Chapter Text
“—just do it, c’mon,” Lumine whines as she sets down her cloyingly sweet-diabetes inducing-triple ice cream scoop sundae, “what’s the worst that could happen?”
Aether shoots her a grumpy look and ignores the comment in favor of aggressively poking at his stodgy milkshake.
“Yeah, what’s the worst that could happen,” Xingqiu intones monotonously, licking his finger before he flips over another page of his chosen novel of the week. His eyebrows scrunch and his nose wrinkles in disgust as he snaps it closed with a resounding clap. “Ugh, this story sucks.”
“You got like,” Lumine pauses to take a bite of syrupy covered strawberry ice cream, waving her spoon pointedly, “12 pages in, dude.”
“12 pages far enough to know it’s an absolutely boorish and boring take on an overused cliché,” Xingqiu snorts derisively, but carefully tucks the borrowed novel into his leather satchel. “What a waste of my time. Thank archons this series is an anthology.”
“Oooh, an anthology,” Aether takes the chance to change the topic, discarding the soggy leftovers of his oreo milkshake to the side in favor of leaning forward on the plastic table. “Why don’t you tell us more about it?”
“—oh no no no,” Lumine cuts in warningly, “don’t even try to weasel your way out of this one with Xingqiu’s stupid soliloquies—”
“—I’m interested—” Aether blatantly lies, “—so you can suck it—”
“— Okay, first of all,” Xingqiu sniffs in an aggrieved manner, “it’s not a soliloquy, it’s a monologue.”
“Archons,” Lumine groans.
“Second of all, they aren’t stupid.”
“They kinda are,” Lumine mutters under her breath, but she flashes a saccharine smile at him.
Xingqiu narrows his eyes. Aether’s hoping the argument continues. “What? You can’t tell me—”
“—I’m back,” Chongyun cuts in breathlessly, flattening the wrinkles in his dress shirt, face flushed, “sorry about that.” He looks at the largely-empty assorted cups and bowls of melted ice cream. “Are we leaving now?”
Aether opens his mouth, about to vehemently disagree, but Lumine beats him to the chase.
“Actually, dear Aether here—”
He kicks her shin in a not-so-subtle manner under the table. She swiftly dodges and steps on his toe.
Aether bites back a painful wince and shoots him a dark scowl. “You!—”
“—Anyway, what about the rest of your Jueyuan chili pepper bomb,” Xingqiu interrupts, ignoring the two, and he scoots the rest of the startlingly red concoction over to Chongyun. “I thought you were training your stomach.”
“Ah, yes,” Chongyun sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, “I’m mortified to say I’ve hit my limits.” He coughs in his fist as he slides into the cloyingly bright red and white plastic booth, “I’ll just, er, take the rest back home?”
Xingqiu raises an eyebrow. “It’s ice cream. It’ll melt, idiot.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to throw it away.” He pauses, then follows it up with a questionable ‘darn’ that doesn’t really sound upset at all.
“—And speaking of home,” Lumine quickly cuts in, “we should probably get back to campus soon, which means someone should pay for the meal, which means Aether should pay for the meal, which means—” she pauses and levels a pointed look at Aether, “you should go and flirt with the cashier already.”
“NO!” Aether sheepishly quiets down when the couple next to them shoots him a dirty glare, lowering his voice to a furious whisper, “I’m not about to try out some random pickup lines you found on the internet with some—some random stranger, Lumine.”
Xingqiu raises his eyebrows. “Are you sure you were born in this century, child? Have you ever heard of Tinder? Grindr?”
“There’s also Farmersonly.com.” Lumine waggles her brows.
Chongyun gives her a weird look. “He’s not a farmer,” he plainly points out.
Aether’s eye inadvertently twitches. “I know what Tinder is—I’m not an idiot.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Xingqiu mutters under his breath, and Aether kicks him.
“Wait, I’m lost,” Chongyun cuts in, and he gives Aether an awkward look as he lowers his voice to a whisper, “so you like the cashier?” He pauses. “And what’s ‘Tinder’?”
Xingqiu sucks in a scandalized gasp. The couple next to their booth shoot him a dirty look.
