Work Text:
The first time Luo Binghe had ever bowed to Shen Qingqiu, tea was spilled over his head.
That memory is hazy now. He doesn’t think back to those early days much now that fate has finally, finally opened its cold eyes to his past suffering. Everything important has changed, yet remained the same.
Cang Qiong Sect used to be a place he called home, with a shizun, a childhood friend, and the remaining people who made it a point to show he wasn’t wanted there. Now, it’s still a home whenever Shizun stays there, the childhood friend still greets him with kindness, even if a little more distant, and the rest of the sect still want him anywhere but there. Nobody dares raise a hand this time.
The past needs no ruminating on. It existed. It passed. It’s dead and not mourned anymore.
He bows among the bamboo stalks, eyes on the blue of the sky, the green of the leaves, the tranquillity of the nature. Red robes similar to his own whisper with movement by his side.
Where he is now—when he is now—makes his heart beat faster. Now is good. Now is better than he’s ever imagined it would be.
He bows to the wooden box, painted by Shizun himself, filled with precious cargo: his very first jade pendant; an old note with Su Xiyan’s and Tianlang-Jun’s scribbled handwriting; a wooden tablet with elegant strokes of two given names to the family name of Shen, both unfamiliar to him, offered in fragile silence. In the corner of his eye, Shizun moves in time with him.
Two cups filled with tea rest on a tray between them. The first time he’d ever bowed to Shen Qingqiu, tea was spilled over his head.
This time, when Luo Binghe bows to Shen Qingqiu, Shen Qingqiu bows along with him.
Red-clothed arms linked together, one teacup held in his trembling hand and another resting in Shen Qingqiu’s steady one, they drink at the same time.