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Five hundred springs before
Thin and gentle fingers flow through his hair, the rhythmic sound of a stream’s water that meets the rocks accompanying the calm that is cradling his soul.
“Isn’t it time to cut them a little, Kuni?” she asks, in the kind voice of who would accept no for an answer.
“It may become difficult to manage them if you want me to teach you martial arts properly”. Kunikuzushi lets the cherry petals slide between his fingers, raising a hand to bring them close to his face and blow them away.
“No,” he replies, calm as ever he had been, “I want a long braid like yours”.
He smiles. She knows that soon, he will despise anything that belongs to her memory.
Four hundred springs before
When his sister shows him what she’s learned from her mother — the delicate but precise and violent way the blade cuts the air, a confidence to guide her movements that almost bothers him, Kunikuzushi realizes that he is not at her level. It’s a childish envy the one that pervades his senses, typical of an older brother who has the feeling that he’ll be taken away from the long-awaited and desired motherly affection that used to be only his.
A cherry petal falls near Raiden’s feet — the only distraction that can make her stop. She lowers to collect it, offers it to him, pronounces, with the typical kindness of her mother, “Kuni, your flowers!”.
Kunikuzushi delicately picks up the petal from her hands, fakes an imperceptible smile, and nods. He says thank you, just because Ei taught him so. And as he returns to their residence, he squeezes the petal so tightly that it releases the juice; it seems to have the same consistency as blood, while it stains the shoes that Ei had gifted him.
He doesn’t care. He lets go of what’s left of the petal and crushes it under the sole.
Three hundred springs before
It’s a sad competition, the one Yae recommended Ei. Yet Ei gave in, arguing that it was best to determine the rightful successor, but successor to whom, and for what?
Kunikuzushi is sitting under his favorite cherry tree, the purple blade resting next to him, adorned with the flowers he loves so much — it almost seems the symbol of a rebirth, his, because he’s strong in martial arts, absolutely amazing, but in his ways there is no trace of the elegance that distinguishes Raiden and her long hair, never collected in a proper ponytail because Ei claims that they are fine even so, after all — that it’s the blade the one accompanying her movements and that it’s not so complicated to manage them. It’s the opposite of what he was told only two hundred springs before, but people change, opinions do too — maybe Yae showed her that long pink hair allowed her to get to the top of the world anyway, and that so they can face even the unpredictable moves of martial arts.
And while he plays with the cherry petal between his fingers, Kunikuzushi hopes Ei chooses him, not because he has any interest in martial arts, or power, or a future as the Shogun of Inazuma — it’s just to make sure his mother never stops seeing him with the same eyes, with the purity with which she loves her child, blood of her own blood.
It is only to stay certain that he’ll never come to know the very meaning of abandonment — that love, what Ei and Yae explained to him when he was younger near the shadow of the cherry trees he was born under, symbol of his life, does not stop being his, only his.
It’s only to make sure Ei continues to see him truly, and not in passing, like ghosts in the shadows of the night hiding from wall to wall to hide from the curious eye of the living.
Raiden beckons from afar, a small greeting — he knows that Raiden loves him, that she is the best sister he could ask for, but he cannot love her in the same way a brother would love a sister, because he sees in her the end of a mother’s love; and every time he looks at her, her long purple hair, a single lilac strand to set them apart, she knows he could never be better than her. That Ei stopped seeing him for a long time now, when she recognized in him his flaws, his inability to reset his emotions on the battlefield — the way his hands tremble when he takes the sword in his hands.
“Kuni, you have to pay attention to your sword”, she gently scolds him, picking up the weapon.
She holds it in the perfect way Ei taught her, no sign of fatigue on her face — it’s different from him, because learning to hold the sword that way costed Kunikuzushi ten springs, while it only took one for her.
He feels like crying, he hides his face with his hat — he takes the edge of it between his index finger and thumb and covers his dark eyes, shaking his head slightly as if to get rid of this sense of abandonment that is already slowly consuming his bone marrow.
“Are you crying?” Raiden asks, and he hears derision in her tone even where there is none. “Don’t let mother see you,” she adds, but it’s a kind advice, it doesn’t hide mockery.
“I’m not crying,” he replies, and it sounds like the bite of a rabid dog, and Raiden gasps for the first real time, “Learn to mind your own business,” he adds, and wrenches the sword from her hands.
He’s hurt, but there’s no blood.
Two hundred springs before
“It’s time for you to get rid of him, Ei,” Yae murmurs, looking at Kunikuzushi in the distance, who is busy tying the bow on his hips.
“That’s not how it works, Yae, and you know it, don’t talk like that”, she says, and she’s annoyed, as Yae’s fingers work to braid her hair, “I can’t get rid of him like he’s a broken piece”.
“It’s not a piece to throw away, but to free,” she answers. Yae stops her movements to take the other’s hands between hers, and looks at her with the eyes of those who know more, no matter who’s the shadow of an archon between the two. “He feels emotions that shouldn’t belong to him, and that will consume and devour his soul the longer he stays here”.
“Raiden has the same kind soul, and you know it”.
“She’s made for something else, Ei, and it’s a kindness she reserves only to the weak”, she counters, and there’s logic in her words, “A kindness she reserves only to Kunikuzushi because she saw his gentle tears”.
There is surprise on Ei’s face — but it’s contained, it’s a disappointing feeling, the surprise of those who already deep down knew. She had seen it with her eyes the day she laid him, like a newborn bird, on a straw basket resting on a bed of pink petals — when he smiled at her as soon as he opened his eyes, as if it came natural for a soul like his.
“Don’t promise him a mother’s love you can’t give, Ei. He’ll learn to live his own way”, she reassures her.
Kunikuzushi notices them on the doorjamb and smiles, a smile so sincere it could illuminate the entire residence.
Ei brings a hand to her chest and wishes she could give him her heart.
