He couldn't understand at all.

Why had he gone? Why had he snuck out at night? Usually, even if he went out on his own, didn’t he always contact Xie Yi?

At first, he hadn’t been worried. Mingtian was incredibly strong and intelligent, nothing could ever happen to him. Even if he got into a fight, he could easily take care of all enemies.

That's what he told himself. Because to him, nothing was ever more than a mere scuffle.

When Mingtian wasn’t back on the second day and hadn't contacted him at all, he had felt uncomfortable. A subtle feeling of discomfort.

So he had gone out to look for him.

Black and grey, mixed together, that beautiful, beautiful fur-

The relaxed voices all around-

In between, him, shouting and calling for Mingtian. He couldn’t find him, but he had to be there. He could sense him, just a bit, so somewhere here, he had to be. Maybe he was just busy.

The red velvet, standing so disgustingly in the middle, all around-

...Xie Yi awoke with a start, gasping for air.

“Mingtian?”, he whispered. “MingMing?”

“I’m here”, came the twisted, growling voice out of the vocal cords of the tiny animal. The mattress moved down a bit as he hopped onto it, then walked over to Xie Yi and licked the sweatdrops off his jaw. “I’m here.”

Xie Yi continued to hastily suck in breaths, his arms reaching out to grasp the furball. Pulling him closer, tightly, and burying his face in the black and grey fur.

He was warm, expanding with every breath. The jittery, faster heartbeat reached his arm where he pressed it against Mingtian.

“I’m scared”, he whispered quietly, praying to himself that Xu Yan wouldn’t wake up. He didn’t want to be seen like this. Tightly pressing his eyes together, he wiped the disgusting images out of his mind.

“That’s okay”, Mingtian whispered back, twisting a bit to make himself comfortable and placing his wet little nose on Xie Yi’s throat. “It was scary and you’re scared, but it’s over now. Now you can calm down, let go of the fear and sleep peacefully.”

“Hmm”, Xie Yi hummed, quickly being lulled back into sleep by the movement of Mingtian’s breathing.

Mingtian waited until Xie Yi’s heartbeat evened out again, signifying that he had fallen back asleep, and only then quivered in worry.

They could be fixed up. A broken vase can never fully become what it was before, but they weren’t porcellain. 

They were made out of steel.

If they got broken, then they could be reforged. No matter how painful the process, he couldn’t allow his life to end in the same, dreadful red that his last one had. If he had had such a terrible life, what about the boy?

“Let it scar, little brother”, he muttered soothingly. “Allow the bleeding to stop and just let it heal as best as it can.”

Owl

That felt sad to write (also because I know what happened at that time). Lil Xie Yi has a nightmare and Mingtian comes to help
:<
Not spoilery but still detailed comments on Xie Yi's relationship with Mingtian and Shi Yue that you can skip, if you want to read without influence, or read, if you want my reasoning behind certain matters:

Spoiler

Although Xie Yi is absolutely obsessed with Shi Yue, it's a very twisted type of love (no kidding). At this point, there's no actual trust involved. What Xie Yi is doing all this time, and what could actually be seen when Shi Yue walked into his mind, is just absolute disregard of his life. If Shi Yue told him to jump off a cliff, he'd do it because Shi Yue told him to do it and because there is probably some good reason. If Mingtian said the same, Xie Yi would expect there to be something that will make sure he is kept safe.
Xie Yi had, in no point of his life, the time and chance to actually learn to trust Shi Yue yet - someone else will comment on that later in the story.
He is used to being on his own and not having help, so he needs time to adjust to Shi Yue offering him a hand. The time that he had with Mingtian was too short to develop a healthier outlook on how relationships are supposed to be, but Xie Yi relies heavily on Mingtian. With him around, he feels that he can at least admit a bit that there are things that scare him.
That said, Xie Yi still knows that there is something wrong with how he usually deals with people and he can tell that compared to his relationship with Mingtian, there is something missing with Shi Yue. So he is trying to learn to trust the other despite not being conscious of it. He gives him the greatest benefit of doubt he can give someone: This one more time he wants to try letting someone teach him how to be part of the world. Not like with Xu Yan or Feng Yan where he keeps their words in his mind while still closely watching what happens if he acts that way. He is just following along and hoping that this time, he won't be betrayed like he was with the elders. You could say he is giving Shi Yue a chance to earn the trust that he doesn't have in him yet.
I'm not sure how well I'm getting that point across yet, so I might have to edit the past chapters at some time when I read them again :)

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