#wanderer x reader

[bedrottingdoll]

꒰˖`ꉂ 𝓦ho 𝒟o 𝒴ou 𝓦αnt? ✮˖ ݁.꒱

𝒞ospℓαყer!𝐵oყfriend (𝒮cαrαmouche & 𝐿ohen) x AFAB!𝑅eader ꒰ 𝑀ODERN 𝒜U ꒱

🕸️️๋࣭ ⭑ Summary: Your boyfriend looks exactly like Scαrαmouche in real life, and he's built a massive TikTok following from cosplaying him. One day, while he's filming, you see Lohen's burst animation leak and lose every functioning brain cell you have. He notices. So he does what any normal, well-adjusted person would do… fucks you in the Scαrαmouche cosplay until you forget Lohen's name. And when that doesn't fully work? He shows up in a Lohen cosplay you didn't know he ordered, in your bedroom, just to prove he can still be the one you fall apart for.

Warnings (cw) .ᐟ cracking in cosplay ꒰ roleplaying ꒱, blindfolding, degradation, rough sex, near-blackout from choking, creampie ꒰ a lot... ꒱ , oral ꒰ f and m receiving ꒱, mild cnc undertones ꒰ consensual roleplay framing ꒱, established relationship, manhandling, suspended 69 position, aftercare, lohen nation vs scaranation...

Word count .ᐟ 16k+

𖦹.`` ꉂ🕸️ Author's note: This is a concept I had for a fat while (like years, not just months) bcuz of those TikToks of ppl dating a cosplayer and they'd flex about it, and I finally, finally put a cosplayer x reader into writing. Thank you to my wonderful, smart, gorgeous bestest friend @vvalentiqq, who helped me with this, especially with the crazy ass sex positions, so props to her!! And this, as always, is cross-posted onto AO3.

LINKS ₊˚⊹♡ ˚✎𓂃 masterlist | ao3 | kofi | taglist | discord server

"Ugh, quit blinking, you keep making me mess up, Kuni!" You snap, yanking your boyfriend by the jaw closer to you.

He opens his right eye, the one you already applied eyeliner on, and glares, his eye rolling before closing back again. "I'm not blinking, and I'm staying perfectly still. It's your fault if you mess up, not mine. Don't get mad at me that you're shitty at this."

You take a deep breath, repressing the urge to slap him hard in the face, because you know it's useless. Your boyfriend lives to ragebait the shit out of you. You don't say anything in response; you scoot closer to his standing frame, your feet dangling off the bathroom counter as you continue working on his left eye.

"Do you want the wing straight up or straight out?" You ask, pausing with one hand on his jaw, and the other on his cheek, with the eyeliner hovering right above his lashline.

Kuni opens both of his eyes this time, stares straight at you, and rolls his eyes at your question like it should be obvious, "Neither? Obviously." He narrows his eyes, crossing his arms as he adds, "When have you ever seen me with that? You're my girlfriend, you're supposed to know that it goes out slanted. Not up, not straight. Slanted."

You narrow your eyes back at him, tightening your grip on his jaw in retaliation, "How am I supposed to know when you're ultra specific about everything and change your answer every time I ask? Two days ago, you told me to make it straight."

He flicks his eyes to the side like he's side-eyeing some invisible camera, and his eyes look annoyingly perfect when he does it. With the base shadow on his lids and the dark smudge along his lower lash line, and the contacts he doesn't need to wear.

His natural eyes are blue, but he insists on wearing indigo colored contacts because it's "more in character", and you've learned not to argue with him about Scaramouche lore because you will lose. Every single time.

He glances back at you, his tone dry, "I told you that because last time was Xiao, not Scaramouche like today. Obviously. How many times do I need to say it for you to understand?"

You glance at him, copying his dry tone, "Just one more time, and I'll poke this pen through your eyelid. You wouldn't need someone to do your eyeliner by then."

He gives you a challenging smirk in response, "Do it, then. You wouldn't get that far to do any actual damage. I'll sue you and use the settlement money to hire someone who can actually do eyeliner."

You don't dignify that with a response. You tilt his head back with your grip on his jaw, angling it so you can drag the liner across his lash line in one smooth stroke.

You smile involuntarily when it comes out clean and matches the other side perfectly. It always comes out good when he stops being a little bitch about it… which is never, but today sufficed that never.

"The other side matches," you say, leaning back to check your work, watching as his eyes open slowly like he's unsure if you're done or not. "Perfect, like always, because I did it. Not you."

He scoffs, stepping back and moving toward the bathroom mirror, examining just what you're calling 'perfection'. You watch as he tilts his face to the left, then right, and as he leans in, he narrows his eyes.

The eyeliner is actually the last step of a much longer process. This part, the eyeliner, takes ten minutes tops. The puppet joints took an hour.

Every time he cosplays Scaramouche, Kuni sits in front of his vanity mirror with a palette of dark shadow and a thin, angled brush that he uses to paint puppet joints onto his own skin.

Knuckles first, every finger, dark, then his wrists, then his belows. He does his shoulders himself too, twisting in the mirror to get the angle right on the backs of them, and the concentration on his face while he does it is almost scary.

He's already head-to-toe in cosplay, minus the hat. As cringeworthy as it is to say, your boyfriend does look like Scaramouche reborn, and it's not just because of how good the clothes look on him, or how invested he is in cosplaying him. He looks exactly like Scaramouche would if he were real and not 3D.

The height… the weight… even his fingers match Scara perfectly. Skinny and long, the puppet joints make him look more biblically real.

He hates wigs, absolutely despises them, and as any person who finds their 'celebrity lookalike', or any 'lookalike' in general, he dyed and cut his real hair to match Scaramouches.

His hair is naturally black, and after an abnormally long hair appointment, the hairdresser was able to cut and style Kuni's hair to match Scaramouches without looking like some botched bowlcut.

"It's not a bowlcut," Kunikuzushi told the hairdresser, probably 4 times, just to get his point clear, "It's a mullet, mixed with a hime-cut in the front, and don't you dare forget the lighter colored streak in the back."

You remember being told that day to stick around, not in the waiting room, but in a chair beside the table your boyfriend was getting his hair done at. You had to get up at least 9 times to reassure Kuni that the hairdresser was getting the back right.

And after that day, after every time he put on his cosplay for this character that he's so obsessed with… he didn't look like your boyfriend anymore.

But you don't really complain.

"It's… acceptable," Kuni says to his reflection, the tiniest praise for the war you just went through, while doing his eyeliner.

You hop off the counter, tossing your hair back, while holding eye contact with his gaze in the mirror, "It's perfect, actually. You're welcome." You poke his arm from behind, giggling at the way he makes a disgusted face in response. "I love you too, you ungrateful man."

He doesn't respond to that; he just walks out of the bathroom and into his room.

He's already in the corner when you step in, adjusting his tripod and ring light, and you know the drill by now. Stay out of frame, stay quiet during takes, and entertain yourself until he's done being internet famous.

You grab your phone off his nightstand and settle onto his bed on your stomach, feet up, pulling up Genshin Impact. It feels like a chore to open this game up now, but you have to, for that stupid free constellation event where you have to complete your commissions and spend 120 resin.

You spawn in Nod-Krai, already moving your joystick to run towards the crafting bench, planning to craft your resin into condensed resin, but to your dismay, you already have 5 crafted resin from the previous days you tried this trick.

Domains it is.

You can hear your boyfriend in the background recording the same TikTok, over and over, trying to get the perfect take while you're teleporting to a random domain. It's annoying, and all you can focus on while you wait for people to join your world.

Once people join your world, and you start the domain, you move on autopilot. You don't really pay attention, probably fighting air every now and then, until a notification pops up from the top of your screen.

Even though you're in a co-up domain, your thumb his the notification before you can even finish reading.

The video loads, and it's what seems to be some sort of POV shot. It's like you're some enemy Lohen just knocked flat, because the view is from below, on the ground. His hand reaches down and grabs you, or the camera's face, dragging you to his height, and you spot his other hand raising a weapon, but you aren't even focused on the weapon… you're focused on the face he makes.

A grin with manic eyes, the expression of someone who doesn't just enjoy violence… someone who's aroused by it.

It happens so quickly that you watch it again, on loop. You watch the jaw grab again, the way he yanks whoever it is upward, the way his grin widens before the hit. You screenshot the maniac grin on the 4th loop… then watch it play through again.

Your thighs press together.

You scroll to the comments after the 7th rewatch, needing to see if everyone's losing their minds as hard as you are.

@scaramouchewho okay so we're all in agreement that lohen is what scaramouche COULD have been if hoyo let him be unhinged, right?

@kuniscaraworshiper everyone in the lohen tag better remember who paved the way. Scaramouche is the ORIGINAL unhinged short king… y'all are so disrespectful

@touchinggrassfearsme i just want lohen and scara to kiss… then me at the same time next… then they can kiss each other again after THEN THE SAME THING AGAIN

@mpreglover6769angie GET PREGNANT GET PREGNANT

You laugh seeing this comment, and when you tap on it, you're left with…

(This comment has been deleted.)

@lohennation BREED ME LOHEN. BREED ME. TEASE ME. USE ME. DEGRADE ME. oh and scara can watch ig… (yes i changed my user because of this video)

@wanderermybeIoved, you people don't know one thing about Scaramouche, and I don't want people talking about him when you clearly don't care about his character development or lore. He's more than just a "hot angry guy." Lohen fans (who just became fans of him less than an hour ago, mind you) wouldn't survive 5 minutes of scara's actual story because their reading comprehension is lower than a 4th grader's due to their goon-rotted brains.

@fatuiworshipper the way Lohen is just Scaramouche if he wasn't busy being sad all the time. he's happy to be evil… that's so hot

You scroll back up and watch the burst animation again. Your thighs squeeze together, and your bottom lip is caught between your teeth. You've watched this video at least 20 times now, and around the 10th time, your underwear became a wet, sticky mess.

"Hey."

You don't hear him, you don't even flinch.

"… Hello??"

Nothing.

"Did you actually die? Should I call someone or check your pulse first?"

You don't hear your boyfriend because you're still on that Lohen video, grinning at some dumb comment of yet another person leaving scaranation for lohennation.

"You've been ignoring me for like ten minutes," Kuni says from across the room, and you can hear the shift in his tone, the way it goes from casual annoyance to genuine irritation, "what is so interesting about your phone that you can't look up for even a second?"

You look up from your phone before he can accuse you of cheating, which technically, in some tiny way… You kinda were.

He's standing by his setup, ring light off, his phone in his hand with his arms crossed. His expression looks like he's in between choosing to be mean about it, or letting it slide. He looks annoyed enough that he won't let it slide, and 10 minutes is a long time, unless he was just exaggerating.

"…Hi." You say, sweet and innocent, still lying on your stomach, still with the phone in your hand as you glance at it just once, like a random comment, before looking back at him, not fully engaged.

His gaze drops to your phone in your hand, then lifts back up to your face. The corner of his mouth lifts with slow, unbelieving amusement, like your delayed little “hi” is almost too stupid to be real. "Welcome the fuck back. Where did you go?"

"Remember Lohen from that one quest in Mondstadt?" You don't wait for a response, voice breathier than intended because your brain is still stuck on that video, "His burst animation just got leaked…"

You watch as your boyfriend's face changes into reluctant curiosity that fights with the irritation of being ignored. He walks over to his bed and drops down next to you. "Really? Show me."

You sit up, holding your phone out, and he just takes it, angling the screen toward himself. You watch his face as the animation plays, how his jaw tightens, almost imperceptibly, and his gaze cuts back to you once it's over. "It's okay." He says, tone devoid of any emotion you can pick up on.

"Just… okay? Kuni. Did you see the grab, the way… the way that the angle is like a POV, like that's you, he's grabbing… the way he just, his hand goes like-" You mimic the way Lohen's hand, holding the weapon, goes from behind and towards who he's about to stab.

Kuni glances at your hand, then back at your face, your phone still in his hand. "Mhm. I saw the exact same video as you." His tone feigns nonchalance.

You drop your hand, continuing to yap while not reading the room, "And the grin… Kuni, the grin? It looks like he's about to-"

"I said I saw it." He hands your phone back, using his own to open TikTok, scrolling through his feed with such focused intensity that it doesn't do a good job of hiding how little he cares about this. "People are going to lose it over this."

"They already are, have you seen the comments?" You're already scrolling through them on your phone, looking for one that doesn't say anything about Scaramouche, but it's practically impossible. "Everyone's saying-"

"I know what they're saying, I don't need to see the comments to know." His thumb flicks through posts, and you can see his jaw working, yet again. "Same shit that infected my feed when Lohen was in that quest, and people barely had info on him. 'Scara's done.' 'We're switching.' Like their loyalty has a shelf life of milk."

He keeps scrolling through his TikTok feed, and annoyingly enough, every video that comes up is about Lohen. He's talking, ranting about character depth versus surface-level hype, something about Scara's arc having actual emotional complexity while Lohen is, "just a boy with a violence kink." He is making good points, but you aren't fully paying attention.

You're still scrolling through Twitter, lying back against the pillows, reposting mindlessly on fan art that already exists of Lohen, and trying not to laugh at the posts comparing Lohen to Scaramouche.

He turns his head to you, and he stops talking, because he notices your attention is elsewhere. You don't notice the sudden silence because your brain is so far inside your phone that the real world doesn't exist right now.

His lips touch your neck, a soft, tiny kiss with the warm press of his mouth against the spot below your ear, and he shifts closer. His hand lands on your thigh, his thumb drawing a slow line along the inside where the hem of your sleep shorts sits.

You tilt your head up slightly, giving him access without giving him your attention, as your gaze is still on your phone. Your body just responds to him on autopilot because of months of this exact pattern, him kissing your neck while you doomscroll, except this time you're scrolling through posts and posts of his… replacement.

His tongue touches the skin at your neck, a quick and wet drag followed by his teeth grazing that same area. His fingers itch higher under your shorts, pushing the fabric up your thigh.

"Kuni, not right now, I'm looking at something-"

He cuts you off with a "Mmhmm," not stopping at all because just a second after, he's sucking on your neck. His fingertips graze the edge of your underwear, tracing the elastic back and forth, back and forth. It's light enough that it could be an accident, but what he's doing to you is clearly intentional.

You're still scrolling even as your boyfriend, in cosplay, is practically making love to your neck, and his fingers… they slide down from the hem of your underwear, to where your slit is, through the fabric.

You let out a soft, quiet, "Mm…" moan, still not looking up. The only reply he gets is the little sound you make and the wetness between your legs.

His middle finger traces your clothed slit in a lazy back-and-forth, that's designed for teasing and nothing else. His mouth is still at your neck, and he bites softly at it while that Lohen video coincidentally pops up on your feed again. Involuntarily, your hips shift up against his hand while your eyes are still glued to the screen.

His fingers slide up from your slit, back up to your waistband. You let out the tiniest whine, but that whine turns into your breath catching when his fingers dip beneath your underwear and make direct contact through your folds.

"You're so soaked," he says against your neck. His tone makes your thumb pause just as you're about to click on the comment section. His cadence shifted into something that sounds less like your boyfriend and more like the boy he's currently cosplaying as. "And it's not because of me. It's hard to believe a pixel on a screen could make you this turned on… but I guess anything's possible with someone like you."

You feel his middle finger circling your clit, slow and teasing, not giving you anything that you want while you watch that video on loop, again. The pattern of it doesn't stop, but the desperation and need to have him stroke you properly makes your hips twitch, and your focus shifts from your phone to his hand, and only his hand, at an alarming rate.

"It must be embarrassing," he starts, the same condescending drawl Scaramouche's voice has, and it fits in his mouth uncannily well, "getting this worked up over a character animation. Over something that can never," the same index that was teasing at your clit pushes inside you, knuckle deep, and you clench around it, "touch you."

He's quick to add a second finger, his ring finger, because one isn't ever enough for you. He curls them upward, finding that spot he mapped ages ago. Your phone screen goes dark from inactivity.

He doesn't leave any achy part of your cunt unoccupied, especially if his thumb is currently being useless. His thumb finds your clit, and he rubs in circles while his fingers curl inside you. The dual stimulation makes your mouth fall open, and your phone falls out of your hand. Your phone hits the side of your stomach and falls down face-first beside you.

"There it is," he says against your skin, pressing a kiss to the mark he left on your neck. "Phone's finally down. Took you long enough."

He pulls his fingers out, and before you can even whine about it, he shifts on top of you, sliding down between your legs. You look down at him, and the visual of Scaramouche slipping under the covers and pulling at the waistband of your shorts is doing something to you that ten replays of Lohen's burst animation could never replicate. Because this is actually real.

He's sliding your shorts down when you mistakenly whimper out, "Kuni…"

He stops, hands pausing on the fabric at your knees. "Mm… no. That's not my name tonight." He pulls the shorts off completely, tossing them wherever without looking in his room, and his fingers hook into your underwear next.

"It's Scaramouche. That's who you're looking at… That's who's touching you. And, that's the only name I want to hear coming out of your mouth. Not Kuni, and definitely not Lohen. If you even try saying his name, I'm cutting your tongue out." He drags your underwear down your thighs, his eyes never leaving your face. "Scaramouche. Understood?"

You nod, too distracted by what he was saying to even realize you're bare from below, and you realize that the moment his mouth is on you.

His tongue drags flat across your clit, and you let out an involuntary, unfiltered moan at the contact. You'd care about his neighbors hearing if his mouth wasn't making you forget that other people exist.

It feels like he's reformatting your brain as he eats you out. Like every lick is deleting thoughts about Lohen and replacing them all with himself. His tongue works on your clit in patterns that make you let out dumb, uncontrollable moans. Two fingers slip inside you without warning, curling against your spot, and you can't help but grab onto his hair, that perfectly styled, dyed Scaramouche hair, and hold on.

Your hips twitch up, grinding into his face while your head tips back. "H-aah… f-fuck… Sca-"

He pulls back from your clit, fingers still working inside you, but at an even faster rhythm, "Louder than that."

You listen, brainless, doing whatever he says, "Scara… Scaramouche, I'm… hah… s-so close…"

He dives back onto your clit, mouth sealed on it, making you cum embarrassingly fast with his fingers curling inside your spongy walls. Your thighs shake around his head, and your grip on his hair tightens as you grind onto his face, clenching around his fingers. He goes slower once the aftershocks are over, and when you finally let go of his hair, completely out of breath, he pulls his mouth off your clit with a wet pop.

He wipes his chin with the back of his hand, the cosplay sleeve dragging across his face from his cosplay. The sight of that is so absurd and so hot that you almost cum again from that visual alone. The puppet joints look slightly faded on the two fingers he was fucking you with, and somehow that makes it worse.

He grabs one of the detached sleeves and slips it off his outfit. You watch him, brain still sluggish from the orgasm, fold it into a thick band, and you furrow your brows, confused. "What are you…"

"Scaramouche wouldn't let you see him lose composure." He slides up from between your legs, wrapping the fabric around your eyes, tying it behind your head before you can even protest. You can't see anything now, just darkness, and the sound of his breathing close to your face. "So you don't get to either."

You feel him move back and settle between your thighs, sliding them apart. You're still so sensitive from your orgasm that feeling his cock suddenly press against you makes an involuntary whimper slip out. He wastes no time slipping in, but he does it slow, stretching you open inch by inch, and you grab fistfuls of his sheets because the fact that you're missing one of your senses is making everything amplified.

"Oh my god…"

"Say my name," he says, and he feels deep enough inside of you that you can't tell how much more of him there is. You only know the stretch, the pressure, and how full you already feel.

A faint moan slips out of you before you manage, breathless, "Scara…"

"Yeah?" He says, and you can hear the smirk in his voice, he knows you can barely think. "Too full to say it properly?"

Your fingers curl helplessly in the sheets. "Sc… Scaramouche…"

He starts moving, and because of the blindfold, every thrust feels amplified tenfold, so much deeper. His hands are gripping at your hips hard enough to bruise. You feel him closer, by your ear, voice still in character, "You think some new character is going to replace me?" He puncuates the end with a hard thrust, and your mouth hangs open with a gasp.

"Some battle maniac with a grin? Pathetic. I've been your favorite since 1.1," another thrust, and it hits you deep, he grinds into that same spot, "and no amount of leaked animations is going to change that."

"I know… hah… I know-"

He pulls back just enough that you feel the loss of him even though he's still inside. Your hips chase him up, a needy whimper spilling out because you don't feel him moving anymore, and you wonder why. You feel his hand leaving your hip to pull the blindfold off your eyes.

Light hits your pupils, and you squint, disoriented, and the first thing you see isn't him. It's your phone, held inches from your face, bright and open on the password screen. In a flash, your phone's unlocked from just your face, and just as fast as that happens, he turns your phone back to him.

"Wha… what are you doing?" You're still catching up, blinking through your vision that's trying to adjust, even more now that a phone was shoved up in your face. He's swiping through your apps with one hand while the other pins your hip to the mattress. His cock is still inside you, not moving at all, and it almost feels painful with how much you're craving him to.

He pulls up Twitter, looking at your feed first before checking your reposts, because of course, the first thing that comes up is someone reposting that Lohen burst animation for the millionth time, like people haven't seen it already. He scoffs, tapping on your profile picture on the side, and looking through your reposts.

"This one says," he starts, scrolling with his thumb, his tone almost bored as he reads your reposts out loud, while he finally starts grinding into you, but it's slow, painfully slow. "I would let Lohen degrade, breed me, use me, and rearrange my insides until I pass out… You liked that one, reposted it from the same account that has your face on it. How dense can you be?"

You face heats up realizing just how embarrassing that is, only after doing it a while ago, "That's… that was just a joke-"

"Let's go to your replies tab and see if you did anything other than mindlessly repost whatever you saw," you watch as his thumb moves across your phone, he shifts his hips forward in a slow grind that makes your breath hitch, "Oh, so you did comment on something… that's it? Three fire emojis and a fucking… crying emoji? That's your contribution to the discourse? Really? Was your brain rotting that badly that you couldn't even type words?"

