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The day Dan Heng breaks up with him is an unbelievably uneventful day.
It is so uneventful, so like any other time or month that when Dan Heng says it, Blade barely pays it any mind. It is not as if they fought that day. It is not as if anything special happened. Blade is scrolling through his phone. Dan Heng is sprawled over him, watching The Summer I Turned Pretty with dull interest. Seemingly a regular night.
Blade continues scrolling even when Dan Heng blurts, “Let’s break up.” The idea flies over his head. In the movie, Belly is crying, but the acting is so fake that Blade rolls his eyes. Dan Heng repeats the statement when he notices he is still unfocused. One of his hands comes up to brush through Blade’s hair.
“Sure,” says Blade, even though his hazy mind does not process what exactly he is agreeing to. Dan Heng looks pleased, though, so he settles farther into the couch and sets his phone down. They spend the rest of the night binging the remaining episodes of Season 1, and Blade forgets about the whole deal entirely.
-
The morning that follows is like any other.
Blade comes down with his hair in a mess. He thinks he has forgotten to brush his teeth. He also has forgotten that they’ve broken up. “Good morning, Baobei,” he says, because he’s forgotten, and Dan Heng replies, “Don’t call me that,” because he hasn’t forgotten.
“We broke up,” Dan Heng informs him, which is terribly unconvincing with how he is wearing a custom apron reading, in bold, black letters, Blade’s Personal Daddy, with a large red heart next to Daddy. Courtesy of Kafka, who snickered when gifting it to Blade.
“When?” Blade wraps his arms around Dan Heng.
“Last night.” Dan Heng removes Blade’s arms.
“Oh,” Blade yawns and opts for the stool instead. “Okay.”
Dan Heng delivers his breakfast in the form of a smiley face. Blade leans in to kiss him, and thank him for the meal, but Dan Heng presses a hand to his lips. “Don’t kiss me,” he grumbles. “We broke up.”
Blade blinks lazily at him, and relents when Dan Heng taps his cheek instead.
-
When Blade tells Jing Yuan the news, he thinks he is terribly overreacting with the way his mouth drops open.
“What?” Jing Yuan says, eyes wide as if he’s seen a ghost. Blade finds it amusing that the other has grieved more about it in this past minute than Blade had during the entire occasion. “What? Ren, wait, oh.”
“What?”
Jing Yuan groans. He drags a hand down his face in distress. “Oh my Aeon, what am I going to do? You’re my two closest friends. This will forever ruin things.”
“You have Jingliu,” Blade points out.
“Masters don’t count as friends.”
“Okay.”
“Wait, never mind that,” Jing Yuan removes his hand and places it on Blade’s shoulder. “Are you alright, bro?”
“Uh,” says Blade, instead of answering.
“I know it’s hard to move on,” Jing Yuan emphasizes, pressing into Blade’s chest. “But I promise things will get better. You don’t have to act like it means nothing to you.”
“What?”
“My bro, what has he done to you?” Jing Yuan shakes his head. “You’re too stunned to even speak.”
“I’m fine,” Blade says.
“Wait,” Jing Yuan says for the third time in this conversation. He narrows his eyes. “You weren’t the one who broke up with him, right?”
“What?” Blade scratches his head. “No?”
“Who proposed it?”
Blade thinks hazily of that night. He only remembers despising Conrad and hating Belly. “I can’t remember.”
“What?” Jing Yuan says, and Blade is afraid the whole conversation has started over again.
-
When Blade returns home, he finds Kafka and Silver Wolf sitting on the couch, one playing some RPG while the other scrolls through coat websites. They both turn to look at him when he unlocks the door, though Silver Wolf turns back almost automatically when she sees that her character’s HP has dropped.
“Uh,” says Blade. Kafka smiles sweetly. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Nothing in particular,” Silver Wolf answers, tapping her phone aggressively.
“Your boyfriend let us in,” Kafka explains.
Blade closes the door behind him. “We’re not boyfriends.”
Silver Wolf rolls her eyes. “Uh huh, like we believe you. We’ve seen you making out at least thrice.”
“I mean we broke up,” Blade says. Kafka’s lips turn downward. Her phone screen goes black, and she unlocks it, typing something quickly before sending it as a message. “What was that?”
“Telling Elio.”
“He doesn’t need to know about my love life.”
“You guys broke up?” Silver Wolf repeats, as though she hadn’t heard him the first time. Blade nods at her before realizing that she still has not drawn her gaze away from her phone.
“Elio needs to know about your life, though,” Kafka says, ignoring Silver Wolf. “Including romantic partners.”
“I thought he was, like, the love of your life.” Silver Wolf mutters.
“He is.”
“Then why’d you break up with him?”
“I didn’t.”
Kafka sighs, placing a hand on her cheek. “I’d really expect you to act more upset than this.”
Blade shrugs.
Dan Heng descends from the stairs, staring blankly at the three of them. He turns to Blade. “Where were you?”
“Jing Yuan.”
“Okay,” Dan Heng strolls into the kitchen, leaving the rest of them in silence. When he seems to be out of listening range, Kafka and Silver Wolf turn to Blade, eyes wide. Behind her, Silver Wolf’s grey-haired character dies.
“What was that?” Silver Wolf demands.
“Care to explain?” Kafka snickers.
“What?” Blade begins to sweat.
“You literally just had a conversation.”
“We’re having a conversation right now?”
“With your ex,” Kafka specifies before Silver Wolf can lunge at him.
“What about it?”
“Why are you still living together?” Silver Wolf struggles to get out of Kafka’s grip.
“We literally broke up yesterday.”
“And you’re having normal conversations,” Kafka says, hissing when Silver Wolf bites her.
“Not everyone is like you and Himeko,” Blade crosses his arms. “You can still be friends after breakups.”
The two of them stop. They become silent.
“Bladie,” Kafka says, calmly. “If you two are still talking, still living together, still nonchalant, for Aeon’s sake, still friends on Genshin Impact on the first day, I’m not sure you guys even broke up.”
-
brat - 10:43 am
Ren
Ren
Ren
REN!!!
