Archive of Our Own

“Two!”

“Three.”

“Two. Two. Three is a bit excessive, don’t you think?”

Zhongli lets the cursor hover over the “Book Tier Three Seats!!” button and hums. “Three is not excessive. It is a vacation. We should enjoy ourselves.”

“I will not enjoy myself knowing we’re spending, what, 5,000 more mora on priority seating for one measly fireworks show that’ll last like, 10 minutes at most!” Venti huffs. “Totally unnecessary, completely excessive.”

“It will be my money.”

“You cannot just use your grandparents’ trust fund for these purposes, Zhongli dearest,” Venti says, in case his best friend really is that senseless about his money. “It just isn’t worth it! And think about how insensitive it is to me, whose grandparents didn’t think to set up a trust fund for their first grandchild!”

“It isn’t a trust fund,” Zhongli begins, but Venti cuts that well-worn argument off by draping himself dramatically over Zhongli’s shoulders and sighing — also very dramatically — into his ear. Zhongli coughs, pushes up his reading glasses, and moves the cursor away.

“Tier two is fine for us, come on, I’m sure we’ll see tons of fireworks there. It’s a theme park, what kind of theme park doesn’t have fireworks?” Venti pats Zhongli’s forearm and grins. “Think about it, Zhongli. The theme park dedicated to the biggest, most lucrative franchise in Teyvatian history? Even their end-of-the-night show must have all kinds of huge, awesome archon-themed fireworks, unlike this stuffy Celebration of Autumn event!”

Zhongli sighs. “You said you wanted to see this special, limited-time event show, though.”

“Well, I do, since it comes with a whole dinner package centered around using osmanthus wine in cooking and I know osmanthus wine’s your favorite, but…” What’s a good way to say, hey, can you stop spending money on anything I ask you about, it’s not like you’re my boyfriend and as much as I wish you were, you are literally going to give me a heart attack if you keep acting like a sugar daddy with no knowledge of regular finances? Maybe Venti would be better off keeping his mouth shut after all. “But! Just not to the extent of buying a 5,000 mora upgrade for it!”

“Hmm. I see,” Zhongli says mysteriously. He tilts his head and pretends to consider Venti’s point before clicking on the tier three seat booking anyway. When Venti unwinds himself from Zhongli’s shoulders and yelps in outrage, Zhongli simply tugs on his braids, like a silent and embarrassingly effective settle down. “However, since a vacation such as this is a rare opportunity, we should make the most of it. 5,000 more mora for a one-time upgrade is quite reasonable, actually.”

Venti wants to protest, but there’s technically nothing wrong with Zhongli’s logic if the only argument he can come up with is, it’s bad for my heart!! Ugh.

“I have booked two tier three seats for us, first row from the waterfront. After our dinner, you will be able to enjoy the full splendor of the fireworks.” There’s a fond, satisfied note to Zhongli’s voice. This! This is what Venti means!! How is he supposed to survive all this, when Zhongli is so — so — so kind and amazing and good to Venti?! Being friends with Zhongli is like the universe looked at Venti’s hyperactive heart and went, this guy could use some tall, hot, kind, nerdy, Venti-specific catnip bait in his life. It’s terrible. Venti loves him so much. “It will be a delightful experience,” Zhongli continues. “Perhaps I shall bring some blankets, in case we get cold while waiting — or no, we could just dress warm — “

“Aiya, you’re thinking way too far ahead! You’ve already insisted on the fancy seats, and that’s enough for one day. We’ll figure the rest out later!” Venti wiggles the mouse from Zhongli’s hand and clicks to the next ticket booking site, this one for some stage play about Liyue’s archon and all his dead friends. “I can’t believe you went ahead and spent 5,000 mora for second-row seats. You are so lucky I love you.”

It takes Venti a few moments of scrolling through the stage play description and subtly admiring the photos of the actors (in particular Morax, whose actor is exactly Venti’s type, which is to say he looks like Zhongli) to realize it, but. Ah. He did just tell Zhongli he loves him, didn’t he?

Shit. Shit.

Zhongli is holding himself still, his shallow breaths coming quick and harsh. Venti can feel the sudden heat of his neck, the whisper of a heartbeat from where his head is still cozied in the curve of Zhongli’s shoulder. Fuck. He’d gotten too brave, too clumsy, spilling the raw, molten core of his love into the space between them, and now Zhongli is tense and quiet when he never was before, not with Venti, and — and —

“Erm, Zhongli?” Venti says, daring to peek up. He’s ruined things already, he should just get the rejection over and done with now. He’s fully expecting Zhongli to look scared, or angry, or confused, as one would normally look when their best friend suddenly confesses their love.

Zhongli looks… normal, though, or as normal as someone inhumanly pretty like him can get. Except his eyelashes flutter twice as he stares at Venti, and his perfect lips part around a silent oh, and Venti has absolutely no idea what emotions are flowing just beneath Zhongli’s barely-placid expression.

They’ve been friends for ten years. Ten! Years! Venti knows Zhongli, okay? He knows this man, has held his hand through grief and confusion and anger, has been lucky enough to be his companion through happiness and success. Venti can read the fine shape of Zhongli’s eyebrows and the slight quirk of his smile better than he can discern his own feelings, sometimes. He knows Zhongli feels things deeply, sincerely, his emotions steady and stubborn and slow to change, and Venti has dedicated himself to learning every tectonic shift of his heart regardless.

But he’s never seen Zhongli with this expression. Not like this. Lost and found again, vulnerable in its hesitance, breathtaking in all that focus, directed right at Venti. And it’s because Venti fucked things up, his affection making him loose-tongued, more drunk on his love than he’s ever been on wine.

“Oh,” Zhongli murmurs, then has the gall to look startled at his voice. “I — Venti?”

“What!” Venti says. Okay, yeah, oh is an appropriate response, since he’s apparently reverted to avoiding all admittance of emotional honesty. In his defense, who would be courageous enough to be emotionally honest after accidentally telling their one and only love of ten years that, well, you love them? Not Venti, that’s who. “You — you’re ridiculous, alright, who spends that much money on fancy seats, seriously, I can’t believe you! Fireworks show seats, for one small show! Honestly! People like you are why the corporation running Archons’ Domain is so rich!”

Zhongli laughs at that, somehow, his eyes crinkling with amusement at Venti’s flustered protests. “I got those seats for you, though. Should I not spend money I can afford, if it will make you happy?”

“You — you!! You can’t just say stuff like that, Zhongli, what the fuck — “

“Oh, right.” Zhongli catches Venti’s hand in his easily, squeezes it once. When he looks up at Venti, his smile is devastating. “I love you too, Venti. Now let’s figure out where this stage play fits in our itinerary.”

Venti makes an extremely embarrassing noise that probably sounds like he’s imitating a tea kettle and detaches himself from Zhongli to flop face-down onto the table, lest he spontaneously combust and turn Zhongli to ashes with him. That’s just — well — okay then! Okay! Fine! Zhongli is interpreting it as a friendship I love you, and that is completely fine with Venti!! At least it means Zhongli is still oblivious as to Venti’s true feelings, right?

Right. Venti can deal with an I love you in the context of their friendship. He can, and he will, and he is definitely not going to remember the exact timbre or depth or tone of Zhongli’s voice, and most definitely not replay it in his head to capture that incandescently happy feeling of Zhongli saying I love you and —

Venti grinds his forehead into the table. He’s never forgetting how Zhongli said it, is he?

At least, he thinks, lifting his head as Zhongli notes down the stage play on the third day’s itinerary and moves onto a crafting a master plan for visiting every single food stall in Archons’ Domain, even if Zhongli has never wanted to date me, he still loves me in some way. That’s what matters.

Maybe if Venti tells himself that every hour, he’ll believe it by the time their vacation rolls around.

———

“You look like shit,” Diluc says, first thing next morning. “Did you not sleep last night?”

“Ignore him!” Kaeya calls. “He’s just decided the typical office greetings are too boring, so now he’s going to be blunt and rude to make up for it.”

“Kaeya, I swear to god — “

Venti catches hold of Diluc’s jacket and reels him into the elevator before he can start another fight with Kaeya, who gives them a self-satisfied wave as the elevator doors close. “Of course I slept,” he says, subtly smoothing down his bedhead.

“Right, and I’m a multi-millionaire media mogul.”

“Are you, though??”

Diluc has two expressions — I cannot believe I am doing this, and I cannot believe other people are this bad at doing this. Right now, he’s staring at Venti with the combined force of both of them. Ah, what a joyous person to work with. “Do I look like one to you?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Venti says.

“He was probably up late planning his autumn getaway with his boyfriend,” Rosaria chimes in, unimpressed as always. The elevator dings, and Venti briefly considers calling out sick from work so that he doesn’t have to deal with Diluc and Rosaria’s interrogation about his vacation. It isn’t too late! He hasn’t gotten to his desk yet!

Diluc and Rosaria flank Venti’s sides and practically shepherd him out of the elevator. How lovely. “He isn’t my boyfriend,” Venti says, thinking of his not-boyfriend to lower his stress levels because it is 9 AM and while Diluc and Rosaria are individually great friends to have, together they become an unstoppable Venti-interrogation machine. “And I was not! We planned at 3 PM on a Sunday. A very reasonable hour, if I do say so myself.”

“Riiiiight,” Rosaria drawls.

“You and Zhongli literally coordinated your vacation time so that you could take a week off together,” Diluc points out. “To go on a vacation together. And spend time together. Even though you already spend so much of your time here, at work, getting paid to spend half the day visiting the sixth floor to pester your not-boyfriend.”

“Okay, well, when you put it that way, it certainly sounds suspicious!” Venti admits. “I get your confusion about our relationship!”

“And?” Diluc says

“And what?”

Rosaria rolls her eyes. “You’re not going to defend that?”

“Nothing to defend, nothing to see there, that’s just how two best friends since college act! I swear!”

Diluc swings himself into his chair and makes his stereotypical steepled-fingers I-am-the-manager pose. “I’ve been friends with Kaeya since college and we do not act like that.” Rosaria doesn’t add anything, probably because she was too busy being an edgy goth in college to make many friends.

“Okay, well, you and Kaeya have an extremely baffling relationship, and that should not be your standard for long-lasting university friendships.” Venti bites into the apple he yanked from the cafeteria on the way up. Since he forgot to pack lunch today, he can just swing by the cafeteria at noon and charm the lunch ladies into forgiving his fruit thief crimes. “Anyway, friends go on vacation together all the time. What’s so weird about it?”

“Aside from the fact that you’re clearly in love with him?” Rosaria says. “Nothing, I suppose.”

Diluc nods, having united with Rosaria to become Venti’s biggest source of stress today. “And aside from the fact that Zhongli is also clearly in love with you? Nothing weird.”

Venti stares at them. Diluc is lounging in his fancy manager chair, Rosaria ignoring her own workstation in favor of leaning on the wall of their shared office space and looking both unbothered by and judgemental of Venti’s personal choices. Good try, but they can’t intimidate Venti with their edgy dark-office-worker aesthetic and general aura of coolness!

“Are the two of you even qualified to give me romantic insights?” He snarks. Then, just to shut them up, “I already know Zhongli loves me, he said it just yesterday! I’m his best friend, of course. How could he not? I’ve charmingly wormed my way into Zhongli’s heart a long time ago, and I know that, so you don’t need to tell me more.”

Rosaria and Diluc share a look filled with nothing but the promise of trouble for Venti. “Ah,” says Rosaria, always the first to share her wisdom. “So that’s why you look so tired. Up late thinking about that, huh?”

At least Diluc has the decency to look somewhat sympathetic about the category 5 hurricane shredding Venti’s emotions right now. “He wouldn’t say that if he didn’t mean it,” he says, obviously trying hard to be reassuring. “Zhongli isn’t that kind of person. There might be more to him saying that than you think, Venti.”

“Awww, there’s some sentimentality in you after all!” Venti coos, earning himself an incredulous glare for his efforts. “But seriously, Luc, I know you’re quite the gentleman and everything, but you don’t have to be nice about this.” He’s too used to their usual dynamic of faux-mean back-and-forths to handle a 100% polite Diluc. Plus, it’s going to start giving him false hope. For the sake of his friendship with Zhongli, he shouldn’t — he can’t hope.

What he and Zhongli have is already good! It’s good, it’s great, it’s almost perfect. Ten years together have let them both become the person who knows the other best, have let them grow together until their paths in life are inextricable, until Venti cannot be understood without Zhongli and vice versa. They’re Venti-and-Zhongli, Zhongli-and-Venti, a package deal! Does it really matter if those dashes are of romantic or platonic linkage?

Well. It does to Venti, at least, but no matter how much he wants Zhongli’s love to be layered with romance, he won’t let himself have any more hope. Why ruin the reality of the best thing he’s ever had with his fantasies of how it could be better? Venti almost did it yesterday. He won’t have it happen again. He won’t be responsible for making Zhongli feel unsettled around him, knowing Venti loves him in a way he doesn’t return.

He won’t break them apart. Rosaria and Diluc might think it’s sad that Venti prefers enjoying their friendship as it is instead of pursuing what could be, maybe even cowardly, and perhaps they’re right. But he has too much to lose here. If his love could push Zhongli away, it’s better for both of them that Venti lets it fester under his skin, forever trapped behind his tongue, a closed wound without a scar for Zhongli to see.

He won’t lose Zhongli over this.

Diluc shakes his head. “I’m not being nice, since you get hives whenever I try to be sincerely nice with you. I’m just telling you what I think, as an outsider looking in on your own extremely baffling relationship with Zhongli.”

“My relationship with Zhongli isn’t baffling, we’re perfectly easy to understand! You just need two words: best. Friends. Okay? Okay!” Venti tosses his apple core to the can across the room and pumps his fist when it hits the rim and topples over into the trash. “Now, throw your intrusive curiosity into my non-existent love life away just like that delicious apple, and get to work.”

“I’m the one who should be telling you to work,” Diluc grumbles, but he knows a signal to stop poking Venti’s very obvious emotional bruise when he hears it. He busies himself with some fancy managerial approval forms on his desk. Rosaria, however, has no such qualms about going straight for Venti’s jugular.

“Best friends like how Jean and Lisa were ‘best friends’ for six months before they got together,” she scoffs. “You two are just as insufferable, even if you’re not quite as suave in your flirting as Lisa is.”

“Excuse me!” Venti starts, offended at the implication that his flirting is anything but smooth and charming. Except… “Wait, I don’t flirt with Zhongli, what are you talking about?”

“Oh, you don’t flirt with him?” Rosaria says, sounding unimpressed, which. Fair. She has quite the reputation as a lady-killer, while Diluc (workaholic) and Venti (tragically in love with his best friend) are both perpetually single. “So what about all those times Zhongli visits you to give you lunch or show you cute rock pictures or whatever it is that man does, and you start sending him wife me the fuck up right now I am not asking politely anymore eyes and getting way up in his personal space to talk to him?”

Diluc grimaces at that, as if he’s remembering when Kaeya gave him a tooth-numbingly sour box of grape juice as a prank birthday gift. “And Zhongli is completely fine with your questionable flirting, presumably because you’ve been flirting with him like that for years and for some reason he likes it. Presumably because he likes you.”

“You’re both insane!” Venti declares. He starts up his tablet and reaches for his drawing pen so he has something to fiddle with while Diluc and Rosaria satisfy their urge to bully him over his terrible romantic choices. “Completely mental, utterly off your rockers! I do not make those kinds of eyes at Zhongli — “ No matter how much Venti would appreciate Zhongli wifing him the fuck up, he doesn’t — “And that’s just our unique friendship dynamic. You wouldn’t understand!”

“Yes, and I wouldn’t want to understand either,” Diluc deadpans. “I’m working, so don’t bother me unless you and Zhongli finally decide to stop being idiots about each other today.”

Venti rather likes to think he and Zhongli enable each other’s intelligence and better performance, actually, what with him being an in-house graphic designer slash general head of all creative PR and media-related company matters and Zhongli being the legal team’s manager. It’s like the arts and logic supporting each other! But fine, Diluc can think whatever he wants. His job only requires writing formal emails all day, what does he know of interdisciplinary collaborations?

Rosaria just hums. “Well, whatever kinds of eyes you’re making at Zhongli, maybe if you weren’t preoccupied with that, you’d be able to notice just how he looks at you sometimes.”

“Wait, what?” Venti yelps, bolting up from his chair so he can lean over to Rosaria’s desk and shake her shoulder. “Rosaria!! Hello! How does he look at me?? I need to know!”

“You two are adults, figure it out yourselves,” she says. She doesn’t even bother looking away from her computer. Ugh! She had to know saying that would leave Venti too curious not to try and catch Zhongli in the act of looking at him in whatever way she says he does, even though that is a supremely bad idea. Rosaria really is sneaky sometimes!

“Rosariaaaa, come on, help your poor friend out here,” Venti whines, on the verge of replaying every interaction he’s had with Zhongli in the past two weeks to see if he can notice anything different.

“If Zhongli doesn’t visit you at lunch today, then I’ll tell you. But I bet 200 mora that he will visit, so… good luck,” Rosaria says.

“Ah, I’ll bet another 100 mora on that.” Diluc says casually, like he hasn’t just broken his no-office-bets rule that they all assumed was a thing, given his previous aversion to betting on whether a newspaper would criticize their press release or whether a client would be a passive-aggressive asshole or anything else of mild consequence. “And don’t secretly text Zhongli to tell him not to come. We’ll know if you do.”

“What the hell!” Venti exclaims. “How would you even know? And since when did you bet? Was the possibility of me suffering in ignorance the impetus you needed to become a gambler??”

“We’ll know,” Diluc repeats. “You’re very obvious whenever you text Zhongli, for one.” Rosaria nods and makes a crude impression of what she thinks Venti’s face looks like when he texts Zhongli. How rude! There’s no way he looks that foolishly fond… is there? “And what can I say? Maybe Kaeya’s rubbing off on me.”

Rosaria coughs lightly at that, sending Diluc an inscrutable look. Venti gets the distinct feeling that there’s something he’s missing here, but after 20 minutes of interrogation about his love life, he isn’t feeling particularly in the mood for interrogating them back.

“Whatever!” Venti huffs, twirling his pen between his fingers. “Zhongli doesn’t come here for lunch every day. I have no idea why you two are so confident about your bet. Now I’m going to get back to work, since there’s a product launch coming up and we all have tons of work to do. So no more talking! And especially no more speculating about Zhongli’s feelings!”

Diluc and Rosaria share a glance over the low barrier over their workspaces. “300 mora?” Rosaria proposes.

“Why not, Venti will pay for it anyway. 600 mora is enough for lunch for both of us, yeah?” Diluc says, waving his hand flippantly like he isn’t talking about gambling at the office as a manager. What if Venti reports him to HR? What then, huh?

