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It’s probably not something she’s meant to hear. But despite Amber’s most diligent attempts to hide the Dandelion Wine, Venti always finds it. And he babbles when he’s drunk. (Which, if Lumine is being honest, happens more often than not by dinnertime.)
“Aw, look,” he coos, “he’s blushing.”
Childe—who is, in fact, blushing—looks like he would really like an excuse to use his vision.
Diluc is silently glaring at him, sat at the other side of the fire they had started to cook dinner before Lumine set off in search of berries. He’s gotten better at reining the immediate murderous instinct around Childe, but he’s still ready to draw his sword at a moment’s notice. Paimon had called it a male bonding ritual once. Privately, Lumine thinks Childe kind of likes it, too.
She clutches her basket of wild berries tighter. This is—definitely interesting.
“Come on,” Amber says. “Don’t make fun of him. There’s no shame in it. I didn’t have my first kiss until I turned twenty-one.” She reaches out, and pinches his cheek. “He’s still a baby.”
Miraculously, Childe doesn’t attempt to bite her hand off. He’s—gone surprisingly quiet, actually. Even though it’s nighttime, the blush on his cheeks is bright enough to be noticeable, still.
Lumine coughs. “I got the berries,” she says, extending the basket out for Amber to take. “This should be enough, right?”
Amber pops one into her mouth, smiling. “Yep,” she says. “Definitely enough. Thanks Lumine, you’re the best.”
“We all have to eat, don’t we?” Lumine says.
“We sure do,” Paimon says. She’s extremely reliable when it comes to food or Mora. It’s almost endearing, sometimes. (And a little funny. Lumine still hasn’t forgotten the look on Childe’s face when he woke up to her trying to take his jacket off while he was sleeping to search through his pockets.)
“Why are you smiling like that?” Childe asks.
Lumine puts a hand over her mouth. “No reason. Just—remembered something.” He’s still eyeing her suspiciously by the time she settles at his side. “Are you alright?” she asks. “Your face is really red.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m, uh, fine.”
He looks like he wants to say more, but then the fire flares, suddenly, and Venti barely manages to swoop in with a well-timed gust of wind to save their meal. “Sorry,” Amber winces, sheepishly rubbing at the back of her neck. “You’d think a Pyro Vision would make this easier, but no.”
Diluc’s face scrunches like he’s thinking Amber’s lack of culinary talent is also something to blame on the Knights of Favonius being generally incompetent, and—it’s kind of funny, honestly. Considering Lumine is traveling with a literal god, a fatui harbinger, a highly successful business owner, and Mondstadt’s sole outrider, it does feel like she’s stuck babysitting a little too often.
It’s—cozy, still. There’s a comfort in knowing Paimon won’t go more than fifteen minutes without calling Venti tone-deaf bard, that he’ll frown but still share food with her when asked, that they’ve all settled into—something. Something strange and nameless and certainly fragile, but—there. Warm.
And then—and then there’s Childe. The man who charges at her full-speed each time they fight, who smiles like he’s satisfied when she gets a good hit in. The boy who—apparently—hasn’t even had his first kiss yet. Lumine wonders, for a second, which one of those is truer, even as something in the back of her mind whispers both, reminds her that humans are built from mismatched fragments that somehow manage to fit together. She wants to know his. Wants to run her fingers along the sharp edges where they meet until she has them memorized.
It’s terrifying, if she lets herself stop to think about it.
“Are you alright?” Childe nudges at her shoulder. “You’re not usually this quiet.”
Lumine doesn’t know how long she’s been staring at the flickering fire, but meeting his eyes feels harder. “Yes,” she says, brushing dust off her knees. “Yeah, I’m—I’m great.”
The rest of dinner goes by quietly, thankfully with no more impromptu fires, and Lumine even catches Diluc mutter something about teaching Amber how to expand the use of her vision.
Paimon’s mouth stretches wide into a yawn. “Paimon’s sleepy,” she says, eyes already drifting shut.
“Me too,” Amber says. “We still have to clean up here, though.”
“Don’t worry,” Childe says. “I’ve got it. I’m not tired yet.”
“Do you need any help?” Lumine asks.
She expects denial, an assurance that he can handle this much on his own, like usual, but Childe just smiles and nods. “Some company might be nice.”
They gather the dirty dishes, and begin walking towards the river. It’s quiet. Lumine doesn’t always need words to fill the space with him, hasn’t in a while now, but something about the full moon hanging overhead, the stars shining above as they make their way through the trees, makes her want to. To talk. To stop herself from doing something worse, like reach out and take his hand. But the evening chill is sharp, and she ends up wrapping her arms around herself instead.
