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“Well, look on the bright side,” Gorou reasons—surely with sincere and kind intentions, because Gorou is a nice person and not shady—“you won’t be lonely. You can join Itto-kun at the singles table and share… y’know, tips about coping as… people who are single.”
It is immediately very clearly the wrong thing to say. Yoimiya (freshly single) tries to crack a smile, bless her heart, before immediately giving up on that. A forlorn sigh. Despite her woes, she reaches over to pat Itto’s wrist, made sympathetic with a renewed understanding of The Tragic Single Experience™. Singles should stick together, and all that.
And Arataki Itto, understood to be the group’s then-singular single-person representation, glances up from where he is devouring—like, ripping and tearing at with his ridiculously sharp teeth—his sandwich to frown, swallow, and say:
“Wh?”
Swallow, and then:
“I’m not single though?”
You could hear a pin drop. Yoimiya balks. Gorou’s jaw drops so fast it cracks. Thoma’s knitting slips off his needles into his noodles. Sara stops texting Kokomi. Only Itto continues to move, ignorant of the turmoil happening around him unfolded by the uttering of those three words—scooping up the shredded lettuce fallen from his sandwich and nibbling it off his fingers.
Gorou: “Huh?”
Yoimiya: “Since when?”
And Ayaka, ever pleasant: “Congratulations!”
“Since...” Itto appears to be counting on his mayo-sticky fingers. He appears to fail at it. Valiantly, he tries again, and let it be known that though his brutish perseverance sometimes succeeds, this is not one of those times—he pulls out his phone, opens up his calendar, and announces with Itto-like lack of embarrassment: “Four years ago.”
The table beside them also goes silent. They’re trying very hard to look like they aren’t eavesdropping and failing. “Siri,” Itto is saying, oblivious as always, “remind me to buy an anniversary present!”
Siri, ever pleasant and unconcerned, notes down the reminder.
“Four years ago.” Gorou doesn’t think he’s ever heard Yoimiya’s voice sound so flat. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her sound so scary. He scoots to the side on the bench, into Thoma who also scoots aside, because Thoma is nice. “Arataki-san?”
“Mm?”
“How long exactly have we known each other?”
Itto seems to genuinely ponder her question. He goes back to counting time on his fingers. Gorou wants to tell him that it’s a rhetorical question, but he’s still reeling a little, so forgive him, really, for not saving the poor guy from Yoi’s wrath. “Almost a year?”
“A year,” Yoimiya echoes. “A year—” she explodes, jumping up from her seat. “And you never told us? You just let us believe—”
“Who exactly is this partner of yours?” Sara cuts in. In response to a table of curious glances—Sara doesn’t exactly seem like the type to care—she shrugs, lifts her phone. “Koko wants to know.”
Itto frowns. “Have I really not told you guys?” He seems to think for a moment. “Well, his name is Zhongli. Right! He’s kind of private, really lowkey and stuff, so don’t tell anyone, ‘kay?”
“Staying lowkey” and “dating Arataki Itto” are inherently contradictory, but nobody is collected enough to bring that fact up, nor the fact that Itto has no concept of “lowering one’s voice,” so the entire bustling cafeteria most definitely now knows.
Yoimiya’s eyes narrow. “How come we’ve never been introduced to this boyfriend of yours?”
“Well, that’s cuz he’s been in Liyue for the past year. Researching funeral customs? I think.”
“Do you have any pictures of him?”
And now it’s Itto’s turn to sigh forlornly. “You guys remember when I dropped my phone in the toilet last week?” (They all nod, except Sara, who laughs mean-spiritedly.) “Yeah, so. I lost all of my pictures of him! He doesn’t like to take photos of himself, which doesn’t make sense because he’s, like, the cutest person on the fucking planet. ...You know what? I’m going to tell him that he’s the cutest person on this planet.” Tip of his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth, Itto presumably does that.
