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--- 1
Oh, no. Someone is occupying the spot where she usually paints.
Not that she owns the whole cliffside, which takes an hour to climb to and fro with her lugging tools, and has seen rain for the last three days! She has plenty of space to set up her easel and station, and finish the commission, which is due next week, but hasn’t been worked on due mentioned weather. Really, it’s completely fine with her being noticed, and questioned, if the person is curios, and answering questions, and trying not to search for small-talk that doesn’t make her blurt: “I’m so happy the weather is great before I starve from debt!”...
Maybe she should flip a coin like she usually does…
However, before she has a chance to find a coin in her pocket, the man turns. He obviously startles - though his startle is a simple, sudden pause in step and widening of eyes -, but recovers as if he was apologetic for not noticing her ghostly arrival.
“Oh, am I in your way?” his right arm rearranges its metal plating to resemble an arm again. It steals her attention for a second, never before having seen technology so tinker-y, yet, when her eyes meet his, trying to catch her wandering gaze, she composes herself, holding tighter on her sling of tools.
“Uhm, n-no, it’s fine! You weren’t in my way, don’t worry about that. Y-You look to be doing something important here, so I’ll just come back another time…!”
His eyes laugh, giving a gentle, easy demeanor. He shakes his head, his bangs brushing like the gentlest breeze is his lover: “No, no need for that. I just finished and was about to leave.” He shows a data chip as proof before sliding it in his long, white coat’s pocket. It’s the same coat researchers wear in the Jinzhou. She doesn’t know what he might have been doing here, but she probably wouldn’t have understood even if he explained.
With nothing to reply with, he leaves with a goodbye, which she mousily reciprocates, and Zhezhi is left alone. In the quiet solitude, she sets up her station and stares at the half-done work, trying to figure out where she left off.
Distantly, she wonders if she will ever meet the man again - but, with the first stroke of her brush, the stray thought is sealed under a thick layer of oil.
— 2
She doesn’t like standing in front of market stalls. Either she looks like a helpless babe awkwardly circling around to not look obvious (which everyone notices after the second turn), or the stall owners are trying to speed up her decision with a barrage of questions and suggestions. Most often Zhezhi leaves herself and the seller disappointed, where her social capabilities start to crumble when she can’t voice her opinion or make a decision…
Yet this time, she has to stay strong!
Her mind was brainstorming ideas for a still life commission for a client, when, on her walk, she met Verina. The little girl had been taking pictures of a wild honeysuckle brush, and, plying out Zhezhi’s recent concern, she suggested painting a bouquet. “The market has a few, rare seasonal flowers. Maybe one will catch you an idea!” she wisdomly waved Zhezhi off with a happy little skip.
And there are wonderful flowers Zhezhi’s never seen in the wild. Petals with crystal-like reflections, like an artisan spun fine, live glass. Fluffy, snowy imports from the lost city over the breach. Even her personal favorites were in bloom, though their true splendor could be only seen in the dark cave they like to dwell.
Truly - all were so eye-catching, that she had a hard time deciding. And, when she has a hard time deciding…
“Something interests you?” asks the stall owner, making Zhezhi’s heart jump. “The white roses?” her finger tries to catch where Zhezhi’s gaze leaps, “the perillas? Angelicas? Noctemint? Look, look - you have a fine choice here. They come in five colors, take your pick!”
They do come in five colors, but she just can’t choose. Out of fear, she vaguely mumbles out a porridge of words, which rightfully gets interpreted as “I’ll take them all, boss!”, and, next thing she realizes, her hands are full of colorful flowers. She pays, of course, but she came unprepared, with no bag, and the weight and field of vision slightly tilts her off, and–
Her shoulder bumps into someone. Mortified, she whips around to apologize…
But she meets breeze loving strands of hair and eyes that can make a laugh. Recognition shines in them instantly.
“Oh, are you okay?” he steadies her with a warm hand on her arm.
