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perpetualcynicism · 9 days

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…𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: In which Heizou takes you to see Inazuma’s Summer Festival, but that’s not what you’ll remember the outing for. …𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Fluff, pining. …𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: Crowds, I guess? …𝙻𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑: 3,632 words. …𝙰𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: Gender-neutral reader, modern AU, friends-to-lovers, mentions of Japanese street food and festival games. Reblogs and comments are appreciated.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

𝚂𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚕𝚎𝚛.

“This way, hurry!”

Your heels drove into the floor to propel yourself forwards as you forced your way through the crowd. Heizou slipped ahead of you, weaving past the sea of arms and torsos with skill you could envy. Your blood rushed in your ears. The hot pulse thrummed in time with your heartbeat. Somebody knocked their elbow into your ribs. You felt the air being forced out from your lungs.

“Careful!” Heizou said, glancing at you from over his shoulder. You would have called back “I know!”, but you were too winded to speak. “Don’t get lost, now. We’re almost there!”

Another influx of people flooded past, forcing you back into the main body of the crowd. You felt yourself be pushed forwards, right, left, pulled this way and that like a fish floundering against a current. Is it always this busy? you thought, drawing your clothes tighter around yourself.

“Quickly, over here! There’s an opening in the crowd!”

You sighed and picked up the pace, internally lamenting the crumpled, twisted state of your yukata as you did. You’d wanted to wear something nice for tonight. It was, after all, a long-awaited occasion. The fact that Heizou was here had nothing to do with it.

As promised, a gap appeared in the people ahead of you. You squeezed past a final troupe of people, elbowing your way past a tourist group, and made towards the gap at lightning speed.

The situation was this: ever since you’d first come to study in Inazuma, there was one thing you’d wanted to see here—the Teyvat-renowned Summer Festival. When you arrived, you’d missed it just shy of a week. During the second, workload and life got in the way of things (as they had a tendency to do), and by the time the third Summer Festival of your stay rolled around, you had accepted that this dream of yours was unlikely to happen, and with the same mourning feeling of bidding goodbye to an old friend, you let the dream go. After two missed festivals, you reasoned, you could survive one more. There were other, more important things to focus on, anyhow.

That of course was upturned the moment a certain Shikanoin Heizou, by now a close friend of yours whom you’d made shortly after you arrived, asked you off-handedly one day, “Hey, wanna come to the Summer Festival with me?” You had jumped at the chance as any sensible person would. He’d grinned in response.

And that is how you found yourself squished up in a sea of vibrantly-dressed festival goers on a hot summer evening, practically suffocated by the close quarters. It was not, admittedly, the most flattering start to the night.

“We should have taken another way around,” you muttered bitterly, brushing yourself off as you broke free of the crowd, although you didn’t really mean it. You were glad to be here in the first place. Oxygen was a necessary sacrifice you were willing to make.

“You alright?” Heizou asked as you sidled up beside him. It took a moment for you to catch your breath.

“Yeah. Somewhat flattened,” you admitted finally, earning a sympathetic laugh from Heizou, “but it feels good to breathe again.”

He nodded. “That’s a relief. Sorry about that, by the way. I could’ve taken us down a less busy route.”

“It’s okay. It was me who wanted to go through the main entrance, anyway.”

Heizou glanced over at you, briefly pausing. “Oh, your yukata—”

“I know,” you sighed. You brushed down the front of the garment and readjusted the collar which had been twisted sideways in the scuffle. “So much for looking good for the festival, huh?”

Heizou clicked his tongue. “Come on, don’t say that. You look amazing.”

You weren’t completely convinced, but you thanked him anyway. For a moment, you watched the ocean of people flow past, a mesmerising array of bright colours and patterned kimonos. You supposed it was your fault for trying to get in at the busiest time of the evening.

“Do you still want to continue through the stalls?” Heizou asked once the human flood died down a little.

You scoffed light-heartedly. “What kind of a question is that? Of course I do.” Heizou flashed you another smile and reached for your hand. Before he could set off and pull you along through the park hosting the festival, you added, “Maybe in a slightly less crowded area, though.”

“Got it.”

And you were off again. Heizou took the lead in showing you around, since he knew where he was going and you did not. You walked shoulder-to-shoulder through the assorted festival stalls, occasionally jostled about by the colourful crowd, talking and laughing as you went. Well, Heizou did most of the talking, while you admired all the decorations like a wide-eyed child.

“Someone's enjoying themselves,” he commented with a sly grin once he finished recounting a tale about this fraud-warning show he’d tried putting on some time ago.

“Oh, be quiet, you,” you grumbled, batting him lightly on the arm. He bumped your shoulder in return.

“Ooh, hang on.” Heizou stopped in his tracks. He was looking at something behind you.

You turned around to see what had caught his attention. “What is it?” you asked.

“Sparklers,” he replied with a grin, already making for the stall in question. You trailed after him in pursuit.

“Aren’t sparklers dangerous in a space as packed as this?” you queried as you pushed yourselves into the winding queue.

“Well, technically yeah,” he admitted, “But you only live once, right?”

You raised a brow. “Only living once to die to a sparkler sounds like a pretty sorry way to go.”

“Here,” he said, decidedly ignoring your comment and offering you a fizzling sparkler, “have one. My intuition tells me it’s perfectly safe.”

For all your criticism, you thanked him and took it—though you couldn’t resist adding, “If this is where I die, I’m blaming you and your intuition.”

Heizou’s face fell in an expression of mock offence as he took back his change for the sparklers. “When has my intuition ever been wrong?” he asked. You were forced to admit he had a point. Walking back up to you, he continued, “And besides, do you really trust me so little to save you? To whisk you away from danger at a moment’s notice?”

You clicked your tongue. “Afraid so. Against a formidable sparkler,” you waved the aforementioned item in front of his face, and tiny sparks leapt out from it like fireflies, “I’m not sure even the mighty Shikanoin Heizou stands a chance.”

“Careful with that. You could poke someone’s eye out.”

Exasperated with his teasing hypocrisy, you sighed and didn’t reply. You resumed your walk for a few more minutes, taking in the decorated maple trees and the dusk air, sparklers spitting gold, before Heizou stopped again in the middle of the gravel path without warning.

“Let’s go this way,” he said, stepping off the path and into the grass.

“Why?”

His smile and mysterious tone of voice revealed nothing. “Just come.”

“Okay…”

You let Heizou tug you up the hill around which the celebrations were being held. The maple trees thinned the higher you went until you had a full view of the sky overhead. The city’s skyscrapers winked their neon lights at you, rising like glittering columns from the surrounding treeline below. Faintly, you could make out the sounds of traffic in the distance.

A deep indigo was setting into the evening sky and revealed little studded stars as it darkened, marking the transition from dusk to nightfall. Only a faint red flush told you that sunset had yet to end.

People were trickling steadily in from the surrounding paths which lead from the main activities, but it was quieter here than in the middle of the festive throng. Colder, too. You hadn’t taken notice of the cool summer wind when you were being crushed amid moving bodies, but here, in this relative isolation, it became apparent that the night was not as hot as you’d thought it was.

Just as you were going to suggest finding somewhere warmer to stand—behind a tree, maybe, to block the breeze—the last crimson blush faded from the horizon. Heizou put a hand on each of your shoulders and whispered into your ear, “Surprise!”

No sooner had he spoken than the night came alive with colour. Dazzling twisters of pink and blue sprang into the sky, squealing as they burst into shimmering showers of gold over the treeline. Red, sparkling rockets were set off in the shapes of foxes and kitsune masks which exploded among the constellations like they were dancing with the stars themselves.

“Woah,” was all you could get out before your jaw fell open. To your right, Heizou’s mouth tugged into a smile which half matched your own excitement and was half smug.

“That’s what you wanted to see right?”

You nodded, not really paying attention to what he was saying.

“How do you like it?” he prodded.

A redundant question, but you answered it anyway. “It’s… I mean, it’s incredible.”

Heizou chuckled and pressed a kiss to your cheek in an action too quick for you to register. “I’m glad you like it.” He tugged on your hand, leading you further into the stalls. “Come on, let’s go find a better spot to watch it from.”

You let him pull you forwards. The kiss hit seconds later. The moment it clocked you, you felt your face light up like a furnace. Your limbs went stiff, like they were locked at the joints, and you were rendered frozen for a good while, practically being dragged along by Heizou while your feet stumbled uselessly over the ground. Wait, when had your heart started racing? Bemused, you lifted your hand to lightly touch the tingling spot he’d marked, the fireworks a distant afterthought.

You came back to your senses when you reached the hilltop. You and Heizou nudged your way through the crowd, all donned in plastic kitsune masks and holding wooden gohei, until you found an open space and sat down on the grass. Once more your attention was captivated by the fireworks display, and the kiss was a fleeting memory gone in the next burst of colour.

You watched the rest of the fireworks in awed silence. The display went on for a few minutes more, and the glittering colour faded from the sky all too quickly.

“Good show, right?” Heizou’s voice snapped you back to the present moment. He was looking at you intently, like he was studying your expression for a sign of your own opinion. In the olives of his irises, you could faintly make out the glittering reflection of the fireworks’ dying showers. “I heard Naganohara Fireworks played a big hand in it this year. What did you think?”

You floundered for words, struggling to find a way to articulate your answer. Finally, you succeeded in stammering out, “I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.” You shook your head, disbelieving. To think you’d practically given up on coming—and you wouldn’t have, if not for him. “Thank you for taking me here. Seriously. It’s everything I could have hoped for.”

“No problem,” Heizou replied, his smile contagious. “It’s my pleasure.” He stood up from the grass and stretched widely. You suspected it was for dramatic effect: you’d hardly been sitting long enough to develop a cramp, much less in the arms. He dropped his arms to his side and shot you a grin. “Do you want to go and get some taiyaki?”

You barely had the time to say ‘yes’ before you were pulled to your feet and into a run, ducking and weaving between the crowd, your laughter mingling in the air as you went. The stream of people thickened again as you entered the main length of the path; shoved about backwards and forwards, your hand slipped from his and a row of passersby blocked your vision. When they cleared, Heizou had vanished among the crowd.

You turned from side to side in a futile attempt to locate him. Just as you were reaching into your pocket to call him on your phone, you felt a tap on your shoulder. There he stood, grinning, holding two paper bags containing one taiyaki each. His mouth moved as he said something you couldn’t make out over the crowd’s hubbub, and he held out one of the bags to you. You accepted it with a ‘thank you’ and, chewing on the snack as you went, elbowed your ways into a less crowded space.

“This is really good,” you remarked, taking another bite from the fish’s sorry head. The pastry was crispy on the outside, yet chewy and not too firm, and the red bean filling was still warm. You spoke around your mouthful, “And it’s not too sweet, either.”

“I know, right?” Heizou nodded towards the taiyaki he was holding. “I suspect the secret to these is in the batter: they probably leave out the egg when making it, so the pastry is more crispy.”

You swallowed down a large chunk of the stuff. “That makes sense.”

Once you finished the taiyaki, you moved along through the other stalls, splashing out on festival foods and having a go at games like shateki, during which you made the pleasant discovery of having a very good aim with low-quality guns, and wanage, during which you discovered Heizou was much better at throwing rings than you were. By the time you’d exhausted all the stalls, it was well into the later hours of night. The crowd thinned slowly. You and Heizou made your way back through the emptying park, occasionally glancing at games which still caught your interest.

“I ate way too much,” you groaned, holding what felt like a swollen lump in your stomach. “Nobody should have that much fried food.”

Heizou agreed as he stretched out his arms again beside you. “If I see another piece of kaarage, I think I’m going to throw up.”

“I thought you loved fried food.”

“‘Loved’ being the keyword there,” he lamented. “Past tense.”

“Too much of a good thing, huh?”

“Something like that.”

You walked in silence for a few minutes, watching tourists and locals move throughout the stalls. The initial buzz of energy you felt when arriving here had lessened. It was calmer, now, yet also felt strangely lonely. Your sparkler produced a final, feeble sizzle of light before dying out. You were surprised it had hung on for so long at all. Its death seemed to mark the end of the festive spirit, too. Absentmindedly, you took out your phone and checked the time. 01:24.

“We should probably head back now,” you said, a touch regretfully. Heizou nodded.

“Yeah, I was thinking so, too.”

You passed your weight from foot to foot, hovering there awkwardly. Even though you’d spent a whole evening together, you didn’t want to say goodbye just yet. You searched your mind for some excuse to make.

“You know, I could walk you back,” you offered. “I doubt it’s dangerous because most people are at the festival, but better safe than sorry, right?”

