Archive of Our Own

When Cyno is ten years old, he meets the most beautiful boy he has ever seen.

He is new to Sumeru City, recently migrated from the desert with his guardian, and knows no one. He is not particularly sociable, even at this vulnerable age when he should be matching with his peers, but he takes a look at this boy sitting in the shared playground between their units, with his large, upright ears and soft, fluffy tail, and thinks he could rival the sun in beauty and in presence.

Rather than playing with the other children, or digging in the sandbox, or dashing around uninhibited and scraping knees, this boy is sitting under the shade of an imposing karamphala tree with his nose deep in a book. Cyno gets close enough to read the title: ‘Medicinal Plants of Hadramaveth and Their Applications.’

Cyno also likes to read. He even brought a book of his own, though it is fictional, and much less impressive. He thinks, This boy must be as smart as he is beautiful, and I want nothing more than to sit under this tree with him and read away the afternoon.  

“Can I read with you?” he asks him, this droplet of sunshine in the shade.

He peers up from his book, blinking his long, dark eyelashes with a tempered expression. “Sure,” he says.

Cyno settles in next to him, and cracks open ‘The Tale of Shiryueh and Shirun, Volume One.’ Neither of them speak to each other, yet Cyno feels at peace, wrapped up in the warmth of happiness as tightly as a mother’s embrace.

They sit like that for thirty minutes, hardly a word between them, until a tall woman with ears and a tail just like the boy beside him approaches them, waving to catch their attention. The boy’s adorable ears swivel as he hears her, the tip of his tail twitching.

“There you are, Tighnari,” the woman says. “You’ve been out here all afternoon. Oh, and who is this?”

The boy—‘Tighnari,’ a beautiful name befitting a beautiful soul—turns to look at Cyno, truly look at him for the first time since he sat down, and a glimmer of sunlight glistens in his eyes, dancing like dawn across water.

“Cyno,” he says, and stands up, returning to his mother’s side. When he looks at him next, the glimmer is gone. “It’s dinner time now. I have to go.” He says this with utmost seriousness, without his mother’s prompting, and when Cyno glances at her he can see her stifling a giggle.

“Can we play again later?” Cyno asks.

Tighnari’s mother answers for him, “He would love to.”

Cyno returns home to his guardian with a skip in his step, and regales him for the next hour about the boy he met in the park, and how he would like to marry him.

***

Cyno learns that Tighnari, like him, is not very sociable, and his mother is very excited for him to have another boy to play with—or, to be more precise, read with. He doesn’t tend to smile, even though they have fun together. Cyno learns that Tighnari is very interested in plants and nature, and aspires to be a botanist. He is also two years younger than Cyno, but exceedingly intelligent, and considerably more mature.

“But we are in the same grade,” Cyno points out as they eat popsicles together under the shade of the same tree where they first met.

“My teachers advanced me academically,” Tighnari says without even a hint of pompousness.

“Wow.”

“They called me a ‘prodigy’ and said I would ‘go far.’ But I just want to learn at my own pace.”

“Well, I’m happy that you’re a ‘prodigy,’” Cyno says, resting his head on his knees so he can peer up at Tighnari’s serious little face as he stares at the ground, “because that means I get to spend more time with you.”

Tighnari still does not smile, but a small blush rises to his cheeks, which speaks just as loudly.

***

“Cyno, can you tell me anything about these plants?”

Tighnari opens his book—the one he had been reading the day they met—and presents it to Cyno, pointing to a spread of accurate artistic renderings of various desert plants. Cyno peers at them, and certainly recognizes a few, but is only learning the names of many for the first time today. His eyes graze the pages until they fall upon one he knows well—a large shrub with thick, brown stems and broad, cream-coloured leaves—and he points it out thusly.

“I recognize this one. But I’m not familiar with this name.”

Tighnari peers over the book and reads for him, “Macropteryx tanitarum.”

The name means nothing to him even spoken, but he is impressed that Tighnari is able to speak such complicated words without so much as stumbling over the syllables.

“We don’t call them that,” he says. “We call them ‘Chilling Sand Grilling.’”

Cyno watches Tighnari’s face carefully, as he has done for every second he has spent basking in his presence, and notices the corners of his mouth quirk up imperceptibly.

“What do you use them for?” he asks.

“The leaves are cold. Desert travelers use them to keep cool.”

“That’s so interesting.” Tighnari’s small finger traces the illustration in his book. “I hope I can see them in person, one day.”

Cyno reaches out to clasp Tighnari’s hand, professing in utmost sincerity, “I’ll take you.”

Tighnari places his hand over Cyno’s. “Do you promise?”

“Yes. And so you know, I never break my promises.”

There is a beat of silence, upon which Cyno waits for Tighnari to inquire about the strange local name of the plant, and when he does not, he prompts, “Aren’t you going to ask about the name?”

“Oh, sorry.” Tighnari tilts his head, his large ears flopping over adorably as he does so. “What’s with the weird name?”

“Well, my grandpa would use the leaves to keep meat chilled until we could cook them. So I started calling them ‘Chilling Sand Grilling.’” Tighnari continues to look at him imploringly, and Cyno feels emboldened. “Do you get it? Because they grow in the desert, and it’s sandy, so I replaced the word ‘and’ with ‘sand.’ It’s a joke.”

For the first time, Cyno sees a smile arc across Tighnari’s face like a sunbeam dancing across coffers, and he laughs brightly and openly, a bounty of chiming giggles to bless his ears.

“You’re funny,” he says. “Thank you.”

Cyno spends the following days trying his hardest to hear that laugh again, and is so very pleased to have finally found someone in his life who shares his sense of humour.

***

Cyno has known Tighnari for a little over a month when he approaches him in the woods near their apartment complex and finds him poring over a large cluster of orange mushrooms with a magnifying glass in one hand and a small book in the other.

“Those are huge,” he marvels, crouching behind Tighnari, who does not look up at him.

“These are withered buttershrooms,” he says plainly, holding up the book in his hand. “I’m checking the grass beneath them for spore prints. The spores are bright white.”  

“They look just like the ones you were eating the other night.” Cyno reaches out to touch the cap of one mushroom, finding it both spongy and slimy from the recent rain. “Can I try one?”

Tighnari inhales sharply and smacks Cyno’s hand away, and Cyno yelps, cradling his hand against his chest. When he looks into Tighnari’s eyes, he sees a miasma of volatile emotions simmering beneath the surface.

“Are you serious?”

Cyno blinks in confusion. “Is it poisonous?”

For a moment, Tighnari looks as if he is about to cry, and Cyno does not understand; it is just a mushroom.

“Don’t eat strange mushrooms,” he whispers on an exhale. “Don’t eat mushrooms at all.”

Tighnari stands up, clutching his book to his chest, and storms off, his ears pointed to the ground and tail lashing in frustration. Cyno sits there, gazing between the strange, slimy mushroom and Tighnari’s rapidly disappearing figure, and ponders what about fungi could possibly be worth getting so upset over.

He tries to go to his apartment later to apologize, but is told by Tighnari’s mother that he wishes to be alone, and to try again tomorrow.

***

Yet tomorrow, it is Tighnari who arrives at Cyno’s door, a little after ten in the morning, inscrutable in both expression and body language, and informs him with finality:

“We can’t be friends anymore.”

Cyno’s tiny heart falls out of his chest and sinks into the earth below him; frost encroaches upon the newly vacant void, and he can just barely choke out the word: “Why?”

“Because, I…” Tighnari takes in a deep breath, and it's as he stares directly into Cyno’s eyes that he notices his eyes are glassy, like he’s trying not to cry. “I don’t like you anymore. I don’t like you at all.”

Tighnari looks away from him then, his hands balled into fists at his sides, and Cyno, for the first time since his grandfather’s passing, feels true despair. He stalks away from him, breaking off into a sprint as soon as his feet touch the sidewalk, and the coldness in Cyno’s chest spreads like hoarfrost through his veins, rooting his feet to the ground in blocks of ice.

As quickly as found love for the first time, it was taken away from him, and he is left to wonder what he possibly could have done to deserve such cruelty.

Tighnari moves away two weeks later, just before summer ends and school begins, and Cyno is left to forget about him, the boy he met once on the currents of a warm summer breeze—but even at this young age, he knows that he will remain in his memory for the rest of his life. He will go to sleep every night thinking about the boy who was as verdant as the forest and as brilliant as the sun, and in his dreams he will sit with him, and read with him, and hold him in his arms, basking in his resplendent laughter.

When Cyno is fourteen, he meets him again.

There are many prestigious schools in Sumeru City. It would be completely fathomable for Cyno to never encounter Tighnari again—yet on the first day of his tenth year of schooling, he enters the classroom and comes face to face with large ears, jet black hair, and bicolour eyes wide in disbelief as they lay sights upon each other once more.

Cyno loses himself in them for a moment, those beautiful, nostalgic eyes, until Kaveh comes barreling in behind him and breaks him free from his trance, dragging him towards the back of the classroom.

“Come on, let’s sit near the back,” he says, linking their arms together. They have been friends for a few years now, but Cyno still does not like how physically affectionate he is. There are very few people he enjoys touching.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’? We always sit at the back.”

Cyno digs his heels in, refusing to be pulled any further. “I want to sit up front.”

“Huh? What’s up with you? You usually like your privacy.”

“Yes. But there are also things I like more than privacy.”

He parts from Kaveh, ignoring how he balks at him, and walks to the front of the class, where he slips into the empty seat next to him, the beautiful boy from his dreams, and watches with fondness as his ears twitch at the sound of the chair scraping against the floor.

“Hello, Tighnari,” he says, peering up at him through a curtain of shaggy hair, much longer than last Tighnari saw it. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Tighnari tries very hard not to look at him. “I had a feeling I might.” His voice is only a breath above a whisper, words spoken out of the corner of his mouth as he taps the end of a bookmark on the desk. It’s a dried, copper leaf from a plant Cyno is unfamiliar with, suspended inside clear resin and adorned with a red tassel. It reminds him of a sunset.  

“Are you happy to see me?”

“No,” the denial is quick and deadpan, uttered without forethought.

Such rejection might sting those with thinner skin, but it does not deter Cyno, whose armour is weathered from years of sand and sunburns. “I’m happy to see you. I think about you often, you know.”

It’s these words that finally pull a reaction from Tighnari, a nice one: the skin peeking out from beneath his uniform pebbles and the tip of his tail twitches, though he makes a pointed effort to continuously avoid his gaze.

“You have new friends now,” he says. “I suggest you make memories with them instead.”

“But my memories of you are the sweetest,” Cyno says. “I would love to make more with you over lunch.”

Instructions begin before Cyno can receive a response to his invitation, and with respect for his teacher and his studies, he does not instigate any further conversation during class. But the moment class is dismissed, Tighnari rises from his seat, belongings already packed, and abandons him without so much as a glance.

Cyno stands to chase after him, but notices that he forgot his bookmark on his desk. He picks it up, turning it over in his hands, and slips it beneath the cover of his textbook. He will have to return it to him at lunch.

But when he searches for him on his break, he cannot find him—and the next day, he is informed he transferred to a different class.

Next month, after countless attempts at courtship, he transfers to another school entirely.

Cyno mourns, but he does not give up. The sun will always rise again.

In his inaugural year at the Akademiya, Cyno finds himself sitting behind a pair of exquisite black ears that block out his vision of the professor's podium. Beside him is a classmate grousing about the obtrusiveness, but their grating voice washes out into an incessant drone as Cyno considers how fantastical it is that he keeps encountering Tighnari, despite the universe’s valiant attempts at keeping them apart.

Though he prides himself on being a focused, driven student, Cyno finds it rather difficult to devote his full attention to the lecture when his mind runs amok with thoughts of Tighnari, Tighnari, Tighnari. The lecture ends with the professor assigning a group project, to the disdain of many students, but though Cyno is generally a lone wolf who is not keen on cooperating with others in manners such as this, he could not be happier to be given an easy ‘in’ to speak with Tighnari, the sunbeam that keeps slipping behind the clouds.

“Are you looking for a partner?” he asks, sliding into the seat next to him.

“No,” Tighnari responds with his favourite word, without even looking at him, his grip on his pencil tightening in irritation.

“It’s a group assignment. I didn’t see you talking with anyone else, so I assumed you had yet to find a partner.”

“I have an arrangement with the professor where I will not need a partner.”

Cyno thinks that he could attempt a lie less spectacular than that if he wants to get rid of him. Instead, he teases him, “I forgot that you were a prodigy.”

This makes Tighnari finally turn to look at him. In his eyes, Cyno sees a flame of defiance, one he hopes he never loses. “That’s right, and prodigies have no need for study partners. They only get in the way. Please excuse me.”

Cyno is quite used to Tighnari brushing him off by now, and watches Tighnari depart with haste with a smile on his face, much too cheerful for a man wearing the scars of rejection. 

***

He meets Tighnari again later at the canteen. Undeterred by their earlier interaction—and the one before that, and the one before that—he takes his meal tray and slips into the bench opposite from him. Tighnari is gazing out the window pensively, and jumps when he hears the clack of Cyno’s tray sliding onto the table.

As soon as Tighnari lays eyes on him, his adorable ears flatten against his head, his eyes narrowing in what Cyno assumes is an attempt to look scathing.

“You looked lonely,” Cyno says plainly.

Tighnari stubbornly glances out the window, mouth tucked into the palm of his hand. “I’m not. I’m perfectly content to eat lunch on my own.”

“Mushrooms,” Cyno says apropos of nothing, peering at Tighnari’s tray, which holds a plate with a generous portion of stewed mushrooms. “I forgot you liked mushrooms.”

“I’m studying mycology. We’ll be going on my first foray tomorrow, actually,” Tighnari says with a spark of interest, a flash of excitement, and immediately closes his mouth upon realising that wasn't what Cyno was talking about. He sighs, the tip of one ear flicking in agitation. “You’re very persistent, Cyno. Has no one ever told you that you are annoying?”

“No one has ever considered it a character flaw except you.”

“Well, now you know.” Tighnari stands up, taking with him his tray of half-eaten mushrooms and the warmth beaming through the window. “Please find someone else to bother. It’s about time you move on.”

Tighnari leaves him then, lovely tail swishing behind him in irritation, but Cyno cannot move on. Sun and moon are trapped in an eternal waltz, and one cannot exist without the other.

***

Cyno respects Tighnari’s wishes for privacy during their lectures, though keeps a close eye on him, imagining running his fingers through his silky, lustrous hair, blowing into those sensitive ears until they twitch against his nose, pressing his lips against the sun kissed freckles lighting up the canvas of his fair skin—and eventually it is he who needs to remove himself from Tighnari’s view, as his grades begin to suffer.

Three months blink past, and Cyno is extended an invitation to his first university party, which he had every intention of declining—but he is swayed into attendance by four simple words, said to him with a knowing smirk:

“Tighnari will be there.”

Kaveh knows everything about Cyno’s everlasting, unrequited affections, and has long since given up on persuading him to let them go, having graduated instead to using them as leverage to manipulate him. Cyno doesn’t mind. He would allow himself to be manipulated into unspeakable crimes just for the opportunity to bask in the warmth of Tighnari’s radiance.

Surely enough, Tighnari is present in the dingy, crowded home, and all time slows around Cyno the moment he lays eyes upon him from across the room, his face aglow with a brilliant smile he recognizes only from his fondest dreams. He sips on a drink while he chats with a red-haired woman he recognizes from their shared classes.

