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Chapter Text

Xie Lian wakes up early and startles, abruptly pulled from a heavy sleep. He takes a few deep breaths and then listens to the quiet and rhythmic breathing of the ghost whose head still rests on his knees. His hand hasn't left the other's dark strands.

There's something comforting in this contact, grounding after everything that happened. As long as he doesn't let go of Wu Ming, he knows that he's here, right next to him.

"Your Highness?" the youth says sleepily.

"I'm here," Xie Lian responds. "How do you feel?"

"Better than ever," Xie Lian doesn't see how Wu Ming smiles under his smiling mask. Those words are pure truth. He's on knees of His Highness, and His Highness is talking to him, a dream come true in the most literal sense; he has imagined it so many times but never dared to hope. "And you?"

"I'm..." Immeasurably guilty before you? So happy that you're here? "I need to tell you something."

He has no words, but he won't find them, so it's better to get this over with. Xie Lian gently pulls Wu Ming away from his knees, rising only to kneel. He presses his forehead to the dusty floor, lingering there, trying to feel it.

Then he straightens up.

"Wu Ming, I apologize to you, although I know I don't deserve your forgiveness." He forces himself to speak slowly, solemnly, and the form of his words becomes a relief; it creates a safe neutral zone between him and his feelings. "You've been patient and kind with me all this time, and I treated you indifferently and cruelly. You offered me your loyalty, and I didn't appreciate it or appreciate you."

He pronounces:

"Because of me, you almost disappeared from this world. That's what I repaid you."

These words should corrode his mouth and tongue the very moment he utters them, but it unfairly remain ordinary. Just words. A set of sounds. Neither Wu Ming's cry then, nor his own sobbing, nor the wind in leaves, nor the noise of waves. Just consonants and vowels. From it, you can form anything else.

He's Xie Lian, and he forms what he forms.

Cold hands envelop him, and even through the fabric of his upper clothes, he feels Wu Ming's fingers slightly trembling. The ghost pulls him closer, desperately and tightly, and Xie Lian can't help but think that there's something protective in this gesture.

"Your Highness... Please, don't speak like that," the youth almost whispers, and his voice is full of pain.

"But it's the truth!" Xie Lian objects. "You deserve someone who would be worthy of your kindness and loyalty. And I... I'm just me, and look what I've done to you."

"You deserve everything," Wu Ming replies with sincerity and determination that make it difficult for Xie Lian to find the strength to argue (although he should). "And I don't blame you. In the bay... Interfering was my choice. You didn't ask me to do it; you tried to keep me away and safe."

"I was the reason you had to make that choice," the prince insists. "I put you in that situation."

"White No-Face did it to both of us," the youth disagrees. "Blame him."

Wu Ming's stubbornness seems cute to Xie Lian, and he has to suppress a sigh and a smile; his wonderful ghost! But he won't smile at how unforgivably he treated Wu Ming.

"But I was so callous and rude to you! I trampled the flower you wanted to give me."

Wu Ming touches the flower Xie Lian tucked into his hair yesterday.

"You were hurt."

"That doesn't justify me!"

"Then I forgive you if you need it. Your Highness, my god, Crown Prince of Xianle, Xie Lian. But please, don't torment yourself because of me." A quiet sigh. "I can't bear it."

Xie Lian hides his face on his ghost's shoulder.

"Please, then, don't speak of yourself as if your pain means nothing."

"We have a deal," Wu Ming laughs.

They stay like that for a while. Xie Lian belatedly thinks about how selfish he was: he upset Wu Ming again with his apologies. He thought he must to apologize for, he thought about what he needed — and didn't think at all about what his ghost wanted.

He also thinks about when he started calling Wu Ming "his ghost" but suspects that the other would like it. He decides to test this theory someday.

Wu Ming thinks again about hugging His Highness and wonders if his lifelong supply of luck has gone to that. He wonders if he overstepped, treated His Highness too boldly and disrespectfully — but His Highness really looked like he needed to be hugged, and... well... he didn't show a hint of aversion to Wu Ming's touch, as if he didn't think there was anything dirty and wrong in Wu Ming. Like yesterday.

Finally, Xie Lian, pulling away, gets up:

"I'll go try to find out if there's any work for me around here."

"I'm with you," Wu Ming quickly stands up. "I can help."

Xie Lian shushes at him:

"Rest for at least a couple of days. And don't say you're already okay; I won't believe it." The prince realizes: "Of course, I shouldn't be ordering you, I'm sorry, but... I really will worry about you if you don't stay. I'll worry anyway, and..."

"Your Highness can order me if he wishes," Wu Ming easily says, because it's true.

"I'm no longer a prince, Wu Ming, and you don't have to be a soldier or a servant," says Xie Lian, and there's something strangely warm in his gaze. "But... we can be friends. I mean, if you want."

The ghost next to him freezes completely. He had no friends in life; he doesn't know what it's like to be friends. And now the one he's in love with offers to be like this.

"I would be honored," the boy says. And then: "But Your Highness will always remain Your Highness."

"Wu Ming!" Xie Lian laughs, brightly and affectionately.

Then he finally leaves.