Moutonelles

As you entered the outpost, the door slammed shut abruptly, the force reverberating through the shack as the wood creaked from the impact. Panting, you both rested your hands on your knees, however, you seemed to be much more winded than he was. You briefly glanced upwards, catching the sight of his incarnadine pupils widening as he let out a breathy laugh.

A few more tedious seconds passed, the dim lantern light flickering against the wooden walls as Lohen shifted to lean back against them. This time he closely studied you, a smirk forming at his lips as he glanced at your disheveled appearance. He crossed arms, yet his expression carried a sort of weight, a strangely heavy one for someone who claimed it was just 'nothing special’. 

A faint smile tugged at his lips as he scoffed

‘... that wave of slimes was weak.’ 

Your eyes shot up, meeting his condescending gaze as you panted, your back pressing against the chipped wall.

‘Are you out of your mind?’ you managed to huff out, a little more aggressive than you would have liked.

He let out a low chuckle, uncrossing one arm as he gestured lazily towards the door.

‘Maybe. But I’m also alive, and you’re alive, so now we’ve got a story to tell over drinks later, it's simple really.’

The sheer carelessness and disregard in his voice caused you to glare at him once more. How could he be taking this so lightly? So casually? The sheer thought of his immaturity baffled you. Did he not care about your wellbeing at all? You straightened up and, not so playfully, punched his side, aiming to preserve the little dignity you had left. 

Streaks of light stretched from the broken window to meet his scuffed boots as he exaggeratedly stumbled backwards. His eyes fractionally widened, catching your fist before you could pull back. He let out a hum, a mix of acknowledgment and amusement. 

‘Hate me that much do you?’ he grinned.

Your eyes met his again, his expression only inspiring more resentment. Oh you swear you could hit him again. However, his grip remained warm and steady, hindering any movement yet not tight enough to hurt. 

‘A little gratitude wouldn't kill you, y’know.’ He shot as amusement flickered in his eyes. ‘Or at least wait until I’ve stopped bleeding before you so aggressively attack me’ He chuckled.

‘Oh you so deserve this’ You retorted dismissively. 

He snorted, releasing your hand but not before giving it a quick squeeze. 

‘Probably’ He grinned. 

A few moments passed before he pushed himself off the wall and walked past you towards the broken window, peering out the darkening sky. Shards of glass were gathered at his feet, the occasional crunch filling the air. 

‘But, we should move before more of them show up. Unless you’d rather spend the night trapped in this dusty old place.’ He stated factually, glancing around at the dilapidated state of the place, as if mentally noting not to come back. His boots absentmindedly scuffed the floor, lifting dust as it caught the evening light, casting shimmering patterns on the floor. 

‘Fine.’ You said, entirely exasperated. 

He looked back over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth lifting, and you could have sworn you almost saw something almost warm beneath his regular facade of teasing. 

‘Good choice.’ 

He gestured towards the back door with a tilt in his head.

‘I'll take point, try to keep up…. Vice Captain’s orders that is.’ He said slyly knowing how much that irritated you, considering you weren't even part of the Knights of Favonius. 

Rolling your eyes, you shifted and pushed yourself off the wall.

‘I can't believe I did this voluntarily’. You sighed while brushing off debris and dust off your clothes. 

However, before you could complain further, a soft laugh escaped him as he opened the door, 

the wind entering the outpost and rustling his dark green hair. 

‘Nobody forced you. You volunteered, remember? Saying, and I quote, ‘I need some excitement in my life’. 

He shot a sly glance over his shoulder. ‘Perhaps you should be more careful for what you wish for in the future.’ He said feigning innocence. 

Full of indignation, you caught up to his side, trailing along the uneven path while glancing at the fleeting hues of day. 

‘Never. Again.’ You said between breaths, to which he replied confidently,

‘Sure, sure. Il’l remind you of that next time a hilichurl camp needs clearing and you’re already lacing up your boots before I finish my sentence. So eager.’ He teased.

You did not even grant him the pleasure of a response as you grumbled something incoherent, a mix of frustration and exhaustion settling in. 

While moving ahead, he scanned the treeline, his voice momentarily softening as the teasing edge almost imperceptibly shifted into something along the lines of gratitude. 

‘Seriously, though. Thanks.’ 

And while you did somewhat appreciate his recognition, your body ached far too much, and you were far too annoyed to accept any form of praise. 

‘Whatever.’ you stated, keeping your gaze on the trail. 

A silence emerged as you both continued walking, becoming painfully aware of the crunch of gravel at each step. Then he glanced back, a glint in his eye.

‘You know, for someone who claims not to care, you sure follow me into a lot of danger.’ He said amusedly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

‘-more like dragged.’ You interrupted, to which he let out a short laugh. 

‘You wound me’ 

Letting out a dramatic sigh, you glared at him once more, a glare he was all too accustomed to, translating to a graceful; shut up. 

His smirk widened, but he stayed mercifully quiet for a few paces before abruptly stopping. He turned to face you, his gaze meeting yours, and while his expression was always unreadable, it became particularly hard to place in the dim moonlight. 

‘Alright, I'll drop it.’ He extended a hand. ‘Truce? At least until we reach Springvale’. 

You glanced at his outstretched hand. Of course there would be no such thing as a truce, but just as you were about to swat away his gesture and let out a snarky comment, you become aware of the wound he previously mentioned on his arm. Without treatment, the blood had managed to seep through his uniform, a sort of bitter, metallic smell radiating from it. 

‘We should get that fixed’ you stated, gesturing towards the stain. 

He blinked, glancing down at the blood-soaked bandage around his forearm that he only seemed to remember now. He dropped his arm and let out a short, dismissive breath. 

‘Right. Almost forgot about that.’ He mumbled, flexing his fingers, wincing at the pain slightly. 

‘Think we can make it to the inn before I bleed out?’ He huffed, his voice carrying a thin note of honesty beneath his regular humour. 

You glanced at him and back at the wound, weighing your options thoroughly in your head before granting a stern: ‘Sit down.’.

He sighed but complied without any argument, lowering himself onto a mossy stump near the path. You shifted and crouched down to his level, unpacking a few medical supplies you had fortunately brought with you. 

His shoulders relaxed as he watched you rummage through your pack. 

‘Never pegged you for the nurturing type-’ He said amusingly before pausing.

His voice then uncharacteristically softened ‘But, I won't pretend it's unwelcome.’ 

He offered his arm, turning the wound to face you. It was a pretty bad sight. 

Cautiously, you tended to the gash, grabbing various bottles of disinfectant and ointment, finally making sure to rebandage him. Meanwhile, he watched in silence as your fingers worked, deft and careful. As you proceeded with the steps, the sharp sting of disinfectant made his jaw tighten as you mouthed a small apology in return. When you wound the fresh bandage snug around his forearm, his breath eased out. 

‘There. Good as new’ You said with an air of pride, glancing at your craftful work. 

His voice was quieter now, almost reflective. He flexed his hand again, testing the wrap, then looked up at you. To anyone, it would have just been a regular stare, but after knowing Lohen for so long, something that resembled an odd softness caught you off guard. 

‘Hm, you’re better at this than most of our field medics… appreciate it.’ He said solemnly, pretending to be fascinated by some flakes of dirt on the ground. Nodding, you got up and packed away the equipment. He then followed suit, rising slowly and rolling his shoulders. For a moment, he seemed about to say something else, but he let it go as you stood back up and met his eyes. When you started walking again, he fell into step beside you. 

You both trudged along the path, a long stretch of quiet descending upon you as he bumped his shoulder against yours, just barely. 

‘You’re not half bad, you know’

‘Is that a compliment?’ you slightly grinned. 

He snorted, a low, genuine sound cutting through the night air.

‘Don't let it go to your head’ He glanced sideways at you, his gaze morphing into one of recognition. ‘But yeah. Take it while it's warm.’ He stated, flexing his bandaged arm once more, then added in a lighter tone. ‘Or maybe it's just the blood loss talking though, you never know.’

You knowingly rolled your eyes as the corner of his mouth pulled into a smirk. 

‘Ah, there it is. Thought you’d lost your personality for a second there.’ The corner of his mouth twitched upwards and he stretched his arms above his head. 

The outpost gates creaked ahead, shafts of light spilling from the tavern window. He slowed his pace, letting you catch up before he reached for the door handle.

‘First round’s on me. Consider it ‘professional courtesy’.’ He said smoothly to which you immediately interrupted;

‘I don't drink.’

That alone caught him off guard, more than any fight ever had. His hand froze mid-reach for the rusty handle, turning to look at you with one eyebrow arching slowly.

‘... What kind of Mondstadt citizen doesn't drink?’ He questioned. A low chuckle escaped him and he dropped his hand, shaking his head with something between disbelief and amusement. 

‘Right. So I only find out about this now huh.’ He shifted, crossing his arms. ‘Fine. Walk with me, then. There's a spot by the cliffs- a good view without alcohol.’ 

‘A walk?’ you said, surprised. It wasn't a typical activity for the battle-hungry Lohen you knew. 

He tilted his head, the tavern light faintly catching the edges of his grin. 

‘You sound suspicious’. He said while turning. 

He started walking without checking if you’d follow- a habit he’d developed from leading groups of knights. 

‘What, scared I’ll push you off?’ His voice echoed as his boots crunched the soil.

His cape fluttered behind him as he took a more narrow side path winding up towards the cliffs. Over his shoulder, he called back again:

‘Don't worry. It's far too much paperwork if you do die.’ he said half heartedly. 

How reassuring you thought. And while you initially debated on letting him walk alone, you decided against it, following him as you caught up to his side.

The path narrowed further, grass brushing against the sides of your boots. The wind picked up once more, carrying the distant cry of a night flacon. Lohen stayed quiet, matching your pace without effort, his stare fixated on grass. 

Before long, you had reached a small clearing at the top of the cliff. You gently pushed through the tall grass as you were met with the view in front of you: all of Mondstadt sprawling below you in a scattered quilt of warm lights. You could see everything from here, the various shops, the knights headquarters, even the faintly visible stained glass windows of the cathedral. And your eyes went wide because the whole world had fallen into them all at once: the streets, the smiles, the clamour of friends, the faint smell of salt mixed with smoke- 

‘Told you.’ He beamed, interrupting your overwhelming thoughts.

He stopped at the edge, his hands setting on his hips as his voice came out softer now, devoid of its usual teasing. 

‘Definitely worth the walk.’ he mumbled. 

Your gaze shifted from the silhouette of the knight to the city below, embracing the vast expanse of land and sky. All sunlight had vanished, leaving specs of stars emerging through the night, as though some kindly god had poked holes through this sheet of dark. He followed your gaze, letting the quiet settle between you like something almost familiar. 

The wind tousled a few strands of his hair as he stated:

‘It's getting dark. We should head back soon.’ 

You didn't reply, too enthralled by the sight below you. How had you never seen this until now?

He followed your enamored gaze and then paused, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

‘Unless.. you've got a thing for stumbling around in the dark… I wouldn't mind’ 

You initially didn't bother replying or glancing back up at him. Instead, you gently lowered yourself until you were sitting down on the cliff, fingers intertwining with the grass. 

‘I don't mind either," you then said, the softness in your voice catching him off guard. 

He let out a breathy laugh, the sound almost swallowed entirely by the wind.

‘Figures.’ 

A short moment passed before he too lowered himself onto the grass beside you, favoring his bandaged arm as he settled. He leaned back on his palms, his legs stretched forward as he gazed upon his beloved city, the one he tries so hard to protect. The fabric of his sleeve unintentionally brushed yours. 

‘Are you always this stubborn, or is it a special occasion?’ He questioned knowingly, unable to cope with the growing intimate atmosphere.

You were still too captivated by the view as you shrugged indifferently, continuing to gaze into the place you learned to call home. 

‘Quiet type, huh.’ 

His voice dipped lower, almost thoughtful as he pulled a blade of grass and began twirling it between his fingers. Darkness emerged gracefully as the wind began to quiet down, the pallid twilight above offering a sort of peace.

‘Silence isn't so bad. Better than listening to you talk, anyway.’ you stated absentmindedly, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. You then shifted into a more comfortable position, propping your arms up before laying down completely on the grass, gazing distantly into the sky. 

Lohen observed your movements as you lay back, amusement briefly crossing his face before he followed suit, stretching out beside you. The grass rustled under his weight and his hair splayed across the ground. 

For the first time in your unyielding friendship, his voice seemed to carry a rare unguarded weight. The kind he usually reserved for himself late at night, or simply staring into the mirror, both times intentionally alone. 

‘Sky’s good tonight. You know…’ He started, almost hesitating as he plucked more grass from beneath him. 

‘I don't usually bring people here.’ 

‘Should I be honored?’ You let out a gentle laugh as you turned to face him.

He turned his head towards you in return, a lazy smile tugging the corner of his mouth. The glow from the distant city caught the edge of his features and his pupils seem to have grown larger, unknown to you whether it was caused by the lighting or this new found depth he seemed to possess. 

‘Should you?’ He let the question hang, mocking seriousness. Then his smirk widened, fixating his gaze back onto the stars.

‘Yeah. Probably should.’  

You let out a small chuckle, almost inaudible as the silence quickly swallowed it once again. Shifting your weight, you turned to see his figure, his eyes staring solemnly into the void. 

‘How’d you discover this place?’ you questioned 

He seemed to ponder the question for a while before answering, 

‘I found it whilst exploring once, back when I had just joined the knights.’ His gaze shifted back to the city and then made its way to your eyes, as though he seemed to look through and beyond you. 

‘...been coming here alone for years. It's a good place to think… or rather not to think.’ he chuckled, the sound carrying through the breeze. 

You gently laughed in return as you looked back up at the stars.

‘Its pretty’

‘Yeah’ he said, softer than he’d intended. ‘It is.’

Silence enveloped and stretched between you both once more, the wind whispering through the grass carrying the voices of locals in the city. The shadows of trees also lingered on the ground,  casting the delicate, shifting pattern of leaves.

‘Hey.’ his voice dropped, almost cautious. 

‘Thanks for.. being here. It’s not terrible.’

You glanced at him, initially surprised by his honest acknowledgement before meeting his eyes.

‘You don't really have to thank me, Lohen. I don't mind being here. Besides, it's a nice spot.’

At your response, something flickered in his expression, gone before you could decide what it meant. Something distant, yet closer than it had ever been before. A sort of vulnerability that would have been far too quickly masked by his usual indifference, if you hadn't caught it.

‘Right.’

He held your gaze for a second longer, his eyes unintentionally tracing your features the moonlight had kindly highlighted before looking away, the breeze tousling his hair once more. 

‘Don't mind you being here either.’ he whispered, ensuring you wouldn't hear his comment as though it mattered more that he had said it to himself than to you.

He shifted once more, wincing slighting as his wounded arm made contact with the ground. 

‘S’pose I should get this properly cleaned when we head back.’ 

‘Hmm yeah’ you nodded, clearly not entirely present.

He chuckled, a low rough sound. 

‘That's it?’ ‘Hmm yeah’? Thought you’d offer to do it yourself’ He turned his head, one eyebrow raised. 

‘Your not getting cold feet are you? Or maybe you're just shy.’

The teasing edge crept back into his voice as quickly as it had previously disappeared, yet his eyes remained the same, carrying something you would maybe dare call warmth. He shifted onto the side once more, propping himself on elbow.

‘Do I look like your personal medic?’ you stated, staring blankly into his grinning eyes.

A laugh, genuine and warm, escaped him, making his shoulders shake slightly.

‘Fair point.’ He said settling back down satisfied at your retort. 

‘Guess I'll see if Barbara’s free then. Unless-’ He glanced at you sidelong, the smirk returning. ‘-you’re volunteering out of the goodness of your heart?’

You glanced at his prying figure, meeting his cat-like grin before letting out an exasperated sigh.

‘Fine.’ 

‘Knew it’ He mumbled, closing his eyes and clearly pleased with himself.

The wind picked up as the night has pursued, carrying the distant chime of the cathedral bells. Ten o’clock, yet he made no effort to stand, perfectly content, limbs splayed in the grass. 

‘Another 5 minutes, and then, maybe, we can head down’ he murmured. 

You nodded in return. 

Silence settled as his breathing evened out, deepening as the minutes passed. Clouds covered the initial appearance of the stars and the first traces of campfire smoke drifted upwards from Springvale’s direction. 

During this, his hand had almost found yours in the grass. You didn't know whether it was intentional or not, but it rested beside yours, knuckles barely brushing your pinky. 

‘Thanks.’ He repeated quieter this time.

You gently smiled as you gazed at his lying, vulnerable form, intertwining your pink with his, like a secret and a promise all at once you would try to uphold.

‘Anytime.’

His breath caught, barely audible, and for a long moment, he did not move nor speak. 

Then, his fingers curled slightly, as though the very attempt of gently hooking yours in return defied all the rules he once upheld. 

‘Gonna hold you to that.’ He murmured, voice rough with something entirely unguarded. 

Above you both, a shooting star cut across the sky, burning brightly before its light dissipated in an instant. He then stirred a minute later. Blinking against the darkening sky, his fingers lingering against yours momentarily before pulling away.

‘Duty calls.’ he said simply as he got up, offering his good hand down, his smirk returning yet softer at the edges. 

‘Coming? Or do I need to carry you too?’ he stated once more, chasing a reaction from you.

‘You’d love that’ you said while rolling your eyes at the sheer absurdity of the idea.

His grin widened, sharp and teasing ‘You have no idea.’

But he didn't push, instead he kept his hand extended, waiting with that lazy patience that implied he'd stay here all night if he had to. The wind ruffled his dark green hair, catching the last shafts of moonlight.

You then stood up, dismissing his outstretched hand, an action that spoke more of competence and than rejection. 

He watched as you shot him a playful look, clicking his tongue and pulling his hand back to brush off grass from his coat

‘Stubborn.’

The word came out warm, again almost fond if you really pried. As you brushed off some grass and dirt from your clothes, he fell into step beside you, and you both started down the familiar path towards Mondstadt’s gates.

The walk back was silent, but not awkward. You outstretched your hand, gliding across the tall grass and occasional flower. His shoulder brushed yours once too, deliberate or not, it was reassuring.

‘This is definitely the last time im following you around on your adventures’ you sighed

He snorted, low and amused.

‘You said that last time.’ He nudged your arm with his elbow. ‘And the time before that.’. 

Ahead, the city lights flickered to life, warm against the deepening black of the night sky. His steps slowed just slightly as he approached the stone gate, letting you match his pace. 

‘Besides’ he added, quieter now ‘Who else is gonna patch me up when I do something stupid?’

You glanced at him and let a gentle smile form as you bumped into his shoulder

 ‘Shut up.’ 

He stumbled half a step, catching himself with a laugh that echoed off the stone path. The sound was genuine, unfiltered in a way he rarely let show.

‘You’re getting stronger. Perhaps we should spar again’ He remarked rubbing his shoulder with mock offence.

‘Who knows, I might have to start watching my back around you.’ he said snickering at the ridiculousness of the thought that you would one day actually be stronger than he is.

Through the city gates, the evening bustle of Mondstadt greeted them: lanterns glowing, laughter spilling from the taverns and the distant strum of a lyre that came from a particular drunken bard. Buildings cornered your vision and your gaze trailed to the various closed doors and shutters. It really was late. 

At the thought, you gently yawned, covering your mouth as your eyes fluttered shut for a second. However, he had caught the gesture, a flicker of something unreadable passing through his eyes.

‘Tired?’ His voice had dropped to a testing edge settling into something a lot quieter. 

‘Mhm’ you managed to muster out, trying to maintain the speed at which he was walking.

You both soon reached the fountain plaza: halfway between the Cathedral and the Knights of Favonius headquarters. Lamplight swallowed and pooled at your feet, its edges engulfed by the surrounding shadows. You pondered the uneven steps as the growing desire for sleep gently washed over you. 

‘Come on.’ he started

‘Hm?’

He tilted his head toward the side street heading to your place. 

‘I’ll walk you back. I wouldn't want you collapsing on the cobblestone- it would be terrible for my reputation as Vice Captain.’ he mused

‘You really don't have to, it's okay’ you mumbled out, still staring intently at the cracks and faint glitter illuminated in the pavement. However, much to his content, he shook his head and kept walking, hands in his pockets and his cape swaying with every step.

‘Didn't ask if I had to.’ He glanced at you from the corner of his eye, the ghost of a smirk on his lips.

‘I'm walking you back. That's happening.’ 

Normally, you would have argued, but given your exhausted state, you saw no reason to resist; particularly because you knew all too well that saying ‘No’ to Lohen and getting him to follow through was an impossible task. You glanced to meet his gaze, harsh shadows from the lamps contouring his sharp eyes and his pupils shrinking from standing directly under it. It was moments like these that reminded you that the Lohen whom you knew all too well, was not the same Lohen that battled thousands of enemies a day to feel alive. While many assumed he was some insane, power hungry knight who had very strange tendencies to say the least, the Lohen you had gotten to know was calm, protective, and kind at times. You pondered the regular occurrences of civilians coming up to you questioning how you could ever be friends, let alone acquaintances with someone that ‘insane’. These comments always would always make your heart sink a little, often responding with phrases like: ‘he’s a lot more different than you’d think’ or ‘please don't speak of him that way’. Your thoughts trailed on, and while you thought Lohen was oblivious to the various remarks you would endure, he knew all too well what everyone thought of him, occasionally hiding behind the corner or watching from afar as people interrogated you. 

You were abruptly brought out of your thoughts as a group of drunk patrons boisterously stumbled out of the Cats Tail ahead, laughing loudly.

Lohen’s eyes widened fractionally before sidestepping them easily, his hand brushing your lower back for just a second in order to steer you clear without making a show of it. 

Only when you had become aware of what had transpired did you look up;

‘Thanks’

‘No problem’

..

As you both began walking back, he discussed the ongoing plans for the knights, making various comments about Varka’s ‘tough guy’ attitude and how he, always so ‘stoic’, was much better suited for the role of Grand Master. This made you chuckle and, while you couldn't see it in the moment, his eyes lit up every time you would laugh at his jokes and call him, and you quote, ‘terribly delusional with the stoic capacity of a teaspoon’. The chatter gradually came to an inevitable close as he stopped at the base of your house’s steps, his hands still comfortably in his pockets.

Your house was quaint and inviting, various flowers on the outside and the occasional moss or vine growing up the cracks in the wall. He let out a low whistle.

‘Been a while since I’ve been here’ as though it seemed all too familiar.

‘You were here once, Lohen.’ you chuckled 

‘Doesn’t mean I can’t miss it. I mean, you should see the state of my house compared to yours.’ 

You smiled tenderly as the street quietened. Only the distant clatter of a closing shutter could be heard somewhere down the lane.

‘Anyway, here we are.’ He looked up at your window then back at you. The smirk softened into something genuine

‘Try not to miss me too much tomorrow.’ he grinned, pausing and then shifting his weight, glancing away briefly before meeting your eyes once more. 

‘... and thanks. For tonight I mean. And the arm.’ he added.

You held his gaze and gently smiled in return, flashing him a look that said a mix of ‘don't worry’ and ‘it was nice’

‘Goodnight Lohen’ you finally spoke.  

‘Night’

He lingered a second longer than necessary, then turned away, his boots clicking against the cobblestone. Halfway down the street, he raised his bandaged arm in a lazy wave without looking back.

The moon caught his silhouette as he rounded the corner- dark green hair catching silver light, crimson eyes faintly visible, and his cape swaying with each easy stride before the shadows swallowed him whole. 

sooo it's actual ch1/8 of my fic on ao3 which you can read here:

You don’t usually connect with this side of the foundation, but after a security breach and a dire need to get the public to calm down and forget any of this happened at all, you have become more aware of the disinformation unit.

You knew of them previously, of course, they’re notorious for what they do. They sit in their offices and make things up when things go wrong. You hadn’t met any members of that particular unit until a few days prior when you ran into one of them in your unit's breakroom asking questions, his distinctive lanyard hung around his neck.

Lohen, in charge of his own sub-unit. He has the final say in the stories for breaches in this facility. You know there’s supposed to be someone above him, but the person above has other duties, so it’s easier to delegate more often than not.

Apparently he was over there gathering a little more information on the details to keep whatever lie the foundation approved spinning that pulled on the most grounded in reality version it could. The more you listen to him talk, the less you’re convinced he was telling the truth.

Fluorescent lights buzz above your heads, painting the entire room a sterile white made worse by the white and cream decorating choices by the foundation. Sure this is a government facility with labs, but does it need to look so…bleak?

He leans a little too much into your personal space. “So, you’re sure that’s all you know about the containment breach?” Lohen asks, returning to his original line of questioning and reason for being here at all.

“You’ve asked that already,” you swirl your coffee in your mug. It’s gone cold. You don’t know what else you can tell him that you haven’t already.

“Just getting my details right,” Lohen responds easily. “This stuff is hard, you know.”

“I’m sure,” you say flatly. It’s not supposed to come out as scathing, but you’ve had a long day. Your research team has its own fall-out to deal with after containment breaches and he’s been here for a while and chatting with you about nothing. His interview has spiraled out into everything but talking about the details of the breach.

You aren’t sure how the conversation derailed at all. One minute you were talking about the properties of the SCP that escaped, and the next minute he was asking you mundane details about your job and that morphed into asking about you.

Lohen is wholly unperturbed by your attitude. He smiles a bit wider. “It’s tough to make this stuff convincing, I mean, big monster escapes government facility? You try making up something that sounds good.”

You don’t have a comeback to that, so you take a drink of your coffee, letting the bitterness wash down your throat. The coffee here isn’t very good, but it’s something. It distracts you from Lohen’s presence as he looks at you. You’re starting to think he has a staring problem. Relatively harmless, but still a staring problem.

He’s lucky that he’s pretty, you would have snapped at him to get moving already if he wasn’t. As it is, you’re considering telling him just that. You will yourself to look at him again, meeting his eyes.

“Alright, alright, I have a few more questions but they can wait until tomorrow,” Lohen raises his hands in surrender. A sly smile plays on his lips. He reminds you of a cat, the naughty kind that likes pushing glasses off of the counter. He pushes his chair back and stands.

“Tomorrow?” you ask. Surely he has everything that he needs by now. He was here yesterday too.

Lohen misinterprets your confusion as an affirmation, perhaps intentionally, flashing you a thumbs up. “Tomorrow it is,” he confirms. He steps out of your space then, turning toward the door. He pauses long enough to look over his shoulder as he reaches toward the door. “Don’t miss me too much,” he teases.

“I won’t” you raise your coffee mug slightly, a mockery of a ‘cheers.’ It seems to please him, because he laughs slightly to himself and turns back toward the door.

