Jin knows from the beginning this boy will be trouble. The way he's obviously a refugee, but doesn't act like one. Quiet and serious, trying to look unassuming maybe, not to attract attention, but tense as a loaded spring. And then there's that scar. It's a warning, clear as can be.
Handsome and dangerous, and Jin comes back to the little tea house again and again, for the tilt of his head in the fragrant dusk, the brush of his sleeve against her robe when he leans over her to pour the jasmine. His fingers are long, strong, always gripping too tightly whatever it is he's holding, and Jin wonders what they would feel like on her, that frantic, careless clutch on her living skin, whether their bones would grind together under the fragile flesh. She wonders whether his short, wild hair would be just as prickly as it seems against her palms, if she carded her fingers through it.
She asks him out the first chance she gets, the first time he shows any interest in her. The boy - Lee, his name is Lee, and she's somehow sure it will be the only ordinary thing about him - looks at her with wide, startled eyes, and over a date, of all things.
Jin smiles at him warmly, doesn't show her trepidation. There would be no point. She's well aware that his kind of brittle might leave iher/i hurt, that he might break into a thousand jagged pieces and tear her to shreds without meaning to.
She's willing to take her chances. More than willing, even - it's part of the draw.
When he kisses her back at the end of a date that was half disaster, half an exercise in absurdity, it's a beginning. His tongue tangles with hers, hungry and wonderfully clumsy, while the lanterns sway around them in the wind and anticipation blossoms in Jin's ribcage, for a future that seems all of a sudden as uncertain as the throw of a dice.
.
.
Lee brings her gifts, small and cheap, but always intriguing, always varied. Some of them sweet but too commonplace, flowers and sweets, no doubt purchased at the instigation of his uncle. Some of them bizarre, all Lee, others - breathtakingly thoughtful. It's like he thinks he needs to offer bribes for her attention, or maybe it's the only way he knows to show her he thinks about her.
They wander together the bazaars of the city, the trade streets of the Lower ring. Window-shopping is only marginally less fun than the proper kind, and she can hold onto Lee's hand under the pretext of not losing each other in the throng of bodies.
Her eyes slide over the jade ornaments of a jeweler's display, once, so gleaming as to be untouchable.
"You've got a magpie's eye. A bad one," Lee says, close to her ear, his breath tickling her bare neck. He does this often, voices observations about her that could easily be taken as disapproving. It's telling of his attention and so Jin never comments on it, but the remarks have grown from bemused through wondering and settled on fond. She doesn't imagine Lee's noticed the change and she tries not to dwell on what it means. She doesn't think either of them is ready.
"I have good taste," Jin corrects him, determined to keep the conversation light. She speaks into his cheek, almost, and he stiffens next to her. It's the only way to be heard through the noise of busy people, and he does it too, but he grows tense every time any closeness between them is not on his terms.
"I can't buy it for you," Lee says, watching her out of the corner of his eye.
"I'm not asking you to," Jin answers, and squeezes his hand. "That's not why I bring you with me, I don't... That's not what I want from you."
"I can't buy it, but I could steal it for you. If you want," Lee says earnestly, and Jin marvels at how he doesn't trust her with any truth of his past, but he'd risk attracting the eyes of the Dai Li for a trinket.
"No," she says quickly. She would kiss him now, but she doesn't dare risk going too far. She can never know with Lee, how well an intimacy would be received. "It's not worth it. When I am old I'll have jade earrings, and a library, and a wool blanket to warm my old bones. But now I am young and I'd rather have fun instead."
Lee doesn't take the hint, of course he doesn't, but the corners of his lips curl upwards in one of the rare smiles that reach his eyes.
"You're not asking for much. Good for me, I guess."
Jin can't tell if he's joking. It iis/i a lot to ask in these troubled times, a long and comfortable life. But Lee has the peculiar quirk of acting like limitations don't exist, for him or for others. It's another, more subtle indication that he's dangerous. There are an awful lot of those, come to think of it.
"Jade won't suit me anyway. Not the same shade as my eyes."
Lee shifts, suddenly, until he can catch her gaze. He looks at her without blinking, their proximity obviously not bothering him anymore. Whether it's because he's growing used to her or because the awareness of it has faded in his mind, Jin doesn't know.
She has other things to think about.
"Yes. You're different."
Lee lifts a hand to her face, trails a fingertip along the skin just under her left eye. Jin bites her lower lip, for more than one reason, and keeps looking into the deep, shadowed yellow of his own eyes.
