha smirks, “‘ I have plenty of fun,’ yeah, okay, Rin,” he says, imitating her voice.

“Don't make me beat your ass.”

“No matter how many times you beat my ass, that will never change the fact that you are just as boring as Kitay.”

Rin lunges at him, making Niang screech and Han dart out of the way.

But it's not a fight—not really. They roll around in the dirt like two little children, and somehow, some way, Rin manages to pin Nezha's arms above his head, trapping him underneath her.

“Take it back, asshole.”

“What? The truth?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Make me,” Nezha taunts, grinning up at her, but Rin wonders if she's imagining the red flush in his cheeks or the way his pupils are blown wide.

All of a sudden, she's hyperaware of their proximity, and her ears burn. Her eyes flicker to his lips, and she doesn't miss the way his eyes do the same to hers.

Someone coughs behind them.

“I take it back. If that is Rin's idea of having fun, then I think she's way wilder than any of us here.”

That snaps Rin out of her daze. She scrambles off of Nezha, removes her shoe, and sends it flying toward Han's head. It lands on its target with ease.

“Hey, what the fuck?! ”

“You are not going to see the light of fucking day.”

Nezha’s laughter from behind her makes something electric shoot into her stomach.

Rin doesn’t know what to make of it.

She can admit one thing, though. As new as this is, however, Rin feels more at ease than ever. This… It feels right. It feels… whole, in a way she'd never felt before.

~*~

“Is she okay?”

If someone were to tell Rin in her first year that Yin Nezha could sound so concerned about anyone, let alone her , she probably would have laughed so hard she would have busted her gut. 

Now, however, she can barely muster a groan, too busy nursing her aching muscles to even reply.

“Jiang was in a bit of a mood. Decided that she was slacking on her physical training and decided to make her run up the mountainside thrice today lugging a full sack of grain,” Kitay supplies, patting her gently on the head. 

“In the middle of fucking winter,” Rin adds, hissing at the throbbing pain in her temple.

“At least it wasn't a pig this time.”

“Serves her right for making fun of the first years tripping over their own two feet during drills,” Nezha says, and she feels his body sit next to her, and Rin has to force herself not to lean into his warmth.

It's just the exhaustion making her delirious. Nothing else.

“Fuck off. You found it just as funny.”

“Yes, but I was raised to have manners and to not laugh in people's faces.”

“Tell that to first-year Nezha who called me an artless peasant.”

Nezha doesn't have a retort back and Kitay sucks a breath in between his teeth. “She's a little cranky.”

“I'll fucking say,” Nezha murmurs, sounding more than a little deflated.

“We don’t have any classes left for the day,” Kitay tells her, squeezing her on the shoulder. “You should turn in early.”

“But we have a paper for Enro—” Rin protests, cutting herself off with a groan when she feels something pull in her leg.

“You know that’s due in two weeks, don’t be stubborn. Can you make it up the stairs?”

“Maybe.”

Rin tries to stand up, using her arms to prop herself, but her knees buckle, and Kitay and Nezha barely catch her before she falls facefirst on the floor.

“Fuck me. Fuck Jiang. Fuck this stupid school,” she swears as Kitay and Nezha throw one arm each over their shoulders to help her climb the steps. They clamber clumsily up the stairs, Rin wincing at every movement.

After a quite literal uphill battle, Rin manages to collapse into her bed with Kitay tucking her in and pressing a kiss on her forehead, after warning her that if he catches her doing anything but resting, he’s going to ignore her for the rest of the week.

Nezha says very little the entire time, only awkwardly lingering by the foot of her bed while Kitay fixes her up, and gives her one final, cursory glance before leaving.

Rin doesn’t know when she drifts off or how long she’s asleep for, but when she opens her eyes, night has fallen in the girls’ dormitories. On her bedside table is a glass of water and a bowl with tonight’s meal from the mess hall, a few pieces of bread and porridge, presumably from Kitay. Her stomach rumbles, and she scarfs down the food as quickly as she can. The ache in her muscles has dulled the tiniest amount, but moving is still a chore, and she wants to lie back down as soon as fucking possible and pass out again.

Just as she’s savoring the last bites of her food, Nezha walks into the dormitory and stops in his tracks when his eyes find her.

“Oh, you’re awake,” he remarks, sitting at the foot of her bed.