“A-Ah!” she freezes, mouth flapping without her brain to help. “I-I’m so sorry for crashing into you…!”
His eyes again crinkle, kindly; with a smile so gentle, a dandelion is put to shame. “No worries. Nobody’s hurt.” Then, for the first time, his brows furrow, and he asks: “Are you?”
Her mind fizzles, staring at the peculiarly serious expression his face can make: “W… huh?”
“Hurt. Are you hurt?”
“O-Oh! N-No, I’m fine!”
His hand relaxes, leaving her arm. Somehow, spring got a bit chillier. “Glad to hear,” he smiles again, giving a quick once-over her and himself, and around, if anything else was disturbed.
He has nothing in his hands, and looks to be ready to set off with nothing as well - yet something makes him pause, looking at the soles of his shoes. Asking her to wait a moment, he gracefully takes a knee to grab something Zhezhi can’t see over her colorful, spring rainbow. Though she tries to peek, she only sees what he went after when he rises again - and it is one of the dainties flowers that fell out of her bouquet collection. It could have stayed on the ground, and nobody would have minded it being trampled.
“This one fell,” he says. However, he can’t quite find a way to give it back in her full hands.
“T-That’s fine! I think I bought too many, anyway,” she looks at her sorry situation. “Uhm, here,” without much thinking, she offers one of her bouquets.
That stuns him for a second, but he accepts with the kind smile that fits him. Fearing to hear anything else from him, she makes up a lie of needing to be elsewhere and scurries away, hoping to run away from such an embarrassing moment.
Yet she never escapes that memory - because, as she overlooks all the flowers she had bought and made into a workable still-life, she can’t help but save a stem that was the same flower he had picked up for her - leaving it astray, off the vase and the rest of the flowers, not illuminated, but noticeably still in the view.
And, when the commission is long finished (the widow client quite loving the subtle “romantic loneliness” of the piece), she forgets she left the flower in an old sketchbook - the only colorful one among papers full of coal and ink replicas.
— 3
Aside from finding a view to capture on canvas, she doesn’t go out much. Most of her clients - finding about her from word of mouth, because she lacks the confidence to advertise herself more - come to her; and friends - the few that she has - often can’t match her schedule or have busy lives themselves.
However this time, Chixia was determined.
“What are you doing on tuesday?” she demands. Zhezhi couldn’t escape Chixia’s iron grip even if she tried.
“Uhmm, working-?”
“CANCEL!” Chixia instantly cuts her off.
“But I have a debt-”
“Which you’ve been paying off my slaving away at work,” groans Chixia. “Everyday - work. From morning to dusk, skipping meals, forgetting to bathe,” Zhezhi has the decency to be ashamed at that, “and all because of your parents!” She shakes the girl by her shoulders: “Your. Life. Is. Yours! You don’t have to clear their mistakes!”
Zhezhi holds onto her glasses: “B-B-But they d-d-disappeared, and I-I-I am the only one w-w-with my family’s s-s-surname. I’m going to be th-th-thrown into jail, if-f-f I don’t pay off the d-d-debt.”
Chixia sees the conundrum and releases her, throwing up her hands. “God, I hate your parents! Okay, keep avoiding jail, but…” she groans again, and gives a pitying frown at her meek friend, “like… can you take a break for one day? Just one; otherwise you make me concerned every time I don't see you for two weeks straight.”
Zhezhi chews on her lip, but nods. One forced social night wouldn’t hurt, right? It’ll probably have just around five or so people.
The day before, she picks out an outfit. She was taught to at least wear a classy dress for a late dinner night, and, luckily, she, having somehow forgotten to sell it, still owned the one her mother gifted her. Mother had said she would grow into it one day - it was the rarest moment of unbridled kindness. Though the dress doesn’t quite fit, and probably never will, by how little Zhezhi eats now, it still makes her look… presentable. She’s never used the word ‘pretty’ on herself.
