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Childe walked alone along the sandy beaches of Yaoguang Shoal, feeling the sea breeze ruffle his hair and smelling the salt spray of the ocean. It was midmorning on a pleasant day, as those in Liyue tended to be, and he was carefully combing the beach for starconches.
The beautiful spiralling blue shells were only found along the coastline of Liyue, or at least that’s what Zhongli had told him over dinner at Xinyue Kiosk one night. The consultant had expressed his fondness for them, saying that he had a collection of shells that he found particularly beautiful. Childe had asked to see them, and Zhongli had agreed, always happy to explain every little detail about each of the shells.
“This one was given to me by one of the children of the Harbour many years ago,” Zhongli had said, holding one of the smallest shells out for Childe to see before pointing to a much larger one. “And this one by a passing merchant.”
“You really love starconches, don’t you Xiansheng?” Childe had asked, peering curiously at the extensive collection. There were easily nearly a hundred shells, all categorized by their different hues, sizes, and, apparently, level of glossiness. There were several shells that looked a little strange in comparison to the others - their shapes were slightly different and the stripes were more wavy than straight.
Zhongli had smiled fondly and nodded. “Many people have given them to me, and I treasure them all. They represent my bonds with people, even if they no longer remember the memories we once shared.”
Sometimes Zhongli spoke as if he was much older than he looked, but Childe had always brushed it off as a personal quirk of his. He didn’t look much older than perhaps his late twenties or early thirties, after all. Regardless, what he had said stuck with him.
“What about these ones?” He had asked then. “Why do they look so different.”
The fond expression on Zhongli’s face had turned into one that was more melancholy as he looked at the unique shells.
“Ah, yes, those ones. They were given to me by some old friends a long time ago. I believe that type of starconch has been extinct for many years.”
At the time, Childe had merely nodded and hummed pensively as he examined them. Zhongli had moved on to tell him about another set of shells, the biggest ones in his collection, but Childe couldn’t get his mind off of those potentially extinct ones.
As he had laid in bed that night, he made up his mind.
He was going to find a shell just like those ones and give it to Zhongli as a gift. Definitely not because he liked seeing Zhongli smile, but because he wanted to say thank you for the beautiful chopsticks he had been given only a week or two beforehand.
So now here he was, searching for anything other than the regular starconches that were easily found on the beaches. This was his fifth day of looking and on one hand, he desperately wanted to find the exact type of shell he hoped to find, but on the other, it had been five days and he was close to just settling for any old shell that had some kind of unique characteristic.
It had been difficult concealing his hours-long trips out to the Shoal and the coast by the ruins of the Guili Assembly from Zhongli, but it would all be worth it if he could just find the perfect shell.
He could practically picture it.
He would invite Zhongli out for dinner at Liuli Pavilion (he would pay, of course, he was a gentleman), they would enjoy a pleasant dinner with Zhongli telling him all the details about the seasonings on the dishes they had ordered, and then right as they were finishing their meal, Childe would pull out the shell and give it to him.
Zhongli would be thrilled, of course, and then he would proclaim his undying love for Childe and would ask to be ravished-
Wait, what?
No, no, no. That was the wrong fantasy...
Childe stopped walking suddenly and rethought his entire plan and all his encounters with Zhongli. He had let his mind wander a bit too much; there was no way he really wanted Zhongli to confess to him or anything. That would be completely ridiculous.
Not that he would reject such an offer, mind you, since he had been pining over the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor’s consultant since the day they had met-
Ah, shit, Childe thought, I’m totally in love with him.
His next thought was: I hope my pining isn’t super obvious.
With his luck though? He was probably more obvious than a charging mitachurl.
Thankfully, even with this revelation, he probably hadn’t been obvious enough for Zhongli to notice. The man was always busy explaining something or other or enjoying a cup of tea so it was less likely that he had noticed.
However, this just made him even more set on finding the perfect shell. He would find it, and he would give Zhongli the most impressive shell he had ever seen. Maybe then, if it went well, he might even try confessing.
