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guqin-and-flute · 4 years ago

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And A-Fu Makes 4 --Chapter 2

[Ao3 Link]

Grown ups were so weird. They spent so much of their time talking and doing boring things--even at Cultivation Conferences when they all were together, which A-Fu thought was hardly fair.

All his fathers were usually busy during the day with Important Clan Matters with the other grown ups and he got stuck with the kids that had been dragged along, too. It wasn’t all bad--there were some fun kids that came, sometimes, like Ouyang Kui, who was the son of Old Clan Leader Ouyang and thought that A-Fu was hilarious. (Blue-Father had told him before that Old Clan Leader Ouyang wasn’t actually old for a Clan Leader, he just thought so because both Gray-Father and Blue-Father were younger than him. A-Fu had told him that he thought that they were actually pretty old, too, and Blue-Father had almost managed to hold back the laughing from his voice as he said, “A-Fu, you cannot just call people old; there are those that would take offense and it’s not polite.” But he hadn’t made him write lines or scrub the floor so it probably wasn’t a lesson that was all that important, anyway.)

It wasn’t that Cultivation Conferences were horrible, they just tended to be boring, because all the babysitters got brought along and they would watch everyone very closely and there was hardly any chance to do anything interesting at all. Most of the time, he would just hang out with any kids that came, Jin Ling, and whatever baby Aunt Yanli and Uncle Zixuan had decided to have that year. This Conference, it was twins--and no A-Yuan or A-Kui or anyone else his age. Just A-Ling and all the babies.

Jin Ling complained all the time about having 3 younger siblings-- “Why did she have 2? That’s too many at once!” A-Fu had demanded when Jin Ling had told him about the twins. Jin Ling had just rolled his eyes like he was stupid--but if A-Fu ever complained about them crying, Jin Ling would get very offended.

“They can’t help it! They’re babies!”

A-Fu had kicked idly at a lilypad from where they were sitting, soaking their feet on one of the docks of Lotus Pier with their pants all rolled up. The sun was making him itchy and sweaty, but the lotus seeds they were tossing back and forth into each other's mouths were refreshing and crunchy, which made up for it. “Then babies are dumb. Why do they act like it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to them?”

“Niang says it’s because it probably is the worst thing that’s ever happened to them, ever. They haven’t been alive very long,” Jin Ling added wisely, like he knew anything at all about babies.

Well…he might. More than A-Fu, anyway. He did live with 3 of them. Except his little brother A-Qiang could walk now, though, so maybe he wasn’t a baby anymore. He still smelled enough to be one. When A-Fu said that he still thought they should get over it and stop crying, Jin Ling had rolled his eyes at him again, so A-Fu had raised one wet foot and shoved him off the dock into the shallows, getting his pretty gold and white outfit all muddy. A-Ling had shouted a bad word and they both had got in trouble with the Jin nanny. A-Fu split his ginger candy with him afterward, though, so Jin Ling forgave him pretty quick.

Babies weren’t all that interesting to A-Fu--they were squishy and loud and heavier than they looked and you couldn’t play anything fun with them. Aunt Yanli had let him hold new little baby A-Mei, while Jin Ling held her twin brother, A-Zan. He had felt a little guilty, because Aunt Yanli had looked so happy when she looked down at the baby in A-Fu’s arms, but A-Fu just kind of wanted to give her back. She smelled weird and she sort of looked like a bald, red little animal with tiny, tiny fingers he was afraid of touching in case something bad happened. He had looked over at Jin Ling, who had a lot of practice with such things, and how he sort of bounced around and looked fondly down at his baby brother like he actually liked being near him. A-Fu tried that bouncing thing a little, but A-Mei had squinched up her face and made honking noises, so he handed her back really quick.

He had asked Blue-Father and Gray-Father later that day in the room they were staying in if he was going to get a baby brother or sister--really kind of hoping they would tell him ‘of course not’--but Blue-Father had gotten very quiet and Gray-Father had looked over at him. Blue-Father was watching his own hands. “It’s hard to say, little one,” Blue-Father had finally said in a weirdly even voice that was like when you were trying to step around a creaky floorboard all careful.