Rosaria grins, all sharp teeth. “It sure is. Wanna get something from Yanxiao’s food stall? Been eyeing that grilled fish combo.”

“I hate you both,” Venti declares. “You guys are uninvited from my hypothetical future wedding for the reason of bullying me in a delicate state!”

“We were invited to your wedding?” Diluc says, actually sounding touched.

Venti thunks his head onto his desk and groans. Zhongli better not come around for lunch, otherwise these two will make his life hell and temporarily deplete his wallet of snacking funds.

———

Venti’s phone buzzes at 15 minutes to noon on the dot. When he saves his file (thank you so much, pink sticky note reminder right above his workspace to remind him to always save before taking a break) and checks his phone, he nearly chooses death right there and then.

The notification header reads, from: jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli. Fuck! A quick glance up reassures Venti that neither Diluc nor Rosaria have noticed the disturbance just yet, so he opens the message furtively.

I brought lunch, Zhongli’s message says. Come outside, let’s eat. And a leaf emoji plus a heart emoji afterwards, for some god-awful reason, because the universe is conspiring to give Venti an infinite number of heart attacks today. He should never have let Guizhong and Hu Tao team up to teach Zhongli the mysterious art of emoji usage.

Why?? Venti texts back, feeling quite like a teenager squirreling his embarrassing text messages with his friends under his jacket so as to not alert his mum.

I want to eat lunch with you. Chopsticks emoji. Vaguely ominous smiley emoji.

ok what if i said i was busy, Venti sends.

Three dots, and then: Are you busy? Sad face.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Even if Venti were busy, he would throw aside all his duties if Zhongli asked, and Zhongli isn’t even asking now, he’s just manipulating his emoji usage to convey the perfect persuasive pout over text.

whtver im not that busy, ill be down in 5, Venti texts back. He gingerly closes his laptop and slides out of his chair like some sort of gay selkie on his way to have a hushed meeting with his dearest bosom friend. Such is the amount of stealth he employs on his way out of his office, and yet barely three steps away from his desk, Diluc’s head snaps up.

Ah. It seems like the hawk’s caught the seal, then.

“And where are you going?” Diluc says. He isn’t the type of person to smirk unnecessarily — mostly, he does it with equal amounts malice and amusement at Kaeya when Kaeya is being purposefully annoying — but Venti has the distinct feeling that Diluc is barely restraining himself from smirking at him. “Did Zhongli text you?”

Rosaria yawns, eyeing Venti from her desk. “Yep, Zhongli texted him. See, he looks all… floaty.”

“Mm, he really does,” Diluc agrees. “So, 600 mora?”

Venti speedwalks to the exit of their team’s office space before they can physically force him to give them money. “I’m not talking to you for the rest of the day! Also, I never acknowledged your bet, so it’s not legally binding and I have no obligation to pay you. Just saying!”

Rosaria does smirk at him, then. “Oooh, legal talk! Maybe Zhongli is the one rubbing off on Venti, eh?”

“Really, Rosaria?” Diluc groans. “Venti, just ignore her. Enjoy your lunch with Zhongli and think about what we’ve said, alright?”

Venti yanks the door to the corridor open and yelps as he nearly collides with Zhongli’s torso. Why, oh why did Zhongli have to stand right outside Venti’s office?? Doesn’t he know that there are some things in this world that simply must be conducted with discretion and delicacy, and spiriting Venti away for lunch in front of the friends that bet on Zhongli showing up is one of them?!

There’s a wolf whistle from Rosaria as Venti maneuvers Zhongli away from the door and down the corridor. Zhongli gives a cute little ah! Of confusion, but he lets himself be manhandled until they reach a sufficiently private talking spot.

“Why’d you bring me lunch??” Venti demands, spinning Zhongli around to face him. Zhongli is holding two bento boxes wrapped in cloth printed with little cartoon dragons, and the dissonance between this suit-wearing, serious office worker and his cutesy packed lunch is so sharp that Venti has to huff out a laugh. “Now Diluc and Rosaria are gonna be insufferable! Ugh, I hope their grilled fish is cold when they buy it. That reminds me, I lost a bet with them so use your money for good and send Diluc 600 mora on my behalf, please?”

Zhongli is well acquainted with handling Venti’s messy way of speaking by now. Venti watches with helpless adoration as Zhongli considers each topic he just threw at him, tilting his head and making miniscule expressions in reaction to each of them. Gods, he really is so good. Venti can’t even pretend to be outraged with him for longer than two minutes.

“I wanted to eat with you. Don’t we normally have lunch together?” Zhongli says. Ugh, and he looks so earnest about having lunch together too! How can Venti ever deny him anything? “Why are Diluc and Rosaria bothering you? They must be going to Yanxiao’s stall for lunch if they’re having grilled fish today, that’s the best place near our office.” Zhongli pulls out his phone and frowns. “Diluc’s contact is somewhere here, give me one moment.”

Venti waits patiently while Zhongli scrolls through his phone for three minutes (finding Diluc’s contact) before frowning (he must have realized he needs to open PayVat to send money, Venti thinks) and finally nodding solemnly when his phone dings with the mora transfer confirmation after two more minutes. For a competent lawyer in charge of extensively reviewing online contracts and forms, Zhongli sure is bad with personal technology. He’s such an old-fashioned nerd like that, Venti loves him so much.

“Thank you, baobao!” Venti chirps, reverting to teasing to disguise his raw affection. Usually Zhongli scoffs at his teasing and makes half-hearted protests in response to the nickname. Today, though, he’s silent, and Venti looks up to see Zhongli ducking his head, the edges of his cheeks softened with the slightest hints of a blush.

Strange. Is Zhongli coming down with a cold, and trying to suppress his symptoms like this so Venti won’t notice? Or maybe he isn’t dressed warmly enough and was hit by a sudden shiver, hence the blush? But Zhongli is wearing his standard long-sleeved shirt under a fitted waistcoat, his tie securely in place and his longer overcoat folded over his arm. He looks like the platonic ideal of a gentleman.

“Zhongli?” Venti says. He sways forward, just a small movement into Zhongli’s space to test his reaction. “Are you spacing out again?”

“Ah, no, I just…” Zhongli’s expression evens out into a small, satisfied smile. “I’m glad to be of service, Venti. So shall we eat outside in the park, or on the cafeteria patio?”

Hm. Definitely strange. Zhongli is being weird today. Usually he would have made a remark about Venti’s closeness when they’re both still at work, and usually he would have asked about what his money was being used for. He does neither of them. In fact, he just keeps beaming at Venti in that particular way of his, like he’s waiting for Venti to call the shots!

Well, perhaps Zhongli is excited about something and wants to surprise Venti with it over lunch, hence the enthusiasm and the visibly bright mood. But even when Zhongli had proposed they go on vacation, it had been a casual affair, really nothing but him mentioning offhandedly that they should do something together after their big project was over at the same moment that an ad for Archons’ Domain was playing on the TV. He’d made the connection, and that was that, cut simple and dry.

This, however… it’s suspicious, to say the least. It may not be a surprise, but regardless, Zhongli is acting differently, and Venti will draw the reason out of him at all costs.

“Let’s eat in the park, I think I saw the magnolia trees blooming on my way here. It’ll be a nice view!” Venti says. Zhongli will feel better about a surprise or a deep personal conversation when there are less people around, and definitely in a less work-related environment. Heh, Venti’s got everything predicted and handled!

Zhongli beams at him again, his smile fond and unselfconscious and unbearably soft at the edges, and trails him to the elevator. Fuck. Venti’s got everything handled except his poor wayward heart, which is on the verge of giving out. One more moment of blush-inducing sincerity from Zhongli and he’s done for.

———

“You left my apartment quite late yesterday,” Zhongli says apropos of nothing, once they’re settled into their usual lunch spot in the park and he’s unpacked the two layers of the bento, complete with cloud-decorated chopstick sets and folded napkins.

“Um, yeah? Planning our vacation turned out to be a pretty time-consuming activity.” Venti grins despite himself at Zhongli’s hyper-efficient organization skills, hoping it comes off as a regular ol’ Venti-is-being-a-little-shit-again grin to Zhongli. “Ugh, who knew you even had to consider what kind of socks to bring for optimal walking comfort?”

“So you probably forgot to pack lunch for yourself today. That is, if you did any meal preparation for this week at all.” Hey, why does Zhongli have to look so disapproving?? Cooking is hard! Not everyone can be Jin ‘had a cookbook reading phase in high school and then actually learned how to cook 10 different cuisines’ Zhongli, alright?

Venti groans. “Wow, you know me too well. Can you conveniently forget some things about me? Just pretend I’m a normal person with a normal attention span and ability to concentrate on one task at a time, eh?”

Zhongli shakes his head. “That isn’t possible.” Then, before Venti can gather his thoughts and ask which question he meant that as an answer to, he continues, “I made you lunch because of that. Please… enjoy.”

“Um, okay? Thanks? You bring me lunch a lot though, I know you chronically cook too much for yourself and give me your leftovers, which is great since your cooking is amazing, but it seems like you thought of me today, so…that’s nice!”

Well, obviously it’s more than nice! Venti is on the verge of keeling over, and that’s just with the knowledge that Zhongli thought of him and went, I guess I’ll bring Venti lunch, why not. But Zhongli is looking at him expectantly, almost like an elegant human-shaped Golden Retriever waiting for its owner to praise it, and that is an image that Venti does not want in his head. He’s got to get it out somehow. Preferably by being really casual about this whole affair.

Zhongli smiles softly at that again. He’s smiling a lot today, for some reason. He’s also being really nice to Venti today, for some reason, and he hasn’t revealed his reasons, and now Venti is scrambling to compile all the known triggers for sudden and positive changes in behavior.

…Holy shit, did someone die? Is Zhongli dying?? Is he secretly ill with an obscure and acute disease? Is that why he’s acting so weird and smiley and enthusiastic, because he knows he doesn’t have much time left on this earth and now he’s regretting all the time he spent being an emotionally stunted blockhead to his best friend in the whole wide world?!

Oh my god. Okay. Fuck. Maybe, just maybe, Venti is overthinking this. Because that is something he does. Usually Zhongli just bonks him lightly on the head when his brain spins itself out of control and they’re all good, but today is the furthest thing from a usual day, so Venti must rely on… ugh. Reason.

The odds of Zhongli having a chronic and acute illness are extremely low, for starters. Plus, Zhongli isn’t the type of person to hide life-changing medical information from the people around him. Also, when has Zhongli had the time to go to the doctor in the past few months? He’s been working around the clock on drafting legal contracts for their company’s new partnerships, and when he hasn’t been working he’s been hanging out with Venti or their extended friendship group.

There’s no way that Zhongli is sick!

Zhongli coughs lightly. “Actually… I always think of you. I simply bring you your portion of the food I cooked; I know that often you find it hard to spare time to cook for yourself and I thought I could… help you care for yourself, in that regard. I only told you they were leftovers because I was quite embarrassed about it. But now…”

Oh, okay then. That’s… cool! Super cool. Lovely. Wonderful. Wow. Zhongli is really — he’s really —

“Venti?” Zhongli says. How does he even have the nerve to look hesitant after that?? What the fuck? He can’t just say things like that, Venti’s told him before, why is he saying things like that, why is he being so good to Venti —

“Are you dying??” Venti blurts out, because his brain has decided that today is vacation day and his very anxious impulses have taken the reins in its absence.

Zhongli stares at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I mean!! You’re being so… so nice, and sincere, and I have no idea what brought about this change and my mind jumped to terminal illness, alright, don’t laugh at me!” Venti buries his face in his hands and considers faking his own death to avoid this humiliation.

“I’m not laughing at you,” Zhongli assures him, sounding exactly like someone who wants to laugh but isn’t doing so out loud because they’d feel bad about it. “But, ah… terminal illness was your first thought? Really, Venti?”

“How about we move on from that right now! it’s well established that sometimes I simply do not think, okay, and this is one of those moments.”

“Well, I am quite happy to inform you that I am not terminally ill,” Zhongli says drily. “I should hope I have many more years left to live. And is there something wrong with me being sincere about how I feel?

“No!!” Venti is quick to say, since the last thing he wants is Zhongli not feeling free to share his emotions (which would also mean being deprived of Zhongli’s newfound capability to be devastatingly nice to Venti.) “Yes? Well, no, of course you should be sincere, it’s just… I don’t know, you’re acting like my boyfriend or something!!”

“But, I…” Zhongli trails off. He has the most adorable look of confusion on his face.

So — okay, maybe it does sting a little to have Zhongli react this way, as if the thought of romance is utterly nonexistent when it comes to Venti, and he can’t even fathom the idea of being Venti’s boyfriend. But it’s not like Venti’s fantasies of marrying him are particularly relevant to that. He has better things to be worried about right now, namely, inadvertently revealing his tragic one-sided pining to his best friend for the second time in less than 24 hours. If he lets that stand in the air for too long, Zhongli might begin to think it’s something Venti wants!

And it is. Venti wants it so much. He wants to hold Zhongli’s hand and lean into his side and make a home inside the halls of his heart. He wants to be someone that Zhongli loves in every way. He wants to be by Zhongli’s side for the rest of their days, and he wants to love Zhongli wholly and truly. He would date the hell out of Zhongli if he were given even one sign, just the tiniest show of interest. He would carve the cliffs of the grandest river canyon if it meant he could be allowed to love Zhongli.

But Venti’s been watching Zhongli for longer than he knew he loved him. Even before he had a name for how his heart spun on its axis to point towards Zhongli every day, every time they saw each other, he was watching. Venti would know if the way Zhongli looked at him ever changed, if there was even one moment where Zhongli looked, and saw him, and wondered what it would be like, loving Venti.

Zhongli’s gaze has never changed. And Venti can’t change how a river runs to its home, either. And all of that is fine, Venti has long since resigned himself to these facts of life. It’s fine.

“Anyway, just act like usual, okay? You don’t need to feel like you have to be super nice with me or anything, I really don’t mind our usual bantering.” Venti nudges Zhongli’s foot under the table and pastes on what he hopes is a convincingly mischievous grin. “You keep me on my toes, you know, sharpening my mind on that old stone head of yours. Don’t stop now!”

“If you say so,” Zhongli says, clearly still confused. “But I am acting as usual, I have only decided to come clean to you about me bringing you lunch. I won’t argue with you out of nowhere, but we can continue our… lively discussion on the best kinds of dinosaurs if you wish.”

“Yes, yes, you’re keeping me fed and watered like a needy houseplant and putting way too much effort into it, and thank you!” Venti says dismissively. Pretending his feelings are something to joke about like this is the only way he can ignore the sharp pulse of longing that comes whenever he thinks too hard about Zhongli cooking for him, thinking of him, bringing him food like the perfect considerate boyfriend. Like Venti is a kept man. “And it wasn’t lively, you just refuse to admit that pterodactyls are the best.”

Zhongli looks entirely too smug for Venti to feel safe in his teasing, though. It’s the type of smugness that Zhongli got when he revealed he’d been hired at the same company as Venti, and when he gave Venti that cashmere sweater he’d been eyeing for six months for Christmas, and — well. Maybe talking about extinct species will help distract Zhongli from whatever devastating thing he’s planning to say next?

“Ankylosaurus are much more practical,” Zhongli insists. “Eat your lunch before our break ends and perhaps I will explain to you, for the fourth time, why they are so.”

“No way! Ankylosaurus had such a terrible design aesthetic and execution! I can’t believe you go for that type of dinosaur,” Venti complains, opening the top of his bento and clacking his chopsticks together. “But you know what, I should have predicted this, of course you go for the bulky, heavily armored type. You’re always playing the tank when I drag you into my MMORPGs — “

Venti drops his chopsticks.

“Eh?” Zhongli tilts his head and frowns at Venti. “Is there something wrong?”

Is there something wrong? Is there something wrong? How in the world does this fucking — goddamn — bastard have the nerve to ask him that, when there’s a — there’s a!! In his bento, on top of the rice, sprinkled lovingly in pink flakes, there’s a — a heart!!

Okay. Deep breaths, Venti. Deep breaths. There has to be an explanation for why Zhongli decorated his lunch with a heart.

…There isn't!! How can a heart be explained away?! Honestly, is Zhongli really just that oblivious, to decorate his very affectionate best friend’s lunch (that he made) with a perfect heart (not a sprinkle out of place, too) and give it to him with no trace of embarrassment, only an aura of simple satisfaction that is so intensely confusing for Venti’s poor gay heart??

Out loud, because it’s his default reaction, Venti says, “What the fuck?”

Zhongli is still frowning, as if he has no idea just what Venti is currently dying over. “Are the foods in the bento not to your liking?” He asks.

“The… decoration? On the rice?” Venti hedges. If he has to directly state his problem, he really might die.

“Oh, that.” Zhongli pauses. “Do you, ah… not like it?”

Venti briefly considers quitting his job, ghosting all his friends, and moving to rural Fontaine. Zhongli really is that oblivious! Now, Venti knows that Zhongli hasn’t really been in the dating scene for a decade or so, probably since he wants to focus on his work first, but even he can’t be that ignorant to the implications of his behavior, can he?

Or maybe this is how people who are secure in their friendships act. Maybe Zhongli just woke up in an exceptionally good mood and thought, well, why not, let’s be nice to Venti today. Because the alternate option — that Zhongli does know what it means, and he’s testing Venti’s reaction, trying to see if Venti really is in love with him — is. Well. He doesn’t want to consider it. It seems almost too cruel. A reality where Zhongli knows the depths of Venti’s feelings, but isn’t just giving him a proper rejection already —

Venti shakes his head like it can shake off the shroud of those thoughts, too.

“So you don’t like it,” Zhongli continues, his voice quieter, smaller.

And Venti can take many things in this world. Hell, he’s still alive after all the borderline romantic signals that Zhongli has thrown at him in the past day! But hearing Zhongli speak like that — no. No.

“That isn’t it! I — I, I really like it!! it’s so cute, I love it, really, honestly. You’re the best, the heart is adorable, okay?” Venti reaches across the table and grasps at Zhongli’s forearm, squeezing it and hoping desperately that Zhongli can’t feel the long-settled weight of his love, stirred up like sediment and howling for acknowledgement. “I was just — surprised. But it’s not bad. How could it be? You made it for me, after all. And it really is so cute…” He gives up on suppressing his smitten smile. Zhongli really is such an oblivious blockhead. It’s not like he’ll notice, one way or another.

He won’t notice.

He’s never noticed.

So while Zhongli has his head in the clouds, Venti will keep walking, keep himself grounded, hoping one day Zhongli might notice, hoping right now he doesn’t, so that Venti can love him freely today.

