Work Text:
Lumine was known as the first of the class when in elementary school: Amazing grades, an exemplary personality that parents envied and all the below colleagues despised, she could even use the teacher’s bathroom. Always the perfect kid that everyone was proud of.
How did things turn out this way, she wondered.
Twas the night before the day she would hand over her final thesis and her nerves couldn’t be worse. In her head, as she revised yet again the whole document, she was bound to be a failure and fail.
She had already found dozens of mistakes in her words but she was paralyzed, unable to even think straight because her thoughts were a complete mess: she was feeling overwhelmed by her own breathing.
Once more she was seeing her demise. She was on the edge with her grades, barely reaching a C the first semester, the thesis had to be perfect or else disaster would break.
Lumine was almost hyperventilating when out of the blue all she could see was black.
– Guess who ~~
It felt like she was trapped in a trance and the voice behind woke her up.
– Venti… – Lumine grabbed his hands away from her face. – There’s no one else here but us.
– Really? What about the big bad wolf-notebook? – He said with a bad imitation of a wolf.
The blond sighed and turned back her attention to the notebook. Now that the previous tension was broken, she had space for a new one. There were a few parts she wanted to revise.
She was interrupted by Venti pulling down the cover, regretting being in the bed with him instead of her desk.
– Why did you do that?!
– You have to take a break.
– I don’t need a break, I already lazed around too much.
– You have been four hours straight reading this again and again. It is good.
– It isn’t. It is awful. I bet it is the worst in the class. – Lumine felt her vision blurring. – Then everyone will know that is really horrible. And–
– Hey, hey. Slow down. Look at me. – He cupped her cheeks to catch her attention.
As she breathed along with Venti, he wiped the tears that escaped from her eyes.
– Better, right? – Lumine noded weakly. – You’ve done enough for today. It's late.
The lockscreen of his phone confirmed that it was past one in the morning.
– Really?
– Yep. – The notebook was placed away on the nightstand before she could go back on her thoughts.
As she snuggled into his arms, Venti caressed her hair while humming some lo-fi song he found on youtube. Soon Lumine’s nerves calmed down and she couldn’t even remember why she was so worried.