where the heart is

It takes Muyang a while to adapt at first. After all, he has not had perfect vision in forever, and never in one eye only, but now he is faced with the curious situation of having one eye with lousy eyesight and another eye with perfect eyesight. It is incredibly disorienting and Muyang has taken to shutting his right eye, his original eye with the bad eyesight, so that he does not get a headache. He will have to find someone to customise his eyeglasses from now on, he supposes, and before it arrives, he might have to find a way to cover his right eye to go about his daily life.

His old eyeglasses had been smashed in the cave-in when the rocks had come down on him. Muyang thinks some of the glass shards might have gone into his eye, the left one that had been replaced with the perfect eye, but between nearly dying and Yin’s proposal in his ear, he cannot quite remember. It would have hurt quite a bit, he reasons, so perhaps it is for the best that memory is hazy.

His left eye is blue now, an interesting colour that seems to shift as he looks at himself in the mirror. The entity who calls herself “Yin” had called it a “gift” from her, as a sign of their new contract. Prickling under his skin, Muyang feels like she had given him more than just an eye that can see with full clarity. He also feels a connection stretching from him to a faraway place, a destination he is not quite sure of, but knows that Yin is at the other end of.

“Hello?” Muyang reaches out through the connection tentatively, speaking through it.

She does not respond, and Muyang wonders if it is wilfulness or authority on her part. There is no doubt about who stands above who in this new contract of his but, frankly, Muyang is just glad to be alive. There is still so much to do after all, to see and to experience. Dying would have been rather inconvenient for him.

—

Ziyu returns to Zhuhe Town two years after he left, appearing like a ghost in the door of Muyang’s room. It has been a few months after the cave-in and since he met Yin, and Muyang is adjusting. The bandage he had kept over his right eye with its terrible eyesight has been swapped out for a pair of custom-made eyeglasses that perch neatly on one side of his face, the lens aiding his amethyst eye while leaving the blue one alone. Muyang sees a flash of white out of the corner of his eye and the faintest scent of sandalwood wafts over to him, and even without turning, Muyang knows who it is.

“Ziyu,” Muyang says, putting his brush down and turning to his childhood friend, a smile lighting up his face immediately. “Welcome home. You didn’t tell me you were coming back.”

Ziyu continues to haunt his doorframe, his features illuminated by the warm candlelight Muyang has on his desk to write by. He is still wearing travelling clothes, sturdy and dust-streaked from the road. His snowy white hair is tied back in the practical high ponytail Ziyu favours for travelling, but there is no mistaking how striking his features are. He has grown even more beautiful since Muyang saw him two years ago, his jaw defined and firm, still stubborn, and his eyes alight with the colour of flame.

“Muyang,” Ziyu says and, oh, his voice has deepened a little in the time they have not seen each other. It is still mellow, melodic, but there is a hint of authority that comes with his new voice. Perhaps something he had picked up in his time studying the performing arts. “You didn’t tell me that you nearly died.”

Touché, Muyang supposes, suppressing a sardonic little smile. When Ziyu was still in Zhuhe Town, there had been no need to tell each other anything when they spent all their time together. There were no secrets between them.

Why hadn’t he told Ziyu what had happened to him—the cave-in, meeting Yin, his new eldritch powers? They wrote to each other often so they were still involved in each other’s lives, but all that was something Muyang had left out, even if had been the biggest thing that happened to him since, well, he was born.

Maybe he simply did not want Ziyu to worry, not in a faraway place like that. Ziyu has a gift, a goal, a purpose, and Muyang wants him to see it through. He loves the sound of Ziyu’s voice, speaking or singing, and he knows that Ziyu loves being on stage. Muyang has watched him all through the years they have been together and he knows everything about him after all. Or “knew”, Muyang corrects himself. This Ziyu who stands before him is slightly unfamiliar in ways that Muyang has yet to figure out. Yet, it is also all still him.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Muyang says, knowing immediately that is the wrong answer, or perhaps the right one to draw a reaction out from his little ghost standing in the doorframe.

Sure enough, that prompts Ziyu to stalk into Muyang’s room, his strides long and purposeful as if he is headed out to perform a battle sequence. He has grown in height too, Muyang wonders a little dazedly, as Ziyu comes closer. In the past, whenever Muyang stood at this height, Ziyu had just been a little shorter than him. Now, Ziyu is just a little taller than him, his presence filling Muyang’s awareness as he stops before him.

Ziyu reaches out and grasps Muyang’s face, his eyes looking intently at Muyang’s left eye. Anyone else might not have spotted the nearly indiscernible change in expression on Ziyu’s face, but Muyang sees it. A slight frown on Ziyu’s face, like when he bites into something he dislikes.

