023. millipede

Ren Li rose with the silent song of the sun. By the time the heavy flecking of velvet night succumbed to the pastel crescendo of new morning, he was already taking tea; he was reviewing his schedule for the day; he was making notes based on anticipations and rendering clockwork from time not yet passed as best as he could. The Ren children were both very dutiful, they took their commitments seriously and fit themselves into their intended roles with little complaint. Li, older than Fei by a few years, was in service of the direct heir to Fanxing’s throne. He often wondered if the difference between the Tian boys rubbed off on him and his own brother. Prince Xiaoxu was far more austere than Prince Yuhui.

He took breakfast early with his father and listened quietly as the man spoke about city affairs, rumors supposedly from the rabble, and matters of clan intermingling, commenting on each with a clinical interest subdued beneath the level gaze of his placid watch. By the time the sun’s lonely eye was level with the lowest rooftops of the market, Li was already at Skyline Manor, shadowing his prince and offering his assistance, answering any queries for advice on various subjects. Mid-morning came and he was eager to discuss tactics for their next bout in the arena—his eyes lit with the shine of conspiracy when he tried to sell Xiaoxu on a plan to best their second teacher, Gao Erxun, in the courtyard during their noontime sparring session.

Li poured the last of their tea into the prince’s cup, pausing his plan to excuse himself from the royal’s company and request more water from Suilian. He knew he would have to deny her request for information on the oldest Tian son for the eleventh time that week, but Ren Li had no difficulties turning people down. He stepped out of the wing that housed the king-to-be and walked through an empty sitting room, lit by a single sharp blade of daylight.

Instead of Suilian, Ren Li encountered a particularly dour looking Ren Fei who, with his head down, tried to cope with all the apocalypse falling from a single rain cloud corrupting his interminably sunny sky. The younger Ren boy ran straight into his brother’s form. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for Li to take his brother for a trespasser: Fei wasn’t Fei without his easy air, his good nature, and his omnipresent grin. 

“I’m going home,” Fei mumbled glumly, not even an experienced enough liar to fake his way past his blood without question. “I don’t feel good.”

“Whoa whoa whoa—hold up.” If Fei was frowning, the sky was truly falling. Teapot placed aside, Li put his hands on his younger brother’s shoulders to keep him, steady him beneath a piercing observation. “What do you mean you don’t feel good? You know the whole palace can hear you and Prince Yuhui when you laugh and horse around so loudly. What’s going on?”

Fei was a captive breath caught between a floodgate’s confession and a dam’s withholding. Instead of letting his troubles go, the younger sibling pulled sharply away from his elder’s searching stare and tore himself from  Li’s rooting grasp. “I just don’t, okay! I just don’t.”

“Fei, come on. This isn’t like you. You’re really worrying me here.” Li tried again with a softer approach, looping an arm around the younger boy’s shoulder, caring and warm. “You know I can’t let you go out into the world like this, all upset and careening every which way. Talk to me. I’ll drop everything I’m doing if you’ll talk to me.” Sure that Xiao would understand his change of plans, Li’s somber gaze sought out the wide-eyed innocence of his kin again. “Will you?”

“Eeeeeeuuuuuuuugggggghhhhhhhhhhh,” Fei said of his plight, groaning long with his head tilted back. For all intents and purposes, this could be construed as a long format fine, but just in case there was a question, Fei’s newborn petulance lamented: “Of all the days, why’d I have to run into you today.” He did not, however, shrug out of Li’s comforting loop; instead he leaned into the older boy, secretly glad he didn’t have to head home alone with so much weight on his chest.

“You should be grateful, dear brother,” Li said in a wizened sing-song, “Keeping your problems to yourself will only turn you into a bull. You’ll lose that refreshing radiance people flock to you for, that joy everyone seeks in you when the gleaming of their own has faded.”

Pulling his brother along, Li retrieved water and returned to his prince to announce their sudden departure. Li didn’t bring up Fei’s dour turn again until they were beyond the palace walls, watching the bustle of the wide world before them.

“I’m looking forward to spending time with you,” the older Ren announced suddenly as a horse and cart rolled by, slowly headed down a road that would take them away from Fanxing. The crowded street flowed around the pair, obscuring them in the stream of traffic. “I don’t really remember the last time we had a day to do whatever we wanted…” Li looked to his brother again. “So take me somewhere and spill your guts. Spare no detail, Ren Fei: I must know why, for the light of this world, the day is dim.”

And Fei, kicking at the stone road, thought about where he might go to regain some of his composure, where he might find just a little bit of peace. 

Without a word, Fei started south after the cart. 

---

The Ren boy led his brother out of the city toward Yanyu Forest, toward the ancient cave systems that surrounded the junction where the green and black springs met to form the gold river flowing south to the silver sea. 

