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It’s Scaramouche’s fault.
When Childe wasn’t thinking about it, it was fine. But then Scaramouche just had to open his disproportionately large mouth, and now Childe is thinking about it.
He can’t stop thinking about it.
It being, in Scaramouche’s words, your disgustingly obvious simp crush on that blonde girl who kicks your ass regularly.
Which is ridiculous. Childe is not a simp. He might have the picture Paimon took of them the last time he took Lumine out for lunch set as his phone background, but that was because Lumine had laughed—actually laughed, loud and unrestrained and so, so pretty—at one of his jokes after months of trying, and he might have Lumine’s contact saved with a bunch of hearts, but that—oh. Oh no.
Scaramouche might have a point here.
Childe runs a hand through his hair. This is bad. This is very, very bad. Lumine will be here any minute, and Childe is going to have to come up with an explanation for why he’s busy questioning his entire identity.
He just—he kind of assumed it was normal, the fluttering, and the persistent urge to hold her hands and—all of it, really. He didn’t think it meant anything. He didn’t realize.
(In retrospect, it does kind of explain why Aether hates his guts.)
…
Faced with a dilemma of this proportion, Childe does the only thing he can think of.
He texts Paimon.
am i a simp???
?
Paimon thought you knew that already
Well. That was completely useless.
…
Childe’s true downfall starts when Lumine stares directly into his eyes, and asks, “What’s wrong? You’ve been a little out of it all day.”
I might really, really like you, Childe thinks hysterically. And I didn’t notice? I am an actual idiot. What he says instead is, “Nothing, girlie. I’m fine.”
Lumine’s stare feels like it has moved swiftly from I’m worried about you to Will you cut the bullshit? Childe swallows. He’s never actually heard her say bullshit, but he gets this exact feeling disturbingly often.
“Are you sure?”
“I might have—realized something,” Childe admits.
Lumine goes red. “Is this about that thing Aether was planning? Because I told him not to, I swear I did—”
Childe blinks. “What thing?”
“I’m—actually not sure?” Lumine says. “I was convinced it was an attempt on your life for a second there, he was making all these calls and ordering strange stuff online. He still hasn’t told me what all that was about.”
Okay, well—great. Aether might actually be planning to murder him. Awesome. Good thing he’s trained in multiple martial arts. “It wasn’t about that,” Childe says, resolutely pushing Aether’s potential murder attempts to the back of his mind. An issue for another day.
“What was it about?” Lumine asks. She’s so close that Childe can smell her faint floral perfume. The perfume he got her for her last birthday. Damnit. He really should just reach out and take her hand, because if he blows this as terribly as he assumes he’s most likely going to, he won’t get another chance.
That’s—distressing.
The thought of not seeing Lumine practically every day, of not cheering at her matches when she throws someone twice her size to the mat, of not being the one she comes to with questions and fervent requests of extra practice that Childe couldn’t deny even if he wanted to, because he is weak is—
Maybe he shouldn’t say anything after all.
“Nothing big,” he says.
The back of Lumine’s palm brushes against his own. “Come on,” she says. “It’s big if you’re worried. Tell me.”
“I don’t—you’re important to me, you know that, right?”
“Yeah,” Lumine says, like it’s easy, “of course. You’re important to me too.”
“I mean,” Childe says. “I just want you to know that I respect you as an individual and I value our friendship and, also, I still think that one time you took a guy out with nothing but a rolling pin was the coolest moment of my life, but—I also really like you, Lumine.”
Lumine stops walking. It’s so quiet it’s physically painful for one, two, three, four seconds, and then— “Yeah,” she says. “I know. I like you too.”
Childe blinks. He might be feverish. He might be hallucinating. He might be dead. He doesn’t know. “What?” he asks.
“I like you,” Lumine says, like this is a simple fact, and not something that’s tilting Childe’s entire worldview. He needs to go sit down and reexamine his whole life for, like, signs of Scaramouche being a pacifist or something.
“As a friend, right?” Childe asks.
Lumine looks like having to restrain herself from physical violence is causing her great pain, which—is pretty strange. Contained violence is kind of their main love language at this point. Not that he thinks about things like love that often around her, it’s just—
Well. He kind of does, actually.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Lumine sighs. “I just realized I’m in love with an idiot,” she says, “and I might need some time to process.”
“In love?” Childe echoes. Something light and bubbly feels like it’s expanding inside his chest. If he’s dead, it’s okay, because he can’t remember ever having been this happy before.
“You really didn’t know?” Lumine asks. “We’ve been going out for, like, three months, Childe.”
Childe takes a moment to consider this. Three months ago had been Lumine’s biggest professional tournament win, and she’s rushed straight at Childe after, much to Aether’s indignation, still high on adrenaline. Childe remembers catching her, spinning her around and whispering you’re amazing because it had been true, because it is true, because she’s the coolest person he’s ever met, and he’d probably still think that even he wasn’t so wholly gone.
“Oh,” he says, slowly, “I didn’t notice.”
Lumine swats at his chest. “I hate you.”
“I thought you said you loved me,” Childe says, and it’s a horrible line, but Lumine’s cheeks flush and she smiles and says, “Yeah, that too, unfortunately,” before taking his hand, pushing her fingers between his, and—
It’s another monumental realization, right there.
They fit. They fit together, and Childe could have found this out a little earlier. “Next time,” he says. “Please just tell me.”
Lumine leans up on the very tips of her toes, and kisses his cheek. “Learn to pick up context clues,” she says.
Childe nods. Yeah, okay. He can probably do that. “I think I might need to thank Scaramouche,” he says, still a little dazed. He makes a face. “This is the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Lumine laughs again, squeezes his hand, so really—
It’s not that bad.