Me - 10:44 am
what
brat - 10:44 am
Has DH moved out yet
Me - 10:44 am
no?
brat - 10:45 am
It’s been a week…
brat - 10:50 am
Okay fine we won’t talk about it!!!
I was just asking
Me - 10:50 am
what do u need
brat - 10:50 am
Let’s meet up
Then I’ll tell you
Bring DH btw
Me - 10:51 am
y
Read 10:51 am
-
Dan Heng thanks the waiter politely when she brings him his coffee. Unbeknownst to Dan Heng, a little note is pinned under the cup. Blade reaches over and pries it out, crinkling his nose when he finds a phone number scribbled in neat handwriting.
“What was it?” Dan Heng asks when Blade crumples it and throws it away.
“Nothing.” Blade takes a sip of his drink. Jing Yuan shoots him a disgusted look that, over the past week, Blade has known to be equivalent to something like, ‘Haven’t you guys broken up?’ He dislikes how that connection insinuates that he has seen it far too often this week.
Dan Heng blows the steam away from his cup. “So, Jing Yuan, why’d you call us here?”
“Oh,” says Jing Yuan, sheepishly, and Blade narrows his eyes at the mood change. “About that, yeah…”
The two of them stare at him expectantly. He fiddles with the bow tying his hair back.
“Spit it out already,” Blade mutters, just as Dan Heng says, gently, “Take your time.”
Jing Yuan pinches Blade’s thigh unceremoniously. “It’s fine, I was just thinking of a way to word it. Look, I’m gonna be out of town next week.”
“Thing is, I’ve found a caretaker for Mimi since everyone loves her, but, uh,” He rubs the back of his head. “I still have one more kid who needs caring for.”
Blade scoffs. “What, you got another cat?”
Jing Yuan winces. Blade’s eyes widen. Dan Heng looks between the two of them, confused.
“Oh my Aeon,” Blade falls back into his seat. “You mean literal kid.”
“You have a kid?” Dan Heng asks.
“He’s adopted!” Jing Yuan explains, in such a rush that the phrase comes out louder than it should be, causing multiple customers to turn to their group with a complicated mix of emotions. “I’m sorry, Ren, I know you really don’t like him-“
“-Don’t like him? I want to throw that kid off a roof.”
“Blade,” Dan Heng says, reaching over to rest a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s only for a week,” Jing Yuan says. “Honest to Aeon, I promise he will behave.”
“Wait, so then-“ Blade lifts his head and gestures to Dan Heng. “Why is he here?”
“I thought he would’ve moved out by now,” Jing Yuan mutters under his breath, and then he clears his throat. “Well, since you’re living together, why not take care of Yanqing together?”
The two of them stare at each other, then turn to look at Jing Yuan. “Absolutely not,” Dan Heng deadpans, as Blade says, “No way in the world.”
Jing Yuan groans. “Oh come on, how hard can it be? You’re literally seeing each other every other minute- just bring Yanqing along too!”
“We can’t take care of a kid together if we’re not married,” Dan Heng says in lieu of an explanation.
“What? No,” Blade rubs his forehead. “We can’t take care of him together because we broke up.”
“You’re literally still living together.”
“Convenience,” Dan Heng offers.
Blade nods thoughtfully. “It’s pretty expensive to hire movers these days.”
“Oh my Aeon,” Jing Yuan waves his hand for the bill. “Is it really that hard?”
“We don’t want to set a bad example for your son,” Dan Heng says gently, like a strange way of gaslighting.
Blade hums in agreement. “Dear Jing Yuan, you wouldn’t want your son watching us argue because we broke up, right?”
“You’re having a perfect time coordinating together to not have me hand over the kid,” Jing Yuan points out. “I’m dropping him off tomorrow. No complaints.” Then, as an afterthought, he says, “And be nice to him, too.”
-
Yanqing is what Blade likes to call either Jing Yuan’s lapdog or his brat (part two, because Mimi was the original brat) (that cat, so disobedient, constantly annoying Blade for food.) He explains this to Dan Heng in great detail before the other is bored with his unnecessary description of Yanqing’s past bad behavior. “I swear he will be worse this time,” Blade shivers, resigning himself to his fate. “He’s a teen now. Teens are… scary.”
Dan Heng handles the impending doom with careful concentration. He makes sure to set up the guest room nicely, despite Blade’s protests (“Let the kid sleep on the floor! We can feed him Mimi’s expired cat food. Quality meals!”) He even stands at the door to welcome Yanqing in when the two of them hear a couple honks from outside the apartment.
Blade peeks out from behind Dan Heng when he opens the door. Yanqing glares up at him from his very obvious position below. “He’s still as short as I remember,” Blade whispers to Dan Heng, who swats him off his shoulder.
“Hey!” Yanqing protests, stepping into the house without warning. “I grew taller! Jing Yuan measured for me.”
“Knowing him, he probably added a few inches to help stroke your ego.” Blade snickers then buckles over when Yanqing knees him between his legs.
“Hi, Yanqing,” Dan Heng says, awkwardly. “So you’ll be staying with us for the next week?”
Yanqing looks up from where he’s laughing at Blade. “Uh, yeah. Who are you?” He kicks Blade another time.
“I’m Blade’s ex.” Dan Heng says, wincing when Blade cries out again.
“Oh.” Yanqing finally takes off his shoes. “Gross. You’re probably the guy I hear about when Papa has his phone on speaker.”
“Yanqing,” Blade whimpers. “Please, at least spare me my dignity.”
“If you’re exes, why are you still living together?” Yanqing crosses his arms and lifts his chin to meet Dan Heng’s eyes.
“Uh,” says Dan Heng, and then he helps Blade up and ushers him away. “We can talk about that later. Get settled, will you?”
“I don’t want two exes taking care of me!” Yanqing shouts after Dan Heng. “That’s gross! I don’t want to hear you fight!” Then, after a moment, he says to himself, “It’s probably better than openly making out with each other.”
-
It doesn’t take long for Dan Heng to warm up to Yanqing.