“Oh,” says Zhongli, a small punched-out breath. When Venti looks up, his cheeks are dusted pink again with the early spring breeze, magnolias blooming under his skin. “That’s good, then. Yes. Very good. I — you should eat now. Please.”

He eats. What else can he do, aside from flinging himself bodily across the table and peppering Zhongli’s face with kisses and never letting him go?

The lunch is perfect, like Zhongli’s cooking always is. The weather is good today, a scattering of clouds and a flush of petals swirling in the wind. Zhongli is sitting across him, the sides of their shoes brushing, and he’s watching Venti with a brimming happiness in the curve of his eyes as they eat the meal he cooked for two, half Venti’s favorites and half Zhongli’s, and this is enough, it has to be enough, it will be enough for him. This is all that Venti is allowed to have.

It’s good. Zhongli is good. Venti smiles at him, thinks I love you and please love me, and says, “Thank you for the food!”

Zhongli’s gaze softens, its fondness curling like a sleeping dragon around Venti’s heart. “Of course,” he says.

———

Zhongli walks Venti back to the office like the proper gentleman that he is. He positions Venti away from the road and holds the door open and very nearly puts a hand on his back when they arrive at the elevators, and none of this is new. Zhongli is simply courteous and considerate like that all the time, and for all his jabs at Venti, his actions have always reflected his softer side.

But Venti can’t stop thinking — if he were my boyfriend, it would mean something. If he were my boyfriend, he wouldn’t hesitate to put his arm around my waist. If he were my boyfriend —

“We’re here,” Zhongli says, hovering outside the opaque door to Venti’s office.

If he were my boyfriend, Venti’s traitorous brain volunteers, this is where he would kiss me goodbye.

No! No!! Bad brain, very bad brain, doesn’t it know by now that such whimsical thoughts will get it nowhere but the town of Yearning, in the province of Hopeless Unrequited Feelings, population: Venti and his poor dreamer’s heart? Maybe if Venti makes it pay taxes the next time his thoughts start veering in that direction, his brain will cooperate.

“That we are!” Venti says cheerfully, giving absolutely zero indication that he would really like to be kissed goodbye right now. “Well, uh, thanks again for lunch, it was delicious as always. Guess I should… go? And do some work?”

“Yes,” Zhongli agrees. He doesn’t leave.

“Great!!” Venti squeaks. Why isn’t he leaving?? What is Zhongli waiting for? Fuck, does Venti owe him money? What’s up with all the mixed signals Zhongli is giving him today?!

Zhongli’s eyes flit downwards, and he sways forward. Venti freezes instantly.

Is Zhongli — does he — he could have sworn Zhongli was looking at his lips just now, and he’s closer, infinitesimally, just the slightest movement towards Venti, and does it mean — surely it can’t, but —

Venti blinks, and the moment, like a stolen swath of bubblegum time stretched too far in the narrowing distance between them, snaps. Zhongli has settled into his own space again, his eyes trained somewhere on Venti’s forehead instead of the lower half of his face, everything about him radiating calmness and confidence.

Right. Yeah. There’s no way that Zhongli was trying to… to kiss him, or anything, there’s probably just a trace of sauce at the corner of Venti’s mouth that he forgot to wipe off, and Zhongli was momentarily distracted by it but too polite to let him know within earshot of his coworkers. It’s uncharacteristic of Zhongli to not simply scoff and point out Venti’s messiness, he knows, but suddenly wanting to kiss him goodbye is even more uncharacteristic, so… yeah. It’s not possible. It can’t be.

Zhongli nods once, sharply. “Then, I’ll see you around. I… really enjoyed our lunch. Let’s do it again soon.”

“Um, yeah, sure, sounds good,” Venti babbles, desperately searching for some way to get out of this situation before he starts overthinking every millisecond-long memory of Zhongli’s actions and looks and tone of voice. Again. He pats Zhongli’s shoulder before he can think better of it and musters up a wan smile. “You should get back to work now, I know you’ve still got tons to do. I’ll text you later after work, okay?”

Zhongli’s expression turns pinched and confused, another momentary flicker of emotion across his face. Gosh, he must really be stressed by his workload right now. But it’s fine!! Their vacation is soon, Zhongli won’t have to worry about things like corporate legal drama or his best friend being embarrassingly infatuated with him because Venti’s feelings will be sedated and suppressed, and Venti will make it the best week of his life through the sheer power of will, friendship, and their shared enthusiasm for a multi-billion mora entertainment franchise. For now, an encouraging and unmistakably platonic shoulder pat will suffice.

“Okay,” Zhongli echoes finally. He takes his leave gracefully, striding down the corridor and sweeping out of sight around the corner. Venti lingers for one moment, watching the fluttering edge of his overcoat swish with every measured step, and ducks into his office before that becomes too creepy.

(Venti checks his face in his front camera five minutes later. There is a spot of sauce that he missed, a small smear of red-brown teriyaki sauce above the left corner of his lips. He groans and buries his head in his arms. What mixed signals?? Zhongli was only acting in a slightly nicer way today, and he’s stayed firmly within the boundary of friendship at every turn. There’s nothing more to it. Venti needs to recognize that and move on.)

———

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Hello Venti what type of partner doth you prefer in a romantic courtship and how much speed would you apply to such a relationship,

hindsight is venti-venti

what the fuck

whos asking

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Jin Zhongli age 29 blood type AB zodiac sign earth dragon occupation legal consult, obviously

Who else would be askinghjh;3lhjs;h;lihf8

hindsight is venti-venti

?????? zhongli are u hanging out with guizhong again

is she mocking ur ancient style of typing

did she steal ur phone too

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

I apologize for that. Guizhong caught me unaware.

I have reclaimed my phone.

hindsight is venti-venti

yeah i can see that

omg did you wrestle the phone back from guizhong

shes gonna be maaaaaaad

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Guizhong says, “You are an idiot and ask Venti if he still has your contact information set to meow meow of my heart because then he’s an idiot as well, I love you both but you are idiots.”

Her words.

hindsight is venti-venti

Wow did you use text to speech to type that

also uhhhh no its set to something very normal and reasonable and not meowmeow of my heart aha why do you ask, even i wouldnt drag out a joke that long, obviously,

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

You are a fucking idiot Venti, I can tell it is set to meow meow, that is not normal or reasonable. I cannot stand you

You hlhfjhj3h;}hgrjelafd

hindsight is venti-venti

Holy shit text to speech is hilarious

its like im watching a digital wrestling match

guizhong can u get me some popcorn, u owe me now for calling me an idiot

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Apologies. Guizhong hijacked the text-to-speech function again.

Neither of us believe you are an idiot.

…Guizhong says, “Except for like every single second of your life and also that time you ran headfirst into a glass sliding door during that party in our sophomore year because you heard the organizers were giving out a limited supply of hard cider and you got too excited.”

Guay John please do not try to use text to speech again or I will take measures against you. Oh yeah like what you coward

hindsight is venti-venti

omg guizhong’s being brave today also wtf text to speech needs some improvement with the names

this is so funny im kind of rooting for guizhong, these messages are too entertaining

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

I have dealt with Guizhong. Do not worry.

hindsight is venti-venti

ummm thats actually quite ominous

anyway why was guizhong asking

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

I do not know.

hindsight is venti-venti

sure u dont

Okay keep ur secrets!!

wait is she trying to set me up on a blind date is that why she needs all that information about ~Romance~

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Why would she set you up on a blind date?

hindsight is venti-venti

dont ask me what guizhongs thinking??

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Either way, that was not why she was asking.

hindsight is venti-venti

ok fine i will leave guizhongs mysterious motives alone since u clearly dont want to tell me

whtever ill just answer the question anyway

what kind of question is that supposed to be tho??

ive dated zero ppl since college and my longest lasting rship was like. 5 weeks

umm well idk i’d really like someone who can match me

Like. Someone who I can laugh with and picture myself spending a quiet day with and someone who would listen to me talk

also welllll u know i get super clingy sometimes but tbh i wouldnt want to take things too fast… make sure the other person isnt scared off LOL

I mean I guess it depends on the person??

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

…I see.

For the record, I do not think any worthy romantic partner of yours would be “scared off”.

They would view your clinginess as a positive factor.

Because it is. Your affection is not a bad thing. I quite enjoy it.

hindsight is venti-venti

uhhh wow that’s

really sweet of you

thanks

I mean it’s just

I’m almost 30 too, i dont need any kind of spectacular love, just

Something simple and sweet and comfortable. I want a steady home with someone, like. Someone to entrust myself to, who’ll love me more than I can love myself

i guess its not like THAT deep tho lol in the end I just want the reassurance of being loved, you know?

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Yes, I do.

…You are comfortable with me, right?

hindsight is venti-venti

what why do u ask

of course i am, u blockhead!!

I’ve known u for 10 years how I can i feel otherwise

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

That is good, then.

Take your time.

Would you like to come over tomorrow, though, simply to discuss the project at work and finish planning our vacation?

hindsight is venti-venti

huh ya sure thing!!

um but.

how much more planning do we have to do

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Well, we should take care of the restaurant reservations. I would also like to have a schedule for visiting all the live attractions we each want to see.

Compiling a list of all the necessities we must pack would be ideal as well.

hindsight is venti-venti

holy SHIT ur bringing the meaning of the word prepared to another level

okay well since u brought it up i will let u handle most of it EHEHE

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

I value your input. Please participate in these discussions.

hindsight is venti-venti

damn i know ur just trying to bait me into talking abt theme park arrangements for 2 hours why do u have 2 be so nice abt it

FIIIINE i’ll participate.

why do i feel like id prefer working on the project

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

I’ll buy some snacks for you to eat, to make working more enjoyable.

hindsight is venti-venti

OMG can u buy wine

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

No.

Your compulsion to get drunk and avoid your responsibilities is rearing its head.

Much like the wine you poured on my head.

hindsight is venti-venti

ZHONGLIIII that was AGES ago!!! Find it in ur heart to forgive your bestest oldest friend please

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

It was only two years ago. My sofa still smells faintly of wine because of that.

Bestest is incorrect grammar.

Also, Guizhong is my oldest friend.

hindsight is venti-venti

OK WOW i can tell ur still holding a grudge about it!!

not like u have reminded me of it basically every time i ask u if we can drink together

I suppose i will simply have to survive on snacks SO BUY A LOT OF THEM THEN

I promise i’ll pay you back!

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Will you?

hindsight is venti-venti

I am going to do very important adulting things before u can start listing all the times that i forgot to pay u back

GOODBYE

I MUST GO CLEAN MY RESTROOM AND REORGANIZE MY CLOSET AND STUFF

Be proud of me!! im being a responsible and competent adult!

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

…Hm. Good luck on that.

hindsight is venti-venti

u dont have to sound so skeptical of ur dearest friend!! Trust in my ability!!

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

I’ll try.

See you tomorrow, Venti.

<3

hindsight is venti-venti

What the fuckHJFHJHS3hjfhejhksfh

sorry i like

dropped my phone

On my face HAHA CLUMSY FINGERS AMIRIGHT

Haha like. didguizhongtellyoutosendtheheartwhaththefuck

Sorry nevermind I have to go now bye goodbye i have very urgent things to do. Bye

jin meowmeow of my heart zhongli

Are you alright?

hindsight is venti-venti

Yes why do you ask

Don’t worry I am totally fine and whole and unharmed and I am LEAVING this conversation now

BYE.

———

Zhongli hadn’t always been so nice.

10 years ago, when Venti had been a wide-eyed freshman and Zhongli an already-overworked sophomore, they’d met in the hollow auditorium of their university. They were sitting across from each other, all the would-be actors and harried stage crew gathered in a circle on the hardwood floor. It was the first meeting of the two-month production period for their university’s spring play, and the last dredges of January snow were melting on the heel of Venti’s boot when he looked across the circle and grinned at Zhongli.

It was Venessa who’d brought Venti to the auditorium, and an enduring love for the arts that carried Zhongli to the same place. Venti auditioned on a whim, trying to squeeze in as many college experiences as he could in his first year. Zhongli auditioned after him, for the role opposite of him, and neither of them had expected Venti would actually get the role.

His memories are faded, golden at the edges after 10 years. The play was something modern, romantic and lonely, nonlinear and disjoint in that new fashion. It was about two men meeting on the border of their nations again and again — two months, two weeks, and then two days before a war. There was musing about the human condition, and underlying themes of pacifism and grief.

And then there was Zhongli, through it all.

No, Zhongli really hadn’t always been so nice to Venti. In typical Venti fashion, he’d gotten on Zhongli’s nerves with his incessant teasing and his casual treatment of a lead role. When he showed up to rehearsals with half his lines crammed into the front of his head and the other half crumpled in his fist, and when he emphasized the wrong word, and when he slurped up his 150% sugar boba tea as Zhongli started rehearsing — every time, Zhongli would send him an exasperated look and open his mouth to start lecturing Venti, upon which Venti would immediately respond with snark, loving the thrill of Zhongli’s full attention on him, the quicksilver wit that their verbal spars brought out in both of them.

It took Venti ten days, a talking-to from Venessa, and a few breathtaking occasions of watching Zhongli rehearse a heavy scene before he really began to understand how much of himself Zhongli put into his performance — that even if Zhongli wasn’t majoring in the arts, theater was one of his prevailing loves, and that perhaps Zhongli couldn’t understand why Venti didn’t approach it with the same gravity that he did.

Funnily enough, the realization made Venti smile. Of course it would be just like Zhongli, to put all of his sincere seriousness into an underfunded undergraduate play. Of course that blockhead would struggle with understanding that not everyone loved things in the same way!

He told Venessa as much, but even Venti’s newfound powers of drama couldn’t make blockhead sound like an insult anymore.

Venti wheedled Zhongli’s phone number out of him the next day.

He’d made plenty of friends by then. It was the second week of February, and midterms were coming up. Venti texted Zhongli on a whim, asking him if he wanted to have a study session that weekend, despite them sharing zero classes together and only the vague sense of a shared academic discipline.

Zhongli agreed.

He showed up to the cafe in a knit brown sweater with a white button-up underneath and an unbelievably flattering pair of beige slacks. Venti — who had slept three hours, who hadn’t showered in two days, and who was wearing his nicest ripped jeans and graphic t-shirt — let himself stare in flushed and flustered admiration for five seconds before he awkwardly launched into teasing Zhongli about his old-man style.

(Definitely not his best move, but give him a break! He was 18, very stressed, and newly realizing that Zhongli was extremely attractive, under all that frowning and lecturing!)

“I’m glad your studies are one thing you take seriously,” Zhongli said, two hours into their meeting. He was reviewing one of Venti’s worksheets for a required biology class. It was looking promising. He hadn’t marked many things with his red pen yet.

Oh, Venti thought.

“Oh,” Venti said, blinking. He remembered what Venessa had said about Zhongli and the way he loved theater, the same way Venti thought Zhongli loved everything — small grins at a pretty, blooming bush outside the theater, an approving nod when his understudy nailed a hard line, all of it serious and steadfast dedication — and then he looked at Zhongli, his hair swept gently over his shoulder, tapping his pen against his fingers.

He’d met with Venti despite all his lectures. He didn’t hate Venti, and it wasn’t as if Venti had made himself the easiest person to like either. Zhongli was trying to help him, trying to work with him in his own way, trying to understand him through his own stubborn lens. Zhongli was trying, and Venti hadn’t given him much to work with, aside from a frustrating amount of obnoxious teasing.

“I do take the play seriously,” Venti said. “Or, well — I don’t have your level of dedication. I never even thought I had a shot at my role. But I can see how much you value theater, and, well. How couldn’t I take it seriously? You work so hard, and you love performing so much, of course I take it seriously, since it’s something you care about. Also, I can’t be the weak link in the play while you’re up on stage giving an award-winning monologue, can I? Gotta keep up with you!“

Zhongli looked up at that. It was — his gaze was steady, intense, and if there was disbelief laced in it, Venti didn’t feel that, too captivated by the dignified curve of his burnt-amber eyes.

“You won’t be the weak link,” he said eventually. “I — I know you work hard, now. I simply did not understand your method of working, at the beginning, and — I apologize for saying that, I do believe you are a skilled and competent actor regardless — “

“Zhongli!!” Venti cut in, before Zhongli started looking too rueful. “Hey, it’s okay, I didn’t understand you at first either, you were so serious and professional and I was just trying to enjoy myself! But you know, that’s a good thing, it means we can balance each other out and do a play that’s both refined and fun, yeah? We understand each other now, so why don’t we start over?” He reached his hand halfway across the table and grinned. “Nice to finally know you. I’m Venti, your co-lead. Let’s make this a great play!”

Zhongli took his hand. His palm was warm against Venti’s skin, the pads of his fingers rough with calluses from his pen. “Likewise,” he said, and smiled, soft and lopsided, at Venti. “I’m very happy to work with you.”

Two days after that, they were the last ones in the practice room and Zhongli bought him boba during their break, just the way Venti liked it. He didn’t even have to ask for an order. Venti thought about how it meant Zhongli must have been watching him, must have paid attention every time he brought a drink to rehearsal, and thought about sweet sincere green-tea-drinker Zhongli stumbling through ordering a 150% sugar oolong strawberry milk tea with green apple jelly, and blushed so deep that Zhongli asked him if he was alright.

And then two days after that, Zhongli’s exasperated sigh was tinged with fondness when Venti flubbed a line loaded with romantic implications for Zhongli’s character, and when Zhongli corrected him, the emotion in his voice almost sounded real. Venti thought, I wish it was real, and it would be so nice if he felt that way for me, and shit, do I like Zhongli?

So that was the first time.

He thought it again when Zhongli texted him first, setting up another study session, and again when he slid into the seat next to Zhongli in the dining hall and Zhongli pushed a bowl of ratatouille to him, like he’d added it to his tray just in case Venti came to eat even though Venti had offhandedly mentioned liking ratatouille one time and didn’t frequent that dining hall either. He thought it again when Zhongli brought him an apple keychain from his weekend trip into the city as a good-luck charm the week before opening night, and again when Zhongli laced their fingers together for the final bow of their very first performance together, grinning as Venti stepped into the spotlight by his side. And it all crystallized into one clear thought — I love him, right? This is it for me, this is who I’ll love, how could I have felt otherwise, I’ve loved him since —

Except there was never one single moment when he fell in love. It was spread across two plus two plus two more days, a converging sum of tangled heartbeats and stolen glances and wishing Zhongli’s performance was meant for him and not his character, all of it folding into one answer. It was an infinite stretch of fractals, scattered bits of memory. It was the flash of Zhongli’s smile and the warm shade of his laugh and the spark of his touch on Venti’s wrist, each piece spinning into its place to form the sum of their days together.

