"Stretching your limbs should help, if you still feel sore after a while." It's easy to fall back into the life he's been living for the past few years, just talking about little, inconsequential things like this. Having Song Lan here has been such a blessing, and Xingchen treasures every moment he can share with his dearest friend again, but he also can't help but feel that nagging strain at the back of his mind. All is forgiven between the two of them, and yet after all they've been through, after how they parted ways, things just aren't back to the way they had been, as if nothing had happened. It's unfortunate and he hopes everything will heal with time, but he can't deny that conversations like this just...come more naturally at the moment.

He'll never admit this to either party, of course, knowing how easily feelings can be hurt. It's not anyone's fault, either. He just has to do his best to give everyone their due attention.

The noise takes him by surprise and his hands flinch back from where he's been working, unsure if it was his doing. But then his friend's voice, clearly distraught and confused, answers that question for him. Right. That probably does come as a shock. "Ah, I'm not sure. I'm still trying to make sense of this island as a whole, but it seems we've somehow been taken from our homes and brought here in order to help fix it, along with ourselves." A pause, because that still sounds ridiculous, no matter how many times he tries to reconcile it in his head. "Time doesn't seem to apply here like it should elsewhere."