Lean hands had lashed out fast, as fast as when the lightning strikes. It had been night then too, not in this room, but at shixiong's. I was looking for a place to hide from the apprentices on patrol and had just come back from one of my unauthorized escapades; shixiong's villa had been the nearest building at the time so I had snuck in.
I should have just gotten caught instead. The memory was as vivid as shizun's zither tunes, something that you'd not forget after one encounter. I was met with a hunched over shixiong and from his side profile I had thought that he was suffering severe pains. My feet took me to shixiong and without realizing it I was already reaching out but just before we could touch his head snapped to my direction in a flickering beat.
His eyes were glowing red. Like the furnace fires in the kitchen that never goes out, it was like staring into an abyss and for a moment I thought that they were bleeding blood because shixiong's eyes were so moist.
Shixiong had dragged me to the corner of the wall and he held by the neck, my toes barely touching ground. His voice was hoarse, "Who are you?" The strength in his fingers had also increased and I felt bruises forming where my airway was blocked.
My vision became obscure from the lack of air but I saw how his eyes had returned to their normal black. "What did you see?"
I tried to shake my head despite the restrictions, my hands already clawing the room between his fingers for space. His breathing was laboured when he spoke next to my ear. "What should I do with you? Should I kill you now or let you go and kill you in your sleep? Choose." I flailed desperately, shixiong hadn't gotten the hint to let go yet, I couldn't speak even if I wanted to.
When shixiong did let go, I immediately gasped for lost breath with much difficulty, the coughs coming out violent and painful. "Are you a mute or just scared senseless boy?" he sneered.
Then he clenched my chin and forced it up to meet his eye-level. I was the most terrified I've been in my whole life and never had so much as a close brush with death before I stumbled across this shixiong.
"You're the new disciple? The one who already made trouble by putting the east wing on fire?" That had been accidental when I tried to make an impromptu distraction on the way out.
Shixiong looks pondering. "What you should say, what you should not, you know best right shidi?" The title came out almost mocking. He pulled my scalp till I felt a patch of skin on it plucked off. "This shixiong would really hate to see someone so young and fresh end up six feet under so soon in their apprenticeship."
I don't remember much about what happened next if I passed out or was knocked out, but I awoke in my room and was told I had stayed asleep for two whole days and refused to wake up. The purple marks had stayed on for weeks.
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I was snapped back to the present when I heard shixiong calling out my name.
He said more softly this time, "Ling." His eyes were pleading. "Don't be scared." I didn't want to be either. But it's hard not to be when shixiong is also scared of himself.
For some reason shixiong grew more irate, he stood and tore holes in the floor with his pacing back and forth. Shixiong needed to vent and the curtains were the first to go and he tore them away from the window with a resounding 'riipppp'. Then the teacups, he flung the first one to the wall and the next one was smashed near to where I stood.
I thought I should calm him down now before anyone else hears the commotion. I wanted to grab his biceps but shixiong was too worked up and he drew his sword from its scabbard with me on the sharp end. "I tried so hard, so hard shidi, for years. I thought he accepted me, but I was wrong. He wants me dead now. He wants our ties severed and he's going to throw me away."
"After all of this is done he's not going to remember me. You too right shidi? You'll forget me too." Shixiong had gone mad; his eyes flashing red one moment then black the next.
I feel a peculiar vibration in my throat and struggled to speak my first word after so long. "-o". Shixiong startled.
I tried once more, "No." The vocal cords came out coarse from years of neglect. "I won't."
"Shixiong is shixiong. Will always be." Shixiong still looks dazed by the words as he slowly processes it in.
Shixiong finally eases up but his expression became forlorn just as fast, like an abandoned puppy who doesn't know the way back home. I heard the sound of his sword dropping on the tiles. "But shidi not all of us has a choice. We do what we do simply because we must."
Shixiong didn't wait for my response and he flew out the window with astute grace and hurriedness as if he'd already made up his mind. I didn't see shixiong for three months after that.