Cyno is many things, but he is not a jealous man. Tighnari, however, makes Cyno feel many extraordinary things, and right now, he is covetous. He would do anything to have Tighnari look at him like that.

He lurks in the background like a spinocrocodile haunting the gloomy waterways below the city, waiting for Tighnari to finally be alone before he approaches him, full of the confidence only three drinks can instill in a young man still suffering the fresh sting of rejection.

“I didn’t know you could smile like that. Is it just me that makes you look so sour?”

Tighnari is standing with his legs crossed at the ankles, leaning against the archway into the living room as Cyno approaches him, and barely looks up from his phone as he speaks to him. “That’s right.”

But this time, Tighnari utters such harsh words with soft, curious eyes, and does not turn away from him. Such a gaze reaches through Cyno’s chest and grips his heart, squeezing it until it flutters, and even through his liquid courage, he flounders for words, scared to let this opportunity slip through his fingers.

“I'm not sure what I did to make you hate me,” he settles on after a moment, “but I’m still very fond of you, you know.”

Tighnari’s eyes glint in the low, amber light. “I don’t hate you,” he says, taking interest in a spot on the wall behind Cyno. “You are just…”

Cyno stares at him imploringly; he is not sure what words he hopes to hear from him.  

“A lot.”

“’A lot’?”

“Yes. Too much. Overbearing. Like harra fruits.”

“But harra fruits are Sumeru’s national fruit. Beloved by many, with many uses.”

The smallest of laughs leaves Tighnari, nothing more than a soft exhale from his nose. “You’ve got me there.”

The laughter leaves Cyno emboldened and, putting on his most charming face, he presses his luck. “How about we get dinner at Lambad’s this Tuesday? To show you all the many uses of harra fruits.”

Tighnari stares at him, tilts his head, the corners of his lips quirked into the silhouette of a smile, and butterflies dance inside of Cyno’s stomach.

“If you get me another drink, I’ll consider it,” he says.

Somehow, Cyno manages to restrain himself from shouting in joy, from sweeping Tighnari into his arms and declaring his love in front of all his peers. In a truly miraculous display of showmanship, he says in an even, suave tone, “Of course. What would you like?”

“Mulled wine.”

“Mulled wine?” Mulled wine is not a common drink, here in Sumeru city. Cyno has not seen it since his trip to Mondstadt during Ludi Harpsatum as a youth.

“Yes. Made from peaches.”

Though he is not very familiar with the drink, he is fairly certain it isn’t made with peaches. “They have it here?”

Tighnari’s ephemeral smile flickers, like a ghost in a mirror. “They do. A large serving bowl in the kitchen.”

“Okay. I’ll go get a glass for you. Wait right here, I’ll be right back.”

Cyno hurries to the kitchen, fearful that if he dallies, Tighnari might tire of waiting and leave before he returns. But when he arrives, he searches high and low for a large serving bowl of mulled peach wine, and finds nothing. He stops the host and asks after it, and is met with a bewildered gaze.

“I don’t even know what that is,” she says, and the butterflies in his stomach perish.

He rushes back to where he had left Tighnari, and sure enough, he is not there when he returns. He asks after him frantically, and is told that he left looking rather morose, claiming that he was feeling unwell.

Cyno leaves the party early and huddles under his covers for the remainder of the weekend, and when questioned about his reclusiveness by Kaveh, claims that he drank something that gave him terrible heartburn, and it simply will not go away.

***

“Where’s Tighnari? I haven’t seen him for a while,” Cyno finally gets the courage to ask Alhaitham after two weeks without seeing Tighnari in their shared classes, though in his heart he knows the answer to his question.

“I heard he enrolled at the campus in Port Ormos instead. I’m not sure why, it’s the inferior institution.”

He allows Alhaitham to prattle on about why the Port Ormos campus is not worthy of such a bright student, but retreats into the cold, empty recesses of his mind, where he mourns the fact that no matter how gallantly the universe attempts to draw them together, no matter how tightly wound their fates, Tighnari will always find a way to sever the gossamer thread that binds them.

Four years pass after graduation, and Tighnari becomes less of an infallible god in Cyno’s mind and more of a passing memory, something he looks back on with fondness and nostalgia, and a sharp pang of longing. It has been eight years since he last entered his orbit, and he has begun to entertain the idea that perhaps his fancies of being fated are just that—fancies.

He secured a job with the matra fresh out of the Akademiya, and quickly rose the ranks to detective. He has been offered a promotion several times since then, but always politely declines; he enjoys the investigatory nature of being a detective. It suits him, being the first one on the scene, to piece together evidence and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Most of the crimes he is called to investigate these days are quite petty: accusations of stolen theses, domestic property disputes, and other pedestrian whodunnits he can solve in an afternoon. It has been quite a while since he has last had a challenge, and that is why, when he is approached late one Monday morning with a report about the theft of a rare plant from the Pardis Dhyai Botanical Research Conservatory, he feels like he has just been presented with a box of treasure. For a theft to occur right under the nose of one of the most protected research facilities in Sumeru is unprecedented; such a heist could only be executed by a thief most cunning.

He takes up the case gladly and, after familiarizing himself with the basic details, travels to the conservatory to meet with the individual who reported the crime and begin his investigation. He hasn’t been to Pardis Dhyai since his second year in the Akademiya as part of one of his Amurta courses, and takes a moment to admire its beauty and extravagance before entering. The sprawling conservatory is a marvel of Kshahrewar architecture, one large, central building branching off into seven separate, geometric greenhouses, nestled into the mountains of the Ashavan Realm. He had forgotten its splendour.

But when he walks through the gilded glass doors into the facility and lays his eyes upon the slender body of a young man with tall ears, a luxurious tail, and fair skin more freckled than he last recalled it, he realizes that the beauty of the conservatory must not be so magnificent, for true beauty is unforgettable. 

“Tighnari.”

His name leaves Cyno’s lips unbidden, breathlessly with a kiss of reverence. Tighnari, the same as always, yet different; flourished stronger, tall and poised, a blaze of sunlight reminding him that he spent the past eight years in shadows.

He has his back turned to him, bent over the information desk engrossed in what appears to be a large encyclopedia. Cyno remains still for far too long, transported back eight years, sitting in a lecture hall daydreaming about running his hands through his hair, fur, down his back, over his waist. He longs to embrace him from behind, sweep him off his feet and rejoice in his reprise, to weave him back into the ballad strumming at his heartsrings.

But he is a professional; he is here, first and foremost, as a representative of the Sumeru matra, and though his heart pounds ardently in his chest, desperate to burst forth and bask in Tighnari’s glow, he must focus on the task at hand.

Tempering his excitement, Cyno approaches the information desk, where Tighnari continues to pore over the book in front of him, without acknowledging his existence. He experiences a brief moment of déjà vu, and his heart smiles.

“Excuse me,” he says gently, “I’m with the Sumeru matra.”

“About damn time,” says Tighnari, without even looking up from his book. "Is this your regular response time? Because I am not very impressed—”

The moment Tighnari whirls around and comes face-to-face with Cyno, his disdainful expression falters, his eyebrows shoot up into his hair, and his eyes—as mesmerizing as he remembers them—fly open in surprise. He looks at him as if in utter disbelief that their paths might converge again, but Cyno knew, deep down, he knew. He would always find his way to him again.

“You—”

“Hello, Tighnari. It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?”

Tighnari’s face runs the gamut of emotions in the following moments—surprise, incredulity, frustration, and for a moment, Cyno lets himself believe he sees in those beautiful eyes a flicker of delight. Soon, however, he regains his composure, and looks at him askance with a deep sigh.

“You’re with the matra?” he asks, his voice pinched and irreverent and exactly as wonderful as Cyno remembers it.

“I am indeed.” Cyno pulls out a badge from the front pocket of his sumpter beast leather jacket and shows it to Tighnari. “Investigations unit.”

Tighnari makes a disapproving sound, crossing his arms over his chest. “Figures.”

“Were you hoping for someone else?”

In the cool daylight filtered through the frosted glass of the conservatory’s vaulted ceilings, Cyno swears he sees a touch of pink rise to Tighnari’s cheeks. The tip of his left ear twitches, his tail agitates, and he pinches the bridge of his nose as he appears to fight with himself.

“Why is it that everywhere I go, you show up? Did you organize this theft just to weasel your way into my life again?”

“I would never do such a thing. I suppose this just means we’re connected.”

“I don’t believe in fairytales, Cyno. I suggest you grow out of them as well.”

“Fairytales? This is simply magnetism.”

Tighnari parts his lips to argue with him again, but seems at a loss. There is a flash of something in his eyes, but he looks away before Cyno can determine what it might be.

“Never mind. Now that you are finally here, you have work to do.” Hiding another deep sigh, Tighnari gestures for Cyno to follow him, and leads him through the vast foyer and down a long hallway into a greenhouse labeled with a glass plaque titled ‘INAZUMA.’

“I'm assuming you’re familiar with the details of the crime?” he asks.

“Of course.” Cyno pulls out a pen and notebook from his jacket pocket, commencing his formal interview. “This is where the plant was taken from?”

“Correct. The conservatory is split up into seven separate greenhouses for each unique nation. The greenhouses are then divided further into sub-biomes, designed to simulate the native climate of the plants in our care.”

“Fascinating.”

“It is truly a testament to how far technology has come. I can only imagine how envious botanists of the past would be.” Tighnari looks wistful for a moment, before shaking himself free of his thoughts. He slides a key card across a panel, which unlocks the greenhouse with a beep, the glass doors sliding open; Cyno is immediately hit with a wave of sweltering humidity as he steps inside, and the hair at the nape of his neck curls. The rainforests of Sumeru are quite humid, but the lack of airflow in the greenhouse makes it stifling.  

Tighnari leads him down a cobbled path into a subsection of the greenhouse labeled ‘CHINJU FOREST’; they pass through a stone archway, and the humidity—quite mercifully—lessens immediately, replaced with a cool, crisp atmosphere, a light, floral scent washing over him and invigorating his senses.

“The stolen plant is Cendanthous luctuosa,” Tighnari explains, bringing Cyno over to an exhibition of stunning, lush plants partitioned off by a black rope, “known more commonly as the Inazuman night flower. I suppose, to be more precise, they have stolen plants—plural. Dug up the bulbs from the soil.”

Cyno peers at the conspicuously barren patch of soil at the front of the exhibition. “Why would someone want to steal flowers?”

If Cyno thought Tighnari seemed vexed before, he appears downright scornful now.

“Is that a serious question? Do you know where you are? This isn’t a horticultural greenhouse, or a plant store, or a florist’s: this is a protected botanical conservatory. Many of the plants here are, if not scientifically or medically significant, extraordinarily rare—and often endangered!—species.”

Tighnari seems incensed, and Cyno feels like he accidentally stumbled over a landmine.

“I suspect this species was stolen because there is a myth that their anthers can be used to cure arthritis—which is why the flower is endangered to begin with—but had the thief bothered to do even cursory research, they would know that such claims have been disproven ten times over, in multiple reputable scientific journals. And the species requires such specialized care that I doubt whatever incompetent lout stole the bulbs will be able to replicate them. They will be dead within a week. Dead!”

Tighnari rambles on about the plant, how it has never been able to grow outside of one forest in Inazuma, with the exception of a handful of dedicated conservatories just like this one. His tirade quickly dissolves into botanical jargon that Cyno is unfamiliar with, and he finds his thoughts beginning to drift, but Tighnari soon seems to realize that he is rambling and stops himself with a huff.

“I apologize if my question was offensive,” Cyno says with an insouciant smile, “but that’s very informative. It sounds like it’s a very valuable plant indeed.”

“Yes, well, that’s putting it mildly,” Tighnari looks away with a fetching blush tinging his cheeks, tightening the elastic tying back his long hair. “It’s integral we recover the plant as quickly as possible, before years of dedicated cultivation are down the drain. Not to mention millions of mora.”

“In a matter of such urgency,” Cyno says, “I feel it’s best we start work immediately. I have a bit more information to gather from you, but it’s past noon now. What do you say we discuss this over lunch?”

Tighnari looks almost affronted. “Are you asking me out to lunch?”

“Professionally.”

“Professionally.”

“Yes.”

It is far from couth for a detective to organize an interview off the premises of a crime anywhere but at the matra headquarters, but Cyno is quite good at bluffing, and hopes that Tighnari will not call him on it. Not that he has any intention of crossing professional boundaries; he does not want to prove himself unscrupulous. He simply wishes to have Tighnari to himself for a while.

But Tighnari is as prickly and clever as always, and sees right through his ruse. “Forgive me, for I am not a matra,” he says coolly, “but I don’t believe taking your witnesses out on a lunch date for questioning is proper protocol.”

Cyno holds up his hands in surrender. “Ah, you caught me. You might make for a good detective, Tighnari.”

Tighnari mimics laughter—a dry ‘ha, ha.’ “If there is anything else I can help you with, I’m sure I can do it for you here.”

“Certainly. I apologize for my misconduct.” Cyno flips the page on his notebook, looking at Tighnari with a shameless smile. “What time did the theft occur?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Tighnari snaps. “Sometime between last night, after we locked up, and four hours ago, when I checked the greenhouse and found it missing.”

“Do you think it’s possible the theft was executed by someone working within the conservatory?”

“I suppose nothing is impossible, but I highly doubt it. Everyone here is not only devoted to the conservation of these plants, but knowledgeable in the species’ unique husbandry requirements. Unless someone has developed their own highly specialized greenhouse to take care of it in, I can’t picture anyone here taking it.”

Cyno nods. If all the researchers here are as dedicated and passionate as Tighnari, then it does seem unlikely that they would be behind the theft, yet he must perform his due diligence. “I will still have to conduct interviews with your colleagues.”

“I would expect nothing less. I’m sure they will all be happy to cooperate with you.”

“Now, besides your colleagues, do you know of anyone who might have motive to steal the flowers?”

Tighnari looks pensive for a moment. “No,” he says after a few beats of silence. “As I mentioned earlier, this species has been falsely purported to have use in folk medicine. Beyond that, it has also been featured in several pop culture articles recently, which might have brought it back into the spotlight for poachers. Whoever stole it, I suspect they are doing so in hopes of profiting from it.”

“Human greed does know no bounds,” Cyno says solemnly, and the two of them share a moment of quiet disdain for their fellow man. After he finishes jotting down these initial statements, he places his notebook back in his pocket, and says, “Now, I've noticed that there are security cameras present. I'd like to start there.”

“Fine,” Tighnari says. “Follow me.”

Tighnari leads him through the building, walking rather quickly in order to keep deliberate space between them, but Cyno has never minded watching Tighnari from behind. Rigid as his posture might be, time has been kind to his body.

He brings him to a small room in a dark hallway near the back of the central building, labeled ‘Camera and Control,’ and unlocks it with the key card on his lanyard.

“They’re all in here,” he says. “No one has taken a look through them yet. We were told to wait for you.”

Cyno hums thoughtfully. “That’s all right. Let me take a look.”

He’s quite familiar with systems like these, and on the surface, this one is hardly different from all the others he has used. He’s quick to familiarize himself with the small differences, and starts looking through the records.  

“Beyond these cameras, I assume the conservatory is under surveillance of a security system?”

“Of course. It was developed by some of the most esteemed Kshahrewar engineers and installed roughly a decade ago.”

“Very impressive.” Cyno clicks through the records, stroking his chin in thought. “And around what time does the last employee typically leave for the night?”

