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For the first time in over thousands of years, Ganyu felt tired.
Not physically - not from the almost inhumane amount of workload she shoulders every day and night, no. It was a different kind of exhaustion - something that crept into the mind whenever she tried to focus on anything practical, a draining feeling that did not disappear with sleep. Serving the Liyue Qixing had always been her job - a job that she has never lacked enthusiasm for, being part of her contract to protect Liyue, after all. Yet, these days, she had felt less and less motivation to complete the tasks that had once been a breeze for her.
She shook her head, setting the papers aside as she signed the last one for the day. Saying that Rex Lapis's untimely death had shaken her would be an understatement. Ganyu hadn't just seen him as a benevolent god ruling over their city as the rest of the people do - she had known him, fought by his side as hell rained down upon the world all those years ago, had been the closest to a friend she ever had. Even if she refused to outright acknowledge it, the half-qilin knew that was the sole reason for her lack of energy recently.
But why should she wallow in self-pity, when the rest of Liyue was hit just as hard? The city had survived the re-awakened god, but only barely, and at the cost of the Jade Chamber entirely. If anyone would be struggling, it would be the people - and Ganyu, as a protector of the land, should be the last person to complain. It would have not only been selfish, but she would not stand to break her own contract to Rex Lapis, the one who made prosperity even possible.
As she flicked the lights in her room off and left, mulling over her thoughts, a flash of purple passing by her left caught her attention. She wasn't the only one leaving to turn in for the night.
"Lady Keqing," she greeted with a customary small smile.
"Ganyu." The Yuheng offered one of her rare smiles in return, one of the rare moments when she didn't look deadly focused on whatever she was working on, or wearing her usual stoic, stern expression. It made the secretary's heart skip a little every time she thought about how she was one of the only people who got to witness this side of the girl.
The fact that she was around was probably also a major reason why Ganyu could still go through her mountain of work without collapsing.
"All done for tonight?"
She nodded. "I'll hand in the reports tomorrow morning. I assume we'll be resuming our discussion of the renovation plans in Bishui Plain?"
"Of course. I'll see you tomorrow, Ganyu. Have a good night." Keqing said softly before turning out the rest of the lights on the way out.
"Good night," she responded, choosing to fix her eyes on how the moonlight illuminated her soft hair as she left, the beautiful purple distracting her from the itch she felt in her chest.
The flowers bloomed in the midst of the storm.
Ganyu blearily opened her eyes, hearing the distant rumble of thunder. She wasn't sure why she was awake, being one to sleep soundly, especially of late when she had been extra tired - and why did her throat feel so dry? The air around her felt cool and crisp, at least, and the smell of rain filled the tranquil atmosphere...
Violet. Just like her.
That's when the petals came - forcefully shoving up her throat in clumps as she rushed towards the bathroom, watching as the purple flowers fell from her lips like the rain outside her window, pooling in clouds of red as they landed in the water.
She didn't sleep that night - but not out of fear or concern for herself, nor the stabbing pain that she felt in her lungs every time she coughed.
As much as her body ached, her heart ached even more, her brain transfixed on only one single name.
Keqing.
She went to work the next day, ignoring the fact that she moved like a zombie from a grave.
As long as no one spotted any blood, it'll be alright.
Maybe it was her adeptus blood working miracles, but she managed to get through her work as usual without any troubles, aside from the occasional cough, but none of them had been accompanied by the violent bloodshed that followed purple flowers last night. The secretary had firmly kept her thoughts from setting on a certain Electro vision holder, even in her small moments of idle contemplation. Interaction with her, however, was unavoidable.
Ganyu's hands trembled slightly as she handed her reports from yesterday to Keqing, not daring to rest her eyes on the girl before her for even just a moment longer. For every time their eyes met, her chest stung a little more, the ugly petals threatening to rear their heads again.
Fortunately, their discussion ended quickly, having gotten most of the work sorted out the day before already. As Ganyu turned to leave, she felt a warm hand grab her own.
"Wait," Keqing said with a smile, making the half-qilin's breath stop for a moment. "I'd like your advice on some of these housing plans. How about we get lunch together and talk over it later?"
Get together for lunch. She could have been asking me on a date.
Ganyu felt the blood rushing before she tasted it.
"I-I'm sorry, Lady Keqing," she responded in a hoarse voice, quickly pulling away and turning around. "I have some matters to attend to, I'll be busy."
She managed to lock the door to her own office before she was coughing up a violet storm.
