a quiet mind | huang renjun

Chapter 6

Renjun stuck his tongue into the side of his cheek, stomaching all the anger that bottled up in his throat. Xinyi chuckled at his reaction, shaking her head. She crouched down and picked the ring off the floor, shoving the fragile swan into his palm.

"I won't be saving your clumsy ass a second time" She stuck a finger at his chest "Meet me at this hotel tonight. We have wedding business to discuss." She gave him one final disappointed scowl, sliding an address card into his palm, and leaving from the isolated change room.

—

Xinyi pushed open the hotel door, sighing and tensely clutching the handle. Marriage; she never had the thought of getting actually married, let along with some supernatural creature.

She sucked in a breath, hand on luggage, and wheeled herself into the room.

Xinyi stood in the middle of a couple set hotel room with bucket loads of red wine and rose petals scattered as if they were like the little rainbow sprinkles on the cupcakes people ate as children.

Though, she couldn't not admit that she hadn't thought about what type of baby her and Renjun would make. A mutant angel? Winged hulk? But she wouldn't want kids. No, not kids. They were just the little devils incarnate.

The hotel door beeped open again, a short music box melody weighing over the romantic concerto playing from a vintage CD player.

"Why must the elevator not work at this hour" A familiar, milky voice groaned from the doorway, clear sounds of wheels against floor and struggling emitting from the door. Xinyi heard the noise, pursed her lips, and threw her suitcase to the side. She moved quickly to go take a seat on the rose infested couch.

"Gosh, this is heavy- woah" Renjun's eye's scanned the room, scrutinising everything from the masses of rose bouquets to the delicately made steak dinner on the kitchen table. The room was dimly lit with candles of a soothing fragrance; everything else being illuminated by the city lights from their extravagant balcony.

Xinyi didn't seem to give half a fuck; she was already on a business phone call. Renjun glanced at her busily working away with her elbows against knees and fingers scratching at her lips. He shrugged and advanced the mouth-watering dinner. Problem is, Renjun didn't eat. Corpses have no reason to eat.

"...fugazi gold, put it in the suitcase and deliver it to whoever's in charge of transportation. Ask anyone in the basement to do a patrol tonight, a couple gangs have started to have their eyes on us: they know I'm getting married. Especially tomorrow, be aware..." Her voice dialled out as Renjun sat on the dinner table chair, chin on the back of the chair as he pulled at the stray string from the chair cover.

"How romantic" Renjun scoffed, not that he had really considered them anything close to a couple. Acquaintances at most. He knew had to fall in love with her, but his determination seemed to drain out drop by drop. They were polar opposites and someone Renjun never would have even spared a glance at before. Casually taking the wine glass on the table, he tried a sip. To be fair he's never tried alcohol before.

It tasted bitter. He didn't like it.

"No, Renjun" He bolted up from his sitting position, head a little drowsy. He had barely taken a sip yet it was messing with him already
"You have to fall in love with her. You fall in love easily, yeah, that's how it's always been". Reassuring himself, he sheepishly tapped on the counter, catching her attention with two knocks.

She looked at him with a small eye roll.

"The dinners going to be cold" Renjun pointed at the plate of steak plated so beautifully it could be put in a museum.

"You eat it" She clicked her fingers and rounded her mouth "Of course, I forgot. You're a mere piece of human leftovers. You don't eat."

"Stop saying that" He said it in such a tone that she just wanted to crackle and at how much he sounded like an abandoned kid.

"Don't play nice with me, Renjun. Kids shouldn't be playing with fire" She tutted, spinning her pen around her finger, a smug smirk carved into her lips.

"I'm the same age as you" He ran a tongue over his bottom lip

"Oh really? I wouldnt have known if you didn't tell me" Mockery and sarcasm drooled from her mouth, a humorous chuckle complimenting her words.

"Yah" Renjun advanced her, placing his hands on the couch she was sat on "Wanting to act and live in youth is a personality trait. Don't make it seem like personality is a crime"

Xinyi rose to her knees, her legs balancing against the couch as she stared at him straight in the eye.

"Grow up" She ran a finger along his chin "Children are useless. All they do is get manipulated and played with because they're a bunch of naive, dumb animals"

"You were a child once too" He forced out through gritted teeth. She showed a row of her shining white teeth, her damp lips drawn into a small curl.

"I was useless too" Her nose touched his "But I grew up, didn't I?"

He was at a loss of breath. She was too close, way too close. The shivers were climbing up his arm, sending a cascade of goosebumps across his pale skin. She always gave him the worse kind of shivers. The ones that made him feel as though his blood has been ejected from his guts and a veiny hand of a monster has come to choke him in the throat.

No, he couldn't just let her conquer him like that. He didn't want a single one of her dirty footprints on his soul.

Renjun leant away from her, taking slow strides around the couch to advance towards her. This took her by surprise, but her expression remained unfazed.

"I don't want you to underestimate me, Xinyi" He took the pen out of her hand. Just as she was about to retract her hand, his palm came to wrap around it in a tight clasp.

"I don't want you to underestimate the things I can do. This bracelet" The jewel on the bracelet casted a patch of pale white across her skin "is far more powerful than you think"

"Hah" She shook her wrist out of his grip "One pair of scissors and that weak piece of string would be gone from my hand"

This time it was Renjun's turn to chuckle. He didn't want to be treated like something she could just squish under her two fingers when he was full aware that he had the ability to do things she never could.

"The likes of you are kind-hearted and timid. Even if you could do something to me, you wouldn't, you wouldn't as to even pull out a strand of my hair" She sat up taller, Renjun's body backing up slightly. This was a battle of who truly was the weaker one. Both of them had such an ego to hold up, neither would admit defeat.

"You're all just pieces of crap. Simple janitors that scrape up all the sins that us humans have created. Because you're all too nice to watch those sins infest the rest of the world and suck up the souls of living, breathing humans. Humans are cruel; there is not a single righteous one. We're all either the murderer or the murdered. Don't think you can try and put good in us. You were one of us before you fell to your death. Isn't that how your world works? You rise to become an Angel after you're tragic death. You've seen just how merciless we are. You've seen how much bloodshed occurs in this patriarchal, unforgiving society." She placed a hand on his chest to shove him back "You're just like one of us: trash"

"Angel's aren't saints" He deflected her shove and crashed their bodies against the couch, his hovering over hers "We're all Satan with a halo, baby"