Lumine couldn't sleep. Not very surprising – struggling to fall asleep when you know you have to get up soon was normal. She did manage to doze off a bit, but a twitch beneath her temple and a sigh of frustration was enough to jolt her fully awake again.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, then stretched her arms above her head as a yawn crawled up her throat. She let it out with much relish.

"Ah, sorry," she could hear Venti mutter next to her. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Don't worry, you didn't," Lumine replied and dropped her arms on the table. "What are you up to?"

Venti hummed noncommittally, staring at the mess of writing utensils spread out in front of him. He'd put down a desk pad that was large enough to fit two sheets of paper, an open notebook, an inkwell and a quill. And while the handwriting in the notebook was almost too neat, with no traces of smudging whatsoever, the scrawls and squiggles on the two sheets were nigh illegible – covered in lettering of different sizes, from normal-sized in the center via tiny in the corners to a huge all-caps 'AAARGH!' going from the bottom left to the top right corner on one of them. Blotches of ink were rampant on both, and the lines left visible weren't always straight. Some were slanted, some were curved, with most of the words crossed out or even wildly scratched over in what must have been bouts of frustration.

It was basically the physical manifestation of songwriter's block, and Lumine's tired brain could barely process it. "Huh..."

"Yeah..."

The exchange didn't get much further than that. While Lumine was still trying to make sense of what she was seeing, Venti cupped his face in one hand and twirled his quill in the other, sighing heavily.

"Oh, right," he spoke up after a while. "I already drank half of what was left of the cider, so the rest is yours."

"Oh..." Lumine ripped her gaze away from the paper and looked over the table for Diluc's bottle. She picked it up and refilled her glass. There wasn't much left afterwards due to its size, so she poured the rest into Venti's glass. "There."

Venti laughed softly. "Thanks."

The two ageless teens fell back into silence as they sipped on their cider. It wasn't exactly an awkward one, but there was still an underlying need to fill it – at least on Lumine's part. She'd watched Venti compose plenty of times before, so she knew he could come up with entire stanzas off the top of his head in a matter of seconds. It even happened in the middle of a conversation sometimes, when he would just suddenly summon his lyre to try out a new melody on it. He'd excused himself at first, but after a while, they'd gotten comfortable enough to just carry on while he played, which he didn't have much trouble with. He could pluck at the strings and pay attention at the same time.

Lumine was so used to Venti coming up with and memorizing songs on the go that seeing him work on it was... strange, to say the least. Especially on such a scale and with zero results.

And he obviously knew it. In a way, the experience was probably just as strange to him as it was to her.

"Soooo..." Lumine eventually broke the silence. "I didn't realize you write your songs down."

"I don't." Venti shrugged helplessly. "Or does that..." He gestured at the paper. "...look like a song to you?"

"It certainly looks like you're trying," Lumine pointed out. "Very hard, if I might add. Would you like to tell me what's wrong? I'm no poet, but maybe I can help with figuring it out anyway."

Venti let out another resigned sigh and cupped his face again, this time with both hands. "It's just... You know how humans just loooooove love songs, right?"

Lumine froze. The mere mention of the subject, coming from Venti of all people, caused her emotions to descend into chaos all over again. She could feel her heartbeat all the way to the tips of her ears, her mouth went dry and her throat closed up, making it hard to breathe. It was a good thing that Venti was stuck in his own thoughts, or he definitely would've noticed.

Lumine swallowed. Hard. "Well, love is a huge part of life."

Venti dropped his arms on the table and shook his head. "Of course it is. And I'm not saying it shouldn't be. I think it's great when humans complement each other so well that they want to spend their lives together and raise more humans! It just seems so... obsessive." He took a deep breath. "Anyway, Mora doesn't grow on trees, and if you want people to pay you, you have to give them what they want. So I've been trying to write a love song." He cupped his cheek again and flicked at his quill. "But it's not working..."

Lumine's heart sank. She didn't ask why – she knew the reason, she was certain about it. But she didn't wish to hear it. As long as it wasn't confirmed, she could still hope. "But... you literally give classes on love poetry. And you sing plenty of love songs... Surely not all of them are other people's works?"