One hundred springs before
The fire is burning the memories of the life he wanted, and with them, the cherry petals he loved so much. He could put out the fire with all the tears he had shed, a sense of abandonment so visceral gnawing his soul that he would not be able to explain even if he wanted to.
He’d dyed his clothes black right in the stream where he had spent afternoons with her, as if trying to get rid of a purity that no longer belonged to him and to stain, of his mother, even the memory.
There was something so bitter in his tears — he couldn’t give a name to his emotions, and he never really understood them. There was just an intense hatred he felt for them, that incinerated the sense of everything, because they had been the reason why he was abandoned even by those who he believed had sworn eternal devotion.
There was an echo in his head, the memory of words he didn’t even understand, but that had found the precise direction — the trajectory that ran through the void where a heart was supposed to reside, and that had hurt him so much that he still sometimes tightened his fists against chest and knelt on the hard and cold floor.
He remembers praying, to still have faith in his God — a God who was also mother to him, and he remembers promising to get rid of the feelings that clouded his soul; it was the promise that he could be better than that, better than that. They were prayers that had met only the rock walls of the cave in which he had awakened, the echo of his words returning to his ears like the worst of humiliations.
In the fire that was burying the memory of yet another of his abandonments, Kunikuzushi had seen his reflection — and he hated it. He had thrown his clothes into the ashes, dyed the rest of them black, taken up the path from where he had came from with his hands full of love, with hands full of hatred.
He didn’t know what to do with love, nor did he know what it really was — it was the narrator of his story who defined the kind feeling that distinguished his soul. Of love, Kunikuzushi did not know the meaning, not even the beauty, not even the depth — he only knew that it had brought abandonment, and so he hated it.
And for Kunikuzushi, love and hatred were the same word, the same feeling, all over again.
Twenty springs before
“The Balladeer, right?” Tartaglia smiles, and it’s such an arrogant smile, “I like your eyes”.
Kunikuzushi hides behind the hat, a new form of embarrassment dying his thoughts.
He holds a cherry petal between his fingers and there is a sort of anger that grows in his stomach.
“I’m not here to converse,” he murmurs.
“A compliment does not require a conversation”, he answers with a confidence that makes Scaramouche want to kill him there, right where they are, the typical frost of Snezhnaya cooling his soul.
“It requires communication, and I have no intention of communicating with any of you. I have a precise task, nothing else is required of me”.
Tartaglia gently removes the cherry petal from his fingers, observing it as people do with those new things they learn to love right away — he smiles with a sincerity that Scaramouche had not been able to read on anyone’s face before. When Tartaglia moves his hand closer to his face, Kunikuzushi manages to lock his wrist in a fraction of a second that makes it impossible for either of them to predict.
Tartaglia laughs.
“It matches”, and confusion fills Kunikuzushi’s gaze, “with your eyes, I mean”.
It’s probably spring in Inazuma.
“Do you collect petals? Or flowers? It’s a sweet habit”.
Kunikuzushi does not understand why Snezhnaya’s cold seems to him now so distant — and so suddenly warm.
Fifteen springs before
While Childe recounts the unsolicited details of how he was deceived by Signora — the torpor of the fire illuminating the Tsaritsa’s residence, the joyous atmosphere that fills the air (even if no Harbinger would be ready to admit how much one feels at home here, while the snow copiously covers the lands of the Winter Shogun), Kunikuzushi is sitting in the background, his face resting on his elbow, gaze fixed on the ginger boy. He listens with careful attention to what they’re talking about, even if he doesn’t really care — transfixed on Tartaglia as he is, waiting for him to talk and say something, anything.
“You like him, don’t you, Scaramouche? Or should I call you Kuni?”
There is a blade cutting through air and trapping the hem of Arlecchino’s coat against the wall behind her, with enough precision to make anyone wonder why the Shogun of Inazuma is not him instead of his sister. He doesn’t even seem to have moved, now that he returns to rest his delicate face on his elbow, almost bored and endlessly annoyed by the environment that just before attracted him so much. Silence has descended, and it tastes of restlessness, the hands of everyone resting on their weapons. Colombina makes a quick gesture with her hands, before starting to hum again, and everyone looks away; Tartaglia returns to speak, as if this interruption had been a fragment of anyone’s imagination. There is suspicion staining anyone’s thoughts, because Kunikuzushi speaks too little, stays too much on his own — but anyone who has crossed paths with The Balladeer knows how much time he spends talking to his victims, so is confessing our soul’s darkest secret easier if those to whom we are narrating of it do not have the opportunity to keep for themselves those confessions for much long? Isn’t it just to free the predator, and not to inform the prey?
Arlecchino takes a seat next to Scaramouche, hands him a cup of hot liquid that around here they call chai — to him, who comes from Inazuma, this is everything but tea, an almost sour taste behind every sip, but enough to burn the esophagus and have the feeling that it is actually the soul the one getting burnt.
“Sorry, low blow,” she sighs, “I struggle to understand kindness. It seemed like the only logical way to get you to talk… about anything. I know anger is your thing”.
“I have already said—”, and Arlecchino rolls her eyes, no real intention to be rude, and interrupts him, “—yes, that you are not here to converse, that you are here to bring back to his majesty the gnosis and nothing more, but Scaramouche, be honest, how bad can it be to talk about something?”
“He brought me cherry blossoms”, Scaramouche suddenly murmurs.
“He asked me to analyze them because he thought it was an attempt to kill him. No harbinger kills another harbinger, and I told him!, but I still had to put them under analysis for two days or else he was going to find and kill my clones, or so he said, at least”, Dottore complains, appearing from nowhere precisely to jump into the conversation. He’s probably one of his clones — hard to say which one is the most annoying.
