After Each Midnight Begins A New Day
Extra #13b - 'Technically A Cutsleeve?' (Mo Xuanyu and Lan Jingyi)
[Part 1] [Part 2]
[Masterpost] [AO3]
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Jingyi stares up at the shadowed ceiling of his guest quarters and Thinks.
It isn’t unheard of for him to be unable to sleep despite it being well past hai shi - it happens every so often that his mind won’t quit running itself in circles even if he’s physically tired, and he’s even got special permission in Cloud Recesses to be up and about at any time of night (so long as he keeps quiet and doesn’t disturb others’ sleep with his restless wandering). But this isn’t Cloud Recesses, and though it seems like Lanling city far beneath the tower never sleeps, he still doesn’t think anyone here in Jinlintai would take kindly to him pacing around the halls in the dead of night.
So he stays put in his bed, and he thinks about Mo Xuanyu.
Throughout Jingyi’s (relatively sheltered) life, he’s had no shortage of examples of relationships to look up to and help him attempt to decide what he might, hypothetically speaking, want for himself and his own future. His parents, from what he can remember, were very much in love. He hopes they still are, he hopes they’re still alive and cultivating together on the back mountain like they’d left him behind to do shortly after he’d turned five. He dimly remembers watching his mother kiss the top of his father’s head any time he was seated at the table in their home, and the way his father would always smile back at her, or pour her tea, or fetch her her favorite books down from the shelf just to read them to her himself. He’s always loved to think of them like that, happy and sweet.
He’s seen Hanguang-Jun and Wei-qianbei over the years - what he privately thinks of as a ‘traditional’ cutsleeve relationship, if one can really call it that. Cutsleeve pairs weren’t unheard of before Hanguang-Jun and Wei-qianbei fell in love, but the practice wasn’t exactly in fashion either. But then, so the story goes, they’d wanted to marry as young children, and Jiang-zongzhu had humored his ward and thought little of it, seeing as cutsleeve pairs had been (relatively) common in Lotus Pier. The Jiang don’t seem to bother making much of a distinction between relationships between men and women and those between cutsleeves, and Grandmaster Lan, who’d been acting sect leader at the time, had allowed it for reasons everyone can only guess at. Jingyi has always thought that was romantic too, the way Hanguang-Jun and Wei-qianbei had fallen for each other so young and in the course of pursuing each other had changed the very culture around romantic relationships in the Cloud Recesses - after all, if Hanguang-Jun is allowed and encouraged to have a husband, why can’t others be cutsleeves as well?
And then of course there’s Zewu-Jun, Lianfang-Zun, and Chifeng-Zun. Jingyi’s mind still boggles a little sometimes if he thinks too hard about how that works, but he knows better than to try to ask anyone his questions. It’s not something he could ever imagine for himself anyway - with men or women - so he supposes it doesn’t matter.
The point is - Jingyi has seen cutsleeve relationships of all sorts over the years in his own sect and in others, and he’s never once felt that it’s right for him. He’s never seen a man, no matter how handsome, and felt the same sort of fluttering, shivery anticipation he feels sometimes for pretty women. It’s a sensation that he’s been heartily reassured is attraction and therefore he should closely monitor it to ensure he doesn’t allow it to become a distraction from his cultivation.
What he’s never felt able to confess to another living soul, though, is that in the last couple years or so he’s grown afraid that he’ll never meet someone he truly wants to settle down with. He’s met pretty women and they’re fun to flirt with in passing in the same way that he likes making anyone laugh and feel happy. How is he supposed to pursue something as fleeting as that and turn it into a lifelong partnership, even if he’s definitely attracted to them physically?
He hadn’t known until today that someone like Mo Xuanyu could even exist, and it’s making him feel as if everything he’d thought about himself, everything he’s been afraid of, is pointless. He can understand, in abstract, the appeal of a cutsleeve relationship. He’s comfortable around men, he knows how to talk to men, how to behave with them. He’s also comfortable enough around women, though he knows he has to behave differently, talk differently. As Gusu Lan’s head disciple as a boy - and now as a skilled full cultivator of a Great Sect in his adulthood - his interactions with women always feel so…loaded. It’s difficult to feel as if he can truly become friends with any women not in his sect, and he’s already decided that he isn’t interested in any of the eligible Lan women his age.
He’s thought plenty of times before that things would be so much easier if he were attracted to men, if he could marry someone who had been easy and comfortable to befriend, if they could go forward through life as friendly companions and never have to bother with flirting and courting and dating and all that mess. But at the same time - he wants to court someone. He likes flirting, and who could ever say that they don’t enjoy a pretty face? It would just be nice if those things could fit nicely together - all the ease and comfort of a man, and the beauty of an elegant woman.
Someone like Mo Xuanyu.
