[ Tighnari ] “Touch Grass,” He Says
✦ Here is a short story centered around you and Tighnari. Lately, as your friends have caught on to your frequent lack of sunshine and fresh air, they’ve been bombarding you with the repeated phrase of “touch grass.” Tighnari, your beloved, steps in to relieve the pressure of such an annoying joke.
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✦ “Touch Grass,” He Says…
Touch grass. Touch grass? What’s that supposed to mean? Well, you have an idea, but what kind of passive aggressively cynical advice is that? Touch grass?
Not only have your friends from the city frequently told it to your face, but some of them have even went as far as to send letters. Checking the mail had never been so anxiety-inducing, as the sound of the mailbox shrieking open to reveal at least one or two letters from your friends haunts you. But you don’t want to make Tighnari get the mail; he’s got enough on his plate, anyway.
As you sit at your desk and sort through the mail in the early morning, not even the cool, earthy air breathing through Gandharva Ville can lift the tension from you now. You groan as yet another letter reading “Please touch grass…” flickers into your sight from within the pile.
“Ah, are those the sarcastic comments you were referring to?” Tighnari’s voice. Although it may be soft, it’s right in your ear and last time you checked, you were alone in your outpost. You startle and spin in your chair, locking eyes with the man’s velvety jade eyes.
“Announce yourself, why don’t you?” you say between your startled gasps. A moment later you collect yourself and go back to leaning over your mail pile. “Goodness, Tighnari—one of these days I’m going to keel over and die when you scare me like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, bending his knees so he can get a closer view at the headache of mail spread out on the desk. “Your reactions are amusing, though, I have to admit,” he adds. You crane your neck and make a little pouting noise, to which Tighnari smiles and utters a quiet chuckle.
“Anyway,” you start, “yes, these are the letters I was talking about.” You pull out one of the annoying letters from your friends. It’s not funny anymore, you think. It’s almost like an insult at this point.
Tighnari raises a brow at the letter. “‘Touch grass’? Are they honestly advising you to touch grass outside?” He glances at the window allowing sunlight to leak into the room. “There’s plenty out there, you know.”
“I know. But that just seems silly.”
“Perhaps they mean a special type of grass?” Tighnari meets your eyes again, but you can’t focus on his entirely—his bushy tail is wagging ever so slightly from behind, catching your attention. “It could be a riddle,” he continues.
You tilt your head forward and smile almost mockingly. “A riddle,” you repeat.
“Taking into consideration the fact real grass is far too easy to come by, your friends must not want you to touch that kind of grass. They must be implying the existence of a different kind of grass you have yet to acknowledge…”
There he goes again. Total word-nerd.
You love it though. He’s almost completely convinced you there truly is a different kind of grass.
You slouch in your chair, sighing. “So…?”
A moment of silence passes between the two of you before it is broken by a simple soft touch. His hand on yours, those gloves unable to mask the delicacy of his fingers, lifting yours with ease. You don’t question it, just let it happen.
Before you know it, Tighnari is getting down to one knee, shoulder pressed against the arm of your chair, and then he turns his head toward you. One more breath is shared between you two and he places your hand on the top of his head, fingers just inches shy of his tall ears.
Tighnari’s eyes close slowly. “Don’t I count as grass?” he asks, and somehow there is some level of sincerity in his words. But you know better. Tighnari surely only wished to be graced by your touch. You fall under his charm now and caress the top of his head, your skin brushing his soft ears.
“Yes,” you whisper, stifling your giggle, “yes, you do.”
Your eyes find Tighnari’s Dendro vision twinkling green. A warm light emits from it, resonating soundly with Tighnari’s brand new definition of “grass…”
