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"Kafka," Blade said. "Care to enlighten me why we're still on this blasted ship?"
They were long ready to make their escape from this accursed place, or so he had thought. Though Blade knew that this wasn't the time or place that Elio had promised him would be the end of his long pursuit, the knowledge that Dan Feng's accursed incarnation was within arm's reach made his teeth itch and his poisoned blood boil and seethe. After Kafka had played their parts in the script dutifully and let Jing Yuan run them off, though, they hadn't left. For some reason.
Kafka inspected her nails, flicking off some non-existent dirt from under her pinky using the sharp end of a small knife. "As the answer remains since the last time you asked ten minutes minutes ago, there's still one more role that you need to fulfill."
"And why, exactly, will you not tell me what it is?" he scowled.
"Quiet," she said, right as a passing patrol of Cloud Knights drifted too close from where they were sitting by a waiting starskiff. He waited an appropriate amount of time before pinning her with a glare. "Well?" Blade said. "You know I'm just going to keep asking until you tell me."
"Contrary to what many think, persistence isn't the way to win over a woman," Kafka said, raising a finger to her lips in feigned amusement. "Nevertheless, I have been told that this role works... better, if one might say, if you don't know why you're there."
"How the fuck does that even make sense," Blade said, despairing. Never before had he been refused even the littlest of a hint as to how exactly he was supposed to carry out Elio's predictions. Blade generally defaulted to maiming or defenestration in the absence of clear instructions, which was usually not what was necessary. They were all well aware Kafka was far better suited to such vague descriptors and nuances than he was. His mission brief for the Luofu had been along the lines of "Go in and fuck shit up and also help Kafka, kind of," as Silver Wolf had put it.
"Oh, there's our sign," Kafka said, looking up right as an even larger patrol of Cloud Knights clattered by, along with what looked like a hospital's worth of medics. "The Astral Express must have finished their mission."
"Isn't that what we came here to do?" Blade asked, puzzled. "What, did Elio need immediate verification that badly? The news would have made it out of the ship in less than a day."
Kafka hopped into the starskiff. "That is what I came here to do. You, on the other end, still have someone to see. Come on, now."
Blade gnashed his teeth. He was this close to tackling Kafka off the starskiff and down into the depths of the ship below. With any luck, they would land on some Cloud Knights so that he would finally have someone to stab. "Fine."
---
From the way his day was going, he probably should have expected Kafka to do something as ridiculous as dropping him off at Jing Yuan's doorstep like an unwanted puppy. And yet, somehow, he still managed to find it in himself to be both surprised and indignant.
Not to mention that as expected of the commanding officer of the Xianzhou Luofu, his personal residence was incredibly well guarded. Kafka, moreover, had strictly instructed him to "not kill anyone, please. You don't need blood on you for this," before driving off without so much as an extraction plan for him.
With more effort than he would have liked, he managed to slip his way through to the entrance of Jing Yuan's rooms without raising any alarms. Though Kafka had left him with no information about the aftermath of what they set in motion, he had managed to catch the general gist from sneaking his way into the mansion. Jing Yuan and the Astral Express crew had fought and defeated Phantylia, putting the Luofu into great debt to these outsiders, and into the start of what was no doubt to be a long and painful conflict with Nanook's Ravagers.
In the process, Jing Yuan had been wounded, though to what extent Blade was unable to discern; his guards had been too shaken to speak too much of it, likely lest they stumble upon some superstition that would jinx Jing Yuan's recovery. The Luofu, despite their ongoing war with the Abundance, had largely lived in indolence brought about by Jing Yuan's strategic genius for too long, and the sight of their famous general brought low was a fearful one, it seemed.
Blade refused to examine the way that this news made the tangled knots in his chest where he usually buried the remnants of his past tighten and ache.
The sound of footsteps around the corner signified his need to hurry, and he quickly slipped inside the room, soundless.
He had half expected a retaliation at the his entrance, or some sort of defense—Jing Yuan's reflexes was unlikely to have dulled even after centuries, if Blade knew anything of the man—but was instead met with the sight of Jing Yuan, fast asleep.