You don't even try to come up with a coherent response for that, and he doesn't wait for one. He throws your phone somewhere on his bed and leans down, propping himself up on his forearms on either side of your head, and the closeness of him in full cosplay makes your breath catch in your throat.

"You know what's funny to me?" His eyes never leave your face as he rolls his hips, still a slow grind that drags his cock against your walls in such a way that keeps you in between being able to think and not. "You have a cosplayer. An actual, real person who dresses up as your favorite character and fucks you in it. And instead of appreciating that… you're reposting about a character that doesn't even have a release date yet."

A weak protest slips out before you can stop it. "I do appreciate-"

"Do you?" He thrusts hard this time, and it makes your back arch, your hands flying up to grab his shoulders as he continues at the same deep pace, watching your face change with every thrust. "Because I'm literally inside of you in a Scaramouche cosplay right now, and 20 minutes ago you were eye-fucking a burst animation while I was standing 12 feet away."

Your face burns, "That's not…" You swallow, trying to gather a thought that doesn't sound pathetic, "That's not fair, he's just a character, you're-"

"I'm right here." Another deep thrust, his hand slides up to cup the side of your face, tilting it so you're looking directly at him. At the eyeliner you did for him, the contacts, and the hair you even helped style. "And I'm the closest thing to a fictional character you're ever going to get. So maybe," he grinds into your spot, and your eyes roll, "act like it."

Humiliation and want feel like they're tangling so tightly that you can't separate them anymore. You can't even form a proper response for that, only being able to muster out a, "F-fuck… Scara…." as your fingers curl harder into the sheets.

"Mm." He keeps the angle, keeps rolling into that same spot, watching as it makes you go stupider quicker while his thumb traces your cheekbone. "You know what you should repost? A video of this. Me, in cosplay, between your legs. See how many likes that gets compared to a leaked animation."

Your brain decides this is the moment to let something slip. Completely irrational. "A lohen cosplay would probably get more likes because he's… trending." You don't even mean it as a dig; you say it in the normal, supportive tone you always give when he talks about content, while getting dicked down.

And the second those words leave your mouth, everything goes silent. He stops, completely. Cock buried inside you, and his hand on your face tightens. His thumb presses harder into your cheekbone. His expression doesn't change, but his eyes do. It's this flat, cold look you can see even with the contacts, and the silence stretches long enough that you realize what you just did.

You scramble to backtrack, "I didn't mean-"

"No, don't backtrack now," he cuts in, voice eerily calm, tilting his head like he's studying any new reaction you'd make, "You sounded very sure of yourself a second ago. I want the same answer you gave before you realize I didn't like it."

You sink back into the pillows, head shaking, "Scara, you know that's not what I meant…" but you stop at the end when you see the look in his eyes darken.

He lets go of your face and pulls almost all the way out to slam back in, both of his hands gripping on the backs of your thighs, pushing them apart. He's fucking into you at a new pace that's faster and rougher than anything before this, every thrust feeling like a point he's making without words.

"He's an animation," he says between trusts, his voice strained, but he's still in character. "He doesn't feel like this…" A thrust so deep it pushes you closer to the headboard. "He doesn't sound like this." Another one, harder, and the sound that comes out of you is almost unrecognizable.

"And he doesn't know that if he hits this angle," he shifts his hips and nails your spot dead-on, and your vision whites out at the edges completely, "you make that exact face."

Your legs are shaking around his grip, your hands grasping at anything, his shoulders, his arm, the sheets, the only thought in your mind is him, the body between your legs trying to prove a point with his entire being.

Then, your phone lights up next to your head. It's a Twitter notification, something about Lohen, and the timing is so cosmically cruel. He sees it, and before you can even squint to see what it's about, he scoots back, letting your head fall off the pillow. You look at him, confused, completely innocent to the change of position that's about to happen.

His hands leave your thighs to grab at your hips, and in one inhuman motion, he lifts you off the bed almost entirely. Your back leaves the mattress, the entire room feels like it's tilting as he hauls your legs over his shoulders, your full weight being suspended against his body. His hands grip the front of your thighs, your arms scrambling for anything, and they end up gripping at the backs of his thighs. Your head is still on the mattress, and your arms, but everything else is up in the air.

He's about to fuck you upside down.

You yell out of panic, "Wha… SCARA-"

"You were about to check your phone." He says, voice unbothered like he isn't holding you in the air with his dick buried inside of you. "While I'm inside of you… While Scaramouche is inside of you." He adjusts his grip, his fingers digging into the meat of your thighs, and slides his hips back before slamming into you hard, forcing himself so deep that you see white. "Do I not have your full attention?"

Even as full, and thought empty as you are, you still try to defend yourself, "You do… hah… You do, I wasn't-"

"You were reaching for it," another hard slam, and you cry out, your nails digging into the backs of his thighs. "Your hand almost moved. Almost. You were going to look at a notification while im fucking you."

He fucks into you, over and over, your legs dangling on his shoulders, the angle hitting something so deep inside of you that your body doesn't know how to process it apart from going completely boneless.

You're limp, even being fucked upside down. Your muscles gave up, and now you're just a body he's holding in the air and fucking into.

Your weight being nothing to him, your pleasure being everything.

"Scara… Scara, oh my god, I can't… f-fuck… I can't-"

"Can't what?" His voice is annoyingly steady, controlled, even though he's holding you up and thrusting into you with a force that should effect both of you, but it seems like you're the only effected one. Moaning sounds that aren't even words anymore, just vowels and air. "Can't think? Good. You shouldn't be thinking. The only thing in your head right now should be my name, and the fact that no pixel on a screen," he thrusts up, sharp, and the sound you make is practically a scream, "has ever made you feel like this."

Even with your mind blank, you can process his words enough to know that he's right. Because he's here, and real, and holding you in the air and fucking the coherence out of your skull. "SCARAMOUCHE- fuck, please… please don't stop-"

His pace only grows faster, his grip on your thighs tightening in such a way that you know it will end in bruises when you wake up tomorrow. You cum with the lower half of your body, suspended in the air. Your body locks up, ankles rolling, feet clenching around his shoulders as the orgasm rips through you in waves so intense that you can't even keep your eyes open, can't even suppress or care for how dumb you sound.

You can do anything except convulse around him while he holds you through it like you weigh nothing.

He cums exactly five seconds after, the way your walls clench around his cock not letting him pull himself back any longer. He buries himself deep with one final thrust up that pins you against his hips. You feel every pulse of it, hot and thick, filling you up as his fingers flex on your thighs.

There's so much that your body can't contain it, even in this position, you can feel some of his cum leak around where he's still inside you, dripping down between your ass cheeks.

He holds you there for a moment, catching his breath and you still catching yours, and then he finally sets you down. He moves back, lowering you, and you bounce back on the sheets, still out of breath, gasping, legs shaking, cum pooling more properly between your thighs now that you aren't in the air.

He's already pulling at the cosplay before his breathing even levels out.

"Finally," he mutters, yanking at the chest piece with the urgency of someone escaping a straitjacket, "I can take this stupid fucking thing off."

The outer layer comes off first, and he gets out of bed to toss it onto his desk chair without looking. Then the arm pieces, what's left of them, since one sleeve is still tied in a crumpled blindfold shape somewhere in the sheets. He pulls the one he's wearing off and throws it on top of the outer layers on the chair.

He's left in the sleeveless undershirt, the tight black one that sits flush against his chest and shows the puppet joints he spent way too long on at his shoulders. The shadow has smudged from the sweat, the edges bleeding where the lines used to be clean.

"I was literally cooking alive in that," he says, working at the fabric that sits on his hips next, "do you know how many layers this cosplay has? About four. Four fucking layers in a room with one fan and a broken AC because Ei cares more about being at work all the time than actually caring about a home she's barely at."

You don't respond because you are, at this moment, a puddle of a human being with no functioning brain cells and shaking legs. You're lying exactly where he put you down, staring up at the ceiling, legs still open because closing them feels like an exercise right now.

He glances at you once the majority of the cosplay is off, just the undershirt and shorts, and he gets quieter. He disappears into the bathroom that's connected to his bedroom and comes back with a warm, damp towel.

He sits on the edge of the bed and pushes your thigh to the side, wiping between your legs without saying anything. His movements are careful, clinical, almost, like the same precision he gives his cosplay goes into this too.

He cleans the cum off your inner thighs, the crease where your thigh meets your hip, folds the towel to the clean side, and gets the rest.

You flinch at the contact, still sensitive, and his other hand presses flat against your lower stomach to keep you still. "Stop squirming."

"But… It's sensitive," you say, finally, voice weak.

"I know it's sensitive. I'm the one who made it sensitive. Stay still."

He tosses the towel onto the bathroom floor when he's done, then goes to his dresser, pulling out a sleep set and underwear that are yours. A cropped top and matching shorts that somehow migrated into his drawer because you're here more than your actual house.

He comes back and slides the underwear up first, lifting your hips with one hand to pull them over your ass. Then, the shorts come next, doing the same motion he did for the underwear. He grabs the top next, and this part requires sitting you up, and you're not cooperative.

You're practically dead weight.

He pulls you up by the arms like a ragdoll, gets the shirt over your head, and guides each of your arms through the sleeves. You keep going limp on purpose, and it's irritating him. "You're not helping," he says, which isn't a helpful remark on his part.

You can't do anything but let out a tired, annoyed sigh, voice moving slowly as you say, "I can't feel my legs, Kuni."

He pauses as he's trying to pull the top down, giving you a sideways look, "That's a you-ca n't-help problem, that's a you-won't-help problem. Your arms should work fine."

You give him a fake, straight smile, shrugging at a languid speed, "They don't, actually. You broke those too when you held me upside down, and I had to hold onto your thighs for dear life."

He scoffs, dropping you back against the pillows, and you sink into them, boneless, dressed, clean, happy that you've trained him well enough to do this much after sex, because it pays off every time.

He pulls the covers out from under you, and this time you actually scoot to give him space to tuck them over your body. He grabs both of your phones and plugs them in, then walks to his closet to take the top off and replace it with a plain black t-shirt, and tugs on a pair of grey sweats. When he's done, he always backs toward the bed to get into the covers beside you, but you stop him.

"Kuni, can you please get me water?" You ask, with a tiny pout.

The exhale he lets out is so deep it could qualify as a controlled breathing exercise. He stands there for a full three seconds, covers still bunched in his hand, staring at you with the expression of a man who wants to only pass out in bed and rot.

"You couldn't have said that before I walked toward the bed?"

You look up, pretending to think, mouth curling up when you glance back at him, "I wasn't thirsty before you walked toward the bed."

He rolls his eyes, his hand coming up to rub his fingers at his temple in annoyance at all of this, "That doesn't even make sense."

You clasp your hands together, pouting, again, putting on a sweet expression just to mess with him further, "Please?"

He drops the covers and leaves the room. You hear his footsteps down the hallway, and they're loud enough that you know he's being loud on purpose.

Because Kuni doesn't make noise when he walks unless he wants you to know he's annoyed.

His house is massive; you spend 99 percent of your time in his room, so you actually get jumpscared every time you leave it. The hallways are long, or probably longer than an apartment floor in general, with marble flooring and clear walls with art on them that his mother picked out and he's never looked at once.

The kitchen is insane. Countertops that stretch for what feels like miles, a center island bigger than your own bed, and appliances that look like they belong in a once luxurious restaurant. Every surface is spotless because the housekeeper comes three times a week, and Kuni is already a clean freak on his own, so the combination creates a kitchen that looks perpetually unlived in.

He opens the cabinet, grabs a glass, fills it from the filtered tap, and when he turns around, his mother is sitting at the island.

She's been there the whole time, apparently.

Ei is on a barstool at the center island, one leg crossed over the other, a glass of red wine in her right hand and her phone in her left. Her hair is long and ink-black, pin-straight, falling over one shoulder, and in the dim kitchen light, she looks less like a person and more like a portrait someone painted and forgot to hang.

She looks up from her phone at the sound of the glass filling.

Her eyes move over him, at the messed-up hair, the contacts he forgot to take out, and the faded puppet joints still visible on his knuckles.

And also the fact that he's getting a glass of water at one in the morning in a post-sex haze that he thinks isn't obvious but is extremely obvious.

"You're still awake," she says, her voice carrying that same low, unbothered tone that makes everything she says sound like an observation.

"You're home," he replies, matching her energy beat for beat, turning off the tap without looking at her. "When did your flight land?"

"Three hours ago." She takes a sip of wine. "I didn't want to interrupt."

The silence that follows is loud. He knows what that means, she knows that he knows, and neither of them will say it directly because everyone in this family treats emotional honesty like it's some disease.

"Right." He grabs the glass and turns to leave as fast as possible.

"Kunikuzushi."

He stops, but he doesn't turn around, his grip on the glass tightening.

"Eat something tomorrow. The fridge is stocked." She pauses to take a sip before continuing, "And take your contacts out before you sleep. They'll irritate your eyes."

He stands there for a second, then another, then another, then walks away without responding. And his footsteps down the hallway are quieter this time. Not on purpose.

He gets back to his room and shuts the door behind him with his foot. He walks up towards the bed and reaches over to hand you the glass. You take it, sitting up slightly, drinking half of it in one go while he stands there watching you like you just made him walk a marathon for a cup of water.

"Happy?" He asks, pulling the covers back.

You roll your eyes and hand him back the glass. He sets it on the nightstand and gets into bed, lying flat on his back. You immediately roll onto his chest like a magnet, your cheek pressing against the cotton of his t-shirt, and you can hear his heartbeat, still a little fast, coming down.

His hand finds your hair, starts that absent, repetitive thing he does, threading his fingers through the strands over and over. You press closer to him, tangling your legs with his under the covers, and his arm tightens around your back.

You close your eyes, and his fingers never stop moving through your hair.

He doesn't tell you he loves you; he never does first. But his thumb traces a slow circle against your scalp, and his breathing evens out underneath you, and he doesn't move even when your weight goes fully dead against his chest.

That's how you know.

You're in your room today, not at your boyfriend's house like you usually are. You do like being in his room and hanging out with him constantly, but it's also constantly exhausting. Some days, you'd just prefer to be… alone.

Your room is the complete opposite of Kunikuzushi's aesthetic. Light beige walls so you can hang up cute pink miscellaneous things on your wall without them clashing. A fluffy, soft, pink bed that used to be a canopy until you woke up to a fat spider next to your face, as if it was their bed too. Plushies… lots of them, on your bed, some kept on a large shelf you bought to store the expensive anime figures Kuni always buys you. Long story short, the general vibe of your room makes you seem like someone whose entire personality is soft and sweet.

You're lying on your stomach on the bed, phone in hand, scrolling through the fallout of the Lohen leak from 3 days ago. The internet has still not calmed down… if anything, it's worse.

@scaranation4LIFE scaranation we STAND. Every character had their tiny moment of fame… our show lasted four years. FOUR. We were even on the news… lohen's gonna last one patch and you're all going to be crawling back

@lohenxscarabeliever i don't want lohen OR scara… i want them BOTH to ruin my life SIMULTANEOUSLY. Why is this so hard to understand

@wanderersfavoritebuttplug scara… I’d never replace you for that sadistic twink (maybe) (we’ll see)

The comments are always talking about the same thing, at least every comment section under a Lohen Twitter post, as the diehard simp, the one who wants Lohen and Scara to fuck each other, the one who wants to cuck Scara in front of Lohen, and the very few actual loyal Scara fans.

… You feel like you're a bit of both.

You're deep in the comments, simultaneously looking at edits of Lohen on TikTok, then taking a Twitter break, then TikTok, when at some strange point, your bedroom door opens.

You don't look up, you assume it's Kuni because your parents aren't home, and you gave him the key ages ago. "Hey, Kuni," you say, still scrolling, legs swinging behind you, "if you're here to yell at me about using your newest Flower Knows palette before you did, it's not that big of a deal-"

You stop because when you look up, what you see is something you'd never, ever expect from a surprise visit from your boyfriend.

Kunikuzushi is standing in your doorway in full-on cosplay. But it's not Scaramouche, or some other male in the game… It's Lohen.

Your phone hits the mattress.

The character you've been losing your mind over for 3 days, the one you've seen on your phone screen a genuinely convincing number of times, is here, in real life, standing in your pink bedroom doorway.

"When did you-" your voice comes out strangled, your mouth feeling dry, and your throat feeling so tight that you cut yourself off. Your eyes scan the cosplay, again and again, confused at why he didn't tell you about this. Especially ordering a unique cosplay of a character that hasn't even fully come out. "When… when did you order this??"

He grins, a toothy, sharp-eyed grin that looks nothing like Scara's smirk. It's so strangely similar to the expression Lohen would make, and you wonder if he's spent the last 3 days practicing for this.

"I've been tracking you all day," he says, and his voice is different than normal, more confident, louder, less… restrained on what's deemed as good. "You've been hard to pin down."

He crosses the room, and your body does something it doesn't do with Kuni. It tenses out of something close to fear, but closer to not knowing what's coming next. His hand grabs the front of your tank top and yanks you off the bed. You yelp in a way that's higher, more startled, more genuinely caught off guard than anything Scara has gotten out of you in months.

"Nervous?" He questions, his grin widening, and his fists twist in your shirt, pulling you closer, until your chest is against his. He can feel your heartbeat… at least you assume he can, because you can hear it going haywire through your ears to the point that you'd believe it's audible even if he wasn't this close.

You deny because you hate admitting things to him when he's acting smug, even though anything you could say would be utterly pointless, as your face and the way you're barely moving prove his point way too well. "I'm not nervous…" You try a distraction, any, "Are you really wearing a wig, Kun-" but it gets cut off quicker than you can even finish the last word.

"Your heart feels like it's about to explode out of your chest." He leans in, his mouth next to your ear, and his voice drops, but he still keeps the edge of it in character, "What's different? You let Scaramouche do whatever he wants to you. But Lohen shows up and suddenly… You can't even talk?"

You knit your eyebrows, staggering to say anything that sounds like you're not any less dumb, "That's… it's different, you're usually-"

"Usually what? Predictable?" He pulls back to look at you, and you glance up and down at his cosplay once more, and it's even more annoyingly perfect up close. You seriously don't know how he does it; he even looks good in a wig, even though he hates them. "You know every move Scaramouche makes before he makes it. You're comfortable with that, and that's boring." He says it like an insult, and his grin drops suddenly, his eyes not leaving you once as he says, "I'm not comfortable. Are you scared of me?"

You answer a simple, "No." But the way you still haven't moved on your own since he appeared at your door proves without words otherwise.

"Liar." He shoves you, and you fall back before you can catch yourself on the bed, bouncing on the pink sheets, your tank top riding up slightly in the process. "Your voice had the tiniest crack in it."

He's on top of you before you can sit up, his knee between your thighs, his hand going to your jaw… and he does it.

The burst animation.

His fingers close around your jaw as he lifts your face toward his, slow, and the grin is right there, a perfect replica of the video you've watched on your screen more than 100 times.

"There's my favorite prey," he says, holding the pose for three seconds, and instead of reaching his arm back and stabbing you, he leans in to kiss you.

It's violent, that's the only word to describe it. Non ceremonial, just teeth, tongue, and a lot of force by him. His hand is still gripping your jaw, controlling the angle, and also making sure you don't pull away so soon. You make a sound into his mouth that's between a moan and a whimper, that's even more vulnerable than anything you've made during sex when he cosplays as Scaramouche.

He pulls back, unbuckling one of the belts on the cosplay, a strap that's a part of Lohen's design, and he wraps it around your wrists, binding them above your head against the bed.

"Every battle maniac needs a sparring partner," he says, tying the knot with one hand while the other shoves your tank top up above your breasts. "And you looked at me like you volunteered."

He strips your shorts, then your underwear, and he doesn't bother about being sweet with it. He yanks them down your legs and throws them somewhere behind him, and then his hands grip the backs of your thighs, and he pushes them up toward your chest.

Mating press, that's what he's doing.

Your knees are at your shoulders, your hips are tilted up, and he's on the bed, kneeling over you. His weight is driving your thighs down, folding you in half. Your wrists are bound above your head; you're just completely open and trapped.

"L.. Lohen…" You whimper out in the voice of both someone in awe, and in the tiniest fear of what's coming next.

"Hmm." He unzips his pants, frees his hard cock from his underwear, which he slides down just enough, and positions himself at your entrance, and he pushes in.

The first thrust is the full length of him burying himself deep inside you in one stroke; the angel of the mating press makes it feel deeper than it should. His cock presses against your cervix, and the sound that leaks out of you is closer to a sob than a moan.

"AH- oh fuck oh fuck oh-"

"Too much?" He asks, and his grin, that fucking grin, is right there, his face inches from yours because the mating press puts him on top of you… over you, covering you entirely.

"N-no, just- hah-" You get cut off with the way he pulls back and slams back in, your eyes rolling to the back of your skull, before just fully closing.

"Not convincing." He pulls back, again, slamming into you harder than the last one, like he's powering up his thrusts, and your back tries to arch off the bed, but his weight is pressing you flat, and you have nowhere to go. You feel his hands at your face. "Your eyes are watering."

You open your eyes back up to look at him, head shaking, even though you do feel something hot and wet sliding softly down your cheeks. "You're lying, they're n-not-" You're studdering from the way he's repeditely fucking into you, especially hitting your deeper spots on purpose when you try speaking, but he cuts you off anyway.

"They are." He leans down and licks a tear off your cheekbone. The act is so different from the way he's currently fucking into you, brutally, and you're turning incoherent faster than ever, moans spilling out uncontrollably as the sound of his hips plaping against your ass fills the room.

"You cry for Scaramouche because it feels good. You're crying for me because you don't know what I'm going to do next." Both of his hands leave your face; one goes back onto your thigh, the other finds your throat. "And that scares you… Doesn't it?"

