i miss you like it was the very first night!
how various genshin men fit into your party lifestyle and desperate need to have rebound after rebound, if only in vain to get over your ex-boyfriend.
“i never go alone, and i don’t seem broken hearted.”
kaeya is your first rebound after the breakup. he was single and available, and now apparently so were you. it was easy enough to get with him, go to parties together, show up as the hottest couple and leave estranged by the end of the night. because although you’re content with kaeya as a rebound boyfriend, he wants more. he had his eyes on you from the moment you met, and thought he would be okay with being the rebound, if only he could slowly create something more from it. he was okay with going to parties and only ever getting surface level deep with each other if he hoped that one day, you’d let him in and you’d both change for the better. but your heart’s not quite as healed as you want it to appear on the outside, and soon enough, kaeya realizes a rebound he is, and a rebound he ever would be. kaeya leaves you on the dance floor one night with nothing but a gentle frown and a disappointed gaze, softly kissing your cheek before he leaves. you don’t notice he’s truly gone until the next until the next day, when you call him up and find a dead end number and a blocked contact in his wake.
“my friends all say they know everything that i’m going through”
alhaitham is your friend to whom you tell everything—your recent breakup, the rebounds that aren’t working out, the latest party you’re planning on attending. he listens with open ears and gives his input every so often, but he’s finding it more difficult to do so as of late. all you seem to talk about is your ex-boyfriend or the guys you’re intent on going to that party you mentioned with. guys in plural, because although alhaitham recalls that one rebound not working out, you’ve seemingly got another one lined up and ready to go. alhaitham nods in understanding, you’re going through a lot right now, of course he understands. at least, that’s what he tells you. truthfully, he doesn’t understand why you do what you do, why you feel the need to go to all these parties with all these guys; that is, all these guys that aren’t him. can’t you see alhaitham, right here in front of you, is the perfect guy to be at your side after the breakup and then some? but no, you continue talking about the next guy you’re seeing, the next party to which you want to go, and alhaitham holds his tongue against his own will.
“i drive down different roads, but they all lead back to you”
xiao, your next rebound, isn’t much better. specifically because in this case, you actually had to be the one to chase after him. it took some push and pull to get xiao, who you always had in the back your mind, to agree to go out with you. and to a party, no less. you spent the week together doing couple stuff—the dinners out, the coffee dates, even visiting a few of your city’s local attractions—before the actual party. you thought that maybe, just maybe, this could work out, and you could move on from your next boyfriend. in xiao’s mind too was the sense of hope. hope that he made the right decision in deciding to commit to you and that you did finally move on. what he didn’t know is that you were using him to do that very thing. so the night of the party came around and you’re on the dance floor and everything is pretty tame, all things considered. until you had one too many drinks and starting speaking a man’s name that wasn’t xiao’s, and crying over that very man. xiao leaves you at your apartment, trying to ignore the rock in his stomach at the turn of events, and you talk to him again.
“they don’t know about the note on the polaroid picture”
lyney is your coworker who has watched everything—yes, everything—go down. he knows of your rebounds and your friend not-so subtly pining after you, about your incessant need to show the world you’re fine and still on top and going to parties and living the life after most painful, confusing, messy breakup of your life. he listens as you tell him about this fantastical life of yours and invite him to parties, before launching in yet another whimsical story. but he can see through the extravagance at the eyebags under your eyes, the frown that lines your face when you think no one is looking. he can read you like an open book, and when you’re gushing about another party you’d like you attend, he offers to go with you. you accept, hesitant at first, before excitedly discussing what to wear, if he wants to get dinner beforehand, to which he agrees. you invite him over for a quick dinner and he takes the time to admire your apartment—and a small polaroid picture tucked in the corner of a larger photo frame. he squints at the note, and reads it with a disappearing smile. when you tell him it’s ready, you find an empty living room, and the polaroid photo laying on the ground—you and your ex-boyfriend’s smiling face and love note promising forever written at the bottom looking back up at you.
“they don’t know how much i miss you!”
neuvillette thinks he can win your heart following your breakup. he’s the third rebound, third time’s the charm, and neuvillette seems like the ideal candidate. he’d be someone to ground you, and so far, he thinks everything is working out. you’re still going to parties, but a little less often now, and instead spending more time to get to know neuvillette as a potential boyfriend—a final match, after weeks of rebounds and parties and not quite knowing if you’d ever fall back in love again. you think he might be the one, until you stumble back home from a party with neuvillette, and come across the polaroid you never bothered to put back in its frame. you both stare at your old self and your ex-boyfriend, both so happy, and you wonder how it all went wrong. how you knew it was so right, with him. you think about how you don’t have any pictures with neuvillette—or any of your rebounds—and feel the knowing in your heart that it’s not right. when you tell neuvillette, he simply states that he underestimated how much you missed your ex, and you have the feeling you did the same.
“‘do you know how much i miss you?’”
you think you catch a glimpse of him at the party, the same party you always go to every weekend. you’re on the dance floor when you spot the familiar dark brown hair, almost black in hue. suddenly you’re stumbling towards it, tripping and pushing past other patrons, until you lose sight of it in the crowd. you’re standing there, feeling foolishing for chasing after a shadow, a trick of the eyes, and for the first time in a long, long time, you’re one of the few guests to leave first, leaving the dance floor and drink you just ordered and party atmosphere behind.
you leave from a side door and half run, half walk, and half stumble as you make your way home, ignoring the judgmental and curious looks and hostile glares you get from other party goers, just now showing up. you leave it all, the party and the fun and the lights behind, and all is left is your misery. for once, you’re allowing yourself to feel it, wallow it in, and it’s this sensation, so foreign to you, that has you bringing out your phone, and calling a number you haven’t talk to since the breakup.
your ex-boyfriend picks up on the third ring. you don’t let him say anything before you whisper, “do you know how much i miss you?”
your mind flashes back to the very first night you met him the silence that follows after. wriothesley didn’t go to a party every weekend, but when he did, he was the life of it. he was the guy everyone wanted to be with, so carefree yet so cool, so handsome yet so humble, in his own way. and then there was you, equally as absorbed in the party culture, a light of the party yourself as you mingled on the dance floor and at the bar, sang the loudest during your favorite song, and was always the last to leave, savoring the night for as long as you could. it was the love of the thrill that brought you both together, and you’ll never forget the very first night you met him—that party, your outfit and his, the whispers later that night-and thought that you were in love.
if you could grow wings and fly and take you and wriothesley back to that night, you would.
wriothesley is silent for a second more, and you wonder if he hung up, or if you should, before the reply.
“yes, i do,” he says, hesitantly, softly.
your next words aren’t as bold as your first, and they come out in a choking sob, “i wish we could go back—to the hotel, to the party—and i… i wish we could restart, or start again, or go back in time, or something. i miss you, do you know much? do you really?”
you hear the click and know wriothesley hung up. you pull your phone back as tears threaten to fall down your face and plummet to the ground.
all of that, for nothing at all. all of that, only to go through the cycle of rebounds again, and end up back here, calling the only man you’ve properly loved. a tear does fall, and nearly crumble with it.
you look up, wipe your face, and turn around.
wriothesley stands behind you, phone in hand, illuminated by the streetlight, his face a mixture of confusion and concern and worry and endearment. he wears an outfit nicer than what he usually wears, and from his disheveled appearance, you wonder if you truly did see him at that party earlier tonight.
you smile, and so does he, and as wriothesley approaches, slight grin on his face—and there’s a new sense of mystery and hope in the air, just as there was on that very first night.
