Twin Pearls

"Stop wriggling."

"I'm not wriggling." Yinzhu inflected the word with the scorn it deserved. She was a little restless, yes. She might have fidgeted once or twice. But 'wriggling' was unfair.

Although the bed wasn't wide, they usually fit into it with no trouble, Yinzhu's head on Jinzhu's shoulder or vice versa. Tonight, she had been too hot under the blanket and too cold without it. Her knee itched. There was no comfortable position for her arm. All of these were discomforts she could easily have slept through, if only she could just fall asleep to begin with.

"Whatever you're doing, stop it or go back to your own bed," Jinzhu muttered, pulling the blanket up to her chin with finality.

Yinzhu tried to hold still and take deep, slow breaths. Sleeping by herself, in the room that was a mirror image of Jinzhu's on the other side of Yu-furen's courtyard, appealed even less than lying here awake.

When they'd been very young, curling up in each other's arms through the night had been a matter of comfort. Both younger than the other Meishan Yu disciples, both missing siblings and the rhythms of farm work, they'd clung onto one another and not let go. As they'd grown up and found their place in the sect—a niche that would fit only them—they'd justified it to themselves as a support to their training, even to their cultivation.

No one else had ever asked. It must have been clear to them already how close Jinzhu and Yinzhu were, how naturally they formed two halves of a single person. That meant that all the work it demanded of them remained hidden. They were succeeding.

They didn't need that clinging comfort, now, but Yinzhu still didn't want to sleep by herself. Jinzhu sighed. Her limbs relaxed into softness. Yinzhu breathed carefully, matching her so that their ribs rose and fell, rose and fell together.

"We have to pack for the journey to Baling tomorrow," she whispered as the thought crossed her mind. "Our clothes, Yu-furen's clothes, and we need to check over whatever food the kitchen maids have packed for us, at least. Don't forget."

"Like every time we travel," Jinzhu said, uninterested.

"Mm." Her eyelids were firmly closed, but her mind kept racing. "Jiang-gongzi is competing with the juniors for the first time this year, isn't he? His archery isn't bad, but his swordplay is still too defensive. I hope he won't let the Jiang clan down."

Jinzhu snorted. "No one will even look at him if that little brat comes along, you know that." Then she rolled over, pulling her arm out from underneath Yinzhu's head and tugging her so that their faces were close together in the dark. "What is wrong with you tonight? Do you have to keep me awake too? I wasn't having any trouble getting to sleep."

Yinzhu's heartbeat jumped. Her throat was stiff, all of a sudden.

Jinzhu asked, voice too sweet, "Does your ankle still hurt from this afternoon?"

It did, she realised. Now that she was asked about it, she could feel the throb around the bone, an echoing pain from the blow it had received hours ago. It was healing, of course—but when she rolled her foot around, the bruised flesh protested.

It was a blow she should have danced away from, just as Jinzhu's foot skipped out of the way of Yinzhu's practice sword, but she hadn't. As if all the years of training, of watching every flip of Jinzhu's hand and shift of her weight, replicating the movement before an outsider would even see it—and knowing that Jinzhu was watching her as closely—had flickered away for a moment. Yinzhu hadn't looked up at Yu-furen, observing their paired practice from the steps. The two of them had finished their bout and stood ready for their mistress to join them on the courtyard. Instead, she had ordered Jinzhu to fetch a poultice for Yinzhu's already swelling ankle before turning away, towards the main part of Lotus Pier. Shame had swallowed Yinzhu up.

Yu-furen had never told them to twine together this way as they grew up, like bittersweet vines in a thicket. Perhaps she'd seen the effort it cost them, but she must have believed they were working to follow her, when all that mattered to Jinzhu and Yinzhu was that they were walking in step with one another. 

Yinzhu was taller; that couldn't be helped. With every growth spurt, she'd had to learn grace afresh. Jinzhu had had to work harder at speed, running extra laps in the warm Meishan evenings until she could keep perfect pace with Yinzhu.

They'd caught each other's eye and moved in sync, over and again until it truly was effortless. Until the worst thing one could say to the other was, "Why are you doing that?"

"No wonder you can't sleep," Jinzhu said, and a chill ran down Yinzhu's spine.

All Jinzhu did, though, was to throw an arm around her and pull her close enough to fit their mouths together, warm and wet from the start. This was a rhythm they'd perfected years ago. They pushed fingers through one another's hair, stroked each other at the cheek, neck, collarbones. When Yinzhu felt Jinzhu's pull at the ties of her shirt, she was already slipping her hand under the overlap of Jinzhu's lapels. Jinzhu's bared breasts were exactly as warm and full as hers; when she pinched Jinzhu's nipples, her own thrilled in response.

By the time they were delving towards one another's sex, Yinzhu could hardly tell the difference between touching and being touched, between the slide of her fingers against Jinzhu's pearl and the throb of pleasure she felt in her own.

Afterwards, they pulled the blanket up over themselves. They nestled together in the darkness, two halves with hardly a seam at the join.

"You knew what I needed," Yinzhu whispered.

"Of course," Jinzhu said. "It's what I needed too."