Your friend, another researcher, passes by Lohen on his way out. He holds the door open for them. They glance at him as they walk in, waiting for the door to shut before glancing at you with open curiosity. “Why was he back? The story the foundation is pushing was published yesterday.”

It was published yesterday. Meaning there are no more details to gather on it. Meaning Lohen lied to your face. And for what! You blink once.

“Published,” you repeat a bit dumbly. He has absolutely no reason to come back tomorrow. He had no reason to come find you today. You stare down at your coffee, confusion and irritation joining hands as they bubble low in your gut. It’s softened by a gentle giddiness in your chest that you can’t find the right words to describe.

You’re glad he’s coming back, for some unknown reason despite his annoying demeanor. His reasons for returning are lost on you, maybe you’ll bring it up. No, you think you’ll stay quiet and see how long he drags the excuse while you try and figure out what it is that he wants from you. You don’t want anything to backfire by bringing it up first, you don’t even know his motives.

Lohen had never understood why people treated commitment as though it were supposed to be frightening, because fear had never been particularly useful to him in the first place. He had always been the kind of person who moved toward the things everyone else warned him about, whether that meant taking a dangerous shortcut simply because it was faster, provoking somebody stronger than him because he wanted to see what would happen, or making an irreversible decision before anyone else had finished explaining why it was a bad idea. You had learned to recognize the look in his eyes whenever he was about to do something reckless, the faint spark of amusement that appeared whenever common sense told him to stop, and you had learned that the most effective way to survive loving someone like Lohen was not necessarily to prevent him from doing stupid things but to make sure you were close enough to drag him home afterward.

That was why you should have known better when he looked across the street at the courthouse that night.

You had been sitting on the hood of his car while he leaned against the driver's side door, both of you exhausted from wandering around the city with nowhere particular to go. The courthouse had been almost completely dark, with only a handful of windows still illuminated against the midnight sky, and you had been making fun of Lohen for getting lost despite insisting for the last twenty minutes that he knew exactly where he was going. He had taken the teasing remarkably well, which should have warned you that something else had already caught his attention. When he finally pushed himself away from the car and looked across the street with that familiar, dangerous curiosity in his eyes, you immediately followed his gaze and realized exactly what he was thinking.

“You're not seriously considering that,” you said, laughing under your breath as you watched him study the courthouse entrance with an expression that was far too thoughtful for your comfort.

Lohen glanced back at you with a crooked smile and slipped both hands into the pockets of his jacket, looking completely at ease despite the fact that he was clearly contemplating something absurd. “Why would I joke about something that would make you this nervous?”

Your smile disappeared as you stared at him, trying to determine whether he was actually serious. “Because you're Lohen, and half the things you say are either jokes or threats.”

He laughed quietly at that and stepped closer until he was standing between you and the car, his attention shifting from the courthouse to your face. There was still amusement in his expression, but something underneath it had become more sincere, and that sincerity made your stomach twist more than the joke ever could have. “What if I told you I was serious this time?”

You looked toward the courthouse again, then back at him, and suddenly every practical objection you could think of seemed to arrive at once. You were young, neither of you had enough money, your apartment was barely large enough for two people, and you still had arguments about groceries that somehow lasted longer than the actual grocery shopping. Lohen had no concept of saving money when something caught his attention, while you had spent years convincing yourself that major life decisions were supposed to be carefully planned and discussed until there was no uncertainty left. Marriage belonged somewhere in the distant future, after you had both established yourselves and figured out who you were supposed to become, so the idea of doing it now felt almost ridiculous.

“You know we're not ready for that,” you said eventually, your voice quieter as you looked at him again. “We don't even know what we're doing with our lives yet.”

Lohen's expression softened, although the confidence in his eyes never disappeared. He reached for your hand and loosely threaded his fingers through yours, giving you a small squeeze as he considered your words. “Nobody knows what they're doing with their lives,” he replied, his thumb brushing across your knuckles as though he were trying to reassure you without making a big deal out of it. “The difference is that most people pretend they do before they make the decision.”

You let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, even though your chest had begun to ache. “That's not a very convincing argument.”

“It doesn't have to be convincing.” His smile became gentler as he looked at you, and for once there was no trace of mockery in his expression. “You love me, I love you, and we've already built a life together. If everything else is going to be figured out eventually, why can't this be figured out too?”

You knew he was being reckless.

You knew you should have told him no.

You also knew that when Lohen looked at you like that, with all of his usual arrogance stripped down into something almost painfully sincere, you had always been terrible at remembering how to protect yourself from him.

Three hours later, you were standing in a courthouse wearing the same clothes you'd gone out in that evening, while Lohen stood beside you in a suit he had bought from a department store that had been open late enough to accommodate the worst decision either of you had ever made. There had been no flowers, no carefully planned ceremony, and no family waiting outside with cameras because neither of you had even had time to tell anyone what you were doing. The rings had been cheap enough that you could both afford them without checking your bank accounts afterward, and yours was slightly too large for your finger while Lohen's already had a tiny scratch across the band because he had somehow managed to drop it on the pavement before you'd even left the store. When you teased him about it, he had merely slipped the ring onto his finger and claimed that the imperfection made it more valuable because nobody else could ever mistake it for theirs.

The clerk had looked exhausted throughout the entire process, but she remained professional while you both signed your names and answered the necessary questions. Lohen made a mistake on one of the forms and laughed when he had to start again, while you covered your mouth to keep yourself from laughing along with him. When you finally finished signing everything, he leaned closer to inspect your name before looking at you with an expression of almost childlike satisfaction.

“You're really my wife now,” he murmured, his voice carrying a strange mixture of disbelief and delight as his fingers closed gently around yours.

You smiled despite yourself and glanced down at the ring before looking back at him. “And you're really my husband, which is probably the most concerning part of this entire situation.”

His laugh echoed quietly through the nearly empty room as he leaned closer, his forehead brushing against yours while his fingers squeezed yours. “You married me anyway.”

“I know,” you whispered, and the warmth that spread through your chest made you wonder whether perhaps this really could be enough.

When the two of you finally left the courthouse, Lohen kept your hand in his all the way to the car. He looked down at the ring every few minutes as though he still couldn't believe it was there, and whenever you caught him doing it, he would pretend that he had simply been checking whether it was still attached. You eventually accused him of being sentimental, which he denied with such exaggerated offense that you laughed until your stomach hurt. He called you dramatic, you called him an idiot, and somewhere between the two insults he leaned across the center console and kissed your knuckles as though the entire night had been nothing more than an elaborate joke that had somehow become the most serious thing either of you had ever done.

For the first few years, you almost believed that you had been right to trust him.

Marriage did not initially feel different because you had already been sharing an apartment, already waking up beside each other, and already making decisions together about groceries, rent, weekend plans, and whose responsibility it was to deal with the increasingly mysterious stain on the living-room carpet. Lohen still stole food from your plate even after ordering the exact same thing, still found ways to turn ordinary errands into unnecessary adventures, and still came home with strange objects because he had seen them somewhere and decided they would make your apartment “more interesting.” He loved introducing you as his wife, sometimes with such obvious satisfaction that you would tease him afterward for sounding like a child showing off a new toy, but he always responded by reminding you that you were the one who had agreed to marry him in the first place.

There were nights when the two of you stayed awake until sunrise talking about everything and nothing, and there were mornings when Lohen would drag himself out of bed with his hair a complete mess while complaining that you had somehow stolen all the blankets again. You built routines without realizing they were becoming routines, and eventually the apartment became filled with small pieces of both of you. Your books occupied half the shelves, his things occupied the other half, and the kitchen slowly accumulated the mismatched mugs, plates, utensils, and appliances that neither of you remembered buying. The life you built together was imperfect and occasionally ridiculous, but it was yours, and for a while that seemed like the only thing that mattered.

Then you started changing.

Neither of you noticed it at first because change rarely announces itself when it begins. It arrived through smaller things, through conversations that became shorter and evenings that became quieter, through the gradual realization that you had started making plans without automatically assuming the other person would be included. Lohen began coming home later, and you began staying out longer because the apartment felt strangely uncomfortable whenever he was there but neither of you knew what to say. The two of you still loved each other, which made everything worse because there was no obvious reason for the distance. You could not point to betrayal or cruelty or some unforgivable mistake and say that it had destroyed the marriage. You could only look at each other and recognize that the people who had promised forever were no longer exactly the people who had made that promise.

Lohen noticed before you admitted it to yourself.

He always did.

One evening, he came home after midnight and found you sitting at the kitchen table with your laptop open in front of you, although the screen had gone dark several minutes earlier because you had stopped reading. He set his keys on the counter and began removing his jacket, but the moment he noticed your expression, his movements slowed. He had spent years learning the difference between your anger, your exhaustion, and your sadness, and whatever he saw on your face made the usual teasing remark die before it reached his mouth.

“Where were you?” you asked, closing the laptop as you tried to make your voice sound casual.

Lohen leaned against the counter and watched you carefully, his eyebrows drawing together as he recognized the question underneath the question. “You already know I was out.”

“With who?”

He exhaled slowly and pulled out the chair across from you, sitting down while keeping his eyes on your face. “You're not actually asking whether I was with somebody else.”

The fact that he could still read you so easily made your chest ache. You looked down at your hands and rubbed your thumb over the faint indentation left by your wedding ring even though you weren't wearing it. “Then what am I asking?”

Lohen's expression tightened as he leaned forward, resting his forearms against the table. “You're asking whether I'm still happy.”

You didn't answer.

He watched the silence stretch between you, and when you finally lifted your eyes, the confidence he usually wore so effortlessly had disappeared. “Are you?” you asked, and the quietness of your voice seemed to affect him more than any accusation could have.

He looked away for a moment, his jaw tightening as though he were searching for an answer he could actually live with. “I love you.”

Your eyes burned almost immediately because he had understood the question and still refused to answer it. “That's not what I asked.”

“I know.”

The admission sat between you, heavy enough that neither of you tried to move past it.

You stared at the person across from you and realized that you had spent months trying to convince yourself that love was supposed to fix everything. You had believed that if two people cared enough, they would eventually find their way back to each other, but sitting there with Lohen, you were beginning to understand how cruel that belief could become. Sometimes love made you stay long after you had stopped being happy because leaving felt like admitting that all those promises had meant nothing.

You did not want your marriage to become something you resented simply because neither of you had been brave enough to end it.

The conversation that finally ended everything happened three weeks later, on a rainy evening when the apartment felt colder than it should have. You had spent most of the night sitting across from each other without speaking, both of you waiting for the other person to say what you already knew was coming. Eventually, you took off your wedding ring and placed it carefully on the table between you, and the small metallic sound it made against the wood seemed impossibly loud in the silence.

Lohen stared at it for several seconds before looking at you. His face had become unreadable in the way it always did when he was trying to keep himself from reacting too quickly, but you could see the tension in his hands as his fingers curled against his knees. “You're really doing this.”

Your throat tightened as you nodded, your eyes fixed on the ring because looking directly at him felt unbearable. “I think we should annul the marriage before we start hating each other.”

His laugh was quiet and humorless as he leaned back in his chair, running one hand through his hair. “You think that's what we're doing?”

“I think we're already hurting each other.”

“You're hurting me right now.”

The words came out sharper than he probably intended, and you flinched before you could stop yourself. Lohen immediately noticed, his expression changing as regret crossed his face, but he didn't take the words back because both of you knew they were true. He had always been good at recognizing lies, and there was no point lying now.

“I don't want to keep doing this,” you whispered, wiping at the tears beginning to gather in your eyes. “I don't want to wake up beside you and feel lonely, and I don't want you to come home and feel like you're walking into a place you don't belong anymore.”

Lohen stared at you with an expression that looked almost angry until you realized the anger was the only thing keeping his face from collapsing. He had never been good at helplessness. He could handle pain when there was something he could do about it, but there was no action he could take that would make you want to stay. He could not argue you into loving him differently, could not threaten the problem into disappearing, and could not outsmart the fact that the two of you had become people who wanted different lives.

“I thought you were going to stay,” he said, his voice so quiet that you almost couldn't hear him.

You looked at him through your tears and felt your heart break because you had once believed the same thing. “I thought you were too.”

His gaze dropped toward the ring again, and after several seconds he reached across the table and picked it up. He rolled the band slowly between his fingers, his thumb tracing the tiny scratch that had been there since the night you bought it. You watched him remember the same night you were remembering, and for a moment the years between then and now disappeared.

“You remember how you laughed when I dropped this?” he asked, his mouth pulling into a faint smile that vanished almost immediately.

You laughed weakly through your tears as you wiped your cheek. “You blamed the pavement.”

“It was uneven.”

“You dropped a wedding ring on the pavement.”

“And you still married me.”

Your smile broke as another tear slipped down your face. “I loved you.”

Lohen's eyes returned to yours, and the grief in them made it difficult to breathe. “You still do.”

You couldn't bring yourself to deny it.

He set the ring down and reached across the table until his fingers covered yours. His touch was familiar enough to hurt, and you hated how naturally your hand turned beneath his so that your fingers could intertwine. For all the ways your relationship had changed, your body still remembered him. It remembered the shape of his hand, the warmth of his palm, and the unconscious way he always rubbed his thumb over your knuckles when he wanted to calm you down.

“I still love you too,” he admitted, his voice breaking slightly despite his attempt to keep it steady. “That's why this feels so fucking wrong.”

You leaned forward and pressed your forehead against his, crying quietly as his hand moved to your cheek. “Maybe that's why it has to end.”

Lohen closed his eyes, breathing slowly as he tried to accept the sentence. When he finally kissed you, there was none of the reckless confidence that had defined your wedding night. His hand trembled against your face, and yours curled into the fabric of his shirt as though some instinct inside you still believed that holding him tightly enough could stop time. The kiss was slow and painfully gentle, the kind of goodbye neither of you had ever wanted to learn how to give.

When you finally pulled away, Lohen kept his forehead against yours and whispered that he wished loving you had been enough. You told him that you wished it had been too, and neither of you tried to pretend that there was some hidden solution waiting to be discovered. You had spent too long searching for one already.

The annulment was finalized months later.

By then, you had moved out, the apartment had been emptied, and the photographs from the courthouse had been placed inside a box that neither of you had opened since the day you packed it. The legal document that had once made you feel invincible had become nothing more than a piece of paper in a file, and the rings that had represented forever had become objects neither of you knew what to do with.

Lohen kept his.

He stopped wearing it eventually, but he could never bring himself to throw it away. Sometimes he would find it buried beneath old receipts or tucked into a drawer, and every time he touched the scratched metal, he remembered the night you had stood beside him beneath fluorescent courthouse lights and laughed because neither of you could believe what you had done. He remembered the department-store suit that didn't fit properly, the cheap ring that had been slightly damaged before you even reached the courthouse, and the way you had looked at him when the clerk finally pronounced you married.

Most painfully, he remembered believing that the feeling in his chest was certainty.

Years later, he understood that it had not been certainty at all.

It had been hope.

The distinction mattered now.

Lohen had spent most of his life believing that anything could be survived if he was stubborn enough, clever enough, or reckless enough to keep moving forward. He had never been particularly afraid of consequences because consequences were simply problems that appeared after decisions, and problems could usually be solved. What he had never learned was how to accept something that could not be solved, and losing you had forced him to learn it slowly, painfully, and without the satisfaction of being able to blame anyone.

You had not betrayed him, he had not betrayed you. Neither of you had stopped caring.

You had simply become two people who could no longer make the same life work.

That truth haunted him more than any uglier explanation could have, because if you had hurt him, he could have hated you—if he had hurt you badly enough, you could have hated him and if either of you had done something unforgivable, the ending would have had a shape, a reason, and somewhere to place the blame.

Instead, there was only love.

There was the love that had existed before the courthouse, the love that had survived the marriage, and the love that remained even after the marriage had ended.

Lohen eventually stopped wondering whether he should have refused that night.

He stopped wondering whether the marriage had been a mistake.

He stopped trying to convince himself that you had been wrong for him from the beginning because that would have made the years together easier to dismiss, and he had no desire to make them smaller simply because they had ended.

You had loved him and he had loved you—for a while, you had been happy, you had believed forever belonged to you.

That had been real, even if forever had not been—and perhaps that was the cruelest thing about growing up: eventually learning that some promises were never meant to predict the future. Sometimes they only described what two people believed with their entire hearts at the exact moment they made them.

Lohen had meant every word—and so had you.

The fact that neither of you could keep the promise did not make the love that created it any less true.

Sunflowers, daisies, and little wildflowers would suit him particularly well, something bright and natural that felt personal rather than extravagant, and he'd probably spend a moment examining the arrangement before looking back at you. "You actually got these for me?" He'd let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head as though he still couldn't quite believe it. "I wasn't expecting this at all. I mean, they're really nice. They're actually really, really nice."

He'd pause, visibly trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with himself now that the gift had left him without his usual confidence. He'd probably make some awkward attempt at a joke about how he was apparently going to have to start returning the favor, only for his smile to soften again when he looked at the flowers.

"You know you've completely caught me off guard, right?" There'd be something almost boyishly pleased about the way he'd keep glancing between you and the bouquet, clearly touched despite trying to play it off.

Then, he'd give up on finding the perfect response altogether, shift the flowers carefully into one arm, and pull you into a warm hug with his free arm, keeping the bouquet safely out of the way. "Alright, fine. I love them. Thank you." The words would come out a little quieter than usual, accompanied by a genuine smile that would make it obvious he meant every bit of it.

What would make the whole thing even more amusing would be the reaction from the other Knights afterward. Lohen walking through the headquarters carrying a bouquet would already be unusual enough, but the fact that someone had apparently given the bouquet to him would have half the room staring before they could stop themselves.

He'd notice the looks almost immediately and glance around with a slightly irritated expression, realizing that people were trying very hard not to stare while simultaneously failing miserably.

He'd probably try to walk past as though nothing unusual were happening, only for someone to eventually glance at the bouquet and then at him with an expression that practically screamed Lohen? Flowers? Someone gave Lohen flowers? The attention would make the tips of his ears turn even redder, and he'd instinctively hold the bouquet a little closer while muttering something about everyone needing to mind their own business.

Later, when he saw you again, he'd probably bring up the whole spectacle with an embarrassed laugh, telling you how everyone had stared at him as though you'd handed him a priceless artifact instead of flowers. "I'm never going to hear the end of this from the other knights, am I?"

Despite all his joking complaints about being put on display, he'd make one thing very clear, he wouldn't trade the bouquet for anything.

"Not that it matters. It's still worth it. Especially since they're from you." As he said the last part, he'd glance toward you with a small, teasing smile, clearly noticing the way your expression immediately changed. The faintest flush in your face would be far too entertaining for him to ignore, and he'd hold your gaze for a moment longer than necessary, looking quietly pleased with himself.

He'd probably raise an eyebrow when you tried to hide your embarrassment, the corner of his mouth lifting further as though he'd just discovered an entirely new way to fluster you. "What?" he'd ask innocently, despite knowing perfectly well what he was doing. "I'm just saying the truth."

── ( 𝒄. ) Childe would have a huge reaction because he's naturally generous himself, and in a relationship he'd probably be the one who was constantly buying things for you without making a big deal out of it.

With his position and wealth, bringing something home for you would be almost second nature to him, he'd pass through a market and see something that reminded him of you, pick it up, and present it later with that easy grin of his, or return from a trip with some little trinket, accessory, sweet, or souvenir he'd decided you'd like.

Because of that, he'd become so accustomed to being the giver that it genuinely wouldn't occur to him that you'd turn around and do the same for him. So when you suddenly held a bouquet out to him, he'd actually freeze for a moment.

His eyes would widen, his usual confident expression falling away into unmistakable surprise as he looked at the flowers, then at you, then back at the flowers again. "For me?" He'd laugh softly, almost disbelievingly, before taking them from your hands with both of his as though he needed to make absolutely certain they were really meant for him.

He'd probably adore something bright and lively like orange lilies, chrysanthemums, red carnations, or sunflowers, flowers with rich, warm colors that suit his energetic personality rather than something overly delicate.

He'd turn the bouquet around, inspecting the arrangement with an enormous grin, occasionally glancing at you as though the fact that you'd thought about giving him something was more surprising than the flowers themselves. "Well, well. Looks like someone's decided to spoil me for once." The teasing would come naturally, but there'd be a genuine softness underneath it that would betray how touched he was.

He'd probably ask where you got them, whether you chose them yourself, and what made you pick those particular flowers, listening with a strangely attentive expression as though every little detail made the gift more special. He'd even laugh at himself when he realized just how caught off guard he'd been. "You know, I'm usually the one doing this." He'd glance down at the bouquet again, his smile becoming smaller and more sincere. "I really wasn't expecting you to get me something."

The cuteness aggression would probably hit him hardest once he fully registered that you had gone out of your way to make him happy, rather than simply buying him something because you happened to be shopping. He'd stare at you for a few seconds with that bright, almost boyish grin, looking like he was fighting the overwhelming urge to do something about how adorable he suddenly found you.

He'd shift the bouquet into one hand, lean toward you, and press a warm kiss to your lips before pulling back with a laugh, his expression still impossibly pleased. "You really surprised me, you know?" He'd probably shake his head, looking at you like you had somehow managed to turn the tables on him without warning. "I'm starting to think I might've spoiled you too much!" Yet the joke wouldn't stop him from continuing to admire the flowers.

He'd keep them somewhere prominent afterward, making absolutely no effort to hide how proud he was that you'd given them to him, and he'd probably catch himself looking at them throughout the day with a stupidly fond smile.

At one point, he'd be sitting behind his desk with a stack of paperwork spread out in front of him, his cheek resting against one hand while his other arm lay folded across the table. He'd stare blankly at the documents for a few seconds before his attention inevitably drifted toward the bouquet sitting nearby.

His expression would soften almost instantly, his eyes lingering on the flowers with quiet admiration as he propped his chin more comfortably against his palm. The paperwork would be completely forgotten.

He'd just sit there looking at the bouquet, replaying the moment you'd handed it to him and remembering the expression on your face, a small, almost yearning smile slowly appearing as he thought about how much he genuinely loved the gift.

It would take someone entering the room or calling his name to pull him out of it, and he'd immediately straighten, glance back at his paperwork, and pretend he'd been concentrating the entire time.

He'd already be thinking about what he could bring you next, not because he believed he needed to repay the gift, but because giving things to you was one of the ways he naturally showed how much he cared, and now he had even more reason to spoil you.

But when the two of you were alone, he'd probably glance down at the bouquet and then back at you, his smile turning softer. "Seriously, though thank you. I... really love them." He'd pause, looking at you for another moment before that playful grin returned. "Although I think I like the person who gave them to me even more."

── ( 𝒘. ) Wanderer would be one of the most visibly conflicted because receiving flowers is exactly the sort of openly sentimental gesture he'd have absolutely no idea how to handle. You'd hold the bouquet out toward him and he'd stare at it in silence for several seconds, his expression slowly shifting from confusion to suspicion as though he were trying to determine whether this was some elaborate joke you were playing on him.

His eyes would narrow slightly, and he'd glance from the flowers to your face before looking back at them again. "What is this?" Once you explained that you'd gotten them specifically for him, he'd go quiet for another moment, clearly caught off guard despite his best attempt to appear unimpressed.

He'd prefer something simple and understated, perhaps violets, lavender, forget-me-nots, or small blue flowers, rather than an enormous romantic arrangement, because something delicate and quietly beautiful would feel much more appropriate for him. He'd eventually take the bouquet with an awkward little click of his tongue, holding it rather stiffly at first as though he hadn't quite figured out where his hands were supposed to go.

"You bought me flowers?" The question would come out almost incredulously, and he'd immediately follow it with some dismissive remark about how impractical they were, how they'd wilt eventually, and how there was no reason to spend money on something temporary.

Yet the way he'd carefully adjust his grip so none of the stems were crushed would completely undermine his argument. He'd look down at the flowers again, studying the petals with quiet curiosity, and there'd be something almost strangely gentle in the way his fingertips occasionally brushed against a stem to straighten it.

When you told him you simply wanted to give him something, he'd avert his gaze almost immediately, the faintest warmth creeping across his cheeks. "You didn't have to do this." The words would sound dismissive, but there'd be considerably less bite behind them than usual.

He'd probably mutter something about you being strange when you smiled at him, yet he wouldn't hand the bouquet back. In fact, he'd hold onto it rather carefully, occasionally glancing down at it whenever he thought you weren't watching, as though he were still trying to understand why something so simple had managed to affect him this much.

What would really betray him, however, would be everything he did once the initial embarrassment passed. Wanderer would insist that the flowers were merely flowers, but he'd still find somewhere safe to keep them, making certain they weren't left somewhere they could be knocked over or damaged.

He'd probably choose a quiet corner and arrange them himself, pretending that he was only doing it because leaving them lying around was careless. Whenever you walked past, you'd catch him occasionally looking at them, his expression softening for just a moment before he'd realize you'd noticed and immediately look away.

"What are you staring at?" he'd mutter, despite being the one caught staring at the bouquet. He'd become strangely particular about their condition too, changing the water or adjusting the stems while insisting that he wasn't doing anything special.

Once the flowers began to wilt, he'd be reluctant to throw them away. You might suggest replacing them or simply letting them go, only for him to immediately look at you with a faint frown and pull the bouquet a little closer. "It's fine, I'll decide what to do with them later." When you pointed out that he obviously cared about them, his expression would tighten with embarrassment before he'd immediately become defensive. "I care because you gave them to me. Of course I wouldn't just throw them away like that." He'd say it as though that explanation somehow made the situation less sentimental, but he'd still keep the flowers.

Eventually, even after the petals had begun to fade, he'd probably preserve one of the smallest blooms somewhere private rather than admit he couldn't quite bring himself to discard something you'd chosen specifically for him.

Giving him flowers had been a strange choice of gift, really. Something so beautiful yet so temporary, destined to last only a fraction of his already long existence, and yet somehow their presence had become quietly ingrained into his mind. He'd find himself feeling strangely at ease whenever he caught sight of them, as though the little reminder of you sitting nearby had brought a sense of warmth and familiarity he hadn't realized he'd grown attached to.

Whenever he looked at it afterward, there'd be that same quiet softness in his expression, the kind he would never willingly let you see for too long, because acknowledging that your simple gift had made him genuinely happy would be far more embarrassing to him than receiving the flowers in the first place.

── ( 𝒗. ) Varka would have one of the biggest and most openly delighted reactions because he's naturally affectionate and generous, and he's the sort of person who'd be much more accustomed to giving flowers than receiving them.