It was that somewhere between all those moments, Venti had skipped and tripped and stumbled headfirst over the summation and into love. He never stood a chance. Loving Zhongli had always been inevitable.

———

Zhongli keeps his entryway table neat and clean, like he’s some kind of functional adult. Four rows for shoes, with one reserved for visitors’ shoes, and a cute beechwood stool with a basket for slippers next to it. On top of the table is a little bowl for keys and knick-knacks, a vase of blooming peonies, and three photos.

Venti slips out of his boots and into the green slippers reserved for his visits. His eyes linger on one of the photos — the cast and the crew from their first play in university, all thirty-something people posing dramatically in the courtyard outside the theater, Venti and Zhongli at the center. They’re smiling, Venti clinging onto Zhongli’s shoulders, and what always makes Venti pause is that Zhongli isn’t smiling at the camera.

He’s smiling at Venti.

Hmmmmmgh, thinks Venti, allowing himself to be flustered about it for precisely five seconds before he marches out of the entryway and plonks himself down on Zhongli’s plush, maple-brown couch. Zhongli follows a minute later — he probably took his time to rearrange the guest slippers in just the way he likes it, after Venti so carelessly messed up the order and direction of the slippers by digging his pair out. He’s so lucky everything he does just makes Venti love him more, what a nerd!!

“Aha! The snacks I was promised!“ Venti crows, lunging for the caramel candies in the bowl on the coffee table. “Mmmm. Zhongli, have I told you lately that you’re the best person to ever live and walk this earth and that I am forever your most loyal and loving subject?”

Zhongli sets his files on the table and shakes his head. “Buttering me up for some more favors, are we?” He says, but he’s the one who always keeps the snack bowl stocked with Venti’s favorite brands of caramel and chocolate for whenever he comes over — which is verging on inappropriately often, these days — so he’s one to talk!

“You know I would do anything for you to get these treats while we work!” Venti says, sprawling himself over the couch and watching Zhongli as surreptitiously as he can manage. Zhongli is so handsome in work mode. It’s a good thing they don’t work on the same teams, because otherwise Venti would be too busy mooning over Zhongli to get much done.

“You could simply buy them yourself to eat during the week,” Zhongli points out.

“But Diluc always glares at me so much when I try to eat these at work! Apparently the crinkly wrapper noises are, like.” Venti adopts his best Diluc voice and continues, “distracting and detrimental to the focus of other employees and cohesion of this workplace, or whatever he lectured me about.”

“Ah, that does sound like Diluc. Perhaps not the actual voice, though.”

Venti thinks he is very gracious to ignore that slight against his comedic impressions. “Anyway, you’re really the best for getting these for me! Plus, you know, they taste better when you get them for me.”

“Is that so?” Zhongli says, adjusting his reading glasses. Oh, he is so cute, what kind of 29-year old has round, rimmed reading glasses?! A plague on Venti’s heart, truly.

“Yeah, definitely!” Venti considers this. “Erm, maybe it’s the power of friendship?”

“Friendship,” Zhongli echoes. The distance between him and Venti yawns with the sudden, peculiar slump of his shoulders, the confusion clear on his face. “…Perhaps.”

Venti gets the distinct feeling that he’s fucked up, but usually when he gets that feeling at least he knows how he fucked up. But now Zhongli is sitting quiet and still across from him, and Venti can’t read the expression on his face at all. Just like a week ago, when Venti had fucked up again and nearly confessed his enduring love for Zhongli, and Zhongli had gone all stiff and silent for one heartwrenching moment.

…Does Zhongli know? Did he suspect Venti’s feelings that day, and did Venti say something just now to confirm his suspicions?? Is that why he seems so awkward about their friendship, at any mention of their closeness? Venti has never once wanted to make Zhongli uncomfortable with any display of his feelings. He’s one of the people that Zhongli trusts the most, and he could never knowingly take that trust away by introducing expectations of romance into this space they’ve built for their friendship.

But — if he has, if that’s why Zhongli seems so distant now, like he’s furled up his leaves, like he can’t bear to reveal all of himself around Venti anymore — if he’s ruined it for Zhongli, then —

“Zhongli, do you…” Venti starts. His tongue is dry, unwieldy, his words trapped in the cracked spring of his throat, a drought of fear. “Are you — have I — is this uncomfortable for you?”

“No, why would it be?” Zhongli responds. His voice is smaller, flatter, the curves of his inflection too crisp, the way it gets when he’s holding something back. “It’s not that, Venti. I’m just… I was simply thinking. Don’t worry about it.” Before Venti can lean across and shake his shoulders and beg Zhongli to be honest with him, even if it’s the last time, Zhongli starts up his computer and straightens his files. “And we should get to work now for us to reach a good point around dinner, so… let’s work, Venti. This time around, please don’t dispose of our documents by making paper airplanes out of them and throwing them into my hanging lights.”

“Of course I won’t! That was a one-time thing, done purely in the name of scientific investigation, I swear!” Venti vows, bolstered by Zhongli’s reaction. If Zhongli still has the capacity to snipe at him, then maybe he doesn’t suspect anything after all, and he’s merely preoccupied with other personal issues, like Guizhong’s family drama over her wedding to Havria, or his overenthusiastic interns he’s supervising at work. And just maybe, Venti has avoided irreversibly damaging their friendship for the second time in less than ten days.

Those aren’t great numbers. But then again, Venti has never been the maths kind of person, and he’s always lived on the edge of probability — how far can he push Zhongli before he gets tired of him, how much he can procrastinate on his company’s promotional posters before Diluc tracks his exact location like an elite hunting falcon to reprimand him, how deep can he bury his boundless affection before Venessa takes notice and tries to refer him to a therapist (again) —

Whoops, too deep. Moving on!

Venti boots up his tablet and rifles through the documents on the table to see what exactly the design parameters are before he gets too into commiserating his inability to be a well-adjusted adult. He has great friendships, a fulfilling job with a reasonable boss, a place to stay that isn’t too expensive in the grand scheme of things. What more does he need?

He gets the basic concept sketches for the promotional posters done within the next hour and a half. Across from him, Zhongli types in relative silence, pushing his reading glasses up his nose every 15 minutes or so and flipping through a reference book on the coffee table, probably to make sure all his legal arguments are in order.

Venti detaches from the real world for a moment when he starts picking the color schemes for the posters, throwing himself into the gradients of the color wheel to see what fits the best. Somewhere in between the color testing and the shade tinkering to get the exact RGB values, another hour passes. He saves the tentative color schemes and stretches, feeling the burn in his shoulders and the satisfying crackle of his finger joints.

Oh. Zhongli’s space at the table is vacant. His legal reference book and papers are stacked on top of his plain grey laptop, adorned with exactly one sticker — a cartoon volcano captioned with you ignite my heart that Venti had gotten him as a joke birthday gift. And when did the glass of water on the table get there?

Venti shrugs and downs the water. There’s a coaster protecting the coffee table from any condensation that might have been on the bottom of the cup. Zhongli must have put the water there while Venti was in his color-picker mode.

Ah, he’s so…

Venti shakes his lovelorn thoughts away and rolls his neck. Oooh, those are some stiff muscles. He really should get better about taking regular breaks from his work. If he could just absorb 10% of Zhongli’s ability to compartmentalize and be endlessly productive…

Speaking of Zhongli! Venti leans his head over the couch and scans the apartment upside-down. Zhongli isn’t anywhere in the living room or the kitchen, but there’s a pleasant smell lingering in the apartment, subtly sweet like roasted honey glaze. The overhead kitchen lights are on, too, diffusing through the steam rising from a pot on the stove.

Venti pushes himself off the couch and winces as previously undiscovered vertebrae in his back make themselves known with a loud pop. He’s just about to wander into the kitchen and take a peek beneath the lid of the pot when the bedroom door clicks open and Zhongli steps into the corridor.

“Ah!” Venti says, squinting. Zhongli changed his clothes!! Before, when they were working, he was wearing comfortable brown pants and a soft navy shirt, looking like he stepped out of a photoshoot for luxurious homewear, effortlessly handsome like always. But now, he’s — he’s — !!

Zhongli rounds the corner and tilts his head adorably when he sees Venti standing in the middle of the room. He’s in those black jeans, the fancy 2000-mora pair that Zhongli could wear on a runway and be lauded for his contributions to the advancement of Teyvatian fashion, the pair that lengthens the curves of his legs and perfectly flatters his gorgeous form. His billowing silken v-neck shirt is tucked loosely into the waistband of his jeans, showing just enough of the dip of his collarbones for Venti’s mouth to go dry with wanting. It’s the same rich shade of blue that his earlier shirt was, and he looks all the more breathtaking in it, 6 feet of draped fabric and gentle curves and graceful shadows.

The beat of his heart follows the tumble of Zhongli’s hair over his shoulder. He’s braided his hair and tied it off in a bow with a neat golden ribbon, and it’s doing things to Venti’s heart. Venti wants to cross the room and stroke his hands over the lovely plaits of his hair, pull him close and smooth his thumbs over the collarbones and smile up at him, lean up and in and have Zhongli meet him halfway —

“Venti,” Zhongli says, gliding into the light of the kitchen like some sort of ancient, ethereal god. The overhead lights are sunrise-warm against his skin, diffusing through the stray wisps of hair that soften his face, because of course they are and of course they do, of course Zhongli has to look more beautiful with every passing day. “You’re done with your work for today?”

“Ermmmm,” says Venti, very intelligently. He gulps and tries again. If his voice comes out embarrassingly high-pitched, that’s none of Zhongli’s business. “Yep! Uh huh! I’m finished, haha, picked the colors and everything, everything should be smooth sailing from here, unless Diluc has something against a bold blue-pink color palette — well, who knows? Maybe he just doesn’t know how to make visual design that appeals to the youth, and anyway, I have the final say in the design, so. Hah. Yeah.”

“You’re rambling,” Zhongli notes.

“Wow, am I? Hadn’t even noticed, but you probably know better — “ Venti cuts himself off and admits defeat. “Fine. Anyway, moving on, what’s that delicious smell?”

Zhongli steps closer. “Is something wrong, Venti?”

“Whaaaaaat?” Venti shoves his hands behind his back so Zhongli won’t see him fiddling with his shirt. “What in the world makes you think that?”

“You start rambling when there’s something you don’t wish to address, and you’re hoping the other person picks up on your esoteric verbal signals to talk about it.”

“Oh my god,” groans Venti. “You need to stop perceiving me for a moment and let a man live with his terrible coping mechanisms in peace!”

“So something is wrong,” Zhongli concludes.

“No!! No, no, I was just, ah. Surprised! You’re wearing… that.”

Zhongli looks down at himself, as if he sees nothing wrong with his outfit, which rightfully belongs at a table in a fancy restaurant on a Lantern Rite date, and definitely not at a quiet night home with his platonic best friend. “Yes, and?”

“It’s, um, very fancy? Are you… going somewhere? Oh!! Have I interrupted your plans — “

“You haven’t,” Zhongli says, interrupting Venti’s thoughts instead. “We’re eating dinner, right?”

“We are??”

That gives Zhongli more pause. He glances down his outfit again, reconsidering. “We… Would you like to stay for dinner? I understand if you don’t have time — “

“No! I mean. Yes! I mean yes, I would like to stay for dinner, I do have time, ah, were you planning this all along? You should have warned me, I would have brought better clothes!”

Zhongli takes another step closer, eyes flicking up and down Venti’s body. He’d gotten lazy today, just throwing on a pair of ripped jeans and a faded green t-shirt under a plain brown cardigan. Now, with Zhongli in launching-himself-at-him-and-kissing-the-heck-out-of-him distance, looking like he could cosplay Rex Lapis at Archons’ Domain and not even the employees would be able to point out any flaws, Venti has never regretting anything more than giving up on impressing Zhongli with his modern sense of fashion.

“It’s merely a pleasant dinner at home,” Zhongli says. He’s still looking at Venti. “You’re dressed perfectly fine. I just, ah… wanted to dress up, to make it special.”

“Aha, right, I see, totally!” Venti says, hoping Zhongli doesn’t realize his complete and utter bullshit. Make it special?? What makes it special?! They’ve had dinner together so many times, what about this screams special event? This is the exact kind of vagueness that made Venti ask if Zhongli was terminally ill, and look how well that turned out!

Zhongli nods happily and sweeps into the kitchen. “Please, sit down. I’ll bring dinner out in a few moments.”

Venti does as Zhongli says. He’s too disoriented to really protest anything that Zhongli is doing tonight. This past week, it’s like they’ve been on parallel trains headed in opposite directions. It’s the sense that what they’re talking about is disjointed, close yet lacking that bridge of true understanding, a seesaw shift in scenery between Zhongli’s world and Venti’s reality.

Or maybe Venti has simply become delusional after 10 years of hopeless romantic daydreams of him and Zhongli eating together, working together, living together in perfect harmony and keeping each other balanced, and it’s finally corroded the last sane braincells in his head.

Still, though, it feels like there’s something that Venti has missed, some misunderstanding that he didn’t pick up on, but what could he have said to cause misunderstanding between them? Zhongli keeps insisting that everything is normal and nothing’s off between them, but he’s been acting so happy and saying such mysterious things, like he’s trying to set up a special mood with Venti, like he needs to tell Venti something important. Plus, there was that odd conversation with Guizhong about romantic preferences…

…He can’t have a secret fiancé that he wants to introduce to Venti, can he?!

No, no, no, no. No way. That’s even less reasonable than the terminal illness theory. Zhongli is sincere and honest with all his affections, he wouldn’t be willing to hide a serious romantic partner from everyone in his life for an extended period of time. And there’s no way it was a whirlwind romance either — Zhongli loves deeply and wholly, yes, but his love is slow to form, earned over the course of many months, like a steady deposit of crystal in a cave, each translucent layer formed with a new memory. His heart is precious, his cavernous capacity for love illuminated by his crystalline core. Zhongli wouldn’t let himself be swept away like that.

Then, are Zhongli and Guizhong trying to set him up on a blind date??

No. Definitely not. Zhongli went on one blind date that Guizhong so helpfully set up seven years ago, and that turned out… well. The guy was a complete shitstain who left Zhongli fuming all week long due to their disastrous debate over Inazuma-Liyue immigration and his class-one asshole opinions on Zhongli being a fan of the ‘overrated, childish, and way too mainstream’ Archons cinematic universe and franchise. Needless to say, Zhongli hasn’t been on a date since.

Yeah, thanks a lot, Osial.

So if it isn’t a blind date (Zhongli would never subject Venti to the horrors of that social instrument of torture) and if it isn’t a mysterious whirlwind romance, then what else could Zhongli potentially have gotten himself into??

“Dinner’s ready,” Zhongli interrupts, a tinge of pride in his voice. Venti snaps his head up a little too fast and has to groan when his right neck muscles spasm in protest, but he quite easily disguises it as a noise of appreciation, because — what the fuck??

Zhongli has made the most perfect Sweet Madame that Venti’s ever seen for dinner.

The glaze is glistening under the soft kitchen lights, a thin coating of honey and melted brown sugar and apple vinegar simmered and slathered onto the roast chicken. Zhongli hasn’t cut the chicken yet, but there’s no way the inside is anything but tender and juicy, with the optimal ratio of white and dark meat, stuffed with herbs and butter and a sprinkle of orange rind. Even the plating is the most professional Sweet Madame presentation that has ever been presented in the history of Sweet Madames — a crisp bed of lettuce garnished with halved cherry tomatoes, peas, and a lemon wedge, beautiful in its simplicity.

“Um! Wow!!” Venti squeaks. His voice must be higher than that time he ingested a liter of helium while drunk because Guizhong dared him to, but Zhongli is a gentleman and he thankfully does not comment. “Sooooo. What’s the occasion for all… this? Got some special news to break to me? This must have taken hours, and it looks so good too!!”

“A day, actually. I seasoned the chicken and put it in the fridge to sit last night.” Zhongli’s knife slices cleanly into the chicken breast, revealing a perfect white inside. Venti is going to pass out if he doesn’t get that into his stomach right now. Not that he’s trying to play into stereotypes, but how can anyone, let alone any Mondstadter, resist a good Sweet Madame?

Zhongli continues carving up the breast, serving Venti first and sneaking some vegetables onto his plate when he thinks Venti isn’t looking. He’s staring very determinately at the inner cavity of the chicken when he says, “There isn’t a big occasion, but… it is our first dinner together. I wanted to do something special.”

Oooooh.

Oh. Oh, Zhongli is so thoughtful, and he’s right, it is their first dinner together in ages because neither of them have had the time to sit down and eat together with all the project planning and outside commitments of the past few months, and even though they’d hung out it hadn’t been this kind of planned quality time that Venti knows Zhongli likes, and —

He really must have been looking forward to it, to have prepared such a gorgeous meal and to look so anticipatory of Venti’s response, waiting nervously for his approval, as if Venti could ever give Zhongli anything other than helpless, unadulterated love.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right!” Venti says, grinning at Zhongli with as much warmth and fondness as he can manage without crossing the line into I want to kiss you silly across this table and make you my househusband territory. “Wow, you’re making it so special too. Everything looks amazing, you’re the best!”

Zhongli’s mouth twitches in the way that it does when he’s repressing a fond smile in favor of lecturing Venti. “So eat it,” he says. “It’s my first time making this recipe. I hope it’s good.”

“Of course it’ll be!” Venti reassures, a slice of chicken halfway to his mouth already. “You’re the cooking god, the kitchen is blessed every time you step into it, ordinary pans yearn to have your expert hand fry an egg in them — “

“Eat,” Zhongli says firmly.

Venti smirks and pops the chicken in his mouth, savoring the taste. It’s… well. Venti can’t say it’s objectively the best Sweet Madame he’s ever had, especially not with that time Zhongli took him to the newest haute restaurant in Springvale that boasted 3 Guoba stars and the most delicious modern interpretation of a traditional Sweet Madame for his 25th birthday. The honey glaze is just a little too sweet, too light on the apple vinegar. The chicken is juicy, but unless Venti slathers the accompanying herb butter on it, only the parts cut near the middle have that aromatic flavor.

But Zhongli made it for him. And that makes this Sweet Madame perfect.

“How is it?” Zhongli asks, leaning forward slightly. His hand is tight around his fork and knife.

“It’s perfect!” Venti gushes. Zhongli’s shoulders relax, and he shoots a relieved smile at Venti. The nerve of this man to believe Venti could do anything but praise his cooking!! “You’re the best, baobao, I’m really not joking! Your cooking is always so delicious, I can’t believe I get to eat it all the time. You know, with this kind of cooking and your cleanliness and organization skills, I bet all the older ladies in your department wish they had a husband like you! You’d literally be the most amazing house-husband ever, have you thought about that??”