“He was in Liyue… and went to Inazuma… on the exact other side of the world, to collect flowers”, Arlecchino punctuates every word with gestures, as if to connect some imaginary dots, “—and for someone who always refused to speak to him. I would be suspicious too, if I knew as little about the human nature as Scaramouche does, but listen—”
“But I know human nature, I know it so much that reading through anyone is for me extremely simple”, Dottore replies, pride swelling in his chest, “If we were like animals, I would classify this as… the art of courtship”.
“Well, that’s what I believe too, it seems Tartaglia has no eyes for anyone if not—” Arlecchino adds, but doesn’t get the chance to say much more when Scaramouche sits up and glares.
“I don’t like human beings and I don’t care about your nature”, he murmurs. “It’s a sick nature, yours, like putting mices in a cage and waiting for them to eat each other. This is your purpose, to live on a land that is endlessly waiting for you eat each other’s heads”, and Scaramouche purposely spills the cup on the table, traces of an oily substance where there should only be water, “it’s time for you to stop trying to get into my memories, Dottore. There is nothing about me you should know except that I despise you and despise the human sentiment that drives your every action. This is just yet another form of betrayal — humans are not capable of anything else”.
“Kuni—” Tartaglia goes to stop him, as if his attention has secretly been on them all this time.
“Scaramouche”, he corrects him, poison in his voice. “Kunikuzushi no longer exists. And I don’t know which one is of the lowest human feelings that you’re growing for me, but I am divine dregs, made of mechanical and inhuman nature, and I am not here to share with you what little remains of the heart that has been torn from me”.
“It’s spring in Inazuma, I just thought you’d like it”, he replies, reminds Scaramouche of the gift — and it bothers him all over again, makes him feel so mad he could set this whole nation on fire, if he wanted to. Childe brushes Scaramouche’s hand with his own and lets go as soon as he realizes.
“It’s winter here. Spring doesn’t belong to people like us”.
Fourteen springs before
It is to be expected that in battle, when you have to exterminate without thought and hesitation, something can happen. It’s an ordinary wound, easily recoverable, and the idea of bloodshed attracts him; the idea that it’s what he’s composed of, that it’s the crimson color that tints his every memory — since childhood, when the abyss in which he had sunk had become his new home.
It adorns his chest in an almost representative way — elegant, neat. The garment he wears is open enough to show it, and after all he doesn’t mind the scars. They are symbol of the lifestyle he had chosen — or which had chosen him, the determination to be a fighter; and for the person he is, sometimes even a boast. They’re scars useful to have something to take pride of with his siblings and the other harbingers — who have seen much worse than him on the field, but it still gives him a sense of belonging that can only be his, and that he holds tightly to his chest at the cost of life.
And, as refined as his instinct is, at the imperceptible creaking of a door he turns around and shows off its blades, soaked with water.
“Oh”, is the answer of whoever is on the other side of the door. It’s an exclamation that does not express great remorse for the committed mistake — it’s more surprise, perhaps admiration. And he’d recognize the sweetness of that voice among many; an accent that does not belong to Snezhnaya.
“Sorry”, Childe says, a weak smile following, as if it were his mistake, “Usually others knock, all except — well, except Dottore, so I get restless if I don’t hear it”.
“They told me to remind you of this evening’s meeting”, Scaramouche replies with the disinterest that represents him, “you tend to forget”.
“Never about you, though”, and Scaramouche hates how cliché every word that leaves his mouth sounds.
"Are you hurt?” he asks, a rhetorical question, because Scaramouche’s questions never want real answer, “it seems deep”.
“No big deal”, he replies, a reassuring smile decorating his face.
“Putting the bandage like this will only make it unsafe in battle. You’d lose it after a single abrupt movement”, he approaches without permission. And gently, without the slightest embarrassment coloring his cheeks — not that Scaramouche can comprehend certain human circumstances, certain emotions. He takes between his fingers the band with which Tartaglia was undoubtedly arguing shortly before.
Childe is aware that Scaramouche does not know of the effect that a single gesture like this could have on him, who, for years, since the day he had seen his delicate face peeping out the door, nourished the most tender of feelings. It’s silent, maybe not even true love — but it fills his heart like nothing before, and makes him feel at home. He would never admit it, and he conceals the sincerity of his interest behind jokes he reserves to anyone, as if to remind Scaramouche that he is no more special than the others — but he was, he is, in the way he speaks, when he speaks, in the way his delicate fingers move every single thing, the way he touches his weapons and reminds everyone how powerful the God within him is.
“Ah, it is not necessary—” he tries to say, to take gently between his fingers Scaramouche’s wrists — he knows, rationally, that there is nothing delicate about him if not his appearance, that he’s a warrior, son of a God, close to a God, that he could reduce him to a shapeless mass if he could, but there is in Childe the unhealthy need to protect him, take care of him.
“If you see a bird struggling to fly, you have to help it and take care of it”, his mother tells him. “We take care of things to feel more complete, Ajax, and to take care of ourselves too in the meanwhile”.
“Even if they don’t want to?”
His mother smiles at him.
“We all want someone to take care of us”.
“Tartaglia”, Scaramouche replies — it’s an order. And Tartaglia lets his hands fall down on his hips, while Scaramouche takes the edges of his robe to open it just enough, letting it slip on his shoulders so that he can wrap the bandage up completely. When Childe places his hands on Scaramouche’s hips instead of his own, he doesn’t say anything — doesn’t mention it, probably think it’s to keep himself grounded, distract himself from the pain of touching a cut so deep; but it’s not true, and they both know it.
“I don’t care about you”, Scaramouche wants to point out. “I do it for the Tsaritsa, because you are useful and necessary here”.
“Can you call me Ajax?”
“No”.
“Why?”
“For the same reason I don’t allow you to call me Kunikuzushi”, he sighs as he lets a few drops of the healing oil fall on the wound. Tartaglia hisses, instinctively gripping Scaramouche’s wrists in one hand.
“Too personal?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know the answer, “Why?”
“I’m just trying to do my job”, and the instant “This is not your job” that receives in response stops its movements.
