no explicit smut, but implied nsfw. minors/ageless blogs DNI. i love you domestic flins. domestic flins if you can hear us please save us.
After a long, draining week of serving drinks at the Flagship, spending the night at Flins' lighthouse is the perfect way to unwind from your stress.
Final Night Cemetery is dark, still, and you can hear the way the waves crash against the island outside, even when your head's pressed comfortably into one of his pillows. It's calming, familiar, and his bed is a little firmer than the one you have at home. You don't mind it, though. Not when you have a clear view of him sitting up against the headboard, thin, white sheets shielding his pale skin from your tired gaze, stands of curlean and indigo falling like silk down his back.
Flins is addicting to observe because he's handsome. So, so handsome. If his appearance were a sword against the composure you try to maintain, then his demeanor would be two; everything about him moves to assault your attempts at feigning collectedness. It's not as if he'd ever expect you to put up acts of poise and self control, though. He is your boyfriend after all, and a long-term one at that. It just irks you at times that he can remain so gentlemanly. His politeness, his firmness in acting correctly, can often register as an insult to your lack thereof.
However, this only makes it better when you catch those slight slips in his composure, those special moments where his affections overwhelm his restraint.
"I love you," you say.
The book that had held Flins' attention for so long is quickly forgotten, and he looks over at you. His gaze is attentive, and you are bare under his sheets. The scent of him, woody, slightly minty, lingers on your skin. You're warm from where he'd touched you, where he'd held you, patches of skin still damp from where his mouth had been. Your hair feels a little uncomfortable tangled under your head; you've complained to him about it before, how it gets bad so easily whenever the two of you are intimate. Flins had only chuckled in response, pressing a soft, fleeting kiss to your temple.
"I do apologise, my heart. Would you prefer it if we stopped being intimate, then? I wouldn't want to cause you discomfort, after all. Your hair is as precious to me as every other part of you."
He was teasing you. He could barely get the sentence out without that small, smug smirk crawling onto his lips. You'd delivered a light smack to his chest, telling him to never ask you a dumb question like that again.
Flins isn't looking at you with any mischief now, though. Your words fell solemn atop his ears, and so he returns your sincerity earnestly, holding it at the center of his eyes. The water outside shakes and crashes, gentle despite the intensity of it all.
What Flins feels for you is somewhat similar.
"I love you," he speaks, and he makes sure to leave out the "too". It's a small quirk of his that you'd noticed further into your relationship, how he prefers to let the sentence fall separately, wholly. Of course, he does tell you that he loves you too, but there's a different type of intimacy in the moments where only the three words are presented to you. It feels fuller, more definitive; the standalone sentence carries an unrivalled weight in its isolation.
You feel the weight of it again, almost as warm as how he feels anytime his body is pressed against yours, anytime the two of you lie tangled in each other's limbs.
"Tired?" he asks, but not without a small smirk. That subtle mischief you're so used to dulls some of sincerity's tension, and you find yourself rolling your eyes at him. There's a mild ache between your legs, your eyes half lidded from all the movement from before. Of course you're tired. If anything, it's a little surprising that he isn't; he'd put in a lot of work tonight.
"Don't ask questions just because my answer will feed your ego, Kyryll."
"My heart, you do maim me with such accusations," he sighs, the curve of his lips betraying his claims. "All I wish to do is to ensure your comfort."
"You wish for me to imply that you fuck good," you retort, and you giggle when he scrunches his nose at your candidness.
"How vulgar," he chuckles. "It seems you have seen right through me."
It's a little funny to you that Flins is still caught off guard by overt displays of desire. He is by no means opposed, of course. In fact, he enjoys it when you're forward, when you show him so brilliantly that you want him, need him. He enjoys it more than he'd ever admit to you directly. However, despite this, it becomes increasingly obvious to you how unaccustomed he was to such bold displays of affection before the two of you had found each other. His effect on you is dire, and it leaves you aching for him; how could you expect yourself not to tell him you need him, where exactly you want his hands to be?
Luckily for you, your effect on him is just as strong. It takes all the restraint in the world to keep his cool when you wrap your arms around his neck, whispering your words of want so sweetly into his ears. He can recall each individual time you'd asked, pleaded so nicely, how your warm breath tickled him where you'd whispered.
"Please," you would whimper, sending the blood rushing straight down. "Need you to fuck me, Kyryll."
Vulgarity was never something Flins was familiar with, but he sees no future where he'd ever ask you to change the way you call out for him. It's too raw, too you, and he loves you more than words could ever convey.
"You really do fish for compliments sometimes, you know," you tease.
He laughs in response, shifting his body to lie down properly beside you. A hand moves to tuck a stand of your hair neatly behind your ear.
"Is that so terrible?" he mumbles, letting his gaze fall to your soft, plump lips. " To praise my performance is to indicate that I've done well in bringing you some satisfaction. I only ask to ensure that you've enjoyed yourself, my heart. My ego is of little interest to me."
"Yeah right. You and I both know that it's obvious that I enjoy myself."
He grins at you, and you can only giggle, unable to keep up your facade of irritation. Your cries of satisfaction are by no means quiet. You've tried on multiple occasions to suppress them, to try and quieten down a little, but Flins harbors too much talent in drawing them right out of you, straight from where your pleasure stems. That man knows exactly how to handle you, how exactly to make love, and where exactly he needs to be hitting to pull those addicting cries from your lips. He's a fast learner when he's passionate, after all.
You remember the time you'd narrowed your eyes at him, asking him how exactly he'd honed his skills.
"If you are asking about my previous endeavours, I can assure you it's been a few centuries, my heart."
"Centuries?!" you'd snapped. "So there was a last time?"
"Only twice."
"Twice?!"
Flins took note to leave out such details after that interaction. It'd taken him almost a week to get you to stop pouting at him.
Now, though, you never have the time to think of his previous affairs, nor does he waste any time in thinking about yours. There's no time, really, not when you'd rather focus on him, his smile, the little skeleton sculptures he carves so intricately. And he'd rather focus on you, your laughter, the way you'd bring him sugar sculptures on your way back from work. When the present offers you so much joy, retrospect struggles to dull it.
You move closer to him, and he's quick to throw an arm over your waist, a pleased hum leaving his lips once he feels your chest press against his own. Warm, bare, raw; he'll never get tired of lying skin to skin with you like this.
The waves outside continue to crash when he tilts his head down to kiss you. They move along with his lips, soft, gentle, yet intense simultaneously. You taste yourself on his tongue, and you wonder if he can taste himself on yours.
The thought is fleeting, however, because it doesn't take long for the two of you to busy yourselves with one another, preoccupied with that comfortable warmth in your stomachs, the sound of shallow breaths, quiet hums of approval.
You lose yourself in him, and he loses himself in you.
★ fucking your friend’s ex is not okay, that’s for sure. but sometimes, right now, things don’t have to be okay. sometimes, right now, they only have to be fair. an eye for an eye, a body for a body. that’s how it works, that's how it’s always worked. you, and flins, sure as hell know that now.
🐈 notes 𐙚
★ fem reader ★ modern!au, university!au ★ bff’s ex 2 lovers ★ minors/ageless blogs DNI.★ toxic relationships described (not with flins) ★ minor blood mention ★
You were quiet on the way back home. Too quiet.
Flins, more due to his fascination in you, and less due to his overall tendency to observe, had immediately picked up on it.
Upon being notified of the arrival of an old-looking coin, Flins had insisted that you accompany him to his usual antique store. The transaction was fast, efficient, with the ever-needed small talk occuring briefly beforehand. You were in and out in under 5 minutes, and, to Flins, the outing was a huge success.
Unfortunately, the success he’d revelled in was fleeting, because a strange, uncomfortable silence had captured you the moment you’d left the store. He noticed it, your reluctance to speak, how he’d been the one to carry the weight of the conversation. You, walking beside him, offered brief responses. At times, you would only nod your head. You hadn’t complained about how cold it was, nor did you scold him for spending so much money on an old coin. Those two factors were odd enough to justify Flins’ suspicions on their own. What struck him as most perplexing, however, was your lack of opinion on how the cat he’d walked past had hissed at him.
“They seem…more agitated than usual today,” he’d remarked, expecting you to tease him for such an unfortunate encounter.
He’d expected you to tease him, to shoot back with a “who knows, maybe they’re allergic to you too”, but you’d said nothing. Instead, all he’d earnt was a short, fabricated giggle. Flins felt his heart sink at the idea of ever upsetting you. The fact that the risked seemed realer than ever only made him feel worse.
“Hm?” You responded. “What are you talking about? I’m not upset with you, Flins.”
And that was the truth, you weren’t upset with him.
You were, however, seething with jealousy.
“In fact, I feel fine, but I’m sure the lady at the counter feels the best between the three of us. It makes sense, though, since you so graciously decided to entertain her obvious flirting for five minutes straight.”
If you were ruder, and perhaps a generally unreasonable person, you probably would’ve said it to his face. You probably would’ve said it in the store, right in front of that lady. You’d make sure to say it sharp, cutting off whatever she was saying about how her shifts are ‘barely tolerable without him stopping by”. You could recall how hard you tried not to scoff right then and there.
Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for everyone else involved, you were not that type of person.
So, instead, you settled for a half-truth.
“You haven’t spoken much,” he pointed out. It was clear that he’d seen straight through your lie, ever-perceptive as he was. “And that’s perfectly alright, y/n. If you simply wish to listen, or if you’d rather we enjoy the walk in silence, then I do apologise for my question.”
“No, I- don’t apologise, Flins,” you said. “It’s not like you’ve done anything wrong.”
He nodded. “It puts my heart at ease to know that. I take it that you are certainly content, then?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“I see. Are you able to promise me that?”
Ah, he’d got you there.
If it was anyone else, you, in your persistent attempts to save face, would’ve just lied, moving on with your day with a bitter taste on your tongue. Jealousy, as natural as it was, had always filled you with a deep, burning shame. It was a stupid feeling, and even more stupid in Flins’ case.
The two of you weren’t dating, so really, the lady behind the counter hadn’t done anything objectively wrong. If you tried to confront her, she could’ve asked you if Flins was your boyfriend, and what would you say to that? Lying again was an option, you could’ve said “yeah, he is”. That, however, would lead to an intimidating walk back home. There was even a risk of him correcting you, and saying “no, I’m not”. You’d rather have her kiss him on the lips than meet that fate.
Your one viable option would’ve been to fall silent, submitting to an immediate loss. This option would also prompt an intimidating walk back, reinforcing the idea that your situation was not a favourable one. It was only a stupid one.
It was difficult to lie to Flins’ face, as ironic as that might sound. You groaned, bringing your hands up to shield your face. Those golden eyes were always so knowing, so piercing.
“I- ugh…I’m not upset with you or anything,” you grumbled reluctantly.
Flins had caught the weight you’d added onto ‘with’, humming to himself in acknowledgement.
“But you remain upset nonetheless, no?” He inferred, his footsteps slowing. “Regardless of whether or not I was the cause.”
“…yeah, I guess. But I’m not, like, upset upset. It’s really nothing you should worry about.”
He chuckled.
“A remark made in vain, my heart.”
Leather had met the pads of your fingers, his hand intertwining with yours in an instant; he’d stopped in his tracks to bring you to a halt with him. The pair of you stood on the incline between Teyvat’s campus and the downtown area: a long, stretched out road, forest lining the pavements that sandwiched it. The road was busy from morning till night. The pavements, too, matched its popularity, with the route being the easiest way to get to and from campus in between classes. It was common for students to stop by to grab lunch, to head over to the Angel’s Share, or, more realistically, to skip their lectures entirely to head downtown.
Flins, often bothered by the foot traffic, had shown you an alternate route. It was a desire path, one that cut through the forest area that surrounded the road. Though slightly time consuming, it avoided the congestion on the pavements, getting you into campus via the side gates instead of the main one. The most noteable benefit of this route, however, was that it gave you more time to spend with him. Standing there, hand in hand, you recognised a particular tree, one that he’d had you pushed up against a few weeks prior. You tried to blink away the memory of his lips on your neck, the roughness of tree bark against your back.
“What kind of man would I be,” he sighed, turning your body towards him, “to let you walk beside me feeling troubled? That is not in my nature.”
“I know.” You pouted. You leant forward, pressing your forehead into his shoulder. The hand that had rested on your waist shifted to the small of your back, and he wrapped both arms around you, pulling you close to him. “It’s seriously just dumb, Flins. I’m embarrassed.”
“You shouldn’t be. Never around me, my heart.”
“I know… I’m making it bigger than it is, anyway. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. He placed his palm against the back of your head; the weight of his forearm against your back was comforting, warm. “Please, tell me what troubles you, nightlight. All I want to do is make it better.”
You paused, taking a deep breath.
This was so embarrassing to admit.
“The lady at the antique store…” you murmured, eternally grateful that he hadn’t moved your head back from his shoulder.
“Ah, Mahla?”
“She definitely wants you, Flins.”