“Barely,” Rin says through a full mouth, swallowing when Nezha gives her a disgusted look. It’s then that she notices a glass bottle filled to the brim with a red liquid in his hands, and she tilts her head questioningly.

Following her gaze, Nezha realizes what she’s looking at and takes it as a cue to hand her the bottle.

“What? What the hell is this?”

“It’s tart cherry juice. It helps with the pain. Loosens your muscles. I drank it a lot during our first year when we were doing drills with Jun,” he replies, shaking it lightly until Rin finally takes it.

“Where the hell did you get this?” she asks, clutching the bottle with both hands and eyeing it bewilderedly.

Nezha looks away. “They sell it at the marketplace.”

“You actually went out and bought this. You. Leaving Sinegard. In the middle of winter. To go to a dingy marketplace.”

His exasperation drips from his expression, scrunched forehead, and flashing eyes. “Just drink it and go back to sleep so you can stop terrorizing us.”

“Why the fuck did you even get me this?”

“Can’t I be nice?”

Rin gives him a deadpan look. He’s seemingly taken an interest in a spot on her bedsheet, fixing his stare there instead of on her. She sits up a little straighter, wincing at the pulled muscles’ pain.

“It’s an apology,” he finally replies.

“For what?”

He doesn’t respond.

Rin tries to cast her mind back to what he could possibly be talking about. They hadn’t had a real fight in months. It’s all stupid bickering and arguments over pointless shit and petty pride. She comes up empty with possible reasons.

Unless—

But that doesn’t make any sense. But nothing else did, either.

She asks it, anyway. “Is this about what I said this afternoon? Don’t think about it too much. It was just a joke.”

“Didn’t sound like one to me,” he mumbles, making Rin blink in disbelief. Nezha still won’t look her in the eye, and with her aching muscles and brain still sluggish from sleep, she can barely put the pieces together, and even when she does, the picture it creates makes no damn sense.

Because there’s no way. No way in fucking hell did she make the Yin Nezha, Sinegard Academy’s darling, the son of the fucking Dragon Warlord, insecure about himself over a joke.

She couldn’t suppress a disbelieving laugh, making her the receiving end of Nezha’s scowl.

“You’re fucking kidding me. I didn’t peg you as someone that sensitive.”

“That is not it at all,” he says, frown deepening.

“I was just joking, calm down—”

“I just don’t like being reminded of how awful I used to be,” Nezha cuts her off, unusually serious, crossing his arms. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want me throwing what happened in the Tournament back in your face.”

Rin flinches, then inwardly curses herself that she proved his point.

“Exactly. I know that it’s not the same and that you deserved to pound the shit out of me back then, but…” he trails off.

“But if we want us to stop being at each other’s throats, we have to stop revisiting our past mistakes,” she finishes for him, making her sit up a little straighter.

Nezha nods, his fingers twisting in his lap. “You can’t let that shit go easily. I get it. But I just thought I should… make it up to you somehow.”

“You could have just said something instead of going through all the fucking trouble for this.”

“Oh, yeah, because you’re the fucking poster child for healthy communication, aren’t you?” Nezha snorts. Rin kicks him, making him swear.

“I’m going to throw this at your fucking head.”

“I have no doubt about that.”

She twists the cap and the bottle pops open. She brings it to her lips, taking a few gulps. She shudders at the sweet and sour taste coating her tongue, eyeing it with suspicion.

“This tastes expensive.”

“It’s not.”

“Fucking liar.”

“Just… Get better soon.” Nezha says, sighing as he stands up. “I have to go. It’s my turn to teach the first-years sword fighting.”

Rin blinks, feeling oddly disappointed by his abrupt departure. Then she shakes her head.

What the fuck was that ?

“Don’t let any of them get stabbed.”

The corners of Nezha’s lips twitch into a smile, and she has to force herself to keep a straight face.

“I’m not incompetent like you.”

“Fuck off. Get your ass out of here.”

Nezha raises his hands in mock surrender, giving her a quick grin before leaving.

Rin’s eyes linger at the foot of her bed where Nezha sat for a few more seconds, before turning back to the juice he bought her.

“What an idiot,” she mutters to herself, taking another sip, finally letting the smile she’d been suppressing loose.

