Work Text:
Venti gets to the dorm first.
It’s a simple dorm. Same building as his dorm last year, but the extra space he gains from switching to a double room instead of a triple makes it feel like a massive upgrade. It has all the basics: bed, wardrobe, dresser, and desk.
He pushes his cart full of (a third of) his worldly belongings inside the room and sets his hands on his hips. He feels like Amber trying to survey the best hill to go ice blocking down on campus, but he’s just picking which side of the room to claim.
He goes with the right side. The sunlight will bleed into the left side of the room in the morning, which is a death knell for a solid eleven A.M. wakeup time. With that settled, he starts to unload his stuff.
The mystery roommate shows shortly after Venti completes Cart Trip Number Three: The Final Trek.
Venti doesn’t actually know anything about this guy. He’s a ghost on social media. The only accounts under his real name are an old Twitter with two retweets and a private Facebook account that hasn’t updated in three years. Either this guy is so seriously nerd-core that he goes by aliases on the internet, or he barely knows what a phone is. Venti hopes it’s the former, but has already prepared himself for a lot of awkward silences if it’s the latter.
The guy comes in with a single cart. His eyes are bright and sharp. He has way more of a sense of style than Venti expected. He threw an oversized bomber jacket over a tight sleeveless tank and Adidas track pants, the kind with the white stripe running down the side. His sneakers look like they cost three-hundred bucks.
His clothes say dancer, but his face reminds Venti of the cat that hangs out by the library, the one that Amber always pets until Venti has to back up by ten feet or else choke to death on snot. This isn’t a good sign.
Whatever he sees in Venti’s wide eyes apparently grants him a single nod. He turns his back to Venti and starts pulling boxes out of his cart.
Venti coughs. He bets this guy doesn’t have any friends. “Uh, hey there! Xiao, right? My name is Venti. Nice to meet you, roomie.”
“Yeah,” says Xiao. His voice is growl-y. Venti wonders if it’s intentional.
“So, what’s your major? Are you local? I’m pretty local, but I don’t really go home. I’m a music major. My speciality is flute, but I like the harp more. I might practice in here sometimes, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m a philosophy major. I don’t mind if you practice here,” he says. That’s it. No follow up. Nothing that Venti can really latch onto.
He gives it a good, honest effort. “Okay… How do you like philosophy? Oh, you’re a second-year, right? I’m a second-year. I thought about moving off-campus with my friends into their apartment, but then I thought about all the food I’d have to cook myself!” Venti laughs. “It’ll be harder to get a good drink in the dorms, but it’s worth it for the free omelettes.”
(Venti does not wake up early enough to get omelettes. The last time he did, the chef added cheese to it without asking him and Venti sobbed in line. Now he mostly sticks to scones and mediocre mocha lattes.)
“I’m a second-year,” Xiao says. He looks at his stuff, and then at Venti. “I need to unpack. Talking to you is distracting me.”
Venti doesn’t think that’s supposed to be a complement. He takes it as one anyways.
༄
Welcome week is, without a doubt, the best part of the year. Venti doesn’t come back to the dorm often. There are too many friends to meet up with and too much free food to take advantage of to spend time in his room! Oh, and he can’t forget all the free booze. Venti isn’t one for frat parties, but it’s easy enough to name drop a few guys he copied homework off of once or twice or seven times and take advantage of all the sugary jungle juice.
He probably spends more time at Amber’s apartment (the one he thought about taking a spot in, but Diluc filled his spot so it’s all good) than he does his own room. He mostly returns late at night, his mind full of the heavy static alcohol provides, and collapses immediately into bed.
Whenever he returns, Xiao is there. He has a nice setup. In Venti’s sober moments (which take place at eleven in the morning when he first wakes up), he takes in Xiao’s side of the room. He has a black tower for a computer and dual monitors. He has one of those expensive gamer chairs, a rich black with firework bursts of teal running down the sides. He’s usually wearing a pair of massive headphones when Venti sees him, but they hang off the chair’s headrest whenever they’re not on his head.
Venti doesn’t know if he ever leaves. He doesn’t ask. He has a whole year to get to know his roommate and only one week of freedom to enjoy! It’s okay if his roommate is a bit of a shut-in. Venti won’t be in the room much even after school starts.
People often have this misconception that music majors just get to fuck around all day. They don’t realize just about every music major locks themselves in a practice room for two hours a day. Between that, his theory classes, orchestra practice, and Venti’s clubs, he’ll be busy.
It isn’t until halfway through the first week of classes that something changes. As much as Venti would like to be drunk all the time, his fingering goes to shit whenever he drinks too much. Sadly, he attends his practices stone-cold sober. He also comes back and sleeps, stone-cold sober.
The last thing he sees before he drifts off to sleep is Xiao’s back, cast in silhouette by the glow of his dual monitors, diligently working on his homework.
He wakes up to a pained groan.
Venti sits up. He looks over to Xiao’s side, but he can’t make anything out in the darkness. Another sound fills the room, this one a pained whine.
Venti grabs his phone and flicks on the flashlight app. He casts the light onto Xiao. His face is scrunched up in pain as he twitches in bed, his sheets a rumpled mess all around his waist. He’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
Should Venti do something? Xiao might get angry if he wakes him up. Hey, Venti is a little angry at getting woken up, but he can’t blame Xiao. He doesn’t know that Venti has quartet practice at seven-thirty tomorrow morning. He doesn’t know anything about Venti.
Venti wonders what he could dream of that’s awful enough to make him cry out in his sleep.
He doesn’t ask. They’re not friends. They’re just roommates.
After a few minutes, Xiao’s face smooths out. He loosens his death grip on his bedding. The groans fade to an unsteady silence, the kind only born of a deafening disaster.
Venti goes back to sleep, but he can’t get Xiao’s expression out of his mind.
༄
It’s the first real Friday night of the semester, but seven-thirty quartet practice means he can’t get blackout drunk at Amber’s apartment like he planned on doing. Instead Venti crawls into bed at a respectable eleven-fifteen. He’s already settled under the covers when he looks up to see their overhead light still on.
Venti sighs to himself. “I forgot to turn it off,” he mutters under his breath.
Xiao doesn’t have his headphones on tonight. He’s sitting on his bed, reading some fat textbook. It’s an even worse place to be on a Friday night than under the covers.
He looks up at Venti from behind a pair of thin glasses. He scoots closer to his desk and flicks on the lamp there. “I’ll turn it off,” he says, slipping off the bed and flicking the light off. “Does the lamp bother you?”