"Yes, yes and yes." Venti took a deep breath and started gathering up his things. "Let me rephrase that: I've been trying to write a love song I'm satisfied with. I've written plenty of them before, sure. People write about stuff they've never experienced all the time, or else we wouldn't have novels. Not to mention all the exaggerations and embellishments that are just good manners in poetry... There are certain rules to follow and certain phrases to use, but they always sound hollow and wooden to me." He briefly stopped for breath, but neither did he look at Lumine, nor did he stop fiddling around with his stuff. "Maybe you noticed that I always whip out the love songs towards the second half of a performance. That's because everyone's already drunk by that time, the audience is having fun, is in a good mood, and is starting to tire. Nobody cares about quality at that point, and more about getting some rest for both body and mind. As a bard, you'd want to perform simple but catchy songs that people can sing along with, or slow ones that they wouldn't regret sitting down for. Not to mention having a drink. In the end, that's what tavern owners hire bards for – to get patrons to stay longer, to get them thirsty and happy to spend more, and ultimately sell more drinks." He paused, then burst into chuckles and grinned at Lumine. "But you probably knew that." He returned his attention to his writing utensils, which were a nice, tidy stack by now, with the desk pad folded at the bottom and the two sheets of paper on top of it, which had the closed notebook, the inkwell and the quill placed on them. But somehow, Venti still found something to busy himself with. "For me, trying to write a love song is like trying to create a recipe while lacking a sense of taste. It's not impossible if you've studied enough recipes to know how different ingredients work together, but you'll never know if the result is any good. And teaching classes is much the same. If you know what works and what doesn't, and why, you can pass that knowledge on to someone else – someone who can make use of it because they do have a sense of taste."

"I see..." Lumine mumbled. She'd been right – Venti couldn't have made himself any clearer. "And you can give critiques because you don't need to be a great cook to know if a meal is good. That makes sense." She took a deep breath. Better get it over with. "So what you're saying is... You can't write a love song that's up to your own standards because... you can't love."

"Can't I?" Venti shrugged and turned in his seat to lean against the wall, placing his feet on the bench. "I love my people. I love my friends. I love Mondstadt. I love wine and song, and apples and flowers and birds and the skies and the winds..." He crossed his legs and leaned forward. "To be honest, I don't even know what humans mean when they say 'love'." He sighed. "Remember two Windblumes ago, how we got roped into fixing all sorts of messes around Mondstadt? The Windblume Festival is a celebration of love and pushes people to do things they wouldn't do on any other day, so it's kind of like a magnifying glass. And on one hand, there's all the excitement and gifts and bursts of courage. Bonds are formed and futures are created... But on the other, it also shines a big light on how love's really not all it's cracked up to be. There was Nimrod, who wanted to make an apology gift for Eury because he's always too drunk to pay attention to her, and then even failed that because he was, again, too drunk to even get the materials. He married her, which is supposedly the ultimate declaration of love, but he still prioritized alcohol over her. And then there was Albert." Venti shuddered. "He claims to love Barbara above all else, but he wanted to pat himself on the back for giving her gifts so hard that he knowingly and purposefully traumatized her by sending her a threatening letter. He was warned against causing a disturbance with his creepy flower statue idea, so he came up with something infinitely worse. He could've written about the whole fan club pitching in for a surprise present he hid, but instead, he chose to scare her half to death and make her believe someone killed her sister. She had nightmares for days after that... No gift in the world can make up for this kind of hurt." He shook his head. "If that is what 'love' means to humans, I want no part of it anyway."

"Venti..." Lumine whispered, not sure what else to say. It was such a sad way of looking at it, but he wasn't wrong, exactly. Lumine certainly wouldn't call Albert's fanaticism 'love' – or anything related to the Barbara Fan Club, really. She'd interacted with its members often enough to know that they didn't give a hoot about Barbara's feelings. She wasn't even sure if they viewed her as a human being, or if the deaconess was rather like a spincrystal that could write autographs to them. But when it came down to it, what else could she blame it on? "I didn't realize it upset you that much. You seemed fairly nonchalant about it back then."

"I just didn't want to disturb Barbara any more than she already was." Venti puffed up his cheeks and propped up an elbow on his knee to cup his face. "She's not in any real danger, so it wouldn't do to sour her view on her fans. She enjoys what she does and makes a lot of people happy. I do not wish to spoil it for her."

"I see..." Lumine sighed and picked up her glass of cider again. She had never had any hopes for Venti to return her feelings in the first place, but seeing her nonexistent chances slim even more before her eyes... still hurt. "You don't have a terribly high opinion of human love, do you? I mean, you've probably seen even worse things committed in the name of it, so I can't even blame you..."

