Chapter Text
“Gods, Thoma, I’m a fucking simp, ” Ajax, around three years younger than Thoma despite them being in the same year standing in university, bawls into Thoma’s shoulder. The latter grimaces as he is stuck consoling him with many rubs on his back.
"There, there, Ajax," he says as gently as he could without sounding completely uninterested. It’s not like he is apathetic to his friend's romance problems, no, he just has too much on his plate to worry about his buddy’s lovelife (or lack thereof). And Thoma's heart is just too soft to say anything about his own problem.
“I’m so down bad for Zhongli," the man whines once more into his shirtsleeve before sniffling.
“Yes, yes, we all know that, Ajax,” Thoma replies in a teasing tone, despite how he’s tuned out almost every single thing Ajax has said.
As for how this happened: It all started with Thoma minding his own business and knitting a scarf he’s planning to gift to Ayato for his birthday in a few days, expecting to need all of that time even though he was already on the last stretch. Free hours would likely be sparse in the foreseeable future, but he will make Ayato's scarf or gods help him. Ajax made a sudden appearance while he was looking the fabric over to check for mistakes, suddenly dropping his things on top of the stone table for the Mondstadter Club, despite not being a member of the aforementioned club, and planting his forlorn face on the coarse surface whilst muttering something about how he couldn’t take ‘it’ anymore. When Thoma rightfully assumed it was about his academics because Ajax is currently taking a class under the infamous Professor Rosalyne, She Who Rains Down Failing Grades, he invited the guy for a hug. But, as it turns out, his idiot ginger friend was really just crying about his friend in the Snezhnayan Club, Zhongli.
Thoma knows how and why his currently-crying friend fell hard for Zhongli, too: Zhongli, in his first year of his master’s studies, joined the Snezhnayan Club out of mild interest for the language, it seemed. Ajax met him at the recruitment fair two years ago where, apparently, Ajax was sitting there, bored out of his mind taking care of the booth and playing on his Switch instead, and Zhongli happened to pass by. Initially, neither of them paid attention to each other, but then, Zhongli stopped to peruse a brochure that the club’s booth had to advertise itself, and while he was reading, Ajax deigned to look up at the person standing in front of him. At the same moment, the sun peeked out from the clouds and created a halo of light around Zhongli’s head as if he were a god descending from the heavens. And it was then and there that Ajax fell in love, and apparently even fell further when Zhongli remarked something about the Snezhnayan Club not yet existing while he was still an undergraduate some time prior. According to Ajax, almost verbatim, his voice was like 'honey and butter combined together to create a soft muffin that melts in your mouth'.
And when Thoma actually met the man a few weeks later, since his club and Ajax's are sister organizations, he understood instantly; Zhongli is very good-looking in person, is down-to-earth almost to a fault, and is so friendly and polite. He even drops by often to share tidbits of knowledge when asked about them and even some advice to struggling undergraduates. An all-around great guy to be friends with.
“Was I really that obvious to everyone? Everyone knows? Not just you?” His idiot ginger friend sniffles, looking up at him with glassy puppy eyes.
Obvious? Thoma could literally name every single time he’s witnessed his very lovesick friend do things out of character, like that many times he’s tripped on a pebble while talking to him, and the way he stutters in his presence all the time, and the fact that he signed up for more units per semester than the university usually recommends just to get in Liyuen language lessons to try and impress Zhongli… for four semesters and counting. And his grades are actually at the top of his class! For his level, he was reading, writing, speaking, and hearing Liyuen well enough to pass all his exams, but by gods, stick Zhongli within a fifty-meter radius of Ajax and he starts talking like a cute little infant chomping on his teething toy.
Not his words, it was the professor's, affectionately called Madame Ping by her students. She witnessed it first hand. Zhongli was one of the people the old professor invited to her class for some immersion sessions, and by gods, apparently Ajax was talking gibberish. Thoma only came to know of this event through Venti, a music student in the Mondstadter Club currently on a yearlong leave of absence, who apparently heard it from a certain Xiao, who works as an aide somewhere and seems to be Zhongli's second-degree cousin? Thoma has no real idea.