“Nope!”
“Good.”
The silence hurts. Venti looks at him, just barely visibly in the lamplight. He wonders if he has any friends. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
“Only for reading,” Xiao says.
“They look nice on you!”
Xiao turns away with a grunt. Venti grins to himself. He didn’t realize his roommate could get flustered so easily.
He settles back into bed. The room is quiet, save for the occasional flick of a turning page. Venti takes comfort in the sound. Before long, he’s asleep.
It feels like only a moment has passed before he’s awoken by another sharp gasp. He flicks on his flashlight immediately after waking up. Just like before, Xiao’s bedsheets are a twisted straitjacket around him. His sheets must be damp from how much he’s sweating. A string of sympathy plucks in his heart.
Just like before, he quiets down after a few minutes. His face slackens. His breath evens out.
In the morning, Venti leaves before he wakes up.
༄
The day after the fourth time it happens, Venti brings it up.
It’s four in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Venti’s just come back from his last class of the day. He’s going over to Amber’s tonight to watch a movie, and he’s promised himself he’ll get to steal two of Diluc’s beers if he finishes his music theory reading before he goes.
Xiao’s here, too. He has some morning thing — class, Venti suspects — and once it’s done he slinks back here. He’s finishing a round of some shooter game Venti doesn’t really know. He has one of those gaming mice that light up when he clicks it. It matches his chair. Venti’s been meaning to compliment him on it.
When the match ends and Xiao takes off his headphones, he really, honestly intends to compliment him. Honestly!
What comes out of his mouth is something else entirely.
“Get nightmares often, huh?”
Xiao looks at him, startled. It takes a moment before something like sullen understanding crosses his face. It’s resigned in a way Venti never is. “Did I wake you?”
“A few times, yeah.”
“You should get earplugs. I can’t control it.”
He says it like a fact. The same way Amber laughs and warns people against sharing a blanket with her on movie night because she will cuddle them, or the way Lisa will stop reading books in the middle of a sentence to go take a walk.
Venti is no good with sadness. It sits in him like a dead weight. He does whatever he can to push it out.
“I don’t think those will really help,” Venti says with a laugh.
“The roommate swap is next week. You could leave. My roommate last year did the same thing.”
Oh, shit.
Now he can’t leave.
༄
The next time it happens, Venti doesn’t wake him up. He can’t bring himself to. The space between their beds becomes too cavernous to cross. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s the way nighttime stretches out the spaces that seem so small in the daylight.
He just turns on his flashlight and waits for the tremors to pass. He wishes he could ask Xiao’s friends for help, but he doesn’t know any of them.
He tries to invite Xiao out to the dining hall for lunch, but Xiao just says that he likes to eat in the quiet. Venti sees him get takeout most of the time. He can picture Xiao as one of those guys who sits at a corner table with his phone whenever he does go to the dining hall. Venti’s never liked eating alone; meals taste their best when served at a table full of people.
“What about your friends?” Venti asks, sitting backwards in his chair to better face Xiao.
“Don’t have any.”
“What!? You’re a sophomore, how do you not have friends? I don’t really like befriending people in class either, but what about your clubs? Or work?”
Xiao shrugs. “I came to college for a degree. Not to join a club. And I don’t talk to my coworkers unless I have to.”
“So you do have a job! Where?”
“Campus store. I usually do stock.”
Not even good enough for the register. Venti feels bad for him. The more he talks to Xiao, the less he sees some cold, unapproachable nerd. He’s more like— ugh, okay, maybe a little bit like a cat under a bridge. But better, because Venti isn’t allergic to him.
“Don’t you get bored?” Venti asks. Xiao tilts his head and blinks. The guy is a cat in a human suit, really.
“I can keep myself busy,” Xiao says, and that’s the end of that particular conversation.
It isn’t that Venti doesn’t try. He starts putting in an honest effort to get to know Xiao. It’s just that the guy refuses to let himself be known! Like life will be easier for him to get through if he just puts up a little barrier around himself and pushes through all alone.
Venti’s never liked putting effort into wasted projects, but they’re still only a few weeks into the school year. And to think of Xiao as a wasted project… well. He wonders if that’s how Xiao thinks of himself.
The nightmares continue and Venti continues not to buy ear plugs. He can go back to sleep pretty fast afterwards, so it really isn’t that big of a deal. Part of him wants to ask what could keep Xiao tormented so many nights a week, but that becomes another chasm he can’t cross.
During the fifth week of classes, Venti runs into Xiao on campus. Well, not exactly . He sees Xiao’s familiar head of hair headed towards the heart of campus as he exits his goofy ecology gen ed classroom. Venti jogs through the crowd to catch up to him. Xiao’s got his massive headphones on. He doesn’t take any offense when Xiao doesn’t notice him until the moment he taps his shoulder.
He takes a little bit of offense when Xiao tears away from him and puts his hands up in what Venti thinks must be a martial arts pose. When Xiao recognizes him, he drops the pose. “It’s just you,” he says.
“Do you do martial arts?” Venti asks.
“I used to,” Xiao says. “Don’t you have class?”
“Yeah! Don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Venti points in the direction Xiao’s headed. “Then let’s walk together!”
A bit of sleuthing later, Venti discovers they end class for the day at the same time. Most days Venti drags himself to the music building to lock himself in a practice room for a few hours after class, but he decides to switch his schedule around a little.
“Let’s walk back together, too! The walk is so long. Good company makes it go so much faster.” Venti says. “I’ll meet you back here?” he asks, gesturing to the tiny garden right outside the music building. He likes the flowers here, delicate white ones interspersed with cheerful yellow ones.
Xiao looks at him oddly. “We can go back separately. It doesn’t matter.”
“I could get lost, Xiao. Do you want me to get lost?”
Now Xiao looks a little upset. His nose scrunches up in a way that Venti can only, much to his horror, describe as cute. “You’re a sophomore.”
“A sophomore with a bad sense of direction. Won’t you save me?”
His face twitches, or something kind of like that. Venti can’t tell if he’s mad, embarrassed, or itchy. Then he spins on his heel and heads into his building, but not before saying a clipped, “Okay.”
Venti laughs to himself. Of course the video game nerd has a hero complex! His heart crows in delight at this new side of Xiao he’s learned about, and the residual sense of triumph is enough to get him through class.
The professor goes on a couple minutes past the end of class, but Venti packs up his stuff and rushes out as soon as he can without actually missing important information. Xiao doesn’t seem like a patient kind of guy, and he doesn’t want to be left in the dust.