Jingyi groans to himself and covers his face with both hands as if that could help his mind stop turning itself in anxious circles like a dog snapping at its own tail. He’s heard plenty about Mo Xuanyu over the years of being Jin Ling’s friend, of course, but somehow his friend had neglected to mention that his uncle is so beautiful there must be reams of poetry written about him somewhere if there’s any justice in the world at all. He’d never once told them that Mo Xuanyu dresses and moves like any wealthy woman of the gentry, but that he still seems perfectly comfortable and natural in the company of men without any of the distance of propriety Jingyi’s so used to with women. It’s maddeningly attractive in a way Jingyi has never felt before, and he suddenly understands why he’s been warned not to let physical desire run away from him.
Which, of course, begs the question - is he even allowed to be attracted to Mo Xuanyu? Jingyi isn’t a nobody, necessarily, but he’s realistic about his position in life. He’s lucky enough to have made friends with three sect heirs who truly respect him and see him as an equal, but that doesn’t really mean much as far as the rest of cultivation society is concerned. Jingyi is, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. He’s closely enough related to the main branch of the family to be a reluctant consideration for sect heir in the absence of literally anyone else better born for it, but Lan Xiafeng will probably step up to take the position soon unless Zewu-Jun and his husbands find a child to adopt and name as heir. Jingyi was the head disciple while he was still a student disciple, but now that he’s a fully-fledged senior cultivator that distinction doesn’t really matter anymore. He’s just…a Lan. One of many. And Mo Xuanyu is not only a direct member of a powerful and wealthy gentry family, he’s also technically of the older generation. He may be the very youngest of it, and Jingyi one of the oldest of his generation, but that line is still there. Jin Ling still calls him ‘shushu’ and is expected to show him the proper filial respect, whether he actually does or not. How could Jingyi ever hope to bridge that divide while keeping Mo Xuanyu’s reputation intact and not causing offense?
Besides - Mo Xuanyu is Jin Ling’s uncle. There must be some kind of unspoken rule about that, not courting your best friend’s unfairly beautiful uncle, and Jingyi doesn’t want to find out for sure that it exists by upsetting the balance of their little foursome with an inappropriate crush.
Jingyi flips over onto his stomach to bury his face in his pillow and groan again. It’s too hot in Lanling and he feels stifled under his blanket, his trousers and shirt are all twisted up around him now from his restless stirring, and his mind is still running incessantly, so in the interest of not going insane he shoves himself up out of bed to give into the inevitable and start pacing.
Moving helps him focus his thoughts a bit more, but it doesn’t help him stop thinking about Mo Xuanyu, or about what this might mean as to how he’s understood himself these last few years - nor does it help him sleep. He changes his clothes at dawn and forces himself to stick to the schedule ingrained in him over the course of his entire life. His golden core is more than strong enough to push through a bit of exhaustion from one sleepless night, so he meditates and prepares for the day as well as he can with his mind still hounding on the same exact things he’s been obsessing over all night long.
He goes to breakfast still feeling distinctly unsettled, and any hope he might have had of hiding it promptly flies out the window when he arrives for two reasons he can’t even be annoyed with.
Sizhui takes one look at him and frowns softly, obviously concerned. Their guest quarters share a wall, and it’s unlikely that a cultivator as keen as him hadn’t heard the way Jingyi was up pacing all night long even though he’d tried to keep quiet.
Mo Xuanyu smiles sweetly up at him from where he’s kneeling with little Jin Ye in his lap to cajole her into eating her breakfast and Lan Jingyi is absolutely certain that none of his questions about what all this means actually matter - which in turn leaves him hopelessly defenseless against trying not to look absolutely gobsmacked by his attraction to this impossible man.
“Are you alright?” Sizhui asks when Jingyi sits down beside him and he brushes it off with a smile and a jostle of their elbows, some joke he doesn’t bother to think too hard about already on his lips. That’s easier; it’s like when he was a kid and he never knew how to answer questions in class, or when adults would ask him what he thought he was doing with a punishment already in mind. Jokes are safe and they make people happy, he’s good at using them to deflect attention away from himself, he doesn’t even have to think about it anymore. Which is good considering Jingyi feels like he’s one more happy glance from Mo Xuanyu away from blurting out that he’s already picturing a future together despite his sleepless night spent trying to convince himself not to fall for him just yet just yet.
(Oops.)
Jingyi eats as quickly as is polite and makes his escape the moment Sizhui looks like he’s done as well, which means that it’s only a matter of minutes before they’re safely on their own in the gardens where Sizhui pins him with that damn look of his that’s kind and understanding but also leaves no room at all to successfully bullshit him. (Having met Wen Qing a couple of times now, Lan Jingyi knows exactly who he learned it from, though her version is usually not gentle at all.)
