One Three, One Four #2
way, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure what to do. He cocked his head. “Just one dance?”
Rui was about to reject him when she saw Ada gesticulating wildly from the side, urging her to accept. Her best friend had
been harping on her to indulge in fun things instead of training all the time.
Oh, what the hell. Rui smiled half-heartedly at the boy and took his hand. It was warm, his grip firm, and oddly, it felt safe.
Wordlessly, he led her away. The song switched as they stepped onto the crowded dance floor. It was an upbeat synth melody
with a bouncy guitar riff.
I thought I found you in the stars,
but they were just fading scars—
Rui froze.
It was the song. Their song. The one they’d made up silly lyrics to because the original ones were too sad.
“Is something wrong?” the boy asked.
She brushed past him through the crowd, then out to the reception. It was no good. She could still hear the music. Hands over
her ears, she ran out the front doors and into the cold, finally halting by one of the sculptures that dotted the campus.
The snow had stopped falling. The sky was clearing, and a few stars twinkled. Teeth chattering, Rui rubbed her bare shoulders.
Her coat was back in the ballroom, but she would rather catch pneumonia than listen to another bar of that song. She’d thought
she was better now, that the hole in her heart had started to heal. But tonight proved how wrong she was.
The doors behind her opened and closed, and she sensed someone walking up to her.
“You’re going to catch a cold.” It was the boy with the fox mask.
She swiveled around. “Stop stalking me!” She hadn’t intended to scream at him, and he probably wasn’t stalking her, but her
emotions were running high.
The boy took a step back.
First, she’d bumped into him, then she’d run out on him in the middle of the dance, and now this. He had to think she was
a jerk. “S-sorry,” she stammered, shivering from the cold. “I didn’t mean to yell.”
In one smooth motion, the boy slipped his coat off and swung it over her shoulders, fastening the top button so it wore like
a cape on her. Not expecting this chivalrous act, Rui tried to undo it.
He shook his head. “Keep it. The cold doesn’t bother me much.”
Everything stopped. The air, the noise, her breath—gone, as if the world had forgotten to move. Rui was still as the statue
next to her.
She had heard that exact sentence from someone else before.
The boy was the right height, but his eyes—she pulled off his mask, dropping it when she saw his face.
“Hey, Rooroo.”
Since she’d found his parting gift at the shophouse and her memories returned, Rui had imagined a moment like this. It was
a foolish wish that had brought her hope, but it came with so much pain that she stopped wishing because it hurt too much.
Tonight it seemed like her delusions had finally gotten the best of her.
The boy with the midnight eyes and silvery-white streaks in his dark hair stared back, his brows meeting in a puzzled line.
“Rui?” he questioned, as though he didn’t know what was happening.
Which, of course he didn’t. He was simply a figment of her wild imagination. Some weird illusion she’d conjured out of a mixture
of grief and lack of sleep.
Rui groaned. “I can’t believe I’m actually hallucinating. Did someone put something in the drinks?” She patted the boy’s chest, laughing at herself. “I have to say my imagination is amazing—you look so handsome, and this suit is gorgeous—” She stopped mid-tap.
The boy was solid.
Perplexed, she poked him again. He was irrefutably solid. No—this was impossible.
He watched in amusement as she pinched her own cheek.
“Ouch,” she breathed out.
“What are you doing, silly?”
“Checking to see if I’m real,” she said, pinching her arm this time. It hurt. “Oh my gods, I’m real—you’re real. You’re real and you’re here!”
Zizi laughed.
It was the same laugh she remembered, the same face, the same everything. Only his eyes were different. They were no longer
pale, wintry blue, but dark as the midnight sky.
“What’s going on?” Rui said, trying not to cry and failing. “I saw you—you disintegrated, you—” She threw herself at him,
and he held her close. “I missed you so much.”
“Do you . . . remember?” he asked, sounding confused.
She squeezed him tightly before releasing him to stare at him in wonder. “Everything.” She nodded. “I remember everything;
I remember us. I don’t know what happened, but my memories came back.”
