Chapter Text
If Albedo had to describe himself in any single way, it would be that he is a man of habit- he has a clear, defined routine, and no matter what he’d stick to it as closely as possible. Monday to Thursday he has an alarm set for 6:50 in the morning to wake him up and check his phone for any news that occurred overnight, and then another at 7:00am to tell him to get out of bed. He showers, packs lunch for his little sister, and by 7:45 he leaves to walk to his bus stop. On the way he always buys a cheap iced coffee from the convenience store. It’d probably be a sin to even think of it as anything but coffee-flavored milk, but it works to appease his sweet tooth and small appetite in place of a proper breakfast, and the caffeine it provides is enough to keep him going until his lunch break.
His bus comes at 8:05, and Albedo spends the 40 minute ride reading whatever novel has his attention at that moment. By the time the bus pulls into the station and he’s made his way to the fashion department of his university building, it’s 8:55 and he has just enough time to relax before getting to work at 9. Being a third year fashion student means Albedo doesn’t strictly have a set schedule his lecturers want him to follow unlike the previous two years- his only assignment left until graduation is the production of his final collection.
Still, the blond man seemingly tends to stick to the set schedule from his previous years of study, dedicating Mondays to anything based in logistics- design, costing, specification sheets, lab work, and working on his presentations, while the remainder of his study week is purely practical, committed to anything involved with the actual construction of the garments he’ll be presenting in the coming months. Fridays are meant to be Albedo’s supposed ‘leisure day’, to relax and unwind from the week of work, but more often than not he finds himself shopping for materials, refining designs, and looking into potential techniques to use in his pieces.
Another constant routine in Albedo’s daily study life is Aether, a friend of his from the dance department. Every day at precisely 12:30, the golden-haired man finds whatever room Albedo is holed up in, and drags him away from his work to have lunch at the campus cafe; always a lightly toasted croissant filled with ham and melted cheese with a bottle of apple juice that Aether always insists on paying for.
Which is precisely why Albedo is surprised to finally look up from the pattern he’d been working on to the sound of his stomach rumbling, only to notice that the clock read close to 1:00. Frowning, he checked his phone, maybe his friend was absent today? But no, there was no message notification waiting for him. Perhaps Aether had some sort of exam that he forgot to inform him about beforehand.
Albedo let out a resigned sigh, stepping down from the small step stool he was using to have a better range of working on the elevated table. He understood the intention behind having such high tabletops in the patternmaking lab, where students would be standing over them all day while they worked, but did they really have to be this tall? Nonetheless, he figured he should probably go and get lunch, lest he have a repeat of the incident that led him to meet Aether in the first place.
It was earlier that year, Albedo still not used to the entirely hands-off instruction the lecturers provided in the third year of study. It made complete sense, really, the fashion department was short-staffed as it was, and with first and second year students needing near constant supervision while they learned the ropes of their course, it was imperative that the focus of the lecturers was on them. Plus, with the third year’s work being so individualised, there wasn’t any point in guiding the entire (small) class with one hand. If any third year needed assistance, it was up to them to seek out the advice of the lecturers themselves.
Albedo was more than happy with these arrangements; he always preferred working in solitude after all, so not having to deal with the pressure of constantly having somebody hovering over his shoulder watching him was a welcome relief. The freedom of being allowed to do whatever he wanted and not having to interact with any of his classmates were definitely appreciated advantages to the whole situation, as well. It wasn’t that he particularly disliked his classmates, it was simply a matter of none of them being notably interesting to him, so he’d rather not waste his time and energy on unnecessary relationships when he could focus on his work instead.
Curse Albedo for his hubris, however, because it was exactly this enjoyment of solitude that caused him to pass out only a month or so into the year. One moment he was completely focused on draping a potential design on a dress form, trying to figure out how exactly to go about willing the fabric into the geometric flower design he’d envisioned, and the next thing Albedo knew he was opening his eyes to fluorescent ceiling lights, the smell of sanitizer, and an ache pounding behind his eyes.
“Oh, you’re awake! How do you feel?”
Groaning, Albedo ran a hand down his face, before turning to look toward the source of the voice, finding a boy with waist length golden hair sitting in a chair to his left. Beyond the mysterious boy Albedo took in the view of the infirmary, slowly lining up the points that caused him to find himself here instead of still working away on his design.
“Uh, hello..? Can you hear me?” The golden boy’s smile had dropped, face now painted with concern, gently waving his hands in Albedo’s direction. Ah, right, he hadn’t answered him yet.