His fingers close around your neck, and he doesn't choke you the same way Kuni does during normal sex. This version is different, new, something you've never felt before. Lohen's choke. His fingers press into the sides of your throat, squeezing the muscles, not your windpipe, but the tissue around it. The difference, the way this feels new, is because it feels like it's designed to hurt, not to just cut off air. The pain is sharp, and you can still breathe, technically, but every inhale aches, and the compression makes the blood rush to your head in a way that amplifies every sensation that a blindfold never could.

You can't move your hands, even as they itch to grab or instinctively hold at his wrists, you're reminded that they're bound together by his belt. Your moans just get more amplified thrust after thrust after squeeze, "Nghh- Lohen… hah…"

"You can barely even say my name." He squeezes harder, his thumb pressing into the hollow of your throat, and the pressure pushes you right to the edge of too much. "Scaramouche gets full sentences out of you… Full moans… Full 'please'. But me?" He thrusts deep, grinding, holding himself inside you while his hand tightens on your throat. "I get syllables… Half-words… or just plain denial over anything I say. You're so nervous you can't even beg for anything properly."

He fucks you into the mating press until your thighs are shaking against his hands, and your voice is hoarse from the sounds he's pulling out of you. His hand stays on your throat. The pressure of his squeeze fluctuates a lot, from him tightening when he thrusts hard, loosening when he grinds slowly, a cycle of both pain and relief that keeps you permanently on the edge of too much without ever crossing into too much.

Because Kuni knows your body, he knows how much it can take. He pushes you close enough to passing out that your vision darkens at the edges, your mouth falls open, your eyes lose focus, and then he loosens his grip and lets the blood rush back.

And the gasp you take is almost an orgasm on its own. "Please- hah… please, I can't… too much-"

"You can handle it, you just don't know it yet." He squeezes your throat and fucks into you hard enough that a plushie falls off the bed. The grin on his face is still, still beautifully intact, and it's the most terrifyingly perfect thing you've ever seen from this close.

"You know what's funny? You were scared when I walked in. Nervous. Couldn't even talk to me." He leans down until his lips brush yours, his hand still on your throat. "But you're not trying to stop me, are you? Your hands are tied, your legs are pinned, and we have a safeword you could've used at any point, and you won't, because you and I both know this is exactly the type of 'too much' that you crave."

You cum with his hand on your throat and his cock buried so deep you can feel him in your stomach. The orgasm hits different in a mating press, so much more intense. Your walls clench around him in rhythmic pulses that you feel in your entire pelvic floor, and he fucks you through it, his pace not slowing, his hand not loosening.

And by the time the aftershock fades, you're boneless, twitching, and making sounds that are barely human.

He cums inside you, you feel the heat of it, thick, pulsating, his hips pressing flush against yours and staying there while his cock throbs. His hand finally loosens on your throat, and his forehead drops against yours.

His breathing is ragged, and it's the first time you've ever heard him lose the composure of the character, and for one second, between the last pulse and first exhale, it's just Kuni.

Then the Lohen grin slides back. He stays inside you for a moment more, his cock still twitching with the last of it, before pulling out in one motion that makes your body clench around nothing.

You feel the immediate emptiness, the warmth of his cum already starting to leak, but you don't get to process that because his hands are on your hips and he's flipping you.

Your stomach hits the mattress, your face presses into your pillow, and the shift of his cock inside you during the rotation makes a wet, obscene sound that you both pretend not to hear. Your wrists are still bound with the belt, and they're now pinned beneath you. You feel him reach under you, fingers finding the leather, working the buckle loose with one hand, while the other grips your hip to keep you from sliding forward.

The belt falls away from your wrists, you roll them instinctively, flexing your fingers, and before you can even appreciate the freedom, you feel the belt loop around your neck instead.

He pulls it taut from behind. He doesn't choke you with it just yet; he just lets it sit snug against your throat with his fist gripping the trailing end like it's some sort of handle.

"Ass up," he says, and you barely get your knees under you before he gives up on waiting and pulls your hips back toward him.

He slams in at a rough, fast, punishing pace. The sound of his hips against your ass is echoing off your room in a rhythm that makes your plushies at the edge of the bed vibrate, causing a couple of them to fall.

He uses the belt as a way to anchor his thrusts while he rails into you with a force that has your fingers twisting in your sheets, and your neck being forced to arch back.

"Fu- oh my g-god, Loh-" You can't even finish his name, it just dissolves into a broken moan as he hits your spot from this angle. The deepness of the backshots makes your toes curl against the bedsheets.

He keeps going, his pace not slowing down at all, and you're too far gone that you barely register it when his rhythm stutters for a second, especially when you hear him mutter something under his breath that doesn't sound like Lohen.

"This stupid fucking…"

Your brain is somewhere between your legs; the only sound that's audible and coherent to you is the sound of his hips against your ass, and your endless moans.

He thrusts hard, and you let out a whimper, your fingers flexing on the sheets, and your feet coming up, clenching, then dropping again. But between the next few thrusts, you catch pieces of something that doesn't match the character he's trying to play.

His voice sounds like it's shifting, not into Scara like it's some muscle memory he has, but into Kuni, your boyfriend, sounding genuinely irritated about something that has nothing to do with sex.

"I swear to god, it keeps sliding," he mutters, and his grip on the belt loosens for a second as his other hand does something behind you that you can't see. He does another hard thrust, and your face falls against the pillow now that he isn't yanking on your neck. But he doesn't pull you back, choke you, or do whatever you expect him to do.

He complains.

"This is the last time I'll wear a wig. The last fucking time. I told you I hate these things and you always ignore it and tell me to suck it up when it's a character that isn't him-" a thrust that makes your spine arch, "and now I have gross, synthetic hair scratching at my face, and I'm going to lose my mind."

You're barely processing any of this, still, it all sounds like fragments to you that don't make sense because of the thick haze of being fucked into your mattress.

He grunts, clear frustration, and you hear something that sounds like a clip, or whatever mechanism that's keeping his wig attached to his actual hair, and his pace slows down enough that curiosity overtakes the pleasure for one stupid second.

You turn your head.

And it's Kuni behind you, one hand still on the belt at your neck, and the other holding the Lohen wig that he just pulled off his head. His real hair is back, dark indigo, messy, slightly matted from the wig cap he also tore off. He hasn't noticed you looking yet; he's too busy glaring at the wig with genuine contempt.

He's out of character, fully, completely, for once mid-fuck. He never breaks character, and something comes over you… Maybe it's the absurdity of the visual, maybe it's because you're fucked stupid enough that impulse control is just completely gone.

Maybe it's because the opportunity is just too perfect to pass, and you've seen that TikTok audio one too many times.

You gasp, loud, dramatic, your voice coming out in that exaggerated, scandalized tone that you know he's going to hate, "he's BALD. He's bald, and he's torturing people who have HAIR!"

The silence that follows lasts exactly one and a half seconds.

His eyes snap to you, and you're looking at him over your shoulder, half of your face pressed into the pillow, and you're grinning. That kind of stupid, shit-eating grin that you know is about to have severe consequences.

His expression goes through several stages in rapid succession. Disbelief comes first, processing it comes second, then recognition of the reference, and on the last and final stage, something dark and focused appears that makes your grin falter just slightly.

He throws the wig, and it hits your vanity mirror, sliding off somewhere that you don't care to watch, and his now-free hand shoves your head back down into the pillow. It's not gentle. His palm is flat against the back of your skull, pressing your face into the fabric, and your giggle gets muffled by cotton.

"You think that's funny?" His voice drops back into Lohen's, but it's rougher now, meaner, the edge of genuine irritation soaking through the character because you made a dumb joke while he was inside of you. "You think you're clever?"

You're trying to respond, but your face is pressed into a pillow, and his hand is keeping it there. What comes out next is a muffled, "Mm srrhyy-" that dissolves into a yelp when he slams into you so hard your knees slide forward on the sheets.

"Every prey animal thinks it's funny right before the teeth close." He fucks into you at a pace that's brutal, and way faster than anything before. Each thrust is showing you further into the mattress while his hand keeps your head pinned, and the belt around your neck pulls tight from the motion. "You want to make jokes? I'll give you something to scream about instead."

His other hand leaves the belt to grab at your hip, yanking you back onto his cock with every thrust, and the force of being pushed down and pulled back simultaneously has you making sounds into the pillow that are just broken, raw sounds. Your hands claw at the sheets above your head, your back arching down, while your ass stays up, and you can feel his fingers digging bruises into your hip while the belt drags against your throat.

"Mmph- wait, f-fuck, I'm sorryyy, I was k-kidding-" you manage between thrusts, your words slurring against the pillow, saliva starting to collect at the corner of your mouth because your jaw won't close properly. "Loh-hen, please, 'm sorry, I didn't m-mean-"

"You have a funny way of apologizing," he grinds out, and his hand on the back of your head shifts, his fingers curling into your hair and pulling your face just barely off the pillow, enough that your moans aren't muffled anymore. "Usually, people apologize without laughing. You're still smiling about it, I can hear it in your voice."

He's not wrong. You are still smiling, with tears in your eyes, getting absolutely destroyed because the image of your boyfriend ripping off a wig mid-sex with that look on his face will live in your brain rent-free forever. "Liar… 'M not smiling-"

"You are." A thrust so deep your smile actually drops because your eyes roll back and your mouth falls open around a moan that's more of a wail. "There… fixed it."

His other hand releases your hair and goes to his own head. You can feel the shift in his movements, slightly distracted, one-handed thrusts that are still devastating but less focused as he runs his fingers through his real hair, fixing it through the vanity mirror on the far side of your room.

Because even while he's railing at you, Kunikuzushi will not be caught dead with bad hair.

He's multitasking, fucking you into the mattress with one hand on the belt, and styling his hair with the other… the worst part is, he doesn't even slow down.

He pulls the belt back just enough that you're forced to arch your spine, the pressure on your throat lifting your chest slightly off the mattress, and the angle change makes his cock hit differently, shallower but dragging against your front wall with every stroke, and the sound that comes out of you is embarrassingly close to a squeal.

"Ah ah AH, oh m-my god, oh my god, right there, don't- nghhh don't move from that, please plea-hease..." Your words are tumbling out in a slurred mess, your brain is completely out of your control, and your hips are pushing back against his on their own because the angle is too good.

He cums with a groan, pressing into the back of your shoulder, biting down on your skin through a moan he clearly didn't want to let out. You feel his cock pulse inside you, the heat spreading, and his hips grind forward in small, lazy rolls as he empties everything. His hand goes slack on the belt, and his forehead drops against the space between your shoulder blades.

He stays there for a second, breathing, then he pulls back, letting go completely of the belt, and you fall forward because he was the one pulling your practically limp body against him. Your ass is up in the air, and you feel him slide out, and the gush of cum that follows is immediate. It's thick, warm, spilling out of you and down between your thighs.

He sits back and watches it, you know, because you hear the sheets shift, and you can tell by the way he doesn't move or speak, just watches the mess he made ooze out of you.

His thumb presses against your entrance at the rim, and more cum leaks out around the pressure, sliding down in a slow trail toward your clit. "Look at that," he murmurs, his voice back in character for Lohen, in an amused, fascinated tone. "You can't keep any of it in."

His other hand comes up and spreads you open with his thumb and forefinger, holding your folds apart, and you can feel the cool air hit the mess inside you. You feel more of his cum spill out from being exposed. You bury your face deeper into the pillow because the visual you can't even see is somehow still the most embarrassing part of this entire night.

"Lohen, don't just… stare at it-" You mumble into the pillow, voice a bit pitchy as your thighs try to close, but his knee is in between your legs before you can even try to hide.

"Why not?" His thumb traces through the cum leaking down your folds, collecting it, spreading it in a slow circle around your clit, and your hips jerk at the contact because you're so overstimulated. "It's mine, I put it there, and I'll stare at it for as long as I want."

He leans down, and you feel his breath warm against your swollen, sensitive skin. Then you feel his tongue, a single slow lick from your clit up to your folds that collects everything in its path. You let out a sound that's halfway between a moan and a sob, your fingers crushing at the sheets. His mouth seals around your clit and sucks one, hard, before pulling off with a wet pop that's so loud it echoes.

"Ahh- hhah, that's... you c-can't just do that and stop..." You whine, your hips chasing his mouth, but he's already sitting up, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

"I can do whatever I want." He says, like it's a fact, and his thumb pushes inside you lazily, scooping cum out and watching it drip off his finger before sliding it back in. "And right now I want to watch you try to keep it together while I play with the mess I made."

He does this for longer than is reasonable. Sliding his finger in, pulling it out with cum on it, pressing his thumb against your clit, watching you flinch and twitch and moan into the pillow while your body can't decide if it wants more or if it wants him to stop.

When you finally lift your head enough to look back at him, your vision is blurry, and your cheeks are wet, and your hair… let's not talk about that. But his hair, however…

It's perfect.

His actual hair, styled in Scaramouche's cut, falls over his forehead in a way that makes him look like a character rendered by someone who accidentally released him into the real world. He fixed it while he was fucking you, which means at some point of the most brutal backshots of your life, your boyfriend was simultaneously running his fingers through his hair to make sure it looked good.

And it does, it looks like Scaramouche wearing Lohen's clothes, the dark blue and silver of the cosplay framing his face differently than Scara's outfit does, and the combination of his real hair with Lohen's costume is somehow hotter than either one on its own.

"Your hair…" You start, breathless, head tilting, staring at him.

"I know." He doesn't elaborate, and for a second you did forget just where his fingers still are, but then you get instantly reminded when his thumb circles your clit again. His expression is annoyingly smug for someone who was complaining about a wig 4 minutes ago.

He slides back into you without warning, and you gasp, your head dropping back down, because you're still so unbelievably sensitive. Even though he did slurp some of it out, you still have his cum inside of you, and the re-entry just pushed every bit of the leftovers deeper. He does exactly two, slow thrusts from behind, enough to hear the wet sound of it, and enough to feel you clench around him involuntarily, and then he moves.

His hand wraps the belt tighter around your neck and pulls backward toward him. Your upper body lifts off the mattress as the leather digs into your throat. And at the same time, as if he's some pro multitasker, his other hand hooks under your thigh, and hauls you up.

The room tilts as he rearranges your body like you're a doll getting repositioned on a shelf.

He sits back on his heels, then further, his legs extending toward the foot of the bed, and he pulls you down onto his lap with your back against his chest. His cock is still inside you, and the angle of his cock in your folds shifts as gravity does the work of seating you fully onto him. Your weight pushes him impossibly deep.

"Oh my- f-fuck..." Your head falls back against his shoulder, your mouth open, eyes unfocused on the ceiling. You can feel him everywhere. The depth of this position, your full weight on his lap, is the kind of full that makes your brain actually go blank.

The belt is still around your neck. He grips the loose end in one fist, his other hand settling on your hip, and he snaps his hips up.

It's different from behind, and the mating press, and just any position he's ever tried with you. Every thrust pushes up into you while your own weight pushes down. The collision of both forces means he's hitting your cervix with almost every stroke. The belt pulls at your throat in time with his rhythm, and it's like a constant tug that keeps you slightly alert. He's using it as a leash while he fucks up into you.

"Lohen… Lohen, oh my g-god, that's so… hhh…" Your hands grip his thighs behind you for leverage, your nails pressing crescent moons into his skin through the dark fabric of the cosplay pants. Every thrust forces a sound out of you that you didn't choose. The sound ranges from breathy moans to hiccuped whimpers to full, unfiltered whines that bounce off your bedroom walls.

"Mm, good girl… Keep saying my name just like that." He says against the shell of your ear, his grin pressing into your hair, and his hips don't slow down at all while his free hand leaves your hip to cup your breast, squeezing it through your bunched-up tank top.

Then, suddenly, the pace changes. It slows like someone pressing on the brakes. The frantic upward thrusts melt into something grinding, deliberate, circular. His hips roll instead of slamming. His hand on the belt adjusts, and you can feel the leather pulling higher on your throat, the pressure shifting from the side of your neck to the front, directly on your windpipe, cutting your air down. It makes the room tilt and your head go light.

"Lohen is fun. I'll give him that."

Your walls clench around him so hard that you feel his breath catch, a tiny fracture in his composure that he covers immediately. The shift from Lohen's energy to Scara's is like someone swapped an entire soundtrack mid-song, same instruments but a completely different vibe.

"But fun is temporary." His hips roll in that slow, calculated grind that's purely Scaramouche. The one that doesn't just find your spot but sits on it, presses into it, with the exact amount of pressure needed to make your eyes cross. "Chaos without control is just noise."

He thrusts so deep that your vision goes white at the edges and your mouth opens around a shameless sound you can't hold back. "I'm not noise." He pulls the belt tighter, your air growing thinner as your head feels floaty and warm. "I'm the only voice in your head that stays."

"Scara…" It comes out of your mouth before he can ask for it, before he can demand it, your body just defaulting to the name it knows and has moaned out more times than you can count. Just the same as muscle memory.

"There she is." His voice sounds satisfied in a way that Lohen's never was. It's settled, fully sure, like something just got confirmed that he already knew. His thumb traces the edge of the belt for exactly one second.

Then his pace goes feral, the leash yanks tight, and you can feel the grin return against the curve of your neck, his teeth grazing over your skin. The whiplash of Scara's controlled grind slamming into Lohen's chaos makes your entire body jerk against his chest.

Then he goes back to Scara, slow, precise, the belt adjusting to hit your windpipe just like before, and your vision goes soft and dreamy.

Then Lohen, again, fast and reckless, the belt pulling to the sides, sharp and painful. Your vision snaps back, too clear… too much.

Then Scara.

Then Lohen.

The switches accelerate, and you're caught between two different rhythms that you don't even have time to get used to either one before it switches back and forth, and you're left shaking, trembling, your thighs quivering helplessly on either side of his.

"You feel so fucking good-" you can hear Lohen's signature grin in his tone, his hips snapping up hard enough that you bounce on his lap, "You think you can handle more?"

And then, like a light to a switch, Scara's back, his thrusts slowing into a grind that feels torturous. "Of course you can't… You never could. You just pretend."

"Mm… mmnhh, I c-cant, it's too much," you're babbling, the words coming out in disconnected fragments that don't form a single coherent thought, "both of you at the s-same time… I can't… my brain… can't…"

Your body is trying to process two characters and one cock, and one belt on your throat that keeps changing how tight and how rough it's being pulled, and the gravity pinning you down, and his hands on you everywhere. "Please jus- hha, pick one, p-please, I can't think when you keep switching, I-"

"No." It doesn't sound like either character he's playing as he says that, almost himself. "You don't get to pick, you get both."

You cum on the fault line. On the exact millisecond where Lohen's chaos collides with Scara's control. The two rhythms are crashing together inside your body like a wave hitting a wall. The orgasm rips through you so hard that your vision actually blacks out for a second.

Your walls seize around him in rhythmic, violent clenches, your back arching against his chest, the belt pulling taut as your body contorts, and the sound you make is raw, unformed, the kind of noise a person makes when their brain short-circuits.

He cums with you, his groan is buried in the crook of your neck as his teeth bite down on your shoulder. The belt goes slack in his hand, and his hips stutter up as he fills you again. You feel every pulse of it, hot and thick, and his hands grip your hips hard.

His breathing is ragged against your neck, not in character, just Kuni, just like before, catching a breath he doesn't need to catch because the adrenaline is still making his body do human things.

He lets go of the belt and unloops it from your neck. The leather slides off your skin, leaving a warm, raw line that you'll see in the mirror tomorrow. His hands settle on your hips, gentle, all the urgency gone.

He turns you around, rotating you by your hips without pulling out. Your legs swing around until you're facing him, straddling his hips. When your eyes meet his, it's your boyfriend looking at you, Kuni, with his makeup smudged, his real hair messy and falling into his eyes, wearing another character's clothes with his own face underneath.

He grinds up into you, slow, not thrusting, just rolling his hips with his cock still inside you, his cum still inside, and the wet sound fills the quiet room.

He kisses you, a slow kiss where his hand cups the back of your neck. His tongue slides against yours, and your hands find his face, holding his jaw the same way you hold it when you do his eyeliner. Your fingers on his cheekbones, your thumbs at the corners of his mouth… the grip is so familiar that your chest aches with it.

He pulls out, the gush of everything between you spills onto his thighs, and you whimper at the loss, your hips chasing him involuntarily, still kissing him, before settling.

He leans back, lies flat, and looks up at you. "Sit on my face." He instructs, his hands already going for his bottoms, shoving the waistband down with both hands, lifting his hips, and kicking the pants and underwear off in one motion that sends them somewhere on the bed. He settles back onto the mattress with his cock resting against his stomach and the rest of Lohen's cosplay still on his upper half.

You're still on top of him, and you start to move toward his face, swinging your leg over to straddle his chest, and just as you're about to lower yourself down facing the wall, he stops you.

"Other way." His hands catch your hips, holding you in place before you can settle. "Face my cock, not the headboard."

You turn, shifting on your knees so you're facing his legs instead, and the second your thighs are on either side of his face, his hands pull you down. He doesn't ease you into it, his fingers dig into your hips and yank you flat on him. His mouth meets your cunt like he's been starving for it. His tongue is on you immediately, flat and broad, licking through the mess of his cum and yours that's still leaking, and the groan he lets out against your folds vibrates through your entire lower half.

"Ah- oh my god, Loh-" Your hands brace against his stomach, fingers splaying across his chest, your body jerking at the contact because you're still so overstimulated that even his breath against you would be too much, let alone his entire mouth sealed to your cunt like he's trying to milk you dry.

He doesn't let up; his tongue pushes between your folds, lapping at the cum he left inside you, alternating between long drags up your clit, and pointed flicks that make your thighs clamp around his head. His hands keep your hips pinned to his face, and every time you try to lift yourself even slightly because it's too much, he pulls you back down harder.

You look down past his stomach, past his lips, and his cock is right there. Hard again, flushed at the tip, twitching every time you moan. It looks helpless, which is a stupid word to use for a dick, but that's what it looks like.