He rushes outside, but he doesn’t see Xiao. Disappointment flares in his chest, followed by a surge of heavy frustration towards his stupid professor for keeping him late. Then he looks down and sees Xiao crouched on the ground, his fingers brushing against one of the white flowers.
Venti comes up next to him and drops to a kneel. “I didn’t know you liked flowers! You don’t seem the type,” he says with a laugh.
“They’re calming,” Xiao says.
Three days later, while Xiao is in class, Venti smuggles a small plant into their dorm. It took several minutes’ worth of confused conversation with the florist before they were able to figure out just what flowers Venti was looking for.
He tucks them on the windowsill on Xiao’s side of the room, right where they’ll get the strongest amount of sunlight.
They don’t quell Xiao’s nightmares, but they make him smile when he comes back and sees them.
༄
Xiao’s groan startles Venti awake. He waits for his heart to calm down long enough for him to remember where he is. The rest comes easily: the flashlight, the sweep of the light over to the opposite side of the room, the panicked rise and fall of Xiao’s chest.
Venti has lost track of the number of times Xiao’s nightmares have woken him up. He wonders if there are nightmares Xiao suffers through that don’t wake him up. He’s never asked.
Xiao’s bed seems so far away. He crosses the distance, one step at a time. He rests his hand on Xiao’s bare shoulder. His skin is clammy, covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat that the flashlight couldn’t pick up. It’s worse than Venti thought.
Venti briefly weighs his options. He could pretend he never heard anything, the same way he’s pretended at least twice a week since moving in. He could also wake Xiao up and incur his wrath… except Xiao has never really gotten angry with him for anything. He doesn’t get angry when Venti stumbles in on the weekends at three in the morning. He just snuffles a little and rolls over.
Venti shakes his shoulder. “Xiao? Xiao. C’mon. Wake up,” he says softly.
Xiao’s entire body wrenches forward, in the terrifying few seconds before his eyes open. He shouts— a clear, discernable phrase. “Don’t move!”
Venti’s never understood what he says in his sleep before. Nothing that could crystallize his pain the way this does. Venti, against his instructions, takes a step back. “Xiao!” he shouts again, and it seems to do the trick.
Xiao looks up at him, eyes wild and unfocused. “You— what are you—”
“It was a nightmare,” says Venti, holding his hands up. Maybe he looks like a trainer trying to tame a feral tiger, or maybe he looks like a criminal admitting his crime. He doesn’t know which one the darkness will allow. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I… I woke you up,” Xiao says. He seems to come back to himself as he sits up.
“It’s okay. Do you want anything? I like warm milk and honey when I can’t sleep. Maybe… it could help?”
Xiao blinks at him. “I’m lactose intolerant.”
Ah. That’s right. Venti is hit by a sudden image of Xiao sipping from his silly little soy milk cartons. “I could heat up some soy milk?”
“You don’t need to do anything for me,” Xiao says. “I’m used to it. Go back to sleep.”
“Will you?”
Xiao’s silence is all the answer he needs.
Venti makes a decision.
He plops down at the foot of Xiao’s bed. He even flicks on his lamp. “Well!” Venti says, as cheerfully as someone who was woken up by their roommate’s sheer despair at the witching hour can be. “Guess we’re both up, huh? Let’s watch a show. A movie’s fine, too. Something funny. I have a bunch of good stuff, ehe, maybe pirated on my external hard drive? All the stuff you can’t get on Netflix."
“I could watch a movie,” says Xiao.
Venti falls asleep in his music theory class the next afternoon, but it’s a small price to pay.
༄
It becomes a silly little ritual. On really bad nights, Venti will gently shake Xiao awake and they’ll spend a little time together. Venti doesn’t always stay awake the rest of the night. Most of the time they’ll sit together for an hour or so before Venti crawls back into bed. Xiao will usually click his computer on and play some games or bring out his glasses and read by his lamplight.
He doesn’t know why it didn’t click earlier, but he realizes that every time he thought Xiao went back to sleep was a lie. He must have laid there in the dark, not wanting to disturb Venti.
He comes back with another flowerpot the day he realizes. Xiao sees it after he comes back from class. He stares long and hard at it; long enough to make Venti squirm where he’s sprawled over his bed.
“You don’t have to get me anything,” Xiao says.
“I bought it with my friend’s money, don’t worry,” Venti says. It’s true. Kaeya owed him a favor.
Xiao looks ready to protest. Venti cuts him off before he can. The best way to keep Xiao from chewing him out is to distract him. “Hey! I was actually gonna practice in here. My friend texted me and said all the practice rooms are taken up. Do you mind?” It’s either practice in here and piss his roommate off and mildly annoy any of his floormates who happen to be taking an afternoon nap, or pull what Xinyan is doing now and annoy the entire music department by practicing outside.
Unlike the music professors, Xiao’s annoyance fades fast. “Go ahead,” he says. Venti expects him to pack up his stuff and go to the library (which, Venti suspects, is the only other place he visits besides the dining hall, his classes, and work), but he grabs a thing of soy milk from the minifridge and settles down at his desk.
“You might want your headphones. I can get pretty obnoxious!” Venti warns as he digs out his poor, abandoned music stand from his side of the room. He hears Xiao huff out something that might be a laugh, or he might have choked on his soy milk. Venti can’t really tell.
Once his things are set up and his flute is all ready to go, he starts warming up. Nothing too intense, just some scales that he goes up and down. He adds in a few trills and flourishes for fun. The music major might be a four-year-long no-holds-barred-beatdown, but music itself is wonderful.
With his warmups done, he moves onto the piece he actually needs to work on. He’s been stuck on the same section of this concerto for a week. He plays the page leading up to it, which isn’t too hard. He’d say he’s pretty good at it!
Then he gets to this awful run that he stumbles over five times in a row. Frustrated, he turns away from his music stand and impulsively checks his Tiktok feed for any new videos. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Xiao watching him.
“I told you I’d be annoying,” Venti says.
Xiao emphatically shakes his head. “You’re good.” He can’t stop looking at Venti. His eyes are wide and, for once, unguarded. It makes him look younger— like he’s actually the age he is.
No music major actually thinks they’re good at music. Not even Venti. “I’m okay! I’d be better if I could play this piece.”
“It sounded…” he trails off, breathing out an exhale. “Can you play something else?”
It’s the first time Xiao has ever asked something of him.
