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Lu Guang has white hair.
This by itself is remarkable, though not alarming. It’s rare, certainly. Most people have black. Some brown, some blond- those are the usual colours, anyways. Some people have pink or blue or green, and those are mutations. Unusual. Coveted. There's a notable difference in texture between natural and dyed, and with how gorgeously soft Lu Guang’s hair is there’s no doubt it’s anything but natural.
Lu Guang does not keep photos of himself. It is simply too dangerous. He used to, once, when he thought his power was unique. Even if it wasn’t, nobody could do him real harm by looking.
Then he met Cheng Xiaoshi, and he started taking less pictures. He put a lot of his old ones in a safety deposit box, mostly because it put his nerves on edge. He knows Cheng Xiaoshi would never do anything without his permission, but now the thought is out there, swirling in his brain. Lu Guang has always been meticulous. The idea someone could intrude, someone less principled than he forces Cheng Xiaoshi to be, has always caused him discomfort.
That was back when he had black hair. He has no photos now.
Cheng Xiaoshi had known him when his hair was black. Cheng Xiaoshi has never known him at a time when his hair was black. Time is funny, that way. The world itself seems to grate against Lu Guang’s hair colour- it’s pointed out frequently, like the universe simply cannot help itself.
It’s easier to say he was born with it.
“Ay? Nah, I bet it went white from the stress of being so uptight all the time. You’ll get wrinkles from all your glowering.” Cheng Xiaoshi had once said to him. It was not unprompted- Lu Guang has long refused to give any details or pictures from his past (Black hair, black hair in those old pictures. Black hair means questions and black hair means purity that only Cheng Xiaoshi deserves now, in Lu Guang’s mind.)
“If it was stress, it’s all your fault. Get your work done.” He says, flat, and the fact that is, in some realm of the timeline, true, feels both relieving and horrible to say.
September Thirteenth. Five minutes after midnight.
His clothes were bloody- his hands were clean. That was the five minutes. He’d meant to go at midnight but something horrible and crushed and grieving for Cheng Xiaoshi, his best friend, his everything, burned at the blood still on his hands. It felt like washing away evidence of him. He’d died in Lu Guang’s arms. He’d died in-
His hands were red raw. The blood from his still leaking stab wound mixed with the remains of Cheng Xiaoshi. He was holding a picture. He was sorry.
He really was a hypocrite, wasn’t he?
Linking. That was it. Lu Guang had lived in Cheng Xiaoshi’s mind so many times. Their powers complimented each other. It takes a certain kind of broken person to gain their kind of abilities. Something bad, very bad happens, and it snaps you in half. Hollows you out, leaves room for something new to settle. For Cheng Xiaoshi, it was his abandonment. For the twins, it had been the death of their parents, that awful night that Lu Guang had let Cheng Xiaoshi witness-
Bad thoughts. No. Take a breath. He is not the emotional one.
(Without Cheng Xiaoshi, he wins the title by default.)
For Lu Guang- well, that didn’t matter.
What did, was that when Cheng Xiaoshi died, that horrible, hollow part of him that he’d long sealed tight around his magic-blessed eyes, had torn open violently.
He’d been a part of Cheng Xiaoshi for so long, it made sense that his powers would recognize Lu Guang. It made sense that they’d flee to the only familiar ground they had. Magic was a parasite, feeding off any broken thing it could hold on to. He knew that. But Cheng Xiaoshi had felt them loosen. Lu Guang remembers watching him realise it. Watching it sink in that these were truly his very last moments, as even his power fled him. And then there was something new in his eyes when he realized where they were going.
“Hey.” Cheng Xiaoshi had laughed. It was wet and full of blood. “Hold onto them for me, okay?”
Lu Guang had panicked. He hadn’t wanted them. He hadn’t wanted this. There would be no returning anything if he took them, because monsters like they are were more resilient and the moment they slipped there would be no spark of life anymore because the parasite would no longer need to keep its host alive, and Dive, horrible and beautiful though it was, was Cheng Xiaoshi’s and he was feeling it sink in bit by bit as Lu Guang desperately tried to fill the hole, keep it out, keep it pumping life into Cheng Xiaoshi’s body. Cheng Xiaoshi had known it was a useless effort. His hand shook as he raised it up, weakly pawing at Lu Guang’s heart. There was a pulse, a flicker, and then his soul lit on fire.