When they were children, the Ren boys’ grandmother often took them to the secret swimming hole Fei revealed when he finally broke through the trees. It’d been a long time since they had visited, too duty bound and busy with studies and royals to entertain much in the way of leisure time, and it looked as though the pool had remained relatively untouched since their childhood. Perhaps it was superstition: how often had their grandmother told them faeries and demons lived in these caves? How many stories were there in Fanxing of nymphs dragging indolent people to their deaths in the abyssal depths of the forgotten pools?

Regardless, this place still held joy for Fei. Being a child was so much less complicated than being an adult and he sighed wistfully into the clean air of his memory.

Li bent down, picking up a pebble to observe in his open palm. It was an oval thing, flat and fat, slick on its underside; a soft cream color marbled through with veins of white. Its topside was matted with vibrant green moss, small knotted carpet just starting to cover the defenseless stone. He ran his index finger over the leafy velour then sent the weight skipping across the surface of the water, leaving rippled rings in the cerulean mirror pulled taut to its silent bank.

“Do you miss her?” The older boy looked up in his squat when the rock disappeared into a deep spot in the pool, taking the life it was just starting to foster to its soggy, lightless grave. “I think about grandma a lot. She would be really proud of us, you know? I’m not sure if that makes you feel any better or not.”

“I miss her every day,” the teen replied, looking down at his reflection in the water. He didn’t recognize himself half the time these days; more and more often the Fei who greeted the mirror was no longer the Fei that greeted his brother, greeted the Ren family, greeted the public. Today was the first time Fei’s obverse side had slipped into the daylight—today was the first time Fei lost himself to the darkness of his thoughts without caring if he were alone.

“I don’t think I want to go to the palace for a while.” The admission was unadorned, unprompted. Fei’s shoulders slumped as he crouched at the water’s edge, chin resting on an arm draped across bony knees. He dropped his other finger into the water, tracing invisible calligraphy in the ripples of Li’s castaway stone. “I want to pursue my studies alone.”

“I’m sure dad could get you out of going if you really didn’t want to but…” Li’s eyes hadn’t abandoned his brother, much more attune to listening to him than reminiscing in the days of yore. He loved that boy so much, was always willing to step out of bounds to protect his sibling’s delicate heart. When Li saw Fei, he saw a kid who left himself open to all of the world’s experiences, he saw him take everything in and give nothing but kindness back. He saw him as fragile, breakable—broken now, before his very eyes.

“Fei, you have to tell me what happened between you and Yuhui. I may be kinda obtuse sometimes but I’m your brother. I know you. I know this isn’t just you wanting to study more.” The older boy frowned, lifting a hand to stroke gently through his brother’s dark hair. “You’re avoiding under the guise of work—I’m a Ren, too. I know that trick.”

That hematite boy, always so magnetic, was repellent now—or at least hoped he’d be. Instead, Fei tilted his head into his brother’s touch even when he looked away, buried his mouth in the crook of his elbow. 

“It’s dumb,” Fei sighed. “…It’s complicated.”

“I gave you my day,” Li countered, “I have the time for dumb and complicated.”

For a long while, Fei simply stared down into the water, not daring to stray toward his brother’s reflection, grim despite his comfort when the watering hole rippled through Li’s concern creased face. Fei took solace in the quiet, used that handful of moments to organize his head, collect every little bead of bravery he’d amassed over his yearling lifetime and held them together in his callow palm to lend him the strength to speak. 

“I think I’m in love with Tian Yuhui,” he finally confessed. “But he only wants me when there’s no other option.”

Li’s tender expression faltered. It gently fell until it was a frown poorly trying to present itself as empathetic. The older boy sat on the ground proper, legs folding themselves beneath the weight of his body, crossed and compact. “You’re in love with him? Fei, why? Why Yuhui? He’s… so much less focused than you. He’s a little dangerous to be around. Don’t you remember when he almost broke your face last week?”

“I don’t know, I just…” Fei sighed, burying his face in his knees, frustrated and alone. “Ugh, I told you it was stupid, why’d you have to make me say it?”

“I’m sorry. Hey—look, I’m sorry. Okay?” Li put his arm around the younger boy again, pulling him close. “Have you talked to him about how you feel at all? And what do you mean by ‘wants you’? You both seem to be pretty close to me. Are you together in secret?”

“When he isn’t falling for some other boy, he… we sometimes… I guess we kiss, sometimes a lot—but never more than that. And I’ve tried to tell him, I have, but I think I’m really bad at it.” Fei shook his head, choppy hair shading his eyes from the clearing’s judgement. “I’ve never been able to find the words all at once. Just bits and pieces that leave the water murky.”

