Chapter Text
It was an odd group that morning on the docks. Jinshi and Gaoshun had been there since early morning, getting everything through their final checks and making sure everyone was on the same page. Jinshi met with the crew once again, to ensure that their passage across the seas would be safe enough. Before long, Lihaku was there, running checks with them. Then, the Ma siblings showed up, Baryou looking particularly haggard at the thought of not having his wife around for a while. Chue was all over him, though, and Basen was pointedly ignoring… all of that. Suirei showed up on her own, and Maomao came not long after that, toting an unusually clingy Chou-u on her arm.
She made for Jinshi first, her face as impassive as always. He squeezed her hand gently before letting her go.
“Sir Likahu, you’re looking bright today,” Maomao greeted, letting Chue take her bag. “How is my sister doing?”
Lihaku beamed. “She’s settling well into our new home. We’ve even had the rest of your sisters over for dinner after all the celebrations were over.” He scratched his neck. “I wanted to invite you too, but Pairin said you would have been too stressed about getting ready for the trip to accept.”
Maomao deposited Chou-u into Jinshi’s waiting arms. “Yes,” she agreed, “I would’ve declined. Is Pairin going to stay home for the year?”
“She’s going to help out at Verdigris House.” Lihaku grinned. “She’s talking about sitting in with the apprentices to get better at reading and writing as well as helping out the old Madam with managing the house.”
“That’s good,” Maomao replied. She mumbled a casual ‘see you later’ and headed off.
Jinshi watched Maomao as she navigated the crowded dock after leaving them, saying hi to Basen and meeting Baryou. Her hair was in her bun that she wore for travelling. He could see a silver hair stick glinting in the early morning sunlight, and felt around in his inner pockets for the pouch he’d so carefully tucked inside his robes.
Good. It was still there.
Chou-u had detached from him to sit at the edge of the dock, staring at the water as it rippled. Jinshi had half a mind to sit down with him, and, in glancing back at Maomao and seeing that she was talking to Chue, he did.
For a minute, Chou-u didn’t even acknowledge he was there. He swung his legs without much care, fiddling with a small trinket in his hands. Jinshi just sat by him, waiting.
“Does she really have to go?” Chou-u asked quietly, after a minute. “What if she… what if she doesn’t come back? What if she likes it better over there and she doesn’t want to come back?”
Jinshi’s chest tightened. Every time a change occurred, Chou-u was scared that maybe Maomao would up and leave him, even though he knew she wouldn’t. “She’ll come back,” Jinshi said gently. “She always comes back.”
Chou-u scrubbed at his eyes, exhaling shakily. “She can be a doctor there, right?” he asked. “She can help people there. She can’t be a doctor here. She can’t do the things she wants to do here. But she can do it there.”
The water at their feet splashed. Jinshi watched it swirl around the legs of the dock. “But she will come back, Xiaoyu,” he said. “I know she will.”
Chou-u glared at Jinshi. “How do you know that?” he demanded. “Maomao always says that no one can tell the future, so how do you know that?”
Jinshi wanted to hug Chou-u to comfort him, but he kept his hands to himself for fear he’d make it worse. He sighed. “I know she’ll come back because you’re here,” Jinshi said softly. “I know she’ll come back because Luomen is here, and her sisters are here, and the people she cares about are all here. She’s going away to learn how to help people, just so she’ll come back and help people here. So she’s going to come home, I know she is. It’s just going to take a longer time than usual.”
Chou-u didn’t say anything, then. There was another long moment before he nodded and got up, leaving Jinshi alone at the edge of the dock. Jinshi stared out at the water again.
It was a beautiful day to set sail, he mused. The skies were clear all the way down to the horizon, and the water was calm, though the winds were starting to pick up. Jinshi hoped that they could cross the seas safely. He hoped that Maomao would get to learn everything she wanted to learn.
He stood slowly when he heard her familiar footsteps behind him, getting to his feet in time for her to meet him at the end of the dock. Jinshi’s breath caught on the lump in his throat when he finally looked at her properly, when he saw the loose strands of her hair fly into her face from the wind. He reached out to tuck it behind her ears.
For a while, he just drank the image of her in. Maomao, there in front of him, her smile soft and small, like she wanted it to be kept a secret between the two of them. Her dress was one of the ones she wore while they were on their trip north, albeit with less layers. Jinshi wanted no more than to pull her into his arms and keep her here and with him and not go away for so long. God, he didn’t want her to go. What was he going to spend every other afternoon and evening doing?
“Jinshi-sama,” Maomao interrupted, a bemused expression crossing her face, “you’ve been looking at me for too long. This is precisely why I suggested we memorize each other, so we don’t waste time doing this.”
“I will never say looking at you is a waste of time,” Jinshi said earnestly. “It never will be.”
Maomao’s shoulders jumped up to her ears, and her eyes fell to the ground just as quickly. Jinshi knew her well, knew that her face would be red if he only just took a peek. But he would spare her the embarrassment, this time.
