Archive of Our Own

It was a beautiful day. A rare once upon a time. Like the beginning of a fairy tale, with the protagonist introduced as kind. It’s a biased view, for all the stories your parents have read to you were about main characters that are soft and kind and humane, in hopes that their child would grow up the same.

It’d be like that, if you were to listen to them, wouldn’t it, Lohen? You do, to a certain extent, but whatever it is that you do for them, you cannot be what they want.

The canonically ordained fact doesn’t speak so—for kindness doesn’t fit in your description when it comes to self-introduction, nor does softness. Humane, perhaps, but your action has never been depicted as that in the surface, the ever-ruthless in the battlefield. The protagonists of the stories your parents wanted you to be are the exact opposite of what you are—the slicing truth, the crude fact, the silver tongue, and the cunning mind, those are your traits, ones that your parents have always frowned upon.

It is too, with your coworkers, the frown part—though, more often than not, your traits are celebrated too; if it makes everything convenient, why not, people would say, for they reap the benefit in your actions too, sometimes. You’re useful in the eyes of others, Lohen, because you are an object that’s very willing to spill blood on its hands when no one could not.

An object doesn’t have much will, only measured by usefulness, a tool to be wielded—you let them do it to you, just like what your parents used to do. The mischievous acts you do? That’s a facade, we all know that; as long as it’s not harmful, as long as it is seen as something funny or treated as an amusement, no one will treat you as a nuisance or a threat, lowering their guards when it comes to you, accepting you into their folds.

Besides the jests and unpredictability, it also shows to them that you’re not easily swayed to the side of those who are undeserving of your usefulness—only those whom you deem are worthy can command you and so far, there is only one person whom you allowed to make you do anything to his heart’s desires.

It’s funny when you think about it but you don’t think of it as a bad thing—everyone thinks of you as a hare, but aren’t you closer to a loyal hound instead?

In a hypothetical situation, if you are told to sit (by that man), then you will sit. If you are told to hunt, then hunt you shall—

—and if you are told to send yourself on a battlefield that can kill you, you’ll do exactly that command until you can no longer move or breath.

One loyal and obedient tool who feels alive only when he is told to do things; that is what we describe you here, Lohen.

A tool should not let its emotion be a toll for their action. A tool should kill whatever doubt and listen to its master’s bidding. You are only deemed useful if you do the command you are given and executed it flawlessly. That will work for as long as you are weak and powerless to fight back, freedom feels nonexistent in your book, from the moment you were born until now.

The key different is that, when it comes to your parents, you were told to be as obedient as you could to them—because who knows you the best if not your parents? A bullshit line that you had enough listening, a fact that you hate to hear; that’s why you don’t deem them worthy enough to have you in their lives, because they forced it upon you to be someone you are not.

With Varka, it’s weird—you were the one who puts the collar onto yourself willingly, the one who wants to be obedient for his sake. You find it natural to be used by him, despite you can never pinpoint the reasoning for it. Maybe, it’s an adoration, an admiration towards him as a person, though it could also be an affection bordering on fealty, a twisted obsession of treat me however you want but keep looking at my direction; by now, it was only you who couldn’t explain your own feelings towards Varka.

It’s not wrong for a tool to want to be used, right? That’s why you want to be useful, so you could be showered by his attention and praise, for you, who have been starved all your life, think that you deserve it as an exchange for your usefulness.

That is why, envy becomes your friend when Varka praised someone else that is not you.

Whenever you hear coming out of his mouth, your ears burn and your heart churns—why can’t it be me, because I could do it better than them, you’d say silently, then curse whoever they are that gets Varka to smile so bright. It’s nothing harmful, common in practice in fact, but standing here within the shadows of a tree, observing the object of your obsession mirthfully praising his subordinate a good job, gets you burning with envy.

“Thank you, Grand Master!” Noelle, the sweet summer child, replies enthusiastically. “I’ll make sure to practice on what you suggested more.”

You make yourself unknown again, hiding and listening behind the tree trunk, watching your own shadow blending with the leaves’; you know this is childish and stupid because you shouldn’t be hating on Noelle, or others that Varka praised or paid attention to. She earned it, deserved it, as much as you do, but the more you listened to Varka’s loud laughter whenever she tried demonstrating her skill, a twinge of hurt in your heart grows stronger.