The petals looked more like fully formed flowers this time, she noted as they fell into the cup she used to hold them. They resembled the local Violetgrass in some way, apart from the shape... if it wasn't for the blood, she might have even found them pretty.
They're the same shade as her dress...
A second round of hacking and spitting followed the thought, so loudly that another one of the secretaries had knocked on her door in concern. She had responded with a hasty "I'm fine, it's just dust in the wind."
No one needed to be concerned for her when she knew exactly what she had.
Hanahaki, the disease that followed unrequited love. A disease that if left untreated, could claim anyone's life, be it from human or divine blood. When she had heard of older adepti mention it in the past, it had felt more like a fairy tale than the wars she had lived to witness and hear them being told through long stories. Her lack of knowledge on this subject was coming back to bite her - all she knew was it was deadly enough even for an adeptus to take away what not even the most ferocious of monsters could.
Love. Admitting that she felt anything for Keqing that was close to affection, even to herself, was harder than acknowledging that she wasn't okay after Rex Lapis's passing. In her three thousand years of life, Ganyu had never knew what it was like to truly love someone - the adepti and Rex Lapis were all the figures she had treasured through millennia - and perhaps she had been involved in one flash romance or two, but whether it was out of fear or disinterest, she had never considered the idea of a partner, knowing that none would outlive her anyway.
But then, Keqing came.
Despite all her rather flippant remarks about him, Rex Lapis had told her that Keqing was just what Liyue needed for a bright future, but he was wrong - she'd became the very person Ganyu needed to survive.
As ridiculous as it was, once they got over their initial disagreements, Ganyu found herself enchanted by her beauty, the grace in her every movement, be it wielding her sword or just getting her tasks done around the workplace. She fell for her stubborn and dedicated personality, yearned to see that soft and sweet side of her that she never showed during formal business.
Too bad, she fell in love with someone that wasn't meant to be.
As much as they got along now, their very different origins would never be compatible. Ganyu was still of divine nature, and it doesn't take a genius to know that Keqing would soon die than bow to one, much less dedicate her heart to someone so close to the gods.
No matter how beautiful the flowers of love bloom, they were destined to end up in flames, red and hot like the blood they now laid in.
Maintaining a whole nation centered around wealth and contracts was no easy feat, yet Keqing found that dealing with her feelings was somehow much harder.
She rarely got upset - maybe frustration would take over when her plans didn't work out, or disappointment would settle when she sees any form of laziness, but what made her heart truly ache was seeing a certain blue-haired girl turn away from her.
Maybe Ganyu was truly busy - it wouldn't be a surprise, but she had never once rejected an invitation to lunch, at least not from Keqing, and that's why it stung a little.
Surely that's the only reason, right? I'm most certainly not upset that I've been rejected by the beautiful secretary with horns-
"I see you got someone on your mind again."
Keqing, so deep in her thoughts, hadn't noticed that she passed by the Tianquan's office on her way to lunch break. She sighed, knowing exactly what the other member of the Qixing was about to bring up.
"Ningguang, we've talked about this." She tried to sound as dismissive as possible. "I don't care how much you insist I'm somehow in love-"
"You're unhappy that she didn't choose to join you for lunch today, aren't you?"
At those words, Keqing fell silent in shock, wondering if she had become so easily readable. Or maybe it wasn't surprising that Ningguang could figure out a simple connection in the blink of an eye - she had navigated much more complicated business plans, after all.
Or maybe she's right all along.
"Don't be afraid to make more moves, you know."
"I don't like her that way," Keqing retorted, perhaps a bit too harshly. "I'm simply wondering what could have kept her busy enough to reject my offer, that's all."
Ningguang only chuckled in response. "Oh, my dear Yuheng. Do you think I've never told myself that every time Beidou left in the past?"
She blinked once, then twice, not knowing exactly how to respond to that. The Tianquan took it as implicit permission to continue.
"You could make more... specialized advances towards her. You know what she likes, after all."
I do. The Traveler did mention her affinity for Qingxin the other day...
"Good luck." Ningguang winked before she turned to leave, leaving the Yuheng with her own muddled thoughts.
No matter how hard she tried to deny it, all she wanted was to see Ganyu smile. It made her heart soar every time she sees a hint of happiness on her face, made her feel that the goal of one day being able to hold her in her own arms was closer to coming true.
And she wanted to be the reason for that smile.
