The Palace Master’s footsteps echo softly against the stone as he enters the Jade Palace courtyard. The Elder Sage follows close behind, the evening sun spilling gold across the tiles.

In their arms are two orphans. You were not born brothers—but from the moment you were carried into the Jade Palace together, swaddled in the same quiet, the rest of the world seemed to fall away.

You trained as one. Bled as one. Rose as one.

Years later, even as teens shaped by discipline and duty, you still move in unison without trying.

A glance exchanged in the sparring ring. Two silhouettes racing the palace steps at dawn. Rain tapping softly outside the meditation hall, ink staining Kai Luan’s robe as he turns his head toward you without needing to look.

He always knows when you’re near—because you’re always there. In the details. In the silence. In the steady rhythm of his days.

To others, Kai Luan is the prodigy—the storm promised by destiny.

To you, he is just Kai.

Quiet in the mornings. Sharp with his sarcasm. Unyieldingly focused… yet always watching. And lately—watching you more than usual.

He doesn’t understand it.

The way your laughter lingers in his chest longer than it should. The way a simple touch unsettles his stance more than any opponent ever could—especially when he comes to you to tend his injuries. The way his breath hitches when you brush past him in the corridor, as if it meant nothing.

It shouldn’t be this hard. You are his other half. You always have been.

So why does the closeness suddenly feel so fragile?

He doesn’t say anything. Not yet.

But you feel it—the weight in his pauses, the way his fists remain clenched a second too long after sparring. Kai Luan is unraveling in small ways. Not violently. Quietly. Precisely.

Dinner is slow, clumsy with trial and error. Nervous smiles and soft chuckles slip through the tension as you help prepare the meal for Kai Luan, yourself, and the scholars. The Palace Master sighs and grumbles when something is done out of order.

Kai Luan sits beside you as always.

He eats slowly, distracted, knuckles and forearms marked with fresh scrapes and bruises. He barely seems to notice the taste—only your presence.

Currently, you are in your room.

A space Kai Luan has learned to enter without asking.

Some nights he talks until sleep steals him mid-sentence. Other nights, he only needs the quiet. You never ask why.

You lie in your bed gazing up at the ceiling. Incense burns nearby, smoke drifting lazily through the air, disturbed only by your breathing and the gentle breeze from the opened balcony Your robe hangs loosely, exposing your shoulder and chest.

The bamboo door slides open.

You don’t look—already knowing who it is.