Out of the two of them, Dan Heng is usually more social, opting to adapt to his surroundings and the consequences that come with change. Blade, on the other hand, is still aching in between his legs, and has sworn since last time that he would never, ever, make a truce with Yanqing. Dan Heng finds this amusing (Blade can tell from the way he almost cracks a smile), and instead nurses Yanqing like his own child. Or like an actual caretaker.
“You don’t owe anything to Jing Yuan,” Blade grumbles when Dan Heng is cooking lunch for Yanqing.
“I know,” Dan Heng replies, pushing the pasta around merrily. He slaps Blade’s arm when it wraps around his waist. “I just like the idea of parenthood.”
The sentiment catches Blade by surprise. “Would you… want to take care of something?”
“I already take care of you,” Dan Heng shoos him away. “Now off you go. Play Fortnite with Yanqing or something.”
“I don’t play Fortnite!” Yanqing yells from across the apartment. “And you guys are gross!” A fake retching noise echoes through the room.
“You’re grosser!” Blade yells back. “When’s the last time you showered?”
“Actually, I did just this morning!”
“Shut up,” says Dan Heng, and they both quiet.
-
Much to Blade’s surprise, it also doesn’t take long for Yanqing to begin to like Dan Heng. The next morning (Dan Heng had explained to Blade that he had stayed up an extra hour to help Yanqing adjust the room), Yanqing descends the stairs unusually clean and joyous. He runs into the kitchen, Blade watching in horror, and wraps his arms around Dan Heng.
“What’s for breakfast?” He asks, eyes shining. Blade wants to throw up.
Dan Heng pats Yanqing’s head comfortingly. “You’ll see.” Yanqing tries to peek over the counter and fails due to his short height.
Blade turns around from the couch to face the kitchen. “He gets to hug you, but not me?”
“You coddle me,” Dan Heng says. “He hugs me. There’s a difference.”
Yanqing sticks out his tongue, still clinging tightly to Dan Heng’s waist.
-
Blade, unfortunately, does end up playing games with Yanqing. The two of them are sprawled out over the couch, one taking up the majority of the space with long legs and the other bending his knees to prepare for an onslaught of kicks. Each controller is gripped by a respective pair of hands. Blade has never felt the urge to break something so much while playing a card game.
Dan Heng passes by them at some point, staring with concern as Blade plays Send Off and receives a well-aimed kick to the gut. “TCG, really? You’re such babies.”
“Only for you,” Blade says, while Yanqing blows raspberries and wipes Blade’s Raiden Shogun out.
Dan Heng has retreated into the recesses of the kitchen when Blade receives an incoming text.
brat 2:34 pm
You treating Yanqing well?
Me 2:34 pm
no i just disposed of his body omw to clean up the evidence now
brat 2:34 pm
I’m going to take that as a yes
Incoming call: brat
“Hey, bro,” Jing Yuan’s face invades Blade’s screen. “Yanqing? You there?”
Blade flips the camera so it shows Yanqing instead, who is furiously shuffling through his cards to find some food. “Uh-huh. What is it?”
“Nothing,” Jing Yuan chuckles. “Are you doing alright, buddy?”
“He’s fine,” Blade says. “Been kicking me in the ribs all afternoon.” Yanqing kicks him for that, too, and Blade grunts. “What about you?”
“Oh, I’m alright,” Jing Yuan shuffles on the other side of the line. “Hey, uh, about Dan Heng.”
“What about him?”
“Has anything happened?”
Yanqing successfully acquires a Lotus Flower Crisp. “I like Heng-Gege. He’s way better than Ren.”
“Ew, don’t call me that,” Blade scrunches up his nose. “That’s reserved for close friends only.”
“But your boyfriend doesn’t use ‘Ren’.”
“Ex.”
“Whatever, whatever,” Jing Yuan mutters. “I’m glad you like him, Yanqing. But, Ren, seriously, I thought this whole ‘nothing changed’ was a side effect of mourning. Surely you’ve reached your post-nut clarity by now?”
“Who taught you that,” Blade utters, horrified, and Yanqing snickers across from him.
“Doesn’t matter. Look, I just mean, like, if you haven’t fallen into shambles at this point, then…”
“You’re like, the opposite of my sisters right now.” Blade points out.
“Doesn’t matter!” Jing Yuan repeats.
Blade shrugs. “I mean, am I supposed to feel differently? He’s still the same person. Nothing has changed.”
“Nothing has changed-? Oh my Aeo- never mind.” Jing Yuan rubs his temples as if he was not the one who brought up the confusing sentiments in the first place. “Hand the phone to Yanqing. Let me see how he’s doing.”
Blade frowns, but takes it as his opportunity to force Yanqing to concede.
-
Dan Heng and Blade have always had separate rooms, though when they were dating, it hadn’t meant much. Blade would spend most of his days at Dan Heng’s, claiming the low-quality, ground-supported mattress felt much better than his proper bed frame. Those nights were uneventful and lazy, slotting perfectly in with just about anything they did together: watching movies with little to no interest, cooking meals using a sketchy cookbook, even online shopping for god knows what.
It’s been about a week since they’ve broken up, meaning Blade has unfortunately had to dust off his own bed and sleep in it instead. A week, in essence, has never felt as long as this past one.
Blade trots over to Dan Heng’s room resignedly, one pillow tucked under his arm and a small night light in the other. Dan Heng’s door is naturally drifted open by the cool wind leaking through the window. It only makes a small creaking noise when Blade pushes in.
Dan Heng is, unsurprisingly, still awake, and turns to look at Blade while he enters, eyes blinking wearily. Blade closes the door gently behind him, stalking up to the futon and setting the nightlight down.
“What are you doing?” Dan Heng whispers, voice heavy with tiredness. He speaks in a low tone, though with the way Yanqing snores, Blade is sure there is no chance they’d wake him.
Still, he whispers back so that it feels like their little secret. “Sleeping.”
“Nightmares?”
Blade snorts. “Long gone.”
“Then why?”
Blade places his pillow down next to Dan Heng’s. It fits perfectly into the width of the futon as if Dan Heng had never bothered to center his own even when Blade left. “I want to.”
“We broke up,” Dan Heng repeats, as if Blade hasn’t heard it multiple times this week and last.
