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“This is the most pretentiously vapid thing I’ve ever seen,” Rin says, wincing as Venka tightens the silk belt around her waist. “I can’t fucking breathe. ”
“That’s the point. The ideal waist for Sinegard women is no waist at all,” Venka replies flatly, giving her a once-over, before shaking her head. “Not this one. It doesn’t give your body shape justice.”
Rin blinks, looking down at her robes. “This looks fine to me.”
“You’ve been saying that for the last three you’ve tried on. Your opinion is jackshit to me now. Strip, and try this one on.” Venka tosses her another set of robes plucked from the stack she’d ordered from the shopkeeper, this time a mellow blue as opposed to the yellow she’s currently wearing.
“We’ve been here for fucking hours .”
“And we’ll stay here for more until I find something acceptable. Now strip. ”
Rin grumbles under her breath and walks to the back of the folding screen, feeling far too exposed for her liking, but following Venka nonetheless.
She feels the robes’ fabric between her fingers, swallowing her awe at the softness. She runs her hand over the designs, carefully hand stitched into the pattern of flowers that bloomed in the spring in Jiang’s garden—on this robe, cherry blossoms. On the others, a variety of tulips, magnolias, and peonies galore. These are robes fit for the children of Warlords and the Empress’ closest advisors; never in her dreams did she even consider the possibility of wearing something this nice.
Rin had spent her entire stay at Sinegard trying to erase her past as a poor peasant girl without a dignified background who didn’t know how to roll her r’ s, and she thinks she’s more than proven herself to anyone and everyone who had their doubts about her—as the school’s only shaman who can control powers beyond anyone else’s imaginations.
Still, in moments like these, she feels hopelessly out of her depth, like a girl playing dress-up in her mother’s closet masquerading as a grown-up who knew what she was doing. Rin didn’t like it—she didn’t like pretending she fit them in any way that matters, that she could ever be part of the aristocratic arrogance they’d carried among themselves, with upturned noses and snobby smiles; not that she wanted to. She would swallow broken glass than have to force herself to exchange pleasantries with people like the Yins again—but this… it made her deeply uncomfortable, not settled in her own skin.
But Rin disrobes anyway as Venka tells her to hurry up, and clumsily slips on the robes on her sleeves, wondering how the fuck she’d managed to land herself in this situation.
Master Jima had announced to them a week prior of the upcoming Sinegard Graduation Banquet—an annual tradition held for the graduating class to make merry and celebrate the achievement of making through the grueling task of surviving Sinegard Academy’s brutal education.
Which, apparently, was not news to anyone but Rin.
“A banquet?” Rin had turned to Kitay to ask, and he looked at her, confused.
“It’s all the Masters were talking about the past week. You didn’t know?”
Rin had held back a sigh. She didn’t trust Jiang to tell her anything fucking useful, but surely, surely, he should have been enticed by the prospect of getting shitfaced drunk enough to recall mentioning it to her.
“No.”
Kitay frowned before shrugging. “It’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a party. We dress up and eat some decent food for once. It’s the Masters’ way of rewarding us.”
Rin’s mind had stuck on the ‘dress up’ part of Kitay’s statement. The Masters had said to wear their best clothes—which probably wasn’t an issue for everyone else in her year, but Rin’s best clothes was her Sinegard uniform.
And the moment Venka heard about it, she’d nearly bitten Rin’s head off for, in her words, acting like a complete dimwit, and dragged her to the best clothing shop in Sinegard’s vicinity.
“School robes at a banquet? Over my dead fucking body,” she’d hissed at Rin before piling robes she’d since been trying on for a good part of the day.
“Let me see,” Venka calls to her now, and Rin hobbles out from behind the screen, hands tugging at the sash on her waist. Venka stands up, circling her and slapping her hands away before shaking her head.
“The color’s nice on you, but the sleeves are too flared. Your hands look like they’re getting swallowed whole.”
“We could just roll them up and pin them?” Rin says, pulling the sleeves up.
“And ruin the fabric? Absolutely not.” Venka clicks her tongue, and tosses her another robe from the pile. “Change. We’re not leaving this place until I’m satisfied.”
“I can just wear my unifo—”
“If you say you’re wearing your uniform to the banquet one more time, you won’t live to see the fucking banquet, do you understand me?” she says, cutting Rin off with a poisonous glare.
Rin’s stubborn as shit, but even she knows when to back down when it comes to Venka, and this is not a fight she’ll win.
The robes bundled in her arms are a deep red color, ones that remind her of the scarlet her eyes turn to when she calls the Phoenix. The patterns are far simpler—only white, intricately sewn swirls adorning the bodice, the collar fastened with black buttons in the shape of a flower. As Rin slips it on, she finds that there are no sleeves, exposing the length of her arms. The skirt falls short of her ankles, a slit riding up her knee, and surprisingly, it doesn’t feel like the fabric is attempting to swallow her whole and spit her out. It fits snugly on her chest and waist, and she can walk around without fearing that she’ll trip and accidentally flash anyone.