Jinshi pulled the pouch out of his robes. “I have something for you,” he said, after a moment. He took out the necklace, careful not to get the string tangled up, and dangled the pendant down. He watched the sunlight reflect off the jade ring, then flicked his gaze over to Maomao, whose face was still red, but she had a faintly pleased air about her as she studied the ring. Jinshi hummed. “I can spend hours telling you about the various symbolisms behind it, but for time’s sake I won’t. I think we’re already holding up the departure.”
Maomao glanced back, sighing. “Yes, you are, sir,” she said. Jinshi thought she might’ve sounded a little disappointed. “Alright, hand it over.”
He gingerly put it back in the pouch and placed it in her palm, watching the dark fabric disappear into her pocket. “Not going to wear it?” Jinshi teased. “After all the effort I put into it being made.”
“That’s entirely your fault, and none of mine,” Maomao retorted, adjusting the fabric of her skirt back into place. “You put all the effort here, between the two of us.”
Jinshi took her lonely hands, squeezing them gently. “I would beg to differ,” he said with a small grin. “I distinctly remember someone going to visit someone she didn’t like so she could be eligible to marry, not to mention how she wrote so very many letters to me, and so promptly, too.”
Maomao looked at him reproachfully. “If you’ll be using that against me, I’ll make sure not to do it again.” Still, she squeezed his hands in return, though seeming as annoyed with it as ever. She exhaled softly. “I suppose now it would be too late to say I want to stay here?”
He let out a little huff of a laugh. “A little, yes,” Jinshi said. “I do have something to say about the ring, actually.”
“Well, say it, then,” Maomao said. She jerked her chin at the others. “You were the one who said you weren’t going to, because of the time constraints.”
Jinshi smiled. He loved her so much. “I did.” He sighed. “I heard that, in the west, it was custom for the two in a marriage to wear a ring on their left fourth finger.” He tugged on the corresponding one on her hand. “This one.” He tried very hard not to look at his own hand, which was adorned with a similar, if not identical, jade ring. Jinshi snuck a look at Maomao, who was staring at it with her lips just hinting at a smile. “Anyway,” he said, breaking the moment, “that’s all. I mean, there’s more, but that’s just what I wanted to say.”
Maomao nodded, still looking at his hands. She seemed to be steeling herself, “Alright, then.” She planted her hands on his shoulders and surged up to press a kiss to his lips, and Jinshi pulled her a little closer by the waist. Just as quickly as she kissed him, though, she had already pulled away. “Jinshi-sama, please let go of me. We’re in public.”
“No.” Jinshi dropped his head on her shoulder. “And you’re the one who started it.”
“Yes, under the assumption that I would also be the one who ended it immediately after,” Maomao hissed, her voice muffled against his robes. “Stop it.”
“No.”
“Jinshi-sama.”
“No.”
She exhaled slowly. He could feel her breath warming him. “Jinshi, please,” Maomao mumbled. His heart stuttered in his chest, unused to her using just his name. Again and again, he was reminded of how much he loved her. He felt her hide her face in his chest, just for a moment. “Don’t be difficult.”
Her voice was small. Quiet. Jinshi didn’t want to let her go when she sounded like this, but he knew he couldn’t hold onto her for this long. He shouldn’t. Even if everything in him just wanted another minute with her in his arms, he shoudn’t.
His heart ached when he finally released her from his grasp, when Maomao took a step back like touching him for longer would burn her. He knew why she did it. Jinshi would’ve too, to keep himself from holding her again, but his feet were rooted to the wooden boards of the dock. At least he wouldn’t run after the ship, then, he thought.
“I’ll see you in a year,” he managed to say. Maomao nodded shortly, and turned around. Jinshi screwed his eyes shut, but he could still hear her walking away. When he opened them again, she was already on the boat.
He watched it slowly sail out over the river. Jinshi thought he could still see a figure at the back, staring as the shore disappeared.
The carriage ride back home with Chou-u and Gaoshun and Baryou was silent. Baryou already looked faint, so Jinshi made no attempt to have a conversation. Gaoshun was driving. Chou-u alternated between staring at his hands to looking listlessly around the interior of the carriage.
Jinshi pulled out a small book and started reading. Well, he tried to, but sooner or later, the words started blurring on the page. He focused on the words; it was a novel that had recently gotten published, and Jinshi was supposed to be reading it through to check for any potential information that shouldn’t be distributed on palace grounds, especially in the rear palace. He could laugh at himself, now. Twenty years old and three years having moved from that position, and yet he was still doing the work of the rear palace overseer.
The sky was a brilliant blur… Jinshi blinked, rubbing at his eyes. No, it was a brilliant blue. The sky was a brilliant blue on the fourth day of the… star? No, no, there was another character after ‘star’, it read ‘week’, not just ‘star’.
He sighed, flipping the book closed. This was getting him nowhere. He might as well just stop and try again later. It would, at least, save him the headache.
Call him infatuated or obsessed, but Jinshi just couldn’t get Maomao off his mind. The way she looked at him before she left, the way she turned away from him. Her smile was seared into his memory, like the after image of a fireworks display. His chest ached.
