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There was something quite beautiful about the sun set in Liyue.
Calming oranges and salmon pink washed over Yanfei’s desk window, prompting her to prop a chin on her palm to bask in the quiet glow of its beauty. The children of Liyue laughed like muffled bells along its streets, and Yanfei could feel the tiredness seeping into her bones the longer she listened to them and the accompanying marketmen shouting today’s specialities. If she inhaled hard enough, she supposed she could smell the fried radish balls tempting its passerbys.
Her body had adjusted to the hours of the sun a long time ago. Once those warm colours became muted by the overcast of the night, she knew that it wouldn’t be long for her to pack up and get a night’s rest.
She sighed, fluttering her eyes closed to take a quick breather from the pile of paperwork gathering in the center of her desk. Only a couple more hours, she told herself, and she could go home and cook some tofu and brush up on section twenty-seven, chapter two, lines—
“BOO!”
Yanfei yelped (or rather, screamed, more like), and nearly fell backwards on her chair.
There was an immediate eruption of laughter, and Yanfei righted her balance to fix her hat and puff out a frustrated sigh, her eyes boring straight into the eccentric 77th Director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. At least, Yanfei remembered it to be the 77th. Was it the 77th? Oh, she should go check.
“How did you manage to sneak in here?” she asked instead, filing her musings away into the back corner of her mind to pluck out later. She laid the pads of her fingers on her chest, willing her heart to slow to its natural beat. “You nearly scared me to death!”
“Now, that would be great for my business if I did though, hmm?” Hu Tao chirped in response. Well. She did walk into that one, she guessed. “I just walked in. I thought I could save you the act of knocking.”
Hu Tao’s bright eyes never failed to diminish under her scrutiny, but they both knew that there were truly no hard feelings between them. After all, even Yanfei couldn’t keep herself from entertaining her with a slight quirk of the lips. Hu Tao merely giggled, then made her way across her desk to sit down on the chair reserved for Yanfei’s clients.
“Do you need anything?” Yanfei finally asked, the spike in her blood pressure finally settling down. Her brow furrowed in mild concern. “Is everything okay?”
“Well, you’re a legal advisor,” Hu Tao began, the last of her giggles dissipating as she swatted at practically thin air. “And I need, well, your specialty— legal advising.”
Yanfei huffed, then moved the paperwork aside to pull her inkwell closer to her, dipping the feather as a kind of fidgeting move as Hu Tao handed her a thin slip of paper. She flipped it and squinted down, recognizing it as an advertisement to Hu Tao’s respective business. There was nothing wrong with it, as far as she could see anyway.
Her eyes flicked back up to Hu Tao. Seeing the sheepish grin on her face made Yanfei sigh, and everything finally clicked into place. “Did you get in trouble with the Millelith again?”
Hu Tao nodded almost enthusiastically, eyes sparkling at Yanfei’s quick perception. But then she frowned, just by a fraction, while leaning forward to tell her, “I know I’m no lawyer by any means, but I know the law well enough! I wasn’t doing anything illegal, and I don’t understand why those stupid Millelith guards think that me trying to keep my business in check is such a hindrance to—”
“And I agree!” Yanfei said hastily. She set Hu Tao’s bright red funeral advertisement down on her desk, lacing her fingers together to twiddle them aptly. She wasn’t lying by any means either. She was just, well… “I completely understand, Hu Tao. After all, your case isn’t the first of its kind I’ve had the stickler to deal with. Even just take last week for example! I had to dispute a case between two gentlemen in Liyue Harbor because one assumed the other had committed embezzlement on the word of… of his cat, I think it was? And then just a day before that, I—” She grimaced, swallowing the rest of her monologue when Hu Tao simply smiled plainly at her. “It’s just that, you know…”
She shifted uncomfortably under Hu Tao’s innocent gaze. She even tilted her head to the side inquisitively, blinking owlishly at Yanfei. “What?”
“Well, this is the first time in a while you’ve come to my office for legal advice,” Yanfei finally answered, shrugging helplessly at Hu Tao. “I’m more than happy to see you, I feel like I haven’t seen you since Zhongli had that gripe with the toy maker— I’m just confused as to what prompted you, that’s all,” she continued honestly. Her twiddling thumbs slowed down a little.
If anything, she was a bit relieved to see Hu Tao. She had gone to think that the director had found some other advisor to take care of her business, or thought that she wasn’t suitable enough to do it herself. She’d spent some days holding a slight grudge against her for it, even.
Though, in all honesty, Yanfei just wished she got to hear one of Hu Tao’s quick-tongued slam poetry again, and she was much too busy in her office to go out at night to watch her clashes with Xingqiu. As eccentric as everyone knew her to be, Hu Tao had a brilliant effect on her when it came to creativity.
Hu Tao just giggled. She leaned back on her chair, rubbing her hands over her rings as she answered, “Why, a little birdie told me!”
Yanfei scrunched her face at that. Little birdie? Like an actual bird? Wait, but Hu Tao couldn’t speak to birds. She was obviously talking about someone else, more like. But who would tell her to come see Yanfei? Yanfei didn’t remember speaking to anyone about her, though the traveller did once ask her about—
“Lumine told you to come see me?” Yanfei asked, almost in disbelief.
Hu Tao nodded, her cat-like smile lazily stretched onto her lips. Her hands moved down her wrists, fingers deftly playing with the insides of her sleeves. “Not exactly in those words,” Hu Tao hummed. “She just told me you sounded a little exasperated at me for not coming to you. So here I am!”
Yanfei blinked. “Well. Thank you?” She meant it to sound sincere, though it came out more like a reluctant question. She cleared her throat and started again. “I mean, thank you. Though, if you really don’t need the counselling, I wouldn’t put it against you not to come here. You already seem capable enough of handling these things on your own, and I’d feel like dead weight if I was just rehashing details about your cases that you already—”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Hu Tao insisted. She waved a hand in Yanfei’s general direction. “The only reason why I haven’t been coming here was because I forgot that I could come here! But now that I got this teensy problem cropping up again, I would reallyyy really like some advice from you.”
“I see,” Yanfei said. She chewed on her bottom lip and glanced back down at Hu Tao’s advertisement paper. Her mind turned like the windmills her father used to show her on their outings, spinning faster and steadier as she let her lips loose to spill out everything already ingrained into her mind. “Well, section seventy-four of the standard Liyue handbook on advertising law states that our laws prohibit representations to the public, to promote a product or any business interest, that is false or misleading in a material respect. However, yours clearly depicts a discernible advertisement on your completely legal— and needed , might I add— service. You are doing nothing wrong by promoting your work in this way, as it is neither false nor abusive to the law in any regard. I suppose the only defense the Millelith could take against you is that it is abhorrent in nature, though you could argue and win in the evidence you have that you are not depicting your enterprise to be offensive.”