A grin spread across Heizou’s face and brightened his eyes. “Oh? Are you volunteering to be my big, strong bodyguard?”

“Big, strong bodyguard at your service,” you confirmed, folding your arms across your chest, “to keep the damsel from harm.”

Heizou pressed his hand to his forehead in a fake swoon. “Oh, my, I can barely stand. Please, my good knight, save this poor, helpless—ah!” He tipped backwards too far in his swoon and stumbled into a surprised-looking tourist who dropped their gohei at the collision. He apologised and picked himself back up while you wheezed with laughter in the background.

“What the fuck,” you snorted once he rejoined you.

“I couldn’t handle your manliness,” he explained miserably. “I’m sorry.”

You shrugged, as if to say, fair enough. “You know what, I can forgive that. Not many people can.”

“Should we get going, then, my shining-armoured knight?”

“We shall.” Maybe it was the festival food getting to your head, but on a whim, you boldly held out your arm to Heizou. The thing was that you hadn’t been expecting him to actually take it. He hooked his elbow around yours, flashing you a confident grin which made your heart stutter, and bumped your shoulders together. Jitters shot down your arm from the contact.

A teasing slyness crept into Heizou’s voice. “What, is my bodyguard getting nervous? Tsk. How unmanly of you.”

“Oh, be quiet,” you grumbled. “The manliest people get nervous, too.”

He laughed brightly. Your face warmed. You always felt this kind of proud flush when you managed to make him smile.

You made your way to the park’s exit and set down the road, leaving the glowing lights of the Summer Festival behind you. You talked as you walked about whatever took your fancy: recent gossip, the news, workloads, and, when Heizou insisted on ‘protecting’ you from a street cat wandering around the bins by walking bravely in front of you and distracting it with a gohei you’d purchased earlier, the topic of bodyguards again. You raised your eyebrow after Heizou confirmed the cat was gone.

“I thought I was supposed to be the big, strong bodyguard here,” you remarked.

“Even the big, strong bodyguard needs a bodyguard themselves, you know.”

You pointed out, “Wouldn’t that bodyguard need a bodyguard too, though?”

“What a conundrum. I don’t think there are enough of us for infinite bodyguards—oh, speaking of which, I don’t think we’ll need any more bodyguards anyway. Here we are.”

You looked up to see a familiar door standing in front of you. A too familiar door. Your eyebrows furrowed. “Hang on a minute.”

Unknowingly, you must have led the two of you back to your place, not his. You grimaced, feeling guilty for bringing him here when you’d said you would take him back to his place. You yourself usually walked alone, so even though you knew where Heizou lived, you weren’t used to returning there. You’d probably walked this way without thinking. Muscle memory, you supposed.

“I don’t know how we ended up here.” You scratched your neck. “Er, sorry about that. I can still walk you to your place and come back afterwards, if you want.”

He shook his head. “No, there’s no need at all. We both got carried away while talking. I can make my own way back alone.”

You shifted in your place, guilt still gnawing at you with its little, irritating teeth. “Are you sure?”

“Mhm.” Teasingly, he added, “Don’t worry, I won’t get ambushed.”

You grumbled, but begrudgingly let go of your doubt. If he was sure, then he was sure.

“Um,” you began. “Thank you so much for today, by the way. Again. All of it was…” You trailed off, recollecting all the games, food, street performances, fireworks you’d seen that evening. They flooded back to you painted golden, like you were remembering them through the leaping light of a sparkler. “Archons, I can’t put it into words. Everything was amazing.”

He grinned at you, and it was the warmest thing you’d ever seen. “The pleasure was all mine.” He paused, then said, “You know, it’s not often I see you smiling as much as you did tonight.”

“Yeah, well,” you shrugged, “you do have a strange way of doing that to me.”

Instead of continuing the banter with another quip, Heizou stepped closer and opened his arms out in front of you expectantly: an invitation you knew well by now and could never resist. You stepped into his arms and he pressed you into a hug.

You didn’t hug many people, but there was something about Heizou’s hugs which made you feel so grounded and secure for all of his light-hearted demeanour. As you held each other this time, you noticed you could feel his breath on the side of your neck and his hair tickling your shoulder, and you wondered, Were you always this close when you hugged? His arms wrapped around you just a fraction tighter than they should; he kept the embrace for only a moment longer than a good friend would.

Before you could question it fully, he pulled away, still holding your hands. His hands were so warm.

“See you on campus tomorrow?”

“Not if I see you first.”

Heizou chuckled and narrowed his eyes at you. “Game’s on,” he said. You did the two-finger gesture of I’ve got my eye on you towards him. He wriggled his eyebrows in response, making you snort despite yourself.

Becoming serious for a moment, you said, “But… get home safely, alright?”

Heizou nodded and turned away to make his way down the street. “Will do. I’ll text you when I get back.” You waved a final goodbye, and he waved back with a casual call of, “Love you!”

To your surprise, your heart cinched without warning and heat rushed to your face at the words.

You slapped yourself out of it. Why were you reacting like this? This wasn’t anything new. Heizou said ‘I love you’ often, and you never really questioned it: it was a friend thing, surely. Tons of friends said ‘I love you’ to each other—and as an emotionally open person, why shouldn’t Heizou say it to you, his best friend, as his best friend?

Yet as you watched him go, you lifted your hand again to your cheek and wondered at the curious stutter in your chest as you recalled the brief token of something more he’d pressed to your cheek earlier that night. Electrifying and bright and too short-lived, like a sparkler.

#genshin impact x reader #heizou #shikanoin heizou #heizou x reader #this is half proofread and half not #so sorry about that #but it’s been sitting so long in my drafts that i really wanted to get it out

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perpetualcynicism · 19 days

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a reminder: comment under this post if you want to be added to the taglist for this fic.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥’𝐬 𝐅𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐩

[A Howl’s Moving Castle AU based on the book by Diana Wynne Jones (not the Studio Ghibli film), in which Jing Yuan is Howl and the reader (gender-neutral) is Sophie Hatter, among other things. To be cross-posted on AO3.]

… … … … … …

You rose to your feet and dusted your branches off. Your legs were still shaking. “Now, then,” you announced with a confidence you did not feel, “it’s time to find the captain of this ship.”

… … … … … …

In the land of Xianzhou, a place where flying sword and divinations really exist, you, a humble kite maker, are cursed by the Corrupted Cultivator of Scalegorge Wastescape, Phantylia, for reasons beyond your knowing. Unable to stay in your hometown, you flee to the only place that might accept you: General Jing Yuan’s ominous flying ship which has been hovering over Aurum Alley, mysteriously named the Seat of Divine Foresight.

But people say this General Jing Yuan is just as corrupted as Phantylia herself, and that he steals people’s souls for a living…

𝐓𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬

[IMPORTANT: THIS FIC IS NOT POSTING YET. There is no set release date for the fic, but it definitely won’t start releasing until June. Comment beneath this post to be added to a taglist, and I will notify everyone a few days before the fic releases, as well as with every chapter posted. The contents of this post may change slightly before posting, as well, but it shouldn’t be anything major.]

[Chapter updates will be every Monday and Thursday.]

…Chapter One: In which you talk to kites …Chapter Two: In which you are forced to go and seek your fortune …Chapter Three: In which you take a daring leap of faith into some unexpected encounters …Chapter Four: In which you discover a number of odd things …Chapter Five: In which you break two of the three rules …Chapter Six: In which Jing Yuan expresses his feelings with very very frightening thunderbolts and lightning …Chapter Seven: In which you break the third rule …Chapter Eight: In which you leave the flying ship on a flying sword …Chapter Nine: In which the shiny talisman remains a mystery …Chapter Ten: In which your following has grown …Chapter Eleven: In which more shiny talismans are found in a strange land …Chapter Twelve: In which you practice your disguise …Chapter Thirteen: In which an infiltration goes south …Chapter Fourteen: In which you do a lot of thinking …Chapter Fifteen: In which Yanqing’s cold worsens …Chapter Sixteen: In which a flying ship moves under the sea …Chapter Seventeen: In which there are more unexpected encounters …Chapter Eighteen: In which you express your feelings with hot tea (among other things) …Chapter Nineteen: In which many long stories come together …Chapter Twenty: In which a contract is concluded …Chapter Twenty-One: In which a curse is lifted

#reblogging it because it’s kind of a big deal #please humour me and comment if you’re interested in being tagged!#in case anybody missed the first post

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perpetualcynicism · 24 days

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥’𝐬 𝐅𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐩

… … … … … …

You rose to your feet and dusted your branches off. Your legs were still shaking. “Now, then,” you announced with a confidence you did not feel, “it’s time to find the captain of this ship.”

… … … … … …

But people say this General Jing Yuan is just as corrupted as Phantylia herself, and that he steals people’s souls for a living…

𝐓𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬

[Chapter updates will be every Monday and Thursday.]

#honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail #jing yuan #jing yuan x reader #au: general’s flying ship #may as well post this now and get that taglist started #i know the fic is still months away from releasing but i’m so so excited to share it when the time comes

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perpetualcynicism · 25 days

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“May I hold you?” you ask Jing Yuan one afternoon as you lie sun-warmed in his garden.

You almost think he is asleep until he invites, “Please,” carrying a smile in his voice.

With ginger movements, you reach over and place your hands on either side of his face. It begins as mere holding, but soon you find your touch roaming. You smooth your fingers over his eyebrows and trace down to each side of his jaw. From here your hands climb up again, and once more back down, mapping out each crevice and dip of his face, his skin, his bone, until you are certain there is no part of him remaining that you do not know better than you know yourself.

You play this game with yourself, sometimes. You imagine people not as people, but as planets. After all, what is a person anyway, if not a world of their own? You trace the ridge of his nose, and imagine there lies a mountain range. Around his eyes you find oceans. Where his cheeks dip, there are valleys, and a river runs between his lips.

“What are you doing?” Jing Yuan asks. There is an element of amusement to his question, but his voice is primarily gentle. Endeared.

You still your hands. They rest on his cheeks while your thumbs brush back and forth over his skin, holding him. Though the world melts back into the familiar shapes of his face, there is still an assured sturdiness to his features which is grounding; a gravity which draws you towards him, as if you were the moon to his planet. Small, perhaps, and bare, but casting light on him wherever you can.

You answer, “I think I’m holding the world in my hands.”

You feel Jing Yuan’s smile through the way his cheeks press into your palms. Two hands cover yours, large and calloused, but gentle, and hold yours securely in place against his face. There is the tender press of lips to your skin as he turns his head enough to kiss the inside of your palm.

You hear Jing Yuan’s smile through the way his words come warm and bright and filled with adoration. You wonder why you thought him a planet, when he is so clearly the sun.

“And I am being held by the universe.”

#i’m sorry i don’t know what this is #it’s past midnight and i needed to get this brainworm out #my thoughts are literally comprised of jing yuan these days and i don’t know how to fix it #enjoy this random and hopefully not-too-pretentiously-written drabble i suppose #(my writing style goes weird after midnight sometimes and i mistake myself for a poet (which i am most certainly not))#honkai star rail x reader #jing yuan x reader #jing yuan

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perpetualcynicism · 25 days

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… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: (𝟸), 𝙰 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎.

When you step off your starskiff at Central Starskiff Haven, there is a familiar face waiting at the docks. You thank the driver and sidle up to who most may call the General of the Xianzhou Luofu; the famed Divine Foresight; but most importantly, the one you know as your childhood friend. Jing Yuan greets you with a smile and an easygoing call of your name as you approach him.

“It feels like centuries since I saw you last,” you say as you begin your walk down the street. It has not been, but you could almost mistake it for such. So much has happened to the both of you since you last came by. “How have you been? Eating well? Sleeping well?” You cannot help your concern. It is something you learned long ago, that Jing Yuan will not share his troubles unless specifically asked—and from what you have heard, there is good reason for you to worry about him. You raise a hand to rest your thumb on his cheekbone, just below a dark ring underneath his eyelid. “You look underslept.”

“In those regards,” Jing Yuan returns, lowering your hand from his face, “I could return the same questions to you. For all your usual radiance, you look thinner than when I last saw you. Are you taking care of yourself?”

Here is another tactic of his you know too well. You are not to be directed away from the topic of your enquiry. “I asked you first, Jing Yuan.”

“I have been well.”

“Really?”

Jing Yuan raises his eyebrows. “Do you doubt my word?”

“Have you given me your word?” you press, unable to keep your lip from curling at the wonderful familiarity of this banter.

“I give you my word.”

