[ lin jingheng's laugh is like bells. it's so rare, and to hear it here in this tiny, soft space between them is some kind of absolution - he wants to cry, wants to laugh too, but most of all feels this immense sense of frustration, because - because he's not right. he does talk so much. he talks too much, and none of it works.

he lets him press close, hiccups out a soft little noise as he lifts his arms, away from his shirt, up and around his shoulders. clinging, like a lost, terrified child, as he tries to let it all bubble free. he's missed it, he says. ]

But it's not - you, that person you miss, he's gone, I don't know how to be him anymore.

[ there's desperation, there. he's done so many things in the seventeen years he's been gone - bad things, cruel things, necessary things. he's done things to himself beyond that, locked himself into a year of isolation and misery and threw himself into saving the eighth galaxy, building it up brick by brick. he's torn up the shreds of the optimistic young man he used to be, and he's terrified by the fact htat lin jingheng will see that and set him aside. what if he stopped? what if, in those sixteen years, what if he loved someone else? what if he

his face crumples. it's the aftereffect of the alcohol that made him bold enough for this in the first place, and it affects him here too, as he claws at lin jingheng's back and clings to him and hiccups, brown eyes welling up with tears and starlight all the same. doesn't he get it? doesn't he realize? ] Lin, I don't - I can't...

[ he's babbling, really, now. teary eyed and desperate, trying to do the right thing and say the right thing, and never quite making his mark. ]