Hi, Cheng Xiaoshi’s powers seemed to whisper, like they were simply coming home. Hi, hi, hihihihihihi- And Lu Guang broke into terrible sobs that weren’t like him at all, because Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes were closing, and if he fell asleep he was never going to wake up, and death was unchangeable, and even if it wasn’t Lu Guang was made to watch, he couldn’t change things, not like Cheng Xiaoshi could-
You can, whispered Dive. Lu Guang stared at the bloody, pale, dead face of his best friend. You can.
Lu Guang’s hair was black. Now it was a bit white, right at the roots. Cheng Xiaoshi commented on it, the day they first met. “Late-onset vitiligo.” Lu Guang had told him. Just enough for a few strands. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure why that part of his hair was white either. It had seemed so insignificant at that point, because he could play basketball in his teenage years with Cheng Xiaoshi, and pretend it had all been a nightmare.
Lu Guang has a streak of white in his hair and bruised red eyebags. Lu Guang lives with his business partner and starts diving into photographs for extra cash.
The first time, he decides that it all went wrong with Qian Jin and those twins. The first time, he was tired, and raw, and horribly selfish. He knows it was their interference that set everything off. They learned Cheng Xiaoshi had powers, and then unravelled their reality and anyone in the crossfire. So many lives, because of one paranoid, cruel man. Maybe it had started with them ever revealing their hand. Ever getting involved.
He calls in a tip to Doudou’s father, anonymously, saying he saw a child that closely resembled the photograph on the missing posters with a woman named May. He said he worked the counter at a grocery store, and recited her ID number for them. Doudou was reunited with his parents, and Cheng Xiaoshi had never known. Therefore they never met with police, therefore he never recognized the killer on the tapes, therefore there was no possession or stabbing or pursuit and Cheng Xiaoshi was safe.
Five days later, Cheng Xiaoshi sees the news that Emma had perished, and being impulsive and reckless and brave he had instantly jumped into that photograph. Without the consequences of his previous actions that no longer were, he revealed himself to Liu Min in an attempt to save the woman. The car was driven off the road and crashed into the side of a building. Reality cracked. He blinked as the universe shuddered, and found himself in a suit standing at a podium, halfway through a eulogy that his mind suddenly filled with the broken memories of writing. He was impressed that his apparent self restraint had lasted this long. Cheng Xiaoshi, beloved friend, dead at 21 in a car crash.
Emma hadn’t even survived the night.
Lu Guang had a few streaks of white in his hair, and deep red eyebags.
The second time around, he decided that it was Emma’s fault. That she was the butterfly flapping its wings. He had denied the case, citing not wanting to get involved in such shady business. They took the noodle case instead. He avoided the earthquake incident just barely, managing to say all the right things to get him to simply leave when he was told. He was glad. He hated hearing Cheng Xiaoshi scream like that.
Xiao Li came into their shop anyway. Cheng Xiaoshi had been excited. Really helping people, Guang-Guang! Without the raw edges of that earthquake, Cheng Xiaoshi was brighter.
He was like a firework on that case. Impossible to ignore. Qian Jin noticed instantly. There was no preamble. Xiao Li came to their shop a second time to inform Lu Guang that his friend, who had been missing three days, was found dead in an abandoned warehouse. It seems he had put up a fight, and gotten himself shot for it.
Lu Guang had half-white hair, and heavy red eyebags.
“That’s a cool style, dude!” Cheng Xiaoshi had said when they met.
“It’s natural.” (Was this a punishment?)
“No way! Hey, want to play some ball with me?”
Lu Guang could never say no. Sometimes he wondered if he was the problem. He couldn’t bring himself to leave. He’d rather do this a thousand times over. Cheng Xiaoshi might live, but Lu Guang was a selfish man. He wasn’t sure he could live without him. He simply didn’t want to.
That time, they got far. All the way through act one. Cheng Xiaoshi died in the fight at the hospital, protecting him.
Lu Guang had mostly white hair with streaks of black, and red eyebags. When they met, Cheng Xiaoshi assumed the black was the dye. Lu Guang didn’t correct him.
