stella!

one. ⤾ paw-some

two. ⤾ that's ruff, buddy

three. ⤾ what in dalmation

four. ⤾ pug life

five. ⤾ howl i live

six. ⤾ the corg-key to his heart

seven. ⤾ you look fur-miliar

eight. ⤾ your hisstory

nine. ⤾ fur-st love

ten. ⤾ stop kitten around

eleven. ⤾ paw-don me

twelve. ⤾ drop the cattitude

thirteen. ⤾ bone appetite

fourteen. ⤾ the leash i can do

fifteen. ⤾ did i interruft?

sixteen. ⤾ a purr-ple pup-pet

seventeen. ⤾ in-corg-nito

eighteen. ⤾ pawternal instincts

nineteen. ⤾ oh, fur-get it!

twenty. ⤾ terrier-fied

twenty-one. ⤾ labrador-able

twenty-two. ⤾ are you shih tzuing me

romance schmomance. how did anyone expect wriothesley to allocate time in his schedule for a lover while properly running the fortress of meropide? his grace was perfectly content with teasing his two tsundere subordinates, who refused to face their feelings for each other. besides, love appeared too complicated of a matter, as evidenced by the prisoners he overheard lamenting on a day-to-day basis about their marital affairs and unsuccessful endeavors in flirting.

but sigewinne thought otherwise, pestering him recommending that he seek a partner because not only would it fulfill his social needs but also satisfy his sexual urges (he scrunched up his nose every time she made that point). frankly, all the duke needed was his right hand, some lotion, and a thirty-minute break of privacy.

…so what was a pair of eyes doing from the staircase to his office, staring incredulously at him fucking his cock into his curled fist during the thirty-minute break of privacy?

keyword: privacy, meaning no one was supposed to be in his office during this time!

a few minutes earlier…

“ah, ms. reader, right this way!”

an eager guard ushered you to an imposing set of metal doors to which your house back in mondstadt paled in comparison. as the guard, who appeared to be a rookie, fumbled with the keys to the administrator’s office, you turned your attention to the rest of the surroundings that seamlessly blended together due to the lack of decor. rusting pipes ran from the bottom up in austere grandeur, and warm lights were scattered across the stronghold, illuminating the faces of the few dozen or so prisoners wandering around the open space. 

although the conditions weren’t all sunshine and rainbows (literally, since the fortress is hundreds of feet under the surface), serving time in the fortress of meropide was bearable enough to the point that some convicts continued living there even after their sentences were up. this was the piece of information that piqued your interest during extensive research into the nation of justice, as access to rehabilitative programs while incarcerated had reduced the crime rate there.

thus, there you stood, prepared to present the ultimate strategy for promoting bilateral relations to the administrator of fontaine’s correctional institution. in exchange for advice from monsieur wriothesley on how to reform mondstadt’s prison system, the two neighboring countries could collaborate on an event similar to that of the “neighboring nations congenial poetry gala” between mondstadt and liyue.

it made sense since both fontaine and mondstadt were renowned for their romanticism, and the only other thing you could offer from your hometown besides poetry and artistry was… wine, which you knew wouldn’t fly. no government wanted more drunkards bumbling down their streets than they already had.

finally, the guard pushed the doors open (not without almost popping a vein) and gestured for you to enter monsieur wriothesley’s office, and once you did, you averted your gaze to the spiraling set of stairs.

however, prior to making your presence known, strange… grunting noises from the upper floor sent a shiver down your spine and planted you firmly to the ground. rapidly, your mind swirled with a million possibilities of what the source could be. although the duke was allegedly benign, he was still a warden through and through. was he personally punishing someone for their misconduct?

it frankly sounded quite painful, and you were getting worried that you came in at a bad time. after all, you did arrive an hour earlier than scheduled.

…one peek couldn’t hurt, right?

then you’ll be able to determine whether or not he needed a minute.

curiosity killed the cat, and that cat was you. because after gingerly ascending the staircase and stopping to be able to peek just above the metal floor, you chanced upon a scene that not even your wildest dreams could conjure.

the black-haired duke’s coat was popped open, with the hem of his dress shirt stuffed between his lips to muffle groan after groan that flowed past them. for several long seconds, you couldn’t tear your eyes away from the scars running down his neck and heaving pectorals, gleaming in a slight sheen of sweat.

and when you did manage to tear your eyes away, they instantly flitted past his abdomen (which needed its own place in a museum) to the sight of wriothesley’s large—and you meant large—appendage thrusting desperately into his calloused hand between his gargantuan thighs. a bit of precum dribbled from the tip, trailing down his length only to be pushed back up by his fingers and creating a frothy ring near the head of his cock.

you had to stifle a gasp behind your clipboard, trying to process what the hell was happening. the prison administrator and his little friend definitely needed a minute, so you quickly swiveled around to give them just that—only for the sound of his chair screeching backward to freeze you in your tracks.

“who goes there?” his voice boomed throughout the office.

shit!

your heels weren’t doing you much of a favor as you bolted down the staircase, but the adrenaline coursing through your veins overrode every inconvenience to get you to the doorway as fast as possible. however, you didn’t have the strength to budge the doors open (what were they made of? tungsten!?), and before you could even blink, wriothesley had you trapped between the only way out and his bulky figure.

“you thought you could get away?” he snarled, grabbing you by the shoulder (with the hand that was just wrapped around his dick, mind you!) to twist you around and get a good look at your face. your clipboard clattered to the floor, and you nearly screamed when his cock—which was somehow more enraged than he was—prodded against your stomach, making your insides feel like they were doing backflips.

you tried your best not to look at… it… as you spoke up to defend yourself. “sir, it isn’t what it looks like—”

“i think it’s exactly what it looks like,” he interjected angrily, thick eyebrows furrowed above a pair of piercing blue eyes. “what? did one of your fellow inmates dare you to snoop on the warden for blackmail? how many coupons did they offer? hmm?”

“inmates? coupons?” now your eyebrows were furrowed. “monsieur, if you could please let me explain!”

it took a second for wriothesley to regain his senses, and after noticing your foreign attire and trembling form, he retreated at once. “archons, i…” he stroked his face with his hand and covered his eyes, letting out a shaky sigh. “i’m terribly sorry. i thought you were one of them.”

“them?”

he nodded dejectedly in response before dropping his hand to the side and meeting your eyes, but this time, it wasn’t with indignation. “yes, a group of ill-intentioned people recently formed in order to unmask my secrets…” he had to look away for a moment before continuing. “...one of them being what i do in my office during lunchtime.”

“...oh.”

“as for you…” over his broad chest, he crossed his arms that could crush watermelons with one flex (okay, maybe you were overexaggerating.) “how did you gain entry into my office? it should have been locked.”

you cleared your throat. “a guard let me in.” wriothesley parted his lips to question that, but you were already one step ahead. “he seemed new.”

the warden managed to put two and two together, and a sense of dread began consuming him from head to toe. “you’re… the envoy from mondstadt,” he realized, a taste in his mouth more bitter than the tea he oversteeped this morning. “i must say: you’re a bit early.”

you replied with a light shrug, “the cavalry is expeditious.”

“right. that’s… great.” he gave you a tight-lipped smile. “could… could you give me a minute? i would like to make myself presentable so that i can give you a proper introduction, and… again, i want to apologize for having you walk in on something so vulgar. i’ll be sure to compensate for it in any way possible.”

your original plan from the beginning was to give this man a minute, but… the longer you stood in his presence, the more aroused you felt. he was really handsome, standing many heads taller than you and practically oozing with sex appeal. the tidbits about his appearance that you heard through the grapevine in mondstadt couldn’t hold a candle to the real thing. watching him jerking off earlier, there was definitely a moment when you wanted to replace his hand with your cunt.

pause.

this might be the only opportunity for you to break away from the perfect image you were constantly upholding. throughout your adolescence and young adulthood, you had trained to become a professional in your field and garnered copious experience in diplomacy so that you could obtain a high-ranking position in government. this caused you to miss out on a lot of the joys in life, including sex. that was the first time you had seen a penis in the flesh.

“did you say any way possible?” you inquired.

“of course, i’m a reasonable man. i doubt i’ll be opposed to anything during today’s negotiations.”

after a moment of hesitation, you braced yourself for an eternity’s supply of humiliation and let your last thread of sanity snap in two. you fell to your knees right in front of his throbbing member, which was still as hard as a rock.

“...then you won’t be opposed to this, right?” you murmured. in a bold move, you leaned forward to press your cheek against the side of his cock, all while maintaining eye contact with him.

wriothesley sharply inhaled through his teeth, blood rushing to his face as he took a step back. “what… what are you…!?”

but he wasn’t dumb. he knew what you were intending. however, this felt more like you were doing a favor for him when he was supposed to be doing one for you.

and do one he shall. 

in one frame, you were hunkered down on the floor in front of his grace, and in the next frame, you were being carried to the second floor of the office in his sinewy arms. you were in no danger of being dropped, but you clung onto his shirt regardless, squealing your head off and flailing your legs like a feral animal, which only added to wriothesley’s amusement.

“are you regretting your decision?” he asked, his lips curled into a smug smile. “i can always stop. just say the word.”

your heart was racing at a mile a minute as he kicked a coffee table out of the way and plopped you onto the couch. when he crouched between your legs, a sheepish you batted his greedy hands away and hurriedly shoved your thighs together. “wait, i… this is escalating way too fast!” you quavered. “are we about to…” do the devil’s tango? the pickle in the jar? the train into the tunnel!?

a gruff chuckle rumbled from his chest. “you were the one who initiated it,” wriothesley pointed out with a wolfish grin. “i’m just finishing what you started, mondstadter.”

“but i just wanted to help you with your… ‘problem’!” you shot back, cheeks rivaling the red of a tomato. “why am i suddenly on the receiving end!?”

“ah, that’s where you’re wrong, because this will help me with my problem,” the duke replied, tugging your pants down your hips to reveal your drenched undergarment. you instantly convulsed and buckled your knees as he pressed his thick fingers against your clothed pussy, and when he drew them back, a string of wetness extended from your underwear to his fingertips.

remember when wriothesley convinced himself that all he needed was self-love?

fuck that.

“your grace!” you cried out as he dove forward and, with his hands anchoring your thighs, began ravaging your clit through the fabric, his tongue swirling and swiping against it ruthlessly. you had not even a millisecond to breathe as your vision blurred from tears of unmitigated satisfaction. with little strength, you reached out to wrench at his dark locks of hair, which only spurred him on further to attack your quivering folds.

archons almighty, what would it feel like if he—

as if he was reading your mind, wriothesley peeled your panties to the side, and the roughness of his tongue along with his pointer finger sliding in sent your body into another realm of pleasure. if accidentally smacking the back of your head against the couch’s gilded crest rail wasn’t the reason you saw stars just now, then it undoubtedly had to be the duke’s skillful ministrations.