~*~

“That was so fucking stupid, ” Nezha says, plopping down to lie next to her on the grass right after Jun dismissed their Combat class. Winter has finally subsided into warmer weather, and most classes began transferring outdoors once again—which meant more outdoor training.

“It was so peaceful when you weren't here,” Rin sighs dramatically, not opening her eyes, just soaking in the warmth of the afternoon sun.

“Fuck you. You enjoyed that.”

“Your suffering is an endless source of joy to me, but you already knew that.”

She feels a light kick to her leg that she returns with more force, making Nezha hiss at the sting.

“You deserved that.”

“I don't know what the fuck Jun's problem is these days. He never made the apprentices go through physical warm-up drills before. What am I, a first-year?”

Rin finally opens her eyes to look at him, only to feel a jolt of surprise when he finds him staring at her already. The sunlight washes over his face, reflecting the small gold flecks in his almond eyes and casting shadows along his stupidly pretty face.  Something flutters in the pit of her stomach, and she hastily looks away, watching the clouds instead.

“Maybe he's just upset we're getting along now. He did everything he could to pit us against each other in our first year—not that he needed much help.”

“I highly doubt Jun would take students' rivalries seriously.”

“Not when most of his students obtained an interest in pledging Lore because of that little incident last time. Must've hurt his pride a bit. His favorite student not wanting to kill me anymore just adds salt to the wound.”

“Great, so being friends with you is already biting me back in the ass. That's a fantastic sign.”

“You could always just stop, ” Rin says, glaring at him. 

Nezha snorts. “Not a chance.”

There are few and far moments between them spent in silence, both preferring to fill with nonsensical bickering than let an awkward quiet linger.

But it doesn't feel awkward at all now.

The sun is shining brightly, the light breeze making the leaves of the trees rustle and fall around them. The soft chatter of the students in the halls of the Academy drifts to their ears, and Rin lets herself sink in the peace.

That is, until Nezha breaks it.

“Does it hurt?” he says in an unusually solemn voice.

Rin blinks, turning back to look at him.

His eyes hold an inscrutable emotion, raw and vulnerable.

“What does?” she asks softly, afraid to disturb the fragility they so rarely have between just the two of them. 

“When you call the Phoenix. Does it hurt you?”

She tries to hide how caught off-guard she is. She’s not sure she succeeds.

“Does it matter?” Rin says, her brow furrowing.

A frown finds its way on Nezha's face, his gaze faraway, yet oh-so piercing when it turns back to her.

“Of course it does. How could it not?”

He looks and sounds appalled—unnervingly so. She can't fathom why, but it feels like his question runs deeper than what he's letting on. 

But Nezha doesn't understand. He never would. 

Right?

He’s never asked her about her fire before. He, like everyone except Kitay, knows nothing except the most basic details, and Rin has never volunteered any information. Let them think what they want—she didn’t care, as long as they stay out of her fucking way. Besides, explaining shamanism to someone who doesn’t believe in it is as good as talking to a wall. It’s better to let them make their own assumptions than to even begin explaining the vastness of the Pantheon.

“Where did that come from?”

“I’ve been wondering about it for a while now. Ever since I first saw you call your fire.”

Whatever that meant.

“Why?”

“I’m just curious,” he replies, a little too quickly for her liking. “Jiang said you were calling the gods down to you. Doesn’t it bother you, having a god in your head all the time?”

Rin’s forehead scrunches, giving him a confused look.

“Why would it?”

Nezha’s eyes scan her intently as if searching for an answer in her expression. Rin feels strangely naked, as if he’s peering into the depths of her and picking it apart. Whatever he finds, it makes him press his lips together and look away.

“Fine. But you didn’t answer my first question.”

“Why do you want to know?”

Nezha shrugs. “Maybe I just want to know you better. So?”

She gives him a dirty glare, but he doesn’t look fazed in the slightest.

What the hell is his problem?

Her irritation bubbles beneath the surface, but it refuses to come to a boil. Rin knows, even without him telling her, that if she really didn’t want to answer, he wouldn’t push her. And that , that consideration for her space and boundaries makes her feel that much worse; she’d rather he push her to the edge and cross the line like the asshole he used to be, because at least that was familiar. That, she knew how to navigate.

Rin didn’t know what to do with his kindness.