Varka regards you the same with others, you observe—the smile and the grin he uses at people and you are the same, even the gesture too, they are all amicable, unserious, loud, and gentle.

What you don’t know is, oftentimes, there is something in his sentences that he had redacted off his mind, a moment where his gestures screams the opposite; the gentleness he exhibits only to you, as if he treats you like a fragile glass that fractures in a single touch, the praise he gives that is always accompanied with a warm ruffle on your hair, lingering longer than usual. Those small and personal gestures that you generalise with Varka’s attitude towards others. You think that you are no one special in his eyes.

Blind to all but your own predicament, as usual.

Amidst ruminating with your own thoughts, your ears catch the sound of dissipating presences—Noelle’s voice excusing herself, Varka’s own voice replying and the small noise of practice weapons being stowed away. It seems their little exercise has been concluded, freeing the Grand Master’s time.

You were about to free yourself from your hiding spot and greet him normally when the urge to retch hits you all of the sudden—of course, knowing that this might make our Grand Master worried, you put a hand on your mouth to silence any noise escaping and focus on trying to will the sudden nausea away, but a tiny one manages to escape.

“Hm?”

You hear Varka hums, questioning, no doubt looking over at the tree hiding you.

Truly, you don’t want Varka to approach closer—the thought of it adds to the uncomfortable churn in your stomach, the lining of your throat getting itchier by the minute. Why now, why now, when you’re so close to monopolising his time—

“I guess, I’m imagining things.”

His voice is clear, afterwards you catch his steps retreating away from the training field, slow and heavy, before you are unable to detect it audibly anymore. He’s gone, together with the chance to spend time with him, but the nausea is there to stay.

Frustration lodged in your throat the same way as something being stuck there too—it’s something solid, something that isn’t supposed to be in your body, you feel.

Did you ingest something dandelion-related today? No, you are sure you’re no longer allergic to it. Or was it something you eat or drink earlier this morning? That’s not possible too, you haven’t eaten at all and only been drinking water.

Whatever it is, it was enough to trigger your gag reflex and you vomit it out to the ground, spilling acid and water-alike at first. Then, you start to cough, the sound grating in your ears. From it, there are something fluttering down, coming out from your mouth. The edges are tainted by crimson, a speckling of blood against blue. You stare at it, unblinking, and when the urge dies down into a small bouts of cough, you bend down to pick it up.

A few minutes after that, staying rooted in your place is you whose watery eyes are watching downwards and in your hand, fallen petals in the colour of cerulean blue, the colour of the sky—akin to someone’s eyes.

The leftover taste in your mouth is sour, the same as the feeling pouring over your heart. The want to laugh at how horrible it is not enough to act it out but enough to make you sneer deprecatingly.

You’ve heard about that urban legend, about the myth of flower-coughing curse. You’ve heard tales of it, renditions of it in theatres and lyrical songs; something about unrequited love, something about the flowers being in the same colour as the object of love, something about death in the end if the patient does not confess. A morbid story based on a hazy folklore.

Your only response?

“Thank goodness he’s not here … ”

A disbelief hidden behind nonchalance. You worry about him knowing more than digesting the situation.

Ever the selfless, aren’t you?

Though, for a fleeting second as you wait for another bile to go down again, you feel like someone watching you, a gaze that prickles and makes the hair on the back of your neck stands, but knowing how hyper-aware you can be, you decide to chuck it to your delusion—you think it’s an impossibility that Varka even looked at your direction, anyway, so you leave discreetly, crushing the petals in your hand, without entertaining that thought any further.

Since then, you start to cough more often. Once in a few minutes. You couldn’t hide it fast enough from others, so you start to say that you’re unwell from hay fever, that the change in the spring breeze must’ve brought the pollen together. A shoddy reasoning considering you have no history of getting hay fever or pollen allergy, but thankfully, those who ask bought it without much complaint.