“You don’t call him? Video call? You can screenshot,” Yoimiya says, helpfully. “Just press the—”
“I do! I know how to screenshot!” Itto huffs. “I try. He doesn’t really like his phone. He didn’t even have a smartphone before we met! And he’s always forgetting to charge or check it. Sometimes my texts go unread all day.” He seems so genuinely sad that Gorou can almost ignore how fishy this is beginning to sound.
Almost.
He glances at Yoimiya, who seems to have come to the same, pretty obvious conclusion as him.
“Itto-kun,” Gorou says gently, awkwardly. “It’s okay to be single. I mean, look at Yoimi—I mean. Yes. It’s perfectly fine to be single.” Yoimiya is shooting lasers into the side of his head. He prepares himself for a Yoimiya-administered throttling later.
“We’re your friends—” (cue a snort from Sara) “—and we like you for who you are. Single or not! You don’t have to lie to get us to stop teasing you. Right, guys? We’ll stop teasing him?” She stares pointedly at Sara, who is back to her favourite hobby of texting her girlfriend/ignoring everyone.
She gives Itto another reassuring pat on the shoulder, this time much more pitying. “Anyway, I gotta go—study group. See y’all!”
“Wh—” Itto looks around the table. You can see the gears in his brain working. “Do you guys think I’m lying?”
Ayaka pats his arm too. “It does sound a little...” She is too nice to finish the sentence. She pats his arm again, several degrees more awkwardly. “I should start heading to class now. I’ll see you all around?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna get going too,” Thoma adds. “Gonna try to get the soup out of this yarn.” Seeing as the group has mostly broken up, Gorou makes to leave as well, balling up his sandwich wrapper. Might as well get started on his essay for Intro to Liyue Studies…
And soon, there’s just Itto, whose turn it is to look shocked—and he makes quite a cute shocked face, spiky white hair sticking up all over the place and all—and Sara, still texting her girlfriend.
There is a valiant last-ditch effort made. “I’m really not lying!”
“You are so full of shit,” Sara drawls.
—
For a single person, Itto really likes to party.
In a stunning display of the least empathy someone can physically have, Sara says, “Now that you’re also single, are you going to stop partying?”
Kokomi lifts her fist and brings it down on her girlfriend’s head, not lifting her eyes off her book... on ancient war strategy? If not for Yoimiya’s boundless respect for her, she would be judging. ...Okay, she’s still judging. But only a little! Because Kokomi is nice. “Be nice, Sara.” She looks up from her book. “Doesn’t Arataki-san have a partner?”
“I mean, he says he does. But like.” Yoimiya throws her hands up and takes a sip of her beer. “Look, Kokomi-san... This boyfriend of his has been studying in Liyue for a year.”
“Mhm?”
“A year—coincidentally the same amount of time as we’ve known him. He also has no pictures of the guy because he coincidentally dropped his phone in the toilet a week before he told us about him—and he never thought to bring up this boyfriend in a year of knowing us.” She takes a deep breath. “And the guy also apparently doesn’t like to take selfies or have social media or even really use his phone. I even Teyvoogled the name he gave us. The only Zhonglis I found were six-thousand-year old gods and this, like, really old guy who is dead. Even you have gotta agree it’s a little odd.”
Yoimiya ignores the “what the hell are you implying about my girlfriend, Naganohara,” followed by threats of violence upon her person.
“Well, I suppose.” Kokomi tilts her head. “But people can also just... be odd, sometimes. The first time I met Sara, she was filling the dorm fridge with eggs. Four shopping bags worth of eggs.”
“They were on sale,” Sara grumbles. “I have student loans.”
“And now you hate eggs. Was it worth it?”
Yoimiya ponders this. (The ‘people are odd’ part, not the…part where Sara had eggs for every meal until she got permanently sick of them.)
“And besides,” Kokomi says, turning her pretty eyes back onto Yoimiya, “didn’t Arataki-kun say his partner doesn’t like using technology? I don’t imagine he’d have social media then, right?”
