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“It’s so early,” Jingyi whines. “No one should have to be awake this early. It’s unethical .”
“It’s four am, Jingyi,” Sizhui says with faint amusement. “We’d be up in an hour anyway.”
“No one should have to be awake at five am either,” Jingyi says stubbornly.
“Good luck with that one.”
Jingyi just huffs and crosses his arms. He doesn’t speak as they walk through the silence of the Cloud Recesses to the kitchens. Unlike Jingyi, Sizhui doesn’t mind mornings. He appreciates the deep quiet before anyone wakes, the cool morning breeze, and the soft light. The only sounds are the distant, melodious twittering of birds.
They reach the kitchens about one minute before their shift in the kitchens is scheduled to begin, and find the kitchen already is already a bustle of motion and noise even though it’s not at full capacity yet.
Sizhui glances around as they step into the kitchen. The elderly woman who runs the Gusu Lan kitchens with an iron fist is in the middle of delegating the day’s duties. Most of the people in the kitchen are servants or female disciples and cultivators, but there are a few other male cultivators who are also on kitchen duty.
“There you are,” the head cook says, spotting them almost immediately. She studies them for a moment. “I don’t want you,” she gestures at Jingyi, “anywhere near my stoves. So you’ll be chopping vegetables. You can chop vegetables, right?” She eyes their swords.
Slightly abashed, Jingyi looks down at his feet as he nods his agreement.
“Good,” she says, pointing them towards baskets of vegetables that are sitting at the end of a heavily worn and scarred wooden table. “Make sure the pieces are nice and even!”
Together, Sizhui and Jingyi make their way to the table, not paying any attention to the other people in the kitchen even though several of the young female cultivators take notice of them.
“I’ll peel and you chop?” Sizhui suggests.
“Sure,” Jingyi says.
Sizhui takes up a kitchen knife, sharpened to a razor's edge, and starts with the bucket of carrots closest to him. He slides the peels into a discard basket and slides the carrot to Jingyi.
“How are you supposed to make even pieces out of something that's not evenly shaped?” Jingyi mutters under his breath, but his hands move deftly, easily slicing the carrots into chunks of consistent thickness.
“Just do your best,” Sizhui suggests.
They work in silence for a while with nothing but the background noise of the kitchen to distract them, but even when he’s tired, Jingyi can only be quiet for so long, and eventually, they slip into a quiet conversation.
The kitchen isn’t loud exactly; nowhere in the Cloud Recesses is ever truly loud, but it’s enough for their conversation to feel mostly private.
Their conversation meanders over the course of the next hour and a half, as conversations do. They talk about their lessons, their plans to meet with other Gusu Lan junior disciples in Caiyi town this weekend, and the upcoming night hunt all the way to Mo Manor. Sizhui feels anxiety swirl up as he thinks of the night hunt. It’s his first time leading a night hunt unsupervised, after all. Jingyi, of course, reassures him, but it’s not his words that ease Sizhui’s anxiety, rather it’s his absolutely unshakable faith that Sizhui will not fail.
When they finally leave the kitchen with a steaming bowl of dumplings each, Sizhui has a smile on his face. They huddle together to eat the food that they, technically, helped prepare, and Sizhui finds himself looking at Jingyi again and again. He doesn’t have words for the feelings stirring in his chest just then, feelings that go well beyond gratitude or comfort or even friendship. But he knows that as long as Jingyi is with him, he can do anything.