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goldstrvck · 6 months ago

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an original written work featuring sapphics, gardening and pechay (chinese cabbage), in honor of pride month. read the ao3 version here!

There had been a place in your garden where a flower could have bloomed once. The realization comes like you’ve been doused with ice-cold water: once upon a time, there had been a place for three of them.

It’s almost funny. You don’t even like planting plants. You’re the opposite of a green thumb: green leaves turn to yellow under your care, the brittle brown edges curling towards themselves. Stems either wilting or withering, the water always either too much or too little.

But when it flowers, it’s rewarding – the bloom of a flower, angled to meet the sun. Leaves a deep, verdant green, with the healthy sheen of something thriving – thriving despite everything — it's worth it. It's like a fleeting, silent acknowledgment of being told that you matter. Like being told that you are loved.

ii.

The first bloom had gone like this: a girl had gifted you a seed packet. The sun had been so high in the mid-June sky then, blurring the lines between morning and noon. You remember it being hot enough that the memory is hazy, like it had been enclosed on the other side of some Coke bottle bottom. Like it had been a dream.

The girl — Rose — says, a mischievous twinkle in her eye: can you keep a secret?

You don’t remember what you said. But it had to be some sort of affirmative, because the next thing she says is I have a gift for you, ruby lips curved into a saccharine grin, like the flower she’d been named for. Her smile had been too brilliant, too white - it might have been a sweltering summer day then, but in the end, it’s the smile that undoes you.

She nudges at your loosely clasped hands until you have your clammy palms up, like leaves seeking the sun. Then: a seed packet in your hands. You turn it around, and the thin reedy font of a popular planting brand’s name greets you. Below it is the picture of a singular vibrant rose, the kind you’d see in those fairytales - picture-perfect and unblemished.

Take care of it, Rose had said, before stepping away. Sunlight catches on her hair, wild and untamed. You can’t look away, even though you know the sight will blind you even more so than the oppressive heat of the sun bearing down on you.

You pot the seeds with the finest potting mix you can get your hands on. You look up guides on planting, and the tab to raising a rose is always perpetually open on your phone. You inspect its leaves as it grows for any sign of sickness, and water them daily. You follow all instructions to a T.

Two months later — the rose wilts.

You’re not supposed to tend to it in the shade. Not that it matters that it had been summer monsoon season and you’d rather not let your rose drown under a week’s worth of persistent rain, so you had moved it inside your home. It doesn’t matter that you got it some source of artificial light. It doesn’t matter at all.

The point is: it dies, and when it does, Rose does not look back.

The utter disappointment in her eyes had almost hurt more than the rejection – the denial that there had been something between the two of you once – but it hadn't. It was the image of a wilting, browning rose slumping over a clay pot that stung - stung worse than the image of her leaving.

iii.

There had been others after too.

A seed packet of sunflowers falls decisively on your palm somewhere around a cloudy November afternoon, and you go through the motions: seeding, transplanting seedlings, watering every early morning and late afternoon, inspecting for sickness, and adding fertilizer. This time, the sunflowers go through a ruthless bout of harsh heat and brutal rain.

The next three weeks pass by in a blur, too occupied by work to dedicate hours to taking care of it.

You can’t do anything about this one: it’s bound to fail.

Soon enough, it dies, four weeks before it’s due to bloom. Unlike the rose, the affair with him is silent, but you understand. There’s no sun for your sunflower to turn to here. All you can do is stare at the mocking shadow of his back and wish him well.

The last one had been a seed packet of white azaleas, given on a late January afternoon. It had been perfect - azaleas thrived in tropical climates as long as it had acidic and well-drained soil. Rather than full sun, azaleas loved partial shade, where they wouldn’t drown under an unfortunate torrent of heaven’s proverbial floodgate opening or burn under the punishing heat of the sun whenever you didn’t have the time to take care of them. And so the cycle repeats: the starting soil with mulch on top, two seeds per dug hole, then careful inspection until you see seedlings. A strict schedule of watering, adding fertilizer, and readjusting its location whenever necessary.

