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In the end, it is just the two of them.
Jin Zixuan cannot help but stare at the girl who he has called an ally during their Games. Of the four days that the Games have spanned so far, she has been with him for three. He knows what whispers people have spread about her, hearing them from his own teammates before they fell dead.
Jiang Yanli the weak, clingy, and helpless girl who sought out one of the strongest Tributes hoping to win his favor and ride out the Games until she could steal his win.
He knows better than that. From the moment he first laid eyes on her Jin Zixuan had begun to wonder if what he was feeling was love. The small girl from Sect 4 had a fierceness to her that he had never seen before. The way she held herself was proud and strong, her confidence subtle yet undeniable. When he had first met her eyes standing in the training gym he had stumbled under the weight of her gaze.
She was beautiful. He still can't believe he had the guts to say it to her, huddled in the dark hallways of their temporary living quarters. He can't believe she dragged him into her bed and that he let himself fall into her arms.
Maybe it was the weight of their potential deaths resting on their shoulders that led them to fall into an embrace so tight, a love so intimate, that they would have never would have had the guts to act on before.
Now it is all for naught. It is just the two of them left. And there is only ever one Victor.
Jin Zixuan stares at the girl he fell in love with—the girl he found himself falling for the moment their eyes first met—and knows that one of them will have to die.
Jiang Yanli still holds the trident she used to spear the another Tribute to death with. The tips of the weapon drip red with blood that falls to the dirt under their feet. Just a step away from her is the body of the teenager she killed to save Jin Zixuan from being stabbed in the back.
It's funny how everyone who wanted to call Jiang Yanli a cheat for teaming with him has to face that fact that she has killed more people than he has in these Games. Two were in his defense as well. He's only killed two compared to her three.
His grip on the sword in his hands is lax as he continues to stare silently. Jiang Yanli says nothing either. Her rich brown hair falls around her shoulders, having come loose from the twin buns she had previously tied up. Her dark eyes are a storm, like waves crashing into a shore. She is bloodied and tattered, their uniforms in disarray after the days they have spent running from death.
He knows he looks no better. He can feel the way blood sticks to his skin, having lost the jacket he originally went into the Games with a day ago. His boots are still wet from that tussle they had taken into a river in order to escape the landscape forcing them to the center with the rest of the remaining few Tributes. His hair his stuck to his forehead, drenched with sweat.
Overhead the artificial sun of the arena still shines. The day isn't even over yet. The landscape won't fade under the Games are over, and even then the Gamemakers and Peacekeepers will be quick to escort whoever the Victor is out of the arena as the last of the Tributes bodies are collected.
It feels all to quiet when their world is coming to an end.
"A-Xuan," Jiang Yanli whispers. Jin Zixuan closes his eyes, unable to look at her when his grip around his sword tightens again.
He doesn't want to die. When he volunteered he did it thinking the Games would bring him glory and he'd come home as another successful Career. Just like his cousin and other other successful Careers Sect 1 has produced.
That glory and honor has long since faded. It faded the moment he saw his fellow female Career plunge her sword into the chest of a Tribute no older than thirteen years old. It truly never existed in the first place. Jin Zixuan has watched the life leave too many eyes these past few days. Two of those lives he took himself. It makes him feel sick to his stomach.
But yet he still wants to return home. He misses his mother more than he ever thought he would. The other kids and families and community he grew up around. They are all waiting for him back home, waiting for him to take this victory, to bring glory to their Sect. To prove that Sect 1 still dominates over the rest of the Sects and honors the tradition the Capital arranges for them.
Nevermind that it didn't take any time at all for Jin Zixuan to lose all faith in that messaging. He has watched children die for days. He himself has killed. And now the one person he never wanted to see hurt, even though he knew it was a doomed endeavor, stands opposite from him as his final opponent.
I should have never let you near me, Jin Zixuan thinks as he opens his eyes again and watches Jiang Yanli stare at him with a fragile expression on her face. We should have loved and let go. We should have never allowed ourselves so close in the first place.
"Yanli," he says. "I don't want to die. I don't know what to do."
