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Teyvat was a small port town overlooking the ocean, which became densely populated especially during the summer. People and families used to go there on holiday because of the golden beaches and the pristine sea.
It was a bright, cool summer night. They sky was clear, where the stars and the moon could shine so high and bright into the firmament, with no clouds at all. The streets in the centre of the town were very crowded, due to the flood of people that filled them entirely.
This wasn’t the first and wouldn’t have been the last time Xiao decided to come to the nightclub to just try to relax after work. He had to inherit the family business, as Xiao was the older and Venti the younger, so he felt the responsibility. He was exhausted by the weight of it all. He didn’t even know if he could really handle it. There was the chance it might’ve destroyed him sooner or later.
Xiao sat down on a stool, glancing up at Xinyan. She was the bartender, who looked back at the customer with a smirk. They usually somehow chatted about various topics, sometimes, but he didn’t want to do it. Not today, at least, not tonight. He felt way too much under pressure, as if he could find no relief at all. He wished he could go back to when he was much more carefree. He would’ve liked to be his baby, younger, little brother’s age again. Sixteen years old. He wanted to live that kind of life again. If only he had an opportunity, a chance, a choice, a possibility to go back in time. It would’ve been great.
“You seem very pensive,” Xinyan pointed out to Xiao.
He ordered a cocktail made of vodka with ice, waiting for the bartender to deliver it.
“It’s because I am pensive,” Xiao remarked it to Xinyan.
He cut her off before Xinyan could ask more questions for which Xiao didn’t have any answer, since he didn’t really want to talk about it. When the bartender put the glass onto the counter, producing a dry, short sound, the customer just took it. He watched the ice cubes move into the chalice, floating into the amber liquid. He drank it all in one gulp from the glass.
The dancer Xiangling, beautiful in her skimpy fire-red and yellow-sun dress, with her hair pulled back into two buns on top of her head and her huge golden eyes, she attracted so much attention on herself as she danced on the cube, including that of bartender Xinyan. He realized that Xinyan the bartender couldn't take her eyes off Xiangling the dancer. It was just so obvious, that anyone could’ve noticed it.
He was lost in thoughts, until he noticed a figure that stood out into the crowd. Not only his brother Venti was there, but his best friends Barbara and Aether were with him as well. He frowned deeply at the sight of that scene, about the three teenagers gathered all together where they shouldn’t even be, until a wrinkle appeared into the middle of his forehead for how taken aback he was by it. He just couldn’t believe it.
Xiao noticed them from where he was, hiding a little in the shadows, but focused mainly on Aether. The teenagers Aether, Venti and Barbara were into the nightclub, dancing on the dance floor and under strobe lights that made them shine like jewels. He concentrated on the boy with long, blond hair tied up into a braid, fair skin and amber eyes. He was dressed up with a pair of brown sandals, a yellow crop top that turned to gold as a shade and a pair of shorts in the same brown colour. He also had a lot of costume jewellery, such as earrings, a bracelet wrapped around his forearm like a snake made of gold, a gold piercing on his navel as well. He sparkled in the beauty that distinguished him. It looked like he was made entirely of gold. There was a thin veil of that poured down his forehead. He was as beautiful as a dream.
Xiao struggled to think that that was really Aether. He almost didn't recognize him.
His brother’s best friend.
“He grew up so much,” Xiao thought, thinking about Aether. “Still a boy, not a man yet,” he kept thinking about him.
Aether moved at the rhythm of the music, following the same pace of Venti.
Bewitched, enraptured. Beguiled, charmed, captivated. Allured, fascinated.
He wondered if Aether was doing it on purpose, just to drive him crazy. He bit his lower lip. Hard.
He took out a banknote from his wallet, leaving the money on the counter. He got up from the stool, so he stepped out of the shadows that had concealed him until then and he moved towards the dance floor. He stopped near it, expecting that they could at least make eye contact.
And then, all of a sudden, Xiao and Aether exchanged a meaningful glance. Aether froze where he was, slowly stopping dancing, and looked back at Xiao. Too far, yet too close.
Xiao had to leave, taking the back exit to get away from Aether.
"He's just a kid," Xiao mentally repeated to himself, trying not to think about Aether.
He couldn’t think about him in that way. This was madness. Absurd.
He found himself outside the nightclub, and had to make his way through the throng of people gathered at both the back exit and the front door. He grumbled at the annoyance it caused him. What nuisance.
He tried to adjust his black suit, but unexpectedly, as nervous as he had ever been, he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. He pulled a packet out of his pocket, then lit a cigarette. The orange light shone in the semi-darkness of the dead alley. He knew he should’ve gotten rid of this bad habit.
He couldn’t stop thinking about him. Aether.
The crowd began to disperse and returned to the nightclub.
The door to the back exit of the nightclub opened and then closed. He thought that it was just one of the many clients who just came and went, but what he couldn’t was that he was wrong.
Some footsteps.
A voice.
He recognised them at once. They were unmistakable. Aether's.
"Xiao?" Aether called out to Xiao. "Is everything all right?" he asked in an uncertain tone.
He nodded in assent, though it was a lie. He wasn't well at all.
Xiao turned towards Aether. When he found himself in front of him, he noticed that the boy was hugging himself, rubbing his arms, perhaps because of the coldness. The temperature had definitely dropped suddenly at this hour.
He took a puff, a deeper puff, from his cigarette. He inhaled through his mouth and exhaled through his nostrils. A column of smoke rose upwards, dispersing in the air.
"Are you cold?" Xiao asked Aether as he slipped off his jacket and handed it to him. "Put this on," he advised him.
Aether grabbed the jacket, giving him a rather shy look, so he placed it over his shoulder and looked at Xiao again. He had a few strands of hair that had escaped from the braid.
Xiao stretched out his fingers, placing that wild strand of hair between his ears, and looked at Aether. He realized that Aether blushed heavily due to the action.
“Were you watching me?” Aether asked Xiao naively. “While I was dancing?” he asked him with shiny eyes and glossy lips.
“Maybe,” Xiao answered Aether, taking another puff of smoke from the cigarette.
He put out the cigarette, smashing it against the damp, cold, stone wall nearby. He threw it into the trashcan, that was surrounded by black plastic bags full of trash.
Aether approached him, then he stood on tiptoe and reached Xiao. He leaned over and gave him a kiss. An innocent kiss. On the cheek, but too close to the lips. When Aether pulled away, he blushed heavily, bit his lower lip and batted his eyelashes, and Xiao just swallowed hard.
Those big, amber, doe eyes of Aether just made Xiao feel like he could’ve fallen in love with him.
Xiao fought against the urge to give him another type of kiss, a real, true one, because that would mean stripping the purity away from Aether. He couldn't do that, not at all, but he couldn't resist anymore.
He bent down over him, then he took Aether's chin between his fingers. He kissed him properly, making their respective lips brush against each other, until he slipped his tongue into Aether's mouth and their tongues intertwined. A real, true kiss. Their first one, maybe also the last one. He hoped it would’ve been just one of many others, because he couldn’t afford losing him.