Gray-Father had made a loud huffing sound through his nose, scowling. “Again?” He demanded, but not at A-Fu. “You’ve already--” he seemed to remember A-Fu was there when he looked at him and pressed his lips together really tight and continued, “And you're not wanting for cousins. And there's still Wangji. I thought he had left it alone.”

“Da-ge, please. This isn’t the time.” His blue father just sounded tired, now.

“That he keeps hounding you on this--”

“You know that it’s not that simple.”

“It is!” Gray-Father’s voice was rising, but not like he was going to yell, just like he really really wanted Blue-Father to listen. “In this case, it is! Xichen, he’s just doing this because--”

“When you talk about the duty of a--”

“Bullshit.”

“Da-ge--” A-Fu saw Blue-Father’s eyes zip to him and away quickly but Gray-Father didn’t stop.

“You know that's not why he's doing this. Why shouldn’t this be enough for him? There’s A-Fu and there’s Wangji and there’s A-Yuan and at least 7 other near-cousins. It’s about image and control, A-Huan, he’s been like this since we were young; no matter what you do, it’s never going to--”

Blue-Father closed his eyes and that shut his gray father up faster than any of his words had. Gray-Father had growled in his chest all frustrated. Then, he had leaned over and kissed Blue-Father right on the lips.

They didn’t do that a lot, never in public, and not a whole bunch around A-Fu--it probably wasn’t allowed for you to kiss on people in public, though it wasn’t a rule that was written anywhere that he had heard of. But they were in a private room of Lotus Pier while everyone else was going to sleep, so it was probably okay here. Gray-Father had looked into Blue-Father’s eyes really close and said, “You are enough as you are.”

A-Fu’s blue father’s mouth had gotten thin and shaky and he nodded and nodded without saying anything.

“We are enough as we are,” Gray-Father had said with the same quiet, important voice and Blue-Father had swallowed really hard and he kept nodding and nodding, looking down at his lap.

A-Fu’s stomach had squirmed with worry until Gray-Father turned and smiled at him and beckoned him over and A-Fu jumped to his feet, running over to crash into their laps. Blue-Father had wrapped his arms around him tightly, his hands petting over A-Fu’s hair as Gray-Father pulled them both into a hug that squished A-Fu between them in the best way, even if his head was just a little crushed.

"So no babies, right?" He had smeared into Blue-Father's chest and Gray-Father had laughed.

"No, child, no babies here except you."

His blue father didn't say anything, just kept petting his head.

The whole conversation didn’t really make sense to A-Fu. He was still thinking about it the next day as he was swimming around in the lake with Jin Ling, his brain not letting go of the memory of his blue father trying not to cry the night before. It made him think of the last time he had seen him upset, just a few days ago at the Cloud Recesses. It didn’t happen a lot, so when it did, it really stuck in his head as a prickle.

A-Fu swooshed his hands around underwater, making his floating hair swirl like the clouds he had seen Blue-Father paint on wall hangings. “A-Ling, what’s a succession?”

Jin Ling, blinked water out of his eyes and spit out pond gunk. “Like when you win?”

A-Fu heaved a huge sigh because A-Ling so did not understand a single thing and paddled over to the dock where the nannies sat. He tilted his head back to squawk, “Jin-qianbei, what’s a succession?”

One of the Jin nannies leaned over to see him better, the sun glinting off her gold hair pin and her earrings like sparks. “Succession, xiao-gongzi? It’s the order of inheritance.” When he scrunched up his face, she tried again. “It’s who takes over when someone in charge passes away or is unable to fulfill their duties any longer. Sons and daughters and the order of birth.”

“Huh,” A-Fu said and thought about this hard, trying to make it fit like puzzle pieces. Taking in a deep breath, he floated on his back and closed his eyes against the sun that turned his eyelids bright red, listening to the ‘plink’ and ‘gloop’ of the water in his ears. He hadn’t wanted to ask Gray-Father or Blue-Father about what a succession was, because when he had heard the word, he had been breaking all kinds of rules.