“you’re so responsive,” wriothesley murmured, his hot breath deliciously fanning your skin. you were going crazy from his nose nudging against your sensitive bud as he flattened his tongue to completely coat each and every taste bud with your essence, and his digit continued to slide in and out at an inhumane speed, coaxing more and more of your whines and moans. “fuck, and your slut pussy is taking my finger so well. how many people have gotten the chance to see this pretty view?”

pretty view? you mentally scoffed while struggling to keep your wits about. says him! not every day did a tall, dark, and handsome man lap at your arousal like it was his last meal! you questioned how he could even breathe down there.

“no, i… j-just… just you…” you managed between labored gulps of air, your cheeks flushed of color. “i… i’ve never… d-done this… before.”

in the midst of leaving a bite mark on the side of your thigh, wriothesley abruptly extricated his finger, which made your pulsating hole very unhappy. “are you saying this is your first time?” he asked in disbelief.

you nodded timidly. when he didn’t respond right away, you grew worried that he got turned off by your admission, but weirdly enough, he snickered.

“looks like we’re in the same boat,” wriothesley stated to your bafflement. having withdrawn his finger, he brought it to his mouth and sucked it clean of your fluids before returning to lightly thumb your clit using circular motions. you had to scoot away because how else were you going to speak clearly with him doing that!? 

“y-you’re a virgin!?” you spluttered, ogling down at this man like he had just grown a horn on top of his head. 

“way to rub it in,” he jeered at you in a mocking tone. “yes, i’m a virgin. what’s so surprising?”

“because… you’re you!” you stressed. “have you seen yourself in the mirror? it’s a crime for you to look like a sex god without having had sex!”

once again, wriothesley found himself enlivened by your visceral reactions. when an advisor informed him of a diplomat’s advent this week, the warden was ready to be bored to tears by another mundane businessperson. and could you blame him? a few weeks ago, an ambassador hailing from sumeru went on and on about an invention that they wanted to promote to the fortress of meropide’s inhabitants.

…that invention boasted a 41% success rate.

so imagine wriothesley’s gaping jaw when, the moment you bent your knees and voiced your offer, all of his expectations were chucked out of the window.

“‘crime’?” he echoed, followed by a husky chuckle. “i see what you did there. how does it feel to be in love with a criminal?”

a frown weighed down the corners of your lips. “hold on. i may or may not be succumbing to a criminal, but who’s saying i’m in love with one?”

“your body is telling me everything i need to know,” rizzley wriothesley crooned as he rested the side of his head against your thigh. “well, except for your name.”

“…reader,” you answered breathily. “my name is reader.”

“reader.” he nodded in approval. “well, reader, let me show you how we do it in fontaine.”

with newfound vigor, wriothesley mounted the couch so that he was now towering over you and interlocked his hands with yours, pressing them into the vermillion back cushions on either side of your head. as if he was communicating to you that you could no longer escape his advances, even if they became too much.

for some time, he gazed intensely at your blushing face, committing each detail to memory, before he bent down and connected his lips to yours. you tentatively reciprocated his tender kisses, moving your mouth in ways that were unfamiliar yet exhilarating, and shutting your eyes slipped the ground away from your feet and made you feel like you were floating. he let go of one hand to tuck a few loose strands of hair behind your ear, which grew into him absentmindedly caressing your cheek like you were made of glass. your neck tickled. your ear burned. every single touch felt like fire on your skin. every kiss was slowly melting your body into mush, melding your body with his. there was no longer a distinction between where you ended and where he began.

after you parted your lips to impart the permission wriothesley’s tongue frenziedly sought, it wasn’t long before the kiss spiraled into a battle for dominance—a battle you lost in the blink of an eye. you could taste remnants of yourself on his tongue from his previous indulgences, which successfully heightened how aroused you were tenfold. your free hand crept up and started kneading your breast through your blouse, your moans swallowed by wriothesley’s mouth.

when he noticed you began touching yourself, he pulled away to your dismay.

he really liked how you craned your neck toward him at the very end of the kiss when he disentangled from you, as though his and your pairs of lips were opposite ends of a magnet. he liked seeing you craving more.

he didn’t like that you were getting ahead of yourself.

“nuh-uh, love,” he whispered, pulling your wrist to the side. “that’s my job.”

wriothesley tugged the hem of your blouse up to expose your bra, and he whistled at the sight. “beige?” he just had to point out with a smirk, bearing a canine. “you really know how to rile me up.”

you internally facepalmed at morning you’s choice of wardrobe. “i was walking into this expecting to have a proper conversation, not to get laid.”

he cocked an eyebrow and suddenly went into business mode. “what was your proposition anyway?”

you couldn’t help but laugh out loud before grasping his large hand and placing it on your chest. “are we really about to do our meeting now?” you chided him.

“you and i are already ‘meeting’ in every sense of the word.”

an affectionate smile broke through your face, and you tugged the man forward by his red tie. “come here, you big hunk.”

wriothesley mirrored your warmth and captured your lips in a searing kiss before traveling down to pepper smooches on your neck and suckle along your collarbone, his teeth the paintbrush and your skin the canvas. he slithered his fingers into the confines of your bra and pinched your nipples to elicit more r-rated sounds from your mouth, and in the corner of your low-lidded eyes, you became very conscious of the reality that his dick would twitch every time you moaned.

anemo archon, forgive me for mine own sins.

“reader,” he gasped. he hunched forward and almost smothered you with his chest as you began to stroke his cock, a bolt out of the blue. you weren’t expecting him to display such a visceral reaction, so you halted at the base of his manhood (which your hand couldn’t even fully wrap around…)

“did i do something wrong?”

“no, not at all,” he affirmed strongly. “i think the problem…”

…was that the sensation of your touch felt astonishingly different to him greasing the pole. it was a shuddering ecstasy that sprinted along his body and unlocked the carnal desires he had kept stowed away.

the key to his dick heart was supposed to have been eternally lost at sea. that was something he was sure of. that was something every person who tried to get close to him was sure of. so he ignored sigewinne’s recommendations, he ignored the rumors of his impotence among the prisoners, and he tried to ignore the hot flashes that jolted him awake in the dead of night, reminding him again that he had always been devoid of love since the start.

but then you came prancing into his office, swinging that key around your finger.

wriothesley’s breathing became shallow, and he pressed his lips firmly into a thin, white line as he stared down at you. how were you shining so splendidly in contrast to the dull lights of his office? how did your frowning lips still look so kissable? how were you looking at him like you were seeing right through him?

he didn’t even know you.

was he deluding himself?

did sigewinne spike his tea?

should he keep going?

what if he hurt you?

a gentle tapping on his forearm hauled wriothesley out of his rumination. he realized he was sweating a lot.

“now i’m sure i did something wrong,” you said worriedly.

wriothesley swallowed harshly before shaking his head, his tufted black hair swaying from side to side. “no… the problem is that… i don’t think i can hold back.”

…

“then what are you waiting for?” you deadpanned. “are you into blue balling?”

wriothesley blinked. “uh, not necessarily…”

“then let’s do it on your table.”

…

“reader…” wriothesley covered his blushing face with the back of his hand. “has anyone told you how… forward you can be?”

a giggle bubbled from your throat. “i’m pretty sure my field requires me to be forward. is it a turn-off?”

“i couldn’t be happier,” he reassured you gladly, and you were soon swept up into another bridal carry. “i will warn you though. if you make a mess of my documents, there will be punishment.”

you smiled. “looking forward to it.” (hopefully, wriothesley didn’t notice he was already going to need new seat cushions after this.)

wriothesley set you down onto his hardwood table, your back toward him, and had you prop one leg up onto the edge, putting your pussy on full display for his enjoyment. he watched in a hypnotic trance as your fluids dripped like a leaking faucet, and he wanted nothing more than to plug you up and fill your needy cunt to the brim. the warden soaked his fingers in your juices to lather them over his shaft, but while he had one hand gripping your hip and the other lining his member up with your entrance, his muscles stiffened. you peeked at him from over your shoulder.

“blue balling bastard!” you almost shouted, but he appeared too distraught to be badgered.

“i don’t have a condom,” wriothesley moaned, falling forward and smacking his forehead against your shoulder. for the first time in a long time, he really wanted to cry. “i would have to walk over to the infirmary and grab one for us, but—”

“—i can’t wait much longer,” you two finished in tandem breathlessly, eyes fixed upon each other. in a matter of seconds, this became a pressing matter that left you and wriothesley in deep contemplation. two strangers—total virgins at that—were literally about to raw dog it. honestly, your parents would be bouncing off the walls over this since they always lamented their graying hairs yet shortage of grandchildren.

but wriothesley… you knew a man of his status was much too preoccupied with handling prison affairs as opposed to prison "affairs". although the iudex of fontaine would be anyone’s first thought at the word “justice”, the administrator of the fortress of meropide delivered his own fair share of justice to maintain order when fights broke out in corridors, to overlook the production of gardemeks, and to protect the peace he had fostered in this very structure.

these things were what made you hurriedly request an audience with wriothesley in the first place. his impressive accomplishments as the new leader of the stronghold were what brought the you from mondstadt to the him in fontaine. however, you now found yourself in a sticky situation that would burden wriothesley further if you two took this risk. a child between you and him… that hadn’t been in your agenda.

plus, the steambird would really get a hoot out of this. “breaking news: mondstadt ambassador walked into the fortress of meropide and walked out with a baby lump.”

so, you made up your mind.

“wrio—”

“will you let me come inside of you, reader?” he whispered against the shell of your ear, making your heart drop to the pit of your stomach. your vaginal walls automatically clenched around nothingness at the thought as you gasped and gaped back at him in bewilderment.

“what…? are you sure!?”

wriothesley nodded. “i-i promise, reader, to be a loving partner to you and devoted father to our child,” he choked out, his voice thick with emotion. “i’ve dreamt of having kids with the person i cherish so that they can grow up in a household where they feel safe, but… my greatest fear in life is becoming the monster that… th-that my foster parents were to me and my adoptive siblings.” his face went white. he could feel himself on the verge of vomiting, which he swore he had rooted out long ago. the scars on his body had never felt more painful. “i know that that belief is unfounded, but… i’ve been a violent person since i was a teenager. since the day that i… i killed them.”

“so if you do not wish to bear a child with a person like me, i understand,” wriothesley avowed, his eyes turned down in shame. “i can find other means to make you feel good, and i’ll just… go to the restroom to finish my business.”

you were finally learning about the warden's haunting backstory, sealed behind his assertive exterior. immediately, tears sprung to the corners of your eyes. you twisted your torso to cup his face with shaking hands and look him square in the face.

“wriothesley… you are so much more than your past,” you insisted earnestly. “are you not aware of how incredible of a person you are? of how many lives you have changed for the better? you couldn’t change the past, so you made it your life mission to change the future of every person who’s living and breathing in this stronghold right now. you converted your suffering into something that led to the liberation of many others’.” you gave him a wobbly smile through the tears streaming down your cheeks like waterfalls. “that’s why i wanted to meet you, wrio. i wanted to meet the man behind the operations, behind the smiles on these prisoners’ faces. so please… don’t ever think badly of yourself.”

as the color returned to wriothesley’s cheeks, the duke couldn’t look away from the eyes that sparkled up at him so brilliantly. it was mesmerizing. his heart had never felt this full, and he wanted it to be as close to yours as possible. without missing a beat, his arms wrapped around your body, lightly brushing against your nipples in the process and causing them to harden on contact. he pressed his entire frontside against your back, and you could clearly feel his heart pounding wildly against his ribcage (and his dick saying hi from between your thighs).