“It just all feels very coincidental,” Yoimiya manages, feeling a little guilty. “Doesn’t it?”
“Sure it does.”
“And like. We did make fun of him a lot for being single and lonely and clingy. Maybe he got tired of it but didn’t feel comfortable telling us to stop.”
Sara, head pillowed on Kokomi’s lap, snorts.
“Okay, it is a little stupid. I don’t know, man! Then again, like, it’s Itto—would he lie? Is he even capable of lying?” She throws her hands up. “I’m too drunk and also not drunk enough to be trying to follow Itto-kun’s train of thought.”
“Why are we trying to follow Itto-san’s train of thought?” Kazuha asks, coming up from behind them. Sara will deny it, but she definitely jumped. “You know, I don’t think that train has been on the tracks for a while.” He motions toward the far end of the room.
Speak of the devil and he shall come walking down the stairs on his hands. A gorgeous girl dressed as a pirate stumbles up with a red solo cup full of beer and sticks the rim between Itto’s teeth.
There is absolutely no way this is not going to go poorly.
Yoimiya watches in rapt horror as he begins his descent.
“...Kokomi-san...”
Kokomi is silent. Itto loses his balance on the fourth step, refuses to let go of the cup, and ends up sprawled belly-down on the sticky floor, waterboarding himself with a cup of shitty beer. He’s up and laughing immediately. The pirate lady hands him a towel and a fresh cup with a bright red lipstick mark on the rim. He fistbumps her, puts his mouth directly on the lipstick mark, and chugs, letting out a truly impressive/disgusting burp after.
“I may. Consider reconsidering.”
—
Thoma is proud to officially announce that he has reached the acceptance stage of the “Itto-kun Is Not Actually Single And Hasn’t Been For Four Years (And Also Didn’t Tell Us)” thing. He will pause to allow you to applaud.
[APPLAUSE HERE.]
“So,” Yoimiya says, sprawled out starfish on Thoma’s bed, while Thoma sits on the floor. Something about this dynamic seems wrong, but what is Thoma if not a people-pleaser? “What do you think this… boyfriend in Liyue is like?”
“I,” he starts. He stops. He pictures Itto. Easy enough; the guy is pretty out there. He pictures a guy beside him.
...He pictures a guy beside him.
He pictures a guy beside him.
(C’mon brain, get with the program.)
“I can’t,” Yoi wails, rolling and kicking around on the bed. Thoma’s bed. Oh, there go his pillows. Why does he even bother to make his bed? “Like. Tall or short? Is he younger or older? More or less buff?”
“Do you really think there’s someone out there more muscular than Itto-kun?” The guy goes to the gym every day, except Mondays, which is designated as Pet Beetle Walking Day.
Yoimiya makes a noise.
“...I just can’t imagine anyone who would have the patience to... date him. For four years. Meanwhile I get broken up with after a month... Like, do you think it’s because they’re long-distance? Don’t have to deal with him all the time?”
Thoma turns to look at her. “That’s really mean, Yoi.”
“Ugh, yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I’ll buy him lunch tomorrow.”
After a moment, Yoimiya rolls onto her stomach. “He’s studying funeral customs. God, what if he’s even weirder than Itto-kun?”
They ponder this silently. Though it’s no easier to picture Itto with a partner than it is to picture a person weirder than Itto. Itto, who keeps pet beetles and takes them out for walks. Itto who is professionally trained in several types of martial arts and is also a national jump rope champion. Arataki “The Second Best Arm Wrestler On Campus” Itto. (First place being Sara, of course.)
Head suddenly extremely heavy, Thoma crawls onto the bed—his bed!—and lies there beside Yoimiya, watching the ceiling fan spin.
They’re still lying there when Sara and Gorou return from archery club, hair damp from the showers. “What are you guys doing?”
