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Shell-shocked by running into Izanami again, Stribor almost didn't come home as carefully as he should have—but he still managed to power down a fair distance away and walked home as Dewey, dragging his strange human feet. The moment he unlocked the door and shut it behind him, he removed the earring that kept him safe from prying eyes outside the home and released his ears, feet furring once more and losing the strange extra toe, and itty bitty fluffy tail poofing through the deliberate hole he'd made in all the pairs of his pants.

Fields above, he loved feeling normal at home like this. Even if he... didn't quite feel so normal. Not today.

"Huanxi? Lianli?" he called out, unwrapping his scarf and hanging it on the post by the door. He needed some hot chocolate, and he feared interacting with the electric kettle to boil milk for it.

... And he also wanted to talk about something very important.

Izanami. Irihime. Whoever she was now.

It had been many, many centuries since Huanxi had held an instrument. Once, he had been quite talented. Once, his fingers found frets easily, and he knew a hundred songs by heart, and he had gladly played them for and with Xingyi, his qin and Xingyi's violin blending together to make melodies all their own. But his qin was long lost, thrown away in a fit of grief after Xingyi's death, after a hundred attempts at a requiem had all felt inadequate, and after that, after the plague,a fter the fall--he'd had little reason to feel the need to play.

There had, after all, been no one to listen.

But Lianli, once more, seemed determined to heal wounds that Huanxi hadn't even thought to reveal existed. Holding an instrument again, even if it was different than what he knew, felt...right. Even if he wasn't entirely familiar with how a "guitar" played, even if his fingers felt stiff and rusted and his skills felt agonizingly atrophied, it felt like getting back something he hadn't really realized that he lost.

And he could share this, now, with his beloved. Play together, learn together, learn the music Lianli loved and make something together, with him.

Perhaps he could adapt some old Helenian songs to these new Earth instruments. Teach Lianli as Lianli was teaching him. But that was for later. For now, he was...entranced, truth be told. Utterly and wholly focused on watching Lianli's fingers, listening to his voice, following the way he formed the melody of this particular song.

Thus, hearing his name called, and hearing someone else come in--it jolted him, more than a little, and there was a moment fo genuine surprise when Lianli called out to Dewey.

"For both of us," he clarified, as a perhaps-unnecessary addition to Lianli calling out. Oh well.

“No, no,” Liánlí replied immediately, not even needing to think about it as he gently set his guitar aside (back into its case, which sat open beside him). With his hands and lap freed up, he patted one of the sitting pillows that he and Huanxi did not currently occupy, motioning for Dewey to please, come join them.

“You’re family now, Dewey. My brother, even.” That was his story for the name Dewey Huang, and Liánlí was sticking to it. “Of course I want to be here for you if you need anything.”

The specifics of what Dewey needed, though…… Those were more complicated. As he considered what he might say and how best to answer that question, Liánlí couldn’t help but blush, recalling the mistaken notions he’d had about the nature of Xingyi and Huanxi’s relationship, and how he had acted, based on those ideas.…… If he hadn’t gotten it into his head that they’d been married, there was a distinctly non-zero chance that Liánlí might not have behaved in the exact way that he had. That he’d be pining uselessly right now instead of sharing a bed with Huanxi every night.

But that didn’t help Dewey to dwell on too much, so Liánlí took a deep breath and tried to give him an actual answer.

“Well, uh. As the one who was reincarnated,” he said, “I had gotten some ideas? Based on memories that I’d recovered up at Kaifeng? And those ideas pertained to the nature of Huan-ge and Xingyi-ge’s relationship?” Blushing more intensely, he bashfully rubbed at the back of his neck. “So, in the first memory I got back, one of Xingyi’s cousins called him Huanxi’s ‘little wife,’ quote-unquote?” Were the finger-quotes necessary? No, objectively not. But talking with his hands helped keep Liánlí relatively calm. “And until my trip up there after our December 25th celebration, every memory I recovered after that had Huan-ge in it? And the way they acted with each other, it seemed to me like maybe Xīngyì’s cousin had said ‘little wife’ in a derogatory way, but that it was probably factually accurate, so I, um.”

He coughed awkwardly. “Put my tongue in Huan-ge’s mouth within five minutes of meeting him.”

Honestly, that was probably giving himself too much credit.

Dewey blushed at the chastising affirmation that Lianli considered him family. It made him smile, a little, because... Well, that was just... It was wonderful. He liked that. Having people who cared about him again, instead of just the status symbol he'd been to so many he interacted with daily back home back when it was alive.

Though the admittance about Lianli shoving his tongue down Huanxi's throat practically immediately had him blushing even worse, and he pulled his ears over his very red face with a little squeak.

But as Huanxi began to answer, he peeked out between them, slowly letting the embarrassment drain away until he mostly only felt exhaustion.

"I'm glad it worked out for you two," he mumbled, frowning at his hands. "I think... maybe part of me knew she was gone, but most of me hoped, you know. And then I saw her and everything hit so hard, all at once, and I—"

He choked on a sudden sob and hugged himself, ears flat against his back. "She was my everything, and we put it all off because of fields-forsaken duty and I have so many regrets and I can never fix it."

It felt like a painfully familiar story. Huanxi couldn't help but wonder how many times it had played out across the universe--two magical soldiers whose hearts longed for each other, but who chose their worlds or their Wonders over that connection.

It made his heart hurt. For Dewey, for his Izanami--past and present.

"Too many of us made that choice," he said, softly. "And it led us only to heartbreak and pain. I think that, perhaps, we put too much stock in duty. But it is easier to see, with time and distance."

And the pain of failure, and the ocean of grief that came with it.

"Mourn what you lost. But do not give up hope. You may find that this new Izanami is a chance to mend what was broken, centuries ago."