[ficlets] wenzhou & gen, SHL

[peachpai]

days in between (part 8)
Characters & Relationships: Han Ying & Zhou Zishu
Rating & Warnings: Teen and Up; cw terminal illness
Word Count: 546
Summary: SHL canon. Zhou Zishu on the days in between.
Notes: Precanon. Extra warning for self-harm and eating issues.

Hiding the Nails is easy enough when he needs to — the principle is the same as for the simplest masks he wears, cover and blend. The bumps are barely visible when he’s done.

(part 9)
Characters & Relationships: Gu Xiang & Zhou Zishu
Word Count: 649

She wants this to mean something, or she wouldn’t be sitting here talking to him about it, but it won’t, not in the way she wants. Though the world is full of gentler endings, they have no map.

(part 10)
Characters & Relationships: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu
Word Count: 667
Notes: The last two lines are referencing a quote from episode 9 (used briefly again in 27). I liked the idea of them repeating it to each other in low moments.

One morning Lao Wen might be holding a corpse, oblivious in sleep and face smushed into Zhou Zishu’s cold, stiff shoulder. The magnitude of it overwhelms him. And he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to, not anymore, but it feels inevitable as they wait for a solution that may never come.