It feels like an entire lifetime has passed between the first time Xin Hulei tasted his tears and now.

Yao Shen can scarcely believe he\'s still the same person.

Perhaps in all the ways that count he isn\'t, not anymore.

He rubs his eyes with the back of his wrist, drying them off.

"Don\'t do that," Yao Shen says, swallowing around the knot in his throat. "I can\'t handle it."

Xin Hulei steps closer to him. Yao Shen retreats a few paces until the back of his knees hit the bed frame.

"Do what?"

Overly conscious of the sound of his own heartbeat, Yao Shen lowers his eyes. "You know how I feel about you..."

"Do I?" Xin Hulei asks, the furrow between his eyebrows growing deeper. "Two lifetimes of entanglement, and I have no idea how you feel about me."

Xin Hulei draws nearer, eventually Yao Shen has nowhere else to retreat to. He loses his balance and falls down on the bed in an inelegant sprawl.

Xin Hulei\'s nostril\'s flare.

"I don\'t think even you know." He looks down at Yao Shen, his dark eyes glinting in the gloom of the room. "Have you seen your memories?"

Yao Shen shakes his head. "Not yet."

"What\'s stopping you?" Xin Hulei asks, his voice low and rumbling.

"I\'m scared."

"Of what you\'ll learn?"

He nods again. "There\'s a reason people are supposed to forget their past lives."

One corner of Xin Hulei\'s lip hooks up. "That\'s a privilege demons don\'t get, we\'re cursed to remember forever."

"You don\'t," Yao Shen says, lifting his eyes and meeting Xin Hulei\'s. "You don\'t remember me."

Xin Hulei\'s eyebrows knit together. He lifts one knee up on the bed, leaning over Yao Shen. "I remember some of you."

"But not everything," Yao Shen insists. "Don\'t you want to know why?"

"Maybe it\'s for the best."

Yao Shen shakes his head. He remembers what Fan Wujiu saw, about him helping carry Xin Hulei out. That doesn\'t make sense, he wouldn\'t do that if Xin Hulei had just tried to kill him.

"I don\'t think so," Yao Shen says. "You assume it was a result of what happened that day, but what if someone did it to you, deliberately?"

No reply comes, but Xin Hulei\'s presence on the bed disappears. He gets up and runs a hand through his messy hair.

"You\'re like a bad habit I can\'t shake."

Yao Shen\'s stomach seizes with warmth. Something comes over him and he grabs two handfuls of Xin Hulei\'s tshirt, pulling him down on top of him on the bed.

Xin Hulei supports himself with his forearm above Yao Shen\'s head, preventing all his weight from crushing Yao Shen.

"You\'re a smoker." Yao Shen\'s hands drift from Xin Hulei\'s chest up into his neck, looping around it. "I\'m not the only bad habit you have."

An amused glint in Xin Hulei\'s eyes catches the light coming in from the twinkling lights outside. "I\'m trying to quit."

Yao Shen lets out a whimper and pulls Xin Hulei harder on top of him. "I won\'t let you. You\'re stuck with me."

The amusement disappears from Xin Hulei\'s eyes, replaced by a melancholy smile. "That\'s not for you to decide."

Yao Shen tightens his arms around Xin Hulei\'s neck, keeping him in place. "I just think there\'s more to all of this than you know. Didn\'t you hear the two Impermanences? There\'s a power struggle in Youdu, and it has been going on for a long time. Things are coming to a head now because of the ghost kings negligence, but they have been bad for a long time."

"Does that have anything to do with you lying to me?"

Xin Hulei\'s words land on Yao Shen like a bucket of cold water. He\'s right. Yao Shen has been so focused on clearing up the events of his past life, that he completely forgot to make amends about his present actions.

"I\'m sorry, I know I shouldn\'t have kept things from you, but for a long time I didn\'t know if I could trust you." He takes in a shuddering breath, preparing to admit something that makes his cheeks warm up. "By the time we got closer, I was in denial about my own emotions, and fooled myself into thinking it didn\'t matter either way."

Xin Hulei listens attentively and then nods. He disentangles himself from Yao Shen\'s arms, and gets up from the bed.