He was… arresting. Jing Yuan's hair was pulled back into a loose sleep braid, tied haphazardly off with his ribbon, and the sharp edges of his profile gleamed in the thin strip of moonlight streaming in from the window, where someone had neglected to shut the curtains properly. One side of his sleep robe had shifted off his shoulder at some point, revealing a lean, muscled shoulder and a strip of bandages wrapped around his solar plexus, below the soft rise and fall of his smooth, unblemished chest. In the daylight, he had looked every bit the noble general that he was, unbothered by Blade and Dan Heng's abrupt reintroduction into his life. In here, he looked just like he did back when—
No. Blade shook his head. That way madness lay. He couldn't afford to draw out the monster that lived inside of him now, without Kafka here, and leave Jing Yuan with the unfortunate job of putting him down like a rabid dog.
As if sensing him, Jing Yuan turned his head in his direction, frowning, before his eyes flickered open. "What...?" he said hoarsely, before sitting up so fast that his injuries no doubt protested, and he subsided with a wince. "A-Xing...?"
The beast in him roared, immediate. "Don't call me that," Blade snarled.
Jing Yuan froze, and then let out a long exhale. "Right," he half chuckled, to himself. "My apologies, Blade. I forgot myself for a moment. What may I do for you?" he asked, tilting his head, his expression one of carefully crafted neutrality and helpfulness, any half-asleep vulnerability he might have had wiped away. Establishing that careful, cautious distance.
"I heard you were injured," Blade said, not knowing quite what to say next.
Jing Yuan rubbed absently along his abdomen, no doubt where the rest of the bandages continued down, hidden by the rest of the robe. "Phantylia... attempted to, ah, turn me into one of the members of their Antimatter Legion. It gave me the opportunity to strike a mortal blow to her, by inflicting one upon myself at the same time."
Blade's eyes narrowed. "Mortal?"
"Well, as you can see, not entirely," Jing Yuan's lips twitched. "I should recover in time." He paused, rubbing along his brow. "I apologize. I'm feeling a little fatigued, so I'll spare us both the trouble. I can assume you didn't come here for a friendly inquiry about my injuries. What are you really here for, Blade?"
Blade didn't have an answer for that himself. Jing Yuan wasn't entirely correct, though; Blade might have turned up at his door for a different reason, but upon learning of his condition, he was hardly able to turn away without coming in to check. To check on what, exactly, Blade didn't want to admit to himself, but...
Jing Yuan's robe had slipped even further off his shoulder to pool around his waist as he talked, and the fire within Blade was beginning to spiral into something that said, destroy, take, devour. He stalked closer, relishing the way Jing Yuan tensed almost imperceptibly as Blade grew close enough to touch.
Blade raised his bandaged hand, struck with the urge to trail his fingers along the lines of his face and that cursed mark below his eye. Jing Yuan let him, and Blade used his hand to tilt his chin up so that Jing Yuan could look him in the eyes. The angle pushed the curtain of silver hair that usually obscured half of that golden gaze off to the side. Like this, he was devastating.
"The great general of the Xianzhou Luofu," Blade mused. "Brought so low by one of Nanook's pawns. Losing your edge?"
Jing Yuan laughed, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, his smile turned from its polished, press-worthy perfection into something a lot more tired. "We all get old, Blade. Even me."
His fingers tightened on Jing Yuan's chin. "At least you can get old," Blade said.
Jing Yuan brought a hand up to his arm in silent apology, his thumb pressing into the groove of his wrist where the bandages ended. "So, then? Have you come to express your condolences for my soon-to-be retirement after my narrow escape from death?"
Blade could hear the underlying question, yet again. The truth was that the moment he had walked into the room, the thin thread that had connected him and Jing Yuan had pulled taut. Caught in it, Blade's fate had been sealed then, a moth drifting hopelessly towards an open flame.
He let go of his chin, pressing Jing Yuan back and down into the sheets with both hands. This, too, was painfully familiar. The flames roared, something behind his eyes threatening to split open, as tended to happen when he dwelled too much on his past. He firmly pressed it down. That wasn’t important—this was. Jing Yuan, warm beneath his hands, alive. His eyes, almost closed from exhaustion, turned into molten honey as he looked back at Blade.
"Out of all of them," Blade said. "You're not allowed to die on me. Not yet."
Jing Yuan raised one perfect, delicate eyebrow. "You and I know that's not entirely within my control. After all, Xianzhou generals never last very long." He smiled, faint. "I'm lucky to even have made it this far, or even past today's events."
Blade shook his head. "The Xianzhou still has a larger role to play in all of this. It's hardly time for you to retire yet." Blade paused, pressing down the need inside him that wanted to scream in his face that Jing Yuan had to live, else what was the point of it all? "I doubt the Master Diviner would be able to do what needs to be done." Fu Xuan was talented, but she lacked that edge of confidence and control that was needed to win wars. Something that Jing Yuan had, and Dan Feng, and Jingliu—
His hands spasmed where they had no doubt grown too tight on Jing Yuan's hips. When he released them to pin Jing Yuan's biceps to the bed instead, they left red imprints behind.