“Researchers and conservationists are usually all out of the building by nine thirty, and custodial staff by ten. Occasionally someone might leave a bit after that, if there’s something they haven’t finished attending to.”

“And do you also have human security present after hours?”

Tighnari falls silent, and for a second Cyno believes he looks embarrassed. “No,” he says, “there hasn’t been a need for it since we installed the security system.”

“It’s easy to become reliant on technology, these days,” he says. “Don’t feel bad.”

“We have had attempted break-ins before,” Tighnari explains, “and the system has always caught and restrained the offenders until the matra arrived. Every attempt at interfering with the system has been unsuccessful. So far, it has been much more reliable than previous human security ever has been.”

“Let’s see what could have caused the failure, then.”

Cyno starts playing the footage from seven PM the previous evening, and watches researchers and other employees perform duties as is their standard, from cleaning the greenhouses and tidying up workspaces, to ensuring everything valuable is locked up and the security system is set. The last employee seems to leave at a quarter past ten, at which point the cameras are all quiet, punctuated only with the soft drone of equipment and the rhythmic flashing of the red lights on the camera mounts, indicating the security system is activated.

But at shortly after eleven, the cameras are disrupted by a sudden crack of purple light, loud and abrupt enough to make both Cyno and Tighnari recoil from the screens. After that, the visual feed is taken over by static, though audio remains. The disruption was clearly caused by electrical interference, but an unnatural one, and Cyno’s experience and intuition tells him that it is likely the result of an Electro Vision. Though it’s currently the rainy season in Sumeru, and it had been storming at the time of the disruption, a bolt of lightning is highly unlikely to cause such catastrophic failure—not in a system as sophisticated as this.

The thief is quiet, for the most part; all that can be heard are hollow footsteps down empty hallways, the soft shuffle of doors sliding open and shut, and finally, when the thief presumably enters the Inazuma greenhouse, a casual humming and whistling—which reveals that their suspect is a man.

Cyno glances over at Tighnari, who is practically vibrating with rage as they listen to the thief place what sounds like tools down on the ground, clearly preparing to dig up the flowers; his tail has puffed up to twice its normal size, and his hands have balled into fists at his side. Cyno feels a pinprick of guilt for thinking he looks adorable like this.

The blackout continues for roughly thirty minutes, until they hear the front doors again open and close, and after another ten, silent minutes pass, the camera feed sparks back to life, like nothing had been remiss at all.

A few beats of silence follow after the camera feed returns, and Tighnari breaks it with a particularly rancorous: “Motherfucker!”

Cyno does not remember Tighnari having such a filthy mouth, but cannot help but find it endearing. He obscures his fond smile with his hand, watching as Tighnari huffs and puffs, and barely restrains himself from knocking over an assortment of expensive equipment.

“I can’t believe this,” he seethes, pushing back his bangs in exasperation, pacing the cramped space. Cyno is distracted by the way his tail bounces as he moves. “Someone is blessed with a Vision, and they—they use it to do something like this? Steal protected plants?”

Cyno is unsurprised to find that Tighnari came to the same conclusion regarding the power behind the interference. “A sad fact of life is that a god’s blessing is not always enough to keep someone on the path of virtue,” he says.

Tighnari scoffs, glaring into the distance. “Don’t let me see this man when you apprehend him,” he says, “because I’ll probably kill him.”

“Noted.” He also makes a note to never incur Tighnari’s wrath, and is pleased to know that he must not be truly hated, after all. “Would I please be able to get a copy made of these tapes? From nine PM to one AM shall do.”

Tighnari sighs, centering himself with a deep breath. “I will ask surveillance to do that for you,” he says. “Is there anything else you need from me?” He seems quite eager to leave; whether it is because he must vent his rage elsewhere, or because he is simply uncomfortable in Cyno’s presence, he isn’t certain. He chooses to believe the former.

“For now, no. But I may need your help again in the future. You are our primary witness, after all.”

“Sure. Great. I work until nine.” Tighnari turns to leave, but Cyno stops him.

“But I do need your phone number. That is, in fact, proper protocol. In case I need to call you with questions, you see.”

Tighnari stares at him, unimpressed, but holds out his hand expectantly. Cyno hands him his phone—his personal phone—and allows Tighnari to add his number to his contacts.

“If you text me ‘hey, what’s up?’ at midnight even once, I’m reporting you to your superiors,” he says, pushing the phone back in Cyno’s hands.

Cyno places a hand over his heart and bows his head chivalrously. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Tighnari looks him up and down once, one groomed eyebrow arched in disapproval, and leaves him with a scoff. Cyno doesn’t mind his abrupt departure; this is the most Tighnari has spoken to him since he was a child, and even should they never speak again outside of this case, he will treasure this interaction for the rest of his life.

Locking away his rekindled passion for now, Cyno steps easily back into his detective persona, and continues his investigation by interviewing the other employees present at Pardis Dhyai today. None of them are even remotely suspicious—all upstanding and passionate researchers—and seem to corroborate what Tighnari told him: the flowers are very rare, very difficult to care for, and they are all bewildered that they could have been stolen right from under their noses. But not one of them had seemed quite as incensed as Tighnari.

He thinks back to the day Tighnari decided to end their friendship over mushrooms, and cannot say he is surprised. He has always taken these things very seriously.

He inspects the security system next, and after a thorough examination, determines that there has been no permanent damage to any of the equipment. He finds the head of surveillance once he is finished, and after receiving the tapes he requested, asks if they had ever had any trouble with electrical interference before, and is unsurprised to be told ‘no.’ That only confirms that whatever caused the shortage had nothing to do with last night’s storm, and whomever tampered with it was quite intelligent, and not your average thief—likely an Akademiya graduate, and one in possession of an Electro Vision. Quite unusual indeed.  

His last—and most important—order of business for the day is examining the scene of the crime itself. There isn’t much to it on the surface, but things are never quite as shallow as they seem. He inspects the disturbed soil—or rather, the lack of it; someone took great lengths to ensure, aside from the flagrant gap in the display, everything was in its proper place before departing. There are no dirty foot or fingerprints, none of the other nearby plants have been disturbed, and not a root nor bulb has been left behind from the stolen flowers. Whoever did this was not in a hurry; they knew they had the time to take care and clean up after themselves.

Time passes him by quickly, and before he knows it, it is nearly nine o’clock, and he is informed by the custodian that he will be locking up the conservatory soon. Having gathered a decent amount of information, he thanks the custodian, does one more cursory glance for any details he might have missed, and heads on out.

When he exits the building, he finds Tighnari huddled right outside clad in a large, navy blue raincoat, scowling down at his phone. It’s storming, a steady, heavy downpour descending from the sky in curtains, and it does not seem like it will be letting up anytime soon.

“Why the long face, Tighnari?”

Cyno had hoped to surprise him, but Tighnari does not so much as flinch as he approaches him, scrolling through his phone as his tail thrashes in agitation.  

“My Tirevat driver canceled,” he mutters. “This is the second one. I know it’s pouring, so everyone and their dog wants a ride, but—”

“I can take you,” Cyno offers, perhaps a bit too eagerly. This finally makes Tighnari glance up at him.

“You can take me,” he repeats impassively. “I feel like I should have known you would say that.”

“I don’t mind. You might be waiting here a while otherwise.”

Cyno expects Tighnari to say something along the lines of, ‘waiting in the rain is preferable to being stuck in a car with you,’ or something equally scathing, but to his surprise, all he says is:

“I don’t live close by.”

“The distance doesn’t matter to me.”

Tighnari sighs deeply, picking at his thumbnail as he gazes out into the pouring rain, before he pulls up his hood and gestures into the parking lot. “Let’s see your swanky car, then, mister matra.”

Cyno’s black coupe is not, in fact, ‘swanky’—it is not as though he is raking in mora, working as a detective—but it’s clean, and comfortable, and he is nearly giddy with excitement to share it with Tighnari. Tighnari shakes out his tail before he gets inside, collapsing into the seat with a heavy sigh. Dark wave starts playing from the speakers when Cyno turns on the car, which he turns down, so as not to disturb Tighnari’s sensitive ears.

“Did you discover anything?” Tighnari asks him as Cyno pulls out of the parking lot.

“A few clues, here and there,” he replies, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “I have much more work to do.”

Tighnari makes a small, noncommittal noise, gazing out the window with his chin propped in his hand. “It’s very important to me that we get these flowers back,” he says.

“I’ll ensure that you do. You have my word.”

Tighnari falls silent until Cyno pulls onto the freeway and requests directions to his home, which he plugs into his GPS. He indeed lives quite far away, all the way near Gandharva Ville, but he doesn’t mind. The rain, while heavy, is steady and relaxing. He’s always liked driving in the rain, and with a sliver of sunshine sitting adjacent to him, he doesn’t even need to worry about the gloom.

Much like their childhood ‘playdates,’ the two of them are nearly silent for the thirty minute ride to Tighnari’s apartment. Tighnari scrolls through his phone; Cyno asks him what he’s looking at, to which the answer is “I’m reading an article about genome sequencing for Naphisetta luteum,” and Cyno leaves him to it, losing himself in his music instead.  

When he stops in front of Tighnari’s apartment and puts the car into park, turning to him with a cordial smile, Tighnari stares at him, as if expectant. His stare only becomes more intense as the seconds tick by, and Cyno wonders if he is being evaluated for an exam he is not prepared for.

“Have I got the wrong address?” he asks carefully.

“That’s it? You’re really just going to drop me off?”

For perhaps the first time since the day he met Tighnari, Cyno feels offended. “Just what do you think of me?”

Tighnari parts his lips, half a syllable forming on his tongue before he closes his mouth again. His adorable nose crinkles in thought before he waves his hand dismissively.

“Never mind,” he says, gathering his bag and pulling up his hood once more. “Thank you for the ride home.”

“Of course. And Tighnari?”

Tighnari pauses with his hand on the doorhandle. “Yes?”

“I will get those flowers back to you. I promise.” And so you know, I never break my promises.

Tighnari responds with a strained smile, and shuts the door with haste, sparing him one glance over his shoulder before hurrying into his apartment. He drops his keys once, and Cyno can hear him curse even through the car door. He waits until he is safely inside and turns on his lights before he drives off, and his smile does not fade until he lays his head on his pillow and drifts off to sleep.

With his theory that it is a scholar possessing a Vision who performed the theft, Cyno takes to the House of Daena the following day to inquire after any researchers that might be known to possess Electro Visions. He had graduated with high honours and in good standing with the sages; this, along with his reputation within the matra, meant that it wasn’t difficult to get an audience with the Grand Sage.

Unfortunately, good standing be damned, there are some things even he cannot be privy to.

“We don’t keep records on these things anymore, Cyno,” he’s told. “That was ruled unethical over a decade ago.”

“Yes, I know,” he says. “I’m not asking about records. I’m simply asking if you, personally, are aware of any students or scholars in possession of an Electro Vision. Perhaps those who are in suspicion of other misconduct?”

The Grand Sage hems and haws, pouring himself a cup of tea. He offers Cyno one as well, but he declines. “And you say this is in relation to a theft from Pardis Dhyai?”

“Correct. A very valuable plant was stolen from the conservatory the night before last.”

“That’s quite a feat. I oversaw the installation of their security system myself.”

“It is indeed. The system was disabled by what I can only assume was the power of an Electro Vision, thus my inquiry.”

The Grand Sage sits gingerly in his unnecessarily extravagant chair, high-backed and large enough to appear to be swallowing him. “I understand your concerns,” he says, “but my hands are tied. Legally, I am not able to provide you with this information. I’m sure, being the matra of renown you are, you understand my position.”

Cyno suppresses an exasperated sigh. He had expected this would be the outcome, but it doesn’t make it any less disappointing. He truly did think he might be able to use his connections to sway things into his favour—perhaps that was not only foolish of him, but rather duplicitous.

“I understand,” he says, standing with a polite bow. “Thank you for your time, Grand Sage.”

“Certainly. I’m sorry I could not be of more help in your investigation of this serious crime. However”—the tone of the Grand Sage’s voice makes Cyno pause as he turns to leave—”you might be surprised what you can learn among the civilians.”

Cyno offers the Grand Sage a small smile, and waves genially as he leaves his chambers and the House of Daena.

***

Though he is well aware what the Grand Sage was implying, Cyno’s mood has taken a sour turn, which he is sure is not helped by the fact that he skipped breakfast this morning. It has been a while since he’s been at the Akademiya, so he decides to take the opportunity to browse the Grand Bazaar, hoping he might find something unique to treat himself to.

It’s as bustling as he remembers it, narrow streets filled to the brim with people, all shouting and laughing and hawking their wares. Cyno is thankfully quite a bit taller than many of the people within the crowds, so is able to get a good glance at the vendors’ stalls without having to elbow his way in. As he contemplates purchasing some sumpter beast shawarma, he hears a familiar, agitated voice over the din of the crowd:

“You can’t sell this. It’s not a—yes, I understand you’re an experienced forager, but in this case, you’ve made a mistake—”

Cyno cranes his neck, and sure enough, spots Tighnari arguing with a stout vendor, his ears flat against his head.

“No, I’m not trying to interfere with your business! Would you please listen to me for a moment—”

“What seems to be the problem?”

Tighnari, for once caught unawares, flinches, and both him and the vendor stare up at Cyno with wide eyes as he materializes behind them. He is wearing his matra badge, which seems to frighten the vendor, who shrinks away.

“This—hooligan is trying to accuse me of poisoning my customers,” says the shopkeeper, and Cyno can simply feel Tighnari’s hackles raise upon being labeled a ‘hooligan.’

“It’s not an accusation, it’s fact. These mushrooms you’re selling are not honeycaps, they’re—”

“Withered buttershrooms,” Cyno says. Both Tighnari and the shopkeeper glance at him again. Something odd coalesces in Tighnari’s eyes.

“Yes,” he says slowly. “That’s correct.”

“They’re poisonous.”

The shopkeeper looks panicked. “Well, I forage for honeycaps regularly, officer, and I know my fungi very well.”

“Mistakes happen,” he says, “but this young man is correct. I would pull these from your selection. You don’t want to make anyone ill. They might be able to come after you for damages, if you do.”

Cyno’s last words alone seem to be enough to make the shopkeeper rescind his denial. He watches sweat bloom on the man’s forehead as he scrabbles to remove the offending mushrooms from his display.

“I’m so sorry,” he grovels, “I must have been in a hurry, and my old eyes mixed them up, you see. I’d never want to poison anyone! Oh, no, never.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Cyno says with a calm smile. “Thank you for being so amicable, and try to be more thorough in the future. Have a good day, sir.” Before taking his leave, he casts a meaningful glance over his shoulder, catching Tighnari's eyes.  

Behind him, he can hear Tighnari tear into the vendor one last time, “In the future, the way to tell the difference between withered buttershrooms and honeycaps is that buttershrooms have true gills, free from the stipe, while honeycaps have decurrent, false gills. Which you should be well aware of, being the experienced forager you are.”

Cyno laughs softly under his breath; he’s not sure he’s ever met anyone more passionate about mycology than Tighnari, and he was part of a dedicated Amurta study group during his Akademiya days.

To his delight, Tighnari trails after him once finished his lecture, his ears still flat against his head—as if blocking out noise—and tail bristled. Cyno steps into a side alley for a small reprieve from all the noise, and Tighnari follows; Cyno valiantly fights off the thoughts of pushing him against the wall and kissing him that pop into his head unbidden.

“Thank you,” Tighnari mutters. “Stubborn fool. Profits above all else.”

