Chapter Text
The world looks different, now that A-She is without his father.
It would be quite the lie to say that nothing has changed. His mother is quieter, and takes longer to smile. She spends a lot of time sitting in the front room and staring out the window at the courtyard beyond, grief clinging to her like a miasma. She still dotes on him, of course, never negligent in proving her love for him with every action she takes, but. It’s clear to anyone with eyes that something integral is missing.
Jiujiu is of course still there, too, but even he is quieter. He still lifts A-She up into the air and holds him close, but now his hugs are tighter, like he’s afraid that if his grip is too loose, A-She might disappear. A-She hasn’t heard his boisterous laugh, totally unbefitting the Lan that he is, in —
It has been almost a month since his father disappeared.
A-She still attends his classes just like any other day. For some reason, A-Fei and the other children he often played with before have taken to forming a tight knit group around A-She, sometimes almost clinging to him. They watch him with clear worry, and it makes A-She wonder if they know , somehow. If someone has told them that their friend A-She has experienced something terrible. If they can even understand such a thing at this age.
Or maybe they only see the deep, suppressive sadness that makes A-She’s lungs too tight these days, and are trying their best in their own ways to help him.
It’s kind of them. If only it worked like that.
His teachers are still eternally patient with both him and all his peers. They watch A-She even more now than they had before, and A-She can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed by it. If he was still the teacher he had been in his last life, he would keep a closer eye on himself too.
A-She still hasn’t returned to the Cold Springs — and he’s grateful, he is , it’s just that… There's no one, now, who will take him out into the woods, to the river instead and break the Rules and feed him fish and teach him to garden spices and herbs during the times that all his classmates are being taught to swim in the ice water.
It’s a very silly thing to miss the most, that is true, but the very thought of venturing out into the companionably lonesome woods on his own —only ever on his own, now — nonetheless makes A-She turn over in his bed at night to smother his tears into his pillow, where he hopes his mother will not hear them. He’s not sure how well he succeeds at it, because on those mornings she looks ever more sorrowful when she ladles out his morning congee.
The courtyards and inner sect that had been his home, quaint and bustling and altogether homely, for the past three and a half years, now feels stifling, smothering.
Two months after his father leaves, A-She waits for a free day from classes and then sneaks off into the woods by himself.
It’s a longer walk by himself, with his shorter legs and nobody to carry him when he gets tired, but eventually he makes it to the stream where the fish are. And he sits at the water's edge, careful to stay downstream of the rapids right where his father had always sat him to watch him fish.
He stares at the churning water, uneasy, and feels ice begin to coat the insides of his lungs as a deep and cloying fear overcomes him at the sight and sound of the rapids.
A-She buries his face into his knees and cries.
__
He isn’t sure how long it’s been, but he is too cold to move. Ice spears into his lungs with every breath, coated in his own nonsensical terror in a way that causes him to shake. He’s trembling so much that he’s grown numb to the sensation of it. He can’t feel the minute movement of his own body. His throat is dry and parched and ripped apart due to the sobs that recklessly slaughter it.
A-She curls into a tighter ball, feeling the cold sand of the river’s shore cling to his robes. The cold seeps in through the fabric and burrows into his legs. The sound of rushing water is ceaseless, relentless, and absolutely indifferent to the fear it is causing him.
A-She is so scared that he can’t move a muscle. He can’t run away, like he desperately wants to. He wants to stand up on shaky legs and race back to the common courtyards, he wants to find his father and cling to the man’s leg until Baba picks him up and swings him around and holds him close, he wants the man’s warm embrace to chase away his nightmares like it’s always done —
But, baba is gone. Baba isn’t —
He isn’t coming back.
It took A-She a while to truly realize it. He still doesn’t know what happened; after all, the adults are all being incredibly tight lipped about it. So careful not to say anything where A-She’s little ears can hear. But.
But, A-She isn’t as young as they think. He knows something happened.
It’s so early in the morning that the sun’s light has yet to even breach the horizon.
It’s been one day without his father.
There are loud knocks on their door that seem so out of place in the Lan sect’s serenity and characteristic quiet, which makes it even more unsettling when mama wretches open the door to reveal a group of sect elders as the culprits.
Even more uncharacteristically, his mother gives them no time to speak their intentions.
“He isn’t here.” And her voice is icy, flat and toneless.
It makes a shiver run down A-She’s spine.
She had placed him around the corner away from the door when the knocking had begun, wrapped in a blanket, and told him not to move. Now, A-She can only listen, the feeling of something not being right climbing up his throat all the while.
“Where could he be, then?” One of the Lan elders demands, their voice just as cold. But not toneless like his mother’s, no. Theirs is furious.
A-She draws the blanket tighter around his shoulders.
His mother doesn’t move. “He left.”
“For such a thing to happen right in the heart of the sect,” another elder speaks, “and to run away directly after. It does not speak in his favor.”