It's the best one she’s tried yet.
When she walks out and Venka’s gaze scrutinizes her from head to toe, Rin feels oddly nervous.
Then she nods, and Rin breathes a sigh of relief.
“This is the one. And don’t even insult me by trying to pay. That’s almost as bad as wearing your Sinegard robes. Now get your ass out of that dress. We have more shit to buy.”
“ More?” Rin splutters, and Venka cracks an unusually sadistic grin.
“Of course, we’re just getting started.”
Rin has the strangest sense that hauling a full-grown pig up a mountain would be much easier than whatever Venka has planned for her.
~*~
If Rin thought the day they’d bought her robes and the accessories that came with it was bad, then she was absolutely not ready for what Venka and Niang had in store for her. The preparation on the day of the banquet was, in every sense of the word, brutal.
The two did not hold back, and by the end of it, Rin’s skin felt red, raw, and absolutely fucking chilly, all over her fucking body.
“I thought they only did this before weddings,” Rin said through gritted teeth. “And why aren’t either of you mutilating yourself for this?”
“We already did it yesterday,” Niang shrugged. “And women in the North do it for all formal occasions, not just on their wedding. The men are very particular on this.”
“No wonder all of you look so fucking unhappy up here. This is inhumane. Body hair grows for a damn reason.” Rin cringed as another sharp pain flared on her leg. “Can’t you be fucking gentler?”
“Trust me, this is as gentle as it gets,” Venka replied, not even sparing her a pitying look.
Now, Rin is poised in a chair with Venka painting her lips while Niang prepares her own clothes. Venka’s already in her robes, a beautiful white dress with sleeves that cover her from shoulder to wrist, embroidered with the Srings’ crest and chosen flower, a burst of apple blossoms crawling from the hem of her skirt up to her bodice. The fabric is clearly expensive, something Rin can’t recognize from any of the ones she’s encountered in the south, but they glide through her fingers like running water. Her hair is up in a knot clipped with a flower ornament and golden beads trailing down her neck, and her eyes are covered with a light powdery sheen, lending them a softer, more delicate look, and her lips are glossed with pink paint.
Rin had always known she was pretty, but now, Venka truly is a beauty to behold.
“Like what you see?” she asks, smirking, and Rin rolls her eyes, her cheeks burning.
“You know you look good.”
“Of course I do. I just like hearing it from other people.”
“Are all Sinegardians this full of themselves?”
“More, actually. Now stop moving before I end up poking your eye out.”
Venka takes a pencil and orders her to close her eyes, and Rin feels lines being drawn on her eyelid, making her want to squirm, but Venka clamps on her shoulder, forcing her to stay steady.
“So,” she says suddenly. “When are you going to talk to him?”
Rin stiffens, and Venka squeezes her shoulder painfully to keep her in place, making her hiss.
“What?” she asks.
“Don’t act stupid with me. You’re avoiding Nezha.”
“I am not .”
She’s definitely avoiding Nezha. He’d been trying to corner her since she’d gotten back from the Autumn Palace after their disaster of a first assassination, waiting outside classrooms and wandering in the Lore garden, and she’d been hard-pressed to find ways to evade him like jumping from a second story window and hiding behind Jiang’s offensively high pile of fertilizer sacks.
To be fair, she’s also been very busy the past few weeks. Jiang had really been ramping up the Cike missions she’d been sent on, the Masters had been piling on the work like the last four years of making them suffer wasn’t enough, and she’d spent a lot of time definitely not thinking about the kiss.
It’s not that she didn’t like the kiss. She did, actually. Unfortunately. She liked it a little too fucking much.
And it’s absolutely fucking humiliating.
Kitay had always made fun of her being emotionally constipated, but Rin did not realize what he’d meant until the prospect of having to talk to Nezha after… that , and suddenly walking on a bed of shattered glass barefoot seems like a much more appealing option to her.
She didn’t know what she felt about Nezha, or whatever the hell he felt for her, but Rin didn’t know how the fuck to confront it. She’d never been afraid of change before—hell, she’d thrust herself into it headfirst when she was given a chance to escape marriage from Tikany and cement her worth at Sinegard by calling a god.
But this is brand-new territory. Rin knew nothing of the matters of the heart—she’d rolled her eyes at the Nikara’s dramatic declarations and over-embellished portrayals of romance; it had never been a concern of hers until now. She didn't know what the fuck to expect, only that she felt vulnerable and defenseless in blind territory.
And she despised that.
“He looks like someone confiscated his favorite sword, it’s getting pathetic,” Venka says, lining her other eye. Rin feels the pad of Venka’s finger gently tapping some sort of powder on her tear duct.
“I’ll talk to him. Soon,” Rin lies through her teeth, and Venka snorts.
“Though,” Venka adds, and Rin feels her lean back, probably examining her handiwork. “I doubt you’d get an opportunity to after tonight. He’ll be dead by the end of the evening.”
Rin opens her eyes and gives Venka a confused look.
“What? Why?”
She smirks.
