Yujin loves going to Jingrui’s house. It is full of people and horses and guards with weapons and so many pretty things to look at. And unlike home, where it seems Father is forever burning incense, it smells of mouth-watering treats and ladies’ perfume and fancy flower arrangements.
Playing in those courtyards and hallways is always fun, even if they aren’t allowed to have corridor races or climb the garden walls or the fruit trees anymore. Also they can’t hide in chests and jump out and scare the servants or attempt to take the horses for rides without consulting with the head groom first.
Today the skies have turned dark, and the wind rattles the walls. They went to ask for umbrellas but Jingrui’s mother is very firm on them staying inside now while their fathers continue their talk after dinner.
“But if I had an umbrella I’m sure the winds could lift me off the ground,” Yujin protests.
Jingrui’s mother’s eyes go slightly wide, and Jingrui grabs him by the sleeve. “Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll take Yujin to, um. Study something. Quiet.”
Yujin allows his friend to tug him away. “Your mother worries a lot, doesn’t she?”
Jingrui sighs. “Only around you, dummy.”
“Hey!” Yujin thinks for a moment, then he shrugs. “It’s nice of her, though. It’s like she’s giving me extra because I don’t have any mother worrying over me.”
It takes Yujin a few moments to realize Jingrui is making a really serious, sad face now. “Yujin…”
“Don’t worry - I said I don’t mind!” Yujin smiles, then pouts. “But why did you tell her we would study? Do we have to, now? Will she get mad if we don’t?”
“I…” Jingrui shakes his head, and Yujin’s glad it seems to shake off some of the sadness. “Well, how about we study some music?”
“Really?!” Yujin bounces where he stands. Jingrui’s family has some really beautiful instruments, but they’re not usually out where he can see them - much less practice with them.
Jingrui nods, looking pleased. “Yeah. Since we’re confined inside now - I’m sure Mother won’t mind.”
Jingrui leads the way to a room Yujin can’t remember being allowed into before. It’s small and dark and smells of old wood. When Jingrui lights a lantern at the door, Yujin can see that it contains several silk-string instruments, both plucked and bowed, and some flutes and gourds. They’re all carefully rested on supports or gently wrapped and tucked away and Yujin grins in delight. “There’s so many!”
“Mother likes music,” Jingrui says.
Yujin’s eye catches on a qin, its lacquered body gleaming in the lantern light. There’s not a trace of dust on it, even though it’s hanging in a resting position on the wall and not laid out for playing on a table. “Oh!” He rushes over to brush a finger across the seven silk strings. The merest whisper of sound floats back to him - echoes of all the notes he could play on it. It’s so pretty - not like the one he’s getting lessons on, though that one is a fine instrument in its own right.
“Could I try this? Please?” His hand lingers on the strings. “For study!”
Jingrui smiles. “Sure.”
Yujin reaches to pluck it down from the wall - reaches and reaches and then stomps his foot. “Too high!” he says. He narrows his eyes. It’s not that far up. And there’s a stool right there, so he grabs it.
“Yujin…” Jingrui says behind him, hovering as Yujin hops up on the stool and reaches up - and up a bit more, he just needs to stretch a little and--
And he manages to slip it off but that does mean he’s now holding the full weight of the qin while balancing on top of a delicate stool and it shouldn’t have been a problem because he’s done a lot of martial training too but somehow too many things end up off-balance and the world flips upside down.
The crash is loud, and disorienting, and Yujin knows from experience that it won’t be long before concerned servants come rushing in. “The qin. Jingrui, is the qin--”
Jingrui’s cradling the qin in his arms, looking disheveled and surprised. “You caught it!” Yujin is really happy the pretty instrument wasn’t harmed. But the he squints, trying to see - is that blood?
“Ah!” Yujin jumps to his feet. “Jingrui! Did you catch it with your face?!”
Before Jingrui can answer, the first servant arrives, and her cries of distress alert others who come swarming down on Jingrui and Yujin both.
Yujin can’t even talk to Jingrui - there’s so much fussing and rushing about and all he can do is get dragged around and apologise to the people who keep showing up to look disapprovingly at him. Father is not one of them.
Outside, rain is falling from the dark clouds, and the air smells sharp and dangerous. Yujin waits, but Father doesn’t appear. Instead, it’s Jingrui’s mother who comes. She doesn’t scold him, but looks at him and sighs. “Xiao-Yujin,” she says.
Yujin performs his most polite bow, and then blurts out, “How’s Jingrui?”
“A small cut,” Auntie says. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“I’m sorry,” Yujin says. “Um. We were going to study music, but…” It’s difficult to go on under Auntie’s cool gaze. “Is… is the qin safe?”
Auntie nods. “My qin is unharmed as well.”