On the day, she can’t fully relax - looking for long-forgotten make-up, fussing over her hairstyle, figuring out how she will get to the reservation. Half an hour before the due time, she regrets the heels she decided to wear down the mountain slope, but somehow arrives just in time all the same.
And her imagined, ideal ‘just around five or so people’ are anything but what she sees.
“Zhezhi!” Chixia grabs onto her arm, good at catching Zhezhi before she realizes she wants to escape. “Come in, come in, don’t be afraid!”
As Chixia weaves Zhezhi deeper in the crowd, Zhezhi accepts her fate. She gets planted in a free seat between two talking people, interrupting their conversation.
“Sorry to interrupt!” Chixia proudly gestures at Zhezhi as if she was a prized catch. Zhezhi lowers her shoulders to look even smaller and unnoticable, while Chixia introduces her: “This is Zhezhi. She does very pretty art commissions, but is the hardest thing to catch alive, I swear!”
Zhezhi peeks and, to her left, sits a woman with raven black hair - though, interestingly, one half is covered in feathers; yet Zhezhi can’t keep her eyes on them for too long to figure out if they are more than decorations. To her right, however, as her eyes shift, a metal sheen glints in her eye, and the sight of a tinkering, robot arm lights her heart with familiarity.
She meets his eyes, and they are already smiling. “Good evening,” he greets.
The woman by her left also politely greets, but Chixia suddenly gasps and drags the woman away, saying she spotted someone leaving, and the woman had to meet them before they disappeared. Awkwardly, Zhezhi is left to fill the conversation.
“So your name is Zhezhi,” Zhezhi startles at how piqued the man says her name. He wears a black sleeve shirt, tied by a deep purple tie, and beige grey pants. Comparing the two of them among the crowd, they look as if they missed the dress code - everyone else has casual t-shirts and hoodies with loafers, while they two look to be ready for classical theater.
“I see I wasn’t the only one to miss the mark,” he remarks on the same thought and, while she looks embarrassed, he laughs it off. “Oh well, it’s nice to take out the fancy stuff here and there. That dress really suits you.”
She pinches her silk hem under the table: “T-Thank you, uhm…”
“Xiangli Yao,” his name is finally revealed. He fits his chin on his metallic knuckle: “Meeting thrice must be something, huh.”
She lets a shy smile slip on her lips, feeling easy: “That is something. You know Chixia too?”
“Ah, I’m more of a friend of a friend. I know Mortefi, who knows Baizhi, who knows Chixia,” nobody she knows. “I got… tangled up. You?”
“Chixia said I was working too much and, uhm, forced me to take a break,” she taps her thumbs, looking at the lacquered wood of the table. “I’m… not that social.”
“That’s fine, I work too much too. Outside my sphere of colleagues,” he glances around the numerous groups of people, a self-deprecating smile, “I’m a lost cause myself.”
At that moment, Chixia drops in, sliding a lemon cake slice under Zhezhi’s nose. “Eat!” she commands, and turns to Xiangli Yao with a wink, “it’s her favorite.” Then gives him a slice too and promptly latches onto her next victim.
The cake under her reminds her that she left home on an empty stomach, so she picks up her fork rather excitedly - only, then she notices Xiangli Yao wasn’t paying attention to his cake.
“Do you not… like lemon cake?” she asks. “It doesn’t taste as it’s named… though there is lemon in it.”
At that, he laughs. Truly; not with just his eyes. “Oh, I’m just not that much of a sweets enthusiast.”
“Oh,” she looks at the cake that always brings her a little bit of joy whenever everything seems bleak.
Her expression must have been a depressings sight because Xiangli Yao quickly straightens his back. “Ah, but I’ve never tried,” he picks up his fork with his metal arm. The contrasting sheen of the metals give off a mesmerizing, beautiful sparkle. Only his question takes her out of the trance: “Is it good?”