“Because he’ll see you after I’m done with you. If he doesn’t have a stroke, I’ll be fucking insulted.”
Venka splays her hand on Rin’s back and guides her to look at the mirror of the bathroom, and the reflection Rin sees makes her blink in disbelief.
She’d never considered herself pretty before—Rin had absolutely no delusions of possessing any kind of attractiveness her whole life. Whatever the standards of beauty for Sinegard women are, she’s the exact opposite—and she’d never given much thought about it after she’d entered the Academy, where it prized brains and skill more than outward appearance. As a woman, they’d barely take her seriously, pretty or not, and she’d long grown past the need to be admired by others, especially for something as superficial as looks.
But Venka did quite a number on her. Her hair, which she’d let grow a little past her shoulders after it had gotten too bothersome to keep cutting at an awkward length instead of being tied back, fell loosely in waves across her back, a section of it held up by a pin adorned by plastic poppy flowers, and framed her face in a way it never had before. The powder applied across her lids and the dark lines drawn across them made the brown in her eyes pop, and her red-painted lips looked striking instead of obnoxious, like she had feared. Golden earrings dangled from the piercings Venka had made her get on her ears, swaying lightly with every movement. Coupled with the dress, it's absolutely eye-catching.
For the first time, Rin looks, and feels, in every sense of the word, beautiful.
She exhales softly, gaze still darting at herself in the mirror, seeing Venka’s smug expression from the corner of her eye.
“Tiger’s tits.”
“Tiger’s tits,” Venka agrees, crossing her arms. “Give yourself some credit. You clean up very nicely.”
~*~
Rin had gotten used to people ogling at her—mostly in disdain, when they see her dark skin, or hear her country drawl, or at best, curiosity, when they catch wind of her shamanic abilities. But this is definitely new.
As she, Venka, and Niang make their way down to the main hall, the stupid boys they pass look at them like they’ve never seen a fucking woman in their life, far too reminiscent of the way old men stared at young girls with hunger in their eyes in Tikany, and it makes Rin want to poke their eyes out.
“This is fucking disturbing,” Rin whispers to Venka, and she snorts. “They’re looking at us like we’re fresh meat.”
“We’re the only girls in our year, and they’re men . You can expect nothing from them, and they’ll still disappoint.”
When they reach the entrance to the hall, it’s milling with students in their year, all dressed to the nines in the fanciest robes and accessories Rin has ever seen in her life, all chattering excitedly with each other.
Strangely, Rin feels her stomach swoop, an intimidation she’d never quite felt before sweeping over her.
“Rin!” Kitay calls, and his grin widens with delighted surprise when he finally takes her appearance in. “Oh, boy, this is going to be a fun night,” he says, far too excited for Rin’s liking. He’s dressed in the Chen family robes of burgundy and gold, his curly hair tied back messily back with a ribbon.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Rin asks, narrowing her eyes at him, but he shakes his head, snaking an arm around her shoulders.
“You look great, by the way. Nice to see you not looking like you trudged through a landfill.”
Rin aims a kick at his shin that he dodges with a laugh.
Venka clears her throat, looking sharply and pointedly at Kitay, making him roll his eyes.
“Yes, Venka, I know this is your work, congratulations on making the impossible possible. You and Niang look fantastic, too.”
“Absolutely go fuck yourself,” Rin snaps at Kitay. “Not everyone comes from a long line of descendants who made it their living to hoard Nikara wealth.”
“Touche, Rin. Touche,” he agrees solemnly, guiding her to the front of the crowd. “Now, there’s only one person missing left.”
As if on cue, Rin’s eyes find the familiar shade of deep blue and silver she’d once seen years ago at the Empress’ parade sweeping across the hall, and the offensively beautiful boy adorned in them.
His hair is tied back into a pristine bun, a few strands deliberately loose to frame his face. He's grown since the last time she'd seen him wearing those robes, and beneath the sleeves are the traces of the bulk of muscle he's acquired from training in Combat day and night. His face looks softer and even shinier than usual, coated with the same kind of concoctions Venka had applied on herself to make her skin glossy and smooth.
Yin Nezha looks like a future ruler.
His eyes stray to hers, and they meet. Nezha startles, freezing in his tracks as his gaze darts down to fully drink her appearance in. She thinks she sees him suck in a sharp breath as he does.
Slowly, so slowly that Rin thinks she's imagining it, a red flush creeps up Nezha's cheeks, his mouth agape. His eyes are bright with an unplaceable emotion, and he takes an unsure step in her direction.
But Rin's eyes are glued to the Dragon embroidered on his robes: the symbol of the House of Yin, one of the most powerful families in all of Nikan.
In fact, everywhere Rin looks, family crests and emblems greet her eyes, and she looks down consciously at the plain fabric of her clothes, not a single remarkable symbol on them in sight. It feels like a stark reminder that among these aristocrats and well-born children, she’s still just a peasant girl that sticks out like a sore thumb when lumped together with them.
Her chest tightens.
What the fuck is going on with her tonight?