He could even enumerate a long list of people who know all about his not-so-hidden crush on Zhongli. Literally everyone aside from the new applicants in the Mondstadter Club is aware of a bet about the two of them getting together or not. Even those from other sister clubs like the Inazuman Club are aware, to the point that Venti, one of the oldest members of the Mondstadter Club, has a ledger of the bet and offshoots thereof. Even Kunikuzushi, or as everyone calls him, Kuni-kun (to Kuni-kun’s intense chagrin), the serial freshman (in)famous for his shifting of courses every other year or two, apparently dropped fifteen thousand mora and said that should Ajax and Zhongli get together, 'that idiot ginger wouldn't be the one to confess like the fucking coward he is'.
Aside from Kuni-kun, there is also Yoimiya who did not bet mora, but is happily observing the situation and promised to hold a party at her place for when the bet is concluded, all for free, even! And knowing Yoimiya, there will be fireworks and no alcohol involved, so Thoma is thinking of joining in the party.
And then there's also his own crush Ayato who has hinted once before that he has bet upwards of twenty thousand mora in the betting pool.
“See, Thoma,” Ayato once said in that dulcet voice of his that never fails to make his heart beat so fast, “when there is fun to be derived from such activities, why would I not participate in it?”
“But that was more than twenty thousand!”
Ayato smiled (and goodness was it such a beautiful smile) and said, “The bet never explicated that I cannot do anything to tilt the results in my favor and win back more than twenty thousand.”
Thoma never really got to know exactly what Ayato was betting for.
Speaking of the bet going around about the two of them getting together or not, should Thoma even mention that to Ajax?
“Never mind,” Ajax sniffles before burying his face on Thoma’s shoulder again. “Gods, bro, I saw him earlier today and I swear my heart exploded…”
And here comes Ajax’s hour-long declamation speech on how Zhongli is the most beautiful, how Zhongli is the most intelligent, how Zhongli is the most interesting, stuff like that. As much as he loves his friend, Ajax does tend to go off the rails when it comes to his crush, but Thoma doesn’t want him to stop. He knows Ajax hasn’t been able to actually express himself for the majority of his life due to the standard ‘the house is always devoid of parents and older siblings’ situation with a rich family and the ‘I have to be a responsible big brother to my little brothers and sister’ situation when said absent parents and older siblings leave the actual love and care to him. Being sent abroad was Ajax’s chance to discover fun things on his own, even though he does adore his family a lot.
With one ear listening to Ajax sobbing about his hopeless love, Thoma’s thoughts wander to the problem of his rapidly depleting bank account.
Oh gods, his bank account.
Just earlier that day, he came to the student affairs office, only to find out that his government scholarship still has not released any paperwork to release his stipend, and it has been three months. The last time he checked his bank account balance, it was hovering at a dangerous nineteen thousand mora, only enough to last him until the end of the week, if he splits a meal into three and subsists on soy milk. His smile falls as he rejects the thought calling his mother from back in Mondstadt to transfer him more mora that he would pay back when the stipend finally arrives. It would do no good asking his mother for help, he already feels like a burden having asked her for allowance for three months. And what makes everything much more stressful to deal with is the fact that looking for work and then working while still accepting that scholarship breaks one of the most important clauses in his contract.
All he could really do now is hope everything would be fine.
For now, he thinks about getting fried rice and chicken nuggets, which could last him two days if he drank more water and soy milk–
“–ma? Thoma? You okay? You look awfully unfocused,” Ajax says, his brows scrunched as he regards Thoma. “I’m so sorry. I keep talking about him.”
“It’s okay! It wasn’t you,” Thoma answers, laughing lightly to reassure his friend. “I’m just… sorry, Ajax, I’ve just got a huge problem. Didn’t mean to space out.”
His friend, as overbearing as he could be at times, gives him a kind smile and pats his back. “Hey, why don’t I listen to your problem, would that help a little? Just to repay you for being an awesome friend and listening to me.”
Well, it does sound fair when all Ajax has been raving about has been about Zhongli, so he tells him. “So you know that I’ve got a scholarship so I could study here, right?”
“Yeah.”
