Momentarily, Yours ("Goodbye, My Princess")

3- untold secrets

Night has fallen. Xiaowu—it's the name he's grown so used to by now; the instinctive, firsthand calling he responds to—ducks into Xiaofeng's tent. She is fast asleep on her bed.

He knows he shouldn't be here. If her grandfather found out, he'd probably murder him on the spot.

Xiaofeng's lamplight flickers at her bedside, castling strange, warm lighting across her face. Her eyes are closed. She is hardly moving. She is so still when she sleeps, like a baby, or an unborn flower, or the whisper of a song from your childhood.

Xiaowu takes a step towards her, not realising he's staring until he has to tear his gaze away to switch off the lamp. He crouches at her beside and gently blows out the flame. It snuffs out in a heartbeat, and darkness encompasses them. Her face—even closer now—is shadowed like the moon in the night.

"Fool," he whispers, hoping he doesn't wake her. "She didn't even turn off her light."

Most people he knows are light sleepers. His best friend, himself even... and his brother. His older brother.

A deep, tattered wound reopens at the slightest mention of his brother's existence. Xiaowu's heart aches. He clenches his teeth and looks down. He gazes at Xiaofeng to distract himself and, soon, the pain really stops. Or it soothes, more like... it's soothing to watch her sleep.

Her lips are parted softly like flower petals, darker than rose in this shadow. Xiaowu wants to kiss her.

At that exact moment, her eyes flutter open. Slowly, stiffly at first. But when they land on him so close to her, and seem to register his presence, they work harder to open. They blink and peel themselves to life. Soon, she is staring at him, and he is staring back at her, their dark eyes reverse fireflies. And magnets.

He holds on to that intangible moment in which she takes the smallest, lightest breath. Realising just how close he is. Maybe even regulating some inborn butterflies. He studies her as a familiar look fills her face, her bright eyes. A look of awe, innocence, delight. She smiles up at him. Head still on her pillow.

"Gu Xiaowu..."

"Shhh. Yes. It's me." He wants to kiss her. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"

"Well, obviously, I'm awake now," Xiaofeng's face breaks into that full-blown, utterly vulnerable grin. She is so vulnerable that at any one moment his betrayal could kill her. The deep-rooted trust will be snapped in two. She is like a beautiful, fresh snow flower that all of a sudden, Xiaowu is so worried about crushing. "Mmm. Gu Xiaowu..."

"Yes," he whispers. He fingers her hair. The gentle hairline that blends into Danchi braids. These Danchi roots of hers that he will destroy. "...I'm here."

"Gu Xiaowu, you're not supposed to be here," she giggles. "You're in my room."

"I know."

"You know what would happen to you if Grandfather knew you were here?"

"I would be shredded to bits?"

"Like a bear ripping its teeth through a strip of salmon."

Xiaowu bursts into a fit of whisper-laughter. It reverberates through the night air, "What an awful metaphor. What kind of princess are you? What kind of princess babbles on about bears killing a fish. Outrageous..." he jabs her side, her stomach, and she squirms away. She releases shrieks of giggles.

"Hey stop it!" She shoves him and beats him with her fists, until finally he grabs hold of her hands, enclosing his palms around the bead-line of her knuckles. She grows still. Her hands are so small in his. Her closed bear-paw fists fit perfectly in the curves of his palms, as if they were tailored to be there. As if his hands and her hands were two fragments of a puzzle, destined to come perfectly intact.

He stares down at her.

"Gu Xiaowu," her irises glimmer. "You'll never leave me, will you?"

"Fool," he cracks a tiny, stiff smile down at her. Her eyes are chocolaty and gummy. "You're my wife, aren't you? How could I leave you?"

"Do you promise? Never ever?"

She threads her fingers through his and pulls their intertwined hands over her stomach, drawing him towards her. Closer. Closer. Her lips are centimetres away from his.

Xiaowu swallows the lump in his throat.

"Never." And he quenches his desire.