A pregnant pause stationed itself between you two.
You internally recoiled at your own words, groaning into the fabric of his coat. It was frustrating; you couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d fluttered her eyelashes at him, how he still insisted on maintaining the conversation. The whole encounter had you fighting the urge to walk out the store. Sure, you couldn’t really blame Flins all that much. You knew he was polite, naturally charming, with a built-in tendency to draw smiles from anyone he spoke to. That, however, only served to be part of your problem.
Whatever embarrassment you’d felt quickly took the shape of defensiveness, and you, for whatever reason, felt the need to explain yourself before he could even open his mouth.
“It’s so obvious!” You lamented, making sure to speak a little firmer this time. You’d drawn back from his shoulder, allowing him to see the way your brows were furrowed, how your lips curled into an irritated pout.
“She was flirting with you so hard. There is no way you didn’t notice that. She said that you look better everytime you walk in, and she said she missed you. Are you serious? The cashiers at the grocery store never tell me they miss me, and I’d like to think I’m pretty polite too! That is so not a customer service thing, that’s an I-Want-To-Fuck-The-Customer service thing!”
“My heart-”
“How often do you even go there for her to miss you? How does that work?”
“If you’d let me-”
“Also, does she have your phone number? You said you got a call about that coin. You are not going to tell me you gave her your number, Kyryll. I’m so serious right now.”
It was foolish of you not to see it coming, not to feel that familiar, agitating quiver in his shoulders. Before you could even finish your string of accusations, Flins had sharply turned his head to the side. The trees around you did little to soak the sounds of poorly-stifled laughter, the jagged breath leaving his lips. It was impossible to miss, really.
You, frozen in place, could only stare at him in disbelief. His small attempt at redirecting his laughter was futile in taming your irritation.
“Kyryll, you cannot be fucking serious right now.”
“I- no, my heart, I do-” he tried, somewhat, to speak in between his chuckles, “I do apologise, hah- I truly… I truly do apologise. It was not my intention to-”
You shoved him back, ignoring both the heat spreading across your cheeks, and his wide, amused grin.
“Save it, oh my god,” you spat. “You are seriously so mean.”
“No, sweetheart, I-”
“Nope.” You’d already turned on your heels, trudging up the makeshift path. You tried your best to pay no mind to the laughter behind you, the forced throat-clearing that tried so hard to bring an end to it. “You said I didn’t have to be embarrassed, now you’re laughing at me.”
Hurried footsteps trailed behind you.
“No,” he insisted, picking up his own pace, “not at you, my heart. Please, I could never laugh at you.”
“You’re laughing at me right now!”
“I most certainly am not.”
His downfall laid in your act of turning around to check. He, unsurprisingly, was still laughing. The sight of his poorly-hidden grin had only compelled you to walk ahead even faster than before.
“Go tell your Mahla to tell you a joke,” you hissed. “I’m sure she’d love to see you walk in again. You get so much better looking every time you do, after all.”
“Aah, I see. Could that comment be the source of your troubles?”
“Could that comment be the- do not act dumb right now. She was flirting with you right in front of me! That comment was one of many.”
Flins thought you looked cute like this. Of course, he would never want to cause you distress; he cared about you too much for that. In a good world, he’d keep you happy at all times, smiling, sweet, tucked comfortably against his chest. He’d keep your mind free of all troubles, of as little as a seed of doubt in regards to his affections.
However, in all honesty, he couldn’t deny the fact that your frustration was slightly endearing. The way you rambled at him, scolded him, your pretty, pouty lips, it was all because you liked him enough to be a little angry with him.
Flins liked that, you liking him.
“I apologise, nightlight,” he called out to you. The intense urge to kiss you was searing through his chest. “I did not intend to enable her behaviour, nor did I intend to forget that you’d rather have me all to yourself.”
You blushed, turning to him with narrowed eyes.
“You are not teasing me when I’m already mad at you.”
“Teasing you?” He raised his eyebrows. “Was my assumption made in haste? If you would rather share me, then please, do tell.”
“You’re a massive prick, you know. Everyone thinks you’re some gentleman, but-”
“Ah, there it is.”
He was by your side, having caught up swiftly due to his height. Flins didn’t miss the small smile on your lips, nor were you actually annoyed at the one on his. These games, the back and forth, the teasing remarks: everything about being around Flins was easy, comfortable, even in moments that had started with difficulty. Any jealousy you felt had melted with the sound of his amusement; it dripped into the soil below you, taken back into the earth. There wasn’t much in the air aside from his laughter, your laughter, the mingled smell of wet grass and tree bark.
“You’re terrible,” you persisted, grinning to yourself, “I won’t ever, ever forgive you. You’ve betrayed me, and I’m hurt.”
“Then,” said Flins, “I suppose I must apologise forever.”
You giggled, speeding up. The pair of you, like fools, were jogging through the forest, weaving between the trees. The route back to campus had been long forgotten, along with your 3pm lecture, the old, expensive coin tucked into his pocket. You ran from him, a rush of adrenaline pumping through your veins. April’s winds were cold and they grazed the plush of your cheeks, dulling the heat that he, so easily, brought to your entire body. The trees around you knew his name. They knew yours, too.
“Forever is a long time, Kyryll!” you’d yelled into the stretch of forest.
For a moment, you thought you finally lost him. You were tucked behind a particularly thick tree, scanning your surroundings for a flash of azure, for the quiet jingle of the metallic detailing on his coat. Flins, you’d realised midway through your sprint, was intimidatingly fast. It was most likely due to the length of his legs in comparison to yours, but regardless of reason, it was definitely an unfortunate advantage for him.
Your breathing formed small, translucent clouds before your lips, fingers resting against a patch of rough, slightly damp, bark. Almost a minute had passed since you’d called out to him. You considered calling out again, stepping out from behind the tree, but he was swift in saving you the effort.
From behind, a strong pair of hands landed on your hips.
“A long time with you is all I could ever want.”
Your noise of startle was muffled by his lips.
He pressed a sweet, short kiss to your mouth, moving to litter multiple kisses across your entire face. You felt him against your forehead, your cheeks, the underside of your jaw, then back on your lips. The speed of his movements felt ticklish on your skin.
“Flins, ah- that tickles!”
“I apologise,” he said solemnly, ignoring your protest to slot his lips into yours. You’d hummed into him, relishing in how gentle he was. “Do you forgive me?”
“No!”
“Aah, well that won’t do.”
He extended his assault to your neck, the exposed part of your collarbones, back to your cheeks, your lips, your forehead. You could feel his smile against your skin, the warmth of his breath when he chuckled at your squirming.
“Flins!”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“You’re- aah! You’re tickling me!”
He kissed your forehead.
“Forgive me, I truly am sorry.”
Your right cheek.
“I am the most sorry man in the entire world.”
He moved to your left cheek, smiling bright, that addicting glint of affection gleaming in his golden eyes.
“Y/n, my heart, I truly am-”
“-so fucking sorry, Kyryll.”
Your throat feels tight.
You’re soaked, and the wind turns your dress to ice against your skin. You’re not sure if this is the third or fourth voicemail. You don’t remember how long it’s been since he drove away, how long you’ve been standing outside your house. His empty, dull eyes remain ingrained into your head. The silence in his car, how much worse it felt when he’d broken it to speak. You stand there, stained with all the hurt you’d caused, with your phone clutched against your ear.
“Please,” you whimper, your vision blurred with tears, “please just call me back.”
What really happened between you two, that night at Nefer’s pregame?
Is it reliable, Yelan’s account of it all?
Is it truthful, Nefer’s confirmation of the events?
No one can be sure, certainty, in more cases than one, is impossible to reach. The questions and doubts had plagued Diluc far longer than he could bear, and there was nowhere to put the turmoil they’d brewed within him.
It doesn’t take Ajax long to find him.
“Diluc, the fuck is your problem?”
Diluc stands in the parking lot, exactly where he’d stood with you a few moments prior, where he’d exercised a futile, vain attempt at convincing you to return home with him. He’s soaked through, drenched from head to toe, and his coat hangs twice as heavy across his shoulders.
April’s rain keeps up its onslaught, pouring down relentlessly on all that lies below it. The leaves beg for mercy, clinging to their branches, as the harsh, unforgiving winds tear at their bodies. Trash cans lie toppled on the ground and their contents lie strewn across the asphalt. A few empty takeaway boxes skitter along the parking lot; they slap against the windshield windows of unlucky cars. Tonight, everything is moving.
Everything aside from Diluc, who stays completely still, waiting for Ajax to get to him. He’s immobalised by his own guilt; that guilt that once burnt so bright, that seared through him for months, now ice cold in the spring rain. The guilt he’d been carrying for weeks finally feels louder than the storm around him, than the wind that howls, roars against his ears.
“Speak up, redhead. What the hell was that?”
Ajax’s voice cuts sharply through the rain. He approaches fast, steps heavy, features contorted into something between anger and disbelief.
Diluc doesn’t answer. Not yet.
He watches Ajax come closer, the rise and fall of his chest. His right hand, subtly, curls into a fist by his side, hanging tense by the hem of his sports jersey. The sight only agitates Diluc further, if ‘redhead’ being used to address him wasn’t enough.
“You know my name,” he spits. “Don’t call me that.”
“Save the tough guy act. I didn’t fuck you up earlier because I didn’t want to make a scene. Don’t start thinking I’ll show that restraint again.” Ajax leans forward, arriving at a halt before the taller man, eyes narrowed. “I’m asking you a question.”
“And I’m telling you to use my name.”
Diluc straightens, unmoved by Ajax’s attempt at intimidation. The tension between them thickens, and it’s sharp enough to slice through, rain seeping into every part of them that it can reach. Diluc isn’t someone who succumbs easily to his emotions. He prefers to diffuse situations rather than let them fester into something ugly, choosing a tactical retreat over a pointless advance. He’s strong, strong enough to handle Ajax if he were to engage, but fighting has always struck him as a childish solution. When conflict rises, violence is, and should always be, the last resort. That’s what Diluc believes, and it’s a belief he’s always stood firm in.
And yet-
“-why don’t you ask me again, Ajax? I assumed we were all adults here, but I still feel the need to remind you to act your age.”
He hears it: the edge in his voice, the not-so-subtle bite. It betrays his stance, his beliefs, and he’s painfully aware that provoking Ajax is the easiest way to prompt a physical altercation. His words come out like barbs, the kind meant to leave scratches on Ajax’s skin.
And they do.
The expression on Ajax’s face implies that he’d felt those scratches physically.
“You’re fucking weird,” he spits, “You know that, right Diluc?”
Diluc, again, doesn’t answer.
“I don’t get you,” Ajax continues. A dry, humorless chuckle leaves his lips, the sound of it making Diluc’s eye twitch. “Yelan doesn’t get you, Nefer doesn’t get you. Fuck, I would say that you don’t get you. You think dragging y/n out like that makes you some fuckin’ hero, or what?”
“You went too far, and you know you did,” his opponet hisses, sour, in response. “You got personal. It’s obvious that you just wanted a chance to play around with her. I’d bet money on the fact that whatever plan Yelan gave you was the last thing on your mind. What, did you think I would stand there and let you speak to her so-”
“Oh, you wetwipe, you’re worried about y/n? Sweet, angel y/n? Because she’s done nothing wrong in her life, and this whole plan is just some fun little game between us?”
Diluc is no stranger to retribution. He knows it like the back of his hand.
It disappoints him that he, so foolishly, had allowed revenge to mimic its shape, to trick him into participation. Revenge is not the friend that retribution is, and it never, ever will be.
“Ajax,” he groans, pressing the heel of his palm to his furrowed brows, “this…this is so messed up. Am I the only one who thinks what we’re doing is fucked up?”
“You agreed to it. You didn’t think it was messed up back then?” Another, humorless chuckle falls from Ajax’s lips as he draws back, running a hand through his wet, ginger hair. “You are so obsessed with seeming like this righteous, perfect guy. None of this is righteous, it’s just fair game.”
Retribution is fair, proportional; it concerns itself with peace, with the restoration of justice.Retribution rights wrongs in the most lawful way it can, ensuring the correct delivery of relief for those who deserve it. Diluc can respect retribution. In fact, he often encourages it.
Inversely, revenge is indulgent, personal. Revenge does not care for the law, nor does it care for peace. It, at its core, is concerned with that addicting, momentary satisfaction, a violent justice disguised as a remedy. It’s promise of medicine to numb the wound, no matter how the medicine may be sourced.
The wounded crave relief, and the wronged crave revenge.
For that reason, he understands you now.
The wounded crave relief, and the wronged crave revenge.
For that same reason, he’d understood Yelan back then.
But still, still, he can’t run from the grating persistence of his own doubts, the questions that claw at him long into the night. Everything had been so sudden, so uncharacteristic; it was all so unlike you, so unlike Flins, everything that he’d been told. You, humiliatingly absorbed in Ajax, so pliant in his rough, reckless hands. You loved that man, truly, even if he did not love you. Flins, ever so gentle, ever so principled; Flins was, and still is, everything Diluc wishes he could be. Surely a man like that harbours morals that stand strong, iron against the crash of waves.