"Are you hungry? You look like you\'ve lost weight."

Yao Shen doesn\'t expect the sudden change of subject, but he\'s grateful for any opportunity to spend more time with Xin Hulei.

"Yes, I\'m starving."

---

Jincan nearly has an apoplexy when he sees both of them emerge from Xin Hulei\'s bedroom.

"He\'s still here?" He points and accusing finger at Yao Shen, his butterfly wing ears flap in and out of his mess of golden curls in anxiety.

Xin Hulei ignores him and makes a beeline for the kitchen, so Yao Shen follows his lead and goes after him.

Jincan follows them in, haunting the doorway like an evil spirit. "Master, when will he leave?"

Xin Hulei is busy taking ingredients and utensils out of cupboards and so ignores him.

Yao Shen sits up on the counter, swinging his legs back and forth while he shoots Jincan a derisive smirk.

"Why do you call him Master? Didn\'t he help raise you for centuries? I think you have a much closer bond than that..."

Jincan puffs out his chest. "That\'s right, Jincan and Master have been together for centuries. Which means an interloper like you-"

Yao Shen clicks his tongue while nodding. "That\'s just the thing... such a lasting bond, such enduring loyalty. I think your relationship deserves the proper recognition."

It\'s clear Jincan doesn\'t know where Yao Shen is going to take this, but that part of him wholeheartedly agrees with what he\'s saying. He does think his relationship with Xin Hulei is special -- if only Xin Hulei would notice too.

Yao Shen slams his palm down on the counter. "I know! I think you should bow to Xin Hulei and acknowledge him as your father."

Jincan\'s outraged, "What?!" echoes through the kitchen, probably being heard by some passersby on the street below.

"I think it\'s perfect. What better acknowledgement of Hulei\'s efforts all these years? You should repay him by being a filial son until the end of his days, and taking care of him in his old age."

Xin Hulei is silently chopping garlic, completely unmoved by Yao Shen\'s one-sided decision.

Jincan tries to earn some sympathy from him. "Master, listen to the nonsense this hussy is spouting..."

Xin Hulei shrugs, the muscles on his back shifting under his thin shirt. Yao Shen takes the opportunity and comes down from the counter, making his way to Xin Hulei by the stove and plastering himself against his back.

"Don\'t talk to me like that, when I and Hulei get married, I\'ll be your stepfather."

Jincan sputters indignantly, his pretty face glowing red. "Master, how can you-"

Xin Hulei spares him a cold look from the corner of his eye. "Listen to your stepfather."

In that moment he thinks he\'s about to witness someone pass out from sheer rage. Jincan stammers and sputters bitterly, to the point steam almost comes out of his ears. Seeing as he\'s not getting any reaction, he leaves the kitchen with heavy strides, slamming the door behind him.

Yao Shen lets go of Xin Hulei, smiling a little to himself at having annoyed Jincan so much.

Unexpectedly, Xin Hulei catches his wrist and reels him back in, this time against his chest.

"Little Menace," he says, whispering the words into Yao Shen\'s ear. "Why do you have to make things so hard for me?"

Yao Shen turns around and holds Xin Hulei\'s handsome face between his palms "I\'m not going to make it easy for you to forget me again, not this time."

A shadow passes over Xin Hulei\'s eyes. He pulls Yao Shen\'s hands away from his face. "I wish there was no past. I wish we met for the first time when you walked into the audition room."

For a time, Yao Shen wished that too, but what\'s the point of dreaming about something that isn\'t possible?

That meeting on the audition room might be a clean slate for Xin Hulei, but it wasn\'t for Yao Shen. Back then, the very sight of Xin Hulei enraged him.

There is no such thing as a perfect beginning -- everything is a matter of perspective.

Yao Shen is trying to stop mourning what could have been, and trying to make the best of what is.

Before he can say anything else to Xin Hulei, Heimao bursts into the kitchen.

"Ok, what did you do to Jincan? He\'s locked himself in our room and refuses to come out."

His gaze falls on Yao Shen, and he let\'s out a drawn out, "oh," and then, "Little beauty is here," Heimao says.

"Would you like to stay after dinner?" Xin Hulei asks, surprising everyone in the kitchen.