"Amari—have courage to believe in me."

 

 

In the darkness, a dim, translucent gold orb pulsed, swirling as if liquid lived beneath its marble sheen. Arctic winds shuddered the dilapidated house he was in. Bullet shells littered the floor like fallen confetti. And then, the hands holding the orb. It wasn't Li. It was Ume. And the gun's muzzle, pressed against the Angel's glowing heart.

Li thrust his hand out, crying out to Ume to move, to resist, to do anything in order to struggle.

"Please, you're going to die! Please, please, I don't want you to die!"

The world fell to a standstill as, in a single moment, the crashing understanding of mortality. The mortality of Ume. How, if the orb was blown apart into shrapnel, Li would lose it all—his entire world would fall to its knees. Ume had to live. No matter what, Ume would live.

Li threw his weight onto Ume, causing him to stumble back. The gunshot shattered Li's eardrums with a deafening bang. White-hot fury of pain shot through his shoulder. Ume's desperate, pleading cries faintly followed.

Amari woke up with a start, his hand shot out in front of him. He let his hand fall to his side with a cushioned thud, before covering his eyes with the back of his arm.

"Was it the least I could ask for a restful nap after Jun left..."

After several deep breaths, Amari stepped out of bed. He combed his hair with careful strokes, watching the darkening sky. But like a wraith, the deathly memory hungover him. Amari tightened his grip on the comb. It snapped, material too brittle to handle the increased tension. A dull throb followed the line of his palm and blood dripped to the floor.

Amari stared blankly at his hand. He placed the comb down and pressed a cloth tight to his hand, before calling out to the waiting servant in the nearby hall. Except, when Amari opened the door, Leishan stood at it, hand raised to knock. A wave of flustered emotions flew back and forth in Leishan's gaze, before it found Amari's increasingly bloody hand.

"Let me find a servant to help you. Keep applying pressure on it."

The firm order left Amari nodding, unable to decline the offer to search himself. After another minute, Leishan returned with a servant holding a small box of bandages of herbs. The room was silent. Amari sat in the chair, waiting for the servant to finish treating the cut. Leishan stood to the side.

Leishan had a healthy pallor—if he were to get hurt, he'd bleed out too. In an instant, life can disappear from the world. Amari's throat tightened and his fingers curled in slightly, looking away through the windowed scenery. The idea of Leishan's lifeless body gripped his heart for a thickly intense moment, as if the image were a branded mark behind Amari's every blink. What he thought was an iron resolve became as brittle as the broken comb.

Amari chewed on his lip, only stopping before it began to swell and break. He thanked the servant, who stood up from an uncomfortable kneel. The servant nodded happily, and opened his mouth, about to question Amari regarding what happened. However, when he caught how Amari and Leishan glanced back and forth with the tense, offhanded stares, he closed his mouth. The servant wisely decided to bid farewell and dart away without any further pleasantries.

"You're finally looking at me."

"You put too much value in a simple glance," Amari scoffed. "Why haven't you left?"

Leishan lowered his head. He played with his own fingers, folding and unfolding his hands.

"Don't say it's because you hoped to invite me to the festival again."

Leishan's head jerked up, "That was my intention, yes. We should go together."

Amari crossed his arms and leaned against the window. Rejection sat on the tip of Amari's tongue, writhing and wrestling to leap out and inflict a sad expression onto Leishan's face. But, his lips were unable to form the straightforward "no."

He wanted to leave Leishan, yet was afraid Leishan would leave Amari first. He wanted to continue talking to Leishan, yet feared being together in the flesh. He hoped to end hope before it could sprout—yet, hope continued to grow out of each dead end. Amongst the swirling questions, the congestion in his chest closed in on his heart, reacting stronger and stronger every time Amari pushed away his emotions. If death came swift, Amari would have endless regrets. Amari's scattered thoughts and emotions coalesced into the singular question.

Why did it matter?

It was inevitable Leishan would find out about Amari's sins. And if he kept his distance, the pain would not nearly be as overpoweringly tragic as it would if they were together. But the singular thought of his fading vision—of Li's fading vision of drifting snowflakes and the Angel's heartbroken cries—left Amari unable to convince his wavering heart to do what was right.

"Give me a few minutes to get ready," Amari finally said.

"You'll join me?"

