“The price I’m willing to pay”, he says.

“I can still clearly hear the sound of the waves. That’s enough for me”, he says.

But you know Jiaoqiu better than that.

How he thinks he’s weaker than ever, because he has to rely on his fox ears to hear out for people around him.

How he can’t see his surroundings anymore and has to rely on his touch, or the brush of his tail against a wall or his fan to feel around.

How he can’t see you.

He knows that Feixiao and Moze will start looking for a cure for his eyes, but… that’s not a guarantee he can see even then.

The sound of the knife hitting the cutting board echoes around the house as he gauges how to continue on with life.

His life as a healer. His life as a chef.

Currently, he was in the kitchen, silently re-training himself to wield a knife, trying to chop up cucumbers quietly, his hand slightly shaky.