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The first of the month was always a little bit ceremonial for Keqing.
She wore her second-best blazer, the smoky lavender one with the crisp seams, and brought her stainless steel thermos of homemade chrysanthemum tea to the office. Not for good luck, of course. That would be irrational. It was about intention. Presence. Readiness.
The call usually came in the afternoon, between 3 and 4 p.m.
She didn’t know why that time—perhaps the committee met over lunch and needed time to digest both food and mediocrity before casting their verdicts—but for the past eleven months, it had come without fail. Eleven months of glory. Of being the first name in the neighborhood email bulletin. Of seeing her lawn, her design, listed with all its proper Latin genus names under the monthly “Tips from the Winner” section.
Keqing subtly straightened a stack of papers on her desk. The sunlight struck the corner of her keyboard, throwing faint gold onto her planner. She adjusted her headset. A calming breath. She could already hear the HOA representative’s voice in her head—slightly nasal, always chipper. Oh, Diane.
But the hour came and went.
No call.
Her phone remained still, silent, traitorous. No buzz. No ping. Nothing.
Keqing blinked at it, unsure if perhaps her internal clock had slipped. She tapped the screen. Checked the bars. All functioning. A glitch, maybe. A delay. She busied herself with half-hearted emails for another ten minutes past 4, glancing down every two or three sentences like she was watching bread refuse to rise.
Still nothing.
By the time five o’clock dragged its shadow over the office, the window behind her had dimmed slightly from late afternoon rays. Keqing packed her bag in practiced motions, more like someone walking through a ritual than a person going home. She told herself not to overthink it. Maybe they were sending a letter this time. Or a gift basket. Perhaps they were going digital. Yes—streamlining. Making a presentation.
She didn’t really believe any of that.
By the time she turned onto her street, long shadows stretched over the neighborhood. Dusk was slowly approaching. Sprinklers whispered against driveways. Porch lights clicked on in timed precision. Keqing’s car rolled into her driveway with its usual soundless glide. She stepped out and paused.
And saw it.
Or rather— didn’t see it.
No sign. No pristine “Lawn of the Month” plaque gleaming on its perfect little stake. Just her lawn, radiant as ever under the waning light. Immaculate. Trimmed to regulation height. Edges sharp as a geometry proof. Her begonias glowed faintly near the walkway. The soil was still damp from yesterday’s timed irrigation.
And yet—no sign.
Her brows drew together like storm clouds. She crossed her lawn slowly, as if some error might be waiting in the flower beds to explain itself. Had someone stolen it? Had a neighbor’s child knocked it down? She crouched, scanned. No holes. No drag marks. No wayward stake.
She stood in place, the ambience of the street fading into noise. Somewhere nearby, wind chimes rang in a melancholy tune.
Then, like a creeping vine, the thought came to her, wild and unwanted:
They gave it to someone else.
The absurdity of it nearly made her laugh. Her? Lose? To whom ? Mrs. Yan with the dead hydrangeas? The Ichihara family with the inflatable flamingo last summer? That man on the corner whose idea of maintenance was a monthly weed whacker massacre?
No. Impossible.
And yet, her phone hadn’t rung.
Keqing stood very still in the middle of her own lawn, the same lawn that had brought her glory eleven times in a row, feeling the dirt beneath her shoes and the sinking sensation that something had shifted.
She looked up slowly, gaze sweeping the houses across the street, and then—
There.
Directly opposite her own home, tucked behind a low garden wall blooming with lavender and climbing roses, she saw it.
The sign. Her sign.
Staked in someone else’s soil.
The HOA Lawn of the Month sign stood proudly in a patch of deep green across the street. The angle of the setting sun glinted off the gold lettering, just enough to make Keqing’s eye twitch.
She stared at it for a long time. Too long.
Her thoughts moved in fragments.
Did they deliver it to the wrong address? Did someone move it? Did someone think this was a joke?
No. That couldn’t be.
The garden across the street did not belong to a prankster. It belonged to someone named Ganyu.
Keqing had seen her before—soft-spoken, often coming and going in the early mornings. Kept to herself. Liked oversized sweaters. Wore gardening gloves like they were part of her skin. Polite enough, with the kind of voice that made you slow down without realizing you had. Keqing had categorized her as “mild” and “nonthreatening.”
Apparently, that had been a miscalculation.
A rustling sound drew Keqing’s attention. A shape moved in the yard behind the sign.
There—half-concealed behind a flowering trellis, kneeling in the grass—was Ganyu.
She didn’t notice Keqing at all. She was humming softly, some wordless tune like a lullaby only she remembered. Her blue hair was tied up messily in a loose, gravity-defying bun, soft curls spilling over her ears. Loose strands clung to the side of her neck. She had one hand buried in the soil, dirt clinging to her gloves and wrists, the other carefully tucking a sprig of something fragrant near the base of a bush.
There was no landscaping crew. No uniforms. No timed irrigation clicks or telltale app-controlled adjustments. Just Ganyu, her plants, and the slow rhythm of her work like she was breathing the garden into existence with her own hands.
Keqing felt something unnatural stir in her chest. Not admiration. Not quite.
It was closer to offense.
She crossed her arms, muttering, “Is she even using nitrogen-enriched topsoil?”
Ganyu looked up.