Her eyelashes flutter, sure to have been caught staring, but, believing ignorance, she tries to act as normal as she can.
He takes only two bites and gives the rest to her, but says he enjoyed it anyway. The rest of the night, he said he enjoyed more.
— 4
As clumsy as she is, it isn’t a wonder she, on occasions, gets hurt. Often it is a mystery bruise she must have gotten by bumping into her chairs or walls while hauling a huge canvas.
Yet this time, she got bitten. Actually bitten.
All of it happened in a flash - a normal outing with Chixia, made into accompanying Baizhi to a research camp, which led to a surprise encounter with a wolfish Tacet Discord, who moved too fast to evade, and sank its teeth into Zhezhi’s thigh.
She stares at the puncture wounds. About four to six holes, slowly oozing her blood, being patched by Baizhi’s concentrated fingers. Zhezhi doesn’t feel any hurt or discomfort, but she’s advised by Baizhi to come back to Jinzhou to get a vaccine shot. It’s the first she’s ever heard of needing a shot, yet complies, because the other option is dying of a possible disease.
Chixia acts like a guard the whole way back. They don’t get a vehicle, but Baizhi makes Zhezhi ride her mythical creature to make the trip back less exhausting. Soon off, she’s grateful for that, because the slow sting starts to creep in, and she enjoys the pleasant coolness Baizhi’s companion gives off. When at Jinzhou, Baizhi decides to lead them straight to her workplace.
“Since I can do it, you won’t have to wait in line for someone to administer the shots. I’ll need to take some blood samples as well,” she speaks so clearly, that there isn’t room to argue.
At the research center, their trio sticks out like a sore thumb for fleeting glances, yet nobody dares to question. Everyone, except two men - one of which Zhezhi knows by name, but hasn't seen in a long while.
Their eyes meet; and his immediately turn from surprise, to her gauze wrapped leg, to concern. “What happened here?” he tries to keep his voice level.
“Tacet accident,” replies Baizhi, her attention turning to the man with red hair and glasses, “I’m going to administer her a vaccine shot. Were they in the bacteria lab or the vaccine fridge?”
The man sighs: “Vaccine fridge, but you can’t just go and grab them. I’m coming with you.”
“I’ve done this before,” Baizhi follows him with a prickly stride, their conversation growing distant.
Chixia hovers around Zhezhi, shrugging: “Eh, you’re in good hands. Sorry, that this walk turned so… south. Are you feeling okay? No fever?”
Zhezhi shakes her head. There’s only a slight stain starting to color through the white cloth. “I’m fine. Not a fan of needles, but if it’s quick…”
“Ugh, same here. But really, you’re in good hands - Baizhi has done this to me multiple times.” That just makes Zhezhi more concerned about Chixia’s self-preservation.
“You got scratched or bitten?” comes over Xiangli Yao. He hovers closer to see the wound, and it’s the closest Zhezhi has ever gotten to being to him. Lightly, she can smell an electric, brass scent on him.
“Bitten…” she mumbles. He sighs with a soft grimace. Their gazes catch once more, but she can’t quite read his well controlled expression.
Baizhi’s beast rumbles like a wind chime at Baizhi’s return. “Okay, if you’re so concerned, you can stay and watch,” she finishes slipping on her gloves and holds out her hand at Mortefi.
“It’s procedure,” he hands her a white plastic packet, which she rips open, “paperwork is paperwork.” He turns his attention to Zhezhi, while Baizhi petulantly looks to the side, crowding over to the already tight crowd. “I’ll ask you some medical questions if you don’t mind, miss Zhezhi. We’ve already pulled up your medical records,” he morphs up a display hologram and, as Baizhi opens the gauze to clean her wound, Zhezhi is left with no option but to comply.
It’s an unfamiliar territory to walk - never having felt so many people genuinely worried about her well-being. Everyone reacts differently, and she’s left wondering how she should respond. Is she too unresponsive, is she unreciprocated? This has never happened to her, nor has it ever crossed her mind.