Despite that, he felt slightly discouraged after spending a few more hours with nothing to show for his efforts other than regular starconches. Perhaps the beaches of Yaoguang Shoal were a bit of a bust after all, and he made up his mind to check out the last place where there might have been some: Guyun Stone Forest.
Childe returned to Liyue Harbour and commissioned a small fishing boat to take him out there (Zhongli had explained the value of local commerce once, so he felt much more inclined to support Liyuen merchants while he was here), which thankfully wasn’t too long of a ride. The fisherman agreed to come back and get him at a set time, so he hoped that he would find the perfect starconch before then.
The ‘Stone Forest’ was beautiful in an eerie way. The strangely shaped mountains that jutted out of the sea, which were apparently spears thrown by Rex Lapis several thousand years ago, weren’t home to much life other than the few hilichurls and slimes which had moved in at some point. The fisherman had even said that very few people go this close to them because of the belief that an evil god was sealed beneath it. That fact alone gave him a bit of hope that maybe some of the older shells were still around.
The first glance around the islands wasn’t very encouraging, though. There were plenty of shells since it hadn’t been completely picked clean by visitors to the beaches, but all of them were the same regular ones he had been seeing for days.
“This is impossible,” Childe grumbled as he looked in every crevice he could find, checked under rocks, and dug in the sand.
Nothing. Not a single shell that looked any different than the countless others he had seen already.
It had been a few hours already and he felt hot, sweaty, and disgusting. He would definitely be taking a cold shower and cleaning up before meeting with Zhongli later. There was no way he was looking anything less than ruggedly handsome.
Childe felt practically miserable by the time he reached one of the last few beaches - the one with several seemingly dead ruin guards strewn about. He approached carefully, knowing that it wouldn’t be the first time the ancient machines weren’t quite as broken as they first appeared. His hand was already on his bow just in case, and when he heard the telltale whirring noise of the machinery activating, he knew that he had been right to be cautious.
Well, he had already decided to take a shower upon getting back home anyway, so why not fight?
Grinning widely, Childe sent an arrow flying at the eye of one of the newly-awakened ruin guards and dodged the missiles sent by another. A third tried to punch him and the fourth plunged down from the sky only to land where Childe had been standing a few seconds before. Four ruin guards, huh?
A worthy challenge.
All four were close together and that made it a perfect opportunity. He swapped his bow for his hydro blades and went to town, splashes of water flying everywhere as he spun like a whirlwind in the middle of the group. It was all too easy to dodge the simple attacks programmed into them and soon enough, Childe dusted his hands off while standing above the motionless mechanical corpses.
“Well, that was a fun workout,” he mused before taking his time looking around the beach. Still nothing. He sighed, feeling defeated. “Maybe I should just go home.”
A little squeaking noise from behind him caught his attention and he turned to see what it was. A seelie, which he presumed had been trapped behind one of the walls that had been hit by one of the missiles, was spinning in excited circles in the air, swooping and squeaking excitedly.
“How long have you been trapped back there?” Childe asked as the seelie approached him. It flitted around his head and brushed up against his cheek, making him giggle at the feathery sensation of its touch.
It floated a short distance away, and when Childe didn’t immediately follow it, the seelie rushed back over, made a loop around his head, and floated away again. He laughed to himself as he let the seelie lead him around the island. It hovered over a few starconches, almost contemplatively, but when Childe looked at them and didn’t see any unique features, the seelie squeaked in what he guessed was encouragement and moved along to the next one.
They continued in this manner for a while, examining as many shells as the seelie could find, but none of them were the one. Childe crossed his arms and sighed, glancing over at the seelie.
“Hey buddy, thanks for the help, but I don’t think I’ll be able to find it after all.”
The seelie squeaked and got right up in his face, and it almost seemed like it was chastising him for giving up. A second later, it flew behind him and threw its tiny body against his back in a futile attempt to push him forward.
“Okay, okay, I’ll keep going,” Childe laughed. Oh well, even if he couldn’t find the perfect shell by the end of this, at least he would have an amusing story to tell Zhongli over dinner.
He noticed a seelie court sitting inconspicuously by the base of one of the spears, and the seelie chirped a few times as it directed him to stand in a particular place before fading contentedly back into its home. Childe was prepared to turn around and go after retrieving whatever treasure the seelie wished to give him, but instead of treasure, the ground below him started to rumble and he fell through into an underground cavern.