They say azalea takes three years to fully grow, with the seeds sprouting somewhere around the four-month mark. Two months if you’re lucky, but you never are. The calendar pages turn, and the garden grows cold. The seeds show no sign of growth – the covered seedling tray is empty and the potting medium is still uniformly packed, like you haven’t relentlessly monitored and worked on it for the past three months.

Throughout it all, Lea hasn’t shown herself outside the time she gave you that seed packet. You remember she was beautiful, the kind of beautiful you'd find behind bulletproof glass casings in museums. A porcelain ghost.

By the time the fourth month passes, the seeds never germinate. The azaleas never grow at all.

You’re starting to think this is all a fluke.

iv.

It had been raining then - the mid-June of another year. You had been stuck in school for some reason you can't quite recall, and by the time you'd made it out, it had been well past six in the evening. You had an umbrella with you as you wait for a tricycle to pass by the empty street corner you stood on — this detail is important.

It's important because beside you stood a girl who clearly didn’t possess your foresight since she was being relentlessly pelted by the rain. She makes a valiant effort to keep her gaze straight, refusing to look at you or your umbrella, fingers drumming against the slick leather flap of her bag.

You bite the inside of your cheek, silencing a rare laugh. You’re not that cruel, so you step closer, holding out your umbrella. “Here.”

She lets out a relieved exhale, like she had been waiting for you to say it. “Thank fucking God,” she gratefully murmurs, though not unkindly as she took partially took shelter underneath your umbrella. Under the light of the solitary overhead streetlight, her features had looked a lot more dramatic, obscured by sharp oranges and dark shadows. “More importantly, thank you for saving me a sick day.”

You grimace when she bumps against you accidentally, the wet cloth of her shirt coming in contact with your bare skin, looking her up and down with a critical eye. “Not until you’re out of this rain, you’re not," you tell her, hiking your bag higher on your shoulder, allowing her to take more space.

She huffs: why are you looking at me like that?

It's the way her hair plasters to her forehead, paired with the scowl on her lips. She looks like a drenched cat. After a beat, you say as much.

It's a startling sound - that sudden laugh you wring out of her that evening, a clear loud sound ringing through the air, and suddenly the world is sharper, more in focus. The orange hue of the overhead streetlight limns the line of her shaking shoulders. You can’t tell if it’s because of laughter or because of the cold, but she clutches at her forearms, laughing at the most mediocre icebreaker ever uttered before she bestows you her name: Chai.

“Pechay? ” You can feel your eyebrow climbing. “Like… the vegetable?”

“Exactly like the vegetable,” Chai says as you both walk into the gardening aisle. Chai never asks you to plant, but you do so anyway. You’re not really doing it for her — you’re just doing this for you. After all, it's been a while since you really tried to plant and it all ended in disaster, so whose opinion would be as invaluable as a self-proclaimed green thumb? “It’s practical, easy to grow and - most importantly - it's edible! You can’t do that with most ornamental flowers, can you?”

“Every flower is edible,” you say. “If you’re not a coward.”

"Stop trying to avoid the topic," Chai rolls her eyes. “Besides, you have never eaten a single flower raw in your life.”

So you buy the packet. It’s different from the flowers you’ve tried to raise before, but like Chai told you once: where’s the harm in trying something new?

It’s always something new with Chai, you’ve discovered. Chai’s loud, but not unkind. Bright, in a way that would never blind you. As beautiful as art, and always present. Your fingernails bite crescents into your palm at the implication like it’ll ward off that sentiment you can’t name; the packet burning a hole in your pocket.

You plant. The intention: filling up a seedling tray. You go through the motions of adding the potting medium mixed with organic compost. The pechay seeds, two per cell to avoid overcrowding, germinate under the sunniest spot you had in your garden, before being moved to a place with shade to avoid overwatering from June rains, but it’s fine. It’s fine so long as you place it at an angle that ensures it receives at least four hours of direct sunlight.