In unison: “We’ve reached Acceptance of the Itto thing.”
Sara makes a snide little sound. “Bullshit. You’re both clearly still bargaining.”
What he hates the most is that she kicks him off the bed—his! bed!!!—and steals one of the face masks Ayaka gave him. What he hates the second most is that she’s right.
—
Sara does not care, has never cared, and will never care about The Arataki Itto Thing. She is occupied with things like her girlfriend, what she’s going to eat on Thursdays (when the cafe only sells egg salad sandwiches, which used to be good until Eggagedon), and how to get her spot at the library back from Raiden Ei.
At least, she thinks it’s Ei.
She hopes it’s not Makoto.
She’s pretty sure it’s not Makoto.
...She asks her girlfriend, just in case.
“If she’s wearing a pretty hairpin, it’s Makoto. If she’s wearing a hat that says “I Fear Women, I Fear Fish,” it’s Ei.”
It is Ei.
Sara decides it would probably be a better use of her time to find another place to study. Maybe, for once, her room will be empty and she will be able to study in peace. Alas, God is not on her side, and she hears her friends’ voices as soon as she cracks open the door. You always know when they’re near, and she means it negatively. They’re fucking loud.
(Though they’re usually much louder than this, given, well. Itto. She doesn’t hear his voice this time though.)
Her phone buzzes in her hand.
“Be nice,” her girlfriend has said.
“How did you even know,” she types back.
“I just know things,” comes the reply, which would be scary if not for the fact that Sara loves her. Kokomi can just know things sometimes and Sara doesn’t have to know how.
Now Sara must reiterate: She does not care about The Arataki Itto Thing. She is not on any “sides.” It’s definitely amusing how worked-up Yoimiya gets over it—and sure, she can see how “the boyfriend who studies abroad in Liyue who doesn’t like to call or take pictures” could be suspicious, but she also has history readings to do.
But she doesn’t care, has never cared, and cannot see herself caring anytime soon.
Briefly, she debates trying to find another study spot.
This is of course ruined, by Kazuha, who is a nice boy usually but has somehow heard the door opening over Itto’s voice, and yanks it open the rest of the way to see Sara half-turned away. “Were you coming in, Kujou-san?” he says, mild voice somehow managing to be louder than Yoimiya and Thoma’s squabbling.
That motherfucker. “...Of course,” she says, teeth not gritted.
The last seat is between Thoma and Itto, who is, for once, not being loud as fuck. He’s preoccupied with his phone, lips twisted into a tiny smile as he types. Sara never thought she’d be describing anything relating to Itto as tiny, but he...
With a jolt, Sara wonders if that’s how she looks like, like, all the fucking time.
“It is,” Thoma says.
She does not jump. “What?”
“That is how you look all the time.”
“What the fuck dude.”
Now, definitely not-self-conscious—thanks a lot, Thoma—Sara puts her phone away and boots up her laptop. She’s thinking now that she should’ve gone for Raiden Ei and her mountain of snack wrappers. Plugging in her earbuds, she tunes out the group—much easier with Itto pretty much silent beside her—and manages to get some-hundred words of her essay before it all goes to shit.
Naganohara “The Shit-Stirrer” Yoimiya: “Itto-kun, you’ve been quiet. Who are you texting?”
“Huh? Oh. My boyf— my partner,” he amends, a little bashful.
“The one studying in Liyue?”
Sara is getting really tired of the chain of words ‘boyfriend studying in Liyue’.
And the poor guy doesn’t realise they’re poking fun. He brightens. “Yes! I have a date with him later tonight. Over Zoom. Me and his boss are helping him set Zoom up right now.”
“‘His boss and I’,” Ayaka says absentmindedly. “Ah. I mean.” She ducks her head. “Sorry.”