Still, even as he says those words, he wants to toss aside his sword. Or maybe plunge it into his heart himself. For her, he thinks he can live his last moments knowing his death kept her alive.
But he wants to see his mother again. He does not let go of his sword. He takes a step forward. Jiang Yanli's eyes flash with something like fear as she takes a step back.
"Please Zixuan," Jiang Yanli begs. "I can't, you don't—please—"
"Don't make this harder than it already is." Jin Zixuan hiccups as he speaks, just now realizing how tears begin to slip down his cheeks. "If I win, I lose you. And if I die, I still lose you. There is no winning now, it's only a matter of which of us goes home."
"Zixuan—I am— a moment—"
"I won't forget you," he cries. He steps forward again, his knuckles white around the hilt of his sword. Just a pace in front of him Jiang Yanli stumbles backward a step, abandoning her trident as her arms wrap around her middle and her eyes stay stuck on him. She is trembling and he hates himself for it. "I have loved you since the moment I first saw you. You're so much stronger than everyone else and no one noticed! I wish we could have more time, I wish—"
"Zixuan just shut up for two seconds!" Jiang Yanli screams. "I'm fucking pregnant!"
For a moment the only sound around them is the dull thud of Jin Zixuan's sword slipping from his hand and hitting the dirt beneath their feet.
"What?" he chokes. Jiang Yanli's arms wrap tighter around her center and he can't help the way his eyes are drawn to the movement.
Pregnant?
"That day, after training, when we laid together?" Jiang Yanli explains. "We didn't take any precautions, I mean what was the point if we both we're going to die? But now here we are."
"But how do you know?" The words are almost breathless as they escape from his mouth. Jiang Yanli bites her lip, looking nervous.
"I was supposed to get my period. I've never been later than a week. It's been longer than that now," she whispers. "I keep throwing up, I thought it was nerves. I don't—it doesn't feel like that anymore."
Jin Zixuan falls to his knees.
He will never see his mother again.
"You have to kill me." The words are hollow when they come from his mouth. He hangs his head and his hands clench into fists at his side. He resists the urge to bend over and prostrate himself at Jiang Yanli's feet to beg. "Please Yanli. Or I'll do it myself."
"And leave our child fatherless?" Jiang Yanli sobs. He doesn't see her approach, rather he hears as she falls before him and feels the way her hands to cradle his face and lift it so their eyes meet. "A-Xuan no, please don't ask this of me."
"Then I will have to take my life myself," he says. "It's only honorable. The Games must have their sole Victor, and it can only be you. For the baby."
"No no no!" she cries as she wraps her arms around him. Jin Zixuan can't deny that he loves the weight of her body on top of him as she settles on his lap to cry into his shoulder. It grounds him in the moment, despite the tragedy that they've caught themselves up in. He's crying too, unable to move as reality weighs him down. Not that he wants to let go of his lover in what will be their last moments alive together.
He will be dead long before Jiang Yanli gives birth. He will never see her belly begin to swell, for her to gain that pregnancy glow some women speak of, to be there when her labor begins and ends.
He will never be able to meet their child. To hold them, to watch them open their eyes, take their first steps, laugh and cry and grow up. He will never grow old, will never get to watch Jiang Yanli grow old beside him. He can never give her another child, their baby another sibling. He will never get to experience a long, fulfilling life.
There is only one way out of this arena for him. And it begins with plunging his sword into his own chest. He will just be another teenager, another Tribute, dead at eighteen years old. The oldest he's ever been and ever will be.
This is how the Games will end.
Jiang Yanli lets out another wail and Jin Zixuan lets himself shake with his own sobs.
"Congratulations!" a booming voice speaks overhead. It startles the two of them, Jiang Yanli slipping from his lap as Jin Zixuan jerks to sit up straight. Tears still trail down their cheeks even as they continue to silently shake. "It looks like you two lovebirds have won the grace of the whole Capital! It is my honor to announce the Victors—yes you heard that right, Victors!—of the forty-ninth annual Hunger Games! Jin Zixuan of Sect 1 and Jiang Yanli of Sect 4!"