“You’re welcome.”

A silence falls between them, during which time Tighnari looks slightly uncomfortable, perhaps even meek, before murmuring, “You remembered.”

“Of course I remembered,” Cyno says. “You were very upset back then, when I didn’t know they were poisonous. How could I forget?” So upset, in fact, that you severed our friendship over it.

Tighnari nibbles on his lower lip in thought. “It’s noon,” he says after clearing his throat. “Have you eaten?”

Cyno arches an eyebrow. “Are you asking me to lunch, Tighnari?”

Tighnari turns pink, avoiding his gaze with his lips pressed into a thin line.  

“I don’t believe that’s, what did you say? Proper protocol?”

With an incredulous scoff, Tighnari hits him on the shoulder. “Do you want to get lunch with me, or not?”

Cyno rubs his shoulder, and thinks that he shall wear this bruise with pride tomorrow. “I’d love to. Where to?”

“Let’s just go to Lambad’s. It’s close, and I want to get away from this racket as soon as possible.”

Cyno steps out of the alley, and gestures down the street. “Lead the way.”

***

Lambad’s is cozy, bustling, and aromatic as always, yet there is something especially appetizing about the atmosphere this afternoon as Cyno sits down at a table across from Tighnari. Tighnari drapes his bag across the back of his chair and sits down with a heavy sigh, massaging the bases of his ears with his eyes closed.

“You dislike crowds, don’t you?” Cyno asks, watching him fondly.

Tighnari’s eyes open, and he looks exhausted, like this trip, and perhaps especially his interaction with the street vendor, has taken years off his life. “What gave it away?”

Cyno laughs softly, and fantasizes about reaching across the table and taking Tighnari’s hands, about gazing into his eyes illuminated by the warm light diffused through the stained amber glass windows. Instead, he asks, “What brings you to the Grand Bazaar in the middle of the day? That seems like the last place you and your sensitive ears would want to be.”

“I have the next few days off,” Tighnari says, aforementioned ears twitching as he reads the menu. “I wanted to stock up on sundries for the next week…but that was foolish. I definitely should have just waited until the evening and gone to the store by my apartment.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t.”

Tighnari arches an eyebrow but does not look up. “I’m sure you are.”

Lambad himself comes over to take their order, and Cyno orders their special tahchin, while Tighnari orders mushroom couscous. Cyno smiles, hiding behind his hand, but the moment Lambad leaves, Tighnari pins him with a withering look.

“What? What’s that shitty little smile on your face for this time?”

“Oh, nothing. I’ve never met someone who loves mushrooms more than you, that’s all.”

“They’re just—” Tighnari sighs, resting his elbow on the table and gesticulating as he struggles for words. “They taste good, they’re unique, and their biology is fascinating. There is so much about them we don’t know. I don’t see what’s so wrong about liking them.”

“It wasn’t a criticism, Tighnari.” Cyno’s words are laced with mirth and affection. “I love that about you.”

At the word ‘love,’ both Tighnari’s ears and tail perk up for only a spark in time, before he looks away with a soft huff, pretending to be occupied with a fly on the windowsill.

“What about you?” his tone is almost accusatory. “Why are you here in the middle of the day?”

“Working,” he replies plainly. Tighnari’s cheeks redden at the obvious answer. Cyno has never seen him so flustered.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re taking this theft seriously,” he says, yet the second the words leave his mouth, he seems to regret them, and he adds quickly in a softer tone, “Not that I ever really doubted that you were.”

As much as he’s enjoying watching Tighnari flounder and fluster, the mention of the theft reminds Cyno of something much more important.

“Actually, while we’re here, do you mind if I ask you some more questions about the case?”

Tighnari perks up again, all of Cyno’s potential transgressions forgotten, and shakes his head. “No, by all means. If there’s something I can help with, I would like to. Anything to get the flowers back to me quickly.”

“Fantastic, thank you.” Cyno pulls his notebook out from his jacket, and sets it on the table in front of him, twirling his pen between his fingers. “Do you know anyone with an Electro Vision?” The Grand Sage might not have been able to provide him with this information, but civilians are not beholden to a law against gossip.

Tighnari does not seem taken aback by the question at all. “Yes, actually. Siraj. I used to work with him.”

“At the conservatory?”

“Yes.”

“In what capacity? Was he a fellow conservationist?”

“No, he…” Tighnari looks pained, like he’s remembering a key piece of information that he should have relayed earlier. “He was Kshahrewar. He looked over our security system.”

They stare at each other solemnly for a few moments, before Cyno proceeds, “How long ago?”

“He quit about a year ago.”

“And did he leave amicably?”

“He wasn’t fired, if that’s what you’re asking,” Tighnari says. “But there was…tension. He did not fit in well.”

“Tension? Could you elaborate?”

“The conservatory has been struggling with funds for a while now,” Tighnari explains. “It isn’t cheap, keeping a facility like that up and running. We do receive generous funding from the Akademiya, of course, but energy costs only rise with each passing year, and time has not been particularly kind to the structure of the facility—many renovations are needed throughout it. Oh, you should see some of the dry rot in the Natlan greenhouse, because the insulation between it and the Inazuma greenhouse isn’t properly…”

He catches himself descending into a tangent, and steers himself back on track with a light cough. “Well, we had been discussing ways to better allocate our resources, see where we could potentially cut costs, even considering various fundraisers. Siraj had suggested that we perhaps propagate some of the plants in our care to sell to researchers from other nations.”

Tighnari pauses, and Cyno bids him to continue. “And?”

“I might have…told him that he did not have the academic background nor credentials to be making such suggestions and that would he like a seat at the table, it would need to come with a copy of his Amurta degree. A sentiment which might have been mirrored by some of my colleagues.

“Essentially, he wanted to use the conservatory to turn a profit. I, quite loudly, disagreed with him and his methods, causing the rest of our colleagues to spurn him as well. He had trouble fitting in even before that point—really not a pleasant man, arrogant without the skill to back it up—but things really soured between us after that.” Tighnari trails off, looking pensive. “I feel quite foolish, not thinking of this earlier.”

“It’s all right,” Cyno says, offering Tighnari a reassuring smile. “You were quite upset yesterday. It is not uncommon for witnesses to forget pertinent information during periods of high stress, which is why we collect contact information and do follow-up interviews. What’s important is that you’ve given me this information now.”

Cyno can tell that his words have not assuaged any of Tighnari’s guilt. He stares down at the table, appearing to be fighting with himself.

“Lastly: how did you know he possessed a Vision?” Nowadays, it is uncommon for Vision wielders to be open about their possession; most are unwilling to call the extra attention to themselves.

“He wore it proudly. I thought it was obnoxious, just one more way of stroking his own ego. He really looked down on all of us Amurta, you know? Thought he was saving us with his fancy security system. All he cared about was money. Technology and engineering is profitable, so botany must be as well, right?”

Cyno can tell that Tighnari is gearing up to descend on another tirade, and interrupts him before he can get started. “This is all fantastic information. Thank you very much, Tighnari. You’ve been a tremendous help.” He closes his notebook and places it back in his pocket and, unable to help himself, clasps his hands together on the table and stares at him with an impish smile. “It seems our lunch date interview did have some merit after all.”

“It’s not a—” Tighnari sighs, narrowing his eyes, but he does not finish his sentence. “You’re welcome. If it is him, I’m going to kill the son of a bitch.”

Lambad brings by their food shortly after, and Cyno and Tighnari do not discuss the case for the rest of their meal. For another thirty glorious minutes, Cyno allows himself to believe that he truly is on a date, and warm the cold shadows of his heart that had spent so many years without knowing the majesty of sunlight.

***

After the two of them part ways, Cyno drives down to the matra headquarters with a fire roaring in his heart.

“General Mahamatra,” he says upon entering his office, “I would like you to look someone up for me.”

“Siraj Talpur. Thirty-four years old, graduated Kshahrewar twelve years ago. Known to be stoic and unsociable by his peers. Purported to wield an Electro Vision. Worked at the Pardis Dhyai Botanical Research Conservatory for five years, overseeing their security system. Left one year ago under ‘strenuous circumstances.’ End statement.”

Cyno clicks ‘end’ on his recorder, reclining back in the front seat of his car, which is parked a ways down the street from Siraj’s known address. Given the evidence, he had been granted permission by the General Mahamatra to watch him for any suspicious activity, and arrest him if proven to be in possession of the stolen flowers.

Late yesterday afternoon, Cyno had approached Siraj at his home, though received no response to his call. He then spoke with his neighbours, and though they mostly had nothing interesting to say about him—the standard ‘Keeps to himself, a little strange, but nothing noteworthy. Is he in trouble?’—they did inform him that he was rarely home, and would sometimes return at odd hours of the night. He had peered into his backyard to see if he could spot a greenhouse that might contain the flowers, but saw nothing more than a small, hardy vegetable garden, and that led him to his position now, camped a little more than a block away from his home waiting for him to return.

While this is great progress, it is also sadly one of Cyno’s least favourite aspects of his job. There is nothing more tedious than sitting in a car for an indeterminate length of time waiting for a suspect to do something suspicious. Thankfully, these things are taken in shifts. He will cover the first twelve hours, and then his senior—Taj—will take over for him for the following twelve, and this will repeat until they catch Siraj—however long that might take.

He can’t be afforded any distractions during stakeouts, which is proving especially difficult today, when for the first time in years his mind is swimming in the turbulent sea of Tighnari, Tighnari, Tighnari. Though they have only interacted with one another on a professional basis so far, it is difficult—if not impossible—to prevent himself from dreaming of more.

Time passes with excruciating slowness, and the most exciting thing to enter his periphery is a mother cat carrying her kittens one-by-one across the road—that is, until hour four, upon which time he hears a rap against his window, and nearly jumps out of his skin. His windows are tinted, so no one should be able to see inside, but he can see outside: and to his surprise, he finds Tighnari staring down at him. Though this goes against protocol, for he should be a ghost, and Tighnari is the most distracting of all distractions, Cyno’s heart rules all, and with it hammering in his chest, he rolls down the window just enough to catch his eyes.

“Tighnari? What are you doing here?”

“Am I interrupting important matra business?”

Cyno looks around the empty interior of his car. “Kind of, yes. Can I help you with something?”

“I saw you parked here earlier. When I came back from my walk and found you still here, I figured you might need a pick-me-up.”

Tighnari holds up a small paper bag branded with the logo of a beloved local café, darkened with what he can only assume is grease. Cyno can merely blink at him, his words lost in a gale of bewilderment.

“Mutabbaq,” he says. “I brought you some.”

Cyno adores mutabbaq. Tighnari has no way of knowing such a thing, but Cyno’s heart swells nonetheless, just as his stomach growls. But he tries not to eat or drink during stakeouts, and is also confused by this sudden generosity, and willingness to exist in his presence.  

“What is with the sudden change in attitude?”

“What?” Tighnari takes a step back, Cyno’s words catching him by surprise.

“I’ve gone more than half my life with you tripping over yourself to avoid me, and now you’re going out of your way to bring me a snack?”

Tighnari’s expression mellows, but the angle of his ears betrays his nonchalance. “It’s just…to thank you for yesterday, that’s all.”

Cyno had been under the impression that lunch yesterday was to thank him. He glances between the bag in Tighnari’s extended hand and his face.

“That’s it? Nothing else?”

“Just take it, will you?” Tighnari pushes the bag through the window with a scoff, and Cyno just barely catches it before it spills onto his lap. “Don’t be obnoxious. I have to go. Goodbye.”

Tighnari leaves before Cyno can say ‘thank you,’ and he tilts his head back against the headrest, blowing out a puff of hot air. Such a bizarre interaction does not help tame the fanciful hope cresting in his heart, and it only makes the inside of his car feel even more stifling as he sits here, waiting, waiting, waiting, and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

By hour eleven, Cyno is about ready to dip his head into glacial water just to try and stay awake. Taj should be coming by soon to relieve him, but he can hardly wait the extra thirty minutes. He wants to go home, take a long, hot shower, and fall asleep, in hopes of being well rested for the likely inevitably of repeating this arduous task tomorrow.  

Yet fifteen minutes before he is set to be relieved of his duty, his phone—his personal phone—lights up with a message. Cyno does not have many friends, and most of his communications are done through his work phone; even though he should hold off until he is official clocked out, until there is someone else to pin their eyes on Siraj’s front door, he cannot stop himself from checking to see who messaged him.

Tighnari [PDBRC]

> If you’re off work, do you want to come get dinner with me?

> I’ll be at Aranara, if you’re interested.

And, as he is reading, his mind reeling, a third message comes through:

> Don’t make it weird. I just have a reservation that needs filling.  

Aranara is very close to Cyno’s apartment, close enough for him to walk to. Despite the exhaustion settled into his bones, despite the fact that he has to be back here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, there is nothing in the world that could keep Cyno from taking Tighnari up on this offer. He truly is not sure what is prompting this change in temperament, and a small, logical voice in the back of his head warns him not to trust it—but Cyno has long since accepted that ‘logic’ and ‘Tighnari’ simply cannot coexist in his mind.

So, with fingers so eager he trips over every word as he types them, he replies:

> Can you wait 30 minutes?

He stares at his phone as he waits for a reply, which comes but twenty seconds later:

Tighnari [PDBRC]

> Sure. I’ll be here.

Taj arrives to relieve him at exactly eight o’clock in the evening, and after a brief exchange detailing how absolutely nothing happened over the last twelve hours, Cyno takes his leave, vibrating in excitement. He stops at home first, takes a quick shower, dresses in a casual, but classy blazer and slim-fitting trousers, applies a small spray of cologne, and walks the short distance to the restaurant where Tighnari is awaiting his arrival.

Aranara is an urban, upscale lounge, one Cyno rarely feels at peace patronizing, but when he lays eyes upon Tighnari relaxing on a couch, absorbed in a thick novel with his tail draped over his lap, stroking it in idle thought, his discomfort is immediately overwhelmed by nerves.

This really feels like a date. After all these years, Cyno does not understand why he has suddenly been granted this opportunity, but he would be foolish to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Thank you for waiting, Tighnari,” Cyno says, adopting a suave affectation as he slides in beside him. Tighnari flinches slightly, looking up in surprise, and shuts his book. He almost looks like he hadn’t been expecting him, as though it had been Cyno avoiding Tighnari all these years, leaving him fearful of abandonment.

“It’s fine,” he says, smoothing his hair as his tail slides off of his lap. “I’ve been occupying myself.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Forty-five minutes, give or take.”

That’s a long time to be sitting here by yourself waiting for company, Cyno thinks. It doesn’t seem like he’s eaten anything, either, though a half-empty glass garnished with a small umbrella tells Cyno that he has, at the very least, consumed something.

“You’ve already been drinking, haven’t you?”

Tighnari shrugs, looking coy. “Just a bit.” Given the alcohol on his breath, the glassiness of his eyes, and the brazenness required to ask him out like this, Cyno has the feeling he has been drinking more than ‘just a bit.’

“Ah, was it the liquid courage that let you ask me out?” He props his chin in his hand with a mischievous smile. “Have you secretly been wanting to all these years, but been too nervous?”

Tighnari shoots him a glare. “What did I say? Don’t be obnoxious. My friend blew me off this evening, but I’ve had this reservation for over a month. I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

Tighnari taps his fingers on his cheek, refusing to meet Cyno’s gaze, and he determines that alcohol makes him a very poor liar.

“I see. So I’m a convenient replacement.”

“That’s right.”  