Just lying there… hard… neglected, pulsing at nothing while his mouth does all the work on you. The visual of that all, combined with the way his tongue just circles your clit makes your mouth water and your body move on its own.

You lean down, lips pressing against the tip, soft, barely any contact, and you feel his hips twitch upward at even that little touch. You open your mouth wider, about to take him in, settling your weight forward onto your forearms on either side of his hips, and then his hands move.

They leave your hips, and you feel them slide down your back, his arms wrapping around your torso, his palms pressing flat against your shoulder blades from behind, and before you can even register the shift in grip, he lifts you.

Your knees leave the mattress, your thighs slide up his shoulders until they're hooked over them, his arms anchored around your back. You aren't straddling his face anymore; you're suspended above him, upside down, your entire lower body held up by his arms, and your upper body hangs between his legs with his cock directly in front of your face.

"KUNI- what the HELL-" Your hands scramble for something to hold, and the only thing available is his back, his sides, your fingers digging into whatever part of him you can reach. "Stop putting me upside down!! How are you even this strong??"

He ignores you, his mouth is still on your cunt like the position change was nothing, like rearranging your entire body didn't interrupt the rhythm of his tongue.

Your thighs are wrapped around his shoulders, your calves pressed against the sides of his head, and his arms are locked around your lower back and hips, creating a cage of muscle that keeps you from falling. Your stomach is pressed against his chest, your breasts squished between your body and his, and your face is hovering directly over his cock with your hair hanging down.

He doesn't pause to let you adjust; his tongue pushes inside you from below, curling, and the moan that rips out of you vibrates against his inner thigh because your mouth is right there, inches from his cock, and you can't even hold back the sound.

You take him in your mouth because his cock is right there, hard, flushed, leaking from the tip, and this is the only logical response you can think of.

Your lips close around the head, and you can hear, feel, his groan vibrate against your clit from below. The sensation travels through you, making your thighs tighten around his shoulders, and you take him deeper in response, your jaw stretching as you slide down his shaft.

His hips start moving, and he's fucking up into your mouth with thrusts that push his cock past your tongue and into the back of your throat. The angle of being upside down makes your gag reflex hit differently, sharper, your throat constricting around him with every push.

"Mmph-" You gag around him, saliva pooling at the corners of your mouth and running up toward your nose because gravity is working against you, and your eyes water as he pushes in deep enough that your lips press flush against his base.

He pulls your hips down against his face at the same time, grinding your cunt onto his mouth, and the dual sensation of his tongue on your clit and his cock in your throat creates a never-ending loop.

Every sound you make around him vibrates through his cock and makes his groan against you, and every groan he makes against you vibrates through your clit and makes you moan louder, and the cycle just keeps building on itself until neither of you is making sounds that qualify as human.

Your hands grip the backs of his thighs, nails biting into his skin, your only anchor while the rest of you is suspended in the air, getting destroyed from both ends. His arms tighten around your back whenever your body jerks too hard, keeping you steady, and the strength required to hold you like this while simultaneously eating you out and thrusting into your mouth is something you'll think about later, when you have brain cells to think with.

His tongue circles your clit and then seals over it, sucking hard, and your entire body arches in his grip. Your moan around his cock is muffled and obscene, a wet, gargled sound that would be embarrassing if you had any shame left, and the vibration of it makes his hips stutter up so hard you choke.

"Mmngh-" Spit drips down your chin, or up your chin technically because you're upside down, and his cock slides out of your mouth for a second while you cough and gasp, strings of saliva connecting your lips to his shaft.

He doesn't give you a break. His mouth doesn't leave your cunt, his tongue pressing harder, faster, relentless, and your mouth finds his cock again through the haze, taking him back in because even choking on him feels better than the alternative of not having him in your mouth.

His hips roll up in longer strokes now, less frantic but deeper, and you can feel the tension building in his thighs, the muscles tightening under your fingers. His arms squeeze around your back, pulling your hips down harder against his mouth, and his tongue works your clit in tight, focused circles that are designed to break you.

Everything builds at the same time. His cock pulsing heavier against your tongue, your walls clenching against his mouth, the pressure in your core climbing toward something massive, and his breathing getting faster against your cunt, his groans getting louder, less controlled, desperate in a way he only gets when he's close.

You cum first, barely, by maybe a second.

Your walls seize, and your thighs clamp around his shoulders, and the orgasm crashes through you in a wave so intense your jaw locks around his cock. The constriction of your throat, squeezing around him, plus the vibration of your moan, plus the way your entire body shakes in his grip, is what sends him over.

He cums in your mouth with a groan so deep you feel it in your spine. His hips push up one final time, his cock pulsing thick against your tongue, and you swallow around him because there's nothing else to do in this position, the cum sliding down your throat (or up, gravity is still confusing) while his tongue works you through the last aftershocks.

His arms loosen, not all at once, because if he did, you'd drop violently onto the bed. He eases the tension gradually, lowering your hips back toward the mattress, and you let his cock slip from your mouth with a wet sound that you're too brain dead to be embarrassed about.

"Put me down," you mumble against his thigh, your voice wrecked, your arms shaking. "Please, Kuni, put me down before I die in this position, and you have to explain it to my parents."

He lowers you down carefully, his hands guiding your hips and legs until your back is flat on the mattress beside him. Your head is at the foot of the bed, and your feet are near the pillows, but you don't really care because you're horizontal and alive, and that's enough.

He sits up, looks at you sideways on the bed, completely destroyed, and he doesn't say anything. He just moves you, his hands sliding under your back and your knees as he repositions you properly to put your head up against the pillows where it belongs.

He's quiet when he cleans you up this time, zero commentary about you squirming, no dry remarks about sensitivity, just the warm cloth from the bathroom, careful movements between your legs while his other hand stays on your hip to keep you still when you flinch.

He brings new clothes from your dresser, a pair of underwear, which goes on you first, slides up your legs, then shorts, then a top he pulls over your head and feeds through your arms without asking for your cooperation because he's already learned you won't give it.

He doesn't talk the whole time, which is unusual, because Kuni always has something to say, always has a complaint or a remark or a correction. But right now he's just doing it quietly, focused, tucking the hem of your top down with his fingers before standing up and walking toward your closet.

He changes into the pajama pants and black shirt he keeps in your drawer, and he pulls the Lohen cosplay off in pieces as he does it, dropping each part onto the chair by your desk.

"I'm never wearing that thing again," he says, pulling the top layer of Lohen's outfit off his shoulders with a grimace, his tone flat and final. "Whoever designed this character hates the human body. It feels like it's over 6 layers, especially with the long-sleeve, the cape thing… everything." He drops the last piece and kicks it under the chair. "Scara's cosplay isn't even that heavy because Scara was designed by someone with common sense."

You watch him from the bed, half-lidded, sinking into the pillows, your body so heavy that you feel like you're melting into your own mattress.

He walks back and pulls the covers up, sliding in beside you without ceremony. The second he's horizontal, you're already moving toward him, pressing your face into his chest, your hand curling into the front of his shirt, and his arm wraps about your back.

He kisses your forehead, soft, and then the bridge of your nose when you lift your face up enough, then the corner of your mouth. It's small, quiet presses of his lips against your skin that feel nothing like Scaramouche or Lohen. These are Kuni kisses, the ones he gives when no character is being performed.

The ones he probably doesn't even realize he's giving because they come out of him the same way breathing does.

He tips your chin up with his finger, and his eyes are just blue. Not indigo contacts, not the ones he wore for the Lohen cosplay, just his natural, stupid, annoyingly pretty blue that you fell for before you even knew that you cosplayed.

"Who do you want?" He asks, his voice low, and it's the softest you've heard it all night.

You look at him, at the messy hair, at the body who dyes his hair for a fictional character and hates wigs and complains about having to style his hair everyday and who buys you an abmormal amount of primogems, and probably would get you c6 r5 Lohen the minute he drops because he does that for every character, even when he gets jealous when you simp for a character that you don't just ask him to cosplay like any other logical person dating a cosplayer.

"Kuni," you say, and your voice is small and sure. "Just Kuni."

His mouth twitches, and you can see the shape of a smile trying to form before he catches it and pulls you closer, tucking your head under his chin and pressing his lips to your hair.

"Good answer," he murmurs into your scalp, so quiet that you almost miss it.

You close your eyes, your face against the fabric of his shirt, and you're asleep before you can respond. He stays awake for a minute more, his hand moving through your hair in slow repetitive movements. He stares at the ceiling fan, and he doesn't say anything.

He doesn't need to.

I have a Discord now! 18+, for readers, writers, and anyone who wants early wips and a place to chat!! (link)

taglist: @vvalentiqq, @jellyfishesandroses, @staarflowerr, @literallyibanny, @justwandererforever, @hanakokunzz , @bvlletwound, @kas1sh1bas1ke, @maomaoyuki, @xaeevie @pwushizz, @txyyyyyyyyyssssssss, @livvysoxytocin, @ventiij, @ruoussss, @kunimooch, @morangosdocesdsuki, @yumi-rxiden, @heavyonsloth, @saviiamzz129, @hilaryinumaki1

[yurunivo]

Ass, tits or thighs? (Ft nod krai cast) (Typical warnings of NSFW, fem!reader, mentions of a lactation kink in Albedo's, possible OOC for all of them. Fight me all you want in the comments if you want. English is not my first language)

(this plot is so overused. Does that mean I care? No, I'll do whatever I want so just enjoy my analysis or whatever)

Varka: Ass

He'd be super embarrassed about this question and probably blurt out "personality" or something like that. A knight shouldn't be so improper with his lover! But sometimes you see him staring a little too long on your behind for it to be a "friendly" look when you bend over to pick something up. If he's ever holding you close to him, his hands are always on the hips or waist, just close enough to your ass but never doing anything until you ask. Basically cock blocking himself lmao

Flins: Thighs

Also the type to say "personality" but more of an endearing way than anything else. Probably be like "you are so enchanting, how could I pick just one?" So he says personality instead. Though, he's never one to complain if he gets a nice shot of your thighs, doesn't care if they're small or big. He seems like the type of guy to enjoy giving oral, so having your thighs around his head is probably a fantasy of his.

Nefer: tits

Not ashamed of her answer, and it was quite obvious. She doesn't care about your body type either. If you're flat, she likes pinching and playing with your nipples from underneath your shirt, perhaps dragging her fingers along your areola. If you're well endowed she prefers to squish your tits between her fingers to relieve stress. One thing's for certain, with those claws on her fingers your skin will hurt and look red. Good thing she has her mouth to help.

Lauma: tits

Unlike Nefer, she prefers to admire your body from afar more than anything, and she is most importantly not crude. She likes laying her head on your chest regardless if your tits are big or not. If you're ever sore she likes massaging them within her fingers, but she'll never go past your boundaries. Though, if you ask her to take a step further she wouldn't mind, after all she does have a few fantasies and needs of her own.

Nicole: thighs

If you ever asked her this question, she'd at first go on a tangent about how human evolution evolved and why we find such body parts appealing despite them being storehouses of fat for the most part. If you ask her to give a straight answer she'd say thighs. She likes it when you wear shorts, maybe when you sit down and they seem to look bigger. Regardless of their size she likes to lay her head down there and stare up at you whilst yapping about another topic. If she feels cheeky she might bite.

Alice: ass

Practically has an obsession with slapping your ass, with how red it gets from her fondling sometimes. Especially likes it if you wear a tight dress or shorts, she just loveees admiring your figure. She may be busy but that won't exactly stop her from meeting you often enough to eye-fuck you. If you have a tattoo on your lower back best believe she's kissing that senseless. Other than that, she prefers to bend you over with her strap and take you from behind.

Arlecchino: thighs

You're often the one straddling her waist while she does her paperwork, and her hands always find themselves digging into your thighs. She'll stop if it hurts, but gods does she love looking at your legs when they're properly marked by her fingers. If she's eating you out expect plenty of teeth marks around your inner thigh. When she's holding you by your waist, she finds her fingers drawing circles on your hip, to outer thigh. Also likes the feeling of control when her hands spread your thighs open.

Columbina: tits

She takes a long time to think about it, especially since she likes all parts of you and never bothered to think about these sexual questions. She eventually says tits because they're the closest to your heart. She spends the time with you mostly listening to your heartbeat, so she finds it fair to prefer your tits. If anything else, you'll sometimes find her either squeezing or pinching your nipples since she's interested on your reactions and how they feel in her palm.

Illuga: tits

He'll freak out at first if you ever ask and refuse to answer. Though, he stares at your chest a lot more than what is necessary. If you have a gap between your tits, he likes fixating on that for whatever reason, especially when he can see that gap from your top. If you don't have a gap, that's fine too because he'll still be staring at how much space your breasts take. If you allow him to touch he'd probably do it once before chickening out. If you offer a titjob he's practically jello in your arms.

Sandrone: no preference

It's either she doesn't care or she cares for all parts of you equally. There's no real problem for her anyway, she takes what's most convenient. If you're cuddling with her her hands will rest on your tits. If you're standing beside her (with no one around) she'll place a hand on her ass. She likes observing how your thighs enlarge when you sit. You can please her with almost anything.

Dottore: different per segment.

Webtorre likes your tits, Omega your ass and prime your thighs. Though, if you attempt to seduce the different versions of him with any one, it will work. Webtorre will be the more eager of the three to grab a hold of your tits. Omega usually just takes whatever chance he gets and places a hand on your ass whenever he gets the opportunity of your bending over. Prime prefers it when you're cockwarming him and your thighs wrap around his waist. He gets hard just from the feeling of your thighs.

Wanderer: no preference

Also another one that doesn't care. If he's carrying you while he's flying, his hand will subtly palm your thighs. Time to time he listens to your heartbeat, so the cushioning on your chest is appreciated. If you don't have any, that's fine too. His hands are (for the most part) on your ass when you're walking together with no one around. He's not overtly dirty too, if you don't like it then he'll immediately stop.

Albedo: tits

I know that for most of the characters you've seen me saying tits but it's more true for him than ever. He feels like the type of guy to have a lactation kink to be honest. Like, he'd research it for normal purposes and be completely normal about it but it will eventually grow on him. If you're ever pregnant with his kid he will suck your tits at least once for a taste. He's very gentle otherwise, compared to a certain Nefer.

[parttimefae]

YOU MISS 100% OF THE SHOTS YOU DON’T TAKE

you think he’s terribly annoying… pff he totally doesn’t care…right?

CHARACTERS [seperate] varka, flins, wanderer, lohen

WARNINGS suggestiveness !!!! flins makes innuendos, trigger warning for second hand embarrassment in wanderers ngl, lohen’s a little weird, kay? is he considered a yandere idfk im not well versed enough in that but he is pretty obsessed with reader

NOTES writing before lohens release so take his characterization with a heap of salt. also ignore typos this was written off of a blunt lmao.

fem!reader !!! she/her pronouns are used

VARKA

if you could use one word to describe grandmaster varka it would be irritating.

blowing away and splattering all the food you’re delivering with his vision accidentally while playing around with klee? irritating. getting down on his knees, kissing your hand and swearing on his knighthood he’s sorry in front of everyone in mondstadt’s square? even more irritating. spilling his ginormous cup of beer on your dress when you happen to both be out at the same time—do you even need to say it? it’s irritating.

you appreciate what he does as a grandmaster for the greater people of mondstadt but barbatos does he hinder your life. if anyone asked you, you’d prefer to stray away from wherever he ends up.

he feels contrary to you. he thinks you’re fascinating. gorgeous, pristine, kind-hearted, intelligent, and by the archons does he love your cooking at the good hunter. he’s irrevocably endeared with you. if anyone were to ask him, he’d say he’d like to be (honored to be) in your presence constantly. it really is a shame his motor and social skills run out the window whenever you’re around. i mean the only reason he vision-malfunctioned was because his brain dead-stopped seeing you looking all pretty. he may be the grandmaster and greatest hero of mondstadt but he is a man after all. at least that’s how he sees it.

he’s aware you don’t like hate him, he’s aware his initial attempt at your forgiveness made you more embarrassed and upset than you already were, but if he’s one thing, it’s an alcoholic perseverant. so he will try everything in his power to win you over!

carrying bags? he’ll swing by and take those off your hands…maybe flex his muscles a little bit in front of you too but that’s totally unintentional. worried about creeps on your walk home before leaving the angel’s share? diluc move, varka’ll walk you back! believe me if you barged into the KoF headquarters and asked him to do something, he’d drop all his work in an instant to get it done… just please don’t hate him anymore.

you essentially have him on a leash, at least that’s what diluc tells you while sliding you over a drink.

you hate to admit that he is useful…sometimes.

you’re coming back to mondstadt with a delivery payment when hillichurls corner you halfway back. shit. you’re mulling over what the fuck do do when a slice of air flies past you and the hillichurls dissipate at the hands of two greatswords before you can even process it.

there’s the grand master, broad shoulders, scruffy blond hair and all, standing before you and towering over your frame.

“are you alright, ma’am?” he asks, voice laced with concern. of course he still insists upon calling you ma’am.

you mutter something’s small about being fine, flustered with how his bright blue eyes and annoyingly cute dimples stare down at you.

“well then it seems my job here is done. would you like me to walk you back to the city, ma’am?”

“i-it’s fine—just thank you.” you probably look like an idiot right now, craning your neck to look up at him and a stupid awkward grimace because you’re flustered. curse varka and his endearing smile. curse him especially for what you do next—varka’s fault of course. you shift all your weight to your tippie-toes and lean upwards just in time to kiss him on his cheek, right beneath his most prominent scar. you don’t think you’ve ever seen him so flustered.

he tries to say something but mumbled gibberish just comes out. his skin flushes marinara sauce red, his hands tense up and twitch, his stupid smirk transforms into a nervous awestruck half smile like a bee-stung dog.

you turn and walk away, just as flustered as he, muttering a barely coherent, “bye, sir varka.” and he just stands there like an idiot, hands still twitching and wandering randomly like he doesn’t know what to do with them (he’s nervy okay). by the time his hands finally know what to do, one of them drifts up to trace over where you kissed (blessed him essentially) his cheek like he’s not sure if you just did that. you did. he knows this is not very knightly language but holy shit.

no one’s sure why but the grandmaster seems to be in extra good spirits the following week.

FLINS

you swear to the archons flins was put on teyvat specifically to frustrate you.

him and his stupid flirty comments, stupidly handsome face you roll your eyes at, his ‘gentlemanly’ demeanor and his incredibly long eyelashes you’re honestly kinda jealous of. they’re all exceptionally frustrating.

if you hear “m’lady” or “allow me” (typically as he redirects you from a gathering of wild hunt and insists upon protecting you) in that smooth, droning voice again you’ll send his pasty ass back to snezhnaya yourself.

and the insistence upon taking your hand as he leads you back to the nearest area cleared of the wild hunt before returning to his post is absurd.

oh and then there’s the rather suggestive and frankly embarrassing comments.

arguing about how you are able to defend yourself and aren’t his damsel in distress to project his savior complex on— “solving this dilemma will not be hard. i believe i can satisfy your nerves in many, many ways m’lady.”

disgusted by the smell of fire-water on his breath as you both end up at the flagship coincidentally— “my apologies, miss. i did not think i was close enough to you for you to catch a whiff of my breath,” he laughs in a low drawl that upsets you further. “and to think i was mulling over getting closer.” i mean what the hell does that mean ???

him jumping in and saving you from those weird abyssal eyes—“as expected, i’m sure you’re a commodity to all eyes.”

and every single time he chuckles as you fluster and snap your head away, still staring at you with those bright yellow eyes that occasionally drift lower as you look away. that stupid chuckle that makes you feel halfway to hell. and the immediate follow up of “i assure you i do not intend to mock you.” yeah, right.

yeah, the ‘gentleman act’? you’re not buying it. you find the act unbearable, especially when he’s constantly following you around.

patrolling? flins somehow find himself there, claiming he’ll help since it’s his ‘downtime’. isn’t he supposed to be working constantly?

“it’s quite disheartening to see your distain for me. i presumed i’d grow on you but you still drive me away.”

“well i’d like you much better if you stopped following me around everywhere like a lost puppy.”

“i admit i have an affinity for you, i think anybody can assume that much.”

“well your mocking laughter and judgmental stares don’t convey that, sir flins.”

“i can assure you the looks are not judgemental, it’s placed in admiration, m’lady.” he pauses. “and you may call me kyryll, i insist.”

you stutter, flustered from him again. “shut up! go patrol on that side if you’d like to be in my good graces.”

“as you wish, m’lady.”

“stop calling me that!”

you’re still under the assumption he does this purely to annoy you, maybe one day you’ll realize he just wants that cookie so effing bad.

WANDERER

he does NOT care what you think about him… okay maybe he does… just a little bit tho. and he will NEVER admit it.

you’re a fellow student at the akademiya who is honestly fed up with his terribly annoying ego. he acts as if he’s entitled to something—as if he was like an important figure in an important organization at one point… like??

his fuckass hat and his even worse ego drive you especially mad when you’re assigned to peer review each other and he’s so pissy the whole time.

unbeknownst to you he’s not that big of a dick, close to half of it is a little tsundere persona to make you think he’s just playing hard to get. that way, he won’t have to do all the cringy “asking each other out” and, what he calls “ushy mushy romantic” things. ew.

so instead he’s spewing things like, “how in teyvat did you even get through the entrance exam if this is how your work looks?”

“you might aswell start over.”

he knows your work is good, probably better than his, but he’s trying to play hard to get—don’t you get it? unfortunately you don’t and you are sick of it.