You nod at this, and your smile, along with the banter, fades away as you sigh. All this time, you have been trying to ignore the slight limp in Jing Yuan’s gait as he walks beside you, the slight strain in his voice as he speaks. You wonder whether he has noticed the new slump in your posture. Knowing him, he probably has.

With playful greetings made, there is now space for vulnerability. When you meet his eye, he knows what it means. You fall into an embrace through wordless understanding. His arms come around your upper and lower back, holding you securely but gently to him. You hold his waist and rest your cheek on his chest to listen to his heartbeat. It’s the same embrace you have shared for centuries. The one where he makes you feel safe, and you allow him to shake when he needs it. (And really, you know, he needs it more than he would like to admit.) He is taller, now, so that his chin rests on your head and not your shoulder, but it is still the same. You feel him relax against you, just slightly. Just enough for you to know nothing has changed.

(It has been too long since you were last on the Luofu.)

Quietly, you tell him, “I heard about Phantylia, you know. I was worried sick about you. I would have come sooner, but all the routes here were closed off until recently and I was swamped over with work, and…”

“It’s of little matter,” he reassures you. His thumbs draw circles in your back, warm and soothing in their gentle pressure. “Please, do not concern yourself with it.”

“Are you healing alright?”

You hear the smile in his voice. “Much better now that you are here.”

“I see your flattery hasn’t changed,” you say. You tighten your grip around his waist. He understands and obliges, folding you closer. Here, you can let yourself go fully. Leaning into him, you smile wistfully, “And neither have your embraces. Sometimes I think those are the only things that haven’t changed.”

“Should I take that as a compliment, or an insult?”

“No, no! That’s not what I meant. It’s not an insult.” As you frantically take back your comment, Jing Yuan chuckles. Even after all the years you have lived and all you have seen, there remains a kind of honest innocence to you which never fails to endear him. (He will never let you know how much he fears the thought of you losing it.) “It’s just that when I look at you, I can’t get the image of that pint-sized, too-eager sword-wielding child who kept interrupting me when I tried to read in peace out of my head. I know logically that you’re the General, but seeing you act the part is another matter entirely. Frightening, sometimes, even.”

He says, “I apologise for worrying you.”

You sigh and ease yourself away from the embrace. There is a crease in your brow which Jing Yuan wishes to smooth away. “The trouble is, I don’t even know whether you should apologise or not. One one hand, you’re simply doing your job. On the other, you’re being so horribly careless with your life that I want to say an apology isn’t enough.”

“How long do I have with you to make it up to you, in that case?” he asks, and you recognise that this conversation is one to have at a later point. Perhaps when you are not so exposed to the attention of onlookers. There are already people staring, as tends to happen when they see a seemingly-nobody walking side by side with the one and only General. You do not wish to excite their attention any further.

“Not long,” you reply. The conversation moves along. “Only a week or so, and then I’m off again.”

“Where to?”

“The Xianzhou Yuque.”

“The busy life of a scholar, I see.”

“Says the General of the entire Luofu,” you point out. “You can’t get much higher than that.”

“I may be at the top of the authority chain, but it is people like you who keep the Luofu alive.” He pauses for a moment, enough time for the compliment to warm you, and muses, “Only a week, you say?” He clicks his tongue. “I will have to spoil you as much as possible over the coming days.”

“Shouldn’t you be doing boring General… reports, and whatever else, instead of greeting me here and ‘spoiling me as much as possible’?” you ask. He almost looks offended.

“You mean to imply I would prioritise paperwork over my dearest friend?“

You roll your eyes at his melodrama. It is a melodrama you will admit to having missed. “Well, thank you for coming to greet me. I appreciate it.”

“Of course.”

“By the way,” you say after a minute or so of walking in silence, “who manages your paperwork?“

Jing Yuan sounds amused. “Why do you wish to know?”

“I would like to speak with them. They ought to give you more of a break. You really do look exhausted.”

“Qingzu is lenient enough as it is,” he replies. “I’d be loath to trouble her further. Besides, now that you are here, I find myself inexplicably motivated to finish every last page.”

“And when I’m not here?”

For a moment, Jing Yuan purses his lips and is silent. Then, a fraction more quietly, he says, “I get by.”

Ah. “I hope you have some company with you,” you say.

“Company? Why?”

“You’re a lonelier man than you let on.”

He closes his eyes and smiles. “Perhaps.” He pauses again, in thought. “Tell me, how long have we known each other for?”

You try to remember. “Around… seven centuries, I think? Maybe longer, actually. Eight.”

“Eight? That’s almost an entire lifetime.”

“Practically an entire lifetime for me,” you say. You are of similar ages, but you are somewhat of a century or half younger. (When you first met, it seemed like so much bigger a gap.)

“You haven’t tired of me yet?” Jing Yuan asks, accompanying his question with a playful bumping together of your shoulders.

“There’s a reason I’m spending my free week on the Luofu, isn’t there?”

“Ah, yes, of course.” He taps his chin in prolonged and performative thought. “It’s for the street performances, isn’t it?”

You roll your eyes again. “Yes, Jing Yuan, it’s for the street performances.“

He places a hand over his chest. “How cruel. You could at least attempt to pretend it was for my sake.”

“But then you would see right through me.”

“If I was not too absorbed looking right at you, then certainly,” he agrees. Well, it is not quite an agreement. A flirt? But you know Jing Yuan to be a flatterer regardless of who he speaks with. You have your suspicions, of course—not that he makes any attempt to hide it from you—but it can be difficult to gauge the depth of his remarks. Is he trying to court you? Is he trying to distract you? Change the subject of a conversation? One is just as likely as the other.

You shake your head and sigh. “You know,” you say, “over seven hundred years, and yet I still can’t figure you out. You were so much more straightforward when you were younger.”

He tips his head to one side. It reminds you of the little critters he so fondly keeps in his hair. “In what way?”

“You know. Saying what you think, a little brash, mostly annoying…” Jing Yuan pouts. You relent, smirking, before the humour wanes. “These days… Sometimes, I can’t tell what you’re thinking. You ask after me principally to divert my asking after you, you call me a ‘friend’—but a ‘dearest’ one—and then you speak as if we’re partners. And worst of all, you know I overthink these things, so I can only conclude you’re doing it intentionally to play with me.”

This time, when Jing Yuan frowns, it appears to stem from real consideration. “You dislike my behaviour?”

“Dislike? No, not necessarily. But I do sometimes wonder what your real goal is.”

He takes this into account as you walk. “I have been acting out of the assumption that you are comfortable in our current relationship,” he admits. “I do not wish to overstep any eight-hundred-year-old boundaries. Though, I will not pretend I have not tried testing them from time to time.” He turns to you. “Are you?”

“Sorry?”

There is a gravity to his expression which you know only appears when he is being earnest, and his eyes are trained on you in a way that you know he is giving your answer his full attention. “Are you comfortable, as our relationship currently stands?”

You consider saying ‘yes’. Then, just as the word is about to leave your mouth, you change your mind. “Perhaps I would be, if you let me know what it is.”

“I see,” he muses slowly. “I have not been sufficiently clear in expressing how I feel for you. Allow me to clarify.”

Your walking slows to a halt. He lifts your chin, but before he can do anything, you rise on your toes and get there first. You savour the brief surprise which crosses his face as, for a rare moment, Jing Yuan is caught off-guard. His reaction confirms what you were suspecting. Hoping.

“That’s what you were going to do, right?” you say. The question is performative, because your hypothesis has already been proven right.

Jing Yuan’s momentary shock melts warmly into a smile. “Precisely,” he replies. “Perhaps you have ‘figured me out’ more than you think.” He cradles your face in his hands and dips down to return your wordless confession, one left centuries waiting. It feels natural, not forced as you worried a lifelong-friendship-turned-romance may be.

The kiss you share is momentary, but warm and safe, as everything is with Jing Yuan.

The sound of clicking cameras and chatter breaks the warmth. You jump backwards and hasten to collect yourself while, with a chuckle and a sigh, Jing Yuan waves away the gaping onlookers who have gathered. After some light verbal prodding, they reluctantly disperse. You do not miss the wide-eyed states they shoot over their backs towards you as they leave.

“That’s going to go all around the Luofu now,” you sigh, rubbing your brow in embarrassment and guilt. “I’m so sorry. I forgot we were in public.”

“An apology? What for? I certainly don’t mind being seen in public with you.”

It is comfort, but the breach of your security still hangs open. “Is it not… harmful for your reputation, or anything?”

“There are no vows of chastity to be taken when becoming General,” Jing Yuan tells you with a teasing lilt to his voice. “If there were, I would not have accepted the job.”

You scoff incredulously. “You’re joking, right?” He is silent. You stare at him. “…Right?”

Jing Yuan shrugs.

You run a hand through your hair. “Aeons. Eight hundred years.”

“To impart a little secret,” he says, a twinkle dancing in his eyes, “I have been wanting to do that for almost a lifetime.”

“And myself,” you reply, “practically a full one.”

He offers you his arm. You take it. The breach is closed, and you continue your stroll through Central Starskiff Haven side by side. “A week, you say?” Jing Yuan says, half to himself. “So little time, and so much to do. Tell me, where would you like to go first?”

“I’ve been considering visiting Aurum Alley. I haven’t been there since it was renovated.”

“Done. Anywhere else?”

“I heard there was a literature showing in Exalting Sanctum.”

“Aha. So that is your real reason for coming here.”

“Oh, no. My cunning ruse revealed.”

“Haha. Anywhere else?”

“Are your private quarters on offer?”

“You wish to do something in my private quarters?”

“No, not like that! Aeons, Jing Yuan, I need to unpack my bags! Remember you told me I could use them last time?”

“I see. In another eight hundred years, then?”

“Remind me why I put up with you for almost my entire life?”

“In which manner would you like me to remind you?”

“There’s no way I can win this, is there?”

He smiles. “No.”

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

#honkai star rail x reader #jing yuan #jing yuan x reader

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perpetualcynicism · 1 month

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guess who basically just finished the first draft of hmc…!

the reason i say ‘almost’ is because there are a few edits to go back and make within the context of decisions i’ve made inside the first draft, e.g. some rewording to fit with foreshadowing, explaining/resolving a couple of loose ends, which i’ll try and get done tomorrow, but the actual writing of the plot and individual scenes is done! and the breaking contract scene wasn’t even too clunky (i don’t think), but i might change it when i come back to do major edits of the whole thing in a few months’ time. in the meanwhile, here’s where the fic’s at:

130,106 words in total (yeah, haha, what.)

21 chapters long

chapters 20 & 21 (which i wrote today, originally one chapter altogether before i split it in half) are around 16,000 words in total, with 20 at roughly 8.6k and 21 at roughly 7.5k

so… yeah. that’s a pretty good job, if i do say so myself. here are two snippets from chapter twenty and twenty one. be warned, they do contain a couple of spoilers, but by the time this fic starts releasing you’ll probably have forgotten them anyway.

the second:

and a surprise extra one for celebratory purposes!

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perpetualcynicism · 1 month

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(for the record, the line that got me over the 100k mark is “Fu Xuan, were you aware that the High Elder of the Vidyadhara has been residing in our fishpond?”, which i find quite funny)

#!!!#haven’t finished my writing for today yet but #we hit it!#yay!#what have i spent the last few months of my life doing!#au: general’s flying ship

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perpetualcynicism · 2 months

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thinking about chiori and a blind reader… somebody who only has a vague impression of her face through roaming their fingers along it every day for years. somebody who can’t see the clothes she tailors but trusts her enough to wear (maybe even model) the clothes she gives them. somebody who knows the textures of her fabrics and the edges of her cuts and the lines of her stitches by heart, and can identify her handiwork by how it’s made—how it feels to the touch—rather than how it looks on the surface.

thinking about exploring themes of vision and sight loss, and what it means to truly ‘see’ something in the sense of understanding it versus physically seeing it. does one need to be able to see to be able to appreciate fashion? can a person who has no vision ‘see’ the world more clearly than a person who can get caught up in its disguises and illusions? what does beauty mean to somebody who has no sight?