He'd probably have bought bouquets for other people countless times simply because he happened to see something pretty and thought it would brighten someone's day, so having you suddenly approach him with a bouquet specifically chosen for him would genuinely catch him off guard.

The moment he realized what you were holding, his entire expression would brighten, his eyebrows lifting before that broad, unmistakable grin spread across his face. "For me?" He'd laugh warmly, reaching out almost immediately to accept them, though he'd be careful with the stems once he had them in his hands.

He'd adore sunflowers, daisies, wildflowers, or a bright mixed bouquet, especially something that looked cheerful and natural rather than overly formal or meticulously arranged. He'd lift the flowers slightly, admiring them with genuine appreciation before looking back at you, his expression becoming even warmer when he realized you'd chosen them yourself.

"Well, aren't I lucky?" He'd probably turn the bouquet around a few times, pointing out individual flowers and asking where you'd found them, whether you'd picked them because you thought they'd suit him, and how long you'd been planning the surprise.

The moment you explained that you simply wanted to give him something nice, he'd let out another pleased laugh, clearly touched by how simple and sincere the gesture was. He'd pull you into a big, warm hug almost immediately, making sure to hold the bouquet safely away from you so he didn't crush it between you.

"You really caught me off guard with this one." He'd give you an affectionate squeeze before pulling back and looking at the flowers again with a ridiculous amount of pride, already acting as though you'd handed him something far more valuable than a bouquet.

Varka absolutely wouldn't be subtle about how pleased he was afterward, finding somewhere prominent in his office to place the bouquet where the flowers could catch the light and where he'd inevitably notice them throughout the day.

He'd be in the middle of looking through reports when Aether and Paimon happened to enter, only for Paimon's attention to immediately land on the flowers sitting beside his desk. Varka would notice their staring and immediately break into a proud grin, leaning back in his chair as though he'd been waiting for someone to ask.

"Ah, those? My lover gave them to me." He'd probably pick up the bouquet carefully, holding it between his hands while admiring the flowers with an almost ridiculously fond expression. "She chose them herself, too. Pretty, aren't they?" Even while talking about the arrangement, his gaze would soften as though the flowers had somehow become a reflection of you in his mind. He'd gently turn one of the stems between his fingers, smiling to himself. "She's got good taste. Though I suppose anything would look beautiful when she gives it to you." Paimon would inevitably tease him for being so openly smitten, but Varka would only laugh, completely unashamed. "What? Can't a man admire his lover's little gift?" He'd glance down at the bouquet again, his thumb brushing lightly over one of the petals as he continued admiring it. "She saw these and thought of me. That's what makes them special." His expression would become softer for a moment, his usual boisterous demeanor giving way to genuine tenderness. "You know, I think I could stare at them all day and still find myself thinking about her." Then, almost as an afterthought, he'd smile and shake his head. "Though now I'm wondering what I can do to make her feel just as lucky as I do."

He'd remember the gesture long after the flowers began to wilt. Rather than immediately replacing them with something equally sentimental, Varka's instinct would probably be to return the affection in his own way, making sure your favorite food was waiting for you after a long day, fixing something you'd mentioned was bothering you, saving you a comfortable place beside him during a gathering, or quietly taking care of some little task before you even had the chance to ask.

It would be his way of saying that he'd noticed the thought you put into the flowers and wanted you to feel that same thoughtfulness from him. And whenever he happened to glance at the bouquet afterward, he'd probably smile to himself, remembering the look on your face when you gave them to him.

"You know," he'd eventually remark with an amused grin, turning toward you while still holding one of the flowers carefully between his fingers, "I think you've spoiled me." He'd pause, his smile widening as he added, "Not that I'm complaining."

── ( 𝐦. ) Mitya would probably be so completely absorbed in his work that your arrival would barely register as anything more than a familiar presence in the room.

He'd be sitting on the floor among an almost chaotic spread of books, loose papers, handwritten notes, diagrams, and half-finished calculations, one book propped open beside him while another rests across his lap, his attention moving between several different pages as he quietly pieced together whatever problem he's working on.

The moment you stepped into the room, he'd notice you from the corner of his eye, lifting his head just enough to offer you a gentle, distracted smile before returning to his notes. "Ah, you're here, come in." He'd probably shift a few papers aside with his foot to make space for you without ever seeming particularly bothered by the interruption, already accustomed to your presence being part of his little world of books and scattered research.

What he wouldn't notice, however, was the bouquet in your hands. You could stand there for a while, watching him work, before finally calling his name and asking him to look at you.

He'd blink and lift his head properly this time, his violet eyes settling on you before dropping to the flowers. His hand would stop halfway through reaching for another page, and for several seconds he'd simply stare.

The surprise wouldn't be dramatic, it would be quiet and genuine, his expression gradually softening as he realized what you were holding and why you were holding it.

The pen in his fingers would stop halfway through a movement, his eyes moving from the bouquet to your face and back again as though his mind needed a moment to understand what he was seeing. "Are those…" He'd slowly straighten from his notes, looking genuinely bewildered. "For me?"

Once you nodded, a small, bewildered smile would appear, and he'd carefully set his notes aside, standing up in front of you before accepting the flowers from you. "Sorry, I was so focused on all of this that I didn't even notice you were carrying them." He'd glance down at the bouquet again, turning it slightly in his hands with genuine curiosity, before looking back at you with that gentle, almost dreamy expression. "Where did you get them?"

The answer would initially make him smile, especially when he realized you'd gone out of your way to find flowers specifically for him, but that warmth would quickly become tempered by concern once he learned you'd traveled outside the city to pick them yourself.

His eyes would immediately lift from the bouquet to you, his expression becoming more serious as he quietly asked how far you'd gone and whether you'd been alone. The more details you gave him, the more obvious it would become that he was trying not to fuss while simultaneously worrying about every possible thing that could have happened along the way.

"You went outside the city for these?" He'd probably let out a small sigh and shake his head, gently scolding you while still holding the bouquet as carefully as though it were something precious. "You shouldn't go that far on your own just to pick flowers, especially when it's cold out there without the torch. You could've gotten hurt."

There wouldn't be any real anger behind it, only the kind of gentle concern that made it obvious he'd much rather have had you come to him safely than risk yourself for something as simple as a bouquet.

Even while he was worrying, though, his gaze would keep returning to the flowers, and eventually his expression would soften again. He'd carefully adjust the stems so they wouldn't bend, then give you a quiet, genuinely grateful smile. "Still... thank you. They're very beautiful."

He'd pause before adding, almost as though admitting it made the sentiment feel more real, "And knowing you went all that way to find them for me makes them even more special." Afterward, he'd make sure the bouquet had a proper place beside his work rather than leaving it somewhere among the papers, carefully moving his books aside to make room for it.

His attention would inevitably drift toward the flowers every so often while he worked, and whenever his eyes met yours afterward, there'd be that same soft smile waiting for you, accompanied by the faintest hint of concern whenever he remembered that you'd gone beyond the city walls just to bring them to him.

── ( 𝒘. ) Wriothesley would stare at the bouquet for a moment before looking at you with an amused, slightly incredulous expression, especially because he's far more accustomed to being the one making sure you're taken care of than receiving overtly romantic gifts himself.

You'd hold the flowers out to him and he'd raise an eyebrow, looking between you and the bouquet as though he were trying to determine what had prompted this sudden change in routine. "Well, this is new."

He'd eventually take them from you with one hand, lifting the arrangement slightly while inspecting it with a quiet laugh. Dark red roses, chrysanthemums, and sturdy wildflowers, something elegant but not excessively delicate, with a little character to it.

He'd turn the bouquet around, examining the flowers with a thoughtful expression before glancing back at you with that familiar crooked smile. "Didn't know you were trying to make me sentimental." The teasing would be effortless, but the way he'd carefully handle the stems would reveal that he was taking the gift much more seriously than he was letting on. He'd probably lift the bouquet slightly, inspecting the arrangement again before asking whether you'd chosen them yourself, and the moment you confirmed that you had, his expression would soften just a little more. There'd be a quiet pause where he'd look at the flowers, then at you, as though the thought of you deliberately picking something out for him had caught him more off guard than the gift itself. He'd give you that knowing half-smile before leaning in and pressing a brief, warm kiss to your cheek, lingering just long enough to make you smile before pulling away. "Thank you, sweetheart. They're lovely."

He'd find a proper vase for them himself, trimming the stems and arranging them so they wouldn't be crushed or forgotten among the paperwork, all while pretending this was simply the sensible thing to do. Still, he'd make sure the bouquet ended up somewhere he could easily see it from his desk.

Once the flowers were settled in his office, Wriothesley would become surprisingly protective of them. Anyone at the Fortress who came too close would receive a pointed look, especially if they seemed remotely tempted to touch them, and he'd make it perfectly clear that nobody was to mess with the bouquet.

The amusing part would be that he wouldn't actually act embarrassed about keeping them there. He'd simply carry on with his work, occasionally glancing toward the flowers between documents and meetings, his expression softening whenever he remembered that you'd chosen them specifically for him.

You'd probably catch him doing it eventually, and he'd immediately lean back in his chair with an innocent half-smile as though he'd been caught doing nothing unusual. "What? I like them." When you teased him about being sentimental, he'd give you that knowing look and lightly tap the edge of the desk.

"You gave them to me. I'm not throwing them out." And because Wriothesley's affection tends to be practical rather than overly demonstrative, he'd probably repay the gesture in his own quiet way afterward, making sure your favorite meal was prepared, taking some troublesome task off your hands, or deliberately setting aside time to sit with you when he knew you'd been busy.

The bouquet would remain in his office as a quiet reminder of you, something he'd never make a grand announcement about but would never willingly get rid of either. Long after the initial surprise had passed, he'd still occasionally glance over at the flowers with a faint smile, before returning to his paperwork as though they hadn't just become the most pleasant distraction in the entire Fortress.

── ( 𝒗. ) Venti would probably have one of the most openly delighted reactions because he absolutely adores little expressions of affection, especially something as sweet and old-fashioned as a bouquet of flowers.

The moment you held them out to him, his eyes would light up and he'd lean forward with genuine surprise, his usual carefree expression immediately brightening into an enormous grin. "Oh? Are those for me?" He'd accept them with both hands, almost reverently at first, holding the bouquet close to his chest while looking from the flowers to you with such sincere delight that there'd be absolutely no mistaking how happy he'd become.

He'd adore the flowers you picked; windwheel asters, Cecilias, and a colorful collection of wildflowers, especially flowers that felt as though they'd been gathered freely from the countryside rather than carefully arranged into something excessively formal.

The little differences between each flower would immediately catch his attention, he'd turn the bouquet slowly in his hands, admiring the colors and gently separating a few of the stems to get a better look at the smaller blossoms tucked between them.

Every now and then he'd lift one closer to his face, taking in its scent before looking back at you with that bright, mischievous smile. "You picked these for me? How sweet of you!"

The realization that you'd specifically thought of him while choosing them would make his reaction even bigger, and he'd probably look at you for a moment afterward with an expression that was almost ridiculously fond, as though he were trying to memorize the sight of you standing there with the flowers you'd chosen for him.

He'd continue admiring them while walking beside you, occasionally holding the bouquet up between you both and pointing out whichever flower had caught his attention.

He'd tease you about how you'd managed to make the wandering bard feel like the luckiest man in Mondstadt, dramatically pressing the bouquet against his chest as though you'd just handed him some priceless treasure. He'd probably smell the flowers with an exaggeratedly contented sigh, then look at you over the top of them with a playful grin.

"Ahh, what a thoughtful lover I have." Rather than putting them down immediately, he'd carry them around with him for a while, proudly showing them off whenever someone happened to pass by, and he'd absolutely have no shame about telling them that you gave them to him.

If you caught him being particularly pleased with himself, he'd simply laugh and insist that he was allowed to be proud when his lover had given him such a beautiful gift.

He'd become even more playful once he noticed how happy his reaction was making you. He'd choose one of the smaller flowers from the bouquet, carefully tuck it into his hat beside his feather, and then turn toward you with an expectant little smile as though waiting for you to admire his new decoration. "Well? How do I look?" He'd already know the answer, of course, and he'd probably laugh when you told him it suited him, reaching over to lightly bump his shoulder against yours. He might even keep the flower there for the rest of the day, treating it like a tiny personal treasure simply because it came from you. At some point, he'd pluck one of the smaller wildflowers from the arrangement with exaggerated care, twirling it between his fingers before suddenly leaning toward you and tucking it somewhere near your hair. He'd pull back to admire his handiwork, his grin widening when he saw your reaction. "There! Now we're matching." He'd laugh at his own little idea before returning the flower to the bouquet, treating the entire thing like a wonderful excuse to be playful with you.

Later, he'd find somewhere safe to keep the rest of the bouquet, either beside his lyre or in a little vase near wherever he happened to settle down, making sure the flowers had enough water before wandering off to do something else. Yet he'd inevitably keep returning to them.

He might be halfway through tuning his lyre, stop when his eyes fall upon the bouquet, and smile quietly to himself before continuing. The flowers would become associated with you almost immediately, not because they're particularly rare or valuable, but because you'd looked at something beautiful and thought of him.

He'd probably tell you that sentiment matters much more than the flowers themselves, then lean closer with that familiar teasing smile and add, "Though I certainly won't complain if you decide to make a habit of spoiling me hehe." And judging by the way he'd keep one of the flowers tucked safely in his hat and the rest displayed somewhere he could see them, he'd be enjoying the gift far more than he'd ever let you forget.

To that, Lohen shoots you a sharp glare before the corner of his mouth shifts just about 5 degrees— that is not a good sign. "For a good reason don't you think?"

You shake your head profusely, silently cursing your good-for-nothing mouth. Why do you always have to run your mouth at the worst possible moment? Now you have two horrifying creatures to worry about in this tiny room with only one door to escape.

Lohen tentatively takes another step closer to the cockroach that is idly clinging to the wall, hand slowly creeping out—Oh no

"It's alright. Fear is nothing you should be ashamed of. What you should be ashamed of is taking no action to quench it." Now his hand is hovering just above that filthy little thing— You think you know what he's onto.

"Hmmm… Have you ever heard of exposure therapy?"

Just as Lohen finishes his sentence, the seemingly mindless, unintelligent bug starts to wiggle its wings and fly away from Lohen's grasp.

Wait. Fly? It's flying…? Towards you???

You let out a high-pitched shriek upon the realization and jump away from your spot at once, charging at your boyfriend who's the furthest away from the cockroach's trajectory.

"Lohennnn!!"

When you come charging at him, Lohen instinctively shields you with his arm as you shuffle to hide behind his back. You don't even get to see where the cockroach has landed as a sharp, frosty sound soon envelops your hearing. When you open your eyes, the cockroach has been frozen in a small icicle.

Lohen's Cryo vision shifts slightly before settling down and he too, in a most nonchalant fashion ever, wipes his shoulder and let out a mocking whistle.

"Woah, did you see that? It straight up skipped me and went for you instead. Didn't know cockroaches have such nice taste in victims, heh."

Your breathing has leveled off a bit but your hands are still tightly stuck to Lohen's shoulders. But the immense trepidation slowly simmers down and leaves you with a hot, boiling sense of anger. Enraged, you push his shoulders away and storm out of the bedroom.

"Lohen you asshole! Keep your damn exposure therapy to yourself!"

You move to the living room and settle for the most comfortable spot to lie in. That fucker can sleep with the damn cockroach for all you care.

Eventually, you come to the realization that the heat of frustration will not keep you through the cold airs of the night nor turn the stiff, rigid couch into your plush, soft bed— But you've made your decision and you're gonna stick to it.

Which is why you're dazedly surprised when you wake up at 1 AM to the tender and warm sensation of your quilt while Lohen has settled for the rough, cold floor— Good, at least he still knows you're mad at him and doesn't attempt to clamber into bed with you.

But you're not so mad that you would withhold the spare pillows and blanket from him.

As you toss them down to the floor, taking care to aim right at his face, Lohen speaks up "Does this mean my bunny has forgiven me?"

"No. And stay where you are until morning!"

✦ Flins

"My dearest light, may I inquire you as to why you are wandering outside so late into the night?"

"Kyryll, you're back!"

You jump up from the cobblestone perrons which you have been sitting on to shuffle into Flins' body, his arms immediately wrap around your waist as you embrace him with a hug.

"Your enthusiasm warms me greatly, dear. But I must address a pressing concern, one that involves your well-being. As of this time, you should be soundly asleep, for the human body needs sufficient rest to function. I sincerely hope you have not troubled yourself with the wait of me."

There is truth to his statements. Around this time of the day, you would be snugly in bed, reveling in the softest and warmest bed that Flins' abode could offer you, here in the Final Night Cemetery. And due to his nocturnal inclination, Flins' work stretches until the moon no longer claims its throne in the night sky and once he returns to press a chaste kiss on your temple, you would know the sun has begun to bear its light over the horizon.

"I… Actually yes, there's something that's troubling me and I've been waiting for you to return. But you must promise not to laugh, alright?"

"I would never dream of doing so, my dearest. "

So now, you and Flins are standing in the middle of your bedroom, or his bedroom to be exact but that was prior to your relationship. His eyes drill into the creature that you're pointing at with your index finger. It sits in the middle of the room, its eight legs that roamed your leg while you were sleeping earlier are now suddenly frozen— you mentally cringe at the memory, the sensation clings to your brain like a stubborn ghost.

"H-Hey! You promised not to laugh!" You quickly reprimand Flins when you hear the tiniest of chuckles leaves his mouth. He quickly composes himself and swiftly apologizes to you.

"Pardon me, I did not mean to poke fun at your distress. But I believe that this tiny intruder here seems more frightened of you than you are of it. Perhaps this predicament needs no complications and can be solved in peace."

You glance back at the spider. The once haughty, arrogant insect has backed down a bit, retreating further into the room's corner— Weird, it clearly derived enjoyment from scaring you earlier…

"If you say so, then..."

With that, you reach out to the book nearest to your hand and begin to shoo the spider towards the window.

To demonstrate your goodwill in maintaining peace, you crouch down to make yourself smaller and wave the book back and forth. With Flins as the reinforcement, you suddenly feel braver than ever.

Unbeknownst to you, the spider is backing down from a threat far larger than anything it has ever encountered. Behind your back, your lover's form has shifted slightly. The lantern he carries by his side flares violently, cackles of blue and purple burst through the metal frame with fervor. Shadow slowly envelops his silhouette, revealing cuts across the abyss where the blue flame resides.

"Verrry good, a few more steps to the windows okay?" You push on with your ministration as the spider is now at the edge of the window's frame. A little more and no blood will have to be shed.

The poor insect is almost frozen in fear, the kind of primal fear that has withstood decades of evolution and is hardwired into its subconsciousness. Its instincts are screaming to run yet its body cannot, it keeps on locking gaze with the hole of darkness ahead.

With just one glance towards the eyes of that flame, the spider immediately abandons its frozen state and flees.

You quickly shut the windows, making sure no other insects can get in anymore. When you hear the sound of the shuttles, you briefly breathe out a sigh of relief and turn to your lover.

"Phew, you were right. Maybe that spider is actually more scared of me than I am of it." Flins gives you a warm smile. The traces of that flame have all disappeared, leaving behind the form of the man you so adore. He walks over to you and cradles your face with one hand, the other resting idly on your shoulder.

"As it should. You are a ferocious opponent, my dear. In the face of such a perilous threat, flight is the only correct response."

"Oh stop it with your flattering Kyryll. You act like it has just seen an apex predator or something!" You take hold of his hand on your face and intertwine your fingers with his. Once the trepidation has worn off, exhaustion has come to take its place— evidently shown through the yawn you let out.

"The spider must have disturbed your slumber greatly. How about you return to bed for a nap while I prepare breakfast for you? I will make your favorite."

You rub your eyes and mumble through your bleary state. "If that's alright with you."

"Of course. If you will, let me take care of you for our lost time."

Flins gently leads you to bed and carefully tucks the cover over your shoulder. The sun has begun to yearn for its place over the horizon but under your lover's tentative care, the night is yet to be gone.

✦ Wanderer

"Whoever's there, don't you dare attack my partner!"

Wanderer slams the door to your shared abode violently, the sheer force causes it to creak angrily against the wall as it faces the impact with a loud, thunderous thud. Indifferent to the state of your house's fixtures, Wanderer rushes to where you're sitting on the floor, a hand on your shoulder and another shielding you away from whatever he thinks has broken into your shared living place.

"K—Kuni! There's a centipede! Ahh—it's crawling!" You jump up from your spot and duck behind him, even tugging on the flowing decorative fabric on his hat for better measures. Wanderer tips his hat back into balance with a mixture of different emotions on his face. From confusion to realization then embarrassment and to cover all of the above, frustration—topped with some murderous intent— but not at the centipede.

"Seriously? Next time you scream that loud, it better be because the Raiden Shogun manifests out of thin air and demands your head." He slurs through the name like it's a personal insult but still shields you from the front without budging.

"Well?? I'd be praying for the Raiden Shogun to manifest right here, right now and slime that thing out in an instant!" You emphasize your point with a hard tug at the strips of fabric connected to his hat, making it tilt backwards and almost fall from his head. Wanderer lets out an annoyed grunt and mumbles something under his breath.

"No need to pray for something so atrocious when I can do it for you."

"What?"

"I said—" Whatever he is about to repeat is immediately cut off by another piercing scream of yours as you realize that the centipede has crawled a little closer to you while you were distracted.

"Ugh! Get—get off me!"

"Kuni! Kuni! Do something! It's crawling towards me!"

As you attempt to clamber onto his body, Wanderer lifts himself off the ground and struggles to keep you at bay. On another hand, you are still trying to get yourself higher, slinging an arm over his neck and pushing your body onto his shoulder.

"Stay still, or I'm dropping you on that thing!" And that gets you to stop thrashing out real quick.

You take a look down as you're hovering mid-air, the centipede is still there, wiggling its legs as it crawls on the floor. With one strike of his Anemo power, Wanderer spares it from the horrendous sound wave created by your distressed vocal chords.

"You're lucky I'm a puppet. Any other living beings that experience your supersonic shriek would not have made it." Gradually, he returns you to solid land and you choose to thank him instead of addressing that slander.

"Phewww, at least it's dead now… But how did it even get in here?" You look over its dead corpse and dread about cleaning this thing. Meanwhile, Wanderer is adjusting his hat, preparing to go back to whatever it is he was doing prior to this— or in better terms he's not cleaning this mess up.

"Your room stinks, that's how. Clean your room and shower properly."

"What?! You know well I shower every day! Also, this is our shared bedroom."

Even with his back turned to you, you can still picture the annoyed head shake and eye roll of his.

"Back in my days, they used to capture centipedes as long as your legs and stuff them in a jar to make wine."

"Kunikuzushi."

"Live centipedes by the way."

"Quit with it already!"

His colleagues earnt shrivelled up expressions of disgust, a violent shudder would pounce on his spine whenever he saw how relaxed they were, drinking their hearts out 'til midnight and puking out on the streets.

(If getting wasted was so necessary, at least remain somewhat competent—Lohen counted twelve opportunities for Gunther to get killed as he stumbled away from the Angel's Share the other night; he should've been grateful it was Lohen judging him, and not a member of the Fatui.)

Human life was fragile, it expired early and death pounced on the nearest person without mercy, and never took breaks, thus, neither should humans. 

Today, was no exception to Lohen's discomfort.

He arrived to work late—as always, greeting Mika on his way to the Grandmaster's Office with a lazy wave before slouching into his seat, where an obscene stack of paperwork awaited him. The quill between his fingers was abnormally heavy, and Varka's gaze wouldn't leave him.

"Y'know. You don't have to stare me down that hard."

He scoffed, crossing his arms. "Brat. Who's the one who shortened your confinement?"

For once, Lohen kept his mouth shut, deciding the Grandmaster deserved his best behaviour. It was the least he could do

Solitary confinement, you managed to make tolerable. He wrote of everything to you, from details of his Nod Krai expedition to Adorno's passing and his punishment, scrawling away to process what happened, and to pass the time. Though his solitude remained true, writing to you was essentially the same as company. Day melted into night when he thought of you. He had to regularly call for more paper, only when his words to you reached a length rivaling the novellas of the Favonius Library, Varka convinced Jean to mitigate his punishment. On the basis of his good behaviour, he argued that he deserved the privacy to mourn Adorno, and mail his letter to you. Lohen was free to return home and live normally, at the expense of strict supervision and paperwork during his hours.

(You remained to be a blessing. First, giving Lohen the best childhood and teenage years, and now you were bailing him out of punishment, without even being in the nation.)

Lohen missed you, a lot. Absurdly so. Mountains and oceans apart, you were in Inazuma, where he hoped you felt the same.

Six years was too long. In the first year, he went strong, told himself that you'd be back in no time and that letters were sufficient. By the second, he was going even more insane than he already was, actively searching out ruin guards to bully at Stormbearer Mountains in the dead of night as stress relief.

He wanted to touch you, feel your skin against his and to listen to you rant and laugh—a melody that no choir could ever recreate. He wanted to pinch your cheeks again and watch them redden. He missed how you'd cling onto him whenever you got scared, and he wished he was there for every adversity you were facing over there. He wished he could watch how much happier you were becoming with his open two eyes, instead of reading it with months delayed.

Lohen wanted you. Not your letters. Those wouldn't come sleep over when the nightmares became too much, nor bandage his injuries when they were placed so awkwardly. They capture only your handwriting and nothing else. He would’ve forgotten your voice long ago, had he not thought about you constantly, reciting memories like prayer.

Confinement to letters wouldn't be so bad if he didn't have to wait months for mail to arrive. Letters only satiated so much. And they were volatile—who knows if the mailman would drop either one of your letters, or if storm strikes down the ship it sails on. Only Barbatos himself would know of what happens to them.

(With every victory, you came to mind first. Varka and Jean read of it first through paperwork, then word of mouth would inform the rest of the knights. Sometimes it reached the citizens of Mondstadt.

The best Lohen could do was write it for you first, and pretend it was the same as finding you in your favourite spot at the library, or knocking on your window to demand your attention. In his head, you were the first to know because he wanted you to be. It was far better than agreeing with reality.)

After hearing of his complaints, you opted to mailing him a diary, a collection of thoughts and stories you wanted to share with him, organised by date. Inside, you sandwiched a response to the letter he'd send, alongside folded papercraft (known as 'origami', you said). Lohen built a small bookshelf for these, adorning his empty bedroom with your days.