Leishan's voice glowed with excitement. It was like a soothing ointment cooling down Amari's irritated, disjointed mind.

"I don't go back on my word."

"Right. I'll wait in the hall for you."

Then and there, Amari left behind his restraint in the room, and rode a carriage to the nearest opening entrance of Beijie. Although the endless streets were sparkling and festive as ever, Amari did not witness any distinct rituals or traditions to the evening.

"You've turning in circles—what are you looking for?"

"I wanted to see what was so special about the third day of the festival. The first was ribbons and the second was gloves...but there's nothing remotely similar here."

"Are you disappointed?"

Amari stopped, then turned. "In fact, I am. I expected the last day to be even grander than the last two."

Leishan put a hand to his chin, before catching sight of a peddler moving his cart to the other side of the street. "Let's go ask him—to see if there really is nothing left as tradition."

Unable to express to Leishan that in actuality, Amari didn't mind the lack of celebration. The ebb and flow of the crowds and the exploration of the kingdom itself was more than enough. But, Leishan's expression lit up brighter than the distant hanging lanterns, so Amari held fast to rejecting his words.

When they inquired, the peddler only gave them a strange glare, before shaking them off. He harshly chided the Amari, claiming it should be obvious what is going on. Amari and Leishan's confused looks collided. Leishan was the first to turn away, flustered. Amari thanked the peddler who stalked back to other curious potential customers.

"That was the first time someone has treated me so harshly since I was at a temple."

"I don't think he meant harm—you perceived him as condescending, is all. He seemed more than nervous that he was conversing with the Caller himself. People... always have circumstances that cause them to act the way they do."

Amari stared blankly at Leishan, before chuckling.

"I never realized you were so..."

"Overly sensitive? Ridiculous?"

"No, no," Amari said, cutting off the sardonic comments. "Compassionate. Toward others."

"Compassion has never been a trait that indicates proof of the Holder. All of Beijie believes I am a dragon. The Holder has always been a dragon. Fierce, wise. Assertive, strong. Someone who can lead. Someone who can fight and protect. No matter how much I flaunt my image... it never sits right. Someone who isn't me. It wasn't supposed to be me."

"You are this world's Holder—and all these traits you feel don't suit your role—they suit you."

"I don't agree with that."

"You just don't understand, Leishan—"

"And you don't understand either."

A low annoyance simmered in Amari's stomach. They stopped talking after that. Amari walked ahead of Leishan. Why didn't Leishan get it? Why didn't he get it—that there was no one else but him suited to be the Holder? It was as if they were walking to separate roads of thought, set to never collide.

As Amari let his questions settle, he realized he had subconsciously wandered back up to one of the plaza balconies.

Amari thought carefully of a way to make Leishan understand as he stepped over the railing and sat down. He slowly plucked the petals off the little weed he spotted. When he finished, he handed the leafy, shaven stem to Leishan, who had been watching him the entire time out of the corner of his eye.

"I was the cause... of the slaughter of my entire tribe. The cause and the survivor. The only one left who could be the Caller. It wasn't... supposed to be me."

One after the other, Amari would place a stripped flower into Leishan's lap to dissect. Petals scattered the ground around them.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

Amari put his hands in his lap and raised his head to the horizon.

"We were a small tribe, native to Nanjie. I'm sure... you are familiar. The only bloodline, capable of calling upon the land's might. My parents always told me, it is because we loved the land so much, the land rewarded us with this power. The last Caller was my grandfather. And so when he grew closer to returning to the lands, he came back from Beijie, and spent his time with the tribe. It could have been anyone next. 

"They all said it was to be my mother. 

"Her kindness and virtue... it was so innate—but, none of it seemed to have fallen to me. 

"I was careless. Raucous and headstrong. I was irresponsible because I convinced myself it would never come down to me. I never cultivated my patience or concentration—I never had talent in it. So I played and played and meddled and meddled.

"And one day... I had led back the greed of the temple folk right back with me, to my home. They feared our power, and they craved our power, down to the gold running through their rotten arteries. And when I woke up, the violence was already over... and there were rivers awash with blood. They didn't spare a single person... and so the only one left was me. 

"The only one they left alive was me.

