Chapter Text
The start of a new year. And the start of new classes. Of course, he had enjoyed his old teacher’s classes, but he was excited to have a new teacher. Moving schools was not the best thing for him socially, but he was glad his sister was moving with him, and had landed classes with him. As he pulled on his favourite caramel sweater and let his hair fall around him, he heard a crash come from another room in the hotel they were staying in.
“You good Lumi?”
“Aether- by chance- could you shut up?”
He looked over his room, eyeing his packed bags all sitting at the end of his bed. He had a sneaking suspicion that his sister had, in fact, not packed the night before and was rushing to stuff everything into her bags. Rolling his eyes, he grabbed a brush and his favourite hair band, and walked the short distance to his sister’s room.
“Hey.”
Her room was, as expect, a mess. Clothes thrown into a suitcase, and stacks of books and piles of accessories stacked on the bed, and a scarf somehow hanging off the ceiling fan.
“Yes, Aether, I can see you want me to do your hair, no, as you can see, I am-”
“I’ll pack your bags.”
“Deal.”
As he began pulling items of clothing out of the suitcase on the floor and neatly folding and stacking them back into the case, his sister flopped onto the floor beside him, grabbing his hair and plaiting it. She was never organised, and always seemed to be tired, the opposite to him. Everyone always marvelled at the fact that somehow the two twins had come out as complete opposites, but yet were so close. He always chuckled when people asked him how he ‘put up’ with his explosive disorganised sister, joking about her being his personal bodyguard who was abnormally good at everything she wasn’t. Unfortunately, that extended to his intellect, her somehow getting high marks without doing as much as glancing at a book, and his bare passes with extensive nights studying. As he finished packing the suitcase, Lumine’s eyes widened as he shut it with no problem and zipped it up.
“You are magic. I swear.”
Aether chuckled. He couldn’t wait to get to their dorms, and meet all the people he’d be living with for the year. That did mean less time with Lumine, but he digressed.
He turned to her and nudged her slightly. “Hey, you’ll need to find someone else to fold your clothes y’know.”
“And you’ll need to find someone else to do your hair.” she quipped back. “Anyways, ready to set off on our big adventure to a new, magical, mystical land?”
“Of course.”
“Then get your lazy ass off the floor and move it!”
Thanking the taxi driver for the ride, Aether and Lumine, armed with their bags, made their way up the set of stairs in front of them. There were several signs, pointing new students to where they were to sign in. As they reached a table that was set up, they were greeted by an enthusiastic voice.
“Hello new students and welcome to Teyvat College! I am Mr. B, but you can call me Venti!”
The man in front of them had his hand sticked out to shake hands, and Lumine just looked at him sceptically. He couldn’t really blame her, ‘Venti’ looked like he could be younger than them both. Aether took his hand out of courtesy, and they followed him to a small table.
“I am one of the teachers here, and I’m here with this guy,” Venti turned to the man at the table, who was not paying attention “to send you to your assigned dorms, then your dorm buddies will take you from there!”
They walked up to the table, grabbing name tags and information booklets. The man behind the table was Mr. Zhongli, and actually looked like an adult, unlike his extroverted counterpart. Venti led them over to a set of buildings, chatting about how the school functioned.
“Once more, welcome to Teyvat!” The teacher was walking just in front of them, smiling back out of the corner of his eye. “We are currently on route to your dorms, which are in the middle of this campus. You may be thinking, or have thought, ‘oh boy, what a massive campus!’. I know, isn’t it!”
The brunette professor sighed audibly, fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose, glasses askew already. Aether shot a desperate glance at his sister, who was unfortunately engrossed in whatever this Venti had to say.
He continued on, explaining how the campus was laid out. It seemed there were sectors the students were split into after an examination they had taken upon applying, and the sectors were sort of like a homeroom of sorts, being set up as a support system.
The exams they had taken were… a little strange to say the least. More of a personality test, and a post exam brief with his sister had led them to believe it was to have some kind of house morale for the interhouse events.
Venti kept on, taking them on the ‘express tour’ while Mr. Zhongli seemed to space out, eyes fixated on the horizon. Aether liked the energy that the professor emanated, internally hoping he would be in one of his classes.
“And with that, I leave you both.” Venti had stopped in his path, turning to both of the twins with a wide smile. “Good luck finding your dorms~!”
With a wink, he had disappeared, away like the wind. Mr. Zhongli also wished them well, pointing them in the direction of the dorms before sighing once more and following his coworker, presumably to a staff quarters of some kind.