It didn't take long for her to obtain another source of more extensive information regarding the flowers in her lungs. It was surprisingly fast for Lumine to instantly come back the next day after she asked for possible books with details in regard to hanahaki, even if she was literally known as The Traveler. Lumine had gave her some odd looks, questioning as to why she would need such a book, but Ganyu had managed to evade suspicion by telling them that she was simply curious after hearing of the subject in a passing conversation.
The book did a great job of explaining how the disease formed, how it grew and when it would start to be deadly. It had been a few days since she first discovered she was coughing up flowers, and it would take a month before she would start losing her ability to breathe. It also had a lot of information on what kind of flowers were commonly found in those who have experienced it, as well as the connection that the person having them might find with it.
What really caught her eye was the cure: a potion that took three days and nights to brew, which upon consumption would dissolve the seed in her lungs, the source of the blooming flowers, at the cost of losing the ability to ever love the same person again. Alternatively, the pearl will be dislodged and coughed up, as long as the love was returned.
In the same time she had done her research, she had avoided Keqing whenever it was possible, always slipping away from her watchful gaze, turning a blind eye to her concerned expressions. It did help to an extent - she hadn't ever coughed up flowers at the workplace since then, as only every night it would come back to haunt her in her sleep. No matter how increasingly tired she felt every day, her heartache would still prevail.
She could have anyone else. Not an old horned adeptus facing her imminent death. She shouldn't have to worry about me.
Flipping through the pages of her book in the dim nightlight (she hadn't been able to sleep much lately anyway), she finally settled on the page that contained all the details about the mysterious, unnamed flowers growing in her lungs.
Bellflower: A flower that represents gratitude, humility, attractiveness and everlasting love. It is also associated with death.
Everlasting love, indeed. Without needing to think twice, Ganyu knew what that meant - what the suffocating seed in her lungs represented.
Two sides of the same coin, yet each symbolized a very different ending.
She would either see her love reciprocated in life... or die knowing that the very same love was her killer. As painful and morbid it was, it was admittedly strangely poetic, how death could be personified as something so beautiful like flowers.
Ganyu closed the book gently as a single tear rolled down her cheek, a single, coherent thought remaining in her brain.
I'm ready to die.
Keqing had lost count of how many times she had failed.
Not in life or any matters of work, no. She was arguably one of the most successful women in Liyue, being one of its leaders and so on. However, getting Ganyu to spend time with her seemed to be a task that grew harder and harder as days passed by.
She had tried approaching the secretary with many different ways - even bringing her a bouquet of her favorite flowers one day - but with every step she made, the half-qilin seemed to get even more insistent on pushing her away. She had tried inviting her to lunch again - she would simply reject with the same reason that she was busy. She had tried suggesting doing something outside of work with just the two of them, but Ganyu would politely turn her down and said she wouldn't have any time. Every time she called her to her office directly, the secretary was always conveniently unavailable.
With every failed attempt, the Yuheng grew restless - but her worries grew faster. She barely even saw Ganyu at work nowadays, and she often looked disheveled, dazed, and distant, as if she was trying to shut away the world, and Keqing with it.
As much as she hated to admit it, she felt like she was losing her grip, her emotions a foggy haze and her ability to make any plans have disappeared. Keqing, for perhaps the second time in her life, felt scared since their god's death just a while ago, scared that she was losing someone she never thought she'd learn to love.
It was how she found herself knocking at Ningguang's door, doing something that she would have never imagined just a week ago.
"Why, Keqing, I wasn't aware that you'd be the type to seek my advice, out of all people."
"She's avoiding me," the Electro vision holder spoke, blatantly ignoring the statement. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong - the more I approach her, the farther she seems to stray away from me."
Instead of answering immediately, Ningguang's own eyes drifted towards the right, where an antique vase sat on a shelf, a gift from someone irreplaceable in her heart. A distant look could be seen in the Tianquan's eyes, the same look Keqing recognized every time Beidou's name was mentioned outside of work.
"... do you think she hates me?" She broke the silence after a while, when Ningguang did not respond.
"You remind me of the time we fought," the Geo vision holder remarked, distant memories still dancing in her crimson eyes.
Keqing snorted. Beidou's visits more often than not left them with a broken cup or two. "You'd have to be more specific than that."
To her surprise, Ningguang laughed in agreement. "Yes, every relationship has its charm... I suppose ours just look a bit... different, for outsiders." Her expression soon turned serious again, however.
"There was one fight no one ever knew of though, because we agreed to never speak of it publicly again. I won't say much, but... things spiraled out of control quickly and we might have each said things that we still regret." She closed her eyes. "We didn't speak to each other for a long time, and she would avoid my advances whenever I tried to make them. Admittedly, I've done the same before.
