Work Text:
Shen Jiu loathed celebrations, simple as that.
It’d almost seemed humorous once it was the after party, just the Peak Lords barely holding onto a modicum of soberness. High held titles reduced to none, mortality usually peeking behind the veil of illustrious, perfect beings now ripping down the cloth seperating itself from those around it.
The bumbling fool, Yue Qingyuan, usually used to refuse getting to a stage of foolishness. However, after an important deal gone successful, he seemed to want to loosen up a ‘little bit’.
“You know, I think I have some robes in your size!”
Qi Qingqi laughed, slapping the Sect Leader’s shoulder like he was a mere commoner.
“Lets not be hasty, I doubt I would-“
Shen Jiu looked on in amusement, as Wei Qingwei told him “Lighten up a little, I doubt any of us will even remember once this night is done!”
If Shen Jiu was given the opportunity, and little dignity, he would’ve instead made his peak into a brewery. Of course he’d remember this, having the highest alcohol tolerance of them all.
“..Alright, fine,” Yue Qingyuan sighed, eyes looking over to Shen Jiu as if he was a little dog seeking approval from the Peak Lord.
After Qi Qingqi finished dragging Yue Qingyuan to her chambers, she pushed him out carefully towards where everyone else was.
Shen Jiu gasped, but still air felt like it would never reach his lungs.
Yue Qingyuan’s overbearingly masculine features had somehow been beaten into submission, rouge dusted across tanned skin and lips shiny with wine coloured lipstick that Shen Jiu wished to savour.
Her eyelashes were more prominent this time, but still his darting gaze prevailed.
His hair remained pinned back, but now with a more flowery hairpin. It was fitting, she did look like an empress stepping out from private quarters, gracing servants with the virtue of a goddess. Her hair spilled behind her like a veil or waterfall, cascading forever.
The clothes were surprisingly well fitting, aswell as decent. They still were overshadowed by the wearer, of course, but would look in place for a nobleman’s daughter. On Yue Qingyuan, the robes looked akin to tattered rags which made the Peak Lord seethe at the injustice Qi Qingqi had made.
That low voice shattered Shen Jiu’s stupor like a fist to a mirror. He could only stare on, mourning how events like this will eventually end, like a perfect summer freezing over.
Perfect. That’s what she was. If he just had a voice a little higher, Shen Jiu thought, desperately wishing away Yue Qingyuan’s adam’s apple and broad shoulders in order to cling onto that illusion Qi Qingqi had made with a cunning smile.
Shen Jiu didn’t know whether he should thank her for this sight or curse her for the stabbing feeling gnawing at his stomach. Shen Jiu hated men, and Yue Qingyuan was the same.
But, just this once, he had managed to push away that lingering boyish manner that had stuck with him since childhood back when Shen Jiu knew him at the manor. He felt hurt, those same hateful feelings flooding back as Yue Qingyuan lifted an arm to his hair, muscles involuntarily flexing.
It twisted the knife further into Shen Jiu’s rotten heart, ’he’d never be able to be a woman, would he.’ This fantasy now given to him on a gold platter was just a painted ideal, one he’d never thought of before this, but he needed it.
It was like being nostalgic for a place no longer there, nowhere to return to but memories.
And that’s what Shen Jiu did after that night.
Obsessively painting those same features over and over again to get a modicum of that love he had felt. Smoothing over those features he hated dearly with a brush which was close to breaking under his clenched hand.
It felt like mourning a perfect love that had never managed to bloom.