It had been the last time Blue-Father was so upset, a few days before coming to the conference, back when he had been putting away the wash bin he had used to clean the library floor as punishment for talking during meals. (Again. It was just so boring to sit there! Every other clan got to talk while they ate!) He was just going past Great-Uncle Qiren’s house when he had heard his blue father’s voice inside.

It wasn’t weird to hear him talking to Great-Uncle Qiren, and it probably wasn’t something very interesting, but then, he heard Uncle Wangji’s voice and that made him slow down. Everyone knew that Uncle Wangji didn’t talk much to begin with, and even less to Great-Uncle Qiren. As far as A-Fu knew, he wasn’t ever rude about it, but he sure didn’t say more than he needed to. His curiosity felt like a little minnow nibbling at his brain and, before he knew it, he was pouring out the gross water and shoving everything under a fancy bush by the path. Then, he snuck around the back of the house where there was a window that looked out at only trees, where no one on the paths could see him.

He was pretty sure sneaking and eavesdropping weren’t ‘filial’ or ‘virtuous’ but he was curious--and Uncle Wangji had told A-Yuan and him that being curious was good. So A-Fu figured that believing that was pretty filial of him.

When he peeked over the sill, he saw all 3 grown ups sitting sideways to him at the table that was over by the far window. Great-Uncle Qiren had his scowly face on where his beard twitched around like it was alive. Uncle Wangji looked...like Uncle Wangji, which meant he didn’t really look like he was feeling anything at all, just staring past Great-Uncle Qiren’s head. Blue-Father was pale.

He might not have looked very upset to someone who didn’t live with him, but A-Fu could tell right away, because he wasn’t even bothering to try to smile.

Great-Uncle Qiren’s voice was sharp and angry. “--least he is a Lan, but that boy--”

“Has the headband. Has the name. In all respects,” Uncle Wangji interrupted Great-Uncle Qiren and turned his head just a little and stared at Great-Uncle Qiren, right in the eyes. “As you agreed.”

A-Fu suddenly wondered if grown ups could get punished just like little kids did when Great-Uncle’s eyebrows came down and his beard and moustache twitched again and he snapped, “Wangji.”

Uncle Wangji’s eyes flickered, just a little.

“Wangji,” Blue-Father said all quiet, in a very different voice. He didn’t look at Uncle Wangji, but instead at the edge of the shiny table.

Uncle Wangji said nothing, but his mouth got a little smaller and he went back to looking at the wall.

Great-Uncle Qiren was glaring at him. “Don’t think that I don’t know where he came from. You may refuse to say, but anyone with any unfortunate knowledge of your inclinations could guess that he is connected to...that man. That I let you keep him so near to you is a kindness. And you,” he turned back to A-Fu’s blue father. “This is supposed to be it, then? You would be pleased to leave our line of succession the way it is?” He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe it.

A-Fu’s face was starting to heat up and he balled up his fists. He wanted to burst out and yell at him to shut up--but bursting got you chores and lines and then he wouldn’t be able to listen, anymore. Bursting was like Gray-Father, who wasn’t a very sneaky person. Right now, he had to be like Yellow-Father, who could sit very quiet and smile at people who got angry right in his face.

For a second, he felt really guilty when he thought of Blue-Father, who wouldn’t have been sneaking at all. Who was being sneaked on right now.

But no, A-Fu reasoned, he was actually sneaking on Great-Uncle Qiren. Who was actually still talking; “I don’t understand how this keeps happening. Where have I gone so wrong that you both repeat and repeat your father’s mistakes? Have you not seen where that leads? Have you not both seen what that does to your Clan? Your family? Choosing--”

He stopped all of a sudden, just as A-Fu was starting to notice that this sounded a lot like talking behind people’s backs, which was definitely against the rules. Standing up, his great-uncle stuck his hands behind his back and turned with a scowl toward A-Fu’s window. A-Fu managed to hold back his squeak as he ducked down, heart pounding hard in his throat.