“Well, I’ll take what I can get. I suppose between this reservation and the flowers, my duty is to conveniently replace the things you have lost.”

Cyno had meant his remark to be lighthearted, an amiable joke, but Tighnari’s eyes narrow dangerously, and the ambient temperature drops several degrees.

“What? What does that mean?” He leans in, and Cyno admires the rosiness of his cheeks. “Did you take them, after all?”

“No, Tighnari,” he says, smothering a laugh at his severity, and the odd leap in logic. “I’m making a joke.”

Tighnari scoffs, taking the flimsy umbrella from his drink and flinging it at him. “It’s a bad joke. You’re not funny.”

“You used to think I was very funny,” Cyno says, catching the umbrella and twirling it between his fingers.

“I did not. You’re making that up. Nobody would find you funny.”

A server stops by their table before Cyno can defend himself further, and he decides to drop the topic as he orders himself a drink. He and Tighnari choose to split an assortment of appetizers, all of which end up being a touch too pretentious for his tastes, but with his present company, he could be served cat food and enjoy it. With a few drinks in his system, Cyno is surprised by how easily conversation flows between them, as though the past sixteen years of separation had not occurred at all, and the two of them had simply carried on with their friendship since the day they first met in the park.

By ten o’clock, both he and Tighnari are pleasantly intoxicated and deep in a rabbit hole of frivolous, but enjoyable banter, and though Cyno knows he should, as a responsible enforcer of the law, head home now and sober up so that he might be well-rested for tomorrow morning, he simply cannot think of anywhere else he would rather be.

There is a lull in conversation as Tighnari picks up their tab—‘As a reward for working so hard to catch the thief,’ he had said—and as Cyno stares at him while he pays, he can’t suppress the need to tease him even more, to see if, perhaps, he can finally hear him laugh at one of his jokes again.

“Hey… Tighnari?” he asks, the moment the server departs.

“Yes?”

“Where do rainbows go when they break the law?”

Tighnari stares at him incredulously. “I’m not playing along.”

“They go to prism.”

A long groan.

“Don’t worry. It was a light sentence.”

“Stop! That’s so stupid.”

They stare at each other for a moment, Cyno’s eyebrows wagging playfully, and finally, finally, Tighnari bursts into laughter, and Cyno is transported back in time, under a large tree where an unforgettable dream was born. Tighnari shoves him as punishment, though with a bit more force than he presumably intended, and with his current lack of coordination, Cyno knocks his bag off the couch, and his wallet and the novel he is currently reading spill out onto the floor.

“Oh, shit—” Tighnari gasps, bending down to gather his strewn belongings. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Tighnari hands him his wallet without looking up, but when he picks up the book, he pauses with a sharp inhale. The impact had caused the bookmark to fall from between its pages, and he picks it up, staring at it.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll find my place again,” Cyno says, but as Tighnari turns the copper leaf bookmark over in his hands, he realizes that he had not been concerned with such a trivial thing.  

“You kept this?”

“Well, I never did get a chance to give it back to you.”

Tighnari furrows his eyebrows, and though he is much more expressive, intoxicated like this, Cyno cannot currently understand what he is feeling. He slides the bookmark back in place, and quietly slips it back into Cyno’s bag.

“The tab is paid,” he says. “Are you heading home now?”

Cyno sighs, Tighnari’s words dousing him with the cold reality of responsibility. “Yes. I suppose I should.”

“Would you like company walking back?”

Tighnari’s unexpected words knock out every morose, resentful thought from Cyno’s head, and replaces them with nothing but longing.

“Well.” He had wanted to say something flirtatious, something clever, something seductive, but nothing comes to mind. “Yes. I would like that.”

Though conversation had flowed freely inside of the restaurant, the fifteen minute walk back to Cyno’s apartment is nearly silent. Cyno cannot think of anything to say, his mind swimming, heart pounding, stomach fluttering, and Tighnari seems to be lost in his own mind, staring at the ground. With every step, he drifts closer towards Cyno, and at some point, their hands briefly brush together, and he cannot discern if this is simply from a lack of coordination, or intentional.

When they arrive at his building, Cyno lingers awkwardly outside the front doors, more nervous than he can recall ever being in his life. Chancing yet another rejection, he asks, somehow without stumbling over his words, “Would you like to come up—”

And before he can even finish his sentence, Tighnari says breathlessly, “Yes.”

Silence follows them through the lobby, up the stairs, and into the entrance of Cyno’s apartment, where they stare at each other, a burgeoning heat simmering in the space between them—and Tighnari is the one who crosses the distance, sliding his hand up Cyno’s chest and curling it into his neck.

The familiar setting of Cyno’s apartment fades into the background as he brushes some of Tighnari’s hair away from his forehead, lingering on his cheek, and suddenly there is no crime to solve, no history of frosty rejection, no doubt or hesitation, only a gorgeous man reaching up to cup his jaw, with dark eyes and even darker eyelashes, beckoning him for a kiss.

“You become much more amenable when you’re drunk, you know,” Cyno says, a whisper away from Tighnari’s lips.

“Alcohol loosens lips,” Tighnari replies, “and morals. Now hurry up and kiss me.”

Cyno does not delay, having dreamed about this moment for sixteen years. He snakes a hand around his waist, pulling him close as he finally indulges in his mouth, feeling the touch of bitten lips, the warmth of a sigh, the hitch of his stomach against the palm of his hand. Kissing Tighnari is every bit as wonderful as he had dreamed it would be, and his lips taste like home.

Tighnari is hesitant at first, reciprocal but tense, a nervous hand curling in the lapel of Cyno’s shirt. As he takes Tighnari’s other hand, he feels that he is trembling, and is enamoured with such unexpected sweetness.

“Tighnari,” he whispers against his lips, taking one more kiss before continuing—and then another. “Will you let me take care of you?”

Tighnari huffs out a laugh, quivering in the back of his throat. “Like a pet? Is that a joke at my expense?”

“You’re nervous,” he says. “I want to help you relax. Is that okay?” He curls a hand around the back of his head, and Tighnari leans into the touch, exhaling deeply.

“Do what you want with me. Just for tonight, I’m yours.”

Cyno leads Tighnari into his bedroom, minimally decorated and fastidiously organised, while unbuttoning his shirt with nervous fingers of his own. Tighnari assists in the process, pulling his pants down his hips and shimmying out of them, kicking them across the room.

“You, too,” he breathes against Cyno’s lips, reaching for his belt buckle, which he manages to remove quickly and deftly without even looking at it. Cyno slips his hands under Tighnari’s open shirt, sweeping it off his shoulders; Tighnari sighs into his mouth as Cyno brushes his fingers over his nipples, and though Cyno is content to take his time undressing him, Tighnari seems to be in a much bigger hurry.

In short order, both of them are naked, and Cyno urges Tighnari down onto the edge of his bed, hands caressing his soft thighs as he spreads them apart. He kneels in front of him, gazing upon him as though he is an idol for worship, and in the moonlight streaming through his window, he looks every bit the ethereal god he has revered in the palace of his mind for over a decade. He is almost unnerved by it, his resplendence, this opportunity to worship him in the flesh, and for a moment he can only look at him in awe.

With a soft, fond smile, Tighnari runs his fingers through Cyno’s thick hair, brushing it away from his eyes and curling his hand around his jaw. “Staring at me like this is only making me more nervous,” he says.

He is finally thrown from his trance, remembering his place, his purpose. He turns his head to press a kiss to Tighnari’s palm before he pulls his hand away, and then Cyno has his hands on his waist, and soon his lips, pressing a kiss to a small patchwork of freckles just to the side of his navel. He feels him take in a deep breath, his muscles tense, and he brings a hand to the top of Cyno’s head as he kisses down his stomach, squeezing his waist gently, then his hips, pulling him closer as he finally takes him into his mouth.

Tighnari gasps, his fingers tugging at Cyno’s hair, his toes brushing against his calves. As he works him over with his lips and tongue, he feels Tighnari relax beneath him, slowly but surely, with sweet little gasps and moans, his nails digging into his scalp. He rolls his hips, and Cyno is keen to take him apart like this, euphoric between his legs, but Tighnari tugs on his hair a little harder, pushing him away.

“Come here,” he requests breathlessly, patting the mattress. “Together.”  

Cyno nearly dives onto his bed in his haste to be chest to chest with Tighnari, holding him close against his body. Tighnari claims his mouth, and feeling such reciprocal eagerness has Cyno’s heart full to bursting. He whispers words of adoration against his lips, mind hazy as he slots their hips together, and Tighnari drapes his tail across their bodies, which twitches with every roll of their hips. Cyno’s lips find his neck, which Tighnari exposes to him completely as he tilts his head back against the pillows.

“Cyno,” he whispers, almost cries, and oh, Cyno commits the sound of his name, wrapped in ecstasy, to his memory, so that he might recall it clearly in his dreams. “Cyno—”

“If there’s something you want,” Cyno says, kissing up the column of his slender throat, “tell me. I want to please you.”

Tighnari digs his nails into Cyno’s shoulders and pushes him away, staring at him with dark, heady eyes. “I want you to fuck me,” he says breathlessly. “Please.”

Nothing would have convinced the Cyno of this morning that come evening he was going to have the love of his life naked, flushed, and aroused in the center of his bed, asking to be held by him. He must be utterly stunned, because Tighnari follows up soon after with an unusually demure expression:

“Is that not in the cards tonight?”

Cyno takes in a deep breath, and cups Tighnari’s face, brushing his delicate cheekbone with his thumb. “For you, the deck is always full.”

Though Cyno speaks with utmost sincerity, Tighnari laughs at his earnestness, with soft, crinkling eyes and a warm, affectionate voice. “That’s such a bad line. I don’t know how you can say things like that with a straight face.”

“Deny it all you want, but I have an excellent memory. You’ve always found me funny.”

“Sure. Kiss me again, funny man. Preferably while you put those fingers to good use.”

Not wanting to keep his beloved waiting, Cyno uses his golden fingers, eased by a sweet-smelling oil, to work Tighnari open, drawing more soft cries and whispered curses from his throat and devouring them like chocolates. He is even more sensitive on the inside, his thighs quivering and toes curling as Cyno takes him apart, and soon he is aching, dripping on his stomach, and plants a foot right in the center of his chest, pushing him away.

“Cyno, I can’t wait anymore. Please put it in,” and he requests it so sweetly, Cyno feels it would be criminal to deny him.

He settles right between his thighs and holds up his legs, a task which Tighnari quickly takes over for him, his neck craned as he watches Cyno push inside him with captivation. As he sinks in, a sharp, desperate cry bursts from Tighnari’s chest, and he covers his mouth with both hands, tipping his head back against the pillows.

Cyno stills instantly. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, voice pinched but concern overflowing. Tighnari shakes his head.

“No,” he says behind his hands, “no, it just—you feel very—” Cyno sinks inside him completely, flushed pelvis to pelvis, and Tighnari’s thighs close around Cyno’s hips, his eyes snapping shut as a soft, drawn moan takes him by surprise.

He can’t stand how beautiful he is. Cyno takes one of Tighnari’s wrists, requesting his hand, and when it is given to him, he presses a soft kiss against his pulse. Tighnari’s breath hitches, and Cyno steals his gentle gasp with a forceful, infatuated kiss.

He remains buried inside of him until Tighnari squeezes his thighs and pushes weakly against his shoulders. “Keep going,” he says. “You said you wanted to make me feel good, didn’t you?”

Cyno is spurred into action, devoted to this one and only task, to make the beautiful man beneath him see stars. He kisses him leisurely as he builds a slow, steady rhythm, watching carefully to see what angle and depth makes his breath hitch, what makes him drag his nails down his back, bear down against him and sigh. He is so responsive, speaking literature without words, paragraphs penned with the arch of his back.  

And Cyno is lost in him, drunk on more than liquor, having never felt pleasure such as this, like their bodies are built for each other, meant to reciprocate in bliss for eternities, and he desires nothing more. He feels heat building within him, and realizes that he had been holding his eyes shut when he opens them to discover Tighnari staring at him, pupils eclipsing his beautiful eyes, lower lip drawn between his teeth as he studies him.

“Oh—” His voice falters on a moan, digging his nails into his back, then his shoulder, then the nape of his neck as he pulls him down for a kiss. “Oh, I wish I could have this every night.”

“You could,” Cyno replies too eagerly, too earnestly, too urgently. “I’ve dreamed about holding you under the stars like this my entire life.”

The vulnerability in Tighnari’s eyes goes beyond that inherent to intimacy such as this. “Next to the receding tides?” There is hope in his tremulous voice.

It’s a strange thing to say, but Cyno has never felt happier, so he plays along, resting his forehead against Tighnari’s. “I’ll have to make sure we don’t get dragged out to sea,” he says.

A whimper so quiet Cyno can hardly hear it precedes Tighnari shutting his eyes and tipping his head back against the pillows. He drapes one arm across his eyes to block them from Cyno’s view, but he can tell simply from the rise of his chest and the light hiccups catching in his throat that he is trying to obscure tears.

Cyno comes to a halt, his heart laden with worry, and he strokes Tighnari’s cheek, slipping under his arm to catch a stray tear rolling down his temple. “What’s wrong? I’m sorry, do you need me to stop?”

Tighnari shakes his head with desperate fervor, locking his legs around Cyno’s hips. “No, please, don’t,” he says. “It just feels so good. I—sometimes I cry when I feel good.”

“I’ve always thought it, but you’re very sensitive,” Cyno says so softly it’s only a breath above a whisper. “You don’t want anyone to know it, but I do.”

Tighnari huffs a laugh, lifting his arm just enough to peer at him with one dewy eye. “You know many things about me that you shouldn’t.”

“Do I now? Like how you like it when I do this?”

Cyno grabs Tighnari’s left leg and pulls it higher, draping it over his shoulder as he pushes in at a deeper angle, making Tighnari keen. His toes curl as Cyno takes his neglected arousal into his hand, and he pushes into his fist every time Cyno presses in deep. He reaches behind himself and grips the headboard, his nails digging grooves into the cheap wood frame as Cyno rocks him into the sheets.

“I’m going to come,” he whispers, tears pearling on his eyelashes.  

“Me too.” He has been close for a while, but has been prolonging it, this bliss, not wanting it to end.

“It’s okay if you come inside me. It’s okay, I—I want you to.”

Tonight, Cyno exists for Tighnari’s pleasure; it's only a coincidence that it also includes his own. With a stuttered moan, he steals another drugging kiss as he peaks inside of him, and Tighnari follows suit shortly after, spilling into Cyno’s hand and across his stomach. Tighnari takes his face in both of his hands, kissing him ravenously, hungry lips and teeth oddly juxtaposed with the gentle cries he sighs into his mouth.  

When Cyno regains hold of himself, Tighnari is holding his palm to his cheek; he nuzzles into it, clutching his wrist as he gasps for breath, cheeks pink, hair damp, and so, so beautiful.

“Thank you,” Tighnari says, kissing the heart of his palm. “That felt so good.”

Cyno strokes Tighnari’s soft, flushed cheek gently, wiping away tears. A voice in the back of his head questions if these are truly tears born only from pleasure, but he does not have the confidence to ask. He leans down and kisses his forehead, at a loss for words. Tighnari embraces him, and pulls him down onto the bed, where he loops his arm around his neck, and buries his face in the crook of his shoulder.

“Will you stay the night?” Cyno asks, stroking the base of one of his ears. Tighnari leans into the touch with a soft sigh.