Everyone else’s prestige and heritage were no secret to her, even when she came here in her first year.
But then, they’d all worn the same uniform, taken the same classes, and fought for the same standings. They were, at least, on some dimension, on equal playing fields, even with slight prejudices. And she’d thrashed all of them at it—she’d never felt inferior to them because she’d been objectively better at all of them in the areas that mattered.
This is the first time their status had been shoved so plainly in her face.
And Rin didn’t like how it made her feel. Not one fucking bit. She thought this shit didn't matter to her, and yet…
“Are you okay?” Kitay murmurs to her, sensing her change of demeanor. She finds his hand and gives it a tight squeeze.
Right now, Nezha still seems beautiful, inhumanly so, but in a way that was an affront to her senses. As he starts toward her, she looks away and stalks into the hall the moment the doors open, not sparing a backward glance.
~*~
The banquet is inconceivably fancy. The Masters went, in Rin's opinion, absolutely fucking overboard.
The tables are heaped with every kind of delicacy Rin can imagine, and even some she'd never even known existed. The aroma wafts into the air, making her mouth water. When she'd first arrived at Sinegard, she was just happy to be fed three square meals a day, and her visits to Kitay where they were served feasts were her rare indulgences, but oh, they seemed like such a measly amount compared to the food laid out for them now.
Music floats in the air, a band of musicians playing Nikara compositions to inject life into the students, upbeat and jovial songs fit for dancing.
And the wine. Oh, good fucking gods, the wine. Every possible kind of wine—sorghum, rice, cherry, cider, you name it—is laid in metal buckets filled to the brim with shaved ice, fancy glasses laid upside down in a circle around them, waiting to be filled. Rin's pretty sure she heard Venka let out a string of curses under her breath when she saw them, and frankly, she couldn't blame her.
Jima says a little spiel of how they'd earned a night of merriment after their dedication to their studies and their service to Nikan, before leaving them all to their own devices, stating that they will not intervene in their celebration short of them almost burning the school down (in which Jima had shot Rin a pointed look, much to her irritation).
More than fifty young students, battered and bruised from five years of constant study and training, left alone in a fancy hall filled with every possible tool to get smashed within their reach.
Rin immediately foresees the shitstorm about to happen.
She and Kitay make a beeline for the food table, grabbing plates and stacking delicacy on top of delicacy until their plates resemble Mount Tianshan in heaping food servings.
“My mother would have a heart attack if she saw me eating like this,” Kitay says through a mouthful of duck. “I don't know how the fuck the Masters managed to find all of these, but these are some of the rarest dishes I've seen in a while, and like hell am I going to worry about manners right now.”
Rin is too busy stuffing her mouth and avoiding staining her clothes with the sauce to respond with anything but a nod.
“Slow down, you two, no one's out to kill you,” someone from behind her says, and Han plops down to the chair next to her and grabs a loaf of sweet bread.
Rin swallows, giving him a dirty look. “What?”
“You're eating like you're about to be executed for treason and this is your last meal. At least savor the taste.”
“I saw you sneaking portions up to our dormitories, Han, you are in no place to talk,” Kitay says flatly.
“You never know when they’ll feed us like this again. Like I said, savor it, and save some for later.”
“Just sit your ass down and eat,” Rin snaps, grabbing his arm and shoving a plate in his face. Han flashes her a dirty look before grabbing the ladle and stacking mountainous amounts of food.
For a while, Rin manages to forget about her troubles and laughs at the jokes Kitay makes about their classmates drinking straight out of wine bottles and acting like complete idiots, until Han opens his big, stupid mouth.
“Nezha's staring at you again. More than he has before, which I didn't think was possible,” he comments, and Rin almost smacks him for it.
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying. It got worse after you got back from your little Cike stint. Maybe he just missed you,” Han wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, which earns him a hard kick in the shin from her.
“You’re disgusting. ”
Kitay gives Rin a knowing look—only he and Venka know what exactly happened, mostly because Rin knew she was going to go insane if she didn’t tell anyone, and ended up spilling her guts to Kitay, who promptly fell over and spent five minutes laughing, and Venka is Venka and could pry any kind of information from anyone’s cold dead fingers.
Kitay jerks his head sideways, and Rin’s gaze flits in that direction.
She meets Nezha’s gaze as he speaks with Venka and some other Combat apprentices, a glass of wine filled to the brim in his hand. Something in his expression shifts upon seeing her again, eyes shining with… something, and she feels her cheeks burn. Suddenly, he averts his eyes, pretending that he hadn’t seen her, and Rin’s stomach squeezes unpleasantly.
She looks away and takes another heaping bite of food, suddenly feeling more exposed than she’d been the whole night.
Rin gives Han another kick for good measure.
“What the hell was that for?”
“For ruining my evening.”
Eventually, a couple of hours later, some students find their way to the middle of the hall and dance to the music.
Though dance is probably a strong word for it—they mostly swayed to the beat, completely out of tune, but already too drunk to care.
Kitay places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes, before excusing himself to go help Niang haul a smashed Han back to their dorm room before he breaks his neck or something.