“My mother used to say that—” “—that we have to take care of wounded birds?”
Scaramouche does not finish bandaging him. He leaves the room in a second, not even enough time to stop him — he’s just like a wounded bird.
“The birds sing the spring”, Ei had murmured. She was a kind soul, before that — before the cataclysm, before Makoto.
Scaramouche would like to tell him. That it was Ei’s fault for teaching him kindness and then asking him to get rid of it.
“If you see a bird with a broken wing, take care of it. You know how to heal it, right?”
Scaramouche can’t fly anymore.
“What if I hurt myself, though?”
“Someone will take care of you as well”.
Who?
Thirteen springs before
Arlecchino teaches him the value of habits. Scaramouche had wondered for quite a long time what they could possibly mean to people like them — he had started wondering when he noticed her carefully comb Colombina’s hair during every single meeting, when she came slightly disheveled from any exit.
He doesn’t usually ask many questions — unless it’s him, but he recognizes in those gestures the defined pattern of so many of his memories: Ei who caressed his hair, Raiden who greeted him with cherry petals in her hands, taking care of Tartaglia’s wounds every single time he came back hurt and pretended it wasn’t important, — the one habit he lives as a secret, as if it’s the worst of his crimes, as if defending what they have, whatever it is, is more important than redeeming himself for the evil he’s done.
“We cling to habits to feel at home”, she simply replies.
He stays silent.
“It’s spring in Inazuma”, and he interrupts his thoughts.
Scaramouche turns around, almost like Childe is a trick of his own imagination; he returned from his travels in one piece, and in his hands there’s yea another small porcelain container.
He offers it to him with a smile so kind it warms his very being even in the middle of an endless winter.
“I know”, he sighs, gently taking the container. When he opens it, it’s as if Inazuma had remodeled herself in his hands, two dried cherry blossoms and a tea bag resting on red velvet.
“Why?” he asks, and it’s with a naivety only Childe knows of.
“To feel at home” he replies, sincere.
“Inazuma is not my home”, he counters.
“It is. You have a collection of flowers and cherry petals, your clothes are carefully sewn and exported from your homeland, and you always mention when the spring arrives in Inazuma”.
“But it’s not my home anymore. My home is here”, and he points at him. Childe frowns like he always does when he doesn’t catch something, and Scaramouche thinks it’s cute — he recognizes the sin of it, of finding such an arrogant human being as Tartaglia is lovely, but he cannot deny to himself the pleasure of just liking him.
“You are my home”, he clarifies.
Childe opens his eyes wide, the same way Scaramouche did the first time he had seen the snow, arrived in Snezhnaya — the first time he had collected it with his hands, watching it melt on his palms. The first time Tartaglia called him by name, the first time he took his hands in his.
He does not understand the depth of what has just been said; it is naivety dictated only by not being human enough, not recognizing how a world to which he does not feel he belongs really works. He is not stupid, he is smart and intelligent, he has studied for four hundred years how to communicate, manage and manipulate anyone — but there is a whole new lightheartedness when he is around Tartaglia, the need to allow himself to be the child to whom the serenity of being at home had been stripped. With Childe he feels like when he sat under the shadow of the cherries trees, letting his mother tell him stories while gently stroking long purple hair. It is only his thing, this feeling, this memory — the sense of belonging that he seemed to lose. With Childe, he feels like a cherry blossom in spring, ready to bloom.
He wouldn’t tell anyone, and this side of him is for the one person he learned to trust in silence.
“Arlecchino told me”, he says, almost annoyed by Tartaglia’s silence, “If you make habits with someone, it’s because you feel at home with them. I have no habits except with myself and with you. Whatever that means”.
“Can you leave?” Tartaglia asks in a murmur.
“Huh?” he says, as the sense of abandonment begins to writhe his head. Was it just his, this habit?
“I need you to leave before I do something stupid”.
“You always do stupid things”.
Scaramouche struggles to understand.
“I can’t this time. Please”, and there seems to be a different light in his eyes.
“Why?”
“You ask too many fucking questions, Kunikuzushi”.
Kunikuzushi is hurt, but there’s no blood. Not even this time.
Eleven springs before
Scaramouche has lost his habits, and with them himself. His modus operandi has changed to such an extent even the other harbingers begin to fear his every move. It’s been months since the last time he’sasked something, curious, sincere and naive as he deep down was — if he communicates, it’s always with words covered in sweet poison, like honey for insects, and he seems to have accumulated such an amount of knowledge about the world that it’d be often inconvenient even for humans themselves.
He no longer looks at Tartaglia with the same eyes — and the eyes Childe remembers and so loved are so empty they make him seem like nothing more than a ragdoll. It’s been two springs since he last mentioned the spring in Inazuma — and all the harbingers assisted at how Scaramouche got rid of his memories, made of petals and porcelain, by dropping them, transported in the icy wind, from the central balcony of the palace.
Ajax has grown so restless he has the feeling that sooner or later it will explode from his chest.
Too sentimental to be a god, too naive to be a human.
Kunikuzushi knows that home for him is not this world.
When for the first time in two years someone knocks on the door of his residence, Scaramouche is honestly surprised. He’s usually the one who knocks, ready to take people’s memories, their habits and their lives. He does it every spring, punctual as a clock — a blood sacrifice of which he alone knows the entity, and that for people like them passes as routine work.
He does not nod to open the door, nor asks who it is — he does not care, because any presence for him is futile, meaningless, a waste of time of which he does not feel the need.
“Kuni?” he murmurs. There is a blade that grazes a tinted cheek, and that gets stuck in the door frame behind him.
“I could kill you right now and I wouldn’t feel any remorse, Tartaglia”, he replies.
“I can’t bandage my left arm myself. I’d ask Dottore, yeah, but—” and Scaramouche laughs so bitterly he burns his tongue. He knows it’s an excuse — Tartaglia knows as well. It’s the first time he manages to catch Scaramouche in time before he disappears in the middle of a blizzard and doesn’t let himself be seen for months.