She tells you to work with plastic bottles instead of the pots you used after transplanting, and advises you to hang the modified bottles on a wall. The same way my mom taught me and the way her sister before her taught her, Chai says, deft hands handling a cutter with ease as she cuts through some plastic Coke bottle you had lying around. Tita's an environmentalist. She says the less waste, the better and I'm inclined to agree with her.

Under your care — yours and Chai's, actually. Since when did Chai become privy to your garden? — the pechay seeds sprout. Each and every one of the seedlings in the seed tray shows promising growth – Chai cuts out four more plastic bottles for you. With the modified bottles, you only have to replace and refill the water when necessary - like this! Two warm hands brushing against yours. Eyes crinkling at the corners, soft and pleased, smile even softer when you catch her looking.

In time, the two leaves will grow into four, and the stem grows into separate stalks. In time – after seven weeks, the herbs will be ready to harvest. It’s a thought you find yourself uncomfortable with after all your previous losses. It almost feels like a hollow victory - what happens then, when the pechay stalks are all harvested?

But when Chai seeks out your fingers, palm slotting against yours in the light of day and in the dark of the night, it's almost like your worries had never been there at all. When she laughs against you, pressing her face to your shoulder, her breath ghosting over the shell of your ear, you feel something unbidden stick to your throat and you think desperately, like a man possessed: you’d do anything to make her laugh like this again.

vi.

When the time comes for harvest, you survey them with a critical eye in the middle of a rainy July evening. Behind you, Chai waves her phone around with one hand, its flashlight illuminating the wall of pechay stalks in plastic bottles in front of you. With her other hand, Chai holds out an umbrella to shield you from the rain.

“Why are you harvesting them this late in the night?” Chai asks, cozy in a jacket you know she stole from you. Overhead, the rain gently falls on the umbrella in a comforting rhythm. “Couldn’t you have done it earlier?”

“You weren’t here earlier.” Without warning, you uproot the best pechay stalks you have, leaving the rest to continue growing. You've read this somewhere - uprooting pechay stalks gives you the best produce, in comparison to plucking leaves from existing stalks. “Besides - it feels more right to pick them with you.”

Chai snorts as you stand up, satisfied with your haul. She bumps her shoulders against yours, and you find yourself chasing that warmth as she moves away. You’ve never been more aware of the pitter-patter of the rain, echoing the pulse of your racing heart. “You’re so cheesy,” she teases. “Damn right - you should wait for me before you harvest the fruits of our labor. Still cheesy, though.”

It takes a long time to cook bulalo. Most recipes say it takes four hours minimum to allow the broth to simmer, and the meat to reach optimal tenderness. But in the grand scheme of things, it does not matter as much; in comparison to four hours, how long have you waited to harvest something you’ve taken care of?

Those four hours go by in a blur. Before long, you check in on your broth - the meat, the onion, and the peppercorn you chucked in - before adding in the rest of the ingredients.

Somewhere behind you, Chai laughs. She says you handle a knife just as you’ve always handled a trowel. You raise an eyebrow: like a boss? She laughs - the sound echoing in your empty house and settling in the dusty corners of your home - and waves you off. Add the veggies, Liv.

Three corn pieces fall into the pot, followed by sliced cabbage, green onion, and — and the pechay.

Chai watches you carefully then, as you add several teaspoons of patis, measured by eye like the proper STEM student you are. You know she wants to study culinary arts, like her grandfather before her, and honor the family business. She does not interfere, even when she looks severely tempted between snatching the measuring cups away from you or making fun of you for your eyeball measurements.

Chai remains silent, but the atmosphere doesn't change. It's quiet but fulfilling: the sound of the stove cooking and the rain gently falling on your roof, echoing the very same warmth you felt when you met her on that street corner three months ago.

You make the mistake of meeting her eyes. When she smiles, so do you. The heat of the stove near you is nothing compared to the warmth of her lovely smile, bestowed upon you like an act of love. When she reaches across the counter, catches the strand of stray hair from your usually impeccable ponytail with two fingers, and tucks it behind your ear, your heart stammers in place. This is everything you've coveted and so much more.

