Archive of Our Own

For the simple reason that he loves easily, Tighnari is a lucky child. He never sits dead eyed waiting for something to finally catch his interest, nor is he ever short on things to do or thoughts to think.

So he falls in love.

First, with the ant hill outside his home and the miles of little soldiers that carry supplies to their fortress. Then with the notebook his mother gifts him and the perfect calm he feels recording his thoughts between the woven pages. 

When he is tall enough to scamper up roots and climb trees, he finds that he loves mushrooms as well, just as he loves the earth, the stars and the pet beetle his father keeps in a jar. And it is okay for him to love easily, because he is young and when he scrapes his leg tumbling from a tree, he is fine tomorrow. So if he trips, falls and cuts his heart; surely it heals quickly as well. 

Tighnari enters the Akademiya early, not so young as to draw attention, but early enough to still have round cheeks and an excitable view of all things learning. There he discovers he loves the library, coffee, and he loves teaching just a little more than the former two. This turns out to be a very good thing, as it seems his classmates have silently elected him the class tutor— by the end of his second year, he is writing more lectures than he attends. 

Soon after he starts these lessons, a young man with bleach white hair and stormy eyes begins to follow him around the halls, and he wonders if this is how it feels to be admired. That is, of course, until he learns that the General Mahamatra is not interested in him, he is investigating him. And if that doesn’t make him feel incredibly foolish… 

Tighnari promises himself he will not make that mistake twice.

But just because the General Mahamatra is not interested in Tighnari, does not mean Tighnari is not interested in him. Not only because he’s easy on the eyes, but because he’s an odd fellow. The man is the epitome of unsociable, but if he is lonely, he hides it very well. Sometimes, Tighnari will see evidence of struggle; injuries, slings or the occasional spot of blood, but it never hinders the man in his busy days and endless pursuits.

The last day of spring semester arrives and Tighnari sits on a bench, book in hand, hugging his tail. It’s an encyclopedia he read once as a child and is now reviewing. It’s an encyclopedia that he stops reviewing the moment white hair enters his peripheral. 

He doesn’t mean to stare, really, but the bandages around the man’s wrist have gone loose, revealing a long winding cut. Tighnari itches to pull them back in place, so he lets his eyes linger on the wound— how is he supposed to know that the General has an all but supernatural sense for when he is being watched?

So suddenly he and the General are face to face and he is being asked. “Do you need something?”

And Tighnari blushes. It’s mortifying. 

“Oh, uh—” Tighnari blanks, “bandages—” is all he manages. 

The General looks down to where the gauze on his wrist has slipped out of place, then gives Tighnari a once over, as if to make sure that Tighnari has no bandaged wounds of his own. 

“Scorpions,” he explains, before turning to leave. 

Ending the conversation after exchanging literally a couple words is not acceptable to Tighnari, so impulsively he calls out. “Wait.”

“It’ll get infected,” Tighnari says, then after a beat. “Do you mind?”

The General doesn’t stop him, so Tighnari takes his hand, warm and battle scarred, and rearranges the wrappings until they are secure. 

“Hm.” The General says, examining Tighnari’s work. “Thank you, Tighnari.”

Tighnari’s tail stands at attention, and he must remind himself it’s irrational to feel giddy just because the man knows his name.

Once his brain reconnects, Tighnari says. “Take care of yourself, General.” 

 Tighnari almost books it afterwards, but the General doesn’t leave, and so neither can he. After what seems like an eternity of thought, the General Mahamatra breaks the silence. 

“Cyno,” he says. 

Cyno. His name is Cyno. Which really doesn’t matter to Tighnari, of course. Why would that matter to Tighnari? Of course, he isn’t going to tuck it away and keep it in his treasured mental encyclopedia of flora and fungi. Nor will the name ‘Cyno’ pop up in his mind uninvited during random times of the day and even once during an important biology exam. No, that is absolutely not what happens next.

And if you think otherwise, you are the ridiculous one.

Tighnari is a student. He studies. That’s why he is studying Cyno. Because that’s what students do. Of course, he does so ethically (not, you know, breaking into his office or following him home). He lets his fox ears hone in on conversations where the General Mahamatra is mentioned. When he spots Cyno in the halls, in the library, or anywhere in his general vicinity, he will secretly observe him in much the same way he does the finch on his window sill. Then he writes his observations in the pages of his mind. 

In this way, Tighnari learns. 

He learns that Cyno will run himself ragged, but never ask to be thanked. He learns that Cyno, despite how intimidating he seems, tries hard to put others at ease. He learns that Cyno is really quite handsome backlit by the stained glass, his pale hair coloured by the soft lights, his eyes like pools of rubies, so deep Tighnari could drown in them and—

And that Cyno is heading this way. 

Tighnari grabs his satchel and flees like the House of Daena is on fire. 

Kaveh is giggling so much Tighnari wonders if someone drugged his beer.

“Tighnari,” he manages between peels of laughter. “Tighnari— how are you this oblivious?”

Tighnari purses his lips, preparing to ditch his new friend at the tavern. It has only been a couple weeks since he met the blonde at their shared ecological-architecture elective. That’s not even enough time to decide if he likes this new friend of his. 

“You obviously like the guy,” Kaveh teases. “I mean, seriously, you have a crush so fat they can see it from Celestia.”

“I do not—” More laughter. 

Tighnari really will leave. 

“And what about you and your research partner? If we’re on the topic of denial.” Tighnari shoots back. 

That does the trick. Kaveh’s face goes stiff as a board. “Oh, you will not believe the nerve of that guy! Archons, do you know what that bastard told me today in class—’ 

Tighnari hums thoughtfully and lets Kaveh drink and rant, and drink, and rant. And when he's done, Tighnari helps him walk him back to the student houses, because even though Kaveh is a bit of a drunkard and more than a bit smitten with his junior, Tighnari likes him just fine. 

Later that week, after Tighnari finishes teaching a lesson on the properties of whopperflower cores, his worst nightmare materialises. Cyno is waiting for him outside the lecture hall. 

“You forgot this,” he says, holding out Tighnari’s notebook for lotus-based burn ointments. He’d left it at the House of Daena during his great escape. When he’d returned to look for it, it had disappeared. Now he knows to where.

“Oh, thank you,” Tighnari nods. He reaches out to take it, only to find that Cyno’s grip on the book is firm. He gives it a slight tug. The book does not budge.

Cyno looks at him meaningfully; expectantly. Tighnari tugs harder. If Tighnari's full weight pulling against him shows; it’s only in the slight furrow of his brows.  

“The Akademiya’s investigation into you closed months ago,” Cyno says. 

“Great,” is all he can manage while still desperately trying to wrench his notes free. 

“So…” Cyno prompts. 

Tighnari may very well go insane. “So?”

A flicker of disappointment passes over his face and Tighnari feels as though he’s kicked a kitten. The resistance vanishes, and Tighnari stumbles back, notebook in hand.

“So you can relax,” Cyno finishes. 

Tighnari takes a pause, trying to piece together what Cyno is thinking. Tighnari has known all this time that the investigation was closed, why did he bother mentioning it? Unless— does he think Tighnari is scared of him?

