WHO HURT YOU OP - Blog Posts
i bite my tongue (it's a bad habit)
Pairing: Genshin Characters x fem!Reader
Characters: Jean Gunnhildr, Lisa Minci, Yae Miko, Rosaria, Ei, Yelan, Arlecchino
Word Count: ~2900
Warnings: No coherence, no plot. Just vibes, half-formed thoughts, and awful pining. Kudos to anyone who recognizes the book quotes. Is it good? No. But I had fun. Not proofread.
Summary: They're in love with their best friend.
Jean:
Kaeya laughs at her sometimes. Dumbstruck her. Tongue-tied her. Always a little red in the face and jittery whenever you’re around.
Jean knows it’s not entirely unfounded. Vaguely remembers a time when the young Ragnvindr brothers stole wine from Crepus’ cellar and got her so drunk that she dared call you her mind’s first vivid memory.
How horribly dramatic she had been.
(And yet, whenever Jean thinks back to her childhood, it’s not the rigorous training or the endless hours spent studying that she remembers clearly. Instead, colourful pinwheels spin in front of her mind’s eye. And you, so vibrant amidst them all as you play with the other children.)
Years have passed since then, but the young Gunnhildr’s heart has proven a tenacious thing. Stubborn. Incapable of beating to any rhythm other than yours.
On long nights, the melody lulls her, takes her by her hands, and pulls her back into the warm memories of your training days. Of your touch, gentle on her cuts and bruises. Your smile, ripe with exhaustion and so, so soft. (She could have kissed you. Jean could have leaned in, just a little bit, and kissed you. She wanted to. She’ll hide her face in her pillow and think about it all night.)
“If I too could…” But she can’t. As a knight, she always has to put her duty first—
And yet, occasionally, Jean lets her mind wander.
In her office, she flips a page in one of her romance books and squints, covering the characters’ names with her thumbs. “Jean, she said,” the young Gunnhildr reads under her breath. “I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.”
(She throws a hand to her face right after, palm flush against hot skin, and slams the book shut. How childish. There’s still work to be done.)
Paperwork is piling up on her table, demanding her attention. And it’s late July. A month of clement nights and sticky noons. Thick air, a headache thrumming behind her eyelids, words blurring into inky splotches—your warm skin on hers. Jean hadn’t heard you come in.
And yet, she leans back into the touch, her back sticky with sweat. Your hand doesn’t move, and she loves you. She loves you. She loves you.
And she’s sorry, too, because time passes, and all that she can do is wait. Maybe, when she has less work. Maybe, once Varka returns. Maybe, maybe, maybe—
One day, you could be her life’s only regret.
Until then, until she knows for sure, Jean will blow on dandelions and hope that her dreams will come true.
Yae Miko:
There’s something pathetic about the way she pines, all half-smiles and twitching ears.
And she knows, from the bottom of her heart, that the centuries should have been kinder. That they should have made her smarter, stronger, sound—yet all they really did was leave her lonely. A little sad.
And yes, Miko does feel better than she did 500 years ago. But some days, better isn't enough. Most days, better leaves her feeling hollow.
It's just as well that foxes cannot cry.
It's desperate, the way she loves. Greedy. Pleading, too. Like saying, 'Don't abandon me. Not like they did. Not you.'
Losing you would be like severing a limb now, you see.
Dear one, Miko calls you, always casually. Always a little too tender, and when no one else can hear. And dear you are. Dear and so, so fleeting. So frail and mortal.
(At night, she aches. You, a memory? The very notion seems absurd.)
And yes, Miko knows that nothing lasts forever. It is, after all, the way of the world. But here she is, storing everything you gave her, trying to preserve whatever little of you she'll be allowed to keep.
How much of me will you take with you when you go, dear one? She wonders. Or, straight to the point: what will you leave behind?
(She's never been a writer. But this—you—you are worth picking up the pen for. If only to adequately capture the softness of your smile. If only to immortalize the sound of your voice—so fondly familiar—with the written word. If only...Miko scratches out what little she has written. What a pity. No words are ever good enough.)
"I am fond of you," she admits one evening, words warm from sitting in her ribcage for so long now. "Painfully so," she adds. And, "I love you."
Behind you, the Raiden Shogun pauses, blinks, stirred by the sound of a language that has been lost to Inazuma for centuries now.
Perhaps next time, Miko will say it in a way you'll understand.
Rosaria:
Drowning the thought of you in alcohol is a futile endeavour.
However could she, when you've been by her side forever?
(Older knights still remember the day that Varka brought in young Rosaria. A day when his little apprentice took the young thief by her scarred-up hands to show her the cobblestone streets of Monstadt.)
A decade later, everyone in the City of Freedom knows to turn to you when they want to find the elusive nun. And why wouldn't they? After all, it was you who showed her all the best hiding spots.
(Sometimes, Rosaria thinks of it as a trade. Her heart for your knowledge. Admittedly, if it was a trade, it was a stupid one. Admittedly, your hand was too warm to care.)