She took a deep breath, then released it in one relieved sigh. She smiled to herself, then focused her eyes upward to Hu Tao.
Curiously, Hu Tao was smiling back at her.
Usually, her long whirlwind of a basic rundown of her cases made people ask her for a simpler explanation, or people would just end up staring at her in obvious confusion. Yet here was Hu Tao, nodding and still smiling, full with her eyes, as she said, “Ah, thank you! I wasn’t sure if they’d use a defense like that, but you’ve cleared it up for me in a snap of your fingers. I’ll be sure to back up my case with that then.”
Then she stood up, dusting off invisible specs on her jacket, and hollered, “The Wangsheng Funeral Parlor will send mora directly to you in two business days, plus a bonus ten percent for your quick advice!”
“Wait!” Yanfei yelled after her. She stood up from her chair, meaning to follow Hu Tao as she hummed and giggled her way out of her door, but she was already a dozen steps ahead of her and Yanfei’s poor tired bones were already too tired of hurriedly walking around all day. “Hu Tao, wait! I was gonna say you didn’t need to pay— I was just helping you out as a friend!”
Hu Tao was already long gone down the streets of Liyue, and Yanfei deflated. Maybe next time, she assured herself. She really didn’t want Hu Tao to spend any more mora than she had to, especially for such a simple piece of advice. They were friends, technically, and Yanfei bid it fair to do such simple things for her friends.
Wait.
Are they friends?
The sudden thought crossed Yanfei’s mind like a flash flood, and she worried that Hu Tao’s sudden disappearance from her place meant that she wanted to get out of Yanfei’s presence as soon as possible. It made her toss and turn again that night, as it always did (rarely a night did she knock out in a quick whim like her old man), replaying her encounter with Hu Tao over and over until it felt like a scratch record. Was she mad? Did she grimace at Yanfei? Did she look bored? Was she glancing around to find a way out?
Though no matter how many times she scrutinized their encounter, nothing put a damper on Director Hu’s radiant eyes.
She came back the very next day, around the very same time.
Liyue’s skyline was painted with a broad stroke of reds and oranges, and Yanfei couldn’t help but stretch and yawn at the sight of it. Her day was quite unproductive, save for a couple counselling sessions between clients about petty matters such as their expired licenses and cards.
Thankfully, today, Hu Tao saved her from another scare. She knocked on the door this time, and Yanfei yanked it open to see her on her front steps with a plate of hot tofu in her hands. Hu Tao’s proud smile automatically put her at ease.
“Tao,” Yanfei said, her shoulders slumping, “are you in trouble with the Millelith again?”
Hu Tao laughed, deep and blithely. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Yanfei stepped aside to let her in, and Hu Tao gratefully came indoors to set the dish down on a circular table in the corner of Yanfei’s office. Her tilted head towards the small table set invited Yanfei to move and sit down in one of the chairs, Hu Tao sitting directly across from her, mirroring her movements.
“No, but seriously,” Yanfei said solemnly, glancing at the tofu then back to Hu Tao. A part of her really wanted to give into her animalistic desires to chow down on the tofu right then and there, but she held herself back, no matter how much her stomach ached and her mouth drooled at the sight of it. “Did something happen with the Millelith?”
“Nope!” Hu Tao said cheerfully. She pulled out another plate from underneath the tofu and one of the two forks settled beside the dish, then pushed it towards Yanfei. She halved the tofu as she continued, “They were a bit… testy, I guess, but they relented after I brought up the fact that it was your advice that I was repeating.”
“Really?” Yanfei exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. Her good mood only lifted when she saw that Hu Tao had split the tofu unevenly. Only a third was plopped onto Hu Tao’s plate, and the rest was hers for the taking. She had to swallow to stop herself from drooling. Then she glanced back to the director and said, “I’m glad for it. I would have been more than happy to see them myself, but it’s nice seeing things like this get resolved quicker than usual. Are you sure you don’t want more?”
“Ah, I’m more of a steamed fish person,” Hu Tao said with a grin. “Consider this my apology for nearly scaring you to death yesterday.”
“Apology taken,” Yanfei said with a chuckle. She put some tofu in her mouth and bit back the urge to close her eyes and spiral into its loving embrace. It tasted warm and good and heavenly. “Just… don’t make it a habit. Please. You can’t exactly sneak around a half-adepti with a pyro vision without expecting at least one singed off eyebrow.”
Hu Tao hummed. “No promises. But we’ll see. We’lllllll see.”
Yanfei rolled her eyes. Her twitching lips betrayed her amusement. Hu Tao didn’t once touch her food, instead electing to watch intently as Yanfei delighted every delicious mouthful of tofu that came into contact with her taste buds. She was smiling at Yanfei, blabbering on about her encounter with Liyue’s prestigious military force with exaggerated hand motions and deep voices mimicking the military men that got Yanfei to belly laugh with her whole heart.
Each piece of tofu fed into her mouth felt like heaven on a plate, and Hu Tao eventually gave her her own plate and cited that she was much too full from a leftover feast from a funeral the night before to eat some more. Even with Yanfei’s protests about being a rude host for taking all of Hu Tao’s food of hospitality, she relented eventually when the window next to them helped the waft of her favourite food blow straight into her face.
Hu Tao giggled joyfully as she dug in, her eccentric eyes never leaving hers while she continued on to a story about a cat ghost she had to lead into the afterlife. Yanfei knew that the constant staring was supposed to unease her, much like how her clients had warned her of the director’s habits, but somehow it made the tofu taste just a bit homier, like she could taste every ingredient Hu had apologetically catered into her meal.
She had to remember to let Hu Tao scare her more often, just subtly, just so that she could get a taste of this again.
In fact, the warm feeling in her stomach had settled on her stomach even long after the tofu had cooled down, and Yanfei had to wonder what kind of magic Hu Tao imbued it with.
“Oh! Did you like my cooking that much?” Hu Tao teased, pointing a ringed finger at the empty plate in front of Yanfei.
Yanfei groaned, her stomach feeling pleasantly full, and she slumped back against her chair and stretched. She nodded, causing Hu Tao and her to giggle, then she said, “Hu Tao, if you’re going to bother me working for the justice of Liyue just to bring me a tofu meal, you could consider it payment for your next two appointments with me.”
Hu Tao’s eyes glittered as she said, “Really?”
“Yes, really!” Yanfei laughed and straightened her back, leaning forwards a little towards Hu Tao. “I haven’t had something that homemade in a while. I’ve been kinda busy with the whole recession in the market and all,” she admitted.
Hu Tao mirrored her, leaning forwards across the table to smile coyly. “Well…”
It was the oddly apprehension tone in her voice that piqued her interest. She perked up at that. “Well?” Yanfei prodded.