She doesn’t know how long she lies there, gathering her courage, but when she speaks, her voice is soft, barely above a whisper.

“It does hurt. More than you can imagine. But I'd still do it, anyway.”

“Why?” his voice is quieter than she’s ever heard it before.

“Because it's all that I have.” 

The words come unbidden, unprompted, and it startles her that she's even saying this to him, that she's somehow peeling back the layers of herself, the part she's tried desperately to kill and bury in Tikany—that scared shopgirl with no place, no chance, no value. 

She'd only bared her soul to one person like this before; to Kitay, who she knew would never scorn or betray her, or make her feel less than what she truly is. Her confidant, her better half, the one she trusted beyond any rhyme or reason.

So now, she doesn't understand why she's telling Nezha this. She doesn't understand why she feels like she won't regret it.

“When all your life you're treated like you're nothing, when you finally find something that makes you feel like you have worth… you make sure you never lose it. And I'm never letting that fucking go. I’ve come too far. I'm never going back to being that helpless shopgirl almost carted off to be married to a grimy old man. I'd sooner kill myself.”

Rin clenches her jaw, hands curling into fists at her sides. 

There it is, laid out in the open. If he had a problem with it, and looked at her with contempt or disgust like he used to, then she couldn’t do anything about it.

That didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt like hell, though.

“I didn't realize,” Nezha says, looking more lost than she'd ever seen him before.

“How could you?” she asks bitterly, but not towards him. Fate is simply kinder to some more than others—some are born with everything they could ever need and want at their fingertips, destined to be great, and others are tossed into a pit and left to fend for themselves. It wasn't in Nezha's control that he was born a Yin, any more than it was in her control to be fostered by the Fangs. 

“I feel like I'll never stop having things to be sorry for when it comes to you.”

Rin rolls her eyes, tired of his dramatic gallantry, but Nezha’s hand darts out, covering hers, making her pause.

He squeezes it lightly, and Rin can’t tear her gaze away from him.

“Thank you. For telling me.”

There’s something in the way he says it—something so unbearably tender in his voice that makes Rin feel like she’s falling and flying all at once. 

It’s terrifying to be vulnerable.

Even more terrifying to realize she wouldn't mind doing it again, as long as it was with him.

She doesn’t know what to say, so she nods. 

Nezha seems to understand. He turns back to watching the clouds, never letting her hand go.

~*~

Sinegard Academy, first and foremost, is a military stronghold. It cannot, and will not , produce students that are only exceptional in theory, but fumble in practice.

It's because of such a notion that Sinegard employs little excursions under their Masters' discretion to gain experience before they graduate. When they return from their summer holidays for their final year at Sinegard, the Masters brief them of their assignments, ranging from days to months of intervals under service before returning to the Academy to make their reports. For the last quarter of their year, they need to submit all their remaining requirements in order to graduate.

Jun routinely takes his apprentices to the soldiers' barracks and puts them under their daily training regimens, Enro lets her apprentices volunteer at army clinics four times a week, Jima takes hers to diplomacy meetings to hone their negotiation skills, Irjah to the intelligence infantry to gain a better grasp at battle optics.

Jiang… Well, Jiang is a special case. 

With Rin being his only student, he has certain… liberties he takes.

Rin spends an awful lot of days meditating in fucking mountainsides and forests in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Jiang tells her it’s so she can connect with the harmony of the natural order of things and channel the gods easier.

Rin thinks he just didn’t know what the fuck to do with her otherwise.

“I’ll miss you,” Kitay had muttered in her hair when he was set to go to Army Intelligence with the rest of the Strategy pledgers, his embrace tighter than it had ever been before.

“If you do, go to the nearest cave and sit there for a few hours to remind you of me. That’s what Jiang will make me fucking do the entire time you’re gone.”

“I love you, but I won’t miss you that much to do that to myself.”

Rin lightly punched him in the arm, and returned his hug.

Venka and Nezha were the next to leave, Venka getting assigned to the Archer’s Battalion in the Seventh Division, and Nezha working directly under Jun in the same contingent. 

“Don’t die while we’re gone,” Venka had told her, giving her a smack in the back.

“If I do, I’ll be sure to tell Jiang to send you two an invitation to the funeral,” she said, rubbing the spot where Venka’s hit stung.