#chiori x reader #chiori #she has my brain gears whirring #first i need to finish hmc but i want to keep this idea in the back of my head to return to once that’s done #genshin impact x reader

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perpetualcynicism · 3 months

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i’m properly thinking about this, now. i can’t get it out of my head, which is bad considering i need to write hmc. but.

i can picture this being friends to lovers—sort of. more like friends to strangers to friends again to lovers. you and jing yuan were friends in high school or university or whatever, and you drifted after that. you never argued or fell out with each other or anything: you simply didn’t have any reason to see each other anymore, so you fell out of contact.

fast forward however many years, and you get a part/ job in a PoTO production in a theatre near where you live. you haven’t really thought of jing yuan much since whenever it was that you drifted apart, and you certainly didn’t expect to see him here, but you suppose it could be nice to catch up. you go over to him and talk a little, finding out that he’s starring as the phantom, as well as some other things that have gone on in your lives since you last saw each other. you realise you did miss him a little, and as the rehearsals roll on, you rekindle the friendship you lost, as well as some other feelings which you don’t think were there before…

for some reason i can really imagine jing yuan singing ‘music of the night’ from phantom of the opera. is it just me or does anyone else see it?

#basically i just need jing yuan to sing ‘music of the night’ and ‘past the point of no return’#that is the main inspiration behind this au #i wonder who the rest of the cast would be…#i can see luocha as raoul somehow #he could give off the right vibe #fu xuan as carlotta 💀#maybe not #tingyun as christine…?#keep in mind that they’re the actors and not the actual characters so i wouldn’t be too bothered about ship dynamics between the roles #i don’t know #but it’s fun to think about

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perpetualcynicism · 3 months

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i’m deciding to post this update on my main account, because i’ve hit (more or less) the halfway mark for hmc! i’m around halfway through chapter ten out of what should be twenty one, and 52k words in.

(it’s possible that chapter lengths will increase somewhat as i start reaching the last quarter or so, so it’s still probably slightly under the actual halfway mark, but it’s a good enough estimate.)

#i managed to get back to my 1k words minimum a day goal today #and did around three hundred extra to start making up for what i missed yesterday #so it’s pretty much on track #i still can’t believe i’ve written this much in basically a month #au: general’s flying ship

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perpetualcynicism · 4 months

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…𝙴𝚡𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝙵𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚜: 𝙹𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚈𝚞𝚊𝚗

…𝙲𝚊𝚜𝚎: ‘𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝙷𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗’

𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: 𝙸𝚗 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑, 𝚘𝚗 𝚊 𝚕𝚊𝚣𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝙹𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚈𝚞𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚝 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚞𝚕. 𝙻𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑: 𝟽𝟻𝟶 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜.

…𝙲𝚊𝚜𝚎: ‘𝙳𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚔; 𝚁𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚡; 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝙳𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜’

𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: 𝙸𝚗 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝙹𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚈𝚞𝚊𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚊 𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚝𝚎𝚊 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚍𝚘 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜. 𝙻𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑: 𝟸,𝟽𝟻𝟶 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜.

#jing yuan x reader

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perpetualcynicism · 4 months

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…𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: In which Jing Yuan pays a visit to your tea house to do some business. …𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Sort-of pining? …𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: A mention of drugs, bribery, allusions to shady dealings. …𝙻𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑: 2,756 words. …𝙰𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: Gender-neutral reader, reader is a Xianzhou native, set slightly in the past. Credits go to @getosfavoritewife for partially inspiring this fic. Reblogs and comments are appreciated.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

𝙳𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚔; 𝚁𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚡; 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝙳𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜.

It is a little-known secret that on the Xianzhou Luofu, unheard of by most locals and hidden behind a discrete corner of Aurum Alley, lies a tea house.

It is not a particularly striking tea house. It’s the kind of place that one can only find if they’re searching for it; one they would not look twice at if they passed it in the street. The building is old and in need of repairs, except for a newer section rebuilt above the second floor. The interior decoration is sparse. Even the shop sign, Hē Sōng Tīng Mèng, is faded and difficult to read, written in a script which went out of style centuries ago. In fact, everything about the shop itself is utterly unremarkable.

What makes this tea shop remarkable is its owner.

They manage the shop single-handedly, never having taken on an apprentice. Their methods of brewing have been passed down millennia upon millennia of generations, preserved since days even the oldest Xianzhou citizen can’t remember; and these methods have been disclosed to nobody.

Supposedly, they can tell a person’s preferences at a mere glance and serve them the perfect pot without needing to ask. Supposedly, they can tell everything about somebody from the flavours they order alone.

Supposedly, more goes on inside this humble shop than the simple brewing of tea.

General Jing Yuan has known this person long enough to know that most of these rumours are true.

—————

The sun is almost setting when Jing Yuan pushes open the door to your tea house. A little chime tinkles above his head as he enters to signify the arrival of a customer. As much as he wishes he were here for a nice chat over a drink, it is business which brings the Luofu’s General to your humble shop.

You’re standing behind the counter when he enters. Your back is turned to him as you call, “The tea house is closing now. Come again tomorrow.”

Jing Yuan doesn’t leave. Instead, he waits patiently for you to finish cleaning the teapot you’re scrubbing at with his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes wander around the little room in the meantime.

In all the time you’ve run this shop, Jing Yuan has never seen a single light source inside the room. Instead, the shutters are always open, letting natural light spill onto the floor. Albeit about to set, the sun is still bright at this time of day, and little specks of dust float lazily in the sunbeams coming through the windows. Where the sunlight can’t reach, there are shadows. All together, Jing Yuan suspects half the room is in darkness, and half in light. A straight line of sunlight crosses the middle of your counter; the rest of it, including yourself, is in shadow.

A couple of customers sit around tables here and there, sipping from little porcelain cups which must be thousands of years old. Hushed conversation floats up from these tables in an underlying murmur, accompanied by the clink of china. The occasional footsteps scuff the floor. Somebody turns a page of their book; the sound’s no louder than a whisper, but in the surrounding quiet Jing Yuan can hear it like a pin drop. Above him, there is a flutter of wings, and he glances up to see a sparrow perching on one of the wooden beams supporting the roof. It tilts his head at him before fluttering off to another beam, where he catches sight of a nest. Looking closer, Jing Yuan can see quite a few sparrows roosting along your roof panels. A fond smile crosses his face. You’re growing quite the collection of these.

One sparrow flits down from a beam and lands on his shoulder. You’ve said before that he has a way of attracting birds, and he must say, you have a point. Jing Yuan cups his palms. After a moment, the bird hops onto his hands. He gently places it onto his head and, with a huff of laughter, feels it nestle until it’s hidden into the mane of his hair. (Jing Yuan has been guilty of stealing these little critters from your establishment from time to time. He considers it a selfless service on his end: otherwise, you’d be overrun with the things.) He leans his weight back on his heels and sighs, still standing there as you move onto the cups from the teapot’s set and attend to them more with more diligence than he thinks he’s ever paid to his paperwork.

No matter. He can wait.

Closing his eyes, Jing Yuan breathes in deeply through his nose and inhales the scent of tea-stained wood: over the years, the fragrance of the tea leaves you brew has permeated the bamboo panels of the floorboards and walls, leaving the establishment with the lingering scent of tea etched into its very bones. The aromas of these various teas have seeped together in the bamboo so that discerning a single flavour is impossible. Instead, the smell is all-encompassing and comforting. This scent always reminds him of you: by this point, the link is permanent in his brain. Jing Yuan releases the breath with a long exhale and feels the tension in his shoulders unwind with it. If he had to choose a favourite thing about your tea house, it would be the smell.

Finally finished, you place the last teacup on a shelf and turn around with a pinched sigh. “I told you, the shop is cl—oh.”

Jing Yuan can’t decide whether your expression brightens or falls when you see him. Probably a little of both, but for the sake of humouring himself, he assumes the former.

He greets you with your name and a languid smile. You greet him in turn, then add, “You may be the General now, but if you come into my shop, you’re still a customer, and customers aren’t served after we’re closed.”

He frowns, feigning offence. “You’re unable to spare a minute for one final guest?”

You narrow your eyes at him, and he knows you’re figuring out all of his intentions behind that lazy mask he wears on his face. On the entire Luofu, Jing Yuan thinks you’re the only person who can do that. He returns your gaze with a level one of his own. Seeing he has no intention of moving, your shoulders fall with an eventual sigh.

“Very well, but make it quick.”

His lips curl with a knowing smile, and he follows you obediently to a table at the far edge of the shop, noting and complimenting the changes which have happened since he was last here as he goes. You invite him to sit, and he does so. The old bamboo stool creaks beneath his weight. Pale light coming in from the window reveals small gouges in the table’s wood, the result of generations of customers sitting at this very spot. He traces a finger along these scuff marks, quietly revelling in their familiarity. If he closes his eyes, Jing Yuan can predict which rivet comes next: he’s been here enough times to memorise them all.

Worn though the wood may be, the surface of the table itself, he notes, is spotless.

His eyes trail absently after you as you vanish behind the counter. A few minutes later, you return with a pot of tea and a plain white cup, and pour a swift serving out before pushing the cup over to him. Your hand crosses the line into the sunlight as you do so before retreating back into the dim shadow you stand in.

Jing Yuan takes the cup into his hands. The porcelain is delicate beneath his fingers, its surface smoothed from centuries of use. If he looks closely, he can make out the remnants of a pattern painted on it which has long been worn away. He raises the cup to his lips and blows across it before taking a long sip. Subtle flavour floods his mouth in a perfect marriage of indulgence and restraint. With a content sigh, he places the cup down carefully on the tabletop—Aeons know what you’d do to him if he breaks it—and remarks, “Brewed to perfection, as always.”

“I appreciate the compliment, General,” you reply, “but you’re not here for tea, are you?”

There you go again, seeing through him like it’s nothing. He supposes he should have expected it from you. Jing Yuan leans back against the wall with a chuckle. “How did you know?”

“You come to know how to read people through this line of work,” you reply simply. “Making tea isn’t only an art of leaves and water, but of people, too. Learning to tell your customer’s mood and intentions is integral to being able to serve them the appropriate tea.” You gesture towards the teapot in the centre of the table. “For example, take the tea I just brewed you. Do you know what kind it is?”

Jing Yuan takes another sip and rolls the tea around his mouth. The taste is floral, he considers, and sweet. He is no tea connoisseur, but he thinks he recognises the flavour. “Chrysanthemum?”

You nod. “Do you know what the properties of this tea are?”

He tries to recall the answer from the knowledge he’s picked up here and there from his visits over the years. “Would I be correct in saying it calms one’s mind?”

“You would. And do you know why I served it to you?”

“Because you know my tastes so well?” Jing Yuan suggests, a playful lilt in his voice.

“Because I can see you want something from me, General Jing Yuan,”—you accentuate his name like he’s some kind of nuisance—“or else you wouldn’t be flattering me with all the small talk. So, a relaxant which lowers your blood pressure and soothes your mind will make your temper more amenable, and exchanging information or negotiations easier.”

Jing Yuan leans forwards on the table and rests his chin on his palm, an amused sparkle dancing in his eyes. He speaks your name like sweet honey and asks, “Have you drugged my tea?”

The expression you pull verges on personal offence. “I have done no such thing. Drugging tea would be an act of the highest sacrilege towards the art form,” you reprimand. He raises his hands in a sign of surrender. You continue in a quieter voice, “You might say I cater my tea servings to those which I know will turn a customer’s mood in my favour… but the tea itself is pure as the leaves when first picked.”

“Of course,” he apologises graciously. “It was unwarranted of me to ask such a thing in the first place. If the Tea Shifu would be so kind as to forgive a mistaken fool such as myself…” You hmph and cross your arms, looking at him warily.

“So,” you begin, “what do you want from me?”

Jing Yuan’s lips curl. “I have a request to ask of you.”

“What kind of request?”

“The usual. A job.” He lowers his voice and slides some strales over to you across the table, his hand crossing into the shade. You eye the coins with guarded interest. “Only passing down what you hear from the customers. In particular, any information about the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus. I have reason to suspect they are growing more active recently.”

“Hm. And will this ‘job’ be like last time?” you ask, turning over one of the strales in your fingers. There’s a hint of bitterness in your voice. “The room upstairs still has some scorch marks.”

“I compensated you for that,” Jing Yuan defends himself. You sniff.

“Even so.”

He pushes aside his cup and narrows his eyes on you. Their usual golden warmth holds a sharpened intensity which puts an end to the banter. “Will you do it, then?”

You raise an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I run a tea house. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Jing Yuan knows this line well; it’s one you greet his ‘requests’ with every time. “But by your own words,” he follows on without missing a beat, his words treading a familiar path established by centuries of similar exchanges, “is not a tea house the best place for the exchanging of information?” His smile spreads wider when he adds, “A tea house in which you ‘make your customers’ tempers more amenable’, no less?”

You huff a laugh. “I see your new job as General has done nothing to dull your wit.” You lean forwards into the light, and a knowing glint which matches the one in his own eyes surfaces in yours. “If you need information, I can do that. As I say, tea is an art of people, too: people talk a surprising lot over tea. They’re all too happy to believe that because they’re in such an empty shop, they can whisper their secrets as loudly as they want without supposing anyone else is listening. I simply happen to overhear them.” You lower your voice further when you say, “The right tea for the right person can loosen a tongue, you know.”