“I apologize, I was simply trying to remember how I got here. I’m fine, just a bit of a headache.” Albedo frowned slightly at his own words, he wasn’t in the infirmary when he passed out, shouldn’t he be (embarrassingly) sprawled out on the floor of the patternmaking lab right now? “How exactly... did I get here, actually?”
The golden boy lit up at Albedo’s question, seemingly exuding pure sunlight from his own body. “I carried you here.”
“You carried me here?”
“Yeah!”
Albedo’s brow furrowed at sunshine-boy’s words, from where he was laying the other boy didn’t appear to be much taller than himself, and his lithe frame didn’t help quell Albedo’s doubts about the mysterious boy’s strength. “By yourself?”
“By myself.” Sunshine-boy beamed, undoubtedly proud of his accomplishment.
Albedo sat up on the infirmary cot, rubbing the aching spot between his eyebrows as if it’d make his headache disappear. “I must apologize again, surely it was a tremendous effort for you to carry a person to the infirmary by yourself, a complete stranger, no less.”
The golden boy laughed and lightly waved his hand in the air, as if he could physically brush Albedo’s statement away. “I’m a lot stronger than I look, so it really wasn’t any issue, uh…”
Albedo tilted his head at the way the other’s sentence trailed off, before quickly realising that he was probably searching for the other’s name. “Ah, my name is Albedo.”
“Albedo.” Sunshine-boy repeated as if to commit his name to memory, smiling softly. “I’m Aether.”
Aether. From Greek mythology, supposedly it is the bright, pure essence breathed by the gods, a fitting name for the radiant boy in front of him. Said boy cleared his throat, pulling Albedo’s attention away from his thoughts and back to reality.
“What exactly happened, Albedo? I was just walking down the hall when I heard this huge crash, I looked in the room and found you on the floor completely alone.”
Albedo flushed slightly, both from the embarrassment of being found in such a position, and shame at how he ended up there in the first place. “I have a bad habit of getting so engrossed with my work that I’ll forget to take breaks and eat… which really isn’t helped by the fact that I suffer from hypoglycemia.”
Aether sighed, but the smile on his face let Albedo know that it was from amusement rather than genuine exasperation. He stood from his seat and stretched, before holding a hand out toward Albedo. “Come on, I’ll go buy you something to eat.”
The next day, Albedo found Aether standing in the doorway to the lab at 12:30, carrying what he’d ordered from the cafe the day earlier- a lightly toasted croissant with ham and melted cheese, and a bottle of apple juice. The same happened the day after that, and every day following then. Aether was also the reason behind Friday being Albedo’s designated ‘leisure day’, when the golden-haired boy found out that his weekends were almost always completely occupied with looking after his little sister, he all but forced Albedo to take Fridays off, insisting that he needed to have at least one day purely to himself every week.
“Plus,” Aether said when he’d proposed the idea of leisure days to Albedo, “I don’t have classes on Friday, so if you wanted to do anything together, then I’m always free!”
Albedo huffed, glancing back up at the clock on the wall. It was now a quarter past one, and Aether still hadn’t shown up to escort him to the campus cafe for their usual lunch. The longer he waited around meant the higher the chance he wouldn’t be eating until he returned home that evening, so he figured he may as well go down to the campus cafe himself. Albedo wasn’t a very good liar after all, and the last time he’d tried fooling Aether into thinking he had eaten when he actually hadn’t, the pale haired man swore he saw his life flash before his eyes. Satisfied with the tidiness of his workplace, Albedo grabbed his phone and wallet to make his way to the campus cafe, only to run into Aether in the doorway- figuratively, and literally.
“Bedo! Sorry I’m late, I know how much you rely on your routines.” Aether peeked around the slightly shorter man, noting that the patternmaking lab was completely empty aside from the two of them. “Did you wanna just eat in here?”
“I’m not adverse to eating here, is there a particular reason why you don’t want to eat in the cafe today, Aether?”
Aether shook his head, following Albedo to one of the empty tables, laughing softly at the slight effort it took for the shorter man to climb onto the high stool. “Just came from there, actually. I was chatting to one of my classmates and ended up having lunch with him, figured I may as well bring your food to you instead of coming all the way up here only to go back.”
Sure enough, Aether had placed Albedo’s usual croissant and apple juice on the table in front of him, as well as a small jar of chocolate mousse. Inspecting the jar, Albedo quirked an eyebrow in Aether’s direction, who simply rubbed the back of his neck and looked away before responding. “As an apology, for making you wait so long. It was either this or cake, I assumed that you’d prefer to have something small and light like this over a whole slice of cake.”
