His voice was teasing as Xiao Xingchen approached the voice, moving him closer to a corner of the house they lived in.
Xiao Xingchen was all too familiar with that tone.
It pulled at his heart, his stupid, naive heart, who fell for the person responsible for the massacre of the Chang clan, the person who blinded Song Lan, who tricked him into thinking he was just a person his age with a knack for mischief.
He shook his head. No. He could not allow his heart to fool him again. He had to do this.
“Xue Yang.” He addressed the boy. Both of them were just boys, but one was cunning and deceitful and another was too kind for his own good.
He raised the tip of Shuanghua to his neck.
“Ah…” Xue Yang said. Xiao Xingchen loathed the smirk in his voice. “So you know now.”
He pressed his lips together. “Xue Yang, how could you lie to me and mislead me about such cruel things? How could you make me kill so many people like that? How-” He breaks off, voice cracking. He’s about to start crying soon, he can feel it, the blood coming up to his empty eye sockets, the empty places of the eyes that were Song Lan’s now, but Song Lan was dead, a fierce corpse, because he killed him, he killed his zhiji.
“Daozhang, those people were cruel to you, never cared for you, yet you feel remorse for them? Those idiots who don’t deserve you, including that Song Lan, who left and broke your heart, hm?” Xue Yang scoffs. “They all deserved it.”
But how could they deserve it, how how how how, how did they deserve death when all they have done was look down on him? It was not a good thing, but who deserved death for such a small thing?
And Song Lan did not deserve to die at the hands of his zhiji. Song Lan took a part of his heart and his eyes, but Xiao Xingchen would’ve given him more.
To Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan did not deserve to die, not now, not ever.
Xue Yang, who he had unknowingly lent his broken heart, let him mend it, a mistake, for Xue Yang is a destroyer, and his heart is now coming back in more pieces than when he gave it away.
“By the way, daozhang, the candy today was good. Did you get some from a new vendor? It tastes different.”
Xue Yang really was a destroyer with no humanity. Here Xiao Xingchen was, accusing him of things he did not deny, and yet he still asked about candy.
He would never have candy ever again. Never. Neither Xiao Xingchen nor Xue Yang, but for different reasons. One to grieve a fake love, another because this is the moment he kills him.
The boy at the end of his sword inhales sharply. “You!”
He is indignant, and Xiao Xingchen wonders if Xue Yang is feeling betrayed from the fact that he is disgusted by him.
It can’t be, of course, Xue Yang has no humanity, no love to give. He is offended at worst.
Xiao Xingchen sighs. “I’m sorry, Xue Yang. But someone like you cannot be allowed to live.”
“Daozhang,” says Xue Yang, his tone flipping to amused, “Are you really going to-”
He slices Shuanghua across his throat and moves to plunge it through his chest. Xue Yang chokes off, and slowly pushes the sword downwards with the force of his body falling to the ground.
“I love you, I loved you,” Xiao Xingchen whispers into the emptiness of their shared space for the past two years, blood seeping through his bandages and trailing down his cheeks. “And I’m sorry I ever gave my heart to you.”