Jing Yuan smiles at you slyly. You may have agreed to be his ears, but that doesn’t mean you won’t take on somebody else’s. With you, getting you to accept a proposal is just the pretence. He asks in a smooth voice, “How do I know you won’t give this information to others who come to you with a larger payment?”

You tut, shaking your head as you withdraw back into the shade. “After so many years, you still don’t trust me?”

“Not at all,” he replies, and it’s both true and untrue. Does he trust you to keep your investigations confidential if somebody pays you a higher fee? Certainly not. Would he trust you with his life if it came down to it? Absolutely, and he has no doubt you’d do the same. It’s an interesting relationship the two of you have: perpetually dancing the fine line between professionalism and closeness, at the same time coworkers and strangers and friends and something more; never trusting each other enough to tell full truths but trusting the other to fill in the gaps. Even before the High Cloud Quintet crumbled, you were the same constant inconstant in his life, somehow closer to him than those he considered his family, always waiting in that tea house lingering at the corner of Aurum Alley in the edges of his mind should he need you.

Your lip lifts with a smirk, and you swipe the rest of the strales from the table. “Smart man. I’ll give you this: whatever I may or may not share with other people, I’ll keep you at the end of the road. Is that an acceptable term?”

Not perfect, Jing Yuan must admit, but doing business with you never is. He knows that if he pushes any harder, you’ll slip out of the agreement like an eel. “It is,” he confirms. You pour him a final cup of tea with a smile. He lifts it to his lips, the rim hiding his own private smile; one equal parts calculating and fond. “We have a deal, then?”

“We have a deal.”

Jing Yuan leans backwards in a languid motion, folding one leg over the other. “Wonderful. I’ll have another pot of tea, then.” He gestures with a casual sweep of his arm towards the teapot. You scoff, taking both the pot and his cup from the table.

“Closed means closed, General Jing Yuan. I’ve already accommodated you for longer than I needed to. I’m afraid you’ll have to come back tomorrow if you want more.”

He grumbles under his breath loud enough for you to hear it, but keeps the fact that he’s not opposed to seeing you again to himself. Jing Yuan pushes himself up from the table and places a handful of strales on the table, this time for the tea itself. You slip them into a pocket in your clothes and return to your counter to continue cleaning up. His boots scuff the dusty floorboards as he approaches the door.

With your back turned to him, you call, “Oh, and, Jing Yuan?” He stops in the doorway, awaiting you to continue with a curious expression. He deigns not to bring up the fact you used his name without his title.

If he is eager to hear what you say next, however, your words only bring him disappointment.

“Return the sparrows on your way out.”

#honkai star rail x reader #jing yuan x reader #jing yuan #the jing yuan brain is on a roll these days

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perpetualcynicism · 4 months

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…𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: In which, on a lazy morning, Jing Yuan imparts with you what it means to be beautiful. …𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Fluff. …𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: None. …𝙻𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑: 753 words. …𝙰𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: Gender-neutral reader, reader is referred to as ‘beautiful’ once, reader and Jing Yuan are already in a relationship & share a bed. Reblogs and comments are appreciated.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝙷𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗.

The sun is peeking through the cracks in the shutters when you awaken to the sight of Jing Yuan lying across from you, his cheek cupped in his palm as his half-lidded eyes wander over your face. His hair is tousled—or at least, more so than usual—and falls untied around the mattress, so you can assume he hasn’t got up yet. He blinks at you like a cat, slow and affectionate, when you meet his eye.

Slowly, working off the lethargy of sleep, you get your mouth to move. “What’re you doing?” you ask. Your words come out slowly and string together in your lingering fatigue.

His smile widens in a languid curve as he answers, “Admiring your imperfections.”

You blink, puzzled, wondering if you’ve misheard him. “My… imperfections?”

“Yes.” In his hand, his head tilts. “Is that strange?”

Your eyebrows knit together. “Well… slightly, I suppose. Perhaps I flatter myself by saying this,” you admit with a chuckle, “but I’d have thought you’d be looking at the strengths of my appearance, not the shortcomings.”

“Ah,” Jing Yuan clicks his tongue, “and that is where you misunderstand me.”

Curiosity bids you shuffle closer. “How so?”

“It is precisely your faults which make you so beautiful in my eyes. Like this one.” He reaches towards your face and swipes the underside of your left eyelid with the calloused pad of his thumb. “When you smile, this part here creases more than it does on the right, and it makes your eyes brighten. Or here,” he continues, touching his thumb to the corner of your lip. “Did you know that your smile is a little crooked? I think it’s completely endearing. And this scar here,” he taps a little pale line above your eyebrow, “tells the most fascinating story about your childhood.” And Jing Yuan continues, grazing with his thumb parts of your face you’ve either never paid attention to or actively sought to hide. He takes his hand from your face and smiles at you, his eyes shining warmly with devotion the colour of amber. “No two people have the same flaws, you see. Imperfections make us beautiful by making us human,” he tells you softly, and it feels like he’s imparting a secret. “They take us from perfection to personhood.”

Your expression shifts into one of wonder. “That’s… well, beautiful,” you breathe through a laugh. “I’ve never thought of it like that before.” You look over the face of the man in front of you, whose features, in the morning sun, seem to shine with their own golden light. Idly, you wonder how anyone can be so stunning. In a teasing tone, you remark, “But I’m afraid, then, that you must be inhuman. I can’t find a single flaw on your face.”

Jing Yuan chuckles, and the sound rumbles forth from him like deep thunder. He turns to lie on his back, folding his arms behind his head. An amused smile plays on his lips as he replies, “Oh, no, I am certainly not infallible. Look closer, and you will find my faults as in any other person.”

Resting your palm on his cheek, you turn his head towards you and ask, “May I?”

“Of course.”

You shift your position so you’re kneeling on the bed and lean over him. Jing Yuan watches you with a lazy smile. A twinkle dances in his eyes as you place your hands on his face and tilt your head to one side, scrutinising him for flaws. Without thinking, your fingers begin to roam his features, pushing aside the soft curls of his fringe and tracing the contours of his face. Among the strong lines of his jaw and the sturdy set of his eyebrows, you find that, as ever, Jing Yuan is right. Besides his beauty mark, dark rings beneath his eyes are a testament to his many sleepless nights. His right eye has slightly thinner eyelashes than his left. His nose is a little bent, and he has a wrinkle above his eyebrows on his forehead—from stress, you suppose, when nobody is looking. There is a dimple in his right cheek as he smiles at you adoringly while you uncover the man beneath the mask of ‘General’.

You return his fringe to his right eye with a brush of your fingers and remove your hands.

“What did you see?” he asks as you lower yourself back onto the bed. “Not perfection, I assume.”

“No,” you agree. “I saw the most beautiful man in the world.”

#honkai star rail x reader #jing yuan #jing yuan x reader #honkai star rail

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perpetualcynicism · 4 months

Text

A Secret Santa drabble for @cryoux. I hope you enjoy, and have a great Christmas!

…𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢: In which you and Cyno take a trip to Mondstadt for a holiday you can’t quite remember the origins of. …𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Fluff. …𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: None. …𝙻𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑: 1,013 words. …𝙰𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: Gender-neutral reader, jokes made about Christmas not existing in Teyvat.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

…‘𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚖𝚊𝚜’?

It was like stepping into a fairytale when you and Cyno arrived at Mondstadt’s city gates. A crust of snow, freshly fallen, lay comfortably like a blanket across slanted roof tiles. Fine flakes of white idly spiralled downwards and danced in the occasional gust of biting wind. The city was well-prepared for the festive season, greeting you with rows of gold lights and red-green bunting.

You wandered through the streets hand-in-hand, yourself marvelling at the curling patterns frost had spun on passing windows and Cyno observing your wonder fondly, and checked into Goth Grand Hotel to deposit your travelling bags before hastening back again into the snow.

“You’ll trip over yourself if you walk any faster,” Cyno warned, trailing a few paces behind you.

“And then you’d have to carry me,” you replied airily. “How terrible.”

With a sighed chuckle, he sped up to match your walking speed. Your gloved hand found his and he secured the contact by intertwining your fingers together. For a time you walked in silence, only disturbed by the crunch of snow underfoot. You crossed back over the bridge leading to the city gates, above the frozen surface of Cider Lake, and wandered, quite aimlessly, through woods and hills scattered with snow-coated pine trees, until the sun began to dip over the distant silhouette of Dragonspine.

“Have you ever heard of ‘snow angels’?” Cyno queried as you walked through Windrise’s flat plain.

“I think I’ve heard of them a here and there before, but I wouldn’t say I know what they are.”

You didn’t miss the way his eyes lit up. You smiled inwardly: deny it as he may, it was clear—and quite sweet—how eager Cyno always was to explain things to you. (Sometimes, though he’d never find out, you pretended to not know something for the sole reason of giving him the opportunity. And, really, how could anyone deny it to him?) “Apparently people from Mondstadt and Snezhnaya lie on their backs in the snow and wave their arms, so that the silhouette created when they stand up looks like angels’ wings.”

You frowned. “Wait, what are ‘angels’?”

Cyno faltered. His eyebrows knitted together like he hadn’t noticed this discrepancy before. “I… don’t know,” he said after a moment of careful deliberation. “It’s a word which came into my head. I knewwhat it was then, but…”

“Maybe you’re going delirious from the cold,” you suggested helpfully.

The amused ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “Perhaps.”

You continued your walk, idly wondering what an ‘angel’ was, until you felt a light tug on your arm. You turned to Cyno with a question in your expression. He nodded towards the sky. As you craned your neck upwards, a cold prick landed on your cheek. You brushed it away to see your fingertip glistening with a drop of half-melted…

“Snow,” you breathed. “It’s snowing. It’s actually snowing!” You cupped your hands to catch a small snowflake falling by. “It’s so much more incredible when you see it falling, isn’t it?”

Cyno smiled and voiced his agreement, trailing behind you as you ventured around on snow-led whim. The stories you’d heard were true: every snowflake was different to the last, and now matter how many you caught and inspected, you found not one which was identical to another.

A sudden gust of icy wind made you stumble forwards, and you landed on your knees in the snow. Instead of being irritated, something about the spectacle of snow had lifted your mood from the capacity of feeling disappointment, and you delighted in the mishap instead, falling backwards into the snow. Cyno stared down at you with a raised eyebrow.

“You’ll get cold,” he said.

“That’s a problem for when it becomes one.”

He clicked his tongue, but offered you a hand; you took it and pulled yourself up. Where you had been lying was a roughly you-shaped imprint.

“You’ve certainly made your mark in Mondstadt,” Cyno observed. You sighed at the pun, if it could even be called such a thing.

“Will you make one, too?”

He considered the question for a moment, before saying decisively, “No.”

“Suit yourself,” you grumbled in good humour.

In reply, he pointed out, “Somebody needs to be able to take you back to the city when you collapse from frostbite.”

“Thank you for having so much faith in me.”

“My pleasure.”

A moment passed. Frosty wind whistled in your ears. You noticed the snow was coming down heavier now, in fat flakes which drifted idly down from above. A snowflake the size of your palm wafted past your head.

As locals of Sumeru, neither you nor Cyno were used to the cold. Bewitching as the snowfall may be, your teeth were starting to chatter, and a painful numbness was creeping through your feet. You saw Cyno pulling his cloak tighter around himself from the corner of your eye.

“Time to head back?” he suggested.

“I think so.”

… … … … … …

Back in Goth Grand Hotel, you stretched out your cold fingers towards the crackling hearth. Behind its grate, the fire spat a shower of embers with a pop. You sagged sideways against Cyno’s side with a contented sigh, and arm came around your shoulders and you felt him pull you further into him, so that his cloak fell over the both of you. The longer strands of his hair brushed against your forehead, tickling lightly.

The low, shifting light of the fire and the repetitive circles Cyno’s thumb traced into your shoulder began to slowly but surely lull you into tiredness. Your eyelids were suddenly heavy with a weight which hadn’t been there before, and slipped closed once, twice, then thrice, each time longer than the first.

Cyno watched you tenderly with irises warmer than the fire itself. He leaned over and pressed his lips to your forehead. Another curious phrase he didn’t know the meaning of sprang to mind, and he caught himself speaking it out loud as you drifted off slowly and contentedly by the fire: “Merry Christmas.”