A warm fire lights in Venti’s chest. He grins, and pulls out an orchestra piece where the flute takes the melody. “I hope you like this one! I’m good at it.”
Xiao does.
༄
Jean invites Venti over for dinner. Right at the end Diluc brings out the new bartending supplies he guilt-tripped Kaeya into buying him. When Amber demands that he test it out with some cocktails, why wouldn’t Venti stick around?
It is a small miracle that Venti manages to get back to his dorm. Amber offered to let him sleep on the couch, but their couch is so lumpy, and his bed is so nice. And Xiao is back at his dorm, and as much as Xiao pretends not to be, Xiao is also nice.
He thinks about calling Xiao to ask him to walk him back home. Xiao would probably walk him back home. Help him up if he stumbled.
He hasn’t been this drunk in a while, has he?
The world feels so nice. He wants to call Xiao. Even if he scolded Venti for getting so drunk, it’d be okay. He’d growl his frustration in such a lovely way. Venti could write a song about it. Maybe he should.
He pulls out his phone and types in Xiao’s name, but nothing comes up. A few seconds later, he realizes that he doesn’t have Xiao’s number. He doesn’t have him on social media either, because he’s learned that the only social media Xiao uses is a Twitch account he subscribes to his favorite streamers with.
He asks Amber, but she doesn’t have Xiao’s number, either. She walks him to the edge of the dorms, but it isn’t the same. She doesn’t walk close enough. She smells like wind and campfire smoke, which isn’t right. Her hands are too small.
He gets back to his dorm in one piece. Somehow. The walk was so long and so lonely. He blinks at the light filling the room. Xiao doesn’t like to sleep with the light on.
Oh. Xiao isn’t asleep! He’s awake. And staring at Venti.
“You’re back late,” Xiao says. “It’s Tuesday.”
“You’re up late,” Venti sing-songs back. He toddles past him to sit down on his bed. He somehow manages to get his shoes off and has never been happier about almost exclusively wearing slip-on shoes.
Xiao sniffs the air. “You’re drunk.”
“Diluc’s gonna be a bartender, and I am but a simple subject. Who am I to refuse his graciousness?” Venti collapses back on his bed. He could go to sleep right now, but sleeping now means less Xiao time. “Walking home was so hard! I wanted you to come get me.”
Xiao is silent for a long time. Venti cranes his neck to look at him, afraid that he might have left. But he didn’t leave. He’s just sitting there. Venti tips his head back. His mind swims. He’s so drunk.
“You should have called me,” Xiao says.
“I wanted to, but I don’t have your number.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Xiao says, but Venti doesn’t have the brainpower to figure out what that means. His bed is so comfy, and Xiao is awake, and things are good.
He closes his eyes. The next thing he knows, it’s morning. The sunlight makes his head pound. He groans under his breath, then groans louder when he realizes how nasty his mouth feels.
He glances across the room. Xiao is a lump under his blankets.
And Venti… Venti didn’t fall asleep under his blankets. He’s under them now, though.
Venti rolls onto his side. “Thank you,” he whispers. It’s okay if Xiao doesn’t hear him.
༄
Nothing really changes. Not on the surface.
Venti goes to class. He participates in his club. He locks himself in practice rooms to play, and when Barbara and Xinyan bemoan the lack of practice rooms, he plays in the room. He hangs out at Amber’s apartment. He goes with her, Lisa, and Kaeya to parties on the weekends.
He wakes Xiao up when he has nightmares. Grabs his laptop, flicks on the light, and settles down next to him to watch silly amateur animations on Youtube until the brightness he’s come to recognize returns to Xiao’s eyes.
They don’t talk about it. What is there to say?
Nothing changes, but something’s different.
༄
“Am I your first friend?” Venti wonders aloud. It’s two days before finals start and if Venti has to read one more sentence about music theory he’ll cut his own ears off. Xiao has been hard at work studying from a math textbook. He can’t figure out why a Philosophy major would need calculus, but hey! He’s a music major. If it isn’t on a scale, he doesn’t know shit.
He glances at Xiao. He’s sitting on his bed, glaring at his textbook. His headphones are around his neck, just like they’ve been the whole time. He thought Xiao would find that funny, not… be annoyed by it? Oh fuck.
“No,” Xiao says, but that’s even more surprising.
“I’m not!? Who? Did you lie to me, Xiao? You told me you didn’t have any friends!” Venti is his roommate. He should know who his friends are! Venti’s told him about Amber and the others before. It’s only fair.
“They don’t go here anymore,” Xiao says.
Venti settles back down. “Ah. That’s the problem with befriending those old seniors! They graduate and leave you all alone.”
“They didn’t…” Xiao sighs, frustrated. “You know what? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
People only say it doesn’t matter when they don’t want something to matter. So it clearly matters! But Venti doesn’t push it. He wouldn’t get anything out of trying.
They change the subject. They study, too. Eventually, they sleep.
Xiao has another nightmare that night.
Venti wakes to his pained groans. He flicks on his flashlight and crosses the space dividing their beds. Some half-asleep part of his brain wonders what they can do to simplify this process. “Xiao,” he says, yawning. “C’mon. Nightmare. Wake up.”
Xiao’s eyes fly open, wild and afraid. When they settle on Venti, they do something odd. Usually the sight of him makes the fear fade. His valiant roommate is here to chase away his dream demons! There’s nothing left to be afraid of. Only good times and gentle lamplight are allowed to remain.
Xiao is still scared. “Venti,” he breathes out. Practically croaks, Venti decides after a few seconds of deliberation. Venti waits for him to finish his thought, but he’s forced to wade through a solid minute of silence. When he does find something to say, it sucks. “Go back to sleep.”
“That’s an old line. Don’t you know it doesn’t work on me anymore?” Venti says, perching on the edge of his bed. “What changed?”
He doesn’t know if Xiao has recurring nightmares or not. Which would be worse: reliving the same horror, or experiencing a new one every night?
“What did you dream of?” Venti asks. Sweat makes a stubborn strand of hair cling to his forehead. Venti reaches for it unthinkingly.
Xiao’s hand shoots out like a viper and grasps his wrist. “What are you doing?”
“Moving your sweaty hair. How can you see like that?”
Xiao frowns. But he lets go of Venti’s wrist, so Venti brushes his hair away from his eyes. “I meant it,” Venti says. “What did you dream of?”
Xiao searches for something in his face. Venti doesn’t know what. He wishes he would stop looking and just tell him.
“Come on! I never ask. Just this once. Please?”
Xiao shifts until he’s sitting up, propped against his headboard.
“I dreamt of you,” he says.
“Of me? I’m not that annoying, am I?”
Xiao shakes his head. “We were on a roof. I think it was the math building. It didn’t look like it, but that’s what I knew it was. You were walking along the railing, and I kept telling you to get off and walk on something solid, but you wouldn’t. You said you felt free.”
Venti doesn’t like where this is going. The math building is seven stories tall.
“And you slipped. It was— I don’t know, wet or something. You slipped off the edge. I tried to reach you, but I couldn’t. You fell, and you fell, and I couldn’t save you.”
The worst part is that Venti would do that. Not the slipping and falling to his death part, but the standing on a thin railing part. There’s freedom to be found on the edge of terror. Venti is usually just too lazy to chase after it. If it was there in front of him, easy to hop onto and try, maybe he would.
That won’t help Xiao.
“It was just a dream. I’d stay within your reach if it was real. That way, you could catch me when I fall.”
Venti scoots up against the headboard until they’re shoulder to shoulder. “But there’s nowhere for me to fall now, so don’t worry about a dream as silly as that. If we ever get to that ledge, then you’re allowed to worry. Okay?”
Xiao doesn’t respond. Not for a long enough time for the response to matter, anyways. He just lays his head on Venti’s shoulder. Tentatively, the way kittens come out of their mother’s den the first time their legs are steady enough to carry them.
༄
Venti has one final left. It’s a Friday final too, which Venti honestly thinks should be illegal. Xiao finished his last final on Wednesday. Venti thought he would have gone home by now, but he hasn’t. He hasn’t asked why.
Another nightmare wakes Venti up. His body moves automatically: flashlight, chasm, shoulder. Xiao’s eyes blink open.
“Nightmare,” Venti yawns.
“You have a final at eight. It’s…”
“Two-thirty,” Venti says, settling against the wall. He steals one of Xiao’s pillows to use as a backrest. “What d’ya wanna watch? Something not too loud. I can’t do loud right now.”
“You should sleep,” Xiao insists, but he sits up anyways.
“Only if you do.”
Xiao just looks at him, concerned.
“How about a lullaby?” Venti jokes. He pauses to consider it. That’s actually a pretty good idea. Satisfied, he crawls off Xiao’s bed and retrieves his flute. “I have to play quietly. I don’t want us to get written up for a noise complaint on the last day of the semester.”
“It’s fine, really,” Xiao says. “You don’t need to play me anything.”
“Maybe I want to play,” Venti says with a grin. He lifts the flute up to his lips and plays a soft melody. It isn’t quite a lullaby, but it’s a calm, happy song. Maybe it’ll help Xiao. He steals glances at him out of the corner of his eye, looking for that sleepy tilt to his eyes he gets when he’s ready to go to bed.
Xiao watches him back, wide-eyed. That’s… the complete opposite of what Venti was going for.
Worse still, the lullaby backfires. The next thing Venti knows, he’s being shocked awake by the blare of his awful alarm.
The room is different. His own bed is across the room, and there’s a beam of sunlight— ugh, shining right in this eyes—
Wait.
This isn’t his bed.
This is Xiao’s.
Venti bolts upright and looks around. His roommate is dead asleep on the floor, his head pillowed by his balled-up hoodie. He has no blanket. He let Venti keep all of them.
Venti shuts his alarm off and props himself up on his elbow. A resolution settles deep in his chest. Next semester, he won’t let Xiao sleep on the floor. They’re both pretty small. If he’s going to let Venti crash in his bed, then they can crash together.
Maybe having someone close will help him get back to sleep. A warm body and a song, huh? How lovely.
༄
Venti’s winter break was spent on a road trip. He spent the better part of a week and a half crammed in a car with Amber, Jean, Lisa, and Kaeya. Diluc chose to fly to their end point and hang out with them there.
It was fun, even if Venti never wants to see another car in his life. He’s glad to be back in his dorm, even if being back in his dorm means having to suffer through classes and practice all over again.
He wonders if Xiao had a good break. Did he go home? They were kicked out of the dorms for all of break. He had to go somewhere.
When Venti drags his suitcase in, Xiao is already there. Venti abandons the suitcase in the doorway so he can rush over to Xiao’s chair and sprawl over the back of it. “Xiao!” he sing-songs, plucking his headphones off his head.
Xiao growls — literally, actually growls, which makes Venti burst into laughter — and swipes a blind hand towards Venti. “What do you think you’re—” he twists around, and the rage in his face fades when he sees Venti. “You’re back.”
“What, did you expect to see someone else? Who are you giving your room key out to?”
“No one!” Xiao says. “I didn’t know when you were coming back.”
They didn’t text for all of break. They have each other’s numbers, but Xiao is a I’ll only text you when I absolutely need something kind of guy, and Venti was distracted by having fun. Not that Xiao isn’t fun. He’s just a different kind of fun.
“I’m here now. Are you ready for a new semester? What are you taking? I’m in orchestra and wind ensemble. My lips are going to be so chapped.”
Game abandoned, Xiao grabs his phone and pulls up a screenshot of his schedule. He’s in four classes: one philosophy class, one advanced calculus class, a chemistry class, and a physics class.
“The philosophy major is weird,” Venti says.
“I’m pre-med,” Xiao says with a shrug.
“What!? Since when!?”
“I started the track at the beginning of this year.”
Pre-med is one of the worst tracks to be on. Venti tries to imagine Xiao as a doctor, but he can only picture Xiao in one of his sleeveless tanks and his baggy black pants, a white coat haphazardly thrown on to cover his shoulders.
“All the more reason for you to get a good night’s sleep,” Venti says.
He isn’t big on helping people without knowing he can get something out of it. But helping Xiao has never felt like a transaction. Only a gift he’s happy to give.
༄
Xiao has many shades of quiet. This one is calm and contented. He lets the pillows propped against their backs take the brunt of his weight. Venti dragged over one of his own just to make it more comfortable.
Xiao’s lamp is on its lowest setting. His mouse glows with green light and his computer provides a steady background hum. The dorm is a little cold — the building has a centralized heating, but never enough to truly make them feel toasty — but the blanket they share is fuzzy and warm. Xiao likes fuzzy things.
“You didn’t dream of me again, did you?” Venti asks.
“Not this time,” Xiao says.