"I never said that."

Lumine glanced at her friend, cider still in hand. "But you just said you want no part of it."

"I said I want no part of it if it makes people into inconsiderate, self-centered jerks." Venti relaxed his posture and leaned back on his hands. "But I'm well aware that it's much more complex than that. That's the problem. I don't think people are lying when they say they love each other and want to make each other happy. I don't think Albert is lying when he says he adores Barbara and worships the ground she walks on. I'm sure Nimrod never meant for things with Eury to turn out the way they did, either. And I know as well as the next person that good intentions won't save anyone from bad consequences. Good things get twisted into bad things all the time, but that doesn't make them any less good. So it's not that I dislike human love, per se. I've seen a lot of atrocities in my time, sure, but a lot of wholesomeness, too. I'm just..." Venti hummed pensively and scooched against the wall again, hugging his knees. "Confused, I guess."

There it was again – that glimmer of hope. But Lumine fought it down. As much as she wanted to believe that this was just another Callirhoe case, that the confusion about human love was all that blocked her friend from loving her back, that somehow, someway she could unlock a romantic relationship by clearing things up... As tempted as she was to offer help in figuring it out, she knew this was different. Venti was too old, too integrated into human society for that to be a possibility. If he could fall in love with humans, he would have done so before.

"Oh, that reminds me!" Venti interrupted Lumine's thoughts and returned to his prior cross-legged position, the usual excitement glinting in his eyes. "You're a human, right, Lumine? What does love mean to you?"

"Huh?" Lumine exclaimed, taken aback by the sudden enthusiasm. Her eyes widened and she reflexively shifted to the side, but then she took a deep breath. "To me?"

"Yeah!" Venti grinned and placed a hand on his chest. "I mean, I can hardly walk up to some random passerby and say 'Hey, I'm the Anemo Archon and have no clue about human love, but I want to write a song about it, give me some pointers?' But I can ask you, right?"

"Umm..." Oh, the irony... "Maybe you shouldn't..."

"Really?" Venti tilted his head, then shrugged. "Okay then. Then I'll just ask something else, if that's alright?"

"Sure. If I can help you with anything, I will."

"Great!" Venti beamed, fists raised excitedly, and Lumine's heart took a happy little leap. Then his expression turned into something more serious. "I've talked myself into a bit of a frenzy before, so I totally forgot about it, but the rules and standard lines of love poetry and songs... I would like to discuss them with you, if you don't mind. Can't go wrong with having a pair of fresh eyes, after all!"

Lumine hummed noncommittally, lips curled. "I'm not making any promises, though."

"You don't have to. That's the point!" Venti laughed. "And I'll explain everything you want to know, alright? Free of charge, too!" he added with a wink that caused Lumine's heart to skip a beat. But if nothing else, she got better at hiding it, so Venti cheerfully continued, "Also, I like your poetry, so there's no need to worry about your lack of practice. I'm sure you'd do great if you ever felt like picking it up!"

Lumine smiled. She wasn't sure if he said that because he genuinely believed it or because he wanted to be supportive, but it was nice to hear nonetheless. "Thanks. So, about your love song research..."

"Right, right!" Venti turned in his seat again to sit at the table and pick up his notebook. He flipped through the pages while Lumine sidled up to him, trying to catch a glimpse of the things her friend deemed important enough to write down. He was too quick, though, and she wasn't about to ask him to slow down just to indulge her. Eventually, however, he did it by himself as he apparently got closer to what he was looking for.

"What's an iamb?"

"Hmm?"

Venti stopped flipping and put the notebook down to give Lumine enough time to look at the open double page, and she noticed they were obviously related. One had 'iamb' written at the top, with a list of bullet points like 'heartbeat', 'neutral', 'ballads' and 'easy to sing' and a bunch of words underneath like 'abashed, today, connect, begin, delight, unclear, abyss', while the other was entitled 'trochee' and said things like 'off-beat', 'forceful', 'disruptive' and 'rock music? (coincidence?)', and finished with words like 'unabashed, really, forest, visitor, poem'.