Yet despite these pressing thoughts, Diluc never knew you well enough to contest Yelan’s account. He never knew Flins enough to question Nefer’s certainty. He still doesn’t, and that’s the price he pays for being so withdrawn, so reluctant to step beyond the social circle Nefer had built around him. Even now, he has no substance to his doubts aside from from that feeling, that burning intuition, and that one, simple question.
What really happened between you two, that night at Nefer’s pregame?
Revenge is not the friend that retribution is, and Diluc is not one to find comfort in strangers.
“Do you believe her?”
“What?”
“Yelan,” Diluc clarifies, his voice low. “Do you believe what she told you about those two?”
It’s been well over a year since Nefer’s pregame, more than enough time for Diluc to realise just how flawed his timing is, how often he speaks up only when it’s already too late.
Ajax only blinks, disbelief flickering across his features. It seems as though he, too, finds the issue in Diluc’s timing.
“Are you stupid?”
“Ajax-”
“You’re not actually saying you think that whole thing was a lie.” His tone is incredulous, dressed with daggers that jab at Diluc each time he speaks.
“We were all fucking wasted,” Diluc snaps. “Yelan was probably five drinks in at best, you were too. And I don’t even want to try and guess how many bottles Nefer stole from people that night. How do you know she heard them correctly, or if she heard them at all?”
“What does that have to do with-”
“Use your head. You don’t think it’s weird that none of us ever asked them anything? That we never confronted them? You don’t think jumping headfirst into this fucked-up plan without a single question could’ve been an oversight?”
Diluc knows he’s being hypocritical, that criticising the others’ lack of confrontation is rich coming from him. He, just like the others, had every opportunity to speak to you, to speak to Flins. He, just like the others, harboured an autonomy that could’ve saved everyone all the hassle, all the hurt, and yet he remained stationary, still. Time, as it always does, had moved swiftly past him.
Ajax opens his mouth to shoot back, but something in Diluc’s tone, controlled, firm, and all too steady, makes him hesitate. For the first time tonight, his tongue comes to a pause, subject to a tiny, minuscule seed of doubt. Diluc catches it, that flicker in his expression. Barely there. It flashes just for a second before it’s gone.
“Yelan isn’t a liar,” he spits, decicing to double down. “She told us exactly what happened, and Nefer backed it up. Why the hell would they lie to us? You think that shit would benefit anyone?”
The rain slides down his face in cold, steady lines, soaking into the deep red of his hair, into the dark brown of his clothes. The silence Diluc holds isn’t passive, but intentional, long, heavy enough that Ajax feels it land somewhere deep in his ribs. Deep, oak eyes bore holds into blue ones.
Ajax’s fingers twitch, the hand that’d balled into a fist losing its structure. He looks away for the briefest second, jaw shifting like he’s grinding down a thought he refuses to let form.
“…Even if we moved a little fast,” he mutters, voice tightening with a poorly-masked reluctance, “it doesn’t matter now. You can’t pretend you didn’t know what you were getting into.”
Diluc holds his silence, and the rain speaks for him. It patters against the asphalt, steady and merciless, the only rhythm in the empty lot. It falls onto Ajax’s clothes, his hair; the weight of the water sits on him as uncomfortably as it sits on Diluc. The rain can feel something different in Ajax, something that lies beyond the anger he shows, the scorn, the malice that lines his frame. It falls, pit, pat, pit, pat, and spells it all onto the top of Diluc’s head.
“It sucks, doesn't it? To feel like she one upped you like that.”
For a heartbeat, something dances across Ajax’s face at his words. It’s something wounded, something human, and Diluc has never seen it worn on a man like him.
“That- what? That isn’t the point.”
“We’re doing all this without knowing whether or not they really deserve it. This is the entire point.”
“Don’t bring this shit up,” Ajax mutters. He scoffs, scowls at Diluc, but it’s noticeably weaker this time. His voice crumbles at the edges, and for once, Diluc catches the way his breath hitches. “Whether or not I’m hurt means nothing right now, it was ages ago. She made her choice, and so did Flins.”
“Did they? Or did we make that choice for them?”
A problem shared is a problem halved.
Diluc, tormented so relentlessly by his guilt, by his doubts, sees the weight of it on Ajax too. It’s a subtle sight, easy to miss and obscured by the violent rainfall, but the redhead spots tremble in his hands, the tilt of his brows. His lips, curled into a bitter scowl, bleed with something foreign. It seems that even uncertainty can be contagious.
The storm doesn’t wait like Diluc does.
There is no mercy in the silence Diluc consistently, like he’s addicted to doing so, holds; it is not kind. Diluc is quiet because he’s hoping, because he’s waiting for Ajax to verify his doubts, that unbearably uncertainty. The rain drums against the ground with its relentless, overwhelming rhythm. It seems to rattle Ajax, to slap the wet strands of his hair against his face, tearing, biting at the fabric of his jersey. It urges him to speak up, to confess, to stand there with Diluc and feel the weight of all that’s happened.
Ajax inhales sharply, as if he might continue, but the words that burn with truth find themselves tangled up in his throat. There is weakness in vulnerability, and yet, the strength of it prevails.
It seems that he is still yet to realise it.
“Fuck you, Diluc,” is all he says, retreating into a weakness that he swears is strength. “What’s done is done. This conversation is useless, and so are you.”
But his conviction doesn’t land in the way he wants it to, not tonight. Not with the hurt Diluc had pulled from behind his ribs, not with the storm that shakes him so violently. Not after he remembered what you’d done, why he’d even agreed to take part in this plan to begin with.
And Diluc notices this, the shake in his voice, the teeth that sink into his bottom lip. He sees, for the first time, Ajax’s first, and most visible, loss:
realising too late that he’d lost you that fateful night, watching you slip away again, so long after the two of you had already ended things.
He’s vulnerable, open, andthis time, Diluc is not a slave to his own cowardice.
“Get in the car,” he says firmly.
Ajax’s jaw almost drops in disbelief. The wind, for a second, seems like it stills. Everything holds its breath.
“What? Why the hell would I-”
“Don’t question me. Are you in, or are you out?”
A beat of silence settles. Ajax swallows, jaw tightening as he grits his teeth.
“What…,” he mumbles, “what the hell are you trying to accomplish here? You think there’s any way to undo what we’re doing, what they did to me?”
What they did to me.
Diluc doesn’t have to listen close to catch the way his voice cracks.
“Answer me, Ajax.”
The storm roars around them, the rain slicing down; the winds bite, nip at their faces. Every second counts, and so does every moment, every glint of every eye, each quiver in every lip. Diluc, as unwavering as time, will move with or without Ajax. If he decides to remain still, standing here in the violent April rain, Diluc will move regardless. If he decides to move, to swallow his pride and get into the car, Diluc will move regardless.
Diluc, as unwavering as time, will move, and he will scorn all accounts of previous hesitation as he does so.
Ajax exhales sharply.
A reluctant nod finally betrays him.
Outside, muffled music sept through the thin walls of your bedroom, a bassline rattling faintly in your chest. Laughter spilled from the living room, punctuated by the occasional clink of bottles and the holler of someone announcing a new round. You recognised the voice as Kaeya’s, and emitted a soft hum of surprise that he’d actually agreed come to the same event as his brother, Diluc. You could see the flicker of coloured lights through the small space between your door and the ground, people passed in and out of Nefer’s pregame. Their voices overlapped, loud and incoherent.
Flins perched himself on the edge of your bed, making sure to be careful as to not jostle your laptop. The Reese’s bowl had wobbled dangerously from the added weight, but you caught it with an effortless hand, settling it on your nightstand.
You sat comfortably against your headboard, knees pressed to your chest, watching the way his golden eyes scanned over what you’d already written. For someone who’d claimed he wouldn’t stay long, Flins had a tongue tailored to flattery. He’d spent the first few minutes praising the strength of your essay, insisting that you hardly needed his assistance at all.
He said that, and then proceeded to edit every single sentence he laid eyes on. The sight made you want to scoff in amusement.
“Only this one paragraph,” you reminded him, narrowing your eyes, “and then you’re gone. You have to promise me that.”
Flins smiled faintly, his expression softening the usual sharpness of his features. “Your command is my law, Miss.”
“Really? You’re just going to agree to that without a single objection?”
“Well,” he started, leaning slightly closer to get a better look at the screen, “technically, the rest of your essay could…improve.”
You deadpanned.
“Improve?” You echoed, scoffing at his choice of words. “You were just acting like my essay was some masterpiece like…five minutes ago. Thought I ‘hardly needed your assistance’, or whatever.”
Flins straightened slightly, attempting a dignified expression.
“I said it was good, Miss,” he clarified, “not untouchable.”
“Oh, I see. So you’re here to fix my technically-good-but-secretly-bad essay? Is that it?”
“I am here because it is quieter in your room,” he said plainly. “My grade in this module only serves as an added bonus, you see.”
You feign offence, huffing at the cheeky smile he quickly tried to wipe off his lips.
“So you’re not here out of the kindness of your heart? You’re using me for my room?”
He pretended to consider it, bringing a finger to curl over his chin.
“I suppose one could argue that assisting a classmate in distress is a noble act.”
From this close, it was impossible not to notice things you hadn’t when he was just a voice behind your door. His hair, a curtain of deep cerulean, darker near the crown and brightening toward the ends, spilled over his shoulders as he leaned forward, brushing the small of his back in a smooth, silk-like fall. His skin, pale, contrasted sharply with the black quarter-zip hugging his frame.
“Classmate?” You folded your arms over your chest. “You didn’t even realise we did the same course until ten minutes ago.”
“That is true,” he conceded, voice warm with quiet laughter. “But I realised eventually. That counts for something.”
“So, what, you just barge into my room, insult my paragraph, and claim you’re doing a noble deed?”
“If the paragraph is in need of rescue…” he said, peering up from the screen to meet your eyes, “then yes, I believe that makes me something of a hero.”
“Oh my god,” you groaned. “You’re unbelievable.”
“And yet,” he said, fingers already rearranging your sentences, “you are still letting me help.”
For a moment, his eyes lingered on you, and you felt it. You looked away quickly, focusing on your knees again, but the warmth in your chest refused to fade.
Flins worked in silence after that, or at least, what appeared to be silence on the surface. Beyond the closed door of your room, Nefer’s pregame pulsed like a heartbeat, thumping against all it could reach. Laughter, the clatter of bottles, the bass from someone’s speaker rattling faintly through the floorboards. Every few minutes, a burst of voices swelled down the hall before fading again. You sympathised with the agitation Flins had carried while standing outside your door, why he was so willing to edit a long, boring essay.
Inside your room, the air felt strangely still, a stark contrast to the constant movement outside your door. The yellow glow of your lamp made the sharp lines of Flins’ face seem softer, human in a way you didn’t expect. Dressed in all black, he looked almost out of place in the cozy mess of your room: the bowl of Reese’s, the rumpled sheets, the clothes half-spilled from your wardrobe.
And yet, he didn’t seem uncomfortable; he, if it wasn’t your mind playing tricks on you, looked as comfortable as ever.
Diluc: I’m coming to yours. I’ll be there in 10 [9:32pm]
Diluc: I know it’s not a good time but this is important [9:32pm]
You don’t object to the notifications on your screen, nor do you agree to them.
The wind howls, violent, and you feel limp enough to move with it. If it blew any harder, if you felt any worse, you’d surely be lifted off your feet, tossed up into the air, sent far, far away. You hadn’t gone into your house since Flins had dropped you off, feeling immobilised by the ache that spreads from your chest to your toes to the tips of your fingers, pulsing at your temples. Your dress, helpless, continues to soak up the rain that beats against it. That expensive dress, the one you’d bought to look pretty in for him, is practically destroyed from all the water it falls subject to.
You miss him.
You miss Flins so much that it hurts.
What swirls more viciously than the April wind is the guilt, the shame, the regret inside you. The three of them dance, the heels of their feet pressing painfully against your head. They bump and crash against the walls of your brain, they spin at the bottom of your stomach. The bruises they leave in their wake paint his face in greens, purples and yellows. His hollow, golden eyes, once shining so bright, now burn in your memory, empty and dry.
Tell me, please, that Yelan is lying to me. Tell me she’s lying and I promise I’ll believe you.
You’re not sure you’ve ever felt worse than this.
You wish you’d just lied, cursed her name, her whole existence in that car. You wish you told him you loved him sooner, confessed to how badly you wanted to be with him. You wish you could take him back to that antique store, that stupid store where stupid Mahla would surely flirt with him again, just so you could say, firm and certain, that he was your boyfriend. It would make her lay off him, you know it. And surely, right after that confrontation, he’d tease you on the way back home. He’d tease you about wanting to keep him to yourself, and he’d be entirely right about it. You’d pretend to get mad all over again, just like you always do. And Flins, ever so loving, ever so gentle, would kiss it all better, just like he always does.
