Work Text:
Afternoon sunlight filters through crevices of foliage, imprinting uneven shadows and lights to Lumine’s face and wind sends stray blushing petals to dance in pulchritude flurry. She blinks and the pink slush scatters to reveal a man.
When golden eyes settle on the familiar figure, Paimon’s grumbles fade away and people walking across the bridge become a monochromatic blur. It is Childe, and although months have passed and spring has shifted into summer, nothing changed from him. Rust-colored hair stands out amidst the sea of dark hair and the depth of the ocean in his eyes comes to sight. The faintest of a glimmer in those pools evokes velvety longing that ebbs away too fast; reassembling sentience once lost amidst reveries.
Wind once again blows to set fallen petals aflutter to the air. The world regains its colors as he stands a distance away from her, giving out the same smile she saw before his departure to Snezhnaya. Traces of surprise from the other day in Ritou are no longer present, but the arch of an eyebrow accentuates unspoken curiosity.
“Ready?” Childe asks and Lumine wonders if all that curiosity is just for that question or something else to it. “Where to?”
“Araumi,” her reply is smooth with a small tilt of lips, betraying a telltale of stutters somewhere in her throat.
The brush of her shoes against the dry pavement is light as she walks past him and a warm weight, his hand, nestles on her shoulder. It feels strange. Not unpleasant, just slightly nostalgic. As Childe falls into steps with her, hand retracted to fall to his side and occasionally brushes against hers, Lumine tries to remember why she agreed with this arrangement.
A commission had her visiting Ritou yesterday, meeting a woman who was in distress with her research and led her to unexpectedly stumble upon him. Yet before she got the chance to ask him, he beats her into making a promise on letting him tag along on her next commission.
So here they are, in the open field of Araumi after finishing her commission, with Childe single-handedly fighting three ruin sentinels and a ruin grader for, Lumine quoted, fun. Debris of broken body parts fly and scatter everywhere while mechanic groans resound in the air as they crumble. Lumine watches all his spin and slashes from the sideline and wonders if it is really just for fun or he is blowing off some steam.
“Well, Childe does look like he’s having fun,” Paimon says with a slight frown. “Paimon doubts there’s anything left from those bits.”
“It’s okay. It’d be weird if he didn’t.” Lumine shakes her head as she picks up fallen sakura blooms on the ground. “I can get those chaos gears next time.”
“If you say so,” Paimon sighs, unsure. “Oh, he’s heading here!”
Hydro daggers melt away as Childe approaches them. In his hand is a familiar-looking item, a little bit chipped but still intact. He offers it to her. “Here, ojou-chan. I thought you’re still collecting things like this.”
The “You remember” hanging by the tip of her tongue is pushed to the back of her throat as thunder rumbles. Lumine takes the item and asks, “Did you have fun?”
“A little,” Childe laughs. “How about we spar? I know you’ve gotten stronger compared to the last time.”
And by last time, he means months ago. Is this why he insisted on making her promise to let him join her? Because he wants to spar with her?
If there were a slight pang in her chest, Lumine ignores it. “It will rain, though,” she says, taking in the gray clump of clouds above. “And the thunder is brutal.”
“Well, a little rain wouldn’t hurt,” he replies casually, only to be drenched right away as rain suddenly poured on them.
“Eeepp! Paimon’s outta here!” Paimon cries as she disappears into her space, leaving Lumine and Childe running to the big sakura tree, standing on a spot untouched by the rain.
Lumine wrings out her soaked dress, feeling cold wind brushing against her wet skin as she heaves a sigh. Next to her, Childe laughs openly, brushing back wet hair out of his face.
“It’s not really ‘a little rain’, eh?” Amusement hitching in that sentence. He then glances at her, his smile lingers on her mind. “This might last for a while.”
A nod is all she answers him with, feeling mildly annoyed by the fact that she is trapped here for Archons-know how long it will be. That, or maybe at the fact that there is this happiness budding inside her from the stray thought of having Childe next to—
A sudden crack of thunder devours the rest of the thought, letting the first half of it fade in the trickles of rain and Lumine blinks. She bites the wall of her cheek, fervently trying to wave off the impromptu self-consciousness by moving to find a dry spot on the sakura bough and sit there.
Keyword: trying.
Execution: failed.
Rainwater drips from the white dress, down to the ground, creating a small puddle before long. Lumine wonders, with eyes stealing glances at the man standing beside her, if he has any hidden agenda for tagging along. It is no surprise if he has—what happened in Liyue could be repeated. So, although the silence is unnerving, it may be best to keep it that way.
But then, he broke it. “Boring, isn’t it? How about a game?” he asks. “We can ask each other five questions. Honest answer only.”
It starts.
The beginning of whatever his Fatui plan is here in Inazuma. Lumine feigns disinterest while silently weighing the pros and cons of this game. She does not know much about the Electro Archon or the whole vision hunting in detail, but she can ask about his plan. Although she doubts Childe will answer it straightforwardly, it will not hurt to try.
“Answer honestly; is that the only rule?” she looks at him, searching for anything hidden in his face. “Is there no limit to what we can ask?”
Just in case. If he wants to know things she has learned about Inazuma, then there should be no limit to what question asked. Such a rule is surely fitting for this game, especially coming from him.
“Nope, you can ask anything,” he answers, grinning. “I’ll go first. How are you, ojou-chan?”