You're worth it, unspoken. You flush with it, warmth blooming across your cheeks. And in equal amounts: I love you.

"Come on," Chai says, palm already pressing against yours, careful and tender and right, like a benediction that has found its way home. She gestures at the pot that's been simmering for ten minutes longer than it should've been. "Let's eat."

#original character #original writing #original story #original fiction #pride month #wlw post #sapphic #gardening #pechay!!

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goldstrvck · 7 months ago

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showmance (zhongluc)

The taste lingers, even as they finish filming. It follows him like a love-starved stray; on the drive back to their apartments, to his bed. He thinks of sweating glass on a sweltering beach and that goddamned tang at the back of his throat.

This, Diluc thinks, is going to be a problem.

Or: Diluc lives out his bubblegum pop dream, set in a DCKZ au.

— inspired by bini's discography; credits to veechu for the au!

— you can read this on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56389171

i. pantropiko

With how high the sun currently is, Diluc wonders why management hasn’t called them back in the shade, or at the very least, given them refreshments. It’s hot enough that he can almost hallucinate the gorgeous coastline stretching on either side of them like some kind of dream, endless and hazy, seeming as if it had been enclosed on the other side of some Coke bottle bottom. Instead, management asks them where Zhongli is.

Rudely, too. But there’s no room for complaints in an industry so brutal and ruthless, being a rookie group from some unknown talent agency preparing for their debut. He hadn’t complained about the tireless nights they spent learning the choreography and the vocal track, hadn’t complained over the strict rules of training and eating and interacting, and hadn’t complained over the hideous floral print shirt they gave him for filming this music video; he wasn’t going to start now.

Diluc bites his tongue and swivels around for a head count.

Behind him. Kaeya raises an eyebrow at him. Though he’s holding on to a blank expression, all bland, generic charm on the camera, there’s this imperceptible line of irritation to his brow as he maintains his position. Still, he’s faring much better as Childe finally topples over, flails his arms like a particularly difficult starfish, and collides against Kaeya.

White boys, Kaeya mouths at him as he hauls a complaining Childe to his feet, as if Diluc hadn’t spent his childhood on the same estate, under the same fair summers and gentle spring rains. Natlan’s climate is far more harsh. It doesn’t help that no amount of sunscreen will prevent Diluc’s skin from turning as red as a tomato. Diluc rolls his eyes at him hard enough to hallucinate the mirage of a fair angel appearing beside him.

Diluc automatically accepts the flute pressed into his palm, an instinct borne from a hundred etiquette classes taken within the airy, picturesque memory of the old Ragnvindr Estate.

He raises it to his lips; sips. It’s slightly sweet. Most of all, it’s cold and refreshing, almost like a balm to his parched throat.

Diluc raises an eyebrow at Zhongli, who patiently waits at his side. “It’s nice,” he says, before eyeing his glass with more interest. It’s freshly made. The glass sweats, condensation gathering at his fingers. “Where were you?”

Zhongli slightly lifts a tray — one, two, three of them balanced on it — with one hand, the other folded precisely behind his back. It’s unfair how a man who wore suits like it would never go out of style manages to look comfortable in a boring white linen button down and black shorts, Diluc absently thinks. “I ordered drinks for us.”

Childe perks up at the sight of Zhongli, and ambles over. Not to be left behind, Kaeya follows soon. Zhongli distributes their designated drinks as Diluc stubbornly herds them under the shade of a thatched beach umbrella made from nipa.

It’s nice. Diluc can almost close his eyes, ignore the sunburn slowly spreading across the back of his shoulders and imagine he’s just on the coast of Stormbearer Point.

Except someone snatches his glass from him. The clunky grey vest screams production team grunt. “On whose authority?”

Kaeya stills, glass halfway to his mouth. Childe simply carries on as he tilts his head and clears his glass in one gulp, seemingly without a care in the world except for the tension at his shoulders. The cold balm of the sweating glass against his skin is fleeting; almost nonexistent as blood rushes through his ears.