“That’s not why,” Tighnari blurts out.

Cyno gives him a look of expectation and Tighnari prays lightning will strike him down, so that he won’t have to explain to Cyno what he can’t even explain to himself. The cowardly part of him wants to scream ‘I have class’ and sprint like he’s marked on punctuality alone, but he stays locked in place, paralysed by the revelation. 

Somewhere in the annals of his mind, a pen is scratching down this expression of Cyno’s. It is different from the other observations, it is only a whisper; a secret. That Cyno, for all his strength, all his resilience, is really quite alone. 

It’s not like the world shifts off its axis after this. Cyno still runs a marathon each day, and Tighnari still watches him as he passes by. But sometimes, Cyno will catch him watching and Tighnari won’t look away. Sometimes he even waves. 

And if Cyno waves back, Tighnari will have to hold his tail to keep it from giving him away.

In between his routine observations, Tighnari will record the occasional secret as well. Things he’s reasonably certain that he alone knows, the soft tilt of Cyno’s head when he’s amused, or that he really can’t hold his alcohol. It’s stupid, but whenever he rereads these secrets, his smile stretches so wide he fears his face will split.

Occasionally, when no one is watching, Tighnari will carefully examine his own reflection in the mirror. He will draw lines across his face with his finger and try to determine what other people see when they look at him. He wonders if he seems friendly or very serious. He wonders if he is pretty— if he will catch someone’s attention. 

Today he notices that his hair has gotten long since he arrived at the Akademiya. That it won’t have the chance to grow much longer before he finishes his studies and goes elsewhere. He sets the mirror face down on his desk. Where exactly is ‘elsewhere’?

Tighnari is blessed to love easily. So it is more a question of where he most wants to be than a process of elimination. He loves the idea of travelling to Fontaine and publishing a paper on the aquatic flora. He gets caught in daydreams of wandering the peaks of Chenyu Vale and reaching out to touch his favorite constellations. 

But in spite of all he loves here at the Akademiya, he knows he does not love the Akademiya itself. What is the value of wisdom that does not better the lives of its holders?

Tighnari thinks it must be the same as that of mora not spent. That is to say none.

So Tighnari must go. Still, when he does, he will miss Kaveh’s loud complaining and he will miss reminding his Amurta juniors to do their readings. Mostly, he will regret it if he does not finish his observations. Tighnari resolves to work hard finishing it.

Tighnari is foraging for starshrooms in the dead of night. No, this was not his original plan. In fact, it’s terribly inefficient to find them in the dark, so much so that Tighnari is about to admit defeat and go home when he picks up a faint gasp. Tighnari rounds towards the sound and quietly adjusts the strap of his satchel, before going to investigate.

As he approaches, the distressed breaths grow louder, less inhibited, and Tighnari feels his pulse pick up like a storm. He breaks into a sprint, letting weeping branches claw at him as he crashes through the night. And his heart is in his throat because he would know that voice anywhere— he would know him anywhere.

He finds Cyno collapsed on the forest floor, his pant leg has dissolved and Tighnari can see the acid burning through the man’s skin. The pain must be unimaginable, but Cyno nobly sucks in his pain, letting out only shuddered gasps, and it angers Tighnari like he’s been struck. For Rukhadevata’s sake, does the man think screaming hysterically will bar him from the afterlife?

It takes Cyno a moment to register Tighnari’s presence at his side. His scarlet eyes, cast in a veil of tears, scan Tighnari’s face. 

“You’re bleeding,” Cyno whispers, he reaches out to the place where Tighnari was barely tickled by a branch. One more observation: Cyno is an idiot. 

Tighnari refuses to dignify that statement with a reply. 

“Lean on me,” Tighnari orders, looping his arm beneath Cyno’s arm.

Cyno sends a wayward glance at the scholar unconscious and bound in ropes next to him. Tighnari puts two and two together; this must be the man who tried to dissolve Cyno in corrosive acid.

“Forget about him,” Tighnari insists. “He’ll be fine—” and even if he isn’t, Tighnari couldn’t care less. Still, it’s only after he assures Cyno that he will lead a few officers to retrieve him later, that Cyno reluctantly wraps his arms around Tighnari’s shoulder.

It’s not easy to move this way. Tighnari is built lithe and strong enough, but by no means sturdy. Still he and Cyno synchronise their steps and little by little make the distance. He also takes the opportunity to lecture the man at length about screaming for help when the situation is appropriate.  

They arrive at Birmastan just as the sun begins to peek over the horizon. Tighnari could cry from relief when the staff rush out to greet them. The part of his mind elected to represent common sense tells him he is no longer needed, but he knows he will do nothing but worry until he knows Cyno will be fine.

He grabs a stool and sits by Cyno’s bedside. The staff leave him be, they must assume he is someone of great importance to the patient. Tighnari does not let them know that that could not be further from the truth. 

Cyno has not spoken since they arrived, though he is clearly conscious and his eyes haze intermittently with pain. In the suffocating air of blood and sulfur, Cyno strangles his breaths as he chokes down his distress. Still, they are as loud as cannon shots. Tighnari feels something thick well up in his throat. 

“Cyno, it’s okay—” he says. “It’s okay to cry.”

Cyno is silent for a moment. Then he does. 

“What will happen to me?” Cyno asks him eventually. “If I lose my leg, I’ll lose my position, my work.”

He swallows. “I’ll lose everything.”

Tighnari shakes his head softly. “You won’t lose everything.”

“You don’t understand!” Cyno insists. “I’ll be nothing. I’m nothing if I—”

Before Tighnari can stop himself, he scoffs. “Oh, please—” and because Tighnari is so accustomed to correcting idiots, he speaks.

He speaks of Cyno’s hair, his eyes, and his voice. He speaks of his convictions, of his ambitions, of how he is always where you’d least expect him, but need him all the same. Of the look he gets when he figures out the best card to play in his hand. That he should take better care of himself, but if he won’t then Tighnari will have to. His laugh. The stars. His walk. The earth. His secrets. The scarab he keeps in a jar. And of everything Cyno, until he is winded, until his throat is numb, until he stops to take a breath and—

Oh, Tighnari thinks. He’s fallen in love once more.

To grow up is to learn to keep secrets. To hide them deep under your skin, burying them so no one can see the bumps beneath your clothes. By the time Tighnari departs for the eastern forests of Sumeru, he has a few of his own. 

The first is that he sometimes misses the Akademiya. It’s odd since the institution has caused him worlds of trouble since he graduated (even if only in reckless scholars who think they are somehow exempt from the laws of nature). 

It’s not like he has time to visit on leisure with all his forest ranger duties. He’s still in the process of sorting out the forest ranger’s mess of an organisational system. It’s a testament to how poorly organised the whole thing is that they let Tighnari (a relatively new recruit) take control of their operations. 

He keeps his second secret hidden under a stack of training logs. It’s an old leather bound notebook, thick and filled with all the small things Tighnari thinks but doesn’t say. Most of the information is benign, it’s more of a journal than a diary; daily entries of the random happenings of his life. Just his ordinary dealings… Okay, maybe the occasional secret, as well. 