“Well,” Hu Tao began with a dramatic sigh. She leaned back against her chair, drawing her feet up and hugging them to her chest. She drummed her fingers on her knees. Usually, Yanfei wouldn’t allow such boorish manners in her office, but she supposed she could make an exception— just this once, of course. “I got the whole advertisement situation underwraps, thanks to you. But I do have a teensy, little problem with that tea vendor in Qingce Village, uh— what’s his name? It started with a—?”
“Pops Kai?” Yanfei supplied helpfully.
“Pops Kai!” Hu Tao snapped her fingers in recognition. She gave Yanfei a grin. “He wants to sue me for allegedly damaging his tea shipment!”
“What?” Yanfei stood up, startled. “Cases like those have a twenty-four hour cooldown period, Hu Tao! If he doesn’t have the evidence, no one can give you any offences, obviously, but the implications are still there, and if he does happen to even have a shred of proof that you did a criminal transgression, it could result in a hybrid offence jury with—”
“I know, I know!” Hu Tao said haughtily. She held her hands out to calm Yanfei down, gesturing her to sit back down, then smiled apologetically. “Aiya, I should have led with something less harsh, huh?”
“You’re telling me,” Yanfei said with a huff. She took three deep breaths, the same way her father taught her, and held out a hand to motion Hu Tao to continue. “Sorry, that was a bit unprofessional,” she apologized genuinely.
Hu Tao seemed giddy though. She teased, “Aw, you didn’t have to be that worried about me!”
Yanfei had to fight to keep the stammer out of her words. “I— hey! I was just— you know, trying to be a good friend!” Sadly, she failed in that regard, but she guessed that if you win some, you lose some. And then she panicked for a second, wondering if Hu Tao would hate her for calling her a friend, because Oh dear Celestia above, please don't let Hu Tao hate me, please don't—
Hu Tao giggled at her deliberate defense, then waved a hand lazily in the air as if dispelling the tension. “It’s not as bad as you think,” she promised. “I just wanted your advice on… what do you call it? Defamation, I think that’s what Zhongli said, that’s all.”
Yanfei cocked her head to the side. “Just advice?” she repeated uncertainly. “You don’t have to be so modest around me, if it’s an on the field case I’m more than happy to give you a big discount if it’s mora you’re worried about.”
“Of course not,” Hu Tao said patiently, her easy-going smile helping Yanfei to calm the tension in her shoulders. “Just your advice! And then I could take it from there. I could take you out on a date around the harbor as a bonus,” she joked.
There was a beat of silence. “If you insist,” Yanfei settled on saying. She was still unsure— because honestly, the thought of Hu Tao trying to represent in court was a little bone chilling— but she trusted that she knew what she was doing.
She went on a whole ramble about the hybrid and summary offence system that the Tianquan herself had to oversee, slightly getting off track here and there with commentary on her thoughts about the ins and outs of the jury system, though Hu Tao didn’t seem even mildly bothered by it like her other clients used to be. Usually, they’d clear their throats in mild annoyance, and some had even gone as far as to wave their hand uncomfortably in front of her to remind her of the topic on hand (no pun intentional on her part).
But instead, Hu Tao had folded her arms over the table and propped her chin over it, looking up at Yanfei as she spoke with a kind smile never leaving her face. Her colourful eyes not once tore away from her, as if she was silently showing Yanfei that she was aptly listening to every word like they were the secrets to Celestia.
It made Yanfei quite a bit curious. Although, she presumed that it was because Hu Tao had to pay to listen to her advice, no matter how often she got off track. Yes. That should be why.
At the end of her overview and thoughts of the situation, she cleared her throat and took a sip of water at her side, parched from the long speech that had taken them from sunset to clear night.
“Are there any burning questions on your mind?” she asked, extending the metaphorical mic to Hu Tao. She usually got a “Nope, we’re good!” from her clients, their weak smiles giving away to their exhaustion to the counselling, but she knew better than to underestimate Hu Tao.
And as such, Hu Tao merely stood up and waved happily at her, chirping, “Nope! That cleared everything up. Thank you so much, Yanfei!” and Yanfei had trouble finding any kind of insincerity in her tone.
Then she was out the door without another word, despite Yanfei’s jumbled protests.
Just like last time.
Last time, it was easy for Yanfei to brush it off as one of Hu Tao’s eccentric behaviors. She guessed that well, technically, she still could, but twice usually wasn’t an indicative of a coincidence.
She tossed and turned that night, more than usual.
Why was Hu Tao going to her like this and leaving like that?
Was she scouting Yanfei out for something?
Could Hu Tao sense her impending death?
Oh Archons, did a deceased loved one tell her something embarrassing and now Hu Tao wanted to see the resemblance in the family, for her own amusement before she worked a night shift?
Yanfei groaned, tossed a pillow over her head, and silently screamed into it. She thought of Hu Tao and thought of every little action or words that could be evidence of something, anything, but came up with nothing each time.
She found it hard to antagonize Hu Tao, though. Not when every time she replayed their moments together, Yanfei could only see that sunny, honest smile of hers.
It happened again at sunset, as if Hu Tao was on a personal clock.
This time, she came to say that her situation with Pops Kai wasn’t resolved “exactly”, but her advisor Zhongli was on the case and she was free for the rest of the day. She held up papers with her poetry as an offering, and Yanfei beamed, ushering her inside.
Hu Tao read them out to her while Yanfei mindlessly signed or checked off the papers on her desk, humming in approval to the light-hearted ones and making faces at the morbidly grim ones, both to which Hu Tao would giggle and make a spectacle of her work.
“Oh, I think you’d like this one,” Hu Tao said happily. “I wrote this one with Xingqiu. I’m not usually one to write down slam poetry, but I thought this one would make you happy.”
Yanfei’s pen scratched noisily on the paper. She should open the window. It’s warm indoors. And humid. Yeah, she should definitely do that sooner than later.
“What grounds do you have to support that it would make me happy?” Yanfei said incredulously, because she had no other way to respond to that.
“I just do!” Hu Tao insisted. She unruffled the paper and cleared her throat, then began on a slightly melodramatic rendition of the point of view of a ladybug, cherishing the sweet flower it landed on.
She rolled up her parchment two poems later, then recited some favourites from memory that even Yanfei had heard of on the street. Yanfei concentrated on them nonetheless, no matter how morbid she remembered some to be, because having Hu Tao personally recite them to her felt like an honor that she selfishly hoped no one else could have.
After that, Hu Tao blurted out that she came over for legal advice too, because neither she nor Zhongli knew anything of what Pops Kai’s words about the law meant.
It was a little odd, Yanfei noted, that some of those terms she had heard of Hu Tao use against the disgruntled Millelith in passing as she walked down the street, yet she asked Yanfei to describe each word as if she was first hearing of them.
Maybe Hu Tao was just forgetful, she insisted in her mind. Yet the fact remained that Hu Tao had recited exactly twelve poems to her in one sitting alone.