It’s then that he corners her, striding across the room to her little secluded corner, engulfing her in his shadow.
“Would you like to dance?” Nezha asks, not quite looking at her still, and Rin finds herself shaking her head before he even finishes the question.
“I don’t know how. Dancing isn't exactly part of the Sinegard curriculum.”
“It’s easy. Come on.”
“To you.” Rin snaps, ignoring the tightening in her chest just by being in near proximity to him.
Nezha sighs, carding a hand through his hair, letting even more loose strands fall into his face. The wine paints his cheeks in a pale pink flush, and Rin curses whichever god carved him into being for making him look so stupidly perfect.
“Then can we at least talk?”
“We are talking,” she retorts stubbornly, crossing her arms.
“Rin,” he replies, dripping with exasperation. “You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“ Please. ”
She stays silent for a few more seconds. A part of her wants to adamantly cling to this impasse she’s put them in, terrified of what would change—of what he’d confess to her. What if he regrets that kiss? Or… what if he doesn’t? Is she ready for that? Fuck no . Does she feel like a coward? Yes. But for once, she didn’t care.
Then she looks up at his pleading expression and sighs. Damn that beautiful face.
“Fine.”
~*~
Rin follows Nezha silently as he leads her to a junction of a small spring just on the outskirts of Sinegard Academy.
She blinks, not realizing there was even a body of water nearby, given that Sinegard is a land-locked region, but Nezha navigates the place with ease, toeing his shoes off and dipping them into the water. He gives Rin a look that’s a silent request to follow suit, which she does so reluctantly, settling next to him. Their bodies are close, but Rin takes care not to make their skin brush, fearing the reaction she might elicit or have herself. The moonlight blankets both of them in its sheen, making his porcelain skin and lovely almond eyes glow almost ethereally.
“So,” Nezha begins, still not looking at her, and she doesn’t quite understand why—when Han had said he’d been staring at her all night when she wasn’t looking, only for him to avoid her gaze when they were together—-or why she even cared that he didn’t.
“How did you find this place?”
Nezha shrugs, eyes trained on the sky. “I needed to blow off some steam after a Combat class one day, and I just started walking off-campus. I found it, then,” he closes his eyes, letting loose a breath. “I like it here. It’s quiet.”
Rin doesn’t respond. She may have acquiesced to his request of talking to her doesn’t mean she’ll be the one to broach the subject.
“It reminds me of home,” Nezha continues, his voice taking on a hint of wistfulness.
“Home?”
The corner of Nezha’s lips quirks upward, giving her a fleeting glance from his periphery.
“Arlong. You should see it. You’d probably hate it. A city of islands surrounded by water,” he grins at Rin’s grimace, before looking back at his feet.
“Sounds awful,” she affirms. “Absolutely terrible.”
“You’ve never seen the ocean before, have you?” he asks.
Rin scoffs. “I don’t exactly have the time to have little travel excursions with Sinegard trying to kill its students with its workload.”
“You should go sometime after we graduate. Arlong, or even Khurdalain. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s just water . What could be so beautiful about that?”
Nezha shrugs. “You’d be surprised. Your eyes will skim over something mundane one day, and then find it impossible to look away from the next.”
The words strike true as he’d so clearly intended for them to, with that damned knowing tone of his that made her want to tackle him into the water and land a few punches. Her chest tightens, hands balling into fists at her sides as he lets out a quiet breath. He’d meant them for her—she’s not completely oblivious to that.
But the words something mundane echo in her mind like an incessant, aggravating bell.
Then Nezha keeps talking, the words flowing out of him like water flows down a river—a steady stream of childhood stories. Tales of running around in gardens in full bloom, studying for the Keju in fully furnished libraries, delicious meals served at his beck-and-call, and nights stargazing on his bedroom balcony (because, of course , his bedroom had a fucking balcony). It reminded Rin of just how different he’s lived his life—opulence, elegance, bathed in riches. So unlike her dingy, miserable existence in Tikany, forced to be a drug runner, a shopgirl, and a caretaker all at once.
Her stomach hollows out at the thought.
What the hell?
Nezha doesn't seem to notice her turmoil. He seems to especially love talking about the shipyard which he frequented—his whole face brightens, beginning to ramble about the craftsmanship that took to build a ship, the innovative designs his father’s men had conjured up to make sailing more efficient, and ends up rattling facts that Rin would have never cared about if it hadn’t been him being the one telling her. He has that certain shine in his eyes again, a small smile playing on his lips, as he talks about them. She thinks it's not unlike how he'd looked at her.
Then she shakes her head.
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous of her to even think that.
It was the most she’d heard him open up—Nezha, for as much as he prides himself on being the Dragon Warlord’s son, only ever boasted about the title and the power which came with it. He’d never spoken about his life before he’d come to Sinegard. Whenever conversation between them strayed in its direction, Nezha often opted out of responding or changed the topic. It was both confusing and yet somehow made perfect sense to her. She, too, wanted to erase her past in Tikany, that helpless girl that was a failed test score away from being tied to a marriage bed. Who she was then didn’t matter—now she’s here, and she’s determined not to look back. She could understand not wanting to be defined by her past.
