@holdlight asked: ❛ remember what you are, and what you’re not. ❜
Honestly, if you asked Zizhen to wrack his brains, he couldn’t ever pick you out a time where they had ever had a conversation. He’d always just put it down to Hanguang-Jun simply being the utterly silent type. Really, it could only have been a matter of time, his son was one of his best friends. Lan Jingyi, as much as it pained Zizhen, he deeply cared about him too, Jin Ling he’d known since childhood. The four of them were a team, abandoning the idea that Night Hunting was a competition, but rather an excuse to spend time with each other and to do something beneficial for people. Zizhen, grabbed every opportunity he could.
Things were tense at home, and yet he smiled, laughed with his friends...while questioning if he was up to the task. His stunt on the pier hadn’t come without it’s price. The moment they had finally got home, his father had laid into him. The lecture went on far longer than he expected around the dinner table. A long verbal shredding over how he had embarrassed them and he couldn’t understand why he’d raised someone so petulant, who had learned to use his tongue more than his sword. He was growing into a bad cultivator. How he worried that when Zizhen became Sect leader, it would be an embarrassment.
Hanguang-Jun’s remark made his head snap to him, so fast Zizhen almost gave himself whiplash, before he looked away. Truth be told, Zizhen thought that no one had noticed the subtle shifts in personality, how he had begun to quieten, he’d rather listen to his friends conversations than take part in them. He was foolish to think hiding things was easy. While Zizhen knew he should let it go, that it was simply his old man being angry he’d been on the wrong team. No matter how confident you were, other people's doubts easily creeped in.
“I try.” The answer is quiet, like he’s almost afraid of the conversation being overheard. “It’s just...hard sometimes.” There was a certain safety with Hanguang-Jun though, as if Zizhen knew he wasn’t going to ever repeat this to anyone else. “I’m sure he will always have his opinions about me, but...that’s how he is. I can’t do anything about it.”