She has not even agreed to it, but how he looks at her grip words of protest on the tongue. It throws her off; the way those eyes stare at her piercingly, somewhat probing but splashing with a gentleness that reminds her of the dark ocean they saw back in Liyue on one quiet evening. His eyes are not just the reminisce of that ocean; the ocean is contained in them, one that always pulls her in. And maybe it stays. Maybe it is permanent. Maybe it is just how he is—an ocean too deep to dip in but one she cannot resist.
Golden eyes stray away from him, focusing on the rainy veil and white mist the rain created. She wonders why he starts with such a casual question. “I’m... good. Drenched, as you can see, but it’s a common occurrence in Inazuma.”
She feels the shift, sees Childe’s movement through peripheral vision. He removes his jacket then claims his seat on the bough beside her, a soft acknowledging hum sailing to her smoothly. It takes Lumine a beat to realize how their arms are brushing and more to send away flutters in her chest.
“What are you doing here in Inazuma?” The question comes abruptly from her, pushed out by the need to ignore erratic heartbeats.
Childe laughs and follows her eyes to the pink scenery bathed in an unceasing shower. “Doing some things for the Snezhnayan trapped here because of the decree. Or trying to. The rule isn’t kind to Outlanders, after all,” he says and Lumine wonders if it is really all there is to it.
But before she can ask him more, he shoots, “How is Inazuma so far?”
Again. Another easy question. Lumine begins to think if his game is really as harmless as he wants her to believe it to be.
“It’s… very different from Liyue. The air.” And Lumine is not sure why she has images of their time spent together back in Liyue as she speaks. “Maybe because it’s in a warring state so I'm always on my toes.”
Another hum to her reply is accompanied by a feeling of his eyes landing on her, peering at her unchanging visage, and maybe also wonders at the monotonous voice.
“The cuisine is good, and the scenery is pretty,” she adds as an afterthought, partly to erase whatever impression the former answer gave him, then raises her question without missing a beat. “Are those Fatuis in Tatarasuna part of that ‘some things’?”
“You mean the Mikage Furnace? I don't have any involvement in that thing," Childe answers lightly as if it really is the case. But Lumine cannot help but feel suspicious, still. And true to her musing with the addition, "The other Harbinger might have, though."
Lumine says nothing to that and mulls over silently. So far, she knows only two other Harbingers and between two, the one claiming as a vagrant from Inazuma must be handling the Gnosis hunt here. Scaramouche, was it? Should she try asking Childe about him?
“Ojou-chan, did you miss me?”
Maybe she should.
“Yes, I—”
“Oh?”
The pelting rain suddenly becomes an andante white noise whispering in resonance. Lumine turns to him, watching his lips work into a slow smirk and eyes glinting in amusement. Realization hits hard the moment those eyes narrow meaningfully, and blood rushes to her face as she splutters, “No, wait, that’s not—”
“Pretty sure the rule states ‘honest answer only’,” Childe interrupts, pushing whatever rebuttal Lumine has to the back of her throat. His grin widens. “So? Did you?”
“Well,” she is not going to go without retaliation, “did you?”
The flash passing in his eyes tells her she has fallen into his trap, and more of a blank mind and fluster adorn delicate profile when he says, “I did.”
Words left her as a bark of laughter pierces through the pitter-patter of rain. It dies soon, perhaps from sensing the lack of reaction from her. Childe leans close to her. “It wouldn’t hurt to speak honestly, ojou-chan,” he smiles, teasing, “and I’m still waiting for my answer.”
This man—
Lumine turns to him, pulls the collar of his maroon shirt down as she craned her neck to press her lips on his that immediately silencing his laugh. It does not last long, perhaps ends quicker than she anticipated, and she quickly asks, amidst red face and echoes of heartbeat, “How’s that?”
She will regret it.
But the smile that grows slowly on Childe's face prevents that regret from sinking in.
“It’s not enough,” he replies, warm hands cupping her cheeks before he steals another kiss. Longer, deeper; a taste of longing seeping through him, her, them.
And maybe there is more than just one kiss. Maybe there is something involving nose-bumping and her hand grasping his shirt, and when Lumine comes to, their hands are linked with her leaning to his shoulder, whispering, “How’s Snezhnaya?”
“Cold,” he says, placing a hand on her waist, pulling her closer, “snow everywhere. Silent. The whiteness reminds me of you.”
She wants to say “The foxes here resemble you” but nothing comes out. Heavy eyelids fall as Lumine listens to Childe’s story about Teucer and something about fishing. Warmth blooms inside her, building a fleeting thought of wanting the rain to last for as long as possible. And the moment she thinks of that, everything feels light, peaceful.
As if this all is meant to be.
Next to her, Childe smiles at her unguarded sleeping face and recalls when they meet earlier this afternoon. Just like back in Liyue, she stands out here as well. Perhaps it is because of her dress, but to him, her golden eyes are what stands out the most amidst dark eyes.
The way those pink petals fell around her, brushing her hair kissed by sunlight—Childe has that image vivid in his head.
And now there is this urge to claim those slightly parted lips, to make her go even more breathless and dazed, addicted. But he keeps the idea to himself and decides that she needs this sleep. He drapes his jacket around her shoulders, gently adjusts her into a more comfortable position, and thinks, as he kisses the crown of her head, that he will save the remaining questions he has for later.
For now, he will just let the rain keep them in each other’s arms—a shelter and respite from his months-worth of silent longing.