It was dusty, there was a strange musty smell that made him cough, and Childe brushed the dirt out of his hair as he looked around him. There wasn’t much in the cavern, but he could hear the seelie still chirping at him from up above, so he started walking around and carefully searching for anything that looked remotely like a shell.
He caught a hint of blue from somewhere on his left after a few minutes of examining the cavern, and he noticed a small piece of what could be a starconch peeking out from the wall itself. He wasn’t really one for precision work, but used his hydro blades to carefully chip away at the wall around it, revealing not just any starconch, but one of the ones with the wavy patterns!
He grinned and worked a little faster until the shell was completely extracted from the wall and he was thrilled with what he found. The starconch was larger than the ones Zhongli already had in his collection, even when compared to the normal variety. Not only that but upon turning it over, Childe felt like he had hit the jackpot even more.
Instead of the normal five-pointed star from which starconches got their name, this one had six points.
Carefully holding it close to his chest, Childe used his other hand to climb out of the hole and back up onto the beach of Guyun Stone Forest. The seelie, upon seeing what he had found, burst out of its home and excitedly spun around his head, chirping and squeaking loudly in its joy.
“Thanks, little guy,” Childe laughed, poking it playfully with a finger. “I appreciate the help!”
The seelie spun once more before returning home, letting Childe leave the island with his prize in hand. Thankfully, it was nearly the time he had agreed upon with the fisherman, so all he had to do was sit and wait for him to arrive. He stood up and waved the boat down when he saw it and got comfy for the ride back.
“You never did say what you were coming all the way out here for,” the fisherman remarked and Childe laughed sheepishly. He supposed that he had been too focused to bother mentioning it before.
He held out the shell for the fisherman to look at. “I was looking for a starconch to give to someone important to me.”
The man’s eyes widened and he gasped. “Oh Archons, that’s a gorgeous shell. I’ve never seen any like it before. I’m sure the gift will be appreciated.”
“Yeah,” Childe said, a warm smile on his face. “I hope so!”
When he got back to the bank, he wrapped the shell up in a beautiful package and finally went for that shower, cursing the heat all the while. Once he was done with that, Childe proceeded to spend the next hour nitpicking his outfit and his hair, even going so far as to ask Ekaterina for her help.
“Master Childe, I assure you that the consultant will not care if you have three strands of hair that are out of place,” she told him, the exasperation clear in her voice.
Childe frowned and stared into the mirror, trying to get those loose strands to lie flat. “But Ekaterina, what if he does?”
She shot him a glare. “Sir, if he hasn’t cared before, what makes you think he will now?”
“The stakes weren’t this high before!” he groaned, but finally gave up on the hair situation.
“Whatever you say. If you don’t leave soon, you will be late.”
Childe’s eyes grew wide at her words and he shot a glance at the clock on the wall, and upon seeing that she was right, he grabbed the gift and rushed out the door. Thankfully, he arrived at Liuli Pavilion right as Zhongli did, and the other man gave him a gentle smile.
“Childe, I was worried that I made you wait,” Zhongli said in that beautiful, deep voice of his that sent a pleasant tingle down Childe’s spine.
“Oh, no, not at all,” he laughed, hoping that he wasn’t blushing. Zhongli had always been objectively beautiful, but under the glow of the sunset and with Childe finally having escaped denial land, he looked breathtaking. “Let’s head in together then.”
The entire time they were eating dinner, Childe was trying his best to not fidget anxiously or touch the gift that he had swiftly hidden under the table, praying that Zhongli hadn’t noticed it. Zhongli, for his part, was discussing some novel he had found incredibly interesting and Childe was honestly hoping that it wasn’t super obvious that he was completely tuning out all the information in favour of staring at Zhongli’s face.
He once again failed at using chopsticks and when Zhongli reached over to correct his grip, his heart did backflips inside his chest. Right then and there he decided that he wouldn’t ever learn how to use them properly if it meant Zhongli would keep guiding his hand into the correct position.
