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He meets with Nahida one day in spring, when the leaves on the Divine Tree are just a little crisper than usual. The surasthana is quiet as he looks around.
“Buer,” he calls, “I’m leaving.”
Nahida appears before him in a flurry of dendro, her eyes owlish as she blinks up at him. Her head tilts as she asks, “Right now?”
His expression twists. “Well, can I?”
She smiles. “You’re asking me for permission?”
“No,” he says. “Not permission, exactly.”
She hums, looking thoughtful for a moment. “Will you come back?”
He doesn’t answer her right away, watches as she puts her tiny hands behind her back and sways on the balls of her feet. She stands, patient, like a sprout waiting for morning rainfall.
He sighs. “Yes,” he says, finally. “Obviously.”
She nods. “I’m glad to hear that. Be safe, then.”
“Fine,” he says, turning around and walking away.
✧✧✧
Lumine told him about the Kaedehara clan’s descendant. Kazuha, she had supplied, quite unhelpfully. Wanderer scoffed at her.
Then she said that this Kaedehara Kazuha person also bears an anemo vision, and that he single-handedly blocked the Raiden Shogun’s Musou no Hitotachi.
“What the hell?” he snapped. “What does that even mean?”
“It means he has an anemo vision, and that he blocked the Raiden Shogun’s Musou no Hitotachi,” she responded, deadpan.
“Where’s your proof?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I saw it.”
Wanderer really doesn’t like her.
Anyways, so. Kaedehara Kazuha.
He doesn’t bother telling the traveler where he’s headed. Really, it’s none of her business. Besides, she’ll probably end up finding out sooner or later. Nahida doesn’t quite have a talent for keeping her mouth shut in these kinds of situations.
He just wants to see him. This…Kaedehara Kazuha. Just once. Just for himself.
As his ship docks into Inazuma City, he wonders briefly if Lumine already told Kazuha everything. Wanderer did, after all, tell her that she should feel free to tell anyone he’s possibly wronged about the truths of the past, and the thing about Lumine is that she’s frighteningly good at butting into other peoples’ business. So.
She probably did.
He nods to himself, satisfied with his own conclusion as he wanders through the streets of Inazuma. The city is just as annoyingly pink and purple as the last time he was here, but thankfully, no one really approaches him. Though that probably comes with the whole…civil unrest thing that they just pulled themselves out of. A nation once clouded with fear will take years to submerge in light once again.
Wanderer resists the urge to roll his eyes.
Finding Kazuha isn’t actually as difficult of a task as he thought it would be. He just has to ask around a bit—turns out, the samurai is quite well known around the city.
Of course he is.
He finds him settled in the corner on a bench, a stick of tricolor dango in his right hand. Wanderer grimaces as he approaches him.
“You,” he starts, then stops.
Kazuha looks slowly up at him, and when their eyes meet, Wanderer feels something in his throat knot, tighten in a way that is far too uncomfortable for his liking.
He’s…annoyingly pretty. He has platinum blonde hair with a streak of achingly familiar red coursing through. It moves gently against the wind. His eyes are a soft crimson.
“Can I help you?” he says, and oh, his voice. An Inazuman dialect he hasn’t heard in what feels like years.
Wanderer swallows. “I’m…” He’s what? How is he even supposed to introduce himself? He doesn’t have a name. He doesn’t have a real identity. To the world, he is forgotten. To the world, he is nothing but a wanderer.
Kazuha looks back at him, blinks slowly as he moves to stand up.
Then he says, “Oh,” and Wanderer immediately knows he was right. Lumine did tell him everything already. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” says Wanderer, because there’s no point in denying it. “It’s me.”
“I see,” says Kazuha, and then he surveys Wanderer for a short moment, gaze raking down his frame. “The traveler told me about you. I was…” His voice softens, just slightly. “I was going to come and meet you myself, eventually. In Sumeru.”
“Were you?” Wanderer raises a delicate eyebrow. “Why didn’t you?”
“I was waiting for the right time,” says Kazuha. He reaches up, catches a falling leaf in the wind, and holds it up to his cheek. “The wind is good about telling me when I should do things. I was told to wait a while.” He lets the leaf go—Wanderer’s eyes follow it as it flits through the air and out of sight. “I’m Kaedehara Kazuha.”
“No shit,” says Wanderer.
Kazuha nods at this. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Okay,” says Kazuha, accepting it as if he was just told of the evening’s weather conditions. “Are you hungry? Do you want to get something to eat?”
“No,” says Wanderer. “I just came to see who you are for myself. Now that I’ve done that, I’ll be on my way.”
He’s turning around, ready to allow his anemo to lift him into the air, when he feels a pressure on his shoulder. It anchors him down, makes his lips curve.
“Wait,” comes Kazuha’s voice from somewhere behind him, and Wanderer, despite himself, stills completely. “Are you leaving Inazuma already?”
“Yes. I already told you,” Wanderer says, “the only reason I came here was to see who you are.”
“How did you hear about me?”
“Lumine told me who you are.”
A pause. “What did she say?”
Wanderer turns around, finally, to look back at him. Kazuha doesn’t move even slightly away.
They’re so close like this. Wanderer can make out the gentle slopes of Kazuha’s face, the way his dusted rosy cheeks blur into the fullness of his mouth. His gaze lingers there, just a bit, before sliding back up.
“You want to know?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
Then Kazuha smiles, a small thing that curves his scarlet eyes into moon crescents. “If you’ll tell me.”
“Well,” says Wanderer. “I don’t like sweet things. Also, you’re paying.”
“All right. Do you like tea?”
Okay, sure. He can get behind that. “Tea is fine.”
And so they go.
✧✧✧
Kaedehara Kazuha is a strange human, Wanderer thinks as he’s offered a small teacup. There’s a steaming pot resting at the side of the table. Kazuha hums as he reaches for it.
“Only people approved by the Kamisato clan are allowed to enter here,” he says idly, pouring the tea into both of their cups. “You know who they are, don’t you? The Kamisato clan?”
“Haha,” says Wanderer.
Kazuha smiles, like he thinks himself very funny. “What’s your favorite kind of tea?”
“I don’t have one,” says Wanderer, and then he wonders how long this conversation is going to be like this. Boring, mundane small talk. Wanderer hates getting to know people. He hates knowing people in general. “I just like it when it’s bitter. The more bitter, the better.”
Kazuha’s mouth twists as he seems to mull this over. “Why?”
“It leaves an interesting aftertaste,” says Wanderer simply, and Kazuha nods, easily accepting the explanation.
“So why did you come to look for me?” Kazuha asks him after a few moments. The silence isn’t exactly…awkward, per se. It’s just…there. Something hanging in the air above them, refusing to shy away.
“I already told you why,” says Wanderer, and then he takes a small sip of the tea and grimaces. It’s sweeter than he likes, because of course it is. “You were going to as well, weren’t you?”
“But you came to see me immediately,” Kazuha points out, which, yeah. He did, didn’t he? “You told me you’d tell me what she told you. Did she mention anything specifically?”
“She said…” Wanderer trails off. Lumine had said a lot, actually, while simultaneously saying absolutely nothing at all. How oh-so typical. “She said that you bear an anemo vision. And that you blocked the Musou no Hitotachi with your sword.”
“Oh.” One singular syllable. Kazuha looks away.
Wanderer’s eyebrow ticks. “What? Is that not a good enough reason for you?”
“That’s not it,” says Kazuha, and then he doesn’t elaborate at all, which, okay. Fine. Sure.
More silence. Wanderer’s fingers twitch around his teacup.
“Do you really have no name?” comes Kazuha’s voice, softer this time.
“Does it matter?”
“Well,” says Kazuha. The nail of his index finger runs over the rim of his glass. “I want to be able to address you. Can I not?”
Wanderer swallows. “We’re never seeing each other again after this.”
“You don’t know that.”
He says it so calmly, as if he is, for some reason, absolutely certain that they’ll cross paths again one day.
“I do know that,” says Wanderer, and then he finishes the rest of his tea in one gulp and stands up to leave.
✧✧✧
Nahida greets him the moment he steps into the sanctuary.
“You’re back,” she says, her voice full with wonder so child-like it almost makes him laugh.
“I told you I would be,” Wanderer says, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “What, do you not trust me?”
She shakes her tiny head. Wanderer thinks he can hear the sound of bells ringing somewhere in the distance. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
He thinks about it. Then he says, “I don’t know.”
She nods. “I hope you will, one day.”
He doesn’t answer. He knows she doesn’t expect him to.
✧✧✧
His meeting with Kazuha sits in the back of his mind like a nasty stain of wine red on pastel-colored fabric. He wonders, desperately, what the problem could possibly be. After all, he got what he wanted—to see the infamous man, to talk to him a little, to stare at him a little.
Maybe it’s because he was just expecting…more. Wanderer, Scaramouche, Kunikuzushi. He is the person responsible for the Kaedehara clan’s downfall, and yet their only descendant is a person who didn’t bring up anything to do with the past when confronted.
It’s an unwelcome prick against his skin. Nahida seems to notice there’s something off with him too, as she suddenly becomes far more eager to send him out to complete her strange little errands.
He’s in the middle of purchasing a bowl of padisarah pudding to-go for her when he feels a bend in the wind.
“Hi,” comes a familiar voice, and Wanderer whirls around to find him right there, right in front of him.
Kazuha hasn’t changed much in the past few months, save for a slightly longer ponytail. Wanderer promptly wants to smack himself for noticing something so stupid.
There is a small box in his hands, encrusted with gold and a delicate carving he can’t quite make out the shape of. Wanderer’s jaw goes slack as Kazuha holds it up, right below his chin.
“This is for you,” he says.
Um. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you,” says Kazuha easily.
A grimace. “No you didn’t.”
At this, Kazuha smiles. “How would you know?”
“What the hell? Because I just do,” says Wanderer.
Kazuha shakes his head. “Will you take my gift? My arm is beginning to hurt.”
Wanderer scoffs. “Yeah, right. You could at least try to come up with a more believable lie,” he says, before snatching the box out of Kazuha’s hands and prying it open.
Inside is a small hairpin, laying in a bed of deep navy.
It’s a pretty thing, with two thin blue beaded lines curling into each other along one end like tiny wings. The other end is pointed, sharp as if it were meant to stab someone. When he looks up again at Kazuha’s face, he finds him still smiling at him, his eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, careful curiosity bleeding through.
When he speaks, his voice is soft, almost wary. “What do you think?”
Wanderer’s mouth suddenly feels very dry. His fingers curl around the pin, the cool surface of the beads sliding against his palm, and his gaze shifts away from Kazuha’s face. “I think you’re an idiot.”
Kazuha laughs, a small, airy sound. “Now why am I an idiot?”
“There’s no need to spend so much money on such useless things.”
“Useless?” Kazuha repeats, and then he takes a small step closer and brings his hands up to where Wanderer’s are. His fingers come to hover over his, and then they’re prying them open till his palm is open and facing the sky.
“What are you—”
Kazuha extracts the hairpin, turning it over in his hand before leaning over and reaching up to a spot above Wanderer’s ear. They’re so close like this—Wanderer can feel Kazuha’s breath fanning against the base of his neck as he gently tucks the pin into his hair.
He backs away just as quickly as he had come, until they’re back to standing an arm’s length away from each other.
Wanderer’s lips part, his voice catching in his throat as he starts, “You—”
Kazuha interrupts him by humming, clearly surveying his work.
Then he says, “I don’t think it’s useless at all. I think it looks pretty on you,” and Wanderer feels his jaw go slack.
The words are light, and they hardly mean anything. It’s a silly thing. A silly, stupid thing. Wanderer’s hands curl into fists by his sides.
“In exchange for the pin,” says Kazuha, “can I have a place to stay tonight?”
Wanderer stares at him.
Kazuha smiles again. “And maybe your name as well?”
“I told you I don’t have one,” says Wanderer immediately, which, fuck. He should have thought before he spoke. Now he has to answer the other thing Kazuha said too. “And, uh, no.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have space for you.”
“It’s okay,” says Kazuha. “I’m a wanderer. I’m used to sleeping in cramped spaces.”
Wanderer falters.
A moment passes. The sun is beginning to sink toward the horizon.
Then he turns around. “That’s what they call me.”
Kazuha blinks. “What do you mean?”
“Wanderer,” he says as he begins to walk, and the wind shifts in a way that tells him that Kazuha is following closely behind. “I don’t have a name. I’m just a wanderer.”
“Ah,” comes Kazuha’s voice, gentle against the white noise of the market surrounding them, “then should I call you that too?”
“You can call me whatever you want,” says Wanderer, and Kazuha hums quietly in response.
✧✧✧
Most nights, Wanderer will just sleep in the Sanctuary of Surasthana. He has a bed there, and it’s comfortable enough. Plus, it’s quiet, which is always nice.
But it’s not like he can just bring Kazuha there, because that would mean having to explain him to Nahida, which frankly sounds like way too much work. So instead, they walk in the opposite direction, to a small Sumeru-style home tucked away in the very corner of the city. Nahida had told him the house would be empty for whenever he wanted to use it. Apparently, she had commissioned a renowned Sumeru architect or something to design it for him, which, okay. That’s nice and all, Wanderer supposes, but it’s also hardly necessary.
Still, the space is agreeable enough, so he won’t gripe. He’s learned that complaining about things the dendro archon does for him really serves no purpose, so. He won’t waste his breath.
“Is this where you live?” Kazuha asks, peering up at the roof of the house.
Wanderer’s shoulders tense. “What? Not good enough for you rich clan folk?”
Kazuha releases an amused breath through his nose. “Rich clan folk?”
“What otherwise?”
Kazuha shakes his head. “I was just asking you a question. I think your home is very beautiful.”
“If you’re trying to compliment me or something, it’s not working. It’s not like I built this place.”
“I wasn’t trying to compliment you,” says Kazuha. “I just think your place is nice.”
Wanderer can feel a headache coming on already. “Great,” he says. “Come in, then. I guess.”
“Mm. After you.”
Once they’re inside, Wanderer suddenly feels conscious—which is stupid, because it isn’t like his living arrangements particularly matter or anything, and it’s not like he cares about Kazuha’s opinion of him. Definitely not.
Still, he finds himself holding his breath as he watches Kazuha look around, taking in the place in its one-roomed glory. There is a single small bed in the corner, and next to it, a barren shelf. Actually, most of the place is completely empty. Wanderer supposes that’s to be expected since he barely ever comes here.
“This is my first time in Sumeru,” comes Kazuha’s voice, quiet, almost wistful. “The architecture is so different to how it is back in Inazuma. It’s…nice.”
“You hesitated,” Wanderer mutters.
Kazuha huffs an amused-sounding breath. “I’m telling the truth.”
“Uh huh.”
“I quite literally have no reason to lie to you.”
Well. He’s not wrong, Wanderer supposes. But still.
“You don’t live here, do you?” Kazuha asks, walking over to the shelf and running his fingers over the wood. “It doesn’t look very…broken in.”
“Congratulations on having the bare minimum of observation skills.”
“Thank you,” says Kazuha very sincerely.
Wanderer’s eye twitches.
He shakes his head, then points to his bed in the corner. “You can sleep on that, if you want.”
“Then where will you sleep?”
“I don’t know,” says Wanderer. “I can sleep on the floor.”
“That doesn’t sound very comfortable.”
“Then I’ll go to where I usually sleep and spend the night there.”
Kazuha peers at him. “Where is that?”
“Lesser Lord Kusanali’s surasthana,” says Wanderer, because it’s simply too much work to come up with some random lie.
“I see,” says Kazuha slowly. “I remember the traveler mentioned something about you being the dendro archon’s protege.”
The traveler should shut the fuck up, Wanderer thinks, but whatever.
“Yes, well.” Wanderer’s lips twist. “In any case, I can go back there to sleep for the night. You can make yourself comfortable here, if you want. Or you don’t have to. I don’t really care.”
“Wait,” says Kazuha, and then: “Don’t go there. Just stay here.”
For some reason, Wanderer isn’t surprised. This kind of thing is pretty common in the foreign books Nahida brings for him sometimes, ones where one of the character tells their love interest that they want them to stay over, which usually ends up escalating to—
He freezes.
What is he thinking right now?
He swallows and shakes his head. “Fine.”
Kazuha raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t expect you to agree so easily.”
Annoyingly, Wanderer can feel the tips of his ears warming. “I don’t care about what you expected,” he says, clipped. “It’s not like I wanted to make the journey all the way back there, anyways.”
“But you have an anemo vision,” says Kazuha. “And the traveler told me you can use it to fly.”
“The traveler told you literally everything, didn’t she?”
“Most of it, yes.” Kazuha smiles. Absolutely unnerving. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor. Just sleep on the bed with me.”
Fucking hell. This is exactly what happens in those stupid fucking books—
“No.”
Kazuha frowns. “Why not?”
“What do you mean, why not?” Wanderer snaps. “Do you just go around and sleep on the same bed with any random stranger you meet?”
“I hardly would consider us random strangers,” says Kazuha. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Wanderer falters, just for a second—enough to make Kazuha’s lips stretch into a small, twitchy little smirk. How absolutely irksome, that smug look on his face is.
He’s unfairly pretty.
Wanderer swallows. “Don’t say things you’ll regret later.”
“I don’t think you can decide that for me.”
Pah. “Fine, then,” says Wanderer. “If you’re so dead-set on sharing my bed, then that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
“Great,” says Kazuha.
“Great,” says Wanderer.
They stare at each other for several long seconds. Wanderer wonders how long it’s going to be before one of them breaks away. But he is a puppet, and Kazuha is a human. A fact that grips suddenly onto his skin and settles there, sinks into his hollow flesh. He doesn’t need to blink, so surely, he will win this, whatever it is.
But Kazuha doesn’t move. Red pools like blood in Wanderer’s vision, and moments later, he finds himself turning away. Heat peppers at his insides. His throat feels unnaturally dry.
“Do you…” Kazuha trails off for a fraction of a second, “have you ever called anyone else here before?”
“Who would I call?”
“Oh,” says Kazuha, and then he presses his lips together. “So I’m the first one?”
“And the last,” Wanderer rolls his eyes. “No one else would be as foolish as you.”
Kazuha smiles at this, for some reason. It stretches across his face, parting his lips just slightly. “Okay,” he says. “Do you want to go to sleep?”
“Do you?”
“I’m a little tired, I suppose.”
“Then you can go to bed if you’re so tired.”
“Mm…should I?”
“What the hell?” Wanderer rounds on him. “You just said you’re tired. If you’re tired, then sleep.”
“I don’t have to,” Kazuha shakes his head. “If you want to…I don’t know, talk for a bit, maybe. We can.”
Humans. Wanderer will never understand them.
“Fine,” he says, and then he walks over to the foot of his bed and sits down on top of the mattress. “I guess I can spare a few words.”
✧✧✧
They don’t talk for long, in the end. They lay side by side, with the healthiest distance physically possible between them for how small the bed is, and Kazuha asks him what Sumeru is like, if there are any places he’s been to that he enjoys, if there are any people he’s met.
“No,” Wanderer responds, and he finds that he has nothing more to add on.
Kazuha’s breathing is a calm, hushed thing. If Wanderer looks over, he can see the rise and fall of his chest.
“Do you like it here?”
What an odd question. “I like it more than Inazuma.”
“Really?” Kazuha turns his body till he’s laying on his side. “I’ve lived in Inazuma my entire life—no, I was in Liyue for a while. Because of the vision hunt. Though I never really considered it my home.”
“Home?” Wanderer repeats. “I don’t have one.”
“Then what is this?”
“What? This place?”
Kazuha nods. Wanderer can’t see it, but he feels the pillow beneath his head rustle. “This isn’t my home. I already told you I’m barely ever here.”
“Then…is the dendro archon’s sanctuary your home?”
“No,” says Wanderer. “It isn’t…like that.”
“Like what?”
“Kusanali and I,” says Wanderer despite himself, wondering where these words are even coming from, “we aren’t like that. I’m indebted to her. She spared me and lets me stay in the surasthana if I want to. That doesn’t make her home mine.”
“I see,” Kazuha murmurs, warbled, and then his breath steadies.
The world around them falls away. Wanderer sighs before closing his eyes.
✧✧✧
“Are you leaving?”
Kazuha freezes where he’s tying up his hair, platinum strands straying away across his shoulders. He looks back at Wanderer sitting on the bed.
“Should I not?”
He’s teasing. “Don’t be so crude.”
“I’m just asking a question,” says Kazuha, and then he smiles and walks over to him, reaching out to run his hand over the side of Wanderer’s face. “Did you like my gift?”
“Is that another question?”
“Well, you didn’t answer the first one, so I have to make do,” says Kazuha, unmoving, and Wanderer finds that he’s frozen still beneath his touch.
“I’m no one to stop you if you have business elsewhere,” he says after a moment, pulling himself away. “I’ve already repaid you for the hairpin by letting you stay with me for the night. Though I don’t think I had to. Do you know what the meaning of a gift is?”
“I know,” says Kazuha, “but I wanted to spend more time with you.”
Fucking hell.
Wanderer swallows. “Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“I mean just that,” says Wanderer. “I’m not going to repeat it. You heard me.”
“Well,” says Kazuha, meeting his eyes, “because you’re interesting, and I want to know more about you.”
Wanderer’s voice cracks, “You already know everything about me. The traveler told you all that I did.”
“Yes,” says Kazuha, “but I want to know you. Not what you did. Just you, how you are, like this.”
His head is spinning. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to,” says Kazuha. “Anyways, stand up. I’m hungry. Do you know a good place to get lunch?”
✧✧✧
“Are you seriously staying here for another day?”
“If you’re okay with it,” says Kazuha as he spoons a bit of mixed rice into his mouth. Wanderer watches as he chews, then swallows, then goes for another bite. “After all, I will have to stay with you again.”
“I thought I already repaid you.”
“You did,” Kazuha nods. “This will just be out of kindness.”
Wanderer’s eye twitches. “I am not kind.”
“Sure you are,” says Kazuha, and he says it with such certainty it almost makes Wanderer believe him. “You’re here with me right now, aren’t you?”
“Because you are insufferable.”
“Hey,” says Kazuha, a sly smile overtaking his features, “need I remind you that it was you who sought me out first.”
“And then I told you that we would never see each other again.”
“And yet we did,” says Kazuha, pointing his spoon at Wanderer’s face. “Funny how fate works, hm?”
“I’d hardly call it fate,” Wanderer rolls his eyes. “You’re the one who came to see me. It wasn’t a coincidence.”
“If you hold onto technicalities like that, life becomes boring,” says Kazuha. A slice of sunlight falls through the window of the restaurant they’re sitting at, falling over Kazuha’s hair and bathing him in gold.
Wanderer swallows, looking away.
Another bite. “So I can stay? You’re the only person I know here, you know.”
What is even happening right now? “Whatever. Do what you want.”
✧✧✧
That night, Kazuha lays closer.
Not by much, but Wanderer has never not been observant. So. There they are, laying side by side, shoulder brushing every time Kazuha does so much as breathe.
Every time, Wanderer stiffens. And then he relaxes when they separate.
Rinse and repeat.
“See,” Kazuha whispers, “I told you you’re kind.”
“You basically guilt-tripped me.”
“It isn’t my fault I’ve never been to Sumeru before,” says Kazuha pointedly. “You wouldn’t want me to go off and get myself lost, would you?”
“I don’t care.”
“Clearly you do. I wouldn’t be in your bed right now if you didn’t.”
Wanderer has half a mind to throw a pillow at him. “Don’t say it like that.”
Kazuha laughs. It reminds Wanderer of the kind of song that gets stuck in your head, the kind that replays in the back of your mind relentlessly, long after you’ve tucked yourself in for the night. Mellow and soothing and infuriating all at once. How grating.
“How long are you planning on staying for?” Wanderer asks, the question settling into the air above the bed. Kazuha makes a thoughtful little sound, and then the mattress is dipping as he turns to lay on his side.
“How long will you have me for?”
Wanderer doesn’t move. “Don’t you think that’s unfair?”
“What is?”
“How can I give you a time limit?”
“Aha,” says Kazuha, “that’s something only a kind person would say.”
Wanderer’s voice catches in his throat. His head turns, almost subconsciously, until their eyes meet through the darkness.
“You know I’m not kind,” Wanderer whispers.
“What I know,” says Kazuha, “is that you’ve been kind to me. So far, that is.”
A playful smile. Wanderer feels his hands curl into fists.
“Go to sleep, human,” he says, and Kazuha breathlessly laughs in return.
✧✧✧
Wanderer wakes up early the next morning to fly up to the top of the city, only to find Nahida already there inside the sanctuary, clearly waiting for him.
“Hi!” she says, tilting her head and smiling that little smile of hers.
Wanderer pulls a face. “Did you know I was going to be here?”
“Not for certain,” she says, “but I had a feeling. Is everything okay? You haven’t been home in a while.”
Wanderer’s eyes immediately dart down to look at her. “What did you just say?”
“You haven’t been home in a while.” She blinks. “Why? Is something wrong?”
For a moment, he wonders if she might have been spying on him while he was with Kazuha a few nights ago. But…she wouldn’t do that. At least, he doesn’t think she would.
“It’s nothing,” he mutters. “I just…I don’t think I’m going to…be here for a while.”
“Okay,” she says.
Wanderer’s brows furrow. “That’s it? Just okay?” He huffs. “You’re not even going to ask me why? Or where I’m going to stay now?”
“I don’t want to push you into telling me anything you don’t want to tell me,” she says softly, carefully, like she’s treading uncharted waters. A stupid analogy—he mentally curses himself. She’s the god of wisdom. No territory is left unexplored for someone like her. “Where are you going to stay?”
He falters. It’s so…it’s so hard sometimes, looking at her. So much care in one tiny little child-like body. She reminds him of a cabbage sometimes. Or a sprout. A sprout that takes up too much space in the mechanical emptiness of his being.
“Around,” he replies vaguely. “You can summon me if you need me. I’m still at your beck and call.”
“I’m grateful for that,” she says, rocking back and forth on her feet. She smiles. Wanderer does not smile back.
“Then…I’ll come back soon,” he says, and then she nods, and then he turns around and walks back out.
✧✧✧
“You’re back,” Kazuha says as Wanderer steps inside the house. “For a moment, I thought you left me here.”
Wanderer freezes. “Where would I even go?”
“I don’t know,” says Kazuha. “Away from me?”
Wanderer huffs. “If anything, it should be the other way around.”
“Well, I’m not leaving,” says Kazuha. “Not unless you tell me to.”
Wanderer closes the door behind him. “And if I do?”
“Then…” Kazuha twists his lips. “I don’t know. I didn’t think that far.”
“Overconfident.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
It did. What an awful revelation.
“Get up,” says Wanderer. “You haven’t eaten anything yet.”
“How sweet of you to care,” says Kazuha, a smile laced with sugar sliding onto his mouth.
“I don’t care.”
“Yes you do.” He moves up, coming to stand in front of him. “Will you take me to your favorite place in Sumeru today?”
“I don’t have a favorite place,” says Wanderer. “I don’t go to places.”
“Then start,” says Kazuha. “How can you call yourself a wanderer if you don’t wander?”
Wanderer crosses his arms. “I wander plenty.”
“Prove it.”
Wanderer’s throat runs dry. For once, he is at a loss for what to say.
“Fine,” he manages. “But don’t complain if the places I pick aren’t up to your standards.”
“Ooh, places?” says Kazuha, smile widening. “So we’re going to more than one?”
“Shut up,” says Wanderer, but he’s lost this fight, and he knows it.
✧✧✧
They travel north of the city, to where the sky is tinged blue and giant, fluorescent mushrooms tower high above them. Kazuha stares in awe, his lips parting as he takes in the glowy sight, and Wanderer watches him, only slightly amused from the side.
“So they’re…mushrooms?”
“Yeah,” Wanderer rolls his eyes. “Have you never seen a mushroom before? Don’t you know what they look like?”
“Yes, but none like these ones. These are beautiful,” says Kazuha, and then he’s pushing himself into the air with his anemo and beckoning for Wanderer to follow.
They settle onto the edge of one of the fungi, the spot high enough that they can look over the entire forest.
Wanderer’s palm finds his cheek. “Well?” he says. “What do you think?”
“I haven’t seen anything like this before,” says Kazuha, still quietly observing the nature beneath them. “It makes me…want to write.”
Wanderer’s ears perk up. “Write what?”
“A poem,” Kazuha explains. “A haiku. I write them sometimes.”
“Do you,” says Wanderer. He leans back. “Okay, then. Write one.”
“Right now?”
“What? You can’t?”
“I can,” says Kazuha slowly, “you’re just putting me on the spot.”
“A real poet could write one right now.”
“I don’t think you know how this works.”
“Yes I do,” says Wanderer.
“Okay, fine,” Kazuha sighs, and then he’s quiet for several, long seconds, and Wanderer stares at him for every single one.
He’s pretty, like this, with the wind curling around his platinum hair, cheeks flushed like a fresh rogue kiss. A kind of ethereal that only exists in fiction. Kazuha would look like he’s come out of a fairy tale even on the worst day of his life; there’s no question about it.
“Why are you staring at me?”
Wanderer starts, finding Kazuha observing him.
His mouth opens, “I wasn’t.”
“Yes you were,” says Kazuha, and then he releases a quiet breath and looks back in front of him. “It’s hard for me to concentrate when you’re looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” Wanderer finds himself asking.
“You know,” Kazuha mutters, “all…intense and stuff.”
“And stuff?” Wanderer scoffs. “Some writer you are.”
This makes Kazuha chuckle, followed by a light smack on Wanderer’s shoulder. Then, he hums, and when he speaks again, his voice is quiet.
“In a realm of blue, whispers waltz on gentle breeze,” he pauses, smiles, “lost, yet found with you.”
Wanderer blinks. Kazuha’s eyes flit from the sky to his face.
He stops there, waits. The world goes silent all but for the faint whisper of wind above them, until Kazuha breaks through it with a laugh. His chin tilts up, toward the wispy clouds overhead, exposing his neck as his shoulders shake.
“What?” he asks, leaning closer, “was it that bad? Why do you look like that?”
“What?” Wanderer inhales. “Like what?”
“Like that,” says Kazuha, “I don’t know how to describe it.”
“A real writer would—”
“—would know how to, yes yes, I know.”
“Clearly you don’t,” Wanderer mutters, and then he looks away, bringing his thighs to press against his chest. “It…was fine.”
“Fine?” Out of the corner of Wanderer’s eye, he sees Kazuha nod to himself. “I suppose that’s a high enough compliment coming from you.”
What does that even mean? Wanderer clicks his tongue. “Do you want me to take it back?”
“No, no,” says Kazuha, shaking his head. “I don’t. Thank you. I’m glad you like it.”
He never said he liked it, but okay. Sure. Whatever.
He moves to stand up.
Kazuha follows, dusting his clothes off. “Are we leaving already?”
“What more is there to see here?”
“Hmm…” Kazuha trails off, looking down to the greenery below. “We could walk around? If you’d like to.”
“No,” says Wanderer.
“Oh, come on,” Kazuha grins and leans down, grabbing onto Wanderer’s wrist and hoisting him up to his feet till they’re standing next to each other and they’re so fucking close and oh, fuck. Fuck. Kazuha blinks, and from this distance, Wanderer can make out the dusted freckles sprinkled across the bridge of his nose and along the edges of his scarlet eyes. He looks like a painting, or a drawing decorating the flimsy pages of a book, something made out of ink and brushes dipped in colored pigment rather than the real world with its solid, sharp edges, rough lines and dark spaces.
His eyes sparkle, and it takes every last bit of strength not to reach up and drag a finger across his cheekbone, try to smudge the delicate lines of his face, like his skin is a canvas waiting to be painted upon.
Wanderer hears himself pathetically stutter when he finally says, “Fine,” but Kazuha’s responding smile is so warm it feels like his hollow insides might explode.
And so, they lower themselves down to the ground, and they walk. And it’s fine. Everything is fine. Kazuha reaches for his hand at one point, after Wanderer is finished picking a rukkhashava mushroom from the base of a towering fungus, and it’s so sudden that he barely has time to process it, to shut down and pull away. He doesn’t even let Nahida hold him like this, so why—why is he frozen still? Why should Kazuha be any different?
“Is this okay?” Kazuha asks, his voice low as he squeezes Wanderer’s palm just so, soft enough to barely make contact with the edge of his fingers.
Wanderer doesn’t answer. But he also doesn’t let go. So there’s that.
✧✧✧
That night, they sleep even closer. The next few nights after that, even closer, and closer, and closer. Closer still, till it’s weeks later and their sides press comfortably together, and Kazuha’s body curls into Wanderer’s, his chin gently resting on his shoulder. Crackling electro seems to shock him, trills down Wanderer’s spine every time Kazuha does so much as breathe, and it feels…right, oddly, to be laying here like this. The way Kazuha slots perfectly against him, the way he slots perfectly against Kazuha.
It’s a comfort that hasn’t been given to him in a long time, so many years that he remembers with aching clarity—before everything went wrong, before he got hurt, when he still had the fruitless chance of being loved.
He thinks about what might have happened, if only he could have let himself love instead of hate, but it hurts too much to think about what might have been, and what might never be again.
And then morning comes, and Kazuha wakes, stretches himself out like a cat in Wanderer’s bed. His eyes flutter open, and Wanderer is already looking at him, and they stay like that for a few breathless moments before Kazuha is reaching out and running his index finger over a stray navy hair by Wanderer’s eye.
“You’re pretty,” he says, and Wanderer feels his breath snag in the base of his throat. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
Wanderer wants to back away. He feels something tug in his chest. He swallows before saying, “You just did.”
“Before that,” says Kazuha. “Before me.”
“I don’t know,” says Wanderer. He turns away. “I don’t pay attention to what people say about me.”
“So I’m special.”
“Where did you get that from?”
“So I’m not?”
Wanderer blinks. “Stop jumping to such drastic conclusions.”
“So I am,” says Kazuha, and then he laughs before Wanderer can say anything else, and yeah, okay, whatever. So what if he is? So what if this human—this silly, foolish human—is special? Just a little? Just the tiniest little bit?
Wanderer shakes his head. There’s no point in having such a pointless argument.
“I’m going to go and wash up,” he says, and Kazuha slides his hand down Wanderer’s arm before grinning and letting him go.
“Where are we going today?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere,” says Kazuha. “Anywhere you’ll take me.”
Wanderer stills. His hand comes up to find the wall. “What if I run out of places?”
A pause. “What?”
Wanderer turns, finds Kazuha’s eyes through the bright morning haze. “It’ll happen eventually. I’ll run out of places to show you. And then you’ll leave, and we’ll never see each other ever again.”
“Why must you always be so morbid?” Kazuha says, and then he straightens up, runs a hand through his hair. It’s curly in the mornings, Wanderer notices. It sits above his shoulders, falls into the sides of his face. “When we run out of places to visit here, we’ll just go elsewhere. Wherever the wind calls us.”
“The world is not infinite,” says Wanderer, and it comes out in a tiny little croak. “Everything comes to an end, eventually.”
He wonders if Kazuha catches it, what he means by those words.
Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t. He doesn’t do or say anything to show it.
“Then we should take our time,” he says, and Wanderer feels the muscles in his back relax, “see everything we want to see, and do everything we want to do until one of us has had enough.”
“Is this really what you wanted?”
“Hm?”
“To spend so much time with me.” Their eyes meet. “Is this seriously why you came all the way to Sumeru?”
“Well,” says Kazuha, tilting his head, his smile small at the corners of his lips, “isn’t it obvious?”
✧✧✧
And so life goes on, like this, whatever it is this is. Wanderer wouldn’t exactly call it a new normal, because well, he’s never really had a normal to begin with. But…it’s something, and he gets used to having Kazuha around, so.
One night, when they’re laying together, it feels different—their faces are close together, and Kazuha’s knee is curled up and pressed gently against Wanderer’s thigh. His index finger is tracing the lines of Wanderer’s arm, drawing tiny shapes into his skin.
“What are you doing?” Wanderer whispers after a few minutes of this.
Kazuha hums. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?”
“You,” says Kazuha, and Wanderer inhales sharply.
“What does that mean,” he says.
Kazuha goes quiet for several seconds, and time seems to pause as he looks up and into Wanderer’s eyes. “Just.”
Wanderer bristles. “You can’t leave it at just.”
Kazuha shakes his head. The pillow rustles as he does. “I’ve been writing.”
“About what?”
“You,” says Kazuha, again, and Wanderer feels his breathing quicken. “I’m having a…bit of a hard time though.”
“Am I that awful to write about?”
“The opposite,” says Kazuha. “I want to do you justice with my words, but I wonder if that’s even possible.”
Here’s the thing about Kazuha: he just—he just says things. Wanderer wonders if he even thinks about some of the things he says, wonders if he knows the effect they have. He doesn’t, most probably. How can he? Wanderer never tells him.
“What do you have so far?”
Kazuha huffs. “They’re not finished.”
“So what,” Wanderer rolls his eyes. “They’re about me, so I deserve to hear them.”
“No,” says Kazuha, and he’s smiling again, that stupid smile of his. “But…one day I’ll tell you.”
Wanderer supposes he can’t argue with that. Nor does he want to, really, despite how much he longs to hear the words Kazuha has penned for him. Because one day is a promise in itself—knowledge that yes, I’m not leaving you, I’m not abandoning you, I’m here for as long as you want me to be. Until I inevitably wither away.
“Fine,” he says, because thoughts like that are much too painful, and Kazuha nods and opens his arms, beckoning him closer.
✧✧✧
They’re sitting on top of a deserted ruin when Kazuha reaches over and kisses him for the first time.
It’s not particularly long, just a simple press of their lips together. He’s pulling back before Wanderer can even think about reciprocating, and it’s—it’s been a long time coming, Wanderer knows this, but something—something snaps. Right then and there. And Wanderer doesn’t have a heart, nothing inside him is capable of beating for another, but for this man, oh, for this man, he’s reaching up and curling his fingers through platinum blonde and toppling forwards until—
✧✧✧
“Are you done with me now?”
He didn’t mean to speak it aloud, because he knows, he knows Kazuha wouldn’t do that to him. Kazuha wouldn’t abandon him.
But he also thought Raiden Ei wouldn’t abandon him, after she bent over his weeping body and thumbed his tears away, and she was his mother. His own mother.
If his own mother didn’t want him, why would anyone ever—
“What do you mean?”
They’re wrapped in each other, bodies sticky with sweat and something else, too, and Kazuha is looking at him like he’s never seen him before, like every question he’s ever asked before has finally met its answer, like that answer is none other than Wanderer.
Wanderer swallows. “Now that we’ve…” He trails off, looks away for a short moment. “Are you done with me?”
The line of Kazuha’s mouth trembles, then straightens. Then he says, “Is that what you think of me?”
“No,” says Wanderer quickly.
“Then why are you asking me that?”
“I just want to know.”
“Then no,” says Kazuha. “I’m not done with you. I don’t think I ever will be.”
And. Well.
Isn’t that just something.
✧✧✧
He doesn’t tell Nahida. He thinks she already knows. Or, maybe she doesn’t. He won’t need to find out for a while.
“Once, I had a friend,” Kazuha says one night, while Wanderer is running his fingers through his hair. “He died.”
Wanderer pauses in his movements. He looks over to see Kazuha staring at him.
“I’m—”
“Sorry,” Kazuha sighs, shaking his head, “that was…anyways, I just wanted you to know.”
Wanderer sits up, frowns as he looks upon his gentle features. “What happened?”
A quiet, lingering moment. Then: “He challenged the Raiden Shogun to a duel,” Kazuha says. “Kujou Sara, her aide, accepted on her behalf, and when my friend lost, he had to face the Shogun’s Musou no Hitotachi.”
The Raiden Shogun—Ei’s chosen vessel. The one she created when she deemed himself unnecessary. Of course no ordinary traveler would be able to block her strike.
Wanderer looks away. “A human mistake. A foolish one.”
“I don’t know why he went that day,” says Kazuha quietly, and immediately, Wanderer softens. “Maybe he just wanted to prove to himself that he was someone who would fight for what he stood for. There will always be those who dare to brave the lightning’s glow. He always said that to me. He’s—he’s the reason I was able to block her sword, that day, before the vision hunt was repealed.”
Wanderer wonders, briefly, if Kazuha would have turned out differently if his friend hadn’t died. He wonders if the two of them would even have met—would Kazuha still join him here, in Sumeru? Would he stay with him? Would he want to stay with him?
The words tumble out before he can stop them. “You know, don’t you? She’s my mother. She created me. The electro archon.”
Kazuha says nothing, simply tilts his head up to look at him better.
“She…didn’t want me. I was too weak.”
“I don’t know what she wanted from you,” Kazuha says, his hands coming up to gently cup around Wanderer’s face, “but you are not weak.”
Nahida told him that too, when he first woke up post-godhood. He was quivering in her lap, his entire face splotched with pathetic, messy tears, and she was whispering quiet, fruitless things down to him as he screwed his eyes shut and wished for eternal escape.
“I don’t care about anyone else,” says Kazuha now, snapping Wanderer away from his thoughts. “I want you.”
He does. He isn’t lying. Wanderer knows that.
But—does it matter? Does any of this matter? Kazuha is only human, after all. One day, he’ll leave him too, no matter how much he’ll want to stay. Such is the curse of mortality. Sometimes, Wanderer wishes he were cursed too.
He meets Kazuha’s eyes. He leans forward and slips his hand into Kazuha’s undershirt. “Like this, too?”
“Yes,” says Kazuha immediately. Then he smiles as they meet in the middle, and for one, blinding moment, Wanderer thinks that everything will be okay.
✧✧✧
“Will you come with me?”
“What?”
They’ve just come home from a dinner out in the city. Kazuha intertwines their hands and his thumb rubs over Wanderer’s knuckles.
“I’m going to leave soon,” he says, and when Wanderer looks up at him, he finds Kazuha already staring back.
“What?”
“I’m going to leave soon,” Kazuha says again, but Wanderer knows. He knows what he means, knows that every plan Kazuha makes of leaving will inevitably involve him, too. After all—they've seen everything Sumeru has to offer, and they are wanderers. They are wanderers.