The thought makes you feel sick, because there is no ‘always’ left for you.
Saliva collects along your tongue.
Diluc: Sorry in advance btw, but the drive is short [9:35pm]
Diluc: I told him not to speak to you [9:35pm]
When he finally arrives, driving right up to your doorstep, the headlights flash bright against your driveway before you can even process it. Exhaust fumes mingle with the wet spring air, and all your ache is displaced by a chill of shock.
“…Diluc?” you murmur, your voice barely carrying over the wind.
He leans slightly out the window, damp coat clinging to his shoulders. “Hey, uh, just get in. We don’t have a lot of time.”
You swallow, shivering, and make the mistake of glancing at the passenger seat through the open window. Your stomach drops. You realise that you probably should’ve given more of your attention to the contents of Diluc’s texts, the reason behind that odd, seemingly out of place, apology.
“…I am not getting in your car, Diluc. Are you fucking crazy?”
Rolling his eyes, Ajax lifts a hand in mock surrender.
“I don’t want to be here either,” he mutters.“Relax.”
“Then why are you?”
“Strawberry Shortcake over here made me get in,” he scoffs. “Don’t start thinking I came because I’m thrilled to see you, cause I promise that’s not what it is.”
“Asshole, if you came all this way just to piss me off, then why don’t you get out here?”
“Excuse me? It’s pouring down with rain. I get that you’re cool with being all depressed out here, but I’m not trying to increase my risk of a cold any more than I already have.”
“Real manly, Ajax. What ever will you do if the common cold were to strike?”
Diluc’s eyes close in frustration. Serious or not, it’s as if arguments form the singular patch of common ground between you and Ajax, the one place where you both speak eye to eye. Nothing about the pair of you align aside from the fact that you disagreed, and so did he, giving rise to possibly the worst dynamic Diluc has the misfortune of witnessing in real time. Again.
“Can the two of you just argue in the car?” He sighs. “Because we don’t have all night.”
You hesitate, teeth clenched.
You hadn’t given yourself much time to reflect on how messy, how confusing, this evening had become. Diluc showing up, demonstrating that frantic, perplexing persistence of his. Ajax, sitting smug in the passenger seat, lounged way too casually for such a tense situation. The storm, pressing in from all sides, relentless against your soft, cold skin. It’s a lot, too much, for one night, and one of it makes any sense.
It doesn’t make sense that Diluc would display such fire when diffusing the situation between you an Ajax, only to insist that you get into a car with him right after doing so. It doesn’t make sense that Ajax’s hostility had melted into something more lax, something almost casual, as if he hadn’t just been thrown like a rag doll by the man who drives the car he sits in. It doesn’t make sense that you’re even here, that there’s a tiny, tiny seed of curiosity, tempting you to comply with him.
Your head is pounding trying to process it all.
“What…what is happening, Diluc?”
You can’t even begin to untangle how this all started, how everyone seemed to know everything before you did. Ajax, showing up at the Arts building at the worst possible moment. His pointed remarks, his odd pattern of speech, the way he’d asked so directly if you were dressed nice for a date. Diluc’s arrival, how he’d pushed Ajax so violently against that door. His agitation, how harshly he’d pulled you out of the building, how frantic the look on his face was. That comment, the slip of his tongue.
“…And I know you’re waiting for Flins to get here.”
How the hell did they know?
You think about what had Yelan said to Flins, how she, somehow, caught wind of your initial plan. You think about how much she knew, how much about this whole situation she’d bothered to explain to him. You think about Nefer, your best friend, and realise that Yelan was your best friend once too.
It’s a lot, too much, for one night. Your head is pounding trying to process it all.
“Y/n, please just-”
“This is so fucked,” you mutter, more to yourself than to him. “Are- are you not getting that? You want me to just get into your car with him?”
Ajax snorts. “You’re acting like I bite.”
“You look like you do.”
“Sorry? What did you just-”
“Ajax,” Diluc groans, digging his elbow, hard, into the man’s side. A loud wince of pain sounds through the car, leaking out from Diluc’s open window as he turns to you.
His eyes catch yours through the never-ending rain, wide, taut with an urgency you’ve only started to see in him today. His fingers grip the edge of the steering wheel, as if it ties him to his sense, keeping him from saying something he shouldn’t. There’s a tension in his shoulders, the way he leans just slightly forward; the look of him scribbles a silent plea that you read clearly.
Just get in. Please.
His lips part, as if to speak again, but no words leave. All you gain is that desperate, restrained intensity, the one you fail to understand every time you see it. You swallow, the heaviness of it all perched on top of your chest.
“You…you have so much to explain.” You, with reluctance slowing each movement, step towards his car, opening the door to the backseat. You keep your gaze down, attempting to sit down in a way that doesn’t involve you tripping over the wet, dripping hem of your dress. You grunt when you feel the tip of your heel catch against his car. The entire procedure seems to be more convoluted due to your haze, that obstructive irritation you feel. “And you better explain properly, Diluc. I don’t want to see any of that crazy shit from before. I mean it.”
“I understand,” he says, sighing in relief when he spots you settled into the seat through his rear-view mirror, “and I promise I will. I’ll explain everything, start to finish, to both of you.”
Both of you?
You stare at him incredulously, the quiet click of his car door sounding as you close it.
“Both of us? What the hell is there to explain to Ajax?”
“Dumbass,” you hear your ex, who’s clearly recovered from Diluc’s assault, sneer from the passenger seat, “he’s not talking about me. Could you look away from me for even a second, or are you really not over us?”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“I’d like to think I’m pretty entertaining when I speak.”
“Yeah, you’re real funny, aren't you?”
“I can be funny. You wanna see something funny?”
“Please, entertain us,” you mutter, too tired to argue.
You catch his grin, malicious, in the rear-view mirror.
“Turn right, y/n.”
You do.
Flins, shielded by the darkness of Diluc’s car, looks right back at you.
The silence stretches.
Rain hammers against the windshield, the windows that surrounded you, thumping against the body of Diluc’s car. The heater hums softly, but the tension is palpable; it presses down, and you feel your words glue themselves to the inside of your throat.
Those golden eyes, once again, glint, but this time with something more alien than what you’re used to. They gleam with a focus that makes you feel exposed, spread out, like every thought and misstep of yours lies bare before him. Strands of cerulean fall by your hands, resting so close, yet so far, to your fingertips. The hum of the heater, the rhythmic hammer of rain against the windshield, even the faint squeak of the wipers, all fade into a distant murmur as your chest tightens.
Diluc drives in tense silence, jaw set, hands gripping the wheel. But Ajax doesn’t wait for you to process Flins’ presence, for your mind to catch up to the new situation. Ajax never waits for anyone but himself, after all.
“Flins,” he calls.
The man beside you snaps his gaze away from your rain-soaked frame, peering over at the passenger seat with an air of irritation, once you hadn’t seen in him before. He furrows his brows, his gaze meeting Ajax’s in the mirror.
“You prick,” he continues, sharp, surgical, “did you fuck my girlfriend that night at Nefer’s?”
Your stomach drops.
Flins freezes beside you, and you feel the color drain from your face.
In the dim light, your wide eyes meet his, both of you grappling with disbelief, with shock, with the impossible weight of the accusation.
You speak at the same time.
“What?!”
“Your structure is stronger now,” he said, drawing back from your screen, voice low enough that you barely heard it over the muffled bass outside. “I’ve finished my-”
Someone dropped a bottle, and a chorus of “OOOHHH!” erupted down the hall, cutting through Flins’ words. He grimaced, frowning at the sudden noise, before turning back to face you. However, you were still held away by an all-too-familiar laugh, one that rang through the walls longer than that of the others in the living room.
It was Ajax, and he sounded wasted.
You were upset- no, annoyed, that he hadn’t come to your room even once. From the sounds of it, and from the distinct lack of his presence in your room, he’d started drinking with the others immediately upon arrival, the clash and clink of bottles against the kitchen counters audible through the unfortunately thin walls of your room. You’d messaged him earlier in the afternoon, informing him of your unlucky situation. It wasn’t often that all of your friends could go out together at the same time, with everyone having such different university timetables. It wounded you to know that the one night you all could’ve, you were stuck in your room, in a jail of your own making. Ajax, in the moment, had seemed to sympathise. Clearly, though, his sympathy did not extent to physically checking on you, and it pissed you off.
“It’s very loud out there,” Flins murmured, pulling you out of your trance.
“It’s a pregame,” you huffed. “Tends to get loud, you know.”
“Yes, but you seemed a little drawn in by it for a moment.”
That made your breath catch. He noticed it, that drift, he flicker of disappointment you hadn’t voiced, the split-second you’d spent lamenting Ajax’s absence. You weren’t sure how, or if he’d even caught onto what exactly you were thinking, but his words settled on you with an alien weight.
“Don’t analyze me,” you muttered, pulling your knees in closer. “I needed your help on this essay, Shakespeare, not in general.”
Flins’ lips curved, just barely, into something quiet, something so small that you could have missed it if you weren’t looking directly at him. But the room felt it. The air tightened around that faint smile, like something had pressed a thumb to the center of your spine. Heat rippled beneath your skin, not warm exactly, but charged, a tension that came from the discomfort of being read too easily, too gently, by someone you’d only just met.
“I wasn’t analyzing,” he assured you, lowering his head. “You simply… seemed uncomfortable. I do apologise if I offended you with my comment. That was not my intention.”
You stared at him.
“Why would that offend me?”
“People dislike being seen at the wrong moment,” he said simply.
Your heart skipped, once, sharply. You weren’t sure whether he meant it deeply or casually, and you realised quickly that with Flins, his tone made it impossible to tell. He was right, a little too right, as ironic as his words might’ve looked when placed against your situation. If anything, you were hardly ever seen at all, not by the eyes that mattered most, at least. It felt like gazes would pass straight through you, like you were hollow, a shell of the woman you want so badly to be. People dislike being seen at the wrong moment, he wasn’t wrong, but you didn’t.
You didn’t feel as if there was any wrong moment for someone to see you, having spent so long feeling invisible.
Outside, someone screamed Nefer’s name, followed by a loud, concerning crash. The hallway lights flickered, but here, in your small pool of lamplight, things felt still. Weirdly still.
Flins closed the laptop, placing it gently beside you.
“You did well,” he said, and it wasn’t flattery this time. It was soft, earnest, draped with the honey that dripped so easily from his voice.
You swallowed, unsure of why that mattered.
“And,” he added quietly, tilting his head just enough for strands of blue hair to fall forward, “I am ever so grateful towards your hospitality. I prefer this room to… all of that.”
You picked at a loose thread on your blanket, eyes flicking toward the door as another wave of laughter crashed through the walls, almost as if to punctuate his point. You noticed the way his shoulders tensed, the slight twitch of his brows.
“So…why’d you even come?” you asked, words edged with curiosity. “You seem more bothered by this pregame than I am, and you’re not even out there.”
Flins rested his elbows lightly on his knees, the dim lamplight catching on strands of blue hair as they slid over his shoulder. His expression shifted, small, almost imperceptibly, into something tired.
“I came for Yelan,” he reminded you. “She wanted me here and I…wanted to make her happy. I just…didn’t think I would feel this overwhelmed by it all.”
You blinked.
It was a simple answer, and yet complex all the same.
“You don’t like this kind of thing?” you pressed.
“Not particularly, but I can tell that she finds great enjoyment in it. I’d acted on the assumption that that was enough.”
Enough.
The word brought an unexpected tightness to your throat.
It reminded you of too many nights, too many versions of you, sitting at a bar you hated, smiling at people you barely knew, letting Ajax drag you around like a prop in the performance of his life. All these versions, perched somewhere unimportant like a trophy, had wondered when your efforts would finally be enough. You’d swallowed your dislike so he wouldn’t call you boring. You’d forced yourself to have fun so he wouldn’t be disappointed. And yet, yet, yet, it was still never, ever enough to satiate him. There was always something missing, something that had kept him from really loving you. No sacrifice of yours could morph you into what he needed.
Sacrifice, sugarcoated as love.
You recognised it in an instant.
“It gets tiring,” you murmured, more internally than to him.
He looked up.
“Please, do elaborate, if you don’t mind doing so.”
“Y’know, changing out the usual parts of yourself for ones you’d think he’d like more,” you said. “The more you give up, the less of you there actually is. And then, it’s like…like he isn’t even loving you anymore. He’s loving whoever's standing in your place.”
Flins had stilled at your words.
You were talking to him, sure, but it was as if you were sitting in Flins’ place, listening to your own, heavy confession. You thought of Ajax, of all the sacrifices you’d made, all the futile, useless attempts at garnering the affection of someone who was already your boyfriend. It made you feel that deep burn of humiliation, self-pity. It was one of your, admittedly few, moments of self awareness.
The fan hummed faintly above you, and even the hallway seemed to quiet for a moment, as if listening in to your hushed conversation, as if witnessing something forbidden.