“I know.” Blade shuffles closer into the blankets. Dan Heng turns and Blade wraps his arms around his waist. This time, Dan Heng doesn’t stop him. “Jing Yuan told me I should’ve had my post-nut clarity days ago.”
“What?” Dan Heng says, choking out a chuckle.
“I mean,” Blade sinks deeper into Dan Heng’s body. “Like, he meant that I should be acting differently now that we’ve broken up.”
Blade takes a deep breath. The silence hangs in the air. “Should I be acting differently? Has anything changed between us?”
A long pause. Blade waits patiently for an answer until he realizes Dan Heng’s breathing has already evened out.
-
Blade awakens to the slow rise and fall of Dan Heng’s chest. The other has his eyes closed, but the erratic heartbeat gives him away. Close to deep sleep, but skimming on the surface. Usually, Blade would not see this; Dan Heng often woke up far before he did, retreating to the kitchen until Blade would follow.
Unlike the position Blade had fallen asleep in, Dan Heng is now facing him, head tucked neatly into Blade’s chest. Something inside of him curls at the sight, but Dan Heng has not lifted his head enough for Blade to steal a kiss. Instead, he presses his lips into the roots of Dan Heng’s hair, the soft strands tickling his cheek. At this, Dan Heng stirs.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Blade greets, too weary to keep the fondness out of his voice. “Not used to waking up so late?”
“Couldn’t sleep at all the other nights,” Dan Heng grumbles, pushing Blade’s arms away to stretch. “It was bound to catch up to me.”
“What, nightmares?”
Dan Heng shoots him a dirty look. “Long gone,” he imitates.
The realization strikes Blade that he played a part in Dan Heng’s deserved rest. It fills him with an unexplainable glee, and he wraps his arms around Dan Heng again, pulling him closer.
Dan Heng slings a leg across Blade’s. “You’re awfully clingy today, you know?” Blade makes a sound of acknowledgment. “I did wake up early, by the way. I just went back to sleep.”
“You never go back to sleep.”
Dan Heng shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with your deathly grip around me.”
Blade leans in for a kiss, and Dan Heng doesn’t stop him.
-
Yanqing fake-retches when they arrive downstairs together, one of Blade’s arms around Dan Heng’s waist. Dan Heng tries to push him away, but Blade grabs his hand and leans in as if to kiss him. Yanqing yells and almost throws something at them, and that’s when Blade laughs and pulls away, letting Dan Heng scurry away into the kitchen.
“So gross,” Yanqing gags. “So, what? You got back together or something?”
“No,” says Blade, taking a seat on the high stool next to him.
Yanqing shoots him a revolted look at his answer. “You guys broke up and still make kissy faces at each other.”
“Please never call them kissy faces ever again.”
“That’s literally proper language,” says Yanqing, rolling his eyes. “What is this drama? Are you guys hooking up?”
“What,” Blade rubs his forehead. “I- Who taught you these things?”
“Miss Tingyun,” Yanqing declares proudly. “Yeah, and I’ll be informing her about this, too. You know she’s the biggest supplier of the rumor mill.”
“Spare me my dignity, at least?”
“You two,” Dan Heng says from the kitchen. “If you want to gossip, I’ll have both of you run to the grocery store for me right now. We’re running low on some things.”
“Only if breakfast is ready when we get back!” Yanqing shouts in return, to which Dan Heng responds enthusiastically, yes, it will be.
“Only if I get a kiss when we get back,” Blade calls, blowing a kiss in the direction of the kitchen though it’s out of Dan Heng’s line of sight. The gesture makes Yanqing squirm again and Blade smirks.
“Get going,” Dan Heng replies instead of answering. “Perhaps I’ll consider it if you’re quick.”
Blade picks the keys off the rack and drags Yanqing out the door with him.
-
“So gross,” Yanqing mutters for what seems like the millionth time this week. “Seriously? What’s the point of breaking up if you’re not going to stop the PDA?”
“What’s a PDA?”
“Such a boomer,” Yanqing sniffs, and Blade’s eye twitches so violently that he’s sure Yanqing would get along perfectly with Silver Wolf. “Public displays of affection. Trademark.”
“What, you expected it to stop after we broke up?” Blade turns left, waving back to Yukong, who jogs adjacent to him.
“Breaking up is literally the definition of stopping anything romantic.” Yanqing coughs. “Everything.”
“Did Jing Yuan bribe you into talking to me about this?”
“Hey! I wouldn’t listen to that old man!”
Blade sighs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with all of you.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Yanqing shoots back. “I mean, you both keep reminding me and insisting that you broke up with each other. But you still have yet to stop doing anything remotely romantic. You still stare at him like he’s the world to you. You don’t even try to hide it! And he knows, too! He does the same!”
“What,” Blade mutters, offended that someone would point out the gazes that he thought he had covered quite well. “I do try to hide it.”
“Well, you’re not doing a very good job.” Yanqing crosses his arms in the passenger seat. “What’s the point of breaking up if nothing changes?”
“Is breaking up supposed to change things?”
“Yes!” Yanqing exclaims. “Oh my Aeon, you really are an idiot. Papa was right about you.”
“Jing Yuan is never right about me,” Blade says, thinking through all the times Jing Yuan predicted his behavior. “He’s still the same person. Dan Heng is still Dan Heng, regardless of our relationship status. I won’t stop loving him just because we broke up.”
“If that’s the case,” Yanqing says, turning to Blade and holding his gaze. The exasperation cancels out with the seriousness of his tone. It makes Blade’s skin crawl. “Then why would you break up in the first place?”
-
Blade wakes up the next morning with an empty space beside him.
His arms are, unfortunately, unoccupied, and he wriggles out of the blanket to stare at the futon. There is barely any sign of Dan Heng sleeping there at all- only a waft of a seaside scent and a slight indent in the mattress. Blade frowns, pressing his hands to feel the heat, which is unexpectedly not there.
