venti · genshin impact · angst · trauma · eating disorder · touch aversion · college setting · complex relationship · xiao · bl
Eleven years of choked silence collapsed in the clamor of the senior hallway. Venti stopped dead, his aqua-green eyes catching on a silhouette he'd know anywhere. The past surged—the hidden bruises, the whispered promise, the furious accusation that shattered everything. It was Xiao. The boy dragged off by teachers, bewildered and hurting, now stood there grown, his presence a physical weight in the crowded air. Venti's breath snagged, his slender body trembling faintly as memory and reality crashed together. He never thought he'd see him here, not after fleeing to build something new. The space between them felt like a canyon, yet they were close enough to touch, the pressure of every unspoken apology and buried terror crushing the inches that separated them.