Stroking A-Yao's cheek with his thumb as he pressed his palm against his skin, he let out his breath in a huff. "How many years did you say? Not quite twenty? That I knew you when you were seventeen, half a lifetime ago."

He is having some kind of emotion about that, to see the future in the lines on A-Yao's face. Because Mingjue only had the first brush of the war upon his features and his strong core had taken care of what stamp it would have made upon him in the three-odd months since its declared start. But A-Yao—there was laughter and loss written in his skin, marking off just barely less time than Mingjue had been alive. It was hard to fathom.

"I don't think I could make these changes up," he said, letting his thumb trace A-Yao's cheekbone. "And I recognized you without the hat. Can't be all imaginary if I did that."