There was some sort of a habit between the two of them that if one were to leave early in the morning (e.g. Dan Heng’s emergency hospital calls, Elio’s urgent prophecies, something akin to an explosion from Dan Heng’s friends), they would leave at least some sort of sign. The most common would be a sticky note with a short explanation. On Dan Heng’s part, a neat scrawl with the occasion and time he would be home. On Blade’s part, a smiley face. Often Dan Heng would complain Blade was too vague, something about not knowing enough and not being prepared. Blade thought it endearing that he would even want to care about him.
No note, this time. Not even a smiley face like Blade.
Panic seizes him at once. He pats down the mattress again. Not even a single hint of heat; Dan Heng must’ve left at least an hour before.
Yanqing startles when Blade thunders down the stairs, glancing into the kitchen that does not, in fact, have Dan Heng inside it. The kitchen is like Dan Heng’s haven- if he is anywhere after waking, he is in the kitchen. Yanqing gives him a weird look, taking another bite of his breakfast.
“What’s the rush?” He asks, speaking with a mouthful of food. Blade scrunches his nose, then smoothes it when he realizes he has already inherited Dan Heng’s disgust.
“Where’d you get that?” Blade opts for instead.
Yanqing rolls his eyes, taking a long sip of his water before answering. “Uh, Dan Heng left it for me. Who else?”
“You saw him?” Yanqing flinches back at Blade’s tone. A pant of guilt strikes Blade, and he softens his voice. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Yanqing mutters. “I didn’t see him. Only found the plate with a note.”
“What did the note say?” And why didn’t Dan Heng leave one for him?
“I-“ Yanqing looks away sheepishly. “I forgot. And threw it away.”
Blade runs his hand through his hair, frowning. Yanqing’s story is unconvincing, but with the younger’s stubbornness, he’s sure he’ll never get it out of him through brute force alone.
Above that: if Dan Heng has something to hide, Blade will not pry it from him. He learned that the hard way, long ago.
“Do you…” Blade settles for a gamble. “Do you at least know where he’s gone?”
Yanqing stares at him blankly. He sighs, rubbing his neck. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. But eat something first?”
Blade almost protests, but bites his tongue. The fact that Yanqing, the same boy who almost removed his ability to reproduce, the same boy who still acts like a kindergartener, is now the one telling him to be responsible says a lot about the situation. At this revelation, Blade forces himself to sit down. Yanqing pushes the plate over.
“Jing Yuan would be proud,” Blade tells him, to which Yanqing replies with a lopsided grin, “I know.”
-
Yanqing assures him on his way out that he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself and kicks Blade in his balls again when Blade bites the inside of his cheek in distress. “Papa would kill you if I got hurt anyway,” he says, which does not sound very assuring to Blade, but, afraid of sustaining another injury, he hobbles out with a thin coat, sighing against the chilly breeze as Yanqing shuts the door behind him.
Blade had once told Dan Heng in the early stages of their relationship that it was easy for him to drive anywhere. When Dan Heng asked why, Blade was, at the time, too embarrassed to mention his sister’s great insistence on playing race car simulators, and instead settled on one that seemed more sentimental. “It makes me feel free,” Blade had told him, which was not completely true, but not completely false, either. “My power comes from controlling where I go.”
Dan Heng had looked up at him with the most beautiful gaze ever, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Blade, you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever met.”
A mix of feelings washes over Blade when he turns on the engine. There is a great unease that comes with the fact he knows nothing of where he’s going or what Dan Heng might be doing- he’s never been unsure with Dan Heng, who often stresses much more than Blade does. To think that they had waltzed into bed with each other yesterday and that nothing had been wrong. How spontaneous, Blade thinks, with a hint of bitterness, which makes him regretfully follow with, just like our breakup.
Or perhaps what truly bothers him here is that all his clumsy thoughts consider it their true end.
Their end should’ve come a long time ago. Logically, when they broke up. Even more logically when they’d been proposed to take care of Yanqing. And if that was not enough, then anytime after- the warnings from everyone Blade knew. Logically, they should’ve been like this weeks ago. They should’ve been miles apart, Blade chasing Dan Heng, because that’s all he’s ever done.
He doesn’t know what to expect when he pulls into the parking lot and sheds his shoes by the sand, wrapping his coat tighter around him to defend himself against the ocean winds. He scans the never-ending horizon, fighting to keep his eyes open until he can see even a speck tracing back to Dan Heng. His mind swirls messily, panicked; he tries to understand whether he’s angry, upset, or tired- maybe, his muddled mind proposes, it’s everything at once, hence why it is, well, muddled. It is early and the sun has barely risen over the sea. The waves lap slowly and recede slower; Blade approaches against his own will.
He does begin to see them, at some point, when he’s close enough. He can hear their laughter and voices mixing, and though he can make out the quiet silhouette of Dan Heng, he doesn’t seem to say anything. Blade attempts to stride forward more, but then March, whom Blade had always disliked, slams the volleyball and launches it into the other side, where the twins scramble to capture it. The interaction makes Blade pause, just enough to change his mind, and he begins to retreat, blinking his eyes dutifully.
There is a strange feeling that comes with what he sees. If Blade had to describe it, it’d be like a slow piercing, maybe something of a hole in his chest with the blood still oozing out. Maybe, he thinks, the hole has been there the whole time, and the bandage has just somehow kept it from leaking- up until now, most likely. His eyes are trained on them even as he moves away, and before he can even register it, his feet scramble for purchase against the rock he had somehow tripped over, and his head tilts back into the sand, eyes no longer able to keep ahold of their group.
He falls and cracks and spills everything left in that hole.
-
God knows how long he spends there, crying, curled up on his side with sand in his hair and mouth. Nobody ever comes to this beach, Dan Heng had told him, a long, long time ago, which Blade had thought to be strange and unsatisfactory, as, using his thoughts, beaches were not quite fun without the people there. Now he can only find himself to be grateful, so that nobody can see him as pathetic as he is- a grown man, who seems very much like a toddler and is, unfortunately, throwing a tantrum like one.
But suffering is a type of work in its own way, and at some point, Blade grows tired of crying and feeling, sitting up to spit out the sand. The pain is fresh when he sees them still there, making sand castles now, two sitting down and the other two building away. He tries to smile, this time, maybe approach them with a more friendly view, but then he bites down harder onto his tongue and wipes his mouth. He looks like a fool- he knows that.