#genshin impact x reader #gixrsecretsanta2023 #cyno x reader #cyno

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perpetualcynicism · 4 months

Text

…𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢: In which Xiao befriends a young yaksha, but learns that the longer the night lasts, the more nightmares are had. …𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Angst, no comfort. …𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: Major character death, insanity. …𝙻𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑: 8,123 words. …𝙰𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: Gender-neutral reader, reader is a yaksha, older/younger sibling dynamic — found family, not romantic. The soundtrack ‘Sojourner’s Sweet Dreams’ is the OST which plays at night in Wangshu Inn. The pipa is a Chinese lute, and the dizi is a Chinese bamboo flute.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

夜长梦多 — 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙻𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙽𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝙻𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚜.

When Xiao finds you, it is in the bamboo forest, as it always is. He searches between the stalks looking for signs of movement—a bent stalk here, some flattened leaves there—while the lightness of his feet never betrays the grim weight inside his chest. The night is dark, and the bamboo rises like metal bars around him. Paths he has trodden after you many times seem narrower, harder to follow.

The last time he saw you, you told him to leave out of shame. I don’t want you to see what I’ve become, you said. He thought it foolish that you’d suppose his opinion of you changed for it, but still, he had gone as you asked him to, because he can never deny what you ask of him.

Looking for you as he does now, he wonders whether it was the wrong choice to make.

He locates you, eventually, by the Sandbearer tree. Of course, he thinks with the crumpled shadow of a smile. Even in madness, you return here. Perhaps the dim memories of kinder times still flicker somewhere in the depths of your subconsciousness; perhaps you—or whatever is left of you—still feels a tug of familiarity towards this place.

For a moment, he sees you again as that young, bright beacon, and his heart throbs with the fading gold image of those precious lost days.

The first time Xiao met you, you were a nervous addition to the yaksha’s forces. Outgoing as ever, even in times of war, Bosacius always made a matter of introducing the recruits to the rest of the troops. ‘To welcome them to the family’, he said whenever asked why. Even when, centuries later, the yaksha’s forces grew smaller and ravaged by karma, Bosacius kept this tradition until the day he vanished.

Xiao never saw the point in such a thing himself: it was unlikely anybody would remember these yaksha’s names or even see them again beyond lifting their body from the battlefield when they were lucky enough to recover it. Nevertheless, under Bosacius’ insistence, he watched as you, like every other yaksha, was taken forwards and introduced to a half-hearted assembly of gathered warriors. This was back when the yaksha were newly formed, and victory still seemed within reach.

“They may be small, but they’re a brilliant shot with a bow,” Bosacius declared, his booming voice reaching the furthest stretches of the makeshift training camp. Given how the adeptus dwarfed your quivering body, Xiao wouldn’t have guessed it. “Modest about their capabilities, but it’s nothing a little time can’t fix, and I’m sure you’ll adjust quickly, no?” He addressed this last part to you and waited for you to say something. You seemed to miss the implication of the silence, because your eyes remained fixed on the floor and your shoulders hunched close together. You had horns reminiscent of a deer’s which Xiao couldn’t help but compare to your nervous stance: you looked terrified out of your mind, ready to bolt at any moment. He wondered how suited you truly were for war if you could barely handle this crowd.

Bosacius cleared his throat. He clapped you on the shoulder and asked to break the growing silence, “Well, then, is there anything more you’d like to say?”

You mumbled something barely audible which must have been a ‘no’, because Bosacius nodded and said no more. You immediately scurried away from the assembly with your head hung low. A slight pang of sympathy rose inside Xiao as you went: he’d seen enough of these kinds of skittish recruits to know you wouldn’t last long in battle.

The crowd dispersed, and Xiao thought little about you until he passed by the archery stalls on a patrol around the camp, where he spotted you shooting at the moving targets. Curious, he hung back and observed you for a moment. Your posture was steady and your draw was swift and clean—signs he recognised as those of a skilled archer—and you hit most of the vital areas drawn onto the targets with success. Occasionally, your arrows strayed a little too far out, likely due to the fact that he could see you still shaking. You mumbled a curse as your last arrow embedded itself in one of the target’s wooden jaws, an inch or so above the marked ‘fatal’ spot on the neck.

It seemed Bosacius had spoken the truth: though you lacked confidence, it would be incorrect to say you didn’t have the potential to become a formidable warrior in your own right. When you were focused, your shots were fast, accurate, and if on flesh, deadly. Perhaps you’d survive a few battles yet.

He moved past the archery stalls to survey the rest of the camp, before heading to the bamboo forest nearby to train himself once it grew dark a few hours later. Bamboo was good for practice: it varied in strength, and grew back quickly when cut. It was not for training physical strength, but agility. If Xiao imagined the leaves as blades, he could duck between them, light on his feet, sending stalks falling in wide arcs around him.

Usually, he trained until dawn, but today, only an hour or so after he began, he was made to stop. His ears had caught wind of a faint tune travelling down from deeper inside the forest. He lowered his spear and cocked his head to one side, narrowing his focus on the sound. It sounded plucked, but he couldn’t place the instrument.

Could it be a human? he wondered, but shook his head as soon as the thought arose. No, the scouts would have reported any human activity nearby. This place ought to be uninhabited.

Yet this melody was certainly not his imagination. He knew of nobody else besides himself who played an instrument among the yaksha, so who could this be? Warily, he followed the tune, stepping quietly through the forest as an assassin might as he approaches his target. Once close, he stopped. The sound came from just beyond here.

Xiao pushed aside a leafed branch and peered through the underbrush, squinting between the trees. To his surprise, the one his eyes landed on was the young, timid yaksha from before, sitting on a stone in the grass. Your bow and quiver were propped up against a Sandbearer tree, exchanged in favour of a pipa. Your fingers struck the strings with effortless speed and fluidity which spoke of years of mastery. The way you held yourself exuded quiet confidence, so stark a difference from the timid, withdrawn stature you had worn before. A smile was settled comfortably over your features, and a sparkle danced in your eyes. Adept as you may be with a bow, Xiao could not help but feel it was this instrument which was truly your calling.

As you played, your eyes drifted across the surrounding forestry. They met his in the underbrush. Your fingers fumbled and a wrong note cut harsh through the air. In less than a moment, you were holding your bow, arrow notched and aimed at his head. You may be quick, but Xiao could see your arms were trembling, and fear had fast replaced that confident glimmer in your eyes.

He stepped out from the underbrush. His movements were slow, careful not to risk igniting your fear. Xiao raised his hands before him; once you saw he carried no weapons, your frame relaxed somewhat, but distrust was still written in every line of your body. You had yet to lower your bow. For whatever reason, he was struck with the desire to calm you.

“I mean you no harm.” He spoke slowly, approaching you as he would a wild animal. “I heard your playing and came to investigate. That is all.” You swallowed, but didn’t shift your aim. He scoured for something to say which may calm you. His eyes fell to the pipa lying in the grass. “I… play an instrument, too.”

Your eyes widened, this time with a hint of curiosity which broke through your apprehension. The tension in your bow fell by a fraction as you loosened your pull on the string. “R-really?”

Xiao was struck by how small your voice was. Just how young were you? Nonetheless, speaking to you seemed to be working. He continued. “Yes. The dizi.”

“Oh.” You shifted in place, bringing to mind a skittish fawn. In that hushed voice of yours, you said, “I… I never knew any other yakshas played music.”

He dipped his head. A few seconds of silence passed. Xiao searched for something else to say. “Your bowmanship is good,” was what he landed with. “I saw you in the training field earlier.”

You stiffened and looked away, covering your face with your hands. “Y-you saw that?”

“Is there something to be ashamed of?”

“My shots are usually much better,” you said dejectedly. “I was, um, shaking too much to aim properly.”

“On a moving battlefield, you do not need complete accuracy,” he pointed out. “Your enemies are larger than your training targets; as long as you can hit them, you have fulfilled your duty as a yaksha.”

You said something from behind your palms. Even with his acute hearing, Xiao struggled to catch it.

“What?”

“That’s exactly it,” you repeated, toeing the floor. “I don’t want to be on the battlefield.”

He blinked, dumbfounded. “Then why did you decide to join the yaksha?”

You mumbled below your voice, “I couldn’t watch everyone else do their part in the war while I sat by and watched.”

“So you are afraid, then,” he concluded. You shook your head with a quiet laugh.

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“What of?”

You frowned at him like he was missing the obvious. “Death, of course. Of something happening to me which means I can never return.” You paused, eyeing him with suspicion. “Why aren’t you afraid?”

“I am one of the Five,” he answered. The meaning spoke for itself.

Your jaw fell open. Still gawking, you asked, “W-which one?”

“General Alatus,” he replied, with a gesture towards the mask hanging at his belt.

“And your real name?”

“…Xiao.”

“Wow,” you breathed. “So you’re so strong that you… don’t have to fear death?” He nodded. Your fingers twisted at the hem of your clothes. “Then… what are you afraid of?”

Catching him off-guard, the question struck him dumb. Memories of blood, snow, corpses burst behind his eyes. He was a quivering young child, looking so much like yourself. His shock must have shown on his face, because you lowered your eyes and apologised moments later.

“…I am afraid of losing my flute,” he offered as an answer to lighten the mood. You looked away with a momentary smile twitching at your features, and curiously enough, Xiao felt on his face one of his own.

“You must be very courageous, if that’s the only thing you fear.” The words ‘unlike me’ hung silent but heavy in the air.

Xiao shook his head. “There is nothing courageous about facing what you do not fear. Bravery is born of staring into the eyes of what you fear and refusing to surrender.”

“…Even if you lose?”

“Even if you lose.”

Your eyes fell to the floor. Despite the comfort he’d attempted, you still looked unconvinced. Your fingers drummed an anxious rhythm on your bow. Xiao tilted his head to one side, wondering at your character. You were hardly in danger in the present moment: why was it that you were still on edge? Was the mere thought of the battlefield enough by itself to make you uneasy?

“Are you… truly so afraid of death?” he asked. Your head dipped in a nervous twitch of a nod. Xiao scrutinised you more closely, and it was then that he realised why he felt so strongly this odd wish to comfort you: it was like peering into a mirror. You resembled him closely, painfully so, as he had been all those years ago; a timid, scared, lonely thing, isolated from love and with nobody to rely on. He wondered what you must be escaping from that made you prefer the battlefield over staying.

Since Rex Lapis gave him the chance to begin a new life, Xiao knew that, had he been given a chance to protect the child he had once been, placate its fear, reassure it even slightly, he would have done all he could. Now, faced with one who looked so much like himself, given the chance to do just that, he knew he would go to the ends of the earth to prevent you knowing the same life he had.

Stepping forwards, he met your eye and vowed, “I will make sure nothing happens to you.”

The little smile you flashed him was fleeting. “It’s difficult to keep promises on the battlefield.”

Xiao shook his head. “I keep my promises.”

You are curled up by the base of the tree. Your legs are drawn up into your chest like you’re protecting yourself from an invisible foe. Not cowering, he notices. He distantly recalls something he said to you, once, about courage and the refusal to surrender.

He still stands by those words, but he regrets—always regretting—telling them to you. You did not need to be brave. Cowardice would have been kinder.

Your hands are clutching your head as wreaths of black smoke rise from your body. In the silence, he can hear you caught in a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan.

His next step breaks a twig. Your head snaps up. Bloodshot eyes fix onto him from across the clearing and you leap backwards, hackles raised as you pace like a caged predator in front of the tree. He searches in vain for a glimmer of those wide, expressive eyes he used to know, and finds nothing.

Wherever ‘you’ are, it is not here. It is not the thing which has stolen your body and is staring back at him like a stranger.

Xiao raises his hands in front of him, approaching as he would a wild animal. He can not be certain at the moment which movements will provoke you to flee and which to attack. In his right hand he holds not a spear but your pipa. Your eyes dart to the instrument. From your reaction, he can not be certain you recognise it.

After a morning of training on a warm afternoon, you were sitting by your Sandbearer tree again, contentedly plucking a tune on your pipa. Xiao found you sitting by the trunk when he followed the familiar sound again. The sunlight peeking through the canopy fell like gold leaf across your face. He lingered behind the trees and listened, careful to keep quiet and not alarm you like the last few times. You were growing more comfortable around him, but there was progress yet to be made.

As he waited there, his mind wandered to your bright melody. By chance, he had brought his dizi with him today. On a whim, he pulled it out and joined your music with a line of his own. Your playing stopped abruptly. By the time Xiao realised he was the only one still playing, your initial shock had been transformed to awe, and he found you were staring up at him from the tree, rather indiscreetly. He lowered the flute and raised a brow towards you. You coughed and lowered your eyes to the ground, drawing your limbs into yourself. A twinge of guilt surfaced inside him: he hadn’t meant to disconcert you.