“If I apologize for keeping you up with my pacing will that be enough to get me out of this conversation?” he asks somewhat desperately. Sizhui’s smile just widens and he tips his head a little to the side in a gesture that’s all Wen Qionglin.
“It doesn’t, but thank you, it only woke me up briefly and I was able to go back to sleep when I was sure you weren’t leaving to go off on your own somewhere to get into trouble.”
“Where would I have gone to get myself in trouble?”
“Out of all of us you’re the most upset with Jin Ling for how he treated Mo-gongzi. I thought you might want to go punish him yourself.”
“Well that brat needs someone willing to smack some manners into him,” Jingi grumbles and crosses his arms tightly over his chest. “I’m happy to take on such a sacred duty for the good of all mankind - hey!”
Sizhui pockets his needles again calmly when Jingyi yelps and jerks away from him, the implicit threat startling a laugh out of him even as he escapes out of reach. If only Sizhui would do that in front of people who think he’s purely sweet and not at all a little shit under that polite exterior, but alas, he plays his cards too well to ever get caught being the absolute gremlin he is.
Jingyi’s distraction tactic has thankfully done its job, though, and before Sizhui can insist on him spilling what’s on his mind he hears Zizhen calling out from behind them, Jin Ling hot on his heels, and the chance to corner him is thankfully cut short for the time being. Safe for now, but he’s savvy enough to know that he’ll have to get more and more creative if he’s going to manage it again.
The presence of all three of his friends is a decent distraction for most of the morning, the only problem is that apparently Mo Xuanyu had been really good at hiding before, and now that he’s not bothering to hide anymore he’s everywhere. Over the course of the morning Jingyi spots him no less than six times, though always at a distance and simply in passing as the man goes about his beautiful business.
And then disaster strikes at the afternoon meal.
“Mo-gongzi,” Sizhui starts with an innocent little smile. “You mentioned before that it might be possible to persuade you to come spar with us if we ask at the right time - could I persuade you today?”
Jingyi feels flushed from head to toe at the laughing, sly look Mo Xuanyu sends Sizhui, who’s still smiling peacefully like he isn’t a monster out to kill Jingyi specifically. “Wen-gongzi, you flatter this humble one,” Mo Xuanyu teases with a little half-bow accompanied by the quiet tinkling of the chains dangling from his hair pins, the pair of jade bracelets on his wrist clacking ever so slightly as he reaches for his cup to toast Sizhui. “I’d be happy to join you, I’m not needed anywhere else.
Jingyi risks a glance over at Jin Ling and can’t help but think that it’s good it had been Sizhui to bring it up - he’s pretty sure Jin Ling would have outright murdered anyone else for trying if he didn’t die of embarrassment first. Something hot and protective takes ugly root in Jingyi’s chest at the sight of his friend’s grimace, and his irritation with him for being so awful to his uncle creeps back up to the surface, not so easily pushed down again this time like he’s been trying to do since yesterday.
What’s he so embarrassed about anyway? Jin Ling has described some of Mo Xuanyu’s wilder stunts to them before, but they hadn’t been anything that Jingyi himself wouldn’t think up if given the same choices, so it can’t really be that. He wonders abruptly if it has to do with the way Mo Xuanyu dresses, the way Zizhen had mistaken him for a woman when they’d bumped into him in the gardens the day before, and if that’s the case then Jingyi really is going to run him around the practice ring a few extra times to give him a nice set of bruises. He’d do it even if he hadn’t already developed a rather unfortunate crush; as someone who’s never really fit in with the family he was born into, he finds it especially difficult to tolerate seeing others shamed for the same thing.
“Your uncle’s cool,” Jingyi tells Jin Ling at the first available opportunity once they’ve finished eating. They aren’t planning to spar for a little longer yet so they’re wandering the gardens again, this time skirting around a lotus pond under an arched bridge in the family quarters, and Jin Ling turns to glare at him suspiciously.
“Which one?”
Jingyi doesn’t bother trying not to roll his eyes. “Which one do you think? Mo Xuanyu. I bumped into him last night on my way back to the guest quarters so he walked me back, and Sizhui got him to hang out with us for a while. He’s nice, I like him. So do Zizhen and Sizhui.”
“You - what?!”
Jingyi stops walking and turns to face Jin Ling, his smile slipping just a little in the face of his friend’s baffled spluttering. “We invited him to spend some time with us last night after dinner, and we were lucky enough that he agreed. He’s nice, A-Ling. Don’t keep him away from us anymore, alright?”
Jingyi claps Jin Ling on the shoulder once, just shy of too hard to be entirely friendly, before he turns and runs up to where Sizhui and Zizhen are walking ahead of them to sling his arms around their shoulders and jostle them into wrestling him off them, all three of them laughing even as Jin Ling recovers enough to snap at them to cut it out.
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