Yoimiya and Gorou exchange glances. They’re always exchanging glances lately. Of course Sara isn’t paying attention—she is texting her girlfriend updates, because after The Party, Kokomi has been sucked into The Arataki Itto Thing. To quote her: Why have a girlfriend if they’re unwilling to text live updates on their friend’s love life? Fake love life? Schrödinger’s love life?
“His boss? He has a job?”
“At a funeral parlour. Okay, I’m gonna get going now—Liyue is a few hours ahead of us and he doesn’t like to stay up late.”
“Just call him here? Then we can meet him,” Thoma suggests.
For some reason, Itto’s face goes red. “Nope. No. Can’t do that.” Then he goes speedwalking away, ignoring Thoma’s “wait, why not?”
Ayaka, also bright red, sighs. “Thoma.”
“What???”
—
Kokomi hadn’t expected to care so much about The Arataki Itto Thing. To be honest, she doesn’t know him all that well, seeing as all of their interactions so far have been not-quite-interactions at all—i.e. when he sprints up to Sara in public to challenge her to arm wrestling contests. Sara’s arms are very nice. Can she really be blamed for getting distracted and not paying attention?
Though she now knows a lot more about Arataki Itto than he does about her. And when she sees him sitting alone in the café, she goes over to say hi.
Kokomi learns: Itto wears glasses. Thin wire-framed rectangular ones with thick lenses. He blinks owlishly up at Kokomi for a few seconds before recognition sets in. “Kujou’s girlfriend!” When he waves, the table shakes.
Kokomi learns: Sara wasn’t lying about the volume.
“That’s me. Mind if I share your table?”
Itto shrugs. “Go ‘head.” He shuffles his stuff over, stretching his legs out under the other side of the table. Seeing how cramped he looks, Kokomi is, for once, grateful that she’s average-height. You’re short, Sara would say with a snort. Cute. Pocket-sized.
“What’re ya doin’?” Itto asks after a while, nodding out at the book she’s reading. It’s written by an acclaimed historical researcher who occasionally teaches classes at the university—Lapis Dei: A Brief History of Liyue’s Gods and Supernatural Creatures by acclaimed Liyue historian Morax (a pen name with no last name, like Cher). She’s managed to snag a spot in Dr. Morax’s class in the coming semester—something she’d celebrated with an expensive wine, and yes, it is that big a deal—and a little bit of pre-studying never hurts. She tells Itto as such.
“Professor Morax is excellent,” she’s saying. “I attended one of his talks a few years ago. He’s just... phenomenal!”
“Yeah?” Itto says, chin propped up on his hand.
She’s still talking about Dr. Morax when Sara comes to find her. It’s gone dark outside. To her surprise, Itto’s a great listener, letting her wax poetic about Dr. Morax’s first book on Liyue’s military strategy during the Archon War.
Sara does not believe it when she tells her. “No fucking way he sat and listened to you talk for hours.”
Kokomi shrugs. She’s become a little defensive of the guy. A kinship borne between Morax enthusiasts. “Maybe he’s different than you think?”
From Sara’s snort of disbelief, Kokomi doesn’t quite think she’s managed to convince her. Ah, well.
—
Yoimiya will maintain to this day that she’s a great friend and that she broke the door down because the weird sounds inside Itto’s apartment were kind of scary and concerning, and she was only doing her duty as the great friend that she is.
Why, you ask, are they at Itto’s apartment at 8PM on a Friday?
Well, Yoimiya would like to stress that she’s a really great friend, and had noticed that Itto had been kinda off lately, moping around. The tipping point was when he turned down Yoimiya’s suggestion they go out for dinner (which was concerning, because Itto is always up for going to dinner).
So after classes, she grabbed Thoma, went to Itto’s favourite conbini-bakery to get him his favourite yakisoba bread and his favourite disgusting protein shake, somehow acquired three tag-alongs in the form of Gorou, Sara, and Kokomi on the way, and headed for his apartment.
She’s raising her hand to knock when she hears shuffling from inside. A muffled thump. Her hand freezes.
