Bookish_penguin
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“You’ll bear witness to our victory, won’t you Zhongli?” Ajax grins up at him.
Three things make themselves known to Zhongli. Firstly, they will be competitors very soon on the same stage before a crowd of hundreds. Secondly, he does not know if or how he should explain this unfortunate coincidence to Ajax and his bandmates. Lastly, and perhaps most severely, he still can’t stop thinking about what it might be like to be part of Ajax’s band instead of a rival, as impossible and ill-advised as this is.
Zhongli longs to play the bass and join the band of his next door neighbour, Ajax. The only problem is that he is also the concertmaster of their university’s elite orchestra, the adversary of all other music clubs.
Written for zhongchi week 2025 alternate universe category: band AU (day 4)
Recent bookmarks
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The Transient Nature of Companionship by sealoffate
Fandoms: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
09 Nov 2025
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“You brought a Fatui Harbinger and the Geo Archon before me for what purpose, exactly?” Ei impassively questioned, narrowing her eyes in a silent indictment as Miko artfully failed to hide a smile behind her palm.
“They ran into me,” Miko feigned innocence, a look she’d outgrown at least three centuries prior. “I was simply tending to the shrine as is my duty when I heard this lovely couple arguing. It seems that this one, Tartaglia, wants a chance to spar with you, but Morax-”
“Zhongli.”
His voice was clear, polished, easily transporting Ei back to a time when she was only a young god hiding behind Makoto’s billowing kimono, that same rich timbre droning on about rare gems and herbal wine, his presence oddly steadying amongst the animated din of the other Archons.
“I’m known as Zhongli now.”
Childe and Yae Miko engage in a questionably friendly spar while Raiden Ei and Zhongli discuss the complexities of loving and losing as immortal beings.
Bookmarked by Bookish_penguin
14 Nov 2025
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Five Times Childe Got Flustered (and the One Time Zhongli Did) by the_untamed_poet25
Fandoms: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
09 Nov 2025
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Five times Childe got flustered in increasingly ridiculous ways (involving an aggressively poetic flower metaphor, a museum exhibit with weaponized scrolls, a duel that ended in a pond, a shirtless hot spring situation, and one gloriously tension-filled shared bed). And one time, with syrup between them and undeniable love, Zhongli finally got flustered too.
Series
- Part 39 of ZhongChi / ChiLi Oneshots
Bookmarked by Bookish_penguin
11 Nov 2025
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How to Survive a Mild Cold and a Very Dramatic Boyfriend by the_untamed_poet25
Fandoms: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
05 Oct 2025
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It isn’t even a real fever. Not technically.
It’s a 99.7°F “maybe you stood too long in the sun” kind of fever. A “take off your coat and drink some water” kind of fever. A “the gods laugh upon your suffering because this isn’t even a real sick day” fever.
But Zhongli, patron saint of overreactions and dramatic pauses, approaches it with the solemnity of a mourning dove at a funeral. A very well-attended, state-sanctioned funeral with ceremonial incense and floral offerings and perhaps a casket carved out of geo crystal.
“You’re pale,” he says, tone already six inches into the grave. “You’re flushed. You’re—by the Archons—sweating. Lie down immediately.”
“I just ran up the stairs.”
“Lie. Down.”
“I feel fine.”
Zhongli, who has not slept, eaten, or blinked since the Sneeze, responds by forcibly tucking him into bed with the inexorable strength of an Archon and the pained silence of a man who has read six medical journals in the last twelve hours.
In which Childe sneezes once and Zhongli begins planning the funeral rites.
Series
- Part 34 of ZhongChi / ChiLi Oneshots
Bookmarked by Bookish_penguin
09 Nov 2025
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"Childe," Zhongli begins, putting down his own chopsticks and leaning over the table. He gently pries the chopsticks from his hand, rubbing circles into his wrist right where the pain sparks across it. "You are in pain."
It is not stated as a question
Bookmarked by Bookish_penguin
21 Sep 2025
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To Court a Dragon, or: Snezhnayan Courting Techniques (as Told by a Ginger Menace) by the_untamed_poet25
Fandoms: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
07 Sep 2025
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“Doing what, exactly?”
“You. I'm doing you.”
A pause. Childe squints. “That came out wrong.”
Zhongli exhales slowly, as if preparing to hear a crime confessed with sparkles in the margins. “Do go on.”
“Oh, come on,” Childe says, eyes too blue, too wide, too full of promises that reek of chaos. “Let me show you how we court people in Snezhnaya. You’ve done the whole Liyue tea-date thing, and I respect that. I do. But it’s time you experience the other side. A little fire. A little blood. A little suffering. You’ll love it.”
Zhongli blinks. “…You’re describing a war campaign.”
“Same thing.”
In which Zhongli allows himself to be courted, and Childe does it terribly, gloriously, and without shame.
Series
- Part 30 of ZhongChi / ChiLi Oneshots
Bookmarked by Bookish_penguin
11 Sep 2025