coineater | Labyrinthum Inbox.

Living with someone doesn't always make it easier to talk to them.

[Li Lianhua is testament to that sometimes.]

Why don't you share something with me, for my peace of mind? Something you haven't told Inigo.

[Raising his eyebrow... That's a strange stipulation, all things considered.

(And he has to wonder what he means even before it. Attributing the comment to be about Li Lianhua is obvious, but was there anything more to it? ...No, there's no benefit to be had in finding something to hope for. Keep moving, Cat.)]

Alright...
Something light or something heavy?
Pick your poison, friend.

...I wasn't expecting you to give me a choice.

[It feels a little weird to choose the heaviness of the secret, but did that part really matter? Did the disease care about light or heavy things?]

[And so much for telling Inigo everything, if he can think up two things that quickly! He feels satisfaction in being right--that Cat would squirrel away a few secrets to keep to himself... And a little exasperated. He was right to be worried, clearly.]

Whichever feels more pressing. I don't actually know if the severity matters.

[He never said he did! And never said that he had anything in particular in mind when he offered the choice -- more he was fishing for something to base his Fun Cat Fact on. That's really was it was, since he'd stopped feeling the worst of it a while ago, virus satisfied.

What to tell him, then...]

I'm very good at cracking lobsters :)

[Let him have his misunderstandings! And speaking of...]

[He was honestly expecting a little more... Something with that admission. More gravity maybe?]

Is that really a secret, or just an unmentioned skill? I doubt this disease would bother with that, unless you're about to tell me the lobsters were cultivated spirits.

Haha sorry!
I'm fresh out of deep dark secrets, I told you.
There are unhappy or strange things I don't much talk about but Firefly got the last of what I was intentionally keeping from folks

And cultivated or not, if I'm hungry and there's a lobster, there's only one way that's going to go

What if it's the same size as you, huh? There's no telling how large or small a lobster spirit might be, and I'm sure they won't submit quietly to being eaten.

Anyway, I do find it hard to believe that you're not hiding something else.

Good thing I'm small.

What happened to not judging me huh?

I said I wouldn't judge you for any secrets you shared.

I also said that wasn't a secret. I haven't broken my word.

Sure

What is it you're angling for here?

Imagine our places our swapped for a moment and you've got me pestering you for a secret instead.
You say there's nothing, but you're a shady cat! You must be lying! Bau bau bau!
What will you say to satisfy me?
Go on, tell me what you're hiding.

[If Cat could see his face, he'd see how taken aback Fang Duobing is by this. But he can't, even if he were present in the room.]

[Still, the response is slower to come back this time. There's an emotion to grapple with that he doesn't know how to voice. The idea that he might not be as high on Cat's list of confidantes as he would like. That there are things he might now tell Inigo, but not him. That his companionship with Cat has somehow lessened in some way in the past few months--perhaps because of him.]

I didn't mean it like that. I don't think you're shady. You play things close to your chest. Li Lianhua does the same, and I've chosen not to mind it. But I've seen how dangerous that is right now.

I shouldn't have pressed you. If you say there's nothing else, then I'll believe you. I just didn't want you to think you had to suffer alone. Especially after you've just started to feel better.

[Now who's playing something close to their chest, hm?]

I'm not him.

[A familiar sentiment. A breaking point. The response to it before had led Cat into a whole mess that was still causing trouble now. He wishes he could change his feelings on the matter.

Anyway...]

My sense of self-preservation is much healthier than I am. I wouldn't let this be the end of me if there's no good to come of it.
I've gone through too much for that.

You're avoiding the question, though. Bau bau bau!! Tell me something!
I insist.

Edited 2025-03-16 23:22 (UTC)

Tch, I know you're not. Can't two people be at least a little similar without being all or nothing?

[As if he could have forgotten the argument that started all of this... Cat can protest all he likes, but that doesn't change the fact that they share some aspects of their personality--and that Fang Duobing has learned how to deal better with Cat through the lessons Li Lianhua had taught him.]

[He'll at least accept that Cat has given him less grief about throwing his chances to live away. He's grateful that he doesn't have to endure that in a friend a second time. The first one already broke his heart, and it took too long to put everything back together again.]

... I'm not avoiding anything, I thought you were being rhetorical.

I've been told that I don't have much to tell because I tell everything all too willingly. What are you even looking for? Pick your poison, as you said.

Edited 2025-03-17 03:46 (UTC)

Oh it was rhetorical.
Am I not allowed to ask for real too? I was asked multiple times after all. Bau bau bau.

[It might be part of his point, but...he's curious, too.]

Something on the same level of whatever it is you'd like to hear from me.
I don't like bad trades.
Consider my lobster fact tossed in for free.

If there's nothing, then there's nothing.

You've made your point. You can stop with the bau stuff, whatever that's about.

[It's starting to get on his nerves, and he doesn't want to be angry at Cat. He can endure some good-natured (or slightly less than) jabs about his loud personality, but he came here with good intentions. Can't he be appreciated for that? Or at least cut a little slack?]

I already said you weren't shady, but why do I feel like I'm being extorted? If you don't want to say, then don't say. If you want to ask, then ask. Our friendship is more than a transaction, isn't it?

[Ugh. Maybe this is a little much. It's hard to tell, these days, uncertain standing as they have.