As if on cue, Thoma's stomach loudly grumbles, causing Ajax to look down on it.
“So… yeah. I haven’t gotten my stipend in three months.”
Ajax’s eyes widen almost comically. “So how are you paying for rent?! Eating?! Living?” He looks back down on his friend's stomach, horrified. “Did you eat breakfast?”
“I drank soy milk for breakfast. And I’ve been asking Mutti to send me money for the meantime.” Thoma rubs the back of his head and sighs. “I feel really bad having to ask her for more mora this month, because she doesn’t earn that much. It was already a blessing for me to go abroad and study here even if it took me a couple of gap years since I graduated from high school. If I work while still accepting the scholarship, it’s gonna break the contract.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“Ayaka and Ayato,” he replies. “Ayaka has been kind enough to pay for my food the past week and Ayato even offered to let me move in his apartment as long as I want free of charge.”
Ajax frowns, deep in thought. Suddenly, his expression twists into a mix of anticipation and joy when he asks, “And have you moved in with him?”
“No!” Thoma screeches as his face turns red, much like a big blond tomato. “You know why I can’t!”
“Yeah, he is your childhood best friend and crush from ten years ago, yeah yeah- mmph!” Ajax struggles as Thoma clamps a hand over his mouth and wraps his other arm around his neck in a deadlock.
“Don’t say it out so loud!” He then yelps when he feels Ajax’s slimy tongue lick at his palm, causing him to yelp, pull his hand away, and wipe it on the side of Ajax’s jeans. “Eugh! That was so childish!”
“But there’s literally no one else!” Ajax whines, clawing at the arm around his neck and gesturing towards the nearest students to them, the members of Ajax's own club halfway across the corridor. Vlad, Ekaterina, and Nadia don’t even move. They continue burying their noses into their notebooks, presumably studying together, unaware of the anxious energy emanating from their friends just a few paces away. They only seem to snap out of their study-induced trance when Ajax’s source of anxiety, Zhongli, suddenly appears around the corner and greets them. The sight of Zhongli gives Thoma an idea, so he grins at Ajax, who now sits frozen and gaping.
“Well, you don’t hear me telling the wind that you are helplessly in love with Zho–”
Ajax suddenly breaks out of the deadlock just from the sheer force of embarrassment and covers Thoma’s mouth. “Okay! Okay. I get your point! Cut it out!”
Thoma releases Ajax from his hold. The two look at each other for a moment, then chuckle together for no real reason.
“Alright, so back to your problem,” Ajax says after he has laughed his heart out, “can I give you an easy way out of your situation?”
Thoma’s curiosity is piqued then and there. “What sort of… ‘easy way’?”
To his surprise, Ajax pulls his wallet out of his pocket and fishes out large mora bills, and then to his utter horror, he slaps the mora bills onto his palm.
“It’s all yours! Ask me for more if you need it.”
“But dude,” Thoma protests as he tries to shove the money back to his friend’s hand, “I can’t accept this!” He only gets a confused look at that.
“But we’re friends?” His bourgeoisie friend frowns, blinking as if he really does not understand the gravity of the situation. “I do this for Zhongli too?”
"You what?"
"You know Zhongli always forgets his stuff, right? His wallet sometimes! I've bought him stuff before. Never fails to make him smile." Ajax's mouth stretches into a tiny grin before he shakes his head and puts all his attention back on Thoma. “So, why can’t I also give mora to my other friends?”
"That's just… kinda weird?"
"Okay, how about this. I have mora in excess that I don't really use, so why don't I just give it away to my friends that actually need it?"
"It just makes me feel like I'm leeching off of you like some sort of parasite!"
Ajax recoils like his entire bloodline was just insulted, but suddenly his face blanks as his mind gets thrown into overdrive. Thoma knows this look. It's the look of his friend suddenly recalling something and processing that information in his Zhongli-infested brain.
"Uh, bro?"
It successfully snaps Ajax out from his trance. He blinks, then grins.
"Thoma. Since you don't feel like you could accept my mora just like this, why don't you go do something for me in exchange?"
That makes Thoma raise his brows. "... okay?"
"Could you go to Zhongli and ask him what his favorite flower is?"