“If you’d like,” he began, and you raised your head slightly to look at him, peering at him with wide, watery eyes, “I can teach you how to play the flute.”

This brought you out of your shell. “Really?” you stammered out. He nodded.

“Wait here for a moment. I will make you one.”

Bright curiosity shone in your eyes as you watched him walk a little way into the woods, where he stopped at a bamboo stalk. He summoned his polearm and cut off a length of bamboo, then skillfully hollowed it out and scored the surface with holes faster than your eyes could follow. He inspected his handiwork, made a few corrections, played a note, made a few more corrections, and returned to your tree all in the span of no more than half a minute.

He handed you the makeshift flute. “It is far from perfect, but…”

“It’s amazing,” you breathed.

Xiao inclined his head, glad that you liked it if nothing else.

“Hold it like this.” He demonstrated, placing his left thumb and three fingers over the fingerholes in the lower half of the flute’s body, followed by the right in a similar position just behind his left hand. “Your two thumbs and the little finger of your right hand support the flute. You should be able to hold it with just those fingers if you lift the others away.” You followed his example. The flute wobbled a little, likely more down to its haphazard creation than your own mistake, and stabilised a moment later.

“Now bring it to your mouth horizontally, with the membrane hole—no, the one to the right of that—under your lower lip. The flute you’re holding doesn’t have a membrane, so it will sound different to mine, but it can still be played.” You nodded, adjusting your position as he spoke. “Relax your shoulders.” He inspected your form for a moment, and, satisfied, instructed, “Now try to play a note.”

You swallowed and tried to do so. The note which sounded was low and feeble, barely audible above the passing breeze.

“Use steadier breathing, and aim your breath deeper into the instrument.”

You tried again. The sound shook less, but was still quiet and airy.

“Harder.”

Almost there.

“Again.”

This time, the note came forth clear.

Xiao nodded. “Good. Now move your fingers so they cover these holes instead, like this.” He looked at your hands. “Middle finger down, not your index. Lift your index finger.”

“Sorry.”

He shook his head. “It is just another way of making music. There is no need to be nervous. Lower your shoulders, or the stiffness will constrict your breathing—good. Now play again.”

This note was better than your first attempt, but he could tell your nerves had slipped back in.

“Remember what I said. You want a steady sound, so you need to breathe steadily, too.” You tried again. He sighed. “No. Take a deeper inhale beforehand. Watch me.” You watched closely, and took his advice without complaint. “Once more. Relax.”

Finally, after some time, the notes you played were consistently bright and full. He nodded approvingly. “Very good,” he said, and you glowed under the praise.

“I think I’m better suited for stringed instruments,” you admitted with a sheepish smile, lowering the makeshift dizi. Hardly a moment later, your eyes widened, alight with an idea. You all but blurted, “Wait, what if I teach you how to play the pipa?”

Catching yourself immediately in your own excitement, you covered your mouth and apologised quietly, withdrawing into yourself once more. Xiao observed this with an inward sigh; he was slowly managing to coax you out of your walls, but even now you had yet to be fully confident around him. Gently, he lowered one of your hunched shoulders and said, “I would like that very much.”

That little smile of yours flickered across your face. “O-okay.”

You lifted the instrument from the tree trunk and handed it over to him; Xiao received the pipa carefully, aware of the attachment you held for it.

“Okay. Um.” You hesitated. “So, you need to put it on your legs, like—yes, like that, but a bit higher up—and then the fingerboard sort of goes across your left shoulder.”

Once the instrument felt comfortable against his shoulder and not slipping from his lap, he looked down at the strings and prompted, “How is it played?”

You gasped. “Oh, hang on, you’ll need to take my plectra for that. It’s good I have a spare pair.” You dug around in your clothes for a moment before you presented him with four ring-like accessories with points on the end. He took them from your palm and slipped them on the ends of his fingers. Interesting, he thought, inspecting the plectra closely.

“You, um, pluck it, by the way,” you explained. “W-which you could probably already tell. Your right hand does that. The plucking, I mean. Your left hand goes on the frets. Try, uh…” You rubbed your neck. “Could I take it for a second, actually? To demonstrate some techniques. They’re hard to explain.”

Xiao complied and handed the pipa over to you. You thanked him quietly and positioned it on your lap as you’d told him. The fingers of your left hand pressed down on the fretboard, your right hovering above the strings. You took a breath, then rolled your fingers over the top string in a rapid tremolo, keeping the sound continuous while your left hand slid up and down the frets in a simple yet elegant melody. You slowed your hand a minute later and plucked a final, low note.

“This technique is called lunzi. It’s… just a long tremolo, really. Here; you try.”

His eyebrows rose at your phrasing of ‘just a tremolo’, but nonetheless he took back the instrument and did his best to mimic your fluid movements; an attempt which fell flat almost as soon as it started. The strings were dull and refused to respond as they had to your touch.

“Um. Wait.” Xiao stilled his hand. “Sorry. Just… you need to pluck outwards, not inwards.” You reached over and demonstrated, making almost a flicking motion with your finger. “And then you do that with your whole hand. Like this.”

He watched carefully, realising his previous error. No wonder the strings had sounded so different. “I understand now. Thank you.”

“You can start slower if you want, too. I did it quite fast.”

Xiao tried again. His fingers were naturally quick, but the roll itself was uneven. He frowned and attempted to strike slower but with more force. You stopped him soon after with a soft apology.

“Your hand is a little stiff. That makes it harder to maintain a smooth sound. Go slowly, but keep your fingers relaxed.” A smile passed over your face. “I… suppose I know what you meant about being relaxed earlier, now.”

As Xiao played, you leaned inwards, squinting at his technique and offering advice where you could. By the time you lifted your head, you had moved terribly close to him, your face only a few inches away. Noticing your proximity, you flushed hotly and leapt backwards, stumbling out an apology. Xiao observed your reaction with a quirked brow and waited patiently for you to recover.

“Maybe that technique’s a bit difficult to start with,” you admitted. “We should probably begin with single notes. I can teach you a melody instead. Can I… show you?”

Xiao gave the pipa back. You settled it comfortably on your lap and began to play a simple yet elegant melody, slowly paced, which unwound the tension in his shoulders and soothed his mind. Once finished, you returned the pipa to him. He looked down at the strings which you had so skilfully manipulated, now awaiting his own instruction.

“Where did you hear this melody?” he asked.

“I… composed it myself,” you said with a bashful shrug. “I call it ‘Sojourner’s Sweet Dream’.”

“It’s very beautiful,” he said. You mumbled a small ‘thank you’ in reply. “How do you play it?”

“Well… your first finger starts on this fret, then your third finger goes here, and you pluck it with your right hand’s index finger—try not to touch the instrument with your arm—then put your fourth down…”

Eventually, under your guidance, Xiao grew confident in the melody. He played the ending note and glanced up to see what advice you had for him. To his surprise, your eyes were closed, and you were swaying gently from side to side. You opened your eyes to meet his: this time, when you smiled at him, it didn’t disappear.

As he approaches, he wonders, Are you still in there somewhere?

He wants to believe so, but all he can see is a creature who has ravaged your mind and tainted your heart and worn your face to taunt him. He’d known you for your kindness, your timid nature, the nervous but unwavering care you held for others. All of these traits he looks for in the dangerous sway of your body as he approaches you, step by step; but if they are there, he cannot find them. Do you think he is going to hurt you, or, judging by those tensed muscles, are you about to spring on him?

Either way, he knows you—the real you, not this false likeness—would never have done any of these things. The thing looking at him now is less than adeptus, less than human, a mindless creature caught between hatred and fear.

With you, at least, it had never been hatred.

He takes a step forward. The thing that isn’t you flinches. He ignores the painful contraction in his chest when you back away as he realises he doesn’t know whether he recognises you anymore.

I don’t want not to be myself anymore, you had begged him, and he had refused you: yet another choice he wonders whether he should have chosen differently. It is his own fault, his own selfish inability to let go, that has led you here. You wouldn’t have wanted him to see you like this; but he hesitated for too long, and now he has left you no choice.

You promised, the mask of your face seems to jeer at him, mocking him for daring to think he could ever love without loss. You promised to keep them safe and look at where that got them.

Xiao shakes away the thought and lowers himself onto the stone you used to sit on. Your eyes are still fixed on him, unblinking and hollow. He sets your pipa on his lap, like you did years ago, and taps into the memory of a sweet dream you once taught him. First finger, third finger, fourth finger…

On the dawn of your first battle, Xiao found you pacing the archery stalls of the training ground. Some monsters had been spotted by scouts in the area, mutated from the remains of a fallen god. Xiao knew these kinds of creatures to be many in number but weak: as long as one maintained their stamina, few casualties would be suffered.

You, on the other hand, knew nothing of them, and had no idea what to expect. Your quiver hung around your waist, stuffed full of arrows. You raised the bow and pulled back on the string, then lowered it and released the tension, again and again, practising your aim.

He walked over. You brightened up when you saw him, if only a little.

“How do you feel?” he asked; a needless question, but he knew conversation often settled your nerves.

“Terrified,” you admitted with a nervous laugh. “I can b-barely,”—you swallowed—“hold my bow without dropping it.”

“Remember, you won’t be on the front lines. I have fought similar monsters to these before, and they don’t have the range to attack from a distance. As long as you maintain a distance, you will be safe.”

“‘Safe’ isn’t a word I’d ever use when describing a war,” you replied in a small voice.

A warhorn sounded in the distance, alerting everybody to their posts. Xiao took hold of your shoulder, his grip firm. You jolted. You were shaking like a leaf: he could practically taste your fear from here. His eyes, boring into your own, burned with conviction. “Remember what I told you. Nothing will happen to you.” He enunciated each word. “Is that clear?”

You swallowed and set your jaw. Meeting his eyes, stiffly, you nodded.

Satisfied, Xiao inclined his head. He stepped back and summoned his mask over his face. Throwing you a final glance from the corner of his eye, he said, “Fight well. I will see you after the battle.”

You jump when he plays the opening note of the piece. This instrument was your lifeblood once, and he doesn’t know what you see in its place through those bloodshot eyes of yours which scares you so much. (What do you see in his place?)

Even so, as he plays, slow and deliberate so as not to make a mistake, he can see your frame relaxing from the corner of his eye, as he once did the first time he heard the melody. The tense line of your shoulders gradually falls. You tilt your head to one side, a gesture which once betrayed your curiosity.

What, he wonders, are you feeling now?

The moment the enemy had fallen, Xiao pushed his way through ranks of yaksha until he found you. Save from some minor injuries here and there, you were untouched, sitting on the ground by your bow. He breathed a sigh of relief before heading closer. You looked up when you caught sight of him and shot him a smile of exhaustion.

“Are you alright?” he asked when he reached you.

“I… I think so. I don’t know,” you replied. “I’m not hurt, but I feel a little strange.”

“Strange?” He crouched down beside you to inspect you closer, but saw nothing out of the ordinary beyond your face being a touch paler than usual.

You nodded. “I don't know why. It doesn’t feel like an injury, more like… a headache, almost. But not just a headache. It feels hateful. Like there’s something angry inside my mind.”

Xiao frowned, disliking your description. He had overheard some other yaksha speaking of similar symptoms; but these were likely a result of adrenaline after a battle, he reassured himself, or of prior stress. “Whatever it is, it will pass shortly.”

“I hope so,” you mumbled. “And you?”

“Me?”

“How are you?”

“Oh. I am well.”

“You don’t feel anything funny?”

“No.”

You smiled weakly. “Good.”

His finger slips, and he strikes a wrong note. You flinch backwards as all the coiled tension returns to your body. He takes a breath to steady his hands, which have begun to shake without him noticing, and carries on. Now is not the time for mistakes.

The piece is short, so he repeats it over and over again until you calm down once more. Please, he wants to beg you, come back to me, but he is not certain you’d be able to hear him. No doubt the screeching cacophony inside your head would drown out what little he can scrape together of his voice. He wants to drop the instrument, to simply reach out and hold you, but he holds himself back, as he always does. He thinks you would hate him if he touched you when you’re like this.

Xiao would never forget the day you came to him after Indarias died. Until that moment, ‘headaches’ had been spreading like plague throughout the yaksha; Xiao himself had begun to feel them, too, but they were disregarded as post-war symptoms. Even when some yaksha went mad, it was drawn up to their inability to cope with the increasing pressure which came on the battlefield.

