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Lumine blinked.
“Lunar New Years?”
“It's a holiday to celebrate the beginning of the New Year! Have you never experienced it before?”
“To be honest, I’ve never even heard of anything like it before...You say its a day to celebrate the coming of another year?”
“Yep! It's one of the biggest holidays of the year in Teyvat!”
Lumine hummed in interest.
Before she had decided to settle down in Teyvat, she had traveled to many worlds, but none of them ever celebrated the coming of a new year. Or at least nothing like Teyvat did.
Ribbons, kites, lanterns...The sight was fairly impressive.
Red and gold colored decorations of all kinds littered every nook and cranny of the city everywhere - the ground, the sea, and the air. When Childe had suggested visiting Liyue again to her after nearly a year since their last stay, this was nothing she had expected to arrive to.
Childe had mentioned in passing during their boat trip to Liyue on how the city had already started preparations for something, but she had assumed that he meant that it was in the middle of preparing for a battle of some sorts and that she and Childe were coming over to help their friends.
She honestly should've known better.
The land of Teyvat had been peaceful for the past several months ever since the entire fiasco with Celestia and the Abyss came to an end. There was no way a fight would suddenly break out in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the region. At least not during this time of peace.
Which, speaking of peace…
Lumine stared at the lantern-filled sky, each one shining brightly like stars - stars that her brother could possibly be at.
Childe immediately sobered up from his excitement when he noticed the way the blonde girl dazed off into the night sky.
It was a habit she had developed as of recent, he realized. Whenever night came, no matter how cloudy it was, she would always stare at the sky longingly. He knew exactly why she did that but he couldn't do anything about it. Seeing such a bittersweet smile on her face, he cursed how powerless he truly was.
What good was being a former Harbinger - one of the strongest of the former Fatui organization and now, the new Teyvat alliance - when he couldn't even keep his dear girlfriend happy?
“...You miss him, don’t you?”
Lumine didn’t reply.
However, he already knew the answer.
"Come here girlie," he said in the softest voice possible as he made a small, sad smile and pulled the smaller girl into his arms.
"He is my one and only brother, you know?" she muttered as she leaned back into him and continued to gaze up at the sky.
"..."
Childe couldn't say that he knew how the girl felt. The furthest he had been away from his family was when he was dropped into the depths of the Abyss when he was a teenager. However, unlike Lumine, he had been too busy trying to survive at the time to worry about missing his family. Even during his stay at Liyue, he had been able to exchange letters with them.
Even prior to her adventures in Teyvat, Lumine had been separated from her only family member for hundreds of years. She had gone on a journey to find him again, experiencing many hardships along the way. Rather than being rewarded with happiness upon finding him, all that greeted her was despair when the male twin revealed himself to be the Prince of the Abyss - one of the people she had been aiming to defeat during her journey.
After much pain and tears, both the battle between the world and the siblings came to an end. However, not too long after the war, just when she believed she could be happily reunited with her one and only family again, Aether announced his plans on leaving this world.
He wasn't like Lumine who had made numerous friends and happy memories: Aether only had painful memories from this world.
Memories that he would much rather forget.
Lumine cried day and night about needing to make such an agonizing decision: her friends or her family?
Childe honestly blamed himself for her choice to stay.
He had been blinded by rage at the thought of her leaving, screaming at her the night before the decisive day, demanding to know if their so-called 'bond' - whatever that bond was at the time - only resulted to this much.
He wondered if he hadn't shouted at her that night, if she would have left with her brother.
Childe rested his chin on her head and joined her in watching the brightly lit lanterns in the skys. He tightened his embrace, contemplating what to say before finally opening his mouth.
"What if I become one of your family?"
"?!" Lumine froze, quickly turning around and looking up to see him face to face, shocked and confused by his sudden question. "What are you-?"
Childe gave her a gentle smile as he freed her from his grasp and stuck one of his hands into his pocket, digging around for a bit before taking something out.
"I know that I can't fill the hole that Aether left in your heart but…"
He let go of the girl and got down on one knee.
"Could you at least let me try?"
In his hands was a small box which he slowly opened, revealing the contents to the girl he adored so much for so long.
Lumine gasped when she saw what sat inside the box.
"Childe, I-"
When the ginger man saw the tears forming at the corner of the girl's eyes, he began to panic. He didn't understand why she began to cry and it was making him anxious.
He didn't have to worry for long though, as Lumine threw herself into his arms once more. A bit too forcefully, judging by how it almost made him drop the box. It would’ve been disastrous if he had.
"Yes!" her shout was muffled as she dug her face into his neck.
Childe exhaled the breath that he had been holding all this time in relief and chuckled as he patted the girl in his arms gently on the head. After a minute or so of staying in that position, soothing the crying girl who was blubbering out words that he couldn't make out, he lightly pushed her off him to take a better look at her face.
He let out a light hearted laugh when she saw how ridiculous she looked with her red, swollen eyes and snot that she kept sniffing back up. However, even this side of her looked very much endearing. She looked beautiful in his eyes no matter what she did or how she looked.
He truly loved her.
He carefully took the small object out of the box and took her left hand, lifting it up a bit.
"Teucer, Tonia, Anthon...my family will be your family."
He slid the item onto her ring finger then looked up at the still sobbing girl with a gentle smile on his face.
"And us too."
He got up from the ground and pulled her into a hug again, his eyes never leaving her even for a moment. He wanted to commit every second of this to his memory.
"We will be each other's family. We'll make our own, big family."
And this family would never abandon her.
He promised it.
He would make sure of it.