When he heard footsteps, he almost ran--which would have been really dumb, because there were loose rocks all over the ground that clattered and crunched--but the footsteps turned around, going back and forth as Great-Uncle Qiren paced, then stopped. “Your duty is to your Clan, not to your own feelings, Lan-zongzhu,” he said the title like a reminder. “I cannot force you to do what’s right, but I would hope that I wouldn’t have to. I would hope that you, of all people, would realize how quickly these things can change and people die. No one wants to consider it, but you must. It is your place. Even your father managed this--absent though he was from all other duties. This is not something I can do for you simply because you do not like it.”

It was almost like what his blue father had said to him a bunch of times before--except it didn’t sound kind and patient and wise coming from Great-Uncle Qiren. In fact, A-Fu thought that he sounded pretty mean--if Great-Uncle Qiren had scolded him like that, he would be wishing he was anywhere else in the world and he might have even cried, a bit. A-Fu wanted to poke his head up again to see Blue-Father’s expression, but he didn’t know which way Great-Uncle Qiren was looking and definitely didn’t want to risk getting caught listening to what sounded like a Serious Adult Conversation.

A-Fu doubted Blue-Father looked very happy at all.

“...I understand, shufu,” came his voice, still quiet.

“But you will do nothing? You would put this to someone else? Wangji? And how would that go, do you think?” Great-Uncle Qiren shot back.

There was a silence, long enough that the birds in the trees nearby filled it up with tweets and tweedles. A-Fu’s stomach was tied up in complicated knots and suddenly, the sneaking wasn’t so much fun, anymore. It hadn’t actually been all that fun to begin with; all it was was Great-Uncle Qiren yelling at people he loved. As quietly as he could, he snuck back to his wash bin and hurried off.

When he got back to the Hanshi after cleaning up, Blue-Father was already there sitting on his bed, staring at the backs of his hands on his knees.

All he had said was, “A-Fu, I need some quiet, please,” in a low voice. For a second, A-Fu thought about pretending he had lost his voice and going on a silly search for it, as a funny joke to cheer him up. But it was weird to see his father so serious and pale and he didn’t think that he would want any goofing. So, instead, he had just bit his cheek and said, “Okay, die," and went to go find A-Yuan. He maybe even cried a little bit, but A-Yuan was really good about not asking him what was wrong twice when he didn’t want to talk.

Sneaking was something that A-Fu got pretty good at--seeing how long he could wait in a tree without anyone noticing he was there, padding around in his socks to jump up on people's backs when they least expected it. He had almost made A-Ling pee himself when he jumped out of his toy chest after hiding there for a million hours. It was like a game he was playing with the world.

Sometimes, it got him in trouble when people found him sneaking where he shouldn’t--once, he had sneaked into Uncle Huaisang’s room and climbed up on top of a big cabinet but had accidentally pushed off a bunch of stuff that made a huge mess, spilling all over his bed and when he got found out, he had been made to stand in a corner for, like, a year. He felt bad that he ruined the sheets Uncle Huaisang had kept complaining about, but he just made sure not to do that, next time. It made A-Yuan nervous and he would never, never come with him because he didn’t want to get in trouble, but he would listen to the stories A-Fu told him about it like he was hearing legends and he would gasp at all the right parts. Sometimes A-Ling would come on sneaking missions, but he clomped like a horse and breathed too loud, so A-Fu usually just left him behind on the hard ones.

There were people that were super easy to sneak on--like A-Qiang and the Jin nannies and Uncle Huaisang--and there were some people who were tougher--like Gray-Father and Blue-Father and Great-Uncle Qiren. The hardest level he still couldn’t beat was Yellow-Father, who always seemed to know when someone was watching him or when something was moved out of place. So many times, A-Fu had escaped the nannies and hid under his desk to surprise him when he sat down, only to have his father pause just as soon as he came in the room and say, amused, “Fufu, you’re not supposed to be in here.” He couldn’t even see him! And he had been so quiet!