“No, I don’t even know the cashier,” Aether says matter-of-factly, crossing his arms, and Lumine rolls her eyes so far back he’s astounded they don’t get stuck in the back of her head.
“Loook, I know Xiangling and she’s a sweet, bubbly girl,” Lumine says as she pushes her empty plate away and stretches her arms above her head, “besides, you need practice.”
“I don’t… need the practice,” Aether splutters, cheeks quickly warming up, “I-I can get a plus one to Diluc’s stupid frat party.”
“You mean the frat party he’s throwing with the team to celebrate his last football game before graduation,” Xingqiu corrects, “the one that you’re a part of.”
“Um,” Aether abashedly presses his lips together. “Yeah.”
“Then,” Chongyun puts a hand to his chin with a pondering look, “…do you have anyone in mind?”
Aether does a quick rundown through all the people he knows, excluding Lumine. It’s like, five people. He looks at their two companions. He runs through them again. It’s now three people.
“Just go already,” Lumine dramatically sighs, and she cracks an eye open, a fond smile on her lips, “you’re my lil twin bro. I wouldn't ever lead you astray, would I?”
Aether opens his mouth to eloquently argue ‘ No, you’re actually full of shit’, but Xingqiu kicks him, Chongyun nods with what looks to be an encouraging smile, Lumine gives him a shit eating grin, and Aether knows he won’t be weaseling out of this one.
With a defeated sigh, he stands up, rummages in his backpack for his sad, deflated wallet, and stalks off towards the counter, purposefully ignoring Lumine’s obnoxious “Good luck!” echoing behind him.
——————-
When Aether gets to the counter, the bubbly, twin bunned, petite girl he saw earlier is nowhere to be found. Instead, she’s been replaced by a guy with slicked back teal hair tucked behind pierced ears, dark eyeliner lining his unnervingly sharp eyes, and a droopy ice cream-stained apron slung haphazardly over his long sleeve jet black My Chemical Romance graphic tee, a permanent scowl painted on his face.
“Hi, welcome to Wanmin’s Ice-Creams Galore, were we serve the best yummy yum yums in all of Liyue,” the employee—Xiao, it looks like, from what Aether can read off his peeling name tag—drawls on with a monotonous, bordering-on-spiteful voice, and Aether swears he feels the temperature of the surrounding area drop a few degrees. “What can I do for you?”
Aether blinks. Oh no. No. There’s no way he can hit on this guy, right? He’d be murdered—no, scratch that—eviscerated. On the spot.
“Hello?” an astoundingly grumpy voice breaks through his thoughts, and Aether looks up. The new cashier—Xiao—looks like he wants to kill him and then spray away the dead-man stink with Lysol. “Are you listening?”
“Er, yeah,” Aether says very intelligently, “I want to pay for table 4.” And of course he fumbles with his card as he hands it over, and promptly knocks it out of Xiao’s hand onto the probably-also-very-sticky-ice-cream-stained floor.
“Archons,” Xiao very-unsubtly grunts as he bends down to pick up the card off the cream-colored tiled floor, and Aether very much wants to abort the mission.
He turns around. Lumine raises her eyebrows and gives him a look that spells nothing but trouble. He closes his mouth and turns back around.
Xiao’s stabbing the number pad on the screen with enough viciousness to give Aether cold sweats. He quickly rethinks everything.
Can he abort? Because honestly, he wouldn’t really be able to weasel his way out of anything since Xiangling isn’t even here, whoever she is, and he still has some time before the football game, so he doesn’t need to ask this guy who would much rather obviously be anywhere else in the world than here right now. Plus, isn’t there a thing against asking employees out while they’re working? Not that it’s a law, but Aether’s not so dense enough to not know it’d make anyone feel uncomfortable—which is why he should also totally skip out on this, right? Right? That’s a totally valid reason.
He’s very tempted to keep his mouth shut and get out of this guy’s hair, call it a day.