"Those are meters," Venti explained. "I'm sure you know them, just not the words. It's how you build lines by alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. Iamb is unstressed first, trochee is stressed first. There are more than that, like dactyl, which is one stressed, two unstressed, or anapest, which is two unstressed, one stressed, but that's going a little far for now. Iamb is the most commonly used meter because it's the closest to spoken language." He sighed and crossed his arms on the table to pillow his chin in them, pushing the notebook aside in the process. "In theory, at least. Human language doesn't come natural to me, so I have trouble telling stressed and unstressed syllables apart. If I try to say a line out loud for the purpose of figuring out its meter, I somehow always end up stressing all the syllables. That's usually not a problem; I rely more on intuition than theory anyway. But in this case, it does bite me in the butt. Big time."

"Does a song need a meter, though?" Lumine pondered. "As long as it works..."

Venti giggled and sat up. "Of course not. As long as it comes from the heart, anything goes! But it's good to have something to work with when you have no idea what you're doing."

"I guess so..." Lumine picked up the notebook. "So you've written down what these meters do to the audience when they're used, and examples of words whose syllables correspond to the meter. Why is a trochee labeled as 'off-beat', though? Can a stable beat form even be off-beat?"

"Oh, it doesn't mean that." Venti reached out and took the notebook from Lumine's hands, closing it with a finger between the pages. "These are my private notes, not an instruction manual, thank you very much. I'm the only one who needs to understand them."

"Sorry...?" Lumine offered as hot blood rushed to her face. "I thought you were fine with me reading them, since you left them open on the table..."

Venti laughed. "It is fine, don't worry." He playfully tapped the top of Lumine's head with the notebook's spine. "I don't mind you looking over my shoulder. Just don't touch it, please."

Lumine nodded. She could work with that.

"And while we're at it..." Venti opened the notebook again and picked up his quill and inkwell to cross out the 'rock music? (coincidence?)' bullet point. "It was just a thought train I had. I once heard that the iambic meter resembles a heartbeat, so the trochee would be off the heartbeat, and that's what makes it feel so agitated. Incidentally, using beats where there shouldn't be any to rile people up is one of the pillars of rock music, but that's only tangentially related to trochees."

"Wow..." Lumine muttered. "That's the power of music for ya."

Venti burst into a laughter at this. "Sounds like Xinyan's speech patterns are rubbing off on you!" he snorted, then the amusement slowly ebbed away into giggles. Lumine was inclined to take offense, on Xinyan's behalf as much as her own, but the joyous sparkle in her friend's eyes told her that he wasn't making fun of her. Or Xinyan, for that matter. He was just delighted because everything delighted him, and eventually, he calmed down. "Don't quote me on this, but human speech roughly corresponding to the heartbeat might be because heartrate and breathing rate are a package deal, and so are breathing and speaking. So unnatural speech would cause unnatural breathing, which would affect the heart in turn and make the rest of the body react accordingly. You're forcing your heart to beat in places where it normally wouldn't, but it just can't not beat when it should, so it speeds up instead to get all the new beats without missing the regular ones. That's just the musings of a non-human without a biology degree, though, so take them with a grain of salt. Or perhaps a whole barrel, even."

Lumine shrugged. It sounded logical enough to her. "I don't have a biology degree, either."

"Really?" Venti chuckled. "We have so much in common! But speaking of heartbeats..." He started turning the pages of his notebook again, muttering under his breath. "Standard lines, standard lines... Ugh..." He grimaced and dropped the notebook, with the open pages being labeled 'descriptors' and 'physical reactions' respectively. A line on the former jumped out at her for being all caps, reading 'DOES HE EVEN LIKE HER?' with the notes around it indicating that it was about the protagonist of The Fox and the Dandelion Sea, who keeps describing the fox lady's eyes... and precious little else.

Hmm... Maybe he did only ever like her eyes...? Lumine would have to read that book again.

A throaty hum startled Lumine and she looked over at her friend, who'd started wringing his hands with an expression on his face that was equal parts guilt and frustration, with his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed into a thin line.

"Are you okay, Venti?"

The boy archon stopped twitching and shook his head. "I was just... reminded of something. But it was centuries ago... She's long gone."

"'She'?"

Venti took a deep breath. "The first person who fell in love with me. Or at least the first one to gather up the courage to confess their feelings."