“you know, wanderer, maybe if you got rid of that sorry excuse for a haircut you could get women on your dick and stop taking out all your frustrations on my work.” and then you storm out… babe not acquired :/ and wait—is his haircut really that bad? aunty nahida said he looked handsome… :(((

maybe that’s when he realizes he’s being a little too harsh and that his little tsundere act to try and get you to be into him won’t work.

he physically cannot ask anyone else for relationship advice out of embarrassment though so he will suffer in silence (he’s dramatic it’s really not that bad) for a while.

right up until the archons themselves bless him and give you two a group project together (along with other people but they don’t really matter to him). unfortunately, after your last interactions you want utterly nothing to do with him. his extremely blunt and non constructive criticism from before has in fact bit him in the ass.

maybe he needs to swallow his pride and ask for advice—not maybe, he does. but archons this really sucks. so he sends an anonymous letter to yae publishing house, apparently his mom’s girlfriend is pretty good in this whole romance thing so maybe she’ll help.

he gets his advice… it just turns out this influenced yae miko to develop a new short romance gl novel based on this experience. sure, nobody knows the new best seller is based on his (non-existent) romance scene and now turned lesbian but he can’t help but be embarrassed every time he sees it sitting shelved in a stall.

he takes the advice, leaves a corny letter by your apartment door step (in which he bolted away from incase anybody saw him) and said an…APOLOGY. very rare from him so you better not take this for granted. he felt so goddamn embarrassed the next time he saw you on campus—so embarrassed he was actually begging the archons that someone kills him when you greeted him.

you will unfortunately have to be the one to ask him out though—he just gets so nervy!! he ignored that part of the advice from the letter—and the part suggesting he grip your thigh to ‘assert dominance’ ??? what type of things are her and his mom into ?yuck! but he will be so corny the whole time you’re out on your first date. guy is tryna act like a nonchalant cool guy the whole time it’s like actually embarrassing. but it’s even more embarrassing when he gets flustered or asked something he didn’t rehearse in the mirror beforehand.

“so, wanderer, what do you like to do?”

“i don’t like a lot of things.”

“am i one of them?”

“uh..um—y-yeah, sure.” (picture this with a voice crack halfway through i’m dying)

somehow he does manage to bag you—probably only because of his face because archons does this man not know how to smooth talk.

he’d like to thank himself, kinda yae miko and a first date tips book he discretely took and returned to/from the akademiya library.

LOHEN

this vice captain has it BAD for you, his subordinate, and frankly it’s bad for you because of how much he follows you around like an annoying bug. as in an annoying fly that won’t go away and continues to buzz around in your face.

make a suggestion that he really has no business listening to as your superior? you’re immediately getting hit back with a, “yes! what an amazing idea!” running a secret mondstadt holiday gift exchange? he will purposefully pick your name and go way above the suggested mora pricing. on that note i think he’d be so upset if you got another person—worse enough another man that’s TALLER </3. and yes on every single matter he will default to your opinion !

i’d assume everybody else is probably terribly annoyed with his very clear favoritism…including you. he thinks he’s being so romantic and so sweet, meanwhile you’re like “huh?” every time he follows you around like a golden retriever, or more accurately a weird, scruffy little stray husky that you fed crumbs once and keeps coming back to your door step.

makes it so clear he wants you around. he is so damn insistent you’re free to come to his office with any questions whenever—code for: “please please please come to my office oh barbatos if you love me she’ll come to my office and she’ll profess her love to me”

unfortunately for him when you actually do go to his office, it’s to tell him to not be so clear with his favoritism as your colleagues and comrades have started to hate you. aw man :(((

he infact does not stop though because he #wantsthatcookie. and like c’mon can you just do that professing love thing already—does barbatos really not love him :/ he’s already defeated and brought back a ruin guard’s part for you, claiming it was “out of appreciation for his hardest working subordinate”, isn’t that romantic enough ? you stared at him and asked why he thought you would like that. hmm maybe he should try more conventional gifts.

eventually somebody has to sit him down and tell him that showing his very obvious obsession with you in all the ways he does will not get him the girl. okay fine whatever he’ll try “asking you on a date” eyeroll. and “not following you around begging for your attention” ughh. fine.

believe his surprise when you actually like it better when he’s normal about you. he even heard through the grapevine you said he’s looked “better” lately. now you blush and happily accept when he offers to take you out for drinks. was it really that simple from the start? (yes it really was)

that whole night he’s just talking your ear off but it’s honestly kind of… endearing? it’s like if that stray little husky got his coat washed and groomed.

the night ends with a kiss on his cheek and oh my archons he’s over the moon. guys fighting demons to not act all obsessed again—keyword act. this man would let you feed him to wolves of wolvendom and like it.

but he does use his weirdo rizz on you and it does work. not even satirically, surprise to everybody, he does end up with the girl—so fuck you to barbatos and everyone else that doubted him. you are in for a RIDE once you’re together. do not expect to be separated from him at all. and now he actually has an excuse to be completely off his rocker when another person talks to you. his nightmares probably consist of you going on an expedition with another man honestly.

[romopiod]

TOGETHER?!

SYNOPSIS. Someone assumes the two of you are together, when you’re not (yet), how does he react?

FEATURING. Al-Haitham, Wanderer, Wriothesley, Xiao

WORD COUNT. 5.5k

NOTES. We are not gonna talk about how I wrote for half the number of characters this time around but still ended up with the same word count. We are not talking about that. There will be no mention. Also, you are sort of... mildly threatened in Wrio's part? Not by him, ofc.

Buuut, its fluff all around!! Fem!reader, she/her pronouns used.

Part 1, Part 2 (you're here!)

Al-Haitham

You'd been coming to Al-Haitham's place for research so often that it had stopped feeling like you were imposing. He'd never made you feel like you were, which was the thing about him—he didn't do false hospitality. If he didn't want you there, he'd say so. The fact that he kept making tea and setting out space for your notes suggested he actually didn't mind.

Today you weren't even pretending the visit was strictly academic. You'd finished what you needed to do an hour ago, but you'd both just... stayed. You were sitting at the table while Al-Haitham read something, occasionally looking up to comment on whatever you were saying. It was easy. Comfortable in a way that surprised you, given how sharp he could be.

"That scholar from the other day," you said, thinking out loud. "The one who argued that Dendro propagation follows a seasonal pattern regardless of region?"

"The one who contradicted himself twice?" Al-Haitham asked, not looking up from his page.

"Exactly. He came up to me in the hallway today and doubled down on it. Like he genuinely believed repeating himself would make it more true."

Al-Haitham turned a page. "Some people mistake conviction for evidence."

"Is that what you do when you're wrong?" you asked. "Just state it more firmly?"

He glanced at you then, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. Not quite a smile, but close. "I'm rarely wrong."

"That's the conviction talking, not evidence."

"Actually, the evidence is extensive," he said, returning to his reading. "But I appreciate your effort to provoke me."

You'd thrown a pen at him for that, and he'd caught it without looking, set it down beside him, and continued reading like interruptions were just part of his normal day. Which, around you, they apparently were.

That was the thing about Al-Haitham. He didn't waste energy on pretense. He said what he thought, you either agreed or you didn't, and the conversation moved on without any of the exhausting social dance that made time with other people feel like work. Somewhere along the way, you'd stopped making excuses for why you were at his place so often. He'd stopped asking you to justify it. You just showed up, he made tea, and hours would pass without either of you particularly noticing.

You were halfway through explaining why you thought that scholar's methodology was flawed when Kaveh emerged from his room, looking distinctly disheveled and irritated. His eyes immediately landed on the sink full of dishes, and you watched his entire face sour.

"Are you serious right now?" he said, staring at them like they'd personally offended him. "I cleaned this yesterday."

"You did," Al-Haitham said, not looking up from his reading. "That doesn't mean it stays clean indefinitely."

"It's been one day!" Kaveh gestured wildly at the sink. "One day and you've already—you know what, I'm not doing this. I'm not your maid."

"No one asked you to be," Al-Haitham replied, his tone completely level. "I was going to wash them."

"When?" Kaveh demanded. "When you finally take a break from whatever you're doing? I don't understand how anyone tolerates this. How do you even manage spending this much time with him?" He looked directly at you, and his expression softened slightly, almost sympathetic.

You felt Al-Haitham's attention shift slightly, but he didn't look up from his book. "Well," you said, laughing, "he makes good tea. And he's usually right about things, which is annoying but useful for my research."

Kaveh laughed, shaking his head like you'd just confirmed something he'd suspected. "That's fair, I guess. But I really don't know how you managed to get a girlfriend who's smart, funny, and actually willing to put up with him. The last part is honestly the most shocking."

The words landed, and for a moment you couldn't quite process them. A girlfriend. He'd just assumed, in the most casual way, that you were Al-Haitham's girlfriend. Your face went hot immediately. You opened your mouth to correct him, to clarify, to explain that you and Al-Haitham were just—

"Your method is inefficient," Al-Haitham said to Kaveh, turning a page in his book like the comment had never happened. "You rewashed items last week that didn't need rewashing. That's wasteful."

Kaveh's head snapped toward him. "You're seriously lecturing me about dish-washing right now?"

"Someone should," Al-Haitham said. "Your approach suggests you're cleaning reactively rather than systematically. You should establish a schedule."

Kaveh's voice went up. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is why I don't understand how anyone—"

"If you'd just listen instead of assuming," Al-Haitham continued, still not looking up, "you'd realize systematic cleaning takes less time overall. Your current method is objectively less efficient."

Kaveh opened his mouth, closed it, then threw his hands up and disappeared back into his room. You heard his door slam, and then there was just silence.

You sat there, staring at your notes without actually seeing them. Al-Haitham had completely ignored what Kaveh had said. He hadn't corrected the assumption about you being his girlfriend. He'd just... moved past it. Addressed something else entirely like the comment was irrelevant.

But it wasn't irrelevant. You could feel it sitting there between the two of you, unacknowledged but present. The fact that he hadn't corrected it meant something. You weren't sure what, but it meant something.

Al-Haitham turned another page. You watched him do it, waiting to see if he'd acknowledge what had just happened. He didn't. He just kept reading like this was a normal afternoon, like your heart wasn't doing something strange in your chest.

An hour later, you said you should probably head back to your dormitory. Al-Haitham stood when you did, and as you were gathering your things, he said, "I'm going that way. I'll walk with you."

It wasn't a question. You grabbed your bag, and the two of you stepped out into the night. The temperature had dropped significantly since you'd arrived at his place. The air was sharp and cold, and you found yourself wrapping your arms around yourself without really thinking about it.

You felt Al-Haitham notice. He didn't say anything for a moment, just kept walking beside you. Then, without any fanfare, he was shrugging off his jacket and draping it around your shoulders.

"Al-Haitham—"

"You're cold," he said simply. Then he was pulling you closer by the sleeve, drawing you against his side. His warmth was immediate, and you could feel the steady rhythm of his breathing.

You walked in silence for a moment, unable to focus on anything except the fact that he hadn't corrected Kaveh. That he was walking like this with you now, your arm linked with his, his jacket around you.

"Kaveh thought we were together," you said finally. Some part of you did that to spark conversation, an interesting little tit-bit to talk about. The other, more genuine part brought it up because it had been killing you for hours. It felt like a little animal inside your rib cage that was constantly being killed and brought back to life, a little flicker of hope, a mix of dread. You wanted an answer. 

Al-Haitham hummed non-commitally. You could feel the weight of his arm around you, steady and deliberate.

"Did it bother you?" he asked, raising a brow.

The question caught you off guard. You'd expected him to explain himself, to rationalize why he hadn't corrected Kaveh. Instead, he'd flipped it back on you.

"That's not—I was asking why you didn't—"

"I know what you were asking," he said. His tone matter-of-fact. "I'm asking what matters more. Whether I corrected him, or whether the assumption bothered you."

You opened your mouth and closed it. You weren't sure how to answer that honestly.

"It didn't bother me," you said finally, and it was true. It hadn't bothered you. It had confused you, unsettled you, made your pulse race for reasons you didn't want to examine too closely. But bothered wasn't the right word.

"Then we're fine," he said.

"Al-Haitham—"

"Besides," he said, and there was the faintest hint of something that might have been amusement in his voice, "I didn't say he was wrong about the general principle."

Wanderer

You were three pages into your research on Dendro propagation when Wanderer arrived at your study table without asking if he could sit. He didn't ask permission for things like that. He just pulled up a chair and settled in like he'd always been meant to be there.

"That's going to be wrong," he said, not bothering with a greeting.

You didn't look up from your notes. "You haven't even seen what I'm arguing."

"Doesn't matter. Whatever thesis you're building on that foundation is going to collapse." He leaned back in his chair. "The propagation rates in the northern regions don't follow the same pattern as the southern ones."

You did look up then, specifically to narrow your eyes at him. "That's because I'm specifically studying the southern regions. The northern data is irrelevant to my argument."

"It's always relevant," he said. "Ignoring contradictory data doesn't make your conclusion stronger. It makes you look like you didn't do the work."

The comment landed like a jab. You wanted to argue, but he wasn't entirely wrong. You made a note to revisit the northern data, grudgingly accepting that he'd identified a gap in your research. There was something about the way he sat across from you—completely at ease in his certainty—that made you want to prove him wrong just to see if he'd admit it when you did.

"Anything else, or are you done?" you asked, turning back to your work.

"For now," he said. "I need to find that text on Dendro cultivation. Should be in the older section."

He stood and disappeared into the depths of the Archives, and you returned to your notes. You'd lost track of time when you noticed someone settling into the chair he'd vacated. One of the other scholars—someone whose name you could probably remember if you tried, but hadn't bothered to. He was the type who was always hovering around, always trying to insert himself into conversations in ways that made your skin crawl slightly. There was an entitlement to him, the kind of confidence that came from never being told no and deciding that meant he didn't have to listen when someone eventually did.

"So," he said, leaning back in the chair like he owned it, "you're always studying. You should take a break sometime. Come get dinner with me."

It wasn't a question. It was stated like a foregone conclusion, like your agreement was merely a formality. You didn't look up from your work. "I'm pretty busy right now."

"Come on," he said, and there was an edge to his voice that suggested he didn't appreciate being declined so casually. "You can't study all the time. I know this place outside the city. We could go tonight."

"I really can't," you said, keeping your tone polite but firm. You turned a page, hoping the gesture would make it clear you wanted to return to your work.

He was quiet for a moment, and you thought maybe he'd gotten the message. But then he leaned forward, and his tone shifted into something sharper, more frustrated.

"What does he have that I don't?" he asked, and there was real irritation underneath the words now.

You looked up, confused. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Wanderer," he said, his jaw tightening. "You're always with him. Every time I see you, he's here. You two are constantly together, and I don't understand what he has that makes you so willing to waste your time with him but not willing to give me five minutes. So what does he have that I don't?"

Before you could respond, before you could even figure out what you wanted to say, Wanderer appeared. He was just suddenly there, that book in hand, and his expression was the kind of blank that suggested he'd caught enough of the conversation to understand exactly what was happening.

"A brain," he said flatly, and his voice had that particular edge that made people take him seriously. "How about you go and pester someone else?"

The scholar's face flushed immediately. He tried to salvage the situation with some blustering comment about respect, but Wanderer had already turned away with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Humans," he said, more to himself than to anyone in particular. "Can you believe them? Making assumptions about things they don't understand. It's exhausting." 

He settled back into his chair like nothing had happened, opening his book with the kind of finality that suggested the conversation was over. He didn't look at you. Didn't acknowledge the scholar's eventual departure. Just sat in silence, reading or pretending to read, and left you sitting there with the weight of what had just happened pressing down on you.

The scholar eventually gathered his things and left, embarrassed and defeated.

You should have left it at that. Should have just gone back to your research and forgotten the whole interaction. It was the kind of thing that happened sometimes—someone misread a situation, made an assumption, got shut down. But as you watched Wanderer settle back into his chair, something stuck with you.

He hadn't corrected the scholar. He'd had the perfect opportunity to clarify—to say "we're not together" or "she's free to see whoever she wants." Instead, he'd simply shut it down with a cutting remark and moved on like the misunderstanding wasn't even worth acknowledging. The fact that he'd called out the assumption about humans making assumptions felt deliberate somehow, like he was pointing out something specific about what had just happened without actually saying it outright.

Hours passed. You continued your research, but your mind kept drifting back to that moment. To the way Wanderer had stepped in without hesitation. 

You found yourself noticing things you probably should have paid attention to earlier. The way Wanderer always positioned himself where he could see you in the Archives. How he'd appear exactly when you needed him, like he had some sixth sense for when you were about to run into trouble. The small gestures that suddenly seemed like they might mean something more than friendly concern. How he leaned closer when you were talking, like he didn't want to miss anything you said. The way his attention was always on you, even when he was pretending to focus on something else.

By the time evening rolled around and you were both packing up your things to leave, you were thoroughly unsettled. You couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't make sense of why he'd let the assumption stand. Why he hadn't corrected it.

Wanderer noticed. You could tell by the way he glanced at you, by the particular expression on his face that suggested he'd been watching you think all afternoon.

"You've been quiet," he observed. "Usually you're insufferable by this point in the day."

You didn't bother denying it. "Are you thinking about what happened in the Archives?" he asked, and there was something almost knowing in his tone, like he'd been waiting for you to bring it up.

You hesitated, then decided there was no point in pretending. "Yes. When that scholar made his assumption, you didn't deny it. You just let him think what he wanted."

He was already walking toward the exit, assuming you'd follow. You did follow, because of course you did. You always did.

"Why does it matter?" he asked as you walked through the hallways. "Why do titles matter anyway?  People are obsessed with naming things, categorizing them, putting them into boxes so they can feel like they understand something. It's exhausting."

"That's not an answer," you said, frustration creeping into your voice. "You could have just told him the truth."

"I've had too many names and identities to care about what we're called," he said, adjusting his hat to block the evening sun. "But I know what you mean to me."

The admission hung between you, heavy with implication. You felt your pulse pick up, felt something shift fundamentally in the way you were looking at him.

"And what do I mean to you?" you asked, your voice quieter now.

He smirked, and that familiar arrogance slipped back into place. But there was warmth underneath it, something that looked suspiciously like fondness.

"How about you figure it out?" he said, tilting his head slightly. "You know, for someone so intelligent, you're remarkably oblivious."

You stood there for a moment, completely still, watching him disappear around the corner without a backward glance. Your pulse was racing, your chest felt tight with something unfamiliar and terrifying, and you were left standing there in the empty street realizing that you'd completely miscalculated everything about him, about this, about whatever was happening between you. The worst part was that he knew it too.

Wriothesley

The Duke of the Fortress of Meropide had a habit of making you wait. Every time you had an excuse to visit his office, he'd somehow find a way to extend your stay. A question about the documents you'd brought. A piece of tea he wanted your opinion on. A conversation that started about work and drifted into something that had nothing to do with the Fortress at all. Every time, the line between professional and personal blurred when you were with him. And if you were being honest, you didn’t mind that at all. 

Today you'd come to deliver some documents. You'd done it a dozen times. But as you walked through the corridors, you found yourself hoping he'd be free. Hoping he'd ask you to stay for a few minutes. Hoping for that particular smile he got when he saw you—the one that suggested you were the most interesting thing that had happened to his day. Which was ridiculous. He was the Duke of the Fortress. He had actual responsibilities. The fact that you'd somehow become part of his routine was probably just coincidence. Or convenience. Certainly not because he enjoyed your company the way you'd started to enjoy his.

His office door was open when you arrived. He was reviewing paperwork, but he looked up the moment you knocked.

"Documents?" he asked, already setting down his pen.

"From the west wing," you confirmed, crossing the room to set them on his desk. "The quarterly inventory."

He gestured to the chair across from him. "Stay. I want to ask you about the discrepancies in the last count."

It was a convenient excuse. You both knew there were no significant discrepancies. All the paperwork you did was perfect, and Wriothesely knew that. But you sat anyway, because you were, apparently, incapable of saying no to him.

The next hour passed in a blur of conversation that had nothing to do with inventory. He asked about your week, mentioned something he'd read that reminded him of you, made you laugh at some observation about one of the other guards. His attention was focused entirely on you, and it was intoxicating in a way you weren't prepared to examine too closely.

At one point, he stood to get something from his filing cabinet, and when he passed your chair, his hand brushed your shoulder. It was such a small gesture, probably meaningless. Except you'd noticed he did it every time he walked past you. A small touch. Like he needed to reassure himself you were still there.

Or maybe you were reading too much into it, and he did that with everyone.

"You're distracted," he observed, settling back into his chair. "Something on your mind?"

"No, I'm fine," you said quickly. "Just thinking about work."

"I have a meeting with the senior guards in a few minutes," he said, glancing at his pocket watch. "Bureaucratic tedium. You're welcome to wait here if you'd like. Shouldn't take more than an hour."

Your pulse did something stupid at the casual offer. Stay in his office. Alone. Surrounded by his things. "Sure," you said, trying to sound unbothered. "I have time."

He stood, straightening his jacket. "There's tea on the side table. Help yourself to anything you need." After he left, you told yourself you'd spend the time reading one of the books on his shelf. Instead, you found yourself noticing small things. The way his desk was organized but not obsessively so. The way he'd left his chair still warm. The faint scent of something cool and expensive that you'd come to associate with him. This was getting out of hand. 

You needed to be more careful about how much time you spent in his company, how much you looked forward to it. The Fortress wasn't a place where relationships happened casually. People noticed things. People talked. The city as a whole was a place rife with gossip, and you weren’t exactly sure if this was the kind of gossip that needed to be spread. 

You stood and walked to the window, staring out at the courtyard below. The guards were doing their rounds. You weren't paying attention to your surroundings the way you should have been when you decided to stretch your legs in the corridor.

The hand on your arm came from nowhere. You were spun around, slammed against the cold stone wall before you could process what was happening. The air left your lungs in a sharp gasp.

An inmate. One you didn't recognize, eyes wild and desperate.

"You're with him, aren't you?" he hissed, his grip on your arm painfully tight. "The Duke. His partner. You'd know things."

Your heart was pounding so hard you thought it might burst. Fear flooded through you, crystalline and sharp. This was real. This was actually happening.

"I don't—" you started, but his grip tightened.

"Don't lie to me," he spat. "Where's the emergency exit? Where does he keep the keys?"

You tried to pull away, tried to think of something to say that might defuse this, but panic was making your thoughts scatter.

His other hand came up.