Not at Keqing. Just skyward, smiling faintly at the sound of birdsong overhead. Her expression was peaceful in a way Keqing didn’t understand—like she belonged in that dirt, like she’d never known a world outside of flowerbeds and sun-warmed silence.
And Keqing, who had a spreadsheet of bloom cycles and a preferred brand of mulch, who scheduled quarterly maintenance down to the minute—stood barefoot in disbelief on her own dethroned lawn, watching this woman hum to petunias and somehow win .
It was mortifying.
And—worse—it was compelling.
Because now, with the weight of her own loss settling in like evening dew, Keqing realized two things:
One, she was going to find out exactly how Ganyu had done it.
And two—damn it all—Ganyu was actually really attractive, even in the dirt.
Keqing narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t over.”
The sign stayed.
Keqing thought maybe the HOA would call the next day. They’d apologize. Tell her it was a clerical error, a regrettable oversight. That the sign was never meant to be there, that Ganyu's yard had simply been a runner-up—an honorable mention at best.
But the call never came.
And by day three, Keqing found herself sitting in her upstairs office, one knee propped on the windowsill, staring through a pair of discreet (but high-powered) binoculars.
She was collecting data. That was all it was.
Her blinds were half-closed— angled , not shut, because shutting them would suggest guilt, and Keqing had nothing to be guilty about. She adjusted the focus ring with clinical precision. A clear view of Ganyu’s front yard snapped into frame. Lavender, creeping thyme, dahlias. No lawn crew in sight. Ganyu was out there again, watering by hand with a green metal can like she lived in a storybook and not a residential HOA zone with strict runoff guidelines.
Keqing frowned.
“Who does that?” she muttered, taking notes.
Her phone screen glowed beside her:
Operation Lawnfall
• 6:23 AM – Lights on in kitchen window
• 6:41 AM – Exits house with watering can
• 6:44 AM – Begins trimming ivy (no gloves??)
• 7:12 AM – Sits on porch with tea.
Stares at nothing. Just… sits there.
Keqing scribbled a mental annotation. Possible meditative ritual? (Research benefits of stillness.)
A notification appeared at the top of her screen, jostling her focus slightly. From her boss: “Report?”
She replied in an instant: “Almost done.”
Then immediately flipped back to the notes app.
She wasn’t getting obsessed. She was getting informed.
It was disturbing how effortless it all looked. Ganyu didn’t carry tools—she cradled them. Her motions were fluid, intuitive, even when pulling weeds. Sometimes she knelt in the grass and just looked around, as if listening for something the soil might be saying.
And the worst part was how beautiful her yard had become.
The creeping jasmine she’d planted under the mailbox was starting to bloom. The kind of tiny, star-shaped flowers you didn’t notice until dusk hit just right, and the scent reached your porch and made you stop mid-step. Keqing had read about them. Jasminum polyanthum. Fickle things. High-maintenance. No place in a streamlined garden plan.
And yet here they were. Thriving.
By day five, Keqing had tracked Ganyu’s morning routine with military accuracy. She even knew which days she used the rose-pruning shears versus the softer trimming scissors. But there was no pattern. No master plan. Just instincts.
It was chaos. And it was working .
And today, Ganyu transformed the sign into a perch for a bird feeder, and already her lawn became more alive with the sounds of chirping.
Keqing set her notebook down and rubbed her temples.
This wasn’t a simple dethroning. This was a crisis. A system failure. Her lawn team was due for a quarterly soil audit and pest prevention sweep, and none of that mattered if Ganyu was going to sweep in with her bare hands and her serene smile and her ridiculous messy bun and charm the sign right out of Keqing’s yard.
She sighed.
Then stood. Then paced.
Then peeked again.
Across the street, Ganyu had tucked herself under the shade of a lilac bush, holding something small and leafy up to the sun like it was a tiny miracle.
Keqing watched her for a moment longer.
"...I need answers."
Keqing had rehearsed it.
She would take the recycling out at exactly 7:15 AM. That gave her a 60% chance of catching Ganyu in the front yard and a 30% chance of being noticed without seeming like she wanted to be noticed. The other 10%? Margin of error.
She dressed strategically: a slightly oversized hoodie—casual, but flattering—and her most neutral sneakers and a ponytail. Clean. Efficient. The look of someone who was not unraveling over a neighborhood landscaping award.
She stepped outside, clutching a paper bag filled with recyclable plastics (which she had absolutely not sorted that morning just to give herself an errand). The air was cool and smelled faintly of wisteria—hers, not Ganyu’s, and yes, that still mattered.
She walked out.
Ganyu was crouched near her walkway, gently teasing a cluster of blue salvia into place. She wore a loose chambray shirt over shorts, gloves on, cheeks already a little pink from the morning sun. Her hair was once again in that barely-tied bun that Keqing now understood was not a style choice, but a personal philosophy.
Keqing pretended to be surprised.
“Oh. Hey.”
Ganyu looked up slowly, blinking like she was surfacing from water. Then she smiled.
“Good morning!”
There it was. That soft, unguarded tone. Like Keqing wasn’t interrupting anything. Like nothing ever really could interrupt Ganyu. She existed on her own pace. On plant time.
Keqing nodded, letting silence stretch for exactly the right number of seconds. She glanced at the yard—casually, of course.
“You’ve, uh… done a lot here,” she said, with the forced nonchalance of someone whose entire self-worth was not built on being the best.
