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The window opens soundlessly. It’s kept that way so that Childe can slip out of his office unnoticed, but it also means others can get in just as stealthily.
He doesn’t detect her presence until she’s sitting on the edge of his desk, absorbed in paperwork as he is.
“Hey.”
Childe’s head snaps to Lumine, hydro blades pulsing and alive in his hands before he notices who was speaking to him. “Don’t scare me like that,” he sighs, dismissing his weapons, “I could’ve hurt you if you’d come any closer.”
Rubbing his eyes, Childe sinks back into his chair and faces the Traveler. “What do you need?” He’s more than happy for Lumine’s presence, but he‘s tired, having spent a good portion of the day catching up on work.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she smiles, evidently excited.
Childe raises a brow. Go on.
“It’s a new place I found. I know you’ll love it.”
Lumine produces a slip of black fabric and moves to stand beside his chair. Childe tenses when she covers his eyes with it, hands shooting to hers.
She brushes his hands off. “I’m not going to kill you, I promise. I’m doing this for the sake of the surprise.”
He doesn’t say anything but allows her to tie the knot at the back of his head.
“You might feel a little dizzy after this, so hold on tight.” Childe’s arm is tugged around a small body, resting around what he presumes to be Lumine’s waist, while her own arm goes around to hold him close.
This is a nice position. He doesn’t mind if this is the surprise Lumine has been talking about. But then he loses all sense of direction and weight, as if he’s falling in all directions at once.
Childe’s hand tightens on Lumine, his anchor in the chaos he’s blind to while his feet struggle to find purchase. He soon finds that there’s no need for that as the world rights itself. He stumbles a bit, saved from what would have been a very unceremonial face plant by the girl steadying him.
His boots crunch on something soft. Sand.
There’s a gentle breeze ruffling his hair and it smells distinctly of the ocean, refreshing and calming, worlds away from his stuffy office.
Childe breathes in deep and lets himself relax ever so slightly. “Where are we, girlie?”
Lumine slips out from under his arm and he feels the knot of his blindfold loosen before the harsh sunlight meets him. Blinking at the sudden change in lighting, he squints at his surroundings.
They’re on a beach, waves lapping gently only a few metres away from his boots. He turns to take in the sheer cliffs behind him, the crude jutting of rocks from the sand, exquisite plant life and the ever-present hilichurls.
“Golden Apple Archipelago. I don’t even know where it’s supposed to be relative to Teyvat, but it’s here. The perfect place for a summer vacation.”
Childe completes his survey of the island they’re on and turns back to Lumine. “This place is amazing. How’d you find it?”
She smirks at him. “It’s a secret.”
Lumine doesn’t allow Childe to dwell on her response and takes his hand, so large next to hers. There’s a whole day of fun ahead of them.
Dodo-King walls are an instant favourite for Childe. Seeing the spider web-like cracks on the walls grow with each return of the harpastum fuels his innate adoration for violence and chaos. This time, his penchant for destruction is actually appreciated.
He glances at Lumine at the wall next to his, very obviously struggling to return the harpastums in time. He chuckles and jumps into her zone.
“Get out of here,” she hisses. “This is my wall.”
Childe makes a show of considering her command, humming with a hand raised to his chin. He grins. “No.”
He leaps in front of her and steals the return, the wall groaning in protest—one more hit and it would be reduced to rubble.
“Childe. Go get another wall.”
There’s no way he can obey her when she looks like that. Cheeks puffed and eyes burning with irritation. It’s the perfect mix that has his knees weak.
With his longer strides, Childe manages to place himself in front of the next oncoming harpastum. He delights in stealing Lumine’s wall destruction count.
Of course, that’s until a ball of blonde fury barrels into him. Childe tumbles into the sand and watches as the harpastum flies above them and lands on the ground. The forces governing the archipelago resets their progress on the wall and the painting on it grins at them, mocking.
“Childe, I told you to stay out of the way.” Lumine is straddling him, hands flat on his chest and glaring at him with the intensity of a thousand suns. He feels his airways constrict. Just a little.
“Lumi-”
“Why am I not surprised that you find a way to be annoying just playing simple games?” She doesn’t seem to realise how compromising their position is now, and Childe can feel his face getting warm too.
“I expect a five course meal for this,” Lumine leans in closer to make sure that Childe gets the point before she stands and crosses her arms in front of her.
Childe remains in the sand for a few seconds before he notices Lumine just standing there, glaring at the ocean. He scrambles to his feet and tries to rub the heat away from his face before he calls out to her. “Lumine.” He walks to her side, hesitant and anxious.
He’s never been this anxious before, not even when he had gone face-to-face with that monstrous squid in the middle of night out in a distant, stormy sea.
“I’m sorry. I’ll get you two five course meals.”
Lumine’s features don’t change. She’s still as a rock.
“I won’t do it again,” Childe tries.
