Part of him will be glad the day Lan Zhan graduates away from his horrific reliance on millet. It couldn't even be a proper congee, with the rice awaiting whatever spicing or change the day brought: no, it was the meal, the grain, and he might grimace (he does, lips thinned and twisted before it resolves into a smile, wry) before he smiles.
"More than water for guests," he says, and he lifts the tea, takes one cup, pours the tea within. Swishes it around, cleaning in the manner of a morning's tea house, poured into the spare bowl left for all things deemed unnecessary. But it means the second, proper cup pours clean, no historical detritus floating, and the cup itself cleansed in the way of heated water, the scathed cleansliness of borrowed moments made home; lifts and holds it in fingertips, examined, and offered out to Lan Zhan like this.
He sits at ease on his side of this table, and he offers with that same ease, languid but graceful, always something in him aware of what he could be, in different circumstances. A man grown again better used to living within his skin, better at ease with himself and the silences without finding them his guilty due.
"Lan Zhan." An exchange, cup for cup, alcohol and tea, room warmth and hotter still. Not a match in most any sense, but there'd be no other sensible one for the two who sit here now.
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"More than water for guests," he says, and he lifts the tea, takes one cup, pours the tea within. Swishes it around, cleaning in the manner of a morning's tea house, poured into the spare bowl left for all things deemed unnecessary. But it means the second, proper cup pours clean, no historical detritus floating, and the cup itself cleansed in the way of heated water, the scathed cleansliness of borrowed moments made home; lifts and holds it in fingertips, examined, and offered out to Lan Zhan like this.
He sits at ease on his side of this table, and he offers with that same ease, languid but graceful, always something in him aware of what he could be, in different circumstances. A man grown again better used to living within his skin, better at ease with himself and the silences without finding them his guilty due.
"Lan Zhan." An exchange, cup for cup, alcohol and tea, room warmth and hotter still. Not a match in most any sense, but there'd be no other sensible one for the two who sit here now.