The only time he could ever surprise Yellow-Father was in the middle of the night when he was sleeping, and he wasn’t ever, ever allowed to do that. (It was a Very Important Rule all 3 of his fathers had told him for as long as he could remember; no sneaking in the rooms at night and if he needed them to get up, he had to call from the door to let them wake up, first. This made sense and A-Fu always followed this rule because, while his blue and gray father’s sometimes woke up confused for a couple seconds, Yellow-Father always woke up with a big gasp and sat up really quick and it always made A-Fu flinch. He usually just tried not to wake him up or he would just crawl in on Blue-Father’s side instead, if he was there.)

Sneaking wasn’t really about hearing what people were talking about, most of the time, since they usually talked about confusing and boring adult stuff. It was more that sneaking was fun and it made him feel super proud to have something he was good at, finally.

Because he was last in his class at pretty much everything--reading and recitation, writing, music reading, numbers.

Classes were long and boring and his legs hurt to sit on for that whole, whole time and he wasn’t allowed to slouch or get comfortable or take breaks or anything. He would sit next to A-Yuan and stare out the window at the zipping bugs over the stream in the woods, or the seniors passing by on the walkways and the teacher’s voice would just slosh over him. He tried. He really, really did. The teachers said he didn’t and even A-Yuan said that if he stopped drawing on his paper, he could maybe learn more.

It was easy for him to say. A-Yuan was good at everything--sitting still, handwriting, listening, remembering, adding numbers. He was so smart, A-Fu thought that he should probably be the teacher when he grew up. It wasn’t that A-Fu was grumpy at A-Yuan for being better than him at everything. It was just hard when people thought A-Fu was just goofing off on purpose and A-Yuan just didn’t even have to try and was amazing. It wasn’t fair.

So many times he had thrown himself onto Blue-Father’s lap and just sobbed because he was so, so frustrated he wanted to just chuck every book into the river and never try to read again. The characters were just blobby patches of sticks that didn’t mean anything and he could never remember the sounds they were supposed to make.

“Just talk to me forever! Never write me a note! Just send me Jin butterflies until I die!” he had yelled into Blue-Father’s knees one time. “Reading is stupid! I’m stupid!”

“No, no, no,” Blue-Father had said and picked him up and held him close underneath his chin. “Never say that. Your cleverness--”

“I don’t have any, A-Yuan took them all,” he choked, yanking at his father’s lapel to try to burrow into his outer robes, where it was dark and warm and pressy and quiet. “Everyone is better than me. I’m probably not even good enough to be a succession!”

“...What?” His arms had loosened around A-Fu long enough to escape halfway into the robe pocket he had made, so A-Fu kicked his way in and hung there with his legs sticking out, curled around his father’s side, listening to the quiet gurgle of his tummy through his back. “A-Fu, a what?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled. He didn’t want to talk about it, because he might accidentally let him know he had sneaked on that weird grownup conversation--Blue-Father was really good at figuring things like that out. “I’m just not good at anything good. I hate learning.”

“...Are you worried about being Clan Leader someday?”

No, not really because Blue-Father was never going to die like his birth parents, so he really wasn’t worried. Him and Gray-Father were going to be the Clan Leaders forever because they were strong and good at fighting and so he would never have to worry about himself being a succession or any of his fathers dying, ever, but he knew it was important to Great-Uncle Qiren. And he already thought A-Fu was a slacker and a troublemaker. And probably stupid. It made him feel like a small, lumpy toad that accidentally got into the library that everyone wanted to get out right away.

“Little love, talk to me.”

A-Fu stayed stubbornly quiet. He didn’t have a plan, but he didn’t want to talk about this. Because what if Blue-Father decided that he was disappointed and that A-Fu really was stupid at school? What if he really just was going to be terrible at everything forever?