To get through the first act, things had to remain like they were in that initial timeline. Slight changes could be made, of course, but he learned to get past this part required lessons. He hated that idea. Dive, within him, still coiling around Vision, loved it. Cheng Xiaoshi needed to have certain things burned into him, in order to survive. Emma must be set into Liu Min’s path. The women at the noodle shop were optional, but made Cheng Xiaoshi happy, so they always did that. The earthquake case was the one he most despised. Cheng Xiaoshi has to attempt to save them and fail. He has to learn inevitability. Cheng Xiaoshi has to protect Doudou, even if he can’t save him right then. He has to learn strategy. Cheng Xiaoshi has to cause Xu Shanshan’s disappearance. He needs to learn consequences. If these things happen, he will live to meet Lu Gaung at the hospital.
He cannot save anyone who has already died the first time. To do so would shove the timeline so dramatically that more people die.
(This is your punishment) Vision seems to whisper to him. It had always been the power of caution. He didn’t care. He would keep the deaths to a minimum, but keep them on track. The world had yet to turn beyond the few hours after Cheng Xiaoshi’s death. Their futures were already solidly snuffed out. The world would bend for Cheng Xiaoshi. The future hadn’t been created just yet. Nothing was set in stone. Not yet. They still had a chance.
It didn’t make it any less upsetting to watch.
Cheng Xiaoshi is kidnapped and tortured.
Lu Guang has white hair, red eyebags, and is tired.
How many times has he been here?
“Lu Guang is mature for his age.” was a sentence that became more and more familiar to him. Maybe he was. He was a 21 year old in his teenage body, and he had lived this same set of years so many times.
He saves Cheng Xiaoshi at the docks. Well, Cheng Xiaoshi saves Cheng Xiaoshi. After that, it’s all new. A different sequence. A better one, perhaps. It’s terrifying. He is bound and blindfolded and bleeding out but something in him tells him that this is getting somewhere.
Lu Guang watches Qian Jin shoot Cheng Xiaoshi and loses his mind. This was the longest Cheng Xiaoshi had ever lived. He screams, years and decades of rage pouring out of him at once in pure fury against this man that had taken Cheng Xiaoshi from him so many times, had torn an ugly rip in his heart and shoved the cold dead remains of his best friend’s parasite into it. He beat his face into the concrete, convinced this was the end of this run because Cheng Xiaoshi always died because death is inevitable.
“It barely grazed me.” Cheng Xiaoshi says.
They fight the man together.
He lives.
Oh god, he lives.
They spend two months in the hospital until it is November, and Cheng Xiaoshi takes every opportunity to prod at and annoy him. Lu Guang adores every second of it, no matter what his apparent glower says.
“Guang-Guang, the pancakes any good? You’re pickin’ at ‘em.” Lu Guang blinks back to the present. Dissociation is a talent Vision has long imprinted upon him. He picks up his fork and takes another bite. They’re the best thing he’s ever tasted.
“Fine.” He says, because that is who he is. Cheng Xiaoshi smiles. Lu Guang wants to watch that smile every day forever. Cheng Xiaoshi swaps couches just to collapse into his side. Lu Guang pretends he isn’t savouring the warmth, the proof he is alive.
“Ughhh, we’re going to have to do so much advertising. We’ve been closed for months! It’s going to be forever until our cashflow is back to normal.” Cheng Xiaoshi bemoans. He steals a bite of the pancakes, and Lu Guang lets him. They really are good.
“I’m sure Qiao Ling’s father would be understanding. They did raise you.”
“Nope! You’re doing more photoshoots for me. With you on the ads, nobody will be able to resist us!” Lu Guang feels his face heat up.
“Idiot.” Lu Guang says, because there really has never been a better word. Cheng Xiaoshi settles back into his side. Lu Guang’s waiting for his usual whining and torrent of complaint, but instead there is nothing. The silence continues for a few beats, until Cheng Xiaoshi starts up again but different. Aching.
“They told me you were dead.” Lu Guang’s heart skips a beat.
“What?”
“When I was in jail. They suspected me for your stabbing, remember? They brought me dinner and told me you were dead.”