That reason only works for some people who are gullible though—to others who aren’t, like Kaeya and Lisa to name a few, you just cite that you’ve taken up smoking again and the coughing was the result; they’re not close enough to you to scold you but they did express their concern—Lisa going as far as offering her ear should you are troubled—which you appreciate half-jokingly.

The main problem is that you cannot lie to Varka—well, specifically, the moment you choose to lie in front of his face, he just knew; much of a lie detector, similar to you, Lohen.

So, to prevent that, you go as far as smoking right near him when the occasion permits, like right now when the two of you are watching the city border on the high ground together, despite the two of you being off-duty. At first, he doesn’t comment, relatively enjoying the silence, but then Varka hears you cough, seeing that you’re about to grab another cigarette when he opens his mouth and asks:

“Are you in trouble?”

It’s a question that’s not rare for him to say to you, considering your antics, but it does make you stare at him for awhile, for the timing is off and unexpected.

You shake your head, continuing your motion on getting another cigarette out from your tin case. You light the end up with a lighter, taking in the smoke before sighing it all out.

“No,” you reaffirm, “I’m not.”

“You act like it.” Varka retorts, “Are you sure?”

“I think you’d be the first one to know if I am in trouble.”

“That—isn’t wrong.”

The sound of sloshing alcohol from his flask and the occasional cough coming from you fill in the night air once more. It’s not a fully comfortable quietude, seems charged with unsaid words, especially on Varka’s side, but he doesn’t make it known yet, staring to the faraway darkness across Mondstadt City’s border.

“I thought you quit smoking.”

“Took it up again recently.”

“What’s the occasion for?”

“Stress relief.”

You try to answer curtly, for fear he’ll be more prodding, though you think it’s kind of futile anyway—Varka knows that something is wrong and once he does, he’ll try his best to get to the nitty-gritty of the situation.

“You want to share some stories about that?”

Your silence is treated like a contemplation, a yes or a no—in truth, you’re just stalling for time, since a no will just result him being slightly bitter and sarcastic to you, like a petulant child throwing tantrum. Well, if you’re adamant on it, he would respect you and back off but at the same time, you have the impulse to spill everything, including the petals stuck in your throat.

Though that aside, Varka wants to know about you—isn’t that great? Isn’t that a sign that he starts to care? Not really when the whole predicament of yours is about him and that he’ll practically listen to anyone’s problem. Again, you are reminded that you’re no one special in his eyes.

A sigh again, going out of your lips together with the inhaled smoke. Varka’s stare switches, from the view to you, before going back to the sight of the far distance.

“You’re trespassing a boundary, Grand Master.”

The substance inside the cigarette is helping, calming the disturbance so you can think a bit clearly, which ends up with you trying to dismiss him. You follow his gaze, to the dimly lit street right across and the expanse of water body near it.

“I don’t think this is something a superior should know.” You add.

“Oh, really?” Varka quips, “Are we now down to just being a mere superior-subordinate?”

You scoff to hide your cough, a smirk making its way on your face. “Can we even be considered friends?”

“Are we not?” Varka challenges, his tone rather difficult to discern, whether it is a sarcasm or genuine concern. “Here I thought we’re close enough to be considered best of friends.”

Sarcasm doesn’t suit Varka’s tongue—fits better when it is you who uses it, but you guess it makes sense that he answers you with more vehemence than usual; your feeling is making it hard for yourself and him and everyone involved, after all.

You force down the petals threatening to come out with a single puff from your cigarette, but the string of cough slips out before you can stop it. Fortunately, the hacking doesn’t invite the flowers to come out, so you use your free hand to wave out the smoke, as if that is the source of your affliction.

“I think best friend isn’t a suitable label for our relationship,” you chastise lightly, “I’d rather we be unattached.”

“Unattached.”

“Yes, un—” One stray cough. “—attached.”

“Hmm. I might disagree with you.”

You stop gazing at the horizon and fixate your eyes on Varka who, in return, is staring at you with unclear emotion. He doesn’t say anything, but his gesture is clear that he is a bit frustrated with you. His left hand moves closer to your face and you think it was to flick your forehead, but to your surprise, it isn’t—his fingers gently wrap themselves around your cigarette, stealing it from you.

At first, your widened gaze fleets between the burnt cigarette and him, thinking that he’ll put it off and throw it to the side, yet Varka surprises you again—by putting it in between his lips, taking the smoke in and sighing it out.

Of course, the entire time, your eyes are drawn to him, mesmerised and slightly taken aback. Your heart beats faster, the same time as your cheeks start to grow red. Never in your life have you expected that to happen right in front of your eyes—of Varka casually smoking the cigarette that was yours a few seconds ago, of him doing it naturally as if he’s a smoker also. Maybe he is, discreetly, because the image of him like this isn’t that far off from being wrong.

You forget how to breathe, forget for a moment that the petals are out to get you, the cough and alike stopping only for you to savour this once in a lifetime moment. You like to think yourself as someone who does good deeds, a loyal subject deserving of a reward for being a good object and a tool, maybe it’s this, the sight of your obsession doing your vice.

Varka laughs, a low one that stuns you into a silent confoundedness. “Too much will make your cough worse.”

When you manage to find your voice, it’s accompanied with a throat clearing noise and an averting of gaze. “Mind your own business, Grand Master.”

“Can’t do that for you.” He replies, smiling smugly. “Even for your own well-being, you need to be ordered around—”

“I don—”

His free hand—the one that supposed to be holding his flask—cups around your chin, forcing you to look at him right in the eyes. It’s blue, the same shade as the flower you cough up, the deadly petals nestling inside your lungs and your throat, threatening to burst out.

“—so if you keep that up, it’ll make me think that you like being ordered around, Lohen.”

When it comes to you, of course I do, a tool for you to wield, except you definitely cannot say that out loud, unless you are courting death by organ failure—in which you are halfway there already, should you do nothing to this flower-coughing disease, mind you—so you only manage to open your mouth and close it again, with the blush on your cheeks worsen by the second, though you don’t pull away.

Two can play this game—this might be in your favour too, considering the cure for the flower-coughing disease—from what you heard, not researched yet—is connected to love confession.

“You’re such an annoying old man.” You grumble. “I’m really going to poison your drink again, mark my words.”

Your vexation gets him to laugh again, crystal clear in your ears, enough to deem it as a worthy thing to exchange over this damned bile.

“How lovely.”

“I’m leaving.”

…

In the end, the two of you did go on separate ways after a few minutes of bickering emptily—Varka going back to the Knights’ HQ and you going to the back alley somewhere to cough up the ill-begotten flowers. Of course, holding everything in throughout the conversation you have with Varka makes you feel very sick and dizzy, to the point of having to turn your stomach upside down and spill your guts all over the ground.

The bile, the stomach acid, and the blood from the infection on your throat mixing in with the dead petals and fresh ones. You even have one flower that is stuck in your throat, a full blooming one that’s almost unblemished if not for the spattering of crimson on its bluish crown.

At the end of this mess, you are left with a lot more petals in the ground and a fully-bloomed blue flower you haven’t even bothered finding out what it is, a grated and itchy throat, and a faint sensation of existing. You hate it here, hate having to go through this.

In the haze induced by your flower-vomiting session, your mind fills in with the discussion earlier, on Varka’s opinion about your relationship with him.

Personally, you already settled on the label situationship for this whole relationship thing, however, you’d rather let the flowers take over you than admitting it loudly to him—that you also in favour of rejecting the notion of ‘unattached’ in your relationship with him.

Even without you verbalising it, the flowers are already doing a good job letting all of us know, anyway.

The first thing you do, the day after that encounter with Varka, is asking local florists for a native flower that is in the colour of blue and match them with the full bloom flower you have kept. The unexpected part, all of their answers so far have been disappointing—either the shades don’t match, the shapes are all wrong, or the petal counts aren’t correct. There is no record or evidence stating that the flower you coughed up is from any region of Mondstadt, no relevancy whatsoever.

It was only when you come across the Honorary Knight did you know the origin of the flower; a flower that bloomed only in a certain region in Inazuma, a flower that, according to the Honorary Knight, can appear fluorescent in the night, meant to resemble the bright sky in the day.

“The flower symbolises a promise in Inazuman language—an unkept promise or empty ones, though.” The Honorary Knight supplies helpfully, “I happened to grow them in my garden in the Serenitea, with Albedo’s help—did you happen to pluck it from there?”

“Ah, no—Sucrose asked me to find it for her.” Such a flimsy reasoning but you smile regardless to add credibility. “But she didn’t give me any clues or information, so I figured I should find them on my own.”

“Ah, well, Yoru— err, what’s the Mondstadt equivalent, I guess it’s Blume des Leere Versprechen in der Nacht?”

“Blume des leeren Versprechens in der Nacht.” You repeat, as if reaffirming. Not sure to yourself or to the Honorary Knight. “Mouthful of a flower.”

“Yeah, that’s why I like to refer it as that blue glowing flower. You can only find them at Chinju Forest in Inazuma.”

“Sounds far.” You conclude easily. “I’ll ask Sucrose if she could just synthetically produce it.”

“Or just ask Albedo to do it.”

You give the Honorary Knight a smile, a fake one that doesn’t reach your eyes. “Haha, I’ll just do that. Thank you for your help, as always, friend.”

Even if the Honorary Knight seems to notice the crack in your facade, he makes sure to say nothing about it for the sake of your own good.

…

Beforehand, you know the flower-coughing disease and its lore from lyrics and plays, but figuring out which one is the correct one needs a lot more than just a flower’s symbolism, with each region has their own spin in the tale—the original is from Inazuma, called Hanahaki, or literally flower-vomitting disease, said to be a sickness caused by unrequited love and can be cured just by confessing out the feeling to the recipient, regardless of answer.

The version of that one differs greatly from what you know from Mondstadt playwrights—where the one having the disease will have to wait for their most loved one to say that they hate them, ending the story in sombre and tragic note. From a quick skim, it seems the Fontainian and Snezhnayan version have those tragic ending ones too, in addition to the original Inazuman cure.

This, of course, conflicts you, including the meaning the flower actively trying to kill you. Though, more importantly, there is no log of it ever happening in real life, or even if there is, the illness surely either had taken the host’s life or the host is freed from the illness. With that in mind, you’re struggling to understand the situation even more—what are you supposed to do now; confess your love or wait until Varka hates you?

The latter seems impossible to be done—you think you’ll die first if you know that Varka hates you. Your heart will surely give out and your mind would spin endlessly in denial; it’s a punishment worse than death.

The first one is doable but it’s not something you want to do. Confessing means confronting your feelings, meaning that you have to sit down and talk with Varka. You don’t want it to be a casual ‘I love you’ drop, if you were to do it, but a sincere one that implies a lot of preparation.

On the other side, the answer is something you also fear to hear—while the certainty of rejection is nice, it’s also bone-crushing to hear directly and you aren’t sure if you’re well-equipped for that response, should you end up experiencing it.

Sorry, you imagine Varka saying, I’m not interested in that way.

Even if it is just a hypothetical situation—it still hurts; your heart still clenches and aches, painfully yearning for something more that you probably could not have, should Varka say no. It feels closer to dying that way than the actual terminal disease you are having.

You save yourself from the scenario by closing the books to the plays inspired by the flower-vomiting disease, a little louder and snappier than usual.

Would fate be that kind to allow you, the perfect tool, to choose a future where your love is reciprocated by the object of your obsession? You’re not sure if they are that kind, to you who believe that everything has a price, especially when it comes to the whims of fate.

But to be the recipient of Varka’s hate—that is also a death sentence. Thus, in the end, you conclude that there will be no happy ending to this story of yours and that you’ll end up dying because of it; in a somewhat twisted manner, somehow, that decision is a lot more acceptable than the others. Dying is better than being rejected or hated, even when you know that acceptance is higher in percentage than rejection.

Getting your hopes up and derailing yourself from the reality of things, getting delusional from an exchange that ends up with him smoking the remaining half of your cigarette, suavely flirting with you—

Lohen, you might be projecting your feelings once more. Remember that Varka treats everyone equally in his eyes, no exception, not even you.

Empty promises—the flower you’re coughing out right now, the flower that reminds you of the sky—of Varka’s eyes—means empty promises. A vow you cannot fulfil.

You cannot recall anything that entails you promising something to Varka other than your loyalty—you swear it on your grave that it will stay that way, so what does the flower try to say here?

Somehow, your worst fear had manifested—the day you aren’t able to hide your hideous, grating coughs is here. It happens every few seconds, almost non-stop, and holding it in only results in dizziness and nausea and a wave of bile waiting to get out with the flowers.

However, in the battlefield where the pace of your action dictates your survival, even a half of a second lateness can be deemed as fatal, evident in the fact that a simple cough can disrupt your focus enough to get yourself punted by one of the Fatui agents you’re fighting across the battlefield.

It also doesn’t help that you’re all alone, far from home here in Nod-Krai, surrounded by rogue Fatui agents you taunt into attacking you.

You lost your grip on your polearm mid fall, it rolling uselessly on the ground nearby—a trunk of cut tree manages to hit you on the side upon landing, cracking, if not breaking them already, a few of your ribs, knocking the air out of your lungs too. Every breath you take now is agonisingly painful and it doesn’t help that you end up kneeling over to retch, the straining motion adding the burning sensation across your chest.

You don’t know how much flower petals and blood came out from that, too uncaring to start counting.

Cold sweat mingles together with the involuntary tears and blood stains, dripping of to the ground. You ignore them all, focusing on the enemies in front of you instead. You force yourself to stand, leaning down on the trunk of the dead tree, trying to stay conscious even though your sight is flickering on and off already. You hold out your knife in front of you, the only weapon you have left, trying to look tough still.

The pain in your senses is enough kickstart your adrenaline—you think fast, thinking of what other weapons you can use or make with your elemental energy, caring less and less about the repercussion or control. You deflect attacks, swipe your blade on vitals, pierce and freeze everyone in your way, disregarding the bullets that graze and the numbing sensation of Cryo energy manifesting into frostbite on your skin.

You get hit again and again but you don’t falter in your step, your mind screaming repeatedly for you to get up. You don’t think of dying just yet, not when you need to prove your usefulness as a weapon; that is why whenever there is an urge to vomit out the flower, you bite your lower lip until you taste more iron than the sickening floral taste of the flower.

By the time the fight is over, your enemies are all slain and you could barely stand straight on your feet. Amidst the battle, you manage to take your polearm back so you use it as a crutch to move slowly—it’s useless though when your sight starts flickering like a broken lamp and the view of the battlefield becomes afflicted with a dark vignette. You breathe shallowly and quickly through your mouth because deep ones hurt the most. Your lower lip is all torn and crusted with blood, dripping together with your intermittent coughing.

At some point, your knees start to give out, leaving you incapacitated. You don’t even know what you have to do from this point onward, your mind only focuses on one thing; to come home to Varka in one piece, to show that you are useful to him and complete all of his expectations—you’ll drag yourself on the ground if you have to, you are not dying here.

You push yourself to stand only to fall down on your knee. You try again, almost succeeding. You do it again for the third time, hunching down in pain, but you walk a few steps before falling again; rise to your feet, swallow the pain and the phlegm and everything, walk, then fall. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Until you make it out midway to the Favonius Keep where you’ve seemingly hit your limit and about to fall for the last time—

—only to find someone else catching you halfway before you fall to the ground, the panicked sound of your name accompanying along.

“I … need to … ” You push away the person saving you, wanting to force yourself yet again to walk, despite your consciousness already failing you. “ … get back to … him … ”

“Stop forcing yourself. You’re too injured to move—”

“Let go—”

Your limbs feel sluggish but you try your best to fight back whoever is holding you back, pushing him away when you can. You stumble in both your words and steps, desperately trying.

“Stop struggling, Lohen!”

“Varka— He’s waiting for me … I need to—”

The adrenaline starts to dissipate and you could no longer hold back the floodgates—you keel over, spatting out numerous of sky-blue petals and full flower, bile and blood stringing up into one matter. Everything falls out from your mouth as you retch and retch, flipping your guts inside-out, until you end up as a crying mess from it, a natural trigger that happens when you get so overwhelmed with everything.

You faintly feel the sensation of a hand touching your back, its motion circular, repeating. There are some flowers stuck inside you shove your trembling fingers in to reach and pull—it’s unsteady and you barely able to do it, so much so that the person offers to help. In your stead is his fingers, going inside your mouth so he can pull the flowers out and you can vomit out the rest. The rest is blurry, you cannot make out how many times you’ve puked, but your surrounding becomes a mix of crimson and cerulean, of blood and flowers marrying each other in a twisted beauty.

“ … Hurts.”

Your throat feels like being sanded raw, your voice hoarse and small. Your hands cling to the person trying to help you, with you given up on trying to move around—the pain in your chest doubles intensely, gets you enough to wheeze in pain from every movement you make, even when the person trying to help navigate himself on carrying you is trying to be as careful as he could, it still burns and seizes.

The person who has been showing his concern throughout, he manages to wrap you up in his jacket and carry you up. The warmth of this person’s embrace and the scent are familiar, reminds you of someone you know well, someone you have to come home to, but you couldn’t even begin to speak his name out to affirm it all, your consciousness slipping out for good, plunging everything into an unknown darkness.

…

“How long were you planning to keep this from me?”

The first thing that greets you after being unconscious for three full days is not a hello or how are you feeling—but a question that demands your full attention on answering. You don’t complain or chide him on that, not when you deserve nothing but unsympathetic treatment after hiding it for so long and he deserves to get his question answered because Varka is your superior.

Upset is the tone that is clear in Varka’s voice, in the furrowed brows he has too. You look at him with all the focus you can muster, opening your mouth to speak and ignoring the pain that lingers around your body.

“I don’t have intention to hide it from you.”

Your voice is as battered as your body, smaller in volume and sounding as if you’ve screamed for hours—horribly raspy.

“Don’t try lying to my face, Lohen.”

You couldn’t answer him, guilty as charged.

“How long?”

“A few months,” you answer with ease, “I was going to tell—”

“Who is it for?”

“How do you—”

“I know. The curse of flower-vomiting. I’ve heard about it.” A beat, an apologetic silence—of course he knows, what doesn’t he know at this point? “Look, that’s why I asked who it is for, so we can somehow work it out—”

“Work it out, you say?”

It gets you to laugh because the sentence rings funny in your ears, so much so that you end up with coughs that wrack your entire figure. Your muscle pulls and the pressure makes your fractured ribs ache, except you continue to do so until tears appearing at the edge of your eyes.

“You think I haven’t tried anything?”

The scenarios in your head don’t count. You haven’t done anything to rectify this, Lohen, yet berate his words you go because it irks you to no end that he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t and will never understand the fear of being rejected by the person you cherished your whole life, or losing whatever you have right now simply because you mistake his kindness and playfulness for an invitation for more.

“I don’t—” You're unsure, scared even to even speak. “—want him to reject me.”

You watch his eyes soften. “The other possibility exists too, Lohen—don’t you want him to love you back?”

Don’t you want him to do that? Of course, you want Varka to reciprocate. Archons, even without this stupid flower-vomiting sickness you want to do that, yet this status quo is enough for a weapon like you, no need to give it more hope on becoming an equal—but no, the flower demands you to act or you’ll kick the bucket before realising his dream of peaceful days.

“I do.” You cannot tear away from his gaze—cannot remove his hand from your cheek, touching ever so gently. “Of course, I do, Varka. What sort of crazy person there is that doesn’t want to be loved by you?”

“Then say it. Say it to me.”

Except then, you realise that fate is in it to hurt you, so the answer to this entire predicament is an impossibility; waiting for Varka to hate you so that the flower goes away is the same as picking out an option to kill yourself in every aspect with the flower. You don’t want to try and defy fate anymore because you’ve grown scared—last time you tried, you killed your own father and nearly plunged the whole nation into a bloodbath, forcing Varka to clean up after your mess—and Lohen, you’ve always been scared of being powerless and useless, but to be the reason of his problems—

You don’t want that. You simply could not do that to Varka again. So for one more time, you brave yourself against the horrid fear, the physical pain, just to say the three words you’ve been avoiding to tell him.

“Varka.”

“I’m listening.”

