Work Text:
There are things Xiao Shiqin will not act upon until he has retired.
Dai Yanqi reads them anyway, these days, when his gaze rests upon her from across the room. She hears them in the shape of her name on his lips. She doesn’t need to press, to push, to have him bend his ethics.
She goes to him, still, at the start of his final year as captain.
He does not take her to bed; she does not ask to be taken. They talk, in broad strokes and small, of hopes and fears and mundane realities. They exist, comfortably, honest, as themselves and nothing more.
They do not speak of feelings or wanting or the warmth in the space between.
He touches his fingers to her chin when they say goodnight. Sometimes he’ll say, smiling, ‘You don’t need to wait. Run on ahead, find something better.’
Dai Yanqi laughs. As if she would. As if she could.
***
(Xiao Shiqin goes to her at the start of her first year as captain.
‘You never ran,’ he says, leaning in her open doorway. ‘I still want to catch up.’
She holds out her hand.
His kiss is a smile: warm, outspoken.)