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Zhongli watched as Xiao took to the ice. There was no coach waiting for him on the sidelines, no one for Xiao but himself. He didn't know that Zhongli was in the stands
taking in his every move. In fact, the assumption was that Zhongli had left the world of figure skating altogether and would have nothing to do with it. That had been his plan, but what had brought him back was Xiao, who was currently breezing across the ice, arms outstretched as if about to take flight. Xiao, who exuded a different kind of elegance than his glaze lily, Guizhong, had. Without warning, he launched himself into a spellbinding triple axel, soaring through the air and landing with a reassuring whisper of the ice beneath his blade. Applause sounded through the audience. He made it look so easy, when it really wasn't, something Zhongli was intimately familiar with--bearing witness to the countless practices the younger man had endured, attacking jumps with a ferocity that ignored his limits. As if it would be enough to defy gravity itself. Xiao had outgrown the boy who had first stumbled onto the ice, shoes and wide eyed terror and all, in escape from his horrible reality, but some of him remained. Remained in how his eyes filled with the exact same emotion as they had the day the ice had saved him, every time he skated. Remained in how he always stole Zhongli's breath away, time seeming to stop when he performed.
The necklace Zhongli had given him as a good luck charm still glimmered around his neck, as it had all those ages ago.
It was at that moment, in the chilled sterile environment of a place that was far from where he was supposed to be, that Zhongli realized he was in love.