His gaze wandered to the window, surely he could keep his mind preoccupied. There should've been something remotely interesting to watch—the statue of Barbatos stood proud, as always, welcoming all to the open arms of Mondstadt. Towards the bottom was Barbara, serenading a group of people. That stupid, green bard was nearby, and Lohen rolled his eyes and decided it was time to stop looking outside.

His quill hauled itself across the page, leaving the mere date in its trail.

You can do it, I'll wait for you!

Lohen sculpted every drifting thought into an illusion of you, imagining you were there with him, seated on the couch across the room, waiting for him to finish so the two of you could go skip rocks at Cider Lake.

(Back in the day, Adorno would give you guys 'homework', insisting that puzzles were good for your brain. Your logic flowed as seamlessly as your hands, finishing his tasks with ease; Lohen couldn't say the same for himself. Adorno had to give you guys separate worksheets, since you'd simply give the answers to Lohen.)

The room was drained of its sunlight, fading into a soft pink. Every scratch of his quill against the parchment whittled time away. Varka didn't need to snap at him, and

He finds himself connecting his letters. You wrote in cursive ever since you were little, and still did—

Fuck, his concentration was breaking. What he haphazardly glued together were falling apart, shattering into even smaller bits and pieces.

He tried to fall back on his initial tactic, but all he could think of was how different you must've looked by now. You mentioned getting much more exercise. Did you bulk up, or were you the kind to slim down? Maybe you managed to grow a few centimetres, or perhaps you had a tan now? He had no idea what the weather was like over there.

He was unable to conjure an image of you, only wonder and curiosity, and a desperation to see you once more. Questions blurred his vision and hypotheticals presented possibilities without rest. His energy and attention slipped away, leaving him to soak in his pathetic longing.

"Fuuuuuck offff." Lohen slouched onto the table, cheek resting against the cold, polished wood. He entertained the thought of smashing his head into the table until he was out cold, that way, he wouldn't have to do paperwork, nor be forced to cope with the fact that he couldn't see you.

The stupid pile of paperwork was just as prominent, and infuriating, as his inability to focus. Why couldn't you leave him alone?

(Stupid fucking Barbatos. If the god of freedom out of all beings out there couldn't bring you back, he could've at least freed him of this constant craving of you. This was exactly why Lohen hated gods and refused to partake in anything religious)

Then there was the Sakoku Decree too. You insisted the Vision Hunt Decree only targeted Vision wielders, that you were safe and he had nothing to worry about, but Lohen did the exact opposite. A dictator was never honest, a leader that would approve of such policy would not be one fit to protect its people. Those stuck in Inazuma, including you, requested the help of the Knights to return home, though they were fruitless.

Any resemblance of concentration was long gone. It abandoned him the moment he thought of you again, leaving him to spiral.

Varka's heavy footsteps approached him, his large hands sifting through the paperwork Lohen had (somehow) managed to complete successfully. "...not bad. I've never seen you do so much. And your handwriting's neat." Lohen peeled himself off the desk with disheveled hair, and hollow eyes begging Varka for freedom. "You've done enough, I don't like paperwork too. Good improvement."

For a brute that drank like a fish, he was surprisingly thoughtful.

"I'm gonna kill myself."

The Grandmaster chuckled, ruffling the Vice Captain's hair and patting him on the shoulder. "Paperwork does that, kid."

Dusk stained Mondstadt pink. Remains of day bled everywhere, as Lohen walked across stone pavement alongside Varka, watching over children that chased each other by the fountain. The Good Hunter kept many company, its patrons howling with laughter and cheersing obscenely large tankards. His fingers twitched at his sides, missing their skinship with his dagger and lance, while the wind caressed his face.

Doing paperwork was so awful, that Lohen considered getting drunk, calculating whether the vulnerability would be worth the mindless bliss of being wasted—there had to be a reason why everyone in Mondstadt loved beer, and why even the Grandmaster himself had no problem with drinking to his very limits.

"So." He drawled, itching to leave the city and head to Wolvendom to fight something. "Why am I here again?"

"Because you're under supervision. And I need a beer." The man groaned, stretching an arm and scratching his back. "You look like you need a drink."

"A fight, you mean."

Varka slapped him on the back, enough force to almost make him fall over. "Be grateful I didn't make you do my paperwork too, hm? Maybe it's a good thing you didn't become captain. You wouldn't last a day." Before Lohen could retort, something else grabbed Varka's attention. "Be right back—someone looks lost." A finger pointed forwards, Lohen's halflidded eyes didn't bother tracking them as he let out a wordless grunt.

Maybe now was a good chance to run off. And if Varka tried to get him into trouble again, he'd snitch on Varka to Jean for drinking.

He took an analytical glance at Varka, only for his heart to freeze on the spot.

The sun had already set, yet you managed to glow in its absence.

Lohen's feet didn't move, they couldn't—all that went through his head was relief, leaving him in a stupor.

The world went silent, all that was nonessential melted into nothingness. What remained was you, with wide eyes marveled by your home city again.

You. Here. In Mondstadt. Where Lohen was.

You didn't look so different, contrary to all the different theories he had conjured in his curious boredom. You must've lost a bit of weight from travelling so much, but you looked stronger overall. Your smile was bright, as always, only this time it made Lohen choke on his own spit, and question if he had really lost it.

The Vice Captain of the Fifth Company does not cry. However, he'd make an exception for you.

His body finally awoke, and he took a step towards you. And another. Until he could hear you.

You were looking up at Varka, a bit unsettled by the height difference, but friendly nonetheless. "Oh—I'm from here, it's just been a long time. I haven't spoken the language in a while too. I might be lost..."

Lohen didn't even get to say hi, before you pounced on him.

"Oh my god—" Your voice hitched, on the brink of crumbling into tears. "I missed you so much."

Your arms wrapped tightly around his waist and he squirmed—the closest to hugging he ever did was wrestling new recruits, who could never lay a hand on him.

(But his arms reciprocated, carefully feeling your back as he held onto you. It felt harder than before, your working out must've paid off. The muscle was warm, even through your clothes and his gloves.)

He still couldn't speak. No words would come out, immobilised by his shock. All he did was nuzzle his chin into your shoulder and rediscover your warmth.

"Ahem." Varka cleared his throat, immediately pulling you out of your hug. You scrambled to stand straight, glowing a furious red while muttering out apologies. Varka mirrored your words, saying that he hates to ruin your moment.

(Stupid old man. Lohen wasn't nearly as big as enough to throw him into the fountain, unfortunately. He was going to up his dosage of poison next time. He'll spit in his next beer while he's at it, too.)

As if he wasn't going through every emotion he yearned for, Lohen deadpanned, droning at his boss. "Yeah?"

"You guys...friends?"

You answered first. "Yup! I haven't seen him since before I left."

Lohen thought that was sufficient for his question. "You're back...how—? The decree—you never said anything about returning."

Joy scrunched your face. "It ended a while back. I wanted to surprise you, so I didn't write about it."

(Lohen was young, and very much in great shape, but he thought shock was going to force his heartbeat to a halt. He now owes Barbatos for every time he cussed him out bitterly in his head.)

"You're back..." He repeated.

"I am!"

Besides you, Varka cocked a brow. "Decree? You mean Inazuma?"

You nodded. And Varka went pale. He took a step closer to you.

"You must've been scared. Being trapped in the country. I heard about everything that happened over there." Varka was solemn, regret clouded his face and his voice went dry.

You shook your head. "Things have gotten better over there. It feels normal again." There wasn't a sign of dishonesty, but Varka sank down to a knee regardless, hand over his chest.

"I'm sorry we couldn't do anything. Even though it's our role as knights to protect the people of Mondstadt, we couldn't save you guys. As Grandmaster, I failed you all."

He must've been referring to all the letters that were sent, from merchants to separated family members, asking for help and some sort of intervention.

(Lohen used to press his ear against Varka’s door, picking up bits and pieces of his discussions with Jean on what to do, though now wasn't the time to admit that.)

You were flustered at the chivalrous act, frantically glancing around at the stares you were receiving. "It's not your fault—the shogun and her people aren't fond of foreigners. Please don't kneel—"

Lohen rolled his eyes and tapped Varka's calf, bordering on a kick. "You heard 'em. You're embarrassing us."

Now flustered, Varka stood, rubbing the back of his head. "I still feel bad. Adorno was upset when he found out what happened. He even considered sailing all the way there to negotiate on our behalf."

(Lohen remembers that. When he came running to Adorno to lament about the news, the man was equally as heartbroken. While Lohen panicked, Adorno was already planning to use his retirement funds for an expedition there.)

Your eyes lit up. "Speaking of Adorno—how has he been?"

Lohen's throat closed up, before glancing at Varka.

Adorno's grave was still clean from last time he stopped by. That was good.

The cecilia was beginning to wilt, a light brown began permeating its white petals. He's surprised the wind hadn't blown it away—maybe Barbatos was good for something after all.

The two of you were behind the Cathedral, Adorno's final resting place where many lay peacefully. Daylight was no more, and the cold bit at his face.

His gaze trailed over to you, where you were frozen in the evening, staring at the stone cross. "I wrote about it to you. You just got here before it could arrive."

You said nothing in response, blinking slower than usual.

He sucked in a sharp breath of air. "Do not stand by my grave and cry. My life, I gave to wipe tears dry." Lohen recited Adorno's final words, the last wish he made before his passing. He took a step closer, too apprehensive to dare touch you yet. "There's no need to be sad. It was painless, and peaceful. He was gettin' old, too."

Adorno, in bed, life and colour long gone from his face. Despite tethering on the borders of life and death, his wrinkled hands were abnormally warm, far more than the campsites of their expedition. Lohen's eyes burnt and his nose felt funny, but he subsided it for the sake of his last wish.

"But. If you need to cry, go ahead. I won't tell him." Lohen's hand rested on the small of your back. "We can go around the corner for a bit. And come back. O–Or I can give you some time alone if you need—?"

"—no. I'll stay." You scrunched your nose and blinked hard, but you didn't cry. "It's been too long."

So you sat down, and Lohen joined you.

"It was his health, wasn't it? You said he was getting worse a while back. 'm surprised he lived for that long." You murmured, squinting at the date of birth and death. "He only passed recently."

Lohen prepared himself to tell the whole story. His gloves felt uncomfortably stuffy before he told you everything.

By the end of it, your eyes were wide as saucers, bewildered at it all.

"Yeah." He wasn't proud of it, but it felt worse admitting it to you, out of all people. Had you been there at the time, you would've told someone immediately, out of pure concern for everyone's wellbeing. "I wrote it all down for you during my solitary confinement. Haven't even seen Theodore since then. He probably got longer than me."

(He should pay a visit, he thought to himself. Though Theodore was the main instigator, without Lohen, he wouldn't have made it that far. He wonders how he's been doing.)

You, were still processing everything. "So you and Theodore...injected Adorno with Ursa's flesh...the same stuff that we were supposed to be experimented on for?”

Lohen nodded.

"And you were the test subject?"

"Yeah."

"Are you stupid? Why would you willingly do that to yourself?"

You hit him in the shoulder, with a new kind of strength you didn't have last time he met you. "I know—I don't feel good about it either. I was desperate, and y'know, I thought it'd make me stronger, since Ursa's a dragon and all, and whatever. But yeah. It was stupid. I don't really regret it, though. Got to talk to Adorno for a bit longer, and the whole thing helped me accept I was weak.”

He stared at his outstretched palm, where he had pierced with his dagger. Ursa's screams echoed in his skull, and he squeezed his eyelids tight to ignore it. She was dormant, but his fears weren't. At the end of the day, he was nothing more than a mortal.

You nudged him. "I don't think you're weak. Acknowledging it makes you stronger than most people. And I don't think you were wrong for wanting Adorno to live longer."

Lohen shrugged. "I'm only strong among the weak. I'm nothing compared to the people I've met." Racher of Solnari. The Honorary Knight. Even Varka, the Grandmaster—those who belonged in fairytales and legends to be passed down from generation to generation. They all existed in a realm separate to Lohen's, a random boy who almost fell victim to a harbinger. "I'll get there. Someday. Just not today. I won't do anything like that again, old man."

(Of course, the grave did not respond. But he imagines Adorno ruffling his hair and telling him he was proud of Lohen.)

As long as he didn't lose sight of his goals, nor himself. Lohen had no need for power he couldn't control, for it wouldn't be known as power anymore—only poison.

You agreed with a hum. "You better not. You can't get stronger if you're dead."

Lohen let out a dry chuckle, then silence spoke next.

The wind got colder, though gentle, the grass danced alongside it. Fireflies paid a visit, some fascinated by the gravestones that stood tall, others preferred the flowers gifted to them. Day was no longer, aside from the dainty lights of streetlamps standing guard and the lantern sitting nearby, there was no light.

"Your turn." Lohen nudged you.

"What?"

"Tell him all about Inazuma. He wants to know how you've been doing. This time from you, and not the letters you sent over."

(Lohen never shut up about you, Adorno was the closest thing to a father for him, so naturally, he endured the most of his rambling. You'd write him something as simple as "I love sashimi" and Lohen managed to turn it into an essay's worth of conversation, pondering to Adorno on how he could prepare some as a gift to your return, or marveling at how the people of Inazuma ate fish raw, commending their bravery and immune systems.

Adorno often joked that you wouldn't be able to tell him anything about your time away, since he'd have already heard it from Lohen too.)

"You don't have to say it out loud. I just say it in my head if I don't want someone else to hear." He clarified. "Or you can pay another visit next time, if y'know, you need time to process?"

You shook your head. "I'm alright—I just don't know where to start."

"Wherever you want."

You took a deep breath, Lohen noticed the ever so slight tremble. "Hi Adorno. Long time no see." He leaned back on his palms, watching you tell your story. "I've gotten a lot better. Like really better, the psychologist I was seeing was actually a youkai. It's a kind of spirit from Inazuma and..."

...you told Adorno of Yumemizuki Mizuki, the dream eating tapir, and your psychologist, whom you held a world of gratitude for. You shared your progress, from learning to open up about your past to no longer having nightmares.

The story trailed to your job. It started as Mizuki providing you work at her bathhouse, a role where you prepared their snacks and meals for her clients. It was life-changing, as you described it. You let Adorno know that he didn't have to worry for your future, the job had given you the confidence to pursue culinary school, and you'd been financially stable by yourself ever since. Your career had given you a sense of direction, and you finally felt you belonged in the world.

"Having money's a lot of fun, to be honest. I'm glad I could finally do something for my parents with it."

Your words were soft, yet it strangled Lohen violently.

It was a long time ago, but there was a time where you cried more often than you smiled. Regrettably, you had argued over it. Multiple times.

I hate being so useless. I wish I wasn't a burden to everyone.

The fuck are you talking about? Lohen usually snapped, a tone he wished remained foreign to you. If you need money I'll give it to you. Stop beating yourself up over a stupid job. It wasn't worth your time if everyone there picked on you, was it? Your boss was a piece of shit anyways.

Nausea hit him in a violent wave. He always apologised without fail and you talked things out properly, but he knows he shouldn't lose control. Not towards the people he loves.

"...now that the Sakoku Decree's lifted, I'm back here." You concluded, look back at Adorno with a smile. "I'm probably going to...Lohen? Are you crying?"

Only then, did Lohen notice the wetness on his cheeks.

"No—" He lifted his half cape to conceal his face, recompose himself, and blame it on his dandelion allergy that he'd killed off years ago, but you were faster, prying his wrists away.

Your eyelids fluttered, as if you were the one crying instead. "Is it Adorno...?" You let his wrists go and crawled closer, soft thumbs wiping his tears away.

He shook his head, vision blurring with more tears. "It's yo—you, you're so happy now. And I dunno—I just feel relieved." His sinuses began to clog. "I thought of every time you cried and talked badly about yourself. And then I thought about whenever I lost my temper at you. And now I feel like shit. " His voice crumbled to nothing but weak sobbing. Lohen aggressively rubbed his eyes, as if he could rid of his tears that way.

Your last night in Mondstadt, six years ago, flashed in his head. Your posture was slumped, a contrast to how you stood tall today. He didn’t have to work for a full smile from you, it replaced the half-assed one you donned to cover up your feelings.

(Lohen wasn't sure what was fluttering in his stomach. Pride? Relief? A hybrid of both? He knew you were far more capable than you deemed yourself to be, so he wasn't sure why he was getting so emotional.)

His tears died down, and you wiped each and every one of them, until they were no more. Your hands remained on his cheeks, holding them, before giving them a gentle pinch.

"Nmmph?"

"Your skin's so soft!" You pinched again, this time tugging on his cheeks. "You really haven't changed. You're just a bigger version of your little self."

(Lohen would've smited anyone else who tried to touch him like this, or made such a patronising comment about him. And although you were the sole exception, he'd also never admit he likes being coddled like this.)

"You're sooo cute." You let go of his cheeks, leaving him feeling bare. Your skin was no longer on his, but his face remained warm. "It's okay though. I told you, I'd be back as a happier person."

He nodded, sick of how he sounded when he spoke. The quiver in his voice was nothing short of embarrassing and pathetic. He watched you shiver, hugging your knees tighter for any sort of comfort.

Lohen sniffled. "You're cold. Sorry, not tryna change the topic or anything. But you're shaking."

The moment you became aware of it, it seemed to intensify. "A bit. It rained a lot on the way here."

He sighed, huddling closer to wrap his cloak around you. "You should've rested first then, before doing anything."

"Probably." You coughed a couple times, pressing closer to him. "I got too excited though. I'll just eat a bunch of ginger."

Lohen huffed, guiding you to stand up. "I'm not going anywhere, neither is Adorno. Let's get you home."

You didn't resist, dusting off your knees. "Alright, alright—see you Adorno." You gave the grave one last stare. "And thank you for everything. Without you, today wouldn't have existed for me. For us."

A solemn nod from Lohen, and he silently agreed.

As you walked into the night, you gasped, peering down at the city before walking down the cobblestone stairs. “It’s so pretty. Look at all the lights from everyone’s house—oooh, and the stars!”

Lohen watched you smile. “Yeah. It’s beautiful. Very.”

“I missed Mondstadt.” You declared, jumping down each step one at a time.

(And Lohen missed you. Dearly so.)

“Mondstadt missed you too.” He murmured, a gloved hand reaching out for you, just in case you tripped or hurt yourself.

Together, you walked down the empty streets of Mondstadt City. The working week hadn't ended yet, leaving the city quiet and desolate, Lohen preferred this over seeing drunk men cheer and trip over their own feet.

"Where are you staying?"

(Though he appreciates your surprise return, he wishes you would've told him. Not only he thought he was having a heart attack, but he wanted to let you stay at his place—show off the fruits of his efforts and be the best host he could.

His shock died down, and now all he could think of was his confession to you. The moment he sends you back to your place, he was going to launch into frenzied brainstorming.)

"I'm renting a place at the moment."

His paranoia flared, questioning whose property it was. Shady landlords always targeted foreigners. Obviously, you weren’t one, but anyone could easily treat you as one after how long you were gone for.

But he didn't want to intrude. You’re smart enough to be cautious of scammers. "You could've stayed in my place. I moved into a bigger house since you left." He says, as if he hadn't told you this over parchment and ink already.

You chuckled, a tune he was addicted to. "I know, but I told you, I wanted this to be a surprise. The rent isn't too bad."

Maybe it was better that you weren't staying at his place. It gave Lohen better opportunity to figure out how he wanted to declare his love. It'd be awful if you walked into his preparations.

"Whatever you say."

Past the Good Hunter you turned, and there it was. You pointed to a building, it wasn't anything grand, but felt excessive for only one person to live in.

"We're here. Thanks again for walking me home." You grinned before sneezing, immediately covering your nose with your palm. The other hand fumbled through a pocket for a tissue.

"Geez—I thought you said your cold wasn't that bad?"

Before Lohen could speak, another voice reached for you.

The door to your house was open, and out came a man. He was tall, short, blond hair propped up by a black hairband. He donned a red jacket, over a tight, black shirt decorated by a silver dog tag.

Down the stairs he hurried, to check up on you and nag about your health.

Who the fuck is this?

After blowing your nose properly, you recomposed yourself, standing straight. "Sorry—I didn't think I'd be out this late." You looked back at Lohen. "Right. Lohen, this is Thoma." You gestured to the man besides you, who waved politely at Lohen, resembling a carefree dog. "Thoma, this is Lohen."

What the fuck is Thoma?

Despite being a man of quick decisions and logic, Lohen had little coherency in his thoughts.

"Nice to meet you, Lohen!" Thoma reached a hand out, and Lohen took far too long to reciprocate with his own. "Thanks for walking y/n home."

Were you seeing someone? This guy?

"Uh—yeah, no worries. Anytime."

No, he's jumping to conclusions. Friends travel and live together—

An aggressive shade of red dusted over your cheeks, reaching even your ears. "I'll see you soon. Thanks again." You quickly turned away from Lohen, ushering Thoma inside, muttering something about being cold.

With a final wave, you were inside. Through the window, he could see your blurry figures talk, and muffled laughter slipped out.

Lohen's expertise was vast, but was not applicable to romance in the slightest. However, everyone knows that a blush that deep had to indicate something, a crush, possibly even love, considering how far you had traveled together.

Paralysed and cold, he stood there, a storm of frantic thought brewing in his head. There's no way you guys were dating, right? You would've told him if someone had asked you out, or if you had a crush in the works. But what if this was another surprise?

For a brief moment, he pictured you guys on a date, and was met with immediate nausea.

(He was going to kill "Thoma", or whatever his name was, if it was the last thing he'd do.)

Since then, he was oddly provoked by Thoma, despite his polite demeanour and warmth.

When he returned home, he laid in bed and tried to rationalise the situation.

You. "Thoma". Dating?

Oh my god—what if you were married? Lohen didn't notice any rings on you, but you guys were reaching that age. You could've been intending on it, or maybe you packed your engagement ring away, all that’s valuable doesn’t belong in the open.

He buried his face into a nearby pillow, 

It's not like you've ever loved him back that way, nor did you vow to remain single forever (not that it'd even matter—you're allowed to change your mind whenever), but he felt a sliver of betrayal. If he was going to get rejected, he at least wanted to stand a good chance, rather than being nations away.

Lohen dismissed the thought, reminding himself to simply ask next time he saw you before preparing to go to sleep.

The next morning at work, he earned nothing short of concern and judgement.

"What even happened to you?" Eula commented, poking Lohen's head. His cheek was pressed up against the wooden table, neglected paperwork somewhere off to the side and his quill laid just as dead.

He heard Amber come over, too. "Dunno. He looked awful when he got here, then he kinda just gave up after the Grandmaster went out for lunch. Lohennn, are you alright?"

"Is traveling from nation to nation and living with each other a couple's thing to do?"

The two women paused. Amber spoke first. "I guess so...?"

Lohen's fist pounded the table. "I'm gonna kill that bastard."

With a worried, 'let's give him some time', Eula guided Amber away.

He finally sat up, eyelids fighting for their life to remain open. All he did was spiral instead of sleep, conjuring up all sorts of wacky possibilities. It tortured him until morning, and skipping work wasn't a luxury either, considering how he was already in trouble.

He slouched again, this time his chin resting on his forearms. He closed his eyes, hoping for a quick power nap before Varka could yell at him.

Eula came into the room again, heavy boots stomping and interrupting his attempted nap. He didn't react, until she knocked aggressively on the table.

"Fuck…I was trying to slee—"

From behind Eula you peered at him, an awkward smile plastered on your face.

'You have a visitor.' She said, then she turned to you. "Sorry about him. He hates paperwork."

He was tempted to interject, insisting that he wasn't that bad with paperwork, it was stupid Thoma's fault. All he did was tiredly squint, and burn with shame.

"Should I...come back another time? Work seems hectic."

He shook his head, excessively, leaving his bangs in his face. "No—what's up?" Frantic, he adjusted them,  

"I just...wanted to see you. And I have something I need to show you."

(It wasn't an engagement ring, was it?)

Lohen's gaze flitted around before returning to you. If he concentrated hard enough and made the most of his desperation, he'd get all this paperwork done. Hopefully soon. "Okay. Yeah that's fine. Just give me a bit more time, I'll be done soon."

The throbbing in his temples disagreed with him.

"Your library's so nice, I had a fun time talking to Lisa."

Lohen himself was impressed with his own performance. He powered through paperwork, a perfect balance of speed, and care, as to avoid being scolded and ordered to redo it all from scratch.

The fresh air helped out a bit, it woke him up and forced his eyes to stay alert. Being so openly weak was stressing him out, even with the confines of Mondstadt City and its walls, he couldn't help but worry about whether he'd be able to defend the two of you if anything happened.

"Lisa? Yeah she's alright..." He rubbed his eye, fervently.

Your hand clasped around his wrist. "You'll hurt your eye if you do that...did you not sleep enough?"

Not at all, actually. "Somethin' like that." His eye begged to be scratched again, but he held back for your sake. "Had...things on my mind."

You released him and nodded slowly. "Is being a knight that hard?"

(Being a knight was fine. Possibly having an unrequited love was far worse and nothing in comparison.)

He made an incoherent noise, before changing the topic. "Where are we going?"

"Back to mine." You smiled, and the exhaustion clinging onto his eyelid was beginning to fade. "I have stuff for you."

Lohen's face soured. Not at the thought of you, nor whatever you wanted to show him, but at Thoma. Lohen thinks he's going to throw up if he has to think about you two again.

"Wouldn't...Thoma be upset? Isn't he staying there as well? Don’t wanna intrude on you guys."

You shook your head. "He's visiting his mother today. Plus, he's a really sweet person, I'm sure you'd like him too.”

Lohen thinks not. "Are you guys like...friends?"

A pause filled the air. "I guess you could call it that. We met at culinary school."

(So are you dating or not? What kind of answer was that?)

Lohen nodded. He decided to take what he could get, and appreciate that he wouldn't have to see you and Thoma together, whatever your relationship was. He can worry about Thoma when he’s not sleep deprived and barely holding himself up. As you walked the familiar route from yesterday together, he found himself wincing whenever sunlight came too close for his liking, another predicament, alongside his brooding.

‘Oh yeah. I forgot to ask, but how are your parents doing?”

Lohen shrugged.

“Still not talking to them?”

“Yup.” He had no need for them or their ways. The most he did was pay a visit on their birthdays, dropping off a gift and a letter. He popped by on holidays, too, limiting conversation to basic greetings. You questioned it no further, just the way Lohen liked it—it was refreshing for someone to accept the way he lived, rather than yapping on about the importance of family and blood. “Yours?”

“They’re good. Turns out they prefer Inazuma far more than here.”