“Oh, thank you,” Ganyu said, brushing dirt from her knee. “It’s still a work in progress. But I think it’s finally starting to settle in.”
Keqing’s eye twitched.
Settle in? It looks like a botanical exhibit curated by woodland spirits.
“Well,” Keqing said, “the HOA seemed to like it.”
There was just enough edge in her voice to qualify as pointed.
But Ganyu only blinked again, puzzled. “Yeah, the sign? That was funny. I didn’t even know they did those until it showed up. Completely missed the call.”
Keqing froze. “You… didn’t know?”
“I thought someone had put it there as a prank.” She laughed softly, brushing a curl away from her cheek. “I was going to call and ask if it was a mistake, but then the jasmine started blooming and I forgot.”
She forgot.
Keqing’s soul briefly left her body.
“I see,” she said, in the kind of clipped tone she reserved for clients who missed meetings and tried to play it off as "miscommunication."
Ganyu stood, stretching slightly, the tips of her gloves still damp with soil. The curves of her body suddenly became extremely present in Keqing’s eyesight. “Your lawn’s really impressive, by the way. The symmetry is beautiful. And your azaleas? So healthy.”
Keqing blinked. Compliments. Unexpected. Undeserved. A trap?
“…Thanks,” she managed. Then added, “I outsource.”
“I could tell,” Ganyu said cheerfully. “The cuts are too clean. But that’s not a bad thing! It’s like, very precise. You have a good eye for structure.”
Keqing didn’t know what to do with that. Her entire plan had been structured around passive-aggressive superiority, not… gracious conversation . She wasn’t prepared for warmth. Or interest.
“Oh,” Ganyu said suddenly, as if remembering something mid-breath. “Your soil’s too compact, though. You might want to aerate. It’ll help the roots breathe.”
Keqing short-circuited.
Ganyu smiled again. “Anyway, have a good day! Don’t let the HOA get to you. I’m pretty sure they just like my lavender.”
And just like that, she turned and disappeared behind a thicket of salvia and ornamental grass, humming to herself.
Keqing stood in the middle of the sidewalk, holding her empty recycling bag like it had betrayed her.
She didn't know whether to scream, spiral, or start Googling how to aerate a lawn manually.
Keqing did not believe in luck. She believed in probability, calculated effort, and measurable progress. She believed in waking up early, in seasonal fertilization schedules, and in monitoring the pH balance of her lawn’s soil biweekly.
And now she believed in revenge.
Friendly, of course. Neighborly.
She stepped out onto her porch with a ceramic mug that matched her hydrangeas—lavender blush—for aesthetic cohesion. Her expression was calm. Her heart was not. Across the street, Ganyu was already kneeling in the grass, humming again. The sound drifted, delicate and aimless, over the clipped hedges between them. She had—Keqing hated to admit it—an angelic singing voice.
Keqing took a sip of her tea and pretended she didn’t time this moment to coincide with Ganyu’s morning routine.
Her plan for today was simple: reconvene naturally. Ask one casual question about her lavender soil mixture. Make a self-deprecating remark about how her own flowers were "a bit over-engineered lately." Charm Ganyu into sharing just one more secret. Learn. Implement. Win.
Objectively, it was a flawless strategy.
She stepped onto the sidewalk and strolled across the street like someone who had just spontaneously remembered she lived in a community.
Ganyu looked up.
“Morning, Keqing!”
There it was again.
That softness. The kind of voice that made you want to pause and forget what you’d been saying. Keqing swallowed the urge to freeze like she’d just been caught stealing.
“Morning,” she said coolly. “I was wondering—what do you use to keep pests off your lavender?”
Ganyu blinked. “Eh… nothing, actually.”
Keqing stared. “Nothing?”
“I guess they like yours better,” she said with a tiny smile, as if it were a compliment and not a battlefield insult.
Keqing opened her mouth, closed it, then forced a very normal, very polite laugh. “Right. Of course.”
Ganyu turned back to her flowerbed and gently tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, leaving a faint streak of soil on her cheek. Keqing stared. The blue of Ganyu’s hair was a ridiculous, luminous contrast against her flushed skin, and the smear of dirt should’ve ruined the moment but instead—
Beautiful , Keqing thought. Then panicked.
She stared at a hedge. Any hedge.
“You’re right about the compact soil,” she blurted. “I aerated last night.”
“Oh!” Ganyu beamed, looking delighted. “That’s great! I hope you didn’t overdo it—it’s easy to punch too deep the first time.”
Keqing cleared her throat. “No, I used a core aerator. Manual. Depth set to three inches. I calculated the intervals.”
The corners of Ganyu’s eyes crinkle. “That’s adorable.”
Keqing forgot how to exist.
“I mean,” Ganyu added quickly, “that’s—really thorough! I wish I had that kind of structure. I just sort of… poke around until it feels right.”
Keqing stared at the lavender. The smell was dizzying. Her fingers tightened slightly on her mug.
“You could always borrow mine,” she heard herself say, like someone in a trance. “The aerator. If you ever want. It’s calibrated.”
Ganyu smiled again. “That’s sweet of you. I might take you up on that.”
No , Keqing thought. This is not how wars are won.
But Ganyu was already reaching over to a nearby patch of white alyssum, brushing her fingertips across their petals like she was greeting them. The wind stirred. Her eyes half-closed. And Keqing—
Keqing felt the words leave her head. She just stood there, staring, stunned into breathless silence.