“I don’t think I’d even make it back home,” he murmurs into his neck. “I’m exhausted.”

Excitement threatens to burst forth from Cyno’s like a wild stallion. To hold Tighnari in his arms through the night—he has longed for this even more than he had longed to take him as a lover.

“I can make us breakfast in the morning,” he says, threading his fingers through his hair.

“Sounds nice.”

“And I have a new brand of artisanal coffee from Natlan that I’d love to try with you.”

Tighnari sighs again, going pliant in his arms. With his voice already laced with sleep, he says, “I’d like that.”

“I think we should clean up first, though, before we sleep.”

Tighnari groans, squeezing Cyno stubbornly as he nuzzles deeper into his neck. “No. I’m tired.”

Cyno laughs fondly, caressing his waist, and watches the skin pebble beneath his touch. “I don’t want you to regret this in the morning.”

“I won’t.”

“Is that a promise?”

“I’ll take an extra long shower.”

Cyno wasn't talking about showering—but he takes this as a promise nonetheless that when he wakes in the morning, Tighnari will still be here, warm with slumber and requesting a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

Crisp morning light filtering through his curtains is what wakes him, though the dull throbbing beneath his eyes certainly does not make it a happy awakening. He groans, the sunlight prickling at a burgeoning migraine, but the moment he has enough lucidity to recall the reason behind his headache, he startles awake, rolling over with his heart full to bursting with excitement to see Tighnari resting at his side, to make the hangover worth it.  

But the ethereal world of love and desire he had constructed around himself last night crumbles into silt as he finds the bed empty, and Tighnari standing at his vanity, pulling on his socks.  

This would not be especially abnormal had he not looked like a boar caught in headlights upon noticing him awake.

The adrenaline shocks Cyno awake, and he sits bolt upright, trying and failing to keep his thoughts from spinning, his heart from crystalizing in his chest.

“Tighnari?” His voice is husky and tremulous, and Tighnari’s name feels like shards of glass passing his lips.

Tighnari looks like he’s contemplating fleeing without saying another word, dashing out of Cyno’s apartment like he was running from a ghoul, but mercifully spares him at least a goodbye.

“I have to go,” he says.

“You were going to have coffee with me.” Cyno is not yet awake enough to temper his reactions. He sounds hurt, petulant, imploring.

“I know. I—”

“You promised.”

Tighnari lowers his pantleg and sighs, muttering seemingly without thought, “It’s five-thirty in the morning. You weren’t supposed to wake up this early.”

Anger flares in Cyno’s heart where he does not want it to. His hide should be thicker than this, he should be used to this rejection, yet it has never felt crueler than it does in this moment.

“You were just going to leave then, without even saying goodbye?”

Tighnari looks as though guilt feasts upon him like acid, and inside his wounded heart, Cyno thinks, ‘good.’

“Last night you told me that you wished you could have this all the time,” he presses on, warding off tears that fight to clog up his throat. “Was that a lie?”

“Drunk people say stupid things, Cyno,” Tighnari says, tying his hair in a low, messy bun as he avoids his gaze. “It’s best you don’t put any stock in the words of a drunken fling. It will save you a lot of heartache in the future.”

Cyno rips off the sheets and stands tall, his chest heaving as he smothers the tempest of anguish building in his lungs. “You’re the only one who has ever broken my heart.”

Tighnari looks as though he is fighting with himself, simultaneously hurt and hurtful, fearful but brazen. He looks at himself in the mirror on the vanity, and then meets Cyno’s gaze in it.

“You want the truth?” he asks him, staring into the eyes of his reflection. “This was a mistake. It hurts to look at you, and I don’t want to wake up every morning and feel like I’ve just been punched in the chest.” He turns around then, looking Cyno directly in the eyes, with a flimsy confidence he can see through like the fragile wings of a dragonfly. “Forget about me. I’ve been trying to do you a favour.”

Ire and agony crest in Cyno’s heart, and he bristles, words leaving his mouth without thought as they do so rarely:

“You don’t get to make those decisions for me.” The severity of Cyno’s tone seems to take Tighnari by surprise, and he flinches as he steps towards him. “If it pains you to look at me, if you despise me so much that the thought of being with me disgusts you, then say as much. But do not for one second attempt to make it sound like you are doing this for my benefit. I have longed to have you in my arms since I first laid my eyes on you. You could stab me in the heart and that wouldn’t change.”

Cyno watches tears spring to Tighnari’s eyes, like he is the one being rejected so ruthlessly, being told that he is repulsive. He looks devastated, heartbroken, and Cyno cannot fathom why.

He sighs, stepping to the side, feeling sick now that the rage has passed and transcended into deep, ineffable pain. “You were leaving, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Tighnari whispers. “Goodbye.”

Cyno watches the love of his life breeze past him without so much as sparing him a second glance, and stands stalk still in the centre of his bedroom as he waits to hear the front door open and close. The moment he is well and truly alone, he collapses at the knees, and screams. He shouts with abandon, not stopping even when he hears his neighbour slam on the wall and scold him for his noise at this unholy hour.

To be blessed with a drop of sunlight on his tongue, only to have it morph into molten mercury and scald him—he will never know what he has done to deserve such cruelty. But he would do anything to atone for his sins and be granted another chance to gather sunlight between his hands and press it into the barren wilderness inside his chest, so he might nurture the joy he has been missing for the past sixteen years.

But for now, he still has work to do. Grief will have to wait.

When he had accepted this case, Cyno had done so in hopes that it would provide him with a challenge. It's been interesting, certainly, but as he is forced to sit for yet another twelve hours trapped in his car with his eyes fixed on a static blue door, he ponders how so far the only true challenge he has faced is being granted a true taste of happiness, only to be poisoned with heartbreak the moment he took a sip from the spring.  

Time ticks by in agony. Today, there are no pleasant daydreams for him to escape into as he waits, and it is even harder than usual to keep his eyes open as he watches and waits, his thoughts a roiling sea of grief and anger, made only worse by the dull throbbing beneath his eyes. He wonders which god he must have angered to suffer the same rejection ad infinitum, and at what point he had lost himself to insanity, willingly walking into it every single time.

But regardless of his tumultuous relationship with Tighnari, he has only one goal: to return the flowers to him. He had promised.

Frustratingly, nothing happens today, either, and he’s forced to trudge home with the weight of knowing he must do this again tomorrow crushing his already broken spirits. He sleeps poorly, kept awake by tears he no longer bothers trying to contain, a melancholy made only more poignant by the coldness of his bed, where once he had known warmth.

By the third consecutive day of camping out in his car, exhausted and miserable, he begins contemplating a change in career, but at a quarter past noon, just as he’s considering calling headquarters and requesting a replacement for the day, the universe finally shows him mercy. A car pulls into Siraj’s driveway, headed by none other than Siraj himself, and in a true display of professionalism, Cyno compartmentalizes his grief, and is ready to play the part of a stern and formidable matra once again.

He’s behind him in moments, before he even has a chance to unlock his door, and moves with such stealth that he takes him by surprise; he flinches with a yelp, nearly dropping the large cardboard box he balances in one hand as he fishes for his keys.

“Siraj Talpur? Care to tell me what is in that box?”

There is nowhere for this man to run; Cyno see resignation shadow his eyes the second he looks at him. Cyno is taller, and younger, and much more athletic than he is, and he appears intelligent enough to realize that should he attempt escape, it will only make things more difficult—and painful—for him, and he does not seem foolish enough to unleash power from his Vision on a matra.  

Cyno, having hoped for a physical fight to overwrite his intangible suffering, is somewhat disappointed when Siraj simply surrenders the box over to him—but he understands why when he looks inside of it.

There is nothing to fight for. Inside is a bouquet of withered flowers, dull blue petals separating from their calyxes, long, thin stems only barely attached to desiccated bulbs. This crime has been for naught; all potential profits lay rotting in his hands.

Yet Cyno cannot mock him for his failure. Here on this stoop, there are two men who have failed their duties.  

Siraj confesses that he had been wanting to clone the flowers so to sell them to ‘researchers’ in other nations, as Tighnari had implied, but that while his methods had seemed sound in theory, they did not work out in practice. Cyno arrests him, though it is without any joy or satisfaction. He confiscates the box, reads him his rites, and drives him to the headquarters for further questioning. The Mahamatra takes things over from there, and though the flowers are evidence, Cyno inquires if he might return some of them to the conservatory—and is filled with both relief and remorse when his request is approved.

He sits in the parking lot for twenty minutes before he has the courage to take the box of dead flowers into the conservatory. As he exits his car, a cool drop of rain hits the tip of his nose, and he nearly laughs; how poetic. It’s as if even the skies are mourning.

When he walks through the doors, he finds himself both relieved and forlorn that he does not find Tighnari working at reception, but a woman he doesn’t recognize. Ultimately, he decides, this is for the best; he is not sure he can handle telling him personally that he failed to retrieve the flowers in time, that he broke his promise. He does not need to give him more reason to despise him.

The woman is all smiles when he approaches her, but upon noticing his solemnity, her face also falls. Tighnari was far from the only one hoping for the flowers’ safe return; her disappointment stings almost as badly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, passing the box to her. “The thief is in custody, and will receive punishment to the highest extent of the law.”

“Honestly, I expected this outcome,” she says, picking up a brittle leaf. “They’re very sensitive plants. It’s just a shame, is all.” She sighs, placing the lid back on the box. “Tighnari is going to be so upset.”

For the first time, hearing Tighnari’s name makes nausea billow in Cyno’s throat. “Please extend to him my sincerest apologies,” he says.

“I will. I’ll let him know once he’s finished in the labs. Thank you for working so hard, detective. It’s comforting to know, at least, that whoever stole them will be facing swift justice.”

Cyno bows his head—partially in a show of politeness, and partially to hide the way his eyes shimmer with tears.

“If I might make a suggestion,” she says carefully, “the greenhouses are stunning, and I find them quite relaxing. You look like you could use a bit of a pick-me-up. Why don’t you take a stroll through them? No admission fee.”

Part of Cyno feels like that is a very foolish idea, but she looks at him rather expectantly, the eager eyes of someone hoping their gift will be well received, and nods. Perhaps gazing upon flourishing plants, immersing himself in nature, will lift his spirits, make him feel, if for just a moment, like he is somewhere else. Another world, perhaps, far from here, where he would be able to deliver Tighnari a bouquet of blooming, luminescent flowers, and be forgiven with a radiant smile.

The receptionist was right, at least, that the greenhouses are relaxing. He starts at the far end of the conservatory, and works his way clockwise, admiring the artistry that must have gone into cultivating such luscious greenspaces; he stops to read the informational plaques for each unique species, and imagines Tighnari sitting at a computer, typing them all out in clinical detail.

In fact, he finds his mind wandering to thoughts of Tighnari frequently throughout his tour. ‘Which of these plants must be Tighnari’s favourite? Ah, I recognize this one. It was in the book he was reading when we met. Oh, and this one—it reminds me of his eyes. And this one, it would look so beautiful in his hair.’

By the time he reaches the Inazuma greenhouse, Cyno’s thoughts are so full of Tighnari, of echoes of his smile, his laughter, his beautiful face at every stage of his life, that when he steps through the archway into the Chinju Forest subsection, he wonders for a split second if the figure he sees crumpled in a heap in front of a familiar exhibition is simply a mirage conjured by his fantasies, until the harrowing sound of mournful sobbing knocks him from his reverie and sends him reeling back into cold reality.

Tighnari clutches fistfuls of dry, brittle petals to his chest, weeping openly, the box Cyno had left with reception open beside him. Cyno stops dead behind him, breath caught in his throat.

“Tighnari.” His name leaves Cyno’s lips caressed by compassion and remorse. Tighnari does not so much as flinch at his sudden presence. “I’m sorry I was too late.”

“It’s not your fault,” he murmurs, fingers curling into the remains of flowers that clearly carried meaning to him beyond monetary concern. “None of this is your fault.”

Cyno steps beside him. “May I?”

Tighnari nods. The moment Cyno kneels beside him, he falls against his chest even before he opens his arms to cradle him. Cyno sinks onto the floor and holds him tightly as his quiet weeping breaks into great, quaking sobs, wailing as though he has just discovered his mother dead on the floor, and not a withered plant.

Though he still does not know why these flowers mean so much to Tighnari, why their demise might bring him so much pain, his grief is so palpable that it lances Cyno's own heart, infecting him with an agony that chills his blood into ice. Not knowing what he could possibly do to comfort him, he rocks Tighnari gently, stroking his hair, and simply sits with him in silence, allows his body to be a comforting weight to ground him, to reassure him that no matter what—no matter what—he will always be here to console him.

Fifteen minutes must past before Tighnari exhausts himself, a fragile, shivering mess sniffling in his arms. Cyno brushes his hair away from his forehead, and he finally looks up at him, red-eyed and lachrymose.

“Do you know the story behind these flowers?” he asks, his voice tremulous and hoarse.

“I don’t,” Cyno replies, almost ruefully.

Tighnari inhales deeply, as if steeling himself. He turns in Cyno’s embrace, sitting with his back against his chest, and pulls up his knees, wrapping his arms around them.

“’Of promises unkept, the night flowers speak; for untold eons, the cold blossoms weep.’” He speaks each syllable of the poem like a prayer, and takes a moment before continuing. “They say these flowers glow under the moonlight, mourning the loss of someone adored. Someone who left all too soon, breaking their promise of eternity. They call to the stars, crying, waiting for them to return. But while the blossoms bloom eternally, their love does not return to them. They don’t remember. They are forgotten.”

Every word pulled from Tighnari’s chest sounds more dejected than the last. Near the end, he struggles to speak them at all, his voice brittle—but the way he looks up at him—plaintive, pleading—Cyno cannot help but feel that he is meant to discern meaning he cannot comprehend.  

“I don’t understand, Tighnari,” he whispers, apologizes, agonizes.

Tighnari wilts. His breath hitches again, tears he valiantly tries swallow, and he wipes at his eyes. “No, I… I didn’t expect you to. Not after all this time.”

Cyno presses a kiss to Tighnari’s forehead, his lips lingering against his skin, hoping to breathe in his sorrows, to exchange them for his eternal adoration, so that he might finally find reprieve from the suffocating loneliness that must consume him. But with one last choked sob, Tighnari pushes him away and slips out of his arms like a frightened rabbit. His ears lay flat against his head, his beautiful eyes dim like twilight.

“You should go,” he says. “You’ve solved the crime and returned the flowers to me. I thank you.”

Cyno stands, and feels the deep sting of every single rejection, every proclamation of contempt, every measure of heartache, and finds it hard to breathe.

“I don’t want to leave you, Tighnari. Not like this, not when you—”

“Please, Cyno. Please leave. If you—” Tighnari covers his eyes and swallows a sob, whimpers a sigh instead. “If you love me, please leave me.”

Had Cyno any heart left to break, it would have shattered onto the ground like crystalline glass. “That’s not fair,” he whispers.

Tighnari lowers his hands, and peers at Cyno with eyes that say, ‘Forgive me.’ “Love never is.”

Cyno’s first attempt at words ends with them stuck in his throat, and it takes him a moment to transform his despair into something intelligible.

“I will leave now, because you have requested it of me,” he says. “But I will not give up. So long as I draw breath, I will not give up on you.”

“I know.”

It hurts too much to try and utter the word ‘goodbye’; it is a finality he is not willing to give. Cyno waits until Tighnari turns his back to him before he takes his leave, and by the time he exits the greenhouse, it is storming, and he cannot discern where his tears end and the raindrops begin.