Sometimes Tighnari is grateful for all the work as well. When he is wrapped up in a dilemma with idiots trying to cause the extinction of a species of rose, he has less time to think of his third secret. 

His newest tribulation sends him west to negotiate with a certain Lord Sangemah Bay residing in her newly constructed palace. When he finishes silently rehearsing the speech he’s prepared and goes to open the door; it opens into him.

Tighnari comes face to face with the stern man he only thinks of occasionally, very often. 

Cyno blinks, eyes shuttering, and the two pause in the frame of the door. 

“Tighnari,” he says, and Tighnari’s heart stutters because even just being remembered by this man somehow means something to him. The bar is underground.

“General,” Tighnari’s greeting is met with a frown and he quickly corrects himself. “Cyno.”

Tighnari’s hands are clammy, so he tucks them behind his back and surreptitiously wipes them against his sleeve. Cyno, for some awful reason, doesn’t seem intent on leaving and is instead searching Tighnari with that unreadable gaze. Tighnari suddenly can’t remember why he even came here. 

“So, um,” Tighnari shifts, he’s about to ask what brings Cyno to the Lord Sangemah Bay, but the pack of TCG cards in his hands leaves the question redundant; leaves Tighnari fumbling. 

“Tighnari,” Cyno says, not unkindly. “I’d like to pass through.”

…Right.

 He isn’t moving because Tighnari is standing in the doorway.

Somewhere out there, there’s a Tighnari shaped hole in desperate need of a Tighnari to fill it. 

Tighnari leaps out of the doorway and considers forgetting his errand in favour of searching for said hole. It doesn’t help when Cyno gives him a respectful nod and walks away like the strangers they absolutely are. It definitely doesn’t help when Tighnari, child of wisdom that he is, calls out. 

“Wait.”

Cyno turns, confusion ripe in his expression. Tighnari swallows, it’s too late, he has to commit. “Would you, maybe, want to have dinner with me tonight?”

The delusional part of his brain (read: all of his brain these past five minutes) pretends there’s some disappointment in Cyno’s voice as he says. “I have to work tonight, maybe another time.”

So that’s that.

Long after Cyno’s figure has faded into the distance, Tighnari remains a step from the doorway, hands clutching his shirt so tight it may tear. 

And he is reminded, as he so often is, of the secret he’s buried deepest of all. But, should he pass his hand over his sleeve, he’ll no doubt find that rigid bump, pulsing beneath all the layers of flesh, too vast to be hidden. And, if ever he pulls up the cuff, he’ll give away his third secret. 

That being, even after all these years, Tighnari is in love with Cyno. 

The next doorway they meet in is Tighnari’s. 

Cyno is there, soaking wet, unannounced, with, of all things, a child. 

Tighnari, astounded, lets the pair pass through wordlessly. They don’t progress very far into the house, instead loitering by the entry way, water pooling at their feet. 

“Can you take her in?” These are the first words exchanged between them. 

Tighnari analyses the girl by Cyno’s side. Her frame is thin, shivering, and not just from the cold. His tail bristles in her presence, sensing an odd energy radiating from her person. 

“What’s your name?” Tighnari asks the hooded girl. She stays still, showing no indication of having heard him. 

“Collei,” Cyno answers, after it becomes clear she doesn’t plan to speak. It’s odd to see Cyno this way, almost sheepish. “I know this is sudden.”

Tighnari purses his lips. The truth is he doesn't like kids. Perhaps it’s because he finds too much in common with them. That reckless propensity for senseless infatuation. 

“What do you mean by stay?” Tighnari pushes Cyno to elaborate. 

“For as long as needed,” Cyno confirms. 

Tighnari thinks over his request while hanging their cloaks by the fireside. When he turns, he finds Collei is watching him with hollow eyes. 

When he meets her gaze, he finds that he can’t turn away. 

“Okay,” he agrees.

And sure, Tighnari could lie and say that Cyno convinced him, but to tell you the truth, it’s just the kind of person he is. 

The two stand in silence by the fire while Collei dries off and changes in the other room. The change of clothes he left for Cyno sits untouched and rejected on the counter, leaving Tighnari, as always, annoyed with the man’s constant insistence on risking injury or illness. Still, at least he’s accepted the towel.

Tighnari stokes the flame with a poker, wondering how close he can put his hand before getting burned. Cyno, meanwhile, folds the towel and puts it back on the counter. A tiny spark shoots up from the smoldering embers, grazing his wrist. It hurts as warnings do.

“The offer for dinner,” Cyno says quietly. 

Tighnari looks at the fire. He pushes his arm further in, and says, “it’s still valid.”

It’s not only valid, but renewable. 

At first, it’s because Tighnari will insist he eats after he checks in on Collei. But slowly, they drop the pretenses and it becomes… well— dinner. Just dinner. 

And the two of them, they become… Honestly, Tighnari doesn’t know. Though he knows what he’d like for them to be and he kind of, maybe, wants Cyno to know as well. 

That’s why he makes a trip to the city to buy spices and candles. That’s why he takes the day off to gather a bouquet in a vase and slow roast fowl in a bed of herbs. That’s why he lets Collei shadow some of the senior forest rangers on the evening patrol so she’s out of the house for a while.

Tighnari decides tonight he will find out what they are.

It’s nerve wracking in a way Tighnari can’t quite decide if he likes or absolutely despises. When he hears a knock on the door, he almost mistakes it for the sound of his heart hitting his ribs. It doesn’t get better when he sits down either, Tighnari’s such a wreck that he can barely stomach the meal he painstakingly prepared.

Worst of all, Cyno notices and fixes him with that impenetrable gaze. “Are you feeling alright?”

Tighnari swallows. “I—”

Cyno, ruthless as he is with his suspects, lets Tighnari flounder.

Tighnari tries to focus, but everywhere he looks, he’s reminded of his own intentions. The vase full of roses, the soft glow borne from lit wax, and, of course, that everpresent bump beneath his sleeve, visible to Tighnari only, burning under his skin. Tighnari feels the weight in his hands, like he’s holding a shovel. 

“It’s just that—” Tighnari squeezes his eyes shut and digs up his heart.

“I like you.”

“Oh,” Cyno blinks, setting his fork down on the side of his plate. “I like you, too.”

Tighnari’s throat numbs. He leaps forwards without meaning to, hands on Cyno’s shoulders like a drowning man. “Really?!” 

“Of course I do,” Cyno nods sagely. 

“We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Yes. They would be, wouldn’t they?

 Seeing as they’re both idiots. 

So Tighnari takes his bleeding heart and kicks it back into the hole he dug it from. All wounds heal, he reasons, then he covers it up and tries hard not to think of how it shudders as it beats.

It’s not like he minds. Tighnari is not a greedy person and being friends with Cyno is still better than being nothing to Cyno, so there’s nothing to cry about. Even if he can’t like Cyno the way he does, he still likes Cyno just for what he is. 

 He likes hearing about the cases he’s working on, he likes playing TGC with him, and he likes setting the table for three. It strikes Tighnari in the middle of the day, and he sets down the potted plant, just to revel in it. For once those Cyno things are also Tighnari things, because now they are something to each other. 

Even if that something is only friends. 

Tighnari puts his hands back down to the dirt and gets to work spreading the roots of the padisarah. 

It’s not bad, he tells himself, and one day he’ll stop loving this love, in just the same way all colours fade. Perhaps it’s true he never did stop loving the ant hill, his notebook, the earth, the stars, and every other love of his life, but surely this time will be different, right?

Right?!

It is a small miracle when Collei writes her first sentence. It is a much bigger one when she beams and runs to show her teacher. Tighnari wants to frame it on the wall, next to the pinned butterflies, but he knows it would only embarrass his apprentice. Instead, he congratulates her calmly and makes a mental note to prepare radish balls for dinner. 

They work into the evening correcting the spelling errors and cleaning up her handwriting. As Tighnari is explaining the difference between a comma and period, Collei abruptly sets down her pen.

“Tired?” Tighnari guesses. “We can call it for today.”

Collei quickly shakes her head. “No, I—”

She ducks her face behind a thin veil of hair, a habit she’d been slowly discarding. Tighnari is about to ask her if she’s fine, but she pushes the hair out of her face and smiles that rare smile. 

“I think I’m finally improving.” She stumbles over her words, “I think—”

She falters. 

Tighnari really does wish he was good with these kinds of words. Then he could tell her that she is far and away the bravest student he’s ever had. He could tell her any student can learn how to read, but few could learn to smile after what she’s seen. But Tighnari is only really good at explaining biology, medicine, and language, and he’s really quite useless at explaining the rest, so instead he waits. 

“I think,” Collei finally says. “I think I’ll be alright. You know— some day.”

Before they can sit in the moment, Collei quickly draws out a symbol and shows it to Tighnari. “Now, what does that mean?” She asks. 

“An exclamation mark.” Tighnari explains. “It means the writer is excited.”

He looks out the window, where the night has filled out the sky. Tighnari picks up his trusty piece of chalk and writes an example on the board.

It’s too late for radish balls, reheated pita pockets it is!

Collei deflates. “That’s not very exciting.”

It comes as quite a relief that there are things about Cyno that he doesn’t like as well. Well, not ‘things’ per se, more like ‘thing’. 

That ‘thing’ being the absolutely hideous ‘jokes’ he tells. 

He and Kaveh endure one full hour of Cyno’s ‘humour’, before he breaks. 

“Cyno, have we offended you somehow?” Tighnari cuts in. 

Cyno’s silence can only be described as the calm before the storm and Tighnari begins to panic. “No, no, wait, please—”

“Offended? Only because you’re an Offenec Fox." Cyno says.

“Oh, what the fuck,” Kaveh groans. “That’s the worst one we’ve had all night.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Cyno sighs, running his hands through his hair, which should be a normal thing to do and not the unreasonably attractive thing it turns out to be. 

That, also, turns out to be the wrong time to be captivated, because he fails to stop Kaveh from walking into Cyno’s well laid trap. 

“Of course, we don’t get it.” Kaveh hisses. “It doesn’t make sense and it’s awful.”

“Well, that’s because you don’t get it.” Cyno replies shortly. “Here, let me explain.”

And explain he does. 

When Cyno finally has mercy and retires to finish up some paperwork, he and Kaveh sit in the wake of it, sipping from freshly refilled chalices. Idly, Tighnari questions how it is that Kaveh manages to both speak and drink more than him, given that you can only do one at a time. 

In the middle of Kaveh’s eighth anecdote of Alhaitham’s latest war crime, Tighnari finds the alcohol has left his lips loose. “I don’t understand how he can work so hard and still be so awful at it.”

Kaveh pauses, somehow the more sober of the two of them. “Alhaitham doesn’t work hard at anything.”

Tighnari circles the rim of his glass with his finger. “No, I meant Cyno and his jokes. They’re terrible.” He pauses his finger next to a droplet sitting on the edge. “I mean it, they’re so terrible, I can’t stand it, even when I see that look on his face, you know, when his eyes are kind of bright after he comes up with the words, looking at it, I feel that I could fall apart.”

The words he speaks might trouble him later, but his mouth outpaces his mind. “And the way he keeps trying, no matter what, the really awful thing is, I might just shoot him down so I can watch him go on. So I can listen to him try and explain.”

He pauses. “Do you think that’s strange of me?”

When he looks up at Kaveh, he is slack jawed, gaping back at him. 

“Holy shit,” Kaveh accuses. “You’re still in love with him.”

Tighnari wants to laugh in his face, but stifles it for the sake of etiquette. "What of it?”

“It’s—” Kaveh blinks. “Well, it’s been years. I thought things might have changed…”

“I haven’t,” Tighnari replies simply.

When Tighnari dreams again, it is, of course, of him. 

They start off in a trickle, then turn to a torrent, pouring forth until barely a night goes by where he does not dream of scarlet eyes and all the ways they will never see him. 

Tighnari tries to bury them too, but it doesn’t work when he has more dreams than he has flesh to hide them beneath. So he lets them sit at the surface, lets them take shape and colour him in their wasted hopes.

Some are kind to him; in some he and Cyno are friends, as they are now, doing nothing that they have not yet done. Some he’d even tell Cyno of, were he not afraid that a half-truth would somehow spill into the whole. 

Some are cruel. In some, when he looks at Cyno, he looks back. In some, Cyno holds his hand. In others, Cyno holds him. In some, Cyno loves him in that way Tighnari must secretly wish to be loved. In those, Tighnari finds the ache of his heart is so warm it scorches him. 

And those too, are the dreams he dreads, that scar him with delusion as he awakens. Those are the dreams he loathes, basking in the reminders of what he cannot have.

If only travelers could sense his distress and cut him a much needed break. Too bad they can’t.

“Did you see the warning signs about Rishabod Tiger mating season?” Tighnari knows it’s useless pointing it out after the damage is done, but he can’t help himself. 

“Well, I thought I’d just be careful,” the traveler replies sheepishly. 

Tighnari bites back another remark as he finishes tying off the gauze. 

“You should rest here for the night.” Tighnari advises. “I’ll assign some forest rangers to escort you in the morning. Where are you headed?”

“I have business with the Lord Sangenemah Bay. New shipment of TGC cards.” He says.

Tighnari spins, forgetting to set down the roll of gauze. He asks. “Would you do business with me?”

The man’s eyes light up and he leans forward on his good arm. “You play?” 

Tighnari nods, then places the roll in a drawer. “But they aren’t for me.”

“Well, I’ve got some real gems in this collection,” the man chuckles. “Your friend won’t be disappointed.”

Tighnari chooses out the Terrorshroom card with the iridescent finish. It costs half his savings even after the ‘saved-my-life’ discount the merchant offers. Tighnari can’t bring himself to care; he’s wasted far more than Mora on Cyno before. 

There are many things Tighnari knows about Cyno. He knows which species of rose best matches his eyes, the rhythm of his footsteps on asphalt, on snow, and what card he’ll play in any given hand. He knows, best of all, that Cyno is not his. 

In theory, then, he should feel nothing relearning it. He should feel nothing knowing Cyno will introduce him as a friend and nothing when Cyno’s eyes pass over him without stopping. He should definitely feel nothing about the woman hanging off his arm, clinging to his chest like a sweat-soaked shirt. 

Then there are things he should not do. He should not stay. Tighnari stops in the middle of the busiest street, his heartbeat drowning out all the world’s sound. 

He should not stare. So naturally, his eyes gather every minute exchange between them; the laughs, the touches, the glances.

He should not think of them as he walks home, errand forgotten, so he thinks of them long after he returns. 

Probably, Tighnari thinks as he twists a petal between his fingers, he should not be coughing up flowers.

So, of course, he does that too.

Hanahaki Disease: A respiratory illness that occurs as a result of extreme unreciprocated romantic feelings. The treatment of Hanahaki comes with the drawback of complete memory loss concerning the beloved. 

Tighnari tells Collei, not because he wants to, only because he won’t be able to keep it from her. Though it comes as a shock, Tighnari quickly reassures her that it’s very treatable. In many ways, Tighnari is fortunate. 

With his background in medicine, Tighnari is better positioned than most to take care of himself. The disease itself was easy to diagnose, seeing as the symptoms are both highly visible and distinct. Most importantly, the treatment is safe and highly effective. So really, it’s like he’s not sick at all. Not when he isn’t losing anything of value. 

Tighnari, then, is also a lucky adult, just as he once was a lucky child. 

Staring at the Paridasarah in his palm, he can’t help feeling a bit smug. In the end, this is killing two birds with one stone. In a few weeks time, he’ll be free of these flowers for good and he’ll be free of him forever.

Tighnari drops the flower into the bin and washes the blood off his hands. The color bleeds into the water til he pulls them back, clean and smelling of iron. Perhaps he should feel bitter knowing the loss he will undergo. But then again, captives don’t mourn lost chains, and it has been a very long time since he’s felt blessed by his shackles. 

So that was Tighnari, a clumsy child, falling over and over, bruising and breaking. Blessed to fall far; cursed to fall apart. 

Tighnari pauses without reason, letting the drops loose from his fingertips. This is fine, he thinks. This is good, he thinks. This is Tighnari as an adult. Bruised and broken. Tired, sick of putting himself back together for another wasted love.

Logistics are good. Logistics are easy. There’s some housekeeping Tighnari must tend to prior to his departure. He appoints an acting head for the forest rangers and tells him what needs to be done in the weeks of his absence. He makes sure Collei has enough homework to last for his trip. He drafts his will, because sure, the treatment is pretty safe, but you can’t be too careful with these things.

He makes Kaveh the executor of his will, which comes with the unfortunate side effect of being forced to explain his predicament. 

“Hanahaki?” Kaveh scoffs. “Like the stupid light novel nonsense.”

“Like the stupid light novel nonsense,” Tighnari agrees dryly. 

“So what, you cough up bouquets now?” Kaveh laughs. “Do you take requests?”

“Sure,” Tighnari says. “What colour were you thinking?”

They sit in silence as Kaveh scrutinises his expression. Tighnari supposes it pays to be friends for so long— some things can be left unsaid. 

“Shit,” Kaveh says. “I’m sorry, you and Cyno— I know you’re close.”

“I don’t mind,” Tighnari says. “We don’t need to be. I’m sure if Cyno knew he’d want this too.” 

Kaveh leans back into his chair, apparently dissatisfied. “So you’re just going to leave it like this?”

Tighari smiles, bitter. “What other choice do I have?” 

Well, there’s always dying. 

They let the silence stretch long, until Kaveh stands wordlessly and walks to the door. Before he leaves, he gives Tighnari that awful, pitying look. “Anything else?”

Tighnari, stubborn and prideful, says only, “I can’t actually choose the flower’s colour.”

Some logistics are hard. Some keep Tighnari up late into the night, crouched over a blank page of his mother’s journal, thinking up the best words to run away. 

It’s a messy affair that has him tearing out pages when the sheets are spoiled with his candor or his tears or both, and he has to start again. On his fifth attempt, he allows himself to be as he’d like to be. Pathetic, and graceless, and cowardly. 

He writes:

Cyno, 

When I return, I would ask that you do not attempt to contact me. It would be best for us to part here.

Cyno, please live the very best life as you deserve nothing less.

Yours always,

Tighnari

Tighnari stares at the word for a small eternity, then adds a second strike. Then a third, and fourth, a fifth, running his quill until the ink bleeds through the paper and spills into the pages that follow, staining them in their permanence. 

always

The days pass muted and stale. Even the aftertaste of blood and dirt in his lungs tastes mostly of ash. He suspects his brain is making some melodramatic recreation of his life going forward. His life sans Cyno. 

It doesn’t stop the flowers, vivid where his days are not. Tighnari gets a kick out of pulling apart the petals and then dropping them in the trash. If he leaves any behind, he’ll ask Collei to throw them out while he’s in Inazuma. In fact, he’ll have to throw out everything Cyno in this house. 

He starts with obvious reminders, letters, pictures, anything that would make the gaps in his memories not just clear but glaring. When his hands grip too tightly on the paper and he can’t force himself to let it go, he tears through it with his teeth and rips it to pieces. 

When it inevitably ends up catching between his teeth, Tighnari comes to learn that it too, tastes of ash. 

As he licks at his gums, Tighnari moves his hand to the next sheet in the stack. It’s thick and sits on a scarf that Cyno gifted him, that drapes over a table Cyno spilled coffee on. Tighnari lets his fingers trail the stain and thinks, as he often does, that it’s really not fair. 

They should be his things. He loves coffee, if Cyno makes the best coffee, it’s still his if he drinks it. If Cyno wants to compliment his hair, Tighnari still gets to choose when he cuts it short, and the strands that fall were pieces of him, not Cyno. If Cyno is here, if Cyno is everywhere, it shouldn’t matter, because it belongs to Tighnari and he never chose to give it away. If Cyno smiles, and makes a terrible, forced pun with his name, he is still Tighnari, not made anew. 

And if he wants to throw Cyno away, then he should go alone and Tighnari should not be forced to go with him. 

His gritted teeth part to make way for another bulb. Tighnari thinks this one should be green, raw and unripened, at the beginning of spring and not late into winter. Tighnari takes his hand from his lips, numb to the heat of blood on his skin.

It comes out scarlet, stained with his love, gushing like an open wound in his palm. Tighnari laughs out loud, uncaring of who hears him. Of course, it has to be red. He never does get to choose, does he?

It’s not fair. It’s not fair.

Tighnari’s hands grip too tightly around the glass case, holding it like it’s his shield. Kaveh has insisted on throwing him a goodbye party, which really begs the question of whether Tighnari properly conveyed the ‘I’m not going to die’ information. Though it’s more likely that Kaveh’s just being overdramatic, as he is wont to do. Pot calling the kettle, and everything— Tighnari has spent the month swinging radically between numb and despairing, like a kite in a thunderstorm. 

Sometimes Tighnari wonders, too, if he will die. Like right now. And every other time he’s come face to face with him these past few weeks. It’s not natural for someone to be so intensely attractive — it’s especially unfair tonight. His mind tries to commit every last bit of Cyno to memory — just one more observation— knowing all the while they aren’t his to keep.