Hu Tao was out the door soon after Yanfei had finished her spiel, promising that she’d bring double the mora for such short notice, leaving Yanfei yet again to dwell on every detail of their interaction. Seriously— what was she doing so wrong? She couldn’t figure it out for the life of her, and it was eating at her like bugs to rotten meat.
The next day, Hu Tao showed up on her doorstep with pink plum blossoms, excitedly telling her that she passed them and it reminded her cheerfully of Yanfei’s hair.
“Maybe we could put it in that silly hat of yours,” Hu Tao told her, grabbing at said hat. Yanfei dodged her hands with a laugh. “Archons know it needs it.”
“Like yours is any better,” Yanfei shot back. “Who sticks plum blossoms as an accessory? Doesn’t it get old?”
“I do! And as if you’d know about getting old. You know how I know you’re not just friends with me for my friendship discounts at the parlor? You’re—”
“Low blow, Tao!”
They spent the day arguing about what hat accessories were superior. Hu Tao kept swiping at the coin attached to her hat, and Yanfei kept trying to read the talisman front and center on hers. It turned into a whole out cat fight, which left them panting and giggling and resting against Yanfei's wooden desk as if they went to war.
And then they spent the rest of the day chatting and laughing, exchanging each other's hats to admire and begrudgingly compliment. Maybe plum blossoms did suit Hu Tao's porkpie hat, though she thought that maybe it was because it suit Hu Tao herself. Bright, colourful, and warming, just like the way her heart blossomed akin to that flower in her chest whenever Hu Tao's deft hands slid along her forearm as they joked and teased.
Much to her (very very very mild, she kept saying, very mild) dismay, Hu Tao cut their chatter short with a proclamation that she needed Yanfei's services again, pausing dramatically in the meantime. It made Yanfei's neck flare in warm embarrassment, but Hu Tao, oblivious to where her overactive mind had gone to, grinned and continued, "Advice from the greatest advice lender in Liyue! I suspect someone's been trying to break into the parlor to grave rob but I need to know how to go about it."
Her casual demeanor about such an appalling subject almost made Yanfei laugh. She did laugh in the end, when Hu Tao joked that the petty thief would probably end up grabbing more hair rather than jewelry. She'd seen too many awful cases like this in her lifetime to be truly perturbed by it, and she felt warm beyond relief that Hu Tao was the same way. Respectful and seeking out what was best for people, but lighthearted enough to crack jokes the way they did.
After she gave Hu Tao some pointers on evidence and accusations, Hu Tao got up from the floor, dusted off her shorts, lent a hand to pick Yanfei up, and thanked her for her services. Again.
Then she was off, humming a tune about hilichurls that sounded a mix between a ghost's musings and a nursery rhyme.
It continued on for over a week. Hu Tao would show up at her doorstep with tofu, some flowers, or at the very least herself to entertain her with poetry and stories stemming from her time around Liyue. Yanfei never had the heart to shoo her away.
Then when Yanfei opened the door on another Tuesday afternoon, she was greeted by the depleting sun and her favourite funeral director— who, despite her protests, tugged gently on her hand and weaved her through the crowds of Liyue to show her the local street vendors for a little foodie date that she owed Yanfei a while back. She argued that one had recently started to sell tofu, and that was more than enough for Yanfei to follow along.
Sat down on a small table while they munched happily on tofu and fish respectively, Hu Tao brought up another problem she had. This time it wasn't for her, she explained, because as much of a troublemaker as she was, she'd never cause the day where Yanfei had to represent her in front of the Tianquan and her company for the highest of offences.
"Zhongli accidentally stirred up some trouble yesterday," Hu Tao said with a light hum under her breath. She swung her feet happily under the table, sometimes striking Yanfei lightly on the ankle to initiate a brief fight between their legs. It was so childish that Yanfei hoped no one was judging them. "He got really confused about credit from this vendor he was buying from. He couldn't understand it no matter how many times I explained it to him, and now he's being sued."
Yanfei shook her head in disbelief. "Oh, Zhongli," she said, exasperated. She unclasped her hands and started waving them around ever so slightly, explaining Zhongli’s legal choices and advising Hu Tao to go to one of her good friends, a lawyer in Qingce Village with expertise in mora defense.
And as she spoke highly of her good friend, two ladies waved at her as they passed by in the street, and she called them over to briefly chat about their innings and goings of the day. The ladies left after a laugh was shared among them, and Yanfei waved them off after introducing them to Hu Tao, who smiled in that big way of hers and watched them walk away until they had completely disappeared.
Then Hu Tao’s eyes snapped over to Yanfei, and she tilted her head as if in thought. “Don’t tell me I have competition,” she teased.
Yanfei rolled her eyes and picked her chopsticks back up, pointing accusingly as Hu Tao. “Unlike you, they only needed my service once in a while for mundane things like legal slips. You have no competition when it comes to that.”
The tilt of her head only accented the question and disbelief in her eyes. Then, the corner of Hu Tao’s lips twitched in a suspended smile and she shook her head, laughing mirthly.
Yanfei shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware of the warmth of the food in her mouth. “What?”
“Nothing,” Hu Tao said, though her grin made Yanfei suspect otherwise. “Are you almost done? I can wave a waitress over for seconds.”
“You already offered to pay for this, Tao, I don’t need more,” Yanfei argued, but Hu Tao waved off her troubles and called for a waitress anyway, despite the pointed glare boring into the side of her face.
Yanfei could see several eyes glancing over to them in curiosity as Hu Tao eagerly asked for seconds “for the lady here”, and she silently wondered how the situation looked to an outsider. A date, obviously, though Yanfei couldn’t bring herself to pray not for the situation to be misunderstood.
A date, she thought, and nearly snorted at the thought.
A date? she thought again that night, incredulously, staring at the ceiling of her bed. Hu Tao did call it a date, but friends always go out together for dinner. She tried to reassure herself further with the fact that Hu Tao came to her for legal advice each time she came, despite the numerous gifts and the laughter and the stories and the “You look pretty today, Yan!”s.
A date, she thought, turning over to the side of her bed and sighing almost melancholically. It didn’t seem half bad. She almost felt guilty for thinking it.
The day after that, Hu Tao showed up with windwheel asters, imported from its native nation, and some steamed buns for dinner.
Despite the brought bag of food, Hu Tao begged her to walk along the harbor with her, so they could chat and eat as they witnessed the fall of the sun along the coast. And despite the ever-growing pile of paperwork on her desk, Yanfei had the premonition to extrapolate the knowledge that Hu Tao would be showing up around that time, so she had timely organized her work to be divided into sections for tomorrow.