At the end of the procedure and questions, she signs a paper, agrees to come by tomorrow to get the second shot, and, assuring that she can walk, stands outside the science hangar, looking around. Though she was just discharged, she’s never been on this side of Jinzhou, so she, out of habit, observes all that she can, while she can.
“Will you get home on your own?” Chixia’s concerned voice startles her.
“Oh, uhm,” she touches her cheek nervously. The leg just slightly aches, considering the wound and probable scar she was left with. “I’ll manage.”
“Wanna come crash at my place?” she shrugs. “I don’t have much room, but I can sleep on the floor.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that to you!” exclaims Zhezhi. Her home on the mountain is far, and it is late, but she could never push her friend out of her own bed.
“You can come to my place,” a sudden offer comes from Xiangli Yao, as immediate as if he had considered it long enough to say it with surety, “it’s not far. Tomorrow I'll drive you back here for the second shot, even.”
She’s stuck gaping at him for the nth time. Chixia, on the other hand, exclaims with giddy joy, clapping her hands and pointing at him: “Xiangli Yao - you are a genius.”
He smirks a bit, obvious of the jibe. “So I’ve heard.”
“I-I-I couldn’t possibly…!” Zhezhi tries to find her words.
“It’s totally fiiine, Zhezhi!” leisurely convinces Chixia. “I’ve crashed at this gentleman’s place numerous times.”
“It’s true,” nods along Xiangli Yao, “she is like a stray that comes and goes.”
“Yep, yep. The room service is-” she kisses her fingers; Zhezhi’s unsure from which district she got that gesture nor what it means, “-and includes free breakfast.”
To that, Xiangli Yao adds another nod with a smile. Their gazes meet once again, staying there. Wordlessly, he manages to convince her with the gentle, kind eyes that can smile more than anyone she has ever met, and she surprises herself by agreeing to, for the first time in her life, stay at a home that’s not her own.
That was also the first time she had ever ridden a motorcycle, as well. The late night lights of Jinzhou flying past her - she dreamt of them in a bed that smelled of thunderstorm and lightning.
– 5
She wakes. A pure limblessness has taken over her - the pureness of the most rested sleep she has gotten in a long while. The overhead roof windows have morning light casting through them, just bright and creeping enough to threaten waking her themselves. She lazily shuffles in her sheets, rubbing her eyes, scratching her neck, feeling the soft, oversized shirt on herself.
Wait…
A knock on the door makes her jump up in the bed.
“Zhezhi?” a soft voice asks. “Are you awake?”
“I- uhm, I am…!” she blinks around the industrial room. The center of Jinzhou apartments, as she’s heard, don’t have much personality on their own, but their owners usually make up for the lack of it. Yesterday was too dark and hectic for her to notice how much… science was scattered in every corner possible.
“May I enter?” Xiangli Yao asks.
Quickly, as if he would intrude without her consent, she pats over her disheveled self, and groans that she can’t even keep the sheets straight - three fourths are practically draping off the bed, and she somehow never woke up from the cold! As swiftly as she can, she grabs at everything like a liferack and hauls it over herself, clearing her throat and yelling: “You can!”
He opens the doorway and leans in - “Like a gentleman!” Chixia’s disembodied voice likes to remind Zhezhi - and, taking in her appearance, cracks an easy smile. He himself wears gray slacks and a black t-shirt, bare feet. His hair, to her own amusement, is sticking around as if the same breeze that once loved him, caught him cheating.
“I’m making breakfast,” he informs, “do you want anything specific?”
“Wha…!” Zhezhi - without thought, just provocation - throws off the sheets and lets her feet touch the cold floor. She gets up, reaching for her yesterday clothes she hung over his chair. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to stay so long!” she finds her white, tattered, blood-stained stockings…
And looks down. Bare legs. Nothing to shield her but the t-shirt Xiangli Yao gave to her yesterday.