Three weeks pass, and Cyno agonizes. His sleep suffers, for every night he dreams of Tighnari wailing over dead flowers, which metamorphose into slaughtered doves. His work suffers, for every time he looks at his badge he thinks of him, and how this investigation brought him only heartache.

He becomes fearful of sleep, and gives himself over to insomnia. He starts to drive at night, hoping that the steady purr of the engine and rumble of tires over pavement will calm his fears, though it rarely does.

One particularly miserable night, as he drives over a bridge, streaks of colour breezing past him, he notices a figure on the pedestrian walkway to the side. Sad, he thinks. With his sluggish mind, it takes him a moment to consider pulling over to investigate, but when he does a double take, he notices something distinct about the silhouette—two upright ears, and a dark, bushy tail.

The second his rear tires touch pavement, Cyno slams on his breaks and veers into the shoulder. The car tailing behind him lays on their horn, but Cyno could have caused them to go spilling over the meridian and into the water for all he cares. He throws the car into park, blinkers on, and flings open the door, dashing out into traffic without a lick of concern for his own safety, slamming the hood of an SUV in frustration as it just barely avoids mowing him down.

After all he's endured, he will not lose him—not like this.

Cyno charges down the path, the crisp night air burning his lungs and gale lashing against his cheeks. Tighnari is still peering over the railings into the dark waters below, ears flat against his head as the wind billows around him.

“Tighnari!”

Tighnari’s head snaps up, the tear tracks on his cheeks shimmering in the amber lights overhead. Cyno nearly tackles him to the ground as he runs into him, gripping his shoulders so tightly his knuckles glow white, crimson eyes wide in desperation and fear.

“Tighnari, please, don’t—please—”

“Cyno—”

“I—I know that those flowers meant a lot to you, and I can't say I know what is troubling you, but please, please don’t—”

“Cyno—”

“Please, Tighnari, I love you—”

“Cyno!”

Cyno’s mouth snaps shut in response to Tighnari’s commanding tone, mismatched by the softness of his eyes.

“I had no intentions of jumping off of this bridge. I was just looking at the water.”

They stare at each other for a few long moments, the silence filled with the roar of passing traffic, until Cyno discovers his wits again.

“At—at one in the morning?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh… neither could I.”

Taking Cyno by surprise, Tighnari bursts out into laughter, the same bright, bountiful laughter Cyno remembers from his childhood—but it soon transcends seamlessly into tears, and then he is sobbing, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as he bows his head, shoulders quaking with the intensity of it.  

Cyno reaches out for him breathlessly. “Tighnari—”

“Oh, it’s you.” Tighnari looks up, a smile lighting up his face despite the torrent of tears. “It’s always you. How funny, how—how cruel. How wonderful. It will always be you.”

Cyno’s hand falls before it makes contact with him, his mind a tempest of fear, love, and confusion.

“Cyno, will you come home with me? There is something I need to tell you.”

For once, Cyno’s mind is blank. Adrenaline stole all his thoughts, and confusion keeps them from returning. “Yes,” he says, voice so thin it’s barely audible above the cacophony of wind and engines. “Of course.”

Tighnari’s apartment is small, intimate, and fragrant with a light, pleasant incense. Cyno sits down in a comfortable floral chair, hands folded across his lap, as Tighnari makes them tea in the adjacent kitchenette. He stares at a framed photograph of him and his parents; his mother and father stand together, arms linked, smiling for the Kamera, with stone-faced little Tighnari between them. He looks so much like his mother now.

His nerves ruminate in his stomach as he waits, and as Tighnari returns with two cups of steaming tea, he worries they might escape through his mouth. He accepts the drink with a polite nod, and Tighnari sits across from him on a matching loveseat. A painful silence burgeons between them, dragging on for far too many seconds, and it is just as he is opening his mouth to break it with a weak attempt at humour that Tighnari opens with a sentence that sends him reeling:

“Do you believe in soulmates, Cyno?”

Cyno’s foolish words die in his throat, and he stares at Tighnari with wide, bewildered eyes. Tighnari holds his gaze with a flicker of vulnerability and fear, and Cyno is overcome with the desire to kiss his worries away.

“That’s quite a heavy question to lead with, don’t you think?” He regrets the words the moment they exit his mouth, as the anxiousness in Tighnari’s eyes only grows stronger.   

“It’s taken a lot from me just to allow you into my home. Please answer the question.”

He rubs his neck, contemplating the question thoughtfully. “I can’t say I’ve thought about it in those terms,” he answers honestly, “but it might explain why I have always felt so drawn to you.”

Tighnari looks down at his hands, where he runs his ring finger along the rim of his teacup. It must burn, but he doesn’t seem bothered. “You’re right,” he says. “That is why you are drawn to me.”

Each word out of Tighnari’s mouth stuns him more than the last. To have gone from Tighnari doing everything in his power to put distance between them—from proclaiming that it pained him to simply look at his face—to insinuating that they are truly fated after all is too much for his heart to bear. He parts his lips to speak, but none of the words that come to mind seem adequate.

“Please don’t speak,” Tighnari pleads. “Just listen to me for now. Please.”

Cyno nods, taking an internal oath of silence. Tighnari takes in a deep, steadying breath, and Cyno admires the courage it must take to continue looking him in the eyes.

“You are my soulmate, Cyno. You have been for thousands of years, for countless lifetimes. We are always meant to find each other, and to…” Tighnari takes in another deep breath; Cyno can hear it catch on tears. “To love each other. But you aren’t supposed to know that. No one is supposed to know that. Memories of your soulmate should not carry from one lifetime to the next.”

Cyno feels dizzy; his heart rises to his throat, the air in the room suddenly becoming too hot, too heavy to breathe. He can hardly believe his ears, and wonders if this is simply a hallucination his mind conjured after being deprived of sleep for weeks. For soulmates to not only exist, but for Tighnari to be his—surely that is something so fantastical only he could dream it up?

“They…they aren’t supposed to, but—” Tighnari sets his cup of tea down on the coffee table, with hands that shake so badly the saucer rattles. “But I remember. I always remember.”

Silence descends upon them once again as Tighnari puts his head in his hands, fingers curling into his hair as he gathers himself. Nearly a minute ticks by before he lifts his head again, eyes red and glossy as he catches Cyno’s gaze, his lower lip quivering.

“I love you,” he speaks the words as though they wound him, as if he had just coughed up a dagger that impaled his heart for decades. “I have always loved you. I loved you since the moment I opened my eyes and felt the memories of you flow into my heart. When our eyes met at the park, I knew it was you…and I also knew all the pain that has come with loving you, time and time again, for millennia.

“When the Scarlet King exiled my ancestors from the desert, before succumbing to his madness, he placed upon us a curse. Through every reincarnation, we will carry the burden of our memories of our beloved. Every moment of happiness, of frustration, of misery. Every…every time I have loved you and lost you burns in my memory. From the times we grow old together, and pass away knowing decades of love and devotion, to the myriad times I’ve watched you be slain in battle, or die of terminal illness, or—or take your own life, because—”

Tighnari whimpers, and Cyno can remain silent and passive no longer. Wordlessly he sits next to Tighnari on the loveseat, and without so much as putting a finger on him does Tighnari collapse into his arms, and Cyno embraces him, holds him so close he can feel his thundering heartbeat, the sorrow he exhales on his breath.

“I love you so much that I cannot bear the thought of losing you again,” Tighnari wails. “I would rather cut myself off from the warmth of your love than to experience that pain again.

“I thought if I pushed you away, you would forget about me. I would break the cycle. We would hurt for one lifetime and then be free the next. You could—” Tighnari’s voice breaks. “You could find someone else to love, someone better, someone who wasn’t cursed. But you—”

Tighnari chokes on a sob, then another, and looks up at Cyno with pain and desperate adoration, fingers digging into his shoulders. “You always find me. No matter what I do, how cruel I am to you, the universe pushes us together. This cycle, last cycle, the one before that—every single time, you find me, and refuse to let me push you away.

“And it’s funny, isn’t it? How I attempt to stop the pain, but in the end, I love you so much that I can’t stand being apart from you even once. Oh, Cyno, I—” Tighnari braces his forehead against Cyno’s chest, shuddering as he fights so nobly to suppress his tears. “I didn’t know something could hurt so badly, and I would keep doing it. I will keep doing it because I love you.”

Cyno clutches Tighnari’s face and, overcome with love and turmoil and despair and every emotion both fathomable and arcane, kisses him, and Tighnari weeps. He sobs into his mouth, grasping his hands and clawing at his fingers; his tears trickle between their lips, and Cyno tastes his agony.

For sixteen years, Cyno has known the pain and pleasure of loving Tighnari, but he feels foolish now, for his despair, knowing that Tighnari has suffered unthinkable lifetimes of anguish, all to bestow him the gift of his love.

Cyno holds him in silence as he weeps, wishing that he might somehow become a vessel to absorb his pain. He rocks him gently, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, the tears that catch on his eyelashes. He takes his hand and laces their fingers together, places it above his heart, so that he might feel how it races for him. He accepts every word as unquestionable truth, and wishes, more than anything, that he could share in these memories, to know in both heart and mind as well as soul that their love is eternal—that he might shoulder some of the burden.

Tighnari’s tears run dry eventually, and he pulls back from him, sniffling as he stares into his lap. Cyno tips his chin, another deep pang of guilt and shared devastation resonating in his heart as he gazes into his swollen, mournful eyes, and finally finds his words.

“Is there not any way to end it?” he whispers. “The curse?”

Despite himself, Tighnari’s lips curve into a smile, and he laughs. “You ask me that every time.”

“Answer me. Is there?”

His face falls again. “No,” he murmurs. “There is no way to remove the curse entirely. The Dendro Archon attempted to find a way to reverse it, but she could not.”

Tighnari pauses, and Cyno feels his sundered heart stitch itself back together, simply to shatter into a thousand shards of sorrow. Yet, after a few agonizing beats of silence, Tighnari takes a deep breath, and continues:

“But I have kept something a secret from you all this time. There is no way to reverse the curse, no way to dispel it completely…but it can be transferred.”  

“’Transferred’?”

Tighnari stares down at his hands. “We can…pass the curse to someone else. To our soulmate. They can take it from us, the burden of these memories.”

Cyno’s heart surges with a renewed sense of purpose, with the solemn understanding of what it is he must do now. Without waiting to hear even a breath of further explanation, he scrambles off the couch, and drops to his knees at Tighnari’s feet, staring up at him devotedly.

“I will do it,” he says breathlessly. “I will take the curse. I will—”

“I refuse.”

Such cold words, uttered with complete resolve, feel like a slap to the face. There are many things he wants to say to Tighnari, not all of which are kind, but the only word he can manage is:

“Why?”

Tighnari takes a moment to respond, considering his words carefully. With every beat of silence, Cyno grows more confused, more restless, more desperate, and when Tighnari reaches out to cup his cheek, the tender touch is almost painful.

“You have always loved so deeply,” he says ruefully. “Even now, from the day you laid eyes on me, you have adored me. It’s consumed you, hasn’t it?”

Cyno lowers his gaze, grasping the hand on his cheek. “Yes.” Not a day has gone by without Tighnari basking in his thoughts since the afternoon they read together in the shade. Not a day has gone by without a sharp, intangible longing languishing in his chest.

“With a heart that loves so profoundly…I have feared what burdening you with these memories might do to you. I only want you to know love in its purest form.” Tighnari’s voice cracks again, and he withdraws his hand, his fingers caressing Cyno’s jaw before they drop to his side. “I don’t want you to know this pain.”

“While my love for you might outshine the moon, is it not you who loves the deepest, Tighnari?”

Cyno’s words take even himself by surprise, uttered purely from the heart. Tighnari’s swollen eyes widen, ears pointed to the ground as his lips part on unsteady breaths. Cyno takes his hand to ground him. He tries to pull it away, but he holds onto it stubbornly, desperate for a connection to the love of his life—his soulmate.

“To undertake such pain simply to save me from it. Is that not love in its purest form?”

Cyno watches as tears well in Tighnari’s eyes anew, shimmering fonts of endless sorrow. He tries to supress his cries, but it only results in a choked, high whimper.

“It’s not,” he whispers. “I’ve been so selfish.”

For the first time this evening, Cyno raises his voice. “No, you’ve been in pain!”

Tighnari sobs once, a cry so guttural it sounds almost painful, and clasps a hand over his mouth.

“You’ve endured so much,” Cyno continues, gently now, “and if the me now, sitting here with you, feels this helpless, I can only imagine the me of the past felt much the same. I’m sure every incarnation of me would have done anything to take away your pain, if only you’d let them.” He brings Tighnari’s quivering hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles, murmuring against his skin with grief catching in his throat, “Please, Tighnari. Please let me help you.”

“You don’t understand what you’re offering, Cyno!” Tighnari wrenches his hand away. His eyes are wide, frantic, fearful. “The grief, it—it’s a pain like none other, and it’s never ending.” He gasps for breath, bordering on hyperventilation. “There’s a reason this is a curse. I can’t”—he wipes furiously at his eyes, but the tears stop for nothing—"I can’t stand the thought of you suffering as I have suffered.”

“I’m not afraid of grief,” Cyno says softly, feeling the mist of tears in his own eyes. “To grieve you only means that I have loved you. And that is what I have been born into this world to do.”

Tighnari shudders, covering his face with his hands, uttering a litany of ‘oh, gods.’ Cyno reclaims his seat at his side, gathering him in his arms. Though he trembles like a frightened kit in his embrace, tension rushes out of Tighnari's body the moment he holds him against his chest.

“These memories would not be a burden to me,” he whispers. “I would gladly endure an eternity of pain just for the privilege of loving you.” He kisses the top of Tighnari’s head. “Nothing in this world could possibly hurt more than never knowing your love again.”

Tighnari nuzzles into Cyno’s neck, whimpering as he fights for composure. Cyno’s heart bleeds for him, and he hopes his words might finally compel him to allow him to relieve his pain—for not only himself, but for all his past incarnations, all the versions of him that loved Tighnari just as deeply, and would have done anything to save him.

He knows, for he is them, and though he might not carry their memory, there is no doubt in his mind that he carries their passion.

“I’m scared, you know,” Tighnari confesses quietly, once he subdues his despair enough to speak. “Scared to forget you. You’ve always been a part of me.”

“Oh, my love.” Cyno cups Tighnari’s cheek, and smiles at him with gleaming eyes. “I’ve found you in every lifetime. Whether my memory persists or not, you will never truly be without me.”

A deep, shuddering sigh gusts out of Tighnari, and he nods, slowly at first, then with fervour. He takes Cyno’s hands and kisses them, holds them to his face, and meets his gaze with solemn acceptance. He does not need to say another word for Cyno to understand, to know that he has made a decision, that Tighnari is going to allow him to prove to him, once and for all, his devotion.

He is going to allow him to save him.

He pulls Tighnari, his eternal beloved, down into a laying position, his heart pounding more ardently than ever before. “Will you do me a favour?” he asks. “Will you keep just one memory to carry with you?”

“Yes,” Tighnari answers immediately. “Anything.”

Cyno kisses his forehead, and whispers against his skin, “I want you to remember to wish upon the stars every night. Every night until I find you again, look at the moon, and ask whatever god we might worship for your true love. And one day, when the sun rises, they will have brought me to you.”  