It was the right thing, to tell her about the opportunity, he knew it was. She loved medicine. No matter how much she would say that it was a means to an end to justify how much she worked with it, he knew. If he had a passion as strong as hers, he’d want to go study it too.
But, god, he was going to miss her. He already did.
He missed the warmth and weight of her in his arms, at his side. The smell of crushed herbs on her, the way her mouth moved in preparation of saying his name. The sparkles in her eyes whenever she talked about something or someone she loved. Her voice, her figure, her mind, her heart. Jinshi could list the things he missed about her for days on end, if someone let him. No one sane would.
Jinshi must’ve drifted off, because he was woken and alerted to their re-entrance to the palace by the way the road went from bumpy to smooth, and he organized his thoughts as quickly as he could. Chou-u was sleeping at his side, and Baryou was… reading. Good. He didn’t look so faint anymore.
Jinshi mourned the loss of Chue on his service. She was really quite helpful when she wanted to be. At least Jinshi wouldn’t need another attendant now that his exploits and adventures away from home amounted to a zero. He had nowhere to go, no one to visit. It was just him in his office, alone with a pile of paperwork as tall as Min’en.
The carriage rolled to a stop outside his estate a few minutes later, and Jinshi gently nudged Chou-u awake.
“Time to get out,” he sang, chuckling as Chou-u’s disgruntled face appeared in the boy’s sleep. “Come on.”
Chou-u scrubbed at his eyes and blinked blearily, accepting it easily as Jinshi pulled him up and on his feet. “Where are we?” he asked groggily.
“My house,” Jinshi replied. He tilted his head as he spotted someone at his door. A very familiar looking someone, round spectacles glinting in the sunlight. What was he doing here? “Wait here for a second.”
Chou-u squinted. “Is that Uncle Lahan?”
Jinshi whipped his head down to look at Chou-u. “Did he bribe you to call him that?” he asked quickly, eyes wide. “Tell me.”
“Only because it was included in the negotiation,” Chou-u replied. “It was call him uncle and the weird old guy grandpa for the high, high price of twenty silver and a new bottle of ink.”
“Oh, good.” Jinshi ruffled the boy’s hair. “As long as it was the right price.”
“That’s funny, that’s what Uncle Lahan said too.”
Jinshi stopped ruffling Chou-u hair and removed his hand from Chou-u’s head entirely. “Never say that again,” he said warningly.
Chou-u grinned toothily up at him. “What are ya willing to pay, mister?”
“Forget it.” Jinshi grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over to the front gate. He waved at Lahan. “What brings you by?”
Lahan shrugged. “Maybe I just wanted to talk to my future brother in law and my nephew,” he said. “Is that illegal? Is that wrong?”
“No, but it’ll cost ya!” Chou-u crowed.
Jinshi stared at Lahan. “I don’t know what you did to him, but you’re making it worse,” he deadpanned. He let go of Chou-u, who immediately tried to pickpocket Lahan. “Chou-u, hands to yourself. Give Lahan back his purse.”
Chou-u pouted and stuffed it back into Lahan’s waiting hands.
The three of them trooped inside. Baryou had already been dropped off before they got to Jinshi’s estate, and Gaoshun had already gone inside. As soon as they set foot inside, Suiren popped up with tea and snacks for them. The three of them sat in the living room, each occupying a chair, as they ate.
Jinshi was lying on his couch, finally able to focus on his book when the other option was to socialize. Chou-u was curled up on a chair, sketching something slowly. Lahan also had a book out, and it looked like he was enjoying it severely.
Jinshi sighed. “What are you reading that’s making you so happy, Lahan?” he asked, breaking the silence of the room for the first time. “You look positively giddy.”
Lahan grinned and showed him and Chou-u his book.
It was a ledger.
“It’s beautiful, don’t you see?” Lahan cried. “It’s completely in the black! Goodness knows my family’s finances could aspire to look a little bit more like this!”
Jinshi exchanged a weirded-out look with Chou-u, who piped up, saying, “But don’t you manage the finances for your family, Uncle Lahan?”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m working with, little one,” Lahan said cheerfully, though it seemed to be because the man was in deep denial. “My Honoured Father has the spending habits of a man who has never known the streets of a market. It used to be alright, but since he bought out his wife, he’s been spending on her non-stop. I had to create two more side businesses just to support his habit! It’s exhausting, to be quite frank.”
Glancing at the door, Jinshi stood up. “Hey, Chou-u,” he said, “want to come make ice cream with me?”
“Thank god, I thought I’d never get to escape,” the boy muttered, hurrying after Jinshi. He paused just before the door. “Uncle Lahan, have you ever thought of selling Grandpa to pay off your debts?”
Lahan sighed. “I tried,” he said. “Nobody wanted him.”
Jinshi snorted. “Figures,” he mumbled, and slid the door closed behind him.
Alright, fine, if this was what he had to look forward to for the year Maomao would spend away, maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad.