Chapter Text
Lumine watched her partner from behind a plant. The huge balcony of the Wangshu Inn was deserted, except for one person. Childe leaned on the railing and silently observed the Liyue landscape, waiting for her to appear.
The traveler turned around and looked at the details of the small cake she had prepared for the occasion: she had worked very hard on it. She made sure the icing was perfect and the decoration looked elegant enough; even so, something inside her warned her that something could still go wrong. She took a deep breath and tiptoed out of her hiding place, trying not to make a sound.
With slow, careful steps, Lumine closed the distance between herself and Childe and suddenly touched his shoulder, as if trying to scare him. He jumped and turned around, putting himself on guard. She just laughed in response, enjoying the look of confusion on his face.
“Hahaha... Hey, hi.”
“Hey, printsessa,” Childe slowly lowered his gaze, passing over his girlfriend's bright eyes and the slight blush on her cheeks until it fell on her hands, where the small cake with an unlit candle in the center lay. “And what's the occasion?”
“Oh, sure, pretend you don't know what day it is,” Lumine replied amusedly.
“I told you I don't like celebrating my birthday.”
“And your girlfriend can't even bring you a little something to make you smile?”
Lumine raised her index finger and channeled some of her Pyro power into the tip. She used it like a match, lighting the candle and bringing the plate with the cake closer to him. Although Childe wasn't a fan of celebrations, she knew that small gestures could easily make him smile.
And so it was. He smiled sideways as soon as he saw Lumine use her powers for something as trivial as lighting a candle. He leaned in a little to be at her height and look more closely at the small flame.
“Should I make a wish first?”
“Of course. You have to.”
Childe then closed his eyes and pretended to think carefully about his answer, although he was just exaggerating his ridiculous expressions to make his girlfriend laugh. She watched him devotedly, swallowing her nerves at such a special moment. She still had a very important gift up her sleeve and couldn't resist the urge for him to see (or hear) it.
With a gentle blow, he blew out the candle on the cake after a few seconds of deliberation, and at the same time, Lumine spoke clearly, completely throwing him off balance as soon as he heard her.
“I want to go to Snezhnaya with you,” she said suddenly. Childe's eyes widened in an instant and he stared at the extinguished candle wick, unable to respond or even react.
He definitely wasn't expecting that.
Lumine had waited a long time to tell him what she had decided to do with her life after finding her brother. She thought for a moment that he would be incredibly happy about the news, after all the time he had spent fantasizing about settling in his homeland. Lumine almost died of embarrassment when she saw that her partner was barely breathing and began to overthink. Didn't he like what she said? Should she have waited longer? Did he change his mind? Did he no longer love her enough?
“Childe?” she murmured, seeking to elicit even the slightest reaction from him.
The harbinger sat up, cautious and even shy. He stared at the traveler, whose face slowly contorted when she saw no clear signs on his face. Her breathing quickened slightly, as did Childe's.
“I...” he began suddenly. His expression quickly softened, revealing a more sensitive and vulnerable side of his personality. One that didn't always come to light and remained hidden somewhere in his heart. “You know, I had a gift for you too.”
“Huh?” Lumine blinked several times, stunned by Childe's ambiguous response. “But it's your birthday, not mine...” Her hands began to tremble slightly, slowly losing the strength to hold the small birthday cake. “Why hasn't he answered my question? Why is he ignoring me?”
“Lu, I... You know that the best gift you could have given me is one even easier than this.”
Lumine raised an eyebrow. Her heart pounded harder. She felt like she could even spit it out so as not to show how nervous he made her by not understanding his words exactly. Was he saying he didn't like her gift?
She began to feel short of breath when Childe took the plate with the cake and set it aside, because then he would kneel in front of her, take one of her hands, and reach into his pants pocket to pull out a sparkling engagement ring with a shiny stone in Lumine's favorite color. A beautiful sky-blue color reflected in her eyes, which slowly filled with tears.
“Saying yes would have been enough.”
The traveler smiled and then bit her lip to stifle a sob. That idiot managed to scare her for a moment. They both just had the same silly idea on the same day, at the same moment. She couldn't be happier, couldn't feel more fulfilled, more complete. She had the man she loved kneeling in front of her, asking her to spend the rest of her life with him. And after so much suffering and constant struggles to regain what gave her life meaning, Lumine felt that she had finally regained her bearings, as well as the control to decide to accept.
“Yes... Yes, yes, yes!” she exclaimed joyfully. She threw herself at her partner, completely ignoring the engagement ring that Childe was still holding in his right hand. She wrapped her arms around his neck and covered his head, his face, and finally his lips with kisses.
He was red as a tomato and let her kiss him without protest. Lumine's excitement was so contagious that he too ended up shedding a couple of rebellious tears at the end. Both of them, whose hearts seemed about to burst out of their chests, calmed down after a few intense seconds of happiness.
Childe got up from the floor and gently took Lumine's hand. His trembling body reacted nervously when it came time to take the ring and put it on the ring finger of his now fiancée. They both laughed with relief.
“Is this the wish you made when you blew out the candle?” asked the traveler, wiping away a tear that fell down her cheek.
“No, it wasn't necessary,” he replied, “I've got everything I wanted.”