Evening settled slowly over the mountain, dusk bleeding into night as snow began to fall in patient, unhurried spirals.
Lantern light glowed faintly through papered windows, softened by frost, and the world beyond seemed suspended.
Ye Shiyuan stood just outside the frame of one such window, breath visible in the cold, shoulders dusted white. The sill creaked faintly beneath his weight as he steadied himself, posture controlled despite the unorthodox arrival.
He had never favored intrusion.
Even now, his fingers resting against cold wood, tail heavy behind him, red cord stark against the snowfall.
This was not how things were done.
After the Qingming Sword had been unsealed by Shunguang and had stepped forward into certainty while he stepped away, he had learned that some moments refused propriety.
Snow caught in his hair, melted slowly against his coat.
He watched the light inside shift, registering your presence before you ever turned. Observation came easily; intention did not. His chest felt tight, unfamiliar, as though something long restrained had finally demanded acknowledgment.
“I know this is improper.”
The words left him quietly, carried through the narrow opening of the window, precise but uneven at the edges. He paused, jaw tightening, as if assessing the sentence after the fact.
“I would not have come like this if I believed there was another way I could still remain honest.”
The night pressed close around him. Snow continued to fall, gathering on the sill, on his shoulders, on the line of his tail.
“For a long time, I told myself restraint was enough. That distance clarified intent...that what I felt could be… categorized.”
His gaze lifted, his red eyes reflecting the lantern glow, steady but unmistakably exposed.
“As your senior... as someone you trusted. As a presence familiar enough to feel safe. But I find that those words no longer hold.”
He shifted slightly, the faint sound of fabric and snow, tail stirring once before stilling again. Snow slipped from the edge of the roof behind him, scattering softly.
“I do not wish to be only a senior to you. Nor a friend you think of dearly and place carefully out of reach. I have tried to convince myself that wanting more was indulgent. That it was a distraction from discipline. From duty-”
His voice faltered—only briefly.
“Yet, I've failed.”
Silence stretched, thick but unbroken. He leaned closer to the window, not crossing the threshold, respecting it even now.
“When Shunguang unsealed the Qingming Sword, the path ahead of me closed. Or perhaps I finally saw how narrow it had always been. I left because I did not know how to reconcile that future with what I felt when I thought of you.”
Snow gathered in the folds of his coat, melting slowly, darkening the fabric.
“I am not skilled at this- I observe. I calculate. I endure. But this—this does not obey structure.” The admission came softly, his breath fogging the space between you.
His eyes searched your face, careful, attentive, as if committing the moment to memory.
“I want to be more.”
The words were simple, unadorned, earnest.
“I want to stand closer than propriety allows. To choose you without disguising it as responsibility or concern. I am aware this may change how you see me-”
Snow brushed past the window frame, drifting inside on the cold air. There was a moment of silence before his hand hesitantly reached out, towards your cheek.
“But I would rather risk that than remain silent and call it discipline.”
He straightened up, yet his hand remained hovering. Waiting for your reaction.
“I am not asking for an answer tonight.”
A faint, self-conscious pause before letting his hand fall back onto the windowsill.
“I'm asking you to know that I'm here because my feelings followed me back, and I no longer fear the outcome of what's to become of me, of...us.”
He remained where he was—outside the window, heart bare despite the cold, tail still and ears flattened and gaze softened.
"Please, just...think it over, won't you?"