As they finished their dinner and Childe called for the bill, he looked over at Zhongli nervously.
“So um… beautiful weather tonight, isn’t it?”
Shit. That's not what he meant to say at all.
“Indeed, it is a beautiful night,” Zhongli said, glancing out the window to look out over the harbour. “The clouds, in particular, are quite intriguing - they tumble like waves in the sky, but yet have a beauty to them completely unlike that of the sea. In combination with the reflected light of tonight’s sunset, they look rather beautiful and detailed when compared to how they might look during the daytime hours, where instead of this warm, golden glow upon them, they would simply be grey. These clouds are not common to this region, so we are quite lucky to be able to witness them tonight. Do you agree, Childe?”
“Oh yes, definitely,” he said, pretending to have followed any of what Zhongli was talking about.
“It is also quite warm for this time of year, so I do hope that you have not been overheating during your stay here in Liyue. Simply due to location, it makes sense that you would not be accustomed to the climate since you grew up in Snezhnaya,” Zhongli continued.
Childe wanted to cry. Xiansheng, he didn’t really mean that they should talk about the weather…
Childe laughed a little bit. “I haven’t been having many issues, but, um, there’s actually something else?”
Zhongli looked at him with those gorgeous eyes the colour of cor lapis and Childe felt weak. His sister would probably say he’s ‘whipped’, but Zhongli could ask him for literally anything and he would give it to him.
“Something else?” he asked, and Childe nodded as he pulled out the package.
“As thanks for those chopsticks,” he said, but didn’t notice the small look of shock on Zhongli’s face at those words, “and to add to your collection.”
Zhongli took the package from him almost reverently and unwrapped it with such care that he didn’t even tear the packaging. The final layer was removed and Childe felt blown away when he heard Zhongli gasp and bring up a hand to cover his mouth, his eyes wide and…
Were those tears!?
“Um, Xiansheng? Is everything okay?” he asked cautiously and Zhongli glanced up at him before smiling.
“Childe… it’s beautiful,” he replied. “I did not think that starconches like this even existed anymore.”
Zhongli brushed his fingers carefully across the shell, almost as if he was cataloguing every swirl, curve, and line upon its surface. He finally noticed the six-pointed star in the center and he looked up at Childe in wonder.
“Did you go out and find this?” he asked and Childe could only nod.
“I spent a few days looking before I was led to this one by a seelie this afternoon.”
He felt a weight on his hand and he looked down only to see that Zhongli had intertwined their fingers, and his heart soared.
“Childe, do you know what they say about starconches with six points?”
If it was some kind of Liyuen folktale, he had never heard of it before.
“I haven’t, so please tell me Xiansheng.”
Zhongli chuckled softly but complied.
“I am not surprised that you have not heard of it, for this story is not told often anymore; however, it was said that centuries ago, an Adeptus fell in love with a mortal. He did not know how to express his feelings and instead searched for something that could be a meaningful gift. This mortal lived by the sea and loved starconches, so he decided to find the most beautiful starconch of them all and give it to her.”
Childe felt his face getting warm as he listened, but Zhongli didn’t seem to notice.
“He searched for many days and nights across the beaches, the cliff sides, and he even searched the seas, but it was not until a seelie took pity on him and led him away that he found a starconch so unique and beautiful that he knew it must be the one he was looking for. A starconch with a six-pointed star. He brought it back to her and the stories say that she accepted the gift as well as his love, and they lived together for the rest of her life.”
Zhongli looked up at him, a faint blush on his cheeks.
“The legend continues to say that the seelie only appears to those searching for a starconch to give to their beloved, and will lead them to one with six points.”
Childe inhaled sharply and he knew his face was burning with how flustered he was.
“Um, yeah. So I guess the legend is true.”
Zhongli held his hand tightly and leaned over the table to press a brief kiss on Childe’s cheek.
“Then I accept your affections. I will treasure this forever. Thank you, Childe.”
Childe smiled widely and brought Zhongli’s hand up to kiss the back of it.
“I’m glad you like it, Xiansheng.”
All of that time searching had been worth it, in the end, and he would gladly do all of it all over again just to make Zhongli smile.