Then he was gone.

Wriothesley stood between you and him, and you'd never seen him look like this. All the charm, all the politeness stripped away. What remained was something colder. He looked every bit likt eh terrifying, infamous warden of Meropide. The kind of man you heard rumors about from people all around Fontaine but were hard pressed to believe them because he was never like that with you. Until now.

"Touch her again," Wriothesley said, his voice dropping, "and you'll find out exactly why I run this place." He didn't raise his voice. The threat was implicit in everything about him. The way he stood, the way his eyes had gone cold, the certainty that he could make good on whatever he was implying.

The inmate scrambled backward, apologizing frantically, and Wriothesley didn't even watch him go. He turned to you immediately.

"Are you hurt?" His voice shifted back to something more familiar, but there was still an edge to it. His hands came up like he wanted to touch you but was restraining himself.

You shook your head, still trembling. Your arm ached where the inmate had grabbed you. "I'm okay. I'm fine."

Wriothesley guided you back to his office without a word, one hand on the small of your back. Steady. Grounding. Once inside, he had you sit while he examined your arm, his touch gentle now, checking for damage.

"He didn't break the skin," he said. "But you'll have bruises."

You nodded, still trying to process what had just happened.

After several minutes of silence, when your heart had stopped racing quite so violently, the other part of what had happened filtered through.

You let out a shaky laugh—the kind that comes from adrenaline finally releasing. "Well. That was terrifying."

Wriothesley watched you, his expression softening slightly now that the immediate danger had passed.

"Maybe I should stop spending so much time with you," you said, trying to inject some levity into your voice. "He thought we were together. If I'm going to get cornered by inmates, at least let it be for something I'm actually guilty of."

He let out a low chuckle, shaking his head. "Is that what you're concerned about? Your reputation?"

"Among other things," you said, managing a small smile. "Mostly just the part where I nearly got my arm broken because someone thought I had access to your secrets."

"Fair point," he said, and there was genuine warmth in his expression now. He stood and moved to lean against his desk, close enough that you could see the amusement lingering in his eyes. "Though for what it's worth, that inmate did you a favor. Gave you a decent excuse to stay in my office longer than usual without anyone questioning it."

You stared at him. "That's your takeaway from nearly being cornered?"

"One of several," he said, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "Though I admit the timing was inconvenient. I was just starting to enjoy our conversation."

"You're impossible," you said, but there was no real heat in it.

He tilted his head slightly, considering you. "You could always use it as an excuse to come back more often. For your safety, naturally. Can't have you getting cornered again." His tone was light. "The offer stands. Anytime you need it."

The way he said it made clear he wasn't really talking about the physical space anymore.

Xiao

You'd learned to recognize the patterns of Xiao's presence. The way he appeared on your commissions before you'd even finished the previous one, materializing from nowhere with that particular blend of concern and restraint that he tried so hard to hide. How he'd always position himself where he could see you, even when he pretended he wasn't watching, his attention a constant weight you'd grown accustomed to. The small, almost imperceptible softening in his expression when you looked his way—a shift so brief you'd miss it if you weren't paying attention. But you were always paying attention.

Today's commission had been brutal. Your muscles ached with the kind of deep weariness that came from hours of constant movement, and your clothes were torn in at least two places. You were fairly certain you had a bruise forming on your ribs, tender to the touch. By the time you'd finished and made your way back to the inn, all you could think about was a hot bath and sleep, in that order. You climbed the stairs toward your room, already mentally preparing yourself for the solitude of it, when you remembered you hadn't eaten yet.

You made your way to the balcony overlooking the courtyard instead, needing air before food. And Xiao was there, exactly where he always was, leaning against the railing like he'd been waiting. You'd stopped trying to figure out how he got there before you did—he was an adeptus, after all, and teleportation was hardly the strangest thing about him. One moment the balcony was empty, the next he was there, solid and present, his gaze already on you.

"You're hurt," he said, his eyes sweeping over you with that clinical precision he had, taking in every torn seam and scraped knuckle.

"Just sore," you replied, settling onto the railing a few feet away from him. The evening air was cool against your skin. "Nothing serious."

"You should have called my name," he said, and there was something almost accusatory in his tone. "I would have protected you."

You couldn't resist. "Aw, were you worried?" you asked, tilting your head with a small smile.

He looked away, toward the valley. "I'm always worried about you," he said, his voice quieter than before but no less earnest. There was no deflection in it, no attempt to soften the statement with humor or distance. Just the plain truth, delivered with the kind of sincerity that made your chest tighten.

You didn't tease him further. Just sat in comfortable silence for a moment, watching the sunset paint the sky in shades of orange and pink. The wind moved through the courtyard below, carrying the scent of evening flowers and distant rain.

The innkeeper appeared on the balcony carrying a tray with soup, bread, and fresh water—the way they always did when you returned from your commissions. They were smiling warmly, clearly pleased with themselves for the thoughtfulness.

"Your partner must be hungry as well after watching you out there all day," they said kindly, setting the tray down on the small table beside you. Partner, you registered with faint amusement.

Their gaze flickered to Xiao, who was standing at the railing, and you could see them putting the pieces together in their mind. The protective stance. The way his attention never wavered from you. The obvious care. "Should I bring something for them as well?"

The words landed, and you felt Xiao go rigid beside you. You had to suppress a smile at the sheer absurdity of it. Partner. Xiao. The adeptus who spent half his time trying to convince you he didn't care about much else besides his ‘karmic duty’, who was allergic to admitting feelings, who acted like wanting someone was the most burdensome thing in the world.

"We're not—" Xiao said curtly, his voice sharp with irritation. He didn't even look at the innkeeper, just stared straight ahead. "I'm not her partner."

The innkeeper flinched slightly at his tone and quickly retreated with an apologetic bow, clearly having misjudged the situation.

And that's when you lost it.

"Oh my god," you said, not even trying to hide your grin as Xiao stood there, clearly agitated, his entire body practically vibrating with embarrassment. "Did you just—did you actually just deny that in front of everyone?"

"Don't," he said flatly, but you could already see the flush creeping up his neck. His ears were turning pink.

"Your ears are completely red right now," you continued, absolutely delighted at this rare display of genuine flustering. "I didn't know you could blush like that. It's actually kind of adorable."

"I wasn't blushing," he said, but his ears somehow got even redder at the mention of it, which rather defeated the entire purpose of his denial and made the situation even funnier.

"You denied it so fast," you said, leaning back in your chair with the kind of satisfaction that comes from genuinely embarrassing an immortal being. "I've never seen you move that quickly. Usually you're all stoic and composed, and then someone says 'partner' and suddenly you're rushing across a room like—"

"That did not occur," he muttered, and you could practically feel the irritation radiating off him in waves. “...no respect for the Adepti,” he mumbled under his breath.

"You were embarrassed," you pressed, enjoying this far too much. "Genuinely flustered. Xiao, what would be so bad about people thinking we were—"

"It's not that," he cut you off, his voice sharp with frustration. He finally looked directly at you, and there was real emotion in his expression—the kind of frustration that comes from not being able to articulate something you're desperately feeling, something that's been building up inside you. "It's just... people don't understand what I am. What being associated with me means. It's—" He stopped himself, jaw clenching hard enough that you could see the muscle work beneath his skin.

You tilted your head, your smile softening slightly as you realized this wasn't just about embarrassment anymore. "What? Being associated with you is what?"

He was quiet for a long moment. The sounds of the inn filled the space between you—the gentle murmur of other diners, the clink of dishes in the kitchen, the wind moving through the open windows. You could see the internal struggle playing out across his face, the way he was fighting to find words for something that clearly didn't have any.

When he finally spoke, his voice was lower. Quieter. Like he was admitting something he'd been trying desperately not to say, something that had been eating at him for longer than either of you probably wanted to acknowledge.

"You're the only thing I've ever wanted to keep. And that scares me more than anything."

Your breath caught. The teasing dropped from your expression entirely. Your pulse picked up in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with exhaustion or adrenaline. It was just him. Just those words, delivered with such raw honesty that you felt them like a physical thing, like they'd reached inside your chest and squeezed.

"Xiao, I—" you started, but the words wouldn't come.

He stood abruptly, like staying still was suddenly unbearable. He simply disappeared—one moment solid and present, the next gone entirely, like he'd never been there at all. You sat alone on the balcony with the untouched tray of food, heat flooding your cheeks, your heart racing so hard you were certain the entire inn could hear it.

You had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

...i should really stop getting out of control with the word count >:(( but i get too excited writing about them 😭

Dividers by: @cafekitsune

[seqretheart]

Genshin men - moments of affection

All Genshin men x gn!reader (alphabetically) / sfw / established relationship -> women version (coming soon)

Aether

He won't acknowledge the way he sinks back into your touch when your fingers thread through the golden strands of hair hanging down his back, nor the way a low rumbling sound of bliss seems to emerge from the back of his throat when you massage a particularly sensitive spot on his head. Simply the feeling of your gentle hands brushing and re-braiding his adventure-knotted hair is a reprieve from his demanding everyday life.

Albedo

Watching you sleep is something he can't seem to stop, eyes wandering to you slouched form, observing the rhythmatic way your chest rises and falls as you dream, draped across his work desk or tucked into his side. He'll smooth a gloved hand across your hair, or drape a blanket around your shoulders to prevent the sub zero temperatures of dragonspine from seeping in. There's just something so peaceful about the way you look that soothes his fabricated heart.

Alhaitham

He'll be lounging on the plush cushions of your sofa after a long day of being the academia's scribe, one arm resting lazily behind his head and the other cradling some academic text or another. You'll slide in beside him, attempting to squeeze yourself in next to his broad form on the narrow sofa and he'll grumble under his breath in feigned complaint - he never really means it - but the shift of a bicep from behind him to tucking you securely into his side tells another story.

Ayato

He often takes a brief respite from his duties to wander the estate grounds, pausing in doorways when he hears the soft tune of your humming as he passes by. You'll be doing something inconsequential he doesn't bother to note, but the sound - no matter how perfect or off key it might be, it matters little to him - just seems to lure him closer. He'll wind his arms around your waist, whispering in your ear with a tone full of both amusement and fondness alike - yet he won't yet mention how the mundanity of such a task feels like a refreshing break from the formality of his everyday life.

Baizhu

Never will he outright admit his condition has worn him down, yet when you see him and the weariness of bearing the weight of Liyue's health on his shoulders, it touches a soft, vulnerable part of his tired heart. He'll gently decline your invitation to help, his duty is something he deigned to shoulder alone - and that is to be his fate - though when you insist on sharing that burden, such a concerned expression on your face well, he just can't say no to you it seems.

Capitano

He's not accustomed to gentleness or softness, so the contrast of your slow, soothing touch against the cold hard steel of his helmet is such a foreign sensation he takes weeks to get used to it. Your soft hands trace the inky black abyss where his face would be with such tenderness it feels like he doesn't deserve this sort of adoration, yet he'll lean down into your touch, bringing one large hand up to dwarf your own, brushing his fingers against your knuckles in what he hopes is a gentle manner.

Childe

He may or may not say - depending on the outcome - that being scolded by you is something of a guilty pleasure, though guilty is probably less of the right word in his case, try obvious. He tries at least a little to school his expression into something neutral when you frown and press the antibacterial cloth a little harder into the cuts littering his skin, telling him off for being so reckless. Despite the reprimanding tone of your voice, he can see the worry flickering across your expression - ok maybe he's a little guilty now.

Cyno

He returns home late most days, well into the early hours of the morning, so the last thing he expects is to see you slumped over the arm of the sofa - clearly where you've slid down from an upright position. He'll slide strong arms under you and slide you back into bed, only joining you after shedding all his heavy gear and the weight of his duties for the night. You'll receive a mild lecture in the morning - why you shouldn't wait up for him when it poorly impacts your own sleep - but when you shyly mention you seem to struggle to sleep without the warmth of his presence next to you, he can't help but soften and let you off the hook, only to find you in the exact same position the next night.

Dahlia

He's easy to please, any time spent in your company is pleasure enough for Dahlia, yet when you drag him to the sofa with two cups of warm sugary tea waiting for you on the coffee table - insisting he regale you with every minute detail of his day (not to mention the gossip he mentioned offhandedly a few days ago) - it's both surprising and heart warming to realise you've noticed and listened to the random things he says. And for that, he'll gladly indulge your curiosity, no matter how mundane.

Diluc

Watching you tiptoe your way back into the bedroom, swathed in one of his silken shirts that practically drowns your form and balancing a cup of coffee in each hand will forever be one of Diluc's favourite sights. You don't even notice he's awake, half propped up on his elbows with that piercing crimson gaze following you as you edge closer. When you do eventually catch him staring and burst out into laughter, passing him his mug as you slip back into the sheets beside him, he'll allow himself to join in, even if a little pink in the cheeks.

Dottore

He'll openly admit that he gets a little thrill when you depend on him for anything. No matter if it's something trivial and you could most likely do it yourself or you genuinely require help from him or a segment (unless you're interrupting important research - that will earn you a look that could put you in your grave and an irritated huff indicating you should 'do something yourself for once'). Though his favourite instance is when you get sick, he can test all manner of new remedies on you to his hearts content, satisfying that mad scientist element in him, but also quietly tend to that tiny part of him that still has something loving inside.

Heizou

Oh if anything could prove more entertaining and endearing then having you perched on his lap, attempting to help solve a case he figured out twenty minutes ago. He would tell you, but the sight of your brow furrowed in concentration and the gleeful look on your face when you turn around to point out a clue you'd linked is so terribly charming to the poor detective he'll follow along for just a little while longer. He then tests how many times he can repeat this scenario before you notice that he's already solved these cases, he just enjoys seeing your face light up, even more so when his own cheeks tint pink at the sight.

Flins

He's developed the awful habit of hiding away in his lantern every time you so much as have a petty dispute - terrible sulker that he is. Every time you sigh, chastising his childish behaviour under your breath but still picking up said lantern, purple glow flooding the darkness of the corridors, and set it on the bedside table before turning to sleep - he never expects it. He eventually comes to the amusing realisation you most likely can't sleep without him near, or struggle to at the least. When you wake, you'll find a certain fae out of hiding, wound around you like a constrictor with his face buried in the crook of your neck.

Gorou

Seldom does he let anyone near his canine features, until you manage to become a small exception to that rule. Oh he'll never admit it, but the blissful sleepy expression on his face whilst you comb through the matted fur of his tail after an exhausting day sparring and patrolling betrays his true emotions. If you deign to tease him even a little, he blushes a furious red and huffs in grumbled protest, yet he still can't seem to pull away from your soothing touch.

Ifa

Oh he's weak for seeing you in his clothes. When he emerges from the bedroom to find you perched on the edge of the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in hand and another waiting beside you, black and bitter - exactly how he has it - his discarded shirt from last night haphazardly thrown on, he swears he has momentary heart palpitations. Even more so when you throw a knowing grin his way and gesture to the cooling caffeine waiting for him.

Itto

The bigger question is what don't you do that makes him fold instantly? If he had to pick one thing in particular however, it would have to be when you indulge his childish dramatics. He'll boast about an onikabuto fight against a child from the city he won, he's aware it's not anything significant, yet when you laugh and clap encouragingly, it touches him in profound ways he can't seem to articulate.

Kaeya

He may not remember it most of the time, his memories a hazy blur of wine and charm, yet on the occasion he does recall you leaning his weight against you and dragging him home from the angel's share to heard him into bed and make him drink some water - swiping a damp cloth over his forehead in an attempt to sober him up just a little, lest he suffer another god awful hangover - he feels the sickeningly sweet feeling of what he refuses to admit is love settle at the pit of his stomach.

Kaveh

Oh he's far too flustered to admit that when he finds himself slumped against his desk, head on an array of architectural papers and pencil still in hand - waking up to instead realise he's propped up on a pillow, blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a freshly made cup of tea still emitting steam inches away - his heart does a little flip in his chest. He knows you know it's a bad habit he won't stop anytime soon, yet the little things you do show him just how much you care.

Kazuha

He's a wandering spirit, unable to stay in one place for too long, and though it pains him to leave you behind every now and then - he can't help but feel a little more in love every time he sees you at the dock, waving at him with that saccharine smile and unbridled enthusiasm. It's the knowledge that you'll always be here, waiting for him to inevitably follow his loyal heart back to you that keeps him going.

Kinich

In the rare moments Ajaw isn't trailing behind Kinich like a loud record that won't ever stop playing - much to both yours and Kinich's disdain - he can't help but allow himself the indulgence of your touch. He may not seem like a very touchy guy on the outside, which is partially true, but with Ajaw's frequent interference, physical contact is a luxury not often afforded. So he finds himself wrapping his arms around you like he'll be ripped away the next second, leaning into the warmth of your body like it's his saving grace.

Lyney

He's become so adept at maintaining the façade, the show persona, that when you see past it for the first time, he can't help but be thrown a little off guard. It's when you notice the fatigue under the performer, that he feels seen. It's an odd feeling for him but one he learns to embrace anyway, and one day he finds there's little more comforting than the warmth of your embrace when you ask after his wellbeing.

Neuvillette

Hardworking and hardly ever home should become the motto for Neuvillette's life sometimes, being chief justice of Fontaine means piles of paperwork makes their way onto his desk every time he so dares to glance away from it. It makes the bright afternoons where you slip into his office with lunch and a adoringly sweet kiss to his cheek all the more gratifying. Even spending those 30 minutes with you every few days makes the workload looming above him seem a little smaller.

Ororon

He's perfected the art of awkward fumbling and shy gaps in conversation at this point, no matter how close you get to each other he seems to never overcome this lull in interaction, though you find it endearing, he still flushes with embarrassment every time. Therefore he's come to favour the time he spends with you that takes place in comfortable silence. Whether you're helping him in the vegetable patch or simply sitting side pressed to side on the sofa together, minutes away from falling asleep - all of it soothes his anxious heart and lets him enjoy your company without the nerves of conversation.

Pantalone

For such a wealthy man, he's the farthest from profligate someone could be. Every expensive is documented and accounted for, yet somehow the jewel encrusted necklace that appears on your vanity one day seems to escape the logs. So does the subtly expensive perfume a few days later, then the flowers delivered to your workplace. When questioned, he'll deny any knowledge of such things, claiming they simply don't exist, but the way his lips curve upward when he presses a lingering kiss to your forehead is telling.

Sethos

He's a tease, a fact he won't even deny himself, especially when it comes to you. But then on occasion you'll find it amusing to return the favour, and suddenly he finds himself at a loss for what to do. He never expects you to turn the tables on him and whisper something in his ear or drag a finger down his chest in smug reciprocation, and it makes him blush and mumble something inaudible under his breath every time, much to your delight, he finds.

Thoma

Everyone on the Kamisato estate knows Thoma is arguably the best cook within a 50 mile radius, and he himself cannot deny that his skills in the kitchen are proficient. But on days housework and errands have made his muscles feel like lead and the thought of facing yet something else to tackle when he gets home makes him want to run in the opposite direction, walking through the front door to the smell of your already half finished cooking fills him with gratitude like no other. He'll smother you in kisses while you try and finish purely for taking the weight off his shoulders every now and again.

Tighnari

He's often up late, working on ranger schedules or logging another mushroom related incident as a result of yet another person that's not listened to his advice correctly - yet when he feels a pair of warm arms wind around his shoulders and your face settle into the crook of his neck - he can't help but feel an irresistible temptation to retreat back into the bed. He's been brushing off how tired he feels for at least an hour now and the way you murmur in his ear for him to give up and get some sleep has given him a fresh realisation of the weight in his bones. Maybe the work can be finished in the morning after all.

Venti

As the so called 'weakest archon', he's become used to falling into last place, and he doesn't even mind honestly - sometimes it's better to not have the pressure of being the most powerful. Yet the first time you call him 'my strong archon', he stops like a deer in headlights. He doesn't remember the last time someone referred to him like that, and so confidently too. For once the bard is genuinely flustered - having to turn away and bashfully hide his face before you can notice the impact those three words had on him. Maybe with you he can let himself feel like something other than the weakest.

Wanderer

He often finds himself awake during the night, restless and plagued by memories of the pasts he's lived. He won't admit it, but he doesn't want to burden you with the same, so he'll carefully extract himself from your embrace, pour himself a cup of the most black and bitter tea he could possibly make and head out to sit on the back step, staring up at the endless expanse of Teyvat's star smothered sky. He comes to realise merely minutes later, footsteps approach from behind. He won't turn to look - he knows it's you - but when you settle in next to him with your own cup and inevitably end up falling fast asleep against him moments later, he won't complain.

Wriothesely

Seldom does Wriothesley have the time to emerge to the surface, and that consequently results in very little shared time between the two of you. Therefore imagine his surprise when he returns to his office after seeing to a matter elsewhere in the fortress to find you perched on the edge of his cluttered desk, tea tray stocked and set beside you, with that knowing smirk dancing across your features. He's taken aback for all of a second before suddenly he's right in front of you, sweeping you up into his strong arms. A short break from his duties couldn't hurt.

Xiao

He's not used to being around people, that much is blatantly obvious after spending any amount of time in Xiao's company - he doesn't care for company much either. However after some persistence, he finds you've snuck your way into his space without him even realising, or caring at that - something about your companionship is less bothersome than most. You'll clamber your way up to the roof of wangshu inn most nights, perch yourself next to him and just... exist. He notes you don't scramble to fill the silence, you just lean against his shoulder and watch the stars with him.

Zhongli

He's lived for centuries, and every memory, every whisper of a ghost in the hallways of someone he used to know, is a burden he and he alone must bear. He's steeled himself to this reality - the price an archon must pay - yet when you, a mortal, string your hands through the golden tips of his hair, or gently trace the gold markings that line the charcoal skin of his forearms, listening intently to his stories like there's weight to each and every detail - the load on his heart feels just that little bit lighter.

A/N: This has been in my drafts for way too long why did i think this would take me like 10 mins </3

©2026 V4MP1R1CS please don't repost any of my work on any other site, copy, modify, claim as your own or feed into ai.

