The wind turned colder as they crossed the ridge. It wasn't winter yet, but something about the air felt like old bones — dry, echoing with voices from long ago.
Xiao stood still for a moment. "This place wasn't on the map."
Yujin adjusted his robes, looking at the shrine ahead. Its rooftop had caved inward in one corner, covered in ivy and moss, but the symbols around its entrance still glowed faintly beneath layers of dust.
"Because it's not meant to be found," Yujin whispered, his bird trembling slightly on his shoulder.
Xiao turned to him, concerned. "Your bird…"
Yujin lifted a hand and let it perch on his palm. "He's sensing something. Not evil… but very, very old."
The shrine doors creaked open before they even touched them.
Inside, the place smelled of forgotten incense and blood memory.
There were threads everywhere — red ones, golden ones, blackened ones hanging like spiderwebs from wall to wall, from ceiling beams to broken pillars. And in the middle was an altar of white stone, cracked but humming softly.
Xiao moved forward, instinctively reaching out. "It feels… familiar."
Yujin stood beside him. "Your qi is reacting. Maybe you were here before… in another life."
Xiao turned, startled.
Yujin didn't look surprised. "Maybe that's why the bird trusted you first. Maybe your soul and mine have flown together before, under some other sky."
The silence that followed wasn't heavy. It was thick with a kind of aching closeness — the kind that made Xiao step forward, pull Yujin against him, and rest their foreheads together.
"I don't need past lives," Xiao said. "This one is already too much for my heart."
Yujin laughed softly, then kissed him. "Then let's break the seal."
They didn't mean to touch it at the same time.
But they did.
The moment their fingers touched the cracked white altar, light bloomed in all directions — red threads fluttered up like a thousand tiny wings, wrapping around their arms, their torsos, their necks. But it didn't strangle.
It connected.
Suddenly, the shrine was gone — or rather, they were no longer inside it.
They stood in a dreamscape. Moonlight spilled on a lake that stretched into forever. Their clothes glowed faintly. And in the water, they saw reflections — not of now, but of them in other forms.
Yujin as a mute bird spirit chained in a hunter's cage. Xiao as a lonely cultivator with bleeding hands, holding a broken cage door open under a plum tree.
Xiao swallowed. "This is…"
"Our souls," Yujin finished. "Even when they forgot, they remembered."
The bird flew above them, but now its feathers had turned half-gold. A sign.
A mark.
Of soul fusion.
Later that night — Back in the real world
They returned to their shared room at the inn, quiet. Not because they didn't know what to say. But because there was no need to say anything.
Xiao undid Yujin's outer robe slowly, gently, and pulled him close as if scared he'd vanish again into one of those reflections.
Yujin cupped his face. "I'm here. Right now. And I want to stay."
They lay together with their legs tangled, skin against skin, breath against breath. It wasn't rushed. Wasn't urgent. Just deeply theirs. As if the night wrapped around them, and even time stepped back for a moment to watch.
The bird perched on the headboard, glowing softly, half-asleep.
"I've never belonged to anyone," xiao whispered against Yujin's chest.
"You don't belong to me," yujin replied. "You belong with me."