Luo Binghe imagined many things Shen Yuan might say, when he's ready to talk. There are certainly many things he wants to say to Shen Yuan. Even with Shen Yuan breathing in his arms, there is a new fragility to him that has Luo Binghe's heart knocking against his too-tight ribs—a new awareness that Shen Yuan is nothing but a soul clinging to the wrong body. It's still ringing in his head how close they came to never meeting. That reality is so likely, so easy to imagine, that it seems to crowd against this one, as if it might overtake them. The weight of its probability seems likely to snap the tiny improbable thread of fate that has bound them together. And Luo Binghe knows now more than ever that different realities can merge or branch, winking in and out of existence. He wants to do nothing but lie here with his arms wrapped around Shen Yuan, using his blood awareness to feel Shen Yuan's pulse, until he can believe that Shen Yuan will stay with him. Surely fate cannot have gone to so much trouble joining them if it only plans to tear them apart again—and yet, he is afraid.
And he wants to tell Shen Yuan how sick it makes him to think of him dying. How much Luo Binghe wishes he could have met Shen Yuan before that, just an otherworldly youth in his own body, without the specter of Shen Qingqiu between them at all. How much he wishes Shen Yuan was not torn from his home and his family, even if he was ill and unhappy there. (And yet there is a treacherous, selfish part of Luo Binghe that knows that if Shen Yuan's death was necessary for them to meet, then he cannot wish it erased, no matter the cost. He buries it under layers and layers of shame.)
He wants to say these things, but he imagines Shen Yuan will not want to talk any more about his death. He'll likely try to downplay what happened, or unnecessarily apologize to Luo Binghe again—show concern for him, so he doesn't have to be cared for himself.
That is what he's expecting, so what Shen Yuan actually says catches him entirely off-guard. It takes him a moment even to parse its meaning. "That's the animal you like?"
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And he wants to tell Shen Yuan how sick it makes him to think of him dying. How much Luo Binghe wishes he could have met Shen Yuan before that, just an otherworldly youth in his own body, without the specter of Shen Qingqiu between them at all. How much he wishes Shen Yuan was not torn from his home and his family, even if he was ill and unhappy there. (And yet there is a treacherous, selfish part of Luo Binghe that knows that if Shen Yuan's death was necessary for them to meet, then he cannot wish it erased, no matter the cost. He buries it under layers and layers of shame.)
He wants to say these things, but he imagines Shen Yuan will not want to talk any more about his death. He'll likely try to downplay what happened, or unnecessarily apologize to Luo Binghe again—show concern for him, so he doesn't have to be cared for himself.
That is what he's expecting, so what Shen Yuan actually says catches him entirely off-guard. It takes him a moment even to parse its meaning. "That's the animal you like?"