“I’ll bring the sorghum wine and paper lanterns to celebrate,” Nezha interjected. Rin flipped him a rude gesture, one he returned.

Rin had frozen when Nezha wrapped his arms around her and hugged her goodbye. It lasted only a few seconds, but she swears Venka was smirking at Nezha when they separated, and that his cheeks were a rosy pink instead of the usual pale porcelain they usually were. When they’d gone, Rin spent a good amount of time staring at the ceiling before she fell asleep that night.

They came back to the Academy for a few days at a time, which they all spent complaining about how rigorous the work is, but mostly, Rin spent her days alone, doing mundane tasks and following Jiang’s random whims for the day until he dismissed her for acting too grumpy. Like he could fucking blame her.

She didn’t want to be ungrateful, obviously—Jiang had informed her that most shamans are guaranteed a slot in the Thirteenth Division, or the Cike, and it’s not as bad as its reputation makes it out to be, and it’s never a bad thing to be the Empress’ trusted and closest employ—but with Kitay, Nezha, and Venka leaving and doing all this shit and gaining experience, Rin just wanted a little more excitement for her last year than lounging around pretending to ‘connect to the world's inner voices’, as Jiang so elegantly put it.

So when Jiang tells Rin he's going to take her on a mission for Daji with the Cike, her blood thrums in anticipation, waking two hours earlier than she needed to and impatiently waiting for Jiang to get his shit together.

Meeting the Cike two days before the set date for their mission was an incredibly… interesting experience, to put it lightly.

They’re the strangest group of fuckers Rin had ever encountered in her life, and she’s had Jiang as her Master in Sinegard for the last four years, so that’s saying something.

She’d been more than surprised to see Altan greeting her ahead of the others at the Night Castle, advising her to buckle up, which should have told her all she needed to know.

Their commander, Tyr, had welcomed her warmly enough, asking the rest of the contingent to gather around, but she still felt like an odd spectacle with the way the others eyed her with interest until they all introduced themselves.

“So you’re another Speerly. Are you gonna repopulate the island with Altan?” Ramsa, the youngest boy with an eyepatch, asked her when she shook his hand. Rin’s jaw dropped as a bunch of awkward laughs erupted from the group. The man standing behind him with a rake strapped to his back, Baji, gave him a light smack on the head. The large man, Suni, had blushed to the roots of his hair, Altan had pinched the bridge of his nose, and Chaghan, the scrawny, white-haired boy that seemed to shadow Altan’s every step, gave an impressive eye-roll.

“ Ramsa! ” Qara, Chaghan’s twin, chastised with wide eyes.

“What?” Ramsa cried, “It was just a question! Wouldn’t you want to have more Speerlies running around? This is a good opportunity!”

“Please don’t dignify that with an answer,” Altan said, exasperated.

“I had no plans to,” Rin replied with a grimace.

Tyr’s eyes had glittered with amusement, and Jiang let out a cough.

“Welcome to the Cike. We’re excited to work with you in the future.”

Tyr had led her and Jiang to the barracks, to a room that was just as plain as their dormitories in Sinegard, with a small cot and cabinet for her clothes.

“It’s just a simple assassination, don’t worry,” Altan had assured her as they were going over the plan the next day, clapping her on the shoulder.

If this had happened three years ago, Rin probably would have blushed and stammered like a stupid schoolgirl. Now, Altan felt more like an older brother from a large rowdy family, and really, she was just grateful she knows someone from Sinegard who can show her the fucking ropes in this wild shitshow.

“You’re gonna have to get used to getting blood on your hands if you’re gonna get drafted in the Cike. But this mission isn’t going to be messy. Think of it as a trial run before we get to the more complicated stuff.”

Altan must have jinxed it, though, because messy was a fucking understatement.

Somehow, someone had tipped off their target, a province magistrate plotting a coup against Daji, and they were greeted by a rainfall of arrows and armed rebels ready to face them head-on.

The rest of the mission became less about stealth and more about absolutely decimating their opponent. Rin, who Tyr had made hang back with Qara at the top of a building for a better vantage point, was forced to join the fray to burn down a few barricades since Altan was preoccupied with mowing down the enemy. After she did, she was hauled off to a safe house despite her protests.

“You’re still a Sinegard student,” Altan had said through gritted teeth, “trust me, you should savor it while you can. You’ll get your turn soon. For now, stay the fuck here and wait for us to retreat.”

