15 JIANG YUE

"Jiang Yue" she in the heat of the moment, and the urge to know more about him, spat out her original name.

He quirked his eyebrow, as though she had said something rather amusing.

"Did you just make that up?" Yue creases her brows to his arrogant response, why would it be made up? That's absolutely ridiculous, Yue was visibly upset at his uncalled for comment about her name, her parents had named her so and she was very fond of it.

Her mother christened her Jiang Yue, she always talked about how there was an enigmatic yet rousing back story to it but Yue never got the chance to hear of it. She was promised of the revelation to her darling name once she had turned 25 in her ageline but no one had deemed that by the time she would attain the required years of life, she wouldn't have her parents by her side to let her know of her own story of being named.

However, still, her mother did tell her this that Yue meant moon, the beautiful tranquil serene moon and the last name derived from the yellow river Jiang, near the Huang Mountain.

"Yue means moon right? And it's midnight as of now, and Jiang well, you did land up in the river." He shrugs vindicating why he thought along those lines of her name being made up. It was only reasonable for him to assume for her to put out a false name. Foremost because she absorbed a lot of thought into answering his simple question of getting her name. And secondly since the name she spoke of was merely a concoctation of the river and the moon, both of which matched the circumstances under which the two encountered each other.

Yue breaks into a short abashed giggle on the comprehension of the whole scenario. He perhaps, did smile seeing her giggle, but it wasn't elongated enough and the lights weren't bright enough to perceive of it occurring or not.

"You go on then." It's only fair that she was apprised of his name as well, it's a two-sided reciprocity, ain't it? But it had been a rather long while since someone had inquired something as undemanding as name. He was not used to being talked to so casually as well, but since she wasn't clued up about him, he let it slide.

"W-" he begins only to hold back his tongue as he coughs pretentiously to cover for his consequential word that he had almost blathered. He instantly drops his sentence as he realizes that he was about to reveal his actual name, risking his identity. 'Taking her dull senses into consideration, she probably didn't notice' He was not in favor disclosing his name to an offcomer of who knew nothing of, besides her newly acquired name.

"Xuan Wu." he retorted with another name; it did belong to him anyhow. It was also a renowned name now, but not many knew him by that version, except for his close relatives and acqaintences.

That name came across as being familiar to Yue, she began musing over it upon hearing it's name. And taking advantage of her being engrossed in figuring it out, he egresses smoothly without notice.

Yue was certain that she had heard the name several times on various occassion, but she couldn't quite lay a finger on where and when. She parted her lips so as to cross-examine once. However, while she was absorbed in her contemplations, he had receded from view by then.

"Possibly, I don't intrigue him much." she woefully mumbled to herself. She had come to think this way for a long while of staying isolated now. Her mind had processed the fact that she is destined to be alone in her life.

"Xuan Wu…" Yue recapitulated his name.

She had surely heard of it. The name floated somewhere in the back of her head. She was certain that she had heard of it somewhere, she just couldn't quite remember exactly where. If Lucy were here, she would've gotten her out of this paradox.

'I miss her.' Yue wondered how she must be doing. However, she was in no doubt whatsoever that despite being concerned about her absence for a day or two she would be having the same aggregate of exuberance as always. Yue smiled shortly at the thought of her. Lucy was her only exclusive companion, Yue neither wished to nor made an attempt to widen her circle of friends despite the manifold attempts by Lucy. As for Lucy herself, Yue had not ventured forth to formulate a bond of friendship with her. It was the cheerful and enthusiastic efforts to befriend the loner.

Over the years of straying in the malicious world alone and all by herself since her parents were almost always at work and busy, Yue had instinctively gotten to be wary of all people on the face of earth and thus didn't indulge in any eventful state of matters or develop a normal circle of people to go out and have fun with. For her, emotions like fun no longer cease to exist.

Yue soon feeling her body to be in a better state than earlier sits up on the mattress that she lay on, it's cushiony and bouncy now that she thought about it. Her fingers course across the satiny sheets, the fabric is smooth at touch.

The mattress itself is forged of high-quality work, it sure must've been expensive.

'I'll ask him more about his name, besides I don't have much to do anyways. Indulging myself in a conversation with the only living being around for miles is the most I can do to kill time.' Yue anticipated his arrival back so as to talk to him more and maybe even get to know this stranger a little better.