“you’re so good to me, reader,” wriothesley mumbled. “what did i do to deserve this?”

you laughed and caressed the side of his head. “i just told you, idiot.”

his signature smirk returned in all of its glory, and he trailed his hands down to rest on your hips. “hold onto something.”

“what? agh!”

your body lurched forward once wriothesley drove his cock into your sopping heat, every inch dragging along your walls until he reached your cervix and his pelvic bone was right against your ass. a guttural moan escaped as he remained perfectly motionless, reveling in the feeling of your pussy rippling along his length, and you clamped a hand over your mouth to mask the embarrassing noises seeping through. the pain was unexpectedly minimal, but now you had to deal with this enormous object penetrating you to your very core. and not a moment passed before he started pushing in and out of you, squelching noises rebounding off the metal surroundings as your bated breath was yanked from your throat. throughout wriothesley’s grunts of exertion, a moan poured past your lips at each thrust, his balls slapping against your puffy lips and the table legs screeching in reply. his hands slid up to mercilessly flick your nipples with his thumbs at a rate that engendered tightening sensations to build up inside of your lower abdomen.

“wrio!” you exclaimed, writhing in ecstasy. you didn’t think you could handle the pert beads on your chest being fondled in unison with him pistoning your cunt from the back for another minute. “wr-wrio…! hnngh… ah! i feel so w-weird… ah! nngh…!”

“it’s a good weird, yeah?” growled wriothesley amid nibbling on your earlobe. “i can tell by the way your womb is descending to meet my cock, just begging for my seed. and that’s exactly what i’ll give you.”

“nngh, i… i’m… a-agh!” you pathetically blubbered. a stream of saliva ran from the corner of your lips as he pounded into your tight channel with savage intensity, the whites of your glazed eyes beginning to show. “i-i think i’m gonna c-come…!” 

“shit…” he rasped, noticing the telltale signs of an orgasm building up in both of you. “me, too…” he roughly grabbed your chin, fingers digging slightly into flesh, so that he could witness your expression contorting with bliss as you reached your cusp. “i want you to take every drop of my cum, reader. every fucking drop until nothing but my essence flows from your depraved hole.”

you nodded and pursed your lips, overwhelmed by the persistent and passionate onslaught on your pussy that was utterly molded into the shape of his velvet-wrapped steel. “yes, p-please…! wrio, please shoot it inside of me!”

finally, wriothesley bit down on your shoulder and slammed home into your depths, burying himself inside of your womanhood while releasing thick ropes of semen. your muscles convulsed and clamped down onto his cock with a vice, milking it until he had emptied his balls completely. the light humming of the industrial fan above commingled with the heavy panting of the two bodies that have become one, drunk on the languid atmosphere.

“you’re so obedient,” he cooed, nudging aside a lock of hair that was clinging to your sweaty forehead, whereas you were still reeling from wave after wave of endorphins. as you endeavored to muster the strength to respond, wriothesley glanced down at his files freshly marinating in your juices. “well, for the most part,” he added. “what did i say about my documents?”

“i…” you scowled and snapped back at him haughtily, “i wasn’t trying to ruin them!”

his mellow chuckle resonated in your ears, and in the ensuing seconds, the sound of clinking metal pivoted your attention.

“well, you can’t argue that they’re illegible now,” he said, effortlessly restraining your wrists in handcuffs from archons knew where. you also came to the startling realization that his member hadn’t softened one bit since he came within your spongy walls. “and as the duke of the fortress of meropide, i must carry out punishment where i see fit.”

“…lord barbatos.”

“haha, i love you, too.”

(several days later, charlotte got her big paycheck after spotting another “meeting” between you and wriothesley behind café lutece.)

while loading up your plate with chips and french fontainian onion dip, you could sense the smugness of your colleagues from all the way across the dining room.

“i mean, we all saw this coming, didn’t we?” one of them piped up with a snarky laugh.

another obnoxiously chortled in return. “i won't forget the day reader told us who could have possibly given them those flowers.”

“right!? and i’m lady furina!”

that joke rocked their worlds to the point that one person started choking on their garlic baguette. your eyes flitted over to your friend, pauline, who was shaking with rage beside you and on the verge of strangling someone.

“why i oughta give them a piece of my mind!” caterwauled pauline, but you perched a hand on her shoulder so that she wouldn’t go ballistic—even if it was on your behalf.

“can’t really blame them,” you conceded. “if you told me you were in a relationship with the iudex of fontaine, i would need a minute.”

“are you saying it’s impossible?”

“i’m saying it’s highly unlikely.”

“hmph! a girl can dream.” pauline haughtily raised her nose into the air and crossed her arms with indignation, which tugged your lips into a small smile. you knew she had your best interests in mind. since day dot, your coworkers were constantly unleashing a tirade of vitriol against you. “anyway, where’s your boyfriend? did he get caught up with something?”

“probably,” you ascertained, taking a sip of red wine. you looked for a seat to settle at; you couldn’t let your chips go cold. “he warned me that he might not make it in time for the party. a new batch of inmates was processed for registration today, and allegedly, they’re unruly.”

her eyes widened after connecting the dots. “are they related to the famous case of the missing paintings? they finally caught the culprits!?”

you raised an eyebrow. “you didn’t know? it’s all over the steambird.”

as you and pauline were sitting down, the hostess of the party, anaïs, and her entourage strode over with purpose. one of anaïs’s minions was the first to start yapping, “well, if it isn’t reader, the person dating the wolf!”

“more like the person who cried wolf!” followed anaïs, which made the group howl like hyenas.

rolling your eyes at their sneers, you replied, “where is your husband, anaïs? don’t tell me he’s at the office ‘working overtime’ with his assistant again.”

all of anaïs’s friends practically broke their necks to look at her.

“h-how did you know about that…!?” anaïs spluttered, her cheeks flared red. “that’s… that’s my personal affairs you’re airing to everyone!”

a follower of anaïs cupped a hand to her ear and hissed, “don’t you remember? reader is friends with charlotte, a journalist for the steambird. she’s notorious for her intel gathering so that she can compete with others for the juiciest scoops!”

“hey, hey, does charlotte know anything about monsieur neuvillette’s type?” pauline whispered to which you were about to answer—only for anaïs to grab your glass of wine.

“you think you’re so high and mighty all the time…!” anaïs said in a shrill voice, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. “at least i don’t pretend i’m the bitch of the lord of the fortress of meropide to get attention!”

“i think it would be better for you to channel your energy into divorcing that shitty excuse of a husband,” you corrected her, unfazed by the fact she was threateningly holding the drink above your head. “it’s not your fault that he’s a scumbag, so don’t stick around to see if he’ll change.”

something in anaïs seemed to falter at your words, but it was only for a moment. resentment got the best of her, and in the blink of an eye, red liquid was splashed onto your chest and dripping down your top, making bystanders gasp at the scene before them.

it kind of looked like you just got murdered.

“what is wrong with you!?” pauline furiously yelled after jumping up to shield you, who was still reeling from what happened. “how old are you to be acting like an immature brat!?”

as pauline and one of anaïs’s flunkies began to pull at each other’s hair, a different one pointed a finger into your face while cackling. “ha, serves you right! that outfit must have been dirt cheap anyway, so it couldn’t have been a total loss!”

“oh, you wouldn’t want your shoes ruined, right?” a second cooed, snatching them right off your feet and looking for the nearest window to chuck them out of. “don’t worry, i’ll dry them off for you!”

you got up to take them right back, but anaïs blocked your path, eyes narrowed into slits. “just admit it, reader,” she snarled. “you’re nothing but an attention-seeking whore for the fortress of meropide’s administrator, a goody two-shoes for our boss, and a laughing stock for all of fontaine. you’re nothing!”

“monsieur wriothesley!” a voice resounded from down the hallway, causing everyone in the dining room to freeze. “we’re so honored to have you join us! did lady anaïs invite you?”

before you knew it, a strong arm wrapped around your shoulders from behind to give you a tight squeeze, and a pair of lips kissed the top of your head.

“so sorry i’m late, my love,” a deep voice purred by your ear. “my hands were tied…”

his voice trailed off. wriothesley, whose sudden appearance had dropped every partygoer’s jaw, noticed that your top felt weirdly damp. when he craned his neck to investigate, his heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach. 

he immediately questioned if it was your blood or not.

“reader!” your boyfriend shouted, turning you around and holding you by the shoulders. a fear he had only felt as a teenager flooded rapidly into his system, and it was taking everything in him to not explode. “what happened to you? are you hurt!?”

you were still stunned in the aftermath, but you quickly collected yourself and placed your hands atop his. “no, no, i’m fine, wrio. i’m not hurt. it’s just red wine.”

“red… red wine?”

recovering from his initial shock, wriothesley twisted around, his jacket fluttering swiftly in tandem. his eyes took in the sight of an awestruck anaïs holding something behind her back and a petrified person clutching onto a pair of shoes (which explained why your dogs were out).

in a calm tone more terrifying than him speaking out of anger, wriothesley said to the hostess, “i apologize for souring the mood. however…” quickly, he engulfed your body with his jacket and swept you off your feet, hitching the air in your throat as he held you close to his chest. “my partner is not feeling well, so we’ll be taking our leave. we humbly thank you for the invitation.”

“b-but you just got here!” anaïs fretted.

her first mistake was revealing the wine glass she was desperately trying to hide earlier. in wriothesley’s realm, we call this a foul.

“reader was just a little tipsy and spilled a drink on themselves!” she crooned, tilting her head up at the duke and innocently batting her eyelashes. “why don’t you stay and become acquainted with your partner’s coworkers?”

her second foul: coveting a man in a relationship.

“i mean, they can’t be unwell to the point of needing to go home!”

her third: messing with reader. and three fouls meant a disqualification.

“heavens, no,” wriothesley insisted. “my partner’s health is my main priority, and time is of the essence. besides, the longer i remain, the less time i have to file a detailed report on an assault and battery that took place here.”

it became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

“a…assault…?” even through the makeup caked on anaïs’s face, you could see the color drain from it entirely. “what… what assault…!? no assault happened here, your grace!” when his frown spoke volumes, she cried out, “y-you don’t have any proof!”

“oh, i would suggest otherwise. and i believe there are many eyewitnesses to testify.”

you peered around at the guests who had gathered to view the spectacle, and they were nodding in support of wriothesley’s claim, including pauline. even anaïs’s goons were vehemently bobbing their heads up and down, still in disbelief that the man, the myth, the legend himself had graced them with his presence.

“now if you’ll excuse me…” with you firmly in his grasp, wriothesley approached the woman still clinging to your footwear, who immediately began to quiver. “i would like for you to return my partner’s shoes,” he ordered with a look as cold as ice.