They found themselves retreating to the Seventh Division’s settlement near the Autumn Palace, looking absolutely horrendous—mud, blood, and scorch marks on their uniform, skin glistening with sweat and ash, and smelling like someone had made them run through a coal-filled furnace.

The Seventh Division officers were not happy with them in the slightest.

As Tyr tries to brief them with what happened, a small crowd of soldiers begins to form around them, looking at them like they were exotic animals displayed in circus cages, and it made Rin so uncomfortable, she debated setting one of their uniforms on fire if only to get them to stop.

She was actually about to ask Altan if she could when someone pushes their way through the crowd roughly until they were at the front, in full view of her.

“Rin,” Nezha pants, staring at her with wide eyes, either oblivious or purposefully ignoring all the sudden interested stares on the two of them.

Rin’s stomach squeezes, her spine jolting with electricity.

Right. The Seventh Division was Nezha’s assignment.

“Nezha,” she replies awkwardly, gaze darting around to everyone who honed in on their conversation.

He blinks, as if realizing where he is. He clears his throat, suddenly standing a lot stiffer.

“You’re here,” he says, voice forced to be steady. Someone snorts behind her.

“My Division’s here.”

“You’re free to go for now, Runin,” Tyr cuts in, the corner of his lips twitching upwards, and before she can say anything, Nezha takes her wrist and pulls her out of the crowd.

When they’re far away from judging eyes, he whirls around and wraps her in his arms, pulling her flush against his chest.

What the fuck? Alarm bells ring in Rin’s head, but Nezha only buries his face in her hair, seemingly not at all caring that she looked and smelled like she crawled out of a pit of corpses.

“ Fuck . I really thought…” Nezha's voice trails off, his eyes suspiciously misty. His eyes travel down her body as if checking if she's hurt anywhere. Any other time, she'd laugh at his dramatics, but right now, shock roots her to her place.

“You thought what?”

“The Seventh Division kept talking about a Cike mission gone haywire. They said there were soldier casualties,” he explains, voice still riddled with disbelief and tinged with fear, as if he still thinks she could be in danger.

“In the other divisions, not in the Cike.” Rin corrects, still feeling absolutely off-balance and baffled by the sudden turn of events. “The mission went a little off the rails. There was an encounter. But what you heard was probably an exaggeration. All of us got out fine.”

“But you could’ve been hurt. There were explosives set off.”

“Those were our explosives. I wasn’t even in the fray. They made me retreat—”

“You could have died , and we—I wouldn’t have even realized or known or—” his words come out faster, more desperate, like if he didn’t get to say them now, he’ll never get the chance to.

“That's not gonna happen—” Rin interjects, trying to calm him down.

“No, listen, Rin,” he says insistently, grabbing for her hands. Rin freezes at the touch, at how his hands are slick with cold sweat, feeling unsteady tremors. “I thought I was never going to see you again. That was insanity. You can’t die, do you know what Kitay will do if you did? Or Venka? Or me? ”

“That’s ridiculous.” She says, trying to ignore the last part of his sentence and how it made her heart leap.

Nezha clenches his jaw, closing his eyes and lets loose a breath, as if steeling himself for something.

“Nezha, pull your shit together. I’m not going to—”

But she doesn't get to finish her sentence—Nezha grabs her by the waist and presses his lips against hers.

Oh.

Oh.

His lips are soft, the hand cradling her cheek gentle yet firm. She dimly realizes he tastes like sweet buns.

She didn't know this is what it felt like to be kissed.

Almost on instinct, Rin’s eyes fall shut, and her arms rise and wrap around his neck, carding a hand through his hair. The strands come undone, a shudder passing through him as he deepens the kiss.

Shit. Holy fucking shit.

Nezha parts her lips with his own, his fingers trailing down her back, and electricity shoots through Rin’s spine. Her ears are ringing, her head is spinning, and she thinks she’s never felt this aware of her body before, every muscle taut and alive. She’d thought she knew what flames licking her skin felt like, the dizzying high that power gave her. But Nezha’s touch sets her alight in a different way altogether, and she thinks she finally understands what Nikara poets she’d once rolled her eyes at meant when they described how kisses burned you from the inside out.