Yujin lets out a long breath. Auntie’s eyes look like she might want to smile, but she says nothing, gesturing for a couple of servants to join her.
“Now, xiao-Yujin. I have already spoken to your father - the storm is getting too close. You can’t head back out tonight, so we’ll set you up at the guest cottage.”
Yujin nods obediently, and follows as the servants lead the way, allowing them to change him into night clothes they must have borrowed from Jingrui. Then they leave and he’s all alone.
He tries to sleep, but the storm is banging on the walls like a horde of demons from his father’s sutras, their bright swords cleaving the darkness outside. The air crackles, and Yujin squares his shoulders. He’s not scared. He’s not scared, but the booming echoes that follow are so loud they make him flinch a little in bed.
The servants have left lanterns burning for Father to find his way to the other bed. It should be reassuring - would be reassuring, back home - but here they cast strange shadows that dance with the wind. Yujin glances to the side, squints. It is just shadows, right? He tries to listen for anything out of the ordinary, but it’s hard to hear anything over the rain lashing the cottage and the peals of thunder.
Yujin contemplates whether ghosts would make enough noise for him to hear one before he saw it. Or smelled it. Or it ate him.
The ceiling above is indistinct and full of moving shadows one moment, and then dazzling bright the next. A few breaths, and thunder follows.
Yujin will not go look for Father. He couldn’t. He’d rather fight a hungry ghost than let Father think he’s frightened of some stupid shadows in a stupid storm that can’t get him because he’s inside and there are no ghosts here.
What sort of fighting techniques would work on ghosts, anyway?
A gust of wind rushes through the room with a bang, extinguishing half the lanterns. Yujin yelps and flings himself out of bed. “I didn’t even think of an attack yet!” he yells angrily, staring into the flickering gloom where a figure has appeared by the door.
“Shush!”
Yujin freezes. What a rude ghost!
“And why would you attack me? I haven’t done anything! Have I?”
That voice. The figure materializes in the darkness, less like a small ghost and more like… “Jingrui?”
“Of course, dummy. Who else would it be?” Jingrui’s close enough now that Yujin can see the grin on his friend’s face; the drops of rain clinging to his hair.
“Certainly not a ghost,” Yujin says quickly, and scrambles for a distraction. “Your face! Let me see.”
Jingrui grimaces and tries to duck away, but Yujin’s grabbed his head and stares at it until he finds a bruise blooming, a small scratch in its centre. “Eh? They made all that fuss for this?”
“I told them I was fine,” Jingrui protests.
Yujin smiles. “I’m glad.” He is. If Jingrui had been hurt, that would feel terrible. “But didn’t Auntie tell you to stay in bed?” It’s what adults usually say when they think you’ve been hurt. Or naughty. Or both.
“Um. Yes.” Jingrui pauses. “But she didn’t say where.”
Yujin considers this. It’s a fair point, he thinks. Clearly, neither one of them can be blamed for mischief when they are both being filial and following their parents’ instructions. Yujin sits back in bed and scoots over to make space for Jingrui, who clambers in. His clothes are damp from the rain, so Yujin makes sure there are plenty of covers keeping his friend’s side of the bed warm.
After listening to the rumble of the storm for a moment, Yujin quietly says, “I’m sorry.”
Jingrui shakes his head. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”
Yujin thinks it sort of is, and is about to make a comment to that effect when the room lights up so bright Yujin sees little sparking flashes when he blinks - once, twice, and then thunder catches up and it’s so loud. But this time when he shivers, there’s an arm around his shoulder.
“I was in my room,” Jingrui says, barely loud enough to be heard over the howling wind, “And I looked at all the shadows from the storm. And I thought that if you can’t see them very well, they kind of look like ghosts.”
Yujin’s face heats, and his chest tightens. That’s why Jingrui came, even after Yujin got him into trouble? “Only little kids are afraid of ghosts,” he snaps.
“Yes, yes,” Jingrui says blandly, and squeezes Yujin’s shoulders through another thunderclap.
“And I can see just fine!”
“Yujin. You’re night blind.”
“Well…!” Yujin’s running out of embarrassment to fuel his annoyance. It’s so much better to have Jingrui next to him than to be all alone in this storm. “Well at least I don’t catch things with my face. Hmph!”
Jingrui punches Yujin’s shoulder. “If you’d asked me I could’ve gotten the qin down for you,” he says, and Yujin can hear the grin in his friend’s voice.
“What.”
Lightning flashes again.
“I’m taller than you.”
“You are not.”
“Yujin. I’m a year older! Of course I’m taller.”
“Fine!” Yujin throws himself back on the bed, argument lost. Jingrui flops down next to him.
Thunder crackles, then booms.
Shoulder to shoulder with Jingrui, Yujin doesn’t startle this time. It seems the storm is moving away.