"I know," Jing Yuan said, and reached out as much as he could to draw Blade in, as caged in as he was. "I was afraid this battle would be unwinnable, for me," he admitted. "That I would have to leave the Luofu to Fu Xuan's tender mercies, well. It would have been an unfortunate outcome." Jing Yuan hesitated. “You know, the effects of Phantylia’s attempt to turn me into a Voidranger. It very well might have triggered…”
“Don’t,” Blade said, stricken. He was well aware of the power of Nanook's Ravagers. “Don’t say it.”
“Okay,” Jing Yuan said, just as agreeable, like he was talking about what tea to order rather than the inevitable nature of his impending doom.
"It’s been eight hundred years." Blade exhaled, bitter. "You can’t… You can’t give in now.”
How was Blade to express this unbearable need for Jing Yuan to continue on as he was, untouched by the battlefields and the pull of time, where the other four of them had all failed? But even Jing Yuan was reaching the end of his burning candle, Blade knew. Eight hundred years was long enough already, and even longer for someone of his responsibilities and strength; lesser men had lasted less than half that amount of time. The idea that had Phantylia succeeded, Jing Yuan would’ve been turned into a monster just like Blade… It was even worse.
Or… that even though Jing Yuan had won this battle, the next one he would lose would be to mara, accelerated by whatever Phantylia had done to him in those short moments.
“I’ll try my best,” Jing Yuan hummed. “Just for you,” he said, barely more than a whisper, and something inside Blade burned and ached at the casual vow that he knew Jing Yuan wouldn’t be able to keep.
“All good things come to an end, just like… our parting all that time ago.” Jing Yuan sighed, shaking his head like it would dispel his thoughts. “Eight hundred years…”
Blade had spent all of it being more scar tissue and rage than an actual person, but no doubt Jing Yuan knew this too. His knowledge of the chessboard extended beyond the confines of the Xianzhou's ships, as evidenced by the day's events.
"And yet," Jing Yuan continued. "You still look at me like that."
He smiled again, intentionally mischievous, the gesture chasing away whatever darkness was left in his eyes, and parted his legs, hooking one of them around Blade and drawing him even closer. He was a line of burning heat along Blade's front. The fire in him flared again, his grief briefly forgotten, and shrieked. Devour.
"Is this what you came here for, then? I'm happy to prove to you," Jing Yuan murmured, "that it'll take more than this to kill me."
The fire surged. "I'm going to eat you alive," Blade said, almost conversationally, startling a short laugh out of Jing Yuan, before he leaned down to kiss him, finally, toppling the both of them off that long awaited precipice.
Jing Yuan's lips parted for him, and Blade bit down on his bottom lip, almost furious, incandescently angry at how good he tasted, how good he felt. Jing Yuan jerked back at the pain, but Blade pressed him further into the bed so he couldn't escape, licking into his mouth.
When Blade drew back, Jing Yuan looked like a vision, his cheeks and neck pink and his lips swollen, the corner of it red but not bleeding. Not yet, Blade thought, and drew his hands up Jing Yuan’s arms to his wrists, clutching at both of them as he pinned them above Jing Yuan’s head. They still fit beautifully in his grip. Blade shifted his weight just enough to fit both of Jing Yuan’s wrists into a single-handed grip before reaching down with his other to where the red ribbon tied off Jing Yuan’s braid, yanking it undone in one pull. He couldn’t resist stroking his hands through them once, twice, under Jing Yuan’s amused stare. He looped the ribbon around Jing Yuan’s wrists and tied it off, leaving his hands held high above his head.
“Are you scared I’m going to run away?” Jing Yuan said, with an expression that on any other man would be a pout, which was just so unbelievable of him that Blade wanted to kiss him again and eat it right off his face.
“You shouldn’t move around too much,” Blade said. “You’re injured.”
Jing Yuan looked incredulously at him in a way that clearly said you were the one who came into my bedroom with the intentions of fucking the daylights out of me. “Really,” he said dryly. “That’s what’s stopping you.”
“I’m just being considerate,” Blade said, leaning down to bite down where his neck met his shoulder and reveling in the choked, bitten off whine it earned him. “You thrash around a lot.”