“I—” The sentence hitches, your gaze falling down to somewhere that isn’t his eyes. “Can I really?”

“Mmhm. Take your time.”

Be brave. Just this once, let me be happy too.

“All these flowers—they’re for you.” The words flow better when you are not actively trying to impede it, so you let it out like he asked you to. “I love you, Varka. I've loved you for so long that I don’t want things to change between us if you don’t feel the same—”

“Sweetheart, I've been waiting for you all these time.” Tender does his voice go when he cuts you off, kind does his gestures against your skin, and affection fills all of his words. “I love your flowers, as much as I love you, so don’t worry about me not feeling the same.”

Maybe, the flower that denotes empty promise is the one you cannot keep in the future. Fate likes to toy around with you and wouldn’t it be a better entertainment if the curse is a looming threat that colours your future blue?

That’s okay—you’re satisfied already with this end. When the time comes, you’ll make sure to tie all the loose ends and leave without regret.

When that time truly comes, you are sure Varka would understand.

“You, as someone who has defied fate before, should know that this kind of thing is not something easy to do.”

“I know but at least, can you confirm it to me— Well, if you happen to know—”

“Hmph, dilly-dallying isn’t your usual thing and you pique my interest—the things you do for him.” A beat, a sip of a tea. “So, tell me what you want to know, kid.”

“Flower-vomiting curse.”

“What about it?”

“Does it really exist?”

“As true as it can be. Words hold meaning and fate can will it to reality. As simple as that. Anything else?”

“Is it transferable?”

“No.”

“Transmissible?”

“Of course not, you idiot—there is a trigger for it to manifest. An unrequited love, a repressed feeling.” A sigh rings afterwards, “Anything else?”

“I’ve heard about it and its cure too, but doesn’t it seem too good to be true?”

A scoff comes out from the Witch’s lips. “What, you want it to be as tragic as the one in your theatrical reenactment?”

“Ah, no, I mean—”

“I know exactly what you mean, kiddo, for you cannot hide anything from me especially.”

“Then, do you think Lohen … ”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that, Varka. Fate can be as simple as reading the stars, at times, can be as fickle as a human desire. A simple confession might end up be his cure—”

The memory that plays in your head, Varka, is of Lohen having to deal with it alone in the back alley. His guard was lowered to almost nonexistent that he didn’t realise you were following him along. You saw the bright glow of the petals he had coughed out, the same thing that you observed up close when you found Lohen almost dead from his injuries yesterday.

You are sharp, even Flins had commended you for it, so tying things together isn’t hard—the flowers are in the colour of your eyes and Lohen’s avoidance after that incident with his cigarette is enough for you to pinpoint the direction this scenario is heading. He’s not entirely hidden in his emotion, some aspect of his longing slipping out in the few times you’re with him alone.

The stare he gave, the redness of his cheeks—you catalogued it within your mind of how obvious he is when it comes to love.

“—but if it’s not, then I am afraid you have to be ready for the worse.”

Barbeloth’s warning is enough for you to know that this one fate is something you probably have to endure and cannot escape, but you are what you are right now for defying fate—this one is no different.

“I think at this point, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’d end up fighting it out.”

“Hah, you still hadn’t changed, trying to defy the Mistress of the Inevitable.” Barbeloth comments, seemingly proud of you. “Varka, do you know the meaning of his flowers?”

“It’s not a Mondstadt native so I don’t really know—what does it mean?”

“A night-blooming flower from Inazuma that means empty or unkept promises.” She answers, nonchalantly. “I think by now, you’d realise how difficult it is this time to defy such fate, yes?”

“Well, we’ll see about that. If humans can avert a disaster in the end, there is no such thing as an impossibility.”

Barbeloth’s laughter is of amusement, for she thinks your love is the biggest threat there is and as much as she enjoys being the follower of fate—you think she also wants to see if the finality of the stars will bend their knees in your attempt to subjugate them, if you can exceed her expectation once more.

“Good luck in your endeavour then, kiddo. May your love prevails against all odds.”

And flowers borne out of empty promises of togetherness; such a fitting purpose to your cause of defying fate this time, don’t you think so, Varka?