It took a full seven seconds for her to snap out of it.
“Well,” she said crisply, stepping back like she’d just remembered an important meeting, “I should go. My azaleas need… oversight.”
“Good luck!” Ganyu said, waving, utterly sincere.
Keqing walked away quickly. Too quickly. She almost spilled her tea.
When she reached her porch, she stood for a moment, staring down into her meticulously mulched flowerbeds, trying to remember what she was supposed to be competing for.
The sign? The status?
No. She remembered now.
She was trying to win against someone who didn’t even know they were in a war.
The days blurred into one another, a stretch of cautious greetings and half-steps. Keqing did not intend to be social. But somehow, she found herself orbiting Ganyu’s front yard with increasing frequency—her walks slowed, her morning routes adjusted, her errands suddenly more flexible around 8:00 a.m. on days off.
Their conversations were short, occasional, and deeply lopsided.
Ganyu spoke in soft monologues about things Keqing did not fully understand—acidic soil versus alkaline, root rot, perlite, sunburnt foliage. She explained companion planting with the enthusiasm of someone sharing their favorite childhood book, complete with gentle hand motions and glowing metaphors.
Keqing, despite herself, listened.
She nodded at all the right times. She even scribbled notes once, on her phone, hiding the screen like it was evidence.
None of it stuck. Not really. She could memorize policy frameworks in an afternoon, but for some reason, Ganyu’s language tangled in her head. It wasn’t technical; it was intuitive . Keqing hated that word.
And yet, she kept showing up.
She started recognizing when Ganyu was pruning to train growth rather than control it. She learned the difference between mulch that suffocates and mulch that protects. She knew what soil smelled like when it was healthy— loamy, sweet, dark.
It was unsettling.
And so, one Saturday morning, driven by some unnamed itch under her skin, Keqing stood in her garage, staring down a pair of gloves that had never been worn. Her irrigation team came on Tuesdays. Her maintenance crew did seasonal replantings.
This wasn’t scheduled.
But Ganyu’s voice echoed in her head: "You should let your hydrangeas breathe a little. Their roots like space—they’re not so different from us."
Keqing didn’t know what that meant.
Still, she tied her hair back. Tugged on the gloves. Marched into the garden like she was preparing for war.
The soil was firmer than she expected. The gloves weren’t as tactile as she wanted. The air was humid, clinging to her like a second skin, and within five minutes she’d already sweat through the back of her shirt. She hated every second of it. It was chaotic. Inefficient. Her spacing was uneven. She forgot which plants liked shade. She uprooted a pansy on accident and felt guilt like it had eyes.
But then—
She saw it. A section of the hydrangeas, opened up just slightly from her clumsy thinning. The leaves were lighter there. The breeze moved through them. They breathed .
Keqing sat back on her heels, arms streaked with dirt, and stared at it.
For just a moment, it felt good. Not victorious. Not productive. Just real . And she felt a glimmer of pride within herself. She pushed a hair back from in front of her face before realizing that her gloves were still covered in soggy dirt. She did the same motion with her wrist instead.
She imagined what Ganyu might say if she were to see it.
And then the clouds cracked open.
The wind hit like an afterthought, a warning that came too late. The rain followed instantly—a summer storm with no patience, as if the sky had grown bored of moderation. It fell in sheets, warm and torrential, soaking through her ponytail, her gloves, the backs of her knees.
She scrambled to cover her tools, slipping on the wet grass and swearing. The mulch she’d just laid scattered like confetti. The hydrangeas bent under the pressure. Soil turned to mud and clung to her shoes like regret.
By the time she made it back under her awning, she was drenched, grimy, and inexplicably furious.
She stood there, dripping onto her tile porch, arms limp at her sides. Gloves soggy and disgusting.
Her newly “breathed” flowerbed was wilting slightly under the downpour.
Useless , she thought bitterly. All of it. She should’ve just waited for the team. She should’ve stayed clean. Logical. In control.
And now, she was facing the consequences.
The storm passed sometime in the night. Keqing hadn’t noticed when; it had simply gone quiet, the silence leaving a ringing in her ears like she’d been holding her breath for hours. She didn’t sleep well. Her sheets stuck to her skin, and the scent of wet soil haunted her like guilt.
By morning, the sky had returned to its soft, washed-out blue, cotton clouds drifting lazily overhead as if nothing had happened. The world was sparkling, damp, alive. Birds were already reclaiming the branches.
Keqing stood at the edge of her porch, cradling a mug of jasmine tea, and stared at the wreckage.
Her flowerbed was a soggy battlefield.
The mulch had floated into strange, misshapen mounds. The hydrangeas slouched like hungover party guests. One of her carefully trimmed edges had caved in entirely, a miniature landslide of rich, coffee-colored mud.
It looked like a mess.
A personal one.
She should’ve called the team. She would call them. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t the kind of woman who got dirt under her nails for the sake of sentimentality.
But her gloves were still drying on the porch rail.
She didn’t hear the footsteps until they were nearly at the gate.
“Did the storm hit hard on your side too?”
Keqing froze. Her spine straightened involuntarily.
There was Ganyu—slightly flushed from her walk, her hair in its usual loose bun, though tendrils had escaped to frame her cheeks. She wore a canvas apron over a pale lavender shirt, one strap slipping down her shoulder like it had better things to do.