“What the fuck,” Gorou mouths, crouching down.
For some reason Yoimiya also crouches down. Kokomi and Thoma join, leaving Sara staring distastefully at them from where she is coolly leaning against the wall.
“An intruder?” Thoma whispers.
Yoimiya mimes breaking the door down.
“Are you stupid? Just fucking knock,” Sara says. They all shush her in unison.
“Knocking will alert the intruder.” Kokomi, ever the level-headed one. She nods at Yoimiya, who hands Thoma the sandwich and protein shake and does a few practice kicks. She then winds up for the real thing.
“This is so stupid,” Sara says as the door bangs open.
……Revealing Itto and his EVIDENTLY NOT FAKE BOYFRIEND pressed up against the wall. The NOT FAKE BOYFRIEND has one hand fisted in Itto’s shirt and the other on his shoulder, kissing him so hard Yoimiya is not quite sure where he starts and Itto ends.
“You’re real,” Yoimiya says dumbly.
In the moment of stunned confusion, Yoimiya’s brain somehow manages to still take in what she sees. The NOT FAKE BOYFRIEND is tall—almost the same height as Itto—though not as muscular, but is still very handsome. Quite distinguished-looking. Long dark hair, waved in the way that tells Yoimiya he usually wears it up or tied, messy from Itto’s hands. (She can see the hair tie on Itto’s wrist.) Warm gold eyes, smile lines in the corners. He’s got the little shadows on his nose bridge that tells Yoimiya he wears glasses.
All in all, he is the farthest thing from what Yoimiya had imagined, which is a feat since she hadn’t quite been able to imagine anything.
He blinks, thrown off guard, and by the strangeness of his expression Yoimiya thinks he’s probably someone who isn’t often thrown off guard. Though he recovers quicker than the others. “You must be Itto’s friends,” he says pleasantly, extricating himself from Itto’s arms and adjusting his collar. This only serves to draw Yoimiya’s eye to the mark blooming on the side of his neck, which, like, what the fuck Itto, and wow, Itto. “I’m—”
“Dr. Morax?”
They all spin to face Kokomi now, whose face is a fascinating mix between delight, shock, confusion, and horror.
“What the fuck!” Kokomi cries, jabbing a finger at Itto. This is important because Kokomi does not swear, and the worst expletive that Yoimiya has heard her say (prior to this) was a quiet ‘dang it!’ “You’re dating Mr. Morax?”
Itto is squinting, looking very disgruntled. “Did you guys break my door?”
“You’re actually real,” Yoimiya repeats.
“I told you I wasn’t lying,” Itto replies, petulant now, arms crossed over his chest. “Why didju break my door?”
Dr. Morax-slash-The Boyfriend-slash-Zhongli just laughs, laying a hand on Itto’s cheek. It’s so tender it makes Yoimiya’s teeth hurt. “What exactly did you tell them?”
“I just told them that you were away working in Liyue and I broke my phone so I didn’t have pictures of you and you don’t call me often! I didn’t lie!” Throughout this, Dr. Morax-slash-The Boyfriend-slash-Zhongli’s eyebrows creep up until they’re hidden behind his loose bangs, and he hides his smile behind his hand.
“Love... You...”
God, he calls Itto ‘love’.
“What are y’guys doing here anyway?” Itto asks, crossing his arms.
Thoma, who has been silent the whole time, lifts the plastic bag with the yakisoba bread and protein shake. “Well, we... thought you were feeling down, so we brought you food and company. Anyway, we’ll let you get back to... whatever you were doing.” Smiling, he grabs Yoimiya and Kokomi and steers them out of the apartment. “Dr. Zhongli, sir, it was nice meeting you!”
“You all as well!” Itto’s boyfriend calls after them.
“My door!”
—
Five silent minutes later, it’s Sara who first speaks: “Holy shit, he actually had a boyfriend.”