Usually, she left the musings of her interactions with the director for the night, when she’d toss and turn and abuse her poor blankets with its agitation, but she couldn’t help but let her mind run like it was on a hamster wheel, running and running and running as Hu Tao’s cold rings bumped into her knuckles from the lack of space between them.
“What are you thinking about, Yanyan?”
Yanfei side-eyed her noncommittally, then purposefully prolonged the question by taking a big bite of her steamed bun. When she swallowed it all down, Hu Tao’s eyes squinting into hers, she answered, “Just work stuff, Taotao.”
The ricochet of the playful nickname made Hu Tao smile big and wide, and Yanfei abruptly couldn’t understand why she spent so long overthinking Hu Tao’s intentions when her intentions were always nothing but pure.
“I thought we agreed to leave work at the door while we’re taking strolls together?” Hu Tao hummed. She clasped her hand warmly around Yanfei’s, and Yanfei expected herself to jump, or twitch or yelp, at the contact— but instead she melted, almost literally, as her shoulders bump downwards and her fingers curl into Hu Tao’s like singed paper at the edges.
Her cold rings stopped feeling so cold by the time they sat on a bench, just a few feet away from the water. The sun was still peeking out through the horizon, though the colors of the sky were turning a kind shade of gold.
Hu Tao hadn’t let go of her hand while she talked, retelling a story about the time she and Zhongli encountered a group of bandits while on the way back from a ceremony.
Then she was quiet, aptly listening to Yanfei as she retold a story of the night before, when she almost burnt her house down from leaving tofu to simmer too late while she took a nap. And Yanfei could tell she wasn’t just listening, but embellishing Yanfei’s stories and words into her brain, from the way her feet swung slower at the parts where Yanfei’s voice was agitated and her hand would squeeze into Yanfei’s each time she scoffed at a sudden memory of a horrible client, even before she retold the tale.
And in return, she was actively aware of the warm pad of Hu Tao’s thumb swiping between the webbings of her thumb and forefinger, soothingly. It pressed gently into her skin, as if Hu Tao was subtly trying to get her thumbprint stamped onto the very skin of Yanfei’s hand.
Notwithstanding everything calming and soothing about their time together, Yanfei felt as if something was wrong. Not morbidly wrong, per se, but something definitely was out of place in their loose schedule. She couldn’t put a finger on it, no matter how hard she tried, and she decided to think on that later as soon as Hu Tao perked up and remembered to tell her that she brought some poetry.
She fished for the paper in her pocket, and Yanfei laughed at her, to which she stuck out her tongue childishly. Then when she finally got it, she presented it to Yanfei, despite the wrinkled and tea stained look of the parchment.
“I thought you try not to write down poetry?” Yanfei mused.
Hu Tao shrugged, though her smile was anything but apologetic. “I can make exceptions,” Hu Tao declared. “It’s my life.”
“Right, right,” Yanfei said with a chuckle. She unlatched her fingers from Hu Tao’s to open it, but Hu Tao stopped her with fingers latched around the inside of her wrist.
“Not yet,” Hu Tao said with a laugh. “Read it tonight.”
Yanfei scrunched her eyebrows together. “Why?”
“You said you had trouble sleeping, right? I wrote some for you so you could read them at night to feel drowsy,” Hu Tao said. Her smile was oddly soft— somehow Yanfei liked it all the same.
“I can’t believe you wrote me boring poetry to put me to sleep,” she accused jokingly, and Hu Tao swatted at her arm with a laugh.
“Just see,” was the only thing she answered with.
So Yanfei saw it for herself that night.
She unfolded the piece of paper, squinting at the small font written intricately into the parchment. There were lots of stanzas and lines that she could see, and she wondered how much work Hu Tao had put into them just for her. Tea stains made some words hard to read, and crinkles in the paper made Yanfei smooth it out on her knee several times, but she loved every word all the same.
It was beautiful poetry, though Yanfei had always known that about Tao.
Yet somehow the words written, commentating on sunsets and sunrises, felt like she had her back pressed against Hu Tao’s while she spoke confidently but delicately to her, reciting the simple descriptions of the reds and golds in the sky that painted their landscape. If Yanfei closed her eyes, she could imagine Hu Tao’s hands fiddling with hers as she fell asleep, her ear pressed against her chest and Hu Tao’s muffled recitation acting as the background of her dreams.
There wasn’t anything hidden in her poetry. There were no extended metaphors, no comparison to other worldly issues or a hidden reply to something that Hu Tao was thinking— it was just words about the sun and the skies it composed.
When she finished reading, she could imagine Hu Tao’s fingers combed between her hair, just like they were the night they were threading blossoms into each other’s hats. She could feel Hu Tao’s lips pressed against her head, like she had shown Yanfei something exquisite and present.
Yanfei didn’t twist and turn in bed after that.
Instead, she gazed at the vase of windwheel asters on her bedside table, red and gold in the moonlight like the celebrations of marriage and love at full bloom in central Liyue, and fell into a fretless sleep.
When she awoke that morning, she realized that something truly was off about their day together.
Hu Tao didn’t ask her for any legal advice.
It was peculiar, she mused, but nothing too out of the ordinary to think about.
Yanfei was having a bad afternoon.
Well, bad afternoon was putting it very lightly, she’d say— but a euphemism was in order, unless she wanted to succumb more into her sorrows.
She groaned, putting her head down at her desk, and stretched slightly before letting herself rest with her forehead against the cool wood and her arms obstructing her face. She closed her eyes and let the overwhelming feeling of guilt eat at her, wallowing in it as if she deserved it.
Oh, how much she hated civil cases, especially those involving broken families.
Plus, how dare she feel so affected by it, when hers was already so wonderful? But even with all the respites and scolding to herself, she couldn’t help but feel lost, especially at the memory of the pleading face the little boy made at her as he tugged at her sleeve and asked her to make his parents love him again.
Ah, divorce. She was aware of the statistics of it in Liyue, especially as it was rising in numbers, thanks to the crash of the market and everything in between. As many of it she faced, it didn’t get easier to break apart those who used to love each other so valiantly enough to make such a contract with each other.
She couldn’t help but think, just mindlessly, about it ever happening to her. What if she met someone who loved her so much and they wanted to end it after, what, years and years spent cultivating that love? What would she do with her children? Did she even want children? What if such a brilliant smile directed at her, like Hu Tao’s, would just suddenly turn cold and unknowing, because she was stupid enough to overlook a mistake, or—?
“Yanfei?” Hu Tao called to her.
Yanfei’s head snapped upwards in surprise, feeling the start of an ache at the base of her neck. She sat up then, when she saw the proximity of Hu Tao’s face to her, close with her brow furrowed in deep worry. “Yan, are you okay?” she asked again, and Yanfei finally recognized the uncharacterized concern in her tone.
Usually, Hu Tao would come barreling through her door with loud proclamations that they were going to play checkers, or jokes on her tongue about Yanfei’s lopsided hat and the bags under her eyes.