Lohen liked your parents, it was a shame they didn’t come with you. You inherited your kindness from your mother, who’d always encourage Lohen to come over for a meal whenever, and you had the same understanding as your father. Lohen never confided to him with his familial issues, yet he provided more insight on his situations than anyone else. He wished he could say hi again.

“What about you?” You haven’t told him exactly what you were doing here. “Are you just visiting?”

“Kind of? I’m planning to stay here for a bit. I don’t have a concrete plan.” You hummed, as the wind fluffed up your hair. “Might travel around, now that I’m not in the middle of nowhere.”

Good. That granted him a decent amount of time to confess to you.

 “Well, let me know when you figure it out. I want to hear all about it.”

The house you were staying in came into view, but the sound of crying snapped your neck towards it. “What happened?”

Lohen scanned the vicinity, nearby was a child, a young boy, wailing and clutching at his bloodied knee. You wasted no time, rushing to his side. 

“Are you okay?”

The kid cried some more.

Lohen joined you two. “Can you walk, kid?”

His tears didn’t stop, but he planted his small hands against your shoulders and pushed himself with a heave, biting his lip and gluing his eyes shut.

The kid turned to Lohen and nodded.

You inspected the graze. It appeared fine, with no visible dirt, and it was relatively shallow. “Well done. That must’ve hurt a lot, hm?”

He nodded. “It still does…”

With a subtle frown, you dug through your pockets, bringing out a small bag. “Want some candy? It’ll make you feel better.”

(Lohen wanted to ask for one too, but he refrained.)

As you tugged the pouch open, the kid deadpanned. “Mummy said I shouldn’t accept candy from strangers.”

Lohen couldn’t help but snicker, turning his face away to hide his amusement. “Smart kid—” He placed a hand on his back. “Mummy and Daddy are raising you right, hm?”

The kid stared back with judgement. Now it was your turn to laugh.

(Who knew kids were so unfiltered? Lohen knew kids were difficult, but looking back, he must’ve been a nightmare for every adult in the vicinity.)  

“Sage—I told you not to run.”

The woman’s voice almost echoed across the city, frantic and booming. The boy reacted immediately, hobbling into her arms and resuming his crying. You both stood up as well.

“C’mon, what do you say to the nice couple?” She urged him to say thank you, and the boy reluctantly turned around, hands still clinging onto her clothes. “Thank you for looking out for him…oh, you must be a knight?”

She looked Lohen up and down, he saluted in response. “Yes. Your son should be fine, as long as you clean and bandage it. It doesn’t appear to be serious.” It felt wrong, performing his formalities in front of you. He reserved this tone for diplomatic meetings, where pissing off an official could ruin an entire agreement, not the gentle streets of Mondstadt City, where you could speak to anyone as if they were close friends.

The woman sighed, and thanked you as well. “You guys would make wonderful parents.”

Your eyes grew wide. “P–parents?”

“Yeah.” She repeated, as if it were common sense. “Aren’t you a couple?” 

(See? Even the citizens of Mondstadt knew you two would be a great pair. Fuck you, Thoma.)

You corrected her with a stutter and flustered cheeks. “N–no ma’am.”

She was unbothered by it, and seemingly unconvinced as well. “Oh. What a shame, you seem to be close to each other.” With a final goodbye, she walked away with her son, excusing herself with needing to prepare dinner early tonight.

Together, you watched them return home. “Aw. I wanted him to taste test my candy.” The pouch laid in your hands and you frowned. “I didn’t know kids were so…sassy, nowadays.”

Giddy from the woman’s assumption, Lohen leaned closer. “I’m always here. I’ll eat anything and everything.” A random kid wouldn’t appreciate it as much as him, anyways. Those would eat anything as long as there’s enough colour and sugar.

You smiled. “Of course you will. You can try some after I show you what I planned out for you.”

A grin crept onto his lips. With anticipation akin to a child’s, Lohen followed you into your house like a puppy, overflowing with joy. 

When he reached your living room, you stopped him, slipping behind the knight before encasing his eyes with your hands. They were soft, and warm, nothing in comparison to the calluses that inhabited his palms. “You’ll keep it a surprise, right?”

He despised the unpredictable and unknown, but he nodded and his eyelids shut willingly. “Of course.” 

By his hand, you led him through the place, until coming to a stop. 

 “Open.” You requested. Then he obeyed.

Lohen blinked. It was just a living room. A bit bare, but it was a normal living room. There were crates stacked in a corner, presumably the belongings you and Thoma brought to Mondstadt.

He began sweating, wondering if he was just being incredibly dense. “Am I…?

You pointed to the corner, scurrying towards it and grabbing the closest one. “Souvenirs. For you. I probably should’ve considered how you were going to bring it home…”

Souvenirs? Those crates could probably carry every possession to his name.

“Come here—” You ushered him closer, placing the crate on the floor and prying off the lid. 

He crouched beside you. “A crate is a lot for souvenirs, isn’t it?”

“Is it too much? These are all for you.”

(Lohen has infiltrated illegal auctions. Embarked on trecherous journey to the lawless nation of Nod Krai. Even went face to face with a sinner of Khaenri’ah. But he’s never felt more lost than right now, at this moment.)

“W—How’s there so much? I thought these were all your things.”

You blinked. “Nope. They’re for you.” You shrugged, beckoning him to look through his gifts by himself. “If something made me think of you, I bought it.”

Inside were an assortment of weapons, alongside bottles of what he assumed to be poison.

“Ah—this stuff’s for work and your training.” You beamed. “A friend of mine, his family specialised in bladesmithing. You said the more weapons you have, the safer you feel.”

“Y–yeah I did but—” He gestured to the stack of crates nearby. “But this is insane—this would’ve cost a fortune.” He remembered your family being middle class, neither struggling nor subjugating financially, but this was an absurd amount for anything.

“It’s over six years! I promise I’ve been working hard, I stayed with family majority of the time anyways.” Your eyes sparkled with promise. “Plus, I wanted to do something nice for you. You never buy yourself anything. I bet you still hardly treat yourself.”

(You were right. Unless it was a necessity or gift for another person, Lohen seldom spent money. It was a waste, considering the Knights funded all equipment, which included most of Lohen’s collection, and he preferred to have a great sum saved up, just in case something ever happened to him.)

“I guess not?” He scratched at his nape. Protecting himself and guaranteeing safety was a good enough “treat” for him. “Dunno what I’m supposed to get for myself, anyways.” He craved the things money couldn’t purchase. Getting Varka off his back, never running out of stamina, you—

“Then let me do it for you. You’ve always worked hard, Mr Captain.”

The title made him stutter and blush. “Vice. I told you, I didn’t get the promotion after what happened.”

But you didn’t care. “Well, Adorno and I think you’re worthy of it. And it’s basically yours since it’s vacant, no?”

(God, he’s getting way too far ahead of himself, but Lohen really wants to propose to you on the spot.)

“I—” For a moment, Lohen thinks to hug you, thank you in his own special way, with affection and his entire being—

“y/n! Do you have someone over?”

Great.

“Yeah—it’s Lohen.”

Thoma’s head popped into the doorway, and he grinned from ear to ear. “Hey. Hi again.” He greeted Lohen, who responded curtly. “What are you guys up to? I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

(Yes, yes you are Thoma. Read the fucking room.)

You patted the crate. “Souvenirs.”

Despite his irritation, Lohen wore a smile as he got up. “Hello again. How’s your mother doing?”

Thoma was caught off guard, glancing towards you. “She’s good, it’s been forever since I got to see her. Thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t expect you to remember that.” You mumbled, pushing off the crate to stand up. “He’s really attentive, isn’t he?”

His smile grew into something genuine in the praise. Thoma nodded along, hardly meeting Lohen’s gaze. “Yeah. Do you have any dinner plans?”

(Fuck. Lohen should’ve asked you to dinner before Thoma could.)

You shook your head, turning to Lohen. “Do you?”

He shook his head back, and internally, he was brimming with pride, celebrating the fact that you immediately turned to him.

Thoma readjusted his jacket. “Then since we’re all together, wanna go for a drink? It’ll be on me. I’ve hardly spoken to your friend yet.”

You immediately shook your head. “Lohen doesn’t dri—”

He lied, insisting otherwise. “It's alright. I couldn't possibly decline the kind offer."

And so, Lohen was seated in the Tavern besides you. Conversation of its patrons blended into one big mess, the noise infuriated Lohen, not nearly as much as his drink did.

Alcohol was fucking disgusting, Lohen thought, as he gulped down another ungodly mouthful. He glued his eyelids shut and swallowed, careful not to choke and spill any.

On the way to the Tavern, he watched you two carefully. So far, his theory of you two dating appeared false. There was hardly any physical contact between you two, nor did Thoma seem protective of you (and if Lohen’s assumption was correct, then Thoma was an awful boyfriend—who knows what could happen at night, near a bar where many drunk people were).

Logically, Lohen still stood a chance. However, getting you to like someone like him back, was an entirely new challenge he had to tackle.

Unlike Lohen, you and Thoma were fine, casually sipping without even a flinch. Conversation bounced between you with ease.

“I forgot how different Mondstadt’s beer was.”

“I wasn’t even old enough to drink, last time I was here.” Thoma finished the last of his drink, peering into the glass with an eye. “To be honest, I still prefer sake.”

With your glass to your lips, you chuckled. “Me too. This isn’t too bad, though.”

Lohen picked up his pace, you were finishing up too, he couldn’t fall behind. To find drinking alcohol enjoyable was weird, Varka, or anyone of the knights, had no right to call him insane when they could drink beer as if it were water, and derived pleasure from it.

(His stomach complained and groaned for help, but he kept going. He’ll make himself puke it out his system if needed. Lohen refused to appear weak in front of Thoma, out of all people.)

Another round of beers paid a visit, and Lohen already felt sick at the sight of a full glass.

“So Lohen, I had no idea you were Vice Captain! That’s really impressive.”

(What was that supposed to mean? That he didn’t appear worthy of his position?)

He played it off with a chuckle, thankful that speaking meant he didn’t have to drink. “It was nothing. Just took a few years of work.”

You butted in, protesting. “Liar—what do you mean Vice Captain isn’t a big deal?”

Lohen shrugged. “It’s not like I had to fight for my life for it.”

You huffed, taking another swig. “You still deserve credit.”

“You’re doing much better than me. If anything, hard work should be rewarded.” You were a cook because you dedicated your blood, sweat, and tears to it. Lohen was vice captain because he liked killing shit.

A smirk creased his lips, high off your praise, as he leaned forward to speak to Thoma. ‘What about you, Thoma? What do you do for a living?”

His face was hot and the insides of his mouth didn’t feel like his anymore, but he had to check what sort of guy you were possibly with. He took another large gulp, concealing his disgust with a sigh. 

Despite it all, Thoma was unbothered by him. “I’m the housekeeper and Chief Retainer of the Yashiro Commission.” He clarified, proud and bright. “Nothin’ special.”

Damn right. But that was too impolite to say. Lohen kept to himself and nodded. “I see. Any good in a fight?”

You answered before Thoma could. “He actually is—he faced the shogun.”

Lohen choked on his own spit. “What?”

Thoma aggressively shook his head, pink blooming on his cheekbones. “All I did was throw a spear.”

“Oh shut up—you threw it at her and somehow survived.”

“Stop bringing it up already.” But he laughed alongside you, the two of you happily bickered and drank beer. 

Lohen doesn’t get what you see in this guy. He took another swig, already adapting to the ugly taste.

Sure, Thoma did have a vision. And he was decently built, his muscles peeked out a bit from his tight top. And he was tall, really tall, but not in the same obnoxious, oversized way as Varka. He had blond, well kept hair and bright, green eyes that resembled green apples and ripe limes sold in the markets of Dornman Po—

Fuck. Now he was just listing all the good things about him. And there were plenty. Lohen himself couldn’t account for all the memories and feelings only you two shared and knew of. Thoma got to be there for you. Lohen was in a completely different continent.

Being blond wasn’t that important, was it? Varka’s blond and he wasn’t even close to marriage, neither was Jean. And it’s not like being short was a bad thing—a super tall partner would be unsettling anyways, wouldn’t it? Lohen had a vision too, and he’d say his physique wasn’t too shabby as well—

“...en? Lohen? Are you okay?”

(Just like how Lohen had to come to terms with his own mortality, he had to come to terms that maybe you weren’t meant to be. He should appreciate he gets to see you, and be within your presence, much like how he needs to acknowledge his human limits.

There was no point in brooding and complaining about Thoma, he’ll probably remain a bit bitter for the rest of time, but he should at least accept that you wanted someone else.)

It hurt, so Lohen drank some more.

His head spun and his face was warm and fuzzy. He rubbed his cheek with his own hand, despite the glove in the way. Even though it acted as a barrier, it felt abnormally warm. 

“Lohen?”

He blinked. “I’m fine. I can handle my liquor juuuust fine.” He slurred a bit, but he knew what he was doing, and where he was. He took another gulp. He’ll just get tipsy enough to forget about you and Thoma for a bit. This is why people drank, right? “Something happen? Need me to fight anything?”

Through half lidded eyes, he watched you shake your head. “You seem a bit…drunk?”

He gulped down some more to compensate. “I’m not. You have nothing to worry about.”

You acknowledged it with a hum, and went back to staring at your drink. Lohen wondered why you stopped talking to Thoma—maybe he went to the washroom, or something.

“You never told me you started drinking. I could’ve brought you back some sake.”

Thoma’s absence tempted him. He slouched over, resting his cheek on your shoulder. It was wrong, to snuggle so close with someone else’s lover, but he wanted to do it one last time. 

“It’s fine. It tastes like shit, anyways.” He reached for his drink, but you pushed it out of his grasp, and he gave you an indignant look, pale cheeks pouting, round and soft. 

“I’m pretty sure you’re very drunk. Drink water first. You need to flush it out your system.” You turned around, finding someone to call for water, but Lohen refused. With an immature whine, his arms wrapped around you, chin nestled into your shoulder. 

He could easily kiss you. All he had to do was move forward.

You smelled nice. A scent he couldn’t name, but it was far more pleasant than the colognes and perfumes he’s ever encountered. Something that didn’t fit into existing definition. His eyelids relaxed, and he embraced your proximity. 

“Y–you’re drunk—”

“And you’re pretty.”

Lohen pressed even closer, his nose brushing against his neck. He wanted to press a kiss on the flesh, bite a bit, even. He thought to himself, about how badly he wanted to kiss you all over, spoil you with all the affection he could possibly conjure. Maybe leave even a mark or two, bruising you with his love for the rest of the world to see.

(But he held back. It was audacious enough to cling onto someone taken. He needs to pull himself together and apologise before Thoma returns.)

Despite his effrontery, your hand made its way to his head, caressing his hair before patting his back. “Are you alright?”

(He wanted to throw up. Not because of the alcohol.)

“It’s not fair.” Lohen slurred, now burying his face into your shoulder. “You were gone for so long, how was I meant to stand a chance?”

He should’ve scraped up the money and joined you on that boat, and travelled across treacherous seas while by your side. That way, he wouldn’t have to swim in all his desire. Now, he found himself drowning, with no way of reaching the surface again. Lohen’s love filled him up to the brink, from his heart to his lungs, dragging him down to the depths of nothingness.

(Lohen charged at any sort of peril of ease, even back then with six years less of experience. A simple love confession may appear pathetic in comparison to the dangers he faced, but wounds heal and flesh grows back, while a rejection would leave a scar uglier than the ones his skin donned.)

His hand squeezed you even tighter. “I love you—I should’ve told you before you left. Maybe then I would’ve stood a chance against…Thoma.” His words were punctuated by a violent hiccup, it tasted of beer and misery at the back of his throat. “And got to be there for you. All I could do was write letters.” Lohen’s voice broke, almost crumbling into tears. “Do you know how scared I was? What if I somehow forgot your voice, or how you looked…”

Lohen’s face peeled off your shoulder, and his lips daringly inched closer to your ear, though he didn’t go any further. "I know I can't make you love me—” He whined, a pathetic noise, one that not even children could make. “—but I should've found a real dandelion."

He shouldn't have torn his letter apart. "Maybe fate wouldn’t have taken you away from me.”

(Pull away, do it now, Lohen told himself. It grew into insistent commands, echoing in his skull. You’re not his. What he was doing was wrong and was only going to make things harder for everyone, especially you. He could barely excuse himself spewing his emotions like this, now was the time to let go. And throw up.) 

You weren’t replying. Of course you weren’t. He’ll have to apologise tomorrow, when his head wasn’t spinning and bile wasn’t growing at the back of his throat. 

The world faded to black.

For the first time in his entire life, Lohen was mortified at himself.

He carried not an ounce of shame when poisoning Varka’s oversized beers, nor when hunting down and blackmailing Kaeya for a forged signature. Rumours did nothing to him, he did not care for the opinions of others, only freedom reigned his actions and philosophy.

His eyes hadn’t even opened yet, and behind the darkness of his eyelids, all he saw was disgrace. He’d be impressed by how self conscious he was, if it weren’t for the fact that it was you he embarrassed himself in front of—he probably tarnished your reputation too, the one you barely got to rebuild after your return.

But he was remorseful as he was humiliated. You deserved an apology, and so did Thoma, even if he was envious of him. He’d let you beat him to a pulp if needed, if that was what it took to earn a chance of redemption.

“Fuck…” He groaned, pushing himself up. “Everything hurts.”

The sunlight oozing into the windows was blinding, despite being gentle and soft, all it did was make his head throb uncontrollably. His muscles screeched for help, soreness seized his body hostage. Lohen’s head felt too heavy, as if he could collapse at any moment.

He thought about last night, and everything beyond his body began to hurt.

It really wasn't a nightmare. You being in love with someone else.

Lohen cackled to himself, all alone in his bed. He's a fucking idiot, and loser, and should never be in the proximity of alcohol again. 

Why was he even surprised? You were perfection and sunlight personified, it was no wonder whenever someone asked you out. If anything, it was Lohen’s fault not considering that during his last goodbye.

But instead, he tore his confession into pieces, for a wish that came true far too late.

“I'm an idiot, aren't I…?” Lohen whispered, to no one in particular.

“I don't think so.”

“What the fuck—?”

You had just walked in with a glass of water. “Sorry. I heard you laughing and realised you were awake.” You approached his bed with a glass of water. “Feeling okay?”

Lohen accepted wordlessly. He wasn't sure what to be embarrassed for, from his unrequited feelings to whatever the hell he was doing earlier, it felt as though he’d done everything possible to make a fool of himself.

‘Good job.” You praised, taking the glass from his hands.

(You were attractive, even when talking to him like a child. Being praised for drinking water seemed absurd, but he wasn't allowed to say that when he was relishing every word.)

Now wasn't the time—he watched you place the glass on his bedside table, as you settled onto his bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. That makes sense.”

Come to think of it, he hardly had any recollection of last night, aside from his shameless antics. It felt worse, not knowing the full extent of his predicament.

He glanced around his house. “How did I get back home?”

“I carried you.”

Lohen didn't remember that.

“Th–thanks. You didn't have to.”

“I didn't have a choice. You were clinging onto me and saying I had to come over.”

He didn't remember that either.

“It was pretty cute, actually. You were really excited to show me your new place. For good reason, too—”

‘I’m so sorry. I–I–I can slit my stomach open for you—that's how they do it in Inazuma, isn’t it?”

(He enjoyed being called cute far too much. Now was not the time for it.)

“No—I mean yes, they do—that's not the point.” Your hand held his, reassuring him with the rhythmic stroke of your thumb. “No one’s mad at you, Lohen. I’m definitely not.”

God, even now, you managed to be kind. Lohen would go insane if someone behaved as ridiculously as he did.

“Yeah but I bet Thoma is—”

“Why would Thoma be mad at you?”

He waved his hands around frantically. “I was hitting on you—I’d be pissed if a guy was all over my lover like that.”

You blinked once. Then twice.

“Thoma and I aren't dating.”

He was so shocked, that relief didn't even pay him a visit. In fact, nothing went through his head.

“Did you think we were together?”

“Y–yeah?”

You were stunned too, mouth hanging open as you processed his words. “Is that why you were one-upping him?”

“I was doing what?” A sharp pang throbs in his head for speaking too loud.

“While you were drunk—you were rambling about how Thoma. You said stuff about tall men being difficult to date and blond people being insanely overrated—”

Lohen snapped, unintentionally. “Stop. I'm gonna die if I hear the rest of that.” 

First, his one and only love didn't want him back, then he got wasted over a conclusion he jumped too, and now he was hungover in front of you.

He swallowed. “I still owe you two.” If anything, he’d prefer you to slit his stomach open, or beat him ‘til you were satisfied. Anything over how calm and understanding you were being. “You must’ve been embarrassed.”

You shrugged. “I told you, it was cute. I've never seen you so clingy.”

Another hot, uncomfortable wave of embarrassment washed over him.

He should bring up his feelings now, shouldn't he? Apologise for confessing in such an inappropriate, dramatic way in a public setting. Then he should walk you home and apologise to Thoma while he was at it.

Where should Lohen start? He drafted an apology in his head; about last night, sorry for—

“—I love you too, by the way.”

“The fuck?” 

A hand clasped over his mouth and he felt another urge to profusely apologise.

“Last night. You said you loved me.” 

He watched you inch closer, his heart racing even more when he felt your warmth in his proximity. “I did say that.”

“Why are you so surprised then?” Your hand holds onto his, abnormally warm compared to his body temperature. “I'm giving you an answer.”

“Wh—are you sure?” Since when were you this ballsy? You used to be so timid and shy, now you were essentially climbing onto him. “I must be going insane.”

“I had six years to think about you while I was gone. Yes, I’m very sure.” You pinched his cheek, gently tugging at the flesh. “See? You're not dreaming.”

Lohen’s mouth hung open, yet no sound came out. He stared at you, and at your thighs that were on top of his, and the pink permeating the apples of your cheek.

(Words were never his thing. Paperwork was pointless when all the information was in his head and made perfect sense to him. He even had a hard time adapting to writing letters, it didn’t sound nearly as nice when it was in ink instead of speech.)

So Lohen pulled you closer. You landed on his chest, his arms clamped around you like a vice.

You yelped, peering back up at him. “Lohen?”

His fingertips played with the back of your shirt. “May I?”

“Sure but what are you—” A shaky gasp interrupted your question, and the noise drove Lohen insane. “Cold—your hands are so cold—what are you doing?”

"Need to feel you more—" His hands massaged the soft flesh, he was right, you’d gained quite a bit of muscle since you left. His hands paused and his hollow eyes held something akin to sorrow. “Fuck. Do you know how upset I was? I–I–I was worried you were engaged.

You snorted, pinching his cheek again. “Engaged? Why would I be engaged with Thoma, when all I wanted was here in Mondstadt?”

Lohen’s gaze drifted away. “You were blushing.”

“Hm?”

“You were blushing around him. When I dropped you off. So I thought you had a thing going on.”  

This time, you burst into laughter. Normally, he’d enjoy how it sounds, but right now, all it did was fuel his embarrassment. He withdrew his hands from your back and rubbed his eyes as you composed yourself. “Sorry—that was mean. Did it not occur to you that I was flustered because of you?” 

Lohen frowned and scoffed. “You didn’t even look at me when I dropped you off.”

You rolled over, settling next to him. “Really? I probably got embarrassed. I told Thoma all about you, y’know? Since like...the beginning of our friendship? He kept telling me to confess to you during the trip here. He even made a whole gameplan for me. Y’know he only invited us to dinner to try to get us alone. He slipped away after you got tipsy.”

(Huh. Maybe Thoma was a good guy, after all. Not only does he owe him an apology, but a massive thank you, as well.)

“So. There’s no doubt that you’re the one I want, okay? It was like that long before I left Mondstadt.”

Weakly, he nodded, finally able to feel relief. “Okay.”

You liked him back, no, loved him back. For over six years, too. 

Lohen's heartbeat raced, to the point he began to worry about it bursting out of his chest. Unable to cope with all the emotions eating away at it and his pounding headache, he flopped back into bed. He’ll deal with it when he’s not hungover. For now, knowing of your feelings was the only thing keeping him alive at the moment.

He turned away from you, burying his face into his hands, wincing at the aftermath of his drinking. "Ugh. My head fucking hurts...'m gonna die for a bit. Wake me if it's an emergency."

You sat up instead, already heading to the kitchen. "Oh. I just started preparing a hangover soup but—"

Lohen shot up, posture pin straight.  "I'll eat."

“You just said your head was hurting. You should rest first.”

But he stood up, throwing his blanket somewhere on the floor. “Soup. I want soup.”

Your mouth opened to protest, but you gave up. “Sure. Whatever you want. Let’s go to the kitchen, then.”

“I love you.” Lohen said, a plea for you to say that you loved him again. Even with evidence, everything still felt like a dream. He wondered if this was another pleasant dream, and he’d wake up, forehead to the desk in Varka’s office with groggy eyes, accompanied by paperwork instead of you. 

He begged for it not to.

You took his hand, pulling him along. “I love you too, Lohen.”

“So. Now we’re together.”

Lohen’s quill was nowhere to be seen, and his feet were propped up onto the table, as Varka groaned, arms crossed at his own desk.

“I get that young love is beautiful and whatnot. But might I remind you, that you’re still under strict supervision and you didn’t come in at all yesterday.”

Lohen rolled his eyes, his cheery mood undeterred by Varka’s disappointment. He had spent the entire morning rambling about you, celebrating your new status as lovers and verbally brainstorming his plans for the future. He told Varka of all the souvenirs you brought him (if it could even be called that—there were crates upon crates) and boasted about how lucky he was to be in love. He even went as far as mocking Varka, boasting about how you made him a special hangover soup, all from scratch, while Varka had to tough out his hangovers.

(He even ventured towards the topic of marriage, debating where to get an engagement ring commissioned someday and reminding himself to figure out your favourite gemstone. Varka scoffed when Lohen asked where he got his, rubbing in the fact that the Grandmaster was very much single. The closest thing Varka was married to was duty and responsibility—maybe even alcohol, too.)

A gloved hand rested over his chest. “To be fair, you did pull me out of solitary confinement for them.” He stared at the roof, unbothered by the chandelier’s glare as he swooned. He’ll pick up a nice bouquet of lovers on his way home for you. “Six years have never been more worth it. Barbatos, I'm sorry for cussing you out. You're not so bad.” He said to no one in particular.

The Grandmaster stood up, approaching the young man. He grabbed his quill and tossed it in front of him. “Was your lover worth getting wasted in front of everyone?”

Lohen’s heart sank to his stomach. His neck snapped straight and he looked Varka dead in the eye.

“Oh hey. You’re turning red now. You’re starting to remind me of Diluc’s hair.”

