Chapter Text
The lamp had long since burned low, its flame a mere glow against the hush of the palace night. Outside the Imperial Apothecary’s Workshop, the world had quieted—servants gone to sleep, guards patrolling in near-ritualistic silence. Only the cicadas remained, humming in low chorus.
Inside, Maomao exhaled slowly. She hadn’t meant to sit so long, shoulders curled, and head bowed, hunched over paper and reports. She should have stood sooner. Was supposed to write something down. She had forgotten what.
Her pale skin caught the faintest edge of brazier light, almost luminous in its stillness. Stray wisps of moss-green hair had come loose from her usual pins, curling around her neck and cheeks in soft, damp curls. A faint sun-kissed flush lingered at her throat—telltale evidence of days spent gathering herbs under an open sky rather than within palace halls. She no longer looked like the gangly, feral slip of a girl the court had once dismissed. The years had molded her into something deliberate. Compact. Woman-shaped. Her robes, though simple, were carelessly worn—inner linen wrapped loosely around a frame now marked by elegant function rather than decoration.
Gaoshun sat across the room in that composed way of his, utterly still, legs folded beneath him. The embers in the brazier caught the edge of his profile, softening the lines of care and duty and making something gentler of him. But his gaze—unwavering—had not left her.
She wondered what he saw.
If it was still the gangly teen he’d gotten to know, or if he saw Maomao La – Imperial Apothecary of His Royal Highness Emperor Zuigetsu.
“You should go,” she said. It sounded more brittle than intended.
He tilted his head, a fraction. “Do you want me to?”
It was not said cruelly. Not even curiously. Just... honestly.
She hesitated.
Then: “No.”
He nodded once. That was all. As if the admission didn’t change the shape of the world between them as they’d formed it in these past years.
She stood, her limbs aching from stillness. The silence stretched, then bent as she moved past him—her shoulder brushing his as she reached for the folded linens tucked near the sleeping mat. A single futon, small. Narrow. Usually hers alone.
Tonight, once more, it would not be.
“I can take the floor,” he offered quietly. She looked at him, brow furrowing.
“I’m not made of glass,” she said tiredly. A pause. “And besides… we’ve shared breath.”
He let out a quiet breath. It might have been amusement. It might have been something else.
She laid out the mat. He rose slowly from his darkened corner, extinguishing the larger candles before removing his outer robes with care—always meticulous. But when the final layer came loose, he hesitated.
And then he removed his cap. Like he’d forgotten it.
His hair, freed from its disciplined knot, fell around his face in soft, waves—slightly tousled, specked with silver that glinted in the low light. Brown. Soft. Touchable. Her fingers twitched.
He caught her gaze and held it as he put it aside with the rest of his uniform. Then crossed the room at a steady, unhurried pace and knelt beside the mat with fluid grace that would not tell of his years.
“Will it be strange?” she asked suddenly, slipping out of her own layers.
His answer was immediate. “Only if we pretend it means nothing.”
Maomao let out a short breath—half scoff, half laugh—and untied the last knot of her ensemble. She’d grown up with Courtesans, where every client meant everything and nothing at the same time. It didn’t sound like it, but he was asking things of her she’d never been asked.
When she looked at him again, she was dressed down to the white, soft inner-layer of her clothing, mirroring his own attire.
But where her linen clung lightly to her gentle curves, half-fallen at the collar and looser at the waist, his remained perfectly arranged, no matter how casual it appeared.
His skin was darker than hers—bronze-warmed and weather-worn. He didn’t bear the ornate softness of palace-bred men. No perfume. No gilding. Only clean lines, quiet strength. The broad plane of his chest was solid beneath the linen, the muscle defined not through vanity but use, like he was carved by function alone.
There were scars. Old, faint, forgotten by most—but her eyes catalogued what she could see of them. She had seen him in every uniform the court had devised—but like this, in hush and shadow, he looked more like a man she could keep rather than one sworn to serve.
And his hair—undone, finally, and a little wild—fell just enough over his brow to soften him in a way she wasn’t ready for.
His gaze, when it finally caught hers, seemed to hold words that his sealed lips wouldn’t let his roaming eyes tell. Except that his eyes already, truly, said so much.
He reached for the edge of the blanket and lifted it in invitation.
She hesitated for the briefest of moments, then slid beside him and let the careful arc of his arm cover them both.
The futon was not large. Their limbs touched—elbows, thighs, shins. Every point of contact lit a quiet thread of heat under her skin. He smelled faintly of clean linen and sandalwood, with something beneath it—sun-warmed skin, dry grass, the earthiness of a man who spent more time outside than any court official ought to.
When he shifted, his thigh brushed hers, and the weight of him—not oppressive, but solid, present—settled beside her like a second gravity. His heat seeped into her ribs through the thin barrier of cloth. His breath, slow and measured, stirred the hair at her temple.
It was not the smell of luxury or ritual.
It was the smell of someone who knew how to endure.
Her hair, unbound now, spilled across the shared pillow. She knew he could smell it. Oils, herbs, the faintest trace of her work.
“Are you warm?” he asked.
His voice was low, but not in a way meant to seduce. It wrapped around her, a hush worn smooth with restraint. She shook her head.
“Only… awake,” she whispered. Aware.
His hand shifted. Not a reach. Just closer. Waiting.
She found it in the dark.
Their fingers laced.
Her pulse hammered in her wrist. He had to be able to feel it.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured.
So she was.
Maomao didn’t like to admit it; liked to use half-truths to obscure the secret she’d so ravenously coveted for the past twenty years. But this is the closest she had been to a man. Innocently committed indiscretions in youth aside, that is.
She turned her head slightly. His profile was barely outlined by the pale light of the moon against the rice-paper-window shutters—noble, yes. But tonight, softer. Unmasked. Human.
“Why are you here?” she asked, not accusing.
His answer came slowly.
“Because you looked tired,” he finally sighed and brushed a calloused fingertip against a wayward fringe of her hair. Because you didn’t ask me to go. Because…” he paused. Then, quieter: “I didn’t want to sleep without you.”
Maomao’s breath caught. Her hand squeezed his lightly.
“Okay,” she said, and let the stillness settle between them. A familiar balm more than it was a barrier.
Eventually, her hand wandered upward—curious fingertips tracing the rough pads of his knuckles, then the crease of his wrist. She felt the flutter of his pulse, steady but quickened.
“Can I—?” he began.
She lifted her face towards him in the dark. “Yes.”
His fingers slipped beneath the hem of her sleeve, tracing the inside of her elbow, where scars criss-crossed from burns and accidents. He touched none of them with pity.
Only familiarity.
She shifted. Her free hand slid to his chest, finding the slow rise and fall of his breath beneath the thin linen. Her palm splayed over his heart. The beat was strong. Controlled.
And yet—when she pressed closer, her leg brushing his—he made a sound.
A quiet, barely-there exhale.
Like surrender.
Their foreheads touched in the dark.
Neither reached for more.
But Maomao knew this was more intimate than any kiss they might ever share.
Her breath slowed.