At that, a low chuckle escaped him weak, but real. "You talk too much for a healer."
Something in my chest jolted. He had called me many things, most of them dismissive, but never that. Healer. It was as if, for the briefest instant, he saw me as more than a nuisance clinging to his side.
Before I could respond, Dòu Dòu leaned forward, balancing a bowl in his hands. "Well, look at that. The mighty dragon remembers his manners. Should I mark the calendar?"
Mingzhu shot him a glance, cool and unimpressed. "Don't get used to it."
But his gaze lingered on me a heartbeat longer, and when he finally closed his eyes again, the silence he left behind was heavier than before.
I stared at him, torn between anger, relief, and something nameless pressing too close to the surface.
The night pressed close around the house, heavy and unyielding. The lantern had burned down to a stub, its dim flame quivering against the silence. Dòu Dòu had drifted off somewhere perhaps pretending to sleep, perhaps only giving me space. Either way, I was left alone with the sound of Mingzhu's breathing and the storm inside my own head.
Healer.
The word would not leave me. It circled in my thoughts again and again, refusing to fade, as though it had been carved into me. He had called me many things fragile, meddlesome, mortal. Always words meant to keep me at a distance. But tonight, through cracked lips and fevered breath, he had chosen another name.
My hands trembled as I adjusted the cloth over his arm. I wasn't sure why it mattered so much. Perhaps because for the first time, it felt as if he had looked at me and truly seen me. Not as someone caught in the current by accident, not as a burden to be dismissed, but as someone who had worth.
I sat back, pressing my palms to my face. "Why does it matter?" I whispered to the empty room. "Why does he matter?"
No answer came. Only the steady rhythm of his breath.
Exhaustion tugged at me, but I could not close my eyes. Each time I tried, memories rose the river swallowing me whole, the silver current dragging me down, the weight of Mingzhu's gaze when he had first appeared from the depths. His voice, cold as stone, warning me away. His hand, just hours ago, trembling as it tried to rise.
I curled my knees to my chest, staring at him in the faint light. He looked almost human like this, stripped of his pride, of his sharp words and colder silences. Just a man wounded, vulnerable, unknowingly tangled into the threads of my life.
I hated him for it. And yet, a part of me feared I would never be free again.
Morning crept in through the shutters, pale and hesitant. The air smelled faintly of river mist, cool against my skin as I stretched my stiff arms. I hadn't realized I'd dozed off against the wall, my head tilted awkwardly.
A clatter jolted me awake.
Dòu Dòu stood in the doorway balancing a tray with exaggerated ceremony. Steam rose from bowls of broth and rice, though half of it was already spilling over the edge thanks to his careless swagger.
"Breakfast," he declared, striding in as if he were royalty instead of a dragon who couldn't hold a tray straight. "For the patient, the caretaker, and the ever handsome me."