Tighnari pastes a smile over his abject misery. Act normal, since this the last time they will be normal; the last time they will be anything. And Tighnari can’t help but furiously resent the oblivious him who’d despised being friends. Better than nothing, better than this. 

Tighnari tries to distract himself. He would like to think he is an easy person to distract. Loving easy means changing easy and being easily pleased. There are plenty of pleasing things here tonight. Good wine pours into his cup, while Kaveh and Alhaitham argue about who’s going to pick up the bill (like it hasn’t long since been decided). There’s games and laughter, and Tighnari’s fingers press prints into the case of his gift, because it is easy to distract him. So long as that distraction has pale hair and dark eyes; it is terribly easy to forget that this is a goodbye party. 

Tighnari feels the now familiar cloying in his throat and he excuses himself to the bathroom to wretch out more proof of his useless devotion. The flower that looks up at him always seems to mock him. The universe surely knows Tighnari loves flowers, why does he have to detest them now?

Tighnari washes his hands and returns to the table. Kaveh and Alhaitham are bickering again, their battleground of choice apparently being Kaveh’s reckless alcoholism. Love, he thinks, is an unfortunate and cumbersome thing. Under the table, he finds there’s still a trace of blood on his wrist.

 Eventually, Kaveh embarks on a journey to the bar with the intention of further endangering Alhaitham’s wallet, and Alhaitham is forced to give chase. Tighnari is left at the table with the man who has unwittingly derailed his life.

They laugh at their friends’ expense. Tighnari muses that they really have no business being together, not with all the pain they put each other through. 

“They probably decided it’s worth the trouble,” Cyno says. Trouble. Tighnari thinks that’s something of an understatement. 

Cyno stares at him — that stare that surely means the world has stopped around him— and Tighnari feels his self-imposed apathy is as brittle as ever. 

He swallows down the budding in his throat and lets his frustration breach his lips instead. Is love such a wondrous thing? Surely not, and Tighnari would gladly debate the poets and storytellers who had once filled him with those delusions. It cannot be. Tighnari is utterly certain of it. 

Aloud he asks. “Worth dying for?”

Cyno concedes. Not worth dying for. You can’t love if you’re dead anyways. Under the table, Tighnari wipes his wrist against his pants. 

Eventually, Alhaitham and Kaveh come back, and eventually they leave again, out of the tavern, arm in arm. Tighnari watches their backs as they leave, since it’s either that or cut himself with more observations. He wonders if they are braver than he is. If they would die rather than give up their stolen secrets. 

When Tighnari finally turns back to look at him, he finds him staring back. Cyno tilts his head slightly and his hair parts over his face. There’s a freckle hidden underneath his jaw.

Tighnari already knows that. 

Tighnari excuses himself to the washroom. 

Deflection. Or something like that. In all fairness, Cyno looks like he’s the one casually perishing in the tavern. If he had Tighnari’s tail it would be drooping like a wilted flower. 

“What’s wrong?” Tighnari asks. “You look like someone told you one of your jokes.”

“Amused?” Cyno guesses. The hubris. 

“No,” Tighnari says. “More like someone murdered your puppy.”

Cyno places his chin in his hands. His face doesn’t fit quite right between his fingers, like Cyno is sheepish, pensive, both, while rarely being either. No use storing this expression, he thinks as he does all the same.

“Because we won’t see each other for a while,” Cyno says. A while. Tighnari numbs himself to the thorns clawing in his throat. 

“Only a few weeks,” he lies. Even once he returns to Sumeru, he never intends to see him again.

In a bid to change the subject, Tighnari launches his secret weapon. With pride that is almost entirely genuine, he presents the Terrorshroom card he procured from the traveling merchant. That pride turns wholly genuine when Cyno’s jaw goes slack and he all but flattens himself against the table for a closer look. 

Cyno takes in its hands, holding his gift gently as though it's a piece of the moon itself. Tighnari tries not to imagine his heart in its place. He looks away. 

After Cyno stashes the card, he presents a gift of his own. It’s a flower, no doubt, the most beautiful flower Cyno has ever given him. It sends chills across his arm and not just figuratively. Cyno has somehow tracked down a real, living Shneznayan Crystal Rose. That’s fine, Tighnari thinks as the petals freeze the pads of his fingers. Tighnari is prepared for gifts. Tighnari proves it by touching the back of Cyno’s hands (“Cold, right?” He says.), Tighnari won’t break over love. Look at him go. Even when their hands meet and Cyno looks a little like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, Tighnari knows what to do. Tighnari knows to go on.

He will go on without Cyno since the world insists upon it. Tighnari won’t even look down, won’t even check his sleeve. If it won’t go away, if it won’t hide itself, Tighnari will cut it out. If that’s what it takes to go on. 

That’s fine. 

“It grows pretty quickly,” Cyno suddenly says. “While it was under my care, it really rose.”

It’s fine. 

“Anyways, it was a lot of trouble to obtain. Don’t even consider throseing it away.”

He’s fine.

“What’s wrong?” Cyno asks, “You look… mo—rose.”

…

Oh, but what’s the use in lying!? What’s the use when he’s already in tears and falling over and over again? Bruised, breaking, still wanting to break a little more. It is as though his very being is taken under by a monsoon, fracturing into a hundred pieces, to a thousand petals caught in the wind. 

Tighnari is consumed by it, grasping his only certainty amidst the storm. I adore you. I love you. How could I ever let you go?

His feelings are so fond and so desperate; he fears his ribs will burst open and all his desires will overflow. He tucks his head into his arms, tucks his ears in after, and does anything to keep it from rushing forth. And it’s there, under the shadows of his arms and Cyno’s awful, awful jokes that Tighnari learns he loves not only easy, but hard.

The hardest part of dying is telling people about it. Part of him wanted to simply disappear: Go to Inazuma, die and never be forced to explain himself. Kaveh is not impressed when he tells him of this scrapped plan. 

“You think that would’ve been better than having this conversation?!” Kaveh gawks.

Tighnari glances over Alhaitham (uninvited, didn’t even have the decency to look surprised when Tighnari told them of his decision) and then back at Kaveh (visibly hanging by a thread), thinking that anything is better than this conversation. 

But saying that would be cutting that thread, so he says. “Well, we’re having it now.”

Kaveh’s throat bobs, his face rigid. “Tighnari… won’t you at least consider telling him how you feel? Maybe—”

Tighnari has, actually. He’s cynically, viciously, considered letting Cyno reject him, bluntly as he would. He’s imagined forcing Cyno to watch as the vines clogged his airways, thorns broke through his skin, suffocated him, bled him out. Dying right there, where he can at least see those scarlet eyes before everything fades.

It’s because he’s imagined it, that he says. “It’s impossible.”

Somewhere, deep in his archives, he can find an image of Cyno with tears in his eyes, but that secret is one he doesn’t need to collect twice.

As they get up to leave, Kaveh looks at him, helpless, and Tighnari can feel his guilt from ear to tail. Then his best friend smiles, a little sad, a little fond, still helpless.

“You really haven’t changed,” he says.

Cyno was never supposed to find out about his decision. The official story was going to be that he left, the treatment failed and he died in Inazuma. Harsh, sudden maybe, but less unsettling than learning Tighnari had, for unknown reasons, chosen death. It’s his own fault for not warning Collei against speaking to him. She lets it spill the morning he was supposed to depart. She tells Cyno that Tighnari will die. Some part of him wonders if she did this out of spite, but she doesn’t tell Cyno about the Hanahaki, and that’s probably more grace than Tighnari deserves. 

They don’t speak anymore; even to Tighnari’s overly sensitive ears, their home is too quiet. Sometimes, when they are in the same room, not speaking, he will catch her glaring at him, but when he notices she looks away. It bothers him, but not as much being kept up late at night by muffled sobbing. 

Then, every morning like an alarm, he is awoken by knocking on the door. Collei puts his noise dampening headset on his nightstand. Tighnari takes it off every night when Collei leaves his bedside. It feels cowardly to wear it, like closing your eyes in front of a mess you made. 

Not like staring at it actually helps. 

Tighnari fists his blankets, listening to Collei scream at Cyno. He should get up and stop her. He should have stopped her yesterday, too. He doesn’t. He doesn’t because he hopes it will work in deterring him; hopes he won’t have to agonise another morning listening to Cyno’s footsteps, Cyno’s pleading. Cyno, Cyno, Cyno, as if he isn’t here even when he isn’t. 

Faintly, he hears Collei say. “Don’t you get it? You’re the reason he’s going to die.”

And even though Cyno doesn’t love him — has never loved him, will never love him — it must be unpleasant to hear. The next time he catches Collei’s glare in the kitchen, he tells her as much. 

“Please don’t say those things,” Tighnari says. “Better yet, don’t say anything.”

Collei’s glare turns biting and she throws the tomato she was holding onto the counter. 

“Of course, you would.” Collei says. “Of course, even like this, you would choose him over me. I don’t know why I’m still surprised that—” she bites her lip, struggling to find the words. “That you can be so, so selfish!”

The crash of the slamming door is deafening to Tighnari’s sensitive ears. 

Tighnari’s floor is more petal than floor. He steps on them occasionally, not on purpose, only because he doesn’t see a point in avoiding them. The feeling of them is no longer foreign against his bare feet and he lets the flesh of them flush between his toes. Meld into him. Become him. 

They are, he thinks, in many ways, already. They are, in that he seems to have no control over them. They are, in that they are secret from the one they were born for. They are, in that they will soon rot away— Morbid, his thoughts have been morbid as of late. Is this what dying did to a man?

Tighnari thumbs the petals of a rose sitting on his nightstand. Still cold. Not all of them will rot. Not if Kaveh follows the watering instructions he still has to write.

Though maybe his letter to his parents should take precedence. 

There’s a knock on his bedroom door. Tighnari sets his book down into a mound of blankets and asks Collei to come in. 

There’s hesitance in the air that’s just wrong. Collei isn’t supposed to knock. Well, then again, Tighnari isn’t supposed to be dying, so maybe ‘supposed’ should no longer be supposed.

Tentatively, she takes a seat next to him, sitting on the last inch of the bed, like she’s afraid she’s impeding on someone else’s territory. Tighnari hates to be the adult in this situation, because adults should know what to do and Tighnari decidedly does not. 

So they sit in place, like two strangers sitting together at a conference in an unexpected moment of silence. 

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Collei says. “That was an awful thing to say. I didn’t mean it.”

You could have meant it, Tighnari thinks. He would’ve meant it, if he were in her position. His parents are travelers, now gone off far into the riven peaks of Natlan, writing to him sparsely of the new species of fauna they’d discovered, or sending him a sample of dirt from near the volcano’s base. But they had been there for him in every moment that mattered; when he’d left home for the first time, when his paper had won first in his Darshan’s research competition, and at his graduation. They’d be here too, at Tighnari’s bedside, if only he had the courage to tell them. It’s not fair Collei won’t have the same. It’s not fair that no one will be there every birthday, every milestone, when she eventually writes a full paragraph, or finishes her first ranger assignment. 

Except, maybe, Cyno. Cyno will probably be there. Since that’s the kind of person Tighnari knows him to be. His hand comes up to cover his lips. 

It hurts less than it used to, even though the flowers are now bigger than they were before. Practice makes perfect, or something like that. 

Collei rushes to bring him a handkerchief, worry all but pulsating off her skin. They sit there in silence as Tighnari wipes the blood from the corners of his mouth. 

Collei breaks it, voice thin, a needle poking through paper-like ice. “How long until—”

She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t need to. 

He tells Collei. “I don’t know.”

The flower in his palm tells him. Soon.

For those he can’t (or can’t bear to) meet personally, he writes letters. When he can no longer leave his room, he has Collei bring him a fresh pot of ink and he finally writes to his parents. 

He writes, by the time you read this, I’ll be dead. Then scratches it out because it’s such a cliché. He tries heading straight to the point: I am dead. Then grabs a new sheet of paper. 

Dear mother and father is what he settles on, and the rest is brief and painful, but at least appropriate. 

Next, he writes his acquaintances, people from the Akademiya whom he was on good terms with, but hasn’t spoken with in a while. His professors, how disappointing, they might say, for him to die so young. He writes so much he thinks it may border on hubris — thinking that there are so many who care to hear from him — but to be truthful, he has nothing better to do. 

Or rather, the only thing better, is penning the letter he dreads writing the most. 

He finds, at the bottom of his drawer, the original note he’d wasted a sleepless night agonising over. 

always

He flips the page over and starts anew. This one is also agony to write. Not because he doesn’t know what to say, rather because he must say what he means. Tighnari has had far too little practice in being anything other than a coward, an unripened bud, for his quill not to shake as he at last blossoms, anther greeting the sun.

To you whom I can never tell, 

I love you.

I love you. 

I love you. 

Always. 

And because Tighnari thinks it is far too great of a shame for a flower to blossom after it’s been picked, he dips the edge in fire and burns it to ash. 

Everything hurts. No one ever warned him how painful dying actually is. They didn’t tell him that you could see it as well. He could observe it like a vapor rising off his skin, his very life lifting from his body. Tighnari closes his eyes. It doesn’t block out the sound. 

He knows those footsteps on asphalt, on snow, he knows them as they arrive at his front door. He has been so resolute on dying without seeing him, doing nothing to remind himself, because even now, even as his lungs burn for oxygen and he can feel himself fading away, none of it hurts the way Cyno’s feelings — or lack thereof— do. 

But now that he’s here, and knocking on his door, Tighnari is also reminded of a pain worse even than that of rejection. It is the agony knowing that he will never see him again. Perhaps the afterlife is a merciful oblivion in which Tighnari will never feel that separation, but if it isn’t, if it’s a limbo that lets his mind pace eternally, then Tighnari thinks there is nothing he wouldn’t do for just one more page, one more observation, however painful, to read, reread again. 

Then Cyno is here, opening the door, red eyes, red sclera. Tighnari wonders if Cyno is also writing this moment somewhere in his own journal, though it wouldn’t be on the last page. 