“With all the things you could say, is this how you decide to approach me? You’re dirty, like all the humans I’ve known and know”, he deadpans.
Ajax lays a hand on his arm, and Scaramouche feels his muscles tighten.
“Why won’t you let me talk to you?”
“You ask too many fucking questions, Ajax”.
“It’s spring in Inazuma”.
If only he knew.
I loved you every single spring to this day, he would like to add, but it’s forbidden.
The next day, Scaramouche is not there anymore.
Ten springs before
It’s the first time they make love to each other.
Scaramouche has his favorite kimono stained with blood — human beings are at fault for it, so fragile, so dirty. Yet, when he sees Ajax walk down the long corridor of the palace supported by Dottore, who seem to hide concern behind his mocking face, blood-soaked hands pressing where Ajax does not have the strength to press, what looks dirty to him is the way he feels.
He wouldn’t be able explain it if he wanted to. It’s been a couple of springs since he’s made himself a cold casing that feels no pity for anyone — of this bubble of concern that seems to want to explode from the inside he blames his habits, that made him ready to cure a wounded bird again.
He blames his mother because he doesn’t know who to hate, and then he laughs at his own self and turns his gaze elsewhere to recompose himself — it’s the weakness found in his feelings that turned him into something to discard again, it’s this intrinsic need to make someone the heart he has lost, to fill the empty space: that’s what he hates the most.
He’s a black dot that stains white paper, makes it impure, unusable.
So, with shame reminding him of how bad he is, he finds himself in front of the lab door, a “What happened to him?” which he tries to hide behind a mocking tone.
“Foul Legacy”, Dottore responds, shrugs, “he has yet to understand that the delusions you fabricate in Inazuma are not meant to be used so long by a human”.
“I know, but I didn’t care”, Tartaglia tries to reply, it’s childish — impertinent bloody cough trying to stop him from talking “I won’t have much left anyway, this stuff is made to consume you”.
“So why don’t you stop using it?” Scaramouche asks, and it seems Childe can read in those words the honest naivety that once distinguished him.
“Since when do you care what happens to humans like me?” he smiles, and there is no accusation behind his words, “I am made to last little in a world like this”.
“It’s spring in Inazuma”, Scaramouche says. “Have you been there this year?”
“That’s why he’s reduced to a bloody pulp, don’t you think?” Dottore shakes his head, sincerely embittered, “if anyone finds out one among us risks his life in a closed nation in which he is not only welcomed just to collect a couple cherry blossoms, we would lose any benefit”.
Dottore hands to Scaramouche one of the porcelain boxes that for years, in the silence of the palace — in their silences, which cut that thin thread that tied them, he found resting near his hat. They’re gifts that seem to want to recompose Inazuma, memory of which Scaramouche has freed himself the way you do with old toys. Ajax never tried to push, to break that silence, to bring back Kunikuzushi, have him be the one who carefully took care of his every wound — in the knowledge of having erred, of having undone what they had built.
Scaramouche tells himself this is Childe’s habit, what Arlecchino had explained to him, nothing more.
That night, a purple-haired head peeks out of Ajax’s door — he doesn’t knock, it’s not his habit, and Ajax no longer snaps — he would recognize those light steps among a thousand.
He smiles at himself and in the mirror, murmuring, “Did something happen?”
Scaramouche shakes his head lightly, and Ajax sees into his eyes something new through the reflection of the mirror.
“You look good in white”, he says, and Scaramouche pretends not to hear, interrupts his comments with a “I just wanted to make sure you were able to bandage yourself up properly”.
“You did it for years, I think I’ve learned by now”, he replies, sincere.
“Okay”.
“Okay”.
Scaramouche feels dismissed, the rejection to which Kunikuzushi grew accustomed to piercing through every logical ability. He’s retiring, there’s a “sorry” that might leave of his mouth soon if he’s not careful, but sorry for what? — for being be so fragile when it comes to you, because no one has ever looked at me like that.
Years have passed since that brief discussion, from that invitation to leave the room, and Scaramouche feels that there is another implied invitation that leads him to retrace his steps, move to open the door and leave. He doesn’t know how to cling to the ruthless Scaramouche who reaps victims with disinterest, the one who would laugh in front of you if you just mentioned something remotely sweet, romantic — that would take your interest as teasing and get rid of you as you do of broken toys that are of no use to anyone. Kunikuzushi knows he’s the broken toy — and with Tartaglia looking at him the way he does, of Scaramouche, The Balladeer, there’s always only the memory, like he’s a urban legend, like it’s not him. With Tartaglia loving him, he’s Kunikuzushi all over again, carefree — he’s an insult to his name, because of destructive in Kunikuzushi there is only the hatred he has for himself — he’s again the little boy who collected cherry blossoms in the Sakura Tree’s shadow, Inazuma’s colors warming his heart.
Tartaglia reads that spiral of thoughts in his eyes, even if it is only for a moment, a fragment of a second, faster than the way the petals fall in autumn — he grabs Scaramouche’s arm, who does not wince, does not touch any blade. He stops in front of the door, his back turned to him, and waits for him to say something, anything.
He lets Childe make him turn around, lets him gather his face into his hands — he lets Ajax kiss away the tears that escaped against his will from icy eyes, now empty then filled with a love that only Kunikuzushi knows of. There’s a thumb gently running over Scaramouche’s lips, and in a flash, a blade to each other’s throat.
“Don’t touch me”, and it’s Scaramouche talking. He hates what he feels, the intensity with which he feels it. He pushes the side of a sharp blade against his throat, and Tartaglia reciprocates, but it’s for defense, for survival instinct. There is sharp water wetting Scaramouche’s skin, and then it disappears — Tartaglia’s hands fall down his hips, a smile brightening his face, and it fills Scaramouche’s thoughts, Kunikuzushi’s, The Balladeer’s — none of them, and whoever he is.