[genshin-scenarios]

jealous jealous jealous--

Summary: Jealousy headcanons! Reader is implied to be in Nod Krai with them right now, but isn't nessesarily the Traveler/MC.

Characters: Wanderer, Illuga, Flins

Wanderer

"They're a little busy right now. Sorry." Wanderer pulls you towards him - one hand on your wrist, the other circled around your waist. You stand there awkwardly, unsure of how to detach yourself from him when you're so obviously entangled. "Maybe you can look for them another time."

What is he, a cat? But you guess it could be worse; if he was still the Balladeer, you imagine the situation would involve a lot less words and decorum.

"They were just thanking me for helping with a commission..."

"Are you saying you aren't busy right now?" With a raise of his brow, Wanderer tugs you even closer for good measure, tilting up your chin.

"Don't think that after travelling all the way here, I'd be content with just watching you frolick around with strangers." His voice grows soft; though you aren't sure if the slight edge was truly from jealousy, or the thought that you may be separated soon because of his mission tasks. "At least for now... I need you to look at me."

Illuga

"Wait, Young Master, it really wasn't-"

Thud. A small amount of force hits the space next to your head, belonging to Illuga's palm. Behind it was a mix of annoyance and pent up frustration.

"...I've told you to stop calling me that." Illuga sighs, regaining his composure slightly, but not restracting from your position: his right arm caging you against the wall, and now his left snaking to the empty spot on the other side.

"We've known each other for years." His voice grows strained as he says your name, as if it is the cause of his headache. "Why do you still insist on such formalities?"

"I'm sorry, Cap-" You catch yourself. "-Illuga. It's... just a force of habit." Your gaze turns downward. "That, and I thought it wouldn't be right to act too casually with you, when the squad needs your leadership more than ever."

Finally, Illuga meets your eyes. But the intensity in his gaze makes all the words die on your tongue.

"That may be so," Illuga mutters, eyes flitting between your lashes, nose, then your lips. "But I need you just as much."

Oh.

He places his forehead against yours, eyes shut in a plea.

"If the squad is going to address you by your name, at least allow me the same freedom and call me as you always do." Illuga leans back, cobalt-red gaze soft. "It's... different when I hear your voice."

You're my light.

Flins

"...Sir Flins?"

"Yes?"

"I believe that the illusion has been defeated." You say with mild amusement as Flins continues to purify the spot where his Wild Hunt impersonation had stood, for the umpteenth time. "While I appreciate the caution, lingering here any longer will not do us any good."

"You don't seem appropriately alarmed." Flins appears in front of you in a crackle of electricity, hand cupping your cheek. There is concern behind it; but also an unspoken emotion as he looks down at you. "You spoke with it at length, and almost took his hand."

"I wouldn't have actually followed him." You try to calm Flins down, but his expression tightens as your fingers touch his wrist. "I was just buying time for you to arrive."

"You know that for you, there is little I wouldn't do." He picks up your hand, placing a kiss onto the inside of your palm. "But next time, do not engage with the phantoms. Even if they have taken my shape."

The illusion of Flins had not hurt you, but it was clear that it was impersonating a deeper sense of desire that he'd long buried within himself. One that shifted and curled its fog against your ankles and shins. Tickled the back of your neck as you were wandering through the darkness, smiling at you as if it too, could feel a warmth in its chest as you called it his name.

Just the thought of it sends crackles of his own power floating on top of your skin - searching for and burning away any trace of the phantom's memory.

[miyaz6ki]

" they don't know about us " w/ genshin multi men x gn! reader . . . 𝝑𝝔 walking in on you changing, how will he react? || albedo, alhaitham, capitano, childe, wriothesley, diluc, neuvillette, kinich, xiao, dainsleif, wanderer x gn! reader

cw: suggestive, no specified pronouns/anatomy for reader, NO ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP!

synopsis. when he walks in on his crush changing—how does he react?

wc: 1k ; not proofread, might be ooc! + i'll make a part 2 w/ diff characters

albedo was just... lowkey stuck in awe at first. like his mouth is a little agape at first, but he's one of the only ones to catch his composure immediately.

"oh... i—i didn't realize someone was in here, apologies."

doesn't close the door quick enough for you not to notice though, his gaze just lingering through the crack of the door a little longer. more than what you could call friendly look.

alhaitham rolls his eyes, acts ignorant, and plays it off as super duper 'i dont care just hurry up' when in reality, he's covering his mouth in embarassment once he closes that door again.

"oh, better hurry up then, other people want to use this room too."

but in his mind, he'll be replaying the moment he got to glance at your bare skin for a moment (like a man in the 1800s seeing a woman's ankles).

"fuck, what are you doing to me?..."

capitano thinks it is normal to be caught off-guard and vulnerable every now and then, he doesn't lose his composure until after—he didn't mean to think about the moment over and over again... but his subconscious says otherwise.

"ah... my apologies, please continue, i will... be leaving now." he stumbles over his words a little before turning the door knob and returning outside.

he will be fighting his own mind for wandering back to that memory, even if it is out of control, he's just scolding himself like 'stop this lust at once...'

childe is of course one to tease, he ateals every chance he gets, and this is one of those opportunities! he will not shy away from showing his attraction (but will still end up getting flustered)

"ahh... name? i believe you forgot to lock the—hey don't throw that at me!"

still finds himself smirking about it by the time you come out the room, just is leaning against the wall while grinning like a madman.

"it's not my fault i got a peek... ack! okay i'm sorry!"

wriothesley is also one to tease, but not without being... well somewhat polite. it's already impolite when you walk in on your crush changing...

"whoops! my bad, just keep changing... i—yeah i'll just... take my leave."

he ends up flustering a bit at the end but come on, who wouldn't? and if ever you ask him if you look good or not he's gonna explode (with embarassment.)

he'll give you his jacket if you feel you're missing anything before leaving together.

diluc just.. didn't say anything until after. shut the door faster than anything, that was his priority before rewatching the moment where... agh where is his mind heading!!

yes, he is one to fight his own subconscious, feels guilty as fuck afterward, not even because his eyes lingered a bit when he got a glimpse, but it's the fact he remembered every little detail.

"...oh, you are... you are speaking to me... m—my apologies."

neuvillette closes the door just as fast, even if he didn't see anything, the handle almost breaks off from how hard his grip was. and as well as the harshness as he slammed it back shut—

"name are you—i'm... my apologies—"

is all you hear before a loud bang is echoing through the room, and the quick footsteps away from outside walk off in a panic.

can't look you in the eye for at least a day. he is way too embarassed to.

kinich closes the door just as silent as when he opened it, only hearing the two small clicks; one for opening, and another to close it. he'll make sure to keep watch from outside.

"...hmm? it's alright, i saw nothing."

but you can't deny the lingering gaze he gave evey now and then when you two started to walk, especially on the skin that he totally didn't see.

xiao was... well xiao. he is similar to kinich, but way less nonchalant about it. tries too hard he comes undone... like legit red in the face but claims to...

"i... i didn't see anything, i-i promise. i was just... making sure you weren't having trouble or whatever."

he rolls his eyes like they didn't just peer through the small gap he left open to 'leep an eye on you'...

can't maintain eye contact for more than a minute. congrats, you've broken him!

dainsleif didn't mean to walk inside, the door just happened to break while he tried to lean ln the door to hear if anyone was inside—yes he fell in, yes he apologized, no he wasn't crimson-cheeked. he doesn't know what you mean.

"... apologies. again. i... i hope you know i didn't mean that. my.. my blush does not speak for itself. i do not blush."

sure you don't! he totally is not when his orbs hover over your skin like a magnifying glass; letting his eyes unravel whatever he could see, knowing he already saw what he wasn't supposed to...

wanderer? oh he plays it off so well... but the thing is, he doesn't blush at first, not at all. yes he has apologized before closing the door once more; but the thing is, he doesn't realize you're right by the door while he talks to himself.

"cute... why do you have to be so.. fuckin' cute.

makes sure you leave safely, and definitely offered to zip it up for you before he went back out.

[chusuuke]

genshin boys when you overwork yourself

premise. you’re good at pretending you’re fine. he’s even better at seeing through you. when pressure and burnout start catching up to you, the way each genshin boy steps in makes it clear you matter more than you realize.

features. xiao, kaeya, wanderer, neuvillette, kazuha, itto, aether, tighnari, thoma, diluc, childe, zhongli

xiao

1. He recognizes the signs because he’s lived them before. 

The shadows under your eyes, the way your breath shortens even when you’re still, the isolation you wrap around yourself in like armor—it’s all familiar to him. He’s seen it in his own reflection, long before he ever learned to name it. Only, your burden isn’t karmic debt, and that makes it worse in his eyes; you’re choosing to endure this, believing it’s the only way. He knows exactly where that belief leads.

2. At first, he keeps his distance.

You stay up through the night, candle flickering low, papers scattered across your table. He watches from the rooftop, arms crossed, silent as the stars above him. He tells himself it’s not his place, that mortals have their own ways of enduring—their own choices, their own suffering—but every time you skip a meal, every time you pull another sleepless night, that thread inside him coils tighter. It reminds him of a past he wouldn’t wish on anyone.

He gives in sooner than he expects.

3. He confronts you not with anger but with a plea.

“You’re hurting yourself.”

You wave it off. “It’s just a busy week.” 

His eyes narrow, frustration and something more fragile pooling behind them. “That’s what I told myself,” he says quietly. “And it didn’t save me.”

It’s then you understand: his worry isn’t about weakness. He’s worried because you’re repeating a pattern he barely survived.

4. He begins to linger, seen or unseen but always close.

Sometimes he leaves food. Sometimes his hand stops yours when you reach for your books after dark. 

If you protest, he shakes his head. “Even the strongest thread will fray. Even the strongest soul has limits.”

He says it less like a warning and more like a memory from someone who has broken before.

5. He finally tells you why.

One evening, after finding you asleep at your desk again, he confesses. “I bore my suffering in silence. I thought that made me strong. But it only made me disappear.”

He kneels beside you, not as the Conqueror of Demons, no mask—just Xiao. 

“You’re not meant to carry pain like this. Alone. Or at all.”

6. He doesn’t want to “fix” you. He just refuses to leave you alone in it.

Xiao knows better than to force healing. He doesn’t ask you to quit or abandon your goals. He just brings you water when your throat goes dry. He moves your hand away from the ink when sleep pulls you under.

And sometimes, when you finally take a break, he simply sits beside you in silence, offering his presence like a shield. Not to fight for you, but to fight with you. Sharing the weight so it doesn’t crush you.

7. When you ask why he’s so gentle, his answer is simple.

“Because I know what it feels like to believe suffering is your purpose.” He looks at you with ancient golden eyes, quiet and unflinching. “And I know how it feels to wish someone had stopped you.”

kaeya

1. He catches on fast, but he doesn’t let you know at first.

He observes the way you stumble into the Favonius library half-asleep. The way your jokes start sounding hollow. The way your hands shake slightly when you gather your belongings.

He notices everything, but instead of confronting you outright, he watches and waits. Because if he says something too soon, you’ll deflect. He knows that look in your eyes. He’s worn it before.

2. He starts teasing you, but there’s a sharp edge to it.

“Working hard, or hardly living?” he asks as you pass each other in the courtyard.

He smirks, but his eyes linger a little too long. He’s not just being playful—he’s prodding. Testing. Waiting to see how far you’ll let this go.

When you respond with a tired laugh, he stops smiling the moment you turn away.

3. He starts interfering in subtle, Kaeya ways.

Suddenly, your paperwork gets rerouted. Your less urgent assignments are mysteriously taken care of by someone else. You suspect something, but no one owns up to it.

(Meanwhile, Kaeya just whistles to himself as he shuffles behind Jean’s desk, filing forms under other names.)

4. When you snap at him from exhaustion, he drops the charm.

You’re overwhelmed, frustrated, and barely holding it together. He makes one offhand comment—too well-timed—and you crack. You say something sharp, or maybe you just burst into tears.

He doesn’t joke this time. He walks over, places a hand on your shoulder, and quietly says, “Alright. That’s enough. Come with me.”

5. He drags you out—literally, if needed.

Whether it’s to a tavern booth, the fields overlooking the city, or his own cluttered office couch, he gets you somewhere quiet and safe.

He lets you vent. Or cry. Or sleep.

And when you finally go quiet, he murmurs, “You don’t need to break yourself just to prove something. Not to them, not to me, and definitely not to yourself.”

6. He opens up, not with drama, but honesty.

Kaeya doesn’t talk about himself easily. But when he sees you struggling with the weight of expectations, he lets his own mask slip just enough.

“You know, I’ve spent years pretending everything’s fine. Holding the city together with a smile and a glass of wine. It catches up to you, eventually.” He chuckles, bitter and soft. “You’re not weak for needing rest. You’re smart if you take it before exhaustion eats you alive.”

7. He uses charm as a shield, but his actions speak for him.

He’ll still flirt, still joke, still act like he’s just checking in for fun. But you’ll find a warm meal left on your desk. A blanket tossed over your shoulders. A carefully worded letter handed to your superior asking for a day off—“On urgent Cavalry Captain business,” of course.

8. When you finally give in and rest, he stays close.

Kaeya isn’t the type to hover, but when you’re asleep on his couch or passed out over your books, he lingers nearby. He nurses a drink, watches the fire, and speaks into the air, “Don’t become like me. Please.”

He never says it to your face. But he means it.

wanderer

1. He notices your burnout before you do, and it ticks him off.

You’re waking up with three hours of sleep, skipping meals, muttering about deadlines with ink-stained hands. Wanderer watches you rub your eyes raw and shuffle through your fifth task of the day, and his first reaction isn’t concern; it’s irritation.

“Are you seriously doing this to yourself again?”

Because you remind him too much of himself, throwing your whole existence at something because it makes you feel like you matter. And he hates it.

2. He gets angry not at you, but at what you’re doing to yourself.

At first it comes out as sarcasm. Sharp, cold words: “Oh? Burning the candle at both ends again? Don’t worry—if you collapse, I’m sure someone will scrape you off the floor.”

You bristle—of course you do—and that’s when he snaps.

“Why do you think this is okay? Why are you letting yourself fall apart like this?”

There’s hurt buried deep in his voice. He doesn’t even realize he’s yelling for himself, too.

3. He storms off, but he always comes back.

After blowing up, he disappears for a few hours. When he returns, he’s quieter. Still bitter, still defensive, but with a plate of food or a thermos of tea shoved toward you.

“Don’t read into it. You looked pathetic. Someone had to do something.”

4. He doesn’t understand why you’re doing this, and that terrifies him.

“You’re not a machine. Not a tool. So why are you treating yourself like one?”

It slips out in a moment of vulnerability. You look at him—really look—and he hates the way your eyes mirror exhaustion he knows too well.

“You’re not a puppet like me. You don’t have to be.”

5. He starts interrupting your routine on purpose.

He’ll close your book mid-sentence. Physically turn off your lamp. Pull you away from your work, grumbling the whole time.

“No one’s asking you to kill yourself over this.”

And if you push back? He’ll say it again, sharper this time: “No one is asking this of you. So why are you acting like it’s the only way you’ll be worth something?”

6. Eventually, he admits why it bothers him so much.

One night, you’re too tired to argue, and he finally speaks without venom.

“I didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, didn’t stop. Not because anyone told me to, but because I thought if I just kept moving, I wouldn’t feel anything. If I was useful enough, maybe…it would matter that I existed.” He laughs, bitter and hollow. “It didn’t work.”

After a long moment, he adds, “Don’t be like me.”

7. When you finally rest, he’s more protective than he wants to admit.

You fall asleep with your head on your desk. He doesn’t wake you. He just sighs, pulls off his cloak, and drapes it over your shoulders. Then he sits beside you with his arms crossed, glaring at anyone who so much as glances your way.

“Sleep. I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”

8. Slowly, you learn to rest. Not just because he makes you, but because you want to.

You nap beside him while he reads. You share meals without thinking about the time. You let him be your excuse when someone asks too much of you. (“Sorry, Wanderer threatened to throw me in a lake if I skipped dinner.”)

And when you finally finish a project without burning yourself out, you find him leaning against the wall, arms folded, looking smug.

“See? Turns out you’re not hopeless after all.”

But the way he ruffles your hair on the way out tells a different story.

neuvillette

1. He notices. Of course he does.

You’ve been skipping meals. Staying at your desk too long. Reading until your eyes burn. He doesn’t ask what the work is—school? career? research?—because that isn’t the part that matters. What matters is the slump of your shoulders. The tremor in your hands. And the fact that you’re mortal.

“You do not have centuries,” he murmurs once, watching you scribble past sunset.

You don’t catch it. Or maybe you pretend not to.

2. He doesn’t confront you, not at first.

Neuvillette believes in autonomy, in understanding silence, in not overstepping. So at first, he simply adjusts his rhythm to yours: he brings water when you forget, opens the window when the air gets stale, and pauses by your shoulder and gently suggests, “Perhaps you could rest your eyes.”

You smile faintly and say, “Soon.” 

But “soon” becomes never. 

And when you fall asleep at your desk for the third night in a row, he says nothing. But the rain taps against the windowpane that night—just enough to mist the glass. 

3. The turning point is distinctly him.

One evening, you stir awake from a nap you hadn’t meant to take. Your blanket has been tucked around you neatly. A warm drink rests on your desk, still steaming. And beside it, in his careful, slanted handwriting, Please do not burn out for a future you haven’t been given yet.

You touch the letter. And only then do you realize how closely he’s been watching—not just your habits, but your mortality.

4. He begins setting an example for both of you.

Neuvillette has never been good at rest. But when he sees you trying to pull another all-nighter, he quietly closes his law books and says, “I’ve taken the liberty of canceling my meetings tomorrow. We will both be resting.”

You blink. “Both?"

“...Yes. I find myself in need of it as well.”

That’s when it hits you: he’s not just doing this for you. He’s learning how to stop drowning himself in duty because he wants to be around for you. 

You ask him why, once, and he tilts his head, rain-soft eyes meeting yours. “Because you are burning the candle at both ends, and I am the only one here who does not run out of wax.” 

You don’t know what to say to that, so you say nothing. But you put your work down, and you sit beside him.

5. The rain falls when he thinks of what he cannot protect.

You collapse—not dramatically, not with a cry, just a quiet folding into yourself one night after working too long. He catches you, barely. The moment your weight leans into him, the first drop hits the roof. By the time he lays you on the couch and presses a hand to your brow, the rain is a steady, gentle sorrow.

“This is not a burden I asked you to bear,” he says softly.

But your fingers twitch for his; even unconscious, you reach for him. And the rain lightens.

6. Eventually, he says what he means.

You’re recovering, sleeping more, and eating better. You’ve made small changes, but you still feel the pressure to use your time well. One night, you apologize for being a “burden,” and that’s when he finally breaks his silence.

“No,” he says, with a quiet finality that makes the air still. “You are not a burden. You are a flame. You are days and decades and wonder compressed into something finite. And I—” He pauses. “I am someone who will remain long after your light fades. So allow me, while you are here, to help you burn brighter. Not faster.”

You stare at him. 

The rain does not fall.

And for once, you see the weight he carries: the guilt of longevity. The fear of outliving everything that matters.

7. He doesn’t stop being the Iudex, but for you, he makes space.

He invites you to sit in his office sometimes—not to work, but to rest, to read, to share the same air. He walks you home when you stay late and waits for you at the Court steps when you forget the time. 

And sometimes, he doesn’t say anything at all; he merely takes your hand, brings it to his lips, and closes his eyes like he’s memorizing your pulse because you will not last forever, but you are here now. And that, to him, is sacred.

kazuha

1. He notices your imbalance like a change in the air.

It’s not just how tired you look. It’s how often you say “just a bit more,” how your tea goes cold beside you, and how you haven’t watched a single sunset with him in over a week. He doesn’t say anything at first, but his concern is quiet and steady, lingering like mist.

2. He stays close, even when you say you’re fine.

You insist you’re just busy. He nods but keeps showing up anyway. Sometimes he brings dinner and eats with you on the floor while you work. Other times, he silently reorganizes your scattered papers just so you can find what you need more easily.

He doesn’t pry. He just makes sure you’re not alone in it.

3. He doesn’t romanticize your suffering.

Kazuha understands the weight of obligation, the desire to hold everything together by yourself. He’s been there. But when he sees you start skipping meals, sleeping in short bursts, and barely reacting when he enters the room, he puts his foot down.

“You’re running yourself into the ground. This isn’t sustainable, and it’s not fair to you.”

4. He uses everyday moments to pull you back.

One afternoon, he brings you out into the garden without giving you time to argue. “Ten minutes. Just breathe with me. You can go back to it after.”

The sun is warm. The breeze is soft. You don’t make it back inside for another hour. 

And somehow, everything hurts a little less.

5. When you finally break, he’s there.

It’s late. You’re shaking, frustrated, exhausted, ashamed. You whisper that you’re not doing enough—if you stop, everything will fall apart.

Kazuha wraps you in his arms, gentle but firm. He doesn’t hush you. He doesn’t offer platitudes. He simply breathes with you. 

“Even drifting leaves know where to land.” 

You don’t know if he means you or him. But either way, you believe it.

6. He opens up about his own past, gently.

“Before I left Inazuma, I thought I had to carry my grief alone. That if I let go, I’d forget him. Or fail him somehow.” He doesn’t name Tomo directly, but you know. “But clinging to pain isn’t loyalty. And pushing yourself until you break isn’t strength.”

7. He leaves you notes and poems as reminders.

Remember to eat. There’s onigiri in the basket.

I’m waiting for you by the docks at sunset. Just fifteen minutes, if you can spare them.

You’re doing enough.

When you spend too long buried in papers, he sits near the open window and hums old Inazuman tunes—melodies from a time before the storms. Sometimes he whistles songs you once told him you liked.

