Maybe My Soulmate! (GL)

”I do not get excited easily,” Ruan Xue muttered, even as her eyes kept darting between Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing like she was trying to memorize every detail to tell someone about later.

Su Yubing smiled gently at both of them, the kind of smile that made strangers relax almost instantly without quite knowing why. ”It is fine. We seem to be heading the same direction. Perhaps we will see each other often on the crossing, since a few months on a ship this size does not leave many strangers by the end of it.”

A third disciple, a boy named Liu Chen from an entirely different sect, wandered over at that point mostly out of nosiness, having overheard part of the conversation from a few paces away. ”Wait, are you two actually married?” he asked bluntly, looking between the way Mo Yuxin’s hand had settled naturally back onto Su Yubing’s waist and the faint blush still lingering on Su Yubing’s cheeks from earlier. ”You act like it.”

”We are,” Mo Yuxin said simply, without any hesitation at all, and the easy pride in her voice made Su Yubing’s blush deepen just slightly further.

”Huh,” Liu Chen said, blinking. ”Never actually met a married cultivator couple before, not one that looked so, I do not know, happy about it.”

”You are meeting one now,” Mo Yuxin said. ”Try not to stare too much, it makes my wife shy.”

”I am not shy,” Su Yubing protested quietly, which fooled absolutely nobody standing there.

...............

By the time the Tide Dragon actually pulled away from the dock and Yanhai’s harbor lights shrank slowly into the distance behind them, word had already quietly gone around certain corners of the ship that there was a couple onboard who felt strange to be near, not dangerous exactly, just heavy, the kind of pressure most people only usually felt around elders back at their own sect. Nobody said anything directly to Mo Yuxin or Su Yubing about it, partly out of politeness and partly because nobody wanted to be the one who guessed wrong and looked foolish in front of an actual expert. So instead the rumors just grew quietly on their own, the way rumors always do on a ship with nothing else to do for months at a time.

That first night, after the initial excitement of departure had settled into the low creak of the ship’s timbers and the distant sound of waves, Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing retreated to their private cabin near the stern. The moment the door closed behind them, Mo Yuxin pulled Su Yubing into her arms without a single word of preamble, like she had been waiting all day just for this exact moment to finally arrive.

”You held my hand the entire way here,” Su Yubing said softly, tilting her head up to look at her. ”In front of everyone on the dock.”

”I always hold your hand,” Mo Yuxin said. ”Are you complaining about it now?”

”No,” Su Yubing admitted, a small smile tugging at her lips. ”I like it. I just still am not quite used to how easily you do things like that, out loud, where anyone can see.”

”You have been my wife for months now,” Mo Yuxin murmured, leaning down until their foreheads touched gently. ”You are allowed to get used to it eventually, you know. I plan on doing it for a very long time.”

Su Yubing laughed quietly, the sound warm and unguarded in a way she rarely let herself be around anyone except Mo Yuxin. ”Fine. Then get used to this too.”

She rose up on her toes and kissed her first this time, which still happened rarely enough that it made Mo Yuxin’s arms tighten around her waist on instinct, pulling her in closer, deepening it slowly like they genuinely had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do for the rest of the night, which, as it turned out, was more or less true. The single candle on the small table burned low and eventually went out entirely, and neither of them bothered to light another one. Whatever happened after that in the quiet dark of that cabin stayed exactly there, between the two of them, while the ship rocked gently over calm water and the rest of the world kept turning somewhere far outside that door, entirely unbothered by two very content, very newly married women who did not resurface again until well past sunrise.

...............

The next morning came late for both of them, and by the time they finally made it up to the main deck, most of the other passengers were already gathered near the railing enjoying the calm weather, watching the empty horizon for no particular reason except that there was not much else to do on a ship in the middle of open water. Ruan Xue spotted them first and waved enthusiastically, waving them over to where she and Chen Hao were sitting near a coil of rope, already halfway through a bowl of rice porridge.

”You two slept in late,” Ruan Xue observed cheerfully, entirely without malice, causing Su Yubing to nearly choke on absolutely nothing while Mo Yuxin simply smiled and sat down like she had not a single care in the world.

”Long night,” Mo Yuxin said easily.

”Mo Yuxin,” Su Yubing said under her breath, mortified.

”What? It was a long night. That is just a fact.”

Chen Hao, sensing exactly where this conversation was headed and having significantly more self preservation instinct than his junior sister, quickly changed the subject to the weather forecast the ship’s navigator had posted that morning, and the moment passed, though Su Yubing kept a faint pink tint in her cheeks for a good while afterward.

It happened without warning, the way these things always seem to happen. Just past midday, the water about half a li off the ship’s port side suddenly bulged upward like something enormous was rising from underneath, and a heartbeat later a massive scaled head broke the surface with a spray of white foam, easily three times the length of the ship itself, dark green scales glistening wet under the sun and a pair of ancient looking horns curving back from its skull. Someone screamed.

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TO BE CONTINUED.