“How’d you even know about that?” Suddenly, his feet were off the table, heels planted to the floor and his body tensed up, as if preparing to escape or attack Varka at any moment.

“I was there? Had a drink with Kaeya and caught up with Thoma. His mother and I go way back” A slight smirk creased his lips. “You don’t seem very fond of him.”

You failed to mention that, all you told him was that he was being clingy and confessed, before begging you to come over. How much did you leave out? You were the type to omit details for the sake of another’s dignity, and the only things Lohen could recall by himself was his slurred speech and whining. 

Varka didn’t relent in his teasing. “Huh. You don’t seem so bad when you’re shy. I can see why you’ve finally found yourself a lover. Well done, by the way. Good thing Thoma wasn’t interested in them.” 

“I’ll do the paperwork, okay?” He snatched the quill, grip tightening to the point his knuckles faded to white. At this rate, he was going to do things worse than poisoning his beer. He’ll rush through this paperwork before running off to go see you again.

But apparently, his current state wasn’t amusing enough. “I can see why you don’t drink. You’re worse than me. You even threw mora at Thoma to prove you were richer. Kind of cute seeing you jump to conclusions and get all whiny—”

“Shut up.” He really will up his dose of poison. And throw out the antidote while he’s at it.

The first time Lohen met you, was during highschool.

Like any other committed athlete, he didn't take school very seriously. Assignments were submitted with the bare minimum and classes were dedicated to napping and doodling, on the very rare occasions Lohen actually decided to attend.

He had acquaintances but not friends; people he'd play football and basketball with, but no one Lohen would go out of his way for.

Not that it mattered to him. Regardless of association, Lohen poked fun at whoever he wanted, and it was sufficient entertainment and 'companionship' for his school life.

So when he was assigned a partner for an English project, his first thought was how he was going to mess with you a bit. No one liked group projects and quite frankly, he needed some entertainment before forcing himself to do schoolwork.

You were quiet and kept to yourself, sitting towards the front with straight posture rather than retreating to the back of the classroom. He never intended to freeload off of your intellect, but Lohen wanted to indulge in your shock for a bit.

It was nothing personal, Lohen just thought it'd be funny. After a bit of entertainment he'll apologise. University applications were soon, after all, he was still going to do his best, knowing it'd affect you. University wasn't apart of his dreams, but it was clearly one of yours.

"So yeah. 'm not gonna do anything. Got a lot of training to go to. 'm sure you'll be fine because you're a smart cookie, right?"

You stared at him blankly in the school library, as he propped his feet onto the table.

You're processing his words, Lohen thought. You're going to hesitantly nod and avoid his gaze, probably without a word, too. You're way too introverted to snap back or retaliate—

"That's fine." You said, words clear as day. "You were never that...bright, anyways. I understand if this project is too difficult for you."

Lohen's jaw dropped as your pen resumed, dancing across your notebook and building onto the mind map you had laid out.

For someone who spent most of his time teasing others, Lohen had no words. He wanted to be offended, but that wasn't exactly waranted if he was the one who tried to piss you off in the first place.

Word after word appeared in your notebook, birthing sentences and paragraphs. Lohen had no idea how you wrote that fast, nor how you'd be able to read your cursive later.

"It's not hard—it's literally just a book report."

"No I get it, seriously. Not everyone's into reading and that's fine with me. You probably train too much to understand what Jane Austin's talking about."

His cheeks flared and he suddenly forgot how to speak normally. "She's not that complicated. I was joking."

A smirk creased at your lips. "Sure."

Before Lohen could retort, you pushed your notebook towards him, the entire plan already constructed. "You can prove that to me when we get an A on this."

And with that, marked the beginning of your friendship.

Contrary to his first impression, you weren't nearly as mischievious as him. Your weekly meetings when smoothly, as if he hadn't tried to poke fun at you the first time the two of you met.

Neither did you. You kept to yourself, typing away with a calculated fevour, as if your wits were merely a fragment of his imagination.

Aside from the very first study session you had together.

"Everything alright, Imunlaukr? Do you remember what a simile is?"

Lohen scoffed. "I'm not stupid."

"That's not what a simile is." Your pen twirled in your fingers. before ignoring whatever attempts he made at a witty comeback.

You went back to satisfying his expectations of an introverted bookworm, and the group project flew by quickly without trouble.

Lohen himself had no idea how you exactly became friends. The two of you were nothing alike; you were an unexplainable existence to him.

Within the two weeks you had that project together, he noticed your life was composed of a bland monotony, every afternoon was spent at the library without fail. You studied with the same routine and at the same library everyday and revised the same content. He didn't get why you were willing to do all of this; there was no thrill of a fight in studying, nor the same fulfillment as a workout.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" It was revolting to Lohen. Even your weekly meetings managed to bore him, he mustered every shred of willpower to survive those study sessions, thanking the lord for your intellect despite being a dedicated atheist. "I've only done this a few times and I already want to kill myself."

You had shrugged, fingers still typing. "I like good grades."

"Wow." Lohen droned, slouching over the desk as he struggled to piece together a final sentence. He was so close to finishing, yet every combination of words he could conjure simply fell flat, even for his standards. "Nerd."

Yet Lohen continued to follow, accompanying the end of your study sessions at the library, with the flimsy excuse of match analysis after his trainings.

"I don't like the library." Lohen grumbled, plopping down to the empty seat next to you, with takeout in one hand.

The library and studying still sucked, of course. But he had to make sure you didn't work yourself to death, and the library wasn't that far from his gym, anyways.

"You can go then." You quipped, adjusting your reading glasses. "The group project was done last week."

Lohen scoffed, placing the food next to you. "I have to make sure you don't kill yourself studying."

"Didn't you just have training? I thought your gym was in different suburb."

"It is."

You finally peeled yourself away from your notes. "Then why come here?"

It was only a thirty minute walk, and it served as a good cooldown anyways. "Isn't that what friends do?"

His heart skipped a beat. He hadn't realised you never agreed upon that notion. Lohen's friendships mainly consisted of his fellow training partners at the gym, and his coach Varka (if he could even be called that).

But you giggled, eyeing the takeaway containers. "I suppose you're right. I'll hurry up soon and we should eat together."

A victorious smile bloomed across his lips, as his feet swung underneath the table, the smell of fresh rice and stirfry coaxing him.

You liked reading. You were aiming for a law degree at a nearby uni, the one that dominated the rankings, and you preferred English far more than math. You were the type of person who ate their least favourite things first, and saved your favourites for the very end.

(Something about it "being special" and so you could savour it properly. Lohen found it silly. He always ate his favourite bits of a meal first, just in case he ever got full.)

These, among many things, he discovered about you. At first it was simply his company at the library. He'd prop up his phone on a pile of books from a random shelf and watch his MMA matches, with the pretense of 'analysis', when he was instead watching them for pure enjoyment.

On one cold night, he noticed you from the corner of his eye, leaning slightly to where his phone sat. Lohen pulled out his airpod and cocked a brow. "You interested?"

You nodded. "Isn't this what you want to do in the future? Get locked in a cage and beat up another shirtless guy for the world to see?"

Lohen snickered. "Pretty much. I like these guys, especially this one." He pointed to the left. "He's got a real good kick."

The two men threw careful punches and kicks at one another, gauging their distance and range. "I wanna be in their place someday."

"Why not drop out and just commit to it? You would've been pro by now." You commented, wincing at a particularly hard kick. In Lohen's ears, the audience exploded into excitement, a stark contrast with your reaction.

"Are you saying 'm too dumb for school?"

"Don't twist my words."

He chuckled, turning off his phone. "It's a deal with my parents. They didn't want me fighting but I refused to listen. They said they'd support me as long as I graduated and didn't fight while injured. I'd be on TV by now if I didn't have to stay in school."

Lohen remembered that tense dinner and his parent's refusal to meet his eyes. Despite their expectations he agreed, quite easily too. He knew that professional combat athletes were at risk of ruining their career at any moment. He should at least have a highschool degree just to be safe.

"Hmm. Fair. It's a shame you have to wait though. Especially when most athletes are allowed to go straight into competing."

Lohen shrugged. "I'll catch up to them easily." It's not like he had any other choice, anyways.

"If you say so. Make sure you don't forget me when you're famous, okay?"

Your company grew beyond your time together at the library. You eventually began seeking Lohen out at school, always offering him company. If the teacher announced groupwork your gaze would snap to him, even though other, much smarter people wanted to partner with you. During break times you'd come watch him play basketball, cheering him on and filling up his bottle whenever needed.

Lohen never asked nor wished for your presense, but he found himself attached to it over time.

"I need to buy a gift for someone. Can you help me today?"

You asked him one day, as the school bell dismissed everyone, sending the school into relief. Lohen didn:t have any training on, and you seemed to not have anything to revise.

"For who?"

"My cousin. He's into MMA too. I wanna buy him something from the sports store."

Lohen shrugged. "Sure. Sounds easy enough." The mall wasn't too far, and you were fun to spend time with. Rest days were difficult for Lohen. The urge to fight kept itching throughout each one, and Varka often yelled at him for trying to work out during them. Most of them were dedicated to watching MMA matches with a painful envy.

"So, I was thinking of getting him new gloves? He needs new ones and he trains all the time. But there's so many and I have no idea."

Lohen scanned the shelves. "Is he professional?"

"Trying to be."

Huh. Lohen only knew this guy through your words, but he seemed cool. "Well. The weight depends on what he's doing. If it's for heavy training, the heavier gloves are better to avoid injuring yourself and your sparring partners. But for competitions you're supposed to use the light ones."

You stared, confused and almost annoyed.

How did you understand math and not this? "I use these ones." Lohen grabbed the exact model of his. "If that helps."

Your eyes lit up. "Perfect. I'll get these then."

You flinched at the price tag and Lohen cackled. "Pricey, I know. You can settle for handwraps for him. We're still in highschool and I know a guy that likes to design cool ones."

You shook your head, holding the gloves close. "I saved up for this, don't worry."

Impressive, Lohen thought. The bank accounts of students weren't known to be abundant. He brushed it off, you were meticulous with school, it was only natural for the rest of your life to be just as organised.

Lohen accompanied you as you paid, requesting for a bag and a receipt. Together, you walked out, and before Lohen could propose hanging out for longer, you held out the shopping bag.

"For you."

"I'm not your cousin."

"Yeah no shit. These were always going to be for you." You pushed the bag closer, shoving it into his chest. "I saw that yours were beaten up."

Lohen's chest flared up. "I have money—this shit is expensive and my parents are well off. You didn't have to." He just didn't replace them because he didn't like money. If he was going to get a replacement, then it'd be when his current gear is rendered completely unusable.

You shrugged. "But you never replaced them. If it's too early or whatever you can put them away for now. Receipt's there if you change your mind too."

He still refused to accept the gift, allowing you to keep it pressed into his chest. "You don't have to do this for me."

"But I want to. And I don't really care, either." Your hands pounced on his, and for once in his life, his reflexes permitted someone else to exert such control over him. "It's a thank you for all the food and snacks you bring to the library for me."

You ran off, your big school bag awkwardly bouncing on your back.

"I share that crap with you, idiot—" He called out. You always insisted you were full whenever you ate together, and always threatened to throw it out if he didn't believe it. "And come back—"

Lohen sprinted after you, a warmth already settled onto his pale cheeks long before he pursued you.

Lohen hated Valentines Day.

He's not sure why school decided to take it so seriously. The student committee turned it into a charity event, selling anonymous serenades and roses. Lohen found it ridiculous, the songs they selected were generic and boring, and always sung live by people who clearly didn't belong in performing arts.

He shrivelled his nose up at another stupid couple, who were making out in the corridor right as he turned the corner. For the rest of his route to class, he had to push past stupid freshmen holding hands, taking up the entire hallway and having the audacity to act surprised.

When he finally made it to class he dropped into his seat besides you, groaning.

"What happened to you?"

"I hate Valentines Day."

"Really? I think it's nice."

"It's not."

"Aw." You fake pouted at him. "I'll buy you a rose next time."

Lohen sat up. "You actually spent money on this shit?"

"Yeah. I got a rose for my single friends." You unpacked your things, preparing your notebook and stationary. "Next time I'll get something for you. If you're still single by next Valentine's."

He scoffed, going back to slouching on his table. "Ew. No thanks."

Class went by as normal, until the Valentine's Days gifts arrived to your class. Students were dressed in pink and decorated in hearts, with obscene props.

They read out names, handing out roses, chocolates, and candies, before heading where you sat.

You stared up at them with uncertain eyes before they burst out in love song.

From where he sat, Lohen watched you turn red. First, your cheeks began to resemble tomatoes, and then your ears glowed pink, as well. By the end of the song you were clearly flustered, and embarrassed, to the point Lohen didn't even want to tease you for it.

After class, someone else spoke to you before him, yelling across the classroom.

"I wonder who bought that for you—" One of the boys snapped, cackling away with his equally obnoxious friends. "Look at red they are."

Before everyone's eyes could turn on you, you ran out the door, clearly uncomfortable and upset.

Lohen's gaze drifted to where the boys sat, before he slowly stood up and followed.

By the end of the day, Lohen had them on their knees, in a discrete area in the school, begging for forgiveness with bloody noses and bruised skin.

Every plea was ignored as he headed off in search of you. The class he just skipped should be done by now, meaning you were also done with the school day. He spat at the boys before running off. He had no clue who they were and why they ordered you a love song, nor what your relationship with them was, but he discarded his curiosity and searched for you, in hopes of being able to cheer you up.

Your familiar back came into view, near the school gates. His hands pounced on your shoulders and he cloaked himself over you.

"Wanna go to a bakery with me?"

You furrowed your brows. "Aren't you dieting now?"

"It's for you. You're also single and lonely like me."

Wrestling him off, you retorted. "I thought you hate Valentine's Day."

Lohen shrugged. "It's compensation for having to deal with all these stupid couples." A pair of first years snapped their neck towards him, cowering away before shuffling down the hallway. Lohen snickered at the sight, quickly returning to normal before you'd notice and tell him off for being mean. "I've seen all your likes on social media. You keep liking posts about the new bakery nearby."

He carefully watched your expression as it melted into a yield. It soldified into his victory. "Sure then. As long as you're fine with it."

Of course Lohen was. The desserts didn't matter as long as you were there.

"What is love?" Lohen asked out of the blue, after a full day of being driven crazy by obnoxious couples.

You took a few more photos before putting your phone away. "Why're you asking that all of a sudden?"

Lohen scoffed, watching you dig into a cheesecake. "And why aren't you answering me? Don't answer my question with another question."

With your mouth full, you hummed. "Well...I don't exactly know."

"Very useful."

"Shut up." You took a sip of water before continuing. "I've never been in love, and I doubt you have, either."

"Isn't that why 'm asking you?"

Lohen watched you fumble with a strawberry, before slumping into the booth and sighing. The bakery was no exception to the festivity of Valentines Day, swarming with couples both young and old, shamelessly cooing at one another. The sight grossed him out; some even went as far as borderline making out and groping each other.

Half the cheesecake was gone, and crumbs perched on the corner of your mouth. "Why are you asking, though?"

He shrugged. "You're the smartest person I know. And so many fucking idiots are making out everywhere we go."

You hummed, sucking on your fork. "I mean, I don't think relationships and love are the same thing."

Lohen already anticipated a headache, at the complexity of things you explained. But by no means were you the one irritating him.

"Like, plenty of people are just together because they're lonely or whatever. Especially at our age. I think it's just someone you want to be with forever?" You scraped up a bit of cream from the plate with a finger, before licking it up. "But if I had to give it a definition...it depends."

Well no shit were you getting into law, you already allergic to short, straight answers that made sense.

"Everyone likes different things. Everyone has their own goals for the future, and everyone is fundamentally really different. I think love would be when all these things align within two people, and they're attracted to each other I guess?" You listed off the criteria on your fingers. "And of course, adding in the fact that neither parties are toxic or abusive to the other."

"I guess it's about finding someone who aligns in their idea of love with you." You concluded, satisfied with the answer you conjured.

Lohen nodded along. That actually made plenty of sense, compared to the simple 'explanations' of 'you know when you know' or 'you'll feel butterflies in your stomach'.

"But then again, at our age I think it's a matter of hooking up." You deadpanned, grabbing a huge chunk of cake.

Lohen agreed. He had no idea why he was asking in the first place anyways. You were committed to your studies and all he cared was for martial arts. You both had far more important things to dedicate yourself to. "And getting in everyone's day."

You jolted straight. "I know right? Isn't making out embarrassing? Oh and also—" You stabbed a strawberry with your fork. "Open."

He's not being fed by someone else. Lohen covered his mouth. "No. 'm not a baby."

"Oh come on—you haven't eaten anything. And fruits are healthy. You should try the cheesecake too."

"I'll die." Literally. Lohen agreed to his club's harsh diet plans and schedules. "One of my coaches will kill me. Or my friends will."

"Just say I forced it against your will. Which is exactly what I'm doing right now, no?"

Your fork kept insisting. Lohen sighed and opened his mouth, while leaning in closer. The strawberry was sweet, so sweet to the point his nose scrunched and squeezed his eyelids shut. "It's good."

"Try the cheesecake too. Just a bit." You already had some on your fork, holding it up again. "We can walk around and burn it off together."

This time, Lohen relented immediately, deciding that Varka and Jean would never find out, anyways.

Your birthday was coming.

Lohen himself had no idea. He overheard a girl in braided pigtails asking if you were going to throw a party, and if your underclassmen were allowed; to which you smiled and ruffled her hair, saying you'd love to celebrate with her. She celebrated with two blue haired boys, immediately planning on a cake flavour for you. Nilou from biology class already teased your gift, to which you giggled and tried to guess, and apparently Childe, the rumoured rich kid already brought you a gift, courtesy of an overseas trip he was going on for god knows what.

Lohen however, had no idea what to get you.

He knows you read a lot, but he was too unfamiliar with any form of literature to pick out something anything good, nor did he want to blindly trust a random influencers. Anyone knows you care a lot for your studies, but buying a gift related to school is just pathetic, and besides, no top student enjoyed studying, you yourself only did it for the grades and opportunities.

Your birthday month was approaching, with far more ease than Lohen preferred.

He could've asked, but that would've ruined the surprise. It'd ruin the thrill of opening up his gift, and he didn't want to seem like he didn't understand you well enough.

Especially not after you noticed his worn out gear.

Lunchtime was coming to a halt. You were in the library helping people cram for an upcoming test. Lohen played basketball as always. He filled up his bottle at the bubblers, already dreading having to go back to class.

"I dunno what to get for Y/n's birthday."

Lohen leaned ever so slightly, summoning all his will to not whip his head instantly.

The first voice, who he'd assume was Kaveh, moaned to Nilou, who sighed and reassured him. "Anything from Sanrio works. They love Cinnamoroll."

Cinnamoroll. Lohen engraved it in his mind before hurrying away, immediately, typing it into his phone.

A white bunny with pale blue eyes appeared. He recognised her from your bag, you had a little keychain of your head. Lohen always wondered who exactly that was.

This was perfect. Today was a night session at the club, he had time to pop by the mall before training.

So he hid in the back of the classroom as always, carefully researching on his phone for where he could buy you a Cinnamoroll. He was the first to hurry out the door at the teacher's dismissal. Glued to his phone, he made his way to the Sanrio store.

The store was far out of his comfort zone, a myriad of pastel colours and cute animals. Lohen stepped in, clearly out of place.

But luckily, he didn't need help. He instantly recognised Cinnamoroll, a figure with a beach party theme. Lohen was never interested in this kind of merch, but even he found it cute.

The shelf had nothing but Cinnamoroll, too. Thank god she wasn't a fan favourite; his shopping trip concluded smoothly, and he didn't even need to ask the staff to check the back or to provide recommendations.

Lohen smiled. Today was going well, he thought, as he hurried to training.

"Since when did you like Sanrio?" Eula peered over Lohen's shoulder and stared into his bag during stretching. "You seem extra weird to me now."

Lohen pulled out his phone. "It's not for me. For my friend's birthday."

"That makes more sense." She mumbled. "Why buy one of these though?"

"Cinnamoroll. The bunny. She's on this." Lohen pointed to where the bunny stood, holding up a volleyball with her usual pink cheeks. ""My friend loves her."

Eula had never looked at anyone with such disgust. It was a low bar, considering she loved to glare at most.

"First off, Cinnamoroll is a guy—"

"—that's a male??"

Lohen stared at the box with dismay. What the fuck?

"And second, he's a dog."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Shut up and listen." Eula snapped. Lohen zipped his mouth as he savoured every word from the expert in front of him. "Just because he's on the front, doesn't mean it's actually Cinnamoroll."

Lohen's brow furrowed, and Eula sighed before snatching the box. She turned it to the side.

"See here? These are all the things you can get."

The side of the box was adorned with rows of other characters. All Lohen recognised was Hello Kitty, and the rest meant nothing to him.

"Why is Cinnamoroll on the front then?"

She sighed. "It's a blind box, Lohen. It's basically gambling. Cinnamoroll just happened to be the front cover."

Lohen stared at the box, as if betrayed by it. "That's fucking stupid. How these still in business then?" Why not just...buy the character you like? All Lohen gave a shit about was getting Cinnamoroll. If he wanted a gambling addiction he'd go to the casino, or start betting on horse races.

Eula shrugged, finishing up her cooldown stretch. "I dunno either." She shuffled over to where Amber was, talking to her friend as Lohen processed her explanation.

Right. So now he had to go back and buy you an actual Cinnamoroll.

Well done Lohen, well done.

"Alright. Your friend likes Cinnamoroll, right?"

Eula made the very kind offer to accompany him, insisting that Lohen needed the help, and she wanted to browse through the store anyways.

"Plushies are nice. I think the stationary's cute but they're probably not the most practical—" Eula strolled through the aisles, scanning through every product. "Lohen. I didn't mean buying everything I look at."

Lohen stared at the mountain of merchandise he was holding. "But why not?"

Eula scrunched her nose. "That costs like 300 dollars minimum."

He hasn't bought any new training gear, thanks to your stunt from the other day, and he hadn't touched his allowance for this month. Worst comes to worst, he'll use his savings that he's kept aside for when he can finally move out. "So?"

The woman sighed, before helping him carry a plushie. "Love really makes you do funny things, huh?"

"Stop that."

Lohen deadpanned and Eula flinched, surprised at the sudden change in tone. She muttered an apology before inspecting another display to avoid looking at him.

He scratched his nape 'til the flesh was red and throbbing. "Sorry—dunno why I got so defensive." Lohen cleared his throat. "We're not dating. I just want to do something nice..."

It felt pathetic enough that he had to eavesdrop on others' conversations to even gain an idea of what to get you, and how he was relying on another friend. Lohen thought he had to compensate for his shortcomings somehow.

Eula watched the younger boy softly. "I think you're doing great so far."

"I literally had to get your help."

"Eh. You cared enough to go out of your way. I'm surprised you even know Cinnamoroll."

Lohen scratched at his nape again. "Someone else mentioned her—I mean him. So I kinda just stole the idea."

Eula shrugged. "That's fine. You could've asked your friend too."

"That's lame, no?"

"I don't think so. It still means you care and you're willing to listen. It'd rather someone take the things I say seriously." Eula paused browsing the shelves, turning to Lohen with a soft look on her face. "It'll be okay. We'll figure it out together."

Denial danced at the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it down before nodding. He was grateful for her help before he was doubtful of his birthday gift to you.

"Now c'mon." Eula pried another plushie out of Lohen's arms. "You can't go that crazy. I promise I'll help you find something good."

Lohen gave up on protesting and followed her.

Your birthday came, fast.

Lohen avoided spending 300 dollars that night, and with the help of Eula, he managed to piece together what he thought, was a good gift.

Pick a plushie you think suits them. They like collecting them, don't they?

Don't worry about picking out a book if you don't know any, just get a giftcard. That way they can pick whatever they like.

I just spoke to one of the staff members. She said heated face masks are good for strained eyes, so you can throw those in too since they're studying to get into uni.

Write a card too—

Lohen had argued, insisting that he was terrible with words. I'm basically illiterate in front of them. I'll look stupid

Eula scoffed. I don't care.

He had opened his mouth to argue but Eula had cut him off. You said you wanted to pay me back, right? Write the damn card.

So, he did his best. He thanked you for being so understanding, and how cool it was to watch your dedicated to your goals. He thanked your kindness and consideration, and how warm your company was.

Lohen thanked you, for being you. With his messy, but honest handwriting, he put whatever came to mind on the card, throwing the pen across the room out of frustration and returned to his phone.

At 11:59pm, he glared at every passing second. The happy birthday message was typed out beforehand and his thumb hovered over the send button.

Should he send it a bit earlier? What if his wifi is slow? But it'd be embarrassing if he sent it too early by accident, and his desparation would be obvious—

The clock struck twelve, and he hit send, before tossing his phone on the bed. It vibrated in his sheets, Lohen pounced on it immediately.

Thanks Lohen !! how were you so fast? you're usually asleep at this time

Well, today wasn't exactly a 'usual' day, was it? You always went to sleep early, too.

i wanted to be the first to say it. ill see you at school tmr

Lohen stared at the roof before throwing his blanket over his impossibly hot face, as sleep brought him daylight.

At school, you were loved. As always.

Before he could say hi, Nilou had pounced on you, giggling about you were finally 18. Candace joined her, her gift joined the one you received from Nilou, hanging off your forearm.

Soon, your arms were filled with presents and you garnered birthday wishes from both students and teachers alike.

Lohen swore he'd give you his when breaktime came around, but you were swarmed by then too. A group of students surrounded you at one of the benches, singing happy birthday over a cake with candles that Lohen was sure weren't allowed on school campus.

He hesitated, deciding after school was a better time. He didn't know any of these people, and they didn't know him. It'd be awkward if he butted in now, while they were cheering in chorus.

But even when the school day ended, Lohen was embarrassed, and you were unapproachable for some particular reason. You were still surrounded by people, your other friends asked you for your plans tonight and insisted on you to throw a party whenever you could. With burning ears, Lohen really began to ponder if he was going to chicken out.

It didn't matter, since you were already walking towards him with a smile.

"I haven't seen you all day. I missed you."

Lohen tensed at the diction, before concealing it with his gift. "M–me too. I had to give you this." Lohen helped carry your other gifts as you headed somewhere quiet to open his present.

Hopefully, you'll pull out the plushie, and swoon about how adorable it was, before celebrating how it's new addition to your collection. Then, you'll notice the gift card and eye masks, and read the card at home, where he wouldn't have to watch you read it in front of him.

But your fingers brought it out first, gently tearing the envelope open before reading its contents.