Her scowl deepens. “That’s what you said the last eight times.”
He chuckles awkwardly. That’s a fact he can’t escape.
Childe inches closer to Lumine, watching as her hair blows across her face and extends a hand to catch the offending locks out of pure instinct before tucking them behind her ear.
Lumine jumps at his contact and turns away. Did I do something wrong?
But then she seizes his hand and stomps to the waterline, stopping right before the lapping waves. “I’ll forgive you if you make me a water horse to ride,” she mutters, still not looking at him.
Childe heaves an internal sigh of relief. This, he can do.
The water answers his call and bubbles of water rise from the ocean, coalescing into a large, majestic beast. It stands at least seventeen hands tall, it’s mane made of flowing water not unlike his scarf whenever he wields his hydro blades.
Childe refocuses his attention on Lumine once he’s done. Her eyes are wide in awe, mouth hanging open a little. It brings a smile to his face as she stares at the horse, glances back at him, then turns back to the horse.
“H-How do I get on it?”
Childe doubts that Lumine would be able to mount the horse on her own even if it has a saddle and stirrups. She isn’t even tall enough to stand to it’s shoulder.
He can easily make the horse smaller, but refrains from doing so. Seeing Lumine struggle in that cute way she does is preferable to the menial task of resizing his creation. Leading the horse and Lumine to a nearby rock, Childe helps her mount the water animal. Even with the rock, she still needs a small boost which he’s more than happy to provide, lifting her up by the waist.
With Lumine secure, he commands the horse to walk. It’s the first time he’s done this, and the amount of focus it requires takes him off guard. The animation of the creature demands his entire attention, both in shaping the way it moves and also the maintenance of its structural integrity. He’s so focused on keeping the animal solid with each movement that he can feel the ripples of Lumine’s movements on it. The shift of her weight as the horse walks over the waves and towards the open water. The grip of her arms around its neck. The pressure of her legs pressed into the beast’s side to keep her balance.
It’s a whole new world for him.
Childe can’t help but wish that it’s him that Lumine clings to, not some meaningless product of his vision. It reawakens the feelings that have been hounding him for the past few weeks, insisting that he act on them.
Love her. Take care of her. Fight her.
It feels as if Lumine is giving him a mental hug with the way she holds on to the horse for dear life as it begins to canter. Childe didn’t intend for the creature to go faster, but it seems that it has become the physical embodiment of the rush that’s going through him. The visible result of his racing heart.
“Childe!” Lumine’s cry cuts through him and the fine string of focus on his hydro snaps. The animal that Lumine had been atop is now nothing but water. Very not solid. She drops into the ocean with a splash.
Childe is in action moments later, trying to ignore the panic washing through his mind. He can sense her struggling in the movement of the currents and commands the water to surge up around her. At the same time, he becomes water itself and propels over the waves to meet Lumine as her head breaks the surface.
Frankly, she looks like a drowned rat.
Her hair is stuck to the side of her head, flowers still miraculously clinging on though they’re soaked. And her white dress… It is translucent now.
Childe takes her into his arms, making sure to look only at her face, still beautiful despite the drowned rat look.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “Are you okay?”
Lumine’s arms are hooked around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist. The sensation is similar to yet so much better than the way she had clung to his horse.
The water beneath his feet turns solid at his command so that he no longer needs to tread water.
Lumine takes a few deep breaths before she answers him. “I’m okay now. What happened?”
Childe ducks his head. He doesn’t know what to say, so instead of giving her a reply, he brings them back to dry land.
He finds himself still carrying Lumine as his feet hit sand, his teleportation bubble dissipating in a matter of seconds. Awkwardly, he sets her back on her feet. Instead of stepping away like he expects her to, Lumine remains with him, the warmth of her embrace a comfort.
“I’m cold,” she explains.
Ah, right.
Taking advantage of his vision once again, Childe draws the water out of their clothes. The droplets gather into a sphere mid-air which he allows to simply fall onto the sand.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Lumine stares up at him, pulling back a little but not completely.
“There’s still a lot about me that you don’t know, girlie.”
Despite the slight smile on his face, guilt gnaws at him. Not because Lumine might have drowned—Childe is positive that that would never happen under his watch—but because of the experience he ruined. He sighs and apologises again.
Lumine tightens her hold on him. “It’s okay, everyone messes up once in a while. I know nothing would’ve happened with you here, you have a hydro vision in the middle of the ocean.”
She can tell that Childe is definitely upset at himself. The glum expression on his face that he tries to hide behind a smile doesn’t match him well. Lumine tugs on his now dry jacket. “Let’s sit.”
She remains beside him as they settle down, still cold despite being dry; one of the wonders of the mind. Throwing a sideways glance at Childe, Lumine studies him in greater detail.
The furrow between his brows are back, similar to when she had found him holed up in his office.
“Childe.”
Lumine leans into him, her skin tingling at every point of contact. “Stop it.”
She rallies her courage and reaches over to pull his arm into her embrace. “I brought you here so you’d stop stressing over work. Don’t ruin it all and stress over me.”
Childe looks at her, head tilted like a puppy. “But…” He trails off. Lumine can see a hint of pink on his cheeks as his blue eyes flick to the arm trapped in her hug. He quickly averts his gaze when he notices her watching.
And because she’s probably half-crazed from the recent adrenaline rush, Lumine abandons her spot beside Childe to crawl between his legs and settle with her back against his chest. She can feel his abrupt intake of breath as she leans against him. Can feel the faint, uneven vibrations of his heart. His hands come around her waist to rest on her stomach without her instruction. Good.
“You know… I could probably demand a ten course meal or something from just now, but… I’ll spare you.” Lumine shifts to the left so that she’s half turned to Childe. “In fact,” she stares him straight in the eye. “I’ll share one of the two five course meals you owe me. I'm feeling merciful today.”
Lumine hooks an arm around his neck and draws a little closer. “What do you say?”
She can see the calculations going through his eyes, processing her offer. The small smile he offers is enough for her to take it as agreement.
Lumine snuggles closer until the side of her face is pressed to his. The time she spent with him today is already a great gift in itself, more than enough to make up for his annoying antics. But really, what she hopes for most is a kiss. She’s wanted to kiss him for a long time, but the right moment hasn’t presented itself till now. Until they’ve come to grow familiar with each other’s presence. All she has to do is tilt her head a little more.
Lumine pauses to look at Childe. His lips are parted slightly, eyes half-lidded. Cute. With that, she kisses him.
Childe doesn’t respond at first, his mind blowing up over the fact that Lumine is kissing him. Her hand dances across his cheek, featherlight before his lips remember to move.
He hugs her small body as close to himself as possible, savouring each brush of their skin. Childe can no longer hold back the flood of emotions he’s been holding back with a poorly built dam. He kisses her again and again until his own lips are puffy, until he can memorise the shape of her lips and the cavern of her mouth.
Childe pulls back to draw breath when belated embarrassment makes itself known on his face. “Lumine, do you… Do you like me?”
Lumine’s initial smile turns into a pout. Adorable, wondrous and beautiful under the light of the late afternoon sun. “I just kissed you. What do you think?”
Right.
Childe feels his entire body heat up despite the cool ocean breeze. He’s always felt weak around Lumine, both in resolve and his upkeep of a masculine front. Usually, he hates the feeling of any kind of weakness, but Lumine is an exception. She always has been.
Childe buries his face into her neck, mumbling some unintelligible nonsense in the hopes that Lumine won’t help him dig a deeper ditch of his own embarrassment. He can’t help but press a few kisses to her neck as his lips glide over the smooth skin there, savouring the coolness of each touch. Small, lithe fingers comb through his hair as his kisses move upward, encouraging and tender. “Childe,” Lumine groans.
“Mmm?”
“I-I think it’s about time we go back if we’re going to have that five course meal.”
Childe captures her lips in one final kiss before he pulls away for good. “Aren’t you… Nevermind. A dinner date it is, then.”
He’s already on his feet by the time Lumine grasps his meaning. “Ahh, well, uh, okay.” Her face is flushed and eyes wide. Childe takes a snapshot of shy Lumine in his mind. Her expressions are something he hopes he can remember. Happiness, sadness, anxiety, excitement. He wants the whole spectrum.
Childe grabs her hand and begins to walk inland, confidence brimming with each step.
“Where are you going?” Lumine asks after a while.
Childe’s steps falter. He doesn’t know.
“To have that grand dinner we were talking about,” he says after a brief pause.
There’s only the rustle of leaves and distant hilichurl songs to fill the silence.
“You don’t know where you’re going, do you?”
“No, I have no clue.” Childe doesn’t even feel ashamed.
“You can’t just walk back to Liyue, idiot.” Lumine rolls her eyes and tugs him flush to her side.
There’s no warning this time as his body is rearranged, punched, kicked or whatever happens during her kind of teleportation. The pleasant breeze and quiet evening disappears in the blink of an eye, replaced by the suffocating humidity and crowds of Liyue.
Childe is able to stay on his feet without assistance this time, but holds Lumine close regardless. “Come visit me everyday if you can teleport like that,” he breathes. It’s yet another ability of hers that turns his insides gooey. He can only imagine the types of battles he can have with her, the frequency, too, if she can travel from place to place so easily.
She hums in thought. “That depends, I guess. What do I get?”
Childe grins like the idiot he is. “Me.”
Lumine rolls her eyes, but Childe can see the amusement setting them aglow. “I’ll consider,” she smiles.
He takes it as a ‘yes’ and drags her to the best restaurant he can find.
“I’m holding you to it.”