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“Childe, could you perhaps make yourself available tomorrow afternoon?” Aether glanced up from his rice bowl to look at Zhongli, who was staring at the fatui harbinger sitting beside them. The traveller then snuck a glance to Childe, who looked as equally as confused as he felt.
Childe blinked twice before tilting his head, as if saying ‘Come again?’. Zhongli’s intense gaze never wavered while he waited for his answer from the other.
The distant chatter of other patrons filled the silence that felt like forever. Aether glanced at Paimon, hoping she could ease the awkwardness he was feeling with her usual cheerful chatter, but by the way she was looking at the storyteller of the night, her mouth hung half open as she listened diligently to the story about the Crux Fleet, she was gone.
Aether decided by himself to drown out the two older males in front of him and continue eating instead, but it was proven to be more difficult said than done.
“Tomorrow afternoon? What for?” Childe asked, still holding the crystal shrimp between his chopsticks, squeezing a little too tightly that the fragile skin had broken, spilling some of the contents onto the plate instead. Zhongli paid no attention to it as he reached over with his own chopsticks, placing another crystal shrimp on Childe’s plate.
“I would like to take you somewhere, but the right time to visit the area would be when the sun is high. We have been seeing each other frequently at night-”
“Yeah, almost every night.” Childe interrupted and Aether immediately felt himself die on the inside. He never realised that Childe and Zhongli were so close. Now he really felt like he was listening to something he wasn’t supposed to. He glanced at Paimon to his right and tried to telepathically communicate with her hoping she would snap out of her trance and start speaking to him so he could at least pretend to not be listening much better than he is doing right now.
Zhongli nodded and did not continue, since the other looked like he was considering his idea.
“Tomorrow afternoon.” Childe says in a smaller voice, as if in thought while he puts down the crystal shrimp he broke to pick up the new one that Zhongli handed to him with difficulty. He could feel Zhongli’s intense gaze never leaving his form, possibly staring as he attempts to use the chopsticks properly.
“Childe.” he looked up and Zhongli’s hand moves under his chin, other hand holding his own chopsticks with another crystal shrimp between them. He moves his chopsticks towards Childe’s mouth gesturing for him to open and let the consultant feed him.
Blue eyes widened in shock at the strangely intimate gesture initiated by the handsome man before he shyly lowered his gaze to look at Zhongli from the top of his eyelashes, slowly opening his mouth and letting the man feed him the dumpling he had been struggling with tonight.
“Do you like it?” Zhongli asks with a tinge of fondness in his voice he didn’t make an effort to hide. Childe chewed as he nodded his head.
“Each crystal shrimp are usually made with one whole shrimp,” Zhongli started explaining the careful way each shrimp is prepared and steamed while Childe continued to nod and listen to him, attempting to reach for another with his poor chopstick skills.
As the funeral consultant continued explaining each dish, they didn’t notice the way Aether held his head in his hands, boring holes into the table in front of him. The blonde felt embarrassed from having witnessed the intimate scene between them, but even more so when he realised the patrons chatter beside them had become quiet.
Aether turns to look at the table, and the four patrons are looking at their table with vastly different expressions from confusion to embarrassment. When they notice him looking at them they have the decency to turn away and slowly start up their uneasy chatter.
He glances at Paimon, who is still staring at the storyteller with an increasingly worried expression as he tells his immersive tale of how the Crux Fleet almost did not make it out of those monster infested oceans alive.
In that moment, he wishes he was on the Crux Fleet and let a monster eat him.
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“Paimon thinks that this is the place where the storyteller said that he saw the Crux Fleet captain battle a big monster!” Paimon said as she floated towards Yaoguang Shaol while Aether walked behind her.
“I wasn’t listening, but I doubt a boat could even come here. The water is very shallow.” Aether says as he stepped along the shoreline.
“Paimon, were you listening correctly?” he teased as he raised his eyebrow smiling as he did. She huffed at the teasing and stomped on the air below her angrily.
“Paimon swears on her honour!” she shakes her head with all her energy and continues forward. “The storyteller said that the land was actually big spears by Rex Lapis pierced onto the land,” Paimon tries her best to dramatically gesture the way big spears fall from the sky and pierce the land.