“I’m fine,” she said, though the words sounded distant from her. She sat up straighter on her chair and cleared her throat, busying her hands with the papers on her desk to sort out.
Hu Tao stared at her. The look on her face was vague, though Yanfei supposed it was because her vision was blurry from the impromptu nap/cry session/impending overthinking. She was aware enough to see Hu Tao sit down across from her, just where the father and husband had sat, proclaiming that he no longer loved his wife, and that he had found another who was twice as beautiful.
It made the apple-sized lodge in her throat pulse a bit bigger, and it was a struggle to swallow it back down.
“I’m fine as in ‘I’m fine’ or ‘I’m fine’?” Hu Tao questioned, and Yanfei raised an eyebrow at her in question. She disregarded Yanfei’s gaze. “You know what I mean.”
“Just…” Yanfei sighed deeply. She massaged her temples briefly, then leaned back in her chair to meet Hu Tao’s worried face. “Had a… rough client, you could say. That’s all.”
“Did they hurt you?” was Hu Tao’s immediate reply, misunderstanding the insinuation of her words. Her eyes seemed a little frazzled, and she even leaned forward to take a closer look at Yanfei.
Somehow, it made the heat around her collar flare up even worse, for a separate reason. “No, no! It was a—” She cleared the hoarseness away from her throat. “It was a divorce dispute. Plus the custody of their child.”
“Oh.” The panic was no longer resting in Hu Tao’s eyes, but they instead blinked in slight apology. There was no sadness in them, but that was a given— Yanfei knew people who thought she was callous for it, but Hu Tao had always held the firm belief that human beings were stronger with the promise of better days. Yanfei actually preferred this. No “I’m sorry for your loss” kind of pitying looks, but looks filled with a silent question.
Ones that asked, “Why does it hurt then?”
It hurts, Yanfei wanted to tell her, because I thought of you.
I thought of you and every single thought that came with you.
Because overthinking is one thing she’s good at, especially with words and looks that she just had to scrutinize or else she wouldn’t be able to sleep— but not with Hu Tao. Hu Tao was an open book from start to end, and she was almost certain she was incapable of lying for her own benefit.
Yet she couldn’t figure out why she was trying so hard to understand Hu Tao, like she was fishing in a lake with no fish left in it. There was nothing left for her to scrutinize, but she wanted to, so badly, and it was driving her insane why it was affecting her so much. Every word and every glance thrown her way was filed into her mind to rewind and look over and analyze like her career depended on that one answer.
“Yanfei?” Hu Tao called out to her. She didn’t know how many times Hu Tao had been calling her name until she snapped back into reality.
Yanfei smiled apologetically, albeit weakly, at her. “Look, I’m sorry. I really am. But I don’t think I have the energy to help you with anything right now.” Then as an afterthought, she added, “You could always bother me with your mediocre meat buns next time though.”
Instead of smiling at her like she hoped, Hu Tao’s lips merely twitched into a modest frown. She leaned forward, putting an arm on the table and resting her chin on it. She looked up at Yanfei while she said, “You know you could tell me anything. No one except the souls floating around your office will hear it. And they can’t say anything, so.”
Yanfei let out a small laugh at Hu Tao’s attempt at getting her to smile. Hu Tao only watched her, not a smile cracking on her face, lips pulled into a thin line like she was waiting for Yanfei to say something.
Yanfei sobered up. She folded her arms over the desk and put her chin on it, her face inches away from Hu Tao’s. Somehow, it didn’t scare her even then.
Hu Tao gave her an encouraging smile.
She fluttered her eyes closed briefly, sucking in a deep breath.
But nothing came out.
She tried again. And again. She kept trying until her own voice was stuck in the whole of her chest, and in her frustration she dug her chin into her forearms, huffing in frustration, brow furrowed angrily. Then she tried to say something again, even if it came out as a yell that could carry all the way to Mondstadt.
It came out as a choked noise. Not quite a sob, but not close to a laugh either. It sounded strangled, almost, and the corner of her eyes gathered tears at the frustration.
She kept trying to force herself to speak, to say anything at all, so she could quench the sudden worry in Hu Tao’s eyes. Nothing was coming out and it was frustrating, especially coming from her, when she was always the one talking, always the person someone would go to for simple background noise, talking and talking because her mind was never done talking.
Why couldn’t she say anything? What was happening to her? Was she becoming mute? Was this the gods punishing her, finally, for acting as if her life had always been just, despite the flaws and regrets festering her life? Was this because she never gave herself a proper contract? Especially one with a god? Does her life hold no true stamp to it? Is she—?
Hu Tao’s warm hand curled into hers. Her cold rings jolted her back into her reality, and her vision settled on the scarlet color of Hu Tao’s warm eyes. Scarlet, like the stamp of her official seal.
Permanent and unyielding.
Then she took a deep breath, let the clock on her wall tick its time, then vented to Hu Tao about her day’s problems.
Everything in between from burning her cooking this morning, to her unruly clients, arguing between their poor four year old son, who hid his face under his shirt collar, and to the way the man pointed at her face and demanded things of her that she knew, without looking at her shelf of rule books, that were unjust.
Hu Tao not once interrupted her, despite the enthusiastic nods of her head and the grip on her hand tight as ever. She could tell that Hu Tao was actively trying to restrain herself from making a crude joke or a side comment that would clearly break the flow of Yanfei’s thoughts— and that usually was her intention, when Yanfei was making fun of her— but not now, not when Yanfei’s words were spilling out of her mouth like a steady stream of grief.
The sun had dipped far past into the land, rendering the streets outside lit with warm lanterns and stippling it with the quiet murmurs of those saying their good nights and well wishes.
By then, Yanfei had been rendered speechless, literally. Her throat hurt from speaking so much, not just of today, but all of her worries about her job, things she had scarcely told others in fear that it would taint her job in red fingerprints. Somehow, telling Hu Tao had sucked every regret and worry out of her lungs, feeding it instead with the breath of wild flowers on her walks around Liyue.
Even as she laid her cheek against her forearm, her other hand still laced warmly against Hu Tao’s, Hu Tao didn’t speak. No chime in of stories of her own, no jokes, no “there there”s to compensate for the emotional ride Yanfei had gone through.
The silence between them had been far and few in between, but it was instances like this that made Yanfei grateful for her. The drowsiness washed over her like a thick blanket that had been close to a firepit on a night out camping with her father, warm and settling nicely on her shoulders. The warmth had stemmed from their connected hands to her heart, then to her stomach, spreading its kindness all throughout her worn out body.
The warmth reminded her so attentively to the way she felt when she looked at the brightening smile on Hu Tao’s face, whenever she came by just as the sun shied away from its people.