But how could Nezha feel that way, with everything he could ever think to want within his reach?
“You know an awful lot about ships,” Rin comments awkwardly, noticing that he’d stopped talking in the time she got lost in her own head.
“A consequence of my hometown. It’d be embarrassing if I didn’t,” he quips, leaning back. But there’s something different in his posture now, a certain stiffness, like he’s pretending to be unaffected. Or bracing himself for something.
“That, and Mingzha loved to play on the shipyards.”
His voice grows quiet, almost strained. The look in his eyes hardens, fingers clenching on the grass around them.
“Mingzha?” Rin asks.
“My little brother.”
“You have a little brother?”
“Had. He’s—” he cuts himself off, throat bobbing unsteadily.
Rin didn’t need him to finish. On impulse, she places a hand on top of his.
“I’m sorry.”
Nezha shakes his head. “I have something to confess to you.”
“You don’t have to—” Rin starts but Nezha only shakes his head harder.
“I need to. I need you to know. You told me about wielding the Phoenix, about why you did it, and I—I can’t go on with whatever this is without you knowing. Please. ”
Rin stares at him, eyes wide. She didn’t know how this night took a turn like this—but he looks so desperate for her to know, she could only nod.
He launches into the story. A story about his beloved younger brother. A story about the day in the grotto. His speech is stilted, pausing to take steadying breaths. His eyes glisten with unshed tears as he tells her about his little brother, Mingzha, asking him to see what’s in the grotto. How much he regrets saying yes, to this very day. What the Dragon did to his brother, to him . What it’s trying to do to him, still, and what he’s tried to end it. The entire time, he doesn’t spare a glance in her direction.
A few tears escape him despite his best efforts and Rin’s hand itches to wipe them away.
Suddenly, his question about the Phoenix that day in the courtyard seems less surprising.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asks, her voice not above a whisper.
“Because the Dragon has never left me since that day in the grotto. It’s always there, and it hurts. Until the Tournament. Until I fought you ,” he stresses, and Rin’s stomach churns unpleasantly. There’s something he’s hinting at, something she isn’t sure she wants to know. “It was the first time it left me alone. Because of you.”
Nezha glares at the surface of the water, kicking at it.
“It’s always quiet around you,” he murmurs.
She knows she shouldn’t be thinking this way—he’d just bore his greatest secret to her. Something that he must have never admitted to anyone. She should attempt to offer him some semblance of comfort, or a kernel of empathy.
But something about it feels so off . The subtle undertone of what he’s saying, the implications of the statement that she couldn’t quite feel settled about.
Then it clicks, and her stomach sinks.
“Oh,” she says, mostly to herself. “So that’s why…”
Rin feels fucking stupid. Of course. Of course, the only reason Nezha wanted to make amends with her is to get answers to his problem. She is, essentially, a talisman to ward off the Dragon's unwanted presence. A perpetual painkiller, of sorts. That's why he'd apologized to her. That's why he stuck to her like glue. Not out of his own goodwill.
She didn’t know why she expected differently.
Had the kiss been part of that?
Gods, the fucking kiss . Did he do it because he thought it would keep the Dragon away longer?
Has she always been this naive?
This must be his way of telling her that the kiss didn’t mean anything. That he appreciated what she’s done for him, but not in that way.
“Why what?” Nezha asks her, but she shakes her head, standing up and dusting her dress off, pretending to be unfazed.
“Nothing. It makes sense now. Thank you for telling me,” she replies rigidly. A frown creeps up his face.
She begins to walk away, but he catches her wrist, and it takes everything in her not to recoil.
Gods, she feels like such a fucking idiot. How could she let her imagination run wild like this? At the end of the day, he’s the beautiful, untouchable second son of the Dragon Warlord, slated to greatness, and she will always be the Southern war orphan who decided to study with the Sinegard madman. How could she possibly think that he, of all people, would give one shit about her if she wasn’t useful to him?
“Rin, what’s wrong?” he asks, and the concern in his voice makes her want to set something on fire.
“Nothing. I understand now, alright? I get it. I just want to go back to the banquet,” Rin replies in a clipped voice, a lump closing around her throat that she stubbornly swallows. She pries his fingers from her wrist and turns around.
She’s not going to cry—not in front of him , anyway.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” he prods, looking and sounding absolutely bewildered. She continues walking, and she hears hurried footsteps behind her.
“Just leave me alone.”
“ Rin. ” Nezha, the persistent bastard that he is, is faster than her with his stupid long legs of his, and manages to block her way. She would try and dodge him, but right now, Rin is drained. “Did I say something?”
She doesn’t answer.
He places a tentative hand on her shoulder, which she shrugs off, folding her arms across her chest. She still refuses to look at him, glaring at his robes embroidered with the Azure Dragon, as if mocking her. Another glaring reminder of how foolish she’d been. Rin can feel his eyes burning into her, however, and she wants to sneer—he’d refused to look at her the entire night, but decided now is a good time?