Zhongli blinks. “Being a house-husband?” He says, quite obviously flummoxed with Venti’s sudden swerve into sensitive territory — read: asking your single, about-to-turn-30 friend that you’re most definitely not in love with haha whatever gave you that idea — about their hypothetical future marriage plans.

Wow. Venti is really an idiot. He can’t help it, though! Zhongli has always had that effect on him. His affection tugs him through life by the tag on the back of his shirt, shaking the roots of his brain loose and weighing his tongue down with confessions. He’s an idiot for Zhongli, and he can only hope that one day he’ll be Zhongli’s idiot.

“Erm. Yeah?” Venti squeaks. He’s got himself into this hole, so he might as well dig deeper while he can, right?

Zhongli sets down his utensils and stares thoughtfully at the half-carved chicken. “Well, I… yes, I think now — now I have. Thought about it, that is. Well, cooking for you is nice, so. I do think, sometimes, about… that.”

Well. That was only slightly worrying! Zhongli just started two sentences with the same word in quick succession, which indicates nothing short of absolute mental catastrophe for someone like him, who prided himself on his leadership in their top-ranked college debate team and probably read dictionaries for fun when he was a child.

That’s fair, though. Venti must have thrown him very far off balance with that question. Not everyone has extremely idealistic fantasies of marrying the person you’re secretly pining for, so it’s understandable that Zhongli was surprised, especially since he doesn’t date and has no romantic attachments as far as Venti knows.

It’s understandable that he’s thought of it, too, in a vague conceptual way. He is at that age where all his colleagues are married or marrying soon. That — that the realization that he likes cooking for Venti made him realize that he likes cooking for people in general, and maybe even cooking for some faceless spouse in the future worthy of receiving the wonderful weight of Zhongli’s compassion and love — that’s fine, too! That’s understandable! Venti is not having any emotions about it whatsoever!

Except — Venti wants that to be him. Nobody is truly worthy of Zhongli’s love, because Zhongli deserves someone perfect in every way and nobody like that exists, but Venti wants so desperately to be the one who comes closest to meeting that bar. He wants to be the one in Zhongli’s fantasies, the person Zhongli wants to go through life with, making something of their love.

But Venti is just Zhongli’s messy, clingy, dramatic, talkative, unorganized, terrible at time management, too-goofy and gossipy and completely indulgent best friend. It should be enough that Zhongli’s seen every single one of his flaws and has still stayed by his side for ten years. He knows better than to think Zhongli could really offer his heart to someone like him, who would make a mess of Zhongli’s pristine apartment and hijack all his refrigerator shelves and annoy him to the point of no return.

Friendship is good. Friendship keeps Venti at a distance, safe from throwing his whole, raw self at Zhongli in a reckless bid for love. Friendship means Zhongli does love him in all the ways that really matter, because he’s still in Venti’s life despite everything, and he still wants Venti in his life.

Venti runs his tongue over the teeth, letting the tangy aftertaste of the honey-vinegar-sugar glaze spark him back into reality. “Ahaha, well. Of course you’ve thought about it, who hasn’t, at our age?” He says, careful not to let his voice wobble, keeping it steady like balancing a skateboard on a telephone wire.

“Have you thought about it?” Zhongli asks.

“Huh? Me? I, um.” I think regularly about coming home to you and giving you goodnight kisses and totally failing at learning how to make tangyuan with you, if that’s what you mean. Yeah, no. “I sure have! I just think it’d be nice, you know, to have someone like that. Someone stable to look forward to at the end of the day. It… it really would be great.”

“Oh,” Zhongli breathes. “That — yes. I do know. And it would be very nice. Perhaps one day, then.” He nods decisively. Something about the way his eyes are crinkled at the edges, shining with happiness as he looks at Venti, makes Venti feel as if he missed a step in the conversation again, like he slipped on a moss-covered rock and wound up falling face-first in a pond of his own stupidity. Ah, but who is he to question Zhongli’s happiness?

“One day,” Venti agrees, despite not knowing exactly what he’s agreeing to. Zhongli’s requests and agreements are always reasonable, so it should be fine! Even if he asked Venti to sign a forbidding document written in ancient script and exuding malicious energy with his blood, it would only be for making a pact with the devils of Celestia in exchange for eternal world peace and prosperity. So Venti isn’t too worried about these comparatively small moments.

He polishes off the rest of the sumptuous chicken leg that Zhongli plopped onto his plate in a manifestation of his regular compulsion to offer others the best bits of food, and makes an appreciative hum around the bone in his mouth. Zhongli, looking more lovely with each passing second under the cherry-bloom lights of his apartment, beams at his reaction and tries to give him two more slices of the tender thigh meat. Venti shoos his utensils away from his plate, which makes Zhongli brandish his fork like one if those medieval Fontainese jousting poles, so of course Venti has to poke his fork back and engage in an impromptu pronged rendition of the penultimate sword fight between Raiden Shogun and the Tsaritsa from Archons 2: Civil War.

In the end, Zhongli succeeds in plying Venti with more food, with the sheer power of someone whose two main love languages are “taking care of every person he loves” and “quietly spending time with people like some sort of very well-behaved and lovable cat”. Venti shakes his head and sighs dramatically. “You can’t keep feeding me, I’m going to start feeling like a kept man!”

This is quite obviously not the smartest thing Venti has said recently, but somehow his brain decides to cover up his accidental revelation of his desire to be Zhongli’s kept man by making him blurt out, “Next time you should let me cook bamboo shoot soup for you. Law of equivalent exchange, right? Since you keep piling food on my plate, it’s only fair that I get to do it to you as well.”

For someone who previously banned Venti from using his kitchen due to nearly exploding aluminum foil in the microwave, Zhongli looks unreasonably happy about the prospect of Venti trying to whip up a dish that requires both patience and a steady hand. “That sounds lovely,” Zhongli says, raising more of Venti’s suspicions. “Perhaps we could both cook. It would be like a bonding exercise.”

“A… bonding exercise,” Venti repeats, just to make sure he heard that correctly. Has corporate finally gotten to Zhongli’s pure, innocent, believer-in-justice soul?? Will Venti finally be able to bring his lawsuit, previously a fleeting thing of daydreams, against their evil board of directors for corrupting Zhongli?

“For teaching good cooking practices, of course,” Zhongli continues. “If I wasn’t supervising your attempt at bamboo shoot soup, my kitchen would somehow end up in flames or with flour all over the place, despite flour not being an ingredient in the slightest.”

“Hey!! What do you mean, attempt? I’m going to make you the best bamboo shoot soup you ever tasted!”

Zhongli’s laugh is no less devastating even with the width of the table separating them. “Very well, but I notice you didn’t deny the possibility of a flour disaster,” he says, still chuckling softly. The sharp lines of his cheekbones are mellowed with his smile, like a river of happiness spilling out of the delta and into the great, gentle crescent of the bay. His words are soft and teasing and comfortable in the boundaries of the banter they always fall into.

When he looks up at Venti, there is only fondness and familiarity and light in his eyes. Maybe this, an errant thought whispers, is what Zhongli looks like when he loves someone.

“Ah, baobao, this is very cruel of you,” Venti whines, unable to keep his longing from wrapping itself soundly around his vowels and turning his voice into a fluttering of magpie wings streaming across the sky. “So you butter me up with delicious food, then turn around and question my ability to reciprocate? I’m heartbroken!”

Zhongli pours them both another glass of water and takes a look at Venti’s plate, cleared enthusiastically of chicken and sauce (but not so much of the peas, which absorbed a bit too much of the lemon wedge’s juice to be palatable).

“Hmmm,” Zhongli says, a long note of feigned observation combined with a little tilt of his head that shouldn’t be as adorable as Venti thinks it is. Then: “Would you like another serving of chicken? You really should eat more.”

“Zhongli!” Venti protests, letting Zhongli heap more chicken onto his plate even as he does his best dramatic pout. Zhongli has been very into trying to — for a lack of better words — wine and dine him this week, what with the heart bento and now this. If it were anyone else Venti would have already paid them back monetarily or through cooking in return, but…

Zhongli really is special. He’s the first person who’s made Venti feel as though he wants to be cared for. He’s the first one Venti has wanted more of than he ever knew he could take, the first one Venti realized he was greedy for. Whatever Zhongli gives to him, he can only grasp it with two hands and hold it like it’s his fate, trying not to let it run off into the distance, trying not to let it die as soon as he starts taking it for granted.

And if what Zhongli wants to give him today is this dinner of fond smiles and the clinking of utensils exchanging food and a home-cooked Sweet Madame that Venti would ask for as his last meal, then so be it! If he simply wants to take care of a treasured friend and spend scheduled time with Venti in this little dining room dome of honey and happiness that Zhongli has carved for them, then that’s a very reasonable sentiment with no hidden romantic meaning, and so be it.

Whatever makes Zhongli happy, Venti will gladly go along with.

(Even if it makes the magnitude of Venti’s yearning and the specificity of his tender domestic fantasies grow exponentially.)

———

For how much he made yearning an extreme sport during dinner, the rest of Venti’s evening is comparatively relaxing.

After they wash the dishes and put the remainder of the Sweet Madame into containers, Zhongli settles on the couch to watch a new two-part documentary about volcanology and the new discoveries in the field following the eruption of a remote Natlan volcano last year. For his part as a good guest, Venti wipes down the table and aligns all the dishcloths in the neat way he knows Zhongli likes.

Zhongli cranes his head to look over the edge of the sofa and pats the cushion next to him. “Will you come watch with me?”

“Yeah, of course!” Venti responds. It isn’t really a question, given that this is their normal routine whenever Venti visits Zhongli. “Just give me a few minutes.”

Venti dashes to the restroom to give himself the works — a quick brush of his teeth to freshen himself up, in case there ever arises a situation in which Venti’s mouth needs to be close to Zhongli’s mouth, with his smooth, perfect lips, because he’s the type of person who religiously applies lip balm, and their alluring bow curve, so easy for Venti’s thumb to trace, and —

Okay, get back on track, Venti. It’s a good thing he remembered the green spare toothbrush is his, he hasn’t been over in a while. He splashes his face with water and resists the urge to use any one of Zhongli’s assortment of fancy facial cleansers and toners. His set of towels are still draped over the second towel rack like he’d left them the last time he visited some weeks ago. Venti rubs his face into one, feeling a special sort of spite towards Zhongli’s perpetually clear and glowing skin.

Not everyone can afford skin care products!! And some people (Venti) have better things to spend their money on (like merchandise of his favorite video game characters) anyway.

Venti flounces out of the restroom feeling cute, refreshed, and ready to live his best life watching entrancing documentaries about the power of nature with his love. His attractiveness is almost instantaneously ruined by the way he flops bodily onto all the available couch space next to Zhongli and burrows into the mound of blankets and throw pillows. He’s so glad Zhongli took his advice on ways to make the sofa more comfortable. The blankets are fleece-lined, while the throw pillows are silky soft and provide great neck support, and Venti is so cozy that he could probably fall asleep in thirty seconds.

Zhongli pets Venti’s hair once, a clumsy movement of his hand, before tugging on one of Venti’s braids. “At least watch one episode before falling asleep,” he says.

Venti reluctantly squirms out of his blanket-pillow mound and manages to organize his limbs into somewhat of a correct and upright posture. “Fine, but next time I get to pick, and you aren’t allowed to make judgemental comments about whatever we’re watching.”

“We’ll see,” Zhongli says absently. His focus is already back in Natlan, watching the four-person volcanologist team trek up the side of an active volcano in full protective gear, holding tongs and buckets to take lava samples.

Venti makes it through three straight minutes of the scientists talking about the differences between types of hardened lava and what they expect to see here before he starts leaning to the side in sleepiness. He doesn’t mean to, really, but his head brushes Zhongli’s side, and then Zhongli’s hand is coming up to wrap around his torso and pull him closer, so that their sides are snuggled together and his head is pillowed on the soft slope of Zhongli’s shoulder, warm against the wool cardigan he’d thrown on after dinner.

He’s only cuddled with Zhongli once before, during that week Venti’s apartment was flooded and he stayed in Zhongli’s guest room for refuge, before the guest room AC broke and Venti wound up sleeping in Zhongli’s bed through some truly astounding leaps in logic. Falling asleep and waking up in the circle of Zhongli’s arms had made him feel safe and grounded in a way he’d never felt before, and he had looked up at Zhongli’s sleeping face and thought, with something molten and tender coalescing in his chest, I would bottle the galaxies if he asked me to, I would paint rivers of starlight if he wanted me to.

Now, with the pressure of Zhongli’s arm around him and his fingers slipping down the inside of Venti’s bicep, a blanket pulled over the both of them and Zhongli’s shoulder a firm, rounded weight to lean on, Venti can feel himself edging into the comfort of sleep. The screen is blurry with the muddy crimson of volcanic color, and Zhongli is so warm and soft and good.

Zhongli pets his hair again. This time it’s deliberate, he thinks — hopes — and Venti’s inhibitions are so low that he leans his head into the gentle press of Zhongli’s hand. “If you’re tired, then sleep,” he murmurs. His voice is low, velvety, rumbling through his shoulders. “I will be here when you wake.”

Venti snuggles closer to Zhongli’s side and turns his face into his encompassing warmth. Zhongli is talking like Venti is a wounded bird cupped in his hands, like he’s scared even of asking him to stay. When he says he’ll be here, doesn’t he really mean don’t go, trust me to be here for you? That… that’s…

His words are slipping away, sliding down into darkness. It’s twilight, and Zhongli is here, wanting Venti to stay, and in every material touch of their bodies Venti’s senses narrow down to the fiber between them, a fission of heat at his side.

“Mmmrgh,” Venti mumbles, his cheek squished into Zhongli’s shoulder. “You dummy. Of course you’ll be here, and I’ll be here, and we’ll stay here together. Where else would we be?”

“Of course,” Zhongli echoes. His voice is that much lighter, happiness like a dawn rising through his throat. If he says anything else, though, Venti doesn’t hear it. He’s dozing off to the steady, lulling rhythm of Zhongli’s breathing and the surety of Zhongli by his side, and as long as he has this, nothing else in the world matters.

———

Venti wakes from his nap an indeterminate amount of time later. The living room is seawater-dark, and the blankets are tangled around his legs, and his neck is slowly getting uncomfortably stiff.

Zhongli is still here.

Well — of course he is. He said he’d be there when Venti woke.

It’s still… His head is resting on top of Venti’s, his cheek rubbing against Venti’s nest of hair in a way that must be intolerable for Mr ‘I Have Perfect Dewy Skin’ Zhongli. His arm has slipped from Venti’s arm to his waist. He’s leaning into Venti just like Venti listed into him earlier, and he’s soft in all the right places and he smells, funnily enough, like his fancy inoffensive unscented commercial shampoo, but of honey and osmanthus tea below that, proof that he cared enough to cook for Venti, enough to stay.

Sound filters in with his returning awareness. He’s tired enough to go back to sleep without much trouble, but he still twists in Zhongli’s grasp to glance at the TV.

Ah, it’s the volcano documentary, probably the second part. It looks like the scientists are showing off their lab space, with a bunch of complex seismographic recording machines and topographic maps. Is Zhongli still watching this, or has he fallen asleep already? Surely Zhongli can’t be comfortable enough to sleep, not with Venti cozied up to him like a particularly clingy barnacle.

“Zhongli?” Venti whispers, poking Zhongli gently in the side. “Are you awake?”

“No,” Zhongli grumbles. He’s clearly unhappy about being disturbed. Oh, is this what a soft, sleep-rumpled Zhongli sounds like?? He’s so cute!! Venti smothers his giggles in the sleeve of Zhongli’s cardigan and pokes Zhongli again.

“If you wanna sleep, then you should turn off the TV first. And maybe move to your bedroom? The couch can’t be that good for your back…”

Venti is ready to push himself away from Zhongli and trudge to the guest room, since Zhongli seems so insistent on getting his sleep now. But after Zhongli turns the TV off with a click of the remote, he leans back into Venti and says, “Stay the night.”

“Eh?” Venti says. He… is he just hearing what he wants to hear? “You — you want me to stay? Here?”

Zhongli nods sleepily. Before Venti can react, Zhongli’s hand is wrapping around the back of his head and he’s yanking them both down so that they’re sprawled on the couch in a mire of blankets and a tangle of limbs. Zhongli’s hand is still curved at the base of his neck, his other resting against the dip of his back. He wiggles Venti up his body so that he can tuck Venti’s head into the crescent cusp of his neck. His hands are gentle yet unyielding, and when Venti throws one of his legs over Zhongli’s hip for maximum comfort, Zhongli makes a happy little noise and nuzzles his chin into the top of Venti’s head.

Oh, Zhongli is affectionate when he’s sleepy. That’s even worse than a grumpy Zhongli. Venti could deal with a grumpy Zhongli! He does it all the time!! But Zhongli is rarely this affectionate, and he’s never been this touchy with Venti before. It — it’s good that Zhongli feels secure enough to be his cuddly noodle dragon self, with the way he’s trying to wrap himself around Venti! It means there’s trust between them!

It absolutely does not mean that Venti has a license to get extremely flustered about it. Especially not when Zhongli is simply trying to sleep. Zhongli doesn’t need those kinds of disrespectful thoughts from the person he’s cuddling to sleep.

And it absolutely does not have to mean anything, in the larger scale of their friendship. Friends cuddle sometimes! Maybe Zhongli has had a stressful few weeks and is relieving it through the magical combination of physical contact plus sleep! God knows Venti would appreciate that — is appreciating the relaxation benefits of being embraced by the love of his life.

But it’s still cuddling. Even if it doesn’t mean a single thing to Zhongli, Venti can’t help but catalogue the ways in which their bodies fit together, the press of Zhongli’s hands at his back and neck, so strong and sweet that it’s overwhelming Venti with the scope of his love and his want. He’s been given so much already, and yet he wants more, wants it to mean something, wants Zhongli to hold his hand through the night, wants —

Anything but just friends. Anything but this being a boring, regular night to Zhongli, anything but them cuddling only because he was too lazy to get up and sleep in his own bed and go through the inevitable hassle of peeling Venti away from him.

“Zhongli?” Venti whispers, trying to give Zhongli one last chance to back out, just in case. His breath ghosts along the curve of Zhongli’s neck, and Zhongli shifts in discontent beneath him. “Um, won’t you be uncomfortable sleeping like this? Your neck and back might hurt in the morning…”

The noise Zhongli makes can only be categorized as a fuck body pain, I’m not getting up even on the pain of death type of noise. Of course Zhongli would phrase it in a much more diplomatic and flowery manner, but. Details.