Lu Guang suddenly feels very inclined to strangle several police officers. He knows he’s bad at letting go. He knows that, or his hair wouldn’t be white and his eyebags wouldn’t be deep. He knows he is, possibly, a bad person to measure out what a rational response to grief is. But the picture of Cheng Xiaoshi, in a jail cell, alone, trying to choke down food through the knowledge of Lu Guang’s apparent death shakes him to his core. He remembers Cheng Xiaoshi’s face, when they met at the hospital. He was sobbing. Lu Guang had thought it was relief. It wasn’t. It was pure grief.
“How dare they.” He hisses, in a voice that doesn’t feel like his. Cheng Xiaoshi squeezes him a bit tighter.
“Hey, they were doing their jobs. They thought I stabbed you. You’d be pissy too, I guess. But I dunno. I-” He takes a deep breath. “I was in the car, on the way to the hospital, and there was this picture. It wasn’t even of anything useful. All I could think was that I could use it. It would take me back two years. I could use it and save you. I could- I could at least try. I-” He says it like he’s ashamed, and that’s the horrible part. That he’s ashamed of thinking about it, when Lu Guang had done it, had broken the rules, time and time again. He was such a hypocrite. “I only stopped because of your voice.”
Lu Guang’s heart aches.
“I heard you, telling me to leave the past untouched. It stopped me.” Cheng Xiaoshi’s chest shudders a little. “It stopped me then, anyways. I don’t think I could have stopped myself if it had been real.”
“I’m sorry.” Lu Guang says. Sorry that happened. Sorry he made Cheng Xiaoshi feel like he was wrong for it. Sorry he had to force fate in this configuration, sorry he had to let him be hurt to let him survive. Cheng Xiaoshi, for once, is quiet. He adjusts himself until he’s hugging Lu Guang properly.
“Hey,” Cheng Xiaoshi says. “Thanks for staying.”
“I’m stuck with you.” Lu Guang says. Maybe Cheng Xiaoshi is stuck with him. Maybe they’re stuck with each other. “I don’t think you’d let me.”
“Nope! Never. You’ll still be living here when you’re old and grey, yeah?” Cheng Xiaoshi is smiling again, falling into the beat of them, and Lu Guang cannot help himself.
“Mm. Don’t think your wife and children would care for that.” He says, because he’s thought about that before. About this sort of after. Cheng Xiaoshi is 21. He’ll be dating at some point, certainly. There’s no reason he wouldn’t. He’s kind, caring, good-looking. Anyone would be lucky to have him. The fact that nobody has yet is frankly a mystery to Lu Guang. He hates the thought of it, but time is moving forwards now. He has to think of the future. If the past has taught him anything, it’s that every moment of joy can be fleeting. He wishes this could be forever. He wants a forever here. He’s selfish, but not selfish enough to hold Cheng Xiaoshi in this moment, to suspend the world in this perfect present.
You could, Dive whispers, and he tells it to shut up. Ever since it settled into him he has grown a new appreciation for Cheng Xiaoshi’s impulse control. Somewhat.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen for me.” Cheng Xiaoshi smiles. “Children, maybe. A kid would be nice. I dunno. I don’t want to pass my powers on. Adoption might be a good idea, if I ever get around to it.” That’s a surprise. Lu Guang’s never heard him talk about this before. Why hadn’t he asked?
“Really?” He says. “You flirt with every woman we meet.”
“Excuse you, I am friendly. You just have the social skills of a houseplant.” Cheng Xiaoshi flicks his forehead. “So nah. I’ll stay here, if you stay with me.”
“And kids?” Lu Guang asks.
“You’ll be my lovely live-in babysitter.” He chirps.
“Ass.” His heart hums at the thought. He knows he’s smiling, despite the face he’s trying to force. That… sounds nice. Forever.
(One year later, nearly to the day, Lu Guang realises the obvious.)
(Two years later, on the dot, he confesses what he did. The timeline that he broke. His fear that the death node will still hit, randomly, because that is fate. He confesses the power that other him tucked neatly into his chest with his dying breaths. They look though his childhood photo album, the one in the safety box, where his hair is black as pitch. Cheng Xiaoshi says he likes the white on him better.)
Three years, four years, and forever onwards, and they are happy.