"Yes, let's." Huaisang agrees pleasantly, trying not to giggle as he turns and walks with Cheng back to their tables.
If he's this bad right now, Huaisang things smugly to himself, imagine how bad he's going to be when he finds out that his rules are still being followed - even here, now, with all the clans around. It's impossible to tell beneath the heavy silk robes he wears, of course, but the thrill is exactly as wonderful as he expected it would be.
"My journey was quite uneventful," he continues their conversation as they walk, settling down in the place closest to the Jiang table once they reach their seats "the weather was thankfully quite pleasant."
He has an urge, once they're seated, to try and slip a few innuendos into their terribly dull discussion, but thankfully for Cheng's grasp on decorum, it's clear that things are about to start, and he turns his attention instead to Jin Ling, taking his just-filled cup so he can raise it in a toast, inclining his head as a thanks for the kind acknowledgement.
~~~
Now that Yuan is actually letting himself watch Jin Ling, he can see that slight stiffness in his movements - it's barely noticeable, but it's there, and it reminds him... it reminds him of how his own movements felt, while he was still recovering from the injury to his shoulder. It makes him wonder about all those little niggling hints that things were always more serious than anybody was willing to tell him.
It makes him all the more guilty that he couldn't be at Ling's side, makes him feel frustrated that he had taken so long to reach a point where he didn't feel like he'd be a weakness or a burden with his very presence.
When their eyes meet, it feels like an eternity passes in an instant. He feels an urge in his very soul to leap to his feet and run to him - but no, he can't, he has been reminded - again - that he would only cause problems for Ling if he did. The other young man looks away and Yuan's heart breaks again. He wonders how many times it can do so before it is shattered completely, because it feels as though it's done it a dozen times this morning alone.
He lifts his cup (filled with tea, not liquor, as are all the Lan clan's - except his father, of course, who has a bottle of wine to himself), joins in the toast as is proper, but he's moving almost automatically, like a puppet controlled by something else (the something else being the manners drummed into him at Cloud Recesses, and even at the Golden Hare), because the only thing in his heart and mind is the desperate, crushing longing to be in Jin Ling's arms again.
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"Yes, let's." Huaisang agrees pleasantly, trying not to giggle as he turns and walks with Cheng back to their tables.
If he's this bad right now, Huaisang things smugly to himself, imagine how bad he's going to be when he finds out that his rules are still being followed - even here, now, with all the clans around. It's impossible to tell beneath the heavy silk robes he wears, of course, but the thrill is exactly as wonderful as he expected it would be.
"My journey was quite uneventful," he continues their conversation as they walk, settling down in the place closest to the Jiang table once they reach their seats "the weather was thankfully quite pleasant."
He has an urge, once they're seated, to try and slip a few innuendos into their terribly dull discussion, but thankfully for Cheng's grasp on decorum, it's clear that things are about to start, and he turns his attention instead to Jin Ling, taking his just-filled cup so he can raise it in a toast, inclining his head as a thanks for the kind acknowledgement.
~~~
Now that Yuan is actually letting himself watch Jin Ling, he can see that slight stiffness in his movements - it's barely noticeable, but it's there, and it reminds him... it reminds him of how his own movements felt, while he was still recovering from the injury to his shoulder. It makes him wonder about all those little niggling hints that things were always more serious than anybody was willing to tell him.
It makes him all the more guilty that he couldn't be at Ling's side, makes him feel frustrated that he had taken so long to reach a point where he didn't feel like he'd be a weakness or a burden with his very presence.
When their eyes meet, it feels like an eternity passes in an instant. He feels an urge in his very soul to leap to his feet and run to him - but no, he can't, he has been reminded - again - that he would only cause problems for Ling if he did. The other young man looks away and Yuan's heart breaks again. He wonders how many times it can do so before it is shattered completely, because it feels as though it's done it a dozen times this morning alone.
He lifts his cup (filled with tea, not liquor, as are all the Lan clan's - except his father, of course, who has a bottle of wine to himself), joins in the toast as is proper, but he's moving almost automatically, like a puppet controlled by something else (the something else being the manners drummed into him at Cloud Recesses, and even at the Golden Hare), because the only thing in his heart and mind is the desperate, crushing longing to be in Jin Ling's arms again.