So. There, that was the fork in the road, the bridge burning, the point of no return, the cool metaphor, or whatever you wanna call it. I woke up that morning feeling pretty excited, as if I was waiting for a shipment of fancy stuff or something. I hurried down to the mess hall with a bounce in my step, as if I was about to open a surprise gift.

I think that I'm catching on to Lu Meng's favorite way of dealing with conflicts between people. He's taken the only seat not next to Ling Tong and had ordered the table set in such a way that if I wanted to have a bowl to use, I'd either have to sit on Ling Tong's left or Ling Tong's right. And it's not like the hall's packed either- no, the Old Man did it intentionally! This late in the morning, you'd have to be having either a real late breakfast or a real early lunch. So there's Ling Tong, who refuses to get up before the sun's already high in the sky- that's Mr. Late, Late, Late Breakfast. There's Taishi Ci, who's got this spectacular black eye (I heard it had something to do with Zhou Tai and a basket of unripe peaches), so that's the Early Lunch. And of course Lu Meng's having a pot of tea to go with his medicine.

Lu Meng catches my eye as I walk in and gives me an indulgent smile. I shrug and seeing as I really have no choice, sit down next to Ling Tong. "Hey, man."

"Hey yourself." Ling Tong's looking a little bit under the weather- not as bouncy or sharp as he usually is. He's not languid or leisurely- he's just plain tired-looking. But who can blame him? He gives me something that only a generous liar could call a grin. It's more of a grimace, like he's watching an approaching cavalry, unsure if it was one of us or one of Cao's lot.

"Did you guys leave any food for me? I'm starving," I complain. Actually, I'm not even hungry, but it seemed like a good thing to say, just to say something.

For a moment, Ling Tong lightens up- I see that cheeky old rascal grinning through- he cheekily pulls the main bowl of congee towards him before chuckling and pushing it towards me. "You'll live. I need it more than you," he says, but then catches himself. He stops smiling as if frightened. "Hah, kidding. Pig out, man," he laughs tinnily. The laugh goes on for a second longer than necessary- he just seems to be trying to do something. Well, he ain't the only one.

"Well, you could stand to put on a few pounds," I say just to continue, pouring ladleful of the boiled-to-mush rice into my own bowl. It lands with a gross-sounding splat. "Pass the egg."

Before I can clarify that I meant the omelet eggs, not the salted duck eggs, Ling Tong passes over the fried ones. I give him a puzzled look- has he really been that observant of all my little habits? Man, talk about obsessed!

He doesn't notice what he just gave away, and helps himself to some pickled vegetables.

"How're you feeling?" I ask after a few seconds. There's no one else to strike up a conversation with and it's just wrong to ignore each other without an excuse. It just seems like we should be talking, but I'm not sure what to say.

He shrugs after a moment. "Could be better." He looks at me and gives me his stiff, nervous grimace before going back to eating. Quickly, he flickers his eyes up to me, soppy with some weird emotion. He coughs. "…Hey. Sorry, man."

"Chill, it's just congee," I say, running a hand through my hair.

"Not the congee!" he snaps, and for a moment I see the old Tong before he quickly sighs and shakes his head. "Nevermind. Sorry."

Ah-hah. I shake my head. That little exchange's told me all I need to know.

The damn bastard's feeling guilty.

For what? Could be anything. For starters, the simplest (and most obvious in my opinion, by the way) source of guilt is that he's been treating me as if I were a mangy dog that's crawled onto Lord Sun's table. But that's okay to feel guilty about. In fact, he should feel guilty about that, or at least in my opinion. But hey, that's easy to make up for- he could just start treating me real nice and fine from now on- I wouldn't mind that!

Or maybe he's feeling guilty that I saved him, but he's still holding a grudge, involuntarily and all. 'Cause then he'd feel guilty for not liking me. But if this wasn't the case, then in his father's memory, he'd feel guilty for not disliking me! Or maybe he's guilting himself over something else. That guy's got so much overthinking that I wouldn't be surprised if his head exploded one day.

But whatever he's so fixated on, I would hazard quite a bit of money that that was the source of all this awkwardness. And man, I don't know what's more awkward- us talking or the silence. Disappointment's sinking its dirty little feet in.

Man, what a reward! Here we are, being so uncomfortable we might as well set ourselves on fire just to complete the feeling, while I was expecting that, after my grand ol' rescue and tender lovin' care, he'd-

Huh. Maybe that's why I feel so bummed out.

To tell you the truth, call me a bit idealistic, but I was expecting something like a nice ol' folktale ending for me. You know, the hero rescues the beautiful maiden and she swears undying loyalty and love to him and happily rides home with him and they have a million sons and live happily ever after? Something like that, but without the kids.

In other words, I was expecting that the rescue would suddenly make everything peachy between us. That all of a sudden, poof! We'd be good ol' buddies, right old chums, oath brothers 'til the end. All our past troubles wiped away, and a clean slate- no, more than a clean slate: a steady smooth foundation, would make it real easy for us to get real close and you know, be together and stuff and… Stuff…

But what happened? Not that!

Now without the jabbing and the unpleasantaries, we just have one disappointed guy, one really guilty-looking guy, and enough awkwardness to run a junior scholar's school.

Lu Meng catches my eye. He seems like he's going to say something like how nice it is to see us not at each other's throats for once, but he apparently decides against it and settles for smiling before ducking back down to sip a bowl full of brew. That old bastard- how dare he smile! He at least should be able to see how awkward it is, and how badly I want the awkward to stop so we can finally get in a decent conversation!

It's odd how quiet it is between us when Ling Tong's not taking little jabs at me.

Man. I know that life's full of disappointment, but…

"I gotta go," I say quickly, standing up so fast the table bounces against my stomach.

Ling Tong turns his head questioningly, but I don't look at him- I don't look at him, or Taishi Ci, or Lu Meng, who's about to yell after me any second. I don't look at the food or even my drink as I turn my back and power out as fast as a walk can go.

"Gan Ning!" Someone cries out my name haggardly, desperately, pleadingly. But it's not Lu Meng. It was Ling Tong who called me with such a pained voice.

Still, I don't turn around. There's something in his plea that resonated a bit too closely to what was inside of me.

I speed back to my room, where my bed's still unmade and my mess is right in place. Grabbing a jar of wine from my cabinet, I don't bother with a cup- I pour it straight down my throat, barely tasting it as it sloshes through my mouth.

Drinking's too light a word- I keep pouring alcohol down my throat like I haven't done since I grew up and grew a brain.