A journal with a white cover rests under a loose floorboard in her bedroom. A relic from her novice days. Sometimes, when the afternoon's too quiet and the sun sits between her shoulder blades just right, Rosaria likes to leaf through its pages.
Dandelion Wine—now eighty percent off!
Fisherman's Toast—an incredible flavor at an unbelievable price!
And, she borrowed a book from the library. The due date is next Tuesday.
She made me black tea this morning. I liked it. And written right in the corner, smaller, It warmed my chest.
(The evening sun in your hair. Grass stains on your knees, almost rectangular. A butterfly that landed on your arm, its wing just slightly torn. Your favourite flowers. A smell that made you sneeze—an entire childhood with you is scattered in short lines across the journal's yellowed pages.)
Have you eaten yet? Are you injured? Are you warm enough? The questions never stop with you, a habit that carried over from when you were still young.
"Have you slept well?"
That one gets her every time. What a stupid question to ask. Can't you see the answer on her face? But you've always worried, and Rosaria has grown pathetically soft.
"Yes," she says. It's true. Waking is the problem.
"Any interesting dreams?"
She pauses. How is she to tell you that it's you she dreams about? You, you, you. Always. Soft you. Gentle you.
You share a home in every dream she has of you.
"So?"
Rosaria shrugs.
When you nudge her, she blows smoke into your face so you can't see her smile.
Ei:
Forever is never going to be enough.
Ei blinks, pausing at the sudden, uncomfortable thought. She looks up from the table, fingers wrapped around a delicate marble that is to be one of the puppet's joints, and faces Miko. Then, you.
Her gaze lingers.
You notice. Smile.
All at once, Ei can feel her heartbeat hammering all the way down to her fingertips. Thud-thud-thud-thud-
For a moment, dizzy and slightly weak, the archon hesitates, lowers the puppet's arm.
She almost reconsiders.
(When the Balladeer meets you again five centuries later, the first thing he feels is the familiar electric beat in the joint of his left pinky finger. He grits his teeth. The echo of his mother's heartbeat has always been a heavy thing to carry.)
Once, a long, long time ago, Ei firmly believed in her idea of eternity. Isolation seemed a small price to pay back then. But, resting in her Plane of Euthymia, alone and slightly cold, she admits, very quietly, that she wants her sister back. Her friends. Miko. You.
That last thought sneaks up, familiar yet uninvited. And Ei thinks of sunshine. And of brighter days. Of lively nights. Of laughter spilling across a checkered picnic blanket, endearingly bright.
A smile almost softens her face, but then she opens her eyes. And she's alone. And it is quiet. And you're not here.
(The silence is suffocating. Missing you is making her feel sick.)
When the Traveller and Paimon first step foot in her Plane of Euthymia, the sky seems a stagnant, solid block of colour.
Only Ei knows that it's been this way for the past 500 years.
Only the Traveller notices that it matches the exact colour of your eyes.
It's hard to face you after. Mostly because she knows she's made you cry. Knows she's done an unforgivable thing. The air feels overheated, Miko is grinning, the Traveller is awkwardly standing offside, and, in that moment, Ei thinks nothing in the world matters more than never making you cry again.
(Holding her after so long will make your hands a little numb. Your nerve endings a little sensitive. It will be worth it.)
The next day, Ei will request to borrow the Traveller's camera. She will only take one picture.
When she rewraps the hilt of her Musou Isshin that evening, the firm leather will hide a photo of you.
Lisa:
It hurts.
Sometimes, when the library is flooded in oranges and reds and the light strikes you just right, Lisa feels her heart swell up, grow thrice its size, and fill up her chest with warmth and light in such abundance that her ribs start straining under the sudden weight. It hurts.
(It's also wonderful. To be so full of another.)
You're her friend. Have been since her days in the Academiya. Someone who followed her through lectures, halls, Teyvat—
How hard could it possibly be to ask you to take her hand again and follow her into love?
Impossible, apparently.
Cecilia's and cupcakes on the table. Lisa's love spilled out in rose-themed teacups. She prepared the tea just as you like it. Does it warm your heart as much as you do hers?
If there is one thing she misses from her days in the Academiya, it's sharing a dorm with you. Such unbelievable intimacy it was, to share a space.
At night, when the air was too humid and your thoughts too restless to sleep, you'd read to each other.
(“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you–especially when you are near me,” she read to you once, voice soft as you began drifting off. “As now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame...” Outside, the sky broke out in promised downpour. Inside, in your tiny, too-warm dorm, Lisa drew you closer.)
Lisa misses the way your voice would grow hoarser, quieter...until drowsiness took you in its arms and carried you off to pleasant dreams. She misses the way your eyes would droop as she flipped the pages. The weight of your head on her shoulder. The warmth of your arms.
Such little things she adores you for. Such innocent closeness.
I love you. What a tender thing to say. Lisa closes her eyes, imagines it. Your voice in her ear, a smile on your lips as you whisper them to her. I love you. I love you. I love you.