“Do you… feel like that?” you asked.
His brows lifted, caught off guard.
“My apologies,” he spoke slowly, golden eyes holding yours with newfound intensity, “but I don’t seem to…understand your question fully.”
“That it’s not you in the relationship,” you clarified, oddly invested in a relationship that was not your own. “That she’s… loving someone else, someone who stands in your place, and you’re sitting in the back of your head watching it happen.”
Silence.
Flins’ gaze drifted toward your open window before he spoke, his voice softer than the breeze slipping through it. He didn’t speak for a long while, maybe even a minute, offering your words as much attention as he could before answering.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I suppose I… feel off about a lot of things. Yelan is a wonderful woman, and she is ever so good to me. She is. I just don’t know if…”
He inhaled slowly.
“If what I feel is love. At least, not the kind that she deserves.”
Your heart sank in a strangely mirrored ache, because you knew that feeling, you knew it too well.
Ajax’s fading affection, the one you tried so hard to ignore, to push past, to mend. Your forced smiles, the hollowness between every kiss, and suddenly, painfully, you thought of Yelan. Loving, sincere Yelan, doting on a man who didn’t feel the same way towards her, who’s affections sat still, fading. It was a future you were already living, a future you wouldn’t wish on anyone. In front of you, for the briefest of seconds, you saw Ajax in Flins’ stead.
The words left you before you could filter them, raw and instinctive.
“Break up with her then.”
Flins’ head jerked slightly, startled.
You felt the heat rush into your face as the weight of what you said hit you.
“I- I didn’t mean-” you stammered, waving your hands defensively. “I mean, I did, but not like- god, not in a weird way. Just- fuck, oh my god.”
You’d told Flins, someone you’d only properly spoken to today, the boyfriend of one of your closest friends, to break up with her. Guilt had struck you like a dagger to your chest as the realisation dawned on you. He appeared to match your fluster, unsure of what exactly to say in response.
“It’s…it’s quite alright, Miss,” he tried to say, though his voice gave in to his uncertainty, “I understand that you did not intend to come off…so…”
You pulled your knees closer, embarrassed, searching his expression for offense, or anger, or anything sharp. The air in your room was thick, and the breeze that cascaded through the open window did little to combat it. It only stirred the curtains, brushed against your skin, cool, in contrast to the heat burning across your cheeks.
Flins sat very still.
You could see him turning your words over, as if examining them from every possible angle, deciding whether their sharpness was meant to wound or warn.
His fingers flexed once against his knee before he spoke.
“I don’t believe you meant any harm,” he said. “It registered more like… concern, perhaps more concern than I’m accustomed to. So please, do not fret. I understand you.”
Concern.
If only he knew.
You exhaled shakily, trying to steady yourself.
“I just,” you started, attempting to reword, to justify your sudden outburst, “I’ve seen what it does to people. Staying when the love isn’t there anymore, it changes you. Makes you feel like shit, like, all the time, even when things are supposed to be good.”
His eyes lifted to yours, something vulnerable flickering beneath their usual composure.
“And you think that is what will happen to us?” He asked. “To Yelan and I.”
You swallowed. You knew how much weight your words would hold, and how vital it was to speak carefully, honestly.
“I think,” you said carefully, “that if you already feel this uncertain, then pretending will only hurt both of you. Eventually, at least. It always happens.”
Another crash sounded down the hallway, glass, maybe, but it felt distant, muffled by the thick quiet that had settled between the two of you.
“Everything moves, with or without you. It sucks to watch it all go past when you’re stuck in the same position. That’s why…moving is good.”
Flins looked down at his hands, turning one palm upward, as though seeing it for the first time, as though seeing himself under a different light. That warm, yellow lamp light, shining so intensely from your desk.
“You speak of it as if you’ve lived it,” he murmured.
Not yet, I haven’t moved yet.
Your chest tightened, but you didn’t answer.
Not because you didn’t want to, but perhaps because you didn’t need to.
For a long moment, neither of you moved. The only sound was the low hum of the fan above, and the faint thump of music leaking through the walls, dull, far away, unimportant.
Flins drew a slow breath, the rise and fall of his shoulders steady.
“You’ve given me much to consider,” he said, voice soft, almost reverent. Then, after a beat, “and… I appreciate the honesty, Miss. Truly.”
You weren’t sure what to say. You weren’t sure why your heart was beating so hard. But in the dim glow of your lamp, with the party raging on outside your door, the two of you sat there, suspended, wrapped in a tension neither of you dared to name. And in that small, still pocket of warmth and lamplight, something between you shifted, subtle and inevitable, like a needle turning toward a new direction.
“No problem, Flins.”
That night, the night of Nefer’s pregame, Yelan had stood outside your door, drunk, a vodka cranberry clutched in her hand. She listened to you and Flins speak through the thin wood, to your voice say something she could never unhear.
“Break up with her then.”
Four months later, sober, composed, Yelan had stood in front of Flins and listened again, witnessing him do exactly what you’d told him to do.
“I… don’t feel that we are right for each other, Yelan. I think it would be best for us to stop seeing each other.”
As if her pain needed sequels, as if the universe insisted she relive the moment from every angle, Nefer had added her own blade two months after that, right after Yelan confessed what she’d overheard.
Nefer had laughed. Actually laughed.
“Oh my god, I knew it. That makes so much sense.”
“What?” Yelan blinked.
Nefer only smiled, throwing one leg over the other as she lounged back into the couch.
“Heard her fucking someone before we left that night,” she said, barely suppressing a grin, “didn’t realise she had your man in there, though. Sucks, babe. You should probably do something about that.”
And that, that was all Yelan needed to hear.
The plan was simple. Or it should have been.
If you and Flins liked each other so much, then the two of you should be together. But only long enough to ruin each other, only long enough for it to hurt. Only long enough to tear away every fragile thing you both thought you deserved, your morals, your trust, your dignity. Yelan didn’t think either of you deserved anything.
Nefer, thrilled by the messiness of it all, volunteered instantly. Diluc had to be involved, she insisted. He never went out anyway, and besides, he loved revenge or whatever it was he always spoke about. Revenge, she said, was something Yelan deserved.
If Yelan wanted it to cut deep, really deep, she’d have to sleep with Ajax.
He’d broken up with you, so, according to Nefer, it wasn’t worse than what you’d done to her. In fact, it was necessary; it was the only way to push you toward Flins again, especially now that you knew how heartbroken Yelan was after the breakup. Even though you, allegedly, had already slept with him, surely you wouldn’t do it again after seeing her sorrows. You weren’t that bad, so you needed a push.
Ajax, of course, would be down for it. All Yelan had to do was tell him what she’d heard that night. That would convince him easily.
The plan grew tangled, convoluted, and yet, at its core, horribly simple.
Nefer took charge.
Alhaitham would be going home soon to visit his parents, according to Diluc. Kaveh, finally unsupervised, would inevitably throw a party. Nefer would nudge him in that direction, and, knowing Kaveh, knowing his affinity towards a good time, he wouldn’t say no.
Once the party was set, the steps were easy.
Ajax would arrive first, and he needed to be with someone, anyone. Flirting, kissing, it didn’t matter as long as it shook you. Diluc would arrive sometime after, then Nefer, dragging you along.
You would see Ajax, and you, as expected, would be upset at the sight of him. Nefer would notice and would push a shot into your hand.
And then another.
And another.
You were terrible when you were upset, even worse when alcohol was available.
Yelan would arrive just as you started to spiral, and she’d text Ajax. Diluc, during all this, would be checking doors, waiting to update her on which room was free. They’d slip into the one he found unlocked.
Later, when you were drunk and pliable, Diluc would take you into that same room, under the guise of taking care of you.
Under the guise of taking care of you.
That was step one of convincing you to sleep with Flins.
Step two was Nefer.
She’d shame you, corner you, pull you apart piece by piece. She was good at that, making you feel small, feel guilty, feel pathetic, especially after everything you’d been through with Ajax. Under enough pressure, you’d crack. You’d give in. You’d agree to sleep with him.
And Flins, so enchanted by you since that night in your room, so willing, so weak, wouldn’t resist.
After that, it was effortless.
Yelan would tell Flins that you’d only done it to make Ajax jealous, that the whole thing was a ploy, that your interest wasn’t real. He would confront you, and you would deny it. Of course you would. Your denial would only prove her point; you were a liar, after all.
And if you did confront Yelan, if Flins did admit that she’d said something, it didn’t matter.
Because you had still slept with her boyfriend.
And in Yelan’s eyes, and Nefer’s eyes, and, eventually, in everyone’s eyes, you would always, always be the one who was wrong.
Not Yelan.
Never Yelan, no matter what strings she pulled.
Yelan’s manipulation, Nefer’s tampering: every calculated step lies bare before you, lingering, heavy and sharp, pressing against your ribs.
Aside from Diluc, who recounts how this all came to happen, no one speaks.
The heater hums softly, a weak contrast to the storm of thoughts rattling through your head. Rain drums against the roof and windows, relentless, but it’s nothing compared to the pounding in your chest, that sick feeling in your mouth. You feel the absurdity of it all, the grotesque choreography you’d been dragged into, the sheer baselessness of the accusations that had set it into motion.
At some point, though you can’t tell when, Flins’ hand had found yours, leather intertwining with your cold fingers.You’d gripped back instictively, tight, as if holding on could keep you close to some small piece of normality. His hands were firm, grounding, just like they always have been.
Diluc continues to speak, recounting each agonizing detail, each cruelly intricate move of a plan you never asked to be part of. Every word feels like a small hammer, banging against the disbelief swelling inside your chest, drilling nails into your heart.
Even Ajax stays silent, his usual smirk, his teasing remarks, all gone. He sits stiffly, eyes downcast, letting the weight of the story press against him in quiet resignation. He doesn’t meet your gaze, nor does he meet Flins’. Diluc, too, refuses to look at you. Somewhere in the middle of the chaos, he seems almost fragile, diminished by the enormity of everything he’s revealed.
The air in the car is thick, hot from the heater, stale from the closed windows, and electric with your fury.
“This explanation still lacks clarity.”
Flins is the first to speak up.
You peer over at him. Ajax, finally peeling his eyes from his lap, watches Flins through the mirror, biting the inside of his cheek when he sees that Flins is already staring right at him.
“That still doesn’t explain the picture,” he says.
Diluc flinches. Ajax jolts. Neither of them say a thing, and something heavier, something more poisonous, overcomes the tension in the car.
“What picture?” you ask, but Flins doesn’t look at you, keeping the fire he holds in his eyes fixed on the mirror, on Ajax.
“The one I was sent before our date,” he says. “The picture of you and Ajax. Together.”
You nearly choke on your breath.
“Huh? What picture? I never- I never took a picture with him.”
“You didn’t, but clearly, someone else did.”
Diluc shifts in his seat, tension coiling through his shoulders. It’s a detail he’d left out on purpose, a detail that he, ever so hopeful, had prayed that Flins wouldn’t pry into. His prayer had fallen on deaf ears, however, because if there was a god watching, it certaintly was not an unjust one.
“Yelan had asked me if I planned on seeing you again, and I’d told her I did. I told her I intended to pick you up from the arts building, after your supervisor meeting. That…that was the moment she brought it up, that you had slept with me for Ajax. That you… were seeing him behind my back, and that this whole thing was a way to draw him back to you.” He exhales, a faint tremor in the breath. “She said she could prove it if I did not believe her. I- I should not have agreed to see the proof, but… I did.”
Slowly, painfully, you turn towards the only two people in the car who have not spoken. Ajax stares at his lap. Diluc stares down at the floor.
You feel the first spark of dread crawl up your spine at their silence, because there is only one person who could’ve taken that picture.
“Diluc,” you say, your words fragile, helpless, “did you take that picture?”
He doesn’t move. The silence lasts too long, long enough to become an answer on its own, long enough for the spark to blossom into a flame, into a fire, as if he’d turned away from the steering wheel to set you alight completely. He, after what feels like the longest pause of your life, gives you the smallest nod, and your breath catches.
You remember it, you see it, and you hear it again, that one, odd remark.
That incomprehensible tone, the-
-got it, Diluc.
That had sounded so much like-
-got it, Diluc?
A confirmation.
A moment they had orchestrated around you.
Ajax was asking if Diluc had gotten the picture.
Diluc shifts, guilt radiating from him in thick waves, but you barely see him. Your mind is still forcing you through the memory.
Ajax stepping toward you, closing the gap between you. Too close. You, screaming right back at him, asking him what he was doing there, combatting any insult he’d tried to throw your way. The picture must’ve been taken at an angle, somewhere behind Ajax, somewhere you wouldn’t be able to see the person taking the picture. From there, from that angle, the two of you would look close together, closer than two exes should ever be. From there, from that angle, it would seem as though Diluc materialised, appearing out of thin air.
None of it was chance, none of it was coincidence. They had timed it down to the second.
Your throat closes.
