#soft jade

No desperate clients today. No eerie barter of years, memories, or blood-gilded dreams. Just the faint scent of jasmine tea, the slow flicker of starfire lamps, and the rustle of velvet curtains stirred by an artificial breeze.

You leaned against one of the carved pillars near her desk, arms crossed, observing the way she moved. Jade, as always, was impeccable—each gesture precise, each motion measured. Her nails, painted violet, slid across a ledger with an elegance that made even mathematics look like poetry.

“Still watching me work?” Her voice was soft tonight. No sharp glint of negotiation, no velvet-trimmed intimidation. Just gentle amusement.

“You're beautiful when you're focused.”

She didn’t reply immediately. She lifted her gaze to meet yours. Pastel blue eyes—slitted like a serpent’s, yet tonight, they held nothing cold. Instead, they shimmered with warmth only you were allowed to see.

She closed the ledger with a soft click and rose from the desk. Her silhouette glided across the floor, mantle trailing like smoke, and she came to rest before you.

"You always say such things without asking for anything in return," she said. Her gloved hand rose to your cheek, brushing it with the back of her knuckles. "Most who enter here know the value of words like that."

You leaned into her touch. “I don’t come to bargain. I come to stay.”

Jade let out a breath—half a laugh, half a sigh. “A foolish sentiment. Dangerous, even.” She paused, then slipped off the single glove she wore on her left hand. Her now bare fingers traced your jaw with such tenderness it felt unreal.

“But perhaps,” she whispered, “I’m allowed to be foolish, once in a while.”

She pulled you close, the brim of her hat casting its indigo shadow over your face. She smelled faintly of rose incense and old contracts. Her lips brushed yours—not as a test, not as a transaction—but as a promise.

You kissed her back, gently. Carefully. As if she were a priceless treasure—which, in many ways, she was.

When the kiss broke, she rested her forehead against yours. Her hand was now pressed to your chest, feeling the quiet rhythm of your heartbeat.

“There’s a part of me that still finds this absurd,” she said softly. “That someone would offer themselves without terms. No collateral. No conditions. Just… love.”

“I’m not here for what you can give me. I’m here because of who you are when the scales are put away, and the ledgers are closed.”

Jade laughed, a sound rare and quiet and entirely unguarded. “Then stay. Just stay.”

And you did.

The universe outside continued to barter in blood and ambition, in dreams and disasters. But within the sanctuary of the Bonajade Exchange—beneath velvet shadows and the glow of a jade cornerstone—there was a moment untouched by contracts.

Only warmth. Only quiet.

Only love.

ʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔ

“Oh,” you murmur as you spot a cluster of brightly-colored mushrooms growing amongst the moist grass. After a brief glance towards the back of your distracted companion, you turn away from the intended path and approach the lovely clutch.

Cute, you think as you examine the short-stalked things. You’d only seen mushrooms of such vibrant colors on the internet and in your magical pharmaceutical books, so seeing it in real life certainly made you curious about it.

As you reach out to touch its gold and funny-looking cap, something suddenly shoots from the corner of your vision and captures your wrist.

Stunned and with your fingers just a touch away from the mushroom, you angle your head in a way that you’re able to lock gazes with the perpetrator.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” kindly warns Jade as he smiles pleasantly at you. He pulls your hand back and places it against your chest, the warmth from his fingertips cooling the chill that had settled over the exposed skin there from all that hiking you’d decided to do on such a cold day.

You blink and tilt your head at him, a question on the tip of your tongue.

“The exterior of that mushroom is quite poisonous,” he is quick to explain as, after a long moment, he retracts his hand. Already, you miss his touch. “It’s known to cause symptoms of itchiness on the area it came into contact with.”

He glances at the cluster of mushrooms, something contemplative passing over his features, before he appears to settle on it.

When you see him crouch down and bring out a pair of sterilized gloves, you’re able to catch on quick.

“Are you going to add those to your collection?” You ask as your crouch down beside him.

Jade minutely turns his head, his gaze meeting yours for a second before he focuses on the mushrooms.

“I believe that they’d make a nice addition,” is his answer, voice delving into something softer, something warm, something unbearably fond that you would have never caught note off had you never bothered to learn the little ins and outs of his. “I rarely come by this species so it’s quite fortunate that you spotted these,” he hums as he carefully digs the mushrooms out of the soil and places them all in a considerably large jar that he’d brought.

He turns to look at you, some beads of sweat trailing down the side of his face, and there’s something childish about his expression that makes you reach out to him.

Gently, you push the darker strands of his hair behind his ear and you can’t help the way your fingers linger over the curve of his ear before you trail it down to his dangling earring that gleam from the sun’s rays bouncing off of it.

Satisfied, you pull back and smile.

Your brows rise, though, when you notice Jade staring at you with wide, wide eyes.

It’s only until you see a tinge of red creep up his neck do you realize—

Ah.