“o-of course!” she stammered, extending the shoes toward him. “it was all in good fun, your grace!”

“oh, those aren’t mine,” he said with a cock of his head at your bare toes. “like i said, those belong to my partner.”

finally picking up what was he putting down, the lady shakily slipped your shoes back on your feet for which you glanced up at wriothesley with furrowed eyebrows. he only reacted with a smile that thawed the rigid expression on his face.

“i-i can’t possibly rot in jail!” anaïs was still making a fuss nearby. “i’m so young and beautiful! can’t you look past this, monsieur wriothesley…!? i’ll do anything!”

“well, it’s not something you’ll go to prison for, ma’am,” he said, not even sparing anaïs a glance as he headed for the front door, “but this misdemeanor will forever stain your official records and reputation… just as you stained my partner’s clothes.” (mic drop.)

and that was that. with a quick kiss on both cheeks from pauline, you exited the dead-quiet house in your boyfriend’s arms.

“wrio…” you murmured as he started walking in the direction of your home. “i’m really sorry for inconveniencing you.”

wriothesley momentarily stopped in his tracks to gaze down at you, his lips pursed before sighing. “no… don’t apologize, my love. i’m sorry for not arriving sooner.”

“but that isn’t your fault,” you pointed out.

a chuckle resonated from deep within his chest. “touché.”

however, his lightheartedness faded out with that chuckle when his hands gripped onto you tighter, as if you were about to dissolve into water at any moment.

“what happened, reader?” he croaked, displaying a side of him reserved for your eyes alone. “how long have they been treating you like this? and for you to not even give them a taste of the boxing skills i taught you for these kinds of situations…”

you clutched his jacket tighter to your body. “you already have so much on your plate. i could not dare to tell you something that may weigh on your conscience.”

“please,” he whispered. “i want you to weigh on my conscience.”

after a moment’s worth of hesitation, you finally gave in, explaining that the fresh bouquet of rainbow roses he sent to your office one morning sent your colleagues into a frenzy that turned your life into a nightmare. as you spoke, wriothesley’s expression became grimmer and grimmer. he couldn’t even fathom how much of a shitshow your company was for permitting the kind of behavior he merely glimpsed this evening.

and he couldn't bear the thought that you had been suffering alone for months.

“they didn’t believe me for a second, even when i had pictures of you and me framed on my desk. ‘oh, those must have been edited’.”

realizing wriothesley's muscles were so taut, you attempted to alleviate the atmosphere. “i guess no one can accept an ordinary office worker dating the administrator of the fortress of meropide. like, picture the tianquan of the liyue qixing with an npc.”

in any other situation, your boyfriend would be laughing, but certainly not this one. “no one can determine our relationship,” wriothesley stated with a clear veracity. “you are the light in my bleak world, reader, and nothing is allowed to take you away from me. if so, i will travel to the ends of teyvat to bring you back.”

he then grinned, showing off his cute canines. “and you bet i'll put my handcuffs to use.”

you slapped a hand to your forehead. “way to ruin the mood. i was just about to kiss you.”

in response, he grinded his knuckles into the top of your head, which made you yodel out in pain. “what was that for!?” you exclaimed.

“for not kissing me, but more importantly: for keeping a secret from me,” he clarified, his pale gray eyes twinkling under the moonlight. “no more of that, okay?”

you warmly smiled up at him and rested your head against his broad shoulder, completely wiped out from the party-turned-fiasco. “okay.”

as the two of you reached your abode, a question popped up in your mind. “were you serious about the handcuff thing?”

he smirked. “yes, and you’ll find out just how serious i am after we take a shower together. you reek of wine.”

a pink blush dusted your cheeks. “what? together!?”

“together. you and me.”

“ahhh! put me down!”

“nope. not a chance.”

꒰ 傾奇者 ꒱ — kabukimono

your cutie patootie of a boyfriend always burst through the door after working at the forge and embraced you as if centuries had passed since the last time you saw each other.

but today, for some odd reason, when you heard the familiar squeak of the front door, that squeak wasn’t followed by the usual croon of your name and a rush of footsteps toward you. instead, you listened to kabukimono wordlessly pad into the bathroom…

and he didn’t come out.

concerned for his well-being, you quickly made your way outside the room he barricaded himself in and knocked on the door twice. “kabukimono?” you called for him. “are you all right?”

silence.

and then you heard him sniffle.

“y-yeah, i’m okay,” his voice returned meekly. “please don’t worry about me…”

your heart squeezed tightly in your chest. “wait, are you crying?"

"..."

"kabukimono, please let me know what’s going on. we can work it out together. you know that.”

you prepared to give him space if there was no reply, but the door creaked open shortly after. you took that as an invitation to walk in but was abruptly glomped by him, his face buried into your chest.

“kabukimono!” startled, you tried to gently push your boyfriend off, but it was like the two of you got stuck together by adhesive glue.

“what happened?” you asked with what breath he hadn’t squeezed out of your lungs.

kabukimono was so, so embarrassed. half of the reason he refused to budge was the shame for not greeting you properly…

…but the other half was the atrocity that had become of his front bangs!

previously, niwa had noticed them getting a tad too long to the point they were poking into kabukimono’s eyes, so like a good samaritan, niwa suggested to give them a little trim. 

kabukimono should’ve protested a little harder when he saw niwa take out scissors the size of gardening shears.

“n-niwa…!” quivered kabukimono as he gawked at himself through a shard of glass.

“i’m so sorry, friend; this is all my fault! but it doesn’t look too bad?”

“…niwa, reader is going to break up with me.”

niwa offered up his bandana for kabukimono to wear home, but kabukimono knew he’ll have to face this dilemma head-on sooner or later.

however, the closer he got to his and your house of wooden veneer… the more he dreaded your reaction.

“kabukimono…” you said softly, which turned his stomach. “…may i see your face?”

“…”

against his better judgment, the wandering samurai peeled his face off of your clothes and angled it so that you could glimpse his bangs, which were much shorter than you were accustomed to. your lips parted in mild surprise as you took another second to process this.

“…i look terrible,” kabukimono murmured in the silence, tears pricking his bluish-purple eyes. he knew he was seconds away from bidding his quaint life with you goodbye. “p-please don’t leave me…” he added underneath his breath, his fingers gripping onto you tighter like you were about to disappear.

…so this is what he was trying to hide all along.

you let out a little “pfft” that captured his attention and then smoothed back his short bangs to plant a kiss as sweet as summer fruit on his forehead.

“kabukimono, you look perfect,” whispered you with only love in your eyes.

for the first time that night, kabukimono looked up and donned a gaze of profound intensity that felt like it was sucking you in. he really loved it when you said his name with your voice; it made him melt into a puddle. 

“i’m not gonna leave you over something this silly,” you continued, making him scrunch his face when you booped his nose. “besides, it’ll grow out.”

“really?” he croaked.

“really. now how about you wake up isamu while i get dinner ready?”

kabukimono blinked away tears that had threatened to spill down his cheeks earlier. you always dispelled his worries in a flash no matter how trivial they were. why did he ever have doubts in the first place? you were his sanctuary—the end-all to his anxiety of being abandoned. “okay!”

꒰ 国崩 ꒱ — scaramouche

slam!

that sound of the door to his bedroom was nothing to sneeze at, but the fact that the fatui harbinger didn’t greet you with a kiss on the lips as per usual was. hell, you didn’t even get the chance to see his face when he came home. that either meant he was really angry or really tired, and whether he joined you for dinner was up to you to test the waters.

tonight, you were feeling brave. how could he turn down your infamous chicken katsu?

“scara!” you exclaimed, wiping your hands on a towel before approaching the lion’s den. “i made dinner! or would you prefer a shower? or perhaps… moi?”

“…”

“i know you’re in there. at least give me a sign that you’re alive.”

“...”

“scaramouche! scaramouche! will you do the fandango?”

“...”

“sc-scara, there’s a fire in the kitchen!”

“…”

“seriously?”

well, you supposed you should’ve saved that one for later. you used that excuse last week to lure him out.

heaving a sigh, you turned on your heel to accept eating alone for the night when scaramouche suddenly whipped the door open and encircled his arms around you from behind, pulling a shocked you to his chest and locking you in place.

“if you turn around, we’re breaking up,” he grumbled into your ear.

“huh!?” you thrashed around in scaramouche’s grip to no avail. “that’s not something you can just decide on your own!”

“don’t care. if you saw me—!”

if you saw him, you would most definitely laugh, and the last thing scaramouche wanted to be was a laughing stock to his lover. of course he would cast aside his ego when it came to your reputation, but archons forbid you seeing him as something pitiable. not if he could help it.

“don’t you realize i’ll be more upset if i didn’t get to see your handsome face, darling?” you whined with futile tugs and twists at his wrists. “as to whatever happened, it can’t be that bad!”

oh, it was bad. really bad.

“the most important thing is eye contact!” declared his colleague with the irritatingly bright locks of orange hair. “after all, there’s a saying that eyes are the windows of the soul. how else are you supposed to communicate your feelings to them?”

“...dude, you don’t even have light in your eyes,” scaramouche responded. “why should i take advice from you?”

“what does that have to do with anything?”

sandrone’s massive puppet smacked tartaglia upside the head as she scowled. “stop making a ruckus, and just cut the balladeer’s bowlcut already. he looks homeless.”

“yes, i don’t think we can handle the sixth harbinger’s lamentation about his relationship much longer,” arlecchino grumbled, her eyes turning so far upward that they almost rolled right out of the room.

“none of you guys were even supposed to know about it!” scaramouche roared with fury practically emanating off of him.

this outburst had all the other partygoers of the tsarita’s banquet turning their heads. they couldn’t believe their eyes, but it was true. all ten executive heads of the fatui were gathered together in one place (fly high, signora). even the harbingers themselves never thought something like this would happen if it weren’t for you, who scaramouche had introduced and (to his dismay) had made them all smitten toward you. even the tsaritsa thought you were pleasant.

the fatui harbingers could not refuse your suggestion to have “team bonding events”—this gala being one of them—and the animosity between these lieutenants have actually lessened over time (by a hair’s breadth).

“i can use my water blades,” tartaglia offered, who thrusted his hands forward to summon them.

scaramouche’s hands balled into fists, ready to clock the eleventh harbinger before he even had the chance. “no. a thousand times no! don’t even get those things close to me if you want to live, you asshat.”

“what… transpired this?” whispered pulcinella, unable to keep up with the youngsters’ energy.

pantalone took it upon himself to explain the situation. “word is that our dear reader complimented the hairstyle of a subordinate working underneath the balladeer,” the regrator informed as he pushed his neck-strap spectacles higher up the bridge of his nose. “since then, he has failed to complete a single assignment.”

revealing his sharp canines, dottore snickered. “in spite of that, it truly is miraculous that the kid found someone who could get past his ironclad exterior.”

columbina hummed in agreement. “it is miraculous that anyone even likes him~!”

they eventually resorted to a pair of scissors that dottore had in his coat pocket (dottore was almost disappointed when il capitano reminded everyone that he carried one), and after some convincing and straight up fist fighting, it was decidedly pulcinella who got on a stool to give scaramouche a snip.

and pulcinella… doesn’t have the best eyes.