That's it?! "Ask him yourself, man. Why me?"
“No, no, dude, listen. You know I'm too much of a coward to ask him directly! I just need you to walk up to Zhongli and ask him what his favorite flower is. Please? I’ll even double the mora!”
“Why?!"
“But I’m shy! Come on! I'll even triple this!” He opens his wallet again and pulls out almost all the bills. At this point, Thoma's rent and food bills for the next three months are probably covered already. Ajax even makes his puppy face with the big eyes and pout that makes him look like a child.
Thoma sighs, takes the money before the guy pulls out his credit card, tells Ajax to guard his stuff and his yarn above all things while he's gone, and goes over to the Snezhnayan Club's own stone table, where Zhongli is. He starts by plastering a smile to his face as he approaches the unwitting man who just so happens to effortlessly capture his friend’s heart.
It looks like Kuni-kun might win his bet. Ajax is a coward.
Like they’ve detected his approach, everyone at the Snezhnayan Club’s table looks up. Thoma is greeted with a chorus of greetings.
“Is there anything you need?” Vlad asks first.
“Ahaha, nothing, really, I was just hoping to talk to Zhongli!”
Hearing his name makes Zhongli perk up. “Is there anything you require of me, Thoma?”
“Ah well, it’s like this.” Thoma looks upwards at the ceiling to quickly think up an excuse. Fortunately, his skills to bullshit his way to the minimum word count for his papers kicks in. A very handy skill, honed via doing it so many times since high school. “So I’m thinking of trying out embroidery, and I thought flowers could be a nice project to start out with. I’m asking around for people’s favorite flowers.”
“My favorite flower?” Zhongli brings a fist up to his chin, thinking. “I would choose… the glaze lily,” he replies with an approving nod to himself.
“Ooh. Why’d you pick that?”
“I’m very fond of blue, because of someone I lo– like very much. And, glaze lilies at home symbolize eternal promises, like contracts or perhaps undying love.” He smiles mutely and his mouth opens as if to say more, but he quickly shuts it. Interesting.
“Ahh, I see, I see. Thanks! How about everyone else?” He turns to the others in the table to hopefully help with his bullshit cover story. “Any flowers I can try out for embroidery?”
“Sunflowers!”
“Does lamp grass count as a flower?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll pick… uh. Lotus flowers, maybe.”
“Me, it’s azalea, hands down.”
“Thanks everyone! Will try those flowers out.” He moves to stand, but he is stopped by Zhongli reaching out to him.
“Oh, ah, Thoma, before you go, I see Ajax over there,” Zhongli points to the other table on the other side of the corridor. Ajax spots them looking at him, visibly jumps in his seat, and looks away. “Could you please tell him that I– erm,” he gulps for a moment, “–I bought some cold cuts yesterday and would like to invite him to have snacks tonight… at my place? Perhaps… at five or six?”
Thoma’s eyes wander down to Zhongli’s hands, which are now laced together. He’s squeezing his own hands in some sort of nervousness, and he swears he notices him sneaking a glance at Ajax and then abruptly tearing his gaze off of him. His face, while not as red as Ajax tends to get whenever the topic is about Zhongli, is a rosy pink, and his mouth is pressed in a thin line. Huh, Thoma wonders to himself, I think Zhongli reciprocates.
“Sure! I’ll tell him.”
Zhongli sighs heavily, as if he has been holding his breath all the while. “Thank you very much. Please also tell him to text me back if he agrees.”
Without anything else, Thoma stands up and waves to leave, then struts over to Ajax, who, for some reason, is now hiding his face from the view of his own club’s table by shoving his face behind Thoma’s backpack.
“Glaze lilies, and also, Zhongli says you should visit him at his place at five or six and text him back,” he relays to Ajax, then seats himself to pick his knitting needles back up to continue his project, only for his friend to slip him another few thousand mora under his elbow.
"Ask him his favorite color?"
"He mentioned it’s blue," Thoma deadpans, and catches a glimpse of Ajax brightly beaming at him as if he were some orange sun.