“Will you tell me what it was? I won’t tell anyone else. Promise.” He stopped telling Amber’s apartment about their nights together long ago. Jean kept giving him weird looks, and Lisa kept smiling at him, while Diluc just sighed and shook his head. He isn’t stupid, as much as he may pretend to be for a free drink or two. He knows what they’re thinking. He thinks it himself, sometimes.
It’s just that he likes this, too. It’s been so long since he’s had such a quiet companionship. Why ruin it with silly words?
Xiao grabs a fistful of his fuzzy blanket. He worries his lip.
“Maybe I can help. You never know,” Venti adds.
“Some other time,” Xiao says. “I don’t want to think about it anymore.”
“I get that! I’m getting kinda tired, anyways. Do you think you can go back to sleep? Staying up for hours on end really isn’t good for you. You don’t even nap!”
“I can work on my physics homework,” Xiao says. It won’t be wasted time, he means.
“Or you can go back to sleep!” Venti says. He pushes at his shoulder; Xiao doesn’t budge. With a small laugh, he tries it again. “Come on. Down you go.”
Xiao shakes his head. He pushes Venti’s hand away. “Quit it.”
Venti laughs at him. “Would it help If I laid down with you?” He grins, but Xiao fixes him with a wild look. It takes him a few seconds to realize what he said. Venti has been blessed from birth with a thick face, but even this kind of shit makes heat burst over his cheeks. His chest feels like a firework.
“Not like—” Venti tries to say, but Xiao cuts him off.
“Would you?”
Here’s the thing. Venti is not afraid of physical intimacy. He’s held his friend’s hands. He cuddled with Lisa more than once when he stayed over on a cold night. (He is not allowed to cuddle Diluc.) He’s kissed strangers at parties. The most beautiful ones have even taken him home once or twice before.
With Xiao, it would be different. Because letting someone close enough to touch means something to Xiao.
It’s one thing to think about this in the safety of his own mind, where it doesn’t have to mean anything Venti doesn’t want it to. It stays fake up there — nothing more than an idle daydream, or the kind of resolution you make knowing you’ll never follow through.
Xiao’s eyes are intense. He wants it to mean something.
Venti wonders just when he learned how to read him.
He swallows, and then he smiles. “Sure I would.” He can still walk it back. Add a joke. Something to lighten the mood. If heat is supposed to rise, then why does this feel so heavy?
He doesn’t walk it back.
“Okay?” Venti asks.
Xiao teases the pillow out from behind Venti’s back. He lays it down next to his own. There isn’t much room on this bed, but he’s still sure they can make it work.
Venti flicks the light off. He puts his flute away. They move around each other easily in the darkness. Something in Venti’s head supplies an image of interlocking gears, and the weirdest thing is that it doesn’t scare him like he thought it would.
Xiao settles down first. He plasters himself against the wall, leaving more than half of the bed open for Venti. There’s enough space to sprawl just a little bit without touching, but Venti lays on the edge of the bed, halfway to falling off of it.
Then he decides that he doesn’t want to fall off the bed in the middle of the night, and flings himself forward. Xiao’s breath catches in his throat; if Venti wasn’t so close, he wouldn’t have been able to hear it.
“Wake me up if you can’t sleep,” Venti murmurs. “I mean it. I’ll get mad if you stay up when I sleep here all night.”
Venti drifts off to sleep far faster than he would have expected. In the morning, he wakes to sunlight in his eyes, and Xiao a hand’s width away from him. He’s on his side, a little curled into himself. Hands clasped at his waist like a corpse.
His face is soft in sleep. His breathing is deep, even. He looks peaceful.
“We should do this more often, huh?” Venti whispers into the space between them.
༄
Their Mondays and Wednesdays start at the same time, so they often walk down to campus together. On the second Monday they head down together, Xiao stops at the library.
“You have class,” Venti says as Xiao unzips his backpack. “Can’t you wait to return this book?”
“I’m not returning a book,” Xiao says. He pulls out a can of cat food.
Venti takes a very large, very deliberate step backwards. “Please, Xiao. I like breathing. Don’t summon the cat.”
“I bring it food every other Monday. It must be hungry by now,” Xiao explains. He takes the lid off and steps closer to the cluster of bushes by the library. He makes that stupid cat summoning sound with his mouth, followed by a low, “Here, kitty kitty,” that makes Venti want to squirm.
“Just leave it and go, please,” Venti begs.
“You can go without me. I don’t want the squirrels to get its food.”
“Then it can just eat the squirrels!” Venti protests, but it’s too late. There’s a musical meow, then a black and white cat steps out of the bushes. The sight of it is enough to make Venti’s eyes water.
Xiao holds his hand out. He’s stone-still, afraid of scaring the thing off. The cat approaches him cautiously, but it’s tail rises into the air and it headbutts his hand affectionately.
He gives it a few scratches, then steps back to join Venti. “We can go,” he says. He moves his cat-hand up to zip his backpack shut. It’s enough to make Venti sneeze.
Xiao raises an eyebrow.
“I’m very allergic to cats,” Venti explains miserably. Ugh, his eyes are watering already. “Let’s get out of here, please?”
Xiao reaches out for him with his cat hand, then retracts it. The cat munches on its food behind them, none the wiser.
Venti spends all of class red-faced and miserable. When they see each other again that evening, Venti goads Xiao into the hall bathroom and makes him wash his hands. He says that he already did, but Venti doesn’t believe him.
“If you bring a cat in here, I’m moving out,” Venti warns, knowing that he could never bring himself to mean it.
༄
They don’t sleep together every time Xiao wakes Venti up with a nightmare. Only half the time. Venti isn’t sure what stops them the other half. Maybe Xiao gets too prickly, or Venti doesn’t feel like pushing as hard as he usually needs to, or Xiao just resigns himself to suffering until dawn for no good reason.
He wonders if it has anything to do with the nightmares themselves. Does Xiao still dream of him? And if he does— are those the ones that keep the real Venti away?
What cracks Xiao’s shell isn’t a question. It’s a goofy reality show they’re watching after one of Xiao’s nightmares. “I used to do that,” he says, pointing to the way the person on screen does a backflip like it’s nothing. The guy on screen then runs forward and jumps off a wall. Venti barely bites back the word parkour.
“Used to?”
“I don’t anymore.”
“Why not?”
Xiao sighs. Venti pauses the show; some part of him can tell this isn’t going to be a short conversation. “I had these friends freshman year.”
Venti twists to face him. He remembers Xiao mentioning them before. “The seniors, right? Why don’t they ever visit you?” A flash of pain passes over Xiao’s face. Venti instantly regrets his words.