“Perhaps he left because he knew nothing would?” This time… this time mother actually sounds angry. Upset. “The venerable elders are not well renown for their listening ears, after all.”
“Child,” one of the elders snaps harshly. “Lan Xiaoyi needs to mind her tongue!”
“Elder Lan Fuyao is only proving this mother’s point.”
“That’s all she is now, isn’t she?” One elder sounds — cruel, almost. A-She feels tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, and a thick pressure climbs his throat. “Without a husband, there is only…. Now, speaking of that man’s child—”
“No.” It’s mama’s turn to sound chillingly furious. “That — That child is Lan Xiaoyi’s son — he is my son.”
“Does Lan Xiaoyi mean to say…?”
There’s a brief pause. A-She can hear mama inhale a breath that tries to be unaffected, but even he can pinpoint the trembling notes of grief when she next speaks.
“My son’s name is Su .”
After that, the elders had left. And A-She had been confused. So very confused.
Because when the elders had left, mama had shut the door with more force than necessary, locked it tightly, and returned to kneel before his swaddled form.
She took him by the shoulders and stared directly into his eyes.
“A-She has to listen to mama.” She says tightly, her gaze intense, eyes rimmed with a faint red. “Listen and remember.”
A-She slowly releases the breath he’d been holding in. Mama is afraid. That makes him feel afraid, too. Because if mama is afraid, then —
It is not safe here, after all?
“Okay.” He whispers.
Mama’s hands tighten on his shoulders, almost to the point of pain.
“A-She must promise .”
His throat tightens. Last time he’d been made to promise something, his parent had been gone the next moment.
“A-She—” he splutters over the tears that break over his lashes, “p-promises….”
“Oh,” his mother murmurs, swiping her thumb across his cheek to collect the droplets. “From now on, if anyone asks for A-She’s name, he must tell them that it is Su She. Does A-She understand? No matter who they are, A-She is to introduce himself as Su She.”
A-She is bewildered, and can only nod.
Mama shakes him slightly. Her face is as solemn as ever, but the light in her eyes is almost wild.
“Does A-She understand?”
He swallows. “S-Su She u-understands mama.”
His mother’s eyes glisten, then, and she leans — crumples over him — to bury her face into A-She’s hair, her shoulder shaking silently.
A-She is confused, because…
If his name had not been Su She before, then… what had it been?
In any case, he knows more than the adults likely wish for him to.
Something in the sect necessitated his father’s departure.
A place that had felt so safe before now leaves A-She off-balanced and uncertain. Uneasy. Hesitant to trust.
He doesn’t like it.
He wishes baba was still here. He wishes baba never had to leave.
Because now, without baba by his side, the rushing rapids of the chilly mountain river cause terror to unravel inside A-She’s insides.
He rocks in the sand. He feels drained, thirsty thanks to the salty tears that slowly dehydrate him.
He’s scared. He wants baba. He—
There’s a hand on his head.
A-She blinks to clear his blurry vision and peeks up.
There is someone standing over him, someone who is short — no, not short, just not an adult. There’s an older kid looking down at him with an expression of concern on their face.
The hand in his hair gently rubs back and forth, and A-She realizes that the kid is speaking. Has been speaking for a while.
“— hear what I’m saying? Just listen to my voice and try to breathe. In… and out. There, that’s it. Good job!”
A-She snuffles, rubbing a shaky palm over his face. It slides with ease across the wet tear tracks that continue to dribble down to his chin. The hand in his hair is grounding, but it does nothing to silence the dull roaring of the water rapids. A-She trembles and scoots back in the sand.
The kid’s hand stills, fingers caught between the locks of A-She’s hair. A-She thinks they might be a boy with that hairstyle, but they have the seamless androgynous look that some kids tend to have before puberty hits, so he isn’t sure.
They’re crouching beside him on the rocky shore, and A-She glances down to see that the bottom of their robes are all sandy. His gut twinges with guilt amid all the other incoherent emotions currently thrumming wildly through his body. They wouldn’t have dirtied their clothes if A-She wasn’t a total mess of a human being.
“Ah, there we are.” The kid smiles, and it’s — warm. A-She swallows back another bout of tears. “Is this child lost?”
A-She shakes his head, tears flying off his lashes. “No.”
The kid looks surprised, before they quickly conceal it behind that smile. Somehow it still remains just as warm as before.
“What is your name?”
A-She hesitated for a moment, remembering his promise to mama. Except, he.. doesn’t want to.
He doesn’t want to be Su She. After all this time thinking that’s who he was, never even knowing that he didn’t know Baba’s name…
He doesn’t want to be Su She. He wants Baba’s name.
Except now, it’s too late.
“… A-She.”
“Pleased to meet A-She.” The kid bows their head in acknowledgment. “This one is Lan Huan. Can A-She please tell Lan Huan why he is alone out here?”