“I did not expect that,” he said, still looking stumped. But he broke into a smile a beat later. “I wasn’t going to reveal
myself—I just wanted to see if you were all right. You didn’t seem to recognize me, so I thought it was safe to ask for a
dance and I’d leave after that.” His smile turned sheepish. “Didn’t mean to traumatize you by dying in your arms and all.”
Still crying, Rui gave him a half-hearted punch in the arm. “How could you?”
“I’m sorry.” Zizi took her hand, clasping it gently in his.
“I figured since you didn’t remember us and what we went through together, it wouldn’t matter if I ceased to exist. Besides, I had realms to save.
” He shuddered. “I didn’t think I would make it when I used the relic.
Who knew destroying my mortal body would be the key to restoring the balance? ”
“So how did you survive?”
He arched an eyebrow and puffed out his chest. “I’m super special.”
Rui knew he was using humor to disguise whatever terrible ordeal he’d gone through before he revived. “Be serious—”
“I am being serious,” Zizi protested, but her glare reprimanded him, and he said, “I finally fulfilled the condition of a deal I
made with a mortal long ago, and I think somehow that saved me.”
“A deal with Lei Ying?”
Zizi shook his head, a tender expression of regret blooming on his face. “I did promise her forever, but that wasn’t a deal.
The deal I unknowingly struck was with Nikai. I told him I would protect Lei Ying with my life, but that didn’t happen. Instead, I fulfilled it when I destroyed the talisman
and sacrificed my mortal vessel for you. A life for a life; I satisfied the terms. Whatever I owe Nikai has been repaid, and the cycle has stopped.” Zizi’s smile
flashed again. “I thought I was the one who had bound your soul to mine by making a deal neither of us wished for, but it seems like we are connected
by something else. Something even more powerful and unknown.”
“Fate?” Rui teased.
Zizi made a face. “Maybe Two was right about the Divine and all that.”
“Is that the Second King? And what’s the Divine?”
“It’s a long story—”
“I have all the time in the world,” she declared.
“I . . . don’t.” Zizi seemed reluctant to go on.
Was she losing him again? Her voice wavered. “Are you leaving already?”
“Not yet, but I can only visit the mortal world when the realms converge, like tonight. That way, the balance isn’t affected
and it’s safest for everyone.” He hesitated again. “But I will only visit if you want me to. Say the word, and I’ll never
bother you again.”
Rui crossed her arms, pretending to be offended. “Excuse me—what happened to in all the worlds and all lifetimes? Besides, I have your cat. If you think you’re getting away from me so easily—”
Zizi drew her close, hugging her tight again. She could sense his relief. His joy.
“How often does this convergence happen?” she said when they pulled apart.
Zizi brushed her hair out of her eyes, looking as though he thought his answer would disappoint. “Once a month. And I’m sorry—I
don’t know if forever exists.”
But Rui laughed instead. “Being able to see you once a month isn’t that bad. If you think about it, it’s like long-distance dating,” she quipped. “And I’m a girl who needs her own space from time
to time. Besides”—she reached up on her toes—“it doesn’t need to be forever to be enough.”
Before she could land her kiss, the doors to the building flung open, startling them.
Zizi narrowed his eyes at the cadets dressed in formal gowns and suits trickling out, growling softly as if he was about to
smite them with some underworld lightning.
“Maybe we should go,” Rui said hastily.
“Someplace private,” he agreed.
He scooped her up in his arms, and she gave a dignified little wave at her gawking schoolmates as they watched the mysterious
boy in the celestial suit sauntering away with their star cadet in his arms and an off-kilter grin lighting up his face.
After a magical night spent with Rui in the mortal realm, Zizi returned to the underworld, his steps lighter than they had
been in centuries. The shadows that once clung to him seemed to retreat, unable to withstand the warmth still lingering from
her touch. For the first time in ages, the underworld felt less like a prison. But there was still one thing he had to do.
The Tenth Court was as he remembered: decorated in luxurious shades of deep burgundy, but frosty at its marbled heart.
Ten was seated on his throne, brushing his long flaxen hair with a thick-toothed comb as he hummed softly.