“There were five of us,” Xiao says. “We met because we were the only people who practiced qi gong on campus. We helped each other try out other things, too. One of us did gymnastics. Another did parkour. We’d go to each other’s meets. Do tricks late at night, when the campus security guards were patrolling the northern side of campus.”
Venti doesn’t like where this is going.
“It was late one night. It had rained earlier, but we thought it was dry enough. My friend tried to do a stunt at the math building. It was hard, but we knew how to be safe.”
A story registers in Venti’s mind. There was a death last spring. Someone had fallen from the top of the math building. Nobody was sure if it was a suicide or an accident, but no one knew how it could have been an accident. The student had been a freshman, like Venti. Some people blamed it on teenage stupidity. Some called it something darker.
There was no public memorial. The school never publicized his name. The only place he lives on is in the railing installed at the top of the math building.
Suddenly, Xiao’s nightmares make a lot more sense.
“He didn’t make it,” Venti says.
“We blamed ourselves. All we could do was watch him fall. If we were closer, we could have—”
Venti slaps his hand over Xiao’s mouth. He doesn’t need to hear the rest of the story. He understands. There were five of them then, and only one of them now. The others could have followed him off the ledge, or transferred away, or disappeared, or any number of things. No one makes it past that kind of loss unscathed.
Venti loved someone who left him, too. That’s the difference between him and Xiao, he thinks. Venti learned how to make the scars fade until he could live for that person’s memory. Xiao thinks he lives in spite of the one’s he’s lost, and he’s dedicated the rest of his life to a penance he shouldn’t have to pay.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Venti says.
Xiao rips his hand away. “You don’t understand. You weren’t there.”
“I don’t need to have been there.”
Xiao doesn’t believe him. That’s fine. He’ll believe him one day.
One day. That makes Venti pause. He wants to be around Xiao long enough for one day to mean something. He doesn’t know how far in the future that’ll be. That doesn’t unnerve him the way it should.
Venti tries not to think about the future. There’s freedom in living in the moment. People think he studies music to be an orchestra player or a teacher, but he only picked it because music makes sense to him. He doesn’t know what life after college will look like. He doesn’t know where he’ll be. It’s always been a vague haze of possibility, and while that might scare some people, it makes him excited.
There’s a shape in that haze now, and its silhouette sits next to him.
Xiao still holds his hand, like he doesn’t realize that he is. Venti shifts his grip and interlaces their fingers. He holds on tight.
“I’m glad you stayed,” Venti says.
Isn’t this world such a beautiful place? he thinks. It let you and I meet.
༄
It’s a Saturday, and Venti is drunker than a skunk. He needs to get home, though. Xiao is waiting for him, and he’ll stay up and worry if Venti doesn’t get back in time.
Jean insists that he can just text his roommate, which is incredibly smart of her to say. He makes her text him and ask to come pick him up. Twenty minutes later, there’s a knock on the apartment door. Xiao’s here! How wonderful.
Venti attaches himself to Xiao like a growth and waves goodbye to his increasingly-confused looking friends.
Xiao peels him off, and when Venti whines, because Xiao is warm and good and Venti is cold and alone, he rearranges them so Venti’s arm is slung over his shoulder. He keeps one around Venti’s waist. Even through his thin sweatshirt, Xiao feels blazing. Venti regrets wearing this sweatshirt; he should have gone with the crop top. Xiao would keep him warm if he had worn it. He thinks about taking it off just to make them closer.
“I’m drunk,” Venti says.
“You smell like it.”
“You’re bringing me home! You saved me,” Venti says, laughing. “Did you know that? You’re my hero.” He rests his head in the crook of Xiao’s shoulder. “Aren’t I lucky to have found someone so good to me…”
Xiao holds him tighter.
༄
A week later, before Venti goes to bed, he gets an idea. He falls asleep half-expecting to be woken up. Three hours later, he’s proven right.
He wakes Xiao up, but he doesn’t flick on the lamplight. He has a theory, and while he’s not a science guy, he thinks now is as good a time as any to test it out.
“Hey, Xiao,” he says. “Scoot over.”
Xiao groans. “Where’s the light?”
“I’m not turning it on! Scoot over.”
Xiao mumbles some token protest, but he still moves. Venti sets his pillow down and slides into the gap. He rolls onto his side to face Xiao. “What was it about tonight?”
He’s learned that the nightmares are recurring. Some nights, it’s his friend who fell. Other nights, it’s the ones who drifted away. And others still claim Venti himself, always just out of reach.
He’s never actually been up to the top of the math building. Now, he doesn’t think he’ll ever go. It feels less weird than it should to lock himself out of a part of campus. It doesn’t feel restrictive, though. Just smart.
“Do I really have to say?”
“It was about me, wasn’t it?”
Xiao’s silence is enough of an answer. Venti presses on. “Hey, I have an idea. I told you I’d stay within reach, didn’t I?”
From this close, he can barely make out Xiao’s expression. He eyes him warily. Unsure of what to expect. That’s fine! Venti likes keeping him on his toes.
His heart pounds in his chest as he rolls over. “What are you…” Xiao says, but trails off when Venti scoots back until they’re pressed together. He reaches behind himself and gropes around until he finds Xiao’s arm (and tries really, really hard not to think about what he might be touching). He pulls it over himself, settling his hand against his rib cage.
“Let’s try to go back to sleep. Not in an hour. Right now. Can’t be afraid of letting me go if I’m right here, right?”
He half expects Xiao to pull away. Or maybe to push Venti out of the bed and yell at him for being— he doesn’t know. Too annoying? Presumptuous?
But he’s betting on being right, and even if Xiao is stiff as a board behind him, he can wait it out. Xiao’s hand twitches against him. His breath should ruffle his hair, but it doesn’t.
“You’re allowed to breathe,” Venti says. “I know you’re not holding your breath because I smell. I showered right before bed.” He doesn’t mention that he knows Xiao likes his shampoo, but he can if he needs another joke. It’s easier to ignore his own pounding heart if he’s joking around. He wonders if that’s why Xiao won’t relax— he’s afraid of Venti knowing he feels the same.
But what’s there to be scared of? They share this.
“It isn’t you,” Xiao says.
“No? Is it you?”
“I—”
“Less talking, more cuddling and sleeping please!”
He annoys Xiao into submission. His hand relaxes. He finally breathes out, a long, steady exhale that puffs warm breath against Venti’s neck.
It works.
༄
There isn’t really that big of a shift.
