Candle in the Sun
Yin Yu moves about Unseen.
It's not something he is happy about at times.
Happy bday Izzy!
@domtomathy
Thanks for being such a good pal and mod! I hope you like some quanyin sweetness for your belated bday!
It was interesting, funny in a sort of depressing way, that hiding his face made him much more recognizable than without it.
When he walked in the crowded streets of the Ghost City, his mask was like a shield and a badge. Ghouls and the haunted would greet him, tug at his sleeve with a question, with an implore or a word of gratitude.
Without it, he was invisible.
Yin Yu never knew how to feel about that.
It was never a good feeling to know that no one gave a shit where you were, or if you were even in the room.
Yin Yu wipes at his brow, the heat pressing down on him.
At least the sun doesn’t ignore him.
He walks along one of the stalls, the wispy ghost of the shopkeep fiddling with a gold bar in his hands, ignoring Yin Yu even as he looks at the lengths and bolts of silks, obviously interested.
He can't really tell anyone he feels this way.
Who would he tell? Hua Cheng? He would surely laugh. And Yin Yu would rather go mute than bother His Highness Xie Lian about such stupidity.
Before, he would have turned to Jian Yu if he felt such sadness in his soul. In the past, his best friend would set him straight, sometimes too bluntly, like a barb under his skin, but at least with him he never felt like the world was passing him and not taking him along.
He sinks into the crowd, jostled in the throng of people, battered and tossed about like a ship in stormy seas.
As sad as it seems, he is used to it.
He was keenly used to being ignored, forgotten. Unnamed in the great stories, and unremembered when people recounted adventures. He learned how to deal with it in the heavens when gods and middle officials soon realized there was no need to acknowledge him, much less respect him.
After all, why look at a flickering weak candle when it stood beside the forever blazing sun.
YinYu sighs, rubbing his forehead. He can't dwell in such thoughts. He has a whole inventory of new imports to go through and a list of complaints he has to manage. He shouldn't even have time to be feeling any such sadness about foolish things.
He laughs, before being shoved again, and frowns, annoyed. He can't walk the street with his mask on, he is stopped every five minutes. Not for who he is, Yin Yu the banished god, but because he is the hand of Hua Cheng.
But this, somehow this feels worse, being invisible.
He turns back to the mansion, ready to make his way back and go shopping for the silks later when he spots him.
He should have known, really. When that one shopkeeper handled the gold bar, he should've known that Yizhen was around. No one else was so obtuse of the values of life.
Yin Yu ducks his head, making sure to hide behind the bulk of another ghost, then he stretches out long thin fingers and pulls a veil from the basket of another, covering his head and shoulders.
As always, His Highness Qi Ying is making a fuss, and the occupants of the ghost city were annoyed with him, giving him a wide berth as he rushed about asking after Crismon Rain’s second.
Yin Yu hunched, and pressed deeper in the crowd, moving with them around the god-like a river would around a great stone. He didn’t look back even when he knew they passed him, keeping the veil tight over his head, eyes on the road.
He is about to sigh in relief when he feels the silk ripped from his head and it's so hard of a tug, Yin Yu loses his footing and falls to his ass.
He looks up, the red hazy sun blocked by a head full of curly hair and brilliant gold and blue armor.
“Shixiong!”
He isn’t trampled because Yizhen is blocking the passerbyers by his presence, beaming down at him.
“Yizhen…” Yin Yu says weakly, before rubbing at his eyes, and then yelping as Quan Yizhen shoves his hands under his armpits and lifts him up as one would do to a barking puppy.
He doesn't stop there, pulling Yin Yu’s hanging body to him, shoving his nose to the back of Yin Yu’s neck, and sniffing all over him.
“Yizhen!” Yin Yu struggles until his feet land flat on the floor and he is unceremoniously turned about so that he has to come face to face with the martial god of the west.
“Shixiong!” he shouts in his face and hugs him again.