.
.
The poetry scroll is an accident. Jin would have loved to believe it wasn't, but it's too unlikely. This is Lee, who seems angry with himself for wanting her. Lee, who, insultingly and amusingly, often looks at her like he wishes he ididn't/i want her, sometimes even between kisses, while his hands are caressing her back, tangling in her hair. No way would that Lee buy her erotic poetry.
So the scroll is an accident, but Jin is not above using it to her advantage. She enjoys the slow, careful way this thing between her and Lee has been building, enjoys watching the way he's pulled to her, inexorably, despite himself. She wants more though, she wants him in her bed, and this as good opportunity as any to start working on that.
"You should really have read this first," Jin tells him, smiling to show she's not angry, with the worn scroll unfolded over her lap. Jin's just closed up and the two of them are alone in the shop. It's cozy, with the shutters down and a single candle burning.
"You don't like it," Lee says, making an obvious effort not to look disappointed. He's sitting next to her against the back wall, his knees drawn to his chest, his elbow brushing her arm seemingly accidentally. His brows draw together briefly. "Wait, I did read it. What are you on about?
Jin tells him, and then watches his face flush spectacularly.
"No, it's not Maybe it isn't as showy as most poetry, but that's why It's just simple," Lee says in a rush, then leans forward and jabs one finger at the scroll. "There! This one. It's about not being able to sleep because the thought of someone won't leave you alone. What's wrong with that?"
"iAt night, with the thought of her as my constant companion, I'd close my wakeful eyes, loosen my sash and reflect on myself,/i" Jin reads. She peers into Lee's face, but he still doesn't seem to get it. "Why would you need to loosen your sash to think about someone?"
Lee's eyes widen and his mouth tightens into a straight, bloodless line. His hand on the scroll shifts restlessly, both of them suddenly acutely aware that there's only a thin layer of paper between his palm and her thigh. She imagines she can feel the heat of it, spreading insidiously.
Jin licks her suddenly dry lips and then the question is bursting out of her without thought.
"Do you think of me like that?"
Lee looks at her, the candlelight catching in his darkened eyes.
"Because it would be... it would be okay if you did," Jin says, too fast. "Fine by me."
Lee doesn't pull back like she half-expected he would. He studies her, his skin stretched over the bones of his face, painful-looking.
"It shouldn't be," he says at last. She can't read him at all, can't tell if the words are sad, accusing or hopeful. It doesn't matter.
She turns to kiss him and who cares what he thinks, who's Lee to talk about something as inconsequential as to whom she gives her body, when he steals the breath from her lips without a second thought, without so much as asking.
.
.
It's much later, in her home, after clothes have been put back on and hair smoothed down hastily. Lee should really go back home, he's said as much, but he's stalling and Jin is not exactly about to kick him out. She doesn't know what this is, lust or an infatuation or just plain stupidity on her part, but she thinks it might be something else.
Lee's looking at her differently now, looking through her even, like he has a lot to think over, or plan for. Jin would be offended if he wasn't also less cautious, easy in her presence like she'd only seen him with his uncle.
Only if this thing is going to grow, spread like a forest fire like she suspects it might, she wants more to go on than fond disregard. Jin puts her hands on his chest, palms pressed flat to soak up his heat, and instead of a kiss goodbye she takes a gamble.
"Will you Will you tell me a secret? " Jin asks. "Only one of your secrets. The one I already know."
The change in him is uncanny, he's all attention, all narrow-eyed suspicion.
"What do you think you know?"
Jin takes a deep breath and touches his cheek under the eye, the same place he'd stroked at the market.
"I know that you don't have to leave me in the dark. Not if you don't want to."
Lee's jaw tenses, his chest stills under Jin's hand. He closes his eyes briefly, as if in pain.
When he opens them, he's made his decision.
He grabs onto her hand, traps it against his body, and he draws her into a kiss that tastes like ash and dries her throat up, burns her tongue raw, as if the skin's peeled off. He pulls back and Jin takes a rattling breath through her wheezing, sore lungs.
"You want a secret?" Lee whispers into her mouth. "Here's one. You make me forget my honor and not even regret it. If I were a better man, I'd leave you alone."
He takes a step back, away from her, and lets go of her hand. Jin stares at the ground while he slides the door open. Her eyes are dry, maybe burned up from the inside too.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Lee says flatly, and disappears in the night with the suddenness of a put-out flame.
.