“Like, boom! Bang, bang, BOOM!” she waves her small arms around, as if she was Rex Lapis throwing spears onto the ocean. Aether fondly chuckles at his companions reenactment of the storytelling. He imagines Rex Lapis himself would not use those sound effects, but they were entertaining to hear from Paimon.
‘Wait a minute. Big spears?’ he thought to himself as Paimon chatted to herself and pressed forward. ‘As in the big spears that formed into mountains?’
“Paimon, I think he meant Guyun Stone For-” as Aether emerged from between some rocks, he quickly doubled back and hid between them.
“Aether?” Paimon turned around herself as if she had misplaced Aether. “Aether!” she shouts louder. He rubs his temple. Paimon is going to get them both caught if she continues to shout his name. In a split second he decides to run out from the rocks, quickly grabs her entire body and runs back between them.
“Hey! What was that about?” Paimon dusted herself off, having sand on her person from the rough handling.
“Shush.” Aether keeps his head low and Paimon immediately knows that stance from all the battles they have been through together. Has he spotted an enemy?
She peeks from between some leaves at what Aether could possibly be looking at and sees the two men they were having dinner with last night.
“Hey! It’s Childe and Zhongli!” she says excitedly. “Let’s go greet them! Maybe they’ll even take us for lunch later, ehe!” Paimon wriggles with her whole body before she rushes out from the bushes, but Aether and his quick reflexes caught her small foot and pulled her back into their hiding spot.
From where they were hiding, they could see Childe and Zhongli walking along the shoreline just as they were earlier, except Childe had actually taken off the black boots he usually wore and rolled his pants leg up to his calves. Zhongli walked beside him, hands behind his back while holding onto Childe’s forgotten boots.
“I’m glad you agreed to come today, Childe.” Zhongli says, walking a little bit behind the fatui harbinger as the orange haired man walked on the beach.
Childe turned around and grinned at him, which made Zhongli’s smile soften with fondness as well.
“I’m glad I came! I know I’m a workaholic but I wouldn’t dream of missing out on this.” He smiles at the crystal blue water below him, feeling the wet sand beneath his feet and the cool water against his ankles brought him a kind of joy he didn’t usually let himself partake in.
“I feel like a kid, like when my dad brought me to the beach.” Childe says without thought, continuing to walk and look at the little crabs burrowing themselves into holes to hide from him. Zhongli walks beside him, holding on to Childe’s boots in one hand, watching Childe’s carefree expressions.
“That’s good. I’m glad I could show you another beautiful part of Liyue.” Zhongli closes his eyes and feels the sun rays against his face, letting himself bask in the warmth. He didn’t notice the harbinger turn back to look at him during his moment of peace and smirk.
“It sounds like you’re trying to make me fall in love with Liyue, Zhongli-sensei .” Zhongli opened his eyes to look at Childe leaning into his space, a curious smirk on his face as he pronounced every part of his name with a little bit of mischief.
Zhongli hums back curiously. “Perhaps.” He says before walking past the cute foreigner, continuing to enjoy their walk together.
“Sorry, Liyue, my sights are already caught by someone.” Childe pretends to be silly and blow a kiss at a nearby mountain, luckily the opposite mountain from where Aether and Paimon were hiding.
“Oh?” Zhongli asks which makes Childe turn around from his splashing in the shallow waters. “I did not know someone had already caught your affections, Childe.” The disappointment in his voice is not heard, but the tone is masked with curiosity.
“Hmm, you could say that.” Childe says as he ventures into deeper water, as the level starts to reach just below where his pants were neatly rolled against his calves.
“If you come in here, I’ll tell you who it is.” he says in a small voice, thinking Zhongli would not have heard it. He continues to walk in the water, watching the still water swish around him.
After a minute he realised he hadn’t been walking beside anyone and turned back, to see a fantastic and rare sight of Zhongli sitting on a nearby rock, rolling his pants leg up to his calves like he did for Childe earlier. He abandoned his shoes beside Childe’s boots and walking into the water with him.