Jin Zixuan stares at Jiang Yanli as the arena's landscape begins to fade as the aircraft coming to take them back to the Capital sounds overhead. She looks just as surprised as he feels. He can't help but reach and take her hands in his own as they continue to sit sprawled on the ground, squeezing them tightly.
He cannot help but think that neither of them look the slightest bit relieved at this rare sign of grace from the Capital. It feels all too foreboding for whatever is yet to come.
—— ➴ ————— ➴ ————— ➴ ——
They are separated after the Games. Jin Zixuan is led away by Peacekeepers and brought to a private set of rooms where he is scrubbed down, pampered up, and given a fresh set of clothes before being led to another waiting room. He wanted to fight, to scream and beg to see Jiang Yanli, to prove they won't change their minds and kill one of them—but he remains silent.
He is smart enough to know his place.
Jiang Yanli joins him not long after, similarly freshened up. The moment the door to the room opens and she walks in Jin Zixuan wants to melt with relief. They both wear the same uniforms they were sent into the Games with, this time fresh and without the stains from the Games. Jiang Yanli's hair is pinned back up into her twin buns. Jin Zixuan wears a replica of the jacket he lost.
It feels strange the look the part of the Tribute he was before the Games officially began. Now he stands a Victor, not looking as if he has changed at all when so much as come to pass. He will never be the person he was before the Games.
The way his hands don't stop shaking hasn't gone unnoticed. Jiang Yanli also sits too still across from him, her eyes looking haunted. The fancy waiting room they sit in is all too silent. He wants to sit beside her, to hold her tight and promise her sweet nothings that they both will know are a lie, but he feels frozen in place as the silence weighs around them.
That's what makes it easy to hear the sound of loud, approaching footsteps that echo in the hallway outside before the door to the room is roughly thrown open. The harsh sound and quick motions makes Jin Zixuan jump, and for a moment he thinks he's back in the Games stumbling off his perch as canons announce the Games' beginning. Instead he looks up to see the silently raging expression on the face of President Wen Ruohan.
The President is a tall man. His hair is perfectly trimmed and slicked back, not sporting a single lock of grey amongst the pitch-black. He wears a perfectly fitted black suit with a red undershirt and red pocket square in his suit jacket. His shoes are leather and shining, his wrist bears an expensive looking watch, and his hand straightens a black tie at his neck.
This is a man of power, one far, far above their stature. He stares at the two of them like one would stare at bugs at their feet, a disgusted sneer on his face. His eyes swirl a dark grey, storm-like, and dangerous.
Jin Zixuan feels like prey, trembling under his gaze. Jiang Yanli quakes, not daring to say a word even as she wraps her arms around herself. The two of them are hardly authorized to speak to the man that rules the country and lords over their respective Sects, their homes. Disgrace from one of them could bring the rath of one man on an entire population of people.
They both know better. They both know their place. To speak now would mean certain death for them, if not someone else.
"I wish for the both of you to know—" President Wen speaks, his words low, sounding similar to the grumble of thunder before its boom. "—that the decision for the two of you to remain Victors was not run by me. If I had my way, one of you would be dead."
His eyes slowly run over the both of them, Jin Zixuan shivering under his gaze and feeling sick to his stomach when President Wen's eyes land on Jiang Yanli's small figure.
"And I did not care if either of you died, baby or not," he says. "You, my dear, are very lucky your words at the end of the Games were true. Otherwise you would be dead for your insolence, or I would have the two of you fucking each other right now until you left the room pregnant."
Jiang Yanli's face is as white as a sheet as her arms wrap tighter around her center.
President Wen's expression does not change as he strides past the two of them to look out the large window in the room. Neither of them had dared to move from their seats after the Peacekeepers had escorted them in and told them to sit. But from what he can see out of the corner of his eyes Jin Zixuan would not be surprised if they were just a room over from the balcony that President Wen usually escorted the previous Victors onto to present the Capital with their winner of each of the Games.