Keqing blinked. Her throat went dry.
“Ganyu,” she managed. “Yes. It did.”
Ganyu’s gaze slipped past her to the lawn. Her expression shifted, but it didn’t twist in judgment the way Keqing expected. Instead, it softened into something warm. Gentle. Earnest.
“I see you’ve been trying something new.”
Keqing bristled. “What makes you think that?”
Ganyu crouched without asking, inspecting the muddy bed like it was a living story. Her fingers brushed a fallen bloom, careful, reverent.
“This section here,” she said, glancing up with a little smile, “You gave them space to breathe. That was a good instinct. The soil’s heavy now, but once it dries out, they’ll thank you.”
Keqing stared at her, expression unreadable. Her hands tightened around the mug.
“I didn’t… It wasn’t instinct. You mentioned it. So I tried.” She paused, then added with great reluctance, “It was an experiment.”
Ganyu nodded thoughtfully, standing again and brushing her palms on her apron.
“I’m glad you did. Most people don’t take suggestions seriously. They just want compliments.”
Keqing did not know what to do with that.
She looked away, sipping her tea as if it might shield her from the absurd warmth in her chest. Her heart had no right to be behaving this way. She was embarrassed. Frustrated. Muddy.
And Ganyu smiled at her like the whole thing was charming.
Before she could say something regrettable—or worse, sincere —Ganyu added, “If you’d like, I could bring over some aerating mix later this week. Once it dries out, it’ll help the roots. And the rain probably compacted things a little.”
Keqing blinked. “You’d… help?”
“Sure,” Ganyu said. “It’s more fun with someone else, anyway.”
That word again— fun. Ganyu had said that about gardening before.
Keqing’s grip on the mug faltered slightly.
She cleared her throat. “I’ll consider it.”
Ganyu smiled again, gave a small wave, and walked off.
Keqing stood there a long time, mug now cold, the scent of wet jasmine clinging to the morning air.
Her lawn was a mess. Her schedule was ruined. Her gloves still hadn’t dried.
And yet, when she looked at that patch of soil Ganyu had touched with her bare hands, all she could think was:
They’ll thank you.
Keqing had prepared.
She had prepared the way a woman did when she wasn’t preparing for someone but rather against them—though in this case, that line had begun to blur, and she wasn’t exactly sure which side of the battlefield she was dressing for.
She’d swept the porch. Set out the good gloves. She wore linen—breathable, neutral, professional. Her lawn journal was stacked on the table, a notepad filled with questions scrawled in careful, almost anxious ink. And of course, she’d made tea. Two cups. Just in case.
Ganyu arrived five minutes late, holding a brown bag of soil mix like it was a pastry box.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she said, stepping into the garden. “I stopped by the co-op for their good stuff. They had a new blend—myrtaceous humus with a hint of orchid compost. Thought it’d be perfect for your hydrangeas.”
Keqing blinked. “Of course I don’t mind. That’s—that’s ideal. Thank you.”
She immediately hated how formal she sounded.
Ganyu just smiled, her hair haloed slightly from the sun behind her. “Where should we start?”
They started with the flowerbed. Ganyu crouched easily, fingers sinking into the damp soil without hesitation. Keqing followed, a little stiffer, planting her knees in the grass with a grimace she pretended not to make. The gloves helped. A bit.
As they worked, Ganyu spoke freely—about the soil’s composition, about fungal networks, about microfauna that danced in the dirt like unseen musicians. It was, objectively, fascinating. Keqing tried to keep up, nodding when appropriate, jotting mental notes she’d never quite recall fully.
And then, somewhere between mulching and aerating, Ganyu laughed.
It was a warm sound. Uncomplicated.
Keqing had been trying to describe her lawn’s “aesthetic direction.” She might’ve used the term regional cohesion , which Ganyu clearly found delightful.
“You sound like a landscape theorist,” Ganyu chuckled, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “You know, I don’t think grass cares about cohesion.”
“It should,” Keqing replied flatly.
That made Ganyu laugh harder—and then, without thinking, she reached out and brushed a speck of soil from Keqing’s cheek, thumb grazing lightly against her skin.
Keqing froze.
Her spine went rigid. Her breath caught, like it had been holding out all morning, just waiting to betray her.
“There,” Ganyu said softly, unaware of the chaos she had just unleashed. “Perfect again.”
Keqing stared at her. Words crowded her mouth and promptly died there.
The rest of the morning blurred after that.
Ganyu kept talking about perennials, about bloom cycles, about what plants were secretly vain. Keqing responded, mostly in single syllables, all the while acutely aware of how many times Ganyu touched her. A brush of the arm. A hand on the shoulder when demonstrating how to angle the trowel.
It was maddening.
Keqing didn’t know if Ganyu was aware of it—that she did this. That she smelled like crushed clover and spring wind. That her voice had the cadence of a breeze through tall grass.
By noon, Keqing’s perfectly arranged plan had been reduced to muscle memory. She was digging now, gloves forgotten, dirt under her nails, listening to Ganyu talk about what roots needed to thrive.
And for the first time, maybe ever, Keqing wasn’t thinking about winning.
She was just… there. Present.
It wasn’t peace exactly, but something adjacent. Quiet. Real.
By the time Ganyu stood to go—sunlight glinting off her cheeks, another laugh dancing in her throat—Keqing was blinking again, the same way she had that first day when the sign never came.