When she pulls away to catch her breath, Nezha’s lips chase hers, and she melts into him over and over again, her hands exploring his skin, and oh , she’s sure the sound he makes, like he was helpless against her, will haunt her dreams for a long while.

When their lips finally, finally part, Nezha rests his forehead against hers, his breath fanning hers. She doesn’t know what expression she wears, but it coaxes a smile from him, his eyes still glazed over, pleasantly dazed.

“You—but you—” Rin chokes out as Nezha’s fingers brush her hair back, tucking it behind her ear. “What the fuck? ”

“You,” he says breathlessly. “don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“I— huh? ”

“Rin, I—”

“ Yin! It’s time for your rounds!” Jun barks out of nowhere, making them jolt to attention, and Rin thinks this is the closest she’s ever been to committing murder.

Nezha seems to share the sentiment, but he only closes his eyes and lets out an irritated sigh, his hands squeezing her waist before stepping away. 

“Coming, Sir,” he says through gritted teeth, then he turns back to her, and his face softens. “I’ll see you at Sinegard.”

He presses one last kiss to the crown of her head and follows Jun briskly to the barracks.

Rin doesn’t know how long she stands there for, gaping at the spot where he’d been standing.

Until something smacks the back of her head, and she whirls around to find a frowning Jiang tapping his fan on his lips.

“I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”

~*~

“Stop touching them, you’ll make them crease,” Niang chastises, adjusting Rin’s uniform sleeves.

“These feel fucking weird.”

“They’re brand new. You’ll get used to it when you wear them often enough.”

Their days at Sinegard Academy are finally coming to a close, and nobody, including Rin, could quite believe it. Most of them had spent the previous months going back and forth from Sinegard to their field assignments, including Rin, who after the first disastrous Cike mission, was slowly introduced to the ropes, and thankfully, things went more smoothly. The last few weeks of them scrambling to complete their remaining work have been a blur, with several last-minute preparations for the ceremony, but at last, the day is here.

Dressed in their brand-new black Militia uniforms, they're going to walk among the Academy halls as students one last time and leave as freshly minted soldiers.

“Don’t touch your hair or I’ll cut your hand off myself,” Venka threatens, clipping her hair back with a metal pin. 

“Then don't scrape my fucking scalp off.”

When they finally finish fixing themselves, the students file in a single line to the hall where they'd gathered as anxious first years, forming equal single file lines like they did on their first day.

Graduation at Sinegard Academy is a spectacle to behold. The main hall is decked with even more fancy decorations than the Sinegard Graduation Banquet, like a lush red carpet at the aisle, red and gold tassels and banners hung around the walls with Empress Daji's insignia, and intricate lanterns hanging from every corner of the room, bathing them in bright lights. The front of the room is elevated into a stage, where all the Masters stand in a line in their best uniforms.

Each of the Masters give a speech about upholding Sinegard Academy's reputation and using their skills for the betterment of the nation, but all Rin can think about is the thrumming in her veins when the pinning ceremony starts.

Each Master will call their apprentice out by name, hand them their scroll containing their Division assignment, pin the badge carved into the symbol of the Empress' Militia, and remove their armband to signify the end of their Sinegard journey.

The first few Masters pass by in a blur, with Yim, Sonnen, Enro, and Jima honoring their pledgers first. Rin's attention is brought back when Jun steps to the front and begins rattling off their names, finally reaching someone she knows.

“Sring Venka, Combat pledger.”

Venka struts to the stage, bowing her head. Jun works in a meticulous fashion, methodically putting the pin on her chest and cutting her armband in a few seconds flat.

As they were all instructed, Venka takes a bow, and steps off the stage back to their line.

“Yin Nezha, Combat pledger.”

Rin doesn't miss the quick, smug grin he flashes in her direction as he takes a bow. She rolls her eyes, returning it.

And then Irjah takes Jun's place, calling his students one by one until the very last, and his very best, is left.

“Chen Kitay, Strategy pledger.” Irjah says, and when he shakes Kitay's hand, his eyes are glowing with pride.

And finally, the last student among all the Masters—

“Fang Runin, Lore pledger,” Jiang announces, hands clasped in front of him.

Rin walks up the steps, feeling the weight of everyone’s stares on her back, and once, she would have felt conscious of so many people’s attention on her, but now, her gaze is trained solely on her Master, the person who’d guided her on her tumultuous path of shamanism for the last five years, one of the very few constants in her life.