The silence in the car felt swollen, heavy, almost impossible to breathe through. Diluc’s wordless confession sits on your skull like a weight, and the longer no one spoke, the more it pressed against you, bruising something that had never been bruised like this. You stare at him. Ajax sinks further into the backseat, avoiding your eyes. Flins, beside you, still holds your hand, though his grip had gone loose, shocked. The truth rattles through him just as violently.
When you finally spoke, your voice was barely above a whisper.
“You knew.”
Diluc’s jaw tightens visibly in the rear-view mirror. He does not meet your eyes.
“You knew I wasn’t seeing Ajax,” you say again, louder. “You knew exactly why I was at arts. You knew I wasn’t meeting Ajax, that I was waiting for Flins. You knew all of it.”
Something snaps, sharp and hot, deep in your chest.
“So why,” you demand, “did you still take that picture?”
Diluc stays silent.
Your heart hammers painfully against your chest, your voice rising without your permission.
“I trusted you,” you say, voice trembling with anger. “You… you are the rational one, the one who thinks before acting. You’re the one who would never attach himself to drama or… or whatever this is. And then the second Yelan says something, you throw out every moral you claim to hold and go along with it. Like you’re some fucking lap dog.”
“I was conflicted,” he splutters. “I-I didn’t want to believe her, but I couldn’t dismiss it all either. She…she was just so upset, y/n. And Nefer-”
“That is not conflict,” you shoot back. “That is cowardice, and you are the biggest coward in this car.”
Ajax exhales sharply.
Flins lowers his head, shading his expression behind a curtain of blue hair.
You press on, the hurt burning through every word. “You knew it was wrong. You knew it was cruel, and you still did it. You still went to arts. You still took the picture. You still sent it. You let her frame me as someone who would do something vile, and you let her manipulate Flins into believing it all. You let all of this happen because you were too scared to pick a side.”
Diluc’s voice is barely audible in the midst your outburst.
“I…I regret it, really. I regret it all.”
“You should,” you laugh, hollow. “You think regretting it makes it better?”
His hands tighten around the steering wheel, knuckles pale.
“You were the last person I expected this from,” you say quietly, your fury melting into something worse, something softer. Hurt. “Ajax? There’s nothing about his involvement that surprises me.”
You miss the way Ajax’s body tenses at your words, and, inversely, the way Flins relaxes at your display of hatred towards him.
“But I thought you had a spine, Diluc. I thought you had principles.”
Diluc winces like you had struck him.
You’re not entirely sure why you feel so betrayed, so harmed, by the person in the car you’re probably the least close to. It’s not as if you and Diluc were ever close friends, nor did he ever owe you any degree of strong loyalty. If anything, the only person he owes loyalty to is Nefer, having been so close to her for such a long time. It makes sense, to some degree, that he would go along with this plan if she was the one to rope him into it. You’ve seen it first hand, how convincing Nefer can, how Diluc is rendered so powerless against her onslaught of wishes, requests. You’ve seen it first hand, the way she looks at him, and the way he does whatever he can to compensate for the fact that he does not look at her the same. It makes sense if he felt like he owed this to her.
But still, still, it’s just not fair. You’ve always been fond of Diluc, you’ve always admired his character. He, up until now, was the more rational half of Nefer, the voice of reason in a whirlwind of chaos, and it was a comfort to witness such an anchor in the midst of the brittle, uncertain personalities that tainted Teyvat’s campus. You thought, you believed, that Diluc was good.
“Guess I was wrong about you.”
You lean back, breath shaking, eyes stinging, and the heat continues to rush through you. Your hold on Flins’ hand is loose, barely there. You’re not sure if you want to hold onto anything at all.
Yelan’s dorm is 5 minutes from where you are.
The car falls silent again, a silence shaped by guilt, disbelief, and the sharp, undeniable truth that something between you and Diluc had fractured forever.
Flins had practically carried you down the hallway, one steady hand braced at your waist, the other guiding the wall whenever your steps wavered. You were drunk in the way that softened every thought, loosened every emotion, your laughter feathering through the quiet corridor with a lightness that laid at odds with your unsteady balance.
This was the last time he’d let you stay this long at the Angel’s Share, he noted to himself.
He nudged the door open with his shoulder, leading you into his flat. The warmth of his room had greeted you first, then the faint sweetness of an old candle, and then the familiar give of your body as you slumped against him with a soft, helpless sigh.
“Come now,” he murmured, composed, his voice a practiced tether against your drunkenness. “Sit here, if you would.”
You dropped onto the mattress with the graceless weight of someone who had ceased negotiating with gravity long ago. The bed bounced once beneath you, and you stared at the movement with slow-blinking wonder.
Flins lowered himself in front of you, fingers steady as he reached for the zipper of your coat. The moment his knuckles brushed your collarbone, you leaned closer, hands sliding clumsily to his shoulders.
“You’re so…” You paused, searching for the right word through the fog in your mind,“ you’re so sexy. Like, you’re the sexiest guy I’ve ever been with.”
He froze, eyes lifting to yours. There was the faintest shift in his expression, surprise, maybe, or something he didn't permit himself to name.
“Arms up,” he instructed gently, choosing to ignore your words.
But you didn’t move. Instead, you cupped his face in both hands, palms pressing warmly against his cheeks. You smooshed him in between your palms, ignoring the little grunts he’d released in response.
“Flins,” you whispered, staring at him with that unguarded intensity. “Look at me.”
“My heart, I am looking at you.”
“Take it off me,” you breathed, leaning in, eyes glossy, “please. Please. I want you to take everything off me.”
You were drunk, too drunk, and more drunk than he’d ever seen you. He knew it was his own mistake to let you get a fourth cocktail. He’d tried to protest, really, warning you that you were already drunk enough, but you’d seemed to simply enjoy the taste of it, waving away his warnings with a dismissive hand.
The words hit him like a spark, quick and burning. Something flickered through his golden eyes, something fragile, almost pained, but he swallowed it back immediately, smoothing his features with effort.
“No,” he said, low but firm, peeling your hands away with a gentleness akin to regret. “Not while you are in this state, sweetheart.”
To his panic, your lips wobbled instantly.
“Am I ugly?”
“What? Of course not,” he pressed out, a crease appearing between his brows. He guided your chin upward with two fingers, his touch warm and controlled. “You are not remotely so.”
“Then why-”
“You are intoxicated,” he said simply, “and I will not take advantage of that.”
You blinked at him, your expression drifting in and out of hurt. But slowly, you nodded, soothed more by the sound of his voice than the meaning behind it. He placed a glass of water in your hands, curling your fingers around it until you managed a few uneven sips. When he took it back, you reached for him again, fingertips pressing into the fabric of his shirt.
“Kyryll?”
“Yes?”
You let your head rest against his shoulder, breathing in the minty scent of his cologne, the warmth of him. And then, softer, more sincere, like a confession, right against his ear.
“Kyryll.”
His breath caught, a barely perceptible sound, but it was there. The muscles of his back tensed at how you sounded, so breathy, so light, and he swallowed. Hard.
You repeated it, softer, your voice thick with affection.
“Your name is so pretty. Everything about you is pretty.” You exhaled a slow, drunk sigh. “I want to say your name forever. I want you forever.”
His hand, mid-movement as he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, faltered, stammered.
For a long moment, he only looked at you, at your red, flushed cheeks, your soft, glinting gaze, your sincerity laid bare, shining in the dim light of his bedroom.
When he spoke, his voice was quiet, almost careful.
“I… would not object to that.”
You smiled, slow and hazy, and whispered his name again.
“Kyryll.”
Your body gave out then, folding forward without warning, sleep dragging you under. He caught you before you could fall, easing you back onto the pillows, adjusting the blanket over your legs with the kind of tenderness even he hadn’t expressed before this. He lingered at your bedside, watching the soft rise and fall of your breathing, your lips still parted slightly from the last word you’d spoken. His name.
Only when he was certain you were fully asleep did he allow himself to whisper, barely above his breath:
“In the morning,” he murmured, fingertips brushing your temple, “you may say it as you please.”
You didn’t stir.
“Please, refrain from addressing me by my first name, if you can. It is quite intimate to me.”
“Come in with me and fucking talk to me properly, Kyryll.”
“Don’t call me that.”
At the memory of his harsh tone, the way he’d spoken to you in that car, Flins can only squeeze his eyes shut. He does so hard, painfully, as if force alone could shatter the moment into pieces small enough to breathe around. He can still hear his own voice, cold in a way he had never intended, cold in a way you didn’t deserve, distancing itself from the one person he never wished to hurt.
He walks in silence beside you now, steps measured, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat. His chest aches with the thought of how small you looked back then, how your voice cracked, how you still tried to reason with a man who had already convinced himself to stop listening. He remembers how you cried, how you told him you loved him, and how he’d said nothing in response. He doesn’t deserve to think of the warmth in your voice when you had once giggled his name. Not when he had stolen it back from you. Not when he’d compelled you to speak to him like you had to speak to Ajax.
Diluc and Ajax had stayed in the car. The hallway to Yelan’s dorm feels too narrow, too dim, the lights buzzing overhead, and you do not slow. He follows you without question, without a single attempt at control, because this is yours, your wound to open.
He swallows hard as you stop in front of the door.
“Y/n…” he murmurs, something apologetic climbing his throat, but the words die there. There is no space to say them, not yet.
You ignore him, raising your hand to knock.
Once, twice, then three times.
No answer.
The silence behind the door is infuriating, hollow, almost mocking. You stare at the wood, at the faint scratches near the handle, at the chipped paint Yelan always said she would get around to fixing. Your pulse pounds at the back of your tongue.
You knock again, harder, more desperate.
Still nothing.
A heat spreads through your chest, anger, betrayal and exhaustion, all tangled into something sharp and rising.
“Open the door,” you warn, but your voice is trembling, too weak for the feeling swelling behind it. Flins shifts beside you, and for a second, it sounds like he might speak, but you don’t give him the chance.
You slam your fist into the door, loud enough to echo down the hall. A dull ache spreads through the area that makes contact with the wood.
“Yelan,” you snap, “open the door.”
Silence.
Your jaw clenches. Your knuckles sting.
Then, you hit it again, louder, your whole body behind it this time. You hit it again, and again, and again, and you’re pounding on her door repeatedly, paying no mind to Flins’ expression of surprise, the way he checks to see if the others in the dorm had been alerted by the noise.
“Yelan,” you hiss, voice cracking with fury, “open the fucking door.”
Flins straightens, posture sharpening with tension, but he doesn’t touch you, he doesn’t interrupt, not when he can feel the fury radiating off you in waves. Your banging continues to echo through the hallways, vibrating through the wood of the door, and comes to a halt only when you hear it, that soft click.
The door opens only an inch, but that’s all you need.
Yelan’s voice slips through the gap, annoyed.
“What do you want?”
You don’t give her the chance to widen it. You shove the door open, and it swings too quickly, the edge catching her cheek, and she stumbles back with a small, startled cry.
“OW, what the-”
“You think you can play in my face like that,” you interject sharply, stepping into her room with an unmovable conviction, the anger in your chest spilling over faster than you can contain it, “and then lock yourself in here like nothing happened? What is wrong with you?”
Yelan presses her fingers to the side of her cheek, wincing at the feeling of something cold, wet, seeping onto her fingers. When her eyes finally lift to meet yours, she freezes, something in her expression faltering. It collapses entirely when she sees Flins hovering in the doorway behind you, his face cold, still, unmoving. He looks at her with nothing in his eyes.
Yelan, a lump forming at her throat, understands everything in that moment.
“Who told you?” she asks.“Who told you what happened?”
“Diluc,” you answer, and the name hits her like a blow, a blow she should’ve seen coming. “He told us. Both of us.”
You watch her face change. First disbelief, then panic, then anger, all fighting to display themselves across her features. She takes a shallow breath, arms folded across her chest like brittle armor.
“You’re crazy,” you speak again, voice trembling with a fury you cannot settle. “You are actually insane. All of this, all of this over nothing.”
Yelan laughs, not amused, but shaken.
“Over nothing?” she fires back. “Please, get a grip and look at yourself. You slept with my boyfriend.”
“I didn’t,” you snarl.
“You did. Nefer told me you-”
“Well, Nefer lied.” You step closer, voice rising. “And you just ate it right up, knowing how she is.”
The words hang between you, fragile and almost laughable in their weakness. Your throat burns, your hands clench at your sides, your pulse thumping through your veins. You catch Flins’ eyes out of the corner of your vision; his expression is taut, patient, his hand hovering near yours but not quite reaching, as if he knows he cannot smooth over this moment for you.
Yelan stares at you. Slowly, deliberately, her eyes widen, a flicker of incredulity rippling across her features. The disbelief is sharp, cutting, and for a heartbeat, you fear she might laugh. Her lips twitch ever so slightly, not with amusement, not with ridicule, but with the faintest betrayal of what she’s feeling.
“So you’re saying Nefer just lied…just like that?” Yelan asks, her eyes narrowing, disbelief still tangled with a fragile hint of hope.
