#cute cute

You lean on the counter to watch it. The petals are drooping, but it still smells fine. A sweet aroma curls itself around the kitchen, all from one flower. It’s a constant reminder of Lohen. The universe is probably laughing at you.

It’s hard to get him off your mind on a regular day. He is a constant fixture in the background lately, lurking just out of sight but his presence clearly felt as he nestles into your brain stem. If someone told you he had poisoned you, you would probably believe it.

You have to force yourself to pull away. Your shift starts soon and you don’t want to sit through a lecture about punctuality. You aren’t sure if the way your stomach twists is with dread or excitement at the idea of Lohen stopping by the shop as he so often does.

For your mental health, hopefully he stays away. There’s no conviction in the thought. You try and will your mind to go blank while you tug on your shoes and grab your keys.

You think ahead for the day as you walk out the door. You will not think about Lohen. For lunch you will walk across the square to Good Hunter. After work, you will buy some mushrooms and then you will do some reading before making dinner. Yes, this is a good plan, you think.

A warm breeze greets you outside. The city has begun to wake up, the usual crowd stepping out into the streets. The area around the fountain is empty this early in the day. You have a few minutes, so you slow to a stop in front of the bubbling water.

Mora lays strewn across the bottom of the fountain. Some of the coins are turning green from age. The fountain is cleaned out periodically, you know that, though you can’t help but wonder how thorough the cleaning is.

You can’t believe you’re doing this. Your hand slides into your pocket, locating the spare change you know is in there. You really need to put it away properly, but you can’t quite be bothered.

The mora coin is warm in your palm. You scrutinize it for a moment, tracing the pattern emblazoned on the front with your thumb. This is silly. You squeeze the coin in your hand, debating dropping it back in your pocket and continuing on to work.

You don’t even like him, despite what the butterflies in your stomach would like to claim. You toss the coin into the fountain and close your eyes. It’s hard to word what you’re wishing for. It’s all tangled up in your chest.

I want Lohen is what it boils down to. You hear the blip of water as the coin lands and sinks to the bottom to join the rest of the mora there. Maybe the anemo archon will do a better job at figuring out what you’re trying for.

You open your eyes slowly. The wind is still gentle, tangling in your hair and sliding over your skin. If you had the time, you would just stand here for a while. The weather is nice, the fountain sounds pretty, and the morning is always calm.

“What are we wishing for, hm?” A voice far too close for comfort says by your ear. You startle with a sharp inhale, spinning around.

It brings you face to face with the worst man in the world. Your chest does something funny. Barbatos thinks he’s so fucking funny.

Lohen smiles at you with an amused tilt of his head. It feels like he’s seen straight through you. You scowl on instinct. You hadn’t heard him approaching. To be fair, you never do. Whether he’s intentionally silent to scare people or if it comes naturally to him is a mystery.

You decide to not entertain his line of questioning. He disappears for days after pulling his flower thing and shows up like nothing is wrong. You wonder, not for the first time, if he’s pulling on you because he’s bored.

“Move. I’m going to work.”

Lohen’s smile doesn’t waver at the sharpness of your voice. No, his eyes narrow in delight. Your stomach twists again. He’s leaning ever so slightly into your space. He needs to die for making you feel like this.

“Let me escort you, can’t have one of our citizens get into trouble,” he says. His voice dips as he teases. He’s too close.

You click your tongue and move to step around him. “It’s literally one minute away. Less than.”

Lohen matches your movement, blocking your path. No matter how curt you are with him, nothing deters him. It has to be some sort of psychological defect, you know he can read social cues perfectly fine. That’s part of what makes this so frustrating. You don’t want to like him, and he makes himself hard to get rid of.

“But imagine what could happen in those 60 seconds!” Lohen continues on. “Someone like me could jump out of one of those alleys and get you.”

“It’s 8 in the morning. I’m fine.” You don’t refute the notion that someone like him is dangerous and weird. Lohen may be a model knight, but his ruthlessness is what makes him reliable.

“All the better to catch you while you’re unsuspecting,” his smile grows. Your frown deepens. He’s too happy about the prospect of someone pulling something on you. That someone most likely being him. Terrible.

“Come on,” Lohen leans closer. “My job is protecting the people, you don’t want me to get demoted, do you?”

“I hope you get kicked out of the knights,” you respond flatly, leaning away from him.

“Ha. Ouch. You know, I don’t think anyone else talks to me like this,” he hums. You aren’t sure what to make of that, so you pick the safe choice of being harsh.

“No one else can see what a pain you are. Now, move.”

Lohen laughs again. The sound settles low in your stomach. He finally steps aside with a flourish of his hand. “After you.”

Your eyes narrow. “You aren’t coming.”

“Correct, I’m escorting you,” he grins.

“Don’t you have a job to do?”

“Ah-ah, this is my job,” Lohen says. “Speaking of, aren’t you running late?”

