"He dies last year, Wangji tells me. I do the rites when I graduate."

"Oh." 

Masozi is out of words to say so he just snuggles up closer to Lan Xichen and holds his hand. 

And suddenly without realizing he was about to Lan Xichen is crying onto Masozi.

Aaaaah oh no did he say the completely wrong thing and hurt Lan Xichen's feelings??? 

"I'm so sorry," he murmurs, and - what did his sister used to do to comfort him, what does he remember Lan Xichen doing when he was upset after the truth potion wore off - he can stroke Lan Xichen's hair and hold him and...sing, maybe, very quietly? He's not nearly as good at singing but hopefully it's still a bit comforting? 

"Thank you. I-- I don't talk about it much-- everyone knows--"

If he were Lan Xichen he wouldn't want to talk about it either. "That makes sense. I - I'm glad you told me. That you...trust me enough..." 

"Well," he says, "you too--"

...He's too what? Or does Lan Xichen just mean that now he knows too, like everyone else? Masozi didn't follow that. 

That's probably fine though. He doesn't need to ask, or understand everything right now, he can just keep trying to be comforting. It's...nice, touching Lan Xichen. Surprisingly so. He has hair, unlike any of the freshman, and it feels very soft and silky to touch. Masozi didn't know anyone whose hair had a texture like that, when he was growing up. 

Masozi playing with his hair is… nice. It's nice. He sighs softly.

Is that a happy sigh or an unhappy sigh? Masozi isn't sure how to interpret it. Lan Xichen's face...doesn't look unhappy, so probably it's not bothering him? 

Probably it's a good idea to keep watching Lan Xichen's face closely so he notices if it does start bothering him? Looking at him is also nice. Masozi can't remember ever consciously noticing that about someone's face before. It's kind of confusing, but it's not bad confusing, so he doesn't mind. 

"You don't have a mother anymore either," he says quietly.

"...No. I don't." 

"It's-- good to know someone else who--" And he starts crying again.

"...Yeah. It's - I'm glad as well. To - know you understand it."

Hugs. Hugs and hair-stroking and holding Lan Xichen's hand. Also, having extremely confusing feelings about this situation, but Masozi is going to put off thinking about that until later, right now he wants to be focused on Lan Xichen's feelings. 

"It's horrible," he says. "And poor Wangji-- they keep saying I am too young for my mother to die and I think, but Wangji is younger than me."

"It's horrible!" Masozi agrees. "It's - sometimes I wonder if I'm going to stop being sad someday. But I don't want to stop being sad, because - because it's not all right, when people die..." 

He shakes his head. "It always hurt. Always."

"Yeah." And there's not really anything to say to that, is there.

Masozi keeps hugging Lan Xichen, and - has a weird itchy restless urge to do more things but his brain is being incredibly nonspecific about what things. Maybe he can, in addition to just holding Lan Xichen's hand, sort of lightly touch the back of it in circles, like Lan Xichen did once when he was explaining the stability thing. 

--Lan Xichen is far too miserable to have the reaction to this that he would have in other circumstances. It's just comforting. 

Masozi isn't sure that he's very good at being comforting but he can at least keep just being there and being someone else with dead parents, who understands how much it hurts. 

Eventually he calms down enough to say, "do you want to finish reading?"

"- If you want to? You don't have to if it's upsetting." 

"It's sad to remember her but I don't want to forget."

"....Yeah. I know." 

And they can finish the story. 

"Spring came, and they had long days in the garden, for wherever the Boy went the Rabbit went too. He had rides in the wheelbarrow, and picnics on the grass, and lovely fairy huts built for him under the raspberry canes behind the flower border. And once, when the Boy was called away suddenly to go out to tea, the Rabbit was left out on the lawn until long after dusk, and Nana had to come and look for him with the candle because the Boy couldn't go to sleep unless he was there. He was wet through with the dew and quite earthy from diving into the burrows the Boy had made for him in the flower bed, and Nana grumbled as she rubbed him off with a corner of her apron.

"You must have your old Bunny!" she said. "Fancy all that fuss for a toy!"

The Boy sat up in bed and stretched out his hands.

"Give me my Bunny!" he said. "You mustn't say that. He isn't a toy. He's REAL!"

When the little Rabbit heard that he was happy, for he knew that what the Skin Horse had said was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to him, and he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy himself had said it.

That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. And into his boot-button eyes, that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty, so that even Nana noticed it next morning when she picked him up, and said, "I declare if that old Bunny hasn't got quite a knowing expression!""