Spinning, loss of words, she looks to Xiangli Yao - who stares at her. His eyes jump thrice - from her face, to her legs, to back to her face. She thinks he will turn away, closing the door - but he doesn’t.
Instead, he straightens and asks: “How’s your leg?”
His voice tries to be clinical, but is deeply weaved with worry - so much so, that she looks down at her wound as well and forgets her previous embarrassment. Lightly touching it, she feels the simmering heat of an aching yet healing wound: “It slightly hurts…”
He hums: “I have medical equipment. We can dress it again before we leave for your shot.”
She finds herself unable to argue: “Ah, that would be… thank you…”
He smiles again at her and draws away, leaving the doorway open, saying: “So yes to breakfast?”
Zhezhi looks back at her stockings: “Breakfast sounds… nice. Anything is fine.”
“Pancakes it is, then,” his voice recedes, before yelling a final time, “there are shorts in the drawer!”
After finding the correct drawer, slipping into the forgotten slippers, quietly padding down the stairs, and navigating to the kitchen, she’s met with Xiangli Yao pouring batter into a sizzling pan. A delicious looking stack is already rising, and these must be the last few left to fry. On the dining table a bit too family-looking for one person’s living, she sees a med-kit box and scissors.
Xiangli Yao gives her a glance before expertly flipping the pancake with just the pan. “You can sit at the table. I’ll come over in a moment.”
She pads to a chair that looks to never be used and sits down. With nothing to do, she pops open the medical box and takes out a fresh roll of gauze and cleaning water. Taking the scissors, however, seems a bit too far for her, so she waits, looking around the quaint place. Unlike her place, it is uncluttered with canvases or smeared with color. An odd, lifeless machine here, a framed achievement there - somehow, it reminds her of a polished shack more than a home. Yet, leaning low in her seat to get a peek at the open doorway and into the hall leading into a bright living space, she still wonders of what she could find in other rooms.
The stove beeps, dishware clinks, and Xiangli Yao comes over with a plate of thin, stacked pancakes. He sets it all aside for now, saying to her that they should dress her wound first. Silently, she watches him scoot closer, rolling up the shorts she is wearing, and explain everything that he does. She still doesn’t know what field of science he has studied, but, if he explains in such detail, he must know them all.
Freshly dressed, she’s released from his hold and urged to eat however many pancakes she wants. “Sorry for not having syrup,” he must feel guilt for the first time for not having an overly sweet condiment.
She shakes her head, drizzling sugar on her pancake: “Oh, n-no! Thank you for letting me stay the night. And for the clothes. And food. And taking care of my wound… You know what, I think I should walk to the clinic myself…”
He laughs at that, rolling his pancake and cutting it: “I don’t mind giving you a ride. Can't escape work, anyway.”
As Zhezhi swallows her bite, it feels more as if she swallowed a giant rock. It falls on her stomach, making her queasy with guilt, turning her body into a burden. She’s been alone for so long, that she’s forgotten how it feels to sit on someone else’s shoulders.
“But,” her trembling words escape her, “won’t I… trouble you?”
He stops. His eyes make sure to stare at her - straight as a laser, strong as steel. “Zhezhi,” he says her name, however, with the delicate care of preening a rose, “you wouldn’t trouble me at all. Far from it.”
She stares back.
“Far from it,” he repeats. Then, for the first time, shyly glances away, his cheeks lightly tinting, “actually, I wouldn’t mind if you trouble me more often.”
Her lashes flutter multiple times - with each blink, his face becomes redder and redder; up his ears and down his neck.
And it’s such a pure moment, that she lets a smile - the easiest, happiest smile she has ever felt - bloom on her lips. Here, sitting in a home she would like to explore more, questioning this man about his job and metal arm to quell her curiosity, getting lost in his eyes the color of rare petals and hair she would love to brush her fingers in…
“I’m happy I met you more than once.”