“I’ll come by again this week,” Ganyu said, brushing off her apron. “We’ll check how everything’s adjusting. Roots can be a little shy.”
Keqing nodded. “Yes. Right. Shy.”
Ganyu smiled, reaching out one last time—just a quick squeeze on Keqing’s wrist, light and warm. Then she was gone, walking barefoot across her own grass, her silhouette glowing like something drawn in watercolor.
Keqing didn’t move for a long time.
Her flowerbed wasn’t perfect. Her lawn was slightly uneven now. There were things to fix.
But she stood there, hand on her wrist where Ganyu had touched her, heart thudding like a drumbeat she’d never learned the rhythm to.
The sun was high and warm. The flowerbed was freshly mulched. The quiet buzz of insects stitched a delicate rhythm into the air.
Keqing was just starting to understand the basics of root spacing when Ganyu suddenly gasped, lifting both hands like she’d remembered a friend’s birthday two days too late.
“Oh shoot! I forgot—I’ve been marinating tofu all morning.” She stood up in a quick flurry, brushing off her knees. “Do you mind if we pause here?”
Keqing blinked up at her. “Pause?”
“I wanted to make stir fry before it gets too late in the afternoon. The kitchen window lets in all this gold light—it's perfect then.” Ganyu stretched, spine arching slightly. “Would you like to try some?”
The world stopped.
Birdsong paused mid-chirp. The wind lost its footing. Keqing’s brain short-circuited so thoroughly it took her a few seconds to realize she’d just been staring.
“I—I don’t want to impose,” she said. Her voice cracked halfway through impose , like it had stumbled over a stair.
“You wouldn’t be,” Ganyu replied. “But you don’t have to, really.”
“No!” Keqing shouted—then winced. “I mean. I would. I would like to.”
Ganyu’s smile bloomed like something perennial. “Great!”
She turned toward her house, calling back, “Come in when you’re ready!”
The screen door clicked shut behind her.
Keqing remained on her knees in the grass, fingers twitching at her sides. Then, in a swift and silent motion, she slapped her own cheek. Then the other.
Then she pressed both hands over her face and hissed, “Get it together, woman.”
Her heart was racing. Her palms were dirty. She was going to eat tofu with her rival who, infuriatingly, apparently didn’t even know there was a rivalry, and who smiled like moonlight and touched her like it wasn’t any big deal.
Keqing stood. Wiped her hands on her pants. Took a breath. Slapped her cheeks again, lightly this time.
Inside, she could see Ganyu moving around the kitchen, window light catching her hair. There was a pot of something simmering already. A wok sat ready beside it. Ganyu paused to push her sleeves up.
Keqing watched.
Then she nearly bounded over to Ganyu’s house.
Keqing stepped through the front door with the cautious reverence of someone entering a museum after hours. The air inside Ganyu’s house was warm and fragrant, filled with the soft sizzle of oil and the faint sweetness of sesame and garlic. It was, quite frankly, disarming.
She toed off her shoes politely near the door, uncertain of the custom, and stood awkwardly in the entryway.
Ganyu poked her head out from the kitchen with a smile. “Come in. It’s almost ready. I just need to flip the tofu once more.”
Keqing nodded, too stiffly, and hovered like a misplaced umbrella. The house was... lived-in. Not messy, but comfortably scattered. A few flower clippings rested in a small bowl on the table. A watering can leaned against the wall by the back door. There were smudges of dirt on the windowsill and a cookbook cracked open with something spilled on the page.
It was chaos. And it was beautiful.
“Do you want to sit?” Ganyu called over her shoulder. “Or help?”
Keqing hesitated. “I… could assist.”
“Perfect!” Ganyu stepped aside and gestured toward the counter. “You can stir the sauce. Just make sure it doesn’t bubble over. Medium-low.”
Keqing approached the stove like it might detonate. She took the spoon. Stirred. Slowly.
Ganyu moved around her with ease—adding bok choy to the wok, flicking her wrist expertly, humming something that sounded like birdsong. Her presence was steady, calming, like a metronome tuned to its own rhythm.
“This smells incredible,” Keqing said quietly.
Ganyu looked over, eyes lighting up. “Thank you. It’s a comfort dish. I make it when I’m… feeling a little off balance.”
Keqing blinked. “Are you feeling off balance?”
“No,” Ganyu said, placing a lid over the tofu. “Not now.”
The silence that followed was warm, not awkward. Keqing stirred the sauce, hypnotized by its spiral, until Ganyu gently took the spoon from her hand.
“You passed the test,” Ganyu said with a small smile. “You didn’t scorch it.”
“I don’t usually cook such fancy meals,” Keqing confessed, as if admitting weakness. “I eat for utility.”
Ganyu hummed aloud. “You could learn.”
“I’m very busy.”
“You make time for plants,” she pointed out.
“That’s different.”
“Not really,” Ganyu said, assembling two bowls and portioning the stir-fry. “Plants and people need the same things. Warmth. Patience. A little room to grow.”
Keqing stared at her. She wasn’t sure if they were still talking about dinner.
They sat together at the small kitchen table, knees almost touching. The food was delicious—savory, crisp, perfectly seasoned—but Keqing could barely taste it. Her senses were too crowded with the way Ganyu smiled between bites, how she paused to tuck her hair behind her ear, how she looked up just to make sure Keqing was enjoying herself.