"Eventually, though, we figured out that a long, hard talk was all we needed to settle the problems that had grown between the silence. Sometimes, sweeping things under the rug for too long gets dangerous, especially when you think it's done in the name of love."
"So what should I do?" Keqing asked, her tone unusual in the way where it betrayed how unsure she was in the situation. Normally she was the one with a plan, the one others seek out when they couldn't proceed with a decision to be made - but when it came to Ganyu, the Yuheng was nothing short of clueless.
"Stop letting her avoid you. Sit down, have some tea, and be completely honest with each other." Ningguang finally turned to look at her again, a cryptic smile now on her face. "You'll see perhaps that our relationships aren't as different as you perceive them to be, after all."
As Keqing turned to leave the office, she paused, one final question leaving her lips. "Do you think I did anything wrong?"
A few seconds of silence passed, before she heard a response from behind her.
"Part of the journey to love is self-discovery. The only difference is neither of you would be doing it on your own."
When Keqing shut the door behind her, she knew what she had to do.
Instead of sending another secretary to call for her, the Yuheng marched straight to the half-qilin's office and knocked on the door, knowing that she would have to be in there at this hour.
There was no response.
"Ganyu?" She frowned when the other side remained silent. It was uncharacteristic of her to not answer at all, even when buried under mountains of paperwork. It wasn't her usual naptime either...
After a few more knocks and receiving no answer, she sighed and gently pushed the door open. She would not let her run away - not this time.
"Ganyu, what's keeping you so busy that-"
Keqing's heart almost stopped when her eyes landed on the blue-haired girl lying on the floor, with blood coming out of her mouth and purple flowers scattered around her.
She was nothing but a failure.
No matter how hard she tried, the disease growing in her lungs had overwhelmed her and over the night, it was common news among her coworkers.
In the end, after trying so hard to keep it a secret from the one girl she could never call her own, she ended up waking right next to her, back in her own home.
"Ganyu? You're awake?"
She blinked her tired eyes over to the side, to see Keqing looking down at her, tears clearly streaming down her face despite her effort to wipe them away.
She's crying because of me.
Instantly, the flowers filled her throat again, forcing her to cough and spit them out violently, her chest feeling like it has been torn through by a mitachurl. As they fell into the cup that Keqing was holding for her, she noticed that instead of just clumps of petals, they were fully grown flowers now, looking exactly like the diagrams she was shown in the book.
It was a sign that she was running out of time - no matter how long the book said she had.
Worst of all, Ganyu hated that all she could think of now, was how she didn't want Keqing to let go of her, how she wanted the purple-haired girl to embrace her forever.
Everlasting love, indeed. I would rather carry this feeling through death than live another 10 millennia without it.
"Ganyu... you shouldn't have been working when you're so sick. You should have just told one of us..." It pained the secretary's heart to hear the normally confident and beautiful Yuheng speak in such a choked voice, all because of her. She was too tired to speak, instead letting Keqing continue to do the talking.
"Lumine told me about hanahaki earlier. They... they said you've asked them for information yourself. You... you've told them, right? The only one who could save you?"
She knows. And she's right in front of me.
She hated herself for not being able to hold back the tears she had shed.
"She can't love me," she responded, in a raspy voice with nothing but defeated acceptance. "She... doesn't belong to me."
"... I'm so sorry."
It was out of character, too out of character for Keqing, and Ganyu couldn't bear to know that she felt so much sorrow out of sheer concern for her well being. She was not blessed, or cursed, depending on how you viewed it, with the longevity that Ganyu possessed (ironic, since she could barely even breathe without feeling stabbing pain every step of the way now).
She shouldn't have to spend any part of her life grieving for her.
"It's not over. You... you could still take the potion." Even through her tears, her sheer determination was clear, showing the strength that Ganyu had fallen hopelessly in love with at the first place. "Lumine told me that too. It would just need 3 days-"
"No."
Ganyu's response was firm and sure, despite the weakness in her voice.
"She's worth too much to me to ever forget. Besides..." she managed a humorless laugh. "I'm running out of time."
"Wha- what do you mean?!" Keqing's voice was unmistakably filled with panic, something she had only seen in her eyes during the battle against Osial just recently.
"The flowers. They have bloomed." Ganyu coughed up another shower of red-stained bellflowers, as a testament to her fate.
