II | old times, long past

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Near midnight.

Jiang Cheng found himself ghosting the earth of Cloud Recesses, seething with something deep-sated than his rage and reeling with something more than adrenaline.

He couldn't really tell. He just—

It just felt stuffy overall.

"Jiang Cheng..."

Eyes closed and fists tight, Jiang Cheng took another step forward, ignoring the invisible pull trying its hardest to lead him back.

"I haven't seen you this close in years."

The moon hovered over him in reminder of the rule he was about to break. He wouldn't be punished though, as guests usually were, but it wouldn't reflect good on his image as a Sect Leader. Respecting the laws of another sect's territory had always been an unspoken rule, so Jiang Cheng should be in his room now, working on correspondences if he wasn't sleeping.

Instead—

Four thousand and one rules and that still happens.

"You're avoiding me."

Wei Wuxian's small voice echoed yet again, the statement more a realization more than a question.

Jiang Cheng had to take another deep breath to prevent himself from going back there and shaking the other back to his senses. Of course! he wanted to shout. Of course I would be!

"Leave it in the past," he had said, so leaving it in the past, Jiang Cheng had been trying to do. But what the hell was that? What the hell was Wei Wuxian doing approaching him so freely like that as if he had never said what he said before?

Wei Wuxian had never really left as far as Jiang Cheng was concerned. He avoided Lotus Pier, true, but he had never left. He was everywhere with those big gray eyes constantly swarmed with a turbulent flow of emotions that Jiang Cheng was not—and will never be—ready to hear and bear.

They were to leave everything in the past, so everything would have to be past them, including whatever little was there left before that declaration.

No what ifs, no buts, no—

No restarts.

Jiang Cheng couldn't do it. They'd both bled and scarred from each other. It was time to honor at least one promise: Leave it. Just leave it.

Just why can't Wei Wuxian do one fucking thing? Just one fucking promise, for once?

He just had to go and provoke Jiang Cheng yet again freshly after a tedious conference when he was still simmering with rage at the veiled remarks towards Sect Leader Jiang being a bit too controlling over the LanlingJin Sect. And now Jiang Cheng had gone and told him: "I'm sure you're already aware, Master Wei, about the rule against talking to you."And another for good measure, surprising even himself at how easy he had managed to hide the turbulence of his own emotions: "As well as basic courtesy. We are not close for you to be referring to me casually, Master Wei."

Wei Wuxian had looked really hurt when Jiang Cheng sneaked one last glance, and it had weighed on his steps as he walked away after.

And now Jiang Cheng was lost.

Fuck it.

The path was unfamiliar but it was too late to notice. He'd long been walking in it a bit too lost in though and now—he swallowed thickly in realization—he just noticed he'd walked around the same path for at least three times now.

Huffing, Jiang Cheng turned and tried retracing his steps, meanwhile cursing a certain Wei for always, always causing him these sorts of misfortune. With or without a proper relationship.

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