“I do not thrash—” Jing Yuan said, scandalized, which earned him another bite, this time to his exposed nipple. True to form, he bucked up, the angle pushing his unmistakable erection against Blade’s hip, and gasped.
Blade smirked. “See?”
When he went to undo the ties of his sleep robe, he realized that Jing Yuan certainly wasn’t wearing anything else under it. His cock was flushed prettily, pink at the tip and already weeping slightly. Blade ignored it, giving into the urge to mouth along the deep vee of his hips and down along the insides of his thighs, biting and nibbling on it even as Jing Yuan jerked his hips up. Blade pinned them back down, firm.
“Blade,” Jing Yuan shivered under his mouth as one of the bites got too close to where he was leaking all over his stomach.
“Don’t tease—Ah!” He cried out as Blade looped his hands under his knees and pressed them back until they were flat against the bed. Underneath his cry, though, was a tinge of pain rather than just surprise, and Blade frowned.
“Are you—”
“Ah, just…” Blade let up on him, a little, and Jing Yuan levered himself up back onto the pillows. “Sorry,” he gasped. “My chest.”
Blade slowly pushed back his legs into the bed again, more carefully this time, watching Jing Yuan’s expression. At his affirmative nod, Blade finally went in for the prize, pressing his face into his ass and licking hungrily into where he was held open by Blade’s hands. Jing Yuan moaned and shuddered, but there was nowhere for him to go even as he squirmed.
“You—” he gasped. “That’s indecent.”
“I’ve done worse to you. Or are you telling me,” Blade said, his voice lowering into something hungrier, “that no one else has touched you like this since then…?”
Jing Yuan looked down at him, helpless. “You know it’s always been just you. You and—” Dan Feng, Jing Yuan didn’t say, well aware of Blade’s fury. Blade pushed his rage aside, licking along the meat of his thigh.
“Then you should have no objections,” he murmured. “It’s just me, Jing Yuan.”
A flash of something crossed Jing Yuan’s face, too fast for Blade to see. At the lack of a verbal rebuttal, Blade lowered his head back down.
“Stay. And stop moving around so much,” he added as he let Jing Yuan’s right leg go, pressing a thumb against his entrance, now shiny with spit. He speared his tongue back in, slipping his thumb in, just a little, which rewarded him with a louder moan and Jing Yuan’s ankle knocking against his shoulder.
The taste of his skin made Blade’s head spin as he licked into him more, sliding a finger into him as Jing Yuan whined, and then two, searching. When he found the spot, Jing Yuan bucked again, so hard he almost pushed Blade’s face off. As punishment, Blade sucked around where his fingers held him open, and rubbed, unrelenting, against his prostate.
“I can’t,” Jing Yuan cried. “Too much, I’m going to—” and cut himself off in a low, aborted scream as Blade drew his fingers out of him and gripped the base of his cock, tight, his thumb covering the head, now dark and red.
“What, exactly, are you doing?” he hissed, glaring at Blade with wild, red-rimmed eyes. His hair was spread around his head around his head like a halo and stuck close to his skin with sweat in some places, his chest and abs heaving and decorated the bite marks that Blade had left behind, already bruising. Beautiful.
“You will come with me in you or not at all,” Blade said, vicious, reveling in the way Jing Yuan shuddered in response, his dick twitching in Blade’s hand.
Unable to wait any longer, he reached over for the medicinal salve he spotted earlier on the bedside table. This was certainly not its intended purpose. As he melted the salve between his fingers, warming it into oil, he looked down at Jing Yuan, spread before him like a feast, his robe rucked up around his shoulders. He was still held open by Blade with one hand, but for all his squirming earlier, his other leg had subconsciously returned to where Blade had pinned it previously, a perfect mirror to the left one. His hands were clenched tightly around the trailing ends of the ribbon that bound his wrists together. Blade was surprised he hadn’t torn it apart, yet.
He unlaced his pants, exhaling in relief as he drew out his cock, pumping it slowly both to slick it up, and also to admire the view. Fuck, he thought, ripping the fastenings of his shirt apart as best as he could with one hand and tossing it aside, struck with the feverish need to feel Jing Yuan against him, skin-to-skin.
He could sense the way Jing Yuan’s eyes traveled along the bandages along his left arm and the mottled scar tissue winding its way across his torso before he visibly shook himself away from whatever he was thinking.