Oh no. Your heart drops. You got caught up with him and now you can see Marjorie coming from further up the street. You’re supposed to be there before she is.

“Your fault,” you mutter and slip past him. Lohen falls into step beside you, his smile still stuck in place. The quick walk is quiet, and as you had told him, less than a minute.

Lohen stops outside the shop, smile smoothing out a bit. “I’ll see you after your shift.”

Your fingers pause from where they were on the key ring. You look at him over your shoulder, giving him your best unimpressed stare. A mix of wariness and excitement pounds under your skin. “Is that so?”

“Yep,” Lohen smiles again. “Enjoy your shift.”

You don’t respond to him this time, shoving the right key in the lock and pushing it open. The door shuts heavily behind you. Lohen doesn’t leave, because that would be too easy. You watch through the window as Marjorie approaches the shop and Lohen steps forward to greet her with a much friendlier smile than what he gives you.

He catches your gaze and flashes a lazy grin before going back to his conversation with Marjorie. You frown and turn your back on him. It’s not easier to pretend he doesn’t exist when you’re not looking at him.

You walk away and further into the shop until you get to the back room. You nudge it open with your shoulder and step inside. You’ll say you were just taking stock if Marjorie asks what you’re doing back here. For now, you press your hands to your chest now that you’re alone.

Your heart pounds. It’s a giddy rhythm inside your ribcage. It makes you want to laugh. Or cry. Butterfly wings get caught somewhere between your lungs and your stomach. You think you’re going to be sick.

⸻❈⸻

The rest of your shift is marred by Lohen’s parting promise and the nausea threatening to overtake you. You would be a liar if you tried to call it disgust.

Marjorie catches on that something is wrong, but you brush off her probing with a smile. You’ll be fine, just a little blip. Unfortunately, the blip is that your heart and mind are at odds.

You get lunch at Good Hunter like you had planned this morning. Mondstadt is busy by then, people milling about and running their errands amidst playing children and the occasional wandering bard who’s amassed a crow.

The store gets busy too. It always does after lunch. The clock ticking down makes your heart jump with every second it hits closer to when your shift ends. You want to call is weird how Lohen even knows your schedule, but you wouldn’t put it past him to have stalked you.

He’s also smart, he stops by so often that it wouldn’t be hard to put together your week at With Wind Comes Glory, much less when you get off on a particular day. The fact he learned it at all makes your chest twist again.

When you finally get the greenlight to leave, you have had to put your feelings in a box a dozen times to make it through the day.

And here comes the box-cutter. You can see Lohen in the street as you finish up in the shop and say goodbye to Marjorie. You ignore the fluttering in your stomach as you push open the door and step out into the street.

Lohen laughs before you even get a word out. “My, someone looks unhappy to see me.”

“Someone is very unhappy to see you,” you frown. “What do you want, anyway?”

You had promised yourself you were going to kill him the next time that you saw him, and now you’ve seen him twice without doing anything.

Lohen waves his hand absently. “So rude. How did you like the flower?”

The flower. The reminder makes you dizzy all over again. You hadn’t expected him to bring it up so bluntly. He smiles at you expectantly. It reminds you a bit of a cat that brought a dead bird to its owner and expects praise.

You want to tell him you threw it away. Crushed it in your hands and dropped it in the dirt. Anything like that is better than the truth, that you carefully put it in one of your nice vases in your kitchen.

The silence betrays you.

Lohen’s smile grows, becoming something far more self satisfied. “Aw, you kept it, didn’t you? That’s sweet.”

“I didn’t,” you say reflexively. It comes out weak, blocked by the butterflies that threaten to crawl out of your chest and up your throat. This is humiliating.

His gaze is locked on you, intense in that eerie way it often is. Lohen leans closer again. Your heart speeds up, pounding impossibly faster against your ribs. Disdain gnaws through your gut.

“Where did you put it? Come on, tell me.” Delight and something a little nastier practically oozes off of him.

“You’re making fun of me,” you finally manage to get your wits together enough to plant your hand on his chest and firmly push him away from you. He’s firm. And warm.

Embarrassment and anger and something much worse burns hot on the back of your neck. You want to fold in on yourself a bit, or hit him across the face. Maybe both.

Lohen lets you shove him with a faint laugh, taking a step away. “I’m not making fun of you, I want to know where you put it.”

The distance he puts between you isn’t enough. You drop your hand quickly. If you weren’t in the middle of the square, you might have dragged him by his hair again. It wouldn’t deter him, but it would make you feel a little better.

“The trash,” you step back too. The truth is too much. All of this is too much. You hate him. Both as a person and for the way that he’s making you feel.

“No, I don’t believe that’s true. Look, your ears are red,” Lohen coos. “That’s adorable. Is it in your kitchen? Living room?”

Your skin burns hotter. You don’t respond to his taunts. For a moment, the square fades away as your heart skips in indignation. It happens faster than you can think not to. You certainly don’t expect to do it, not here at least, and seemingly neither does he.