The girl holding her said nothing in response, and instead tightened her grip, just like how the flowers in her lungs did. At the same time, rain started to fall outside the window, the darkened skies crying.
As if it was weeping in tandem with the violet-eyed girl in front of her.
The pain in her chest was unrivaled by the heartache she felt upon knowing she had failed to keep her happy.
Upon her request, Keqing had carried the half-qilin to the location of her choice.
Life isn't fair, she realized. Ganyu had done nothing wrong, spent thousands of years serving the Qixing and by extension, Liyue itself, single-handedly shouldered all the workload that no one else could handle for longer than Keqing had even existed. She had been giving for so long without a single complaint - only to have fate cruelly take away her only chance to be happy.
When the words left Ganyu's mouth that she was in love with someone unavailable, she wanted to scream, yell from the top of the highest peak, wanted to beg and cry for Ganyu to reconsider her decision, wanted nothing more than to convince her to stay. You can choose me, she wanted to say. You can choose me when the one you love neither wants nor deserves you.
But she knew that it would be selfish and cruel for her to think so. In the end, she only wanted to see Ganyu happy, after all. She just had to accept the fact that it won't be with her.
Even if it means saying goodbye knowing that she died loving someone else.
Admittedly, she'll do the same thing in her place - Keqing knew she would give up endless lifetimes in a heartbeat if it meant keeping Ganyu forever in her heart, alive in her memories.
She just wished whoever had claimed her heart knew how lucky she was.
They arrived at a field of flowers, the soft, sweet scent permeating the air, giving the background a tranquil look, despite death being just right around the corner. She sat down on the lush green grass, with the featherweight girl in her arms resting her head on her lap. The slowly setting sun made her blue hair glow vibrantly, her eyes closed as if she was just taking a nap.
Why does she still look so radiant when she knows she is dying?
She shook her head, holding back the tears that threatened to fall. She didn't want to be crying in their last moments. She should be grateful that instead of pushing her away, Ganyu had allowed her to remain by her side. With enough imagination, she could envision them in another world, resting in a gentle breeze, surrounded by beautiful flowers that didn't grow in her lungs, Keqing gently caressing Ganyu's horns as she napped under a tree, away from all their obligations and the rest of the world.
"... Thank you for staying with me."
Keqing found her hand moving unconsciously to hold Ganyu's own, trying and failing again to stop the ugly tears from falling from her eyes. Even now, when she was on the brink of losing all of her strength, her voice sounded as gentle and demure as ever, divine in every way possible.
"Are-are you sure about this?" She hated how desperate her voice sounded, clinging onto the hope that Ganyu would change her mind. It was horribly selfish, horribly inconsiderate of her, but her greatest wish right now and then was for Ganyu to stay with her, even if the secretary would only ever remain friends with her for the rest of their lives.
"I am, Keqing." She managed to smile weakly, her purple eyes still glimmering even if the spark of life was fading away. "I'm just happy... happy that I won't be dying alone."
"Stop. Don't say that," she choked out amidst her tears, holding the horned adeptus close to her own chest, feeling her heartbeat slowly disappearing, her breathing slowing down until it was barely audible.
"... Please don't cry for me, you deserve to live happily. Go back, and live your life to its fullest for me, okay?"
Keqing had no answer to that. She wanted to scream, but no words made their way to her throat. She could feel the girl in her arms slowly slipping away from her, their time together in this world drawing to a close.
With one final burst of strength, the half-qilin squeezed her hand before whispering:
"I'm thankful that you're here with me."
It's now or never.
"Ganyu..."
But I don't want to live a life without letting her know how much she meant to me.
She found the strength to say the words - the selfish desires that she couldn't keep to herself. It could have been a long speech, an hour's worth of words used to describe how her heart had fallen so far for the beautiful half-adeptus, but instead, she only managed to form three words, the only three that ever mattered.
"I love you."
Something flickered in Ganyu's eyes, an expression that Keqing vaguely recognized as shock... before a warm, tearful smile blossomed across her face.
"... I love you too."
What followed was a sudden barrage of coughing, with the half-qilin violently pushing her off as her whole body shook from the force, her hands clutching her chest in extreme pain. Keqing was terrified, but at the same time paralyzed, unsure of what to do, her thoughts completely incoherent, both from the confession and the scene unfolding before her.
The coughing soon ended, with Ganyu spitting out no blood nor flowers, but instead a faint blue, transluscent pearl.
Keqing only had time to hold onto her again before the tired half-adeptus passed out again.