He’s about to get up and leave when Stelle spins around and makes eye contact with him.
They both freeze. Dan Heng had once told him that the twins had spectacular senses, and could see things in clear vision no matter how far they were. With this in mind, his lip wobbles, and he almost moves to brush more sand off of him until she unfreezes and grabs March’s arm, leaning in to whisper in her ear. Vaguely, Blade can see the way March’s eyes widen, and then she’s moving to grab onto Dan Heng, pulling him in close to talk to him.
Blade, unable to stand seeing his reaction, does the thing he hates most: he runs.
The tears start again somewhere in his beeline to the car, but seeing as to how he barely remembers the way to get back, he’s evidently, now, crying more with no visible parking lot in sight. The painful grains of sand grind against the soles of his feet as he runs at a pace he has never been able to set before, but he supposes that maybe it’s just because he hadn’t been running for anything in particular. A startled “Wait!” behind him launches him even further, and to his relief, his car shows up at some point, a distant spark that grows closer with each step. At the concrete, his pair of shoes winks at him, but hearing the startled breaths from behind him, Blade shakes his head and picks them up by the shoelaces, not bothering to stop even when the stones of the parking lot dig into his feet.
Behind him, he can hear Dan Heng pause, searching frantically for his own shoes, and Blade, knowing the germophobe hidden deep within him, has to bite back a self-pitying smile. Dan Heng is not nearly close enough to stop him when he unlocks the door to his car and, frankly, gets the hell out of there.
-
Dan Heng bangs on the door five times.
When there is no answer, he bangs another three.
Yanqing opens it when Dan Heng bangs one more time, resting his elbows on the door frame.
“What is it?” He asks, looking Dan Heng up and down. Dan Heng flushes a bright red. He must paint quite an ugly picture with his ocean-stained pants and his sand-covered shirt, not to mention the ragged state of his hair from running.
“I- what do you mean, what is it?” Dan Heng protests, moving to open the door further. “This is my house, Yanqing, I- I need to get in.”
Yanqing glares at him and holds the door steady. “Legally, this is Ren’s apartment. His name is on the contract.”
“That- That doesn’t matter!” Yanqing’s unbothered expression fills him with more distress, and vaguely, Dan Heng wonders how much Blade has told him. “I need to talk to him, please, just let me in-“
“Ren’s orders, not mine,” Yanqing shakes his head, and Dan Heng’s heart breaks at his name. “I’m sorry, Gege. I know you mean well. But you… I know you would not change your mind, even if you tried.”
“Please,” Dan Heng sobs, placing his hand on the wall. “I won’t do it again, I just need to make things right.”
“Best of luck,” Yanqing promises, and the door closes in his face.
-
He stays at Stelle and Caelus’ house for the night, tossing and turning in his sheets before the two of them tell him to stop moving and go to sleep.
Dan Heng wants to sleep- of course he does, but he just can’t stop thinking about it, and it haunts him when he closes his eyes. Each scene seems to burn itself into his eyelids until he’s no longer able to think of anything else. His regrets flood him when he stares at the walls above him, and when he turns onto his side he’s plagued with the thumping sounds of Blade’s running feet.
“I just need to make things right,” he told Yanqing, but he doesn’t know where to start.
“Anything, anywhere,” March had told him, but Dan Heng had shook his head and left it at that, all three of them staring at him, concerned.
At some point, the twins had called Himeko and Mr. Yang, too, but they only expressed similar worry, and so Dan Heng had insisted they hang up, and when they did, he began to cry again, inconsolable. He expresses his deepest thoughts to all three of them through this crying session, as if maybe if he’s honest with them, he’ll somehow find it in himself to be honest with Blade, and then he’ll have the guts to go up to his house again, knock once more, and force his way in despite what Yanqing says. He tells them, through broken sobs which he’s almost sure doesn’t help with intelligibility, how he wonders if Blade is crying right now, too, or if he’s already moved on, found solace in someone else, like maybe Jing Yuan, who’s bright and cunning and nothing like Dan Heng, or even Kafka, whom Blade had always reassured was more of a sister than anything romantic, but the deeper Dan Heng falls in, the more he seems to believe that Kafka is more than that, and that he’s just been delusional for believing Blade. The twins exchange looks that range from incredulous to disgusted to something of pity, and then March starts crying with him, not quite sure what to do.
They all share a group hug, and then Stelle asks him, in that blunt way of hers, “Why weren’t you just honest with him?” And Dan Heng, who had momentarily recovered with one of Caelus’ witty jokes, breaks back into crying, unable to conjure an answer.
March returns home at some point, waving goodbye to Dan Heng, changing her mind, and then running back to hug him again, crying into his shoulder. She sobs something like, “I wish you would feel better, I really do,” or something like that, but Dan Heng starts to tear up despite not fully understanding what she’s saying, and then he’s crying again, somehow. He feels as though he might have to drink a great deal of water after that fiasco.
In bed, now, there’s nothing left to say. No truths meant to be told. He doesn’t have crazy, psychopathic thoughts that Stelle had frankly told him were, “crazy-ex thoughts,” and it is so silent all he can hear is the quiet pitter-patter of Blade’s running, the frantic breaths. Like he was so desperate to get away from Dan Heng. As if he couldn’t stand thinking about Dan Heng any longer, and wanted him out of his sight.
Dan Heng knows better, though. He knows Blade, knows the deep longing he has to hold someone, and maybe that’s why he had played along so much. Not because he didn’t love him, but rather because he loved him enough to want him, to want to hold him as much as he wanted to hold Dan Heng. This quiet revelation, though, is enough to rock his whole world, and so he turns again and squeezes his eyes shut. Bring him back to me, he thinks, but he’s only talking to himself. No more crazy-ex thoughts, he tries to tell himself, and then he’s gripping onto the blankets tighter.
It feels wrong to not be in the same house as him. To not hear him toss and turn in his bed, pretending to be quiet even though Dan Heng is sure his restlessness is because of his own absence. It is just not the same.