“What happened to your eye?” Ziyu asks, his thumb brushing over Muyang’s cheekbone right under his eye.

“It’s a long story,” Muyang begins sheepishly.

“I’ve got time,” Ziyu says.

“Do you now? What about studying with the House of Strings? What are you doing here?”

“If you tell me what happened to you, I’ll tell you what I’m doing here.”

“Fine.” Muyang shrugs. He had left it out in his letters to Ziyu, but there is something about having Ziyu here in person that makes him unable to lie or hold anything back. “But only after you settle in and have something to eat first. You look like you just walked off the road and into my house—which is what I suppose you did.”

It is Ziyu’s turn to shrug. “It isn’t as if I have anywhere else to be.”

Muyang knows that too and he quietly sighs in his head. He takes Ziyu’s hand in his, like he has always done since they were young, and leads him out of his room. On his way out, he stops by the kitchen to let them know to set an extra place at the table today for an unexpected guest. Then, with Ziyu’s hand in his, he slithers off to the bathhouse.

—

Ziyu will not leave.

Muyang blinks at him, a little miffed. This is why he had not wanted to tell Ziyu anything about what happened. Muyang is fine, he does not need Ziyu hovering over him like a ghost. What he needs is Ziyu to get his apprenticeship with the best performing opera troupe the House of Strings has to offer and to take the Autumn Palace by storm. What he needs is for Ziyu to go back so that he can achieve all this.

“Ziyu, go back.” Muyang crosses his arms over his chest, glaring up at Ziyu.

“No.”

“Why?”

“It’s not where I want to be now.”

“It’s where you should be.”

Ziyu frowns a little, his beautifully shaped eyebrows furrowing. “I decide where I should be and this is where I want to be now.”

Muyang feels like tearing out his hair. They have had this argument over the past few days and Ziyu keeps shutting him down. When they were much younger, Ziyu was the tiniest little thing who would listen to Muyang without even questioning him, but ever since he grew up a little, Ziyu has become far too good at talking back to Muyang.

“Fine. Do whatever you want,” Muyang says, sensing another losing argument. If only Ziyu could put that stubbornness and tenacity to better use.

Ziyu’s expression softens into a look of relief. After shedding his travelling clothes, he is back to his usual look, not a stain, not a wrinkle, not a fold out of place on his clothes. His hair is combed neatly and half-tied up, a simple ribbon holding his ponytail up while the rest of his hair falls around his shoulders like silk. His lips are painted red with rouge, just enough to give them an alluring colour, and he has eyeshadow dusting the corners of his eyes, shaping them upwards to points and giving him a sharper look.

Ziyu smooths his sleeve aside and reaches out to touch Muyang’s hand, taking it in his as he asks, “What will you be doing tomorrow?”

He is looking at Muyang’s left eye again, the one that Yin gave him, and Muyang feels a twinge in his heart, as if a thorn is pricking him. He knows that it bothers Ziyu, what it is, the implications of what it means, and as a reminder of what had happened to Muyang. Ziyu had dodged the question—badly, Muyang has to add, since he can read Ziyu like a book—but Muyang knows that Ziyu had come back to Zhuhe Town for him and he dislikes being a stone in Ziyu’s path when he knows that Ziyu has a grand future before him.

“I’m travelling to the next town. My folks need me to bring in some of the plants they grow over there for the installation in the Wu Estate.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ziyu says, to Muyang’s complete lack of surprise, and Muyang nods, still distracted by his thoughts.

“Does it bother you?” Muyang asks, lacing his fingers with Ziyu’s. “My eye.”

Ziyu falls silent for a moment before he speaks up again, “I would be lying if I said it didn’t, but it is not my place to feel discomfort. Does it bother you?”

“Me?” Muyang asks, surprised. “It did at first, but I’ve gotten quite used to it. Well, it does make mornings pretty disorienting though.”

“More than the eye, what about what happened to you?” Ziyu urges him quietly. “The cave-in and meeting… Yin.”

Muyang considers Ziyu’s question carefully since Ziyu is taking it this seriously. “It was an unlucky turn of events, but I’m fine? In fact, I count myself lucky since I’m still here.”

Ziyu sighs, squeezing Muyang’s hand. “You’re too easygoing.”

Muyang laughs. “One of us has to be. Lighten up a little, Ziyu. And go back to the House of Strings.”

“No.”

—

Ziyu simply does not leave and Muyang should be glad that he is here with him again, just like when they were children. He did miss him after all when he made the decision—fully supported by Muyang—to travel out to study the performing arts seriously. Yet, whenever Muyang sees Ziyu now, all he tastes is bitterness welling up at the back of his tongue. It is not like Muyang dislikes Ziyu’s presence by his side but… every day Ziyu spends with Muyang is a day away from where he should be.