Lumine's breath hitched as a pang of jealousy lanced through her. It was irrational, of course, but she couldn't help it. Still, it made sense. Venti had lived in a teenager's body for a long, long time, a lot of it spent among his people. No way Lumine was the first hormone-driven adolescent in the history of Mondstadt who thought the mischievous wandering bard was the cutest thing since the invention of kittens – he would have had a lot of admirers falling for his looks and charms in the past, and he would have them in the future, too.

The only advantage Lumine had was knowing there was more to him than that. But it was a huge advantage... wasn't it?

She took a deep breath to wrestle her emotions back into line and relax before she trusted herself to answer, "And how did you react?"

"Exactly how you would expect an undercover wind spirit to react," Venti sighed, holding his temples with his hands buried in his hair. "You see, she wrote a little poem that said a lot of things, but nothing about love. Maybe she thought it wouldn't be romantic enough, I don't know. But it had all those shortcut lines that people use to denote attraction – the speeding heartbeat, the high body temperature, the breathing difficulties... but at the time, I had no idea what these lines meant, or that they were supposed to mean anything at all. I only knew that, according to my understanding of human anatomy, they sounded kind of... fatal. Not to mention deeply unpleasant, but the way she looked at me told me that the most logical interpretation – that being around me literally made her sick – didn't quite add up. And she definitely wanted some sort of response from me, so I kind of... asked her if she needed a doctor?"

"Oh..." Lumine emitted. She felt for the girl... that was not what she would want to hear, either.

"Yeah..." Venti dropped one hand on the table and properly cupped his cheek in the other. "She probably thought I was a massive prick after that. But I hope that at least she learned to get to know people better before arbitrarily deciding they were the one for her. I certainly had no idea who she was... we were never even friends." He leaned back and crossed his arms, a distant look in his eyes. "Human mating behavior is weird."

Lumine laughed awkwardly. "That's hard to deny," she conceded, then took a deep breath. She'd probably regret this. "Have you ever considered saying yes?"

"Never," Venti replied with zero hesitation, but before Lumine could even process it enough to get down in the dumps about it, he continued, "Lack of feelings aside, I can only pretend to be a late bloomer for so long. Even if I did start a relationship with a human, it wouldn't last. Teenagers change much, much faster than adults do, which means there would be questions sooner rather than later. Not to mention that I would be a dreadful lover. Humans value the physical act of mating very highly, to the point of breaking up with an otherwise perfect partner if they get bored at night. But I want nothing to do with it." He shuddered and shook his head with a disgusted sound. "Forget mating, there's not enough wine in the world to bribe me into allowing somebody else's tongue into my mouth – before or after consumption. The whole idea grosses me out. Urgh!" He let out one last huff of revulsion before relaxing his arms and peering at Lumine, curiosity glinting in his eyes. "Why do you ask?"

Yup, she regretted this. A lot.

Lumine racked her brain for something innocuous. 'Testing the waters' was hardly the ideal reason to give, about as well as she could say 'I'm trying to delude myself into thinking I might have a shot at a relationship with you'. Could she even work with this? The fact that Venti wouldn't grow up was a complete non-issue in her case, but she did very much wish to 'mate'. And kiss. But thinking about it was of little use, anyway. If Lumine could make herself fall in love with someone else, she would. "I'm just curious how you think about this subject. It's not every day that you get to ask a god for their perspective."

Venti laughed through the nose, a grin on his face that showed his teeth. "My perspective can be accurately summed up as..." He threw back his head and started crying "Wha-ha-ha-ha-hy?" for a bit, then stopped and shrugged his shoulders. "Not very deep, I fear. If you want some divine wisdom imparted onto you, you'll have to hit up Nahida." A corner of his mouth curled into a doubtful frown and he lifted his palms. "Then again, she's probably as stumped as I am."

Lumine nodded as her thoughts flew back to the disaster that was Nahida trying to pass herself off as Katheryne. She was getting there, but you couldn't expect miracles – not even from gods. "Probably."

"And thus, we're back where we started," Venti sighed. He picked up his notebook again and scratched his forehead. "Hmm..."

Lumine scooched closer to her friend and put an arm around his waist, a smile creeping onto her lips as he automatically leaned in. So familiar and warm... and a little bit painful, too.

She peeked at the notes, and that bittersweet sense of irony washed over her again. "Physical reactions, huh?"