“Are you going to keep looking or are you going to get on with it,” Jing Yuan tugged at him, demanding, hooking his free leg around Blade’s hip and pulling him even closer until they were fully pressed together. Just because he could, Blade ground down where their cocks were pressed together so he could hear the noise that Jing Yuan made, still sensitive from his near-orgasm.
“Look at you,” Blade mused, his voice low and dark. “Wide open and begging for me to come fill him up. If only your adoring soldiers could see you now, hmm? Their noble general, reduced to pleading for an interstellar criminal to give him what he needs...”
Jing Yuan was so calm most of the time that riling him up was twice as fun. Blade used to make a game of it, teasing him all day during training until Jing Yuan would growl at him and pin him up against a wall, sinking to his knees, uncaring of who might see them. But those were different days, and long forgotten.
Jing Yuan’s breath hitched a little, but even through his glare, Blade saw the traitorous tips of his ears flushing even further. “Should I go find one of them to keep me occupied if you’re just going to keep on teasing me?”
That certainly got him the reaction he wanted. Blade scowled at that, shifting so that Jing Yuan’s entire body was pinned beneath his weight, his knees almost up to his shoulders.
“Oh, you wish,” he hissed. He could see Jing Yuan wince a little as the movement jostled his chest, but he could hardly stop now. The fire had erupted into an inferno, and all he wanted to do was consume Jing Yuan in its flames, to devour him, to carve a space that was Blade’s all alone, to make up for eight hundred years of separation.
Blade sank into him fully with one deep thrust, and Jing Yuan wailed, so loudly this time that Blade was surprised that no one had come in to check if someone was ravishing their general. His spine was bowed at a curve that had to be bad for his injury. Blade stroked his cheekbones with his fingers with a gentleness that he was surprised to feel. Jing Yuan was hot and wet around him, perfect even as he trembled while Blade waited for him to adjust to the intrusion.
“Shh,” Blade said, still petting the edges of Jing Yuan’s face, along where his eyes were screwed shut. He thumbed the edge of his lip where Blade had bitten him earlier. “Shidi. Not so loud. Your guards will hear.”
“I—” Jing Yuan gasped, opening his eyes. The baleful look he shot Blade was too dazed to be threatening. “I told you that there hasn’t been anyone but you. You could afford to go a little slower... It’s a lot—A-ah!” he choked, cutting off another moan as Blade shifted a little.
“I’ll go slow,” Blade promised, and rocked into him gently as Jing Yuan scrabbled at the sheets above him, straining against his ribbon.
“Nnngh—Blade, I—” Jing Yuan’s breath hitched, and the rest of his voice dissolved into a put upon whine on Blade’s next thrust, more forceful.
He sounded like music, and Blade was drunk on it as he ran a hand up Jing Yuan’s stomach, his muscles drawn tight with tension and jumping with every thrust. Blade gripped his hips, all thoughts of slowness forgotten, his hands fitting into the upper curve of his ass like he was made for him. He couldn’t resist leaning back to admire as he levered Jing Yuan’s hips up for a better angle, and he got even louder, then.
The last time Blade had seen this, Jing Yuan had still spent more time on the front lines than not, and he had the thick, ropey scars of wounds carelessly tended to. But long-lived species never scarred for long, and now, save for the bandages around his chest, Jing Yuan beneath him was something otherworldly entirely. Blade leaned down to swallow his whimpers as he drove harder into him, drinking in his sounds and the intoxicating scent of him. He pressed his lips to the curve of his temple, then along the edge of his earlobe. He wasn't usually this loud so fast, but Blade had worked him up earlier.
“Shidi, if you don’t shut up, someone really will come in to check.”
“You—” Jing Yuan bit out, stuttering with each bruising thrust, ”are still as mean as ever, u-unh, s-shixiong.”
He looped his bound arms around Blade as he ground his hips up into him to meet every thrust. With what little leverage he had, Jing Yuan grasped his hair to pull him in, burying his face in his neck as he panted against Blade's skin, muffling his little breathy sounds. “Oh, A-Xing, I—” he mumbled, incoherent and almost half-surprised, as he clenched down and came all over himself.
That rage stirred within him again at the name, but he could forgive Jing Yuan for how good he sounded as Blade continued fucking him open, merciless. He was trembling in full force now, all loose-limbed, his moans as he rode out his orgasm turning into overstimulated whimpers.
“You feel so good, baobei,” Blade groaned, half-crazed from the sandalwood scent of his hair and the way Jing Yuan was slick and fluttering around him. “Like you were made for me, A-Yuan.”
