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— I'm tired, — Xiao whispers, looking at the half-finished can of cola. Venti turns around, not enough to see, but enough for Xiao to feel that he has reacted. It's comfortable to sit back to back, it doesn't matter where.
— Are you suggesting we separation? — somehow calmly clarifies the guy. Xiao shrugs his shoulders.
It's nice to be with Venti. He will not ask superfluous and personal without permission, will not touch when it is not required, will not kiss without permission. As if he came from another world, he sing when Xiao cried; sing the most charming songs in the world, sewing up all the wounds on his heart. Venti hugged sharply, childishly, but so warmly. Xiao wanted to wrap himself in these hugs to have the sweetest dreams.
Venti helped with his long stories when painkillers didn't save him. He touched every chord of the soul, kissed palms, stitched cuts, old scars on the skin. Sometimes Xiao fell asleep to his stories, but when he woke up, he found that he was still saying something. It was convenient, a little selfish, because he could not give anything in return, except barely burning love.
But there was another side to this relationship. Venti was not attached to Xiao, to their relationship, and even to his small apartment, which he does not even pay for himself. Venti loved freedom in all aspects of his life, and if today he sings to you about "forever and for a long time", then tomorrow his trace will disappear, leaving only open windows and empty cans of cola. Who is this Diluc of yours that kisses like for the first time? Who is this Aether, who has a cool ass?! Venti does not hide that he sleeps or would like to sleep with others and for some reason it hurts so much. Maybe because Xiao is attached to his childish way of sitting with his legs pulled up under him or to ridiculous pigtails that worry and look even more ridiculous when you unravel them.
Venti burst into his life like a stormy stream of wind when, just before closing, he opened the doors of a tattoo parlor and announced from the threshold that he needed a neon pattern on his hip. He was completely drunk and did not believe that the tattoo would be badly accepted while alcohol was in his body.
— I don't understand why a father allows his son to behave so impudently, — Xiao grumbled through his teeth to the handsome man who was with him. Venti laughed. He laughed so hard that it took his breath away.
— I'm sorry, baby, but I'm already well over 20. And this is my... — then he grinned, choosing the word. — A friend.
Then they met a couple more times during the week, and the tattoo on his thigh turned out to be not just a drunken thought, but an obsession that he stubbornly adhered to. Xiao was only persuaded to make a more elaborate pattern on the ring, which was also supposed to glow.
And even though Venti looked young, but Xiao noticed that his hips were beautiful, elastic. He wanted to leave marks on those thighs every time he saw them, but instead he just admired other people's hickeys and scratches.
Xiao also had an unspoken fetish for breathing. He liked it when Venti was just silent and in the silence you could hear him barely breathing. Xiao liked it when Venti whispered in his ear: it didn't matter if it was vulgarity or barbs. A herd of goosebumps ran all over his body when Venti, tired, buried his face in his back and did not move. It was just that there was also calmness in his breathing, there was also healing.
Xiao foolishly agreed with him to dye the ends of hair blue. At night it sounded really cool, but when he saw himself in the mirror the next morning, Xiao hurried to remove the blue shade from his hair. Honestly, he couldn't get the paint out, it just changed a little shade. Venti was elated by this experiment, because the resistant paint was found. Xiao just got used to it over time.
– Did we meet to separation? Xiao asks the answer question, after thinking a little about the question of Venti. In response Venti only laughed briefly.
— Really! Can I?
— You can…
Venti rises on tiptoe and walks around Xiao, sitting on his lap, gently takes his face in his hands and kisses. Xiao closes his eyes, dissolving into his medicine, into his blade, which will kill him. Venti has the whole world in his hair and a little more in his hands, on his lips, in his thoughts. Now he kisses with Xiao's permission, carefully burying his fingers in the turquoise strands above his ears, and tomorrow he will decide again that another attachment is painful and will run away to his apartment. Because he's afraid. Because it's convenient for him.
One day he will get tired of running away.