“You have a contract, don’t you? Being half adepti and all?” Hu Tao sleepily muttered, her voice tickling the shell of Yanfei’s ear. Their faces had been pushed closer together as Yanfei ranted, until both of them had tired out to resting their hands and faces on the desk, only inches apart.
“No.” She rethought her answer, then clarified, “Well, yes— one with my parents, but not in the way you think. They just made me promise to live happily and do whatever makes me happy.”
Hu Tao was silent.
So silent, in fact, that Yanfei assumed that she had fallen asleep, until she bluntly said, “Well. If that’s how contracts actually work, then I have a contract with them too.”
Yanfei stirred, then faced Hu Tao in curiosity. “Really? What does it entail?” she said inquisitively, because Hu Tao being roped into a contract with her adeptus father (or her merchant mother, for that matter) was not something she could ever wrap her head around. She assumed that Tao would follow up with a punchline to a joke, and she was more than ready to turn back around and groan in lieu of it.
But Hu Tao merely smiled at her— lazily, with the corners of her lips tugging slightly upwards. Her brilliant eyes sparkled with something akin to a promise. She nudged her nose, softly, against Yanfei’s playfully.
“To keep you happy.”
Unlike the other nights spent mulling over Hu Tao’s words and phrases and actions, Yanfei had to keep herself from falling asleep, forcing herself to think it over instead of the vice versa.
It was nearing midnight and she knew that she had to get up early to meet with a client outside of Liyue for a situation with his mining business, though she couldn’t help it. She could almost taste an answer on her tongue, like the ghost of a memory outlining itself in the very corners of her mind.
Like how it felt when she tried desperately to remember a line from Liyue’s guidebook from memory, unwavering to check so she could pridefully say that she found the answer first. It was so frustrating on the way to get there, but she knew that once she found out, everything would make sense, and she would allow herself a pat on the back for understanding.
She just couldn’t understand.
She knew that it was something that friends did. They visited each other all the time, gave gifts to each other, smiled and laughed and joked until they were leaning on each other for support for their joy. It was the reason why people became friends— an informal contract between individuals, a universal sign that they were there for each other, ready to hear out each other’s problems. “You can lean on me,” she imagined the contract would say.
But somehow she knew there was some subscript she was missing when it came to her and Hu Tao. Just one tiny detail about their friendship that she overlooked.
At times like this, she thought of her parents. They always seemed to know what to do, no matter the circumstances. She imagined she was having tea with them, seeking advice and comfort about her tumultuous thoughts.
She liked to imagine her father’s roaring laughter, the hard thump on her back, and the way her mother would subtly glare at her husband over a sip of tea. She imagined his comforting words that everything would be okay, and that she would figure it out sooner than she’d imagine.
But that wasn’t the problem, she wanted to yell, desperately, I need to know— now, rather than later.
“Well, Yan,” her mother would chuckle. Yanfei could imagine her setting her tea down, and the way she’d brush the crumbs off her lap, despite the memory being fuzzy and blanched. “If you want to know so badly, just take a deep breath and retrace your steps.”
I already did, she would grumble.
Her father laughed in her little bubble of imagination. He rubbed her back soothingly this time. “Death’s inevitable,” he finally said to her, his voice far away. “And it’s… bitter. It hurts and it— it’s painful. But y’know what? I’d never go back in time and unmeet the people that I’ve had the opportunity to meet.”
She imagined the loving look her parents would share to each other, and she knows that she’s sticking out her tongue, feigning disgust at their display of affection. Her parents laughed.
I don’t know where this is going, she thought somberly to herself. It was a memory, a comforting one that she always brought to mind when she had trouble thinking, but she doubted that anything from the near-committed memory would help her understand the anomaly of her situation.
She feels her dad’s hand start making soothing circles on her back, tighter and more demanding this time. “Yan, you’ve always wanted to help people,” he observed. “Even as a child, you’d demand to know the rights and wrongs you see when we take you to the village. But when you love someone, when you know in your heart that you’ve met someone worth sharing the burden of death and regret, you’d let them see the rights and wrongs of you.”
You make no sense, Dad.
She could hear his loud laugh, even in the comfort of her twilight bed.
“You’ll know when you experience it,” he said cryptidly. “Your guilt, your regrets— those are things you usually don’t share with just anyone, no? You only do it when you want to let them in. When you want them to reciprocate, I suppose. Rex Lapis gave it no name, but we know it as it is— it’s most simply, at its core, the contract of love.”
Yanfei sat up on her bed so fast that she almost didn’t register it.
You only do it when you want to let them in.
Hu Tao’s constant asking for her advice. Legal as it may be, they were almost always things that she had already known to deal with, but she still asked— as if she valued something more than the monetary surface of her work.
It made her chest ache with something close to love and fear.
One blink and she had changed out of her pajamas and into a simple cloak to combat the cold night. The lanterns lit her way to Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, each one like a golden streak that reminded her candidly of the sunsets she’d seen for the past weeks.
She pretended not to hear the sudden yell of the guard in front of the parlor, instead nudging the doors open with her heart wedged in between her ribs. Her eyes had to adjust painfully to the low lighting within, but as soon as she did, her eyes immediately settled on Hu Tao, sitting there on her desk with a smile that silently questioned her presence.
She took a deep breath.
She sauntered forward. Hu Tao stood up as she did so, her smile faltering just slightly under her intense gaze, one only reserved for the hardest of clients to deal with.
“You know what’s funny?” Hu Tao said with a revived smile. “You’re so easy to scare. But you walked in here like you own the place, even though this place gives even butchers the heebie jeebies!”
Her joke made Yanfei laugh, which made Hu Tao laugh in relief.
And then Yanfei’s shoulders slumped, and suddenly the mood matched the atmosphere— somber and quiet.
“I—” She cleared her throat of its unwellness. “I need to speak to you.”
“Well, duh. That much is obvious,” Hu Tao giggled.
Yanfei couldn’t help but crack a smile at that. After all, she wasn’t here to prosecute her. She was just here to seek out the truth, one that had been left as a cold case until it had been on the forefront of her mind. She was here to hear it from Hu Tao herself, a confession of sorts.
“Why did you come see me?” Yanfei blurted out. Hu Tao’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Spurred by catching her off guard, Yanfei continued, each word circling in on itself, “Why did you come see me everyday for legal advice you knew the answers to? Why did you seek out my expertise when you didn’t even need it? I’m aware that my work is cheaper than most, but of the highest quality, but it’s still a lot of mora, Tao! What would make you spend that much time and effort on me when you could’ve just asked to hang out with me? Aren’t we friends? Do you… do you think of me as your friend? Why are you letting me in?”
Hu Tao’s eyes glittered with mirth. “I didn’t let you in, exactly— you just completely blew past my guards,” she teased.
Then at Yanfei’s incredulous look, she sobered. “Well,” she started, her voice small and soft. It surprised her to hear something so uncertain come out of someone who had lived their life certain of everything. “I mean, I just assumed you knew. My bad. Completely.”