“I’m not letting you leave until you tell me what’s wrong.”
Rin briefly considers setting his robes on fire and running off.
“Don’t worry, I’ll still stick around you if that’s your concern. I’ll play guard duty to keep the Dragon away. I’ll even ask Jiang what he can do to help you. You don’t have to pretend like it’s anything more than that,” she spits, instead, willing the shakiness out of her voice. Because despite everything, she was still moronic enough to care for him. Pathetic. “You don’t have to act like you care.”
She spares a glance at him, and his expression is stricken, almost horrified.
“You think—you think what I’ve been doing, all this time, is an act?” he asks, almost desperately. “It’s not. That’s not why I told you all of this.”
“Don’t lie to me, Yin Nezha.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why tell me all this?”
“Because you deserved to know. Because you trusted me enough to tell me about the Phoenix. About why you left the South. And because I didn’t want to hide it from you anymore,” he says pleadingly. “It felt like I was lying to you. I wanted to tell you—I knew you’d understand. You might be the only one who could. I didn’t need anything more than that.”
“Gods, just stop. ”
“Is it so hard to believe that I trust you? Is it so hard to believe that I may actually care for you?”
“Oh, please, ” she says, and she hates the way her voice shakes. “What’s there for you to care about, if not keeping the Dragon at bay?”
He stays silent, and Rin takes that as confirmation.
“Exactly,” she punctuates. “Nothing. There’s nothing else I can give you because who the fuck am I but a random fucking Southerner who forced her way into this school? What would you have to gain?”
Why, why, why is she admitting this to him? He doesn’t understand. He won’t ever understand.
This entire night simply proved to her that she would always be an outsider to their little elite bubble. She’d felt so small, insignificant, next to all of them. Next to Nezha , who is the juxtaposition of everything she is—he’d had everything he ever needed and would never need to prove himself. Nezha, who had a god in his head but didn’t need to use it because he’d already been gifted with the power he needed to not only survive but thrive, from the moment he was born.
Nezha, who she so rudely brushed off after he’d opened up to her about his biggest grief.
Fuck.
“Rin,” he finally says, softer this time, and oh, it grates.
“Gods, shut up. I don’t need your fucking pity. Just leave me the fuck alone.”
“I don’t pity you. I’ve never pitied you.”
Rin opens her mouth, but Nezha grabs her hands and squeezes.
“Can you please let me finish?”
She crosses her arms and looks away.
Nezha heaves a breath.
“I don’t keep you around to keep the pain away. In fact, every time I think of you, I feel a headache coming on,” he flashes her a tentative smirk, and she kicks dirt at him. It widens. “You’re a pain in my ass, and I reciprocate. You’re stubborn, rude, volatile, short-sighted—”
“Do you have a fucking point to make or are you just going to insult me?”
That gets a laugh out of him, and Rin curses herself for goading him on.
He sobers up, watching her intently. “Did you ever wonder why I hated you so much in our first year?”
“Because you were a bigoted asshole?”
Nezha winces. “Alright, yes. But it was because I thought I was better than you. And I was scared you’d prove me wrong. You were always at the top of the class, barring Kitay, and my pride couldn’t stand it. I was threatened by you—and I was right to be. You’re the last person I would call pitiful, Rin. Everyone here might be the children of Warlords or magistrates, but most of them aren’t half as good as you.”
“You’re going to regret admitting that to me.”
He groans. “I am, aren’t I?”
“If it’s not pity, and it’s not because of the pain, then why?”
“It’s called friendship , Rin. You know, opening up and caring about someone. Though I suppose you wouldn’t quite understand that, given your trust issues.”
“Oh, fuck you .” she snaps at him, but the knot in her chest loosens, and she feels a wave of warmth that had nothing to do with the Phoenix wash over her.
“I care for you, believe it or not. And I trust you. That’s all there is to it.”
Rin regards him carefully, trying to detect any hint of deceit or insincerity on his face, and finding none. He looks so irritatingly earnest.
She sighs—forcing herself to hide the palpable relief coursing through her. “I still fucking hate you.”
“I figured.”
~*~
They sit side-by-side in silence for a few more minutes, occasionally casting glances at the other before going back to watching the water.
It’s not the tense silence they’d had when they first came, but a comfortable one Rin finds herself sinking into.
“How about that dance, then?” Nezha asks again, suddenly, murmuring in her ear. She shivers at his warm breath.
Rin’s lips twitch into a smile, and she forces her expression into a grimace.
“I didn’t learn how to dance in the last hour that we talked, moron.”
Nezha rolls his eyes, “Then I’ll teach you.”
Without waiting for her answer, he pulls her to her feet and wraps a steady hand around her waist, entwining her fingers with his in his other. He grins down at her, and she hates that she wants to wipe that smug grin off his face, yet somehow kiss it senseless.
“You’re fucking ridiculous.”
“Just follow my lead.”
“Sounds like a horrible idea.”