-
Perhaps if Blade had known this, he would not have fallen into such a great depression that Yanqing, begrudgedly, had to steal the phone out of his hand to call the contacts of the group chat labeled, Sisters. Kafka and Silver Wolf, the former saying smugly, I told you so, come to Blade’s side at once, though both show little sympathy all in all. Blade glowers at them, and then Yanqing glowers at them, to which Silver Wolf points behind her and says, “What’s his deal?” And Blade, heartbroken, tells her that she’d once beaten him a little too hard at a video game. The fact that she shrugs with a half-hearted, “I don’t remember that,” only makes Yanqing angrier.
Silver Wolf tries to get him to play some games with her, but the moment they stumble across a racing simulator (don’t tell Blade, but Silver Wolf knows he enjoys them the best; he likes to insist he doesn’t, but the truth is she’s sure he plays it willingly in his own time), Blade makes a sound akin to what happens before you throw up, and Silver Wolf shrieks, pulling her controller away. Kafka pities him gently, bringing him glasses of water before he can actually throw up, though the moment he turns to take a sip, she whips out her phone, frantically texting. When she looks back, she finds Blade glaring at her. In the least, she has the sympathy to look sheepish.
“I was just texting Elio,” she explains, though Elio is, in fact, perfectly aware of the situation at hand, and is currently narrating it for them. He did this begrudgingly, alas, as Blade’s thoughts were too conflicting to make a stable statement, while Dan Heng was busy sleeping his ass off after a long night of crying. “Remember how I told you he needs to know about your love life?” Which he doesn’t, really, but he likes to hear about the drama anyway, even when he knows how it works out. In his humble (but, he must say, very accurate) opinion, the real time view is much more entertaining than a script of thoughts to view and places to be. Though he still finds the crying a bit excessive.
“He doesn’t need to know,” Blade mutters, right as always, and he gulps down more water before setting down the glass. Silver Wolf, assured that her controllers will not be damaged by throw up, moves closer to the bed again.
Kafka peers at her phone once again, her expression softening into something more pitiful. When she looks up, Blade flinches away, as if predicting the bad news. “Elio says it was bound to happen. Bladie, I’m sorry… I know…”
“Forget it,” Blade snaps. “I don’t need your pity.” He denies it outright with the energy of a child who will not ask for what they want. The truth is that Blade does not need anyone's pity, but he’d much rather have it; like a cushion at the end of the road, something he can rely on if all else falls.
Kafka places her hand on his. His lip trembles for a few seconds.
“You’re not all that,” Silver Wolf whispers. “You can afford to lose.”
Blade shakes his head.
Elio, seeing this, does not know what else to say. Does he describe the way Blade breaks down in his sisters’ arms, refusing to utter a word? Does he describe what spins around in Blade’s mind, instead, as it holds much more than he lets on? Does he leave it like that, an intimate moment, ruined by nothing but the occasional dry sob?
The truth is, Elio concludes, Blade is a mess. He is a wonderful mess that can fit into any ending.
The truth is, Elio hopes this ending will be the good one.
-
When Dan Heng awakes early in the morning, his heart throbs with the missing presence of Blade. The sun has barely risen when he rises from the bed, throwing the sheets off to slip through the door.
He doesn’t know how to feel when he finds Caelus standing there by the kitchen window, unaware Dan Heng has arrived. When he does notice, however, he offers a small smile, and they stare at each other, unsure of what to do. It feels, for a second, like Caelus has caught Dan Heng red-handed in some sort of act, though Dan Heng hadn’t even been planning anything, and had simply wanted to clear his mind, as if sobering after a long night. Perhaps he would’ve left the house too, whether that be because of Blade, or simply the embarrassment of the events beforehand, like leaving before anyone could see would somehow make them forget what he said.
“Are you feeling better?” Caelus asks, setting down the pan on the low heat. His voice is scratchy from the morning and he clears it shortly after. When he fully turns around, the light cascading from the window illuminates his back, casting a shadow over his face.
Dan Heng shakes his head. “I’m not sure,” he croaks, which is honest and beautiful.
Caelus beams this time, the brightness of his expression almost matching the contrast of the light behind him. “You’ll find him and make things right, won’t you?”
-
They meet outside the house.
One is exiting; the other is entering, and for a moment when they pass, they glance at each other as if they’re two strangers on a public bus, just greeting one another out of politeness. Then Dan Heng grabs ahold of Blade’s sleeve and pulls him, not quite sure what he’s doing until Blade has already stumbled back, almost falling into his arms until his feet are planted firmly on the ground, and the force of the friction slides Dan Heng off his feet into Blade’s arms, as if the whole ordeal had been Blade’s doing instead of Dan Heng’s.
“Dan Heng,” Blade whispers, and Dan Heng whimpers in his arms. “Aeon, you have no clue…” He begins to lean in, eyes still wide open and gaze still locked onto Dan Heng, and then Dan Heng is suddenly blocking his face, pushing Blade’s head away forcefully. When they’re a good distance apart they begin to stare at each other again, Blade’s cheeks flaming hot, Dan Heng’s looking no better.
“I cried so, so much,” Dan Heng blurts into the silence, even though it has only been 2 days. “What have you done to me?”
Blade laughs bitterly, still leaning away. “What have you done to me? Don’t you know how long I cried on that beach?”
Dan Heng glowers. Blade glowers back. Finally, Dan Heng looks away, letting out a little hmph, as if to show he lost on purpose. “I had a great deal to say to you, you know. Now I’m not sure if you should hear it.”
“You set the mood, not me.”
They stare at each other a little longer.
“I’ll never leave you ever again,” Dan Heng breaks, just as Blade begins to say, “Does your back hurt? I feel like it hurts.”
Dan Heng begins to cry at this, burying his face into Blade’s arms, which, in a panic, begin to grip him tighter. “I’m so sorry, Blade, you don’t even know, I just saw you, and you were crying, running, and I’ve never- I’ve never seen you cry before. I was-“
“-I-I’ve cried around you before, I swear I have.” Blade interrupts, to which Dan Heng only sobs harder.