“He likes blue! I like blue too!” He squeals giddily and suddenly yanks his bag up to hang it on his shoulders. “Take the mora. I have to run to the florist, see if they have glaze lilies!”
“Good luck, bro. Don’t forget to text Zhongli!” Thoma waves with his knitting needles and watches Ajax dash away with a sprightly step with some mirth, before he looks back down on the lavender fabric. After pulling more loops up and stitching for a few more rows, he carefully tucks the unfinished fabric inside his bag and then rests his head on his arms. After pulling on his hair for a bit, he takes the last mora bills and stuffs it in his wallet.
He is so lucky to have a caring friend in Ajax, even if he is a little out of his mind.
–––
Thoma meets Ayaka at Uyuu Restaurant later that day, when he is about to order some takoyaki to treat himself with Ajax’s money. Ayaka, one of his oldest friends from childhood, is now fresh out of high school and is ready to take on college. Despite having left Mondstadt when she was only five, she miraculously remembers Thoma as the 'other onii-san' from her childhood. This familiarity, coupled by Ayaka's friendliness, makes it so easy for them to become bosom friends once more, this time as young adults.
“Thoma!” Ayaka greets him with a hug. He reciprocates with a smile and a pat on her back.
"Hi, Ayaka! How's it going?"
"Good! Oh! I'll pay for that!" She pulls out her wallet from her purse despite Thoma's protests (he already has money from Ajax, dammit!) and fishes out mora to pay for his food. "Thoma, I know you are tight on money. Please, allow me to give back to you being my friend by helping you take care."
"No, no, it's alright," he compromises, "I'm touched that you care for me a lot. Thank you."
Ayaka beams at him, then her cheerful demeanor suddenly turns grim for some reason. It makes him worry, but she interrupts before he could even ask about it and, hopefully, give her friendly presence if she needs it.
"Big brother wanted to ask you," Ayaka says, but her brows are crinkled and her mouth is curled downwards as if she was not approving of the situation, "could you, erm, tutor him for Mondstadtian?"
"Tutoring?" Thoma almost stammered, the mere thought of himself and Ayato alone together, practicing the language he grew up with. “For– oh my.”
"Y-yes, he needs help. He says he feels he is making many errors and he has forgotten the language since our family left so long ago," she answers, then she sighs, shoulders drooping and the light in her eyes dimming somewhat. "He says, too, that if you feel as if you cannot accept our help unconditionally, maybe we could make it a little easier by having you do something for him."
"O-oh."
Ayaka claps her hands and smiles. Her mood seems to be swinging very intensely today. "And, if it makes you feel better about my spending for you, you can, erm, imagine that I'm asking you to spend time with him too! Big brother Ayato seems to be feeling terribly lonely again because of his work for our family business, and I couldn't really spend all my time with him, so please make him happy!"
"Ahh," he says, his brain shutting down on him at the idea of him making Ayato happy.
"His free time would be Monday next week? You should text him for his schedule. I think it wouldn't be so much for you, right?"
"Y-yeah… it won't be a lot! Don't worry!"
Ayaka suddenly stops and stays silent, eyeing him from head to toe. Her mood has swung right back into gloomy territory that it's enough to snap Thoma out of his trance, and when he is about to ask what's up, Ayaka sighs again in exasperation.
"You know, this is why big brother is single," Ayaka suddenly grumbles out of nowhere, so out of character for her usually gentle and chipper personality. "He's so smart, but he’s an idiot! I hate him so much for this!"
"Ohhhhkay," Thoma says, raising his eyebrows in confusion. “What just–?”
"I wish he didn't make me talk to you like this," she groans more, making him even more confused. "I told him today that he should just give you some gift if he wants to talk! Argh. If only he were not a coward– ah, apologies, Thoma.” She waves a hand dismissively. “I didn't mean to have an outburst like this. I’ve just been very stressed recently…"
“It’s okay,” he finds himself automatically spouting out.
She suddenly and quickly excuses herself with a murmur about having to go somewhere and hurriedly leaves, and so Thoma stands there a little baffled before shrugging and taking the paper bag containing his takeout dinner.
Then, he thinks of himself alone with Ayato, and has to fight the blood threatening to make his face and neck red.