8. Over time, he helps you build slower rhythms.

He encourages small changes, like taking your work outside when the weather’s good, stepping away when you hit a wall, and letting yourself exist without being productive. And he keeps showing up. Not to rescue you, but to walk beside you while you figure it out.

“You don’t need to prove your worth by wearing yourself out. You’re enough, just as you are. Even when you rest.”

itto

1. At first, he thinks you’re just being “Super dedicated.” Then he catches you passing out on a pile of papers.

He pokes your cheek. No response. He pokes harder. Still nothing.

“…Uhhh. Okay. This is either really bad, or you’ve just entered some kind of secret meditative ninja state.”

(Spoiler: it’s really bad.)

2. His response? Chaos. Immediate, well-meaning chaos.

He bursts into your office the next day with five onigiri, a straw mat, and a gang member holding a shamisen for “vibe support.”

“Alright! Operation Save the Boss from the Evil Paper Demons is underway!”

You protest. He shushes you with a finger to your lips and zero personal space.

“You’ve been promoted. To Taking-a-Nap Officer. Now c’mon. Eyes closed. That’s an order.”

3. He treats resting like a team sport. And you’re on his team now.

Can’t sleep? He tells stories (bad ones).

Won’t eat? He challenges you to a dumpling-eating contest.

Still anxious? He tries to “Scare the stress away” by pretending to fight it in the corner.

“This one’s for that overdue report! HIIYAH!”

4. Eventually, he gets serious. As serious as Itto can get.

One night, after dragging you outside for fresh air and bug-catching, he glances sideways and says, “Hey… You don’t gotta be perfect all the time, y’know?”

You laugh it off. He doesn’t.

“Nah, I mean it. You think the Arataki Gang would follow me if I acted like I didn’t need breaks? Or fun? Or help?”

You stare. He shrugs.

“Being strong’s not about going nonstop. It’s about knowin’ when to stop, so you can keep goin’. That’s what makes a real boss.”

5. From then on, you get regular “Arataki Break Attacks.”

They’re loud, unexpected, and unavoidable. You’re elbow-deep in paperwork? BOOM. He bursts through the window with mochi and a picnic blanket. Stressed from a deadline? He brings the gang to do your chores (badly).

“We filed your papers alphabetically! …Sort of!”

You should be annoyed, but the laughter helps more than you admit.

6. One day, you finally break down, and he catches you.

You’re overwhelmed. Quietly crumbling. He finds you curled on your futon, staring at nothing. And for once, his presence isn’t loud.

He kneels. Offers you his forehead, gently. 

“I don’t know how to fix what’s hurtin’ you. But I’m here. For however long it takes.”

You grip his sleeve. He holds you like you’re gold.

“You’re not a job. You’re you. And I like that person just the way they are.”

7. He makes recovery feel like living.

Not just resting, not just surviving—he reminds you how to have fun again. Whether it’s beetle battles, fireworks, or dancing terribly at a festival, he’s there, arm slung around you, grin wide, heart full.

“Work’ll still be there tomorrow. But right now? You got an Arataki-brand life to live!”

And somehow, with him beside you, the world feels lighter.

aether

1. He notices your exhaustion before you ever speak it out loud.

Aether lives by reading people—he’s had to, traveling alone for so long. Others believe you when you say you’re fine, but Aether watches the small things: the too‑slow blinks, the silence you sit in like it’s a weight, the way you stare at your tasks as if they’re cliffs that keep growing higher. You rub your temples and forget to eat the food Paimon hands you.

Paimon huffs, “Seriously? That’s the third untouched meal today!”

Aether doesn’t comment. He just gravitates closer. He’s used to carrying burdens alone, but he refuses to watch someone else fall into that habit.

2. His concern is gentle but incredibly persistent.

Aether never nags. He simply appears with the things you need: sliced fruit next to your work, a blanket around your shoulders, tea steeped exactly the way you like it. Paimon keeps mysteriously dropping snacks onto your desk like a tiny, floating delivery service.

If you insist you’re “just tired,” he lifts his brows like he’s heard that excuse in every nation and never believed it once. He helps adjust your posture so your neck won’t hurt, refills your ink, hands you the thing you keep reaching for and missing because your vision’s going blurry.

3. When you snap, he doesn’t pull away.

You’re frustrated, overwhelmed, and maybe a little sharp with him.

He just steps closer, calm and steady. “Alright,” he murmurs. “Let’s take a break.”

There’s no judgment in his voice—just patience and a grounding gentleness firm enough that you can lean on it.

4. He worries when you push yourself too far.

You slump onto a bench after a long day, pale and trembling. He kneels instantly, hands hovering, not touching you until you give him a faint nod. He hadn’t realized until that moment how tightly he’d been orbiting you—how you’d become one of the anchors keeping him grounded in a world that still didn’t feel like home.

“You scared me,” he whispers. “Please don’t disappear.”

You’re confused; you weren’t going anywhere. But Aether has lost people; he knows what “here one moment, gone the next” feels like. And he’s terrified of feeling it again.

5. He opens up only when he thinks you can’t hear.

Paimon grumbles about how worried she was, but Aether silently moves your hair from your face with careful fingers and tucks his cloak around you. He stares at the glimmering stars above with a distant, melancholy expression—one you’ve seen when he thinks about Lumine.

That loneliness flickers across him like a shadow.

He whispers, thinking you’re asleep, “I don’t want you to burn yourself out chasing something alone like I did.”

5. He disrupts your routine in deceptively gentle ways.

Aether never shuts your work away. He instead rearranges reality around you. He opens windows before the air gets stuffy. Adjusts the lighting so your eyes don’t strain. Reorganizes your cluttered desk into something workable. Silently takes half your errands onto his own list.

When you ask why he’s treating you like you’re made of glass, he gives a small smile. “It’s not that you’re fragile. It’s that you don’t realize how much you’re carrying.”

6. When you wake, he finally lets his guard down.

“You don’t have to be strong all the time,” he says softly. “Or push through everything by yourself.”

His golden eyes hold yours, warm as sunrise breaking through fog.

“I know what it feels like when it seems the world won’t slow down for you. When resting feels dangerous. When you think stopping means falling behind.” He reaches for your hand. “But you’re not alone anymore. Let me shoulder some of it, okay?”

With Aether, it’s never just words. For once, he resolves not to walk forward by himself.

tighnari

1. He diagnoses your burnout instantly.

He takes one look at your slumped posture, the way you squint at the daylight, and sighs like he’s witnessing a natural disaster.

“Come here,” he says, already closing the distance. He tilts your chin up with a gloved hand, eyes scanning your face. “Sluggish pupil response. Pale complexion, dark circles… Your circadian rhythm is committing unspeakable crimes.”

You try to laugh it off. He doesn’t.

“Honestly,” he mutters, “you look worse than a withering zone.”

His tone is dry enough to parch a forest, but his touch stays delicate as he checks your pulse.

2. His worry comes out as exasperation.

The more worried Tighnari gets, the more his snark ramps up. 

“Oh, wonderful. You’re dehydrated, sleep-deprived, and haven’t eaten a proper meal in… let me guess—since yesterday morning? Congratulations. You’ve achieved the disaster trifecta.”

When you snap that you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, he gives you a look so flat it could level a hillside.

“If that were true, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

There’s no anger, just the protective frustration of someone who’s patched up far too many self‑neglecting rangers and refuses to let you join their ranks.

3. The moment he realizes talking won’t work, he shifts into caretaker mode.

A glass of water is pushed into your hands. Then a plate of food. Then a blanket. He fusses without admitting he’s fussing.

You ask if he’s babying you. He raises a brow.

“If I were babying you, I’d have hauled you to the nearest bed and put you into a mandatory nap.” He pauses. “…Don’t tempt me.”

4. Every comforting gesture comes disguised as “practical necessity.”

He’ll brew a herbal infusion “to reduce inflammation,” then sit beside you until you finish the entire cup. He’ll braid your hair out of your face “to prevent sensory interference.” If you lean back too quickly, his hand is already behind your chair. “To avoid concussion,” he claims.

Each act appears outwardly efficient and logical until you look closely enough to see the warmth threaded through every motion. Point it out, and he clears his throat, ears flicking in embarrassment. 

“It’s called preventative care. Don’t make it weird.” 

5. He keeps an eye on you even though he pretends he’s not.

Every time you stand up too fast? He’s there. Every time you yawn? A pointed stare. When you stumble over your words because you’re exhausted? His pen pauses mid‑stroke.

“You’re at 40% functionality,” he informs you one afternoon.

You groan. “Can you not quantify my suffering?”

“It helps me track how close you are to collapsing.”

“…Okay, maybe quantify a little.”

6. When you push yourself too hard, he stops being sarcastic and starts being firm.

The day you reach for more materials while visibly wobbling, Tighnari steps directly into your path, eyes narrowing. “Sit. Down.”

It isn’t a suggestion; it’s a command forged from years of keeping rangers alive in conditions they had no business surviving. And you obey, because it’s the first time he sounds genuinely upset.

“Please take care of yourself,” he murmurs, his expression full of hurt. “Exhaustion proves nothing except how far a person can push themselves before they break.”

7. Once you’re resting, his protectiveness becomes instinctive.

The second you fall asleep, Tighnari is in full guardian mode. He adjusts your pillow. He checks your temperature. He angles a lamp so it won’t shine in your eyes. Outside, he warns the rangers, “If anyone disturbs this room, I will assign you to fungal spore sampling duty for a month.”

Collei salutes. The other rangers flee.

He sits beside your bed with a botanical manual open, though he doesn’t turn a single page. His hand lightly brushes your blanket as if reassuring himself you’re still there. When your eyes finally flutter open, he looks relieved in a way he tries very hard to hide.

“You slept for six hours,” he says with a halfhearted scold. “…Good. You needed it.”

thoma

1. He notices the small changes first.

You’re not meeting his eyes as often. Your sentences get shorter. You keep saying “almost done” with a tired smile that doesn’t reach your eyes. And the first time you cancel dinner plans—something you usually look forward to—he knows for certain.

You’re drowning. Quietly.

So he knocks on your door that night, holding a thermos and a neat box of onigiri. “I wasn’t sure if you ate today,” he says gently. “Mind if I sit with you a while?”

2. He doesn’t tell you to stop. He reminds you it’s okay to slow down.

“I get it—sometimes you want to prove you can handle it all. I’ve been there,” he says as he sets things out, watching the tension in your shoulders with concern. “But just because you can carry something doesn’t mean you should do it alone.”

And for some reason, that hits harder than any admonishment could have.

3. He starts checking in more often but never pushes.

A warm drink appears on your desk during long afternoons. Laundry you forgot about ends up folded neatly on your chair. He even brings Taroumaru once, claiming “a surprise wellness check from the best boy in Inazuma.”

He never makes you feel guilty for being overwhelmed. He just keeps showing up, gentle and dependable.

4. When you finally crash, he’s by your side.

You fall asleep at your desk, shoulders tense, fingers still curled around your pen. When you stir awake, the lights are lower, a blanket is tucked around you, and Thoma’s coat is folded beneath your arm like a pillow. He’s sitting beside you, reading so he won’t disturb you. He looks up with relief.

“Hey,” he greets. “You scared me a little there.” 

He’s silent for a moment. 

“Next time…let me help before it gets to this point, yeah?”

5. When you say you didn’t want to burden him, that he already does so much, something in his expression shifts.

He lets out a breath—half fond, half aching—and shakes his head. “That’s what people like us do, isn’t it? We take care of everyone else and forget we deserve care too.”

He takes your hand, his thumb brushing lightly across your knuckles.

“I’m here because I want to be. Not because you need rescuing. Because you matter. Even when you’re not accomplishing anything—especially then.”

6. From then on, he makes “doing nothing” feel like something special.

A slow meal on the engawa as the breeze rustles the wind chimes. Shared silence under the stars. An understanding glance when you sigh and confess, “I still feel behind.”

He leans back on his hands, looking up at the sky, and replies, “Behind what? The world isn’t going anywhere. But if you burn yourself out… it’ll lose something no one can replace.”

7. And when you finally begin to let go of the pressure—just a little—he’s there to catch you.

Not with grand gestures. But with rice balls, soft words, warm hands, and a steady heart. Because Thoma doesn’t need you to be perfect. He just wants you to stay.

diluc

1. He notices what you stop doing. 

Diluc pays attention to patterns. You used to greet him in passing, pause to appreciate small things, hum while you worked—little marks of ease that brightened your days. When those habits fade, he notices instantly.

Years of managing people—and years of losing them—have made him acutely aware of what strain looks like. He doesn’t question you about it; he knows too well how inquiries can feel like pressure rather than concern.

2. Instead of confronting you, he begins adjusting the world around you.

Not the type to lecture or hover, Diluc is a man of action, efficiency, and solutions. Tedious errands you’d been meaning to get to are mysteriously handled by someone else. Deadlines shift. A warm drink appears near your workspace when you’re too focused to notice your own needs. 

It all feels effortless, almost coincidental. That’s intentional. Diluc would rather lighten your burden without making you self‑conscious about it.

3. He addresses your exhaustion indirectly. 

One evening, he finds you staring at a page without seeing it. The dim light flickers across your face and catches something in your eyes that stirs an old ache in him. He approaches, delicately closes the book beneath your hand, and says, “Walk with me.”

He leads you outside and through the vineyard, where the lanterns glow warm against the early night and the air carries the scent of earth and ripening fruit. Diluc never fills the silence. He lets it steady you, each unhurried step loosening your thoughts.

4. He grounds you through consistency.

He joins you for meals whenever schedules align. Some afternoons he stops by simply to share a few minutes of stillness. Other times, he works beside you turning, the silence into something companionable instead of isolating.

He never frames these moments as interventions. They are companionship: something he knows can keep a person from unraveling. You find yourself looking forward to the routine with him that seems to slow the world around you until it becomes manageable again.

5. He corrects your self‑criticism with a conviction that’s difficult to refute. 

Whenever you insist you’re behind or not doing enough, Diluc listens without interrupting. When he finally responds, his voice is certain and sincere in a way that leaves little room for doubt.

“You carry more than you realize—and far more than anyone should expect of one person.” His gaze meets yours in earnest. “You’re capable, dependable, and far kinder than the world gives you reason to be. You don’t need to exhaust yourself to prove any of that.”

6. When you push too far, he meets you.

The night you nearly miss dinner, he appears at your doorway, hair loosened from the day, ungloved hands resting calmly at his sides.

“You’re late,” he says. “The food won’t stay warm.” 

You begin to apologize, but he shakes his head.

“Eat first. The rest can wait.”

He sits across from you, arms crossed, pretending he’s not watching to ensure you eat.

7. When you finally admit how overwhelmed you are, he listens in a way that feels disarming.

You tell him it feels like everything will fall apart if you slow down, and his gaze softens in a way few ever see.

“Work can always be resumed,” he tells you. “You, however…cannot be replaced.”

Beneath his words lies the conviction of one who has already lost too much to relentless duty.

“I just don’t want to disappoint anyone,” you finally admit. 

“You won’t,” he assures you firmly. “You do not owe this world exhaustion to prove your worth. You give it your presence, and that is more than enough.” 

8. He becomes your safeguard against your own pressure. 

Diluc does not smother or coddle. He simply remains a steady presence at your side as someone who cares deeply, and has learned—through mistakes he cannot undo—how important it is to catch a person long before they fall. Rather than save you from burning out, he prevents the flame from consuming you in the first place. 

Diluc will never say the words outright, but it’s clear in the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re focused elsewhere: your well‑being is something he has quietly folded into his responsibilities, right alongside the winery and the city he once vowed to protect. And though he would never claim it aloud, supporting you matters to him every bit as much as any duty he’s ever carried.

childe

1. He’s deceptively perceptive when it comes to people he cares about.

Growing up with siblings means he’s witnessed every flavor of stubborn exhaustion, from his older brother pulling all-nighters to Teucer trying to avoid bedtime. So he picks up your signs quickly: the way you rub your eyes, the slight tremor in your hands, and the fact that you’re running purely on determination.

Everyone else buys the excuse that you’re “only a little tired.” Childe, on the other hand, narrows his eyes. “My little siblings lie better than that, and one of them is seven.”

2. He calls you out directly, but there’s softness under the bite.

Childe isn’t one for subtle warnings: “You can’t keep this up,” he says, crossing his arms. “You look like you fought a dragon bare-handed, and not in a way I’d brag about.”

You glare at him, and he only steps closer, voice dropping. 

“You’re wearing yourself thin, comrade. I don’t like watching that happen.” It’s the most roundabout way he can say he’s worried.

3. If reminding you to rest doesn’t work, he resorts to mischief.

He steals the pen out of your hand mid-sentence. He lifts your notes above your reach (he’s annoyingly tall). He sits on your stack of textbooks like a smug cat. 

If you protest, he grins. “Duel me for them.” 

He’s not joking. He drops into a fighting stance in the middle of your room. You point out you’re exhausted.

“That’s why it’ll be fun.” He is insufferable. He is also trying to make you rest.

4. When your energy gives out, his instinct takes over.

You wobble, and he reacts instantly, catching you with one arm behind your back, the other guiding your head to his chest. His whole body shifts as if to angle himself between you and the world.

“Hey—stay with me.” His voice is low, tight. Not his usual playful tone.

You try to say you’re alright.

“Don’t. Don’t even finish that sentence.” His jaw is clenched, heartbeat wild against your cheek.

He scoops you up without hesitation, expression lethal. Anyone who so much as glances your way wrong on the walk back gets the kind of glare that promises consequences.

5. He cleans up your workspace like he’s securing a battlefield.

Once you’re resting, he surveys the room with a soldier’s eye and quietly puts everything in order—papers stacked, candles extinguished, hazards removed.

“You don’t have to take on the whole world by yourself,” he mutters under his breath.

Then, he sits beside your bed and brushes your forehead with the back of his hand, checking for fever. “I can take hits,” he says softly. “Doesn’t mean I enjoy watching someone else take them.”

6. Starting the next morning, he becomes more deliberate.

He brings breakfast and sits beside you until you eat. He walks you home whenever he can. He insists on taking some of your workload: “I’m good at carrying things. Work, bags, stubborn people who don’t know how to rest.”

When you apologize for worrying him, he only smirks and taps your forehead. 

“Just don’t do it again. But if you start slipping, I’ll be there before you fall.”

7. His “rest plan” is… uniquely Childe.

He makes you a schedule. A battle-style schedule, color-coded into:

Mandatory Rest Periods

Nutrition Breaks (with treats—nonnegotiable)

Light Exercise

Hydration Checks (“Don’t test me. I have water and I have aim.”)

Supervised Work Sessions

He hands it to you with pride. “This is strategic efficiency. Trust me—General Childe knows what he’s doing.”

You point out he’s not actually a general.

“Don’t ruin this for me.”

8. And eventually, the truth slips out.

You find him watching you work, unusually quiet.

“You push yourself so hard it hurts to watch,” he says finally. “You work like you’re trying to earn your right to exist. But you’re not something that needs to prove its worth. You’re…” His voice falters. “…someone I care about. A lot.”

He clears his throat violently, as if honesty betrayed him.

“If you collapse again, I’m staying with you until you’re better. And that’s not a threat. That’s a promise.”

zhongli 

1. He recognizes the signs long before you do.

The slight tremble in your fingers. The missed step on uneven cobblestone. The way your gaze sometimes flickers past him, unfocused, as if your thoughts are pulling you in too many directions at once.

He doesn’t intrude, but he sees. And in quieter moments, he remembers countless mortals who pushed themselves too far. So few ever stopped before the cost came due.

2. He doesn’t confront; he provides.

“You seem fatigued,” he remarks one afternoon over tea.

You smile. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

He stirs his cup, thoughtfully. “Even the strongest stone yields under constant strain.”

You brush it off with a laugh, and he doesn’t push. But the next time he invites you out, he phrases it differently: “Join me. Not for discussion, not for business. Simply to rest.” With him, invitations are never obligations.

3. He begins to anchor you in subtle ways.

He sends herbal blends meant for clarity and calm. Bowls of warm food appear with the simple explanation: “I worried you might skip a meal.” He asks you to accompany him on walks through Liyue Harbor’s quiet streets touched by sunset.

And when you protest, saying, “I should be working,” he meets your gaze with unwavering calm.

“And I should be elsewhere,” he says softly. “Yet I am here. And I would prefer your company over solitude.”

4. When exhaustion finally overtakes you, it wounds him more than it surprises him.

He finds you slumped over your desk, ink smudged across your hand. For a long moment, he only stands there, a quiet sorrow flickering across features that have seen ages pass. Then, he gathers you carefully, almost reverently, and carries you to the couch. He drapes his coat over you, its warmth and faint incense scent settling around you like a shield, and he remains by your side, eyes tracing the moonlight on your face.

“Morax would have named this stubbornness,” he murmurs. “But I believe… you simply fear stopping.”

5. When you finally ask why your wellbeing matters so deeply to him, he doesn’t hesitate.

“I have lived through the rise and fall of gods,” he says. “I have watched whole histories fade into legend, and legends fade into silence.” He turns toward you. “You are not a fleeting dynasty, meant only to be remembered or forgotten. You are someone I hope remains, not for legacy, but simply for yourself.”

6. He teaches you how to rest respectfully, without making you feel weak.

He walks you through gardens at dusk, where lanterns sway and cicadas sing. He reads aloud when your head is too heavy for thought. He speaks of rest not as luxury but as a form of wisdom in itself.

“Clarity is born from stillness, not exhaustion,” he reminds you, offering warm tea. “Even the sun must set to rise again. You, too, must allow yourself that cycle.”

And somehow, from him, it makes sense. With him, rest feels safe. It feels like something you are allowed to have.

7. And afterward—when you do pause, when you finally let yourself breathe—he stays.

Simply to exist beside you with quiet devotion. Because to him, you are not a task, nor a responsibility, nor a fleeting mortal life to be pitied.

He once governed wealth itself, but even with centuries behind him, there is nothing in his long life he has ever regarded as priceless in quite the way he regards you.