Diluc doesn’t blink, fingers itching. It’s a very tempting thought — is punching some guy in the face worth his fledgling career?

Zhongli must’ve seen, because he slightly tilts his head five degrees to the right and not more, not less, at the offending production team grunt. There’s this slight uptick to the right corner of his lips, right where his beauty mark rests. “On mine,” he mildly says.

For a tense moment, the grunt looks like they’re about to snap back, and then Diluc’s fist would really have to go for their jaw, except Zhongli raises one imperial eyebrow. Suddenly, he looks less like a man having a drink, and more like a statue carved of some indomitable god, with gilded eyes as hard as stone. “Is there anything you have to say?”

Zhongli is Celestia Ent.’s darling, quickly achieving domestic fame as the first-place winner of survival show Archons. Diluc knows it – at the rate he keeps browsing through it, he might be half of Zhongli’s Wikipedia article views; with the section on his accomplishments within the industry going on for miles. DCKZ is his first group gig in years. Diluc wonders what he thinks of being grouped with a bunch of rookies only a couple of years younger than him.

“With whose money?” Childe demands behind him, breaking the mounting tension. The grunt gives up, and marches back to the designated production team nipa hut with the unfortunate casualty of Diluc’s drink. “Zhongli. Whose card did you use?”

“Aha,” Zhongli unenthusiastically says. Despite his many accomplishments, he can’t maintain a poker face to save his life. “I shall… pay you back?”

Diluc can’t help the huff that escapes his lips as Kaeya finishes his drink and immediately talks shit about their shitty handler and the shitty production team attached to them. He leans against the stalk of the nipa umbrella, and closes his eyes, letting the chatter wash over him. It’s a brief respite: sooner or later, they’ll have to go back out in the heat again.

Something cold nudges against his knuckles. Against his shoulder, something warm and solid brushes, featherlight, before it presses against his side. It’s nice. Almost comforting, despite the humid, hot air suffocating him.

He cracks one eye open. Beside him. Zhongli offers him his drink, the same shade of his eyes. It smells earthy and strong, but not unpleasant. It’s definitely expensive.

“Why?”

“Why not?” When it’s clear Diluc’s unimpressed with his line of reasoning, he carries on through his next sentence without shame. “I suppose it was my fault we got into trouble.”

“The only ones at fault are the staff for not providing us with something as basic as water, and Childe for letting you bully him into taking his credit card.”

Zhongli laughs, full-bodied and rich, much to Childe’s indignation. The sound of it sinks straight into Diluc’s gut, making him feel something warm and fuzzy. “I already said I would be paying him back.” He extends the glass towards Diluc. “What’s stopping you from taking a sip? It's not poisoned.”

“Hmm.” Diluc eyes it. “No alcohol?”

Zhongli shakes his head. “No alcohol,” he promises.

Before Diluc can second-guess himself, he leans in to take a sip. The flavor hits his mouth first, something strong and intense soothed over by a brief mellowness. It clings to his mouth, lingering on his tongue and sticking like honey to the back of his throat.

Zhongli hasn’t stopped watching him. He tilts his head, not as precise or as angular as before. “Well?”

“Why are you asking me?” It’s somehow both soothing and stifling at the same time, but not overwhelming enough. Diluc can't tell whether he likes it or not. “You ordered this.”

“I believe you are the heir to a wine dynasty here.”

"And what does that entail, wine connoisseur?”

Zhongli meets his eyes, solid and unwavering but still so genuine, with that softer, kinder edge to his gilded eyes. “That I value your insight.”

(Kaeya has to whack him on the back to get him to respond, but by then, Zhongli has already finished his drink and set off for the set, with Childe close on his heels.

This, Diluc thinks, is going to be a problem.)

#diluc ragnvindr #kaeya alberich #zhongli #childe tartaglia ajax #dckz au #genshin idol au #diluc deserves a lil bubblegum pop au #zhongluc #genshin fic #genshin diluc #kaeya #childe genshin impact #genshin impact #genshin #childe tartagalia #tartaglia #genshin fanfic

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