…Except Lumine’s eyes are totally boring into the back of his head, burning a gaping hole into his poor cranium, and Aether knows he’s just putting off another inevitable thing that he’ll have to get around to if he’s gonna show up with anyone besides his sister, which wouldn’t work anyway because Lumine’s going with some other chick called Raiden Ei, or something. Plus, this guy will definitely reject him, and then it’ll all be over. He’s just gotta rip the bandaid off and be done with it. Either way, it’ll definitely get Lumine to stop hounding him about it every chance she gets.
“—do you want your damned card or what?!”
Aether very quickly snaps out of it and sees a very pale hand gripping his old debit card by the corner, as if it’s infected with some terribly contagious disease. The dude—Xiao’s—black nail polish is a little cracked on the edges, and Aether finds himself wondering if they’re actually a sterling silver, because they’re kinda changing color in the light, and he reaches out to take his card, one of Lumine’s stupid pick up lines on the tip of his tongue, and what comes out instead is—
“When I look into your nails, I see your face—er,” Aether belatedly realizes he’s not quite on the mark and quickly doubles back, eyes shooting up to Xiao’s as his cheeks flare red, “your eyes, I mean.” He has no idea what he’s talking about.
Xiao levels him with an unimpressed look. Aether fumbles harder, face flushed in a bright tomato red.
“Y-your eyes, are uh,” Aether desperately wishes he’d stop talking, “in your face?”
There’s a moment of silence. Xingqiu unsuccessfully muffles a snort in the back. Chongyun scoldingly shushes him.
“Are you done,” Xiao finally snaps, breaking the weird standoff between them.
Aether gulps, ashamed. “Uh, yeah.”
“Then get out.”
“Yessir.”
————————
Naturally, as most people do after a traumatic event, Aether does his best to shove the whole occurrence to the back of his mind despite all the relentless teasing he receives for it. Which —although rightfully deserved—doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling like Lumine is still partly to blame for this whole thing, as hilarious as she finds the whole situation.
“—it’s not my fault you can’t remember a basic pick up line to save your life,” Lumine snickers as they head to classes in the outside walkway, the spring breeze bringing a nice dosage of pollen along with it. “All you had to say was some cliché shit like, ‘Did you fall from heaven?’ or, ‘Wow, You’re pretty cute, can I have your number?’ ya know?”
Aether opens his mouth to argue but sneezes instead.
“Eww. Don’t sneeze on me.”
“Internet pickup lines are shit anyway,” Aether petulantly sniffles.
Lumine raises an eyebrow. “They worked for me when I asked Ei-chan out.” Aether shuts his mouth, counterargument dying in his throat.
Lumine stops as they read the juncture where they usually split off, a newly manicured hand on her hip as she fixes him with a look.
“Look, the important thing is that you’ve made the first step, dear brother of mine,” Lumine says with a huff, a fond tone in her voice, “and you know you need to put yourself out there more.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aether grumbles under his breath, shoulders hunching, and he shoves his hands in the pockets of khakis, “I put myself out there all the time.”
Lumine raises an eyebrow. “You know you’ve met everyone you’re currently friends with through me, right?”
Not this conversation again. Aether feigns interest at a random pebble on the concrete. “Not Diluc,” he mumbles, and he kicks at the pebble. He misses.
“You can’t count the guy who recruited you to join the football team.”
Aether ignores her in favor of kicking the pebble again, and Lumine sighs.
“Look, I’m just saying you should make some friends. I won’t be here next year, and so will my friend group,” Lumine says in a softer tone, and Aether looks up. She cracks a small smile and affectionately rubs the top of his head, “I won’t be there to look out for you.”
And Aether gets where she’s coming from, he really does. But it’s not like he doesn’t try, it’s just that he transferred here from Mondstadt a year later and suddenly, it’s way harder to make new friends. Everyone’s already got their own group already, and the most he can do is make asinine conversation about their schoolwork before he gets weird looks for lingering around for too long.
“Okay, okay,” Aether sighs, ears turning red as he swats Lumine’s hand away. “…I’ll try harder.”
“An acceptable answer. Now we better scoot, ‘cuz we’ve got a minute left. Ice cream later?”
“You know I’m not stepping into Wanmin’s ever again.”
————————-
“—And we’ll be pairing up for this project,” Professor Lisa continues, “so all of you little darlings can get acquainted with one another.”