“I tried to make things right, I really did, but then I didn’t know what to do, because technically I owe you nothing, and technically we shouldn’t have anymore ties, I-I mean, it’s like, Yanqing, and like, Yanqing is technically the only thing, I mean, like, shouldn’t we just be- miles apart, or something like that, oh, Aeon.” Dan Heng shakes, half laughing when he hears himself, and Blade, concerned with the picture of Dan Heng with a broken back, straightens him and takes him in a hug instead. “It was just so, so bad, I don’t know how to say sorry, how to fix it, I just needed to see you and then everything would be okay again, and it is- it is.”
“Stop it,” Blade mutters. “Stop that. You sound- you sound…”
“If I had known, if I had just known you had been hurting, I would’ve never… I wouldn’t have… Aeon, Blade, I loved you so much I couldn’t stand being with you any longer.”
“Stop, Dan Heng,” Blade snaps, insistent. Dan Heng buries his face in his chest, shaking his head, letting out short sobs that momentarily break his speech. When he shows no sign of stopping, Blade pushes him away, and Dan Heng lands on the wall adjacent to them. “Stop, I don’t want this.”
“That’s the thing, Blade,” Dan Heng covers his face, nothing left to cry into, and then he’s slowly sliding down, crying on his knees in front of Blade, whose expression is a mix of something horrified and concerned. “You never want it. You never wanted any of it- the talks, the boundaries, anything, you just pranced around and did your shit and it was- it was okay to me because I didn’t really want it either, it made me feel upset to confront it.”
“I never forced you to do anything!” Blade shouts. “You did this to yourself- it isn’t my fault that you, you decided to, and then we-“
“You don’t get it!” Dan Heng sobs, crazed, and Blade crumples in on himself, kneeling down to Dan Heng’s level. “You don’t get it at all, but you’re still doing it, you act like you’re okay, and then you take it back, you take it all back, and I just don’t know how to be honest with you but I want you so bad still, even with all the warnings and the, and-“
“-to Lan themselves, Dan Heng, I don’t pretend to be anything, and if you, if you take that the wrong way then-“
“-Stop!” Dan Heng screams. “Stop it, I know just how much you mourned for me, too, okay? Stop it. I know you better than anyone, and you know it too. You know you love me.”
“Don’t say that like you’re any better,” Blade glares at Dan Heng, who breaks into uncontrollable sobs at his gaze. “You’re obsessed with me. You made me like this, but the moment you see the consequences, you take it all back.”
“I’m sorry,” Dan Heng whispers, and he hiccups somewhere in there, wiping at his eyes. “I just… don’t know how to say I’m sorry. It was just like… everything I said and did that was so important for me just felt like it bounced off of you. And it would just be so normal for you, and you’d prance around like nothing happened, and it made me feel so small, insignificant, I just wanted you to notice me, maybe.”
Blade snorts. “I have never not noticed you.”
“I know, but like,” Dan Heng gestures frustratedly with his hands. “It was just so- so- I broke up because it was too normal to be with you, like every decision we made was just, I don’t know, breakfast, and then despite that, you still treated it like breakfast, waltzed down the stairs like a princess and tried to kiss me. I fell for it, I always do.”
“Dan Heng,” Blade says. “I wasn’t ever trying to act like it didn’t matter. It just doesn’t register for me. I just… want it to be normal, because it’s easier to be normal.”
“Yeah,” Dan Heng mutters. “It’s really easy, huh? And then that day, when I saw you, you just became so un-normal, and I thought we were both crying, but then at the beginning, today, when you dipped me down and then we were gonna kiss, I thought I was wrong again. That it was something else, like maybe you’d had the wrong thing down, and then…”
Blade places both hands on Dan Heng’s shoulders and pulls him close. “I was crying. I would never not have cried. It broke me to see how easy it was for you to act like I didn’t exist.”
“You’ve always existed.”
“Shut up,” Blade snaps. “Today, when I saw you, it was just like turning a page anew, like somehow seeing you snapped me out of whatever depression I was in, Like being woken up from a hypnosis trance.”
“We push and we pull,” Dan Heng says, disappointedly. “I want to ask if we can go back to normal, but for one, I don’t know what normal is to us, and second, I don’t want to be like you and act like this never happened.”
“It did happen. And it’ll most likely happen again,” Blade reassures, which might not sound very assuring with the way Dan Heng glares at him after. “I don’t think I’ll change. I doubt you will either. But I just… I want it to mean something to you.”
“I want it to mean something to you,” Dan Heng pokes Blade’s chest resignatedly. “…Boyfriends again, or do you want to go back to exes?”
“How about husbands?”
“Kill yourself.”
-
Yanqing has had a great deal of disgusted looks in the time he spent with Blade and Dan Heng, but nothing beats the one he makes when he finds out what happened outside the doorstep.
“You didn’t hear us screaming?” Dan Heng asks, to which Yanqing responds, mouth still open and eyes still wide with shock, “I was playing Roblox and raging. Didn’t really have time to listen.”
Yanqing is (fortunately) returned to Jing Yuan, who is simultaneously amused, and, as he describes it, I-knew-this-would-happen-but-it-still-gets-me-every-time-by-the-way-Ren-you’re-such-a-loser. He lets Dan Heng scratch the ears of Mimi, who purrs delightedly and jumps down to brush against his legs despite Jing Yuan’s protests. Yanqing, when leaving, glares behind him, and then proceeds to loudly proclaim to his father that he doesn’t want to stay with them ever again. “I’d rather stay with that crazy guy Luocha,” he whispers, except it’s not quite a whisper since it echoes through the street, and Jing Yuan sheepishly replies, “Don’t say that, you know I’m crushing on him, I can’t have you embarrassing me.”
Later, when they close the door and Blade finishes ringing up Kafka and Silver Wolf (the former sends a congratulations text to Elio, who doesn’t respond because he is mentally recovering from the great work that is narrating a complicated love story), they lay on the dusty couch together to watch the final episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty.
“Will you break up with me this time?” Blade asks, teasingly, and Dan Heng, equally as teasingly, replies, “My ring size is 8, and make sure mine is engraved with Ren, not Blade, because I think I might have to start calling you that if we get engaged.”