Cyno looks different, too, as tired as Tighnari feels, but also haunted awake, circles like running ink beneath his lids. Part of Tighnari feels guilty for ever thinking that Cyno could never care as much for Tighnari as Tighnari does for him, but most of him still can’t help but think it. 

At least, only one of them is on their death bed. 

In the space of silence, thoughts fill the waiting gap. Tighnari’s hands fold around the cover of his duvet, warming his already burning wrists. Cyno looks to be at a loss for words, while Tighnari has too many clogging his throat for any single one to emerge. 

In the absence of strength, Tighnari’s mind can only default to what it always knows. “Cyno,” he says, and despite himself — despite it all — he smiles as Cyno lowers to him, a child watching the sunset. When the sun does not come again in the morning, he wonders what he will miss the most. 

Perhaps, his voice, gentle and deep like the rumble of the earth. Perhaps, his convictions, his ambitions, or his unnerving ability to appear wherever, whenever he is needed. His deck of cards, kept better than a Fontanian aristocrat’s purse dog. That infuriating, unending selflessness pooling like a well beneath his feet. His laugh. His walk. His secrets. And everything, and everything, and if Tighnari could only have it all, he would be holding the world itself between his palms. But if he can only have one thing before the sun falls between his fingers, then, perhaps—

“Tell me a joke,” he says. “Please.”

Cyno stiffens and Tighnari aches to grab his hand and brush the trembles still. It’s alright. I only want to see you try.

“I understand now.” Cyno says. “My jokes are simply to die for.”

For a moment, Tighnari is made breathless by a sensation other than pain. His laughs are probably a wretched thing, thick with labour and breath, but he can’t help himself. It’s only funny because it’s true, Tighnari really can die happy. 

As tears pass over his cheeks, Tighnari only smiles, saying what he knows to be true. 

“You’ll be alright,” he says, “because you don’t love me.”

Even so, Tighnari knows he would never choose differently. Even if it is a curse, he would carve its rituals into his own skin just to love him again. For however many lifetimes that may come, he will chase this waning sun, guided always by the compass pulsing in his wrist. 

Daylight.

So bright, he almost doesn’t register what it is to begin with. Then there’s a thrum, deep and resonant, like the floor beneath him is alive. Hands crawl up his chest until he feels his ribcage beneath his fingers. It takes him a moment to realise the rumbling is coming from within him. Familiar, pacing slowly into his palms. 

His heartbeat. 

He’s still here. 

For a moment after his mind is quiet, buzzing indistinctly. 

The first thought he has as he sits up is simple: How did Cyno find out?

How could you think that I don’t love you?

He thought he’d dreamed those words, just a fleeting fantasy swallowed into the dark. But now, knowing that Cyno actually said it, Tighnari can only laugh (Archons, his throat still burns). Tighnari doesn’t think that Cyno doesn’t reciprocate, he knows it. It is as indisputable as the shape of the earth or the sky overhead. Honestly, it would be irresponsible research for Tighnari to disregard years worth of evidence for a one-off comment made under duress. Not to mention; he has a promise to keep.  

Tighnari doesn’t know the exact mechanics behind Hanahaki disease — clearly it isn’t to do with his own confidence in Cyno’s love for him (because he hasn’t any). It could either be Cyno’s outward statement of his affections or his personal perception on the matter. But either way, how terribly Cyno. 

Tighnari forces the corners of his lips back into a frown, a slow bitterness creeping back under his skin. Cyno must’ve learned of his condition. That’s the only way to explain why he’s now pretending to love him back. 

A shadow peers over his heart as he has a sudden thought. He could just slip into it. Let those vain dreams be made real. What would be so bad about that? Even if they are just playing pretend, isn’t that better than nothing? Better than forgetting? Better than dying?

He looks at the flower on his desk, luminescent in the shuttered room. He tries to think of it as a confession and not an apology, tries to imagine that he isn't in pain, isn’t burning a little all the time. It isn’t difficult and it’s so terribly tempting.

But Tighnari is the child who loves easily, who loves hard, and does more so for Cyno than for anything in this world. So if Tighnari has to rip his chest open and offer him his bleeding heart, then at least he can say that it’s his heart he’s given. 

So with every wound torn open, he finds himself at the doors of the Matra headquarters. The oxygen in his body feels stagnant and he has to consciously demand every footstep he makes. The offer he plans to make runs like a record in his mind, looping the script he’s painstakingly prepared during his recovery. He asked Kaveh and Alhaitham to keep Cyno away from him these past few weeks, knowing he lacks the fortitude to face him. 

Hand on the doorknob; he can run but he can’t hide— he’s learned that the hard way. 

The words when they come break like water from a dam. They aren’t really the words he’s been yearning to say, all the ‘I love you’s, the ‘I adore you’s, the ‘I could never let you go’s. Though that last one isn’t even true, because that’s what he’s offering now. And he’s all but begging for Cyno to accept it. Forgive Tighnari for being a liar, forgive Tighnari for making a liar out of him, because Tighnari will do anything for him. Tighnari will even let him be. 

And it’s true. Tighnari will get treated and forget everything, even if it kills him (which it won’t and he still hasn’t decided if that’s preferable). He knows Cyno, he knows Cyno like he knows his own mind, or rather Cyno is his mind, he’s on every facet like the same beam of light piercing a crystal prism. So he knows what to expect, if he can just find the right page, he’ll know, so, so, so why does Cyno look like that?

Not pitying, not even really sad. It’s not an expression he’s never seen before, but it’s never been directed towards him. 

Cyno is offended. You can see it in the set of his jaw and the steel glint in his eye. 

“No,” he says. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” Tighnari repeats distantly.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Cyno says, “When you just forget about me?”

Cyno breathes to compose himself, then continues. “And I’ll still remember everything about you.”

Cyno’s hand slumps down at his side. “Everything,” he says hoarsely. “Everything about you.”

Perhaps it’s just a trick of the light and the sheen of tears over his eyes, but Cyno seems a prism of his own. It is as though every flare of light Tighnari gives off is being reflected. 

He shakes his head and gives Tighnari a small smile. “Do you get it?”

Maybe he does. Maybe it’s coming together. It’s coming together a little faster as Cyno leans in and kisses him. 

For the longest time, Tighnari wasn’t sure if his lovestruck clumsiness was a blessing or a curse. Whatever it is, he knows now he was wrong to think of it as singular. Isn’t everyone falling in love all the time? Or at the very least, isn’t Cyno? 

For all the records and footnotes, diagrams and pictures, how did he ever miss it? The way he throws himself into everything he does. Overly committed to his duty, his jokes, his friends. And of course, to Tighnari, too. He never did stop following him after that first assignment. If Tighnari is prone to tripping on occasion, then Cyno is prone to actively throwing himself to the floor. 

What an awful joke. Tighnari isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. All these years just to find himself back where he started, under a tree, leg scratched bloody, but entirely victorious. 

“Do you get it?” Cyno repeats, and Tighnari thinks he finally does. Loving easily the way he does — the way they do — and what to think of it. Still, it wouldn't hurt to check, right?

“Explain it to me again.” 

As Tighnari’s mind fills dozens of pages with the feeling of Cyno’s lips against his, Tighnari knows it for certain. He is very lucky indeed.