“Knew?” Yanfei echoed. She was regretting not asking Hu Tao for a place they could sit first. Her feet were starting to ache from the arduous walk, as well as the sudden coldness seeping into her skin as her heart beat tighter and quicker in her chest.
“Mhm.” Hu Tao nodded her head and smiled, tilting her head kindly at the lost look Yanfei was giving her.
Yanfei could see the slight guilt in her eyes. She caught her, red-handed, it seemed.
“Okay,” Hu Tao relented. Her smile dropped a fraction. “When Lumine told me that you wanted me to come see you for legal stuff more often, I took advantage of it. I just wanted to see you, Yan.”
“You could’ve done that without cutting off our time together to ask me for things that are useless to you,” Yanfei said, exasperated. The tightness in her chest didn’t cease.
“I know!” Hu Tao said quickly. She laughed under her breath, her hands fiddling with the rings on them. “And I knew you didn’t mind me. You’re one of the few who don’t. I just really liked listening to you. Plus, it wasn’t like anyone else was gonna hear about my problems,” she laughed.
Yanfei was quiet. She mulled her words over, the gears turning in her head like slow machinery. Hu Tao’s problems may seem mundane to her, but she let Yanfei hear about it. She let Yanfei into her life and into her worries, something Yanfei had decided there and then that she wouldn’t mind doing for the rest of her life.
She knew that she was overthinking this, that Hu Tao couldn’t possibly understand the depth of her intentions by knocking on her door everyday, tofu and tea in hand, to talk about her issues and then to listen to Yanfei’s. To her, it probably meant something as simple as a matter of fact. Though they were distinctly different in the intentions of their time together, Yanfei knew that Hu Tao would get it, in the end.
She said, slowly and with conviction, “You let me in.”
Hu Tao both seemed to understand and misunderstand her words.
She smiled foolishly at Yanfei, her hands stilling, as she answered, “Well, I could’ve locked the doors or told the guards to stop you— but I knew it was you.”
The insinuation hung like a wisp in the air. It was you, and I wanted you in here.
“And,” Hu Tao added, her words distant like it was an afterthought, “I’d always thought that it was obvious. About my feelings for you, I mean.”
Yanfei’s mind ran blank. The tight squeeze in her chest released and clenched all at once.
She knew, obviously, that by letting someone in with this kind of vulnerability was a show of love, just the way tea and laughter were, just like warm, delicious tofu lovingly made by the hands of someone thought to only touch putrid things.
Hearing it, though, was opening a box to something completely different. Something that she couldn’t possibly prepare herself for, no matter how many times she read in between the lines and the boldly printed script.
Is this the part where they kiss?
Are they dating now? Is this where she was supposed to tell Hu Tao that she loved her? Wait, does she schedule a date first? Oh dear Rex Lapis, what if the Wanmin Restaurant was too booked for a proper date schedule and—?
Hu Tao’s merry laugh got her out of her own head.
“You’re cute when you get scrunched nose like that,” Hu Tao said brazenly. “You look all constipated, like you just ate one of Xiangling’s weird slime things,” she cooed.
“I do not!” Yanfei argued, her face flaring with heat from both what she suspected was the indignation and the open compliment thrown her way without a care.
There was a tug at her sleeve. Insistent, grounding, and all she could see as she glanced down was the eccentric rings that she had spent so long imagining kissing.
“Can I kiss you?” Hu Tao asked then, giggling at the dazed expression plastered on her face.
But despite her little laugh and her eased posture, Hu Tao's brow was lined in that determined way of hers. It was underlined in apprehension.
It was so bold of her to ask. It was only by law that Yanfei balanced her plain speaking with her own boldness.
She rushed forward and cradled Hu Tao’s face with both her hands, kissing her with everything she had. There were no published rules on how to kiss someone one’s been pining for, after all.
She felt Hu Tao’s surprised exhale against her face, feeling the vindication of being the one to catch the other off guard, and Hu Tao’s hands gripped onto her elbow and lower back like they were lifelines tethering her to the mortal world.
The kiss was warm and pleasant, just as one would suspect from two pyro wielders on a chilly night, but Yanfei couldn’t possibly begin to imagine that one kiss would be enough to ignite the furnace in her abdomen, consuming the prior tightness in her chest with open wings. Hu Tao’s lips were insistent and pliable, following her lead and the comfort she was okay with. She could feel Hu Tao’s fingers whispering over her lower back, whisking to her side and coming up and down until she could feel its action moving around her own heart.
And when they broke apart, their foreheads pressed together in a promise to come back, Yanfei laughed, tenderly, until she could feel the presence of Hu Tao’s blessed smile near hers.
There was nothing between them anymore. No guilt eating away for secret intentions or sleepless nights praying for epiphanies.
Nothing except to bear everything to each other, but most especially their truest forms of a contract to love freely.
There was a knock at her door.
Her morning had just started and she, sadly, had just sat down. She sighed, groaning internally to herself for forgetting to drink tea before coming into work. She got up all the same, wondering who would need her services so urgently that they needed her the moment she clocked in.
The snide comment in her head made her pause, hand over the knob.
Oh no, what if it was someone in danger? And she made fun of them just now? Now she’s done it. She’s definitely going to be more diligent in the mornings. Yanfei started making a list in her head, of things she could say to the person at the door to subtly apologize for her train of thoughts, when her hand mindlessly opened the door and—
“BOO!”
She jumped backwards, yelling so loudly that she wondered if folks down the harbor could hear it in the breeze.
Hu Tao laughed, then slid out of the way into her office with a practiced saunter. Briefly behind her, the sun poured its light down onto the pavement and brightened the scenery with children’s shadows and the carried whiffs of deliciously seasoned food being made for the morning.
Bright and colorful, as the eyes of Hu Tao, was the rising sun like.
There was a twinkle in Hu Tao’s eyes as she pushed glaze lilies into her chest, an excuse of taking Yanfei out for the day already on her tongue as she explained her intricate plan of sight-seeing a pond on the outskirts of a village she saw not too long ago, complete with her shiny smile and her jovial mood that redeemed Yanfei’s dawn.
Yanfei smiled and kissed her quickly, feeling that smile against hers without even opening her eyes. She ushered Hu Tao inside instead, suggesting they drink some leftover tea leaves in her cupboards first before they went to any of Hu Tao’s spontaneous adventures for the day.
Hu Tao shrugged and followed her lead, though made sure to tell her that she was fine with whatever Yanfei wanted, despite her earlier statement that she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Because Hu Tao was a walking contradiction, a walking branch of sunlight that was bound to nothing— and she’d always said that if one wished not to be bound by the rules, they had to understand it all first.
And she couldn’t wait to understand everything that came with Hu Tao.