At some point, Ganyu reached across the table and gently wiped a drop of sauce from the corner of Keqing’s mouth with her thumb. The touch was light. Familiar.
Keqing didn’t move.
“Thanks for coming over,” Ganyu said, quiet now, looking down at her own bowl.
Keqing swallowed. “Thank you for offering.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes more. Outside, dusk folded over the street, and the garden—Keqing’s garden—sat quietly across the road, lit faintly by the porch light.
Eventually, Ganyu stood and began clearing the plates. Keqing rose automatically to help.
“You really don’t have to—”
“I want to,” Keqing asserted.
She just wanted to be here. In this kitchen. With Ganyu.
For the rest of the evening, Keqing replayed every single interaction they had over and over like a broken record.
The office hummed with that polite, ever-constant drone of productivity: muted keyboards, distant phones, the occasional sigh of a copier from down the hall. Keqing’s monitor glowed with spreadsheets, but her eyes weren’t on them.
Instead, they flicked to her phone. The screen was dark. No calls.
She clicked her pen three times. Adjusted a sticky note. Checked her email again. Nothing from the HOA.
By 3:53 p.m., she'd already convinced herself that Ganyu won again this month. Instead of feeling defeat, she just felt… resolved. Accepting. She didn’t feel any bitterness or loss like last month.
At 3:55, her phone rang, surprising her anyway.
She picked it up like she’d been rehearsing for it all day. “This is Keqing.”
“Ms. Keqing?” Diane’s voice chirped, exactly as it had for every previous call. “Just calling to inform you that your property’s been selected again for our HOA Lawn of the Month. July’s looking absolutely beautiful. Congratulations!”
The pen slipped from Keqing’s hand.
“I—thank you. I appreciate it.”
“We’ll place the sign tomorrow morning. Enjoy the rest of your day!”
The line went dead.
Keqing stared at her reflection in the black screen for a long moment before setting it down, more gingerly than she needed to.
The triumph didn’t come. There was no flood of satisfaction. Only silence, static, and a strange sense of… disorientation. It stuck with her as she left the office.
The sun was melting into the skyline by the time she pulled into her driveway. Her lawn stretched out before her—symmetrical, gleaming, sculpted. Every petal pristine. Every blade trimmed to specification.
It looked like a catalog.
She stepped out of the car and stood still for a long moment, letting her eyes roam the borders of the flowerbeds. She should have been proud.
But instead, she just felt… tired.
"Keqing!"
She turned.
Ganyu approached from the sidewalk with a bundle of wildflowers—hers, clearly—in her arms, delicate stems clutched loosely in her gloved hands. She looked like she'd walked out of a summer painting—sun-warm cheeks, wind-ruffled bangs, dirt on her wrists that she hadn't bothered to wipe off yet.
"Did you get the call?" Ganyu asked brightly.
Keqing nodded, surprised by how stiff her own neck felt.
"Congratulations. It was really fun helping around."
“Oh,” Keqing said, blinking. “Yes. Thank you again. You didn’t have to, but…”
“I wanted to,” Ganyu said easily. “It was nice to spend time together. And it was fun.”
Keqing’s brain fizzed, stuttered.
Ganyu appraises her outfit with that same smile, making a show of it. “And your blazer is so cute! As pretty as you are while covered in dirt, I think this is really more fitting for you, Keqing.”
She turned away before Keqing could respond.
Which was good, because Keqing stood there frozen, mouth slightly open, staring at the point where Ganyu had just been.
Her face was burning. Actually burning. She reached up and touched her cheek as if to verify.
She turned and walked inside, shut the door slowly, and leaned her back against it.
You're a dignified woman, she told herself. Accomplished. Stable. Rational.
She should have been happy.
She’d won.
But her chest felt heavy. Disoriented. Like she'd arrived at the finish line only to realize the real prize had already walked away holding flowers.
And now, her logic was faltering under the weight of the strange heat blooming in her ribs. She was used to managing projects, not emotions. Especially not ones that smiled like that and touched her shoulder like it meant nothing.
Her thoughts spun. Hypotheticals assembled like spreadsheets in her head. Theoretical conversations swam around.
Do nothing . That was what she did, but wasn’t it rude?
Say thank you . That would have been a better response, but maybe it would’ve been seen as flat.
Invite her over for tea . No—too much. Outrageous.
Compliment her back. Compliment what? Her dirt-covered arms? Her messy hair? Her bundle of flowers? Come to think of it, the flowers were probably the best option. Ganyu would graciously take a compliment on her flowers.
Confess . No—this idea made her freeze up.
Keqing, leaning against the back of the door, slowly sunk down until her bottom hit the floor.
She stood at her kitchen counter, mug of jasmine tea in hand, eyes fixed on the succulents in the windowsill like they held the answers to life.
Her plan was clear.
Continue the gardening. Continue the proximity. Just a little longer.
She didn’t need to confess anything. Not when their moments—Ganyu’s gentle touch on her elbow, her little laugh when Keqing mistook a weed for an herb, the way she always lingered just a bit too long—were enough to keep her heart dangerously afloat.
Keqing would control the pace. Keep her dignity intact.
After that part of the plan… who knew. She’d figure that out once she got to that part.
She sipped her tea. Nodded once.
That was the strategy.
