Chapter Text
Tick tock tick tock the clock sounds as Xiao swings back and forth, counting, counting. He had been counting and trying to keep his breathing in check. In and out, slowly, ever so slowly. There’s no rush, everything’s fine. Everything is fine.
His breathing has gotten much slower, better, oh so slower, until he starts to feel normal again, well as much normal as he can be. He stops there, lying on his bed. It was like he had just ran a marathon from the way his body felt.
He just wanted to sleep everything off after an attack, but he knows he can’t. He has too many lingering thoughts, and he didn’t want those to take rule over his mind again.
He sits up as he tries to reach over to his water bottle, which he kept at his bedside table. Water was good, it always helped. It takes him three full gulps to empty it. He should refill it, but maybe tomorrow, after he wakes up.
He looks around, seeing his phone at the foot of the bed. Seems like he threw it there when things became bad. He picks it up squinting at the glare of lights after having experienced his dark room.
He scrolls around looking for SoundCloud- the app he needed whenever something like this happened. He finds the music app he had downloaded so long ago. And plays the song that always calms him.
He lies down again. Listening to the melody of the Dihua flute. He had found the song years ago, just randomly scrolling through the app. He fell in love after hearing it once. And he hasn’t stopped listening to it since.
He looks at the artists profile, his name was Barbatos, a musician from Monstadt. He normally plays songs on his lyre but decided to try out something new, and thus came Xiao’s now favorite melody. It was sweet and sad, reminding him that even if things are bad it can still get better.
He’s been following the artist for around two years now, and his music may be great but he always comes back to this song. The one that enchanted and calmed him down that one night two years ago.
He looks at his recent music and looks at his information.
Xiao sits up again, because there, written on the page was a message that made the blood in Xiao’s body run cold.
“I’m taking this page down by the end of October, thanks for listening to everything I’ve been putting out”
Xiao looks at the calendar, it was the middle of October, he looks back at the page and sees that the artist also left his Twitter on there.
Now Xiao was never a nosy person, but he had to do something about this, even if this is just for his sanity.
So, he proceeds to follow the account, which had around a hundred followers – almost the same amount as what he had in SoundCloud – and opens up his DMs.
Typing in, “I really love your music, please don’t delete your page.” And he hits enter.
And then the regret settles in, he can’t force people to do things, for all he knew the person-Barbatos- could be having a hard time in life that’s why he had to delete the account.
He was thinking about ten things at once, when he hears the notification sound from his phone.