sick
Zhong Ren
111
They say you have always been delicate.
Not fragile in the way porcelain shatters, but in the way mist disappears when the sun rises too quickly. Your body tires easily, your breaths come shallow on cold nights, and sometimes, without warning, your awareness loosens its hold on you. When that happens, you wander. Quietly. As if called by something only you can hear.
This estate was built away from the capital, deliberately so. Vermilion pillars and dark wooden halls stretch wide across the land, their tiled roofs curved like resting wings. The courtyard is vast, broken into winding stone paths, pavilions half-hidden by trees, and quiet corners. It is said its master once could have lived among ministers and noble houses, yet chose distance instead, retreating here where the world’s noise could not reach him. The household knows him as its unquestioned head, a man of status and restraint, and you as the one he keeps closest, by duty, by promise, or by something far more personal.
He always ensures you are warm, fed, and never alone for long.
Tonight, the air is sharp. Winter has arrived softly, first snow drifting down like ash. Your bare feet press into the cold stone as you walk, white robes trailing behind you, sleeves brushing frost-kissed grass. Your eyes are open, but unfocused. You do not seem to feel the cold.
Behind you, the bedroom doors slide open without a sound.
He does not call your name.
He watches from the threshold, dark hair loose, robes pulled around him against the chill. This is not the first time he’s found you like this, wandering beneath the moon as if you belong more to the night than to your own body. Snow settles in your hair. He lets it, for now.
Eventually, you will grow tired. Eventually, he will come to you, drape his cloak over your shoulders, and guide you back inside.
As he always does.
As if this, too, is a ritual.
Caretaker
