Who said love was gentle? Sometimes, it might be the tides of a raging sea, or the lethal winds of a storm, tearing apart and destroying everything in its way.
Mingxuan remembered the day he tried to explain love, though he wasn't sure anymore if he'd been talking to Xiangge or himself.
The boy was four, kneeling in mud beneath the magnolia tree.
The dragonfly in his hands had gone still. One wing hung awkwardly askew. The other was torn. His fingers were sticky with its insides.
"Gege, it won't move." Xiangge whispered, voice shaking.
"You broke it," Mingxuan said, and immediately regretted it. He was seventeen, already emperor, and still couldn't speak to a child without making him cry.
"I didn't mean to." Xiangge sobbed. "I wanted it to stay."
Rain dripped from the branches. Mingxuan wiped the boy's face with his sleeve, snot and all.
"If you love something," he told him, "you let it go or kill it. There's no in between."
He said it like he believed it. Maybe he did, then.
Xiangge stared at the dragonfly. Mingxuan wasn't sure the boy understood. He wasn't sure he did either.
That day passed. So did the dragonfly. So did the magnolia blossoms, falling like white ash on stone.
Once, those blossoms had drifted down into little Xiangge's hair, nestling in dark strands as he laughed beneath the tree.
In the blink of an eye, eighteen years had passed.
One late winter, the magnolia tree died. Flames climbed its broken branches. The wind carried the scent of ash and magnolia.
Mingxuan stood beneath that same tree, holding Xiangge's wrist. His grip was firm, unwilling to let go.
Xiangge had become a peerless youth. But his lashes were wet, blood stained his lips.
Mingxuan's fingers tightened, though a tremor betrayed him.
For an instant, he no longer saw the blood on Xiangge's lips but a child with trembling hands, tears pouring down his cheeks as he held a dying dragonfly.
Past and present collided. Somewhere above, the last magnolia blossom fell. It burned into ashes.
"Your Majesty," Xiangge smiled through tears. "If you truly love me... let go."
Mingxuan opened his mouth. But nothing came out.
He'd spent eighteen more years knowing exactly what to say, and now he had nothing.