Cyno stretches out on the couch, and Tighnari settles above him. He instructs Cyno to shut his eyes, and presses their foreheads together; he places his hands over his heart, and whispers something so quietly that he cannot make out the words. And then, as if touched by magic, Cyno’s consciousness splits, and a torrent of memories that are not his own flood his mind.

Tighnari has only lived in Akhtamun for two months, having traveled here with his mother to be with her love—his father—against the wishes of the Dendro Archon, and has yet to acclimatize to the heat. He had only wanted to venture into the desert to search for scarabs, but his dark fur absorbed the sun like a sponge and quickly overheated his small body, leaving him addled and feverish.

He might not have made it had it not been for Cyno, the bladesmith’s son, who had found him curled up beneath a large rock arch not too far from the village.

When he comes to, he finds him pressing the cool leaves of a strange plant to his skin, peering over him with his eyebrows furrowed in stern concentration. He doesn’t know anything about this boy, and had previously been intimidated by him, but cannot summon the energy to push him away.

“Oh,” Cyno says, sitting back on his haunches when he notices him awake. “How are you feeling? Have you cooled down?”

“Yes,” says Tighnari, in a very small voice, and for the first time since he has known him, he watches a smile blossom on Cyno’s face.

“Good. I was really worried. Even those native to the desert don’t go out into the sun during the middle of the day.”

Tighnari still has enough energy to huff, turning his face away to hide his embarrassment. He pushes away Cyno’s hand and curls onto his side, draping his tail—much too large in proportion to the rest of his body—over his torso protectively.

Cyno is undeterred. “It’s a good thing this plant was nearby,” he continues. “I was able to cool you down quite quickly with it.”

“What is it?” Tighnari mutters despite himself. He cannot help but be curious. The plants in the desert are sparse, and so unlike the lush flora of the Dendro Archon’s realm.

Cyno is silent for a moment, suspiciously silent, and Tighnari peers over his shoulder to find him looking strangely anticipatory. “It’s called ‘Chilling Sand Grilling.’”

Tighnari stares at him, unimpressed. “No it isn’t.”

“It is! Do you know why?”

Tighnari sighs, rubbing his forehead; he still feels sickly, and a dull ache throbs beneath his eyes. “Why?”

“My father uses them to keep meat fresh while he prepares to cook them. You see, normally you would use the word ‘and’ as a conjunction between those two words, but I replaced it with ‘sand,’ because of all the sand in the desert. It’s a joke.”

Though he has been scolded for such behaviour by his mother, Tighnari is exhausted, and cannot restrain himself from rolling his eyes. “That’s stupid,” he says.

“No, it’s funny.”

“It’s really stupid.”

Cyno sits with Tighnari for a little longer, telling him increasingly unfunny jokes, until he is finally stable enough to stand, and continues to regale him with his rotten humour the entire journey back to the village.

But he never once lets go of his hand, and by the time they return to Akhtamun, Tighnari is even laughing with him.

***

Tighnari kneels at Cyno’s side, pushing his short, coarse hair away from his forehead, where thin wisps stick to his skin with sweat. He dabs away beads of perspiration with a cool cloth, and exhales a long, but sympathetic sigh.

“Omphalotus foliamimus might be nicknamed the buttershroom, but that is merely due to its colour. It is, in fact, poisonous,” he says, his tone gentle despite his words. “A tough lesson to learn, but I assume you’ll remember that in the future.”

“I will,” Cyno sobs between bouts of violent sickness, crouched in front of the toilet in the back of their restaurant, “I’ll never forget. I promise you, I’ll never forget.”

***

“Which of these plants would you like me to make your bookmark from?”

Tighnari lays leaves from three of his favourite plants across his desk, each a pristine sample without a wrinkle, a jagged edge, a hole left behind by a hungry caterpillar. Cyno, looking particularly handsome in his eremite uniform, huddles next to him, poring over them, inspecting them each with dedicated focus. He finally selects a ruddy, fan-shaped leaf, turning it over in his hand.

“I like this one,” he says. “It reminds me of a sunset.”

“Ptyofolium cirrhosa,” Tighnari says brightly. “Good choice. It’s my favourite, too.” He chuckles softly, adding, “You know, it’s funny you say that, because in some communities, it’s known as ‘Sunset Reflection.’”

“And here I thought I was clever.”

And every cycle, he makes him a bookmark, and makes him a bookmark, and makes him a bookmark—and he never remembers.

Tighnari looks at the plant, and he thinks, ‘it reminds me of a sunset’—and he stares into the sun just as the moon touches the horizon, and he weeps.

***

Tighnari lays outstretched with Cyno, shoulder to shoulder, on Starsnatch Cliff, the setting sun warming his face as a salty breeze blows tendrils of Cyno’s hair across his cheek. Some sticks into his mouth, and he splutters, shoving him away playfully, but Cyno is stalwart, and refuses to be jostled.

“Move!” Tighnari shoves his sturdy shoulder with both hands, unable to even pretend to sound cross. “You need to cut your hair. You shed more than I do.”

“Never. What will you hold onto when—”

Tighnari presses his hands over Cyno’s mouth, cheeks pink with more than just the alcohol they had imbibed in during the festivities, and is swept up into his arms and rolled onto his back, where Cyno proceeds to try and kiss his lips through the palm of his hand.

“You’re drunk,” Tighnari chastises with a smile, shoving away Cyno’s face before dropping his hand at his side.

“So are you.”

“I can’t believe I ended up drinking that awful mulled wine.”

“You drank quite a bit of it.”

“And I hated it!” Tighnari pulls an exaggerated face of disgust, which Cyno kisses away.

“You don’t like harra fruits.”

“I don’t like anything heavily spiced. And it felt like they made it extra spicy.”

“They know we’re from Sumeru. I think it’s nice they tried to accommodate our tastes, even after all these years.”

“’Our’—ugh, speak for yourself.”

Cyno pulls himself up, resting on his elbows, and gazes down at him with an adoring smile that still, twenty years after it first graced him, makes Tighnari’s heart flutter. “Shall we make some from peaches, then?”

“Peaches,” he repeats, arching an eyebrow as he wraps some of Cyno’s unruly hair around his fingers.

“Yes. It can be our special recipe, because no one would like sweet mulled wine but you.”

“That’s not mulled wine, Cyno. That’s just warm peach juice.”

“I’ll work out the kinks. But next time, you should really just tell them you don’t like it.”

***

Tighnari has spent thirty-five years of his life revering the stars, but tonight, as they glint at him from the canopy of cool twilight, they feel almost mocking. They glisten and vibrate, as if in derisive laughter, but Cyno, pressing lingering kisses to his damp cheeks, reminds him that it’s simply from the watery reflection of the tears that well endlessly in his eyes.

Two years, the doctor had said, ‘If I’m being generous. I would make arrangements sooner rather than later.’ Two years until he loses Cyno again, from a painful illness for which there is no cure. Two years until he is alone, lost in this life without him, consumed by an ineffable pain, a pain for which there is no cure—for which there will never, not in this life, not in the next, not in any lifetime, be a cure.

He had broken down when they received the diagnosis yesterday, wailing in the clinic like a yokai haunting Mt. Yougou, a manifestation of dolour, fated to remain inconsolable for eternity. Cyno’s grief, though he had shed no tears, was palpable as he held him, yet Tighnari knew it was not from despair for his own life, but guilt for leaving him a widow at such a young age.

Cyno made love to him here tonight, on a blanket stretched out on a cliff overlooking the sea in Chinju Forest, fields of luminescent flowers shimmering in the light ocean breeze behind them. They have remained here, tangled in each other’s arms for hours, having watched the tides recede and rise and back again.

Tighnari had confessed to him his secret, his burden, a little over a year ago. Tonight, though Tighnari knows deep in his heart that it is futile, they have tried to conjure a way that Cyno might recall him in the next cycle, that he might prove to Tighnari that he knows, that he remembers, that he loves eternally.

“I will say to you, ‘I’ve dreamed about holding you under the stars.’”

“And I will reply, ‘Next to the receding tides?’”

“To which I will respond, ‘Under every phase of the moon.’”

Cyno holds Tighnari for another hour, and they both weep silent tears, knowing that this experiment will be put to the test much sooner than either of them are prepared for.

***

“Don’t come near me. I hate you.”

(I love you.)

“You disgust me. Don’t touch me.”

(I love you.)

“Why won’t you leave me alone?”

(I love you.)

(Oh, Cyno. How I adore you. Why won’t you leave me?)

***

Eight-year-old Tighnari stares down at shards of glass from a cup he had accidentally dropped while pouring himself peach juice. Perhaps if he takes these shards now, and ends his own life before Cyno stumbles into his orbit, he could break the cycle without bringing him any pain.

He cleans them up without acting on his dark fantasies, but they linger in his mind as he sits in the park, under the shade of a large karamphala tree. It’s hot outside, and the other children are loud, but he likes it here nonetheless.

He loses himself in his encyclopedia for a few hours, until a new silhouette shadows the pages. He would like to be left alone, but his mother lectured him earlier that it was impolite to ignore others when they approach you.

“Can I read with you?”

Tighnari looks up, and is blinded by the sight of his beloved staring down at him with clear infatuation, and those familiar crimson eyes pierce his chest and cradle his heart, and suddenly, he can no longer remember why he had ever wanted to die.

Cyno is catapulted back into the present with a gasp that scrapes his lungs, and he coughs, his heart hammering in his chest and mind swimming with nebulous thoughts and memories and an incandescent love that has twined itself inextricably around his soul in ways he never thought possible.

Though he feels now, in his mind and heart, the grief that Tighnari has carried with him for unfathomable lifetimes, the heaviness does not despair him. He had not known it was possible to love Tighnari more than he already did—and he wants nothing more than to nurture that love for millennia to come, so that it might one day coalesce into a power so prodigious and ardent as to rival the sun.  

He heaves for breath, gulping in air like he couldn’t possibly get enough, and the moment his eyes focus again, he looks up at Tighnari, who has great globs of tears rolling down his cheeks, his hands grasping his face with such intensity that his claws have scratched up his cheeks.

“I was right,” Cyno says, his voice raspy and frayed, as he reaches up to catch his tears with his thumb. “You truly do love the deepest.”

Tighnari throws his arms around Cyno’s shoulders and buries his face in the crook of his neck. “I’m already so lonely,” he sobs, barely able to stutter out the words.  

“Tighnari, you are only twenty-four years old,” he says, wrapping unsteady arms around Tighnari, holding him close, feeling as though they are one body, sustained by the same heartbeat. “I suspect we have at least another sixty years before you get to call yourself lonely.”

Unexpectedly, Tighnari laughs. He laughs, and it’s a beautiful, sonorous sound, right against Cyno’s ear, and he squeezes him so tightly it makes it difficult to breathe. He laughs, and he weeps, and exactly once, he screams; his tail lashes wildly, and Cyno cannot tell if it’s out of joy or out of anger, or that he simply cannot contain his emotions, whatever they might be.

“I love you,” he cries, kissing his neck. “I love you so much.”

“I know.” Cyno kisses the top of Tighnari’s head, the only part of him he can reach. “Now more than ever, I know.”

Tighnari quite suddenly sits bolt upright, staring down at Cyno with eyes that shine so brightly with adoration that it almost hurts to look at him, like he’s staring directly into the sunlight. He takes his face between his hands again, turning it this way and that, as if inspecting a dropped vase for damages.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, ghosting his fingers across Cyno’s cheeks, over the shallow scratches he imparted on his skin. Though he knows what Tighnari is asking after—if the memories he now carries are a painful to bear—he cannot let the opportunity to tease him pass him by, even now.

“Oh, these? I’ve felt worse,” he says. “I once almost sliced a finger off chopping carrots, you know.”

“You—” Tighnari scoffs, though a smile plays at his lips, a beautiful contrast to his puffy, tired eyes. “Don’t tease me. Not right now.”

Cyno smothers a laugh, his heart teeming with the knowledge that he will be able to tease Tighnari like this now for eternity—that he will carry with him all the unique ways best to annoy him, and add new ones to his collection until the universe itself extinguishes.

“It does,” he confesses, kissing Tighnari’s temple; he feels him wilt, and knows more keenly than ever his guilt. “It hurts me to feel how you have suffered all these years. But to know just how many times I have had the privilege of loving you…nothing so beautiful could ever hurt me.”

Tighnari’s lower lip quivers, and he takes Cyno’s hand, kissing his palm, his pulse, and finally his mouth, and oh, how wonderful it is to feel the shape of those lips again. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you, Cyno.”

“I will cherish these memories,” he says, taking Tighnari’s hands and lacing their fingers together. “Never feel like you’ve burdened me with them. They’re a gift.”

Tighnari melts against his chest with a whimpering sigh, and Cyno holds him for a little while longer in silence, rubbing his back and stroking his hair until the last pearls of a lonely era's tears fall from his eyes. His breathing is even, his body relaxed, and Cyno wonders for a moment if he’s exhausted himself to the point of falling asleep—but when he tries to sit up, Tighnari squeezes him with a stubborn whine.

“No,” he mutters.

“No?”

“You have to lie here with me forever now.”

“But our tea is getting cold,” Cyno says, with thinly veiled laughter in his voice.

Tighnari huffs. “Well, I can make us another pot later.”

“Actually, I was thinking we could have something other than tea.”

“What?”

“What about peach juice?” Tighnari cranes his neck, squinting at him, and Cyno brushes some of his hair away from his forehead. “Warm peach juice. I never did work out those kinks.”

Recognition lights up Tighnari’s eyes, and for a moment, Cyno worries that he might start sobbing again. But instead of triggering tears, that light arcs across his face, and a luminous, adoring smile blossoms on his lips.

“Don’t make it too spicy, now.”

Cyno helps Tighnari to his feet, and they stand together over his stove in his cramped kitchen, knowing that for just this one lifetime, they both feel in their hearts the same swell of eternal love and devotion, and share in their minds the same vast tapestry of memories, made a little less painful by someone beloved to shoulder the burden.

For this lifetime, Cyno will cherish it, this unique closeness, and in the future, he will be the one to carry these memories alone—and he will do so gladly, knowing that Tighnari will finally be at peace. With each cycle he will add new verses to the ballad woven by his heart, until he has penned something so magnificent the stars themselves will weep, while he rhapsodizes sonnets about the boy who is as verdant as the forest, and as brilliant as the sun.  

When Tighnari is ten years old, he meets the most beautiful boy he has ever seen. He has hair as white as the moon and eyes that glint like the frigid red stars in the night sky, and is sitting on a bench outside of the Opera Epiclese sketching the magnificent historical monument with utmost concentration. Tighnari cannot take his eyes off of him, and when he is caught staring, he fights with the reflex to run away—but the other boy stops him with a gleaming smile, and he waves, inviting him to sit beside him.

“Hello, Tighnari,” he says, and those cold eyes seem warm now, when they look upon him.  

Tighnari is breathless for a moment, captivated by those crimson eyes, but he manages to ask through his transfixion, “How did you know my name?”

“I’ve seen you in my dreams,” the strange, beautiful boy says to him. It is an objectively bizarre thing to say, Tighnari thinks—yet it makes perfect sense, for he has also dreamed about a boy just like this for his entire life. For years now, when he looks up at the stars at night, he has wished that he might be able to find him, the boy from his dreams, and he is humbled now that the Hydro Archon has finally granted him her favour.  

“Would you like to sit with me for a while?” the boy asks him, patting the empty bench beside him.

Tighnari nods with a shy smile, and settles in next to him to watch him sketch, having never desired anything more than to relax here under the resplendence of the moon.