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Childe blinks. Considering the sight in front of him, there’s a distinct chance he’s just suffering from an extremely vivid hallucination. Exam season has been known to do that to a man. Once, back in freshman year, he remembers opening the door to his dorm only to find Scaramouche having a passionate argument with his mold samples. (Needless to say, Childe’s very glad they’re no longer sharing a room.)
But, the thing is that no matter how long he stands there gaping, or tries to pinch himself just in case he’s still stuck back at the library and this is just another indulgent dream he’s having while drooling on his Cell Bio notes, the sight before him doesn’t change. Lumine, wearing his hoodie, the sleeves pooled at her wrists.
“Uh,” Childe says. It comes out almost like a squeak, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Did—did you forget something here during movie night?”
Lumine turns to face him. “Ajax,” she says. “You’re back!” Something about the easy, unguarded way she smiles at him makes his chest squeeze. “Xiangling made extra Jade Parcels, and I thought it’d be fun to share.”
She looks so tiny in his clothes. He shouldn’t say that aloud. She’d probably hit him. This is a Problem. “I’m not hungry,” he says, even though that’s a blatant lie, because he needs to, like, go scream into his pillow about this. Immediately.
Lumine stares at him. “You’re not hungry?” she says. “Xiangling is still bitter about you beating her at that school-wide eating contest.”
There’s a sensible answer to that somewhere in his brain, Childe’s sure. But what he says instead is a strained, “You—uh, I mean—hoodie,” which—yeah. Great. Awesome. Absolutely fantastic. He should probably go locate the best window for self-defenestration purposes now.
Lumine flushes. “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind. I just—I got my clothes dirty trying to heat up the food. I’m pretty sure that microwave is older than you and me together. You should really invest in a new one. Xiangling probably has a microwave guy. I could ask her, if you want.”
She’s fiddling with the fabric around her wrists, and Childe is pretty sure he’s never wanted to kiss her so badly. (Which, considering the endless shit Scaramouche still gives him for being whipped—his words, not Childe’s—is kind of an accomplishment.)
“Cute,” he says.
Lumine’s eyes go impossibly wide.
“You look cute in my clothes.” And then, because evidently he hasn’t hammered enough nails in his own coffin yet, “You should wear them more often.”
“You—want me to wear your clothes?” Lumine echoes.
“I mean,” Childe says. “You’re—you’re also welcome not to wear clothes at all. If—if that’s what you want.”
“Ajax,” Lumine says, very slowly. “Are you sick? Did you pull three all-nighters in a row again?” Her mouth purses, and she moves closer until the back of her hand is delicately pressed to his forehead, checking for a fever that Childe is absolutely certain he didn’t have until a second ago, but now everything is way too warm, and she’s way too close.
He swallows. “Assuming, hypothetically, that I am in fact not currently on my death bed, would that—I mean, would you, uh, mind?”
“Mind what?” Lumine says.
He looks at her. Slowly, carefully, he cups her face with his hands and squeezes her cheeks. So cute.
Lumine steps on his foot. She really needs to stop wearing combat boots. Still, #worthit.
“You jerk,” she says, even though she doesn’t sound too mad about it. When she’s actually mad, she tends to silently plot your demise. Childe has had enough personal experience with that to know. “I thought you were going to kiss me.”
Wait. What?
“Did you want me to?” he asks. “Because, like, that could arranged. That could be very easily arranged.”
Smooth. Real smooth. He’s clearly on a roll today.
“Has anyone told you you’re an idiot?” Lumine asks, but she’s smiling.
“Yes,” Childe says, nodding very seriously. “Paimon tells me that every single day. I think she sets an alarm to remind her, actually.”
“It’s because she thinks you’re too tall for me,” Lumine says nonchalantly. Apparently that’s an actual conversation that she and Paimon have had.
“Too tall?”
“Well, I’ve also heard too ginger and too smug, but that’s her most recent one, yeah.”
“Wait,” Childe says, because his brain still hasn’t recovered from being mushified by hours of sitting in uncomfortable library chairs while flipping through books that would probably make pretty great murder weapons (according to Scaramouche, the astronomy ones are especially effective. Childe still needs to thank Mona for that.), and there’s also the highly distressing fact that Lumine is in his clothes. “You and Paimon talk about me? In—in a context where she feels compelled to bring up my downsides?”
“I think she and Aether have, like, a weekly club?” Lumine says, nose scrunching. “Where they drink tea and talk about what an unsuitable match you are for me or something?” She rolls her eyes. “It’s pretty dramatic, from what I hear. Zhongli is their tea guy.”
That’s—kind of a lot to process. “So…” Childe says. “It didn’t work?”
“What didn’t work?” Lumine asks, but her smile has turned knowing.
“Well, am I too tall?”
Lumine shrugs. “I can always kick you in the kneecaps.”
“Too ginger?”
“Eh, that’s cute.”
“Too smug?”
“Absolutely, but I can work with that.”
Childe smiles back at her. “Can I kiss you now? Or did I mess that up too badly?”
Lumine reaches up, tugs at the collar of his shirt, and pulls him down. Childe valiantly keeps himself from squealing, and then it’s just—easy, and he can’t help but think oh, I should’ve done this sooner, a realization and an admonishment in one, because Lumine’s mouth is soft and she gasps against his lips when he picks her up by the waist just to spin her around, to commemorate this somehow. It’s—monumental. It deserves more than bad dorm lighting and Xiangling’s reheated leftover cooking in the background, but—that’s okay.
He can do the whole fireworks and a picnic thing somewhere far, far away from Klee. For now, Childe just wants to kiss her some more.
“So,” he says, “about you not wearing clothes…”
Lumine hits him.
(…yeah, the height thing definitely won’t be a problem.)