He’d been sentenced to a permanent internment, and it was their first meeting since he had dragged Zizi back to this realm.
“I see you decided to upgrade your wardrobe,” he said, his gold-flecked eyes flicking up and down Zizi’s person. “Wish I could
say the same about your face.”
Zizi gave him a mocking bow. “You’re being too harsh—Six thinks I’ve become more handsome.”
Ten’s ethereal features contorted into an ugly expression. “Came to gloat? I heard things worked out with your little mortal.”
Zizi gasped. “Do you really think I’m that petty? Do you think I would come all the way to your godsforsaken Court just to
laugh at you in person? To witness you in this state, like a miserable drowned rat stuck in a trap of its own making? To—”
Ten slammed his comb down. He closed his eyes briefly, letting out a long-suffering sigh. “Since you are here, I want to know
how you outsmarted the Elder Gods.”
“It’s fairly complicated—”
“I am intelligent.”
“That’s debatable—” Zizi held up a hand to halt Ten’s protests. “As it turns out, past-me had challenged the Elders and the Celestials to a mahjong game and won. After I beat them the second time, I merely asked for what I was owed—a question
about the circumstances of the first game and a request for safe passage out of Hell for Rui and me to save her realm.”
“What happened the first time?” Ten asked, listening intently.
“We had an agreement: if I could beat them at mahjong, the Elders would save Lei Ying’s soul from the Nothing, but I would
forget the bargain I had struck. It was only later that I found out from Rui that Lei Ying never took her own life, so her
soul would never have been banished to the Nothing in the first place.”
Ten sat up. “She did not need to be saved from the Nothing—which meant your bargain with the Elders could be disputed.”
Zizi nodded. “On the pretext of saving her, the Elders intercepted her soul collection and placed her in the Celestial realm. Their goal was to keep us apart because we were never meant to fall in love. But since her soul was never meant to be there either, the star eventually exhausted its power from harboring her soul.” He sighed happily. “And that’s why my darling Rui exists.”
Ten let out a derisive snort. “So the Elders cheated, and they punished you by letting you believe her soul was stuck in the
Nothing all that time. You were miserable for centuries. I guess they were torturing you.”
“That’s one way to put it.” Zizi smirked. “But the good old universe conspired to make things right in the end, and true love
does conquer all odds.”
Ten pretended to throw up.
“Anyway,” Zizi said, “after I saved the realms and survived, I went back to the Elders to expose their ruse and demanded that
they agree to a new request as part of the first agreement.”
“You lucky, cunning bastard,” Ten said, rolling his eyes.
Zizi’s grin faltered. “There’s one thing that bugs me, and it’s why I’m here. How did you come to hate me? Things were not
like this between us in the beginning.”
“You grew a heart,” Ten snapped, “and you let only one mortal in.” He turned away, the pale strands of his hair falling over
his face.
Zizi had caught his expression, and he thought he finally understood. Maybe they weren’t so different after all. But Ten’s
longing for the one thing mortals possessed, the one thing he could not have—love—had poisoned him. He despised mortals because he envied them. The only solace he had was in his siblings, and he cared for
them in his own peculiar way. He’d never hated Four; he loved him. And he loved Zizi. But it was a love rooted in possession
and fear. There was something oddly human about it, even if Ten failed to recognize it.
Zizi walked up to the throne and leaned over. Ten recoiled, uncomfortable with this sudden proximity. Raising his hand, Zizi
pressed his third finger against the pad of his thumb.
Flick.
“What is the meaning of this!” Ten exclaimed, touching his forehead where he’d been hit.
But Zizi was already walking to the door.
“You’re right, Brother,” he said, his voice carrying across the hall. “I am petty. I called in the Elders’ debt to me just before I came here—congrats, your confinement is officially over. From now
on, every moment of your existence will remind you that for all the wrongs you have done to me and the one I love, you owe
me your freedom. And that, I believe, is the punishment you deserve.” He spun around and faced the throne again. “By the way, I’m hosting a
cream puff party for the Kings. See you at the Fourth Court!”
Winking, Zizi kicked the doors closed, and Ten’s infuriated face disappeared from view.