“Isn’t it just because we don’t have enough textbooks?”
She blinks, and a slow smile spreads on her lips. “Now now, don’t go revealing my secret.” A ripple of laughter runs through the class, and as she starts passing out textbooks, Aether turns to his desk mate only to find that they’ve walked off to another friend, clearly excited to be together. He turns to the seats behind him, and yep, they’re already paired too. Fuck.
“Having trouble, sweetheart?”
Aether turns around and finds the professor smiling kindly in front of him, one textbook left in her hand.
“Oh, uh,” Aether gives an awkward smile, “a little bit. But I’m also fine with working alone. Really.” He really hopes he’s working alone. Group work sucks.
“Definitely not,” Lisa hums with a frown, a manicured nail on her chin, “let me find you a partner right away.” And before Aether can say another word, she walks off, and he just awkwardly sits in his seat as he waits for her to come back.
A few minutes pass, and as Aether resists the urge to pull out his phone and play a quick game of Jiggly Slime, a new presence makes itself known. He looks up, and low and behold, it’s the grumpy employee he hit on, now sporting a jet black leather jacket over a vibrant red Fall Out Boy tee, the black eyeliner on his eyes even thicker if possible, and an equally disgusted scowl on his face to before.
“Archons, you’re that fucking weirdo.”
Aether wants to sink into the floor. “Uh, yeah,” he squeaks out, and Xiao unceremoniously tosses his bag to the floor before slumping into the chair next to him. “…Sorry about that. Whole thing.”
Xiao ignores him in favor of pulling out a ratty, sticker covered notebook and a black pen, and Aether takes that as a sign to just open the textbook and get started.
“So uh,” Aether starts, eyes skimming the assignment, “she wants us to pick an artist’s work we like from this time period and compare and contrast the artist with a contemporary one in a presentation.”
Xiao briskly flips through the assignment. “Just two artists?”
“Yeah.”
“Then Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square,” Xiao grunts, “and compare it with—fuck, I don’t care—Yoko Ono. Some random event score.”
Aether blinks, dumbfounded. “Malevich? You like Malevich?”
“What,” Xiao pins him down with a piercing glare, “got a problem?”
“Well,” Aether tries to choose his words carefully, “I don’t have one. But it’s also just a black square on a canvas. Doesn’t really give us much to work with here.”
“And of course he’s an uncultured imbecile too,” Xiao grumbles not-quietly-at-all under his breath, and he opens his notebook to a random page and starts jotting down notes. Aether sucks in a breath and tries to maintain reason.
“Okay, first, I don’t have ‘uncultured tastes’,” Aether air quotes, feeling a little ridiculous, “and second, you have to agree that there’s not much a black square and poems have in common.”
“They’re not poems, you ingrate,” Xiao shoots back, and he wrinkles his nose in disgust as he jabs his pen in Aether’s direction, “and I don’t wanna hear that from a preppy guy clad in a tacky sweater vest and hemmed khakis.”
Aether self consciously pulls down on his blue sweater and tactfully doesn’t mention he’s got four other sweaters the exact same type of varying color in his closet. “A-and what does my sweater have to do with anything?”
Xiao deigns him with an undignified snort and rolls his eyes as if the fact that Aether’s even asking that question speaks volumes about his idiocy. Aether feels his irritation spike up.
“Okay, fine,” Aether tries and fails to reign in his exasperation, “can we at least change Yoko Ono to someone else more comparable? Maybe Sol LeWitt?” He’s just trying to make it easier for themselves in the long run.
Xiao’s eye twitches. “Ah yes, let’s go for the overrated and most redundantly covered artist out of all the contemporary artists we’ve learned about in this class.”
Aether splutters, incensed and irritated. “Oh, so Yoko Ono isn’t overrated, but Sol LeWitt is?” Not the exact words he meant to say, because he doesn’t think either of them are overrated, but he already knew Ono because of the Beatles—
“Archons, just because she got more coverage as Lennon’s wife doesn’t mean her work is as comprehensively reviewed as LeWitt’s,” Xiao spits out derisively, and Aether realizes he said all of that out loud. “In fact, because she’s associated with the Beatles, her work is that much more overlooked.” He snatches the battered textbook and pulls it towards him, “Not that I’d expect you to understand.” Aether resists the urge to smack him over the head with the book.