Zhongli trails his fingers down the ridges of Venti’s spine, tickling under the collar of his shirt. “That doesn’t matter,” he huffs. “Go to sleep.”

“Alright, alright, I got the message!” Venti says. He shamelessly snuggles closer into Zhongli’s arms, which tighten immediately. “You’re tired and you just wanna cuddle. That’s understandable, me too!”

“Mmmgh,” says Zhongli blearily, which translates to yes, please shut up now in regular Zhongli-speak. “Goodnight, Venti.”

And — see. Objectively, this position isn’t the most comfortable. Venti is definitely going to be dealing with an aching neck for the next two days, and one of his hands is completely trapped underneath Zhongli’s back. But because it’s Zhongli who is holding him close and stroking his hair like he’s something precious, just like it was Zhongli who earnestly spent hours preparing an authentic Sweet Madame, it’s nothing short of perfection for him. A watercolor moment taken from Venti’s most idealistic fantasies, the sweet domestic ones he’d written off and stored in a dusty hat-box at the bottom of his brain so he could replay them whenever he felt too lonely.

Venti threads his other hand into Zhongli’s hair in a sad mimicry of what he would do if he were allowed to give Zhongli the full weight of his love and devotion. The deep rhythm of Zhongli’s breaths are better at lulling Venti into sleep than the most hypnotic lullaby.

“Sweet dreams, baobao,” Venti murmurs, his words muffled against the soft skin of Zhongli’s neck.

Just before Venti falls asleep, he thinks vaguely that Zhongli has shifted, pushing himself up a bit, and then there’s the lovely ghost of pressure on the crown of Venti’s head. But he’s so drowsy, and he can’t determine if he simply imagined this perfect moment, and Zhongli is holding him close, so nothing else matters.

Venti lets his eyes slip shut and hopes that in his dreams, at least, he can believe Zhongli would kiss him like he’s loved.

———

True to form, they don’t… talk. About the cuddling.

On one hand, this is a very good thing for Venti specifically, because it means he won’t have to go through ten minutes of trying to hide his ever-increasing love while Zhongli attempts to have a sincere Feelings Talk with him.

On the other hand, this isn’t true to form for Zhongli. Venti is the one who uses emotional avoidance as a coping tactic! Zhongli is supposed to be well-adjusted and mature and the one who starts any talk about emotion between them.

The fact that Zhongli hasn’t tried once to broach their couch cuddling with Venti can only mean one of two things. The first option is that Zhongli was uncomfortable with their closeness when he woke up, and had a realization that was practically opposite of Venti’s hey, I might want to spend the rest of my life with this person realization, in that he thought well, Venti’s a good friend but I’m just not vibing with this cuddling.

(Although Zhongli probably doesn’t even know what ‘vibing’ means.)

The second, and much more terrifying by far, is that Zhongli was… okay with it. Zhongli didn’t mind it in the least, and maybe he even enjoyed it, hugging Venti like he’s someone to love, treating him with such open affection.

And if Zhongli did like it — well. Venti wants to keep telling himself that it doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s not romantic just because two guys hugged it out overnight, and that is true, and before this, Venti would have convinced his terrible braincells of its truth at least temporarily.

Except Venti can’t help but feel that whatever he and Zhongli have stumbled into, it doesn’t fit quite within the boundaries of friendship anymore. Cooking your best friend’s favorite dish, glowing with pride when he says he likes it, initializing cuddling, asking him to stay the night — even before that, the heart-shaped bento and whatever the hell that almost-kiss at the office was and, and, planning a whole vacation together —

Whatever. Speculating has no use. Throwing all his caution to the wind on this one assumption that Zhongli might want him with even a hundredth of the force with which Venti loves Zhongli, without one solid indicator that his advances are wanted at all…

Maybe if he were 19 again, he would get drunk and ask Zhongli if they could kiss. It’s not like he was a particularly shy college student, just that… when he was in college and drunk around Zhongli, he hadn’t processed his feelings yet. He teased Zhongli about his friendship with Guizhong, about how his singing voice went shaky and reedy when he got drunk, about anything except whatever was growing between them.

By the time he admitted to himself that he loved Zhongli. it had already stitched itself into his heart. He had fallen too deep by then, gotten too invested, too attached to all the happiness their friendship gave him to push his luck. Venti was 21, and he loved Zhongli wholly and irreversibly, and he couldn’t do anything more about it. That was what he knew, back then.

Then Venti was 22, and he loved Zhongli. Venti was 23, and he loved Zhongli. Venti was 24, and he loved Zhongli, and he was 25 and 26 and 27 and 28 and he loved Zhongli and every passing year sheathed itself onto his heart like a lizard assuming its shedded skin, nothing but love pulsing beneath the wrapper-thin layers of time.

He’ll be 30 next year. Well, third decade’s the charm, right?

Venti pinches his cheeks, trying to get himself to focus. So what if Zhongli didn’t talk about the cuddling? It’s not like Venti helped the conversation along. He had slipped out of Zhongli’s arms at 7 AM and busied himself burning eggs for breakfast so that they wouldn’t have to talk about it in the awkward post-waking-up-but-still-cuddling moments, after all.

Huh. Yeah, that was perhaps not the best move Venti could have made. But Zhongli hadn’t seemed to mind waking up without Venti in his arms, at least not more than he minded waking up to the smell of terribly burnt protein. After he got all the grumbles out of his system by aggressively cooking eggs in the proper way and making them both a simple but delicious breakfast, he’d seen Venti off with a smile and a reminder that they were meeting Venessa for dinner next Thursday to have their monthly catch-up. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

It’s been two and a half more weeks since then. Venti should not be obsessively replaying every moment of something that happened half a month ago, especially when Zhongli has given no indication that there was anything wrong with that moment. He shouldn’t be worrying about it at all.

He definitely should not be wondering if he could somehow convince Zhongli to cuddle with him again on their upcoming vacation.

The hotel room that Zhongli booked for them is insanely spacious, a suite with two beds and accordingly, two separate rooms for those beds with a small living space in the middle. It’s somewhat of a splurge for a four-day vacation, but then again, neither of them have taken a proper vacation in three years and Zhongli, who’s paying for this part of the vacation, rightfully believes they deserved an upgrade.

It’ll be like they’re roommates. Roommates who are not looking for situations in which they cuddle, because that is not something Venti should be doing if he wants to get through his vacation in one piece, and yet.

Every time Venti closes his eyes, he remembers the safety and solidity of Zhongli sleeping under him, a great anchor to moor him while he was drifting in his dreams. He can’t stop thinking about the way Zhongli had pulled him closer and let out a satisfied sigh before they’d fallen asleep, or how Zhongli’s hair had felt tangled in his fingers. He wants, desperately, to doze off in Zhongli’s arms every day.

It’s bad. It’s so bad. Their flight to Fontaine is tomorrow — their vacation where they will be sharing accommodations meaning Venti has to keep everything civil and platonic and under control is tomorrow — and Venti is lying in bed at 9 PM agonizing about such a stupid matter for the second week in a row.

In these kinds of situations, Venti relies on Zhongli to shake his shoulders and rattle some sense into him to stop the overthinking pinball machine in his head. But he can’t really text Zhongli to ask about the cuddling after two weeks have passed, the awkwardness would eat him alive before Zhongli even reads his message.

Venti’s phone pings, and he nearly tumbles off his bed making a dive for it. Zhongli texted him first after all!

…It’s an itemized list of what to pack, alphabetized and organized by category of use. For the 90% probability that you still have not packed, Zhongli’s text reads. Remember, I am picking you up at 8:30 AM tomorrow. I will bring breakfast. Bread emoji. Heart emoji.

“Ugggghhhh,” Venti groans, flopping back onto his bed. Why does Zhongli have to be so good to him all the time??

Venti texts back, you have so little confidence in my ability to prepare ahead!! Three crying emojis.

Zhongli should be getting ready to sleep soon, since he always sleeps early before anything he views as a big day, but the typing bubbles still pop up ten seconds after Venti sends the text.

The list will be very helpful in the case that you have packed, so that you can check you’ve brought everything. However, it sounds like you haven’t packed.

Tch. He only got through packing half his toiletries, five pairs of socks, two t-shirts, and his most flattering pair of jeans before he remembered that he was going to clear the last level of the dungeon-platform game he’d been playing recently, and summarily got distracted looking the list of awards that game won on Moogle.

Venti fires off another message to Zhongli. fine i havent packed EVERYTHING yet but i will right now! ill even send u a pic of my suitcases for proof that i packed!!

Another ping. Good, Zhongli has said.

“Hhhhhrgnh,” Venti says, into the air. He marches to his closet, throws it open, and tosses half his wardrobe onto his bed. He would do much worse things that require much more effort if Zhongli called him good one more time. Comparatively, packing for a 4-day trip where he’ll be sweating every day due to walking around a massive theme park is not a hard task at all.

Packing everything according to Zhongli’s list does take almost an hour, mostly because Venti has to refold some clothes to make sure they don’t wrinkle and go on several apartment-wide searches for his spare charger, one of his missing socks, and his travel-sized hand sanitizer. Venti snaps a picture of his full suitcase and sends it off to Zhongli with a thumbs-up emoji, hoping Zhongli hasn’t fallen asleep while waiting for Venti to get all his shit together.

The response comes a minute later. Nothing’s missing. Good job.

“Score!!” Venti cheers. He bounces a little on his bed in his excitement. It’s fine, everything’s okay, nobody’s around to see him embarrassing himself over one iota of praise from Zhongli over text.

YAAY okay that was exhausting im going to bed now, Venti texts back. pls bring me a delicious breakfast tmrw morning i totally deserve it

If Zhongli were here, he’d be giving off the strongest possible eye-roll vibes as he could get without actually rolling his eyes. Goodnight, Venti, is what he sends.

Yeah gnight! See u tomorrow! Venti responds. After a foolhardy moment of consideration that involves stupendously low amounts of impulse control, he switches keyboards and sends a single red heart emoji.

Venti throws his phone across his bed the moment it’s delivered and buries his face in his hands, waiting for the message alert to come. That was — that was — well, Venti reasons, since Zhongli sent him a heart emoji earlier, that means he’s comfortable with using them casually in conversation! And there’s nothing wrong or weird about sending a lone heart emoji after saying good night. Venti was responding in an appropriate way to Zhongli’s cues when he sent that.

(He also was simply Not Thinking when he sent it. The impulsive desire to tell Zhongli I love you finally won out.)

His phone chimes. Venti, honest-to-god, lunges all the way across his bed for his phone like a crazed seagull divebombing people on a beach. His fingers shake as he opens the messenger app and taps on his chat with Zhongli.

A red heart. That’s what Zhongli has responded with.

That’s…

Their messages look so —

Venti, saying good night and see you tomorrow. The heart. And the heart in response from Zhongli.

He has to know what it looks like, right? He has know it could mean more. Zhongli isn’t that out of touch. He knows how to use emojis properly, and he chose to send Venti a heart back. One heart. Plain, simple, a statement in its lone confidence instead of a spam of hearts to disguise sincere feelings, like Venti does to him sometimes.

Venti was flirting with him. That’s what he was doing. There isn’t anything else to call sending a single heart.

And — Zhongli was — Zhongli was flirting back. Venti really, really hopes that Zhongli was flirting back, because by all seven archons, Zhongli cannot be so oblivious that he completely missed every single 50-foot tall neon-pink romantic billboard flashing at him from that single red heart and decided that sending one heart back did not also have glaringly romantic overtones!

So if Zhongli was flirting back — if he thought for even a second to try this with Venti — if he realized Venti was right there, right in front of him, waiting to be loved, and thought why not give it a chance —

Maybe, just maybe, it’s worth it to throw everything aside, to slip his hand into Zhongli’s grasp and take that risk. If Zhongli were willing…

God. What Venti wouldn’t do, if Zhongli were willing.

Venti rolls himself up in his blankets and allows himself three minutes to grin wildly into his beddings, exactly like the smitten, impulsive fool that he is. Every thought of Zhongli fills him with incandescent happiness. Their trip is tomorrow, he’ll be spending four luxurious days in Zhongli’s company with nothing to worry about except getting ride tickets and reaching his limit for the maximum amount of specialty drinks he can cram into his esophagus, and Zhongli flirted back.

There are unlimited opportunities on their trip to try and flirt again, with just the two of them doing everything together for four days, going to fancy dinners and firework shows and stage plays. Venti will flirt again — he will, he isn’t a coward, all he has to do is think of Zhongli’s single red heart for courage — and then, if Zhongli responds well, if Zhongli moves closer to him or smiles or laughs at whatever cheesy line Venti has said, if Zhongli says anything that indicates he’s interested in pursuing this kind of skittish, 30-year-old-virgin flirting that Venti is going to initiate —

That’s a whole lot of ifs. But the odds of them occurring are significantly higher now that Zhongli has flirted back (!!!!), so maybe if Venti combines all the ifs, he’ll raise the odds even more?

Venessa would laugh in his face at his reasoning. At this point, though, Venti is so desperate for any signal that he has a chance at winning Zhongli’s heart that he’ll even use these deliberately misconstrued statistics as motivation.

So. Yes. A 4 day trip that counts as a romantic getaway because Archons’ Domain will be heaven for Zhongli, the absolute archon nerd that he is, and heaven for Venti because he’ll get to see Zhongli being openly excited about everything they come across. Sharing a room, even though it’ll probably entail Zhongli rudely awakening him way too early so they can follow his detailed day-by-day schedule. Eating meals together, walking together, watching fireworks together. Holding hands while doing all those? Well, Venti’s going to try his best to make it happen.

It’ll be fun! It might even be flirtatious! Venti will make them four of the happiest days Zhongli has experienced. And maybe, by the end of the week, Venti will finally get to love Zhongli and be loved in turn.

———

The airport is a hellish maze of vaguely interconnected liminal spaces. Venti detests it.

He spends half of the check-in and boarding process clinging to Zhongli’s side, unwilling to stray too far lest he get swept up by a mob of sweaty, just-got-off-the-plane tourists. The breakfast Zhongli brought him had been delicious, a stir-fry of eggs, cheese, mushrooms, herbs, and sausage plus a cute little transparent container of apple slices. But even the tingly remnant of the warmth of Zhongli’s home cooking can’t save Venti from the bustling crowds and confusing layout of Stone Gate’s regional airport.

Their flight is three hours long. Venti spends half of that watching a movie he’d selected at random from the in-flight service and narrating every plot twist and character arc to Zhongli, and the other half dozing off as he watches Liyue’s golden spread of perpetual autumn shift into the springtime green and clearwater lakes of Fontaine.

After landing, the whole afternoon is consumed with getting to the hotel and unpacking and helping Zhongli wipe down all the surfaces because he’s just that type of thorough, ultra-hygienic person. Both of them are too tired to go out for dinner, but getting takeout still requires driving somewhere to pick up food, so Zhongli’s reasonable solution is ordering two 500-mora pasta dishes from the hotel’s kitchen.

In Zhongli’s presence, recuperating from the harrowing Airport Experience is much easier. Especially when Zhongli is sitting across from him with not a single speck of pasta sauce on his napkin, a fond smile tugging at his lips as Venti chatters on about an interesting analysis he’d seen of Zhongli’s favorite story arc in the second phase of the Archons franchise and how it broke down the fundamental qualities of each archon.

They mutually part ways in the dining room and sleep in separate beds that night.

Granted, sleeping in separate beds is the whole purpose of their two-room suite, and at that point Venti was simply too mentally worn out to muster up the energy and courage for flirtation. But that’s one day lost, and only four to go — five, if Venti counts the day they’ve allocated for packing and flying back home.

That’s perfectly okay, though. Anything can happen in four and a half days! Hell, in Archons 3: Origins, Morax took down OS1AL’s government-funded insurgency and all its communication centers in four days and not a minute more.

Venti has a plan. His plan has no rigorous, time-stamped slots for activities, unlike Zhongli’s amusement park enjoyment maximization plan. It is something along the lines of “hold Zhongli’s hand, touch his shoulder more often than you already do (you embarrassing fucking fool), play footsie with him under the table, call him baobao but don’t joke about it, and if he reacts well (criteria to be determined) then maybe you won’t die tragically single after all!”

Venti has a plan, but this is how his plan actually goes.

On the first day, Zhongli drags him around the entirety of the Natlan and Sumeru areas. They take hundreds of pictures of anything interesting they come across, including a bird that was staring directly at Zhongli’s serving of Natla pepper wings and did not look away for one moment as Zhongli ate all the wings, and the moving jackal statues in front of the immersive Sumeru Academia ride. Venti has so many yogurt drinks and spiced mint shakes and on one notable occasion, a strong, aromatic glass of barley wine, that he adds about 20 minutes onto Zhongli’s schedule for unprecedented bathroom breaks. Zhongli also delays his own schedule, because he gets nauseous during the loop-de-loop on Murata’s Wrath and has to sit with his head in his hands on a bench outside the ride for 20 minutes. Between the aching feet and the exhaustion, Venti is — again — too tired to try anything even when they go to a fancy fusion-food place for dinner and are seated in a booth draped with velvet curtains and geometrical, flowery patterns. They watch the nightly firework show together, but it’s so crowded that Venti actually loses Zhongli in the masses of people for a good five minutes. They stumble back to their hotel room wearily, with their eyes newly opened to the horror of popular theme parks.

Two days down. Three and a half to go. Venti already just wants to throw him and Zhongli back home and rewatch the volcano documentary and try to snuggle on the couch. What was he thinking??

The second day is for the Khaenri’ah and Snezhnaya regions of the park, meaning that as Zhongli and Venti cross back and forth between the areas, they get to see three different mock battles between the forces of the Eclipse-10 spy group and the Tsaritsa’s element-imbued, tech-heavy soldiers. Venti gains a healthy appreciation for how hard it is to consistently and flawlessly perform stunts on stage in front of gawking tourists. Venti manages to catch hold of Zhongli’s hand as they meander through the supposedly terrifying Fatui trainee simulation exhibit, and then again as they explore the dark, smoky alleyways of Khaenri’ah’s urban sprawl, but Zhongli doesn’t seem to notice either time. He only squeezes Venti’s hand once, like he’s absentmindedly checking that Venti is still there! He says nothing about the very obvious eyes that Venti was making at him throughout the day. Zhongli probably thought he was begging for more specialty drinks!!

(They arrive at Zapolyarny later that afternoon, in the suits that Zhongli bought for these types of formal dinners, with a matching set of cufflinks. Venti is decidedly not thinking about it. It doesn’t count, since Zhongli bought the cufflinks months ago, when they first booked this reservation! And if Zhongli lets Venti lean his head on his shoulder as they watch the fireworks dance in the sky from Zapolyarny’s balcony, well. Venti is tired, and Zhongli is being really nice about it. It’s nothing Zhongli hasn’t let him do, anyway. Nothing special. Nope.)

