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The air in the teahouse was thick with the scent of cedar smoke and spilled sake. Kunikazushi, face flushed a delicate pink that crept to the tips of his ears, slammed his empty cup down for the fifth time.
“You,” he slurred, jabbing a finger into Varka’s granite chest. “You buffoon.”
Varka, who had been peacefully nursing his own cup and enjoying the rare sight of his lover unguarded, raised an eyebrow. “Me?”
“Yes, you.” Kunikazushi’s lower lip trembled. His indigo eyes, usually sharp as broken glass, were now swimming with unshed tears. “You absolute… giant of a man. With your stupid strong arms and your stupid gentle hands and your stupid…”
He trailed off, a single tear escaping down his cheek.
Varka’s playful expression melted instantly. He reached out, massive palm cradling Kunikazushi’s jaw like it was spun glass. “Hey. Kuni. What’s wrong?”
“You won’t marry me,” Kunikazushi whispered, his voice cracking. “I’ve hinted. I’ve screamed it between your bedsheets. I carved you a ring out of a goddamn ruin guard’s core and you just kissed my forehead and put it on a chain around your neck.”
Varka’s heart clenched. “Kuni…”
“Don’t ‘Kuni’ me!” He was full-on crying now, ugly and honest. “Am I not enough? Is it because I’m—because I’m nothing but a puppet? Or because I tried to erase myself from existence? Is that it? You think I’ll break your fucking china on our anniversary?”
Varka pulled him close, letting the smaller man beat his fists against his chest until the fight drained out. “Shh. No. None of that. Not ever.”
“Then why?” Kunikazushi glared up at him, tear-streaked and furious. “Why won’t you put a ring on my finger and make me yours forever, you coward?”
Varka sighed—a deep, rumbling sound from the bottom of his lungs. He looked away, jaw tight. “Because I’d say yes in a heartbeat if you’d let me. But I can’t… I can’t do that to you.”
“Do what? Love me permanently?”
“Hurt you.” Varka’s voice dropped low, ashamed. “Kuni, have you seen yourself? You’re… you’re small. And I’m—” he gestured vaguely at his own enormous frame. “I’m already so careful. Every night I hold back so much. And if we were married, if I didn’t have to worry about scaring you off… I’m terrified I’d lose control and break you. For real. Not metaphorically.”
Kunikazushi stared at him. Blinked. Then let out a laugh so sharp and incredulous it was nearly a sob.
“You absolute moron.”
“Excuse me?”
“You think I’m the one who’s fragile?” Kunikazushi grabbed Varka by the collar and yanked his face down until they were nose to nose. “Let me tell you something, you lovable mountain of a man. I’m the insatiable one. I beg for it. I claw marks into your back and whine when you pull out too soon because you think you’re being ‘gentle.’”
Varka’s face went red. “Kuni, that’s not the point—”
“The point,” Kunikazushi hissed, “is that your dick is the perfect size for me.”
“Babe,” Varka said weakly. “My dick is the size of your thigh.”
Kunikazushi looked down at his own thigh, then back up at Varka’s panicked face. Then he grinned—fierce, sharp, and utterly deranged.
“Does it look like I give a fuck?” He shoved Varka backward onto the tatami mats, straddling his waist with practiced ease. “I can take it. I have taken it. Every single time, I’ve wanted more. You know that night—our first night? When you were so scared to touch me you were shaking?”
Varka swallowed. “I remember.”
“I had never wanted a single thing in my whole miserable existence. Not power. Not revenge. Not a heart. Not even to live.” Kunikazushi pressed his forehead against Varka’s, his voice dropping to a whisper. “And then you looked at me like I was precious. And you were so gentle it made me angry. So I told you to stop treating me like porcelain and fuck me like you meant it.”
“But you cried…” Varka said softly.
“Because I was happy, you idiot.” Kunikazushi kissed him, hard and brief. “I cried because for the first time in four hundred years, something didn’t hurt. You didn’t break me. You filled me. All the empty, hollow places inside me that I thought were permanent? You stretched them until they fit you.”
Varka made a strangled noise.
“So stop with the ‘I’ll break you’ nonsense,” Kunikazushi said, biting Varka’s lower lip. “Marry me. Let me be greedy. And the next time you think you’re ‘too big’ for me, I’m going to ride you until you forget your own name and then do your taxes wrong on purpose.”
Varka stared up at his furious, tear-streaked, beautiful disaster of a boyfriend. Then he laughed—loud and warm and so full of relief it shook the walls.
“Yeah,” he said, wrapping his arms around Kunikazushi and rolling them over so he was the one looking down. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s get married.”
“Damn right,” Kunikazushi sniffled, wiping his nose on Varka’s collar. “Now kiss me before I change my mind and make you sleep on the couch.”
Varka kissed him. It tasted like sake and tears and forever
.
The first thing Kunikazushi registered was the ache.
Not the bad kind—the deep, satisfied thrum settled into his bones like honey crystallizing in a warm jar. His thighs trembled when he shifted. His lower back sang a pleasant, exhausted hymn. And between his legs, that particular fullness that always lingered for hours after Varka had thoroughly, thoroughly wrecked him.
He smiled into the pillow. Gods, his back was going to complain for a week. Worth it.