"Mh-hm." Venti sighed. "Really, they don't sound any healthier today than they did back then. 'My heart skips a beat, then starts racing' – that's cardiac arrest immediately followed by tachycardia. 'I forget to breathe at their sight' – that's just concerning, because it shouldn't even be possible for humans to unconsciously stop breathing. 'Hot and bothered' – I believe that's related to mating desires...? Could be a fever, too, though. Dry mouth, weak knees... sounds like anxiety to me. If someone came up to me with these symptoms, my first impulse would still be to recommend a doctor's appointment."

Lumine chuckled wryly. Perhaps she should swing her butt over to Bimarstan, then. "It's just excitement or nervousness. Excitement from getting to be around your crush, and nervousness because you want to make a good impression, in hopes they'll fall in love with you, too. As for forgetting to breathe, that's just a really cheesy way of saying that your crush is so amazing that you get overwhelmed for a moment – similar to reaching the top of a mountain and being greeted by the most beautiful view after focusing on your hands and feet for the longest time."

"Aww, come on!" Venti groaned. "I'm not that clueless!" He slipped out of Lumine's grasp and sat up to look at her. "My problem is not with the physical reactions themselves, but with the way they're idealized. Because, again, they don't actually sound pleasant!" He waved emphatically. "Doesn't being nervous around someone you like all the time ruin the whole thing? There's nothing desirable about it, is there? It would be much better to just be comfortable with each other. So why is it framed in such a positive way?"

Lumine turned forward, chin in hand and humming pensively. "When you put it like that... adrenaline, maybe? Or because it amplifies your feelings for your crush? It certainly doesn't take away from the experience the way anxiety does. Besides..." She faced her friend again to give him a grateful smile. "It's not always like that. Love songs like to focus on the thrilling, passionate side of love. The emotional highs, the attraction, the butterflies... but there's a calming, stable side, too." The thought alone filled Lumine with a sense of peace and warmth, and before she knew it, she had closed her eyes, elbows propped up on the table and her head resting on her palms. "It's coming home after a long day and your mood instantly brightens when you see them. It's falling into their arms and breathing in their scent, and all your worries fade away. It's knowing each other so well that you don't even need to think about what their favorite foods and colors are. It's inside jokes and needing only one word to tell a whole story. It's laughing together and crying together, carrying each other through hard times and reminding each other that better days will come. It's not about idealization at all, not about thinking your partner is perfect and can do no wrong. It's about loving them exactly the way they are – their past, their flaws, and everything."

"Hehe, sounds like someone's an expert after all!"

Lumine winced as she was brought back down to earth in the roughest way possible and turned her head, only then noticing the scratching of paper and quill. Venti was diligently taking notes, but he looked up at Lumine's blank expression when he sensed the gaze. From there, it didn't take long for him to realize that something wasn't right and the mirth on his face was replaced with contrition.

"Oh..." he muttered, turning towards his notes again. "That's why you didn't want to be asked... You have someone in mind."

Lumine swallowed. Then she swallowed again. And again. If she did it often enough, perhaps she could swallow her feelings as well. "Yeah..."

Lumine didn't even have time to blink. There was a gust of wind, and before she could even process it, she found herself crushed in an absolute death grip of a hug.

They had never been this close before. They had hugged, they had cuddled, they had used each other as pillows, played with each other's hair... but with her face buried in Venti's sternum, feeling his chin on top of her head, one of his hands stroking her hair and the other rubbing her back, and the insides of his legs pressing against hers, Lumine realized there was one line that, for one reason or another, they had never crossed before.

And it broke her.

She wrapped her arms around Venti's waist and pulled him higher up her thighs. Lumine had never been an expressive person, but now, holding the boy who had no idea how much she loved him in her lap, she couldn't keep the tears from falling anymore. No matter how tightly she squeezed her burning eyes shut, it was no use. It just hurt. It hurt to know that, no matter how close she thought the distance between them was, it still wasn't close enough. And it would never be.

"Hey, I got you," Lumine heard her beloved friend whisper in a soothing voice. "I'm here for you, okay?"

She didn't even try to answer verbally. A sob escaped her throat, and she nodded against his collar as she tightened her grip. She couldn't hold him forever, but at least for now, she could pretend.

"Aw, Lumine..." Venti murmured, still unfailingly calm. "My brave, precious warrior... You should take your own advice sometimes. You don't have to suffer alone."

"But..." Lumine choked out, trying to keep further sobs in check with limited success. "Venti... You have no idea..."