A-She goes still, watering eyes wide. Oh.
Lan Huan’s expression gains a slight frown. “A-She?”
“Water.” A-She croaks out, just barely managing to speak past his shock. “R-River… scared, A-She is scared.”
“Brother.” A small voice speaks up, and Lan Huan glances over his shoulder back toward the path.
Where — A-She realizes as he follows the gaze of this Important Cast Member who is just a kid here — there is another, smaller kid standing back toward the path. Who had just called this Lan Huan brother . Which means…
“A-Zhan?” Lan Huan inclines his head. His hand is still warm against A-She’s hair.
A-She feels oddly empty. Maybe it’s the shock.
That’s — standing over there on the path, so tiny — that’s…
“Cold Spring.” Five year old Lan Zhan says quietly, his golden eyes solemn as they watch A-She.
There’s a brief pause.
Then, “Ah,” Lan Huan says, smiling down at A-She again. His hand ruffles A-She’s hair gently. “That was you, then? Tell me, little one, why are you by the river if you are so scared of the water?”
A-She’s eyes blur. “Baba takes me here. Wasn’t scared.”
“Then, why did A-She not wait until his father could take him again? Instead, he came on his own even though he knew better.”
Except, he hadn’t known better. He thought — A-She’s eyes burn — he thought —
With a quiet hiccup, A-She whispers, “Baba is… gone.”
Lan Huan asks, frowning in confusion, “Why did A-She not wait for his father to come back?”
“He’s not coming back.” He’d known it before, of course he had, but it’s different saying it out loud. As if it’s much more final. It hurts . A-She’s eyes overflow, and thick tears are dribbling down his cheeks again. “Baba is… baba is go-one….”
Lan Huan takes a sharp breath, and then he’s crowding around A-She’s trembling form and gathering him up into his arms to hold him close.
“Oh.” He says, sorrow thick in that one word. “ Oh , I am sorry.”
“Brother?” Lan Zhan asks. He sounds confused. Of course he would. He hasn’t lost anyone. Yet.
“Not now, A-Zhan.” Lan Huan says, petting a hand through A-She’s hair. “Hush.”
A-She shudders, eyes wide as horror climbs up his spine. He turns his face into the shoulder of Lan Huan’s robes so he no longer sees the boy’s younger brother.
Who has not lost anyone. Yet .
Heavens , please.
A-She does not want to be here anymore.
He wishes he didn’t know anything about this world.
Lan Zhan tangles one hand in the hem of his older brother’s sleeve as Lan Huan carries A-She back to the residential sector. The walk is done in silence, A-She wordlessly shaking apart in the arms of someone who’s traumatic future he knows. He knows, and yet he can’t do anything to stop it. Can he?
A-She feels sick. Is there anything, anything at all, that he can do about it all?
In the grand scheme of this story, what can somebody like Su She do?
His mother answers the door, and there’s the sound of her startled gasp before she takes A-She from Lan Huan and tucks him against her chest.
“First Young Master, please forgive this mother’s blunder.” Mama bows as much as she can to — the heir of the sect. Uh oh.
A-She really is useless, huh? He only causes problems.
“Oh, please, there is no need for that.” The young boy smiles softly. Then, even softer, “I didn’t get to say it before, but… my condolences, auntie Xiaoyi.”
A-She hears the hitch in his mama’s breath. His eyes burn, and he twists slightly to peer out the door.
“… Thank you, A-Huan.” Mama breathes. “For - for that, and for finding him. I… don’t know how he got away from me.”
A-She’s insides twist with guilt.
Problems . He’s just causing problems.
Maybe part of the reason baba left was —
Hurt envelopes his chest, painful, and A-She forces himself to breath through it.
No. No. Baba loved him. He said so every day. He made A-She promise to remember.
A-She will not forget.
With a sad smile, Lan Huan bows. Beside him, if a little bit further back, Lan Zhan dutifully does the same.
“Then, we’ll leave first. A-Zhan.”
Lan Zhan grips his brother’s sleeve and his honey eyes peer up curiously at A-She’s turned back.
“Bye, gugu.” He says in his quiet voice.
Mama’s smile is small and tumultuous. Not entirely real, but for Lan Zhan she makes an attempt. “Thank you, too, Zhan-er. You were very helpful today.”
“Mm.” Those gold eyes lighten a bit, and finally look away. A-She feels — relief.
The two boys leave, and mama shuts the door.
She doesn’t say a single word. She doesn’t scold A-She for leaving without permission nor does she speak to comfort him. She just carries him over to the chair that she has taken to sitting motionlessly in during the evenings after she returns from work.
She bundles him in her lap and wipes softly at the tears that still run freely from A-She’s eyes, and together they stare out the window at the mountainside until jiujiu gets home.