“You were created to do something great”, Makoto explains, fixing Kunikuzushi’s grip on the weapon, “But remember to be kind”.
He struggles to understand — the way Ajax has been waiting for him, only him, never got too close, never far enough to make him think he was not going to come back. He’s loved him in silence, like you do with the things you can’t reach, but that you’ll care about for the rest of your life. Kunikuzushi understands for the first time that he’s Ajax’s biggest scar and wound.
And it fills him with rage — the responsibility that comes from being loved.
It’s nice, the way Scaramouche lowers his weapon. It’s not nice the way he whispers, “I have to kill you, I have to kill you”, an emotional charge that makes it impossible for him not to cry.
“One day you will feel that you have found a place in the world”, Ei explains, takes the weapon out of his hands.
“But this is my place in the world”, he answers with confidence.
“Eternity will teach you that places are never really home”.
Murmurs turn into screams. He raises the weapon again, but of the certainty with which it usually sows terror nothing is left. There is an icy wind he can sense, that enters through a crack in the window and helps him hold his weapon — trembling hands trying to keep it up, but he can’t. He wants hatred, bloodshed — to not fall for this game again, victim of human’s emotions.
“You can do it”, Ajax replies, and his hands are up, waiting. He’s calm, ready to die by his hands if necessary. He could die like this, and it’d feel like the greatest of his accomplishments.
Kunikuzushi doesn’t want to — he’s just scared, like a wounded bird who can’t fly anymore.
He wants someone to pick him up and fix his broken wings.
“Some things are bound to happen. You can avoid them for eternity, but they will catch you in time”.
It’s Kunikuzushi who kisses him first. Ajax’s hands find space behind Scaramouche’s thighs, they grab him, they promise. It’s instinctual the way Kunikuzushi wraps them around his hips, careless — there’s no fear of hurting him, they both want it to hurt, be as painful as tearing their hearts out of their chests
“Please”, Scaramouche murmurs against his lips, pleads over and over again, and Tartaglia may die like this, with the sweetness of Scaramouche’s voice filling his ears, praying for something, anything.
“What do you need, Kuni?”
“I need you”.
It’s a gentle confession.
There is a new urgency in their movements — the one of those who feel like they have no time. Ajax gets stuck in his thoughts like the sweetest condemnation, and his lips don’t seem to have enough of him — it’s a selfish need, as if he wants to eat him whole. When he takes Scaramouche’s skin between his teeth, he feels him sigh — it’s sigh so full of eroticism it cancels in Tartaglia any form of constriction, of attempt to hold back.
He approaches the bed and gently drops him on the mattress, unkempt purple hair giving color to the white sheets. Ajax observes him with an admiration in his eyes that makes Scaramouche blush for the first real time, and he quickly tries to hide his face — it’s a predator’s gaze when he manages to catch the prey he’s been chasing for a long time, and no matter how much he tries to hide, the way the now messy kimono falls from his shoulders is enough to expose him, expose his deepest secret: the necessity he feels to have Ajax take care of him, in the most personal and intimate way the gods can grant him.
Childe’s breath is heavier when he slides with an exhausting slowness his fingers on Scaramouche’s delicate legs; he bends just enough to leave a kiss on his ankle, while his hands reach his thighs and squeeze plumpness in his fingers — and the way he gently taps him tells him to open his legs for him, for him, only for him.
“Stop playing”, it’s almost a groan, and Ajax shakes his head, grabs Scaramouche’s jaw without kindness to make him look at him, squeezing it enough to let him know he can be harsher, “I’m not playing, Kuni. Let me look at you”, and Kunikuzushi allows it.
Tartaglia kneels at the end of the bed — he’s praying the God he’s most devoted to, and his gaze does not abandon Kunikuzushi’s, and the latter cannot hold that stare, no, as coward as he is. And for the single moment Childe’s hands’ warmth is not on him, a new form of despair clings to him, but it doesn’t last too long, no, it’s a second, and with an arrogance he has never read before in Childe’s behaviors, he grabs him by the hips to pull him closer — as if he’s always too far away.
He just taps his fingers on his thighs to give him any order, and the spontaneity with which Scaramouche knows precisely what he has to do makes painfully obvious the connection that has always been there, from the moment they saw each other — the very moment they perceived each other.
It’s so impure, so intimate, it sounds sinful to an aspiring God — but when Ajax lifts his robe enough to lower his briefs, get rid of it, and grabs his ass in his hands, Kunikuzushi can’t pronounce anything but a soft moan. He feels so exposed, as if Tartaglia sees everything about him, even the void the lost heart has left inside him — and he’d allow him to take everything, to hollow him out again and completely. It’s the need to forget himself and rebuild himself — to allow Tartaglia to be the one to rebuild him, to model him.
And then, the warmth of the tongue that finally finds place on his entrance warms everything about him, and it feels like he’s floating for a moment — like he’s everywhere, and nowhere.
His tongue fucks him open, he has no regard, he’s not kind. He wants to take possession of his very being.
Kunikuzushi instinctively drops a hand on the head between his legs, slides his fingers through soft hair and just pulls, a natural “Ajax” leaving his lips.
Ajax all but growls, pushes his tongue even deeper if possible, like he wants to have him all.
It’s the first time he’s called him by his name.
“Please”, he moans, as he pulls on his hair even harder, and then he falls back on the mattress, “I need you”, as if he’s not there, but he is, but it’s not enough, never enough.
It’s the neediness that breaks Scaramouche’s voice the thing that makes it so difficult for Ajax to hold back. He leaves an harsh slap on the soft thigh around his head, and Scaramouche whines.
“Look at me. You want to be good for me, don’t you?” and Scaramouche nods repeatedly, like a mindless doll, “You can be patient and take what I give you, right, baby?” and Scaramouche nods again. He only hopes that the gods are not observing the shame that it is, the divine sin — the profane in itself discovered in surrendering to mortal vices.