The man she’d come to love like a father.

She stands in front of him, back straight, jaw clenched, chest swelling with overwhelming emotion as he gives her a once-over.

He smiles at her.

“Don’t get all weepy on me now, Runin,” he tuts softly, grabbing her wrist and curling her fingers around her scroll. “It doesn’t suit you.”

He takes the Empress’ Militia badge and clips it on the fabric of her uniform, on the cloth right above her heart.

Rin feels her eyes stinging, and she forces herself to blink it away.

Jiang doesn’t look remotely fooled, but he says nothing, finally taking the ceremonial blades and fingering the cloth of her armband. He frowns thoughtfully.

“Has the Lore armband always been white?”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

Jiang replies with a shit-eating grin, “Next time I’m choosing a more tasteful color. This one is absolutely atrocious.”

He cuts the cloth with one practiced snip, letting it fall to the floor. Rin fights the urge to pick it up and keep it for herself.

“Congratulations, soldier,” he says formally, holding his hand out for her to shake.

Rin doesn’t know when the lump in her throat formed, but it’s painful to swallow. She doesn’t know why her vision is getting blurry, but she can barely see Jiang’s hand properly. She doesn’t know why her hand is cold and trembling, but she manages to take his hand in hers and shake it.

Before she could step back and return to her line, however, Jiang speaks again.

“It was an honor to be your Master, Runin. You are the best student I've had.”

Something wet falls on her cheeks, and Jiang tilts his head, his expression clearly readable for the first time in years: unrestrained fondness.

Fuck it, she thinks to herself.

Rin leaps into his arms to embrace him.

Jiang returns it without a second thought, smoothing her hair back and laughing softly in her ear, until someone coughs into their fist behind them. Jun gives them an annoyed look, but before she can flip him the finger, Jiang beats her to it. She thinks she hears Irjah snort.

Reluctantly, Rin pries herself off him, but not before he picks up her cloth armband and tucks it in her hand. 

“Come and visit. I always need someone to clip my hedges for me.”

When she goes back to her line, Rin catches Kitay looking at her, his eyes brimming with almost uncontained joy, and her heart swells. They need no words to understand what the other is feeling, and she knows this is something incomparable to anything else they've felt.

Jima steps forward, raising her arms.

“Serve the Empire with your heads held high. Uphold your oath with honor and pride, until your very last breath,” Jima’s voice echoes, strong and clear, full of purpose. “For our nation, Nikan.”

“For our nation, Nikan,” the students repeat.

Jima drops her arms, clasping her hands together, a rare smile finding its way on her face.

“Congratulations. May all your futures be prosperous.”

All at once, cheers erupt in the room, a collective whoop of celebration. The students break formation and find their ways to their friends—high fives are exchanged, swear words are screamed, bodies are tackled in hugs, and Rin is sure she's never seen such happiness contained in a room before.

In the chaos, Rin’s gaze finds Nezha, beaming at her with unrestrained glee. He wades his way through the celebrating students and finds himself by her side.

“Congratulations,” he shouts above the noise, the grin never leaving his face. “You certainly took your time on stage.”

“Why, did not having the spotlight bruise your ego?” she retorts.

“Hardly. I have no issue sharing, it's the least I can do for poor souls like you. Think of it as charity work.”

Rin punches him in the arm, and he throws his head back and laughs. In one fell swoop, he moves with lightning speed and presses a quick kiss on her lips, making her face burn.

“Fuck you,” she snaps, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, which only makes him do it again.

But she supposes she can't get too pissed at him, not when he's smiling at her like that.

But Rin has never been good at taking things lying down.

So she beats him at his own game, grabs the front of his collar and plants a kiss on his lips.

When she pulls away, Nezha's face is bleeding red, spluttering in protest, and she's satisfied.

If she notices the students around them exchanging money, it doesn't matter.

If Han wolf-whistles and Niang screeches in shock, pointing wildly in their direction, it doesn't matter.

And if Venka gags at them and Kitay laughs knowingly before launching himself at Rin for a hug, it doesn't matter.

That doesn't matter.

What matters is that they finally did it. They survived Sinegard Academy. They did it.

They fucking did it.

Together.