Yin Yu huffs out a breath but lets him. Trying to get him off is like trying to get the long arms of an octopus off one, time-consuming and pointless.
Qi Ying is always so warm, or perhaps he feels this way because Yin Yu’s body no longer has warmth of its own, no breath or life.
And he smells… like iron, both the metal and like the tang from blood.
He must've been fighting again.
Yin Yu tugs at the back of the armor, Yizhen still clinging but slowly giving way to the ghost’s pull.
The relationship he has with Quan Yizhen is undefinable, and if asked, Yin Yu would say that it changes from day to day.
He hadn’t wanted one, but his highness, Xie Lian, had smiled at him and told him that Quan Yizhen was very lonely and that a conversation would be good.
Telling the new emperor of heaven ‘no’ was something he could never do, even if his boss hadn’t stared him down behind the prince’s shoulder.
So, he tried to talk to him, he really did. He met with him and tried to tell him that he… he was… not the man that Quan Yizhen once knew, not the god he had once worshiped, that their lives were so vastly different now that… they could not go back to whatever Quan Yizhen wanted. He told him it would be better if they just went their separate ways.
“I don't want to.” Quan Yizhen has said, and he had grabbed hold of Yin Yu’s sleeve like he had when he was a child. “I want to be with you, Shixiong.”
Yin Yu had pulled away, frustration mounting, “You can’t! You're a god and I'm dead. I'm a ghost im-”
“Crimson Rain and Xie Lian are together!” Quan Yizhen said quickly as if he had been waiting for the chance to say it. “He's dead too.”
Yin Yu bit his lip, “He is a calamity. I’m not- I'm not a Crimson Rain. It's pointless, Yizhen. Can’t you see? Its… it will never be the same, whatever idea you have about us, it won't happen.”
Quan Yizhen had looked at him with bright eyes, “I don't care if it's not the same, Shixiong is Shixiong. If everything is new, I still want it with Shixiong.”
He had pressed close, hugging him and it had been so long since he had been hugged, even held. Dying in the arms of his highness Xie Lian did not count.
So now, they were… they were, something strange. Not good, not bad.
Yizhen came when he wanted, had to be driven off sometimes, and Yin Yu was never ready for him.
And somehow, somehow, one day Quan Yizhen kissed him and Yin yu kissed him back and felt miserable about it but let him do it again.
He didn’t understand himself, or what was happening, but he wanted to kiss and be kissed. And he wanted that with Yizhen.
That didn’t mean he wanted to see him all the time though
“How did you find me, Yizhen?”
Quan Yizhen's grin is so bright it’s a little hard to look at, but it dims into a confused pout with Yin Yu’s question. He tilts his head just a little, eyes blinking. “What do you mean, Shixiong? I can always recognize you! Even if you are wearing something new. I'm always looking for you!”
Yin Yu stills, mouth softly dropping open.
Then he laughs even though his eyes tear up and despite still being in the middle of a crowd, dozens watching them, he cups Yizhen’s face and presses a kiss to his nose, a pure bright glowy happiness filling his chest.
Yizhen is delighted, swings his arm around Yin Yu’s small tight waist, and turns his head to kiss him solidly on the mouth.
Yin Yu should scold him, really but he feels…. He feels so loved and wanted at that moment that he lets him, blushing hard when he pulls away, only to be kissed again and again on his mouth and cheeks and eyes, and as always it's too much but Yin Yu lets it happen.
He feels everyone’s eyes, burning gazes in the back of his head.
So often he felt like he was unseen in the light of Yizhen’s presence. And he hated it, feeling invisible, that flicking useless light in the midday sun.
Yizhen was the sun, that was sure, but the sun wanted nothing but to be near the little candlelight, drawn to it, yearning for it.
Yin Yu pulls away, wiping at his mouth before grabbing the god’s hand and pulling him into the shadow of the streets, Yizhen watching him, beaming at him all the way.
Perhaps being seen by one pair of eyes was better than all the rest of the world.
@WithMrDeathDie