“if it’s about your dark circles, it’s okay,” you reassured scaramouche back in the present. “i’ll always accept you the way you are.”

“i don’t have dark circles!” in a fit of rage, scaramouche spun around to glare at you while blinking several times in quick succession and—lo and behold—gave you front-row seats to pulcinella’s botched job at cutting his bangs, which now ended halfway down his forehead. scaramouche felt his heart drop into his stomach at the sight of your widened eyes before he shoved his hat into your face and stormed off.

“w-wait, scara!” you chased after him to the living room, and he still refused to face you. “that was what you were worried about me seeing?”

following that was a silence that thickened the air. you walked up to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. “hey… i like guys with short hair, you know?”

…

…

…

“...but that damn skirmisher had long hair,” your boyfriend grumbled.

ah. this confirmed your suspicion that he overheard you speaking to his underling. little did scaramouche know that you had just been asking about your boyfriend’s whereabouts that day (but of course the balladeer anxiously spying on you the whole time made it impossible for you to locate him).

“i also like guys with blue hair and blue eyes.” you went to stand in front of scaramouche and placed his kasa hat back onto his head before squishing his face with your hands. he furrowed his eyebrows and tried to pull away, but the almighty harbinger became weak before you very easily. “i like guys with red eyeliner. a big hat. a haughty attitude. i like you, darling. and nothing is going to change that.”

scaramouche clenched his jaw and looked down at the floor dejectedly. “...how can you stand it though? you just said my attitude is haughty. is that… fine?”

“i’m still here, aren’t i?” you smiled. “and i’m not going anywhere. even if you went bald.”

“...do not allow that image to form in your brain, reader.”

“it’s too late.”

“reader!”

but despite the irritation laced in his voice, his lips were curled into a smile reserved only for his lover’s eyes. he liked you, too, and nothing was going to change that.

꒰ 放浪者 ꒱ — wanderer

“lesser lord kusanali.”

the dendro archon whirled around and almost let out a breath of relief at the sight of you entering the sanctuary of surasthana, your fingers intertwined behind your back. “grand sage, it is good to see you,” nahida greeted earnestly. “i’m sorry for contacting you on such short notice, but you were the only one i could think of reaching out to.”

“really?” you cocked an eyebrow as you descended down the white stone walkway. not at all did you mind chatting with nahida when you had the chance, but if you were the only person capable of solving her problem, it must be serious. “what could be the matter?”

“well… it’s rather a long story.” scratching her cheek, the dendro archon recounted what took place that morning.

“what are you thinking about?” the little archon questioned as she and wanderer strolled along the outskirts of the city.

wanderer kicked a rock that had the misfortune of being in his path. “you and i both know the answer to that,” he stoically replied.

“has it been that long since you and reader have seen each other?”

those words made something in wanderer’s chest feel a foreign pang, one that only occurred when he envisioned your face.

“i know that they’re busy with official affairs,” he scoffed, coming to a full stop. nahida followed suit, looking back at him with a hand to her heart. “it just can’t be safe for humans to stay cooped up inside of their offices all day long.”

nahida knew the nonchalance in wanderer’s tone was just a cover-up for how much he missed you, and the archon was all too familiar with that feeling. “wanderer—”

“i’m gonna make them regret prioritizing their work over me.”

with a tip of his hat, wanderer started trudging back the way they came.

“hey, wait!” she rushed after him and clung onto one of the blue fabrics dangling from the back of his head covering, which yanked him back toward her.

“what?” he deadpanned.

“how are you planning to make reader regret it?” she asked her disciple, anxious about letting him out of her sight.

“...”

wanderer recalled overhearing a conversation in the grand bazaar. a woman was fawning over her husband’s new appearance, who shaved off his beard earlier that day because he wanted to surprise her, and it was like she fell in love with him for the first time all over again.

wanderer wanted you to fall in love with him all over again.

“haircut,” he grunted.

“haircut?” nahida echoed.

“i want a haircut.” wanderer blatantly pointed at his head.

nahida took a moment to process his request before breaking out into a smile antagonistic to his scowl. “leave it to me!”

“and that was my first time cutting someone’s hair…” concluded nahida quite dejectedly. “...so you can imagine his fury when he got his hands on a mirror…”

“oh, archons,” you muttered right in front of her, slapping a hand to your face. “where is he now?”

“i’m not sure… i think he grumbled something about curling up in a corner and never seeing a single person again before he flew away.”

the only place you could imagine he escaped to was your shared home together in sumeru city, which was the biggest decision you two had carried out together in your relationship so far. however, you had no idea that the house became such a lonely place for wanderer. anguish squeezed your heart as you pictured him eating dinner alone, pretending the food was satiating like you had suggested in the past because he had wanted to be more human. “like you,” he had said.

“please let the other sages know i am taking an early leave,” i said, pivoting on my heel. “lunch is on me tomorrow!”

“good luck!” nahida called out to you, and as you pushed through the doors of the sanctuary, you felt like you grew wings right there and then.

when was the last time you inhaled a breath of fresh air…?

you dashed home as fast as your little legs (that had been stationary for what? six days?) could carry you home. along the way, nilou stopped you to discuss performing for the people in aaru village, cyno wished to speak about dispatching additional soldiers to monitor trade in the caravan ribat, and al haitham wanted a vacation(?)

however, you had to direct each one of them to your p.o. box because there was one request that waited to be fulfilled for a long, long time.

“babe!” you exclaimed, stumbling a bit as you peeled off your shoes at the doorway. “babe, are you home?”

silence. every step you took further down the hallway entrance felt like stepping onto an eggshell, and your mind started to wonder. was he not actually here? where could he have gone then?

“babe—”

in a flash, you were tightly enveloped by a pair of arms that knocked the wind out of your lungs. you almost lost your footing if it weren’t for the wall right behind you while, in front of you, your lover’s shaking eyes were trying to immortalize every detail of your face onto the canvas of his mind.

“reader…” wanderer mumbled, his cold hands cupping your cheeks like they were made of glass. “you’re here.”

a complicated feeling began to creep up inside of your chest. you didn’t even have the heart to “pfft” at his bangs that looked like a kindergartener had cut it (which wasn’t far from the truth). the crooked ups and downs of his bangs were the least of your concerns.

“i’m so sorry, wanderer,” you whispered as you reached up and gently held his wrists. “i’ve been so busy with attending meetings and approving requests that—”

“shut it.”

wanderer leaned in and hungrily captured your lips with his, and it didn’t take long before they began to trail butterfly kisses down your jaw and to your neck. his grazing teeth coaxed small noises from your mouth as they made light work of your sensitive skin.

“wanderer, wait…”

he pulled back momentarily to look you dead in the eye. “i have waited far too long,” wanderer snarled. “just let me have you, reader…”

you could not risk losing the ability to walk like last time. an idea came over you in that moment to break the spell clouding wanderer’s eyes with lust and desire.

“i’M gONna mAke tHem rEGret pRioriTiziNg thEir worK oVEr Me!” you cried out dramatically as if you had been fatally wounded.

your allusion was so out of character that it completely caught him off guard. as wanderer pressed his lips into a thin line, he created some room for jesus between his body and yours and asked in a contemptuous voice, “did lesser lord kusanali make you come here?”

“of course not. i’m here because of you, babe.” you chuckled. “did you think i wouldn’t notice all the subliminal messages you planted in your works?”

wanderer’s eyes widened in light of that. “you read the scholars’ papers?”

“not typically, but i asked the sage of the vahumana darshan to provide me with yours,” you clarified.

you adored the way your partner wrote—even if he always acted like crafting those essays together was a chore. reading his dissertation on societal issues in inazuma was actually how you two crossed paths, as you voraciously sought the author behind it. who would have predicted that the aloof, cold stranger nahida introduced to you as “hat guy” became your clingy mess of a boyfriend years later?

“whatever, don’t pull that disappearing act on me again,” he snapped, flicking your forehead in an odd display of affection. you held back a few colorful words from the sheer strength he put into that finger.

“it’s not like i was trying to avoid you,” you stated. “plus, i would argue that you disappeared, too, babe. even our archon couldn’t surmise where you ran off to.”

“well, you knew where to find me.” and that’s all that matters, he chose not to add.

a soft laugh bubbled from your throat as you directed your attention back to what made him disappear in the beginning. “hey… there’s no need to doll yourself up to get my attention.” you gently swept his silky bangs to the side. “you are always on my mind and even more so when we’re apart.”

a hush descended over the world around you two as wanderer squinted his troubled eyes and averted them to the floor in deep thought.

he could not kid himself any longer. you, a measly and pathetic mortal, had successfully slipped past the outer shell he built to fool irminsul into believing that he was not an individual worthy of loving, existing, redeeming.

“...”

“wanderer?”

"...rea..."

reader, each day felt longer than the last without you by my side.

i never thought i would have a person in this world who wanted me as much as you do.

 if i had to thank beelzebub for one thing, it would be creating me so that i could meet you.

you are the center of my universe.

“teyvat to wanderer…?”

but wanderer would rather die than say allat. hmm, maybe he’ll put those heartfelt words on paper so that you can read them in your office, giggling and kicking your feet.

in the meantime, he settled on dragging you to the bedroom. “you’re getting punished anyway.”

“wha…!? wait, wanderer!”

but on the inside, you were so happy that it didn’t matter if your boyfriend had to fly you to the akademiya every morning for the next several days. you wished for nothing to take away the beautiful smile you could see creeping onto his face.

yae miko was the bane of gorou’s existence…

…so he was a little irked to see you falling over yourself to admire her in front of netsuke no gen crafts.

“guuji yae, i never thought i would have the chance to meet you like this!” you bunched up your shoulders and entwined your fingers behind your back. gorou had only seen a crumb of this strange behavior whenever kazuha swung by, but now... it was in full force.

okay, gorou recognized that, as an editor, you would obviously be thrilled to shake hands with the editor-in-chief of inazuma’s publishing house, but this same editor-in-chief had subjected gorou to a legion of teasing, pet names, and schemes. if the multiverse existed, gorou doubted there was a universe in which he trusted yae miko because in every single one, she would have most definitely created ms. hina without his consent.

“what a cute disciple i have,” yae cooed, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. “i actually have something i mean to discuss with you, reader, but there’s a more pressing matter i must tackle with your furry friend first.”

you slowly nodded. “oh… do you want me to leave and then come back?”

yae detected gorou squirming beside you. “...i think he would want you to stay,” she concurred, which only exacerbated your confusion.

“d-don’t waste reader’s time!” gorou yapped, getting more riled up than usual. every bone in his body was screaming for him to flee, but he didn’t want to show a cowardly side of him with you there. “what do you need to talk to them about?”

how strange. when did gorou and reader come to know each other? “well, if you insist. i’m certainly not short on time myself.” arms cradling her stomach, yae looked at you with a more solemn frame of mind. “reader, i assume you are out here because you saw a discrepancy between what you know and the report you received today.”