Fragments surfaced like shards of sake-wet dreams: Varka's massive hands spanning his waist, pinning him to the mattress. The low, wrecked growl when Kunikazushi had begged for it—actually begged, which he'd never do sober but apparently did spectacularly while drunk. The way Varka had looked down at him, blond hair loose and falling over his face, sweat tracing the ridges of his chest, pupils blown so wide there was barely any blue left. Varka’s broad shoulders blocking out the lamplight, the low growl he’d made when Kunikazushi had begged harder, the way those enormous hands had pinned his wrists to the mattress like it was nothing. Like Kunikazushi weighed nothing. Like he was something to be held down and cherished and ruined all at once.
"You want it?"
"Yes! fuck~ Varka, please—"
"Then take it."
Kunikazushi's eyes snapped open.
He was in their Mondstadt apartment. Late morning light filtered through the gauze curtains, illuminating the wreckage of discarded clothes, a tipped-over vase (when had that happened?), and one very large, very naked, very asleep Knight of Boreas sprawled face-down beside him.
Mine, Kunikazushi thought, with a possessiveness that would have terrified anyone else.
He shifted to get more comfortable, wincing at the fresh bite mark on his collarbone. intending to simply watch Varka breathe for a while, when something caught the light.
A flash of gold on his own left hand.
Kunikazushi froze.
Gold. Warm. A simple band, elegant and unadorned, sitting perfectly on his ring finger like it had been made for him a thousand years ago.
He stared at it. Blinked. Stared some more.
Then, very slowly, he turned his gaze to Varka's massive hand draped across the pillow—and the matching silver band gleaming on his ring finger.
Kunikazushi's breath caught.
He didn't remember the proposal. Not clearly. There had been sake. So much sake. And crying—had he been crying? He remembered shouting something about thighs? And Varka looking terrified? And then—
And then later. The ring appearing. Varka sliding it onto his finger with shaking hands. The words "Yes, okay, yes, let's get married" falling from those lips like a prayer.
Oh, Kunikazushi thought. Oh, we really did it.
He should feel panicked. He should feel something resembling rational thought. But all he felt was the warm, stupid, impossible swell in his chest that had taken up permanent residence the day Varka had first looked at him like he was worth saving.
Kunikazushi looked at Varka’s sleeping hand, draped across the blankets. There, nestled against his pinky, was a matching band, broader and heavier, wrapped around Varka’s ring finger. It was a mirror of Kunikazushi’s—just scaled up, like everything about the man. And there, dangling from a fine chain that had somehow tangled around Varka’s wrist, was the ruin guard core ring. The one Kunikazushi had carved months ago. The one Varka had kissed and put on a necklace instead of his finger.
Oh.
Kunikazushi’s throat tightened.
Slowly, carefully, Kunikazushi reached over. He lifted Varka’s hand—heavy, calloused, twice the size of his own—and pressed his lips to the silver ring. A kiss. Soft. Reverent. The kind of thing he would have mocked himself for a year ago.
He didn’t let go.
“Mm.” Varka’s voice was a gravelly rumble, still thick with sleep. His fingers twitched, then curled around Kunikazushi’s. “Hey beautiful.”
“You’re awake.”
“You kissed my hand.” Varka didn’t open his eyes, but his mouth curved. “Felt like a princess. Woke me right up.”
”hmph”
“Babe” His voice was gravel and sleep, thick as honey. He didn’t open his eyes, just tightened his arm around Kunikazushi’s waist and pulled him closer. “Go back to sleep… you wore me out…”
“I wore you out?” Kunikazushi whispered, incredulous.
“After I proposed…” Varka mumbled into the pillow. “You promised… more later. Let a man rest.”
Kunikazushi’s heart stopped.
Then restarted at triple speed.
“We—Varka.” He shook the giant’s shoulder. “Varka, wake up.”
“Nooo.”
“Varka.”
One ice-blue eye cracked open, bleary and confused. “What? Is there a fire? Is it the Abyss? I’ll fight them naked, just give me a minute—”
“We got engaged?!”
Varka blinked at him. Then blinked again. A slow, dopey smile spread across his face. “Oh. Yeah. Last night. You cried. It was very cute. You also threatened to do my taxes wrong.”
“I don’t even do your taxes, I make you do mine because numbers make me want to commit violence—”
“Babe.” Varka’s hand curled around Kunikazushi’s, threading their fingers together. Gold and silver side by side. “Tomorrow. We talk tomorrow. ‘S too early.”
Kunikazushi opened his mouth to argue—he had so many questions, starting with how did I miss this and ending with why did you let me drink that much sake—but Varka had already pulled him flush against his broad chest, tucking Kunikazushi’s head under his chin.
And.
Well.
The warmth was very nice. And the ache in his body was a pleasant, satisfied throb. And Varka’s heartbeat was steady and slow against his ear.
And there was a gold ring on his finger.
So Kunikazushi sighed, dramatic and put-upon, and closed his eyes.
“Fine,” he muttered into Varka’s collarbone. “But you’re making breakfast.”
“Done.”
“And you’re telling me every single thing I said last night.”
“…Even the embarrassing parts?”
“Especially the embarrassing parts.”
Varka laughed, the rumble vibrating through Kunikazushi’s bones. “Deal. Now sleep, fiancé.”
Fiancé.
Kunikazushi hid his smile against Varka’s skin.
Maybe mornings weren’t so bad after all.