Gentle hands wrapped around his ankle and he squawked with a kick when something tickled against his foot like a sniffing bunny. Blue-Father held his feet still as he continued to lightly scratch the bottom, right in the middle where it tickled the most. “ACK! Stoppit!”

“Come out, then.”

“No!”

“I don’t talk to behinds.” He could hear the smile in Blue-Father’s voice. “I need a face.”

“No!!”

“Then I guess I’ll just--” the tickling went from one finger to a lot and it yanked a shriek-laugh that A-Fu didn’t mean and was mad about.

Kicking and worming around as hard as he could to show that he was still angry, he flipped over so he was on his back, head still hidden. Halfway what he asked. That tickle came back on his foot, so he yelped and reached up to yank the loosened robe down Blue-Father’s shoulder a bit, so he was still tucked inside, but he could look down and see A-Fu’s scowling face. “What,” A-Fu demanded in his absolute grumpiest voice because his father was forcing him.

“Rude,” Blue-Father chuckled and poked his nose. “Tell me what you’re good at.”

“Nothing.”

He tilted his head, and his smile got all soft and sorry. “Lie. Lies will get you chores.”

A-Fu made a huge scowly face and hid his face in his own sleeves, curling up his knees until he was an angry ball tucked into Blue-Father’s messed up outer robe and yelled, “I can’t think of anything!”

“Hmmm. What if I share what I know you’re good at?”

A-Fu was quiet, still hidden. But a grumpy quiet. Grown-ups always tried to get their way and make you feel better when you were so mad and it just made him madder.

“You’re a very funny boy. You’re adventurous, you’re compassionate, you’re brave, you’re kind--”

He couldn’t take it any longer. “Those aren’t even things!” A-Fu burst out, pulling his arms away from his face to glare up at him. “Like, actual real things!”

“Oh? You don’t know when a person is being unkind?”

“It’s not a thing like writing or board games or fighting good! It’s not important!”

Blue-Father just looked down at him for a minute, face calm, eyes thinking. The air A-Fu was breathing inside the robe was warm and Blue-Father scented--incense and something dark-sweet, like fancy wood. Every once in a while, a chilly little wisp of air would come in from the outside and burn the inside of his nose with its fresh cold. He wanted to stay tucked in here forever and never go back to school or do anything hard ever again. His father was strong enough to carry him in his robes like a weird lady-boob all the time. They could just tell everyone A-Fu ran away and that Blue-Father decided to grow a gourd from his chest meridians or something.

Then, Blue-Father said, “What are the things that your Gray-Father is good at?”

“Ughh, that’s so easy,” A-Fu complained and rolled his eyes, which got him an eyebrow raise and an ‘oh really?’ look, which meant that he was probably getting pretty close to being told to stop being rude for real. He let The Attitude go with another pout, poking out his chin, but he said, “Fine. He’s good at fighting. And cooking. And riding horses. And playing.” He thought a second, then added, grudgingly. “Bread.”

Blue-Father nodded encouragingly, smiling. “Alright. What do you like about Gray-Father? Do you like that he’s good at fighting?”

A-Fu squinted at him. “He just is.”

“Alright, then what do you like about Gray-Father?”

He thought about it a second--not because it was hard, but because he was trying to see if this was another trick to make him feel better. After he couldn’t figure it out, he just answered. “I like when he throws me and swims with me and plays Monster. I like when he gives me shoulder rides.”

Still smiling, Blue-Father held out his hand over him and spread his fingers and, automatically, A-Fu grabbed onto his thumb and ring finger and grumpily stretched them around. “Alright. What is Yellow-Father good at?”

“Talking to grownups and writing and knowing when I’m sneaking up on him and making A-Ling shut up.”

Blue-Father’s raised eyebrows gave his words back and A-Fu pouted but said, “Sorry,” and set about curling those long fingers one at a time into a fist.

“And what do you like about spending time with him?”

“I like when he braids my hair. And when he sings to me. And when he plays pretend.”

