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A certain white-haired boy raced through Bennett’s mind, much like the wolves he’d been raised by.
Every day. Every single day the two would go out together adventuring. If anything, Bennett had adopted Razor into his one-person adventuring team, dragging him along to old ruins and extreme heights for the thrill of the wind tousling his hair or a long, hard battle with a dusty ruin guard. He didn’t care as much about the treasure as he did the experience. Razor would come along with him, snacking on Mondstadt hash browns as they trekked, sometimes consuming a startling amount compared to what Bennett could usually keep down.
On this day, the wind buffeting against Bennett’s face, he threw himself into action, piercing his sword into the ground in a plunge attack. Razor sat down on the ledge, watching with muted interest as he stuffed yet another hash brown into his face, his red eyes twinkling. Bennett swung his sword left and right, trying to show off, but considering his luck it obviously didn’t work too well when he turned to see if Razor was still watching and got bonked on the head with one of the hilichurl’s wooden clubs.
The wiry boy sighed and set the rest of his food aside, jumping down into the fray and quickly finishing off the rest of what Bennett was getting defeated by, which turned out to be just two hilichurls and a samachurl hiding behind a rock pillar. Once he was done he shook out his hair and sheathed his claymore.
Bennett looked at him with a dumbfounded expression, his mouth slightly agape. “Th-Thanks!” he stammered after a moment, lifting his hand behind his head and scratching through his tufted hair. “I might’ve gotten myself in a bit of trouble there if you weren’t here!” His voice reminded Razor of tree bark, though it didn’t quite make sense to him how he made that connection.
“You are distracted,” Razor stated bluntly. “That is bad.” His eyes landed on Bennett’s, making him a bit squeamish.
“I know,” he sighed, defeated. It was already afternoon- they still had time to do other things, but Bennett was getting a bit hungry. “Why don’t we head back now? I’ll treat you to something at Good Hunter.”
Razor’s stomach growled in response before he could, but his eyes lit up nonetheless. “Food is good.”
Bennett sighed at his friend’s ravenous response. He was almost certain he could eat an entire sticky honey roast by himself and still be hungry, and he wouldn’t have a problem with it if it didn’t always cost him a life’s expense of mora, but alas…
The two made their way back to Mondstadt. Sparing a glance at Katheryne, Bennett followed his friend up the city’s stairs to Good Hunter. Immediately many different smells assaulted his nose, making his head spin- so many foods in such a small stall… how did they do it? He shook his head and dismissed the question, waltzing up to Sara with the confidence of a goose. He looked at Razor, thought for a moment, then ordered. “Four steaks and two chicken mushroom skewers, outside table!” he announced. After Sara disappeared behind some curtains, Bennett took Razor by the wrist and gently tugged him towards a table, sitting down in the wooden chairs and basically collapsing onto the table.
“You seem tired,” Razor noted plainly, resting his chin on his hands and staring at Bennett with glittering ruby eyes. Bennett caught himself staring.
"O-of course I am!" he muttered, startled. "I've been adventuring with you all day without a break. You've just been eating the whole time."
"Except for at the end," Razor responded. "I had to save you." His gaze felt almost predatory. The reckless boy found himself shifting in his seat after being put on the spot.
"Yeah-! Well, uh…. um…!" he thought for a few more seconds, then gave up. "I have no rebuttal."
The long-haired boy ended up barking out a laugh. It scared a small child near the two, sending her scampering off in the other direction. Bennett followed suit soon after, chuckling quietly.
Not long after that, Sara arrived with their meals. She set Razor's plate down first. "Four steaks," she announced, then Bennett's, "and two chicken mushroom skewers, nice and hot! Enjoy!" She wasted no time hurrying back to her booth to service the other customers that were quickly forming the dinner rush line.
Bennett glanced back at Razor who had already taken the liberty of devouring half his steak. With a quiet chuckling sigh, he tucked into his skewers, watching his friend go absolutely rabid on his meat. After Bennett had finished his food, surprisingly, Razor still was not done and took about another 10 minutes to finish. Bennett wondered if the cooks had made it more difficult to chew on purpose.
Once Razor did finish, though, he stood, looking Bennett in the eyes. “Are we going back?” he inquired, a curious glimmer in his eyes.
“To the forest?” he replied. “Um… sure. Yeah, we can go!” He picked up the plates, stacking them, and left them in the middle of the table with a thank-you tip next to them. As he set them down, Razor grabbed him by the hand and led him back through Mondstadt and its gates, over the bridge of pigeons, and a little way up the path to Springvale until Bennett tripped, heaving for air. “Razor!” he huffed quietly, unable to exert the effort to actually yell. “Why are we running? What’s the matter?”
Razor stopped and turned, looking down with a wild expression on his face. “We must go!” he barked. “We will miss it!” After a moment of Bennett still on the ground, he walked towards him lightly, kneeling. “Are you okay?”
Bennett paused for a moment. “Yeah. No, yeah, I’m fine. Just... a little bit winded. What are we missing, again?” He sat up, his eyes tired.
“I cannot tell you,” Razor hummed. “We must go now.” Without a second thought, he picked up Bennett like it was nothing, putting him on his shoulders and continuing up the path. Bennett just let him.
After an untellable amount of time, Bennett finally was set down and looked around for a few moments before realizing where they were. His face grew a little hot. “Razor… why are we at Starsnatch Cliff?”
Razor only looked back at him with a somewhat upset expression. “Wanted to show you…” he looked to the side, red light bathing his face. “But we missed it.” His voice was quiet and soft. “I thought it was nice, so I wanted to show you. It is one of my favorite places.”
Bennett looked at him, unsure of whether he was accurately understanding the situation; nonetheless, Razor looked almost ethereal in this lighting, golds lacing the edges of his lacy hair, his skin saturated with bright, warm orange. After only a few minutes, the sun dipped down beneath the horizon, and Razor looked back at Bennett with a disquieted expression. Bennett realized after a few moments that maybe he should say something.
The words slipped from his tongue easily. “Hey, even if we missed the sunset, we can still watch the stars,” he chipped. “It’s just as pretty, and they’ll stay out a whole lot longer.” He stood up and walked next to the other boy, sitting down on the grass and lying back to watch as the saturation faded from the sky, pinpricks of light slowly arriving one after another as time went by. Razor eventually sat next to him as well, looking up with a new twinkle in his eyes.
Bennett only realized a few days later that he’d woken up in the morning next to him with Razor’s hand in his.