Childe felt his face flush red when Zhongli walked over to him, standing before him in an incredibly unrefined manner, but still managing to look so elegant and handsome. He felt like he stared into intense amber for a long time before he heard Zhongli whisper so softly the wind could have masked it with its harsh blowing.
“Now tell me.”
He hesitated, looking at Zhongli’s face and then glancing at their shoes neatly placed together on the shore, before looking back at Zhongli. He knows his face is still red with embarrassment, but he could not help but fall for the funeral parlour consultant.
From the smallest gestures of feeding him to bigger gestures of planning all of their ‘dates’, Childe had found himself falling for him in every way.
His handsome face of course helped pave the way, but it was also all these other gestures.
“You.” Childe whispered as equally as quiet, feeling uncharacteristically shy. “I like you, Zhongli-sensei.” When he hears himself say it, he turns away. He felt like a school boy with a first love, empty headed confessions not thinking about the repercussions of it.
What if Zhongli didn’t like him back after all this time? He would have ruined the relationship the fatui had with the Wangshu Funeral Parlour in hopes that a particularly handsome consultant held affections for him so they could exchange kisses once in a while.
“Childe.” He hears his name and snaps out of his thoughts. He feels a warm hand reach for his chin before he sees Zhongli look at him from the top of his eyelashes, leaning in to kiss him soft and gentle.
He expected the consultant to kiss like he treated Childe, soft and gentle, so when Zhongli gave a particularly rough bite to his bottom lip, he flinched and pulled back, only to have the man chase him, pulling his body flush against his own as he kissed him harder.
The harbinger moaned in surprise, but realised the roughness was not uninvited. He let his mouth open, feeling Zhongli kiss him deeper, holding him tighter as Childe wrapped his arms around Zhongli’s neck.
Somehow in the mix of them pulling each other closer, Childe had tripped and pulled them both into the water, surprising them both.
“Lucky the water is shallow huh?” Childe says from his position below Zhongli, who lifted himself off squishing Childe to the wet sand.
“Didn’t really want to die by drowning after knowing you like me back.” He laughed, but the silence that Zhongli gave made his laugh turn nervous.
“You… you do like me back, right?”
Zhongli smiled before he chuckled, leaning down and kissing the column of Childe’s neck.
“I have spent many nights hoping you would fall in love with either Liyue or I. Of course, I’d be more pleased if it were the latter.” He says before leaning in once again, hoping to bite Childe’s soft lips and turn them red, but was stopped by Childe’s gloved hand on his mouth.
“What is this?” Childe reached for something behind his head and pulled out a starconch he had landed on. He squinted at it suspiciously before holding it up towards the sunlight. His eyes grew wide with what Zhongli could describe as childlike wonder when the seashell sparkled between his fingers.
“That is a starconch.” Zhongli smiled. The moment had been lost, but seeing Childe’s face is worth it. He stood up, pulling himself and Childe out of the water before they both sat by the beach, soaking wet in their clothes.
“Starconch.” Childe repeats after him, placing the small seashell in his palm and looking at it. “It looks fragile.”
“It is dead now, but before landing on the beach, they used to be stars,” Zhongli looks up at the sky, which made Childe look up with him as well.
“Stars that were full of life up end up falling to the earth and landing in the ocean, purely because they were in love with the idea of a vast sea.” Zhongli thought to himself how a starconch could resemble himself from the legend alone, falling from the sky to the earth purely for love.
“Wow.” Childe says after a while. “I think I love them.” He completely misses Zhongli’s fond smile as he continues to explain the legends of the starconch, before pressing it near to Childe’s ear for him to listen to the sounds of the ocean.
Aether and Paimon both watch the two men sitting at the side of the beach. He smiles fondly at his two friends while Paimon gushes beside him. “They’re both so cute! Paimon is so happy for them.” she holds her cheeks with both hands and swoons at the thought of them. "Paimon wishes she had a love like that too!"
"We could always buy you a sticky honeyroast and you can fall in love with that." Aether says as he got up and dusted the sand off his knees, before walking in the opposite direction from the couple. Paimon smiles excitedly at the thought of her favourite food, floating with Aether as she gushes about the sweetness of the meat is unrivalled.