His tongue is replaced by knowing fingers, which easily push into his entrance and know exactly where to touch. It’s slow and tormenting, and Scaramouche makes noises he didn’t know he could make when Childe’s fingertips brush against the right spot. Ajax’s tongue slowly teases his skin until it reaches the tip of his cock, takes it in his mouth and sucks on it enough to make Kunikuzushi beg for him. Precum is adorning the pink tip — he is already so wet, and Childe tells him, as an humiliating reminder, “You’re so wet, so needy”, and Scaramouche stops looking at him, looks at the ceiling and then closes his eyes, while one of his arms moves to cover his face, shame overtaking his own being. He knows he should follow the single order he’s has been given — to not look away,
but it’s unbearable, more than any pain.
“Ajax, fuck, please—” he whimpers, moans and whines all at once, can’t stand still, “It feels so good, you’re so good, I’m going—”
Brain’s in overdrive, as is his whole being — there is the inability to know where to focus, to stay afloat and not end up at the mercy of these feelings, but it’s just impossible, not considerable. It’s the way Tartaglia takes his cock in his mouth without struggles, while still moving his fingers in rhythm.
It’s all too much. Scaramouche squeezes his thighs around his head, almost tries to escape from the overwhelming feeling that boils in his belly, tries to push him away. He doesn’t want this to end here, it’s an irrational fear — he doesn’t want to be left, abandoned, maybe discarded again, and he’s doing his best to restrain himself, blames himself for his lack of control.
“No, I’ll come—”, he cries, “No, no—”
He does not want to come so quickly, make himself look ridiculous — but Ajax grabs his hips strongly enough to leave bruises and pulls him closer instead, impossibly so, until Scaramouche’s cock brushes the back of his throat.
It’s his undoing. He bends from the strength of this feeling, bites his tongue to hold back the sounds that this orgasm is about to pull him out, but Ajax is quick to grab his jaw with an hand as promised — hands so large they can hold his face in its entirety, and force his mouth open. He makes sure he has no choice but to scream for him. He spills everything down his throat, and Ajax drinks it like he can get drunk on the taste.
He could die like that, and it would feel like the godhood he’s after.
He feels like he’s floating again — it’s a warm and comforting feeling that makes his belly burn, makes his thighs tremble in a way they never did before. He feels faint kisses brushing on his thighs, on his oversensitivity, as they slowly make their way up. He thinks it’s over and doesn’t dare open his eyes — it’s an uncomfortable feeling of emptiness, as if it wasn’t enough to convey what he’s feeling, as if he needs to be embraced to feel like a person again. Tears make his eyes glint when he gathers up the courage to open his eyes, to look into the other’s eyes — his insecurities and the betrayals of the past come crushing down, all over him, and he waits silently for the warmth of Ajax’s body to disappear and leave him alone, with this winter’s cold lulling his trembling form. He can’t tell him. Can’t admit to himself, and anyone else of that matter, that he needs him — that when he did admit how needy he was for Ajax, it wasn’t about a quick blowjob. It was so much more, it was everything. He wanted everything, the greediness typical of someone like him — but he’s not greedy for power this time, no, he’s greedy for the love Ajax seemed willing to give him, but he’s unworthy.
This spiral finds his end when warm lips press on his own. He immediately takes Childe’s face in his hands, like he wants to make sure he’ll stay here, caged between his legs. Ajax smiles against his lips, forces them open as his tongue fills his mouth, taking him in, tasting. He can feel his own taste linger on his lips. And when Ajax pulls away, Scaramouche hastily grabs his arm — it feels so big under his hand, compared to how small he feels.
“Don’t leave—”, he’s almost begging, “Please, I— please, I don’t—”
He can’t say it.
I don’t want this to end. I will sacrifice eternity.
Ajax smiles, but it’s not mean. He grabs one of his ankles to bend his legs, rejoins it to his other one to have Scaramouche spread open for him. Scaramouche feels like Ajax could hold him entirely in one hand, and he blushes, tries to hide his face again, but Tartaglia is so much bigger than him — so much more experienced, anyway. He reaches his pretty face with the other free hand and holds his jaw delicately, tells him, “Look at me, love. We’re not even started. I won’t let go of you until—” and he brushes the tip of his cock against his entrance, “You can’t take any more of it”, and he pushes in in a single, harsh thrust, enough to make Scaramouche cry out, his head falling back on the pillow, “and maybe not even then”.
Then don’t.
“So fucking tight”, he hisses. He kisses his calf, kisses his thighs, bites it until there’s beautiful red staining porcelain skin, and then he lets go of his legs to have them out of his way — to look into his eyes, see how sweet tears and tinted cheeks are making them glow. Scaramouche locks his legs around his waist, his arms reaching Childe’s back, moon shaped marks left by his nails now adorning his spine — and he pulls him closer, so impossibly closer, to feel like they could merge together, become one single soul. Their foreheads touch — and it’s a sweetness that makes Kunikuzushi feel like he’s going to stop existing in the outer world to just be here, into his arms, for the rest of eternity.
“Ajax”, he whispers against plump lips, open mouths panting against each other, sharing their breaths, as Ajax slowly starts fucking into him so, he feels like he’s imploding like a dying star — but he’s living, never been more alive than this, “Harder”, and he moans when Ajax complies.
Kunikuzushi grabs his arms into small hands when he doesn’t know how else to stay grounded, screams at the top of his lungs when the hard thrusts Ajax delivers make him feel like he’s so impossibly deep he’s going to break him.
“Kuni—”, Childe moans, and it’s so sweet it makes Scaramouche sob, tears falling down his cheeks, “You feel so fucking good, you—”, and he can’t stop fucking into him so hard the bed under them creaks. He abandons holding Scaramouche to hold the headboard into his hands — a safe haven to hold onto to concentrate all of his strength into his hips, fuck him so good, like he wants to break him and build him all over again.
