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“Sometimes-” Ganyu takes a deep breath, and it stutters on her lips on its way out. “When you’re gone on your work trips, I see you hating me. Whenever I text you, I picture you seeing my name pop up on your phone and you heaving this big sigh because I’m so annoying and clingy.”
Ganyu’s nestled into Beidou’s body, and Beidou can feel her body shake constantly, her back pressed flush against Beidou’s front, microscopic earthquake tremors wracking her limbs. Ganyu’s brows crash into each other like tectonic plates as miniature mountains build up between them.
The wooden bedframe stops biting into Beidou’s back with its viciously pointed edges as she leans away from it and closer into Ganyu as she takes Ganyu’s hands in her own, slowly, carefully, as if they could shatter into a million glass pieces at any given moment and rubs her fingers over the peaked ridges of Ganyu’s knuckles. Presses her hands into Ganyu’s with enough pressure to feel the blood beating solidly through her veins. Drags her eyes slowly over the curved dips of Ganyu’s cuticles.
“That’s a little mean,” Beidou murmurs, heaviness coloring her voice with a dulled indigo hue. “I wish you didn’t picture me that way.” Anguish bleeds slowly into every one of her words, and she hopes that Ganyu can feel them carrying her feelings and settling over her shoulders like little winged wishes, soft, light, and ephemeral.
The sugared, fruity scent of cherry blossoms fills the air as the blushing flowers peek in through the window, and the only sound in the room is their heartbeats pounding wildly and the fan whirring above them. The minutes drip into each other, time suspended in a watery state as Beidou traces the character for love onto the back of Ganyu’s hands as many times as she can. One line bold on the top. Another three staccato dots below. More lines running down and crisscrossing like the rivers running through the land. The silence surrounding them is easy, draping over them like the blankets beneath them, warm and comforting. It’s an equal give and take.
Ganyu breaks the silence first, taking it away as Beidou continues to give. “Do you really think about me when you’re away on your work trips?”
Beidou’s reply is immediate, launching from her mouth faster than a bullet, with no need to think about what words to use. “Of course I do.” There’s no give in her voice as she asserts this fact, this simple truth, gently like pouring water into Ganyu’s cupped hands.
“What kind of thoughts do you have about me?” Ganyu asks, her voice a little meek, a little muted, all of the color leached from it.
Beidou looks at the sweet, beautiful girl wrapped in her arms. Sees the vulnerability flashing in her eyes and the helpless curve of her lip and thinks. Thinks about her staying up late into the night to finish her accounting work at Ningguang’s company, violet bags creasing deep below her eyes. Thinks about her watering the makeshift vegetable garden haphazardly built on their balcony with the sunlight glinting off the bell-shaped pendant Beidou got her on their first anniversary. Thinks about her fretting for hours on end about what type of dress will hug her figure the best and what kind of makeup will bring out her doe eyes the most for her monthly work get-togethers.
Beidou brushes a slipping lock of pale blue hair behind Ganyu’s ear and takes a deep breath, flipping Ganyu’s palms up towards the sky.
“When I’m gone,” Beidou starts and draws the first four strokes for the character for love on Ganyu’s upturned palms, her fingers barely touching her hand. “I can see you in our home on your laptop.” She follows with another three strokes. Goosebumps break out slowly on Ganyu’s forearms, the hardly visible bumps slowly rippling up and down her arms.
“I see you in the grocery store worrying about what kind of spinach to buy. I see you on the metro, catching the last bus home because there was an urgent issue with Ningguang and Keqing that made you stay a lot later than you planned on. I see you in your favorite cafe, grabbing a coffee for you as Xiao waits behind you before you guys head to see Zhongli.” For each sentence Beidou says, she draws another stroke, completing the character for love.
Ganyu breathes nice and slow, soaking in the words as they fall on her like rain. They sit like that for an unnamed amount of time, Beidou curling around Ganyu, their hands intertwined together.
Beidou shifts around to face Ganyu, her single eye piercing into Ganyu’s, the setting sunlight fracturing the plum color. Blows the hair out of her face and readjusts her eyepatch while her mouth threatens to burst, the gaps between her teeth filled to the brim with words.
“What will you do when I’m gone again?” Beidou asks, the question nearly drowned out by the loud noise of the fan. She delivers the question to Ganyu so quietly, so softly that Ganyu wouldn’t have caught it if she wasn’t so attuned to the way how Beidou's teeth break over the barrier of her lips. The words billow gently into the empty expanse between them like their living room curtains, blooming sweetly like the cherry blossoms’ birth on the streets outside.
Ganyu waits, catches the words, and tucks them inside the little flap on her heart so that she can pull them out and wrap herself with them like a thick comforter when Beidou is gone on one of her work trips and the rain’s pounding the roof too hard and the thunder’s shaking the ground too ferociously. “Wait for you to come back,” Ganyu replies, her smile soft on her lips like butterfly wings.
“Atta girl,” Beidou smiles and presses her nose to Ganyu’s, her thumbs still tracing the character for love into Ganyu’s hand and forearm. Ganyu thinks she’s never loved anyone as much as she’s loved Beidou.