“So, what’chu think, big bro?”
Aether sighed a little, crossing his arms and leaning back.
“Well, Star Rail Academy was much more fancy than this, but I think the staff and student body is larger… while Honkai III was much more of a legacy school…”
Lumine laughed, tapping her brother on the head with a fist.
“Not that you idiot, I mean how does this feel. The right now!”
Aether smiled, turning to his sister just as the sun caught both of their hair.
“well, you’re here, so whatever happens, we got this.”
Knocking on the door, he heard a small voice from the inside.
“Yep, be right there!”
His dorm hadn’t been that hard to find, not after helping Lumine with hers. A ground level dorm, one roommate and everything in Lumi’s room looked quite nice and furnished.
Before he could keep pondering, the door swung open, revealing a boy that looked around Aether age, with striking light blue hair and eyes.
“Hello! It seems I’m your roommate. Name’s Aether.”
“Chongyun!”
They both smiled, and the boy helped him drag his baggage inside. The dorm was quaint, but also homely. There was a small kitchen just inside the door, having a combination fridge freezer, cupboards and a coffee machine. There was a small corridor off to the side of the room, and the two made their way through it, one of the rooms already having an open door and clothing being unpacked, and the other room presumable to be left to Aether.
“I presume Venti just dropped you at the front of the buildings and left you there?”
Aether chuckled. “Some kind of right of passage then?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” The boy sighed. “I feel a little blessed I’m not in his sector.”
“Oh? Why so?”
“Well, he has a habit of being a little… how do I put this… absent? Lazy? And also, there are some of the people in there that are, at least to me, scary.”
How did that guy manage scary kids in his class?
Chongyun went on to explain the different sector, and their names. There was Anemo, Venti’s sector, Geo, Electro, Dendro, Hydro, Pyro and Cryo. Chongyun was in the Cryo sector, and was apparently very happy with his placing, most of the kids in his class being laid back, or just quiet. Most sectors were apparently quite the mixed bag, so there was no need to label them. A good friend of his was in Hydro, and they were all apparent very similar. A mixed bag.
Perhaps the personality test was just to see where they would balance in the groups?
“AETHER!!!”
Familiar yelling emanated from the front of the dorm, Chongyun jumping a little before looking at his blonde companion expectantly.
“Brother… if you don’t open this door right now-”
The two moved to the door, abandoning the progress either had made on unpacking. The blue haired boy was swift, reaching the door just before Aether.”
“You aren’t Aether.”
“No, sorry to disappoint you.”
“Is he here?”
Aether rolled his eyes, pulling on the door, and revealing himself to his sister. She immediately crash tackled him, seemingly forgetting the fact that there was another person there, and all three of them ending up on the floor. Aether began apologising to Chongyun, and reprimanding Lumine for being Lumine.
“Hey, hey, you can’t blame me.” Lumine got up, dusting herself off and stepping back outside. “Anyways I have important news. I made a friend. And we’re here to take you and your friend to lunch with more friends. Because I know for a fact you cannot socialise.”
“Uh, actually I can socialise, one,” Aether gestured to blue haired boy, who was unfortunately still stuck on the floor, “and two, I can blame you and I will.”
Lumine sighed, and dragged him outside to meet her new friend, who was also conveniently her roommate, a bubbly girl called Hu Tao. She and Chongyun already knew each other, due to being them attending in previous years. The girls gave them both maximum five minutes to get ready, and just before Aether headed into his room, he heard a teasing ‘Xingqiu will be there’ from directed to his roommate, which left him a spluttering mess.
The place that they were planning to have lunch was not far from the dormitories, and when they got there, a small group was already waiting. There was Yanfei, Xinyan, Xiangling and Yin Jin, who were all good company and easy enough to get along with, all of them excited to be returning for the new year, and chatting about their teachers, and who they were looking forward to meeting again. Unfortunately, none of them belonged to the Anemo sector, but had their own interesting stories about other students. All the people that were at the outing had grown up together, and it seemed that there were a couple neighbourhoods where the attendees of the school came from. They all chatted and laughed their way into the late afternoon until everyone wished each other goodbye, all heading off to prepare for the coming days, where they would all have to get back into the swing of school.
Sitting in his room, Aether began untying his hair braid, watching the locks slowly fall into a golden wave. Everyone seemed kind and open, and all the kids he had met today made wonderful company. This school year looked amazing. Aether couldn’t wait.