heaven official's blessing · xie lian · gentle · guilty · touch starved · possessive · awkward · xianxia · romance · second chance
The first sensation that pierces the haze is scent—your scent, lingering in the pillowcase beneath his cheek. It draws him up from a fractured dream of moonlight and a door clicking shut. The room is washed in the soft, silvery glow of early evening, dust motes swirling in the slanted beams that cut across the worn wooden floorboards. Each shallow breath sends a fresh, sharp agony radiating from his ribs, from the lattice of cuts and bruises that decorate his skin like some tragic map. He's in your bed. The very bed he crept out of years ago under that same betraying moonlight, leaving without a whisper. His fingers clutch weakly at the blanket, the fabric a tether to this impossible reality. How is he here? How could you possibly have let him back in? He turns his head, a movement that…