It’s just Venti, coming back on a Thursday evening, his lips chapped from back-to-back personal practice and orchestra practice.
It’s just Xiao, noticing him come in and holding up a takeout bag. Almond tofu and soy milk for himself, and a panini (with no cheese, thank you very much!) and apple juice for Venti.
“Apple juice!?” Venti exclaims, delighted. “Oh Xiao, you are really the best. The absolute best.” He darts forward and grabs the takeout bag full of absolute delicacies and sets it down on his desk.
But then he gets an idea, and it seems like a pretty good one. He goes back to Xiao and his fancy gamer chair and grabs his hand to pull him onto his feet. Xiao’s confusion bleeds off him in waves.
Venti squeezes his hands tight and— uh— kinda misses the mark. Presses his mouth to not exactly his cheek, but the space between his cheek and his mouth. It’s a quick peck. He’s given more intense kisses to Jean (which she hates, and tells him to stop, which only makes him want to do it more when he’s drunk). “Thank you,” he says, and lets Xiao go.
Xiao blinks at him. He looks like he just got run over by a truck. What else is Venti supposed to do at that but laugh?
“You… you just…” Xiao says.
“Yeah. I did,” Venti confirms. Xiao goes quiet, which makes him just a little bit nervous. He couldn’t have read that wrong, could he? He literally wakes up in his arms twice a week, and he thinks they both want it to be more often than that.
It takes a solid two minutes for Xiao to come online. When he does, his eyes flash with something sharp. He crosses the distance between them and snatches Venti’s hands. That’s apparently all the confidence he has, though, because he starts to look lost.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Xiao says.
Venti rests a hand against Xiao’s chest. His heart pounds. His other hand cups Xiao’s cheek. “Luckily for you, I happen to be an excellent teacher.”
Xiao, he learns, is an excellent student.
༄
“I’m ready for bed!” Venti announces. His teeth are brushed, his seven-step skincare routine is faithfully executed, and his satin pajamas are firmly in place.
Xiao sits on his bed, nose-deep in a philosophy textbook. “Okay?”
“Xiao. I’m ready for bed.”
“O...kay. You can turn off the light. I don’t see what this has to do with me.”
Venti rolls his eyes, but it’s a fond eye-roll. He pokes at Xiao’s legs. “What if I wanna sleep here, huh?”
He has a theory. Xiao seems to be able to get back to sleep if Venti’s with him. He still suspects Xiao has nightmares that don’t wake him up. No more sleepless nights for Xiao!
That, and they cut out the whole middle part of the night if Venti shares his bed from the start. And if he likes how warm and cozy it is when he’s held, then who could blame him?
“You don’t have to,” Xiao says, but he pulls his legs back anyways.
“I didn’t say I have to. I said I wanted to,” Venti retorts, sliding into bed. He pats Xiao’s shin. “Goodnight! Join me when you’re ready.”
There’s a rustling, then, and the mattress dips by his head. Xiao must have shifted against the headboard. A hand works its way into his hair. He suddenly realizes that he might just have a thing for petting.
After that, they experiment. Venti drags Xiao to his bed to sleep in. It keeps the sunlight from waking them up on nights they don’t shut the curtains all the way, but it also makes it harder for Xiao to wake up. They try shoving the beds together for more room, but then Venti falls into the crack between the bed. They ball up a sheet and shove it between the beds, and that kind of works. Mostly, Venti uses it as an excuse to cuddle up to Xiao. Not that he minds!
They get off campus eventually, too. Venti drags Xiao to a crowded little bar featuring live music. He flirts with a couple of men until they both get enough free drinks to last them well into the night, and after dancing to a couple of songs, Xiao doesn’t seem to mind as much. It’s not Xiao’s scene, but he tolerates it. It helps when Venti drags Xiao along to the ever-present pulse of the music.
They don’t really talk about their living arrangements for next year. Whether it’s an apartment or a dorm doesn’t really matter. Wherever they go, they’ll go together.
༄
The nightmares don’t stop. The creatures that crawl in Xiao’s head are far stronger than Venti could ever fight alone. It would take a lot more than a warm body to get him to sleep through the night.
Venti likes to think his presence helps. There’s no chasm to cross. There’s just the two of them, standing on the same ledge. Venti can drag him back easier this way. On bad nights, he hears Xiao’s grunts in his ear. All he has to do is roll over and pat his face until he blinks awake.
Some nights they stay up. Venti will play him a song, or they’ll watch a stupid Let’s Play online, or Venti will kiss him until his breath quickens for an entirely different reason. Some nights they flick on Xiao’s lamp and curl into each other until sleep claims them again.
And on the nights where Xiao’s dreams are too quietly terrible to wake Venti up, he hopes that Xiao finds some solace by pulling him close.
༄
On a Sunday morning carried by the joy of a warm spring day, Venti wakes up to see Xiao sitting in bed next to him. He holds his phone with one hand. The other, Venti quickly realizes, is caught in his grip.
He squeezes it. “Good morning, sunshine,” Venti says, then laughs at himself. Xiao isn’t sunshine. Xiao is a cool breeze on a hot day, or the ripple of a stone across a still pond. Things Venti could actually write a song about.
“You’re awake,” Xiao says.
Venti hums. “Did you sleep well?”
“It was fine.”
Venti silently rejoices. Fine means no nightmares. “Did you dream? I think I did, but I don’t remember it anymore. Why would I need to worry about dreams when I can just look at you?”
A pretty blush creeps over Xiao’s cheeks. Venti grins; Xiao is so easily flustered. Teasing him is endless fun.
“I had a dream.”
“About what? Me?”
His flush deepens. “Yeah.”
Venti is delighted. “Oooh, about what? Anything I can make a reality?” Xiao drops his phone to hide his face in his hand, which only makes Venti laugh.
“Stop.”
“No, really! Tell me. I’ll stop teasing, okay?”
Xiao squeezes his hand, then brings it up to his mouth and kisses his knuckles. It drives Venti crazy when he does that. It makes him feel like a prince. “I was on the railing on top of the math building. I tried to get off it, but I couldn’t. My foot slipped. I don’t know if you’ve ever fell, but it’s a— a weightlessness, in your stomach.” Xiao points to himself. “Here. I thought it was the end for me, but then you looked over the railing. You grabbed me, and you pulled me back over.”
“Did I hold you?” Venti asks. He wraps himself around Xiao’s middle. “Like this?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a good dream. It’s okay if we fall. We’ll be there to catch each other.”
༄
And they are.