“Okay, look,” Aether sucks in a mental deep breath, trying to control himself, “I’m just saying they both have a fair amount of coverage regarding their work—” Xiao dramatically rolls his eyes and Aether feels his quickly fraying patience snap right in half, “—and on the same side of the coin she got more coverage marrying Lennon, so how about you take your opinion and shove it—”
“—no, you shove it up your ass,” Xiao rounds back on him, lined golden eyes blazing with anger, “you shit-for-brains—”
“Oh, you two are getting along just wonderfully,” Lisa’s soothing voice cuts their quickly escalating argument in half, and Aether wearily looks up to see her walk over from another group with a bright smile on her lips. “This is my first time seeing Xiao talk so much.”
‘Oh yeah, we’re getting on swimmingly, seeing as he just called me a degenerate in like 50 different ways since we started talking,’ is what Aether wants to say, but Xiao viciously kicks him under the table and Aether stifles his grunt with a pained smile. “Y-Yeah, we’re uh… getting along great.”
Xiao rolls his eyes. Aether regrets everything.
“And why, exactly, do I have to cover for you,” Aether hisses to the other in a not-so-quiet whisper when the professor walks away, “if you hate my ‘uncultured opinions’ so much, go work with someone else.”
“Does it look like there’s anyone else available,” Xiao seethes in irritation, golden eyes narrowing, “besides, I don’t have much of a choice…” he trails off with a deeper scowl and shoves the textbook towards Aether, “whatever, let’s just flip to Malevich already.”
Aether purses his lips and stares at him. Strange. He’s just backing off? Just like that?
“What,” Xiao snaps, “I know my eyes are in my face.” And then it hits Aether.
“Ohhh, I see,” Aether knowingly smirks, leaning forward on his elbows, “you’ve already gotten complaints about your behavior.”
“Do you ever shut up,” Xiao seethes through his teeth, “and mind your own business?” Bingo.
“Yeah yeah, sure,” Aether hums with an infuriating smile on his lips, and Xiao’s eye twitches. Aether can’t help but make a petty mental scoreboard: Aether: 1 Xiao: 1
And just like that, Aether finds himself packing up after 30 of the most maddening minutes of his college career. Xiao seems intent to argue with him on everything, and Aether will bite his tongue and swallow it before he admits that some of his stupid points do make sense.
Not that he’s ever telling him that. Ever.
“—and the presentation is due at the end of next week, which should be plenty of time,” Lisa yells above the rustle and bustle of packing students, “make sure to email me during this period with any questions and not the night before, please darlings.”
“Ah wait,” Aether stops Xiao as the other slings his backpack over a shoulder, leather jacket hanging in the crook of arm, about to stalk off, “gimme your number.”
Xiao stops on the stairs and looks back with an astoundingly disgusted look. “Ew, no.”
Aether zips up his backpack and crosses his arms. “Then tell me, how are we going to finish this project?” He’s not about to do more than he has to, especially with Xiao.
He sees the moment Xiao comes to a decision, scowl deepening, and he reaches out a pale hand, this time donning a dark navy blue nail polish. “Ugh, give me your phone.”
Aether fishes it out and readily hands it over. Xiao holds it by the very corner like it’s toxic waste, and viciously jabs his digits in. He tosses it back a little too far and Aether nearly dives over his desk to catch it.
Aether turns around with an irritated look to catch Xiao already moving back up the stairs shoving in some AirPods, “Anyway, don’t bother texting me. Tomorrow, noon, Tao’s. Let’s get it over with.”
Aether slowly blinks, brain processing as Xiao stalks off. “Tao’s? Where the heck is Tao’s?”
Xiao keeps walking. Aether’s still trying to run through his schedule in his brain.
“Wait! I have football practice at noon…” Aether trails off as Xiao’s retreating figure disappears out of the door. Aether huffs and slings his backpack a little too forcefully over his shoulder as he stomps up the stairs two at a time.
What a little shit.