“Where?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Everywhere. Liyue, first.” A pause. Then, again, “Will you come with me?”
“You’re asking me to come with you?”
“If you’d like to,” says Kazuha, and then he squeezes his hand, gentle as ever. “I…I’m not just asking for any reason you might be coming up with in your head right now. I really do want you to come with me. I told you I want to see the world with you, and I meant it.”
He means forever, Wanderer realizes belatedly.
He means forever.
“I—” Wanderer falters. “You—”
“You don’t have to answer me right away,” says Kazuha, and then he smiles one of those beautiful, radiant smiles of his, and Wanderer feels something pull in the depths of his chest. “You can take your time to think about it. As much time as you need. If you want to stay here, then we will stay here. And if you're tired of me, I won’t force you to come either. I promise you. No matter how long you take to think about it.”
“Well that’s stupid,” Wanderer mutters. “What if I never answer you?”
“Well,” says Kazuha, eyes twinkling, “I hope I don’t have to find out.”
✧✧✧
He finds Nahida in the surasthana, sitting on her little swing made of dendro and reading through a scroll.
She looks up when he enters. “You’re back.”
He wastes no time: “There’s…someone.”
Her pointy little ears perk up as she immediately puts the parchment away.
He grimaces. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I’m waiting for you,” she says, shaking her head.
Of course she is. He sighs. “There’s a problem.”
She tilts her head. “What is it?”
“He’s…” His shoulders tense. “He’s a human.”
“Ah,” she murmurs, her eyes fluttering closed. “I see.”
Silence descends around them. He shifts uncomfortably.
“What do you…” He trails off, bites the inner part of his bottom lip. “What do you think I should do?”
She hums, thoughtful, then looks away for a brief moment. Like this, she really does look her age. Though he’s sure no one else in Teyvat will agree with him.
Finally, she speaks. Her voice is quiet. “I think that in the end, it won’t matter, as long as you have loved him.”
He freezes. “Love?” He laughs, crossing his arms over his chest. “I am incapable of such a thing.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” she says softly. “You have loved before, have you not?”
It’s different this time, he wants to say. He’s different.
I don’t want to lose him.
His voice cracks as the words spill out. “It isn’t worth it.” And then, “He’ll leave too.”
She walks up to him, reaches her arms up to beckon him closer. He leans down, flinching when she cradles his face in her tiny palms.
She meets his eyes, runs her thumbs over the lines of his cheeks.
“You have spent your entire life as a means for someone else,” she whispers. Her voice is the quiet sound of tinkling bells. “You deserve to love and to be loved. You cannot save him from his own mortality by remaining alone.” She smiles a sad little smile. “It is inevitable. I should know.”
He swallows, opens his mouth to retort, to say no, I’ll save myself the sadness, I’ll save him the sadness too—
“In the end,” she starts before he can get a single word out, “I’ll still be here. So come back, when you’re ready. Will you come back?”
He feels his throat run dry. Her eyes shine as they stare into his, bright emeralds, summer leaves. She waits, until his shaky hand comes to rest over her fingertips, until he’s parting his lips and saying, “Buer—”
“Nahida,” she corrects.
“Nahida,” he amends, not for the first time, and then her eyes are crinkling as she nods. “Nahida, should I go?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Have I…have I repaid my debt to you?”
“Yes.”
She says it so easily, like it was repaid long ago already. Like he’s a fool to think she’d ever hold anything against him at all. Not for this long. Not after everything.
He straightens up. Her hands fall to her sides. “This isn’t the last you’ve seen of me. I’ll come back.”
“I know you will,” she says, and for the first time in a very long time, he smiles. And she smiles back. And then pearly beads of glass are curdling around the base of her eyes, and oh.
His voice cracks, “It’ll be a long time.”
“That’s okay.”
“Is it really?”
“Of course it is. I love you, my wanderer,” she says, and he realizes then that this means a lot for her, too. “I’ll miss you.”
He doesn’t say it back. He doesn’t have to. She already knows.
✧✧✧
“Kazuha,” Wanderer calls as he steps through his front door. “I’m back.”
Kazuha is sitting on the floor, bent over a notebook with a pen in his hand. He looks up as Wanderer settles against his side.
“Welcome back,” he says, then kisses his nose.
Wanderer exhales as Kazuha leans away. “I told her about you.”
“Who?”
“Kusanali,” says Wanderer. “Nahida.”
Kazuha’s lips part. “The dendro archon? You told her about me?”
“Well,” says Wanderer, rolling his eyes. “Should I not have?”
Kazuha shakes his head. “You know that isn’t what I meant. It’s just…” He trails off, almost nervously. “Does this mean you have an answer for me?”
He’s so pretty like this, slices of starlight pouring through the window and illuminating his face. His gaze is quietly patient, wine-red vermillion, like light through closed eyes.
“Yes,” says Wanderer, and something unknots within him, “my answer is yes.”
Kazuha grins, and it’s brighter than Wanderer has ever seen him smile. Then he picks up his notebook and holds it out in front of him.
“I told you I’d let you hear what I wrote about you one day,” he says. “I just wrote a haiku while you were gone. Do you want to hear it? Right now?”
Wanderer nods, and then Kazuha is clearing his throat, and then he’s—
“I love in colors, like the sun loves the west sky, hues that don’t exist.”
He closes the book, runs his hand over the binding. Wanderer opens his mouth and nothing comes out.
What is it like to be loved? What is it like to be wanted? What is it like to live without feeling like a shard is wedged into your chest? He never knew. He never knew until—
Kazuha smiles softly. “I have so many more. I knew to write you before I knew to love you. I’ve been doing this for so long now.”
Wanderer snaps his mouth shut. He exhales slowly, stares at him. Then he reaches out and takes his hands and fights the blinding urge to kiss him till he can’t breathe.
“Can I hear them all?” he asks.
“Yes,” Kazuha says. “I’m going to write you for as long as my hands allow me, and once my bones become too brittle to hold a pen, I will sing them to you instead.”
“Okay,” says Wanderer. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Kazuha nods, and then he opens his notebook again, to a page full of half-finished lines and dark smudges of ink bleeding into the other side.
He points to one of the poems tucked into the corner, and Wanderer listens, and he listens, and he listens.