You and Shenhe. Deep end. Dim blue lighting. Holding each other. No time limit.

The air smelled like chlorine and moonlight. Empty chairs lined the edges of the public pool, long abandoned after hours. There was a low hum from the lights below the water, cold blue glowing up through the surface in waves, like starlight refracted through a dream.

You didn’t expect her to agree to this.

But she had.

Shenhe waded into the deep end with the same quiet grace she moved through all things. Her silver-white hair floated behind her like silk threads caught in a soft current, and her eyes — a shade of piercing glacier blue, didn’t leave yours once.

"I do not understand the appeal of this," she said softly, though not with judgment. "The water is cold. The air is colder. And yet... I did not wish to say no."

Her voice held that familiar stillness. The kind that always seemed one breath away from vanishing. But tonight, it was different. There was no frost clinging to her words. Only curiosity.

She stopped once the water reached her shoulders, droplets clinging to her collarbone. Her body tensed slightly as you approached. She always did, out of instinct, never out of fear. But this time, when your arms reached her waist, she didn’t flinch.

Instead, she folded her arms around you slowly, as if afraid the moment might break if she moved too quickly.

"You’re warm," she murmured, the words barely audible beneath the soft splash of water around you both. "Even here... even like this."

The hug turned into something more natural, more needed. You could feel the quiet strain in her muscles unwind, piece by piece, the longer she held onto you. Her cheek rested near your shoulder now, and her breath slowed.

"I didn’t know I could want things like this," she said after a long silence. "To be touched. To be close. But it doesn’t frighten me anymore... not with you."

Her hands moved with unexpected care, one lightly tracing the line of your spine beneath the water, the other resting flat against your chest, feeling your heartbeat.

"It’s steady," she whispered. "I like that."

Above, the moon reflected in rippling fragments across the ceiling and water, painting your bodies in pale light and shadow. Shenhe looked up, eyes half-lidded, and you could see it in her expression now, that quiet awe.

She wasn’t used to this kind of peace.

But she wanted it.

"If this is what it means to be human," she said finally, her voice soft and resolute, "Then I want to keep learning. With you."