She was outside that afternoon, inspecting the edges of the garden bed like a surgeon mid-operation. Sunlight filtered through the clouds in long, golden spears. The air was balmy with a hint of petrichor—rain threatened, but held back.
She didn’t hear footsteps.
Only a soft voice from behind: “What do you think about moonflowers?”
Keqing jumped, flinching hard enough to nearly stab the dirt with her trowel.
Ganyu stood there, holding a small potted moonflower vine like it was a kitten. Her hair was damp—she’d been caught in the edge of a passing drizzle, and a few loose strands clung to her cheeks. Her cheeks, of course, were flushed from the walk, her eyes bright.
Keqing, on the other hand, was composed. Entirely, completely composed.
"Moonflowers," she repeated, because it was the only word she remembered.
“They bloom at night,” Ganyu continued. “I always think they look like they’re dreaming. Would you want to plant some together?”
Together.
Keqing blinked. Her mind flipped through her mental file cabinet—strategies A through G—but found none prepared for spontaneous shared moonflower dreams.
"Y-yes," she said before her brain approved it. "Of course. That sounds… agreeable."
Ganyu smiled, warm as sunlight.
“I thought so,” she said softly. “You’re always so precise, but I think you'd like a flower that surprises you.”
Keqing forgot how to hold her trowel.
Then, as if that weren’t enough, Ganyu stepped forward and nudged a loose strand of hair behind Keqing’s ear. “And your hair’s getting long. It suits you.”
Keqing short-circuited.
By the time she recovered enough to speak, Ganyu was already kneeling beside the garden bed, humming lightly and loosening the soil with gloves on.
Keqing stood like a statue for a beat, then slowly knelt beside her, hands slightly trembling.
This wasn't her strategy.
Ganyu’s hands moved with the calm precision of someone who had never once doubted the purpose of her presence here. She parted the soil. Nestled the moonflower vine into its cradle. Hummed something low under her breath.
Keqing was decidedly less composed.
She watched Ganyu’s hands move. The flecks of soil clung to her gloves like freckles. The warmth of her earlier touch still lingered at Keqing’s temple, an echo she couldn’t seem to un-feel.
It was unbearable.
It was beautiful. She couldn’t stop staring at Ganyu’s face.
And then she said it.
“Ganyu.”
Not a statement. Not a question. Just a breath, an impulse, a single syllable shoved out past every mental defense she had ever built.
Ganyu looked up. Blinking, curious. Her eyes were so startlingly gentle that Keqing immediately realized: she didn’t actually have a plan for what came next.
The silence stretched. Keqing opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “I—” Her tongue betrayed her. “I mean, I was wondering if—”
Ganyu tilted her head slightly, patient, as if time had no bearing on this moment.
“While… as we’ve been doing this—during our time together—I’ve… I’ve—”
She watched as Ganyu, face calm and attentive, slowly peeled off her gloves, finger by finger. She reached back and grabbed something from her back pocket. A clean, neatly folded rag.
Backtracking, Keqing restarted. “What I mean to say is… I’ve realized, um, that I’ve come to really—”
Ganyu leaned forward and dabbed at the corner of Keqing’s mouth—just once, soft and firm, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Immediately halting her own eloquent speech, Keqing froze in place, unable to compute why this was happening or how someone could look so impossibly lovely while gently wiping a fleck of dirt off her face.
Then Ganyu smiled and wiped her own lips in the same manner—eyes still trained on Keqing’s lips.
Then she leaned in and pressed her lips to Keqing’s.
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a surprise. It was the natural end to a long, unspoken sentence they had both been speaking with their hands in the dirt.
Keqing’s eyes closed before she could think better of it.
The kiss was soft, warm, steady—like the moonflower beginning to open, slow and sure in the dark. Ganyu pulled back with the same serene certainty she did everything else. Her thumb brushed Keqing’s cheek. She ran her tongue lightly across her lips—a subtle motion that Keqing caught like a falling petal.
“I wasn’t sure when you’d say something,” Ganyu said, voice quiet but playful. “I thought maybe the moonflowers would have to bloom first before you do.”
Keqing stared at her, stunned, heart hammering, brain utterly dismantled. She had no strategy. No dignified reply.
At that, Ganyu laughed lightly, a beautiful, tinkling sound. She stood up, even though the moonflowers weren’t perfectly blended into the line of plants. She wiped her hands using the same towel.
“C’mon, Keqing.”
“Huh?”
“We’ve missed so many potential Saturdays. Let’s not waste today. I’ll stir-fry something yummy,” she sang.
Waste? Keqing scrambled to her feet. “Oh—uh, yeah. Yes. Of course.”
She followed Ganyu for five steps in silence—their hands joined—before her brain started functioning again.
“Wait, so—but,” she stammered, stopping. Does this mean…?
Ganyu looked at her with a sweet, expectant smile. Impossibly patient. Somehow quite assertive. Knowledgeable yet humble. Kind, sweet, and surprisingly witty.
Keqing managed to catch herself before she slapped her own cheek again. Was this real? She looked at their hands.
The kiss. Ganyu’s impossibly soft lips. The quiet pressure sending all sorts of haywire throughout her system. The physical sensation of Ganyu’s breath fanning over her sensitive skin.
Unexpected variables? No—impossible.
“Right,” she concluded, continuing on. “Thank you.”
As they passed by the sign, Keqing smiled.