Jing Yuan pulled Blade’s head back so he could look him in the eyes. His pupils were blown and his gaze half-lidded, impossibly seductive. Like this, Blade forgot about everything else but him, if only for that brief second.
“Just for you,” he whispered, and Blade dug his fingers into the meat of ass and hips, spilling into him. He was only half aware of the desperate way he clutched at Jing Yuan like he could mold the both of them into one person as he rode out the waves of his pleasure.
Jing Yuan looked positively debauched and wrecked as Blade slowed in him, his thighs still absently clutching Blade’s sides. The necklace of lovebites that Blade had left around his neck, spilling down his chest and shoulders, were starting to purple and darken. The ribbon barely hanging on to his wrists was undoubtedly ruined, dead-knotted beyond belief and fraying.
“Are you satisfied with yourself now?” Jing Yuan said, though the effect was ruined by the way he was still panting, and by the wince he let out as Blade drew out of him, leaving his spend trickling out of his slick and puffy hole. Jing Yuan had ruined the bottom edge of his bandages with his come. Now that would be fun for him to explain to whoever had to tend to his wound.
Blade couldn’t help himself, slipping a finger back into him to keep it in, toying with him briefly as Jing Yuan let out another overwhelmed stutter. The thought of it staying in Jing Yuan for the rest of the day, as a reminder of the space Blade had carved out in him, sent another pulse of heat up his spine and to his half-hard cock.
Maybe that would explain the reason that he said what he did next, which was a barely audible admission. “I missed you,” Blade said, and realized exactly what he had let slip out as he looked at Jing Yuan’s face and watched his lips part in surprise. Shit.
Blade yanked himself upwards and away. He could hardly think straight like this, with the heat of the room around him as a reminder of what they had just done.
“No, wait,” Jing Yuan said hurriedly, reaching with both of his hand, still bound, to grasp Blade’s unscarred arm. “Don’t go. Please,” he added. He closed his eyes and bowed his head until all Blade could see was a mop of silver hair. “There are some things between you and I that don’t need to be said any longer,” he chuckled, self-deprecating. “Shixiong... Blade.” He drew Blade’s hand to his cheek. “We don’t have to talk about it. Just… don’t let me go this long without seeing you again.”
Blade swallowed, his throat thick. The space behind his eyes threatened to split open again, orange-red creeping in from the edges of his vision.
“Okay,” he whispered, reaching down to pick at Jing Yuan's ribbon with his free hand, loosening it just enough so that he could slip it off and crumple it into his fist. He knew it was a promise he couldn’t afford to make, not without knowing where the Stellaron Hunters would need to go next, chasing after the next line in the script. Not when he still had his vengeance to seek. Not with all his rage.
He felt Jing Yuan smile beneath his hand, pressing a kiss to his palm before he leaned back into the pillows, the moment of their mutual loss of control gone. Blade almost felt guilty for the clear signs of pain in Jing Yuan’s furrowed brows as he tugged at his bandages to smooth them back in place.
“I really am getting too old for this,” Jing Yuan said, his enigmatic smile back, expression smoothed over.
“I must not have done my job properly if you can still joke,” Blade said, just to hear him laugh one last time, before he forced himself to stand up and leave the bed. As he reached for his shirt, he paused as a thought came to him. What the fuck. Was this what Kafka had intended? Was this in Elio’s script?
“Is something the matter?” Jing Yuan said when Blade looked back at him, sunken back into his blankets, drowsiness already thickening his voice. He had made absolutely no effort to cover up what they had just been doing, and Blade wasn’t generous enough to help. Besides, some part of him wanted everyone to know how much of a vision Jing Yuan looked, like this. It was almost enough to distract him from his increasing desire to have words with Kafka.
“I…” Blade said, speechless. There was absolutely no diplomatic way to put I just realized that the Stellaron Hunters sent me here with the clear intention of having me rail you into oblivion as part of Elio’s greater plan, because that really wasn’t my original goal when I came in here. He shook his head, tugging his shirt back on and relacing his pants. “It’s nothing.”
Jing Yuan very much looked like he didn’t believe him, but it was hardly in his nature to push with his walls drawn back up, the distance between them already widening. “Alright.” He hesitated. “Blade…”
“Good night, General,” Blade said, softly, turning away and walking to the window. He couldn’t let himself look back.
“I’ll see you later, shixiong.”
He pressed the crimson ribbon to his lips as he leapt out of the window, its ends trailing in the nighttime wind, the lingering scent of Jing Yuan’s hair already fading from it.