“Ah— yes, please— don’t stop”, and he tries to reach his neglected cock but the harsh trust Ajax delivers instead, followed by a slap on his already marked thigh, is enough to make him understand — but he tries anyway, like he wants a punishment back, a soft knowing smile on his face.
No matter how difficult it is, he slows down until a sudden stop, grabs Scaramouche by his hips and turns him around like a doll.
“Up”, he orders, and there’s no space for a no. So Scaramouche complies, and it’s shameful — but he drops his cheek on the pillow, arches his back enough to present his ass, up for Tartaglia to take.
He pushes back inside, but it’s not gentle — he hasn’t been gentle up until now, but there was a sincere care under every single one of his movements that has now just disappeared.
Childe pulls his cheeks to look at the way his cock slips into him, like it was meant to — moulded just to take him.
“Who could have told me—”, he whispers as he grabs Scaramouche by his hair until his back is pressed against a much wider chest, “that you can be such a fucking slut?”
He’s not as fast, but he goes deeper with every thrust — slowly pushes back, and then slams inside until Scaramouche feels impossibly full.
“It’s too big— I can’t—” he whines, feels like he’s stuffed way too full.
“You can, you’re made for this—”, the hand holding his hair slowly makes his way down, like it’s caressing, until it reaches his throat and his fingers tighten around his throat, “made to take my cock only”.
And Scaramouche loves it. Drops his head back on his shoulder as the hand around his neck makes it impossible for him to speak, just broken moans falling from his lips.
There’s another hand making his way on his hip, reaching his belly, feeling like poison ivy holding his body together — it presses and Kunikuzushi all but screams.
“Can you feel me?”, Tartaglia asks, and he doesn’t want an answer, “deep inside of you, claiming you, stuffing you full like the whore you are for me? Can you feel it, Kunikuzushi?”
Scaramouche nods — he feels like not answering properly means trouble, but nodding is not enough.
“Answer me”, he orders, loosens the grip around his throat to grab his face into his hand, make him turn his face enough to meet his eyes — and much smaller as he is, he has to look up, the most broken expression anyone has ever seen on someone like him.
“I can— can feel you”, he whines, looking into deep blue eyes, “it’s so deep— so deep, Ajax— daddy, please”.
Ajax feels everything crumble apart when he hears him calling out like that. He slips out once again, Scaramouche already mourning the loss — he replaces the hand on his belly with his own, feels the emptiness and craves, but Ajax doesn’t let him enough time to think properly, and it’s not like he’d be able to regardless.
“You’re mine”, he grabs his thighs, picks him up — Kunikuzushi wraps his legs around his middle like he was meant to, like he knows to, “Fuck, Kunikuzushi, I will ruin you”.
And he’s back inside of him in a second, lips searching for his as he pounds into him, holds Scaramouche by his hips to fuck him back on his cock like it’s a fucktoy for him to use. He chants mine, mine, mine like he can’t get enough — Scaramouche can only moan desperately, tears slipping free from his eyes as he grips Childe’s neck to keep himself upright.
His back meets the wall on the headboard without kindness and Scaramouche lets his head slip against it, looks up to the ceiling and closes his eyes while Childe’s lips make their way on his jaw, on his chin, on his throat — and he bites, like he wants to eat him whole. And he wants to.
“Daddy—”, he says, and words are the most useful of his weapons, “it’s too much—”, but no, it’s not enough, Tartaglia thinks, “I’m gonna come, Ajax, please—”, he tries to warn, and his voice is trembling so much. He’s a mess, and it makes the perfect picture as he cries and mewls like he’s drunk on cock.
Ajax doesn’t stop, not even when white sticky streaks paint Scaramouche’s abdomen, up to his chin. He licks it up like a wild animal — pushes his tongue into Kunikuzushi’s mouth right after to give him a taste, silences his moans even if he would want to hear every sound he makes like a prayer.
It’s filthy, so sinful, the way Scaramouche comes again when Ajax fills him up.
There’s no warning, just his thrusts getting slower but progressively deeper, like he wants to mark his very being with his own cum — he moans against open lips, licks them and then kisses him again to hold back the humiliating scream Scaramouche would get out of him. And then he spills all of himself inside of him, grunting, shaking and gripping his thighs so hard it’ll leave bruises — like he’s not even himself anymore, but a new version of his being he prefers, and only Kunikuzushi really gets to see.
“I love you”, Childe whispers against plump and reddened cheeks. He kisses his cheekbone, leaves a trail until he kisses his lips again. Scaramouche finds the strength to take the face he’s learned to love into his hands, kisses him back with even more passion, like he wants him to know, but know what?
That it can be spring even in this cold realm.
Spring
Tartaglia dreams, for the first time in years.
Scaramouche is sitting on a throne, as the world collapses, and it seems to do so from the sky — there is a dark aura covering the entirety of Teyvat, as if someone had engulfed this world in an abyss darker than the one known to any ordinary mortal.
It’s an instant before Tartaglia finds itself surrounded by cherry petals, and it looks like an expansion made for the two of them only — the blossoming cherry trees and Kunikuzushi sitting in a meadow of flowers. The Irminsul is observing their every move.
Kunikuzushi reaches out to him, but he knows he knows.
“Why?” he remembers asking.
“Human beings are fragile creatures”, he replies, the genuine smile of the Kunikuzushi that he probably was five hundred years ago, “birds to take care of or whose wings you can break. Mines are broken. Don’t you think it’s only fair everyone’s fate ends up being the same, Ajax?”
It hasn’t been 500 years, but he knows Scaramouche is light years away.
“Please, forget me”.
When Tartaglia wakes up, he finds a porcelain box containing a small note sitting on the desk. It neatly rests on cherry petals.
It’s spring in Inazuma.
He wonders what it means.