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He remembers the first time he met Zhongli.
Both of them stayed at school really late just to finish some student council work. Childe himself saw that Zhongli was alone doing everything and decided to lend him a hand despite not being a member of the student council. It was surprising that the president allowed him to help out despite not being a member. This encounter was like a chance for the ginger haired male to get to know his stoic senior even more and it turns out almost all of his assumptions for Zhongli was absolutely wrong. Right after they finished with their work and packed up for the day, the two decided that it would be safer to walk home together and coincidentally enough, they lived close to each other.
The first thing that he found out about Zhongli was, he’s completely a dumbass with money. When they had to pay to get in the train, he noticed that he was having a hard time trying to pay for a ticket because he had no money to begin with. Childe thought this was a one time thing but he didn’t know that from now on he had to pay for both of their train tickets. Another thing that he noticed about him was that his hair smelt so nice and he is really envious on how Zhongli had really good smelling hair.
A few weeks had passed after their encounter, the two had gotten closer to the point that their closeness was suspicious to others. Lumine even dared to question if Childe was dating Zhongli. Everytime she would ask that, he would always rub it off with the same answer, “We’re just super duper close friends!” Of course, that will soon turn into a lie the moment he found himself being drawn to the male more and more. There would be times where he would just stare right outside to see Zhongli’s class doing PE drills and damn, he looked very handsome when he’s sweaty.
Flustered at those thoughts, he tried to turn away from them but everytime he did, those thoughts always seemed to find a way back to him and he was already tired of it.
There was a time that he had invited the male to lunch at the hidden garden behind their school. It was a picnic style lunch and he even cooked food for the two of them. For the first time in his life, he was really embarrassed as heck. Childe seriously felt like a high school girl in love to the core and he hated it so much. He could even vividly remember Zhongli’s soft smile when he complimented his cooking and he swears to god that he should have recorded that moment even if it was so small.
He also once caught Zhongli sleeping on the train back to school. Childe had two choices, take a picture of his cat-like sleeping face or lend his shoulder for him to sleep comfortably on. Well, guess what he decided to do both anyways. In this position, he could smell the scent of his shampoo even more. Once again, he himself is envious on how good smelling his hair was. A part of him wanted this moment to last forever but before he knew it, both of them had to drop off to their stop. As the two of them got off the train, the black haired male was still sleepy and it looked like he was about to fall down at any moment. For some reason, he was holding onto Childe’s hand tightly and for the flustered junior, he was internally freaking out.
Everyday just gave him another reason to fall in love with him harder.
Childe was now in his second year and he realized that he needed to confess sooner if he still wanted to be with Zhongli even after he graduated but he just couldn’t. The only thing he can do right now is to stare at his beautiful eyes and savor the moments of closeness. He didn’t want this to end. Things got busier afterwards, Zhongli having to deal with more trivial matters which leads their lunchtime sessions less frequent and Childe noticed that he started going home more later than usual.
It was painful.
That timidly smiling boy right in front of him, would he decide to open up his arms for him?
He wishes.