“So when are you going back?” Muyang asks Ziyu casually as they are hauling potted plants into the wagons that will transport them to Wucai City, where his family has an installation job awaiting them.

Ziyu merely looks at Muyang without saying anything as he dumps a potted plant heavily into the back of the wagon.

Muyang changes tactics as he slithers back and forth with the potted plants. “I’m thinking of taking a trip out of Zhuhe.”

“Where are you going?”

“Anywhere. Maybe even to the other provinces.”

Ziyu pauses and gives Muyang a serious look. “You know that’s dangerous in these times.”

Muyang shrugs. “I can’t stay cooped up in Zhuhe anymore. I think I’ve documented every plant around here and in the neighbouring towns and villages. Even the city.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Of course you will.” Muyang laughs. He saw Ziyu’s reply coming from a mile away.

Ziyu continues looking at him, his brows creased slightly. “Do you dislike it that I want to be with you?”

“Of course not,” Muyang says wretchedly because he does like having Ziyu back here by his side.

“But you’re troubled.”

“I don’t know why you won’t go back but I feel like that place would do you much better than here,” Muyang admits. “I love Zhuhe with all my heart and we both grew up here but it’s not going to do you much good.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Ziyu asks, stepping away from the wagon and intercepting Muyang’s path, firmly blocking him so that Muyang is forced to a stop before him.

“Don’t get what?”

“I want to stay with you, Muyang. For someone so smart, you can be incredibly dense.” Ziyu steps even closer to Muyang and his presence, usually quiet, ghost-like, is burning, flaring with intensity, like how he is when he is on stage.

In the split second before Ziyu leans down to kiss him, Muyang finally gets it. This is how Ziyu has always made him feel after all, whether Muyang was listening to him sing or recite lines from one of the great performances written by the House of Songs, or just staying by Ziyu’s side on a perfectly ordinary day. It is as if Ziyu is a spark of flame and Muyang is a fuse, ready to catch fire. The place where Ziyu’s lips touch sets him alight in a way that Muyang thinks feels right, burning away all the oxygen all the way to his lungs.

“Do you want me?” Ziyu asks Muyang, firm but quiet, when his lips leave Muyang’s. He has an arm around Muyang’s waist and a hand on the potted plant Muyang is holding, steadying it in case Muyang drops it.

Muyang looks at Ziyu. The rouge on Ziyu’s lips is smudged just slightly and Muyang tastes the lingering traces of it on his own lips. There is nothing teasing about the look in Ziyu’s eyes as he gazes back at Muyang, the flames in his eyes alive and alight. It almost looks like if he could, Ziyu would consume Muyang whole.

How he’s grown, Muyang finds himself musing idly and he swears he hears a light feminine laugh at the back of his head, tinkling like silver bells and sharp like silver blades.

“You know that I could never deny you,” Muyang confesses to Ziyu, still trapped between Ziyu’s arm and his body. For someone as big as him, snake parts and all, it is a little embarrassing to be held this easily by Ziyu, who is technically half his size against a fully stretched out Muyang. “But I didn’t know you, um, felt this way about me.”

Ziyu’s eyes soften. “I feel a lot for you, Muyang. After I heard you almost died in that cave-in, I thought I would regret it if I never acted on what I felt.”

Muyang tastes bitterness at the back of his tongue again and he swallows it. Ziyu should have never known what happened to him. Muyang is fine.

Muyang knows this is what he should say: Ziyu, go back.

But what comes out of his mouth is instead, “I didn’t say this when you first arrived—and I should have—but I missed you.”

A momentary lapse into weakness. This is all Muyang will allow himself and Ziyu. He knows in his heart that Ziyu was made for things bigger than Zhuhe and that he should return to nurturing them as soon as he can. Talent like his is rare, but what he lacks is the dedicated training that others his age or younger than him will have, and what he lacks he has to make up with in stubbornness and tenacity, which Muyang knows he has in spades.

They only have so much time in their lives to accomplish all they want to do and Muyang knows this all too well. His time was almost cut short once already, graciously extended by Yin, who remains a mystery to Muyang. At the end of his life, she will collect Muyang’s end of the bargain and he can only hope that—for his sake more than hers, really—that he will have made something worthwhile of his mortal life.

Muyang loves Ziyu, he really does, and that is why when Ziyu reaches the end of his life, Muyang hopes that he can look back at it and feel the same way. But for now, he supposes, they are both young and in love, and when Ziyu confesses to him in the spring of their youth, Muyang looks at the way Ziyu watches him and holds him and cannot bring himself to say no to him.