Of every fight and training session he'd attended, Lohen's face had never felt so hot. With every moment he spent staring at your face his anxiety was only nourished, yet he couldn't stop watching your every movement, either.

You smiled, thankfully.

"This is so sweet! Thank you, Lohen." You peered into the bag, admiring the contents before putting the card back in. "You got me so much, too."

That statement sounded silly, when someone baked an entire cake for you and another friend brought you a plushie that your arm could barely wrap around.

"And I'm really happy to be your friend too." You said, picking your things up again. "I'm glad I had that group project with you."

Relief washed over Lohen. His muscles finally relaxed, and he no longer felt sick with anticipation. "Me too."

Lohen wiped his palms on his uniform before clearing his throat and hoisting your gifts. "I'll carry these to your place."

"Aren't you training today?"

"Training's cancelled." Lohen held your gifts out of your reach before heading for the school gate. "I need to kill time."

You hurried after him, having given up on declining his help. "You should stop by at my place for some food then."

"Sounds good to me."

Lohen did in fact have training that day. But you didn't need to know that.

It was tests like these that made Lohen grateful he wasn't trying to get accepted into university.

The scarlet 40 donning his test paper was a nauseating sight, even for him. Passing came easily for him normally, but the essay questions on this exam were verbose enough to throw him off, and he managed to stuff up multiple choice. He skimmed through it after training, before stuffing it into his pocket and skipping into the night. He should check on how you were feeling, too.

Speak of the devil, you were sipping on a cup of milk tea near the convenience store, seated on a bench. Lohen hurried over to you, akin to a puppy finding its owner.

"Hey. How'd you do on the test?" Knowing you, you definitely got an A at minimum, and probably top in the class, as well. But you didn't smile, your eyes were tired and you slouched. "Not good? You seem a bit upset."

You took a final sip before removing your drink and nodding a bit. "I got a 90."

"Why would you be upset about that, dumbass?" The general consensus was a fail, or barely passing. Lohen watched a group of honour roll students bicker about mark allocations and rankings, knowing damn well you were smarter than any of them. "You did great, what are you even on?"

Lohen scoffed, and he regretted it immediately when he heard you cry. He burst into apology, before panicking. "Shit—I was just being a dumbass, I'm sorry."

You hiccuped and continued crying, without sign of stopping anytime soon.

"Here—" He held your hand, savouring its warmth before closing it into a proper fist, making sure your thumb was positioned correctly. "—you hold a fist like this, then you can punch me as hard as you want. Beat me as much as you need. You can slap me if that's easier too—the back hand hits harder. I'm sorry—please don't be mad at me."

Lohen hurried into the convenience store for tissues, he clearly wasn't helping. He made sure to grab that one brand of melon ice cream you loved, and added those chewy candies you loved after seeing them displayed at the front.

You calmed down, eventually.

"Sorry..." You blew your nose, the tip turning dry and red. "I know you're right. It's really not bad..."

"Stop apologising, I was the one being a bitch." Lohen remembered to breathe, picking up your used tissues to throw out later.

"You weren't exactly wrong, though." You stared at your hands, one of your fingers donned a large callus, and ink stained were scattered across your palm. "It's just that nothing ever feels enough for me. All I thought about was how I could've gotten much better if I didn't make such a stupid mistake."

It was odd hearing you, out of all people saying something like that, when you've always been more than enough.

"Heck, even if I got an 100—" You sniffled. "—I'd see it as a fluke and think it means nothing since it was a one time thing."

"I guess..." You mumbled, bringing up your knees to rest your forearms and head on them. "I guess I'm just stressed about getting into uni. It's hard to feel good about anything when it's so important to me."

Lohen had no idea what to say nor do. Academics meant nothing to him, and he wasn't even allowed to pursue his career until he graduated. He clearly had no right to comment on your insecurity and worries, you were far more capable.

So he tore the ice cream open and handed it to you.

"To be honest, I'm really useless with this stuff." You took the ice cream, though reluctant, Lohen celebrated internally. "But I'll try my best. Food makes things better. I'll get you more if you want."

(What was he even saying?)

"For what it's worth, you're plenty capable. I can't change how you feel, but I still want to remind you." Lohen stared at an ant on the pavement. It followed its friends in an orderly line that his teachers from primary would've envied.

Lohen was sure he'd look even more stupid if he looks you in the eye while saying all of this. "I think it's good you're always determined to improve. I just hope you won't forget how amazing you are while you do."

His gaze ventured upwards slowly, finally looking at your face. Your eyes were puffy, but you nodded along to his words, ice cream coating your lips.

"I'm sorry again for making you cry." Lohen added. He'll shut up for real now.

You shook your head, licking at the ice cream. "It wasn't you. School just makes me moody sometimes."

"You can still beat me up if needed. I can take it, and it'll be good stress relief."

"No thank you."

He shrugged. "My offer's always open. But seriously." Lohen leaned back on his palms, thankful you stopped crying. "If I can do anything, just tell me. Please."

With wet, wide eyes you looked at him, wiping your mouth before nodding. "Then...can we just talk about something else? Just not school or exams."

"I saw a cat today." Lohen blurted. "It was really fucking chunky."

Lohen cringed at himself, but you laughed, almost choking on the ice cream. "Did you take a photo? I wanna see."

"Probably, hang on, lemme check..."

Together, you sat there, watching all of people of the night pass by while talking about whatever came to mind. Lohen prayed that you'd soon find something to comfort you, since he knew very well he couldn't.

Your first entrance examination was today.

Despite his urges to ask, Lohen never brought up school with you. He itched to check up on your study sessions and desperately wanted to cheer you on, but he pledged to himself to avoid stressing you out even more, and Lohen kept his promises.

The past month or two was torturous, not knowing anything about your preparations. As extreme as it may have seemed, Lohen had occasionally wished he was smart as well, so he could've been of some use to you.

At the crack of dawn, with the excuse of a morning jog, Lohen went to your house, carrying a makeup pouch his mum never used. While shifting his weight on both his feet, Lohen texted you to come out.

Soon, the front door creaked open, with you already in uniform. You gave him a small wave before he bounced up the steps.

"I know you're super busy and shit so I'll make this quick." Lohen held out the pouch to you. "I'm sorry I couldn't do anything to make you feel better for this moment, but I still wanted to do my best to help."

You blinked, fishing through the makeup pouch.

Inside, were random essentials Lohen thought would help. He found the eyedrops you used for your dry eyes at the local pharmacy, and packed those alongside a pack of gum (the ones he liked to share with you; he found them to be good stress relief, so hopefully you would too) and a few heatpacks, after your complaints about not being able to write as fast in the cold. Lohen put a tray of throat lozenges and painkillers, just in case an emergency happened. Although he didn't know what kind of pens you liked, he bought a few new ones as spares for you as well.

It's been a while to see one this bright, but you smiled. Uncontrollably, too. "This is amazing Lohen, thank you so much—"

"—good luck with your exams." Lohen cut you off, accidentally. "You've worked so hard, it's gonna pay off. And if uni doesn't take you then it's probably not worthy going at all."

(Lohen swore at himself for mentioning the possibility of that. He wanted it to sound funny, but now all he did was potentially make you think about not getting in.)

"I won't bother you anymore—"

"—at least let me finish." You zipped the pouch. "Stop saying you're of no help. You're everything." You looked down at the pouch with a tender smile. "You, and everything you've done for me are so precious, alright?"

His heart skipped a beat, and he almost forgot to nod.

"I'll be okay, I promise. I'll stop by your gym to say hi."

Unsure of what else to say, he wished you good luck again and bid you farewell, before ushering you back inside.

Towards the end of the day, Lohen saw you through the glass window.

He cut his current set of squats short, sprinting to the front to greet you. Lohen held a thumbs up and an intrigued expression reserved only for you, before you smiled back and returned the gesture.

"Knew it." Lohen grinned. "Told you."

You beamed. "Did I come at a bad time?"

Lohen shook his head. "Today's just a gym session. And you're always welcome here anyways." He grabbed his shirt and wiped his sweat off, awkwardly waiting for you to respond. "Everything alright?"

You blinked aggressively, gaze flitting. "Yeah, everything's fine."

The door behind him opened, and Mika came out with a sigh. "Why are you running off this time, Lo—oh. Hello."

You politely greeted Mika back, who turned to Lohen and whispered. "Your...?"

"—friend." Lohen snapped. "What were you saying, again?"

Mika glanced back into the gym, where Varka was coming. "Varka told me to come get you."

Great. The old man probably had a lecture in store for him.

But the scolding never came, for Varka immediately went for you instead.

"Ah. Lohen's friend?"

You nodded. "Sorry if I'm interrupting anything, sir."

"You're fine." Varka waved it off. "How can we help ya?"

Lohen interjected. "They're telling me about their exam. Shoo." He wants to spend time with you, not listening to his coach drone on and on.

Varka ignored him and continued talking to you. "For university?" When you nodded, Varka beamed, large chest swelling up with pride despite not knowing you. "Well, good job today, kid. If you ever get stressed come over and beat up Lohen. Buuuut, I can tell you're smart enough to get by fine."

You laughed at the joke, adjusting your bag. "I'll leave the fighting to you guys."

Before Lohen could slip back inside to grab his things and leave with you, Varka boomed, and his proposal to you made Lohen's blood run cold.

"You should come in. I've got photos of this one." A beefy forearm wrapped around Lohen, tugging him closer. "—when he was little and started out."

Embarrassment shot to his face, Lohen writhed and spat. "Too far."

But you accepted, eyes lighting up. "Yes please—"

Before Lohen could protest further, Varka opened the door for you, where the rest of the gym welcomed you with open arms and curiosity.

Training was much easier, knowing that you were done with exams. With every exam, each update you gave him gradually became more confident, and naturally, Lohen was happier.

I'm so happy I'll never have to do chemistry ever again

Thank god sir kept giving us math homework throughout the year...they threw so many curveballs at us lol. dunno why they made the papers harder for us but it's fine

I bent Shakespeare over ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ

No subject left you clueless, aside from a couple of strange questions, you reported back only good results to Lohen, beaming about it was far less intimidating than expected.

Now, you were on a road trip with your family to celebrate.

The day you're back, Lohen already cleared his schedule to have your own celebration together. He'll let you pick a place to eat, wherever you want and covered by him, obviously.

Only three more days, Lohen reminded himself, as he continued his stretches to wrap up today's session.

"How do you tell if you like someone?" Amber asked out of the blue, while stretching.

Varka cocked a brow and leaned closer. "Are you interested in someone? Who's the lucky guy?"

"You didn't answer the question, Varka." Amber deadpanned as she continued stretching. "And it's not a guy."

Varka stuttered before loudly clearing his throat. "Who's the lucky girl?"

"That's still not an answer." Amber huffed.

Kaeya intervened, as he passed with a box of gear. "Imagine them dating someone else."

Lohen scoffed, looking up from his stretch. "Does that actually work?"

The older man scoffed. "Obviously. If you feel indifferent then it means you're just friends. Plus if you're questioning it, then you probably like them already anyways."

Amber pulled a face as she took a moment to ponder. "Ew. Thanks Kaeya. That worked great."

Lohen and Kaeya watched Varka guess Amber's newfound crush. Lohen quickly went back to stretching, muttering about it being stupid.

"It's true." Kaeya insisted, refusing to let go of it.

Lohen rolled his eyes. "Shut up already."

He kept teasing. 'Imagine it with me and you'll see what I mean by indifferent."

"I can't even imagine you dating someone, Kaeya."

But he could imagine you.

You're intelligent. And pretty. And nice, and comfortable; the kind of person that listened without judgement and tread carefully around the emotions of others. Not to mention you were cute, and attractive. You had a nice smile and something about your face he couldn't name made him want to treasure you. Once you're accepted into university, you'll probably start dating, most likely someone from the same faculty—

Fuck. There's a pang of nausea and envy striking his gut.

For the sake of his sanity and your friendship, Lohen was going to pretend Kaeya's methodology had no validity.

“Uh, well.” Your hands curled around the gift box as you spoke. “It’s just, you…just gave me something yesterday. And the day before that too. So I was wondering…if something special is happening? Oh, but please don’t get me wrong. I’m not ungrateful!”

The way you shook your head and looked at him with clear concern in your eyes gave him goosebumps. Rubbing the back of his neck, Lohen turned his gaze to the wall. His face was warming up again, and even with the use of his cryo vision, he couldn’t fully contain it. He wracked his mind for an answer to your question, but found none.

He couldn’t just up and tell you that he liked you. What if you thought he was weird? If you shot him down, he’d probably want to die right then and there.

“I just,” he sputtered, “thought you might like it. You, uh…you like reading stuff, right? I was just out and about and I saw a book stand thing, so…”

“Oh, is that what’s in here?” You smiled from ear-to-ear, wrecking his nervous system. “Thank you, Lohen. You’re so sweet.”

He laughed awkwardly, feeling the pound of his heart against his rib cage. Words trickled out of his mouth like an uncontrollable stream.

“Pft, it’s not…I mean, it’s not really…not like it’s a big deal or anything. Calling a guy like me sweet is one hell of a decision.”

“A guy like you?” You raised an eyebrow, but your smile remained. “Is there something about you that makes you unworthy of being called sweet?”

“I mean,” he stammered, “I’m kind of. I kill things. A lot of things. And I like it.”

“So…you like your job. I like mine, too.”

“Huh.” Lohen’s tense shoulders fell slack, his eyes blinking. “You know, I never really thought about it that way.”

You giggled. He winced, feeling awfully embarrassed all over again.

“Well, I got you something too,” you said. “I wasn’t sure when to give it to you, but…I think now would be a good time.”

He blinked. “You…got me something?”

“Of course. I can’t just take all your gifts without giving you something in return.” You rummaged through your cedar-topped desk, eventually withdrawing a box wrapped in cute, mint-green paper. Turning to face him with a big smile, you said, “Here.”

To say he hadn’t been expecting this would be an understatement. The box wasn’t light or heavy, but rather something in between that shrouded it in mystery. It rattled when you passed it to him, and with a bewildered glance between you and the gift in his hands, he immediately said, “You didn’t have to give me anything back. It’s not like it’s my birthday or anything.”

“It’s not mine either,” you laughed. “But you keep bringing me gifts anyway. Just open it, won’t you?”

He supposed you had a point. When he ripped away the green paper, he was presented with a hand-crafted wooden box with a latch on it. Opening that latch revealed an assortment of items—fine cloths, maintenance oil, little nylon brushes, and a stone-forged blade sharpener.

His jaw dropped. “A knife maintenance set.”

“Mhm. You’re always spinning that dagger of yours around, so I thought it might be useful.”

“You’re so freakin’ observant,” he said breathlessly. “I wanna marry you.”

Silence fell between you both. Your eyes were wide, as were his, and as the tension between you grew hotter and hotter, Lohen whirled on his heel. Eyes wide and ears burning red hot, he stammered, “Woah, what was that? Must have been the wind! Anyway, I gotta get to work, so—!”

“Wait.”

Your hand curled into the end of his cape, stopping him in his tracks. When he turned back around, you were smiling with your head lowered towards the fabric between your fingers. As you played your thumb along the blue silk, you murmured, “That was really sweet of you to say.”

“Oh. Uh, well.” He cleared his throat. “Does that mean you, uh…you liked it?”

Your eyes rose to his, the smile on your face wringing his throat tighter than the choker around his neck. You stepped a touch closer, Lohen’s eyes blew wide, and with the most gentle of movements, you kissed his cheek.

Immediately, he felt as though he was consumed by a raging storm of pyro. Stammering, gasping a little, and feeling his arm tremble like the present in his hand weighed a thousand pounds, Lohen felt like death was on the horizon. But even if he did end up dying right in front of you, he wouldn’t have regretted it for a second, because sweet Barbatos—was that kiss of yours so worth it.

“It’s a little soon to get married,” you said with a giggle, bringing him back to reality. “But I wouldn’t mind going on a date with you, Vice Captain.”

“Holy shit,” he said, his eyes wide. “You mean it?”

You grinned with your teeth. When you nodded, his knees felt weak.

“I really like you,” he blurted. “You’re really pretty and you always smell like flowers.”

You dropped your gaze from his, giggling so infectiously, he couldn’t resist a smile. Wringing his cape in your hand, you said, “Thank you. I really like you too, Lohen. I know people think you're scary, but…you’re always so kind to me. I really appreciate that.”

You looked at him again, smiling so fondly that he wanted to know what it felt like against his skin. He opened his mouth, his gaze trained on your lips, but he couldn’t manage the words.

“You want a kiss?” you asked inquisitively.

“God,” he sighed, “I love how you can always read my mind, Bunny.”

“I wouldn’t say always,” you laughed. “It was just a hunch.”

You lifted your hand to his burning hot cheek. When your lips pressed to his, Lohen’s eyes squeezed shut, his hands grasping the knife maintenance kit between them like it was his last anchor to the mortal world. You pulled away as quickly as you came, and when Lohen’s eyes fluttered back open, you smiled.

“That felt really good,” he said, blinking rapidly. “The only girl I’ve ever kissed on the mouth is my mom.”

You laughed, and he immediately stiffened up. Smiling still, he closed eyes and said, “Yeah, I’m not very good at this.”

“It’s okay. The only man I’ve ever kissed on the mouth is you.”

Lohen’s heart skipped a beat. “…Really?”

“My family’s not very affectionate,” you explained. “I’m lucky if I can even get a hug.”

“I’ll give you a hug,” he said immediately. “I mean, I will if you want one.”

You lifted your fist to your smiling mouth. “You know what? I think that’d make a nice gift for next time, Vice Captain.”

“I can give you more than one gift on the same day,” he answered chipperly. “We don’t need any occasions or anything, right?”

“Right.” You giggled. “Well, then. When should I expect my next present?”

He dug his teeth into his lower lip, giggling cheekily. Sliding his gift onto your wooden desk, he crooned, “I’ll give it to you right now, Bunny.”

His arms looped around you, yours looped around him, and as your delighted laughter filled the library, Lohen knew that Celestia was a place on Teyvat.

a/n: well i wasn't gonna upload today, but i've got so many drabbles/oneshots already written that i figured why not xD you'll notice my posting schedule slow down a tad cause i'm gonna be getting busier, and i also have some big projects underway. anyway, if you liked what you read, please consider leaving a me a heart! (˶>⩊<˶) ♡ reblogs and comments appreciated! icymi! chai's last lohen post: debutant adventurer, lohen sfw (370 notes) masterlist

“and that’s funny to you?”

you saw a small smile tugged at the corner of lohen’s mouth, “a little, yeah.”

you didn’t mind lohen’s antics at first. if anything, some of his pranks you found genuinely funny. watching a feared fatui harbinger sneak fake reports onto another commander’s desk with a perfectly straight face was entertaining in its own absurd way.

but that opinion of yours began to waver when your teammates quietly pulled you aside, asking for a bit of your time.

seated in front of your teammates, it was mostly sandrone who were doing all the talking, though everyone wanted a thorough investigation and background check on lohen. and maybe knock some sense into him.

“aren’t you supposed to know everything?”

you eyes almost twitched at the way sandrone looked you up and down as if telling you ‘if you can’t do this, then why are you even here?’. you scanned their faces one by one, not giving them any reaction. you wanted to see if they were all on the same page.

a light laugh escaped your lips, “before i accept this.. demand of yours, may i ask what exactly you want me to do with him?”

there was one thing your teammates never seemed to understand. you didn’t answer to them. you never had.

your name wasn’t on their roster, nor were you bound by their command. you served the tsaritsa directly, and everyone in the fatui knew it. if an order didn’t come from the tsaritsa herself, you had every right to turn around and walk away.

so when they asked you to “handle” lohen, your first instinct was to laugh.

what a ridiculous request.

it wasn’t in your contract.

but it did sound interesting.

your pride quietly whispered that if anyone could get through to the troublesome harbinger, it was you.

you rested your chin against your hand, pretending to think it over while the agents waited for your answer.

finally, you sighed, “you all owe me one.”

a chorus of relieved exhalations filled the room. not because you worked for them, but because your ego refused to believe there was a challenge you couldn’t handle.

you kept watch of lohen for a few weeks. this time, you went into the archives to see if there’s anything—a hint or a clue—that would somehow lead you to finding out who exactly is he.

the archives were inaccessible to everyone but you and the tsaritsa.

hidden away from the rest of the palace and protected by layers of security, the chamber had remained sealed for years. no harbinger, no agent, no servant had ever set foot inside.

which meant only one thing—no one could have broken in. no one could have stolen the confidential files.

to your surprise, there was nothing. no file. no report. not even a single mention of lohen’s name.

you frowned. it didn’t make any sense.

you knew the tsaritsa was meticulous when it came to her harbingers. every one of them (including you) had a record—background investigations, psychological evaluations, combat assessments, even detailed notes on their appearance and habits.

she never accepted anyone into the fatui without knowing exactly who they were.

so why was lohen the only exception?

the empty space where his file should have been unsettled you far more than any classified document ever could.

you wondered if the tsaritsa knew something you didn’t. but the thought quickly unraveled.

if she truly knew nothing about lohen, she would’ve called for you. she’d done it before—whenever someone intrigued her enough to warrant a closer look, she’d have you uncover every buried secret they possessed.

this time, she hadn’t.

no orders. no investigation. nothing.

which left you with a far more unsettling possibility—the tsaritsa already knew exactly who lohen was.

the real question was how?

how exactly were you supposed to get the infamous troublemaker of the fatui to open up? you nearly laughed at yourself for even entertaining the idea, but it’s not like you really have a choice either.

this was lohen.

the same harbinger who answered serious questions with sarcasm and disappeared whenever conversations became too personal. he wasn’t the kind of man who simply woke up one day and decided to bare his soul.

he wouldn’t casually tell you who he was before he became a harbinger, what he’d lost, or how he’d managed to climb to one of the highest ranks in the fatui.

people didn’t earn that side of him—if it even existed anymore.

with a quiet sigh, you leaned back in your chair.

“this is going to be a lot harder than i thought.”

“what is?”

you jolted in your seat when you heard lohen’s voice as he opened the door to your room. you stared at him for a while, his motives unknown and his smile never faltered.

“what are you doing here?” you asked carefully and quietly. he was never one to visit you or anyone uninvited. unless it was to implement his pranks.. again.

he shrugged and casually made his way to the edge of your bed, making himself cozy as he sat down, looking at you.

“what? i can’t visit you anymore?”

“you don’t visit me, lohen.”

“that’s true,” he laughed at your frowning face. “but the tsaritsa figured we should hang out more.”

you shot him a look that said ‘what are you talking about?’ because you haven’t heard such news before and surely if what he’s saying is true, then the tsaritsa would’ve told you personally.

“the tsaritsa told me about a mission with you, sadly. i was expecting the robot girl or the moon one, but here we are!” he gestured his hands boredly like he was showing a magic trick.

you didn’t think what lohen was saying was true, until you heard it directly from her highness. she said you were supposed to be keeping watch of the situation in a ball held in fontaine.

the trip was awkward to say the least.

lohen wasn’t exactly making eye contact or casual conversations even though you were both seated in front of each other. it was as if you were both trying to ignore each other.

unluckily for the both of you, you have a task to get out of this mission with him—make him talk, vulnerable even. it was one of your greatest strengths—or so the tsaritsa had told you herself.

you were willing to swallow your pride if it meant getting answers.

embarrassing yourself, playing the fool, letting others underestimate you… none of it mattered as long as it brought you one step closer to the truth.

people were far more careless around someone they didn’t perceive as a threat. and if sacrificing your image meant uncovering valuable intel, then it was a price you had never hesitated to pay.

“i know i have a great side profile and all, but don’t you think you’re staring a bit hard?”

lohen had been absentmindedly watching the scenery pass beyond the window. then he turned his head. his eyes met yours.

only then did you realize you’d been staring the entire time, your thoughts having drifted so far into figuring out how to befriend him that you hadn’t noticed.

his brow lifted ever so slightly, a knowing smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“…see something you like?”

you scoffed at his teasing, “i wasn’t staring.”

“mmhm, no, i agree! you weren’t staring. you were admiring.”

your gaze lingered on his face, quietly studying every detail as though the answer might be written somewhere between the curve of his smile and the calm in his eyes.

what kind of person would make lohen lower his guard someone quiet? someone bold? someone who challenged him at every turn?

you had worn countless masks before, slipping into whatever role the mission demanded. it had always come naturally. but sitting in front of him… for the first time, none of them seemed to fit. still, you forced one on anyway.

anything to pry open the walls he’d built so carefully around himself. anything to find the man hiding behind the smile.

“just wondering why the tsaritsa paired me up with you of all people.”

the corners of lohen’s lips curled a little higher, amusement dancing in his eyes. “oh?” he hummed, tilting his head ever so slightly. “i didn’t know you had it in you to question the tsaritsa like that.”

he teased, his smile never wavering. “i thought you were her good little puppy.”

the words were light—playful, even—but the way he watched you suggested he was searching for your reaction just as much as you were searching for his.

your breath caught ever so slightly. it irritated you. not because of what he’d said—but because it was him who’d said it. you shrugged the feeling off as quickly as possible, before he could notice.

“and you’re not?”

his smile slowly wore off, breaking the eye contact to look at the view once again before whispering something he thought you wouldn’t hear.

“you have no idea.”

you didn’t know what he meant by what he said. his mood clearly changed from teasing to distant, but before you could ponder on it, the driver of the vehicle announced that you’d have to get on a ship in order to reach fontaine.

for all the trouble lohen caused around headquarters, one thing had always remained true.

though he was still being obviously distant, he was, surprisingly, a gentleman.

beneath his endless pranks, his sarcastic remarks, and the chaos that seemed to follow him wherever he went, there was an effortless kind of thoughtfulness that surfaced when no one expected it.

it was easy to mistake him for a menace.

it was much harder to ignore the kindness hidden underneath.

as you stepped toward the ship, lohen silently held out his hand. he didn’t look at you. instead, his gaze remained fixed somewhere off to the side, as though pretending the gesture wasn’t a big deal.

his hand stayed there nonetheless, unwavering, waiting for yours to find it.

you hesitated. with lohen, even the simplest gestures came with a hint of suspicion. you couldn’t tell whether this was another one of his pranks or if he was simply teasing you for his own amusement.

your eyes flickered from his outstretched hand to his face. after a moment’s pause, you slipped your hand into his.

his fingers closed around yours with an ease that made it seem as though he’d been expecting you to trust him all along.

his hand wrapped around your skin with a cold touch that sent a shiver crawling down your spine.

you hadn’t expected his hand to be so cold.

for a brief moment, neither of you spoke.