The even footsteps at her side halt. “Are you cold?”
“A little,” Lumine admits. “We’re just going to have to be quick.”
“Wait,” Childe says. “Here, have this.”
It takes Lumine an especially long second to realize he’s trying to hand her his jacket. She stares at it, unblinking, until he laughs and reaches around her to put it on, gloved fingers brushing against her bare shoulders. “It’s just clothing,” he says, voice softer than usual. “I can promise it’s not going to morally corrupt you or anything.”
It smells like him. Of course it would. “That’s—that’s not it,” she says. “Won’t you get cold?”
His smile widens. “Girlie, I’m from Snezhnaya. I’m used to the cold.”
“Right,” Lumine says. “Right, yeah. Okay, um, thank you.”
“No need to thank me,” he says. “I won’t have anyone fun left to fight if you freeze to death.”
Lumine smiles. That’s—so much like him. It makes her heart feel both lighter and heavier all at once. “Still,” she says, clutching his jacket tighter. “Thank you, Childe.”
“You, uh, didn’t happen to overhear what Amber was saying, did you?” he asks. He’s not looking at her.
Oh. He doesn’t mean— “Just the end,” she says.
“She said it because of you, you know.”
It’s too warm. It’s unjustifiably warm, all of a sudden, and he’s not looking at her, and all she wants to do is hide. Ever since she woke up in this world, Lumine has faced gods and monsters and everything in between, even the worst parts of the very person standing next to her right now, but—this is bigger. The thing that took root inside her and stubbornly refused to stop growing is bigger than everything. Than all of it.
She can’t—
“She’s strangely perceptive for someone so ditzy,” Childe says. “She noticed that—well, Diluc called it being emotionally compromised, but that doesn’t sound very romantic, does it?”
“Diluc isn’t that romantic to begin with,” Lumine points out.
“Yeah, well,” Childe says. “I kind of wanted to be. Right now, at least. I don’t have any idea how to, and it feels like I’m failing terribly, but—”
“You’re not.”
“What?”
“You’re not,” Lumine repeats, voice firmer. “I mean—I wouldn’t exactly expect flowers, anyway.”
Archons, this is horrible. This could not get any worse, no matter what. If she wasn’t already snoring back at the campsite, Paimon would be laughing so much at her right now. Or maybe Venti would. (Most likely both, and then Amber would get roped into it too.)
“Alright then, no flowers,” Childe says, a little like he’s taking notes.
Cute, Lumine thinks, and promptly wants to smack herself. Despite her better judgment, she reaches out, and takes his hand. His fingers are cold. “Childe,” she says, tugging at their interlaced hands.
He finally looks at her. He’s so much taller than her. It feels like a new realization, this close. Everything feels new, this close.
“I, uh,” Childe says. Stops talking. Opens his mouth again only to close it. He’s staring at her with wide eyes, and the fear on his face would be amusing if it wasn’t so foreign. So unlike what Lumine is used to.
“You know,” she says, clutching his hand tighter. “You’re kind of obnoxious, most times.”
“Oh, I know,” Childe says. “It’s an art I’ve put years into perfecting.”
“I don’t think it works that well,” Lumine tells him. “I still like you.”
Childe’s eyes go even wider, somehow, and then, abruptly, he smiles. It’s one of the brightest smiles Lumine has ever seen on him. “I really want to kiss you,” he says. “I mean—I’ve wanted to for a while now, Amber makes so much fun of me for it, it’s not new, but—”
“Are you sure?” Lumine asks.
Childe nods. It’s—not horrible, as far as a first kiss goes. Lumine has to stand on the tips of her toes until he figures out he needs to bend further down, but he’s surprisingly gentle. He tips Lumine’s chin up, tucks her hair behind her ear, and even if the first brush of their lips is off-center, awkward and clumsy, it’s still Childe. It still sends shivers down her spine.
“That—swoopy thing,” he says, face scrunching up like he’s trying to figure out what to say next.
Lumine laughs. “Yes?”
“It feels just like when you beat me during a fight. Or—hell, even when you smile at me it feels like that sometimes. You have this smile that makes your eyes scrunch up, and you don’t really smile at anyone else like that, and it’s—it’s honestly bad for my health, I think.”
Lumine blinks. “That’s—actually very romantic,” she says. “You’re not that bad at this.”
“Does that mean you’ll kiss me again?” Childe asks.
He’s smiling, and it’s so hard to say no. But it’s alright. She doesn’t have to.
(By the time they make it back to the campsite, Diluc and Venti are still awake, and they take one look at their joined hands before Venti pulls out a pouch of Mora and silently passes it over to Diluc.)