"You know better than anyone else—I can't control the rainfall without you. I'm too turbulent. Impatient. I was the dregs of a muddy stream after a storm of blood. I was the last choice. It wasn't... supposed to be me."

"It couldn't have been anyone but you."

"That's what I'm trying to explain about you, Leishan. This isn't about me."

"But it is–it's–"

Their dissonant voices interrupted each other–and they both stopped. Amari dropped the weed that he shredded apart off the ledge. Leishan did the same to his. He got so caught up in proving Leishan wrong that... he lost sight of why he was feeling frustrated to begin with.

He wondered how Leishan couldn't see what he saw. What made Leishan... special. What made him unlike how every Holder was before. What made Leishan... exclusively the Holder for Amari.

But as the rain pattered down, slowly seeping down the tops of his shoulders and compressing his clothes, Amari inhaled the frigid air. The rain too, coated Amari from head to toe, as it did for Leishan.

Amari did not want pity. He did not want to be convinced—he pursued how he best believed to fulfill his duties as a Holder, regardless of his doubts and ideals.

It was the exact same for Leishan.

They both were here right now, despite not believing where they should be. As Caller and Holder. He would never be able to prove anything to Leishan.

But perhaps, Amari didn't need to prove anything to Leishan.

Amari watched the children splash and play in the running creeks of water slipping down from every direction. He saw a man opening his door to embrace his soaked lover in a warm towel. And a woman, hanging up her potted plants so the endless rain would drip through without the danger of drowning them. The water thrummed beneath the cobbled brick of the city. His hair sank from the weight of caught rain. The glow of the chitin patterns ran up his legs, breaking through the wet, translucent fabric of his robes.

He unclenched his jaw that seemed to be screwed into a frown all this time, and let his shoulders loosen with the continuous tapping of rain against the rooftop. Amari was above it all—it was just him and the city and the rain. The rain paused, slowing down as realization colored his vision, before resuming its hail.

This was the third day of the festival. A festival to celebrate the Caller, the Holder, and finally... the rain.

A small smile curled on the edge of Amari's lip. He tilted his head upward. The rain joyfully leapt down onto Amari, wetting his brows and the crown of his hair. Water traced his face and down his outstretched neck with a damp shine.

Leishan could not look away.

"You love it here." Leishan said.

"It's the place that brought you pain, isn't it?"

Leishan didn't respond, but Amari knew it was because he didn't want to make Amari feel guilty. It was public understanding that this generation's Holder was chased out of Beijie–for the superstition of the Holder remaining in their kingdom was the cause of their drought.

"And yet," Amari continued, "it's the place I fall in love with every passing day. Do you resent me? For loving Beijie, and for leaving Nanjie?"

"Do you resent me for the opposite? For feeling home to the kingdom that isolated and abused you?"

"It never once crossed my mind."

"And neither mine," Leishan finished.

After some time, Leishan took Amari's hand, wrapping the fingers into his larger palm. It was frigid and damp, but a noticeable warmth transferred over. Amari's fingers twitched, before stiffly settling down. Just for once... in the stillness of the rain, he'd let it slide.

Leishan began to speak slowly.

"You always talk to me as if there's an inevitable end to our conversation. As if you know something I do not. As if you know what I am feeling better than I myself do."

Leishan clamped a bit more firm on Amari's fingers, as if afraid he'd leap up and dash away. Amari's chest tightened and his lips dried. He finally met Leishan's amber eyes that washed his panic away with the rain.

"Because... you'll hate me in the end. You'll never forgive me," Amari laughed.

"You're making assumptions."

"I'm speaking truth."

"Amari?"

"Yes?"

"If that's true—the conclusion that I'll eventually grow to hate you, then, what is this undeniable pull whenever you enter my sight? The urge to press my shoulder to yours, to check how long it's been since I've last seen you, or even to see... how much joy you've already brought to others. It's as overwhelming as the rain—there's no end in sight. Isn't that real?"

Amari's voice wavered. "It's real."

"Right," Leishan chuckled. "Amari—have courage to believe in me. I know you're scared. But fear makes you believe in a lie that serves to protect you from the world. You're protecting yourself... but you don't have to anymore. Trust that I will be different."

Amari didn't respond, but he also didn't angrily reject Leishan. He simply let the words soak into his skin. For the first time, the turmoil stirring his heart strings to their rawest breaking point began to ease.