When his Blue-Father tried to stretch his hand out again to touch A-Fu’s cheek, A-Fu scowled and clamped down on it, making his father chuckle and curl it back up obediently. “So, do you see? There is more to a person than just what they can do. It’s how they make us feel and how they treat people. That is what’s important to me, little love. That you are fair. That you are kind. I will love you even--” he leaned in like he had a secret, glancing over at the door like someone might hear and, despite himself, A-Fu leaned up out of his pocket to hear his sneaky whisper, “--if you’re last in your class...forever.”

A-Fu’s eyes widened. “For really?”

His blue father nodded. “For really. It’s important that you try your best. But I will love you no matter what that is.”

“Hmmm.” A-Fu mulled this over and decided he felt a little better, but still didn’t want to leave his robe-cave. Blue-Father had taken his own hand back when A-Fu kept pretending to punch himself in the forehead with it (with sound effects) but had let him stay where he was while he wrote some letters. A-Fu had fallen asleep there, wrapped up in warmth and the smell of Blue-Father. Being mad always took a lot of energy.

The whole conversation got him thinking later about what sort of things everyone was best at. A-Yuan was good at class and making A-Fu calm down and folding little paper butterflies they could paint. A-Ling was good at being really annoying--but also racing and telling stories and lying. A-Qiang was pretty good at walking, now, and following A-Ling around and wanting to be a part of everything. The baby twins were good at...drooling and pooping, probably. Uncle Huaisang was good at painting and birds and telling jokes. Great-Uncle Qiren was good at remembering the rules and growing a beard and telling when you were lying.

Uncle Wangji was good at being quiet and playing the qin and, actually, pretty good at advice. After A-Fu’s Hard Time with reading, Blue-Father took him to talk to Uncle Wangji--though he really didn’t get why, at first. He just sat there all awkward and quiet, stabbing his rice with his chopsticks while Blue-Father explained it across the table from next to him. Uncle Wangji nodded slowly and looked over at him. “What is difficult about class?”

“All of it. The whole thing,” A-Fu mixed one chopstick around, peeking up at him from under one of his hair wispy’s. Uncle Wangji looked like he always did, face smooth like a wall. But his eyes looked kinda soft, like Blue-Father’s did when he was smiling inside, a little.

“Sitting?”

“Yeah, shushu.”

“Listening?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mn,” he nodded. “You try?”

That question crunched up in him and he blinked a lot against his eyes getting all hot and fuzzy when he nodded. “Really, really hard.”

There had been one time where he was trying--he was, he was!--and he had seen something move out the window and when he looked, it had been Blue-Father walking with Gray-Father and he had been so excited, he forgot he was in class and he had jumped up and hung out the window, waving and yelling, “Die! Hi, die!”

They had both looked around surprised before they grinned at him and waved back, but made the ‘shoo shoo’ motion and he got yanked back inside by the teacher and yelled at in front of every single person in the classroom for being bad and ‘disruptive’ and ‘unruly’. He got a whack on his butt with the classroom stick, had got made to recite all the rules he had broken, and had to stand at the front of the class for the rest of the time. He had felt so humiliated that he couldn’t even tell Blue-Father why he was crying when he got home, and he eventually had to go ask the teacher to find out.

A-Fu had never got whacked on the butt again, after that day, but he still got in trouble so much that sometimes, it was easier to stand at the front of the class and listen because at least he got to shift on his feet (though, he also got yelled at for that).

“Focus takes practice. Practice takes time.” When Uncle Wangji stood up, Blue-Father had smiled and looked down at A-Fu.

“Go with him, A-Fu. I’ll wait for you here.”

It was a little weird walking next to Uncle Wangji because he was so quiet and usually when grownups were really quiet around you, it was because you were in trouble, but A-Fu couldn’t think of anything he had done today to be punished for. So he just followed him out the door, down the white path and into the forest a little ways, to a small stream coming down the mountain through all the bushes and trees. It sounded nice and friendly, burbling all over the smooth, dark rocks. “Pick one. Or a few,” Uncle Wangji said, one hand tucked behind his back.