You struggle for words, for the truth that feels too weak, too strange to convince her.
“You know how she is,” you finally admit, your voice softening despite yourself. “You know she does things like that. She twists things, tells people what they want to hear if it keeps her at the center. She does it to everyone.”
“I am not everyone,” Yelan says, cracks piercing her voice, her breath catching. “I am her best friend. She… she wouldn’t try and hurt me like that.”
“I was your best friend too,” you cry, throat tightening at the weight of your own admission. “And I wouldn’t try to hurt you either.”
The words hang between you like smoke, fragile, almost invisible. You can see it in her eyes, the way disbelief wars with shock, the way she can scarcely reconcile this defense with the truth she’s believed for so long.
‘Then why did you?”
“What?”
“Why did you?”
You blink, confused.
“Yelan,” you mumble, “what are you talking ab-”
“Break up with her then.”
Flins’ head jerked slightly, startled.
You felt the heat rush into your face as the weight of what you said hit you.
“I- I didn’t mean-” you stammered, waving your hands defensively. “I mean, I did, but not like- god, not in a weird way. Just- fuck, oh my god.”
Your silence is both Yelan’s victory and her loss. She watches you silently, like she can see it all click into place in your head.
“I just- I’ve seen what it does to people. Staying when the love isn’t there anymore, it changes you. Makes you feel like shit, like, all the time, even when things are supposed to be good.”
His eyes lifted to yours, something vulnerable flickering beneath their usual composure.
“And you think that is what will happen to us?” He asked. “To Yelan and I.”
Yelan wonders why he’d even asked, why he didn’t back out of the conversation, why he didn’t berate you, a stranger, for telling him to break up with his girlfriend.
“I think,” you said carefully, “that if you already feel this uncertain, then pretending will only hurt both of you. Eventually, at least. It always happens.”
She wonders why you didn’t just say ‘no’, given the opportunity to take it all back, why you’d insisted on planting that seed into his mind.
Flins drew a slow breath, the rise and fall of his shoulders steady.
“You’ve given me much to consider,” he said, voice soft, almost reverent. Then, after a beat, “and… I appreciate the honesty, Miss. Truly.”
And Yelan, teeth gritting together, can only scorn the two of you for what you’d done to her.
You’re speechless, and Flins is speechless too. Her echoing of your words, of that sudden, raw outburst from over a year back, brings you to a deep, uncomfortable pause. There, in the cavern of silence you’re caught in, only one, intense feeling greets you.
Guilt.
For a moment, as your eyes fall to the lower half of your own body, as if to check if you are really you, you wonder if you would’ve done the same in her place. You wonder if you would’ve craved it too, revenge, a violent one, one that would rupture her entire life. You wonder how you would’ve felt, keeping it all inside, dealing with the loss of a close friend and an even closer lover. You think about how Yelan must’ve felt, knowing that one day, possibly, Flins could break. That one day, between the kisses, between the sex, between the sugar-coated words, he could bring it to an abrupt, painful halt. Just as you’d told him to.
Guilt.
You think over her plan, how badly she wanted to hurt you, how badly she wanted to hurt Flins. You consider that still, even now, you are nowhere near as hurt as she was back then. You wonder if this, really, was a retribution that took the shape of revenge, if all that she’d done, all that she’d roped you into, was proportional to what you’d caused.
Was it?
“Yelan, no,” you begin, voice shaking, almost trembling under the weight of your own guilt. “It wasn’t- it wasn’t meant to be like that at all. I-” your words falter, swallowed by the sudden heaviness of the moment. You take a breath, you try again. “You cannot be caught in a loveless relationship, Yelan. You…you can’t stay there. It fucking hurts to stay there.”
Her eyes flash, sharp, unmoving.
“Cut the bullshit,” she says, the words clipped, precise, carrying more sting than you expected.
You step closer, the heat of your own desperation pressing against your chest.
“All I did,” you admit, voice raw, “all I did was care about you. The whole time I spoke to him, I was thinking about you, Yelan. I was scared that the same thing I had to go through- lying there next to someone who didn’t love me, to feel it, to feel that fucking indifference…I didn’t want you to go through too.” You feel the tears well at your eyes. “There’s nothing that cuts colder than a man who doesn’t love you, Yelan. Especially when you love him.”
For a moment, your words linger in the air before they reach her. Her arms cross, her lips press together. Her eyes are still hard, but there’s a faint flicker of something else, something smaller.
“You just project,” she mutters with a sharp edge. “You drag everyone else into the mess you’re caught up in. Flins isn’t as horrible as Ajax, and I’m not as weak as you.”
The words land like stones in your chest. You flinch, your shoulders stiffening.
“What the fuck, Yelan?” you manage, hurt lancing through your words, raw and unguarded. Flins, who reacts to her low blow just as you do, brings a hand to your hip. It snakes around your waist, and he tugs you back against his chest, keeping you there, secure, against him.
Mint.
The action bringing a newfound fire to Yelan’s expression.
“Don’t act all upset now,” she spits, eyes piercing yours. “You know it’s true. Stop pretending you didn’t have ulterior motives when you said that. You wanted him right from the start. You fucked him, I know you did.”
You feel the burn of guilt in your throat, hot and relentless. And yet, even as your chest aches with disbelief at how she sees it, you understand. You see why she thinks that way. You realise it’s all too easy to misread, how both of you lose in this scenario.
“Yelan, please. Please, just believe me.” It hurts to speak, and you want to just hug her, to cry with her, to somehow go back and make sure none of this ever happened between you two. “I’m so, so sorry for what I said that night, I know it was fucked up. I was wrong, I know it, I feel it. I should never have tampered with you and Flins, no matter what I felt about it. I should have backed off entirely. I hurt you, and I’m so, so sorry for that, I seriously am.” You bring a hand up to your face, swiping the tears away. “I would never… ever mean to do that to someone I care about as much as I care about you.”
Yelan is crying too.
“But I really,” you press, you press with as much conviction as you can, “really didn’t fuck Flins. We didn’t do anything that night. Please, just believe that much. I won’t ever bother you again, Yelan. We don’t have to speak ever again. Just please, know that nothing happened that night.”
She stares at you.
The sharpness in her gaze softens just a fraction, conflicted, almost moved, and yet, the world between you remains tense, taut, unresolved. She stays hurt. Regardless of the truth of the situation, what good does it serve to the current one? Flins’ grip on you is tight, protective, and his silence is one that exists only to permit your freeflowing emotions. He, standing here the whole time, has only been thinking of you, how you’re feeling, how you’re reacting to it all.
And Yelan, who also stands in front of him, who’s also so troubled, so wronged by it all, feels like he hasn’t even seen her.
She swallows, resignation sitting heavy at her stomach.
“Well… none of this matters anymore, does it?”
“What?” you whisper, caught off guard.
“You love him, don’t you?”
Your chest tightens. The question stops you, freezes you in place. You didn’t expect her to ask you so directly.
You do. You do love him, but it feels cruel to say it here. All of this is so raw, and Yelan still stares at you with a mixture of hurt and disbelief, waiting, anticipating your answer, an answer she already knows. To tell her to her face that you’d fallen for her ex boyfriend, the one that she’s convinced you took from her to begin with, is beyond your capability. Even amidst this plan of hers, the mockery she’d made of you, how she’d roped in Ajax to make it sting so much more, you could not bring yourself to be so mean.
You don’t say anything.
Her gaze shifts then, slow and deliberate, towards Flins. You notice how her shoulders tense, how she bites the inside of her cheek, how her hands curl slightly at her sides. And yet, even in the heat of it, he doesn’t waver. His eyes remain locked on you.
“Do you love her?” she asks quietly, voice tight, but firm, unflinching.
He doesn’t look up.
“But I promise, I swear I’m still here because I love you.” You sobbed, hands gripping against the leather of his car seat. “I really, truly love you, Kyryll.”
He’d made the mistake of staying silent before.
He won’t make it again.
“I do,” he says without hesitation. The words fall flat, but final, like a verdict landing in a courtroom,
Yelan exhales slowly, the sound barely a whisper, like the air itself is deflating around her. She turns away. The dorm feels suddenly enormous, hollow even, despite the memory of it being full of people, laughter, noise. Now, it is only Yelan and the remnants of what was: her disappointment, her hurt, the echo of betrayal lingering in the corners. Her shoulders slump. Her gaze lingers on the space she had imagined you and Flins never crossing.
“Okay,” she says after a while, stripped of any fight. “Then, both of you should leave.”
She doesn’t watch you move. She doesn’t even glance at you while you shift back, letting Flins guide you out the doorway. Yelan’s voice follows you as you depart, just loud enough to hear, cutting across the tension like a blade.
“I don’t forgive you,” she murmurs, almost to herself, “and I don’t expect you to forgive me either.”
Fucking your friend’s ex is not okay.
You’d like to think that most people would share the same opinion, that the easiest way to paint yourself stupid is to be intimate, physically or emotionally, with Flins, Yelan’s ex boyfriend. It’s not just girl code, it’s really just general decency.
You have more of an understanding of how normal, good people get themselves into that situation to begin with. You’ve experiened moments where you’ve looked at Flins, having witnessed the tears, the sobbing, having been informed of the ugliest parts of the relationship, and thought to yourself ‘wow, he’s exactly what I want’.
You’re firm in knowing that no one can be free from their own hypocrisy, whatever hypocrisy that may be.
Diluc, ever the self-righteous, collapses under his own cowardice and betrays the very principles he holds so dear.
Ajax, so determined to win, masks his own weakness as strength, failing to see the losses he calls victories.
Yelan, bitter at the thought that you could’ve crossed a line with Flins, will chase her revenge in a way that is almost poetic in its cruelty, dragging herself into a spiral of retaliation.
Nefer, well, you’re not sure if anyone has her figured out.
You’re firm in that fact you’re not a normal, good person. Not entirely, at least. Normal, good people don’t fuck their friends’ exes, and that’s exactly what you’ve done. Not only that, but you walk with him now, your hand held in the cold leather of his gloves.
Final Night Cemetery was tucked into the corner of the city, isolated from the busier, bustling environment downtown. You and Flins move down the road towards it, the area empty, quiet, a barren road surrounded by forest. It’s far from Yelan’s. It was a little far when he’d driven you there from your place. Tonight, however, the distance doesn’t register to you. You just walk, and so does he. Neither of you speak, and neither of you know how long it’s been since you started walking.
The soft crunch of leaves sound from beneath your heels, your dress wet, the hem still dripping onto the pavement below you. The rain had stopped while you were in Yelan’s dorm, and all that’s left in its place is stillness, as if the weather, too, had finished its performance. Your hair has never looked worse, you have never looked worse. There’s streaks of black mascara lined down your cheeks, and you’re certain that most of your makeup had been washed away by the rain anyway, leaving you feeling uneven, raw in the moonlight. You smell like rainwater and faint, sweet perfume.
And yet-
“-your dress is beautiful. You are beautiful.”
For the first time in what feels like centuries, you laugh.
“Flins,” you breathe, allowing yourself to smile, even if it’s only for a moment, “don’t try and flatter me right now.”
“I am not attempting flattery, my heart. I speak only what I truly believe.”
You scoff, brushing a damp strand of hair from your face. “I look like someone ran me over, then came back to check if I was alive, and then ran me over again.”
This time, Flins is the one to laugh, low and warm, a sound that wraps around you, holding you in place. His hand tightens around yours. Without warning, he spins you gently, the movement smooth, practiced, almost effortless. You catch on instantly, letting your body follow his rhythm, the motion dizzying and exhilarating all at once. His feet guide yours onto the open, empty main road.
The night air presses against your damp skin, brushing the chill of your wet dress against your legs, but Flins’ presence counters it with an unbeatable warmth, radiating the reassurance he brings to you so easily. Even in the emptiness of the street, even under the pale glow of distant streetlights, the shimmer of moonlight on wet pavement, he seems to bring his own kind of light; it’s bright, unyielding, and impossible to ignore. The world narrows to the sound of your steps, the soft scrape of leaves, and the rhythm of your bodies moving together. Time slows, and you let the tension of the night loosen. For a moment, nothing else exists except this, just you, him, and the quiet, endless road stretching ahead.
You dance with him, to the soft breeze that flows past and the crunch of leaves, to whatever music nature can give you in that moment. You dance with him for a while, for a long while. You let yourself feel close to him.
When the rhythm slows, and you find yourselves drifting, spinning less and simply walking, the trees watch the two of you continue your journey down to the cemetery, hand in hand. The quiet stretches between words, comfortable in its own way, the night wrapping gently around you. The stars peek through breaks in the clouds, tiny, cold points of light above the wet, glistening road. The moon hangs low, a pale witness to the weight of everything left unsaid.
Flins’ eyes meet yours, attentive, and for a moment he says nothing. Then, almost as if testing the space, he tilts his head slightly, voice gentle, but measured.
“What occupies your thoughts, my heart?”