There's definitely no chance of an affectionate nickname now, he supposes.]

Nevermind

[There was nothing wrong with a little give-and-take when it came to friendship. Wasn't that more than only taking? Didn't anyone see it for what it was: an opportunity?

He doesn't feel the tickle of petals in his throat again, but he's tired. He's lost his appetite for both food and knowledge.]

Like I said, if there's nothing you want to know, you don't need to trouble yourself with coming up with something.
Thanks for your concern.

[Despite not wanting to cause discord between them, he still feels like it has slid into place regardless... The feeling of being shut out lingers, and he glances uneasily away from the screen. Is he being unfair in expecting Cat to have something to tell him, when he has nothing to offer in return.]

[When you make space for others, you leave space for yourself. Maybe this too was what his mother had meant.]

You asked about my name before, didn't you? I didn't explain then because it was complicated, but I can tell you now. You've met my mother, so to speak, so I know you won't speak badly of her.

Duobing means many illnesses. I was extremely sickly when I was born. My mother was so afraid that I might die that she didn't want to name me properly. She'd lost her sister recently, and her heart couldn't bear it if she grew attached and lost me too.

As I grew older, that fear abated, and my family called me Xiaobao. Treasure. They felt it was kinder and more appropriate, but I don't mind the one I was given. Like I said before, it reminds me how far I've come.

I'm not sharing this because I want anything. Rather, I don't want to be unfair to you.

[It's a surprise when he hears the message indicator again, but perhaps it's someone else messaging out of the blue the same way. He's truly a cat living in a dogs' world, though. Against his instinct to sulk in the corner, his need to collect information wins out, and he keeps the screen reader's receiver on to hear out what Fang Duobing has to say.

Despite himself, he feels himself smiling. Just a bit.]

I liked your mother. She's a shrewd woman.

[It wasn't her dream self's welcome of him that made him think as much. Appreciated as it was, that was probably the dumbest thing he saw of her -- his own mother would have agreed, heh.

But not wanting to get attached after being burned before, and the eventual acceptance of it once someone proved her wrong... Just another show of the intelligence she proudly and more prominently displayed as the Master of Tianji Manor.]

She's right, too. Maybe you don't want to hear this from me, but the second name suits you more.

I'd still like to meet her for real one day if the offer's still open.
Especially now that the one that made sure I can never go back again is here.

[There is a lot to unpack in this response that he wasn't sure he'd even receive. Cat very well could have left him on Read, and he would have accepted that begrudgingly. The acknowledgement that his mother is a smart woman is a balm on whatever uncertainties had been churned up.]

[The rest however, he takes piece by piece.]

Why would I mind hearing that my second name suits me? Because I told you not to butcher it by being strange with it? Isn't that a normal thing to ask?

Anyway, the offer still stands. Obviously. But I do want to know what you mean by "the one that made sure you can never go back". That's too ominous of a thing for me to ignore.

I thought it was cute :(

[He's not going to get into the rest -- too much of a headache.]

It should be.
I was killed by him
Really I don't know what would happen if I tried to leave this place

[There's no response at first, if only because Fang Duobing is trying to wrap his brain around such a thing. Killed? And he doesn't know...?]

[He types a few messages, back-spacing them each time until it seems like he's been typing for several minutes with nothing to show for it. What is that supposed to mean--that he was killed, that he doesn't know what will happen? As if his life was a temporary thing. His thoughts buck at the idea itself, that Cat might be living on borrowed time.]

Why didn't you say something sooner?

[No, that's not--]

You're alive right now, aren't you? Why would that change if you left this place?

[Well. He'd always been living on borrowed time. Even now, he's borrowing that time from Fang Duobing and, much less frequently, Li Lianhua.

And where's that lack of judgment he promised? Seriously...]

Who knows?

[Unfortunately, judgement and alarm look much the same when filtered through text.]

Is that something you should be saying 'who knows' about?

[He had thought that Cat's health was secured, slowly but surely with the improvements that they'd been making in the past few weeks. He could feel that the other boy had stopped declining at the very least, was perhaps getting a little stronger with each transfer of energy that Fang Duobing had made, on top of his others treatments.]

[He feels an all-too-familiar scramble in his thoughts, grappling for a solution to a backslide he hadn't seen coming. What does he do with this sudden looming threat that all of this was only temporary?]

What happened? Are you sure you died, and weren't just severely injured?

Sorry is there something I should be doing about it?

[What more is there than "who knows?" when he's already doing his best to find a way to live?]

I'm sure

[They'd never said it so directly, but...]

It was pretty clear my sister never thought she'd see me again

Besides, even if I was only injured there's no way someone could fix me up in time with how I was bleeding out where I was
My best shot would have been becoming a monster and even that wasn't about to happen anytime soon

[Wouldn't most people want to do something about it??? Though it's fair that he doesn't really know what that something is. It just feels far too unbothered of a thing to throw off. It doesn't occur to him immediately that Cat might be tucking his own worries behind that aloofness.]

[He's still too caught on the idea that Cat died. Actually died. And his response comes after another lengthy pause.]

We should find out whether that means you can't return or not. I know you said you wouldn't want to regardless, but it might matter for going elsewhere. There is a difference between being alive because you're here, because you're not there, or because your wounds were healed by some other means.

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coineater - 2025-05-30 14:36 (UTC) - Expand