"No, I don't." Venti let go of Lumine and pulled away just enough to search her gaze, and she looked up at him with eyes blurred by tears. But she could still see the encouraging smile on his lips. "You're right, I don't know what it's like to fall in love and get rejected, but I can still give you a drink and a shoulder to cry on. I can even try and wheedle some chocolate cake out of Furina!" He cut himself off and glanced to the side, tapping his chin. "Wait, you're not in love with Furina, are you? That would be awkward... I should really start thinking first and talking second..."

He wasn't wrong, but Lumine found herself snickering through the tears. She didn't mind at all. "No, not Furina."

Venti grinned. "That's a relief. And now that I think about it, she probably wouldn't reject you anyway..."

Lumine heaved a deep sigh and looked away, wiping her eyes. "I wish it was a rejection... Then at least I could stop hoping and move on."

"Huh?" Venti blinked, taken aback. "Wait, you haven't confessed yet?"

Lumine shook her head. "No. I know he doesn't love me back anyway, and I don't want to make things uncomfortable between us. He's so sweet and kind, and I'm worried he'd try to force himself to love me back. And then feel guilty for failing. What if he decides it would be better for both of us if he left? I don't want to lose him, not over this. I'd rather stay friends and pretend I'm fine than completely destroy what we have."

"But you're not fine!" Venti protested. "And I can tell it's affecting you! You can't keep bottling it up, you have to do something about it! If not for your own sake, then for the people around you, at least! It's only a matter of time before you get so stressed that you blow up at the wrong person!" He heaved a deep sigh and slipped out of Lumine's arms to levitate off of her lap and settle on the table instead, his feet on the bench left and right of Lumine's legs and his chin in his hand. "Alright, let me think... Assuming you judged the situation correctly and the person you're in love with would react exactly as you said, that means he cares a great deal about you and wouldn't want to lose you, either. Just talk about it. You're on the road a lot anyway, so sit down with him and clear up whatever you need to move on, then take some time alone to sort out your feelings. Paimon will support you, too, I'm sure. However!" Venti relaxed from his thinking posture to grip the edge of the table instead and look into Lumine's eyes, an expression on his face that was almost... chiding. "You say you need a rejection to move on, but being sure he doesn't love you back apparently doesn't count. So I don't think you're as sure you think you are, and last I checked, people don't walk around telling other people they don't love them. And everyone loves you, Lumine! If some part of you still believes you have a shot, then I say shoot it! It could work out for all you know!"

Lumine took a deep breath, gathered up all her courage and reached for Venti's waist to pull the boy archon back into her lap. She did feel a lot better now that she'd talked to him – if nothing else, it assured her that no matter what, there was no way he'd break off their friendship.

"You're right," she said, smiling gratefully. She was ready to bag that rejection now. "People don't say 'I don't love you' unprompted. But they do cry about how frustrating it is to try and write a love song when they're incapable of experiencing it themselves. Right?"

She could almost hear the Mora drop. For a moment, Venti just stared at her blankly, then his eyes widened and the color drained from his cheeks. "...What?"

He wasn't expecting an answer. Shock, disbelief and denial flashed over his face in rapid succession, then finally culminated in a flare of blue light as Venti reappeared next to the table, backing away like a cornered rabbit until he bumped into a pillar.

"Venti...?"

Perhaps he wanted to say something. Perhaps he didn't. Either way, he disappeared again, and this time, he didn't reappear anywhere Lumine could see. Leaving her alone with a sleeping Paimon and a half-empty glass of cider, not knowing where he was or when he would be back.

Yup... If this wasn't a rejection, Lumine didn't know what was. It didn't hurt as much as she thought it would. In fact, she was relieved, although she would be more so if she didn't feel sorry for her friend. She'd expected some degree of shock, but this? That haunted look... It just felt like shifting her misery onto him, which was not what she had wished to achieve. She should apologize the next time she saw him... and bake the biggest apple pie he'd ever laid eyes on while she was at it.

But even among all this trouble, that niggling voice at the back of her mind, the one that seemed so bent on keeping her from closing the book on this chapter, still wouldn't shut up. That annoying voice that kept telling her that maybe, just maybe, it hadn't been a rejection at all. That maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance.

He didn't say no...

I've been wanting to make the chapters shorter. How are they getting longer? T.T