(In her mind, she strips the sentence of its space, removes consonants and vowels until only the I and you remain. Why mention something that's apparent? Why endure such needless distance?)
Every now and again, Lisa is known to succumb to sudden bouts of clumsiness. A spilled cup of tea here, a misplaced book there—glasses that she searches for while they're resting on her head.
You always smile when you point it out. Lisa always thanks you.
Tomorrow, she will lose them again. Maybe next time you'll step close enough for her to kiss you.
Yelan:
Yelan cannot meet your eyes.
She hasn't been able to for a while now. Afraid of what you'll see in hers.
And she cannot give you what you need. Not now. Not ever.
At least, that's what she tells herself, watching you laugh with someone that's not her. ('Just making sure you're safe' is what she'd say if you were to ask about it.)
You're gentle when she needs you to be rough. Deliberate in your care in a way that makes her sick. Painkillers and numbing creams; your breath on her neck when you gather her close after a mission, whispering, "Thank you for coming back in one piece." And, "Thank you for coming back at all."
How stupid. Why are you acting like she could ever truly leave?
It's another kind of masochism, she thinks, leaning closer when your fingers glide across her arm, almost too soft to feel a thing. You never give her what she needs, only peace and warmth. Only comfort.
She rests her head in your lap. Your fingers are warm in her hair. And Yelan thinks, I can rest like this. She thinks, I could get used to this. Thinks, I want this.
(She's not sure she deserves it. But she craves this, too, now. And how is she supposed to live with that? What is she to do with a love like this? With a tenderness that makes her heart beat all wrong?)
Should she tell you? The dice can decide. Yelan will confess if she rolls a one, three, or five.
Yelan rolls.
Five.
She rolls again.
(It's not like you'd want her anyway. How could you want someone who's barely there?)
Sometimes, Yelan can almost fool herself into forgetting about her feelings. But then you smile—sudden sunlight in her living room—and she is reminded that, yes, her heart's tenderness is yours.
Her chest clenches at the thought, stomach twisting angrily. How dare she forget?
There's no one else. No one else.
Arlecchino:
Rumour has it that the "Father" of the House of the Hearth has a mistress.
Born from merchants' lips, the words are deemed baseless. Idle gossip to pass the time and warm the soul with excitement in the ever-frozen planes of Snezhnaya.
The Knave would be lying if she said she wasn't perfectly content with this.
Sunsettias from Monstadt, Lavender Melons from Inazuma, Bulle Fruits from Fontaine—imported luxuries most commonly found resting in a large bowl in the Harbinger's office.
Right next to the couch that you prefer to lounge on.
Sunflower heads peak from a vase on her work desk, strikingly bright. Younger residents of the orphanage assume them to be a gift from the graduated siblings currently residing in Fontaine.
They are only half correct.
While indeed a gift, the flowers aren't meant for Arlecchino at all. The Knave does not much care for presents, much less for protected species of flora. Instead, it's you they send them to.
Carefully cut, more carefully preserved, flower deliveries from Fontaine arrive at the House of the Hearth biweekly; and always straight into your arms. (Arlecchino will turn to watch your smiling face as you arrange them on her desk. As will the sunflowers.)
(Successful up until now, Lynette does not know how much longer she can keep Lyney from sending Rainbow Roses instead. Lyney claims they'll help. Lynette is certain "Father" will kill him on sight.)
Unwilling as she may have become to torment herself with the niceties of love, the Tsaritsa has yet to grow out of the habit of finding its nuances fascinating.
As such, she gladly hosts the little Snezheviches and Snezhevnas when they come to her with new tales from the orphanage. (Tiny hands flailing, grins growing, eyes wide—the desire to please the great archon is palpable. Arlecchino's little spies aren't quite her own. But she must know so too, no? Why else would she guard you like зеницу ока?)
The children tell her of how you grab the lady's hand whenever you want to show her something. How, just yesterday, at night—please, don't tell Father this. I wasn't supposed to be up—you sat in front of the fireplace for hours, the lady by your side.
You rubbed at her blackened hands as though to relieve some bone-deep ache.
All the while, Arlecchino kept looking at you. Achingly mellow. As though enamoured.
"Родная моя," you draw her in one evening. Tired and slightly drunk. "Любимая."
She smiles, amused by your affections. Then, lowering her voice as though to raise some delicate matter, "И Дорогая?"
"Самая," you agree eagerly. The way you say it, Arlecchino almost believes she is.
(The Tsaritsa knows the rumours to be true right then. When her Knave's eyes soften at whatever silly thing you're telling her, red bleeding out into the black. She supposes the Knave would be a more fitting name now.)
Before taking you to Fontaine, Arlecchino teaches you its tongue's most common phrases. Or tries to, at least.
To her amusement, you think the language funny-sounding. Its beauty, rhythm, and charm—all of it mercilessly drowned in your snorts and laughter as you try to pronounce the words that she has written out.
Èpoustouflant seems to be your favourite. Accordingly, Arlecchino repeats it over and over, delighting in your laughter.
Then, the subject of such adjective: a most tender ma bien-aimée.