He sighs exasperatedly. “Must you make everything so difficult ?”
Rin lets herself grin now, and he mirrors her with a radiant smile of his own. “You signed up for this, jackass.”
He snorts. “That I did, I suppose.”
They sway to nothing, Nezha leading her next steps, and Rin suppresses another eyeroll. She glances down, the only sounds surrounding them the quiet trickle of spring water and the crunch of the grass beneath their shoes, and she grimaces.
“This is so stupid. We don’t even have music—” she looks up to find Nezha staring at her. “What?”
He flits his gaze away, cheeks turning red. “Nothing.”
“You haven’t looked at me the whole night.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” she demands, irritatedly.
“Because if I do, I’ll end up kissing you again, and given how you reacted by avoiding me for weeks and then accusing me of only sticking around you because you’re like a shamanic anesthetic, that’s the worst idea in the world right now.”
Rin grumbles, unable to counter it.
“But what if that’s exactly what I fucking want you to do, you oblivious asshole?”
Nezha’s gaze snaps to her, wide and shocked. She wants to flinch and break it, reeling from fear and anticipation. But she holds it—he didn’t call her stubborn for nothing.
He stays silent for a full minute, just staring at her, eyes scanning every feature of her face, drinking it in like it’s the only time he’ll ever get to.
Then finally, he lets out a shuddering breath.
“You can’t take that back.”
And he dips his head, capturing her lips with his.
It’s softer, this time. Not filled with desperate fear and relief like the first one. No, it’s almost like Nezha is taking his time, savoring every moment. Rin wraps her arms around his neck and slants her mouth, deepening the kiss. She feels Nezha’s sigh of contentment, hands exploring her body before one ends in her hair, fingers running tenderly through the strands, and the other cups her cheek with a gentle touch.
Her heart still races, sparks of electricity shooting in her veins, but not in the way it did before. No, this time, she felt warm. Safe, almost, in a way she’d never felt before, in a way she’d never imagined she’d feel around Nezha. The bastard had somehow accomplished making her let her guard down, and it thrills and irritates her that she’s not upset about it at all.
And gods, his lips are so fucking soft .
When they pull apart, Nezha skims his lips on her cheek, then her jaw. Then he plants soft kisses on her eyelids, making them flutter.
“I haven’t had the opportunity to tell you,” he whispers slowly, quietly, and Rin’s breath hitches. “But you look… magnificent tonight.”
Rin gapes at him.
She couldn’t contain her snort.
“That was fucking terrible. ”
Nezha glares at her, but doesn’t move away, still holding her tightly in his arms.
“Shut up.”
“No way in fucking hell. Who even uses the word ‘magnificent’ anymore? You’re so fucking weird. ”
“I was trying to be romantic,” Nezha says indignantly.
“Romance is disgusting.”
“If it’s so disgusting, then why did you let me kiss you again?”
“Horrible lapse in judgment,” Rin retorts. Nezha’s lips curve into a smug grin.
“One you would be having again, I hope?”
“If you want to kiss me again, just say so.”
Nezha hums eyes soft. “I want to kiss you again.”
Rin grabs him by the front of the collar and complies with his request.
~*~
Somewhere, somehow, Kitay and Venka managed to find them—apparently, they’d been gone longer than they thought, almost past midnight. They both come with an armload of wine bottles they’d snuck from the main hall, unceremoniously plopping next to them after making suggestive jokes that earned them a kick from Rin.
They fall into that same, comfortable rhythm they developed, talking about anything and everything without pretensions, something Rin had grown to love in the past year.
“If I don’t get into the Archer’s Platoon, I’m making Rin burn down Jun’s office,” Venka declares.
“At least I’d finally have an excuse to.”
“That would get you discharged from the Militia, and possibly arrested,” Kitay interjects.
Rin shrugs. “It’d be worth it.”
“Not a good look for me to bail my girlfriend out from jail.”
Rin bolts up, glaring at Nezha. “Girlfriend? Who said anything about me being your girlfriend?”
Nezha raises a brow, a lazy smile playing on his lips. “I would assume that after kissing at least five times, that goes without saying.”
“Absolutely no one wants to hear about that,” Kitay complains loudly.
“No one asked for your opinion, Kitay.”
Rin smacks Nezha’s arm. “Don’t talk to him like that. And I did not agree to becoming your girlfriend.”
“Again, the five kisses beg to differ.”
They devolve into bickering once again for gods’ know how long, until eventually, Kitay clears his throat.
“Here’s to the future,” he calls out for a toast, his words slurring together. Kitay’s not quite as drunk as the rest of them, but he’s getting there. “And to a good fucking Division assignment.”
Rin grins, clinking her bottle with his. Nezha presses another kiss to the side of her head, and Kitay mutters, “Gross.” under his breath. Venka chooses to ignore them, taking another swig of wine.
She tries to imagine a time that made her feel anything close to the joy that envelops her right now.
Rin fails.
And she’s glad that she does.
She hopes that, in this, at least, she fails over and over again.