When Indarias fell, the wave of fear which rippled through the yaksha was tangible. Whatever these ‘headaches’ were, they had brought down one of the Five. Soon later, the yaksha had developed a name for the affliction: karmic debt, they called it. The price to pay for their aeons of slaughter, for daring to face the deadly hatred of gods.

Xiao knew he could withstand the symptoms of this karmic debt. His devotion to vanquishing these monsters was second to none, and no degree of pain would hinder him. For a yaksha such as yourself, who had never held his dedication nor matched his mental fortitude, he was not so certain. Though he didn’t let you see it, Xiao worried for you. He had sworn to keep you safe, but how could he protect you from an enemy inside your own head?

You shared similar sentiments, because you called on him one night with both a confession and a request.

“I can feel that I’m losing myself,” you confided to him in the hoarse shadow of a whisper. There was no wind in the forest that night, so quiet as it may be, your voice cleaved through the suffocating silence like an arrow. “With each passing day, I… I can feel it.” You raised your eyes to meet his. “I’m slipping, Xiao. This ‘karmic debt’… I’m not sure how much longer I can last.”

He pressed his lips together. “Don’t speak like that.”

“It’s true.”

His jaw tightened, but he had nothing to say.

“Just… promise me one thing.”

His throat was dry as he nodded.

“When I start going insane, kill me.”

Silence.

Firmly, he replied, “No.”

Your face fell. Your eyes, always so large and bright, swam with disappointment. “Why not?” you asked, and your voice was barely the imprint of sound.

“Any other promise I will make you. Not this one.”

“Please,” you begged, holding his arm. “Every other wish of mine, you’ve granted. Why not this one?”

He shook your hand off. “I will not harm you,” he reiterated sharply. There was no room for opposition in his tone. “I will not say it again.”

“But I’m not even one of the Five. I’m hardly importa—”

“Don’t say that,” he snapped.

You shrank away from the edge in his tone. He had never interrupted you before, much less raised his voice at you. In a trembling voice, you mumbled, “At least… at least take my pipa before something happens to me, then.”

He narrowed his eyes at you. If you gave away your instrument, it was akin to a goodbye: one he was not—and never would be—willing to make. You caught his hesitation and set your jaw in agitation.

“Look. I’m going to die, Xiao,” you hissed. He stiffened. “Don’t try to pretend I’m not because that won’t make it any less true. But I want it to be by your hand, because I wouldn’t want to die anywhere else. I won’t ask anything else of you again.” He opened his mouth to interject, yet you ploughed on, sparing him no time to speak. “I’ve seen how the other yakshas died, even those in the Five. Alone, and in pain, and terrified out of their minds. I don’t even recognise them by that point. I don’t want…” Your voice wavered. “I don’t want that to happen to me, too. I don’t want not to be myself anymore.”

His jaw was tight. He repeated coldly, “I cannot make you that promise. Never speak of this to me again.”

Your mouth pressed into a thin line. You withdrew your hands and, in silence, left him alone in the forest.

The next morning, he found your pipa leaning against the tree. The next time you saw it, he was playing it to you.

Xiao thinks something died between you then, the first and only time you made that request. After his refusal, you grew more distant from him with time.

He had thought it unthinkable, when you told him what you wanted. Of all the blood he had stained his hands with, yours was one he would never dare touch, not even a drop. When he’d sworn to keep you safe all that time ago, he had meant what he said.

This was before he was forced to watch, day after day, as you succumbed slowly to madness in pain, mistrust, and loneliness. The brightness of your eyes faded into what he sees staring back at him now: a stare of little more than an animal fuelled by primal fear and hunger, barely recognisable as your own. If there is any flicker of recognition towards him in your gaze, he can not locate it.

Still, you do not run from him, and for that he is grateful.

He sets down the pipa once you have calmed down. Still, your eyes follow his every movement, darting between him and the instrument once he’s placed it on the floor. He lowers himself into a crouch: the smaller he is, the less of a threat you will see in him. (He pushes down the thought that you see him as a threat at all: if he lingers on it too long, he is afraid he will fall apart.)

I won’t hurt you, he wants to reassure you, but his throat chokes and prevents him from speaking the words. He has never been good at lying—he hopes he isn’t lying. Instead, he holds out his hand. Come, says the action. He hopes his eyes look warm. There is no need to be afraid.

You narrow your eyes on his palm. Your gaze is wary, flicking from his face to his hand. In turn, he regards you patiently. Tentatively, you take a single step forward. Then a second. Shrink back as soon as you do. Xiao doesn’t move. However long you take, he is willing to wait. For you, he will always be willing to wait. A third step. You shake your head, backing away with a confused cry. Are you still in there somewhere, fighting to take his hand, or is it only the demon speaking?

It could be for hours that he sits there, hand outstretched, waiting for you to take it as you waver back and forth and back again. By minute fractions, the space separating you diminishes. You are confused, he can see in the twitches of your head, and panicked, and distrustful. How scared must you have been, alone in the dark all this time while demons ate at your mind? Why had he not tried harder to be there for you when you began to lose your footing?

With the next step, you reach out your arm towards him, then withdraw it just as fast. It is like the first time he met you here, vacillating between reclusiveness and openness, replayed in a dark mirror which turns everything upside down.

All the time he’s spent with you, and he is back at the beginning again.

You dare to reach out again. This time, your skin makes contact. He’s shocked by how cold your fingertips are.

Lightly, slowly, he closes his fingers around your hand. You flinch, but don’t draw back. Pulling by your hand, he coaxes you closer inch by inch until you face him only an arm’s length away. Your pupils are dilated and tremble inside watery eyes which scan over his facial features with an emotion he cannot place.

He doesn’t know whether or not you are in there, but when he closes his arms around you in a shaking embrace, you make no effort to resist him.

Months after you made your request, and only a few before this very moment, Xiao became convinced you were hiding from him. He asked after you, but you had never been known for telling others of yourself, and his questions were met with shrugs and apologies. Some said you may already be dead, but Xiao knew this could not be true: he would know it if you died.

He began to search on his own around the areas he knew you lingered in, but the archery stalls and the forest were empty. He searched the whole camp, overturned every stone, yet you were nowhere to be seen.

One day, whether it be by chance or by fate, he found you at the outskirts of the forest. You were turned away from him, but he could tell by the shaking of your shoulders that you were crying.

He felt himself freeze. In all the time he’d known you, despite all your fear, Xiao had never once known you to cry. In that brief moment, he didn’t care for distance or conduct or the fear of loss which had always prevented him from being completely open with you. He was overtaken with the need to pull you into his arms and wipe away your tears.

But Xiao stopped himself, as he always did. If you had been purposefully avoiding him, an embrace may not be what you sought from him. Instead, he advanced slowly, unsure how you would react to his presence. The fact alone that he was unsure hurt him more than he would like to admit.

His shoe scuffed the ground. Your head whipped up at the sound. Fear flashed in your eyes and you leapt off the ground. Hardly a moment later you were on your feet and running from him, desperate to get away.

“Wait,” he called after you, in a smaller voice than he’d meant.

With your back turned to him, you paused—but your legs were tense, ready to run again at a moment’s notice. His heart felt like lead in his chest. Were you afraid of him?

“I haven’t seen you recently.” He swallowed. Took a step closer. “Why?”

“I told you before,” you replied, not turning to look at him. Despite your tears, your voice was hollow and devoid of the furtive eagerness he knew you so well for. For a moment, Xiao was taken with the horrible sense that he didn’t know you anymore. Not like he used to. “I’m slipping. I’m trying, but I… I’m not strong enough. Not like you are.”

Gently, he said, “And this is why you’re hiding from me?”

A moment of hesitation. You nodded, so subtly he almost missed it. His throat was hoarse.

“Do… do you believe I think less of you for it?”

“…No.” Your hands tightened into shaking fists. You hung your head. “Please go, Xiao. If you won’t kill me, then go.”

“Is that the reason you have been avoiding me?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No.”

“Then why…?” The rest of his sentence went unspoken. Why are you so distant? Why do you doubt how much I care for you? Why are you afraid to even look at me?

“Please. I want you to go.” He could hear the strain in your voice as you fought to keep it steady.

“Once you give me a reason to, I will do so.”

Your shoulders stiffened. Even now, Xiao knew your mannerisms like the back of his hand, knew that you were passing your reply back and forth inside your head in uncertainty.

There was a tremor in your voice when you finally answered, so softly he almost missed it, “I don’t want you to see what I’ve become.”

Xiao froze. He was struck, then, with the need to speak words which he had never voiced before; words which were raw and vulnerable and would burn his throat to say. He lingered, teetering on the precipice of love.

Clenching your jaw, you said, “You said you would leave.”

The words died on his tongue. Xiao walked away as you wished, not daring to look back at the distance stretching between you.

He folds you into his chest, holding you gently but close. Your skin is feverishly hot and your breathing fast and shallow. He can feel your heartbeat pounding through your ribs in an erratic pulse, the way you shake with fear and madness. His fingers graze your scalp, stroking back and forth, soothing you as one would a child. You press yourself closer to him like you’re trying to hide.

Your heartbeat gradually slows to a regular pace. He feels you lean into his arms, your own arms coming to wrap around his torso, holding him like he is the last bastion of safety in a world which has fallen away beneath your feet, and one you want to stay with forever. (He, too, wants to stay forever.) He steels his heart as he guides your face to rest in the crook of his neck and places his hands lightly on your cheeks. Eyes falling closed, he savours the warmth of the embrace.

A sharp crack, and it is all over.

Xiao feels you sag against him. Your neck lolls onto his shoulder and is still. He takes a shuddering breath and cradles you closer, closing a fist around your hair. His heart pounds like the beats of a wardrum in his chest, so hard he can barely breathe. For a while he stares blankly into the distance: he doesn’t dare look down.

There may be no tangible blood on his hands, but Xiao can feel it, sure and true, sticky between his fingers.

Slowly, he stands up, careful not to disturb your position in his arms. You almost slip from him as he rises, your limbs hanging loose where he doesn’t hold them. He can hear his own breathing, far too loud, as it shudders past his lips.

He walks forwards some paces. The world swims in strange angles around him, dizzying and unfamiliar. Those few steps are the most difficult of his life. It is like he is learning how to walk again, unsure where to place his balance on this shifting earth, not knowing whether he drags his feet or the grass simply snags at them as they lift. He walks slowly, because he knows that should he stumble, you will fall from his arms, and he will not be able to pick you up again.

When he reaches the Sandbearer tree, he lays you gently down on the ground, trying not to think about how small your body is. (You were barely a child when all this started. All of you were. You hadn’t known what you were getting into—none of you had.) The moonlight bathes the peaceful planes of your face in silver. The shadows hang soft across your face, like cobwebs of another time he can banish with a brush of his fingers. The illusion of movement stirs your expression as these shadows shift with a single sigh of wind. Your eyes are closed; you look as though only sleeping.

Xiao turns his head away. He hopes that your dreams, whatever they may be, are sweet.

Some hours later, his fingernails are caked with earth. A mound of earth rises beside a deep pit, dug from nothing but cupped palms and unwavering persistence. Roots break through the pit here and there which he hasn’t been able to break. He tried, but they were too firm, so he left them there.

He turns towards you, still sleeping silently in the moonlight. He looks back down at his filthy palms and, disgusted by them, wipes them on his trousers: he can’t touch you with such dirty hands. The dust cakes away from his skin, but he can’t get the rusty stain off them, no matter how hard he wipes, even when his palms are raw from trying.

He swallows and kneels down beside you, lifting you up from your legs and the back of your shoulders. You aren’t as warm as you were a few hours ago. The weather is hardly cold tonight: why are you already going cold?

Reverently, he lowers you into the hole. His arms tremble, but not from your weight. You weigh barely anything at all. He tries his best to avoid resting you on the roots. If only he could have gotten rid of those roots.

It looks like something is missing. You are missing something. He looks around and his eyes land on a flower growing near the base of the tree. He doesn’t know what kind it is, or whether you would have liked it, but he picks it anyway. He tries to tuck it behind your ear, but his fingers are shaking and it keeps falling off, so he places it on your chest instead. Dazed, he steps back and pushes the mound of earth over you until it is filled up, but there is still some left over on the side when he is finished. Oh, he thinks, of course. You are taking up some of the space now. He lifts your pipa from the grass and props it up against the tree trunk. Then he sinks to his knees and cries.

No matter what you become, he had wanted to say that last time he saw you, I will love you regardless.

If he had said so, would it have changed anything?

No, he supposes. No, it wouldn’t have: Xiao had always known this would end with him putting you in the ground.

#genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #xiao x reader #xiao

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