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Lady Gyokuyou's smile was suspicious. Too bright. Too... knowing.
“I’ll only be gone a few hours,” she said sweetly, already placing the swaddled bundle into Maomao’s stunned arms. “It’s just an herbal consultation. Think of it as practice.”
Jinshi made a startled sound, which he quickly disguised as a cough.
By the time Maomao opened her mouth to object, Lady Gyokuyou was already gone, her sleeves fluttering like victory banners as she disappeared around the corner.
The silence that followed was deafening. Maomao stared down at the baby. The baby stared back, wide-eyed and unblinking.
Jinshi cleared his throat. “She’s very... small.”
“Infants usually are,” Maomao muttered.
She wasn’t unfamiliar with babies, exactly — anatomy was anatomy — but this one was alive and warm and... inexplicably heavy. It felt less like holding a person and more like trying to cradle a particularly volatile bundle of fate. One sudden move, and something might explode.
The baby blinked. Then, without warning, let out a thin, confused wail.
Jinshi froze. “What do we do?”
“We?” Maomao glared sideways. “Don’t drag me into your panic.”
“I’m not panicking,” he said, obviously panicking. “She just—why is she doing that?”
“She’s crying, Jinshi. That’s what babies do.”
“I know that,” he said with injured dignity. “I just thought there might be a reason.”
Maomao adjusted her hold awkwardly, trying to bounce slightly without jostling too much. “Maybe she’s hungry. Maybe she’s tired. Maybe she thinks we’re both idiots. Who knows?”
Jinshi huffed. Then, before she could stop him, he leaned in and took the baby from her arms.
“Wait—!”
Too late. He was already cradling the infant with an absurd amount of care, arms rigid like he was holding an imperial decree, eyes locked on her like she might detonate. The baby blinked up at him, intrigued.
She stopped crying.
Maomao stared.
“I... I think she likes me,” Jinshi said, half-dazed.
“She must have a fever,” Maomao muttered.
But truthfully, the sight was... unsettling. In a way she wasn’t prepared for. The softness in Jinshi’s features — the easy way his voice gentled, the way his body adjusted as the baby nestled in closer — it was all painfully, terrifyingly natural.
He sat down on the low bench, still holding her. “She’s light.”
“She’s new.”
“She’s not afraid.”
Maomao raised an eyebrow. “Should she be?”
“I’m just not used to being looked at without... expectations.” His gaze was distant for a second. “It’s a bit like being seen. But not judged.”
That startled her more than it should have.
She turned away, pretending to busy herself with a sachet of calming herbs. “You’re getting sentimental.”
“Maybe,” he said softly. “Is it so terrible?”
She didn’t answer.
Not when he shifted, adjusting the baby’s position, letting her curl against his chest like she belonged there. Not when he looked up at Maomao again and said, carefully:
“Do you ever think about it?”
“About what?”
“This. A version of this.” His eyes didn’t leave hers. “One day.”
There was a beat of silence. The sort that pressed on her ribs like a weight.
She looked at the baby. Then at him.
And instead of dodging, she said, “I don’t know.”
But she moved beside him, sat close enough that their shoulders brushed, and adjusted the baby’s blanket without speaking.
He didn’t push.
Lady Gyokuyou returned two hours later to find them both asleep.
The baby nestled between them, wrapped in Jinshi’s outer robe. Maomao’s head tipped toward his shoulder, fingers still tangled in the hem of the blanket. Jinshi’s hand rested against her knee, steady even in sleep.
Gyokuyou smiled.
“Just an afternoon,” she whispered to herself, and quietly shut the door behind her.