“yes…” you scratched your cheek. “...on the off chance, are you aware of what happened to the book that went missing?”

“...your author should be,” she returned, “but i suppose things were lost in communication. a year ago, mr. yamamoto had contacted an illustrator from abroad by letter to see if he’ll draw art for tickled pink.

“a copy of that book was sent along with the letter… but i have an inkling the illustrator couldn’t respond in time before the sakoku decree was put into effect.”

so this all happened before i arrived at inazuma, you confirmed, eyebrows springing upward. no wonder i was never told anything about this. “who’s the illustrator?”

a thoughtful pause later, yae answered, “hmm… you’ll chance upon him eventually, reader. the yae publishing house commissioned him for the irodori festival, so… we’ll see if he accommodates for mr. yamamoto’s commission as well.”

that response made your nose scrunch up. was it too much for yae to apprise you of this guy’s identity? especially if he was so reputable to the point that the publishing house called for his artistic expertise… you racked your brain for names hotaru dropped in the past, but, to your understanding, none of them were illustrators.

gorou studied your dismay, his tail swishing speedily behind him. this formed a disquieting smile on the kitsune's face.

“hehe… reader, care to see what sort of face gorou is making?”

“pardon?”

with a gentle finger under your chin, yae redirected your attention to gorou’s cheeks that had blossomed into a rosy color once he realized this was another one of yae’s ploys.

“what… about his face…?” your voice grew faint.

it was that feeling again. caterpillars breaking out of their chrysalises in your stomach. nerves being set on fire. an acrobat performing a ropewalk.

and yae was getting a real kick out of watching you two act like students about to confess their crushes on each other behind the school building. it was time for her to play as the angel "cupid" (in her own devilish way). “fascinating. never would i have predicted for someone other than the traveler to get under your armor, dear gorou.”

“under my armor!?” gorou screeched.

yae lazily lolled her head toward him. “not literally, but i know you, general. you keep words lodged in your throat while letting other people vent to their heart’s content, but it’s a different story around the traveler, is it not?”

gorou rubbed a distressed hand over his face to suppress the urge to cry before wildly gesturing in your direction. “reader, don’t be fooled by her cunning words! there's nothing going on between the traveler and me!”

your eyes widened by the slightest bit. right, the traveler. why aren’t they the one in my shoes right now?

“um… oh,” you uttered absentmindedly.

yae and gorou stared at you.

…oh?

…

…could you not care less about gorou and the traveler being an item?

yae pursed her lips, feeling a bit sorry.

and gorou willingly chose to speak with yae—his most formidable foe—to escape this painfully awkward conundrum. “s-so what was it that you had to tell me, yae miko?”

“...oh, yes. the publishing house declined in sales since the disappearance of its foremost columnist, so i need you dressed up as our precious ms. hina for a magazine signing event.”

you didn’t know how to confront the weird feeling in your chest.

since you were little, you had read so many romance books—a royal ruler falling for a knight, enemies growing into lovers, a universe in which a red string tied two strangers—to the point where their plotlines blurred and jumbled together. you watched the tension between childhood friends, love triangles with a painfully obvious victor, and marriages of convenience…

…so romance should be right up your alley… right?

wrong. very wrong. now that you had been thrust into a scenario yourself, you didn’t have the slightest clue what to do about the chaos in your chest, which only metastasized at the thought of gorou…

…so were you going to catch your breath, keep creating as much distance as possible between you and him, and try to figure out the next course of action?

yup—

“reader!”

your heart plummeted into your stomach at that voice.

you spun around to see the general climbing up the stairs, skipping a few at a time, and anchoring his gaze to you the whole way. he stopped on the landing with his chest heaving up and down as you grappled with your fight-or-flight response.

shit shit shit shit shit

his eyes a bit pleading, gorou shouted from below, “may i accompany you wherever you’re going?” this exclamation turned more heads than a person could count, and you knew right there and then that this would be the talk of the town for a while.

“is that… the general of the watatsumi army?”

“what business would he have with mr. yamamoto’s editor?”

“sir gorou…!” you exclaimed. “long time, no see! um, i’m actually sort of on a tight schedule…”

gorou completely straightened up, including his ears. “...do you not wish to see me?”

the murmurs diffusing through the spectators on the street died down so that they could catch what would happen next. chewing the inside of your lip, you balked at the prospect of even speaking to gorou right now and casted a nervous glance at your hand that was resting on a whitestone standing lamp. it was the same hand that an inazuman vagrant kissed tenderly and that an inazuman general held a number of times.

and it was growing very, very clammy. all eyes were riveted to the scene that you—a background character with “so much work…” popping up above your head every few seconds as a dialogue box—were starring in. the game developers had left you with a script you stuck to verbatim, but you were never trained to improv! how much fun was it for the gods of celestia to watch this non-playable character get hurled out of a frying pan and into the fire? to watch them try, like a cat, to catch a laser and then slam into a bunch of obstacles?

and how was it possible for you to be associated with so many vision bearers despite being born with a natural hair color and both parents in the picture?

oh, archons, you just wanted to live peacefully.

tl;dr no, you did not want to see gorou. not right now.

your lack of a response dispirited gorou greatly. his insecurity snowballed because of how he was portraying himself in front of all these people, but he was even more worried that he had somehow discomfited you.

the kiss…

gorou smacked a hand over his mouth in mortification. it must have been the kiss from last month, which definitely lost him sleep during most nights at fort fujitou. as expected, gorou had put a nail into his own coffin by acting on a hare-brained impulse that fateful day, but since he couldn’t just keel over and die right now, he whirled around to head back to kokomi, the one who always had the answer.

“wait, gorou!” you burst out unthinkingly. your feet began scampering down the steps but missed one in the process. arms flailing about, you screamed and closed your eyes for the worst as you sailed right toward the stair landing gorou was on.

“reader!”

you plowed straight into the watatsumi general, who tried his best to steady you, but the impact toppled over and smashed you both into the ground, knocking the wind out of your lungs. with his arms around your middle and your hand clutching the back of his head to break his fall, this made for a very compromising position for all of inazuma city to see you two in.

“ugh…” he pried one eye open to see that your eyes were still screwed shut, and you were as motionless as a rock on top of him. gorou was attacked by a serious sense of déjà vu from this predicament and couldn’t help but snort.

it became a tradition for us to collide head-on when we meet, gorou noted.

“s-sorry, that… wasn’t supposed to happen,” you exhaled lamely while peeping at him, but he didn’t appear irritated or agitated that he was in this mess with you. rather, gorou looked…

…quite happy to see you. painted in the place of his mouth was a little curve with a canine tooth sticking out on the side. 

how can someone be this adorable?

blushing madly, you slapped your hands over his face to obscure his vision.

“ah, what—!?” gorou abandoned your waist and tried to peel your hands off, but they wouldn’t budge.

“d-don’t look at me!” you exclaimed, which caused him to loosen his clamp that was snaked around your wrists.

“why…?" gorou asked, frazzled. "a-are you okay, reader?”

all the bystanders did not intend to indulge in the whys and wherefores of how you two ended up like that and were still like that. damn, they’re shameless, they all thought with contempt.

however, the sudden visit of the guuji had everyone burying their heads in the sand. their deep-seated fear of becoming her next victim superseded their nosiness.

“oh, what do we have here?” crooned a melodious voice at the top of the stairs. you practically snapped your neck to see who the owner of that voice was, and gorou sat up so fast that he narrowly missed bonking your head.

“a general and an editor?” the pink-haired shrine maiden chuckled into her hand. “quite an interesting pair.”

“guuji yae!” you shrieked in astonishment as gorou snarled at the same time, “you!”

and two interesting reactions, yae observed with a hint of a smile as she descended down the stairs in all her glory. “spare me a fraction of your time, will you?”

your first-ever magnificent irodori festival closed in rapidly as soon as you disembarked the passenger boat with yoshihisa. isamu’s family had seen you off that day, but you didn’t run into “kunikuzushi” on any more occasions throughout the voyage to narukami island. 

kuni...kuzushi seemed like he had a lot of issues, so i hope he gets them sorted one day, you had thought as the boat pulled away from ritou harbor.

“reader, how’s our inventory looking from the report?”

“hmm, looks like one copy of tickled pink went missing. i’ll head down to the yae publishing house to see if kuroda knows anything. he probably stashed it away to sell for himself.”

hotaru briefly stopped reviewing the official documents in front of him and puckered his brows. some seconds later, he nodded. “wouldn’t put it past him.”

you bid adieu to hotaru and then stepped out of the office, your home away from home. sure, you had a love-hate relationship with your job, but after nearly a month of being away from it, you couldn’t deny your love for the quaint and charming building.

“good morning, reader!”

hopping toward you along the stony pathway was the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed owner of naganohara fireworks, naganohara yoimiya. she giddily bounded to your side and hooked an arm around one of yours.

“how’s my favorite employee doing?” she giggled, golden eyes glistening.

“don’t say that right here!” you hissed, but yoimiya’s mouth running amok was something to expect over the last two or three weeks of befriending her. “what if hotaru hears?”

“then i can steal you away from him permanently!” 

you were currently finalizing the arrangements for hotaru’s meet-and-greet during the festival, as guuji yae designed this year’s to be centered around the light novel industry. in the meantime, you aided yoimiya in her preparations for a fireworks show in konda village since the yashiro commission banned anything explosive in the city.

“ouch, that’s my bad shoulder, miya,” you quibbled.

“oops, so sorry!” yoimiya launched her hands skyward like she was just caught with a sparkler. “i totally forgot about your injury…”

soft laughter bubbled up out of you. “don’t worry, i’m not a cop!”

you, too, were trying to forget about the incident that was shrouded with a cover story per kokomi’s request. an arrow impaling you was a part of her confidential investigation, as it wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence…

…but for gorou, you would have done it a thousand times over.

today must be gorou’s birthday, you considered before abruptly smacking your cheeks with your hands, procuring a strange look from yoimiya. don’t get distracted, me! why am i thinking of him when i probably haven’t occurred to him once…?

that was right. gorou was a general, and you were only an editor. with responsibilities that were poles apart, the two of you were never meant to cross paths in the first place.

you circled to yoimiya’s other side and linked arms. “wanna walk with me to the yae publishing house?”

her eyes shone so brightly that they seemed to contain the sun. “haha, i’ve got nothing else better to do!”

you and yoimiya ambled past kids squatting over their allowance to surmise whether they could afford the “statue of her excellency, the almighty narukami ogosho, god of thunder”, patrons lining up for the crème de la crème at ogura textiles & kimonos, and shimura adding an inazuman twist to foreign dishes so that guests from mondstadt and liyue can get a taste of home during the festival.

home. you never thought the day would come for inazuma to open the floodgates for residents from your hometown. 

but your maudlin thoughts disappeared when the number of shogunate officers seemed to multiply near the yae publishing house.

“hey, miya, what’s going on?” you asked her in a hushed voice.