“One what?”

“A stone. Small enough to fit in your hand. It can be smooth or not, it’s your choice. Not too sharp.”

A-Fu squinted at him, then at the rocks. “Why?”

“When you pick, I will tell you.”

Maybe he was going to make him throw them? That sounded fun, so probably not, because this sounded like a weird, grown up lesson they were teaching him. He wasn’t going to make him carry a bucket of heavy rocks, was he? That sounded--and he was stealing a word from Aunt Yanli--dreadful. Just in case, when he hunted around, he picked just one, a small rock that was a little lumpy, but smooth, black with a little sparkly pocket in it and held it in his hand, warily. His hand hurt from how cold the water had been, like his bones were aching. “Okay….”

“Do you feel it?”

Duh. A-Fu almost, almost got sassy, but remembered the look that Gray-Father gave him when he did and just said. “Uh...yeah.”

“When you run your fingers over it, do you like it?”

Puzzled, A-Fu rubbed his thumb on it like an experiment. It felt like a rock. “It’s...a rock.”

“Choose one that you like to touch.”

Uncle Wangji, A-Fu thought, all annoyed, who likes touching rocks? But he didn’t say so because he didn’t know exactly how patient he was, so he just threw the first rock down the slope, into the bushes and started touching them all. Some were slimy and super gross, some were just...uh...rocks, and some of them were actually just mudballs, but after a little bit, where his fingers really really hurt and started to go numb from the cold, he found 2 that were kinda nice to run his fingers over because they were so smooth. One even had a little dip where he could hold it in his palm and fit his thumb right in it like it was supposed to go there. He had a little whine and cry that he couldn’t help because his hands hurt so bad, but Uncle Wangji had knelt down and cupped his own long hands around them and had slowly rubbed and blown on them until the feeling came back without even looking annoyed once, which A-Fu had been worried about.

Uncle Wangji took a cloth from his sleeve and rubbed the stones until they were dry and clean, saying, “If you are quiet and careful, you can hold these stones while you learn. You can rub them, scratch them, turn them in your hand. It may help.” Then, he had tucked them back into A-Fu’s hands.

Curiously, A-Fu rubbed the rocks together and heard the nice ‘shhk-shhk’ sound they made. Too loud for class time, probably, but nice for now. “That’s not against the rules?”

With the smallest smile A-Fu had ever seen, Uncle Wangji tilted his head. “Fidgeting is prohibited. Then do not fidget--hold them carefully and hidden. It hurts no one and helps you. Busy hands can help your mind stay sharp. Perhaps it will become easier for you once you begin sword and qin training.”

“Huh. Was it hard for you to listen, too?”

“In the beginning. Practice, meditation, and focus help as you grow older.”

Uncle Wangji was pretty smart to come up with something like this, if it had helped him as a kid. Then, A-Fu thought about how A-Yuan sat so perfect in class, just watching and listening with no problem at all. He frowned, staring at Uncle Wangji’s white boots poking out from underneath his white robes when he stood back up. “You taught A-Yuan the right way to do it,” he muttered under his breath, feeling jealous and small and grumpy. “Why won’t you teach me?”

“You’re not like A-Yuan.” A-Fu looked up at him, expecting him to look mad that he had talked back, but instead, he just looked like Uncle Wangji. Like nothing, really, face calm and cold as the stream. But his eyes were still soft. “You are like Lan Fu. And that is good. You will learn like Lan Fu, just as I learned like Lan Wangji. Just like xiongzhang learned like xiongzhang.”

A-Fu looked back down at the rocks in his hand. “Okay.”

“Mn.”

“Mn,” A-Fu echoed back, without really thinking about it.

A hand reached down and gently patted his head, then turned him back down the path. “Let’s return. Xiongzhang is waiting.”

#THIS IS LONG AS HECK BUT I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT AHSODIFJ #Finally the child is wrangled and doing plot things #YEESH #3zun raise jingyi au #3zun raise jingyi au content #my stuff #my fic

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