Three days down. Two and a half to go. At this point, Venti is considering transmigrating into the Archons franchise, because even Barbatos had a more successful love life than him, and what action did Barbatos get?? Just that one ill-advised fling with Morax as a thank-god-we-saved-the-world celebratory hookup, and the writers’ half-hearted attempt at giving him a tragically straight love story in Archons 4: The Cryo Soldier that died halfway into the movie when they realized Barbatos was too gay to reasonably sustain that course!!

Venti is bouncing off the walls of their suite in excitement when he wakes up the morning of their third day. Zhongli has to stuff a bagel in his mouth to get him to calm down and realize that the stage play he’s looking forward to seeing is still six hours away, and they have to eat their way through all of the Inazuma area before getting to the open-air auditorium in Liyue. This is not a hard task given Venti’s great love for food in general, and he even manages to goad Zhongli into taking a sip of his sakura-plum milk tea, although not from the same place that Venti drank. That’s… probably a good thing, because if an indirect kiss happened, Venti would most likely do something drastic and frankly inappropriate for a public space filled with impressionable children.

They watch the stage play, and Venti is on the verge of tears at the end as Morax stands on the stage alone and mourns the loss of his closest allies and friends. Zhongli hands him a tissue afterwards, outside the auditorium. Venti sniffs and says, “Thanks, baobao,” and Zhongli simply… smiles?

Wow, I really love him, Venti thinks, which is nothing new. He loves Zhongli every day. How can he not?

But Zhongli’s smiling, and he’s not scolding Venti for the pet name, and Venti had said it unconsciously, sincerely. It had slipped out of him, as the waves of his overwhelming affection crashed against the walls of his creaking self-control. That was Zhongli in his mind, now. Zhongli, dearly beloved, his love, his baobao, his — just his.

And Zhongli’s smiling.

Hm.

Hmmm.

Then, maybe —

Venti leans forward, into Zhongli’s space. Zhongli doesn’t move away. His eyes are wide and soft, and the sweep of his thick eyelashes on his cheekbones entrances Venti momentarily. He parts his lips and watches Zhongli’s throat bob and starts to say again, sweet and tentative, “baobao —”

Ten feet away from them, a toddler screams in excitement, and Zhongli’s focus on him breaks in his momentary confusion about the source of the noise.

Venti is suddenly feeling very uncharitable towards children. Of course the kid’s excited, there are almost too many things to be excited about in Archons’ Domain. But Venti was more excited!! He was gearing up to flirt with Zhongli, and Zhongli was about to let him!

At least Zhongli doesn’t look all too happy about the interruption either. He purses his lips, sends an inscrutable look at the toddler, and grabs Venti’s hand to drag him to the next attraction with only a terse explanation that they’re behind schedule.

The rest of the day doesn’t bring any more real opportunities for flirting. They shop together, buy souvenir mugs together, eat a hearty meal of stir-fried beef noodles together, play the OS1AL infiltration mission two times together, and proceed to gorge themselves on the offerings of every single street food stall that dots the pathways of the Liyue area together, but Zhongli doesn’t initiate anything more than steering Venti through a crowd by grasping his shoulder. Venti doesn’t dare to try again, either. He’s worn out his adrenaline supply for today.

They don’t have dinner reservations and they’re quite full from the Inazuma-Liyue food tour they did, so they head back to their hotel early. After his shower, Venti flops on his bed and groans into his pillow. Four days down. One full day at the park remaining, and half a day of travels.

Maybe Venti is trying too hard? Maybe he needs to let this happen naturally and wait for Zhongli to come to him. After all, Zhongli would do something if he were interested, right? He’s the type of person to grasp what he wants in both hands and try, directly and sincerely, to get what he wants, putting all his effort and heart into every one of his goals.

Or maybe Zhongli just doesn’t want him. A week ago, Venti would have thought that. But — but Zhongli had responded well to the flirting, and when Venti had leaned in earlier he had waited for the next move with something like eagerness in his eyes, and if Venti had tried to kiss him, Zhongli might have let him. Maybe.

So perhaps he does want Venti, but not enough to make a move yet. Well, that’s okay! That’s actually more than okay!! It means that he has potential, that Zhongli isn’t writing him off anymore! It’s still not something Venti can confront him directly about, but at least he can do his best to convince Zhongli that he’s worth wanting, that loving him is a good investment.

Who knows if it really is, though? He’s certainly never thought of himself as the kind of person Zhongli likes or deserves. But if Zhongli wanted him, no matter what, Venti would burn all those reservations to the ground. He would do anything to make Zhongli stay, to be worth the effort, to keep his love.

He only has so many chances at happiness. If Zhongli were willing to try dating him, even if it was for one fleeting month, Venti would accept unconditionally. One month with Zhongli, after all, is still more than he ever thought he would get.

Tomorrow, he’ll definitely flirt. He’ll see it through to the end and he’ll woo the hell out of Zhongli and maybe Zhongli will be endeared by it, and then maybe they can hold hands (with romantic intention this time) or kiss about it. Venti is a man on a mission, just like Barbatos on his mission to save the world with Morax, and by god he’s going to net himself that celebratory kiss and the hope of a new love — without following it up with Barbatos and Morax’s disastrous break-up in the very same movie, of course.

———

Never let it be said that Mondstadt and Fontaine can’t do romance. Their last day at Archons’ Domain has them ambling back and forth over the many bridges that connect the two regions, hopping over the little lakes and canals of Fontaine and weaving through the wooden-beam alleyways in between Mondstadt’s shops. Like always, Venti whips his phone out to take pictures of Zhongli throughout the day.

For example, a brief sample out of eight dozen pictures total: Zhongli’s broad, elegant fingers trailing over a mossy stone foundation in Mondstadt. Zhongli, grinning awkwardly under the rustic arches of the bridge between the Stormterror roller coaster and one of Fontaine’s many water rides because Venti asked him to pose and he couldn’t think of anything except a v-sign. Zhongli, framed by the wisteria blooms that hang from the canopy of the main bridge between the two areas, looking at the camera with breathtaking gentleness in the soft slant of his eyebrows and the delighted curve of his eyes.

Yes, it’s all very romantic. Or maybe Venti just thinks that any situation with Zhongli has romantic potential, because he loves Zhongli with such intensity that he can’t imagine not dreaming of how Zhongli would love him in every moment they spend together.

As they flit around Mondstadt and dip into Fontaine for the rides, Zhongli listens patiently as Venti critiques every single restaurant’s offerings and level of competency with traditional Mondstadtian cooking techniques, and when they get two absolutely delectable jam-filled doughnuts from a streetside stall, Zhongli leans down to take a bite out of Venti’s and his hair tickles Venti’s cheek and Venti can’t even steal a bit of Zhongli’s doughnut because he’s too busy experiencing a brain-wide shutdown from the way Zhongli had initiated such casual closeness.

Venti’s skin tingles with the mere awareness of Zhongli’s presence for an hour after. It does not help that they went on three different water rides before eating. One of them was a terrifying thriller with a 30-foot drop meant to simulate the naval battle in Archons 5: Cataclysm of Justice, and now Venti has to endure the way Zhongli’s wet, previously billowy golden shirt clings to every shadowed dip and muscled curve of his torso, because of course Zhongli got assigned the front seat for all three rides and caught the brunt of the massive plume from the Archons 5 ride.

(Venti’s shirt isn’t in much better condition, but at least it’s a collored, pale emerald blouse that isn’t as distractingly translucent or formfitting as Zhongli’s stupid shirt that highlights his stupid attractive assets like stupid clingwrap made of the finest flaxen thread. He’d put his coat on to warm up, but the outline of his front torso is still so insanely hot.

He catches Zhongli’s eyes on him a handful of times. Zhongli’s stare is intense and lingering and most likely disapproving, since he did tell Venti to wear a decent outfit for their prix fixe dinner and special fireworks show later today, and to not spill beer on it, not even a single droplet of foam. Their shirts will dry in time for dinner though, so Zhongli has nothing to worry about.)

The last ride they go on before dinner is the observation wheel in the center of Fontaine, so tall that at the peak it overlooks the colorful spread of all the other 7 regions. Venti and Zhongli board when the sun is just beginning to set. Their hands brush when their carriage wobbles with a gust of wind, and Zhongli tentatively twines their fingers together, so that they’re holding hands as watching the sunset spill like slow, sweet honey across the park. The sleek sapphire glitter of Khaenri’ah and Snezhnaya, the glow of the everlasting cherry trees in Inazuma, the earthen autumn of Liyue shifting into a fiery gradient of crimson and gold, the red-roofed, white-walled buildings dotted among the verdant spring greens of Mondstadt, and the two of them above it all.

It’s perfect. It’s the most painful thing Venti has done this week. It’s everything he dreamed of having on this trip, all the fantasies of how Zhongli would act on a trip with him if they were together. Zhongli is holding his hand, and it has to mean something, because Zhongli never does anything without meaning it, but he’s never told Venti he loves him, and the uncertainty is still gripping Venti’s mind, shaking it so that all his anxieties and insecurities rattle around like loose ping-pong balls.

Tonight, he’ll confirm.

He thinks Zhongli might like him. He’s pretty sure Zhongli knows there’s something building between them, something unspoken but present nonetheless in the weight with which Zhongli touches him and the fondness curling around Venti’s every word. He’s absolutely sure that regardless of how his half-formed plans go tonight, Zhongli will never look at him the same.

And if Zhongli decides he doesn’t want Venti — if Venti is marching towards the destruction of the best friendship he’s ever had —

No. No, Venti is an adult, and he can deal with the emotional consequences of his actions. He just might need to take a few months to himself so he can cry bitterly and eat chocolate-covered potato chips for breakfast and drink sad girl cocktails at hippy bars like he’s experienced a bad breakup and is utilizing the worst coping methods known to humankind. He’s sure Zhongli would understand.

Their shirts are dry by the time they disembark the observation wheel and make the long trek back to the park entrance to get to the lockers where they stored their change of clothes. In the restroom, Venti swaps out his walking sneakers for a pair of heeled, fitted brown boots, his black jeans for high-waisted midnight green slacks, keeps his blouse, and throws on a thick black blazer for good measure.

Zhongli, whose motto in life may as well be never enter an unfamiliar situation without being prepared for three different natural disasters and two business mergers to occur, only has to retrieve his formal, buttoned coat and his polished black flats. He’s leisurely done himself up by the time Venti emerges, his hair combed smooth of all the frizz from a day spent weaving through crowds of visitors. He hands Venti a larger letterman jacket in mahogany and white that Venti recognizes as a piece from Zhongli’s closet, one he’s worn before on casual outdoorsy meetups with their friends.

“In case you get cold during the fireworks show,” Zhongli explains. “We will be sitting very close to the waterfront, so you may get sprayed with water as well. This will help keep you warm and dry.”

“Right, you got us the stupidly expensive front row seats.” Venti grumbles at the memory, but he folds Zhongli’s offered jacket over his arm anyway. Sheesh, what if Zhongli gets cold too? Hasn’t Zhongli had enough of getting unpleasantly wet for one day? What about Zhongli’s extra jacket, where is it?

But Venti can’t pile Zhongli with his own jackets, no matter how much he wants to see Zhongli wrapped up soft and warm in one of Venti’s oversized boyfriend sweaters, since he didn’t think far enough ahead to bring any on this trip. He lets Zhongli take hold of his wrist and lead him to dinner at the premier traditional-style restaurant in the Liyue area. Zhongli’s fingertips are like flushed petals pressing into his skin, slightly callused from all the annotations he makes on his legal documents with his red ballpoint pen — he hasn’t changed that, even after 10 years — and it’s like Venti is running on fumes, the oxygen in his veins replaced by love.

The restaurant itself is a grand building in modern Liyuen fashion, but inside it’s reminiscent of the teahouses that Zhongli took him to when they visited Liyue Harbor four years ago. They’re shown to a second-floor seating that overlooks the park’s mini-harbor, a dark expanse of water stretching past the bustling food stalls and souvenir shops at the docks. The scrolls hanging from the walls are painted with the jagged peaks of mountains and ink-lined clouds and bursts of flowers.

Since today’s osmanthus-inspired prix fixe course came with the firework show package, most of the other customers are either family groups celebrating their vacation in style or young couples who splurged on this experience to solidify the bonds of their relationship. Venti and Zhongli… fit in surprisingly well.

They share each dish of the prix fixe as it comes, Zhongli savoring his thin glass of osmanthus wine and Venti nursing a sparkling water for fear of getting overly drunk due to stress and doing something more stupid that whatever he’s planning to do. They have an unofficial no-work-talk rule when they eat out together, so instead Venti takes it upon himself to update Zhongli upon every bit of office gossip (it’s not work as long as it only pertains to other people). Zhongli doesn’t like gossiping and will only listen if Venti is talking about drama that cannot affect them in any way, so in return he nods after absorbing everything Venti has to say and launches into a painstakingly detailed 15-minute exposition on the varying usage of lighting as symbolism in the first four Archon movies.

Well, Zhongli is definitely enjoying himself more than Venti tonight. As expected from the Archons superfan who hails from Liyue and is currently seated in a comfortable, upscale Liyuen restaurant, being served a haute cuisine meal inspired by one of his favorite flowers.

Venti isn’t an Archons superfan, he just has unadvised emotional attachments to some of the characters. And to be completely honest, he doesn’t understand the hype around the movies, especially the later ones, which are completely at odds thematically and in terms of character development with the earliest installments. But seeing Zhongli blossom as he talks about cinematographic concepts, more beautiful than any of the flowers painted by those old masters who thought they understood what beauty meant…

It’s a good night for Venti, too. Zhongli is happy, and Venti is a part of that happiness.

After dessert (a delicious bowl of berry-flecked osmanthus pudding that Zhongli very vocally enjoyed, much to Venti’s emotional distress), they’re shepherded outside with all the others attending the fireworks show. The firework show seats are right on the waterfront, arranged in eight long, curved rows on a plaza adjacent to the bustling docks. Zhongli keeps a hand on Venti’s waist the whole time they’re picking their way to their seats so that he doesn’t lose his balance.

The plaza lights dim. In the distance, over the water, a tram running along the ring surrounding the park passes by in a blur of silver light. Zhongli’s hand is on his thigh now, warm and solid. Venti wraps himself in Zhongli’s letterman jacket and leans into his side.

At the center of the harbor, a single crimson leaf flickers to life. Then, like they scattered with the wind, hundreds of leaves are darting over the waves, mimicking the biting rush of the first autumn gales. Venti’s cheers are lost in the applause of the other spectators. Besides him, Zhongli looks similarly awed with the pre-fireworks light show.

Maybe those front-row seats were good for something. It means Venti is looking at the unadulterated wonder on Zhongli’s face when the first firework bursts into the sky, and there’s nothing in between the dazzling crackle of the fireworks and the way its light dances in Zhongli’s eyes.

Venti manages to tear his eyes away from Zhongli and focus on the fireworks. They’re beautiful, of course, little packets of firepower blooming into the shapes of dancing flowers and wheeling birds. He whistles in admiration with the rest of the audience when five fireworks are launched at once and they combust simultaneously to form a winding river of leaves, and shakes Zhongli’s shoulder in pure excitement as another round of fireworks paints the vibrant gradient of autumn across the night sky.

All this beauty, and he still can’t stop thinking about the person sitting by his side. Venti’s already wine-and-dined him, and now he wants to skip to the part where he grasps the single best thing in his life with both hands and tells him that he is loved, he has been loved for 10 years, that Venti doesn’t know how to stop loving him and will never stop, if Zhongli were ready to accept him.

There’s a 50% chance that Zhongli might not hear it if he confesses right now. It’s romantic in theory to confess as a firework reaches its height, but in practice, perhaps not so good for Venti’s plans. He’ll hijack the public speakers and yell his love in front of everyone if that’s what he needs to do for Zhongli to hear it, but he wants to say it now, while the sky is bright with the shifting colors of autumn, while they’re pressed shoulder-to-shoulder and the moment is still special. And he wants Zhongli to hear his love, even over the booms of the fireworks and the cheers of the crowd. He wants it to be the most enthralling occasion for Zhongli tonight.

It turns out, though, that Venti doesn’t have to think quite so hard.

As the fireworks reach their peak, Zhongli’s expression shifts. He leans back and smiles and whispers Venti’s name.

“Hmm, what is it, baobao?” Venti responds, driven by pure instinct and half-lost in his fantasies.

The fire in Zhongli’s eyes is burning, reflective no longer. “Nothing, I merely realized I’m very lucky to have you by my side like this,” he says. “I love you, Venti.”

Then he’s leaning forward once more. His hand is cupping Venti’s cheek, and his bangs are brushing Venti’s forehead, and —

Zhongli is kissing him as the last firework bursts into a shimmering golden shower of sparks.

Venti chokes out a noise that could be a sob, maybe. Zhongli is trembling against him — he can feel it, miniscule shivers as his lips slide against Venti’s, all he can feel is Zhongli — the enveloping warmth of his jacket, the slight tightening of his hand on Venti’s thigh, the tickle of his hair against Venti’s cheeks, the soft exhale he makes as the roar of the firework fades.

He tastes like osmanthus wine, and Venti is drunk on him, dizzy with just one chaste kiss. His veins are lighting up all through his body, an ignition of ten thousand sparklers running through his bloodstream. The way Zhongli is kissing him, the firm, gentle press of his lips, how Zhongli’s arm curls around the back of Venti’s chair and holds him close as he’s kissed, like it’s such a simple thing to kiss him and keep him and never let him go — that’s Venti’s oxygen. That is how his love combusts, that is what feeds the flames that greedily leap up his vertebrae and char the insides of his ribcage.

I love him, I love him, I love him, his heart beats. All he can hear is the rabbit-quick kick of his atria, and the desperate, pounding pulse at the base of his neck.

Zhongli kisses him like he’s loved. He kisses softly and sweetly and with such smooth confidence that Venti really does sob. How does he know — how can he do this like they’ve always been in love, how can he kiss Venti with all the steady patience and devotion of a long-awaited lover without even saying —

Oh.

But he said it, didn’t he?

I love you, Venti.

A simple kiss, a whispered I love you. It’s more than Venti could ever have asked for, and yet —

Venti pulls himself back abruptly as a sharp, wild laugh tears itself out of his throat. Zhongli kissed him. Zhongli kissed him!! He shouldn’t want to do this, he shouldn’t still need to ask, need to hear those words from Zhongli’s bitten-red mouth again and again and again, but it came out of nowhere, and Zhongli kissed him with so little fanfare, just a great sense of familiarity and the lingering taste of longing, and — Venti didn’t even get to confess, before Zhongli went and rearranged his whole view of the world again.