It took Li a moment to recover, silence taking over as his eyes searched the trees for anything that would help make this situation any better. “So… What if you write it down? If you can’t tell him with your mouth, then write him a letter. You can do it from your room where you have all the time in the world to figure out exactly what you need to say.” He looked back to Fei. “Either way, you should tell him. I want to believe that he cares enough about you to not want to hurt you but the more I think about this the madder I get. Please prove me wrong so I don’t have to beg Xiao to slap the shit out of his brother. Please, Fei: lay down some boundaries between you two so I don’t have to beat this boy’s ass for taking advantage of you.”

“Just… please talk dad into letting me take lessons at home,” Fei mumbled, laying his cheek on his arm so he could look at Li more directly. “It’s been like a month since the last time we… uh… did stuff, and then today he started swooning about some guy from Yunji, one of Master Xueyu’s disciples I guess, sneaking into his room and spending the night and telling me all about how they were exchanging these love letters and making out in alleys and… I guess I got jealous and I teased him and he got really upset with me. I don’t think I want to go back, Li. Not this week, at least. Please don’t make me.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to dad. I agree that you should take a break, at least. Clear your mind, think about other things.” Li folded his limbs in his lap. “We can go look for cute boys today, if you want. There’s a lot of them out there, Fei, you just gotta keep your eyes open. In fact, the guy that imbedded Xiao’s artifact from the Black Pearl match was really cute. If you try your luck with someone else, maybe you’ll come to realize that Yuhui isn’t some end all be all. You can start to move on when you find someone to treat you right.”

“You have a crush?” Fei scoffed. “Mister all-work-and-no-play likes a tattoo inlayer?” The comment was easier for the youth to latch onto than the idea of cruising for boys with his brother in tow. Regardless, a hint of the younger Ren’s smile was peeking out from behind his doom-and-gloom atmosphere.

“Whoa hey—” Suddenly it was the older sibling who was stumbling over his words. Immediately, Li began to walk back statements and bury his feelings in non-answers. “Now, come on, I didn’t say that. I just, you know, can appreciate a good looking face when I see it like any other normal human being, Fei.”

“No, Li—no—” The younger Ren was suddenly alight, fiery when he caught a whiff of his brother trying to hide evidence. He uncurled from his posture so defeated and planted his hands on his knees to replace his elbows. “I laid everything out for you! Pay me back!”

“I don’t have all the details you did!” The turnabout hostage in their game of secrets looked to his sibling, wide-eyed and unarmed. “I just know his name—Hua Jin—and what he does—installing artifacts and laying tracers—and where his shop is. That’s all I have, cross my heart.”

“…Do you want to go see him?” While Fei did not see the appeal in hanging out with his brother to look at potential matches for himself, Fei was absolutely interested in accompanying his brother to see his object of interest.

“I—” Li softly sighed. “Fei, what am I even supposed to do? Just go in and say hey? I don’t have a reason to go see him right now. I don’t want to make it weird.” It was funny how quickly the tables turned, wasn’t it? How a man could easily give advice to his brother but lack the bravery to chart the same path for himself.

“That’s easy, Li, it’s like you’re not even trying to see this guy.” With the focus drawn away from his own thoughts, his own feelings, it was easy for that daybreak boy to find his way back to life. Once more Fei’s eyes were bright and an incautious grin cracked the edges of his face. “Just say you want a preliminary fitting for that Jade Millipede up for challenge in arena next week.”

Li considered the suggestion as he considered everything—carefully, mutely, weighing every option and possible outcome he could summon in his studious mind to determine what course of action would be best. He was nervous; he was unsure if it would be wise to go see the tattooist for the vanity of a pre-fitting for an artifact whose acquisition was uncertain, but… Fei was beginning to look so much brighter.

“Alright,” the older boy relented, standing. “You’ve convinced me.”

“We’ll leave soon then,” Fei replied as he, too, stood, rounding innocently behind his brother. He surveyed Li’s position, so precariously balanced next to the water’s edge before he grinned wide. It had been so long since they’d been here—wouldn’t it be unfortunate to let such an opportunity to relax pass them by on the one day they had to themselves? 

Without warning, Fei superimposed his brother’s core over his own and vaporized a fissure into the stone overhang the older boy crouched upon, dropping Ren Li into the watering hole with a great splash of ancient rock and flailing limbs. 

“Oh—” the younger boy called after, looking down at his elder brother over the new edge he’d made. “—oh nooooo.”

“You scoundrel!” Li spat immediately upon his resurfacing, throwing handfuls of water at Fei as instant retaliation. It would have been easy to turn it around, to do the same back to the mischief-maker watching him splash about, but the older boy wanted to savor this revenge, he wanted to feel it in his heart and his hands, tangible and sure.

Li pulled himself out of the pool and began to dry himself off, wringing water from his sopping clothes like he was over the mess, like he wasn’t up for a fight. This was far from true.

In a flash, Li latched onto his kin and toppled them both back into the water, laughter piercing the calm birdsong of the treeline encircling them, carefree shouts raucous atop their juvenile antics under the midday sun.