“You assumed correctly.”
“Also because-”
Albedo cut him off with a sharp glare. “I already know what you’re going to say, and I’m fine, aren’t I?”
“Well, yeah, but just in case, you know?”
Albedo hummed, swallowing the bite he’d taken of his croissant while Aether quietly traced patterns on the table top. “You also know I am an adult who is more than capable of taking care of himself, right? I can feed myself if need be.”
“Really? If I remember correctly, I’m not the one who passed out because he got so engrossed in his work that he completely forgot to eat.”
“Touché,” Albedo held his croissant in an offering for a bite toward Aether, who simply held his hand up and shook his head in response. “Really though, you don’t have to go to all this effort just to look after me all the time.”
“Of course I do! I’m your best friend, aren’t I?” Aether’s smile softened before continuing. “Plus, you remind me so much of her.”
The ‘her’ in this situation refers to Lumine, Aether's younger twin sister. Where Aether is the sun, Lumine is supposedly the moon. Cool, calm, and collected, and intelligent to boot. Of course everything Albedo knew about her is purely anecdotal, she’s currently studying biomedical engineering and while she could have stayed in Mondstadt for her studies, Lumine was offered a full scholarship and residency at a more illustrious medical university in Liyue. Apparently she had been apprehensive to accept the placement offer, having never been separated from her brother for their entire lives, but Aether was the one to push her to follow her dreams and secure the best future she possibly could for herself.
Apparently she was a lot like Albedo in the sense that she’d often become too engrossed in her work to remember to look after herself, leaving Aether to be the one to pick up the scraps and make sure she continued to be a living, breathing human being. In that case it was no wonder Aether had so quickly attached himself to Albedo as the fashion student’s self-proclaimed custodian, he’d never admit it but not having his sister there to look after clearly left a hole in his heart, one which Albedo was able to so easily fill with his own careless lack of self-preservation.
“Made any progress on deciding what you’ll be making for your final collection?” Albedo sighed, shaking his head as he reached for the jar of chocolate mousse. Despite spending the past two months sketching away and brainstorming, he hadn’t found a single concept that just felt right . Every time he thought he finally had a grasp on something, he’d suddenly end up becoming completely disinterested and scrap the idea altogether, knowing he’d never be able to live up to his own expectations. At this point all he was doing was dedicating all his time to refining his skills and learning new techniques, hoping something would end up sparking enough inspiration in him to finally get to work for real.
“Good thing I still have almost 9 months until the collection is due, I suppose.” Albedo honestly didn’t know if any of his classmates had even started on their collections yet, he’d be surprised to find out if any of them had. There was a reason why they were given a whole year for this single assignment, after all you can’t rush creativity. If he had to be blunt about it, Albedo was just annoyed that he’d been given all this freedom with nothing to focus it on.
“Well,” Aether drew out the single word, waiting to capture Albedo’s full attention. “You know how you love me?”
Albedo squinted at the half-eaten dessert in his hand, suddenly looking less like a gift out of concern and apology, and more like a peace offering to make up for whatever it is that Aether was about to say. “Sometimes I question if I really should as much as I do.”
Aether laughed, cheeks tinged slightly pink. “You should give that big brain of yours a break for a while, I may or may not have found some work for you.”
Albedo frowned. “You know I don’t take commissions.”
“Don’t worry! He’ll definitely pay no matter how much you charge, he’s super reliable.”
“Money isn’t the issue here, it’s me .” Albedo sighed, placing the now-empty dessert jar back on the table. “My work ethic is too selfish, unless I’m extremely interested in whatever it is that I’m doing, I just can’t make anything that isn’t directly for me or my benefit.”
Aether checked the time on his phone and stretched, before making his way to the door, Albedo following close behind. “I haven't made him any promises, and you don’t have to make a decision yet either, but how about you come along to the studio tomorrow morning to meet him? Chat with him a bit and see how you feel about it then.”
Albedo stood in the doorway, staring out to his friend in the hall. Surely there’d be no harm in being introduced to this friend of Aethers, all he’d have to do is explain his situation and politely turn him down, leaving the design student free to get back to his usual routine. Nodding to himself, he made eye contact with Aether and answered.
“I’ll come along, then. I’ve been looking for an excuse to come and watch you dance as it is, anyway.” Aether stiffened at this, raising his hand to cover the lower half of his face.
“Uh, sure! I’ll text you the room number. See you tomorrow, Bedo.”