“oh, there was a rumor that spread like wildfire today!” yoimiya imparted to you. “people saw watatsumi island’s supreme leader in the city and are theorizing that she has a meeting with the tenryou commission. they probably increased security since a lot of high-ranking officials will be concentrated in one place, you know?”

the tenryou commission? you didn’t want to entertain the thought that this meeting could go south—not when things were looking up for the nation.

speaking of the leader of watatsumi island, when you reached the publishing house, you spotted kuroda talking to a lady who appeared way out of his league with salmon pink hair, which was accessorized by a fin-shaped ornament that protruded from her head like a pair of horns.

“ma’am, i indeed am also mister chang’s editor, but i haven’t heard from that idio… that man in a while. i mean, he’s all the way in liyue. whether he can get you zhenyu’s autograph is not something i've had control over…”

you had failed to mention this before, but kuroda was more than just the publishing house’s current vendor; kuroda was also its executive editor. this may sound pretty impressive, but his soul was equally as tortured by the author he handled as any other editor's.

kokomi’s fingers curled into her palms, her stare falling onto the counter. “but to meet my idol at the festival in person …”

“your excellency?” you called out, attracting her pupilless eyes.

“ah, reader!” the divine priestess slipped away from kuroda and proceeded toward you with her hands elegantly laced in front of her. “it’s so good to see you again. how have you been faring?”

…

“wait, you two know each other?” yoimiya chimed in after a short interlude.

“but of course. after all, they are the editor in charge of one of my favorite authors.” kokomi shot you a wink as if the short-lived time you spent with the people of watatsumi was a little secret between you and her.

for some reason, tears were threatening to spring forward. did you still feel guilt from failing to complete her commission last month? nostalgia from the stories the draftees shared over campfires at fort fujitou? “your excellency…”

“call me kokomi.”

“…madam kokomi, may i know why you’re here on narukami island?”

“oh, yes, that reminds me.” kokomi gently clapped her hands together. “i asked that shopkeeper about your whereabouts because there is an important appointment for me to attend today. since i do not require my general to be at my side for it, i thought you and him could stroll around the city and catch up, especially since it’s his special day.”

general?

that word scratched you like coarse sand. you avidly searched the area, a million thoughts racing through your head per second.

naturally, wherever the young divine priestess of the watatsumi island was, her doggy general would be close on the heels of her geta sandals. he was leaning against the wooden fence directly across the yae publishing house, surveying the vicinity for any shady figures, but a sakura petal robbed him of his attentiveness. his blue eyes accompanied its erratic movement in the air until landing on yours.

and that second of eye contact felt like forever. the day you crashed into him while fleeing from ms. hina aficionados to the day he softly brushed his lips against your cheek played in your brain like a motion picture.

and it was far too much for your brain to handle.

“um, i… haha, i forgot… to ask… i forgot to ask if hotaru needed me to buy him new socks!” you yammered to yoimiya and kokomi, scratching the back of your head with an apologetic tone. “...be right back!”

“...reader, hotaru doesn’t even wear socks!” yoimiya hollered when it dawned on her, but your resolve to get as far away as possible didn’t waver. with a heart twinging in pain, gorou watched you hightail it up the grand staircase and vanish as quickly as you had appeared.

the closest thing scaramouche had to family was a person named katsuragi.

but other than the memories scaramouche had left of him, scaramouche didn’t know what it was like to come home to a pair of open arms, be asked how his day went, or have someone announce that dinner was ready.

so when he finally tracked down you and that small brat napping in the corner of the children’s playroom, he wondered if this was the sight of “peacefulness” his subordinates spoke of regarding their own families.

after scaramouche maneuvered around some toddlers playing with dinosaur figure toys and playhouses, he tossed aside the emerald finch plush that he purloined from the storage room and crouched down to be at eye level with you. you who were sleeping soundly without any perception of the danger in front of you. you whose cheek he lightly grazed with his knuckles, your soft skin so pierceable.

and he could pierce it so quietly.

and toss you off the side of this boat.

and no one would know.

he could capsize the entire vessel if he wanted to.

“gorou…”

scaramouche quirked up an eyebrow at the name that slipped from your mouth and gave you a once-over. you were still in deep slumber.

“...foolish human, you risked your life for a dog.”

out of the blue, a father and his partner burst through the door of the playroom and zeroed in on their child resting against your side. scaramouche promptly moved aside with a smidgeon of alarm as you and the kid roused from sleep at the couple’s frantic frenzy.

“bless the electro archon that you’re all right, isamu!” overflowing with tears (and having a striking resemblance to you), the parent sank to their knees and wrapped their arms around the child. “we couldn’t begin to forgive ourselves if you were hurt!”

“papa? nibi?” isamu rubbed at his eyes that drooped with drowsiness before peeping up at you, whose own eyes were shadowed with fatigue from keeping pace with his energy all day.

when you reported a missing child to the authorities and were told to hand him over, isamu threw a fit, stubbornly refusing to leave you, so you were constrained to chasing looking after him until his parents were notified.

and since caretaking wasn’t the expertise of good-for-nothing yoshihisa, he wasn’t ecstatic to let isamu stay in the cabin, so he directed you to the playroom and went right back to sleep.

“who was that, mama?” isamu asked as he wrapped his hand around your forefinger and followed you to the playroom. “do you love someone else?”

“eh?” you blinked in rapid succession. “i, uh… well, i only love two people in this world, and that’s you and your father! that man we talked to was actually my bodyguard…”

who obviously didn’t do that much guarding, you internally rebuked yoshihisa.

as if he read your mind, isamu secured his grip on your finger. “don’t worry, mama! i will keep you safe until papa comes back.”

from the looks of it, “papa” probably wasn’t going to guard you either, let alone stick to his word and come back with a stuffy. you honestly thought the last time you would ever see him was that morning in the restaurant.

“we cannot thank you enough for keeping our baby safe,” gushed the father (who was virtually a carbon copy of scaramouche apart from a few forehead wrinkles). “we took our eyes off him for just a fraction of a second…”

“it’s not a problem!” you assured, shaking your head. “i’m glad i could help.”

isamu’s attention gravitated to the stuffed animal nudging his elbow, and his face wholly lit up as he raised it into the air. “it’s a finch!” he rejoiced.

…that wasn’t there before.

you drew your eyes to the hatted man that everyone had yet to address. that was when the puzzle pieces connected in your brain.

“wait, kuni—?”

“no.”

but isamu wasn’t going to let scaramouche off the hook. “thank you, papa!” isamu cheered, waving at scaramouche with plush in hand as his actual father scooped him up.

“all right, kiddo, it’s time for your bubble bath,” isamu’s dad cajoled, and then he parted one last thank you before heading toward the exit.

“very sorry for ruining your honeymoon!” his partner appended with clasped hands.

“we’re not even a…!” scaramouche’s voice trailed off since isamu and his parents were long gone. scaramouche pinched the bridge of his nose as if putting a cork on the irritability bottled up inside of him.

“kuni, you got that plush for isamu,” you said, your beam settling into a gentle smile.

the balladeer folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. if looks could kill, you would be six feet under. “you are clearly mistaken,” he returned coolly. “it was a complimentary gift from the staff passing through here.”

ah, this is what light novel authors call a “tsundere”, you mused to yourself. “the evidence is pointing right at you, hat boy.”

hat boy!?

scaramouche’s fists clenched and unclenched uncontrollably by his sides at your insolence (toward a harbinger, no less).  “even if i did give it to that child, what of it? it was more trouble than it was worth.” and that finch will be abandoned and replaced anyway.

“well, actually, it was an excuse i made up so that you could leave… since you looked ready to drop-kick the kid,” you clarified to him as you pulled your knees to your chest. “i didn’t think you would look for a stuffed animal and come back with it.”

huddling your legs into your arms, you propped a chin onto the bone of your kneecaps and gazed up at scaramouche earnestly. “but you saw how happy isamu was, right? the plush wasn’t from his real dad, but he’s going to cherish it for the rest of his life—or at least the memory of the plush if he ever loses it.” your lips spread into a cheeky smile. “see? i told you that you’re a good person.”

scaramouche goes completely still at the sight of your upturned lips.

it… it was impossible for a person to be this charitable to a stranger, yet your words and actions never had ill intent...

...even when he snuck up behind you on the terrace of the boat.

“gah, i-i’m sorry! i didn’t think anyone would come here at this hour…”

“kuni, i’m going to keep believing that you’re a good person. i don’t think you would’ve helped me if that wasn’t the case.”

even when he accidently shed his patronizing demeanor for one that was more antagonizing toward you. one that was more his style.

“are you stupid? why didn’t you just walk away from that simpleton?”

“...what was in your food to make you say that?”

you were so far away from the world that scaramouche riddled with revenge, exploitation, and manslaughter. you were so far away from him that you appeared almost unreal, but you were right in front of him, affecting him in every which way and still smiling at him... even though he could have extinguished your flame long ago.

would you still be smiling at him if you learned that he waved off his minions to leave his office, giving them the green light to do whatever they wanted to your father?

“i think…” scaramouche muttered, the harsh line of his brows mellowing.

he wanted to know the answer to that question, so he was too curious about you to take your last breath… for now.

“eh? did you say something?”

scaramouche swiveled around, pink tinging his ears, and stalked off.

“hey, where are you going!? i have so much leftover food from this morning that we were supposed to share!”

that only quickened scaramouche’s pace to the door, but as soon as he placed his hand flush against it, he turned to look back at you.

“remember my name until next time, reader,” he said. “it’s kunikuzushi.”

and he was gone just like that.

…how did he know your name?

when scaramouche came up to your table for help with a child pincering the hem of his shorts, your katsu sandwich went down the wrong pipe hole. you downed half of a bottle of dango milk to help you recover from the shock.

“i would’ve never guessed that you had a kid,” you jested, wiping your lips of any excess, but scaramouche was a far cry from being entertained.

“very funny,” he said flatly, neglecting to conceal his true colors at this point. “what was in your food to make you say that?”

the little kid’s big eyes shone at the sound of “food” and locked onto the manifold delectables atop your plate.

“i-i’m hungry…” he cheeped, rubbing his tummy.

“you’re hungry?” you reiterated to which he frantically nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet. his mannerisms reminded you of a red burny girl back in mondstadt, who occasionally showed up at good hunter to snatch a tiger grilled fish stick from you. “c’mon, it’s all yours, champ.”

the boy waddled away from scaramouche and clambered onto the adjacent seat. as his eyes swept across the mizu manjuu, egg rolls, and fish-shaped cakes, your concern proliferated. you smoothed back the sprig of cowlick on the top of his head and inquired of him, “where are your parents, buddy? did you come to this restaurant with them?”

he paused before pointing the tip of his tri-flavored skewer at you. “nibi…” and then right at scaramouche. “papa…”

and that was when you noticed: the boy’s hair that you were patting was a similar color and texture to yours, and his eyes reflected the same intense purple as that of scaramouche’s. in your chair, you rotated to face the man with robotic consistency.

“kuni… this may sound farfetched, but what if, in the future, we actually ended up in a loveless marriage and this is our child who went back to the past to stop us from falling for each other?” you proposed.