A sharp crack rings out. Lohen’s face has gone blank, head turned to the side, an angry red mark blossoming on his cheek. A few people turn your way, surprised by the outburst. You’re surprised too.

Lohen’s gaze slides slowly to you, unreadable in a way that makes your already rapidly pounding heart speed up. “Huh,” he rubs his jaw as he considers you. The stare makes you dizzy.

Whatever he sees in your expression morphs his own to an amused grin, but the edges are sharp. “Not nice,” he chides. People are watching.

“Stop it. Whatever you’re trying to pull, it’s not funny,” you grit out. Your words are the first thing to ever get through his head because his grin fades just so.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” his hand falls to his side. “I’m serious. But, ah,” he glances around, “as much as I love when you get rough, let’s take this somewhere else.”

You hadn’t realized how many people were watching. You shouldn’t be surprised. You slapped not any random knight, but Lohen. Well known vice captain Lohen. And then you yelled at him. If you weren’t so frustrated and flustered, this might be the worst day of your life.

Lohen raises his voice and looks away from you. “Lovers quarrel,” he waves. “We’re on our way.”

Lovers quarrel, he says. That awful tangle in your gut writhes and tightens. Lohen hums to himself as he grabs you by the wrist and pulls you along. You let him lead you off, weaving through alleys while you glare at his hand around your arm.

He stops somewhere quiet, letting go of you in an alley tucked between two slanted buildings. His smile has lessened now, more appraising than anything else. You cross your arms, waiting for him to speak first.

Silence stretches between the two of you. It’s heavy.

“You’re upset,” Lohen breaks the silence eventually. You resist the urge to snarl a ‘great observation, genius.’ “Why?” he asks, genuinely confused in the same way someone prods at something curious that they want to physically peel open.

“You can’t seriously be asking why.”

“But I am,” he tilts his head, hair falling to the side. A smile ghosts his lips again. “I know you like me, so what’s the problem?”

The confirmation that he knows your feelings is both a relief and immensely horrifying. It saves you from having to spit it out, but that means the feelings have been acknowledged. Feelings that should have remained only as hate and loathing.

How do you even respond to that? That you truly and deeply hate him and that you made a wish for him to the anemo archon? Right.

The problem is that you like him.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he was someone like Kaeya. Teasing, but friendly. They’re both reliable. The difference is Lohen’s other behavior. Reckless. Sadistic. Masochistic. Unsettling.

You swallow. “You’re messing with me.”

“Hm?” Lohen raises a brow. “Why would I do that?”

You don’t know. Why wouldn’t he? He’s annoying and takes advantage of anything he can.

“Now that’s just insulting, you think that poorly of me?” He fills the silence. His voice dips in amusement, not offense. In a flash, he’s grabbed hold of your hand. You pull on instinct, but his grip doesn’t falter. Lohen laughs again.

“Let go of me,” you demand.

“Let me take you to dinner,” he ignores you entirely. The words are simple and matter of fact despite the satisfaction coating them. It’s not even phrased like a question.

What? Your arm goes slack in his grip. Chest twisting in on itself, the butterflies shatter into sharp pieces that want to rip their way out of your stomach.

Heat flashes up your back, a reminder of your traitorous heart. He’s looking right at you. Where his hand connects with yours feels alive with sparks, sparks that are crackling and burning your fingertips.

“You’re smiling,” Lohen squeezes your hand. You turn your face away from him, bringing your free hand up to touch your face in surprise. It’s a faint smile, but your mouth curves up. Your guts scrape against each other. It’s getting harder to say no to him.

“I’m not,” you wrestle the smile off your face and try and sweep up the glass butterfly wings inside you. “I really hate you.”

“I’m sure,” Lohen sounds all too pleased with your answer. No matter what you say to him, cruel or kind, it only makes him smile. Getting physical with him does nothing but excite him.

Lohen hums again and shifts his stance slightly to his pretend chivalry. It would make him look friendly if you didn’t know him personally. He lifts your intertwined hands up. You don’t recognize what he’s doing until his lips brush your knuckles and the last defenses you had built up around your heart begin to crumble.

He meets your gaze with his own with a terrible smile. “It’s a date.”

Ah, this is a mistake. You know it is. It displeases you deeply that you know you’re going to let it happen. You should argue with him, say no, anything to put distance between him and your pounding heart.

Instead, you stare where your hands connect. “You’re paying,” is what comes out of your mouth. The words come out flat and a little breathless.

Lohen’s grin gets wider, like the cat who caught the canary. It makes you uneasy. It makes your heart pound with a sort of want that makes you sick to think about for too long.

“Bossy,” he tuts. His hand shifts in yours, fingers splaying against your palm. “I figured I would be.”

“You’re terrible,” you tell him again. The words probably don’t register in his ears anymore.

“I know,” Lohen agrees easily. “The worst. Dinner tomorrow?”

“…Fine.”