You don’t respond immediately, caught between wanting to speak and wanting to let the world remain still. It’s nice like this, just walking with him, sitting still in your ignorance. Stillness brings a different type of comfort, the one ice brings to bruises on your knees.
But stillness is no good, and time will always move. You see it in the way a leaf falls from a tree up ahead, how the rock under your shoe shifts to the left of the pavement when you step on it. Time will move, and things will change. You cannot be still with him forever.
“I’m not sure,” you admit after a while. “There’s a lot to think about.”
The words feel clumsy, insufficient, but honest. You don’t really want to think at all.
He nods slightly, as if he understands more than you can put into words, and keeps walking at your side, hand warm in yours.
“I am thinking of you,” he says softly.
You blink.
“About me?”
“Yes. About how you feel, and about what you want to do now.”
You swallow hard, realising the weight of his gaze, the patience in his tone, and how perceptive he has always been, never missing a detail of you. You saw it the first time that night at the pregame, when he read you so clearly, and you see it again now, like he’s made to know you. His presence steadies you, and you realise, with a mix of surprise and clarity, that you’ve been thinking about him too, just never properly, not the same way he’s thinking about you so deeply now.
You’re thinking about the warmth of his hand in yours, the soft scrape of leather against your skin. You’re thinking the minty scent of his cologne, the quiet safety of walking with him along empty streets, the comforting emptiness of the cemetery where you had once been together. You’re thinking about all those little aspects of him, all the things that complex to make him; you think about Flins just as he thinks of you. Despite everything, he remains profoundly dear to you, constant and unshakable, already a part of your heart. You swallow.
“I feel like a bad person,” you confess, voice low, almost swallowed by the night. “I think… I am a bad person, for what I caused. Even if it wasn’t intentional.”
You let your grip on his hand tighten slightly, the cool night air brushing against your damp skin. The road stretches ahead, empty and quiet, the moonlight catching on the wet pavement in soft silvery lines. Trees line the sides of the road, their branches whispering faintly in the breeze. Everything feels suspended in this fragile, delicate calm, like the world is holding its breath for you.
Flins says nothing too soon, letting the words hang. He walks with you in step, careful not to crowd you, letting you speak, breathe, and feel it all.
“Would you… would you still have broken up with her if I hadn’t said anything?” you ask after a pause, hesitant.
He stops for a moment, the moonlight catching the edges of his face, sharp and thoughtful. He repeats your words quietly, almost to himself, as if weighing them, turning them over.
“If you had not spoken,” he mumbles, “you believe I would have acted…differently?”
You nod faintly, uncertainty tightening in your chest.
What if you hadn’t said anything to him that night? What would it have meant for you, for Flins, for Yelan? You wonder if you’d still be in your house, Nefer to your left and Yelan next to her, curled up on the living room couch. You wonder if the three of you would still laugh together, if your phone would buzz and, for a moment, you’d feel that weight at your stomach, wondering if Ajax had finally decided to speak to you again. You think about a lot of things. You think about how different the ratio of stillness and movement would have been, and if that new ratio would have been better than the one you hold in your hands now.
“I would have,” he says finally, certain. “I believe that you served to catalyse a decision that was already brewing inside me. Had you not spoken to me, it would have taken me longer to do the right thing.”
You exhale through your nose. He’s right, and from what he’d told you about his feelings towards Yelan, you know that it would’ve ended between them regardless of your interference. It would have been stretched, delayed, and painful in a different way. You can’t tell if it would have hurt more or less than this, so you say nothing, following him silently as he begins to walk again.
“Am I a regret to you, y/n?”
His question brings you to a pause.
“What?”
Flins, standing in front of you now, keeps his hold on you firm. The strength of his grasp contrasts the weakness, the softness in his eyes, as if his sense and desire sit at war with one another in his head.
“If you could turn it all back,” he continues, speaking in a tone that tells you he doesn’t even want to ask, “would you?”
If you could turn it all back.
You think of Yelan again, the friend you cared for, the friend you’d wanted to protect. And yet here you are, walking away from her dorm, knowing that no matter what explanations, apologies, or truths you present, there are no clean fixes to what had transpired. You’ve hurt her, maybe irreparably, and the thought eats at you. You’d only ever wanted to shield her from pain, and now you’re the one leaving puncture wounds on her heart.
Diluc’s betrayal still coils in your thoughts, a bitter pill you struggle to swallow. How could someone you respected, someone you once considered so moral, allow himself to be manipulated so easily? You wonder how much of it was cowardice, how much was misplaced trust, and how much was carelessness. The thought makes your chest ache.
Ajax, too, feels impossibly small in your mind, a man you’d tried so hard to leave in your past, now tangled into this present-day web of lies, fabricated truths. He’s not innocent, not by a long shot, and yet you also cannot hate him completely for his involvement. You wonder how must’ve felt, hearing from Yelan that you had slept with Flins while he was in the other room. It’s complicated to consider, and the conflict within you is maddening.
And Nefer.
Nefer.
She haunts the edges of your mind, everyone’s minds. Every twist, every lie, every manipulation that has led to this point stains your brain like a poison. You can’t fathom her motivations, you can’t understand how someone could create such violent storms so casually, so perfectly, a woman orchestrating a symphony of destruction.
Flins steps closer to you.
Mint.
“Listen to me, please,” he says, urgency hidden beneath the calm. “Do not let me become one of your regrets, y/n. I would rather be nothing to you than a regret. Tell me, please, if I am starting to feel like one.”
And then you look at him, right into his golden, gleaming eyes. You look at the only constant, the only unshakable presence in the mess you find yourself dragged into. His hand is still in yours, and just holding it feels like a tether to sense, to something good, something unbroken, and the conflict it causes is unbearable. You feel the weight of everyone’s mistakes, the cruelty, the weakness, the lies, and then you feel him, so warm, so steady in the palm of your hand.
You exhale, letting the tension slip, and fold into him, holding him close.
“Don’t you feel like a bad person, Flins?” you murmur, resting your head against his chest.
You hear his heartbeat. It’s fast, thumping against his chest.
The cold night air fills your lungs, the wet fabric of your dress clinging to your skin, and you let the memories settle in, heavy but necessary. You feel the raw truth of the night, the cold residue of betrayal, the remnants of guilt and heartbreak, And yet, even amidst it all, even with your chest tight and your thoughts spiraling, you realize that somehow, somehow, Flins makes it feel bearable. He makes it feel manageable.
You feel his fingers press to the underside of your chin, and he tilts your head up to meet his eyes.
“I will be bad,” he breathes, looking lost, utterly consumed in you, “and I will be terrible. I would be the worst man in the world if it meant that I’d be the best man in yours.”
Without thinking, you kiss him, soft but certain, a quiet declaration in the moonlight. He tastes different against you this time. The secrecy that’d clouded your mouths no longer lingers between the dance of tongues, the slight clash of teeth, and his lips taste sweeter than before. It all feels better than before, better than it’d ever felt.
“I love you,” you whisper against him, and you feel your words as clearly as you feel his hand on your back, a palm cupping your cheek, keeping you close to his face. “Selfishly, I love you.”
He presses his forehead to yours, his breathing warm against your nose, holding you tighter. For a long moment, the world outside the road, the people, the accusations, the lies, they all melt into the ground. There is only this, only now, and the certainty of the person beside you.
“And I love you.”
You don’t need to be good, not fully. You’re not sure if that’s possible, and you’re not sure if anyone is. So you still, and you let yourself be what you are right now, and you move, kissing him once more.
Time, unforgiving, unwavering, moves with you.
“Hey, Itto. Did you hear?”
“Huh?” He blinked, rubbing the back of his neck.
Nefer strolled closer, Diluc following a few steps behind. The evening air was cool, and the faint scent of damp leaves hung around them, mixing with the distant hum of the city.
“You’re going to Kaveh’s, right?” she asked, tilting her head with a mischievous glint.
Itto raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, why?”
Nefer leaned in slightly, voice low, playful.
“Well… there’s that table at his place, right? The big one, taking up way too much space. Neither Kaveh nor Alhaitham really like it, but it’d be such a waste to just throw it away after all that money they spent.” She spread her hands in mock helplessness, displaying a small, fake frown.
Itto tilted his head.
“Uh…okay?”
“So, if it got broken…it’d be helping them, right?” She continued, watching the ends of Itto’s lips curl upwards. “ It’d be making room for something better.”
Itto’s grin grew, and he leaned back a little, suspicious. “You sound like you want me to break it.”
Nefer laughed, a bright, teasing sound that made him blink.
“Well, I can’t imagine anyone strong enough to handle it besides you,” she purred, letting her fingers brush lightly against his bicep, a long, sage nail peeking past the end of his short sleeve. “Kaveh is too careful, and even Diluc…” She gestured toward the man behind her, who let out a sharp scoff, “…he’s nowhere near as strong as you.”
Itto’s cheeks flushed, a mix of amusement and fluster.
“You’re… something else, Nefer.”
She tilted her head, eyes sparkling. “I’d hate to leave Kaveh without someone capable. He trusts me, of course, but I simply couldn’t do it myself. I’m sorry if this is too much of a request, but I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to put those big arms to use.”
This interaction had fuelled Nefer’s fit of giggles for the entire duration of the walk from campus to downtown. Diluc, who walked beside her, found the sound of it more grating with each step they took, failing to understand the amusement she found so consistently in deception.
“Lighten up,” Nefer, rolling her eyes, had groaned. “It’s like- impossible to be happy around you, you know. You’re like a fun sponge, sucking up everyone else’s joy. It was funny.”
“What was funny?” Diluc snapped, a little harsher than he would’ve liked.
Nefer raised her eyebrows, a slight twitch in her left eye indicating that she did not appreciate his tone.
“Relax. If your little boyfriend’s table is that important, should’ve just kept it a secret entirely.”
Diluc sighed, defeated, as he always was around her.
“A good friend buying a nice table is nothing secretive,” he’d grumbled, wishing he’d never told Nefer about Alhaitham’s most recent, and most expensive, purchase. “I was just trying to speak to you about it normally.”
“That’s cute.”
“Drop it.”
Diluc’s thoughts drifted to the table, to the conversation he hadn’t wanted to start. He felt a faint pang of regret for ever mentioning Alhaitham’s purchase. A simple piece of furniture, and yet here it was, the center of some elaborate scheme he hadn’t anticipated. He wondered if Itto would actually follow through, and if Kaveh would erupt when he saw it broken. The thought made his stomach tighten, a quiet, gnawing anxiety creeping up his spine.
He glanced at Nefer. She was, as usual, tapping away on her phone, her expression perfectly composed, the picture of contentment. There was no guilt in her eyes, only mischief, and a satisfaction that had always unsettled him.
He shook his head slightly, forcing the tension from his shoulders, but couldn’t resist speaking up.
“Why do you lie so much?” he asked, keeping his voice measured. “It just makes stuff weird, Nef. I don’t get it.”
The street was quiet now, only the occasional rustle of leaves stirred by a soft evening breeze. Diluc exhaled slowly, watching her, feeling both exasperation and an odd warmth. Somehow, even when she was reckless, even when she spun trivial things into something huge, there was a confidence and a contentment in her that he couldn’t help but notice. The thought that she thrived in this little mess, that she found joy in it, left him uncomfortable and envious all at once.
Nefer didn’t look up from her phone, but he could see the small smile on her face as she shrugged.
“Life’s boring without a little mess, Diluc,” she said softly, her voice teasing, yet firm. “We all jumped in puddles as kids, after all.”
Diluc couldn’t stop himself from thinking that, in some small way, Nefer was alluding to something beyond what her words spell out plainly, turning an ordinary table, an ordinary night, into something he couldn’t forget.
a/n for anyone who cares :p
in a perfect world, one where i am not in uni, this wld have been 10 chapters long. i would've loved to go into way more detail abt everyone's personalities, pasts and experiences with one another, but alas, i can only subject you all to so many words and waits. that being said, i hope this was okay, and i do apologise if the pacing felt a bit too fast paced. i'll make sure to improve with each piece!
if any of u have read my other stuff im sure u know im open ending final boss HAHAHA. i can't stop writing charas that are not 100% good or 100% bad. i wonder if they Did fuck... If nefer For real lied again or if she dropping Truth bombs.. hmmm...
and finally!! thank you so so sincerely to everyone who's been reading, leaving messages, or just enjoying this as a whole. i seriously love you all!!!!!!!! 𐔌՞. .՞𐦯 (*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ*.ﾟ togeteher..We Arw 7amplight..
help me pay for groceries and rent because my country decided to break apart last month and prevent me from opening normal commission ദ്ദി╥ ᴗ ╥) i couldn't get a job because my highschool diploma was withheld by my old school and this is my only source of income 🙇♀️ if you cant commission me thats okay! But please reblog this post ♡
there's an additional $5 fee for hoyo characters who are clothed because of their complicated design! I ALSO DRAW NSFW FOR NO EXTRA COST (for furries i would try but i am not a furry artist by trade but i can TRY certainly)
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