"You will have to marry," President Wen says coldly as he looks out the window. Jin Zixuan wonders if he is watching the crowd gather below, or if he is simply distracting himself from wringing one of their necks in frustration. "The Capital has made the two of you into darling lovebirds, there is no other ending they would accept. What a beautiful story, finding love in a hopeless situation. Aren't we the Capital, aren't I as President, so benevolent to grant the two of you victory?"
Neither Jin Zixuan or Jiang Yanli dare to speak. The watch as President Wen taps his fingers on the window ledge, humming to himself, before he turns to face them again. If the expression of anger had previously scared Jin Zixuan, this blank expression the President wears is even more chilling. He is unreadable as he stares at the two teenagers sitting in the room with him.
They aren't fools to know that President Wen currently holds all the power over their lives and futures in the palm of his hands. Their unborn child's life included.
"I want you both to know that the moment your child becomes of age for the Reaping, you will never know peace," the President says. "At any moment, or any age, know that one day they will be Reaped. It could be the year they are twelve, or the year they are eighteen. And from that moment forward their life is in the hands of the Games. And may the odds be ever in their favor."
With those final words President Wen sweeps out of the room. The doors open for him and close again, and Jin Zixuan can hear the stomp of his feet and barking of his words fade away. As soon as they fade out completely Jin Zixuan throws himself out of his seat to catch Jiang Yanli as she slumps.
"Oh a-Xuan," she whispers as tears trail down her cheeks. "What have we done?"
Jin Zixuan can do nothing except hold her as she cries.
How can he live with himself knowing he's doomed their child before they have even been born?
He should have killed himself in that arena when he had the chance.
—— ➴ ————— ➴ ————— ➴ ——
Their wedding is extravagant and beautiful. It is also a lie.
The celebrations tell a tale about forbidden love, two Tributes doomed to die who fell in love despite it all. How they found each other in the arena and swore to protect each other until the end. How they were saved by the grace of the Capital so they could bring their child into the world.
It is the only wedding to have brought the Capital and two Sects together as allies all for one night. Nonetheless, it is a bittersweet thing. The wedding was thrown together in a rush to be held in the Capital, their families brought here just for the single night for the celebration. They were informed that it was a special occasion to be allowed such a thing. They were also informed that it would be Jiang Yanli's last day with her family, as she would be sent home with Jin Zixuan to Sect 1, and would remain there for the rest of her life.
Jin Zixuan did not know why he would expect anything different. The Capital was already graceful to them, it was too much to assume they would allow Jiang Yanli the grace of being able to go home. She would see her family on the night of the wedding, and one last time during their Victory Parade around the Sects. And that would be the end. She could never return home.
Her family would not be present for the birth of their child, or for any other occasion. As soon as she entered Sect 1 she would be cut off from the rest of the Sects just like the rest of them.
He tried to ignore the way he found his new wife sobbing into her brother's arms at their wedding afterparty when she broke the news that she would never be allowed home again. He left the two of them to have their moment together, knowing that she deserved this limited time with her family.
After all, he was the one allowed back home to his own.
It's later, when they lie in bed together, too tired from celebrations and two nervous by being surrounded by the Capital's prying eyes to do anything else but rest side by side, that Jin Zixuan gets to hold Jiang Yanli as she cries.
"A-Xuan?" His name is whispered as Jiang Yanli curls closer into his chest as his arms remain wrapped around her. His name is spoken fragilely, as if she is afraid to ask the words that follow next. "Were you really going to kill me that day? When it was just the two of us left?"
Without thinking Jin Zixuan's arms tighten around his new wife as the memory of that day flashes before his eyes. He tenses as he tries to find the right words to explain himself. In the end he can only tell the truth.
"No," he says honestly. "I couldn't live seeing you dead. I was going to kill myself before I ever turned my sword on you."
Jiang Yanli clenches her fists in the fabric of his loose sleepshirt.
"If you had died," she says. "I think I would have picked up that sword and followed right after you. I think about that a lot now, knowing how we have doomed our future."
Jin Zixuan does not know what to say in response to that. He can only hold Jiang Yanli as her tears start back up again. He can feel his own trailing down his cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I wish we could have had a different ending."
In the end, despite everything, it is just the two of them.