…

scaramouche was appalled. you weren’t fazed by the intimate moment he created earlier—lips against your ear and everything—yet you have already shaken him more times than he can count.

“i’m leaving,” he snapped.

those words from scaramouche seemed to set off an alarm in the child. he dropped the skewer and outstretched his hands with teary eyes, confining scaramouche in one place.

“papa, please don’t go!” the little kid’s bottom lip quivered as he turned to you for help. “n-nibi, can you stop papa?”

seeing him in such a crestfallen state made your chest clench painfully. you quickly gave the child a reassuring smile while whipping up some sort of convincing explanation. “aaactually… your papa is off to get… your stuffed animal from our room!” you blurted out, catching scaramouche’s eye. “right… honey?”

scaramouche, a sinner whose face could school itself into deadpan amid a sea of rotting bodies, was flabbergasted at this unfolding of events. a stuffed animal? he hadn’t seen one in his life, but the glimmer of hope in the child’s eyes forced scaramouche to raise his shoulders into a noncommittal shrug.

“yes, i will return,” he grunted after a moment’s worth of hesitation.

with herculean strength, he offered his newlywed partner and unplanned child an award-winning smile and left the restaurant, but once he was out of sight, his elegant steps turned into anger-driven strides.

i should’ve never decided to come kill this moron myself! he fumed, but rationality slowed scaramouche to a halt. 

it wasn’t a decision for scaramouche. for the first time in his godforsaken time on teyvat, scaramouche felt like he had no other choice.

as soon as scaramouche received the report that you escaped after eavesdropping on his henchmen in the forest one time, he already had lackeys on your heels. there was no need for him to get personally involved.

but his lackeys continued to be defeated one by one. those that managed to survive and crawl back to headquarters all described seeing “a dash of white hair” before a gust of wind ripped their comrades to shreds. they couldn’t get anywhere near you.

and do you wanna know about the icing on top? the salt to scaramouche’s wound?

you, reader, were a complete nobody with zilch information on your record that he scrounged up, yet you somehow got yourself implicated in his plan to incapacitate a general.

well, you didn’t completely thwart it. the divine priestess—a pawn he had fiddled with in the past—would still believe that the man who shot the arrow was an undercover shogunate officer… 

…when it was really a fatui agent sent on scaramouche’s behalf.

tension between the inazuma shogunate and the island of watatsumi was exactly what scaramouche needed to gain control of the nation as a whole. the same nation he was manufactured in would be the same nation that met its downfall by his synthetic hands.

but there was an unforeseen error: scaramouche was under the impression that you overheard the details of his plan to fabricate chaos in inazuma in the forest, thus throwing caution to the wind and taking an arrow to the shoulder for general gorou…

…but no one outside of the fatui organization was allowed to get away with that information alive, especially a being as insignificant as yourself.

due to how incompetent his servants were, he boarded this very passenger boat to get the job done, thinking you were some powerful entity, but scaramouche was quick to find out that you weren’t powerful in the brain or brawn department, which should’ve meant he had the upper hand. human lives were playthings to him, and he could easily strike you down at any given moment…

…but he was hesitating to kill you.

thrown so off-kilter by this, scaramouche knew there was something terribly wrong with his wiring. this abnormality was the antithesis of his crimes as the balladeer thus far, so he was on the verge of knocking down the shogun’s door and demanding her to fix him.

well, if he didn’t hate her so much.

scaramouche was aware that he wasn’t making any progress by idling around, so he stormed off to find a stupid, ugly stuffed animal to pacify that kid.

shit, where am i going to steal one?

you felt very awkward.

in the past ten minutes, only one word was uttered by this stranger sitting across from you, and it was when you questioned his name.

“kuni,” he had answered with a light-hearted smile, and then he was back to staring at you, like he was critiquing a movie.

either he can’t do small talk, or the side effects of the medication are getting to me. you sighed, training your eyes on the dirt underneath your fingernails. he might just be a figment of my imagination. after all, a person can’t be this pretty in real life.

an employee emerged from the kitchen, ringing a bell to signal that breakfast was ready for the passengers. you steadfastly leaped up from your seat, thankful to have something to do now, but the purple-haired man didn’t follow suit. 

…he wasn’t expecting you to get his food for him, right?

...you really didn’t want to be around him anyway, so maybe this was for the better.

“um, i’ll just get one of everything, so wait here!”

once you left, the warm curl to the stranger’s mouth reduced to a thin line as he watched you hurry over to the buffet and start eagerly stacking your plate with inazuman goodies.

what good could some boat food be? “kuni” derided in his mind.

you eventually showed up at the rightmost station for a steaming onigiri… only to find every last one getting shoveled onto some middle-aged man’s plate!

he caught you eyeing him with an unshakable vengeance. smiling wryly, he clipped one of his onigiri between a pair of chopsticks and nodded toward it.

“i’m feeling quite generous today, so take one, sweetums,” he propounded.

you smothered a scowl at the pet name and told him that he could help himself, but the man was insistent.

“ah, come on, it’s not proper to just dismiss me like that… i thought i was being a nice person. you really should learn to smile, or else no one will want to talk to you.”

…the day had barely started, and you’ve already met two super strange characters.

equal parts concerned and annoyed, you turned on the pest with a temptation to fling your plate of food at his face. “i said i’m fine. i can go a day without onigiri.”

the man was far from over with his antics and tagged along with you to the liquid refreshments. “hey, are you alone on this boat?” he queried incessantly. “we could get to know each other. be my source of entertainment, will you? i could rent out a private massage room on this boat for—”

“screw off!” you yelled, attracting a few curious onlookers and staff members. “can you not take a hint!?”

the creep’s shit-eating grin vanished off the surface of teyvat at the realization that his advances were for naught. face blotched cherry red with fury, his hand quickly lifted into the air above you, causing you to freeze in fear.

“mind your manners, you little—!”

a pale, slender hand shot out of nowhere and captured the middle-aged man’s wrist into an iron grip, making him screech so loud that his voice rang in your ears. you fixed your gaze on kuni, who seemed quite indifferent despite having practically shoved himself between you and your assailant.

“what are you doing?” kuni asked. there was no longer any light within the striking violet of his irises.

“who are you?” the man shouted, spit flying everywhere. “and what’s with the getup?” 

kuni tightened his grasp with a chilling placidity and earned another squeal out of the swine. “...walk away.”

the man hastily wriggled out of kuni’s clutch and scrambled away as fast as his little legs could carry him—but not without some crude remarks. “could’ve just said that you had a boyfriend! you’re ugly as hell anyway!”

you and kuni quietly watched his figure become a little speck that pushed against the current of passengers heading over to the buffet. once he was finally gone, a short sigh broke free from your mouth and averted kuni’s attention to you as you placed a delicate palm over your shoulder, which felt like it was tingling. “thank you for saving me, kuni… can’t believe that guy refused to let up. it’s like he’s never been rejected his whole life.”

planting a hand on his hip, kuni spoke in a brusque manner that clashed with your initial impression of him. “are you stupid? why didn’t you just walk away from that simpleton?”

you blinked at his brashness. “me…? why should i walk away? i didn’t do anything wrong! if anything, it should be a felony to eat that much onigiri in one sitting!”

kuni analyzed your outburst—cheeks gaining color, teeth gnashing, eyebrows pulling close together. in response, kuni started menacingly walking toward you, shortening the distance every second. soon, your lower back was pressed against the food service countertop, which kuni placed his hands on to trap you in his arms. the only thing separating you and kuni was your plate.

“so you’ll willingly allow any guy to ruffle your feathers?” he whispered, his breath tickling your skin.

…

you've had enough of men’s shenanigans that day.

you picked up a tricolor dango off your dish and stuck it in between kuni’s lips, startling him into a backward step. his nose crinkled, teetering between taking a bite and spitting the food out, as you explained, “kuni, i’m going to keep believing that you’re a good person. i don’t think you would’ve helped me if that wasn’t the case.”

and off you went, not bothering to see if he would follow. you supposed that since he was up on his feet now, he could get his own sustenance.

kuni huffed a laugh devoid of amusement while twisting on his heel to stare daggers into the back of your head.

“‘a good person’?” he parroted with scorn.

“good” was not a term in the lexicon of the sixth fatui harbinger, scaramouche.

just wait, dear reader. you will be in a world of pain once you find out the truth—

scaramouche was ripped out of his inner monologue when he felt a light tug on his shorts. his eyes snapped down to see a little boy peering up at him.

“papa?”

it was early in the morning as the seabreeze tickled your face and calm waves lapped up against the side of the boat. the birds circling overhead cawed at one another once they picked out their next prey underneath the turquoise surface.

it had been a handful of days since you got on this passenger boat that kokomi had mentioned in the memo, and it was way more luxurious than you were anticipating, as it included everything you could imagine.

and you weren’t completely alone; a veteran soldier of the special ops group “swordfish ii” named yoshihisa had stepped on board as well to make sure you safely arrived at narukami island.

on a different note, not once was the general able to visit you during your last days in the fort because he needed to make up for lost time with the recruits. you were undeniably disappointed when gorou couldn’t be there to see you off…

...or spell out why he kissed your cheek!

i’m sorry, kazuha! you sobbed at the idea of the poet holding up a “welcome home, cheater” at your make-believe house with him…

…but who did your heart actually lie with now? was it the selfless general of watatsumi island or the wandering samurai?

driving that matter aside, you leaned yourself against the steel railing that fenced in the ship’s open-air terrace. everyone else was in their cabins, but you needed some fresh air and space to exercise your super stiff body.

“okay, let’s do this!” you exclaimed—mostly to convince yourself that all the stretching you’ve carried out in the last week will be worthwhile in the long run.

calling the medic’s words to mind, you started to roll back your shoulders, perform a reverse table pose, and strain your triceps without a trace of heed to your surroundings.

“breathe in… breathe out…”

unbeknownst to you, a man with red eyeliner and locks of indigo hair wordlessly sauntered onto the terrace, his hands neatly interweaved behind his back. however, the innocent smile on his lips immediately pretzeled into a cynical grimace.

“hoo… haa…”

what the hell are they doing? he pondered, his perfect features getting tainted by your abhorrent conduct. are they possessed?

he did a u-turn to pick out a different time to approach you, but the jingling bells suspended by red threads from his hat were a dead giveaway. you turned while doing a chest stretch and froze at the doll-like individual behind you.

“gah, i-i’m sorry! i didn’t think anyone would come here at this hour…” you self-consciously rubbed your arm as he directed a flinty side glance your way, his back toward you. however, you couldn’t discern his face behind the brim of his hat.

you blinked a couple times because he didn’t reply, wondering if you were just hallucinating his presence.

weird. “well… i’m gonna chill in the restaurant for breakfast service to start,” you informed him. the only thing protecting your sanity from the constant rocking motion of this boat was the omelette rice that they served, so there was no way anyone was getting to it before you did.

you shuffled past him without thinking another word would be exchanged, but his voice piped up unexpectedly.

“mind if i join you?”