“What,” Venti gasps out, “the fuck?”

Zhongli goes still in increments. His fingers loosen, hovering above Venti’s thigh. His shoulders tense, his chest hitches. When he draws back enough to look at Venti, his face is a perfect mask of marble.

The silence after the fireworks feels like the dark, endless expanse of the harbor, the forest beyond, the night sky shrouded in residual smoke. The silence after the kiss —

Venti shakes his head. He brings his hands up to his mouth and presses his fingers into the imprint of Zhongli’s lips. All around him, the audience members are standing up, gathering their coats, shuffling out of their chairs and out into the plaza.

Venti shakes his head again. He wants to laugh, but he doesn’t even have the air for that. Zhongli took all of it.

He grabs Zhongli’s wrist and tugs, until Zhongli is stumbling behind him and they’re pushing through the crowd. He marches forward blindly until they’re ensconced in a veranda at the end of the docks. The waves lap at the stone pillars that support the docks. Venti’s hands are trembling, and still Zhongli is silent.

“You kissed me,” Venti says.

Zhongli stares at him. He glances down at where Venti’s fingers are wrapped around his wrist. When he looks back up at Venti, his mouth opens, but nothing comes out. His eyes are wide and confused and hurt, like he’s a child shaken awake by the tremors of a nightmare.

“You.” Venti says again. “You kissed me. You kissed me.” The words crackle in the space between them, a lightning storm of lost love.

The more he says it, the more it all seems like Venti is the one in a nightmare. He’s been fumbling his way through the maze of his unrequited love for so long that this red string Zhongli has thrown at him is a mystery, something that could lead him to heartbreak instead of an exit.

But Venti doesn’t need verbal proof that the — the kiss, and Zhongli’s soft mouth and firm hands and steady grip — happened. The evidence is prickling over his lips right now, burning in the crevices of his mouth.

Zhongli inclines his head slightly. The moonlight catches at the bright edges of his eyes. “I… did.”

“You kissed me.” Venti needs, abruptly, to sit down. He backs up until his thighs hit the stone bench at the veranda’s wall and collapses onto it. Zhongli hovers two meters away. When Venti says nothing more, he drifts closer as if he’s approaching a trapped, feral animal.

That’s quite accurate, actually. As if Venti’s heart has the capacity to be anything but a feral animal right now, gnashing its teeth at the bars of his ribcage and howling for answers.

“Did… did you dislike it?” Zhongli asks.

“What the fuck,” Venti says, electing to completely ignore that insane question. He does not have the bandwidth for it. “No, what the fuck? You — you kissed me, and you wouldn’t kiss anyone you didn’t like, your actions always reflect your feelings, so that means — do you like me??”

“Yes? I love you. I told you that,” Zhongli says, almost petulantly.

“You like me. Me. You, Jin Zhongli, like me, Venti.”

Zhongli sighs. “Yes, I like you,” he repeats, like it’s something obvious. Like it’s a fundamental fact of the world.

“Holy fucking mother of all seven archons,” Venti says, burying his head in his hands. But — why is he surprised?? He was the one who planned to confess tonight, based on his hard-won observations that Zhongli was treating him in a way that hopefully was not entirely platonic! He had his justified suspicions!!

And yet. Three words from Zhongli, one simple confession, and Venti is completely bowled over.

It’s just that Zhongli had kissed him with such casualness that it was like kissing was something they did on the regular, and said I love you with such smoothness that it was like he’d been saying it every day for the past month. There was none of the desperation that Venti had felt every time those same words were trapped under his tongue, when he had nothing else to say and Zhongli was standing in front of him with no comprehension of how sick with love Venti really was.

So excuse Venti if he doesn’t know what Zhongli wants! If it was casual because Zhongli only wants to try something casual, or if —

What other explanation is there, though? If Zhongli truly loved him, wouldn’t he have tried to make the confession more monumental? Wouldn’t he have kissed like a man denied, instead of a man who already knew he had what he was looking for — and of course Venti has always wanted to be held in the palm of Zhongli’s hand, but not like this, not like someone to kiss only when Zhongli wants to dip his feet in the water when Venti has already been drowning in this love for ten years —

It’s fine, though. Casual… Venti can do casual. Whatever Zhongli wants. He’ll take what he can get, even if Zhongli eventually decides a relationship with Venti just isn’t for him and calls it quits because they were dating casually, after all. And even if he’s not worth the commitment for Zhongli right now, he can still work to prove otherwise, to show that he can be what Zhongli needs.

Venti laughs awkwardly just to clear the silence and runs his hand through his hair. “So, you like me, huh?” He says. You want to try a relationship with me, you want me, please want me, he thinks. And he means to say, then let’s try a relationship, he really does.

But when he speaks again, what comes out is, “I can’t do this.”

Zhongli freezes. In the darkening night, his face is drained of color. He’s looking at Venti like they’re strangers. And still, Venti loves him.

Gods. He — he really can’t do it after all, huh? He loves Zhongli too much to be fine with dating casually, knowing that Zhongli could leave at any time. He can’t do it, he really wouldn’t be able to take it if Zhongli never came to love him the same way Venti does, in all-consuming adoration. Once he gets a taste of what it’s like to date Zhongli, he’ll never be able to let go.

“I really can’t do this,” Venti says. “I can’t, Zhongli, not unless — “ Not unless you can promise me forever, not unless you’re as insane about me as I am about you all the time.

Slowly, Zhongli kneels in front of him. He clasps Venti’s shaking hands between his own, a frisson of warmth leaping from palm to dorsal. Zhongli looks at him with all the desperation he didn’t kiss with and says, his voice splintering like spiderweb cracks in stained glass, “Are you breaking up with me, Venti?”

…What. The. Fuck?

“Zhongli!!” Venti sputters. “You — what — wait, what? Why are you asking me that?? Huh? I — what??”

Zhongli is still kneeling, too close to a proposal kind of kneel for Venti to reconcile it with Zhongli asking if he’s breaking up with him. Which. Just. No. No, Venti’s brain has elected to stop processing things temporarily, because everything is so overwhelming that even the slight shift of the tag on the back of his shirt is sending his entire nervous system haywire, and Zhongli is kneeling and grasping his hands like a dead man’s last prayer.

“You… have seemed distant, at times. Unsure about our… romance. And you obviously didn’t like the kiss. You don’t even seem to like me. You aren’t comfortable with my love for you.” Zhongli nods once, sharply, assembling his collection of entirely wrong and unfounded statements like he’s putting together a legal casefile. “I understand. I will not apologize for loving you, but still, I am sorry for anything else I have done to make you feel discomfited, aside from the…”

The kiss. Right.

The kiss that Zhongli initiated, after telling Venti he loves him, because Zhongli thought they were dating, and people who are dating kiss each other and say I love you and it means I’m in love with you, kiss me and keep me close.

That kiss.

“What the fuck,” Venti says, the eloquent verbal culmination of all ten million realizations he has experienced within the past five minutes. “No. Wait. Wait a second. You. You. You thought we were dating?”

It’s supposed to come out as a genuine, confused question, but Zhongli only pales more and casts his eyes down, a heartbreaking shadow of the steady, confident man he usually is. “...Oh,” he says. “Were we not? I — but, you said — “

Zhongli cuts himself off. He won’t look Venti in the eye, and his hands are shaking worse than Venti’s at this point. Two nervous wrecks, sitting in a veranda together, the whole harbor yawning in the gap of communication between them.

“I said what?” Venti ventures.

Zhongli shakes his head.

“Zhongli.” Still no answer. But this is Zhongli, the one and only person Venti’s heart has chosen, and he loves Venti. He loves Venti and he thought they were dating and he wanted to kiss Venti; he said I love you and meant I am in love with you and they were the same for him, and maybe Venti’s most tender, painful fantasies aren’t so unrealistic, because — Zhongli is kneeling in front of him, and his hands are shaking because of his love.

“Baobao,” Venti tries, letting his voice be as soft and sweet as he’s always wanted it to be, whenever he calls Zhongli that. “Look at me?”

At last, he does.

“What did I say that made you think we were dating?” Venti asks.

“You said, ‘you’re so lucky I love you.’ You said it,” Zhongli quotes, sounding almost petulant. “When we booked the seats for the fireworks. I thought you meant… never mind. I was wrong. I assumed too much and overstepped your boundaries. I apologize.”

He’s already moving to pull away and leave Venti alone in the dark like Venti’s the one getting broken up with. When Venti gasps and says, “Oh,” and, “Ohhhhh. Oh. Oh my god,” whatever Zhongli thinks he sees on Venti’s face must be bad, because he flinches minutely and rips his hands away from Venti’s.

But — that moment — Venti had thought he’d messed it all up. He had thought that he confessed his love, and Zhongli knew, and Zhongli didn’t like it and was going to leave, and when Zhongli had said I love you back, Venti’s relief that he didn’t scare Zhongli away had been so much more tangible than his sadness at Zhongli being oblivious as always. But it really had been Zhongli confessing back, hadn’t it?

And Zhongli had thought since then that they were dating. The heart on the bento, walking him back to his office, the Sweet Madame, the cuddling, the whole trip, every brush of their hands and sun-softened smile exchanged in the seconds between these moments, all of it. All of it had been Zhongli, treating Venti just like how he would have treated his boyfriend, because he thought Venti was his boyfriend.

All this time, Venti had been loved, and he hadn’t seen it. All this time, Venti could have been dating Zhongli, could have fucked it all up in the most wonderful, unexpected way, could have spared Zhongli the peaceful heartbreak rippling across his face —

“No!!” Venti shouts. He stumbles out of his seat and pulls Zhongli into a hug before he can leave. His face is cradled in the broad splay of Zhongli’s shoulder blades, and he can hear every wet, shuddering breath that Zhongli takes. “No, don’t go, don’t apologize, you don’t have anything to apologize for!!”

Venti’s hands are scrunched up in Zhongli’s nice silk shirt, and all the adrenaline is making him shiver, and they sway in the midnight of the veranda just like that. “You don’t have to apologize,” Venti says again. “You… you just! You never said anything! You never said, like, are we dating now, or happy first month anniversary, or — anything!”

“I said that I love you. Multiple times.”

“Yeah, okay, I just — I didn’t realize! God. I didn’t realize.” Venti shakes his head. “I didn’t realize, but you were saying it. All the time. I should be apologizing. I shouldn’t have assumed either, based only on what you said. It took me too long to realize that you were treating me like a — a, a… boyfriend.” His voice cracks on the last word.

“I see,” Zhongli says, devastatingly quiet. “If you had realized earlier, you would have set the record straight immediately. I — I should have said something earlier, too, instead of living on this assumption. I suppose I was simply so happy to finally get to love you. And you said — when Guizhong texted you that time, you said you wanted to take it slow, so I wanted to let you decide when to be affectionate. But… never mind. I am happy I got to love you for this long. It’s enough for me, really.” He laces his fingers with Venti’s, but it’s only to pry him away. “You do not need to… accommodate me, or how I feel, any more. It’s alright, Venti.”

“No! It’s not alright, it’s totally not okay!” Venti grasps onto Zhongli tighter. They’re so stupid, both of them. “We both made so many assumptions. And, and — if I had known — “ He just needs to say it. He has to say it. He can’t let things stand like this. And Zhongli needs to know he’s loved, he's always been loved. “If I had known, I — I would have insisted you take responsibility!!!”

“…Responsibility?” Zhongli ventures.

Oh, archons. This is not how Venti ever pictured his love confession would go. For starters, he thought he would have said something much more romantic and intelligent, and something much less embarrassing.

But maybe their thing is odd, embarrassing, unexpected love confessions. Besides, Zhongli sounds confused now, no more bone-carved sadness lingering in the depths of his voice, and that’s good. Venti’s confession is working. They’ll be okay.

“Yeah! Yeah. Responsibility, okay? Responsibility!” Venti spins Zhongli around and pokes his finger into his chest. “Look, baobao. I have been utterly, completely obsessed with you since we were in university. I think about you every minute we’re not together, and also every minute that we are, because you are so handsome and so smart and so funny and so thoughtful and so, so hard to not love! I’m crazy about you, don’t you see? I adore you so much I’m sick with it. You — you’ve made me a besotted fool, living on a blooming love. It’s like flowers are in my lungs whenever I see you. I can barely breathe without wanting to say I love you, please keep me, okay? It’s bad, it’s so bad, you did this to me, so you have to take responsibility!!”

“I — Venti?” Zhongli says, sounding broken in all the right places, hope shining through the cracks in his heartbreak. “You… you mean it?”

Abruptly, Venti’s stomach coils with guilt. That Zhongli spent two months believing they loved each other, so unbearably happy, only to be told that they weren’t even dating in the first place — it’s unacceptable. Venti, too, will take responsibility.

“I do. I do, I do. So much. I’m — I’m not joking, I really mean it. I love you, and I’m in love with you.” Venti squeezes Zhongli’s forearms, slides his hands down to caress Zhongli’s wrists. All the affection in him, all his gentleness, all of it is for Zhongli. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner. I spent so long thinking you could never look at me like you loved me, thinking I would notice if you ever did. I was so desperate for you to see me that way that I didn’t realize… I never realized that you had always looked at me like that, from the very beginning. I was always that person to you, wasn’t I?”

“You were. You still are,” Zhongli murmurs. He twines their fingers together. The wide expanse of the harbor feels, suddenly, surpassable after all. And now they’re two lovers tangled together in the dark, their smiles lighting up the warm space between them. “I have been looking at you like that for 10 years. Always. Don’t apologize, Venti, we have both been quite blind. I understand why Guizhong was so frustrated now. I will take responsibility for my… grievous actions.”

He brings their hands up and kisses Venti’s knuckles, his lips skimming over the skin, a ghost of touch that leaves him shivering and breathless anyway.

Venti is so overwhelmed with the adrenaline of his sudden confession and the utter tenderness that Zhongli kisses with that he can’t do anything but gasp out a high, reedy laugh. “Oh? You will? Ahahaha, like, um. How are you gonna take responsibility, huh?” And that comes out as too needy, too vulnerable, so he covers it up with another laugh. “Your actions have been so heinous, Zhongli! My head is always filled with romantic ideas now, I want to hold your hand every time we’re together. It’s absolutely terrible!!”

“I see. Please, continue describing this affliction in greater detail so I know how to compensate you,” Zhongli says. Is he — is he making fun of Venti? Is this the long-awaited, mysterious method with which Zhongli flusters his romantic interests??

“You — ugh, you’re fishing for compliments, aren’t you? You wanna hear about how every other thought I have is about how much I want to kiss you, or sprawl on top of you, or explode half your kitchen under your supervision, or sing really bad and cheesy love ballads at karaoke with you? Hmm?”

It’s Zhongli’s turn to flush and hide his face behind their clasped hands. “Ah, I… Venti, you really do like me. You love me.” He sounds entirely too wondrous about it for Venti to be able to tease him.

“I do. I love you in all the ways possible, how could I not have fallen in love with you to begin with? You dummy,” Venti says, poking the soft curve of Zhongli’s cheek. He can do this now. He can give all the unbridled affection and vast love he wants, and he can have Zhongli’s brilliant, besotted smile in return. “There’s no world in which I couldn’t love you. That’s the magnitude of what you’re promising to take responsibility for, just so you know.”

“Good,” Zhongli says, his smile blooming wider. “Then we’re on the same page.”

He — he — what the fuck!! How can Zhongli be so smooth? Venti just can’t win!

“Well then! Okay! That’s — great! You really… you’re the best. I really do love you.” Ack, his voice cracked, and that right there is emotional vulnerability! It’s fine now because Zhongli apparently likes his emotional vulnerability, but Venti’s deflection reflexes are still an ingrained response. “But, you know, HR is going to be on our ass about this — about us. Anna from HR will make us fill out so many forms and sign so many waivers, you know she’s a stickler for the rules! Are you sure you’re up for that task?”

Zhongli actually laughs at this, a small, helpless giggle that has Venti’s whole bones shuddering with the force of his utter adoration for this man. “I love you, Venti. And all due respect to Anna, but I do not care about HR. Now stop trying to give me an out from loving you, and let me take responsibility.”

Oh. Oh. That —

Perhaps Zhongli does know him too well, if he can see the very base of Venti’s emotions, clear all the way down like a trench in a transparent ocean. Perhaps Venti should be more scared about the prospect of being known and still relentlessly loved.

But he’s too busy sighing into Zhongli’s kisses to really give any more fucks about it than Zhongli gives about HR. The corners of Zhongli’s lips are wet, slightly salty with remnant tears. Venti’s own face must be a mess right now. His fingers are aching from how hard Zhongli grips his hands, his spine lit up with the undisguised, boundless devotion that Zhongli kisses with. A string of fairy lights flickering to life, a torrent of love sparking over his skin, dancing on the tips of his eyelashes.

Zhongli kisses his cheeks, the soft curve of where his jaw meets his ear, the sides of his temples, above each of his eyes. Even when Venti laughs and squirms away and squeaks when Zhongli grabs his waist and doesn’t let go, he keeps peppering kisses all over his face.

“One for each time I have wanted to kiss you since that day, two months ago,” Zhongli explains. He kisses Venti again, a quick, sweet peck that stirs his heart into a storm of butterflies nonetheless. “I will make up for those lost opportunities now.”

“That’s not enough, you know!” Venti blurts out. “You — you have to make it up to me more. That’s like ten billion kisses, to represent all 10 years you’ve loved me. God, we took so long, we were so stupid — ”

Zhongli kisses him again. It is, as it turns out, a very effective method of shutting Venti up. “We’re here now, and that is what matters. But if you insist… I will spend the rest of our years making it up to you. I promise.”

“Oh,” Venti says, and then, “Ohh.” Zhongli is willing to promise all his life to him, willing to spend every single turn of the seasons by his side. He leans up and kisses Zhongli, again and again and again. In his bones, something wild settles, replaced by the deep roots of surety and safety. “Don’t break that promise,” he gasps, knocking his forehead against Zhongli’s nose. “You can’t. You can’t.”

“You know me,” Zhongli says gently. “I don’t break my promises. Don’t worry, Venti. I’m here. I’ll be here.”

And so he is, and so he will be.

Venti hugs Zhongli tight, feeling quite mad with love. His next kiss is his own unspoken promise.

———

(Zhongli does, in fact, wind up taking responsibility in all possible ways he can. Which means, of course, that he pays off Venti’s 1000-mora debt incurred by losing the bet between an insufferably smug Diluc and a smirking Rosaria on how long it would take them to get together. Archons, Venti loves him so much. He’s keeping this man forever.

And so he does.)