“…thank you,” you murmured, barely above a whisper.

lohen only gave a small nod, his grip steady as he helped you aboard. you expected him to let your hand go the moment your foot reached the final step of the stairs, but he held it with grace and security.

you watched him for a brief moment. he maintained a stoic expression, smiling at the passengers here and there as they acknowledged you two’s presence.

maybe he wasn’t so bad as they claimed him to be.

the thought slipped into your mind so naturally that it caught you off guard. you quickly pushed it aside and continued walking.

the ship carried a modest crowd of passengers, its decks alive with the quiet hum of conversation and the gentle crash of waves against the hull.

judging by the elegant gowns, finely tailored suits, and polished shoes that caught the afternoon light, it wasn’t difficult to guess where they were headed.

like you and lohen, they were all bound for the grand ball in fontaine. it was an annual tradition hosted by the hydro archon herself.

the air buzzed with excitement, strangers exchanging pleasantries while others admired the endless stretch of the sea ahead, blissfully unaware that two fatui harbingers stood quietly among them, hidden behind borrowed names and practiced smiles.

it wasn’t your first time setting foot in fontaine. in fact, over the years, you’d made some acquaintances when you were out to have dinner with arlecchino.

now that you’re back, you couldn’t help but be excited yourself. especially when the mission involves your forte and personal favorite—spying and blending in.

the mission itself was nothing out of the ordinary. you’ve done countless of spyings and blending ins, spent years disappearing into crowds, stealing secrets from beneath people’s noses, and leaving before anyone realized you’d ever been there. lohen had a similar reputation.

but working undercover wasn’t the difficult part, working together was. because since joining the fatui, you and lohen have never once been assigned a partner—the lonesome fatuis in the eyes of everyone.

you’d completed countless assignments, but never side by side. lohen was a complete mystery to you—one you were willing to solve.

“remember the plan?” he asked when you were both finally seated comfortably at the back of the ship.

“i’d rather talk about it at the hotel than risk being caught.”

“..hotel?” he clarifies, seemed to have forgotten that you’ll first be booking a hotel to change into appropriate clothing for the ball. because right now, both of you are looking like a couple of aristocrats with the fur coats and everything.

“yeah we’re not wearing these at the ball.” there was nothing wrong with fur coats per se, but you didn’t want to stand out as well. right now, even as you were seated, you can feel eyes staring and looking your way. it’s too risky when all their attention is on the both of you. not to mention you were both unfamiliar faces to the citizens on board.

lohen didn’t seemed to mind your plan of changing outfits and just shrugged as he rested his head on his seat. he chuckled a bit, making you look at him.

“soo.. what should we talk about then?”

“didn’t know you liked talking so much.”

“i don’t.” he replied way too fast than he would’ve liked, but the smile on his face never left as he looked at you.

you rolled your eyes at him and laughed lightly. “we can talk when we get there.”

“c’mon.” lohen flashed you that infuriatingly easy smile. “don’t you wanna know more about me?”

the words struck you harder than they should have.

wasn’t that the whole point?

you were supposed to be doing everything—anything—to learn more about the man sitting beside you. that was your job. your specialty.

yet somehow, you kept stalling.

every possible opportunity slipped through your fingers, not because you couldn’t take it, but because, for reasons you couldn’t understand, asking lohen questions no longer felt like gathering intel. it felt personal.

which was crazy to think about because you haven’t really had much time with him yet. scared of this newfound dilemma, you decided to give in and ask him a few things.

“what did you mean when you said ‘you have no idea’?”

“i’d prefer you don’t know.”

“let’s stop talking.”

he laughed at your sudden defeat when he didn’t want to answer. lohen figured it wasn’t the time to tell you. at the end of day, you were still a fatui harbinger—loyal to the tsaritsa.

you were greeted by lovely people working at the hotel debord. everyone was welcoming, maybe a tad bit more than required, but nonetheless sweet.

“enjoy your stay, lovely couple! ring us up if you need us!”

you didn’t really have time to reject the receptionist’s thought about the two of you being a couple. you said your gratitude and turned to where the elevator was.

lohen followed a step behind as you unlocked the door to your room.

the moment it swung open, you froze.

a bottle of champagne rested in a silver bucket filled with ice. rose petals were scattered neatly across the bed, and the curtains had been drawn, leaving the room bathed in the warm glow of lamplight.

you slowly blinked. then mentally buried your face in your hands.

…so this was how hotel debord welcomed couples.

behind you, lohen remained suspiciously quiet.

you didn’t have to look to know there was a grin spreading across his face.

“this,” he finally said, his voice laced with amusement, “is going to make the mission a lot more interesting.”

you let out a long, defeated sigh. you were going to have a word with whoever handled the reservations.

“mind telling me the plan now?”

“we’ll pretend to be business partners.”

“business partners seems a little suspicious. we’ll have to mingle with people, what’re we gonna tell them about our business?”

“you have a better idea?”

“let’s pretend to be a couple.”

your head quickly turned to him as you were doing your hair in the dresser. you found him putting on a suit that accentuated his features and body. only to find him looking at you.

“why a couple?”

“well, if the word goes around, we’re known as business partners, and hotel debord finds out.. who books a single room—with flower petals on the bed, might i add—with their business partner? they’ll think we’re hiding something.”

and so it begins.

the grand ballroom of the palais mermonia glittered beneath towering crystal chandeliers, every polished floor reflecting the swirl of gowns and tailored suits. laughter drifted through the room alongside the soft melody of a string quartet.

lohen’s hand rested comfortably against the small of your back as the two of you weaved through fontaine’s nobility, smiling as though you belonged there.

“you make a lovely couple.”

the woman who approached you spoke with a warm smile, champagne glass poised delicately between her fingers.

you returned the smile without hesitation.

“thank you.”

“so,” a man chimed in, clearly intrigued, “how did the two of you meet?”

before you could fabricate an answer, lohen beat you to it.

“i annoyed them.”

you looked at him.

“…that’s the best you can do?”

“it worked, didn’t it?” he replied with an innocent shrug.

the guests laughed.

you rolled your eyes before looping your arm through his.

“it took him months to convince me to go out with him.”

lohen placed a hand dramatically over his heart.

“you kissed me the first date though.”

“that’s not what they’re asking.”

laughter emerged from them at your bickering.

to anyone watching, the two of you looked impossibly natural—playful glances, effortless smiles, the occasional brush of hands.

exactly what the mission required.

when another conversation began pulling lohen’s attention away, you took your chance.

“excuse me,” you said sweetly. “i’ll be back in a moment.”

no one questioned you. least of all lohen.

he merely gave the smallest nod—the silent confirmation that everything was proceeding according to plan.

instead of turning toward the ladies’ room, you slipped into a quiet corridor, your footsteps muffled by thick carpets until the music became little more than a distant echo.

the office door yielded with little resistance.

inside, moonlight spilled through tall windows onto towering bookshelves overflowing with reports, correspondence, and legal records. a massive oak desk dominated the room, every drawer meticulously organized.

you shut the door behind you.

then began searching.

your fingers moved quickly, opening folders, scanning names, memorizing anything related to fontaine’s archon.

nothing.

nothing.

still nothing.

you reached for another stack. a single folder slid loose from the pile.

your breath caught.

[ LOHEN ]

then name stared back at you in bold black ink.

for a moment, the room seemed to fall silent.

impossible.

back in zapolyarny palace, the harbingers’ archives had contained nothing about him. not a report. not a single page. you had searched twice just to make sure.

yet here—in fontaine, someone had an entire dossier.

your heartbeat thundered in your ears as you carefully opened the file.

the first page was clinical.

recommendation: subject should not be assigned long-term interpersonal attachments due to elevated risk factors.

you frowned.

the following reports contradicted nearly everything whispered about harbinger lohen.

mission after mission described deviations from direct orders.

during operations, the subject repeatedly prioritized civilian safety over mission efficiency.

the subject was observed providing food and medical supplies to targeted settlements after fatui withdrawal.

witnesses reported the subject escorting children and elderly civilians away from combat zones before engaging hostile forces.

one report detailed an entire village that should have been left to starve under economic sanctions. instead.. someone had anonymously delivered crates of food, blankets, and medicine.

the handwriting beneath the report was sharp.

confirmed responsible party: lohen.

another page.

then another.

the pattern repeated.

every time bloodshed could be avoided? he avoided it.

every time innocent lives could be spared? he spared them.

your grip on the folder tightened. this wasn’t the monster the fatui described. it wasn’t even close!

then your eyes landed on another document.

disciplinary action

presiding officer: il dottore.

subject found guilty of repeated insubordination due to unauthorized humanitarian intervention during classified operations.

corrective measures authorized.

the report didn’t describe the punishment. it didn’t need to.

the photographs attached beneath it did.

dark bruises.

blood staining the back of a torn shirt.

medical records documenting fractures that had somehow healed long ago.

you stared at the pages, unable to look away.

lohen had never spoken about any of this.

never complained. never asked for sympathy.

he smiled. he laughed. he pulled harmless pranks around headquarters as though he’d never suffered a day in his life.

the folder suddenly felt far heavier than paper ever should.

you couldn’t look at another page. you’ve seen more than enough. you knew what you wanted to know.

your fingers lingered on the edge of the folder for only a moment before you quietly closed it, your reflection briefly staring back at you from the polished desk.

the room suddenly felt suffocating.

every report. every photograph. every line written in cold, clinical handwriting.

you carefully slid the dossier back onto the shelf exactly where you had found it, making sure nothing looked disturbed.

the ballroom hadn’t changed. music still drifted beneath glittering chandeliers.

guests laughed as they danced across the marble floor, oblivious to the weight now pressing against your chest.

you eyes instinctively searched the crowd. lohen. where was he? your heartbeat quickened. where did he go?

you made another lap around the ballroom, trying not to look frantic. nothing.

“…excuse me.”

“…pardon.”

your pace quickened. for the first time since the mission began, panic seeped into your carefully maintained composure.

then—a gentle hand wrapped around your elbow.

you froze.

“there you are.”

his voice. you slowly turned.

lohen stood beside you, dressed as impeccably as before, one hand still lightly holding your arm to keep you from wandering farther into the crowd.

his expression softened. “were you looking for me?”

you simply stared.

he tilted his head ever so slightly. his eyes searched yours, waiting.

well? mission accomplished? did you find something?

the code words sat on the tip of his tongue.

“i want to go home.”

his smile faded. “already?”

you nodded once. “i want to go home.”

he could tell something was wrong.

your eyes refused to meet his. your breathing was shallow. you looked… shaken.

“did something happen?” he asked quietly.

you shook your head. “no.”

“liar.”

the word wasn’t accusing, it was concerned.

he stepped a little closer, lowering his voice so only you could hear.

“did you find the hydro archon’s records?”

your chest tightened. the photographs flashed through your mind.

bruises. bandages. medical reports. corrective measures authorized.

you flinched and lohen caught it.

“…hey.”

without another word, you turned on your heel.

the ballroom suddenly felt too bright. too loud.

you pushed past elegantly dressed guests, ignored the puzzled greetings directed your way, and hurried through the palace doors into the cool night.

the air hit your face, but it did nothing to clear your thoughts.

behind you were footsteps—quick, steady. he wasn’t chasing you. he was following.

“lohen..” you whispered to yourself, almost as though saying his name might somehow steady your racing heart.

it didn’t.

the footsteps grew closer. then stopped.

a hand gently caught yours before you could walk any farther.

you turned beneath the pale moonlight.

his grip wasn’t forceful, it never was. he searched your face in silence, his brows knit together in quiet concern.

“what happened in there?”

you looked at him.

at the man who smiled too easily, who laughed too loudly.

the man everyone insisted was heartless. the man whose file told an entirely different story.

your vision blurred.

“why didn’t you tell me?” the question escaped before you could stop it.

lohen blinked. “tell you what?”

silence. the realization struck him almost instantly.

his expression changed. not into fear. not into anger. but resignation. as though he already knew exactly what you had found.

lohen didn’t answer. at least not immediately.

the moon hung low above fontaine, its pale light spilling across the empty streets between the palais mermonia and hotel debord. the distant music from the ball barely reached the two of you now, replaced by the gentle rush of the sea against the harbor, and the sudden droplets of rain touching your skin.

he simply looked at you, studied you. “you found something.”

it wasn’t a question.

you swallowed.

“i…” the words refused to come.

how were you supposed to ask him?

why did dottore torture you?

why were there reports of you helping civilians?

why did the archives have nothing on you?

none of them felt right.

none of them were your questions to ask.

“you found something,” lohen repeated, softer this time. “guessing it wasn’t the hydro archon’s?”

you lowered your gaze. “no.”

silence settled between you. lohen let out a slow breath, rubbing the back of his neck before looking toward the water instead of at you.

“i knew this mission would be troublesome.”

you frowned. “what does that mean?”

he smiled, not his usual mischievous grin. a tired one.

“it means fontaine keeps records it shouldn’t.”

the answer only frustrated you more.

“you always do that.”

“hm?”

“you answer without answering.”

his smile faltered. for the first time since you’d met him, lohen looked uncertain. as though he genuinely didn’t know what to say.

“i’ve spent weeks trying to figure you out,” you admitted, your voice quieter than intended. “i searched the archives back home.”

that made his head turn. “the archives?”

“there was nothing.”

he stared.

“not a single report. not even your name.”

his expression became unreadable.

“but tonight…” you hesitated, your heartbeat quickening. “there was an entire dossier.”

lohen closed his eyes. “i see.”

“you knew?”

“i had a feeling.”

“you knew there were files about you?”

“no.” he shook his head. “i knew someone would eventually find out.”

“that’s all you have to say?”

“are you happy?”

the answer irritated you.

“what?”

“are you happy?” he repeated. “isn’t that what you wanted? to find out more?”

you took a step closer.

“i saw what dottore did to you.”

his shoulders stiffened.

“i saw the reports.”

he didn’t move.

“i saw the photographs.”

your hand found the collar of his shirt before you could think twice and gently tugged him toward you.

lohen stumbled half a step, his mesmerizing eyes finally meeting yours. the distance between you disappeared in an instant.

your faces were only inches apart now, close enough to feel the warmth of each other’s breath.

“you think i like that shit?”

it made your chest ache. no matter how cold everyone believed you to be, what they had done to him was—and would never be—right.

you had failed to see it. or perhaps you had simply chosen not to.

for someone entrusted with uncovering the truth, you had been blinded by the very light the tsaritsa cast upon the fatui, accepting everything at face value without ever questioning what lay beneath.

it made you feel foolish.

you prided yourself on knowing what others didn’t, on seeing through lies and half-truths.

yet when it came to lohen… you hadn’t even thought to look.

you should’ve asked more, looked closer, questioned everything. instead, you believed the version of him everyone else had written.

“everyone said you enjoyed killing people.”

your voice cracked.

“i never said that.”

“you never corrected them either.”

lohen laughed. it was humorless. “when would i have had the chance?”

“you could’ve told me.” you replied, though you wish you hadn’t said it.

“i barely knew you.” he stared right at you. “if i’d told you the first time we met…” he continued, “…would you have believed me?”

you opened your mouth, but nothing came out. because you knew he was right. you would’ve assumed it was another one of his jokes.

your fingers slowly loosened around the collar of his shirt before letting go.

“you’ve spent your whole life gathering information,” lohen said. “so tell me… when was the last time a file told the whole truth about someone?”

the question lingered. you thought about every dossier you’d ever read. every target. every report. every carefully summarized life reduced to a few sheets of paper.

none of them had ever captured a person completely.

“i-i don’t know,” you whispered.

he nodded. “exactly.”

the silence that followed felt strangely gentle. for the first time that night, neither of you spoke. neither of you needed to.

you looked at the man standing before you—not as harbinger lohen, not as the troublemaker who drove headquarters insane, not as the name printed across a confidential dossier.

just him—lohen.

the one who held doors open for strangers. the one who quietly offered you his hand when boarding a ship. the one who smiled through pain no one else seemed to notice.

“does it still hurt?” the question slipped out before you could stop it.

lohen blinked. “what?”

“the.. uhh- punishment.”

his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. then he looked away.

“not anymore.”

you knew he was lying. you knew there were wounds that never truly healed.

you stepped closer until only a small space remained between the two of you. and without thinking, you reached for his hand.

he looked down as your fingers intertwined with his. his hand was still cold. just as it had been when he helped you onto the ship.

this time, you were the one holding on. lohen’s thumb brushed absentmindedly across your knuckles.

“you shouldn’t have seen it,” he murmured.

“would you do it again? even after knowing what would happen afterward?”

a faint smile tugged at his lips. “yeah..”

“i didn’t want you to find it.”

“why?”

“because i liked the way you looked at me before.”

“i’m not looking at you any differently,” you whispered.

“you should.”

“why?”

“you could be in trouble.”

“i already knew that.”

silence stretched between you. lohen searched your face, almost as if he were waiting for the disappointment to appear. it didn’t.

“you don’t have to pretend with me anymore.”

his eyes softened. “that’s exactly what i’m afraid of.”

﹫ ꒰ 16lohens ꒱ 𖣂 masterlist.

a/n: HELLOWW EVERYONE! sorry for not posting as much lately! yk the drill 😭 uni tingzZz! here’s a long lohen fic i spent a whole month writing LMAO thank you ! i hope you liked it!

From his perch against the southern bookcases, Lohen watched you with his arms crossed over his chest. In his right hand, he held his favorite blade, twirling it around his finger until the hilt pressed into his palm, then twirling it around again. The soft sound of his knife hitting the fabric of his glove was quick to fill the space around him, which had returned to near silence yet again after Theodore’s departure.

You walked past him with a stack of books in your hands, giving him a glance. “Can you put that away, please?”

He sighed through his nose. Slotting his dagger back into its sheath, he pouted dejectedly at your back. You didn’t pay him a shred of attention, instead focusing on your duties of restocking the bookshelves and rearranging any misplaced codices.

Lohen sighed aloud. When you still didn’t turn around, he sighed yet again. Sighing so hard and so repetitively that he was nearly going dizzy from it, you eventually turned around with a smile that didn’t match the glare in your eyes.

“What is it, Lohen?”

Lohen. It was always ‘Lohen’ with you. But with Theodore, it was ‘Theo’.

“Nothing,” he said, his shoulders rising in a shrug. “Nothing at all.”

You stared at him for a moment, then eventually frowned. Your voice was gentle. “You look upset.”

“Upset? I’m not upset.” Lohen shrugged again, glaring down at the wood floor. “What would make you think I’m upset?”

Your hands directed his face to yours. He ignored the flush of warmth that it sent through his cheeks, and tried further to ignore the sudden thrill in his chest. When you smiled, he swallowed his nerves.

“What’s wrong?” you asked softly.

“N-nothing,” he answered, his hands rising to your wrists. “It’s nothing, really. I’m fine.”

“If you were fine you would have been using your cryo-infused hand to scare me when my back was turned,” you laughed. Softening your voice, you said, “Please, just talk to me. I don’t want you to be upset, Lohen.”

The way your thumbs brushed over his cheeks felt all too tender. Smiling rather awkwardly, he squeezed your wrists between his fingers.

“We started at ‘Vice Captain’,” he said, “and then we got to ‘Lohen’. But we never got much farther past that.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Theodore. Theodore is ‘Theo’. But me? I’m ‘Lohen’.”

“Well, that’s your—...oh,” you said inquisitively, your eyes widening. “I see what you mean. You want me to give you a nickname?”

“It doesn’t…have to be a nickname,” he babbled, feeling oddly out of his element as he did. “I mean, I call you Bun and Princess. But you only ever call me ‘Lohen’, even though I know you call other people shorter names and stuff.”

“I’ll call you whatever you want me to, Lohen. How does handsome sound?”

Your arms looped around his neck, and as you smiled with those half-lidded eyes of yours, Lohen’s nervous laughter burst from his lips. Staring at you with wide eyes and a face so hot, he was convinced his vision had flipped to pyro, he quickly said, “That’s a lot more embarrassing than I thought it would be.”

“Hm?” You tilted your head, staring down at his mouth as you grinned. “What, you don’t like that, sweetheart?”

“Fuck,” Lohen stammered, his eyes shifting around the library. “Bun, quit.”

“But honey,” you purred, the heat of your breath tickling his upper lip. “You’re the one who wanted me to call you something different. You mean you don’t like it?”

“I’m gonna kill you,” he answered, his grin hurting his face. “Stop it.”

“Oh, but, baby. You look like you like it.”

“Let’s just…let’s just go back to Lohen.”

You laughed, and with a chaste press of your mouth to his, he laughed back. He glanced around once more, ensuring the library was as empty as ever before throwing his arms around your hips. Backing you into the bookshelf, his grinning lips pressed against yours before he gave you a playful little nibble.

“I’m working,” you laughed.

“Take a five minute break,” he crooned.

“Vice Captain,” you murmured. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”

“Oh, yeah? That so, Library Girl?”

The way you giggled tickled his ears. He pressed his lips to your cheek, peppering kisses against the corner of your mouth as you laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Lohen,” you said, ever so dearly. “You know I just like the sound of your name, right?”

He cracked a smile.

“You know, whenever you say it, Bun…I like the sound of it too.”

The nurse’s fingers clacked into the keyboard as she asked, “Do we know what caused the dislocation?”

“Heh,” Lohen said with a grin on his face that was much too cocky for the situation. “My girlfriend—.”

“—he was out in the yard, working!” you exclaimed over him. “I think he tripped! Yep!”

Lohen’s eyes languidly rolled over to yours. The smirk on his face made your cheeks burn ten times hotter, your pulse pounding in your ears. For a guy who should have been experiencing some of the worst pain of his life, he sure looked smug about the whole thing. That certainly didn’t make it any easier for you to talk to the emergency room staff.

“Okay, we’ll get him into an exam room while we wait for the doctor,” the nurse said. “I’m assuming he needs a wheelchair?”

“Nah, I’ll just cling to her,” Lohen replied, waving his hand. “It’s her fault anyway—.”

“We’ll take the wheelchair.” You grinned from ear-to-ear, elbowing him in the stomach. “Won’t we, Lohen?”

He snorted. “Fine.”

“What are you doing?” you asked, your eyes narrowed.

“Taking a pic to commemorate this,” Lohen answered, phone in hand. “It’s not every day you end up sending me to the ER, Bun.”

Your hands curled into fists on your legs. Feeling awkward, and extremely responsible for the situation at hand, you muttered, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize I was…that it was that rough.”

“You should tell the doc that, when she comes around,” Lohen chirped. “I’m sure she’ll understand. Besides, isn’t honesty, like, a super huge policy in these medical type places? Judgment free zones and all that?”

“We are not telling the doctor that,” you argued. “If you do, I will die. Do you hear me, Lohen? I’ll die.”

“You’re so dramatic,” he answered with a laugh. “I’m sure they’ve heard way worse than a guy whose hip dislocated ‘cause his girlfriend rode his thigh too hard.”

The memory of it hit you like a freight truck. The way you had rocked your hips back and forth over the smooth, hairy surface of Lohen’s thigh; how he had kissed his way up your neck with those hot lips of his; and how you had tilted your head back, moaning shamelessly as you rocked and rocked and rocked; and then—.

Pop!

…And the unfortunate curse that Lohen had blurted because of it.

“Honestly, it felt kinda good,” Lohen said, grinning from ear-to-ear. “I’m sure we coulda popped it back in at home, too, but you’re just a scaredy cat, aren’t ya?”

“I already dislocated your femur,” you groaned into your hands. “I didn’t want to fuck it up by trying to put it back.”

“Oh, you worry too much. I totally trust you, Bun!”

“I have zero experience with this! Zero!” you sputtered. “It’s easier—and safer—to leave it to the professionals!”

“Pft.” Lohen hid his giggle behind his hand. “Okay, Bun. Whatever you say.”

You sighed. Relaxing back into the rigid plastic chair, you anxiously turned to the door. As long as Lohen kept his mouth shut, you would both get through the evening just fine. No one needed to know what truly brought him there, and they certainly didn’t need to know that you had any part in it.

Yet when the doctor came in, her white coat grabbing your nerves by the throat, your words were spewing the truth before you even realized it. She wasn’t even halfway through introducing herself when you interrupted her.

“I’m so sorry,” you said quickly, your words leaving your lips in a flurry. “This is my fault. We were getting intimate, and I wasn’t paying attention, and then I was gonna cum, so I closed my eyes because it felt really good, and then I—.”

“Woah, TMI, Bun!” Lohen exclaimed, his eyes wide. He was much more concise when he said, “She rode my thigh and my hip popped out of place.”

“Ah,” the doctor said, adjusting her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I see. Well, you certainly aren’t the first patient I’ve had this happen to. How’s the pain?”

You blinked, your jaw hung low. The absolute lack of judgment in the other woman’s voice had you stunned into silence. Lohen gave you a knowing smile before answering, “Not bad at all, really. Maybe a seven out of ten?”

“...A seven out of ten is quite severe. Would you like pain medicine?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Well…alright.” The doctor glanced your way. “You’re his girlfriend, I’m assuming?”

Your ears burned. “Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you. We should probably be able to relocate it without anesthesia, if your boyfriend can tolerate it. If we’re having issues, we’ll have to consult our orthopedic surgeons. It shouldn’t take all that long.”

That was it? No admonishment for your mistake? Not even so much as a giggle?

“Sounds great, doc,” Lohen chirped.

“Since your pain’s well controlled, I’ll just order some anti-anxiety medications in case you need them. If either of you need anything else, please give your nurse a call.”

With that, the doctor was gone. It was just you and Lohen again, sitting in silence.

That silence quickly filled with his bubbling laughter.

“Shut up!” you whined. “God, I’m so fucking embarrassed!”

“Hey, you…! You’re the one who went and said all that!” he laughed, his eyes budding with tears as his chortles interrupted his own sentences. “So fucking funny, I…! I can’t!”

He leaned his head back, laughing so hard, you were sure everyone in the hall could hear it. With a groan, you held your head in your hands.

“Aw, don’t worry about it, Bun,” he said, wiping a tear away with his index finger. “As soon as they pop my hip back in, we can go home so you can dislocate it again!”

You let out a pained wail.

“Lohen, I’m gonna kill you!”

“Do you think we should bring him the domestic violence form?” one of the nurses whispered to the other.

“Ha!” the older man answered. “That’s how I know you’re single, kid. Trust me—that’s a healthy relationship if I’ve ever seen one.”

“But, sir…you’re divorced.”

“Pft! If my wife dislocated my hip during sex, I probably wouldn’t be!”

As the older man’s laughter filled the nurse’s station, the others rolled their eyes.