A cool breeze drifting and tickling her face gently stirred her from her sleep, her eyes slowly cracking open. While her vision was blurry and her head was still rather heavy, she subconsciously reached out and rested her palm on her own chest, where her lungs used to scream in pain.
She felt nothing but a serene calmness, much like the wind blowing outside the window.
Because she loves me.
When she had heard those words, Ganyu thought she had died and was hearing her first words upon entering the afterlife. The hazy memory of the intense pain that came with her coughing up the pearl was fading away in her memories, but the three words that Keqing said to her remain cemented in her thoughts.
When she had finally found her strength to move, Ganyu turned and found the purple-haired girl sitting on the bed, her thoughtful gaze wandering to the darkened sky outside. Instead of making her feel uneasy, however, she felt only relaxed and at ease, as if things were suddenly in the right order again.
"Hey."
Upon hearing the half-qilin's soft voice, Keqing turned around, and her expression melted into one of equal affection and concern.
"You're awake," she said, pulling the secretary in for a hug. It was rare to see her get emotional - Keqing prides herself for being able to see everything with a rational point of view, and Ganyu knew that more than anyone else.
It now warmed her heart to see that she was openly showing this side to her.
"Here, you should drink this." Gently letting go of her, Keqing handed her a cup of tea, with a refreshing, light smell. "It's herbal tea for your throat." Ganyu accepted it gratefully, the warm liquid sliding down her sore throat and rejuvenating her.
"... Ganyu, why didn't you just tell me how you felt earlier?"
When she put down her cup and set it on the nightstand once more, her eyes spotted the hanahaki pearl resting beside her alarm clock, no doubt already cleaned and dried. She blushed, suddenly feeling self-conscious as she looked down.
"I... I thought you'd never love someone with adeptus blood. I just..." She sighed. "I just thought we'd never work out."
"Oh, Ganyu..." Keqing gently cupped her cheeks in her hands, looking straight into her eyes, her own filled with nothing but affection. "You're silly sometimes. I don't think I recall the feeling of not loving you. It doesn't matter to me if you are half or full adeptus - screw that, I don't think even you being a god would stop me from falling for you."
The secretary giggled, as she recalled the times where they used to argue and give each other the cold shoulder due to their conflicting views. To think that Keqing had been the very same person she couldn't stand, to the charming girl who claimed her heart now.
The Electro vision holder brushed away a lock of her blue hair, speaking with a soft smile. "This silly old qilin is way too lovable, anyway."
Ganyu managed a chuckle. "At least I am your silly old qilin now, right?"
She was met with a radiant smile in return.
"Always."
With no secrets between them anymore, the two leaned in for the first time, their lips meeting in a tender kiss. It wasn't a kiss of fiery passion or heated desperation - just a soft, sweet gesture, the blossoming of newfound love.
When they finally pulled apart, Ganyu reached out and grabbed the pearl, admiring its smooth, reflective surface. It was not unlike what Lumine had shown her on their journey back to Liyue Harbor when she had trained with the other adepti weeks ago, with the traveler saying that she had extracted it from a loach in the marshes.
"You know, this pearl was the seed of the flowers. It means... its also the seed of my love. For you." Her cheeks dusted pink as she said that, but she smiled and gently took Keqing's hand, placing the spherical, gleaming object in her palms.
"I want you to have it. As a reminder... that I'll always love you," she finished, her own hands closing over her girlfriend's.
Keqing didn't respond immediately, her face flushed similarly to Ganyu's. Instead, she pulled the blue-haired girl in for another kiss, feeling the sparks of love ignite within both of their hearts.
"... Ningguang was right. All this could have just been avoided if I asked you about this earlier... to think I almost lost you because of a stupid misunderstanding." She shook her head and pulled Ganyu closer to her. "I should be more worried... but I'm just so happy you're here with me now."
"You talked to her about me?"
"Well... yes, although it was more about my feelings for you," Keqing confessed. "But don't worry, everyone knows how her relationship with Beidou is the most horribly kept secret anyway." she winked.
Ganyu couldn't help but laugh as she leaned into Keqing's embrace again, her mind filled wih nothing but euphoria as she leaned down and gently kissed her on the forehead. The simple act of physical affection had finally returned to her all of the energy she had lost over the past few weeks.
Outside, rain had started to pour again. This time however, being held by the girl she loved, Ganyu felt contented, peaceful, and at long last, felt like she was home. Her mind was rested, clear, empty of any other thoughts save for one.
The rain smells violet. Just like her.
-Fin-